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                          MOUNT ROYAL

                            A Novel

    BY THE AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET" ETC. ETC. ETC.


    In Three Volumes

    VOL. I.

    LONDON
    JOHN AND ROBERT MAXWELL
    MILTON HOUSE, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET
    1882

    [_All rights reserved_]

    Ballantyne Press
    BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO., EDINBURGH
    CHANDOS STREET, LONDON




CONTENTS TO VOL. I.


    CHAP.                                                         PAGE

        I. THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE                                 1

       II. BUT THEN CAME ONE, THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY               35

      III. "TINTAGEL, HALF IN SEA, AND HALF ON LAND"                71

       IV. "LOVE! THOU ART LEADING ME FROM WINTRY COLD"            103

        V. "THE SILVER ANSWER RANG,--'NOT DEATH, BUT LOVE'"        128

       VI. IN SOCIETY                                              144

      VII. CUPID AND PSYCHE                                        199

     VIII. LE SECRET DE POLICHINELLE                               228

       IX. "LOVE IS LOVE FOR EVERMORE"                             275




MOUNT ROYAL.




CHAPTER I.

THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE.


"And he was a widower," said Christabel.

She was listening to an oft-told tale, kneeling in the firelight, at her
aunt's knee, the ruddy glow tenderly touching her fair soft hair and
fairer forehead, her big blue eyes lifted lovingly to Mrs. Tregonell's
face.

"And he was a widower, Aunt Diana," she repeated, with an expression of
distaste, as if something had set her teeth on edge. "I cannot help
wondering that you could care for a widower--a man who had begun life by
caring for somebody else."

"Do you suppose any one desperately in love ever thinks of the past?"
asked another voice out of the twilight. "Those infatuated creatures
called lovers are too happy and contented with the rapture of the
present."

"One would think you had tremendous experience, Jessie, by the way you
lay down the law," said Christabel, laughing. "But I want to know what
Auntie has to say about falling in love with a widower."

"If you had ever seen him and known him, I don't think you would wonder
at my liking him," answered Mrs. Tregonell, lying back in her armchair,
and talking of the story of her life in a placid way, as if it were the
plot of a novel, so thoroughly does time smooth the rough edge of grief.
"When he came to my father's house, his young wife had been dead just
two years--she died three days after the birth of her first child--and
Captain Hamleigh was very sad and grave, and seemed to take very little
pleasure in life. It was in the shooting season, and the other men were
out upon the hills all day."

"Murdering innocent birds," interjected Christabel. "How I hate them for
it!"

"Captain Hamleigh hung about the house, not seeming to know very well
what to do with himself, so your mother and I took pity upon him, and
tried to amuse him, which effort resulted in his amusing us, for he was
ever so much cleverer than we were. He was so kind and sympathetic. We
had just founded a Dorcas Society, and we were muddling hopelessly in an
endeavour to make good sensible rules, so that we should do nothing to
lessen the independent feeling of our people--and he came to our rescue,
and took the whole thing in hand, and seemed to understand it all as
thoroughly as if he had been establishing Dorcas Societies all his life.
My father said it was because the Captain had been sixth wrangler, and
that it was the higher mathematics which made him so clever at making
rules. But Clara and I said it was his kind heart that made him so quick
at understanding how to help the poor without humiliating them."

"It was