CHAPTER XXIIITAKEN BY STORM
Adrian had been obliged to exert the sternest self-control in order to keep back the wild words which were burning upon his lips for utterance after saving Brownie.
He loved her, he knew he loved her, and he longed to pour out the fullness of his heart to her.
But how could he presume to do so, when she was comparatively a stranger to him?
Only twice before had he met her, and he reasoned that it could not be possible that she had any thought of love for him, although he had worshiped her from afar for the last six months.
He felt that he must tell her ere long. He had almost betrayed it to-night, and the hot blood surged into his face as he thought of it, and wondered how she regarded him.
Would she not feel that he was presuming upon the service which he had just rendered her if he should confess it?
And yet, in his heart, he exulted over the event, even while he trembled and grew faint as he realized how near he had come to losing her forever.
The danger and the escape from it had brought them nearer to each other than ever before. She had trusted him, leaned upon him, and even allowed his arm to clasp her unshrinkingly when she could not stand alone.
And now she was under the same roof with him, and would remain several days, she said.
It seemed too much happiness, after all his discouragements and disappointments in seeking her.
Of course, he would not return to London now; of what use would it be, when the object of his search there was found?
No, he would stay here and win her if he could; and when she was his wife, how proud he would be to introduce her to Isabel Coolidge and her mother as the future Lady of Dunforth!
And Brownie!
Who shall describe the tumult that was in her heart, as she sought Lady Ruxley’s apartments?
She could not misinterpret Adrian’s manner toward her. Had not he almost called her darling? Had not his every tone and look been fraught with that magnetic influence which could not be mistaken?
Did not his horror, when he had found it was she who had been in such peril, bespeak a deeper interest than that of a mere friend?
Ah, yes! and her hands burned with his passionate kisses even now.
How precious—how doubly precious the boon of life would seem to her hereafter, since it had been bestowed upon her by him!
“I will know my fate this day,” said Adrian, the next morning, as he arose from his almost sleepless couch and descended to the breakfast parlor.
For the past six months Brownie had been so continually in his thoughts that she had grown to seem almost a part of himself, and now it seemed to him as if, in the great horror of the night previous, when they had stood so near to death, and together had caught a glimpse, so to speak, of the darkness and gloom of mysterious eternity, it seemed, I say, as if they had tacitly acknowledged and felt that they belonged to each other.
“How now,” said the grandfather, as he entered the room; “you must be off to-day? I was hoping that you would spend several weeks with us.”
“I’m sure I cannot see what there is so important tocall you back to London,” put in Lady Dunforth, reproachfully.
“Do you take it so much to heart? Well, then suppose I compromise the matter, and say that I will remain a few days,” Adrian replied, laughingly, though he colored a conscious crimson as he altered his plans.
His lordship gave him a searching glance, as if he did not exactly understand this change; he had been so positive last night about returning.
Lady Dunforth, however, was delighted, and other guests entering at that moment, she imparted the good news, and then all sat down to breakfast.
Adrian was on the watch all day for Brownie, but late hours did not agree with Lady Ruxley, and she did not rise until very late. Then, being in rather a more exacting mood than usual, she kept her companion in constant attendance upon her all day.
It was not until late in the afternoon that Brownie was free to take a stroll by herself; then, her ladyship having fallen into a doze, she donned her hat and shawl and stole out.
She had a strange desire to visit again the spot where she had so nearly lost her life, and view by daylight the havoc which had been wrought.
Walking rapidly, she soon gained the top of the hill, and, turning from the narrow path, she ere long stood upon the precipice where the great shelf of earth had crumbled away.
“Strange that he should be here! Strange that he should have saved me a second time,” she murmured to herself, and the rosy color flashed over her beautiful face, as she recalled that scene upon the boat in connection with the events of the night previous.
She could not forget the clinging clasp of his arms; she could not forget his upturned, anxious face, as he dropped upon his knees, nor the burning, passionate kisses which he had pressed upon her hands; the horror in his voice when he realized that it was she who had been in such danger; the intense thankfulness which quivered in his tones at her deliverance, and the pathos with which he had said it would have been better for them both tohave perished beneath that falling mass than that he had not come to save her.
He had told her, too, of his long and anxious search for her in London; and now she lived over again, every moment, and recalled it all, with that beautiful color deepening upon her cheek, and those lovely eyes glowing with a deep tenderness and joy.
She knew it could only be accounted for in one way; he loved her! Her whole being thrilled with the thought.
A strange, rapturous joy surged through her heart, for she knew, despite the difference in their position—for she had heard that he would one day inherit a title, although she had no idea that he was connected with Lord Dunforth—that it was an honorable and deathless love which he bore her.
She would as soon have doubted her own purity as his manliness and truth. And she? Did she love him in return?
Before she had time to analyze her own feelings, she became conscious of a presence near her, though she had heard no step, and looking up, she beheld the object of her thoughts at her side, regarding her with grave, earnest eyes.
“Are you fascinated by the horror of this place, Miss Douglas?” Adrian asked, holding out his hand to her.
“I came to see by daylight from what I had been saved,” she replied, coloring vividly as she laid her own within it.
“It is even more dreadful than it seemed in the night,” he said, shuddering, as he looked below and took in the dizzy depth, while his clasp grew stronger over the little hand, as if he feared to let it go.
“This place,” he resumed after a moment, “has been regarded with dread for years. I can remember when I was a little boy of seeing the smallest crack in the earth here, and I was told never to step near it. Every year, as the trees and shrubs growing upon it have become larger, the seam has widened and deepened, until the crash has been expected for a long time. I suppose our extra weight upon it last night was all that was needed to complete the dreadful work. I am glad, though, that it is over with, for everybody has been in suspense aboutit for so long; but—but do you know, darling, that if it had buried you beneath its cruel weight that the world would have been a blank to me to-day?”
He paused a moment, just glancing at her, his face growing pale and anxious with his emotion; then he went on, rapidly:
“You know now, dear, what I want to say to you. I love you—I love you, my darling, and I want you for my own, my cherished wife.
“I fear you will think me presuming,” he hastened to say, as he saw the rich color flash over cheek, neck, and even to the tips of her delicate fingers, “for you have only met me two or three times; but you cannot know how, for the last six months, I have sought you continually, this love growing in my heart all the while.
“Yes,” he added, as she gave a slight start of surprise, “I met you first last September, though you were not conscious of the fact, and I meant then to make your acquaintance. But your aunt died, and you went away somewhere, and I, deeply disappointed, lost sight of you entirely. You can judge of my surprise and pleasure when you came aboard the steamer at New York, although you cannot judge of my feelings when you stumbled, and I caught and held you, just a moment, in my arms. I had been thinking of you continually; your bright face dwelt in my heart like a picture, but at that moment I became conscious that you, and you alone, could make life worth the living to me.
“I resolved then that I would know you before the voyage was finished; but you were sick all the time, and I only caught glimpses of you when they bore you from your stateroom to the coach. Then I saw you in London at the opera, and the long-desired introduction took place. I resolved to cultivate the acquaintance, and called at Mr. Coolidge’s the day you—you went away.
“They told me you had gone,” he resumed, after a pause, “though they could not or would not tell me where. Afterward young Coolidge said that I would find you at the ‘Washington.’ I haunted the hotel for a week, and I have searched the city over and over for you since. But, dearest,” he said, clasping the little hand closer, “I havefound you now, and can you give me the one precious boon I crave—your priceless love?”
He bent eagerly toward her, his noble, handsome face flushed and hopeful, for her attitude was one of sweet and modest confusion, and she had not even sought to withdraw the hand he was holding.
“Will you, Brownie?” he pleaded, softly.
She flashed one quick look at him from her beautiful eyes as he called her that, and he saw in their clear depths all that he wished or hoped.
She loved him! Her soul answered to his, and clasping her close to his heart, he murmured:
“You are mine, darling—I have won you by the mighty power of my silent, magnetic love, and you will be my wife?”
She lifted her head, which had been resting against his bosom, quickly at these last words, and said, with drooping lashes and quivering lips:
“Mr. Dredmond, you have taken me by storm.”
“Yes, and I mean to hold you,” he interrupted, gayly, as he noticed her excessive embarrassment; then added, more earnestly: “Brownie, do you, can you love me?”
She smiled faintly at his first words, then with modest frankness gave him the honest answer which she knew was his due.
“If I am truthful, I must confess that my heart does respond to yours; but knowing so little of you, I should have deemed it unmaidenly to have confessed it, even to myself.”
“But you do confess it now—you do love me?” he interrupted again, and impatient for a more definite reply.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“And you will be my wife?” he asked, as his lips met hers.
“Yes, God willing,” in tones of solemn sweetness.
“Darling, God has given you to me; I acknowledge the giver as I take the gift. From that first moment when I met you in the Art Gallery in Philadelphia until now this mighty love has been growing within me.”
“In the Art Gallery?” questioned Brownie, with a puzzled look.
“Yes, when your friend, Miss Huntington, met with such a series of accidents.”
“Oh, was that you with Mr. Gordon?” she demanded, her face dimpling at the remembrance, and she eagerly searched his face. “I remember now; it has haunted me like a strange dream ever since I met you on the boat, where I had seen you before. Now it all comes back to me,” she said.
“I found something that day which belongs to you, but not in season to return it to you then,” Adrian said.
He took from his pocket as he spoke the elegant sleeve button, which he had always carried with him since.
Brownie exclaimed, joyously, as she saw it:
“Oh, how glad I am to get it—I never thought to see it again; and you have had it all this time?”
“Yes, darling—my Brownie—how I have longed to say it—and I vowed then that I would only yield it up into your own little hands.”
“It belonged to auntie once,” she explained, “and there are associations connected with it which make it very dear to me.”
“And now come to yonder rock and sit down. I want to know all that has happened to you since you left the Coolidges; there has been some mystery connected with it which I could never understand,” Adrian said, leading her to a sheltered seat, and sitting down beside her.
And Brownie, feeling that she was now no longer alone, but that instead she had a host in him to battle for her, poured forth all the story of her wrongs about the jewels, and the abuse and insult which she had received from Isabel and her mother.