Yorke went in. Finetta was lying on the sofa, lying with that awful inert look which tells its own story. Her shapely arm hung down limply, helplessly; across her face, white as death, a thin line of blood trickled, coming again as fast as the trembling dresser wiped it away. One or two women stood near her, silent and apprehensive.
She lifted her eyes heavily and tried to smile.
"I—I thought you would come," she said painfully. "I saw you in the stalls."
Yorke bent over her, all the anger sped from his heart.
"Are you hurt, Fin?" he said in a low voice.
"Yes," she said. "Badly, I think. Some—some fool left the trap unbolted; or—" a gleam of fire shot into her eyes for a moment—"or was it done on purpose, eh? There's one or two here who wouldn't be sorry to have me out of the bills. Well, they'll have their wish for a short time."
"Have you sent for a doctor?" Yorke asked the manager.
He nodded.
"Doctor! I don't want any doctor here," said Finetta sharply. "I want to go home. Take me home, Yorke. Never mind what they say. Take me home, if you have to do it on a stretcher."
"Very well," he said.
The manager drew him outside.
"You can't do it, I'm afraid, my lord. She's too hurt to be moved."
"Don't listen to him, Yorke!" Finetta's voice came to them. "Take me home."
A long slight table stood in the passage. Yorke wrenched the legs off and called to a couple of carpenters. Then, with the help of the manager and dresser, he laid Finetta on this impromptu stretcher and carried her to the brougham which was waiting outside.
"Drive slowly," he said to the man.
"No, let him go fast," panted Finetta. "I can bear it," and she clenched her teeth. Yorke sat beside her and supported her, and she lay with her head on his shoulder, her teeth set hard, her hands grasping each other, and no cry or groan passed her lips.
At the sound of the brougham wheels Polly came to the door, and uttered a cry of alarm at the sight of her sister lying limp and helpless in Yorke's arms.
"Oh, Lord Yorke!" she gasped.
"Don't be frightened, Polly," he said. "Finetta has met with an accident."
They carried her upstairs.
"Get her undressed and into bed," he said. "I'm going for a doctor."
"You—you will come back, Yorke?" Finetta managed to say.
"Of course," he said. "Keep up your heart, Fin. You'll be all right."
He got the doctor, and while he was upstairs making his examination Yorke paced up and down the sumptuous dining-room in which he had spent so many pleasant, merry hours.
It seemed an age before the doctor came down.
"Well?" asked Yorke anxiously.
The doctor looked down with the professional gravity.
"She is very badly hurt," he said. "Oh, no," he added, seeing Yorke start and wince. "I don't say that it will kill her, but—you see she struck the edge of the trap with her back. I think I should like to have Sir Andrew."
"Yes, yes!" said Yorke. "I will send for him at once——."
"Oh, to-morrow will do, my lord," said the doctor. "He could do no more for her than I can accomplish, and she is—unfortunately—in very little pain. But there seems to be something on her mind, something in which your lordship is concerned, and she is very anxious to see you."
"I will go to her," said Yorke at once.
They went upstairs, and Finetta turned her great eyes upon them.
"What has he been telling you, Yorke?" she asked feebly. "Am I going to die? Don't be afraid, I'm not a milksop, and I shan't go into hysterics and make a scene. I suppose I've got to die, as well as other people."
"No, no, there is no talk of dying, Fin," he said.
"Then what is it? Why do you both look so glum?" she said, impatiently. "There's nothing much in falling down a trap: I've seen heaps of people do it. What is it? Am I going to be laid up long? Ask him how soon I shall be able to dance again?"
"Better be quiet," said the doctor, with his hand on her pulse.
"You answer my question," she retorted as furiously as her weakness would allow.
"I'll answer any questions you like to-morrow," he said soothingly. "I want you to rest now."
"They're all like that—a pack of old women," she said, "and they think we're all old women too! Rest! ah, if he could give me something that would make me rest——. Don't go, Yorke; not yet. I—I want to say something to you. It's a long time since you were here, Yorke," and she sighed.
He sat down beside the bed and held her hand, and she turned her eyes upon him gratefully, then averted them and groaned faintly.
"Did I hurt you, Fin?" he asked.
"No, no!" she replied. "It wasn't that. It—it was something I was thinking of."
"You mustn't talk," said the doctor.
She opened her lips and grinned at him contemptuously.
"Why mustn't I? Do you think I am going off my head? Well, there—but don't leave me, or if you do, come again to-morrow, Yorke," and she turned her head away and closed her eyes.
Yorke sat beside her through the night, holding her hand. At times she seemed to fall into an uneasy slumber, from which she would wake and look from him to Polly with a vacant gaze which grew troubled when it rested on his face, and then she would sigh and close her eyes again. Toward morning she fell into a deep sleep, and Yorke went home, but only remained long enough to change his clothes, and returned to St. John's Wood. He found Sir Andrew there, and the great man greeted him with a significant gravity; but before he could speak Finetta turned her eyes to Yorke.
"Ask him to tell me the truth of the case, Yorke!" she said, in a voice much weaker than that of last night. "I'm not afraid. He says I'm not going to die; but ask him how soon I shall get back to the Diadem!"
Sir Andrew smiled, but it was the smile which masks the face of the physician while he pronounces sentence.
"Not yet awhile, my dear young lady," he said.
"Not yet—ah!" She tried to sit up, but sank back and fixed her dark bold eyes on him. "You mean! What is it you mean? Not—not——," her voice quivered and broke. "Oh, God, you mean that I shall never dance again!"
The doctor looked down. She read his answer in his face, and silenced Sir Andrew's conventional protest.
"You—you needn't lie. I—I can see it in your faces. Oh!"and a low but heart-breaking cry rose from her white lips. "Oh, never, never again! Never to dance again! Oh, Yorke, Yorke, tell them to kill me! I'd rather die—rather, ten thousand times rather! Never to dance again. It isn't true," she burst out, her tone changed to weak fury and resentment. "You don't know. You can't tell. Doctors are fools, all of 'em. Send them away, Yorke. I hate the sight of them standing there like a couple of undertakers. What, not to dance again! It's a lie! It's a——." Then she covered her face with her hands, and her whole body shook and trembled.
The paroxysms passed, and she drew a long breath and put out her hand to Yorke.
"It's true," she said, in a faint voice, "I feel it. Don't—don't mind what I said, gentlemen. It—it's knocked me rather hard. You see, I've got nothing to—to live for but my dancing. I'm—I'm nothing without that. Oh, God, what an end! To lie here——," she turned her head away and groaned.
Yorke held her hand in silence.
What could he say? The doctors went; the morning passed; he sat and held Finetta's hand as she dozed heavily.
Every now and then she stirred and opened her eyes, saw and recognized him, and with a sigh closed them again, as if his presence soothed and comforted her.
He left her in the middle of the day, promising to return in a few hours. He was to be married in two days time, and there were things to be done and settled. He found a letter from Lady Eleanor awaiting him—a loving, passionate letter, reminding him of some trifle in connection with their wedding trip. He put it in his pocket, scarcely read, and in the afternoon returned to Finetta. Her eyes turned to the door with painful, feverish eagerness as he entered, and she smiled gratefully and yet, as it seemed to him, with a curious mixture of fear and sadness.
"You—you are very good to me, Yorke," she said. "Better—better than I deserve."
"All right, Fin," he said, pressing her hand. "You'd do the same for me; old friends, you know."
"Yes," she said, "old friends." She was silent a moment or two, then with an effort she said, "Yorke, I've got something to tell you. And—and I think I'd rather die than say it."
"Don't say it then," he said promptly. "What's it matter? You've got to keep quiet, the doctor said——."
"But I've got to say it," she broke in with a moan. "I can't sleep or rest while it's on my mind. You can't guess what it is, Yorke?"
"No. Never mind. Let it slide till you get better, Fin."
She shook her head as well as she could.
"That would be a long time to keep it," she said. "Yorke, what brought you to the theater last night?"
He started slightly. It might almost be said that he had forgotten the diamond pendant, which was still in his waistcoat pocket.
"Why, I came to see you, of course," he replied.
"Yes," she said, her large eyes fixed on his. "Yes, but why? I saw your face, Yorke, and there was mischief in it. I saw that you had found out something, if not all."
"Found out what?" he asked carelessly. "Oh, you mean about the pendant? What made you send it back, Fin?"
She looked at him with a puzzled frown.
"What pendant? What are you talking about?"
"The diamond ornament you sent back," he said. "But there, don't worry——."
"Diamonds I sent back? Is that likely? But what diamonds? You never gave me any."
He tried to smile banteringly; he thought her mind was wandering.
"Never mind. There!" He took the pendant from his pocket and laid it in her hand. "Take it back again, and keep it this time."
She looked at it, and from it to him.
"I never sent this to you—I never saw it before," she said.
"All right, it doesn't matter——."
"Never! You say you gave it to me. When? When?"
"I sent it to you the night—the day after we parted," he said.
Her eyes dilated, and she put her hand to her head.
"You—sent this—this to me? You must be out of your mind, or I am. And you say I sent it back!"
"Look here, Fin," he said soothingly, "I know what it is you want to say to me, and I want to save you the trouble and worry of saying it, so I will tell you that I know all, and that I forgive you, if that's what you want."
Her face twitched, and her eyes fell from his.
"You know all!" she faltered.
He nodded gravely.
"Yes. And I'll own up that I was mad. I came to the theater last night to have a row with you. But that's all past, clean past. And after all you didn't do me any damage, Fin—not the damage you meant to," he corrected himself as the thought of his coming marriage flashed across him. "It would have been all up a tree with me if a—a friend hadn't found the money at the last moment; but as it turned out we got the best of you and your friend, Mr. Ralph Duncombe."
She gazed at him with knitted brows.
"Mr. Ralph who? I never heard the name before. What are you talking about?" she demanded.
"Never mind."
"Answer! Tell me!" she broke out. "Explain what you are driving at, or I shall go clean mad."
He bit his lip.
"Why don't you let it rest?" he said wearily. "I tell you I'm ready to forget it, that I've forgiven you. After all it was tit for tat, and only natural. And it was clever, too, in a way. Did you think of it yourself, Fin, or did this strange gentleman,this new friend of yours, hit upon the idea of buying up my debts and hunting me into a corner——."
He stopped, for with a tremendous effort she had raised herself.
"Stop!" she panted. "This—this is all new to me. I know nothing of it. It's not that I wanted to tell you about. Not that. I never bought your debts. I never heard this man's name before in my life. Ah"—for his face had gone white—"you believe me! It wasn't me who planned that."
"Not you? Then who?"
She fell back.
"Ah," she breathed, "I—I can guess. Oh, Yorke, this you have told me makes it all the harder for me. But I must tell you. It weighs on my heart like—like lead. Ever since I fell, all the while I've been lying here her face has haunted me. I see it waking and sleeping, all white and drawn, with the tears running down it as it was when I told her."
"Whose—whose face? Whose?" he said, a vague presentiment mingling with his amazement and confusion.
"The young lady's—Leslie Lisle's," she gasped.
He sprang to his feet, then sank into the chair again, and sat breathing hard for a moment.
She waited till she had regained strength, then hurried on.
"It was me who—who separated you. Yorke, wait, don't—don't speak. It—it was a chance that helped me. I'd followed you to that place, Portmaris, and I was caught by the tide, and she tried to save me, and we climbed the cliff, and when I fainted she found the locket with your portrait in my bosom. See," and she drew the locket out and held it to him.
He took it mechanically and uttered a cry—a terrible cry.
"I gave you this! It's false! You stole it! Oh, Fin, forgive me—forgive me, but I feel as if I were going mad!" and he covered his face with his hands.
She let her hand rest on his arm timidly.
"Hold on!" she panted. "Let me tell you all as it happened. The tangle's coming straight. There's—there's been some devil's work besides mine! She saw the portrait and—and recognized it. I told her that you'd given it to me—as you had——."
"No, no! I sent it to her the same day as I sent this thing to you."
She gazed at him perplexedly for a moment; then she laughed a mirthless laugh.
"My God!" she said, "I see! You put them in the wrong papers! and I thought you—you cared for me still; and—and I told her so. And she believed it!"
"You told her—she believed it!"
"Yes," she panted hoarsely. "She believed it, and gave you up! She couldn't do otherwise after finding that locket and—and the lies I told her. I said you were going to marry me——."
She stopped and looked at his face, white and set.
"You—you could kill me even as I lie here, Yorke," she said, in a dull, despairing voice. "I can see it in your eyes."
He turned his eyes away.
"Go—go on!" he said, almost inarticulately.
She put her hand to her brow.
"I left her there, looking more dead than alive, and came back to town, and I thought you'd come back to me. I—I waited, and one day I saw you in Hancock's buying the—the ring; and I knew she'd taken you back, and all in the moment I—I told her, and then I got frightened at what I'd done. And when I saw that she had managed to do what I had failed over, and had separated you from Leslie Lisle and got you for herself——."
He rose and stretched out his hands to her as if he would stop her.
"Her? Who?"
"Who?" she opened her eyes upon him. "Why, Lady Eleanor Dallas! It's she you are going to marry, isn't it?"
He went to the mantel shelf and dropped his head upon his arms; then he came back and sank into the chair again with his hands thrust into his pockets, his head upon his breast.
"It's—it's a bad business, Yorke," she panted wearily. "But—but don't be too hard on me, or on her. For she loves you, Yorke! Ah! that's been the trouble all round; we've all loved you too well!" and she turned her face away and closed her eyes.
He sat and stared before him like a man dazed. For one moment he had felt convinced that Finetta's disclosure was the outcome of delirium; but as she had gone on with her confession, he knew that she was speaking of realities.
They had misjudged Leslie after all; she had not left him because she had discovered that he was not a duke! The reflection was the only one relieving streak of light in the gloom. What should he do? What could he do? Where was Leslie? And even if he found her, how could he desert Lady Eleanor? How could he throw her over on the very eve of their wedding day? She had not sinned against him, as Finetta had done; her only sin, as Finetta had so truly said, consisted in loving him too well. No, even if he knew where Leslie Lisle was, he could not desert Eleanor. He must marry her and try—as he had been trying all this time—to tear Leslie's image from his heart. But, ah, how much harder this feat had become since Finetta's disclosure.
She looked round at last.
"You are still here, Yorke," she said. "You haven't gone? I thought—I thought you'd have left me directly, and that I shouldn't have seen you again."
He laughed, scarcely knowing what he did.
"Not much use in that, Fin," he said drearily, hopelessly. "You acted like—well, like a woman, I suppose——."
"Oh!" she moaned. "I acted like a demon. I hadn't anypity, any mercy! I watched her getting whiter and whiter—I heard her cry out as if I'd stabbed her——."
He put up his hand to silence her.
"That—that will do, Fin!" he said hoarsely.
"But I should have given in to her and kept back the lies if you hadn't sent me this."
She put her hand to her bosom and drew out the locket. "That gave me the pluck and the obstinacy. I thought after all you cared for me——." She stopped. "It was a mistake all round, and—and—so I don't care to keep it any longer. Take it, Yorke."
He shook his head; but she put the locket in his hand.
"Do you think I'd keep it now I know you didn't mean it for me, but for her? Not me! Take it and—well, give me the other."
He suffered her to close his hand over the locket; and she took the pendant and laid it on the pillow.
"I know now why she put her hand to her bosom once or twice; this was lying there. Poor girl! Yes, I can be sorry for her, for I knew what she felt. But it's too late now, Yorke, I suppose. You've got to marry Lady Eleanor, eh? Well," as he remained silent, "let's hope that poor young thing has forgotten you!"
Yorke got up and strode up and down, biting his lip and shutting and opening his hands.
"Better go now, Yorke," she said with a sigh. "I know you hate the sight of me; that's only natural——."
"No, no, Fin!" he said with a frown. "I'm not so bad as that; but I feel confused and half mad. God forgive us all, we all seem to have conspired to work her harm! Even Dolph—and I who loved her! Yes, I'd better go, Fin; but I will come back——."
"No, you won't," she said quietly, "at least, not till after your marriage. But, Yorke——."
"Well?" he asked.
"If—if you should ever find her—Miss Lisle," she said, in a low, hesitating voice, "I wish—I wish you'd tell her I'd made a clean breast of it; and—and ask her to come and see me. She'd come; she's one of that sort of women that are always ready to forgive; and she'll forgive me right enough when she sees me lying here helpless as a log, and remembers how hard I fought beside her up that beastly cliff that day! Go now, Yorke, and—well, I don't know that God would bless you any the sooner for my asking Him. But you have been very easy with me, Yorke, after all I've done to make you wretched."
Her voice died away inaudibly at the last words, and she took the hand he gave her and laid it on her lips.
Yorke went out with the locket in his hand, and a burning fire in his heart and brain.
This butterfly o' the wind, this dancing girl, had wrecked Leslie's and his lives! Wrecked and ruined them irreparably. She had spoken of his finding Leslie; but where could he lookfor her, and, indeed, would it not be better that they should never meet again? He had got to marry Eleanor—and the day after to-morrow; Finetta's confession—like most confessions by the way—had come too late!
In a frame of mind which beggars description he went to Bury Street and resumed his packing; then, in the midst of it, he remembered that he had promised to go to White Place that evening.
This butterfly o' the wind, this dancing girl, had wrecked his life! As he thought of this, he found the locket in his pocket, and transferred it to that of the waistcoat he was putting on.
When he got down to White Place—he had walked from the station—he found Lady Denby alone.
"Eleanor has gone out," she said, "but only for a stroll. As you did not come by the usual train she gave you up. Why didn't you wire?"
"I forgot it," he replied absently.
Lady Denby laughed ironically.
"What is the use of having a special wire if you don't use it?" she said. "Have you had your dinner?"
"Oh, yes," he replied, though he had eaten nothing since the morning.
Lady Denby looked at him curiously.
"You are not looking very well, Yorke," she said. "You seem tired and fagged, and a change is what you want."
"Well, I shall get it directly," he said, with unconscious grimness. "Which way has Eleanor gone? I'll see if I can find her."
"She said something about going to the village," Lady Denby replied; "but I don't expect she will get beyond the grounds. Have some coffee or something."
He mixed a brandy and soda, more to please her than himself, and then went out.
Remembering what Lady Denby had said, he should have kept to the park, but he was not thinking of Lady Eleanor or the way she had taken, and he went straight out of the gate and along the road to the village.
He was thinking, alas! not of the woman he was going to marry in two days' time, but of Leslie Lisle; thinking that, perhaps, some day he should meet her. What would he say to her then? Would it be just simply "How do you do, Miss Lisle?" and go on his way again? Ah, no! Let him meet her when he might, sooner or later he would have to tell her how they had been separated, and why, when the knowledge of Finetta's perfidy had come to him, it was too late to go backto her! He would have to tell her that, would have to clear himself in her eyes!
He walked on, wrapt in bitter thoughts, haunted by the spectre which takes the shape of 'It might have been,' and found himself far on the London Road. He had, all unconsciously, passed the village, and he would have still kept striding along, but that a heavy shower, which had been threatening for some time, came pelting down. So he turned back at a slower pace, and, as most men do when they are getting wet, thought of a pipe.
He found his pipe and a tobacco pouch, but his match box was absent. He hunted in the corners and crevices of his pockets for a match, but unsuccessfully, and he was about to give up the idea of a smoke, when he came upon the school and school-house. He stopped and looked at it absently; he had been so absorbed in gloomy reverie as he passed it on his way from White Place that he had not noticed it.
He stood by the little white gate in the close-cut hedge for a moment or two to see if any one was about of whom he could ask a light; then, as no one appeared, he pushed open the gate, walked up the narrow, weedless path, and knocked at the door.
A neat, a remarkably neat, little handmaid answered the knock, and in severe accents said:
"Round to the back-door, my man."
Yorke had his coat collar turned up, and his short pipe in his mouth, and the little maid had taken him for a tramp or a pedlar.
He smiled, and entering into the humor of the thing, obediently, not to say humbly, went round the house and presented himself at the back-door.
"Well, what is it?" asked the girl.
"Oh, I only want a light for my pipe," said Yorke. "Will you be good enough to give me one?"
She saw her mistake in a moment, and grew crimson.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir, but we have so many tra—er—so many strange kind of people come knocking."
"Then you do well to be careful," he said.
She ran and brought him a box of matches, and he lit his pipe and thanked her, raising his hat, and was turning to go out of the garden, when she said:
"Wouldn't you like to wait till the heaviest of the rain is over, sir?"
Yorke would have declined, but that he was afraid she might think he was wounded by her mistaking him for a tramp, so he said:
"Thank you, I'll stand up under the hedge for a minute or two," and he stood under a couple of the limes that bordered the side of the garden, and puffed at his pipe. It did occur to him to wonder whether Lady Eleanor had got back to White Place before the storm broke, and whether she, in her turn, would wonder where he was; but he was just in that frame ofmind in which a man is glad to stand still and smoke and think, and keep as far away as possible from friends and acquaintances. Besides, after the next two days he might find it difficult, if not impossible, to smoke a pipe in solitude. So he leant against the trunk of the lime and went over in his mind all the details of Finetta's confession. He saw it all as plainly as if he had been present at the scene between her and Leslie. He understood how quick Leslie would be to surrender him to the woman who had, as she thought, a prior right; how greatly Leslie's maiden pride and jealousy would aid Finetta in her task. And as he thought, his soul rose in bitter protest against the fate which had wrecked both their lives.
He finished his pipe, and was refilling it, and had his hand upon the tobacco pouch, when suddenly he heard a voice singing.
He paid no attention for a moment, then his hands grew motionless, and he clutched the pouch tightly, and he looked up with a sudden flush, a sudden light flashing in his eyes. For the voice was singing this song:
My sweet girl love, with frank blue eyes,Though years have passed, I see you still,There where you stand beside the mill,Beneath the bright autumnal skies.
My sweet girl love, with frank blue eyes,Though years have passed, I see you still,There where you stand beside the mill,Beneath the bright autumnal skies.
Then he laughed, laughed with a bitter, self-mockery.
"I'm going out of my mind," he said, with intense self-scorn. "Here's some girl singing a silly ballad, which no doubt sells by the thousand, and I'm actually trying to persuade myself that the voice is like Leslie's, just because I once heard her singing it! Yes, I'm going mad, there's no doubt of that," and half-angrily he pressed his cap on his forehead, savagely struck a light and lit his pipe, and prepared to march out, though it was still raining in torrents. But as he passed the front window, framed in the red autumnal leaves of the Virginian creeper, he heard the voice more distinctly, and he stopped and began to tremble, looking hard toward the window.
"I am a fool!" he told himself. "I have been thinking of her so constantly. I am so much upset that I should think any young girl I happened to meet like her, any voice I heard like hers. This one, for instance, is—is——."
The perspiration broke out upon his forehead, and the hand that held the pipe shook, for at that moment the last words of the song died away with a peculiar little trill, a soft little sigh, which he remembered in Leslie's voice, and hers alone, most distinctly.
"It is easily proved," he muttered, and he stole across the small square of grass up to the window, and looked in.
For a moment or two the room seemed dark, the objects within it indistinct; then he saw a girl seated at the piano, a slim, graceful figure in some black, softly draping stuff, that of itself seemed to speak of Leslie. She was seated with herback toward the window, but as he leant on the window-sill she moved her head, and a cry burst from him. It was Leslie!
He drew back from the window-sill and leant against the wall, under the dripping Virginian creeper, his heart knocking against his ribs, his lips parched and dry.
What should he do? Go into the house and speak to her? Ah, not now! Not now, just before his marriage! And yet—oh, God!—how hard it was! Leslie in there—Leslie in there, still deeming him false, and a few words would undeceive her. He took a couple of steps to the door, then pulled up, and in another moment or two he would have rushed down the path and out of the gate, but there rose, even as he turned, the sweet, sad voice again, and his resolution melted like wax in a furnace. He opened the door, went along the passage, paused a moment to collect some fragment of self-possession and self-restraint, then entered the parlor.
He stood gazing at her with hungry, longing eyes, and an ache in his heart, which grew almost unendurable, then he said as softly as he could:
"Leslie!"
She stopped singing, but did not turn her head. She had, in fancy, heard him breathe her name so often.
"Leslie!" he repeated, drawing nearer.
Her hands grew motionless on the keys, and she looked round. Then she rose slowly, like a ghost, her face growing whiter and whiter, her eyes dilating, and "Yorke" breathed from her parted lips.
"Leslie!" he said again. "Oh, Leslie!" and he held out his arms to her.
She seemed to struggle against the potent influence he exerted, then she came nearer, swaying a little, like one walking in her sleep.
"Oh, my darling, my darling, is it you? Really you?" he said in a subdued voice, as if he feared to startle, frighten her.
She was almost in his arms, her bosom heaving, her lips quivering, when she seemed to remember; and with a cry, the saddest he had ever heard, she swayed away from him, extending one hand as if to keep him off.
He caught the hand, and held it in a grasp like that of a vice.
"You shrink from me, Leslie? Oh, my dearest—to shrink from me!"
She seemed to struggle for voice, and found it at last.
"Why—why have you come?" she breathed.
"Why have you hidden from me?" he responded, and there was almost a touch of indignation in the earnest, pleading voice. "Why did you do it, Leslie? Oh, God, if you knew what I have suffered——."
"You—have—suffered?" she repeated. "Ah, no, not you! It is I——." She stopped and sighed deeply.
He almost forced her, by her hand, into a chair and knelt beside her.
"Leslie, Leslie!" he cried, striving hard to speak calmly andcoolly. "Listen to me. I'll try and explain. I'll try and tell you how this cruel thing has been brought about. It will be hard work, for the words sound like a jumble in my ears, and it is all I can do to keep myself from taking you in my arms—ah, don't shrink, don't be frightened! I will leave you to be the judge when—when you have heard all. Leslie, that woman Finetta——."
She started and turned her face from him.
"Leslie! Leslie! She lied. She told you she was to be my wife. It was not true, then or ever! As Heaven is my witness, there was not even love between us, on my side. I had parted from her two days before——."
"Oh, hush!" she broke out with a kind of jerk. "I remember every word—every word. It is burnt into my heart."
"It was false!" he said vehemently. "I can understand, imagine, all she would say! She is an actress—would have deceived a woman of the world, much more easily one all innocence and purity like yourself, dearest."
She looked at him as if a glimmer of hope was dawning, then her face clouded again, and she tried to take her hand from his, but unsuccessfully.
"You—you forget," she murmured. "The portrait. You sent it to her the day you sent my gift to me! Your portrait!"
He could have groaned.
"No," he thundered, gripping her hand. "I sent that to you!"
"To—me?" fell from her lips.
"Yes, to you! The diamond thing I sent to her—listen and believe me, Leslie. Look in my eyes! Ah, dearest, do you think—how could you ever have thought—that I would be false to you? Why, I should never have believed you false to me, though an angel had whispered it. I sent the pendant to her because we had been good friends, and—and—ah, I must speak openly—because I knew that she wished we might be something more. It was a parting gift—a parting gift—from friend to friend, that was all! But fate chose that I, like a fool, should misdirect the packages! Leslie, the portrait was for you, the diamonds for her! Ah, think, consider, dearest! Should I send such a thing to you? To you, whose taste is so pure and refined!"
She began to tremble, and he drew still nearer to her.
"Why—why—did you not come—and—tell me this sooner?" she almost wailed.
He hung his head for a moment, then he looked up and met her eyes steadily.
"Leslie, I will tell you all. I—I have wronged you cruelly. I have been a fool. Yes, so great, so insensate a fool as to believe that, having learned the imposition we had practised on you, having discovered that I was not the Duke of Rothbury, you repented of our engagement——."
"You were not the Duke of Rothbury," she said, her brows knit; "are you not?"
"Oh, if Dolph were only here!" he groaned. "No, dearest, I am not; and at that time there was little chance of my ever being the duke. It is Dolph—Mr. Temple—as we called him, who is the duke. It was a whim—a freak of his. Oh, you see!"
Yes, she saw, and the color came to her face, and a proud, wounded look into her lovely eyes.
"And—and you thought that it was because I believed you to be a duke—and only because of that—that I——."
"Leslie, here on my knees I plead guilty. You cannot despise me more than I despise myself! But, dearest, think! The last words you spoke to Dolph the morning you parted with him! Think, was there not some slight excuse?"
She hung her head.
"It—it is all past now," she said at last with a deep sigh. "We cannot re-live it all! Ah, no!"
And she turned her face away as a tear rolled down her cheek. Before that tear he lost his self-command. He forgot Lady Eleanor, forgot that his wedding-day, as fixed, was within a few hours, and he caught her in his arms. She uttered a low cry, and bent away from him, her hands against his breast; but before the fire, the anguish of appeal, in his eyes her own fell; she trembled and quivered like an imprisoned bird, then felt herself crushed against his breast.
"Oh, my darling, my darling!" he murmured brokenly. "As if you and I could part again! No, no, never again while life lasts! Never again, dearest. Oh, don't cry!" He kissed the tears away, and laid her face against his lovingly, protectingly. "Don't cry, Leslie, or I shall think you can never forgive me! And——." He looked at the black dress. "Where is your father?"
"Oh, Yorke, Yorke!" she sobbed.
"Hush, hush! dearest! And you bore it all alone!" he groaned. "And I should have been by your side to help and comfort you! What shall I say, what shall I do, to prove my remorse? It was all my fault!"
"No, no," she responded, woman-like. "Not all, Yorke! I—I ought not to have believed that—that woman. I felt that she was not—not a good woman, and I ought not to have trusted her. But the portrait, Yorke! It all seemed so clear, so conclusive."
"I know," he said gravely; "I have heard it from her own lips."
"From her own lips?"
"Yes," he said gently. "She has confessed it all. If she sinned, she has been punished. Finetta, the dancing girl, will never dance again; she is helpless and crippled for life."
Leslie uttered a low cry of horror and shuddered.
"Oh, God forgive me! and I was just wishing she might be punished. Oh, Yorke, where is she? I—I cannot forget her temptation, and I—I will try and forgive her!"
"She wants to see you, dearest!" he said; "I left her thismorning with a prayer for your forgiveness on her lips. I will take you to see her, and she will explain all that may be still dark. See, she sent you this," and he put the locket in her hand. "But, dearest, I want to hear all about yourself. Why are you here—and are you here alone?"
"I am the teacher here," she said. "Let me go now, Yorke, dear!"
"No, no!" he said, "I cannot!" and he held her still closer. "Tell it to me with your head lying on my shoulder, your heart to mine——." He stopped suddenly, and Leslie following his eyes, would have broken from him, for two persons had entered, Lucy and Ralph Duncombe, but Yorke still held her.
Lucy uttered a low cry of amazement, and the color flew to her face.
"Oh, come away," she whispered to Ralph.
But he strode in and confronted Yorke with indignant menace.
"No!" he said, sternly; "I am Miss Lisle's friend, and it is my duty to protect her!"
"To protect her!" repeated Yorke mechanically, and staring at him.
"Yes!" said Ralph. "Leslie—Miss Lisle—do you know who this gentleman is?"
Leslie, white and red by turns, raised her eyes.
"Yes!" she said, almost inaudibly.
Ralph Duncombe started.
"You know who he is? And—and that he is engaged—to be married to Lady Eleanor Dallas the day after to-morrow!"
Leslie looked at Ralph Duncombe vacantly for a moment, as if she had failed to understand him; then the color began to ebb from her face and left it white, and she strove feebly to release herself from Yorke's enfolding arms.
He did not speak, but he glared at Ralph Duncombe in a kind of half-dazed fury.
Lucy was the first to break the awful silence which followed Ralph's announcement.
"Oh, no, no, it is not—it cannot be true! There must be some mistake, Ralph," she exclaimed, almost inaudibly.
Ralph Duncombe bit his lip. He had spoken in the first heat of his amazement and indignation, and was, perhaps, sorry that he had done so, or, at any rate, that he had spoken so precipitately.
"It is true," he said doggedly. "Ask him! It is for him to explain."
All eyes were fixed on Yorke. The two women's with an anxious, expectant look in them, as if they were only waiting for his contradiction and denial.
But his face grew as white as Leslie's, and after looking round wildly he hung his head and groaned.
Leslie drew herself away from him slowly, her gaze still fixed on him, her bosom heaving, and dropped the locket from her hand. It went with a dull thud to the floor. She had been in Paradise a moment or two ago, had been filled with a joy which in its intensity almost atoned for the past months of sorrow and anguish; and now she was plunged back into the depths again.
It was Lucy who spoke again. Losing her timidity in her anxiety for the friend she loved so dearly; she glided to Yorke, and put her hand on his arm.
"Oh, speak, sir!" she implored him. "Say that it is not true! Don't you see that she is waiting?" And she looked over her shoulder at Leslie.
Yorke followed her eyes, then looked down at her pretty, anxious face despairingly.
"I cannot!" fell from his lips.
Lucy shrank back from him, and stole her arm round Leslie to support her.
"You cannot! Oh!"
Ralph Duncombe came further into the room.
"He cannot deny it," he said. "I know—am a friend of Lady Eleanor Dallas. I know this gentleman, though he does not know me. He is Lord Auchester, the heir, now, to the Duke of Rothbury, and he is engaged to marry Lady Eleanor. The wedding is to take place the day after to-morrow. I am sorry—yes, I am sorry—that I blurted out the truth! but the sight of him—well, I am an old friend of Miss Lisle's, and I claim the right to protect her. If his lordship considers that I have exceeded a friend's privilege he is at liberty to demand any satisfaction I can give him."
Yorke raised his head. His face was set and white, his eyes heavy with despair. He felt as the ancient gladiator felt at the moment the fatal net caught him in its meshes, and the dagger was descending to strike him to the heart; as the miserable wretch in the dock feels when the sentence of death is being pronounced. For a moment it seemed as if he could not speak, and he wiped the cold sweat from his face mechanically; then he said in a low, broken voice:
"It is the truth!" He looked at Leslie, scarcely imploringly so much as hopelessly, despairingly. "I had forgotten it! Yes," he went on almost fiercely, "I had forgotten it! I was so happy that I lost all memory of it! You, sir, who came as an accuser, who no doubt, think me an utter blackguard and lost to all sense of honour, shall be my judge as well as my accuser."
Ralph Duncombe shook his head.
"I do not wish——," he began; but Yorke silenced him with a gesture that was full of the dignity of despair.
"Hear me, please! Miss Lisle and I were engaged to be married—that is, months ago. We met at a place called Portmaris,and—" he glanced at Lucy—"sir, I loved her as truly and devotedly as you can love this young lady. We were to have been married——."
"You!" exclaimed Ralph Duncombe. "No, it was the Duke of Rothbury to whom she was engaged."
Yorke sighed.
"No, it was to me," he said. "I exchanged titles with my cousin, the duke; why, need not be explained. Leslie—Miss Lisle understands. It was a foolish trick, and, like most follies, has brought trouble and sorrow in its wake. But for that stupid freak—. We were to have been married, but on the eve of our marriage we were separated, torn apart by a wicked lie, which, aided by a wrongly addressed envelope, served to ruin our happiness. Miss Lisle thought I had deceived her, and, acting on the promptings of a heart that is all truth and purity, she cast me off. I lost her in all senses of the word, and I felt that I deserved to lose her. Now, sir, call your imagination to your aid. Look on this young lady whom you love, and try and put yourself in my place. Picture to yourself my state and condition, having lost all that made life worth living! Ah, you can!" for Ralph Duncombe looked down and bit his lip.
Yorke passed his hand across his brow and sighed heavily, and for a moment seemed as if he had finished his explanation; then he looked up, as if awaking suddenly.
"I was in that state in which a man might win pity from his worst enemy; but I had an enemy—of whose existence I was and am still ignorant—and he chose that moment to hunt me into still greater straits. I have been a fool in more senses of the word than one. I was heavily in debt. It was because of that millstone of debt that I had induced Miss Lisle to consent to a secret marriage. My enemy, whoever he was, discovered this; he bought up all my debts and liabilities, and constituting himself my sole creditor, he came down upon me with all the weight of those debts, meaning to crush me. I should have gone under, never to rise again. I should have been ruined and disgraced, should have brought disgrace upon the name I bear and all connected with me. But——." He paused, and his face worked. "There was one who—who had some little regard for me, and—and she stepped in and saved me; lifted me out of the mire and set me on my feet again; saved me from the consequences of my folly, and saved the old name from shame. Gratitude is a poor word to describe what I felt toward her! I—I made the debt I owed her still heavier by asking her to take that which she had saved. And—and in the goodness of her heart she consented! From that time until now—until now!—I have been true to her in deed and intent. I have striven to forget the woman to whom I had given my heart, there at Portmaris, the woman who was all the world to me"—his voice broke—"the woman whom I lost on our wedding eve! To-day, to-day only, have I heard from the woman who separated us a full confession of the deception by which she effected her purpose. But I knew it was too late to regain mylost happiness. Too late! I never expected to see Miss Lisle again, scarcely hoped to do so, excepting that it might be once before I died, that I might say to her, 'With all my faults and follies, I was true to you, Leslie!'"
Leslie, standing rigid and motionless, moaned faintly.
He cast an agonized look at her.
"Then—then I came by the merest chance to this cottage. I heard her voice. I stole in, and in the joy of meeting her, and reconciliation with her, in that great joy the past was blotted out from my mind, and I forgot—I say I forgot that I was betrothed to another, that I was within a few hours of being wedded to another."
His voice died away, and he stood with downcast head and vacant eyes. Then he looked up.
"There is my story, sir! You say that you are a friend of—of Miss Lisle's. It is for you to demand—exact satisfaction for the wrong that I have done her. But, mind, that wrong dates only from to-day! I have loved her——." He broke down for a moment; then went on almost sternly, "What I have to do, what I can do to atone, I will do! I—I can never hope for Miss Lisle's forgiveness——."
Leslie's hands writhed together, and Lucy's arm held her still more firmly.
"I can never hope to see her again. But I will say this in her hearing, that I would lay down my life to wipe out the past, to render her happy in the future."
Leslie's hands stole up to her face.
"For the rest," he went on, "I will tell Lady Eleanor all that I have told you. It is her due. She shall be the judge; she shall dispose of my future. I owe her much more than can be told."
He stopped, then looked up, and there was a light in his eyes which made Lucy shrink.
"One thing more. I have spoken of the way in which I was hunted down. That part of the business is a mystery still. But I am going to solve it! I am going to find Mr. Ralph Duncombe."
Lucy broke from Leslie, and with a cry of terror flung herself on Ralph's arm, and looked over her shoulder at Yorke's stern face.
Yorke stopped and started, his face grew red and then white, and he strode forward.
"What!" he cried, under his breath. "Are you——."
Ralph Duncombe put Lucy from him gently, and came a step forward to meet him.
"Yes," he said gravely, "my name is Ralph Duncombe."
"You!" said Yorke, as if his amazement over-mastered his anger. "Do you mean that it is you who bought up my debts and hunted me down?"
"It was I!" said Ralph stolidly.
"But—but——." Yorke groaned. "Why? Why, what harm did I ever do you? Why, man, I never saw you before to-day.I never saw your name until I read it in the writs! Why? Why?" and he stood with clenched hands, the veins standing out on his forehead.
Ralph bit his lip, but he looked full into Yorke's blazing eyes.
"Why did you do it?" demanded Yorke in a low voice, which was all the more ominous for its quietude. "What was I to you that you should concern yourself in my affairs? That you should try and ruin me? It was you who drove me——," he was going to say "into a marriage with Lady Eleanor," but he stopped himself in time. "Why did you do it?"
Ralph Duncombe remained silent for a moment, then he said:
"My lord, I desired to break off the engagement between you and Miss Lisle."
"You? Why? Ah——."
The light flashed upon him; then he glanced at Lucy, who stood, trembling, with one hand upon Ralph's arm.
"Yes," said Ralph. "But Miss Lisle had rejected me, she would never have been my wife, and, in saying this, I will say no more! I have another reason."
"That reason?" demanded Yorke, with barely restrained fury.
"I decline to answer," said Ralph.
Yorke made a movement as if to seize him or strike him. Lucy screamed, Leslie seemed as if to spring between them, then flung herself on her knees beside a chair, and this recalled Yorke to himself.
"Forgive me," he murmured, casting a glance at her; then in a loud tone he said to Ralph significantly:
"This is not the place for a scene, Mr. Duncombe. I shall demand an explanation from you elsewhere. I—I will go now." He put his hand to his brow, and his face lost its fury as he turned it to Leslie, kneeling, with her face in her hands. "Yes, I will go now. Good-by, Les—Miss Lisle. Forgive me all the trouble and sorrow I have caused you! God knows, as I said, I would lay down my life to win a day's happiness for you! I—I think in your heart of hearts you know that. I—I have been a wretchedly unfortunate man! It is all my own fault, I dare say, and yet——. Well! All the talking in the world will not talk out the past, will not help me through the future! Good-by! God bless you, Leslie."
His voice broke into a kind of sob, and he strode toward the door.
As he did so, as, half-blind with misery, he fumbled at the handle, the door opened from the outside, and a tall figure stood on the threshold.
It was Lady Eleanor Dallas! She was wrapped in a very dark cloak, dripping wet, above which her beautiful face gleamed white as that of a Grecian statue.
She held the door, and leaned against it to support herself,and the hand she raised, as if to stop him, shook and quivered as if with ague.
"Stop, Yorke!" she moaned, rather than said.
"Eleanor!" he said hoarsely.
She looked at him as if she found it impossible to speak for a moment; then she drew herself upright, and pushed the wet hair from her forehead.
"Yes, it is I," she said, in a low voice, in which agony and pride struggled for the mastery.
"Where—where did you come from? How long——."
"Yes," she said, answering his unfinished question, "I have been listening. They told me at home that you had gone out to look for me, and I followed you. I heard your voice as I was passing, and I came into the garden. I have been standing by the window and——. Every word!" fell from her white lips.
"You—you should not have listened," he said "Come away," and he put out his hand as if to draw her outside; but she did not move.
"I am going presently," she said, speaking as if with an effort. "I—I want to say something. Yorke——." She seemed as if she were about to break down, but mastered her emotion and came a step or two farther into the room. "Yorke, you have not heard all yet, not the whole truth. He," she glanced at Ralph Duncombe, "could not tell you, but I will."
A presentiment of what was coming fell on Yorke and he tried to stop her.
"No!" he said. "Say no more, Eleanor, but come home with me."
"I cannot," she said. "I must speak. Miss Lisle——." She drew nearer to Leslie, who had risen and stood against the window, her hands clasped, her head turned away. "Miss Lisle, you have been cruelly wronged. And by me!"
Leslie started and looked up quickly. Lady Eleanor gazed at her, seeing her face distinctly for the first time, and so the two stood and looked at each other—these two beautiful women who were fated to love the same man!
"It was I who—who separated you from Lord Auchester."
Yorke held up his hand to stop her.
"Eleanor!"
But she did not remove her eyes from Leslie's face.
"Yes, I. It was I who employed Mr. Duncombe to buy the debts and summon Lord Auchester."
Ralph Duncombe looked up.
"Is—is this necessary, Lady Eleanor?" he said gravely. "I am ready to take all the responsibility."
"No," she said. "It was I! The woman Finetta told me that the marriage was to take place, and I did all I could to preventit. You wonder that I should admit it?" she smiled, with a mixture of pride and despair. "I have told you that I have been standing by the window there, and have heard all. Do you think that I would hold Lord Auchester to his promise, that I would consent to his marrying me now that I know he is in love with another woman?"
Her eyes flashed and her lips curved haughtily, though her voice was as low as before.
"I tell you this now," she went on, "that Lord Auchester may not hold Mr. Duncombe to blame. The sin, if sin there was, was mine, and I atone for it!" As she spoke the last words she glided across the room and stood in front of Leslie.
"Miss Lisle, if I were to say that I am sorry, you would not believe me. You are a woman like myself, and—you will understand! I knew Lord Auchester before you did, and"—she looked round haughtily—"I loved him. If there is any shame in that, I accept it. He knew that I loved him."
"For God's sake, be silent—come away!" exclaimed Yorke almost inaudibly.
She glanced at him as if she scarcely saw him.
"It was the happiest, proudest day of my life when he asked me to be his wife, and—and in the conviction that I could, and should, make him happy, I did not regret the means by which I had won him. I forgot, you see," she smiled bitterly, "that the day of reckoning might come. It has come and I face it! All the world may know the story——."
"No, no! Oh, no!" panted Lucy, whose gentle heart was melted by the agony which she knew this proud woman was suffering.
Lady Eleanor did not even look at her.
"I do not care who knows!" she said. "I have made my confession, and I have done with it." She made an eloquent gesture with her hands.
There was silence for a moment; then she said, addressing Leslie, in a low, distinct voice:
"I do not ask for your forgiveness, Miss Lisle. If I stood in your place I should find it as impossible to forgive as you do. I will not even utter the conventional wish that you may be happy. I tried to ruin your happiness in securing my own, and I have failed. Let that console you, as it will torture me! If you need further consolation, take it in the assurance that he has loved you all the time he has been promised to me. Yes!" she said with a deep sigh, "I have felt that all through. His heart was always yours, never mine. If this evening's work had never been, if we had married, he would have gone on loving you, and my punishment would have been greater than it is."
She was silent a moment; then, still looking at Leslie, she said, inaudibly to the rest:
"That woman, Finetta, lied when she spoke of you. Yes! I can understand how he came to choose you before me!"
She turned and drew her cloak round her and moved to thedoor. Yorke started as if roused from a kind of stupor, and went forward as if to accompany her, but she drew away from him.
"Your place is here," she said icily, "not with me!"
He stopped, irresolute, half dazed by conflicting emotions, and she looked over her shoulder at Ralph Duncombe.
"I ordered my carriage to follow me," she said in a dull, mechanical voice. "Will you see if it is on the road, Mr. Duncombe?"
He started forward and offered his arm; but Yorke motioned him aside and took her hand.
"No!" he said hoarsely. "My place is by your side. You are my promised wife, Eleanor!"
He spoke the words in the tone a man might use who is about to lead a forlorn hope which must end in death, as a man who is resigning all chance of happiness. She understood and smiled bitterly as she drew her hand from his.
"Pardon me, Lord Auchester," she said pointing bitterly to Leslie, "there stands your promised wife," and with one long look into his face she turned and left them.
Yorke was a gentleman. He could not let the woman whom he was pledged to marry in a few hours go out into the night like an outcast. He followed her and Ralph Duncombe.
"Eleanor," he said in deep agitation, "you will let me come with you?"
The sound of wheels was heard on the muddy road, and she stood and listened to them rather than to him.
"Eleanor, think what you do!" he said. "I stand by my promise, my engagement, notwithstanding——."
"Notwithstanding that I obtained it by a fraud!" she said, turning her eyes upon him. "Yes, I knew you would say that; and I am grateful. But you forget, Yorke, I heard every word you said. You would give me—what? not yourself, not your heart? You cannot, it belongs to her. Go to her! Forget me!" Then her voice broke, her pride melted, and she held out her arms to him, her white face drawn and haggard. "Oh, Yorke, I loved you so! No, do not come near me! I am not so degraded as to accept such a sacrifice! You love her, and I do not wonder! No, I do not wonder! She is more beautiful than I am, and better, a thousand times better! You will make her happy, and—oh, how much more is this! she will make you happy. Good-by! Go back to her! Plead to her, kneel to her, to forgive you. You will find it hard, these good women are always harder than we are! She would not have done as much to win you as I have, and will therefore, be all the slower to forgive! But go! And—and——." The carriage was drawing near. She threw back the hood of the cloak and flashed all her proud white loveliness upon him. "When you think of me, think of me as I am at this moment, at the moment I relinquished you!"
He stood motionless, and she drew near and laid a white hand upon each of his shoulders, looked into his eyes, a lingeringfarewell look; then as Ralph Duncombe opened the carriage door, she let her hands drop slowly and got into the carriage. Ralph was following her, but she stayed him with a gesture.
"No, no! Alone! Alone!" came from her parted lips.
The word "Alone! Alone!" fell like a funeral knell upon Yorke's ear; it was the last word he was to hear from Lady Eleanor's lips for many a year.
The two men stood and gazed after the carriage; then Yorke turned upon Ralph Duncombe.
"At any rate, I have a man to deal with now!" he said savagely.
"And one who will not shrink from the encounter, my lord," responded Ralph promptly.
"You have to account to me for your conduct Mr Duncombe," said Yorke. "You have interfered in my affairs most unwarrantably. What have you to say?"
Ralph Duncombe flushed angrily and a passionate retort rose to his lips, but he crushed it down.
"You have every right to demand an explanation, Lord Auchester," he said with an unnatural calmness, "and I give it you. I interfered because I once loved Miss Lisle, and because I did not consider you a fit husband for her. I judged you by the estimate I had formed on hearsay. I thought that I was doing Miss Lisle a service in helping to prevent the marriage."
Yorke swore.
"Even your anger shall not stop me in confessing that I erred," Ralph went on. "I was wrong, I admit it. But I did what I did for the best."
"The best!" groaned Yorke.
"Yes! You cannot but know the character the world gives you. A spendthrift—one who carried on an intrigue with a dancing woman——."
Yorke held up his hand.
"No more, sir!" he said sternly.
But Ralph went on doggedly:
"I thought I was acting wisely and righteously in preventing your marriage to such a woman as Leslie Lisle. I admit I was wrong; and I am ready to yield you any satisfaction you may desire."
Yorke looked into the honest face, into the steadfast eyes, for a moment; then he sighed.
"You are right. I was never worthy of her! What man of us all is?"
"None!" said Ralph. "But, notwithstanding, I say, go and ask her to be your wife, Lord Auchester."
Yorke seemed staggered by this knockdown advice, and hung his head. Then he looked up, breathing hard.
"I will," he said, and he strode into the house, Ralph Duncombe remaining outside.
Leslie had sunk into a chair, and Lucy was kneeling beside her, holding her hands and murmuring those inarticulatewords of sympathy and consolation which only women can utter—for at such times a man is always an imbecile and a fool.
Yorke strode in and bent over the chair.
"Leslie," he said, in a hoarse, broken voice. "Leslie, I have come back to you. I don't know what to say to you, except that I love you, that I have never ceased to love you since the first day we met there at Portmaris. Will you forgive me? Will you be my wife, Leslie?"
A profound silence followed his impassioned words. Lucy, kneeling, held Leslie's hands.
"Speak to him, dear," she whispered, the tears rolling down her face. "Speak to him, Leslie."
But Leslie could not speak. She was a woman, just a woman, and she found it hard to forgive his betrothal to Lady Eleanor. All else counted for nothing. But that——! She sat motionless and dumb.
"I understand," he said, almost inaudibly. "You are right. Well—good-by, Leslie, good-by!"
"Leslie!" whispered Lucy in an agony.
But still Leslie did not move, but sat, her face hidden, her hands tightly clasped.
"It's no use," said Yorke. "It is more than I could hope for! Good-by, Leslie!"
"Leslie, dear, dear Leslie, he is going!" whispered Lucy. But Leslie remained motionless and silent, and Yorke, with a groan, left them.
"Well?" said Ralph, as Yorke came out into the darkness and the rain.
Yorke shook his head.
"I have failed," he said grimly.
"What? Stop!" exclaimed Ralph moved to pity by the despair and hopelessness of the voice. "Why, man, she loves you!"
Yorke shook his head again.
"Not now," he said, in a dull, heavy way. "She did, but now I have lost her. The best, the sweetest——." His voice broke.
Ralph Duncombe seized his arm.
"Wait!" he said. "You are wrong! If ever a woman loved a man, Leslie Lisle loves you!"
Yorke disengaged his arm from Ralph's grasp.
"There is no hope for me," he said, despairingly. "I have lost her," and he passed through the gate, and was swallowed up by the darkness.
Lady Eleanor reached White Place, and went straight to her own room, and presently Lady Denby came to her.
"Good heavens, Eleanor, what have you been doing to yourself?" she exclaimed, as she stared at the dripping cloak. "Why, you are wet to the skin! You will catch your death of cold. Where is Yorke?"