"Stella!"
"You wish to know what she has answered, sir," said Jasper to spare Stella making any reply. "With a joy I cannot express, I am able to say that she has answered 'Yes.'"
"Is that so, my dear?" murmured the old man.
Stella's head drooped.
"This—this—surprises me!" he said in a low voice. "But if it is so, if you love him, my dear, I will not say 'No.' Heaven bless you, Stella!" and his hand rested upon her head.
There was silence for a moment, then he started and held out his other hand to Jasper.
"You are a fortunate man, Jasper," he said. "I hope, I trust you will make her happy!"
Jasper's small eyes glistened.
"I will answer for it with my life," he said.
"Oh, my love, my love!"
She stood with her arms outstretched toward the white walls of the Hall, the moon shining over meadow and river, the night jay creaking in silence.
In all her anguish and misery, in all her passionate longing and sorrow, these were the only words that her lips could frame. All was still in the house behind her. Frank, worn out with excitement, had gone to his own room. The old man sat smoking, dreaming and thinking of his little girl's betrothal. Jasper had gone—he was too wise to prolong the strain which he knew she was enduring—and she had crept out into the little garden and stood leaning against the gate, her eyes fixed on the great house, which at that moment perhaps held him—Leycester—who, a few short hours ago, was hers, and in a low voice the cry broke from her lips:
"Oh, my love, my love!"
It was a benediction, a farewell, a prayer, in one; all her soul seemed melting and flowing toward him in the wail. All the intense longing of her passionate nature to fly to his protecting arms and tell him all—to tell him that she still loved him as the flowers love the sun, the hart the waterbrook—was expressed in the words; then, as she remembered he could not hear them—that it would avail nothing if he could hear them, her face dropped into her hands, and she shut out the Hall from her hot, burning eyes. She had not yet shed one tear; if she could but have wept, the awful tightening round her brain, the burning fire in her eyes, would have been assuaged; but she could not weep, she was held in thrall, benumbed by the calamity that had befallen her.
She, who was to have been Leycester's bride, was now the betrothed of—Jasper Adelstone.
And yet, as she stood there, alone in her misery, she knew that were it to be done again she would do it. To keep shame and disgrace from the old man who loved her as a father—the boy who loved her as a brother, she would have laid down her life; but this was more than life. The sacrifice demanded of her, and which she had yielded, was worse than death.
Death! She looked up at the blue vault of heaven with aching, longing eyes. If she could but die—die there and then, before Jasper could lay his hand upon her! If she could but die, so that he, Leycester, might come and see her lying cold and white, but still his—his! He would know then that she loved him, that without him she would not accept even life. He would look down at her with the odd light in his dark eyes, perhaps stoop and kiss her—and now he would never kiss her again!
How often have blind mortals clamored to the gods for this one boon which they will not yield. When sorrow comes, the cry goes up—"Give us death!" but the gods turn a deaf ear to the prayer. "Live," they say, "the cup is not yet drained; the task is not yet done."
And she was young, she thought, with a sigh, "so young, and so strong," she might live for—for years! Oh, the long, dreary vista of years that stretched before her, down which she would drag with tired feet as Jasper Adelstone's wife. No thought of appealing to him, to his mercy, ever occurred to her; she had learned to know him, during that short hour in London, so well as to know that any such appeal would be useless. The sphinx rearing its immovable head above the dreary desert could not be more steadfast, more unyielding than this man who held her in his grasp.
"No," she murmured, "I have taken up this burden; I must carry it to the end. Would to Heaven that end were nigh."
She turned with dragging step toward the house, scarcely hearing, utterly heedless of the sound of approaching wheels; even when they stopped outside the gate she did not notice; but suddenly a voice cried, in low and tremulous accents, "Stella!" and she turned, with her hand pressed to her bosom. She knew the voice, and it went to her heart like a knife. It was nothis, but so like, so like.
She turned and started, for there, standing in the moonlight, leaning on the arm of her maid, was Lady Lilian.
The two stood for a moment regarding each other in silence, then Stella came nearer.
Lady Lilian held out her hand, and Stella came and took her by her arm.
"Wait for me in the lane, Jeanette," said Lady Lilian. "You will let me lean on you, Stella," she added, softly.
Stella took her and led her to a seat, and the two sat in silence. Stella with her eyes on the ground, Lilian with hers fixed on the pale, lovely face—more lovely even than when she had last seen it, flushed with happiness and love's anticipation. A pang shotthrough the tender heart of the sick girl as she noted the dark rings under the beautiful eyes, the tightly drawn lips, the wan, weary face.
"Stella," she murmured, and put her arm round her.
Stella turned her face; it was almost hard in her effort at self-control.
"Lady Lilian——"
"Lilian—only Lilian."
"You have come here—so late!"
"Yes, I have come, Stella," she murmured, and the tears sprang to her eyes, drawn thither by the sound of the other voice, so sad and so hopeless. "I could not rest, dear. You would have come to me, Stella, if I had—if it had happened to me!"
Stella's lips moved.
"Perhaps."
Lilian took her hand—hot and feverish and restless.
"Stella, you must not be angry with me——"
A wan smile flickered on the pale face.
"Angry! Look at me. There is nothing that could happen to-night that would rouse me to anger."
"Oh, my dear, my dear! you frighten me!"
Stella looked at her with awful calm.
"Do I?" Then her voice dropped. "I am almost frightened at myself. Why have you come?" she asked almost sharply.
"Because I thought you needed me—some one, some girl young like yourself. Do not send me away, Stella. You will hear what I have come to say?"
"Yes, I will hear," said Stella, wearily, "though no words that can be spoken will help me, none."
"Stella, I—I have heard——"
Stella looked at her, and her lips quivered.
"You have seen him—he has told you?" she breathed.
Lilian bent her head.
"Yes, dear, I have seen him. Oh, Stella, if you had seen him as I have done!—if you had heard him speak! His voice——"
Stella put up her hand.
"Don't!—Spare me!" she uttered, hoarsely.
"But why—why should it be?" murmured Lilian, clinging to her hand. "Why, Stella, you cannot guess how he loves you? There never was love so deep, so pure, so true as his!"
A faint flush broke over the pale face.
"I know it," she breathed. Then, with a sharp, almost fierce energy, "Have you come to tell me that—me who know him so well? Was it worth while? Do you think I do not know what I have lost?"
"You promised not to be angry with me, Stella."
"Forgive me—I—I scarcely know what I am saying! You did not come for that; what then?"
"To hear from your own lips, Stella, the reason for this. Bear with me, dear! Remember that I am his sister, that I love him with a love only second to yours! That all my life I have loved him, and that my heart is breaking at the sight ofhis unhappiness. I have come to tell you this—to plead for him—to plead with you for yourself! Do not turn a deaf ear, a cold heart to me, Stella! Do not, do not!" and she clung to the hot hands, and looked up at the white face with tearful, imploring eyes.
"You say you know him; you may do so; but not so well as I, his sister. I know every turn of his nature—am I not of the same flesh and blood? Stella, he is not like other men—quick to change and forget. He will never bend and turn as other men. Stella, you will break his heart!"
Stella turned on her like some tortured animal driven to bay.
"Do I not know it! Is it not this knowledge that is breaking my heart—that has already broken it?" she retorted wildly. "Do you think I am sorrowing for myself alone? Do you think me so mean, so selfish? Listen, Lady Lilian, if—if this separation were to bring him happiness I could have borne it with a smile. If you could come to me and say, 'He will forget you and his love in a week—a month—a year!' I would welcome you as one who brings me consolation and hope. Who am I that I should think of myself alone?—I, the miserable, insignificant girl whom he condescended to bless with his love! I am—nothing! Nothing save what his love made me. If my life could have purchased his happiness I would have given it. Lady Lilian you do not know me——"
The tempest of her passion overawed the other weak and trembling girl.
"You love him so!" she murmured.
Stella looked at her with a smile.
"I love him," she said, slowly. "I will never say it again, never! I say it to you that you may know and understand how deep and wide is the gulf which stretches between us—so wide that it can never, never be overpassed."
"No, no, you shall not say it."
Stella smiled bitterly.
"I think I know why you have come, Lilian. You think this a mere lovers' quarrel, that a word will set straight. Quarrel! How little you know either him or me. There never could have been a quarrel between us—one cannot quarrel with oneself! His word, his wish were law to me. If he had said 'do this,' I should have done it—if he had said 'go thither,' I should have gone; but once he laid his command on me, and I obeyed. There is nothing I would not have done—nothing, if he had bidden me. I know it now—I know now that I was like a reed in his hands now that I have lost him."
Lilian put her hand upon her lips.
"You shall not say it!" she murmured, hoarsely. "Nothing can part you—nothing can stand against such love! You are right. I never knew what it meant until to-night. Stella, you cannot mean to send him away—you will not let anything save death come between you?"
Stella looked at her with aching eyes that, unlike Lilian's, were dry and tearless.
"Death!" she said, "there are things worse than death——"
"Stella!"
"Words one cannot mention, lest the winds should catch them up and spread them far and wide. Not even death could have divided us more effectually than we are divided."
Lilian shrank back appalled.
"What is it you say?" she breathed. "Stella, look at me! You will, you must tell me what you mean."
Stella did look at her, with a look that was awful in its calm despair.
"I was silent whenhebade me speak; do you think that I can open my lips to you?"
Lilian hid her face in her hand, tremblingly.
"Oh, what is it?—what is it?" she murmured.
There was silence for a moment, then Stella laid her hand on Lilian's arm.
"Listen," she said, solemnly. "I will tell you this much, that you may understand how hopeless is the task which you have undertaken. If—if I were to yield, if I were to say to him 'Come back! I am yours, take me!' you—you, who plead so that my heart aches at your words—would, in the coming time, when the storm broke and the cost of my yielding had to be paid—you would be the first to say that I had done wrong, weakly, selfishly. You would be the first, because you are a woman, and know that it is a woman's duty to sacrifice herself for those she loves! Have I made it plain?"
Lilian raised her head and looked at her, and her face went white.
"Is—is that true?"
"It is so true, that if I were to tell you what separates us, you would go without a word; no! you would utter that word in a prayer that I might remain as firm and unyielding as I am!"
So utterly hopeless were the words, the voice, that they smote on the gentle heart with the force of conviction. She was silent for a moment, then, with a sob, she held out her arms.
"Oh, my dear, my dear! Stella, Stella!" she sobbed.
Stella looked at her for a moment, then she bent and kissed her.
"Do not cry," she murmured, no tear in her own eye. "I can not cry, I feel as if I shall never shed another tear! Go now go!" and she put her arm round her.
Lilian rose trembling, and leant upon her, looking up into her face.
"My poor Stella!" she murmured. "He—he called you noble; I know now what he meant! I think I understand—I am not sure, even now; but I think, and—and, yes, I will say it, I feel that you are right. But, oh, my dear, my dear!"
"Hush! hush!" breathed Stella, painfully. "Do not pity me——"
"Pity! It is a poor, a miserable word between us. I love, I honor you, Stella!" and she put her arm round Stella's neck. "Kiss me, dear, once!"
Stella bent and kissed her.
"Once—and for the last time," she said, in a low voice. "Henceforth we must be strangers."
"Not that, Stella; that is impossible, knowing what we do!"
"Yes, it must be," was the low, calm response. "I could not bear it. There must be nothing to remind me of—him," and her lips quivered.
Lilian's head drooped.
"Oh, my poor boy!" she moaned. "Stella," she said, in a pleading whisper, "give me one word to comfort him—one word?"
Stella turned her eyes upon her; they had reached the gate, the carriage was in sight.
"There is no word that I can send," she said, almost inaudibly. "No word but this—that nothing he can do can save us, that any effort will but add to my misery, and that I pray we may never meet again."
"I cannot tell him that! Not that, Stella!"
"It is the best wish I can have," said Stella, "I do wish it—for myself, and for him. I pray that we never meet again."
Lilian clung to her to the last, even when she had entered the carriage, and to the last there was no tear in the dark sorrowful eyes. White and weary she stood, looking out into the night, worn out and exhausted by the struggle and the storm of pent-up emotion, but fixed and immovable as only a woman can be when she has resolved on self-sacrifice.
A few minutes later, Lilian stood on the threshold of Leycester's room. She had knocked twice, scarcely daring to use her voice, but at last she spoke his name, and he opened the door.
"Lilian!" he said, and he took her in his arms.
"Shut the door," she breathed.
Then she sank on to his breast and looked up at him, all her love and devotion in her sorrowful eyes.
"Oh, my poor darling," she murmured.
He started and drew her to the light.
"What is it! Where have you been?" he asked, and there was a faint sound of hope in his voice, a faint light in his haggard face, as she whispered—
"I have seen her!"
"Seen her—Stella?"
And his voice quivered on the name.
"Yes. Oh, Ley! Ley!"
His face blanched.
"Well!" he said, hoarsely.
"Ley, my poor Ley! there is no hope."
His grasp tightened on her arm.
"No hope!" he echoed wearily.
She shook her head.
"Ley, I do not wonder at you loving her! She is the type of all that is beautiful and noble——"
"You—you torture me!" he said, brokenly.
"So good and true and noble," she continued, sobbing; "and because she is all this and more you must learn to bear it, Ley!"
He smiled bitterly.
"You must bear it, Ley; even as she bears it——"
"Tell me what it is," he broke in, hoarsely. "Give me something tangible to grapple with, and—well, then talk to me of bearing it!"
"I cannot—she cannot," she replied, earnestly, solemnly. "Even to me, heart to heart, she could not open her lips. Ley! Fate is against you—you and her. There is no hope, no hope! I feel it; I who would not have believed it, did not believe it even from you! There is no hope, Ley!"
He let her sink into a chair and stood beside her, a look on his face that was not good to see.
"Is there not?" he said, in a low voice. "You have appealed to her. There is still one other to appeal to; I shall seek him."
She looked up, not with alarm but with solemn conviction.
"Do not," she said, "unless you wish to add to her sorrow! No, Ley, if you strike at him, the blow must reach her."
"She told you that?"
"Yes; by word, by look. No, Ley, there is no hope there. You cannot reach him except through her, and you will spare her that. 'Tell him,' she said, 'that any effort he makes will add to my misery. Tell him that I pray we may never meet again.'" She paused a moment. "Ley, I know no more of the cause than you, but I know this, that she is right."
He stood looking down at her, his face working, then at last he answered:
"You are a brave girl, Lil," he said. "You must go now; even you cannot help me to bear this. 'Pray that we may never meet again,' and this was to have been our marriage day!"
I havecarefully avoided describing Lord Leycester Wyndward as a "good" man. If to be generous, single-minded, impatient of wrong and pitiful of the wronged; if to be blessed, cursed with the capacity for loving madly and passionately; if to be without fear, either moral or physical, be heroic, then he was a hero; but I am afraid it cannot be said that he was "good."
Before many weeks had elapsed since his parting with Stella, the world had decided that he was indeed very bad. It is scarcely too much to say that his name was the red rag which was flourished in the eyes of those righteous, indignant bulls whose mission in life it is to talk over their fellow-creatures' ill deeds and worry them.
One mad exploit after another was connected with his name, and it soon came to pass that no desperate thing was done within the circle of the higher class, but he was credited with being the ringleader, or at least with having a hand in it.
It was said that at that select and notorious club, "The Rookery," Lord Leycester was the most desperate of gamblers and persistent of losers. Rumor went so far as to declare that even the Wyndward estates could not stand the inroads which hislosses at the gaming table were making. It was rumored, and not contradicted, that he had "plunged" on the turf, and that his stud was one of the largest and most expensive in England.
The society papers were full of insinuating paragraphs hinting at the wildness of his career, and prophesying its speedy and disastrous termination. He was compared with the lost characters of past generations—likened to Lord Norbury, the Marquis of Waterford, and similar dissipated individuals. His handsome face and tall, thin, but still stalwart figure, had become famous, and people nudged each other and pointed him out when he passed along the fashionably-frequented thoroughfares.
His rare appearance in the haunts of society occasioned the deepest interest and curiosity.
One enterprising photographer had managed, by the exercise of vast ingenuity, to procure his likeness, and displayed copies in his window; but they were speedily and promptly withdrawn.
There was no reckless hardihood with which he was not credited. Men were proud of possessing a horse that he had ridden, because their capability of riding it proved their courage.
Scandal seized upon his name and made a hearty and never-ending meal of it; and yet, by some strange phenomenal chance, no one heard it connected with that of a woman.
Some said that he drank hard, rode hard, and played hard, and that he was fast rushing headlong to ruin, but no one ever hinted that he was dragging a member of the fair sex with him.
He was seen occasionally in drags bound to Richmond, or at Bohemian parties in St. John's Wood, but no woman could boast that he was her special conquest.
It was even said that he had suddenly acquired a distinct distaste for female society, and that he had been heard to declare that, but for the women, the world would still be worth living in.
It was very sad; society was shocked as well as curious, dismayed as well as intensely interested. Mothers with marriageable daughters openly declared that something ought to be done, that it was impossible that such a man, the heir to such a title and estates should be allowed to throw himself away. The deepest pity was expressed for Lady Wyndward, and one or two of the aforesaid mammas had ventured, with some tremors, to mention his case to that august lady. But they got little for their pains, save a calm, dignified, and haughty rebuff. Never, by word, look, or sign did the countess display the sorrow which was imbittering her life.
The stories of his ill-doings could not fail to reach her ears, seeing that they were common talk, but she never flushed or even winced. She knew when she entered a crowded room, and a sudden silence fell, to be followed by a spasmodic attempt at conversation, that those assembled were speaking of her son, but by no look or word did she confess to that knowledge.
Only in the secrecy of her own chamber did she let loose the floodgates of her sorrow and admit her despair. The time hadcome when she felt almost tempted to regret that he had not married "the little girl—-the painter's niece," and settled down in his own way.
She knew that it was broken off; she knew, or divined that some plot had brought about the separation, but she had asked no questions, not even of Lenore, who was now her constant companion and chosen friend.
Between them Leycester's name was rarely mentioned. Not even from her husband would she hear aught of accusation against the boy who had ever been the one darling of her life.
Once old Lady Longford had pronounced his name, had spoken a couple of words or so, but even she could not get the mother to unburden her heart.
"What is to be done?" the old lady had asked, one morning when the papers had appeared with an account of a mad exploit in which the well-known initials Lord Y—— W—— had clearly indicated his complicity.
"I do not know," she had replied. "I do not think there is anything to be done."
"Do you mean that he is to be allowed to go on like this, to drift to ruin without a hand to stay him?" demanded the old lady almost wrathfully; and the countess had turned on her angrily.
"Who can do anything to stay him? Have you yourself not said that it is impossible, that he must be left alone?"
"I did, yes, I did," admitted the old countess, "but things were not so bad then, not nearly. All this is different. There is a woman in the case, Ethel!"
"Yes," said the countess, bitterly, "there is," and she felt tempted to echo the assertion which Leycester had been reputed to utter, "that if there had been no women the world would have been worth living in."
Then Lady Longford had attempted to "get at" Leycester through his companion Lord Charles, but Lord Charles had plainly intimated his helplessness.
"Going wrong," he said, shaking his head. "If Leycester's going wrong, so am I, because, don't you see, I'm bound to go with him. Always did, you know, and can't leave him now; too late in the day."
"And so you'll let your bosom friend go to the dogs"—the old lady had almost used a stronger word—"rather than say a word to stop him?"
"Say a word!" retorted Lord Charles, ruefully. "I've said twenty. Only yesterday I told him the pace couldn't last; but he only laughed and told me that was his business, and that it would last long enough for him."
"Lord Charles, you are a fool!" exclaimed the old lady.
And Lord Charles had shook his head.
"I daresay I am," he said, not a whit offended. "I always was where Leycester was concerned."
The one creature in the world—excepting Stella—who could have influenced him, knew nothing of what was going on.
The excitement of her visit to Stella, and her terrible interviewduring it, had utterly prostrated the delicate girl, and Lilian lay in her room in the mansion in Grosvenor Square, looking more like the flower namesake than ever.
The doctor had insisted that no excitement of any kind was to be permitted to approach her, and they had kept the rumors and stories of Leycester's doings from her knowledge.
He came to see her sometimes, and even in the darkened room she could see the ravages which the last few months had made with him; but he was always gentle and considerate toward her, and in response to her loving inquiries always declared that he was well—quite well. Stella's name, by mutual consent, was never mentioned between them. It was understood that that page of his life was closed for ever; but after every visit, when he had left her, she lay and wept over the knowledge that he had not forgotten her. She could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. As Stella had said, Leycester was not one to love and unlove in a day—in a week—in a month!
So the Summer had crept on to the Autumn. Not one word has he heard of Stella. Though she was in his thoughts day and night, alike in the hour of the wildest dissipation, and in the silent watches of the night, he had heard no word of her. All his efforts were directed towards forgetting her. And yet if he picked up a paper or a book and chanced to come upon her name—Stella!—a pang shot through his heart, and the blood fled from his face.
The Autumn had come, and London was almost deserted, but there were some who clung on still. There are some to whom the shady side of Pall Mall and their clubs are the only Paradise; and the card-rooms of the Rookery are by no means empty.
In the middle of September, when half "the town" was in the country popping at the birds, Leycester and Lord Charles were still haunting Pall Mall.
"Better go down and look at the birds," said Lord Charles one night, morning rather, for it was in the small hours. "What do you say to running down to my place, Ley?"
"My place" was Vernon Grange, a noble Elizabethan mansion, standing right in the center of one of the finest shooting districts. The grange was at present shut up, the birds running wild, the keepers in despair, all because Lord Leycester could not forget Stella, and his friend would not desert him!
"Suppose we start to-morrow morning," went on Lord Charles, struggling into his light over-coat and yawning. "We can take some fellows down!—plenty of birds, you know. Had a letter from the head keeper yesterday; fellow quite broken-hearted, give you my word! Come on, Ley! I'm sick of this, I am, indeed. I hate the place," and he glanced sleepily at the dimly lit hall of the Rookery. "What's the use of playing ecarte and baccarat night after night; it doesn't amuse you even if you win!"
Leycester was striding on, scarcely appearing to hear, but the word "amuse" roused him.
"Nothing 'amuses,' Charles," he said, quietly. "Nothing.Everything is a bore. The only thing is to forget, and the cards help me to do that, for a little while, at least—a little while."
Lord Charles nearly groaned.
"They'll make you forget you've anything to lose shortly," he said. "We've been going it like the very deuce, lately, Ley!"
Leycester stopped and looked at him, wearily, absently.
"I suppose we have, Charles," he said; "why don't you cut it? I don't mind it; it is a matter of indifference to me. But you! you can cut it. You shall go down to-morrow morning, and I'll stay."
"Thanks," said the constant friend. "I'm in the same boat, Ley, and I'll pull while you do. When you are tired of this foolery, we'll come to shore and be sensible human beings again. I shan't leave the boat till you do."
"You'll wait till it goes down?"
"Yes, I suppose I shall," was the quiet response, "if down it must go."
Leycester walked on in silence for a minute.
"What a mockery it all is!" he said, with a half smile.
"Yes," assented Lord Charles, slowly; "some people would call it by a stronger name, I suppose. I don't see the use of it. The use—why it's the very ruination. Ley, you are killing yourself."
"And you."
"No," said Lord Charles, coolly, "I'm all right—I've got nothing on my mind. I'm bored and used-up while it lasts, but when it's over I can turn in and get to sleep. You can't—or you don't."
Leycester thrust his hands in his pockets in silence, he could not deny it.
"I don't believe you sleep one night out of three," said Lord Charles. "You've got the mad fever, Ley. I wish it could be altered."
Leycester walked on still more quickly.
"You shall go down to-morrow, Charles," he said. "I don't think I'll come."
"Why not?"
Leycester stopped and put his hand on his arm, and looked at him with a feverish smile on his face.
"Simply because I cannot—I cannot. I hate the sight of a green field. I hate the country. Heaven! go down there! Charlie, you know dogs can't bear the sight of water when they are queer. You've got a river down there, haven't you? Well, the sight of that river, the sound of that stream, would drive me mad! I cannot go, but you shall."
Lord Charles shook his head.
"Very well. Where now! Let us go home."
Leycester stopped short.
"Good-night," he said. "Go home. Don't be foolish, Charlie—go home."
"And you!"
Leycester put his hand on his arm slowly, and looked round.
"Not home," he said—"not yet. I'm wakeful to-night."
And he smiled grimly.
"The thought of the meadow and the river has set me thinking. I'll go back to the 'Rookery.'"
Lord Charles turned without a word, and they went back.
The tables were still occupied, and the entrance of the two men was noticed and greeted with a word here and there. Lord Charles dropped on to a chair and called for some coffee—a great deal of coffee was drank at the "Rookery"—but Leycester wandered about from table to table.
Presently he paused beside some men who were playing baccarat.
They had been playing since midnight, and piles of notes, and gold, and I O U's told pretty plainly of the size of the stakes.
Leycester stood leaning on the back of a chair, absently watching the play, but his thoughts were wandering back to the meadows of Wyndward, and he stood once more beside the weir stream, with the lovely face upon his breast.
But suddenly a movement of one of the players opposite him attracted his attention, and he came back to the present with a start.
A young fellow—a mere boy—the heir to a marquisate, Lord Bellamy—the reader will not have forgotten him—had dropped suddenly across the table, his outstretched hands still clutching the cards. There was an instant stir, the men started to their feet, the servants crowded up; all stood aghast.
Leycester was the first to recover presence of mind, and, hurrying round the table, picked the boy up in his strong arms.
"What's the matter, Bell?" he said; then, as he glanced at the white face, with the dark lines round the eyes, he said in his quiet, composed voice: "He has fainted; fetch a doctor, some of you."
And lifting him easily in his arms, he carried him in to an adjoining room.
Lord Charles followed with a glass of water, but Leycester put it aside with the one word—
"Brandy."
Lord Charles brought some brandy and closed the door, the others standing outside aghast and frightened. Leycester poured some of the spirit through his closed teeth, and the boy came back to life—to what was left for him of life—and smiled up at him.
"The room was hot, Bell," said Leycester, in his gentle way; he could be gentle even now. "I wanted you to go home two—three—hours ago! Why didn't you go?"
"You—stayed——" gasped the boy.
Leicester's lips twitched.
"I!" he said. "That is a different matter."
The boy's head drooped, and fell back on Leycester's arm.
"Tell them not to stop the game," he said; "let somebody play for me!" then he went off again.
The doctor came, a fashionable, hardworked man, a friend both of Leycester's and Guildford's, and bent over the lad as he lay.
"It's a faint," said Lord Charles, nervously; "nothing else, eh, doctor?"
The doctor looked up.
"My brougham is outside," he said. "I will take him home."
Leycester nodded, and carried the slight frame through the hall and placed it in the brougham. The doctor followed. The cool air revived the boy, and he made an effort to sit up, looking round as if in search of something; at last his wandering sight fell on Leycester's, and he smiled.
"That's right, Bell!" said Leycester; "you will be well to-morrow; but mind, no more of this!" and he took the small white hand.
The heir to a marquisate clung to the hand, and smiled again.
"No, there will be no more of it, Leycester," he breathed, painfully. "There will be no more of anything for me; I have seen the last of the Rookery—and of you all. Leycester, I am dying!"
Leycester forced a smile to his white face.
"Nonsense, Bell," he said.
The boy raised a weak, trembling finger, and pointed to the doctor's face.
"Look at him," he said. "He never told a lie in his—life. Ask him."
"Tell them to drive on, my lord," said the doctor.
The boy laughed, an awful laugh; then his face changed, and even as the brougham moved on, he clung to Leycester's hand, and bending forward, panted:
"Leycester—good-bye!"
Leycester stood, white and motionless as a statue, for the space of a minute; then he turned to Lord Charles, who stood biting his pale lips and looking after the brougham.
"I will go with you to-morrow," he said, hoarsely.
Time—which Lord Leycester had been so recklessly wasting in "riotous living"—passed very quiet indeed in the Thames valley, beneath the white walls of Wyndward Hall.
During the months which elapsed since that fearful parting between the two lovers, life had gone on at the cottage just as before, with the one great exception that Jasper Adelstone had become almost a daily visitor, and that Stella was engaged to him.
That was all the difference, but what a difference it was!
Lord Leycester gone—her tried, her first lover, the man who had won her maiden heart—and in his place this man whom she—hated.
But yet she fought the battle womanfully. She had made a bargain—she had sacrificed herself for her two loved ones, had given herself freely and unreservedly, and she strove to carry out her part of the compact.
She looked a little pale, a little graver than of old, but there was no querulous tone of complaint about her; if shedid not laugh the frank, light-hearted laugh that her uncle used to declare was like the "voice of sunlight," she smiled sometimes; and if the smile was rather sad than mirthful, it was very sweet.
The old man noticed nothing amiss; he thought she had grown quieter, but set the change down to her betrothal; he went on painting, absorbed in his work, scarcely heeding the world that ran by him so merrily, so sadly, and was quite content. Jasper's quiet, low-toned voice did not disturb him, and he would go on painting while they were talking near him, dead to their presence. Since that last blow his boy's crime had struck him, he had lived more entirely and completely in his art than ever.
Of the two, Frank and Stella, perhaps it was Frank who seemed the most changed. He had grown thinner and paler, and more girlish and delicate-looking than ever.
It had been arranged that he should go up to the university for the next term, but Mr. Hamilton, the old doctor, who had been called in to see to a slight cough which the boy had started, had hummed and hawed, and advised that the 'varsity should be shelved for the present.
"Was he ill?" Stella had asked, anxiously—very anxiously, for, woman-like, she had grown to love with a passionate devotion the boy for whom she had sacrificed herself.
"N—o; not ill," the old doctor had said. "Certainly not ill," and he went on to explain that Frank was delicate—that all boys with fair hair and fair complexions were more or less delicate.
"But he has such a beautiful color," said Stella, nervously.
"Y—es; a nice color," said the old man, and that was all she could get out of him.
But the cough did not go; and as the Autumn mists stole up from the river and covered the meadows with a filmy veil, beautiful to behold, the cough got worse; but the beautiful color did not go either, and so Stella was not very anxious.
As for Frank himself, he treated his ailments with supreme indifference.
"Do I take any medicine?" he said, in answer to Stella's questioning. "Yes, I take all the old woman—I beg his pardon!—the doctor sends. It isn't very unpleasant, and though it doesn't do me much good apparently, it seems to afford you and the aforesaid old woman some satisfaction, and so we are pleased all round."
"You don't seem to take any interest in things, Frank," said Stella, one morning, when she had come into the garden to look at the trees that drew a long line of gold and brown and yellow along the river bank, and had found him leaning on the gate, his hands clasped before him, his eyes fixed on the Hall, very much as she had first seen him, the night he had come home.
He looked round at her and smiled faintly.
"Why don't you go and try the fish?" she said. "Or—or—go for a ride? You only wander about the gardens or in the meadows."
He looked at her curiously.
"Why do not you?" he said, slowly, his large blue eyes fixed on her face, which grew slowly blush-red under his regard. "You do not seem to take much interest in things, Stel. You don't go and fish, or—or—take a drive, or anything. You only wander about the garden, or in the meadows."
The long lashes swept her cheeks, and she struggled with a sigh. His words had told home.
"But—but," she said falteringly, "I am not a boy. Girls should stay at home and attend to their duties."
"And walk and move as if they were in a dream—as if their hearts and souls were divorced from their bodies—and miles, miles away," he said, waving his thin white hand in the air slowly.
Her lips quivered, and she turned her face away, but only for a moment; it was back upon him with a smile again.
"You are a foolish, fanciful boy!" she said, putting her hand on his shoulder and caressing his cheek.
"Perhaps so," he said. "'My fancies are more than all the world to me,' says the poet, you know," he added, bitterly.
Stella's heart ached.
"Are you angry with me, Frank?" she said. "Don't be!"
He shook his head.
"No, not angry," he said, looking out at the mist that was rising.
She smothered a sigh; she understood his reproach; not a moment of the day but he accused her in his heart of betraying Lord Leycester; if he could but have known why she had done it; but that he never would know!
"You are a fanciful boy," she said, with a forced lightness. "What are you dreaming about now, I wonder?"
"I was wondering too," he answered, without looking at her, "I was wondering—shall I tell you——"
She answered "yes," with her hand against his cheek.
"I was wondering where Lord Leycester was, and how——"
Her hand dropped to her side and pressed her heart; the sudden mention of the name had struck her like a blow.
He glanced round.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "I forgot; his name was never to be mentioned, was it? I will not sin again—in word. In thought—one can't help one's thoughts, Stel!"
"No," she murmured, almost inaudibly.
"Thoughts are free," he said; "mine are not, however; they are always flying after him—after him, the best and noblest of men, the man who saved my life. You see, though I may not speak of him, it would be ungrateful to forget him!"
"Frank!"
At her tone of piteous supplication and almost reproach, he turned and put his hand on her arm.
"Forgive me, Stel! I didn't mean to hurt you, but—but—well it is so hard to understand, so hard to bear! To feel, to know that he is far away and suffering, while that man, Jasper Adelstone—I beg your pardon, Stel! There! I will say no more!"
"Do not," she murmured, her face white and strained, but resigned—"do not. Besides, you are wrong; he has forgotten by this time."
He turned and looked at her with a sudden anger; then he smiled as the exquisite beauty of her face smote him.
"You wrong him and yourself. No, Stel, men do not forget such a girl as you——"
"No more!" she said, almost in a tone of command.
He shook his head, and the cough came on and silenced him.
She put her arm round his neck.
"That cough," she said. "You must go in, dear! Look at the mist. Come, come in!"
He turned in silence and walked beside her for a few steps. Then he said tremulously:
"Stella, let me ask one question, and then I will be silent—for always."
"Well?" she said.
"Have you heard from him?—do you know where he is?"
She paused a moment to control her voice, then she said:
"I have heard no word; I do not know whether he is alive or dead."
He sighed and his head dropped upon his breast.
"Let us go in," he said, then he started, for his ears, particularly sharp, had caught the sound of a well-known footstep.
"There is—Jasper," he said, with a pause before the name, and he drew his arm away and walked away from her. Stella turned with a strange set smile on her face, the set smile which she had learnt to greet him with.
He came up the path with his quick and peculiar suppressed step, his hand outstretched. He would have taken her in his arms and kissed her—if he had dared. But he could not. With all his determination and resolution he dared not. There was something, some mysterious halo about his victim which kept him almost at arm's length; it was as if she had surrounded herself by a magic circle which he could not pass.
He took her hand and raised it to his lips and kissed it, his eyes drinking in her beauty and grace with a thirsty wistfulness.
"My darling," he murmured, in his soft, low voice, "out so late. Will you not catch cold?"
"No," she said, and like her smile her voice seemed set and tutored. "I shall not catch cold, I never do under any circumstance. But I have just sent Frank in, he has been coughing terribly—he does not seem at all strong."
He frowned with swift impatience.
"Frank is all right," he said, and there was a touch of jealousy in his voice. "Are you not unduly anxious about the boy—you alarm yourself without cause."
"Alarm myself," she repeated, ready to be alarmed at the suggestion. "I—don't think, I hope I am not alarmed. Why should I be?" she said, anxiously.
The jealousy grew more pronounced.
"There is no reason whatever," he said, shortly. "The boyis all right. He has been getting his feet wet and caught cold, that is all."
Stella smiled.
"Yes, that is all," she said, "of course. But it is strange Dr. Hamilton doesn't get rid of it for him."
"Perhaps he doesn't help the doctor," he retorted. "Boys always are careless about themselves. But don't let Frank absorb all the conversation," he said. "Let us talk of ourselves," and he kissed her hand again.
"Yes," said Stella, obediently.
He kept her hand in his and pressed it.
"I have come to speak to you to-night, Stella, about ourselves, darling. I want you to be very good to me!"
She looked forward at the lighted room with the same set expression, waiting patiently, obediently, for him to proceed. There was no response in her touch or in her face. He noticed it—he never failed to notice it, and it maddened him. He set his teeth hard.
"Stella, I have been waiting month after month to say what I am going to say now; but I couldn't wait any longer, my darling, my own, I wish the marriage to take place."
She did not start, but she turned and looked at him, and her face shone whitely in the darkness, and he felt a faint shudder in the hand imprisoned in his.
"Will you not speak?" he said, after a moment, almost angry, because of the tempest of passion and breathed tenderness that possessed him. "Have you nothing to say, or will you say 'no?' I almost expect it."
"I will not say no," she said, at last, and her voice was cold and strained. "You have a right—the right I have given you—to demand the fulfillment of our bargain."
"Good Heaven!" he broke in, passionately. "Why do you talk like this? Shall I never, never win you to love me? Will you never forget how we came together?"
"Do not ask me," she said, almost pleaded, and her face quivered. "Indeed—indeed, I try, try—try hard to forget the past, and to please you!"
It was piteous to hear and see her, and his heart ached; but it was for himself as well as for her.
"Do you doubt my love?" he said, hoarsely. "Do you think any man could love you better than I do? Does that count as nothing with you?"
"Yes, yes," she said, slowly, sadly. "It does count. I—I——" then she looked down. "Why will you speak of love between us?" she said. "Ask me—tell me to do anything, and I will do it, but do not speak of love!"
He bit his lip.
"Well," he said, with an effort, "I will not. I see I cannot touch your heart yet. But the time will come. You cannot stand against a love like mine. And you will let our marriage be soon?"
"Yes," she said, simply.
He raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it, hungrily, and she forced back the shudder which threatened to overmaster her.
"By soon," he murmured, as they walked toward the house, "I mean quite soon—before the winter."
Stella did not speak.
"Let it be next month, darling," he murmured. "I shall not feel sure of you until you are my very own. Once you are mine beyond question, I will teach you to love me."
Stella looked at him, and a strange, despairing smile, more bitter and sad than tears, shone on her pale lips. Teach her to love him! As if love could be taught!
"I am not afraid," he said, answering her smile; "no one could withstand it—not even you, though your heart were adamant."
"It is not that," she said, in a low voice, as she thought of the dull aching which was its pittance by day and night.
They went into the house. Mr. Etheridge was wandering about the room, smoking his pipe, his head upon his breast, buried in thought, as usual. Frank was lying back in the old arm-chair; he looked wearily-fragile and delicate, but the beautiful color shone in his face.
He looked up and nodded as Jasper entered, but Jasper was not satisfied with the nod, and went over to him and laid a hand upon his shoulder, at which the boy winced and shrank faintly; he never could bear Jasper to touch him, and always resented it.
"Well, Frank," he said, with his faint smile, "how's the cold to-night?"
Frank murmured something indistinctly, and shifted in his seat.
"Not so well, eh?" said Jasper. "It seems to me that a change would do you good. What do you say to going away for a little while?"
The boy looked up at Stella with a glance of alarm. Leave Stella!
"I don't want to go away," he said, shortly. "I am quite well. I hate a change."
Stella came up to his chair, and knelt beside him.
"It would do you good, dear," she said, in her low, musical voice.
He bent near her.
"Do you mean—alone?" he asked. "I don't want to go alone—I won't, in fact."
"No, not alone, certainly," said Jasper, with his smile. "I think some one else wants a change too."
And he looked at Stella tenderly.
"I'll go if Stella goes," said Frank, curtly.
"What do you say, sir?" said Jasper to the old man.
He stared, and the proposal had to be put to himin extenso; he had not heard a word of what had been said.
"Go away! yes, if you like. But why? Frank's cold? I don't suppose any other place is better for a cold is it? It is? Very well then. You don't want me to come, I suppose?"
"Well——" said Jasper.
"I couldn't do it!" exclaimed the old man, almost with alarm. "I should be like a fish out of water. I couldn't paint away from the river and the meadows. Oh, it's impossible! Besides, you don't want an old man pottering about," and he looked at Stella and smiled grimly.
"I couldn't go without you," said Stella, quietly.
"Nonsense," he said; "there's the other old woman, Mrs. Penfold, take her; she can go. It will do her good, though she hasn't a cold."
Then he stopped in front of the boy and looked at him, with the strange reserved, almost sad, expression which always came upon his race when he regarded him.
"Yes," he said, in a low voice; "he wants a change. I haven't noticed; he looks thin and unwell. Yes, you had better go! Where will you go?"
Stella shook her head with a smile, but Jasper was ready.
"Let me see," he said, thoughtfully. "We don't want a cold place, the change would be too great; and we don't want too hot a place. What do you say to Cornwall?"
The old man nodded.
Stella smiled again.
"I haven't anything to say," she said. "Would you like Cornwall, Frank?"
He looked from one to the other.
"What made you think of Cornwall?" he asked Jasper, suspiciously.
Jasper laughed softly.
"It seemed to me just the place to suit you. It is mild and clear, and just what you want. Besides, I remember a little place near the sea, a sheltered village in a bay—Carlyon they call it—that would just do for us. What do you say? Let me see, where is the map?"
He went and got a map and spreading it out on the table, called to Stella.
"This is it," he said, then in a low voice he whispered: "There is a pretty, secluded little church there, Stella. Why should we not be married there?"
She started, and her hand fell on the map.
"I am thinking of you, my darling," he said. "For my part I should like to be married here——"
"No, not here," she faltered, as she thought of standing before the altar in the Wyndward Church and seeing the white walls of the Hall as she uttered her marriage vow. "Not here."
"I understand," he said. "Then why not there? Your uncle could come down for that, I think."
She did not speak, and with a smile of satisfaction he folded the map.
"It is all settled," he said. "We go to Carlyon. You will come down for a little while, I hope, sir. We shall want you."
The old man pushed the white hair off his forehead.
"Eh?" he asked. "What for?"
"To give Stella away," replied Jasper. "She has promised to marry me there."
The old man looked at her.
"Why not here?" he asked, naturally, but Stella shook her head.
"Very well," he said. "It is a strange fancy, but girls are fanciful. Off you go, then, and don't make more fuss than you can help."
So Stella's fate was settled, and the day, the fatal day, loomed darkly before her.
Lord Charleswas too glad to gain Leycester's consent to leave town to care where they went, and to prevent all chance of Leycester's changing his mind, this stanch and constant friend went with him to his rooms and interviewed the patient Oliver.
"Go away, sir?" said that faithful and long-suffering individual. "I'm glad of it! His lordship—and you too, begging your pardon, my lord—ought to have gone long ago. It's been terrible hot work these last few weeks. I never knew his lordship so wild. And where are we going, my lord?"
That was the question. Leycester rendered no assistance whatever, beyond declaring that he would not go where there was a houseful of people. He had thrown himself into a chair, and sat moodily regarding the floor. Bellamy's sudden illness and prophetic words had given him a shock. He was quite ready to go anywhere, so that it was away from London, which had become hateful to him since the last hour.
Lord Charles lit a pipe, and Oliver mixed a soda-and-brandy for him, and they two talked it over in an undertone.
"I've got a little place in the Doone Valley, Devonshire, you know," said Lord Charles, talking to Oliver quite confidentially. "It's a mere box—just enough for ourselves, and we should have to rough it, rough it awfully. But there's plenty of game, and some fishing, and it's as wild as a March hare!"
"That's just what his lordship wants," said Oliver. "I know him so well, you see, my lord. I must say that I've taken the way we've been going on lately very serious; it isn't the money, that don't matter, my lord; and it isn't altogether the wildness, we've been wild before, my lord, you know."
Lord Charles grunted.
"But that was only in play like, and there is no harm in it; but this sort of thing that's being going on hasn't been play, and it ain't amused his lordship a bit; why he's more down than when we came up."
"That's so, Oliver," assented Lord Charles, gloomily.
"I don't know what it was, and it isn't for me to be curious, my lord," continued the faithful fellow, "but it's my opinion that something went wrong down at the Hall, and that his lordship cut up rough about it."
Lord Charles, remembering that letter and the beautiful girl at the cottage, nodded.
"Perhaps so," he said. "Well, we'll go down to the DooneValley. Better pack up to-night, or rather this morning. I'll go home and get a bath, and we'll be off at once. Fish out the train, will you?"
Oliver, who was a perfect master of "Bradshaw," turned over the leaves of that valuable compilation, and discovered a train that left in the afternoon, and Lord Charles "broke it" to Leycester.
Leycester accepted their decision with perfect indifference.
"I shall be ready," he said, in a dispassionate, indifferent way. "Tell Oliver what you want."
"It's a mere box in a jungle," said Lord Charles.
"A jungle is what I want," said Leycester, grimly.
With the same grim indifference he started by that afternoon train, smoking in silence nearly all the way down to Barnstaple, and showing no interest in anything.
Oliver had telegraphed to secure seats in the coach that leaves that ancient town for the nearest point to the Valley, and early the next morning they arrived.
A couple of horses and a dogcart had been sent on—how Oliver managed to get them off was a mystery, but his command of resources at most times amounted to the magical—and they drove from Teignmouth to the Valley, and reached the "Hut," as it was called.
It was in very truth a mere box, but it was a box set in the center of a sportsman's paradise. Lonely and solitary it stood on the edge of the deer forest, within sound of a babbling trout-stream, and in the center of the best shooting in Devonshire.
Oliver, with the aforesaid magic, procured a couple of servants, and soon got the little place in order; and here the two friends lived, like hermits in a dell.
They fished and shot and rode all day, returning at night to a plain, late dinner; and altogether led a life so different to that which they had been leading as it was possible to imagine.
Lord Charles enjoyed it. He got brown, and as fit and "as hard as nails," as he described it, but Leycester took things differently. The gloom which had settled upon him would not be dispelled by the mountain air and the beauty of the exquisite valley.
Always and ever there seemed some cloud hanging over him, spoiling his enjoyment and witching the charm from his efforts at amusement. While Charles was killing trout in the stream, or dropping the pheasants in the moors, Leycester would wander up and down the valley, gun or rod in hand, using neither, his head drooping, his eyes fixed in gloomy retrospection.
In simple truth he was haunted by a spirit which clung to him now as it had clung to him in those days of feverish gayety and dissipation.
The vision of the slim, beautiful girl whom he loved was ever before him, her face floated between him and the mountains, her voice mingled with the stream. He saw her by day, he dreamed of her by night. Sometimes he would wake with a start, and fancy that she was still his own, and that they were standing by the weir, her hand in his, her voice whispering, "Leycester,I love you!" Distance only lent enchantment to her beauty and her grace. In a word, he could not forget her!
Sometimes he wondered whether he had been right in yielding her up to Jasper Adelstone so quietly; but as he recalled that morning, and Stella's face and words, he felt that he could not have done otherwise. Yes, he had lost her, she had gone forever, yet he could not forget her. It seemed very strange, even to himself. After all, there were so many beautiful women he could have chosen; some he had been almost in love with, and yet he had forgotten them. What was there about Stella to cling to him so persistently? He remembered every little unconscious trick of voice and manner, the faint little smile that curved her lip, the deep light in the dark eyes as they lifted to his, asking, taking his love. There was a special little trick or mannerism she had, a way of bending her head and looking at him half over her shoulder, that simply haunted him; she came—the vision of her—to the side of his chair and his bed, and looked at him so, and he could see the graceful curve of the delicate neck. Ah, me! ah, me! It was very weak and foolish, perhaps, that a strong man of the world should be held in such thrall by a simple girl, just a girl; but men are made so, and will so be held, when they are strong and true, till the world ends.
It was very slow for Charlie—very slow and very rough, but he was one of those rare friends who stick close in such a time. He fished, and shot, and rode, and walked, and was always cheerful and never obtrusive; but though he never made any remark, he could not but notice that Leycester was in a bad way. He was getting thinner and older looking, and the haggard lines, which the wild town life had begun to draw, deepened.
Lord Charles was beginning to be afraid that the Doone Valley also would fail.
"Ever hear anything of your people, Ley?" he asked one night, as they sat in the living room of the hut. The night was warm for the time of year, and they sat by the open window smoking their pipes, and clad in their shooting suits of woolen mixture.
Leycester was leaning back, his head resting on his hand, his eyes fixed on the starlit sky, his long knickerbockered legs outstretched.
"My people?" he replied, with a little movement as of one waking from a dream. "No. I believe they are in the country somewhere."
"Didn't leave any address for them?"
Leycester shook his head.
"No. I have no doubt they know it, however; Oliver is engaged to Lilian's maid, Jeanette, and doubtless writes to her."
Charles looked at him.
"Getting tired of this, old man?" he asked, quietly.
"No," said Leycester. "Not at all. I can keep it up as long as you like. If you are tired, we will go. Don't imagine that I am insensible to the boredom you are undergoing, Charlie. But I advised you to let me go my way alone, did I not?"
"That's so," was the cheerful response. "But I didn't choose,did I? And I don't now. But all the same, I should like to see you look a little more chippy, Ley."
Leycester looked up at him and smiled, grimly.
"I wonder whether you were ever in any trouble in your life, Charlie," he said.
Lord Charles drained the glass of whisky and water that stood beside him.
"Yes," he said; "but I'm like a duck, it pours off my back, and there I am again."
"I wish I were like a duck!" said Leycester, with bitter self-scorn. "Charlie, you have the misfortune to be tied to a haunted man. I am haunted by the ghost of an old and lost happiness, and I can't get rid of it."
Charlie looked at him and then away.
"I know," he said; "I haven't said anything, but I know. Well, I am not surprised; she is a beautiful creature, and one of the sort to stick in a man's mind. I'm very sorry, old man. There isn't any chance of its coming right?"
"None whatever," said Leycester, "and that is why I am a great fool in clinging to it."