Darrell’s work, it is his wicked work from first to last.”
“And do you think he will have the fortune?” Laura asked.
“I don’t know, my dear,” her guardian answered gravely, “but I think it matters very little either to you or me whether he may get the fortune or not.”
“What do you mean?” cried the girl, “how strangely you speak; how cruelly and coldly you speak of Launcelot, just as if you didn’t care whether he was rich or poor. Oh, good heavens,” she shrieked, suddenly growing wild with terror, “why do you both look at me like that? Why do you both look so anxious? I know that something dreadful has happened; something has happened to Launcelot! It’s not Mr. de Crespigny, it’s Launcelot that’s dead!”
“No, no, Laura, he is not dead. It would be better perhaps if he were. He is not a good man, Laura, and he can never be your husband.”
“Oh, I don’t care a bit about his not being good, as long as he isn’t dead,” exclaimed Laura. “I never said he was good, and never wanted him to be good. I’m not good; for I don’t like going to church three times every Sunday. The idea of your saying my poor dear Launcelot musn’t marry me because he isn’t good. I like him to be a little wicked, like the Giaour, or Manfred—though goodness gracious only knows what he’d done that he should go on as he did—I never asked him to be good. Goodness wouldn’t go well with his style of looks. It’s fair people, with wishy-washy blue eyes and straight hair, and no eyebrows or eyelashes in particular, that are generally good. I hate good people, and if you don’t let me marry Launcelot Darrell now, I shall marry him when I’m of age, and that’ll be in three years’ time.”
Miss Mason said all this with great vehemence and indignation, and then walked towards the door of the room; but Eleanor stopped her, and caught the slender little figure in her arms.
“Ah! Laura, Laura,” she cried, “you must listen to us, you must hear us, my poor darling. I know it seems very cruel to speak against the man you love, but it would be fifty times more cruel to let you marry him, and leave you to discover afterwards, when your life was linked to his, and never, never could be a happy life again if parted from him, that he was unworthy of your love. It is terrible to be told this now, Laura, it would be a thousand times more terrible to hear it then. Come with me to your room, Laura, I will stay with you all to-night. I will tell you all I know about Launcelot Darrell. I ought to have told you before, perhaps, but I waited; I waited for what I begin to think will never come.”
“I won’t believe anything against him,” cried Laura, passionately, disengaging herself from Eleanor’s embrace; “I won’t listen to you. I won’t hear a word. I know why you don’t want me to marry him: you were in love with him yourself, you know you were, and you’re jealous of me, and you want to prevent my being happy with him.”
Of all the unlucky speeches that could have been made in the presence of Gilbert Monckton, this was perhaps the most unlucky. He started as if he had been stung, and rising from his seat near the fire, took a lighted candle from a side table, and walked to the door.
“I really can’t endure all this,” he said. “Eleanor, I’ll leave you with Laura. Say what you have to say about Launcelot Darrell, and for pity’s sake let me never hear his name again. Good night.”
The two girls were left alone together. Laura had thrown herself upon a sofa, and was sobbing violently. Eleanor stood a few paces from her, looking at her with the same tender and compassionate expression with which she had regarded her from the first.
“When I see your troubles, Laura,” she said, “I almost forget my own. My poor dear child, God knows how truly I pity you.”
“But I don’t want your pity,” cried Laura. “I shall hate you if you say anything against Launcelot. Why should anybody pity me? I am engaged to the man I love, the only man I ever loved,—you know that, Eleanor; you know how I fell in love with him directly he came to Hazlewood,—and I will marry him in spite of all the world. I shall be of age in three years, and then no horrid guardians can prevent my doing what I like!”
“But you would not marry him, Laura, if you knew him to be a bad man?”
“I would never believe that he is a bad man!”
“But, my darling, you will listen to me. I must tell you the truth. I have kept it from you too long. I have been very guilty in keeping it from you. I ought to have told you when I first came back to Tolldale.”
“What ought you to have told me?”
“The story of my life, Laura. But I thought you would come between me and the victory I wanted to achieve.”
“What victory?”
“A victory over the man who caused my father’s death.”
Then, little by little, interrupted by a hundred exclamations and protestations from the sobbing girl whose head lay on her shoulder, and whose waist was encircled by her arm, Eleanor Monckton told the story of her return to Paris, the meeting on the Boulevard, and George Vane’s suicide. Little by little she contrived to explain to the wretched girl, who clung about her, and who declared again and again that she would not believe anything against Launcelot, that she could not think him cruel or treacherous,—how the artist and his vile associate, Victor Bourdon, had cheated the old man out of the money which represented his own honour and the future welfare of his child.
“You think me hard and merciless, Laura,” she cried, “and I sometimes wonder at my own feelings; but remember, only remember what my father suffered. He was cheated out of the money that had been entrusted to him. He was afraid to face his own child. Oh, my poor dear, how could you wrong me so cruelly,” she exclaimed, “how could you think that I should have spoken one word of reproach, or loved you any the less, if you had lost a dozen fortunes of mine? No, Laura, I