CHAPTER XXIV.

ARIELLE’S VISITORS ARRIVE.

Oh, there are moments for us here, when seeing Life’s inequalities, and woe, and care, The burdens laid upon our mortal being Seem heavier than the human heart can bear.

For there are ills that come without foreboding, Lightnings that fall before the thunder’s roll, And these festering cares that by corroding Eat silently their way into the soul.

And for the evils that our race inherit, Is no strength given us that we may endure: Yes! for the Heavenly Father of our spirit Permits no sorrow that He cannot cure. PHEBE CARY.

It was noon, and the two friends, Arielle Montjoie and Net Fleming, were sitting together in the morning room, trying to interest themselves in the silk flower embroidery that Arielle had learned from the late countess and was now attempting to teach Net. But the young lady was rather absent-minded, and made many mistakes.

“Arielle, dear, I never heard of a blue rose in my life! Surely—” began Net, but her teacher cut her short with:

“Am I beginning a rose with blue silk? So I am! I must have been thinking of a violet,” and she unthreaded her needle and began to pick out the stitches.

“You were thinking of Valdimir Desparde,” thought Net, but she said nothing.

“My Lord Beaudevere and Miss Desparde,” said a footman, throwing open the door.

The baron and his young ward walked into the room.

Lady Arielle started and dropped her embroidery frame, but the next instant she recovered her self-possession and received her visitors with all that patrician repose

“That marks the caste of Vere de Vere.”

Net followed her example, and when their mutual greetings were over, seats were offered and accepted by the new arrivals.

Arielle was “expiring” for news of Valdimir, but not to have prolonged her own life would she have put the question in regard to him before learning whether he were worthy of her interest.

Net felt no such reluctance to make inquiries. She sympathized with Arielle’s anxiety and almost shared it, and she compassionated the dreary pride that prevented the young lady from relieving her own suspense; and so she turned to Lord Beaudevere and said:

“It was very vexatious—Mr. Desparde having been robbed of that family jewel, just as he arrived in the country after so long an absence. I hope he has recovered it, or got such a clew that he may do so soon and come home to his friends.”

“No, my dear, he has not yet recovered it, and he is still detained by its loss and occupied in trying to regain it,” replied Lord Beaudevere, evasively.

Lady Arielle secretly thanked Net for the question and eagerly listened to the answer and to all the words that followed.

“What hope is there of his recovering it?” inquired Net.

“Every hope, my dear. A jewel of that value cannot long be lost.”

“And when shall we see Mr. Desparde—at Christmas? It is very near, you know.”

“I trust so, my dear Mrs. Fleming.”

Net said no more, and after a few moments’ silence Lord Beaudevere turned to his youngest ward and said:

“Arielle, my love, I have a little business to transact with you. Will you favor me with a few minutes’ conversation in the library?”

“Certainly, my dear guardian, if our friends here will excuse us,” replied the young lady, with a smile on her companion.

“Of course,” “Assuredly,” answered the two visitors, with ready courtesy.

“And, Vivienne, you may enlighten Mrs. Fleming while we are gone,” said the baron, as he gave his arm to his ward and led her out of the room.

When they reached the library, Lord Beaudevere made Arielle sit down in the great arm-chair that had once been her grandfather’s.

Then he drew another and seated himself beside her and took her hand, saying:

“Arielle, my dear child, I have both good and ill news to tell you. But, to fortify your mind, I will tell you first of all that Valdimir Desparde is alive and in health, and that he is worthy of your continued regard.”

She had grown very pale at the first clause of his speech, and now, at the concluding words, she flushed rosy red.

“A false story was brought to us, my love, through a mistake of the detectives, and a _forged_ letter was sent to you by a dastardly traitor! Valdimir Desparde was never faithless to you, Arielle; he was never married, nor ever attracted to any woman save yourself.”

The baron paused to note the effect of these words on Lady Arielle.

Her face was radiant with the flush of joy, her eyes beaming with light.

“I had sometimes thought he was faithful, in the face of all adverse evidence. In the face of his flight upon our wedding morning, and the detective’s report of his wife and child, and the forged letter confessing his marriage—yes, in the face of all these, I have in my heart of heart dared to believe that he was faithful! Yet I could not act upon this belief,” murmured Arielle, in a tone of joy too deep for expression.

“The heart is often wiser than the head, my Arielle. And now, do you surmise who the forger of that false letter was?”

“Yes, I do. It was Brandon Coyle.”

“The very same, my dear. The remorseless villain who has been at the root of all your woes; whose fraudulent story, supported by unfortunate circumstances, it was that sent my young kinsman, in his unstained honor, a most wretched fugitive from his native land!”

“Oh, how could he do that?” breathed Arielle.

“You shall hear later, my dear. Brandon Coyle had all the subtlety, duplicity, and malignity of an incarnate fiend. He paused at nothing. Lately, I think, he has added murder to his list of crimes.”

“_Murder!_” uttered Lady Arielle, in a half suppressed cry.

“Yes, my dear. Very sorry am I to enter upon such a theme with you; but I began by warning you, my love, that I had bad news to communicate as well as good,” said the baron, solemnly.

“But—since Valdimir is alive, well, and constant, and since nearly all I love in the world are under this roof, at this hour, I do not see what ill news you have to tell that can affect us—Stay!” she suddenly exclaimed. “Has that evil man—injured—killed—any one in whom we are interested? Not—not his uncle?” inquired the young lady, in a half hushed voice.

“No, not his uncle,” answered the baron.

“I—feared it might be so from the way in which you spoke, and from remembering that the Uncle and nephew had left here in bad blood, and the first had threatened to make a will and disinherit the last.”

“It was not old Mr. Coyle, who is alive and well. Yet it was some one in whom we are all interested somewhat,” answered the baron, watching the effect of his words on his hearer.

But Lady Arielle only looked perplexed and compassionate.

“Who was it, then, Baron?” she inquired.

“It was poor Kit Ken.”

Lord Beaudevere was hardly prepared for the effect these words had upon Lady Arielle. She started forward, the blood rushed up to her temples, her eyes dilated and fixed themselves in a prolonged stare upon those of the speaker, and her voice was hoarse and almost inaudible as she echoed the words:

“_Kit Ken?_”

“Yes, my dear. But what is the matter? Surely—”

But before the baron could utter another word Lady Arielle had fallen back in her chair, her arms dropped by her side, her face pallid as that of a corpse, her eyes closed, and her lips open.

“Arielle! Arielle, my child! Why—” began the baron, and then he put forth his hand to ring the bell.

But her hand was laid on his to stop the action. Her touch was as cold as ice, and her voice was like the sigh of death as she inquired:

“_When did this occur?_”

“This death? This murder?”

“Yes.”

“Thursday night, or perhaps Friday morning. The crime was committed at night in a railway carriage. Let me get you a glass of wine,” said the baron, rising then and hurrying to the dining-room, for he knew the ways of the house.

There he found the table laid for luncheon, and the footman in attendance.

Without calling on the servant at all he poured out a glass of sherry from a decanter that stood upon the table and took it into the library to Lady Arielle, who had already partly recovered from the shock she had received.

She took the glass, drank the wine, and thanked the baron.

“My dear, I regret very much having given you so rude a shock. I would not have done so could I have avoided the communication,” said Lord Beaudevere, with much concern.

“Never mind, my dear guardian. Go on with your story. Do not be alarmed for me; I shall not fail again,” said Arielle, rallying her spirits.

She did not tell the baron the real cause of her extreme agitation—the dream, or vision, she had had of poor Kit Ken, on the very night of her murder. She did not speak of this experience because she did not wish to be laughed at by the baron as she had been by Net Fleming.

But, ah! Lord Beaudevere felt very unlike laughing at anything or anybody under present circumstances.

“Are you sure, my dear Arielle, that you can be brave and strong enough to hear the rest of this story?”

“Yes, I can, my guardian. Since Valdimir is alive, well, faithful, and not far off from us, I am not afraid to hear anything you have to tell me,” answered Arielle.

Then indeed Lord Beaudevere began, and with as much tenderness and delicacy as it was possible to approach a subject so terrible and revolting, he told her the story of that horrible midnight ride from his own point of view, beginning with the engagement of the reserved compartment on the Northwestern train, at Paddington Station, by an unknown man, for himself and his female companion, whom Lord Beaudevere did not hesitate to describe as Brandon Coyle and Kit Ken.

In this manner he led gradually up to the denouement of that night’s doings, still from his own standpoint—telling how the man’s form was concealed in a long ulster and his face shadowed by a cap with a low brim or visor; how he must have murdered his companion and arranged her figure and her dress to appear as if she were sleeping, and that he must have done all this between Peterborough and the Grand Junction, where he got off and quietly left the train to take some other.

How, at the Grand Junction, Valdimir Desparde, coming up from Southampton, had got on the train, and being also clothed in a black ulster, and having his head covered with a cap and his face shaded by the drooping visor, and being of the same height and size of Brandon Coyle, had been mistaken by the guard for the man who had engaged the reserved compartment and had by him been ushered into it.

How, finding the compartment dimly lighted and occupied only by one woman, whom he supposed to be sleeping, he had refrained from turning up the light, lest it should disturb the sleeper, and had ridden all the way to the Miston Branch Junction, and there left the train for the Miston special, quite ignorant that his traveling companion for so many hours was a corpse.

“And now, my dear Arielle, are you prepared for a misapprehension on the part of the authorities that has subjected us all to some annoyance and inconvenience?” inquired Lord Beaudevere, gently.

She changed color again, and began to tremble.

“They never can have suspected Valdimir Desparde of that assassination?” she faltered.

“Yes, my dear, they have; but the suspicion can be easily disproved,” the baron hastened to say, fearing the consequences of his announcement.

“Is that—is that—what has detained him at Yockley?” she inquired.

“Yes, my, dear, though his detention is but a matter of a few days. As soon as we can find some of his fellow travelers who came up with him from Southampton, to prove an _alibi_, he will be set at liberty.”

“‘Set at liberty!’” echoed Lady Arielle, her blue eyes dilating with terror, with horror. “Why—why—he is not _restrained_ of his liberty? Valdimir Desparde cannot be—they can never have dared to take _him_ in custody!”

“My dear, the law is no respecter of persons; if he had been a prince of the blood royal, they would have taken him into custody under the circumstances! But do not be alarmed. It is an inconvenience, an annoyance, but nothing more. There can be no danger. It is only a matter of a little time,” said the baron.

“When—was—he—taken?” falteringly inquired the girl.

“On the very morning of his arrival at Miston, where I met him at the station, and where we went to breakfast at the Dolphin. The murder was not discovered until the train reached Yockley. Then a party of ladies and children who were crowding into the carriage found out that the woman in the corner was a corpse, and gave the alarm. Investigation was made, and the guard, who had recognized Valdimir Desparde at the Grand Junction, and mistaken him for the man who had engaged for himself and his female companion the reserved compartment in which the girl was afterwards found murdered, gave information which caused a warrant to be made out for the arrest of Mr. Desparde.”

“How long has Valdimir been—in prison?” inquired Arielle, as if the words choked her.

“Several days,” answered the baron, after a pause for calculation.

“And all this time you have left me in ignorance of his condition, Lord Beaudevere!” said the girl, reproachfully.

“My dear, I had hoped that something would have turned up ere this to have set him at liberty, and that you might never have had occasion to be pained by the news of his arrest. I kept you in ignorance from this hope,” replied the baron.

Many other questions were asked and answered, and then Arielle said:

“My dear guardian, you must take me to see my betrothed to-morrow. I would go to-day were there time enough left.”

“But, my dear Arielle!”

“It is of no use to argue with me, Lord Beaudevere! Valdimir _is_ my betrothed! All that has happened since that broken wedding-day is as a dream dispersed. I am going to visit my betrothed in his trouble,” firmly replied the young lady.

“Well, well, my dear, I spoke only in your own interests. If you are resolved to go I will take you, and Vivienne also, to-morrow. And in this case I think that my cousin and myself will have to trespass on your hospitality to-night,” said the baron.

“It will be a comfort to have you,” replied Arielle, earnestly.

“I will send the coachman back with the carriage to tell the household not to expect us home to-night. And we can be indebted to you for the use of _your_ equipage to take us to the train to-morrow.”

This being agreed upon the baron arose and gave Lady Arielle his arm to take her back to join their friends in the drawing-room.

[Illustration: [Fleuron]]