The Dynamiter | Page 8

myself to be led over a considerable portion of the metropolis; and if I
now request you to discharge me of my office of protector, you have
friends at hand who will be glad of the succession.'
She stood a moment dumb.
'It is well,' she said. 'Go! go, and may God help me! You have seen
me--me, an innocent girl! fleeing from a dire catastrophe and haunted
by sinister men; and neither pity, curiosity, nor honour move you to
await my explanation or to help in my distress. Go!' she repeated. 'I am
lost indeed.' And with a passionate gesture she turned and fled along
the street.
Challoner observed her retreat and disappear, an almost intolerable
sense of guilt contending with the profound sense that he was being
gulled. She was no sooner gone than the first of these feelings took the
upper hand; he felt, if he had done her less than justice, that his conduct
was a perfect model of the ungracious; the cultured tone of her voice,
her choice of language, and the elegant decorum of her movements,
cried out aloud against a harsh construction; and between penitence and
curiosity he began slowly to follow in her wake. At the corner he had
her once more full in view. Her speed was failing like a stricken bird's.
Even as he looked, she threw her arm out gropingly, and fell and leaned
against the wall. At the spectacle, Challoner's fortitude gave way. In a
few strides he overtook her and, for the first time removing his hat,
assured her in the most moving terms of his entire respect and firm
desire to help her. He spoke at first unheeded; but gradually it appeared
that she began to comprehend his words; she moved a little, and drew

herself upright; and finally, as with a sudden movement of forgiveness,
turned on the young man a countenance in which reproach and
gratitude were mingled. 'Ah, madam,' he cried, 'use me as you will!'
And once more, but now with a great air of deference, he offered her
the conduct of his arm. She took it with a sigh that struck him to the
heart; and they began once more to trace the deserted streets. But now
her steps, as though exhausted by emotion, began to linger on the way;
she leaned the more heavily upon his arm; and he, like the parent bird,
stooped fondly above his drooping convoy. Her physical distress was
not accompanied by any failing of her spirits; and hearing her strike so
soon into a playful and charming vein of talk, Challoner could not
sufficiently admire the elasticity of his companion's nature. 'Let me
forget,' she had said, 'for one half hour, let me forget;' and sure enough,
with the very word, her sorrows appeared to be forgotten. Before every
house she paused, invented a name for the proprietor, and sketched his
character: here lived the old general whom she was to marry on the
fifth of the next month, there was the mansion of the rich widow who
had set her heart on Challoner; and though she still hung wearily on the
young man's arm, her laughter sounded low and pleasant in his ears.
'Ah,' she sighed, by way of commentary, 'in such a life as mine I must
seize tight hold of any happiness that I can find.'
When they arrived, in this leisurely manner, at the head of Grosvenor
Place, the gates of the park were opening and the bedraggled company
of night-walkers were being at last admitted into that paradise of lawns.
Challoner and his companion followed the movement, and walked for
awhile in silence in that tatterdemalion crowd; but as one after another,
weary with the night's patrolling of the city pavement, sank upon the
benches or wandered into separate paths, the vast extent of the park had
soon utterly swallowed up the last of these intruders; and the pair
proceeded on their way alone in the grateful quiet of the morning.
Presently they came in sight of a bench, standing very open on a mound
of turf. The young lady looked about her with relief.
'Here,' she said, 'here at last we are secure from listeners. Here, then,
you shall learn and judge my history. I could not bear that we should
part, and that you should still suppose your kindness squandered upon
one who was unworthy.'
Thereupon she sat down upon the bench, and motioning Challoner to

take a place immediately beside her, began in the following words, and
with the greatest appearance of enjoyment, to narrate the story of her
life.

STORY OF THE DESTROYING ANGEL

My father was a native of England, son of a cadet of a great, ancient,
but untitled family; and by some event,