Part 11 (2/2)

Aletheia rose up.

”Lilias, you are come to live in the same house with me, and therefore is it necessary I should make to you one prayer. I do beseech you, as you hope that men will deal mercifully with your life, grant me the only mercy they can give to mine--leave me alone; forget that I exist; live as if I did not, or were dead. I ask nothing but this, to be unmolested and forgotten.”

She turned to go into the room as she spoke, but she was stopped by the appearance of Gabriel, who was creeping, with his quiet, stealthy step, towards her; his blue eyes, usually so soft, glowing with the intensity of his ardent gaze. She paused and looked at him sadly.

”Gabriel, you heard what I said to Lilias just now; it is nothing new to you; you know well and deeply what is my one desire--the pet.i.tion I make to all. Why, then, will you live, as it were in my shadow--why will you persecute me?” He made no answer, but by folding his hands in mute appeal and bowing his head humbly over them. She pa.s.sed him in silence, and went into the house. He followed softly after her, and Lilias was left alone.

The poor child drew a long breath, and felt at the moment an intense desire to be at liberty amongst the Connaught hills again, where the thoughts and words of the rough country people seemed free and fresh as the winds that blew there; all seemed so strange and mysterious in this house; she had been brought suddenly into contact with that deep human pa.s.sion of which she knew nothing, and felt as if she were in the midst of some entangled web, where nothing plain or regular was to be seen.

Her momentary wish to escape, however, died away, as the recollection came upon her, borne as it were, by the wings of memory, of the one sweet haunting voice, and solemn strain. Nor was she long left to her own reflections; Sir Michael, who so rarely left his own rooms, came in search of her, and fairly monopolized her during the whole of the day.

He persuaded her to stay with him in his laboratory, and seemed to take infinite pleasure in hearing her talk of all that had been joy to her in her past life.

And truly it was a strange sight to see her in that dark little den, with her innocent face and her fair white robes, sitting so fearlessly at the feet of the old man, telling him stories of Irish banshees, and sunny nooks in her native valley, where her nurse said the fairies danced all night long. To hear her talk, and to have her sweet presence, was to Sir Michael as though some fresh breeze were pa.s.sing over his withered soul; and the tones of her voice were so like those of his long-lost brother, that at times he could dream they were side by side again, both young, full of hope that was to bear fruit, for him at least, in bitterest despair, and with pa.s.sions yet unchained from the depth of his heart. The first pleasure he had tasted for years was in Lilias's society, and he inwardly determined to enjoy as much of it henceforward as was possible--a resolution which we may so far antic.i.p.ate as to mention he rigidly kept, to the sore discomfiture of poor little Lilias.

He had a deeper motive for it in the movement of jealousy he had witnessed in his beautiful wife, when he took his niece in his arms the day before. Indifferent as she was to him, she was too thorough a woman to relish the idea, that the sole and undivided dominion she had maintained over his heart was to be diminished by the entrance even of the most natural affection. She need have had no fears; the pa.s.sion of a life was not now to be tempered by any such influence. Lilias was to him simply an occupation for his restless mind; she preserved him from thinking, better than his chemical experiments, and, above all, she gave him the exquisite delight of feeling that he had power to move his scornful wife even yet; so Lilias was doomed from that day to be his constant companion.

He did not suppose she would like it, though he did not guess, as she sat by his side, how restlessly her poor little feet were longing to be away bounding on the soft, green gra.s.s; but he resolved to compensate her for her daily imprisonment by making her his heiress: a determination subject to any change of circ.u.mstances that might cause him to alter it, which he did not conceal either from her or the rest of the family.

We are antic.i.p.ating, however; the first day of Lilias's probation is not yet over. Very wearily it pa.s.sed, because her eager mind was bent on seeing Hubert Lyle; and not only did her uncle never mention his name, but she found no opportunity of asking any one who and what he was, and where she could meet with him again. It was not till the evening that she found the family once more a.s.sembled, and as she gazed round amongst them all with this object in her thoughts, she felt there was but one who inspired her with any confidence, or to whom she could speak freely.

This was Walter, with his fine frank countenance and winning smile; and she was very glad when they found themselves accidentally alone in the music-room, where Sir Michael left them, after listening, with evident pleasure, to her sweet voice singing like a bird in the sky.

Lilias turned round hastily to Walter, with such a pair of speaking eyes, that he laughed gayly, and answered them at once----

”How can I help you? I see you have a great deal to say.”

”Oh, yes, cousin Walter; I have been longing to speak to you; you are the only one in all this house I am not afraid of. I want you to tell me so many things!”

”And what things, dear Lilias? This is rather vague.”

”Oh, every thing about every body, they are all so mysterious.”

”Well, so they are,” he said laughing: ”I find them so myself. I can quite fancy how you feel, like a poor little fly, caught in some great web, and surrounded by spiders of all kinds and dimensions, each weaving their separate snares.”

”Precisely; and now I want you to explain all the spiders to me; you must cla.s.sify them, and tell me which are venomous, and which are not,”

she said, laughing along with him.

”I wish I could,” answered Walter, ”but they are quite beyond me--they are not in my line at all, I a.s.sure you. I never could keep a secret in my life; but I will do my best to enlighten you. I can tell you certain peculiarities at all events. Suppose we make a sort of catechism of it; you shall question and I shall answer.”

”Very well,” said Lilias, entering into the spirit of his gayety, ”and so to begin--Why does Lady Randolph look so strangely at Sir Michael, and always seem anxious to go out of the room whenever he comes in?”

”Because she hates him,” replied Walter.

”How very strange; people seem to hate a good deal at Randolph Abbey; but is it always their nearest relations, as in this case?”

”Why no; as you proceed in your catechism I doubt not we shall have occasion to mention certain hatreds in this household, which are in no sense affected by natural ties.”

”Well to proceed,” said Lilias; ”why does Gabriel hour after hour keep his eyes fixed on Aletheia, with a strange look which makes me fancy he thinks she would die if he were to cease gazing on her?”

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