He took it and glanced at it.
"Humph," he said. "Oh, yes, I'll do anything your father wishes. And there is nothing the matter, Miss Leslie?" and he peered up at her curiously from under his thick brows.
"Nothing, nothing," she responded feverishly. "But I wanted to ask you—the duke, the Duke of Rothbury——."
His pale face flushed, and he motioned to Grey to withdraw out of hearing.
"I thought so!" he said. "Miss Leslie, sick men, like me, acquire a kind of second sight. Directly I saw you just now, I knew that you had learnt the truth."
She looked down at him, and her face, which had been flushed feverishly, paled.
"The truth?" she faltered.
"Yes," he said in a tone that suggested remorse. "You have been cruelly deceived!"
"Deceived!" she echoed the word as if its significance were lost upon her. "Deceived!"
"Yes. Cruelly. But you must not blame him altogether.
"Blame him. Whom?" she said slowly.
"Yorke, Yorke," he said in a low voice. "It was as much my fault as his. I ought to have told you. We have both deceived you wickedly, inexcusably."
Leslie put out her hand and caught the chair, and stood looking down at him.
"Blame me more than him," he went on. "Blame us both. We ought to have told you, at any rate, however we kept other people in the dark. But he was not free, and I—well, I held my tongue."
"He was not free?" she murmured mechanically.
"No! I don't ask you to forgive us; you'd find it too hard. I don't expect you even to understand the motive."
She put out her hand to him.
"Wait—stop! Let me think. He has deceived me, then?"
"He has, and I have, yes," he said, averting his eyes from the misery in her face. "Is it so hard and bitter a blow, Leslie?" he said after a pause.
"Yes," she responded almost unconsciously. "I hoped that—that——. But it does not matter. Nothing matters, now."
He fidgeted in his chair, and peered up at her curiously, strangely.
"Anyway, you know the truth now."
"Yes! I know the truth now," she echoed faintly. "Why," hoarsely, "why did he do it?"
The duke bit his lip.
"It was more my fault than his. I ought to have told you. I did not know—did not know that you would take it so much to heart. For God's sake don't look so wretched, so heartbroken,"he burst forth. "Leslie, you make me feel like a criminal!"
She turned her white face to him.
"You let me—love him, go on loving him, knowing all the while——."
He hung his head and plucked at the edge of the shawl across his knees.
"I did!" he said in a low voice. "I tell you so."
"God forgive you!" she panted. "God forgive you—and him!"
She stood a moment as if struggling for breath, and turned and walked swiftly away.
The duke sat for a full five minutes, staring at the front wheel of his chair; then he jerked his hand up and called to Grey.
"Take me home!" he snapped. "What the devil are you waiting for? Take me home and back to London as soon as possible."
Leslie sped along the quay, and staggered rather than walked into the sitting room, and a moment afterward her father hurried in.
"Leslie, Leslie!" he cried. "Where are you?"
She lifted her head from the sofa cushion with dull, blinded eyes.
"Here's a telegram! A telegram from one of the large dealers. He wants to see me in London at once! At once, do you hear? Why do you stare at me like that? There is no time to lose. We must go up to London at once. At once! Run upstairs and pack our things!"
She rose and staggered to her feet.
"No, no! It is—it is——," she paused and clutched his arm, laughing hysterically. "Don't believe it, papa. It is not true. I can explain!"
"Explain? Not true? What are you talking about, Leslie! I tell you it is from one of the first dealers in London. Fame, fame, has come to me at last! Get ready at once! We will go by the first train we can catch!"
Leslie's heart seemed to stand still as she listened to her father's excited words. What should she do? she asked herself. Should she tell him that she had deceived him, that the message from the picture dealer was a mere subterfuge, a trick to get him and her up to town?
But she could not tell him this without explaining fully, without disclosing the whole story of her love for Yorke and the deceit he had practiced on her, and she shrank from the ordeal as one shrinks from fire.
She stood pale and trembling, her hands writhing together, her brain swimming, watching her father as he hurried to and fro picking up some article and putting it down again in another place under the impression that he was packing.
"Oh, papa," she faltered out at last, "don't go! Do not go. Write and—and ask. Oh, I implore you not to go!"
Francis Lisle stopped in his flurried fidgeting about the room, and stared at her with impatient annoyance.
"My dear Leslie, have you taken leave of your senses?" he exclaimed. "You look half distraught."
"I am, I am! Ah, if you only knew!" she almost sobbed.
"Knew what?" he demanded irritably. "What is it you are talking about! Any one would think we were going to—to Australia instead of only to London! And not go? Good heavens, why should we not go? I tell you this is one of the first dealers in London, and—and it is the great opening I have been waiting for, expecting all my life——."
It was unendurable. She went to him and put her arm round his neck and let her head fall on his shoulder.
"Oh, papa, papa! Do not be too confident, too hopeful. You—you may be disappointed! Life is full of disappointment——." Her voice broke. "You may be sorry that you have gone up. Write—let me write to this dealer——."
He put her from him almost roughly.
"You are talking nonsense!" he said. "Sheer nonsense. Why should this dealer write to me and ask me to come up at once—at once, mind—unless he had some important commission for me?"
She knew why, but she could not answer. She dared not. She dreaded the effect of the shock which the disclosure, the disappointment would cause him. He was trembling with excitement as it was, and the reaction would be more than he could endure.
"There," he said with an attempt at soothing her, "I can understand your being upset and unnerved. It is only natural. I—even I—am a little—er—flurried. But do collect yourself, and get ready. We shall go up by the evening train. Take all our clothes, for we may be up some time. I can't tell what this dealer may want, or—or where he may send me. There, do collect yourself and get ready. Wait; give me a little brandy and water. The suddenness of this—this change in our fortunes has agitated me."
She got him some weak brandy and water, and she noticed as he drank it how his hand shook.
Then she stole up to her own room and began to pack, mechanically, like one in a dream.
Gradually she began to realize that after all it was better perhaps that they should leave Portmaris. Yorke—the mere passing of his name across her mind caused her a pang—might come down after her when he found that she had not gone to London and sent him her address, and she felt that a meetingwith him would nearly kill her. At all costs that must be avoided. In her heart throbbed only one prayer; that, while life lasted, she might be spared the agony of seeing his face, hearing his voice again.
She finished her preparations for herself and her father, and went downstairs and helped him pack the absurd and worthless canvases; then she went out to say good-by to the old place.
Something, a presentment as strong as certainty, told her that she was indeed saying good-by and not adieu.
She wandered along the quay and stood looking sadly at the breakwater against which she had sat when Ralph Duncombe had declared his love and given her his ring; on which Yorke had been lying the night she and he had gone for a sail. Was it only a few weeks, or years ago that all this had happened to her?
There were some children on the quay, the children who had learned to love her, and amongst them the mite she had held in her arms the morning Yorke had asked her to be his wife. They clustered around her as usual, and she had hard work to keep the tears from her eyes—they were in her voice—as she kissed them.
"'Oo coming back soon, Mith Lethlie?" lisped Trottie, her favorite; and Leslie murmured, Yes, she would come back soon.
When she got back to Sea View, she found her father ready to start, and in an impatient anxiety to do so.
"We are going to London on important business, Mrs. Merrick," Leslie heard him saying to Mrs. Merrick, "Most important business. I—er—anticipate a change in our circumstances; a great change. The world has at last awakened to the fact that my pictures are not—er—without merit," he laughed with a kind of bombastic modesty. "Oh, yes, we shall come back to our old friends, Mrs. Merrick. We shall not forget Sea View, and—er—if I am not mistaken the world of art will not forget it. Some day, possibly, Sea View will become celebrated as the temporary residence of one of England's first artists; eh, Leslie?" and he smiled at her with a childish conceit.
Mrs. Merrick, not understanding in the least, smiled and curtseyed.
"I'm sure we're very sorry to lose you, sir, and Miss Leslie especially. I don't know what Portmaris will do without her, that I don't. We shall be quite dull now for a bit, for Mr. Temple, the crippled gentleman, has gone off to-day. You will be sure and send me your address?"
"Yes, yes," said Francis Lisle, "and—er—if we hear of anyone wanting clean and comfortable sea-side lodgings, we shall certainly remember to recommend you, Mrs. Merrick."
He went off in the broken down fly like a prince with his canvases piled round him, and oblivious of everything but them.
During the journey up to town he spoke very little, but sat in his corner looking out of the window, a smile of self-satisfaction every now and then passing over his thin, worn face.
"I shouldn't be surprised, Leslie," he said once, "if this should prove to be the last time we travel third class. I shall ask, and no doubt obtain, a fair price for my pictures, and we shall at last—at last—be rich enough to afford a little luxury. They say that everything comes to him who can wait, and I think I have waited long enough, long enough!"
Leslie's pale face flushed, and her conscience tortured her, but she could not summon up courage to tell him the truth.
They reached town late in the summer evening, and Leslie calling a cab told the man to drive to a house in Torrington square, at which they had stayed on previous visits to London.
Torrington Square is a quiet secluded spot in the great metropolis. It is central, and yet retired. Nearly every house is let in apartments, and the square is the favorite residence of the journalists and artists who pay occasional visits to London.
The landlady of No. 23 received Leslie and her father as if they were old friends instead of transient lodgers, and she expressed her concern at the appearance of Mr. Lisle.
"He don't look well, Miss Lisle," she said in a stage whisper, as they went in with their baggage. "Been in the country, too! Ah, I often says there's no place like London for health. And you, too, begging your pardon, miss, don't look too rosy. What you want is brightening up, and there's no place like London for brightening up, that I will say."
Leslie smiled sadly. She knew that she looked pale and wan, but it hurt her to hear that her father was not looking well.
She got him to bed early, but directly after breakfast he was all anxiety to go down to the picture dealer who had brought him to town.
"Can I not go alone, dear, while you rest?" she said. But he scouted the suggestion.
"No, no, I will go. Women are all very well, but a man is needed for business of this kind. Get some of the best of my pictures together, and we will go in a cab."
Leslie got ready, and all the time she was putting on her outdoor things she thought of the arrangement with Yorke. She was to have sent him her address to the Dorchester Club. He was waiting for it now, expecting it every minute. She could imagine his impatience, could picture to herself how he would walk up and down fuming for the telegram.
With a heavy heart she tied up the least ridiculous of her father's pictures and sent out for a cab, and told the man to drive to Bond Street, to the picture dealer's.
A hectic flush burned in Francis Lisle's thin cheeks, and Leslie saw his lips move as if he were speaking to himself, telling himself that Fame and Prosperity were awaiting him. Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive! Ifshe had not consented to deceive her father she would not now be in this awful strait; she was actually leading him to the bitterest disappointment of his life.
There are picture dealers and picture dealers. Mr. Arnheim, of Bond Street, is one of the best known men and the most respected. Many an artist now famous and wealthy owes his first step up the ladder to Mr. Arnheim. He will buy anything that shows promise, and for great works will give as much and more than a private purchaser. His judgment is almost infallible, and to be spoken well of by Arnheim is to have a passport to artistic fame. The cab drew up at his house, which was near the corner in one of the turnings out of Bond Street, and had nothing about it to indicate the nature of his business save and excepting a very small brass plate with "H. Arnheim" on it.
A page boy opened the door in response to Leslie's ring, and, on learning her name, ushered her and her father upstairs into a room hung round with pictures, and, giving them chairs, disappeared through a door in a partition which seemed to screen off a kind of office.
Leslie's heart beat apprehensively, and her face grew paler, but Francis Lisle looked round with a kind of suppressed exultation.
"There are examples of some of our best known artists here, Leslie," he said in a voice quavering with excitement. "There's one of so-and-so's," he mentioned the name, "and that is Sir Frederick's. This Mr. Arnheim is one of the first, the first dealers in the world, and never makes a mistake. Never! He would not have sent for me unless he had seen some of my pictures, and meant taking me up, as they call it."
"Oh, do not be too buoyed up, papa," she murmured in an agony of shame and remorse. "If it should not be so, if there should be some mistake. Oh, if you had let me come alone."
"Mistake? What can you mean, Leslie?" he responded almost angrily. "There is no mistake, can be none. Anyone would think you doubted my—my ability, my artistic capacity."
"Hush, hush!" she whispered, for he had raised his voice unconsciously, and she heard footsteps approaching.
The next moment the door in the partition opened, and a short, stout man with closely cropped hair of silvery white, and small shrewd eyes, entered the room or gallery.
He bowed and looked at them keenly, and it seemed to Leslie that his glance rested longer upon her than on her father.
"Mr. Lisle?" he said.
Francis Lisle rose and held out his hand in a stately kind of way, as if he were Peter Paul Rubens receiving a deputation.
"That is my name, sir," he said, with a kind of kingly affability, "and I am here in obedience to your summons."
Mr. Arnheim looked rather puzzled for a moment, then he looked as if he remembered.
"Oh, yes, yes, Mr. Lisle," he said, with a slightly foreign accent; he was German. "I remember——."
"You sent for me, doubtless, to make arrangements for the inclusion of some of my pictures in your coming exhibition," said Francis Lisle in a nervously pompous voice, which quivered with suppressed excitement and importance.
"Not exact——," began Mr. Arnheim, but he happened to glance at Leslie, and something in her pale, wan face stopped him. He was a shrewd man, and the anxiety of the daughter of the half pompous, half frightened creature before him touched him.
"Possibly, possibly, Mr.—er—Lisle," he said. "But my reason for communicating with you was the fact that I had been requested by—" he was going to say Lord Auchester, but he glanced at Leslie's face again, and seeing the imploring expression on it, faltered a moment, then went on suavely—"by a valued client of mine to procure a work by your hand."
Francis Lisle's face fell for a moment, then it brightened again.
"A commission?" he said. "Yes, yes. May I ask the name of your client?"
Mr. Arnheim opened his lips to give the name, but once again met the imploring gaze of the sweet eyes, and kept the name back.
"It is not usual to give our clients' names, Mr. Lisle," he said with an affectation of shrewdness. "We dealers are business men pure and simple, and are never too ready with information that may injure us. I hope you will consider it sufficient that a gentleman has made inquiries after some work of yours, and—er—be prepared to come to terms with me. Of course, I only act as the agent."
Francis Lisle flushed and bit his lip, but a gratified smile was creeping over his thin, wan face.
"I understand, Mr. Arnheim," he said pompously. "I am very busy just at present; indeed, I have only just finished a picture for—er—a patron, for which I have received a fairly large sum, and I have a number of studies in hand; but—er—I think I may say that I shall be willing to paint a picture for you—or your unknown client, if you prefer to put it in that way; but I can only do so on one condition, Mr. Arnheim."
The dealer bowed.
"And what is that condition, Mr. Lisle?" he asked gravely.
"That your client permit any picture he may purchase of me to be exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition."
"Certainly, certainly. I'll undertake that he shall accord that permission," said Mr. Arnheim.
"Very good," said Francis Lisle. "And now I should like to show you some of my pictures. We have brought a few—the best, in my judgment; but there are several others, if you would like to see more. Leslie——."
Leslie rose and took up a couple of the canvases, and as she did she looked at the keen, shrewd face of the dealer. It was the look with which she had appealed to Mr. Temple, and it said as plainly as if she had spoken—
"Spare him; oh, spare him!"
Francis Lisle took one of the pictures from her hand, and nervously, excitedly, placed it on an empty easel which stood ready for the purpose.
"A seascape, Mr. Arnheim," he said, waving his hand. "It would savor of impertinence to point out its merits to you who are so experienced and able a critic; but I may venture to hint that there is something in the treatment of that sky which you will not meet with every day."
For a moment the eminent dealer's face expressed a wide gaping astonishment, then it seemed to writhe as if with the effort to suppress a burst of laughter, but lastly it turned to an impassive mask, and, carefully avoiding the anguish in Leslie's eyes, he said, shading the view with his hand:
"Remarkable, very; very remarkable, Mr. Lisle."
"I thought you would say so," said Francis Lisle, with a triumphant glance at Leslie, who had stood with downcast eyes. "But if you think that worthy of notice, what do you say to this?" and he replaced the canvas by another. "'View of Cliffs by Moonlight.' Remark the shadows, the foam on the rocks, the birds, Mr. Arnheim!"
"Yes, yes, yes," said Mr. Arnheim in a kind of still voice. "Most—most singular and admirable!"
He glanced at Leslie, and an expression of pity and sympathy came into his shrewd face.
"And here is another," said Francis Lisle, catching up a third picture. "'The Wreck.' I spent months—months, Mr. Arnheim, over this; and if I may be permitted to say so I consider it one of my masterpieces," and he waved his hand to the fearful daub in a kind of ecstasy.
Mr. Arnheim stood speechless with what the unfortunate painter took to be admiration; and Leslie, trembling and pale, came forward and took the canvas from the easel.
"We—we must not take up any more of Mr. Arnheim's time, papa," she faltered, with an appealing glance at the dealer.
"No no, certainly not," responded Lisle. "But it is only right that Mr Arnheim should have an opportunity of judging of my work. You may be surprised, sir, that I am still, so to speak, an unknown artist. I may say that that surprise is shared by myself. But no one can be better acquainted with the fact that fame and fortune do not always fall to the deserving. No! Art is a lottery, and the best of us may, and, alas! too often do, only draw blanks. But I am confident that nowyou, who have so many opportunities of directing the attention of the world to what is most worthy of notice in art, have become acquainted with my pictures, that—that—in short——." He put his hand to his head and looked round confusedly.
"Yes, yes!" said Mr. Arnheim soothingly. "I quite understand. You will hear from me—I will see my client."
"Yes, certainly," cut in Francis Lisle. "I—I leave the whole of the negotiations to you. I have perfect confidence in you, Mr. Arnheim."
Mr. Arnheim bowed, and assisted Leslie's trembling hands to repack the pictures, but the artist stopped them by a gesture.
"Wait, wait, Leslie. I am content to leave these works with Mr. Arnheim. He will like to place them in this gallery with his other masterpieces."
The expression on Mr. Arnheim's face at this proposition beggars description, but he mastered his emotion, and managed to bow and mumble out some unintelligible words, which Francis Lisle mistook for expressions of gratitude.
"Do not mention it, my dear sir," he said, waving his hand. "I commit them to your care with every confidence, assured that they will receive every consideration and appreciation from you. Come, Leslie, as you said, we must not take up too much of Mr. Arnheim's time. Good morning, sir. I leave you to conduct all negotiations with your client. I have every confidence in you. Good morning!"
He gave his hand to Mr. Arnheim with the air of a painter-prince, and with a glance round the room as if he already saw his pictures placed among the other gems, stalked nervously out.
Leslie hesitated for a moment, then held out her hand. For a moment she seemed incapable of speech, then her trembling lips parted, and she faltered:
"You have been very good, and—and patient, and forbearing, sir, and I am grateful, very grateful."
"Don't mention it, Miss Lisle," he said, touched by her loveliness and sadness. "I quite understand—that is—well, I can't quite understand!"
Leslie's face burnt like fire.
"Why his—his grace——," she faltered.
Mr. Arnheim looked puzzled.
"His lordship!" he corrected her, but Leslie was too agitated to notice the correction.
"I cannot explain," she said in a troubled voice. "But—you will see him?"
"Yes, certainly," assented Mr. Arnheim.
"Will you tell him, please—" her voice broke, and her hands clasped and unclasped—"will you tell him that I came here against my will—that I was obliged to come, and that—that I wish him to forget everything that has passed. That neither my father nor I wish to see him again. That we wish to pass out of his life as if we had never seen, never known him. Willyou tell him this? You—you think it strange, unbecoming, that I should give you this message, Mr. Arnheim but—" her voice broke—"but, perhaps you have a daughter of your own, and—and thinking of her you will not refuse——."
She broke down, and covered her face with her hands.
Mr. Arnheim had a daughter, as it happened, and he did think of her.
"I don't understand, quite, Miss Lisle," he said, in a low voice; "but I understand enough to convey your message."
Leslie gave him her hand without another word, and hurried after her father.
She found him descending the stairs slowly, and he stopped as she reached him, and nodded at her.
"One moment, Leslie," he said, in nervous accents. "I forgot to ask Mr. Arnheim if his gallery is insured. Such works as I have left with him are—are priceless!"
Before she could stop him, he had turned and reascended the stairs, and re-entered the gallery. Leslie followed him. The gallery was empty, but voices were heard behind the partition, and Mr. Arnheim could be heard exclaiming in mingled indignation, pity, and amusement:
"The man is as mad as a hatter!"
Leslie laid her hand upon her father's arm.
"Come away, dear!" she implored; but he shook her hand off, and put his finger to his lip warningly.
"Hush! Be silent! I want to hear what he is saying! These men never express themselves fully about the pictures in the presence of the artists. Now, listen, and you will hear what he really thinks. Hush! It is quite fair, quite!" and he chuckled confidently.
Leslie, turned to stone with apprehension and dread, stood still and waited.
"Mad as a hatter!" continued Mr. Arnheim to some one behind the partition. "The pictures he raves about are simply daubs! The daubs of a lunatic who has had access to paint and brushes. Look at this! He called it a seascape! Look at it! Why, a schoolboy of fourteen would blush to have painted it! In fact, no human being in possession of his senses could have produced it! Did you ever see anything like it? I never did, and I've had some queer experiences in the course of business. If it hadn't been for that sweet creature, his daughter, I should have burst out laughing. But something—dash me if I know what—kept me quiet. Look here, it's a dashed shame, that's what it is. He told me to write for the man, and I thought it was all on the square. But it's my opinion he's got some game in hand with the daughter. I might have guessed that, seeing the sort of man he is. These swells are all alike. Yes it's a dashed shame! She's too good to be made a fool of and deceived. But did you ever see such an awful lunatic daub as this, and this, and this!" the speaker's voice rose in crescendo as he evidently showed eachof Francis Lisle's pictures. "There was never anything like 'em out of a madhouse!"
The voice ceased, for lack of breath, and Leslie, horror-stricken, turned to her father. He was leaning against the wall, his face white, livid, his jaw dropped, his eyes staring vacantly.
"Father! father!" she cried in a low voice.
He did not seem to hear her, but his lips moved and she could hear a faint, horrible echo of the words that had been spoken behind the screen.
"Come away, dear!" she implored him. "Come away!"
He dropped his eyes to her face and tried to smile; but it was a hideous grimace.
"Yes, yes," he said, hoarsely, almost inarticulately, "let us go home. Let us——."
She took his hand, drew his arm through hers, and led him down the stairs. He went with the docility, the helplessness of a child, and sank into a corner of the cab with his eyes dull and lifeless, but his lips still moving.
Presently he beckoned to her. "What—what did he say?" he asked tremulously, his face working.
"It—it does not matter what he said, dear," she said soothingly. "Do not think of it. Try to forget it! Lean against me, dear!"
But he put her from him, not with his old impatient irritability, but with a gentleness that was quite new with him; and lying back in the cab stared at the floor, his lips moving, and Leslie could hear him still repeating the words they had heard from Mr. Arnheim.
It seemed an age before the cab reached Torrington Square, and when it did so the man Leslie helped out was an older man by twenty years than he who had left it that morning.
She helped him up to his room and tried to cheer and comfort him; but, for the first time in her life, her loving flattery proved of no avail.
He listened with vacant eyes and wan, hopeless face, and at last, he suddenly flung his hands before his eyes and uttered a low cry of despair, and awakening.
"God help me!" he cried. "I am a fraud and a lie! I see it all, now. A fraud and a lie! The man was right; I cannot paint!" He caught up a canvas that lay against the wall, and gazed at it. "It is a hideous daub, as he said. It is the work of a madman. I have been mad. Oh, God, if I could have remained so."
"My dear, my dear!" she murmured, kneeling beside him and gently drawing the picture from his weak, trembling hands. "Don't think of what—what he said."
"Not think of it!" he cried, shaking with emotion. "I must think of it, for he spoke the truth. I have been mad, mad! But my eyes are open now. Take them away from me," he motioned to the pictures, "take them away. I cannotbear the sight of them. And—and yet I have been so happy, so hopeful!" and he hid his face with his hands.
Leslie watched beside him till he fell into a deep, deathlike sleep; then she stole downstairs and sent for a doctor. A young man from one of the neighbouring squares came, and though he was young he was not foolish. A glance at the sleeping man told him the sad truth.
"Have you—has your father any relations, any friends who—whom he would like to see?" he asked gently.
Leslie, kneeling beside the bed, looked up at him with sharp and sudden dread in her eyes.
"Do you—do you mean——? Oh, what is it you mean?" she moaned.
The doctor laid his hand upon her shoulder. "The truth is always best, always," he said gently. "Your father has suffered a severe shock; the heart——." He stopped. "For his sake try and be calm, my dear young lady."
Leslie knelt beside him all through the night, and all through the long hours her conscience whispered accusingly, "It is you—you, who have done it. But for you he would have gone on dreaming and living; but for you—and Yorke!"
Toward dawn Francis Lisle awoke. The doctor was standing beside the bed, Leslie on her knees.
He raised his wan, wasted face from the pillow and seemed to be looking for something; then his eyes rested on her anguished ones, and he knew her and forced a smile.
"Is—is that you, Leslie?" he said, in so low a voice that she had to lay her face against his to hear him. "Is that you? I have had a singular dream. Most singular!"
"What—what was it, dear?" she said at last.
He smiled again.
"I dreamt that my picture had been refused by the Academy. Absurd, wasn't it? Fancy them refusing one of my pictures! Mine! Francis Lisle's! Ridiculous as it is, it—it upset me. I—I must be out of sorts. There is only one thing for that kind of complaint: Work. Get—get a fresh canvas stretched for me, Leslie, and I will commence a new picture. Let me see, what did we get for the last? Three thousand pounds, wasn't it?"
"Yes, yes, dear!" she murmured.
"A large sum, a large sum, but not half what we shall get. Fame, fame and fortune at last, Leslie! I always told you it would come."
He put out his wasted hand and smoothed her hair lovingly—and, alas! patronizingly. "Always knew it would come, Leslie! Art is long and—and life is brief. I must work hard now fame and success have brought me the victor's laurels. How dark it is—" the sunlight was streaming through the window—"how dark! Too dark to commence to-day; but to-morrow, Leslie dear, to-morrow——." His voice grew fainter and ceased. The doctor bent over him, then stood uprightand laid his hand upon Leslie's shoulder with a touch that told her all.
Francis Lisle had gone to the land where to-morrow and to-day are swallowed up in Eternity.
If ever a man was in earnest, Yorke, Viscount Auchester, was. He was going to marry Leslie! The thought dwelt with him all the way up to town, hovered about him as he lay awake throughout nearly the whole night, and came to him in the morning with a joy exceeding description.
To marry Leslie!
What had he done to deserve such happiness, such bliss, he asked himself as he hurried through his tub and dressing? And while he ate his breakfast in a feverish, restless kind of haste, he pictured and planned out their future; a future to be spent side by side till Death, and Death alone, parted them.
They would leave London immediately, after the marriage, and cross the Channel. Perhaps they'd stay for a while in Paris; but only for a few days. It would be too big and noisy for such bliss as theirs. No, he would take her to some quiet spot in Normandy; perhaps to Rouen, that delightful old-world town with its magnificent churches and historic streets. Why, he could see themselves standing arm in arm in the vast cathedral, listening reverently to the grand service; he could see Leslie's face with the sweet gravity in her lovely eyes, and the half pensive and yet happy smile on her pure lips. He fancied her by his side looking up at the carved gables of the quaint houses; or seated at one of the little marble tables at the Cafe Blanc, with its shining copper vessels and glittering glass. Then they could go on into Germany; up the Rhine. How delightful to have her beside him as the steamer toiled against the stream and the delicious panorama unfolded itself mile by mile! Then, if they chose, there were Switzerland and Italy. There was Lucerne, for instance. How she would delight in Lucerne, with its marvelous lake, in which old Pilatus shadows himself, with its famous bridge spanning the emerald Reuss; with its snug cathedral in which the wonderful organ surges and wails as no other organ can surge and wail, save that of honored Milan.
Happy! He would make her happy or know the reason why! He would devote every hour of his life, every particle of his by no means gigantic intellect to the effort to prove how dearly he loved her.
He sat for a little while after breakfast making a mental plan of his procedure. He would have to act prudently and warily. No hint of what he was about to do must be allowed to get out. If his numerous creditors, Jew and Gentile, hadthe least suspicion that he was about to marry a penniless angel instead of Lady Eleanor Dallas, the heiress, they would swoop down upon him. No, he would be very cautious.
He had gone round to Mr. Arnheim, the dealer, on the evening before, immediately he had reached London, and was very cautious with him; giving him to understand that he merely wanted a small picture of Mr. Lisle's, and asking Mr. Arnheim in quite a casual way to write and ask Mr. Lisle whether he would accept a commission.
"Don't mention my name, please," he said; and Mr. Arnheim had smiled and shaken his head.
Yorke went away quite confident that the vaguest of letters from the great dealer would bring Francis Lisle post haste to London; and, as we know, he was right.
Then he went down to Doctors' Commons, and inquired about the license.
He knew no more about the business than the veriest schoolboy; but he had a vague idea that you could buy a license somewhere in that strange locality, and that armed with that he could marry Leslie right away at once. At once! The thought sent the blood rushing to his handsome face, and made St. Paul's Cathedral, hard by which is Doctors' Commons, waver before his eyes.
A seedy-looking gentleman led him to the Faculty office where the mystic license was to be obtained, and a grave and sedate clerk got off a high stool at a desk and put several questions to Yorke, who for the first time in his life—or the second, perhaps, for he was nervous when he had asked Leslie to be his wife—felt embarrassed and agitated.
"Is it an ordinary license you require, or a special?" asked the clerk.
Yorke looked doubtful.
"What is the difference?" he asked, almost shyly, and struggling with an actual blush.
The clerk eyed him with cold superiority.
"By an ordinary license," he explained, "you can marry in the church of the parish in which one of the parties resides; and only there. And he or she must have resided there fifteen days. With a special license you can marry in a particular church without having resided in the parish fifteen days; but you would have to give sufficient reasons for requiring this special license."
Yorke stared at the dingy floor while he thought the matter out.
He knew of a quiet little church near Bury Street—a "little church around the corner," so to speak, to which he and Leslie could go, the morning after her arrival in London; and with no one but the parson, the clerk, and pew-opener the wiser. Yes, an ordinary license would do, he said.
The clerk inclined his head—just as if he were a shopmanselling gloves!—and went off to another clerk at another desk, and presently appeared with an affidavit.
"What's this? the license?" said Yorke.
"No. You will have to swear this. I shall have to ask you to accompany me to the next office, to a solicitor. You have to swear that the parties are of age, and that one of you has resided in the parish fifteen days. You are prepared to do so, I presume?"
It is to be feared that Yorke was prepared to do anything to obtain his Leslie, and he was led off—he felt like a criminal of the deepest dye—to another dingy office, and there repeated the oath gabbled out by the solicitor. Then he returned to the proctor's office, and, after waiting a quarter of an hour, the clerk handed him a document.
"What have I got to pay?" asked Yorke, prepared for a demand, say, of fifty pounds. "Only two pounds two and sixpence!" he said, with a surprise that made even that solemn clerk smile.
Only two pounds two and sixpence for the privilege of marrying Leslie! He stood and gazed at the mystic document, and laughed aloud, so that the seedy man who had conducted him to the office eyed him rather fearfully, and pocketing the half-sovereign Yorke gave him, scrambled off, fully convinced that the young man was mad.
And indeed he could scarcely be considered in full possession of his senses that day. Nearly every hour he took out that precious license and read it through or gazed at the imposing coat of arms at the top, and the Archbishop's signature at the bottom; and every time put it away again in his breast coat pocket. He patted the coat to feel that the document was there safe and sound.
From Doctors' Commons he walked to the Dorchester Club.
Everybody knows that aristocratic institution. It is not so magnificent as some of the modern political clubs; some of them are palaces compared with which those of the Caesars were very small potatoes; it had no marble entrance hall and oak-paneled dining-room, and its smoking-room was not as vast as a church; but it was snug and comfortable, and excellent to a degree. You had to have your name down on the list of candidates full fifteen or twenty years before you could hope to be balloted in, and some fathers put their sons down when they were eighteen months old.
Yorke was well known at the club, and the hall porter in his glass box bowed to him with a mixture of respect and recognition which he accorded to a very few of the members.
"There are no letters for me, Stephens, I suppose?" said Yorke.
"No, my lord, none."
"Ah, well, I expect one or a telegram directly," said Yorke, trying to speak casually. "If it comes just send into the smoking-room, or dining-room, or drawing-room, in fact andsee if I'm in the club. I want it directly it comes, you understand."
"Certainly my lord," was the response. "If your lordship is in the club when the letter arrives I will see that you have it at once."
Yorke sauntered into the drawing-room and took up a paper; but he did not see a word of the page he gazed at. He was calculating how soon that letter could possibly reach him.
Then he went out, and making his way to Regent Street examined the shop windows carefully, and ultimately made several purchases.
He bought a lady's ulster, a wonderful garment of camel's hair, soft as lambs' wool and as warm, with cuffs that could be let down over the hands, and a hood that could be drawn completely over the head.
No lady with this marvelous ulster on could be cold, even while crossing the Channel, where, as everybody knows, it is possible to be frozen even on a summer's night. He also bought a traveling rug of Scotch tweed.
Then he sauntered into the park till lunch time, when he went back to the club. He knew that no letter could be waiting for him, and yet he could not help glancing inquiringly at the porter, who faintly smiled and respectively shook his head.
One or two acquaintances dropped in while he was eating his lunch at a side table, and they gathered round him and plied him with eager invitations to join them in a driving trip to Richmond; but he shook his head.
"Better come, Auchester," said one young fellow. "Jolly afternoon! Besides, a friend of yours is of the party."
"Who is that?" asked Yorke with polite indifference.
Drive to Richmond when he wanted to be alone to think of Leslie and all that license in his breast coat pocket meant! Not likely.
"Why, Finetta," said the young fellow. "She has promised, if we get her back in time for the theater."
Yorke shook his head, and while he was doing it Lord Vinson strolled up.
"What's that about Finetta and Richmond?" he inquired. "Afraid you'll be disappointed. Just been up there," he drawled. "She's vamoosed the ranche, sloped off somewhere, and isn't going to dance to-night. Know where she's gone, Auchester?"
"No," said Yorke, and he answered very quietly. Poor Fin! was she taking the breaking off of their friendship to heart after all?
"Strikes me Mademoiselle Fin is playing it rather low on an indulgent public!" grumbled the young fellow who had arranged the outing, and as he sauntered off with the rest he remarked in a low voice, "Shouldn't be surprised if Auchester had arranged to take her somewhere; they're awfully thick, you know, and she'd throw over anything for him."
After lunch Yorke went to Bury Street, and with his own hands packed a portmanteau or two.
Then he went back to the club, for though he knew no telegram could have arrived, he felt constrained to be there in waiting, so to speak, and dined quietly and in solitude, and afterwards he walked by the park railings to Notting Hill and round the quiet squares, and was happy thinking of Leslie and the days that lay before them, the delicious, glorious days when they two should be one—man and wife. Man and wife!
He went to bed early that night and slept soundly, so soundly that he was rather later than he meant to be at breakfast, and he hurried over that meal and made his way to the Dorchester with a fast-beating heart.
There might possibly be a telegram for him. But the porter said no, nothing had come for his lordship, and Yorke, too disappointed to make a pretense of looking at the papers, went out and stood on the broad steps and stared up and down Pall Mall.
Arnheim had promised to wire the night Yorke had seen him; there had been time for the Lisles to get up to London, time for Leslie to wire. Well, he would be patient and not worry. But, Heaven and earth, what should he do with himself while he was waiting for that telegram! He was so wrapped up in the thought of meeting his darling that he could not endure the distraction of even exchanging greetings with his acquaintances. He could not go to Finetta's—never again!—or Lady Eleanor's. He wanted to be alone, alone with his thoughts. What should he do? Was there anything else he could buy? As the question crossed his mind the answer flashed upon him and made him almost start. Why, there was the ring! He had not bought that yet. What an idiot he was. Even with a license, you could not be married without a ring. He went straight off to Bond Street, to the jeweler's of whom he had purchased the diamond pendant and the plain gold locket, and stood for a minute or two outside looking at the things in the window.
He would have a keeper as well as a plain wedding ring. He would get the prettiest and 'solidest' they'd got. He gazed at the rows of diamond ornaments, for the first time in his life covetously. Ah, if he were only the Duke of Rothbury, as she thought him, what things he would buy for her! Notwithstanding that, if he were the duke he would have the great Rothbury diamonds, those gems which were supposed to rank next to the Crown jewels, and they would be hers, his duchess's; yet, all the same, he would buy her all sorts of pretty things. As the heathen loves to deck his idol, so he, Yorke, would love to deck his idol with all that this world counted good and precious.
Regarding that masquerade of his, that sailing under false colors, he thought that Leslie would neither be very disappointed nor angry.
"It is me she loves," he told himself with a proudly swelling heart. "And it will not matter what I am or am not. But all the same I wish that idea had not occurred to poor old Dolph."
All this was passing through his mind as he was standing outside the well-known shop in Bond Street. Everybody knows it, and everybody knows that the street is rather narrow just where the shop is situated, and at that moment it happened that one of the many blocks of the day occurred, and that a neatly appointed brougham was brought to a standstill very nearly opposite the jeweler's shop.
It was a charming little brougham, one of those costly toys which only very wealthy people can indulge in. The interior was lined with Russian leather, the cushions of sage plush; there was a clock in ormolu and turquoise and a delightful little reading lamp, fan and scent case, and china what-not basket.
It was the brougham which took the celebrated Finetta to and from the Diadem; the brougham of which the newspapers have given an elaborate account, and in it was no less a personage than Finetta herself. She was leaning back against the eiderdown cushions, her handsome face pale, with purplish rings round her dark eyes. She looked as if she was half worn out by excitement and physical fatigue.
She had been lying with closed eyes till the block and stoppage came, then she opened her eyes and asked listlessly:
"What is it?"
"It's a block," said Polly who sat beside her. "There's a carriage and a butcher's cart in front, a swell carriage——."
Finetta leant forward listlessly, then her listlessness changed, fled rather.
"It's—it's Lady Eleanor Dallas," she said between her teeth.
"Oh," said Polly; "is it? Well, I wish they'd get on, and—oh!" The exclamation escaped her lips unawares, and Finetta, following the direction of Polly's eyes, saw Yorke standing gazing in at the shop window.
She uttered a faint cry and fell back, clutching Polly's arm.
"It's him!" she breathed.
"Lord Auchester. I know it is!" said the matter-of-fact Polly. "Well, you needn't start as if you'd got the jumps."
"What is he doing there, what is he going to buy?" said Finetta in a low and agitated voice.
Polly jerked down the blind.
"Don't make a perfect fool of yourself, Fin," she ventured to remonstrate. "What's it matter to you what Lord Yorke is doing or going to buy? He and you have done with each other——."
"Have we!" between the set teeth. "Much you know about it!"
"Well, if you haven't, you ought to have done. Oh, I wasn't deaf the other night when he was telling you about the girlhe had fallen in love with and was going to marry; I heard enough to put two and two together. And I tell you what it is, Fin: you are making yourself a perfect idiot over that young man, and all for no good. Why, you've been away from the Diadem for two nights, and though I suppose you think I don't know where you've been, why I can guess. You've been dogging him down in the country somewhere——."
"Hold your tongue," said Finetta, her eyes still fixed, through a chink beside the silk blind, on Yorke.
"Yes, I can hold my tongue; but I'm talking for your good. Here you've been away for two days, goodness knows where, though I can guess, as I say, and you come back looking more dead than alive, and no more fit to dance to-night than I am."
"What is it he is buying? Something for her?" said Finetta almost to herself.
"What's it matter to you? You and he have done with each other, I tell you," said sensible Polly. "You let Lord Auchester alone, and forget him. You bet your life he's forgotten you by this time," and she ventured on a short laugh.
Finetta turned on her.
"Forgotten me, has he? What did he send me his portrait in a locket and that letter for, then? You hold your tongue! Tell the man to drive to Piccadilly and then back again!"
Her face was flushed, her eyes shining with feverish light in their purple rings.
"Well, if anyone had told me that you—you, Fin—would make such a fool of yourself over a man, I'd have given them the lie," remarked Polly after she had delivered the directions to the coachman.
Finetta fell back.
"Sneer on," she said in a low voice. "You don't understand, and, what's more, you never will. Is there any one in the carriage opposite? Is—is Lady Eleanor in it?"
Polly peered out.
"I can't see," she said, "the blinds are down."
But though she could not see her, Lady Eleanor was in the carriage, and she was looking, as Finetta was, at the stalwart young man in front of the jeweler's window. And her face was quite as pale as Finetta's. Should she open the window and call him? She longed to do so, and yet something, some vague presentiment, kept her from doing so. She watched him, her heart beating with love, until the block had melted away and the carriage had moved on, then she pulled the check string and, when the footman got down, said:
"Drive to Oxford Street, and then come back here, please."
Meanwhile, all unconscious that these two women were watching him, Yorke went into the shop.
"I want to look at some rings," he said to the man who bowed to him with an air of respectful recognition. It happened to be the same man who had served him the other day.
"Fancy rings my lord?"
"No, no," said Yorke, trying to speak in the most ordinary and casual way, and feeling very much as he had felt while procuring the license. "Er—wedding and keeper rings."
"Certainly, my lord," said the man, without the faintest change of countenance, and he placed a couple of trays on the counter.
"What size, my lord?"
Yorke looked up with a start of perplexity.
"Size?" he repeated, vaguely as he mentally called himself an idiot for not having measured Leslie's finger. "Oh, a small size. I don't quite know. Yes quite a small size. Here, I'll take two or three. They're all alike. I suppose!"
"Some heavier than the others, my lord."
"All right; give me the heaviest. And the keeper—isn't that what it's called?"
"Yes, my lord; it keeps the wedding ring in its place, you see."
"I see," said Yorke. "Well, I'll have one or two of these, the smaller ones; put this one in," and he picked out one set with pearl and turquoise. "I'll send back those I don't keep."
He tried to slip them on his little finger, but they would not go farther than the first point, and he laid them down with a smile. In a few hours, perhaps, he would be placing them on his darling's finger; his wife's!
The shopman put the rings in a box, and Yorke stowed them away carefully, very carefully, in an inner pocket, and went out, still dreaming of the hours when he should stand before the altar of the quiet little church in St. James'.
Two or three minutes afterward the dainty brougham pulled up to the shop door, and Finetta entered.
She was as well known to the jeweler as was Lord Auchester, and, if possible, he made her a more respectful and elaborate bow; she was a good customer, and, like most people in her position, she liked a great show of respect. So he leaned forward and placed a chair for her, and with another bow asked what he could have the honor of doing for her. Finetta's large, dark eyes wandered over the counter with a feigned indifference and listlessness.
"I only want a small present," she said.
"Yes, madam. For a gentleman?" and he made for a tray of silver cigarette cases and similar articles. Finetta looked at them, but kept the corners of her eyes fixed on the trays which had been on the glass counter when she entered.
"What pretty rings!" she said, taking up a jeweled keeper. "They almost tempt one to get married."
The man smiled sympathetically.
"I suppose the bridegroom always chooses the rings," she said, with seeming carelessness. "Now, I wonder which of these most men would choose?"
The man fingered the rings lightly.
"Some one, some another, madam," he replied. "The gentleman who has just gone out chose one like this."
Finetta's face was pale already, but it seemed to blanch, and the ring rolled along the counter.
"Lord Auchester was buying a wedding ring and keeper!" she said involuntarily.
As the words left her lips, a lady had entered the shop, and she heard them as plainly as if they had been addressed to her; and they took an instantaneous and extraordinary effect. She let the door slip, and put her hand to her heart, and so stood gazing with a strange expression in her eyes from Finetta to the man.
It was a dramatic moment. The two women stood silent and motionless, regarding each other with a world of meaning in their eyes. Finetta, still eyeing Lady Eleanor, went on:
"It was Lord Auchester who bought the ring?"
The jeweler smiled deprecatingly.
"Well, as you saw him, madam, it is no breach of confidence. It was his lordship." Then he looked toward Lady Eleanor, and, bowing, placed a chair for her.
Finetta rose; her face was still white, her full lips pale and trembling.
"I—I will come in again," she said, and moved toward the door; then she stopped, and swaying forward rather than stepping, leaned toward Lady Eleanor.
"I want to speak to you," she said abruptly and hoarsely.
Lady Eleanor shrank back and eyed her haughtily.
"I—I—" she began, but her voice seemed to fail her.
"You'd better not refuse, for—for your own sake!" said Finetta, hissed it, rather. "You—you know me——."
Lady Eleanor tried to look a denial, but the effort failed as the effort to speak had.
"And I know you," went on Finetta, still in the low, husky, agitated voice. "What I have to say concerns you. You'd better not refuse!"
Lady Eleanor looked round as if seeking some means of escape, then rose, hesitated a moment, her white teeth catching her lip, and followed Finetta to the end of the long shop, the jeweler discreetly keeping out of earshot, and respectfully waiting until his customers had finished their conference. He saw that something was happening; but his well-trained face was absolutely impassive.
Lady Eleanor stood turned sideways to Finetta, her haughty lips half lowered, but her lips trembling. If anyone that morning had told her that Finetta of the Diadem would dare to address her, and that she would consent to listen to her for onesingle moment, she would have laughed the idea to scorn. And yet here she was actually waiting for what the woman had to say.
Finetta's bosom was heaving with the effort at self-control. She could not help admiring Lady Eleanor's self-possession, while she hated her; and she tried to imitate her.
"You heard what the man said," she said at last, in a low, shaken voice.
Lady Eleanor's haughty lids moved slightly in assent.
"Well!" said Finetta, with a kind of gasp, "it's true!"
Lady Eleanor made the faintest movement with her hand. It seemed to say:
"If it is, what is it to do with me—or you?" and Finetta understood her.
A hot flush passed over her handsome face.
"You mean it's no business of mine. Well—" she drew a long breath, "perhaps it isn't. But it is of yours, or people make a great mistake when they say he is going to marry you."
Lady Eleanor's face crimsoned with humiliation, and she made as if to leave the place at once; but Finetta put out her hand, and Lady Eleanor stepped back as if the touch would contaminate her.
"I—I cannot listen to you—I have nothing to say," she said in a labored voice. "You have no right to speak to me—I do not know you—have no wish——."
Finetta's teeth came together with a click.
"Very well, go then!" she exclaimed vindictively. "Go! Do you think it's any pleasure to me to speak to you? Do you think I'd have spoken to you if it hadn't been for his sake?"
Lady Eleanor winced.
"You treat me like the dirt under your feet, you won't stoop to listen to what I've got to say, though it should save him from ruin. And you call yourself his friend! A pretty friend! I've heard you swells have got no heart, and I should think it's true, judging by you!" Her breath came fiercely. "Go! Why don't you go?"
Lady Eleanor looked at the door and then at the white, working face and flashing eyes; and remained.
She drew her light wrap round her and held it with a clenched hand.
"Say what you have to say quickly," she said, and her voice was thick and husky. "You are right; I am a friend of Lord Auchester's, if it is he whom you mean."
Finetta eyed her with a touch of scorn in her flashing eyes.
"You know it is him. Friend! I should think you were! Do you think I didn't see you start when you came in, and do you think I don't see how you're trembling and shaking? Bah! with all your acting you wouldn't be worth much on the stage. I tell you what the man said is true. Yorke Auchester hasbought his wedding ring, and he'll use it unless you can prevent it!"
Lady Eleanor's face was like a mask, but her eyelids quivered.
"I've done my best—or worst," went on Finetta, and she laughed harshly. "I've seen the girl and tried to put a spoke in her wheel, and I thought I'd succeeded; but it seems I haven't——."
"You have seen her?" escaped Lady Eleanor's lips.
"Yes!" said Finetta. "Did you think it was me he was going to marry?" Her lips twitched. "It's a young girl down in the country, at a forsaken place called Portmaris."
"Portmaris!" Lady Eleanor breathed.
"Yes. Quite a young girl, a country girl, a mere nobody, and not a swell like you; though she's what you call a lady," she added.
Lady Eleanor sank into a chair and sat with tightly clasped hands. The shock of this sudden news had caused her to forget that the woman who was speaking to her was Finetta, the dancing girl at the Diadem, the girl with whom Yorke Auchester had been so intimately friendly.
Finetta looked down at her with a bitter smile. She had brought this haughty aristocrat to her knees, at any rate.
"How she must love him!" she thought. "How we both love him!" and she ground her teeth.
Lady Eleanor, with her eyes downcast, asked after a pause:
"What is her name?"
"Leslie Lisle," replied Finetta. "She's as pretty and—and fresh as—as a flower; and when I told her that—that—"
Lady Eleanor looked up.
"What did you tell her?" she asked, in a low, husky voice.
Finetta flushed sullenly.
"Well, it doesn't matter. I thought that what I'd told her would break it off between him and her; but it hasn't, or he wouldn't be buying the wedding ring. They are going to be married secretly, and at once; and now what are you going to do, my lady?"
Lady Eleanor looked before her vacantly. Her heart was aching, burning with jealousy and the terror of despair. She shook her head.
"I daresay you wonder why I spoke to you, why I tell you this, seeing—that it can't matter to me who he marries?" said Finetta, with a flush.
Lady Eleanor glanced at her.
"Yes; why did you speak to me?" she said indistinctly.
Finetta bit her lip.
"I don't know, and that's the truth," she admitted. "The news knocked me over, and—and I was flurried. And besides—well, two heads are better than one, and——."
Lady Eleanor understood. This dancing girl meant that she was not afraid of Lord Auchester's marrying her, Lady Eleanor, but that shewas terribly afraid that he would marry this girl in the country, this Leslie Lisle.
She rose.
"I can say nothing. I am not Lord Auchester's keeper. If he chooses to marry a dairy maid—or worse—it is his business."
Finetta watched her keenly.
"But all the same, you'll do all you can to prevent it," she said sharply, and with an air of conviction. She had caught a significant gleam in the proud eyes.
Lady Eleanor turned pale, stood a moment as if waiting to see if Finetta had anything more to say, then with a slight inclination of her head passed out of the shop.
She walked proudly and haughtily enough to her brougham, but when she got inside her manner changed, and she covered her face with her hands, and cowered in the corner, trembling and moaning.
Yorke going to marry! Going to marry and beneath him, too! He had passed her over for some country wench, some nobody beneath him in rank, utterly unworthy of him. It tortured her. What should she do? What could be done? She asked herself this as the carriage rolled on homeward, and for a time no answer came; then suddenly she started and pulled the check string.
"The nearest telegraph office," she said to the footman.
There was only one person who could help her, even if he would, which was doubtful. She sent a telegram to Ralph Duncombe.
"Can you come and see me at once on important business?"
Meanwhile all unconscious of the strange meeting between his two old loves, Yorke betook himself to the Army and Navy Stores, and whiled away the time by buying a lady's portmanteau, one of the latest and most expensive kind, and ordering the initials "L. A." to be painted on it. This afforded him a subtle delight. "Leslie Auchester." How well it sounded, "Leslie, Viscountess Auchester!" Take the peerage all through, and there wouldn't be a more beautiful, charming woman than this wife of his! He bought one or two other things—traveling luxuries, which should add to her comfort on their journey, then went back to the club.
"Any telegram for me?" he asked, almost confidently.
"No, my lord," was the reply.
Yorke's face clouded, then it cleared.
"Look here," he said, "I forgot to tell you that it would be addressed to Yorke."
The porter looked in the 'Y' pigeon-hole and shook his head.
"Nothing for that name either, my lord."
Yorke stood at the door of the porter's glass box and stared at the man as if he could not believe his ears. Then he swunground, and jumping into a cab, told the man to drive to Arnheim's.