"Because he loves her," answered Walter.

"But she does not love him," exclaimed Lilias, with a woman's instinct.

"Most certainly not."

"There is so much I have to ask about her. Tell me why it is that she has such imploring eyes. I never, on a human face, saw an expression of such mute entreaty; I saw it once in the wistful look of a poor deer which they killed on our Irish hills. I remember so well when it lay wounded, and the gamekeeper came near with the knife, it lifted up its great brown eyes with just such a dumb beseeching gaze, but that was only for a moment. It soon died, poor thing; and with Aletheia, that mournful supplication seems stamped on her countenance, as though her very life were to be spent in it."

"Ah! if you ask me about Aletheia," said Walter, "I am powerless at once. I can tell you nothing of her; she is a greater mystery in herself than all the rest put together; this only seems plain to me, that her existence is, for some unexplicable reason, one living agony."

"If I thought so I should be so angry with myself for having felt prejudiced against her, which, I confess, I have done, for a reason I could not name to you. She is so cold and statue-like, I thought she seemed lost to all human feeling; but if it be suffering, and not insensibility, which makes her move about amongst us as if she had been dead, and forced unwillingly to live again, I should try to overcome the sort of awe with which she has inspired me."

"I believe it matters little how you feel respecting her, for you will never conquer her impenetrable reserve; even poor Gabriel, who seems fascinated by her to a marvellous extent, has ever struggled vainly against her implacable calm. It is seldom, I think, that one human being can so lavish all his sympathies upon another, as he has done on her, without gaining some sign of life at least; but he tells me it is as though the living soul within her were cased in iron; he cannot draw it out of the dungeon where she seems to have buried it, to meet even for a moment his own ardent spirit."

"But I hardly wonder at this, if she does not love him," said Lilias.

"You mistake me," replied Walter: "I do not expect that she should return his affection; but she seems utterly unaware of its existence; she appears ever to be so intent in listening to some voice we cannot hear, that all human words are unheeded by her; those deep, beseeching eyes of hers are ever gazing out, as though the world and all the things of it, were but moving shadows for her, because of the greatness of some one thought which is alone reality to her; yet that there lives a most burning soul within that statue of ice, I can no more doubt than that the snows of Etna hide, but do not quench its fiery heart."

"And does no one know the secret of her life?" asked Lilias.

"No one, that I am aware of--none at least, now living; that her father did, whose idol she was, I have reason to think from some remarks of Sir Michael's; he himself knows possibly somewhat more than we do, though a.s.suredly not the real truth, nor more than some external peculiarities of her position. I have heard, however, that before she would consent to come here, even for six months, and that with the chance of being chosen as the heiress, she made certain conditions with her uncle respecting the liberty she was to be allowed. I presume this to refer chiefly to a strange visit which she receives one day in every month, on which day alone I believe has any human being seen her moved."

"And who is this visitor?" exclaimed Lilias.

"That is more than I can tell you; and all I know of him is that I have heard his sharp quick step, which certainly is the step of a man, going across the hall to the library, where Aletheia receives him; and an hour or so later I have heard the same tread as he leaves the house; then the galloping of his horse sounds for a moment on the gravel, and that is all that any one at Randolph Abbey hears of the only friend she seems to possess."

"Does even Gabriel not know him?"

"He may have seen him; but he does not know him, I am sure; it is quite wonderful how little knowledge he has acquired concerning Aletheia, considering the means he has taken to penetrate her secret--means which, I confess to you, I should have scorned to employ, even though, like him, my dearest interests were at stake; for instance, he has actually more than once tracked her in her mysterious morning walks."

"What! does she walk every day," said Lilias, in astonishment; "I found her this morning lying quite exhausted in the verandah. She must have been to a great distance; surely she does not do the same every day?"

"Every day, so far as I know, she does walk to precisely the same spot, and that several miles distance; it is certainly beyond her strength, for she is often in a state of frightful exhaustion when she returns; but even in the coldest spring mornings she used to leave the house, long before it was light, to make this pilgrimage; it seems she wishes to avoid the observation she would incur later in the day."

"Then it was cruel of Gabriel to follow her."

"It was; but I think he is often maddened to find how his great love comes beating up against the rock of her impenetrable calm, like waves upon the sh.o.r.e, leaving no trace behind."

"Do you know," said Lilias, with a wondering look in her cloudless eyes, "I think Gabriel has his mysteries too, like every one else in this strange house. I can understand his watching Aletheia, if his whole heart is for ever turning to her, as you describe; but it is not her alone, for in the short time I have know him, I am sure he has managed to find out more about me than ever I knew myself; those soft blue eyes of his seem to look so stealthily into one's soul. I am convinced he could tell you every thing I have done and said the whole of this day.

You know Sir Michael made me stay with him ever since morning, but I never pa.s.sed out of this room without meeting Gabriel in the pa.s.sage."

"That I can easily believe. I always feel as if Gabriel acted in this delectable abode the part of a cat watching innumerable mice; he has an anomalous sort of character; but one of his qualities is sufficiently distinct, which is a very acute penetration; he can divine the most intricate affairs from the smallest possible indications. For my own part, I make not the slightest attempt to conceal my innermost thoughts from him; happily I have nothing to hide, but if I had, I should let him know it at once; it would save all trouble, as he would infallibly find it out."

"But what do you mean by an anomalous character?" asked Lilias.

"A sort of double nature; he seems to me to have naturally good impulses on which some guiding hand has ingrafted a calculating disposition that sorely warps them; he has no control whatever over his pa.s.sions, yet the most perfect over his outward words and actions, whereby he effectually conceals them when he so pleases. Certain it is, that he has an indomitable will to which every thing else is subservient; but much of this inconsistency of his character may be attributed to his position; here he is the nephew of Sir Michael Randolph--the possible heir of Randolph Abbey; but he was educated by a person whom we know to be of low station, and I believe must be equally so in mind."

"His mother?" asked Lilias.

"Yes; I know nothing of her, nor does he ever allude to his past life. I do not even know where she lives; he is simply ashamed of her, I presume, and I sometimes think we should have the key-stone to Gabriel's character in a violent ambition, were it not so neutralized by his not less violent love for Aletheia. Dear Lilias, why do you start so, what do you see?"

"He is there," she said, half frightened, and glancing to the open door through which, with his soft steps, Gabriel was gliding.

"Of course, considering whom we were speaking of," said Walter, laughingly, "it is an invariable rule, you know. Come along, Gabriel,"

he added, turning to his cousin, "I need not mention that we were discussing you, as by the simple rule of cause and effect, it was that circ.u.mstance which produced your appearance."

"Not by my overhearing you," said Gabriel, quickly.

"My dear fellow, there was not the least occasion for that; you were obeying a mysterious law, which is summarily stated in a proverb quite unfit for ears polite; but your arrival is most opportune; your services will be very available to Lilias and myself; allow me to offer you a chair, and invest you at once with your office."

"And how am I to be made useful?" said Gabriel, attempting, by a forced smile, to sympathize in Walter's playful manner of viewing the subject.

"Why, you must know," and he laid an emphasis on the word _must_, for Lilias's behoof, "that Miss Lilias Randolph and I have begun a course of moral dissection of the inhabitants of this house, in which she acts the part of a young and very inexperienced surgeon, and I that of a most grave and potent doctor. We had just finished you off, and were proceeding to the dismemberment of the rest of the family; in this interesting study I think you can materially a.s.sist us, seeing you have some very sharp and subtle instrument for this species of anatomy."

"I was not aware I possessed any such," said Gabriel; "it would ill befit me in my position to make myself a judge of any here."

"Now don't begin to be humble and make us ashamed of ourselves. I consider it quite an important matter to Lilias that she should know her ground here so far as possible; so let us parade the remainder of our dear relations before her as fast as we can."

A strange smile pa.s.sed over Gabriel's face, as if he doubted that the gentle Lilias, and the frank-hearted Walter, would discover much concerning that intricate ground on which they stood; but he made no remark, and simply said--

"And who stands next on the list after my unworthy self?"

"That is for Lilias to determine; we wait your orders, lady dear."

"You are learning to speak Irish," she said, smiling.

"A most likely consummation," murmured Gabriel.

"Oh! I could say better things than that in Irish," said Walter, coughing off the slight confusion his cousin's remark had produced; "but you must really tell us whom you mean to propose for our inspection, or this council of war will last till midnight."

"This council for the preliminaries of war," said the low voice of Gabriel, giving an unpleasant aspect of truth to an expression which Walter had carelessly used with no special meaning.

For a moment Lilias made no answer; the thought which had been present with her throughout the whole of this conversation, and that which had alone, indeed, given it any interest for her, was, that she might obtain some information respecting Hubert Lyle; yet now that the time was come when she must name him or lose her opportunity, she felt, in a lower degree, something of that unwillingness to broach the subject, which we have to mention any secret act of self-devotion. The solemn music which had been the means of leading her into his presence; the unearthly serenity with which his soul had looked at her through those eyes that reminded her of the still waters of some unruffled lake, where only the glory of heaven is reflected; and above all, his infirmity, so meekly borne, had invested him with a sacredness in her mind which made her feel as if it was almost a profanation to speak of him to indifferent ears. With a slight trembling in the voice, which did not escape the quick perception of Gabriel, she said, "There is yet one of whom I would inquire--Hubert Lyle." Both her cousins started at the name, but Gabriel instantly repressed his astonishment, while Walter as freely gave vent to his.

"Is it possible you have heard of him already? who can have been bold enough to mention him?" he said.

"Why, I have not only heard of him, I have seen him."

"Seen him!" even Gabriel exclaimed at this. Lilias looked up with a smile.

"I think he must be the most mysterious of all," she said, "you seem so surprised."

"You would not wonder at that if you knew more of the 'secrets of this prison-house,'" said Walter, "which you must know is no inapt quotation as regards Hubert Lyle, for he certainly acts, in some sense, the part of Hamlet."

"Without Hamlet's soul," said Gabriel, softly.

"Without Hamlet's madness, rather, I should say; for I cannot doubt, from all I have heard, that Hubert has a n.o.ble soul, though not one which would lead him, like the Prince of Denmark, to make to himself an idol of the principle of vengeance."

"And Lilias is waiting meanwhile to tell us where she saw him," said Gabriel.