CHAPTER LX.LOVE AND HATE.RUTHdid sleep long and profoundly. A stone had been rolled from her heart, and the solemn rest of subsiding grief fell upon her. Early in the morning she arose and went down-stairs, feeling, for the first time for days, a keen want of food. There was no fire in the house: gray ashes on the hearth, a few blackened embers, and nothing more. The house was very lonely to her that bright morning, for the shutters had kept it in gloomy twilight since the funeral, and she had not heeded the semi-darkness, having so much of it in her own soul."He has forgiven me. He knows," she thought, with a deep, deep sigh, "there is no reason why his child should cower in darkness now, and he loved the light."Ruth pushed open the shutters, and almost smiled as a burst of sunshine came streaming in through the ivy, embroidering the floor all around her with flecks of silver."Yes," she thought, "he loved the light, and it is so beautiful now, I will have some breakfast. It seems strange to be hungry."Ruth opened a cupboard, and took from it some fruit, a biscuit, and a cup of milk. While she had been lost in the darkness, some kind hand had placed these things where she would be sure to find them when a craving for food made itself felt through her grief. She became conscious of this kindness, and her eyes filled with softer tears than she had shed for many a day. After spreading the little table with a white cloth, Ruth sat down near the window, and began to drop the berries, which some pitying child had brought her, into the milk. Just as the old china bowl was full, and she had taken up her spoon, a black shadow came against the window, shutting out all the silvery rain of light, and looking up, with a start, the girl saw Richard Storms leaning into the room.Ruth dropped her spoon, both hands fell into her lap, and there she sat stupefied, gazing at him as a fascinated bird looks into the glittering eyes of a snake. There had been no color in her face from the first, but a deeper pallor spread over it, and her lips grew ashen."I would have come before, as was the duty of a man when his sweetheart was in trouble," said Storms; "but the house seemed empty. This morning I saw a shutter open, and came.""What did you come for? Why will you torment me so?" said Ruth, hoarse with dread."Torment! As if the sight of one's own true love ever did that, especially when he comes to comfort one. Mother, who is so anxious to have you for a daughter, sent me.""You cannot comfort any one against her will," said Ruth, striving to appear calm. "As for me, I only want to be left alone!""As if any man, with a heart in his bosom, could do that; especially one so fond of you as I am," answered Storms; "besides, I have a fear that you may not always want to be alone. Last night, for instance!"Ruth had for a moment rested her hands on the table, resolved to be brave; but they fell downward, and were wrung together in a spasm of distress.The fiend at the casement saw this and smiled."Nay, do not let me keep you from breakfast. I love to see you eat. Many a day you and I have plucked berries together. It won't be the first time I have seen your pretty mouth red with them."Ruth pushed the bowl of fruited milk away from her."I cannot eat," she said, desperately. "Your presence kills hunger and everything else. Cannot you understand how hateful it is to me? Leave that window! You block out all the pure light of heaven!""I will," answered Storms, with a bitter laugh. "You shall have all the light you want," and, resting his hand on the window-sill, he leaped into the room."Audacious!" cried Ruth, starting up, while a flash of anger shot across her face as scarlet sunset stains a snow bank."While girls are so tantalizingly coy, men will be audacious," said Storms, attempting to draw her toward him. "And they like us all the better for it. Shilly-shallying won't do when a man is in earnest.""Leave me! Leave the house!" commanded Ruth, drawing back from his approach.Any one who had seen the girl then would have thought her a fit chatelaine for the stately "Old Rest," or any other proud mansion of England."Not yet. Not till I have told you where you stand,and what danger lies in a storm of rage like this. It makes you beautiful enough for a queen, but you must not dare to practise your grand airs on me. I won't have them! Do you understand that, my lass? I won't have them! Come here and kiss me. That is what I mean to have.""Wretch!""Go on, but don't forget that every word has got to be paid for on your knees. I can afford to offer kisses now, because you are pretty enough to make any man stoop a bit. But wait a while, and you shall come a begging for them, and then it'll be as I choose."Ruth did not speak, but a look of such disgustful scorn came over her face that it abashed even his insolence. He made an effort to laugh off the confusion into which that look had thrown him.CHAPTER LXI.HUNTED DOWN.YOUdon't believe me! You think to escape, or put me down with these fine-lady airs. Perhaps you mean to complain to the young man up yonder, and set him to worrying me again. Try that—only try it! I ask nothing better. Let him interfere with me if he dares. Have you nothing to say?""Nothing!" answered Ruth, with quiet dignity, for contempt had conquered all the terror in her."Nothing! Then I will make you speak, understandthis. You cannot put me down. No one can do that. Father and son, I am the master of them all!""Go!" said Ruth, wearied with his bombastic threats, for such she considered them. "Go!""Go! Do I frighten you?""You weary me—that is all.""Then you do not believe what I say?""No!""You think the young man up yonder everything that is good.""Yes!""Well, I think—But no matter. You will soon learn more than you want to hear. This is enough. I can tear the Hurst pride up by the roots. I can make them hide their faces in the dust, and I will, if you drive me to it.""I?""Yes, you! It all depends on you. That young fellow's blood will be on your own head if I am brought to strike him down!""His blood on my head! His! Are you mad, or only fiendish, Richard Storms?""This is what I am, Ruth Jessup—the man who can prove who killed your father. The man who can hang your sweetheart on the highest gallows ever built in England. That is what I am, and what I will do, if you ever speak to him again.""You! You!"It was all the poor girl could say, this awful threat came on her so suddenly."You believe me. You would give the world not to believe me, but you do. Well, instead of the world you shall give me yourself. I want you enough to give uprevenge for your sake. Isn't that love? I want you because of your obstinacy, which I mean to break down, day by day, till you are humble enough."Ruth smiled scornfully. She had been so often terrified by such language that it had lost its force."I do not believe you," she said. "Would not believe an angel, if he dared to say so much.""Will you believe your father's own handwriting?"Storms took from an inner pocket of his vest a folded letter. Ruth knew it in an instant. It was the letter she had placed in her husband's hand that day when she saw him for one moment asleep in his chamber at "The Rest.""Ha! ha! You turn white without reading it! You guess what it is. The handwriting is large enough to read at a safe distance. Make it out for yourself."Ruth fastened her burning eyes on the paper, which he unfolded and held between his two hands, so near that she could make out the great crude letters; but it was beyond her reach had she attempted to possess herself of it, which he seemed to fear."Does that mean anything? Is that a confession?"Ruth did not answer, but dropped into a chair, faint and white, still gazing on the paper."Do you want more proof? Well, I can give it you, for I saw the thing done. Do you want the particulars?""No! no! Spare me!" cried the poor girl, lifting both hands."Of course, I mean to spare you. One doesn't torment his wife till he gets her!""Spare him!" pleaded the poor girl. "Never mind me, but spare him. He has never harmed you.""Never harmed me! Who was it that he hurled, like a dog, from that very door? Whose sweetheart was it that he stole? Never harmed me! Spare him! That is for you to do. No one else on this earth can spare him!""But how?"The words trembled, coldly, from her white lips."How? By marrying the man you were promised to."A faint moan was her only answer."By carrying out your murdered father's bargain. That is the only way. Shudder down, twist and wind as you will, that is the only way."Ruth shook her head. She could not speak."I have got some matter to settle with Sir Noel, for you are only half my price. There must be land and gold thrown in on his part, a wedding on yours, before I promise to hold my tongue, or give up this paper. Love, money, or vengeance. These are my terms. He takes it hard—so do you, quaking like a wounded hare in its form. The sight of it does me good. Gold, land, the prettiest wife on this side of England, who shall give me a taste of vengeance, too, before I have done with her. All these things I mean to enjoy to the full."Still Ruth did not utter a word. The horror in her position struck the power of speech from her."I see. Nothing but love for this murderer could make your face so white. Nothing but hate of me could fill your eyes with such frightened loathing. But I mean to change all that, before you have been my wife a twelvemonth. Only remember this: you must never see Walton Hurst again—never. I shall keep watch. If you look at him, if you speak to him before we are wedded, I will give him up to the law that hour. If heever crosses my path after that, I shall know how to make my wife suffer."Still Ruth did not speak."You know my terms, now. The moment Sir Noel signs the deeds I'm getting ready, he seals my lips. When our marriage certificate is signed, I give up this paper. Then there is nothing for us but love or hate. I have a taste for both. Come, now, say which it shall be."While he was speaking, Storms had drawn close to the chair on which Ruth sat, still and passive. With the last audacious words on his lips, he stooped down, pressed them to hers, and started back, for they had met the coldness of snow."Fainting again? I will soon cure her of these tricks," he muttered, looking down into the still, white face he had desecrated with a kiss. "Well, she knows what to depend on now, and can take her own time for coming to. I only hope Sir Noel will be as easily settled; but he fights hard. I half wish he would say no, that I might pull him down to his knees. It would be rare sport. Only I'd rather take revenge on the young master. That comes with the wife, and the old baronet's money thrown in."With these thoughts weaving in and out of his brain, Storms left the house, for he had no hesitation in leaving that poor girl to recover from her dead insensibility alone. It was perhaps the only mercy he could have awarded her.CHAPTER LXII.STORMS AND LADY ROSE.STORMSreturned home, triumphing in his success over that helpless girl, and confident that Sir Noel would accept his terms at last, haughtily as he had been dismissed from the house. All the next day he remained at home, expecting some message from the baronet, but none came. On the second day anxiety overcame his patience, and he set out for "The Rest," determined to push his object to the utmost, and, instead of vague insinuations, lay his whole proof before the baronet.With all his audacity and low cunning, this man—a dastard at heart—was thinking how he might evade this interview, and yet obtain its anticipated results, as he came slowly through the wilderness. All at once he stopped, and a sudden flash shot across his face."The Lady Rose, the woman Sir Noel has chosen for his son's wife, she has access to him always. Her entreaties will touch his heart, and break down his pride. There she is among the great standard roses. Proud and dainty lady as she is, I will set her to work for me. By heavens, she comes this way!"The young man was right. That young lady came out from among her sister roses, and turned toward the wilderness, in whose shadows Storms was lurking. She wanted some tender young ferns to complete a bouquet intended for the little sitting-room that Walton was sure to visit during the morning.As Lady Rose was moving down the shaded path with that slow, graceful motion which was but the inheritanceof her birth, she seemed to be whispering something to the flowers in her hand. Once she paused and kissed them, smiling softly, as their perfume floated across her face like an answering caress. She was stooping to rob a delicate species of fern of its tenderest shoots, when Storms flung his shadow across her path.The lady arose, with a faint start, and gazed at the man quietly as one waits for an inferior to speak. With all his audacity, the young man hesitated under that look of gentle pride."Did you wish to ask something?" she said, at length, remarking his hesitation.The sound of her voice emboldened him, but he spoke respectfully, taking off his hat."No, Lady Rose, I want nothing. But I can tell you that which it is perhaps best that you should know.""Is it of the wedding? Is it of Ruth you would speak?""Of her, and of others, nearer and dearer to you than, she ever was, or can be, Lady Rose."The soft flush of color, that was natural to that lovely face, deepened to a rich carnation, and then to scarlet."I do not understand!""I am wanting to speak of Walton Hurst, the heir of 'Norston's Rest.'""And what of him? Nothing serious can have happened since I saw him," said Lady Rose, at first with a swift, anxious glance; then she smiled at her own fright; for half an hour before she had seen Hurst walking upon the terrace."Lady Rose, have you seen Sir Noel this morning?""Sir Noel! Why, no. He breakfasted earlier than the rest, or in his room.""That is it. He is in trouble, and would not let you see it in his face.""In trouble! Sir Noel!""He has heard bad news.""Bad news! How? Where did it come from?""I took it to him, lady. It has been a burden on my conscience too long. The murder of a man is no light thing to bear.""The murder of a man!" repeated Lady Rose, horrified."I speak of William Jessup, whom we buried yesterday, and who was murdered in the park, one night, by Walton Hurst." Storms spoke with slow impressiveness, while Lady Rose stood before him with blanched lips and widely distended eyes."Murdered in the park by Walton Hurst! Man, are you mad?""Lady, I saw the shot fired. I saw the gun twisted from the murderer's hands, and the stock hurled at his head before the old man fell. He was found lying across the path lifeless, the brain contused, while Jessup lay shot through the lungs a little way off, where he had dropped after that one spasm of strength.""You saw all this with your own eyes?""I saw it all, but would never have spoken, had the old man lived. Now that he is dead—""You would have another life—his life!""Do not tremble so, lady! Do not look upon me as if a wild beast were creeping toward you. I want no man's life—""Ah!""Though the young master up yonder has wronged me.""Wronged you? Walton Hurst wronged you? Impossible!""Yes, me! I was engaged to wed old Jessup's daughter. It was a settled thing. She loved me!""Well?""But the young master stepped in!""I do not believe it," cried the lady, with a disdainful lift of the head, though all the color had faded from her face. "No person on earth could make me believe it."Storms allowed this outburst to pass by him, quietly, while he stood before the lady, hat in hand.Then he spoke:"Lady, it was this that caused the murder. The young master was in the cottage, as he had been many a time before that night, but this time Jessup was away in London. I was going there myself; saw him and her through the window, and turned back, not caring to go in, while he was there, though I thought no great harm of it—""There was no harm. I will stake my word, my life, my very soul; there was no harm in it," cried Lady Rose. "If an honorable man lives, it is Walton Hurst.""It may be, lady. I do not dispute it. But perhaps old Jessup thought otherwise. I do not know. There must have been hard words when he came in and found those two in company, for in a few minutes the young gentleman came dashing through the porch with a gun in his hand. He may have been out shooting and stopped at the cottage on his way home. I cannot tell that; but he came out with a gun in his hand; then Jessup followed, muttering to himself, and overtook the young master just as he got under the shadow of the great cedar of Lebanon. Some hot words passed there. I could not hear them distinctly, for they were muffled with rage; but I came up just in time to see Walton Hurst level hisgun and fire. Then Jessup leaped out from the shadows, wrenched the gun from the hand that had fired it, and, turning it like a club, knocked Hurst down with it. This was done in the moonlight. I saw it all. Then Jessup dropped the gun, staggered backward into the darkness of the cedar, and fell. They were found so—one lying in the blackness cast down by the cedar branches, the other with his face to the sky, as he had been thrown across the path where the moonlight shone.""Ah, yes, I remember—I remember," moaned Lady Rose. "He looked so white and cold; we thought he was dead.""She was there. She went to the young man first. I marked that. Her father lay in the shadows bleeding to death, but she went to the young man first.""She did. I remember it," flashed through the brain of Lady Rose. But she said, bravely, "It was nothing. He lay in the light, and she saw him first. It was natural.""I thought so afterward. She was my sweetheart, lady, and I was glad to believe it," answered Storms, who had no wish to excite the lady's jealousy beyond a certain point; "but after that, she grew cold to me. How could I help thinking it was because his kindness had turned her head a little?""Kindness! Perhaps so. We have all been kind to Ruth. It is well you charge my guardian's son with nothing but kindness. Anything else would have been dishonor, you know, and it would offend me if you charged that upon him.""Lady, I charge him with nothing, save the murder of William Jessup.""But that is impossible. You can make no one believe it. I wonder you will insist on the wild story."It was true Lady Rose really could not take in this idea of murder—it was too horrible for reality. She put it aside as an incomprehensible dream."I saw it," persisted Storms, staggered by her persistent unbelief."Oh, I have dreamed such things, and they seemed very real," answered the lady, with a slight wave of the hand.CHAPTER LXIII.THE PRICE OF A LIFE.LADY, I have other proof. Read that. Perhaps you have seen William Jessup's writing. Read that."Lady Rose took the letter and read it. Now, indeed, her cheek did blanch, and her blue eyes widened with horror."This is strange," she said, growing whiter and whiter. "Strange, but impossible—quite impossible!""Coupled with my evidence, it is enough to hang any man in England," said Storms, reaching out his hand for the paper, which she returned to him in a dazed sort of dream."What do you want, young man? How do you mean to use this letter?""I have told Sir Noel what I mean, Lady Rose. I am a poor man, he is a rich one. I only asked a little of his wealth in exchange for his son's life.""Well?""He would not listen to me. He ordered me from the house. He tried not to believe me, so tough is his pride. It might have been disbelief; it might have been rage that made him so white; but he looked like a marble man, face, neck, and hands. That was after the first hint. He gave me no chance to tell the whole, though I had this letter in my pocket.""Then you gave him no proof?" questioned Lady Rose, eagerly."Proof? He did not wait for that. No dog was ever ordered from a door as I was. But he shall have the letter; he shall hear all that I have told you. Then he will come to terms.""He never will!" murmured Lady Rose. "Not even to save his son's life!"This was said under the lady's breath."And if he does not?" she questioned. "If he refuses to pay your price?""Then Sir Noel cannot expect me to be more merciful to his son than he is.""What is it—tell me exactly—what is it you demand for your silence, and that paper?"Storms took a folded sheet of foolscap from his pocket, and handed it to Lady Rose, who made an attempt to read it, but her hand shook so violently that the lines mingled together, like seaweed on a wave."I cannot read it; tell me."Storms took the paper which he had prepared for Sir Noel, and read it aloud. His hand was firm enough; the agitation that shook the frame of that brave, beautiful girl, reassured him. He was certain of her influence with Sir Noel."Land, free hunting, the house of a gentleman. Iwonder he asks so little. Does he know what a life like that is worth to us?" she thought."There is one thing more," said Storms. "Those things I demand for my silence. The paper I only give up when Ruth Jessup is my wife."Lady Rose seemed to waive the subject aside as an after-consideration."Land and house," she said, drawing a deep breath, as if some idea had become a resolution in her mind. "Tell me, must they be in this county?""If Sir Noel had land in another part of England I should like it better. One might set up for a gentleman with more success among strangers," was the cool reply."I can give you all these things in a part of England where you have never been heard of," said the lady. "Only remember this: there must be no more appeals to Sir Noel. He must never see that paper. It must never be mentioned again to any human being. That is my condition.""But, lady, can you make this certain? Sir Noel is your guardian.""Not as regards this property. Have no fear, I promise it.""And Ruth—Ruth Jessup? Without her all this goes for nothing.""Ah, if, as you say, she loves you, that is easy. To a woman who loves, all things are possible.""She did love me once," muttered Storms, beginning to lose heart."Then she loves you yet. Ruth is an honest girl, and with such change is impossible. To love once is to love forever; knowing her, you ought to be sure of this. Besides, it is understood that she is promised to you.""She is promised to me," answered Storms, with some show of doubt, "and if it had not been—"The young man broke off. The blue eyes of Lady Rose were fixed on him with such shrinking wistfulness that he changed the form of his speech."If it had not been for the hurt her father got, we might have been wedded before now."A pang of conscience came over Lady Rose when she thought of pretty Ruth Jessup as the wife of this man who was even then trading on the life of a fellow-being. But a course of reasoning, perhaps unconsciously selfish, blinded her to the misery she might bring on that young creature, should it chance that the union was distasteful to her. She even made the property, with which the bridegroom would be endowed, a reason for wishing the marriage. "Ruth is such a sweet little lady," she reasoned, "that the life of a man who worked on his own grounds would be coarse and rude to her. In some sort we are giving her the place of a gentlewoman. Besides, she must love the man. Everything goes to prove that—their walks in the park, his own word. Yes, I am doing good to her. It is a benefaction, not a bribe."All these thoughts passed through the mind of Lady Rose swiftly, and with a degree of confusion that baffled her clear judgment. Having resolved to redeem the good name of her guardian's son on any terms, she sought to reconcile those terms with the fine sense of honor that distinguished her above most women."Remember," she said, with dignity, "I will give you the property you demand, partly for the benefit of Ruth Jessup, and partly because I would save my guardian from annoyance. Not that I for one moment believe the horrid thing you have told me. I know it to be an impossibility.""The courts will think their own way about that," answered Storms. "An honest man's oath, backed with this letter, will be tough things to explain there.""It is because they are difficult to explain that I have listened to you for a moment," said Lady Rose. "For twice the reward you demand, I would not have a suspicion thrown on my guardian's son. Of any more serious evil I have no fear.""Well, my lady, take it your own way, believe what you like. So long as I get the property, and the wife I want, we won't quarrel about what they are given for. Only both those things I am bound to have.""But I cannot force Ruth Jessup to marry any man," said Lady Rose."All the same. It is your business now to see that she keeps to her old bargain. Or all we have agreed upon goes for nothing."The man was getting more familiar, as this conversation went on. The sensitive pride of the young lady was aroused by his growing demands, and she dismissed him, almost haughtily."Go now," she said. "I will think of a safe method by which this transfer can be made. In a day or two I will see you again. Till then be silent, and prepare yourself to deliver up that paper.""But Ruth Jessup. What of her?""I will see Ruth. She has a kind heart. I will see Ruth.""Then good-day, my lady. You shall see that I know how to hold my tongue, and remember kindness too! Good-day, my lady."Lady Rose watched the young man as he glided off through the wilderness, with flashing eyes and risingcolor. Up to this time she had held her feelings under firm control. Now terror, loathing, and haughty scorn kindled up the soft beauty of her face into something grandly strange."Slanderer! Wretch! The lands I do not care for. But that I should be compelled to urge pretty Ruth Jessup on a creature like that. Can she love him? I will go at once, or loathing of the task will keep me back forever."CHAPTER LXIV.JUDITH'S RETURN.THEpoor father, whom Judith Hart had so cruelly abandoned, sat alone in the old house, patient in his broken-heartedness and more poverty-stricken than ever. He had no neighbors near enough to drop in upon his solitude, and all wish for reading had left him, with the thankless girl he had worshipped.When he came home and found himself alone in the saddest of all sad hours, that in which a day passes into eternity with the sun, his desolation was complete. It was something, when the cow he had petted into loving tameness would come to the garden wall, and look at him with her soft intelligent eyes, as if she knew of his sorrow and longed to share it with him. Sometimes he would go out and talk to her as if she possessed human sensibility—gather grass and wild flowers, and caress the animal's neck as she licked them from his hands.He was sitting thus lonely at the window betweentwilight and dark, when the figure of a woman came walking down the lane, that made the almost dead pulses of his heart stir rapidly. It was so like Judith, the free movement, the very poise of her head. The resemblance almost made him cry out. But, no, he had been mistaken before. The dusk was gathering. It must be some neighboring woman come to chat a moment with him. Some of the old friends were kind enough for that now and then when Judith was at home.No, no—it was Judith. He could see her face now. She was smiling, and waved one hand; in the other she carried a bundle which did not trouble her with its weight, she was so young and strong—Judith, his daughter, come back again.The old man got up from the window and went into the porch, holding out his arms."Judith! Judith! Oh, my child! my child!" She came up with breathless speed, flung her bundle down on the porch, and clasped the old man in her arms."So you have missed me, father? Take that and that for loving me so."She kissed his face, and shook both his hands with emphasis; then turned about, crossed the yard and patted the cow on its forehead."There, now, that I have got all the welcome there is for me, let's go in and strike a light. How dark you are!"Directly the girl had a match flaring and a candle lighted."There," she said, "I will bring another bowl and we will have supper; there is porridge enough for two."There was enough for two, though one had the greatest portion, for joy took away the old man's appetite. Itwas enough for him that he could sit there with a spoon in his hand, gazing at her. There was not much conversation during this meal. The timid old man asked few questions, and Judith only said that she had been in a servant's place away up the railroad, and had brought home her wages, or most of them.The girl had every penny that she had earned in her bosom, and gave it to the old man that night. She had walked all the way from "Norston's Rest," that the little sum might be worth giving. So the old man was happy that night, and after Judith had carried her bundle, in which was the red garment Storms had given her, up-stairs, he was on his knees by the unmade bed, in his little room, with a prayer of humble thanksgiving on his lips, and tears streaming down his face like rain.The next day Judith took up her household work with unusual energy. It was her only resource from the excitement of hopes and fears that possessed her. The love that had tempted her from home was absorbing as ever; but doubts and fears strong as the love tormented her continually. Even at the last moment she had hesitated to leave the neighborhood of "Norston's Rest." There had been something in Storms' manner that made her distrust him.But she would wait patiently. That was her promise. In three days he had pledged himself to see her. If he failed, if he was mocking her, why, then—Judith turned away from the subject here. That which might follow was more than she dared think of.I have said that the girl was not all evil—indeed what human being is? She loved this man Storms, with all the passion of an ardent, ill-regulated nature. Heedless, selfish, nay, to a certain extent, wicked, she might be; but deliberate cruelty of action was repulsive to her—that of speech had its origin in the jealousy which tormented her more than any one else.Judith understood well enough that the paper she had given to Storms might cause great trouble to Sir Noel Hurst, but her ideas of the rights of property were very crude, and she could see no reason why that should not be used to win a portion of the baronet's great wealth, for the benefit of her lover. "Why should one man be so enormously rich without labor," she reasoned, "and another win the bare necessities of life by incessant toil?" Judith had gathered these ideas from her lover, and dwelt upon them in extenuation of her fault, when she joined him in a conspiracy to wring wealth from the proud old man at "Norston's Rest."After her return home, the destitution of her father gave a new impulse to this levelling idea. She began to look on him as a victim to the injustice of society, and persuaded herself that in the advancement of her lover's projects she would lift him out of this miserable existence.It was with difficulty that Judith kept silent, on this subject. She longed to cheer and astonish the old man by the brilliancy of her projects, but Storms had forbidden this, and she dared not disobey him.On the third day, this hoping and longing became greatly intensified. It seemed to her as if each hour had lengthened into a year. She was constantly examining the face of that old brass clock, and reviling it in her heart because the hands went round so slowly.When her father came in, his presence was more than she could bear. Forced to energetic action by her own unrest, she had prepared his supper early and after that sent him down to the village, that he might not detect the fever of her impatience.Twice she went down to the orchard wall and came back, disappointed that no one was in sight; though she knew that Storms would not be there until his approach could be covered by the evening shadows.At last she sat down by a window that looked toward the orchard, resolved to wait. Thus she watched the sunset, while its crimson melted into purple, through which the stars began to shine. A strange, keen light was in her face, and her eyes had the glitter of diamonds when the first star came out. Then, and not till then, she lighted a lamp.All was still in the house. Far back in the room the lamp was turned down, shedding a faint light, such as a clouded moon might throw, around the table on which it stood, but leaving those pleasant shadows we love in a summer's night everywhere else. Storms would not enter the orchard until he had seen that light. It was the old signal that they both understood.Scarcely had this faint illumination brightened the room, when Judith saw something flutter above the wall, as if a great bird had settled there and was ready to fly again. She leaped to her feet, snatched up a shawl that had been laid across a chair in readiness, and hurried through the back door, folding the drapery around her as she went.CHAPTER LXV.ON THE PRECIPICE.RICHARD STORMSwas there, leaning against the wall. He reached out his hand to help her over—an attention that made the heart leap in her bosom."Oh, Richard, I am so glad that you have come," she exclaimed, clinging fondly to his arm."Hush," he said, "wait till we get farther from the house. The old man will hear us.""No, no. He is down in the village. I sent him away."This was what Storms wished to learn, but in his subtle craft he would not ask the question directly."He knows nothing—you have not told him that I might be here?" he questioned."Not a word.""That is wise. He might be talking to the neighbors and set them clamoring at you again. I shouldn't like that, just as everything is coming right with us.""There's no danger of that; he speaks to no one—poor old man. The neighbors know nothing about my leaving home; he felt it too much for talking.""Of course, and you got back safely?""Oh, yes. How good of you to ask! But you have something to tell me.""Let us walk farther on," said Storms, passing his arm around the girl's waist.Thus persuasive in his speech and unusually affectionate in manner, Storms led the girl down the orchard path. Once under the old apple tree where their laststormy interview had taken place, he paused and leaned against the trunk, while she stood before him, waiting for the information he had brought with some impatience; for, with all his strange gentleness, few words had been spoken on the way."Well," she said, "have you brought no news—good or bad? Have you seen Sir Noel?""No.""No! Why not? Afraid to go on, were you?""Afraid? You, Judith, ought to know me better than that. I found an easier way of getting what I want. Women, after all, are safest to deal with. Instead of a farm I shall have land in my own right.""You will! You are sure; and I gave it to you!"Storms made no reply to this exultant outburst, but went on counting over the benefits he had secured with tantalizing particularity."In one week from now, I shall be a rich landholder, with plenty of money in my pocket, and a house that any gentleman in England might be proud to take his lady into."Judith's eyes flashed triumphantly."It was I who helped you to all this land, money, the grand house we shall live in. Oh, who ever thought that a bit of crumpled paper would do so much?"Storms shrugged his shoulders, and prepared to walk onward.Judith saw this, and her temper, always ready to take fire, kindled up."You lift your shoulders—you keep silent when I speak of the paper which brought all these grand things, as if you did not mean to give me credit for giving it to you.""What would the paper have been without a shrewd man to use it? Besides, you found it in the bushes where any other person might have picked it up."Judith felt a strange choking in her throat."What does this mean, Richard Storms?""Mean? why, nothing. Only it is getting stormy here. When you lift your voice in that way, it might be heard from the house. Walk on; you have nothing to flare up about."There was something in the man's voice that would have warned Judith, but for her own rising temper. As it was, she walked toward the precipice, sometimes keeping ahead, and looking back at him over her shoulder. He certainly looked pale in the moonlight."Now, Richard, what is the meaning of this offish talk? Is it that you want to get rid of your promise, with all these twistings and turnings?"When Judith put this question, she had halted close by the brink of the precipice and turned around, facing the young man, who came up more slowly.Storms attempted to laugh, but he was too hoarse for that."I haven't said a word about being off; but, if I had, all this temper wouldn't hold me back. What should hinder me doing as I please? The paper was as much mine as yours.""What should hinder you, Dick Storms? Don't ask me that. I do not want to talk about the things I saw, that night."Judith stood close to the precipice as she said this, between the very edge and Storms, who strode forward till his white sinister face was close to hers."You saw what? No more hints, I am tired of them. You saw what?""I will not talk about it here. When I do speak, it will be to Sir Noel Hurst," answered the girl, bravely."Sir Noel Hurst will be very likely to believe you against my oath, and the paper signed by Jessup himself.""The paper that I gave you, fool that I was!""Exactly, if you could not trust me.""I did trust you—I did shield you. I gave you the paper. I kept still as the grave about what I saw that night.""Still as the grave—there is no stillness like that," said the man, in a voice so hoarse and strange that Judith instinctively attempted to draw sideway from her perilous position.But Storms changed as she did, still with his face to hers, pressing her toward the edge."If I kept back another paper, it was because I meant to give it you on our wedding day, and prove how much a poor girl could do toward saving the man she loved from—""From what?" questioned Storms, throwing his arm around the girl and drawing her back from the precipice, as if he had for the first time seen her danger. "Of what are you speaking, Judith?""Of a paper I found in the dress that was taken off William Jessup after he died, which makes the one I gave you of no worth at all.""You have such a paper, and kept it back?" The man absolutely threw a tone of tender reproach into a voice that had been cold as ice and bitter as gall a minute before. "Let me read it; the moonlight is strong enough.""It is not with me. I have put it by in safe hiding, meaning to burn it before your face and pay you for the marriage lines with your life."Storms drew the girl farther away from the precipice, for he feared to trust the instinct of destruction that had brought him there, and would not all at once be subdued. He felt that his own life was, for the time, bound up in hers, and absolutely shuddered as he thought of the fate from which a word had saved him and her.For a time they walked back to the orchard in silent disturbance: she unconscious of the awful danger she had run; he pondering new schemes in his mind."Why will you always doubt me?" he said, at last."Because you force me to doubt," she answered, almost patiently, for the ebb-tide of her anger had set in."No; it is your own bad temper, which always drives me into teasing you. I have the license in my pocket, and came to settle everything.""The license!"At this word Judith turned her face to the moonlight, and Storms saw that his falsehood had done its work."While you have been doubting me," he said, with a look and tone of deep injury, "I have been upon my knees almost, persuading the old people to give up this Jessup girl, and take you in her place.""And they have? Oh, Richard!""I came to set the day when you would come to the farm and stop a bit with the old mother.""Ah!" said Judith, with tears in her eyes, "I cannot remember when I had a mother."Storms lifted his hand impatiently. Even he shrunk from using the name of his kind old mother as a snare for the girl."You will say nothing of this to your father, or of my coming here at all. When we are wedded and ready to start for the new home, it will be a grand surprise for him.""Shall we—oh, Richard, shall we take him with us?" cried Judith."That may be as you wish. I will not object.""Oh, Richard, I would give up that horrible paper now if I had it with me!""No, let it rest until I can exchange it for the marriage lines; then it will be as much for your interest as mine that it should be made ashes of. But be sure and have it about you then.""I will, I will. Only it is like putting a snake in my bosom when I hide it there.""And that pretty dress. Leave nothing behind you. On the second day from this I will be at the nearest station. Meet me there, but mind that no one sees us speaking to each other.""I will be careful.""Good-night, then."The girl looked at him wistfully, as if she expected something more; but Storms only reached out his hand. He was not quite a Judas, and did not kiss her.CHAPTER LXVI.SIR NOEL AND RUTH.SIR NOEL HURSThad been left standing in his library, white and stately, like a man turned into marble. That one hideous word had struck him with the force of a blow. In the suppressed rage of the moment he had sent Storms from his presence, scarcely comprehending the charge he had made or the price forsecrecy that he demanded. Still, audacious and unbelievable as the man's charge was, it aroused reflections in the father's mind that had hardly taken form before. For months and months he had been vaguely uneasy about his son. With the keen perceptions of a man of the world, he had, without spying upon Walton, observed him anxiously. He knew that more of his time was spent about the gardener's cottage than seemed consistent with any interest he could have felt in William Jessup. He saw that the young daughter, whom he could with difficulty look upon as more than a child, was, in fact, a wonderfully beautiful girl. Beyond all this he perceived that, day by day, the young man drifted from his home, that the society of Lady Rose was almost abandoned, and that this fair young patrician drooped under the change.On the night when the young man was found lying so deathly and still across the forest-path, these observations had deepened into grave anxiety. He became certain that some more dangerous feeling than he had been willing to believe must have drawn his son into the peril of his life. The anguish in Ruth's face; the piteous humility with which she shrunk from observation, alarmed him; for the girl had been, from her very infancy, a pet at the great house, and underneath all other anxiety was a feeling of paternal interest in her.That some dispute had arisen, of which Ruth was the object, he had never doubted, and that both men had been injured in a rash contest seemed natural. All this was hard enough for a proud, sensitive man to bear in patience; but these apprehensions had been held in abeyance during his son's illness by deeper anxiety for his life, and now from sorrow over the death of a faithfulold servant, to whom every member of the family was attached.All these perplexities and suspicions had been fearfully aroused by the charge and proposal of young Storms. Not that the baronet gave anything but a scornful dismissal of either from his mind, but his old anxieties were kindled anew, and he resolved to break at once the tie that had drawn his son so often to the cottage, or, at least, make himself master of its nature. Had young Hurst been out of danger from excitement, perhaps Sir Noel would have broken the subject to him; but he had carefully avoided it, fearing some evil effect during his illness, and now was cautious to give no sign of the uneasiness that possessed him. So, with the sting of a rude insult urging him on, he went to Jessup's cottage.Ruth was lying in the little parlor, weak and helpless as a crushed flower, all her rich color gone, all the velvety softness of her eyes clouded. A man's step on the porch made her start, and listen. She had cause to dread such steps, and they terrified her. A knock, measured and gentle—what if it was her husband's? What if Storms was on the watch? He must not come in. That was to endanger more than his life. It was her hard task to say this. Ruth started up, crept to the door, and opened it, with trembling hands."Sir Noel!"The name scarcely formed itself on her lips, when she shrunk back from the baronet's stern countenance, wondering what new sorrow was coming upon her.Sir Noel had always liked the girl, and her sad bereavement awoke his compassion. Almost before she had spoken he felt the cruelty of his errand. It was impossibleto look into those eyes, and think ill of a creature so helpless and so beautiful. But the very loveliness that disarmed him had brought death to her own father, and threatened disgrace to his son. The plans he had formed for that son—the future advancement of his house—all were in peril, unless she could be removed from the young man's path. This must be done. Still he would deal gently with her.Sir Noel had sought the cottage with a quickly-formed resolution to urge on the marriage of its inmate with the man who had exhibited some right to claim her; but as he stood on the threshold, with that young girl trembling before him, this thought took a form so hideous, that he almost hated himself for having formed it.Ruth went into the little parlor, trembling with apprehension. Sir Noel followed her. Here his heart nearly failed him. He felt the cruelty of harassing her with new troubles, when sorrow lay so heavily upon her; but anxiety urged him on against his better nature."Poor child!" he said, gently. "I see that you have suffered; so young, too. It is hard!"Ruth lifted her eyes to his face, as if wondering that any one—he, most of all—could pity her. Then she said, with touching sadness, "It is hard, and I am so tired.""I too have had trouble," said the baronet. "For many days we feared that Walton—""I know! I know! He came near dying, like my father—the best father that ever lived."Ruth spoke low and nervously. The presence of Walton's father filled her with apprehension. Yet she longed to fall at his feet, and implore him to forgive her."Ruth," said Sir Noel, seating the poor girl on thesofa, and taking both her hands in his, "Ruth, try and think that it is your father who asks you: and answer me from your soul. Does my son love you?"A flash of hot scarlet swept that desolate face. The eyelids drooped over those startled eyes. Ruth tried to draw her hands away."Answer me, child."He spoke very gently, so gently that she could not help answering."Yes," she said, in a soft whisper. "He loves me.""And you?"Ruth lifted her pleading eyes to his—those great, innocent eyes, and answered, humbly, "How could I help it?""How long is this since, Ruth?""I don't know. It seems to me always; but he knows best.""But, my poor child, how do you expect this to end?""It is ended! oh, it is ended! I wish you would tell him so, Sir Noel. I must never, never see him again."Ruth threw both arms over the end of the sofa, and, burying her face upon them, broke into a wild passion of sobs.Sir Noel was touched by this helpless acquiescence. He bent over her sadly enough."No, Ruth, you never must see him again.""I know it—I know it!""There is another who loves you," he said, shrinking from the idea of giving that girl to the crafty ruffian who had dared to threaten him. It seemed like an insult to his son thus to dispose of the creature that son had loved, and evidently respected; but he was not prepared for the wild outburst of anguish that followed hiswords. Ruth sprang to her feet, her eyes widening, her wet face contracted."You will not—you must not ask that of me. I will die first.""Be it so. I will not urge you," answered the baronet, soothingly. "Only promise me never to see Walton again!""I must! I do! Oh, believe me! I never, never must see him again!""You must go away!""Oh, if I could—if I only could!""It must be, my poor child. Some place of refuge shall be found."Ruth lifted her face with sudden interest."I will see that you are cared for. Only this my son must never know.""He must never know," repeated the poor girl. "Only, if I should be dying, would there be danger then? Only when I am dying?""We will not think of that, Ruth.""No. I dare not. It tempts one so; but the good God will not be so cruel as to let me live."Sir Noel was surprised at this broken-hearted submission. He had come to the cottage prepared for resistance, perhaps rebellion, but not for this. No doubt of the girl's innocence, or of his son's honor, disturbed him now. But this only made his task the more difficult. She must be removed from the neighborhood. The honor of his house—the future of his son demanded it."I will go now, Ruth," he said, with great kindness; "but, remember, you will never want a comfort or a friend while I live. In a few days I will settle on some safe and pleasant home for you."Ruth did not seem to hear him, though she was looking steadily in his face; but when he dropped her hand, she said, piteously, "You will tell him—you will let him know that it was for his sake?""After you are gone, he shall know everything, except where to find you."Ruth sunk back on her seat, bowed her face drearily, and thus Sir Noel left her.CHAPTER LXVII.SHOWING THE WAY.WHEREcould Ruth go? She had never been from home more than once or twice in her life. Her world was there lying about "The Rest"—her home in that cottage, where she was born, and her mother had died. She must leave it; of course, she must leave it, but how? To what place would Sir Noel Hurst send her? With that awful secret lying between her and Richard Storms, would she dare to go? He would avenge her absence on Hurst. She, no doubt, stood between him and the thing she shuddered to think of. What could she do?All night long the poor child lay asking herself these questions. She had locked herself in with the darkness as the dusk came on, fearing that her husband might come—dreading to hear another step that filled her, soul and body, with loathing. She did hear a light tread on the turf, a gentle knock on the door, and fell to weeping onher pillow, with sobs that filled the whole desolate house. After these exhausting tears she slept a little, and when the daylight stole through the crevices of the shutters she turned from it, and lay with her face to the wall, wondering if she would live the day out.There was no fire in the cottage that day—no food cooked or eaten. Ruth crept out from her room and lay down on the little sofa, faint and miserably helpless. The apathy of great suffering was upon her. She was hemmed in by darkness, and saw no way out.Some time in the morning she heard a voice at the casement. A white hand was thrust through the ivy, and beat lightly on the glass."Let me in, Ruth! Oh, let me in. I must speak to you!"It was Lady Rose, who had known little rest since her interview with Storms in the Wilderness. A ring of excitement was in her voice. The face which looked in through the ivy was wildly white.Ruth arose and unlocked the door. She would rather have been alone in her misery; but what did it matter? If she had any hope, it was that Lady Rose would not speak of him. She could bear anything but that."Poor Ruth! How ill—how miserably ill you look," said the lady, taking the hot hands that seemed to avoid her with a sudden clasp. "Death, even a father's death, cannot have done all this."Ruth shook her head sorrowfully."My father—I have almost forgotten him."Lady Rose scarcely heeded this mournful confession; but drew the girl down upon the sofa, unconsciously grasping her hands till they would have made her cry out with pain at another time."Ruth, I have seen Storms, a man you know of. I met him in the wilderness. He told me—""He told youthat!" exclaimed Ruth, aroused to new pangs of distress. "And you believed him?""Oh, Ruth, he has your father's letter. We could laugh his proof to scorn, but for that.""Still, I do not believe it," said Ruth, kindling into vitality again. "It was my father's letter. I carried it, not knowing what was written. My poor father believed it, no doubt; but I do not.""Nor do I," said Lady Rose. "Nothing can make me believe it!"Ruth threw herself at the young lady's feet, and clung to her in passionate gratitude."Get up, Ruth!" said Lady Rose. "Be strong, be magnanimous, for you alone can save Walton Hurst's life."The girl got up obediently, but seemed turning to marble as she did so; for she guessed at the impossibility that would be demanded of her."I? How?" she questioned, in a hoarse whisper. "How?""You and I. It rests with us."Ruth breathed heavily."You and I!""This wretch—forgive me—this man, Storms, wants two things—land and gold. These I can give him, and will.""Yes, yes.""But he wants something else which I cannot give, and on that all the rest depends."Ruth did not speak. She grew cold again."He wants you, Ruth."No word, not even a movement of the lip answered this."He says," continued Lady Rose, "that you love him; that you are, of your own free will, pledged to him.""It is false!"The words startled Lady Rose."Oh, Ruth, do not say that. We have no other hope.""But he, Walton Hurst I mean, is innocent. You know it—I know it.""But this man holds the proof that would cost his life, false or true. It is in his hands, and we cannot wrest it from them.""Is this true, Lady Rose?""Fatally, fearfully true; God help us! Oh, Ruth, why do you hesitate to save him?""I do not hesitate!""You will rescue him from this terrible accusation? You will complete the engagement, and get that awful letter? To think that he is in this great danger, and does not know it! To think that his salvation lies in our hands. What I can do is nothing. It will be you that saves him.""I cannot! I cannot!""Ruth Jessup! You refuse? You have the power to save him, and will not?""God help me! God help me, I cannot do it."Lady Rose turned away from the girl haughtily, angrily."And I could think that she loved Walton Hurst," she said, in bitterness of heart."Oh, do not, do not condemn me. If you only knew—if you only knew," cried Ruth, wringing her hands in wild desperation."I know that you could save him from death, and his whole family from dishonor, and will not. That is enough. I will importune you no longer. Had it been me, I, the daughter of an earl, would have wedded that man, yes—though he were twice the fiend he is—rather than let this thunderbolt fall on a noble house, on as brave and true a man as ever lived.""He is brave, he is true, and you are his peer. You are worthy of him, heart and soul, and I am not. But you might pity me a little, because I cannot do what would save him.""Because you are incapable of a great sacrifice. Well, I do pity you. As for me, I would die rather than he should even know of the peril that threatens him.""Die? Die?"A sudden illumination swept the white face of Ruth Jessup. Her eyes took fire, her breath rose in quick gasps, out of which came those two words. Then another question—would a death save him?"If my death could do it, I need not have come to you," answered Lady Rose, proudly."True, true, I can see that. Do not think so hardly of me. I am not born to bravery, as you are. My father was only a poor gardener. When great sacrifices are asked of me, I may want a little time. You should not be angry with me for that."Lady Rose turned eagerly."You relent. You have a heart, then?""Yes, yes, I will save him. In another week his path and yours shall be clear and bright."Mine? Mine? No, no! Can you think I do not understand all that you meditate, all that you may suffer in a marriage with this man? I spoke of dying. Theself-abnegation you promise is a thousand times worse than death. Ruth Jessup, I envy you the power of so grand a sacrifice: I could make it as you will; and you could give up everything, taking no share in the future as I will. When this cloud is swept from 'Norston's Rest,' I leave it forever."Excitement had kept Lady Rose proud and strong till now; but in place of this a great swell of pity, and self-pity, filled her heart. Reaching out her arms, she drew Ruth into them, and wept passionately on her shoulder, murmuring thanks, endearments, and tender compassion in wild and broken snatches.As for Ruth, she had become the strongest of the two, and, in her gentle way, strove to comfort the lady, who stood upright after a while, and, pushing the young orphan from her, searched her face, as if to make sure of her firmness."How calm, how still you look, girl! Tell me again that you will not fail.""I will not fail.""But you will let me do something. We shall both go away from here, you to a new home, far from this; a pretty home, Ruth, and I to an estate very near, where we will be such friends as the world never saw. This hour has made us so. That which you are doing for him I will help you to endure."Ruth smiled very sadly. Lady Rose kissed her, preparing to go."How cold your lips are! how I have made you suffer!" she said, drawing back, chilled."It will not last," answered Ruth, quietly. "Take no further trouble about me. I have not felt so much at rest since my father died.""If I only knew how to thank you.""I should thank you for pointing out the way; but for that I might never have known," answered Ruth, gently."You will have saved him, and he will never know. That seems hard; still, there may come a time—But, you are growing pale again; I only pain you. Good-by, for a while.""Good-by," said Ruth, faintly.
LOVE AND HATE.
RUTHdid sleep long and profoundly. A stone had been rolled from her heart, and the solemn rest of subsiding grief fell upon her. Early in the morning she arose and went down-stairs, feeling, for the first time for days, a keen want of food. There was no fire in the house: gray ashes on the hearth, a few blackened embers, and nothing more. The house was very lonely to her that bright morning, for the shutters had kept it in gloomy twilight since the funeral, and she had not heeded the semi-darkness, having so much of it in her own soul.
"He has forgiven me. He knows," she thought, with a deep, deep sigh, "there is no reason why his child should cower in darkness now, and he loved the light."
Ruth pushed open the shutters, and almost smiled as a burst of sunshine came streaming in through the ivy, embroidering the floor all around her with flecks of silver.
"Yes," she thought, "he loved the light, and it is so beautiful now, I will have some breakfast. It seems strange to be hungry."
Ruth opened a cupboard, and took from it some fruit, a biscuit, and a cup of milk. While she had been lost in the darkness, some kind hand had placed these things where she would be sure to find them when a craving for food made itself felt through her grief. She became conscious of this kindness, and her eyes filled with softer tears than she had shed for many a day. After spreading the little table with a white cloth, Ruth sat down near the window, and began to drop the berries, which some pitying child had brought her, into the milk. Just as the old china bowl was full, and she had taken up her spoon, a black shadow came against the window, shutting out all the silvery rain of light, and looking up, with a start, the girl saw Richard Storms leaning into the room.
Ruth dropped her spoon, both hands fell into her lap, and there she sat stupefied, gazing at him as a fascinated bird looks into the glittering eyes of a snake. There had been no color in her face from the first, but a deeper pallor spread over it, and her lips grew ashen.
"I would have come before, as was the duty of a man when his sweetheart was in trouble," said Storms; "but the house seemed empty. This morning I saw a shutter open, and came."
"What did you come for? Why will you torment me so?" said Ruth, hoarse with dread.
"Torment! As if the sight of one's own true love ever did that, especially when he comes to comfort one. Mother, who is so anxious to have you for a daughter, sent me."
"You cannot comfort any one against her will," said Ruth, striving to appear calm. "As for me, I only want to be left alone!"
"As if any man, with a heart in his bosom, could do that; especially one so fond of you as I am," answered Storms; "besides, I have a fear that you may not always want to be alone. Last night, for instance!"
Ruth had for a moment rested her hands on the table, resolved to be brave; but they fell downward, and were wrung together in a spasm of distress.
The fiend at the casement saw this and smiled.
"Nay, do not let me keep you from breakfast. I love to see you eat. Many a day you and I have plucked berries together. It won't be the first time I have seen your pretty mouth red with them."
Ruth pushed the bowl of fruited milk away from her.
"I cannot eat," she said, desperately. "Your presence kills hunger and everything else. Cannot you understand how hateful it is to me? Leave that window! You block out all the pure light of heaven!"
"I will," answered Storms, with a bitter laugh. "You shall have all the light you want," and, resting his hand on the window-sill, he leaped into the room.
"Audacious!" cried Ruth, starting up, while a flash of anger shot across her face as scarlet sunset stains a snow bank.
"While girls are so tantalizingly coy, men will be audacious," said Storms, attempting to draw her toward him. "And they like us all the better for it. Shilly-shallying won't do when a man is in earnest."
"Leave me! Leave the house!" commanded Ruth, drawing back from his approach.
Any one who had seen the girl then would have thought her a fit chatelaine for the stately "Old Rest," or any other proud mansion of England.
"Not yet. Not till I have told you where you stand,and what danger lies in a storm of rage like this. It makes you beautiful enough for a queen, but you must not dare to practise your grand airs on me. I won't have them! Do you understand that, my lass? I won't have them! Come here and kiss me. That is what I mean to have."
"Wretch!"
"Go on, but don't forget that every word has got to be paid for on your knees. I can afford to offer kisses now, because you are pretty enough to make any man stoop a bit. But wait a while, and you shall come a begging for them, and then it'll be as I choose."
Ruth did not speak, but a look of such disgustful scorn came over her face that it abashed even his insolence. He made an effort to laugh off the confusion into which that look had thrown him.
HUNTED DOWN.
YOUdon't believe me! You think to escape, or put me down with these fine-lady airs. Perhaps you mean to complain to the young man up yonder, and set him to worrying me again. Try that—only try it! I ask nothing better. Let him interfere with me if he dares. Have you nothing to say?"
"Nothing!" answered Ruth, with quiet dignity, for contempt had conquered all the terror in her.
"Nothing! Then I will make you speak, understandthis. You cannot put me down. No one can do that. Father and son, I am the master of them all!"
"Go!" said Ruth, wearied with his bombastic threats, for such she considered them. "Go!"
"Go! Do I frighten you?"
"You weary me—that is all."
"Then you do not believe what I say?"
"No!"
"You think the young man up yonder everything that is good."
"Yes!"
"Well, I think—But no matter. You will soon learn more than you want to hear. This is enough. I can tear the Hurst pride up by the roots. I can make them hide their faces in the dust, and I will, if you drive me to it."
"I?"
"Yes, you! It all depends on you. That young fellow's blood will be on your own head if I am brought to strike him down!"
"His blood on my head! His! Are you mad, or only fiendish, Richard Storms?"
"This is what I am, Ruth Jessup—the man who can prove who killed your father. The man who can hang your sweetheart on the highest gallows ever built in England. That is what I am, and what I will do, if you ever speak to him again."
"You! You!"
It was all the poor girl could say, this awful threat came on her so suddenly.
"You believe me. You would give the world not to believe me, but you do. Well, instead of the world you shall give me yourself. I want you enough to give uprevenge for your sake. Isn't that love? I want you because of your obstinacy, which I mean to break down, day by day, till you are humble enough."
Ruth smiled scornfully. She had been so often terrified by such language that it had lost its force.
"I do not believe you," she said. "Would not believe an angel, if he dared to say so much."
"Will you believe your father's own handwriting?"
Storms took from an inner pocket of his vest a folded letter. Ruth knew it in an instant. It was the letter she had placed in her husband's hand that day when she saw him for one moment asleep in his chamber at "The Rest."
"Ha! ha! You turn white without reading it! You guess what it is. The handwriting is large enough to read at a safe distance. Make it out for yourself."
Ruth fastened her burning eyes on the paper, which he unfolded and held between his two hands, so near that she could make out the great crude letters; but it was beyond her reach had she attempted to possess herself of it, which he seemed to fear.
"Does that mean anything? Is that a confession?"
Ruth did not answer, but dropped into a chair, faint and white, still gazing on the paper.
"Do you want more proof? Well, I can give it you, for I saw the thing done. Do you want the particulars?"
"No! no! Spare me!" cried the poor girl, lifting both hands.
"Of course, I mean to spare you. One doesn't torment his wife till he gets her!"
"Spare him!" pleaded the poor girl. "Never mind me, but spare him. He has never harmed you."
"Never harmed me! Who was it that he hurled, like a dog, from that very door? Whose sweetheart was it that he stole? Never harmed me! Spare him! That is for you to do. No one else on this earth can spare him!"
"But how?"
The words trembled, coldly, from her white lips.
"How? By marrying the man you were promised to."
A faint moan was her only answer.
"By carrying out your murdered father's bargain. That is the only way. Shudder down, twist and wind as you will, that is the only way."
Ruth shook her head. She could not speak.
"I have got some matter to settle with Sir Noel, for you are only half my price. There must be land and gold thrown in on his part, a wedding on yours, before I promise to hold my tongue, or give up this paper. Love, money, or vengeance. These are my terms. He takes it hard—so do you, quaking like a wounded hare in its form. The sight of it does me good. Gold, land, the prettiest wife on this side of England, who shall give me a taste of vengeance, too, before I have done with her. All these things I mean to enjoy to the full."
Still Ruth did not utter a word. The horror in her position struck the power of speech from her.
"I see. Nothing but love for this murderer could make your face so white. Nothing but hate of me could fill your eyes with such frightened loathing. But I mean to change all that, before you have been my wife a twelvemonth. Only remember this: you must never see Walton Hurst again—never. I shall keep watch. If you look at him, if you speak to him before we are wedded, I will give him up to the law that hour. If heever crosses my path after that, I shall know how to make my wife suffer."
Still Ruth did not speak.
"You know my terms, now. The moment Sir Noel signs the deeds I'm getting ready, he seals my lips. When our marriage certificate is signed, I give up this paper. Then there is nothing for us but love or hate. I have a taste for both. Come, now, say which it shall be."
While he was speaking, Storms had drawn close to the chair on which Ruth sat, still and passive. With the last audacious words on his lips, he stooped down, pressed them to hers, and started back, for they had met the coldness of snow.
"Fainting again? I will soon cure her of these tricks," he muttered, looking down into the still, white face he had desecrated with a kiss. "Well, she knows what to depend on now, and can take her own time for coming to. I only hope Sir Noel will be as easily settled; but he fights hard. I half wish he would say no, that I might pull him down to his knees. It would be rare sport. Only I'd rather take revenge on the young master. That comes with the wife, and the old baronet's money thrown in."
With these thoughts weaving in and out of his brain, Storms left the house, for he had no hesitation in leaving that poor girl to recover from her dead insensibility alone. It was perhaps the only mercy he could have awarded her.
STORMS AND LADY ROSE.
STORMSreturned home, triumphing in his success over that helpless girl, and confident that Sir Noel would accept his terms at last, haughtily as he had been dismissed from the house. All the next day he remained at home, expecting some message from the baronet, but none came. On the second day anxiety overcame his patience, and he set out for "The Rest," determined to push his object to the utmost, and, instead of vague insinuations, lay his whole proof before the baronet.
With all his audacity and low cunning, this man—a dastard at heart—was thinking how he might evade this interview, and yet obtain its anticipated results, as he came slowly through the wilderness. All at once he stopped, and a sudden flash shot across his face.
"The Lady Rose, the woman Sir Noel has chosen for his son's wife, she has access to him always. Her entreaties will touch his heart, and break down his pride. There she is among the great standard roses. Proud and dainty lady as she is, I will set her to work for me. By heavens, she comes this way!"
The young man was right. That young lady came out from among her sister roses, and turned toward the wilderness, in whose shadows Storms was lurking. She wanted some tender young ferns to complete a bouquet intended for the little sitting-room that Walton was sure to visit during the morning.
As Lady Rose was moving down the shaded path with that slow, graceful motion which was but the inheritanceof her birth, she seemed to be whispering something to the flowers in her hand. Once she paused and kissed them, smiling softly, as their perfume floated across her face like an answering caress. She was stooping to rob a delicate species of fern of its tenderest shoots, when Storms flung his shadow across her path.
The lady arose, with a faint start, and gazed at the man quietly as one waits for an inferior to speak. With all his audacity, the young man hesitated under that look of gentle pride.
"Did you wish to ask something?" she said, at length, remarking his hesitation.
The sound of her voice emboldened him, but he spoke respectfully, taking off his hat.
"No, Lady Rose, I want nothing. But I can tell you that which it is perhaps best that you should know."
"Is it of the wedding? Is it of Ruth you would speak?"
"Of her, and of others, nearer and dearer to you than, she ever was, or can be, Lady Rose."
The soft flush of color, that was natural to that lovely face, deepened to a rich carnation, and then to scarlet.
"I do not understand!"
"I am wanting to speak of Walton Hurst, the heir of 'Norston's Rest.'"
"And what of him? Nothing serious can have happened since I saw him," said Lady Rose, at first with a swift, anxious glance; then she smiled at her own fright; for half an hour before she had seen Hurst walking upon the terrace.
"Lady Rose, have you seen Sir Noel this morning?"
"Sir Noel! Why, no. He breakfasted earlier than the rest, or in his room."
"That is it. He is in trouble, and would not let you see it in his face."
"In trouble! Sir Noel!"
"He has heard bad news."
"Bad news! How? Where did it come from?"
"I took it to him, lady. It has been a burden on my conscience too long. The murder of a man is no light thing to bear."
"The murder of a man!" repeated Lady Rose, horrified.
"I speak of William Jessup, whom we buried yesterday, and who was murdered in the park, one night, by Walton Hurst." Storms spoke with slow impressiveness, while Lady Rose stood before him with blanched lips and widely distended eyes.
"Murdered in the park by Walton Hurst! Man, are you mad?"
"Lady, I saw the shot fired. I saw the gun twisted from the murderer's hands, and the stock hurled at his head before the old man fell. He was found lying across the path lifeless, the brain contused, while Jessup lay shot through the lungs a little way off, where he had dropped after that one spasm of strength."
"You saw all this with your own eyes?"
"I saw it all, but would never have spoken, had the old man lived. Now that he is dead—"
"You would have another life—his life!"
"Do not tremble so, lady! Do not look upon me as if a wild beast were creeping toward you. I want no man's life—"
"Ah!"
"Though the young master up yonder has wronged me."
"Wronged you? Walton Hurst wronged you? Impossible!"
"Yes, me! I was engaged to wed old Jessup's daughter. It was a settled thing. She loved me!"
"Well?"
"But the young master stepped in!"
"I do not believe it," cried the lady, with a disdainful lift of the head, though all the color had faded from her face. "No person on earth could make me believe it."
Storms allowed this outburst to pass by him, quietly, while he stood before the lady, hat in hand.
Then he spoke:
"Lady, it was this that caused the murder. The young master was in the cottage, as he had been many a time before that night, but this time Jessup was away in London. I was going there myself; saw him and her through the window, and turned back, not caring to go in, while he was there, though I thought no great harm of it—"
"There was no harm. I will stake my word, my life, my very soul; there was no harm in it," cried Lady Rose. "If an honorable man lives, it is Walton Hurst."
"It may be, lady. I do not dispute it. But perhaps old Jessup thought otherwise. I do not know. There must have been hard words when he came in and found those two in company, for in a few minutes the young gentleman came dashing through the porch with a gun in his hand. He may have been out shooting and stopped at the cottage on his way home. I cannot tell that; but he came out with a gun in his hand; then Jessup followed, muttering to himself, and overtook the young master just as he got under the shadow of the great cedar of Lebanon. Some hot words passed there. I could not hear them distinctly, for they were muffled with rage; but I came up just in time to see Walton Hurst level hisgun and fire. Then Jessup leaped out from the shadows, wrenched the gun from the hand that had fired it, and, turning it like a club, knocked Hurst down with it. This was done in the moonlight. I saw it all. Then Jessup dropped the gun, staggered backward into the darkness of the cedar, and fell. They were found so—one lying in the blackness cast down by the cedar branches, the other with his face to the sky, as he had been thrown across the path where the moonlight shone."
"Ah, yes, I remember—I remember," moaned Lady Rose. "He looked so white and cold; we thought he was dead."
"She was there. She went to the young man first. I marked that. Her father lay in the shadows bleeding to death, but she went to the young man first."
"She did. I remember it," flashed through the brain of Lady Rose. But she said, bravely, "It was nothing. He lay in the light, and she saw him first. It was natural."
"I thought so afterward. She was my sweetheart, lady, and I was glad to believe it," answered Storms, who had no wish to excite the lady's jealousy beyond a certain point; "but after that, she grew cold to me. How could I help thinking it was because his kindness had turned her head a little?"
"Kindness! Perhaps so. We have all been kind to Ruth. It is well you charge my guardian's son with nothing but kindness. Anything else would have been dishonor, you know, and it would offend me if you charged that upon him."
"Lady, I charge him with nothing, save the murder of William Jessup."
"But that is impossible. You can make no one believe it. I wonder you will insist on the wild story."
It was true Lady Rose really could not take in this idea of murder—it was too horrible for reality. She put it aside as an incomprehensible dream.
"I saw it," persisted Storms, staggered by her persistent unbelief.
"Oh, I have dreamed such things, and they seemed very real," answered the lady, with a slight wave of the hand.
THE PRICE OF A LIFE.
LADY, I have other proof. Read that. Perhaps you have seen William Jessup's writing. Read that."
Lady Rose took the letter and read it. Now, indeed, her cheek did blanch, and her blue eyes widened with horror.
"This is strange," she said, growing whiter and whiter. "Strange, but impossible—quite impossible!"
"Coupled with my evidence, it is enough to hang any man in England," said Storms, reaching out his hand for the paper, which she returned to him in a dazed sort of dream.
"What do you want, young man? How do you mean to use this letter?"
"I have told Sir Noel what I mean, Lady Rose. I am a poor man, he is a rich one. I only asked a little of his wealth in exchange for his son's life."
"Well?"
"He would not listen to me. He ordered me from the house. He tried not to believe me, so tough is his pride. It might have been disbelief; it might have been rage that made him so white; but he looked like a marble man, face, neck, and hands. That was after the first hint. He gave me no chance to tell the whole, though I had this letter in my pocket."
"Then you gave him no proof?" questioned Lady Rose, eagerly.
"Proof? He did not wait for that. No dog was ever ordered from a door as I was. But he shall have the letter; he shall hear all that I have told you. Then he will come to terms."
"He never will!" murmured Lady Rose. "Not even to save his son's life!"
This was said under the lady's breath.
"And if he does not?" she questioned. "If he refuses to pay your price?"
"Then Sir Noel cannot expect me to be more merciful to his son than he is."
"What is it—tell me exactly—what is it you demand for your silence, and that paper?"
Storms took a folded sheet of foolscap from his pocket, and handed it to Lady Rose, who made an attempt to read it, but her hand shook so violently that the lines mingled together, like seaweed on a wave.
"I cannot read it; tell me."
Storms took the paper which he had prepared for Sir Noel, and read it aloud. His hand was firm enough; the agitation that shook the frame of that brave, beautiful girl, reassured him. He was certain of her influence with Sir Noel.
"Land, free hunting, the house of a gentleman. Iwonder he asks so little. Does he know what a life like that is worth to us?" she thought.
"There is one thing more," said Storms. "Those things I demand for my silence. The paper I only give up when Ruth Jessup is my wife."
Lady Rose seemed to waive the subject aside as an after-consideration.
"Land and house," she said, drawing a deep breath, as if some idea had become a resolution in her mind. "Tell me, must they be in this county?"
"If Sir Noel had land in another part of England I should like it better. One might set up for a gentleman with more success among strangers," was the cool reply.
"I can give you all these things in a part of England where you have never been heard of," said the lady. "Only remember this: there must be no more appeals to Sir Noel. He must never see that paper. It must never be mentioned again to any human being. That is my condition."
"But, lady, can you make this certain? Sir Noel is your guardian."
"Not as regards this property. Have no fear, I promise it."
"And Ruth—Ruth Jessup? Without her all this goes for nothing."
"Ah, if, as you say, she loves you, that is easy. To a woman who loves, all things are possible."
"She did love me once," muttered Storms, beginning to lose heart.
"Then she loves you yet. Ruth is an honest girl, and with such change is impossible. To love once is to love forever; knowing her, you ought to be sure of this. Besides, it is understood that she is promised to you."
"She is promised to me," answered Storms, with some show of doubt, "and if it had not been—"
The young man broke off. The blue eyes of Lady Rose were fixed on him with such shrinking wistfulness that he changed the form of his speech.
"If it had not been for the hurt her father got, we might have been wedded before now."
A pang of conscience came over Lady Rose when she thought of pretty Ruth Jessup as the wife of this man who was even then trading on the life of a fellow-being. But a course of reasoning, perhaps unconsciously selfish, blinded her to the misery she might bring on that young creature, should it chance that the union was distasteful to her. She even made the property, with which the bridegroom would be endowed, a reason for wishing the marriage. "Ruth is such a sweet little lady," she reasoned, "that the life of a man who worked on his own grounds would be coarse and rude to her. In some sort we are giving her the place of a gentlewoman. Besides, she must love the man. Everything goes to prove that—their walks in the park, his own word. Yes, I am doing good to her. It is a benefaction, not a bribe."
All these thoughts passed through the mind of Lady Rose swiftly, and with a degree of confusion that baffled her clear judgment. Having resolved to redeem the good name of her guardian's son on any terms, she sought to reconcile those terms with the fine sense of honor that distinguished her above most women.
"Remember," she said, with dignity, "I will give you the property you demand, partly for the benefit of Ruth Jessup, and partly because I would save my guardian from annoyance. Not that I for one moment believe the horrid thing you have told me. I know it to be an impossibility."
"The courts will think their own way about that," answered Storms. "An honest man's oath, backed with this letter, will be tough things to explain there."
"It is because they are difficult to explain that I have listened to you for a moment," said Lady Rose. "For twice the reward you demand, I would not have a suspicion thrown on my guardian's son. Of any more serious evil I have no fear."
"Well, my lady, take it your own way, believe what you like. So long as I get the property, and the wife I want, we won't quarrel about what they are given for. Only both those things I am bound to have."
"But I cannot force Ruth Jessup to marry any man," said Lady Rose.
"All the same. It is your business now to see that she keeps to her old bargain. Or all we have agreed upon goes for nothing."
The man was getting more familiar, as this conversation went on. The sensitive pride of the young lady was aroused by his growing demands, and she dismissed him, almost haughtily.
"Go now," she said. "I will think of a safe method by which this transfer can be made. In a day or two I will see you again. Till then be silent, and prepare yourself to deliver up that paper."
"But Ruth Jessup. What of her?"
"I will see Ruth. She has a kind heart. I will see Ruth."
"Then good-day, my lady. You shall see that I know how to hold my tongue, and remember kindness too! Good-day, my lady."
Lady Rose watched the young man as he glided off through the wilderness, with flashing eyes and risingcolor. Up to this time she had held her feelings under firm control. Now terror, loathing, and haughty scorn kindled up the soft beauty of her face into something grandly strange.
"Slanderer! Wretch! The lands I do not care for. But that I should be compelled to urge pretty Ruth Jessup on a creature like that. Can she love him? I will go at once, or loathing of the task will keep me back forever."
JUDITH'S RETURN.
THEpoor father, whom Judith Hart had so cruelly abandoned, sat alone in the old house, patient in his broken-heartedness and more poverty-stricken than ever. He had no neighbors near enough to drop in upon his solitude, and all wish for reading had left him, with the thankless girl he had worshipped.
When he came home and found himself alone in the saddest of all sad hours, that in which a day passes into eternity with the sun, his desolation was complete. It was something, when the cow he had petted into loving tameness would come to the garden wall, and look at him with her soft intelligent eyes, as if she knew of his sorrow and longed to share it with him. Sometimes he would go out and talk to her as if she possessed human sensibility—gather grass and wild flowers, and caress the animal's neck as she licked them from his hands.
He was sitting thus lonely at the window betweentwilight and dark, when the figure of a woman came walking down the lane, that made the almost dead pulses of his heart stir rapidly. It was so like Judith, the free movement, the very poise of her head. The resemblance almost made him cry out. But, no, he had been mistaken before. The dusk was gathering. It must be some neighboring woman come to chat a moment with him. Some of the old friends were kind enough for that now and then when Judith was at home.
No, no—it was Judith. He could see her face now. She was smiling, and waved one hand; in the other she carried a bundle which did not trouble her with its weight, she was so young and strong—Judith, his daughter, come back again.
The old man got up from the window and went into the porch, holding out his arms.
"Judith! Judith! Oh, my child! my child!" She came up with breathless speed, flung her bundle down on the porch, and clasped the old man in her arms.
"So you have missed me, father? Take that and that for loving me so."
She kissed his face, and shook both his hands with emphasis; then turned about, crossed the yard and patted the cow on its forehead.
"There, now, that I have got all the welcome there is for me, let's go in and strike a light. How dark you are!"
Directly the girl had a match flaring and a candle lighted.
"There," she said, "I will bring another bowl and we will have supper; there is porridge enough for two."
There was enough for two, though one had the greatest portion, for joy took away the old man's appetite. Itwas enough for him that he could sit there with a spoon in his hand, gazing at her. There was not much conversation during this meal. The timid old man asked few questions, and Judith only said that she had been in a servant's place away up the railroad, and had brought home her wages, or most of them.
The girl had every penny that she had earned in her bosom, and gave it to the old man that night. She had walked all the way from "Norston's Rest," that the little sum might be worth giving. So the old man was happy that night, and after Judith had carried her bundle, in which was the red garment Storms had given her, up-stairs, he was on his knees by the unmade bed, in his little room, with a prayer of humble thanksgiving on his lips, and tears streaming down his face like rain.
The next day Judith took up her household work with unusual energy. It was her only resource from the excitement of hopes and fears that possessed her. The love that had tempted her from home was absorbing as ever; but doubts and fears strong as the love tormented her continually. Even at the last moment she had hesitated to leave the neighborhood of "Norston's Rest." There had been something in Storms' manner that made her distrust him.
But she would wait patiently. That was her promise. In three days he had pledged himself to see her. If he failed, if he was mocking her, why, then—
Judith turned away from the subject here. That which might follow was more than she dared think of.
I have said that the girl was not all evil—indeed what human being is? She loved this man Storms, with all the passion of an ardent, ill-regulated nature. Heedless, selfish, nay, to a certain extent, wicked, she might be; but deliberate cruelty of action was repulsive to her—that of speech had its origin in the jealousy which tormented her more than any one else.
Judith understood well enough that the paper she had given to Storms might cause great trouble to Sir Noel Hurst, but her ideas of the rights of property were very crude, and she could see no reason why that should not be used to win a portion of the baronet's great wealth, for the benefit of her lover. "Why should one man be so enormously rich without labor," she reasoned, "and another win the bare necessities of life by incessant toil?" Judith had gathered these ideas from her lover, and dwelt upon them in extenuation of her fault, when she joined him in a conspiracy to wring wealth from the proud old man at "Norston's Rest."
After her return home, the destitution of her father gave a new impulse to this levelling idea. She began to look on him as a victim to the injustice of society, and persuaded herself that in the advancement of her lover's projects she would lift him out of this miserable existence.
It was with difficulty that Judith kept silent, on this subject. She longed to cheer and astonish the old man by the brilliancy of her projects, but Storms had forbidden this, and she dared not disobey him.
On the third day, this hoping and longing became greatly intensified. It seemed to her as if each hour had lengthened into a year. She was constantly examining the face of that old brass clock, and reviling it in her heart because the hands went round so slowly.
When her father came in, his presence was more than she could bear. Forced to energetic action by her own unrest, she had prepared his supper early and after that sent him down to the village, that he might not detect the fever of her impatience.
Twice she went down to the orchard wall and came back, disappointed that no one was in sight; though she knew that Storms would not be there until his approach could be covered by the evening shadows.
At last she sat down by a window that looked toward the orchard, resolved to wait. Thus she watched the sunset, while its crimson melted into purple, through which the stars began to shine. A strange, keen light was in her face, and her eyes had the glitter of diamonds when the first star came out. Then, and not till then, she lighted a lamp.
All was still in the house. Far back in the room the lamp was turned down, shedding a faint light, such as a clouded moon might throw, around the table on which it stood, but leaving those pleasant shadows we love in a summer's night everywhere else. Storms would not enter the orchard until he had seen that light. It was the old signal that they both understood.
Scarcely had this faint illumination brightened the room, when Judith saw something flutter above the wall, as if a great bird had settled there and was ready to fly again. She leaped to her feet, snatched up a shawl that had been laid across a chair in readiness, and hurried through the back door, folding the drapery around her as she went.
ON THE PRECIPICE.
RICHARD STORMSwas there, leaning against the wall. He reached out his hand to help her over—an attention that made the heart leap in her bosom.
"Oh, Richard, I am so glad that you have come," she exclaimed, clinging fondly to his arm.
"Hush," he said, "wait till we get farther from the house. The old man will hear us."
"No, no. He is down in the village. I sent him away."
This was what Storms wished to learn, but in his subtle craft he would not ask the question directly.
"He knows nothing—you have not told him that I might be here?" he questioned.
"Not a word."
"That is wise. He might be talking to the neighbors and set them clamoring at you again. I shouldn't like that, just as everything is coming right with us."
"There's no danger of that; he speaks to no one—poor old man. The neighbors know nothing about my leaving home; he felt it too much for talking."
"Of course, and you got back safely?"
"Oh, yes. How good of you to ask! But you have something to tell me."
"Let us walk farther on," said Storms, passing his arm around the girl's waist.
Thus persuasive in his speech and unusually affectionate in manner, Storms led the girl down the orchard path. Once under the old apple tree where their laststormy interview had taken place, he paused and leaned against the trunk, while she stood before him, waiting for the information he had brought with some impatience; for, with all his strange gentleness, few words had been spoken on the way.
"Well," she said, "have you brought no news—good or bad? Have you seen Sir Noel?"
"No."
"No! Why not? Afraid to go on, were you?"
"Afraid? You, Judith, ought to know me better than that. I found an easier way of getting what I want. Women, after all, are safest to deal with. Instead of a farm I shall have land in my own right."
"You will! You are sure; and I gave it to you!"
Storms made no reply to this exultant outburst, but went on counting over the benefits he had secured with tantalizing particularity.
"In one week from now, I shall be a rich landholder, with plenty of money in my pocket, and a house that any gentleman in England might be proud to take his lady into."
Judith's eyes flashed triumphantly.
"It was I who helped you to all this land, money, the grand house we shall live in. Oh, who ever thought that a bit of crumpled paper would do so much?"
Storms shrugged his shoulders, and prepared to walk onward.
Judith saw this, and her temper, always ready to take fire, kindled up.
"You lift your shoulders—you keep silent when I speak of the paper which brought all these grand things, as if you did not mean to give me credit for giving it to you."
"What would the paper have been without a shrewd man to use it? Besides, you found it in the bushes where any other person might have picked it up."
Judith felt a strange choking in her throat.
"What does this mean, Richard Storms?"
"Mean? why, nothing. Only it is getting stormy here. When you lift your voice in that way, it might be heard from the house. Walk on; you have nothing to flare up about."
There was something in the man's voice that would have warned Judith, but for her own rising temper. As it was, she walked toward the precipice, sometimes keeping ahead, and looking back at him over her shoulder. He certainly looked pale in the moonlight.
"Now, Richard, what is the meaning of this offish talk? Is it that you want to get rid of your promise, with all these twistings and turnings?"
When Judith put this question, she had halted close by the brink of the precipice and turned around, facing the young man, who came up more slowly.
Storms attempted to laugh, but he was too hoarse for that.
"I haven't said a word about being off; but, if I had, all this temper wouldn't hold me back. What should hinder me doing as I please? The paper was as much mine as yours."
"What should hinder you, Dick Storms? Don't ask me that. I do not want to talk about the things I saw, that night."
Judith stood close to the precipice as she said this, between the very edge and Storms, who strode forward till his white sinister face was close to hers.
"You saw what? No more hints, I am tired of them. You saw what?"
"I will not talk about it here. When I do speak, it will be to Sir Noel Hurst," answered the girl, bravely.
"Sir Noel Hurst will be very likely to believe you against my oath, and the paper signed by Jessup himself."
"The paper that I gave you, fool that I was!"
"Exactly, if you could not trust me."
"I did trust you—I did shield you. I gave you the paper. I kept still as the grave about what I saw that night."
"Still as the grave—there is no stillness like that," said the man, in a voice so hoarse and strange that Judith instinctively attempted to draw sideway from her perilous position.
But Storms changed as she did, still with his face to hers, pressing her toward the edge.
"If I kept back another paper, it was because I meant to give it you on our wedding day, and prove how much a poor girl could do toward saving the man she loved from—"
"From what?" questioned Storms, throwing his arm around the girl and drawing her back from the precipice, as if he had for the first time seen her danger. "Of what are you speaking, Judith?"
"Of a paper I found in the dress that was taken off William Jessup after he died, which makes the one I gave you of no worth at all."
"You have such a paper, and kept it back?" The man absolutely threw a tone of tender reproach into a voice that had been cold as ice and bitter as gall a minute before. "Let me read it; the moonlight is strong enough."
"It is not with me. I have put it by in safe hiding, meaning to burn it before your face and pay you for the marriage lines with your life."
Storms drew the girl farther away from the precipice, for he feared to trust the instinct of destruction that had brought him there, and would not all at once be subdued. He felt that his own life was, for the time, bound up in hers, and absolutely shuddered as he thought of the fate from which a word had saved him and her.
For a time they walked back to the orchard in silent disturbance: she unconscious of the awful danger she had run; he pondering new schemes in his mind.
"Why will you always doubt me?" he said, at last.
"Because you force me to doubt," she answered, almost patiently, for the ebb-tide of her anger had set in.
"No; it is your own bad temper, which always drives me into teasing you. I have the license in my pocket, and came to settle everything."
"The license!"
At this word Judith turned her face to the moonlight, and Storms saw that his falsehood had done its work.
"While you have been doubting me," he said, with a look and tone of deep injury, "I have been upon my knees almost, persuading the old people to give up this Jessup girl, and take you in her place."
"And they have? Oh, Richard!"
"I came to set the day when you would come to the farm and stop a bit with the old mother."
"Ah!" said Judith, with tears in her eyes, "I cannot remember when I had a mother."
Storms lifted his hand impatiently. Even he shrunk from using the name of his kind old mother as a snare for the girl.
"You will say nothing of this to your father, or of my coming here at all. When we are wedded and ready to start for the new home, it will be a grand surprise for him."
"Shall we—oh, Richard, shall we take him with us?" cried Judith.
"That may be as you wish. I will not object."
"Oh, Richard, I would give up that horrible paper now if I had it with me!"
"No, let it rest until I can exchange it for the marriage lines; then it will be as much for your interest as mine that it should be made ashes of. But be sure and have it about you then."
"I will, I will. Only it is like putting a snake in my bosom when I hide it there."
"And that pretty dress. Leave nothing behind you. On the second day from this I will be at the nearest station. Meet me there, but mind that no one sees us speaking to each other."
"I will be careful."
"Good-night, then."
The girl looked at him wistfully, as if she expected something more; but Storms only reached out his hand. He was not quite a Judas, and did not kiss her.
SIR NOEL AND RUTH.
SIR NOEL HURSThad been left standing in his library, white and stately, like a man turned into marble. That one hideous word had struck him with the force of a blow. In the suppressed rage of the moment he had sent Storms from his presence, scarcely comprehending the charge he had made or the price forsecrecy that he demanded. Still, audacious and unbelievable as the man's charge was, it aroused reflections in the father's mind that had hardly taken form before. For months and months he had been vaguely uneasy about his son. With the keen perceptions of a man of the world, he had, without spying upon Walton, observed him anxiously. He knew that more of his time was spent about the gardener's cottage than seemed consistent with any interest he could have felt in William Jessup. He saw that the young daughter, whom he could with difficulty look upon as more than a child, was, in fact, a wonderfully beautiful girl. Beyond all this he perceived that, day by day, the young man drifted from his home, that the society of Lady Rose was almost abandoned, and that this fair young patrician drooped under the change.
On the night when the young man was found lying so deathly and still across the forest-path, these observations had deepened into grave anxiety. He became certain that some more dangerous feeling than he had been willing to believe must have drawn his son into the peril of his life. The anguish in Ruth's face; the piteous humility with which she shrunk from observation, alarmed him; for the girl had been, from her very infancy, a pet at the great house, and underneath all other anxiety was a feeling of paternal interest in her.
That some dispute had arisen, of which Ruth was the object, he had never doubted, and that both men had been injured in a rash contest seemed natural. All this was hard enough for a proud, sensitive man to bear in patience; but these apprehensions had been held in abeyance during his son's illness by deeper anxiety for his life, and now from sorrow over the death of a faithfulold servant, to whom every member of the family was attached.
All these perplexities and suspicions had been fearfully aroused by the charge and proposal of young Storms. Not that the baronet gave anything but a scornful dismissal of either from his mind, but his old anxieties were kindled anew, and he resolved to break at once the tie that had drawn his son so often to the cottage, or, at least, make himself master of its nature. Had young Hurst been out of danger from excitement, perhaps Sir Noel would have broken the subject to him; but he had carefully avoided it, fearing some evil effect during his illness, and now was cautious to give no sign of the uneasiness that possessed him. So, with the sting of a rude insult urging him on, he went to Jessup's cottage.
Ruth was lying in the little parlor, weak and helpless as a crushed flower, all her rich color gone, all the velvety softness of her eyes clouded. A man's step on the porch made her start, and listen. She had cause to dread such steps, and they terrified her. A knock, measured and gentle—what if it was her husband's? What if Storms was on the watch? He must not come in. That was to endanger more than his life. It was her hard task to say this. Ruth started up, crept to the door, and opened it, with trembling hands.
"Sir Noel!"
The name scarcely formed itself on her lips, when she shrunk back from the baronet's stern countenance, wondering what new sorrow was coming upon her.
Sir Noel had always liked the girl, and her sad bereavement awoke his compassion. Almost before she had spoken he felt the cruelty of his errand. It was impossibleto look into those eyes, and think ill of a creature so helpless and so beautiful. But the very loveliness that disarmed him had brought death to her own father, and threatened disgrace to his son. The plans he had formed for that son—the future advancement of his house—all were in peril, unless she could be removed from the young man's path. This must be done. Still he would deal gently with her.
Sir Noel had sought the cottage with a quickly-formed resolution to urge on the marriage of its inmate with the man who had exhibited some right to claim her; but as he stood on the threshold, with that young girl trembling before him, this thought took a form so hideous, that he almost hated himself for having formed it.
Ruth went into the little parlor, trembling with apprehension. Sir Noel followed her. Here his heart nearly failed him. He felt the cruelty of harassing her with new troubles, when sorrow lay so heavily upon her; but anxiety urged him on against his better nature.
"Poor child!" he said, gently. "I see that you have suffered; so young, too. It is hard!"
Ruth lifted her eyes to his face, as if wondering that any one—he, most of all—could pity her. Then she said, with touching sadness, "It is hard, and I am so tired."
"I too have had trouble," said the baronet. "For many days we feared that Walton—"
"I know! I know! He came near dying, like my father—the best father that ever lived."
Ruth spoke low and nervously. The presence of Walton's father filled her with apprehension. Yet she longed to fall at his feet, and implore him to forgive her.
"Ruth," said Sir Noel, seating the poor girl on thesofa, and taking both her hands in his, "Ruth, try and think that it is your father who asks you: and answer me from your soul. Does my son love you?"
A flash of hot scarlet swept that desolate face. The eyelids drooped over those startled eyes. Ruth tried to draw her hands away.
"Answer me, child."
He spoke very gently, so gently that she could not help answering.
"Yes," she said, in a soft whisper. "He loves me."
"And you?"
Ruth lifted her pleading eyes to his—those great, innocent eyes, and answered, humbly, "How could I help it?"
"How long is this since, Ruth?"
"I don't know. It seems to me always; but he knows best."
"But, my poor child, how do you expect this to end?"
"It is ended! oh, it is ended! I wish you would tell him so, Sir Noel. I must never, never see him again."
Ruth threw both arms over the end of the sofa, and, burying her face upon them, broke into a wild passion of sobs.
Sir Noel was touched by this helpless acquiescence. He bent over her sadly enough.
"No, Ruth, you never must see him again."
"I know it—I know it!"
"There is another who loves you," he said, shrinking from the idea of giving that girl to the crafty ruffian who had dared to threaten him. It seemed like an insult to his son thus to dispose of the creature that son had loved, and evidently respected; but he was not prepared for the wild outburst of anguish that followed hiswords. Ruth sprang to her feet, her eyes widening, her wet face contracted.
"You will not—you must not ask that of me. I will die first."
"Be it so. I will not urge you," answered the baronet, soothingly. "Only promise me never to see Walton again!"
"I must! I do! Oh, believe me! I never, never must see him again!"
"You must go away!"
"Oh, if I could—if I only could!"
"It must be, my poor child. Some place of refuge shall be found."
Ruth lifted her face with sudden interest.
"I will see that you are cared for. Only this my son must never know."
"He must never know," repeated the poor girl. "Only, if I should be dying, would there be danger then? Only when I am dying?"
"We will not think of that, Ruth."
"No. I dare not. It tempts one so; but the good God will not be so cruel as to let me live."
Sir Noel was surprised at this broken-hearted submission. He had come to the cottage prepared for resistance, perhaps rebellion, but not for this. No doubt of the girl's innocence, or of his son's honor, disturbed him now. But this only made his task the more difficult. She must be removed from the neighborhood. The honor of his house—the future of his son demanded it.
"I will go now, Ruth," he said, with great kindness; "but, remember, you will never want a comfort or a friend while I live. In a few days I will settle on some safe and pleasant home for you."
Ruth did not seem to hear him, though she was looking steadily in his face; but when he dropped her hand, she said, piteously, "You will tell him—you will let him know that it was for his sake?"
"After you are gone, he shall know everything, except where to find you."
Ruth sunk back on her seat, bowed her face drearily, and thus Sir Noel left her.
SHOWING THE WAY.
WHEREcould Ruth go? She had never been from home more than once or twice in her life. Her world was there lying about "The Rest"—her home in that cottage, where she was born, and her mother had died. She must leave it; of course, she must leave it, but how? To what place would Sir Noel Hurst send her? With that awful secret lying between her and Richard Storms, would she dare to go? He would avenge her absence on Hurst. She, no doubt, stood between him and the thing she shuddered to think of. What could she do?
All night long the poor child lay asking herself these questions. She had locked herself in with the darkness as the dusk came on, fearing that her husband might come—dreading to hear another step that filled her, soul and body, with loathing. She did hear a light tread on the turf, a gentle knock on the door, and fell to weeping onher pillow, with sobs that filled the whole desolate house. After these exhausting tears she slept a little, and when the daylight stole through the crevices of the shutters she turned from it, and lay with her face to the wall, wondering if she would live the day out.
There was no fire in the cottage that day—no food cooked or eaten. Ruth crept out from her room and lay down on the little sofa, faint and miserably helpless. The apathy of great suffering was upon her. She was hemmed in by darkness, and saw no way out.
Some time in the morning she heard a voice at the casement. A white hand was thrust through the ivy, and beat lightly on the glass.
"Let me in, Ruth! Oh, let me in. I must speak to you!"
It was Lady Rose, who had known little rest since her interview with Storms in the Wilderness. A ring of excitement was in her voice. The face which looked in through the ivy was wildly white.
Ruth arose and unlocked the door. She would rather have been alone in her misery; but what did it matter? If she had any hope, it was that Lady Rose would not speak of him. She could bear anything but that.
"Poor Ruth! How ill—how miserably ill you look," said the lady, taking the hot hands that seemed to avoid her with a sudden clasp. "Death, even a father's death, cannot have done all this."
Ruth shook her head sorrowfully.
"My father—I have almost forgotten him."
Lady Rose scarcely heeded this mournful confession; but drew the girl down upon the sofa, unconsciously grasping her hands till they would have made her cry out with pain at another time.
"Ruth, I have seen Storms, a man you know of. I met him in the wilderness. He told me—"
"He told youthat!" exclaimed Ruth, aroused to new pangs of distress. "And you believed him?"
"Oh, Ruth, he has your father's letter. We could laugh his proof to scorn, but for that."
"Still, I do not believe it," said Ruth, kindling into vitality again. "It was my father's letter. I carried it, not knowing what was written. My poor father believed it, no doubt; but I do not."
"Nor do I," said Lady Rose. "Nothing can make me believe it!"
Ruth threw herself at the young lady's feet, and clung to her in passionate gratitude.
"Get up, Ruth!" said Lady Rose. "Be strong, be magnanimous, for you alone can save Walton Hurst's life."
The girl got up obediently, but seemed turning to marble as she did so; for she guessed at the impossibility that would be demanded of her.
"I? How?" she questioned, in a hoarse whisper. "How?"
"You and I. It rests with us."
Ruth breathed heavily.
"You and I!"
"This wretch—forgive me—this man, Storms, wants two things—land and gold. These I can give him, and will."
"Yes, yes."
"But he wants something else which I cannot give, and on that all the rest depends."
Ruth did not speak. She grew cold again.
"He wants you, Ruth."
No word, not even a movement of the lip answered this.
"He says," continued Lady Rose, "that you love him; that you are, of your own free will, pledged to him."
"It is false!"
The words startled Lady Rose.
"Oh, Ruth, do not say that. We have no other hope."
"But he, Walton Hurst I mean, is innocent. You know it—I know it."
"But this man holds the proof that would cost his life, false or true. It is in his hands, and we cannot wrest it from them."
"Is this true, Lady Rose?"
"Fatally, fearfully true; God help us! Oh, Ruth, why do you hesitate to save him?"
"I do not hesitate!"
"You will rescue him from this terrible accusation? You will complete the engagement, and get that awful letter? To think that he is in this great danger, and does not know it! To think that his salvation lies in our hands. What I can do is nothing. It will be you that saves him."
"I cannot! I cannot!"
"Ruth Jessup! You refuse? You have the power to save him, and will not?"
"God help me! God help me, I cannot do it."
Lady Rose turned away from the girl haughtily, angrily.
"And I could think that she loved Walton Hurst," she said, in bitterness of heart.
"Oh, do not, do not condemn me. If you only knew—if you only knew," cried Ruth, wringing her hands in wild desperation.
"I know that you could save him from death, and his whole family from dishonor, and will not. That is enough. I will importune you no longer. Had it been me, I, the daughter of an earl, would have wedded that man, yes—though he were twice the fiend he is—rather than let this thunderbolt fall on a noble house, on as brave and true a man as ever lived."
"He is brave, he is true, and you are his peer. You are worthy of him, heart and soul, and I am not. But you might pity me a little, because I cannot do what would save him."
"Because you are incapable of a great sacrifice. Well, I do pity you. As for me, I would die rather than he should even know of the peril that threatens him."
"Die? Die?"
A sudden illumination swept the white face of Ruth Jessup. Her eyes took fire, her breath rose in quick gasps, out of which came those two words. Then another question—would a death save him?
"If my death could do it, I need not have come to you," answered Lady Rose, proudly.
"True, true, I can see that. Do not think so hardly of me. I am not born to bravery, as you are. My father was only a poor gardener. When great sacrifices are asked of me, I may want a little time. You should not be angry with me for that."
Lady Rose turned eagerly.
"You relent. You have a heart, then?"
"Yes, yes, I will save him. In another week his path and yours shall be clear and bright.
"Mine? Mine? No, no! Can you think I do not understand all that you meditate, all that you may suffer in a marriage with this man? I spoke of dying. Theself-abnegation you promise is a thousand times worse than death. Ruth Jessup, I envy you the power of so grand a sacrifice: I could make it as you will; and you could give up everything, taking no share in the future as I will. When this cloud is swept from 'Norston's Rest,' I leave it forever."
Excitement had kept Lady Rose proud and strong till now; but in place of this a great swell of pity, and self-pity, filled her heart. Reaching out her arms, she drew Ruth into them, and wept passionately on her shoulder, murmuring thanks, endearments, and tender compassion in wild and broken snatches.
As for Ruth, she had become the strongest of the two, and, in her gentle way, strove to comfort the lady, who stood upright after a while, and, pushing the young orphan from her, searched her face, as if to make sure of her firmness.
"How calm, how still you look, girl! Tell me again that you will not fail."
"I will not fail."
"But you will let me do something. We shall both go away from here, you to a new home, far from this; a pretty home, Ruth, and I to an estate very near, where we will be such friends as the world never saw. This hour has made us so. That which you are doing for him I will help you to endure."
Ruth smiled very sadly. Lady Rose kissed her, preparing to go.
"How cold your lips are! how I have made you suffer!" she said, drawing back, chilled.
"It will not last," answered Ruth, quietly. "Take no further trouble about me. I have not felt so much at rest since my father died."
"If I only knew how to thank you."
"I should thank you for pointing out the way; but for that I might never have known," answered Ruth, gently.
"You will have saved him, and he will never know. That seems hard; still, there may come a time—But, you are growing pale again; I only pain you. Good-by, for a while."
"Good-by," said Ruth, faintly.