Elinor looked up with a smile into her lover’s face.  Algernon seemed perfectly to understand the meaning of that playful glance, and replied to it in lively tones, “Yes, dear Nell, sing my favorite song!” and Elinor instantly complied, with a blush and another sweet smile.  Mark was no lover of music, but that song thrilled to his soul, and the words never afterwards departed from his memory.  A fiend might have pitied the crushed heart of that humbled and most unhappy man.

Mark Hurdlestone rushed from the garden, and sought the loneliest spot in the park, to give utterance to his despair.  With a heavy groan he dashed himself upon the earth, tearing up the grass with his hands, and defacing the flowers and shrubs that grew near him as he clutched at them in his strong agony.  The heavens darkened above him, the landscape swam round and round him in endless circles, and the evening breeze, that gently stirred the massy foliage, seemed to laugh at his mental sufferings.

He clenched his teeth, the big drops of perspiration gathered thick and fast upon his brow, and tossing his hands frantically aloft, he cursed his brother, and swore to pursue him with his vengeance to the grave.  Yes, that twin brother, who had been fed at the same breast—­had been rocked in the same cradle—­had shared in the same childish sports—­it was on his thoughtless but affectionate and manly heart he bade the dark shadow of his spirit fall.  “And, think not,” he cried, “that you, Algernon Hurdlestone, shall triumph in my despair.  That woman shall be mine, yet.  Mine, though her brow has been polluted by your lips, and your profligate love has contaminated her for ever in my eyes.  But I will bind you both with a chain, which shall render you my slaves for ever.”  Then, rising from the ground, he left the spot which had witnessed the only tender emotion he had ever felt, with a spirit full of bitterness, and burning for revenge.

CHAPTER III.

    Oh life! vain life! how many thorny cares
    Lie thickly strewn in all thy crooked paths!—­S.M.

There is no sight on earth so revolting as the smile with which hypocrisy covers guilt, without it be revenge laughing at its victim.

When Algernon returned at night to the Hall, his brother greeted him with a composed and smiling aspect.  He had communicated to his father the scene he had witnessed at the cottage, and the old man’s anger exceeded his most sanguine expectations.  With secret satisfaction he saw Algernon enter the drawing-room, which the indignant Squire was pacing with rapid steps; and when he caught the irritated glance of the old man’s eye, Mark felt that his work had been well and surely done; that nothing could avert from his brother the storm that was gathering over him.

“So, sir, you are come at last!” said Mr. Hurdlestone, suddenly stopping and confronting the unsuspecting culprit.