"Some persons would call an elephant small," remarked Yorke, laconically.
"Did—did you give her anything, Yorke?" asked the duke, almost shyly, ignoring the comments.
Yorke Auchester took a draught of the admirable claret which Grey had brought down with him, before replying.
"I?" he said, carelessly. "No. Why should I? What would be the use. She doesn't expect anything better than a penwiper or a shilling prayer book from a pauper like me, and she has tin enough to buy a million of 'em if she wants them," and he attacked the custard.
The duke leaned back in his chair, and looked at the handsome face of his cousin, with its frank and free, and happily devil-may-care expression.
"I've a notion that Eleanor would value anything in the way of a penwiper or a prayer book you might give her, Yorke," he said.
"Not she. It's only your fancy."
"I think not," said the duke.
He was silent for a moment, then he said, thoughtfully and gravely:
"At the risk of repeating myself, I will say oncemore that it is a pity you are not the Duke of Rothbury, Yorke."
"Thanks, but a better man's got the berth, you see."
"And a still greater pity that you can't be the future one. But you can't, can you, Yorke?"
"Not while Uncle Eustace and his two boys come before me, and as they are all as healthy as plowboys, and likely to live to the eighties, every one of 'em, there doesn't seem much chance, Dolph!"
"No," said the duke, in a low voice. "It's rather hard on the British Peerage that the present Duke of Rothbury should be a hunchback and a cripple, and that the next should be a miser, while the young man who would adorn the title——."
"Should be a penniless young scamp," put in Yorke, lightly.
The duke colored.
"Well, barring the scamp, that was in my thoughts. Do you ever think of the future, Yorke?"
"Never, if I can help it," responded the young fellow, cutting himself a piece of stilton.
The duke smiled, but rather gravely.
"I do, and when I think of it, I wish that I could secure it for you. But you know that I can't, Yorke. Every penny, or nearly every penny, goes to Lord Eustace."
"Don't let it trouble you, Dolph," said Yorke Auchester. "Of course the money must go to keep up the title. Every fellow understands that. Heaven knows I've had enough as it is."
"And so you didn't give Eleanor a birthday present," said the duke, slowly. "That was—to put it delicately, Yorke—thoughtless of you. Will you give me that box, the leather one? Thanks."
He opened the box and took out a small morocco case, and tossed it across the table.
"I had an idea you would forget it, and so——."
"By Jove, that's pretty!" broke in Yorke.
He had opened the case and revealed a gold bracelet, not set with diamonds, but of plain though first-rate workmanship. Just the sort of gift which a rather poor young man could manage.
"I'm glad you like it. I am sure Eleanor will, especially as it comes from you."
Yorke Auchester colored, and he looked for a moment as if he were about to decline the piece of jewelry; but, checking the words that rose to his lips, he put the case in his pocket.
"It's a shame to let her think it came from me, but I'll give it to her, because——." He paused.
"Because you are too good-natured to disoblige me," said the duke.
"She'll think I've been committing burglary."
"In that case she will value the thing all the more highly," retorted the duke. He leaned back and rested his head on his hand.
"Go out and smoke, Yorke," he said presently.
Yorke Auchester was accustomed to his cousin's peremptory words. They were just those of a sick man, and had nothing of discourtesy in them.
"All right," he said. "I'll stroll down to the parade."
The duke smiled.
"I expect you will find nothing but a strip of beach," he said. "There are some cigars in that traveling case."
But Yorke said he had some cigars, and tossing on his hat made his way out into the sunshine.
For the first few minutes, as he went down the village street and along the narrow quay which stood for parade, his face was unusually grave and thoughtful.
We suppose by this time the intelligent reader will have formed some opinion respecting Yorke Auchester. At any rate we are not going to try and persuade the reader that the young fellow was an angel. He was no worse, perhaps a shade better, than most young men of his class. He was idle, but then he had never been taught to work, though in the way of sport he would cheerfully undergo any amount of toil, and endure any amount of hardship. He was thoughtless because he had nothing to think about, except the ever recurring problem—how best to kill time; he was extravagant because, never having earned money, he hadno idea of its value. But he would share his last five-pound note with a friend, would sit up beside that friend all night and many nights, if he happened to fall sick, and behind his happy-go-lucky manner hid a heart as tender as a woman's, more tender than most women's, perhaps; and, like the antique hero, feared neither man nor beast. Children and dogs loved him at first sight; but, alas! that was perchance because of his handsome face, his bright smile, and his short, light-hearted laugh, for dogs and children have an unfair partiality for cheerful and good-looking people, and too often unwisely judge by appearances. Anyhow, there he was with all his faults, and so we have got to take him.
He created quite a little sensation as he sauntered along with his hands in his Norfolk jacket, his hat a little on one side, his big L'Arranaga in his mouth; the simple folk of Portmaris had never before seen anything so splendid. But Yorke did not notice them. He was thinking; wondering what his cousin, the duke, would say if he knew how far too well he, Yorke, knew Finetta; wondering whether he hadn't better cut town and marry Eleanor Dallas and her fifty thousand pounds; wondering——.
"Oh, dash it!" he exclaimed at last, as he felt the crisp check in his pocket. "What's the use of bothering, on such a morning, too!" and he threw off the "pale cast of thought," and began to sing under his breath.
Then he stopped suddenly, for he saw a young girl sitting on the shingle with her back to the breakwater.
It was Leslie, sitting as Ralph Duncombe had left her. She held the ring in her hand, her bosom still heaving, her heart troubled, her eyes fixed on vacancy. There was a tear trembling on the long black lashes, and a faint quiver on the parted lips, and Yorke Auchester, as, unseen by her, he stood and looked at her, saw this.
Now, one of this young man's foibles was the desire, when he saw people in distress or trouble, tohelp them out of it, or, failing to do that, to at any rate try and cheer them up and console them.
"That's the pretty girl from over the way," he mused. "Pretty! It's a lovely face, perfectly lovely. Now, what's the matter with her, I wonder? She can't be up to her neck in debt, and—and the rest of it. Got into a scrape, I expect, and somebody—papa or mamma, I suppose—has been bullying her. I should think whoever they are they must find it difficult to worry such an angel as that. She's been crying, or going to cry. Now what an ass of a world this is! If I were to go down to her, and ask her what was the matter, and try and cheer her up, and tell her there wasn't anything in the universe worth crying for, she'd jump up like a young wild-cat, feel herself insulted, scream for her brother or her father, and there'd be a row. And yet where would be the harm? I know this, that if I were sitting there down on my luck, I should like her to come and console me; but that's different, I suppose. Well, as the man said when his mother-in-law tumbled out of the second floor window, it's no business of mine."
But though he made this philosophical reflection, he still stood and looked at her wistfully, until, afraid that she might turn her head and see him, he went down the beach and sat down on the other side of the breakwater.
Leslie did not hear him, was quite unconscious of his proximity, did not even notice the perfume of the choice Havana. What was troubling her was the memory of Ralph Duncombe's passionate words and melodramatic promise; and the question, what should she do with the ring? She would have died rather than have put it on her finger; she didn't like—though she wanted—to pitch it in the sea. So she still held it in her soft, hot little palm. Happy ring!
So these two sat. Presently that peculiar desire which assails everybody who sits on the beach at the sea-side began to assail Yorke. Why it should be so difficult to refrain from flinging stones into the sea it is impossible to say; the clever peoplehave found out most things, or say they have, but this still beats them.
Yorke, like everybody else, found the desire irresistible. Half unconsciously he took up a stone and shied it at the end pile of the breakwater. He missed it, mechanically took another aim, and hit it, then he absently found a piece of wood—the fragment of some wreck which had gone down outside in the bay, perhaps—and threw that as far as he could into the sullen, angry waves, which rolled and showed their teeth along the sand.
A minute, perhaps two, afterward, he heard a cry of distress behind him, and looking round saw Leslie standing and gazing seaward, with a troubled, anxious look in her gray eyes.
Yorke was astounded. What on earth had happened? Had she caught sight of a vessel going down, a boat upset—what?
She began to run down the beach, her small feet touching the big bowlders with the lightness and confidence of familiarity, and once more she cried out in distress.
Yorke strode after her, and gained her side.
"What's the matter?" he shouted above the dull sea roar.
She turned her face to him with a piteous look of entreaty and alarm.
"Dick! It's Dick!" she said.
"Dick! Who—which—where?" he demanded, looking in the direction of her eyes.
"It's a little dog—there!" she answered, quickly, and pointing. "A little black and tan, don't you see him? Ah, he is so small!"
"I see him!" said Yorke. "What's he doing out there? And can't he swim?"
"Yes, oh, yes, but the tide is going out, and he has got too far, and the current is dreadfully strong. Oh, poor, poor Dick! He went out after a piece of wood or something that some one threw."
Yorke flushed. He felt as guilty and uncomfortable as if he had been detected in an act of killing a human being.
"See, he cannot make any way! Oh, poor littleDick! I am—so—sorry. I am so fond of him, and he is such a nice——." She stopped and turned her head away as if she could not go on, and could look no longer.
"I threw the piece of wood," said Yorke. "I didn't see the dog; he's so small—oh, for goodness sake, don't cry! It's all right."
He got out of his coat with the cool quickness of a man who is used to emergencies in the sporting way, and running across the sand, sprang into the sea, and struck out.
Leslie was too astonished for a moment to realize what he had done, then she raised her voice with a warning cry.
"The current!" she called to him. "The current. Oh, come back, please come back!"
Yorke soon found himself out of his depth, and almost as quickly discovered what the young lady meant by shouting, "The current!" But he was a good swimmer—there was scarcely anything Yorke Auchester could not do, except earn his living—and, though he found his boots and clothes very much in the way, he got through the waves at a fair pace, and reached the black and tan.
Saving a fellow creature is hard work enough, but it is almost as bad to rescue a dog, even so small a one as Dick, from a watery grave.
When Yorke had succeeded in getting hold of him with one hand Dick commenced to scratch and claw, no doubt under the impression that the great big man had come to hasten his death rather than prevent it, and Yorke was compelled to swim on his back, and hold the clawing, struggling little terrier pressed hard against his chest.
It was hard work getting back, but he found himself touching the sand at last, and scrambling to his feet waded through what remained of thewater, and set Dick upon his four legs at Leslie's feet.
Of course the little imp, after shaking the water off his diminutive carcase, barked furiously at his preserver.
Now the handsomest man—and, for that matter, the prettiest woman also—is not improved in appearance by a bath; that is, before he has dried himself and brushed his hair.
The salt water was running off Yorke's tall figure at all points; his short hair was stuck to his forehead; his mustache drooped, his eyes were blinking, and his clothes adhered to him as if they loved him better than a brother. He didn't look in the least heroic, but extremely comical, and Leslie's first impulse was to laugh.
But the laugh did not—indeed, would not—come, and she picked up the damp Dick and hugged him, and looked over his still snarling countenance at his preserver with a sudden shyness in her eyes and a heightened color in her face.
She looked so supremely lovely as she stood thus that Yorke forgot his sensation of stickiness, and gazed at her with a sudden thrill agitating his heart.
Leslie found her voice at last, but there only came softly, slowly, the commonplace—
"Thank you."
It sounded so terribly commonplace and insufficient that she made an effort and added:
"It was very kind of you to take so much trouble. How wet you must be! You must not stand about."
Yorke smiled, and knocked the hair from his forehead and wrung his shirt sleeves.
"It's all right," he said. "It was my fault. If I hadn't chucked the piece of wood he wouldn't have gone in. He hasn't come to any harm apparently."
"Oh, no, no. He's all right," said Leslie. "He can swim very well when the tide is coming in, but when it is going out it is too strong for him, and—he would have been drowned if you had not gone after him," and her eyes dropped.
"Poor little chap," said Yorke, putting on his coat. "That would never have done, would it, doggie?"
"It is a very dangerous place for bathing," said Leslie. "The current is very strong, and that is why I called out."
"Yes thanks," he said, to spare her the embarrassment of explaining that sudden frightened cry of hers. "I could feel that. But I have to thank Dick for an enjoyable bath, all the same. I suppose he will never forgive me; the person whose life you save never does."
He sat down on the breakwater and began to empty his pockets. There were several papers—bills—reduced to semi-pulp; Yorke did not sorrow over them. His watch had stopped; his cigars and cigar case were irretrievably ruined. He held them up with a laugh, and laid them on top of the breakwater in the sun; then suddenly his happy-go-lucky expression grew rather grave as he took up an envelope and looked at it.
"By George!" he said. "All the rest doesn't matter, but this doesn't belong to me."
Leslie stood and looked down at him anxiously. She was thinking of colds and rheumatism, while the young fellow sat so perfectly contented in his wet clothes.
"Don't you think—had you not better go home and change your things as quickly as possible?" she said, forgetting her shyness in her anxiety.
He looked up from the envelope.
"Why, I shall be dry in ten minutes," he said, carelessly, "and I sha'n't take any harm if I'm not. I never caught cold in my life; besides, salt water never hurts."
Leslie shook her head gravely.
"I don't believe that; it's a fallacy," she said. "Some of the old fishermen here suffer terribly from rheumatism."
"That's because they're old, you see," he said, smiling up at her. "And if you think it's so dangerous hadn't you better put Master Dick down? He is making you awfully wet."
She shook her head, and held Dick all the more tightly.
"I am so glad to get him back," she said, half to herself, "that I don't mind his making me a little damp; but I do wish you would go."
He did not seem to hear her, but after another glance at the letter, said:
"I picked this up just over there," and he nodded in the direction of the cliffs, "and I should like to find its owner; though I expect she won't thank me much when she sees its condition. Have you been here long? Do you know the people here pretty well?"
"We have been here some months," said Leslie, "and—yes, I think I know them all."
"Now, who does she mean by 'we?' Her husband?" Yorke asked himself, and an uncomfortable little pain shot through him. "No!" he assured himself; "she can't be married; too young and—too happy looking! Well, then, perhaps you know a young lady by the name of Lisle—Leslie Lisle," he said.
Leslie smiled.
"That is my name; it is I," she replied.
"By George!" he exclaimed. "Then this is your property!" and he held out the letter.
Leslie took it, and as she looked at the address flushed hotly. It was Ralph Duncombe's missing letter.
Yorke noticed the flush, and he looked aside.
"My father dropped it," she said, with an embarrassment which, slight as it was, did not escape him. "Thank you."
"I'm sorry that I didn't put it in my coat pocket instead of my waistcoat," he said. "But I knew if I did that I should forget it perhaps for weeks. I always forget letters that fellows ask me to post. So I put it in with my watch, that I might come across it when I looked at the time, and so it's got wet; but as it was opened you have read it, so that I hope it doesn't matter so much."
"No, I haven't read it. Papa always opens my letters—he doesn't notice the difference. It doesnot matter in the least; I know what was in it, thank you," she said, hurriedly.
"I wish some one would always open and read my letters, and answer them, too," said Yorke, devoutly, as he thought of the great pile of bills which awaited him every morning at breakfast. "Are you staying—I mean lodging, visiting here, Miss Lisle?" he asked, for the sake of saying something that would keep her by his side for at least a few minutes longer.
"Yes," said Leslie. "We are staying in 'The Street,' as it is called at Sea View."
Yorke was just about to remark, "I know," but checked himself, and said instead:
"It is a very pretty place, isn't it?"
"Very," assented Leslie; "and quiet. There is no prettier place on the coast than Portmaris."
"So I should think," he said, looking round, then returning to the beautiful face. "I am a stranger, and only arrived an hour or two ago." He looked down, trying to think of something else to say, anything that would keep her; but could think of nothing.
Leslie stood for a moment, silent, too, then she said:
"Will you not go and change your things now? Dick would be very sorry if you were to catch cold on his account."
It was on the tip of Yorke's tongue to ask, "Only Dick?" but once more he checked himself. The retort would have come naturally enough if he had been addressing a London belle; but there was something in the beautiful gray eyes, an indescribable expression of maidenly dignity and reserve, which, sweet as it was, warned him that such conversational small change would not be acceptable to Miss Lisle, so instead he said, with a smile:
"Oh, Dick won't mind. Besides, he knows I am almost as dry as he is by this time."
Leslie shook her head as if in contradiction of his assertion, and with Dick still pressed to her bosom, said:
"Good-morning, and—and thank you very much,"she added, with a faint color coming into her face.
Yorke arose, raised his hat, and watched her graceful figure as it lightly stepped up the beach to the quay; then he collected his various soaked articles from the breakwater, and followed at a respectful distance.
"Leslie Lisle," he murmured to himself. "The name's music, and she——."
Apparently he could not hit upon any set of terms which would describe her even to his own mind, and, pressing the water from his trousers, he climbed the beach, still looking at her.
As he did so he saw a tall, thin gentleman coming toward her. He held a canvas in his hands, gingerly, as if it were wet, and was followed by a small boy carrying a portable easel and other artistic impedimenta, and, as Leslie spoke to the artist and took the easel from the boy, Yorke muttered:
"Her father! Now, if I go up to them she'll feel it incumbent upon her to tell him of my 'heroic act,' and he'll be bored to death trying to find something suitable to say; and she'll be embarrassed and upset, and hate the sight of me. She looks like a girl who can't endure a fuss. No, I'll go round the other way—if there is another way, as the cookery books say."
He looked round, and was on the point of diving into a narrow street opposite him when an invalid chair came round the corner, driven by Grey, and the occupant, whose eyes were as sharp as his body was frail and crooked, caught sight of the stalwart figure, and held up a hand beckoningly.
Yorke looked very much as if he meant making a run for it; then, with a muttered, "Oh, confound it!" he stuck his hands in his pockets, tried to look as if nothing had happened, and sauntered with a careless, leisurely air up the quay.
By this time Francis Lisle had stuck up his easel right in the center of the narrow pavement, and arranged his canvas, and Grey was in the act of dragging the invalid chair round it, when Leslie, bending down, said, in a whisper:
"Papa, I must move the easel; they cannot pass."
"Eh?" said Francis Lisle, looking round nervously. "I beg your pardon, I will move; yes, I will move."
"Do not, please," said the duke, his thin voice softening as it always did in the presence of a lady. "There is plenty of room. You can go round, Grey?"
"Yes, your—yes, sir," said Grey.
His master shot a warning glance at him.
"There is not room," said Leslie, in a low voice, but the duke held up his hand.
"Please do not trouble," he said; "I am not going any further. I only want to speak to this gentleman coming along. I beg you will not trouble to move the easel. Artists must not be disturbed, or the inspiration may desert them," he added to Francis Lisle, with a pleasant smile.
"Thank you, thank you," said Lisle, still clutching the easel; but Grey had turned the chair with its front to the sea, and the duke called to Yorke, who had come upon them at this juncture.
"What a pretty place, Yorke!" he said. "Have you had your stroll? Shall we go back?"
Yorke had discreetly kept behind the chair, and out of sight of his cousin's sharp eyes.
"All right," he assented.
"Will you give me a cigar?" said the duke.
Yorke came up to the chair and put his hand in his pocket, and thoughtlessly extended the cigar case.
"Thanks. Good gracious! Why, it is soaking wet! Hallo, Yorke," and the duke screwed his head round. "Why, where have you been? What have you been doing?"
Yorke flushed, and cast an appealing glance at Leslie's downcast face. To be made the center of an astonished and absurdly admiring group, to be made a cheap twopenny-halfpenny hero of, was more than he could stand.
"Oh it's nothing," he growled. "Had an accident—tumbled into the sea."
"An accident!" exclaimed the duke, staring athim. "Tumbled in the sea! How did you manage that, in the name of goodness?"
Yorke got red, and looked very much like an impatient schoolboy caught playing truant or breaking windows.
"What's it matter!" he said. "Fell off breakwater. Go and get the cigars, Grey; I'll look after his——."
The duke cut in quickly before the word "grace."
"Nothing of the sort," he said. "You get home and change your things. Fell off the breakwater!" He stared at him incredulously.
Mr. Lisle, too, gazed at him with blank astonishment, as if he were surprised to find that it was a man and not a little boy in knickerbockers, who might not unnaturally be expected to tumble off the breakwater.
Leslie meanwhile stood with downcast eyes, then suddenly she said, addressing her father and carefully avoiding the other two:
"This gentleman swam in to save Dick, papa; that is why he is wet."
The duke scanned her face keenly, and smiled curiously.
"That sounds more probable than your account, Yorke. It is a strange thing," he turned his head to Lisle, "that a man is more often ashamed of committing a good or generous action than a bad one. How do you account for it?"
Mr. Lisle looked at him helplessly, as if he had been asked a conundrum which no one could be expected to answer.
"Because there is always such a thundering fuss about it," said Yorke, stalking off.
The duke looked after him for a minute or two, apparently lost in thought, then he turned to Lisle again.
"You are an artist, sir?" he said.
Mr. Lisle flushed.
"I am, at least, an humble worshiper at the throne," he replied, in the low, nervous voice with which he always addressed strangers, and he resumed his painting.
The duke signed to Grey to help him to get out of the chair, which was so placed that he could not see the canvas.
Grey came round, and in opening the apron let the duke's stick fall. Leslie hesitated a moment, then stepped forward and picked it up. The duke took it from her with a faint flush on his pale, hollow cheeks.
"Thank you," he said. "I am afraid I could not get on without it. At one time I could not walk even with its aid. Please don't say you are sorry or pity me," he added, with an air of levity that barely concealed his sensitive dread of any expression of sympathy. "Everybody says that, you know."
"I was not going to say so," said Leslie, looking him full in the face, and with a sweet, gentle smile.
He looked at her with his unnaturally keen eyes.
"No," he said, quietly. "I don't think you were. And this is the picture——." He stopped as he looked at the awful monstrosity, then caught Leslie's eyes gazing at him with anxious, pleading deprecation, and went on, "Singular effect. You have taken great pains with your subject, Mr. ——."
"Lisle—my name is Lisle," he said, hurriedly. "Yes, yes, I have not spared pains! I have put my heart into my work."
"That is quite evident," said the duke, with perfect gravity, and still regarding the picture. "And that which a man puts his heart in will reward him some day; does, indeed, reward him even while he works."
"True, true!" assented the dreamer, with a gratified glance at the speaker and at Leslie, who stood with downcast eyes, to which the brows were dangerously near. "It is with that hope, that heart, that we artists continue to labor in face of difficulties which to the careless and irreverent seem insurmountable. You think the picture a—a good one, sir; that it is promising?"
The duke was floored for a moment, then he said:
"I think it evidences the painter's love for his art, and his complete devotion to it, Mr. Lisle."
The poor dreamer's face had fallen during the pause, but it brightened at the diplomatic response when it did come, and Leslie, casting a grateful glance at the pale face of the cripple, murmured in his ear:
"Thank you!"
The duke looked at her with a glow of sympathy in his eyes.
"This is your daughter, I presume, Mr. Lisle?" he said.
Lisle nodded.
"Yes," he said. "My only child. All that is left me in the world—excepting my art. You are not an artist also, sir? Pardon me, but your criticism showed such discrimination and appreciation that I was led to conclude you might be a fellow-student."
The duke hesitated a moment.
"No," he said, quietly. "I am not an artist, though I am fond of a good picture——," poor Lisle gazed at the daub, and nodded with a gratified smile. "I am what is called—I was going to say a gentleman at ease, but I am very seldom at ease. My name is Temple, and I am traveling for the benefit of my health."
Lisle nodded again.
"You will find this an extremely salubrious spot," he said. "My daughter and I are very well here."
The duke glanced at Leslie's tall, graceful figure, and smiled grimly.
"But then she is not a cripple," he said.
"A cripple!" Mr. Lisle looked startled and bewildered. "Oh, no; oh, no."
The duke smiled, and leaning upon his stick, seemed to be watching the painter at his work, but his eyes wandered now and again covertly to the beautiful girl beside him. He noticed that her dress, though admirably fitting, was by no means new or of costly material, that her gloves were well worn and carefully mended in places, that her father, if not shabby, had that peculiar look about his clothes which tells so plainly of narrow means; and when Leslie, becoming conscious of his wanderingglance, moved away and stood at a little distance on the edge of the quay, the duke said:
"Have you disposed of your picture, Mr. Lisle?"
Francis Lisle started and flushed.
"N-o," he replied. "That is, not yet."
"I am glad of that," said the duke. "I should like to become its purchaser, if you are disposed to sell it."
Lisle's breath came fast. He had never sold a "picture" in his life, had long and ardently looked forward to doing so, and—and, oh! had the time arrived?
"Certainly, certainly," he said, nervously, and his brush shook. "You like it so much? But perhaps you would like some others of mine better. I—I have several at the cottage. Will you come and look at them?"
"With pleasure," said the duke. "Meanwhile, what shall I give you for this?"
Lisle gazed at the picture with pitiable agitation; he was in mortal terror lest he should scare his customer away by asking too much.
"Really," he faltered, "I—I don't know its value, I have never——," he laughed. "What should you think it was worth?"
The duke ought, if he had answered truthfully, to have replied, "Rather less than nothing," but he feigned to meditate severely, then said:
"If fifty pounds——."
Poor Lisle gasped.
"You—you think—I was going to say twenty."
"We will say fifty," said the duke, as if he were making an excellent bargain. "You have not finished it yet."
"No, no," assented Lisle, eagerly. "I will do so carefully, most carefully. It—it shall be the most finished picture I have ever painted."
"I am sure you will do your best," said the duke. "I will accept your kind invitation to see your other pictures, and now I must be getting back. Good-morning."
"Yes, yes! Good-morning! What did you say your name was?"
"Temple," said the duke.
He glanced at Leslie, raised his hat, was helped into his chair by Grey, who had stood immovable and impassive just out of hearing, and was wheeled away.
Lisle stood all of a quiver for a moment, then beckoned to Leslie.
"What is it, dear," she said, soothingly, as she saw his agitation. Had the crippled stranger told him what the sketch was really like?
"That—that gentleman has bought the picture, Leslie!" he exclaimed, in a tone of nervous excitement and triumph. "You see! I told you the day would come, and it has come. At last! Luck has taken a turn, Leslie! I see a great future before me. I only wanted some one with an appreciative, artistic eye, and this Mr.—Mr. Temple is evidently possessed of one. He saw the value of this at once. I noticed his face change directly he looked at it."
Leslie's face gradually grew red.
"What—what has he given you for it, dear?" she asked.
"Fifty pounds!" exclaimed Lisle, exultingly. "Fifty pounds! It may not be as much as it is worth; but it is a large sum to us, and I am satisfied, more than satisfied! I wonder what he will do with it? Do you think he will let me exhibit it? I will ask him—not just now, but when it is finished. I must finish it at once! Where is my olive green? I have left it at home. Bring it for me, Leslie; it is on the side table."
She went without a word. At the corner of the street she overtook the invalid chair, hesitated a moment, walked on, and then came back.
The duke peered up at her from under his brows.
"I want to speak to you," she said, her breath coming and going quickly.
He motioned to Grey to withdraw out of hearing, and struggling to keep her voice steady, Leslie went on:
"I want to thank you—but, oh, why did you do it? I know—you know that it—it is not worth it—why?"
The duke smiled.
"Do not distress yourself, Miss Lisle," he said, gently. "You refer to my purchase of your father's picture?"
"Yes!" she said, in a troubled voice. "It was kind of you, and it has given him, oh! you cannot tell what pleasure."
"Yes, I think I can. It is not the money."
"No."
"Just so. I understand. And don't you understand that I have bought something more than the sketch? Miss Lisle, I'm not the richest man in England,"—he was just within the truth—"but I can afford the luxury of bestowing pleasure on my fellow creatures now and again. Please don't begrudge or deny me that! I have not too many pleasures," and he glanced downward at his stunted figure. "Of the two, I fancy I am more pleased than your father. Don't say any more, and please don't look so heartbroken, or you will rob me of more than half my satisfaction. Miss Lisle, forgive me, but I think you love your father?"
"Yes; oh, yes!" she breathed.
"Very well, then," he said. "Be careful you do not let him see that you think he has got too good a price for his picture. Let him be happy; happiness comes too seldom for us to turn it aside with a cold welcome."
Leslie looked down at the worn and lined face with eyes that glowed with gratitude.
"I—I can't thank you, Mr. Temple!" she said, in a low voice, that thrilled like some exquisite music. "You have made me happy, and—ah, I can't tell you what I feel!" and she trembled and turned up the street.
The duke looked after her with a wistful expression on his pale face.
"She is an angel!" he murmured.
Then his face changed, grew harder and cynical.
"Yes, an angel at present," he said. "But tell her that I am the Duke of Rothbury, and she will become transformed into a harpy, and want to marry me, like the rest. Grey, where are you!Have you gone to sleep? Are you going to keep me here all day?"
The moon rose early that evening and flooded Portmaris with a light that transformed it, already picturesque enough, into a fairy village beside an enchanted ocean. Leslie sat at the open window of her room, her head resting on her hand, her eyes fixed on the sea, now calmly rippling as if it were rocking itself to sleep in the moonbeams.
Her father had gone to bed, early as it was, worn out with his long day's work and the excitement produced by the sale of his picture, and Leslie was free to recall the events of the day.
Her life hitherto had been so gray and sober, so uneventful, that the incidents which had been crowded into this day had almost bewildered her.
She ought, in common fairness to that individual, have thought first and most of Ralph Duncombe; but it was upon that other young man who had plunged into the waves to reach Dick that her mind was fixed.
Beauty, man's beauty, doesn't count much with women; indeed, it has been remarked by the observant that some of the ugliest men have married the prettiest girls, and it was not Yorke's handsome face which had impressed Leslie. It would be hard to say exactly what it was in him that had done so; perhaps it was the frank smile, the free and musical laugh, that devil-may-care air of his, or the pleasant voice which seemed to float in through the window upon the moonbeams, and find an echo in Leslie's heart. Once or twice she tried to cast him out of her mind. There seemed to her something almost approaching unmaidenliness in dwelling so much upon this stranger; the young man whom she had seen for only a few minutes, and whom she might never see again. Why, she didnot even know his name, or at any rate only a part of it. "Yorke," Mr. Temple had called him, and she murmured it absently. "Yorke." It seemed to her to fit him exactly. It had a brave, alert sound in it. She could fancy him ready for any danger, any emergency. He had plunged into the waves after Dick, as if it were quite a matter of course that he should do so, had done it as naturally as if there were no other course open to him. She could see him now, as he came out, with Dick in his arms, his hair plastered on his face, his eyes bright and laughing.
And how anxious he had been to avoid any thanks or fuss! It was wicked of him, of course, to tell a story and account for his besoaked condition by stating that he had fallen off the breakwater—Leslie smiled as she thought of the thinness of the excuse—but she understood why he had fibbed, and—forgave him.
"Don't you like this Mr. Yorke, Dick?" she said to Dick, who lay in a contented coil on her lap. "You ought to do so, for if it had not been for him you would be at the bottom of the sea, little doggie, by this time."
Probably Dick would have liked to have retorted, "And if it hadn't been for him I shouldn't have gone in at all."
Then her thoughts wandered to the crippled hunchback, and her heart thrilled with gratitude as she thought of his kindness; Mrs. Whiting had said that he was a nobleman, but there had evidently been a mistake; very likely the simple-minded landlady had concluded that no one traveling with a man-servant could be less than a man of title.
Leslie thought of the two men—but most of "Yorke"—and all they had said and done for some time before Ralph Duncombe insisted upon his share in her reflections, and as she thought of him she sighed. She pitied him, and was sorry for him, but she did not want to see him again. He had frightened as well as touched her by the passionate avowal which had accompanied the ring.
The ring! She had utterly forgotten it! She put her hand to her pocket, turned it out, but the ring was not there. What had she done with it? It was fast closed in her hand, she remembered, when she heard Dick's piteous yap; and then she had sprung up, and run down the beach. She must have dropped it among the pebbles.
Her heart smote her reproachfully. The least she could do in return for the passionate love Ralph Duncombe had lavished so uselessly upon her was to keep his ring! She rose, troubled and remorseful. The tide had been going out when she dropped it; it was not likely that it would be seen by any one, and it was probably lying where it had fallen. She seemed to see the plain gold circlet lying there in the silent night, neglected and despised.
Her hat and jacket lay on the bed; she snatched them up, put them on hastily, and left the house.
A light burned behind the windows of Marine Villa opposite, and she glanced up at it, trying to picture to herself the two men in the sitting-room; the one so strong and stalwart, the other so weak and crippled.
As she went quickly down the street she was conscious of a new and strange feeling; it was half pleasant, half painful. It seemed to her as if some spirit of change had entered her quiet, peaceful, uneventful life, as if she were on the verge of some novel experience. The feeling disquieted her. She looked up at the stars almost hidden by the haze of the glorious light thrown broadcast by the moon, and there came into her mind some verses—they were from the Persian, though she did not know it—which she had seen under a picture in one of the Academy exhibitions—