CHAPTER IV.
COLONEL GREYSON’S MISSION.
“She is heartless, soulless!” groaned Sir Harold. “Oh, Elaine, why should you be so fair and fickle?”
He paced the floor like a man distraught. His eyes were bloodshot, his face ashy pale. This misery was more bitter than death.
He had given the one great love of his life; he had tasted the most ecstatic bliss that had ever fallen to mortal man. But, after all, he had only been reveling in a fool’s paradise. He had believed that the earl’s daughter loved him beyond all earthly things; that this was no idyllic dream, but the meeting of two sympathetic twin souls—a beautiful reality.
When the first storm of his misery had nearly subsided, he sank into a chair, and buried his face in his hands.
The Earl of Seabright had warned him to deal gently with Lady Elaine. She was so young, so willful, so utterly spoiled.
“These sudden engagements are apt to be as quickly broken,” my lord had said, and now his words rang like the knell of doom in Sir Harold’s ears. Was all at an end between them? Was their quarrel to be the subject of a nine days’ wonder? The society papers would enlarge upon it. Innumerable five-o’clock teas would be enlivened by it, and then it would be forgotten by everybody but Sir Harold.
Thus he reasoned, and he felt that his heart would be broken, that it would be forever dead.
“Perhaps it will be better so. She does not love me—shedoes not love as I love. I do not want half a heart. I will go away, and the sooner I am dead the better it will be for me. My life has ever been a bitter mistake. I am a visionary, and my last delusion will kill me!”
It was a relief to John Stimson, Sir Harold’s valet, that he had a legitimate cause for knocking at the door of his master’s study. A footman had appeared bearing the card of Colonel Greyson on a salver.
“He told me to see that he was not disturbed on any account,” he muttered; “but I shall risk it. I didn’t like the look in his face when he went into the study, and the awful silence within makes me uneasy.”
He took the salver from the footman, saying:
“All right. I will attend to this. Sir Harold is engaged. Where is Colonel Greyson?”
“In the blue drawing-room,” the footman replied.
“Thank you; that will do,” said the valet, as he tapped gently on the door.
To his surprise it was opened at once, and his master took the card with an exclamation of impatience.
“I told you not to disturb me, Stimson,” he said, harshly.
“But you never refuse to see the colonel, Sir Harold, and I felt anxious about you.”
Stimson was a privileged servant. He had traveled over half the globe with his young master, and had nursed him through the yellow fever in an African swamp.
“You are ill, master, I am sure.”
“Ill?” echoed Sir Harold. “No, I am not ill. I wish to heaven that I were sick unto death!”
It was a strange speech, but Stimson pretended not to notice it. He merely said:
“You will see Colonel Greyson, Sir Harold?”
“Yes, I will see him here, in my study,” was the gloomy reply, and when Stimson had gone he added:
“He it was who introduced us, and who more fitting to be the first to hear that we are parted forever?”
Then the colonel’s bluff tones fell upon his ears; and he felt his hand being shaken warmly.
“I have not seen much of you for weeks, my boy,” he was saying; “but suddenly determined to make an assault upon you. In your bower of bliss, presided over by I don’t know how many Cupids, you seem to forget that you are necessary, to a small extent at least, to your neighbors.”
Every word was like the stab of a knife, and Sir Harold, his heart too full for words, made a deprecatory gesture.
However, the colonel went on without noticing the agony of his young friend. The study was a dark room at any time, when no artificial light was used, and Colonel Greyson was notoriously short-sighted.
“Yes, my boy, we are organizing a steeplechase. Now, don’t tell me that you cannot ride, or that you have other engagements. You must have a little consideration for the county. I want you to become even more popular than you are already, and we may yet run you for a seat in the House.”
“Colonel,” broke in Sir Harold, “why will you torture me in this way?”
His voice was so harsh that the old soldier promptly pulled himself up, and began to search for his eyeglasses.
“Torture you, eh? Egad, what is wrong with the boy? Confound it, sir, what is the trouble? You, whom I account one of the most fortunate men of the century, talking of torture!
“Is it torture to be a rich man? Is it torture to be young, handsome, famous and engaged to the loveliest woman under the sun? I tell you what it is, my boy, you are one of Fortune’s spoiled darlings, and have been somuch surfeited with good things that you do not know what is best for you! Now, as you have hitherto professed to have implicit confidence in my common sense, I intend prescribing for you. My dear fellow, the county cannot possibly get on without you, and I am sure that you cannot get along without the county! It is my ambition to see you at the very top of the political tree, and if you take the thing in hand I am pretty certain as to the result, for your abilities are far beyond the average, and only want bringing out. Now, about this little scheme of mine—this steeplechase——”
“Sit down, colonel,” Sir Harold interrupted, closing the door. “I have something to tell you that will drive steeplechasing out of your head, so far as I am concerned. I did not intend speaking of my misery to any living soul, but my confidence is due to you, old friend, though I do not solicit advice. I know my own case only too well!”
Colonel Greyson listened like a man in a stupor, but he had no suspicion of the nature of Sir Harold’s trouble until it was revealed to him in words that seemed to quiver with agony.
“Only a lovers’ quarrel,” he interjected.
“No, colonel, it is no ordinary affair. Mine is no ordinary love; it is life or death to me. I have not shaped my life in any stereotyped pattern. I have always been afraid of linking my fate with another, because I am so intense in all that I profess. It is my misfortune. I believed that Lady Elaine was capable of loving after my fashion of loving, but I was wrong, and I wish you to understand that I do not blame her, though my disappointment will embitter my whole life.”
“You must see her again,” said the colonel, “and I’ll wager that it is nothing but a storm in a teacup.”
“No, I could not bear the agony of another interview. I have appealed to her in vain. The reply she has sentto me is final. The engagement is at an end, and the world may judge as it pleases. I do not suppose that Lady Elaine will care one jot.”
“You wrong her,” Colonel Greyson retorted, a little angrily. “I have known Lady Elaine from childhood. She is as good as she is beautiful.”
“I admit that. But, oh, the agony of knowing that she is soulless!”
“I will not listen to such nonsense!” fumed the colonel. “I will see her myself. It is a duty I owe to both of you, for, in a measure, I brought you together. Curse Viscount Rivington! I say—though I have no doubt that your own insane jealousy is at the root of all the trouble. No young woman of spirit would put up with it. I am determined to hear both sides of the story.”
Sir Harold shook his head gloomily.
“I will not be content to have the matter patched up,” he said. “My wife must be all in all to me. My ideal is in my dreams, and to that alone will I be wedded.”
“Stuff!” interrupted the colonel, inelegantly. “All stuff, sir, depend upon it! Lady Elaine Seabright will be your wife, and a more perfect woman never breathed!”
To accentuate this Colonel Greyson brought his fist down upon the table with a bang.
“Heaven help me!” went on Sir Harold. “I loved her as I believed her to be, not as she is, and shall do so for evermore!”
“Once again,” pleaded the colonel, “I ask you to see her. You are acting like an insane man. Why will you wreck two lives when——”
“Don’t—don’t! It is impossible!” groaned the baronet. “If she will not grant me one reasonable request, with the full knowledge that she will lose me, it is proof positive that her love is a mere chimera, a passing fancy, undefinable and worthless! No, colonel, all is at an end,and I shall leave Annesley Park to-night. My affairs shall be put into the hands of my men of business in London, and I pray to God that I may never set foot in the place again! My heart is broken! I have one request to make of you, old friend, and that is to correct any wrong impressions that get abroad. Spare Lady Elaine all that may be annoying, and if any one has to bear the blame, let it be me. We part now, probably never to meet again, and I wish you to take my farewell to my cousin, Margaret Nugent.”
The colonel jumped to his feet, tears in his eyes.
He held out his hand, replying huskily:
“I will do all that you ask of me, you foolish fellow, and probably a great deal more. I hope to see you again, though,” he added, energetically. “I will see you again! You must excuse my haste; I have several important matters needing my attention. Good-by!”
He scarcely gave Sir Harold time to reply, but dashed out of the room into the hall, seized his hat and commanded a servant to see that a horse was saddled for him at once.
In a few minutes the animal was brought to the door, and the colonel galloped at a mad pace toward Ashbourne, the seat of the Earl of Seabright.
“The boy is full of cranky, quixotic notions,” he thought, “and my lady is too high-spirited and proud to pander to all his follies. As a consequence, he would ruin two lives. The county cannot afford it. What does she care for that dandyfied ass of a Rivington? Not one iota! I consider that the girl has acted very properly. Does he want to shut her out of the world entirely? By Jove, I feel that I could give him a piece of my mind!”
When he arrived at Seabright Hall, his horse dripping with foam, the first person he encountered in the vestibulewas Viscount Rivington, who regarded him in wonderment.
“One of Annesley’s horses,” he observed. “Why, colonel, one would think that you were the bearer of important dispatches! You must be living over again the days when you were a military aide-de-camp on active service.”
“Where is the earl?” demanded the colonel, brusquely. Then he added fiercely, his gray eyes flashing under his bristling brows: “See here, Rivington, you are causing trouble between two young people who love each other dearly. If you are a gentleman, you must stop it. D’ye hear?”
“No man ever dared say that I am not a gentleman!” retorted the viscount, flushing hotly.
“Then prove that you are worthy of the name,” the colonel said, “or I may have to stigmatize you as a blackguard! We men of the old school are still ready to back our words at the sword’s point!”
So saying, Colonel Greyson stalked away in quest of Lady Elaine, while Viscount Rivington watched him with gathering fury in his black eyes.