That same evening the fugitive couple arrived in the metropolis, and took up their abode in apartments engaged for them by Mr. Riches at a hotel. It was time. Already they were beginning to long for other company than their own; a few days more might make their own companionship intolerable. One quarter of the moon had nearly taught them the vanity of the lover's chimera, that they were all-sufficient for one another. There was so much anxiety about their path, so much gloom around the present, so much dismay in the future, that their spirits drooped, and even love seemed to grow cold in their hearts. Let them beware, for they were united for ever. In the preservation of their mutual regard lay their only chance of peace; should that vanish, there was nothing but misery before them. The day might then come when Mildred would be qualified to receive succour from her mother, on the terms which Esther, in the fierceness of her first indignation, had not scrupled to prescribe.

The sense of the fault they had committed lay at the bottom of their discontent. Mildred repented with bitter sorrow her rupture of all filial ties, and exaggerated her sister's account of the distress it had occasioned, thinking sometimes that she might even have broken her mother's heart. She forgot the severity with which she had lately been treated, and remembered only the tenderness which she had not seldom experienced. She often recollected how she had been pressed to her mother's bosom on the night of the fire, and she trembled to dwell upon the affection which one moment had cast away.

Randolph read some portion of her thoughts; and he perceived that the maternal sorrow to which he had once looked forward with perverse eagerness, afforded him none of the satisfaction he had expected. It was not so he ought to avenge his own or his father's wrongs. The scheme recoiled upon himself. There was no happiness for him while his bride was unhappy, and nothing but wretchednes for her until she had made her peace at home. And so Randolph saw that his stolen marriage had actually contributed to Esther's triumph. She had now not only his worldly wealth, but himself beneath her foot. He had placed himself in a position where he must either sue for mercy or behold his wife pining away before his eyes.

Amidst such gloomy speculations, one bright spot sometimes appeared to his mental vision. "I have thought," his father said, in those well remembered words, "she was not so indifferent to me as she chose to pretend. If it were so, she has avenged me on herself, and has my forgiveness." Would that Randolph had dwelt oftener upon the hope contained in this qualification, and more seldom upon the stern injunction! Would that he had not suffered the early affront to himself to take so firm a hold of him! That he had not fomented his personal quarrel, until now he could see no avenue to reconciliation! That he had listened with more humility to the remonstrances of Polydore Riches!

These wishes were idle now. It was a sad evening of the honeymoon when Randolph and his bride sat together in their hired and temporary abode, having none of their own, and hardly daring to consider what would become of them. In slow and broken sentences they discussed their future prospects, and strove to cheer one another with hopes in which neither put any trust.

At an early hour in the morning, Randolph escorted Mildred to her sister's, and left her there, he himself proceeding to Hampstead. Gertrude had no consolation to offer the young wife. Indeed, she was obliged to own that Mrs. Pendarrel was in a condition to cause considerable alarm. She said it would be dangerous for Mildred to present herself, and would only permit her to call in the carriage at the house in May Fair and remain at the door, while she herself ascertained their mother's state. It was not satisfactory; and Gertrude resumed her watch; while Mildred returned in increased solicitude to such distraction as could be supplied by her attendant. Sorely puzzled was Rhoda at so woeful a termination to an elopement.

Meantime, Randolph continued on his way to the dwelling which had sheltered himself and Helen in the first enthusiasm of their arrival in the metropolis. Little had they then deemed how soon that enthusiasm was to be chilled; little they thought how soon they would return to their home by the sea with all their hopes extinguished. And still less could they know, that even that brief absence would be pregnant with events to influence their whole lives; and that whereas when they quitted their birth-place they were heart-whole and fancy-free, one of them, at least, would return to it the slave of passion and unable to hope.

They had lost that home since then. They had bidden farewell, and, as they might at times fear, for ever, to the scenes endeared by a thousand recollections. Thenceforth they could only lean upon one another. And suddenly they were separated. The brother, rashly and wrongfully, had taken another partner in misfortune, and abandoned the former sharer of his affections. And now, with such feelings, they once more met. Yet, amidst all these mournful reminiscences, Randolph felt some relief from his trouble in Helen's greeting. She inquired very warmly for her sister, and he was delighted at hearing the word.

She told him of her interview with Mrs. Pendarrel the morning before, and he listened with a degree of interest which surprised her. He questioned her eagerly respecting every word that was uttered, and his cheeks flushed with anger when he extorted from the narrator an account of Mrs. Pendarrel's insults. But this expression seemed to pass away, when Helen described the emotion displayed by Esther at the sight of her own likeness, and the whispered exclamation—"He loved me to the last!"

"There is hope for us, Helen," the brother said, "in your words. If I am right in interpreting them, there is hope I may find peace for my Mildred. I have a key to them which you know not of. But, alas! we must first re-establish ourselves."

"And of that, too, there is hope," said Helen. "Go to Mr. Riches: let him have the pleasure of telling you the news. It only came last night. From your friend,—but our dear chaplain will tell you all the story."

So to Polydore, Randolph went, and learned the discovery which Rereworth had made. It certainly gave him great joy, although it was communicated very gravely. The chaplain did not affect to conceal his mortification at his old pupil's dereliction of the right path. He urged the necessity of sacrificing every personal feeling in order to procure a reconciliation with Mildred's family.

"It is not so very long," he said, "since you spoke to me of an inherited quarrel and injunctions of revenge. Such thoughts must be laid aside now. They were before uncharitable and wrong, but now they are actively pernicious. I shall have no comfort till I know that peace has been made."

Randolph subdued some rising impatience, and answered that he had conceived some hopes of so desirable a result.

"And, my dear sir," he continued, "we desire, Mildred and I, that you would hallow our union. As soon as possible we shall be re-married, and we hope for your blessing."

"Then the bride's parents must be present to sanction it," Polydore answered. "With that condition, nothing could afford me so great a pleasure."

Randolph sighed, and departed on his return to town. But his heart was much lighter than when he went. He had also much to do, and the necessary activity diverted his melancholy. First, he must call upon Rereworth, and learn the details of this confession of Everope's, which afforded hope of recovering his rights, and restoring his father's honour. For this purpose he bent his way straight to the Temple.

Seymour met him with congratulatory rebukes, uttered between jest and earnest, and declared that he would never have presented Mr. Morton at Mr. Winston's, had he been at all aware of his wicked ways. He also indulged in some facetiousness respecting the defendant's running off with the plaintiff's daughter, and remarked that a wife was scarcely a desirable commodity where there was no property at all either to give or receive. His tone showed his confidence in the approach of a happy dÉnouement. Randolph forced a smile, and turned the conversation to the story of Everope.

"Ah," Seymour said, becoming grave in his turn, "that's a bad business. He was to have sworn to his tale this morning, and when I went to see after him, he was no more. He died by his own hand. In the night. I have reproached myself ever since I parted from him yesterday, for allowing him to be alone. And now his death puts us in a little difficulty. I must become a witness. But there. You can read the narrative, as I took it down from his lips. And then we will go and talk over the affair at Winter's. I understand Everope's accomplice is now down in the country."

Randolph read the confession with eager eyes. He saw that Everope's remorse had perhaps originated in his recognition of himself at the trial, as having once offered to do him some trifling service. He wished he had arrived in time to repeat the offer, and possibly to save the spendthrift from destruction. When he had finished the perusal, he and Rereworth set forth on their way to Mr. Winter's offices.

They had to pass the foot of Everope's staircase. A group of persons, laundresses and porters, such as may often be seen gossiping in the inns of court, was congregated at the entrance, conversing earnestly, but in low tones. Rereworth made his companion acquainted with the few details he had been able to collect, or to conjecture, concerning the unhappy suicide.

He had gone to Everope's rooms in good time, to prepare him to attest his confession, and had even then been detained by a crowd like that which was still there. He made his way without much heed, being in fact preoccupied, and rapped at the spendthrift's door. The old laundress answered the knock, seemed greatly surprised when he inquired for her master, and raised the corner of her apron to her eyes.

"What is the matter, ma'am?" Rereworth asked. "What has happened?" And he remembered the groups below with some alarm.

A few broken words made him acquainted with the catastrophe.

Everope, it seemed, had come home late in the night. He had obtained a light, and had been engaged in looking over a quantity of correspondence and other papers, for such were found strewn about the floor of his room. Letters of old date, some written when he must have been quite a youth, lay open on the table. Were the recollections they aroused more than his shattered, perhaps delirious, senses could bear? Such Rereworth fancied must have been the case.

He had glanced slightly at some of the scattered papers, and then recoiled from prying into matters which concerned him not. One scrap, however, freshly written upon, caught his eye, and he found it to contain a few stanzas of verse, evidently penned long ago, and some incoherent attempts to continue them, which must have been made that very night. He took possession of this document, in order to produce it, if necessary; and he now showed it to his friend. And Randolph, in reading the following melancholy lines, the older portion of the writing, thought with shuddering pity of the whisper, once addressed by Everope to himself, which had called forth his offer of assistance.

"That," said Rereworth, when Randolph gave him back the paper, "is the superficial penitence, which never does any good. It is regret for the effects of the fault, not for the fault itself. In true repentance there is always hope, but in such feelings as are here portrayed there is little else than despair. Hence this miserable end."

"Yet," Randolph urged, with some discontent at the moralizing of his friend, "he seems to have been meant for better things."

"Few men are not," answered Rereworth. "Few men are not meant for better things than they achieve. Short-coming is the rule, and fulfilling the exception. But a truce with what sounds misanthropical. Here we are at Winter's."

The lawyer heard of the suicide with much commiseration.

"But," said he, "our feelings must not interfere with business. This confession, verified by you, Mr. Rereworth, ought to carry us to the bottom of the matter. I wish we could get at the true circumstances of the marriage. You see the real insinuation is, that the late Mr. Trevethlan was privy to the death of Ashton, and the spiriting away of the witness. I wish, with all my heart, we could clear up the mystery."

And Randolph felt that there could be no rest for him until the entire groundlessness of so dark an impeachment was made clear to all the world.