The Infidel. M. E. Braddon

have lived through too many fevers to die of this one," Kilrush thought, and braced his nerves to go on living, though all the colour seemed washed out of his life.

      While his heart was being lacerated by anger and regret, he was surprised by the appearance of his cousin, the ci-devant captain of Dragoons, of whose existence he had taken no account since his afternoon visit to Clapham. He was in his library, a large room at the back of the house, looking into a small garden shadowed by an old brick wall, and overlooked by the back windows of Pall Mall, which looked down into it as into a green well. The room was lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, and the favourite calf binding of those days made a monotone of sombre brown, suggestive of gloom, even on a summer day, when the scent of stocks and mignonette was blown in through the open windows.

      Kilrush received his kinsman with cold civility.

      Not even in the splendour of his court uniform had George Stobart looked handsomer than to-day in his severely cut grey cloth coat and black silk waistcoat. There was a light in his eyes, a buoyant youthfulness in his aspect, which Kilrush observed with a pang of envy. Ah, had he been as young, Fate and Antonia might have been kinder.

      George put down his hat, and took the chair his cousin indicated, chilled somewhat by so distant a greeting.

      "I saw in Lloyd's Evening Post that your lordship intended starting for the Continent," he began, "and I thought it my duty to wait upon you before you left town."

      "You are very good—and Lloyd is very impertinent—to take so much trouble about my movements. Yes, George, I am leaving England."

      "Do you go far, sir?"

      "Paris will be the first stage of my journey."

      "And afterwards?"

      "And afterwards? Kamschatka, perhaps, or—hell! I am fixed on nothing but to leave a town I loathe."

      George looked inexpressibly shocked.

      "I fear your lordship is out of health," he faltered.

      "Fear nothing, hope nothing about me, sir; I am inclined to detest my fellow-men. If you take that for a symptom of sickness, why then I am indeed out of health."

      "I am sorry I do not find you in happier spirits, sir, for I had a double motive in waiting on you."

      "So have most men—in all they do. Well, sir?"

      Kilrush threw himself back in his chair, and waited his cousin's communication with no more interest in his countenance or manner than if he were awaiting a petition from one of his footmen.

      Nothing could be more marked than the contrast between the two men, though their features followed the same lines, and the hereditary mark of an ancient race was stamped indelibly on each. A life of passionate excitement, self-will, pride, had wasted the form and features of the elder, and made him look older than his actual years. Yet in those attenuated features there was such exquisite refinement, in that almost colourless complexion such a high-bred delicacy, that for most women the elder face would have been the more attractive. There was a pathetic appeal in the countenance of the man who had lived his life, who had emptied the cup of earthly joys, and for whom nothing remained but decay.

      The young man's highest graces were his air of frankness and high courage, and his soldierly bearing, which three years among the Methodists had in no wise lessened. He had, indeed, in those years been still a soldier of the Church Militant, and had stood by John Wesley's side on more than one occasion when the missiles of a howling mob flew thick and fast around that hardy itinerant, and when riot threatened to end in murder.

      "Well, sir, your second motive—your arrière pensée?" Kilrush exclaimed impatiently, the young man having taken up his hat again, and being engaged in smoothing the beaver with a hand that shook ever so slightly.

      "You told me nearly a year ago, sir," he began, hardening himself for the encounter, "that you would never forgive me if I married my inferior—my inferior in the world's esteem, that is to say—an inferiority which I do not admit."

      "Hang your admissions, sir! I perfectly remember what I said to you, and I hope you took warning by it, and that my aunt found another place for her housemaid."

      "Your warning came too late. I had learnt to esteem Lucy Foreman at her just value. The housemaid, as your lordship is pleased to call her, is now my wife."

      "Then, sir, since you know my ultimatum, what the devil brings you to this house?"

      "I desired that you should hear what I have done from my lips, not from the public press."

      "You are monstrous civil! Well, I am not going to waste angry words upon you, but your name will come out of my will before I sleep; and from to-day we are strangers. I can hold no intercourse with a man who disgraces his name by a beggarly marriage. By Heaven, sir, if I loved to distraction, if my happiness, my peace, my power to endure this wretched life, depended upon my winning the idol of my soul, I would not give my name to a woman of low birth or discreditable connections!"

      He struck his clenched fist upon the table in front of him with a wild vehemence that took his cousin's breath away; then, recovering his composure, he asked coldly—

      "Does your pious mother approve this folly, sir, and take your housemaid-wife to her heart?"