The Ashiel Mystery | Page 3

two later. "Or rather, though I want to talk about her, perhaps I had better not, for I can tell you almost nothing that concerns her."
"My dear," said Sir Arthur, "you needn't tell me anything, if you don't like."
"But that's just the tiresome part," she returned, "I should like you to know everything, and yet I must not let you know. She is not mine, of course, but beyond that her parentage must remain a secret, even from you. Yet this I may say: she is the child of a friend of mine, and there is no scandal attached to her birth, but I have taken all responsibility as to her future. Are you, Arthur, also prepared to adopt her?"
"Darling, I will adopt dozens of them, if you like," said her infatuated betrothed. "Juliet is a little dear, and I am very glad we shall always have her."
In England, the news of Lena Meredith's engagement caused a flutter of excitement and disappointment. It had been hoped that she would make a great match, and she received many letters from members of her family and friends, pointing out the deplorable manner in which she was throwing herself away on an impecunious young baronet who occupied an obscure position in the Consular Service. She was begged to remember that the Duke of Dachet had seemed distinctly smitten when he was introduced to her at the end of the last season; and told that if she would not consider her own interests it was unnecessary that she should forget those of her younger unmarried sisters.
At shooting lodges in the North, and in country houses in the South, young men were observed to receive the tidings with pained surprise. More than one of them had given Mrs. Meredith credit for better taste when it came to choosing a second husband; more than one of them had felt, indeed, that she was the only woman in the world with an eye discerning enough to appreciate his own valuable qualities at their true worth. Could the fact be that she had overlooked those rare gifts? For a week or so depression sat in many a heart unaccustomed to its presence; and young ladies, in search of a husband, found, here and there, that one turned to them whom they had all but given up as hopelessly indifferent to their charms.
Unconcerned by the lack of enthusiasm aroused by her decision, Lena Meredith married Sir Arthur Byrne, and in the course of a few months departed with him to his post on the Black Sea; where the baby Juliet and her nurse formed an important part of the consular household.
The years passed happily. Sir Arthur was moved and promoted from one little port to another a trifle more frequented by the ships of his country, and after a year or so to yet another still larger; so that, while nothing was too good for Juliet in the eyes of her adopted mother, and to a lesser extent in those of her father, it happened that she knew remarkably little of her own land, though few girls were more familiar with those of other nations. Nor were their wanderings confined to Europe: Africa saw them, and the southern continent of America; and it was in that far country that the happy days came to an end, for poor Lady Byrne caught cold one bitter Argentine day, and died of pneumonia before the week was out.
Sir Arthur was heart-broken. He packed Juliet off to a convent school near Buenos Ayres, and shut himself up in his consulate, refusing to meet those who would have offered their sympathy, and going from his room to his office, and back again, like a man in a dream.
Not for more than a year did Juliet see again the only friend she had now left in the world; and it was then she heard for the first time that he was not really her father, and that the woman she had called "Mother" had had no right to that name. She was fifteen years old when this blow fell on her; and she had not yet reached her sixteenth birthday when Sir Arthur was transferred back to Europe.
"Your home must always be with me, Juliet," he had said, when he broke to her his ignorance of her origin. "I have only you left now."
But though he was kind, and even affectionate to her, he showed no real anxiety for her society. She was sent to a school in Switzerland as soon as they landed in Europe; and, while she used to fancy that at the beginning of the holidays he was glad to see her return, she was much more firmly convinced that at the end of them he was at least equally pleased to