A BROKEN BLOSSOM =A Novel,= BY FLORENCE MARRYAT, AUTHOR OF “LOVE’S CONFLICT,” ETC., ETC., ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. [Illustration: [Logo]] =London:= SAMUEL TINSLEY & CO., 10, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND. 1879. [_All Rights Reserved._] [Illustration: [Fleuron]] CONTENTS OF VOL. II. CHAPTER PAGE I. THE VENETIAN GLASS 1 II. ARTHUR THRALE 36 III. THE SECRET 64 IV. THE DENOUEMENT 89 V. CURED 116 VI. TWO SERPENTS 136 VII. ALL FOR TESSIE 162 VIII. A REVELATION 194 IX. CHARLIE 223 [Illustration: [Fleuron]] A BROKEN BLOSSOM. CHAPTER I. THE VENETIAN GLASS. The _goûter_ was laid in a long narrow room, which evidently had once been a banqueting hall. Remnants of exquisitely stained glass still ornamented its windows, although the ravages made in them by time had been replaced by ordinary white panes. Tall, straight-backed chairs, carved in black oak, and furnished with green cushions, the embossed velvet covering of which was both faded and rent, stood at the table for our accommodation, whilst from the panelling of the walls looked down upon us an almost obliterated collection of the Baron’s ancestors. Although the summer sun was shining through the windows, casting rainbow lights of ruby and violet and amber over the damask tablecloth, and the roses and clematis were hanging in clusters about the casement, there was a weird unearthly feeling about this chamber that made me shudder. An artist would have fallen into raptures over the old oaken floors and wainscoting; the leash of wolfhounds that lay stretched out blinking in the sunshine, and watching their master’s eye as for a revelation; the fragments of stained glass; the blackened ancestors. But to me, the aspect of the whole place spelt _Ruin_, and I feared lest our host should read my feelings in my face.