MOHAWKS A Novel BY THE AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," "VIXEN," "ISHMAEL," ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON JOHN AND ROBERT MAXWELL MILTON HOUSE, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET AND ST. BRIDE STREET, LUDGATE CIRCUS, E.C. [_All rights reserved_] LONDON: ROBSON AND SONS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W. CONTENTS OF VOL. III. CHAP. PAGE I. "YOU CALLED ME, AND I CAME HOME TO YOUR HEART" 1 II. "O, TO WHAT END, EXCEPT A JEALOUS ONE?" 29 III. "AND ALL YOUR HONOUR IN A WHISPER LOST" 57 IV. "SMITE HIS HARD HEART, AND SHAKE HIS REPTILE SOUL" 94 V. "I'LL JOIN WITH THEE IN A MOST JUST REVENGE" 109 VI. "WHEN SCREECH-OWLS CROAK UPON THE CHIMNEY-TOPS" 127 VII. "THE SMILES OF NATURE AND THE CHARMS OF ART" 157 VIII. "STILL THE PALE DEAD REVIVES, AND LIVES TO ME" 168 IX. "THE DEVIL'S DEAD, THE FURIES NOW MAY LAUGH" 198 X. "THE LITTLE HEARTS WHERE LIGHT-WINGED PASSION REIGNS" 227 XI. "THERE IS ANOTHER AND A BETTER WORLD" 250 XII. "AND THE LAST PANG SHALL TEAR THEE FROM HIS HEART" 288 MOHAWKS CHAPTER I. "YOU CALLED ME, AND I CAME HOME TO YOUR HEART." Another revolution of the social wheel. Summer was over, and Twickenham, Richmond, Bath, and Tunbridge Wells were deserted for the new squares and narrow streets between Soho and Hyde Park Corner. The theatres in Drury Lane and Lincoln's Inn were open every night, the opera-house in the Haymarket was crowded, and drums and assemblies, concerts and quadrille-parties, filled the very air with excitement. 'Twas said the young people were younger than they used to be, and all the old had grown young. The new reign began in a blaze of gaiety; King and Queen, flushed with the sense of power, delighted to occupy the first place after having so long held the second rank; conscious, too, of a handsome exchequer, and a clever minister who could change stones into gold; at peace with other nations, and with leisure to enjoy themselves. The King had only one objection to London, and that extended to the whole of his British dominions. He would rather have been in Hanover. It needed all her Majesty's subtlety, all Lady Suffolk's subservient devotion, all Walpole's strenuous arguments, to keep him contented at St. James's or Kensington, when his inclinations all pointed to the old German home, and the old German ways of thinking and living.