IN THE LIME-WALK.
Robert Audley was upon the grass-plat in of the Court as the my lady and Alicia under the archway, and up at the low turret-door. Mr. Audley presented himself in time to hand the ladies out of the vehicle.
My lady looked very in a and the which her nephew had for her at St. Petersburg. She very well pleased to see Robert, and most as she gave him her little hand.
"So you have come to us, truant?" she said, laughing. "And now that you have returned, we shall keep you prisoner. We won't let him away again, will we, Alicia?"
Miss Audley gave her a that the under her hat.
"I have nothing to do with the movements of so an individual," she said. "Since Robert Audley has taken it into his to himself like some ghost-haunted hero in a German story, I have up attempting to him."
Mr. Audley looked at his with an of serio-comic perplexity. "She's a girl," he thought, "but she's a nuisance. I don't know how it is, but she more a than she used to be."
He his as he this question. His mind away for a moments from the great trouble of his life to upon this minor perplexity.
"She's a dear girl," he thought; "a generous-hearted, bouncing, English lassie; and yet—" He himself in a of and difficulty. There was some in his mind which he not understand; some in himself, the in him by his about George Talboys, which and him.
"And pray where have you been the last day or two, Mr. Audley?" asked my lady, as she with her step-daughter upon the of the turret-door, waiting until Robert should be pleased to and allow them to pass. The man started as she asked this question and looked up at her suddenly. Something in the of her beauty, something in the of her expression, to him to the heart, and his as he looked at her.
"I have been—in Yorkshire," he said; "at the little place where my friend George Talboys at the time of his marriage."
The white in my lady's was the only of her having these words. She smiled, a faint, smile, and to pass her husband's nephew.
"I must dress for dinner," she said. "I am going to a dinner-party, Mr. Audley; let me go in."
"I must ask you to me an hour, Lady Audley," Robert answered, in a low voice. "I came to Essex on purpose to speak to you."
"What about?" asked my lady.
She had herself from any which she might have a moments before, and it was in her manner that she asked this question. Her the and of a puzzled child, than the of a woman.
"What can you want to talk to me about, Mr. Audley?" she repeated.
"I will tell you when we are alone," Robert said, at his cousin, who a little way my lady, this little dialogue.
"He is in love with my step-mother's wax-doll beauty," Alicia, "and it is for her he has such a object. He's just the of person to in love with his aunt."
Miss Audley walked away to the grass-plat, her upon Robert and my lady.
"The as white as a when he saw her," she thought. "So he can be in love, after all. That slow of he calls his can beat, I suppose, once in a of a century; but it that nothing but a blue-eyed wax-doll can set it going. I should have him up long ago if I'd that his idea of was to be in a toy-shop."
Poor Alicia the grass-plat and upon the opposite of the quadrangle, where there was a Gothic gate that with the stables. I am sorry to say that Sir Michael Audley's to from her dog Caesar and her Atalanta, box the lady was in the of visiting every day.
"Will you come into the lime-walk, Lady Audley?" said Robert, as his left the garden. "I wish to talk to you without of or observation. I think we choose no place than that. Will you come there with me?"
"If you please," answered my lady. Mr. Audley see that she was trembling, and that she from to as if looking for some by which she might him.
"You are shivering, Lady Audley," he said.
"Yes, I am very cold. I would speak to you some other day, please. Let it be to-morrow, if you will. I have to dress for dinner, and I want to see Sir Michael; I have not him since ten o'clock this morning. Please let it be to-morrow."
There was a painful in her tone. Heaven how painful to Robert's heart. Heaven what images in his mind as he looked at that and of the that him.
"I must speak to you, Lady Audley," he said. "If I am cruel, it is you who have me cruel. You might have this ordeal. You might have me. I gave you warning. But you have to me, and it is your own which is to if I no longer you. Come with me. I tell you again I must speak to you."
There was a cold in his which my lady's objections. She him to the little iron gate which with the long garden the house—the garden in which a little across the fish-pond into the lime-walk.
The early winter was in, and the of the that the looked black against the cold of the sky. The lime-walk like some in this light.
"Why do you me to this place to me out of my wits?" my lady, peevishly. "You ought to know how I am."
"You are nervous, my lady?"
"Yes, nervous. I am a to Mr. Dawson. He is always sending me camphor, and volatile, and red lavender, and all of mixtures, but he can't me."
"Do you what Macbeth tells his physician, my lady?" asked Robert, gravely. "Mr. Dawson may be very much more than the Scottish leech, but I if he can minister to the mind that is diseased."
"Who said that my mind was diseased?" Lady Audley.
"I say so, my lady," answered Robert. "You tell me that you are nervous, and that all the your doctor can are only so much that might as well be to the dogs. Let me be the physician to to the of your malady, Lady Audley. Heaven that I wish to be merciful—that I would you as as it is in my power to you in doing to others—but must be done. Shall I tell you why you are in this house, my lady?"
"If you can," she answered, with a little laugh.
"Because for you this house is haunted."
"Haunted?"
"Yes, by the of George Talboys."
Robert Audley my lady's breathing, he he almost the loud of her as she walked by his side, now and then, and with her around her.
"What do you mean?" she suddenly, after a pause of some moments. "Why do you me about this George Talboys, who to have taken it into his to keep out of your way for a months? Are you going mad, Mr. Audley, and do you select me as the of your monomania? What is George Talboys to me that you should worry me about him?"
"He was a to you, my lady, was he not?"
"Of course!" answered Lady Audley. "What should he be but a stranger?"
"Shall I tell you the of my friend's as I read that story, my lady?" asked Robert.
"No," Lady Audley; "I wish to know nothing of your friend. If he is dead, I am sorry for him. If he lives, I have no wish either to see him or to of him. Let me go in to see my husband, if you please, Mr. Audley, unless you wish to me in this place until I catch my death of cold."
"I wish to you until you have what I have to say, Lady Audley," answered Robert, resolutely. "I will you no longer than is necessary, and when you have me you shall take your own of action."
"Very well, then; pray no time in saying what you have to say," my lady, carelessly. "I promise you to very patiently."
"When my friend, George Talboys, returned to England," Robert began, gravely, "the which was in his mind was the of his wife."
"Whom he had deserted," said my lady, quickly. "At least," she added, more deliberately, "I your telling us something to that when you told us your friend's story."
Robert Audley did not notice this observation.
"The that was in his mind was the of his wife," he repeated. "His in the was the of making her happy, and upon her the which he had by the of his own arm in the gold-fields of Australia. I saw him a hours of his England, and I was a to the with which he looked to his re-union with his wife. I was also a to the which him to the very heart—which him from the man he had been to a as that self as one being can be another. The which that was the of his wife's death in the Times newspaper. I now that that was a black and lie."
"Indeed!" said my lady; "and what any one have for announcing the death of Mrs. Talboys, if Mrs. Talboys had been alive?"
"The lady herself might have had a reason," Robert answered, quietly.
"What reason?"
"How if she had taken of George's to win a husband? How if she had married again, and to my friend off the by this false announcement?"
Lady Audley her shoulders.
"Your are ridiculous, Mr. Audley," she said; "it is to be that you have some for them."
"I have a file of each of the newspapers published in Chelmsford and Colchester," Robert, without to my lady's last observation, "and I in one of the Colchester papers, July the 2d, 1857, a paragraph among of from other newspapers, to the that a Mr. George Talboys, an English gentleman, had at Sydney from the gold-fields, with him and gold-dust to the amount of twenty thousand pounds, and that he had his property and for Liverpool in the fast-sailing Argus. This is a very small fact, of course, Lady Audley, but it is to prove that any person in Essex in the July of the year fifty-seven, was likely to aware of George Talboys' return from Australia. Do you me?"
"Not very clearly," said my lady. "What have the Essex papers to do with the death of Mrs. Talboys?"
"We will come to that by-and-by, Lady Audley. I say that I the in the Times to have been a false announcement, and a part of the which was out by Helen Talboys and Lieutenant Maldon against my friend."
"A conspiracy!"
"Yes, a by an woman, who had upon the of her husband's death, and had a position at the of a crime; a woman, my lady, who to play her out to the end without of detection; a woman, who did not what she might upon the of the man she betrayed; but a woman, who looked at life as a game of chance, in which the best player was likely to the cards, that there is a Providence above the speculators, and that are permitted to long hidden. If this woman of I speak had been of any than the of that in the Times newspaper, I should still her as the most and of her sex—the most and calculating of creatures. That was a and in the dark; it was the dagger-thrust of an assassin."
"But how do you know that the was a false one?" asked my lady. "You told us that you had been to Ventnor with Mr. Talboys to see his wife's grave. Who was it who died at Ventnor if it was not Mrs. Talboys?"
"Ah, Lady Audley," said Robert, "that is a question which only two or three people can answer, and one or other of those shall answer it to me long. I tell you, my lady, that I am to the of George Talboy's death. Do you think I am to be put off by prevarication—by trickery? No! Link by link I have put together the of evidence, which wants but a link here and there to be complete in its terrible strength. Do you think I will myself to be baffled? Do you think I shall fail to those missing links? No, Lady Audley, I shall not fail, for I know where to look for them! There is a fair-haired woman at Southampton—a woman called Plowson, who has some in the of the father of my friend's wife. I have an idea that she can help me to the history of the woman who in Ventnor churchyard, and I will no trouble in making that discovery, unless—"
"Unless what?" asked my lady, eagerly.
"Unless the woman I wish to save from and the I offer her, and takes while there is still time."
My lady her shoulders, and out of her eyes.
"She would be a very woman if she herself to be by any such absurdity," she said. "You are hypochondriacal, Mr. Audley, and you must take camphor, or red lavender, or volatile. What can be more than this idea which you have taken into your head? You your friend George Talboys in a manner—that is to say, that to England without you notice. What of that? You that he an man after his wife's death. He and misanthropical; he an as to what of him. What more likely, then, than that he of the of life, and ran away to those gold-fields to a for his grief? It is a story, but by no means an one. But you are not satisfied with this of your friend's disappearance, and you up some of a which has no in your own brain. Helen Talboys is dead. The Times newspaper she is dead. Her own father tells you that she is dead. The of the in Ventnor record of her death. By what right," my lady, her voice to that and to her when by any agitation—"by what right, Mr. Audley, do you come to me, and me about George Talboys—by what right do you to say that his wife is still alive?"
"By the right of evidence, Lady Audley," answered Robert—"by the right of that which will sometimes the of a man's upon that person who, on the of the case, of all other men the most to be guilty."
"What evidence?"
"The of time and place. The of handwriting. When Helen Talboys left her father's at Wildernsea, she left a her—a in which she that she was of her old life, and that she to a new home and a new fortune. That is in my possession."
"Indeed."
"Shall I tell you that of Helen Talboys so closely, that the most expert no the two?"
"A the of two is no very now-a-days," my lady carelessly. "I you the of half-a-dozen female correspondents, and you to any great in them."
"But what if the is a very one, marked by which it may be among a hundred?"
"Why, in that case the is curious," answered my lady; "but it is nothing more than a coincidence. You cannot the of Helen Talboys death on the ground that her that of some person."
"But if a series of such lead up to the same point," said Robert. "Helen Talboys left her father's house, according to the in her own handwriting, she was of her old life, and to a new one. Do you know what I from this?"
My lady her shoulders.
"I have not the least idea," she said; "and as you have me in this place nearly half-an-hour, I must that you will me, and let me go and dress for dinner."
"No, Lady Audley," answered Robert, with a cold that was so to him as to him into another creature—a of justice, a of retribution—"no, Lady Audley," he repeated, "I have told you that will not help you; I tell you now that will not you. I have with you, and have you warning. I gave you notice of your two months ago."
"What do you mean?" asked my lady, suddenly.
"You did not choose to take that warning, Lady Audley," Robert, "and the time has come in which I must speak very to you. Do you think the gifts which you have played against are to you from retribution? No, my lady, your and beauty, your and refinement, only make the of your life more horrible. I tell you that the against you wants only one link to be for your condemnation, and that link shall be added. Helen Talboys returned to her father's house. When she that old father, she away from his with the of her hands of that old life. What do people do when they wish to a new existence—to start for a second time in the of life, free from the that had their journey. They their names, Lady Audley. Helen Talboys her son—she away from Wildernsea with the of her identity. She as Helen Talboys upon the 16th of August, 1854, and upon the 17th of that month she as Lucy Graham, the girl who a in of a home in which she was asked no questions."
"You are mad, Mr. Audley!" my lady. "You are mad, and my husband shall protect me from your insolence. What if this Helen Talboys ran away from her home upon one day, and I entered my employer's house upon the next, what that prove?"
"By itself, very little," Robert Audley; "but with the help of other evidence—"
"What evidence?"
"The of two labels, one over the other, upon a box left by you in of Mrs. Vincent, the upper label the name of Miss Graham, the that of Mrs. George Talboys."
My lady was silent. Robert Audley not see her in the dusk, but he see that her two small hands were over her heart, and he that the had gone home to its mark.
"God help her, poor, creature," he thought. "She now that she is lost. I wonder if the of the land as I do now when they put on the black cap and pass of death upon some poor, wretch, who has done them any wrong. Do they a of indignation, or do they this which my as I talk to this woman?"
He walked by my lady's side, silently, for some minutes. They had been up and the avenue, and they were now near the at one end of the lime-walk—the in which the well its among the of underwood.
A pathway, neglected and half-choked with weeds, toward this well. Robert left the lime-walk, and into this pathway. There was more light in the than in the avenue, and Mr. Audley to see my lady's face.
He did not speak until they the of rank the well. The had away here and there, and of and briars. The which had supported the still remained, but the iron had been from its and a from the well, rusty, discolored, and forgotten.
Robert Audley against one of the moss-grown and looked at my lady's face, very in the winter twilight. The moon had newly risen, a in the heavens, and a faint, light with the of the day. My lady's like that which Robert Audley had in his looking out of the white foam-flakes on the green sea and his uncle to destruction.
"Those two are in my possession, Lady Audley," he resumed. "I took them from the box left by you at Crescent Villas. I took them in the presence of Mrs. Vincent and Miss Tonks. Have you any proofs to offer against this evidence? You say to me, 'I am Lucy Graham and I have nothing to do with Helen Talboys.' In that case you will produce who will your antecedents. Where had you been to your at Crescent Villas? You must have friends, relations, connections, who can come to prove as much as this for you? If you were the most upon this earth, you would be able to point to someone who identify you with the past."
"Yes," my lady, "if I were in a I could, no doubt, to your accusation. But I am not in a dock, Mr. Audley, and I do not choose to do anything but laugh at your folly. I tell you that you are mad! If you to say that Helen Talboys is not dead, and that I am Helen Talboys, you may do so. If you choose to go about in the places in which I have lived, and to the places in which this Mrs. Talboys has lived, you must the of your own inclination, but I would you that such have sometimes people, as as yourself, to the life-long of a private lunatic-asylum."
Robert Audley started and a among the and as my lady said this.
"She would be of any new to her from the of the old one," he thought. "She would be of using her with my uncle to place me in a mad-house."
I do not say that Robert Audley was a coward, but I will admit that a of horror, something to fear, him to the as he the that have been done by since that day upon which Eve was to be Adam's and help-meet in the garden of Eden. "What if this woman's power of should be than the truth, and him? She had not George Talboys when he in her way and her with a peril; would she him who her with a danger? Are merciful, or loving, or in to their and grace? Was there not a Monsieur Mazers de Latude, who had the to the all-accomplished Madam de Pompadour, who his by a life-long imprisonment; who twice from prison, to be twice into captivity; who, in the of his foe, himself to an fiend? Robert Audley looked at the of the woman by his side; that and face, by starry-blue eyes, that had a and surely a light in them; and a hundred of perfidy, as he how the might be himself and his uncle's wife.
"I have her my cards," he thought, "but she has hers from me. The that she is not to be away. My uncle would think me than her guilty."
The of Clara Talboys—that and face, so different in its to my lady's beauty—arose him.
"What a I am to think of myself or my own danger," he thought. "The more I see of this woman the more I have to her upon others; the more to wish her away from this house."
He looked about him in the obscurity. The garden was as as some grave-yard, in and away from the world of the living.
"It was in this garden that she met George Talboys upon the day of his disappearance," he thought. "I wonder where it was they met; I wonder where it was that he looked into her and taxed her with her falsehood?"
My lady, with her little hand upon the opposite post to that against which Robert leaned, with her among the long weeds, but a watch upon her enemy's face.
"It is to be a to the death, then, my lady," said Robert Audley, solemnly. "You to accept my warning. You to away and of your in some place, from the you have and by your false witcheries. You choose to here and me."
"I do," answered Lady Audley, her and looking full at the barrister. "It is no fault of mine if my husband's nephew goes mad, and me for the of his monomania."
"So be it, then, my lady," answered Robert. "My friend George Talboys was last entering these gardens by the little iron gate by which we came in to-night. He was last for you. He was to enter these gardens, but he was to them. I that he met his death the of these grounds; and that his some water, or in some of this place. I will have such a search as shall level that house to the earth and up every tree in these gardens, than I will fail in the of my friend."
Lucy Audley a long, low, cry, and up her arms above her with a wild of despair, but she no answer to the of her accuser. Her arms slowly dropped, and she at Robert Audley, her white through the dusk, her and dilated.
"You shall live to do this," she said. "I will kill you first. Why have you me so? Why you not let me alone? What had I done you that you should make my persecutor, and dog my steps, and watch my looks, and play the upon me? Do you want to drive me mad? Do you know what it is to with a mad-woman? No," my lady, with a laugh, "you do not, or you would never—"
She stopped and herself to her hight. It was the same action which Robert had in the old half-drunken lieutenant; and it had that same dignity—the of misery.
"Go away, Mr. Audley," she said. "You are mad, I tell you, you are mad."
"I am going, my lady," answered Robert, quietly. "I would have your out of to your wretcheness. You have to accept my mercy. I to have upon the living. I shall only my to the dead."
He walked away from the well under the of the limes. My lady him slowly that long, avenue, and across the to the iron gate. As he passed through the gate, Alicia came out of a little half-glass door that opened from an oak-paneled breakfast-room at one of the house, and met her upon the of the gateway.
"I have been looking for you everywhere, Robert," she said. "Papa has come to the library, and will be to see you."
The man started at the of his cousin's fresh voice. "Good Heaven!" he thought, "can these two be of the same clay? Can this frank, generous-hearted girl, who cannot any of her nature, be of the same and blood as that upon the path me!"
He looked from his to Lady Audley, who near the gateway, waiting for him to and let her pass him.
"I don't know what has come to your cousin, my dear Alicia," said my lady. "He is so absent-minded and as to be my comprehension."
"Indeed," Miss Audley; "and yet I should imagine, from the length of your tête-a-tête, that you had some to him."
"Oh, yes," said Robert, quietly, "my lady and I each other very well; but as it is late I will wish you good-evening, ladies. I shall sleep to-night at Mount Stanning, as I have some to to up there, and I will come and see my uncle to-morrow."
"What, Robert," Alicia, "you surely won't go away without papa?"
"Yes, my dear," answered the man. "I am a little by some in which I am very much concerned, and I would not see my uncle. Good-night, Alicia. I will come or to-morrow."
He pressed his cousin's hand, to Lady Audley, and walked away under the black of the archway, and out into the the Court.
My lady and Alicia him until he was out of sight.
"What in goodness' name is the with my Cousin Robert?" Miss Audley, impatiently, as the disappeared. "What he by these goings-on? Some that him, indeed! I the has had a upon him by some evil-starred attorney, and is into a of from a of his own incompetence."
"Have you your cousin's character, Alicia?" asked my lady, very seriously, after a pause.
"Studied his character! No, Lady Audley. Why should I study his character?" said Alicia. "There is very little study to that he is a lazy, selfish Sybarite, who for nothing in the world his own and comfort."
"But have you him eccentric?"
"Eccentric!" Alicia, up her red and up her shoulders. "Well, yes—I that is the for such people. I Bob is eccentric."
"I have you speak of his father and mother," said my lady, thoughtfully. "Do you them?"
"I saw his mother. She was a Miss Dalrymple, a very girl, who ran away with my uncle, and a very in consequence. She died at Nice when Bob was five years old."
"Did you anything particular about her?"
"How do you 'particular?'" asked Alicia.
"Did you that she was eccentric—what people call 'odd?'"
"Oh, no," said Alicia, laughing. "My aunt was a very woman, I believe, though she did for love. But you must that she died I was born, and I have not, therefore, very much about her."
"But you your uncle, I suppose."
"My Uncle Robert?" said Alicia. "Oh, yes, I him very well, indeed."
"Was he eccentric—I to say, in his habits, like your cousin?"
"Yes, I Robert all his from his father. My uncle the same for his fellow-creatures as my cousin, but as he was a good husband, an father, and a master, nobody his opinions."
"But he was eccentric?"
"Yes; I he was a little eccentric."
"Ah," said my lady, gravely, "I as much. Do you know, Alicia, that is more often from father to daughter, and from mother to than from mother to son? Your cousin, Robert Audley, is a very man, and I believe, a very good-hearted man, but he must be watched, Alicia, for he is mad!"
"Mad!" Miss Audley, indignantly; "you are dreaming, my lady, or—or—you are trying to me," added the lady, with alarm.
"I only wish to put you on your guard, Alicia," answered my lady. "Mr. Audley may be as you say, eccentric; but he has talked to me this in a manner that has me with terror, and I that he is going mad. I shall speak very to Sir Michael this very night."
"Speak to papa," Alicia; "you surely won't papa by such a possibility!"
"I shall only put him on his guard, my dear Alicia."
"But he'll you," said Miss Audley; "he will laugh at such an idea."
"No, Alicia; he will anything that I tell him," answered my lady, with a smile.
