Bardolphs of St. James'-street; and they prophesied all kinds of unhappiness and woe to Kilsyth. But that topic of conversation had long since died out for want of fuel to feed it. Lady Muriel had visited London during the season; had gone every where; had been reported as perfectly adoring her two little children; and had no man's name invidiously coupled with hers. Peace reigned at Kilsyth, and the intimates of the house vied with each other in attention and courtesy to its new mistress; while the gossips of the outside world had never a word to say against her. I don't say that Lady Muriel Kilsyth was thoroughly happy, any more than that Kilsyth himself was in that beatific state; because I simply don't believe that such a state of things is compatible with the ordinary conditions of human life. It is not because the old stories of our none of us being better than we should be, of our all having some skeleton in our cupboards, and some ulcerated sores beneath our flannel waistcoats, have been so much harped upon, that I am going to throw my little pebble on the great cairn, and add my testimony to the doctrine of
vanitas vanitatum. It would be very strange indeed, if, as life is nowadays constituted, we had not our skeleton, and a time when we could confront him; when we could calmly untwist the button on the door and let him out, and pat his skull, and look at his articulated ribs, and notice how deftly his wire-hooked thigh-bones jointed on to the rest of his carcass; and see whether there were no means of ridding ourselves of him,--say by flinging him out of window, when the police would find him, or of stowing him away in the dust-bin, when he would be noticed by the contractor; and of finally putting him back, and acknowledging ourselves compelled to suffer him even unto the end. I do not say that in the broad-shouldered, kind-hearted, jovial sportsman Lady Muriel had found exactly what she dreamed upon when, in the terraced garden at Inchgarvie, she used to read Walter Scott, and, looking over the flashing stream that wound through her father's domain, fancy herself the Lady of the Lake, and await the arrival of Fitzjames. I do not say that Kilsyth himself might not, in the few moments of his daily life which he ever spared to reflection, and which were generally when he was shaving himself in the morning,--I do not say that Kilsyth himself might not have occasionally thought that his elegant and stately wife might have been a little kinder to Madeleine, a little more recognisant of the girl's charms, a little more thoughtful of her wants, and a little more tender towards her girlish vagaries. But neither of them, however they may have thought the other suspected them, ever spoke of their secret thoughts; and to the outer world there was no more well-assorted couple than the Kilsyths. It was a great thing for the comfort of the entire party that Lady Muriel was a woman of nerve, and that Kilsyth took his cue from her, backed up by the fact that it was his darling Madeleine who was ill, and that any inconvenience that might accrue to any of the party in consequence of her illness would be set down to her account. Lady Muriel gave a good general answer, delivered with a glance round the table, and was inclusive of every body, so as to prevent any further questioning. Dr. Joyce had said that Madeleine was not so well that night; but that was to be expected; her cold was very bad, she was slightly feverish: any one--and Lady Muriel turned deftly to the Duchess of Northallerton--who knew any thing, would have expected that, would they not? The Duchess, who knew nothing, but who didn't like to say so, declared that of course they would; and then Lady Muriel, feeling it necessary
that conversation should be balked, turned to Sir Duncan Forbes, and began to ask him questions as to his doings since the end of the season. Forbes replied briskly,--there was no better man in London to follow a lead, whether in talk or at cards,--and so turned the talk that most of those present were immediately interested. The names which Duncan Forbes mentioned were known to all present; all were interested in their movements; all had something to say about them; so that the conversation speedily became general, and so remained until the ladies quitted the table. When they had retired, Kilsyth ordered in the tumblers; and it was nearly eleven o'clock before the gentlemen appeared in the drawing-room. Then Lady Fairfax, with one single wave of her fan, beckoned Charley Jefferson into an empty seat on the ottoman by her side,--a seat which little Lord Towcester, immediately on entering the door, had surveyed with vinous eyes,--and, while one of the anonymous young ladies was playing endless variations on the "Harmonious Blacksmith," commenced and continued a most vivid one-sided, conversation, to all of which the infatuated Colonel only replied by shrugs of his shoulders, and tugs at his heavy moustache. Then the Duchess pursued the Duke into a corner; and rescuing from him the
Morning Post, which his grace had pounced upon on entering the room with the hope of further identifying Mr. Bright with Judas Iscariot, began addressing him in a low monotone, like the moaning of the sea; now rising into a little hum, now falling into a long sweeping hiss, but in each variety evidently confounding the Duke, who pulled at his cravat and rubbed his right ear in the height of nervous dubiety. In the behaviour of the other guests there was nothing pronounced, save occasional and unwonted restlessness. The Danish Minister and his wife played their usual game at backgammon; and the customary talk, music, and flirtation were carried on by the remainder of the company; but Lady Muriel knew that some suspicion of the actual truth had leaked out, and determined on her plan of action.
So that night, when the men had gone to the smoking-room, and the ladies were some of them talking in each other's bedrooms, and others digesting and thinking over, as is the feminine manner, under the influence of hair-brush, the events of the day; when Kilsyth had made a tip-toe visit to his darling's chamber, and had shaken his head sadly over a whispered statement from her little German maid that she was "bien malade," and had returned to his room and dismissed his man, and was kicking nervously at the logs on the hearth, and mixing his "tumbler preparatory to taking his narcotic instalment of Blackwood,--he heard a tap at his door, and Lady Muriel, in a most becoming dressing-gown of rose-coloured flannel, entered the room. The tumbler was put down, the Blackwood was thrown, aside, and in a minute Kilsyth had wheeled an easy-chair round to the hearth, and handed his wife to it.
"You're tired, Alick, I know, and I wouldn't have disturbed you now had there not been sufficient reason--"
"Madeleine's not worse, Muriel? I was there this minute, and Gretchen said that--"
"O no, she's no worse! I was in her room too just now,--though I think it is a little absurd my going,--and there does not seem to be much change in her since I saw her, just before dinner. She is asleep just now."
"Thank God for that!" said Kilsyth heartily. "After all, it may be a fright this doctor is giving us. I don't think so very much of his opinion and--"
"I could not say that. Joyce is very highly thought of at Glasgow, and was selected from among all the competitors to take charge of this district, and that, in these days of competition, is no ordinary distinction. And it is on this very point I came to speak to you. You got my pencil-note at dinner? Very well. Just now you contented yourself with asking a question of Gretchen--"
"She said Madeleine was asleep, and would not let me into the room."
"And quite rightly; but I went in to the bedside. Madeleine is asleep certainly; but her sleep is restless, broken, and decidedly feverish. There is not the smallest doubt that Dr. Joyce is right in his opinion, and that she is attacked with scarlet-fever."
"You think so, Muriel?" said Kilsyth anxiously. "I mean not blindly following Joyce's opinion; but do you think so yourself?"
"I do; and not I alone, but half the house thinks so too. How do they know it? Heaven knows how these things ever get known, but they get wind somehow; and you will see that by to-morrow there will be a general flight. It is on this point that I have come to speak to you, if you will give me five minutes."
"Of course, Muriel; of course, my lady. But I think I've done the best that could be done; at all events, the first thing that occurred to me after you wrote me that note. Duncan Forbes had been saying in the drawing-room before dinner, before you came in, that the great London fever-physician, Dr. Wilmot, was staying at Burnside, away from here about fifty miles, with old Sir Saville Rowe, whom I recollect when I was a boy. Duncan had left him this morning, and he was going to stay at Burnside just a day or two longer; and I sent one of the men with a telegram to the station, to ask Dr. Wilmot to come over at once, and see Maddy."
Lady Muriel was so astonished at this evidence of prompt action on her husband's part that she remained silent for a minute. Then she said,
"That was quite right, quite right so far as Madeleine was concerned; but my visit related rather to other
