his vexation and all his efforts to the contrary, he burst into a long and hearty fit of laughter.
"Emily," said he, at length, "you are absolutely incorrigible—gravity in your company is entirely out of the question; but listen to me seriously for one moment, if you can. I will tell you plainly how I am circumstanced, and you must promise me in return that you will not quiz me any more about the matter. But first," he added, cautiously, "let us guard against eavesdroppers."
He accordingly walked into the next room, which opened upon that in which they were, and proceeded to close the far door. Before he had reached it, however, that in the other room opened, and Lady Stukely herself entered. The instant she appeared, Emily Copland by a gesture enjoined silence, nodded towards the door of the next room, from which Ashwoode's voice, as he carelessly hummed an air, was audible; she then frowned, nodded, and pointed with vehement repetition toward a dark recess in the wall, made darker and more secure by the flanking projection of a huge, black, varnished cabinet. Lady Stukely looked puzzled, took a step in the direction of the post of concealment indicated by the girl, then looked puzzled, and hesitated again. More impatiently Emily repeated her signal, and her ladyship, without any distinct reason, but with her curiosity all alive, glided behind the protecting cabinet, with all its army of china ornaments, into the recess, and there remained entirely concealed. She had hardly effected this movement, which the deep-piled carpet enabled her to do without noise, when Ashwoode returned, closed the door of communication between the two rooms, and then shut that through which Lady Stukely had just entered, almost brushing against her as he did so, so close was their proximity. These precautions taken, he returned.
"Now," said he, in a low and deliberate tone, "the plain facts of the case are just these. I am dipped over head and ears in debt—debts, too, of the most urgent kind—debts which threaten me with ruin. Now, these must be paid—one way or another they must be met. And to effect this I have but one course—one expedient, and you have guessed it. No man knows better than I what Lady Stukely is. I can see all that is ridiculous and repulsive about her just as clearly as anybody else. She is old enough to be my grandmother, and ugly enough to be the devil's—and, moreover, painted and varnished over like a signboard. She may be a fool—she may be a termagant—she may be what you please—but—but she has money. She has been throwing herself into my arms this twelvemonth or more—and—but what the deuce is that?"
This interrogatory was caused by certain choking sounds which proceeded with fearful suddenness from the place of Lady Stukely's concealment, and which were instantaneously followed by the appearance of her ladyship in bodily presence. She opened her mouth, but gave utterance to nothing but a gasp—drew herself up with such portentous and swelling magnificence, that Ashwoode almost expected to see her expand like the spectre of a magic-lantern until her head touched the ceiling. Forward she came, in her progress sweeping a score of china ornaments from the cabinet, and strewing the whole floor with the crashing fragments of monkeys, monsters, and mandarins, breathless, choking, and almost black with rage, Lady Stukely advanced to Ashwoode, who stood, for the first time in his life, bereft of every vestige of self-possession.
"Painted! varnished!" she screamed hysterically, "ridiculous! repulsive! Oh, heaven and earth! you—you preternatural monster!" With these words she uttered two piercing shrieks, and threw herself in strong hysterics into a chair, holding on her wig distractedly with one hand, for fear of accidents.
"Don't—don't ring the bell," said she, with an abrupt accession of fortitude, observing Emily Copland approach the bell. "Don't, I shall be better presently." And then, with another shriek, she opened afresh.
As the hysterics subsided, Ashwoode began a little to recover his scattered wits, and observing that Lady Stukely had sunk back in extreme languor and exhaustion, with closed eyes, he ventured to approach the shrine of his outraged divinity.
"I feel—indeed I own, Lady Stukely," he said, hesitatingly, "I have much to explain. I ought to explain—yes, I ought. I will, Lady Stukely—and—and I can entirely satisfy—completely dispel——"
He was interrupted here; for Lady Stukely, starting bolt upright in the chair, exclaimed,—
"You wretch! you villain! you perjured, scheming, designing, lying, paltry, stupid, insignificant, outrageous——"
Whether it was that her ladyship wanted words to supply a climax, or that hysterics are usually attended with such results, we cannot pretend to say, but certain it is that at this precise point the languishing, fashionable, die-away Lady Stukely actually spat in the young baronet's face.
Ashwoode changed colour, as he promptly discharged the ridiculous but very necessary task of wiping his face. With difficulty he restrained himself under this provocation, but he did command himself so far as to say nothing. He turned on his heel and walked downstairs, muttering as he went,—
"An old painted devil!"
The cool air, as he passed out, speedily dissipated the confusion and excitement of the scene that had just passed, and all the consequences of his rupture with Lady Stukely rushed upon his mind with overwhelming and maddening force.
"You were right, perfectly right—he is a cheat—a trickster—a villain!" exclaimed Lady Stukely. "Only to think of him! Oh, heaven and earth!" And again she was seized with violent hysterics, in which state she was conducted up to her bedroom by Emily Copland, who had enjoyed the catastrophe with an intensity of relish which none but a female, and a mischievous one to boot, can know.
Loud and repeated were Lady Stukely's thanksgivings for having escaped the snares of the designing young baronet, and warm and multiplied and grateful her acknowledgments to Emily Copland—to whom, however, from that time forth she cherished an intense dislike.
Chapter XXXVI.
Of Jewels, Plate, Horses, Dogs, and Family Pictures—And Concerning the Appointed Hour
In a state little, if at all, short of distraction, Sir Henry Ashwoode threw himself from his horse at Morley Court. That resource which he had calculated upon with absolute certainty had totally failed him; his last stake had been played and lost, and ruin in its most hideous aspect stared him in the face.
Spattered from heel to head with mud—for he had ridden at a reckless speed—with a face pale as that of a corpse, and his dress all disordered, he entered the great old parlour, and scarcely knowing what he did, dashed the door to with violence and bolted it. His brain swam so that the floor seemed to heave and rock like a sea; he cast his laced hat and his splendid peruke (the envy and admiration of half the petit maîtres in Dublin) upon the ground, and stood in the centre of the room, with his hands clutched upon the temples of his bare, shorn head, and his teeth set, the breathing image of despair. From this state he was roused by some one endeavouring to open the door.
"Who's there?" he shouted, springing backward and drawing his sword, as if he expected a troop of constables to burst in.
Whoever the party may have been, the attempt was not repeated.
"What's the matter with me—am I mad?" said Ashwoode, after a terrible pause, and hurling his sword to the far end of the room. "Lie there. I've let the moment pass—I might have done it—cut the Gordian knot, and there an end of all. What brought me here?"
He stared about the room, for the first time conscious where he stood.
"Damn these pictures," he muttered; "they're all alive—everything moves towards me." He flung himself into a chair and clasped his fingers over his eyes. "I can't breathe—the place is suffocating. Oh, God! I shall go mad!" He threw open one of the windows and stood gasping at it as if he stood at the mouth of a furnace.
"Everything is hot and strange and maddening—I can't endure this—brain and heart are bursting—it is HELL."
In a state of excitement which nearly amounted to downright insanity, he stood at the open window. It was long before this extravagant agitation subsided so as to allow room