Chapter XI: Book III: Results (1)

Chapter One.

After a life in which each day was spent in happy anticipation of the pleasures of the next, the calm, quiet existence at The Towers would have been dull and cheerless to Violet. But following so soon upon the death of Waldron, under such awful circumstances, the life with Lady Lechester seemed to her, for a while at least, like that in a haven of refuge where the storm without could not reach. And had Aymer been there, or near at hand, she would in a quiet way have been happy.

For Lady Lechester was singularly kind. She made no show of sympathy, she did not ask, as some pretentiously hospitable people do every morning, if she were comfortable and had all she wished. But Agnes possessed a rare and delicate tact, the power of perceiving what others felt, of anticipating their smallest fancies.

She accommodated herself and her habits to Violet, and there grew up between them a firm friendship, and more than that—a companionship. Agnes kept no secret from Violet. Violet had none to hide from her.

There was one topic only which Violet never of her own volition approached, but she was perfectly aware that something of the kind was going on. In an indefinable manner she had learnt that Agnes had a suitor. It came to her knowledge that he was extremely wealthy, but low born in comparison with her long descent. How Agnes looked upon him it was hard to say. She was fully five-and-thirty, and that is an age at which women begin to feel that now, if ever, is the time when they must choose a companion.

On the other hand it is an age when the glamour of early hope and youthful fancy, are hardly likely to gild the first figure that approaches with a beauty not really its own. It is an age when the mind can choose calmly and deliberately, in the true sense of the word. Violet had never seen this man, or heard his name, but she knew that there was correspondence between them, for she had seen the letters with a foreign postmark. She gathered that he was in America. After which Agnes whispered that he would shortly be home, and would visit her.

“He is very handsome,” she said, for the first time speaking directly upon the subject. “He is a man who could not be passed in a crowd, even were it not for exceptional circumstances surrounding him. And yet. I do not know—I do not know.”

Then she was silent again for several days, but presently approached the inevitable topic again.

Would it be possible for a woman to really banish that topic from her mind? Agnes could the more easily confide in Violet, because she was fully aware of her love for Aymer. It is easier to speak to those who have had similar experiences, than to those who are as yet ignorant.

“He is in England, now,” said Agnes, one day. “He is not far distant. Why should I conceal it any longer? Your friend Mr Malet meets him daily, I daresay; he is a candidate for Stirmingham. It is Mr Marese Baskette.”

“I must congratulate you,” said Violet. “He is the richest man in the world, is he not?”

“He will be if he succeeds in obtaining his rights. To tell you the truth, I think the great battle he is fighting with these companies and claimants, gives me more interest in him than—than—well, I don’t know. You will see him soon. He will come directly the election is over. Now you know why I took so much interest in your letters from Mr Malet, describing the course of the family council. But I think he is wrong, dear, in the last that you showed me. I think I should like to be the owner of that great city—it is true there would be responsibilities, but then there would be opportunities, he forgets that. Think what one could do—the misery to be alleviated, the crime to be hunted out, the great work that would be possible.”

Her eyes flashed, her form dilated. It was easy to see that to the ambition innate in her nature, the idea of having an immense city to reign over, as it were, like the princesses of old, was almost irresistible. A true, good woman she was, but it would have been impossible for her not to have been ambitions.

“With _his_ talent,” she said—becoming freer upon the subject the longer she dwelt upon it—“with _his_ talent, for he is undoubtedly a clever man, with the love the populace there have for him, with my long descent—perhaps the longest in the county—which enables me to claim kindred with powerful families, with a seat in Parliament, there seems no reasonable limit to what we might not do. That is the way to put it. You shall see his letters.”

Violet read them. Marese Baskette was gifted with the power of detecting the points which pleased those he conversed or corresponded with, and upon these he dwelt and dilated. It was this that made his speeches so successful in Stirmingham. As he spoke he noted those passages and allusions which awoke the enthusiasm of the audience. Next time he omitted those sentiments which had failed to attract attention, and confined himself to those which were applauded. In half a dozen trials he produced a speech, every word of which was cheered to the echo.

So, in his intercourse with Agnes Lechester, the same faculty of perceiving what pleased, led him to disregard the ordinary method of lovers; he avoided all mention, or almost avoided, expressions of affection, or of love, and harped upon the string which he had found vibrated most willingly in her breast. The theme was ample and he did not hesitate to work upon it. He compared his position and that of Agnes when united, and when his rights were conceded, to that of the royal reigning dukes of Italy a hundred years ago—dukes whose territory in area was not large, but whose power within that area was absolute.

The city of Stirmingham was in effect a grander possession than Parma or Milan; far more valuable estimated in coin, far more influential estimated by the extent of its commerce. Without a doubt, when once he had obtained possession, the Government would soon recognise his claims and confer upon him a coronet, unless indeed Agnes preferred a career of perhaps greater power in the House of Commons. He candidly admitted his ignoble descent.

“My ancestor,” he wrote, “was a poor basket-maker; there is no attempt on my part to conceal the fact. I am perfectly well aware that upon the score of blood I am far, far, your inferior, and unable to offer a single claim to equality. The Lechesters, I know, were powerful auxiliaries of William, the Conqueror of England. The name is preserved in the Roll of Battle Abbey; it occupies an important place in the ‘early chronicles.’ Heralds have blazoned its arms, genealogists recorded its descent, poets have sung its fame. Yet remember, even in this view of the matter, that the great William himself, the feudal lord of the Lechesters, was descended upon the mother’s side from a tanner. I cannot compare my father, grand old Sternhold, with William the Conqueror; and yet, in this age when wealth is what provinces and conquered countries used to be, perhaps there may be some faint resemblance.”

Then he went on:—“I will not disguise from you the fact that in your long descent, and in your connections with the highest families in the land—not even excepting ancient royalty—I place much of my hope for recovering my legitimate possessions and for fighting my myriad enemies. To me the alliance is simply invaluable. To yourself I would fain hope it would not be without its charms. I do not approach you with a boy’s silly affection expressed in rhyme and love-sick glances. I do not follow your footsteps from place to place. It is long since I have had even ten minutes conversation with you. I have treated you as I should an equal (not in position, for there you are superior), but as my equal in mind and ability; not as your sex is commonly treated. I have not wooed you as a woman. I have asked you to be my partner, something more than my partner in the kingdom—for so in fact it is—which is mine by right.”

This tone was exactly fitted to the mind of the person he addressed. Delicate and full of benevolence, kind, thoughtful, anxious always for others good, there was still at the root of Agnes Lechester’s mind a strong vaulting ambition. An ambition which some said had warped her mind with overweening pride, which had cut her off from the natural sphere in which she should have moved, leaving her with little or no society, and which, if rumour spoke correctly, had in earlier days forced her to stifle the heart that beat responsive to another’s love.

To Violet, this calm, reasoning courtship, full of coronets and crowns, thinking of nothing but power, was inexplicable. Her heart wrapped up in Aymer, she could not understand this species of barter—of long descent and good family against wealth and property. It seemed unnatural—almost a kind of sacrilege. She fancied that Agnes was not without twinges of conscience, not without hesitation, and naturally put down her apparent vacillation to feelings, similar to those which would have animated herself under the same circumstances.

This is not the place to argue upon marriage; but in passing it does appear that both sides are right and both wrong. It does not of necessity follow that marriage must be for love only; but on the other hand it does not follow that marriage should be for convenience always, and never for affection. In the present instance, to all appearance the parties were exactly fitted to each other. It was notorious that although Lady Lechester had a sufficient income for all her purposes, and even a superfluity, that the revenue from her large estates was greatly reduced by encumbrances upon it. There were surmises that this comparatively inadequate income was one reason why Agnes saw so little society; she was too proud to mingle in a circle for which her purse was unfitted.

Marese, the moment he had an opportunity, did not lose this chance either. In a letter, which Violet was permitted to read, he gradually and by degrees approached the subject of the mortgages and other encumbrances upon the Lechester estates. Instead of being an obstacle, this very fact, he argued, was one reason why their union was singularly appropriate. At the same moment that her family and connections gave him a position for which otherwise he might have striven in vain, his wealth (Marese always kept up the belief in others that he was, even at present, extremely wealthy) would free those ancient estates, and restore them to their pristine splendour.

Then came a brief telegram, announcing that he had won the representation of Stirmingham by a majority of 1000 votes. Agnes was visibly elated. She moved with a prouder step—there was a slight flush upon her usually pale cheek. It was a proof of his genius—of that godlike genius which commands men. He possessed the same qualities which in the ages past had made the Lechesters members of the ruling race.

Violet saw that the balance bowed in his favour. If he were to come now—and he did come.

Scarcely three days after the election, Marese drove up to The Towers, and was received with a stately courtesy—a proud indifference which bewildered Violet. She knew, or thought she knew, that Agnes’s heart was beating with excitement—yet how calm, how distant and formal she appeared.

Violet looked with interest upon Marese, having heard so much of him from Aymer and Agnes.

On his part, meeting her attentive gaze and hearing her name, Marese slightly started, recovered himself, and bowed profoundly. His attention was wholly bestowed upon Lechester; the conversation between them seemed to Violet constrained and cold to the last degree. She could not help acknowledging that Marese was a handsome man—far handsomer in features and figure than was Aymer. But how different! In her heart of hearts she pitied poor Agnes if such was her choice.

They betrayed no desire whatever to be alone; on the contrary, Agnes particularly desired Violet to remain in the apartment with them. Their talk was of distant things, till it travelled round to the scene of Marese’s candidature, and finally fixed itself upon the great case. Marese was extremely sanguine in his language, and indeed he was so in reality. He had gained two important steps he said. In the first place he had partly paid off the claims of the companies for expenses incurred during their tenure of the leases, on the pretence of improving the estate. These expenses reached a preposterous figure; he had succeeded in getting them taxed and considerably reduced, and he had also succeeded in obtaining an order from the Court of Chancery that the payment of these claims should be made by instalments. He casually mentioned that the first instalment of 100,000 pounds had been paid yesterday. The second step was his admittance to Parliament, which, properly worked, would enable him to obtain the support of the party now in power.

Still further, the great family council had blown over without result. The mountain had been in labour, and a mouse had sprung forth. That spectre which had hovered over the city of Stirmingham so long—the spectre of the American claims—had at last put in its appearance, and was found to be hollow and unsubstantial. He did not think there was anything more to be dreaded from that spectral host. The building societies even, despaired of being able to prolong the contest by supporting the American claims. They could no longer refuse to give up possession on the ground that they did not know who was the true heir. It could not be denied who was the heir.

Marese stayed but one afternoon. He was too wise to make himself common. Before he went he formally asked for a private interview. What passed Violet easily gathered from what Agnes said to her afterwards.

“Mr Broughton will be here in a day or two,” she said; “tell Mr Malet to come with him. The mortgages I have told you of are to be paid off; Broughton will manage it.”

From which it was evident that a definite understanding had been come to with Marese. Agnes was silent and thoughtful all the evening. Towards the hour when they usually retired, she called Violet to the window, and put her arm round her neck.

“Suppose,” she said, “all the meadows and hills you see out there were yours, and had been your ancestors for so many centuries—remember, too, that we may die however well we feel—should you like to think that the estate would then fall into the helpless hands of one of two lunatics?”

It was clear that the natural hope of children to inherit had influenced her. Violet had heard something of the lunacy inherent in certain branches of the Lechester family:

Chapter Two.

The manner in which Marese Baskette became acquainted with Lady Lechester affords another instance of those “circumstances over which we have no control,” which have already been so strongly illustrated in this history. In the course of his purchases of land and property, old Sternhold Baskette was so shrewd and far-seeing, and so difficult to impose upon, that only once did he make any considerable mistake.

It happened that among other land which he bought at no great distance from Stirmingham, there was a small plot of not much more than two acres, which was included in a large area, and not specified particularly in the agreement. This plot had been in the hands of tenants who had lived so long upon it that they believed they had acquired a prescriptive right. They sold their right to a person whom we may call A, and A sold it in common with other property to Sternhold Baskette. The thing was done, no questions asked, and apparently no one thought anything more about it. But what piece of land is there so small that it can escape the eagle eye of an English lawyer? And especially when that lawyer is a new broom, and a rising man determined to make his mark.

So it happened that Mr Broughton, Lady Lechester’s new solicitor (and successor to his uncle’s practice), in going over the map of the estate, and comparing it with older maps, found out that there was a certain two-acre piece missing; and being anxious to recommend himself to so good a client as Lady Agnes, lost no time in tracing out the clue to it.

He had not much difficulty in discovering the facts of the case, but it was very soon apparent to his legal knowledge that although the documentary claim of Lady Agnes, and her moral right, were indisputable, yet the whole value of the little property would probably be swallowed up in costs, if an attempt was made to recover it. He represented the fact to her, but Lady Agnes at once instructed him to proceed.

The same over-mastering pride which was the one fault of her character, lent an almost sacred value to every piece of land, however small, which had once formed part of the estate of her ancestors. Not one rood of ground would she have parted with, not one perch should remain in the hands of strangers whilst she had the means of disputing possession. Yet this was the very woman who, with open-handed generosity, was ever ready to succour or assist the poor, and would not hesitate to spend large sums of money to give another person a pleasure.

Mr Broughton went to law and quickly found it a tough job, for this was one of those small properties which old Sternhold had been able to keep in his own hands, and his son Marese was not disposed to part with it, especially as with lapse of time—although situated far from the city proper—it had increased in value some twenty-five per cent.

Broughton advised Lady Agnes not to go to the inevitable expense of protracted litigation; but she was firm, and the battle began in the Courts, when suddenly, as the forces advanced to the fight, the enemy gave in and surrendered without firing a shot.

It was a piece of Theodore’s work. That subtle brain of his had perceived a means by which Marese might, if he played his cards rightly, obtain the value of this little plot of land ten times over. Why not marry this Lady Lechester? She would give him exactly what he wanted—a position and connections among the nobility which all the wealth of old Sternhold could not buy.

“Who is Lady Lechester?” asked Marese.

Theodore told him. He knew, because in the asylum at Stirmingham there were two lunatics of that family, the most profitable of the patients the asylum contained.

“If any accident should happen to either of those patients,” said Theodore, “Lady Lechester’s property would be doubled; if an accident happen to both of them, it would be trebled. Accidents sometimes happen in the best regulated asylums. The easiest way to get rid of a lunatic who exhibits homicidal tendencies is—to let him escape. He kills two or three, and then—he cuts his own throat. With a lunatic who has not got homicidal tendencies, and whose madness is, between ourselves, a _matter of opinion_—with such persons there are other methods; but no matter, get Lady Lechester first.” And Marese, seeing that his (Theodore’s) words were good, did as he was advised.

One day there called at The Towers a gentleman, who was received by Lady Agnes in the most distant manner, for she recognised his name as that of her opponent. Marese met her with a species of mingled deference and pride, exactly suited to the person he addressed. He begged pardon for his intrusion; he felt that an apology was due to Lady Lechester which written words could not convey. His lawyers had involved him in a mistaken and ungentlemanly contest. When he had learnt that his antagonist was a lady, and a lady of distinguished position, he had looked into the matter personally, and at once saw that whatever claim the chicanery of the law gave him, was far over-balanced by the moral and social right of Lady Lechester. He had at once stayed proceedings, had ordered his solicitors to immediately restore possession to Lady Lechester, and had come in person to offer his sincere apology for the trouble he had inadvertently caused.

Be sure that Marese’s personal appearance had something to do with his success. At all events Lady Agnes was deeply impressed with his conduct, which she easily ascribed to a nobility of mind; and not to be outdone, while she freely accepted the land, she insisted upon disbursing a sum sufficient to cover the money that had been spent on it.

From that hour Marese was a favoured visitor at The Towers. He came but rarely, but when he came his presence lingered after him. His name, as the heir of Stirmingham, was constantly before her in the papers and on everyone’s lips. Add to this his own deep artifice, and it is not to be wondered at that he made progress.

At last it came to pass that Broughton was engaged in arranging the clearing off of certain heavy incumbrances upon the Lechester estate, with money which Marese had received for salvage of the _Lucca_. Such an arrangement could only mean marriage.

Not long after Marese’s visit to The Towers, Aymer arrived with Broughton, bringing with him a collection of pictures, old Bibles, and some few bronzes for Lady Lechester, and a heart full of affection for Violet. He was invited to stay several days, and did so, and for that brief time the joys they had shared at The Place seemed to return. The weather of early spring was too chilly for much out-of-door exercise; but they had all the vast structure of The Towers to wander over—galleries and corridors, vast rooms where they were unlikely to be interrupted, for now the new wing had been built, very few of the servants ever entered the old rooms, and Lady Agnes never. Aymer had come with his mind full of a thousand things he had to say—of love, of hope, of projects that he had formed, and yet when they were together, and the silent rooms invited him to speak, he found himself instead listening to Violet’s low voice as she told him all about her life at The Towers, and her feelings for him. It was natural that, the first pleasures of their meeting over, Violet should speak of Lady Agnes, and Aymer of the heir, with whose fortunes he had of late seemed to be mixed up. Violet was full of a subject which she had long wanted to confide to Aymer, and yet hardly liked to write. It was about some singularities of Lady Agnes.

She was very kind, very affectionate and considerate, and yet, Violet said, it seemed to those who lived with her constantly that she had something for ever preying upon her mind. She was subject to fits of silence and abstraction, which would seize her at unaccountable times, and she would then rise and withdraw, and shut herself up in her own room for hours; and once for as long an two days she remained thus secluded.

At such times she generally used a small room in the new wing, the key of which never left her hands, and which no one entered but herself. Another singular habit which she had was going out at night, or after dusk, into the most unfrequented portion of the park. She would seem to be seized with a sudden desire to escape all notice and observation, would put on her hat, wrap herself in a plain shawl, and let the weather be what it might, go forth alone. The servants were so well acquainted with this habit that they never offered to accompany her—indeed, it was part of the household etiquette to affect not to notice her at these times. Her absence rarely exceeded an hour, but knowing that poachers were often abroad, Violet owned that these nocturnal rambles filled her with alarm while they lasted. Another peculiar thing was that Lady Agnes seemed at times as if she believed there was a third person in the room, invisible to others. Once, Violet going into her apartment, surprised her talking in an excited tone, and found to her astonishment that there was no one near her. She was about to retire, when she was transfixed with astonishment to see that Agnes held a naked sword in her hand, which she would point at some invisible object, and then speak softly in a tongue that Violet did not understand, but believed to be Latin. Violet saw that she was not perceived. Agnes’ eyes were wide open, but fixed and staring, as if she saw and yet did not see. Afraid, and yet unwilling to call assistance, Violet remained in the ante-chamber, and presently there was a profound silence. She cautiously went in and found the sword returned to its position over the mantelpiece, and Lady Agnes fast asleep in her armchair.

What ought she to do? Ought the family physician, Dr Parker, to be made acquainted with these facts, or was it best to pass them unnoticed? Violet was half afraid to say so, but at these times an ill-defined dread would arise lest Agnes’ mind was partly affected. Insanity was well known to run in the Lechester family. Violet’s gentle and affectionate mind was filled with fear lest her benefactress should suffer some injury. What had she better do?

It was a difficult question, and Aymer could not answer it. To him, Lady Lechester appeared to be of perfectly sound mind; he could hardly believe the strange things Violet had told him. At all events it would be best not to take any action at present; better wait and watch if these symptoms developed themselves. Violet should keep as close a watch upon Lady Agnes as was compatible with not arousing her suspicions, and yet—

The selfishness of the true lover came to the surface. He did not like to leave his love in a house where the mistress was certainly given to odd habits, and might possibly be really insane—not even though that mistress had shown the most disinterested and affectionate interest in her. But what could he do? His time was up, he must return to Broughton and recommence the old dreary round of labour, to recommence the book he was writing in his solitary apartments. The poor fellow was very miserable at parting, though Agnes asked him to come when he chose.

Violet was less moved than her lover. The truth was she had an unlimited confidence in Aymer’s genius, and believed it would triumph over every obstacle.

It was very strange, but these symptoms she had described to Aymer, seemed to increase and strengthen directly afterwards. Lady Lechester seemed to desire more and more to be alone: she wandered more frequently out into the park, not only by night but in the open daylight; and Violet watching her, and yet ashamed to watch, learnt which way her steps tended, and was always prepared, if any alarm was given, to start at once for the spot.

That spot was about half-a-mile, perhaps a little more, from The Towers, and just within the park walls. It was concealed from The Towers by the intervening trees which dotted the park, but there was no wood or copse to pass through in reaching it.

Wherever a rapid river eats its way through a hilly country, and where streams dash down from the hills to join it, there singular tunnels, or whatever the proper name may be, are often found. The Ise (obviously a corruption of Ouse) was a narrow, clear stream, extremely rapid, and confined between high banks, which made it, for two-thirds of its career, practically inaccessible.

At this particular place, in days gone by, it appeared as if a stream, perhaps flowing from some long extinct glacier, had cut its way down to the river by boring a narrow, circular tunnel through the bank of the river. This tunnel was narrow at the top, not larger than would admit the body of a man, but widened as it descended, till where it reached the river there was a considerable cave, and any one kneeling on the sward above could look down upon the water of the river in the dim light, and hear its gurgling, murmuring sound rise up, greatly increased in volume by the acoustic properties of the tunnel, which somewhat resembled the famed Ear of Dionysius, though of course irregular in shape. When the river was swollen with rain or snow, the water came halfway up the tunnel, and the gurgling noise then rose into a hissing, bubbling sound, like that from a huge cauldron of boiling water. Hence, perhaps, its popular name of “Pot.” Such “Pots” are to be found, more or less varied in construction, in many parts of England, and generally associated with some local tradition of supernatural beings, or of ancient heroes.

This particular funnel was known as Kickwell Pot—an apparently unmeaning name. The antiquaries, however, would have it that Kickwell was a degenerate form of Cwichhelm, the name of a famous chieftain in the days when the Saxons and Britons fought for the fairest isle of the sea. Probably, they added, Cwichhelm, in one of his numerous battles, was defeated, and perhaps forced to take refuge in this very cave, which was accessible in a canoe or small boat from below, and may have been larger and more capable of habitation then than in our time. At all events, Kickwell Pot had a bad name in the neighbourhood, and there were traditions that more than one man had lost his life, by attempting to descend its precipitous sides in search of treasure temptingly displayed by a dwarf. This may or may not have been founded upon some old worship of a water-spirit or cave-god. The effect was that the common people shunned the spot.

It was a wild place. The beech trees and the great hawthorns, which half-filled that side of the park, completely hid all view of the mansion, and on the right and left were steep downs, so thinly clad with vegetation that the chalk was bare in places. In front swirled along the dark river, whose bank rose twenty feet almost sheer cliff, and opposite was a plantation of fir. On the left hand, facing the fir plantation, was the low stone wall of the park which ended here. Near the mouth of “The Pot,” round which some one had built up a loosely-compacted wall of a few stones without mortar, to keep sheep from falling in, was the trunk of a decayed oak tree, once vast in size and reaching to a noble height, now a mere stump, but still retaining a certain weird grandeur. Its hollow trunk formed a natural hut, facing “The Pot” and the dark fir plantation.

This was a singular spot for the mistress of that fair estate to frequent almost at all hours of the day and night. No wonder that Violet, having ascertained its character, grew more and more alarmed, and kept a closer watch.

Chapter Three.

When even the most strictly logical mind looks round and investigates the phenomena attending its own existence, perhaps the first fact to attract attention by its strongly marked prominence, is the remarkable loneliness of man. He stands alone. He may have brethren, but they are far below, and like Joseph’s seen in the dream, must bow the knee to his state. There extends, as it were, behind him a vast army of bird, beast, reptile, fish, and insect, thronging the broad earth in countless myriads, whose ancestry goes back into periods of time which cannot be expressed by notation. And every one of these, from the tiniest insect to the majestic elephant, is man’s intellectual inferior; so that he stands alone on a pedestal on the apex of a huge pyramid of animal life. He looks back—there are millions of inferior creatures. He looks forward—where is his superior? His mind easily grasps the idea of a superior, but where is it? He cannot see, feel, touch, or in any way indisputably prove the existence of a superior being, or race of beings. Yet the mind within is so wonderful and so complex, that it _will_ not accept the conclusion that he really stands alone; that he is the completion and the keystone of creation. A little thought convinces him of his own shortcomings, tells him how far he is from perfection, and the analogy of all things teaches him almost instinctively to look above into the Unknown for a superior being, or a race of beings. It is contrary to all reason and logic, to all analogy and all imagination, that there should be so many myriads behind, and nothing in _front_. There must be beings in front of him in the scale of existence, just as he is in front of the beings in his rear. Where are they?

The answer to that question has peopled the whole universe with invisible beings. The solid earth beneath our feet has, according to one form of mythology, its gnomes and dwarfs, low of stature, grimy of aspect, but mighty in strength; or it has its Pluto and its Proserpine, its Titans struggling under Etna. The air and the sky above us teem with such shapes; they follow us night and day as our good and evil genii, or they engage in mighty battles—Armageddons of the angels in the empyrean, echoes of whose thundering charges reach our ears on earth.

Such a belief has existed from the earliest days; it has spread over the whole world, it dwells in our midst at this very hour; for what is the so-called spiritualism but a new development of the oldest of all creeds? Even the very atheists, or those who deny the existence of a Supreme Deity—all-creating, all-sustaining—even these admit that there is no logical argument conclusively proving that there are not races of beings superior to our imperfect bodies. Modern science goes a step farther, and all but positively asserts that there are such creatures. It has long speculated as to the possibility of life in some shape or another in the stars and suns of the firmament. One grey-headed veteran, foremost in the ranks of the hardest of all science (anatomy), gravely, and step by step, argues out and demonstrates the fact, that all known living beings are developed, as it were, from one archetypal skeleton. And he concludes with the remarkable statement that, according to all laws of geometry (another hard science), this archetypal skeleton is not exhausted yet; it is still capable of further modification, of fresh development—nay, even that the strange beings with wings and wheels seen by Ezekiel in his vision, are possibilities of the same skeleton. The belief in itself is therefore not a matter for ridicule, however much we may deplore some of the forms which it has taken.

Violet, watch how she might, never learnt the whole secret of Agnes Lechester’s apparent vagaries. The genesis of an idea in the mind is difficult to trace; but substantially the circumstances were these.

Fifteen years since, Lady Agnes Lechester was seen and loved by a certain Walter de Warren, a cornet in a dragoon regiment: a lad of good family but miserably poor. Agnes returned his affection: her heart responded to his love, but her pride forbade a marriage. He was not only poor, but had no kind of distinction: nothing whatever to mark him out from the common herd of men except a handsome face and figure. Even then the innate pride of the Lechesters was stirring in Agnes’s inner mind, and love as she might, nothing would induce her to listen to him.

This disposition on her part was encouraged by the trustees of the estate, or rather guardians, who, under pretence of keeping up the dignity of the family, represented to her that such a union would be disgraceful. Let the young man win his spurs, and then his poverty would be no obstacle in their sight. They had an object in view in retarding the marriage of their ward. It was true that no salary or commission was allowed for the management of the estate; but all wise men know that there are ways and means of making a profit in an indirect manner. Evil report said that more than one of the mortgages which encumbered the property had been incurred, not from necessity, or from the consequences of extravagance, but simply in order that these parties might receive a handsome gratuity for the permission given to put out large sums at a safe interest.

De Warren was deeply affected when Agnes calmly told him her view of the matter, admitted without reserve that she liked him—loved she could not say, though that was the truth—but added that marriage or further intercourse was impossible, so long as he remained unknown and unheard of among men.

He kissed her hand, and swore to win distinction or to perish. He at once exchanged or volunteered—I forget which, but I think the latter—into a detachment going to China.

When once Agnes had received a letter, which had travelled with its message of love and admiration over those thousands and thousands of miles of ocean, then she realised how she had cut herself off from her own darling; and her heart, before so cold and hard, softened, and was full of miserable forebodings. She lost much of her youthful beauty—the incessant anxiety that gnawed at her heart deprived her cheeks of their bloom, and her form of its graceful lines. She grew pale, even haggard, and people whispered that the heiress was fast going into a decline. Hours and hours she spent alone in the room of the old mansion where the parting had taken place. Sitting there in the Blue Room, as it was called, her mind filled with pictures of war and its dangers, her soul ever strung up to the highest pitch of anxious waiting, what wonder was it that Agnes began to see visions and to dream dreams—visions that she never mentioned, dreams that she never told. It would be easy to argue that what happened was a mere coincidence; that her fears had excited her mind; and that if the actual event had not lent a factitious importance to the affair, it would have passed as a mental delusion.

Certain it was that in May, about ten months after De Warren’s departure, Agnes grew suddenly cheerful—the very opposite to what she had been. She sang and played, and danced about the old house. She said that something had told her that De Warren was coming home. No letter had reached her to that effect; the war was still going on, and yet she was perfectly certain that for some reason or other the cornet was returning—and, what was better, was returning covered with honours. Those in the house looked upon this sudden change of spirits and manner as a certain sign that something would happen to the heiress, and her faithful old nurse (dead before Violet’s advent) kept a close watch upon her.

One day, a curious thing happened. In the midst of lunch, Lady Agnes sprang up from table with a joyful but hysterical laugh, and declared that Walter was coming on horseback, and she must go and meet him. Quick as thought she had her hat on, and rushed out of the house, the nurse following at a little distance, anxious to see what would happen.

Lady Agnes walked swiftly across the park to a little wicket-gate in the wall, where Warren used to meet her. Then she stopped and looked along the path, while the nurse hid behind the trunk of a beech tree at a short distance. In a few minutes Agnes cried out, “I hear him—I hear him; it is his footstep.” Then a minute afterwards she flung out her arms as if embracing some one, and cried, and seemed to kiss the air, uttering warm words of affection. The nurse saw nothing—only a light puff of wind stirred the leaves and caused a rustling.

Agnes in a few moments turned to the right, and began to walk, or rather glide, as it seemed to the excited fancy of the nurse, at a swift pace, all the while talking as if to some person who accompanied her, and every now and then pausing to throw her arms round his neck, and uttering an hysterical sob. She made straight for “The Pot,” and went quickly round the oak stump. The nurse followed rapidly, and as she peeped round the oak there was Lady Agnes facing her on the other side of “The Pot,” with both arms extended and her face white as death. “Walter,” she said, distinctly; “Walter, what does that red spot on your forehead mean? Are you angry?” Then she fell prone on the grass in a dead faint, and the nurse had immense trouble to get her home again.

Just a month afterwards came the news that Walter was dead, having been shot in the _forehead_ with a ball from a matchlock while leading on his men. He had won much praise by his desperate courage, and the last despatch recommended him for promotion, and for the Cross for saving life under heavy fire.

Now, looked at dispassionately by others, the whole incident resolves itself into a case of excitement and over-anxiety acting upon a naturally sensitive organisation. But it was easy to see how to Lady Agnes the affair wore a very different light. To her the imaginary shape, invisible to others, which had met her at the little wicket-gate, was real—the spirit of her lover, which had come from the wilds of China, over thousands of miles, to acquaint her in dumb show of the destruction of its body.

From that moment she became a devout believer in the power of the dead to revisit their friends. She was not alarmed. On the contrary, the thought soothed her. She expected and waited for Walter’s second approach, and spoke lovingly when he came again. For he, or the unsubstantial vision in his form, did come again and again, and always in one of two places—in the Blue Room, or beside “The Pot.” That strange freak of Nature had been the favourite resort of the lovers in the bygone time. Agnes counted the time for the approach of the spirit; those who waited upon her could tell when she believed the time for the appearance was near, by the peculiar light in her eyes, and the glow upon her cheek. At such times the superstitious servants hastened to get out of the room. After a while Agnes became conscious that these things were noticed and commented upon, and it became her practice, when she felt the time coming, to retire to her own room and lock herself in.

Reflecting upon these periodical visits of what she really believed was the spirit of her dead lover, Agnes naturally went on to consider the whole question of the existence of supernatural beings. She purchased works upon demonology and witchcraft, and being an accomplished scholar did not confine her studies to her own language, but read deeply in Agrippa, and the necromancers of the Middle Ages. There were those who said that while upon the Continent she plunged into these forbidden mysteries, and found in the recesses of foreign capitals, men with whom there still lingered the knowledge how to control the spirits of the air. In part this was true; whether self-deceived or not, it was certain that Agnes really believed there were genii with whom she could converse almost at pleasure. How was it then that, always anxious for Warren’s presence, she yet disliked The Towers?

Soon after she began to study these magical books, and to attempt to penetrate the veil which covers the ethereal world from the eyes of poor humanity, it appeared to her that whenever Walter came, his face wore a sad aspect, almost of upbraiding. And beside him there rose up a Darkness: something without form and void, and yet which was there—something which chilled her blood. After a while it began to take the shape of a thin column of darkness; even in the broad sunlight there was this spot where no light would penetrate. It came too without Walter; it rose up in the middle of the room where she sat—a dark presence, a shadow which haunted her everywhere.

I cannot explain this; I can only record that it was the case. It was this that made Agnes dislike The Towers, and live in the new wing. Yet even there she did not escape. The shadow took a shape.

There is a sentence in a certain grand old book, which prays that we may be delivered from the pestilence which walketh in darkness. The thought of that is awful enough. But there is something more awful still. Ancient books, which mention such things in a far-off manner, as if one were speaking under the breath, refer in a dim way to the noonday phantom—the phantom which meets the huntsman at midday in the green and shady wood; which stops the maiden at the fountain with her pitcher, in the glare of the sunbeams; which addresses the shepherd suddenly upon the hillside as he watches his sheep under the blue vault of the sky. To the darkness and the night, the spirits seem to have a natural claim—it is their realm; the boldest of us have sometimes felt an unaccountable creeping in the thick darkness. But at noonday, when one would naturally feel safe, by one’s side in the daylight, this is a thousand times worse. The noonday phantom came to Agnes. The dark shadow, the thin column of darkness like smoke, took to itself a shape.

Chapter Four.

Ever since the world began it has been the belief of mankind that desolate places are the special haunt of supernatural beings. To this day the merchants who travel upon camels across the deserts of the East, are firmly persuaded that they can hear strange voices calling them from among the sandhills, and that at dusk wild figures may be seen gliding over the ruins of long-lost cities. It is useless to demonstrate that the curious noises of the desert, are caused by the tension which the dead silence causes upon the nerves of the ear, or by the shifting of the sand, and the currents of air which the heated surface of the sand makes whirl about. The belief is so natural that it cannot be entirely eradicated. In the olden times in our own fair England, and not so very long ago either, there was not a wild and unfrequented place which had not got its spirit. The woods had their elves and wild huntsmen, the meadows their fairies, the fountains their nymphs, the rocks and caves their dwarfs, and the air at night was crowded with witches travelling to and fro.

Let any one who possesses a vivid imagination and a highly-wrought nervous system, even now, in this nineteenth century, with all the advantages of learning and science, go and sit among the rocks, or in the depths of the wood and think of immortality, and all that that word really means, and by-and-by a mysterious awe will creep into the mind, and it will half believe in the possibility of seeing or meeting something—_something_—it knows not exactly what.

Agnes Lechester went into the desolate places fully expecting to meet her lover, and she met—

A more desolate place than the Kickwell Pot could not easily be found in highly-cultivated England, so near to an inhabited mansion. Even in winter, when the leaves were off the trees, there was not a place where a view could be got of it from the mansion, and when there the visitor was, to all intents and purposes, isolated from the world. In summer it was still more hidden, for the thick leaves above, and the tall brake fern growing luxuriantly beneath, obstructed the view, and it was impossible to see for more than a dozen yards. There was but one spot from whence it was possible to overlook “The Pot,” and that was from the summit of the Down on the right. But this Down was totally deserted. The very sheep kept aloof from it. Its steep sides were almost inaccessible even to their nimble feet, and the soil was so thin—that no herbage grew to reward the bold climber. Shepherds kept their flocks away from that neighbourhood, for if a sheep lost its footing and stumbled, there was no escape. The body must roll and rebound till it reached the swift river below, which running between steep banks was not easy to get at, and death by drowning was certain. In the course of time many had been lost in this way, and now care was taken that the flocks should not travel in that direction. Animal life almost entirely avoided the bare chalk cliffs. Sometimes a hawk would linger on the edge, as it were, poising himself on his wings but a few feet above the ridge, as if glorying in defiance of the depth below. Sometimes a solitary crow would alight upon the hill, to devour the spoil it had carried off, in peace and undisturbed. In the fir plantation on the other side of the river a few pigeons built, and now and then a loud jay chattered, and a squirrel peeped out from the topmost branches among the cones. The woodpecker might be heard now and then tapping in the great beech trees, and a brown rabbit would start out from among the fern. But so far as man was concerned the spot was totally desolate: no path passed near, the common people avoided it. It was a desolate place.

In summer time a place to meditate in. To sit upon the sward, leaning back against the vast trunk of the dead oak tree, listening to the gentle murmur of the river, as it rose up out of the mouth of “The Pot” close to the feet. In winter a weird and sinister spot, when the trees were bare and dark, the fir trees gloomy and black, when the snow lodged in great drifts upon the Downs, and the murmur of the river rose to a dull, sullen roar, resounding up the strange, natural funnel. When the grey clouds hung over the sky, and the mist clung to the hill, and the occasional gusts of bitter wind rustled the dead beech leaves—then indeed it was a desolate place. It was here that the darkness, the thin column of smoke-like darkness, began to grow into form and shape; and as it took to itself a figure, so the vision of poor Walter faded away, and lost its distinctness of outline.

Agnes saw before her a something that was half-human and half-divine; and yet which a species of instinct told her was not wholly good, perhaps only apparently good. The face was human and yet not human—so much grander, nobler, full of passions, stronger, more irresistible than ever yet played upon the features of a man. The brow spoke of power illimitable, of foresight infinite, of design, and deep, fathomless thought. The chin and mouth spoke of iron will, of strength to rive the solid rock and overthrow a tower, of a purpose relentlessly pursued. The eyes were unbearable, searching, burning like a flame of fire. The form uncertain, ill-defined, yet full of a flowing grace and majestic grandeur. It was winged. There was a general resemblance between this being and those strange creatures—half man, half deity—which are depicted upon the slabs from the palace at Nineveh; only that those pictures are flat and tame, spiritless, mere outline representations. This was full of an intense vitality—a magnetic vigour.

It did not speak; yet she understood its thoughts and its wishes. They filled her with a swelling hope, and yet with unutterable dread:—to place herself willingly, unhesitatingly, without a grain of distrust, within those arms; to be folded to its breast; to feel the wings spread out, and to rush with breathless haste into space, seeking the home of the immortals, the bride of a spirit. The pride of her mind found an unspeakable joy in the belief that such a fate was possible for her—nay, was ever waiting for her—it was but for her to step forward, and in a moment—