Charlotte's Inheritance. M. E. Braddon

by his encircling arm. He felt that she was his, irrevocably and entirely—given to him by the Providence which would have seemed to have abandoned her, but for the love it had implanted for her in this one faithful heart. His tone had all the pleading tenderness of a lover's, but it had something more—an authority, a sense of possession.

      "Providence sent me here to save you," he said, with that gentle yet authoritative tone; "I am your providence, am I not, dearest? Fate made me love you—fondly, hopelessly, as I thought. Yesterday you seemed as far away from me as those pale stars, shining up yonder—as incomprehensible as that faint silvery mist above the rising moon—and to-night you are my own."

      He knew not what ties might be broken by this act. He had indeed a vague consciousness that the step which he was now taking would cause a lifelong breach between himself and his father. But the time had gone by in which he could count the cost.

      "Let me go back, M. Lenoble," the Englishwoman said presently. The faintness of terror was passing away, and she spoke almost calmly. "Let me go back to the house. It is you that have saved me from a dreadful sin. I promise you that I will not again think of committing that deadly sin. I will wait for the end to come. Let me go, my kind friend. Ah, no, no; do not detain me! Forget that you have ever known me."

      "That is not in my power. I will take you back to the Pension Magnotte directly; but you must first promise to be my wife."

      "Your wife! O, no, no, no! That is impossible."

      "Because you do not love me," said Gustave, with mournful gravity.

      "Because I am not worthy of you."

      Humiliation and self-reproach unspeakable were conveyed in those few words.

      "You are worth all the stars to me. If I had them in my hands, those lamps shining up there, I would throw them away, to hold you," said the student passionately. "You cannot understand my love, perhaps. I seem a stranger to you, and all I say sounds wild and foolish. My love, it is true as the heaven above us—true as life or death—death that was so near you just now. I have loved you ever since that bleak March morning on which I saw you sitting under the leafless trees yonder. You held me from that moment. I was subjugated—possessed—yours at once and for ever. I would not confess even to myself that my heart had resigned itself to you; but I know now that it was so from the first. Is there any hope that you will ever pay me back one tithe of my love?"

      "You love me," the Englishwoman repeated slowly, as if the words were almost beyond her comprehension—"you love me, a creature so lost, so friendless! Ah, but you do not know my wretched story!"

      "I do not ask to know it. I only ask one question—will you be my wife?"

      "You must be mad to offer your name, your honour to me."

      "Yes, I am mad—madly in love. And I am waiting for your answer. You will be my wife? My angel, you will say yes! It is not much that I offer you—a life of uncertainty, perhaps even of poverty; but a fond and constant heart, and a head and hands that will work for you while God gives them strength. It is better than the river."

      All that was thoughtless and hopeful in his disposition was expressed in these words. The woman to whom he pleaded was weakened by sorrow, and the devotion of this brave true heart brought her strength, comfort, almost hope.

      "Will you be my friend?" she said gently. "Your words seem to bring me back to life. I wanted to die because I was so wretched, so lonely. I have friends in England—friends who were once all that is dear and kind; but I dare not go to them. I think a cruel look from one of those friends would kill me with a pain more bitter than any other death could give. And I have no right to hope for kind looks from them. Yours are the only words of friendship I have heard for a long time."

      "And you will give me the right to work for you—to protect you? You will be my wife?"

      "I would rather be your servant," she answered, with sad humility. "What right have I to accept so great a sacrifice? What folly can be so foolish as your love for me—if it is indeed love, and not a wild fancy of to-night!"

      "It is a fancy that will last my life."

      "Ah, you do not know how such fancies change."

      "I know nothing except that mine is changeless. Come, my love, it is

       growing late and cold. Let me take you home. The portress will wonder.

       You must slip past her quietly with your veil down. Did you give old

       Margot your key when you came down stairs to-night?"

      "No, it is in my pocket. I was not thinking—I—"

      She stopped with a sudden shudder. Gustave understood that shudder; he also shuddered. She had left her room that night possessed by the suicide's madness; she had left it to come straight to death. Happily his strong arm had come between her and that cruel grave by which they were still lingering.

      They walked slowly back to the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle under the light of the newly-risen moon. The Englishwoman's wasted hand rested for the first time on M. Lenoble's arm. She was his—his by the intervention and by the decree of Providence! That became a conviction in the young man's mind. He covered her late return to the house with diplomatic art, engaging the portress in conversation while the dark figure glided past in the dim lamplight. On the staircase he paused to bid her good night.

      "You will walk with me in the Luxembourg garden to-morrow morning, dearest," he said. "I have so much to say—so much. Until then, adieu!"

      He kissed her hand, and left her on the threshold of her apartment, and then went to his own humble bachelor's chamber, singing a little drinking song in his deep manly voice, happy beyond all measure.

      They walked together next day in the gardens of the Luxembourg. The poor lonely creature whom Gustave had rescued seemed already to look up to him as a friend and protector, if not in the character of a future husband. It was no longer this fair stranger who held possession of Gustave; it was Gustave who had taken possession of her. The stronger nature had subjugated the weaker. So friendless, so utterly destitute—penniless, helpless, in a strange land, it is little matter for wonder that Susan Meynell accepted the love that was at once a refuge and a shelter.

      "Let me tell you my wretched story," she pleaded, as she walked under the chestnut-trees by her lover's side. "Let me tell you everything. And if, when you have heard what an unhappy creature I am, you still wish to give me your heart, your name, I will be obedient to your wish. I will not speak to you of gratitude. If you could understand how debased an outcast I seemed to myself last night when I went to the river, you would know how I must feel your goodness. But you can never understand—you can never know what you seem to me."

      And then in a low voice, and with infinite shame and hesitation, she told him her story.

      "My father was a tradesman in the city of London," she said. "We were very well off, and my home ought to have been a happy one. Ah, how happy such a home would seem to me now! But I was idle and frivolous and discontented in those days, and was dissatisfied with our life in the city because it seemed dull and monotonous to me. When I look back now and remember how poor a return I gave for the love that was given to me—my mother's anxiety, my father's steady, unpretending kindness—I feel how well I have deserved the sorrows that have come to me since then."

      She paused here, but Gustave did not interrupt her. His interest was too profound for any conventional expression. He was listening to the story of his future wife's youth. That there could be any passage in that history which would hinder him from claiming this woman as his wife was a possibility he did not for a moment contemplate. If there were shame involved in the story, as Madame Meynell's manner led him to suppose there must be, so much the worse was it for him, since the shame must be his, as she was his.

      "When my father and mother died, I went into Yorkshire to live with my married sister. I cannot find words to tell you how kind they were to me—my sister and her husband. I had a little money left me by my father, and I spent the greater part of it on fine dress, and on foolish presents