"I wishyou would go and meet them at the lodge," said Susannah Chressham.
"'Tis near an hour before they are due," smiled Marius, looking at his watch. "How impatient you are!"
"To see her, yes." Miss Chressham unfurled her pink parasol. "I am quite agitated."
"Shall we return to the house?"
"No, it is very pleasant here; let us go to my rose garden, it will pass the time, and really some of the blooms are beautiful."
They took a path that led towards the lake across the cedar-shaded lawn; the sun was strong before its setting and cast a soft glow through the rosy silk of Miss Chressham's parasol on to her bare brown head and white dress; Marius Lyndwood was very exquisitely arrayed in dove-coloured satins; as he walked beside his cousin he played with the red tassels on his ivory-headed cane.
"Has Rose written to you of late?" asked Miss Chressham suddenly.
"I received a letter from him two days ago, as I was leaving Brereton's," answered Marius half shyly. "I spoke of it to my lady, but she did not encourage me to show it to her."
He switched at the thick daisies with his cane.
"Rose wrote from Calais—charmingly—he enclosed bills to a large amount, and said he had arranged a captaincy for me in the Blues—'twas all very sweetly worded."
"Rose has a chivalrous soul," said Miss Chressham.
Marius flushed.
"You, with him, make me out a selfish boor, maybe," and the crimson deepened in his cheeks. "I was passionate with my lord, but he hath given me no chance to put it aright."
They were now skirting the borders of the lake, and their bright dresses were reflected like painted shadows in the still water.
Susannah spoke firmly.
"What Rose has done he did because he was the head of the house and because you and my lady made it clear that you expected his duty of him—it was natural that you should——"
"Ye make me uneasy with this talk of his sacrifice," cried Marius.
"I said duty, not sacrifice," returned Miss Chressham; "this marriage hath saved the estates, the name, my lady and you."
It was at the irises growing at the water's edge that Marius struck now with his impetuous cane.
"But," he said as if in self-justification, "a man in my lord's position must marry, and 'tis usually an heiress; the thing is done every day; many might have expected Rose to do it sooner, before it came to openly making a bargain of it."
Susannah Chressham tilted her parasol and turned keen eyes on his half-ashamed face.
"Would you have cared to marry a stranger, Marius, because she had a hundred thousand pounds to her dowry, and her father had paid your debts?"
"I am not the Earl," said he, wincing.
"But had you been——"
He interrupted.
"Had I been, Susannah, maybe I had not so wasted my fortunes that I had need to mend them in this way; takeit as you will, my lord is a rake and a prodigal; why, Beau Lyndwood is the most conspicuous name in town."
"My lord," she answered warmly, "hath lived as his father before him, and ye have no cause to speak; your romance lies open to you—my lord has paid, and with the price he gets you can save yourself from my lord's sins."
Marius answered in a soft troubled voice.
"Do not blame me, cousin, 'tis not entirely for me that he does this——"
"Very largely for you, that you may have the chance to win this lady who may be all in all to you."
"I am grateful," said Marius simply. "For indeed I want little else but that same lady—we shall not trouble Rose."
They had turned away from the lake into a little grove of Eastern shrubs, myrtles, laurels and oleanders; Susannah's skirt trailing over the fallen fragrant leaves made a pleasant sound; she softly closed the parasol.
"Has she written to you, Marius?"
"No," he looked away, "but she said she would not be returning to London till September, and, of course, it does not matter whether she writes or no."
"You are so sure of her?" breathed Susannah.
"So sure," he smiled.
"Not even knowing her name!"
He lifted a bough of myrtles from the path.
"I called her in my fancy 'Aspasia' from Mr. Fletcher's play, 'twas enough; I only spoke to her twice; the first time we said so little! the second time I gave her my name and she gave me her picture. 'I will write to you,' she said—and so—and so——"
"You are very fortunate," answered Miss Chressham in a hushed way, "it must make you more tender with my lord."
She passed under the trellis arch that led into the garden, he followed, and they stood among the heavy roses looking at each other.
"What do you mean, cousin?" asked Marius.
She put her hand among the thorns and leaves and shook a huge crimson bloom free from wet.
"This—do not be over-righteous, Marius—when you have found her, and won her, and are as happy as you dreamed, remember my lord's unlovely marriage, and be a little sorry for him."
Her voice broke; she turned away, pressing against the rose bushes; Marius lifted her hand and kissed it in silence.
"I grow sentimental," she cried. "Come, which of these flowers do you think the new Countess would give the preference to?"
She shifted her parasol and her fingers fondled the ribbon on the handle.
"We must pick her some of my roses," she added. "I want to like her, Marius—my lady will be cold with fear, but she might have been sour or vain or common; Rose has always spoken of her as gentle and sweet."
"Her birth is well enough," answered Marius uneasily. "Her people have never been less than gentlefolk."
He did not care to think his brother had mated too utterly beneath him, and it seemed that Susannah was making too much of it—as the matter really only interested him obliquely he would have had it taken for granted and put aside; he would have preferred to relate how he first met Aspasia in the Luxembourg gardens in Paris; Susannah could be, when she chose, a perfect listener.
But she would not suffer the subject to change. "It must be difficult for her—at first," she said. "I am very curious to see her. Lavinia hath quite a pretty sound, hath it not? I wonder if she likes riding."
"Ye seem very desirous to please her," smiled Marius.
Susannah paused before an opulent bush bearing roses red almost to a purple tinge.
"I want her to like me," she repeated.
Marius looked at his cousin; certainly she was making too much of it; he could not find Rose's wife of such importance.
"Why?" he asked. "Why do you want her to like you?"
Miss Chressham answered with an ardent gravity.
"Because I am afraid of hating her," she said; "I wish to like her before I am lured into loathing her."
She pulled two roses from the stem, never heeding the thorns, and gazed intently at them.
"I think you take it over heavily," replied Marius with a judicial air. "Rose was bound to marry and to marry a fortune—he would scarcely have made a love match." Marius was boyishly pompous. "We hear the lady has qualities, is as desirable as another lady with a hundred thousand pounds, and I cannot think Rose would ever let his wife interfere with him."
Susannah's eyes flashed over the gorgeous blooms she held to her lips.
"And you will supply sentiment for two; well, no doubt I am foolishly romantical."
But the words were a mere dismissal of a subject she disdained to discuss with one who would not understand.
"I think we might go now," she added; "surely it is time?"
"The moments have been vastly swift!" He glanced at his watch. "Yes, they are due—shall I go straight to the lodge?"
"Had you not better? My lady awaits them in the withdrawing-room. She thinks of her own home-coming, I know—a triumphal arch, villagers lining the road with flowers—and regrets this for Rose; but his commands were stern."
Miss Chressham spoke rapidly. Her restless eyes and fluttering lashes showed agitation. As Marius parted fromher by the lake she laughed nervously, and waved her hand to the careless youthful figure hurrying through the shrubbery.
She was very glad Marius was happy; it was as pleasant to watch his eager joy in life as to survey the content of a loving dog; and as sad to see him miserable as to behold an animal in distress.
Susannah had much the same faith in his Aspasia as he himself possessed. She considered him likely enough to come across his fate early—likely enough to love, to be loved, to satisfy, and be satisfied.
He was simple, she thought—no makings of a rake in him. Honest and brave he was, but no more to be compared with Rose.
She kept her thoughts from the Earl, and fell to, somewhat desperately, considering his wife. Miss Lavinia Hilton, daughter of merchant, child of a parvenu, Countess of Lyndwood now—the wife of Rose!
The thing was so monstrous that it must be taken without exclaim, naturally, or it became a horror unendurable, a wonder all credulity strained at. He, so fastidious, asking for wit as well as beauty, breed as well as grace, polish as well as youth—mated to a melancholy schoolgirl whose father had spent his life in the countinghouse!
To Susannah this was a picture to be ignored, not even glanced at—to contemplate it was to behold the cruel elements of tragedy.
Susannah dropped her skirt, closed her parasol, and looked at the two long-stemmed roses she carried, holding them up against the fading blue sky.
A little further and she came into view of the house; its brick front was warmed by the universal glow of the setting sun. On the terrace in front bloomed peonies and Turks' caps, the stone vases held trailing masses of geraniums, scarlet amid their bright leaves. All waspeaceful, stately, and beautiful. "What a home for her to come to!" thought Susannah.
She went slowly to the front where the magnificent lawn, broken with one dark cedar-tree, reached to the fountains and the lake where the white swans glittered, and as she neared the wide steps, a coach and six, swinging on its leathers, came up the chestnut drive.
It drew up with a scramble of the horses' hoofs on the gravel. The first thing to strike Miss Chressham was that this equipage was not belonging to the new Countess. She had seen it last year in London. Her second thought was that he could never have kept it but for the Hilton money.
The postillions and footmen jumped down, but, quicker than they, Rose Lyndwood opened the door and sprang out.
"Ah, Susannah!" he said. His voice had a note of relief; he pulled off his glove and offered her his hand.
Miss Chressham glanced at his face, and her heart gave a sick swerve.
"Where is my lady?" asked the Earl.
Susannah forced herself.
"In the house. I sent Marius to the gate; he must have missed you."
Her eyes travelled anxiously to the coach door. My lord held it open and assisted a lady to alight.
"This is Lavinia," he said.
Susannah's first impression was that she was extremely young and quite pretty; her second that she did not know how to dress.
"My cousin Susannah!" said the Earl.
The Countess swept a nervous curtsey, and stared at Miss Chressham.
Her plain purple coat and wide Leghorn hat, with black ribbons, had the effect not of elegance, but of insignificance. Susannah thought it ostentatious, too.
"I am rejoiced to see you," said Miss Chressham;"but 'tis difficult to say so without a set speech, and I expect you are tired—may I call you Lavinia?"
A pair of brown eyes were gravely fixed on her from under the shade of the Leghorn hat.
"If you will, please," answered Lady Lyndwood, with never the flicker of a smile.
Another coach had arrived with the servants and the baggage. Rose was half-way up the steps. He did not look at his wife, nor she at him. Susannah, under cover of the confusion of arrival, took the Countess's arm.
"You look rather fatigued," she ventured, "the roads are rough."
"I am very fatigued."
They ascended the steps together. In the doorway stood the dowager Countess, radiant in lace and gold silk.
If Rose's wife had been of her own choice, she could not have been more gracious.
"My dear!" she took the new Countess prettily by the hands. "You are as sweet as Rose described you, and I cannot say more." She kissed her. "Forgive my lord's mother the impertinence of welcoming you to your own house."
Lavinia disengaged herself.
"I thank you, madam," she said.
"Where is Marius?" asked my lord.
"He went, as I said, to meet you," replied Susannah. "He must be back any moment."
Now Lady Lyndwood looked at her husband, only for a second; her baited glance turned with an expression of relief to Miss Chressham.
"Please, I am very tired—sick with the jolting of the coach; might I go to my room?"
Before Susannah had time to answer the elder Countess had swept her up the shining oak stairs, in a cloud of graceful speeches.
Rose did not look after them. He turned into thelibrary and his cousin followed him. She still held the two red roses, and as he seated himself at the table she drew their stems through the lace at her breast.
The Earl rested his cheek on his hand and his elbow on the table. He had not removed his dark-green travelling coat. It set off the grace and fineness of his figure as the high black stock relieved the weary pallor of his face. At the corner of his lip was the familiar bat-shaped patch, and under the paste buckle in his hair the turquoise ribbon he affected.
Susannah looked at him. Her cousin, Rose Lyndwood, home again, in his old place!
And upstairs, his wife!
"I am sorry Marius missed you," she said.
He turned his grey eyes on her.
"'Tis no matter," he said, in a lifeless manner.
Then Miss Chressham threw aside restraint.
"Oh, Rose," she cried, coming up to the table. "What have you done? What is she like?"
"What makes you say that?" he demanded, raising his head.
"Your face—her face!" she answered. "Don't you suppose I can see what this is going to be?"
He made a movement with his hand on the table, as if his nerves were strained almost beyond bearing.
"It is well enough," he said, looking away. "What did I expect? I suppose my lady is pleased?"
"She takes it for granted. She never realised it."
The Earl rose and crossed to the fireplace.
"And Marius?"
"Marius is happy; you have that satisfaction."
Susannah's eyes were anxious and tender as she gazed at her cousin.
"That is, as you say, some satisfaction," said my lord. "Otherwise it was not worth it—by God, not worth it!"
His tone, his expression, startled her.
"Why did you do it?" she cried. "You were madly reckless."
He took his pipe from his pocket and filled it with a trembling hand.
"To have sold myself!" he muttered.
Again her heart gave the lurch it had done when she first saw his expression; but before she could speak he had made an effort with himself.
"But I do not know why I speak like this. You are too sympathetic, my dear"—he smiled—"and I suppose I am a little tired, too, of sitting still in a coach. Is Marius pleased with his commission under Willouby?"
"Marius is very well content," replied Susannah, but her mind was not on what she said.
The Countess Agatha entered.
"Rose! I have not spoken to you! What manner of journey had you? Lavinia seems exhausted. I have sent her woman to her, and she wishes to be excused coming down, poor thing! I fear she hath a sad headache."
It might have been her own daughter she spoke of, so naturally and gracefully did she refer to Rose's wife.
The Earl turned to the door.
"I will go find Marius," he said shortly, and left them.
"Rose is out of humour," remarked his mother.
"Yes," said Susannah abruptly.
The Countess looked absently at the reflection of her frail charming person in the mirror by the bookcase.
"And no wonder, my dear, all day shut up in a coach with that girl! And Rose of all men!" She laughed, half under her breath.
Miss Chressham glanced at her in a kind of shock.
"What do you think of her?" she asked.
"She is impossible!" answered the Countess at once. "Gauche, vapourish, no style, a little sullen, I think. Of course, quite pretty behind a bourgeois tea-table, butno manners! La, poor Rose! She seems afraid of him, too."
Susannah was silent. It was startling to find the shallow judgment of the Countess pronounce thus.
"But," added that lady sweetly, "what does it matter? Rose will get used to her."
"And there is the money," finished Miss Chressham bitterly.
"Of course, there is the money." The Countess raised her brows; she thought the remark not quite genteel.
"And Marius can have his romance unspoiled, his commission, and his happy future," continued Miss Chressham. "But what is before Rose?"
"Oh, my dear, I am no prophetess! I suppose Rose can manage his own affairs. He can certainly manage his own wife; he is so different from Marius." Then she gave the younger woman a sudden pleading look. "Do you think I am vastly selfish in being glad of Rose's marriage, and what it has meant to Marius?"
Susannah stooped and kissed her. She could not say anything, nor was it necessary. The Countess brightened at once under the caress.
"Did you see her dress?" cried Lady Lyndwood mischievously, with the pleasure even a good-natured coquette feels in seeing another woman make the least of herself. "La! She will never start a fashion! Which reminds me, I wonder if Rose brought those satins I asked of him!"
Miss Chressham roused herself from depths of different thoughts.
"Let us go after him, Aunt Agatha. I think he will be in the withdrawing-room."
Thecurious perfume of the lilies in the tall red pots was so strong that my lord opened the long windows on to the night.
"The moon is just rising," he said, and lingered a little, looking out.
He was alone with Marius in the beautiful room overlooking the terrace. Through the folding door standing open into the next chamber might be seen Miss Chressham seated at her harp and the dowager Lady Lyndwood lying back gracefully with an open book on her knee.
It was difficult for any of them to realise there was a new mistress of the house, a new Countess of Lyndwood under the very same roof. These four were so much the same as they had always been. The lazy luxury of Lyndwood Holt was unchanged; yet but for this stranger they would have been scattered, and others in their places here.
The candle-light showed the rich fittings, the splendid furniture. The elegant melody of the harp sounded delicately in keeping with the fine chambers. Marius, listening to it, sighed, in sentimental mood.
My lord had spoken to him. Frankly and charmingly, Marius had asked his pardon and expressed his gratitude. They felt themselves, perhaps, better friends than they had been since they were boys. Rose was pleased that he had made his brother happy, secretly flattered and touched by being able to play the bountiful, and Marius was honestly grateful.
Presently my lord returned from the window. He was splendidly attired. The cloud that darkened his face on his arrival had lifted; he was a little flushed, and his eyes were dark, as if with excitement, otherwise he was composed and pleasant.
The Countess Lavinia had not appeared since she entered the house, nor had Rose mentioned her. Susannah and Marius had been silent about her, too, but my lady was able to bring her name naturally into their conversation.
The Earl leant against the mantelpiece; the pale-pink silk he wore caught the light and glimmered, the brightest thing in the room.
Marius, sitting at his ease in one of the great leather chairs, studied my lord's face, and wondered at it for its attraction and charm. He had never thought about his brother's looks, though a certain magnificence of bearing about the Earl had always held him in awe; but to-night, as he gazed up at the proud expressive countenance of Rose, he was almost startled by the extreme handsomeness of the blunt-featured, composed, slightly defiant face with the nostrils a little distended, the lips firmly set, and the large eyes very brilliant under the long lashes.
They call him Beau Lyndwood, thought the young man with a slight sense of distaste. Contemplation of his brother's splendour gave him an alien feeling. He turned away his eyes and stared across to the dark expanse of the window.
My lord spoke.
"When do you think of going to London?"
"That is as you please, sir."
"I told Willouby you would be coming to take up your commission soon. You had better write to him."
"I will, to-night."
Rose Lyndwood smiled.
"And the lady?" he said sweetly.
Marius coloured.
"She is coming to London in September," he answered manfully. Of all things he loathed speaking of this to his brother. "She has not written to me, but I hardly expected it." He pulled himself up short. "This seems sorry foolery to you, sir."
The Earl's charming smile deepened.
"What did you call her?"
"Aspasia," said Marius, staring in front of him.
"Aspasia! It hath melancholy associations! Well, September is not so far. You must commend me to her when you meet."
Marius rose.
"I will write that letter in the library." He hesitated, then said awkwardly: "Give my duty to my lady your wife. I hope to meet her to-morrow."
My lord still smiled in a manner that seemed to put a measureless distance between them, and as Marius turned to leave the room he walked over to the two ladies in the inner chamber.
"A likeness to something—to someone," the Countess Agatha was saying. "I cannot think where."
"What gossip do ye broach?" asked the Earl.
Susannah bent over her harp, but his mother answered at once.
"We were speaking of your Lavinia," she said. "I could swear I had seen her face before."
"Her type," replied Rose Lyndwood, "is not uncommon. And now will you sing to me, Susannah?"
Marius had lights brought into the library, and seated himself at the great desk between the bookshelves, where my lady had sat that evening when her son had told her of his ruin.
After arranging his paper and sharpening a quill, Marius leant back in the comfortable chair and fell into a happy musing. The future was good to dwell on. The colour crept into his cheeks, and the fire into his eyes, and hisboyishly handsome face softened into a dreamy expression.
The candles burning either side the desk showed a pleasant picture of him, elegant, young, wide-browed and fair, with fresh, untaught lips, one hand slackly holding the quill, the other hanging by his side, grey silk and soft lace adorning his slim figure, and his bright hair brushing the dark background of the carved seat.
Suddenly the door opened and shut.
Marius dropped the quill with a start.
"Is that you, my lord? I have not even begun the letter."
He looked over his shoulder and remained in that attitude, clasping the arm of the chair.
The Countess Lavinia stood inside the door. Her close purple gown was undone at the throat. Her complexion a ghastly colour; she wore no ornaments.
"Aspasia!" said Marius.
"Hush!" she answered. "Hush!"
He rose now, still staring at her.
"Aspasia!" he repeated, and blenched as if he beheld a spirit.
She came nearer.
"I am no ghost," she said, in a voice full of horror; "but your brother's wife." She put her hand to her forehead, and pushed back the damp dark hair. "I have been watching for this chance. I crept down; I saw you come in here. His cousin is singing to him."
Marius shuddered and straightened himself.
"Wait!" he said. "Youare Aspasia—andRose's wife?"
"It is new to you," she returned wildly, "but I have thought of nothing else for two months.Iknew he was your brother. What did it avail? I wrote to you—to your hotel in Paris."
She stopped, gazing at him, and twisting her fingerstogether. He began to understand what she was saying, what her presence here, in his brother's house, meant, what this was that had happened to them.
"I never had your letter," he said stupidly. "You pledged yourself to me."
She answered in a feverish haste.
"I know. Had I refused my father he would have killed me—yes, killed me! He said he would send me to Bedlam." She dropped into the chair that stood stiffly against the opposite wall. "It seemed, too, that you must know—that you did not care."
Marius stumbled towards her, stooped and took her bare cold hands in his, as he had once held them, gloved and warm, under the spring trees in the garden of the Luxembourg.
"So you were Miss Lavinia Hilton, and now are Rose's wife?" he said, in a hollow voice. "I understand."
She turned up her face to his, and her slim bosom panted desperately under the dark gown.
"My father sent for me very soon after we parted. He was terrible—and now it is done." A look of hopelessness came over her countenance. She rose to her feet, their hands still clinging together.
"How I have dreaded this meeting! I feared it must be before them all. Oh, Marius! Marius!" She ended in a broken wail and drew her hands away and hid her face.
"You are different," said Marius in a foolish wonder. She seemed so much older, so much whiter and haggard, too. In a confused way he marvelled at it.
"Different," she echoed; then she laughed. "I am your brother's wife!"
Marius stepped back.
"My God!" he said in his throat, and mechanically laid hold of his sword hilt. "My God! What are we going to do?"
The Countess Lavinia cowered against the wall.
"You must go away. I followed you to ask you to leave the house at once—to go away. With you here I cannot bear it: do you hear me?"
The foolish quiescence into which the shock had at first stunned him began to give way to a rising passion that thawed his heart.
"His wife!" The blood rose to his face, his eyes. "How dared you become his wife—huckstered for your money——"
"Yes, for the money," she interrupted frantically. "He wanted the money, as my father wanted the title, and so he must take me, hating me as I hate him—and your brother!" She stood to her full height, pressing her hands on her bosom. "I think my soul was sold, too, for what is this but sin?"
"Where is Rose?" cried Marius thickly, and made for the door. But she was very quickly in his way.
"What are you doing?" she asked desperately. "He must not know—this must be between us—always. You must go, before anyone discovers." She lowered her voice and glanced furtively as if knowing herself in the house of strangers and enemies. "If you leave now," she continued hurriedly, "to-night, at once, we need not meet in public."
Marius did not gather the sense of what she said. This was not Aspasia of the Luxembourg gardens, with romantic eyes and shy of speech.
"I must find Rose," he repeated thickly.
The Countess leant across the door, grasping the handle. Her senses were on the alert. She knew Rose was only a few yards away, he and his two kinswomen; she divined it could only be a matter of moments before someone entered the library.
"What do you want to find him for?" she demanded. It was noticeable that she gave her husband neither his name nor his title. She beat the fingers of her left handup and down on her breast. "Why do you stare like that? How slow you are!"
His eyes rested on her wedding-ring, the only ornament she wore.
"All is so changed," he said drearily. He sat down at the table. "How foolish we were." He could not avoid uttering what was his one thought—how foolish they had been. He had imagined that he had loved Aspasia, and it had been beautiful; now this woman said, "I am Aspasia," and the delicate fabric of the romance was shattered. Soft words with a fair stranger beneath the fluttering leaves was another matter to this scene with Rose's wife in Rose's house. The whole thing grew distasteful, almost ugly. He stared at the Countess, and it beat in his brain that she was a stranger to him; he did not know her in the least—only her face, her voice——
She, on her side, was sharply observing him.
"Perhaps youdidn'tcare," she said, "after all. Well, you gave me reason to think so. We were to have been married in the autumn."
"I kept faith!" he cried. "But you—what have you made of it all?"
A frightened look settled in her intent eyes.
"I do not know; I feel I have done something terrible. It was not to be avoided—in any way escaped.Ialso kept faith in my heart. What had I for him but hate?"
It jarred on Marius that she put this into words.
"We must not blame Rose," he said, with pale lips. "He did not know. Had you told him——"
"I had no chance. Was he likely to have listened? He wanted the money."
That stung the Earl's brother.
"My lord wanted the money that he might help me. He heard of—our meeting. Oh, Heaven, he meant we should not be hampered for lack of this money! Forhimself I think he would have done otherwise; indeed, I believe there was another——"
Then, as the whole miserable confusion and tangle showed itself more clearly to his startled soul, he was dumb.
The Countess Lavinia caught up his broken sentence.
"Another! Ye do not need to tell me that. I am not so young nor such a fool, though maybe they thought so. But do not tell me it was not for himself. He was a ruined man."
"Do not fling that in my face!" cried Marius.
"Inyourface?"
"'Tis my brother," he answered with a great flush, "and the head of my house."
Her feverish eyes expressed scorn.
"I do not understand you. He hath the money, hath he not?"
"Curse the money!" exclaimed Marius. "I say it was for me and my visionary love affair he did this. Had ye told him!"
"Visionary love affair!" echoed the Countess hysterically. "Is that how ye phrase it? Well, it was more to me."
It had been more to him, and the knowledge of it—of how much it had been and how the last few moments had changed everything on heaven and earth, held him in a white silence.
"What are you going to do?" asked the Countess. There was a goading note in her voice that touched the unbearable. "Why do you not go?"
"I must see my lord," he answered hoarsely.
"You will not tell him?"
"I must," he muttered. "What else?"
"Cannot you keep silence? Cannot you leave us our secret? Will you not go away, as I have asked you?"
He raised his despairing young face.
"What of my lord's position?"
"Why do you consider—him?" She suddenly left the door and came lightly to the other side of the table. "Marius," she said eagerly, "think ofmea little. What did you say to me once—ah, what did you say, Marius?"
She had not known his name when last they met; he did not care to hear her use it now.
"What do you want of me?" he said in a shamed voice.
"I have said go to London—away, anywhere. I cannot have you here, I am not schooled enough—yet." She paused a second, and he looked away from her, supporting his sick brow in his hand—"These women have sharp eyes, too," she added faintly.
Now he glanced at her. "These women!" So that was how she spoke of his mother and his cousin—she, a stranger in the house, Mr. Hilton's daughter; Aspasia should have loved my lady and Susannah.
"You may write to me," she went on quickly, "under cover of my father's house."
She had thought of that, then. It brought him to his feet.
"But you are the Countess of Lyndwood," he said.
Her slight frame trembled painfully, her large shadowed eyes widened.
"Does it make any difference to what you and I feel for each other?" she asked faintly.
"It makes a difference in the expression of that feeling," he answered fearfully. "It means that you are no longer Aspasia."
She held out a shaking hand towards him.
"Does it mean you no longer care?"
He made a movement as if he turned on her.
"Do you want me to say I do?"
"Perhaps so," she answered huskily. "Perhaps I find nothing else worth living for. Do you think it has been pleasant for me since I saw you last in the Luxembourg?"
Her words made no impression on him. He was thinking of those three a few yards away—of Susannah at her harp, of my lady with the open book on her knee, of my lord listening to the music, as they had so often done before. There were only two doors and a length of corridor between them.
"Why do you look at me so strangely?" asked the Countess. "Cannot you say good-bye and go?"
Every word she said expressed this desire—to have it all secret, hidden away, concealed, to deceive Rose and "these women."
Marius straightened himself.
"I will go, madam."
She was not satisfied.
"Like that?" she cried.
"In what manner?" he asked wildly. "In what manner should I take leave of you?"
She took an impatient turn about the room.
"Do you desire to madden me? Am I to tell you all you are to do? It did not use to be so."
"Why will you dwell on the past. You, not I, have made it different."
"You, not I," she retorted bitterly, "findit so different. Would to God ye had told me then it was a mere Maytime's amusement! It might have saved a broken heart!"
He came a desperate step towards her.
"Aspasia!"
She turned swiftly at that.
"Oh, my dear," she cried in a shaking voice, "I am so lonely and so tired!"
He stood, neither advancing nor retreating, staring at her appealing presence with distracted eyes.
Before either spoke, Rose Lyndwood entered the room.
"Yeare a long time writing this letter," said the Earl, closing the door; then he saw his wife as she stood in the shadows of the bookcase, huddled together.
For a second there was complete silence; then my lord spoke.
"Why did you not come into the withdrawing-room, madam? I thought you upstairs."
She answered quickly.
"So I was—till this moment. I came to select a book to distract me, not knowing I was disturbing Mr. Lyndwood."
Her lie came too glibly, and the readiness of it made Marius wince.
The Earl crossed the room. He looked from his brother to his wife, and then down at the blank sheet of paper and the newly sharpened unstained quill upon the desk.
"What is the matter, Marius?" he asked, with a slight smile.
"Matter, sir?"
The Countess was rigid in her own defence, but Marius interrupted.
"Hush!" he said, almost sternly; then he turned to his brother.
"The Countess Lavinia was my Aspasia," he said manfully and simply. "You will remember, my lord—she hath come down here to ask me to leave her house. Oldmemories are ofttimes painful. I will go to London with the dawn."
The Countess sank heavily into the chair against the wall.
"You are a fool! Oh!" she cried stormily, twisting her fingers. "Oh, fool!"
My lord pressed his handkerchief to his beautiful mouth. He was silent, gazing with dark eyes on Marius, ignoring his wife.
The younger man forced himself into speech again.
"There is no one to blame, sir, is there?" He now smiled, and it maddened the Countess. She could have understood anything but that. Her husband had never been remotely within her reach, and now Marius stepped beyond it. That they should smile!
"I had an intuition of what had happened when I entered the room," said my lord. "Tragedy on the heels of the ludicrous! Certainly it is no one's fault, Marius."
The Countess rose with the fierce intent of dragging their emotions on to a level that she could understand, but for the second time Marius hushed her with a glance and a movement of his hand.
"I met my lady when she was Miss Hilton," he said firmly, looking at his brother, "and between us was some folly that might have been everything and was nothing—too small a matter to have been mentioned, my lord, had not—we—I—been surprised by this meeting."
The Earl's gaze was grave, but curiously tender too. He leant rather heavily against the mantelshelf, and there was a very faint smile on his lips.
"Do not suppose that I do not understand," he said, and his beautiful voice was soft.
It seemed to the Countess that they both ignored her, that they spoke a language she could not comprehend; that she stood an alien before them.
"Doyou understand?" she directly addressed her husband. "Do you understandmyposition?"
She pushed back the dark hair from her face, and her long brown eyes were bright.
My lord gave her one glance.
"Yes, you are my wife," he said.
"Since a month ago"—a painful colour beat in her cheeks—"what of myfeelings?"
Ardently, yet almost unconsciously, she desired to bring things to an issue, to force these two into action, to make a scene, to have a chance of expressing her own inarticulate passion; so had she wished to bring Marius to a pitch of she knew not what emotion when she came down to the library, knowing him there alone and unprepared.
"What of me?" she cried again.
"I' faith I know not," answered my lord. "What of you? 'Tis in your own hands."
She felt he slighted her as a creature of another world, and the quick red deepened beneath her eyes.
"Nothing to you, this!" She spoke with raised voice, as if she denounced him. "What do you care where my affections lie? What is it to you the name I hold in my heart?"
"My lady!" cried Marius. Then he turned to his brother. "Ye must a little longer listen to me, my lord. It cannot be left to seem that I go to London on the instant because once my lady thought too highly of me." He held his head proudly, though his lips trembled. "The Countess came to tell me how utterly she had forgotten one Miss Hilton once honoured with some slight acquaintance."
Lady Lyndwood listened, baffled, incredulous; the delicate gallantry of the speech had for her no meaning. She swept aside the fine words he used for her defence.
"I came to you to say I hadnotforgotten," she said passionately.
Still she did not get within the guard of either.
"'Tis hardly so long ago, madam," answered the Earl, "and I dare swear that you remember very well. It makes no difference to what Marius has said, and to what I can for myself see and understand."
The Countess came round the table.
"I think ye seek to put me off," she cried.
Rose Lyndwood straightened himself against the mantelshelf.
"And you, madam," he demanded, "what do you seek to make of this matter? You speak too late. This should have come some months ago, then you had not found me deaf." And he smiled bitterly.
The Countess twisted her hands together and pressed them on her bosom.
She felt that she had been cheated of everything—of her youth, her freedom, her lover, her husband, even of the right to complain.
"You can say that now," she answered hoarsely. "Now it is too late, as you say, too late." She loosened her hands and grasped the edge of the table. "But I think I had stood a poor chance. You wanted the money."
The Earl made a little movement, and the candle-light on his pink silk shimmered.
She spoke again, in a tone of rage and deliberate insult.
"'Tis easy now for you to ignore me, to preach at me, for youhavethe money—my father's money—your price."
Even as the words left her lips, she knew they were what he would never forgive, and through her wrath she felt a touch of fear. Half-shrinking, she glanced at Marius.
He uttered a sound under his breath, and turned his back on her, moving towards the window.
"Your father's money," said Lord Lyndwood quietly, looking at her with dangerous eyes, "bought what your father most desired, and what I thought you also desired, since ye did not protest. It is a thing done with."
"It is a thing but begun," she answered fiercely. "Bought! Do ye care to use that word?"
The Earl's breath came hurriedly. The passion she had longed to evoke was bared now in his face and voice.
"Mr. Hilton's daughter had not received my name as a gift," he said. "What should we wed for with you save our convenience?"
At the scorn in his gaze she shrank.
"We sink low enough when we barter with traders," continued my lord, "and when we mate with them. But it is not a degradation you can estimate, nor, by God, is there any obligation—even if your father's money had been ten times as much. You are my wife."
She hated him. But she could not answer. Her lips were dry, and her limbs trembled as she caught herself back against the bookcase.
Rose Lyndwood came forward, dominating the room.
"This is the last time, madam, we bandy words upon this or any other subject. I do not love dissension in my house. You will remember this. I am usually obeyed."
She looked at Marius. As she read it, here was his chance. He could turn on his brother now. Surely he would dignify her by a champion, redeem the scene by a challenge, a duel.
But he remained with his back to her, looking out into the darkness.
"Mr. Lyndwood!" she said unsteadily.
There was no answer. My lord crossed to the door and opened it.
"Will you leave us the chamber, madam? I desire to speak with my brother."
Slowly she took her gaze from Marius. She knew that she hated him also—ah, bitterly!—and that her heart sickened for vengeance on both of them.
But she was conquered. She dared no more open defiance.
"I have no wish to stay," she said, in a shaking voice.
The Earl moved away from the door, and she passed him and went out.
He did not speak to her, nor look at her as she left the room. As he closed the heavy door he gave a half-shudder, and the colour faded from his cheeks.
"Marius!" he said, and his voice had changed again to softness.
The younger man turned sharply round.
"Forgive me, my lord," he said wildly. "Forgive me!"
"What have I to forgive?" answered the Earl sadly. "I am sorry for it, Marius. God knows that I am sorry for it—for you, I mean."
"But it could never have been," continued my lord. "She—it is not there, Marius."
He crossed wearily to the desk and seated himself before the blank sheet of paper and the new quill.
"I perceive it," whispered Marius.
The Earl moved the candle on the desk further away from him, as if the light troubled his eyes.
"You must not altogether blame me, Marius; I think in no case would your idyll have survived."
His back was towards his brother, who did not look in his direction but straightly out at the darkness beyond the window; they had never been intimate, nor had either often been in the other's thoughts, but now the kinship told, there was a sense of perfect understanding between them that required no words to make plain.
"You had better go to London as you proposed," said my lord. "There is nothing for you to do here, and Lord Willouby will be expecting to see you."
Marius came up to the desk.
"Yes, I will go, sir—only, this——"
He stopped; the Earl pushed back his chair and looked up.
Marius was flushed, his lips taut and his forehead strained to a frown; he appeared piteously young to have such an expression of gravity on his fair face.
"What would you say?" asked his brother gently.
"The money," said Marius huskily and bluntly. "I could not—Mr. Hilton's money—hermoney;" he seemed to choke over the word, then added desperately, "she taunted us with it."
"For the last time," answered my lord quietly, gazing with resolute grey eyes at the younger man's troubled countenance, "and she shamed herself, not us—what is she but a boarding-school Miss? and the money is mine, Marius, no gift, but something earned, by God, earned."
"I would it had not happened," answered Marius unsteadily. "I do not love to know things are like this—'tis as if I saw a mirror for the first time and saw myself there—a fool."
Rose Lyndwood was silent; he picked up the quill in his fine slack hand and toyed with it.
"My lord," continued Marius, breathing heavily, "it was not she—I never—I mean Aspasia."
The Earl lifted his gaze from the idle pen and gave one of his sweet, swift smiles.
"You will find Aspasia yet, my dear."
The painful colour deepened in his brother's face.
"That is not what I mean to say—last summer—you may have thought, might think, but she was never more than gracious—we only met by chance, that time. I—I never more than took her hand."
He turned away abruptly, and the Earl saw his shoulders heave.
"My lady was nothing but honoured by homage such as thine, Marius."
A little silence fell, the bronze clock struck nine, and the unsnuffed candles cast a strong fluttering light over the two quiet figures and sent faint curls of smoke towards the high dark ceiling.
Marius faced his brother again, containing himself by an extreme effort of his fierce young pride.
"Is there anything I can do?" he said gallantly. "Anything I ought to say?"
"Oh, Marius!" said my lord in his charming low voice, "'tis all as clear as glass!"
"'Tis all miserable and horrible!" burst out Marius. "I would not have it so," his eyes were passionate and his voice rough, with tears maybe.
Rose Lyndwood very faintly smiled, his lids had a weary droop, but under them his glance was keenly on his brother, who had begun to fumble in the ruffles at his breast.
"You must take this now," he said more quietly, and pulled out a locket on a blue ribbon, "her picture"—he unfastened the ribbon and laid the miniature on the desk; "not like her, though—but like enough."
"If you would care to keep it," said my lord, never lowering his eyes from the other's face.
"I do not care," answered Marius, "that vision is over," he made an obvious attempt to speak quietly; "will you tell them that I have gone to London—I do not wish to see our lady mother about it, no, nor yet Susannah."
The Earl rose.
"I will tell them, but say good-bye to my lady or I shall be sorely blamed."
He hesitated a moment, then with that modest, half-shy air with which he ever approached things, and which showed so pleasingly on his splendour, he half held out his hand.
"You will always come to me—for anything, Marius?" he said. "I have done no good to you or to any, God knows; but since there are only two of us in the world—well, all this will be forgotten a year hence, but do not forget I am always there."
He paled a little as he spoke, and a look of vast unhappiness troubled his deep eyes. Marius caught his hand and kissed it.
"My lord, believe me, though I cannot speak," he choked and turned away.
Rose Lyndwood leant against the back of the chair from which he had risen.
"Good-night," he said.
"Good-night, my lord; I shall not see you in the morning—there is no more to be said?"
"Nothing."
"Good-night," this from the door.
"I shall see you in London, soon; till then fare ye well, Marius."
"Farewell, my lord."
The massive door opened and closed; the Earl was alone in the stately silent room with the ticking of the patient clock, the only sound beside his own movements to disturb the summer stillness.
He went to the window, opened it on the sweet mysterious dark and stood erect, looking out; he considered his wife, she had behaved as he had expected—it afforded him some bitter amusement to contrast her with Selina Boyle. How would she have acted in this wretched scene they had just brought to an end?—she, elusive, spiritual, delicate in manners, softest and proudest of women.
And it might as well have been, they might as well have left it altogether and found amid the dreamy luxury of Venice stately happiness.
My lord came back to the desk and picked up the miniature Marius had worn so many weeks next his heart.
The pure and steady breeze, entering like a welcome visitant through the open window, turned the candles into smoky torches and stirred the pomaded curls of Rose Lyndwood on his shoulders as he bent over the picture of his wife.
For a moment he was quite still and the emotion that took him was beyond thoughts as thoughts are beyond words; he made a quick movement of his hand to his heart, and any desperate thing seemed possible.
One of the candles blew out.
My lord gave a start and looked round; a sigh escaped him, then he bitterly smiled and quietly laid the picture down.
It was none of it great or heroic; as Marius had said, there was nothing to do but to go on. Meanwhile the Countess Agatha must be told.
He extinguished the other light and went in search of Susannah Chressham.
Whenthe Countess Lavinia left the library she went instantly and stealthily to the foot of the great stairway.
"Honoria!" she called in a hushed yet insistent voice. "Honoria!"
A slight figure in a light dress and mob cap appeared on the first wide landing.
"Come down," said the Countess, glancing furtively behind her, and the maid noiselessly and carefully descended.
"What has happened, my lady?" she asked, peering into her mistress's face, her own sharp fair countenance alert and eager; she had an air of secret malice and quick, unpleasant eyes.
The Countess clutched her arm.
"Come into the garden, not another moment under his roof, not another moment!" she whispered feverishly.
The maid expressed no astonishment, nor did her mistress seem to expect it; they had the manner of adepts in quick confidences and whispered exchanges of dangerous talk.
With a light step that seemed that of taught secrecy, Honoria preceded her mistress down the passage, and softly opened the door.
The two came out on to the wide steps where the moonlight lay still and pure.
"Shut the door," whispered the Countess, and the maid obeyed, asking under her breath:
"What are you going to do, my lady?"
The Countess with a wild gesture tore her purple gown wider open at the throat.
"I don't know—I will leave the place, I cannot endure it—why should I endure it?"
"Hush! Hush!" whispered the maid.
Her mistress stifled a little hysterical sound and again caught her companion's arm.
Swift and noiseless they descended the steps and passed under the shadows of the high rustling trees; then Honoria stopped, holding back her mistress.
"You can't run away now," she said with an air of resolution, "whatever has happened, my lady; why, you have neither mantle, nor hat, nor money—and who is to shelter you till the coach goes, here in a strange place?"
The Countess pressed her open hand to her forehead.
"I will not stay to be scorned—I will not," she cried frantically. "I am going back to my father if I have to walk; he can but murder me, and that were to be preferred to life with these!"
And she tried to press on through the low sweet shrubs.
"You are in a frenzy," said Honoria quietly, not loosening her hold. "Return home! it is madness, my lady. Consider a little."
The Countess shuddered.
"What is there to consider? I am sick with hate!"
"What did they do?" questioned Honoria shrewdly. "They did not fight?"
"Would to God they had!" answered Rose's wife furiously. "But I am of too little account to bring gentlemen's swords to the crossing! 'What do we marry you for if not for our convenience?' he said, and sent me from the room. And Marius turned his back on me!"
She flung herself on the maid's bosom, clinging round her neck, choking with bitter weeping in her throat. In the darkness cast by the peaceful trees, alone in the free airwith her one confidante, she let herself go utterly, the nameless passion that possessed her broke forth, tearing speech to tatters.
"How I have loved him! Bear witness how I have hated him, Honoria! Every time he looked at me 'twas as if he saw a smirch on his escutcheon. He never troubled to speak to me of any matter of his world, taking it for granted I could not understand; my people were not genteel; I should be waiting in my father's shop. But there was always Marius. Did he not follow me in Paris? Did he not wait beneath my window? Did he not colour when I spoke to him, as if I had been a princess, Honoria? Did he not?"
She freed herself from the maid's support, and leant heavily against the straight trunk behind her.
"My God! My God!" she cried violently. "He spoke to me after his brother's fashion, and I was scorned of both of them!"
Honoria looked at her curiously.
"I should not have thought it of Mr. Marius," she said; "but these great gentlemen are strange. But they are men," she added quickly, "and you are a woman, my lady. He was in love with you once, and might be again, I'll swear to it!"
The Countess Lavinia was silent, wearily struggling with tumultuous sobs that hurt her breast. She clasped her hands over her heart and looked on the ground.
The maid leant forward. A stray ray of moonlight pierced the gently waving foliage, and showed her delicate, sharp face and the curling locks of bright gold hair that escaped from under her white muslin cap.
"Think a little, my lady, of the position you have and the power it gives you over both of them. What good would you do by running away?"
"Disgrace him, at least," came heavily from the Countess Lavinia.
"And yourself more, my lady. What would they say—'who was she but a perked-up Miss that lost her head?' Great ladies do not run away. And how would Mr. Hilton receive you?"
"But for him I had never married this man," broke out the Countess desperately. "No, I vow it! But did he not threaten to shut me up in Bedlam?Youheard him tell me my grandmother had died mad, and so his daughter should if she were not Lady Lyndwood!"
"And ye were resigned," returned the maid quickly.
"I was cowed, but I would have married Marius. Yes, last spring I would have married him, so great a fool was I, and let the money go. The money! What use is it to me? What pleasure have I in seeing it go to payhisdebts, to procure luxuries forhismother, to keep up the estate he mocks me with, to minister to his extravagance? My money, my father's money! And my amusement must be to see it spent on foreign Delilahs and gipsy actresses who laugh at me!"
She stopped, gasping for breath. The maid eyed her keenly, and offered no reply.
"Let us walk on!" cried the Countess. "I cannot stand still."
She moved forward through the trees, and Honoria followed.
For a while there was no speech between them, and the snapping of branches and crushing back of leaves was distinctly heard. The Countess pushed back the damp dark curls from her brow and burst into words again.
"Am I not a good woman?" she exclaimed. "Am I not as fair and as witty as that cousin of his? Why should they turn their backs on me? I wot that among the women he has courted were some not so well born as I."
"But he did not marry one of them," returned Honoria in her quiet, insinuating voice, "and that is your strength,my lady. You do not hold him by the bonds of fancy, or the bonds of liking, or bonds of fashion, but by the bonds of the law, and that is the most lasting thing, my lady."
They had come out on to a fair lawn that sloped to a lake, and the sky showed vast above them. Through the dark trees ran the constant tripping murmur of the wind, and the long grass bent towards the water when the breeze strengthened. The moon was almost overhead and floated in a faint golden haze.
The Countess turned and looked back at the house, impassive and fine in the veiled silver light.
"Could we not have bought such a place?" she said. "Ay, and finer, Honoria! Could we not have paid for them with pieces across the counter in our tradesmen's way, sooner than have made this bargain of scorn for hate, sooner than have given our all for this unendurable position?"
The misty moonshine fell over her close dark hair and slender figure. Her face was in shadow, and she supported herself by resting one frail white hand against the cold cedar trunk behind her.
"Listen to me." The maid spoke with gathered energy. "You are the Countess of Lyndwood, and that means you may do what you will, with all of them, my lady. Consider that."
"I have no power," answered her mistress, "to do anything."
"If a man's wife hath not the power to ruin him, one way or another, I know not who hath, my lady. They make nothing of you now, but in a year hence, in two years hence you might have your foot on all of them."
The Countess Lavinia slowly turned her head and fixed her distended eyes on the speaker.