Mount Royal, Volume 2 of 3

unt Royal were darkened, and Leonard and his newly wedded wife kept within the shadow of that house of death, almost as strictly as if they had b

dor outside that darkened room had an odour of hot-house flowers. The house, folded in silence and darkness, felt like some splendid sepulchre. Leonard was deeply depressed by his mother's death; m

sense of loneliness, of dismal abandonment, in a loveless, joyless, world, when that one beloved friend was taken from her. Leonard tried his best to console her, putting aside his own sorrow, in the endeavour to comfort his bride; but his efforts at consolation were not h

ast long rest. There, in the darkness, the perfume of many flowers mixing with the cold earthy odours of the tomb, they left her who had so long been the despotic mistress of Mou

to her son everything else of which she died possessed. He was now by inheritance from his mother, and in right of his wife, master of the Champernowne estate, which, united to the Tregonell property, made him one of the largest landowners in the West of England. Christabel's for

rs. Tregonell retained for her own service, glad to have a person about her who had so dearly loved the dead. They travelled to Weymouth, crossed to Cherbourg, and thence to Paris, and on without stopping to Bordeaux; then, following the line southward, they visited all the most interesting towns of southern France-Albi, Montauban, Toulouse, Carcassonne, Narbonne, Mon

g to grow accustomed to the idea of her aunt's death-nay, had begun to look back with a dim sense of wonder at the happy time in which they two had been together, their love unclouded by any fear of doom and parting. That last year of Mrs. Tregonell's life h

and put off the aspect of gloom with the heavy crape-shrouded gown which marked the first period of her mourning. She came down to dinner one evening in a gown of rich lustreless black silk, with a cluster of Cape jasmine among

he sunset. They were dining at a private table in the public room of the hotel, Leonard having a fancy for the life and bustle of the table d'h?te rather than the seclusion of his own apartments. Chris

te table: among these two middle-aged men-one military, both

es from the men at the neighbouring table which that beauty had elicited. "By-the-by, why shouldn't we go to the opera to-night

to think of it; but I had rather not

obody knows us? And do you suppose it can make any difference

ur her memory. I will go to the opera a

answered Leonard, with a sulky air. "I only suggeste

nt counter to his; he would have loaded her with gifts, had she been willing to accept them; he was the kind of spouse who, in the estimation of the outside world, passes as a perfect husband-proud, fond, i

to think as she thought, to see as she saw. Religion, conscience, honour-for all these husband and wife had a different standard. That which was right to one was wrong to the other. Their sense of the beautiful, their estimation of art, were as wide apart as earth and heaven. How could any union prove happy-how could there be even

le at self-repression. Marriage gave him back his liberty, and he used it on more than one occasion to sneer at his wife's former lover, or at her fidelity to a canc

aloof from all sporting pursuits, and poorly provided with the London papers, reduced him almost to dumbness. Just now he was silent from temper

arette case, and went out on the balcony to smoke, l

and in voices quite loud enough to be overheard by their immediate neighbours. The soldier-like man

s talk-her mind far away in the home she had left, a desolate and ruined home, as it seemed to her,

the visitor's book. He was here last m

him?" aske

a good deal of him w

ucker, di

ell theatres-Richmond and Greenwich dinners-Maidenhead-Henley-lived in a houseboat one summer, men used to go down by the last train to moonlit suppers after the play. He had some very good ideas, and car

ho

The Colonel came u

rrogated the c

ed to be known by her intimate friends, during the run of 'Cupid and Psyche.' C

him, wasn't it?" a

plain gold ring could gratify a young person who had been surfeited with diamonds, why should our friend withhold that simple and inexpensive ornament? Whether the lady and gen

what

s. She sent her invitations far and wide, and ordered a recherché breakfast at an hotel in Brook Street. Of the sixty people she expected about fifteen appeared, and there was a rowdy air about those select few, male and female, which was by no means congenial to the broad glare of day. Night birds, every one-painted cheeks-dyed moustachios-tremulous hands-

the stage, I suppose

ay; but whether he can keep Fishky from the footlights is an open question

fond of him

who worshipped her, to take up with Luscomb,

e was in very bad h

arelessly. "It is a part of the métier-the Marguerite Gauthier, dr

the woman to whose wounded character she had sacrificed her own happiness was false and unworthy. She had been fooled-betrayed by her own generous instincts-her own emotional impulses. It would have been better for her

woman was to hide the truth from me-to let me sacrifice my love and my lover-knowing her own falsehood all the time. And now she is the wife of another man! How she must have laughed at my folly! I th

and alone. It was hard for her to think of this, whose dearest hope had once been to devote her life to caring for him and cherishing him-prolonging that frail existence b

him as I would have done," was her unselfish prayer; for she knew that

such faint chance of ever seeing again in the future. How boldly that one name seemed to stand out from the page; and even coming upon it after a deliberate search, what a thrill it sent through her veins! The signature was as firm as of old. She tried to think t

g here about three weeks ago: a Mr. Ha

silently for half a minute, and

e an i

ver went to the opera-or to any public entertainment. He rode a little-and drove a li

ere he went whe

g to the Ita

o nearly on her lost lover's footsteps. She was too wise to desire that they should ever meet face to face-that she, Leonard's wife, should ever again be moved by the magic of that vo