He took both her hands, and sat down beside her.
"I startled you, dearest!" he said.
How lovely she looked! How sweet, and, ah, how pure and good! Not Eleanor herself could look more refined, morespirituellethan this love of his—his Leslie.
"No!" she said, with a faint smile, and a little shyness in her voice and eyes. "I ought to have been startled, but I was not. Perhaps it was because I was thinking of you. When did you come back?"
"A few minutes ago, dearest," he said. "Has it seemed long to you? I thought, perhaps, that you would have forgotten me."
She smiled at him.
"Well, I might have done so," she said, with delicious archness; "but you provided against that, did you not?"
He did not understand for a moment, then he laughed.
"You got it all right?"
"Ah, yes," she said, with a little sigh of gratitude and content. "I wish you could have seen me when it came! I was standing beside Mr. Temple when the postman brought it, and I cried out—well, like a schoolgirl!"
He looked at her, wrapt in delight at her delight.
"It was a happy thought of mine, then?" he said.
"Yes, but why did you send me so grand a present," she said in a low voice. "Anything would have done; but that——." She laughed and colored. "It was too rich, too costly for such a simple person as I am!"
He laughed. So she thought the plain little locket rich and costly. What would she have considered the diamond pendant he had sent to Finetta? "God bless my darling! My modest pearl!" he thought.
"And you were pleased with it?" he said. "It occurred to me that you might like it; for a minute or two I feared that you might consider me conceited in sending it, that a ring——."
She shook her head.
"It is beautiful—beautiful!" she said. "Its only fault is that it is too good, too costly. The meresttrifle would have served to tell me that you had not—forgotten me! And, indeed, I did not need anything."
"You trusted me so completely, dearest?" he said.
"Yes," she said simply, with a faint wonder in her voice at the earnestness in his.
"You trusted me," he said, as earnestly as before. "And how if I were to ask you to trust me still, to trust me in a greater degree, Leslie?"
She looked at him, still smiling.
"What is it?" she asked; and the question was a good reply to his.
"It is just this," he said, taking her hand in both his and holding it tightly. "See, dearest, I hesitate to tell you—it is so much to ask you! And the worst of it is that I cannot give you the reason——."
Her face paled, but she looked at him bravely.
"Are—are you going to leave me again? If you must go——."
The love in her voice, in her eyes, made his heart actually ache.
"Leave you?" he said. "Well, yes; but it will be only for a few hours a day, if—if you consent to do what I am going to ask you?"
"What is it?" she asked, still calmly.
"I want you to marry me—at once, Leslie?" he said in a low voice, and almost solemnly.
She started, and her hand quivered in his.
"Marry—you—at once!" she whispered, her bosom heaving, her long dark lashes trembling.
"You are frightened, dearest?" he said, drawing her nearer to him.
She was silent a moment.
"No," she replied in a whisper, "not frightened, I think, but——."
"And that isn't all," he said almost desperately. "I want our marriage to be a secret one."
She started now, and drew her hand from his, turning her pale face to him with almost pained surprise.
"Listen, Leslie," he said, getting her hand back again. "There are reasons why it is necessary—do you understand, my darling, necessary—that noone should know of our engagement. The other day, when—when I told you I loved you, and asked you to be my wife, I did not think of those reasons; I didn't think of anything but you. But they came home to me when I was in London. It sounds strange, almost incredible——."
"No, not incredible," she murmured.
"You would believe anything I told you, you mean?" he asked, with bated breath.
Her clear eyes met his with her assent in them as plainly as if she had spoken.
"My darling! And I cannot tell you——. But, Leslie, in a word, I am not free—I mean that I am not my own master——."
A faint smile chased the slightly troubled look from her face.
"It sounds so strangely," she said. "A duke and not your own master——."
He reddened, and his eyes dropped before hers.
"Heaven and earth!" broke from him almost passionately. "Leslie—I beg of you not to—to call me that again——."
"Not——." She looked at him questioningly.
"Yes. Yes—I do beg of you, dearest. Not, we will say, for another day. After that——," he drew a long breath, and brushed the hair from his forehead impatiently. "I will explain then why I ask you, dearest. I will explain everything. Don't—don't—be frightened, dearest! Don't think there is any real mystery! You will—yes, you will laugh, when you hear what it is!"
"Shall I?" she says, trustfully. "I am not frightened, I am not even—I think—very curious——."
"Oh, my darling! And you do not even ask me why this secrecy, this concealment, is necessary?"
"No," she says, after a pause, and placing her other hand in his. "If you say so I am content. I suppose——," she averts her face a little—"I suppose you do not wish your people to know that—-that you are going to marry one so far beneath you, one so unfit to be a duchess——."
He stifles a groan.
"It is not that," he says. But for his promise tothe duke he could tell her all. Tell her that he is not a duke with lands and gold galore, but a poor man so incumbered and crippled by debt that he dare not let it be known that he is not going to marry a fortune! "Leslie, I cannot tell you! I am not free to tell you, till—yes, to-morrow! Will you not trust me?"
Her breath comes fast for a moment as she looks out to sea, then she turns to him.
"I cannot but trust you," she says almost piteously. "I could not doubt you if I tried."
"My angel, my dearest!" he says, fervently, reverently. "You shall never regret having trusted me, never! Now, listen, Leslie! There is one person, of all others, who must not know what we are going to do—Mr. Temple."
"Mr. Temple?" she says, not suspiciously, not even curiously but with faint surprise.
"Yes," he says. "He suspects, or half-suspects, already that I love you. It must be kept from him. You will understand why when I tell you all—when I clear up the mystery. Now, see——." He stops and laughs. His face is flushed with excitement, and his eyes sparkling. "To-night I will go up to town——."
"To-night——," she breathes.
"Yes," he says. "There is no time to be lost—you will see that when you know all. To-morrow I will get a special license, and that same day you must come up to London——."
She trembles.
"Alone?" she asks in a still voice.
"No, no," he says. "You must persuade your father——. Stay! I will manage that! I will get a well-known dealer I know to wire to him; some question about his pictures, something that will bring him up."
She trembled still.
"The moment you arrive you must telegraph your address to me. I will tell you where to wire——." He takes out an old envelope, and writes:
"Lord Auchester——."
Then with an exclamation tears it up, and on another piece of paper, writes:
"Yorke,
"Dorchester Club,
"Pall Mall."
"Mind, dearest! Send the telegram at once, and at once I will come to you, and—the rest you must leave to me. You will?"
"I will!" she says, almost inaudibly, and as solemnly as ever marriage vow was whispered.
Her great love and trust overwhelm him, and something like tears—yes, tears—dim his bright eyes.
"My darling, if I ever forget your love and trust, your goodness to me, may Heaven forget me!" he says in a voice that makes her thrill. "I will make you happy, Leslie, happier than any woman ever was before! Every hour of my life——." His voice breaks. "Oh, my darling, what have I done that Heaven should send me such an angel!"
The tears are in her eyes now.
"I've made you cry!" he says. "Ah, I know! You are thinking of your father, Leslie!"
She starts guiltily. For the first time in her life, the life devoted to him, she has forgotten her father.
"Do not fret about him. He shall go with us; he shall belong as much to me as to you. What! do you think I would separate you——."
They sit hand in hand for—how long? At last he tears himself away.
"Remember, dearest!" are his last words. "Send to me directly—the moment—you reach London. And, Leslie, fear nothing! Why, when one thinks of it," and he laughs, "what is there to fear?"
He is gone at last. She stands and watches him as he makes his way—with many a backward glance—along the quay; then she sinks on to the rock again.
Her heart is throbbing, a mist is floating before her eyes; she cannot think, cannot see. So unconscious of everything around her is she that, whenhalf an hour later the dark, graceful figure of a woman passes near her nook, she does not heed or notice it. She is in Love's land, and rapt in Love's dream.
After a time Leslie got up, but she wanted to be alone a little longer; she felt that she could not talk even to her father just then; she wanted to be alone to think over all Yorke had told her. She walked a few yards toward the quay, and saw that Mr. Lisle was still painting; then she turned, and slowly paced in the direction of Ragged Point, which stretched out dark and sullen in the sunlight.
As she had said, not a doubt of Yorke's truth and honor cast a shadow over her happiness. If he said that it was necessary that they should be married at once and secretly, it must be so—it should be so! He was her lover, her master, her king. She had given herself to him absolutely; she trusted him because she could not help herself.
She had almost reached the point, and would have gone on, but she remembered that the tide was coming in, and that there would not be time to get round before the sea rose above the narrow ledge of rock at the foot of the cliffs, and she was turning back when she caught sight of something dark above a rock at the very foot of the point.
For a moment she thought it was a bird, then she saw that it was a hat—a woman's hat. Someone was sitting there. In an instant it struck her that it might be a stranger, unacquainted with the conformation of the coast line, and that if she sat there for a few minutes longer she would be unable to get back or to turn the point.
Leslie looked at the tide, and was startled to find that it had run up quicker than she had thought. There would be barely time to reach the woman behind the rock and warn her. She ran forward as quickly as she could and shouted at the top of her voice, but the voice of the incoming waves beating against the rocks drowned hers.
She looked round, hoping to see a boat or a fisherman, but no one was in sight; and she and the unknown, sitting there in all unconsciousness of her peril, were alone in the grim place.
Most women would have paused and thought of her own safety, but Leslie and selfishness had not yet made acquaintance, and she hurried on, running where there was a bare bit of sand, and scrambling over the rocks that lay in her path. At last she reached the one behind which the woman she had come to warn was sitting, and stood before her breathlessly.
"Oh, quick! Quick!" she cried pantingly. Then she stopped,and recoiled a little. It was a girl, seated in an attitude of weariness and lassitude, her elbows on her knees, her head bowed. Even in this first moment Leslie noted the grace and sorrowful abandon of the figure; but it was the uplifted face that made her recoil, for it was that of the woman she had seen below St. Martin's Tower—it was the woman who had sung the disreputable music-hall ditty.
There was no reckless gaiety in the face now, but a misery and despair so eloquent that even as she recoiled, Leslie's heart ached with pity for her.
The dark eyes looked at Leslie vacantly for a moment, then flashed with sudden anger.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" she asked, half sullenly, half defiantly.
Leslie flushed at the tone in which the greeting was conveyed.
"I—I saw you sitting here," she said quickly, and a little tremulously, for the dark face disquieted her, and inspired her with a vague uneasiness. "I saw you from the beach yonder, and I thought that perhaps you were a stranger."
"I am a stranger. Yes, what of it?" said the woman, as sullenly and suspiciously as before.
"And you do not know that this is Ragged Point, and that the tide is coming up fast, very fast," said Leslie quickly.
"Is it? What does it matter?" was the dull response.
"Oh, do you not understand?" said Leslie earnestly. "When the tide comes up here, where you are sitting, you will not be able to go on or turn back. You see how the point stretches out?"
The dark eyes looked wearily to right and left.
"I see," she said. "No, I didn't know it. I don't know how long I've been sitting here." She looked up at the sky. "The tide comes up here, does it?"
"Yes, yes!" said Leslie hurriedly. "Pray come away at once!" for the girl had made no attempt to get up. "We have only just time to get round the point, even if we run. Come at once!" and in her eagerness she held out her hand to help her to rise.
The girl disregarded the outstretched hand, and rose wearily, sullenly.
"I suppose I should have been drowned if you had not seen me?" she remarked listlessly.
"Oh, I hope not; I hope not!" said Leslie. "But I am very glad I did see you. I only caught sight of the top of your hat. You had better take my hand. I am used to getting over the rocks and stones."
"I can get on all right," said the girl sullenly, refusing the proffered assistance. "I'm as young as you are, and as strong," she added, glancing out of the corners of her dark eyes at Leslie.
"I am glad you are strong," said Leslie gravely, as she lookedat the swiftly, surely incoming sea; "for we shall have to run."
Her companion stopped and looked seaward too, and with a strange expression.
"Oh, why do you wait?" demanded Leslie. "Do you not understand that there is not a moment to lose?"
The girl laughed a reckless, miserable laugh, which was a grotesque reflection of the laugh which Leslie had heard on the tower when she had last seen her.
"I was thinking if it was worth while," she said moodily.
Leslie stared at her.
"Worth while!" she echoed unconsciously.
"Yes. I'm not sure it wouldn't be better and easier to stop here and let the water come up. It would save a lot of trouble." She laughed again.
With a faint shudder, Leslie turned away from the dark eyes and seized the speaker's arm.
"You must come at once!" she said firmly.
The woman drew back for a moment; then, as if yielding against her will, allowed Leslie to draw her forward.
They hurried over the rocks in silence for a moment or two, the waves splashing against their feet; then Leslie stopped and uttered an exclamation, her eyes fixed on the cliff before them, her face suddenly pale.
"What is the matter? Are we too late?" asked her companion dully and indifferently.
"Yes, we are too late!" replied Leslie in a low voice. Then she caught her breath and forced a smile. "Do not be frightened. We may get round the other way; the ledge of rock is wider there, but it is more difficult to get over. We must go back. Follow me."
She turned and sprang quickly from rock to rock, and her companion followed her example. They gained the spot where the girl had been sitting, but it was now covered by the sea, and they had to wade ankle deep.
Leslie caught the girl's hand.
"Hold fast!" she said in a quick whisper. "If we gain that point there, where the rock sticks out——."
Even as she spoke a spurt of foam covered the spot indicated, and the waves dashed over it. She stopped and looked round her, her face white and set.
"We are too late here, too," she said with a smothered sob. "Too late!" and she covered her face with her hands.
The other girl leant against the cliff and stared dully at the angry waves, creeping, creeping like some wild beast towards them.
"You mean we are going to die," she said in a low, harsh voice. "Going to die like rats in a hole. Well," and she shrugged her shoulders, "I don't care much, myself. You see, when you came up just now, I was wishing I was dead."
Leslie shuddered, and put up her hand as if to stop her. Death was too near to be spoken of so lightly.
"Yes, I was. You're shocked, I dessay. I'm sorry for you. It's a pity you didn't stop where you were. You're not tired of life, judging by your face."
"Tired of life!" panted Leslie; "oh, no, no!"
"So I should say," said the other sullenly. "So you don't understand what I mean, and what I feel?"
"No, I don't understand," said Leslie, scarcely knowing what she was saying. "But it is dreadful, dreadful to hear you, and at such a moment. Hah!" She broke off with an exclamation of horror, and drew her companion back close to the face of the cliff, for a wave had dashed at their feet and wet them to the waist.
"It's coming up pretty fast," said the girl. "It won't take long to——. Isn't there any chance for you? I don't care about myself."
Leslie screened her eyes with her hand.
"A boat might be passing," she said faintly. "Oh, to think that they are so near—that there are people just round that bend, who, if they knew—only knew!—would risk their lives to save us," and she sank at the foot of the cliff and hid her face in her hands.
"I'm sorry," said the other. "It's rough on you to lose your life for me, a stranger, too."
Leslie sprang up, her eyes wild with despair.
"We will not die!" she cried. "We will not! Do you hear? Oh, I cannot die; I cannot leave him—like this!" and she beat her hands together.
"You're thinking of your husband—who?" asked the other, eyeing her half pityingly. "It's always a man. That's where I've got the pull of you," and she laughed. "My man wouldn't care whether I lived or died. He's left me already."
The anguish in her voice, the reckless despair, went to Leslie's heart. She shuddered as she looked at the dark eyes.
"Left you!" she breathed. "Oh, now I understand! Ah, yes; I know now why you want to die."
"Yes," was the bitter response. "That's where we women are such fools. We care. Men don't. You think your husband, or sweetheart, or whoever he is, will break his heart for the loss of you!" she laughed mockingly. "Not he! They don't break their hearts so easily! He'll get over it and marry another woman almost before you're—cold in your grave, I was going to say."
Leslie shrank back from her as far as she could, and put her hands up to her ears.
"Oh, hush, hush!" she panted. "It is not true! It is wicked and false! I will not listen to you. Oh, forgive me!" she broke off, her indignation and horror softened by the misery on the white face and dark eyes staring so hopelessly at the angry sea. "How you must have suffered, how you must have loved him to be so wretched, so indifferent."
"Oh, yes, I loved him. I loved him—well, as much as you loved the man you're thinking of——."
"When—when did it happen—when did he leave you? Why? Tell me," said Leslie. "Let us talk—try and forget that it is coming nearer and nearer, that we have only a few minutes—"
"Yes, we haven't long," was the response. "I've been watching that rock there, almost in a line with us. You could see the top a moment ago; it's covered now. When did he leave me? Only a few nights ago. Why? The old story. He got tired of me, I suppose. Anyhow, he met someone else."
"And—and you were to have been his wife!" breathed Leslie pityingly. "And you loved him! Oh, how could he be so cruel, so heartless?"
The other looked down at her, and laughed harshly.
"Why, men are like that, all of them."
"No, no! Not all! They are not all so base, so vile."
"You think so. You wait! Perhaps your turn will come. But I forgot," she laughed again. "Your man won't have the chance to leave you—there, I beg your pardon," for Leslie had shrunk away from her. "Don't mind me or what I say. I'm half out of my mind. I've had no sleep since—since he left me, and I've come a long journey, and eaten nothing. Yes, I'm half mad. I was a fool to follow him. I ought to have stayed at home; but I've got my punishment."
"You came after him? He is here, then?" asked Leslie in a pitying whisper, watching the waves as she spoke.
"Yes," said she; then with a sigh, "Yes, and I've seen him. I meant to speak to him, to—to—try and get him back; but my heart failed me, and I crept out here to be alone. It wasn't only to see him that I came. I wanted to see her."
"Her?" repeated Leslie, half absently.
"Yes. The woman that stole him from me. But it doesn't matter now. Nothing matters to us two, does it? How much longer?"
The question almost drove Leslie frantic with agony, the anguish of despair. It was all very well for this poor creature, abandoned, deserted by the man she loved, to take death so coolly; but she, Leslie, was not deserted and unhappy. Her lover, her Yorke, was going to make her his wife; in a few days, a few hours, he would be waiting for her. Yorke, Yorke! Her heart called to him. And though the name did not leave her lips, the voice within her seemed to give her courage, to fill her with a fierce, almost savage, determination to live.
She looked up at the cliff with straining eyes. It was almost perpendicular and smooth just above them, but a little further along there were a few scrubby bushes projecting from the surface. It was just possible, if they could reach those, that they might at least gain some few inches of foothold. Just possible, though the mere thought of the attempt made her tremble.
"What are you staring up there for?" asked her companion. "You couldn't climb it, if you tried."
"No," panted Leslie. "But we will try!"
The other shook heir head, but Leslie seized her by the hand.
"Come!" she gasped hoarsely. "Better to try and—and fall, than stand here to wait for death. I cannot wait! Come, hold my hand tightly. We will escape or die together."
As if she had caught something of Leslie's frantic desire of life, the other girl gripped Leslie's hand.
"Come on, then," she said. "Though you'd have more chance alone."
"No, no! Together or not at all," cried Leslie, and she plunged into the water.
For a moment or two it seemed as if they would be carried off their feet, as if they had rushed into the arms of the death from which they had been shrinking; but they were both young and strong, and they accomplished together that which would have been impossible if they had been separate.
Gasping for breath, half blinded by the spray, deafened by the roar of the waves, they stood on a narrow ledge of rock, clutching at the bush above their heads, the water rushing nearly to their knees.
"We shall hold on here for about two minutes," said the woman grimly, "if the bush don't give way before that."
Leslie turned her face to the wall, and shut her eyes.
"And he will be waiting for me!" she murmured. "He will not know, will think I have mistrusted him. I shall never see him again, never hear his voice! Oh, why did we part to-day; why didn't I ask him, pray him to take me with him. Never to see him again——." She broke off with a sob that shook her. "My arm is numbed, I am falling!" she said with a wail. "Tell him—tell him—oh, God, and I love him so!"
The agony in her voice seemed to go straight to her companion's heart. The dark face flushed red, her eyes shone with a kind of pity.
"Hold on!" she said, almost hissed between her white teeth shut fast. "You shan't die! You tried to save me, you risked your life for me, and I'll save you. Put your arm round my neck. Don't be afraid. I'm strong. I can dance for hours; my ankles are like steel. Cling to me, I say, with one hand, anyhow."
Scarcely knowing what she was doing, Leslie released the bush with one hand, and put her arm round her companion's neck.
"If I'd only a drop of brandy!" muttered the woman. "How cold your arm feels; you're not going to faint! For God's sake don't do that, or we're both lost; for I don't mean to let you go now. Die! Who says we're going to die? I want to livenow! After all, he's not quite lost—my man, I mean! He may come back. I'll get him back. I'll best this other woman or know the reason why!"
Her face was flushed, her voice husky with excitement.
"No use, no use!" moaned Leslie.
"No use! What do you mean! Am I ugly, hump-backed? Do you mean she's better looking than I am! I don't believe it! He's been caught by a new face. That isn't what you mean? You're going to fall? Not you! Hold on tight now, for I'm going to have a shy at the bush above. There's a bit of a path." She laughed fiercely, defiantly. "Old Faber had us do gymnastics. I used to hate 'em; but I'm much obliged to him now. Put your foot against the rock and spring—not too hard, mind—when I do. Once let me get a grip of that bush up there, and I'll hang on or fight my way till my arms drop off. Die! Why should I? I was a fool! I'll get him back, you see if I don't! No, we won't die. You shall have your husband again! Now!" she breathed between her clenched teeth. "If you've got any pluck in you, if you want to see your husband again, put your heart into it! Now!"
She made a spring; they both sprang at the same moment, as if they were one body inspired by the same will, and the woman got hold of the bush, and clung with the strength and tenacity of a leopardess.
"Ah!" she gasped. "We've done it! Cling on to me! We'll wait while I count twenty, and then we'll go for the path."
"No—no!" panted Leslie. "I could not, I could not! Let us stay here till——."
"Till this bit of ledge crumbles under us with our weight, and lets us drop like poisoned flies! No, no! I don't feel like that. It isn't convenient to die now; it was just now! I'm going to live, to live! And so are you!"
She counted the twenty, then put her arm around Leslie's waist.
"Now! Put your hand on my shoulder and cling with the other to the bits of bush and stump, and don't look down! Mind that, or you'll drop, as sure as fate."
Leslie shuddered. Her heart was beating wildly, but a grand hope was creeping over her. Was it possible that she should live and see Yorke once more?
Slowly she felt her way along the surface with her hand, till she got hold of the dry but firmly rooted scrub, then she drew herself up and along the narrow ledge, which was a fissure in the rock rather than a path. No one, in cold blood, could have maintained a footing there for more than thirty seconds, but these two were fighting for dear life, and their blood was burning at fever heat, and they managed, almost miraculously, to creep, crawl, drag themselves upward and still upward.
Below them roared the angry waves, as if with mocking rage at their attempts to escape their voracious maw. Above their heads whirled the gulls, screaming weirdly. Every now andthen a stone, displaced by their feet, rolled and sprang from point to point, and ultimately bounded into the gulf below them; and each time Leslie felt that in a moment she would be bounding and falling like the stone, to the hideous death.
For some minutes neither spoke. They could hear each other's breath coming in thick, labored gasps; and Leslie, who was in front, now and again felt her companion's breath striking, like that of a hot furnace, on her neck.
"Keep on! Hold tight!" she heard her say presently. "Keep your eyes up; the path's broadening. If—if we can hold on another minute or two—or a year, for that's what it seems like!—we're saved!"
Leslie could not reply; her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth; her lips, dry and stiff, would not move. But still as she climbed her heart's voice murmured "Yorke, Yorke!" and she drew courage from it. It was worth fighting for, this life of hers, this life which his love had made so precious, so beauteous. If she lived she would be his wife. His wife! Yes, she would live, she would fight on while there was breath in her body, while there was strength in her fingers to clutch an inch of even the moss on the cliff's surface.
In such moments Time is not. It is swallowed up in the agony, the suspense, the mingled hope and despair which rack and wring the heart and brain. She scarcely knew how long they had been making their awful journey through the valley of the shadow of death, scarcely realized that they were saved, when she saw the edge of the cliff just above her, and with one great effort raised herself above it—above it!—and threw herself upon the level ground, gripping the short turf with her hot fingers as if she dreaded that something would drag her back again, and hurl her into the awful sea whose voice still howled faintly in her ears.
She lay thus for a minute or two, her companion lying at her elbow, panting, beside her; then, with a great sob, Leslie rose to her knees and poured out her heart in thanksgiving to Him who had restored her to life—and to Yorke!
The woman stood and eyed her with a pale face and half lowered lids.
"Where are we?" she said at last.
Leslie rose and turned to her with both hands outstretched.
"Oh, what can I say, how can I thank you?" she exclaimed in great agitation. "You have saved my life!"
The woman wiped her lips and forced a smile.
"That's a rum way of putting it," she said, her voice shaking a little. "If I did, you saved mine first. It was a narrow squeak for both of us."
She looked round almost impatiently.
"Where are we?" she repeated. "I—I want to get back to London as soon as I can. I——'ve been half out of my mind, I think, and this—this affair has pulled me round. Don't you take any notice of what I said about—about him, the man Ispoke of. I don't believe I've lost him, after all. I can get him back." She laughed discordantly, and flushed, as if half ashamed of the new hope that the escape from death had seemed to give her. "He's—he's no worse than the rest. They're all alike, easily taken with a new face. And—and I know he likes me. He was sorry for going directly after he'd left me, and—yes—" she pushed the black hair from her face—"yes, I'll bet my life I get him back."
Leslie looked at her with a smile of sympathy and encouragement.
"Yes," she said, "I hope so; ah, yes, I hope so! It was dreadful to see you and hear you when we were—down there!" and she glanced with a shudder at the edge of the cliff.
"Yes, I was pretty low then," said the other. "It was a hard fight, wasn't it? You and I ought to be friends; but—" she paused and looked hard and almost shyly at Leslie's face—"but perhaps you wouldn't care for that. You're a lady—a swell, I can see, and I—well, I'm not fit——."
Leslie put out her hand to stop her.
"You must not talk like that now—now, just when we have escaped death together. And I hope—ah! yes, I hope that you will be happier, that he—" she blushed, and her voice grew low; love was so sacred a thing to her—"that he you love will come back to you. If he does you must forgive him, and take him back——."
She stopped, for the tall, graceful figure in front of her swayed and staggered; and the dark eyes grew suddenly heavy and closed.
Leslie uttered a cry of alarm.
"Oh, what is it? You are ill, faint——."
The other opened her lips as if to speak, then fell heavily forward on Leslie's arm.
Leslie knelt beside her on the grass, and looked round anxiously. The solitude was as intense as that which they had just left. They were still alone together with no help near.
Leslie remembered that a small spring ran from a cleft on the cliff, and, though the thought of going near the edge made her heart quake, she gently set the woman's head down, and, stooping over the cliff, wet her handkerchief in the rill, and, returning, bathed the white face with one hand while she unfastened the bosom of the lifeless woman's dress with the other.
As she did so her hand came in contact with something hard, though for a second or two she was too intent upon watching for some signs of returning consciousness in the face on her knee to look to see what it was; but presently her eye caught a plain gold locket.
"Poor girl!" she thought. "It is the gift of the man who has deserted her. And she wears it near her heart. Poor girl, poor girl!"
At that moment the white lips parted, and the dark eyes opened.
"Yorke!" she breathed. "Is it you, Yorke? Have you come back to me?"
The words struck upon Leslie's ear at first without any significance. She scarcely heard them or took them in for a space during which one could have counted fifty.
Then, gradually it came upon her, gradually, slowly.
"Yorke! Is it you, Yorke? Have you come back to me?"
She repeated them mechanically, as one repeats a phrase in a foreign language, the meaning of which one does not understand. Then she began to tremble, and a faint, sick dread fell upon her.
All the time she bathed the white face and lips and brushed the dark hair from the low, handsome forehead; doing it mechanically, absently.
Yorke? Had this girl said Yorke, or, was she mistaken?
She waited, breathless, the sick feeling weighing on her heart; and presently the full lips opened again, and again the name—the beloved name—was breathed. There could be no mistake this time. Leslie heard it plainly.
It was Yorke.
Her hand trembled, the beautiful face on her lap grew dim, and seemed to fade away. Then she made an effort and forced the dread from her heart, and a smile to her lips.
What if this girl, the beautiful girl, had called upon Yorke? Surely there was more than one man of that name in the world, the great big wide world; and this woman's Yorke was not, could not be, hers, Leslie's.
She could have laughed at her wicked, worse than wicked, foolish fears! Could have laughed if it had not been for the stress of circumstances.
How could she suspect for a moment that he Yorke—the Duke of Rothbury, her lover, so good and true and stanch—should be the Yorke whom this woman loved, and who had, by her own account, deserted her!
"Oh, I wrong him cruelly, wickedly, even by this momentary doubt!" she told herself. "He would not have doubted me as I have done him, though only for a second!" And her face flushed.
But though she reproached herself, her mind was at work, and, against her will, she remembered how she had first seen this girl.
She recalled the scene, the incident, at St. Martin's Tower. Yorke had stood beside her looking down, and he had started—yes, and turned pale, white to the lips, as the woman's voice had floated up to them.
Did he know her?
All her being rose in revolt at the idea, the suspicion. And yet——. She remembered his face as it had looked at that moment. She had thought that he had turned pale with angerthat such a song should have been sung in her presence, and had loved him for his anxiety on her account.
She tried to thrust the dawning suspicion from her as if it were some insidious demon whispering in her ear, but still she could not forget that this woman had told her that she had come down here to Portmaris, had followed the man she loved to this place; and Yorke had come down here, had come down——!
The rays of the setting sun struck the two figures, the white face lying on Leslie's lap adding a lustre to the dark hair that swept across Leslie's dress.
How beautiful she looked, Leslie thought in a dull, vague way; how beautiful! Any man might well lose his heart to such a woman, even though she were not a lady, and capable of singing such a song as she had heard these lips sing. Any man, even——. No, not Yorke! He would not, could not have loved her. It was she, Leslie herself, whom he loved, not this woman!
Even as she laid the flattering unction to her soul, her eye fell again upon the locket.
It was lying open, face downward, upon the woman's snow-white breast.
A desire, an overwhelming desire to take it up and see what face was enshrined in it seized upon her. One glance, and this vague, unjust suspicion of hers would be set at rest for ever. She knew, knew, that it would not be Yorke's, her Yorke's, face she should see.
She fought against the desire, the craving. Love was a sacred thing to her, and it would seem like sacrilege to touch this trinket which this poor girl wore, doubtless the gift of the man she loved so dearly, the man whose desertion had caused her to weary of life, to desire death.
"No, no, I cannot, I will not!" Leslie breathed pantingly, but even as she spoke the words her hand stole towards the locket upon which the rich sunlight was falling. Once, twice, her hand approached it and drew back, but at the third time she took it up, raised it slowly, and then swiftly turned it upwards.
Then still holding it, her eyes riveted upon it with a gaze of horror and agony, she cried—
"Yorke! It is Yorke!"
It was Yorke!
Leslie gazed down at the locket lying in the palm of her hand, for the moment too benumbed by the sudden shock to feel anything.
Yes, it was his face, the handsome face whose every line, every expression, were engraved on her heart. For a second or two the portrait, as it smiled up at her with Yorke's characteristic devil-may-care look in its eyes, gave her a kind of pleasure; then she began to realize where she had found it, lying on the bosom of this woman!
She dropped the locket as if it had suddenly burnt her, and shrank back as far as she could without displacing the woman's head from her knee.
Yorke's portrait in a locket in the possession of another woman! How could it be! There must be some mistake, some hideous mistake. It could not be his face, but that of someone, some relation closely resembling him.
She took the locket up again, and as she did so remembered that the woman had murmured Yorke's name. Yes, it was Yorke. She laid the locket down again—gently this time—and bent over the white face of the woman with a strange confusing throbbing in her heart, a loud singing in her ears. The earth seemed to rock beneath her, the sky to be falling.
She was faint with physical exhaustion, with the terrible struggle for life, and this discovery coming so closely upon all she had endured almost crushed her.
Was she really awake, or asleep and dreaming? Delirious, perhaps? Yorke, her Yorke's face lying there on this woman's heart! It was incredible.
All this had passed through her mind, her heart, in a few seconds; one can crowd an awful amount of misery, anguish, joy, into a minute; and by this time the woman had recovered.
"Where am I?" she breathed, staring up at Leslie.
Leslie did not answer, but continued to gaze at her with wide open eyes, in which a horror was growing more intense each moment.
"Where am I? Have I been ill—ah——." She drew a deep breath. "I remember. Are we safe? Why don't we go? What are we staying for?"
She raised herself on her elbow, and half sat up, pushing the black hair from her face and passing her hand across her eyes. Then she looked down and saw the locket, and her hand flew to it.
Leslie's eyes followed the hand.
"Whose—whose portrait is that?" she asked almost inaudibly.
The woman looked at her, and a dull red stole into her face.
"What's that to you?" she retorted, half defiantly. "You've looked at it, haven't you?"
Leslie moistened her lips; they were so hot and dry that she could scarcely speak.
"Yes, I have looked at it," she said. "I know——."
"You know who it is?" As she spoke she closed the locket hurriedly, and buttoned her dress over it. "You know—. Whoare you? What is your name?" And the dark eyes scanned Leslie's pale face with suspicious scrutiny.
"My name is Leslie, Leslie Lisle," said Leslie slowly.
"Leslie—," the woman sprang to her feet. "What! You are the girl he left me for," she breathed.
Leslie shuddered and her lips quivered.
"Oh, there must be some mistake!" she almost wailed. "It cannot be he— And yet you spoke his name—Yorke——."
"Yorke! Yes, that's his name! And this is his portrait," was the sharp response. "And you are the girl he's fallen in love with! And I never guessed it! I must have been a fool not to have thought of it, jumped at it! It's lucky for you that I didn't," she added between her teeth. "I'd have killed you down there!"
Leslie shrank back, and instinctively put out her hand as if to ward off an attack.
"What—what is your name?" she asked.
"My name?" The full lips curled with bitter contempt. "You must have been out of the world not to know it," she said. "My name's Finetta; I'm Finetta of the Diadem."
"Finetta—Finetta of the Diadem," Leslie repeated mechanically.
Was it all a hideous dream? Who was Finetta of the Diadem? And how could she talk of Yorke as if he belonged to her—how did it happen that she wore his portrait on her heart?
"Yes, Finetta of the Diadem," said Finetta defiantly. "I should have thought everybody knew me. But I suppose he hasn't told you about me. No, that wasn't likely!" and she laughed hoarsely. "What are you staring at me like that for, as if I was a—a wild animal?"
Leslie put her hand to her brow with a piteous little gesture.
"I—I——. It is all so sudden. Give me time. I do not wish to anger you. I only want to ask you a—a question—one or two questions. Why do you wear that portrait in that locket?"
Finetta looked at her a moment in silence, then with a flash of her eyes and a discordant laugh she replied—
"That's a question to ask me, if you like. What do you think I wear it for?" The red deepened on her face, then left it pale. "What does a woman usually wear a man's portrait for? I'll be bound you've got one of his, too?"
Leslie's hand went to her bosom, to the sparkling pendant, and she shook her head with a strange feeling of injury; he had sent her diamonds, but he had given this woman something far more precious!
"No!" she breathed almost unconsciously. "Did he give it to you? Oh, answer me quickly, and—and truthfully! I will tell you why I ask. I will tell you all. I—I am to be his wife—I was to be his wife——."
At the change from "Am to be" to "was to be" Finetta's eyes flashed, and she lowered her lids.
"Sit down," she said, pointing to a piece of rock.
Leslie sank down upon it, and waited with averted face; she could not bear to look upon the dark defiant face, beautiful with the beauty of a fallen angel at this moment, a face distorted and lined by conflicting passions.
"You were to be his wife, were you?" said Finetta slowly, with a breath between each word. "So was I!"
"You!"
The word dropped from Leslie's white lips unconsciously; it seemed to sting Finetta.
"Yes, me!" she flamed out. "Why not? You speak and you look at me as if—as if I was some monster! I'm—I'm as young and as good looking as you——."
Leslie put up her hand deprecatingly.
"Yes, yes," she murmured. "I did not mean to anger you. Go on! Oh, go on!"
"Why shouldn't he marry me as much as you!" continued Finetta. "I've known him longer than you have! I've been more to him than you have——."
Leslie shuddered.
"I'm as good as you are. Who are you? You're no more of a swell than I am! And you're poor, too, ain't you? And I'm not poor. I can earn thousands a year——." She stopped, panting.
Leslie glanced at her shrinkingly.
"And if it comes to caring for him, I reckon I care for him quite as much as you do! You know that, for you heard me talk down there, when I thought it was all over with us. And as for him—well, I'd wager everything I've got that in his heart he likes me as well as he likes you, or anyone else!"
She laughed bitterly, and with self scorn and contempt.
"No, no," broke from Leslie's quivering lips.
"But I say yes, yes," retorted Finetta. "He's just like the rest. None of 'em could stick to one of us alone to save his life. You must have lived with your head buried in the sand not to know that! What! You think that you're the only one he has made love to; or that I'm the only other one!" She laughed again. "Ask him whether he knows Lady Eleanor Dallas! See how he looks when he hears her name, and hear what he says!"
Leslie looked at her with half dazed eyes, and listened with ears in which the wild sea seemed roaring.
"It is false, false!" she cried hoarsely. "I will not believe——." And she put up her hands as if to cover her ears.
Finetta laughed.
"Well!" she said with a sneer. "He's deceived you easily enough, anyone could see! And if I wasn't so sorry for myself I could find it in my heart to be sorry for you!"
Leslie shuddered. To be pitied by this woman, this terrible woman!
"Look here," said Finetta after a pause. "Don't mind myhard words; it's my way, when I'm put out. I can see you don't believe half I say, and that's only natural; I shouldn't if I were in your place, and didn't know him so well. If you doubt that we are both talking of the same man, take this locket and look at it again." And she held it out.
Leslie turned her head from it.
"No, you don't want to look at it again. I daresay you knew his face directly you saw it. Now, do you think he'd have given it to me if he hadn't cared for me? Answer that!"
Leslie looked at her, a sudden wild hope springing into her bosom.
"It—it was a long while ago!" she breathed, "a long while ago——."
Finetta broke in with a discordant laugh.
"Not a bit of it! It was three days ago. He sent it after spending an evening with me, as he's spent many a score——."
She saw a look of unbelief crossing Leslie's face, and, snatching a letter from her pocket, thrust it under Leslie's face.
"Read that, and believe!" she said.
Leslie took the note and looked at it. The lines swam before her eyes, but she saw a word here and there, and with a low cry, which broke from her notwithstanding all the efforts to suppress it, she held out the note from her.
Finetta took it and restored it to her pocket, then stood and looked down at the motionless figure in silence for a moment or two.
"You believe now," she said in a low, harsh voice. "You see I am telling you the truth, and not a pack of lies. And now, what are you going to do? Wait a minute. Let's see how the land lies. Here am I who've—who've cared for him for years, who would have been his wife if—if he hadn't happened to have seen you; and, mind, I'm just as fit to be his wife as you are. Why, come to that, he'll tire of you ever so much sooner than he would of me, because you haven't any money and I have, and can go on earning enough to keep him amused. Don't you see? We've been fond of each other for ever so long. Why, there's been scarcely a day for months past that we haven't been together! And even when he's smitten by you he doesn't throw me over, you see. He sends me his portrait and a sweetheart's note with it; yes, and just after he's left you, too! Now, that's how I stand; and now, where are you? You've only known him a few days; you can't care for him half—half? no, not one-tenth as much as I do! That's only natural. And it's only natural and right that you should give him up. Think it over. After all, Miss Lisle," she went on, with a kind of sullen insinuation, "he's behaved very badly to you; he has indeed. He never meant to throw me quite over; he'd have come back to me sooner or later."
Leslie half rose from the rock and put out her hand as if to put the words, the insinuation, from her, then sank back and covered her face with her hands.
"He'd have come back to me, and then you'd have been a good deal worse off than you are now."
Leslie did not move, and Finetta, watching her closely, allowed a minute to pass in silence that her words might sink in.
"Come, now, Miss Lisle; there's no occasion for you and me to quarrel. Why, when you think of it, you and me have saved each other's lives, haven't we? And we ought, we really ought, to act square and straight by one another. I'm the one that's been badly treated, because he loved me first, and would have married me but for you. Just think of that! From what I've seen of you, I should say that you were a kind-hearted lady and one that wouldn't injure a fellow woman. I should say you were too proud to rob a poor girl of the man she's loved."
Leslie sprang up panting, and for a moment breathless.
The horror, the humiliation, were driving her mad.
"Oh, be silent, be silent! Let me think!" she breathed. "Every word you speak stabs me." She put her hand to her bosom with a passionate gesture that awed Finetta. "It is all so sudden that—that I cannot realize it; can scarcely believe—oh, do not speak! I believe all you say. You have shown me the note, the portrait is his, and I cannot but believe. And I trusted him! Ah, how I trusted him!" Her voice broke for a moment and her eyes swam with tears; but she dashed them away with her hand and hurried on, with every now and then a break between the words. "But what you say is true. He—he belongs to you more than to me! He has wronged us both; but he has wronged you the more cruelly. And—" she stopped and put her hand to her throat as if she were suffocating—"and I—I give him back to you. Yes, I give him back to you!"
The blood rushed to Finetta's face, then left it pale to the lips.
"You—you throw him up?" she said, as if she could scarcely believe her ears.
Leslie raised her head and looked at her steadily, with a look that would have melted the heart of anyone but a rival.
"He belongs to you, not to me," she said in a low voice, as if every word cost her a heart pang. "I—I will never see him again if I can help it. Do not—" she paused, and a sigh broke from her white lips—"do not let him know; do not tell him that I have seen you. I—I have loved him, and would spare him the shame——."
There was silence for a second, Finetta gazing on the ground with set face and hidden eyes.
"If—if he should ever know that we met, and that you told me what you have told me, tell him that I—yes, that I forgive him. That I have forgiven and forgotten him. That is all."
Her head sank for a moment, then she raised it again and looked at the dark face with a shrinking kind of reluctance.
"You—you say that you care for him?"
Finetta's lips moved.
"Yes, and I know that you do. Be good to him. Do not letthe thought that he deceived himself into thinking he cared for me come between you. He must love you very much to give you his portrait, to write you that note; try—try and make him happy."
Her voice broke, and she turned her head away.
Finetta stood with clenched hands, her teeth gnawing at her under lip; then she sprang to Leslie's side and took her hand.
"Miss Lisle——."
Leslie shook her hand off with a little cry, a shudder.
"Don't—don't touch me, please."
Finetta froze instantly.
"I—I beg your pardon," panted Leslie. "But I cannot bear any more. If you would go now. That road leads to Portmaris."
She sank on the stone, and sat with her head erect and face set hard as the stone itself.
Finetta drew her jacket round her and fumbled with her gloves.
"I understand," she said in a low voice. "You've done the right thing, and you won't be sorry for it."
"It is nearly two miles to Portmaris," said Leslie in a dry, expressionless voice. "There is an evening train; you can catch it if you walk quickly."
"I'm going," said Finetta, biting her lips. "Good-by, Miss Leslie. I'm sorry—well, good-by."
Leslie sat motionless and with averted face until the graceful figure of the dancing girl of the Diadem had disappeared below the hill; then with a cry she rose, her arms above her head, and fell full length upon the turf.
Leslie lay unconscious while the sun sank below the horizon, and the delicious summer gloaming came softly upon the moor; lay like a flower struck down by some rude hand, and the evening star shone pale in the sky before she came back to life and her great sorrow.
For a while it seemed to her that the whole scene through which she had passed was a hideous dream, and when its reality came crushing down upon her she uttered a low cry and shivered as if with cold. The sudden destruction of her joy and happiness left her stunned and bewildered. A few short hours ago and she and Yorke had been sitting hand in hand, heart to heart, talking of their marriage, and now——. Now he was hers no longer. In a sense he had never been hers, but all the time he had been wooing her, forcing her to love him, he had been in honor bound to this other woman.
As she thought of her, this Finetta, this woman with the bold eyes, a feeling of shame and humiliation was added to themisery of Leslie's loss. That he, Yorke, her idol, her king, should ever have stooped to love such a woman seemed to her unspeakably base and terrible. She had set him on so lofty a pedestal, had regarded him as so noble and high-minded, that the knowledge of his falseness—to both of them!—hurt her like a physical blow.
She sat for some time, waiting for strength to enable her to reach home; and as she sat and looked round it seemed as if something had gone out of her life, as if a weight which no power nor time could lift had fallen upon her heart.
Before her she saw stretching in a dull grey, hopeless vista, the many years she would probably have to live; the long life without Yorke, and haunted by the memory of these few happy days.
"If I had never seen him! If I had not loved him so dearly!" was the burden of her heart's wail; "or if I had only died down there before I saw the locket or heard the woman's story!"
She had fought Death hard enough a little while ago, now she would have welcomed him.
She rose at last, and went slowly and draggingly towards Portmaris. Her dress was still heavy with the salt water, she was weak with physical and mental weariness, and the two miles across the moor were surely the longest that ever woman journeyed.
When she reached the villa and entered the parlor, she found her father pacing up and down in the dusk before his easel.
He looked up, but fortunately for her, did not see her white weary face, or notice how she held the door as if to support herself.
"Where have you been, Leslie?" he asked in a kind of irritable excitement. "I have been wanting you. Mr. Temple has sent the notes for the picture, the fifty pounds."
She leant against the door, and drew a long breath as she thought of this added humiliation.
"He is going to-morrow, it seems, and wished to—er—pay for the picture before he left. His departure is rather sudden, I think, but I fancy he is erratic in his movements. I want you to send him a receipt, and—er—to ask him to allow the picture to be exhibited."
"Yes; to-morrow, papa," she said faintly.
"Why not to-night?" he asked testily.
"I—I am tired, very tired," she said, going to him and leaning her head on his shoulder.
"You've walked too far," he said in a tone of complaint. "You'd better go to bed at once. The receipt and the letter must wait till to-morrow, I suppose. Oh, there was something—oh, yes; did you see the duke? He came up to me on the beach and inquired for you."
She turned away from him, a lump rising in her throat and threatening to suffocate her.
"Yes."
"Did he say anything about that sketch of St. Martin's?"
St. Martin's! How the name brought back the memory of that happy, happy day.
"I don't quite know about that sketch," he went on with an air of importance. "I may be too much engaged on important pictures to—er—spare any time for small sketches. However, that matter can rest for the present. The duke has gone back to London to-night, they tell me. By the way, I wish you would prepare a fresh canvas for me."
"Not to-night, oh, not to-night, dear!" she said in a low voice. "I will go to bed as you said, for I am very, very tired. To-morrow——."
She left the sentence unfinished, and crept up to her own room.
To-morrow! What an awful line of dreary to-morrows stretched before her, was her thought. As she took off her dress the diamond pendant flashed in the candlelight, each gem seeming to glitter mockingly in derision of her love and faith and trust. She covered the sparkling thing with her hand and bowed her head over it. The very day he had sent it to her, he had given his portrait—his portrait—to that other woman! She took the pendant off the ribbon, and wrapped it in a piece of soft paper and put it away out of sight in a small box, and as she did so she saw Ralph Duncombe's ring.
One's own misery recalls to us that of other people, and in this the hour of her trouble Leslie remembered Ralph Duncombe, and for the first time she realized something of what he had suffered. With a rush his passionate avowal came back upon her, and she took the ring in her hand and looked at it with a double misery. He had sworn to help her if she ever should be in trouble, had sworn to help her if ever she suffered wrong. How feeble had been his vow! Neither he nor anyone else could help her in this strait; and as to vengeance, she wanted none. Alas, alas! false as he had been, she loved Yorke still.
She fell asleep at last from sheer exhaustion, and did not awake until past nine. Then it all came throbbing, crowding back upon her, in that first awful moment of waking. Surely to the wretched and unhappy, there is no more awful hour in the twenty-four than that which follows the morning awakening. Sorrow seems to have had time to sharpen her arrows during the night, and plunges them with fresh vigor into our aching hearts.
While she was dressing, Leslie went over the whole of the incidents of the previous day, bit by bit, and suddenly, with the sharpness of a flash of lightning, a gleam of hope shot across the darkness of her misery. Suppose this woman had lied! Such women as she would find no difficulty in stooping to untruth and deception. Suppose she had got possession of Yorke's portrait, had forged the letter, had concocted the wholestory? The supposition seemed far-fetched and improbable, but it sent a thrill of hope through her, and she finished dressing with feverish haste, and hurried downstairs.
All through the breakfast she felt like one in a dream, as if she were suspended between life and death, and waiting for the verdict. Her father talked of his picture, of all he meant to do, now that he was on the high road to Fame, and his voice sounded in her ears like that of someone speaking afar off.
Yorke, her Yorke, might prove to be hers still! Oh, blessed hope. How mad, how wicked, how foolish she had been to put any trust in the woman who had slandered him!
The revulsion of feeling was so great that it sent a hectic flush to her face, and a feverish light to her eyes.
"That receipt and note, Leslie," said her father. "Tell Mr. Temple that I would rather not sell the picture, that I would rather return his money than forego the right of exhibiting the picture."
"Yes, yes, papa," she said at random. "Yes, it will all come right. It was wicked, foolish, to doubt him, to believe her."
He stared at her with irritable impatience.
"What are you talking of, Leslie?" he said peevishly. "You seem very strange this morning, and so you were last night."
"I know, I know, dear!" she broke in with something between a sigh and a sob. "Don't mind me. I am not very well. You want the receipt?" she sprang to the writing table. "There it is, and the note. Yes, yes! It will come right. I know it will; and—and—oh, how hot it is! I must have air, air!"
She caught up her hat, and with the receipt and note in her hand, ran to the door.
"I shall see Mr. Temple, papa, and I will give him these."
"And tell him," he called after her, "that I make it a condition that the picture shall be exhibited; mind that, Leslie!"
"Yes, yes!" she responded, and ran out.
She drew her breath hard as she paused for a moment on the doorstep, then she hurried to the quay.
A fisherman was drying his net in the sun, but there was no one else there, and she walked up and down, the note in her hand, repeating to herself the formula of hope; the woman, Finetta, had lied to her and deceived her. All would be well. Yorke would be her Yorke still!
She had not been walking thus very long before the bath chair, wheeled by Grey, was seen coming on to the quay.
She hurried toward it, and the duke motioned to Grey to stop.
"Good morning, Miss Leslie," he said, peering up at her. "It is a fine morning, isn't it." Then he paused and scanned her face curiously and earnestly. "Is anything the matter?"
"The matter?" she repeated with a laugh that sounded in her ears hollow and unnatural. "What should be the matter?I have brought you my father's receipt and a note, Mr. Temple."