Phantom Fortune, a Novel. M. E. Braddon

it is I am a great deal worse than when I landed.'

      Everyone at the hotel noticed his lordship's white and haggard looks. He had been known there as a young man in the bloom of health and strength, and his decay was particularly obvious to these people.

      'I saw death in his face,' the landlord said, afterwards.

      Every one, even her ladyship's firmness and good sense, gave way before the invalid's impatience. At three in the afternoon they left the hotel, with four horses, to make the remaining nineteen miles of the way in one stage. They had not been on the road half an hour before the snow began to fall thickly, whitening everything around them, except the lake, which showed a dark leaden surface at the bottom of the slope along the edge of which they were travelling. Too sullen for speech, Lord Maulevrier sat back in his corner, with his sable cloak drawn up to his chin, his travelling cap covering head and ears, his eyes contemplating the whitening world with a weary anger. His wife watched the landscape as long as she could, but the snow soon began to darken all the air, and she could see nothing save that blank blinding fall.

      Half-way to Fellside there was a point where two roads met, one leading towards Grasmere, the other towards the village of Great Langdale, a cluster of humble habitations in the heart of the hills. When the horses had struggled as far as this point, the snow was six inches deep on the road, and made a thick curtain around them as it fell. By this time the Earl had dozed off to sleep.

      He woke an hour after, let down the window, which let in a snow-laden gust, and tried to pierce the gloom without.

      'As black as Erebus!' he exclaimed, 'but we ought to be close at home by this time. Yes, thank God, there are the lights.'

      The carriage drew up a minute afterwards, and Steadman came to the door.

      'Very sorry, my lord. The horses must have taken a wrong turn after we crossed the bridge. And now the men say they can't go back to Fellside unless we can get fresh horses; and I'm afraid there's no chance of that here.'

      'Here!' exclaimed the Earl, 'what do you mean by here? Where the devil are we?'

      'Great Langdale, my lord.'

      A door opened and let out a flood of light—the red light of a wood fire, the pale flame of a candle—upon the snowy darkness, revealing the panelled hall of a neat little rustic inn: an eight-day clock ticking in the corner, a black and white sheep-dog coming out at his master's heels to investigate the travellers. To the right of the door showed the light of a window, sheltered by a red curtain, behind which the chiefs of the village were enjoying their evening.

      'Have you any post-horses?' asked the Earl, discontentedly, as the landlord stood on the threshold, shading the candle with his hand. 'No, sir. We don't keep post-horses.'

      'Of course not. I knew as much before I asked,' said the Earl.

      'We are fixed in this dismal hole for the night, I suppose. How far are we from Fellside?'

      'Seven miles,' answered the landlord. 'I beg your pardon, my lord; I didn't know it was your lordship,' he added, hurriedly. 'We're in sore trouble, and it makes a man daft-like; but if there's anything we can do----'

      'Is there no hope of getting on, Steadman?' asked the Earl, cutting short these civilities.

      'Not with these horses, my lord.'

      'And you hear we can't get any others. Is there any farmer about here who could lend us a pair of carriage horses?'

      The landlord knew of no such person.

      'Then we must stop here till to-morrow morning. What infernal fools those post-boys must be,' protested Lord Maulevrier.

      James Steadman apologised for the postilions, explaining that when they came to the critical point of their journey, where the road branched off to the Langdales, the snow was falling so thickly, the whole country was so hidden in all-pervading whiteness, that even he, who knew the way so well, could give no help to the drivers. He could only trust to the instinct of local postilions and local horses; and instinct had proved wrong.

      The travellers alighted, and were ushered into a not uncomfortable-looking parlour; very low as to the ceiling, very old-fashioned as to the furniture, but spotlessly clean, and enlivened by a good fire, to which his lordship drew near, shivering and muttering discontentedly to himself.

      'We might be worse off,' said her ladyship, looking round the bright little room, which pleased her better than many a state apartment in the large hotels at which they had stopped.

      'Hardly, unless we were out on the moor,' grumbled her husband. 'I am sick to death of this ill-advised, unreasonable journey. I am at a loss to imagine your motive in bringing me here. You must have had a motive.'

      'I had,' answered Lady Maulevrier, with a freezing look. 'I wanted to get you out of the way. I told you that plainly enough at Southampton.'

      'I don't see why I should be hurried away and hidden,' said Lord Maulevrier. 'I must face my accusers, sooner or later.'

      'Of course. The day of reckoning must come. But in the meantime have you no delicacy? Do you want to be pointed at everywhere?'

      'All I know is that I am very ill,' answered her husband, 'and that this wretched journey has made me twenty years older.'

      'We shall be safe at home before noon to-morrow, and you can have Horton to set you right again. You know you always believed in his skill.'

      'Horton is a clever fellow enough, as country doctors go; but at Hastings I could have had the best physicians in London to see me,' grumbled his lordship.

      The rustic maid-servant came in to lay the table, assisted by her ladyship's footman, who looked a good deal too tall for the room.

      'I shan't dine,' said the Earl. 'I am a great deal too ill and cold. Light a fire in my room, girl, and send Steadman to me'—this to the footman, who hastened to obey. 'You can send me up a basin of soup presently. I shall go to bed at once.'

      He left the room without another word to his wife, who sat by the hearth staring thoughtfully at the cheery wood fire. Presently she looked up, and saw that the man and maid were going on with their preparations for dinner.

      'I do not care about dining alone,' said her ladyship. 'We lunched at Windermere, and I have no appetite. You can clear away those things, and bring me some tea.'

      When the table furniture had been cleared, and a neat little tea-tray set upon the white cloth, Lady Maulevrier drew her chair to the table, and took out her pocket-book, from which she produced a letter. This she read more than once, meditating profoundly upon its contents.

      'I am very sorry he has come home,' wrote her correspondent, 'and yet if he had stayed in India there must have been an investigation on the spot. A public inquiry is inevitable, and the knowledge of his arrival in the country will precipitate matters. From all I hear I much fear that there is no chance of the result being favourable to him. You have asked me to write the unvarnished truth, to be brutal even, remember. His delinquencies are painfully notorious, and I apprehend that the last sixpence he owns will be answerable. His landed estate I am told can also be confiscated, in the event of an impeachment at the bar of the House of Lords, as in the Warren Hastings case. But as yet nobody seems clear as to the form which the investigation will take. In reply to your inquiry as to what would have happened if his lordship had died on the passage home, I believe I am justified in saying the scandal would have been allowed to die with him. He has contrived to provoke powerful animosities both in the Cabinet and at the India House, and there is, I fear, an intention to pursue the inquiry to the bitter end.'

      Assurances of the writer's sympathy followed these harsh truths. But to this polite commonplace her ladyship paid no attention. Her mind was intent on hard facts, the dismal probabilities of the near future.

      'If he had died upon the passage home!' she repeated. 'Would to God that he had so died, and that my son's name and fortune could be saved.'

      The innocent child who had never given her an hour's