The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-12-03 00:00:00

SATURDAY, DEC. 3, 1887.

I ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]
NOBLER THAN REVENGE.

BY THE
Author of "The Heiress of Atherstone Grange."

CHA.PTER XLIX.
HIS BRIDE AND HIS DARLING TO BE.
Bring flowers, bright flowers, for the bride to wear,
They were born to blnsli in her shiny hair.'—HEmANs.
MR. INGRAM and his nephew talked long and
earnestly after they had retired to the pleasant room
set apart for them in Mrs. Hansard's hospitable house.
The elder gentleman was a frequent visitor there, even
when he had no particular business to bring him across
the water; Air. Hansard and he had been schoolfellows
in the long ago days of their boyhood, and they had
met again in manhood and renewed the friendship of
their youthful days. Business often brought them
together afterwards, and when Mr. Hansard procured
the apppointment and settled down at Havre their
intercourse continued.

It's a tangled web to unwind,' the old gentleman
said; 'there's more in it than fancy on Miss Ramsay's
part, from all I have heard about her, and I have
heard a good deal since that deplorable murder
business. She is a sensible girl, and not likely to be
led away by a delusion.'
She has no fancies, no silly chuneras, I am sure of
that,' Cuthbert said warmly, and his uncle laughed.
Knowing so much of her, you are calculated to
have an opinion,' he said, looking at his nephew with
a grimace. Your acquaintance is of the shortest, I
believe, after all.'
Not so short as you think uncle; long enough to
tell us what we are to el.ch other.'

Aye, that sort of thing is learned in a flash of
lightning, isn't it? And you have to unlearn all sorts
o things when it is too late, sometimes. But that's
not to the point. Miss Ramsay would not have run
away from her friends, and risked her reputation--
for it was risky you know to do such a thing without
some very powerful reason. I have heard of such
things :as she describes, but I must confess I have
always been inclined to set them down as dehr,ions
of the credulous.'

'Helen ia not credulous, and this man is a villain.
I have heard of him.'

'So have I, perhaps more than you think for; and
that he has some strange power over her seems
evident. We must save her, my lad.'
Of course we must.'
Yes, but how?' _

'I am going to put myself between them; I am
going to make her my wife—no, I have not exactly
asked her; but she knows—she has known ever since
I clasped her in my arms, on board the Christabel.
Nothing can come between us, uncle; we love each
other.'

Yes, and so do a great many more men and women
in the world, but they don't all get married. There's
one thing can come between you, my lad.'

_
Whatis it ?' _
'The young lady's fortune. Have you forgotten
that she is an heiress, and old Jarvis's ward?'

I think I had forgotten everything but our love
and our rescue from great peril.'
It must be thought of, my boy. If you persuade
her tt; marry you, now, away from her friends, the
world migllt forget all about the peril, and think only
of the mercenary side of the question. Suppose I
make things straight for you;
How can you? I don't want to go to Mr. Jarvis;
she does not want any one to know where she is till
—till she is safe in my keeping; I know that. She is
willing that I should stand between her and that
scoundrel. He would not dare to harm her, or try, if
she were my wife.'
Exactly. And I mean that she shall be your wife
with all convenient speed; but she must not marry a
poor man, Cuthbert.'
• You are giving me a problem without the solution,
sir,' Cuthbert said, with a half sigh, How can that be,
I am poor enough, heaven knows, in all but love.'
Suppose I make you rich—that is, equal to your
wife, that is to be, in money matters. I
Oh, sir; it would not be right; it would not be
fair,' Cuthbert said, in amazement. All he had ever
known of his uncle hitherto, had been the hard side of
his character. Mr. Ingram had seemed to do his duty
by his nephew, and nothing else. He hardly knew
how dear the lad was to him, till he bade him good-
bye on board the unlucky Asphodel, and thought it
was for ever.

It would be fair, whatever I choose to do with my
money,' he said quietly.
But you would impoverish yourself to do so much
as that. If you would help us, if you would stand by
uS and make oar peace with Mr. Jarvis.'
May be I'll do that, too. We'll risk his displeasure,
I think. If the young lady is willing to marry you,
she shall at least marry a man as rich in this world's
goods as herself. You shall never be taunted with
marrying an heiress for her money ; and I'll trust to
your own good sense that you will make good use of
what I put into your hands on your wedding day.'
'1 caa't find words to thank you,' Cuthbert said.
'Bah! lam weak and foolish,' he went on, as hot
tears sprang to his eyes and found their way down
his cheeks. 'I have not got over the shock yet ;I am
a very baby when any one speaks kindly to me.'
'I don't want words,' the elder Mr. Ingram said,
affected himself, keep them for your wife; I'll trust
you to do well with what I give you, and as for me,
I shall look on it as a thank-offering; it would have
gone to a hospital, very likely, if you had not come
back. I shall see you use it, and be content.'

Cuthbert had no idea of what his uncle's means
were, and he was astonished at the sum that was put
down as his future income.

No, it is not a farthing too much,' Mr. Ingram
said. Nvlrm a young man marries a lady with a good
many thousand pounds for her fortune, he is a mean
fellow if he cannot offer her a good deal more on his
own account, unless he has something very substantial
to give her in the way of position. If you were a
duke, now, with a pedigree from the Conquest, or
before it, and the right of wearing your hat in the
preseace of the Queen. or something of that sort, then
your money wouldn't matter if the lady had plenty;
but, as it is, I think you had better be able to show
her guardian that you had no mercenary motive in
taking her.'
But yourself, uncle—your own fortune, if you give
me all this---'

' I shall be none the worse. I have made a bad use
of my wealth up to the present time, I dare say. What
I have given you is a fleabite, a drop in the bucket.
You will hear of more by and bye, I daresay, if things
go right, and you make good use of that. And now
I'm going to bed. I feel as if I had lived half a dozen
lives since I caught you by the hand in the office down
stairs this morning, and lam tired. Don't lock that
door between our two rooms, or I shall think I have
dreamed it all, and that I have not seen you.'
The apartments allotted to the two gentlemen joined
each other—they were in fact the guest chamber of
the Consulate and the dressing-roorn belonging to it;
but the latter had been turned into a snug little
chamber for Cuthbert, and by its fire the two gentle-
men had sat and talked.

'No, I'll leave the door open,' the young man said,
'we can hear each other's voices then.'

He did so, and they retired to rest, Cuthbert feeling
very much as if he were in a land of enchantment
amongst his comfortable surroundings. He was just
dropping asleep, with Helen's name on his lips when
his uncle called out to him—

'Cuthbert, my boy.'
Yes, uncle.'
'lt is real isn't it, you are there.
'Yes, lam here, though I can hardly believe in it
even now,' the young man replied. Can't you sleep,
sir 7'

'Yes, I can sleep, but I had something to sly to
you first. It's just this, that money is in no way
dependent on my whims, remember that. Oh, don't
interrupt me and say you would rather it was; I
know better. I might have fancies and megrims, I'm
only a mortal you know, and you might do something
to displease me, and there shall be no such
contingency. It shall be yours absolutely on your
wedding day.'

Cuthbert heard him turn abruptly in his bed, and
begin to snore almost immediately, and he knew that
be did not want anything further said about it, and
presently he himself fell asleep, and dreamed a regular
Queen Mab medley of fancies till he was awakened
by the servant with his hot water, and the intelligence
that his breakfast would be ready in half an hour.
Helen was able to come down to breakfast, nervous
and trembling still—she had had too great a shock to
be easily got over, but happy and trustful in her
lover's presence.
'She liked Cuthbert's uncle very much, and was
quite ready to discuss the future with him. She
acknowledged that she had loved his nephew ever
since they had met in her school days, but she was
.bound then by her promise to Frank Hatherleigh, and
could only struggle with her love and crush
it down as well as she could. She had no
friends to interfere, no relations, except the distant
cousins, who were strangers to tier, wno would inherit
her mousy if anything happened to her; and the only
obstacle to her marriage with Cuthbert would be re-
moved by the uncle's generosity.
Ever thing combined to persuade her into a speedy
marriage, but the one great motive was to get out of
the power of Horace Gaylord. She was broken down
and nervous, and she doubtless exaggerated his in- '
licence over her; but she had well-nigh succumbed to
it once, and she had risked her life rather than feel it
again. Mr. Jarvis's anger, if he felt any, would be
noihiog compared to what she had gone through and
the pert she had escap.A.
You will think me unwomanly, I am afraid,' she
said to Mr. Ingram, when they were alone together;
* but I have admitted to him, as well as to you, that
I love him, and I cannot unsay it if I would. He will
think me too easily won, perhaps; but we have come
througli danger, and stood face to face with death,
both of us, and—'
'And you would be a pair of young geese to shilly-
shally any longer,' the old gentleman said. • I would
not be adder and abetter in any such nefarious work if
you had parents, my dear. But you are responsible
to no one except Mr. Jarvis; and, as he cannot marry
you himself, I don't suppose he will objecs to your
choosing tor yourself, especially when he knows one
of the reasons for your making a clandestine match of
it, as it were.'
The arrange ments w ere soon made; no one was any the
vs'a_ier about what was going on. Mr. Ingram returned
to London, and did not tell his partner even that he
had found his nephew, and He en stayed on with
Mrs. Hansard, and made her Preparatiori!! quietly and