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Note: Images of the original pages are available through
      Internet Archive. See
      https://archive.org/details/aurorafloyd00bradgoog


      Project Gutenberg has the other two volumes of this work.
      Volume I: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48020
      Volume III: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48022





AURORA FLOYD.

by

M. E. BRADDON,

Author of "Lady Audley's Secret."

In Three Volumes.

VOL. II.

Fifth Edition.







London:
Tinsley Brothers, 18 Catherine Steeet,
Strand.
1863.




CONTENTS.

  CHAPTER   I. "LOVE TOOK UP THE GLASS OF TIME, AND TURNED
                  IT IN HIS GLOWING HANDS"
           II. MR. PASTERN'S LETTER
          III. MR. JAMES CONYERS
           IV. THE TRAINER'S MESSENGER
            V. OUT IN THE RAIN
           VI. MONEY MATTERS
          VII. CAPTAIN PRODDER
         VIII. "HE ONLY SAID, I AM A-WEARY"
           IX. STILL CONSTANT
            X. ON THE THRESHOLD OF DARKER MISERIES
           XI. CAPTAIN PRODDER CARRIES BAD NEWS TO HIS NIECE'S HOUSE
          XII. THE DEED THAT HAD BEEN DONE IN THE WOOD




CHAPTER I.


"LOVE TOOK UP THE GLASS OF TIME, AND TURNED IT IN HIS GLOWING HANDS."


Talbot Bulstrode yielded at last to John's repeated invitations, and
consented to pass a couple of days at Mellish Park.

He despised and hated himself for the absurd concession. In what a
pitiful farce had the tragedy ended! A visitor in the house of his
rival. A calm spectator of Aurora's every-day, commonplace happiness.
For the space of two days he had consented to occupy this most
preposterous position. Two days only; then back to the Cornish miners,
and the desolate bachelor's lodgings in Queen's Square, Westminster;
back to his tent in life's Great Sahara. He could not for the very
soul of him resist the temptation of beholding the inner life of that
Yorkshire mansion. He wanted to know for certain--what was it to him, I
wonder?--whether she was really happy, and had utterly forgotten him.
They all returned to the Park together, Aurora, John, Archibald Floyd,
Lucy, Talbot Bulstrode, and Captain Hunter. The last-named officer was
a jovial gentleman, with a hook nose and auburn whiskers; a gentleman
whose intellectual attainments were of no very oppressive order, but
a hearty, pleasant guest in an honest country mansion, where there is
cheer and welcome for all.

Talbot could but inwardly confess that Aurora became her new position.
How everybody loved her! What an atmosphere of happiness she created
about her wherever she went! How joyously the dogs barked and leapt
at sight of her, straining their chains in the desperate effort to
approach her! How fearlessly the thorough-bred mares and foals ran
to the paddock-gates to bid her welcome, bending down their velvet
nostrils to nestle upon her shoulder, responsive to the touch of
her caressing hand! Seeing all this, how could Talbot refrain from
remembering that this same sunlight might have shone upon that dreary
castle far away by the surging western sea? She might have been his,
this beautiful creature; but at what price? At the price of honour; at
the price of every principle of his mind, which had set up for himself
a holy and perfect standard--a pure and spotless ideal for the wife of
his choice. Forbid it, manhood! He might have weakly yielded; he might
have been happy, with the blind happiness of a lotus-eater, but not the
reasonable bliss of a Christian. Thank Heaven for the strength which
had been given to him to escape from the silken net! Thank Heaven for
the power which had been granted to him to fight the battle!

Standing by Aurora's side in one of the wide windows of Mellish Park,
looking far out over the belted lawn to the glades in which the deer
lay basking drowsily in the April sunlight, he could not repress the
thought uppermost in his mind.

"I am--very glad--to see you so happy, Mrs. Mellish."

She looked at him with frank, truthful eyes, in whose brightness there
was not one latent shadow.

"Yes," she said, "I am very, very happy. My husband is very good to
me. He loves--and trusts me."

She could not resist that one little stab--the only vengeance she ever
took upon him; but a stroke that pierced him to the heart.

"Aurora! Aurora! Aurora!" he cried.

That half-stifled cry revealed the secret of wounds that were not yet
healed. Mrs. Mellish turned pale at the traitorous sound. This man must
be cured. The happy wife, secure in her own stronghold of love and
confidence, could not bear to see this poor fellow still adrift.

She by no means despaired of his cure, for experience had taught her,
that although love's passionate fever takes several forms, there are
very few of them incurable. Had she not passed safely through the
ordeal herself, without one scar to bear witness of the old wounds?

She left Captain Bulstrode staring moodily out of the window, and went
away to plan the saving of this poor shipwrecked soul.

She ran in the first place to tell Mr. John Mellish of her discovery,
as it was her custom to carry to him every scrap of intelligence great
and small.

"My dearest old Jack," she said--it