wood without seeing me, or consulting me, Miss Vincent,” he said: “you must remember that I confided to you a trust.”
“A trust!”
“Yes. You promised that you would look after my foolish young ward, and take care that she did not fall in love with Mr. Darrell.”
Mr. Monckton watched the girl’s face very closely while he pronounced Launcelot Darrell’s name, but there was no revelation in that pale and wearied countenance. The gray eyes returned his gaze, frankly and unhesitatingly. Their brightness was faded, but their innocent candour remained in all its virginal beauty.
“I tried to do what you wished,” Miss Vane answered. “I am afraid that Laura does admire Mr. Darrell. But I can’t quite understand whether she is serious or not, and in any case nothing I could say would influence her much, though I know she loves me.”
“No, I suppose not,” said Mr. Monckton, rather bitterly, “women are not easily to be influenced in these matters. A woman’s love is the sublimation of selfishness, Miss Vincent. It is delightful to a woman to throw herself away; and she is perfectly indifferent as to how many unoffending victims she drags to destruction in her downfall. An Indian woman sacrifices herself out of respect to her dead husband. An English woman offers up her husband and children on the altar of a living lover. Pardon me if I speak too plainly. We lawyers become acquainted with strange stories. I should not at all wonder if my ward were to insist upon making herself miserable for life because Launcelot Darrell has a Grecian nose.”
Mr. Monckton seated himself, uninvited, by the table on which the unwashed tea-things bore testimonies to Eleanor’s neglect. He looked round the room, not rudely, for in one brief observant glance he was able to see everything, and to understand everything.
“Have you ever lived here, Miss Vincent?” he asked.
“Yes, I lived here a year and a half before I went to Hazlewood. I was very happy,” Eleanor added hastily, as if in deprecation of the lawyer’s look, which betrayed a half-compassionate interest. “My friends are very good to me, and I never wish for a better home.”
“But you have been accustomed to a better home, in your childhood?”
“No, not very much better. I always lived in lodgings, with my poor father.”
“Your father was not rich then?”
“No, not at all rich.”
“He was a professional man, I suppose?”
“No, he had no profession. He had been rich—very rich—once.”
The colour rose to Eleanor’s face as she spoke, for she suddenly recollected that she had a secret to keep. The lawyer might recognise George Vane by this description, she thought.
Gilbert Monckton fancied that sudden blush arose from wounded pride.
“Forgive me for asking you so many questions, Miss Vincent,” he said gently. “I am very much interested in you. I have been very much interested in you for a long time.”
He was silent for some minutes. Eleanor had resumed her seat near the window, and sat in a thoughtful attitude, with her eyes cast upon the ground. She was wondering how she was to make good use of this interview in discovering as much as possible of Launcelot Darrell’s antecedents.
“Will you forgive me if I ask you a few more questions, Miss Vincent?” the lawyer asked, after this brief silence.
Eleanor raised her eyes, and looked him full in the face. That bright, straight, unfaltering gaze was perhaps the greatest charm which Miss Vane possessed. She had no reason to complain that Nature had gifted her with a niggardly hand; she had beauty of feature, of outline, of colour; but this exquisitely candid expression was a rarer beauty, and a higher gift.
“Believe me,” said Mr. Monckton, “that I am actuated by no unworthy motive when I ask you to deal frankly with me. You will understand, by-and-bye, why and by what right I presume to question you. In the meantime I ask you to confide in me. You left Hazlewood at Mrs. Darrell’s wish, did you not?”
“Yes, it was at her wish that I left.”
“Her son had made you an offer of his hand?”
The question would have brought a blush to the face of an ordinary girl. But Eleanor Vane was removed from ordinary women by the exceptional story of her life. From the moment of her discovery of Launcelot Darrell’s identity, all thoughts of him as a lover, or an admirer, had been blotted out of her mind. He was removed from other men by the circumstances of his guilt; as she was set apart from other women by the revengeful purpose in her breast.
“Yes,” she said. “Mr. Darrell asked me to be his wife.”
“And did you—did you refuse him?”
“No; I gave him no answer.”
“You did not love him then?”
“Love him! Oh, no, no!”
Her eyes dilated with a look of surprise as she spoke, as if it was most astounding to her that Gilbert Monckton should ask her such a question.
“Perhaps you do not think Launcelot Darrell worthy of a good woman’s love?”
“I do not,” answered Eleanor. “Don’t talk of him, please. At least, I mean, don’t talk of him, and of—love,” she added hastily, remembering that the very thing she wished was that the lawyer should talk of Launcelot Darrell. “You—you must know a great deal of his youth. He was idle and dissipated, was he not; and—and—a card-player?”
“A card-player?”
“Yes—a gambler; a man who plays cards for the sake of winning money?”
“I never heard any one say so. He was idle, no doubt, and loitered away his time in London under the pretence of studying art; but I never remember hearing that gambling was one of his vices. However, I don’t come here to speak of him, but of you. What are you going to do, now that you have left Hazlewood?”
Eleanor was cruelly embarrassed by this question. Her most earnest wish was to return to