ecovered composure, and she listened with what her young lover deemed
a tender interest, but what, in fact, was mournful and humbled
resignation, to his joyous talk of the future. To him the hours passed
by, brief and bright, like a flash of sunlight. And his dreams when he
retired to rest were so golden! But when he awoke the next morning, he
said to himself, "What--what will they say at the Hall?" At that same
hour Beatrice, burying her face on her pillow, turned from the loathsome
day, and could have prayed for death. At that same hour, Giulio
Franzini, Count di Peschiera, dismissing some gaunt, haggard Italians,
with whom he had been in close conference, sallied forth to reconnoitre
the house that contained Violante. At that same hour, Baron Levy was
seated before his desk, casting up a deadly array of figures,
headed, "Account with the Right Hon. Audley Egerton, M. P., Dr. and
Cr."--title-deeds strewed around him, and Frank Hazeldean's post-obit
peeping out fresh from the elder parchments. At that same hour, Audley
Egerton had just concluded a letter from the chairman of his committee
in the city he represented, which letter informed him that he had not a
chance of being re-elected. And the lines of his face were as composed
is usual, and his foot rested as firm on the grim iron box; but his hand
was pressed to his heart, and his eye was on the clock, and his voice
muttered, "Dr. F--should be here!" And that hour Harley L'Estrange, who
the previous night had charmed courtly crowds with his gay humour, was
pacing to and fro the room in his hotel with restless strides and many a
heavy sigh; and Leonard was standing by the fountain in his garden,
and watching the wintry sunbeams that sparkled athwart the spray;
and Violante was leaning on Helen's shoulder, and trying archly, yet
innocently, to lead Helen to talk of Leonard; and Helen was gazing
steadfastly on the floor, and answering but by monosyllables; and Randal
Leslie was walking down to his office for the last time, and reading,
as he passed across the Green Park, a letter from home, from his sister;
and then, suddenly crumpling the letter in his thin pale hand, he looked
up, beheld in the distance the spires of the great national Abbey;
and recalling the words of our hero Nelson, he muttered, "Victory and
Westminster, but not the Abbey!" And Randal Leslie felt that, within the
last few days, he had made a vast stride in his ambition,--his grasp
on the old Leslie