CHAPTER XXVIII. BY MRS. OLIPHANT. THE LOVES OF THE ANGELS. WHILE these events were going on at the Castle Lord Stanton, for his part, had come to a standstill in the matter which he had been drawn into so inadvertently, and which had become so very serious an occupation in his life. He was young and unacquainted with the ways of the world, and he did not know what step to take next. And he too was paralysed by the sudden catastrophe which had happened to the Squire. Was it his fault? He could scarcely help an uneasy sense that by agitating him unduly he had helped to bring on the sudden attack, and thus he had left the Castle that evening with a heavy burden on his mind. And Geoff, with entire unconsciousness of the lingering pangs of life and the tenacity of the human frame, believed, without any doubt, that Mr. Musgrave would die, and did not know what was to be done about the exile, whose position would thus be completed changed. In the meantime it seemed to him necessary to wait until the issue of this illness should be known. Thus his doubtfulness was supplanted by an apparent necessity, and the time went on with nothing done. He went at first daily to inquire for the old man, and never failed to see Lilias somewhere waiting for him with serious intent face, and eyes which questioned even when the lips did not speak. Lilias did not 'say much at any time. She examined his face with her eyes and said "Papa?" with a voice which trembled; but it became by degrees less easy to satisfy Lilias by telling her, as he did so often, that he had not forgotten, that he was doing everything that could be done, smoothing the way for her father's return, or waiting till he could more successfully smooth the way. "You do not believe me, Lily," Geoff said, with a sense of being doubted, which hurt him sadly. "Yes; but he is not your papa, Mr. Geoff, and you are grown up and don't want any one," Lilias said, with her lip quivering. The visionary child was deeply cast down by the condition of the house and the recollection of the melancholy rigid figure which she had seen carried past, with a pang of indescribable pain and terror. Lilias seemed to see him lying in his room, where Mary now spent almost all her time, pale with that deadly ashen paleness, his faded eyes half open, his helpless hands lying like bits of rag, all the grey fingers huddled together. Fright and sorrow together brought a sob out of her heart whenever she thought of this; not moving, not able to speak, or turn round, or look up at those who watched him; and still not dead! Lilias felt her heart stand still as she thought of her grandfather. And she had no one to take refuge with. Martuccia was frightened too, and would not go up or down stairs alone. Lilias, for her part, did all she could, out of pride, and shame of her own weakness, to conceal her terror; but oh, to have papa nigh to creep close to, to feel safe because he was there! A few tears dropped from her eyes. "You are grown up and you don't want any one." This went to Geoff's heart. "Oh Lily, don't you think they would let you come to my mother?" he cried; "this is too sad for you, this dismal house; and if Nello goes away as you said--" "Do you think I would go and leave Mary all alone? Nobody is sorry for Mary except me-and Mr. Pen. When she comes out of her room I go and I kiss her hand, and she cries. She would be more ill and more weary," said Lilias, with a precocious understanding, "if there was [not some little thing to give her an excuse and make her cry." "My little Lily! who [taught you all that? it must have been the angels," cried Geoff, kissing in his turn the little hand. But this touch had the same effect upon Lilias that her own kiss had on Mary. She cried and sobbed and did her best to swallow it down. Oh, Mr. Geoff! I want papa!" she cried, with that little convulsive break in her voice which is so pitiful in a child. She was seated on Mary's chair at the door of the hall, and he on the threshold at her feet. Geoff did not know what kind of halfadmiring, half-pitying sentiment he had for this child. He could not admire her enough, or wonder at her. She was but a child, not equal to him in his young manhood; and yet that very childhood in its unconsciousness was worlds above him, he thought. He felt like the man in the story who loved the fairy maiden the young Immortal; would she give up her visionary paradise for his sake and learn to look at him, not as an angel but as a woman? but for that she must be a woman first, and at present she was but a child. When he kissed her hand it cost Lilias no blush. She accepted it with childish, angelical dignity. "She took the kiss sedately-" and the dark fountains of her eyes filled full, and two great tears tumbled over, and a piteous quiver came to her lips, and she said, "Oh, Mr. Geoff, I want papa!" This was when the Squire had been ill about a week, six or seven days before Randolph took Nello away. Geoff went home riding, very full of thought. What could he do to please his little Lily? He preferred that she should creep close to himself and tell him her troubles, but he could not resist that plaint, and even though it should be against himself he must try what he could do to bring her father to her. Geoff thought a great deal on this subject, but it was very fatiguing and unsatisfactory, for he did not know what to do, and after a while he relapsed into the pleasanter path, and began to think of Lily. "Because of the angels," he said to himself as he jogged softly along, much more slowly and reflectively than his horse liked to go. He forgot where he was going and the engagements he had, and everything that was practical and important as he rambled on. The day was sweet in early autumn, the lake rippling musically upon 66 66 the beach, the sky blue and crossed by floating atoms of snowy cloud. Everything in the world was sweet and pleasant, to the young man. Because of the angels;" he had never been quite clear what these words meant, but he seemed to see quite plainly now, though he could no more have explained than he could have written Hamlet. Because of the angels!" he seemed to make a little song of it as he went on, a drowsy, delicious burden like the humming of the bee. It was not he that said it, he thought, but it murmured all about him, wrapping him in a soft enchantment. Such a visionary love as his, perhaps has need of those intoxications of etherial fancy for nothing can be so like the love of an angel as that of a young man possessed by a tender visionary passion for a child. Geoff was so wrapt in his own thoughts that he did not see for some time the beckonings and signals that were coming to him from a carriage drawn up on the road to which the path descended, along which he was moving so gently. When his attention was at last caught, he saw it was his cousin Mary, leaning half out of the window in her eagerness. "Give your horse to the footman and come in here-I have so much to say to you," she said. But when he had done as she told him and taken his seat beside her, Lady Stanton kept looking at her young cousin. 66 "What is it?" she said; you keep on smiling, and there is a little drowsy, dreamy, intoxicated air about you; what has happened, Geoff?" "Nothing; and it is unkind to say I look intoxicated. Could you not find a prettier word?" "I believe you are really, really!— Geoff, I think I know what it means, and I hope it is somebody very nice. Tell me, who is she?" "This is strange," said Geoff; "indeed, it is true, I have been visiting a lady; but she is only twelve years old," he said, turning to her with a vivid blush. "Oh, Geoff!" Mary's brow contracted, (6 you do not mean that little girl?" 'Why shouldn't I mean her? I will make you my confessor, Cousin Mary. I don't think I shall ever marry any one but little Lily. Of course she is very little, and when she is grown up she will probably have nothing to say to me; but I shall never care for any one else. Why should you shake your head? I never saw any one like her," said Geoff, growing solemn, and shaking off his blush as he saw himself opposed. "Oh, Geoff!" Mary shook her head, and contracted her beautiful brow, "I do not think anything good can come out of that family; but I must not speak. I am jealous, I suppose. How did you know I did not want you for Annie or Fanny ?" she went on with a smile that was a little strained and fictitious; for Mary knew very well that she was jealous, but not for Annie, or Fanny, or of Geoff. Hush," he said, "I loved you before Lily, but you could not have me; it is Lily, failing you. If you could but have seen her just now. The squire is lying between life and death, and Miss Musgrave, who was so good to her, is with him night and day, and poor little Lily is so lonely and frightened. She looks at me with her little lip all quivering, and says, "Papa! I want papa.' Geoff almost cried himself to recollect her piteous tone, and the tears came to Mary's eyes. "Ah! if she takes after him, Geoff! but that is just what I want to talk to you about. I have done something that you may think trash. I have spoken to Sir Henry. He is well, he has his faults like the rest of us-but he is just; he would not do a wrong thing. I told him that you had found out something 66 What did he say?" cried Geoff, breathless, for Lady Stanton made a sudden pause. She was looking across him out at the window; her eyes had strayed past his face, looking away from him as people do with a natural artifice to allow the first signs of displeasure to blow over, before they look an offended person in the face. But as she looked, Lady Stanton's countenance changed, her lips fell apart, her eyes widened out, her face paled, as if a cloud had passed over it. She gave a great cry," Oh John, John!” she said. "What is it? who is it?" cried Geoff. She made him signs to have the carriage stopped; she could not speak. she lay back in the corner, covering her face with her hands, Geoff's heart was too soft not to forget every other sentiment. her. He thought only of consoling Geoff did what he could to make the coachman hear him; but it was by no means the affair of a moment to gain the attention of that functionary, and induce him to stop. When, however, this was accomplished, Geoff obeyed the passion- "Tell me what it was," he said, ate desire in Lady Stanton's face, who soothingly. "You saw some one? all the time had been straining to look Do not cry so bitterly. You never out, and jumped to the ground. He harmed anybody in your life. Tell me looked round anxiously, while she, half you thought you sawout of the carriage, gazed back, fixing her eyes upon one of those recesses in the road, which are common in the north country. "I see no one," said Geoff. He came back to the place on which her gaze was fixed, and looked behind the wall that bounded it, and all about, but could see nothing. When he returned, he found that Mary had fallen back in her corner, and was weeping bitterly. He looked at me with such reproachful eyes. Oh, he need not; there was no reason. I would have saved or served him with my life," she cried; "and he had never any claim on me, Geoff, never any claim on me! why should he come and look at me with such reproachful eyes? If he is dead, he ought to know better than that. Surely he ought to know--" 66 The carriage, standing in the middle of the road, the young man searching about, not knowing what he was looking for, the coachman superbly indifferent on the box, contemplating the agitation. of his inferiors with god-like calm, the footman, on Geoff's horse, with his mouth open, staring, while the beautiful lady wept inside, made the strangest picture. As a matter of course, the footman, riding on in advance, had seen nothing and nobody. He avowed frankly that he was not taking any notice of the folks on the road. He might have seen a man seated on the stones, he could not be certain. Neither had the coachman taken any notice. Foot passengers did not interest either of these functionaries. And Lady Stanton did not seem able to give any further explanation. The only thing to be done was to go on. She had been on her way to Stanton to give Geoff the advantage of Sir Henry's advice and opinion, and thither, accordingly, they proceeded after this interruption. Geoff took his place again beside his cousin, perhaps a little impatient of the stoppage; but as I saw him, as plainly as I see you, Geoff; don't tell me it was a fancy. He was sitting, resting, like a man tired with walking, dusty and worn out. I noticed his weary look before I saw his face, and just as we passed he raised his head. Oh, why should he have looked at me like that, Geoff? No, I never did any one harm, much less him. I have always stood up for him, you know, since you first spoke to me. I have always said, always-even before this was found out: living people mistake each other continually; but the dead— the dead ought to know are "Who is dead?" said Geoff; you speaking of John Musgrave, who is as much alive as I am?" "If he were a living man," said Mary, solemnly, "how could I have seen him? Geoff, it is no mistake. I saw him, as I see you." "And is that why you think him dead?" said Geoff, with natural surprise. Lady Stanton raised herself erect in her corner. "Geoff, oh can you not understand?" she cried. But she did not herself quite understand what she meant. She thought from the suddenness of it, from the shock it gave her, and from the disappearance of the wayfarer, which was so inexplicable, that it was an apparition she had seen. John Musgrave could not be there, in the flesh, seated by the roadside; it was not possible; but when Geoff asked whether having seen him was an argument for thinking him dead, she had nothing to say. She wrung her hands. "I have seen him whether he is living or dead," she repeated, "and he looked at me with such eyes. He was not young as he used to be, but worn, and a little grey. I came to tell you what Sir Henry said; but here is something far, far more important. Know him! could I mistake him, do you think; how could I mistake him? Geoff, how could it be he, 61 He has not very much right to happy eyes, has he?" said Geoff; coming home an outlaw, not venturing to speak to any one. It would not be half so sad if he were a ghost. But to come back, and not to dare to trust even his friends, not to know if he has any friends, not to be able to go home and see his children like any other man, to rest on the stones at the roadside, he to whom all the land belongs. I don't wonder he looked sad," cried Geoff, half-sympathetic, half-indignant. "How was he to know even that he would find a friend in you?" sitting there, without any warning, with- she had seen than his ghost. She was out a word; but if it was he, if that was convinced by his reasoning. Oh, yes; possible, why are we going on like this? no doubt, she said, it must be so. BeAre we to desert him? give him up? I cause you saw a man unexpectedly, that am talking folly," she said, again clasping was no reason for supposing him to be her hands. "Oh, Geoff, a living man dead. Oh, no-Geoff was quite right; would not have looked at me with such she saw the reason of all he said. But eyes." Mary's head and her heart and all her being thrilled with the shock. There was a ringing in her ears, and pulses were beating all over, and her blood coursing through her veins. The very country, so familiar, seemed to change its aspect. No stronger commentary could have been on the passage of time than the sudden glimpse of the face which she had seen just now on the roadside. But Mary did not think of that. The lake and the rural road that ran by it, and the hills in the distance, seemed to take again the colors of her youth. He was nothing to her, and never had been. She had not loved him, only had "taken an interest." But all that was most poignant in her life came back to her, with the knowledge that he was here. Once more it seemed to be that time when all is vivid, when every day may be the turning-point of life-the time that was consciously but a drift and floating on of hour by hour when it existed, as is the present moment Mary was sobbing, scarcely able to speak. "Oh, tell them to go back again—tell them to go back," she cried. There was no way of satisfying her but this: the carriage turned slowly round, rolling like a ship at sea. The coach man was disgusted and unwilling. "What did she want now?" he said, telegraphing with uplifted hands and eyes to the surprised footman on Geoff's horse. Lady Stanton was not a hard mistress like her stepdaughters, nor fantastical and unreasonable as they were. She took the carriage humbly when she could get it, and would consult this very coachman's convenience before bringing him out, which no one else thought of doing. Nevertheless Lady Stanton had her character in the house, and human nature required that it should be kept up. She was the stepmother, the scapegoat. "What is she after now?" the coachman said. She got out of the carriage herself, trembling, to aid in the search, and the footman getting down, looked everywhere, even under the stones, and in the roadside hedges, but no one was there. When they resumed their way again, Mary lay back in her corner too much worn out with excitement and emotion to be able even to speak. Geoff could not tell whether she was glad or sorry to be brought to acknowledge that it was more likely to be John Musgrave whom but which, looking back upon it seemed the time of free action, of choice, of every possibility. Was it so? Might he be met with round any corner, this man who had been banished so long? In the face of death and danger had he come back, he whom nobody had expected ever to come back? A strange half-question whether everything else had come back with him, and half-certainty that nothing for her could change, was in Mary's mind as she lay back, quivering with emotion, hearing Geoff's voice in her ears, not knowing a word he said. What had Geoff to do with it young Geoff, to whom nothing had ever happened? She smiled vaguely to herself to think that the boy could think he knew. How was he to know? he was not of that time. But all the people in the road, and the very water itself, and the villages and houses, seemed to ask her, was it true? This was all the evidence on the subject from which a judgment could be formed. Randolph Musgrave (who told |