"Why, then, my girl, G.o.d be with you, and G.o.d forgive you!"

Then Justine turned to Lord Exham, "I have done what you demanded. May I now go my own way?"

"Not just yet. You will return with me."

He gave his card to the Master, and followed the woman, keeping her constantly under his hand and eye until they returned to Annabel's parlour. Annabel was in a dead sleep; but their entrance awakened her, and it pained Piers to see the look of fear that came into her face when she saw her cruel tormentor. She was speedily relieved, however; for the first words she heard, was an order from Piers, bidding her to be ready to leave the house in twenty minutes. He took out his watch as he gave the order, and then added, "First of all, return to me my ring."

"I did not take your ring, my lord."

"You have it in your possession. Return it at once."

"Miss Vyner stole it--"

"Give it to me! You know the consequences of _one_ more refusal."

Then Justine took from her purse the long missing ring. She threw it on the table, and, with tears of rage, said,--

"May ill-luck and false love go with it, and follow all who own it!"

"The bad wishes of the wicked fall on themselves, Justine," said Lord Exham, as he lifted the trinket. "How much money does your mistress owe you?"

"I have no 'mistress.' Miss Vyner owes me a quarter's wage, and a quarter's notice, that is eight pounds."

"Is that correct, Annabel?"

"The woman says so. Pay her what she wants--only get her out of my sight."

"Oh, Miss, I can tell you--"

"Go. Pack your trunk, and be back here in fifteen minutes. And, mind what I say, leave England at once--the sooner the better."

Before the time was past, the woman was outside the gates of Richmoor House, and Piers returned to Annabel. "That trouble is all over and gone forever," he said to her; "now, dear Bella, lift up your heart to its full measure of love and joy! Let Cecil see you to-night in your old beauty. He is fretting about your health; show him the marvellously bright Annabel that captured his heart with a glance."

"I will! I will, Piers! This very night you shall see that Annabel is herself again."

"And in three days you are to be Cecil's wife!"

"In three days," she echoed joyfully. "Leave me now, Piers. I want to think over your goodness to me. I shall never forget it."

Smiling, they parted; and then Annabel opened all the doors of her rooms, and looked carefully around them, and a.s.sured herself that her tyrant was really gone. "In three days!" she said, "in three days I am going away from all this splendour and luxury,--going to dangers of all kinds; to a wild life in camps and quarters; perhaps to deprivations in lonely places--and I am happy! Happy! transcendently happy! Oh, Love! Wonderful, Invincible, Omnipotent Love! Cecil's love! It will be sufficient for all things."

Certainly she was permeated with this idea. It radiated from her countenance; it spoke in her eyes; it made itself visible in the glory of her bridal attire. The wedding morning was one of the darkest and dreariest of London's winter days. A black pouring rain fell incessantly; the atmosphere was heavy, and loaded with exhalations; and the cholera terror was on every face. For at this time it was really "a destruction walking at noon-day" and leaving its ghastly sign of possession on many a house in the streets along which the bridal party pa.s.sed.

It came into the gloomy church like a splendid dream: officers in gay uniforms, ladies in beautiful gowns and nodding plumes, and at the altar,--shining like some celestial being,--the radiant bride in glistening white satin, and sparkling gems. And Cecil, in his new military uniform, tall, handsome, soldierly, happy, made her a fitting companion. The church was filled with a dismal vapour; the rain plashed on the flagged enclosure; the wind whistled round the ancient tower: there was only gloom, and misery, and sudden death outside; but over all these accidents of time and place, the joy of the bride and the bridegroom was triumphant. And later in the day, when the Duke and Piers went with them to the great three-decked Indiaman waiting for their embarkation, they were still wondrously exalted and blissful.

Dressed in fine dark-blue broadcloth, and wrapped in costly furs, Annabel watched from the deck the departure of her friends, and then put her hand in Cecil's with a smile.

"For weal or woe, Bella, my dear one," he said.

"For weal or woe, for life or death, Cecil beloved," she answered, having no idea then of what that promise was to bring her in the future; though she kept it n.o.bly when the time of its redemption came.

Three days after this event, Mrs. Atheling received by special messenger from Lord Exham a letter, and with it the ring which had caused so much suspicion and sorrow. But though the letter was affectionate and confidential, and full of tender messages which he "trusted in her to deliver for him," nothing was said as to the manner of its recovery, or the personality of the one who had purloined it.

"Your father has been right, no doubt, Kate," she said. "In some weak moment Annabel has got the ring from him, and on her marriage has given it back. That is clear to me."

"Not to me, Mother. I am sure Piers did not give Annabel--did not give any one the ring. I will tell you what I think. Annabel got it while he was asleep, or he inadvertently dropped it, and she picked it up--and kept it, hoping to make mischief."

"You may be wrong, Kitty."

"I may--but I _know_ I am right."

_No Diviner like Love!_

On this same day, with the cholera raging all around, Parliament was re-opened; and Lord John Russell again brought in the Reform Bill. There was something pathetic in this persistence of a people, hungry and naked, and overshadowed by an unknown pestilence, swift and malignant as a Fate. It was evident, immediately, that the same course of "obstruction" which had proved fatal to the two previous Bills was to be pursued against the third attempt. Yet the temper of the House of Commons, sullenly, doggedly determined, might even thus early have warned its opposers. All the unfairness and pertinacity of Peel and his a.s.sociates was of no avail against the inflexible steadiness of Lord Althorp and the cold impa.s.sibility of Lord John Russell.

Week after week pa.s.sed in debating, while the press and people waited in alternating fits of pa.s.sionate threats and still more alarming silence,--a silence, Lord Grey declared to be, "Most ominous of trouble, and of the most vital importance to the obstructing force." The Squire was weary to death. He found it impossible to take a dutiful interest in the proceedings. The tactics of the fight did not appeal to his nature. He thought they were neither fair nor straightforward; and, unconsciously, his own opinions had been much leavened by his late familiar intercourse with Lord Ashley and his son.

In these days his chief comfort came from the friendship of Piers Exham.

The young man frequently sought his company; and it became almost a custom for them to dine together at the Tory Club. And at such times words were dropped that neither would have uttered, or even thought of, at the beginning of the contest. Thus one night Piers said, in his musing way, as he fingered his gla.s.s, rather than drank the wine in it,--

"I have been wondering, Squire, whether the wish of a whole nation, gradually growing in intensity for sixty years, until it has become, to-day, a command and a threat, is not something more than a wish?"

"I should say it was, Piers," answered the Squire. "Very likely the wish has grown to--a right."

"Perhaps."

Then both men were silent; and the next topic discussed was the new sickness, and Piers anxiously asked if "it had reached Atheling."

"No, it has not, thank the Almighty!" replied the Squire. "There has not been a case of it. My family are all well."

Allusions to Kate were seldom more definite than this one; but Piers found inexpressible comfort in the few words. Such intercourse might not seem conducive to much kind feeling; but it really was. The frequent silences; the short, pertinent sentences; the familiar, kindly touch of the young man's hand, when it was time to return to the House; the little courteous attentions which it pleased Piers to render, rather than let the Squire be indebted to a servant for them,--these, and other things quite as trivial, made a bond between the two men that every day strengthened.

[Ill.u.s.tration:]

It was nearly the end of March when the Bill once more got through the Commons; and hitherto the nation had waited as men wait the preliminaries of a battle. But they were like hounds held by a leash when the great question as to whether the Lords would now give way, or not, was to be determined. The Squire was an exceedingly sensitive man; for he was exceedingly affectionate, and he was troubled continually by the hungry, wretched, anxious crowds through which he often picked his way to Westminster, the more so, as his genial, bluff, thoroughly English appearance seemed to please and encourage these non-contents. At every step he was urged to vote on the right side. "G.o.d bless you, Squire!" was a common address. "Pity the poor! Vote for the right!

Go for Reform, Squire! Before G.o.d, Squire, we must win this time, or die for it!" And the Squire, distressed, and half-convinced of the justice of their case, would lift his hat at such words, and pa.s.s a sovereign into the hand of some lean, white-faced man, and answer, "G.o.d defend the Right, friends!" He could not tell them, as he had done in his first session, to "go home and mind their business." He could not say, as he did then, a downright "No;" could not bid them, "Reform themselves, and let the Government alone," or ask, "If they were bereft of their senses?" If he answered at all now, it was in the motto so familiar to them, "G.o.d and my Right;" or, if much urged, "I give my word to do my best." Or he would bow courteously, and say, "G.o.d grant us all good days without end." Before the Bill pa.s.sed the Commons, at the end of March, it had, at any rate, come to this,--he was not only averse to vote against the Bill, he was also averse to tell these waiting sufferers that he intended to vote against it.

On the night of the thirteenth of April, when the Bill was before the Lords, the Squire was too excited to go to bed, though prevented from occupying his seat in the Commons by a smart attack of rheumatism. He sat in his club, waiting for intelligence, and watching the pa.s.sing crowds to try and glean from their behaviour the progress of events. Piers had promised to bring him word as soon as the vote was taken. He did not arrive until eight o'clock the next morning. The Squire was drinking his coffee, and making up his mind to return to Atheling, "whatever happened," when Piers, white and exhausted, drew his chair to the table.

"The Bill has pa.s.sed this reading by nine votes," he said wearily; "and Parliament has adjourned for the Easter recess; that is, until the seventh of May. Three weeks of suspense! I do not know how it is to be endured."

"I am going to Atheling. Edgar will very likely go to Ashley, and I think you had better go with us. Three weeks of Exham winds will make a new man of you."

At this point Edgar joined them, and, greatly to his father's annoyance, declared both Atheling and Ashley out of the question. "This three weeks," he said, "will decide the fate of England. I have promised my leader to visit Warwick, Worcester, Stafford, and Birmingham. At the latter place there will be the greatest political meeting ever held in this world."

"And what will Annie say?" asked the Squire.

"Annie thinks I am doing right. Annie does not put me before the hundred of thousands to whom the success of Reform will bring happiness."