MOUNT ROYAL A Novel BY THE AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET" ETC. ETC. ETC. In Three Volumes VOL. I. LONDON JOHN AND ROBERT MAXWELL MILTON HOUSE, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET 1882 [_All rights reserved_] Ballantyne Press BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO., EDINBURGH CHANDOS STREET, LONDON CONTENTS TO VOL. I. CHAP. PAGE I. THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE 1 II. BUT THEN CAME ONE, THE LOVELACE OF HIS DAY 35 III. "TINTAGEL, HALF IN SEA, AND HALF ON LAND" 71 IV. "LOVE! THOU ART LEADING ME FROM WINTRY COLD" 103 V. "THE SILVER ANSWER RANG,--'NOT DEATH, BUT LOVE'" 128 VI. IN SOCIETY 144 VII. CUPID AND PSYCHE 199 VIII. LE SECRET DE POLICHINELLE 228 IX. "LOVE IS LOVE FOR EVERMORE" 275 MOUNT ROYAL. CHAPTER I. THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. "And he was a widower," said Christabel. She was listening to an oft-told tale, kneeling in the firelight, at her aunt's knee, the ruddy glow tenderly touching her fair soft hair and fairer forehead, her big blue eyes lifted lovingly to Mrs. Tregonell's face. "And he was a widower, Aunt Diana," she repeated, with an expression of distaste, as if something had set her teeth on edge. "I cannot help wondering that you could care for a widower--a man who had begun life by caring for somebody else." "Do you suppose any one desperately in love ever thinks of the past?" asked another voice out of the twilight. "Those infatuated creatures called lovers are too happy and contented with the rapture of the present." "One would think you had tremendous experience, Jessie, by the way you lay down the law," said Christabel, laughing. "But I want to know what Auntie has to say about falling in love with a widower." "If you had ever seen him and known him, I don't think you would wonder at my liking him," answered Mrs. Tregonell, lying back in her armchair, and talking of the story of her life in a placid way, as if it were the plot of a novel, so thoroughly does time smooth the rough edge of grief. "When he came to my father's house, his young wife had been dead just two years--she died three days after the birth of her first child--and Captain Hamleigh was very sad and grave, and seemed to take very little pleasure in life. It was in the shooting season, and the other men were out upon the hills all day." "Murdering innocent birds," interjected Christabel. "How I hate them for it!"