“’The desire of the moth for
the star,
Of the night for the
morrow;
The devotion to something
afar
From the sphere of our
sorrow.’
“Oh, that something afar! that something afar!
never to be reached on this earth,—never,
never!”
There was such a wail in that cry from the man’s
heart that Cecilia could not resist the impulse of
a divine compassion. She laid her hand on his,
and looked on the dark wildness of his upward face
with eyes that Heaven meant to be wells of comfort
to grieving man. At the light touch of that
hand Kenelm started, looked down, and met those soothing
eyes.
“I am happy to tell you that I have saved my
Durham,” cried out Mr. Travers from the other
side of the gate.
AS Kenelm that night retired to his own room, he paused
on the landing-place opposite to the portrait which
Mr. Travers had consigned to that desolate exile.
This daughter of a race dishonoured in its extinction
might well have been the glory of the house she had
entered as a bride. The countenance was singularly
beautiful, and of a character of beauty eminently
patrician; there was in its expression a gentleness
and modesty not often found in the female portraits
of Sir Peter Lely, and in the eyes and in the smile
a wonderful aspect of innocent happiness.
“What a speaking homily,” soliloquized
Kenelm, addressing the picture, “against the
ambition thy fair descendant would awake in me, art
thou, O lovely image! For generations thy beauty
lived in this canvas, a thing of joy, the pride of
the race it adorned. Owner after owner said
to admiring guests, ’Yes, a fine portrait, by
Lely; she was my ancestress,—a Fletwode
of Fletwode.’ Now, lest guests should
remember that a Fletwode married a Travers thou art
thrust out of sight; not even Lely’s art can
make thee of value, can redeem thine innocent self
from disgrace. And the last of the Fletwodes,
doubtless the most ambitious of all, the most bent
on restoring and regilding the old lordly name, dies
a felon; the infamy of one living man is so large
that it can blot out the honour of the dead.”
He turned his eyes from the smile of the portrait,
entered his own room, and, seating himself by the
writing-table, drew blotting-book and note-paper towards
him, took up the pen, and instead of writing fell
into deep revery. There was a slight frown on
his brow, on which frowns were rare. He was
very angry with himself.
“Kenelm,” he said, entering into his customary
dialogue with that self, “it becomes you, forsooth,
to moralize about the honour of races which have no
affinity with you. Son of Sir Peter Chillingly,
look at home. Are you quite sure that you have
not said or done or looked a something that may bring
trouble to the hearth on which you are received as
guest? What right had you to be moaning forth
your egotisms, not remembering that your words fell
