He met the dealer coming down the stairs.
"Oh, good morning, my lord," he said. "I have written to you."
"Yes, yes! Mr. Lisle—has he been here?"
"Yes, my lord," said Arnheim, looking at the handsome and palpably agitated face curiously. "He has been here."
"With——."
"With his daughter, Miss Lisle. Yes. And he has left some pictures. Of course, your lordship knows best, but I am bound to tell you, it's only right, that the pictures are utterly——."
"I know, I know," Yorke broke in quickly. "That's all right. I mean it doesn't matter. I'll explain afterward. What I want now is their address!"
"Port——."
"Yes, yes, I know; I mean their London address, where they're staying."
The dealer thought a moment, while Yorke looked at him as if he could tear the answer from him.
"I—well, the fact is, I don't know it. I did not think to ask it!" said Arnheim.
Yorke flushed a dark red.
"Oh, nonsense! They must have given you their address, some place to write to!"
"You'd naturally think so, but as it happens they didn't!" said Arnheim. "I admit I ought to have asked Mr. Lisle, but—well, I didn't! I suppose I expected him to call again. And," with a faint smile, "of course he will do so, the man is an enthusiast——."
"I know all about him, thanks," said Yorke sternly. "What I want is Lisle's address." He thought a moment, then said slowly and impressively—"When he calls next—he may do so to-day, any hour—be sure and get the address. Wire it to me at the Dorchester, and at once."
"Certainly, my lord," said Arnheim; "and about the pictures?"
"Buy two or three, give him his own price for them. But, mind, keep my name out of the business!" and he ran down the stairs and jumped into the cab again, telling the man to drive back to the club.
"I'll stick there till Leslie's telegram comes," he said between his teeth, "if I stay there till doomsday."
He was consumed by anxiety. Leslie in London, and he did not know where! Good Heavens, could the telegram have miscarried? Was anything wrong? He tried to remain cool and confident, but he looked as he got out of the cab like a man oppressed by a terrible presentiment.
On the steps of the club stood Grey.
"Hallo!" said Yorke. "Grey!"
Grey touched his hat.
"I've been to Bury Street, my lord, and Fleming sent me here. His grace is back, and would be glad if you could come and see him."
Yorke hesitated, and was on the point of sending a message to say that he would come presently—to-morrow; then it occurred to him that the duke had come from Portmaris, and that he might have some news of the Lisles.
"All right," he said, "I'll come at once. Keep the cab."
He ran up the steps to the porter.
"That telegram?"
"Nothing, my lord, for you as yet."
With something like a groan Yorke went slowly down the steps again and into the cab.
Leslie! Where was she? Why—why had she not wired as she promised?
The ducal house in Grosvenor Square was not seldom referred to as an instance of the extreme of luxury which this finish of the century had attained to. It was an immense place, decorated by one of the first authorities, with ceilings painted by a famous artist, and walls draped by hangings for which the Orient had literally been ransacked. The entrance hall was supposed to be the finest in the kingdom. It was of marble and mosaic; a fountain plashed in the center, and the light poured through ruby-tinted glass and warmed with a rose blush the exquisite carvings and statuary. At the end of the hall rose broad stairs of pure white marble, in the centre of which was laid a Persian carpet of such thick pile that footsteps were hushed. Stately palms stood here and there, relieving the whiteness of the marble and 'breaking the corners.' The staircase led to the first corridor, which ran round the hall, and upon the walls of this corridor hung pictures by the great English masters. The family portraits were at Rothbury. The state rooms were on the ground floor, and were on a par in the way of luxury and magnificence with the hall. Altogether it was a very great contrast to Marine Villa, Portmaris.
Yorke followed Grey to the hall, and was ushered into a room behind the state apartments.
It was a small room, and, compared with the rest of the house, plainly furnished in oak. There were bookshelves and a large writing table, and one of those invalid couches which are provided with bookrests and an elaborate machinery which enables one to move the couch by merely pressing a lever.
On this couch lay the Duke of Rothbury. Though the day was warm, a fire burned in the grate, and a superb sable rug was tumbled on the couch as if the invalid had pulled it off and on restlessly. Three or four books lay on the floor, but he wasnot reading, and he looked up sharply as Yorke entered, and did not speak until Grey had closed the door upon them.
Then, as he held out his hand and his keen eyes scanned Yorke's face, he said:
"Do you think I have sent for you to crow over you, Yorke?"
Yorke stood and looked down at him for a moment without replying; then he said vaguely:
"Crow over me? What do you mean, Dolph?"
The duke raised himself on his elbow.
"Sit down," he said; "you look tired and knocked up. Is anything the matter?"
Yorke sank into a chair and avoided the keen eyes.
"Matter? What should be the matter?" he said evasively. "You don't look quite the thing; but I suppose the journey took it out of you?"
"Yes, it was the journey," said the duke dryly.
"Isn't it rather a pity that you left Portmaris?" said Yorke after a slight pause. "It was a pretty place, and healthy and all that, and I thought you rather liked it than otherwise."
"It's a pity I ever went there," responded the duke grimly.
Yorke looked up suddenly and caught the eyes fixed on him half pityingly.
"Why so?" he asked. "I should say you were the better for the change——."
"And I should say I was so much the worse," broke in the duke. "And now we have fenced with each other and beat about the bush, Yorke, don't you think we'd better be open and above board?"
"What do you mean?"
The duke raised himself a little higher, and worked the lever of the couch so that he brought himself facing Yorke.
"Why do you look as if you were waiting for a sentence of life or death, Yorke?" he said quietly. "You look as anxious and harried and worn as a man might look who stood on the brink of ruin. Have you heard from her?" he added quietly but sharply.
"Heard from whom?" said Yorke with averted eyes.
"From Miss Lisle—Leslie," said the duke.
Yorke raised his eyes quickly.
"You know——?" he said.
"Yes, I know all," said the duke gravely, almost sympathetically. "And—yes, I am sorry for you, Yorke! No, I don't mean to crow over you, though my prophesy has come true, and my estimate of her—and her sex generally—has proved the correct one. I am not going to indulge in the delicious luxury of remarking, 'I told you so!' I'll spare you that. Indeed, I haven't the heart to do it, for to tell you the truth I had been hoping all along that my prophesy would be falsified, and that your faith in her would be established. But it wasn't to be. Who is it says that a woman can be beautiful, lovable, magnanimous, clever, everything—but true?"
Yorke looked at him with a harassed and perplexed frown.
"What the devil are you talking about, Dolph?" he said.
The duke sat up and scanned the face before him in silence for a moment or two, then said:
"Is it possible that you don't know?"
"Don't know what?" demanded Yorke impatiently. "What are you talking about? I beg your pardon, Dolph, but—but I'm rather worried and upset about—something, and I'm short-tempered this morning. I've been expecting an important telegram for the last two days and it hasn't turned up, and—there, don't mind me, but go on and explain what you were saying about Les—Miss Lisle. I can't make head or tail of it!"
"From whom are you expecting a telegram, Yorke? Shall I make a guess and say the young lady herself?"
Yorke thought a moment, the color mounting to his face, then he looked the duke straight in the eyes.
"Yes, it was from her, Dolph," he said. "I'd better make a clean breast of it. You'd get it out of me somehow or other if I didn't own up, for I'm too worried to keep on guard. It is from Leslie I'm expecting that telegram, and—and—Well, look here, Dolph, take it quietly. I've asked her to be my wife, and—and she's consented."
He waited a moment, expecting to see the duke start up and fly into one of his paroxysms, but the duke leant upon his elbow and looked at him with a grave and pitying regard.
"I know that," he said.
"You—knew—that—that I had asked her, that she had agreed to come up to London and marry me on the quiet?" exclaimed Yorke, staring at him. "She told you?"
"No, she did not tell me that you had arranged a clandestine marriage," said the duke quietly, "but she confessed that you had asked her to be your wife. And so you were going to marry her secretly? Was that—was that straight of you, Yorke?"
There was a touch of gentle reproach in the tone that made Yorke wince.
"Put it that way, it wasn't, Dolph," he said. "But look how I am placed. I am up to my ears in debt. Yes, I know I ought to be ashamed of myself, but there it is, you see! And if it got out that I was marrying without money the blessed Jews would be down on me, and—and—I knew you wanted me to—to marry someone else, and that I couldn't count on you; and so—and so I thought Leslie and I would get spliced quietly and wait till things had blown over, and——."
The duke dropped back on the couch, but kept his eyes fixed on the harassed, anxious face.
"My poor Yorke! You must love her very much."
Yorke flushed red.
"Love her—!" he broke out, then he pulled himself up. "Look here, Dolph, I love her so much that if I knew that by marrying her I should have to drive a hansom cab or sweep a crossing for the rest of my life, I'd marry her!"
He got up and strode to and fro, his eyes flashing.
"I tell you that life wouldn't be worth living without her. Why, why," his voice rang low and tremulous, "I cannot get her out of my thoughts day or night. I see her face before my eyes, hear her voice always. It's Leslie, Leslie, and nothing else with me! I know now, I can understand now why a man cuts his throat or pitches himself off the nearest bridge when he loses the woman he loves. I used to laugh at the old stories, at the Othello and Romeo and Juliet business, but I understand now! It's all true, every word of it! I'd rather die any day and anyhow than lose her. And—and there you are! You see, Dolph," with a kind of rueful smile, "I'm as far gone as a man can be; just raving mad. But it's a madness that will last my life."
"I hope not," said the duke gravely. "Yorke, I am sorry for you. I did not know that the thing had gone so far. I have bad news for you."
"Bad news!" echoed Yorke.
"Yes. As I said, I was right in my estimate of Leslie Lisle, and you were wrong. She knows all, Yorke, and——." He paused and shrugged his bent shoulders.
"She knows all?" said Yorke, almost stupidly. "What do you mean?"
"She discovered the deceit, the trick, we had played upon her. How, I do not know. Perhaps she came across a peerage, or a society paper referring to the 'crippled Duke of Rothbury,' or Grey may have let slip a word in her hearing which revealed the secret. Who can say? After all, it was wonderful that we succeeded in keeping up the deceit so long. She was bound to discover the truth sooner or later."
Yorke gazed at him with a troubled face.
"You mean that she discovered that you were the duke and not I?" he said.
The duke nodded.
"Yes. She came to me early in the morning, so pale and changed, so thoroughly overwhelmed with disappointment——."
"Hold on," broke in Yorke. "Disappointment? Do you mean that she was disappointed that I was not the duke, that she was cut up, that she cared one straw?"
"My dear Yorke, if you had seen her you would have been as astonished and as full of remorse as I was—though the trick was not yours, but mine. I told her so, I took all the blame, but it was of no use to plead for you. She was broken down with the agony of disappointment. If, as you say, you had arranged a secret marriage with her, she looked upon herself as already the Duchess of Rothbury, and to have the cup dashed from her lips! My dear Yorke, one must make all allowance for her. Human nature is human nature all the world over, especially feminine human nature——."
Yorke's face went from white to red and from red to white again.
"You are talking rot, utter rot, Dolph!" he said. "Leslie—Leslie Lisle—cut up and knocked over because she was not going to be a duchess! Ha, ha!" and he laughed scornfully. "How well you know her! she wouldn't care a pin; I've told you so half a dozen times! Why, she was shrinking from the idea of being a duchess; would have refused me for being what I thought I was, if—if—well, if she hadn't cared for me as she does, God bless her!"
He turned his head away and his eyes grew moist.
The duke watched him gravely.
"You doubt my word, Yorke?"
"No, no! But I say you are mistaken. There was something else."
"What else, what other cause could there be? No, I tell you that it was the agony of disappointed ambition——."
Yorke laughed again.
The duke flushed.
"Come," he said, "you will not credit my statement, or rely on my judgment. Perhaps you are right. A man should have faith in the purity and single-mindedness of the woman he loves. But facts are stubborn things."
"Facts?"
"Yes! She had arranged to come up to London to you—to send to you. I don't know what plans you made, but I can imagine them. I know how I should have arranged in your case. Well, she is in London, or has been, and has she sent to you, has she met you as she promised?"
Yorke gazed at him with a half doubtful, half scornful expression.
"No," he said at last. "But—but there has been some mistake, blunder, on somebody's part. The telegram has miscarried. She may not have been able to send it. You know how closely she waits upon her father; she may not have been able to get out——."
The duke shook his head.
"My dear Yorke, her last words to me were a distinct farewell to me and to you. I've not the least doubt in the world that the person who informed her that you were not the duke had also told her that you were heavily in debt, and in Queer Street generally, and that she saw how foolish it would be to throw herself away and ruin her whole life by making an imprudent marriage."
Yorke uttered an oath.
"By heaven, Dolph, if it were anybody else but you who talked of her like this I'd—I'd make him take his words back!"
The duke sighed.
"Even if I were your equal in strength, and we bashed each other, it wouldn't alter the truth a hair's breadth," he said sadly and wearily. "And the truth is as I prophesied weeks ago and state now. Leslie, learning that you were not the Duke of Rothbury, has thrown you over!"
"The truth! It's a foolish and cruel lie!" exclaimed Yorke, his eyes blazing, his hands clenched. "You always misjudged her, you were prejudiced against her, from the first——."
The duke put his hand as if to stop him, but the passionately indignant voice rang out:
"From the first! She is as pure and high-minded as—as an angel, but you had made up your mind that she was a mercenary schemer, and not even the being with her, and knowing her, and seeing her every day, disabused your mind and opened your eyes to the wrong you were doing her! Yes, you were against her from the first. You'd made your mind up. That ridiculous idea of yours that all women are greedy and hungry for wealth and a title has become a monomania with you, and your mind has got as twisted as your body!"
He stopped aghast and breathless. The words—the cruel words—had slipped out on the torrent of his indignation before be scarcely knew or realized their cruel significance.
The duke sank back, and put his hand to his eyes, as if Yorke had dealt him a physical blow.
Yorke hung his head.
"Forgive me, Dolph," he said in a low voice. "I—I did not mean——."
The duke dropped his hands from before his face.
"Let that pass," he said in a low voice. "You did not mean it. It is the first unkind word you have ever——. But no matter! You say that I was prejudiced, that I wronged her. Yorke, you have forced my hand, and to show you that you have wronged me, I must tell you all. Yorke——," he paused, and his eyes dropped, then he raised them, and looked steadily into Yorke's—"I loved her!"
Yorke started.
"You!"
The duke plucked at the sable rug for a moment to silence, then he went on—
"Yes! I should not have told you, should never have confessed it, even to myself, but for—what you said. It is the truth. I loved her! What!" and he leant forward, his thin, wasted face flushed, his lips trembling. "Do you think that it is given to you only to appreciate such beauty and grace and sweetness as Leslie Lisle's? You remind me that I am crooked, twisted, deformed——."
"Dolph!"
"But do you think, because I am what I am outwardly, that I have no heart? God, who sees below the surface, knows that there beats in my bosom a heart as tender, as hungry for love, as quick to love as yours! Ah, and quicker, hungrier! And I loved her! Loved her with a love as strong and passionate as yours!" He stopped for want of breath.
Yorke sank into a chair and turned his face away.
"And you did not guess it? Well, that is not surprising, for I strove hard to hide it from even myself. I knew that it wasmadness to hope that I might win her love! But I knew that if I had offered myself in my right colors she would have accepted me, bent, twisted, deformed, mockery of a man as I am!"
Yorke groaned.
"And—and—" he stopped, and seemed to be struggling with something—"and I was tempted! Yes, I was tempted the morning she came to me and told me that she knew, was tempted to tell her that she might still be a duchess, that I loved her and would marry her!"
Yorke sprang to his feet.
"Sit—sit down," said the duke hoarsely, and Yorke sank down again. "But I resisted the temptation. I left her without a word, without a look or sign by which she could know the truth. I had to bear it. It is a burden which crushes, which tortures me! Even since I left the cursed place the temptation has assailed me at intervals, and once or twice I have almost resolved to write—to go down to her—and offer her that upon which she has set her woman's heart—the ducal coronet—for which even a Leslie Lisle will sell herself!"
Yorke opened his lips, but the duke by a gesture stopped him again.
"Now you know the whole truth. If you have to suffer, so also have I. And my lot will be worse than yours. You—" he looked at him, not enviously, but with a sad admiration—"you will get over this—will forget her——."
"No, no!"
"Yes. There are other women whose love you may win. There is one already." He paused. "Yes, if one nail drives out another, so one love may drive out, wipe out all remembrance of another. And so it is with you. But I!" He dropped back and covered his face with his hands. "For me there can be no such hope. The door of love, the gates of the earthly paradise are shut against me, and will remain shut while I live. To me the Fates say mockingly, 'Rank, wealth, station, we give you, but the love of woman, that supreme gift of the gods to man, thou shalt never know it!'"
There was silence for a moment, then he raised himself on his elbow.
"Yorke, you must bear your burden. Forget her. It will be hard. Don't I know how hard? To forget Leslie—those sweet gray eyes, with their melting tenderness, that low, musical voice! But you must forget her. As I said, there are others. There is one. Eleanor——."
Yorke sprang to his feet.
"Forget her! Forget Leslie! What are you talking about? We must be mad, both of us; you to talk as you have done, and I to listen! She's as true as steel! I shall find a telegram waiting for me at the club, and—and all will turn out right."
The duke regarded him gravely.
"Go and see," he said quietly. "If you do not find a message from her, what will you do?"
Yorke looked at him.
"Though my body's twisted, my brain is straighter and more acute than yours," said the duke with a smile, "and I will tell you what to do. Wire to the landlady at the house they lived in, Sea View. What was the woman's name?"
"Merrick," said Yorke.
"Yes, Merrick. Ask if the Lisles are there, and if not, for their address. Pay for the return message and all charges. But I can tell you the result at once."
"The result? What?"
"You will not find her. She does not intend that you should. With all her beauty and grace and sweetness, she, even she, even Leslie! being a woman, is too worldly wise to marry Yorke Auchester now that he is a duke no longer."
Yorke caught up his hat and laughed hoarsely.
"I'll soon prove you wrong!" he said.
"And if you do not? If you prove that I am right?" asked the duke, looking at him steadily.
Yorke stopped at the door and looked over his shoulder.
"Then—then—" he stopped and swore—"then you may do what you like with me; marry me to whom you please, when you please, send me to the devil——."
He strode through the marble hall and called a cab. He ran up the steps of the Dorchester and confronted the patient Stephens.
"There's a telegram for me now, Stephens. Name of 'Yorke,' you know.
"No, sir, nothing for you," was the reply.
He turned at once, and going straight to the telegraph office in Regent Street, sent the following telegram to Mrs. Merrick:
"If Miss Lisle is not at Portmaris, send her address to Yorke, Regent Street Post Office. Reply, paid, at once."
"I'll wait," he said.
"It may be an hour, sir," said the young lady clerk.
"I'll wait if it's ten hours," he said.
He waited for an hour and a half, and then they handed him this:
"Mr. and Miss Lisle have gone and left no address."
He walked from the post office to Grosvenor Square with the telegram crushed in his hand, and went straight to the duke's room. He was still lying on the couch, and he did not lift his head as Yorke entered.
"Well?" he said. "But I need not ask. You are convinced?"
Yorke flattened out the telegram and dropped it into the duke's hand.
"No address! Here in London, and I do not know where to look for her!" he said hoarsely.
"Convinced! No! No!"
Then his voice broke, and he sank into the chair by the table and dropped his head upon his arms.
The duke sighed.
"My poor Yorke! Oh, woman, woman! God sent you as a blessing, and you have proved a curse!"
Lady Eleanor reached Palace Gardens and went straight to her boudoir and flung herself on a couch.
To women of her class come very few such adventures as that which had happened to her this morning. From their cradles, through their girlhood, and indeed all through their lives, they are so hedged in and protected from the world outside the refined and exclusive circle in which they move, that there is little chance of their coming in contact with other than their own set.
She had seen Finetta on the stage of the Diadem, had heard of her, read of her, knew that Yorke Auchester's name was in some way connected with her, but she had never dreamed that a meeting with her would be even possible, much less probable.
And now she had not only met with her, but talked and listened to her.
The fact that she had done so filled her with shame and confusion. What would her friends and relatives think if they knew? What would Godolphin, the duke, say if he were told that she had not only engaged in conversation with this Finetta, but actually entered into a kind of compact and conspiracy with her.
But she soon dismissed this part of the case and allowed herself to think only of the information Finetta had given her.
Yorke going to be married!
She would almost as soon have heard that he was going to die. Indeed, death would not more completely remove him for her, would not set up a more surmountable barrier between them than a marriage. For if he were to die, she could still think and dream of him as hers; whereas, if he married, he would belong in this world and the next to another woman.
And such a woman! Finetta had spoken of this Leslie Lisle as if she were an uncultivated, half-educated country girl.
Lady Eleanor could imagine what she was like; some simpering, round-faced girl, just a step above a laborer's daughter. One of these girls who blushed with timidity and fright when they were spoken to, who spoke in a strong provincial dialect, who dressed like a dowdy and looked just respectable; something between a servant and a shop girl.
She was pretty, no doubt; but to think that Yorke, Yorke the fastidious, should be caught by a pretty face! Why, she, Lady Eleanor, was pretty! She looked at her pale, agitatedface, and a kind of indignant rage consumed her for a moment. She was the acknowledged belle of many a ballroom. She might have been a professional beauty if she had cared to be one. She was accomplished, was in his own rank and class, a fitting mate—yes, she told herself with inward conviction, a fitting mate for him.
With her by his side, as his wife, he could have filled a conspicuous place in the world, their world, the upper ten thousand, the rulers and masters.
And he had passed her by and was going to marry a half-educated, uncivilized, uncultivated country girl, with pink cheeks and a simpering smile.
The thought drove her half mad. Finetta had said that she had tried to prevent it, and that it now rested with her, Lady Eleanor, to make an attempt.
Lady Eleanor shuddered and reddened with shame at the idea of being a conspirator with such a one as Finetta of the Diadem. And yet was not the object to be attained worthy of even such means?
She would not ask herself why Finetta desired to stop the marriage; she put that question away from her resolutely, and told herself that it was of Yorke and Yorke's welfare alone that she was thinking.
A servant came up to announce visitors, but Lady Eleanor answered through the locked door that she wasn't at home.
"I will only see Mr. Ralph Duncombe," she said, and she longed for his presence with a feverish impatience; though she had no fixed plan in her mind, nothing but a vague idea that Ralph Duncombe, the cute city man, might be able to help her.
About six o'clock the servant announced him, and she had him shown up to her boudoir. She had had time to collect herself and regain composure, to change her dress for a tea gown and do her hair; but her face was pale and still showed traces of the terrible agitation which she had suffered, and Ralph Duncombe as he took her hand looked at her inquiringly.
"I am afraid you have found the heat trying, Lady Eleanor. I hope you are well," he said, in his grave, sedate voice.
"Thank you, yes," she said; "I am well, quite well. But I am—what is the term you city men use when you want to say that you are worried? Pray sit down," and she pointed to a chair so placed that she could see his face while hers was against the light.
"We find 'worried' good enough for us, Lady Eleanor; but we are worried so often that we think little of it and take things very much as they come."
"Ah, then I envy you!" she said with a genuine sigh. "I am afraid you will think me very inconsiderate in sending for you, you who have so much to occupy your time and energies."
"I am always glad to be of some slight service to you," he said with grave courtesy, "and can always spare time to come to you when you send for me. Is anything the matter? Areyou anxious about the Mining Company? You have no cause to be, for everything is going on remarkably well, and succeeding beyond my expectations. Some of the best men in the city have joined us, and, as I wrote to you, the shares already stand at a high premium. You have made a very large sum of money, Lady Eleanor, and are on the way to making a still larger."
"Money, money!" she exclaimed. "It is always money. You talk as if it were the one and only thing desirable and worth having! And, after all, what can it buy? Can it buy the one thing on which one's heart is set? Have you found it so all-powerful that you set such store by it?"
His face flushed and a singular look came into his eyes.
"I—I beg your pardon!" she said hurriedly and almost humbly. "I did not mean to be impertinent or obtrusive; but just now I am in trouble in which I think even the all-powerful money will be powerless."
"Tell me what it is," he said in a low voice, and rather absently, as if the hasty words she had just spoken were still haunting him. "That is, I suppose you sent to consult me about it?"
"Well—yes," said Lady Eleanor more calmly, but with her color coming and going. "I sent to you because you are the only friend I have whom I should care to consult about this—this trouble. Because I feel that you will understand, and, what is more important, not misunderstand me, or—or my motives."
"I will do my best to understand and sympathize, Lady Eleanor," he said, watching her, yet without seeming to do so.
"You remember," she said after a pause, during which she was seeking for some way of beginning the subject as if it were not of much importance after all. "You remember Yorke Auchester, Lord Yorke Auchester?"
He inclined his head, suppressing a look of surprise.
"Certainly," he said. "That is, I remember—I could not fail to do so—that I have purchased his debts, to a very large sum, on your behalf."
"Yes," she said nervously, "and I daresay—I know—that you have wondered why I have done so."
He kept silence, but raised his eyebrows slightly.
"Well," she went on, "it was to save him from trouble. He is a great friend of mine; his cousin, the duke, and I are great friends. But you know all this! And now I want to do something more for—for Lord Auchester."
He looked up. Her face was red one moment and pale the next, but she kept her eyes—the half-proud, half-appealing eyes—upon his.
"He is in great trouble and—and danger. A worse danger than a monetary one."
He smiled.
"Can there be worse?" he said with a city man's incredulity. "We live in a prosaic age, Lady Eleanor, from which we have dismissed the midnight assassin and all the other romanticperils which made life and history so interesting in the middle ages; and the only dangers we run now are from a railway or steamboat accident——."
She tried to listen to him patiently.
"It is not that kind of danger I was thinking," she said. "Is it not possible for a man to—to ruin and wreck his life in—many ways, Mr. Duncombe?"
He looked at her still half smilingly.
"Oh, yes, a man may enlist as a common soldier, or forge a check, or marry his cook; but I do not imagine that there is any risk of Lord Auchester committing any of these—shall we say, follies?"
"Of all the things you have mentioned, it seems to me that the last is the worst," said Lady Eleanor bitterly.
"Yes?"
He raised his brows again.
"At any rate it is punished more severely than the others," she said.
"Yes," he assented thoughtfully. "But," and he smiled, "Lord Auchester does not contemplate marrying his cook, does he?"
"His cook? No; but he is in danger of marrying almost as far beneath him!" The retort flashed from her with hot hauteur. "Mr. Duncombe, when a man of Lord Auchester's station marries beneath him he is as utterly ruined, his life is as completely wrecked, as if he had committed forgery or enlisted as a common soldier."
He leaned back and listened with sedate politeness, wondering whither all this was leading, and what it was she would ask him to do.
"A man of Lord Auchester's rank has only one life—the social one. He has no business, no profession to fall back upon, to employ his thoughts, to engross and solace him. He must mix in the world to which he belongs, and he can only do so as an equal with his fellows. When he marries he is expected to take for a wife a lady of his own rank, or at any rate, a lady who is accepted as such in the circle to which he belongs. She must be one whom his friends can receive and visit, one of whom neither he nor they will be ashamed. His life may then continue in its old course; he will still have his friends and relatives round him, still have his place in the world, his niche, be it a high or a moderately high one, and all will be well with him."
She paused for breath, and put her hand to smooth back the delicate silken hair from her fair forehead.
"But if he should so far forget himself and all he owes to society as to marry beneath him—then, as I say he is utterly wrecked and undone. His friends will not receive his wife, or if they do it is with a coldness which she and he cannot fail to notice and resent. He sees them look pityingly, scornfully upon the woman he has made his wife, and he feels that he cannottake her amongst them. So he drifts from his own class, and either sinks into the one below it—where he is wretchedly miserable, or lives like a hermit. In the latter case he has plenty of time in which to get tired of his life and of the woman who has, in all innocence, severed him from all his old associates and, still in all innocence, has degraded him. The result, be it quick or slow in coming, is invariably the same. He is always thinking of the sacrifice he has made in marrying her, she is always conscious that he is so thinking, and sooner or later they grow to weary of and hate each other. She has ruined him, wrecked his life, and both know it! I am not speaking by theory; I have seen it, seen it in half a dozen cases, and I say that a man had better throw himself into the Thames than marry beneath him."
She dropped back in her low chair and put her hand to her head. She had talked swiftly, passionately, and her brow was burning.
Ralph Duncombe looked up.
"All you say is very true, no doubt, Lady Eleanor. And Lord Auchester——."
"Is thinking of making such a match," she said in a low voice.
Ralph Duncombe looked at the carpet.
"It scarcely seems—pardon me—scarcely seems credible. I do not know Lord Auchester, but from what I have heard of him I should think he would be the last man to be blind to the consequences of contracting a marriage with a lady who was considered his inferior in the social scale."
"Ah, yes!" she said with a sigh. "So anyone who knew him would have said; but—but—in this matter even the wisest men are fools."
He smiled gravely.
"Yes, fools!" she said bitterly; "they are caught by a pretty face, a look in the eyes, a curve on the lip, a dimple in the cheek——." She rose and took one or two paces, as if her impatience would not permit of her sitting still any longer. "At any rate, Lord Auchester has been so caught!" she wound up suddenly.
"And you wish——?"
"Ah, I scarcely know," she answered, stretching out her hands. "He is doing this thing secretly. He is keeping it from his friends. From the duke, from—from me, from all of us."
"Then he is half ashamed of it?" he suggested.
"Perhaps so," she said. "Perhaps so. But if he has made up his mind to do it he will go through with it, in spite of all arguments and attempts to dissuade him. Yorke—" she used his Christian name unconsciously—"Yorke is one of the sweetest tempered men—you can lead him with a silken thread, until he has resolved to do anything; then——." She had turned to him and looked at him beseechingly. "Can you help me, us; his friends, I mean, generally? He is so popular, so much liked.It would be a shame and a sin that such a one should be wrecked and ruined. In such a case a man should be saved in spite of himself. Can nothing be done? I sent for you, because you have always helped me, have always been so kind——." She stopped and turned her head away.
Ralph Duncombe regarded her with grave surprise.
"I am very sorry," he said slowly, as a lawyer speaks to a client to whom he has been listening patiently. "But I do not see how you can act in the matter. You might try persuasion——."
She shook her head.
"Ah, you do not know Lord Auchester!" she said.
"I scarcely see what else you can do. He's of age, and his own master, and the lady is of age, I presume. You could scarce bring any pressure upon her?"
Lady Eleanor shook her head scornfully.
"It is scarcely to be expected that she would be induced to release him. In these cases the woman is generally a low-bred schemer, or some simple girl who believes that she and the man she is ruining are in love. Oh, no; nothing can be done with her! Besides, I know—" she was going to say, "I know one who has tried and failed," but stopped suddenly.
"Well, then," said Ralph Duncombe, "I fear that I can suggest nothing. After all, if Lord Auchester is resolved upon committing social suicide——."
"Oh, it is terrible, terrible!" she exclaimed in a low, agitated voice; "and I thought you would be able to help me."
"I am very sorry at being so useless," he put in.
"I thought that perhaps these bills you hold for me—that they would give you some power over him," and she colored and cast her eyes down.
He smiled.
"There is no longer arrest for debt, Lady Eleanor," he said. "They say there is no longer imprisonment, but that is not true. They imprison still, but they call it for contempt of court. Ah, it is a pity we are not living in the dark ages! We could have set an ambush for Lord Auchester, seized him bodily, and cast him into a dungeon below the moat until he had come to his senses; but there is an absurd prejudice against that kind of thing nowadays."
She drew a long breath, and, taking her silence as an acceptation of the fact that he could be of no use to her, he reached for his hat and prepared to go.
"I suppose it is the usual thing," he said sympathetically. "Some girl of the lower middle class has attracted him, and she and her parents have succeeded in obtaining a promise of marriage from him. It is not an uncommon case."
Lady Eleanor had sunk into the chair again, and answered languidly, for the excitement was beginning to tell upon her.
"I do not know the details of the affair. It is very probable. The girl's name is Lisle, Leslie Lisle——."
"What!" The exclamation broke from him with the suddenness of a gunshot.
Lady Eleanor looked up, but he had turned and stood at a little distance with his back to the window; and, though pale as usual, his face was set and calm.
"I—beg your pardon, I did not quite catch the name," he said. He spoke very slowly, enunciating each word distinctly, as if he were uncertain of his voice. "I did not quite catch the name."
"Leslie Lisle," said Lady Eleanor. "He met her at a place called Portmaris. You may remember that I mentioned it to you when you were here some weeks ago."
"Yes—I—remember," he said, in just the same slow, mechanical voice. He put his hat down and sat with tightly set lips and eyes fixed on the carpet.
Lady Eleanor looked at his grave, set face, waiting.
"Have you thought of anything, any plan by which the marriage could be prevented?" she asked anxiously.
He was silent for a moment or two, then, without looking up, he said:
"And they are to be married secretly?"
"Yes," and her face flushed and paled.
"And at once?" he asked, and she thought his voice was strangely hoarse.
"At once, I—I am told."
"At once," he repeated, as if to himself. "Lady Eleanor, I see a carafe of water on that side table; will you allow me——." He rose and crossed the room and drank nearly a glassful of water, while Lady Eleanor pressed him to allow her to ring for wine.
"No, no. Water, I prefer water. I am almost a teetotaler. Thanks, thanks," he waved his hand impatiently, almost imperiously. "And is that all you know? Do you know the place they are going to be married at?"
"No," she said. "Lord Auchester is in London," she added after a moment; "I saw him this morning."
He leant his head on his hand so that his face was almost completely concealed from her.
"In London. To be married at once," he repeated. He looked up. "I am thinking, Lady Eleanor——."
"Oh, yes, yes," she breathed, leaning forward. "I know if you will only think you will find some way. It is a shame to bother and trouble you——."
He smiled grimly.
"Don't mention it. Let me see." He put his hand to his forehead. "He is fearfully in debt. Some of those bills are long overdue. Do you think he means to leave the country?" He asked the question suddenly, with a flash.
"I—I don't know. He must, I should think."
"I see—I see," he said. "Say, don't be too hopeful, too sanguine. But—well, the law has long claws still, though we havepared them down pretty considerably. And in the city its claws are longer than elsewhere. That's an anomaly, but it's true. In a city court of law you can do strange things. For instance, if a man owes me money and I go and swear that I have reason to believe that he is intending to leave the country—to abscond, in short—the court has an almost forgotten power to stop that man. The machinery is antiquated and rusty, but—but it may be made to work." He rose. A strange light was burning in his eyes, a hectic flush on his pale and rather hollow cheeks. "Lady Eleanor——."
"What is it?" she asked, almost frightened by the change in his manner, by the subdued eagerness and earnestness where a few minutes ago was only polite indifference.
"Lady Eleanor, if I consent to help you, I can do so on one condition."
"Yes! What is that?" she asked, trembling a little.
"That you follow my instructions to the letter. That you leave the whole matter to me, and offer no opposition to anything I may direct or do. I see—mark me!—I see a small chance, a slight hope of saving Lord Auchester from this," he smiled scornfully, "ruinous marriage. It is but slight, and to do anything with it I must have a free hand. Will you give it me?"
"I will," she said. "I would do anything—anything to save him."
"And so would I!" he muttered, but so low that she did not hear him.
Some blows which Fate deals us are so severe and crushing that, for a time, they deprive us of the power of feeling; and of such a nature was the bereavement which Leslie had suffered. She was simply crushed and powerless to feel or to act. Fortunately the landlady of the London lodging-house, and the young doctor, were kind-hearted persons, and they came to her aid.
Francis Lisle had quarreled with and separated himself from his people years ago, and Leslie scarcely knew his relations by name, but she found the addresses of one or two, and the doctor wrote to them.
It is a hard world. One can forgive one's relations many sins, but that of poverty is the unpardonable one; and those of her kin to whom the doctor wrote doubtless regarded this sudden death of Francis Lisle as an additional injury dealt to them by that eccentric and unfortunate man.
One brother wrote a letter to Leslie expressing the deepest sympathy, and regretting that a severe attack of the gout would prevent him attending the funeral, but desiring her tobe sure and let him know if he could do anything for her. A cousin sent his secretary with a ten-pound note—if it should be needed; and another relative wrote to say how sorry he was, and that he should, of course, attend the funeral, and that he hoped and trusted "poor Francis" had left his daughter well provided for. He added, incidentally, that he himself had a large family, and had had a great deal of sickness that year; also that he would have been glad to have taken her into his house if it had not been so small and already overcrowded. The head of the family wrote her a short note from a German watering place, saying that he was in such a wretched state of health that he could not come to England, excepting at the risk of his life, and that it would probably not be long before he joined her father in the realms above.
"Ain't it dreadful, sir?" said the landlady to the doctor. "They don't seem to have a heart amongst 'em."
He shook his head. He had seen similar cases.
"I am afraid Miss Lisle is not very well off," he said. "If she had been an heiress her relatives would have flocked round her, overflowing with sympathy and offers of assistance. It is the way of the world, Mrs. Brown. I fear Miss Leslie will feel this neglect and cold-heartedness very keenly. We must do all we can for her."
"Yes, sir, that we will," said the woman, with moist eyes. "As to feeling it, I don't think dear Miss Lisle feels anything at present. I could scarcely rouse her to see about her mourning, and it makes one's heart ache to go into the room and see her sitting there in her plain, black dress—she would have it so simple and no crape, though I told her that crape was always worn for a father—sitting there and just looking before her as if she was too weak and overcome even to think. It's my opinion, sir, that she scarcely realizes what has happened to her yet. Since the day he died she hasn't shed a tear. And such a sweet young soul as she is, and so grateful for the littlest thing one does for her. But there, she was always the nicest young lady that I ever took in, always; and if her relations is too proud or too heartless to look after her, why she shan't want for a friend while Martha Brown has got a shilling."
The landlady's graphic description of Leslie's condition was a fairly truthful one. Day after day Leslie sat with her hands lying listlessly in the lap of her black dress, her eyes fixed on the trees in the square, her sorrow too great for thought.
If she had overheard the landlady and the doctor discussing her future she would have listened with perfect indifference. What did it matter what became of her, or whether she lived or went to join the poor, weak soul whom she had loved and cherished, and yet—ah, what bitterness was in the thought!—deceived! If she had not listened to Yorke's proposal, had not consented to his plan of bringing her to London, her father might be alive now! It was true that the doctor had assuredher that the weakness of the heart which had been the immediate cause of death had been latent for some time, and that her father had been a doomed and sentenced man for years past, and that any shock would have been sufficient to cause his death; but even this assurance scarcely softened the poignancy of her remorse.
It was of her father and his loss that she thought entirely during the days immediately following her bereavement, and it might be almost said that she had forgotten Yorke and her great love for him. Almost, but not quite. It was lying in the centre of her heart, buried for a time under the load of her anguish and sorrow, but it needed only a sight of him, only the sound of his name, to arise, like a giant, and reassert all its old influence over her.
After a while she began to recover sufficiently to be able to think, to realize her position, and to look vaguely and indifferently towards the future.
The doctor, and the secretary of the great man, had gone into Francis Lisle's affairs, and discovered that a portion of his small income had died with him, and that what remained amounted to only a few pounds a year—not enough, by itself, to keep body and soul together. There was a little money in hand, but the largest part of that sum consisted of the fifty pounds paid by Mr. Temple for the picture he had bought; and Leslie, directly she was able to think, resolved that she would return the money, though it, and it alone, should stand between her and starvation.
There was something else also that she must return—the diamond pendant which Yorke had given her.
That, too, must go back. She could not summon up sufficient courage to take it from its hiding-place as yet; and, indeed, she did not know where to send it, unless she addressed it to the Dorchester Club, and it seemed to her that it would be wrong to send so valuable an article to a club; that she ought to send it to the duke's residence.
A woman of the world would have been aware that the address of so well-known a personage as the Duke of Rothbury could be found in a London directory; but Leslie was anything but a woman of the world, and felt helpless in her ignorance.
There was another article which lay in her box beside the diamond pendant; Ralph Duncombe's ring.
She remembered that, in a weary, listless way. He had said, when he placed it in her hand, that if ever she needed a friend, a helper, an avenger, she had but to send that ring to him and he would come to her side. But, though she were in the sorest strait in which a woman could be placed, she would not summon Ralph Duncombe to her aid; for to do so would be tantamount to engaging herself to him. The mere thought made her wince and shudder; it was an insult to the love that lay dormant in her bosom—her love for Yorke.
One day she got out her money, and spread it on the table and counted it. With the strictest economy it would not go very far, and it was all that stood between her and the grim wolf, destitution; for she felt that she would rather die than appeal for assistance to her father's relatives.
"In the struggle for life we forget our dead," says the philosopher; and the problem of what was to become of her gradually drew her away from the sad brooding over her bereavement.
What should she do? She could not dig, and to beg she was ashamed. The question haunted her day and night as she sat by the window or walked up and down the room, or lay awake at night, listening to the multitudinous London clocks striking the hours. One afternoon she summoned up strength enough to go out, and in her plain black clothes, with her veil closely drawn over her face, she walked through the squares into Oxford and Regent Streets. She felt weak and giddy at first, and soon tired. The vast thoroughfares, and their eager, busy crowds confused and bewildered her. It seemed to her as if every one was looking at her, as if every individual of the throng knew of her trouble, her double loss, and was pitying her; and she turned homewards, faint in body and spirit.
As she reached No. 23 she saw a cab standing at the door; the cabman was carrying a modest box into the house, and as she passed into the narrow hall a young lady, who was talking with the landlady, made room for her.
Leslie concluded that it was a new lodger, and went up to her own rooms to take up the perpetual problem. What should she do?
She recalled all the novels she had read in which the heroines had been left alone in the world, and sought some help from their experiences and course of action. But most, if not all, these heroines had been singularly gifted beings, who had at once stepped into fame and fortune as singers, actors, painters, or musicians; and she, Leslie, knew that she was not gifted in any of these directions.
"There is nothing I can do!" she told herself that night as she undressed herself wearily and hopelessly. "Nothing! I am a cumberer of the ground!"
She had tired herself by her walk, and slept the whole night, for the first time since her father's death; but she dreamed that she was married to Yorke, and that she was surrounded by a crowd—the crowd she had seen in Regent Street—and that they called her 'Your Grace' and 'Duchess.' And she woke to a sense of the reality with a heart that ached all the more bitterly for the pleasant dream.
Was it years ago, that drive to St. Martin's, when he had sat beside her and shown her how to hold the reins? Or did it never happen, and was it only a phantasy of her imagination?
So great a difference was there between then and now, so wide a gulf, that only the present seemed real, and the past avision of a disordered mind! She unlocked the small box, and took out the diamond pendant and looked at it, and the scrap of paper with the precious words "From Yorke" written on it, until the tears blotted them from her sight; but they had recalled all the joy, the delight, the sacred ecstasy of the past all too distinctly.
It was true. She, Leslie Lisle, helpless, friendless, with only a few pounds between her and want, was the Leslie Lisle who had looked on that short sunlight of happiness.
She thought she would make another attempt to go out that morning, and after dressing slowly, and putting off the dreaded moment of leaving the house and facing the outside world, she went down the stairs. As she did so the door of one of the rooms on the floor below hers opened, and the girl she had seen in the hall yesterday came out.
She stepped back as she saw Leslie, and seemed about to beat a retreat back into her own room again, then hesitated, and made a slight bow.
Leslie returned the bow absently and went out; and it was not until she had got into the crowded streets that she thought of the girl; then she remembered that she, too, was dressed in black, and that though not more pretty, she was modest, and looked like a lady, and wore eyeglasses. She thought no more of her than this, and after a weary walk returned home, and rang the bell for some tea.
When the door opened she was surprised to see the girl instead of Mrs. Brown; and her surprise must have shown itself in her face, for her visitor colored and stopped at the threshold.
"I—I beg your pardon," she said. "I hope you will forgive me, but Mrs. Brown has sprained her wrist, and she asked me—that is, I offered—to come instead of her——."
Leslie rose and looked at her with the half startled expression which indicated her condition of mind.
"I—I wanted some tea; but it does not matter," she said in a low voice.
The new-comer colored.
"Oh, but I will get it for you," she said. "I will get anything for you; that is, if you don't mind my doing it instead of Mrs. Brown."
Leslie looked at her more attentively, and saw a pleasant, amiable face with eyes beaming softly through eyeglasses perched on a tip-tilted nose.
"You are very kind," she said in a low, musical voice. "But I do not think I ought to trouble you."
"Oh, it is no trouble, Miss Lisle," said the girl, still standing on the threshold as if she dared not venture further.
"You know my name?" said Leslie, with a faint smile.
"Yes," said her visitor, with a nod half-grave, half-smiling, and wholly friendly and propitiatory. "Mrs. Brown told me,and—and about your trouble. I am so sorry! But," as Leslie winced, "I won't talk of that. I'll see that you have some tea."
"Will you not come in?" said Leslie.
The girl came into the room timidly, and took the chair which Leslie drew forward for her.
"I think I saw you in the hall yesterday," she said. "You are a lodger, like myself?"
"Yes. Oh, yes," replied her visitor, nodding. "And I saw you. I asked Mrs. Brown who you were, and she told me. I hope you don't think me inquisitive?" and she colored timidly.
"No. Oh, no. It was a very natural question," said Leslie. "Will you tell me your name?"
"Oh, yes. My name is Somes. Lucy Somes."
"And you are paying a visit to London?" said Leslie, trying to interest herself in this pleasant looking girl who had from sheer kindness acted as the landlady's substitute.
"A visit?" said Lucy Somes, doubtfully. "Well, scarcely that. I'm here—" she hesitated—"on business. But I must not keep you waiting for your tea."
"My tea can wait until Mrs. Brown can get it," said Leslie.
"Oh, but I am going to get it for you, unless—" she hesitated, but, encouraged by Leslie's faint smile, she continued—"unless you wouldn't mind coming down to my room and taking tea with me. I have just got mine; and I should be so pleased if you would come."
Leslie did not respond for a moment or two. Trouble makes solitude very dear to us. But she fought against the desire to decline.
"Thank you," she said simply; "I shall be very pleased."
Lucy jumped up.
"Come along, then," she said with evident pleasure.
Leslie followed her downstairs, and Lucy Somes ushered her into the tiny room which served for bedroom and sitting room.
"I hope you don't mind," said Lucy, with a sudden blush on her pleasant face. "But you see I am not rich enough to afford two rooms, and so——."
"Why should I mind?" said Leslie, in her gentle voice.
"Oh, I can see you have been used to something better than this," said Lucy, bustling to and fro as she spoke, and adding another cup and saucer and plate to the tea things on the small table. "I laughed to myself when Mrs. Brown said you were a real lady—persons like her make such mistakes—but I see that she was right. But a lady does not contemn poverty, does she?" and she laughed as she cut some bread and butter.
"Especially when she is poor herself," thought Leslie, but she only smiled.
"And so I thought I would venture to intrude upon you," continued Lucy Somes. "I was half afraid, for you looked so—so—I want a word! it isn't proud; so aristocratic and reserved I'll say—that I quite trembled; and it was only by saying,'she is only a girl and no older than yourself and all alone and in trouble,' that I plucked up courage to go up to you."
"Am I so very terrible?" said Leslie, with the smile that all Portmaris—and Yorke—had found so irresistible.
"Not now when you look like that," replied Lucy Somes, "but when you are grave and solemn, as you were when you passed by me yesterday, you are very—very—stand-offish. Will you have some sugar in your tea? I've made some toast. Papa—" she stopped suddenly, then went on in a subdued voice—"papa used to say that I made toast better than any of the others. He is dead," she added after another pause; and Leslie saw the eyes grow dim behind the spectacles.
She put out her hand and laid it on the girl's arm.
"Did he——?"
"Three months ago," said Lucy Somes, sadly, yet cheerily. "He was a country clergyman down in Wealdshire. He caught a fever visiting a parishioner. There are seven of us—and mother. I'm the second."
She poured out the tea while she was speaking, and was obviously fighting with her tears.
"Seven of us! Just fancy! Poor mother didn't know what to do! So I came up to London to fight my way in the world. And I mean to fight it, too! What awful stuff the London butter is, isn't it? I don't believe there is a particle of cow's milk in it; do you? Seven of us! Three boys and four girls. And we're as poor as poor can be. Won't you take some milk, if one can call it milk?"
"And you are going to fight the world," said Leslie, with tender sympathy for this young girl who could be so cheerful under such circumstances. "What are you going to do?"
Lucy Somes laughed as she put a fresh piece of toast on the rack.
"I'm going to be a governess."
"A governess!" said Leslie. "In a gentleman's family?"
Lucy Somes shook her head emphatically.
"Oh, no, thank you! I know what that means! Six young children to teach, all the mending to do, and heaps of other things for twenty pounds a year; less than they give their cook! No, no! I am going to be the mistress of one of the country schools."
"Yes?" said Leslie vaguely.
"Yes, I am going to try and get the mistressship of a Board or Voluntary school in some country place; I couldn't live in London. I don't seem as if I could breathe here. Every morning I wake and fancy I have been shut up in a coal mine. Did you ever notice how the smuts come into the room when you open the window? And that's what London folks breathe all the time."
"It does not seem to disagree with them," said Leslie, with a faint smile.
"It disagrees with me," retorted Lucy, laughing. "Oh, no, no, give me the country, with plenty of space to move about,and the flowers and the birds, and butter that isn't manufactured from fat, and milk that isn't a mixture of chalk and water. Don't you think it will be very nice to be the mistress of a school in some pretty village? There is always a nice little house for one to live in, and perhaps I could afford to keep a young girl for a servant, and—and—be able to save some money to send to mother to help her with the rest of us."
Leslie listened, and her conscience smote her. Here was this girl, no older than herself, alone in London, and so bravely ready to fight the great battle; thinking little of herself, and so much of those dear ones she had left behind.
"Of course I am rather afraid of the exams," went on Lucy, knowing somehow that the best thing she could do for this sweet, sad-looking girl was to talk of herself, and so coax Leslie from dwelling on her own sorrow. "They are rather dreadful, but I have been working hard, and I think I shall pass. I'll show you some of my books, shall I—may I? But you must have your tea first, quite comfortably. It was so kind of you to come down to me! I was feeling so dreadfully lonely and—and friendless. London is such a big place to be alone in, isn't it?"
"Ah, yes!" said Leslie.
"I tried to make friends with the sparrows," said Lucy, laughing. "I put some crumbs on the window-sill as breakfast, and they come and eat them. But they are not like the country sparrows; they look, somehow, so—disreputable. I suppose it's because they sit up late, like everybody else in London. All the animals are different; the very horses look knowing and sharp. Now you shall sit in that easy-chair while I show you my books." And half timidly she put Leslie in the chair, and arranged a cushion for her as if she were a great invalid.
Leslie's tender heart melted under all this gentle sunshine, and when Lucy, kneeling beside her, opened her books, Leslie found, with a vague kind of surprise, that she was interested.
"You see? It is a great many subjects to get up, isn't it? But I'm not afraid. I should get on faster if some of the girls were here to hear me repeat some of the most difficult passages; and if—papa were here to explain things I don't quite understand. He was so clever! There was nothing he did not know," she added with simple, loving pride.
"Let me see," said Leslie, taking up a book. "Why should I not help you, Miss Somes?"
Lucy colored furiously.