CHAPTER XXIX.

Ned Chester fulfilled the promise he gave to the Duchess that he would see Mrs. Lenoir safely to her home. When the exhausted woman recovered from her fainting condition and was sufficiently strong to lean on his arm and walk slowly along, he said to her:

"You may thank your stars I was near you when you fell. I am going to help you home. Where do you live?"

The strange voice and the rough manner of the man--for Ned was not always on his holiday behaviour, and the worse side of his nature invariably exhibited itself when there was nothing to be gained--caused Mrs. Lenoir to shrink from him; but, deprived of his support, she almost fell to the ground again.

"Don't be a fool!" cried Ned; "you are not strong enough to stand alone. Where do you live?"

"Who are you?"

"I am a gentleman," he replied, in a boastful tone.

His manner gave the lie to his assertion, and Mrs. Lenoir, with her fine instinct, knew that the man was a braggart. "Yes, yes--but your name?"

"Never mind my name--it won't enlighten you. Now, are you coming?"

"No," said Mrs. Lenoir; "leave me."

"What will you do if I take you at your word?" he asked brutally.

"I will wait here--I will creep on till I find her--till I see again the face I saw a little while ago, bending over me. Heaven will give me strength--Heaven will give me strength!"

"In which case," thought Ned, "I shall get myself into hot water with the Duchess. That will never do."

He adopted a more conciliatory tone.

"You foolish creature! You've been dreaming, and you'll bring trouble on yourself."

"Dreaming!" murmured Mrs. Lenoir, pressing her hands to her head. "For mercy's sake, do not tell me so! Nay, but it is not true. Let me think--let me think. No--it was not a dream. I followed her and her companion for miles through the snow, till my strength was gone. But it has come again," she said, with hysterical sobs, which she struggled with and checked; "it has come again, and I can go on. As I lay on the ground I saw her face--the face I have dreamt of for many weary years--bending over me!"

"It was my face you saw," said Ned, beginning to think that the woman was mad.

"No, no," said Mrs. Lenoir, with a wan smile, "it was the face of a lovely girl."

Ned's vanity and triumph in his conquest trapped him.

"She has a lovely face, has she not?"

"It was no dream, then," cried Mrs. Lenoir eagerly.

"No; it was no dream. Now, let me help you home. I promised her I would do so."

"You did!" sobbed Mrs. Lenoir; "she thought of me--and pitied me! Oh, my heart!"

"You'll be going off again, if you don't mind. I tell you I promised her, and I must keep my promise."

"Why must you keep your promise?"

Ned's boastful spirit was entirely beyond his control.

"Isn't the reason plain? We love each other. Is that sufficient? If you will let me help you home, I promise that you shall see her again, if you would like to."

"It is what I have lived for. You promise me--solemnly!"

"On the honour of a gentleman," said Ned, laying his hand on his heart. "Will that content you?"

"It must--it shall. You are right--I cannot walk without assistance. This is my way, I think. And you love her--and she loves you! I shall see her again! When? It must be soon! It must be soon!"

"It shall be--in a day or two. We are getting along nicely now. Ah, there's a cab--that's lucky."

He called the cab, and put Mrs. Lenoir in it.

"What street do you live in?"

She told him, and he mounted the box. In less than a quarter of an hour the cab stopped at her home. Desiring the driver to wait for him, Ned opened the street-door with the latch key she gave him.

"Shall I help you to your room?" he asked.

"No; stay here in the passage. I will get a light; I want to see your face."

She crept slowly upstairs. The passage was narrow, and, cold as the night was, Ned, a strong and sturdy man, took off his light overcoat and held it on his arm. Presently Mrs. Lenoir returned, with a lighted candle in her hand.

She raised the candle, and, shading her eyes with her hand, looked steadily at him. As she gazed into his face, a troubled expression stole into her own. It was not the face of a man to whom she would have cared to entrust the happiness of anyone dear to her.

"Well," he exclaimed, nettled at her intent observance of him, "you will know me again."

"I shall know you again," she said, as he turned from her. "You can have no objection now to tell me your name."

"Temple--Arthur Temple."

"Great God!"

He did not hear the words, nor did he see the candlestick drop from her hand, leaving her in darkness. He slammed the street-door behind him, and, resuming his seat on the cab, drove westwards.

A few minutes afterwards, a lodger coming home to the house in which Mrs. Lenoir resided, found her lying senseless in the passage. He was an old man, and had not strength to raise her. Knowing that she was more intimate with Lizzie than with any other person in the house, he knocked at the girl's door, and, waking her, told her of Mrs. Lenoir's condition. Lizzie hurriedly threw on her clothes, and hastened to the suffering woman. Assisted by the man, she carried her to her room, and Mrs. Lenoir was soon in bed, attended by the most willing and cheerful of nurses. The care Lizzie bestowed on her was not bestowed in vain, and when Mrs. Lenoir opened her eyes, she saw a bright fire burning in the room, and the girl standing by her bedside, with a cup of hot tea in her hands. Mrs. Lenoir drank the tea eagerly, and took the bread and butter which Lizzie's gentle persuasion induced her to eat. Lizzie asked no questions; she was learning how to manage the strange woman, whose secret sorrow had made so deep an impression upon her tender heart.

"You are feeling better, Mrs. Lenoir?"

"Much better and stronger, thank you, Lizzie. You are very kind to me, my dear."

"If you will let me, I will sleep with you."

Mrs. Lenoir offered no resistance to the proposal, and presently the girl and the woman were lying side by side.

"Don't mind waking me, Mrs. Lenoir, if you want me."

"No, my dear. Lizzie, you will not betray the confidence I am going to place in you. It will relieve me to speak it."

"Oh, I can keep a secret, Mrs. Lenoir."

"I believe," said Mrs. Lenoir very slowly, "that I have this night seen the face of my daughter."

"Then, you have a daughter!" cried Lizzie in a tone of delight.

"A daughter, my dear, whom I have not seen since she was a little child--and who they told me was dead. But I have seen her--I have seen her, if there is truth in nature! After all these years I have seen her--when she most needs a mother's care and counsel. I am praying now for the hours to pass quickly that I may fold her to my heart."

"Is she coming to you to-morrow, Mrs. Lenoir?"

"There is my misery. She knows nothing of me, and I am in ignorance where she lives. But I am promised--I am promised! God will help me--He will surely help me, after my long years of anguish!"

She said not another word, and Lizzie was soon asleep; but Mrs. Lenoir lay awake through the greater part of the night, with a prayer in her heart as fervent as any ever whispered to Heaven from the depths of tribulation. Towards morning, nature asserted her claim, and slumber fell upon her troubled soul.

It was almost noon when she awoke; and Lizzie was bustling about the room.

"I am going to stop with you till you're better," said the girl; "perhaps I can help you. I'll take care not to be in the way if I'm not wanted."

Mrs. Lenoir accepted the service, feeling the need of it at this crisis. She was up and dressed, and breakfast was over, when Lizzie's quick ears took her out of the room. She returned immediately.

"A gentleman is asking for a woman he saw home last night to this house. It must be you by his description."

"Let him come in, Lizzie."

Lizzie looked at Ned Chester with admiration. In her eyes he was every inch a gentleman, with his fine clothes, and gold chain, and diamond ring on his ungloved hand.

"This is Mrs. Lenoir," she said.

"Mrs. Lenoir!" he repeated. "Ah, well, I didn't know the name. Are you better?"

He had commenced speaking in a free and familiar tone, such as a man adopts who is addressing one for whom he has no great feeling of respect, but before he had uttered even these few words his tone altered. Mrs. Lenoir had taken unusual pains with her dress, and she presented so different an appearance from that which he expected--she looked so gentle and lady-like--that he was compelled into a more deferential and respectful manner.

"I am glad you are come," said Mrs. Lenoir; "I was afraid you might forget your promise, or that it had been given lightly."

"What promise?" he asked.

"That I should see her again--the young lady who was with you last night."

"Oh, the Duchess!" he exclaimed involuntarily, and the next moment biting his lips at the betrayal.

"The Duchess!" echoed Mrs. Lenoir, in amazement.

"A pet name," he said quickly. "You shall see her again, as I promised. But I have come on a different matter. I lost a silver cigar-case last night. Have you got it?"

Mrs. Lenoir rose, and gazed at him in perplexity and fear.

"I will swear I had it about me as I assisted you home. When you left me in the passage I took off my overcoat, and it dropped out of my pocket perhaps. I don't mean anything worse than that. Did you find it?"

"I don't understand you; I have not seen it. Lizzie, did you see anything in the passage when you came down to me last night?"

"No," replied Lizzie, who had listened to the conversation with intense curiosity.

Ned Chester considered in silence, uncertain for a moment how to act. The cigar-case, which had been a gift to his master, Arthur Temple, bore on it an inscription which might betray him, and he thought it not unlikely that Mrs. Lenoir intended to retain it, so that she might compel the fulfilment of his promise. There were obvious reasons why he could not run the risk of making the theft public, for he entertained no doubt that Mrs. Lenoir had robbed him. Since the previous night he had had reason to suspect that his position was growing perilous. His young master's manner had suddenly changed towards him, and he had almost determined not to return to Mr. Temple's house. With this partially-formed resolve in view, he had seen the Duchess a short time before his visit to Mrs. Lenoir, and proposed flight to her. He had taken good care of himself with respect to money, and he had about him between five and six hundred pounds. His scheme was to go to Paris with the Duchess, and thence to America, where he would be safe, and where he believed his peculiar talents might prove of service to him. At all events, with ready money at his command, a few months of enjoyment were before him, and that prospect was sufficiently alluring. But he had found the Duchess strangely reluctant to agree to the flight, and he had to use all the blandishments at his command to prevail upon her. At length she had yielded, on one condition. She would not accompany him alone, nor would she go without the society of one of her own sex. An instinct of affection for Sally had stolen into the Duchess's breast on her lover's sudden and startling proposition, and she suggested that Sally should accompany her in her flight. To this he gave a vehement refusal, and the Duchess fell back on another expedient. In his boastful moments he had told her that he had confided to some of his lady relations the secret of his attachment to a poor girl, and that, charmed with "the romance of the thing," they had promised to assist in reconciling him with his father, should any discovery take place. The Duchess, to his annoyance, remembered this, as she remembered every word he had spoken with reference to himself and his fine friends; and she stipulated that, as he objected to Sally, one of these ladies should accompany her. Seeing no way to the accomplishment of this end, he had argued with her and endeavoured to talk away her resolution. But the more he argued, the more obstinate the Duchess had become, and he was compelled to promise that her whim should be complied with.

"And mind," she said to him before they parted, "your lady friend and I must go away from London by ourselves. You can meet us in the country if you like, but when you come we must be together."

With this understanding they had parted an hour before his visit to Mrs. Lenoir.

As he stood considering these matters in the presence of Mrs. Lenoir, who, uneasy at the turn the conversation had taken, was waiting anxiously for him to speak, a happy idea, as he believed it to be, flashed across his mind. Why should he not come to an understanding with this woman, whose appearance was so lady-like and whose manners were so gentle, and palm her off upon the Duchess as one of his lady friends who had consented to accompany her in her flight? It was not at all likely that the Duchess, supposing Mrs. Lenoir were well and fashionably dressed, would recognise in her the woman whose face she had seen but once, and that but for a moment or two, and in a dim, uncertain light. Once away from England, and free from the fears of detection which were beginning to oppress him, he would experience no difficulty in getting rid of the encumbrance, and pursuing his journey to America with the Duchess alone. His eyes brightened as he looked into Mrs. Lenoir's troubled face, and said, with just a glance at Lizzie:

"I should like to have a few words with you in private."

"Leave us, Lizzie," said Mrs. Lenoir.

With a little toss of her head, indicative of a grudge against the stranger for depriving her of the means of gratifying her curiosity, Lizzie left the room.

"Mrs. Lenoir," said Ned, casting about in his mind for the proper words to use, and quite unconscious that he was the object of a deeper scrutiny than he had bestowed upon the woman before him; "Mrs. Lenoir--by the bye, that is your name?"

"Have you reason to doubt it?" enquired Mrs. Lenoir, with quickened breath.

"No; I only asked out of idle curiosity," adding, with familiar assurance, "Mrs. Lenoir, you are a poor woman."

Mrs. Lenoir made a motion with her hand, which denoted that the appearance of her room afforded a sufficient answer to the question. Her eyes never left his face, as though they were seeking to see the workings of his mind.

"You need give yourself no uneasiness," proceeded Ned, "about the cigar-case."

"I know nothing whatever of it."

"I am not implying that you do."

"Of course you are not--as a gentleman speaking to a lady."

"By Jove! that is the way to put it," cried Ned, gratified at this apparent recognition of his quality. "As a gentleman speaking to a lady! It is reasonable that I should wish to find it--not for its value; that is not of the slightest consequence, but because it was a gift, from my--my----"

"From your----"

"From my father. One wishes to keep such presents as those."

"Naturally."

"You don't speak like a common woman--you don't look like one--and you are just the woman I want."

"Has what you are saying anything to do with the young lady I saw last night?"

"You have hit it again. It has to do with her. Shall I go on?"

Mrs. Lenoir was keeping a stern control over her feelings. She saw that the man was acting a part; she saw that he was no gentleman, and that it behoved her to be careful if she wished to serve the girl who, without any reason but that born of an almost despairing hope, she believed to be her child.

"Yes; go on."

"I am going to give you my confidence," he said grandiloquently.

"I am waiting to receive it."

"Well, you know, we are in love with each other."

"You told me so last night."

"But our positions are different. I am a gentleman, and she is----"

"A lady."

"In one way, a lady; but you see she has been brought up in a common way, and among common people that it wouldn't do for me to mix with. My family will be mad enough with me as it is, but I dare say I can smooth them over after a bit, if I can show them that the girl has entirely thrown off her old companions and friends."

"What is it you propose to do, then?"

"To run away with her."

Mrs. Lenoir pressed her hand to her heart to still its wild beating; to her comprehension, quickened as it was by love, the villainy of this man was clearly unfolding itself; his tone, his words, his manner, were all betraying him.

"Gentlemen have run away with poor girls before to-day," he said, with an airy contemplation of the ring on his finger.

"Oh, yes."

"But the little witch refuses to elope unless I provide her with a lady-companion." A grateful light was in Mrs. Lenoir's eyes, and a feeling of devout thankfulness in her heart. "Well, now, if you'll agree to one thing, you shall be that lady-companion."

"I will agree to anything."

"You're a sensible woman. It isn't much to do. You must let the girl understand that you're a relation of mine--an aunt, say. She has set her foolish little mind upon it, and it won't do any harm to humour her. Do you agree?"

"Yes; when shall I see her?"

"The sooner the thing's done the better. I hate shilly-shallying. I'll send you a message this afternoon, perhaps."

"Had you not better write or come to me?"

"I mayn't be able to come; I'll write. My plan is this: that you and the young lady shall meet at a railway station, and take a train to the place I fix upon; I will follow by an after train, and pick you up in the country."

"That is a good plan," said Mrs. Lenoir, with secret joy at the opportunity he was affording her of rescuing the girl from the snare he had laid for her. "I will prepare myself."

"Make yourself presentable; dress like a lady, that's it. Here's some money--buy what you think you'll want--a fashionable dress and a spicy bonnet--it will help you to play your part; you've got good taste, I see." He placed two five-pound notes on the table. "Now I'm off."

"You will not mind my asking you a question," said Mrs. Lenoir, with lips that quivered, in spite of herself.

"Ask away."

"Has the young lady no mother?"

The words were uttered very slowly. It seemed to her that her life hung upon his answer.

"Oh, make your mind easy about that! She has no mother--never had one," with a coarse laugh. "She might be a princess for all that's known about her. But that's no business of yours."

"No. You will be sure to write to me?"

"Do you think," said Ned, with a significant look at the bank-notes, "that I'd be such a fool with my money if I didn't mean what I've said? Not likely! Take care and act the character well--tell her any stories you like about swell ladies and fine people--she likes to hear 'em. Goodbye, aunty."

With a familiar nod and swagger he passed out of the room.

Almost before Mrs. Lenoir had time to recover her composure, she was rejoined by Lizzie, whose appearance betokened a state of great excitement.

"Oh, Mrs. Lenoir," she cried, "Charlie knows him--Charlie knows him!"

"Knows whom?"

"The gentleman who has just gone out. Charlie ran round in his dinner hour to see me, and we were talking together in the passage when the gentleman passed. Charlie knew him directly, although it's years since he saw him, and although Charlie was only a boy at the time. His name's Chester--Ned Chester."

"Lizzie, you are lifting a great weight from my heart. He gave me another name. Are you sure Charlie is right?"

"Am I sure?" repeated Lizzie, with a saucy toss of her head. "Charlie is never wrong."

"Is Charlie downstairs?"

"No, he has gone back to work."

"Lizzie, will you help me if it is in your power?"

"Ah, that I will--gladly!"

"I have a presentiment that a great crisis in my life is approaching. I must not stir out of the house; I am waiting for a letter." She took her purse from her pocket, and counted the money in it; there were altogether but a very few shillings. "I want money, Lizzie," she said, casting her eyes rapidly around, and collecting all the small articles in the room upon which money could be raised. She retained but one article of value--a miniature of herself, set in a slender framework of gold. "Run and see what you can get upon these things, Lizzie; the desk was a valuable one in years gone by. I want every shilling I can raise."

"I can lend you a little, Mrs. Lenoir."

".God reward you, my dear! I Will take it. You shall be repaid, if I live."

"I know that. Why, Mrs. Lenoir!" she had caught sight of the bank-notes on the table.

"It is traitor's money, Lizzie, left by the man who was here a few minutes since. A curse, instead of a blessing might fall upon me if I used one penny of it."

At five o'clock in the afternoon, Mrs. Lenoir received the following note:

"Meet the young lady at Ludgate Hill Station at half-past six o'clock. You will find her waiting for you in the ladies' room. I have decided upon Sevenoaks as a good starting-place. I will see you there to-night.

"A.T."