



Produced by Charles Bowen from by page scans provided Google Books










Transcriber's Notes:
     1. Page scan source:
        https://books.google.com/books?id=prZLAQAAMAAJ
        (The University of Chicago Library)






BURGO'S ROMANCE



BY
T. W. SPEIGHT
AUTHOR OF "BACK TO LIFE," "HOODWINKED," ETC.



_AUTHORIZED EDITION_
--------------------



PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1894





AUTHORIZED EDITION






CONTENTS

CHAPTER
         I. YOUNG MAN ABOUT TOWN.
        II. CAPTAIN CUSDEN'S REPORT.
       III. CUT ADRIFT.
        IV. "OLD GARDEN."
         V. A HUMBLE FRIEND.
        VI. A LAST INTERVIEW.
       VII. BURGO IN A NEW CHARACTER.
      VIII. UNCLE AND NEPHEW.
        IX. BURGO'S VIGIL.
         X. A SLEEP AND AN AWAKING.
        XI. A CLUE.
       XII. FOUND.
      XIII. HELPLESS.
       XIV. IN DURANCE VILE.
        XV. DACIA ROYLANCE.
       XVI. DACIA EXPLAINS.
      XVII. A DOOR BETWEEN.
     XVIII. IN WHICH THE UNEXPECTED COMES TO PASS.
       XIX. THE CAPTAIN OF THE "NAIAD."
        XX. RESCUED.
       XXI. A SURPRISE FOR BURGO.
      XXII. A MYSTERY SOLVED.





BURGO'S ROMANCE




CHAPTER I.
A YOUNG MAN ABOUT TOWN.


A dark handsome face bent close to a fair and glowing one, a trembling
white hand clasped in a sinewy brown one, two black eyes aflame with
the light of love, two blue eyes cast down in a sweet confusion and
shaded by long brown lashes.

The scene was the conservatory at the back of Mrs. Mordaunt's London
house. It was a wilderness--that is to say, a wilderness where art
reigned supreme--of shrubs, ferns, mosses, and sweet-smelling tropical
flowers. Here and there a shaded lamp glowed with chastened radiance
through the greenery; here and there a Chinese lantern hung suspended
in mid-air like some huge transparent insect of many colours; here and
there a statue gleamed snow-white through the leafage. Some one in the
drawing-room was playing a dreamy waltz; in the breaks of the music
the low silvery plash of a hidden fountain made music of another kind.

Time and the place conspired. The dark, handsome face bent closer, the
lean brown fingers tightened their grasp, two hearts fluttered as they
had never fluttered before. Then the words which one was dying to say
and the other one dying to hear, broke forth in accents low, eager,
and impassioned:

"Clara, darling, you must know that I love you. You must know that I
have loved you ever since that day when----"

In smooth, clear accents a voice behind them broke in:

"Clara, love, I have been looking for you everywhere. I want you
particularly. Mr. Brabazon, will you kindly open that slide a few
inches? I can't think what Stevens has been about; the temperature is
perfectly unbearable."

Burgo Brabazon was brought back to mundane matters with a shock as
though a stream of ice-cold water had been poured down his back. He
dropped Miss Leslie's trembling fingers and turned in some confusion
to obey Mrs. Mordaunt's behest. Before doing so however, he contrived
to whisper the one word "To-morrow."

By the time he had arranged the slide, Mrs. Mordaunt and her niece had
disappeared. He muttered an execration under his breath, for Mr.
Brabazon was by no means an exemplary young man.

Ten minutes later he left the house without saying "Good-night" to
anybody.

As he made his way through the drawing-room he saw Miss Leslie sitting
a little apart from the general company in a recessed window. By her
side, and playing with her fan, sat young vacuous-faced Lord
Penwhistle--vacuous-faced, but enormously rich. "Ah-ha! _chère
madame_, so that's your little game, is it?" muttered Burgo to
himself.

A group of three or four men with whom he was slightly acquainted were
talking on the stairs. They became suddenly silent when they saw him
coming down, and each of them greeted him with a solemn nod as he
passed. Burgo felt vaguely uncomfortable, he hardly knew why.

A hansom took him quickly to his club, and there, over a cigarette and
a bottle of Apollinaris, he sat down to meditate.

Burgo Brabazon at this time was within a month of his twenty-sixth
birthday. He might have been a lineal descendant of Coleridge's
_Ancient Mariner_, seeing that, like him, he was "long and lank and
brown"; but his was the lankiness of perfect health, of a frame
trained to the fineness of a greyhound's, which had not an ounce of
superfluous flesh about it. He had a long oval face and clear-cut
aquiline features; he had dark, steadfast-looking eyes, with a fine
penetrative faculty about them which gave you the impression that he
was a man who would not be easily imposed upon; his hair and his small
moustache were jet black. He was seldom languid, and still more rarely
supercilious, while occasionally inclined to be cynical and
pessimistic (in which respect he was by no means singular); but those
were qualities of which he could disembarrass himself as easily as he
could of his overcoat. He dressed fastidiously, but had nothing
whatever of the latter-day "masher" about him, he was far too manly
for that. Finally, no one