Court Netherleigh. Mrs. Henry Wood

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       VII.

      DESPERATION.

      Alone in the oak-parlour at Moat Grange, playing soft bits of melody in the summer twilight, sat Selina Dalrymple, her very pretty face slightly flushed, her bright hair pushed from her face. Ordinarily of a calm and equable temperament, Selina was yet rather given to work herself up to restlessness on occasion. She was expecting Oscar Dalrymple; and though the excitement did not arise for himself, it did for the news he might bring.

      "There he is!" she cried, as a step was heard on the gravel. "He has walked up from the station."

      Oscar Dalrymple came in, very quiet as usual, not a speck of dust or other sign of travel upon him, looking spick and span, as though he had but come out of the next room. Oscar Dalrymple's place, a small patrimony called Knutford, lay some three or four miles off; he would probably walk on there by-and-by, if he did not sleep at the Grange.

      "I thought you would come!" exclaimed Selina, gladly springing towards him.

      "I told Mrs. Dalrymple I should return before Saturday," was his answer, as he took her hand, and kept it in his. "Where is she?"

      "Gone with Alice to dine at Court Netherleigh," replied Selina. "I sent an excuse: I was impatient to see you."

      "Thank you, Selina!" he whispered in low, warm tones. "That is a great admission from you."

      "Not to see you; but for what you might have to tell," she hastened to say. "Oscar, how vain you are!"

      She sat down in the bow-window, in what remaining light there was, and he took a chair opposite to her. Then she asked him his news.

      "Do you know exactly why I went up?" he inquired with some hesitation, in doubt how far he ought to speak.

      "I know all," she answered pointedly. "I saw Reuben's letter to mamma; and her fears are my fears. We keep it from poor Alice."

      In a hushed voice, befitting the subject and the twilight hour, Oscar related to her what he had gathered in London. The very worst impression lay on his own mind: namely, that Robert was going rapidly to the dogs, money and honour and peace, and all; nay; had already gone; but he did not make the worst of it to Selina. He said that Robert seemed to be on a downward course, and would not listen to any sort of reason.

      Selina sat in dismay; her soft dark eyes fixed on the evening sky, her hands clasped on the dress of blue silk she wore. The evening star shone in the heavens.

      "What will be the end of it, Oscar?"

      Oscar did not immediately answer. The end of it, as he fully believed, would be ruin. Utter ruin for Robert; and that would involve ruin for his mother and sisters.

      "Does Robert really play?" pursued Selina.

      "I fear he does. Yes."

      "Could—could he play away our home—Moat Grange?"

      "For his own life. That is, mortgage its revenues."

      "But you don't, surely, fear it will come to this?" she cried in agitation.

      "Selina, I hardly know what I fear. Robert is not my brother, and I could not—I had no right—to question too closely. Neither, if I had questioned, and—and heard the worst—do I see what I could have done. Matters have gone too far for any aid, any suggestion, that I could have given."

      "What would become of us? Poor mamma! Poor Alice! Oh, what a trouble!"

      "You, at least, can escape the trouble, Selina; you can let me take you out of it. My home is not the luxurious home you have been accustomed to here; but it will afford you every comfort—if you will only come to it. Oh, my love, why do you let me plead to you so long in vain!"

      Selina Dalrymple pouted her pretty red lips. Oscar loved her to folly. She did not discourage him; did not absolutely encourage him. She liked him very well, and she liked his homage, for she was one of the vainest girls living; but, as to marrying him?—that was another thing. Had he possessed the rent-roll of a duke, she would have had him tomorrow; his income was a small one, and she loved pomp and show.

      "Now, Oscar!" she remonstrated, putting him off as usual. "Is it a time to bring in that nonsense, when we are talking and thinking of poor Robert? And here come mamma and Alice, for that's Miss Upton's carriage bringing them. They said they should be home early."

      And now we have to go back some few hours. It is very inconvenient, as the world knows, to tell two portions of a story at one and the same time.

      Turning out of one of the handsomest houses in Grosvenor Square, in the bright sunshine of this same Friday afternoon in June, went Robert Dalrymple, his step spiritless, a look of perplexity and pain on his young and attractive face. He had been saying farewell to Mary Lynn, and he felt, in his despairing heart, that it must be for life. Just СКАЧАТЬ