Her Season in Bath Part 22

A knot of people had collected, and young Beresford was one. He took Leslie's arm, and said:

"Come away, and cool yourself."

"I will not cool. I will throw the lie back in that fellow's throat; and----"

But Mr. Beresford drew Leslie away; but not before Lady Betty--cloaked and m.u.f.fled, ready to step into her chair--pressed through the little crowd.

"What is it? Goodness! What is amiss, Sir Maxwell?"

"My dear lady, we have a madman to deal with--that's all. We will settle our affairs on Claverton Down, as others have done."

"Oh, mercy! don't fight a duel; it is too shocking, it's----"

But Sir Maxwell hurried Lady Betty away, saying in his cold, hard voice, which, however, trembled a little:

"That poor boy will repent insulting me; but let it not disturb you."

And then Sir Maxwell resigned Lady Betty to David's care, and she was soon lost to sight in the recesses of the chair.

The ubiquitous Zach had been on the watch, and had reached North Parade before Lady Betty.

Graves, who, as we know, had been anxiously watching for Lady Betty's return, and congratulating herself that she had got Griselda safely to her own room before her ladys.h.i.+p arrived, heard Zach's voice below.

Mrs. Abbott loved news, and thus was ready to pardon the boy's late return to the little box where he slept below-stairs, dignified with the name of the "butler's pantry;" and Graves, at the sound of voices, went to the top of the kitchen stairs, and hearing Miss Mainwaring's name, went down two or three steps.

"Is anything wrong?" she asked.

"Dear bless me, Mrs. Graves, I don't know! This boy says he has been waiting for you all these hours down in Crown Alley."

"That's an untruth," said Graves; "but what do I hear him saying about the ladies?"

"There's been a brawl in the lobby of the a.s.sembly Room, and they say the baronet and young Mr. Travers will fight afore they settle it."

Graves descended now to the kitchen, and asked with bated breath if Zach was telling the truth now, "for," she added, "the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped."

Zach's little eyes twinkled. He knew he had got his reward, so Mistress Graves might say what she liked.

"Yes," he whined, "it's a fine thing to keep a little chap like me, who works hard all day, awaiting in a place like Crown Alley."

Graves took Zach by the arm and shook him vehemently.

"You weren't there. You were gossiping by the a.s.sembly Room door. What did you hear there?"

Zach made a face, and said:

"Let go, and I'll tell you." Graves relaxed her hold. "I heard the young gent tell Sir Maxwell he was a liar, and he'd fight him about Miss Mainwaring. There! you've told me _I'm_ a liar, and I'd like to fight _you_" quoth Zach savagely.

CHAPTER XV.

CHALLENGED.

When the first heat of pa.s.sion was over, Leslie Travers went sorrowfully towards his home in King Street.

Mr. Beresford would not leave him till he saw him safely to the door, which was opened by Giles, who greeted his young master with a yawn, and said:

"The mistress has been a-bed these three hours. Ye are burning the candle at both ends, Master Leslie."

Something in Leslie's manner struck the old servant. He preceded his young master to the parlour, threw on a log, and lighted two candles, which stood like tall sentinels on either side of the mantelshelf, in heavy bra.s.s candlesticks.

"There's nothing like light and warmth if folks are down-hearted," he said to himself; "and really the young master looks down-hearted. Ah!

it's the world and its ways. The mistress has the best of it."

Little did Giles's mistress think, as she slept peacefully that night, how the leaden hours dragged on in the room below, where Leslie Travers sat and wrestled with that most relentless foe--an uneasy conscience.

A hundred years ago duels were common enough, and any man who was challenged would have been scouted as a coward if he had not accepted the challenge.

Leslie knew he had thrown the lie back to Sir Maxwell Danby, and that he should be called upon to answer for it, perhaps by his life.

He was no coward, but this very life had become sweeter to him than ever before, during the last few days.

He had gained the love of the woman who was to him a queen amongst all women, and now in vindicating her from the tongue of the slanderer, he might perhaps be on the eve of leaving her for ever.

He had often looked death in the face when he had been lying ill at the Grange, and sometimes for utter weariness it had seemed no fearful thing to die. Since his mother had come under the influence of Lady Huntingdon's ministers, Leslie had heard a great deal of "the King of Terrors," as Death was termed in their phraseology, and he had often thought that it had not worn that guise to him in times of sore sickness--rather, as a friend's arm outstretched to lull his pain and give him peace. But now--now that the strength of his young manhood was renewed--now, when life was as a pleasant song in the possession of Griselda's love, in dreams of a useful happy life, with her to sympathize in all his hopes and aims--parting from life, and all that life holds dear, was very different.

As he sat by the fire, or left his chair and paced the room, he seemed to hear words spoken in the very inner recesses of his soul.

"_I_ say unto you, love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you."

"Yes," he argued, "yes; but it is not for myself, it is for her! That man's disappointment and disgust at her rejection of his suit will goad him to say all evil of her--my pure, beautiful Griselda! And yet----"

Then he went hopelessly over the past week. That child who had come to the Herschels' doorstep; the pity which she had called to life; that expedition for the relief of the suffering man--if--if only that had never been, all this had been averted. All for a stranger, a worthless stranger, who was probably neither deserving of pity or help.

If he had known how close between Griselda and this man the tie was, how far the poor dying actor was from being a stranger to her, would his feelings have been different? would the truth have changed the aspect of things for him--made the situation more or less painful? I cannot tell.

The gray January dawn, creeping in through the holes in the shutters, and penetrating the room where the fire had burned out, and the candles died in their sockets, found Leslie in a fitful doze in the chair, into which, after walking up and down the room during the night, he had sunk at last from sheer exhaustion. On first waking he could not recall what had happened. He stretched his stiff limbs, and then the faint pallor of the dawn showed him the familiar objects in the room, and the present with all its stern realities became vivid.

He tottered upstairs to his bed, not wis.h.i.+ng his mother to find him dressed in his gay evening clothes, when she came down to breakfast.

As he pa.s.sed her door he heard her voice raised in prayer.

To pray aloud, in pleading earnest tones, had become a habit of the good people with whom Mrs. Travers had cast in her lot, and Leslie paused as he heard his name.

"My son! my son! Convert him, turn him to Thee, for he is wandering far from Thee, in pursuit of the vain pleasures of a sinful world!"