"Will you be more than that?" she asked, putting her hand on his shoulder, and sliding it round his neck. "Will you be obedient?"
And she smiled at him lovingly.
"Will I get out the handkerchief, do you mean?" he asked, looking at her with a curious gaze.
"Yes," she replied; "make me happy by throwing it."
"And suppose," he said, "that the favored damsel declines the honor?"
"We will risk that," she murmured, with a smile.
He laughed.
"One would think you had already chosen, mother," he said.
She looked at him, with the smile still shining in her eyes and on her lips.
"Suppose I have? There is no matchmaker like a mother."
He started.
"You have? You surprise me! May one ask on whom your choice has fallen, sultaness?"
"Think," she said, in a low voice.
"I am thinking very deeply," he answered, with hidden meaning.
"If I were left to choose for you, I should be very exacting, Leycester, don't you think?"
"I am afraid so," he said, with a smile. "Every goose thinks her bantling a swan, and would mate it with an eagle. Forgive me, mother!"
She inclined her head.
"I should require much. I should want beauty, wealth——"
"Of which we have too much already. Go on."
"Rank, and what is still better, a high position. The Wyndwards cannot troop with crows, Leycester."
"Beauty, wealth, rank, and a mysterious sort of position. A princess, perhaps, my lady?"
A proud light shone in her eyes.
"I should not feel abased in the presence of a princess, if you brought her to me," she said, with that serene hauteur which characterized her. "No, I am satisfied with less than that, Leycester."
"I am relieved," he said, smiling. "And this exalted personage—paragon I should say—who is she?"
"Look round—you need not strain your vision," she returned: "I can see her now. Oh, blind, blind! that you cannot see her also! She whom I see is more than all these; she is a woman with a loving heart in her bosom, that needs but a word to set it beating for—you!"
His face flushed.
"I can think of no one," he said. "You make one ashamed, mother."
"I need not tell you her name, then?" she said.
But he shook his head.
"I must know it now, I think," he said, gravely.
She was silent a moment, then she said in a low voice:
"It is Lenore, Leycester."
He drew away from her, so that her arm fell from his shoulder, and looked her full in the face.
Before him rose the proud, imperial figure, before him stood the lovely face of Lenore, with its crown of golden hair, and its deep, eloquent eyes of violet, and beside it, hovering like a spirit, the face of his girl-love.
The violet eyes seemed to gaze at him with all the strength of conscious loveliness, seemed to bend upon him with a glance of defiance, as if they said—"I am here, waiting: I smile, you cannot resist me!" and the dark, tender eyes beside them seemed to turn upon him with gentle, passionate pleading, praying him to be constant and faithful.
"Lenore!" he said, in a low voice. "Mother, ought you to have said this?"
She did not shrink from his almost reproachful gaze.
"Why should I hesitate when my son's happiness is at stake?" she said, calmly. "If I saw a treasure, some pearl of great price, lying at your feet, and felt that you were passing it by unnoticed and disregarded, should I be wrong in speaking the wordthat would place it in your grasp? Your happiness is my—life Leycester! If ever there was a treasure, a pearl of great price among women, it is Lenore. Are you passing her by? You will not do that!"
Never, since he could remember, had he seen her so moved. Her voice was calm and even, as usual, but her eyes were warm with an intense earnestness, the diamonds trembled on her neck.
He stood before her, looking away beyond her, a strange trouble at his heart. For the first time he saw—he appreciated, rather—the beautiful girl whom, as it were, she held up to his mental gaze. But that other, that girl-love whose lips still seemed to murmur, "I love you, Leycester!" What of her!
With a sudden start he moved away.
"I do not think you should have spoken," he said. "You cannot know——"
The countess smiled.
"A mother's eyes are quick," she said. "A word and the pearl is at your feet, Leycester."
He was but a man, warm-blooded and impressionable, and for a moment his face flushed, but the "I love you" still rang in his ears.
"If that be so, all the more cause for silence, mother," he said. "But I hope you are mistaken."
"I am not mistaken," she said. "Do you think," and she smiled, "that I should have spoken if I had not been sure? Oh, Leycester," and she moved toward him, "think of her! Is there any beauty so beautiful as hers; is there any one woman you have ever met who possessed a tithe of her charms! Think of her as the head of the house; think of her in my place——"
He put up his hand.
"Think of her," she went on, quickly, "as your own, your very own! Leycester, there is no man born who could turn away from her!"
Almost involuntarily he turned and went to the fireplace, and leant upon it.
"There is no man, who, so turning, but would in time give all that he possessed to come back to her!"
Then her voice changed.
"Leycester, you have been very good. Are you angry?"
"No," he said, and he went to her; "not angry, but—but troubled. You think only of me, but I think of Lenore."
"Think of her still!" she said; "and be sure that I have made no mistake. If you doubt me, put it to the test——"
He started.
"And you will find that I am right. I am going now, Leycester. Good-night!" and she kissed him.
He went to the door and opened it; his face was pale and grave.
"Good-night," he said, gently. "You have given me something to think of with a vengeance," and he forced a smile.
She went out without a word. Her maid was waiting for her in her dressing-room, but she passed into the inner room andsank down in a chair, and for the first time her face was pale, and her eyes anxious.
"It has gone further than I thought," she murmured. "I, who know every look in his eyes, read his secret. But it shall not be. I will save him yet. But how? but how?"
Poor Stella!
Lord Leicester, left alone, fell to pacing the room, his brow bent, his mind in a turmoil.
He loved his mother with a passionate devotion, part and parcel of his nature. Every word she had said had sunk into his mind; he loved her, and he knew her; he knew that she would rather die than give her consent to his marriage with such an one as Stella, pure and good and sweet though she was.
He was greatly troubled, but he stood firm.
"Come what will," he murmured, "I cannot part with her.Sheis my treasure and pearl of great price, and I have not passed her by. My darling!"
Suddenly, breaking into his reverie, came a knock at the door.
He went to open it but it opened before he could reach it, and Lord Charles walked in.
There was a smile on his handsome, light-hearted face, which barely hid an expression of affectionate sympathy.
"Anything the matter, old man?" he said, closing the door.
"Yes—no—not much—why?" said Leycester, forcing a smile.
"Why!" echoed Lord Charles, thrusting his hands into the huge pockets of his dressing-gown, and eying him with mock reproach. "Can you ask when you remember that my room is exactly underneath yours, and that it sounds as if you had turned this into the den of a traveling menagerie? What are you wearing the carpet out for, Ley?" and he sat down and looked up at the troubled face with that frank sincerity which invites confidence.
"I'm in a fix," said Leycester.
"Come on," said Lord Charles, curtly.
"I can't. You can't help me in this," said Leycester, with a sigh.
Lord Charles rose at once.
"Then I'll go. I wish I could. What have you been doing, Ley?—something to-night, I expect. Never mind; if I can help you, you'll let me know."
Leycester threw him a cigar-case.
"Sit down and smoke, Charlie," he said. "I can't open my mind, but I want to think, and you'll help me. Is it late?"
"Awfully," said Lord Charles with a yawn. "What a jolly evening it has been. I say, Ley, haven't you been carrying it on rather thick with that pretty girl with the dark eyes?"
Leycester paused in his task of lighting a cigar, and looked down at him.
"Which girl?" he said, with a little touch of hauteur in his face.
"The painter's niece," said Lord Charles. "What a beautiful girl she is! Reminds me of a what-do-you-call-it."
"What is that?"
"A—a gazelle. It's rather a pity that she should be intended for that saucy lawyer fellow."
"What?" asked Lord Leycester, quietly.
"Haven't you heard?" said Lord Charles, grimly. "The fellows were talking about it in the billiard-room."
"About what?" demanded Lord Leycester, still quietly, though his eyes glittered. Stella the common talk of the billiard-room. It was desecration.
"Oh, it was Longford, he knows the man!"
"What man?"
"This Jasper Adelstone she is engaged to."
Lord Leycester held the cigar to his lips, and his teeth closed over it with a sudden fierce passion.
Coming upon all that had passed, this was the last straw.
"It's a lie!" he said.
Lord Charles looked up with a start, then his face grew grave.
"Perhaps so," he said; "but, after all, it can't matter to you, Ley."
Lord Leycester turned away in silence.
Jasper Adelstonewas in love.
It was some time before he would bring himself to admit it even to himself, for he was wont to pride himself on his superiority to all attacks of the tender passion.
Often and often had he amused himself and his chosen companions by ridiculing the conditions of those weak mortals who allowed themselves to be carried away by what he termed a weak and contemptible affection for the other sex.
Marriage, he used to say, was entirely a matter of business. A man didn't marry until he was obliged, and then only did so to better himself. As to love, and that kind of thing—well, it was an exploded idea—a myth which had died out; at any rate, too absurd a thing altogether for a man possessed of common sense—for such a man, for instance, as Jasper Adelstone. He had seen plenty of pretty women and was received by them with anything but disfavor. He was good-looking, almost handsome, and would have been that if he could have got rid of the sharp, cunning glint of his small eyes; and he was clever and accomplished. He was just the man, it would have been supposed, to fall a victim to the tender passion; but he had stuck fast by his principles, and gone stealthily along the road to success, with his cold smile ready for everyone in general, and not a warm beam in his heart for anyone in particular.
And now! Yes, he was in love—in love as deeply, unreasoningly, as impulsively as the veriest school-boy.
This was very annoying! It would have been very annoying if the object of his passion had been an heiress or the lady of title whom he had in his inmost mind determined to marry, if he married at all; for he would have preferred to have attained to his ambition without any awkward and inconvenient love-making.
But the girl who had inspired him with this sudden and unreasoning passion was, much to his disgust, neither an heiress nor an offshoot of nobility.
She was a mere nobody—the niece of an obscure painter! She was not even in society!
There was no good to be got by marrying her, none whatever. She could not help him a single step on his ambitious path through life. On the first evening of his meeting with Stella, when the beauty, and, more than her beauty, the nameless charm of her bright, pure freshness, overwhelmed and startled him, he took himself to task very seriously.
"Jasper," he said, "you won't go and make a fool of yourself, I hope! She is entirely out of your line. She is only a pretty girl; you've seen a score, a hundred as pretty, or prettier; and she's a mere nobody! Oh, no, you won't make a fool of yourself—you'll go back to town to-morrow morning."
But he did not go back to town; instead, he went into the conservatory at the Rectory, and made up a bouquet and took it to the cottage, and sank deeper still into the mire of foolishness, as he would have called it.
But even then it was not too late. He might have escaped even then by dint of calling up his selfish nature and thinking of all his ambitions; but Stella unfortunately roused—what was more powerful in him than his sudden love—his self-conceit.
She actually dared to defend Lord Leycester Wyndward!
That was almost the finishing stroke, unwittingly dealt by Stella, and he went away inwardly raging with incipient jealousy.
But the last straw was yet to come that should break the back of all his prudent resolves, and that was the meeting with Stella and Lord Leycester in the river-woods, and Lord Leycester's attack on him.
That moment—the moment when he lay on the ground looking up at the dark, handsome, angry, and somewhat scornful face of the young peer—Jasper Adelstone registered a vow.
He vowed that come what would, by fair means or foul, he would have Stella.
He vowed that he would snatch her from the haughty and fiery young lord who had dared to hurl him, Jasper, to the dust and insult him.
What love he already possessed for her suddenly sprang up into a fierce flame of jealous passion, and as he rode home to the Rectory he repeated that vow several times, and at once, without the loss of an hour, began to hunt about for some means to fulfill it.
He was no fool, this Jasper Adelstone, for all his conceit, and he knew the immense odds against him if Lord Leycester really meant anything by his attention to Stella; he knew what fearful advantages Leycester held—all the Court cards were in his hands. He was handsome, renowned, noble, wealthy—a suitor whom the highest in the land would think twice about before refusing.
He almost guessed, too, that Stella already loved Leycester;he had seen her face turned to the young lord—had heard her voice as she spoke to him.
He ground his teeth together with vicious rage as he thought of the difference between her way of speaking to him and to Leycester.
"But she shall speak to me, look at me like that before the game is over," he swore to himself. "I can afford to wait for my opportunity; it will come, and I shall know how to use it. Curse him! Yes, I am determined now. I will take him from her."
It was a bold, audacious resolution; but then Jasper was both bold and audacious in the most dangerous of ways, in the cold, calculating manner of a cunning, unscrupulous man.
He was clever—undoubtedly clever; he had been very successful, and had made that success by his own unaided efforts. Already, young as he was, he was beginning to be talked about. When people were in any great difficulty in his branch of the law, they went to him, sure of finding him cool, ready, and capable.
His chambers in the inn held a little museum of secrets—secrets about persons of rank and standing, who were supposed to be quite free from such inconvenient things as skeletons in cupboards.
People came to him when they were in any social fix; when they owed more money than they could pay; when they wanted a divorce, or were anxious to hush up some secret, whose threatened disclosure involved shame and disgrace, and Jasper Adelstone was always ready with sound advice, and, better still, some subtle scheme or plan.
Yes, he was a successful man, and had failed so seldom—almost never—that he felt he could be confident in this matter, too.
"I have always done well for others," he thought. "I have gained some difficult points for other people; now I will undertake this difficult matter for myself."
He went home to the Rectory and pondered, recalling all he knew of old Etheridge. It was very little, and the rector could tell him no more than he knew already.
James Etheridge lived the life of a recluse, appearing to have no friends or relations save Stella; nothing was known about his former life. He had come down into the quiet valley some years ago, and settled at once in the mode of existence which was palpable to all.
"Is he, was he, ever married?" asked Jasper.
The rector thought not.
"I don't know," he said. "He certainly hasn't been married down here. I don't think anything is known about him."
And with this Jasper had to be content. All the next day, after his meeting with Stella and Leycester, he strolled about the meadows hoping to see her, but failed. He knew he ought to be in London, but he could not tear himself away.
His arm felt a little stiff, and though there was nothing else the matter with it, he bound it up and hung it in a sling, explaining to the rector that he had fallen from his horse.
Then he heard of the party at the Hall, and grinding his teeth with envy and malice, he stole into the lane and watched Stella start.
In his eyes she looked doubly beautiful since he had sworn to have her, and he wandered about the lane and meadows thinking of her, and thinking, too, of Lord Leycester all that evening, waiting for her to return, to get one look at her.
Fortune favored him with more than a look, for while he was waiting the boy from the post-office came down the lane, and Jasper, with very little difficulty, persuaded him to give up the telegram to his keeping.
I am sorry to say that Jasper was very much tempted to open that telegram, and if he resisted the temptation, it was not in consequence of any pangs of conscience, but because he thought that it would scarcely be worth while.
"It is only some commission for a picture," he said to himself. "People don't communicate secretly by telegram excepting in cipher."
So he delivered it unopened as we know, but when he heard that sudden exclamation of the old man's he was heartily sorry he had not opened it.
When he parted from Stella at the gate, he walked off down the lane, but only until out of sight, and then returned under the shadow of the hedge and waited.
He could see into the studio, and see the old man sitting in the chair bowed with sorrow; and Stella's graceful figure hovering about him.
"There was something worth knowing in that telegram," he muttered. "I was a fool not to make myself acquainted with it. What will he do now?"
He thought the question out, still watching, and the old man's movements seen plainly through the lighted windows—for Stella had only drawn the muslin curtain too hurriedly and imperfectly—afforded an answer.
"He is going up to town," he muttered.
He knew that there was an early market train, and felt sure that the old man was going by it.
Hastily glancing at his watch, he set his hat firmly on his head, dipped his arm out of the sling, and ran toward the Rectory; entering by a side door he went to his room, took a bag containing some papers, secured his coat and umbrella, and leaving a note on the breakfast-table to the effect that he was suddenly obliged to go to town, made for the station.
As he did not wish to be seen, he kept in the shadow and waited, and was rewarded in a few minutes by the appearance of Mr. Etheridge.
There was no one on the station beside themselves, and Jasper had no difficulty in keeping out of the old man's way. A sleepy porter sauntered up and down, yawning and swinging his lantern, and Jasper decided that he wouldn't trouble him by taking a ticket.
The train came up, Mr. Etheridge got into a first-class carriage,and Jasper, waiting until the last moment, sprang into one at the further end of the train.
"Never mind the ticket," he said to the porter. "I'll pay at the other end."
The train was an express from Wyndward, and Jasper, who knew how to take care of himself, pulled the curtains closed, drew a traveling cap from his bag, and curling himself up went to sleep, while the old man, a few carriages further off, sat with his white head bowed in sorrowful and wakeful meditation.
When the train arrived at the terminus, Jasper, awaking from a refreshing sleep, drew aside the curtain and watched Mr. Etheridge get out, waited until he approached the cab-stand, then following up behind him nearer, heard him tell the cabman to drive him to King's Hotel, Covent Garden.
Then Jasper called a cab and drove to the square in which his chambers were situated, dismissed the cab, and saw it crawl away out of sight, and climbed up the staircase which served as the approach to the many doors which lined the narrow grim passages.
On one of these doors his name was inscribed in black letters; he opened this door with a key, struck a light, and lit a candle which stood on a ledge, and entered a small room which served for the purpose of a clerk's office and a client's waiting-room.
Beyond this, and communicating by a green baize door, was his own business-room, but there were still other rooms behind, one his living-room, another in which he slept, and beyond that a smaller room.
He entered this, and holding the light on high allowed its rays to fall upon a man lying curled up on a small bed.
He was a very small man, with a thin, parchment-lined face, crowned by closely-cropped hair, which is ambiguously described as auburn.
This was Jasper's clerk, factotum, slave. He it was who sat in the outer office and received the visitors, and ushered them into Jasper's presence or put them off with excuses.
He was a singular-looking man, no particular age or individuality. Some of Jasper's friends were often curious as to where Jasper had picked him up, but Jasper always evaded the question or put it by with some jest, and Scrivell's antecedents remained a mystery.
That he was a devoted and never tiring servant was palpable to all; in Jasper's presence he seemed to live only to obey his will and anticipate his wishes. Now, at the first touch of Jasper's hand, the man started and sat bolt upright, screening his eyes from the light and staring at Jasper expectantly.
"Awake, Scrivell?" asked Jasper.
"Yes, sir, quite," was the reply; and indeed he looked as if he had been on the alert for hours past.
"That's right. I want you. Get up and dress and come into the next room. I'll leave the candle."
"You needn't, sir," was the reply. "I can see."
Jasper nodded.
"I believe you can—like a cat," he said, and carried the card with him.
In a few minutes—in a very few minutes—the door opened and Scrivell entered.
He looked wofully thin and emaciated, was dressed in an old but still respectable suit of black, and might have been taken for an old man but for the sharp, alert look in his gray eyes, and the sandy hair, which showed no signs of gray.
Jasper was sitting before his dressing-table opening his letters, which he had carried in from the other room.
"Oh, here you are," he said. "I want you to go out."
Scrivell nodded.
"Do you know King's Hotel, Covent Garden?" asked Jasper.
"King's? Yes, sir."
"Well, I want you to go down there."
He paused, but he might have known the man would not express any surprise.
"Yes, sir," he said, as coolly as if Jasper had told him to go to bed again.
"I want you to go down there and keep a look-out for me. A gentleman has just driven there, an old man, rather bent, with long white hair. Understand?"
"Yes," was the quiet reply.
"He will probably go out the first thing, quite early. I want to know where he goes."
"Only the first place he goes to?" was the question.
Jasper hesitated.
"Suppose you keep an eye upon him generally till, say one o'clock, then come back to me. I want to know his movements, you understand, Scrivell!"
"I understand, sir," was the answer. "Any name?"
Jasper hesitated a moment, and a faint color came into his face. Somehow he was conscious of a strange reluctance to mention the name—her name; but he overcame it.
"Yes, Etheridge," he said, quietly, "but that doesn't matter. Don't make any inquiries at the hotel or elsewhere, if you can help it."
"Very good, sir," said the man, and noiselessly he turned and left the room.
Little did Stella, dreaming in the cottage by the sweet smelling meadows and the murmuring river, think that the first woof of the web which Jasper Adelstone was spinning for her was commenced that night in the grim chambers of Lincoln's-inn.
As little did Lady Wyndward guess, as she lay awake, vainly striving to find some means of averting the consequences of her son's "infatuation" for the painter's niece, that a keener and less scrupulous mind had already set to work in the same direction.
Jasperundressed and went to bed, and slept as soundly as men of his peculiar caliber do sleep, while Scrivell was standingat the corner of a street in Covent Garden, with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the entrance to King's Hotel. A little after nine Jasper awoke, had his bath, dressed, went out, got some breakfast, and sat down to work, and for the time being forgot—actually forgot—that such an individual as Stella Etheridge existed.
That was the secret of his power, that he could concentrate his attention on one subject to the absolute abnegation of all others.
Several visitors put in an appearance on business, Jasper opening the door by means of a wire which drew back the handle, without moving.
At about half-past twelve someone knocked. Jasper opened the door, and a tall, fashionably-dressed young gentleman entered.
It was a certain Captain Halliday, who had been one of the guests at Wyndward Hall on the first night of our introduction there.
Captain Halliday was a man about town; one who had been rich, but who had worked very hard to make himself poor—and nearly succeeded. He was a well-known man, and a member of a fast club, at which high play formed the chief amusement.
Jasper knew him socially, and got up—a thing he did not often do—to shake hands.
"How do you do?" he said, motioning him to a chair. "Anything I can do for you?"
It was generally understood by Jasper's acquaintances that Jasper's time was money, and they respected the hours devoted by him to business.
Captain Halliday smiled.
"You always come to the point, Adelstone," he replied. "Yes, I want a little advice."
Jasper sat down and clasped his hands over his knee; they were very white and carefully-kept hands.
"Hope I may be able to give it to you. What is it?"
"Well look here," said the captain, "you don't mind my smoking a cigarette, do you? I can always talk better while I am smoking."
"Not at all—I like it," said Jasper.
"But the lady clients?" said the captain, with a little contraction of the eyelids, which was suspiciously near a wink.
"I don't think they mind," said Jasper. "They are generally too occupied with their own business to notice. A light?" and he handed the wax tapers which stood on his desk for sealing purposes.
The captain lighted his cigarette slowly. It was evident that the matter upon which he required advice was delicate, and only to be attacked with much deliberation.
"Look here!" he began; "I've come upon rather an awkward business."
Jasper smiled. It not unfrequently happened that his clients came to him for money, and not unfrequently he managed to find some for them—of course through some friend, alwaysthrough some friend "in the City," who demanded and obtained a tolerably large interest.
Jasper smiled, and wondered how much the captain wanted, and whether it would be safe to lend it.
"What is it?" he said.
"You know the Rookery?" asked the captain.
Jasper nodded.
"I was there the other night—I'm there every night, I'm afraid," he added; "but I am referring to the night before last——"
"Yes," said Jasper, intending to help him. "And luck went against you, and you lost a pile."
"No, I didn't," said the captain; "I won a pile."
"I congratulate you," said Jasper, with a cool smile.
"I won a pile!" said the captain, "from all round; but principally from a young fellow—a mere boy, who was there as a visitor, introduced by young Bellamy—know young Bellamy?"
"Yes, yes," said Jasper—he was very busy. "Everybody knows Bellamy. Well!"
"Well, the young fellow—I was awfully sorry for him, and tried to persuade him to turn it up, but he wouldn't. You know what youngsters are when they are green at this confounded game?"
Jasper nodded again rather more impatiently. Scrivell would be back directly, and he was anxious to hear the result of his scrutiny.
"Luck went with him at first, and he won a good deal, but it turned after a time and I was the better by a cool hundred and fifty; I stopped at that—it was too much as it was to win from a youngster, and he gave me his I O U."
The captain paused and lit another cigarette.
"Next morning, being rather pressed—did I tell you I went home with Gooch and one or two others and lost the lot?" he broke off, simply.
Jasper smiled.
"No, you did not mention it, but I can quite believe it. Go on."
"Next morning, being rather pressed—I wanted to pay my own I O U's—I looked him up to collect his."
"And he put you off, and you want me to help you," said Jasper, smiling behind his white hand.
"No, I don't. I wish you'd hear me out," said the captain, not unnaturally aggrieved by the repeated interruption.
"I beg your pardon!" said Jasper. "I thought I should help to bring you to the point. But, there, tell it your own way."
"He didn't refuse; he gave me a bill," said the captain; "said he was sorry he couldn't manage the cash, but expecting me to call had got a bill ready."
"Which you naturally declined to accept from a perfect stranger," said Jasper.
"Which I did nothing of the sort," said the captain, coolly. "It was backed by Bellamy, and that was good enough for me. Bellamy's name written across the back, making himself responsible for the money, if the young fellow didn't pay."
"I understand what a bill is," said Jasper, with a smile.
"Of course," assented the captain, puffing at his cigarette, "Bellamy's name, mind, which was good enough for me."
"And for most people."
"Well, I meant to get some fellow to discount this, get some money for it, you know, but happening to meet Bellamy at the club, it occurred to me that he mightn't like the bill hawked about, so I asked him if he'd take it up. See?"
"Quite. Whether he'd give you the money for it—the hundred and fifty pounds. I see," said Jasper. "Well?"
"Well, I put it rather delicately—there was a lot of fellows about—and he didn't seem to understand me. 'What bill do you mean, old man?' he said. 'I took an oath not to fly any more paper a year ago, and I've kept it, by George!'"
Jasper leant forward slightly; the keen, hard look which comes into the eyes of a hound that suddenly scents game, came into his. But this time he did not speak; as was usual with him when interested, he remained silent.
"Well, I flatter myself I played a cool hand," said the captain, complacently flicking the ash from his cigarette. "I knew the bill was a—a——"
"Forgery," said Jasper, coldly.
The captain nodded gravely.
"A forgery. But I felt for the poor young beggar, and didn't want to be hard on him; so I pretended to Bellamy that I'd made a mistake and meant somebody else, and explained that I'd been at the champagne rather freely the other night; and—you know Bellamy—he was satisfied."
"Well?" said Jasper, in a low voice.
"Well, then I took a cab, and drove to 22 Percival street——"
He paused abruptly, and bit his lip; but Jasper, though he heard the address, and had stamped it, as it were, on his memory, showed no sign of having noticed it, and examined his nails curiously.
"I drove to the young fellow's rooms, and he confessed to it. Poor young beggar! I pitied him from the bottom of my heart—I did indeed. Wrong, I know. Justice, and example, and all that, you'll say; but if you'd seen him, with his head buried in his hands, and his whole frame shaking like a leaf, why, you'd have pitied him yourself."
Jasper put up his hand to his mouth to hide a sneer.
"Very likely," he said—"most likely. I have a particularly soft heart for—forgers."
The captain started slightly. It was a horrible word!
"I don't believe the young beggar meant it, not in cold blood, you know; but he was so knocked of a heap by my dropping down upon him, and so afraid of looking like a welsher that the idea of the bill struck him, and he did it. He swears that Bellamy and he are such chums, that Bellamy wouldn't have minded."
"Ah," said Jasper, with a smile, "the judge and jury will look at that in a different light."
"The judge and jury! What do you mean?" demanded thecaptain. "You don't think I'm going to—what's-its-name—prosecute?"
"Then what are you here for?" Jasper was going to say, but politely corrected it to "Then what can I do for you?"
"Well, here's the strange part of the story! I went home to find the bill and tear it up——"
Jasper smiled again, and again hid the delicate sneer.
"But if you'll believe me, I couldn't find it! What do you think I'd done with it?"
"I don't know," said Jasper. "Lit your cigar with it!"
"No; in a fit of absence of mind—we'll call it champagne cup and brandy-and-soda!—I'd given it to old Murphy with some other bills in payment of a debt. Think of that! There's that poor young beggar almost out of his mind with remorse and terror, and that old wretch, Murphy, has got that bill! And if it isn't got from him he'll have the law of young—of the boy as sure as Fate is Fate!"
"Yes; I know Murphy," said Jasper with delicious coolness. "He'd be so wild that he'd not rest satisfied until he'd sent your fast young friend across the herring-pond."
"But he mustn't! I should never forgive myself! Think of it, Adelstone! Quite a young boy—a curly-headed young beggar that ought to be forgiven a little thing of this sort!"
"A little thing!" and Jasper laughed.
He also rose and looked as if he had already expended as much of his time as he could afford.
"Well?" he said.
"Well!" echoed the captain. "Now I want you to send for that bill, Adelstone, and get it at once."
"Certainly," said Jasper. "I may be permitted to mention that you are doing rather a—well, very injudicious thing? You are losing a hundred and fifty pounds to save your gentleman from—well, departing for that bourne to which he will certainly sooner or later wend. He will get transported sooner or later; a youngster who begins like this always goes on. Why lose a hundred and fifty pounds? But there," he added, seeing a look of quiet determination on the captain's honest, if simple, face, "that is your business; mine is to give you advice, and I've done it. If you'll write a check for the amount, I'll send my clerk over to Murphy's. He is out at present, but he'll be back," looking at the clock, "before you have written the check," and he handed the captain a pen, and motioned him politely to the desk.
But the captain changed color, and laughed with some embarrassment.
"Look here," he said, "look here, Adelstone, it isn't quite convenient to write a check—confound it! You talk as if I had the old balance at my bankers! I can't do it. I ask you to lend me the money—see?"
Jasper gave a start of surprise though he felt none. He knew what had been coming.
"I'm very sorry, my dear fellow," he said. "But I'm afraid I can't do it. I am very short this morning, and have someheavy matters to meet. I've been buying some shares for a client, and am quite cleared out for the present."
"But," pleaded the captain, earnestly, more earnestly than he had ever pleaded for a loan on his own account, "but think of the youngster, Adelstone."
Then Jasper smiled—a hard, cold smile.
"Excuse me, Halliday," he said, thrusting his hands in his pockets, "but I have been thinking of him, and I can't see my way to doing this for a young scoundrel——"
"He's no scoundrel," said the captain, with a flush.
"A young forger, then, if you prefer it, my dear fellow," said Jasper, with a cold laugh, "who ought to be punished, if anyone deserves punishment. Why, it is compounding a felony!" he added, virtuously.
"Oh, come!" said the captain, with a troubled smile, "that's nonsense, you talking like that! I want the matter hushed up, Adelstone."
"Well, though I don't agree with you, I won't argue the matter," said Jasper, "but I can't lend you the money to hush it up with, Halliday. If it were for yourself, now——"
There was something in Jasper's cold face, in his compressed, almost sneering lips, and hard, keen eyes, that convinced the captain any further time expended in endeavoring to soften Jasper Adelstone's heart would be time wasted.
"Never mind," he said, "I'm sorry I've taken up your time. Good-morning. Of course this is quite confidential, you know, eh?"
Jasper raised his eyebrows and smiled pleasantly.
"My dear Halliday, you are in a lawyer's office. Nothing that occurs within these walls gets out, unless the client wishes it. Your little story is as safely locked up in my bosom as if you had never told it. Good-morning."
The captain put on his hat and turned to go, but at that moment the door opened and Scrivell entered.
"I beg pardon," he said, and drew back, but paused, and, instead of going out, walked up to Jasper's desk, and laid a piece of paper on it.
Jasper took it up eagerly. There was one line written on it, and it was this:
"22 Percival street!"
Jasper did not start; he did not even change color, but his lips tightened, and a gleam of eagerness shot from his eyes.
With the paper in his hand, he looked up carelessly.
"All right, Scrivell. Oh, by the way, just run after Captain Halliday, and tell him I should like another word with him."
Scrivell disappeared, and in another minute the captain re-entered.
He still looked rather downcast.
"What is it?" he said, with his hand on the door.
Jasper went and closed it; then he laughed in his quiet, noiseless way.
"I'm afraid you'll think me a soft kind of lawyer, Halliday, but this story of yours has touched me; it has, indeed!"
The captain nodded, and dropped into a chair.
"I thought it had," he said, simply. "Touch anybody, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, yes!" said Jasper, with a sigh. "It's very wrong, you know—altogether out of the line, but I suppose you've set your heart on hushing it up, eh?"
"I have, indeed," said the captain, eagerly. "And if you knew all you'd say the same."
"Haven't you told me all?" said Jasper, quietly. "I don't mean the boy's name; you can keep that if you like."
"No, I don't mean to conceal anything, if you'll help me," said the captain ingenuously. "Of course if you had decided not to, I should have kept dark about his name."
"Of course," said Jasper, with a smile; and he glanced at the slip of paper. "Well, perhaps you'd better tell me all, hadn't you?"
"I think I had," assented the captain. "Well, the youngster's name is—Etheridge?"
"Ether—how do you spell it?" asked Jasper, carelessly.
The captain spelt it.
"Not a common name, and he's anything but a common boy; he's a handsome youngster, and I couldn't help pitying him, because he has been left to himself so much—no friends, and all that sort of thing."
"How's that?" asked Jasper, with his eyes cast down, a hungry eagerness eating at his heart. There was some mystery after all, then, about the old man!
"Well, it is this way. It seems he's the son of an old man—a painter, or a writer, or something, who lives away in the country, and who can't bear this boy near him."
"Why?" asked Jasper, examining his nails.
"Because he's like his mother," said the captain, simply.
"And she——?" said Jasper, softly.
"She ran away with another man, and left her boy behind——"
"I understand."
"Yes," resumed the captain. "Usual thing, the husband, this boy's father, was awfully cut up; left the world and buried himself and sent the boy away, treated him very well, though, all the same; sent him to Eton, and to Cambridge, under the care of a tutor, and that sort of thing, but couldn't bear to see him. He's up now for the holidays—the boy, I mean!"
"I understand," said Jasper, in a low voice. "Quite a story, isn't it? And"—he paused to throw the piece of paper on the fire—"do you think the boy has communicated with the father ever since?"
"Heaven knows—not unlikely. He said something about telegraphing."
"Oh, yes; just so," said Jasper, carelessly. "Well, it will be inconvenient, but I suppose I must do what you want. The sooner we get this over the better," and he sat down and drew out his check book.
"Thanks, thanks!" muttered the captain. "I didn't think a good fellow like you would stand back; I didn't, indeed!"
"I ought not to do it," murmured Jasper, with a shake of the head, as he rang the bell.
"Take this letter to Murphy, and wait, Scrivell," he said.
Scrivell disappeared noiselessly.
"By the way," said Jasper, "have you mentioned this to any one excepting me?"
"Not to a soul," replied the captain; "and you bet, I shall not of course."
"Of course," said Jasper, with a smile; "it wouldn't be worth spending a hundred and fifty to hush it up if you did. Mention such a thing to one person—excepting me, of course,"—and he smiled—"and you let the whole world know. Where did you get all this information?"
"From Bellamy, the boy's chum," said the captain. "He asked me to look him up occasionally."
"I see," said Jasper. "You won't mind my writing a letter or two, will you?"
"Go on," said the captain, lighting the fifth cigarette.
Jasper went to a cupboard and brought out a small bottle of champagne and a couple of glasses.
"The generous glow of so virtuous an action—which by-the-way is strictly illegal—suggests something to drink," he said, with a smile.
The captain nodded.
"I didn't know you did this sort of thing here," he said, looking round.
"I don't as a rule," said Jasper, with a dry smile. "Will you slip that bolt into the door?"
The captain, greatly enjoying anything in the shape of an irregularity, did as he was bidden, and the two sat and sipped their wine, and Jasper threw off his dry business air and chatted about things in general until Scrivell knocked. Jasper opened the door for him and took an envelope from his hand and carried it to the desk.
"Well?" said the captain, eagerly.
"All right," said Jasper, holding up the bill.
The captain drew a long breath of relief.
"I feel as if I had done it myself," he said, with a laugh. "Poor young beggar, he'll be glad to know he's to get off scot free."
"Ah!" said Jasper. "By-the-way, hadn't you better drop him a line?"
"Right," exclaimed the captain, eagerly; "that's a good idea. May I write it here?"
Jasper pushed a sheet of plain paper before him and an envelope.
"Don't date it from here," he said; "date it from your lodgings. You don't want him to know that anybody else knows anything about it, of course."
"Of course not! How thoughtful you are. That's the best ofa lawyer—always keeps his head cool," and he drew up a chair, and wrote not in the best of hands or the best of spelling:
"Dear Mr. Etheridge—I've got—you know what. It is all right. Nothing more need be said. Be a good boy for the future.""Yours truly,"Harry Halliday."
"Dear Mr. Etheridge—I've got—you know what. It is all right. Nothing more need be said. Be a good boy for the future."
"Yours truly,
"Harry Halliday."
"How's that?" he asked, handing the note to Jasper.
Jasper looked up; he was bending over his desk, apparently writing a letter, and looked up with an absent expression.
"Eh?" he said. "Oh, yes; that will do. Stop though, to set his mind quite at rest, better say that you have destroyed it—as you have, see!" and he took the envelope and held it over the taper until it burnt down nearly to his finger, dropping the remaining fragment on the desk and allowing it to turn and smolder away.
The captain added the line to that effect.
"Now your man can run with it, if you'll be so good."
Jasper smiled.
"No," he said. "I think not. I'll send a commissionaire."
He rang the bell and took up the letter.
"Send this by the commissionaire," he said. "There is no answer. Tell him to give it in and come away."
"And now I'm off," said the captain. "I'll let you have a check in a day or two, Adelstone, and I'm very much obliged to you."
"All right," said Jasper, with a slightly absent air as if his mind was already engaged with other matters. "No hurry; whenever it's convenient. Good-bye!"
He went back to his desk before the captain had left the room, and bent over his letter, but as the departing footsteps died away, he sprang up, locked the door, and drawing a slip of paper from under his blotting pad, held it before him with both hands and looked down at it with a smile of eager triumph.
It was the forged bill. Without a word or gesture he looked at it for a full minute, gloating over it as if it were some live, sentient thing lying in his path and utterly at his mercy; then at last he raised his head, and his lips parted with a smile of conscious power.
"So soon!" he muttered; "so soon! Fate is with me! She is mine! My beautiful Stella! Yes, she is mine, though a hundred Lord Leycesters stood between us!"
WhenStella awoke in the morning it was with a start that she remembered the scene of last night, and that she was, with the exception of Mrs. Penfold, alone in the cottage.
While she was dressing she recalled the incidents of the eventful evening—the party at the Hall, the telegram, and, not least, the finding of the mysterious miniature. But, above all, there shone out clear and distinct the all-important fact that Lord Leycester loved her, and that she had promised to meet him this evening.
But for the present there was much on her mind. She had to meet Mrs. Penfold, and communicate the information that Mr. Etheridge had suddenly been called to London on important business.
She could not suppress a smile as she pictured Mrs. Penfold's astonishment and curiosity, and wondered how she should satisfy the latter without betraying the small amount of confidence which her uncle had placed in her.
She went down-stairs to find the breakfast laid, and Mrs. Penfold hovering about with unconcealed impatience.
"Where's your uncle, Miss Stella?" she asked. "I do hope he hasn't gone sketching before breakfast, for he is sure to forget all about it, and won't come back till dinner-time, if he does then."
"Uncle has gone to London," said Stella.
"To—where?" demanded Mrs. Penfold.
Then Stella explained.
"Gone to London last night; hasn't slept in his bed! Why, miss, how could you let him?"
"But he was obliged to go," said Stella, with a little sigh and a rueful glance at the empty chair opposite her own.
"Obliged!" exclaimed Mrs. Penfold. "Whatever was the matter? Your uncle isn't obliged to go anywhere, Miss Stella!" she added with a touch of pride.
Stella shook her head.
"There was a telegram," she said. "I don't know what the business was, but he was obliged to go."
Mrs. Penfold stood stock-still in dismay and astonishment.
"It will be the death of him!" she breathed, awe-struck. "He never goes anywhere any distance, and starting off like that, Miss Stella, in the dead of night, and after being out at the Hall—why it's enough to kill a gentleman like him who can't bear any noise or anything sudden like."
"I'm very sorry," said Stella. "He said that he was obliged to go."
"And when is he coming back?" asked Mrs. Penfold.
Stella shook her head.
"I don't know. I hope to-day—I do hope to-day! It all seems so quiet and lonely without him." And she looked round the room, and sighed.
Mrs. Penfold stood, with the waiter in her hand, staring at the beautiful face.
"You—you don't know what it is, Miss Stella?" she asked, in a low voice, and with a certain significance in her tone.
Stella looked up at her.
"No, I don't know—uncle did not tell me," she replied.
Mrs. Penfold looked at her curiously, and seemed lost in thought.
"And you don't know where he's gone, Miss Stella? I don't ask out of curiosity."
"I'm sure of that," said Stella, warmly. "No, I don't know."
"And you don't guess?"
Stella looked up at her with wide open eyes, and shook her head.
Mrs. Penfold turned the waiter in her hand, then she said suddenly:
"I wish Mr. Adelstone was here."
Stella started.
"Mr. Adelstone!"
Mrs. Penfold nodded.
"Yes, Miss Stella. He is such a clever young gentleman, and he's so friendly, he'd do anything for your uncle. He always was friendly, but he's more so than ever now."
"Is he?" said Stella. "Why?"
Mrs. Penfold looked at her with a smile, which died away before Stella's look of unconsciousness.
"I don't know, Miss Stella; but he is. He is always about the cottage. Oh, I forgot! he called yesterday, and left something for you."
And she went out, returning presently with a bouquet of flowers.
"I took them in the pantry, to keep cool and fresh. Aren't they beautiful, miss?"
"Very," said Stella, smelling them and holding them a little way from her, after the manner of her sex. "Very beautiful. It is very kind of him. Are they for uncle, or for me?"
Mrs. Penfold smiled.
"For you, Miss Stella. Is it likely he'd leave them for your uncle?"
"I don't know," said Stella; "he is uncle's friend, not mine. Will you put them in water, please?"
Mrs. Penfold took them with a little air of disappointment. It was not in this cool manner that she expected Stella to receive the flowers.
"Yes, miss; and there's nothing to be done?"
"No," said Stella; "except to wait for my uncle's return."
Mrs. Penfold hesitated a moment, then she went out.
Stella made an effort to eat some breakfast, but it was a failure; she felt restless and listless; a spell seemed to have been cast over the little house—a spell of mystery and secrecy.
After breakfast she took up her hat and wandered about the garden, communing with herself, and ever watching the path across the meadows, though she knew that her uncle could not possibly return yet.
The day wore away and the evening came, and as the daylight gave place to sunset, Stella's heart beat faster. All day she had been thinking—dreaming of the hour that was now so near at hand, longing for and yet almost dreading it. This love was so strange, so mysterious a thing, that it almost frightened her.
Almost for the first time she asked herself whether she was not doing wrong—whether she had not better stay at home and give up this precious meeting.
But she mentally pictured Lord Leycester's waiting for her—mentallycalled up the tone of his voice welcoming her, and her conscience was stilled.
"I must go!" she murmured, and as if afraid lest she should change her mind, she put on her hat, and went down the path with a quick step. But she turned back at the gate, and called to Mrs. Penfold.
"I am going for a stroll," she said, with a sudden blush. "If uncle returns while I am away, tell him I shall not be long."
And then she went across the meadows to the river bank.
All was silent save the thrushes in the woods and the nightingale with its long liquid note and short "jug, jug," and she sank down upon the grassy bank and waited.
The clock struck the hour of appointment, and her heart beat fast.
Suppose he did not come! Her cheek paled, and a faint sickening feeling of disappointment crept over her. The minutes passed, hours they seemed, and then with a sudden resolution she rose.
"He will not come," she murmured. "I will go back; it is better so!"
But even as the words left her lips sadly, a light skiff shot from the shadow of the opposite bank and flew across the river.
It was Lord Leycester, she knew him though his back was turned toward her and he was dressed in a suit of boating flannel, and her heart leapt.
With practiced ease he brought the skiff alongside the bank and sprang up beside her, both hands outstretched.
"My darling!" he murmured, his eyes shining with a greeting as passionate as his words—"have you been waiting long? Did you think I was not coming?"
Stella put her hands in his and glanced up at him for a moment; her face flushed, then paled.
"I—I—did not know," she said, shyly, but with a little smile lurking in the corner of her red lips.
"You knew I should come," he went on. "What should, what could, prevent me? Stella! I was here before you. I have been lying under that tree, watching you; you looked so beautiful that I lay there feasting my eyes, and reluctant to move lest I should dispel the beautiful vision."
Stella looked across and her eyes drooped.
"You where there while I—I was thinking that you had perhaps—forgotten!"
"Forgotten!" and he laughed softly. "I have been looking forward to this hour; I dreamt of it last night. Can you say the same, Stella?"
She was silent for a moment, then she looked up at him shyly, as a soft "Yes" dropped from her lips.
He would have drawn her close to him, but she shrank back with a little frightened gesture.
"Come," he said, and he drew her gently toward the boat.
Stella hesitated.
"Suppose," she said, "someone saw us," and the color flew to her face.
"And if!" he retorted, with a sudden look of defiance, which melted in a moment. "There is no fear of that, my darling; we will go down the back water. Come."
There was no resisting that low-voiced mingling of entreaty and loving command. With the tenderest care he helped her into the boat and arranged the cushion for her.
"See," he said, "if we meet any boat you must put up your sunshade, but we shall not where we are going."
Stella leant back and watched him under her lowered lids as he rowed—every stroke of the strong arm sending the boat along like an arrow from the bow—and an exquisite happiness fell upon her. She did not want him to speak; it was enough for her to sit and watch him, to know that he was within reach of her hand if she bent forward, to feel that he loved her.
He rowed down stream until they came to an island; then he guided the boat out of the principal current into a back water, and rested on his oars.
"Now let me look at you!" he said. "I haven't had an opportunity yet."
Stella put up her sunshade to shield her face, and laughingly he drew it away.
"That is not fair. I have been thirsting for a glance from those dark eyes all day. I cannot have them hidden now. And what are you thinking of?" he asked, smilingly, but with suppressed eagerness, "There is a serious little look in those eyes of yours—of mine! They are mine, are they not, Stella? What is it?"
"Shall I tell you?" she answered, in a low voice.
"Yes," he said. "You shall whisper it. Let me come nearer to you," and he sank down at her feet and put up his hand for hers. "Now then."
Stella hesitated a moment.
"I was thinking and wondering whether this—whether this isn't very wrong, Le—Leycester."
The name dropped almost inaudibly, but he heard it and put her hand to his lips.
"Wrong?" he said, as if he were weighing the question most judiciously. "Yes and no. Yes, if we do not love each other, we two. No, if we do. I can speak for myself, Stella. My conscience is at rest because I love you. And you?"
Her hand closed in his.
"No, my darling," he said, "I would not ask you to do anything wrong. It may be a little unconventional, this stolen half-hour of ours—perhaps it is; but what do you and I care for the conventional? It is our happiness we care for," and he smiled up at her.
It was a dangerously subtle argument for a girl of nineteen, and coming from the man she loved, but it sufficed for Stella, who scarcely knew the full meaning of the term "conventional," but, nevertheless, she looked down at him with a serious light in her eye.
"I wonder if Lady Lenore would have done it," she said.
A cloud like a summer fleece swept across his face.
"Lenore?" he said, then he laughed. "Lenore and you are two very different persons, thank Heaven. Lenore," and he laughed, "worships the conventional! She would not move a step in any direction excepting that properly mapped out by Mrs. Grundy."
"You would not ask her, then?" said Stella.
He smiled.
"No, I should not," he said, emphatically and significantly. "I should not ask anyone but you, my darling. Would you wish me to?"
"No, no," she said hastily, and she laughed.
"Then let us be happy," he said, caressing her hand. "Do you know that you have made a conquest—I mean in addition to myself?"
"No," she said. "I?"
"Yes, you," he repeated. "I mean my sister Lilian."
"Ah!" said Stella, with a little glad light in her eyes. "How beautiful and lovable she is!"
He nodded.
"Yes, and she has fallen in love with you. We are very much alike in our tastes," he said, with a significant smile. "Yes, she thinksyoubeautiful and lovable."
Stella looked down at the ardent face, so handsome in its passionate eagerness.
"Did you—did you tell her?" she murmured.
He understood what she meant, and shook his head.
"No; it was to be a secret—our secret for the present, my darling. I did not tell her."
"She would be sorry," said Stella. "They would all be sorry, would they not?" she added, sadly.
"Why should you think of that?" he expostulated, gently. "What does it matter? All will come right in the end. They will not be sorry when you are my wife. When is it to be, Stella?" and his voice grew thrillingly soft.
Stella started, and a scarlet blush flushed her face.
"Ah, no!" she said, almost pantingly, "not for very, very long—perhaps never!"
"It must be very soon," he murmured, putting his arm around her. "I could not wait long! I could not endure existence if we should chance to be parted. Stella, I never knew what love meant until now! If you knew how I have waited for this meeting of ours, how the weary hours have hung with leaden weight upon my hands, how miserably dull the day seemed, you would understand."
"Perhaps I do," she said softly, and the dark eyes dwelt upon his musingly as she recalled her own listlessness and impatience.
"Then you must think as I do!" he said, quick to take advantage. "Say you do, Stella! Think how very happy we should be."