CHAPTER XLVI.

LAURA’S TROUBLES.

Gilbert Monckton offered Eleanor his arm as they went out of the hall and down the steps before the front entrance.

“I would have got a conveyance for you if it had been possible, Eleanor,” he said; “but of course at this time of night that is utterly out of the question. Do you think that you can manage the walk home?”

“Oh, yes; very well indeed.”

She sighed as she spoke. She felt completely baffled by what had occurred; terribly prostrated by the defeat which had befallen her. There was no hope, then. This base and treacherous man was always to triumph, however wicked, however criminal.

“Is it very late?” she asked, presently.

“Yes, very late—past one o’clock.”

The husband and wife walked homewards in silence. The road seemed even drearier than before to Eleanor, though this time she had a companion in her dismal journey. But this time despair was gnawing at her breast; she had been supported before by excitement, buoyed up by hope.

They reached Tolldale at last. The butler admitted them. He had sent all the other servants to bed, and had sat up alone to receive his master. Even upon this night of bewilderment Gilbert Monckton endeavoured to keep up appearances.

“We have been to Woodlands,” he said to the old servant. “Mr. de Crespigny is dead.”

He had no doubt that his own and his wife’s absence had given rise to wonderment in the quiet household; and he thought by this means to set all curiosity at rest. But the drawing-room door opened while he was speaking, and Laura rushed into the hall.

“Oh, my goodness gracious,” she exclaimed, “here you are at last. What I have suffered this evening! Oh I what agonies I have suffered this evening, wondering what had happened, and thinking of all sorts of horrid things.”

“But, my dear Laura, why didn’t you go to bed?” asked Mr. Monckton.

“_Go to bed!_” screamed the young lady. “Go to bed, with my poor brain bursting with suspense. I’m sure if people’s brains _do_ burst, it’s a wonder mine hasn’t to-night, and I thought ever so many times it was going to do it. First Eleanor goes out without leaving word where _she’s_ gone; and then you go out without leaving word where _you’re_ gone; and then you both stay away for hours, and hours, and hours. And there I sit all the time watching the clock, with nobody but the Skye to keep me company: until I get so nervous that I daren’t look behind me, and I almost begin to feel as if the Skye was a demon dog! And, oh, do tell me what in goodness’ name has happened.”

“Come into the drawing-room, Laura; and pray don’t talk so fast. I’ll tell you presently.”

Mr. Monckton walked into the drawing-room, followed by Laura and his wife. He closed the door, and then sat down by the fire.

“I’ve had coals put on five times,” exclaimed Miss Mason; “but all the coals in the world wouldn’t keep me from shivering and feeling as if somebody was coming in through the door and looking over my shoulder. If it hadn’t been for the Skye I should have gone mad. What _has_ happened?”

“Something has happened at Woodlands—” Mr. Monckton began, gravely; but Laura interrupted him with a little shriek.

“Oh, don’t,” she cried, “don’t, please; I’d rather you didn’t. I know what you’re going to say. You must come and sleep with me to-night, Eleanor, if you don’t want to find me raving mad in the morning. No wonder I felt as if the room was peopled with ghosts.”

“Don’t be foolish, Laura,” Mr. Monckton said, impatiently. “You asked me what has happened, and I tell you. To speak plain, Mr. de Crespigny is dead.”

“Yes, I guessed that, of course, directly you began to speak in that solemn way. It’s very dreadful—not that he should be dead, you know; because I scarcely ever saw him, and when I did see him he always seemed to be deaf, or grumpy—but it seems dreadful that people should die at all; and I always fancy they’ll come walking into the room at night when I’m taking my hair down before the glass, and look over my shoulder, as they do in German stories.”

“Laura!”

“Oh, please don’t look contemptuously at me,” cried Miss Mason, piteously; “of course, if you haven’t got nerves it’s very easy to despise these things; and I wish _I’d_ been born a man or a lawyer, or something of that sort, so that I might never be nervous. Not that I believe in ghosts, you know; I’m not so childish as that I don’t believe in them, and I’m not afraid of them; _but I don’t like them_!”

Gilbert Monckton’s contemptuous expression changed to a look of pity. This was the foolish girl whom he had been about to entrust to the man he now knew to be a villain. He _now_ knew;—bah, he had paltered with his own conscience. He had known it from the first. And this poor child loved Launcelot Darrell. Her hopes, like his own, were shipwrecked; even in the egotism of his misery the strong man felt some compassion for this helpless girl.

“So, Mr. de Crespigny is dead,” Laura said, after a pause; “does Launcelot know it yet?”

“He does.”

“Was he there to-night—up at Woodlands, in spite of his nasty old aunts?”

“Yes, he was there.”

Eleanor looked anxiously, almost piteously, at Laura. The great disappointment, the death-blow of every hope, was coming down upon her; and Eleanor, who could see the hand uplifted to strike, and the cruel knife bared ready to inflict the fatal stab, shivered as she thought of the misery the thoughtless girl must have to suffer.

“But what can her misery be against my father’s,” she thought, “and how am _I_ accountable for her sorrow? It is all Launcelot 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 mustn’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. If 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, dear; 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 murmured, in a low voice, as if addressing her dead father, “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 _cannot_ forget what my father suffered; I _cannot_ be merciful to this man.”

Eleanor’s task was a very hard one. Laura would not believe; that is to say, she would not acknowledge that she believed; but she had none of the calm assurance which a perfect and entire faith in her lover should have given her. It was useless to reason with her. All Eleanor’s logic was powerless against the passionate force of this girl’s perpetual cry, the gist of which was, “I will believe no harm of him! I love him, and I will not cease to love him!”

She would not argue, or listen to Eleanor’s calm reasoning; for Mrs. Monckton was very calm in the knowledge of her own defeat, almost despairingly resigned, in the idea that all struggle against Launcelot Darrell was hopeless. Laura would not listen, would not be convinced. The man whom Eleanor had seen in Paris was not Launcelot. He was in India at that very time. He had written letters from India, and posted them thence, with foreign postage stamps. The shipbroker’s books were all wrong; what was more likely than that stupid shipbrokers’ clerks should make wrong entries in their horrid books? In short, according to poor Laura’s reasoning, Launcelot Darrell was the victim of a series of coincidences. There had happened to be a person who resembled him in Paris at the time of George Vane’s death. There happened to be a mistake in the shipbroker’s books. The figure in the water-coloured sketch that Eleanor had stolen happened to be like the old man. Miss Mason rejected circumstantial evidence in toto. As for the story of the forgery, she declared that it was all a fabrication of Eleanor’s, invented in order that the marriage should be postponed.

“You’re very cruel, Eleanor,” she cried, “and you’ve acted very treacherously, and I shouldn’t have thought it of you. First you fall in love with Launcelot Darrell; and then you go and marry my guardian; and then, when you find that you don’t like my guardian, you begrudge me my happiness; and you now want to set me against Launcelot; but I will not be set against him. THERE!”

This last decisive monosyllable was uttered amidst a torrent of sobs, and then, for a long time, the two girls sat in silence upon the sofa before the expiring fire. By-and-by, Laura nestled her head a little closer upon Eleanor’s shoulder: then a little hand, very cold, by reason of its owner’s agitation, stole into the open palm lying idle upon Mrs. Monckton’s lap; and at last, in a low voice, almost stifled by tears, she murmured:

“_Do_ you think that he is wicked? Oh! Eleanor, do you _really_ think that it was he who cheated your poor old father?”

“I know that it was he, Laura.”

“And do you believe that he has made a false will, for the sake of that dreadful money? Oh, how could he care for the money, when we might have been so happy together poor! Do you _really_ believe that he has committed—forgery?”

She dropped her voice to a whisper as she spoke the word that was so awful to her when uttered in relation to Launcelot Darrell.

“I believe it, and I know it, Laura,” Eleanor answered, gravely.

“But what will they do to him? What will become of him? They won’t hang him—will they, Eleanor? They don’t hang people for forgery now. Oh, Eleanor, what will become of him? I love him so dearly, I don’t care what he is, or what he has done. I love him still, and would die to save him.”

“You need not be afraid, Laura,” Mrs. Monckton answered, bitterly. “Launcelot Darrell will escape all evil consequences of what he has done. You may be sure of that. He will hold his head higher than he ever held it yet, Laura. He will be master of Woodlands before next week is over.”

“But his conscience, Eleanor, his conscience! He will be so unhappy—he will be so miserable.”

Laura disengaged herself from the loving arm that had supported her, and started to her feet.

“Eleanor!” she cried, “where is he? Let me go to him! It is not too late to undo all this, perhaps. He can put back the real will, can’t he?”

“No, the real will is lost.”

“He can destroy the false one, then.”

“I don’t think he will have the chance of doing that, Laura. If his heart is not hardened against remorse, he will have plenty of time for repentance between this and the time when the will is read. If he wishes to undo what he has done, he may make a confession to his aunts, and throw himself upon their mercy. They are the only persons likely to be injured by what he has done. The money was left to them in the original will, no doubt.”

“He _shall_ confess, Eleanor!” cried Laura. “I will throw myself upon my knees at his feet, and I won’t leave him till he promises me to undo what he has done. His aunts will keep the secret, for their own sakes. They wouldn’t like the world to know that their nephew could do such a wicked thing. He shall confess to them, and let them have the fortune, and then we can be married, and then we shall be as happy together as if he had never done wrong. Let me go to him.”

“Not to-night, Laura. Look at the clock.”

Eleanor pointed to the dial of the timepiece opposite them. It was half-past two o’clock.

“I will see him to-morrow morning, then, Eleanor. I _will_ see him.”

“You shall, my dear; if you think it wise or right to do so.”

But Laura Mason did not see her lover the next morning; for when the morning came she was in a burning fever, brought on by the agitation and excitement of the previous night. A medical man was summoned from Windsor to attend upon her; and Eleanor sat by her bedside, watching her as tenderly as a mother watches her sick child.

Gilbert Monckton, too, was very anxious about his ward, and came to the door of Laura’s room to make inquiries many times in the course of that day.