CHAPTER VI.

IN THE ROUND ROOM.

For a moment, awful silence, while the two men stood glaring at each other with eyes full of hatred and defiance. Richard Raleigh was the first to speak.

“Ha! Our doughty friend of the ‘Thunderer!’ Sir Knight of the Quill and Paste-pot, whose coat of arms is two pens crossed upon a background of inky paper! Mr. Jack Lyndon,” growing more and more furious, “you deserve to be punished for this audacity, and taught to know your place.”

“I have a mind to horsewhip you as I would a vicious dog!” stormed Jack, his tall form trembling with excitement, his strong hands clinching and unclinching themselves, as though longing to strike his opponent down at his feet.

“I never fight my inferiors!” snarled Raleigh, with cutting sarcasm.

“You have no inferiors outside the brute creation!” returned Jack, with stinging contempt. “By Jove!” turning with sudden energy, as Raleigh, impelled by devilish malice, caught Lillian by the arm once more in a rude grasp.

There was silence for half a second, broken by the sound of a heavy blow, followed by a sickening thud as Raleigh’s tall form swayed heavily forward and fell into a clump of shrubbery which grew near.

“Oh, Mr. Lyndon!” Lillian’s voice pealed forth in wild terror, “you have killed him!”

Jack stooped over the prostrate form, his face pale and still, in his handsome dark eyes a look that was bad to see.

“No danger of that,” he muttered, angrily, for Jack Lyndon’s temper, usually well under control, was now at white heat. “Such creatures are not so easily exterminated. Miss Leigh, I beg your pardon, but it was hardly prudent for you to venture out here alone so late.”

“Miss Raleigh sent me for a bouquet of pink rosebuds,” she returned. “I never dreamed of meeting Mr. Raleigh!” she added, innocently.

Jack’s face darkened.

“I should think not, indeed!” he panted. “Do not trouble about the flowers, Miss Leigh. I have already sent a bouquet to Miss Raleigh, which I imagine will prove satisfactory. Come, let me accompany you back to the house. That fellow yonder is recovering consciousness, and I do not care to have any further argument with him.”

Richard Raleigh, with slow and painful effort, was rising to his feet. Jack drew Lillian’s trembling hand through his arm and led her away. It was some distance back to the house; and at length, in a secluded nook, where trailing rose-vines, half denuded of their leaves, still clung to a tiny summer-house, Jack Lyndon paused.

“Lillian!”--in a tone of alarm--“Miss Leigh, you are ill, fainting!” he exclaimed. “Oh, my darling--my darling, let me stand between you and the storms of life! You are too dainty and delicate to meet the adverse winds of fate, and battle alone and single-handed. Let me--”

“Lillian!”

A shrill, high-pitched voice broke in upon his eager words with cold disapproval.

“Lillian Leigh! Good heavens! is it possible?”

And Miss Raleigh, with a white burnoose wrapped about her, and the long silken train of her azure robe flung carefully across her arm, appeared suddenly before them, like Banquo’s ghost--and quite as unexpected.

“Can it be possible”--in a grave, sweet, reproachful tone, which no one knew better than Rosamond Raleigh when and how to assume--“Lillian, whom I had believed immaculate, flirting out under the trees this wintery night, with--Why!”--with an affected start and a little shriek--“if it isn’t Mr. Lyndon! Why, Mr. Lyndon, how you startled me! I did not expect to find you here with my maid!”

There was a world of cruel significance in the sharp, cutting voice, which made Jack Lyndon gnash his teeth.

“By Jove!” he muttered under his breath, “a man has to endure unlimited insults from a woman, simply because she _is_ a woman, when ten to one if they do not deserve--”

Whatever it was which, according to Mr. Jack Lyndon, the weaker sex deserved, was destined never to be known. He had dropped Lillian’s hand, feeling the unpleasantness of her position, and longing to spare her all that he could. Pale and grave, he turned to Rosamond.

“Miss Raleigh!”--in a low voice, his eyes upon the pearl-powdered and daintily rouged face plainly revealed by the moonlight--“I entered your grounds through the side gate--the shorter way which you pointed out to me. I was on my way to the house, and _you_, when I heard a scream--a woman’s voice in wild alarm, calling for _help_! I hastened to the spot and found Miss Leigh at the very door of the greenhouse, in the grasp of a ruffian!”

“Mr. Lyndon! Upon _our_ grounds? Grafton Raleigh’s private grounds?” in an awe-stricken tone.

Jack smiled. “Even upon Mr. Grafton Raleigh’s sacred premises, my dear Miss Rosamond, the glaring insult was perpetrated. And the perpetrator was your own brother, Richard Raleigh!”

“Mr. Lyndon!”

“It is true, Miss Raleigh, I assure you. And--I must confess--I was so angry that I--knocked him down!”

“You did?” her eyes flashing wickedly. “Well, I am sure that he deserved it! I have sometimes felt an insane desire myself to knock Rick down! He is so exasperating! But now you have done it for me!”

“Oh, no! I did it to rescue Miss Leigh--as her knight-errant! And although I am sorry to be upon such terms with _your_ brother, Miss Raleigh, I could not stand quietly by and see a lady insulted--above all things, the lady who--”

“Lillian, go into the house!” cut in Miss Raleigh, sharply. “You need not be afraid to go alone! Have my opera-cloak, fan and gloves all ready by the time I reach the house. Mr. Lyndon, I have to thank you for that exquisite bouquet!” she added, laying a white hand upon his arm and lifting a radiant face to his. Impelled by an irresistible impulse, Jack bent his head and kissed the dainty fingers which rested upon his sleeve. A flush of triumph shot through Rosamond’s cheek, her heart leaped and bounded like a mad thing.

“He cares for me! I verily believe it!” she whispered to herself. “And I don’t see how he could help it! He ought to be proud and elated at winning the favor of Grafton Raleigh’s only daughter! As for that sly little minx, Lillian Leigh, I will get rid of her before many days!”

And then, leaning upon Jack Lyndon’s arm, she went slowly back to the house where mamma, in lavender brocade and diamonds, awaited her coming. If Jack had hoped to catch a glimpse of Lillian, or to breathe a few whispered words into her ear, he was grievously disappointed, for he saw her no more.

Upstairs in Miss Raleigh’s chamber Lillian heard the sound of the carriage-wheels as the carriage drove away to the opera.

“Why am I so different from other girls?” she asked herself; “I am young, well educated, not bad looking”--her eyes wandered over to the great mirror which had so often reflected Miss Raleigh’s features--“and I--I _do_ care for Mr. Lyndon. He is so noble and good; how could any one help caring for him? And she,” with a sharp sting of jealous pain stirring blindly in her heart, “_she_ likes him, I can see that, though he is poor and she the daughter of a millionaire!”

And then a pause of silence, after which Lillian started to her feet with a little cry of remorse.

“I am not pleasing papa,” she cried, her eyes full of tears; “he would like me to keep up my studies, and I have been neglectful. I will get my books and look over my French and German. When Miss Raleigh comes I will not be so tired.”

When Miss Raleigh came the midnight chimes had long been rung. She entered the room, her face full of displeasure. Jack Lyndon had been all that a gentleman--an admirer--should be that evening; but when he bade her good-night he had asked permission to speak a few words in private with Miss Leigh the next morning. “Something of importance to communicate,” he had said. Rosamond Raleigh marched straight to her own room and opened its door. Trembling with wrath, she stalked into her sleeping apartment.

“Lillian Leigh”--her voice was loud and shrill--“your conduct is disgraceful in the extreme! You have been the occasion of an insult--a gross insult to my brother--_my_ brother; do you understand me? _You_, a common servant-girl! I will have you punished as you deserve! I will disgrace you--ruin you forever--so help me Heaven, I will!”

“Miss Raleigh!”

Lillian’s voice, cold and clear, broke in upon her mad ravings.

“I have done no wrong--no intentional harm! If your brother is not a gentleman, and forgets the respect due a lady, I am not responsible. And Mr. Lyndon said--”

“Don’t mention his name!” stormed Rosamond. “He has been making light of you to me to-night--laughed at you, made sport of you. He says that you threw yourself in his way!”

“Miss Raleigh, I do not believe you! I do not believe a word that you say. Mr. Lyndon is a gentleman.”

“You--don’t--believe me?” panted Rosamond--“don’t--believe _me_? Take that--and that, you beggar!” bringing her hand down with all its sharp, glittering rings across Lillian’s pale cheeks in a shower of stinging blows. “You shall go into the round room and sleep upon the sofa!” raved Miss Raleigh. “To-morrow your bed shall be brought there!”

She unlocked the door of communication between the two rooms, and dragging Lillian after her by the arm, too overcome by the insults which had been heaped upon her to utter a word, she entered the round room. Moonlight streamed in at the window--or was it moonlight? No; the shade was closely drawn; but a soft, clear radiance was diffused through the room. And there, in its old place at the window, sat a slight, drooping figure--a thin, attenuated form--while the shadowy fingers were painting--painting away at an amber satin panel--a task that was never done, that would never be done! And the strange, soft light which shone throughout the apartment disclosed the features of the dead Noisette.