



Produced by Daniel Fromont.  HTML version by Al Haines.








COLLECTION

OF

BRITISH AUTHORS


TAUCHNITZ EDITION.


VOL. 1811.

VIXEN BY M. E. BRADDON

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.




VIXEN


A NOVEL


BY

M.  E. BRADDON,

AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," ETC. ETC.


_COPYRIGHT EDITION_.


IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.


LEIPZIG

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ

1879.


_The Right of Translation is reserved_.



CONTENTS

OF VOLUME III.


CHAPTER I. Going into Exile

CHAPTER II. Chiefly Financial

CHAPTER III. "With weary Days thou shalt be clothed and fed"

CHAPTER IV. Love and AEsthetics

CHAPTER V. Crumpled Rose-Leaves

CHAPTER VI. A Fool's Paradise

CHAPTER VII. "It might have been"

CHAPTER VIII. Wedding Bells

CHAPTER IX. The nearest Way to Norway

CHAPTER X. "All the Rivers run into the Sea"

CHAPTER XI. The Bluebeard Chamber

Epilogue



VIXEN.



CHAPTER I.

Going into Exile.

After a long sleepless night of tossing to and fro, Vixen rose with the
first stir of life in the old house, and made herself ready to face the
bleak hard world. Her meditations of the night had brought no new light
to her mind. It was very clear to her that she must go away--as far as
possible--from her old home. Her banishment was necessary for
everybody's sake. For the sake of Rorie, who must behave like a man of
honour, and keep his engagement with Lady Mabel, and shut his old
playfellow out of his heart. For the sake of Mrs. Winstanley, who could
never be happy while there was discord in her home; and last of all,
for Violet herself, who felt that joy and peace had fled from the Abbey
House for ever, and that it would be better to be anywhere, in the
coldest strangest region of this wide earth, verily friendless and
alone among strange faces, than here among friends who were but friends
in name, and among scenes that were haunted with the ghosts of dead
joys.

She went round the gardens and shrubberies in the early morning,
looking sadly at everything, as if she were bidding the trees and
flowers a long farewell. The rhododendron thickets were shining with
dew, the grassy tracks in that wilderness of verdure were wet and cold
under Vixen's feet. She wandered in and out among the groups of wild
growing shrubs, rising one above another to the height of forest trees,
and then she went out by the old five-barred gate which Titmouse used
to jump so merrily, and rambled in the plantation till the sun was
high, and the pines began to breathe forth their incense as the day-god
warmed them into life.

It was half-past eight. Nine was the hour for breakfast, a meal at
which, during the Squire's time, the fragile Pamela had rarely
appeared, but which, under the present _regime_, she generally graced
with her presence. Captain Winstanley was an early riser, and was not
sparing in his contempt for sluggish habits.

Vixen had made up her mind never again to sit at meat with her
stepfather; so she went straight to her own den, and told Phoebe to
bring her a cup of tea.

"I don't want anything else," she said wearily when the girl suggested
a more substantial breakfast; "I should like to see mamma presently. Do
you know if she has gone down?"

"No, miss. Mrs. Winstanley is not very well this morning. Pauline has
taken her up a cup of tea."

Vixen sat idly by the open window, sipping her tea, and caressing
Argus's big head with a listless hand, waiting for the next stroke of
fate. She was sorry for her mother, but had no wish to see her. What
could they say to each other--they, whose thoughts and feelings were so
wide apart? Presently Phoebe came in with a little three-cornered note,
written in pencil.

"Pauline asked me to give you this from your ma, miss."

The note was brief, written in short gasps, with dashes between them.


"I feel too crushed and ill to see you--I have told Conrad what you
wish--he is all goodness--he will tell you what we have decided--try to
be worthier of his kindness--poor misguided child--he will see you in
his study, directly after breakfast--pray control your unhappy temper."


"His study, indeed!" ejaculated Vixen, tearing up the little note and
scattering