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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/35523-8.txt b/35523-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7521c09 --- /dev/null +++ b/35523-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15696 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir, by Charles Garvice + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir + +Author: Charles Garvice + +Release Date: March 9, 2011 [EBook #35523] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONLY ONE LOVE, OR WHO WAS THE HEIR *** + + + + +Produced by Heather Clark, eagkw and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + +ONLY ONE LOVE + +Or + +WHO WAS THE HEIR + + +By + +CHARLES GARVICE + +Author of + + "Claire," "Elaine," "Her Heart's Desire," "Leola Dale's Fortune," + "Her Ransom," "Leslie's Loyalty," "Lorrie; or, Hollow Gold," + "The Marquis," "Only a Girl's Love," + "She Loved Him," "A Wasted Love," + Etc. + + +CHICAGO + +M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY + +407-429 Dearborn Street + + + + + M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY + PRINTERS AND BINDERS + 407-429 DEARBORN STREET + CHICAGO + + + + +ONLY ONE LOVE + +Or, + +Who Was The Heir? + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +One summer's evening a young man was tramping through the Forest of +Warden. "Forest of Warden" sounds strange, old-fashioned, almost +improbable; but, thank Heaven, there yet remain, in over-crowded +England, some spots, few and far between though they may be, still +untouched by the greedy fingers of the destroyers, whom men call +Progress and Civilization. + +To this grand old forest, for instance, whose dim shades echo the soft +pit-pat of the deer and the coo of the wood-pigeon, comes not the +tourist, with hideous knapsack and suit of startling check; no panting +locomotive belches out its cloud of coal smoke to dim the brightness of +the sky and choke the elms and oaks which reared their stately heads +before their fell enemy, the steam engine, was dreamt of. + +So remote and unfrequented is the forest that there is scarcely a road +from end to end of its umbrageous length, for the trail made by the +rough carts of the woodmen and charcoal burners could scarcely be +dignified by the title of thoroughfare, and a few footpaths that wind +about the glades are so faint and seldom used as to be scarcely +distinguished from the undergrowth of ferny moss around. + +Along one of the footpaths the young man tramped, occasionally stopping +for a moment to look up at the sky which shone redly through the +openings of the trees or to watch some frightened hare scamper across +the glade. + +Every now and then a herd of deer would flit through the undergrowth, +turning toward him distended eyes of alarm and curiosity, for of the two +kinds of men with whom they were acquainted--charcoal burners and +woodmen--he was neither; nor did he belong to the tribe of tourists, for +he carried no knapsack, and instead of the inevitable check and +knickerbockers, was clad in a loose Cheviot suit, which, though well +worn, bore about it the unmistakable stamp of Saville Row. + +That he was young and light-hearted was evident from the fact that he +broke out into an occasional snatch of an air from the last new popular +_opera bouffe_, notwithstanding that the evening was closing in and he +had most completely and emphatically lost his way. + +Now, to lose your way in a forest reads rather romantic and entertaining +than otherwise, but like shipwreck, or falling into the hands of Greek +banditti, it is a much pleasanter thing on paper than in reality. + +A bed of moss, though very charming in the daytime, is not nearly so +comfortable as a spring mattress, and is sure to be damp, and primeval +oaks, majestic and beautiful as they are, do not keep out the draught. +The worst room in the worst inn is preferable to a night's lodging in +the grandest of forests. + +But, though he had never been in the Warden Forest before, the young man +knew it would be midsummer madness to hope for an inn and was wandering +along on the chance of coming across some woodman's hut, or by meeting a +stray human being of whom he could inquire his way. + +He was tired--he had been walking since morning, and he was hungry and +athirst, but he tramped on, and smoked and sang as carelessly as if he +were strolling down the shady side of Pall Mall. + +Slowly the sun set, and the glades, which had been dusky an hour ago, +grew dark. The faint footpath grew still more indistinct, the +undergrowth denser and more difficult for persons walking. + +The pedestrian fought on for some time, but at last, as he stumbled over +one of the gnarled roots which a grand chestnut had thrust up through +the ground, he stopped and, looking round, shook his head. + +"A regular babe in the wood, by Jove!" he exclaimed. "I shall have to +make a night of it, I expect. Wonder whether the robins will be good +enough to cover me over in the proper nursery-book style? Is it any good +halloing, I wonder? I tried that an hour ago, much to the disgust of the +live animals; and I don't think I can kick up a row at this time of +night. Let's see how the 'bacca goes. Hem! about three--perhaps four +pipes. I wish I had something to eat and drink; what a fool I was to +leave that piece of steak at breakfast. Steak! I mustn't think of +it--that way madness lies. Well, this looks about as sheltered a spot as +I could find--I'll turn in. I wonder if anybody has, ever since the +world began, hit upon a short cut? I never have, and hang me if I'll try +it again. By George! the grass is wet already. Such a likely place for +snakes--find my pocket full when I wake, no doubt." + +Then, with a laugh, he dropped down amongst the long brake; but the idea +of going to bed in a forest, at the early hour of nine, was too much for +him, and instead of composing himself to rheumatic slumber, he began to +sing: + + "Oh, wake and call me early, mother, + Call me early, mother, dear." + +Scarcely had he finished the line when there came through the darkness, +as if in response, a short, sharp bark of a dog. + +The wanderer leapt to his feet as if something had bitten him, and after +listening intently for a moment, exclaimed: + +"Another chance, by Jove!" and sent up a shout that, ringing through the +stillness, echoed from tree to tree, and at last called forth the +answering bark from the distant dog. + +Knocking out his pipe as he ran, he made his way as best he could toward +the sound, shouting occasionally and listening warily to the dog's +response. + +At last, after many a stumble, he found himself in a narrow glade, at +the end of which, faintly defined against the patch of sky, stood the +figure of a man. + +"Saved, by George!" exclaimed the youth, with mock melodramatic +emphasis. + +"Halloa! Hi! Wait a moment there, will you?" he shouted. + +The figure stopped and turned its head, then, after what seemed a +moment's hesitation, brought back the dog, which was running toward the +belated youth, and suddenly disappeared. + +The wanderer pulled up and stared about the glade with an astonishment +which immediately gave place to wrath. + +"Confound his impudence!" he exclaimed, fiercely. "I'll swear he saw me! +What on earth did he mean by going off like that? Did the fool think I +was a ghost? I'll show him I'm a ghost that carries a big stick if I +come up with him. Confound him, where----" Then, as a sudden thought +struck him, he set off running down the glade, barking like a dog. + +No live, real dog could withstand such an invitation. The dog ahead set +up an angry echo, through which the youth could hear the man's angry +attempt to silence the animal, and guided by the two voices, the +wanderer struck into a footpath, and running at a good pace, came +suddenly into a small clearing, in which stood a small wooden hut, +before the door of which man and dog were standing as if on guard. + +For a moment the two men stood and regarded each other in silence, the +youth hot and angry, the man calm and grim. + +Each, in his way, was a fine specimen of his class; the man, with his +weather-beaten face and his thick-set limbs, clad in woodman's garb; the +youth, with his frankly handsome countenance and patrician air. + +"What the deuce do you mean by leaving a man in the lurch like this?" +demanded the young man, angrily. "Did you take me for a ghost?" + +The woodman, half leaning on his long-handled axe, regarded him grimly. + +"No. I don't come at every man's beck and call, young sir. What's your +will with me?" + +"Why didn't you stop when I called to you just now?" retorted the youth, +ignoring the question. + +"Because it didn't suit me," said the man, not insolently, but with +simple, straightforward candor. "You are answered, young sir; now, what +do you want?" + +The young man looked at him curiously, conquering his anger. + +"Well, I've lost my way," he said, after a moment's pause. + +"Where are you going?" was the quiet response. + +"To Arkdale." + +The woodman raised his eyes, and looked at him for a moment. + +"Arkdale? Yes, you are out of the way. Arkdale lies to the west. Follow +me, young sir, and I'll show you the road." + +"Stop a moment," said the other; "though you declined to wait for me +just now, you would not refuse to give me a glass of water, I suppose." + +The man turned, he had already strode forward, and laid his hand on the +latch of the cottage door. + +The young man was following as a matter of course; but the woodman, with +his hand still on the latch, pointed to a wooden seat under the window. + +"Take your seat there, sir," he said, with grim determination. + +The other stared, and the hot blood rose to his face; but he threw +himself on the bench. + +"Very well," he said; "I see you still think me a ghost; you'll be more +easy when you see me drink. Look sharp, my good fellow." + +The woodman, not a whit moved by this taunt, entered the cottage, and +the young man heard a bolt shot into its place. + +A few moments passed, and then the man came out with a plate and a +glass. + +"Thanks," said the young man. "What's this?" + +"Cider--cake," was the curt answer. + +"Oh, thanks," repeated the other; "jolly good cider, too. Come, you're +not half a bad fellow. Do you know I meant to give you a hiding when I +came up to you?" + +"Very like," said the man, calmly. "Will you have any more?" + +"Another glass, thanks." + +With his former precaution in the way of bolting and barring, the man +entered the cottage and reappeared with a refilled glass. + +This the young man drank more leisurely, staring with unconcealed +curiosity at his entertainer. + +It was a kind of stare that would embarrass six men out of ten, and +madden the remaining four; but the woodman bore it with the calm +impassiveness of a wooden block, and stood motionless as a statue till +the youth set down the glass, then he raised his hand and pointed to the +west. + +"Yonder lies Arkdale." + +"Oh! How far?" + +"Four miles and a half by the near road. Follow me, and I will put you +into it." + +"All right, lead on," said the other; but as he rose he turned, and +while refilling his pipe stared at the closely locked cottage. + +"Comfortable kind of crib that, my man." + +The woodman nodded curtly. + +"You are a woodman?" + +Another nod. + +"And poacher too, eh? No offense," he added, coolly. "I only supposed so +from the close way in which you keep your place locked up." + +"Suppose what you please," retorted the woodman, if words so calmly +spoken could be called a retort. "Yonder lies your road, you'd best be +taking to it." + +"No hurry," retorted the young man, thrusting his hands in his pockets +and smiling at the ill-concealed impatience which struggled through the +grave calm on the weather-beaten face. "Well, I'm coming. You're not +half such a bad sort, after all. What have you got inside there that you +keep so close, eh? Some of the crown jewels or some of the Queen's +venison? Take my advice, old fellow--if you don't want people to be +curious, don't show such anxiety to keep 'em out of your crib." + +The man, pacing on ahead, knit his brows as if struck by the idea. + +"Curious folk don't come this way, young sir," he said, reluctantly. + +"So I should think," retorted the other. "Well, I'm not one of the +curious, though you think I am. I don't care a button what you've got +there. Will you have a pipe? I've got some 'bacca." + +The man shook his head, and they walked on in silence for some minutes, +the footpath winding in and out like a dimly-defined serpent. Presently +it widened, and the woodman stopped short and pointed down the leafy +lane. + +"Follow this path," he said, "until you come to a wood pile; take the +path to the left of it, and it will bring you to Arkdale. Good-night, +young sir." + +"Here, stop!" said the young man, and he held out his hand with a dollar +in it. "Here's a trifle to drink my health with." + +The woodman looked at the coin, then shook his head slowly; and with +another "good-night" turned and tramped off. + +Not at all abashed the young man restored the coin to his pocket, +laughed, and strode on. + +The woodman walked back a few yards, then stopped, and looked after the +stalwart figure until it deepened in the gloom, a thoughtful, puzzled +expression upon his face, as if he were trying to call up some +recollection. + +With a shake of his head, denoting failure, he made his way to the +cottage, unlocked it and entered. + +The door opened into what appeared to be the living room. It was small +and plainly furnished, after the manner of a woodman's hut, and yet, +after a moment's glance, a stranger would have noticed a subtle air of +refinement in common with better habitations. + +The table and chairs were of plain deal, the walls were of pine, stained +and varnished, but there was a good thick carpet on the floor, and on +one side of the room hung a bookcase filled with well-bound volumes. + +Beside the table, on which was spread the supper, stood a chair, more +luxurious than its fellows, and covered with a pretty chintz. The knife +and fork laid opposite this chair was of a better quality than the +others on the table; and beside the knife and fork lay a white napkin +and a daintily engraved glass; the other drinking vessels on the table +were of common delf. As the woodman entered, a woman, who was kneeling +at a fire in an adjoining room, looked round through the doorway. + +"Is't you, Gideon?" + +"Yes," he answered. "Where is Una?" + +"Una? Isn't she with you? I heard voices. Who was it?" + +"Where is Una?" he said, ignoring her question. + +"In the clearing, I suppose," said the woman. "She went out a few +minutes ago. I thought she went to meet you?" + +The man opened the door and called the dog, who had been wandering round +the room in an uneasy fashion. + +"Go, Dick," he said. "Go fetch her!" + +Then he came and stood by the fire thoughtfully. + +"No," he said, "it was not Una. I wish she wouldn't leave the cot after +dusk." + +"Why not? What's the fear? What has happened? Who was that I heard with +you?" + +"A stranger," he said, "a young gentleman lost his way. How long has she +been gone?" + +"Not ten minutes. A young gentleman. Think of that! How came he here?" + +"Lost his way. He followed me through the Chase. He has gone on to +Arkdale." + +"Lost his way," repeated the woman. "Poor fellow! Five miles it is to +Arkdale! A gentleman! A gentleman, did thee say?" + +"Ay," responded the man, frowning. "An outspoken one, too; I heard him +at the bottom of the Chase and thought to give him the slip, but he was +cunning, he teased the dog and ran us down. I had hard work to get rid +of him; he looked sore tired. No matter, he's gone," and he gave a sigh +of relief. "'Tis the first stranger that has come upon us since she +came." + +"Lost his way," murmured the woman, as she lifted a saucepan from the +fire, "and a gentleman. It is a rare sight in Warden Forest. Why, +Gideon, what has happened to thee?" and saucepan in hand, she stared at +her husband's cloudy brow. + +"Tut--nothing!" he answered, thrusting a projecting log into the fire +with his foot. "The young man's face seemed--as I thought--'twas but a +passing fancy--but I thought it was familiar. It was the voice more than +the face. And a bold face it was. I wish," he broke off, "that the lass +would come in. From to-night I will have no more wanderings after +sunset! One stranger follows another, and it is not safe for her to be +out so late----" + +"Hush!" interrupted the woman, holding up a forefinger. "Here she +comes." + +"Not a word!" said Gideon, warningly. + +As he spoke the door opened, the dog bounded in with a short yelp of +satisfaction, and close behind him, framed like a picture in the dark +doorway, stood a young girl. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +She had evidently run some distance, for she stood panting and +breathless, the color coming and going on her face, which shone out of +the hood which half covered her head. + +She was dressed in a plain cotton dress which a woodman's daughter might +wear, and which was short enough in the skirt to reveal a shapely foot, +and scant enough in the sleeves to show a white, shapely arm. + +But no one would have wasted time upon either arm or foot after a glance +at her face. + +To write it down simply and curtly, it was a beautiful face; but such a +description is far too meager and insufficient. It requires an artist, a +Rembrandt or a Gainsborough, to describe it, no pen-and-ink work can do +it. Beautiful faces can be seen by the score by anyone who chooses to +walk through Hyde Park in the middle of the season, but such a face as +this which was enframed by the doorway of the woodman's hut is not seen +in twenty seasons. + +It was a face which baffles the powers of description, just as a sunset +sky laughs to scorn the brush of the ablest painter. It was neither dark +nor fair, neither grave nor sad, though at the moment of its entrance a +smile played over it as the moonbeams play over a placid lake. + +To catalogue in dry matter-of-fact fashion, the face possessed dark +brown eyes, bright brown hair, and red, ripe lips; but no catalogue can +give the spirit of the face, no description convey an idea of the swift +and eloquent play of expression which, like a flash of sunlight, lit up +eyes and lips. + +Beautiful! The word is hackneyed and worn out. Here was a face more +than beautiful, it was soulful. Like the still pool in the heart of a +wood, it mirrored the emotion of the heart as faithfully as a glass +would reflect the face. Like a glass--joy, sorrow, pleasure, mirth, were +reflected in the eloquent eyes and mobile lips. + +Of concealment the face was entirely ignorant; no bird of the forest in +which she lived could be more frank, innocent of guile, and ignorant of +evil. + +With her light summer cloak held round her graceful figure, she stood in +the doorway, a picture of grace and youthful beauty. + +For a moment she stood silent, looking from the woodman to his wife +questioningly, then she came into the room and threw the hood back, +revealing a shapely head, shining, bronze-like, in the light of the +lamp. + +"Did you send Dick for me, father?" she said, and her voice, like her +face, betokened a refinement uncommon in a woodman's daughter. "I was +not far off, only at the pool to hear the frogs' concert. Dick knows +where to find me now, he comes straight to the pond, though he hates +frogs' music; don't you, Dick?" + +The dog rubbed his nose against her hand and wagged his tail, and the +girl took her seat at the table. + +To match face and voice, her mien and movements were graceful, and she +handled the dinner-napkin like--a lady. It was just that, expressed in a +word. The girl was not only beautiful--but a lady, in appearance, in +tone, in bearing--and that, notwithstanding she wore a plain cotton gown +in a woodman's hut, and called the woodman "father." + +"You did not come by your usual path, father," she said, turning from +the deerhound, who sat on his haunches and rested his nose in her lap, +quite content if her hand touched his head, say once during the meal. + +"No, Una," he replied, and though he called her by her Christian name, +and without any prefix there was a subtle undertone in his voice and in +his manner of addressing her, which seemed to infer something like +respect. "No, I went astray." + +"And you were late," she said. "Was anything the matter?" she added, +turning her eyes upon him, with, for the first time, an air of +interrogation. + +"Matter? No," he said, raising himself and coming to the table. "What +should be? Yes, I came home by another path, and I don't think you must +come to meet me after dark, Una," he added, with affected carelessness. + +"No?" she asked, looking from one to the other with a smile of surprise. +"Why not? Do you think I should get lost, or have you seen any wolves in +Warden Forest, father? I know every path from end to end, and wolves +have left merry England forever." + +"Not quite," said Gideon, absently. + +"Yes, quite," and she laughed. "What Saxon king was it who offered +fivepence for every wolf's head? We were reading about it the other +night, don't you remember?" + +"Reading! you are always reading," said the woman, as she put a smoking +dish on the table, and speaking for the first time. "It's books, books, +from morn to night, and your father encourages you. The books will make +thee old before thy time, child, and put no pence in thy father's +pocket." + +"Poor father!" she murmured, and leaning forward, put her arms round his +neck. "I wish I could find in the poor, abused books the way to make him +rich." + +Gideon had put up his rough hand to caress the white one nestling +against his face, but he let his hand drop again and looked at her with +a slight cloud on his brow. + +"Rich! who wants to be rich? The word is on your lips full oft of late, +Una. Do _you_ want to be rich?" + +"Sometimes," she answered. "As much for your sake as mine. I should like +to be rich enough for you to rest, and"--looking round the plainly +furnished but comfortable room--"and a better house and clothes." + +"I am not weary," he said, his eyes fixed on her with a thoughtful air +of concealed scrutiny. "The cot is good enough for me, and the purple +and fine linen I want none of. So much for me; now for yourself, Una?" + +"For myself?" she said. "Well, sometimes I think, when I have been +reading some of the books, that I should like to be rich and see the +world." + +"It must be such a wonderful place! Not so wonderful as I think it, +perhaps, and that's just because I have never seen anything of it. Is it +not strange that for all these years I have never been outside Warden?" + +"Strange?" he echoed, reluctantly. + +"Yes; are other girls so shut in and kept from seeing the world that one +reads so pleasantly of?" + +"Not all. It would be well for most of them if they were. It has been +well for you. You have not been unhappy, Una?" + +"Unhappy! No! How could one be unhappy in Warden? Why, it's a world in +itself, and full of friends. Every living thing in it seems a friend, +and an old friend, too. How long have we lived in Warden, father?" + +"Eighteen years." + +"And I am twenty-one. Mother told me yesterday. Where did we live before +we came to Warden?" + +"Don't worry your father, Una," said Mrs. Rolfe, who had been listening +and looking from one to the other with ill-concealed anxiety; "he is too +weary to talk." + +"Forgive me, father. It was thoughtless of me. I should have remembered +that you have had a hard day, while I have been idling in the wood, and +over my books; it was stupid of me to trouble you. Won't you sit down +again and--and I will promise not to talk." + +"Say no more, Una. It grieves me to think that you might not be content, +that you were not happy; if you knew as much of the world that raves and +writhes outside as I do, you would be all too thankful that you are out +of the monster's reach, and that all you know of it is from your books, +which--Heaven forgive them--lie all too often! See now, here is +something I found in Arkdale;" and as he spoke he drew from the +capacious pocket of his velveteen jacket a small volume. + +The girl sprang to her feet--not clumsily, but with infinite grace--and +leaned over his shoulder eagerly. + +"Why, father, it is the poems you promised me, and it was in your pocket +all the while I was wearying you with my foolish questions." + +"Tut, tut! Take your book, child, and devour it, as usual." + +Once or twice Gideon looked up, roused from his reverie by the rustling +of the trees as the gusts shook them, and suddenly the sky was rent by a +flash of lightning and a peal of thunder, followed by the heavy rattle +of the rainstorm. + +"Hark at the night, father!" she said, raising her eyes from the book, +but only for a moment. + +"Ay, Una," he said, "some of the old elms will fall to-night. Woodman +Lightning strikes with a keen ax." + +Suddenly there came another sound which, coming in an interval of +comparative quiet, caused Una to look up with surprise. + +"Halloa there! open the door." + +Gideon sprang to his feet, his face pale with anger. + +"Go to your room, Una," he said. + +She rose and moved across the room to obey, but before she had passed up +the stairs the woodman had opened the door, and the voice came in from +the outside, and she paused almost unconsciously. + +"At last! What a time you have been! I've knocked loud enough to wake +the dead. For Heaven's sake, open the door and let me in. I'm drenched +to the skin." + +"This is not an inn, young sir." + +"No, or it would soon come to ruin with such a landlord. It's something +with four walls and a roof, and I must be content with that. You don't +mean to say that you won't let me come in?" + +"I do not keep open house for travelers." + +"Oh, come," exclaimed the young man, with a short laugh. "It's your own +fault that I am back here; you told me the wrong turning. I'll swear I +followed your directions. I must have been walking in a circle; anyhow I +lost my way, and here I am, and, with all your churlishness, you can't +refuse me shelter on such a night as this." + +"The storm has cleared. It is but an hour's walk to Arkdale; I will go +with you." + +"That you certainly will not, to-night, nor any other man," was the +good-humored retort. "I've had enough of your confounded forest for +to-night. Why, man, are you afraid to let me in? It's a nasty thing to +have to do, but----" and with a sudden thrust of his strong shoulder he +forced the door open and passed the threshold. + +But the woodman recovered from the surprise in a moment and, seizing him +by the throat, was forcing him out again, when, with a low cry, Una +sprang forward and laid her hand on his arm. + +At her touch Gideon's hands dropped to his side. The stranger sprang +upright, but almost staggered out with discomfited astonishment. + +For the first time in her life she stood face to face with a man other +than a woodman or a charcoal-burner. And as she looked her heart almost +stopped beating, the color died slowly from her face. Was it real, or +was it one of the visionary heroes of her books created into life from +her own dreaming brain? + +With parted lips she waited, half longing, half dreading, to hear him +speak. + +It seemed ages before he found his voice, but at last, with a sudden +little shake of the head, as if he were, as he would have expressed it, +"pulling himself together," he took off his wide hat and slowly turned +his eyes from the beautiful face of the girl to the stern and now set +face of the woodman. + +"Why didn't you tell me that you had a lady--ladies with you?" half +angrily, half apologetically. Then he turned quickly, impulsively, to +Una. "I hope you will forgive me. I had no idea that there was anyone +here excepting himself. Of course I would rather have got into the first +ditch than have disturbed you. I hope, I do hope you believe that, +though I can't hope you'll forgive me. Good-night," and inclining his +head he turned to the door. + +Una, who had listened with an intent, rapt look on her face, as one sees +a blind man listen to music, drew a little breath of regret as he ceased +speaking, and then, with a little, quick gesture, laid her hand on her +father's arm. + +It was an imploring touch. It said as plainly as if she had spoken: + +"Do not let him go." + +"Having forced your way into my house you--may remain." + +"Thanks. I should not think of doing so. Good-night." + +"No; you must not go. He does not mean it. You have made him angry. +Please do not go!" + +The young man hesitated, and the woodman, with a gesture that was one of +resigned despair, shut the door. + +Then he turned and pointed to the next room. + +"There's a fire there," he said. + +"I'd rather be out in the wood by far," he said, "than be here feeling +that I have made a nuisance of myself. I'd better go." + +But Gideon Rolfe led the way into the next room, and after another look +from Mrs. Rolfe to Una, the young man followed. + +Una stood in the center of the room looking at the door behind which he +had disappeared, like one in a dream. Then she turned to Mrs. Rolfe. + +"Shall I go, mother?" + +"Yes. No. Wait till your father comes in." + +After the lapse of ten minutes the woodman and the woodman's guest +re-entered. The latter had exchanged his wet clothes for a suit of +Gideon's, which, though it was well-worn velveteen, failed to conceal +the high-bred air of its present wearer. + +Meanwhile Mrs. Rolfe had been busily spreading the remains of the +supper. + +"'Tis but plain fare, sir," she said; "but you are heartily welcome." + +"Thanks. It looks like a banquet to me," he added, with the short laugh +which seemed peculiar to him. "I haven't tasted food, as tramps say, +since morning." + +"Dear! dear!" exclaimed the wife. + +Una, calling up a long line of heroes, thought first of Ivanhoe, +then--and with a feeling of satisfaction--of Hotspur. + +Figure matched face. Though but twenty-two, the frame was that of a +trained athlete--stalwart, straight-limbed, muscular; and with all +combined a grace which comes only with birth and breeding. + +Wet and draggled, he looked every inch a gentleman--in Gideon's suit of +worn velveteen he looked one still. + +Silent and motionless, Una watched him. + +"Yes," he said, "I got some lunch at the inn--'Spotted Boar' at +Wermesley--about one o'clock, I suppose. I have never felt so hungry in +my life." + +"Wermesley?" said the wife. "Then you came from----" + +"London, originally. I got out at Wermesley, meaning to walk to Arkdale; +but that appears to be easier said than done, eh?" + +Gideon did not answer; he seemed scarcely to hear. + +"I can't think how I missed the way," he went on. "I found the charcoal +burner's hut, and hurried off to the left----" + +"To the right, I said," muttered Gideon. + +"Right, did you? Then I misunderstood you. Anyhow, I lost the right +path, and wandered about until I came back to this cottage." + +"And you were going to stay at Arkdale? 'Tis but a dull place," said +Mrs. Rolfe. + +"No; I meant taking the train from there to Hurst Leigh----Hurst +Leigh," repeated the young man. "Do you know it? Ah," he went on, "don't +suppose you would; it's some distance from here. Pretty place. I am +going to see a relative. My name is Newcombe--Jack Newcombe I am +generally called--and I am going on a visit to Squire Davenant." + +Gideon Rolfe sprang to his feet, suddenly, knocking his chair over, and +strode into the lamplight. + +The young man looked up in surprise. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. + +With an effort Gideon Rolfe recovered himself. + +"I--I want a light," he said; and leaning over the lamp, he lit his +pipe. Then turning toward the window, he said: "Una, it is late; go to +bed now." + +She rose at once and kissed the old couple, then pausing a moment, held +out her hand to the young man, who had risen, and stood regarding her +with an intent, but wholly respectful look. + +But before their hands could join, the woodman stepped in between them, +and waving her to the stairs with one hand, forced the youth into his +seat with the other. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +A hearty meal after a long fast invariably produces intense sleepiness. + +No sooner had the young gentleman who was called, according to his own +account, Jack Newcombe, finished his supper than he began to show +palpable signs of exhaustion. + +He felt, indeed, remarkably tired, or be sure he would have demanded the +reason of the woodman's refusal to allow his daughter to shake hands. + +For once in a way, Jack--who was also called "The Savage" by his +intimate friends--allowed the opportunity for a quarrel to slide by, and +very soon also allowed the pipe to slide from his mouth, and his body +from the chair. + +Rousing himself with a muttered apology, he found that the woodman alone +remained, and that he was sitting apparently forgetful of his guest's +presence. + +"Did you speak?" said Jack, rubbing his eyes, and struggling with a very +giant of a yawn. Gideon looked round. + +"You are tired," he said, slowly. + +"Rather," assented the Savage, with half-closed eyes; "it must have been +the wind. I can't keep my head up." + +The woodman rose, and taking down from a cupboard a bundle of fox-skins, +arranged them on the floor, put a couple of chair-cushions at the head +to serve as pillows, and threw a riding-cloak--which, by the way, did +not correspond with a woodman's usual attire, and pointed to the +impromptu bed. + +"Thanks," said Jack, getting up and taking off his coat and boots. + +"It is a poor bed," remarked the woodman, but the Savage interrupted him +with a cheerful though sleepy assurance that it needed no apologies. + +"I could sleep on a rail to-night," he said, "and that looks comfortable +enough for a king! Fine skins! Good-night!" and he held out his hand. + +Gideon looked at it, but refusing it, nodded gravely. + +"You won't shake hands!" exclaimed the Savage, with a little flush and +an aggrieved tone. "Come, isn't that carrying the high and imposing +rather too far, old fellow? Makes one feel more ashamed than ever, you +know. Perhaps I'd better march, after all." + +"No," said Gideon, slowly. "It is not that I owe you any ill-will for +your presence here. You are welcome, but I cannot take your hand. +Good-night," and he went to the stairs. + +At the door, however, he paused, and looked over his shoulder. + +"Did you say that--Squire Davenant was your uncle, Mr. Newcombe?" + +"Eh--uncle? Well, scarcely. It's rather difficult to tell what +relationship there is between us. He's a sort of cousin, I believe," +answered Jack, carelessly, but yet with a touch of gravity that had +something comical about it. "Rum old boy, isn't he? You know him, don't +you?" + +Gideon shook his head. + +"Oh, I thought you did by the way you looked when I mentioned his name +just now. Good thing you don't, for you might have something to say +about him that is not pleasant, and though the old man and I are not +turtle doves just now, I'm bound to stand up for him for the sake of old +times." + +"You have quarreled?" the old man said; but the Savage had already +curled himself up in the fox-skins, and was incapable of further +conversation. + +Gideon Rolfe crossed the room, and holding the candle above his head, +looked down at the sleeper. + +"Yes," he muttered, "it's the same face--they are alike! Faces of angels +and the hearts of devils. What fate has sent him here to-night?" + +Though Jack Newcombe was by no means one of those impossible, perfect +heroes whom we have sometimes met in history, and was, alas! as full of +imperfections as a sieve is of holes, he was a gentleman, and for a +savage, was possessed of a considerable amount of delicacy. + +"Seems to me," he mused, "that the best thing I can do is to take my +objectionable self out of the way before any of the good folks put in an +appearance. The old fellow will be sure to order me off the premises +directly after the breakfast; and I, in common gratitude, ought to save +him the trouble." + +To resolve and to act were one and the same thing with Jack Newcombe. +Going into the adjoining room, he got out of the woodman's and into his +own clothes, and carefully restored the skins and the cloak to the +cupboard. Then he put the remainder of the loaf into his pocket, to +serve as breakfast later on, then paused. + +"Can't go without saying good-by, and much obliged," he muttered. + +A bright idea struck him; he tore the blank leaf from an old letter +which he happened to have with him, and after a few minutes' +consideration--for epistolary composition was one of the Savage's +weakest points--scribbled the following brief thanks, apology, and +farewell: + +"Very much obliged for your kindness, and sorry to have been such a +bore; shouldn't have intruded if I'd known ladies were present. Will you +oblige me by accepting the inclosed"--he hesitated a moment, put back +the sovereign which he had taken from his pocket, and filled up the +line--"for your wife." + +Instead of the coin, he wrapped up a ring, which he took from his little +finger. + +He smiled, as he wrapped it up, for he remembered that the wife had +particularly large hands; and he thought, cunningly, "_she_ will get +it." + +Having placed this packet on the top of the cheese, he took a last look +round the room, glanced toward the stairs rather wistfully--it was +neither the woodman nor his wife that he longed to see--gently unbarred +the door, and started on his road. + +Choosing a sheltered spot, the Savage pulled out his crust, ate it +uncomplainingly, and then lay down at full length, with his soft hat +over his eyes, and while revolving the strange events of the preceding +night, and striving to recall the face of the young girl, fell asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +A more beautiful spot for a siesta he could not have chosen. At his feet +stretched the lake, gleaming like silver in the sun, and set in a frame +of green leaves and forest flowers; above his head, in his very ears, +the thrushes and linnets sang in concert, all the air was full of the +perfumes of a summer morning, rendered sweeter by the storm of the +preceding night, which had called forth the scent of the ferns and the +honeysuckle. + +As he lay, and dreamt with that happy-go-lucky carelessness of time and +the daily round of duties which is one of the privileges of youth, there +rose upon the air a song other than that of the birds. + +It was a girl's voice, chanting softly, and evidently with perfect +unconsciousness; faintly at first, it broke upon the air, then more +distinctly, and presently, from amongst the bushes that stood breast +high round the sleeping Savage, issued Una. + +The night had had dreams for her, dreams in which the handsome face, +with its bold, daring eyes, and quick, sensitive mouth, had hovered +before her closed eyes and haunted her, and now here he lay at her feet. + +How tired he must be to sleep there, and how hungry! for, though she had +not seen the note--nor the ring--she knew that he had gone without +breakfast. + +"Poor fellow!" she murmured--"his face is quite pale--and--ah----!" she +broke off with a sudden gasp, and bent forward; a wasp, which had been +buzzing around his head for some time, swept his cheek. + +Too fearful of waking him to sweep the insect aside, she knelt and +watched with clasped hands and shrinking heart; so intent in her dread +that the wasp should alight on his cheek and sting him as almost to have +forgotten her fear that he should awake. + +At last the dreaded climax occurred; the wasp settled on his lips; with +a low, smothered cry, she stretched out her hand, and, with a quick +movement, swept the wasp off. But, lightly as her finger had touched his +lips, it had been sufficient to wake him, and, with a little start, he +opened his eyes, and received into them, and through them to his heart +the girl's rapt gaze. + +For a minute neither moved; he lest he should break the dream; she, +because, bird-like, she was fascinated; then, the minute passed, she +rose, and drew back, and glided into the brake. + +The Savage with a wild throb of the heart, saw that his dream had grown +into life, raised himself on his elbow and looked after her, and, as he +did so, his eye caught a small basket which she had set down beside him. + +"Stay," he called, and in so gentle a voice that his friends who had +christened him the Savage would have instantly changed it to the Dove. + +"Stay! Please stay. Your basket." + +"Why did you run from me?" asked the Savage, in a low voice. "Did you +think that I should hurt you?" + +"Hurt me? No, why should you?" and her eyes met his with innocent +surprise. + +"Why should I, indeed! I should have been very sorry if you had gone, +because I wanted to thank you for your kindness last night." + +"You have not to thank me," she said, slowly. + +"Yes," he assented, quietly. "But for you----" then he stopped, +remembering that it was scarcely correct to complain of her father's +inhospitality; "I behaved very badly. I always do," he added--for the +first time in his life with regret. + +"Do you?" she said, doubtfully. "You were wet and tired last night, +and--and you must not think ill of my father; he----" + +"Don't say another word. I was treated better than I deserved." + +"Why did you go without breakfast this morning?" she said, suddenly. + +"I brought it with me," he replied. "You forgot the loaf!" and he +smiled. + +"Dry bread!" she said, pityingly. "I am so sorry. If I had but known, I +would have brought you some milk." + +"Oh, I have done very well," he said, his curt way softened and toned +down. + +"And now you are going to Arkdale?" she said, gently. + +"That is, after I have gone to rest for a little while longer; I am in +no hurry; won't you sit down, Una? Keep me company." + +To her there seemed nothing strange in the speech; gravely and +naturally she sat down at the foot of an oak. + +"You think the forest is lonely?" she said. + +"I do, most decidedly. Don't you?" + +"No; but that is because I am used to it and have known no other place." + +"Always lived here?" he said, with interest. + +"Ever since I was three years old." + +"Eighteen years! Then you are twenty-one?" murmured Jack. + +"Yes; how old are you?" she asked, calmly. + +"Twenty-two." + +"Twenty-two. And you have lived in the world all the time?" + +"Yes--very much so," he replied. + +"And you are going back to it. You will never come into the forest +again, while I shall go on living here till I die, and never see the +world in which you have lived. Does that sound strange to you?" + +"Do you mean to say that you have never been outside this forest?" he +said, raising himself on his elbow to stare at her. + +"Yes. I have never been out of Warden since we came into it." + +"But--why not?" he demanded. + +"I do not know," she replied, simply. + +"But there must be some reason for it? Haven't you been to Arkdale or +Wermesley?" + +"No," she said, smiling. "Tell me what they are like. Are they gay and +full of people, with theaters and parks, and ladies riding and driving, +and crowds in the streets?" + +"Oh, this is too much!" under his breath. "No, no--a thousand times no!" +he exclaimed; "they are the two most miserable holes in creation! There +are no parks, no theaters in Arkdale or Wermesley. You might see a lady +on horseback--one lady in a week! They are two county towns, and nothing +of that kind ever goes on in them. You mean London, and--and places like +that when you speak of theaters and that sort of thing!" + +"Yes, London," she says, quietly. "Tell me all about that--I have read +about it in books." + +"Books!" said the Savage, in undisguised contempt; "what's the use of +_them_! You must see life for yourself--books are no use. They give it +to you all wrong; at least, I expect so; don't know much about them +myself." + +"Tell me," she repeated, "tell me of the world outside the forest; tell +me about yourself." + +"About myself? Oh, that wouldn't interest you." + +"Yes," she said, simply, "I would rather hear about yourself than about +anything else." + +"Look here, I don't know what to tell you." + +"Tell me all you can think of," she said, calmly; "about your father and +mother." + +"Haven't got any," he said; "they're both dead." + +"I am sorry," she said. + +"Yes, they're dead," he said; "they died long ago." + +"And have you any brothers and sisters?" + +"No; I have a cousin, though," and he groaned. + +"I am so glad," she said, in a low voice. + +"Don't be. I'm not. He's a--I don't like him; we don't get on together, +you know." + +"You quarrel, do you mean?" + +"Like Kilkenny cats," assented the Savage. + +"Then he must be a bad man," she said, simply. + +"No," he said, quietly; "everybody says that I am the bad one. I'm a +regular bad lot, you know." + +"I don't think that you are bad," she said. + +"You don't; really not! By George! I like to hear you say that; but," +with a slow shake of the head, "I'm afraid it's true. Yes, I am a +regular bad lot." + +"Tell me what you have done that is so wrong," she said. + +"Oh--I've--I've spent all my money." + +"That's not so very wrong; you have hurt only yourself." + +"Jove, that's a new way of looking at it," he muttered. +"And"--aloud--"and I've run into debt, and I've--oh, I can't tell you +any more; I don't want you to hate me!" + +"Hate you? I could not do that." + +He sprang to his feet, paced up and down, and then dropped at her side +again. + +"Well, that's all about myself," he said; "now tell me about yourself." + +"No," she said; "not yet. Tell me why you are going to Arkdale?" + +"I'm going to Arkdale to take a train to Hurst Leigh to see my uncle, +cousin, or whatever he is--Squire Davenant." + +"Is he an old man?" + +"Yes, a very old man, and a bad one, too. All our family are a bad lot, +excepting my cousin, Stephen Davenant." + +"The one you do not like?" + +"The same. He is quite an angel." + +"An angel?" + +"One of those men too good to live. He's the only steady one we've got, +and we make the most of him. He is Squire Davenant's heir--at least he +will come into his money. The old man is very rich, you know." + +"I see," she said, musingly; then she looked down at him and added, +suddenly: "You were to have been the heir?" + +"Yes, that's right! How did you guess that? Yes, I was the old man's +favorite, but we quarreled. He wanted it all his own way, and, oh--we +couldn't get on. Then Cousin Stephen stepped in, and I am out in the +cold now." + +"Then why are you going there now?" she asked. + +"Because the squire sent for me," he replied. + +"And you have been all this time going?" + +"You see, I thought I'd walk through the forest," he said, +apologetically. + +"You should be there now--you should not have waited on the road! Is +your Cousin Stephen--is that his name?--there?" + +"I don't know," he said, carelessly. + +"Ah, you should be there," she said. "Squire Davenant would be friendly +with you again." + +"I'm afraid you haven't hit the right nail on the head there," he said. +"I rather think he wants to give me a good rowing about a scrape I've +got into." + +"Tell me about that." + +"Oh, it's about money--the usual thing. I got into a mess, and had to +borrow some money of a Jew, and he got me to sign a paper, promising to +pay after Squire Davenant's death; he called it a _post obit_--I didn't +know what it was then, but I do now; for the squire got to hear of it, +but how, hanged if I can make out; and he wrote to me and to the Jew, +saying that he shouldn't leave me a brass farthing. Of course the Jew +was wild; but I gave him another sort of bill, and it's all right." + +"Excepting that you will lose your fortune," said Una, with a little +sigh. "What will you do?" + +"That's a conundrum which I've long ago given up. By Jove! I'll come and +be a woodman in the forest!" + +"Will you?" she said. "Do you really mean it?--no, you were not in +earnest!" + +"I--why shouldn't I be in earnest?" he says, almost to himself. "Would +you like me to? I mean shall I come here to--what do you call +it--Warden?" and he threw himself down again. + +"Yes," she said; "I should like you to. Yes, that would be very nice. We +could sit and talk when your work was done, and I could show you all the +prettiest spots, and the places where the starlings make their nests, +and the fairy rings in the glades, and you could tell me all that you +have seen and done. Yes," wistfully, "that would be very nice. It is so +lonely sometimes!" + +"Lonely, is it?" he said. "Lonely! By George, I should think it must be! +I can't realize it! Books, it reads like a book. If I were to tell some +of my friends that there was a young lady shut up in a forest, outside +of which she had never been, they wouldn't believe me. By the way--where +did you go to school?" + +"School? I never went to school." + +"Then how--how did you learn to read? and--it's awfully rude of me, you +know, but you speak so nicely; such grammar, and all that." + +"Do I?" she said, thoughtfully. "I didn't know that I did. My father +taught me." + +"It's hard to believe," he said, as if he were giving up a conundrum. "I +beg your pardon. I mean that your father would have made a jolly good +schoolmaster, and I must be an awful dunce, for I've been to Oxford, and +I'll wager I don't know half what you do, and as to talking--I am not +in it." + +"Yes, my father is very clever," she said; "he is not like the other +woodmen and burners." + +"No, if he is, they must be a learned lot," assented Jack; "yes, I think +I had better come and live here, and get him to teach me. I'm afraid he +wouldn't undertake the job." + +"Father does not like strangers," she said, blushing as she thought of +the inhospitable scene of the preceding night. "He says that the world +is a cruel, wicked place, and that everybody is unhappy there. But I +think he must be wrong. You don't look unhappy." + +"I am not unhappy now," said Jack. + +"I am so glad," she said; "why are you not?" + +"Because I am with you." + +"Are you?" she said, gently. "Then it must be because I am with you that +I feel so happy." + +The Savage flushed and he looked down, striving to still the sudden +throb of pleasure with which his heart beat. + +"Confound it," he muttered, "I must go! I can't be such a cad as to stop +any longer; she oughtn't to say this sort of thing, and yet I--I can't +tell her so! No! I must go!" and he rose and took out his watch. + +"I am afraid I must be on the tramp." + +"Yes," she assented; "you have stayed too long. I hope you will find +that the Squire Davenant has forgiven you. I think he cannot help it. +And you will have your fortune and will go back into the world, and will +quite forget that you lost your way in Warden Forest. But I shall not +forget it; I shall often think of it." + +"No," he said, "I shan't forget it. But in case I should, will you give +me something--no, I won't ask it." + +"Why not?" she said, wonderingly. "Were you going to say, will I give +you something to help you to remember?" + +"Yes, I will. What shall I give you?" and she looked around. + +Jack looked at her. His bad angel whispered in his ear, "Ask her to give +you a kiss," but Jack metaphorically kicked him out of hearing. + +"Give me a flower," he said, and his voice was as gentle as its deep +ringing bass could be. + +Una nodded, and plucking a dog rose held it out to him. + +"There," she said; "at least you will remember it as long as the rose +lasts. But it soon dies," and she sighed. + +Jack took it and looked at it hard. Then he put it to his lips. + +"There is no smell to a dog rose," said Una. + +"Ah no! I forgot. Just so. Well, good-by. We may shake hands, Una. That +is your name, isn't it? How do you spell it?" + +"U--n--a," she said, giving him her hand. + +"It's a pretty name," he said, looking at her. + +"Is it?" she said, dreamily. "Yes, I think it is, now. Say it again." + +"Una, good-by. We shall meet again." + +"Do you think so? Then you will have to come to Warden again." + +"And I will. I will come soon. Oh, yes, we shall meet again. Good-by," +and, yielding to the temptation, he bent and touched her hand--Heaven +knows, reverently enough--with his lips. + +A warm flush spread over the girl's face and neck, and she quivered from +head to foot. It was the first kiss--except those of her father and +mother--that she had ever received. + +"Good-by," he repeated, and was slowly relinquishing her hand, the hand +that clung to his, when a hand of firmer texture was laid on his arm and +swung him round. + +It was Gideon Rolfe, his face white with passion, his eyes ablaze, and a +heavy stick upraised. + +The Savage had just time to step back to avoid the blow and plant his +feet firmly to receive a renewed attack; but with an effort the old man +restrained himself, and struggling for speech, motioned the girl away +with one hand and pointed with the other to Jack. + +"You scoundrel!" he gasped, hoarsely. "Go, Una, go. You scoundrel! I +warmed you at my hearth, you viper! and you turn to sting me. Go, +Una--go at once. Do you disobey me?" + +White and trembling, the girl shrank into the shade. + +"You villain!" went on the old man, struggling with his passion. + +"Stop!" exclaimed Jack, the veins in his forehead swelling ominously. +"You must be mad! Don't strike me!--you are an old man!" + +"Strike you! No, no; blows are of no avail with such as you! Curs take +no heed of blows! What other way can one punish the scoundrel who repays +hospitality by treachery? Was it not enough that you forced your way +into my house, broke my bread, but you must waylay a credulous girl and +lead her in the first step to ruin. Oh, spare your breath, viper! I know +you and your race too well. Ruin and desolation walk hand in hand with +you; but you have reckoned without your host here. My knowledge of you +arms me with power to protect a weak, innocent girl from your wiles. +Scoundrel!" + +"You use strong words," he said, and his voice was low and hoarse. "You +are an old man and--you are her father. You call me a scoundrel; I call +you a fool, for if I were half the scoundrel you think me, you'd be to +blame for any harm I might have done. I've done none. But that's no +thanks to you, who keep such a girl as she is shut up as you do, and +leave her to wander about unprotected. You know me, you say, and you +know no good of me; that's as it may be, but I say when you call me a +scoundrel, you lie!" + +"Yes, I know you. I know the stock from whence you sprung, villains all! +I thought that here, at least, I was safe from your kind; but Fate led +you here--thank Fate that I let you go unhurt. Take an old man's advice, +and, unlike your race, for once leave the prey which you thought so easy +to destroy. Go!" + +"I am going," he said, grimly. "I shall go, because if I stayed all +night I should not convince you that I am not the scoundrel you suppose +me. But, if you think that I am to be frightened by these sort of +threats, you are mistaken. I have said that I will come back, and I +_will_!" and with a curt nod he strode off. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +It was the evening of the day on which Jack Newcombe had parted from +Gideon and Una, and the young moon fell peacefully on the irregular pile +of the ancient mansion known familiarly for twenty miles of its +neighborhood as The Hurst. + +The present owner was one Ralph Davenant, or Squire Davenant, as Jack +Newcombe had called him, and as he was called by the county generally. + +He was an old man of eighty, who had lived one-half his life in the +wildest and most dissipated fashion, and the other half in that most +unprofitable occupation known as repenting thereof. + +I say "known as," for if old Squire Davenant had really repented, this +story would never have been written. + +If half the stories which were told of him were true, Ralph Davenant, +the present owner of Hurst, deserves a niche in the temple of fame--or +infamy--which holds the figures of the worst men of his day. He had been +a gambler, a spendthrift, a rogue of the worst kind for one half his +life; a miser, a cynic, a misanthrope for the other. + +And he now lay dying in his huge, draughty bed-chamber, hung with the +portraits of his ancestors--all bad and filled with the ghosts of his +youth and wasted old age. + +As it was, he lay quite still--so still that the physician, brought down +from London at a cost of--say, ten guineas an hour, was often uncertain +whether he was alive or dead. + +There was a third person in the room--a tall, thin young man, who stood +motionless beside the bed, watching the old man, with half-closed eyes +and tightly compressed lips. This was Stephen Davenant, the old man's +nephew, and, as it was generally understood, his heir. Stephen Davenant +was called a handsome man, and at first sight he seemed to merit that +description. It was not until you had looked at him closely that you +began to grow critical and to find fault. He was dark; his hair, which +was quite black, was smooth, and clung to his head with a sleek, slimy +closeness that only served to intensify the paleness, not to say pallor, +of the face. Pallor was, indeed, the prevailing characteristic, his lips +even being of a subdued and half-tinted red; they were not pleasant +lips, although for every forty minutes out of the sixty they wore a +smile which just showed a set of large and even teeth, which were, if +anything, too faultless and too white. Jack said that when Stephen +smiled it was like a private view of a cemetery. + +In short, to quote the Savage again, Stephen Davenant was an admirable +example, as artists would say, of "a study in black and white." + +As he stood by the bed, motionless, silent, with the fixed regard of his +light gray eyes on the sick man, he looked not unlike one of those sleek +and emaciated birds which one sees standing on the bank of the Ganges, +waiting for the floating by of stray dead bodies. + +And yet he was not unhandsome. At times he looked remarkably well; when, +for instance, he was delivering a lecture or an address at some +institute or May meeting. His voice was low and soft, and not seldom +insinuating, and some of his friends had called him, half in jest, half +in earnest, "Fascination Davenant." + +It will be gathered from this description that to call all the race of +Davenants bad was unfair; every rule has its exception, and Stephen +Davenant was the exception to this. He was "a good young man." + +Fathers held him up as a pattern to their wayward sons, mothers +patronized and lauded him, and their daughters regarded him as almost +too good to live. + +The minutes, so slow for the watchers, so rapid to the man for whom they +were numbered, passed, and the old cracked clock in the half-ruined +stables wheezed out the hour, when, as if the sound had roused him, old +Ralph moved slightly, and opening his eyes, looked slowly from one +upright figure to the other. + +Dark eyes that had not even yet lost all their fire, and still shone out +like a bird's from their wrinkled, cavernous hollows. + +Stephen unlocked his wrist, bent down, and murmured, in his soft, silky +voice: + +"Uncle, do you know me?" + +A smile, an unpleasant smile to see on such a face, glimmered on the old +man's lips. + +"Here still, Stephen?" he said, slowly and hollowly. "You'd make a +good--mute." + +A faint, pink tinge crept over Stephen's pale face, but he smiled and +shook his head meekly. + +"Who's that?" asked Ralph, half turning his eyes to the physician. + +"Sir Humphrey, uncle--the doctor," replied Stephen, and the great doctor +came a little nearer and felt the faint pulse. + +"What's he stopping for?" gasped the old man. "What can he do, and--why +don't he go?" + +"We must not leave you, uncle, till you are better." + +A faint flame shot up in the old man's eyes. + +"Better, that's a lie, you know. You always were----" Then a paroxysm of +faintness took him, but he struggled with and overcame it. + +"Is--is--Jack here?" he asked. + +"I regret to say," he replied, "that he is not. I cannot understand the +delay. I hope, I fervently hope, that he has not willfully----" + +"Did you tell him I was dying?" asked Ralph, watching him keenly. + +"Can you doubt it?" murmured Stephen, meekly. "I particularly charged +the messenger to say that my cousin was not to delay." + +The old man looked up with a sardonic smile. + +"I'll wait," he muttered, and he closed his eyes resolutely. The minutes +passed, and presently there was a low knock at the door, and a servant +crept up to Stephen. + +"Mr. Newcombe is below, sir." + +Stephen looked warningly at the bed, and stole on tiptoe from the +room--not that there was any occasion to go on tiptoe, for his ordinary +walk was as noiseless as a cat's--down the old treadworn stairs, into +the neglected hall, and entered the library. + +Bolt upright, and looking very like a Savage indeed, stood Jack +Newcombe. + +With noiseless step and mournful smile, Stephen entered, closed the +door, and held out his hand. + +"My dear Jack, how late you are!" + +With an angry gesture Jack thrust his hands in his pockets, and glared +wrathfully at the white, placid face. + +"Late!" he echoed, passionately. "Why didn't you tell me that he was +dying?" + +"Hush!" murmured Stephen, with a shocked look--though if Jack had +bellowed in his savagest tone, his voice would not have reached the room +upstairs. "Pray, be quiet, my dear Jack. Tell you! Didn't my man give +you my message? I particularly told him to describe the state of my +uncle's health. Slummers is not apt to forget or neglect messages!" + +"Messages!" said Jack, with wrathful incredulity; "he gave me none--left +none, rather, for I was out. He simply said that the squire wanted to +see me." + +"Dear, dear me," murmured Stephen, regretfully. "I cannot understand it. +Do you think the person who took the message delivered it properly? +Slummers is so very careful and trustworthy." + +"Oh," said Jack, contemptuously. "Do you suppose anyone would have +forgotten to tell me if your man had told them that the squire was +dying? I don't if you do, and I don't believe you do. You're no fool, +Stephen, though you have made one of me," and he moved toward the door. + +"Stay," said Stephen, laying his white hand gently on Jack's arm. "Will +you wait a few minutes? Though by some unfortunate accident you were not +told how ill my uncle is, I assure you that he is too ill now to be +harassed----" + +"Oh, I know what you mean without so many words," interrupted Jack, +scornfully. "Make your mind easy, I am not going to split upon you. +Bah!" he added, as Stephen shook his head with sorrowful repudiation. +"Do you suppose that I don't know that your man was instructed to keep +it from me? What were you afraid of--that I should cut you out at the +last moment? You judge me by your own standard, and you make a vast +mistake. It isn't on account of the money--you are welcome to that--and +you deserve it, for you've worked hard enough for it; no, it's not on +that account, it's--but you wouldn't understand if I told you. I am +going up now," and he sprang up the stairs quickly. + +Stephen followed him, and entered the room close behind him. The old man +looked up, motioned with his hand to Jack, looked at the other two and +quietly pointed to the door. + +Stephen's eyes closed and his lips shut as he hesitated for a moment, +then he turned and left with the physician. + +"I think," said Sir Humphrey, blandly, and looking at his watch--one of +a score left him by departed patients, "I think that I will go now, Mr. +Davenant; I can do no good and my presence appears only to irritate your +uncle." + +The great doctor departed, just thirty guineas richer than when he came, +and Stephen went into the library and closed the door, and as he did so +it almost seemed as if he had taken off a mask and left it on the mat +outside. + +The set, calm expression of the face changed to one of fierce, +uncontrollable anxiety and malice. With sullen step he paced up and down +the room, gnawing--but daintily--at his nails, and grinding the white +tombstones. + +"Another half hour," he muttered, "and the fool would have been too +late? Will he tell the old man? Curse him; how I hate him! I was a fool +to send for him--an idiot! What is he saying to him? What are they +doing? Thank Heaven, that old knave Hudsley isn't there! They can't do +anything--can't, can't! No, I am safe." + +Stephen Davenant need not have been so uneasy; Jack was not plotting +against him, nor was the old man making a will in the Savage's favor. + +Jack stood beside the bed, waiting for one of the attacks of faintness +to pass, looking down regretfully at the haggard, death-marked face, +recalling the past kindnesses he had received from the old man, and +remorsefully remembering their many quarrels and eventful separation. + +"Bad lot" as he was, no thought of lucre crossed the Savage's mind; he +forgot even Stephen and the cowardly trick he had played him, and +remembered only that he was looking his last on the old man, who, after +his kind, had been good, and so far as his nature would allow it, +generous to him. + +At last old Ralph opened his eyes. + +"Here at last," he said; and by an effort of the resolute will, he made +himself heard distinctly, though every word cost him a breath. + +"I'm sorry I'm so late," he said; and his voice was husky. "I didn't +know----" + +The old man looked at him shrewdly. + +"So Stephen didn't send? It was just like him. A good stroke." + +"Yes, he sent," said Jack; "but----" + +The old man waved his hand to show that he understood. + +"A sharp stroke. A clever fellow, Stephen. You always were a fool." + +"I'm afraid so, sir," he said quietly. + +"But Stephen is a knave, and a fool, too," murmured the old man. "Jack, +I wish--I wish I could come back to the funeral." + +"To see his face when the will's read," explained old Ralph, with a grim +smile. + +Jack colored, and, I am ashamed to say, grinned. + +A sardonic smile flitted over the old man's face. + +"Be sure you are there, Jack; don't let him keep you away." + +"Not that you will be disappointed--much," said the old man. + +"Don't think of me, sir," said Jack, with a dim sense of the discordance +in such talk from such lips. + +"I have thought of you as far--as--as I dared. Jack, you are an honest +fool. Why--why did you give that _post obit_?" + +"I don't know," said Jack, quietly. "Don't worry about that now." + +"Stephen told me," said the old man, grimly. "He has told me every piece +of wickedness you have done. He is a kind-hearted man, is--Ste--phen." + +"We never were friends, sir," he said. "But don't talk now." + +"I must," murmured the old man. "Now or never, and--give me your hand, +Jack." + +"I've had yours ever since I came in," said Jack, simply. + +"Oh, I didn't know it. Good-by, boy--don't--don't end up like this. +It--and--for Heaven's sake don't cry!" for Jack emitted a suspicious +little choking sound, and his eyes were dim. "Good-by; don't be too +disappointed. Justice, Jack, justice. Where is Stephen?--send him to me. +I"--and the old sardonic smile came back--"I like to see him--he amuses +me!" + +The eyes closed; Jack waited a moment, then pressed the cold hand, and +crept from the room. + +Half way down the stairs he leaned his arm on the balustrade and dropped +his face on it for a minute or two, then choking back his tears, went +into the library--where Stephen was sitting reading a volume of +sermons--and pointed up-stairs. + +"My uncle wants me?" murmured Stephen. "I will go. Might I recommend +this book to you, my dear Jack; it contains----" + +Jack, I regret to say, chucked the volume into a corner of the room, and +Stephen, with a mournfully reproachful sigh, shook his head and left the +room. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +"Villains," says an old adage, "are made by accident." Now mark how +accident helped to make a villain of the good Stephen Davenant. + +He passed up the stairs and entered the bedroom. As he did so his foot +struck against a chair and caused a little noise. The dying man heard +it, however, and opening his eyes, said, almost inaudibly: + +"Is that you, Hudsley?" + +Stephen was about to reply, "No, it is I--Stephen," but stopped, +hesitated, and as if struck by a sudden idea, drew back behind the +bed-curtains. + +Whatever that idea was, he was considerably moved by it; his hands +shook, and his lips trembled during the interval of silence before the +old man repeated the question: + +"Is that you, Hudsley?" + +Then Stephen, wiping his lips, answered in a dry voice utterly unlike +his own, but very remarkably resembling that of the old solicitor, +Hudsley: + +"Yes, squire, it's Hudsley." + +The dying man's hearing was faint, his senses wandering and dimmed; he +caught the sense of the words, however, for with an effort he turned his +head toward the curtains. + +"Where are you?" he asked, almost inaudibly; "I can't see you; my sight +has gone. You have been a long while coming. Hudsley, you thought +you--knew--everything about the man who lies here; you were wrong. +There's a surprise for you as well as the rest. Did you see Jack?" + +Stephen had no need to reply: the old man rambled on without waiting, +excepting to struggle for breath. + +"He is down-stairs. Poor boy! it's a pity he is such a fool. There was +always one like him in the Newcombe family. But the other--Stephen--the +man who has been hanging about me all this time, eager to lick my boots +so that he might step into them when I was gone; he is a fool and a +knave." + +Stephen's face went white and his lips twitched. It is probable that he +remembered the adage: "Listeners hear no good of themselves." + +"He is the first of his kind we have had in the family. Plenty of fools +and scamps, Hudsley, but no hypocrites till this one. Well, he'll get +his deserts. I'd give a thousand pounds to come back and hear the will +read, and see his face. He makes so sure of it, too, the oily eel!" + +Stephen writhed like an eel, indeed, and his lips blanched. Was the old +man delirious, or had he, Stephen, really played the part of sycophant, +toady and boot-licker all these years for nothing? + +Great drops of sweat rolled down his face, his tongue clove to the roof +of his mouth, and his knees shook so that he had to steady himself by +holding the curtain. + +"Yes, disappointed all. You don't understand. You think that you know +everything. But no; I trusted you with a great deal, but not with all. +How dark it is! Hudsley, you are an old man; don't finish up like--like +this. Only one soul in the wide world is sorry that I'm going; and he's +a fool. Poor Jack! I remember----" + +Then followed, half inaudibly, a string of names belonging to the +companions of his youth. Most of them were dead and forgotten by him +until this hour, when he was about to join their shades. + +"Ah, the old time! the old time. But--but--what was it I was saying? +I--I--Hudsley--quick! for Heaven's sake! I--the key--the key----" + +Stephen came round, in his eagerness risking recognition. + +"The key?" he asked, so hoarsely that his voice might well be taken for +an old man's. "What key?" + +"Feel--under my pillow!" gasped Ralph Davenant. + +Stephen thrust his trembling hand under the pillow, and, with a leap of +the heart, felt a key. + +"The safe!" murmured a faltering voice. "The bottom drawer. Bring them +to me! Quick!" + +Stephen glided snake-like across the room to a small safe that stood in +a recess, opened the door, and with trembling hands drew out the drawer. +His hands shook so, his heart beat to such an extent, that as a movement +in the next room struck upon his ears, he could scarcely refrain from +shrieking aloud; but it was only the nurse, whom the old man would only +allow to enter the room at intervals; and setting his teeth hard, and +fighting for calm, Stephen took out two documents. + +One was a parchment of goodly proportions. + +Both were folded and endorsed on the back--the parchment with the +inscription, "Last will and testament of Ralph Davenant, Gent., Jan. +18--." + +With eyes that almost refused to do their task, Stephen turned the other +paper to the light, and read, "Will, July 18--." This inscription was +written in an old man's hand--the parchment was engrossed as usual. + +Two wills! The one--the parchment, however, was useless; the other--the +sheet of foolscap--was the last. + +"Well," rose the voice from the bed, hollow and broken, "have you got +them?" + +Stephen came up and stood behind the curtain, and held the wills up. + +"Yes, yes," he said. "The first is--is in whose favor?" + +The old man struggled for breath. White, breathless himself with the +agony of anxiety and fear--for any moment someone might enter the +room--Stephen stood staring beside him. He dared not undo the tapes and +glance at the wills, in case of interruption--dared not conceal them, +for Hudsley might appear on the scene. With the wills clasped in his +hand, he stood and waited. + +The faintness passed--old Ralph regained his voice. + +"One is parchment--the other is paper. The parchment one you drew up; +you know its contents--I want it destroyed, or, stay, keep it. It will +add to the deceitful hound's disappointment. The other--ah, my God--it +is too late--Hudsley, there is a cruel history in that paper. No hand +but mine could pen it. But--but--I have done justice. Too late!--why do +you say--too late? Why do you mock a dying man? Mind, Hudsley, I trust +to you. It is a sound will, made in sound body--and--mind. Don't leave +that hypocritical hound a chance of setting it aside. I trust to you. +Stop, better burn the first will; burn it here now--now," and in his +excitement he actually raised his head. Raised it to let it drop upon +the pillow again with exhaustion. + +Stephen stood and glared, torn this way and that by doubt and +uncertainty. + +"Justice," he whispered hoarsely. "The first will, my will leaves all +to----" + +"To that hound Stephen!" gasped the old man. "I did it in a weak moment +and repented of it. Leaves all to him; but not now." + +Stephen hesitated no longer. With the quick, gliding movement of a cat +he reached the iron safe, replaced the parchment in the drawer and +locked the outer door, and thrust the paper will into his pocket. + +Scarcely had he done so, before he had time to get to his place, the +door opened and Hudsley, the lawyer, entered. + +He was an old man, as thin and bent as a withy branch, with a face +seamed and wrinkled, like his familiar parchment, with the like spots; +his dark, keen gray eyes, which looked out from under his shaggy +eyebrows, like stars in a cloudy sky. + +As he entered, Stephen came forward, his back to the light, his face in +the shadow, and held out his hand. + +Hudsley took it, held it for a moment, and dropped it with a little, +irritable shudder--the slim, white hand was as cold as ice--and, +turning to the bed, looked anxiously at the dying man. + +"Great heaven!" he said, "is he dead?" + +A savage hope shot up in Stephen's heart, but he looked and shook his +head. + +"No. You have been a long time coming, Mr. Hudsley." + +"I have, sir, thanks to your man's stupidity," said the lawyer, in an +angry whisper. "He came for me in a confounded dogcart!" + +"The quickest vehicle to get ready," murmured Stephen. "I told him, to +take the first that came to hand." + +"And the result," said the lawyer impatiently. "The result is that we +lost half an hour on the road! Does your man drink, Mr. Stephen?" + +"Drink! Slummers drink!" murmured Stephen. "A most steady, +respectable--I may say conscientious--man." + +"He may be conscientious, but he's a very bad driver. I never saw such a +clumsy fellow. He drove into a ditch half a mile after we had started." + +"Dear, dear," murmured Stephen regretfully. "Poor Slummers. It is not +his fault. He is a worthy fellow, but too sympathetic, and my uncle's +illness quite upset him----" + +"Hush!" interrupted Mr. Hudsley, holding up his finger and bending down. + +"Squire, do you know me? I am Hudsley." + +The dying man moved his hand faintly in assent. + +"Yes. Have you done as I told you?" + +"You have told me nothing yet." + +"The safe!--the key!--the pillow!" said the Squire. + +Hudsley caught his meaning and felt under the pillow, and Stephen, as if +to assist, thrust his hand under, and withdrew it with the key in his +fingers. + +"Why--again?" came the voice, broken and impatient. "You have done it! +you have burnt the first." + +"What is he saying?" he asked. + +"You have burned it; show me the other--the last; let me--touch it." + +Hudsley opened the safe and took the first will from the drawer. + +"Two, did he say?" he muttered: "there is only one here--the will;" and +he came to the bed with it. + +"There is only one will here, of course, squire," he said, bending down +and speaking slowly and distinctly. + +"Yes--you, you have--burned the other. Speak. I cannot see, but I can +hear you." + +"I have burned none," said Hudsley. "Have only just come--there is only +one will here." + +"Which?" gasped the dying man. + +"The will of January--Mr. Stephen----" + +Before they could finish, they saw, with horror, the dying man half +raise himself, his face livid, his hands wildly clutching the air, his +eyes, by accident, turned toward Stephen. + +"You--you thief!" he gasped. "Give it to me!--give--give--oh, God! Too +late?--too la----" + +It was too late. Before the nurse and Jack could rush into the room, +horrified by the shriek which rang from Stephen's white lips, old Ralph +Davenant had fallen back dead! + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Half an hour afterward Stephen Davenant passed down the stairs on +tiptoe, though the tramp of an armed host could not disturb old Ralph +Davenant now--passed down with his hand pressed against his breast +pocket, in which lay the stolen will. Had the sheet of blue foolscap +been composed of red-hot iron instead of paper, Stephen could not have +felt its presence more distinctly and uncomfortably; it seemed to burn +right through his clothes and scorch his heart; he could almost fancy, +in his overstrained state, that it could be seen through his coat. + +He paused a moment outside the library door, one white hand fingering +his pale lips, the other vainly striving to keep away from his breast +pocket, and listened to the tramp, tramp of Jack as he walked up and +down the room. Any other face would have been more endurable than +Jack's, with its fiercely frank gaze and outspoken contempt. + +At last he opened the door and entered, his handkerchief in his hand. +Jack stopped and looked at him. + +"I have been waiting for you," he said. + +"My poor uncle!" + +Jack looked at him with keen scrutiny, mingled with unconcealed scorn. + +"I have been waiting for you, in case you wished to say anything before +I went." + +"What?" murmured Stephen, with admirably feigned surprise and regret. +"You will not go, my dear Jack! not to-night." + +"Yes, to-night," said Jack quietly. "I couldn't stop in the house--I +shall go to the inn." + +"But----" + +"No, thanks!" said Jack, cutting him short. + +"Oh, do not thank me," murmured Stephen, meekly. "I may have no right to +offer you hospitality, the house may be yours." + +"Well, I think you could give a pretty good guess on that point," said +Jack, bluntly; "but let that pass. I am going to the 'Bush.' If you or +Mr. Hudsley want me--where is Hudsley?" he broke off to inquire. + +"Mr. Hudsley is up-stairs sealing up the safe and things," said Stephen +humbly. "He wished me to assist him, but I had rather that he should do +it alone--perhaps you would go through the house with him?" + +Jack shook his head. + +"As you please," murmured Stephen, with a resigned sigh. "Mr. Hudsley is +quite sufficient; he knows where everything of importance is kept. You +will have some refreshments after your journey, my dear Jack?" + +"No, thanks," said Jack; "I want nothing--I couldn't eat anything. I'll +go now." + +"Are you going, Mr. Newcombe?" said Mr. Hudsley, entering and looking +from one to the other keenly. + +"I am going to the 'Bush;' I shall stay there in case I am wanted." + +"The funeral had better be fixed for Saturday. You and Mr. Stephen will +be the chief mourners." Then he turned to Stephen. "I have sealed up +most of the things. Is there anything you can suggest?" + +"You know all that is required; we leave everything to you, Mr Hudsley. +I think I may speak for my cousin--may I not, Jack?" + +Jack did not reply, but put on his gloves. + +"I will go now," he said. "Good-night, Mr. Hudsley." + +The old lawyer looked at him keenly as he took his hand. + +"I shall find you at the 'Bush?'" he said. + +"Yes," replied Jack, and was leaving the room when Stephen rose and +followed him. + +"Good-night, my dear Jack," he said. "Will you not shake hands on--on +such an occasion?" + +Jack strode to the door and opened it without reply, then turned and, as +if with an effort, took the hand which Stephen had kept extended. + +"Good-night," he said, dropping the cold fingers, and strode out. + +Stephen looked after him a moment with his meek, long-suffering +expression of face changed into a malignant smile of triumph, and his +hand went up to his breast pocket. + +"Good-night, beggar!" he murmured, and closed the door. + +Mr. Hudsley was still standing by the library-table, toying absently +with the keys, a thoughtful frown on his brow, which did not grow +any lighter as Stephen entered, making great play with the +pocket-handkerchief. + +"I think I also may go now, Mr. Stephen," he said. "Nothing more can be +done to-night. I will be here in the morning with my clerk." + +"I suppose nothing more can be done. You have sealed up all papers and +jewels? I am particularly anxious that nothing shall be left informal." + +"I don't think there is anything unsealed that should have been." + +"A very strange scene, the final one, Mr. Stephen." + +"Awful, awful, Mr. Hudsley. My poor uncle seemed quite delirious at the +last." + +"Hem!" grunted the old lawyer, putting his hat to his lips and looking +over it at the white, smooth face. "You think he was delirious----" + +"Don't you, Mr. Hudsley? Do you think that he was conscious of what he +was saying? You have been his legal adviser and confidant for years; you +would know whether there was any meaning in his wild and incoherent +statement about the will. As you are no doubt aware, my poor uncle never +broached the subject of his intentions to me." + +"I know of only one will--that of last year. That will I executed for +him; it is the will locked up in the safe up-stairs. I have a copy at +the office," he added, dryly. + +"You--you don't think there is any other--any other later will?" he +asked, softly. + +"I didn't think so until an hour ago. I am not sure that I think so now. +Do you?" + +"No," he said, shaking his head. "My uncle was not the man to draw up a +will with his own hand, and his confidence, and I may say affection for +you, were so great that he would not have gone to any other legal +adviser to do it for him. No, I do not think there is any other will; of +course, I do not know the contents of the will in the safe." + +"Of course not," said Mr. Hudsley, in a tone so dry that it seemed to +rasp his throat. + +"And yet I cannot understand, my poor uncle's outbreak, except by +attributing it to delirium." + +"Hem!" said Mr. Hudsley. "Well, in case there should have been any +meaning and significance in it, my clerk and I will make a careful +search to-morrow." + +"Yes," murmured Stephen, "and I devoutly trust that should a later will +be in existence, you may find it." + +"I hope we may," said Mr. Hudsley. "Good-night!" + +Stephen accompanied him to the door as he had accompanied the doctor and +Jack, and saw him into the brougham, and then turned back into the house +with a look of release, which, however, gradually changed to one of +lurking fear and indefinite dread. + +"Conscience makes cowards of us all." + +It makes a worse coward of Stephen Davenant than he was naturally. + +As he stood in the deserted hall, and looked round, at its vast dimness, +at the carved gallery and staircase, somber and dull for want of +varnish, and listened to the faint, ghostly noises made by the +awe-stricken servants moving to and fro overhead, a chill crept over +him, and he wished that he had kept one of them, even Jack, to bear him +company. + +With fearful gaze he peered into the darkness, scarcely daring to cross +the hall and enter the library. For all the stillness, he fancied he +could hear that last shriek of the dying man ringing through the house; +for all the darkness, the slim, bent figure seemed to be moving to and +fro, the dark piercing eyes turned upon him with furious accusation. +Even when he had summoned up courage to enter the library, locking the +door after him, the eyes seemed to follow him, and with a shudder that +shook him from head to foot he poured out a glass of brandy and drank it +down. + +The Spirit of Evil certainly invented brandy for cowards. + +Stephen set down the empty glass and looked round the room--another man. + +He even smiled in a ghostly kind of fashion as he took the will from his +pocket and opened it. + +"Poor Jack!" he murmured, with a sardonic display of the white teeth. +"This no doubt makes you master of Hurst Leigh; but Providence has +decreed that the spendthrift shall be disappointed. Yes, I am the humble +instrument chosen. I am----" + +He stopped suddenly with a start, for he had been reading as he +soliloquized, and he had come upon words that struck him to the very +heart's core. + +Was he dreaming, or had his senses taken leave of him? + +With beating heart and white, parched lips he stared at the paper until +the lines of crabbed handwriting danced before his astounded eyes. + +If brevity is the soul of wit, old Ralph Davenant's will was wit itself. +It consisted of five paragraphs. + +The first was merely the usual preamble declaring the testator to be of +sound mind. + +The second ran thus: + +"To John Newcombe I will and bequeath the sum of fifty thousand pounds, +the said sum to be realized by the sale or transfer of bonds and stocks, +at the discretion of James Hudsley." + +Enough in this to move Stephen, but it paled into insignificance before +what followed: + +"To my nephew, Stephen Davenant, I will and bequeath the set of Black's +sermons in twenty-nine volumes, standing on the second shelf in the +library, having remarked the affection which the said Stephen Davenant +bore the said volumes, and accepting his repeated assertions that his +attendance upon me was wholly disinterested." + +An ugly flash and an evil glitter swept over Stephen's white face and +eyes, and his teeth ground together maliciously. + +"To each and every one of my servants I bequeath the sum of one hundred +pounds, such sum to be forfeited by each and every one who assumes +mourning for my death, which each and every one has anxiously looked +forward to. + +"And lastly, I will and bequeath the remainder of my property of +whatsoever kind, be it money, houses, lands, or property of any +description, to my only daughter and child, Eunice Davenant, the same to +be held in trust for her sole use and benefit by James Hudsley. + +"And I hereby inform him, and the world at large, that the said Eunice +Davenant is the only issue of my marriage with Caroline Hatfield; that +the said marriage was celebrated in secret at the Church of Armfield, in +Sussex, in June, 18--. And that the said Eunice Davenant, my daughter, +is in the keeping of one Gideon Rolfe, woodman, of Warden Forest, who +has reared her as his own child, and who is unacquainted with the facts +of my secret marriage, and I decree and appoint James Hudsley sole +guardian, trustee, and ward of the aforesaid Eunice Davenant, and at her +hands I crave forgiveness for my neglect of her mother and herself. + + "(Signed) RALPH DAVENANT, + "Hurst Leigh. + "Witness--George Goodman, + "Coachman, Hurst Leigh. + "Martha Goodman, + "Cook, Hurst Leigh." + + +White, breathless, Stephen held the paper in his clinched hands and +stared at the astounding contents. + +Eunice Davenant the squire's daughter. + +His overstrained brain refused to realize it. + +Old Ralph Davenant married! Married! It was impossible. + +_Oh, yes, that was it._ A smile, a ghastly smile shone on his face. _It +was a joke_--a vile, malicious joke, worthy of the crabbed, +misanthropical old man! A villainous joke, set down just to bring about +litigation, and create trouble and confusion between the two young men, +himself and Jack Newcombe. And yet--and the smile died away and left his +face fearful and haggard--and yet that awful fury of the dying man when +he knew that the will had been stolen. + +No, it was no jest. The marriage had taken place; there _was_ a +daughter, and she was the heiress of all that immense, untold wealth, +except the fifty thousand pounds left to Jack Newcombe, while he--he, +Stephen Davenant, the next of kin, the man who had been working, lying, +toadying for the money, was left with a set of musty sermons. + +Rage filled his heart; stifling, choking with fury, the disappointed +schemer struck the senseless paper with his clinched fist, and ground +his teeth at it; then, suddenly, as if by a swift inspiration, he +remembered that this accursed will, which would reduce him to beggary, +and leave an unknown girl and his hated cousin wealthy, was in his +hands; that he and he only knew of its existence. With a sudden +revulsion of feeling he sprang to his feet, and held the paper at arm's +length and laughed softly at it, as if it were endued with sense, and +could appreciate its helplessness. + +Then he drew the candle near, folded the paper into a third of its size, +held it to the candle--and drew it back again, overcome by that +fascination which almost invariably exercises itself on such +occasions--that peculiar reluctance to destroy the thing whose existence +can destroy the possessor. + +The flame flickered and licked the frail paper; the smoke curled round +its edge; and yet--and yet he could not destroy it. + +Instead, he sat down, and with clinched teeth unfolded the will and +read it--read it again and again, until every word was burned and seared +into his brain. + +"Eunice Davenant! Eunice Davenant! Curse her!" he groaned out. + +But even as the words left his lips a sound rose, the unmistakable +tap--tap of something--some finger striking the window-pane. + +Biting his bloodless lips to prevent himself calling out in his ecstasy +of fear, he thrust the will into his pocket, caught up the candle, swept +the curtains aside, and started back. + +The light fell full upon the face of a young girl. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +The face at the window was that of a young girl of about two-and-twenty. + +It would be hard to say whether Stephen Davenant was pleased or annoyed +by this apparition. That he was surprised there could be no doubt, for +he almost dropped the candle in his astonishment, and fumbled at the +lock of the window for some moments before he could open it. + +"Laura!" he exclaimed, "can it be you? Great Heavens! Impossible!" + +With a little gasp of relief and suppressed excitement, the girl stepped +into the room, and leaned upon his arm, panting with a commingling of +weariness and fear. + +"My dear Laura," he said, still holding the candle, "how did you come +here? Why----" + +"Oh, Stephen, is it really you? I was afraid that I had made some +mistake--that I had come all this way----" + +"You do not mean to say you have come all the way from London +alone--alone!" + +"Yes, I have come all the way from London. Do not be angry with me, +Stephen. I--I could not wait any longer. It seemed so long! Why did you +leave me without a word? I did not know whether you were alive or dead. +Three weeks--think, three weeks! How could you do it?" + +"Hush! hush! Do not speak so loud," he whispered. "Did anyone see you +come in?" + +"No one. I have been waiting in the shrubs for--oh, hours! I saw the +visitors go away--an old gentleman and a young one--and I saw your +shadow behind the blind," and she pointed to the window. "I have been +outside waiting, and dreading to knock in case you should not be alone." + +"You--you saw my shadow?" he said, with an uneasy smile. "Did you see--I +mean, what was I doing?" + +"I did not see distinctly; I was listening for voices. Oh, Stephen, I am +so weary!" + +He drew a chair for her, and, motioning her to sit, mixed a glass of +brandy-and-water, and stood over her holding her wrist and looking down +at her with an uneasy smile. + +"Now," he said, taking the glass from her, "tell me all about it--how +you came, and why? Speak in a whisper." + +"You don't need to ask me why, Stephen," she said, leaning forward and +laying her hand upon his arm, her dark eyes fixed on his half-hidden +ones. "Why did you leave me so long without a word?" + +"I will tell you directly," he answered. "Tell me how you came--alone! +Great Heaven!" + +"Alone, yes; why not? I was not afraid. I came by the train." + +"But--but----" he said, with a little flush and a shifting glance, "how +did you know where I was?" + +"You would never guess! You do not deserve that I should tell you. Well, +I followed Slummers!" + +"Followed Slummers!" he echoed, with a forced smile. + +"Yes, I met him in the street; you are going to ask me why I did not ask +him where you were," she broke off with a smile and a shake of her head. + +"Because I knew he would not tell me. Stephen, I do not like that man, +and he does not like me. Why do you trust him so?" + +"You followed Slummers--well?" + +"To the station. I was behind him when he took his ticket, and I took +one for the same place. I was quite close behind him, but he did not see +me. I got into the train at the last moment, and I followed him from the +station here." + +"My dear Laura," he murmured, soothingly; "how rash, how thoughtless!" + +"Was it?" she said. "Perhaps it was. I did not stop to think." + +"But now--now what are you to do?" + +"Don't be angry with me, Stephen, now I _am_ here. You must tell me what +I am to do." Then her eyes wandered round the house. "What a large +house! Is it yours, Stephen?" + +"Eh?" he said, starting slightly. "I--I--don't know--I mean it was my +uncle's. I was going to write to-night and tell you where I was, and why +I did not write before." + +"Why didn't you?" she said, with gentle reproach. + +"Because," he replied, "I could not--it was impossible. I could not +leave the house, and could not trust the letter to a servant. My uncle +has been very ill: he--he--lies dead up-stairs." + +"Up-stairs! Oh, Stephen!" + +"You see," he exclaimed reproachfully, "that I have a good excuse, that +I have not desert--left you without a word for no cause." + +"Forgive me, Stephen, dear!" she murmured, penitently. "Do not be angry +with me. Say you are glad to see me now I have come." + +"Of course I am glad to see you, but I am not glad you have come, my +dear Laura. What am I to do with you? I am not alone here, you know. The +house is full of servants; any moment someone may come in. Think of the +awkward position in which your precipitancy has placed me--has placed +both of us!" + +"I never thought of that--I did not know. Why did you not tell me you +were with your uncle? Oh, Stephen, why have you hidden things from me?" + +"Hidden things?" he echoed, with ill-concealed impatience. "I did not +think that it was worth telling. I did not know that I was coming--I was +fetched suddenly. Now that I come to think of it, I told Slummers to +call and tell you." + +"And he forgot it--on purpose. I hate Slummers!" + +"Poor Slummers!" murmured Stephen. "Never mind him, however. We must +think now of what is to be done with you. You--you cannot stay here." + +"Can I not? No, I suppose not. I can go back," she added, with a touch +of bitterness. + +"My darling," he said, coaxingly, "I am afraid you must go back. There +is an up-train--the last--in half an hour." + +The girl leaned back and clasped her hands in her lap. + +"I am very sorry," he said, grasping her arm; "but what can I do? You +cannot stay here. That's impossible. There is only one inn in the place, +and your appearance there would arouse curiosity, and--oh, _that_, too, +is quite impossible! My poor Laura, why did you come?" + +"Yes," she said, slowly, "it was foolish to come. You are not glad to +see me, Stephen." + +He bent over her and kissed her, but she put him from her with a touch +of her hand, and rose wearily. + +"I will go," she said. "Yes, I was wrong to come. Tell me the way," and +she drew her jacket close. + +"Don't look so grieved, dear," he murmured. "What am I to do? If there +was any place--but there is not. See, I will come with you to the +station. We shall have to walk, I am afraid; I dare not order a +carriage. My poor child, if you had only foreseen these difficulties." + +"Do not say any more," she interrupted coldly. "I am quite convinced of +my folly and am ready to go." + +"Sit down and wait while I get my hat. We must get away unobserved. +Suspicious eyes are watching my every movement to-night. I can't tell +you all, but I will soon. Sit down, my darling; I will not be gone a +moment. If anyone comes to the door, step through the window and conceal +yourself." + +Unlocking the door noiselessly he went out, turning the key after him. + +Barely a minute elapsed before he was in the room again. + +Warm though the night was he put on an overcoat and turned up the collar +so that it hid the lower part of his face. + +Locking the door after him, he came up to the table, poured out another +glass of brandy-and-water, and got some biscuits. + +"Come," he said, "you must eat some of these. Put some in your pocket. +And you must drink this, my poor darling, or you will be exhausted." + +She put back the glass and plate from her with a gesture of denial. + +"I could not eat," she said. "I do not want anything, and I shall not be +exhausted. Let us go; this house makes me shudder," and she moved to the +window and passed out. + +"Laura, my dear Laura," murmured Stephen, in his most dulcet tones, "why +are you angry with me?" + +"I am not angry with you," she said, and the voice, cold and +constrained, did not seem the same as that in which she had greeted him +a quarter of an hour ago. "I am angry with myself; I am filled with +self-scorn." + +"My dear Laura," he began, soothingly, but she interrupted him with a +gesture. + +"You are quite right; I was wrong to come. You have not said so in so +many words, but your face, your eyes, your very smile have told me so +plainly." + +"What have I said?" + +"Nothing," she answered, without hesitation, and with the same air of +cold conviction. "If you had said angry words, had been harsh and +annoyed openly, and yet been glad to see me, I could have forgiven +myself, but you were not glad to see me. If I had been in your +place--but I am a woman. Don't say any more. Is the station near?" + +"My dear Laura," murmured Stephen for the third time, and now more +softly than ever, "more must be said. I am anxious, naturally anxious, +to learn whether this--this sudden journey can be concealed." + +It was quite true, he was anxious, very anxious--on his own account. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +"Come," he said; "it is all right, then. Do not take the matter so +seriously, my darling Laura. The worst part of it is that you should +have made such a journey alone, and have to go back alone, and at night! +That is what grieves me. If I could but go with you--and yet that would +scarcely be wise--but it is impossible under the circumstances. Come, +give me your arm, my dear Laura." + +A little shiver ran through her frame, and she caught her breath with a +stifled sob. + +"Come, come, my darling," he murmured; "don't look back, look forward. +In an hour or two you will be home." + +"Do you think I am afraid?" she asked, and her voice trembled, but not +with fear. "No, I am looking back. Oh, Stephen, do you remember when we +met first?" + +"Yes, yes," said Stephen, soothingly, and with an anxious, sidelong look +about--to be seen promenading the high road with a young woman on his +arm on the night of his uncle's death would be the ruin of his carefully +built-up reputation. "Yes, yes," he murmured. "Shall I ever forget? How +fortunate you lost your way, Laura, and that you should have come up to +me to ask it, and that I should have been going in that direction. And +yet the thoughtless speak of chance!" + +And he cast up his eyes with unctuous solemnity, though there was no one +in the dark road to be impressed by it. + +"Chance," said the girl, sadly--"an evil or a good chance for me--which? +Stephen, I sometimes wish that we had never met--that I had not crossed +your path, and so have left the old life, with its dull, quiet and sober +grayness; but the die was cast that afternoon. I went back to the quiet +home, to the old man who had been my father, mother and all to me, and +life was changed." + +"Your grandfather has no suspicion?" + +"No, he trusts me entirely. If he asks a question when I go to meet you, +he is satisfied when I tell him that I am going to a neighbor. Stephen, +if I had had a mother, do you think I should have deceived her also?" + +"Deceived? Deceived is too harsh a word, my dear Laura. We have been +obliged, for various reasons, to use some reserve--let us say candidly, +to conceal our engagement. You have not mentioned my name to anyone?" he +broke off. + +"To no one," she answered. + +"Such concealment was necessary. My uncle was a man of rough and hasty +temper, ill-judging and merciless." + +"But," she said, with a sudden eagerness, and a slight shudder, "he--he +is dead now, Stephen. There is no need for further concealment." + +"Softly, softly, dear Laura. We must be patient--must keep our little +secret a little while longer. I can trust my darling to confide in +me--yes, yes, I know that----" + +"Stephen, to-night for the first time--why, I know not--I have +doubted--no, not doubted, for I have fought hard against the suspicion +that I was wrong to trust you." + +"My dearest!" he murmured reproachfully. + +"You were wrong to leave me for so long without a word--you put my love +to too severe a test. I--I cannot say whether it has stood it or not. +To-night I am full of doubt. Stephen--look at me!" + +He turned his face and looked down. He had not far to look, for she was +tall, and in the moment of excitement had drawn herself to her full +height. The moon, sailing from amongst the clouds, shone on her upturned +face; her lips were set, and the dark eyes gleamed from the white face. + +"Look at me, Stephen. If--I say if--there is the faintest idea of +treachery lurking in your mind----" + +"My dearest----" + +"Cast it out! Here, to-night, I warn you to cast it out! Such love as +mine is like a two-edged sword, it cuts both ways, for love--or hate! +Stephen, I have loved, I have trusted you--for mine, for your own sake, +be true to me!" + +He was more impressed than alarmed. This side of her character had been +presented to him to-night for the first time. Hitherto the beautiful +girl had been all smiles and humble devotion. Was she bewitched, or had +he been mistaken in her. Perhaps it was the moon, but suddenly his face +looked paler than ever, and the white eyelids drooped until they hid the +shifting eyes, as he put his arm around her. + +"My dearest! What can you mean? Deceive you! Treachery! Can you deem +me--_me_--capable of such things. My dearest, you are overtired! And +your jacket has become unbuttoned. Listen, that is the railway bell. +Laura, you will not leave me with such words on your lips?" + +"Forgive me, Stephen." + +"I have done so already, dearest, and now we must part! It is very +hard--but--I cannot even go with you to the platform. Someone might see +us. It is for your sake, darling." + +"Yes, yes, I know," she said, with a sigh. "Good-bye--you will write or +come to me--when?" + +"Soon, in a day or two," he said. "Do not be impatient. There is much to +be done; my poor uncle's funeral, you know. Good-bye. See! I will stay +here and watch the train off. Good-bye, dear, dear Laura!" + +She put her arm round him and returned his kiss, and glided away, but at +the turn of the road leading to the station she turned and, holding up +her hand, sent a word back to him. + +It was: + +"Remember!" + +Stephen waited until the train puffed out of the station, and not until +it had flashed some distance did the set smile leave his face. + +Then, with a rather puzzled and uneasy expression, he turned and walked +swiftly back to the house. + +His brain was in a whirl, the sudden appearance of the young girl coming +on the top of the other causes of excitement bewildered him, and he felt +that he had need of all his accustomed coolness. The sudden peril and +danger of this accursed will demanded all his attention, and yet the +thought of the girl would force itself upon him. He had met her, as she +had said, in the streets, and had commenced an acquaintance which had +resulted in an engagement. Alone and unprotected, save for an old +grandfather, and innocent of the world, Laura Treherne had been, as it +were, fascinated by the smooth, soft-spoken Stephen, from whose ready +tongue vows of love and devotion rolled as easily as the scales from a +serpent in spring-time. And he, for his part, was smitten by the dark +eyes and quick, impulsive way of the warm-hearted girl. + +But there had come upon him of late a suspicion that in binding himself +to marry her he had committed a false step; to-night the suspicion grew +into something like certainty. + +To tell the truth, she had almost frightened him. Hitherto the dark eyes +had ever turned on his with softened gaze of love and admiration; +to-night, for the first time, the hot, passionate nature had revealed +itself. + +The deep-toned "Remember!" which came floating down the lane as she +disappeared rang unpleasantly in his ears. Had he been a true-hearted +man the girl's spirit would have made her more precious in his eyes; +but, coward-like, he felt that hers was a stronger nature than his, and +he began to fear. + +"Yes," he muttered, as he unlocked the library window, and sank into a +chair. "It was a weak stroke, a weak stroke! But I can't think of what +is to be done now, not now!" + +No, for to-night all his attention must be concentrated on the will. + +Wiping the perspiration from his brow, he lit another candle. This time +nothing should prevent him from destroying the accursed thing which +stood between him and wealth; he would burn it at once--at once. With +feverish eagerness he thrust his hand in his coat, then staggered and +fell back white as death. + +_The pocket was empty. The will was not there._ + +"I--I am a fool!" he muttered, with a smile. "I put it in the other +coat," and he snatched up the overcoat, but a glance, a touch showed him +that it was not there either. + +Wildly, madly he searched each pocket in vain, went on his knees and +felt, as if he could not trust his sight alone, every inch of the +carpet; turned up the hearth-rug, almost tore up the carpet itself, +shook the curtains, and still hunted and searched long after the +conviction had forced itself upon his mind that in no part of the room +could the thing be hidden. + +Then he paused, pressing his hand to his brow and biting his livid lips. +Let him think--think--think! Where could it be? He had not dropped it on +the stairs or in any other part of the house, for he remembered, he +could swear, that he had felt the thing as he stood in the study +buttoning up his overcoat. If not in the house, where then? + +Throwing aside all caution in his excitement, he unfastened the window, +and, candle in hand, examined the grand terrace, traced every step which +he had taken across the lawn--and all to no purpose. + +"It is lying in the road," he muttered, the sweat dropping from his +face. "Heaven! lying glaring there, for any country clown to pick up and +ruin me. I must--I will find it! Brandy--I must have some +brandy--this--this is maddening me!" + +And indeed he seemed mad, for though he knew he had not passed it, he +went back, still peering on the ground, the candle held above his head. +Suddenly he stumbled up against some object, and, looking up, saw the +tall figure of a man standing right in his path. With a wolfish cry of +mingled fear and rage, he dropped the candle and sprang on to him. + +"You--you thief!" he cried, hoarsely; "give it to me--give it me!" + +The man made an effort to unlock the mad grasp of the hands round his +throat, then scientifically and coolly knocked his assailant down, and, +holding him down writhing, struck a match. + +Gasping and foaming, Stephen looked up and saw that it was Jack +Newcombe--Jack Newcombe regarding him with cool, contemptuous surprise +and suspicion. + +"Well," he said contemptuously, "so it's you! Are you out of your mind?" +and he flung the match away and allowed Stephen to rise. + +Trembling and struggling for composure, Stephen brushed the dust from +his black coat and stood rubbing his chest, for Jack's blow had been +straight from the shoulder. + +"What have you got to say for yourself?" said Jack, sternly. "I asked +you if you had gone mad. What are you doing here with a candle, and +behaving like a lunatic?" + +Stephen made a mighty effort for composure, and a ghastly smile +struggled to his face. + +"My dear Jack, how you startled me!" he gasped. "I was never so +frightened in my--my life!" + +"So it appeared," said Jack, with strong disgust in his voice. "Pick up +the candle--there it is." + +And he pointed with his foot. But Stephen was by no means anxious for a +light. + +"Never mind the candle," he said. "You are quite right--I must have +seemed out of my mind. I--I am very much upset, my dear Jack." + +"Are you hurt?" inquired Jack, but with no great show of concern. + +"No, no!" gasped Stephen; "don't distress yourself, my dear Jack--don't, +I beg of you. It was my fault, entirely. The--the fact is that I----" + +He paused, for Jack had got the candle, lit it, and held it up so that +the light fell upon Stephen's face. + +"Now," he said, his tone plainly intimating that he would prefer to see +Stephen's face while he made his explanation. + +"The fact is," Stephen began again, "I have had the misfortune to lose a +pocketbook--no, not a pocketbook, that is scarcely correct, but a paper +which I fancied I had put in my pocketbook, and which must have dropped +out. It--it was a draft of a little legal document which my lawyer had +sent me--of no value, utterly valueless--oh, quite----" + +"So I should judge from the calm way in which you accused the first man +you met of stealing it," said Jack, with quiet scorn. + +Stephen bit his lip, and a glance of hate and suspicion shot from under +his eyelids. + +"Pray forgive me, my dear Jack," he said, pressing his hand to his brow, +and sighing. "If you had sat up for so many nights, and were so worn and +overwrought, you would have some sympathy with my overstrained nerves. I +am much shaken to-night, my dear Jack--very much shaken." + +And indeed he was, for the Savage's fist was by no means a soft one. + +Jack looked at him in silence for a moment, then held the candle toward +him. + +"You had better go to the house and get some of the servants to help you +look for the paper," he said. "Good-night." + +"Oh, it is of no consequence," said Stephen, eagerly. "Don't go--stop a +moment, my dear Jack. I--I will walk with you as far as the inn." + +"No, thanks," said Jack, curtly; then, as a suspicious look gleamed in +Stephen's eyes, he added: "Oh, I see! you are afraid I should pick it up +in the road. You had better come." + +Stephen smiled, and laid his hand on Jack's arm. + +"You--you are not playing a joke with me, my dear Jack? You haven't got +the--document in your pocket all the time?" + +"If I said that I hadn't you wouldn't believe me, you know," he replied. +"There, take your hand off my coat!" + +"Stop! stop!" exclaimed Stephen, with a ghostly attempt at a laugh. +"Don't go, my dear Jack; stop at the house to-night. I should feel very +much obliged, indeed, if you would. I am so upset to-night that I--I +want company. Let me beg of you to stop." + +And in his dread lest Jack should escape out of sight, he held on to his +arm. + +Jack shook him with so emphatic a movement of disgust that Stephen was +in imminent danger of making a further acquaintance with the lawn. + +"Go indoors," he said sternly, "and leave me alone. I'd rather not sleep +under the same roof with you. As for your lost paper, whatever it may +be, you had better look for it in the morning, unless you want to get +into further trouble," and he turned on his heel and disappeared. + +Stephen waited until he had got at a safe distance, and, blowing out the +candle, followed down the road with stealthy footsteps, keeping a close +watch on the rapidly-striding figure, and examining the road at the same +time. But all to no purpose; Jack reached and entered the inn without +stopping, and neither going nor returning could Stephen see anything of +the missing will. + +Two hours afterward he crept back and staggered into the library more +dead than alive, one question rankling in his disordered brain. + +Had Jack Newcombe found the will, and, if not, where was it? + +After a time the paroxysm of fear and despair passed, and left him +calmer. His acute brain, overwhelmed but not crushed out, began to +recover itself, and he turned the situation round and round until he had +come to a plan of action. + +It was not a very definite one, it was rather vague, but it was the most +reasonable one he could think of. + +There in Warden Forest, living as the daughter of a woodman, who was +himself ignorant of her legitimacy, was the girl. I am sorry to say that +he cursed her as he thought of her. Where was the will? Whoever had got +it would no doubt come to him first to make terms, and, failing to make +them, would go to the real heiress. + +Stephen, quick as lightning, resolved to take her away. + +But where? + +He did not much care for the present, so that it was somewhere under his +eyes, or in the charge--the custody, really--of a trustworthy friend. + +The only really trustworthy friend whom Stephen knew was his mother. + +"Yes, that is it," he muttered. "Mother shall take this girl as--as--a +companion. Poor mother, some great ignorant, clodhopping wench who will +frighten her into a nervous fit. Poor mother!" And he smiled with a +feeble, malicious pleasure. + +There are some men who take a delight in causing pain even to those who +are devoted to them. + +"Dear mother," he wrote, "I have to send you the sad news of my uncle's +death. Need I say that I am utterly overwhelmed in grief. I have indeed +lost a friend!" ("The malicious, mean old wolf," he muttered, in +parenthesis.) "How good he was to me! But, mother, even in the midst of +our deepest sorrows, we must not forget the calls of charity. I have a +little duty to perform, in which I require your aid. I fear it will +necessitate your making a journey to Wermesley station on this line. If +you will come down by the 10:20 on Wednesday, I will meet you at +Wermesley station. Do not mention your journey, my dear mother; we must +not be forgetful that we are enjoined to do good by stealth. + "In great affliction, + "Your loving son, + "STEPHEN DAVENANT." + + +It was a beautiful letter, and clearly proved that Stephen was not only +a bad man, but an extremely clever and dangerous one--for he could +retain command over himself even in such moments as these. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +Let us hasten from the gloomy atmosphere of Hurst Leigh, and, leaving +the presence of the thwarted old man lying upstairs, and the no less +thwarted young man writhing in torturing dread in the darkened library, +return to Warden Forest. + +With fleet feet Una fled from the lake, the voices of the woodman and +Jack Newcombe ringing in her ears, a thousand tumultuous emotions +surging wildly in her heart. + +Until the preceding night Gideon Rolfe had seemed the calmest and most +placable of fathers; nothing had occurred to ruffle his almost studied +impassability. New and strange experiences seemed to crowd upon her so +suddenly that she scarcely accepted them as real. Had she been dreaming, +and would she wake presently to find the handsome young stranger, with +his deep musical voice, and his dark, eloquent eyes, the phantom of a +vision? + +As she came in sight of the cottage she turned aside and, plunging into +the depths of the wood, sank down upon a bank of moss and strove to +recall every word, every look, every slight incident, which had passed +since the arrival of the stranger; and, as she did so, she seemed +vaguely conscious that a change, indefinite yet undeniable, had fallen +upon her life. The very trees, the atmosphere itself, seemed changed, +and in place of that perfect, unbroken calm which had hitherto enwrapped +her life, a spirit of unrest, of vague longing, took possession of her. + +A meteor had crossed the calm, serene sky of her existence, vanishing as +quickly as it had come, and creating a strange, aching void. + +Still it was not at all painful, this novel feeling of wistfulness and +unrest; a faint echo of some mysterious delight rang in the inner +chambers of her young soul, the newly awakened heart stirred within her +like an imprisoned bird, and turned to the new light which had dawned +upon her. That it was the celestial light of love she was completely +ignorant. She only knew and felt, with all the power of mind and soul, +that a spirit had fallen upon her life, that she had, half-blinded, left +the road of gray, unbroken calm, never to return--never to return. + +Step by step she recalled all that had passed, and sat revolving the +strange scene with ever-increasing wonder. + +What did it mean? Why should her father be angry with the youth? Why +should he accuse and insult him, and drive her away as if from the +presence of some wild animal who was seeking to devour her? + +Wild animal! A smile, sad and wistful, flitted over her beautiful face +as she called up the handsome face and graceful form of the youth. Was +it possible that one so base as her father declared him to be could look +as this youth had looked, speak as he had spoken? With a faint, +tremulous, yet unconscious blush, she remembered how graceful he looked +lying at her feet, his lips half parted in a smile, his brow frank and +open as a child's. + +And yet he himself had said, half sadly, that he was wild and wicked. +What could it mean? + +Innocent as a nun, ignorant of all that belonged to the real living +world, she sat vainly striving to solve this, the first enigma of her +inner life. + +Once, as she sat thinking and pondering, her eyes cast down, her brows +knit, her fingers strayed to her right arm with a gentle, almost +caressing touch. It was the arm upon which Jack's hand had rested: even +now she seemed to feel the pressure of the strong fingers just as she +heard the ring of his deep, musical voice, and could feel the gaze of +his dark, flashing eyes; they had looked fierce and savage when she had +first seen them at the open door of the cottage last night, but this +morning they had worn a different expression--a tender, half-pitying, +and wholly gentle expression, which softened them. It was thus she liked +to remember them--thus she would remember them if she never saw them +again. + +And as this thought flashed across her mind a wistful sadness fell upon +her, and a vague pain came into her heart. Should she never see him +again? Never! She looked round mournfully, and lo! the whole world +seemed changed; the sun was still shining, the trees were still crowned +in all their glory of summer leafage, but it all looked gray and dark to +her; all the beauty and glory which she had learned to love had +gone--vanished at the mere thought that she should never see him again. + +Slowly she rose, and with downcast eyes moved toward the cottage. She +passed in at the open door and looked round the room--that, too, seemed +altered, something was missing; half-consciously she wandered round, +touching with the same half-caressing gesture the chair on which Jack +Newcombe had sat, opened the book at the page which she was reading +while he was eating his supper; a spell seemed to have fallen upon her, +and it was with a start like one awakening from a dream that she turned +as a shadow fell across the room and Gideon Rolfe entered. + +She turned and looked at him questioningly, curiously, but without fear. +The cry of alarm when he had broken in upon them by the lake had been on +Jack's account, not her own; never since she could remember had Gideon +Rolfe spoken harshly to her, looked angrily; without a particle of fear, +rather with a vague wonder, she looked and waited for him to speak. + +The old man's face wore a strange expression; all traces of the fierce +passion which had convulsed it a short time ago had passed away, and in +its place was a stern gravity which was almost sad in its grim +intensity. + +Setting his ax aside, he paced the room for a minute in silence, his +brows knit, his hands clasped behind his back. + +Una glided to the window and looked out into the wood, her head leaning +on her arm. + +"Una," he said, suddenly, his voice troubled and grave, but not unkind. + +She started, and looked around at him; her spirit had fled back to the +lake again, and she had almost forgotten that he was in the room. + +"Una, you must not wander in the forest alone again." + +"No! Why not?" + +He hesitated a moment, as if he did not know how to answer her; then he +said, with a frown: + +"Because I do not wish it--because the man you saw here last night, the +man you were with by the lake, may come again"--a faint light of +gladness shone in her eyes, and he saw it, and frowned sternly as he +went on--"and I do not wish you to meet him." + +She was silent for a moment, her eyes downcast, her hands tightly +clasped in front of her; then she looked up. + +"Father, tell me why you spoke so angrily to him--why do you not want +him to come to Warden again?" + +"I spoke as he deserved," he answered; "and I would rather that Warden +should be filled with wild beasts than that he should cross your path +again." + +Her face paled slightly, and her eyes opened with wonder and pain. + +"Is he so very bad and wicked?" she asked, almost inaudibly. + +Gideon Rolfe strode to and fro for a moment before he answered. How +should he answer her?--how warn and caution her without destroying the +innocence which, like the sensitive plant, withers at a touch? + +"Is it not sufficient that I wish it, Una?" he said. "Why are you not +satisfied? Wicked! Yes, he's wicked; all men are wicked, and he's the +most wicked and base!" + +"You know him, father?" she asked. "You would not say so if you did not. +I am sorry he is so bad." + +"Look at me, Una," he said. + +She turned, her eyes downcast and hidden, her lips trembling for a +moment. + +"Yes, father." + +"Una," he said, "what is the meaning of this? Why are you changed--why +do you shrink from me?" + +She looked up with a curious mixture of innocent pride and dignity. + +"I don't shrink from you, father," she said in a low voice. + +Gideon's hand dropped from her shoulder, and the frown gave place to a +sad expression. "Has the time I looked forward to with fear and dread +come at last?" he murmured, inaudibly, and he paced to and fro again, as +if endeavoring to arrive at some decision. + +Una watched him with dreamy, questioning eyes, in which shone a tender +mournfulness. Why were all men wicked? Why was this one man, with the +handsome face and the musical voice, more wicked than the rest? What was +it that her father knew that should make him hate the youth so? These +were the questions that haunted her as she waited silent and motionless. + +At last, with a wave of the hand, as if he were putting some decision on +one side, Gideon Rolfe turned to her and motioned her to the +window-seat. "Una," he said, "last night you were wondering why your lot +should be different from that of other girls; you were wondering why I +have kept you here in Warden, and out of the world. It is so, is it +not?" + +She did not answer in words, but her eyes said "yes," plainly. + +Gideon Rolfe sighed, and passed his hand over his brow; it was a hand +hardened by toil, but it was not the hand of a peasant, any more than +was his tone or his words those of one. + +"Una, I have foreseen this question; I have been expecting it, and I had +resolved that when it came I would answer it. But," and his lips +twitched, "I cannot do it--I cannot," and his brow contracted as if he +were suffering some great, mental anguish. "For my sake, do not press +me. In time to come, sooner or later, you must know the secret of your +life, you must learn why and wherefore your whole life has been spent in +seclusion; you have guessed that there is some mystery, some +story--there is. It must remain a mystery still. For your own sake I +dare not draw aside the veil which conceals; for your own sake my lips +are for the present sealed. Child, can you tell me that, secluded and +lonely as your life has been, it has been an unhappy one?" + +"Father!" she murmured, and her eyes filled slowly. + +"God forgive me if it has been!" he said, sadly. "I have striven to make +it a happy one." + +Silently she rose and laid her hand upon his arm and put up her lips to +kiss him, but with a gentle gesture he put her away from him. + +"Una, listen to me. All my life I have had but one aim, one purpose, +your happiness and welfare. For your sake I left the world and an +honored name----" he stopped suddenly, warned by the gentle wonder of +her gaze, and with a faint color in his face hurried on--"for your sake, +and yours only. Do you think that it is by choice that I have kept you +hidden from the world? No, but of necessity. Una, between the world and +you yawns a wide gulf. On this side are peace, and innocence, and +happiness; on the other," and his voice grew grave and solemn, "lie +misery and--shame." White and wondering, she gazed at him, and the +innocent wonder in the beautiful face recalled him to himself. "Enough! +You can trust me, Una; it is no idle, meaningless warning. Remember what +I have said, when your thoughts turn to the world beyond the forest, +when you grow weary and impatient with the quiet life which, though it +may seem sad and weary, is the only one you can ever know without +passing that gulf of which I have spoken." + +"And now I want you to give me a promise, Una." + +"A promise, father?" she echoed, in a low voice. + +"Yes; I want you to promise me that if this--this young man should come, +as he has threatened to do--that if he should come to you, and speak to +you, you will not listen, will not speak to him." + +An impatient frown knitted Gideon Rolfe's brow. + +"Is this so much to ask you?" he said, in a low voice. "Is it so grave +a thing to demand of you that you should avoid a man whom you have seen +but twice in your life, one whom you know to be wicked and worthless?" + +"Girl," he exclaimed, in low, harsh accents, "has the curse fallen upon +you--already? Has he bewitched you? Speak? Why do you not speak? Has all +the careful guarding of years been set at naught and rendered of no +avail by the mere sight of one of his race, by a few idle words spoken +by one of his hateful kin?" + +He grasped her shoulder; instantly, with a revulsion of feeling, he +withdrew his hand, and bent his head with a gesture almost of humility. + +"Una, forgive me. You see how this unmans me--can you not understand how +great must be the danger from which I wish to save you? Promise me what +I ask you, for your own sake--ay, and for his." + +"For his?" she murmured. + +"Yes, for his. Let him but attempt to cross your path again, and I will +not hold my hand. I held it once--would to Heaven I had not! I say, for +his sake, promise that you will hold no speech with him!" + +"Father, what has he done to make you hate him so?" she asked. + +"I cannot, I will not tell you more than this: His race has ruined my +life and yours--ruined it beyond all reparation here and hereafter. No +more. I wait for your promise." + +"I promise," she said. + +"Good," he said. "I can trust you, child." + +"Yes, you can trust me," she said, in a low voice; then with slow, +listless steps she crossed the room and stole up-stairs. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +The Savage, wholly unconscious of, and totally indifferent to, the fact +that his every footstep was watched by Stephen, entered the "Bush" Inn +and went straight to his room, the little knot of regular customers, who +were drinking and smoking in the parlor, either rising respectfully as +he entered or maintaining an equally respectful silence until he was out +of hearing. + +"Mr. Jack's a fine fellow," said the landlord, looking at the fire +solemnly. "Did you notice his face as he went through? I'm afraid it's +all over with the old squire. Well, well, rest his soul, I say. I'm not +one to bear grudges against the dead." + +There was, if not a hearty, a unanimous assent to this dutiful +sentiment, and the landlord, encouraged, ventured a little further, +looking first over his shoulder to see if the door was shut, and then +glancing at a little wrinkled faced man who sat in the corner by the +fireplace, and looked, in his rusty black suit, like a lawyer's clerk, +as indeed he was. + +"All over now, Mr. Skettle," said the landlord, with a little cough. "I +wonder--ahem--who'll be the next squire?" + +The old clerk peered out from under his hairless brows, and shook his +head with a dry smile; it was a very fair imitation of his master's, Mr. +Hudsley's, manner, and never failed to impress the company at the +"Bush." + +"Aha!" he breathed. "Hem--yes. Time will prove--time will prove, +Jobson." + +Jobson, the landlord, looked round and winked with impressive +admiration, as much as to say, "Deep fellow, Skettle; knows all about +it, mind you, but not a word!" + +"Well," said the parish clerk, with a shake of the head, "if wishing +would make the mare to go, I know who'd be the Squire o' Hurst," and he +pointed with his pipe to the ceiling, above which the Savage was +thoughtfully pacing to and fro. + +"We've had enough o' Davenants," began the miller; but Jobson stopped +him with a warning gesture. + +"No names, South--no names; this air a public house, and I'm a man as +minds my own business." + +"So was the last squire," retorted the miller, who was not to be put +down--"leastways, he didn't meddle or help his neighbors. Not one +shilling have I took from the Hurst since I was that high. Is there a +man in this room as can say he'll be a penny the worse for Squire +Ralph's death? + +"And from what I see it seems to me that if things go on as they appear +to be going, we shan't be much better for the new squire, if the name's +to be the same." + +"A nice spoken gentleman, Mr. Stephen," muttered the tailor, from behind +the table. + +The miller smiled and shook his head. + +"There's some grain as grinds so soft that you can't keep it on the +ground from the wind; but it don't make good bread, neighbor. No! Now +the youngster up above," and he jerked his head toward the ceiling, "he +comes of a different branch--same tree, mind yer, but a healthier +branch. It will be good news for Hurst Leigh if it's found that Master +Jack is to be our head." + +"Nothing soft about Mr. Jack. If all we hear be true, it's a pretty wild +branch of the tree he comes from." + +"They say he's wild. No doubt; he always was. I can remember him a boy +home for the holidays. He used to come down to the mill and poach my +trout--a bit of a boy no higher than that"--and he put his hand against +the table--"as fine a boy as ever I see. One day I caught him, and told +him I'd either give him a thrashing or tell his uncle; for, do yer see, +we allus called the old squire his uncle. + +"'All right,' said he, 'wait till I've landed this fish and we'll settle +it between us like gentlemen.' Another time I found him in the orchard. +'Well, Master Jack,' says I, 'bean't you got enough apples at the Hurst, +but you must come and plague me?' He thought a moment, then he looks up +with that audacious flash in his eyes, and says, quiet enough: 'Stolen +fruit is the sweetest, South. If you feel put upon, take it out of the +Hurst Orchard. I give you leave.' What was to be done with a boy like +that? Fear! He didn't know what fear was. Do any o' you remember that +roan mare as the old parson had? Well, Master Jack hears us talking o' +the spiteful beast one day, and nothing 'ud do but he must go off and +ask the parson to let him ride 'un. Of course the old fellow said no. +Two nights after that the young varmint breaks open the stables, takes +out the mare, saddles her, and rides her out to the common. I was late +at the mill that night, and I hears her come clattering down the yard +like a fire-engine, with Master Jack on her back, his eyes flashing and +his hair a-flying, and him a-laughing as if it was the rarest bit o' fun +in the world. I'd just time to cut across the meadow to the five-barred +fence, and here he come past me, making straight for the fence, waving +his hand and shouting someut about Dick Turpin. Ah, and he took the +fence, too, and when that vicious beast threw him, and we came up to +him, lying all o' a heap, with his arm broke, and the blood streaming +from his face--what's he do but laugh at us, and swear as we'd startled +her! And as for fighting! There warn't a week but what he'd come to the +mill, all cut and mauled, for the missis to wash him and put him to +rights. He'd never go home to the Hurst those times. Even then the old +squire and him didn't agree. The old man called him a Savage, and I hear +as that's what they call him up in London, and yet there warn't a house +in Leigh as he warn't welcome in. Many and many a time he's slept up in +the mill loft after one of his harum-scarum tricks, and many's the time +I've faced the old squire when he's come after him with a horsewhip." + +"They say that he run through all the money, as was his by rights, up in +London in fast living," said the parish clerk, gravely. + +"May be," said the miller, curtly. "If fast living means open-handed +living, it's like enough; he never could keep a shilling when he was a +boy, the first tramp as passed had it, safe as a gun. What's bred in the +bone must come out in the flesh. Here's to the new squire--if it be +Master Jack," and the sturdy old man raised his glass and emptied its +contents at one vigorous but steady pull. + +Meanwhile the subject of the discussion paced to and fro, pulling at his +brier, and indulging in a study of the brownest description. + +Never perhaps in his life had Jack been so upset, so serious and so +sobered. + +In the first place the sudden--or rather sudden to Jack--death of the +old man with whom he had lived and quarreled as a boy, affected him more +deeply than even he was aware. There in the silent room in the inn, he +recalled all the old man's good qualities, all the little kindnesses he +had done him, Jack, and more than all, the few last solemn and quite +unexpectedly affectionate words which had dropped from his dying lips. + +Jack, puffing at his pipe and rubbing his short hair with a puzzled +frown, went over the scene again and again, and with no mercenary +thoughts of the old man's declaration that he had remembered Jack in his +will, but with reference to the mysterious allusions in the disposal of +the large part of the property; then Jack's mind would fly off to the +fearful scene at the actual death. + +The wild cry, the white and horrified face of Stephen, the puzzled and +sternly questioning one of the old lawyer. What did it mean? + +And still more mysterious, what was the meaning of Stephen's conduct on +the lawn? What was he hunting for with such intense eagerness as to make +him fly at Jack like a madman? + +Jack--as no doubt the reader will have surmised--was not clever. + +He could not piece this and that together, and from disjointed incidents +form an intelligent whole, as a child does with a box of puzzles. + +The whole thing was a mystery to him, and grew more confusing and +bewildering the more he thought of it. + +It takes a villain thoroughly to appreciate a villain, a thief to +understand and catch a thief; and Jack, being neither one nor the other, +utterly failed to understand Stephen. + +That he disliked him, with a feeling more like contempt than hatred, was +a matter of course, but if any one had told Jack straight out that +Stephen had abstracted the will, Jack would in all probability have +refused to credit it. Will stealing and all such meanness was so +thoroughly out of his line that he would not have understood how +Stephen, led on step by step, could have possibly been guilty of it. + +Then again, something else came forcing itself on these thoughts +concerning the strange events at the Hurst. For the life of him he could +not forget the Forest of Warden and all that had happened to him within +its leafy shades. + +At one moment it seemed as if years must have elapsed since he lost his +way and forced an entrance at the woodman's hut, at another he was half +inclined to believe that he had dined rather heavily at the club and +dreamed it all. Like Una, he could not realize that they had met, +touched hands and exchanged speech. + +Jack could not get the beautiful face out of his mental vision; it +mingled with the wan face of the dying man, with Stephen's pale, +distorted countenance; it seemed to beam and shine upon him from the +dark corners of the room with the same frank, pure, innocent smile with +which it had shone down upon him as he lay at her feet in the woods. + +And then the girl's surroundings! The extraordinary father, with his +laborer's dress and his refined speech and bearing. What mystery +enveloped the little group of persons buried in the depths of a wood, +living apart from the world? + +Jack rumpled his hair and drew a long breath eloquent of confusion and +bewilderment. + +It was certainly extraordinary! Three days ago he had left London, +prosaic London, and was now plunged to the neck in a sea of romance and +secrecy. + +On one thing he was, however, resolved. He would keep his threat or +promise. He would go to Warden Forest and see that beautiful face again, +though he had to brave the anger of twenty mysterious woodmen. He +thought at first that he would start on the morrow, but some +feeling--perhaps some reverence and respect for the dead man--made him +change his mind. + +"No," he said to himself, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and +prepared for bed; "I'll stay here over the funeral, and then----" + +But, though he felt tired and worn out, it was hours before he could +sleep, and when he did, his spirit fled back to Warden Forest, and the +face that had haunted him waking hovered about him in dreams. + +Was it love; love at first sight? Jack would have been first to laugh at +the idea; but it is worthy of note that all the loves which had occurred +in his wild, reckless life had never, in their warmest epochs, moved him +as the remembrance of Una had done; not one had had the power to disturb +his sleep or to bring him dreams. + +Jack kept to his resolution. Five days passed, and he stuck to the +"Bush" manfully. They were, perhaps, the dreariest days he ever spent in +his life, and he never thought of them afterward without a shudder. + +Every day he was tempted to take flight and go to London until the day +of the funeral; but his promise to Hudsley kept him at his post. He +would not even leave the "Bush." + +On the first day, a note, written on the deepest of mourning paper, had +come from Stephen, begging him to come to the Hurst; but he had written +a firm and what was for him a polite refusal. Of Stephen himself he saw +nothing. Mr. Hudsley had also sent, and asked him to stay at his house; +and this, too, Jack had declined. + +The fact was he wanted to be left alone, to think over the strange +adventures in the forest, to dwell with unceasing wistfulness on the +beautiful face and sweet, musical voice. + +So he clung to the inn; taking a morning dip in the river; strolling +about, with his brier pipe in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, +exchanging a word with this man and the other, and bestowing his odd +change on any children he happened to meet. Sometimes he would drop in +at one of the cottages, where he was so welcome when a boy, and smoke +and chat; but usually he kept to his room. + +But wherever he went he was the observed of all observers. Every night +the little club that met in the "Bush" parlor talked about him, and +wondered why he didn't go to the Hurst, and whether he would be the new +squire. + +The day of the funeral arrived at last--a cold, wet day, that +foreshadowed the approaching autumn; and Jack put on his black +suit--made by the village tailor who had described Stephen as a +nice-spoken gentleman--and went up to the Hurst. + +It was the first time he had been near it since the night he had the +scuffle with Stephen on the lawn; and, to Jack's eyes, it looked +gloomier than ever. + +As he entered the hall, a shrunken figure in shabby black came to meet +him; it was old Skettle, Hudsley's clerk. + +The old man peered at him curiously, and made him a respectful bow in +response to Jack's blunt greeting, and opened the library door. + +Mr. Hudsley was standing at the table, and looked up with his wrinkled +face and keen eyes--not a trace of expression beyond keenness in them. +Jack shook hands with him and looked around. + +"Where is Stephen?" he said. + +As he spoke the door opened and Stephen entered. Jack, frank and candid, +stared at him with astonishment. + +"Are we ready?" + +And they passed out. + +In silence they stood beside the grave while all that was mortal of +Ralph Davenant was consigned to the earth, and in silence they returned +to the library. + +With the same stony, impassive countenance, Mr. Hudsley seated himself +at the head of the table; Stephen sank into a chair beside him, and sat +with his eyes hidden under the white lids; Jack stood with folded arms +beside the window, glancing at the far-stretching lawns and watching the +servants as they filed in, a long line of black. + +When they had all entered Mr. Hudsley drew from his pocket a folded +parchment, slowly put on his spectacles, and without looking round, +said: + +"I am now about to read the last will and testament of Ralph Davenant." + +There was a pause, a solemn pause, then he looked up and said: + +"This will was drawn up by me on January--last year. It is the last will +of which I have any cognizance. A careful search has been made, but no +other document of the kind has been found. That is so, Mr. Stephen, is +it not?" and he turned to Stephen so suddenly that all eyes followed +his. + +Stephen paused a moment, then raised his lids, and with a shake of his +head and a sigh murmured an assent. + +Mr. Hudsley allowed his keen eyes to rest on him for an instant, then +slowly looked in the direction of Jack. + +"A most careful search," he repeated. + +Jack, feeling that the remark was addressed to him, nodded and looked at +the lawn again. + +Mr. Hudsley cleared his throat, and opened the crackling parchment. + +There was an intense silence, so intense that Stephen's labored +breathing could be heard as plainly as the rain on the windows. + +In the same dry, hard voice Mr. Hudsley began to read. Clause by clause, +wrapped in the beautiful legal jargon in which such documents are, for +some inscrutable reasons, worded, no one understanding the import, but +suddenly familiar words struck upon the ear. They were the servants' +legacies, and a mourning ring to Mr. Hudsley; then, in a stillness that +was oppressive, there fell the words: + +"To my nephew, Stephen Davenant, I will the whole and sole remainder of +all I possess, be it in lands or money, houses or securities, all and of +every kind of property, deducting only the afore-mentioned legacies." + +A thrill ran through the assemblage, every eye turned, as if magnetized, +to the white, death-like face of the heir. + +There he sat, the new squire, the owner of Hurst Leigh and the uncounted +thousands of old Ralph Davenant, motionless, white, too benumbed to +tremble. + +Slowly Mr. Hudsley read over the signatures, and then slowly commenced +to fold the parchment. + +Then, from the shadow of the curtains, Jack emerged, pale, too, but with +cool, calm dignity. + +Quite quietly, and with perfect self-possession, he came to the table +and looked at the dry, wrinkled face. + +"So I understand, Mr. Hudsley, that the squire has left me--nothing." + +Mr. Hudsley looked up, no trace of expression on his face. + +"Quite right, Mr. Newcombe," he replied. + +"He has not named me," said Jack. + +"He has not named you in this will." + +Jack bowed, and was turning from the table when Stephen started to his +feet. + +For one moment his eyes rested on Jack's face with an awful, piercing +look of scrutiny, then his eyes lit up with a malicious gleam of +triumph, but it disappeared instantly, and with a gesture of honest +generosity and regret, he exclaimed: + +"Not named! My dear Jack! But stay! I see how it is. My uncle felt that +he could trust to my feeling in the matter. He knew that you would not +have to look to me in vain." + +Jack turned and looked at him with infinite contempt and unbelief, and +then slowly passed out. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Two days passed since Una had given her promise that should Jack +Newcombe come to seek her she would hold no converse with him. How much +that promise had cost her no one could say; she herself did not know. +She only knew that whereas her life had always seemed dull and +purposeless, it had, since Jack Newcombe's visit, grown utterly dreary +and joyless. + +Was it love? She did not ask herself the question. Had she done so, she +could not have answered it. + +Any school-girl of fifteen feeling as Una felt would have known that she +was in love, but Una's only schooling had consisted of the few stern +lessons of Gideon Rolfe. + +"I can never see him, hear him, speak to him again," was her one sad +reflection; "but if I could be somewhere near him, unseen!" + +Then, through her brain, her father's words rang with melancholy +persistence. This youth, whose eyes had seemed so frank and brave, whose +voice rang with music so new and sweet, was, so her father said, +unutterably wicked. One to be avoided as a dangerous animal! It could +not but be true; she thought her father was truth itself. + +But if it were so, then how false the world must be, for one to look and +speak so gently, and yet be so wicked! + +All day she wandered in the woods, returning to the cottage pale and +listless, to leave her plate untouched or at best trifled with. Gideon +Rolfe saw the change which had befallen her, but held his peace, though +a bitter rage filled his heart; Martha Rolfe chided her for her +listlessness, and tried to tempt her to eat; but Una put chiding and +coaxing aside with a gentle smile, and escaped to the lake where she +could dream alone and undisturbed. + +The two days passed--on the third, as she was sitting beside the spot +which had grown sacred in her eyes, with its crushed and broken ferns, +she heard steps behind. Thinking that they were those of her father or +one of the charcoal burners, she did not turn her head. The footsteps +drew nearer, and a man came out from the thick wood and stood on the +margin of the lake, and remained for a moment looking about him. + +Una was so hidden by the tall brake that she remained unseen, and sat +holding her breath watching him. + +He was tall, thin, and dressed in black, and when he turned his face +toward her, Una saw that he was not ill-looking. She might have thought +him handsome but for that other face which was always in her mental +vision. He was very pale, and looked anxious and ill at ease; and as he +stood looking before him his right hand took his left into custody. It +was Stephen Davenant. + +For a few moments he stood with a half-searching, half-absent expression +on his pale face, then turned and entered the wood again. + +Pale with wonder and curiosity, Una rose and looked after him, and to +her infinite surprise saw a carriage slowly approaching. + +A lady was seated in it, a lady with a face as pale as the man's but +with a still more anxious and deprecating expression. + +Una, with the quickness of sight acquired by a life spent in communion +with nature, could see, even at that distance, that the lady's eyes were +like those of the man's, and, furthermore, that she was awaiting his +approach with a nervous timidity that almost amounted to fear. + +With fast beating heart Una watched them wondering what could have +brought them to Warden, wondering who and what they were, when suddenly +her heart gave a great bound, for the gentleman, turning to the driver, +said, in a soft, low voice: + +"We are looking for the cottage of a woodman, named Gideon Rolfe." + +"Never heard of it, sir. Do you know what part of the forest it is in?" + +"No," said Stephen. + +"Then it's like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay," retorted the +man. + +"However difficult, it must be found," said Stephen. "Drive on till you +come to some road and follow that. It may lead us to some place where we +can ascertain the direction of this man's cottage." + +The man touched his horse with the whip, and still Una stood as if +spell-bound, but, suddenly remembering that they were going in the +opposite direction to the cottage, she was about to step forward, when +she heard the bark of the dog, and almost as if he had sprung from the +ground, Gideon Rolfe stood beside the carriage. + +"Ah, here is someone," said Stephen. "Can you tell us the road to the +cottage of Gideon Rolfe, the woodman, my man?" he asked. + +"And what may be your business with him?" + +"Why do you ask, my good man?" he replied. + +"Because I am he you seek," said Gideon. + +"You are Gideon Rolfe? How fortunate." + +"That's as it may prove," said Gideon, coldly. "What is your business?" + +"It is of a nature which, I think, had better be stated in a more +convenient spot. Will you kindly permit me to enter your cottage and +rest?" + +Gideon looked searchingly into Stephen's face for a moment that seemed +an age to Una, then nodded curtly, and said: "Follow me." + +"Will you not ride?" asked Stephen, suavely. + +But Gideon shook his head, and shouldering his ax, strode in front of +the horse, and Stephen motioning to the driver, the carriage followed. + +"A charming spot, Mr. Rolfe--charming! Rather shall I say, retired, if +not solitary, however." + +"Say what you please, sir," retorted Gideon, grimly and calmly. "I am +waiting to learn the business you have with me." + +"Mother," he said--"this lady is my mother, Mr. Rolfe--I think, I really +think you would find it pleasant and refreshing on the bench which I +observed outside the door." + +With a little deprecatory air the lady got up and instantly left the +cottage. + +Then Stephen's manner changed. Leaning forward he fixed his gray eyes on +Gideon Rolfe's stern face and said: + +"Mr. Rolfe--my name is Davenant----" + +Gideon started, and, with a muttered oath, raised the ax. + +Stephen's face turned as white as his spotless collar, but he did not +shrink. + +"My name is Davenant," he repeated--"Stephen Davenant. I am afraid the +name has some unpleasant associations attached to it. I beg to remind +you, if that should be the case, that those associations are not +connected with any fault of mine." + +"Go on. Your name is Stephen Davenant?" + +"Stephen Davenant. I am the nephew of Squire Davenant--Ralph Davenant. +The nephew of Ralph Davenant. I think you can guess my business with +you." + +"Do you come from--him?" he asked, hoarsely. + +"In a certain sense, yes," he said. "No doubt you have heard the sad +news. My uncle is dead." + +"Dead!" he repeated fiercely. + +"Dead. My uncle died three days ago." + +"Dead!" repeated Gideon, not in the tone of a man who had lost a friend, +but in that of one who had lost an enemy. + +"Yes," said Stephen, wiping his dry eyes with his spotless handkerchief; +"my poor uncle died three days ago. I am afraid I have not broken it as +softly as I should have done. You knew him well?" + +"Yes, I knew him well." + +"Then you know how great a loss the county has suffered in----" + +"Spare your fine phrases. Come to your business with me. What brings you +here?" + +"I am here in consequence of a communication made to me by my uncle on +his death-bed. Are you alone?" + +Gideon waved his hand with passionate impatience. + +"That communication," Stephen continued, "concerns a certain young +lady----" + +"He told you?" he exclaimed. + +"My uncle told me that I should find a young lady, in whose future he +was greatly interested, in the charge of a certain person named Gideon +Rolfe." + +"Well, did he tell you any more than that?" + +Stephen made a gesture in the negative. + +"So," said Gideon Rolfe, "he left it to me to tell the story of his +crime. You are Ralph Davenant's nephew. You are the nephew of a villain +and a scoundrel!" + +It was true, then, that the man knew nothing of the secret marriage of +Ralph Davenant and Caroline Hatfield. + +"A scoundrel and a villain!" repeated Gideon, leaning forward and +clutching the table. "You say that he told you the story of his crime, +glossed over and falsified. Hear it from me. Your uncle and I were +schoolfellows and friends. I was the son of the schoolmaster at Hurst. +Your uncle left school to go to college. I remained at Hurst in my +father's house. I could have gone to college also, but I would not leave +Hurst, for I was in love. I loved Caroline Hatfield. She was the +daughter of the gamekeeper on the Hurst estate, and we were to be +married. Two months before the day fixed for our marriage your uncle, my +friend--my friend!--came home to spend the vacation. We were friends +still, and I--cursed fool that I was--took him to the gamekeeper's lodge +to introduce him to my sweetheart. Six weeks afterward he and she had +fled." + +Stephen watched him closely, his heart beating wildly. + +"They had fled," continued Gideon, in a broken voice. "My life was ended +on the day they brought me the news. I left Hurst Leigh and came here. A +year later she came back to me--came back to me to die. She died and +left me----. She left me her child. I--I loved her still and swore to +protect that child, and I have done so. There is my story. What have you +to say?" + +"It is terrible, terrible!" he exclaimed. + +"I have kept my vow. Her child has grown up ignorant of the shame which +is her heritage. Here, buried in the heart of the forest, away from the +world, I have kept and guarded her for her mother's sake. There is the +story, told without gloss or falsehood. What have you to say?" + +"You have discharged your self-appointed trust most nobly! But--but that +trust has come to an end." + +"Who says so?" + +"I say so. You have done your duty--more than your duty--I must do mine. +My uncle, on his deathbed, bequeathed his daughter to my charge." + +"To yours?" + +"To mine," said Stephen, gravely. + +"Where is your authority?" + +"That I do not come without authority is proven by the mere fact of my +presence here and by my knowledge of my uncle's secret. No one but +yourself, your wife and I know of the real identity of this girl. It was +my uncle's wish that the story of her birth should still remain a +secret--that it should be buried, as it were, in his grave. Why should +the poor girl ever learn the truth, when such knowledge can only bring +her shame and mortification?" + +"Grant that," said Gideon, "where could she better be hidden than here? +Her secret, her very existence, have been concealed from the world." + +"True, but--but the future, my dear sir--the future! You are not a young +man----" + +"I am still young enough to protect her." + +"My dear Mr. Rolfe, you may live--you look as if you would--to be a +hundred; you have discharged your self-imposed task most nobly, but you +must not forget that it has now devolved upon one who is bound by ties +of blood to fulfill it, if not so well, certainly with the best +intentions. Mr. Rolfe, I am the young girl's cousin." + +"You speak of ties of blood; say rather, the ties of shame! Suppose--I +say suppose--that I refuse to deliver her up to your care?" + +"I do not think you will do that. You forget that, after all, we have +little choice in the matter." + +Gideon Rolfe eyed him questioningly. + +"The young girl is now of age, and----" + +"Go on." + +"And supposing that you were to refuse to hand her over to my charge, I +should feel compelled to tell the story of her life, and----. Pray--pray +be calm. I beg you to remember that I am not here of my own desire; that +I am merely fulfilling my duty to my uncle, and endeavoring to obey his +last wishes. I do not blame you for your reluctance to part with her. It +does you credit, my dear Mr. Rolfe--infinite credit. But duty--duty; we +must all do our duty." + +"Has anyone of your name ever yet done his duty?" repeated Gideon, +sternly. + +"For my part, Mr. Rolfe, I have always striven to do mine; yea, even in +the face of great temptation and difficulties. I must do it now. After +all, why should you resist my uncle's wish? Consider, she, who was once +a child, is now a woman. Do you think it possible to keep her imprisoned +in this wood for the whole of her days?" + +Gideon Rolfe turned toward the window. For the first time Stephen had +found a weak spot in his armor. It was true! Already she was beginning +to pine and hunger for the world. Could he keep her much longer? + +"Come," said Stephen, quick to see the impression he had made. "Do not +let us be selfish; let us think of her welfare, as well as our own +wishes. Candidly, I must confess that I should be perfectly willing to +leave her in her present obscurity." + +Gideon Rolfe broke in abruptly. + +"Where will you take her?" he asked, hoarsely. + +"It is my intention," he said, "to place her in my mother's charge. She +lives in London, alone. There my cousin will find a loving home and a +second mother. Believing that you would naturally have some reluctance +at parting with her, not knowing with whom and where she was going, I +have brought my mother with me." + +Gideon glanced at the quiet, motionless figure seated on the bench +outside, and then paced the room again. + +"Does she know?" he asked hoarsely. + +"She knows nothing," said Stephen. "My mother can trust me implicitly. +She has long wanted a companion, and I have told her that I know of a +young girl in whom I am interested." + +"You intend to keep her secret?" said Gideon. + +"Most sacredly," responded Stephen, with solemn earnestness. + +Gideon went to the door and opened it. + +"Wait," he said, and disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +Stephen rose softly and watched him from behind the window curtains +until Gideon had vanished amongst the trees; then Stephen went out and +smiled down upon his mother with the air of a man who had just succeeded +in accomplishing some great work for the good of mankind at large. + +"Sorry to keep you waiting, mother," he said. "I have been making some +arrangements with the worthy man, her father." + +Mrs. Davenant looked up with the nervous, deprecatory expression which +always came upon her face when she was in the presence of her son. + +"It does not matter, Stephen; I am glad to rest. Where has the man gone? +He--he--doesn't he look rather superior for his station, and why does he +look so stern and forbidding?" + +"A life spent in solitude, away from the world, has made him reserved +and cold," replied Stephen, glibly, "and, of course, he feels the +parting from his daughter." + +"Poor man--poor girl!" murmured Mrs. Davenant. + +Stephen looked down at her with a contemplative smile, while his ears +were strained for the returning footsteps of Gideon Rolfe. + +"Yours is a sweetly sympathetic nature, my dear. I can already foresee +that the 'poor girl' will not long need anyone's sympathy. You are +already prepared to open your arms and take her to your heart. Is it not +so?" + +Mrs. Davenant looked up--just as if she wanted to see what he expected +of her to say, and seeing that he meant her to say "yes," said it. + +"Yes, I shall be very glad to have a young girl--a good young girl--as a +companion, Stephen. My life has been very lonely since you have been +away." + +"And I may be away so much. But, mother, you will not forget what I said +during our drive? There are special reasons why the girl's antecedents +should not be spoken of. The friend who interested me in her wishes her +to forget, if possible, everything concerning her early life." + +"I understand, Stephen." + +"And, by the way, do not allow any expression of astonishment to escape +you if, when you see her, you feel astonished at her appearance or +manner. Remember that she has spent all her life here, buried in the +forest, her sole companions a woodsman and his wife." + +"Her mother and father?" said Mrs. Davenant. + +"I said her mother and father, did I not? Just so--her mother and +father. Well, we must not expect too much. And after all, it will be far +more interesting for you to have a fresh and unsophisticated nature +about you, although she may be rather rough and rustic----" + +"I shall be quite content if she is a good girl." + +"Just so. Virtue is a precious gem though incased in a rough casket." + +Gideon Rolfe had returned, but not alone. Emerging from the deep shadow +of the trees was what looked to their astonished and unprepared eyes a +vision of some wood nymph. + +Gideon Rolfe strode forward, his face set hard and sternly cold, and as +he reached the cottage he took Una's hand in his, and looking steadily +into Stephen's eyes, said: + +"Mr. Davenant, I have informed my daughter of your mother's offer to +take her under her charge, but I have asked her to postpone her answer +until she saw you." + +Stephen bowed, and laid his white hand on his mother's arm. + +"Miss Rolfe," he said, in a low voice in which paternal kindness and +social respect were delicately blended, "this lady is my mother. Like +most mothers whose children have flown from the nest, she lives alone +and feels her solitude. She is desirous of finding some young lady who +will consent to share it with her. It is not only a home she offers you, +but--I think I may add, mother--a heart." + +"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Davenant, and as she held out her hand her +voice trembled and a tear shone in her eye. + +Una, who had been looking from one to the other, with the breath coming +in little pants through her half parted lips, drew near and put her hand +in the outstretched one, but the next moment turned and clung to +Gideon's arm with a sudden sob. + +"Oh, father, I cannot leave you!" she murmured. + +Gideon bent his head, perhaps to hide his face, which was working with +emotion. + +"Hush! it is for the best. Remember what I have said. You wanted to see +the world----" + +"Yes--with you," said Una, audibly. + +"The world and I have parted forever, Una." + +"But shall I never see you again?" + +"Yes, yes, we shall meet now and again." + +"I trust, Miss Rolfe, that we shall wean your father from his long +seclusion. You must be the magnet to draw him from his retreat into the +busy haunts of men." + +"You will come and see me?" she murmured. + +"Yes, Una. Go where you will," and he glanced over her head at Stephen, +"you may feel that I am watching over you, as I have always watched and +guarded you. If any harm comes to you----" + +"Harm?" she breathed, and looked up into his face with questioning gaze. + +"Come, Mr. Rolfe, you mustn't alarm your daughter," said Stephen, +softly. "She will think that the world is filled with lions and wolves +seeking whom they may devour. I think you may feel safe from any harm +under my mother's protection, Miss Rolfe." + +"Yes. I have never had a daughter. If you come you shall be one to me." + +"You think me ungrateful?" said Una to her, in her simple, frank way. + +"No, my dear," replied Mrs. Davenant. "I think you only show a naturally +affectionate heart. You have never been from home before." + +"Never," said Una. "Never out of the woods." + +"My poor child. No, I do not think you ungrateful. I like to see that +you feel leaving home so much. For you will come, will you not? I shall +be disappointed and grieved if you do not, now that I have seen you." + +"Now that you have seen me," said Una. + +"Yes, my dear. For I am sure that I shall love you, and I hope that you +will grow fond of me." + +"Do you?" said Una, musingly. "Yes," she said, after a pause, "I shall +love you." + +"Will you kiss me, my dear," she said; and Una bent and kissed her. + +"And now that you think--that you are sure you will like me--you will +come," said Mrs. Davenant. + +Una looked before her thoughtfully, almost dreamily, for a moment, then +replied: + +"Yes, my father wishes me to go. Why does he wish me to go into the +world he hates and fears so much? It was only the other day that he +warned me against wishing for it, and told me that I should never be +happy if I left Warden. Why has he changed so suddenly?" + +"I--I think it must have been Stephen who persuaded him. I heard them +talking together." + +"Stephen--that is your son," said Una. + +"Yes, he is my son; he is very good and clever--so very clever! He has +been a most affectionate son to me, and has never caused me a day's +uneasiness." + +"All sons are not so?" she asked. + +"No, indeed," responded Mrs. Davenant. + +"Is he ill?" asked Una, after a pause. + +"Ill!" + +"Because he is so pale," she said. + +"Yes, Stephen is pale. It is because he thinks and reads so much, and +then he is in great trouble now; his uncle died three days ago." + +"Is that why he is dressed in black--and you, too? I am very sorry." + +"Thank you, my dear," said Mrs. Davenant, "that was very nice of you to +say that. I can see you have a kind heart. Yes, his uncle is just dead, +Mr. Ralph Davenant--Squire Davenant. Why did you start?"--for Una had +started and turned to her with a sudden flash of intense interest in her +eyes--"did you know him? Ah, no, you could not, if you have not been out +of the forest--how strange it seems!--but you have heard of him, +perhaps?" + +"Yes, I have heard of him." + +At that moment the door opened, and Stephen and Gideon Rolfe came out. + +The usual smile sat upon Stephen's face, in strange contrast to the +stern, set look on his companion's. + +Raising his hat to Mrs. Davenant as he approached, Gideon put his hand +on Una's shoulder. + +"Go indoors, Una, to your mother," he said quietly. + +Una rose, and after a momentary glance at each of their faces, went +inside. Stephen opened and held the door for her, then closed it and +came back to the others. + +"Mother," he said, "Mr. Rolfe and I have made our arrangements, and he +agrees with me that it would be wiser, now that the news is broken to +Miss Rolfe, for her to accompany you back to town this afternoon." + +Mrs. Davenant nodded, and glanced timidly at Gideon's stern face. + +"We have won Mrs. Rolfe over to our side, and she is already making the +few preparations necessary for Miss Rolfe's journey." + +Gideon Rolfe inclined his head as if to corroborate this, then he said: + +"Will you come inside, madam, and partake of some refreshment?" + +"I would rather wait here. Mr. Rolfe, I hope you feel that, in trusting +your daughter to my charge, that she will at least have a happy home, if +I can make one for her?" + +"That I believe, madam." + +"Yes, I have quite convinced Mr. Rolfe that the change will be +beneficial to Miss Rolfe, and that she will be taken every care of. I +suppose you are quite old friends already, eh, mother?" + +"I think she is a beautiful girl whom one could not help loving," +murmured Mrs. Davenant. + +Half an hour passed, and then Una and Martha came out. Una was pale to +the lips, the other was red-eyed with weeping, and her tears broke out +afresh when Mrs. Davenant shook hands with her and assured her that her +daughter should be happy. + +"Thank you, ma'am," said Martha. "It's what I said would come to pass. +Gideon couldn't expect to keep her shut up here, like a bird in a cage, +forever and a day. It was against reason, but it is so sudden," and her +sobs broke into her speech and stopped her. + +Mrs. Davenant's eyes were wet, and she glanced at Stephen, half inclined +to postpone the journey; but Gideon Rolfe had called the carriage to the +door, and the box was already on the seat. + +With the same set calm which he had maintained throughout, Gideon took +Una in his arms, held her for a moment and whispering, "Remember, +wherever you are I am watching over you!" put her in the carriage in +which Stephen had already placed his mother. + +He, too, had a word to whisper. It was also a reminder. + +"Remember, mother, not another word of the past. Her life begins from +today." + +Then he looked at his watch, and said aloud: + +"You will just have time to catch the train. Good-bye." + +With the most dutiful affection, he kissed his mother, then went round, +and, bare-headed, offered his hand to Una. + +"Good-bye, Miss Rolfe," he said. "You are now starting on a new life. No +one, not even your father, can more devoutly wish you the truest and +fullest happiness than I do." + +Una, half-blinded with her tears, put her hand in his; but almost +instantly drew it away, with something like a shudder. It was cold as +ice. + +The next moment the carriage started, and the two men were left alone. + +For fully a minute they stood looking at it, till it had been swallowed +up by the shadows of the trees; then Gideon turned, his face white and +working. + +"Stephen Davenant," he said, in slow, measured tones, "one word with you +before we part. You have gained your end--be what it may; I say for your +sake, let it be for good; for if it be for evil, you have one to deal +with who will not hold his hand to punish and avenge. Rather than let +her know the heritage of shame which hangs over her, I have let her go. +If you value your safety, guard her, for at your hands I require her +happiness and well being." + +Stephen's face paled, but the smile struggled to its accustomed place. + +"My dear Mr. Rolfe," he began, but Gideon stopped him with a gesture. + +"Enough. I set no value on your word. There is no need for further +speech between us. From this hour our roads lie apart. Take yours, and +leave me mine." + +"This is very sad. Well, well; as you say, I have gained my end, but, as +I would rather put it, I have done my duty, and I must bear your +ungrounded suspicions patiently. Good-bye, my dear sir--good-bye." + +"I have sworn never to touch the hand of a Davenant in friendship," he +said, grimly. "There lies your path"--and he pointed to the Wermesley +road--"mine is here, for the present." + +And with a curt nod, he turned toward the cottage. + +With a gentle sigh and shake of the head, Stephen, after lingering for a +moment, as if he hoped that Gideon's heart might be softened, turned and +entered the wood. + +Once in the shadow and out of sight, the smile disappeared, and left his +face careworn, restless and anxious. + +"Fate favors me," he muttered. "That boor knows--guesses--nothing of the +truth. I never thought to get the girl out of his clutches so easily! +Now she is under my watch and ken--I hold her in my hand. But--but"--he +mused, his lips twitching, his eyes moving restlessly to and fro--"what +shall I do with her? Beautiful--she is lovely! How long will she escape +notice in London? Someone will see her--some hot-headed fool--and fall +in love. She might marry. Ah!" + +And he stooped amongst the brakes and ferns, and looked up, with a +sudden, dull-red flush on his pale cheek, a bright glitter in his light +eyes, while a thought ran like lightning through his cunning brain. + +"Marry her! Why--why should not I?" + +An answer came quickly enough in the remembrance of the pale dark face +of Laura Treherne, the girl to whom he was pledged. + +But with a gesture of impatience he swept the obtrusive remembrance +aside. + +"Why not?" he muttered. "Then, at one stroke, I should secure myself. By +Heaven--I will! I will!" + +So elated was he by the thought that he stopped and leaned against a +tree and took off his hat, allowing the cool breezes to play upon his +white forehead. + +"Beautiful, and the real heiress of Hurst Leigh," he muttered. "Why +should I not? By one stroke I should make myself secure, and set that +cursed will at defiance, let it be where it may! I will! I will!" he +repeated, setting his teeth; then, as he put on his hat, he smiled +pitifully and murmured: + +"Poor Laura, poor Laura!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +Una saw her last of Warden Forest through a mist of tears; while a tree +remained in sight her face was turned toward it, and in silence she bade +farewell to the leafy world in which her life had passed with so much +uneventfulness--in silence listened to the soughing of the breeze that +seemed to voice her a sad good-bye. + +Her companion sat in silence, too, holding the soft, warm hand which +clung to hers with an eloquent supplication for protection and sympathy. + +But youth and tears are foes who cannot abide long together, and by the +time the little railway village of Wermesley was reached, Una's eyes +were full of interest and curiosity. + +As the fly rumbled over the unkept streets toward the station, past the +few tame shops and the dead-and-alive hotel, her color came and went in +rapid fluctuations. + +"Is--is this the world?" she asked, in a low voice. + +Mrs. Davenant looked at her with a smile, the first which Una had seen +on the thin, pale face. She had yet to learn that Mrs. Davenant never +smiled in her son's presence. + +"The world, my dear?" she replied. "Well, yes; but a very quiet part of +it." + +"And yet there are so many people in the streets, and--ah!" she drew +back with an exclamation as the train shrieked into the station. + +Mrs. Davenant started--she was nervous herself, and had not yet realized +that she had for companion one who was as ignorant of our modern +high-pressure civilization as a North American Indian. + +"That is the train; don't be frightened, my dear," she said. + +"Forgive me. I know it is the train--I have read about it. I am not +frightened," she added, quietly, and with a touch of gentle dignity that +puzzled Mrs. Davenant. + +"My dear," she said, "I am not finding fault, or chiding you, it is only +natural that you should be surprised, but you will find a great deal +more to be surprised at when we get to London." + +Una inclined her head as she mentally registered a resolution to +conceal, at any cost, any surprise or alarm she might feel on the rest +of the journey. + +Nevertheless, she kept very close to Mrs. Davenant as they passed to the +train, and shrank back into the corner of the carriage driven there by +the stupid stare of one or two of the passengers. + +"Now we are all right," said Mrs. Davenant, gently. "We shall not sleep +now till we get to town." + +"To London--we are going to London?" asked Una in a low voice. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Davenant. "That is where I live; I live in a great +square at the West-end." + +"I know the points of the compass," said Una, with a smile; "my father +taught me," and she sighed--"poor father!" + +"I think your father must be a very clever man, my dear. He appears to +have taught you a great deal--I mean"--she hesitated--"you speak so +correctly." + +"Do I?" said Una. "Yes, my father is very clever. He knows everything." + +"It is very curious," she said. "I mean--I hope you won't be +offended--but men in his position are not generally so well informed." + +"Are they not?" said Una, quietly. "I don't know. Perhaps my father +learned all he knows from books." + +"And taught you in the same way. Tell me what books you have read." + +Una smiled softly, and as she did so, Mrs. Davenant started, and looked +around at her with something like fright in her grave, still eyes. + +"What is the matter?" asked Una. + +"No--nothing," replied the other. "I--you reminded me of somebody when +you laughed, I can't tell whom. But the books, you were going to tell me +about the books." + +"I can't remember all," said Una, and then she mentioned the titles of +some of the well-bound volumes which stood on the little bookshelf in +the hut. + +Mrs. Davenant regarded her curiously. + +"Those are all books of a world that existed long ago," she said. "You +have never read any novels--any novels of present day life?" + +"No, I think not." + +"Then you are absolutely ignorant of life as it is," said Mrs. Davenant. + +"Yes, I suppose so," assented Una. + +"I can understand now how useful fiction really is," murmured Mrs. +Davenant. "It is by it alone that a future age will understand what ours +is. You are entering upon some strange experiences, Miss Rolfe." + +Una started; the name was so unfamiliar to her that she hardly +recognized it. + +"Please don't call me that," she said, laying her hand on Mrs. +Davenant's arm. "My name is Eunice--Una. Call me Una." + +"I will," said Mrs. Davenant. + +"You have promised to love me, you know." + +"A promise easy to keep, my dear," she said, and her eyes grew moist. "I +little thought when my son Stephen telegraphed to meet him that he was +taking me to a daughter." + +"Your son Stephen--he sent for you!" said Una, with frank curiosity. +"How did he know of my existence?" + +"Through some friend," said Mrs. Davenant, with much hesitation and +nervous embarrassment. "My son is a very good man, and always +interesting himself in some good cause or other--something that will +benefit his fellow creatures. You--you will like my son when you know +more of him," she added, and though she spoke with pride there was a +touch of something like fear in her voice, which always came when she +mentioned his name or spoke of his goodness. + +"Yes," said Una, simply, "I will for your sake." + +"Thank you, my dear," murmured Mrs. Davenant. + +"But how," went on Una, after thinking a moment, "how did his friend +know anything about me? Did my father----" + +"I don't know, Una," said Mrs. Davenant, nervously. "Stephen doesn't +always tell me everything; you see he has so much to think of, and just +now he is in great trouble, you know." + +"Ah! yes," said Una, gently; "and he had not time to tell you. But he +will. I am sorry he is in such trouble." Then, after a pause, she said: +"Are you rich?" + +Mrs. Davenant started. The question, so unusual and so strange, +bewildered her by its suddenness and its frankness. + +"Rich, my dear?" she said. "Yes--I suppose I am rich." + +"And he is rich?" + +"He will be, perhaps; we do not know until his uncle's will is read." + +"I know what a will is," said Una, with a smile. "It is the paper which +a man leaves when he dies, saying to whom he wishes his money to go. And +Stephen----" + +"You should say Mr. Stephen, or Mr. Davenant, my dear," she said. "I +don't mind your calling him Stephen, but--but----" She looked round in +despair. How was she to explain to this frank, beautiful girl the laws +of etiquette? "But everyone who speaks of those to whom they are not +related say Mr., or Mrs., or Miss." + +"I see," said Una. "Then Mr. Davenant expects to get his uncle's money, +and then he will be rich. I am very glad. And he does not live in the +same house with you?" + +"No," replied Mrs. Davenant--and surely there was something like a tone +of relief in her voice--"no; when he is in London he lives in chambers +in rooms by himself; but he has been staying at Hurst Leigh." + +"At Hurst Leigh!" echoed Una, softly, and a faint color stole over her +face. How wonderful it was! That other--he whose face was always with +her, was going there! + +"At Hurst Leigh," repeated Mrs. Davenant. "Do you know it?" + +Una shook her head silently. She longed to ask more, to ask if Mrs. +Davenant knew the youth who had taken shelter in the cottage, but she +simply could not. Love is a wondrous schoolmaster--he had already taught +her frank, out-spoken nature the art of concealment. + +"It is a grand place," continued Mrs. Davenant. "A great, huge place," +and she shivered faintly, "and--and if Squire Davenant has left it to +Stephen, he will live there." + +"You don't like it?" said Una, with acute intuition. + +"No," replied Mrs. Davenant, with unusual earnestness. "No, oh no! it +frightens me. I was never there but once, and then I was glad--very, +very glad to get away, grand and beautiful as it was!" + +"But why?" asked Una, eagerly. + +"Because--have you never heard of Ralph Davenant?" + +Una hesitated a moment. She had heard of him. + +"He was a wonderful man, but terrible to me. His eyes looked through +one, and then he had been so wicked." + +She stopped short, and Una sighed. So there was another person who was +wicked. + +"Why are men so wicked?" she asked, in a low voice. + +"I--I--don't know. What a singular question," said Mrs. Davenant. "No +one knows. Perhaps it is because they have different natures to ours. +But you need not look so grieved, my dear," she added, with a little +smile, "you need not know any wicked men." + +"Who can tell? One does not know; wicked men are just like the others, +only we like them better." + +Mrs. Davenant stared at her, and utterly overwhelmed by the strange +reply, sank into her corner and into silence. + +The panting engine tore along the line, and presently the clear +atmosphere was left behind, and the cloud of smoke which hangs over the +Great City came down upon them and took them in, and infolded them. + +To Una's amazement the train seemed to glide over the tops of houses, +houses so thick that there seemed but two, or three inches between them. +With suppressed excitement--she had resolved to express no surprise or +fear--she watched through the window. Sometimes she caught sight of +streets thronged with people, and with commingled alarm and curiosity, +wondered what had happened to draw them all together so. + +She would not ask Mrs. Davenant, for wearied by her double journey, she +was leaning back with closed eyes. + +Suddenly the train stopped--stopped amidst the noise and confusion of a +large terminus--Mrs. Davenant woke, a porter came to the door, received +instructions as to the luggage and handed them out. + +Notwithstanding her resolution, Una felt herself turning pale. + +From Warden Forest to a London railway station. + +"Keep close to me, dear," said Mrs. Davenant, who seemed only nervous +and helpless in her son's presence. "Come, there is a cab." + +In silence Una followed. Men--and women, too,--turned to look at the +tall, graceful figure in its plain white dress, and stared at the lovely +face, with its half-frightened, half-curious, downcast eyes, and Una +felt the eyes fixed on her. + +"Why--why do they look at me so?" she asked, when they had entered the +cab. + +Mrs. Davenant regarded her with a smile, and evaded the frank, open +eyes. Was it possible that the girl was ignorant of her marvelous +beauty? + +"People in London always stare, my dear Una," she replied, "and they see +that you are strange." + +"It is my dress," said Una, who had been looking out of the window at +some of the fashionably-attired ladies. "It is different to theirs. +See--look at that lady! Why does she wear so long a dress? she has to +hold it up with one hand." + +"It is your dress, no doubt, my dear," she said. "We must alter it when +we get home." + +The cab rolled into the street, and Una was rendered speechless. + +But for her resolve she would have shrunk back into the farthest corner +of the cab. The number of people, the noise, alarmed her, and yet she +felt fascinated. + +Were all the people mad that they hurried on so with such grave and +pre-occupied faces. She had never seen her father hurry unless he had +cut down a tree that had been struck by lightning, and which might +injure others in its fall unless cut down with greatest care. + +Presently they passed into one of the leading thoroughfares, already lit +up, its shops gleaming brightly with the gas-light, its ceaseless line +of cabs, and omnibuses, and carriages. + +At last, when her eyes were weary with looking, she murmured: +"This--this--is the world then at last." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Davenant, with a sigh. "This is the world, Una!" + +"And are those palaces!" asked Una, as they passed through the West End +streets and squares. + +"No," said Mrs. Davenant; "they are only houses, in which rich people +dwell, as you would call it." + +"And the trees! Are there no trees?" asked Una, with, for the first +time, a sigh. + +"Not here, dear. There are some in the parks; some even in the middle of +the city itself. You will miss your trees, Una." + +"Yes, I shall miss my trees. But this--this world seems so large; I +thought that----" + +"Well," said Mrs. Davenant, amused with her bewilderment. + +"I thought that people in the world knew each other; but that is +impossible." + +And she sighed, as she thought that, after all, now that she was in the +world, she was no nearer that one being who, for her, was the principal +person in it. + +"Very few people know each other, Una. It's a big world, this London. I +wonder whether you will be happy?" + +Una turned to her with a look upon her face that would have melted a +sterner heart than Mrs. Davenant's. + +"I shall be happy, if you will love me," she said. + +Something in the frank, simple reply made Mrs. Davenant tremble. What +had she undertaken in the charge of this simple, pure-natured girl, +whose beauty caused people to turn and stare at her, and whose innocence +was that of a child? + +Through miles and miles of streets, as it seemed to Una, the cab made +its slow, rumbling way; houses, that were palaces in her eyes, flitted +past; and at last they stopped before a palace, as it seemed to Una, in +a quiet square. + +The door of the house opened, and a servant came out and opened the cab +door. + +In silent wonderment Una entered the hall, lit with its gas-lamps and +lined with flowers, and followed Mrs. Davenant into what was really the +drawing-room of a house in Walmington Square; but which seemed to Una to +be the principal apartment in some enchanted castle. + +But true to her resolve, she stood calm and silent, feeling, rather +than seeing, that the eyes of the servant were fixed upon her with +curious interest. + +"Come upstairs, Una, dear," said Mrs. Davenant, and Una followed her +into another fairy chamber. Flowers, of which Mrs. Davenant, like most +nervous persons, was inordinately fond, seemed everywhere: they lined +the staircase and the landing, and bloomed in every available corner. + +Mrs. Davenant entered her own room, then opened a door into an adjoining +one. + +"This is your room, my dear," she said. "If--if--you like it----" + +"Like it!" said Una, with open eyes and beating heart. "Is--is this +really mine?" and she looked round the dainty room with incredulous +admiration. + +"If--if you like it, my dear," said Mrs. Davenant. + +"How could I do otherwise? It is too beautiful for me----" + +"I don't think anything could be too beautiful for you, Una," said Mrs. +Davenant, with a significance that was entirely lost on Una. "If there +is anything you want--I can't give you any trees, you know." + +"I shan't want trees while the flowers are here. It is nothing but +flowers." + +"I am very fond of them," said Mrs. Davenant, meekly. "You will hear a +bell ring in half an hour; come to me then, I shall wait in the next +room for you. I will not lock the door," and she left her. + +Una felt dazed and stunned for a few minutes, then she made what +preparations were possible. She chose from her box, which had been +conveyed to her room by some invisible agency apparently, a plain muslin +dress, and, more by instinct than any prompting of vanity, fastened a +rose in her hair. + +She had scarcely completed her simple toilet when the bell rang, and she +went into the next room. + +A maid servant--Una noticed that it was not the one who had opened the +door--was in attendance upon Mrs. Davenant, and dropped a courtesy as +Mrs. Davenant said, in her nervous, hesitating fashion: + +"This is Miss Rolfe, Jane." + +Una smiled, and was about to hold out her hand, but stopped, seeing no +movement of a similar kind on the part of the neatly-dressed girl. + +"Jane is my own maid, Una," said Mrs. Davenant. "She will attend to you +when you want her." + +Jane dropped another courtesy, but Una detected a glance of curiosity +and scrutiny at the plain white muslin. + +"Come," said Mrs. Davenant, "let us go down. Dinner is ready," and she +led the way down-stairs. + +Another fairy apartment broke upon Una's astonished vision as they +entered the dining-room. + +Small as the houses are in Walmington Square, Una, accustomed only to +the small room in the hut, thought that this dining-room was large +enough to be the banquet hall of princes. + +But, whatever surprise Una felt, she, mindful of her resolve, concealed. + +Not even the maid in waiting could find anything to condemn. When she +went down-stairs her verdict was favorable. + +"Whoever she is," she said, "she's a lady. But where on earth she comes +from, goodness only knows. A plain muslin dress that might have come out +of the ark." + +Dinner was over at last. A "last" that seemed to Una an eternity. Mrs. +Davenant rose and beckoned her to follow, and they went into the +drawing-room. + +"Are you very tired, Una?" + +"No," said Una, thinking of her long wanderings in Warden Forest, "not +tired at all, but very surprised." + +"Surprised?" said Mrs. Davenant, questioningly. + +"Yes. Do all the people in London live like this--in such beautiful +houses, with people to wait upon them, and with so many things to eat, +and with such pretty things in the houses?" + +"Not all," said Mrs. Davenant, watching the tall, graceful figure as it +moved to and fro--"not all. But it would take too long to explain. You +think these are pretty things; what will you say when you see the great +sights--sights which we Londoners think nothing of?" + +Una did not answer; she had been looking round the room at the pictures, +mostly portraits, on the walls. + +"Are these pictures of friends of yours?" she said. "Who is that?" + +"That? That is the portrait of a man I was speaking of in the train. +That is Ralph--Squire Davenant--when he was a young man." + +It was a portrait of Ralph Davenant in his best--and worst--days. It had +been painted when men wore their hair long, and brushed from their +foreheads. One hand, white as the driven snow, was thrust in his breast, +the other held a riding-whip. + +Una looked at it long and earnestly, and Mrs. Davenant, impressed by her +long silence, rose and stood beside her. + +"Yes," she said, "that is Ralph Davenant. It was painted when he was +about your age, my dear. Ah----" + +"What is the matter?" + +Mrs. Davenant, pale and excited, took up a hand-mirror from one of the +tables and held it in front of Una. + +"Look!" she exclaimed. + +"Well?" she said. + +"Well?" echoed Mrs. Davenant. "Don't you see? Look again. The very +image! It is himself come to life again; it is Ralph Davenant turned +woman!" she exclaimed. + +And before Una could glance at the glass a second time Mrs. Davenant +threw it aside. + +"Am I so like?" said Una, with a smile. "How mysterious! And that is so +beautiful a face." + +"Beautiful eyes, and you are----" said Mrs. Davenant, but stopped in +time, warned by Una's frank, questioning gaze. "If you like to look at +portraits," she said, "there is an album there; look over that." + +Una took up the album and turned over its pages; suddenly she stopped, +and the color flew to her face. + +With unconcealed eagerness she came toward Mrs. Davenant with the open +album in her hand. + +"Look!" she said; "who is that?" + +"That," said Mrs. Davenant, peering at it, "that is--Jack Newcombe." + +"Jack Newcombe," said Una, breathlessly. "You know him?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Davenant, with a sigh. "Poor Jack! Shut the book, my +dear." + +"Why do you say 'Poor Jack?'" said Una, with a hollow look in her +beautiful eyes. + +"Because--because he is a wicked young man, my dear," said Mrs. +Davenant. "Poor Jack!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +Amidst a profound silence Jack walked slowly and quietly out of the +house. There was no anger in his heart against the old man whose +favorite he had once been--for the moment there was scarcely any anger +against Stephen; surprise and bewilderment overwhelmed every other +feeling. + +He had not expected a large sum of money--had certainly not expected the +Hurst; and but for the words spoken by the dying man, he would not have +expected anything at all, after having offended him in the matter of the +money-lenders and the post-obit. But most assuredly the squire had +intimated that there would be something--something, however small. + +And now he was told that there was nothing, that his name was not even +mentioned. + +Apart from any mercenary consideration, Jack was cut up and +disappointed; if there had been a simple mourning ring, a few of the old +guns out of the armory--anything as a token of the old man's +forgiveness, he would have been satisfied; but nothing, not one word. + +Then, again, he could not understand it, near his end as he was when he +spoke to him. The squire was as sane and clear-headed as he had been at +any time of his life, or at least so it seemed to Jack; and he certainly +had given him to understand that he had left him some portion of his +immense wealth. + +It was another link in the chain of mysteries which had seemed to coil +around Jack since he started from London. + +Slowly and thoughtfully he made his way back to the "Bush," and began to +pack up the small portmanteau which had been sent from town. + +Hurst Leigh was no place for him; every minute he remained in it seemed +intolerable to him. He would go straight back to town by the next train. + +Suddenly a thought struck him, and he paused in his task of packing the +portmanteau, an operation which he reduced to its simplest by thrusting +in anything that came first and jamming it down tight with his fist; he +stopped and looked up with a red flush on his handsome face. Why +shouldn't he go to Warden Forest on his way back? + +In a moment, the idea thrilled him with the delight of anticipation, the +next, a shade came over his brow. Why shouldn't he? Rather, why _should_ +he? What was the use of his going? If he had no business there before, +he had less excuse now. He was next door to a beggar--and---- + +Realizing for the first time the blow that had been dealt him by the +squire's neglect, he continued at the jamming process, jumped and kicked +at the portmanteau till it consented to be locked, and then went down to +the bar and called for his bill. + +There were several people hanging about--a funeral is a good excuse for +a holiday in a country village--but Jack, in his abstraction, scarcely +noticed the little group of men who sat and stood about, and merely +nodded in response to the respectful and kindly greetings. + +"But, Mr. Jack," said Jobson, with a deeply respectful air of surprise, +"you don't think of going right away at once, sir?" + +"Yes, I'm off, Jobson," said Jack. "What's the next train?" + +"To London?" said a dry, thin voice behind him; and Jack turned and saw +Mr. Hudsley's clerk--old Skettle. "There's no train to London till seven +o'clock; there's a train to Arkdale in an hour, but it stops there." + +"All right," he said, "I'll go to Arkdale; and, by the way, Jobson, I +don't want to be bothered with the portmanteau; send it on by rail to my +address--Spider Court, the Temple, you know." + +Jobson touched his cap, and while he was making out the bill Jack lit +his pipe and paced up and down, his hands in his pockets, the knot of +men watching him out of the corners of their eyes with sympathetic +curiosity. + +Jack paid the bill--so moderate a one that he capped it with half a +sovereign over; and with a "good-day" all round, started off. He had not +got further than the signpost, when he felt a touch on his arm, and, +turning, saw that old Skettle had followed him. + +"Halloa," said Jack, in his blunt way, "what's the matter?" + +The old man looked up at him from under his wrinkled lids, and fumbled +at his mouth in a cautious sort of a way. + +"I'm very sorry things have gone on so crooked up at the Hurst, Master +Jack," he said, respectfully. + +"But not more sorry than I am, Skettle, thank you." + +"I'm afraid it's rather unexpected, Master Jack," he continued, his +small, keen eyes fixed, not on Jack, but on his second waistcoat-button, +counting from the top. + +"Well, yes, it is," said Jack, tugging at his mustache. "Very much so. +I've got a hit in the bread-basket this time, Skettle, and I'm on my +back again." + +Old Skettle looked a keen glance at the handsome face and frank eyes +that were looking rather ruefully at the ground. + +"Hitting below the belt is not considered fair, is it, Master Jack?" he +asked. + +"Eh, what?" said Jack, who had not been paying much attention. "No, +according to the rules; but what do you mean by the question? You are +always such a mysterious old idiot, you know. You can't help it, I +suppose." + +Old Skettle smiled, if the extraordinary contortion of the wrinkled face +could be called by so flattering a designation. + +"I've seen such mysterious things since I first went into Mr. Hudsley's +office to sweep the floor----" + +"Now, then," said Jack, "none of that game; going into the old story, +which I have heard a hundred times, of how you went as an office boy, +and have risen to the proud position of confidential clerk. You're like +one of the old fellows in the play, who draws a chair up to the +footlights, and says, 'It's seven long years ago----' and the people +begin to clear out into the refreshment bar, and wait there till he's +done. Where were you? Oh, 'mysterious experiences.' Well, go on." + +But old Skettle had, apparently, nothing to say; he had, while Jack had +been speaking, changed his mind. + +"I beg pardon for stopping you, Master Jack," he said. "I felt I +couldn't let you go out of the old place without expressing my +sympathy." + +"Thanks, thanks," said Jack, holding out his hand. "You're one of the +right sort, Skettle, and so's Hudsley. I believe he's sorry, too. Looks +a little puzzled, too. Puzzled isn't the word for what I feel. I've got +the sensation one experiences when he's been sitting through one of the +old-fashioned melo-dramas. Not even a mourning-ring, or a walking-stick. +Poor Squire--well, I forgive him. He had a right to do what he liked +with his own." + +"Just so, Master Jack, but it's hard for you," said Skettle. "Not a +mourning-ring. By the way, sir," and something like a blush crept over +his wrinkled face. "If--if you should be in want of a little money----" + +Jack stared, then laughed grimly. + +"Well, you certainly must be mad, Skettle," he interrupted. "Want money! +When didn't I want it? But don't you be idiot enough to lend me any. It +would be a jolly bad speculation, old fellow. There is not a Jew in +London would take my paper. No, Skettle, it would be downright robbery, +and I don't think I could rob you, you know." + +"Do you remember the day you swam across the mill-pond, and fished my +little boy out, Master Jack?" + +"You take care I shan't forget it, Skettle," said Jack, with a smile. +"It was a noble deed, wasn't it? Every time you mention it, I try to +feel like a hero, but it won't come. How is little Ned?" + +"He's well, sir; he's in London now, working his way up. He'd have been +in the church-yard if it hadn't been for you." + +"Why, Skettle, this is worse than ''Twas seven long years ago!'" +exclaimed Jack. + +"On that day, Master Jack, I swore that if ever a time came when I'd a +chance of serving you, I'd do it. It did not seem very likely then, for +we all thought you'd be the next squire; but now, Master Jack, I should +be grateful if you'd borrow ten pounds of me." + +"Nonsense," cried Jack. "Don't be an idiot, Skettle. _You_ a lawyer! +why, you're too soft for anything but a washerwoman. There, good-bye; +remember me to little Ned when you write, and tell him I hope he'll grow +up a little harder than his father. Good-bye," and he shook the thin, +skinny claw heartily. + +Old Skettle stood and looked after him, his right hand fumbling in his +waistcoat pocket; and when Jack had got quite out of sight he pulled the +hand out, and with it a small scrap of paper with a few words written on +it, and a seal. It was just such a scrap of paper which might have been +torn from a letter, and the seal was the Davenant seal, with its griffin +and spear plainly stamped. + +Old Skettle looked at it a moment curiously, then shook his head. + +"No, I was right after all in not giving it to him; it may be +nothing--nothing at all. And yet--it's the squire's handwriting, for +it's his seal, and what was it lying outside the terrace for? Where's +the other part of it, and what was the other part like? I'll keep it. I +don't say that there's any good in it, but I'll keep it. Not a +mourning-ring or a walking-stick! All--house, lands, money--to Mr. +Stephen, with the sneaking face and the silky tongue. Poor Master Jack! +I--I wish he'd taken that ten-pound note; it burns a hole in my pocket. +Not--a--mourning-ring," he muttered. "It's not like the squire, for he +was fond of Master Jack, and if I'm not half the idiot he called me, the +old man hated Mr. Stephen. I seem to feel that there's something wrong. +I'll keep this bit of paper;" and he restored the scrap to its place and +returned to the "Bush" with as much expression on his face as one might +expect to see on a blank skin of parchment. + +Jack was more moved than he would have liked to admit by old Skettle's +sympathy and offer of assistance, and in a softened mood, produced by +the little incident, sat and smoked his pipe with a lighter spirit. + +After all he was young, and--and--well, things might turn up; at any +rate, if the worst came to the worst, he could earn his living at +driving a coach-and-four, or, say, as a navvy. + +"I shouldn't make a bad light porter," he mused, "only there are no +light porters now. I wonder what will become of me. Anyhow, I'd rather +live on an Abernethy biscuit a day than take a penny from Stephen or +borrow ten pounds from Skettle. Stephen. Squire of Hurst Leigh! He'll +make a funny squire. I don't believe he knows a pheasant from a +barn-door fowl, or a Berkshire pig from a pump-handle. I should have +made a better squire than he. Never mind; it's no use crying over spilt +milk!" + +Jack was certainly not the man to cry over milk spilt or strewn, and +long before the train had reached Arkdale he had forgotten his ill-luck +and the mystery attending the will, and all his thoughts were fixed on +the beautiful girl who dwelt in a woodman's hut in the midst of Warden +Forest. + +Forbidden fruit is always the sweetest, and Jack felt that the fruit was +forbidden here. What on earth business had he, a ruined man, to be +lounging about Warden, or any other forest, in the hope of getting a +sight of, or a few words with, a girl, whom, be she as lovely as a peri, +could be nothing to him? What good could he do? On the contrary, +perhaps, a great deal of harm; for ten to one the woodman would cut up +rough, and there would be a row. + +But he felt, somehow, that he had made a promise, and promises were +sacred things to Jack--excepting always promises to pay--and a row had +rather a charm for him. + +Nevertheless, when the train drew up at Arkdale Station, he had quite +resolved to wait until the London train came up, and as such resolutions +generally end, it ended in giving up the idea and starting for Warden. + +Jack was not sentimental. Men with good appetites and digestions seldom +are; but his heart beat as he entered the charmed center of the great +elms and oaks which fringed the forest, and the whole atmosphere seemed +full of a strange fascination. + +"I wonder what she will say, how she will look?" he kept asking himself. +"I'd walk a thousand miles to hear her voice, to look into her eyes. Oh, +I'm a worse idiot than old Skettle! What can her eyes and her voice be +to me? By Jove, though, I might turn woodman and--and----" marry her, +he was going to say, but the thought seemed so bold, so--well, so coarse +in connection with such a beautiful person, that Jack actually blushed +and frowned at his effrontery. + +He found no difficulty in recognizing the way, and strode along at a +good pace, which, however, grew slower as he neared the clearing in +which stood Gideon Rolfe's cottage, and just before he emerged from the +wood into it he stopped, and felt with a faint wonder that his heart was +beating fast. + +It was a new sensation for Master Jack, and it upset him. + +"This won't do," he said; "I must keep cool. A child would get the +better of me while I am like this; and I mustn't forget I've got to face +that wooden-faced woodman. Courage, my boy, courage!" + +And with a resolute front he stepped into the clearing. + +Yes, there was the cottage, but why on earth were the shutters up. + +With a strange misgiving he walked up to the door and knocked. + +There was no answer. He knocked again and again--still no answer. + +Then he stepped back and looked up at the chimney. There was no smoky +trail rising through the trees. He listened--there was no sound. His +heart sank and sank till he felt as if it had entered his boots. + +With a kind of desperate hope he knelt on the window-sill and looked +through a hole in the shutter into the room. + +It was bare of furniture--empty, desolate. + +He got down again and looked about him like one who, having buried a +treasure, goes to the spot and finds that it has gone. + +Gone--that was the word--and no sign! + +It was incredible. Three days--only three days. What had happened? +Was--was anyone dead? And at this thought his face grew as pale as the +tan would allow it. + +No; that was absurd. People--she--could not have died and been buried in +three days! Then, where was she? Was it possible that the old man had +actually left the wood--thrown up his livelihood--because of his +(Jack's) visit to the cottage? + +A great deal more disturbed and upset than he had been over the squire's +will, he paced up and down. He sat down on the seat outside the +window--the seat where he had drunk his cider and eaten his cake--the +seat where Mrs. Davenant sat so patiently--and he lit his pipe and +smoked in utter bewilderment. + +Disappointment is but a lukewarm word by which to describe his feelings. + +He felt that he had looked forward to seeing Una as a sort of set-off +against the terrible blow which the squire's will had dealt him, and now +she was gone! + +I am afraid to say how many hours he sat smoking and musing, in the vain +hope that she, or Gideon Rolfe, or someone would come to tell him +something about it; but at last he realized that she had indeed flown; +that the nest which had contained the beautiful bird was empty and void; +and with a heart that felt like lead, he set out for Wermesley. + +By chance, more than calculation, he caught the up-train, and was +whirled into London. + +Weary, exhausted rather, he signaled a hansom, and was driven to Spider +Court. + +Spider Court is not an easy place to find. It is in the heart of the +Temple, and consists of about ten houses, every one of which, like a +Chinese puzzle, contains a number of houses within itself. + +Barristers--generally briefless--inhabit Spider Court; but it is the +refuge of the hard-working literary man, and of the members of that +strange class which is always waiting for "something to turn up." + +Jack ascended the stairs of No. 5, passed various doors bearing the +names of the occupants on the other side of them, and opened a door +which bore the legend: + + "Leonard Dagle. + "John Newcombe." + +painted in small black letters on its cross-panel. + +It was not a large room, and it was plainly furnished; but it looked +comfortable. Its contents looked rather incongruous. + +At the end of the room, close by the window, which only allowed about +four hours of daylight to enter it, stood a table crowded with papers, +presenting that appearance which ladies generally call "a litter." The +table and book-shelf, filled with heavy-looking volumes, would give one +the impression that the room belonged to a barrister or a literary man, +if it were not for a set of boxing-gloves and a pair of fencing foils, +which hung over the fireplace, and the prints of ballet-girls and famous +actresses which adorned the walls. + +As Jack entered the room, a man, who was sitting at the table, turned +his head, and peering through the gloom which a single candle only +served to emphasize, exclaimed: + +"Jack, is that you?" + +The speaker was the Leonard Dagle whose name appeared conjointly with +Jack's on the door of the chambers. + +Seen by the light of the single candle, Leonard Dagle looked handsome; +it was left for the daylight to reveal the traces which life's battle +had cut in his regular features. One had only to glance at the face to +be reminded of the old saying of the sword wearing the scabbard. It was +the face of a man who had fought the hard fight of one hand against the +world, and had not yet won the victory. + +Leonard Dagle was Jack's old chum; friends he had in plenty--dangerous +friends many of them--but Leonard was his brother and companion in arms. +They had shared the same rooms, the same tankard of bitter, sometimes +the same crust, for years. + +There was not a secret between them. Either would have given the other +his last penny and felt grateful for the acceptance of it. It was a +singular friendship, for no two men could be more unlike than Leonard +Dagle, the hard-working barrister, and Jack Newcombe, the spendthrift, +the ne'er-do-well, and--the Savage. + +"Is that you, Jack?" exclaimed Leonard, straightening his back. "Home +already?" + +"Yes, I'm back." + +"What's the matter--tired?" + +"Tired--bored--humbled--thoroughly used up! I've got news for you, +Len." + +"Bad or good?" + +"Bad as they can be. First the squire's dead!" + +"Dead?" + +"Yes, dead and buried. Poor old fellow!" + +"I am very sorry. Then you--then you--am I addressing the Squire of +Hurst Leigh?" + +"You are addressing the pauper of Spider Court." + +"Jack, what do you mean?" + +"I mean that the poor old fellow has died and left me nothing--not even +a mourning-ring." + +"I'm very sorry. Left you nothing, my dear old man!" + +"Don't pity me. I can't stand that. Say serves you right, say anything. +After all, what did I deserve?" + +"But you expected something," said Leonard. + +"Yes, and no. I expected nothing till I got there, and then did. I saw +him for a few minutes before he died, and he said--certainly said--that +I--well, that there would be something for me." + +"And there is nothing." + +"Not a stiver. Mind I don't complain, Len. I didn't deserve it." + +"Where has it all gone? He was a rich man, was he not?" asked Leonard. + +"Rich as a Croesus," replied Jack, "and it has all gone to Stephen +Davenant." + +"That is the man that goes in for philanthropy and all that sort of +thing." + +"That's the man," replied Jack. + +"Tell me all about it," said Leonard, after a long pause. + +And, with many pauses, Jack told his story. + +Leonard Dagle listened intently. + +"It's a strange story, Jack," he said. "I--I--it rather puzzles me. +There could be--of course, there could be nothing wrong." + +"Wrong, how do you mean?" exclaimed Jack. + +"Well, Stephen Davenant's conduct is rather peculiar--isn't it?" + +"Oh, he's half out of his mind," said Jack, carelessly. "He has been +playing a close game for the money, and hanging about the old man till +he has got as hysterical as a girl. What do you think could be wrong? +Everything was as correct as it could be--family lawyer, who made out +the will, and all the rest of it." + +"Then you think the squire was wandering in his mind at last?" + +"That's it," said Jack. "He wanted to provide for me--to leave me +something, and he fancied he'd done it. It's often the case, isn't it?" + +"I've met with such cases," said Leonard. + +"Just so," said Jack. "Is there anything to drink?" he asked, abruptly, +as if he wanted to change the subject. + +"There's some whiskey----" + +Jack mixed himself a tumbler and sat on the edge of the table, and +Leonard Dagle leaned back and watched him. + +"There's something else, Jack," he said. "Out with it; what is it?" + +"What a fellow you are, Len. You are like one of those mesmeric men; +there's no keeping anything from you. Well, I've had an adventure." + +"An adventure?" + +"Yes, I'm half under the impression that it's nothing but a dream. Len, +I've seen the most beautiful--the most--Len, do you believe in witches? +Not the old sort, but the young ones--sirens, didn't they call them; who +used to haunt the woods and forests and tempt travelers into quagmires +and ditches. The innocent-looking kind of sirens, you know. Well, I've +seen one!" + +"Jack, you've been drinking; put that glass down." + +"Have I? Then I haven't. Look here," and he told the story of his +wanderings in Warden, and all it had led up to. + +"How's that for an adventure?" he said, when he had finished. + +"It would do for a mediæval romance. And she has gone, you say?" + +"Clean gone," said Jack, with a sigh and a long pull at the tumbler. +"Gone like a--a dream, you know. How is that for an adventure? You don't +believe in them, though." + +Leonard Dagle looked up, and there was a strange, half-shy expression in +his face. + +"You are right, Jack. I didn't till the day before yesterday." + +"The day before yesterday? What do you mean?" + +"Simply that I, too, have had an adventure." + +"Seems to me that we're like those confounded nuisances who used to meet +on a coach and tell stories to amuse themselves. Go on; it's your turn +now." + +"Mine's soon told. After you started for Hurst Leigh I got a letter from +a man at Wermesley----" + +"Wermesley!" exclaimed Jack. "Why----" + +"Yes, it is on the same line. He wanted me to go down to look over some +deeds, and I went. I took a return ticket and got into the last train. +When I got into the carriage--I went 'first' on the strength of the +business--I saw a young lady--mind, a young lady--seated in a corner. It +struck me as rather odd that a young girl should be traveling alone at +this time of night, and I shifted about until I could get a good look at +her. Jack, you're not the only man that has seen a beautiful girl within +the last week." + +"Beautiful, eh?" cried Jack, interested. + +"Beautiful in my eyes. The sort of face that Cleopatra might have had +when she was that girl's age. I never saw such eyes, and I had plenty of +opportunity of seeing them, for she seemed quite unconscious of my +presence. Jack, I'm a shy man, and I'm often sorry for it, but I was +never sorrier than I was then, for I'd have given anything to have been +able to speak to her and hear her speak. There she sat, looking like a +picture, quite motionless, with her eyes fixed on the flare of the lamp; +and there I sat and couldn't pluck up courage to say a word. At last we +got to London; they came for the tickets, and she couldn't find hers. I +went down on my hands and knees, and at last I found the ticket under +the seat. I looked at it as I gave it to the porter; and where do you +think it was from?" + +Jack shook his head. He didn't think it much of an adventure after Una +and Warden Forest. + +"You'll never guess. What do you say to Hurst Leigh?" + +"Hurst Leigh! Why, who was she? Somebody I know, perhaps." + +"I found my tongue at last, and said, 'You have had a long journey. +Hurst Leigh is a beautiful place.' And what do you think she said?" + +Jack shook his head. + +"She said, 'I don't know. I have never been there before today.' That's +all until we got to the terminus, then I asked her if I could get her +luggage. 'I haven't any,' she said. 'Could I get her a cab?' I asked. +Yes, I might get her a cab. I went and found a cab and put her in it; +and, if I had a shadow of a doubt as to her being a lady, the way in +which she thanked me would have dispelled it. I asked her where I should +direct the cabman to drive, and she said 24 Cheltenham Terrace. And--and +then she went." + +"Well?" + +"Well, I--of course you'll call me a fool, Jack, I am quite aware of +that--I followed in another cab." + +"Good heavens! You've been drinking!" + +"No. I followed, and when she had gone I knocked at the door of the next +house and asked the name of the people who lived next door. They--for a +wonder--were civil, and told me. She lives with her grandfather, and her +name is Laura Treherne." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +"Her name is Laura Treherne," said Leonard. + +"Laura Treherne. Never heard the name before." + +"Nor I, but it belongs to the most beautiful creature I have ever seen." + +"That's because you haven't seen Una Rolfe," put in Jack, coolly. "But I +say, Len, what has come to us? We've both caught the universal epidemic +at the same time. It's nothing wonderful in me, you know--but +you--_you_, who wouldn't look at a woman! Have you got it bad, Len?" + +"Very bad, Jack. Yes, the time which Rosseau calls the supremest in +one's life, has come to me. As a novice in the art of love-making, I +come to you for advice." + +"Why, it's easy enough in your case. You know where to put your hand +upon the lady. What are you to do? Why, disguise yourself as a sweep, +and go and sweep the chimneys at 24 Cheltenham Square, or pretend you're +the tax collector, or 'come to look at the gas meter.' You've got half a +dozen plans, but I--what am I to do? I've seen the most beautiful +creature in existence, and if I'm not in love with her----" + +"I should say you were," said Leonard, gently. + +"Yes, I am. I knew it when I found that confounded cottage empty. But +what am I to do? I haven't the faintest clew to her whereabouts. The old +gentleman with the hatchet may have murdered his whole family--her +included--or emigrated to Australia." + +"It is very strange. Didn't you notice any sign of a move about the +place the first night you were there?" + +"No, none. Everything looked as if it had been going on for a hundred +years--excepting Una--and meant to go on for another hundred. Len, I'm +afraid we've been bewitched. Perhaps it's all a dream; I haven't been +down to Hurst and you haven't been down to Wermesley. We shall wake up +directly--oh, no! The poor squire! Len, it's all true, and we're a +couple of young fools!" + +"Speak for yourself, old fellow. I have been a fool until three days +ago, now I am as wise as Solomon, for I have learned what love is." + +"So have I--I have also learned the vanity of human wishes, and the next +thing I shall have to learn will be some way of earning a livelihood. I +should prefer an honest one, but--poor men can't afford to be +particular, and honesty doesn't seem to pay now-a-days. I feel so hard +up and reckless that I could become a bank director or a member of +Parliament without feeling a pang of conscience." + +Leonard looked up at him, for the vein of bitterness was plainly to be +detected running through Jack's banter; and Leonard knew that when Jack +was bitter--which was but once a year, say--he was reckless. + +"We must talk it over. Sit down--get off that table; you're making a +perfect hash of my papers--and let's talk it over. You won't go out +tonight." + +"Yes, I shall. I shall go down to the club." + +"No, no, keep away from the club tonight, Jack." + +"What are you afraid of? Do you think I shall want to gamble? I've no +money to lose." + +"That's the very reason you'll want to play. Do keep at home tonight." + +"I couldn't do it, old man," he said. "I'm on wires--I'm all on fire. If +I sat here much longer, I should get up suddenly, murder you, and sack +the place. The Savage has got his paint on, and is on the trail." + +"Don't be a fool, Jack. You are hot and upset. Keep away from the club +tonight. Well, well--let the _ecarte_ alone, at any rate." + +"All right, I'll promise you that. I won't touch a card tonight. +_Ecarte!_ I couldn't play beggar-my-neighbor tonight! Len, I wish you +were a bigger man; I'd get up a row, and have a turn-to with you. Sit +down here! I couldn't do it. I want to be doing something--something +desperate. You can sit here and dream over your complaint; I can't--I +should go mad! Don't sit up for me." + +Leonard looked after him as he disappeared into one of the two bedrooms +which adjoined the common sitting-room, and, with a shake of his head, +muttered, "Poor Jack!" and returned to his work. + +Jack took a cold bath, dressed himself, and merely pausing to shout a +good-night, as he passed down the stairs, went into the street, and +jumped into a hansom, telling the man to drive to the Hawks' Club. + +It was rather early for the "Hawks," and only a few of them had +fluttered in. It was about the last club that such a man as Jack should +have been a member of. It was fast, it was expensive, it was +fashionable, and the chief reason for its existence lay in the fact that +play at any time, and to any extent, could be obtained there. + +When Jack entered the cardroom, that apartment was almost empty, but the +suspicious-looking tables were surrounded by chairs stuck up on two +legs, denoting that they were engaged, and those men who were present +were all playing. + +Every head was turned as he entered, and a buzz of greeting rose to +welcome him. + +"Halloa; you back, Jack!" said a tall, military-looking man, who was +known as the "Indian Nut," because he was one of the most famous of our +Indian colonels. "You're just in time to take a hand at loo." + +"No; come and join us," said young Lord Pierrepoint, from another table, +at which nap was being played. + +But if you could only wring a promise out of Jack, you could rest +perfectly certain that he would keep it; and he shook his head firmly. + +"Nary a card." + +"What! Don't you feel well, Jack?" + +"No, I'm hungry. I'm going to get something to eat." + +"Dear me, I didn't know you did eat, Jack. However, man, come and sit +down, and don't fidget about the room like that." + +"Len's right, the club won't do neither. I couldn't hold a card straight +tonight. I'll get some dinner, and go back, and we'll have it all over +again." + +It was a wise and virtuous resolution; and, unlike most resolves, Jack +meant to keep it. But alas! before he had got through with his soup, the +door opened and two men strolled in. + +They were both young and well-known. The one was Sir Arkroyd Hetley; the +other, the young Lord Dalrymple, whose coronet had scarcely yet warmed +his forehead, as the French say. + +Both of them uttered an exclamation at seeing Jack, and made straight +for his table. + +"Why, here's the Savage!" exclaimed Dalrymple. "Back to his native +forest primeval." + +"Been on the war trail, Jack?" asked Sir Arkroyd. "How are the squaws +and wigwams? Seriously, where have you been, old man?" + +"Yes, I have been on the war trail," he said. + +"And got some scalps, I hope," said Dalrymple. "What are you +doing--dining? What do you say, Ark, shall we join him? It's so long +since I've eaten anything that I should like to watch a man do it before +I make an attempt." + +The footman put chairs and rearranged the table, and the two men chatted +and conned over the _carte_. + +"You don't look quite the thing, Jack. Been going it in the forest, or +what?" + +"Yes, I've been going it in the forest, Dally." + +"Been hunting the buffalo and chumming up with his old friend, Spotted +Bull," said Arkroyd. "Bet you anything he hasn't been out of London, +Dally." + +"Take him," said Jack. "I've been out of London on a little matter of +business." + +"He's been robbing a bank," said Arkroyd, "or breaking one." + +"Neither. Stop chaffing, you two, and tell a fellow what's going on." + +"Shall we tell him, Dally? Perhaps he'll try to cut us out. It wouldn't +be a bad idea to start a joint stock company, all club together, you +know, and work it in that way, the one who wins to share with the other +fellows." + +"Wins what? What on earth are you talking about? Is it a sweepstake, a +handicap, or what----" + +"No, my noble Savage. It's the heiress." + +"Oh," said Jack, indifferently, and he sipped his claret critically. + +"What has come to you, Jack? Have you decided to cut the world or have +heiresses become unnecessary? Perhaps someone has left you a fortune, +old man; if so, nobody will be more delighted than I shall be--to help +you spend it." + +A flush rose to Jack's face, and his eyes flashed. He had been drinking +great bumpers of the Hawks' favorite claret--a heady wine which Jack +should never have touched at any time, especially not tonight. + +"No, no one has left me a fortune; quite the reverse. But you'd better +tell me about this heiress, I see, or you'll die of disappointment. Who +is she--where is she?--what is she? Here's her good health, whoever she +is," and down went another bumper of the Lafitte; and as it went down, +it was to Una he drank, not to the unknown one. + +"Do you remember Earlsley?" said Arkroyd. "Oh, no, of course not, you +must have been in your cradle in the wigwam in that time. Well; old +Wigsley died and left his money to a fifty-second cousin, who turned out +to be a girl. No one knew anything about her; no one knew where to find +her; but at last there comes a claimant in the shape of a girl from one +of the Colonies--Canada. That isn't a colony, is it, though? +Australia--anywhere--nobody knows, you know. She came over with her +belongings--a rum-looking old fellow, with a white head of long hair, +like, a--a--what's got a long head of white hair, Dally?" + +"Try patriarch," murmured the marquis. + +"Well, in addition to the money, and there's about a million, more or +less--she's got the most beautiful, that isn't the word, most charming, +fascinating little face you ever saw. If she looks at you, you feel as +if you never could feel an ache or pain again as long as you lived." + +"Ark, you've had too much champagne." + +"No; 'pon my honor. Isn't it right, Dally?" + +"Yes, and if she smiles," said Dalrymple, "you never could feel another +moment's unhappiness. The prettiest mouth--and when it opens, her +teeth----" + +"Oh, confound it!" exclaimed Jack, brusquely. "You needn't run over her +points as if she were a horse; I don't want to buy her." + +As a matter of fact, he had only caught the last word or two, for while +Arkroyd had been talking he had been thinking of that other beautiful +girl--not a doll, with teeth and a smile, but an angel, pure and +ethereal--a dream--not a fascinating heiress. + +"Buy her!" exclaimed Arkroyd. "Listen to him! Don't I tell you she's +worth a million?" + +"And I'd make her Countess of Dalrymple tomorrow if she hadn't a penny, +and would have me," said Dalrymple. + +"Try her," said Jack, curtly. + +"No use, my dear Savage," he said, tugging at his incipient fringe of +down ruefully. "She won't have anything to say to yours truly, or to any +one of us for that matter. She only smiles when we say pretty things, +and shows her teeth at us. Besides, the title wouldn't tempt her. She's +got one already. Don't I tell you she's one of the Earlsley lot? No; +we've all had a try, even Arkroyd. He even went so far as to get a +fellow to write a poem about her in one of the society journals, and +signed it 'A. H.;' but she told him to his face that she didn't care for +poetry. It was a pretty piece, too, wasn't it, Ark?" + +"First-rate," said Arkroyd, with as much modesty as if he had written +it. "But it was all thrown away on Lady Bell." + +"On whom?" said Jack, waking up again. + +"On Lady Bell--Isabel Earlsley is her name. You're wool-gathering +tonight, Jack." + +"Oh, Lady Bell, is it?" said Jack, carelessly. "Go ahead. Anything +else?" + +"No, that's all, excepting that I'll wager a cool thousand to a china +orange that you'll change your tone when you see her, Savage." + +"Perhaps," said Jack, "but your description doesn't move me; not much, +Ark. You're not good at that sort of thing. It isn't in your line. The +only things you seem to have remarked are her smile and her teeth." + +"Savage, you are, as usual, blunt, not to say rude. Let us have another +bottle of Cliquot." + +Jack shook his head, but another bottle came up, and he sat and took his +share in silence, and, indeed, almost unconsciously. For all the +attention he paid to the chatter of his two friends they might not have +been present. + +His thoughts flew backward to the shady grove of Warden Forest, to the +girl who, like a vision of purity and innocence and loveliness, had +floated like a dream across his life. + +He gave one passing thought to Len, too, and his story. + +It was a strange coincidence that they should both have met their fates +at one and the same time, or nearly so. + +He would have thought it stranger still if he could have lifted the veil +of the future and seen how closely the web of his life was woven with +the woof, not only of Una's, but of Laura Treherne, and also of Lady +Bell Earlsley. + +All unconscious he had turned a leaf of his life's book, and had begun a +new chapter in which these three women were to take a part. + +But he sat and drank the champagne, knowing nothing of this, and--I am +sorry to have to say it--he was rapidly arriving at that condition in +which it is dangerous to be within a mile of that fascinating fluid. +When a man passes from a state of half-feverish restlessness and +dissatisfaction to one of comparative comfort, and that by the aid of +the cheering glass, it is time to put the cheering glass aside and go +home. + +Jack did not go home; on the contrary, he went into the billiard-room, +and Cliquot followed, as a matter of course. + +For a time Jack had managed to forget everything excepting his promise +to Len; he would not enter the card-room, but he stuck to pool and +champagne. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +I am not going to apologize for our hero, nor am I going to gloss over +his faults with any specious special pleading. No man is either wholly +good or wholly bad; certainly Jack was not wholly good; he was human, +very human, and blessed, or cursed, with a hot, passionate blood, which +made him more liable to trip than most men. But, at the same time, this +in justice must be said of him, that he very rarely sinned in this way. + +Tonight his blood was at full heat; the love which had sprung up like a +tongue of flame in his heart burned and maddened him, and to this +newly-born love was added the disappointment and bewilderment of Una's +sudden disappearance. Add, too, that he had been overstrained and upset, +and--well, there are the excuses and apologies, after all. + +Somewhere about two o'clock, when the club was full with men who had +dropped in from theater and ball-room, and amidst the popping of corks +and click of pool balls, a certain feeling came over poor Jack that he +had taken quite as much, and more, of the sparkling juice than was good +for him; and with that consciousness came the resolution to go home. + +The game was just over, and without a word he put up his cue, motioned +to a footman to bring him his hat, and, scarcely noticed in the crowd +and bustle, slowly descended the broad and indeed magnificent staircase +for which and its palatial hall the club was famous. + +He descended very slowly, with his hand on the balustrade, and having +reached the bottom, he filled a glass with water from the crystal filter +that stood on a side table in the porter's box, and sallied out. + +The night air struck upon his hot brow in a cool and welcome fashion, +and Jack stood for a moment or two, fighting with the hazy and +stupefying effects of the night's work. + +"I won't go home yet," he muttered. "Len will be cut up; he always is. +He's as bad as a father--almost as bad as a mother-in-law. Well, I +didn't touch the cards, anyhow. And if it had not been for those two +idiots, Ark and Dally, I shouldn't have got so far into the champagne. +How bright the stars shine--an unaccountable number of them tonight." +Poor Jack! "Never saw such a quantity! No, I won't go home yet. I'll +walk it off if I have to walk till tomorrow morning. Where am I? Ah! +where is _she_? Thank Heaven, she isn't near me now! I'm glad she's +gone; I'm glad I shall never see her any more. I'm not fit to see her; +not worthy to touch her hand. But I did touch it," and, with a kind of +wonder at his audacity, he stretched out his hand and stared at it under +the gas-lamp. + +Then he walked on perfectly indifferent to the direction, perfectly +indifferent to the weariness which was gradually--no, rapidly--coming on +him. + +Just at this time, while he was walking off the drowsy dream that had +got possession of him, a stream of carriages was slowly moving down Park +Lane, taking up from one of the best known houses in town--Lady +Merivale's. + +Lady Merivale was one of the leaders of _ton_ and had been one as long +as most middle-aged people could remember. To be seen at Lady Merivale's +was to be acknowledged as one of that small but powerful portion of +humanity known as "the upper ten." + +It was one of her ladyship's grand balls, and not only were the ball and +drawing-rooms full, but the staircase also, and any one wishing to enter +or exit had to make his way down a narrow line flanked on either side by +the youth and nobility of the best kind of society. + +That it had been a great success no one who knows the world--and Lady +Merivale--needs to be told. It had, perhaps, been one of her greatest, +for in addition to two princes of the blood royal, she had secured the +great sensation of the day, the young millionairess, Lady Isabel +Earlsley. + +And this was no slight achievement, for Lady Bell, as she was generally +called, was a wilful, uncertain young personage, from whom it was very +hard to procure a promise, and who, not seldom, was given to breaking it +when made, at least, so far as acceptation of invitations went. + +But she was there tonight; as the next issue of the _Morning Post_ would +testify. + +Jack had been really too careless and scornful in his indifference. Lady +Bell was not only beautiful, she was--what was more rare than +beauty--charming. She was rather short than tall; but not too short. She +had a beautiful figure; not a wasp waist by any means, but a natural +figure, full of power and grace. Her skin was, well, colonial; +delicately tinted and creamy; and her eyes--it is difficult to catalogue +her eyes, because their lights were always changing--but the expression +which generally predominated was one of half-amused, half-mocking light. + +With both expressions she met the open admiration of the gilded youths +who thronged round her, amused at their foppery, mocking at their +protestations of devotion. + +Tonight she was dressed neither magnificently nor superbly, but with, +what seemed to the women who gazed at her with barely concealed envy, +artful simplicity. + +Her dress was of Indian muslin, priceless for all its simplicity; and +she wore glittering in her hair, on her arms, and on her cream-white +bosom, pearls, that, in quantity and quality would have made the fortune +of any enterprising burglar. + +By her side stood--for they were moving toward the door, on their way to +an exit--an elderly woman, with an expressionless face, simply and +plainly dressed. She was generally spoken of as the watch dog; but she +scarcely deserved that name, for Lady Bell was quite capable of watching +over herself; and Mrs. Fellowes, the widow of the Indian colonel, was +too mild to represent any sort of dog whatever. + +Surrounded by a crowd of devoted courtiers, the great heiress and her +companion moved toward the door where the hostess stood receiving the +farewells and thanks of her guests; and when one thinks of the many +hundred times Lady Merivale had stood by that door, and undergone that +terrible ordeal, one is filled with amazement and awe at her courage and +physical strength. + +For forty years she had been standing at doors, receiving and meeting +guests; yet she stood tonight as smiling and courageous as ever. + +At last Lady Bell reached her hostess, and Lady Merivale, tired and done +up as she was, gave her special recognition. + +"Must you go, Lady Bell? Well, good-night. And thank you for making my +poor little dance a success. Thank you very much." + +Lady Bell said nothing, but she smiled "in her old colonial way," as +they called it, and threaded through the lane of human beings on the +stairs. + +"Lady Earlsley's carriage!" shouted the footman in the gorgeous Merivale +livery, and a little brougham drove up. + +Lady Bell hated show and magnificence. + +Her stables and coach-houses were crowded with horses and carriages, her +wardrobes filled to repletion with Worth's costumes and Elise's +"confections," as bonnets are called now-a-days, but a plain little +brougham was her favorite vehicle, and the simplest of costumes pleased +her best. + +All the way down the stairs she had to nod and smile and exchange +farewells, and at the bottom, in the hall, on the stone steps +themselves, she was surrounded by men eager to secure the privilege of +putting her into her little brougham. + +But she avoided them all, and sprang in as if she had not been dancing +for four hours, and throwing herself back into the corner, exclaimed: + +"Thank goodness, that is over. Poor old Fellowes! you are worn out. +Confess it." + +"I am rather tired, my dear," said Mrs. Fellowes, who had been sitting +against a wall all the evening. + +"Tired! of course you are; it's ever so much more tiring looking on than +dancing, and joining in the giddy round. I don't feel a bit tired; I'm a +little bored." + +"Bored! what a word, my dear Bell," murmured Mrs. Fellowes, sleepily. + +"It's a good word--it's an expressive word--and it just means really +what I feel." + +"And yet you received more attention than any woman--any girl--in the +room, my dear," murmured Mrs. Fellowes. + +"My money-bags may have done so," said Lady Bell, scornfully; "not I. Do +you think that if I were as penniless as one of Lady Southerly's +daughters, I should receive as much attention? Fellowes, don't you take +to flattering me. I couldn't stand that." + +"I don't want to flatter you, my dear Bell; but when the prince himself +dances twice with you----" + +"Of course he did. I am a celebrity. I am the richest young woman in the +kingdom, and he would have done it if I had been as ugly as sin--which +isn't ugly, by the way." + +"What strange things you say," murmured Mrs. Fellowes, with mild rebuke. +"I'm sure no girl received more attention than you have tonight. I sat +and watched you, my dear, and a spectator sees more of the game than a +player." + +"You are right, it is all a game, a gamble," retorted Lady Bell. "All +those nice young men were playing pitch and toss who should make the +hardest running with the great heiress. Do you think I am blind? I can +see through them all, and I despise them. There isn't a man among them +but would pay me the same court if I were as plain as Lucifer----" + +"My dear Bell----" + +"But it is true," said Lady Bell. "I can read them all. And if they knew +how I despised them, even while I smile upon them, they would keep at +arm's length for very shame. I wish I hadn't a penny in the world." + +"My dear Bell!" ejaculated Mrs. Fellowes, really and truly shocked at +such a fearfully profane wish. + +"I do! I do! I should then find out if any one of them cared for me--for +myself. You say I am beautiful, but you are so partial; do you think I +am beautiful enough to cause any man to risk his all in life for my +sake?" + +"I don't know. I don't just follow you," said poor Mrs. Fellowes. + +"No, you are half asleep," retorted Lady Bell. "There, curl yourself up +and snooze. I shan't talk any more." + +Lady Bell leaned forward, and looked up at the stars--the same stars +that seemed so numerous to poor Jack--and pondered over the events of +the evening. + +It was true that a prince of the blood had danced there with her; it was +true that, all through the evening, she had been surrounded by a court +of the best men in London; it was true that she had sent one half the +women home burning with envy and malice and all uncharitableness; but +still she was not happy. + +"No," she murmured, unheard by the sleeping companion; "the dream of my +life has not yet been fulfilled. I have not yet met the man to whom I +could say, 'I am yours, take me!' Perhaps I never shall; and until I do, +I will remain Lady Bell, though they buzz round my money-bags till I am +deaf with their hum." + +The brougham was going at a great pace, simply because the coachman very +reasonably desired to get home and to bed; and Lady Bell saw the houses +flit past as if they had been part of a panorama got up for her special +amusement. + +But suddenly the brougham swerved, and, indeed, nearly upset, and the +stillness of the night was broken by what seemed remarkably like an oath +by the coachman. + +Lady Bell felt that something was wrong; but she neither turned color +nor lost her presence of mind. + +Putting her head, with a thousand pounds of jewels on it, through the +window, she said, in clear tones: + +"What is the matter, Jackson?" + +"I--whoa! I don't quite know, my lady; I think it is a man. Something +came right across the road. Yes, it is a man." + +Lady Bell opened the brougham door, stepped into the road--the light +from the lamp flashing on her pearls--and went toward the horse. + +"Keep away from her hind legs, for goodness' sake, my lady," ejaculated +Jackson. "Keep still, will you!" this was of course addressed to the +horse. + +"What is it? what is it?" asked Lady Bell, peering about. + +"Here, my lady, on the near side--on the left. It's down in the road, +whatever it is." + +Lady Bell went behind the brougham to the near side--she was too well +acquainted with horses and their moods to cross in front of the horse's +eyes--and looked about her. For a moment she could see nothing, but +presently, when her eyes had become used to the darkness, she saw a man +lying, as it seemed, right under the horse's body. + +Her impulse--and she always acted on that impulse--was to pull him out. +But to pull a man even an inch is a difficult task even for the +strongest girl, and after a moment's tug she was about to tell Jackson +to alight while she stood at the horse's head, when suddenly the +prostrate man staggered to his feet, and leaned against the brougham as +if it had been specially built and brought there for that purpose. + +Lady Bell went up to him and laid her hand upon his arm. + +"What has happened?" she said, anxiously. "Were you run over--are you +hurt?" + +Jack--for it was Jack--opened his eyes and stared at her with the +gravity of a man suddenly sobered. + +"No," he said, "I am not hurt. Don't blame the man, it was my fault. Not +hurt at all. Good-night." + +And he feels for his hat, which at that moment was lying under the +carriage a shapeless mass. + +As he spoke Lady Bell saw something drop on to his hand, and looking at +it saw that it was a drop of blood. + +With a shudder--for she could not bear the sight of blood--she said: + +"Not hurt! Why, you are bleeding." + +"Am I?" said Jack, gravely and curtly. "It will do me good. Don't you be +alarmed, miss. I am used to being upset, and my bones are too hard to +break. Good-night." + +And he made for the pavement pretty steadily. But a hand, soft and warm, +and strong also, stayed him. + +"Stop," said Lady Bell; "I am sure you are hurt. How did you come to be +run over?" + +"Got in the way of the horse, I suppose," said Jack, quietly. "That is +the usual way." + +"But--but," said Lady Bell; and she looked at the handsome face +scrutinizingly. + +Then she stopped, for her scrutiny had discovered two facts; first, that +the individual who had been run over was a gentleman; secondly, that he +had been drinking. + +"Wait," she said, still keeping her hand on his arm; "you are not fit to +go alone without some assistance, and I am sure you are hurt. Look, you +are bleeding." + +"A mere nothing," said Jack; "don't trouble. Allow me to put you in--I +shall get home all right." + +Lady Bell, still keeping her eyes fixed on his face, shook her head. + +"I couldn't leave you like this," she said. "Where do you live?" + +"Where do I--live?" repeated Jack. "Spider Court, Temple. It's no +distance from here." + +"The Temple!" exclaimed Lady Bell. "It must be miles away." + +"A hansom," smiled Jack. + +"But there are no cabs here, not one. I cannot leave you like this--you +must get into the brougham." + +"Not for worlds! I have given you quite enough trouble," he said. "I +shall find my way home somehow." + +"No," she said; "I cannot let you go without seeing you safe into a cab. +There are none here. You do not know--I do not know--how much you are +hurt. You must let me take you to your home." + +"I assure you I am all right," he said. + +"And I refuse to accept your assurance," said Lady Bell, with a little +shudder at the streak of blood which oozed from his forehead. "Come, you +will not refuse to obey a lady. I wish you to enter my brougham." + +"No, I can't refuse to obey a lady," he said. + +"Then come with me," said Lady Bell. + +"Where to, my lady?" asked Jackson, who was used to her ladyship's +willfulness, and sat, patient as Job, waiting for the issue of this +strange adventure. + +"To--where did you say?" asked Lady Bell. + +"Spider Court," said Jack; "but I wish you'd let me go out and walk. It +must be right out of your way." + +"Spider Court, Temple," said Lady Bell, and the brougham rolled on. + +Through it all Mrs. Fellowes had remained in the deep sleep which the +gods vouchsafe to good women of her age, and the two--Lady Bell and +Jack--were, to all intents and purposes, alone. + +Lady Bell looked at him as he sat in his corner, the thin, red stream +trickling down from his forehead, and shuddered; not at him, but at the +blood. + +"How did you come to be run over?" she asked. "Did you fall?" + +"Must have done," he said, coolly; "anyway I'll swear it wasn't the +coachman's fault." + +"I am not going to blame the coachman," said Lady Bell, with the shadow +of a smile. + +"That's right," said Jack. "It was all my fault. I'd been--been to see a +favorite aunt." + +"You had been to your club," said Lady Bell. + +"How did you know that?" he said. + +Lady Bell smiled again, and Jack, his eyes fixed upon her, thought the +smile wonderfully fascinating. + +"A little bird told me," she said. + +"The little bird was right," said Jack, shaking his head, with penitence +and remorse written on every feature. "I have been dining at my club. +Perhaps the little bird told you everything else?" + +"Yes; the little bird also whispered that you had----" + +"Drank too much champagne? Confound those fellows! Wonderful little +bird!" muttered Jack. + +"It is very wicked of you," said Lady Bell, gravely, her eyes fixed on +his face, that, notwithstanding its streak of red, looked wonderfully +handsome. + +While she looked, she almost convinced herself that she had never seen +such a handsome face, nor such frank eyes. + +"It was very wicked of you," she repeated, in a voice pitched in a low +key, no doubt out of consideration for the sleeping watch dog. + +"Yes," he said, "I am a bad lot; I am not fit to be here with you. I +have been dining at my club; but how you knew it, I can't conceive. +And--and----" + +"Don't tell me any more," said Lady Bell. "I am sorry that you should +have been run over, and I hope you are not hurt. That--that is blood +running down your face. Why do you not wipe it off? I can't bear it." + +"I beg your pardon," said Jack, and he fumbled for his +pocket-handkerchief, which at that moment was lying under the seat in +the billiard-room. + +"Here, take this," said Lady Bell, and she put her own delicate +lace-edged one in his hand. + +Jack mopped his forehead diligently. + +"Is it all off?" he asked. + +"No, it keeps running," replied Lady Bell, with a little thrill of +horror. "I believe you are much hurt." + +"I'm not; I give you my word," said Jack. "There--no, I'll keep it until +it's washed." And he thrust the delicate cobweb into his pocket. + +Lady Bell leaned back, but her eyes wandered now and then to the +handsome face, pale through all its tan. + +Presently, wonderfully soon, as it seemed to her, the brougham came to a +stop, and Jackson, bending down to the window, said: + +"Spider Court, my lady." + +"Spider Court," said Jack. "Then I'm home. I'm very much obliged to you, +and I wish I didn't feel so much ashamed of myself. Hark! who's that?" +for someone had come to the carriage door. + +"It is I--Leonard. Is that you, Jack?" + +"Yes," said Jack, and he got out and closed the door. "This lady----" + +Lady Bell leaned out and looked at Leonard Dagle's anxious face +earnestly. + +"Your friend has met with an accident," she said, "and I have brought +him home." + +"Thank you, thank you," sighed Leonard. + +"I hope he is not much hurt," said Lady Bell. "His forehead is cut. Will +you--will you be so kind as to let me know if it is anything serious?" + +"Anything serious! A mere scratch," ejaculated Jack, carelessly. + +But Lady Bell did not look at him. + +"Here is my card," she said, taking a card-case from the carriage +basket. "Will you please let me know? Good-night." + +And she held out her hand. + +Leonard did not see it, and merely raised his hat. But Jack, who was +nearest, took the hand and held it for a moment. + +"Good-night, good-night," he said. "I shall never forgive myself for +causing you trouble." + +And in his earnestness his hand, quite unconsciously, closed tightly on +her white, warm palm. + +Lady Bell dropped back into her seat, a warm flush spreading over her +face; and Mrs. Fellowes, awakened by the stopping of the brougham, +exclaimed, with a yawn: + +"Home at last!" + +"No, miles away," said Lady Bell. "Go to sleep again, my dear." + +Leonard took Jack's arm within his, though there was no occasion for it, +for Jack was sober enough now, and led him upstairs. + +"My dear Jack," he exclaimed, reproachfully, "what have you been doing?" + +"Falling under a cab," said Jack, gravely. + +"A cab!" retorted Leonard; "a lady's brougham, you mean!" + +And he took the card to the light. + +"Why!" he exclaimed, with an expression of amazement. "Lady Isabel +Earlsley! Good Heaven! that's the heiress." + +"Eh?" said Jack, indifferently. "What's her name? She's a brick, if ever +there was one. Oh, Jupiter, I wish I was in bed!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +It was Una's first night in London. Weary as she was she could not find +sleep; the dull roar of the great city--which those who are used to take +no heed of--rang in her ears and kept her awake. Her brain was busy, +too; and even as she closed her eyes the endless questions, which the +strange events of the day had given birth to, pursued and tormented her. +She could scarcely realize that she had left Warden Forest, that she was +here in London, the place of her most ardent dreams! And then how +singular, how mysterious was that coincidence which had brought it +about. + +Until Jack Newcombe, the young stranger, had come to Warden, she had +never heard the name of Davenant, and now she was actually living under +the roof of Stephen Davenant's mother. + +With half-closed eyes she recalled all that Jack had said about Stephen +Davenant, and it did not require much effort to recall anything Jack had +said, for every word was graven on her heart, and it had seemed to her +as if he had spoken disparagingly of this Stephen, and had implied that +he was not as good as he was supposed to be. + +She herself, as she lay, her beautiful head pillowed on her round white +arm, was conscious of a strange feeling which had taken possession of +her in Stephen's presence--not of dislike, but something of doubt, +something also of a vague fear. + +And yet he could not but be good and generous, for was it not to him +that she owed all that had happened to her? And did not his mother, the +timid, gentle woman who had already won Una's heart, speak of him as +great and good? + +Alas! and a faint flush stole over her cheek, and a long sigh stole from +her lips--alas! it was that other--Jack Newcombe--who was bad; it was he +whom she was to avoid. + +And so, notwithstanding that she was in the very city of her dreams, she +fell asleep with a vague sadness in her heart. + +Quiet as Walmington Square is, the noise of the market carts passing to +Covent Garden awoke her soon after dawn. + +She looked round with a stare of amazement as her eyes fell upon the +dainty room, with its costly furniture and rich hangings, and listened +for a moment, as if expecting to hear the rustle of the great oaks which +surrounded the cottage at Warden; then she remembered the change that +had befallen her, and springing out of bed, ran to the window. + +All the square was asleep; the blinds were closely drawn in all the +houses, and only the birds on the trees seemed thoroughly awake. + +She could hear the market carts rumbling in the great thoroughfare +beyond, and as she had gone asleep with the rattle of wheels in her +ears, she asked herself, wonderingly: + +"Does London never rest?" + +She remembered that Mrs. Davenant had showed her a bathroom +communicating by a door from her own room, and then--with her cold water +was as necessary as air--went and had her bath; then she dressed +herself, and, opening her door, went downstairs. + +To her amazement, all the house seemed wrapped in slumber. + +At home, at the cottage at Warden, Gideon and all of them were up with +the lark, and life began with the morning sun. + +She stole into the drawing-room, and, unfastening the shutters with some +little difficulty, opened the window and leaned out to breathe the fresh +air; but it seemed as if the air was asleep, too, or, in its journey +from the country, had lost itself in the maze of houses, and failed to +reach Walmington Square. + +Una looked out dreamily, wondering who and what sort of people lived in +the huge blocks of dwellings that surrounded her, and wondered, faintly, +whether she could be looking at the spot where Jack Newcombe dwelt. + +She could not guess that Jack had not come back from Hurst Leigh yet, +but was waiting for the squire's funeral. + +Instinctively she turned to the table and took up the album and went +back to the window with the book open at the page which contained Jack's +portrait. + +How beautiful the face was! And yet, she thought, with a warm glow in +her eyes, that she had seen it look still more beautiful, as she had +looked down at it the morning he lay sleeping at her feet. + +Presently a servant came into the room, and startled at the sight of the +white figure by the window, uttered an exclamation. + +"Good-morning," said Una. + +Closing the book she came forward and held up her face to be kissed, as +she had always done to Mrs. Rolfe. + +The maid--a pretty young girl, fresh from Devonshire--stared at her and +looked half-frightened, while a crimson flush of embarrassment came into +her face. + +"Good-morning, miss," she said, nervously, and hastily turned and fled. + +Una looked after her a moment, and pondered; and she would have made a +superb study for a painter at that moment. + +How had she frightened the pretty girl, and why had she declined to kiss +her? + +Una could not understand it. Hitherto she had lived only with equals, +and could not be expected to guess that it was a breach of the +proprieties to kiss this pretty, daintily-dressed little hand-maiden. + +As for Mary, the maid, she flew into the kitchen and sank into a chair, +gasped at the cook, speechless for a moment. + +"What do you think, cook?" she exclaimed, "that young lady--Una, as the +mistress calls her--is up already. I found her in the drawing-room, +and--and she said 'Good-morning,' and came up to me as if she--she +wanted me to kiss her." + +"You must be out of your mind, Mary," said the cook, sternly. + +But Mary stuck to her assertion, and at last it was decided that Una was +either out of _her_ mind, or that she was no lady. + +"And that I am sure she is," exclaimed Mary, and the other servants +assented heartily. "If there ever was a true lady, this one is, whoever +or whatever she may be. Perhaps she's just come from boarding-school." + +But the cook scoffed at the idea. + +"Boarding-school!" she exclaimed incredulously. "Do you think they don't +know the difference between mistress and servants there? It's the first +thing that is taught them." + +Meanwhile, quite unconscious of the discussion which her ingenuous +conduct had caused, Una wandered about the room, examining, with +unstinted curiosity, the exquisite china and valuable paintings, the +Collard and Collard grand piano, and the handsomely-bound books. + +An hour or two passed in this way; then she heard a bell ring and Mary +entered, and, eying her shyly, said: + +"Mistress says will you be kind enough to step up to her room, miss." + +Una went upstairs and knocked at Mrs. Davenant's door, and in answer to +the "come in," entered, and found Mrs. Davenant in the hands of her maid +Jane. + +Una crossed the room with her swift, light step, and kissed the face +turned up to her with a timid, questioning smile on it. + +"My child," exclaimed Mrs. Davenant, "have you been up all night? I sent +Jane to your room to help you dress." + +Una started, and a smile broke over her face. + +"To help me dress?" she repeated, Jane regarding her with wide open +eyes the while. "Why should she do that? I have always dressed myself +ever since I can remember." + +Mrs. Davenant flushed nervously. + +"I--meant to brush your hair and tie your ribbons--as she does mine; but +it does not matter if you would rather not have her." + +"I should not like to trouble her," said Una. + +"And how long have you been up, my dear?" + +"Since five," said Una, quietly. + +Mrs. Davenant stared aghast, and Jane nearly dropped the hair-brush. + +"Since five! My dear child! Ah! I see, you--you have been used to rising +early. I am afraid you will soon lose that good habit. We Londoners +don't rise with the lark." + +"I don't think there are any larks here," remarked Una, gravely; "and at +this time of the year the lark begins to sing at four. I have often +watched him rise from his nest in the grass." + +"My poor child, you will miss the country so much." + +"No," said Una; "I am so anxious to see the world, you know." + +"Well, we will begin today." + +"Una, you know I wish you to be quite--to be very happy with me. +And--and I hope if there is anything that you want you will ask for it +without hesitation." + +"Anything I want?" repeated Una, with a smile. "Is it possible that any +one could want anything more than is here? There seems to be everything. +I was thinking, as you spoke, of what my father would say if he saw this +table, with all the things to eat, and the silver and glass." + +"My dear child, this is nothing. I live very simply. If you saw, as you +will see, some of the homes of the wealthy, some of the homes of the +aristocracy, you would discover that what you deem luxury is merely +comfort." + +"I was never uncomfortable at the cottage," said Una, gravely. + +"That is because you were unused to anything better, and--and--you must +not speak of the past life too much, Una. I mean to strangers. Strangers +are so curious, and--and my son, Stephen, does not wish everyone to know +where you come from and how you lived." + +"Does he not? Well, I will not speak of it; but I do not +understand--quite----" + +"Neither do I. I am afraid I do not always understand Stephen; but--but +I always do as he tells me." + +And she looked up with the anxious, questioning expression which Una +noticed was always present when Stephen Davenant was mentioned. Was Mrs. +Davenant afraid of her son? + +Una mused for a minute in silence; then she looked up and said: + +"I ought to do what Mr. Stephen wishes. Do you know what he wants me to +do?" + +"You are to be companion to me, my dear." + +"I am very fond of fairy tales," she said; "but I have never read one +more strange and beautiful than this." + +"Let me show you how to put on your gloves, dear," she said. "Yes, you +have got a small hand, and a beautifully-shaped one, too. Strange, small +hands are a sure sign of high birth." + +"Perhaps I am a princess in disguise. No! I am a woodman's daughter in +the disguise of a princess, that is it." + +Mrs. Davenant looked at her curiously. + +"You are not ashamed of being a woodman's daughter, Una," she said; "but +yet--perhaps the time will come when you will----" + +Una's opened-eyed surprise stopped her. + +"Ashamed?" she echoed, with mild astonishment. "Why?" + +"I--I don't know. Never mind, my dear," said Mrs. Davenant, as the +brougham stopped. + +"You are a strange child, and--and you say such strange things so +naturally that I am puzzled to know how to speak to you." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +As the days passed on, Mrs. Davenant grew to understand more fully the +innocent but frank and brave nature of the beautiful girl whom her son +Stephen had so strangely committed to her charge; grew to understand and +to love her, and, bit by bit, her nervousness and timidity wore off in +Una's presence. Insensibly she grew to lean and rely on the girl, who, +with all her innocence and ignorance of the world, was so gently calm +and self-possessed, and Una, in return, lavished her love upon the +timid, shrinking woman. + +Mrs. Davenant had heard no word from Stephen; she was accustomed to such +silence, and almost dreaded to hear, lest it should be a message tearing +Una from her side. She did not know that Stephen was master of Hurst +Leigh and all the immense wealth of Ralph Davenant. + +Una did not know that Jack Newcombe was back here in London, almost +within half an hour of her. When she thought of her father and mother +there in Warden, it was always with the confident trust that they were +well, for she felt that if it were otherwise, Gideon would somehow let +her know. She was quite ignorant that the cottage was empty and +deserted. + +Indeed, there was not much time for thought. Day after day brought its +succession of wonderful sights and experiences, as the little green +brougham bore them about town, and Mrs. Davenant showed her all the +marvels of the great city. + +Una was dazzled, bewildered sometimes: but her instinctive good taste +helped her to keep back all extravagant expressions of surprise on her +voyage through Fairyland. + +One day, however, an exclamation of delight escaped her, as she came in +sight of a jeweler's window, opposite which the brougham had stopped. + +To her who had only read of precious stones, and regarded them as +objects almost fabulous, the window looked as if it contained the wealth +of the Indies and of Aladdin's palace combined. + +They entered and Mrs. Davenant asked to see some ladies' watches, +selected one and a handsome albert, and, with a smile, arranged them at +Una's waist, in which, to her equal amazement, she found a pocket +already provided. + +Pale with emotion, she could not utter a word, and to hide the tears +that sprang into her eyes, turned aside to look at a case containing a +magnificent set of brilliants. The jeweler politely unlocked the case, +and placed the bracelet in her hand. + +"A really magnificent set. It is sold. They were purchased by Lady +Isabel Earlsley." + +"Lady Earlsley," said Mrs. Davenant. "Ah, yes; she is fond of diamonds, +is she not?" + +"Yes, and of other precious stones, too, madam. She has excellent taste +and discrimination. Perhaps you have seen her set of sapphires?" + +"No," said Mrs. Davenant, in her quiet way, "I have met Lady Earlsley, +but I have not seen them." + +The jeweler opened an iron safe, and took out a case containing a +superb, a unique set of sapphires, and handed them to her. + +"This is it--I have it to alter. They are the purest in the world--finer +even than her ladyship's rubies, which are considered, but wrongly, +matchless." + +Una stared open-eyed, and the jeweler, pleased by her enthusiasm and +admiration, took the set from its case and laid it in her hands. + +As Una was bending over them fascinated, a handsome carriage drew up, +and the shop door was opened by a footman in rich livery. + +Una looked up, and saw a beautiful girl who, pausing in the doorway, +stood regarding her. + +The eyes of the two girls met, Una's with an instant frank admiration in +her calm depths--a curious, half-amazed, but also admiring stare in the +bright, dark eyes of the other. + +The jeweler glanced from the new-comer to the gems in Una's lap, and +changed color. Mrs. Davenant started nervously, and turned pale. + +With a quick, bird-like, but thoroughly graceful movement, the +richly-dressed lady turned, and with a smile of recognition, bowed. + +"Mrs.----" she said, and hesitated. + +"Davenant," said Mrs. Davenant. "How do you do, Lady Earlsley?" + +Lady Isabel Earlsley, the great heiress and queen of fashion, held out +her hand in her quick, impulsive way, but turned her quick glance on +Una, whose eyes had never left the dark, bewitching face. + +"Your daughter, Mrs. Davenant?" + +Poor Mrs. Davenant trembled with nervous agitation. + +"No--no--a young friend, Miss Rolfe," she answered, tremulously. + +Lady Bell went straight up to Una and held out her hand, her eyes fixed +on the now flushed face. + +"How do you do?" she said, in the almost blunt fashion which her +admirers declared so charming, and which, though envious tongues +declared an affectation, was a perfectly natural consequence of her +early life. + +Una put her hand in the delicate white gloved one, and the two women +looked at each other for a moment in silence. + +Was it possible at that moment that some prophetic instinct whispered to +the heart of each that the threads of both their lives were doomed to be +entangled together? + +Then Una suddenly remembered that she had in her hand the jewels +belonging to this young lady, and with a grave smile she put them back +in their case. + +"You are looking at my sapphires, I see," said Lady Bell, in a tone +which set the soul of the alarmed jeweler at rest. "Do you admire them? +Are they fine, do you think?" + +Una smiled. + +"I do not know. They are very beautiful. I have never seen anything like +them before." + +"Really," said Lady Bell, with a nod; "I don't care for them. They don't +suit me; there is not enough color in them." Then, turning to the +jeweler, she said, in that quiet tone of command which for the first +time fell upon Una's ears: "Give me the rubies, please." + +The man hastened to hand her a case from the safe, and Lady Bell placed +the contents in Una's lap. + +"Ah!" she said, with a smile, as Una's eyes opened wide with admiration, +at once childish and yet dignified, "you are of my opinion, too. But the +sapphires would suit you best. I wish I were your husband." + +Una looked up with a smile of grave astonishment; and Lady Bell turned +with a light laugh to Mrs. Davenant. + +"How puzzled she looks! I mean," she went on to Una, "that if I were +your husband I would give you the sapphire set; though a lover would be +more suitable, would it not?" + +Then seeing Una's grave, open-eyed wonder, Lady Bell turned to Mrs. +Davenant, and in a low tone, said: + +"Who is she, Mrs. Davenant?--has she just come out of a convent? She is +simply lovely; her eyes haunt me--who is she?" + +Mrs. Davenant stammered, and fidgeted speechlessly. + +"Ah!" said Lady Bell, quickly, in the same low tone. "You think I'm rude +and ill-bred. They all do when I ask a simple question, or show the +slightest interest in anything." She glanced at Una lingeringly: "I +mustn't ask, I suppose?" + +"I--I--she is new to London," said Mrs. Davenant. "It is her first +day----" + +"Her first day!" echoed Lady Bell, her eyes twinkling. "Do you mean that +she was never in London before? How I envy her; I who am sick and weary +of it! Yes, the glamour is on her; I can see it in her eyes--on her +face. She is like some beautiful wild bird who has settled on an +inhabited island for the first time, and is marveling at the strange +sights and faces--look at her!" and she touched Mrs. Davenant's arm. + +Una, quite unconscious of their scrutiny, was sitting looking dreamily +into the street with its ceaseless throng of carriages and people. Lady +Bell had hit upon a happy simile; she looked like some beautiful bird, +half stupefied by the strange life moving around her. + +Mrs. Davenant rose; but Lady Bell, with a gentle pressure, forced her +back into her seat. + +"Not this minute; leave her for a minute. See what a beautiful picture +she makes! New to London! Do you know what will happen when London finds +that she is in its midst?" + +Mrs. Davenant looked up helplessly. She, too, looked like a bird--like +some frightened pigeon in the clutch of a glittering hawk. + +"You can't guess," went on Lady Bell, with a smile. "Well, it will make +a queen of her--all London will be at her feet within a month, and I--I +shall be dethroned." + +The last few words were spoken--murmured--almost inaudible, and in a +tone that was half sad, half mocking. But suddenly her mood changed; and +with a smile that lit up her face, and seemed to dance like a flash of +sunlight from eyes to lips and back again, she said: + +"At any rate be mine the credit of discovering her. I am the first at +the shrine of the new goddess!" and touching Una's hand with the top of +her gloved finger, she said: "Miss Rolfe, Mrs. Davenant has been kind +enough to promise to come and see me tomorrow night. Are you fond of +dancing?" + +"I don't know," said Una, with a smile. "I do not know how to dance----" + +"Heavens!" murmured Lady Bell. + +"You forget, Lady Bell," murmured poor Mrs. Davenant. + +"Ah, yes, yes; I remember," said Lady Bell, hastily. "Well, you will +come and see how you like it, won't you?" + +Una looked at Mrs. Davenant inquiringly, and Lady Bell looked from one +to the other impatiently. + +"Do not say 'No,' pray, Mrs. Davenant," she said, with her dark, bright +eyes. "I have set my heart upon it, and a disappointment is +intolerable. Besides, why should you say 'No?' You would like to come?" + +"Yes, I should like to come," said Una gravely. + +Lady Bell looked at her as if fascinated. + +"From a convent, certainly," she murmured. + +"Then it's settled. Remember! I shall look for you--shall wait for you +with impatience. Mrs. Davenant, I count upon you." + +"But--but I cannot go out, Lady Earlsley--I am in mourning." + +Lady Bell sighed impatiently. + +"I am so sorry! I have never set my heart upon anything so much in my +life," she said. "Something tells me that we shall be great friends! Are +you fond of jewels, lace, books?--what are you specially fond of?" And +she seemed to dazzle Una with her smile. "You shall see them +all--everything. Yes, let her come, and I will take such care of her as +if she were something too precious to be touched; she shall not leave my +side all the evening. Let her come, Mrs. Davenant!" + +Mrs. Davenant paled and flushed in turn. What would Stephen say--would +he be displeased or gratified? What should she do? She could not resist +the half-imploring, half-commanding eyes which Lady Bell flashed upon +her, and at last murmured a frightened "Yes." + +With a smile that seemed to set the diamonds scintillating, Lady Bell +shook hands with Mrs. Davenant, and taking Una's, held it for a moment +in silence, then, with a sudden gravity, she said: + +"Good-bye. I will take care of you. I will be your _chaperon_. We shall +meet again," and was gone. + +So interested and absorbed had she been in Una that she had quite +forgotten her purpose in entering the shop, and had gone without another +word to the jeweler. + +He showed no surprise, however, but smiled complacently as he put the +jewels back into their cases, being quite used to Lady Bell's vagaries, +and he bowed Mrs. Davenant and Una out with increased respect and +deference. + +Lady Bell, attended by the two footmen, entered her carriage, and Mrs. +Fellowes, her friend and companion, who had been sleeping peacefully, +awoke with a little start. + +"Well, my dear, have you got the rubies?" + +"The rubies?" said Lady Bell. "No, I quite forgot them." + +"Forgot them!" said Mrs. Fellowes. + +"Yes. What are stupid rubies compared with an angel?" + +"My dear Lady Bell!" exclaimed Mrs. Fellowes, "what are you talking +about?" + +Lady Bell leaned back with her hands folded in her lap, and her eyes +musingly staring at nothing. + +"Yes, an angel," she repeated. "I never believed in them until today, +but I have seen one this morning--in a jeweler's shop." + +"Lady Bell, how strangely you talk. I am getting alarmed." + +"You always are," said Lady Bell, coolly. "I repeat, I have seen an +angel. You are always trying to flatter me by talking of my beauty and +such nonsense; but I have seen today a real beauty. Not a mere pretty +pet mortal like myself, but one of the celestials! With eyes like a wild +bird's, and a lady, too, I'll be sworn!" + +"My dear Bell, what language!" murmured Mrs. Fellowes. + +"A perfect lady; her hands, her voice would vouch for that. Her voice is +like a harp. If I had been a man I should have fallen in love with her +on the spot." + +"Fallen in love," said Mrs. Fellowes. "My dear Bell," with a politely +suppressed yawn, "I am half inclined to think you have taken leave of +your senses, and you will drive me out of mine. One night it is a young +man whom we nearly run over; a--I must say--a tipsy young man." + +"No; he had only taken too much wine." + +"Well, if that isn't being tipsy----" + +"Don't, don't," said Lady Bell, pleadingly; "we might have killed him." + +"I don't know that he would have been much loss to the world at large," +said Mrs. Fellowes. + +"Home!" said Lady Bell to the footman; and she sank back with a +brilliant flush on her face. + +Mrs. Davenant drove home also, and in considerable perturbation. What +had she done? What would Stephen say? + +Fortunately for that young man's peace of mind, he was resting at ease +at Hurst Leigh, little dreaming that Lady Bell, or any one else, would +meet Una, and coax her out of his mother's nerveless hands. + +Una, with quick sympathy, saw that her companion was distressed, and +with a gentle touch of her hand, said: + +"You do not like me to go to this lady's house. I will not go. No; I +will not go." + +"My dear," she replied, with a sigh, "it isn't in our hands now. You +don't know Lady Bell--nor do I very well; but I know enough of her to be +convinced that if you do not go tomorrow night, she would come and fetch +you, though she left all her guests to do so." + +"Is she then so--so accustomed to having her own way?" + +"Always; she always has her own way. She is rich--very, very rich--and +petted; and she is even more than that; she--she--I don't know how to +explain myself. Well, my dear, she is a sort of queen of society, and +more powerful than many real queens." + +"So that when she commands such as I am I must obey," said Una, with her +low, musical laugh. + +"Just so," said Mrs. Davenant, with a sigh. "But you will be careful, my +dear. I mean, don't--don't let her put you forward, remind her of her +promise to keep you at her side." + +"I think I would rather not go." + +"Don't be frightened, my dear," said Mrs. Davenant, kindly; but Una's +calm, steady look of response showed her that there was no fear in the +young, innocent heart. + +"No, I am not frightened," she said. "I do not know what I am to fear." + +Having consented to Una's going, Mrs. Davenant lost no time in making +the few necessary preparations. She selected a plain but rich evening +dress, set her own maid to make the required alterations, selected from +her own store a sort of old Honiton, and gave orders that some white +flowers should be bought at Covent Garden the next morning. + +"White flowers, my dear," she said, nervously. "Because I--I am not +sure that Stephen would not consider that your being in the house with +me you are not in mourning. But, then, you are no relation, my dear." + +"I wish I were," said Una, kissing her. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +At nine o'clock the next evening the quiet-looking green brougham came +round to the door, and took them rapidly to Park Lane. + +Una had already grown almost weary of staring out of the carriage +window, but her wonder and interest revived as she saw in the dusky +twilight the green trees and flowers in the most beautiful park in the +world, and amazed at the magnificent buildings past which they rolled. + +Presently the brougham drew up at a corner house facing the park; an +awning was suspended from the gateway to the pavement, and three footmen +in splendid liveries, which she recognized as those she had seen worn by +the servants attending Lady Bell's carriage, were standing to receive +the guests; one of them opened the brougham door and escorted them into +the hall, which seemed to Una, with its flowers and mirrors, its rich +hangings and statues, a fairy palace, and was about to usher them into +the drawing-room, when, upon hearing Mrs. Davenant's name, he bowed, and +took them into a small room at the side, which was Lady Bell's boudoir. + +"I will tell her ladyship," he said. + +Una had scarcely time to take in the exquisite beauty of the room, with +its antique furniture and costly knicknacks, when the door opened and +Lady Bell entered. She was exquisitely dressed; diamonds--the diamonds +Una had seen at the jeweler's--glittering in her hair and on her neck +and on her arms, and seemed to Una like some vision which at a breath +would vanish and leave the room to its subdued twilight again. + +With outstretched hands she came toward them, with her eyes dancing and +her cheeks flushed. + +"You have kept your word and brought my wild bird! I knew you would +come," and she took a hand of each, but suddenly reached up and kissed +Una. "Yes, I felt that you would come, but it is good of you all the +same, and to show you that I am grateful, I will let you go at once, +this minute, dear Mrs. Davenant!" + +Mrs. Davenant looked relieved. + +"Thank you! thank you, Lady Bell!" she said. "You--you----" + +"Will take care of your bird? Yes, that I will. You may trust her to me; +not a feather shall be ruffled." + +Mrs. Davenant murmured something about the time she would come for her, +and then with a timid look from one to the other was gone. + +"And now," said Lady Bell, "let me look at you," as if she had not been +doing so ever since she entered the room. "My dear, my dear, you +are----" she stopped short. "No, I'll not be the first to teach you +vanity. But tell me, do you ever look in your glass, Miss Rolfe--Miss +Rolfe, I don't like that name, I mean between you and me. My name is +Bell, and yours is----" + +"Mine is Una." + +"Una! That is delightful! And have you your lion? Where is he?" + +Una had never read the story of "Una and the Lion," and looked calmly +puzzled. + +"Well, if you have not one already, you soon will have. You don't +understand me. I am glad of that. But will you come now? This is a very, +very quiet little party, but you may be amused. And I will keep you by +my side all the evening. Come," and she drew Una's arm through her own +white one and led her through the corridor into the ball-room. + +It was not a large room. Lady Bell detested huge and crowded assemblies +too much to permit them at her own house, but it was, as a ball-room, +perfect. There was light, and just enough light, to show the tasteful +magnificence of the decorations, and nothing of that fearful glare from +innumerable lights, and their reflections in huge mirrors, which make +most ball-rooms so trying and unbearable. The band had just commenced as +they entered, and the whole scene, the beautiful room with its soft +draperies of Persian damask, the Venetian mirrors, the rich dresses of +the ladies, and the soul-moving strains of the best band in London, for +the moment overawed and startled the girl fresh from the primeval +forest. + +For a moment her eyes dilated almost with fear, and she unconsciously +drew back, but Lady Bell, with a gentle pressure of the arm, drew her +forward, and skillfully avoiding the dancers, took her to the further +end of the room, where, in a recess lined with ferns and tropical +plants, were arranged some seats so placed as to be almost hidden from +the room, while they allowed the sitter a full view of it. + +Lady Bell drew a fauteuil still further into the recess, and playfully +forced Una into it. + +"There, my wild bird, is your cage. You can see all the world without +being seen, and here you and I will take a peep at it. Now, don't you +want to know all their names and all about them?" + +Una smiled. She was a little pale and was trembling slightly. + +"No; I am too surprised and astonished at present. How beautiful it is, +and how lovely they are." + +"The women?" said Lady Bell, with a laugh, and a glance at the +unconscious face beside her, which she knew outshone all others there. +"You think so! Well, there are some pretty women here. There is Lady +Clarence--the one in light blue and swansdown--and Mrs. Cantrip--she was +the beauty last season. You don't understand?" + +"Last season!" said Una. "Who is the beauty this?" + +Lady Bell laughed and flushed a little. + +"Never mind, child," she said. "One who doesn't care a farthing about +it, at any rate. But look, do you see that tall lady there, dancing with +the short man with whiskers? She is the Countess of Pierrepoint, and he +is the Duke of Garnum----" + +"A duke?" said Una, surprised. + +"You expected to see a man seven feet high in his ducal robes?" she +said. "See those two men who have just come in? The dark one is Sir +Arkroyd Hetley, the other, the boy--the baby they call him--is a +marquis, the Marquis of Dalrymple. They are always together. They are +coming to shake hands with me." + +Una drew further into the shade as the two men, after hunting about the +room, came up to the recess, and listened as they paid their +compliments and seemed anxious to remain, but Lady Bell sent them off +quite plainly and distinctly, and sat looking toward the door, and +presently she ceased talking, and her bright, beautiful face grew quiet +and almost sad, certainly wistful, and at last she sighed and murmured: + +"No, he will not come." + +"Who will not come?" said Una. "Are you expecting any one?" + +"Did I speak?" she said. "Yes, I am expecting someone, but he will not +come. People one expects and wants never do--never do. You will find +that out in time, wild bird; you will find--ah!" and she started and +turned pale, and her hand, which had been laid on Una's arm, closed over +it with a sudden grip and flutter. + +Una looked up, and her face went deadly white. + +The room seemed to spin round with her, and the lights to flood her +brain and paralyze her, for there, towering above the throng, stood Jack +Newcombe. + +Jack Newcombe--not in his rough tweed suit, but in evening dress; Jack, +not with the frank, tender, pleasant smile which always rested upon his +face as it appeared in her dreams, but with a cold, half-irritable, and +wholly bored expression. + +Slowly she rose and glided into the shadow of the recess and hid +herself, her heart beating wildly, her whole form trembling with a +strange ecstasy of mingled fear and delight. + +At last she saw him again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +Poor Jack! How came he to be in Lady Bell's ball-room? + +The morning after she had nearly driven over him he woke to find Leonard +Dagle, his friend and fellow lodger, standing beside his bed and looking +down at him with a grave smile on his intellectual face. + +"Hallo!" said Jack, "the house on fire?" + +"Not at present," said Leonard, "though it would soon be if you lived in +it alone. Why don't you blow your candle out, and not chuck your +slippers at it? How are you this morning?" + +"How am I?" said Jack, staring. "How should I be? Quite well of course," +which was quite true, for Jack and the headache had not been introduced +to each other. + +"That's all right," said Leonard, with a smile. "Perhaps you remember +last night's tragic occurrence, then?" + +Jack thought for a moment, then shook his head gravely. + +"Len, I'm an idiot. I always was. It's a good job idiocy isn't catching +or you'd have caught it of me long ago. I made a confounded idiot of +myself last night. It was all Dalrymple and Hetley's fault, and I wish +they'd knock champagne off the club wine list. Did I take too much, +Len?" + +"What do you think?" said Leonard, grimly. + +"I'm afraid I did. For the first time in my life, or nearly--but I +didn't touch a card, Len." + +"I knew you wouldn't do that." + +"No, a promise is a promise with me," said Jack. "And I didn't drink +much, Len, 'pon my honor; but I was upset, and when a man is upset +he----" + +"He generally tries to get run over," said Leonard, with a smile. + +Jack stared, then he laughed. + +"By George! yes. I remember!" + +"But always does not get the luck to be rescued by a beautiful young +lady--who is an heiress--and who, instead of giving him in charge for +blocking the queen's highway, brings him home in her brougham." + +"It was a kind thing to do, certainly," said Jack, with a yawn. + +"Kind is a mild way of putting it," remarked Leonard. + +"It was more than I deserved," said Jack; "much more, and she's a +brick." + +"The man who calls Lady Isabel Earlsley a brick should be a bold man." + +At last Jack looked up, and pressing his chair back, said: + +"And now, old man, let's hold a council of war. Subject to be +considered: the future of a young man who has been cut off with a +shilling--by George! the poor old fellow didn't even leave me that--who +knows no trade, who cannot dig, and to beg is ashamed, and who is +penniless." + +"Quite penniless, Jack?" asked Leonard. + +Jack rose, and sauntering to a drawer, pulled forth an old tobacco +pouch, and pouring the contents on to the table proceeded to count the +small--very small--heap of coin. + +"Twenty-one pounds six-and-fourpence farthing--no; it's a brass +button--and a brass button." + +"Can't carry on this way long with that small amount of ammunition, +Jack." + +"Just so, old Solomon. Well, what's to be done?" + +"You might enlist." + +"Get shot, and break your heart. No, I'm too fond of you, Len. Go on; +anything else?" + +"Upon my word, you can't do anything." + +"Nary thing," admitted Jack, with frank candor. + +"What do men--well-born and high-bred men like you----" + +"What will you take to drink?" said Jack, bowing low. + +"Who have no money, and no brains----" + +Jack bowed again, and pitched the sugar tongs at him. + +"What do they do? They generally marry an heiress, Jack." + +"I shall never marry." + +"I've heard that remark before. The last it was from a man who married a +fortnight afterward." + +"I'm not going to marry in a fortnight. Go ahead." + +"I've done," said Leonard with a shrug. + +"Solomon is dried up," said Jack. "You don't keep a large stock of +wisdom on hand, old man." + +"I've given you the best I've got, and good advice too, with a +foundation to go upon. Your heiress is ready to your hand." + +"What do you mean?" said Jack. + +Leonard was about to reply, when the housekeeper entered and brought him +a card. He looked at it; it bore Lady Isabel Earlsley's name, and on the +back was written: + +"To inquire whether Mr. Newcombe was hurt last night?" + +Leonard pitched it across the table, as an answer to Jack's question. + +Jack read the card and flushed hotly, then threw it down again. + +Leonard took up a piece of paper, and rapidly wrote: + +"Mr. Newcombe's compliments, and he was not in any way injured by last +night's accident, which he deeply regrets as having caused Lady Earlsley +so much trouble," and gave it to the housekeeper. + +"What have you written?" asked Jack sulkily. + +"What you are too much of a bear to write," said Leonard, with a +smile--"an answer and an apology. Jack, you are a favorite of fortune. +Half the men in London would give the forefinger of their right hand to +get such a message from Lady Bell. I know her----" + +"So do I," broke in Jack, roughly; "I heard all about her at the club +last night. Hetley and Dalrymple bored me to death about her. She's a +great heiress and a beauty, and all the rest of it. I know, and I don't +want to hear any more." + +Jack went up to Len and laid his hand on his shoulder. + +"Forgive me, old fellow; but I--my heart is full. Only one woman in the +world has any interest for me, and she has gone--up to the sky again, I +suppose. What do I care for Lady Bell, or Lady anyone else? I tell you I +laid awake half the night thinking of that beautiful face, and dreamed +of her eyes the rest of the night; and I'd give all the world if I had +it, to find her. And much good it would do me if I succeeded? I couldn't +ask her to share twenty-one pounds six and a brass button!" + +"Forgive _me_, Jack," said Leonard, quietly. "I know what you mean. I'm +in love myself. But--but at any rate you can't treat Lady Bell rudely. +You must call and thank her." + +"Confound her!" said Jack, and hurried out of the room. + +Leonard looked after him, and then went on with his work. He saw no more +of him until late in the evening, when Jack came in and threw himself +into a chair, looking weary if not exhausted. + +"What have you been doing, Jack?" asked Leonard. + +"Looking for a needle in a bundle of hay," replied Jack, grimly. + +Leonard nodded. + +"I've been walking about ever since I left you, with scarcely a rest. +I've walked through every thoroughfare in London. I've looked into +windows and into shops. I've been warned off and told to move on by the +police, who thought I was a burglar on the search for a job; and here I +am and there is she as far off as ever. And yet I feel--Heavens knows +why--that she is here in London. Len, if you smile I shall knock you +down." + +"I was never farther from smiling than I am at this moment," said +Leonard quietly. + +"Do you know what I would do if--if the squire had left me any money?" +went on Jack, fiercely; "I would spend every penny of it in searching +for her. I'd have a hundred--a thousand detectives at work. I'd never +give them rest night or day till they found her." + +"And then?" said Leonard. + +Jack groaned and lit his pipe. Leonard looked at him. + +"I thought you had gone to call on Lady Earlsley," he said. + +Jack looked very much as if he really meant to knock him down, and +marched off to bed. + +When he came in to breakfast the next morning Leonard noticed that he +was dressed in proper walking attire, instead of the loose, free and +easy, well-worn suit of cheviot, but he said nothing. Jack looked up. + +"You are staring at my get-up, Len. Well, I'll do it; but mind it is +only to please you. What should I care what she thinks? though I ought +to do it, I know. I'll call and thank her, and then let there be an end +of it. I can't bear any chaff of that sort even from you, old fellow." + +Leonard nodded without a word, for he saw that the once frank face had +lost its careless _sang froid_ expression, and looked harassed and even +haggard. + +Jack smoked a pipe in silence, watching Leonard's rapidly moving pen; +then, without a word, went out. + +Two hours later he came in, and with an air of relief and even a smile, +said: + +"Well, I've done it, and it's over." + +"Well?" said Leonard, curiously. + +"Well, nothing; she wasn't at home," said Jack, triumphantly. + +"Not at home. What sort of a place was it?" + +"The best place in Park Lane," said Jack. "No end of flunkeys about, and +the rest of it. Looks as if she rolled in gold, as she must do to have +the place at all." + +"And you didn't see her?" asked Leonard. + +Jack colored and frowned. + +"What a curious beggar you are! Yes, I did see her; her carriage drove +up just as I was going away." + +"And you spoke to her?" + +"No, I just raised my hat and walked away," said Jack, gravely. + +Leonard shrugged his shoulders. + +"She will think you a boor." + +"So I am," said Jack. "What does it matter? Tell me something about +yourself. I am sick of myself. What have you been doing?" + +Leonard's pale face flushed. + +"I've been to Cheltenham Terrace," he said. + +"Well, did you see her?" + +"No," said Leonard, sadly. "I saw that the blinds in the upper windows +were down, and I went to the next door, and asked if anyone was ill." + +"Well?" + +"Yes, her grandfather, old Mr. Treherne, was ill, they said, and I came +away." + +"Well," said Jack, "at any rate you know where to find her--while I----" + +"I saw her shadow on the blind," said Leonard, simply. "I could swear to +it among a hundred. I watched her beautiful profile for an hour in that +railway carriage." + +"Treherne, Laura Treherne," said Jack. "It is a pretty name. What took +her to Hurst Leigh that night, I wonder? The night the squire died. Len, +it is a romance, but I envy you. If I knew where Una lived I'd hang +about the house night and day until I saw her. Len, do you know what it +is to be hungry, to be parched and dried up with thirst so that you +would give all you possessed--ten years of your life for a draught of +water? That is just how I feel when I think of that beautiful face, with +its soft brown eyes and innocent smile! And when do I not think of +her?" + +"And you didn't speak to Lady Bell?" said Leonard. + +Jack made a hasty explanation and made for the door, nearly running +against the housekeeper. + +"A letter for you, sir," she said. + +Jack tore it open, read it and threw it to Leonard. + +The envelope was a dainty gray color, and stamped with an elaborate coat +of arms, with the initials I. E. in cipher underneath, and inside was a +card of invitation to a ball, filled in by a lady's delicate hand, with +a line in addition. + +"With Lady Earlsley's compliments and regret that she was from home when +Mr. Newcombe called." + +"Jack, what condescension. You must go!" + +Jack stammered, and argued, and protested. He was too honest to plead +that he was in mourning; but he simply swore that he would not go. + +The day came round and the evening fell, and Jack came into the +sitting-room in evening dress, his tall form seeming to fill the room. + +Leonard used to say that it was a treat to see Jack in evening dress; +that he was one of the few men who looked to advantage in it, and he +turned from his eternal pen and ink to look at him with an approving +smile. + +"Yes," said Jack, fiercely, "I am going; I am a fool, but how can a man +stand against such a perpetual old nuisance as you are? But mind, I am +just going in and out again, and after this there is an end of it. I +shall enlist!" and out he went. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +Jack called a hansom--of course he could have walked, but he had no idea +of economy or the value of money--and was driven to Park Lane. + +Half a dozen times on the way he felt inclined to stop the cab, jump out +and go to the club--anywhere but Lady Bell's; but nevertheless, he found +himself in Park Lane, and ascending the staircase. He saw at once, by a +few unmistakable signs, that the party was a small and select one, and +furthermore, judging by the tasteful magnificence of the appointments, +that Lady Bell's wealth had not been very much exaggerated. + +He made his way slowly, for a dance was just over, and the stairs were +lined, as usual, with people mostly whom he knew, and had to stop to +speak to. Amongst them were Sir Arkroyd Hetley, and Dalrymple, of course +together. + +"Hullo, here's the Savage!" cried Hetley. "How do you do, Jack? You've +soon got on the war trail, old fellow," he added in a low voice and with +a significant smile. + +Jack growled something and made his way into the room. + +For a moment he could see nothing of Lady Bell, then as she came out of +the fernery and advanced toward him her dark eyes flashing, or rather +gleaming softly, with a faint, delicious color mantling on her cheeks, +he felt almost the same shock of surprise which had fallen on Una. + +He had scarcely noticed her the other night, had scarcely, indeed, seen +her, and he now saw, as it were for the first time, her beauty, set off +and heightened by the aid of one of Worth's happiest dresses, and +Emanuel's diamonds. In spite of himself he was dazzled, and his frank +eyes showed that he was. + +And Lady Bell? Well, though his face had scarcely left her mind's eye +since she had seen it, she was not disappointed. + +Notwithstanding the rather bored and surly--not to say ferocious +expression which set upon it--she thought him handsomer than even she +had remembered him. + +"This is very kind of you, Mr. Newcombe," she said speaking first, for +Jack had contented himself with bowing over her hand. + +"Kind?" said Jack, in his straightforward way. + +Lady Bell hesitated, and for the first time, perhaps, in her life, +smiled shyly. + +"I heard--they tell me--that it is as difficult to get Mr. Newcombe to a +dance as a prince of the blood royal." + +"It isn't much in my way," said Jack, quietly; "I am not a dancing +man--that is, I don't care for it." + +"Then it was kind," said Lady Bell, recovering her courage and smiling +at him with that wonderful smile which Hetley and all the rest of them +talked so much about. + +Jack looked at her. Yes, certainly she was very beautiful, and there was +a subtle something in that smile. + +His ill-temper began to disappear. + +"I should say," he said, "that a man ought to feel lucky at the chance +of getting here." + +"They also told me," said Lady Bell, archly, "that you never paid +compliments." + +"Someone seems to have been taking a great deal of trouble to make me +out a regular boor," said Jack, with his curt laugh. "Did they also tell +you that I lived in the woods up a tree, and existed on wild animals?" + +"Like a savage?" said Lady Bell, wickedly. + +Jack flushed and looked at her; then her smile conquered and he laughed. + +"Yes, that is what they call me, confound their impudence! But I'm a +very tame kind of a savage, Lady Earlsley; I shan't scalp you." + +"It wouldn't matter much, would it?" she retorted. "They make such +beautiful false hair now." + +Jack looked down on the soft, glossy head, with its thick, light coils, +and smiled. + +"Are you going to change your mind and scalp me, after all?" she said. +"You make me tremble when you look like that." + +Jack laughed right out. + +"No," he said; "even a savage is incapable of such ingratitude. I have +come to-night, Lady Earlsley, to thank you for your kindness the other +night, and to tell you how sorry I am that--that you should have had so +much trouble!" + +And a blush managed to show itself under the tan. + +Lady Bell looked down. + +"It was no trouble," she said. "I was afraid that you were hurt. It was +very clumsy and stupid of my man." + +"It was all my fault," said Jack, penitently. "I----" + +"Do not say any more," she said, gently, and she put her finger tips on +his arm. + +Jack looked at her, and met her gaze, full of concealed interest, and +his own eyes fell before it. + +They had been standing near the fernery, behind which stood Una; she +could hear every word, see every look. + +Pale and almost breathless she stood, her hands clasped in front of her, +her heart beating fast, her eyes fixed on Jack's face. She longed to +fly, yet could not move a foot. Something, his very presence, his very +voice, held her like a chain. + +She felt that if he were to turn and, seeing her, say, "Follow me!" she +must follow him, though it were to the end of the earth. + +A storm of conflicting emotions battled within her for mastery; a wild +delight at his presence, an intense longing that his eyes might turn and +rest on her, and at the same time an awful miserable feeling, which she +did not know was jealousy. + +How beautiful they looked, these two, Lady Bell, the heiress, in her +rich dress and splendid jewels, and he, with his tanned face and bold, +fierce eyes, his stalwart frame towering above all others, and sinking +them into insignificance. How well matched they seemed. Why--why did +Lady Bell smile at him like that? No wonder his face had grown brighter. +Who could resist that bewitching smile? + +The music of a waltz commenced and recalled her to a sense of her +position. With a start she drew still further back, so that she was +quite out of sight. + +"There's a dance," said Jack, in his blunt way. "I would ask if you were +free to give it to me, but I cannot dance to-night. I am in mourning. +Don't let me keep you, though." + +"That is a plain intimation," said Lady Bell; "but I am sorry that you +are in trouble. In sober earnest it was kind of you to come. I hope it +was no one near to you." + +"No," said Jack, and his face clouded at the recollection of Hurst +Leigh. "It was a very dear old friend who had been very good to me." + +Lady Bell inclined her head, and her voice grew wonderfully soft. + +"I see that I must not keep you. I shall not be offended if you leave us +at once. If I had known----" + +Now here was Jack's opportunity. Why did he not seize it and go? + +"Thanks," he said; "although I won't dance I'll stay a little while if +you'll permit me." + +Lady Bell bowed. + +"Thank you," she said, almost humbly, as if he had granted her a great +favor, as it seemed to Una. + +At this moment the great--or little--duke came up with a smile. + +"Am I fortunate enough to find you free for this, Lady Earlsley?" + +Lady Bell looked at her card, carefully keeping it out of his reach, and +shook her head. + +"I'm so sorry! My partner will be here directly, I expect." + +The duke bowed, expressed his regret, and moved off, not without a +glance at Jack, who stood calm and possessed; and Una knew, +notwithstanding all her ignorance, that Lady Bell was not engaged, but +had refused the duke that she might keep Jack by her side; and with this +knowledge the demon jealousy sprang into life, and made himself fully +known. + +With an awful aching of the heart she sank into a seat and hid her face +in her hands. + +What right had she there--she, the ignorant, untaught forest girl, among +these grand people? Even supposing that he saw her he would not remember +her, and if he did he would not care to waste a glance or a word on her, +while such a beautiful creature as Lady Bell was willing to refuse a +duke for his sake. + +Suddenly the brilliant scene seemed to grow dark and joyless; the music +sounded harsh and out of tune; all the beauty had vanished, and she +longed to be sitting in the depths of Warden Forest. + +"Your partner doesn't seem to turn up," said Jack. "He's an ungrateful +idiot." + +Lady Bell laughed and sank down in a fauteuil just in front of the +recess. + +"I forgive him," she said, and she swept her skirts aside to make room +for him. + +Jack sat down, not gratefully, but quite courtly. + +Lady Bell was silent for a moment, then she said: + +"I would have sent a card for your friend, but I could not remember his +name." + +"Oh, Len," said Jack, shaking his head. "I'm afraid he would not have +come. He never goes out--at least not to this sort of thing. He's a book +worm, and doesn't care for the gaieties. His name is Leonard Dagle." + +"He is a great friend of yours?" + +"The best that ever man had," said Jack, quietly; "more than a brother." + +"You live with him?" she said, with an interest only too palpable to the +listening Una, whom Lady Bell had quite forgotten. + +"Yes, we live together--have done so for years--always shall, I hope, +till----" + +He paused. + +"Till death, were you going to say?" said Lady Bell. + +"No, I wasn't," said Jack, simply. "I was going to say till I took his +advice and--enlisted." + +"Enlisted!" she repeated, turning her beautiful face full upon him. + +Jack colored and frowned. + +"Yes," he said, stoutly; and though he said not a word more, Lady Bell +knew that he was poor and in trouble. + +It was just the one thing wanted to finish the romance. He was poor and +in trouble, while she was rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Why should +she not say as she longed to do: + +"You want money. See, here am I who have more than I know what to do +with; take some of it and make me happy!" + +Instead, she thought it only, and remained silent. + +"How hot it is," she said presently. "It is more than time to leave +London. One longs for the green fields and the sea." + +"It is late," said Jack. + +"We are staying in town," she said, "because my father is a bookworm and +can only live near a library--he only exists elsewhere. I cannot find it +in my heart to tear him away from the British Museum; but we make the +best of it. We are going to have a water-party to-morrow at Richmond." + +"Yes," said Jack. + +She waited for him to ask for an invitation; then, pressing her lip with +her fan, said: + +"Will you join us?" + +Jack hesitated a moment. + +"I shall be delighted," he said. + +"You don't look it," she said. "But I forgot--savages rarely smile. At +any rate, we start to-morrow at twelve o'clock. Sir Arkroyd is going to +drive us down in Lord Dalrymple's drag." + +"Perhaps there isn't room," said Jack. + +"Are you trying to find an excuse for not coming?" she said, smiling on +him. + +Jack frowned, and then laughed. + +"I'll come," he said. + +Yes, there was a nameless charm about her which had made itself felt +already. Was it her beauty or her frankness--the latter so different to +the cut-and-dried and measured manner of the ordinary women of society? + +"I'll come," he said. + +Then he looked around. + +"This is a beautiful room. Where did you get all the flowers from? Some +of them I never saw before in London." + +"Do you like them?" she said. "Many of them we brought over with us from +'across the seas,' the others I ransacked London to get--at least, poor +Mrs. Fellowes did." + +"Why poor?" he said. + +"Because she has the misfortune to be my companion, and I worry her to +death." + +"A pleasant death," he muttered. + +"Thanks," she said. "That is the second compliment you have paid me. And +yet they say you are not gallant, as the French have it." + +"It's the heat," said Jack, in his grim way. + +"You will find some ices in the ante-room there, behind that lace +curtain." + +"Shall I get you one?" said Jack. + +She nodded. + +"Thanks! Yes, that is the way," and she rose to point to a winding path +made through the rows of ferns and tropical plants. + +He had to pass her in going, and in doing so he struck a spray of a palm +with his head; it recoiled, and caught some of its soft, spiky leaves in +her hair. + +She uttered a half-laughing cry, and Jack turned. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. "I am awfully clumsy. Allow me." + +She bent her head toward him, laughing, and Jack disentangled the silken +threads from the great clinging leaf. In doing so he again proved his +clumsiness, for the silken threads got round his fingers. + +He could feel her soft, peach-like face against his wrist, and being +human his blood thrilled. + +Lady Bell looked up. Her face was pale, and her eyes drooping and +languid. + +"Are you going to scalp me after all?" she murmured. + +Jack's heart beat strangely. + +"I--I am very sorry," he muttered below his breath, and with lowered +eyes he went on. + +Lady Bell looked after him and drew a long breath. A sigh that almost +echoed hers startled her, and turning she saw Una, sitting where she had +left her, with her hands clasped in her lap. + +"My child," said Lady Bell, "I had almost----" + +"Yes, you had quite forgotten me," said Una, with a strange smile. + +Lady Bell flushed and looked at her. Her lovely face was pale and her +eyes clouded with a strange look of pain and weariness. + +"Forgive me, my child," she said. "You are quite pale--you are tired. It +is too hot. Wait! there are some ices coming." + +"No, no," said Una, with a sudden shrinking. "Please leave me--do not +bring him here--I mean----" she stammered, "I would rather be alone. Go +and dance, Lady Bell." + +"What a timid fawn it is," said Lady Bell, caressingly. "There, go and +sit in the shade there. Don't be frightened; I promised to take care of +you." + +"I am not frightened," said Una, quietly, "but I would rather----" + +"I understand," said Lady Bell, quickly; then she said, trying to speak +carelessly and toying with her fan: "Did you see the gentleman I was +speaking to, dear?" + +"Yes," said Una, calmly. + +"Don't you think that he is very handsome?" + +Una's heart beat so fast that she could scarcely speak. + +"Yes," she answered, at last. + +"What a cold Diana it is!" said Lady Bell, caressingly. "What an icy +'yes.' My dear, he is the handsomest man in the room." + +"Yes," said Una, sadly. + +Lady Bell looked at her. + +"I see, for all your yesses, that you don't think so," she said, with a +laugh. "Do you know they call him the Savage, and that it is quite an +achievement on my part to get him here? I made his acquaintance by +accident. Mrs. Fellowes is quite shocked over it. But I always do as I +like. I've got a fancy, Una--you'd never guess it." + +"What is it?" said Una, raising her dark eyes gravely to the beautiful, +witching face. + +Lady Bell smiled. + +"I have a fancy for taming the Savage," she said, more to herself than +to Una; "it will be so amusing." + +Una turned her head aside. + +"For him, do you mean?" she asked, in a low voice. + +Lady Bell stared at her, and her color came and went amusedly. + +"What a strange child it is! For him? No, for me! And--yes, for him too. +What right has he to pretend to be invincible? Do you think I shall +succeed?" + +Una looked at her with an aching heart. + +"Yes," she answered; "I think you will succeed." + +"What a flatterer it is!" said Lady Bell, playfully. "Hush! here he +comes; half tamed already. Now for the first lesson," and, to Una's +surprise she glided from the recess and was instantly lost in the crowd. +A moment after Una saw her dancing with the duke. + +She drew back into the shadow and watched Jack. He came along slowly, +the ice in his hand, and looked around for Lady Bell, with astonishment +and something like anger in his face for a moment. Then he saw her +dancing with the duke in the center of the room, looked round for some +place to put the ice down, and, seeing none convenient, gently pitched +it, plate and all, into a fountain, to the considerable astonishment of +the gold fish. + +Then he sat down and thrusting his hands into his pockets, seemed lost +in thought; his head thrown back, almost touched Una's arm, and she +wondered whether he would be glad or sorry, or simply indifferent, if +she rose and stood before him, or called him by name. + +Yes, there he sat, within reach of her hand. She had often dreamed of +him as being near her, but it was no dream now. + +An infinite longing to touch, to speak to him, possessed her, and if he +would but turn and look at her as he had looked that morning by the +lake! + +She struggled hard against the temptation, and sat motionless, all her +heart going out toward him. + +If she had known that Jack, even at that moment, was thinking of her, +and recalling her every look and word. It was one of Strauss' waltzes +they were playing, but he heard it not; in his ears was the rustle of +the forest trees and the ripple of the lake; before him was one of the +most beautiful ball-rooms in London, before him moved, in a glittering +pageant, the pick of London's beauty and rank, but he saw them not; he +was looking in fancy into the lovely face of the innocent forest girl. + +The dance was over, but still Lady Bell did not come; couples, +arm-in-arm, promenaded past him, but still Jack sat, and dreaming of the +girl who sat longing, longing for a word or look from him, just behind +him. Suddenly Una felt something drop into her lap. It was a blossom +from one of the tropical plants. + +She took it up and looked at it absently; then, as if by a sudden +inspiration, she raised it to her lips and kissed it, and rising, +dropped it on his knee and fled. + +Jack started, and stooping picked up the flower, looked at it for a +moment, and then turned and looked up to see whence it had come. + +As he did so he saw reflected dimly in a mirror framed in palm leaves a +girl's face. + +With a bound he darted to his feet, and naturally enough made for the +reflection; but ere he could reach the mirror the face had vanished. + +Pale and trembling with eagerness he turned--but Una had glided through +the ferns and reached the ante-room--and came face to face with Lady +Bell. + +She was flushed and laughing, her eyes dancing with the excitement of +the dance. + +"Well," she said, "where is my ice?" + +Jack, startled and bewildered, stared at her. + +"I must have been dreaming," he muttered. + +"Dreaming," she said. "What do you mean?" + +He passed his hand over his brow. + +"Your ice!" and he glanced at the fountain. "I--I beg your pardon. What +did I do with it? I will get you another." + +"Never mind!" said Lady Bell, laughing; "I do not care for it now; I am +too hot. Have you been asleep?" + +"Asleep!" he said, striving to recover his coolness; "nearly. What could +I do when you left me?" + +"The third compliment," she said, with a smile. "Where are you going +now?" for Jack, with his eyes fixed on the end of the fernery, was +moving slowly away. + +"I--I'm afraid I must go," he said. + +"Good-night!" she said, turning away coldly. + +Jack "pulled himself together," as he would have called it, and sat down +beside her. + +"No," he said, "I will stay if I may." + +She turned to him with a gentle smile. + +"No; go now, please. I am not ungrateful. It was very kind of you to +come. You will not forget tomorrow?" + +"No," said Jack, fingering his crush hat. "I will not forget +tomorrow--how could I?" + +She held out her hand--not a tiny, meaningless one, but a long, shapely +eloquent hand--and put it into his broad, strong one. + +"Good-night!" she said, and her voice grew wondrously low and gentle in +its caressing, clinging tones. "Good-night!" + +Jack felt the slender fingers, warm through the thin gloves, cling round +his fingers. + +"Good-night," she said, hurriedly. "Good-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +Jack walked leisurely enough through the fernery looking this way and +that in search of the phantom girl; but once clear of the ball-room, he +hurried through the ante-rooms and down the staircase--utterly ignoring +the adieus which were sent after him by the crowd on the stairs--and +reached the hall. + +The carriages were already taking up, and without ceremony he pushed +through the footmen into the open air. + +"Has a carriage left just now--five minutes ago?" he asked. + +"Two or three, sir," said the footmen, and, too busy to answer any +further questions, he dashed off. + +Jack waited just outside the stream of light for nearly an hour, his +coat collar turned up, his hands thrust in his pockets. But though many +a beautiful face passed him and was driven away, Una's lovely face was +not amongst them. + +"I must have fallen asleep and been dreaming," he muttered. "How could +she possibly have been there?" + +Then he called a hansom, and was driven to the club. + +His blood was on fire, his brain was in a whirl; two faces--Una's and +Lady Bell's--seemed to dance before his eyes. Do something he must to +get rid of them, or they would drive him mad. + +There was only one thing to do--play. Before the morning he had lost +every penny of his twenty-one pounds six and fourpence, and a couple of +hundred besides. + + * * * * * + +Chance had favored Una in her escape; no sooner had she reached the +staircase than she heard Mrs. Davenant's carriage announced. To get her +shawl and make her way down the staircase was the work of a few moments, +and the brougham was rolling away toward Walmington Square before Jack +had got down to the hall. + +"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Davenant, "have you enjoyed yourself? You +look pale and tired." + +Una shrunk into her corner. + +"I am rather tired," she said, in a low voice, "it was all so new and +strange." + +"And was Lady Bell kind?" + +"Very kind," answered Una, with a sigh. "How beautiful she is!" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Davenant, "she is a very fortunate girl. Youth and +beauty and wealth, she has much to make her happy. Tell me whom you saw, +my dear." + +Una flushed and trembled. She went over the names of some of the great +people, but she said nothing of Jack. She could not bring her trembling +lips to frame his name. + +"All the best people in town," said Mrs. Davenant, with a smile. "You +will be a fashionable young lady before long, Una." + +"Oh, no, no!" breathed Una, with a sudden pallor. "Perhaps I shall never +go again." + +Mrs. Davenant looked at her curiously, and relapsed into silence until +they reached home. + +Then, as they entered the drawing-room, she said, with a little nervous +smile: + +"I have heard from my son Stephen, Una." + +"From your son?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Davenant. "It is good news. He has become very rich. +His uncle, Squire Davenant, has left him everything he possessed." + +Una started and turned pale. Then Jack had been left nothing! That was +why he had looked so grave and troubled. + +"Everything?" she asked. + +"Everything," said Mrs. Davenant, with a sigh: "the Hurst and the +estate, and all the money, and he is very rich--very rich indeed." + +Una looked before her dreamily. She could not say, "I am very glad." +Mrs. Davenant waited a moment. + +"There is a message for you, my dear," she said timidly, fingering the +letter. + +"For me!" said Una, looking up with a start. + +"Yes; Stephen is so thoughtful! He never forgets others even in the +midst of his great prosperity. He sends his kind regards, and trusts +that you do not miss Warden, and that you will not find our quiet life +too dull. He little thinks how we have plunged into gayety already. He +would be surprised if he knew it." + +Indeed Stephen would, with a vengeance! + +"It is very kind of him," said Una, in a low voice. + +Mrs. Davenant sighed. + +"He is always kind and thoughtful. He tells me that he will not be able +to come home just yet awhile. It seems that there is a great deal to see +to. The estate was greatly neglected, and there's some business to be +done with the lawyers; that keeps him there. But he says he will come as +soon as he can, and, meanwhile, I am to make you as happy as I can. I +hope I have done that already, dear," she added, with simple affection. + +Una rose and kissed her. + +"Indeed, yes; I am very happy." + +Then she turned her face away to hide her tears. + +"Come, you must go to bed," said Mrs. Davenant, "or you will lose all +your fresh roses." + +And she put her candle in her hand, and kissed her tenderly. + +It was some time before Una fell asleep. The events of the night flitted +like phantom visions across her eyes, and Jack's face rose to haunt her, +with its tender, troubled look in the dark eyes. + +The squire had willed all to Stephen then, and Jack was poor and +forgotten. + +The sun was high in the heavens when she awoke, and breakfast was on the +table by the time she had got down. + +Mrs. Davenant looked up with a smile. + +"I am so glad to have you safe, dear," she said. "Come, you have got all +your roses back again; and, see here, you cannot guess whom this is +from;" and she held up a note. "It is from Lady Bell. It is an awful +scolding for your running away last night. She says that you flew away +like a bird, and that she had no sooner missed you than she heard that +you had gone." + +Una colored. + +"Was it rude of me?" she said. "I am sorry." + +"Never mind, my dear; she has evidently forgiven you, or she says she +will, if you will go with her for a water picnic to-day." + +Una turned pale again. + +"I!" she said, below her breath. + +Mrs. Davenant opened the note. + +"Yes; she says she will take no denial. They are going to drive down to +Richmond, and she will call for you on the way. Would you like to go, my +dear?" + +Una thought a moment. She longed for, yet dreaded, the meeting which she +knew must take place between Jack and her if she went. + +Mrs. Davenant took her silence for consent. + +"There is no need of an answer, my dear," she said, with a little laugh; +"Lady Bell will take no heed of a refusal. There's the note." + +And she threw it across the table. + +Una read the kindly-imperative little letter, and sighed as she examined +the brilliant crest stamped at the head of the paper. + +"It is very kind," she said. "Yes, I will go, if you are sure you do not +mind my leaving you." + +After breakfast, Mrs. Davenant and Jane entered into a consultation as +to what Una should wear, Una standing by with a quiet smile. + +At last they decided that a dainty-figured satin should be honored; and +both of them, notwithstanding Una's protests, insisted upon assisting at +her toilet. + +They could not have chosen anything more suited to her fresh, virginal +beauty than the simple, delicate dress; and when Jane had brushed the +soft, silken hair until it shone and flashed like strands of golden +haze, and coiled it into a knot, Mrs. Davenant could not suppress an +exclamation of satisfaction and admiration. + +As for Una, she had not yet learned to view her changed self without +surprise, and stared at the tall, beautiful woman which the glass +reflected as though she could not believe that it was herself. + +They were still looking at her, and Jane's restless fingers were +touching a bow here and a fold there, when they heard the rattle of +heavy wheels outside, and Mrs. Davenant hurried her downstairs. + +Lady Bell was already in the drawing-room, and took Una in her arms as +if she were a school-girl, instead of a woman taller than herself. + +"My child, I came to scold you--I meant to have a fearful scene; but you +have taken it all out of me!" And she held Una by her elbows, and looked +at her admiringly. "Child, you are a picture! I've half a mind to drive +off without you. What will become of me? Mrs. Davenant, don't you think +I am very stupid to commit suicide in this way?" + +Mrs. Davenant smiled, and looked at Lady Bell's beautiful face, all +bright as if with sunlight, and shook her head gently. + +"Bah!" said Lady Bell, pouting. "I am nothing but a foil to her; but I +shall be useful, at least. Come, we must be off. What is that--milk?" + +"Yes," said Una, offering her a glass, with a smile. + +"She drinks nothing else," said Mrs. Davenant. + +"That accounts for her complexion," said Lady Bell. "No, it doesn't! If +I drank all the dairies in London dry, I shouldn't get such milk and +roses on my cheeks." + +"Don't turn her head," murmured Mrs. Davenant, under her breath. + +Lady Bell laughed. + +"My dear Mrs. Davenant, it is just what she wants! There isn't a spark +of vanity in her composition; she isn't quite a woman, for no woman is +without vanity. Look at her, as grave and stern as a judge!" and she +touched Una's arm with her sunshade. + +Una started--she had been wondering whether Jack would be there outside, +on the drag, and was listening for his voice amongst those which came +floating through the open window. + +Trembling inwardly she followed Lady Bell out. + +The four horses were champing and pawing impatiently. + +The drag was nearly full, and, for a moment, Una saw only a confused +group of women in dainty morning dresses, and of men in white flannel +and cheviot. A second glance convinced her that Jack was not there. + +As they appeared on the steps the laughter and voices ceased, and a +well-bred glance of curiosity was turned upon her. + +Lady Bell was, however, equal to the occasion. + +"Come along, Una," she said, gayly. "Fanny, will you make room beside +you for Miss Rolfe?" + +The Countess of Pierrepoint smiled. + +"How do you do, Miss Rolfe!" she said graciously. "I hear you were at +Lady Bell's dance last night; why did you let her hide you so +completely?" + +Una was silent. + +Fortunately Dalrymple made so much bustle and fuss in starting, that +conversation for a minute or two was impossible; and before that minute +or two had passed, Una had gained her self-possession. + +Seated about, she recognized several of the people Lady Bell had pointed +out on the preceding evening: Lady Clarence, Mrs. Cantrip, the +Marchioness of Fairfield. Beside Dalrymple, who had all his work cut out +in keeping the four spirited nags in good conduct in the crowded London +streets, sat, as a matter of course, Sir Arkroyd Hetley, while one or +two other men--one of whom she heard addressed as the viscount--was with +the ladies. + +Had Una been naturally nervous, her timidity could not long have existed +in such an atmosphere. + +Her companions were among the highest in the land; but there was less +reserve and ceremony than would have been found in a similar gathering +of middle-class people. The men were laughing and chatting, ever and +again turning round to make some light-hearted remark, or pass some joke +round. They were all, it was evident, bent on enjoying themselves. + +Very soon Una found herself brought into the conversation, Lady Bell +talking to her continually, and pointing out the lions of the road. + +The roses came back into Una's face in full bloom, her heart beat more +lightly, and her spirits rose as the four impatient horses dashed along +the roads which now ran through the beautiful vicinity of Richmond. + +She had almost--almost--forgotten that Jack was not there, when +happening to glance round suddenly at Lady Bell, she saw her looking +dreamily before her, evidently lost in thought, with a wistful drooping +of the bright red lips and a disappointed shadow in the dark eyes. + +Then Una knew that it was not only she herself who felt the absence of +the missing one. + +However, Lady Bell soon rallied, and when they drove up to the hotel she +was as bright as ever. + +The luncheon had been sent up to Thames Dutton, one of the prettiest +parts of the Thames, and it had been arranged that the gentlemen should +row up to the island, hence the white flannel and cheviot costumes. They +found boats awaiting them at the river side, and, with much laughing and +gayety, started. + +It was a beautiful scene, the river gleaming like a flood of silver +between its banks of green meadows and stately trees, the three boats +with their bright colored occupants. Una, who was of nature's own kin, +was filled with delight; it was better than being at Warden. She leaned +back in her comfortable seat in the stern of the foremost boat, rapt in +silent enjoyment. + +Lady Bell looked at her rather wistfully. + +"How happy you look, child," she said, in a lower voice than usual. + +"I am quite happy," said Una, simply. + +"You are just the person for a picnic," said Lady Clarence. "I feel sure +that you would look just as contented and serene if it rained in +torrents, while the rest of us would be running about bemoaning our +spoiled clothes." + +Una laughed. + +"I am not afraid of rain," she said. + +"That's fortunate, Miss Rolfe," said Dalrymple, who was pulling stroke, +and exerting himself nobly, while Hetley, pulling behind him, allowed +him to do all the work. "That's fortunate, as we shall be sure to have a +shower or two--always do at a water picnic." + +"No prophesying, marquis!" cried Lady Bell. "There isn't a cloud in the +sky; there isn't a sign of wet." + +"I'm sorry for that," he said, with mock gravity, "for I'm fearfully +thirsty." + +They paid no attention to this broad hint, however, until they were +going through Teddington Lock, when Lady Bell produced some champagne +and soda water, and Hetley made a cooling cup. + +When it came to Una's turn--they all drank out of the same cup, a +splendid silver tankard, chased with the Earlsley arms--she glanced at +it askance and shook her head. + +"But you must, my dear Una," said Lady Bell. "You will be parched." + +"Let me have some water," said Una, and making a cup of her hand--a +trick she had learned at a very early age--she bent over the boat and as +quietly and naturally drank a draught. + +The countess looked at her earnestly, and Sir Arkroyd muttered to +Dalrymple: + +"Where did she come from?" + +"I don't know," said Dalrymple, in the same tone. "I'd stick to water +all the day if she'd let me drink it out of the same cup. Isn't she +beautiful--perfectly lovely!" + +"Hush, she'll hear you," muttered Sir Arkroyd, warningly. + +But he need not have feared. + +Una sat like the dream-maiden in the ballad, deaf to all but the plash +of the oars and the music of the birds. + +Presently the stately pile of Hampton Court Palace glided, as it were, +into their view, and with a long pull Dalrymple sent the boat to the +island. + +The two other boats were close behind, and then these grand people who +were accustomed to be waited on hand and foot, got out and dragged +hampers under the shadow of the oaks and willows; and the countess and +Lady Clarence laid the cloth, while Lady Bell and the rest knelt beside +the hampers and pulled out the things one by one. Then Sir Arkroyd was +sent to lay the champagne bottles in the shallow water, and Dalrymple +was handed a dish and the ingredients for making the salad. + +In a few minutes luncheon was set out to the accompaniment of much +laughter, and a few accidents. One of the champagne bottles had slid +into the deep water, and disappeared to the bottom of the river to +astonish the fish. The corkscrew followed it; and dismay fell on all, +until the viscount calmly produced another from his pocket. + +"Never go to a picnic without a corkscrew," he said, shaking his head. +"Generally have to produce it, too." + +Then there was much dragging about of hampers, and arranging of shawls +and boat cushions to provide seats for the ladies; but at last all were +seated, and Dalrymple, brandishing a knife in dangerous proximity to +Lady Pierrepoint's head, cut the first slice of raised pie. + +Then it was discovered how easy it is to make jokes at a picnic. You +can't be stately and ceremonious sitting cross-legged on the grass, and +balancing your plate on your knees; especially when, in consequence of +there not being quite enough knives, you have to lend the one you are +using to your next-door neighbor. + +As usual, too, there were not quite enough plates and those dainty +gentlemen, who went into fits if a fly fell into their wineglasses at +the club, bent down on their hands and knees and washed plates in the +river. + +"And there is no rain," said Lady Bell. + +"Then one of us will have to fall into the river," said the viscount, +solemnly. "Must have rain or an accident at a picnic, you know. Will you +have some more cream, Lady Earlsley?" + +Lady Bell shook her head, laughingly. + +"No, thanks; I have enjoyed it all immensely. Why cannot we have a +picnic every day?" + +But Una, who sat next her, had noticed that she scarcely touched +anything. + +"Let us go into Bushey Park, and turn savages," said Dalrymple. "Halloa; +speaking of savages, what a pity the Savage isn't here. This is just in +his line." + +Lady Bell bent down suddenly to take a flower from the cloth. + +"Mr. Newcombe was detained in town," she said, calmly; but Una could +detect the faint quiver in her voice. + +"Poor old Jack," said Dalrymple, after a pause, "seems to be cut up +about something lately. Do you remember how queer he was that night he +came back from the country, Arkroyd?" + +Lady Bell looked up suddenly. + +"Let us go for a ramble. You may smoke, gentlemen," she added. "Now +don't shake your heads as if you never did such a thing. I can see your +cigar-case peeping out of your pocket, Lord Dalrymple." + +And linking her arm in Una's, she sauntered away. + +They strolled in silence for some minutes, until Una, happening to look +up, saw that Lady Bell's face was quite pale, and that something +suspiciously like tears were veiling the brightness of the dark eyes. + +"Lady Bell!" she murmured. + +"Hush!" said Lady Bell, gently. "Don't notice me, child! Oh, how sick I +am of it all! What a long day it seems! How can they sit there laughing +and chattering like a set of monkeys?" + +"What is the matter?" said Una, in her low, musical voice. + +"Nothing," said Lady Bell, softly; then she paused and tried to laugh. +"Una, my sweet, innocent, I've got a complaint which you know nothing +of; it is called the heartache. There is no cure for it, I am afraid; at +least, not for mine. Tut! there, there! your great, grave eyes torture +me; they seem to go to the bottom of my soul. Not a word more. Here they +come!" + +And the next instant she turned round, all life and gayety. + +Una sauntered on, her heart beating wildly. Was Lady Bell's heartache +produced by the absence of Jack Newcombe? Yes, that must be it! + +With a sigh she drew away still further from the rest, and seating +herself on the trunk of a tree by the riverside, watched the silver +stream as it flowed past and was lost in the setting sun. + +Suddenly she saw in the distance a white speck that looked like a bird, +flitting up the middle of the stream. The speck grew larger; and she saw +that it was a light boat putting toward the island. + +Gradually it came nearer and nearer, and she saw that it contained one +man only, and that he was clad in white flannel. + +It was a light water-boat--a mere speck of white it looked now on the +golden stream--and to Una, who had never seen an outrigger before, it +seemed an almost impossible feat to sit in it. + +But the sculler managed it with the greatest ease, and with every stroke +sent it flying forward. + +With regular rhythmical action he pulled on, and very soon she could see +his great arms bared to the shoulders. + +She watched it absently for some minutes, but presently the rower turned +his head, and something in the movement struck her and made her heart +bound. + +Agitated and trembling she rose and stood staring down the stream. + +A curve of the island hid the boat suddenly, and she stood watching for +it to appear again; but the minutes passed on and it did not come. Then +suddenly she heard a peal of laughter and the clatter of voices, and she +knew that the boat had pulled into the island. + +With a vague hope and dread commingled she sank to the seat again, and +sat striving to still the wild beating of her heart. + +Presently she heard her name called. It was Lady Bell's voice, and how +changed; there was no false ring in it now; clear and joyous it rang +out: + +"Una! Una! Where are you?" + +There was no escape. She knew she must go, but she waited for full three +minutes. Then, nerved to an unnatural calm, she rose and moved slowly +forward. They were all seated again; she could see them. + +Dalrymple and Sir Arkroyd were stretched at full length, smoking; the +ladies, in their dainty sateens and pompadours, were grouped near them, +and a little apart sat Lady Bell, a cup in one hand and a knife in the +other, her face turned toward someone eating. Though his back was toward +her, Una recognized him. It was Jack Newcombe. He had turned down his +sleeves and put on his white flannel jacket, and was eating and chatting +at one and the same time. + +"Yes, better late than never," she heard him say, and with every word of +his deep, musical voice her heart leaped as if in glad response. "I +found I could get away, and I jumped in the train, to learn at Richmond +that you had just started. I got an outrigger, and here I am." + +"Just in time to help wash up," said Dalrymple. "We've eaten all the +strawberries, old man, and there isn't much cream. It's lucky for you +there is any pie." + +"Don't pay any attention to them, Mr. Newcombe," said Lady Bell, and how +soft and sweet her voice sounded, with its undertone of tenderness. "I +am so sorry you are late. Do not let them hurry you. You must be so +tired. Let me give you some ham--some tongue, then?" + +And she herself cut a slice and put it on his plate. + +"Don't let me stop the fun," said Jack, in his grave way. "Go on with +your games. What was it--kiss-in-the-ring?" + +There was a laugh; the lightest joke will serve at a picnic. + +"I was haunted by the dread that I should come just in time to find +everything cleared up. What a beautiful day! No, no more, thanks." + +"Let me give you some champagne," said Lady Bell, and reached forward +with the goblet in her hand. + +Jack took it, and nodded over it in true picnic fashion. + +"Thanks," he said, and raised it to his lips. + +At that moment Lady Bell looked up, and, seeing Una standing still and +motionless, beckoned her. + +Mechanically Una went round to her, and so stood in front of Jack. + +His eyes were fixed at the bottom of the cup at the moment, but +presently he lifted them, and, with a sharp cry, he let the cup fall to +the ground and sprang to his feet. + +And then he stood staring at her downcast face with startled eyes and +pale countenance. + +"Hallo! Take care!" cried Dalrymple. "What are you up to now, Savage? +Anything bitten you?" + +Lady Bell looked from one to the other, from Una's white, downcast face +to Jack's pale, startled one. + +"Una," she breathed, "what is it?" + +But Jack recovered himself. + +"Just like you fellows," he said. "Didn't you know that you had pitched +me on an ants' nest? What did you say, Lady Bell? I beg your pardon. T +don't think there is much spilled, and there is nothing broken." + +And he knelt down and picked up the cup. + +Lady Bell laughed. + +"I couldn't think what was the matter," she said. "Are you really +bitten?" + +"Just like Jack," said Sir Arkroyd, with philosophic calmness. "He is +never happy unless he is breaking something. I give you my word that he +smashes more glasses at the club than any other man." + +"Always was clumsy," said Jack, with a constrained laugh. + +Lady Bell smiled. + +"You have quite frightened my friend, Miss Rolfe," she said. "Una, this +unfortunate gentleman is Mr. Newcombe." + +Jack had given her time, and she was able now to look at him calmly. +Jack bowed, his eyes glancing at her as if they scarcely dared trust the +evidence of their own senses. + +"Pray forgive me," he said. "I am very awkward. But I don't break quite +so many things as they say. Is there any more champagne, Lady Earlsley? +I don't deserve it, I know----" + +Lady Bell took up a bottle. + +"Pour this into the cup, Una," she said, with a smile. "It is true he +doesn't deserve it, but we will be merciful." + +Una took the bottle and leaned forward, and as she did so Jack rose and +stood before her, so that he screened her trembling hand from the eyes +of the rest. + +His own trembled, his own heart beat wildly; all else save the beautiful +face so close to his own swam before his eyes. + +Was he dreaming, or was it really she? He could not trust his eyes, he +felt that he must touch her. + +Slowly he put out his hand, and gently, tremblingly touched her white, +slender wrist. + +Instantly she raised her eyes and looked at him, a long, piteous look, +as if he had struck her. + +Yes, it was she. It was Una, his forest-maiden! + +With a long breath he raised the cup to his lips and drained it, then +sank down on the grass and took up his plate, scarcely knowing what he +was doing. + +The laughing voices around him seemed blurred and indistinct in his +ears, the green trees and silver stream seemed to fade and vanish, and +give place to the silent glade in which he had sat with the same +beautiful girl bending over him. + +Mechanically he went through the pretense of eating until a burst of +laughter recalled him to himself. + +"Look here!" shouted Dalrymple in boyish glee. "Here's the Savage, busy +eating nothing!" + +Jack laughed, awakened to the sense of the situation. He must nerve +himself, if only for her sake. + +"It must be sunstroke," he said lightly, staring at his empty plate. +"Will somebody give me a piece of cake? I have always doted on cake. I +like a piece with the candied peel on it, Lady Bell. Thanks. Now I am +just going to begin my luncheon." + +"Those persons who are tired of watching the Savage satisfy his barbaric +appetite are requested to withdraw!" drawled Dalrymple, and he leaped to +his feet, laughing. + +"Seriously, if anyone would like to go up to the palace, I've an open +door. I should like a row." + +There was an instant clamor. Three parts of the party wanted to see the +palace, and a couple of boat loads started. + +Lady Clarence, Lady Bell, Una, and Jack remained. + +He still kept up the pretense of eating and drinking; and Lady Bell, +kneeling opposite him, seemed never to grow weary in supplying his +wants. + +Una, seated at a little distance, noticed with what eager attention she +hung upon every word he uttered. And Jack kept on talking as if his life +depended on it. But presently his patience came to an end. + +He put down his plate resolutely. + +"No more, thanks, or I shall be too heavy for the outrigger. Now, then, +can't I help pack up?" + +But Lady Bell wouldn't hear of it. + +"No, you shall light your pipe," she said, "and watch us. Come, Una. I +know you are dying to help us." + +Una awoke with a start and knelt down beside the plates and dishes while +Lady Bell went for the hamper. + +Jack seized his opportunity. Bending forward, he whispered: + +"Una!" + +She half turned her face, pale and dreamy. + +"Well?" + +"Is it really you? How did you come here? Am I dreaming?" + +"It is I," she said, in her low, musical voice. + +"But--but," he said, "how did you come here? I did not know you were in +London. I have been looking for you." + +Her heart gave a great leap. He had been looking for her. + +"I have been searching for you everywhere, Una. Did you think I should +not come back? I went to Warden----" + +"Yes," she said eagerly. + +"And I found the cottage shut up and your people gone." + +"Gone?" + +"Yes, gone, and I did not know what to do. So I came to town, and--and I +looked for you everywhere. Ah! you thought that I had forgotten you, as +you had forgotten me." + +Her lovely face flushed, and she turned her dove-like eyes upon him, +with a reproachful look in their depths. + +"Forgotten him!" + +"I cannot understand it," he went on, drawing still nearer to her, his +eyes eagerly scanning her face. + +She smiled faintly. A great joy welled up in her heart, every nerve was +tingling with happiness, she scarcely heard him. The words, "I have been +searching for you," rang in her ears. + +"I scarcely understand it myself," she said; "it seems like a dream." + +Jack glanced toward the bank. They had finished the packing, and would +interrupt them in another minute. + +"Where are you staying? You are on a visit?" + +"I am staying with Mrs. Davenant," said Una, in the same low voice. + +Jack started, and the unlit pipe nearly fell from his hand. + +"With Mrs. Davenant?" he exclaimed. "With Stephen's mother?" + +Una nodded. + +"Yes; he has been very kind and good to me." + +Jack stared breathless. + +"Stephen good to you!" he said, fiercely. "What do you mean? Am I +dreaming?" + +"It was he who came to Warden with Mrs. Davenant," said Una, vaguely, +troubled by the stern look of suspicion which had settled like a cloud +on Jack's face. + +"I don't understand," he said grimly. "Stephen--Stephen! How did he know +of your existence?" + +"Some friend," said Una; "I do not quite know. At any rate, it was +through him. And I like Mrs. Davenant." + +Jack nodded. + +"Yes, she is a good woman. But Stephen----" + +And he passed his hand over his brow. + +Una looked at him timidly. + +"Are you angry?" she asked. + +"Angry! with you!" he exclaimed, bending nearer, with a look of tender +devotion. "How could you think it? No, I am not angry--only puzzled. I +cannot make it out. Never mind! don't look so troubled, my dear--Miss +Rolfe, I mean. At any rate, I have found you. Oh, Una!--Miss Rolfe, I +mean--if you knew how I have searched for you, and"--with a groan--"what +a fool I have been!" + +"I thought you had forgotten me," said Una, with that sweet humility of +love. + +Jack's eyes gleamed. + +"I have not forgotten you for one moment--not for one moment! Una, +I----Oh, confound it! here they are." + +He broke off impatiently, as Lady Bell and the rest came back. + +"What are we going to do now?" she said, with her bright smile. "Some of +them have gone to the palace. Shall we wait for them, or go and meet +them! What do you say, Mr. Newcombe?" + +But Jack would not stir. + +"They'll come back," he said, absently, his eyes drawn toward the +downcast face. + +How lovely it was! If they would only all go away, and leave them alone! +He had so much to say--so much to ask. + +But Lady Bell showed no sign of going; instead, she threw herself down +on the grass beside them, and commenced to talk. + +Had he enjoyed the pull up? Why had he not driven down with them? She +didn't believe in particular business; and so on. + +Jack pulled at his pipe, and returned absent, scarcely civil answers. At +last Lady Bell noticed his abstraction, and turned her head away in +silence. + +Meanwhile Una sat speechless, her face turned toward the river, her +whole soul absorbed by his presence. It frightened her, this feeling of +absorption. She found herself waiting and listening for every word that +dropped from his lips as if her life depended on it. She trembled lest +he should touch her. + +His manner filled her with an ecstasy of pleasure that was almost pain. +How handsome he looked, stretched out at full length, his tanned face +turned to the sky, his tawny mustache sweeping his clear cut lips; she +felt, rather than knew, that his eyes sought her face, and she dared not +turn her eyes toward him, though she longed to do so. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +Presently, to the relief of Una, at least, the other boats came back; +the third boat was got ready, the hampers put on board, and the ladies +seated. + +Jack stood near the stern, and took Una's hand in his to help her to +embark. + +"Take care," he said, aloud, then in an undertone, he added: "I shall +see you at Richmond." + +"Are you going to row the outrigger down, Savage?" said Dalrymple, eying +the first boat enviously. + +Jack turned to him eagerly. + +"No, I'll take your place in this boat; I can see you are longing for +mine. Here, get in"; and before Dalrymple could refuse, Jack had almost +lifted him into the outrigger, and leaped into his place in Lady Bell's +boat. + +All the darkness vanished from his brow. He was sitting opposite Una; so +near, that when he leaned forward to make the stroke, his hand almost +touched her dress. + +"Are you coming with us?" said Lady Bell; "I am so glad." + +"So am I," said Jack; but his eyes went to Una's face. + +"Now, then," said Jack, as he bent forward. + +"Steady, old man," said Sir Arkroyd; "we haven't all got blacksmith's +muscles!" + +But Jack was wild, delirious with joy, and he pulled, heart and soul, +his great, strong arms bare to the elbows. + +"What a lovely night!" said Lady Bell. "Won't anybody sing?" + +Of course no one replied. + +"Sing something, my dear child," she said to Una. "You have a singing +face. You have no idea how beautiful it sounds on the water." + +"Oh, no, no," said Una, shrinking modestly. + +Jack looked up. + +"Sing," he murmured, pleadingly. As if he had uttered a command, she +looked at him with meek obedience, and began the song he had heard her +singing in the forest. + +Is there anything more exquisite on earth than the voice of a young +girl? Una knew nothing of the science of song; she had had no master, no +instruction of any sort; but her voice was clear and musical as a young +thrush's and she sang straight from her heart. + +No need to tell Jack to pull slower! He ceased rowing, and rested on his +oar, his eyes fixed on her face, his lips half apart. + +The other boats stopped also as the music of the sweet, young voice +floated down the stream, and one and all felt the spell. + +Lady Bell sat with lowered lids and pale face, and when the last note +died away and she looked up, her eyes were moist. + +"My dear," she said, in a low voice, "where did you learn to sing like +that?" + +Una, half frightened at the effect she had produced, flushed and sank +back into her seat. + +"I have never learned," she said, quietly. + +There was a murmur, and Lady Clarence turned and looked at her +curiously. + +"You have a beautiful voice," she said, "and exquisite taste, or you +could not sing as you do. It is a pity you have not been thoroughly +trained. You should have a master." + +"She shall!" said Lady Bell, impulsively. "She shall have the best. It +would be criminal to let such a gift be wasted!" + +Jack looked up with a flush of pleased gratitude, and Lady Bell happened +to catch that glance. + +With a slight start she turned pale, and looked from his face all aglow +with the fervor of loving admiration to Una's downcast one, and then, +with something like a shudder, she, too, sank back into the seat. + +"Isn't--isn't it cold?" she said, in a strangely changed voice. + +"Is it?" said Jack, musing. "We'll row on," and he bent to the oar +again. + +A peculiar silence fell upon them all; it seemed as if they were still +listening to the sweet voice. Lady Bell closed her eyes and remained +motionless, and Jack pulled as if he had undertaken to reach Richmond +within a given time. + +At Richmond tea was brought to them on the terrace while the horses were +put to, and very soon they were dashing toward London. + +Dalrymple declared that his arms were too stiff to allow him to handle +the four grays properly, and Jack was unanimously voted to the box. + +He looked rather inclined to refuse, but seeing that Una had been seated +close behind him, he climbed up and took the reins without a word. + +For the first mile or two he had quite enough to do to keep the nags in +hand; but he could feel that Una was close behind him, could feel her +breath on his cheek, and hear every word of the clear, low-pitched +voice, and he was deliriously happy. + +Presently, when he had got the horses into steady working, he turned his +head and pointing with his whip, as if he were directing her attention +to some object in the landscape, said in a low voice: + +"Una, can you hear me?" + +"Yes," she said, leaning forward. + +"I have been thinking it all over," he said, "but I can't make head or +tail of it. It's all a mystery. However, I know where you are now, and +that's something; and I can come and see you, and that's everything--to +me. Are you angry with me for speaking so--so boldly?" + +"No," she faltered. + +"And I may come and see you? I know Mrs. Davenant; she is a good +creature, though she thinks me everything that's bad--and she's not far +wrong, I'm afraid----" + +Una sighed faintly. + +"And perhaps she'll tell me what it means, and why Stephen has sent you +to be with her. Why, Una, did your father allow you to come? He loathed +me for being a distant relative of the Davenants." + +"I do not know," said Una, troubled. + +"Never mind," said Jack, hastening to soothe her; "it's sure to be all +right, if he did it. I liked your father, notwithstanding he was so +rough with me. I liked him because he took such care of you. Steady, +silly!" This was to the near leader, and not to Una. "What a lovely +night! Are you enjoying it?--are you happy?" + +A sigh, faint and tremulous, was full answer. + +"Please Heaven, we'll have many a night like this. Happy! I could go +half mad with delight at having you so near me. Una--I may call you +Una?" + +"Yes," she murmured. + +"Can you guess--you sweet, innocent flower--what makes me so happy?" + +"Tell me!" she answered, in a low voice, and leaning forward until her +soft, silken hair almost touched his. + +Jack's heart beat fast, and his blood bounded in his veins. + +"It is because I love you. I love you! Do you understand? Ah, my +darling! you don't know what love is. But I ought not to call you +so--not yet. I can't see your face; perhaps I shouldn't dare to be so +bold if I could. Speak to me, Una; speak to me. Tell me that you are not +angry. Tell me that, while I have never had your sweet face out of my +mind since that day we parted in Warden, you have thought once or twice +of me. I don't deserve it. I'm a bad lot; but I love you, Una. Do you +love me?" + +There was no reply; but there was a soft nestle beside him, and then he +felt her hand timidly touch his arm. + +He slipped the whip and reins into one hand, and seized the little +trembling hand and enclosed it as if he meant thus to swallow it up +forever. + +But, alas! the horses were going down hill, and were fidgeting and +pulling; and with impatient exclamation at their stupidity, he was +obliged to let the little hand go; but it did not go far; he could feel +it touching, softly and timidly, the edge of his coat-sleeve, and that +was enough for him. It was a mercy and a miracle that the drag was not +upset, for he scarcely knew where or how he was driving, and it was more +by instinct and habit that he brought the team safe and sound, but +sweating tremendously, before the house in Park Lane. + +"You must all come in," said Lady Bell. + +The gentlemen looked at their white flannels apologetically, but Lady +Bell laughed. + +"Let us pretend that we are our own masters and mistresses for one +night," she said, "and not the slaves of Fashion." + +Jack stood out. He felt that, for the present, it behooved him to be +discreet, and he knew that if he were not, it would be impossible for +him to conceal the romantic love which burned through and through him. +Besides, he knew that there would be no opportunity of speaking to Una +there; and he felt that it would be agony for him to assume the +conventional air of polite indifference to her for that evening, at +least. + +So he went. But he stood on the pavement to help her down; and as he +held her in his arms, he kept her for one moment poised between heaven +and earth; and as he put her down, his lips touched her arm, and she +knew it. + +"I'll see to the horses, Dal," he said; and he leaped up, and drove off +as if he were possessed. + +"That's what the Savage calls seeing to them!" grumbled Dalrymple. +"He'll throw 'em down, or run over somebody, and I shall be fined five +pounds for furious driving." + +Jack was conscientious--where horses were concerned--and he sat on the +rack and saw them rubbed down and fed with the patience of a martyr; +then he jumped into a hansom, was driven to Spider Court, and, bursting +into the room, fell into a chair and flung his cap at Leonard's head. + +"Mad at last!" said Leonard. + +"Yes, stark, staring, ramping mad, old fellow. I've found her!" + +"No!" said Leonard, turning round. + +"Yes! Yes! And I've spent the day with her. She's here in London, and +who do you think she is staying with? With Mrs. Davenant, Stephen's +mother!" + +"Stephen's mother!" said Leonard, with surprise. "Nonsense." + +"Fact! What do you make of it?" + +Leonard Dagle mused in silence. + +"I can make nothing of it," he said at last. + +"Did she know Mrs. Davenant?" + +"No; that's the mystery. Stephen, it seems, is the cause of her being +here. He found out her father--how I can't guess--he must, of course, +have known her before; there's nothing wonderful in that. But what is +wonderful is that Stephen should do anyone a good turn, +unless--unless--" and his face darkened suddenly and grew +fierce--"unless he had some end in view." + +"What end could he have in view here?" said Leonard. + +"That's what I can't make out; can you?" + +Leonard shook his head. + +"It's a strange story throughout." + +"It is," said Jack, grimly. "But, Stephen Davenant, if you mean any +mischief, look out! I'm on your track, my friend! But, Len, old man, you +look rather done up. What's the matter?" + +Leonard passed his hand over his brow. + +"Something strange and mysterious also," he said. "I went to Cheltenham +Terrace an hour ago, just on the chance of getting a glimpse +of--of----" + +"Of Laura Treherne. Well, old man?" + +"And I met with a similar shock to yours in Warden Forest. I found the +house shut up, and she--gone, vanished, disappeared!" + +"What!" exclaimed Jack. + +Leonard paced up and down. + +"I went to inquire next door, and I learned that old Mr. Treherne was +dead--you remember my telling you that the blinds were down--that the +funeral took place yesterday, and Miss Treherne had gone. They only +lodged there, it seems, and of course she could go at any moment. Where +she has gone no one seems to know. So there is an end to my little +romance! But no! it shall not end there." + +"No; take courage by my luck, old man," said Jack, laying his hand on +his shoulder--"take courage by me! Let us talk about it." + +"No, no!" said Leonard, shrinking; "I cannot--yet. You don't know how I +feel. Tell me what happened today. Was she glad to see you? Did you let +her see that you cared for her? Of course you did." + +"Yes," said Jack, with a proud, happy smile. "Yes, I told her that I +loved her, and--oh, Len! Len! I know that she cares for me!" + +Leonard stared at him gravely, and put down a paper which he had taken +up. But Jack saw it and took it off the table. + +"What are you reading there, Len?" + +Leonard took it out of his hand. + +"My poor, light-hearted, unreasoning Jack," he said. "It's Levy Moss' +reminder about that bill!" + +Jack's face fell and he dropped into a chair. + +"Quite right, Len," he said, hoarsely. "I am an unreasoning fool! What +have I done? I've behaved like a blackguard! I've got this angel to +admit that she loved me--me, a beggar--more than a beggar! But I swear I +forgot--I forgot everything when I was near her. Oh, Heaven, Len, it's +hard lines! What shall I do! If the poor old squire had but left me a +few hundreds a year, how happy we could be!" + +"But he hasn't," said Leonard, gravely and gently. "And what are you +going to do? There's the money you lost last night----" + +Jack groaned. + +"What an idiot I was. Len, I swear to you that I was nearly driven out +of my mind last night. First there was Lady Bell--she was more than +civil, and bearing in mind all you said and wanted me to do, I made +myself agreeable, and--and--she's very beautiful, Len, and when she +looks right into your eyes and smiles, she seems to do what she likes +with you. Len, I was nearly gone when that vision--as I thought it--came +into the glass amongst the ferns. I thought it was a vision--I know now +that she was there--and it drove me silly. I bolted out and made for the +club, and played to forget it all." + +"And made bad matters worse," said Leonard. "You're in a hole, Jack, I'm +afraid. Moss won't wait; there are other bills, and there's the I. O. U. +of last night, and you've lost the money you had, and you've asked this +young girl to love you. You mean to marry her--I say, you mean to marry +her. On what? How can you go to her father--who already doesn't seem +altogether prepossessed in your favor--and ask him to give his daughter +to a penniless gentleman? Mind--a gentleman! If you were a woodman like +himself, your being hard up wouldn't matter. You could take an ax, or +whatever they use, and earn your living. But you can't go and ask him to +let her share your over-due bills and I. O. U.'s." + +Jack groaned. + +"What shall I do, Len? My darling, my darling!" + +Leonard sighed. His heart--the heart of as true a friend as ever the +world held--ached for the wild, thoughtless youth. + +"Was Lady Bell there?" he asked, quietly. + +Jack leaped to his feet. + +"Lady Bell! I see what you mean!" he groaned. "Len, you are in love +yourself, and yet you ask me to sell myself----" + +Leonard flushed. + +"Jack, much as I care for you, I swear that I am thinking as much of her +good and happiness as of your own. If you marry her--which, after all, +you _cannot_--if you could you would make her life miserable; if you +marry Lady Bell, you will at least make _her_--happy." + +Jack paced up and down for a moment. Then he turned, white and haggard, +and held out his hand: + +"You are right. Would to Heaven you were not! I see it, I cannot help +it. I will not make her life miserable. But--but--I must go and tell +her. Heaven help us both!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise. Quite ignorant and +unconscious of all that was going on in London, Stephen remained down at +the Hurst. + +What he had written to his mother was quite true; as a matter of fact +Stephen was far too clever to write direct falsehoods--he was kept at +Hurst Leigh very much against his will. + +Squire Ralph had left him everything--money, house, lands, everything +excepting the few legacies to servants, and Stephen had been hard at +work, and was still hard at work ascertaining how much that everything +was. + +And, as day followed day, and disclosure succeeded disclosure, he became +fascinated and possessed by the immense wealth which had fallen into his +hands, or, say rather, which he had seized upon. + +For many years the old squire had lived upon less than half his income; +the remainder he had invested and speculated with, and as often happens +to the miser, the luck of Midas had fallen upon him. + +Everything he touched had turned to gold. The most unlikely speculations +had proved successful; properties which he had bought for a mere song, +and which had been regarded by the most wary as dangerous and +profitless, had become profitable and valuable. + +Some of these risky speculations he had, not unnaturally, kept concealed +from the prudent Hudsley, who only now, by the discovery of scrip and +bonds in out-of-the-way desks and bureaus, learned what kind of man his +old friend had really been. + +Not a day passed but it brought to light some addition to the old man's +gains, and served to swell the immense total. + +Even the lands round Hurst had been manipulated by the old man, so that +leases ran out almost at his death, and rents were raised. + +One speculation will serve as an instance; he had purchased, some +fifteen years before his death, the freehold of an estate bordering upon +London; and in a locality which was then regarded as hopelessly +unfashionable. A great capitalist had ruined himself by building large +houses on the property, foreseeing that at some time or other the tide +of the great city would reach this hitherto high and dry spot. But he +had made a miscalculation, and he died before the tide which was to +bring him wealth reached his property; old Ralph had then stepped in and +bought it--houses, land, everything. In ten years' time the tide of +fashion rolled that way, and now what had once been a neglected and +forgotten quarter was the center of fashionable London. + +It reads like a romance, but like many other romances, it was true. + +Old Ralph himself had no idea of his own wealth, and that when he died +he should leave behind him one of the most colossal fortunes in England. + +Almost stunned by the immense total--so far as it had been arrived +at--Stephen went about the place silent and overwhelmed. + +But one thought was always ringing like a bell in his brain--"And I had +nearly lost all this!" + +Sometimes, in the quiet of the library, where he sat surrounded by books +and papers, by accountants' statements and estimates, he would grow pale +and tremble as he reflected by what a narrow chance he had secured this +Midas-like wealth. + +But had he secured it? and when the question presented itself, as it did +a hundred, aye, a thousand times a day, he would turn ashy pale, and +clutch the edge of the table to keep himself from reeling. + +Where was that will--the real, true, valid will--which left everything +away from him to Una? + +Day by day, while going over the accounts, he found himself waiting, +watching, expecting someone--whom he could not imagine--coming in and +saying: "This is not yours; here is the will. I found it so and so, at +such and such a time!" and he felt that if such a moment occurred it +would kill him. + +But as the days passed and no one came to contest his claim to the +property, he grew more confident and assured, and at last he nearly +succeeded in convincing himself that he really had burned the will. + +"After all," he mused, over and over again, "that is the only probable, +the only possible explanation. Is it likely that if anyone had the +accursed thing they would keep it hidden? No! If they were honest, they +would have declared it at once; if dishonest, they would have brought it +to me and traded upon it. Yes, I was half mad that night. I must have +destroyed it at the moment Laura knocked at the window." + +But all the same he determined to make his position secure. Immediately +he had arranged matters at the Hurst he would go to London and marry +Una. + +"She is all safe and sound there," he mused, with a satisfied smile. "My +mother leads the life of a hermit. The girl herself has no friends--not +one single soul in London. I shall be her only friend, and--the rest is +easy." + +Poor Stephen! + +Then he would give a passing thought to Laura, and now and then would +take from his pocket half a dozen letters, which she had written to him +since the night of her journey to Hurst. + +To not one of these had he replied, and the last was dated a week back. + +"By this time," he thought, "she has forgotten me, or what is better, +has learned that plain Stephen Davenant and Squire Davenant of Hurst +Leigh are two very different men. Poor Laura! Well, well, I must do +something for her. I'll make her a handsome present. Say a thousand +pounds; perhaps find a husband for her. She's a sensible girl, too +sensible to dream that I should think of marrying her now. After all, +what harm is done? We were very happy, and amused ourselves with +innocent flirtation. A mere flirtation, that is all." + +And he tried to forget the pale face and flashing eyes which turned +toward him that night at parting with such a strange look of warning. +But he did not always succeed in forgetting. Sometimes the remembrance +of that face rose like a vision between his eyes and the endless rows of +figures, and made him shudder with mingled fear and annoyance. + +"It has been a lesson to me," he would say, after awhile. "It is the +only weakness I have ever been guilty of, and see how I am punished. I +deserve it, and I must bear it." + +It punished him, and it told upon him. The pallor which had come upon +his face the day the will was read had settled there. The old look of +composed serenity and "oiliness," as Jack called it, had gone, and in +the place was a look of strained intentness, as if he were always +listening, and watching, and waiting. + +He was a fine actor, and would have made a fortune on the boards, and he +managed to suppress this look at times, but the effort of suppression +was palpable; he showed that he was affecting a calmness and serenity +which he did not possess. + +By two men, of all others, this change in him was especially noticed--by +Mr. Hudsley and old Skettle. + +The old lawyer and his clerk were necessarily with him every day; +Stephen could not move a step without them. He hated Hudsley, whose +keen, steel-like eyes seemed to penetrate to his inmost heart; and he +detested Skettle, whose quiet, noiseless way of moving about and +watching him from under his wrinkled lids, irritated Stephen to such an +extent that sometimes he felt an irresistible desire to fling something +at him. + +But both of the men were indispensable to him at present, and he +determined to wait until everything was straight before he cut all +connections with them. + +"Once let me get matters settled," he muttered to himself over and over +again, "and those two vultures shall never darken my doors again." + +And yet Hudsley was always scrupulously polite and civil, and Skettle +always respectful. + +With his characteristic graveness, Mr. Hudsley went through the work +systematically and machine-like. + +But Stephen noticed when he came to announce some fresh edition to the +great Davenant property, he never even uttered a formal congratulation, +or seemed pleased and gratified. + +One day Stephen, nettled beyond his usual caution, said: "You must be +tired of all this, Mr. Hudsley. I notice that it seems to annoy you." + +And the old lawyer had looked up with grim impassibility. + +"You are mistaken, Mr. Stephen. I am never tired, and I am never +annoyed." + +"At least you must be surprised," said Stephen; "you had no idea that my +uncle had left so much." + +"No, I am not even surprised," retorted Mr. Hudsley, if his calm reply +could be called a retort. "I have lived too long to be surprised by +anything." + +And there was something in his keen, icy look which silenced Stephen, +and made him bend over his papers suddenly. + +Others noticed the change which had come over the once sleek, +smooth-spoken young man. It got to be remarked that he rarely left the +Hurst grounds, and that what exercise he took was on the terrace in +front of the library, or on the lawn below it. It was said that he paced +up and down this lawn for hours. + +It was said, too, that he rarely addressed a servant in or out of the +house. All the orders came through the valet Slummers. + +Mention has been made of Slummers. It would have been difficult to +describe him. He was called in the village "the Shadow," because he was +so thin and noiseless, so silent and death-like. + +In addition to his noiselessness, he had a trick of going about with +closed eyes, or with his lids so lowered that it looked as if his eyes +were closed. + +Bets had been made upon the supposed color of those visional organs, but +had never been decided, for never by any chance did he look anyone in +the face when speaking; and when by some accident those sphinx-like lids +were raised they were dropped again so quickly that examination of what +lay behind them was impossible. + +Secretiveness was part and parcel of this man. He never did anything +openly. When he gave an order it was in a round-about way. The simplest +action of his daily life was enveloped in mystery. Even his meals were +taken in a room apart; only a few of the servants knew the room he +occupied. Then he seemed ubiquitous. He was everywhere at once, and +turned up when least expected. + +With noiseless step he came and went about the house; now in the +servants' hall, now in the library closeted with his master, now in the +stables looking under his lids at the horses, counting, so said the +grooms, every oat that went into the mangers. Not a thing was done in +the house but he was acquainted with it. + +And he knew everything! Not a secret was kept from him. Had anyone in +the village an episode in his life, which he hoped and deemed hidden and +forgotten, Slummers knew it, and managed by some dropped word or look to +let the miserable man know that he knew it. + +Before he had been at Hurst a week he had half the servants and +villagers in his power. + +Power! That was the secret mainspring of the man's existence. He loved +power. + +Give even the fiend his due. This man had one good quality, he was +devoted to his master. Saving this one great event of his life--the +theft and loss of his will--Stephen trusted him in everything. + +And Slummers admired him. In his eyes Stephen was the cleverest man on +earth, and being the cleverest man on earth Slummers was content to +serve him. Yes, Slummers was devoted to his master, but he made up for +it in his detestation of the rest of mankind in general, and of one man +in particular--Jack Newcombe. + +Between Jack--honest, frank, and reckless Jack--and the serpent-like +Slummers there had been a feud which had commenced from the moment of +their first introduction. + +On that occasion Slummers had been sent with a message to Jack's room. +Jack happened to be out, and Slummers whiled away the tediousness of +waiting by opening a drawer in Leonard's table and reading some +unimportant letters. Jack, coming in with his usual suddenness, caught +him and kicked him. Jack had forgotten it long ago, but Slummers had +not, and he waited for the time till he could return that kick in his +own fashion. + +The days passed, and Mr. Hudsley's task appeared to be nearing a +conclusion. + +One morning he came up to the Hurst, his hands behind his back, his head +bent as usual, and asked for Stephen. + +Stephen was in the library, and Slummers noiselessly ushered in the +lawyer. It happened to be what Stephen would have called one of his bad +mornings. He was seated at the table, not at work, but looking at the +pile of papers with lack-luster eyes, that saw nothing, and pale, drawn +face. + +Hudsley had seen him like this before, but his keen eyes looked like +steel blades. + +Stephen started and put his thin, white hand across his brow. + +"Good morning," he said. "Good morning. Any news? Sit down." + +But Hudsley remained standing. + +"I have no news," he said. "I think I may say that there are no more +surprises for us. You know the extent of the fortune which you hold!" + +He did not say "which is yours," or "which your uncle left you." Simply +"which you hold." On Stephen's strained mind the phrase jarred. He +nodded and kept his eyes downcast. + +"The business that lies within my province," continued Mr. Hudsley, "is +completed. What remains is the work of an accountant. My task is done." + +"I am sure," said Stephen, smoothly, "that you do not need any assurance +of my gratitude----" + +The old man waved his wrinkled hand. + +"I have been the legal adviser of the Davenant family for the last forty +years," he said, "and I know my duty. I trust I have done it so far as +you are concerned," he said, sternly. "And now I have come to you to +request you to receive what papers and documents are in my charge--my +clerk, Skettle, will hand them to you and take your receipt--and to +inform you that I wish to withdraw from my position as your legal +adviser." + +Stephen's pale face winced and shrunk, and he raised his eyes +suspiciously. + +"Mr. Hudsley, you surprise me! May I ask your reasons for this abrupt +withdrawal?" + +"My reasons are my own," said Hudsley, dryly; "I may say that I am +growing old, and that I am disinclined to undertake the charge of so +large an estate." + +"Oh!" said Stephen, with a sickly smile. "Such a reason is unanswerable. +But I deeply regret it--deeply. My uncle always trusted you." + +"He did nothing of the sort," interrupted Mr. Hudsley, sternly. "He +trusted no man." + +"At any rate, I have placed implicit and well-merited confidence in +you," said Stephen. + +The old man looked at him and Stephen trembled. + +"I--I hope I shall find your bill of costs among the papers?" he said, +hoarsely. + +"No," said Mr. Hudsley. "What service I have rendered you I consider as +rendered to the estate. The estate has paid me sufficiently hitherto. I +need, I will receive no other payment." + +"But----" urged Stephen. + +Mr. Hudsley waved his hand. + +"I am quite resolved, sir. If you should need any information respecting +any business that has occurred up to the present, I am at your service; +but for the future I beg to withdraw. Good-morning." + +Stephen rose, and held out his hand. + +"At least, Mr. Hudsley," he said, "we part as friends, notwithstanding +this hasty resolution of yours?" + +"It is not hasty, sir," said Hudsley, and just touching the cold, thin +hand, he bowed and left the room. + +Stephen sank into a chair, and wiped the drops of cold sweat that had +accumulated on his brow. + +"He suspects me," he muttered. "He suspects! But he suspects only, and +he can do nothing, or he would have done it. Yes; he is powerless. Let +him go! let him go!" he repeated; and he paced the room. + +Gradually the relief of Hudsley's withdrawal broke upon him, and his +step grew lighter. + +"Yes, let him go! Now I am free--I am my own master! master of wealth +undreamed of! And I'll use it! By Heaven, I'll be happy! Let him go! I +meant to get rid of him--he has saved me an unpleasant scene. And now +to work, to work!" + +He ran rather than walked across the room, and rang the bell. + +Slummers opened the door almost instantly and stood motionless and +silent. + +"Has--has that old idiot gone?" asked Stephen. + +"Yes, sir," said Slummers. + +Stephen laughed hoarsely. + +"Let the past go with him!" he said. "Slummers, go to my room and bring +a roll of papers from my bureau-drawer. You know what they are! Plans +and estimates. Do you know what I am going to do?" + +Slummers raised his eyes. + +"Of course you do!" said Stephen with the same laugh. "I'm going to make +a clean sweep here, Slummers. I'm going to pull half this beastly place +to the ground. Alterations, Slummers--alterations that will make Hurst a +place for a man to live in, not a tomb, as it is at present." + +"You are right, sir, it is a tomb," said Slummers, in his low, hollow +voice. + +Stephen shuddered. + +"Yes, yes; but I mean to alter that. I'll make it fit to live in, fit to +bring a young bride to. Fetch the plans, Slummers; I'll go over them at +once, this minute. Yes, I will change the place till the very trees +shall not know it. Fetch the plans! I'll pull the whole of it down, +every stick and stone! I hate it--hate it! I'll change the name! I can +do it. I can do anything now, or what is the use of this money? Fetch +the plans! Fetch----" He broke off suddenly and staggered. + +Slummers sprang nervously forward and caught him, and putting him into a +chair, poured out some neat brandy and gave it to him. + +Stephen tugged at his collar and struggled for a moment, then sank back +helplessly. + +"Stop!" he said, "stay here. Don't go. I--I can hear voices--an old +man's voice--what is it?" + +"Nothing--nothing," said Slummers. "Be calm, sir." + +"Calm--I am calm!" retorted Stephen. "It's this beastly house, it's full +of noises! Give me some brandy--and--get the time table. I'll go to +London to-morrow, Slummers. Yes, I'll go to London!" + +And the master of Hurst, the owner of a million and more, sank back in +his chair and fingered the time table with trembling fingers. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +"Jack Newcombe!" exclaimed Mrs. Davenant, looking at the card which Mary +had brought in. "Jack Newcombe!" she repeated a second time. "My dear, +come here!" + +Una was sitting beside the open window, a book in her lap, her eyes +fixed on the sun setting just behind the chimneys. + +"Yes," she said, her face flushed, her eyes glowing as if the sun were +reflected in them; but she did not move. + +Mrs. Davenant hurried across the room with the card in her hand. + +"Una, dear, see here," she said, nervously. "Here is Jack Newcombe! +You've heard me speak of him." + +Una, feeling guilty and deceitful, hung her head. + +Her heart beat fast. For two days she had waited and watched for +him--never for a moment had he been absent from her mind. + +And now he was here, in the next room. + +"Yes," she said, "I--I remember." + +"Well, my dear, I don't know what to do. I don't know what he wants--do +you?--but of course you don't!" + +Una flushed crimson to her very neck. + +"I think you had better go, my dear," said Mrs. Davenant, fidgeting with +the card. + +Una did not move. + +"Why?" she asked, raising her eyes for the first time. + +Mrs. Davenant moved her head nervously. + +"Because--I don't think Stephen--I mean--Jack Newcombe is the sort of +man you ought to know." + +"But," said Una, softly and with a steady look in her dark eyes, "I do +know him already." + +Mrs. Davenant stared. + +"You know him? Jack Newcombe?" + +Una nodded. + +"Yes," she said in a low voice. "I met him up the river. I saw him at +Lady Bell's--he is a friend of hers----" + +"But why didn't you tell me?" said Mrs. Davenant, looking distressed and +frightened. + +Una felt guilty. + +"I don't know," she said in reply. "I think it was because I knew you +would feel angry." + +Mrs. Davenant stared at her. It was like the reply of a child in its +simple, naked truth. + +"Well, well," she said, with a troubled voice, "of course you couldn't +help it, and I couldn't help it. And"--here the door opened quietly, and +Jack's head appeared, and Mrs. Davenant started. + +Seeing that they were alone, Jack came in with his usual coolness, +though his heart beat; and he crossed the room, and took Mrs. Davenant's +hand and kissed her forehead. + +And the poor woman melted in a moment, as she always did when Jack was +actually present. As a matter of simple truth, she was really as fond of +him as if he had been her own son, and but for Stephen, Jack would have +seen her oftener. + +He had lost his mother in early boyhood, and the kind-hearted, +affectionate, timid Mrs. Davenant had often dried his boyish tears and +held him in her arms. Even now, notwithstanding Jack's wickedness, of +which Stephen made the most, her heart went out toward him. + +He had not been near her for some months, nearly a year, all through +Stephen, and she had almost given him up; but Jack's kiss revived all +the old tenderness. And what woman could resist his handsome face and +frank, manly way? + +"Well, ma'am," he said--and "ma'am" sounded in her ears and in Una's +almost like "mother"--"and how are you? And aren't you glad to see me?" + +"Yes, Jack," said Mrs. Davenant, nervously. + +"Then why do you keep me in the draughty hall for half an hour? Do you +want me to catch cold?" + +"Half an hour?" murmured Mrs. Davenant. "I'm sure you haven't been there +three minutes." + +"Two minutes and a half too long," he said, smiling. He was giving Una +time to recover herself. + +"You never come to see me now, Jack," said Mrs. Davenant, looking up at +him sadly. + +"And now I do, you keep me outside. Besides, you never ask me. Who's +that in the back room, ma'am?" + +Mrs. Davenant started; she had almost forgotten Una. + +"You know her!" she said. + +Jack had got his cue. + +"Oh, it's Miss Rolfe," he said, and then he crossed the room and held +out his hand. + +Una rose, and without a word put her hand in his, her eyes downcast, +lest the love which beamed in them should escape against her will. + +"Yes," said Jack, "I have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Rolfe once or +twice lately." + +Then he turned away from her and began talking to Mrs. Davenant, as if +Una were not in the room. + +It was just what Una wanted. She felt that she could not speak, and for +the present it was happiness enough to have him in the same room with +her, and to hear his voice. + +And Mrs. Davenant, now that the first shock was over, was glad enough to +sit down and listen to the frank, musical voice--so unlike Stephen's +measured, modulated tone. + +Presently she said in a low, nervous tone: + +"Jack, I am so sorry!" + +Jack nodded, and his face dropped. + +"About the poor squire? Yes! Never mind. It is all right. No! It's all +wrong for me, but all right for Stephen." + +"But Stephen doesn't--doesn't want it all," she murmured. + +Jack looked another way; he had a different opinion. + +"Never mind," he said, "don't let us worry about it--you and I. It's all +past and gone, and there's no help for it." + +"But you have worried," she said. "You don't look so well as you did, +Jack. I hope--I do hope," and her voice faltered. + +Jack's face flushed for a moment. + +"You are going to scold me, as usual," he said. "Well, go on, it will +be your last opportunity, ma'am. I've reformed." + +There was something in his tone, something so earnest and grave, that +she looked at him anxiously. + +"Oh, Jack, I wish--I wish you would be more steady." + +"Wait and see," he said, gravely, and in a low voice. + +Mrs. Davenant wiped her eyes, and glanced at the clock. It was near the +dinner hour. + +"Do you want me to go?" said Jack, in his blunt way, and he took up his +hat and gloves. + +Mrs. Davenant hesitated a moment. + +"You wouldn't stop to dinner, if I asked you," she said, with a faint +smile. + +Una's heart gave a great leap. + +"Try me," said Jack. "Yes, I'll stay. Now don't look frightened and +disappointed, or I'll go." + +Mrs. Davenant rose, with her rare laugh. + +"I must go and tell them," she said, "or you'd be starved," and she left +the room. + +Jack went and stood beside the silent, motionless figure and looked down +at her with infinite yearning and infinite sorrow. He had come resolved +to tell her the truth and to bid her to forget him. + +"Una," he said, in a low voice. + +She raised her eyes, and in an instant his grand resolution, built up +with such care for the last two days, crumbled into dust. With something +like a groan he was on his knee and caught her to his breast. + +For a moment she resigned herself to the exquisite joy of his embrace, +and with downcast eyes drooped beneath his passionate kisses, then with +an effort she regained possession of the soul which had slipped from her +into his, as it were, and gently disengaged herself. + +"No, no, you frighten me!" she murmured, as Jack's arm drew her toward +him again. + +"My darling! There!" and he kissed her hands. "How can I do it? It is +too much to ask of mortal man." + +"Do what?" she murmured. + +Jack's face paled. + +"Nothing--nothing," he said. + +"And are you really going to stay?" she murmured, her eyes beaming with +pleasure. + +"Yes," he said, "I came on purpose. If she had not asked me I meant to +ask her." + +"And you love her, don't you? Is she not good--and isn't it cruel to +deceive her," said Una, and she hung her head. + +"She's the dearest old lady in the world," said Jack, enthusiastically, +who would have loved a gorilla, much less Mrs. Davenant, if it had been +kind to Una. "Why, she was a second mother to me until Stephen grew +up--and she has been kind to you. I can see that for myself. But you +must tell me all about it--all about everything tonight. Think, my +darling! we shall be together here all the evening! No noisy crowd to +prevent us talking--no interference. I shall want to know everything. +Hush! here she comes," and with another swift kiss he rose and went into +the next room. Una stole out and upstairs to dress. + +Quite unsuspicious, Mrs. Davenant came back smiling. She had ordered one +or two of Jack's favorite dishes, and had come to ask him about the +claret. + +"There is some of the Chateau la Rose, Jack. Would you like to have it +warmed a little?" she asked, anxiously. + +"Let them put a bottle in the kitchen somewhere," said Jack. "It will +get right there by dinner time. Eight o'clock you dine, I know. I'll +just run home and dress, and be back punctually to the minute." + +"It will be the first time in your life then," said Mrs. Davenant. + +For the first time in his life then Jack was punctual. At five minutes +to eight a hansom dashed up to the door, and Jack, in evening dress, +with his light overcoat, strode up the steps and into the drawing-room. + +It was empty, but a minute afterward he heard the rustle of a woman's +dress, and turned as Una entered the room. She wore the dress she had +worn at Lady Bell's, and Jack, who had not yet seen her in her "war +paint"--as he would have described it--was startled; and Una, as she saw +the look of surprise and rapt admiration, felt, like a true woman, a +glow of satisfaction and pleasure. It was not that she was beautiful, +but that he should think her so. + +"My darling," he murmured, holding her at arm's length; "what magic +charm do you possess that enables you to grow more beautiful every time +I see you? Or is it all a mistake, and are you another Una than the Una +of Warden Forest?" + +Una put her hands on his shoulders trustfully, and turned her face up to +him. + +"Tell me," she murmured, "which Una do you like best?" + +Jack thought a moment. + +"I love them both so well," he said, "that I can't decide." And he +kissed her twice. "One is for the Una of the Forest, and one for the Una +of the world," he said. + +She had only time to slip from his arms when Mrs. Davenant entered. + +"What do you say to punctuality, ma'am?" he exclaimed, triumphantly, as +he gave her his arm and lead her into the dining-room. + +Jack was a favorite, for all his wickedness, wherever he went. It was no +sooner known that he was to dine in the house, that the cook awoke to +instant energy and enthusiasm. + +"Master Jack's a gentleman worth cooking a dinner for," she declared. +"It's a waste of time to worry yourself for women folk; they don't know +a good dinner from a bad one; but Master Jack--oh, that's a different +thing! He knows what clear soup ought to be; and he shall have it right, +too." + +Mrs. Davenant herself was surprised at the elaborate little dinner. + +"I wish you'd dine with us every day, my dear Jack," she said. + +Jack glanced demurely at Una, in time to catch the sparkle in her dark +eyes. + +"I'm afraid you'd soon get tired of me," he said. "But, seriously, I +should improve the cooking; not this day's, I mean, but the usual ones. +You've got a treasure of a cook, ma'am." + +And, of course, this was carried down by Mary to the empress of the +kitchen, and her majesty was rewarded for all her trouble. + +"What did I tell you?" she demanded. "Master Jack knows." + +Jack's appetite was always good, in love or out of it, and this evening +would have been the happiest in his life but for certain twinges of +conscience. + +What should he say to Leonard, the faithful friend, when he got home and +was asked how he had parted from Una? However, he stifled conscience--it +is always easy to do that at dinner time. + +"Will you have some more claret?" asked Mrs. Davenant, as she and Una +prepared to leave him. "You can smoke a cigarette, if you like; but open +the window afterward." + +"I won't have any more claret, and I won't smoke," said Jack. "I'll just +finish this glass and come with you for a cup of tea." + +Five minutes of solitude spent in going over every look and word of the +lovely creature he had won, were enough for Jack. + +He found them seated at the window; Una in a low chair, almost at Mrs. +Davenant's feet. They both looked up, as if glad to see him; and Mrs. +Davenant at once rang for tea and coffee. + +Una rose, and officiated with calm self-possession and accustomed +ease--no one would have guessed that her acquaintance with a London +drawing-room, and its accompanying forms and ceremonies, was only that +of a few weeks--and brought Jack his cup. + +In taking it, he tried to touch her hand, and nearly upset the cup. + +"Take care, my dear Jack," said Mrs. Davenant. "Has he spoiled your +dress, my dear?" + +"No," said Una, her face red as a rose. "It was my fault." + +"Yes; it was her fault," said Jack, significantly. + +"You always were clumsy, my dear Jack," said Mrs. Davenant. "You are too +big." + +"I'll get myself cut down a foot or two," said Jack. + +Happy! They were as happy as any two women in London, notwithstanding +Jack's wickedness. + +Jack glanced at the piano. + +"I wish you could play," he said to Una. + +Mrs. Davenant looked at him. + +"How do you know she cannot?" she said. + +Jack looked embarrassed. + +"I rather fancy I heard U--Miss Rolfe--admit as much. But she can sing, +I know." + +"And you can play for her," said Mrs. Davenant. "You used to play very +nicely when you were a boy," and she sighed. + +Jack looked dubious for a moment, then, with sudden assurance and +confidence, jumped up. + +"Let me try. Will you come, Miss Rolfe?" + +Una followed him to the piano, and Jack turned out all the music from +the canterbury on the floor. + +"Come and see if there is anything you know," he said, and Una knelt +down beside him. + +Of course Jack's hand was on hers in a moment. + +"I nearly let the cat out of the bag just then," he said. "I must be +careful." + +"But why?" asked Una. "Why may we not----" she paused, then, having +raised her eyes, she continued--"why may she not know?" + +"So she shall," said Jack, "all in good time. I can't consent to share +my secret all in one evening! Besides----" + +"Cannot you find anything," said Mrs. Davenant, sleepily, from the next +room. + +Jack stuck up some music on the stand and sat down. + +He had played well at one time, in a rough fashion, and had a wonderful +ear, and, quite regardless of the music, he launched into a prelude. + +"Sing the song you sang the other evening, my darling," he whispered. "I +remember every note of it." + +Una obeyed instantly. Free from any spark of vanity, she knew nothing of +the shyness which assails self-conscious people. Jack, with his acute +ear, played a running accompaniment easily enough; it was true he had +remembered every note of it. + +"You nightingale," he whispered, looking up at her, and the fervent +admiration of his eyes made her heart throb. + +"Now sing something yourself, Jack," said Mrs. Davenant. + +Jack thought a moment, his fingers straying over the keys, then +softening his full baritone voice as much as possible, he sang--"Yes, +dear, I love but thee!" + +It was an old English song, one of the sweetest of the old melodies +which even now have power to rouse a _blase_ audience to enthusiasm. + +Una stood behind him entranced, bewitched; he sang every word to _her_. + +"Yes, dear, I love but thee!" + +Oh, Heaven, it was too great a joy! + +Unconsciously she drew nearer and put her hand upon his shoulder, +timidly, caressingly, and as the music ceased, Jack turned and caught it +prisoner in his. + +"Yes, dear, I love but thee!" he murmured. + +"And I"--she breathed, her eyes melting with passionate tenderness--"and +I love but thee." + +"My darling," he whispered, "do you know what you are giving me--your +precious self--and to whom you are giving it?" + +The voice fell; conscience was awake again. + +"Una," he went on, hurriedly, passionately. "I am not worthy of your +love----" + +"I love but thee!" she breathed, softly. + +"You do not know, you who are so ignorant of the world, what it means to +wed a man like myself, penniless, worthless--oh, Heaven, forgive me!" + +"I love but thee!" she breathed, for all her answer. + +Jack bent his head over her hand. + +"What can I do?" he murmured, bitterly. "I cannot give her up." + +Then he looked up. + +"Have you no fear, Una? Do you trust me so entirely? Think, can you face +poverty and all its trials. Dear, I am very poor, worse than poor." + +She smiled an ineffable smile. + +"And I am rich--while I have your love." + +Then suddenly her voice changed, and with a look of terror she bent over +him, almost clingingly. + +"What is it you are saying? Jack! Jack! you will not leave me?" + +Jack started to his feet, and regardless of waking Mrs. Davenant, took +her in his arms. + +"Never, by Heaven!" he exclaimed. + +There was one moment of ecstatic joy, then suddenly Una drew back; and +with a gesture of alarm, pointed to the looking-glass. Jack raised his +head, and with a sudden cry drew her nearer to him as if to protect her. + +Reflected in the glass was the thin figure of Stephen Davenant, looking +rather like a ghost than a man--silent, motionless, with pallid face, +and set, rigid eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +White and haggard, Stephen stood in shadow-way, his eyes fixed on Jack +and Una with an expression of mingled astonishment and rage beyond all +description. + +Jack was too astonished by what seemed as much an apparition as a +reality, to withdraw his arm from round Una's waist, and it was she who +first recovered self-possession enough to cross over to Mrs. Davenant +and wake her. + +Her movement seemed to recall Stephen to a sense of the situation, and +in a moment he rose and coped with it. + +Another man, a weaker man, coming thus suddenly upon what looked like +the wreck of all his deeply-laid plans, upon seeing the girl, whom it +was all-important he should secure for himself, in the arms of the man +he hated and feared most in the world, would have given vent to his +wrath and disappointment. But not so Stephen. By a vast effort, he +suppressed the evil glance in his eyes, forced a smile to his compressed +lips, and came across the room with outstretched hand and an expression +of warmest and most affectionate greeting. + +"My dear Jack!" he exclaimed, in his soft tones, almost rough in their +warmth and geniality. "Now, this is a pleasant surprise. How do you do? +how do you do?" + +But almost before Jack knew it, Stephen had seized him by the hand, and +was swinging it convulsively, smiling so that all his teeth glittered +and shone in the candle-light. + +Jack was taken by surprise, and returned the greeting cordially; indeed, +what else could he do, seeing that he was in Stephen's mother's house, +and making love to Stephen's _protegee_? + +"Quite a surprise!" said Stephen, laughing; and then, still talking to +Jack, he crossed over and bent down to kiss his mother. "How do you do, +my dear mother? Now don't be angry at my taking you so unexpectedly." + +"Angry, my dear Stephen!" faltered Mrs. Davenant; and indeed, it was not +anger so much as fear that shone in the timid eyes. + +Then, having got himself completely under control, Stephen raised his +eyes to Una, and held out his hand. + +"And how do you do, Miss Rolfe? I hope your health has not suffered in +this close London of ours. May I say that there are no signs of such an +ill result in your face?" + +Una gave him her hand, and smiled at him in her quiet, grave way. + +"I am very well, thank you," she said. + +"That's right," said Stephen--"that's right!" + +And he stood and looked from one to the other, rubbing his white, soft +hands, and smiling as if he were over-running with the milk of human +kindness. + +Meanwhile Mrs. Davenant had risen, and was fluttering about nervously. + +"Have you dined, Stephen? We can get some dinner, or--or something +directly." + +"My dear mother, I dined at my rooms two hours ago; but if you have a +cup of tea, now; but don't trouble--it does not matter in the +slightest." + +Fresh tea was brought in, and Una, as usual, officiated. Stephen, +leaning over a chair-back, talked to Jack and Mrs. Davenant, but his +eyes turned continually on the graceful figure and the beautiful +profile; and not one of them guessed the rage and fury which boiled and +simmered under his calm and amiable exterior. + +Already, as if some one had told him, he knew that Una had been out into +the world. Her dress, her manner told him that; and while he smiled +lovingly at his mother, he was crying out inwardly: + +"Fool! fool! to trust Una to her." + +He took his cup of tea, his hand as steady as a rock, and chatted with +Jack, full of the pleasantest interest. + +Where had he been, and what had he been doing? and was he in those +eccentric but charming rooms of his in the Temple still? and how was his +friend Leonard Dagle? + +He was full of questions, questions which Jack answered in his curt, +brief fashion. And all the while Stephen was weighing the situation, +realizing all its danger and peril, and determining on a course of +action. + +"Just one more cup, Miss Rolfe, if you please. Tea is my favorite +beverage--I am quite an old washerwoman!" + +Then he took his cup, and sat down beside her. + +"Yes," he said, not in a particularly low tone, but in his softest +manner--"yes, I am glad to see that your health has not suffered in +London. I trust you have been happy?" + +Una looked up with a faint flush on her face. + +"I have been--I am very, very happy," she said, and Jack's face flushed +too with the delight at the accent on "I am." + +"That is right," said Stephen, with the air of an old, old friend, "and +I hope my mother has found some amusement for you--that she has shown +you something of the great world." + +"Yes," said Una, and she glanced at Mrs. Davenant, from whose pale face +all traces of the calm serenity which had reigned there during the +earlier part of the evening had entirely fled--"yes, I have been very +gay--is not that the word? I have been to a ball, and to a picnic, and +have seen all the sights." + +"And where was the ball?" + +"At Lady Earlsley's," said Una. + +Stephen opened his eyes and smiled. + +"My dear Miss Rolfe, you have penetrated the most exclusive of social +rings! Lady Earlsley's! Come, that is very satisfactory; and Jack--Jack +is my cousin--well, very nearly cousin, you know, I hope he has made +himself useful and agreeable?" + +Una glanced shyly and gravely at Jack--a glance that told everything, +even if Stephen had not seen her in Jack's arms. + +"Yes," she said, in a low voice, "Mr. Newcombe has been very--kind." + +Stephen smiled and showed all his teeth. + +"I am afraid there will be nothing left for me to do," he said. + +Then, in a lower voice, he added: + +"You will be glad to hear that I have news of your father." + +Una looked up breathlessly. The question had been hovering on her lips. + +Stephen nodded. + +"Yes, he wrote me from a place in Surrey called--tut--tut! The name has +escaped me! They are quite well, and send their fondest love." + +Una's eyes filled. + +"Why did they leave the cottage so suddenly?" she said. + +"Because your father wished for a change. I told you truth, you see, +when I said that your departure would be good for him, and wean him from +his seclusion." + +"Why does he not come to see me?" asked Una. + +"He is coming, my dear Una," said Stephen. "But at present he is very +much engaged, and quite satisfied with my favorable report of your +health and happiness. But come, I must not make you homesick. Were you +not playing when I came in?" + +Una flushed. + +"Jack--Mr. Newcombe--was playing," she said; "I was singing." + +"Pray don't let me interrupt you," said Stephen, genially, "or I shall +feel like an intruder, and walk off again. Jack, go on with your music, +my dear fellow." + +But Jack declined promptly, though politely. + +"I'm afraid I must be off," he said, looking at his watch, and then at +Una, wistfully. + +"Not yet," said Stephen. "I have a whole budget of news to tell you. I +dare say you wonder why I haven't been up before this; but there was so +much to do--a surprising deal." + +Jack nodded curtly. He certainly didn't want to finish up this +particular evening by hearing Stephen's talk of the Hurst. + +"No doubt," he said. "You must come and dine with me and tell me. +Good-night, Mrs. Davenant!" + +Mrs. Davenant gave him her hand. + +"Must you go, Jack?" she said, tremulously. "You--you will come again?" + +"Most certainly I will," said Jack, significantly. + +Una had risen and gone to the piano to gather up the music which Jack, +with his usual untidiness, had scattered about. + +He followed her, and knelt down as if to help her. + +"Good-night, my darling!" he murmured, touching her arm caressingly. +"Don't be afraid." + +Una raised her arm and touched it with her lips. + +"Afraid--of whom?" + +"Of--nobody!" said Jack, rather ungrammatically. + +"Not of Mr. Davenant, who has been so kind?" she whispered, with a +surprised look. + +Jack bit his lip. + +"No, no; certainly not. Oh, yes, he has been kind." + +Then with a long, loving look into her sweet face he crossed the room. + +"Good-night, Stephen." + +"You are really going? Well, then, I'll go with you," said Stephen. +"Mother will not mind my running away tonight, I am rather tired." + +And he stooped and kissed her, and went to the door. + +It almost seemed as if he had forgotten Una; but he turned suddenly and +held out his hand, a bland, benevolent smile on his pale face. + +"Good-night, good-night," he murmured, softly, and followed after Jack, +who, the moment he reached the pavement, looked out for a hansom; but +Stephen linked his arm in Jack's, and said: + +"Are you in a hurry, my dear Jack? If not, I'll walk a little way with +you; or will you come toward my rooms?" + +Jack consented to the latter course, by turning in the direction of the +"Albany" in silence. + +He felt that Stephen was playing a part--why or wherefore he could not +guess--and now that he had recovered from his surprise at Stephen's +sudden appearance, his old mistrust and dislike were returning to him. + +They walked on in silence for some few moments, then Stephen said: + +"I wanted to have a few words with you, my dear Jack. I should have +written, but I felt that I could make myself understood better by word +of mouth." + +Jack nodded. + +"Of course, what I have to say concerns my poor uncle's death and its +consequences." + +Jack was silent still. He would not help him in the slightest. + +"I cannot but feel that those consequences, while they have been +distinctly beneficial to me, have--and to put it plainly, and I wish to +speak plainly, my dear Jack--have been unfortunate for you." + +"Well," said Jack, grimly. + +"Well," said Stephen, softly, "I had hoped, I still hope, that you will +allow me the happiness of setting right, to some extent, the wrong--yes, +I will say wrong--done you by my uncle's will." + +"That's impossible," said Jack, gravely. + +"But, my dear Jack, why not? It is my right. Have you any idea of the +fortune----" + +"Not the slightest," said Jack, breaking in abruptly, "and it's no +business of mine; large or small, I hope you'll enjoy it. It was the +squire's to do as he liked with, and I suppose he did as he liked; and +there's an end of it." + +Stephen winced and bit his lip. + +"And now," said Jack, quietly, but with his heart beating wildly, "I +want a word with you, Stephen." + +"Say on, my dear Jack. If there is anything I can do for you----" + +"Yes, there is," said Jack. "I want to know--I want you to tell +me--something respecting Miss Rolfe." + +"Miss Rolfe!" said Stephen, softly. + +"Yes," continued Jack. "You'll want to know, before I go any further, on +what grounds I ask for information. I'll tell you. I have asked Miss +Rolfe to be my wife." + +Stephen feigned a start of astonishment. + +"My dear Jack, isn't that rather sudden--rather premature?" + +"It may be sudden, I don't know whether it is premature; that's for Miss +Rolfe to decide. And she has decided." + +Stephen moistened his lips; they burned like coals. + +"She has accepted you?" + +"She has," said Jack, who felt reluctant to utter one word more than was +necessary. + +Stephen pulled up and held out his hand. + +"My dear Jack, I congratulate you. I congratulate you," he exclaimed, +fervently. "You are indeed a happy man." + +Jack, confounded, allowed his hand to be wrung by the soft, white palm +that burned hot and dry. + +"You are a lucky fellow, my dear Jack. Miss Rolfe is one in a thousand. +I question if there is a more beautiful girl in London--and her +disposition. You are indeed a lucky fellow." + +"Thanks, thanks!" said Jack, still overwhelmed by this flood of good +will. "And now, perhaps you will tell me what I had better do in the +affair! You see I find her visiting--settled, rather, at your mother's +house, and neither she nor your mother seem to know why or +wherefore----" + +Stephen interrupted him with a pressure of the arm. + +"I understand, my dear Jack; your anxiety for information is only +natural. I am very glad I came up this evening--very glad! And now, as I +feel rather tired, would you mind coming up to my rooms? and we'll have +a hansom, after all." + +Jack hailed a cab, and they were rattled to the Albany. + +Of course they could not talk, and Stephen had therefore time to perfect +his scheme; for he had already begun to plot and plan. + +The door of the chambers was opened by Slummers, his tall, square figure +dressed in black, his discreet, shifty eyes absolutely veiled under his +lids. + +"Let us have some Apollinaris and the liquor-case, Slummers," said +Stephen, "and that box of cigars which Mr. Newcombe liked. Sit down, my +dear Jack." + +And he wheeled forward a chair facing the light, and took one for +himself, so that his own face should be shaded. + +Jack looked round the room while Slummers brought the tray. + +The four walls were nearly covered with books, all of them of the dryest +and most serious kind. Where any space was left, it was filled up with +portraits of eminent divines and philanthropists, and every article in +the room was neatly and methodically arranged. In fact, it presented as +marked a contrast to Jack's rooms as it was possible to conceive. + +Jack had not been inside it for years, but he remembered distinctly how +he used to loathe the room and its "fixings." + +"Now, my dear Jack, pray help yourself--those cigars I know you approve; +I heard you praise them at the Hurst, and I brought a box at once." + +"Thanks," said Jack, and he lit a cigar. + +Stephen mixed the Apollinaris and brandy; and leaned back serene and +amiable. + +"And now, my dear Jack, I am ready to answer all questions." + +Jack looked down and frowned thoughtfully. He did not know how to put +them. Stephen smiled maliciously behind his hand. + +"You want to know how it comes about that Miss Rolfe is under my +mother's charge--under my charge, I may say?" + +"Under yours?" said Jack, grimly. + +Stephen nodded. + +"It is a very simple affair, Jack. There is no mystery. The fact is, I +have known Miss Rolfe's father for some years. He is a very good fellow, +but very eccentric." + +"I know," said Jack; "I've seen him." + +Stephen started, and concealed his expression of surprise by reaching +for his glass. + +"Ah, then, no doubt, you noticed that his appearance and manner does not +correspond with the station he occupies?" + +"I did," said Jack. + +"Yes, yes, just so. Well, my dear Jack, my poor friend Rolfe has been in +early life unfortunate--money matters, which I never quite understand. +Like most men of his kind, he got disgusted with the world and hid +himself--there is no other word for it. But it is one thing to hide +yourself and quite another to bury your children. My friend Rolfe felt +this when he awoke to the fact that his daughter had grown from a child +to a young woman, and like a sensible man he applied to one who was +conversant with the world, and one in whom he could have, I trust, full +confidence--my self." + +Jack sat silently regarding the white, calm face with grim, observant +eyes. + +"He did not appeal to an old friendship in vain. I undertook the charge +of Miss Rolfe on one condition. I may say two--one on her side, one on +mine. Hers was that she should live with my mother, under her protecting +wing, as it were; mine was that I should be the absolute guardian of the +young girl committed to my charge." + +Jack stared. + +"You are Una's guardian?" he said, at last, with unconcealed surprise, +as Gideon Rolfe's curse upon the race of Davenants flashed upon his +memory. + +Stephen Davenant smiled. + +"You are surprised, my dear Jack. But think! It is very natural. Unless +I had unquestionable control over the young lady, how could I answer for +her safety? How guard her against the attacks of fortune hunters----" + +Jack started. + +"Fortune hunters!" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that Una is an +heiress?" + +Stephen's face had flushed and turned deadly pale. + +He had actually been thinking of Una Davenant while he had been talking +of Una Rolfe. + +"You did not hear me out, my dear Jack," he said, softly, recovering his +composure instantly. "I was going to say against the attack of fortune +hunters who might besiege her under the impression that, as my ward, she +would be possessed of wealth, instead of being, as you know, absolutely +penniless." + +Jack nodded. + +"At any rate," he said, grimly, "I was not so deceived." + +"My dear Jack!" exclaimed Stephen, reproachfully, "do you suppose that I +do not know that! You, who are the soul of honor and disinterestedness, +are not likely to be mistaken for a fortune hunter by anyone, least of +all by me, who know and love you so well!" + +Jack winced, as the vision of Lady Bell rose before his eyes. + +"Go on," he said, impatiently. + +"Well, my dear Jack," said Stephen with a smile, and rubbing his hands +softly, "is it not rather for you to go on? I am Una's guardian, you are +her lover." + +"I see," said Jack, rising and pacing up and down the room. "You want me +to ask your consent formally. Well, I do so." + +Stephen laughed as if at an excellent joke. + +"What a grim, thorough-going old bulldog you are, my dear Jack!" he +exclaimed affectionately. "You ask my consent, as if you did not know +that you have it, and my best, my very heartiest wishes into the +bargain. But, Jack, don't you see why I am so pleased--why this makes me +so happy? It is because now you will be compelled to do me the favor of +taking a share of the poor squire's money!" + +Jack started as if he had been stung. + +"You see, my dear fellow! you can't marry on nothing--now, can you? Love +must have a cottage, and--but I beg your pardon, my dear fellow! I am, +perhaps, going too far. Much to my grief and regret you have never +confided in me as I should have wished, and perhaps--I hope that it may +be so--you have some means----" + +Jack paced up and down, the perspiration standing on his knitted brow. + +In the ecstatic joy which had fallen upon him like a glamour during +those few short hours with Una, he had absolutely forgotten that he was +penniless, and in debt, and without a prospect in the wide world. + +And now it all rushed back upon him; every softly-spoken word of +Stephen's fell upon him like a drop in an icy shower bath, and awoke him +from his dream to the stern reality. + +What was he to do? Great Heaven, was he actually driven to accept +Stephen's charity? + +A shudder ran through him, a pang of worse than wounded pride. + +Become a pensioner of Stephen Davenant's! No, it was simply impossible. +White and haggard with the struggle that was going on within him, he +turned upon the smiling face. + +"What you want--what you propose, is impossible," he said, hoarsely. "I +cannot and will not do it. I would rather beg my bread----" + +Stephen smiled. It was a delicious moment for him, and he prolonged it. + +"My dear Jack! what would Mr. Gideon Rolfe say if I gave his daughter to +a beggar? I use your own words. It is ridiculous. But come, sit down. +Grieved as I am at what I must call your mistaken obstinacy, I can't +help being touched by it. You always were willful, my dear Jack, always. +Alas! it was that very willfulness that estranged you from my uncle----" + +"No more of that," said Jack, sternly. + +Stephen made a gesture with his hand. + +"And it would, if another man were in my place, rob you of your +sweetheart; but it shall not. I am determined to prove to you, my dear +Jack, that my desire to be a friend is sincere and true. Let me think. +There may be some loophole in your pride which I can creep in at." + +Jack went back to his seat and lit another cigar, and Stephen appeared +lost in thought, but in reality he watched through his fingers, and +gloated over the despair and trouble depicted on Jack's miserable +countenance. + +"Yes, I have it. Come, Jack, you won't refuse assistance when it comes +from the hand of her Majesty? You won't object to a government +appointment?" + +"A government appointment?" said Jack, vaguely. + +Stephen nodded. + +"Yes," he went on. "By a singular chance I have acquired some influence +with the present government. One of these men has a seat in Wealdshire, +which really hangs on the Hurst influence. The squire never interfered, +but I could do so; and--you see, my dear Jack--a snug little sinecure, +say of a thousand a year! It is not much, it is true; but Una has not +been accustomed to wealth so long as to feel a thousand a year to be +poverty." + +Jack rose and paced the room. Was he dreaming, or was this a different +Stephen to the one he knew and disliked? He had heard of sudden wealth +as suddenly transforming the nature of a man. Had Stephen's nature +undergone this marvelous change? + +He doubted and mistrusted him, but here was the absolute evidence. What +could Stephen gain by this generosity? Nothing--absolutely nothing. It +was strange, passing strange; but who was he that he should refuse to +believe in the generosity and virtue of another man, especially when +that generosity was exerted on his behalf? + +Struggling against his suspicion and prejudice, Jack strode round the +table and held out his hand. + +"Stephen, I--I have wronged you. You must be a good fellow to behave in +this way, and I--well, I have been a brute, and don't deserve this on +your part." + +Stephen winced under the hard grip of the warm, honest hand. + +"Not a word more, my dear Jack; not a word more," he exclaimed. +"This--this is really very affecting. You move me very much." + +And he pressed his spotless handkerchief to his eyes. + +Jack's ardor cooled at once, and the old disgust and suspicion rose; but +he choked them down again, and sat down. + +"Not a word more," said Stephen, with a gulp, as if he were swallowing a +flood of tears. "I have long, long felt your coldness and distrust, my +dear Jack, but I vowed to live it down, and prove to you that you have +wronged me. Believe me that my good fortune--my unexpected fortune--was +quite imbittered to me by the thought that you would misjudge me." + +Jack pulled at his cigar grimly. Stephen was on the wrong track, and he +saw it, and hastened to change it. + +"But now, my dear Jack, we shall understand each other. You will believe +me that I have your welfare deeply at heart. Who else have I to think +of--except my mother, my dear mother? And we may conclude that our +little negotiation as suitor and guardian is ended. Eh, Jack? You shall +have the appointment and Una--lucky fellow that you are--and I shall be +rewarded by seeing you happy." + +Jack nodded. The mention of Una had filled him with gratitude. He could +not forget that he owed her in two ways to Stephen. + +"You are a good fellow, Stephen," he said, "and you deserve _your_ luck. +After all, you'll make a better master of Hurst than I should. You'll +take care of it." + +Stephen sighed. He was going to gloat again. + +"I don't know. I wish to do my duty. It is an immense sum of money, +Jack; immense." + +Jack nodded again. + +"I'm glad of it," he said, easily. "I don't envy you. I did once, and +not very long ago. But I rank Una above the Hurst even, and if I have +her, you are welcome to the Hurst." + +Stephen winced, and looked at him from the corners of his eyes. Was +there any significance in the speech? But Jack's face was open and +frank, as usual. + +"That's a bargain," said Stephen, laughing. + +Jack thought a moment. + +"But what about Mr. Rolfe?" he said, dubiously. + +"Leave him to me," said Stephen, confidently. "I will manage him. And, +by the way, I think for the present that we had better keep our little +engagement quiet. You understand? He had better hear it from my lips, +and--you quite see, Jack?" + +Jack didn't quite see. He would have preferred to go to Gideon Rolfe and +have the matter out--fight it out if need be--but he was, so to speak, +in Stephen's hands. + +"Very well," he said. + +"And now have another cigar, my dear Jack, you've eaten that one." + +But Jack was anxious to go. He wanted to be alone to think over this +strange interview, and realize that Una was his. + +"Well, if you will go," said Stephen, reluctantly; "but mind, I shall +expect you to make this your second home." + +Jack glanced round rather dubiously. + +"And of course we shall see you at the Square?" + +This invitation Jack accepted heartily, and once more he wrung Stephen's +hand. + +"Good-night, good-night, my dear Jack," said Stephen, and he took a +candle from the table to light him down the stairs, and smiled till +every tooth in his head showed like a grave-stone. + +Then, as Jack's heavy step faded away and was lost, Stephen went back +into the room, closed the door, and sinking into a chair sat +motionless, with folded arms and haggard face. + +"Yes, yes," he muttered, "I have played the best game--I have gulled +him. Another man would have attempted to thwart him openly, and have +raised a storm. My plan is the wiser. But to think that fate should have +played me such a trick! and I thought she was safe and secure!" and he +wiped the drops of cold sweat from his knitted brow. "Fool, fool that I +was! Better to have left her there in the heart of the Forest! And +yet--and yet--" he mused, "it is not so bad. The man might have been +more powerful and cunning than the idiot whom I have in the hollow of my +hand. Curse him! curse him! I never look on his face but I tremble. I +hate him!" and he stretched out his closed hand as if with a curse. + +As he did so it came into contact with Jack's glass. + +In a paroxysm of fury he caught up the glass and dashed it into the +fire-place. + +It relieved and brought him to his senses. + +With a gesture of self-contempt he rose and rang the bell. + +Slummers stole in with his noiseless step and stood beside the table +with downcast eyes, which, nevertheless, had taken in the broken +tumbler. + +"I've broken a glass, Slummers," said Stephen, with affected +carelessness. "Never mind, leave it till the morning. Now, then, what +have you learned?" + +Slummers cleared his throat, and barely opening his thin lips, replied: + +"A great deal, considering the time, sir. The young lady at Mrs. +Davenant's----" + +"I know all about her," said Stephen, breaking in impatiently. "What +about Mr. Newcombe?" + +Nowise embarrassed, Slummers wiped his dry lips with a handkerchief as +spotless as his master's. + +"It is as you expected, sir. Mr. Newcombe is in difficulties." + +"Ah!" said Stephen, with evident satisfaction. + +"He has been playing and giving paper. There are some old bills out, +too. These are in the hands of Moss the money-lender." + +Stephen nodded and rubbed his hands. + +"I know Moss--a hard man. Go on." + +"But they say," continued Slummers, raising his eyes for a moment to his +master's face, "that Mr. Newcombe is going to set things right by +marrying an heiress." + +Stephen smiled and leaned back in his chair. + +"Oh, they do, do they; and who is this most fortunate young lady?" + +"Lady Isabel Earlsley." + +Stephen started forward. + +"What!" + +"Lady Isabel Earlsley," repeated Slummers, without the slightest change +of voice or countenance. + +"No--it's a lie!" said Stephen, with a chuckle. "Where did you hear it?" + +"At the club. It is the talk of town, sir. Mr. Newcombe has been in +close attendance upon her ladyship for some time. They say that her +ladyship's brougham nearly ran over him, and that she took him home. It +is true; her own coachman told me." + +Stephen leaned back and hid his face with his hand, his busy brain at +work on this last turn of the wheel. + +"Go on," he said. + +"That is all, sir." + +Stephen was silent for a minute or two, then he turned to the writing +table and wrote for some minutes. + +"Go to Moss to-morrow morning," he said, "and tell him not to press Mr. +Newcombe, and I don't think he will require more than the hint--but you +may say I will buy all Mr. Newcombe's bills at a fair price. Mind! I +want every I O U and bill that Mr. Newcombe gives. You understand?" + +"I understand, Mr. Stephen," said Slummers, and a faint, malicious smile +stole over his face. + +"And if Mr. Moss likes to oblige Mr. Newcombe with a little loan, I will +take the bill. You understand?" + +Slummers nodded. + +"Here is the letter to Moss for his own satisfaction. He will not +mention my name." + +Slummers took the note. Stephen passed his hand over his forehead, and +turned his back to the light. + +"Any--any other news, Slummers?" + +Slummers smiled behind his hand. + +"I have been to Cheltenham Terrace. We were rightly informed, sir. Old +Mr. Treherne is dead, and Miss Treherne has disappeared." + +Stephen drew a breath of relief. + +"Indeed," he said. "Very good. Let me see, is there anything else?" + +Slummers coughed. + +"Nothing, sir, except to remind you that you have to speak at the +charitable meeting tomorrow night." + +"Ah, yes, thank you, very good, Slummers. Be good enough to hand me the +last charitable reports. Good-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +Happy! If ever two young people were happy, Una and Jack were. To Una +the days passed like a happy dream time. Her sky was without a cloud; it +almost seemed as if the world had been made for her, so entirely did +everything lend itself to her enjoyment. + +Every morning, soon after breakfast, Jack's quick, buoyant step was +heard ascending the stone steps of the house in Walmington Square, and +he would come marching into the breakfast room with some palpable excuse +about his just happening to pass, and Mrs. Davenant would smile her +gentle welcome, and Una--well, Una's eyes were eloquent, if her tongue +was mute, and would speak volumes. + +And Jack would lounge about for an hour, telling them all the news, and +perhaps smoking a cigarette, just inside the conservatory; and Una was +sure to find an excuse for being near him. + +Indeed, if that young lady could be within touching distance of her god +and hero, she seemed passing content. He was the very light of her life, +soul of her soul; every day seemed to increase the passionate devotion +of her first, her maiden love, for the wild, young ne'er-do-well. + +And she was repaid. Jack thought that there never had been, since Eve +began the sex, such a marvel of beauty and grace and virtue as Una. He +would sit for half-an-hour smoking and watching her in silence. + +"Didn't one of those clever fellows say of a certain woman that to know +her was a liberal education?" he said to Mrs. Davenant. "Well, I say, +that to be in Una's presence, to watch her moving about in that quiet, +graceful way of hers, and then to catch a smile now and again, is like +reading a first-class poem; better, indeed, for me, because I don't go +in for poetry." + +Not that these young lovers spent all their time in silently watching +each other. Every day Jack arrived with some plan for their amusement +and enjoyment. Sometimes it would be: + +"Well, what are you going to do today? What do you say to taking the +coach to Guildford, getting a snack there, and back in the evening?" + +Una's face would light up, and Mrs. Davenant would smile agreeably, and +in half-an-hour they would be ready, and Jack, as proud of Una's beauty +as if it were unique, would escort them to the "White Horse" in +Piccadilly, and away they would spin through the lovely Surrey valleys +to that quaintest of old towns in the hills. Sometimes Jack himself +would take the ribbons, and, with Una by his side, "tool the truck," as +he called the handsome coach, back to town. + +Then, again, he never came without a box for one of the theaters or a +stall for a concert; and though not over fond of classical music +himself, was quite content to sit and watch the look of rapt delight in +Una's face as she listened absorbed in Joachim's wonderful violin. + +But most of all, I think, they enjoyed their days on the river, when +Jack, attired in his white flannels, would pull the two ladies up to +Walton or Chertsey, and give them tea in one of the quiet, river-side +inns. + +Ah! those evenings, those moonlight nights, when the boat drifted down +stream, and the two young people sat, hand in hand, whispering those +endless exchanges of confidence which go to make up lovers' +conversations. + +It was wonderful that Mrs. Davenant did not catch cold, but Jack took +great care of her, and wrapped her up in his thick ulster; and she +never seemed to grow tired of witnessing their happiness. + +Sometimes Jack would ask Stephen to join them, but Stephen would always +find an excuse. Now it was because he had an engagement with the +lawyers; at another time he had promised to speak at some philanthropic +meeting, or had promised to dine at the club. He would, however, +occasionally dine at the Square, or drop in and take a cup of tea; and +wore always the same friendly smile and genial manner. + +Jack had become quite convinced that he had done Stephen a great deal of +injustice, and now thought that Stephen was everything that was kind and +thoughtful. + +It was only at chance times, when Jack happened to catch the pale face +off its guard, that the old doubts rose to perplex and trouble him; but +then he always set them to rest by asking himself what Stephen could +possibly have to gain by acting as he did. + +Of course, all these outings by land and water cost a great deal of +money, but Jack had found Moss, the money-lender, most suddenly and +strangely complaisant. + +Instead of dunning him for what was owing, Moss actually pressed him to +borrow more, and Jack, always too careless in money matters, was quite +ready to oblige him. + +"I can pay him out of my salary, when I get the appointment," he said to +Leonard, in response to the latter's remonstrances and warnings. + +"Yes, when you get it," said Leonard. + +"What do you mean?" said Jack. "Do you mean to hint that Stephen isn't +to be relied upon?" + +"I haven't the honor of knowing much of Mr. Davenant," said Leonard, +"and so can't say whether he is more reliable than most public men who +promise places and appointments; but I do know that men have grown +gray-headed while waiting for one of those said places." + +"You don't know Stephen," said Jack, confidently. "He can manage +anything he likes to set his mind on. He is not one of my sort. He can't +let the grass grow under his feet. There, stop croaking, and come and +dine at the Square." + +And Leonard would go, for he and Una had, as Jack said, "cottoned to one +another." + +Una felt all sorts of likings and gratitude for the man who had always +been Jack's friend, and none of the jealousy which some girls feel for +their lover's bachelor acquaintances. + +"I am sure he is good and true, Jack," she said. + +"Good! There isn't a better man in England," Jack affirmed. "And he's as +true as steel. Poor old Len!" + +"Why do you pity him?" said Una, who had not altogether lost her way of +asking direct questions. + +"Well, you see, there's a lot of romance about Len," said Jack; and he +told her about Leonard's meeting with Laura Treherne. + +"And he has never found her?" said Una. + +"Not from that day to this," answered Jack. + +"And yet he still remembers and loves her," murmured Una. "Yes, I like +your friend, Jack, and I do hope he will meet with this young lady and +be happy. I should like all the world to be as happy as I am!" + +"Ah, but don't you see all the world aren't angels like you, you know," +retorted Master Jack, kissing her. + +Though, in accordance with Stephen's advice, the engagement had not been +made public, the outside world was beginning to get an inkling of what +was going on in Walmington Square. + +Jack's friends at the club chaffed him on the unfrequency of his visits. + +"There's some mischief the Savage is planning," said Dalrymple. "You +scarcely ever see him here now; he doesn't play, and shuns the bottle as +if it were poison, and he's altogether changed. I shouldn't be surprised +if he were to take to public meetings like that distant cousin of his, +Stephen Davenant." + +"It is my opinion," said Sir Arkroyd Hetley, "that he spends all his +time at Walmington Square, for my man sees him going and coming at all +hours. The Savage is in love." + +And gradually those rumors spreading, like the ripple of a stone in a +pool, reached Park Lane, and got to Lady Bell's ears. + +She had gone out of town for a week or two, and had, of course, seen +nothing of Jack or Una, but on her return she drove to the Square. + +Una and Mrs. Davenant were sitting by the tea table, and wondering +whether Jack would come in. + +Lady Bell's entrance made quite a little flutter. + +"How do you do, Mrs. Davenant, and how do you do, Wild Bird?" and she +kissed Una, and holding her at arm's length, scanned her smilingly. +"What have you been doing to look so fresh and happy?" Here Una's face +over-spread with blushes. "What a child it is! But see, here I am just +from the seaside, and as pale, or rather as yellow as a guinea, while +you are like a dairy-maid. My dear girl, you positively beam with +happiness." + +Mrs. Davenant and Una exchanged glances--glances that were not lost upon +Lady Bell's acuteness. + +"Is there a secret?" she said, quickly. "Have you come into a fortune? +But, no, that can't be it, for I know that I've never been thoroughly +happy since I came into mine." + +"You always look happy, Lady Bell," said Mrs. Davenant. + +"My dear, don't judge by appearances," said Lady Bell, in her quick way. +"I am not always happy; most of my time I am bored to death; I am always +worried and hurried. Oh, by-the-way, speaking of worries, can you +recommend me a maid? My own, a girl who came from the colonies with me, +and swore, after a fashion, never to leave me, has gone and got married. +I should be angry if I didn't pity her." + +"Don't you believe in the happiness of the married state, then?" asked +Mrs. Davenant, while Una looked on smilingly. + +"No," said Lady Bell, shortly. "Men are tyrants and deceivers; there is +no believing a word they say. A woman who marries is a slave, and----" + +She broke off sharply, for the door opened and Jack entered. A warm +flush rose to Lady Bell's face, and she was too much occupied in +concealing it to observe the similar flush which flooded Una's cheeks. + +Jack was striding in with Una's name on his lips, but he stopped short +at sight of Lady Bell, and the flush seemed an epidemic, for it glowed +under his tan. + +"I thought you were at Brighton, Lady Bell," he said, as he shook hands. + +"So I was--three hours ago. I came away suddenly; got tired and bored of +it before I had been there three days. If there is one place more +unendurable than another it is the fashionable watering-place. I bore it +until this morning, and then poor Mrs. Fellowes and I made a bolt of it, +or rather I bolted and dragged her with me. I left Lord Dalrymple and +Sir Arkroyd in happy unconsciousness of our desertion." + +"Then, at this moment, they are wandering about the Parade in despair," +said Jack, laughing. And, as he laughed, he looked from one girl to the +other, making a mental comparison. Yes, Lady Bell was beautiful, with a +beauty undeniable and palpable, but how it paled and grew commonplace +beside Una's fresh, spiritual loveliness. + +He had held her hand for a moment when he entered, and now, as he +carried the tea cup, he got an opportunity of touching her arm, +lovingly, caressingly. + +He longed to take her by the hand and say to Lady Bell: + +"This is my future wife, Lady Bell," but he remembered Stephen's advice, +and was on his guard, so much so that though she watched them closely, +Lady Bell saw no sign of the existing state of things. + +It was singular, but since Jack's arrival she did not seem at all bored +or worried, but rattled on in her gayest mood. + +"And what have you been doing since I left town?" she asked Una. "I hope +Mr. Newcombe has made himself useful and attentive;" and she looked at +Jack, who nodded coolly enough, though Una's face crimsoned. + +"Yes, I've been doing the knight errant, Lady Bell. Mrs. Davenant and I +are old friends--relations, indeed." + +"Ah, yes," said Lady Bell. "I hear your son, Mr. Stephen, is in London." + +In a moment Mrs. Davenant's face lost its brightness. + +"Yes, yes," she said, nervously; "yes, he is in London." + +"Where is he?" said Lady Bell, looking round as if she expected to see +him concealed behind one of the chairs. "He's always addressing public +meetings, isn't he?" + +"Not always, Lady Earlsley," said Stephen, from the open doorway. + +"Good heavens! Speak of the--angels, and you hear the rustle of their +wings!" exclaimed Lady Bell, not at all embarrassed. "How did you come +in, Mr. Davenant?" + +"By the door, Lady Earlsley, which was open. Mother, you will lose all +your plate some day." + +"And what public meeting have you come from now?" asked Lady Bell, with +a smile. + +"I have been walking in the park," said Stephen, "and am at your +ladyship's service." + +"I am glad of it," said Lady Bell, quickly, "for I want you--all of you +to come and dine with me tonight." + +"Tonight!" echoed Jack. + +"Tonight! Why not? You have plenty of time to dress. Come, it will be +charity--there's an argument for you, Mr. Davenant--for Mrs. Fellowes +and I are all alone; papa has gone to some learned society meeting. +Come, I'll go home at once and tell them to get your favorite wines +ready. What _is_ your favorite, Mr. Newcombe?" + +Jack laughed. + +"I'd come and dine with _you_, Lady Bell, if you gave us ginger beer," +he said. + +Lady Bell laughed, but she looked pleased. + +"Now, that is what I call a really good compliment--for a Savage," and +she glanced at Jack archly. "We'll say half-past eight tonight to give +you time to finish your chat. _Au revoir_," and waving her +daintily-gloved hand, she flitted from the room. + +"Would he dine with me if I had only ginger beer to offer him?" she +asked herself, as she went back in the brougham. "Would he? He looks so +honest and so true!--so incapable of a mean, unworthy action! I wish I +were as poor--as poor as Una. How quietly she sits. She has just the air +of one of the great ones of the earth--the air which I, with all my +title and wealth, shall never have. I wonder who she is, and whether Mr. +Stephen thinks her as beautiful as I do! He looked at her as he went +in--well, just as I would that _some one else_ would look at me. How +handsome he is, so different to Stephen Davenant. Ah, me! I know now why +Brighton was so hateful; if Jack Newcombe had been there I should not +have hungered and pined for London! What a miserable, infatuated being I +am. I am as bad as that foolish maid of mine. Yes, just as bad, for if +Jack Newcombe came and asked me, I should run away with him as she did +with her young man!" + +Still thinking of him, she reached home and went up to her own room, +where Mrs. Fellowes, the long-suffering, hastened to meet her. + +"My dear, I'm so glad you've come. How long you have been." + +"My dear, you say that every time I come in. What is the matter--another +maid run away?" + +"No, but a maid has come, at least a young person--I was going to say +lady--who wants the situation." + +"Well, a lady's maid ought to be a lady," said Lady Bell, languidly. +"Where is she?" + +"In my room," said Mrs. Fellowes. "She came with a note from Lady +Challoner. It seems the poor girl has been in trouble--she has lost her +father--and not caring to go for a governess----" + +"For which I don't blame her," said Lady Bell. + +"She is desirous of getting an engagement as a companion or lady's +maid." + +"A companion's worse off than a governess, isn't she?" said Lady Bell, +naively. + +Mrs. Fellowes smiled. + +"Yes. What is her name?" asked Lady Bell. + +"Well, there's the point," said Mrs. Fellowes. "Her name is Laura +Treherne, but as some of her friends--she hasn't many, she says--might +think that she had done wrong in taking a menial situation she wishes to +be known by some other name." + +"I hate mysteries and aliases," said Lady Bell. "I don't think I shall +engage her. She'll be too proud to do my hair and copy all my dresses in +common material. Well, I'll see her." + +"I'll send her away if you like," said Mrs. Fellowes; "but I think +you'll like her." + +"Do you? Then I know exactly what she's like before I see her if she +has taken your fancy. Some prim old maid in black cotton and thick +shoes." + +Mrs. Fellowes smiled and rang the bell, and bade a servant to ask the +young person who was waiting to step that way. + +Lady Bell began taking off her gloves yawningly, but stopped suddenly, +and looked up with an air of surprise as the door opened and a tall +girl, with dark hair and eyes, entered. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +Lady Bell overmastered her surprise, and asking the young girl to sit +down, looked at her critically as she did so. + +Yes, the girl was a lady, there could be no doubt of that. But it was +not only the evidence of refinement in the face and the manner of the +girl that struck Lady Bell; there was an expression in the dark eyes and +clear-cut lips, slightly compressed, which roused her interest and +curiosity. + +It was a face with a history. + +For the first time she looked at Lady Challoner's note. + +"I see," she said, "that Lady Challoner knows you, Miss Treherne." + +"She knew my grandfather," was the quiet answer. "He is dead." + +"Lately?" said Lady Bell, glancing at the note. + +Laura Treherne bent her head. + +"Two months ago," she said, sadly. + +"And have you no friends with whom you could go and live?" + +"None who would care to have me, or to whom I should wish to go." + +Lady Bell was silent for a moment--the girl interested her more each +minute. + +"Are you taking a wise step in seeking for a situation which is +considered menial?" she asked. + +Laura Treherne paused for a moment. + +"I do not think it degradation to serve Lady Earlsley," she said. + +Lady Bell smiled, not ill pleased. + +"You mean to say that you would not accept any situation?" + +Laura Treherne inclined her head. + +"How did you know that I wanted a maid?" + +"I heard it in the house where I am lodging," she replied. + +"And you knew me?" + +"Yes; I had heard of you, my lady." + +"Have you any other testimonials besides this note of Lady Challoner's?" + +"None, my lady." + +Lady Bell hesitated. + +"It is quite sufficient," she said; "but I am afraid you do not +understand the duties of a lady's maid." + +"I think so, my lady. What I do not know now, I can soon learn." + +"That's true. And I see you do not wish your real name to transpire?" + +"I would rather that it did not. I would rather be known by some other +name," answered Laura Treherne. + +"Why?" + +There was a moment's hesitation, and the dark face paled slightly. + +"I thought Lady Challoner had explained. My friends----" + +"You do not care for your friends to know that you are in a situation? +You think their pride would be greater than your own?" + +"Exactly, my lady." + +"Well, I'll engage you," she said. "When can you come? I have no maid at +present." + +"Now, at once, if your ladyship wishes. I will stay now, and send for my +luggage, if you please." + +"Very well," said Lady Bell. "Come to my room in half an hour, and we +will arrange matters. You have said nothing about salary." + +"That I leave in your ladyship's hands." + +"Like the cabmen," said Lady Bell, laughing. "Well, come to my room in +half an hour." + +Laura Treherne bowed and left the room, and Mrs. Fellowes lifted up her +voice in remonstrance. + +"My dear Bell, that letter may be a forgery." + +"It might be, but it isn't. I can read faces, and I like that young +lady's. Yes, she's a lady, poor girl. Well, she might have hit upon a +worse mistress; I shan't bang her about the head with a hair brush when +I'm in a temper, as Lady Courtney does her maid. There, spare your +remonstrances, my dear. The girl's engaged, and I mean to keep her. And +now there are three or four people coming to dinner, Mr. and Mrs. +Davenant, Jack--I mean Mr. Newcombe--and that strange girl, Una. What a +lovely creature she is! Do you know I rather think she will become Mrs. +Stephen Davenant." + +"She is a very nice girl," said Mrs. Fellowes. "She ought to make a good +match." + +"_Ay de me_," said Lady Bell, with a sigh. "I'm sick of that word. Men +and women don't 'marry' now, they make 'good matches.' My dear, I hate +your worldly way of looking at matrimony. If I were a poor girl, I'd +marry the man of my heart, if he hadn't a penny. Ah, and if he were the +baddest of bad lots." + +"Like Jack Newcombe, for instance," said Mrs. Fellowes, archly. + +"Yes," said Lady Bell, turning with the door in her hand; "like Jack +Newcombe," and she ran up to her room. + +Punctual to the minute, Laura Treherne knocked at the door of the +dressing-room. Lady Bell was seated before the glass, surrounded by her +walking clothes, which, as was her custom, she had slipped out of or +flung carelessly aside. + +Without a word Laura picked them up and put them in the wardrobe, and +without a word took up the hair brushes. Lady Bell watched her in the +glass, and gave her a hint now and then, and when her hair was dressed +glanced round approvingly. + +"Yes," she said, "that is very nice; and you have not hurt me once. The +last maid used to pull me terribly. I suppose she was thinking of her +young man. By the way, are you engaged?" + +The dark face flushed for a moment, then grew pale. + +"No, my lady." + +"I'm glad of it. Take my advice and don't be. That sounds selfish, +doesn't it. Now you want to know what I am going to wear. I don't know +myself. What would you choose? Go to the wardrobe." + +Laura went to the wardrobe, and came back after a minute or two with a +dress of black satin and lace looped up with rosebuds of the darkest +red. It was one newly arrived from Worth. + +Lady Bell nodded. + +"Yes, that just suits me. Give me a lady for good taste! And now choose +the ornaments. There is the jewel-box." + +Laura chose the set of rubies and diamonds, and Lady Bell smiled again. + +"I shall look rather Spanish. Never mind. Let us try them." + +With deft and gentle hands Laura helped her to dress, and Lady Bell +nodded approval. + +"Am I ready?" + +Laura hesitated a moment. + +"Will your ladyship wear the pendant?" + +Lady Bell glanced in the glass. + +"Ah, I see, you think that is rather too much against the rosebuds. You +are right. Take it off, please. Thanks. Put the key of the jewel-box in +your pocket. Stay! there is a chain for you to wear it on;" and she took +out a small gold chain. "You can keep that as your own." + +Laura Treherne flushed, and she inclined her head gratefully. + +Lady Bell was relieved; her last maid used to overwhelm her with thanks. + +"And now I will go down. By the way, will you please tell Simcox--that's +the butler--that the gentlemen will want Lafitte, at least, Mr. Newcombe +will. I don't know what Mr. Stephen Davenant drinks. What's the matter?" +she broke off to inquire, for she heard Laura stumble and fall against +the wardrobe. + +There was a moment's pause; then, calmly enough, Laura said: + +"My foot caught in your ladyship's dress, I think." + +"Have you hurt yourself?" asked Lady Bell, kindly. "You have gone quite +pale! Here, take some of this sal-volatile." + +But Laura declined, respectfully. It was a mere nothing, and she would +be more careful of alarming her ladyship for the future. + +Lady Bell looked at her curiously. The quiet, self-contained manner, so +free from nervousness or embarrassment, interested her. + +She stopped her as Laura was leaving the room. + +"We haven't fixed upon a name for you yet," she said. + +"No, my lady; any name will do." + +"It is a pity to change yours--it is a pretty one." + +"Will Mary Burns do, my lady? It was my mother's name." + +"Very well," said Lady Bell; "I will tell Mrs. Fellowes that you will be +known by that." + +"That girl has a history, I know," she thought, as she went downstairs. + +Punctual almost to the minute, Mrs. Davenant's brougham arrived. + +The evenings had drawn in, and a lamp was burning in the hall; and a +small fire made the dining-room comfortable. + +Lady Bell welcomed Una most affectionately. + +"Now we will have a really enjoyable evening," she said. "I hate dinner +parties, and if I had my way, would never give nor go to another one. If +it were only a little colder, we'd sit round the fire and bake +chestnuts. Have you ever done that, Wild Bird?" + +"Often," said Una, with a quiet smile, and something like a sigh, as she +thought of the long winter evenings in the cot. How long ago they +seemed, almost unreal, as if they had never happened. + +"Oh, Una is very accomplished," said Jack; "I believe she could make +coffee if she tried." + +Very snug and comfortable the dining-room looked. Lady Bell had +dispensed with one of the footmen, and had evidently determined to make +the meal as homely and unceremonious as possible. + +Never, perhaps, had the butler seen a merrier party. Even Stephen was +genial and humorous; indeed he seemed to exert himself in an +extraordinary fashion. Lady Bell had given him Una to take in, and he +was most attentive and entertaining--so much that Jack, who was sitting +opposite, and next to Lady Bell, felt amused and interested at the +change which seemed to have come over him. + +Could he have seen the workings of the subtle mind concealed behind the +smiling exterior, he would have felt very much less at his ease; for +even now Stephen was plotting how best he could mold the material round +him to serve his purpose, and while the laugh was lingering on his +smooth lips, his heart was burning with hate and jealousy of the rival +who sat opposite. + +For it had come to this, that he desired Una, and not only for the +wealth of which he had robbed her, but for herself. As deeply as it was +possible for one of his nature he loved the innocent, unsuspecting girl +who sat beside him. + +Tonight, as he looked at the beautiful face and marked each fleeting +expression that flitted like sunshine over it: as he listened to the +musical voice, and felt the touch of her dress as it brushed his arm, a +passionate longing seized and mastered him, and he felt that he would +risk all of which he was wrongfully possessed to win her--ah, and if she +were, indeed, only the daughter of a common woodman. + +"Curse him!" he murmured over his wine glass, as his eyes rested on +Jack's handsome face. "If he had not crossed my path, she would have +been mine ere now; no matter, I will strike him out of it, as if he were +a viper in my road." + +Meanwhile, quite unconscious of Stephen's generous sentiments, Jack went +on with his dinner, enjoying it thoroughly, and as happy as it is given +to a mortal to be. + +Presently the conversation turned upon their plans for the autumn. + +"What are we all going to do?" said Lady Bell. "You, I suppose, Mr. +Davenant, will go down to your place in Wealdshire--what is it called?" + +"Hurst Leigh," said Stephen, quietly. "Yes, I must go down there, I +ought to have been there before now, but I find so many attractions in +town," and he smiled at Una. + +"And you, my dear?" said Lady Bell to Mrs. Davenant. + +"My mother will go down with me," said Stephen. + +Mrs. Davenant glanced at him nervously. + +"And that means Miss Wild Bird, too, I suppose?" remarked Lady Bell. + +"If Miss Una will honor us," said Stephen, with an inclination of the +head to Una. "Yes, we shall make quite a family party. You will join us, +of course, Jack?" + +Jack, who had looked up rather grim at the foregoing, bit his lip. + +"I don't quite know," he said, gravely. + +"Surely you will not let the poachers have all the birds this year, +Jack!" said Stephen, brightly. "Besides my mother will be quite lost +without you." + +"Do come, Jack," whispered Mrs. Davenant. + +"I'll see," said Jack, grimly, and Una looked down uneasily; she +understood his reluctance to go to the old place. + +"Oh, we will take no refusal," said Stephen, buoyantly. "And what are +your plans, Lady Bell?" + +Lady Bell looked up with rather a start and a flush. + +"I--I--don't quite know," she said. "I had been thinking of going to a +small place we have at Earl's Court." + +"Earl's Court!" exclaimed Jack. "Why, that is only thirteen miles or so +from the Hurst." + +"Is it?" said Lady Bell. "I didn't know. I haven't seen it. I'm ashamed +to say that I haven't made a round of inspection of the property yet. My +stewards are always bothering me to do so, but I don't seem to have +time." + +"A sovereign cannot be expected to visit the whole of her kingdom," said +Stephen, with a smile. + +Lady Bell sighed. + +"I often wish the old earl had left me five hundred a year and a cottage +somewhere," she said, quietly. "I should have been a happier woman. Oh, +here is the claret. Give Mr. Newcombe the Lafitte, Simcox. Mr. +Davenant----" + +"I always follow Jack's suit," said Stephen, rising to open the door for +the ladies. "He is an infallible guide in such matters." + +"Fancy a woman lamenting the extent of her wealth," he said, with +something like a sneer, as he went back to the table. "If any girl ought +to be happy that girl ought to be. What a chance for some young fellow! +My dear Jack, if I had been in your place----" + +Jack looked up with a tinge of red in his face. + +"What nonsense. Lady Bell knows better than to be caught by such chaff +as I am. Besides, I am more than content. I wouldn't exchange Una for a +Duchess, with the riches of Peru in her pockets. What about the +commissionership, or whatever it is, Stephen?" + +"All in good time, my dear Jack. Those sort of things aren't done in a +moment; the matter is in hand, and we shall get it, be sure. Meanwhile, +if you want any money----" + +"Thanks, no," said Jack, easily. + +He had only that morning negotiated a bill with Mr. Moss for another +hundred pounds. + +Stephen smiled evilly behind his pocket handkerchief. He held that bill +in his pocketbook at that moment, in company with all Jack's previous +ones. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +The two men sat beside the fire almost in silence. Jack was trying to +get over his reluctance to go to the Hurst, and wondering what would +become of him if he did not, and Una left him all alone in town; and +Stephen was wondering whether it was time to strike the blow he +meditated. + +Very soon Jack jumped up. + +"If you've had enough wine, let us join the ladies," he said, and went +toward the door. + +Stephen followed him, but turned back to fetch his pocket handkerchief. + +Lying beside it, on the table, was a rose which had fallen from the +bosom of Una's dress. He took it up, and looked at it with that look +which a man bestows on some trifle which has been worn by the woman he +loves, and then, as if by an irresistible impulse, raised it to his +lips, kissing it passionately, and put it carefully in his bosom. As he +did so, he raised his eyes to the glass, which reflected one side of +the room, and saw the slight figure of a woman standing in the open door +and watching him. + +The light from the carefully shaded lamp was too dim to allow him to see +the face distinctly, but something in the figure caused him to feel a +sudden chill. + +He turned sharply and walked to the door; but the hall was empty and +there was no sound of retreating footsteps. + +"Some servant maid waiting to come in to clear the table," he muttered. + +But he returned to the dining-room, and drank off a glass of liquor +before going to the drawing-room, from which ripples of Jack's frank +laughter were floating in the hall. + +Lady Bell was seated at the piano, playing and singing in her +light-hearted, careless fashion; Jack and Una were seated in a dimly-lit +corner, talking in an undertone. + +Stephen went up to the piano and stood apparently listening intently, +but in reality watching the other two under his lowered lids. + +The presence of the rose in his bosom seemed to heighten the passion +which burned in his heart; and the sight of Jack bending over Una, and +of her rapt, up-turned face as she looked up, drinking in his lightest +word as if it were gospel, maddened him. + +It was with a start that he became conscious that Lady Bell had ceased +playing, and that she, like him, was watching the lovers. + +"Miss Una and Mr. Newcombe seem very good friends," she said, with a +forced smile. + +"Do they not?" said Stephen, in his softest voice. "Too good." + +Lady Bell looked up at him quickly. + +"What do you mean?" + +Stephen looked down at her gravely. + +"Can you keep a secret, Lady Bell?" he said, hesitatingly. + +"Sometimes," she said. "What is it?" + +Stephen glanced across at Jack and Una. + +"I'm rather anxious about our young friends," he said, his voice dropped +still lower, his head bent forward with such an insidious smile that +Lady Bell could not, for the life of her, help thinking of a serpent. + +"Anxious!" she echoed, her heart beating. "As how?" + +"Can you not guess?" he said, raising his eyebrows. + +"You--you mean that they may fall in love with each other. Well, they +are not badly matched," said Lady Bell, bravely, though her heart was +aching. + +"Not badly, in one sense," said Stephen, after a pause; "but as badly as +two persons could be in all others. They are a match as regards their +means. They are both penniless." + +Lady Bell looked up with a start. + +"Is--is Mr. Newcombe so badly off? I thought--that is, I fancied he had +a wealthy uncle----" She paused. + +"You mean Mr. Ralph Davenant," said Stephen, calmly, and with an air of +sadness. "I am sorry to say that he left everything which he possessed +to a less worthy person--to me." + +Lady Bell looked at him inquiringly. + +"To me," he repeated, "and poor Jack was--well, disinherited, and left +penniless. It is of him I think when I say that I am anxious about them; +naturally, I think of him. Miss Rolfe is a friend of my mother's, and +has been used to a straitened life; but poor Jack does not know what +poverty means, and in his ignorance may drift into an entanglement which +may embitter her life. No man in the world is less fitted for love in a +cottage, and nothing to pay the rent, than Jack Newcombe. You, who have +seen something of him, must have remarked his easy-going, careless +nature, his utter ignorance of the value of money, his unsuitableness +for a life of poverty and privation." + +Lady Bell's heart beat fast. + +"But--but--" she said, "you have plenty." + +"Of which Jack will not take one penny. You see he is as proud as he is +poor." + +"I like him for that," murmured Lady Bell. + +"Yes, so do I; though it pains and grieves me. If Jack would permit me +to help him, Lady Bell, he might marry Una Rolfe tomorrow; but as it is, +I fear, I am anxious. Another man would be wiser, but Jack has no idea +of prudence, and would plunge head first into all the misery of such a +union without a thought of the morrow." + +"And you--you think he loves her," murmured Lady Bell; and she waited +for an answer as a man on his trial might wait for the verdict of the +jury. + +Stephen smiled. He could read Lady Bell's heart as if it were an open +book. + +"Loves her! No, certainly not--not yet. He is amused and entertained, +but love has not come yet." + +"And she?" asked Lady Bell, anxiously, her eyes fixed on Una's face. + +Stephen smiled again. + +"No, not yet. She is ignorant of the meaning of the word. I have taken +some trouble to arrive at the truth, and I am sure of what I say. It is +well for her that she is not, for anything like a serious engagement +would be simply madness. Poor Jack! His future lies so plainly before +him, and if he would follow it, the rest of his life might be happiness +itself." + +"You mean that he should marry for money," said Lady Bell, coldly. + +"No, not for money alone," murmured Stephen. "Jack is too high-minded to +be guilty of such meanness; but is it not possible to marry for love and +money, too, Lady Bell?" + +Lady Bell turned her head aside; her heart beating fast. The voice of +the tempter sounded like music in her ear. Why should not he marry for +love as well as money? She had both. She loved him passionately, and she +would pour her money at his feet to do as he liked with; to squander and +make ducks and drakes of, if he would but give her a little love in +return. + +As she looked across the room at him, that awful, wistful longing which +only a woman who loves with all her heart can feel, took possession of +her and mastered her. + +"Why do you tell me this?" she asked, sharply turning her face, pale and +working. + +"Because," murmured Stephen, "because I have Jack's interest so much at +heart that I am bold enough to ask for aid where I know it can be of +avail." + +"Do you mean that you ask _me_?" she said, tremulously. "What can I do?" + +"Much, everything," he whispered, his head bent low, almost to her ear. +"Ask yourself, dear Lady Bell, and you will understand me. Let me be +plain and straightforward, even at the risk of offending you. There was +a time, not many months ago, when I and his best friends thought Jack +had made a choice at once happy and wise." + +Lady Bell rose and moved to and fro, and then sank down again trembling +with agitation. + +"You mean that--that he was falling in love with me?" + +Stephen inclined his head with lowered eyes. + +"It is true," he said. "You cannot fail to have seen what all observed." +And he went on quickly--"And but for this fancy--this passing fancy--all +would have been well. Lady Bell, I am speaking more openly than I ever +have spoken to woman before. I am risking offending you, but I do so +from the affection which I bear my cousin. Lady Bell, I implore you to +help me in saving him from a step which will plunge him into life-long +misery. He is totally unfitted to battle with the world; married wisely +and well, he would be a happy and contented man; married unwisely and +badly, no one can picture the future." + +Lady Bell rose, her face pale, her eyes gleaming under the strain which +she was enduring. + +"Don't say any more," she said; "I--I cannot bear it. You have guessed +my secret; I can feel that. Yes, I would save him if I could, and if you +are sure that--that there is no engagement----" + +"There is none," said Stephen, lying smoothly. "There can be none; the +idea is preposterous." + +Lady Bell moved away as he spoke, and turned over some book on the table +to conceal her agitation, and Stephen, humming a popular hymn tune, +crossed the room and looked down at Jack and Una with a benedictory +smile, as if he was blessing them. + +"Are you aware of the time, and that Lady Bell's hall porter is uttering +maledictions for our tardiness?" he said, playfully. + +Jack looked at his watch. + +"By Jove! No idea it was so late. Are you ready, Mrs. Davenant?" + +Mrs. Davenant woke from a sleep, and she and Una went upstairs. + +"I see you have a new maid," she said, when they came down again. "What +a superior-looking young girl." + +"Is she not?" said Lady Bell, absently. "She is more than superior, she +is interesting. She has a history." + +Stephen, standing by, folding and unfolding his opera hat, smiled. + +"Very interesting; but take care, Lady Bell; I am always suspicious of +interesting people with a history." + +As he spoke, a pale, dark face looked down upon him from the upper +landing for a moment, then disappeared. + +"You will come with us, Stephen?" said Mrs. Davenant, nervously. + +"No, thanks. I should like the walk. Good-night," and he kissed her +dutifully, and shook hands with Jack and Lady Bell. + +"Going to walk?" cried Mrs. Davenant. "It is very chilly, and you've +only that thin overcoat." + +"I've a scarf somewhere--where is it?" said Stephen. + +Una stooped, and picked up a white scarf. + +"Here it is," she said, laughing, and all innocently she threw it round +his neck. + +"Will you tie it, please?" said Stephen, in an ordinary tone, and Una, +laughing still, tied it. + +Stephen stood motionless, his eyes cast down; he was afraid to raise +them lest the passion blazing in them should be read by all there. + +"Thanks. I cannot catch cold now," he said, as he took her hand and held +it for a moment. + +He put them into the brougham, and under the pretext of arranging her +shawl, touched her hand once again; then he stood in the chilly street +and watched the brougham till it disappeared in the distance. + +Then he turned and walked homeward. + +"One step in the right direction," he muttered. "Take care, Master Jack; +I shall outwit you yet." + +As he ascended the stairs of his chambers, Slummers came out to meet +him. + +"There is a--person waiting for you, Mr. Stephen," he said. + +Stephen stopped, and his hand closed on the balustrade; his thoughts +flew to Laura Treherne. + +"A--woman, Slummers?" + +"No, sir, a man," said Slummers. + +"Very good," said Stephen, with a breath of relief. "Who is it--do you +know?" + +Slummers shook his head. + +"A rough sort of man, sir; says he has come on business. He has been +waiting for hours." + +"I am very sorry," said Stephen, aloud and blandly, for the benefit of +the visitor. "I am sorry to have kept anyone waiting. But it is rather +late----" + +He entered the room as he spoke, and started slightly, for standing in +the center of the apartment was Gideon Rolfe. + +Notwithstanding the start Stephen came forward with outstretched hand +and a ready smile of welcome. + +"My dear Mr. Rolfe, I am indeed sorry that you should have been kept so +long. If I had only known that you were coming----" + +Gideon Rolfe waived all further compliment aside with a gesture of +impatience. + +"I wished to see you," he said. "Time is no object to me." + +Stephen shut the door carefully and stood in a listening attitude. He +knew it was of no use to ask his visitor to sit down. + +"You have come to inquire about your daughter?" + +"No, I have not," said Gideon Rolfe, calmly. "I know that she is well--I +see her daily. I came to remind you of our contract--I came to remind +you of your promise that no harm should come near her." + +Stephen smiled and shook his head. + +"And I trust no harm has come near her, my dear Mr. Rolfe." + +"But I say that it has," said Gideon Rolfe, coldly. "I have watched her +daily and I know." + +"To what harm do you allude?" asked Stephen, bravely. + +"Do you deny that the young man Jack Newcombe is near her?" + +"Oh," said Stephen, and he drew a long breath. + +Then he commenced untying the scarf, his acute brain hard at work. + +Here was an instrument ready to his hand, if he chose to use it +properly. + +"Oh, I understand. No, I do not deny it; I wish that I could do so, for +your sake and for Una's," he said gravely. + +"Speak plainly," said Gideon Rolfe, hoarsely. + +"I will," said Stephen. "Plainly then, Mr. Newcombe has chosen to fall +in love with--your daughter! That accounts for his constant attendance +upon her." + +Gideon Rolfe's face worked. + +"I will take her back," he said, grimly. + +Stephen smiled. + +"Softly, softly. There are two to that bargain, my dear Mr. Rolfe. For +Miss Una to go back to a state of savagery in Warden Forest is +impossible. You, who have seen her in her new surroundings, and the +change they have wrought in her, must admit that." + +Gideon Rolfe wiped the perspiration from his brow. + +"I know that she is changed," he said. "She is like a great lady +now. I see her dressed in rich silks and satins, and coming and +going in carriages, with servants to wait upon her, and I know that +she is changed, and that she has forgotten the friends of her +childhood--forgotten those who were father and mother to her----" + +"You wrong Miss Una," said Stephen, smoothly. "Not a day passes but she +inquires for you and deplores your absence----" + +"But," went on Gideon, as if he had not been interrupted, "I have not +forgotten her, nor my promise to her mother. In a weak moment, moved by +your threats more than your persuasions, I consented to part with her, +but I would rather she were dead than that should happen--which you say +will happen." + +"Pardon me," said Stephen, blandly, and with an evil smile. "I said that +Mr. Newcombe had fallen in love with her; I did not say that he would +marry her. _I_ would rather she were dead than that should happen," and +he turned his face for one moment to the light. + +It was pale even to the lips, the eyes gleaming with resolute purpose. + +Gideon Rolfe looked at him in silence for a moment. + +"I do not understand," he said, in a troubled voice. + +"Let me make it clear to you," said Stephen. "Against my will and wish +these two have met and become acquainted. Against my will and wish that +acquaintance has ripened into"--he drew a long breath as if the word +hurt him--"into love, or what they mistake for love. Thus far it has +gone, but it must go no further. I am at one with you there. You and I +must prevent it. You cannot do it alone, you know. You have no control +over Miss Una; you who are not her father and in no way related to her." + +Gideon Rolfe set his teeth hard. + +"You see," said Stephen, with a haggard smile, "alone you are helpless. +Be sure of that. If you move in the matter without me, I will declare +the secret of her birth. Stop! be calm! But you and I can put an end to +this engagement." + +"They are engaged?" muttered Gideon Rolfe. + +Stephen smiled contemptuously. + +"My good friend, this matter has passed beyond your strength. Leave it +to me. Yes, they are engaged; the affair has gone so far, but it must go +no further. While you have been lurking outside area gates and behind +carriages I have been at work, and I will stop it. I am not too proud to +accept your aid, however. When the time comes I will ask your aid. Give +me an address to which to write to you." + +Gideon Rolfe, with a suspicious air, drew a piece of paper from his +pocket and wrote an address. + +"This will find you?" said Stephen. "Good. When the time comes I will +send for you; meanwhile"--and he smiled--"you can go on haunting area +gates and watching carriages, but be sure of one thing, that this +marriage shall never take place." + +Gideon Rolfe watched the pale face grimly. + +"I must know more," he said. "How will you put an end to this?" + +Stephen smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. + +"You want to see the _modus operandi_? How the conjurer is going to +perform the wonderful feat? Well, it is very simple. My friend and +somewhat cousin, for all his romance, will not care to marry a girl +whose name is stained with shame. If I know my dear Jack, he will not +care to make an illegitimate child of Gideon Rolfe, the woodman, Mrs. +Newcombe." + +Gideon Rolfe started. + +"You will tell him?" he said, hoarsely. + +"Yes," said Stephen; "I shall tell him the truth, of course concealing +the proper names, and you must be here to confirm my statement. That is +all you have to do. Mind! not a word of my uncle's connection with the +matter, or all is lost. You understand?" + +"Yes, I understand," said Gideon, hoarsely. "I care not by what means so +that the marriage is prevented." + +"Nor I," said Stephen, coolly; "and now we are agreed on that point. +When I want you I will write to you. Until then--will you take any +refreshment?" + +Gideon Rolfe waved his hand by way of negative, and Stephen rang the +bell. "Show this gentleman out, Slummers. Mind the lower stairs, the gas +has been put out. Good-night, good-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +It was settled that Mrs. Davenant, Una and Stephen should go to the +Hurst in a week's time. Jack had definitely declined to go to the Hurst. +He felt that he would rather bear the absence of Una for a week or two +than go to the old house, haunted as it was, for him, with so many +memories; but lo and behold, a few days after the dinner party, had come +a note from Lady Bell's father, asking him to visit Earl's Court. + +Of course, Jack accepted gladly enough, without a thought of Lady Bell, +and only remembering that a good nag would take him from Earl's Court to +Hurst in an hour and a half, or less. + +The week passed rapidly, and with something like restlessness Lady Bell +organized all kinds of outings and expeditions, in all of which Jack's +services were found to be indispensable. + +He could not exactly tell how it happened; but he seemed to spend almost +as much time with Lady Bell as with Una. Now it was to go and try a +horse which Lady Bell wanted to buy; then to select some dogs to take +down to Earl's Court; and, again, to buy and send down pony-carriages +and dog-carts. + +There was always something to take him to Park Lane, and though Jack +felt inclined to kick at these demands upon his time, which would +otherwise have been spent near Una, he could not see his way to refuse. +Then he was fond of buying horses, and dogs, and carriages, and used to +hold a _levee_ at Spider Court of disreputable-looking men in fustian +corduroys, much to Leonard Dagle's disgust. + +"It seems to me, Jack," he said, "that you have become Lady Bell's grand +vizier. Do you choose her dress for her?" + +"Chaff away, old man," said Jack. "It was only the other day that you +were badgering me with being cool to her." + +"Yes, with a purpose," said Leonard; "but that purpose has disappeared. +Have you been to the Square yet this morning?" + +"No; I'm going now. No, I can't, confound it! I promised to see to the +harness for the pair of ponies Lady Bell bought." + +Leonard smiled rather grimly. + +"How Miss Una must love Lady Bell," he said, ironically. + +"So she does," said Jack, sharply. "Now don't pretend to be cynical, +Len. You know as well as I do that I would spend every hour of my life +by Una's side if I could; but what can I do?" + +"All right!" said Len, and he fell to work again. + +Strangely enough now, that Jack was so much occupied with Lady Bell's +affairs, Stephen happened to find more leisure to visit his mother, and +very often he accompanied her and Una to some concert or picture-gallery +to which Jack was prevented from going. Stephen seemed, in addition, +quite changed, and had become quite the man of pleasure in contrast to +his former habits. + +He rarely appeared at the Square without a nosegay or a new novel; he +took the greatest interest in any subject which interested Una, and was +as attentive to her as if he had been the most devoted of lovers. Now +that Jack was so much absent, it was he who sat opposite her in the +little brougham, who leaned over her chair at the theater, or rode +beside her in the Row. + +At first Una felt rather constrained by his constant attendance; she had +been so used to have Jack at her side that she felt embarrassed with +Stephen; but Stephen, whose tact was second only to his cunning, soon +put her at her ease. She found that it was not necessary to talk to him, +that she might sit by his side or ride with him for an hour without +uttering a word, and was quite free to think of Jack while Stephen +chatted on in his smooth, insinuating voice. + +And so the very effect Stephen desired to produce came about; she got +accustomed to have him near her, and got to feel at her ease in his +presence. But how long the mornings seemed! and how she longed for Jack +and wondered what he was doing! If anyone had openly told her she was +jealous of Lady Bell, she would have repudiated the idea with scorn too +deep for anything but a smile; and yet--and yet--that bright, happy look +which Lady Bell had so much admired, grew fainter and fainter, and +nearly disappeared, reviving only when Jack hurried in to spend a few +hours with her, and then hurried off to keep some engagement with Lady +Bell or on Lady Bell's affairs. + +But never by word or look did Una show that his absence pained her; +instead, she was always the first to remind him of his engagements and +to bid him depart. + +At last the day arrived for her departure to Hurst. Lady Bell did not go +down to Earl's Court till three days later, and Jack, of course, had to +remain in town for a day or two after that. + +"It is the first time we have been parted for twenty-four hours since +that happy day I learned you loved me, my darling!" he whispered as he +held Una in his arms: "I almost wish that I had accepted Stephen's +invitation. But--but I could not sleep under the old roof--by Heaven, I +could not! You cannot understand----" + +"But I do," murmured Una; "and I am glad you are not coming. If----" + +And she paused. + +"Well, darling?" asked Jack, kissing her. + +"If you had said half a word, I would not have gone." + +"Why not?" said Jack, with a sigh. "Yes, I am glad you are going. You +will see the old house in which I was so happy as a boy--which I once +thought would have been mine." + +"Dear Jack!" she murmured; and her hand smoothed the hair from his +forehead caressingly and comfortingly. + +"Well, never mind," said Jack; "it is better as it is. Perhaps I should +have had the Hurst, and have lost you; and I would rather lose the whole +earth than you, my darling! Besides, Stephen has turned out a better +fellow than I thought him, and deserves all he has got, and will make a +better use of it than I should. No, I am content--I have got the +greatest treasure on earth!" + +And he pressed her closer to him, and kissed her again and again until, +from very shame, she slid from his grasp. + +Stephen had engaged a first-class carriage, had even taken the +precaution to order foot-warmers, though the weather was not yet +winterish, and if he had been the personal attendant on a sovereign, and +that sovereign had been Una, he could not have been more anxious for her +comfort. He was so thoughtful and considerate that there was nothing +left for Jack to do but go down to the station and see them off. + +"Four days only, my darling," he whispered, as the train was starting; +"they will seem years to me." + +And he clung to her hand to the last moment, much to the disgust of the +guard and porters, who expected to see him dragged under the train. Then +he went back to Spider Court, feeling cold, chilly and miserable, as if +the sun had been put out. + +"Len, I wish I had gone!" he exclaimed, as he opened the door. + +But there was no Len to hear him--the room was empty. + +"Great Heaven! has everyone disappeared?" he exclaimed, irritably, and +flung himself out of the house and into a hansom. + +"Where to?" said the cabman, and Jack, half absently, answered: + +"Park Lane." + +The man had often driven him before, and he drove straight to Lady +Bell's. + +Jack walked into the drawing-room quite naturally--the room was familiar +to him--and sat down before the fire; and Lady Bell came in with +outstretched hand. + +It was a comfort to have someone left, and Jack greeted her warmly, more +warmly than he knew or intended. Lady Bell's face flushed as he held her +hand longer than was absolutely necessary. + +"Thank Heaven! there is someone left," he said, devoutly. "They have all +gone, and Len is out, and----" + +"I am left," said Lady Bell. "Well, you are just in time for luncheon. I +half expected you, and I have told them to make a curry." + +Curry was one of Jack's weaknesses. + +"That is very kind of you," he said, gratefully. He felt, very +unreasonably, neglected somehow. "You always seem to know what a fellow +likes." + +"That's because I have a good memory," said Lady Bell, smiling down at +him. "I shall take care to have plenty of curries at Earl's Court. And, +by the way, will you choose a paper for the smoking-room down there? I +have told them that they must do it at once." + +Jack rose without a word; he had been choosing papers and decorations +for a week past, and it did not seem strange. Luncheon was announced +while they were discussing the paper, and Jack gave her his arm. Mrs. +Fellowes was the only other person present, and she sat reading a novel, +deaf and blind to all else. Not but what she might have heard every +word, for the young people talked of the most commonplace subjects, and +Jack was very absent-minded, thinking of Una, and quite unconscious of +the light which beamed in Lady Bell's eyes when they rested on him. + +Then they rode in the Row; he could do no less than offer to accompany +her, and Mrs. Fellowes wanted to see a piece at one of the theaters, and +Jack went to book seats, and took one for himself, and sat staring at +the stage and thinking of Una; but he sat behind Lady Bell's chair, and +spoke to her occasionally, and Lady Bell was content. + +Hetley and Arkroyd were in the stalls, and saw him. + +"Jack's making the running," said Lord Dalrymple, eying the box through +his opera glass. "He's the winning horse, and we, the field, are +nowhere." + +And not only those two, but many others, remarked on Jack's close +attendance on the great heiress, and not a few who would have gone to +the box if he had not been there, kept away. + +Meanwhile, Jack, simple, unsuspecting Jack, was bestowing scarcely a +thought on the beautiful woman by his side, and thinking of Una miles +away. + +The theater over, and Lady Bell put into the carriage, he looked in at +the club, sauntered into the card-room, smoked a cigar in the +smoking-room, and then went home to Spider Court. + +Much to his surprise he found Leonard up, not only up, but pacing the +room, his face flushed and agitated. + +"Hallo!" exclaimed Jack, "what's the matter? And where on earth have you +been?" + +"Jack, I have found her!" + +"That's just what I said some months ago!" + +"Yes, I know. I have been thinking how strangely alike our love affairs +have been. It is my turn now. I have found her!" + +"What, this young lady, Laura Treherne?" + +"Yes," said Leonard, with a long breath. + +"Tell me all about it," said Jack. "Hold hard a minute, till I get +something to drink. Now, fire away." + +"Well," said Leonard, still pacing up and down, and seeming scarcely +conscious of Jack's presence, "I was walking in the park. You know the +place, that quiet walk under the beeches. I was thinking of you and your +love affairs, when I saw, sitting under a tree, a figure that I knew at +once. For a moment I could not move, and scarcely think; then I wondered +how I should get to speak to her; but presently, when I had pulled +myself together, I saw that she had dropped her handkerchief, and I went +and picked it up and took it to her." + +"A fine opening," muttered Jack. + +Leonard Dagle evidently did not hear him. + +"Well, she started when I approached her, and merely thanked me with a +bow, but I was determined not to let her go this time, and I said, +'Pardon me, but we have met before.' 'Where?' said she. 'In a railway +carriage,' I said, and she looked at me, and trembled. 'I remember,' she +said, and I swear I saw her shudder. 'Since then,' I said, 'I have +sought you far and near.' 'Why should you do that?' she asked." + +"A very natural question," interjected Jack. + +"Then I told her. I told her that from that hour I had been unable to +rid my mind of her face, that it had haunted me; that I had followed her +and learned her address; and that though I had lost her I had sought her +all over London." + +"Was she angry?" asked Jack. + +"At first she was," said Leonard, "very angry, but something in my voice +or my face--Heaven knows I was earnest enough! convinced her that I +meant no harm, and she listened." + +"Well," said Jack, interested and excited. + +"Well," said Leonard, "we sat talking for an hour, perhaps more, and she +has promised to meet me again; at least she admitted that she walked in +the park every afternoon. I tried to get her address, but she told me +plainly that she would not give it to me." + +"And is that all you learned?" asked Jack, with something like +good-natured contempt. + +"No!" replied Leonard. "I learned that she had been injured--oh, not in +the way you think--and that she had some purpose to effect--some wrong +to right." + +"And of course you offered to help her?" said Jack. + +"I offered to help her; I laid my services, my whole time and strength, +at her disposal; I went so far as to beseech her to tell me what this +purpose, this wrong was; but she would not tell me, and so we parted. +But we are to meet again. She is much changed; paler and thinner than +when I saw her in the railway carriage, but still more beautiful in my +eyes than any other woman in the world." + +"It is a strange affair," mused Jack. "Quite a romance in its way. Isn't +it funny, Len, that both our love affairs should be romantic, and so +much alike!" + +"Yes," said Leonard, "very. But mine has scarcely begun, while yours has +ended happily, or will do so, if you do not play the fool!" + +"What do you mean?" asked Jack, sharply. + +"Where have you been to-night?" asked Leonard. + +"To the theater with Lady Bell." + +"I expected as much," said Leonard, and he fell to at his writing, and +would say no more, though Jack stormed and raved. + +Meanwhile the Davenant party had, thanks to Stephen, made a comfortable +journey. They found a carriage and pair waiting for them at the station; +not the ramshackle vehicle of the old squire's time, but a new carriage +from the best man in Long Acre, and they were rolled along the country +lanes in a style Ralph Davenant would have marveled at. + +Presently they came in sight of the Hurst, and Mrs. Davenant uttered an +exclamation. + +"Why, Stephen, it is altered!" she said. + +Stephen smiled proudly. + +Short as the time had been he had effected a radical change in the old +house; a hundred workmen had been busy, and the ramshackle old mansion +had been transformed. Wings had been added, the grounds had been newly +laid out; the road, even, had been altered, and they drove through an +avenue of thriving young limes. + +Una, silent and interested, kept her eyes fixed on the house. She had +often heard Jack describe it, but this palatial residence did not answer +to his description. Stephen's money and energy had entirely transformed +the place. + +The carriage pulled up at the entrance, and half a dozen grooms flew to +the horses' heads: footmen in handsome liveries stood in attendance, +and the servants formed a lane for their master to pass through. Una had +often read of such a reception, but here was a reality. + +Stephen helped her to alight, and took her and his mother on his arm, +his head erect, a warm flush on his cheek. + +Suddenly the flush disappeared and a frown took its place as he saw +amongst the crowd gathered together at the entrance the parchment-like +visage of old Skettle. + +But the frown disappeared as he entered the house, and stood silent, +listening to the approving comments of Mrs. Davenant. + +"My dear Stephen," she said, "you have certainly altered the place--I +should not have known it. And is this what was the gloomy old Hall?" + +"Yes," said Stephen, proudly, and he glanced round at the alterations +with an air of satisfaction, and looked at Una's face for some sign of +approval. + +But Una was looking around anxiously. If it was so much altered, then it +was not the old home that Jack knew and remembered. + +"You will find everything altered and improved, I hope," said Stephen. + +Altered, indeed! They have even shifted the old staircase, so that it +would have been difficult to have found the room in which the old squire +died, exclaiming: + +"You thief! you thief! what have you done with the will?" + +Yes, indeed, there was great alteration. The old squire, if he had come +to life again, would not have known Hurst as Stephen had made it. +Masons, carpenters, and decorators had been at work to some purpose. +Everything was changed, and unmistakably for the better. + +Stephen looked around with an air of pride. + +"They have been very quick," he said. "I placed it in good hands. You +will find everything you require up-stairs. You must know," he said, +turning to Una, "that I found the place little better than a barn, and +have done my best to make it fit to receive you! You are looking at the +portraits," he added, seeing Una's gaze wandering along the double line +of dead and gone Davenants. "Most of them you would not have seen two +months ago, they had been terribly neglected, but I have had them +cleaned and renewed. That is the old squire, my poor uncle," and he +sighed comfortably. + +Una paused before this, the last portrait of the series, and looked at +it long and curiously, and the other two stood and watched her, Stephen +with a keen glance of scrutiny and with a nervous tremor about his +heart. If she could but know that she was looking at the portrait of her +own father! Una turned away at last with a faint sigh. She was thinking +that this was the old man who had once loved Jack and left him to +poverty. + +Mrs. Davenant shuddered slightly. + +"He was a terrible old man, my dear," she murmured, "and always +frightened me. I trembled when he looked at me." + +"He does not look so terrible," said Una, sadly. + +Stephen fidgeted slightly. + +"Come," he said, "you must not catch cold. Your maids are here by this +time. Will you go up to your room? The housekeeper will show them to +you, and I hope you will find everything comfortable." + +Very slowly, looking to right and left of her, Una followed Mrs. +Davenant up the broad staircase. + +The place seemed to have a strange fascination for her; she could almost +have persuaded herself that she had been in it before, and it seemed +familiar, though so much changed from all likeness to Jack's description +of it. + +They found the rooms upstairs beautifully decorated, and furnished in +the most approved and luxurious style. Lady Bell's house in Park Lane +even was eclipsed. + +"Stephen has made it a palace," said Mrs. Davenant. "How I used to hate +it in the old time! it was so dark and grim and gloomy, always felt dull +and damp. Stephen tells me that he has had it thoroughly drained after +the new fashion, and that it is quite dry. Such a palace as this wants a +mistress; I wish he would marry." + +"Why do you not tell him so?" said Una, with a smile. + +Mrs. Davenant shook her head nervously. + +"That would do no good, my dear," she said. "I sometimes think he will +never marry." + +And she glanced at Una with some embarrassment. A dim suspicion had of +late crossed her mind that if Una had been free, Stephen might have +stood in Jack's place. She could not help noticing Stephen's close +attendance on Una--a mother's eyes are sharp to note such things. + +If the old squire could have seen the dining-room and the elaborate +_menu_ that evening, he would have stared and sworn. Stephen had engaged +a French cook; the appointments were as perfect as they could be; the +servants admirably trained, and as to the wines the Hurst cellar stood +second to none in the country. + +It almost seemed as if he were sparing no pains to impress on Una all +that the wife of Stephen Davenant would possess. And Una, more than half +the dinner-time, was thinking of Jack, and fondly picturing the little +house they had so often talked of setting up when the commissionership +came home. Just at the same time, Jack was leaning over Lady Bell's +chair in the theater. + +Stephen was in his best mood, and exerted himself to the uttermost. He +described the neighborhood, planned excursions and expeditions; told +innumerable anecdotes of the village folk, and played the host to +perfection. + +In a thousand ways he showed his anxiety for Una's comfort; and after +dinner he had the place lit up, and went over it, asking her opinion on +this point and the other, and humbly begging her to suggest alterations. +So much so that Una began to grow shy and reserved, and shrank closer to +Mrs. Davenant; and Stephen, quick to see when he was going too fast, +left them and went to the library to write letters. + +Now, strange to say, of all the rooms in the house, this one room +remained unaltered. He had not allowed it to be touched--indeed it was +kept closely locked, and the key never left him night and day. Just as +it had been on the night of the squire's death, when Stephen stood with +the stolen will in his hand, so it was now. + +He never entered it without a shudder, and all the time he was in it his +eyes unconsciously wandered over the floor and furniture as if +mechanically searching for something. + +It exerted a strange, weird influence over him, and seemed to draw him +into it. Tonight he paced up and down, looking at the familiar objects, +and making no attempt to write his letters. + +His brain was busy, not with schemes of ambition and avarice, but of +love. The blood ran riot in his veins as he thought that Una was under +the same roof as himself, and one mighty resolve took possession of him. + +"She shall never leave it but to come back as my wife," was his resolve. + +Even the lost will did not trouble him tonight. He had Una in his grasp, +Una upon whom everything turned. + +It was far into the morning before he went to bed, and at the head of +the stairs he turned and looked round with a proud smile. + +"All--all mine!" he muttered, "and I will have her, too," and he went to +sleep and dreamed, not of Una, but of Laura Treherne. + +All through the watches of the night the pale, dark face haunted him. At +times he saw it peering at him through the library window, at others it +was pursuing him along an endless road; but always it wore a threatening +aspect and filled him with a vague terror. + +Some men's conscience only awake at night. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +If Una had been a queen visiting some distant part of her realm, more +elaborate preparations for her amusement could not have been made. + +Not a day passed but Stephen had got some proposition for pleasuring, +and he never tired of hunting up some place to go. + +One morning they would drive to some romantic and historic spot; another +there would be some flower show or _fete_, which he insisted upon them +seeing; on others, they would play lawn tennis in the now beautiful +grounds. The fame of the new Hurst had spread abroad, and those of the +county families who were in residence called at once, and dinner parties +were given and accepted. So the week glided by quickly, even to Una, +who reckoned time by the day on which she would see Jack. + +Every morning there came a scrawl--Jack's handwriting was mysterious and +terrible--from him; in every letter he expressed his longing to see her, +and the hateful time he was having in town. But every letter had some +mention of Lady Bell; and it was evident that he spent most of his time +at Park Lane. + +But Una was not jealous--she put away from her resolutely any feeling of +that kind. + +"I am so glad that Lady Bell is in town, and that Jack has some place to +go to," she said to Mrs. Davenant. + +And Mrs. Davenant smiled; but sighed at the same time. To her, as to +others, it seemed that Jack spent too much time in attendance upon the +great heiress. + +Stephen's money flew, it was scattered about in every direction; but +still he was not popular. Men touched their hats, but they never smiled +as they had done at the old squire, and as they had done at Jack. There +was something about Stephen that the Hurst folk could not and would not +take to; and even while they were drinking with his money, they talked +of Master Jack and shook their heads regretfully. + +And Stephen knew it, and hated them all; but most of all hated old +Skettle. It seemed as if the old man was ubiquitous; he was everywhere. +Stephen could not take a walk outside the grounds but he came upon the +old man; and, though Skettle always raised his hat and gave him +"Good-day," Stephen felt the small, keen eyes watching him. Of Hudsley +he had seen nothing. + +At last the county papers announced the important fact that Lady +Earlsley had arrived at Earl's Court, and Una knew that in two days she +would see Jack. + +That night Stephen was more attentive than ever. They had been dining +out at a neighbor's, and were sitting in the drawing-room, talking over +the evening. The prospect of Jack's coming had brought a glad light to +Una's eyes--a brighter color to her face. In two days she should see +him! In her happiness she felt amiable and tender to all around her, +and, for the first time, she responded to Stephen's unceasing devotion. +He had brought in from the new library a whole pile of books relating +to the county, and was showing and explaining the illustrations. + +"That is Earl's Court," he said; "a beautiful place, isn't it? But Lady +Bell has several grander places than that." + +"She is very rich," said Una. + +"Very," he said, thoughtfully. "It's a pity that she does not marry." + +Una smiled. + +"She says that she will never marry," she said. + +Stephen looked up. + +"And yet a little while ago they were saying that she would be married +before the year was out." + +"Indeed!" said Una. + +"It would be a grand match for any one," said Stephen. "It would have +been a great match for him." + +"For him?" said Una. "Who was it?" + +Stephen started and looked embarrassed, as if he had made a slip of the +tongue. + +"Well," he said, with a little, awkward laugh; "but--are you jealous? +Perhaps I ought not to tell tales out of school, though the affair is +off long ago, and he has made a happier choice." + +Una put the fire screen on one side and looked at him calmly. He was +sitting almost at her feet. Mrs. Davenant was dozing in her accustomed +arm-chair. + +"Of whom do you speak?" she asked. + +Stephen hesitated, as if reluctant to reply. + +"Well," he said, "it is mere gossip, of course, but gossip awarded the +great prize of the season to a near and dear friend of yours." + +Una's heart beat fast. She guessed what was coming. + +"Tell me," she said, in a low voice. + +"Tut!" said Stephen, as if ashamed to retail such idle gossip. + +"Well, they said that Jack meant to marry the great heiress." + +"It is not true," Una said; but her color went, and left her quite pale +and cold. + +"Of course not," said Stephen, cheerfully; "though I would not say but +there was some excuse for the rumor. Jack was a great deal at Park Lane +until he met--one who shall be nameless." And he looked up at her with +a smile. "Why, they went so far as to congratulate him," he said, +laughing as if at an excellent joke. "And indeed I think if Jack had +said 'Yes,' Lady Bell would not have said 'No.' So, you see, that you +have made a veritable conquest!" + +And he laughed again. + +But there was no answering smile on Una's pale face. It was not of Lady +Bell she thought, but of herself and Jack. + +It was true she had stepped in between Jack and wealth and +prosperity--she, the penniless daughter of a woodman, had prevented his +marrying the great heiress and becoming the master of Earl's Court and +all the Earlsley wealth! A chill passed over her, and she raised the +screen to hide her face from Stephen's eye. + +"Yes, it would have been a great match for Jack," he said, +carelessly--"it would have set him on his feet, as they say. But he is +still more fortunate." And he sighed. + +Una rose. + +"I think I will go up now," she said; and she went and woke Mrs. +Davenant. + +Stephen escorted them to the head of the stairs, smiling as if nothing +had been said, and then went straight to the old library and rang the +bell. + +It was understood that no one was to answer the library bell but +Slummers, and Slummers now appeared. + +Stephen wrote two letters; one ran thus: + +"MY DEAR MR. ROLFE:--Be kind enough to be at my chambers tomorrow +morning at eight o'clock." + +The other was still more short; it was addressed to Mr. Levy Moss: + +"Put on the screw at once." + +Calmly and leisurely he put them in their envelopes, as if the fate and +happiness of two souls were not hanging upon them, and gave them to +Slummers. + +"Take the morning express and deliver these yourself," he said, quietly. +"I shall follow you by the midday train. When you have done so, find Mr. +Newcombe and keep him in sight. You understand?" + +"Quite, sir," said Slummers, and disappeared as silently as usual. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + +It was Jack's last day in town. Tomorrow he would be at Earl's Court, +and in the evening would be riding as fast as a horse could carry him to +Una. + +The hours seemed to drift with leaden wings. + +It was no use going to Park Lane, for the blinds were down, and Lady +Bell was at Earl's Court. It was no use going to the club, for the +whitewashers had taken possession of it; never had Jack been so utterly +bored and wearied. At last he strolled into the park, and sat on one of +the seats and stared at the Row, giving himself up to thoughts of Una, +and picturing their meeting on the morrow. + +He lingered in the park till dusk: then he went home to dress. + +"Still writing, old man?" he said, as he entered, and laid his hand on +Leonard's shoulder. + +"Halloa! is that you, Jack?" said Leonard, throwing down his pen. "I +have been expecting you." + +"Why for?" asked Jack, yawning. Then he looked up curiously. "I wish I'd +known it; I'd have come home. Look here, Len, we'll go and dine +somewhere; if there is anything left to eat in this howling desert of a +London. If ever any man was bored to death and sick of it, I am this +day. Twenty-four hours more of it, and I should chuck myself into the +Serpentine! I never spent such a day----" + +He stopped suddenly, for he became conscious that Leonard was standing, +looking down at him with a grave and earnest regard. + +"What's the matter, old man?" he asked. + +Leonard hesitated. + +"Jack," he said, at last, "Moss has been here." + +"Oh, has he?" said Jack, carelessly. + +"Yes, and there is trouble about. He is pressing for his money." + +"What!" exclaimed Jack. + +Leonard nodded. + +"Yes, he means mischief; he made quite a fuss here. Said he had a heavy +claim to meet----" + +"Oh, I know that old yarn." + +"And that he must and would have money to meet those bills of yours." + +Jack looked grave. + +"Did he mean it?" + +"Yes," said Leonard. "Thanks to you, I know Mr. Levy Moss by this time, +and I am sure he was in earnest." + +"Confound him!" muttered Jack. + +"Confounding him won't pay him," said Leonard, sensibly. + +Jack rose and paced the room. + +"What am I to do, Len?" + +"I don't know," said Leonard. "If I could help you--but all I have +wouldn't meet one bill." + +"And I wouldn't take it if it would," said Jack. "But I can't understand +it! Only last week he was bothering me to take a hundred or two." + +Leonard shook his head. + +"All I can tell you is, that he was simply furious. He said that he must +and would have some money, that if you did not pay him he would----" + +"Well?" said Jack, grimly. + +"That he would put you through the Court," said Leonard. + +Jack turned pale. + +"What am I to do?" he said. "I have been relying on the commissionership +that Stephen promised, and Moss seemed quite willing to wait. I can't +find any money." + +Leonard shook his head. + +"The man was furious. Worse than I have ever seen him. You will have to +find some money somewhere. How much do you owe him?" + +Jack tilted his hat on one side and scratched his head. + +"Hanged if I know. He has let me have a great deal lately. Five hundred, +perhaps." + +"Jack, you have been a fool," said Leonard. "I told you that it was no +use counting upon the place your cousin Stephen promised you." + +"I don't so much care for myself, but Una, Una," said Jack, with a +groan. Then he jumped up. "Let us go and get some dinner, and think it +over." + +They went to a well-known house in Strand, and Jack, careless Jack, +ordered a dinner fit for a prince, and enjoyed it as he would have +enjoyed it if he had been going to be hanged on the morrow. + +"I don't understand Moss," he said. "He was everything that was +agreeable and pleasant a few days ago." + +"And today he was like a wolf hunting for a bone," said Leonard. "Hello, +who's this?" for a gentleman had entered the dining-room and approached +their table. + +"Why, it's Stephen!" exclaimed Jack, forgetting Moss in a moment. "Just +in time, Stephen, we'll have another bottle of claret up. What on earth +brings you to town? And how is--how are they all?" + +Stephen sat down with a grave smile, and just sipped the claret, the +best the house had on its list. And he sat and talked till the wine was +finished, the greater part of which Jack drank, then he said: + +"Jack, I want you to come to my chambers; I have something to tell you." + +"All right," said Jack. "Leonard can find his way home very well." + +Stephen called a hansom, and they were rattled away to the Albany. + +As they ascended the stairs, Stephen laid his hand on Jack's arm. + +"Jack, I am sorry to say I have bad news for you. You will be calm." + +"Bad news!" said Jack, and his heart stood still. "What is it? Una----" + +"Yes," said Stephen; "it is about Una. You will be calm, my dear Jack?" + +Jack leaned against the balustrade and drew a long breath. + +"Is she ill--dead?" he gasped. + +"Neither," said Stephen. "Come, be a man." + +"I am ready," said Jack. "If she is neither ill nor dead I can bear +anything else." + +Stephen opened the door, and Jack, entering, saw Gideon Rolfe standing +on the hearthrug. + +"Mr. Rolfe!" he exclaimed. "How do you do? I am very glad to see you!" +and he held out his hand. + +Gideon Rolfe nodded and turned aside. + +"What is it? What is the matter?" asked Jack, turning to Stephen, who +had carefully closed the door and stood with knitted brow and sad +countenance. + +At Jack's question he glanced at Rolfe, and then, with a sigh, said: + +"Yes, Jack, I will tell you. It will come better from me than Mr. Rolfe. +Jack, you were right in suspecting that the business referred to Una. +She is quite well--and happy. But--but I am afraid your engagement must +cease." + +At this, Jack's calmness came back to him, and with something like a +smile, he said, scornfully: + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes," said Gideon Rolfe, but Stephen held up his hand and silenced him. + +"Perhaps you will tell me for what reason?" said Jack, quietly. + +"For a sad, very sad reason," said Stephen, in a subdued and mournful +tone. "Jack, my heart bleeds for you----" + +"Never mind your heart," said Jack, curtly. "Come to the point, +Stephen." + +"I sympathize with you deeply," continued Stephen, not at all affronted. +"The fact is, Mr. Rolfe has tonight made a communication respecting our +dear young friend, which has completely overwhelmed me----" + +"Let me see if it will overwhelm me," said Jack. "What is it?" + +"My dear Jack, it is a story involving shame----" + +"Shame!" echoed Jack, and his brow darkened. "To whom?" + +"To those who can feel shame no longer," said Stephen; "but alas! its +shadow falls on a young life as innocent and pure as the angels." + +"On Una?" demanded Jack, fiercely. + +Stephen bowed his head. + +"Yes, Jack. Una is a nameless child--she is illegitimate." + +Jack reeled and fell into a chair, and there he sat for a moment. + +"It is a lie!" he said at last. + +"It is true!" said the deep voice of Gideon Rolfe; and Jack, fixing his +startled eyes on the rough, ragged face, knew that it was the truth. + +With a groan he covered his face with his hands; then he started up and +struck the table a blow that made Stephen wince. + +"Well," he exclaimed, with a short laugh--"well, what business is it of +anyone's but mine and Una's? What do I care whether she is illegitimate +or not? Let her be the daughter of whom she may, married or unmarried, +it matters not to me. She _is_ Una, and that is enough!" + +His voice rang out loud and clear as a bell's tone, and he looked from +one to the other defiantly. + +"And now that is settled," he said, sternly. "Let us come to +particulars, to proof. Mr. Rolfe, though I know you are averse to our +marriage, I believe you. I do not think you are capable of inventing a +lie--a base, fiendish lie--to serve your ends. But all the same I ask, +and not without reason, some proofs. First, who are Una's parents?" + +Gideon Rolfe was about to reply, but a glance from Stephen stopped him. + +"That is the question I have implored Mr. Rolfe to answer," he said. "I +have entreated him to give us some information, but he declines. It is a +secret which he says shall go down to the grave with him, unless----" + +"Unless what?" demanded Jack, hoarsely. + +"Unless you are still determined to hold Una to her engagement. +Then----" + +He paused, and Jack looked from one to the other. + +"Well?" + +"Then he declares he will go to Una and inform her of the shame that +clings to her name." + +Jack uttered a low cry and sank back in his chair. He saw by what heavy +chains he was bound. To get possession of Una he must inflict the agony +of shame upon her. + +If ever a man loved truly and nobly Jack loved Una. He would have died +the death to spare her a moment's pain; and here was this man +threatening to darken and curse her whole life if he, Jack, did not +relinquish her. + +"Are you human?" he said, turning his eyes upon Gideon Rolfe with a +wild, hunted gaze. + +Gideon Rolfe smiled bitterly. + +"I am human enough to prevent this marriage." + +Jack rose and confronted him. + +"I will not give her up," he said hoarsely. "I defy you!" + +"Good!" said Gideon Rolfe. "Then I go to the girl and acquaint her with +the true story of her birth. If I know her--and I do--she has sufficient +pride to prevent her staining so honorable a family as the Davenants by +marrying into it," and he sneered bitterly. + +Jack's face flushed. + +"You professed to love her," he said. "Are you totally indifferent to +her happiness?" + +"No happiness could follow her union to one of your race," said Gideon +Rolfe. + +Stephen trembled. He was playing a dangerous and desperate game. A word +from Rolfe might put Jack in possession of Una's real parentage, and +Stephen would be ruined. + +"My dear Jack," he said, sorrowfully, "I have besought Mr. Rolfe, almost +on my knees, to hold his hand, but he is like stone--immovable." + +There was a pause. + +Jack stood, his brain in a whirl, his heart beating wildly. His frenzied +brain saw the whole thing clearly. On one side stood his passionate love +and his life-long happiness, on the other Una's shame and agony. + +"I love her so!" he moaned. + +"You say that you love her," said Gideon Rolfe, sternly. "Prove it by +saving her from the knowledge of the shame which clings to her name. If +your love is worth anything it will make that sacrifice. Remember, it is +on your side only. She is young--a mere girl, a few weeks, months at +most, and she will have learned to forget you." + +"That's a lie, at least," groaned Jack. "I know her better than you." + +"No matter," said Gideon Rolfe, coldly. "Time will heal a disappointed +love; no time can heal an undying shame." + +Jack rose and paced the room. + +"Leave me alone for a few minutes," he said hoarsely. "I must think this +out; nothing you can say can influence me." + +At a signal from Stephen, Gideon Rolfe remained silent. + +Five minutes passed and then Jack came to the light. + +The handsome face was haggard and white and so changed that ten years +might have passed over his head in those few minutes. + +"Mr. Rolfe," he said, and his voice was broken and hollow, "why you bear +me such deadly enmity I cannot imagine, and you will not tell me?" + +Gideon Rolfe made a gesture of assent. + +"It is a mystery to me; I only know its results. Once more I ask you to +relent, and spare the unhappiness of both of us." + +"I am resolved," said Gideon. "Either relinquish her or I tell her all. +The decision is in your hands. I do not doubt you will seize your +happiness, even at the cost of her shame." + +"Then you wrong me," said Jack. "Rather than she should know the shadow +which hangs on her life I relinquish her." + +A light gleamed in Stephen's eyes, and his lips twitched. + +"This I do," continued Jack, in a voice so low and broken that it +scarcely reached them, "placing implicit trust in your assertion that +she is--as you state." + +He drew a long breath. + +"I dare not risk it; but if in the future I should find that you have +played me false--if, I say, this should prove a lie, then I tell you +beware, for, as there is a Heaven above us, I will take my vengeance." + +"So be it," said Gideon Rolfe, grimly. "Now write," and he pointed to a +bureau on which stood pen and paper, as if prepared for use. + +Jack started. + +"You will not take my word?" he said, bitterly. + +Gideon Rolfe hesitated; but, at a glance from Stephen, said: + +"Let the knowledge that the engagement is at an end come from you; it +will be better so." + +Jack went to the bureau and sank into a chair. + +Yes, if the blow must be dealt it better be by his hands, as tenderly as +possible. + +He sat for some moments with his head in his hands, as utterly oblivious +of the presence of the others as if they were absent. + +Before him rose the lovely face with its trustful eyes; in his ears rang +the musical voice which he should never hear again. + +What should he write? Why should he write? + +Stephen stole behind him. + +"You will be careful to conceal the truth, my dear Jack," he murmured. + +Jack started, and turned upon him with a look that caused Stephen to +shrink back behind the table. + +"For what am I giving up what is most precious in life?" he said +hoarsely. + +Then in sheer despair he seized the pen, and wrote in a trembling hand: + +"MY DEAREST:--Since you left me, circumstances have occurred which have +changed the current of both our lives. I dare not tell you more, but I +pray, I beseech, you not to misjudge me. If you knew the position in +which I am placed, you would understand why I am acting thus, and +instead of condemning, pity me. Una, from this moment our lives are +separate. Heaven send you happiness, and--as I know your true, loving +heart--forgetfulness. I cannot tell you more--would to Heaven that I +could. From the first I have been unworthy of you; I am more unworthy +now than ever. I dare not ask of you to remember me; forget me, Una, +forget that such a person as I ever crossed your path. Would to Heaven +that we had never met! Don't think hardly of me, my darling, whatever +you may hear. What I am doing is as much for your good as for mine. +Good-bye. I shall never cease to remember and love you, whatever +happens. Good-bye! "JACK." + + +Blotted and smeared, he enclosed it in an envelope, and dropped it +before Gideon Rolfe; then he looked round for his hat. + +"A glass of wine, Jack?" murmured Stephen. + +But Jack took no more notice than if he had been deaf, and seizing his +hat staggered from the room. + +Stephen drew a long breath. + +"Well, Mr. Rolfe," he said, "we have conquered. As for this note, I will +see that it is delivered at a proper opportunity." + +"Good," said Gideon Rolfe; then he paused, and frowned sternly. "I am +sorry for the young man." + +Stephen smiled, and waved his hand. + +"A mere fancy," he said, lightly. "My dear Jack is apt to take these +matters as very serious, but he generally manages to get over them. And +now what will you take to drink, Mr. Rolfe?" + +Gideon Rolfe waved his hand and put on his hat. + +"I leave the letter with you," he said. "Good-night." + +Stephen filled a wine glass with brandy, and drank it off, his hand +shaking. Then he eyed Jack's letter curiously, and at last held the +envelope over the steam of the hot water, and drew it apart. + +"A very sensible letter," he muttered, as he read. "Ambiguous, but all +the better for that. Really, anyone reading this, would conclude that +Jack had made up his mind to marry Lady Bell, and was ashamed to say +so." + +Then he reclosed the envelope, and went to bed, and slept the sleep of +the just. + +Meanwhile Jack strode around the streets of London, his brain in a +whirl, half mad with "the desperation of despair," as a poet has it. + +At last he reached home, and found the rooms dark and lonesome, and +Leonard in bed. + +He sat down and wrote a short note to Lady Bell, telling her that things +had turned up which prevented him coming to Earl's Court--giving no +reason, but just simply the fact. Then he turned out, and he walked +about till daylight. + +When he came in Leonard was at breakfast, and stared aghast at Jack's +haggard face and changed appearance. + +"My dear old man," he commenced, but Jack cut him short. + +"Len, I'm the most miserable wretch in existence. Don't ask me the why +and the wherefore; but all is over between me and Una." + +"Impossible!" said Leonard. + +"Impossible, but true," retorted Jack. "All is over between us, and if +you value our friendship you will not mention her name again." + +"But----" said Leonard. + +"Enough," said Jack. "I tell you that it is so." + +"Moss has been here again," Leonard said. + +"I don't care." + +"But, my dear fellow----" + +"I don't care," said Jack, stolidly. "A hundred Mosses wouldn't matter +to me now. Let him do his worst." + +"You don't know what his worst is," said Leonard. "He has got you in his +power." + +"All right," said Jack, coolly. "Let him exercise it to his uttermost." + +Leonard had never seen Jack like this. + +"Listen to me," he said. "If Moss does all he can do, he can expel you +from any club in London, can make you an utter out-cast. Come, Jack, be +reasonable." + +"I can't be reasonable!" retorted Jack. "I am utterly ruined and undone. +With Una everything that is worth living for has gone. I care nothing +for Moss or anything he can do." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + +"In another hour he will be here," said Una, as she stood at her +dressing-room window, and looked out upon the lawns and park of Hurst, +where they stretched down toward the road. + +"Another hour!" and at the thought, a smile--yet scarcely a smile, but a +suitable light like a sun ray stole over her face. + +The great poet Tennyson has, in one of his greatest poems, portrayed a +girl who, all unconscious of the bitter moments awaiting her, decked +herself in her brightest ribbons to receive her expected lover. + +Bright ribbons are out of fashion now, but Una had paid some, for her, +extraordinary attention to her toilet. Jack was never tired of calling +her beautiful; had even gone so far as to speak of her loveliness, and +it had raised no vanity in her; but this evening she felt she would like +to appear really and truly beautiful in his eyes, so beautiful that even +Lady Bell's spirited face should be forgotten. + +She had chosen the dress he liked best; had selected, with unusual care, +a couple of flowers from the costly bouquet, which, morning and evening, +was sent to her room from the hot-houses, and had decked herself in the +locket and bracelet, and ring which Jack had given her. + +Mrs. Davenant had made her many presents of jewelry, some of it costly, +and even rare; but she would not wear anything but Jack's own gifts +tonight. + +"He will come fresh from Lady Bell's diamonds and sapphires, and would +think little of mine, beautiful as they are; but he will like to see his +locket and his bracelet, and will know that I love him best." + +Not once, but twice and thrice she had moved from the window to the +glass, and looked into it. Not with any expression of pleased vanity, +but rather with merciless criticism. For the first time, she would like +to be as beautiful as Jack thought her. For the last few days she had +been rather silent, and somewhat pale. Stephen's cunning hints +respecting Jack and Lady Bell had had their effect; but tonight's +expectation, and the nearness of Jack's approach, had brought a faint +rose-like tint to her cheeks, and her eyes shone with the subtle light +of love and hope. + +Mrs. Davenant looked up at her as she entered the drawing-room and +smiled affectionately. + +"How well you look tonight, dear," she said, as she kissed her and drew +her down beside her. "I'm inclined to believe Jack, when he says that +you grow more beautiful than ever." + +"Hush," said Una, but with a blush. "Jack says so many foolish things, +dear." + +"If he never said anything more foolish than that he would be a wise +man," said Mrs. Davenant. "How long would he be now, dear?" + +Una glanced at the clock. + +"Just forty minutes," she said simply. + +Mrs. Davenant smiled and patted her hand. + +"Counting the very minutes," she murmured, gently. "What a thing love +is! What would life be without it?" + +"Death," said Una, with a grave smile. "Worse than death." + +Mrs. Davenant sighed. + +"Jack is a happy man," she said. "I wonder whether Stephen will come +down this evening?" + +"Do you not know?" said Una, absently. + +"No," replied Mrs. Davenant. "I thought, perhaps, he might have told +you." + +"Me!" said Una, with open eyes. "Oh, no. Why should he?" + +"I didn't know," said Mrs. Davenant, quietly. "He tells you everything, +I think." + +Una smiled. + +"He is very good and kind," she said, still a little absently. "Oh, very +kind. No one could have taken more trouble to make me happy." + +"Yes, Stephen likes to see you happy," said Mrs. Davenant, softly. "Poor +Stephen!" and she sighed. + +But Una heard neither the expression of pity nor the sigh. She had +risen, and was moving about the room with that suppressed impatience +which marks the one who wafts an expected joy. + +Presently her quick ears heard the rattle of approaching wheels, and +with a throbbing heart she looked at the clock. It wanted ten minutes to +the appointed time for Jack's arrival. With a quick flush of gratitude +for his punctuality she moved to the door, and stole swiftly and softly +to her own room, to regain composure. She heard the carriage pull up and +go away to the stables--heard the hurried tread of footsteps in the +marble hall--and then, with the faint flush grown into a full-blown +blush, went downstairs and entered the drawing-room. + +A sudden shock of disappointment chilled her. Stephen was standing +before the fire warming his hands, but Jack was not there. + +Stephen, in the glass, saw her enter, saw the sudden start and +disappearance of the warm flush, and turned to meet her. + +He looked tired, pale and worn, and the smile with which he met her was +a singular one, one that would have been almost triumphant but for the +expression of anxiety underlying it. + +"I have got back, you see," he said. "And are you quite well?" + +Una murmured an inaudible response, and he went back to the fire and +bent over it, warming his hands, his face grown, if anything, still +paler. + +"How beautiful she looks!" he thought. "How beautiful! Worth risking all +for--all!" + +"Won't you go up and dress, Stephen?" said Mrs. Davenant. "There is a +large fire in your room, and in Jack's too; I have just been into both +of them." + +"Yes, yes," he said, not nervously, but with almost an absent air, and +he left the room. + +"Stephen looks tired," said Mrs. Davenant. "I'm afraid he has had some +business that has worried him. I can always tell by his face." + +"I am very sorry," said Una, gently. "Yes, he did look tired and +worried," she added, but with her eyes on the clock. The hands went +round to the hour--an hour beyond Jack's time--and the butler announced +dinner. + +"Oh, we will wait a little while for Mr. Newcombe!" said Mrs. Davenant, +but Una, with a little flush, murmured: + +"No, do not, please; Mr. Davenant must want his dinner. Please do not +wait;" and Mrs. Davenant, never able to stand out against anyone's will, +rose and put her arm in Una's and they went into the dining-room. +Stephen followed and sat down without making any remark on Jack's +absence; even when Mrs. Davenant said to the butler--"Let them be sure +and keep the soup hot for Mr. Newcombe," Stephen made no observation. + +Dish after dish disappeared, and Una made a faint pretence at eating as +usual, and joined in the conversation between Stephen and Mrs. Davenant, +but her eyes were continually straying toward the clock, her ears +straining for the sound of wheels or a galloping horse. + +The dinner was a thing of the past, and the soup had been kept hot in +vain; no Jack arrived. Gradually silence had fallen on the three, and +when Mrs. Davenant rose it was with a sigh of loving sympathy with the +troubled heart that ached so near her own. + +"I cannot think what has kept him," she said, when they were alone +together in the drawing-room. "If it were anyone but Jack I should feel +nervous--but even I cannot feel nervous about _him_. It is a plain, easy +road from Earl's Court, and he rides like a--a centaur." + +"Perhaps," said Una, with her eyes fixed on the fire--"perhaps Lady Bell +pressed him to stay to dinner, and he will be here presently." + +"That must be it," said Mrs. Davenant, hopefully. "He will come in +directly, making a most tremendous noise, and raging against whatever +has been keeping him. Jack's rages are dreadful while they last--they +don't last long!" + +Una smiled, and listened. + +Stephen entered--so noiselessly that she almost started--and stooped +over his mother. + +"There are some things in the breakfast room I brought from London, will +you go and see to them?" + +Mrs. Davenant rose instantly. + +"Una, dear," she said, "see to the tea, I will be back directly." + +Una nodded, and sat down at the gypsy table. Stephen stood beside the +fire, one white hand stretched out to the blaze, his face turned toward +her, his eyes watching her under their lowered lids. His heart beat +nervously, the task before him seemed to overmaster him, and he shrank +from it; with one hand he felt Jack's letter, lying like an asp in his +breast coat pocket. + +"There is a cold wind tonight," he said absently. "Jack said the wind +had gone round this morning." + +"Jack," said Una, raising her eyes, with a sudden flame of color in her +face. "Have you seen him? You have been to Earl's Court?" + +Stephen frowned as if angry at making a slip. + +"No--no," he said with gentle hesitation. "No; I saw him in London. He +is not at Earl's Court." + +"Not at Earl's Court!" said Una, with surprise. "How is that? Oh, he is +not ill?" + +And her breath came sharply. + +Stephen turned to the fire, with knitted brow and compressed lip, and +fidgeted with the poker. + +"No," he replied, slowly, and as if uncertain what to say--"he is not +ill." + +"Then why did he not go?" asked Una. + +Stephen remained silent; and still keeping her eyes fixed on his pale +face, she rose and glided to his side. + +"You have something to tell me," she said, laying her hand on his arm, +and speaking in a low, panting voice. "What is it? You will tell me, +will you not? Has anything happened to Lady Bell? Is she at Earl's +Court?" + +"Yes, she is at Earl's Court," he said, almost bitterly, "and she is +quite well, I believe." + +"Then," said Una, in a low voice, which she tried vainly to keep +steady--"then it is something concerning Jack. Oh, why do you keep me in +suspense?" + +Her misery maddened him. + +"I will tell you that he is quite well," he said, almost sharply. "I +left him in perfect health. I dined with him, and he made an excellent +dinner." + +"You are angry with him! What has he done to make you angry?" she asked. + +He raised her hand, and let it fall with a gesture of noble indignation. + +"What has he done?" he repeated, as if to himself. "I can find no words +to describe it adequately. My poor Una!" + +And he turned to her, and laid his hand caressingly and pityingly on her +arm. + +Una, white and cold, was all unconscious of his touch. + +Stephen drew her gently to a low seat, and stood over her, his hand +resting with the same caressing pity on her arm. + +"Yes, I must tell you," he said, his voice low and gentle. "Would to +Heaven I had been spared the task. Dear Una! you will be calm--I know +your brave spirit and true, courageous heart. You will summon all your +strength to bear the blow it is left for me to deal you--me who would +lay down my life to spare you a moment's pain!" + +She scarcely heeded him. Her eyes, fixed on his face, were dilated with +fear and dread, her lips white and apart with suspense. + +"Tell me," she murmured. "It is something to do with Jack?" + +"It is," he said. "It is." + +"He is dead!" she breathed. + +And her eyes closed, as a shudder ran through her frame. + +"Would to Heaven he had died, ere this night's work," said Stephen, in a +low, fierce voice. "No; I have told you the truth. I left him well +and--Heaven forgive him--happy." + +Una drew a long breath, and smiled wearily. + +"What can you have to tell me about him that is so dreadful, if he is +alive and happy?" + +"He is alive, but he must be dead to you, dear Una," said Stephen. + +"Dead to me!" repeated Una, as if the words had no meaning for her. +"Dead to me! I--I do not understand." + +Then, as he stood silent, with a look of gentle pity and sorrow on his +pale face, a sharp expression of apprehension flashed across her face. + +"Say that again," she said. "You--you mean to tell me that he has left +me?" + +Stephen lowered his head. + +Una was silent, while the clock ticked three, then three words came +swiftly and sharply from her white lips: + +"It is false!" + +Stephen started. + +"Would to Heaven it were," he murmured. + +"Gone! left me without a word," said Una, with a smile of scorn. "Can +you ask--can you expect me to believe it?" + +"No," said Stephen. "No one would believe such base and hideous +treachery without proof." + +"Proof!" she echoed, faintly, and with sudden sinking of the heart. +"Proof! Give it to me!" + +Stephen drew the letter from his pocket slowly and reluctantly. + +Una saw it and shivered. + +"It is from him; give it to me," she said. + +And she held out her hand. + +Stephen took it in his, and held it for a moment. + +"Wait--for Heaven's sake wait," he murmured, with agitation. "I meant to +break it to you--to explain----" + +"Give it to me," was all she said, and she shook his hand off +impatiently. + +"Take it," said Stephen, with a tremor in his voice, "take it, and would +to Heaven he had found some other messenger to bear it." + +Una took the letter and slowly but steadily carried it to another part +of the room. + +There she stood and looked at it as if she were waiting to gain strength +to open it. + +At last, after what seemed an eternity to Stephen, who was watching her +in the glass, she broke open the envelope and read. + +Not twice, but thrice she read it, as if she meant to engrave every line +on her heart, then she thrust the letter in her bosom and came back to +the fire. + +Stephen turned, and with a low cry of alarm at sight of her altered +face, moved toward her; but she put up her hand to keep him back. + +Altered! Not only in face but in bravery. A minute ago she had been a +gentle-hearted, suffering, tortured girl, now she was an injured, +deserted woman. + +"Thanks," she said, and the words fell like ice from her lips. "You +spoke of an explanation. Will you tell me all you know, Stephen?" + +"Pray--not now," he murmured. "Tomorrow----" + +But she stopped him with a smile, awful to see in its utter despair and +unnatural calmness. + +"Now, please." + +"It--it is too easy of explanation," said Stephen hoarsely. "He was +tempted and he has fallen. He has bartered his honor for gold. Ask me no +more." + +Una drew a long breath. + +"It is needless," she said. "You mean that he has left me, because I am +poor, for Lady Earlsley, who can make him rich." + +Stephen turned away and sighed heavily. + +Una looked at him for a moment, then sat down at the tea-table. + +"You will have some tea?" she said calmly. + +Stephen started and looked at her. She had taken up the cream ewer with +an unfaltering hand. Great Heaven! could it be possible that she did not +feel it--that she did not really love Jack after all! A wild feeling of +exultation rose within his heart. + +"Thank Heaven!" he murmured, "you can meet such treachery as it +deserves--with scorn and contempt." + +She looked up at him with a strange smile on her cold, white face, and +held out a tea-cup. But as he came near her, the cup dropped from her +hand with a crash, and she fell back like one stricken unto death. + + * * * * * + +That same evening, Lady Bell stood in the drawing-room of Earl's Court. +She was richly dressed, more richly than was usual with her; upon her +white neck and arms sparkled the diamond set which she wore only on the +most special occasions. The room was full. Four or five of the country +families had been dining with her, and the buzz of conversation and +sound of music rose and fell together confusedly. + +Surrounded, as usual, by a little circle of courtiers, she reigned, by +the right of her beauty, her birth, and her wealth, a queen of society. + +Brilliant and witty she, so to speak, kept her devoted adherents at bay, +her beautiful face lit up with the smile which so many found so falsely +fascinating, her eyes shining like the gems in her hair. Never had she +appeared so beautiful, so irresistible. + +Regarding her even most critically one would have assented to the +proposition that certainly if any woman in the world was happy that +night it was Lady Isabel Earlsley. + +And yet beneath all her brilliance Lady Bell was hiding an aching heart. +Half the country was there at her feet, and only one of all her invited +guests absent, and he a poor, tireless, ne'er-do-well. But Lady Bell +would willingly, joyfully have exchanged them all for that one man, for +that scapegrace with the bold, handsome face and frank, fearless eyes. + +Since mid-day she had been expecting him. Like Una, her eyes had +wandered to the clock, and she had told the minutes over; but he had not +come, and now, with that false gayety of despair, she was striving, +fighting hard to forget him. + +But her eyes and ears refused to obey her will, and were still watching +and waiting, and suddenly her glance, wandering over her fan, saw a +figure standing in the doorway. + +It was not a man's, it was that of Laura Treherne's--Mary Burns. + +Not one of them around her noticed any difference in her smile or +guessed why she dismissed them so easily and naturally. She did not even +march straight for the door, but making a circuit, gradually reached the +hall. + +Pale and calm and self-possessed as usual, the strange maid was waiting +for her. + +"Well!" said Lady Bell, and her voice was scarcely above a whisper. +"Has--has he come?" + +"No," said Laura Treherne. "But though your ladyship told me only to let +you know of Mr. Newcombe's arrival, I thought it best to bring you this +letter." + +Lady Bell almost snatched it from her hand. + +"You did right," she said. + +With trembling hands she broke open the envelope, not noting that it +opened easily as if it had been tampered with, and read the note. + +"DEAR LADY BELL--I am sorry I cannot come as arranged. I am in great +trouble, and cannot leave London. + "Yours truly, + "JACK NEWCOMBE." + + +Lady Bell looked at the few lines for full a minute, then she pressed +the letter to her lips. As she did so, she saw that the slight figure in +its dark dress was still standing in front of her, and she started. + +"Why are you waiting?" she said angrily. + +Laura Treherne turned to go, but Lady Bell called to her. + +"Wait. I beg your pardon. I am going to London tomorrow by the first +train. Will you have everything ready?" + +Laura Treherne bowed. + +"Yes, my lady." + +"And--and--you need not sit up," said Lady Bell. + +"Thanks, my lady," was the calm response. And the dim figure disappeared +in the distance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + + +Christmas was near at hand; but notwithstanding that nearly everybody +who had a country house, or an invitation to one, was away in the +shires, London was by no means empty. There were still "chariots and +horsemen" in the park; and the clubs were pretty well frequented. Not a +few have come to the conclusion that after all London is at its best and +cheerfulest in mid-winter; and that plum pudding and roast beef can be +enjoyed in a London square as well, if not better, than in the country. + +Among these was Lady Bell. Although she had two or three country houses +which she might have filled with guests, she, for sundry reasons, +preferred to remain in Park Lane. + +Perhaps, like Leonard Dagle, she thought that there was no place like +London. He would have his idea that there was no place in it like Spider +Court. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter, with perhaps, just a short +interregnum of a fortnight in summer, Leonard stuck to Spider Court; and +on this winter evening he was sitting in his accustomed place, busily +driving the pen. + +There was a certain change about Leonard which was worthy of remark. He +looked, not older than we saw him last, but younger. In place of the +weary, abstracted air, which had settled upon him during the long months +of the search of Laura Treherne, there was an expression of hopefulness +and energy which was distinctly palpable. The room too looked changed. +It was neater and less muddled; and though the boxing gloves and +portraits of actresses and fair ladies of the ballet still adorned the +walls, the floor and chairs were no longer lumbered with Jack's boots +and gloves, cigar boxes, and other impedimenta. + +Perhaps Leonard missed these untidy objects, for he was wont to look up +from his work and round the room with a sigh, and not seldom would rise +and stalk into the bed-room beyond his own; the bed-room which Jack kept +in a similar litter, but which now was neat and tidy--and unoccupied. + +At such times Leonard would sigh and murmur to himself, "Poor Jack!" and +betaking himself to his writing desk again would pull out a locket and +gaze long and earnestly on a face enshrined therein, a face which +strikingly resembled that of Laura Treherne, and so would gain comfort +and fall to work again. + +Tonight, he had wandered into the unoccupied room and had glanced at the +portrait two or three times, for he felt lonely and would have given a +five-pound note to hear Jack's tread upon the stairs, and his voice +shouting for the housekeeper to bring him hot water. + +"Poor Jack!" he murmured, "where is he now?" For some months had elapsed +since he had found a few lines of sad farewell from Jack lying on his +writing desk, but pregnant with despair and reckless helplessness. And +Jack had gone whither not even Mr. Levy Moss, who sought him far and +wide, could discover; and not Mr. Moss alone, but Lady Bell Earlsley; +fast as she had traveled from Earl's Court to London, she arrived too +late to see Jack, too late to learn from his lips the nature of the +trouble which he had spoken of in his short note to her. And from +Leonard even, she could not learn much. He could only tell her that Jack +and Una's engagement was broken off, and by Jack himself, but for what +reason he could not tell or guess. And with that Lady Bell had to be, +not content, but patient. + +"You were his dearest friend," she said to Leonard, "can you not guess +where he has gone?" + +And Leonard had shaken his head sorrowfully. "I cannot even guess. He +was utterly miserable and reckless; he once spoke, half in jest, of +enlisting. He was in great trouble." + +"Money trouble?" Lady Bell had asked. + +"Money trouble," assented Len, and Lady Bell had sunk into Leonard's +chair and wrung her white hands. + +"Money! money! how I hate the word! and here I am with more of the vile +stuff than I know what to do with!" + +"That would make no difference to Jack," Leonard said, quietly; and Lady +Bell had sighed--she almost sobbed--and gone on her way as near +broken-hearted as a woman could be. + +And then she had sought for him as openly as she dared, but with no +result, save discovering that there were hundreds of young men who +answered to Jack's description, and who were all indignant when they +applied in response to the advertisements and found that they were not +the men wanted. + +And so the months had rolled on, and the "Savage" was nearly forgotten +at the Club, excepting at odd times when Hetley or Dalrymple remembered +how well he used to tool a team to the "Sheaves," or row stroke in a +scratch eight. My friend, if you want to find out of how little +importance you are in your little world, disappear for a few months, and +when you come back you will find that your place has been excellently +well filled, excepting in the hearts of the one or two faithful men and +women who loved you. + +The world went on very well without Jack, and only two or three hearts +ached, really ached, at his absence--Len, honest Len, in his den in +Spider Court; Lady Bell, in Park Lane; and that other tender, loving, +and tortured heart in the old new house at Hurst. + +Leonard often thought of that tender heart, and sighed over it as he +sighed for Jack. It was still a mystery to him, their separation; he +knew that Una was still at the Hurst, but that was all. No news of her +ever reached him. At times he ran across Stephen in London, and +exchanged a word or a bow with him, and had noticed that he was looking +better and sleeker, and less pale--more flourishing in fact, than he had +done for some time. + +He, too had come to Spider Court, and expressed profound grief at +Jack's disappearance, and had gone away after wringing Leonard's hand +sympathetically. + +Leonard sat thinking over this far more than was good to the work he had +in hand, when he heard the door open, and half starting, said absently: + +"Nothing more wanted tonight, Mrs. Brown." + +But a step, certainly not Mrs. Brown's, crossed the room, and a heavy +hand was laid on his shoulder, and looking up, he saw Jack's face above +him. + +"Jack!" he exclaimed, clutching him as if he expected to see him +disappear again. "It is you, really you? Great Heaven!" + +There was reason for the exclamation; for though it was Jack, he was so +altered as to have rendered the description of him in the advertisements +quite useless. Thin, pale, careworn, it was no more the old Jack than +the living skeleton is Daniel Lambert. + +"Great Heaven! Is it really you, Jack?" + +"Yes, it is I! what is left of me, Len. You--you are looking well, old +man. And the old room; how cheery it seems." + +And he laughed--the shadow of the old laugh--even more pitiable than +tears. + +"For Heaven's sake be quiet; don't speak just yet," said Len, with a +husky voice. "Sit down. You've frightened me, Jack. Have you been ill?" + +"Slightly," said Jack, with a smile. + +"And where have you been? Tell me all about it--no, don't tell me +anything yet." + +And he went to the cupboard, and brought out the whisky, and mixed a +stiff glass. + +"Now, then, old man, where's the cigars? here--here's a light. Now +then--no; take off your boots. I'll tell Mrs. Brown to air the bed and +get your dressing-gown. And what about supper?" + +And with a suspicious moisture in his eyes, Len turned from the room. + +"Staunch as a woman, tender as a man." It was a wise saying, whoever +wrote it. + +Jack sipped his whisky and water, and smoked his cigar, and pulled +himself together, which was just what Len wanted to get him to do; and +then Len came back. + +"Now then, old man, out with it. Where have you been?" + +"I've been to America," said Jack. "Don't ask me any particulars, Len; I +wouldn't tell you much if you did. I've been nearly out of my mind half +the time, and down with one of their charming fevers the remainder. You +won't get enough information out of me to write even a magazine article, +old man." + +And he smiled, with a faint attempt at badinage. + +"Great Heaven!" exclaimed Len, again; "and--and is that all?" + +"That's all it amounts to," said Jack, wearily. "You want to know how I +came back, and why? Well, I can scarcely tell why. I got so sick of +trying to get knocked on the head, and failing miserably, that I got +disgusted with the country, weary of wandering about, and resolved that +it would be better to come and give Levy Moss his revenge. He's still +alive, I hope?" + +"And you got back?" said Len. + +"I worked my passage over," said Jack, curtly. "I was a bad hand, and +caught cold on the top of the last affair, and just managed to pull +myself together to reach London, and here I am. Not very lucid, Len, is +it? But there's no more to tell." + +Leonard looked at him with infinite pity, and mixed another glass of +whisky. + +"Poor old Jack," he murmured. + +"And now it's your turn," said Jack, lighting another cigar. "Tell me +all the news, Len, about yourself first. How are Hetley, and Dalrymple, +and the rest of them? But yourself first, Len. You look well--better +than when I left. Things have gone right with you." + +"Then you have not forgotten?" said Len, gratefully. + +"It is not likely," he said, quietly. "I have thought of you many a +night as I lay burning with that confounded fever. Are you married?" and +he looked round the room as if he expected to see Mrs. Dagle in some dim +corner. + +Leonard blushed. + +"Nonsense! No, Jack, I'm not married. But--I'm very happy, old +man--should have been quite happy, but for missing you." + +Jack nodded. + +"I'm glad of that. Glad it has all worked round, and that you have +missed me, too. Where is she--Laura Treherne? You see I remember her +name." + +Leonard hesitated, and looked troubled. + +"I--I'm afraid I mustn't tell you. You see, Jack, there's still some +kind of mystery hanging about this love affair of mine. It is Laura's +wish that I should keep silent as to her whereabouts. I give you my word +I don't understand why. But I don't want to talk of myself and my +affairs, Jack. There is something and someone else you want to hear +about." + +Jack looked up with a sudden start, and held up his hand. + +"No, not a word!" he said. "Don't tell me a word. I--that affair is +over--dead and buried. Don't speak her name, Len, for Heaven's sake. Let +that rest forever between us." + +Len sighed. + +"Tell me more about yourself," said Jack, impatiently, as if anxious to +get away from the other subject. "There is some mystery, secret, you +say." + +"Yes," said Leonard, humoring him, "there is a mystery and secret, +which, much as I love her, and I hope and believe she loves me, Laura +will not trust--well, I will not say 'trust'--which she does not feel +authorized to confide to me." + +"I remember," said Jack, "your telling me that she had some task, or +mission, or something to accomplish--sounds strange." + +"Yes," said Leonard, with a sigh, "and that mission is still +unaccomplished, and blocks the marriage. But I am content to wait and +trust, and I am happy." + +Jack sighed. + +"You deserve to be, old fellow!" he said. + +"No, I don't!" exclaimed Leonard, remorsefully, "for flaunting my +happiness in your face, Jack. And now, here's the supper," he added, as +a waiter from a neighboring chop-house brought in a tray. + +Jack sat down, and Leonard waited upon him, hanging over him, and +watching him as if every mouthful he ate did him, Leonard, good; +meanwhile chatting cheerfully. + +"London pretty full, Jack; lots of people up this year." + +"Yes," said Jack, then he looked up. "I suppose I shan't be able to show +up, because of Moss, Len?" + +"Oh, he won't know you are here! And we'll cut it. We'll go down to the +country somewhere, Jack, before anyone sees you. You haven't met anyone, +have you?" + +"Met them, no. But I have seen Stephen." + +"Stephen Davenant?" + +"Yes, I saw him, but I don't think he saw me. He is looking well." + +Leonard nodded. + +"He did not see you--but it wouldn't have mattered." + +"No," said Jack, with a sigh. "Len, this is the first 'square meal,' as +they say over the sea, that I've enjoyed since I left. I'm very tired." + +"I can see that," said Leonard. "Go off to bed, old man. We'll have no +more questions tonight." + +Jack rose and took his candle. + +"Yes, one more," he said, as he held Leonard's hand, tightly. "Is--is +she well, Len?" + +Leonard nodded. + +"Yes, I think so----" + +"That's all," said Jack, resolutely. "Good-night, Len, good-night," and +he turned away quickly. + +Leonard stole into Jack's room several times that night and looked down +upon the tired, weary face, still handsome for all its lines and +haggardness, handsomer some might have thought, for suffering sets a +seal of dignity upon a man's face if there be sterling stuff in him. +Leonard looked down at it pityingly. + +"Poor old man; he has had a hard time of it if any man has." + +Jack turned up at breakfast time looking much refreshed. + +"First good night's rest I've had since--oh, too long to remember, Len. +Dreamed that all that has happened was only a dream, and that I was +waking up and going to see----" he broke off suddenly and sighed. + +Leonard was delighted to see him so much better. + +"We'll leave town directly, Jack," he said. "I've just done my usual +batch of work, and am free. We'll spend our Christmas at some old +inn----" + +Jack looked at him gratefully. + +"You're a staunch old man, Len," he said, quietly. "You'd sacrifice your +sweetheart to your friend." + +Len colored. + +"I'm sure she'd be the first to urge us to go," he said. "Laura is so +unselfish." + +"She shan't be sacrificed for me," said Jack. "No, Len, I'll go off by +myself, before anyone knows I'm back--hallo! what's that?" + +It was a footstep on the stairs, Len motioned for Jack to retreat into +the bedroom, and only just in time, for, barely stopping to knock, Mr. +Levy Moss opened the door. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + + +"Good-morning, Mr. Dagle," said Moss, his eyes roaming about the room. +"Here I am again, you see, Mr. Dagle; and where is Mr. Newcombe? He's +here, I know." + +"If you know so much you've no need to ask," said Leonard. "Who told you +he was here?" + +Levy Moss winked one bleared eye cunningly. + +"I'm smart, Mr. Dagle; I keep my eyes open and my feet a-moving." + +"Just so," said Leonard, "and if you'll be good enough to move them out +of my room I shall be obliged. Please observe that these are _my_ rooms, +Mr. Moss, and not Mr. Newcombe's, and that I am not desirous of further +visits from you." + +"You're sharp, too, Mr. Dagle," said Moss; "but Mr. Newcombe's here; you +don't want two cups and saucers, and two plates, you know, for your +breakfast, eh?" + +"Get out!" said Len, who, when he was roused was, like most quiet men, +rather hot-headed. "Get out! and, by the way, if you meet Mr. Newcombe, +I'd advise you to keep clear of him; he's back from America and carries +two revolvers and a bowie knife, and I needn't tell you, who know him so +well, that he'd as soon put a bullet through your head or stick the +knife in between your ribs as look at you--far rather, perhaps." + +Moss turned pale. + +"I hope Mr. Jack won't do anything rash." + +"I won't answer for him. They don't think much of killing your sort of +people on the other side, Moss. Get out," and Mr. Moss shuffled out; +Leonard bolting the door after him. + +Jack came in and sat down quietly and gravely. + +"I've frightened him," said Leonard, smiling. "He'll keep clear of you +for a day or two. But how did he know you were back? He couldn't have +been keeping watch for all these months." + +"I don't know; someone must have seen me, and told him; I don't know +who, Len. I'm going out." + +"Now, Jack?" said Leonard, fearfully. + +Jack smiled. + +"No, Len; I won't cut it again without telling you and saying 'good-by.' +I'm only going for a walk; and I'll be back to dinner." + +Leonard looked after him, still rather anxiously; there was a look of +determination on the pale, thoughtful face which alarmed him. + +Jack walked to Regent street--please mark that he didn't call a hansom; +though Len had pressed some money upon him--and then into Piccadilly, +and still with the thoughtful look of determination on his face, into +Park Lane, and ascended the steps of Lady Bell's villa. + +A footman, who knew not Jack, opened the door, and Jack, who had not any +cards, gave his name, which the footman gave to Lady Bell's maid as "Mr. +Bluecut." + +Jack walked into the drawing-room, every article of which was familiar +to him; and sat down in the chair which he had so often drawn close to +Lady Bell's, only a few months back; and yet how long, long ago it +seemed. + +Presently the door opened, and Lady Bell came in. + +He saw her in the glass before she saw him. + +Tastefully and simply dressed, she looked, if anything, more beautiful +than ever, but not so bright and restless; Jack noticed that. There was +an undefinable change about her, just as if she had gone through some +trouble, or had done battle with some grief. + +Suddenly she looked round and saw him, and stopped; one hand holding a +chair, her face going from white to crimson. + +Jack rose. + +"I've startled you; I'm very sorry." + +Lady Bell recovered herself, and went to him with outstretched hand and +a look in her dark eyes that she tried to keep out of them. + +"Jack," she said, almost involuntarily. + +"Yes, it's I; like the bad penny, back again, Lady Bell." + +And he sat down and laughed. + +She sank into a chair beside him, and looked at his careworn face. + +"Where have you been?" she asked, softly. + +"To America," said Jack. + +"You have been ill?" she said, still more softly. + +Jack nodded. + +"Yes. I'm all right now. And you? You don't look quite the thing?" + +"Do I not?" she said, with a smile. "I am quite well. And is that all +you are going to tell me of your wanderings?" + +"No. I'll tell you everything some other time," said Jack, quietly. + +"You are not going away again, then?" she asked, looking at him, and +then away from him. + +Jack flushed. + +"That depends," he said, quietly. + +"Depends on what?" she asked. + +"On you," he said. + +Lady Bell started, and the crimson flush flooded her face and neck. Her +lips trembled, and she looked away. + +"On me?" she murmured, faintly. + +"On you," said Jack, earnestly. "Lady Bell, I have come back to ask you +to be my wife." + +She was silent; her face turned from him, so that he could not see the +tears that welled up in her eyes. + +Jack took her hand. + +"Lady Bell, I know that I am not worthy of you--know it quite well. +There isn't a man in the world who is; I, least of all. I know, too, +what the world would say if you should answer 'Yes.' It will impute all +sorts of base motives to me. But, as Heaven is my witness, it is not for +your wealth that I ask you to be my wife. I am poor, and in all sorts of +trouble; but if you were poorer than I am I would still ask you." + +"You would?" she murmured. + +"Yes," he said, quietly. "Yes, I can say that, though I tell you in the +same breath that I am, at this moment, being hunted for money. And I +think you will believe me." + +She made a gesture of assent with her hand. + +"Dear Lady Bell," he continued, "during the last few months I have been +looking back to those happy days we spent together; and when a man's +down with the fever he looks back with keen and wise insight into the +turn of things, and knows when he was happy in the past, and with whom; +and I swore that, if ever I pulled through and got back, I would ask you +if you did not think we might be as happy in the future as in the past. +Dear Bell, I would try and make you happy. Will you be my wife?" + +Trembling in every limb, she sat silent, and with averted face. Then, +suddenly and yet slowly, she turned her eyes upon him--eyes full of +ineffable love and sadness. + +Slowly, softly, she put her other hand in his, and smiled at him. + +"You ask me to be your wife, Jack?" + +"I do," he said. "Your answer, dear Bell?" + +"Is--No," she said. + +Jack started, and his eyes fell before the deep love and tenderness in +hers. He would have drawn his hand away, but she still held it gently. + +"Do you ask me why, Jack? I will tell you. It is because you do not love +me." + +He looked up with a start, and turned pale. + +Lady Bell shook her head gently. + +"Do not speak--it is useless. Besides, you would not tell me a lie, +Jack. Listen; I, too, have been looking back; I, too, have learned a +lesson--a truth--while you have been away. And that truth is, that +others may love as truly and deeply as myself; and that others may find +it as impossible to forget----" + +Jack, pale and agitated, stopped her. + +"The past is buried," he said, hoarsely--"let it rest." + +"It is not buried--it cannot be. See! it revives--springs up, even +without the mention of her name. Jack, you do not love me--you cannot; +for all your love has been given, is still given, to Una." + +"For Heaven's sake!" he implored, rising and pacing the room. + +Lady Bell looked at him. + +"Ah, how you love her still, Jack! See how right I was; and yet you +would come to me." + +And the tears fall slowly. + +"Forgive me," said Jack, bending over her humbly, imploringly--"forgive +me! You--you are right. But I swear I thought it was over for me. You +knew me better than I knew myself." + +"Yes, for a good reason, Jack," she murmured; "for I love you." + +Jack winced. + +"I have been a brute!" he murmured. + +"No, Jack," she said--and she put her hand on his arm and looked up at +him with a smile--"you meant well and honestly. You did not know how it +stood with you. I could not have loved you so well if you had been +false--if you had forgotten her. I have been thinking it out, Jack; and +I know now that to love once--as you and I love--is to love forever." + +"But it is past," he said, "utterly, irrevocably past. You do not know +the barrier that stands immovably between her and me." + +"Do I not?" she murmured, inaudibly. "Be it what it will, your love and +hers stand firm on either side of it. But no more of that, Jack. I am +glad you have come to me--very, very glad. And though I cannot be your +wife, Jack"--with what tenderness and sadness those two words were +breathed--"I can be your friend. I want you to promise me something." + +Jack pressed her hand. He could not trust himself to speak. + +"I want you to promise that you will not go away again, that you will +not leave London whatever happens--mind, whatever happens--without +letting me know! I may ask that much, Jack?" + +"You may ask anything," he said, huskily; "I will do anything you ask of +me--simply anything." + +"I think you would," she said. "Then I have your promise? And, Jack, +this must make no difference between us; you will come and see me?" + +"I do not deserve to come within a mile of you." + +She smiled. + +"And so punish me for not saying 'yes,'" she said, with a little attempt +at archness. "That would be hard for me, Jack. I should lose lover and +friend as well." + +"You are the truest-hearted woman in the world," said Jack, deeply +moved. + +"Except one," said Lady Bell. "There, go now, Jack, and come to dinner +tonight, and bring Leonard Dagle with you--another true heart." + +"I will," said Jack, simply. And he held out his hand. + +She held out both of hers, and looked at him with a strange, wistful +yearning in her eyes. + +"Jack," she breathed, softly, "will you kiss me for the first and last +time?" + +Jack drew her toward him and kissed her. Then, with a little sigh, she +left him. How Jack got out he knew not, for his eyes were strangely dim +and useless. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + + +A dim light was burning in the drawing-room of the Hurst. Outside, the +storm was raging wild and pitiless, making the warm room seem like a +harbor of refuge. Beside the fire sat Mrs. Davenant, half dozing over a +piece of finest needlework for the village working club. She was alone +in the room, and every now and then glanced anxiously toward the door. +Presently it opened, and the tall figure of Stephen entered and crossed +over to her. + +"Mother," he said, and there was a tremulous ring in his voice and a +quiver in his lips that were in marked contrast to his usual smooth +calm. + +Mrs. Davenant looked up with a glance of alarm. "Una!" she exclaimed. + +"Hush!" he said, laying his hand on her shoulder. "Una," and his voice +dwelt on the name. "Una is asleep. She has gone to her own room for a +little while. Mother," he said, slowly, "she has consented." + +Mrs. Davenant looked up and trembled: "Oh, Stephen!" + +He nodded, and stood before the fire, looking up with a smile of +undisguised triumph and joy. "Yes, she has consented. It was--well, hard +work; but my love overmastered her. I told her that you agreed with me +that the sooner the marriage took place the better. You do, do you not?" + +"Yes," murmured Mrs. Davenant. + +"She wants change; nothing but entire change of life and thought will do +her good. Mother, if she remained here, if something were not done, she +would"--he paused, and went on hoarsely, "she would die!" + +Mrs. Davenant shuddered and her eyes filled. "My poor, poor Una!" she +murmured. + +Stephen moved impatiently. "She will not need your pity, mother. A few +weeks hence and you will have no reason to pity her. I'll stake my life +that I bring her back here with the roses in her cheeks, with the smile +in her eyes, as of old. Mother, you do not know what such love as mine +can do!" and his voice trembled with suppressed passion. + +Mrs. Davenant looked up at him, tearfully. + +"You--you are much changed, Stephen," she murmured. + +"I am," he said, with a curt laugh. "I am changed, am I not? I scarcely +know myself. And she has done it. She! My beautiful queen, my lily! Yes, +she shall be happy, if man can make her." He was silent a moment, +dwelling on his love and future, and looked, as he spoke, much changed. +Then he awoke at a question from his mother. + +"When is it to be, Stephen?" + +"Tomorrow," he said, quietly. + +"Tomorrow!" gasped. Mrs. Davenant. "Impossible!" + +"Not at all," he said, curtly. "Remember, I told you not to be +surprised, that it would come suddenly." + +"But----" + +He made a movement of impatience. + +"Do you think I have not made preparations? See," and he took a paper +from his pocket, "I have had the license for a week past. It is no +ordinary marriage. We want no bridesmaid and wedding favors. She would +not have them--or me, if you insisted upon it. It is principally on the +condition that the ceremony shall be quite private--secret almost--that +she has consented." + +Mrs. Davenant stared at the fire. + +Stephen smiled. + +"You do not understand me, even yet, mother," he said. "Did you ever +know anything fail me?" + +Mrs. Davenant shuddered, or was it the play of the fire-light? + +"Never," she said, in a low voice. + +Stephen smiled again. + +"I have seen this coming, have seen my way to it for months past; I have +swept every barrier away----" He stopped suddenly and bit his lip--"and +now for our plans, mother. Try and collect yourself; this has surprised +and upset you," he said, sharply. + +Mrs. Davenant sat up and looked at him attentively. + +"Tomorrow we start, without fuss or bother, for Clumley. I have ordered +them to take a pair of horses to the half-way house, so that we can +change without loss of time. I have also sent a letter to the clergyman +telling him to be prepared for us, and keep his own counsel. We shall +reach Clumley, traveling easily, by half-past ten. There will be no +wedding breakfast--thank Heaven! no fuss or ceremony. We shall go +straight from the church to London, and thence to Paris. Excepting +ourselves and clergyman no one can know anything of the matter until the +marriage is over, then----" and he drew a long breath and smiled. + +Mrs. Davenant, pale and trembling, stared up at him. + +"And--and Una? Does she agree to all this?" + +"Una agrees to everything," he said, impatiently. "She herself +stipulated that it should be done quietly, and"--with a smile--"if this +is not quietly, I do not know what is. And now, my dear mother, go and +make what preparations are absolutely necessary, and make them yourself, +and unaided. Remember there must be no approach to any wedding party. We +are only going to take an outing for a day or two. You understand?" + +"I understand," she faltered; "and when will you be back, Stephen?" she +asked, pitiably. "I--I--you won't be away long, Stephen? I shall miss +her so." + +Stephen patted her on the shoulder. + +"Don't be afraid, mother. We shall not be away too long. I am too proud +of my beautiful bride to hide her away. I want to see her here, mistress +of the Hurst. My wife! my wife! Hush! here she comes. Do not upset her." + +And, with a quick, noiseless step, he went out as Una entered. + +Framed in the doorway, she stood for a moment like a picture. Paler and +slighter than in the old days, she had lost none of her beauty. Stephen +had cause to be proud of his bride. There would be no lovelier woman in +Wealdshire than the future mistress of the Hurst. And yet, if Jack could +have seen her that moment, what agony her face would have cost him; for +his eyes, quickened by his passionate love, would have read and +understood that subtle change that had fallen on the beautiful face; +would have read the settled melancholy which sat enthroned on the dark +eyes, and gave them the dreamy, far-away look which never left them for +a moment. + + "Communing with the past, she walked; + Alive, yet dead to all the world." + +Slowly she crossed the room, and stood just where Stephen had stood, and +looked into the fire; but not as he had looked--triumphantly, joyfully; +but with an absent, dreamy air. + +Mrs. Davenant put out her hand, and touched her arm. + +"Una!" + +She turned her head, and looked at her questioningly, with a weary, +uninterested gaze. + +"Una, he--Stephen has told me. Oh, my darling, I hope you will be +happy!" + +Una smiled--a cold, mechanical smile. + +"Happy? Yes, he says I shall be happy. Do you think," and she looked +calmly at the anxious, nervous face, "do you think I shall be happy?" + +Mrs. Davenant drew her toward her. + +"My dear, you frighten me. You--you are so--so strange and cold. Cold! +Your hands are like ice. Oh, Una, do you know what it means--this that +you are going to do? It is not too late. Think, Una. You know how I love +you, dear. That I would give all the world to call you--what you are, my +heart of hearts--my own daughter. But, oh, Una! if you think, if you are +not quite sure that you will be happy----" + +Una looked straight at the fire. + +"He says so," she said, in the same hard, cold voice; "he is clever and +wise. He is your son; why do you doubt him?" + +Mrs. Davenant shivered. + +"I--I don't doubt him, dear. Yes, he is my son; he has been a good son +to me. But you are to be his wife; think." + +"I have thought," said Una, quietly. "It will make him happy--he says +so; and the rest does not matter to me. Yes, I have thought; I am tired +with thinking"; and she put her hand to her brow with a sharp gesture, +half wild, half weary. "I will make him happy, and I shall always be +with you, whom I love. What does the rest matter?" + +Mrs. Davenant uttered a little moan. + +"And--and have you quite forgotten?" + +Una looked at her calmly, but with a faint shadow in her eyes and a +touch of pain on her lips. + +"Forgotten! No, I shall not forget until I am dead; perhaps not then; +who knows?" and the dreamy look came back. "But that cannot matter. He, +Stephen, is content; I have told him all, and he is content. He is +easily satisfied." And for the first time a smile of bitterness crossed +her lips. "Why should he love me so?" she said, curtly. "Why should he +be so anxious to make me his wife? I cannot understand it. Is it because +he thinks that I am beautiful? I looked in the glass just now, and it +seemed a dead face." + +"Una!" + +She turned and smiled. + +"It is true. But I have made you cry. Don't do that, dear. At least, we +shall be together, shall we not?" + +In answer, the poor woman took her in her arms, and cried over her; but +Una shed not a single tear. + +No, Stephen was not likely to fail. There were not likely to be any +hitches in anything he undertook. + +Even the weather seemed to conform to his plans and wishes, for the +morning broke clear and bright, so that he might say: + +"Happy is the bride whom the sun shines on." + +Without fuss or bustle, the traveling chariot, with its pair of handsome +bays, drew up to the door; a couple of portmanteaus, no larger than was +necessary for a day or two's outing, were put in the box; and Slummers, +in his tall hat and black overcoat, looking very much like the +old-fashioned banker's clerk, stood with the carriage door in his hand. + +Presently Stephen came down the steps, dressed in a traveling suit, and +looking as calm as usual, but for the touch of color in his face. He had +grown younger in appearance, less prim and formal, and altogether +better-looking. If he could have lost the trick of looking from under +his lowered eyelids, he would have been worth calling handsome. He +exchanged a word with Slummers. + +"All right, sir. The horses are at Netherton; everything is arranged +exactly according to your wishes." + +"And no one suspects anything?" + +"Not a soul," said Slummers, with a smile. + +This morning's work was the sort of thing Slummers liked. He was +enjoying himself, and as happy as his master. + +Stephen went into the house again, and presently Mrs. Davenant and Una +appeared. Notwithstanding Stephen's warning, Mrs. Davenant's eyes were +red; but Una showed no traces of emotion; pale, almost white, she looked +calmly around her. + +In the night she had started out of her sleep, calling wildly, +piteously, on Jack to come and save her. But there was no Jack +here--only Stephen, smiling and watchful as he came to meet her and help +her into the carriage. For a moment her hand touched his bare wrist, and +he felt it cold as ice even through her glove; but he smiled still as if +he had no fear. + +"Once mine," he thought, "and all will be well!" + +Quietly, with no fuss or bustle, Slummers closed the door, mounted the +box, and the horses started off. + +Stephen looked at his watch, and smiled. + +"Punctual almost to the minute," he said. "Are you warm enough, my +darling?" + +And he bent forward, and arranged the costly furs round the slight form. + +"Quite," she said; but she shrank into her corner with a little shiver. + +Stephen left her to herself, but would not remain silent, chatting with, +or rather to, Mrs. Davenant, in a strain of easy cheerfulness, his eyes +wandering to the pale face just showing above the pile of furs. + +Their hoofs ringing on the road, which a few hours of early frost had +made hard, the horses, the finest pair in the county, for Stephen was +critical in such matters and liked the best, spun the distance, and +again, almost punctual to the minute, the village of Netherton, to +which Stephen had sent the change of horses, was reached. + +Slummers stepped down from the box, and was seen to enter the inn yard. + +"The horses ought to be out and waiting," said Stephen, with a little +impatience. + +A moment or two passed, and then Slummers came to the carriage door. + +Stephen jumped out. + +"What is it? Why do you not put the horses to?"--for the others had been +taken out and were standing in the stable. + +Slummers, for the first time in his life, changed color and hesitated. + +"There has been some mistake, sir." + +"Mistake!" + +"The horses are not here." + +Stephen glared at him. + +"I can't understand it, sir. I gave your orders most minutely, but +George has taken the horses on to Clumley." + +Stephen bit his lip and glanced at the carriage. + +"Put the others back," he said, "and tell Masters to drive for his +life." + +Slummers hesitated and went to the coachman, coming back in a moment +with an uneasy countenance. + +"I'm--I'm afraid they won't reach Clumley in time, sir," he said. +"Masters says that it is impossible. Calculating on fresh horses, he has +forced them a bit on the road, and they are used up. If you will look at +them, sir----" + +Stephen uttered an oath, and his face twitched. + +The coachman came up, troubled but respectful. It was no fault of his. + +"I thought I should get the change here, sir. I couldn't do it, unless +the horses had a quarter of an hour and a wipe down, and then----" + +He paused and shook his head. + +Stephen controlled himself, though his face was white. + +"A quarter of an hour," he said. "We will wait so long, and not a moment +longer. Then drive as if your life depended on it. Do not spare the +horses." + +Then he went to the carriage and forced a smile. + +"A little delay," he said, cheerfully. "Would you like to get out for a +quarter of an hour, darling?" + +Una shook her head. + +"I do not care"; but Mrs. Davenant looked at her and spoke out. + +"Yes, Stephen," she said. "My dear, you are half frozen." + +Stephen went to the window of the inn and looked into the room, then +went back. + +"Come," he said. "There is a pleasant fire. A rest and the warmth will +do you good. Come," and, wrapping a huge fur round her, he took her on +his arm and entered the inn. + +Mrs. Davenant followed into the room. A fire was burning in the +old-fashioned grate. Stephen drew a chair near to the welcome blaze and +led Una to it. White and indifferent she sat and looked at the flames. + +"It is only for a few minutes, darling, then we shall be off. Come, +drink some of this," and he held a glass of hot spirit and water to her +hand. + +Una shook her head. + +"Thanks, I could not," she said, simply. + +Stephen motioned to his mother. + +"See that she takes some," he said, in a low voice. "I will go and look +after the horses," and he turned. As he did so the door opened, and a +lady entered. + +For a moment, in the dim light of the low room, Stephen did not +recognize her, then a chill fell on him as if a cold hand had laid on +his heart. He staggered back, and then she raised her veil and looked at +him. + +Not a word passed. Face to face, eye to eye, they stood. A moment +passed. Una had not looked round, only Mrs. Davenant stood speechless +and trembling. Then, as if with an effort, Stephen regained possession +of his quaking soul, and stole nearer to her. + +"Laura," he whispered, glancing behind him. "You here? You want me? +Well, let us come outside." + +A smile, calm and scornful, flashed from her dark face. + +"You cannot pass," she said. + +A wild devil leaped, full grown, into his bosom, and he raised his hand +to strike her, but the next instant he was grasped by the shoulder and +flung aside, and Gideon Rolfe stood over him. + +The room whirled round; scarcely conscious that other figures had +entered and surrounded him, he staggered to his feet. Then a cry, two +words, "Father! Jack!" smote upon his ear, and with an effort he turned +and saw Jack's tall form towering in the low room, with Una clasped +tightly, lying prone in his arms. + +It was all over. Just as the criminal in the dock, when he sees the +judge placing the black cap on his head, knows that his doom is sealed, +Stephen knew that all was lost. But the will was not all subdued yet. + +There was Davenant blood in his veins. White to the very lips, he stood +and glared at them, one hand grasping the table, the other thrust in his +breast. Then an evil smile curled the cunning mouth. + +"Cleverly planned," he said, speaking as if every word cost him a pang. +"You have beaten me, thus far. Gideon Rolfe, I congratulate you upon the +success of your maneuvers; in another hour your daughter would have been +the mistress of Hurst; she will, now, I presume, be the wife of a +beggar." + +Gideon Rolfe looked at him with stern, immovable eyes. + +Stephen smiled and took up his hat. + +"You have robbed me of my bride," he said; "permit me to return to the +home which still remains to me." + +There was an intense silence. Then a slight stir as Jack, carrying Una +in his arms, left the room, followed by Mrs. Davenant. With haggard eyes +Stephen watched them, then, with a convulsive movement, he took up his +hat. + +"You will find me at the Hurst," he said; "I will go there. If there is +any law in the land which can punish you, I will have it, though it cost +me a fortune. Yes, I will go home." + +Still they were silent. Whether from pity, or awe at the sight of his +misery, they were silent. He looked round and, as if he had called, +Slummers glided to his side. They had already reached the door, when a +voice said: + +"Tell him." + +It was Jack who had returned to the room. + +At the sound of the voice, grave and pitying, Stephen swung round as if +he had been stung. + +"You are here still," he said, and a glance of malignant hatred +distorted his face. "I thought you were in jail by this time. You were +waiting to take your wife with you. It would have been wiser to allow +her to go to the Hurst." + +"Tell him," said Jack. + +With a slow, almost reluctant movement, Laura Treherne drew a paper from +under her jacket and held it up. + +Stephen looked at it for a moment as if his sight had failed him, then +he smiled. + +"The plot thickens," he said. "You have robbed me of my wife; you have, +no doubt, some ready-forged document to rob me of my estate. Am I to +give the credit to you for this?" Then he broke out wildly, with a mad +laugh. "It is a forgery! a forgery! I will swear it. There is no such +will. The marriage never took place. You've to prove both yet! You are +not so clever as I thought. You should have stopped short where you +were. You have got her, be satisfied; the rest is mine! Mine, and you +cannot take it from me," and he held his clinched fist toward Jack as he +held all Hurst in his grasp. + +"Show him," said Gideon Rolfe. + +Stephen waved his hand contemptuously. + +"A stale trick," he said. "A clumsy forgery. You cannot connect it with +my uncle's death. Go to your lawyer--Hudsley, if you will; he will be +ready enough to help you--and he will tell you that proof is +impossible." + +As he spoke his voice grew clearer. It was a relief to his overwrought +brain to fight them on ground he had often mentally surveyed. With an +insolent smile on his face he leaned both hands on the table and looked +at them. + +"Come," he said, "you have not won everything yet. The Hurst is mine; I +laugh your forgery to scorn. I will spend every penny of the estate to +contest it. I assert that this paper was forged--last night--if you +like. You cannot prove it was in existence an hour sooner; I defy you. +You have overreached yourselves. Take care! This is your hour. Mine will +come when I see you in the dock." + +In his excitement he had not noticed the entrance of the bent figure of +Skettle, and he turned with a start as the thin, dry voice, close to his +elbow, croaked: + +"Quite right, Mr. Stephen. That's their weak point--want of connection. +If they could carry it back, say to the night of the squire's death, +now, it would be different." + +Stephen looked round with a cunning smile of defiance. + +"This old fool will bear me out. Show him your will." + +"A daring forgery this, Mr. Stephen, if it is a forgery. Leaves the +Hurst to Miss Una, the squire's legitimate daughter. Fifty thousand to +Master Jack; and a set of sermons to you." + +"No doubt," he said, with a hoarse laugh; "it was not worth their while +to do things by halves." + +"Been scorched, too," said Skettle. "Bit torn out by the seal. Now, if +they could find that bit in the possession of a respectable man, who +could prove that he found it on the night, say, of the squire's death, +well--it would go hard with you, Mr. Stephen." + +"But they cannot." + +"I don't know," said Skettle; and slowly drawing out a leather pocket +book of ancient date, he took out a piece of paper and fitted it to the +will. + +"It is a conspiracy!" + +"It is the will I saw you looking for the night of the squire's death." + +"Let me go." And leaning heavily on the arm of his fellow-knave, he +moved with the gait and bearing of an old man, to the door. + +"Great Heaven, this is awful!" said Jack. + + * * * * * + +Winter had passed and spring had clothed the earth with her soft, green +mantle, and in her glad sunlight that sat like a benediction on the +great elms and smooth lawn of Hurst, a party of ladies and gentlemen +were standing on the stone steps that led up to the entrance. + +It was, in a word, the wedding day of Squire Jack Newcombe and Miss Una +Davenant, and these good and tried friends were waiting about the steps +to see the bride and bridegroom start for their honeymoon. + +That Len and Laura and Lady Bell should be there calls for no surprise, +but how comes it that Gideon Rolfe should be a willing witness to the +marriage of Una with one of the hated race of Davenants? Well, when the +cause of hatred is removed, all hate vanishes from the heart of an +honest man. + +On the day he learned that the old squire had not wronged the girl he +had stolen from Gideon, Gideon's hatred had flown, and in its place had +sprung up a longing for atonement; and what better step could he take +toward burying the old animosity than in giving his adopted daughter to +the man of her choice--the man who would make her, as her mother had +been before her, the Squire of Hurst's wife? + +And thus it came to pass that he stood silently, but not grimly waiting +for his daughter--for she was still his daughter--to pass out to the new +life of happiness. And presently there rose a buzz and a hum of +excitement in the house, and the stalwart figure of Jack appeared on the +top step. A moment later and the beautiful face of Una was by his side. +No longer pale, but bright with blushes, and glowing with health and +happiness, she stood, half timidly, pressing close to the proud fellow +beside her. + +Is it all a dream in her eyes, dimmed as they are by happy tears? Can it +be true that Jack is all her own--that these good friends and true are +really clustering round her, bidding her Godspeed and yet hindering her +going as if they were loth to let her go? Perhaps she does not realize +it all until they part and let her pass to where the old bent figure of +Stephen's mother stands waiting to see the last of the girl whom she has +loved and still loves as a daughter. + +Then as Una takes the trembling figure in her arms and kisses the pale +face, she realizes it all, and through sobs she hears the faltering +voice murmuring: + +"God bless you, my darling! God bless and keep you!" + +And as the broken benediction falls from the trembling lips, the crowd +stand back, silent and tearful, and Jack and his bride are allowed to +enter the carriage at last. Then breaks forth the cheer from outside +the gates, and so, wafted around by blessings and good wishes, they +commence their real life. A month later they will come back to find +those friends who saw them depart, eager to welcome them back. + +"No coming home to a silent house, my wild bird!" says Jack. "We'll have +them all here, everyone of them. I'd have all the world to see my +darling, if I could." + +"My darling! my darling! they might take all the rest if they would +leave me you." + +And Stephen? There is no difficulty in finding Stephen--he is too public +a man. You can see and hear him any evening during the month of +charitable meetings, if you will but go to the proper places. + +There amongst philosophers and social reformers, you will see a tall, +thin gentleman, with a white face and spotless linen, who, when he comes +forward to make his speech, is received with deafening cheers, and who +never fails to draw tears from the audience by his pathos and +tender-souled eloquence; and when the meeting is over, if you wait +beside the private entrance to the hall, you will see another tall, +thin, black-coated man, who is like a reflection of the great +philanthropist for whom he is waiting, and who, when he emerges, will +take him by the arm and lead him to his brougham. For, excepting when he +is before the public, Stephen is an injured, broken-down man, only at +times able to whine out the story of the wrongs wrought him by the hands +of those he most trusted. By his own account he has been robbed of his +wife, his estate, his all, and left to the charity of a generous public; +and it is only Slummers, besides Stephen himself, who knows that a check +arrives punctually each quarter from Jack's lawyer for the support of +the man who returns forgiveness and generosity with undying hate and +calumny. Yes, Stephen Davenant is regarded as a deeply injured man, and +when he appears, with his pale face, and soft, mournful voice, there is +always a show of handkerchiefs. + +But Jack and Una are quite content, and whenever his name is mentioned, +it is with more pity than anger. There is no room for aught else in +their hearts but love. + + +[THE END.] + + + + +PATRIOTIC RECITATIONS AND READINGS + +Compiled by Charles Walter Brown + +[Illustration] + +This is the choicest, newest and most complete collection of Patriotic +recitations published, and includes all of the best known selections, +together with the best utterances of many eminent statesmen. Selections +for Decoration Day, Fourth of July, Washington's and Lincoln's +Birthdays, Arbor Day, Labor Day, and all other Patriotic occasions. + +There are few more enjoyable forms of amusement than entertainments and +exhibitions, and there is scarcely anything more difficult to procure +than new and meritorious material appropriate for such occasions. 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It is creating a +sensation even among readers of the French school of fiction. + + 12mo, Paper Price, $0.50 + 12mo, Cloth " 1.25 + + +MADAME DUBARRY + +The King's Mistress + +Illustrated. + +By GEORGE MOREHEAD + +Mrs. Leslie Carter, the famous American actress, having selected Madame +Dubarry as the central figure in her new play, the life story of the +famous mistress of Louis XV of France becomes a topic of universal +interest to American readers, and the brilliancy, the extravagance and +the wickedness of the court just prior to the French Revolution has been +the subject of many interesting works of realistic fiction--the most +notable of which is "Madame Dubarry." Heretofore, no book available to +English readers has obtained, and this translation is designed to supply +the pressing demand. + + 12mo, Paper Price, $0.50 + 12mo, Cloth, Ornamental Cover " 1.25 + + +TOLD BY TWO + +By MARIE ST. FELIX + +This is the latest and therefore the best of this celebrated author's +Books. It is full of epigram and gives an excellent description of the +Bermudas and the Winter Colony there. It is full of thrilling romance, +with innumerable happenings to a giddy young married woman of New York +and a bachelor from Boston. Plenty of rich, spicy dialogue--it is +replete with up-to-date expletives. Lovers of realistic fiction will +revel in this literary feast. + + 12mo, Paper Price, $0.50 + 12mo, Cloth, Ornamental Cover " 1.25 + +Price, 50c. each, Paper Covers, or the Three for $1.00. + +Sent postpaid to any address in the United States, Canada or Mexico upon +receipt of price, in currency, express or postal money order or stamps. + + M. A. Donohue & Co. + 407-429 Dearborn Street, Chicago + + +Donohue's Padded Leather + +_POETS_ + +12MO Illustrated + +[Illustration] + +An assortment of 52 titles of the works of the world's greatest poets. +Printed from entirely new plates, on a superior grade of book paper. +Bound in genuine leather, stamped from unique embossing dies on both the +front and back covers; title stamped on the front and back in gold; full +gilt edges, with red under the gold edge; round corners; fancy paper +linings; silk headbands; illuminated title page in two colors from +original design; each book wrapped and packed in a neat box. + +PRICE, $1.50 + + Browning, Robert. + Browning, Elizabeth B. + Bryant. + Byron. + Burns. + Campbell. + Chaucer. + Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. + Coleridge. + Cowper. + Dante. + Evangeline. + Familiar Quotations. + Favorite Poems. + Goethe. + Goldsmith. + Hood. + Hemans, Mrs. + Homer's Odyssey. + Homer's Iliad. + Hiawatha. + Holmes. + Idylls of the King. + In Memoriam. + Kipling. + Keble's Christian Year. + Longfellow. + Lady of the Lake. + Laila Rookh. + Light of Asia. + Lowell. + Lucile. + Marmion. + Miles Standish, Courtship of + Milton. + Moore. + Poe. + Pope. + Paradise Lost. + Proctor. + Poetical Selections. + Princess, The; Maud, etc. + Rubiayat of Omar Khayyam. + Sacred Gems. + Scott. + Schiller. + Shelley. + Shakespeare. + Tennyson. + Thackeray. + Whittier. + Wordsworth. + +For sale by all Book and Newsdealers, or sent to any address in the +United States, Canada, or Mexico, postage prepaid, on receipt of price, +in currency, money order or stamps. + + M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY + 407-429 Dearborn Street, Chicago + + +The Greatest Life Of + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN + +Yet Published + +By HON. JOS. H. BARRETT, + +and CHARLES WALTER BROWN, A. M. + +[Illustration] + +In this great work which embraces the complete life of the greatest man +of modern times, nothing has been omitted or slighted. His early +History, Political Career, Speeches, both in and out of Congress, the +great Lincoln-Douglas Debates, every state paper, speech, message and +two inaugural addresses are given in full, together with many +characteristic STORIES AND YARNS by and concerning Lincoln, which have +earned for him the sobriquet + + THE STORY TELLING PRESIDENT. + +In addition there is included a COMPLETE ACCOUNT OF HIS ASSASSINATION, +death and burial, together with the trial and execution of his +assassins. + +This immense volume of 850 pages contains nearly 360,000 words, being +six times larger than the average school history. Size of book 6½×9,3 +inches thick, weighing nearly 3 pounds. + + PRICE, $1.00. + +Sent postpaid to any address in the United States, Canada or Mexico upon +receipt of price, in currency, express or postal money order or stamps. + + + M. A. Donohue & Co. + 407-429 Dearborn Street, Chicago + + +BOUND TO WIN SERIES + +For Boys + +58 Titles + +Price 75 Cents Each + +[Illustration] + +This new series is proving the most popular line of books for boys +published this year. Look at the names of the authors of all of the +books and you will see the reason: + +=Alger, Cooper, Ellis, Henty, Kingston, Optic, Reid, Etc.= + +What a galaxy of boys' favorites! They are printed from new plates, on a +superior quality of paper and bound in the best binders cloth; title +stamped on back and side in three colors ink from appropriate designs +made especially for this series. + + 1. Adventures Among the Indians W. H. G. Kingston + 2. Afloat in the Forest Reid + 3. All Aboard Oliver Optic + 4. Among the Malays Henty + 5. Boat Club Oliver Optic + 6. Bonnie Prince Charlie Henty + 7. Bound to Rise Alger, Jr. + 8. Boy Knight, The Henty + 9. Brave and Bold Alger, Jr. + 10. Bravest of the Brave Henty + 11. By England's Aid Henty + 12. By Pike and Dyke Henty + 13. By Sheer Pluck Henty + 14. Capt. Bayley's Heir Henty + 15. Cash Boy, The Alger, Jr. + 16. Cast Up by the Sea Baker + 17. Cornet of Horse Henty + 18. Desert Home Mayne Reid + 19. For Name and Fame Henty + 20. For the Temple Henty + 21. Friends tho' Divided Henty + 22. Golden Canon Henty + 23. Hero of Pine Ridge Butler + 24. In Freedom's Cause Henty + 25. In the Reign of Terror Henty + 26. In Times of Peril Henty + 27. Jack Archer Henty + 28. Jack Harkaway's School Days Hemyng + 29. Julius the Street Boy Alger, Jr + 30. Lion of St. Mark Henty + 31. Lion of the North Henty + 32. Lone Ranch Mayne Reid + 33. Now or Never Oliver Optic + 34. One of the 28th Henty + 35. Out on the Pampas Henty + 36. Pathfinder Fenimore Cooper + 37. Paul the Peddler Alger, Jr. + 38. Pilot, The Fenimore Cooper + 39. Poor and Proud Oliver Optic + 40. Rifle Rangers Mayne Reid + 41. Risen from the Ranks Alger + 42. Robinson Crusoe D. DeFoe + 43. Scalp Hunters Mayne Reid + 44. Slow and Sure Alger, Jr. + 45. Star of India E. S. Ellis + 46. Store Boy, The Alger, Jr. + 47. Strive and Succeed Alger, Jr. + 48. Strong and Steady Alger, Jr. + 49. Sturdy and Strong Henty + 50. Through the Fray Henty + 51. Try Again Oliver Optic + 52. Uncle Tom's Cabin Stowe + 53. With Clive in India Henty + 54. Young Buglers Henty + 55. Young Carthaginians Henty + 56. Young Colonists Henty + 57. Young Midshipman Henty + 58. Young Outlaw, The Alger, Jr. + +For sale by all Book and Newsdealers, or will be sent to any address +in the U. S., Canada or Mexico, post paid, on receipt of price, +75c each, in currency, money order or stamps. + +M. A. Donohue & Co. 407-409 Dearborn St. Chicago + + +THE YOUNG HUNTERS SERIES + +[Illustration] + +By + +CAPTAIN RALPH BONEHILL + + Gun and Sled + Young Hunters of Porto Rico + +Price 75c, postpaid + + Chicago + M. A. DONOHUE & CO. + 407-429 Dearborn St. + + +WORKS OF JAMES OTIS + +[Illustration] + + Down the Slope + Messenger 48 + Teddy + Telegraph Tom's Venture + +Price 75 Cents, Postpaid. + + Chicago + M. A. Donohue & Co. + 415-429 Dearborn St. + + +ELLA WHEELER WILCOX + +POEMS of REFLECTION + +[Illustration] + +The most noted and helpful poetical work of this famous writer is here +collected in popular form in a suitable binding for birthday or holiday +presentations, or for table or library. Stamping done in light green +upon dark over special design in gold. + +Among the "POEMS OF REFLECTION," a few may be named, as follows: +Penalty, Life Lines from "Maurine," When, Only Dreams, "In the Night," +Contentment, Mother's Loss, The Women, "Vampires," Dying, The King and +Siren, Sunshine and Shadow, "Whatever is,--is Best," Worldly Wisdom, My +Comrade, So Long In Coming, Perished, The Belle's Soliloquy, My Vision, +Dream Time, The Belle of the Season, Joy, Bird of Hope, A Golden Day, +Fading, All the World, Old, Daft, Hung, When I am Dead, Ghosts, Out of +the Depths, Mistakes, Presumption, Song of the Spirit, A Dream, Dying, +Our Angel. This book is poetical inspiration of the highest order for +sustaining and strengthening the heart and mind for the disappointments, +vicissitudes and achievements of life. + +Price 75 cents + + +Poems Of Love, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. + +A beautiful book--companion to "Poems of Reflection." The following is a +selection from a few of the poems in the POEMS OF LOVE: Sweet Danger, A +Fatal Impress, Love, I Will be True, The Kingdom of Love, Love will +Wane, A Maiden's Secret, Lines from "Maurine." This book is handsomely +bound in the style of Poems and Reflections. + +Cloth, price 75 cents + + +Sweet Danger, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. + +This popular author tells the story of love in this book as it has never +been elsewhere told. + +Cloth, price 75 cents + +Sent prepaid on receipt of price, + +M. A. DONOHUE & CO., 407-429 Dearborn Street: CHICAGO. + + +PICTURESQUE AMERICAN BIOGRAPHIES + +"In John Paul Jones and Ethan Allen, Mr. Brown found two of the most +picturesque figures in the life of the country, and he has shown himself +able to deal with them as historical persons, without detracting +anything from the romantic qualities of their individuality. He competes +with historical fiction by developing the superior interest of the facts +as they grew out of the life of his heroes and the life of their times. +Few biographies intended for popular reading and the widest general +circulation illustrates this same faculty of measuring statement and +giving its governing value to fact while developing the picturesque and +the romantic as it lies latent in history."--WILLIAM VINCENT BYARS in +_The St. Louis Star_. + + +Life And Deeds Of ETHAN ALLEN And The Green Mountain Boys + +By Charles Walter Brown, A. M. + +[Illustration] + +Author of "John Paul Jones," "Nathan Hale," "Lafayette," "Pulaski," +"Washington," "Abraham Lincoln," "Sherman." + +16 ILLUSTRATIONS + +"It is the best 'life' of Ethan Allen published."--_Chicago Chronicle._ + +"It abounds in incidents, anecdotes and adventures."--_Louisville +Courier Journal._ + +"It is a painstaking and accurate biography, possessing the fascination +of romance."--_St. Louis Republic._ + +"The account of the expedition into Canada and Allen's lamentable +capture by the British, near Montreal, holds the reader's attention with +all the force of a work of fiction."--_Chicago Journal._ + + 12mo, cloth, size 5-5/8x7-7/8, nearly 300 pages. + Price, Postpaid $1.00 + + +Life And Deeds Of JOHN PAUL JONES Of Naval Fame + +By Charles Walter Brown, A. M. + +12 ILLUSTRATIONS + +[Illustration] + +"This book is a credit to any publishing house."--_Detroit Free Press._ + +"The publication is a careful and commendable one."--_Chicago Journal._ + +"The public will readily welcome this new and valuable biography of John +Paul Jones."--_Indianapolis Sentinel._ + +"Mr. Brown is a faithful biographer and historian, and has the happy +knack of making his hero live again in the imagination of his host of +readers."--_Literary Life, New York._ + + Size, 5-5/8x7-7/8; nearly 300 pages; 12mo, cloth. + Price, Postpaid $1.00 + + This set of two volumes, "Allen" and "Jones" sent to + one address, express paid, for $1.25 + +M. A. DONOHUE & CO., 407-429 Dearborn Street Chicago + + +THE YOUNG SPORTSMAN SERIES + +[Illustration] + +By Captain Ralph Bonehill + + Young Oarsman of Lake View + Leo, the Circus Boy + Rival Cyclists + +Price 75c post paid + + CHICAGO + M. A. Donohue & Co. + 407-429 Dearborn St. + + +Works Of HARRY CASTLEMON + +[Illustration] + + The First Capture + A Struggle for a Fortune + Winged Arrow's Medicine + +Price 75c postpaid + + Chicago + M. A. DONOHUE & CO. + 415-429 Dearborn St. + + +ON A SLOW TRAIN THROUGH ARKANSAW + +By Thomas W. Jackson + +[Illustration] + +_The Funniest Of All Books_ + +Over 900,000 sold since Jan. 20, 1904 + +It tells of all the funny things that happened on a slow train. Many +funny Railroad Stories, Sayings of the Southern Darkies. All the latest +and best Minstrel Jokes of the Day. Paper Covers. Price, 25 cents. + + 900,000 Copies of "On a Slow Train Through Arkansaw" + were sold in 9 months. It still sells at the + rate of nearly 50,000 a month, but + + THREE YEARS IN ARKANSAW + + JUST OUT Bids fair to outsell that immensely popular + book. "The Most Unique Book Ever Published." + +"A complete history of the funny, comical, unreasonable, rich, rare and +peculiar things that happened, transpired and turned up during my three +years of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness along the rocky path of +life down in old Arkansaw."--_M. Hughes._ + +Paper Covers, Price, 25 cents. + + +THROUGH MISSOURI ON A MULE + +_"Worse than Arkansaw" ALL NEW._ + +By Thomas W. Jackson, author of "On a Slow Train Through Arkansaw." +Contains funny Railroad Stories, Old Time Darky Sayings, Minstrel Jokes, +all the late and funny sayings of the day. + +Paper Covers, Price, 25 cents. + +For sale by all Book and Newsdealers, or will send to any address in the +United States, Canada or Mexico, postage prepaid, on receipt of price, +in currency, money order or stamps. + +M. A. DONOHUE & CO., 407-429 Dearborn St., CHICAGO, ILL. + + +LOVE LETTERS + +With Directions How To Write Them + +By INGOLDSBY NORTH. + +[Illustration] + +This is a branch of correspondence which fully demands a volume alone to +provide for the various phases incident to Love, Courtship and Marriage. +Few persons, however otherwise fluent with the pen, are able to express +in words the promptings of the first dawn of love, and even the ice once +broken how to follow up a correspondence with the dearest one in the +whole world and how to smooth the way with those who need to be +consulted in the matter. The numerous letters and answers in this book +go far to overcome the difficulties and embarrassment inseparable from +letters on this all-absorbing topic in all stages from beginning to end +of a successful courtship, aided in many instances by the author's +sensible comments on the specimen letters, and his valuable hints under +adverse contingencies. It also contains the Art of Secret Writing, the +Language of Love portrayed and rules in grammar. + +Paper Covers, 25 Cents. Cloth, 50 Cents. + + +The Complete LETTER WRITER + +Being the only Comprehensive and Practical Guide and Assistant to Letter +Writing Published. + +Edited by CHARLES WALTER BROWN, A. M. + +[Illustration] + +There are few books that contain such a fund of valuable information on +the everyday affairs of life. In addition to every conceivable form of +business and social correspondence, there are letters of Condolence, +Introduction, Congratulation, Felicitation, Advice and Favor; Letters +accompanying presents; Notes on Love, Courtship and Marriage; Forms of +Wedding Anniversaries, Socials, Parties, Notes, Wills, Deeds, Mortgages; +Tables, Abbreviations, Classical Terms, Common Errors, Selections for +Autograph Albums; Information concerning Rates on Foreign and Domestic +Postage, together with a dictionary of nearly 10,000 Synonyms and other +valuable information which space will not admit of mention. The book is +printed from new plates, on a superior quality of paper and bound in +substantial and durable manner. 12mo. + +Paper Covers, 25c. Cloth, 50c. Cloth, 320 Pages, Price $1.00 + +For sale by all book and newsdealers, or sent to any address in the +U.S., Canada or Mexico, postage prepaid on receipt of price in currency, +money order or stamps. + +M. A. DONOHUE & CO. 407-429 Dearborn St. Chicago + + +THE VOTER'S MANUAL AND ARGUMENT. + +Settler For The Vest Pocket + +A strictly non-partisan compilation of political facts and statistics, +designed for ready reference, containing information with which every +voter in the United States should be familiar. Concise, correct, +convenient. A new and valuable work. + + Bound in leather, title on side in gold, 35 cents. + Bound in cloth, 20 cents. + + +HOYLE'S BOOK OF GAMES + +[Illustration] + +Containing all of the games played with cards, also containing rules for +Backgammon, Chess, Checkers, Billiards, Pool, Bagatelle, Bowls, etc. +Numerous diagrams and engravings. The best and most complete edition of +Hoyle published. Printed from new plates, substantially bound in cloth, +stamped in ink and gold. + + Price, $1.00 + Bound in paper, 25 cents. + + +Leaves From CONJURER'S SCRAP BOOK + +Or Modern Magicians And Their Works + +By H. J. Burlingame. 274 pages. 7¾ × 5½ inches, containing +numerous illustrations. This work presents modern magic in a skillful +manner and shows how the startling and marvelous performances of +magicians are accomplished. It is a very interesting and desirable +publication. + +Price, $1.50 + +Sent Prepaid on Receipt of Price + + M. A. DONOHUE & CO., + 407-429 Dearborn St., + Chicago. + + +VASSAR SERIES + +FOR GIRLS. + +Illustrated + +[Illustration] + +This is the most attractive and carefully selected series of stories for +girls published. Each book is a masterpiece by a master hand and was +selected not merely because of the established reputation of its author +but because it had earned a place in every home where there are girls. +Uniform cloth binding, title in gold, sides and back stamped in inks. + +Price per volume 75c. + + 1 Adventures of a Brownie, as Told to My Child, Mulock. + 2 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and through the Looking Glass, + Carroll. + 3 Arabian Nights. + 4 Andersen's Fairy Tales, Andersen. + 5 Aunt Diana, Rosa N. Carey. + 6 Averil, Rosa N. Carey. + 7 Black Beauty, Anna Sewall. + 8 Book of Golden Deeds, Yonge. + 9 Cuckoo Clock, Molesworth. + 10 Deb and Duchess, Meade. + 11 Esther, Rosa N. Carey. + 12 Fairy Book, Miss Mulock. + 13 Flat Iron for a Farthing, Mrs. Ewing. + 14 Four Little Mischiefs, Rosa Mulholland. + 15 Girl in Ten Thousand, Meade. + 16 Girl Neighbors, Sara Tyler. + 17 Girls and I, and Girls in Black, Mrs. Molesworth. + 18 Grandmother Dear, Mrs. Molesworth. + 19 Grimm's Household Stories, Grimm. + 20 Grimm's Popular Fairy Tales, Grimm. + 21 In the Golden Days, Lyall. + 22 Jackanapes, Mrs. Ewing. + 23 Lamplighter, The Cummings. + 24 Little Lame Prince, Mulock. + 25 Little Susy Stories containing: Little Susy's Six Birthdays, + Little Susy's Six Teachers, Little Susy's Little Servants, + Prentiss. + 26 Margery Merton's Girlhood, A. Corkran. + 27 Meg's Friend, A. Corkran. + 28 Merle's Crusade, Carey. + 29 Naughty Miss Bunny, Mulholland. + 30 Old, Old Fairy Tales. + 31 Our Bessie, Rosa N. Carey. + 32 Palace Beautiful, Meade. + 33 Pilgrim's Progress, Ill., John Bunyan. + 34 Polly, A New Fashioned Girl, Meade. + 35 Queenie's Whim, Carey. + 36 Robin Redbreast, Mrs. Molesworth. + 37 Schonberg-Cotta Family, Mrs. Charles. + 38 Six to Sixteen, Mrs. Ewing. + 39 Six Little Princesses and What They Turned Into, Mrs. Prentiss. + 40 Sweet Girl Graduate, A, L. T. Meade. + 41 Taming a Tomboy, Emmy von Rhoden. + 42 Three Bright Girls, A. E. Armstrong. + 43 Two Little Maids, Verdier. + 44 "Us," Mrs. Molesworth. + 45 Very Odd Girl, A, A. E. Armstrong. + 46 Water Babies, C. Kingsley. + 47 Wide, Wide World, E. Wetherell. + 48 Wild Kitty, L. T. Meade. + 49 World of Girls, A, Meade. + 50 Young Mutineer, Meade. + +For sale by all Book and News Dealers, or sent to any address in the +United States, Canada, or Mexico, postage prepaid, on receipt of price, +in currency, money order or stamps. + + + M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY + 407-429 DEARBORN STREET,--CHICAGO + + + + + Transcriber's Notes: + + + Obvious printer's errors were silently corrected. + + Errors in the names were corrected for consistency and changed to either + the first or the most occurring one: + q -Stephen Davenant was called Stephen Newcombe on page 26 + -Mrs. Davenant's maid Jane was called Janet on page 134 + -Mrs. Cantrip on page 146 was called Cantup on page 169 + -Walmington Square was called Washington Square on page 221. + + Otherwise the author's writing style has been preserved, including: + -archaic and inconsistent spelling + -inconsistent hyphenation + -French words written without accents. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir, by +Charles Garvice + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONLY ONE LOVE, OR WHO WAS THE HEIR *** + +***** This file should be named 35523-8.txt or 35523-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/5/2/35523/ + +Produced by Heather Clark, eagkw and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir + +Author: Charles Garvice + +Release Date: March 9, 2011 [EBook #35523] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONLY ONE LOVE, OR WHO WAS THE HEIR *** + + + + +Produced by Heather Clark, eagkw and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p class="lftcntr"> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>CHAPTER XXI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>CHAPTER XXII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXIV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><b>CHAPTER XXV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><b>CHAPTER XXVI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><b>CHAPTER XXVII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><b>CHAPTER XXVIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"><b>CHAPTER XXIX.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"><b>CHAPTER XXX.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI"><b>CHAPTER XXXI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII"><b>CHAPTER XXXII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXXIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXXIV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV"><b>CHAPTER XXXV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI"><b>CHAPTER XXXVI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII"><b>CHAPTER XXXVII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Advertisements"><b>Advertisements</b></a><br /> +<a href="#Transcribers_Notes"><b>Transcriber’s Notes</b></a><br /> +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[1]</span></p> + + + +<h1><big>Only One Love</big><br /> + +<small>OR</small><br /> + +WHO WAS THE HEIR</h1> + +<p class="title">BY<br /> + +<span class="author">CHARLES GARVICE</span><br /> + +AUTHOR OF<br /> + +“Claire,” “Elaine,” “Her Heart’s Desire,” “Leola Dale’s Fortune,”<br /> +“Her Ransom,” “Leslie’s Loyalty,” “Lorrie; or, Hollow Gold,”<br /> +“The Marquis,” “Only a Girl’s Love,”<br /> +“She Loved Him,” “A Wasted Love,”<br /> +Etc.</p> + +<p class="title">CHICAGO<br /> +<big>M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY</big><br /> +<span class="smcap">407-429 Dearborn Street</span></p> +<p><span class="pagenum">[2]</span></p> + + + +<p class="center r4">M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY<br /> +PRINTERS AND BINDERS<br /> +407-429 DEARBORN STREET<br /> +CHICAGO</p> +<p><span class="pagenum">[3]</span></p> + + +<hr class="l1"/> +<h1><big>ONLY ONE LOVE</big><br /> + +<small>OR,</small><br /> + +WHO WAS THE HEIR?</h1> + +<hr class="l2"/> + + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + + +<p>One summer’s evening a young man was tramping +through the Forest of Warden. “Forest of Warden” +sounds strange, old-fashioned, almost improbable; but, +thank Heaven, there yet remain, in over-crowded England, +some spots, few and far between though they may be, still +untouched by the greedy fingers of the destroyers, whom +men call Progress and Civilization.</p> + +<p>To this grand old forest, for instance, whose dim shades +echo the soft pit-pat of the deer and the coo of the wood-pigeon, +comes not the tourist, with hideous knapsack and +suit of startling check; no panting locomotive belches out +its cloud of coal smoke to dim the brightness of the sky +and choke the elms and oaks which reared their stately +heads before their fell enemy, the steam engine, was +dreamt of.</p> + +<p>So remote and unfrequented is the forest that there is +scarcely a road from end to end of its umbrageous length, +for the trail made by the rough carts of the woodmen and +charcoal burners could scarcely be dignified by the title of +thoroughfare, and a few footpaths that wind about the +glades are so faint and seldom used as to be scarcely distinguished +from the undergrowth of ferny moss around.</p> + +<p>Along one of the footpaths the young man tramped, occasionally +stopping for a moment to look up at the sky +which shone redly through the openings of the trees or +to watch some frightened hare scamper across the glade.</p> + +<p>Every now and then a herd of deer would flit through +the undergrowth, turning toward him distended eyes of +alarm and curiosity, for of the two kinds of men with<span class="pagenum">[4]</span> +whom they were acquainted—charcoal burners and woodmen—he +was neither; nor did he belong to the tribe of +tourists, for he carried no knapsack, and instead of the +inevitable check and knickerbockers, was clad in a loose +Cheviot suit, which, though well worn, bore about it the +unmistakable stamp of Saville Row.</p> + +<p>That he was young and light-hearted was evident from +the fact that he broke out into an occasional snatch of an +air from the last new popular <i>opera bouffe</i>, notwithstanding +that the evening was closing in and he had most completely +and emphatically lost his way.</p> + +<p>Now, to lose your way in a forest reads rather romantic +and entertaining than otherwise, but like shipwreck, or +falling into the hands of Greek banditti, it is a much +pleasanter thing on paper than in reality.</p> + +<p>A bed of moss, though very charming in the daytime, +is not nearly so comfortable as a spring mattress, and is +sure to be damp, and primeval oaks, majestic and beautiful +as they are, do not keep out the draught. The worst +room in the worst inn is preferable to a night’s lodging in +the grandest of forests.</p> + +<p>But, though he had never been in the Warden Forest +before, the young man knew it would be midsummer madness +to hope for an inn and was wandering along on the +chance of coming across some woodman’s hut, or by meeting +a stray human being of whom he could inquire his +way.</p> + +<p>He was tired—he had been walking since morning, and +he was hungry and athirst, but he tramped on, and smoked +and sang as carelessly as if he were strolling down the +shady side of Pall Mall.</p> + +<p>Slowly the sun set, and the glades, which had been +dusky an hour ago, grew dark. The faint footpath grew +still more indistinct, the undergrowth denser and more +difficult for persons walking.</p> + +<p>The pedestrian fought on for some time, but at last, as +he stumbled over one of the gnarled roots which a grand +chestnut had thrust up through the ground, he stopped +and, looking round, shook his head.</p> + +<p>“A regular babe in the wood, by Jove!” he exclaimed. +“I shall have to make a night of it, I expect. Wonder<span class="pagenum">[5]</span> +whether the robins will be good enough to cover me over +in the proper nursery-book style? Is it any good halloing, +I wonder? I tried that an hour ago, much to the disgust +of the live animals; and I don’t think I can kick up a row +at this time of night. Let’s see how the ’bacca goes. Hem! +about three—perhaps four pipes. I wish I had something +to eat and drink; what a fool I was to leave that piece of +steak at breakfast. Steak! I mustn’t think of it—that +way madness lies. Well, this looks about as sheltered a +spot as I could find—I’ll turn in. I wonder if anybody +has, ever since the world began, hit upon a short cut? I +never have, and hang me if I’ll try it again. By George! +the grass is wet already. Such a likely place for snakes—find +my pocket full when I wake, no doubt.”</p> + +<p>Then, with a laugh, he dropped down amongst the long +brake; but the idea of going to bed in a forest, at the early +hour of nine, was too much for him, and instead of composing +himself to rheumatic slumber, he began to sing:</p> + +<div class="pcenter"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Oh, wake and call me early, mother,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Call me early, mother, dear.”<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>Scarcely had he finished the line when there came +through the darkness, as if in response, a short, sharp +bark of a dog.</p> + +<p>The wanderer leapt to his feet as if something had bitten +him, and after listening intently for a moment, exclaimed:</p> + +<p>“Another chance, by Jove!” and sent up a shout that, +ringing through the stillness, echoed from tree to tree, and +at last called forth the answering bark from the distant +dog.</p> + +<p>Knocking out his pipe as he ran, he made his way as +best he could toward the sound, shouting occasionally and +listening warily to the dog’s response.</p> + +<p>At last, after many a stumble, he found himself in a +narrow glade, at the end of which, faintly defined against +the patch of sky, stood the figure of a man.</p> + +<p>“Saved, by George!” exclaimed the youth, with mock +melodramatic emphasis.</p> + +<p>“Halloa! Hi! Wait a moment there, will you?” he +shouted.</p> + +<p>The figure stopped and turned its head, then, after<span class="pagenum">[6]</span> +what seemed a moment’s hesitation, brought back the dog, +which was running toward the belated youth, and suddenly +disappeared.</p> + +<p>The wanderer pulled up and stared about the glade with +an astonishment which immediately gave place to wrath.</p> + +<p>“Confound his impudence!” he exclaimed, fiercely. +“I’ll swear he saw me! What on earth did he mean by +going off like that? Did the fool think I was a ghost? +I’ll show him I’m a ghost that carries a big stick if I +come up with him. Confound him, where——” Then, as +a sudden thought struck him, he set off running down the +glade, barking like a dog.</p> + +<p>No live, real dog could withstand such an invitation. +The dog ahead set up an angry echo, through which the +youth could hear the man’s angry attempt to silence the +animal, and guided by the two voices, the wanderer struck +into a footpath, and running at a good pace, came suddenly +into a small clearing, in which stood a small wooden +hut, before the door of which man and dog were standing +as if on guard.</p> + +<p>For a moment the two men stood and regarded each +other in silence, the youth hot and angry, the man calm +and grim.</p> + +<p>Each, in his way, was a fine specimen of his class; the +man, with his weather-beaten face and his thick-set limbs, +clad in woodman’s garb; the youth, with his frankly handsome +countenance and patrician air.</p> + +<p>“What the deuce do you mean by leaving a man in the +lurch like this?” demanded the young man, angrily. “Did +you take me for a ghost?”</p> + +<p>The woodman, half leaning on his long-handled axe, regarded +him grimly.</p> + +<p>“No. I don’t come at every man’s beck and call, young +sir. What’s your will with me?”</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you stop when I called to you just now?” +retorted the youth, ignoring the question.</p> + +<p>“Because it didn’t suit me,” said the man, not insolently, +but with simple, straightforward candor. “You +are answered, young sir; now, what do you want?”</p> + +<p>The young man looked at him curiously, conquering his +anger.<span class="pagenum">[7]</span></p> + +<p>“Well, I’ve lost my way,” he said, after a moment’s +pause.</p> + +<p>“Where are you going?” was the quiet response.</p> + +<p>“To Arkdale.”</p> + +<p>The woodman raised his eyes, and looked at him for a +moment.</p> + +<p>“Arkdale? Yes, you are out of the way. Arkdale lies +to the west. Follow me, young sir, and I’ll show you +the road.”</p> + +<p>“Stop a moment,” said the other; “though you declined +to wait for me just now, you would not refuse to give me a +glass of water, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>The man turned, he had already strode forward, and +laid his hand on the latch of the cottage door.</p> + +<p>The young man was following as a matter of course; +but the woodman, with his hand still on the latch, pointed +to a wooden seat under the window.</p> + +<p>“Take your seat there, sir,” he said, with grim determination.</p> + +<p>The other stared, and the hot blood rose to his face; but +he threw himself on the bench.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” he said; “I see you still think me a ghost; +you’ll be more easy when you see me drink. Look sharp, +my good fellow.”</p> + +<p>The woodman, not a whit moved by this taunt, entered +the cottage, and the young man heard a bolt shot into its +place.</p> + +<p>A few moments passed, and then the man came out with +a plate and a glass.</p> + +<p>“Thanks,” said the young man. “What’s this?”</p> + +<p>“Cider—cake,” was the curt answer.</p> + +<p>“Oh, thanks,” repeated the other; “jolly good cider, +too. Come, you’re not half a bad fellow. Do you know +I meant to give you a hiding when I came up to you?”</p> + +<p>“Very like,” said the man, calmly. “Will you have any +more?”</p> + +<p>“Another glass, thanks.”</p> + +<p>With his former precaution in the way of bolting and +barring, the man entered the cottage and reappeared with +a refilled glass.<span class="pagenum">[8]</span></p> + +<p>This the young man drank more leisurely, staring with +unconcealed curiosity at his entertainer.</p> + +<p>It was a kind of stare that would embarrass six men out +of ten, and madden the remaining four; but the woodman +bore it with the calm impassiveness of a wooden block, +and stood motionless as a statue till the youth set down the +glass, then he raised his hand and pointed to the west.</p> + +<p>“Yonder lies Arkdale.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! How far?”</p> + +<p>“Four miles and a half by the near road. Follow me, +and I will put you into it.”</p> + +<p>“All right, lead on,” said the other; but as he rose he +turned, and while refilling his pipe stared at the closely +locked cottage.</p> + +<p>“Comfortable kind of crib that, my man.”</p> + +<p>The woodman nodded curtly.</p> + +<p>“You are a woodman?”</p> + +<p>Another nod.</p> + +<p>“And poacher too, eh? No offense,” he added, coolly. +“I only supposed so from the close way in which you keep +your place locked up.”</p> + +<p>“Suppose what you please,” retorted the woodman, if +words so calmly spoken could be called a retort. “Yonder +lies your road, you’d best be taking to it.”</p> + +<p>“No hurry,” retorted the young man, thrusting his +hands in his pockets and smiling at the ill-concealed impatience +which struggled through the grave calm on the +weather-beaten face. “Well, I’m coming. You’re not half +such a bad sort, after all. What have you got inside there +that you keep so close, eh? Some of the crown jewels or +some of the Queen’s venison? Take my advice, old fellow—if +you don’t want people to be curious, don’t show such +anxiety to keep ’em out of your crib.”</p> + +<p>The man, pacing on ahead, knit his brows as if struck by +the idea.</p> + +<p>“Curious folk don’t come this way, young sir,” he said, +reluctantly.</p> + +<p>“So I should think,” retorted the other. “Well, I’m +not one of the curious, though you think I am. I don’t +care a button what you’ve got there. Will you have a +pipe? I’ve got some ’bacca.”<span class="pagenum">[9]</span></p> + +<p>The man shook his head, and they walked on in silence +for some minutes, the footpath winding in and out like a +dimly-defined serpent. Presently it widened, and the +woodman stopped short and pointed down the leafy lane.</p> + +<p>“Follow this path,” he said, “until you come to a wood +pile; take the path to the left of it, and it will bring you +to Arkdale. Good-night, young sir.”</p> + +<p>“Here, stop!” said the young man, and he held out his +hand with a dollar in it. “Here’s a trifle to drink my +health with.”</p> + +<p>The woodman looked at the coin, then shook his head +slowly; and with another “good-night” turned and tramped +off.</p> + +<p>Not at all abashed the young man restored the coin to +his pocket, laughed, and strode on.</p> + +<p>The woodman walked back a few yards, then stopped, +and looked after the stalwart figure until it deepened in +the gloom, a thoughtful, puzzled expression upon his face, +as if he were trying to call up some recollection.</p> + +<p>With a shake of his head, denoting failure, he made his +way to the cottage, unlocked it and entered.</p> + +<p>The door opened into what appeared to be the living +room. It was small and plainly furnished, after the manner +of a woodman’s hut, and yet, after a moment’s glance, +a stranger would have noticed a subtle air of refinement in +common with better habitations.</p> + +<p>The table and chairs were of plain deal, the walls were +of pine, stained and varnished, but there was a good thick +carpet on the floor, and on one side of the room hung a +bookcase filled with well-bound volumes.</p> + +<p>Beside the table, on which was spread the supper, stood +a chair, more luxurious than its fellows, and covered with +a pretty chintz. The knife and fork laid opposite this +chair was of a better quality than the others on the table; +and beside the knife and fork lay a white napkin and a +daintily engraved glass; the other drinking vessels on the +table were of common delf. As the woodman entered, a +woman, who was kneeling at a fire in an adjoining room, +looked round through the doorway.</p> + +<p>“Is’t you, Gideon?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he answered. “Where is Una?”<span class="pagenum">[10]</span></p> + +<p>“Una? Isn’t she with you? I heard voices. Who +was it?”</p> + +<p>“Where is Una?” he said, ignoring her question.</p> + +<p>“In the clearing, I suppose,” said the woman. “She +went out a few minutes ago. I thought she went to meet +you?”</p> + +<p>The man opened the door and called the dog, who had +been wandering round the room in an uneasy fashion.</p> + +<p>“Go, Dick,” he said. “Go fetch her!”</p> + +<p>Then he came and stood by the fire thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>“No,” he said, “it was not Una. I wish she wouldn’t +leave the cot after dusk.”</p> + +<p>“Why not? What’s the fear? What has happened? +Who was that I heard with you?”</p> + +<p>“A stranger,” he said, “a young gentleman lost his way. +How long has she been gone?”</p> + +<p>“Not ten minutes. A young gentleman. Think of +that! How came he here?”</p> + +<p>“Lost his way. He followed me through the Chase. He +has gone on to Arkdale.”</p> + +<p>“Lost his way,” repeated the woman. “Poor fellow! +Five miles it is to Arkdale! A gentleman! A gentleman, +did thee say?”</p> + +<p>“Ay,” responded the man, frowning. “An outspoken +one, too; I heard him at the bottom of the Chase and +thought to give him the slip, but he was cunning, he +teased the dog and ran us down. I had hard work to get +rid of him; he looked sore tired. No matter, he’s gone,” +and he gave a sigh of relief. “’Tis the first stranger that +has come upon us since she came.”</p> + +<p>“Lost his way,” murmured the woman, as she lifted a +saucepan from the fire, “and a gentleman. It is a rare +sight in Warden Forest. Why, Gideon, what has happened +to thee?” and saucepan in hand, she stared at her +husband’s cloudy brow.</p> + +<p>“Tut—nothing!” he answered, thrusting a projecting +log into the fire with his foot. “The young man’s face +seemed—as I thought—’twas but a passing fancy—but +I thought it was familiar. It was the voice more than the +face. And a bold face it was. I wish,” he broke off, +“that the lass would come in. From to-night I will have<span class="pagenum">[11]</span> +no more wanderings after sunset! One stranger follows +another, and it is not safe for her to be out so late——”</p> + +<p>“Hush!” interrupted the woman, holding up a forefinger. +“Here she comes.”</p> + +<p>“Not a word!” said Gideon, warningly.</p> + +<p>As he spoke the door opened, the dog bounded in with +a short yelp of satisfaction, and close behind him, framed +like a picture in the dark doorway, stood a young girl.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + + +<p>She had evidently run some distance, for she stood panting +and breathless, the color coming and going on her face, +which shone out of the hood which half covered her head.</p> + +<p>She was dressed in a plain cotton dress which a woodman’s +daughter might wear, and which was short enough +in the skirt to reveal a shapely foot, and scant enough in +the sleeves to show a white, shapely arm.</p> + +<p>But no one would have wasted time upon either arm or +foot after a glance at her face.</p> + +<p>To write it down simply and curtly, it was a beautiful +face; but such a description is far too meager and insufficient. +It requires an artist, a Rembrandt or a Gainsborough, +to describe it, no pen-and-ink work can do it. +Beautiful faces can be seen by the score by anyone who +chooses to walk through Hyde Park in the middle of the +season, but such a face as this which was enframed by the +doorway of the woodman’s hut is not seen in twenty seasons.</p> + +<p>It was a face which baffles the powers of description, just +as a sunset sky laughs to scorn the brush of the ablest +painter. It was neither dark nor fair, neither grave nor +sad, though at the moment of its entrance a smile played +over it as the moonbeams play over a placid lake.</p> + +<p>To catalogue in dry matter-of-fact fashion, the face +possessed dark brown eyes, bright brown hair, and red, +ripe lips; but no catalogue can give the spirit of the face, +no description convey an idea of the swift and eloquent +play of expression which, like a flash of sunlight, lit up +eyes and lips.</p> + +<p>Beautiful! The word is hackneyed and worn out. Here<span class="pagenum">[12]</span> +was a face more than beautiful, it was soulful. Like the +still pool in the heart of a wood, it mirrored the emotion of +the heart as faithfully as a glass would reflect the face. +Like a glass—joy, sorrow, pleasure, mirth, were reflected +in the eloquent eyes and mobile lips.</p> + +<p>Of concealment the face was entirely ignorant; no bird +of the forest in which she lived could be more frank, innocent +of guile, and ignorant of evil.</p> + +<p>With her light summer cloak held round her graceful +figure, she stood in the doorway, a picture of grace and +youthful beauty.</p> + +<p>For a moment she stood silent, looking from the woodman +to his wife questioningly, then she came into the +room and threw the hood back, revealing a shapely head, +shining, bronze-like, in the light of the lamp.</p> + +<p>“Did you send Dick for me, father?” she said, and her +voice, like her face, betokened a refinement uncommon in +a woodman’s daughter. “I was not far off, only at the pool +to hear the frogs’ concert. Dick knows where to find me +now, he comes straight to the pond, though he hates frogs’ +music; don’t you, Dick?”</p> + +<p>The dog rubbed his nose against her hand and wagged +his tail, and the girl took her seat at the table.</p> + +<p>To match face and voice, her mien and movements +were graceful, and she handled the dinner-napkin like—a +lady. It was just that, expressed in a word. The girl +was not only beautiful—but a lady, in appearance, in tone, +in bearing—and that, notwithstanding she wore a plain +cotton gown in a woodman’s hut, and called the woodman +“father.”</p> + +<p>“You did not come by your usual path, father,” she said, +turning from the deerhound, who sat on his haunches and +rested his nose in her lap, quite content if her hand +touched his head, say once during the meal.</p> + +<p>“No, Una,” he replied, and though he called her by her +Christian name, and without any prefix there was a subtle +undertone in his voice and in his manner of addressing +her, which seemed to infer something like respect. “No, +I went astray.”</p> + +<p>“And you were late,” she said. “Was anything the matter?”<span class="pagenum">[13]</span> +she added, turning her eyes upon him, with, for the +first time, an air of interrogation.</p> + +<p>“Matter? No,” he said, raising himself and coming to +the table. “What should be? Yes, I came home by another +path, and I don’t think you must come to meet me +after dark, Una,” he added, with affected carelessness.</p> + +<p>“No?” she asked, looking from one to the other with a +smile of surprise. “Why not? Do you think I should get +lost, or have you seen any wolves in Warden Forest, father? +I know every path from end to end, and wolves have left +merry England forever.”</p> + +<p>“Not quite,” said Gideon, absently.</p> + +<p>“Yes, quite,” and she laughed. “What Saxon king was +it who offered fivepence for every wolf’s head? We were +reading about it the other night, don’t you remember?”</p> + +<p>“Reading! you are always reading,” said the woman, as +she put a smoking dish on the table, and speaking for the +first time. “It’s books, books, from morn to night, and +your father encourages you. The books will make thee +old before thy time, child, and put no pence in thy +father’s pocket.”</p> + +<p>“Poor father!” she murmured, and leaning forward, put +her arms round his neck. “I wish I could find in the poor, +abused books the way to make him rich.”</p> + +<p>Gideon had put up his rough hand to caress the white one +nestling against his face, but he let his hand drop again +and looked at her with a slight cloud on his brow.</p> + +<p>“Rich! who wants to be rich? The word is on your lips +full oft of late, Una. Do <i>you</i> want to be rich?”</p> + +<p>“Sometimes,” she answered. “As much for your sake +as mine. I should like to be rich enough for you to rest, +and”—looking round the plainly furnished but comfortable +room—“and a better house and clothes.”</p> + +<p>“I am not weary,” he said, his eyes fixed on her with +a thoughtful air of concealed scrutiny. “The cot is good +enough for me, and the purple and fine linen I want none +of. So much for me; now for yourself, Una?”</p> + +<p>“For myself?” she said. “Well, sometimes I think, +when I have been reading some of the books, that I should +like to be rich and see the world.”</p> + +<p>“It must be such a wonderful place! Not so wonderful<span class="pagenum">[14]</span> +as I think it, perhaps, and that’s just because I have +never seen anything of it. Is it not strange that for all +these years I have never been outside Warden?”</p> + +<p>“Strange?” he echoed, reluctantly.</p> + +<p>“Yes; are other girls so shut in and kept from seeing +the world that one reads so pleasantly of?”</p> + +<p>“Not all. It would be well for most of them if they +were. It has been well for you. You have not been unhappy, +Una?”</p> + +<p>“Unhappy! No! How could one be unhappy in Warden? +Why, it’s a world in itself, and full of friends. +Every living thing in it seems a friend, and an old friend, +too. How long have we lived in Warden, father?”</p> + +<p>“Eighteen years.”</p> + +<p>“And I am twenty-one. Mother told me yesterday. +Where did we live before we came to Warden?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t worry your father, Una,” said Mrs. Rolfe, who +had been listening and looking from one to the other with +ill-concealed anxiety; “he is too weary to talk.”</p> + +<p>“Forgive me, father. It was thoughtless of me. I +should have remembered that you have had a hard day, +while I have been idling in the wood, and over my +books; it was stupid of me to trouble you. Won’t you +sit down again and—and I will promise not to talk.”</p> + +<p>“Say no more, Una. It grieves me to think that you +might not be content, that you were not happy; if you +knew as much of the world that raves and writhes outside +as I do, you would be all too thankful that you are +out of the monster’s reach, and that all you know of it +is from your books, which—Heaven forgive them—lie +all too often! See now, here is something I found in +Arkdale;” and as he spoke he drew from the capacious +pocket of his velveteen jacket a small volume.</p> + +<p>The girl sprang to her feet—not clumsily, but with infinite +grace—and leaned over his shoulder eagerly.</p> + +<p>“Why, father, it is the poems you promised me, and +it was in your pocket all the while I was wearying you +with my foolish questions.”</p> + +<p>“Tut, tut! Take your book, child, and devour it, as +usual.”</p> + +<p>Once or twice Gideon looked up, roused from his reverie<span class="pagenum">[15]</span> +by the rustling of the trees as the gusts shook them, +and suddenly the sky was rent by a flash of lightning and a +peal of thunder, followed by the heavy rattle of the rainstorm.</p> + +<p>“Hark at the night, father!” she said, raising her eyes +from the book, but only for a moment.</p> + +<p>“Ay, Una,” he said, “some of the old elms will fall +to-night. Woodman Lightning strikes with a keen ax.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly there came another sound which, coming in an +interval of comparative quiet, caused Una to look up with +surprise.</p> + +<p>“Halloa there! open the door.”</p> + +<p>Gideon sprang to his feet, his face pale with anger.</p> + +<p>“Go to your room, Una,” he said.</p> + +<p>She rose and moved across the room to obey, but before +she had passed up the stairs the woodman had opened +the door, and the voice came in from the outside, and +she paused almost unconsciously.</p> + +<p>“At last! What a time you have been! I’ve knocked +loud enough to wake the dead. For Heaven’s sake, open +the door and let me in. I’m drenched to the skin.”</p> + +<p>“This is not an inn, young sir.”</p> + +<p>“No, or it would soon come to ruin with such a landlord. +It’s something with four walls and a roof, and I must be +content with that. You don’t mean to say that you won’t +let me come in?”</p> + +<p>“I do not keep open house for travelers.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, come,” exclaimed the young man, with a short +laugh. “It’s your own fault that I am back here; you +told me the wrong turning. I’ll swear I followed your +directions. I must have been walking in a circle; anyhow +I lost my way, and here I am, and, with all your +churlishness, you can’t refuse me shelter on such a night +as this.”</p> + +<p>“The storm has cleared. It is but an hour’s walk to +Arkdale; I will go with you.”</p> + +<p>“That you certainly will not, to-night, nor any other +man,” was the good-humored retort. “I’ve had enough of +your confounded forest for to-night. Why, man, are you +afraid to let me in? It’s a nasty thing to have to do,<span class="pagenum">[16]</span> +but——” and with a sudden thrust of his strong shoulder +he forced the door open and passed the threshold.</p> + +<p>But the woodman recovered from the surprise in a moment +and, seizing him by the throat, was forcing him out +again, when, with a low cry, Una sprang forward and +laid her hand on his arm.</p> + +<p>At her touch Gideon’s hands dropped to his side. The +stranger sprang upright, but almost staggered out with +discomfited astonishment.</p> + +<p>For the first time in her life she stood face to face with +a man other than a woodman or a charcoal-burner. And +as she looked her heart almost stopped beating, the color +died slowly from her face. Was it real, or was it one +of the visionary heroes of her books created into life from +her own dreaming brain?</p> + +<p>With parted lips she waited, half longing, half dreading, +to hear him speak.</p> + +<p>It seemed ages before he found his voice, but at last, +with a sudden little shake of the head, as if he were, as +he would have expressed it, “pulling himself together,” +he took off his wide hat and slowly turned his eyes from +the beautiful face of the girl to the stern and now set +face of the woodman.</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you tell me that you had a lady—ladies +with you?” half angrily, half apologetically. Then he +turned quickly, impulsively, to Una. “I hope you will +forgive me. I had no idea that there was anyone here +excepting himself. Of course I would rather have got +into the first ditch than have disturbed you. I hope, I +do hope you believe that, though I can’t hope you’ll forgive +me. Good-night,” and inclining his head he turned +to the door.</p> + +<p>Una, who had listened with an intent, rapt look on her +face, as one sees a blind man listen to music, drew a +little breath of regret as he ceased speaking, and then, with +a little, quick gesture, laid her hand on her father’s arm.</p> + +<p>It was an imploring touch. It said as plainly as if she +had spoken:</p> + +<p>“Do not let him go.”</p> + +<p>“Having forced your way into my house you—may remain.”<span class="pagenum">[17]</span></p> + +<p>“Thanks. I should not think of doing so. Good-night.”</p> + +<p>“No; you must not go. He does not mean it. You +have made him angry. Please do not go!”</p> + +<p>The young man hesitated, and the woodman, with a +gesture that was one of resigned despair, shut the door.</p> + +<p>Then he turned and pointed to the next room.</p> + +<p>“There’s a fire there,” he said.</p> + +<p>“I’d rather be out in the wood by far,” he said, “than +be here feeling that I have made a nuisance of myself. +I’d better go.”</p> + +<p>But Gideon Rolfe led the way into the next room, and +after another look from Mrs. Rolfe to Una, the young +man followed.</p> + +<p>Una stood in the center of the room looking at the door +behind which he had disappeared, like one in a dream. +Then she turned to Mrs. Rolfe.</p> + +<p>“Shall I go, mother?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. No. Wait till your father comes in.”</p> + +<p>After the lapse of ten minutes the woodman and the +woodman’s guest re-entered. The latter had exchanged +his wet clothes for a suit of Gideon’s, which, though it +was well-worn velveteen, failed to conceal the high-bred +air of its present wearer.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Mrs. Rolfe had been busily spreading the +remains of the supper.</p> + +<p>“’Tis but plain fare, sir,” she said; “but you are heartily +welcome.”</p> + +<p>“Thanks. It looks like a banquet to me,” he added, +with the short laugh which seemed peculiar to him. “I +haven’t tasted food, as tramps say, since morning.”</p> + +<p>“Dear! dear!” exclaimed the wife.</p> + +<p>Una, calling up a long line of heroes, thought first of +Ivanhoe, then—and with a feeling of satisfaction—of Hotspur.</p> + +<p>Figure matched face. Though but twenty-two, the +frame was that of a trained athlete—stalwart, straight-limbed, +muscular; and with all combined a grace which +comes only with birth and breeding.</p> + +<p>Wet and draggled, he looked every inch a gentleman—in +Gideon’s suit of worn velveteen he looked one still.</p> + +<p>Silent and motionless, Una watched him.<span class="pagenum">[18]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said, “I got some lunch at the inn—‘Spotted +Boar’ at Wermesley—about one o’clock, I suppose. I have +never felt so hungry in my life.”</p> + +<p>“Wermesley?” said the wife. “Then you came +from——”</p> + +<p>“London, originally. I got out at Wermesley, meaning +to walk to Arkdale; but that appears to be easier said than +done, eh?”</p> + +<p>Gideon did not answer; he seemed scarcely to hear.</p> + +<p>“I can’t think how I missed the way,” he went on. “I +found the charcoal burner’s hut, and hurried off to the +left——”</p> + +<p>“To the right, I said,” muttered Gideon.</p> + +<p>“Right, did you? Then I misunderstood you. Anyhow, +I lost the right path, and wandered about until I +came back to this cottage.”</p> + +<p>“And you were going to stay at Arkdale? ’Tis but a +dull place,” said Mrs. Rolfe.</p> + +<p>“No; I meant taking the train from there to Hurst +Leigh—— Hurst Leigh,” repeated the young man. “Do +you know it? Ah,” he went on, “don’t suppose you would; +it’s some distance from here. Pretty place. I am going +to see a relative. My name is Newcombe—Jack Newcombe +I am generally called—and I am going on a visit +to Squire Davenant.”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe sprang to his feet, suddenly, knocking +his chair over, and strode into the lamplight.</p> + +<p>The young man looked up in surprise.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?” he asked.</p> + +<p>With an effort Gideon Rolfe recovered himself.</p> + +<p>“I—I want a light,” he said; and leaning over the +lamp, he lit his pipe. Then turning toward the window, +he said: “Una, it is late; go to bed now.”</p> + +<p>She rose at once and kissed the old couple, then pausing +a moment, held out her hand to the young man, who +had risen, and stood regarding her with an intent, but +wholly respectful look.</p> + +<p>But before their hands could join, the woodman +stepped in between them, and waving her to the stairs +with one hand, forced the youth into his seat with the +other.<span class="pagenum">[19]</span></p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + + +<p>A hearty meal after a long fast invariably produces intense +sleepiness.</p> + +<p>No sooner had the young gentleman who was called, +according to his own account, Jack Newcombe, finished +his supper than he began to show palpable signs of exhaustion.</p> + +<p>He felt, indeed, remarkably tired, or be sure he would +have demanded the reason of the woodman’s refusal to +allow his daughter to shake hands.</p> + +<p>For once in a way, Jack—who was also called “The +Savage” by his intimate friends—allowed the opportunity +for a quarrel to slide by, and very soon also allowed +the pipe to slide from his mouth, and his body from the +chair.</p> + +<p>Rousing himself with a muttered apology, he found +that the woodman alone remained, and that he was sitting +apparently forgetful of his guest’s presence.</p> + +<p>“Did you speak?” said Jack, rubbing his eyes, and +struggling with a very giant of a yawn. Gideon looked +round.</p> + +<p>“You are tired,” he said, slowly.</p> + +<p>“Rather,” assented the Savage, with half-closed eyes; +“it must have been the wind. I can’t keep my head up.”</p> + +<p>The woodman rose, and taking down from a cupboard a +bundle of fox-skins, arranged them on the floor, put a +couple of chair-cushions at the head to serve as pillows, +and threw a riding-cloak—which, by the way, did not +correspond with a woodman’s usual attire, and pointed to +the impromptu bed.</p> + +<p>“Thanks,” said Jack, getting up and taking off his coat +and boots.</p> + +<p>“It is a poor bed,” remarked the woodman, but the Savage +interrupted him with a cheerful though sleepy assurance +that it needed no apologies.</p> + +<p>“I could sleep on a rail to-night,” he said, “and that +looks comfortable enough for a king! Fine skins! Good-night!” +and he held out his hand.</p> + +<p>Gideon looked at it, but refusing it, nodded gravely.</p> + +<p>“You won’t shake hands!” exclaimed the Savage, with<span class="pagenum">[20]</span> +a little flush and an aggrieved tone. “Come, isn’t that +carrying the high and imposing rather too far, old fellow? +Makes one feel more ashamed than ever, you know. Perhaps +I’d better march, after all.”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Gideon, slowly. “It is not that I owe you +any ill-will for your presence here. You are welcome, but +I cannot take your hand. Good-night,” and he went to +the stairs.</p> + +<p>At the door, however, he paused, and looked over his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Did you say that—Squire Davenant was your uncle, +Mr. Newcombe?”</p> + +<p>“Eh—uncle? Well, scarcely. It’s rather difficult to +tell what relationship there is between us. He’s a sort +of cousin, I believe,” answered Jack, carelessly, but yet +with a touch of gravity that had something comical about +it. “Rum old boy, isn’t he? You know him, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>Gideon shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I thought you did by the way you looked when I +mentioned his name just now. Good thing you don’t, for +you might have something to say about him that is not +pleasant, and though the old man and I are not turtle +doves just now, I’m bound to stand up for him for the +sake of old times.”</p> + +<p>“You have quarreled?” the old man said; but the Savage +had already curled himself up in the fox-skins, and was incapable +of further conversation.</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe crossed the room, and holding the candle +above his head, looked down at the sleeper.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he muttered, “it’s the same face—they are alike! +Faces of angels and the hearts of devils. What fate has +sent him here to-night?”</p> + +<p>Though Jack Newcombe was by no means one of those +impossible, perfect heroes whom we have sometimes met +in history, and was, alas! as full of imperfections as a +sieve is of holes, he was a gentleman, and for a savage, +was possessed of a considerable amount of delicacy.</p> + +<p>“Seems to me,” he mused, “that the best thing I can do +is to take my objectionable self out of the way before +any of the good folks put in an appearance. The old +fellow will be sure to order me off the premises directly<span class="pagenum">[21]</span> +after the breakfast; and I, in common gratitude, ought +to save him the trouble.”</p> + +<p>To resolve and to act were one and the same thing with +Jack Newcombe. Going into the adjoining room, he got +out of the woodman’s and into his own clothes, and carefully +restored the skins and the cloak to the cupboard. +Then he put the remainder of the loaf into his pocket, +to serve as breakfast later on, then paused.</p> + +<p>“Can’t go without saying good-by, and much obliged,” +he muttered.</p> + +<p>A bright idea struck him; he tore the blank leaf from an +old letter which he happened to have with him, and after +a few minutes’ consideration—for epistolary composition +was one of the Savage’s weakest points—scribbled the following +brief thanks, apology, and farewell:</p> + +<p>“Very much obliged for your kindness, and sorry to +have been such a bore; shouldn’t have intruded if I’d known +ladies were present. Will you oblige me by accepting +the inclosed”—he hesitated a moment, put back the sovereign +which he had taken from his pocket, and filled up +the line—“for your wife.”</p> + +<p>Instead of the coin, he wrapped up a ring, which he took +from his little finger.</p> + +<p>He smiled, as he wrapped it up, for he remembered that +the wife had particularly large hands; and he thought, +cunningly, “<i>she</i> will get it.”</p> + +<p>Having placed this packet on the top of the cheese, he +took a last look round the room, glanced toward the stairs +rather wistfully—it was neither the woodman nor his +wife that he longed to see—gently unbarred the door, and +started on his road.</p> + +<p>Choosing a sheltered spot, the Savage pulled out his +crust, ate it uncomplainingly, and then lay down at full +length, with his soft hat over his eyes, and while revolving +the strange events of the preceding night, and striving +to recall the face of the young girl, fell asleep.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + + +<p>A more beautiful spot for a siesta he could not have +chosen. At his feet stretched the lake, gleaming like silver<span class="pagenum">[22]</span> +in the sun, and set in a frame of green leaves and forest +flowers; above his head, in his very ears, the thrushes +and linnets sang in concert, all the air was full of the +perfumes of a summer morning, rendered sweeter by the +storm of the preceding night, which had called forth the +scent of the ferns and the honeysuckle.</p> + +<p>As he lay, and dreamt with that happy-go-lucky carelessness +of time and the daily round of duties which is one of +the privileges of youth, there rose upon the air a song +other than that of the birds.</p> + +<p>It was a girl’s voice, chanting softly, and evidently with +perfect unconsciousness; faintly at first, it broke upon the +air, then more distinctly, and presently, from amongst +the bushes that stood breast high round the sleeping Savage, +issued Una.</p> + +<p>The night had had dreams for her, dreams in which +the handsome face, with its bold, daring eyes, and quick, +sensitive mouth, had hovered before her closed eyes and +haunted her, and now here he lay at her feet.</p> + +<p>How tired he must be to sleep there, and how hungry! +for, though she had not seen the note—nor the ring—she +knew that he had gone without breakfast.</p> + +<p>“Poor fellow!” she murmured—“his face is quite pale—and—ah——!” +she broke off with a sudden gasp, and bent +forward; a wasp, which had been buzzing around his +head for some time, swept his cheek.</p> + +<p>Too fearful of waking him to sweep the insect aside, she +knelt and watched with clasped hands and shrinking heart; +so intent in her dread that the wasp should alight on his +cheek and sting him as almost to have forgotten her fear +that he should awake.</p> + +<p>At last the dreaded climax occurred; the wasp settled on +his lips; with a low, smothered cry, she stretched out her +hand, and, with a quick movement, swept the wasp off. +But, lightly as her finger had touched his lips, it had been +sufficient to wake him, and, with a little start, he opened +his eyes, and received into them, and through them to his +heart the girl’s rapt gaze.</p> + +<p>For a minute neither moved; he lest he should break the +dream; she, because, bird-like, she was fascinated; then,<span class="pagenum">[23]</span> +the minute passed, she rose, and drew back, and glided +into the brake.</p> + +<p>The Savage with a wild throb of the heart, saw that his +dream had grown into life, raised himself on his elbow and +looked after her, and, as he did so, his eye caught a small +basket which she had set down beside him.</p> + +<p>“Stay,” he called, and in so gentle a voice that his friends +who had christened him the Savage would have instantly +changed it to the Dove.</p> + +<p>“Stay! Please stay. Your basket.”</p> + +<p>“Why did you run from me?” asked the Savage, in a +low voice. “Did you think that I should hurt you?”</p> + +<p>“Hurt me? No, why should you?” and her eyes met +his with innocent surprise.</p> + +<p>“Why should I, indeed! I should have been very sorry +if you had gone, because I wanted to thank you for your +kindness last night.”</p> + +<p>“You have not to thank me,” she said, slowly.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he assented, quietly. “But for you——” then +he stopped, remembering that it was scarcely correct to +complain of her father’s inhospitality; “I behaved very +badly. I always do,” he added—for the first time in his +life with regret.</p> + +<p>“Do you?” she said, doubtfully. “You were wet and +tired last night, and—and you must not think ill of my +father; he——”</p> + +<p>“Don’t say another word. I was treated better than I +deserved.”</p> + +<p>“Why did you go without breakfast this morning?” she +said, suddenly.</p> + +<p>“I brought it with me,” he replied. “You forgot the +loaf!” and he smiled.</p> + +<p>“Dry bread!” she said, pityingly. “I am so sorry. If +I had but known, I would have brought you some milk.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I have done very well,” he said, his curt way +softened and toned down.</p> + +<p>“And now you are going to Arkdale?” she said, gently.</p> + +<p>“That is, after I have gone to rest for a little while +longer; I am in no hurry; won’t you sit down, Una? Keep +me company.”</p> + +<p>To her there seemed nothing strange in the speech;<span class="pagenum">[24]</span> +gravely and naturally she sat down at the foot of an +oak.</p> + +<p>“You think the forest is lonely?” she said.</p> + +<p>“I do, most decidedly. Don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“No; but that is because I am used to it and have +known no other place.”</p> + +<p>“Always lived here?” he said, with interest.</p> + +<p>“Ever since I was three years old.”</p> + +<p>“Eighteen years! Then you are twenty-one?” murmured +Jack.</p> + +<p>“Yes; how old are you?” she asked, calmly.</p> + +<p>“Twenty-two.”</p> + +<p>“Twenty-two. And you have lived in the world all the +time?”</p> + +<p>“Yes—very much so,” he replied.</p> + +<p>“And you are going back to it. You will never come +into the forest again, while I shall go on living here till +I die, and never see the world in which you have lived. +Does that sound strange to you?”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to say that you have never been outside +this forest?” he said, raising himself on his elbow to +stare at her.</p> + +<p>“Yes. I have never been out of Warden since we came +into it.”</p> + +<p>“But—why not?” he demanded.</p> + +<p>“I do not know,” she replied, simply.</p> + +<p>“But there must be some reason for it? Haven’t you +been to Arkdale or Wermesley?”</p> + +<p>“No,” she said, smiling. “Tell me what they are like. +Are they gay and full of people, with theaters and parks, +and ladies riding and driving, and crowds in the streets?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, this is too much!” under his breath. “No, no—a +thousand times no!” he exclaimed; “they are the two +most miserable holes in creation! There are no parks, +no theaters in Arkdale or Wermesley. You might see a +lady on horseback—one lady in a week! They are two +county towns, and nothing of that kind ever goes on in +them. You mean London, and—and places like that +when you speak of theaters and that sort of thing!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, London,” she says, quietly. “Tell me all about +that—I have read about it in books.”<span class="pagenum">[25]</span></p> + +<p>“Books!” said the Savage, in undisguised contempt; +“what’s the use of <i>them!</i> You must see life for yourself—books +are no use. They give it to you all wrong; at +least, I expect so; don’t know much about them myself.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me,” she repeated, “tell me of the world outside +the forest; tell me about yourself.”</p> + +<p>“About myself? Oh, that wouldn’t interest you.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said, simply, “I would rather hear about +yourself than about anything else.”</p> + +<p>“Look here, I don’t know what to tell you.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me all you can think of,” she said, calmly; “about +your father and mother.”</p> + +<p>“Haven’t got any,” he said; “they’re both dead.”</p> + +<p>“I am sorry,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Yes, they’re dead,” he said; “they died long ago.”</p> + +<p>“And have you any brothers and sisters?”</p> + +<p>“No; I have a cousin, though,” and he groaned.</p> + +<p>“I am so glad,” she said, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be. I’m not. He’s a—I don’t like him; we +don’t get on together, you know.”</p> + +<p>“You quarrel, do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Like Kilkenny cats,” assented the Savage.</p> + +<p>“Then he must be a bad man,” she said, simply.</p> + +<p>“No,” he said, quietly; “everybody says that I am the +bad one. I’m a regular bad lot, you know.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think that you are bad,” she said.</p> + +<p>“You don’t; really not! By George! I like to hear +you say that; but,” with a slow shake of the head, “I’m +afraid it’s true. Yes, I am a regular bad lot.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me what you have done that is so wrong,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Oh—I’ve—I’ve spent all my money.”</p> + +<p>“That’s not so very wrong; you have hurt only yourself.”</p> + +<p>“Jove, that’s a new way of looking at it,” he muttered. +“And”—aloud—“and I’ve run into debt, and I’ve—oh, I +can’t tell you any more; I don’t want you to hate me!”</p> + +<p>“Hate you? I could not do that.”</p> + +<p>He sprang to his feet, paced up and down, and then +dropped at her side again.</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s all about myself,” he said; “now tell me +about yourself.”<span class="pagenum">[26]</span></p> + +<p>“No,” she said; “not yet. Tell me why you are going +to Arkdale?”</p> + +<p>“I’m going to Arkdale to take a train to Hurst Leigh +to see my uncle, cousin, or whatever he is—Squire Davenant.”</p> + +<p>“Is he an old man?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, a very old man, and a bad one, too. All our +family are a bad lot, excepting my cousin, Stephen Davenant.”</p> + +<p>“The one you do not like?”</p> + +<p>“The same. He is quite an angel.”</p> + +<p>“An angel?”</p> + +<p>“One of those men too good to live. He’s the only +steady one we’ve got, and we make the most of him. He +is Squire Davenant’s heir—at least he will come into his +money. The old man is very rich, you know.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” she said, musingly; then she looked down at +him and added, suddenly: “You were to have been the +heir?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, that’s right! How did you guess that? Yes, I +was the old man’s favorite, but we quarreled. He wanted +it all his own way, and, oh—we couldn’t get on. Then +Cousin Stephen stepped in, and I am out in the cold +now.”</p> + +<p>“Then why are you going there now?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Because the squire sent for me,” he replied.</p> + +<p>“And you have been all this time going?”</p> + +<p>“You see, I thought I’d walk through the forest,” he +said, apologetically.</p> + +<p>“You should be there now—you should not have waited +on the road! Is your Cousin Stephen—is that his name?—there?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” he said, carelessly.</p> + +<p>“Ah, you should be there,” she said. “Squire Davenant +would be friendly with you again.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid you haven’t hit the right nail on the head +there,” he said. “I rather think he wants to give me +a good rowing about a scrape I’ve got into.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me about that.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s about money—the usual thing. I got into a +mess, and had to borrow some money of a Jew, and he<span class="pagenum">[27]</span> +got me to sign a paper, promising to pay after Squire +Davenant’s death; he called it a <i>post obit</i>—I didn’t know +what it was then, but I do now; for the squire got to hear +of it, but how, hanged if I can make out; and he wrote to +me and to the Jew, saying that he shouldn’t leave me a +brass farthing. Of course the Jew was wild; but I gave +him another sort of bill, and it’s all right.”</p> + +<p>“Excepting that you will lose your fortune,” said Una, +with a little sigh. “What will you do?”</p> + +<p>“That’s a conundrum which I’ve long ago given up. +By Jove! I’ll come and be a woodman in the forest!”</p> + +<p>“Will you?” she said. “Do you really mean it?—no, +you were not in earnest!”</p> + +<p>“I—why shouldn’t I be in earnest?” he says, almost to +himself. “Would you like me to? I mean shall I come here +to—what do you call it—Warden?” and he threw himself +down again.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said; “I should like you to. Yes, that +would be very nice. We could sit and talk when your +work was done, and I could show you all the prettiest +spots, and the places where the starlings make their nests, +and the fairy rings in the glades, and you could tell me +all that you have seen and done. Yes,” wistfully, “that +would be very nice. It is so lonely sometimes!”</p> + +<p>“Lonely, is it?” he said. “Lonely! By George, I +should think it must be! I can’t realize it! Books, it +reads like a book. If I were to tell some of my friends +that there was a young lady shut up in a forest, outside of +which she had never been, they wouldn’t believe me. By +the way—where did you go to school?”</p> + +<p>“School? I never went to school.”</p> + +<p>“Then how—how did you learn to read? and—it’s awfully +rude of me, you know, but you speak so nicely; +such grammar, and all that.”</p> + +<p>“Do I?” she said, thoughtfully. “I didn’t know that +I did. My father taught me.”</p> + +<p>“It’s hard to believe,” he said, as if he were giving up +a conundrum. “I beg your pardon. I mean that your +father would have made a jolly good schoolmaster, and I +must be an awful dunce, for I’ve been to Oxford, and I’ll<span class="pagenum">[28]</span> +wager I don’t know half what you do, and as to talking—I +am not in it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my father is very clever,” she said; “he is not +like the other woodmen and burners.”</p> + +<p>“No, if he is, they must be a learned lot,” assented +Jack; “yes, I think I had better come and live here, and +get him to teach me. I’m afraid he wouldn’t undertake +the job.”</p> + +<p>“Father does not like strangers,” she said, blushing as +she thought of the inhospitable scene of the preceding +night. “He says that the world is a cruel, wicked place, +and that everybody is unhappy there. But I think he +must be wrong. You don’t look unhappy.”</p> + +<p>“I am not unhappy now,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>“I am so glad,” she said; “why are you not?”</p> + +<p>“Because I am with you.”</p> + +<p>“Are you?” she said, gently. “Then it must be because +I am with you that I feel so happy.”</p> + +<p>The Savage flushed and he looked down, striving to +still the sudden throb of pleasure with which his heart +beat.</p> + +<p>“Confound it,” he muttered, “I must go! I can’t be +such a cad as to stop any longer; she oughtn’t to say this +sort of thing, and yet I—I can’t tell her so! No! I must +go!” and he rose and took out his watch.</p> + +<p>“I am afraid I must be on the tramp.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she assented; “you have stayed too long. I hope +you will find that the Squire Davenant has forgiven you. +I think he cannot help it. And you will have your fortune +and will go back into the world, and will quite forget +that you lost your way in Warden Forest. But I +shall not forget it; I shall often think of it.”</p> + +<p>“No,” he said, “I shan’t forget it. But in case I should, +will you give me something—no, I won’t ask it.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?” she said, wonderingly. “Were you going +to say, will I give you something to help you to remember?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I will. What shall I give you?” and she looked +around.</p> + +<p>Jack looked at her. His bad angel whispered in his ear, +“Ask her to give you a kiss,” but Jack metaphorically +kicked him out of hearing.<span class="pagenum">[29]</span></p> + +<p>“Give me a flower,” he said, and his voice was as gentle +as its deep ringing bass could be.</p> + +<p>Una nodded, and plucking a dog rose held it out to him.</p> + +<p>“There,” she said; “at least you will remember it as +long as the rose lasts. But it soon dies,” and she sighed.</p> + +<p>Jack took it and looked at it hard. Then he put it to +his lips.</p> + +<p>“There is no smell to a dog rose,” said Una.</p> + +<p>“Ah no! I forgot. Just so. Well, good-by. We +may shake hands, Una. That is your name, isn’t it? +How do you spell it?”</p> + +<p>“U—n—a,” she said, giving him her hand.</p> + +<p>“It’s a pretty name,” he said, looking at her.</p> + +<p>“Is it?” she said, dreamily. “Yes, I think it is, now. +Say it again.”</p> + +<p>“Una, good-by. We shall meet again.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think so? Then you will have to come to +Warden again.”</p> + +<p>“And I will. I will come soon. Oh, yes, we shall +meet again. Good-by,” and, yielding to the temptation, +he bent and touched her hand—Heaven knows, reverently +enough—with his lips.</p> + +<p>A warm flush spread over the girl’s face and neck, and +she quivered from head to foot. It was the first kiss—except +those of her father and mother—that she had ever +received.</p> + +<p>“Good-by,” he repeated, and was slowly relinquishing +her hand, the hand that clung to his, when a hand of +firmer texture was laid on his arm and swung him round.</p> + +<p>It was Gideon Rolfe, his face white with passion, his +eyes ablaze, and a heavy stick upraised.</p> + +<p>The Savage had just time to step back to avoid the blow +and plant his feet firmly to receive a renewed attack; +but with an effort the old man restrained himself, and +struggling for speech, motioned the girl away with one +hand and pointed with the other to Jack.</p> + +<p>“You scoundrel!” he gasped, hoarsely. “Go, Una, go. +You scoundrel! I warmed you at my hearth, you viper! +and you turn to sting me. Go, Una—go at once. Do you +disobey me?”</p> + +<p>White and trembling, the girl shrank into the shade.<span class="pagenum">[30]</span></p> + +<p>“You villain!” went on the old man, struggling with +his passion.</p> + +<p>“Stop!” exclaimed Jack, the veins in his forehead swelling +ominously. “You must be mad! Don’t strike me!—you +are an old man!”</p> + +<p>“Strike you! No, no; blows are of no avail with such +as you! Curs take no heed of blows! What other way can +one punish the scoundrel who repays hospitality by treachery? +Was it not enough that you forced your way into +my house, broke my bread, but you must waylay a credulous +girl and lead her in the first step to ruin. Oh, spare +your breath, viper! I know you and your race too well. +Ruin and desolation walk hand in hand with you; but +you have reckoned without your host here. My knowledge +of you arms me with power to protect a weak, innocent +girl from your wiles. Scoundrel!”</p> + +<p>“You use strong words,” he said, and his voice was low +and hoarse. “You are an old man and—you are her +father. You call me a scoundrel; I call you a fool, for +if I were half the scoundrel you think me, you’d be to +blame for any harm I might have done. I’ve done none. +But that’s no thanks to you, who keep such a girl as she +is shut up as you do, and leave her to wander about unprotected. +You know me, you say, and you know no good +of me; that’s as it may be, but I say when you call me +a scoundrel, you lie!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know you. I know the stock from whence you +sprung, villains all! I thought that here, at least, I was +safe from your kind; but Fate led you here—thank Fate +that I let you go unhurt. Take an old man’s advice, and, +unlike your race, for once leave the prey which you thought +so easy to destroy. Go!”</p> + +<p>“I am going,” he said, grimly. “I shall go, because if +I stayed all night I should not convince you that I am +not the scoundrel you suppose me. But, if you think that +I am to be frightened by these sort of threats, you are +mistaken. I have said that I will come back, and I <i>will!”</i> +and with a curt nod he strode off.<span class="pagenum">[31]</span></p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + + +<p>It was the evening of the day on which Jack Newcombe +had parted from Gideon and Una, and the young moon fell +peacefully on the irregular pile of the ancient mansion +known familiarly for twenty miles of its neighborhood as +The Hurst.</p> + +<p>The present owner was one Ralph Davenant, or Squire +Davenant, as Jack Newcombe had called him, and as he +was called by the county generally.</p> + +<p>He was an old man of eighty, who had lived one-half +his life in the wildest and most dissipated fashion, and the +other half in that most unprofitable occupation known as +repenting thereof.</p> + +<p>I say “known as,” for if old Squire Davenant had +really repented, this story would never have been written.</p> + +<p>If half the stories which were told of him were true, +Ralph Davenant, the present owner of Hurst, deserves a +niche in the temple of fame—or infamy—which holds the +figures of the worst men of his day. He had been a +gambler, a spendthrift, a rogue of the worst kind for one +half his life; a miser, a cynic, a misanthrope for the other.</p> + +<p>And he now lay dying in his huge, draughty bed-chamber, +hung with the portraits of his ancestors—all bad and +filled with the ghosts of his youth and wasted old age.</p> + +<p>As it was, he lay quite still—so still that the physician, +brought down from London at a cost of—say, ten guineas +an hour, was often uncertain whether he was alive or dead.</p> + +<p>There was a third person in the room—a tall, thin young +man, who stood motionless beside the bed, watching the +old man, with half-closed eyes and tightly compressed lips. +This was Stephen Davenant, the old man’s nephew, and, as +it was generally understood, his heir. Stephen Davenant +was called a handsome man, and at first sight he seemed +to merit that description. It was not until you had looked +at him closely that you began to grow critical and to find +fault. He was dark; his hair, which was quite black, was +smooth, and clung to his head with a sleek, slimy closeness +that only served to intensify the paleness, not to say +pallor, of the face. Pallor was, indeed, the prevailing +characteristic, his lips even being of a subdued and half-tinted<span class="pagenum">[32]</span> +red; they were not pleasant lips, although for every +forty minutes out of the sixty they wore a smile which +just showed a set of large and even teeth, which were, if +anything, too faultless and too white. Jack said that +when Stephen smiled it was like a private view of a cemetery.</p> + +<p>In short, to quote the Savage again, Stephen Davenant +was an admirable example, as artists would say, of “a +study in black and white.”</p> + +<p>As he stood by the bed, motionless, silent, with the +fixed regard of his light gray eyes on the sick man, he +looked not unlike one of those sleek and emaciated birds +which one sees standing on the bank of the Ganges, waiting +for the floating by of stray dead bodies.</p> + +<p>And yet he was not unhandsome. At times he looked +remarkably well; when, for instance, he was delivering +a lecture or an address at some institute or May meeting. +His voice was low and soft, and not seldom insinuating, +and some of his friends had called him, half in jest, half +in earnest, “Fascination Davenant.”</p> + +<p>It will be gathered from this description that to call all +the race of Davenants bad was unfair; every rule has its +exception, and Stephen Davenant was the exception to this. +He was “a good young man.”</p> + +<p>Fathers held him up as a pattern to their wayward sons, +mothers patronized and lauded him, and their daughters +regarded him as almost too good to live.</p> + +<p>The minutes, so slow for the watchers, so rapid to the +man for whom they were numbered, passed, and the old +cracked clock in the half-ruined stables wheezed out the +hour, when, as if the sound had roused him, old Ralph +moved slightly, and opening his eyes, looked slowly from +one upright figure to the other.</p> + +<p>Dark eyes that had not even yet lost all their fire, and +still shone out like a bird’s from their wrinkled, cavernous +hollows.</p> + +<p>Stephen unlocked his wrist, bent down, and murmured, +in his soft, silky voice:</p> + +<p>“Uncle, do you know me?”</p> + +<p>A smile, an unpleasant smile to see on such a face, glimmered +on the old man’s lips.<span class="pagenum">[33]</span></p> + +<p>“Here still, Stephen?” he said, slowly and hollowly. +“You’d make a good—mute.”</p> + +<p>A faint, pink tinge crept over Stephen’s pale face, but +he smiled and shook his head meekly.</p> + +<p>“Who’s that?” asked Ralph, half turning his eyes to the +physician.</p> + +<p>“Sir Humphrey, uncle—the doctor,” replied Stephen, +and the great doctor came a little nearer and felt the +faint pulse.</p> + +<p>“What’s he stopping for?” gasped the old man. “What +can he do, and—why don’t he go?”</p> + +<p>“We must not leave you, uncle, till you are better.”</p> + +<p>A faint flame shot up in the old man’s eyes.</p> + +<p>“Better, that’s a lie, you know. You always were——” +Then a paroxysm of faintness took him, but he struggled +with and overcame it.</p> + +<p>“Is—is—Jack here?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“I regret to say,” he replied, “that he is not. I cannot +understand the delay. I hope, I fervently hope, that he +has not willfully——”</p> + +<p>“Did you tell him I was dying?” asked Ralph, watching +him keenly.</p> + +<p>“Can you doubt it?” murmured Stephen, meekly. “I +particularly charged the messenger to say that my cousin +was not to delay.”</p> + +<p>The old man looked up with a sardonic smile.</p> + +<p>“I’ll wait,” he muttered, and he closed his eyes resolutely. +The minutes passed, and presently there was a +low knock at the door, and a servant crept up to Stephen.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Newcombe is below, sir.”</p> + +<p>Stephen looked warningly at the bed, and stole on tiptoe +from the room—not that there was any occasion to go +on tiptoe, for his ordinary walk was as noiseless as a cat’s—down +the old treadworn stairs, into the neglected hall, +and entered the library.</p> + +<p>Bolt upright, and looking very like a Savage indeed, +stood Jack Newcombe.</p> + +<p>With noiseless step and mournful smile, Stephen entered, +closed the door, and held out his hand.</p> + +<p>“My dear Jack, how late you are!”</p> + +<p>With an angry gesture Jack thrust his hands in his<span class="pagenum">[34]</span> +pockets, and glared wrathfully at the white, placid face.</p> + +<p>“Late!” he echoed, passionately. “Why didn’t you tell +me that he was dying?”</p> + +<p>“Hush!” murmured Stephen, with a shocked look—though +if Jack had bellowed in his savagest tone, his voice +would not have reached the room upstairs. “Pray, be +quiet, my dear Jack. Tell you! Didn’t my man give you +my message? I particularly told him to describe the state +of my uncle’s health. Slummers is not apt to forget or +neglect messages!”</p> + +<p>“Messages!” said Jack, with wrathful incredulity; “he +gave me none—left none, rather, for I was out. He simply +said that the squire wanted to see me.”</p> + +<p>“Dear, dear me,” murmured Stephen, regretfully. “I +cannot understand it. Do you think the person who took +the message delivered it properly? Slummers is so very +careful and trustworthy.”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Jack, contemptuously. “Do you suppose +anyone would have forgotten to tell me if your man had +told them that the squire was dying? I don’t if you do, +and I don’t believe you do. You’re no fool, Stephen, +though you have made one of me,” and he moved toward +the door.</p> + +<p>“Stay,” said Stephen, laying his white hand gently on +Jack’s arm. “Will you wait a few minutes? Though by +some unfortunate accident you were not told how ill my +uncle is, I assure you that he is too ill now to be +harassed——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I know what you mean without so many words,” +interrupted Jack, scornfully. “Make your mind easy, I +am not going to split upon you. Bah!” he added, as Stephen +shook his head with sorrowful repudiation. “Do you suppose +that I don’t know that your man was instructed to +keep it from me? What were you afraid of—that I should +cut you out at the last moment? You judge me by your +own standard, and you make a vast mistake. It isn’t on +account of the money—you are welcome to that—and you +deserve it, for you’ve worked hard enough for it; no, it’s +not on that account, it’s—but you wouldn’t understand if +I told you. I am going up now,” and he sprang up the +stairs quickly.<span class="pagenum">[35]</span></p> + +<p>Stephen followed him, and entered the room close behind +him. The old man looked up, motioned with his +hand to Jack, looked at the other two and quietly pointed +to the door.</p> + +<p>Stephen’s eyes closed and his lips shut as he hesitated for +a moment, then he turned and left with the physician.</p> + +<p>“I think,” said Sir Humphrey, blandly, and looking at +his watch—one of a score left him by departed patients, +“I think that I will go now, Mr. Davenant; I can do no +good and my presence appears only to irritate your uncle.”</p> + +<p>The great doctor departed, just thirty guineas richer +than when he came, and Stephen went into the library and +closed the door, and as he did so it almost seemed as if he +had taken off a mask and left it on the mat outside.</p> + +<p>The set, calm expression of the face changed to one of +fierce, uncontrollable anxiety and malice. With sullen +step he paced up and down the room, gnawing—but +daintily—at his nails, and grinding the white tombstones.</p> + +<p>“Another half hour,” he muttered, “and the fool would +have been too late? Will he tell the old man? Curse +him; how I hate him! I was a fool to send for him—an +idiot! What is he saying to him? What are they doing? +Thank Heaven, that old knave Hudsley isn’t there! They +can’t do anything—can’t, can’t! No, I am safe.”</p> + +<p>Stephen Davenant need not have been so uneasy; Jack +was not plotting against him, nor was the old man making +a will in the Savage’s favor.</p> + +<p>Jack stood beside the bed, waiting for one of the attacks +of faintness to pass, looking down regretfully at the +haggard, death-marked face, recalling the past kindnesses +he had received from the old man, and remorsefully remembering +their many quarrels and eventful separation.</p> + +<p>“Bad lot” as he was, no thought of lucre crossed the +Savage’s mind; he forgot even Stephen and the cowardly +trick he had played him, and remembered only that he +was looking his last on the old man, who, after his kind, +had been good, and so far as his nature would allow it, +generous to him.</p> + +<p>At last old Ralph opened his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Here at last,” he said; and by an effort of the resolute<span class="pagenum">[36]</span> +will, he made himself heard distinctly, though every word +cost him a breath.</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry I’m so late,” he said; and his voice was +husky. “I didn’t know——”</p> + +<p>The old man looked at him shrewdly.</p> + +<p>“So Stephen didn’t send? It was just like him. A +good stroke.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he sent,” said Jack; “but——”</p> + +<p>The old man waved his hand to show that he understood.</p> + +<p>“A sharp stroke. A clever fellow, Stephen. You always +were a fool.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid so, sir,” he said quietly.</p> + +<p>“But Stephen is a knave, and a fool, too,” murmured +the old man. “Jack, I wish—I wish I could come back to +the funeral.”</p> + +<p>“To see his face when the will’s read,” explained old +Ralph, with a grim smile.</p> + +<p>Jack colored, and, I am ashamed to say, grinned.</p> + +<p>A sardonic smile flitted over the old man’s face.</p> + +<p>“Be sure you are there, Jack; don’t let him keep you +away.”</p> + +<p>“Not that you will be disappointed—much,” said the +old man.</p> + +<p>“Don’t think of me, sir,” said Jack, with a dim sense +of the discordance in such talk from such lips.</p> + +<p>“I have thought of you as far—as—as I dared. Jack, +you are an honest fool. Why—why did you give that +<i>post obit?”</i></p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Jack, quietly. “Don’t worry about +that now.”</p> + +<p>“Stephen told me,” said the old man, grimly. “He has +told me every piece of wickedness you have done. He is +a kind-hearted man, is—Ste—phen.”</p> + +<p>“We never were friends, sir,” he said. “But don’t talk +now.”</p> + +<p>“I must,” murmured the old man. “Now or never, and—give +me your hand, Jack.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve had yours ever since I came in,” said Jack, simply.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I didn’t know it. Good-by, boy—don’t—don’t end +up like this. It—and—for Heaven’s sake don’t cry!”<span class="pagenum">[37]</span> +for Jack emitted a suspicious little choking sound, and his +eyes were dim. “Good-by; don’t be too disappointed. Justice, +Jack, justice. Where is Stephen?—send him to me. +I”—and the old sardonic smile came back—“I like to see +him—he amuses me!”</p> + +<p>The eyes closed; Jack waited a moment, then pressed +the cold hand, and crept from the room.</p> + +<p>Half way down the stairs he leaned his arm on the +balustrade and dropped his face on it for a minute or two, +then choking back his tears, went into the library—where +Stephen was sitting reading a volume of sermons—and +pointed up-stairs.</p> + +<p>“My uncle wants me?” murmured Stephen. “I will go. +Might I recommend this book to you, my dear Jack; it +contains——”</p> + +<p>Jack, I regret to say, chucked the volume into a corner +of the room, and Stephen, with a mournfully reproachful +sigh, shook his head and left the room.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + + +<p>“Villains,” says an old adage, “are made by accident.” +Now mark how accident helped to make a villain of the +good Stephen Davenant.</p> + +<p>He passed up the stairs and entered the bedroom. As he +did so his foot struck against a chair and caused a little +noise. The dying man heard it, however, and opening his +eyes, said, almost inaudibly:</p> + +<p>“Is that you, Hudsley?”</p> + +<p>Stephen was about to reply, “No, it is I—Stephen,” but +stopped, hesitated, and as if struck by a sudden idea, drew +back behind the bed-curtains.</p> + +<p>Whatever that idea was, he was considerably moved by +it; his hands shook, and his lips trembled during the interval +of silence before the old man repeated the question:</p> + +<p>“Is that you, Hudsley?”</p> + +<p>Then Stephen, wiping his lips, answered in a dry voice +utterly unlike his own, but very remarkably resembling +that of the old solicitor, Hudsley:</p> + +<p>“Yes, squire, it’s Hudsley.”</p> + +<p>The dying man’s hearing was faint, his senses wandering<span class="pagenum">[38]</span> +and dimmed; he caught the sense of the words, however, +for with an effort he turned his head toward the curtains.</p> + +<p>“Where are you?” he asked, almost inaudibly; “I can’t +see you; my sight has gone. You have been a long while +coming. Hudsley, you thought you—knew—everything +about the man who lies here; you were wrong. There’s a +surprise for you as well as the rest. Did you see Jack?”</p> + +<p>Stephen had no need to reply: the old man rambled on +without waiting, excepting to struggle for breath.</p> + +<p>“He is down-stairs. Poor boy! it’s a pity he is such a +fool. There was always one like him in the Newcombe +family. But the other—Stephen—the man who has been +hanging about me all this time, eager to lick my boots +so that he might step into them when I was gone; he is +a fool and a knave.”</p> + +<p>Stephen’s face went white and his lips twitched. It is +probable that he remembered the adage: “Listeners hear +no good of themselves.”</p> + +<p>“He is the first of his kind we have had in the family. +Plenty of fools and scamps, Hudsley, but no hypocrites +till this one. Well, he’ll get his deserts. I’d give a +thousand pounds to come back and hear the will read, and +see his face. He makes so sure of it, too, the oily eel!”</p> + +<p>Stephen writhed like an eel, indeed, and his lips +blanched. Was the old man delirious, or had he, Stephen, +really played the part of sycophant, toady and boot-licker +all these years for nothing?</p> + +<p>Great drops of sweat rolled down his face, his tongue +clove to the roof of his mouth, and his knees shook so +that he had to steady himself by holding the curtain.</p> + +<p>“Yes, disappointed all. You don’t understand. You +think that you know everything. But no; I trusted you +with a great deal, but not with all. How dark it is! +Hudsley, you are an old man; don’t finish up like—like +this. Only one soul in the wide world is sorry that I’m +going; and he’s a fool. Poor Jack! I remember——”</p> + +<p>Then followed, half inaudibly, a string of names belonging +to the companions of his youth. Most of them +were dead and forgotten by him until this hour, when he +was about to join their shades.<span class="pagenum">[39]</span></p> + +<p>“Ah, the old time! the old time. But—but—what was +it I was saying? I—I—Hudsley—quick! for Heaven’s +sake! I—the key—the key——”</p> + +<p>Stephen came round, in his eagerness risking recognition.</p> + +<p>“The key?” he asked, so hoarsely that his voice might +well be taken for an old man’s. “What key?”</p> + +<p>“Feel—under my pillow!” gasped Ralph Davenant.</p> + +<p>Stephen thrust his trembling hand under the pillow, +and, with a leap of the heart, felt a key.</p> + +<p>“The safe!” murmured a faltering voice. “The bottom +drawer. Bring them to me! Quick!”</p> + +<p>Stephen glided snake-like across the room to a small +safe that stood in a recess, opened the door, and with +trembling hands drew out the drawer. His hands shook +so, his heart beat to such an extent, that as a movement +in the next room struck upon his ears, he could scarcely +refrain from shrieking aloud; but it was only the nurse, +whom the old man would only allow to enter the room at +intervals; and setting his teeth hard, and fighting for +calm, Stephen took out two documents.</p> + +<p>One was a parchment of goodly proportions.</p> + +<p>Both were folded and endorsed on the back—the parchment +with the inscription, “Last will and testament of +Ralph Davenant, Gent., Jan. 18—.”</p> + +<p>With eyes that almost refused to do their task, Stephen +turned the other paper to the light, and read, “Will, July +18—.” This inscription was written in an old man’s +hand—the parchment was engrossed as usual.</p> + +<p>Two wills! The one—the parchment, however, was +useless; the other—the sheet of foolscap—was the last.</p> + +<p>“Well,” rose the voice from the bed, hollow and broken, +“have you got them?”</p> + +<p>Stephen came up and stood behind the curtain, and +held the wills up.</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” he said. “The first is—is in whose favor?”</p> + +<p>The old man struggled for breath. White, breathless +himself with the agony of anxiety and fear—for any moment +someone might enter the room—Stephen stood staring +beside him. He dared not undo the tapes and glance +at the wills, in case of interruption—dared not conceal<span class="pagenum">[40]</span> +them, for Hudsley might appear on the scene. With the +wills clasped in his hand, he stood and waited.</p> + +<p>The faintness passed—old Ralph regained his voice.</p> + +<p>“One is parchment—the other is paper. The parchment +one you drew up; you know its contents—I want +it destroyed, or, stay, keep it. It will add to the deceitful +hound’s disappointment. The other—ah, my God—it +is too late—Hudsley, there is a cruel history in that +paper. No hand but mine could pen it. But—but—I +have done justice. Too late!—why do you say—too late? +Why do you mock a dying man? Mind, Hudsley, I trust +to you. It is a sound will, made in sound body—and—mind. +Don’t leave that hypocritical hound a chance of +setting it aside. I trust to you. Stop, better burn the +first will; burn it here now—now,” and in his excitement +he actually raised his head. Raised it to let it drop upon +the pillow again with exhaustion.</p> + +<p>Stephen stood and glared, torn this way and that by +doubt and uncertainty.</p> + +<p>“Justice,” he whispered hoarsely. “The first will, my +will leaves all to——”</p> + +<p>“To that hound Stephen!” gasped the old man. “I did +it in a weak moment and repented of it. Leaves all to +him; but not now.”</p> + +<p>Stephen hesitated no longer. With the quick, gliding +movement of a cat he reached the iron safe, replaced the +parchment in the drawer and locked the outer door, and +thrust the paper will into his pocket.</p> + +<p>Scarcely had he done so, before he had time to get to +his place, the door opened and Hudsley, the lawyer, entered.</p> + +<p>He was an old man, as thin and bent as a withy branch, +with a face seamed and wrinkled, like his familiar parchment, +with the like spots; his dark, keen gray eyes, which +looked out from under his shaggy eyebrows, like stars in +a cloudy sky.</p> + +<p>As he entered, Stephen came forward, his back to the +light, his face in the shadow, and held out his hand.</p> + +<p>Hudsley took it, held it for a moment, and dropped it +with a little, irritable shudder—the slim, white hand was<span class="pagenum">[41]</span> +as cold as ice—and, turning to the bed, looked anxiously +at the dying man.</p> + +<p>“Great heaven!” he said, “is he dead?”</p> + +<p>A savage hope shot up in Stephen’s heart, but he looked +and shook his head.</p> + +<p>“No. You have been a long time coming, Mr. Hudsley.”</p> + +<p>“I have, sir, thanks to your man’s stupidity,” said the +lawyer, in an angry whisper. “He came for me in a confounded +dogcart!”</p> + +<p>“The quickest vehicle to get ready,” murmured Stephen. +“I told him, to take the first that came to hand.”</p> + +<p>“And the result,” said the lawyer impatiently. “The +result is that we lost half an hour on the road! Does +your man drink, Mr. Stephen?”</p> + +<p>“Drink! Slummers drink!” murmured Stephen. “A +most steady, respectable—I may say conscientious—man.”</p> + +<p>“He may be conscientious, but he’s a very bad driver. +I never saw such a clumsy fellow. He drove into a ditch +half a mile after we had started.”</p> + +<p>“Dear, dear,” murmured Stephen regretfully. “Poor +Slummers. It is not his fault. He is a worthy fellow, +but too sympathetic, and my uncle’s illness quite upset +him——”</p> + +<p>“Hush!” interrupted Mr. Hudsley, holding up his +finger and bending down.</p> + +<p>“Squire, do you know me? I am Hudsley.”</p> + +<p>The dying man moved his hand faintly in assent.</p> + +<p>“Yes. Have you done as I told you?”</p> + +<p>“You have told me nothing yet.”</p> + +<p>“The safe!—the key!—the pillow!” said the Squire.</p> + +<p>Hudsley caught his meaning and felt under the pillow, +and Stephen, as if to assist, thrust his hand under, and +withdrew it with the key in his fingers.</p> + +<p>“Why—again?” came the voice, broken and impatient. +“You have done it! you have burnt the first.”</p> + +<p>“What is he saying?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“You have burned it; show me the other—the last; let +me—touch it.”</p> + +<p>Hudsley opened the safe and took the first will from +the drawer.<span class="pagenum">[42]</span></p> + +<p>“Two, did he say?” he muttered: “there is only one +here—the will;” and he came to the bed with it.</p> + +<p>“There is only one will here, of course, squire,” he +said, bending down and speaking slowly and distinctly.</p> + +<p>“Yes—you, you have—burned the other. Speak. I +cannot see, but I can hear you.”</p> + +<p>“I have burned none,” said Hudsley. “Have only just +come—there is only one will here.”</p> + +<p>“Which?” gasped the dying man.</p> + +<p>“The will of January—Mr. Stephen——”</p> + +<p>Before they could finish, they saw, with horror, the +dying man half raise himself, his face livid, his hands +wildly clutching the air, his eyes, by accident, turned +toward Stephen.</p> + +<p>“You—you thief!” he gasped. “Give it to me!—give—give—oh, +God! Too late?—too la——”</p> + +<p>It was too late. Before the nurse and Jack could rush +into the room, horrified by the shriek which rang from +Stephen’s white lips, old Ralph Davenant had fallen back +dead!</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + + +<p>Half an hour afterward Stephen Davenant passed +down the stairs on tiptoe, though the tramp of an armed +host could not disturb old Ralph Davenant now—passed +down with his hand pressed against his breast pocket, in +which lay the stolen will. Had the sheet of blue foolscap +been composed of red-hot iron instead of paper, Stephen +could not have felt its presence more distinctly and uncomfortably; +it seemed to burn right through his clothes +and scorch his heart; he could almost fancy, in his overstrained +state, that it could be seen through his coat.</p> + +<p>He paused a moment outside the library door, one white +hand fingering his pale lips, the other vainly striving to +keep away from his breast pocket, and listened to the +tramp, tramp of Jack as he walked up and down the +room. Any other face would have been more endurable +than Jack’s, with its fiercely frank gaze and outspoken +contempt.<span class="pagenum">[43]</span></p> + +<p>At last he opened the door and entered, his handkerchief +in his hand. Jack stopped and looked at him.</p> + +<p>“I have been waiting for you,” he said.</p> + +<p>“My poor uncle!”</p> + +<p>Jack looked at him with keen scrutiny, mingled with +unconcealed scorn.</p> + +<p>“I have been waiting for you, in case you wished to +say anything before I went.”</p> + +<p>“What?” murmured Stephen, with admirably feigned +surprise and regret. “You will not go, my dear Jack! not +to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, to-night,” said Jack quietly. “I couldn’t stop in +the house—I shall go to the inn.”</p> + +<p>“But——”</p> + +<p>“No, thanks!” said Jack, cutting him short.</p> + +<p>“Oh, do not thank me,” murmured Stephen, meekly. +“I may have no right to offer you hospitality, the house +may be yours.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I think you could give a pretty good guess on +that point,” said Jack, bluntly; “but let that pass. I am +going to the ‘Bush.’ If you or Mr. Hudsley want me—where +is Hudsley?” he broke off to inquire.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Hudsley is up-stairs sealing up the safe and +things,” said Stephen humbly. “He wished me to assist +him, but I had rather that he should do it alone—perhaps +you would go through the house with him?”</p> + +<p>Jack shook his head.</p> + +<p>“As you please,” murmured Stephen, with a resigned +sigh. “Mr. Hudsley is quite sufficient; he knows where +everything of importance is kept. You will have some refreshments +after your journey, my dear Jack?”</p> + +<p>“No, thanks,” said Jack; “I want nothing—I couldn’t +eat anything. I’ll go now.”</p> + +<p>“Are you going, Mr. Newcombe?” said Mr. Hudsley, entering +and looking from one to the other keenly.</p> + +<p>“I am going to the ‘Bush;’ I shall stay there in case I +am wanted.”</p> + +<p>“The funeral had better be fixed for Saturday. You +and Mr. Stephen will be the chief mourners.” Then he +turned to Stephen. “I have sealed up most of the things. +Is there anything you can suggest?”<span class="pagenum">[44]</span></p> + +<p>“You know all that is required; we leave everything +to you, Mr Hudsley. I think I may speak for my cousin—may +I not, Jack?”</p> + +<p>Jack did not reply, but put on his gloves.</p> + +<p>“I will go now,” he said. “Good-night, Mr. Hudsley.”</p> + +<p>The old lawyer looked at him keenly as he took his hand.</p> + +<p>“I shall find you at the ‘Bush?’” he said.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” replied Jack, and was leaving the room when +Stephen rose and followed him.</p> + +<p>“Good-night, my dear Jack,” he said. “Will you not +shake hands on—on such an occasion?”</p> + +<p>Jack strode to the door and opened it without reply, +then turned and, as if with an effort, took the hand which +Stephen had kept extended.</p> + +<p>“Good-night,” he said, dropping the cold fingers, and +strode out.</p> + +<p>Stephen looked after him a moment with his meek, +long-suffering expression of face changed into a malignant +smile of triumph, and his hand went up to his +breast pocket.</p> + +<p>“Good-night, beggar!” he murmured, and closed the door.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hudsley was still standing by the library-table, toying +absently with the keys, a thoughtful frown on his +brow, which did not grow any lighter as Stephen entered, +making great play with the pocket-handkerchief.</p> + +<p>“I think I also may go now, Mr. Stephen,” he said. +“Nothing more can be done to-night. I will be here in +the morning with my clerk.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose nothing more can be done. You have +sealed up all papers and jewels? I am particularly +anxious that nothing shall be left informal.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think there is anything unsealed that should +have been.”</p> + +<p>“A very strange scene, the final one, Mr. Stephen.”</p> + +<p>“Awful, awful, Mr. Hudsley. My poor uncle seemed +quite delirious at the last.”</p> + +<p>“Hem!” grunted the old lawyer, putting his hat to his +lips and looking over it at the white, smooth face. “You +think he was delirious——”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you, Mr. Hudsley? Do you think that he was<span class="pagenum">[45]</span> +conscious of what he was saying? You have been his +legal adviser and confidant for years; you would know +whether there was any meaning in his wild and incoherent +statement about the will. As you are no doubt aware, my +poor uncle never broached the subject of his intentions +to me.”</p> + +<p>“I know of only one will—that of last year. That will +I executed for him; it is the will locked up in the safe +up-stairs. I have a copy at the office,” he added, dryly.</p> + +<p>“You—you don’t think there is any other—any other +later will?” he asked, softly.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t think so until an hour ago. I am not sure +that I think so now. Do you?”</p> + +<p>“No,” he said, shaking his head. “My uncle was not +the man to draw up a will with his own hand, and his +confidence, and I may say affection for you, were so great +that he would not have gone to any other legal adviser +to do it for him. No, I do not think there is any other +will; of course, I do not know the contents of the will in +the safe.”</p> + +<p>“Of course not,” said Mr. Hudsley, in a tone so dry +that it seemed to rasp his throat.</p> + +<p>“And yet I cannot understand, my poor uncle’s outbreak, +except by attributing it to delirium.”</p> + +<p>“Hem!” said Mr. Hudsley. “Well, in case there should +have been any meaning and significance in it, my clerk +and I will make a careful search to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” murmured Stephen, “and I devoutly trust that +should a later will be in existence, you may find it.”</p> + +<p>“I hope we may,” said Mr. Hudsley. “Good-night!”</p> + +<p>Stephen accompanied him to the door as he had accompanied +the doctor and Jack, and saw him into the +brougham, and then turned back into the house with a +look of release, which, however, gradually changed to one +of lurking fear and indefinite dread.</p> + +<p>“Conscience makes cowards of us all.”</p> + +<p>It makes a worse coward of Stephen Davenant than he +was naturally.</p> + +<p>As he stood in the deserted hall, and +looked round, at its vast dimness, at the carved gallery +and staircase, somber and dull for want of varnish, and +listened to the faint, ghostly noises made by the awe-stricken<span class="pagenum">[46]</span> +servants moving to and fro overhead, a chill crept +over him, and he wished that he had kept one of them, +even Jack, to bear him company.</p> + +<p>With fearful gaze he peered into the darkness, scarcely +daring to cross the hall and enter the library. For all +the stillness, he fancied he could hear that last shriek of +the dying man ringing through the house; for all the +darkness, the slim, bent figure seemed to be moving to and +fro, the dark piercing eyes turned upon him with furious +accusation. Even when he had summoned up courage +to enter the library, locking the door after him, the eyes +seemed to follow him, and with a shudder that shook him +from head to foot he poured out a glass of brandy and +drank it down.</p> + +<p>The Spirit of Evil certainly invented brandy for cowards.</p> + +<p>Stephen set down the empty glass and looked round +the room—another man.</p> + +<p>He even smiled in a ghostly kind of fashion as he took +the will from his pocket and opened it.</p> + +<p>“Poor Jack!” he murmured, with a sardonic display of +the white teeth. “This no doubt makes you master of +Hurst Leigh; but Providence has decreed that the spendthrift +shall be disappointed. Yes, I am the humble +instrument chosen. I am——”</p> + +<p>He stopped suddenly with a start, for he had been reading +as he soliloquized, and he had come upon words that +struck him to the very heart’s core.</p> + +<p>Was he dreaming, or had his senses taken leave of him?</p> + +<p>With beating heart and white, parched lips he stared at +the paper until the lines of crabbed handwriting danced +before his astounded eyes.</p> + +<p>If brevity is the soul of wit, old Ralph Davenant’s will +was wit itself. It consisted of five paragraphs.</p> + +<p>The first was merely the usual preamble declaring the +testator to be of sound mind.</p> + +<p>The second ran thus:</p> + +<p>“To John Newcombe I will and bequeath the sum of +fifty thousand pounds, the said sum to be realized by the +sale or transfer of bonds and stocks, at the discretion of +James Hudsley.”<span class="pagenum">[47]</span></p> + +<p>Enough in this to move Stephen, but it paled into insignificance +before what followed:</p> + +<p>“To my nephew, Stephen Davenant, I will and bequeath +the set of Black’s sermons in twenty-nine volumes, standing +on the second shelf in the library, having remarked +the affection which the said Stephen Davenant bore the +said volumes, and accepting his repeated assertions that +his attendance upon me was wholly disinterested.”</p> + +<p>An ugly flash and an evil glitter swept over Stephen’s +white face and eyes, and his teeth ground together maliciously.</p> + +<p>“To each and every one of my servants I bequeath the +sum of one hundred pounds, such sum to be forfeited by +each and every one who assumes mourning for my death, +which each and every one has anxiously looked forward to.</p> + +<p>“And lastly, I will and bequeath the remainder of my +property of whatsoever kind, be it money, houses, lands, +or property of any description, to my only daughter and +child, Eunice Davenant, the same to be held in trust for +her sole use and benefit by James Hudsley.</p> + +<p>“And I hereby inform him, and the world at large, that +the said Eunice Davenant is the only issue of my marriage +with Caroline Hatfield; that the said marriage was celebrated +in secret at the Church of Armfield, in Sussex, in +June, 18—. And that the said Eunice Davenant, my +daughter, is in the keeping of one Gideon Rolfe, woodman, +of Warden Forest, who has reared her as his own +child, and who is unacquainted with the facts of my +secret marriage, and I decree and appoint James Hudsley +sole guardian, trustee, and ward of the aforesaid Eunice +Davenant, and at her hands I crave forgiveness for my +neglect of her mother and herself.</p> + +<div class="sign"> +<span class="ri6">“(Signed)</span><span class="ri4 smcap">Ralph Davenant,</span><br /> +<span class="ri0">“Hurst Leigh.</span><br /> +<span class="ri4">“Witness—George Goodman,</span><br /> +<span class="ri0">“Coachman, Hurst Leigh.</span><br /> +<span class="ri4">“Martha Goodman,</span><br /> +<span class="ri0">“Cook, Hurst Leigh.”</span></div> + +<p class="r2">White, breathless, Stephen held the paper in his clinched +hands and stared at the astounding contents.<span class="pagenum">[48]</span></p> + +<p>Eunice Davenant the squire’s daughter.</p> + +<p>His overstrained brain refused to realize it.</p> + +<p>Old Ralph Davenant married! Married! It was impossible.</p> + +<p><i>Oh, yes, that was it.</i> A smile, a ghastly smile shone +on his face. <i>It was a joke</i>—a vile, malicious joke, worthy +of the crabbed, misanthropical old man! A villainous +joke, set down just to bring about litigation, and create +trouble and confusion between the two young men, himself +and Jack Newcombe. And yet—and the smile died away +and left his face fearful and haggard—and yet that awful +fury of the dying man when he knew that the will had +been stolen.</p> + +<p>No, it was no jest. The marriage had taken place; there +<i>was</i> a daughter, and she was the heiress of all that immense, +untold wealth, except the fifty thousand pounds +left to Jack Newcombe, while he—he, Stephen Davenant, +the next of kin, the man who had been working, lying, +toadying for the money, was left with a set of musty sermons.</p> + +<p>Rage filled his heart; stifling, choking with fury, the +disappointed schemer struck the senseless paper with his +clinched fist, and ground his teeth at it; then, suddenly, +as if by a swift inspiration, he remembered that this accursed +will, which would reduce him to beggary, and +leave an unknown girl and his hated cousin wealthy, +was in his hands; that he and he only knew of its existence. +With a sudden revulsion of feeling he sprang to +his feet, and held the paper at arm’s length and laughed +softly at it, as if it were endued with sense, and could +appreciate its helplessness.</p> + +<p>Then he drew the candle near, folded the paper into a +third of its size, held it to the candle—and drew it back +again, overcome by that fascination which almost invariably +exercises itself on such occasions—that peculiar +reluctance to destroy the thing whose existence can destroy +the possessor.</p> + +<p>The flame flickered and licked the frail paper; the +smoke curled round its edge; and yet—and yet he could +not destroy it.</p> + +<p>Instead, he sat down, and with clinched teeth unfolded<span class="pagenum">[49]</span> +the will and read it—read it again and again, until every +word was burned and seared into his brain.</p> + +<p>“Eunice Davenant! Eunice Davenant! Curse her!” +he groaned out.</p> + +<p>But even as the words left his lips a sound rose, the unmistakable +tap—tap of something—some finger striking +the window-pane.</p> + +<p>Biting his bloodless lips to prevent himself calling out +in his ecstasy of fear, he thrust the will into his pocket, +caught up the candle, swept the curtains aside, and started +back.</p> + +<p>The light fell full upon the face of a young girl.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + + +<p>The face at the window was that of a young girl of +about two-and-twenty.</p> + +<p>It would be hard to say whether Stephen Davenant +was pleased or annoyed by this apparition. That he was +surprised there could be no doubt, for he almost dropped +the candle in his astonishment, and fumbled at the lock +of the window for some moments before he could open it.</p> + +<p>“Laura!” he exclaimed, “can it be you? Great Heavens! +Impossible!”</p> + +<p>With a little gasp of relief and suppressed excitement, +the girl stepped into the room, and leaned upon his arm, +panting with a commingling of weariness and fear.</p> + +<p>“My dear Laura,” he said, still holding the candle, +“how did you come here? Why——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Stephen, is it really you? I was afraid that I +had made some mistake—that I had come all this way——”</p> + +<p>“You do not mean to say you have come all the way +from London alone—alone!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have come all the way from London. Do not +be angry with me, Stephen. I—I could not wait any +longer. It seemed so long! Why did you leave me without +a word? I did not know whether you were alive or +dead. Three weeks—think, three weeks! How could +you do it?”</p> + +<p>“Hush! hush! Do not speak so loud,” he whispered. +“Did anyone see you come in?”<span class="pagenum">[50]</span></p> + +<p>“No one. I have been waiting in the shrubs for—oh, +hours! I saw the visitors go away—an old gentleman +and a young one—and I saw your shadow behind the +blind,” and she pointed to the window. “I have been +outside waiting, and dreading to knock in case you should +not be alone.”</p> + +<p>“You—you saw my shadow?” he said, with an uneasy +smile. “Did you see—I mean, what was I doing?”</p> + +<p>“I did not see distinctly; I was listening for voices. +Oh, Stephen, I am so weary!”</p> + +<p>He drew a chair for her, and, motioning her to sit, +mixed a glass of brandy-and-water, and stood over her +holding her wrist and looking down at her with an uneasy +smile.</p> + +<p>“Now,” he said, taking the glass from her, “tell me all +about it—how you came, and why? Speak in a whisper.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t need to ask me why, Stephen,” she said, +leaning forward and laying her hand upon his arm, her +dark eyes fixed on his half-hidden ones. “Why did you +leave me so long without a word?”</p> + +<p>“I will tell you directly,” he answered. “Tell me how +you came—alone! Great Heaven!”</p> + +<p>“Alone, yes; why not? I was not afraid. I came by +the train.”</p> + +<p>“But—but——” he said, with a little flush and a shifting +glance, “how did you know where I was?”</p> + +<p>“You would never guess! You do not deserve that I +should tell you. Well, I followed Slummers!”</p> + +<p>“Followed Slummers!” he echoed, with a forced smile.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I met him in the street; you are going to ask +me why I did not ask him where you were,” she broke off +with a smile and a shake of her head.</p> + +<p>“Because I knew he would not tell me. Stephen, I do +not like that man, and he does not like me. Why do you +trust him so?”</p> + +<p>“You followed Slummers—well?”</p> + +<p>“To the station. I was behind him when he took his +ticket, and I took one for the same place. I was quite +close behind him, but he did not see me. I got into the +train at the last moment, and I followed him from the +station here.”<span class="pagenum">[51]</span></p> + +<p>“My dear Laura,” he murmured, soothingly; “how +rash, how thoughtless!”</p> + +<p>“Was it?” she said. “Perhaps it was. I did not stop +to think.”</p> + +<p>“But now—now what are you to do?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be angry with me, Stephen, now I <i>am</i> here. +You must tell me what I am to do.” Then her eyes wandered +round the house. “What a large house! Is it yours, +Stephen?”</p> + +<p>“Eh?” he said, starting slightly. “I—I—don’t know—I +mean it was my uncle’s. I was going to write to-night +and tell you where I was, and why I did not write before.”</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you?” she said, with gentle reproach.</p> + +<p>“Because,” he replied, “I could not—it was impossible. +I could not leave the house, and could not trust the letter +to a servant. My uncle has been very ill: he—he—lies +dead up-stairs.”</p> + +<p>“Up-stairs! Oh, Stephen!”</p> + +<p>“You see,” he exclaimed reproachfully, “that I have a +good excuse, that I have not desert—left you without a +word for no cause.”</p> + +<p>“Forgive me, Stephen, dear!” she murmured, penitently. +“Do not be angry with me. Say you are glad +to see me now I have come.”</p> + +<p>“Of course I am glad to see you, but I am not glad you +have come, my dear Laura. What am I to do with you? +I am not alone here, you know. The house is full of +servants; any moment someone may come in. Think of +the awkward position in which your precipitancy has +placed me—has placed both of us!”</p> + +<p>“I never thought of that—I did not know. Why did +you not tell me you were with your uncle? Oh, Stephen, +why have you hidden things from me?”</p> + +<p>“Hidden things?” he echoed, with ill-concealed impatience. +“I did not think that it was worth telling. +I did not know that I was coming—I was fetched suddenly. +Now that I come to think of it, I told Slummers +to call and tell you.”</p> + +<p>“And he forgot it—on purpose. I hate Slummers!”<span class="pagenum">[52]</span></p> + +<p>“Poor Slummers!” murmured Stephen. “Never mind +him, however. We must think now of what is to be done +with you. You—you cannot stay here.”</p> + +<p>“Can I not? No, I suppose not. I can go back,” she +added, with a touch of bitterness.</p> + +<p>“My darling,” he said, coaxingly, “I am afraid you +must go back. There is an up-train—the last—in half an +hour.”</p> + +<p>The girl leaned back and clasped her hands in her lap.</p> + +<p>“I am very sorry,” he said, grasping her arm; “but +what can I do? You cannot stay here. That’s impossible. +There is only one inn in the place, and your appearance +there would arouse curiosity, and—oh, <i>that</i>, too, is +quite impossible! My poor Laura, why did you come?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said, slowly, “it was foolish to come. You +are not glad to see me, Stephen.”</p> + +<p>He bent over her and kissed her, but she put him from +her with a touch of her hand, and rose wearily.</p> + +<p>“I will go,” she said. “Yes, I was wrong to come. +Tell me the way,” and she drew her jacket close.</p> + +<p>“Don’t look so grieved, dear,” he murmured. “What +am I to do? If there was any place—but there is not. +See, I will come with you to the station. We shall have +to walk, I am afraid; I dare not order a carriage. My +poor child, if you had only foreseen these difficulties.”</p> + +<p>“Do not say any more,” she interrupted coldly. “I am +quite convinced of my folly and am ready to go.”</p> + +<p>“Sit down and wait while I get my hat. We must +get away unobserved. Suspicious eyes are watching my +every movement to-night. I can’t tell you all, but I will +soon. Sit down, my darling; I will not be gone a moment. +If anyone comes to the door, step through the +window and conceal yourself.”</p> + +<p>Unlocking the door noiselessly he went out, turning +the key after him.</p> + +<p>Barely a minute elapsed before he was in the room +again.</p> + +<p>Warm though the night was he put on an overcoat +and turned up the collar so that it hid the lower part +of his face.</p> + +<p>Locking the door after him, he came up to the table,<span class="pagenum">[53]</span> +poured out another glass of brandy-and-water, and got +some biscuits.</p> + +<p>“Come,” he said, “you must eat some of these. Put +some in your pocket. And you must drink this, my poor +darling, or you will be exhausted.”</p> + +<p>She put back the glass and plate from her with a +gesture of denial.</p> + +<p>“I could not eat,” she said. “I do not want anything, +and I shall not be exhausted. Let us go; this house +makes me shudder,” and she moved to the window and +passed out.</p> + +<p>“Laura, my dear Laura,” murmured Stephen, in his +most dulcet tones, “why are you angry with me?”</p> + +<p>“I am not angry with you,” she said, and the voice, +cold and constrained, did not seem the same as that in +which she had greeted him a quarter of an hour ago. “I +am angry with myself; I am filled with self-scorn.”</p> + +<p>“My dear Laura,” he began, soothingly, but she interrupted +him with a gesture.</p> + +<p>“You are quite right; I was wrong to come. You +have not said so in so many words, but your face, your +eyes, your very smile have told me so plainly.”</p> + +<p>“What have I said?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing,” she answered, without hesitation, and with +the same air of cold conviction. “If you had said angry +words, had been harsh and annoyed openly, and yet been +glad to see me, I could have forgiven myself, but you +were not glad to see me. If I had been in your place—but +I am a woman. Don’t say any more. Is the station +near?”</p> + +<p>“My dear Laura,” murmured Stephen for the third +time, and now more softly than ever, “more must be said. +I am anxious, naturally anxious, to learn whether this—this +sudden journey can be concealed.”</p> + +<p>It was quite true, he was anxious, very anxious—on +his own account.<span class="pagenum">[54]</span></p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + + +<p>“Come,” he said; “it is all right, then. Do not take +the matter so seriously, my darling Laura. The worst +part of it is that you should have made such a journey +alone, and have to go back alone, and at night! That is +what grieves me. If I could but go with you—and yet +that would scarcely be wise—but it is impossible under +the circumstances. Come, give me your arm, my dear +Laura.”</p> + +<p>A little shiver ran through her frame, and she caught +her breath with a stifled sob.</p> + +<p>“Come, come, my darling,” he murmured; “don’t look +back, look forward. In an hour or two you will be home.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think I am afraid?” she asked, and her voice +trembled, but not with fear. “No, I am looking back. +Oh, Stephen, do you remember when we met first?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” said Stephen, soothingly, and with an +anxious, sidelong look about—to be seen promenading the +high road with a young woman on his arm on the night +of his uncle’s death would be the ruin of his carefully built-up +reputation. “Yes, yes,” he murmured. “Shall I ever +forget? How fortunate you lost your way, Laura, and +that you should have come up to me to ask it, and that +I should have been going in that direction. And yet the +thoughtless speak of chance!”</p> + +<p>And he cast up his eyes with unctuous solemnity, +though there was no one in the dark road to be impressed +by it.</p> + +<p>“Chance,” said the girl, sadly—“an evil or a good +chance for me—which? Stephen, I sometimes wish that +we had never met—that I had not crossed your path, and +so have left the old life, with its dull, quiet and sober +grayness; but the die was cast that afternoon. I went +back to the quiet home, to the old man who had been my +father, mother and all to me, and life was changed.”</p> + +<p>“Your grandfather has no suspicion?”</p> + +<p>“No, he trusts me entirely. If he asks a question +when I go to meet you, he is satisfied when I tell him +that I am going to a neighbor. Stephen, if I had had a +mother, do you think I should have deceived her also?”<span class="pagenum">[55]</span></p> + +<p>“Deceived? Deceived is too harsh a word, my dear +Laura. We have been obliged, for various reasons, to use +some reserve—let us say candidly, to conceal our engagement. +You have not mentioned my name to anyone?” +he broke off.</p> + +<p>“To no one,” she answered.</p> + +<p>“Such concealment was necessary. My uncle was a +man of rough and hasty temper, ill-judging and merciless.”</p> + +<p>“But,” she said, with a sudden eagerness, and a slight +shudder, “he—he is dead now, Stephen. There is no +need for further concealment.”</p> + +<p>“Softly, softly, dear Laura. We must be patient—must +keep our little secret a little while longer. I can +trust my darling to confide in me—yes, yes, I know +that——”</p> + +<p>“Stephen, to-night for the first time—why, I know +not—I have doubted—no, not doubted, for I have fought +hard against the suspicion that I was wrong to trust +you.”</p> + +<p>“My dearest!” he murmured reproachfully.</p> + +<p>“You were wrong to leave me for so long without a word—you +put my love to too severe a test. I—I cannot say +whether it has stood it or not. To-night I am full of +doubt. Stephen—look at me!”</p> + +<p>He turned his face and looked down. He had not far +to look, for she was tall, and in the moment of excitement +had drawn herself to her full height. The moon, sailing +from amongst the clouds, shone on her upturned face; +her lips were set, and the dark eyes gleamed from the +white face.</p> + +<p>“Look at me, Stephen. If—I say if—there is the +faintest idea of treachery lurking in your mind——”</p> + +<p>“My dearest——”</p> + +<p>“Cast it out! Here, to-night, I warn you to cast it +out! Such love as mine is like a two-edged sword, it +cuts both ways, for love—or hate! Stephen, I have loved, +I have trusted you—for mine, for your own sake, be true +to me!”</p> + +<p>He was more impressed than alarmed. This side of +her character had been presented to him to-night for the<span class="pagenum">[56]</span> +first time. Hitherto the beautiful girl had been all smiles +and humble devotion. Was she bewitched, or had he been +mistaken in her. Perhaps it was the moon, but suddenly +his face looked paler than ever, and the white eyelids +drooped until they hid the shifting eyes, as he put his +arm around her.</p> + +<p>“My dearest! What can you mean? Deceive you! +Treachery! Can you deem me—<i>me</i>—capable of such +things. My dearest, you are overtired! And your +jacket has become unbuttoned. Listen, that is the railway +bell. Laura, you will not leave me with such words on +your lips?”</p> + +<p>“Forgive me, Stephen.”</p> + +<p>“I have done so already, dearest, and now we must +part! It is very hard—but—I cannot even go with you to +the platform. Someone might see us. It is for your sake, +darling.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, I know,” she said, with a sigh. “Good-bye—you +will write or come to me—when?”</p> + +<p>“Soon, in a day or two,” he said. “Do not be impatient. +There is much to be done; my poor uncle’s +funeral, you know. Good-bye. See! I will stay here and +watch the train off. Good-bye, dear, dear Laura!”</p> + +<p>She put her arm round him and returned his kiss, and +glided away, but at the turn of the road leading to the +station she turned and, holding up her hand, sent a word +back to him.</p> + +<p>It was:</p> + +<p>“Remember!”</p> + +<p>Stephen waited until the train puffed out of the station, +and not until it had flashed some distance did the set +smile leave his face.</p> + +<p>Then, with a rather puzzled and uneasy expression, he +turned and walked swiftly back to the house.</p> + +<p>His brain was in a whirl, the sudden appearance of +the young girl coming on the top of the other causes +of excitement bewildered him, and he felt that he had +need of all his accustomed coolness. The sudden peril +and danger of this accursed will demanded all his attention, +and yet the thought of the girl would force itself +upon him. He had met her, as she had said, in the<span class="pagenum">[57]</span> +streets, and had commenced an acquaintance which had +resulted in an engagement. Alone and unprotected, save +for an old grandfather, and innocent of the world, Laura +Treherne had been, as it were, fascinated by the smooth, +soft-spoken Stephen, from whose ready tongue vows of +love and devotion rolled as easily as the scales from a +serpent in spring-time. And he, for his part, was smitten +by the dark eyes and quick, impulsive way of the warm-hearted +girl.</p> + +<p>But there had come upon him of late a suspicion that +in binding himself to marry her he had committed a +false step; to-night the suspicion grew into something +like certainty.</p> + +<p>To tell the truth, she had almost frightened him. +Hitherto the dark eyes had ever turned on his with +softened gaze of love and admiration; to-night, for the +first time, the hot, passionate nature had revealed itself.</p> + +<p>The deep-toned “Remember!” which came floating down +the lane as she disappeared rang unpleasantly in his ears. +Had he been a true-hearted man the girl’s spirit would +have made her more precious in his eyes; but, coward-like, +he felt that hers was a stronger nature than his, +and he began to fear.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he muttered, as he unlocked the library window, +and sank into a chair. “It was a weak stroke, a weak +stroke! But I can’t think of what is to be done now, not +now!”</p> + +<p>No, for to-night all his attention must be concentrated +on the will.</p> + +<p>Wiping the perspiration from his brow, he lit another +candle. This time nothing should prevent him from destroying +the accursed thing which stood between him and +wealth; he would burn it at once—at once. With feverish +eagerness he thrust his hand in his coat, then staggered +and fell back white as death.</p> + +<p><i>The pocket was empty. The will was not there.</i></p> + +<p>“I—I am a fool!” he muttered, with a smile. “I put +it in the other coat,” and he snatched up the overcoat, +but a glance, a touch showed him that it was not there +either.</p> + +<p>Wildly, madly he searched each pocket in vain, went on<span class="pagenum">[58]</span> +his knees and felt, as if he could not trust his sight alone, +every inch of the carpet; turned up the hearth-rug, almost +tore up the carpet itself, shook the curtains, and +still hunted and searched long after the conviction had +forced itself upon his mind that in no part of the room +could the thing be hidden.</p> + +<p>Then he paused, pressing his hand to his brow and +biting his livid lips. Let him think—think—think! +Where could it be? He had not dropped it on the stairs +or in any other part of the house, for he remembered, he +could swear, that he had felt the thing as he stood in the +study buttoning up his overcoat. If not in the house, +where then?</p> + +<p>Throwing aside all caution in his excitement, he unfastened +the window, and, candle in hand, examined the +grand terrace, traced every step which he had taken +across the lawn—and all to no purpose.</p> + +<p>“It is lying in the road,” he muttered, the sweat dropping +from his face. “Heaven! lying glaring there, for +any country clown to pick up and ruin me. I must—I +will find it! Brandy—I must have some brandy—this—this +is maddening me!”</p> + +<p>And indeed he seemed mad, for though he knew he +had not passed it, he went back, still peering on the +ground, the candle held above his head. Suddenly he +stumbled up against some object, and, looking up, saw +the tall figure of a man standing right in his path. With +a wolfish cry of mingled fear and rage, he dropped the +candle and sprang on to him.</p> + +<p>“You—you thief!” he cried, hoarsely; “give it to me—give +it me!”</p> + +<p>The man made an effort to unlock the mad grasp of +the hands round his throat, then scientifically and coolly +knocked his assailant down, and, holding him down writhing, +struck a match.</p> + +<p>Gasping and foaming, Stephen looked up and saw that +it was Jack Newcombe—Jack Newcombe regarding him +with cool, contemptuous surprise and suspicion.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he said contemptuously, “so it’s you! Are +you out of your mind?” and he flung the match away +and allowed Stephen to rise.<span class="pagenum">[59]</span></p> + +<p>Trembling and struggling for composure, Stephen +brushed the dust from his black coat and stood rubbing +his chest, for Jack’s blow had been straight from the +shoulder.</p> + +<p>“What have you got to say for yourself?” said Jack, +sternly. “I asked you if you had gone mad. What are +you doing here with a candle, and behaving like a lunatic?”</p> + +<p>Stephen made a mighty effort for composure, and a +ghastly smile struggled to his face.</p> + +<p>“My dear Jack, how you startled me!” he gasped. “I +was never so frightened in my—my life!”</p> + +<p>“So it appeared,” said Jack, with strong disgust in his +voice. “Pick up the candle—there it is.”</p> + +<p>And he pointed with his foot. But Stephen was by no +means anxious for a light.</p> + +<p>“Never mind the candle,” he said. “You are quite +right—I must have seemed out of my mind. I—I am +very much upset, my dear Jack.”</p> + +<p>“Are you hurt?” inquired Jack, but with no great +show of concern.</p> + +<p>“No, no!” gasped Stephen; “don’t distress yourself, +my dear Jack—don’t, I beg of you. It was my fault, entirely. +The—the fact is that I——”</p> + +<p>He paused, for Jack had got the candle, lit it, and held +it up so that the light fell upon Stephen’s face.</p> + +<p>“Now,” he said, his tone plainly intimating that he +would prefer to see Stephen’s face while he made his +explanation.</p> + +<p>“The fact is,” Stephen began again, “I have had the +misfortune to lose a pocketbook—no, not a pocketbook, +that is scarcely correct, but a paper which I fancied I +had put in my pocketbook, and which must have dropped +out. It—it was a draft of a little legal document which +my lawyer had sent me—of no value, utterly valueless—oh, +quite——”</p> + +<p>“So I should judge from the calm way in which you +accused the first man you met of stealing it,” said Jack, +with quiet scorn.</p> + +<p>Stephen bit his lip, and a glance of hate and suspicion +shot from under his eyelids.<span class="pagenum">[60]</span></p> + +<p>“Pray forgive me, my dear Jack,” he said, pressing his +hand to his brow, and sighing. “If you had sat up for +so many nights, and were so worn and overwrought, you +would have some sympathy with my overstrained nerves. +I am much shaken to-night, my dear Jack—very much +shaken.”</p> + +<p>And indeed he was, for the Savage’s fist was by no +means a soft one.</p> + +<p>Jack looked at him in silence for a moment, then held +the candle toward him.</p> + +<p>“You had better go to the house and get some of the +servants to help you look for the paper,” he said. “Good-night.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it is of no consequence,” said Stephen, eagerly. +“Don’t go—stop a moment, my dear Jack. I—I will +walk with you as far as the inn.”</p> + +<p>“No, thanks,” said Jack, curtly; then, as a suspicious +look gleamed in Stephen’s eyes, he added: “Oh, I see! you +are afraid I should pick it up in the road. You had +better come.”</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled, and laid his hand on Jack’s arm.</p> + +<p>“You—you are not playing a joke with me, my dear +Jack? You haven’t got the—document in your pocket all +the time?”</p> + +<p>“If I said that I hadn’t you wouldn’t believe me, you +know,” he replied. “There, take your hand off my coat!”</p> + +<p>“Stop! stop!” exclaimed Stephen, with a ghostly attempt +at a laugh. “Don’t go, my dear Jack; stop at +the house to-night. I should feel very much obliged, indeed, +if you would. I am so upset to-night that I—I +want company. Let me beg of you to stop.”</p> + +<p>And in his dread lest Jack should escape out of sight, +he held on to his arm.</p> + +<p>Jack shook him with so emphatic a movement of disgust +that Stephen was in imminent danger of making a +further acquaintance with the lawn.</p> + +<p>“Go indoors,” he said sternly, “and leave me alone. I’d +rather not sleep under the same roof with you. As for +your lost paper, whatever it may be, you had better look +for it in the morning, unless you want to get into further +trouble,” and he turned on his heel and disappeared.<span class="pagenum">[61]</span></p> + +<p>Stephen waited until he had got at a safe distance, and, +blowing out the candle, followed down the road with +stealthy footsteps, keeping a close watch on the rapidly-striding +figure, and examining the road at the same time. +But all to no purpose; Jack reached and entered the inn +without stopping, and neither going nor returning could +Stephen see anything of the missing will.</p> + +<p>Two hours afterward he crept back and staggered into +the library more dead than alive, one question rankling in +his disordered brain.</p> + +<p>Had Jack Newcombe found the will, and, if not, where +was it?</p> + +<p>After a time the paroxysm of fear and despair passed, +and left him calmer. His acute brain, overwhelmed but +not crushed out, began to recover itself, and he turned +the situation round and round until he had come to a +plan of action.</p> + +<p>It was not a very definite one, it was rather vague, +but it was the most reasonable one he could think of.</p> + +<p>There in Warden Forest, living as the daughter of a +woodman, who was himself ignorant of her legitimacy, +was the girl. I am sorry to say that he cursed her as +he thought of her. Where was the will? Whoever had +got it would no doubt come to him first to make terms, +and, failing to make them, would go to the real heiress.</p> + +<p>Stephen, quick as lightning, resolved to take her away.</p> + +<p>But where?</p> + +<p>He did not much care for the present, so that it was +somewhere under his eyes, or in the charge—the custody, +really—of a trustworthy friend.</p> + +<p>The only really trustworthy friend whom Stephen knew +was his mother.</p> + +<p>“Yes, that is it,” he muttered. “Mother shall take +this girl as—as—a companion. Poor mother, some great +ignorant, clodhopping wench who will frighten her into a +nervous fit. Poor mother!” And he smiled with a +feeble, malicious pleasure.</p> + +<p>There are some men who take a delight in causing pain +even to those who are devoted to them.</p> + +<p>“Dear mother,” he wrote, “I have to send you the sad +news of my uncle’s death. Need I say that I am utterly<span class="pagenum">[62]</span> +overwhelmed in grief. I have indeed lost a friend!” (“The +malicious, mean old wolf,” he muttered, in parenthesis.) +“How good he was to me! But, mother, even in the +midst of our deepest sorrows, we must not forget the +calls of charity. I have a little duty to perform, in which +I require your aid. I fear it will necessitate your making +a journey to Wermesley station on this line. If you will +come down by the 10:20 on Wednesday, I will meet you +at Wermesley station. Do not mention your journey, my +dear mother; we must not be forgetful that we are enjoined +to do good by stealth.</p> + +<div class="sign"> +<span class="ri6">“In great affliction,</span><br /> +<span class="ri4">“Your loving son,</span><br /> +“<span class="smcap">Stephen Davenant</span>.”<br /> +</div> + +<p class="r2">It was a beautiful letter, and clearly proved that Stephen +was not only a bad man, but an extremely clever and dangerous +one—for he could retain command over himself +even in such moments as these.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + + +<p>Let us hasten from the gloomy atmosphere of Hurst +Leigh, and, leaving the presence of the thwarted old man +lying upstairs, and the no less thwarted young man writhing +in torturing dread in the darkened library, return to +Warden Forest.</p> + +<p>With fleet feet Una fled from the lake, the voices of +the woodman and Jack Newcombe ringing in her ears, a +thousand tumultuous emotions surging wildly in her heart.</p> + +<p>Until the preceding night Gideon Rolfe had seemed +the calmest and most placable of fathers; nothing had +occurred to ruffle his almost studied impassability. New +and strange experiences seemed to crowd upon her so suddenly +that she scarcely accepted them as real. Had she +been dreaming, and would she wake presently to find the +handsome young stranger, with his deep musical voice, +and his dark, eloquent eyes, the phantom of a vision?</p> + +<p>As she came in sight of the cottage she turned aside +and, plunging into the depths of the wood, sank down +upon a bank of moss and strove to recall every word,<span class="pagenum">[63]</span> +every look, every slight incident, which had passed since +the arrival of the stranger; and, as she did so, she seemed +vaguely conscious that a change, indefinite yet undeniable, +had fallen upon her life. The very trees, the atmosphere +itself, seemed changed, and in place of that perfect, unbroken +calm which had hitherto enwrapped her life, a +spirit of unrest, of vague longing, took possession of her.</p> + +<p>A meteor had crossed the calm, serene sky of her existence, +vanishing as quickly as it had come, and creating +a strange, aching void.</p> + +<p>Still it was not at all painful, this novel feeling of +wistfulness and unrest; a faint echo of some mysterious +delight rang in the inner chambers of her young soul, the +newly awakened heart stirred within her like an imprisoned +bird, and turned to the new light which had dawned +upon her. That it was the celestial light of love she was +completely ignorant. She only knew and felt, with all +the power of mind and soul, that a spirit had fallen upon +her life, that she had, half-blinded, left the road of gray, +unbroken calm, never to return—never to return.</p> + +<p>Step by step she recalled all that had passed, and sat +revolving the strange scene with ever-increasing wonder.</p> + +<p>What did it mean? Why should her father be angry +with the youth? Why should he accuse and insult him, +and drive her away as if from the presence of some wild +animal who was seeking to devour her?</p> + +<p>Wild animal! A smile, sad and wistful, flitted over +her beautiful face as she called up the handsome face +and graceful form of the youth. Was it possible that one +so base as her father declared him to be could look as +this youth had looked, speak as he had spoken? With a +faint, tremulous, yet unconscious blush, she remembered +how graceful he looked lying at her feet, his lips half +parted in a smile, his brow frank and open as a child’s.</p> + +<p>And yet he himself had said, half sadly, that he was +wild and wicked. What could it mean?</p> + +<p>Innocent as a nun, ignorant of all that belonged to +the real living world, she sat vainly striving to solve this, +the first enigma of her inner life.</p> + +<p>Once, as she sat thinking and pondering, her eyes cast +down, her brows knit, her fingers strayed to her right arm<span class="pagenum">[64]</span> +with a gentle, almost caressing touch. It was the arm +upon which Jack’s hand had rested: even now she seemed +to feel the pressure of the strong fingers just as she heard +the ring of his deep, musical voice, and could feel the +gaze of his dark, flashing eyes; they had looked fierce and +savage when she had first seen them at the open door of +the cottage last night, but this morning they had worn +a different expression—a tender, half-pitying, and wholly +gentle expression, which softened them. It was thus she +liked to remember them—thus she would remember them +if she never saw them again.</p> + +<p>And as this thought flashed across her mind a wistful +sadness fell upon her, and a vague pain came into her +heart. Should she never see him again? Never! She +looked round mournfully, and lo! the whole world seemed +changed; the sun was still shining, the trees were still +crowned in all their glory of summer leafage, but it all +looked gray and dark to her; all the beauty and glory +which she had learned to love had gone—vanished at the +mere thought that she should never see him again.</p> + +<p>Slowly she rose, and with downcast eyes moved toward +the cottage. She passed in at the open door and looked +round the room—that, too, seemed altered, something was +missing; half-consciously she wandered round, touching +with the same half-caressing gesture the chair on which +Jack Newcombe had sat, opened the book at the page +which she was reading while he was eating his supper; +a spell seemed to have fallen upon her, and it was with +a start like one awakening from a dream that she turned +as a shadow fell across the room and Gideon Rolfe entered.</p> + +<p>She turned and looked at him questioningly, curiously, +but without fear. The cry of alarm when he had broken +in upon them by the lake had been on Jack’s account, not +her own; never since she could remember had Gideon +Rolfe spoken harshly to her, looked angrily; without a +particle of fear, rather with a vague wonder, she looked +and waited for him to speak.</p> + +<p>The old man’s face wore a strange expression; all +traces of the fierce passion which had convulsed it a short<span class="pagenum">[65]</span> +time ago had passed away, and in its place was a stern +gravity which was almost sad in its grim intensity.</p> + +<p>Setting his ax aside, he paced the room for a minute +in silence, his brows knit, his hands clasped behind his +back.</p> + +<p>Una glided to the window and looked out into the +wood, her head leaning on her arm.</p> + +<p>“Una,” he said, suddenly, his voice troubled and grave, +but not unkind.</p> + +<p>She started, and looked around at him; her spirit had +fled back to the lake again, and she had almost forgotten +that he was in the room.</p> + +<p>“Una, you must not wander in the forest alone again.”</p> + +<p>“No! Why not?”</p> + +<p>He hesitated a moment, as if he did not know how to +answer her; then he said, with a frown:</p> + +<p>“Because I do not wish it—because the man you saw +here last night, the man you were with by the lake, may +come again”—a faint light of gladness shone in her eyes, +and he saw it, and frowned sternly as he went on—“and +I do not wish you to meet him.”</p> + +<p>She was silent for a moment, her eyes downcast, her +hands tightly clasped in front of her; then she looked up.</p> + +<p>“Father, tell me why you spoke so angrily to him—why +do you not want him to come to Warden again?”</p> + +<p>“I spoke as he deserved,” he answered; “and I would +rather that Warden should be filled with wild beasts than +that he should cross your path again.”</p> + +<p>Her face paled slightly, and her eyes opened with +wonder and pain.</p> + +<p>“Is he so very bad and wicked?” she asked, almost inaudibly.</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe strode to and fro for a moment before +he answered. How should he answer her?—how warn and +caution her without destroying the innocence which, like +the sensitive plant, withers at a touch?</p> + +<p>“Is it not sufficient that I wish it, Una?” he said. +“Why are you not satisfied? Wicked! Yes, he’s wicked; +all men are wicked, and he’s the most wicked and base!”</p> + +<p>“You know him, father?” she asked. “You would not +say so if you did not. I am sorry he is so bad.”<span class="pagenum">[66]</span></p> + +<p>“Look at me, Una,” he said.</p> + +<p>She turned, her eyes downcast and hidden, her lips +trembling for a moment.</p> + +<p>“Yes, father.”</p> + +<p>“Una,” he said, “what is the meaning of this? Why are +you changed—why do you shrink from me?”</p> + +<p>She looked up with a curious mixture of innocent +pride and dignity.</p> + +<p>“I don’t shrink from you, father,” she said in a low +voice.</p> + +<p>Gideon’s hand dropped from her shoulder, and the +frown gave place to a sad expression. “Has the time +I looked forward to with fear and dread come at last?” +he murmured, inaudibly, and he paced to and fro again, +as if endeavoring to arrive at some decision.</p> + +<p>Una watched him with dreamy, questioning eyes, in +which shone a tender mournfulness. Why were all men +wicked? Why was this one man, with the handsome face +and the musical voice, more wicked than the rest? What +was it that her father knew that should make him hate the +youth so? These were the questions that haunted her as +she waited silent and motionless.</p> + +<p>At last, with a wave of the hand, as if he were putting +some decision on one side, Gideon Rolfe turned to her +and motioned her to the window-seat. “Una,” he said, +“last night you were wondering why your lot should be +different from that of other girls; you were wondering +why I have kept you here in Warden, and out of the +world. It is so, is it not?”</p> + +<p>She did not answer in words, but her eyes said “yes,” +plainly.</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe sighed, and passed his hand over his +brow; it was a hand hardened by toil, but it was not the +hand of a peasant, any more than was his tone or his +words those of one.</p> + +<p>“Una, I have foreseen this question; I have been expecting +it, and I had resolved that when it came I would +answer it. But,” and his lips twitched, “I cannot do it—I +cannot,” and his brow contracted as if he were suffering +some great, mental anguish. “For my sake, do not press +me. In time to come, sooner or later, you must know<span class="pagenum">[67]</span> +the secret of your life, you must learn why and wherefore +your whole life has been spent in seclusion; you have +guessed that there is some mystery, some story—there is. +It must remain a mystery still. For your own sake I dare +not draw aside the veil which conceals; for your own +sake my lips are for the present sealed. Child, can you +tell me that, secluded and lonely as your life has been, it +has been an unhappy one?”</p> + +<p>“Father!” she murmured, and her eyes filled slowly.</p> + +<p>“God forgive me if it has been!” he said, sadly. “I +have striven to make it a happy one.”</p> + +<p>Silently she rose and laid her hand upon his arm and +put up her lips to kiss him, but with a gentle gesture he +put her away from him.</p> + +<p>“Una, listen to me. All my life I have had but one +aim, one purpose, your happiness and welfare. For your +sake I left the world and an honored name——” he +stopped suddenly, warned by the gentle wonder of her +gaze, and with a faint color in his face hurried on—“for +your sake, and yours only. Do you think that it is by +choice that I have kept you hidden from the world? No, +but of necessity. Una, between the world and you yawns +a wide gulf. On this side are peace, and innocence, and +happiness; on the other,” and his voice grew grave and +solemn, “lie misery and—shame.” White and wondering, +she gazed at him, and the innocent wonder in the +beautiful face recalled him to himself. “Enough! You +can trust me, Una; it is no idle, meaningless warning. +Remember what I have said, when your thoughts turn to +the world beyond the forest, when you grow weary and +impatient with the quiet life which, though it may seem +sad and weary, is the only one you can ever know without +passing that gulf of which I have spoken.”</p> + +<p>“And now I want you to give me a promise, Una.”</p> + +<p>“A promise, father?” she echoed, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>“Yes; I want you to promise me that if this—this +young man should come, as he has threatened to do—that +if he should come to you, and speak to you, you will +not listen, will not speak to him.”</p> + +<p>An impatient frown knitted Gideon Rolfe’s brow.</p> + +<p>“Is this so much to ask you?” he said, in a low voice.<span class="pagenum">[68]</span> +“Is it so grave a thing to demand of you that you should +avoid a man whom you have seen but twice in your life, +one whom you know to be wicked and worthless?”</p> + +<p>“Girl,” he exclaimed, in low, harsh accents, “has the +curse fallen upon you—already? Has he bewitched you? +Speak? Why do you not speak? Has all the careful +guarding of years been set at naught and rendered of no +avail by the mere sight of one of his race, by a few +idle words spoken by one of his hateful kin?”</p> + +<p>He grasped her shoulder; instantly, with a revulsion of +feeling, he withdrew his hand, and bent his head with a +gesture almost of humility.</p> + +<p>“Una, forgive me. You see how this unmans me—can +you not understand how great must be the danger +from which I wish to save you? Promise me what I +ask you, for your own sake—ay, and for his.”</p> + +<p>“For his?” she murmured.</p> + +<p>“Yes, for his. Let him but attempt to cross your path +again, and I will not hold my hand. I held it once—would +to Heaven I had not! I say, for his sake, promise +that you will hold no speech with him!”</p> + +<p>“Father, what has he done to make you hate him so?” +she asked.</p> + +<p>“I cannot, I will not tell you more than this: His race +has ruined my life and yours—ruined it beyond all reparation +here and hereafter. No more. I wait for your promise.”</p> + +<p>“I promise,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Good,” he said. “I can trust you, child.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you can trust me,” she said, in a low voice; then +with slow, listless steps she crossed the room and stole +up-stairs.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + + +<p>The Savage, wholly unconscious of, and totally indifferent +to, the fact that his every footstep was watched +by Stephen, entered the “Bush” Inn and went straight +to his room, the little knot of regular customers, who +were drinking and smoking in the parlor, either rising +respectfully as he entered or maintaining an equally respectful +silence until he was out of hearing.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Jack’s a fine fellow,” said the landlord, looking<span class="pagenum">[69]</span> +at the fire solemnly. “Did you notice his face as he +went through? I’m afraid it’s all over with the old +squire. Well, well, rest his soul, I say. I’m not one to +bear grudges against the dead.”</p> + +<p>There was, if not a hearty, a unanimous assent to this +dutiful sentiment, and the landlord, encouraged, ventured +a little further, looking first over his shoulder to see if the +door was shut, and then glancing at a little wrinkled faced +man who sat in the corner by the fireplace, and looked, +in his rusty black suit, like a lawyer’s clerk, as indeed he +was.</p> + +<p>“All over now, Mr. Skettle,” said the landlord, with a +little cough. “I wonder—ahem—who’ll be the next +squire?”</p> + +<p>The old clerk peered out from under his hairless brows, +and shook his head with a dry smile; it was a very fair +imitation of his master’s, Mr. Hudsley’s, manner, and never +failed to impress the company at the “Bush.”</p> + +<p>“Aha!” he breathed. “Hem—yes. Time will prove—time +will prove, Jobson.”</p> + +<p>Jobson, the landlord, looked round and winked with impressive +admiration, as much as to say, “Deep fellow, +Skettle; knows all about it, mind you, but not a word!”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the parish clerk, with a shake of the +head, “if wishing would make the mare to go, I know who’d +be the Squire o’ Hurst,” and he pointed with his pipe to +the ceiling, above which the Savage was thoughtfully pacing +to and fro.</p> + +<p>“We’ve had enough o’ Davenants,” began the miller; +but Jobson stopped him with a warning gesture.</p> + +<p>“No names, South—no names; this air a public house, +and I’m a man as minds my own business.”</p> + +<p>“So was the last squire,” retorted the miller, who was +not to be put down—“leastways, he didn’t meddle or help +his neighbors. Not one shilling have I took from the +Hurst since I was that high. Is there a man in this room +as can say he’ll be a penny the worse for Squire Ralph’s +death?</p> + +<p>“And from what I see it seems to me that if things go +on as they appear to be going, we shan’t be much better +for the new squire, if the name’s to be the same.”<span class="pagenum">[70]</span></p> + +<p>“A nice spoken gentleman, Mr. Stephen,” muttered the +tailor, from behind the table.</p> + +<p>The miller smiled and shook his head.</p> + +<p>“There’s some grain as grinds so soft that you can’t keep +it on the ground from the wind; but it don’t make good +bread, neighbor. No! Now the youngster up above,” and +he jerked his head toward the ceiling, “he comes of a different +branch—same tree, mind yer, but a healthier branch. +It will be good news for Hurst Leigh if it’s found that +Master Jack is to be our head.”</p> + +<p>“Nothing soft about Mr. Jack. If all we hear be true, +it’s a pretty wild branch of the tree he comes from.”</p> + +<p>“They say he’s wild. No doubt; he always was. I can +remember him a boy home for the holidays. He used to +come down to the mill and poach my trout—a bit of a +boy no higher than that”—and he put his hand against +the table—“as fine a boy as ever I see. One day I caught +him, and told him I’d either give him a thrashing or tell +his uncle; for, do yer see, we allus called the old squire his +uncle.</p> + +<p>“‘All right,’ said he, ‘wait till I’ve landed this fish and +we’ll settle it between us like gentlemen.’ Another time +I found him in the orchard. ‘Well, Master Jack,’ says I, +‘bean’t you got enough apples at the Hurst, but you must +come and plague me?’ He thought a moment, then he +looks up with that audacious flash in his eyes, and says, +quiet enough: ‘Stolen fruit is the sweetest, South. If you +feel put upon, take it out of the Hurst Orchard. I give +you leave.’ What was to be done with a boy like that? +Fear! He didn’t know what fear was. Do any o’ you +remember that roan mare as the old parson had? Well, +Master Jack hears us talking o’ the spiteful beast one day, +and nothing ’ud do but he must go off and ask the parson +to let him ride ’un. Of course the old fellow said no. Two +nights after that the young varmint breaks open the stables, +takes out the mare, saddles her, and rides her out to +the common. I was late at the mill that night, and I +hears her come clattering down the yard like a fire-engine, +with Master Jack on her back, his eyes flashing and his +hair a-flying, and him a-laughing as if it was the rarest +bit o’ fun in the world. I’d just time to cut across the<span class="pagenum">[71]</span> +meadow to the five-barred fence, and here he come past me, +making straight for the fence, waving his hand and shouting +someut about Dick Turpin. Ah, and he took the fence, +too, and when that vicious beast threw him, and we came +up to him, lying all o’ a heap, with his arm broke, and +the blood streaming from his face—what’s he do but laugh +at us, and swear as we’d startled her! And as for fighting! +There warn’t a week but what he’d come to the mill, all cut +and mauled, for the missis to wash him and put him to +rights. He’d never go home to the Hurst those times. +Even then the old squire and him didn’t agree. The old +man called him a Savage, and I hear as that’s what they +call him up in London, and yet there warn’t a house in +Leigh as he warn’t welcome in. Many and many a time +he’s slept up in the mill loft after one of his harum-scarum +tricks, and many’s the time I’ve faced the old squire when +he’s come after him with a horsewhip.”</p> + +<p>“They say that he run through all the money, as was his +by rights, up in London in fast living,” said the parish +clerk, gravely.</p> + +<p>“May be,” said the miller, curtly. “If fast living means +open-handed living, it’s like enough; he never could keep +a shilling when he was a boy, the first tramp as passed had +it, safe as a gun. What’s bred in the bone must come out +in the flesh. Here’s to the new squire—if it be Master +Jack,” and the sturdy old man raised his glass and emptied +its contents at one vigorous but steady pull.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the subject of the discussion paced to and +fro, pulling at his brier, and indulging in a study of the +brownest description.</p> + +<p>Never perhaps in his life had Jack been so upset, so +serious and so sobered.</p> + +<p>In the first place the sudden—or rather sudden to Jack—death +of the old man with whom he had lived and quarreled +as a boy, affected him more deeply than even he was +aware. There in the silent room in the inn, he recalled all +the old man’s good qualities, all the little kindnesses he +had done him, Jack, and more than all, the few last solemn +and quite unexpectedly affectionate words which had +dropped from his dying lips.</p> + +<p>Jack, puffing at his pipe and rubbing his short hair with<span class="pagenum">[72]</span> +a puzzled frown, went over the scene again and again, and +with no mercenary thoughts of the old man’s declaration +that he had remembered Jack in his will, but with reference +to the mysterious allusions in the disposal of the large part +of the property; then Jack’s mind would fly off to the fearful +scene at the actual death.</p> + +<p>The wild cry, the white and horrified face of Stephen, +the puzzled and sternly questioning one of the old lawyer. +What did it mean?</p> + +<p>And still more mysterious, what was the meaning of +Stephen’s conduct on the lawn? What was he hunting +for with such intense eagerness as to make him fly at Jack +like a madman?</p> + +<p>Jack—as no doubt the reader will have surmised—was +not clever.</p> + +<p>He could not piece this and that together, and from +disjointed incidents form an intelligent whole, as a child +does with a box of puzzles.</p> + +<p>The whole thing was a mystery to him, and grew more +confusing and bewildering the more he thought of it.</p> + +<p>It takes a villain thoroughly to appreciate a villain, a +thief to understand and catch a thief; and Jack, being +neither one nor the other, utterly failed to understand +Stephen.</p> + +<p>That he disliked him, with a feeling more like contempt +than hatred, was a matter of course, but if any one had +told Jack straight out that Stephen had abstracted the will, +Jack would in all probability have refused to credit it. +Will stealing and all such meanness was so thoroughly out +of his line that he would not have understood how Stephen, +led on step by step, could have possibly been guilty of it.</p> + +<p>Then again, something else came forcing itself on these +thoughts concerning the strange events at the Hurst. For +the life of him he could not forget the Forest of Warden +and all that had happened to him within its leafy shades.</p> + +<p>At one moment it seemed as if years must have elapsed +since he lost his way and forced an entrance at the woodman’s +hut, at another he was half inclined to believe that he +had dined rather heavily at the club and dreamed it all. +Like Una, he could not realize that they had met, touched +hands and exchanged speech.<span class="pagenum">[73]</span></p> + +<p>Jack could not get the beautiful face out of his mental +vision; it mingled with the wan face of the dying man, +with Stephen’s pale, distorted countenance; it seemed to +beam and shine upon him from the dark corners of the +room with the same frank, pure, innocent smile with which +it had shone down upon him as he lay at her feet in the +woods.</p> + +<p>And then the girl’s surroundings! The extraordinary +father, with his laborer’s dress and his refined speech and +bearing. What mystery enveloped the little group of persons +buried in the depths of a wood, living apart from +the world?</p> + +<p>Jack rumpled his hair and drew a long breath eloquent +of confusion and bewilderment.</p> + +<p>It was certainly extraordinary! Three days ago he had +left London, prosaic London, and was now plunged to the +neck in a sea of romance and secrecy.</p> + +<p>On one thing he was, however, resolved. He would keep +his threat or promise. He would go to Warden Forest and +see that beautiful face again, though he had to brave the +anger of twenty mysterious woodmen. He thought at first +that he would start on the morrow, but some feeling—perhaps +some reverence and respect for the dead man—made +him change his mind.</p> + +<p>“No,” he said to himself, as he knocked the ashes out of +his pipe and prepared for bed; “I’ll stay here over the +funeral, and then——”</p> + +<p>But, though he felt tired and worn out, it was hours +before he could sleep, and when he did, his spirit fled back +to Warden Forest, and the face that had haunted him waking +hovered about him in dreams.</p> + +<p>Was it love; love at first sight? Jack would have been +first to laugh at the idea; but it is worthy of note that all +the loves which had occurred in his wild, reckless life had +never, in their warmest epochs, moved him as the remembrance +of Una had done; not one had had the power to disturb +his sleep or to bring him dreams.</p> + +<p>Jack kept to his resolution. Five days passed, and he +stuck to the “Bush” manfully. They were, perhaps, the +dreariest days he ever spent in his life, and he never +thought of them afterward without a shudder.<span class="pagenum">[74]</span></p> + +<p>Every day he was tempted to take flight and go to London +until the day of the funeral; but his promise to Hudsley +kept him at his post. He would not even leave the +“Bush.”</p> + +<p>On the first day, a note, written on the deepest of mourning +paper, had come from Stephen, begging him to come +to the Hurst; but he had written a firm and what was for +him a polite refusal. Of Stephen himself he saw nothing. +Mr. Hudsley had also sent, and asked him to stay at his +house; and this, too, Jack had declined.</p> + +<p>The fact was he wanted to be left alone, to think over the +strange adventures in the forest, to dwell with unceasing +wistfulness on the beautiful face and sweet, musical voice.</p> + +<p>So he clung to the inn; taking a morning dip in the +river; strolling about, with his brier pipe in his mouth and +his hands in his pockets, exchanging a word with this man +and the other, and bestowing his odd change on any children +he happened to meet. Sometimes he would drop in at +one of the cottages, where he was so welcome when a boy, +and smoke and chat; but usually he kept to his room.</p> + +<p>But wherever he went he was the observed of all observers. +Every night the little club that met in the “Bush” +parlor talked about him, and wondered why he didn’t go to +the Hurst, and whether he would be the new squire.</p> + +<p>The day of the funeral arrived at last—a cold, wet day, +that foreshadowed the approaching autumn; and Jack put +on his black suit—made by the village tailor who had described +Stephen as a nice-spoken gentleman—and went up +to the Hurst.</p> + +<p>It was the first time he had been near it since the night +he had the scuffle with Stephen on the lawn; and, to Jack’s +eyes, it looked gloomier than ever.</p> + +<p>As he entered the hall, a shrunken figure in shabby black +came to meet him; it was old Skettle, Hudsley’s clerk.</p> + +<p>The old man peered at him curiously, and made him a +respectful bow in response to Jack’s blunt greeting, and +opened the library door.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hudsley was standing at the table, and looked up +with his wrinkled face and keen eyes—not a trace of expression +beyond keenness in them. Jack shook hands with +him and looked around.<span class="pagenum">[75]</span></p> + +<p>“Where is Stephen?” he said.</p> + +<p>As he spoke the door opened and Stephen entered. Jack, +frank and candid, stared at him with astonishment.</p> + +<p>“Are we ready?”</p> + +<p>And they passed out.</p> + +<p>In silence they stood beside the grave while all that was +mortal of Ralph Davenant was consigned to the earth, and +in silence they returned to the library.</p> + +<p>With the same stony, impassive countenance, Mr. Hudsley +seated himself at the head of the table; Stephen sank +into a chair beside him, and sat with his eyes hidden under +the white lids; Jack stood with folded arms beside the window, +glancing at the far-stretching lawns and watching +the servants as they filed in, a long line of black.</p> + +<p>When they had all entered Mr. Hudsley drew from his +pocket a folded parchment, slowly put on his spectacles, +and without looking round, said:</p> + +<p>“I am now about to read the last will and testament of +Ralph Davenant.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause, a solemn pause, then he looked up +and said:</p> + +<p>“This will was drawn up by me on January—last year. +It is the last will of which I have any cognizance. A +careful search has been made, but no other document of +the kind has been found. That is so, Mr. Stephen, is it +not?” and he turned to Stephen so suddenly that all eyes +followed his.</p> + +<p>Stephen paused a moment, then raised his lids, and with +a shake of his head and a sigh murmured an assent.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hudsley allowed his keen eyes to rest on him for an +instant, then slowly looked in the direction of Jack.</p> + +<p>“A most careful search,” he repeated.</p> + +<p>Jack, feeling that the remark was addressed to him, +nodded and looked at the lawn again.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hudsley cleared his throat, and opened the crackling +parchment.</p> + +<p>There was an intense silence, so intense that Stephen’s +labored breathing could be heard as plainly as the rain on +the windows.</p> + +<p>In the same dry, hard voice Mr. Hudsley began to read. +Clause by clause, wrapped in the beautiful legal jargon in<span class="pagenum">[76]</span> +which such documents are, for some inscrutable reasons, +worded, no one understanding the import, but suddenly familiar +words struck upon the ear. They were the servants’ +legacies, and a mourning ring to Mr. Hudsley; then, in a +stillness that was oppressive, there fell the words:</p> + +<p>“To my nephew, Stephen Davenant, I will the whole and +sole remainder of all I possess, be it in lands or money, +houses or securities, all and of every kind of property, deducting +only the afore-mentioned legacies.”</p> + +<p>A thrill ran through the assemblage, every eye turned, +as if magnetized, to the white, death-like face of the heir.</p> + +<p>There he sat, the new squire, the owner of Hurst Leigh +and the uncounted thousands of old Ralph Davenant, motionless, +white, too benumbed to tremble.</p> + +<p>Slowly Mr. Hudsley read over the signatures, and then +slowly commenced to fold the parchment.</p> + +<p>Then, from the shadow of the curtains, Jack emerged, +pale, too, but with cool, calm dignity.</p> + +<p>Quite quietly, and with perfect self-possession, he came +to the table and looked at the dry, wrinkled face.</p> + +<p>“So I understand, Mr. Hudsley, that the squire has left +me—nothing.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Hudsley looked up, no trace of expression on his +face.</p> + +<p>“Quite right, Mr. Newcombe,” he replied.</p> + +<p>“He has not named me,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>“He has not named you in this will.”</p> + +<p>Jack bowed, and was turning from the table when +Stephen started to his feet.</p> + +<p>For one moment his eyes rested on Jack’s face with an +awful, piercing look of scrutiny, then his eyes lit up with a +malicious gleam of triumph, but it disappeared instantly, +and with a gesture of honest generosity and regret, he exclaimed:</p> + +<p>“Not named! My dear Jack! But stay! I see how +it is. My uncle felt that he could trust to my feeling in +the matter. He knew that you would not have to look to +me in vain.”</p> + +<p>Jack turned and looked at him with infinite contempt +and unbelief, and then slowly passed out.<span class="pagenum">[77]</span></p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + + +<p>Two days passed since Una had given her promise that +should Jack Newcombe come to seek her she would hold +no converse with him. How much that promise had cost +her no one could say; she herself did not know. She only +knew that whereas her life had always seemed dull and purposeless, +it had, since Jack Newcombe’s visit, grown utterly +dreary and joyless.</p> + +<p>Was it love? She did not ask herself the question. Had +she done so, she could not have answered it.</p> + +<p>Any school-girl of fifteen feeling as Una felt would have +known that she was in love, but Una’s only schooling had +consisted of the few stern lessons of Gideon Rolfe.</p> + +<p>“I can never see him, hear him, speak to him again,” +was her one sad reflection; “but if I could be somewhere +near him, unseen!”</p> + +<p>Then, through her brain, her father’s words rang with +melancholy persistence. This youth, whose eyes had seemed +so frank and brave, whose voice rang with music so new +and sweet, was, so her father said, unutterably wicked. +One to be avoided as a dangerous animal! It could not but +be true; she thought her father was truth itself.</p> + +<p>But if it were so, then how false the world must be, for +one to look and speak so gently, and yet be so wicked!</p> + +<p>All day she wandered in the woods, returning to the +cottage pale and listless, to leave her plate untouched or +at best trifled with. Gideon Rolfe saw the change which +had befallen her, but held his peace, though a bitter rage +filled his heart; Martha Rolfe chided her for her listlessness, +and tried to tempt her to eat; but Una put chiding +and coaxing aside with a gentle smile, and escaped to the +lake where she could dream alone and undisturbed.</p> + +<p>The two days passed—on the third, as she was sitting beside +the spot which had grown sacred in her eyes, with its +crushed and broken ferns, she heard steps behind. Thinking +that they were those of her father or one of the charcoal +burners, she did not turn her head. The footsteps +drew nearer, and a man came out from the thick wood +and stood on the margin of the lake, and remained for a +moment looking about him.<span class="pagenum">[78]</span></p> + +<p>Una was so hidden by the tall brake that she remained +unseen, and sat holding her breath watching him.</p> + +<p>He was tall, thin, and dressed in black, and when he +turned his face toward her, Una saw that he was not ill-looking. +She might have thought him handsome but for +that other face which was always in her mental vision. He +was very pale, and looked anxious and ill at ease; and as he +stood looking before him his right hand took his left into +custody. It was Stephen Davenant.</p> + +<p>For a few moments he stood with a half-searching, half-absent +expression on his pale face, then turned and entered +the wood again.</p> + +<p>Pale with wonder and curiosity, Una rose and looked +after him, and to her infinite surprise saw a carriage slowly +approaching.</p> + +<p>A lady was seated in it, a lady with a face as pale as +the man’s but with a still more anxious and deprecating expression.</p> + +<p>Una, with the quickness of sight acquired by a life spent +in communion with nature, could see, even at that distance, +that the lady’s eyes were like those of the man’s, and, furthermore, +that she was awaiting his approach with a nervous +timidity that almost amounted to fear.</p> + +<p>With fast beating heart Una watched them wondering +what could have brought them to Warden, wondering who +and what they were, when suddenly her heart gave a great +bound, for the gentleman, turning to the driver, said, in a +soft, low voice:</p> + +<p>“We are looking for the cottage of a woodman, named +Gideon Rolfe.”</p> + +<p>“Never heard of it, sir. Do you know what part of the +forest it is in?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Stephen.</p> + +<p>“Then it’s like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay,” +retorted the man.</p> + +<p>“However difficult, it must be found,” said Stephen. +“Drive on till you come to some road and follow that. It +may lead us to some place where we can ascertain the +direction of this man’s cottage.”</p> + +<p>The man touched his horse with the whip, and still Una +stood as if spell-bound, but, suddenly remembering that<span class="pagenum">[79]</span> +they were going in the opposite direction to the cottage, she +was about to step forward, when she heard the bark of the +dog, and almost as if he had sprung from the ground, +Gideon Rolfe stood beside the carriage.</p> + +<p>“Ah, here is someone,” said Stephen. “Can you tell us +the road to the cottage of Gideon Rolfe, the woodman, my +man?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“And what may be your business with him?”</p> + +<p>“Why do you ask, my good man?” he replied.</p> + +<p>“Because I am he you seek,” said Gideon.</p> + +<p>“You are Gideon Rolfe? How fortunate.”</p> + +<p>“That’s as it may prove,” said Gideon, coldly. “What +is your business?”</p> + +<p>“It is of a nature which, I think, had better be stated in a +more convenient spot. Will you kindly permit me to enter +your cottage and rest?”</p> + +<p>Gideon looked searchingly into Stephen’s face for a moment +that seemed an age to Una, then nodded curtly, and +said: “Follow me.”</p> + +<p>“Will you not ride?” asked Stephen, suavely.</p> + +<p>But Gideon shook his head, and shouldering his ax, +strode in front of the horse, and Stephen motioning to +the driver, the carriage followed.</p> + +<p>“A charming spot, Mr. Rolfe—charming! Rather +shall I say, retired, if not solitary, however.”</p> + +<p>“Say what you please, sir,” retorted Gideon, grimly and +calmly. “I am waiting to learn the business you have with +me.”</p> + +<p>“Mother,” he said—“this lady is my mother, Mr. Rolfe—I +think, I really think you would find it pleasant and +refreshing on the bench which I observed outside the door.”</p> + +<p>With a little deprecatory air the lady got up and instantly +left the cottage.</p> + +<p>Then Stephen’s manner changed. Leaning forward he +fixed his gray eyes on Gideon Rolfe’s stern face and said:</p> + +<p>“Mr. Rolfe—my name is Davenant——”</p> + +<p>Gideon started, and, with a muttered oath, raised the ax.</p> + +<p>Stephen’s face turned as white as his spotless collar, but +he did not shrink.</p> + +<p>“My name is Davenant,” he repeated—“Stephen Davenant. +I am afraid the name has some unpleasant associations +attached to it. I beg to remind you, if that should be<span class="pagenum">[80]</span> +the case, that those associations are not connected with any +fault of mine.”</p> + +<p>“Go on. Your name is Stephen Davenant?”</p> + +<p>“Stephen Davenant. I am the nephew of Squire Davenant—Ralph +Davenant. The nephew of Ralph Davenant. +I think you can guess my business with you.”</p> + +<p>“Do you come from—him?” he asked, hoarsely.</p> + +<p>“In a certain sense, yes,” he said. “No doubt you have +heard the sad news. My uncle is dead.”</p> + +<p>“Dead!” he repeated fiercely.</p> + +<p>“Dead. My uncle died three days ago.”</p> + +<p>“Dead!” repeated Gideon, not in the tone of a man +who had lost a friend, but in that of one who had lost an +enemy.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Stephen, wiping his dry eyes with his spotless +handkerchief; “my poor uncle died three days ago. I +am afraid I have not broken it as softly as I should have +done. You knew him well?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I knew him well.”</p> + +<p>“Then you know how great a loss the county has suffered +in——”</p> + +<p>“Spare your fine phrases. Come to your business with +me. What brings you here?”</p> + +<p>“I am here in consequence of a communication made to +me by my uncle on his death-bed. Are you alone?”</p> + +<p>Gideon waved his hand with passionate impatience.</p> + +<p>“That communication,” Stephen continued, “concerns a +certain young lady——”</p> + +<p>“He told you?” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“My uncle told me that I should find a young lady, in +whose future he was greatly interested, in the charge of a +certain person named Gideon Rolfe.”</p> + +<p>“Well, did he tell you any more than that?”</p> + +<p>Stephen made a gesture in the negative.</p> + +<p>“So,” said Gideon Rolfe, “he left it to me to tell the +story of his crime. You are Ralph Davenant’s nephew. +You are the nephew of a villain and a scoundrel!”</p> + +<p>It was true, then, that the man knew nothing of the +secret marriage of Ralph Davenant and Caroline Hatfield.</p> + +<p>“A scoundrel and a villain!” repeated Gideon, leaning<span class="pagenum">[81]</span> +forward and clutching the table. “You say that he told +you the story of his crime, glossed over and falsified. +Hear it from me. Your uncle and I were schoolfellows and +friends. I was the son of the schoolmaster at Hurst. +Your uncle left school to go to college. I remained at +Hurst in my father’s house. I could have gone to college +also, but I would not leave Hurst, for I was in love. I +loved Caroline Hatfield. She was the daughter of the +gamekeeper on the Hurst estate, and we were to be married. +Two months before the day fixed for our marriage +your uncle, my friend—my friend!—came home to spend +the vacation. We were friends still, and I—cursed fool +that I was—took him to the gamekeeper’s lodge to introduce +him to my sweetheart. Six weeks afterward he and +she had fled.”</p> + +<p>Stephen watched him closely, his heart beating wildly.</p> + +<p>“They had fled,” continued Gideon, in a broken voice. +“My life was ended on the day they brought me the news. +I left Hurst Leigh and came here. A year later she came +back to me—came back to me to die. She died and left +me——. She left me her child. I—I loved her still and +swore to protect that child, and I have done so. There is +my story. What have you to say?”</p> + +<p>“It is terrible, terrible!” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“I have kept my vow. Her child has grown up ignorant +of the shame which is her heritage. Here, buried in the +heart of the forest, away from the world, I have kept and +guarded her for her mother’s sake. There is the story, told +without gloss or falsehood. What have you to say?”</p> + +<p>“You have discharged your self-appointed trust most +nobly! But—but that trust has come to an end.”</p> + +<p>“Who says so?”</p> + +<p>“I say so. You have done your duty—more than your +duty—I must do mine. My uncle, on his deathbed, bequeathed +his daughter to my charge.”</p> + +<p>“To yours?”</p> + +<p>“To mine,” said Stephen, gravely.</p> + +<p>“Where is your authority?”</p> + +<p>“That I do not come without authority is proven by the +mere fact of my presence here and by my knowledge of +my uncle’s secret. No one but yourself, your wife and +I know of the real identity of this girl. It was my uncle’s<span class="pagenum">[82]</span> +wish that the story of her birth should still remain a +secret—that it should be buried, as it were, in his grave. +Why should the poor girl ever learn the truth, when such +knowledge can only bring her shame and mortification?”</p> + +<p>“Grant that,” said Gideon, “where could she better be +hidden than here? Her secret, her very existence, have +been concealed from the world.”</p> + +<p>“True, but—but the future, my dear sir—the future! +You are not a young man——”</p> + +<p>“I am still young enough to protect her.”</p> + +<p>“My dear Mr. Rolfe, you may live—you look as if you +would—to be a hundred; you have discharged your self-imposed +task most nobly, but you must not forget that it +has now devolved upon one who is bound by ties of blood to +fulfill it, if not so well, certainly with the best intentions. +Mr. Rolfe, I am the young girl’s cousin.”</p> + +<p>“You speak of ties of blood; say rather, the ties of +shame! Suppose—I say suppose—that I refuse to deliver +her up to your care?”</p> + +<p>“I do not think you will do that. You forget that, after +all, we have little choice in the matter.”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe eyed him questioningly.</p> + +<p>“The young girl is now of age, and——”</p> + +<p>“Go on.”</p> + +<p>“And supposing that you were to refuse to hand her over +to my charge, I should feel compelled to tell the story of her +life, and——. Pray—pray be calm. I beg you to remember +that I am not here of my own desire; that I am merely +fulfilling my duty to my uncle, and endeavoring to obey his +last wishes. I do not blame you for your reluctance to +part with her. It does you credit, my dear Mr. Rolfe—infinite +credit. But duty—duty; we must all do our duty.”</p> + +<p>“Has anyone of your name ever yet done his duty?” repeated +Gideon, sternly.</p> + +<p>“For my part, Mr. Rolfe, I have always striven to do +mine; yea, even in the face of great temptation and difficulties. +I must do it now. After all, why should you +resist my uncle’s wish? Consider, she, who was once a +child, is now a woman. Do you think it possible to keep +her imprisoned in this wood for the whole of her days?”<span class="pagenum">[83]</span></p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe turned toward the window. For the first +time Stephen had found a weak spot in his armor. It was +true! Already she was beginning to pine and hunger for +the world. Could he keep her much longer?</p> + +<p>“Come,” said Stephen, quick to see the impression he +had made. “Do not let us be selfish; let us think of her +welfare, as well as our own wishes. Candidly, I must confess +that I should be perfectly willing to leave her in her +present obscurity.”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe broke in abruptly.</p> + +<p>“Where will you take her?” he asked, hoarsely.</p> + +<p>“It is my intention,” he said, “to place her in my mother’s +charge. She lives in London, alone. There my cousin +will find a loving home and a second mother. Believing +that you would naturally have some reluctance at parting +with her, not knowing with whom and where she was going, +I have brought my mother with me.”</p> + +<p>Gideon glanced at the quiet, motionless figure seated on +the bench outside, and then paced the room again.</p> + +<p>“Does she know?” he asked hoarsely.</p> + +<p>“She knows nothing,” said Stephen. “My mother can +trust me implicitly. She has long wanted a companion, +and I have told her that I know of a young girl in whom +I am interested.”</p> + +<p>“You intend to keep her secret?” said Gideon.</p> + +<p>“Most sacredly,” responded Stephen, with solemn +earnestness.</p> + +<p>Gideon went to the door and opened it.</p> + +<p>“Wait,” he said, and disappeared.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + + +<p>Stephen rose softly and watched him from behind the +window curtains until Gideon had vanished amongst the +trees; then Stephen went out and smiled down upon his +mother with the air of a man who had just succeeded in accomplishing +some great work for the good of mankind at +large.</p> + +<p>“Sorry to keep you waiting, mother,” he said. “I have<span class="pagenum">[84]</span> +been making some arrangements with the worthy man, her +father.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant looked up with the nervous, deprecatory +expression which always came upon her face when she was +in the presence of her son.</p> + +<p>“It does not matter, Stephen; I am glad to rest. Where +has the man gone? He—he—doesn’t he look rather superior +for his station, and why does he look so stern and forbidding?”</p> + +<p>“A life spent in solitude, away from the world, has made +him reserved and cold,” replied Stephen, glibly, “and, of +course, he feels the parting from his daughter.”</p> + +<p>“Poor man—poor girl!” murmured Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>Stephen looked down at her with a contemplative smile, +while his ears were strained for the returning footsteps of +Gideon Rolfe.</p> + +<p>“Yours is a sweetly sympathetic nature, my dear. I can +already foresee that the ‘poor girl’ will not long need anyone’s +sympathy. You are already prepared to open your +arms and take her to your heart. Is it not so?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant looked up—just as if she wanted to see +what he expected of her to say, and seeing that he meant +her to say “yes,” said it.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I shall be very glad to have a young girl—a good +young girl—as a companion, Stephen. My life has been +very lonely since you have been away.”</p> + +<p>“And I may be away so much. But, mother, you will +not forget what I said during our drive? There are special +reasons why the girl’s antecedents should not be spoken of. +The friend who interested me in her wishes her to forget, +if possible, everything concerning her early life.”</p> + +<p>“I understand, Stephen.”</p> + +<p>“And, by the way, do not allow any expression of astonishment +to escape you if, when you see her, you feel astonished +at her appearance or manner. Remember that she +has spent all her life here, buried in the forest, her sole +companions a woodsman and his wife.”</p> + +<p>“Her mother and father?” said Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>“I said her mother and father, did I not? Just so—her +mother and father. Well, we must not expect too much. +And after all, it will be far more interesting for you to have<span class="pagenum">[85]</span> +a fresh and unsophisticated nature about you, although she +may be rather rough and rustic——”</p> + +<p>“I shall be quite content if she is a good girl.”</p> + +<p>“Just so. Virtue is a precious gem though incased in a +rough casket.”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe had returned, but not alone. Emerging +from the deep shadow of the trees was what looked to their +astonished and unprepared eyes a vision of some wood +nymph.</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe strode forward, his face set hard and sternly +cold, and as he reached the cottage he took Una’s hand in +his, and looking steadily into Stephen’s eyes, said:</p> + +<p>“Mr. Davenant, I have informed my daughter of your +mother’s offer to take her under her charge, but I have +asked her to postpone her answer until she saw you.”</p> + +<p>Stephen bowed, and laid his white hand on his mother’s +arm.</p> + +<p>“Miss Rolfe,” he said, in a low voice in which paternal +kindness and social respect were delicately blended, “this +lady is my mother. Like most mothers whose children +have flown from the nest, she lives alone and feels her solitude. +She is desirous of finding some young lady who will +consent to share it with her. It is not only a home she +offers you, but—I think I may add, mother—a heart.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Davenant, and as she held out +her hand her voice trembled and a tear shone in her eye.</p> + +<p>Una, who had been looking from one to the other, with +the breath coming in little pants through her half parted +lips, drew near and put her hand in the outstretched one, +but the next moment turned and clung to Gideon’s arm +with a sudden sob.</p> + +<p>“Oh, father, I cannot leave you!” she murmured.</p> + +<p>Gideon bent his head, perhaps to hide his face, which was +working with emotion.</p> + +<p>“Hush! it is for the best. Remember what I have said. +You wanted to see the world——”</p> + +<p>“Yes—with you,” said Una, audibly.</p> + +<p>“The world and I have parted forever, Una.”</p> + +<p>“But shall I never see you again?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, we shall meet now and again.”<span class="pagenum">[86]</span></p> + +<p>“I trust, Miss Rolfe, that we shall wean your father from +his long seclusion. You must be the magnet to draw him +from his retreat into the busy haunts of men.”</p> + +<p>“You will come and see me?” she murmured.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Una. Go where you will,” and he glanced over +her head at Stephen, “you may feel that I am watching +over you, as I have always watched and guarded you. If +any harm comes to you——”</p> + +<p>“Harm?” she breathed, and looked up into his face with +questioning gaze.</p> + +<p>“Come, Mr. Rolfe, you mustn’t alarm your daughter,” +said Stephen, softly. “She will think that the world is +filled with lions and wolves seeking whom they may devour. +I think you may feel safe from any harm under my mother’s +protection, Miss Rolfe.”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I have never had a daughter. If you come you +shall be one to me.”</p> + +<p>“You think me ungrateful?” said Una to her, in her +simple, frank way.</p> + +<p>“No, my dear,” replied Mrs. Davenant. “I think you +only show a naturally affectionate heart. You have never +been from home before.”</p> + +<p>“Never,” said Una. “Never out of the woods.”</p> + +<p>“My poor child. No, I do not think you ungrateful. I +like to see that you feel leaving home so much. For you +will come, will you not? I shall be disappointed and +grieved if you do not, now that I have seen you.”</p> + +<p>“Now that you have seen me,” said Una.</p> + +<p>“Yes, my dear. For I am sure that I shall love you, and +I hope that you will grow fond of me.”</p> + +<p>“Do you?” said Una, musingly. “Yes,” she said, after +a pause, “I shall love you.”</p> + +<p>“Will you kiss me, my dear,” she said; and Una bent +and kissed her.</p> + +<p>“And now that you think—that you are sure you will +like me—you will come,” said Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>Una looked before her thoughtfully, almost dreamily, for +a moment, then replied:</p> + +<p>“Yes, my father wishes me to go. Why does he wish +me to go into the world he hates and fears so much? It +was only the other day that he warned me against wishing<span class="pagenum">[87]</span> +for it, and told me that I should never be happy if I left +Warden. Why has he changed so suddenly?”</p> + +<p>“I—I think it must have been Stephen who persuaded +him. I heard them talking together.”</p> + +<p>“Stephen—that is your son,” said Una.</p> + +<p>“Yes, he is my son; he is very good and clever—so very +clever! He has been a most affectionate son to me, and +has never caused me a day’s uneasiness.”</p> + +<p>“All sons are not so?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“No, indeed,” responded Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>“Is he ill?” asked Una, after a pause.</p> + +<p>“Ill!”</p> + +<p>“Because he is so pale,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Stephen is pale. It is because he thinks and +reads so much, and then he is in great trouble now; his +uncle died three days ago.”</p> + +<p>“Is that why he is dressed in black—and you, too? I +am very sorry.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, my dear,” said Mrs. Davenant, “that was +very nice of you to say that. I can see you have a kind +heart. Yes, his uncle is just dead, Mr. Ralph Davenant—Squire +Davenant. Why did you start?”—for Una had +started and turned to her with a sudden flash of intense +interest in her eyes—“did you know him? Ah, no, you +could not, if you have not been out of the forest—how +strange it seems!—- but you have heard of him, perhaps?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have heard of him.”</p> + +<p>At that moment the door opened, and Stephen and Gideon +Rolfe came out.</p> + +<p>The usual smile sat upon Stephen’s face, in strange contrast +to the stern, set look on his companion’s.</p> + +<p>Raising his hat to Mrs. Davenant as he approached, Gideon +put his hand on Una’s shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Go indoors, Una, to your mother,” he said quietly.</p> + +<p>Una rose, and after a momentary glance at each of their +faces, went inside. Stephen opened and held the door for +her, then closed it and came back to the others.</p> + +<p>“Mother,” he said, “Mr. Rolfe and I have made our arrangements, +and he agrees with me that it would be wiser, +now that the news is broken to Miss Rolfe, for her to accompany +you back to town this afternoon.”<span class="pagenum">[88]</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant nodded, and glanced timidly at Gideon’s +stern face.</p> + +<p>“We have won Mrs. Rolfe over to our side, and she is +already making the few preparations necessary for Miss +Rolfe’s journey.”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe inclined his head as if to corroborate this, +then he said:</p> + +<p>“Will you come inside, madam, and partake of some refreshment?”</p> + +<p>“I would rather wait here. Mr. Rolfe, I hope you feel +that, in trusting your daughter to my charge, that she will +at least have a happy home, if I can make one for her?”</p> + +<p>“That I believe, madam.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have quite convinced Mr. Rolfe that the change +will be beneficial to Miss Rolfe, and that she will be taken +every care of. I suppose you are quite old friends already, +eh, mother?”</p> + +<p>“I think she is a beautiful girl whom one could not help +loving,” murmured Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>Half an hour passed, and then Una and Martha came +out. Una was pale to the lips, the other was red-eyed +with weeping, and her tears broke out afresh when Mrs. +Davenant shook hands with her and assured her that her +daughter should be happy.</p> + +<p>“Thank you, ma’am,” said Martha. “It’s what I said +would come to pass. Gideon couldn’t expect to keep her +shut up here, like a bird in a cage, forever and a day. It +was against reason, but it is so sudden,” and her sobs broke +into her speech and stopped her.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant’s eyes were wet, and she glanced at +Stephen, half inclined to postpone the journey; but Gideon +Rolfe had called the carriage to the door, and the box was +already on the seat.</p> + +<p>With the same set calm which he had maintained +throughout, Gideon took Una in his arms, held her for a +moment and whispering, “Remember, wherever you are I +am watching over you!” put her in the carriage in which +Stephen had already placed his mother.</p> + +<p>He, too, had a word to whisper. It was also a reminder.</p> + +<p>“Remember, mother, not another word of the past. Her +life begins from today.”<span class="pagenum">[89]</span></p> + +<p>Then he looked at his watch, and said aloud:</p> + +<p>“You will just have time to catch the train. Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>With the most dutiful affection, he kissed his mother, +then went round, and, bare-headed, offered his hand to +Una.</p> + +<p>“Good-bye, Miss Rolfe,” he said. “You are now starting +on a new life. No one, not even your father, can more +devoutly wish you the truest and fullest happiness than I +do.”</p> + +<p>Una, half-blinded with her tears, put her hand in his; +but almost instantly drew it away, with something like a +shudder. It was cold as ice.</p> + +<p>The next moment the carriage started, and the two men +were left alone.</p> + +<p>For fully a minute they stood looking at it, till it had +been swallowed up by the shadows of the trees; then Gideon +turned, his face white and working.</p> + +<p>“Stephen Davenant,” he said, in slow, measured tones, +“one word with you before we part. You have gained your +end—be what it may; I say for your sake, let it be for +good; for if it be for evil, you have one to deal with who +will not hold his hand to punish and avenge. Rather than +let her know the heritage of shame which hangs over her, I +have let her go. If you value your safety, guard her, for +at your hands I require her happiness and well being.”</p> + +<p>Stephen’s face paled, but the smile struggled to its accustomed +place.</p> + +<p>“My dear Mr. Rolfe,” he began, but Gideon stopped him +with a gesture.</p> + +<p>“Enough. I set no value on your word. There is no +need for further speech between us. From this hour our +roads lie apart. Take yours, and leave me mine.”</p> + +<p>“This is very sad. Well, well; as you say, I have gained +my end, but, as I would rather put it, I have done my duty, +and I must bear your ungrounded suspicions patiently. +Good-bye, my dear sir—good-bye.”</p> + +<p>“I have sworn never to touch the hand of a Davenant in +friendship,” he said, grimly. “There lies your path”—and +he pointed to the Wermesley road—“mine is here, for +the present.”</p> + +<p>And with a curt nod, he turned toward the cottage.<span class="pagenum">[90]</span></p> + +<p>With a gentle sigh and shake of the head, Stephen, after +lingering for a moment, as if he hoped that Gideon’s heart +might be softened, turned and entered the wood.</p> + +<p>Once in the shadow and out of sight, the smile disappeared, +and left his face careworn, restless and anxious.</p> + +<p>“Fate favors me,” he muttered. “That boor knows—guesses—nothing +of the truth. I never thought to get the +girl out of his clutches so easily! Now she is under my +watch and ken—I hold her in my hand. But—but”—he +mused, his lips twitching, his eyes moving restlessly to and +fro—“what shall I do with her? Beautiful—she is lovely! +How long will she escape notice in London? Someone +will see her—some hot-headed fool—and fall in love. She +might marry. Ah!”</p> + +<p>And he stooped amongst the brakes and ferns, and looked +up, with a sudden, dull-red flush on his pale cheek, a bright +glitter in his light eyes, while a thought ran like lightning +through his cunning brain.</p> + +<p>“Marry her! Why—why should not I?”</p> + +<p>An answer came quickly enough in the remembrance of +the pale dark face of Laura Treherne, the girl to whom he +was pledged.</p> + +<p>But with a gesture of impatience he swept the obtrusive +remembrance aside.</p> + +<p>“Why not?” he muttered. “Then, at one stroke, I +should secure myself. By Heaven—I will! I will!”</p> + +<p>So elated was he by the thought that he stopped and +leaned against a tree and took off his hat, allowing the cool +breezes to play upon his white forehead.</p> + +<p>“Beautiful, and the real heiress of Hurst Leigh,” he muttered. +“Why should I not? By one stroke I should make +myself secure, and set that cursed will at defiance, let it +be where it may! I will! I will!” he repeated, setting +his teeth; then, as he put on his hat, he smiled pitifully +and murmured:</p> + +<p>“Poor Laura, poor Laura!”<span class="pagenum">[91]</span></p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + + +<p>Una saw her last of Warden Forest through a mist of +tears; while a tree remained in sight her face was turned +toward it, and in silence she bade farewell to the leafy +world in which her life had passed with so much uneventfulness—in +silence listened to the soughing of the breeze +that seemed to voice her a sad good-bye.</p> + +<p>Her companion sat in silence, too, holding the soft, +warm hand which clung to hers with an eloquent supplication +for protection and sympathy.</p> + +<p>But youth and tears are foes who cannot abide long together, +and by the time the little railway village of Wermesley +was reached, Una’s eyes were full of interest and curiosity.</p> + +<p>As the fly rumbled over the unkept streets toward the +station, past the few tame shops and the dead-and-alive +hotel, her color came and went in rapid fluctuations.</p> + +<p>“Is—is this the world?” she asked, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant looked at her with a smile, the first which +Una had seen on the thin, pale face. She had yet to learn +that Mrs. Davenant never smiled in her son’s presence.</p> + +<p>“The world, my dear?” she replied. “Well, yes; but a +very quiet part of it.”</p> + +<p>“And yet there are so many people in the streets, and—ah!” +she drew back with an exclamation as the train +shrieked into the station.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant started—she was nervous herself, and +had not yet realized that she had for companion one who +was as ignorant of our modern high-pressure civilization +as a North American Indian.</p> + +<p>“That is the train; don’t be frightened, my dear,” she +said.</p> + +<p>“Forgive me. I know it is the train—I have read +about it. I am not frightened,” she added, quietly, and +with a touch of gentle dignity that puzzled Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>“My dear,” she said, “I am not finding fault, or chiding +you, it is only natural that you should be surprised, but +you will find a great deal more to be surprised at when +we get to London.”</p> + +<p>Una inclined her head as she mentally registered a<span class="pagenum">[92]</span> +resolution to conceal, at any cost, any surprise or alarm +she might feel on the rest of the journey.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, she kept very close to Mrs. Davenant as +they passed to the train, and shrank back into the corner +of the carriage driven there by the stupid stare of one or +two of the passengers.</p> + +<p>“Now we are all right,” said Mrs. Davenant, gently. +“We shall not sleep now till we get to town.”</p> + +<p>“To London—we are going to London?” asked Una in a +low voice.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Mrs. Davenant. “That is where I live; I +live in a great square at the West-end.”</p> + +<p>“I know the points of the compass,” said Una, with a +smile; “my father taught me,” and she sighed—“poor +father!”</p> + +<p>“I think your father must be a very clever man, my +dear. He appears to have taught you a great deal—I +mean”—she hesitated—“you speak so correctly.”</p> + +<p>“Do I?” said Una. “Yes, my father is very clever. He +knows everything.”</p> + +<p>“It is very curious,” she said. “I mean—I hope you +won’t be offended—but men in his position are not generally +so well informed.”</p> + +<p>“Are they not?” said Una, quietly. “I don’t know. +Perhaps my father learned all he knows from books.”</p> + +<p>“And taught you in the same way. Tell me what books +you have read.”</p> + +<p>Una smiled softly, and as she did so, Mrs. Davenant +started, and looked around at her with something like +fright in her grave, still eyes.</p> + +<p>“What is the matter?” asked Una.</p> + +<p>“No—nothing,” replied the other. “I—you reminded +me of somebody when you laughed, I can’t tell whom. But +the books, you were going to tell me about the books.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t remember all,” said Una, and then she mentioned +the titles of some of the well-bound volumes which +stood on the little bookshelf in the hut.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant regarded her curiously.</p> + +<p>“Those are all books of a world that existed long ago,” +she said. “You have never read any novels—any novels +of present day life?”<span class="pagenum">[93]</span></p> + +<p>“No, I think not.”</p> + +<p>“Then you are absolutely ignorant of life as it is,” said +Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I suppose so,” assented Una.</p> + +<p>“I can understand now how useful fiction really is,” +murmured Mrs. Davenant. “It is by it alone that a future +age will understand what ours is. You are entering upon +some strange experiences, Miss Rolfe.”</p> + +<p>Una started; the name was so unfamiliar to her that +she hardly recognized it.</p> + +<p>“Please don’t call me that,” she said, laying her hand on +Mrs. Davenant’s arm. “My name is Eunice—Una. Call +me Una.”</p> + +<p>“I will,” said Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>“You have promised to love me, you know.”</p> + +<p>“A promise easy to keep, my dear,” she said, and her +eyes grew moist. “I little thought when my son Stephen +telegraphed to meet him that he was taking me to a +daughter.”</p> + +<p>“Your son Stephen—he sent for you!” said Una, with +frank curiosity. “How did he know of my existence?”</p> + +<p>“Through some friend,” said Mrs. Davenant, with much +hesitation and nervous embarrassment. “My son is a very +good man, and always interesting himself in some good +cause or other—something that will benefit his fellow +creatures. You—you will like my son when you know +more of him,” she added, and though she spoke with pride +there was a touch of something like fear in her voice, +which always came when she mentioned his name or spoke +of his goodness.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Una, simply, “I will for your sake.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, my dear,” murmured Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>“But how,” went on Una, after thinking a moment, +“how did his friend know anything about me? Did my +father——”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, Una,” said Mrs. Davenant, nervously. +“Stephen doesn’t always tell me everything; you see he +has so much to think of, and just now he is in great +trouble, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! yes,” said Una, gently; “and he had not time to<span class="pagenum">[94]</span> +tell you. But he will. I am sorry he is in such trouble.” +Then, after a pause, she said: “Are you rich?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant started. The question, so unusual and +so strange, bewildered her by its suddenness and its frankness.</p> + +<p>“Rich, my dear?” she said. “Yes—I suppose I am +rich.”</p> + +<p>“And he is rich?”</p> + +<p>“He will be, perhaps; we do not know until his uncle’s +will is read.”</p> + +<p>“I know what a will is,” said Una, with a smile. “It +is the paper which a man leaves when he dies, saying to +whom he wishes his money to go. And Stephen——”</p> + +<p>“You should say Mr. Stephen, or Mr. Davenant, my +dear,” she said. “I don’t mind your calling him Stephen, +but—but——” She looked round in despair. How was +she to explain to this frank, beautiful girl the laws of +etiquette? “But everyone who speaks of those to whom +they are not related say Mr., or Mrs., or Miss.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said Una. “Then Mr. Davenant expects to +get his uncle’s money, and then he will be rich. I am very +glad. And he does not live in the same house with you?”</p> + +<p>“No,” replied Mrs. Davenant—and surely there was +something like a tone of relief in her voice—“no; when +he is in London he lives in chambers in rooms by himself; +but he has been staying at Hurst Leigh.”</p> + +<p>“At Hurst Leigh!” echoed Una, softly, and a faint color +stole over her face. How wonderful it was! That other—he +whose face was always with her, was going there!</p> + +<p>“At Hurst Leigh,” repeated Mrs. Davenant. “Do you +know it?”</p> + +<p>Una shook her head silently. She longed to ask more, +to ask if Mrs. Davenant knew the youth who had taken +shelter in the cottage, but she simply could not. Love is +a wondrous schoolmaster—he had already taught her +frank, out-spoken nature the art of concealment.</p> + +<p>“It is a grand place,” continued Mrs. Davenant. “A +great, huge place,” and she shivered faintly, “and—and +if Squire Davenant has left it to Stephen, he will live +there.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t like it?” said Una, with acute intuition.<span class="pagenum">[95]</span></p> + +<p>“No,” replied Mrs. Davenant, with unusual earnestness. +“No, oh no! it frightens me. I was never there but once, +and then I was glad—very, very glad to get away, grand +and beautiful as it was!”</p> + +<p>“But why?” asked Una, eagerly.</p> + +<p>“Because—have you never heard of Ralph Davenant?”</p> + +<p>Una hesitated a moment. She had heard of him.</p> + +<p>“He was a wonderful man, but terrible to me. His eyes +looked through one, and then he had been so wicked.”</p> + +<p>She stopped short, and Una sighed. So there was another +person who was wicked.</p> + +<p>“Why are men so wicked?” she asked, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>“I—I—don’t know. What a singular question,” said +Mrs. Davenant. “No one knows. Perhaps it is because +they have different natures to ours. But you need not +look so grieved, my dear,” she added, with a little smile, +“you need not know any wicked men.”</p> + +<p>“Who can tell? One does not know; wicked men are +just like the others, only we like them better.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant stared at her, and utterly overwhelmed by +the strange reply, sank into her corner and into silence.</p> + +<p>The panting engine tore along the line, and presently +the clear atmosphere was left behind, and the cloud of +smoke which hangs over the Great City came down upon +them and took them in, and infolded them.</p> + +<p>To Una’s amazement the train seemed to glide over the +tops of houses, houses so thick that there seemed but two, +or three inches between them. With suppressed excitement—she +had resolved to express no surprise or fear—she +watched through the window. Sometimes she caught +sight of streets thronged with people, and with commingled +alarm and curiosity, wondered what had happened to draw +them all together so.</p> + +<p>She would not ask Mrs. Davenant, for wearied by her +double journey, she was leaning back with closed eyes.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the train stopped—stopped amidst the noise +and confusion of a large terminus—Mrs. Davenant woke, +a porter came to the door, received instructions as to the +luggage and handed them out.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding her resolution, Una felt herself turning +pale.<span class="pagenum">[96]</span></p> + +<p>From Warden Forest to a London railway station.</p> + +<p>“Keep close to me, dear,” said Mrs. Davenant, who +seemed only nervous and helpless in her son’s presence. +“Come, there is a cab.”</p> + +<p>In silence Una followed. Men—and women, too,—turned +to look at the tall, graceful figure in its plain white +dress, and stared at the lovely face, with its half-frightened, +half-curious, downcast eyes, and Una felt the eyes +fixed on her.</p> + +<p>“Why—why do they look at me so?” she asked, when +they had entered the cab.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant regarded her with a smile, and evaded +the frank, open eyes. Was it possible that the girl was +ignorant of her marvelous beauty?</p> + +<p>“People in London always stare, my dear Una,” she +replied, “and they see that you are strange.”</p> + +<p>“It is my dress,” said Una, who had been looking out +of the window at some of the fashionably-attired ladies. +“It is different to theirs. See—look at that lady! Why +does she wear so long a dress? she has to hold it up with +one hand.”</p> + +<p>“It is your dress, no doubt, my dear,” she said. “We +must alter it when we get home.”</p> + +<p>The cab rolled into the street, and Una was rendered +speechless.</p> + +<p>But for her resolve she would have shrunk back into the +farthest corner of the cab. The number of people, the +noise, alarmed her, and yet she felt fascinated.</p> + +<p>Were all the people mad that they hurried on so with +such grave and pre-occupied faces. She had never seen +her father hurry unless he had cut down a tree that had +been struck by lightning, and which might injure others +in its fall unless cut down with greatest care.</p> + +<p>Presently they passed into one of the leading thoroughfares, +already lit up, its shops gleaming brightly with the +gas-light, its ceaseless line of cabs, and omnibuses, and +carriages.</p> + +<p>At last, when her eyes were weary with looking, she murmured: +“This—this—is the world then at last.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Mrs. Davenant, with a sigh. “This is the +world, Una!”<span class="pagenum">[97]</span></p> + +<p>“And are those palaces!” asked Una, as they passed +through the West End streets and squares.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Mrs. Davenant; “they are only houses, in +which rich people dwell, as you would call it.”</p> + +<p>“And the trees! Are there no trees?” asked Una, with, +for the first time, a sigh.</p> + +<p>“Not here, dear. There are some in the parks; some even +in the middle of the city itself. You will miss your trees, +Una.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I shall miss my trees. But this—this world seems +so large; I thought that——”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Mrs. Davenant, amused with her bewilderment.</p> + +<p>“I thought that people in the world knew each other; +but that is impossible.”</p> + +<p>And she sighed, as she thought that, after all, now that +she was in the world, she was no nearer that one being who, +for her, was the principal person in it.</p> + +<p>“Very few people know each other, Una. It’s a big +world, this London. I wonder whether you will be +happy?”</p> + +<p>Una turned to her with a look upon her face that would +have melted a sterner heart than Mrs. Davenant’s.</p> + +<p>“I shall be happy, if you will love me,” she said.</p> + +<p>Something in the frank, simple reply made Mrs. Davenant +tremble. What had she undertaken in the charge of +this simple, pure-natured girl, whose beauty caused people +to turn and stare at her, and whose innocence was that of +a child?</p> + +<p>Through miles and miles of streets, as it seemed to Una, +the cab made its slow, rumbling way; houses, that were +palaces in her eyes, flitted past; and at last they stopped +before a palace, as it seemed to Una, in a quiet square.</p> + +<p>The door of the house opened, and a servant came out +and opened the cab door.</p> + +<p>In silent wonderment Una entered the hall, lit with its +gas-lamps and lined with flowers, and followed Mrs. Davenant +into what was really the drawing-room of a house in +Walmington Square; but which seemed to Una to be the +principal apartment in some enchanted castle.</p> + +<p>But true to her resolve, she stood calm and silent, feeling,<span class="pagenum">[98]</span> +rather than seeing, that the eyes of the servant were +fixed upon her with curious interest.</p> + +<p>“Come upstairs, Una, dear,” said Mrs. Davenant, and +Una followed her into another fairy chamber. Flowers, of +which Mrs. Davenant, like most nervous persons, was inordinately +fond, seemed everywhere: they lined the staircase +and the landing, and bloomed in every available corner.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant entered her own room, then opened a +door into an adjoining one.</p> + +<p>“This is your room, my dear,” she said. “If—if—you +like it——”</p> + +<p>“Like it!” said Una, with open eyes and beating heart. +“Is—is this really mine?” and she looked round the dainty +room with incredulous admiration.</p> + +<p>“If—if you like it, my dear,” said Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>“How could I do otherwise? It is too beautiful for +me——”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think anything could be too beautiful for you, +Una,” said Mrs. Davenant, with a significance that was +entirely lost on Una. “If there is anything you want—I +can’t give you any trees, you know.”</p> + +<p>“I shan’t want trees while the flowers are here. It is +nothing but flowers.”</p> + +<p>“I am very fond of them,” said Mrs. Davenant, meekly. +“You will hear a bell ring in half an hour; come to me +then, I shall wait in the next room for you. I will not lock +the door,” and she left her.</p> + +<p>Una felt dazed and stunned for a few minutes, then +she made what preparations were possible. She chose +from her box, which had been conveyed to her room by +some invisible agency apparently, a plain muslin dress, and, +more by instinct than any prompting of vanity, fastened +a rose in her hair.</p> + +<p>She had scarcely completed her simple toilet when the +bell rang, and she went into the next room.</p> + +<p>A maid servant—Una noticed that it was not the one +who had opened the door—was in attendance upon Mrs. +Davenant, and dropped a courtesy as Mrs. Davenant said, +in her nervous, hesitating fashion:</p> + +<p>“This is Miss Rolfe, Jane.”<span class="pagenum">[99]</span></p> + +<p>Una smiled, and was about to hold out her hand, but +stopped, seeing no movement of a similar kind on the part +of the neatly-dressed girl.</p> + +<p>“Jane is my own maid, Una,” said Mrs. Davenant. “She +will attend to you when you want her.”</p> + +<p>Jane dropped another courtesy, but Una detected a +glance of curiosity and scrutiny at the plain white muslin.</p> + +<p>“Come,” said Mrs. Davenant, “let us go down. Dinner +is ready,” and she led the way down-stairs.</p> + +<p>Another fairy apartment broke upon Una’s astonished +vision as they entered the dining-room.</p> + +<p>Small as the houses are in Walmington Square, Una, +accustomed only to the small room in the hut, thought that +this dining-room was large enough to be the banquet hall of +princes.</p> + +<p>But, whatever surprise Una felt, she, mindful of her resolve, +concealed.</p> + +<p>Not even the maid in waiting could find anything to +condemn. When she went down-stairs her verdict was +favorable.</p> + +<p>“Whoever she is,” she said, “she’s a lady. But where on +earth she comes from, goodness only knows. A plain muslin +dress that might have come out of the ark.”</p> + +<p>Dinner was over at last. A “last” that seemed to Una +an eternity. Mrs. Davenant rose and beckoned her to follow, +and they went into the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>“Are you very tired, Una?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Una, thinking of her long wanderings in +Warden Forest, “not tired at all, but very surprised.”</p> + +<p>“Surprised?” said Mrs. Davenant, questioningly.</p> + +<p>“Yes. Do all the people in London live like this—in +such beautiful houses, with people to wait upon them, and +with so many things to eat, and with such pretty things +in the houses?”</p> + +<p>“Not all,” said Mrs. Davenant, watching the tall, graceful +figure as it moved to and fro—“not all. But it would +take too long to explain. You think these are pretty +things; what will you say when you see the great sights—sights +which we Londoners think nothing of?”</p> + +<p>Una did not answer; she had been looking round the +room at the pictures, mostly portraits, on the walls.<span class="pagenum">[100]</span></p> + +<p>“Are these pictures of friends of yours?” she said. +“Who is that?”</p> + +<p>“That? That is the portrait of a man I was speaking +of in the train. That is Ralph—Squire Davenant—when +he was a young man.”</p> + +<p>It was a portrait of Ralph Davenant in his best—and +worst—days. It had been painted when men wore their +hair long, and brushed from their foreheads. One hand, +white as the driven snow, was thrust in his breast, the other +held a riding-whip.</p> + +<p>Una looked at it long and earnestly, and Mrs. Davenant, +impressed by her long silence, rose and stood beside her.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said, “that is Ralph Davenant. It was painted +when he was about your age, my dear. Ah——”</p> + +<p>“What is the matter?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant, pale and excited, took up a hand-mirror +from one of the tables and held it in front of Una.</p> + +<p>“Look!” she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“Well?” she said.</p> + +<p>“Well?” echoed Mrs. Davenant. “Don’t you see? Look +again. The very image! It is himself come to life again; +it is Ralph Davenant turned woman!” she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>And before Una could glance at the glass a second time +Mrs. Davenant threw it aside.</p> + +<p>“Am I so like?” said Una, with a smile. “How mysterious! +And that is so beautiful a face.”</p> + +<p>“Beautiful eyes, and you are——” said Mrs. Davenant, +but stopped in time, warned by Una’s frank, questioning +gaze. “If you like to look at portraits,” she said, “there is +an album there; look over that.”</p> + +<p>Una took up the album and turned over its pages; suddenly +she stopped, and the color flew to her face.</p> + +<p>With unconcealed eagerness she came toward Mrs. Davenant +with the open album in her hand.</p> + +<p>“Look!” she said; “who is that?”</p> + +<p>“That,” said Mrs. Davenant, peering at it, “that is—Jack +Newcombe.”</p> + +<p>“Jack Newcombe,” said Una, breathlessly. “You know +him?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Mrs. Davenant, with a sigh. “Poor Jack! +Shut the book, my dear.”<span class="pagenum">[101]</span></p> + +<p>“Why do you say ‘Poor Jack?’” said Una, with a hollow +look in her beautiful eyes.</p> + +<p>“Because—because he is a wicked young man, my dear,” +said Mrs. Davenant. “Poor Jack!”</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + + +<p>Amidst a profound silence Jack walked slowly and quietly +out of the house. There was no anger in his heart +against the old man whose favorite he had once been—for +the moment there was scarcely any anger against Stephen; +surprise and bewilderment overwhelmed every other feeling.</p> + +<p>He had not expected a large sum of money—had certainly +not expected the Hurst; and but for the words +spoken by the dying man, he would not have expected anything +at all, after having offended him in the matter of +the money-lenders and the post-obit. But most assuredly +the squire had intimated that there would be something—something, +however small.</p> + +<p>And now he was told that there was nothing, that his +name was not even mentioned.</p> + +<p>Apart from any mercenary consideration, Jack was cut +up and disappointed; if there had been a simple mourning +ring, a few of the old guns out of the armory—anything +as a token of the old man’s forgiveness, he would have +been satisfied; but nothing, not one word.</p> + +<p>Then, again, he could not understand it, near his end as +he was when he spoke to him. The squire was as sane and +clear-headed as he had been at any time of his life, or at +least so it seemed to Jack; and he certainly had given him +to understand that he had left him some portion of his +immense wealth.</p> + +<p>It was another link in the chain of mysteries which had +seemed to coil around Jack since he started from London.</p> + +<p>Slowly and thoughtfully he made his way back to the +“Bush,” and began to pack up the small portmanteau +which had been sent from town.</p> + +<p>Hurst Leigh was no place for him; every minute he<span class="pagenum">[102]</span> +remained in it seemed intolerable to him. He would go +straight back to town by the next train.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a thought struck him, and he paused in his +task of packing the portmanteau, an operation which he +reduced to its simplest by thrusting in anything that +came first and jamming it down tight with his fist; he +stopped and looked up with a red flush on his handsome +face. Why shouldn’t he go to Warden Forest on his way +back?</p> + +<p>In a moment, the idea thrilled him with the delight of +anticipation, the next, a shade came over his brow. Why +shouldn’t he? Rather, why <i>should</i> he? What was the use +of his going? If he had no business there before, he had +less excuse now. He was next door to a beggar—and——</p> + +<p>Realizing for the first time the blow that had been dealt +him by the squire’s neglect, he continued at the jamming +process, jumped and kicked at the portmanteau till it +consented to be locked, and then went down to the bar and +called for his bill.</p> + +<p>There were several people hanging about—a funeral +is a good excuse for a holiday in a country village—but +Jack, in his abstraction, scarcely noticed the little group of +men who sat and stood about, and merely nodded in response +to the respectful and kindly greetings.</p> + +<p>“But, Mr. Jack,” said Jobson, with a deeply respectful +air of surprise, “you don’t think of going right away at +once, sir?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’m off, Jobson,” said Jack. “What’s the next +train?”</p> + +<p>“To London?” said a dry, thin voice behind him; and +Jack turned and saw Mr. Hudsley’s clerk—old Skettle. +“There’s no train to London till seven o’clock; there’s a +train to Arkdale in an hour, but it stops there.”</p> + +<p>“All right,” he said, “I’ll go to Arkdale; and, by the +way, Jobson, I don’t want to be bothered with the portmanteau; +send it on by rail to my address—Spider Court, +the Temple, you know.”</p> + +<p>Jobson touched his cap, and while he was making out +the bill Jack lit his pipe and paced up and down, his hands +in his pockets, the knot of men watching him out of the +corners of their eyes with sympathetic curiosity.<span class="pagenum">[103]</span></p> + +<p>Jack paid the bill—so moderate a one that he capped +it with half a sovereign over; and with a “good-day” all +round, started off. He had not got further than the signpost, +when he felt a touch on his arm, and, turning, saw +that old Skettle had followed him.</p> + +<p>“Halloa,” said Jack, in his blunt way, “what’s the matter?”</p> + +<p>The old man looked up at him from under his wrinkled +lids, and fumbled at his mouth in a cautious sort of a way.</p> + +<p>“I’m very sorry things have gone on so crooked up at +the Hurst, Master Jack,” he said, respectfully.</p> + +<p>“But not more sorry than I am, Skettle, thank you.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid it’s rather unexpected, Master Jack,” he +continued, his small, keen eyes fixed, not on Jack, but on +his second waistcoat-button, counting from the top.</p> + +<p>“Well, yes, it is,” said Jack, tugging at his mustache. +“Very much so. I’ve got a hit in the bread-basket this +time, Skettle, and I’m on my back again.”</p> + +<p>Old Skettle looked a keen glance at the handsome face +and frank eyes that were looking rather ruefully at the +ground.</p> + +<p>“Hitting below the belt is not considered fair, is it, Master +Jack?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Eh, what?” said Jack, who had not been paying much +attention. “No, according to the rules; but what do you +mean by the question? You are always such a mysterious +old idiot, you know. You can’t help it, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>Old Skettle smiled, if the extraordinary contortion of +the wrinkled face could be called by so flattering a designation.</p> + +<p>“I’ve seen such mysterious things since I first went into +Mr. Hudsley’s office to sweep the floor——”</p> + +<p>“Now, then,” said Jack, “none of that game; going into +the old story, which I have heard a hundred times, of how +you went as an office boy, and have risen to the proud +position of confidential clerk. You’re like one of the old +fellows in the play, who draws a chair up to the footlights, +and says, ‘It’s seven long years ago——’ and the people begin +to clear out into the refreshment bar, and wait there +till he’s done. Where were you? Oh, ‘mysterious experiences.’ +Well, go on.”<span class="pagenum">[104]</span></p> + +<p>But old Skettle had, apparently, nothing to say; he had, +while Jack had been speaking, changed his mind.</p> + +<p>“I beg pardon for stopping you, Master Jack,” he said. +“I felt I couldn’t let you go out of the old place without +expressing my sympathy.”</p> + +<p>“Thanks, thanks,” said Jack, holding out his hand. +“You’re one of the right sort, Skettle, and so’s Hudsley. +I believe he’s sorry, too. Looks a little puzzled, too. Puzzled +isn’t the word for what I feel. I’ve got the sensation +one experiences when he’s been sitting through one +of the old-fashioned melo-dramas. Not even a mourning-ring, +or a walking-stick. Poor Squire—well, I forgive +him. He had a right to do what he liked with his own.”</p> + +<p>“Just so, Master Jack, but it’s hard for you,” said +Skettle. “Not a mourning-ring. By the way, sir,” and +something like a blush crept over his wrinkled face. “If—if +you should be in want of a little money——”</p> + +<p>Jack stared, then laughed grimly.</p> + +<p>“Well, you certainly must be mad, Skettle,” he interrupted. +“Want money! When didn’t I want it? But +don’t you be idiot enough to lend me any. It would be +a jolly bad speculation, old fellow. There is not a Jew in +London would take my paper. No, Skettle, it would be +downright robbery, and I don’t think I could rob you, you +know.”</p> + +<p>“Do you remember the day you swam across the mill-pond, +and fished my little boy out, Master Jack?”</p> + +<p>“You take care I shan’t forget it, Skettle,” said Jack, +with a smile. “It was a noble deed, wasn’t it? Every +time you mention it, I try to feel like a hero, but it won’t +come. How is little Ned?”</p> + +<p>“He’s well, sir; he’s in London now, working his way up. +He’d have been in the church-yard if it hadn’t been for +you.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Skettle, this is worse than ‘’Twas seven long +years ago!’” exclaimed Jack.</p> + +<p>“On that day, Master Jack, I swore that if ever a time +came when I’d a chance of serving you, I’d do it. It did +not seem very likely then, for we all thought you’d be the +next squire; but now, Master Jack, I should be grateful +if you’d borrow ten pounds of me.”<span class="pagenum">[105]</span></p> + +<p>“Nonsense,” cried Jack. “Don’t be an idiot, Skettle. +<i>You</i> a lawyer! why, you’re too soft for anything but a +washerwoman. There, good-bye; remember me to little +Ned when you write, and tell him I hope he’ll grow up a +little harder than his father. Good-bye,” and he shook +the thin, skinny claw heartily.</p> + +<p>Old Skettle stood and looked after him, his right hand +fumbling in his waistcoat pocket; and when Jack had got +quite out of sight he pulled the hand out, and with it a +small scrap of paper with a few words written on it, and +a seal. It was just such a scrap of paper which might +have been torn from a letter, and the seal was the Davenant +seal, with its griffin and spear plainly stamped.</p> + +<p>Old Skettle looked at it a moment curiously, then shook +his head.</p> + +<p>“No, I was right after all in not giving it to him; it +may be nothing—nothing at all. And yet—it’s the +squire’s handwriting, for it’s his seal, and what was it +lying outside the terrace for? Where’s the other part of +it, and what was the other part like? I’ll keep it. I +don’t say that there’s any good in it, but I’ll keep it. +Not a mourning-ring or a walking-stick! All—house, +lands, money—to Mr. Stephen, with the sneaking face and +the silky tongue. Poor Master Jack! I—I wish he’d +taken that ten-pound note; it burns a hole in my pocket. +Not—a—mourning-ring,” he muttered. “It’s not like the +squire, for he was fond of Master Jack, and if I’m not +half the idiot he called me, the old man hated Mr. Stephen. +I seem to feel that there’s something wrong. I’ll keep this +bit of paper;” and he restored the scrap to its place and +returned to the “Bush” with as much expression on his face +as one might expect to see on a blank skin of parchment.</p> + +<p>Jack was more moved than he would have liked to admit +by old Skettle’s sympathy and offer of assistance, and +in a softened mood, produced by the little incident, sat and +smoked his pipe with a lighter spirit.</p> + +<p>After all he was young, and—and—well, things might +turn up; at any rate, if the worst came to the worst, he +could earn his living at driving a coach-and-four, or, say, +as a navvy.</p> + +<p>“I shouldn’t make a bad light porter,” he mused, “only<span class="pagenum">[106]</span> +there are no light porters now. I wonder what will become +of me. Anyhow, I’d rather live on an Abernethy +biscuit a day than take a penny from Stephen or borrow +ten pounds from Skettle. Stephen. Squire of Hurst +Leigh! He’ll make a funny squire. I don’t believe he +knows a pheasant from a barn-door fowl, or a Berkshire +pig from a pump-handle. I should have made a better +squire than he. Never mind; it’s no use crying over spilt +milk!”</p> + +<p>Jack was certainly not the man to cry over milk spilt +or strewn, and long before the train had reached Arkdale +he had forgotten his ill-luck and the mystery attending the +will, and all his thoughts were fixed on the beautiful girl +who dwelt in a woodman’s hut in the midst of Warden +Forest.</p> + +<p>Forbidden fruit is always the sweetest, and Jack felt +that the fruit was forbidden here. What on earth business +had he, a ruined man, to be lounging about Warden, +or any other forest, in the hope of getting a sight of, or a +few words with, a girl, whom, be she as lovely as a peri, +could be nothing to him? What good could he do? On +the contrary, perhaps, a great deal of harm; for ten to +one the woodman would cut up rough, and there would be +a row.</p> + +<p>But he felt, somehow, that he had made a promise, and +promises were sacred things to Jack—excepting always +promises to pay—and a row had rather a charm for him.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, when the train drew up at Arkdale Station, +he had quite resolved to wait until the London train +came up, and as such resolutions generally end, it ended +in giving up the idea and starting for Warden.</p> + +<p>Jack was not sentimental. Men with good appetites +and digestions seldom are; but his heart beat as he entered +the charmed center of the great elms and oaks which +fringed the forest, and the whole atmosphere seemed full +of a strange fascination.</p> + +<p>“I wonder what she will say, how she will look?” he +kept asking himself. “I’d walk a thousand miles to hear +her voice, to look into her eyes. Oh, I’m a worse idiot +than old Skettle! What can her eyes and her voice be to +me? By Jove, though, I might turn woodman and—and——”<span class="pagenum">[107]</span> +marry her, he was going to say, but the thought +seemed so bold, so—well, so coarse in connection with such +a beautiful person, that Jack actually blushed and frowned +at his effrontery.</p> + +<p>He found no difficulty in recognizing the way, and +strode along at a good pace, which, however, grew slower +as he neared the clearing in which stood Gideon Rolfe’s +cottage, and just before he emerged from the wood into +it he stopped, and felt with a faint wonder that his heart +was beating fast.</p> + +<p>It was a new sensation for Master Jack, and it upset +him.</p> + +<p>“This won’t do,” he said; “I must keep cool. A child +would get the better of me while I am like this; and I +mustn’t forget I’ve got to face that wooden-faced woodman. +Courage, my boy, courage!”</p> + +<p>And with a resolute front he stepped into the clearing.</p> + +<p>Yes, there was the cottage, but why on earth were the +shutters up.</p> + +<p>With a strange misgiving he walked up to the door and +knocked.</p> + +<p>There was no answer. He knocked again and again—still +no answer.</p> + +<p>Then he stepped back and looked up at the chimney. +There was no smoky trail rising through the trees. He +listened—there was no sound. His heart sank and sank +till he felt as if it had entered his boots.</p> + +<p>With a kind of desperate hope he knelt on the window-sill +and looked through a hole in the shutter into the room.</p> + +<p>It was bare of furniture—empty, desolate.</p> + +<p>He got down again and looked about him like one who, +having buried a treasure, goes to the spot and finds that +it has gone.</p> + +<p>Gone—that was the word—and no sign!</p> + +<p>It was incredible. Three days—only three days. +What had happened? Was—was anyone dead? And at +this thought his face grew as pale as the tan would allow it.</p> + +<p>No; that was absurd. People—she—could not have +died and been buried in three days! Then, where was +she? Was it possible that the old man had actually left<span class="pagenum">[108]</span> +the wood—thrown up his livelihood—because of his +(Jack’s) visit to the cottage?</p> + +<p>A great deal more disturbed and upset than he had been +over the squire’s will, he paced up and down. He sat +down on the seat outside the window—the seat where he +had drunk his cider and eaten his cake—the seat where +Mrs. Davenant sat so patiently—and he lit his pipe and +smoked in utter bewilderment.</p> + +<p>Disappointment is but a lukewarm word by which to +describe his feelings.</p> + +<p>He felt that he had looked forward to seeing Una as a +sort of set-off against the terrible blow which the squire’s +will had dealt him, and now she was gone!</p> + +<p>I am afraid to say how many hours he sat smoking and +musing, in the vain hope that she, or Gideon Rolfe, or +someone would come to tell him something about it; but +at last he realized that she had indeed flown; that the nest +which had contained the beautiful bird was empty and +void; and with a heart that felt like lead, he set out for +Wermesley.</p> + +<p>By chance, more than calculation, he caught the up-train, +and was whirled into London.</p> + +<p>Weary, exhausted rather, he signaled a hansom, and +was driven to Spider Court.</p> + +<p>Spider Court is not an easy place to find. It is in the +heart of the Temple, and consists of about ten houses, +every one of which, like a Chinese puzzle, contains a number +of houses within itself.</p> + +<p>Barristers—generally briefless—inhabit Spider Court; +but it is the refuge of the hard-working literary man, and +of the members of that strange class which is always waiting +for “something to turn up.”</p> + +<p>Jack ascended the stairs of No. 5, passed various doors +bearing the names of the occupants on the other side of +them, and opened a door which bore the legend:</p> + +<p class="lftcntr"> +“Leonard Dagle.<br /> +“John Newcombe.” +</p> + +<p>painted in small black letters on its cross-panel.</p> + +<p>It was not a large room, and it was plainly furnished; +but it looked comfortable. Its contents looked rather incongruous.<span class="pagenum">[109]</span></p> + +<p>At the end of the room, close by the window, which only +allowed about four hours of daylight to enter it, stood a +table crowded with papers, presenting that appearance +which ladies generally call “a litter.” The table and book-shelf, +filled with heavy-looking volumes, would give one +the impression that the room belonged to a barrister or a +literary man, if it were not for a set of boxing-gloves and +a pair of fencing foils, which hung over the fireplace, and +the prints of ballet-girls and famous actresses which +adorned the walls.</p> + +<p>As Jack entered the room, a man, who was sitting at +the table, turned his head, and peering through the gloom +which a single candle only served to emphasize, exclaimed:</p> + +<p>“Jack, is that you?”</p> + +<p>The speaker was the Leonard Dagle whose name appeared +conjointly with Jack’s on the door of the chambers.</p> + +<p>Seen by the light of the single candle, Leonard Dagle +looked handsome; it was left for the daylight to reveal the +traces which life’s battle had cut in his regular features. +One had only to glance at the face to be reminded of the +old saying of the sword wearing the scabbard. It was the +face of a man who had fought the hard fight of one hand +against the world, and had not yet won the victory.</p> + +<p>Leonard Dagle was Jack’s old chum; friends he had in +plenty—dangerous friends many of them—but Leonard +was his brother and companion in arms. They had shared +the same rooms, the same tankard of bitter, sometimes the +same crust, for years.</p> + +<p>There was not a secret between them. Either would +have given the other his last penny and felt grateful for +the acceptance of it. It was a singular friendship, for +no two men could be more unlike than Leonard Dagle, +the hard-working barrister, and Jack Newcombe, the +spendthrift, the ne’er-do-well, and—the Savage.</p> + +<p>“Is that you, Jack?” exclaimed Leonard, straightening +his back. “Home already?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’m back.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter—tired?”</p> + +<p>“Tired—bored—humbled—thoroughly used up! I’ve +got news for you, Len.”<span class="pagenum">[110]</span></p> + +<p>“Bad or good?”</p> + +<p>“Bad as they can be. First the squire’s dead!”</p> + +<p>“Dead?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, dead and buried. Poor old fellow!”</p> + +<p>“I am very sorry. Then you—then you—am I addressing +the Squire of Hurst Leigh?”</p> + +<p>“You are addressing the pauper of Spider Court.”</p> + +<p>“Jack, what do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“I mean that the poor old fellow has died and left me +nothing—not even a mourning-ring.”</p> + +<p>“I’m very sorry. Left you nothing, my dear old man!”</p> + +<p>“Don’t pity me. I can’t stand that. Say serves you +right, say anything. After all, what did I deserve?”</p> + +<p>“But you expected something,” said Leonard.</p> + +<p>“Yes, and no. I expected nothing till I got there, and +then did. I saw him for a few minutes before he died, and +he said—certainly said—that I—well, that there would be +something for me.”</p> + +<p>“And there is nothing.”</p> + +<p>“Not a stiver. Mind I don’t complain, Len. I didn’t +deserve it.”</p> + +<p>“Where has it all gone? He was a rich man, was he +not?” asked Leonard.</p> + +<p>“Rich as a Crœsus,” replied Jack, “and it has all gone to +Stephen Davenant.”</p> + +<p>“That is the man that goes in for philanthropy and all +that sort of thing.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the man,” replied Jack.</p> + +<p>“Tell me all about it,” said Leonard, after a long pause.</p> + +<p>And, with many pauses, Jack told his story.</p> + +<p>Leonard Dagle listened intently.</p> + +<p>“It’s a strange story, Jack,” he said. “I—I—it rather +puzzles me. There could be—of course, there could be +nothing wrong.”</p> + +<p>“Wrong, how do you mean?” exclaimed Jack.</p> + +<p>“Well, Stephen Davenant’s conduct is rather peculiar—isn’t +it?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, he’s half out of his mind,” said Jack, carelessly. +“He has been playing a close game for the money, and +hanging about the old man till he has got as hysterical +as a girl. What do you think could be wrong? Everything<span class="pagenum">[111]</span> +was as correct as it could be—family lawyer, who +made out the will, and all the rest of it.”</p> + +<p>“Then you think the squire was wandering in his mind +at last?”</p> + +<p>“That’s it,” said Jack. “He wanted to provide for me—to +leave me something, and he fancied he’d done it. It’s +often the case, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve met with such cases,” said Leonard.</p> + +<p>“Just so,” said Jack. “Is there anything to drink?” +he asked, abruptly, as if he wanted to change the subject.</p> + +<p>“There’s some whiskey——”</p> + +<p>Jack mixed himself a tumbler and sat on the edge of the +table, and Leonard Dagle leaned back and watched him.</p> + +<p>“There’s something else, Jack,” he said. “Out with it; +what is it?”</p> + +<p>“What a fellow you are, Len. You are like one of those +mesmeric men; there’s no keeping anything from you. +Well, I’ve had an adventure.”</p> + +<p>“An adventure?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’m half under the impression that it’s nothing +but a dream. Len, I’ve seen the most beautiful—the most—Len, +do you believe in witches? Not the old sort, but +the young ones—sirens, didn’t they call them; who used to +haunt the woods and forests and tempt travelers into quagmires +and ditches. The innocent-looking kind of sirens, +you know. Well, I’ve seen one!”</p> + +<p>“Jack, you’ve been drinking; put that glass down.”</p> + +<p>“Have I? Then I haven’t. Look here,” and he told +the story of his wanderings in Warden, and all it had led +up to.</p> + +<p>“How’s that for an adventure?” he said, when he had +finished.</p> + +<p>“It would do for a mediæval romance. And she has +gone, you say?”</p> + +<p>“Clean gone,” said Jack, with a sigh and a long pull at +the tumbler. “Gone like a—a dream, you know. How +is that for an adventure? You don’t believe in them, +though.”</p> + +<p>Leonard Dagle looked up, and there was a strange, half-shy +expression in his face.<span class="pagenum">[112]</span></p> + +<p>“You are right, Jack. I didn’t till the day before yesterday.”</p> + +<p>“The day before yesterday? What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Simply that I, too, have had an adventure.”</p> + +<p>“Seems to me that we’re like those confounded nuisances +who used to meet on a coach and tell stories to amuse +themselves. Go on; it’s your turn now.”</p> + +<p>“Mine’s soon told. After you started for Hurst Leigh +I got a letter from a man at Wermesley——”</p> + +<p>“Wermesley!” exclaimed Jack. “Why——”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it is on the same line. He wanted me to go down +to look over some deeds, and I went. I took a return +ticket and got into the last train. When I got into the +carriage—I went ‘first’ on the strength of the business—I +saw a young lady—mind, a young lady—seated in a +corner. It struck me as rather odd that a young girl +should be traveling alone at this time of night, and I +shifted about until I could get a good look at her. Jack, +you’re not the only man that has seen a beautiful girl +within the last week.”</p> + +<p>“Beautiful, eh?” cried Jack, interested.</p> + +<p>“Beautiful in my eyes. The sort of face that Cleopatra +might have had when she was that girl’s age. I never saw +such eyes, and I had plenty of opportunity of seeing them, +for she seemed quite unconscious of my presence. Jack, +I’m a shy man, and I’m often sorry for it, but I was +never sorrier than I was then, for I’d have given anything +to have been able to speak to her and hear her speak. +There she sat, looking like a picture, quite motionless, with +her eyes fixed on the flare of the lamp; and there I sat +and couldn’t pluck up courage to say a word. At last we +got to London; they came for the tickets, and she couldn’t +find hers. I went down on my hands and knees, and at +last I found the ticket under the seat. I looked at it as I +gave it to the porter; and where do you think it was +from?”</p> + +<p>Jack shook his head. He didn’t think it much of an +adventure after Una and Warden Forest.</p> + +<p>“You’ll never guess. What do you say to Hurst +Leigh?”<span class="pagenum">[113]</span></p> + +<p>“Hurst Leigh! Why, who was she? Somebody I know, +perhaps.”</p> + +<p>“I found my tongue at last, and said, ‘You have had a +long journey. Hurst Leigh is a beautiful place.’ And +what do you think she said?”</p> + +<p>Jack shook his head.</p> + +<p>“She said, ‘I don’t know. I have never been there before +today.’ That’s all until we got to the terminus, then +I asked her if I could get her luggage. ‘I haven’t any,’ she +said. ‘Could I get her a cab?’ I asked. Yes, I might get +her a cab. I went and found a cab and put her in it; +and, if I had a shadow of a doubt as to her being a lady, +the way in which she thanked me would have dispelled it. +I asked her where I should direct the cabman to drive, and +she said 24 Cheltenham Terrace. And—and then she +went.”</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I—of course you’ll call me a fool, Jack, I am +quite aware of that—I followed in another cab.”</p> + +<p>“Good heavens! You’ve been drinking!”</p> + +<p>“No. I followed, and when she had gone I knocked at +the door of the next house and asked the name of the people +who lived next door. They—for a wonder—were civil, +and told me. She lives with her grandfather, and her +name is Laura Treherne.”</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + + +<p>“Her name is Laura Treherne,” said Leonard.</p> + +<p>“Laura Treherne. Never heard the name before.”</p> + +<p>“Nor I, but it belongs to the most beautiful creature I +have ever seen.”</p> + +<p>“That’s because you haven’t seen Una Rolfe,” put in +Jack, coolly. “But I say, Len, what has come to us? +We’ve both caught the universal epidemic at the same time. +It’s nothing wonderful in me, you know—but you—<i>you</i>, +who wouldn’t look at a woman! Have you got it bad, +Len?”</p> + +<p>“Very bad, Jack. Yes, the time which Rosseau calls +the supremest in one’s life, has come to me. As a novice in +the art of love-making, I come to you for advice.”<span class="pagenum">[114]</span></p> + +<p>“Why, it’s easy enough in your case. You know where +to put your hand upon the lady. What are you to do? +Why, disguise yourself as a sweep, and go and sweep the +chimneys at 24 Cheltenham Square, or pretend you’re the +tax collector, or ‘come to look at the gas meter.’ You’ve +got half a dozen plans, but I—what am I to do? I’ve seen +the most beautiful creature in existence, and if I’m not in +love with her——”</p> + +<p>“I should say you were,” said Leonard, gently.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I am. I knew it when I found that confounded +cottage empty. But what am I to do? I haven’t the +faintest clew to her whereabouts. The old gentleman with +the hatchet may have murdered his whole family—her included—or +emigrated to Australia.”</p> + +<p>“It is very strange. Didn’t you notice any sign of a +move about the place the first night you were there?”</p> + +<p>“No, none. Everything looked as if it had been going +on for a hundred years—excepting Una—and meant to go +on for another hundred. Len, I’m afraid we’ve been bewitched. +Perhaps it’s all a dream; I haven’t been down +to Hurst and you haven’t been down to Wermesley. We +shall wake up directly—oh, no! The poor squire! Len, +it’s all true, and we’re a couple of young fools!”</p> + +<p>“Speak for yourself, old fellow. I have been a fool until +three days ago, now I am as wise as Solomon, for I have +learned what love is.”</p> + +<p>“So have I—I have also learned the vanity of human +wishes, and the next thing I shall have to learn will be +some way of earning a livelihood. I should prefer an +honest one, but—poor men can’t afford to be particular, +and honesty doesn’t seem to pay now-a-days. I feel so +hard up and reckless that I could become a bank director +or a member of Parliament without feeling a pang of +conscience.”</p> + +<p>Leonard looked up at him, for the vein of bitterness was +plainly to be detected running through Jack’s banter; and +Leonard knew that when Jack was bitter—which was but +once a year, say—he was reckless.</p> + +<p>“We must talk it over. Sit down—get off that table; +you’re making a perfect hash of my papers—and let’s talk +it over. You won’t go out tonight.”<span class="pagenum">[115]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, I shall. I shall go down to the club.”</p> + +<p>“No, no, keep away from the club tonight, Jack.”</p> + +<p>“What are you afraid of? Do you think I shall want +to gamble? I’ve no money to lose.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the very reason you’ll want to play. Do keep at +home tonight.”</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t do it, old man,” he said. “I’m on wires—I’m +all on fire. If I sat here much longer, I should get up +suddenly, murder you, and sack the place. The Savage +has got his paint on, and is on the trail.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be a fool, Jack. You are hot and upset. Keep +away from the club tonight. Well, well—let the <i>ecarte</i> +alone, at any rate.”</p> + +<p>“All right, I’ll promise you that. I won’t touch a card +tonight. <i>Ecarte!</i> I couldn’t play beggar-my-neighbor +tonight! Len, I wish you were a bigger man; I’d get up +a row, and have a turn-to with you. Sit down here! I +couldn’t do it. I want to be doing something—something +desperate. You can sit here and dream over your complaint; +I can’t—I should go mad! Don’t sit up for me.”</p> + +<p>Leonard looked after him as he disappeared into one of +the two bedrooms which adjoined the common sitting-room, +and, with a shake of his head, muttered, “Poor +Jack!” and returned to his work.</p> + +<p>Jack took a cold bath, dressed himself, and merely pausing +to shout a good-night, as he passed down the stairs, +went into the street, and jumped into a hansom, telling +the man to drive to the Hawks’ Club.</p> + +<p>It was rather early for the “Hawks,” and only a few +of them had fluttered in. It was about the last club that +such a man as Jack should have been a member of. It +was fast, it was expensive, it was fashionable, and the +chief reason for its existence lay in the fact that play at +any time, and to any extent, could be obtained there.</p> + +<p>When Jack entered the cardroom, that apartment was +almost empty, but the suspicious-looking tables were surrounded +by chairs stuck up on two legs, denoting that +they were engaged, and those men who were present were +all playing.</p> + +<p>Every head was turned as he entered, and a buzz of +greeting rose to welcome him.<span class="pagenum">[116]</span></p> + +<p>“Halloa; you back, Jack!” said a tall, military-looking +man, who was known as the “Indian Nut,” because he was +one of the most famous of our Indian colonels. “You’re +just in time to take a hand at loo.”</p> + +<p>“No; come and join us,” said young Lord Pierrepoint, +from another table, at which nap was being played.</p> + +<p>But if you could only wring a promise out of Jack, you +could rest perfectly certain that he would keep it; and he +shook his head firmly.</p> + +<p>“Nary a card.”</p> + +<p>“What! Don’t you feel well, Jack?”</p> + +<p>“No, I’m hungry. I’m going to get something to eat.”</p> + +<p>“Dear me, I didn’t know you did eat, Jack. However, +man, come and sit down, and don’t fidget about the room +like that.”</p> + +<p>“Len’s right, the club won’t do neither. I couldn’t hold +a card straight tonight. I’ll get some dinner, and go +back, and we’ll have it all over again.”</p> + +<p>It was a wise and virtuous resolution; and, unlike most +resolves, Jack meant to keep it. But alas! before he had +got through with his soup, the door opened and two men +strolled in.</p> + +<p>They were both young and well-known. The one was +Sir Arkroyd Hetley; the other, the young Lord Dalrymple, +whose coronet had scarcely yet warmed his forehead, as +the French say.</p> + +<p>Both of them uttered an exclamation at seeing Jack, +and made straight for his table.</p> + +<p>“Why, here’s the Savage!” exclaimed Dalrymple. “Back +to his native forest primeval.”</p> + +<p>“Been on the war trail, Jack?” asked Sir Arkroyd. +“How are the squaws and wigwams? Seriously, where +have you been, old man?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have been on the war trail,” he said.</p> + +<p>“And got some scalps, I hope,” said Dalrymple. “What +are you doing—dining? What do you say, Ark, shall we +join him? It’s so long since I’ve eaten anything that I +should like to watch a man do it before I make an attempt.”</p> + +<p>The footman put chairs and rearranged the table, and +the two men chatted and conned over the <i>carte</i>.<span class="pagenum">[117]</span></p> + +<p>“You don’t look quite the thing, Jack. Been going it in +the forest, or what?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’ve been going it in the forest, Dally.”</p> + +<p>“Been hunting the buffalo and chumming up with his +old friend, Spotted Bull,” said Arkroyd. “Bet you anything +he hasn’t been out of London, Dally.”</p> + +<p>“Take him,” said Jack. “I’ve been out of London on a +little matter of business.”</p> + +<p>“He’s been robbing a bank,” said Arkroyd, “or breaking +one.”</p> + +<p>“Neither. Stop chaffing, you two, and tell a fellow +what’s going on.”</p> + +<p>“Shall we tell him, Dally? Perhaps he’ll try to cut us +out. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to start a joint stock +company, all club together, you know, and work it in that +way, the one who wins to share with the other fellows.”</p> + +<p>“Wins what? What on earth are you talking about? Is +it a sweepstake, a handicap, or what——”</p> + +<p>“No, my noble Savage. It’s the heiress.”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Jack, indifferently, and he sipped his claret +critically.</p> + +<p>“What has come to you, Jack? Have you decided to cut +the world or have heiresses become unnecessary? Perhaps +someone has left you a fortune, old man; if so, nobody will +be more delighted than I shall be—to help you spend it.”</p> + +<p>A flush rose to Jack’s face, and his eyes flashed. He +had been drinking great bumpers of the Hawks’ favorite +claret—a heady wine which Jack should never have +touched at any time, especially not tonight.</p> + +<p>“No, no one has left me a fortune; quite the reverse. +But you’d better tell me about this heiress, I see, or you’ll +die of disappointment. Who is she—where is she?—what +is she? Here’s her good health, whoever she is,” and down +went another bumper of the Lafitte; and as it went down, +it was to Una he drank, not to the unknown one.</p> + +<p>“Do you remember Earlsley?” said Arkroyd. “Oh, no, +of course not, you must have been in your cradle in the +wigwam in that time. Well; old Wigsley died and left his +money to a fifty-second cousin, who turned out to be a +girl. No one knew anything about her; no one knew +where to find her; but at last there comes a claimant in<span class="pagenum">[118]</span> +the shape of a girl from one of the Colonies—Canada. +That isn’t a colony, is it, though? Australia—anywhere—nobody +knows, you know. She came over with her belongings—a +rum-looking old fellow, with a white head of long +hair, like, a—a—what’s got a long head of white hair, +Dally?”</p> + +<p>“Try patriarch,” murmured the marquis.</p> + +<p>“Well, in addition to the money, and there’s about a +million, more or less—she’s got the most beautiful, that +isn’t the word, most charming, fascinating little face you +ever saw. If she looks at you, you feel as if you never +could feel an ache or pain again as long as you lived.”</p> + +<p>“Ark, you’ve had too much champagne.”</p> + +<p>“No; ’pon my honor. Isn’t it right, Dally?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and if she smiles,” said Dalrymple, “you never +could feel another moment’s unhappiness. The prettiest +mouth—and when it opens, her teeth——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, confound it!” exclaimed Jack, brusquely. “You +needn’t run over her points as if she were a horse; I don’t +want to buy her.”</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, he had only caught the last word or +two, for while Arkroyd had been talking he had been +thinking of that other beautiful girl—not a doll, with +teeth and a smile, but an angel, pure and ethereal—a +dream—not a fascinating heiress.</p> + +<p>“Buy her!” exclaimed Arkroyd. “Listen to him! +Don’t I tell you she’s worth a million?”</p> + +<p>“And I’d make her Countess of Dalrymple tomorrow if +she hadn’t a penny, and would have me,” said Dalrymple.</p> + +<p>“Try her,” said Jack, curtly.</p> + +<p>“No use, my dear Savage,” he said, tugging at his incipient +fringe of down ruefully. “She won’t have anything +to say to yours truly, or to any one of us for that +matter. She only smiles when we say pretty things, and +shows her teeth at us. Besides, the title wouldn’t tempt +her. She’s got one already. Don’t I tell you she’s one of +the Earlsley lot? No; we’ve all had a try, even Arkroyd. He +even went so far as to get a fellow to write a poem about +her in one of the society journals, and signed it ‘A. H.;’ +but she told him to his face that she didn’t care for poetry. +It was a pretty piece, too, wasn’t it, Ark?”<span class="pagenum">[119]</span></p> + +<p>“First-rate,” said Arkroyd, with as much modesty as if +he had written it. “But it was all thrown away on Lady +Bell.”</p> + +<p>“On whom?” said Jack, waking up again.</p> + +<p>“On Lady Bell—Isabel Earlsley is her name. You’re +wool-gathering tonight, Jack.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Lady Bell, is it?” said Jack, carelessly. “Go +ahead. Anything else?”</p> + +<p>“No, that’s all, excepting that I’ll wager a cool thousand +to a china orange that you’ll change your tone when you see +her, Savage.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps,” said Jack, “but your description doesn’t +move me; not much, Ark. You’re not good at that sort of +thing. It isn’t in your line. The only things you seem +to have remarked are her smile and her teeth.”</p> + +<p>“Savage, you are, as usual, blunt, not to say rude. Let +us have another bottle of Cliquot.”</p> + +<p>Jack shook his head, but another bottle came up, and he +sat and took his share in silence, and, indeed, almost unconsciously. +For all the attention he paid to the chatter +of his two friends they might not have been present.</p> + +<p>His thoughts flew backward to the shady grove of Warden +Forest, to the girl who, like a vision of purity and innocence +and loveliness, had floated like a dream across his +life.</p> + +<p>He gave one passing thought to Len, too, and his story.</p> + +<p>It was a strange coincidence that they should both have +met their fates at one and the same time, or nearly so.</p> + +<p>He would have thought it stranger still if he could have +lifted the veil of the future and seen how closely the web of +his life was woven with the woof, not only of Una’s, but of +Laura Treherne, and also of Lady Bell Earlsley.</p> + +<p>All unconscious he had turned a leaf of his life’s book, +and had begun a new chapter in which these three women +were to take a part.</p> + +<p>But he sat and drank the champagne, knowing nothing +of this, and—I am sorry to have to say it—he was rapidly +arriving at that condition in which it is dangerous to be +within a mile of that fascinating fluid. When a man +passes from a state of half-feverish restlessness and dissatisfaction +to one of comparative comfort, and that by the<span class="pagenum">[120]</span> +aid of the cheering glass, it is time to put the cheering +glass aside and go home.</p> + +<p>Jack did not go home; on the contrary, he went into the +billiard-room, and Cliquot followed, as a matter of course.</p> + +<p>For a time Jack had managed to forget everything excepting +his promise to Len; he would not enter the card-room, +but he stuck to pool and champagne.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + + +<p>I am not going to apologize for our hero, nor am I going +to gloss over his faults with any specious special pleading. +No man is either wholly good or wholly bad; certainly +Jack was not wholly good; he was human, very human, +and blessed, or cursed, with a hot, passionate blood, which +made him more liable to trip than most men. But, at +the same time, this in justice must be said of him, that +he very rarely sinned in this way.</p> + +<p>Tonight his blood was at full heat; the love which had +sprung up like a tongue of flame in his heart burned and +maddened him, and to this newly-born love was added the +disappointment and bewilderment of Una’s sudden disappearance. +Add, too, that he had been overstrained and +upset, and—well, there are the excuses and apologies, after +all.</p> + +<p>Somewhere about two o’clock, when the club was full +with men who had dropped in from theater and ball-room, +and amidst the popping of corks and click of pool +balls, a certain feeling came over poor Jack that he had +taken quite as much, and more, of the sparkling juice +than was good for him; and with that consciousness came +the resolution to go home.</p> + +<p>The game was just over, and without a word he put up +his cue, motioned to a footman to bring him his hat, and, +scarcely noticed in the crowd and bustle, slowly descended +the broad and indeed magnificent staircase for which and +its palatial hall the club was famous.</p> + +<p>He descended very slowly, with his hand on the balustrade, +and having reached the bottom, he filled a glass with +water from the crystal filter that stood on a side table in +the porter’s box, and sallied out.<span class="pagenum">[121]</span></p> + +<p>The night air struck upon his hot brow in a cool and +welcome fashion, and Jack stood for a moment or two, +fighting with the hazy and stupefying effects of the night’s +work.</p> + +<p>“I won’t go home yet,” he muttered. “Len will be cut +up; he always is. He’s as bad as a father—almost as bad +as a mother-in-law. Well, I didn’t touch the cards, anyhow. +And if it had not been for those two idiots, Ark and +Dally, I shouldn’t have got so far into the champagne. +How bright the stars shine—an unaccountable number of +them tonight.” Poor Jack! “Never saw such a quantity! +No, I won’t go home yet. I’ll walk it off if I have to walk +till tomorrow morning. Where am I? Ah! where is <i>she?</i> +Thank Heaven, she isn’t near me now! I’m glad she’s +gone; I’m glad I shall never see her any more. I’m not fit +to see her; not worthy to touch her hand. But I did +touch it,” and, with a kind of wonder at his audacity, he +stretched out his hand and stared at it under the gas-lamp.</p> + +<p>Then he walked on perfectly indifferent to the direction, +perfectly indifferent to the weariness which was gradually—no, +rapidly—coming on him.</p> + +<p>Just at this time, while he was walking off the drowsy +dream that had got possession of him, a stream of carriages +was slowly moving down Park Lane, taking up from +one of the best known houses in town—Lady Merivale’s.</p> + +<p>Lady Merivale was one of the leaders of <i>ton</i> and had +been one as long as most middle-aged people could remember. +To be seen at Lady Merivale’s was to be acknowledged +as one of that small but powerful portion of humanity +known as “the upper ten.”</p> + +<p>It was one of her ladyship’s grand balls, and not only +were the ball and drawing-rooms full, but the staircase +also, and any one wishing to enter or exit had to make his +way down a narrow line flanked on either side by the youth +and nobility of the best kind of society.</p> + +<p>That it had been a great success no one who knows the +world—and Lady Merivale—needs to be told. It had, perhaps, +been one of her greatest, for in addition to two +princes of the blood royal, she had secured the great sensation<span class="pagenum">[122]</span> +of the day, the young millionairess, Lady Isabel Earlsley.</p> + +<p>And this was no slight achievement, for Lady Bell, as +she was generally called, was a wilful, uncertain young +personage, from whom it was very hard to procure a promise, +and who, not seldom, was given to breaking it when +made, at least, so far as acceptation of invitations went.</p> + +<p>But she was there tonight; as the next issue of the +<i>Morning Post</i> would testify.</p> + +<p>Jack had been really too careless and scornful in his +indifference. Lady Bell was not only beautiful, she was—what +was more rare than beauty—charming. She was +rather short than tall; but not too short. She had a beautiful +figure; not a wasp waist by any means, but a natural +figure, full of power and grace. Her skin was, well, colonial; +delicately tinted and creamy; and her eyes—it is difficult +to catalogue her eyes, because their lights were always +changing—but the expression which generally predominated +was one of half-amused, half-mocking light.</p> + +<p>With both expressions she met the open admiration of +the gilded youths who thronged round her, amused at +their foppery, mocking at their protestations of devotion.</p> + +<p>Tonight she was dressed neither magnificently nor +superbly, but with, what seemed to the women who gazed +at her with barely concealed envy, artful simplicity.</p> + +<p>Her dress was of Indian muslin, priceless for all its +simplicity; and she wore glittering in her hair, on her +arms, and on her cream-white bosom, pearls, that, in quantity +and quality would have made the fortune of any enterprising +burglar.</p> + +<p>By her side stood—for they were moving toward the +door, on their way to an exit—an elderly woman, with an +expressionless face, simply and plainly dressed. She was +generally spoken of as the watch dog; but she scarcely +deserved that name, for Lady Bell was quite capable of +watching over herself; and Mrs. Fellowes, the widow of +the Indian colonel, was too mild to represent any sort of +dog whatever.</p> + +<p>Surrounded by a crowd of devoted courtiers, the great +heiress and her companion moved toward the door where +the hostess stood receiving the farewells and thanks of<span class="pagenum">[123]</span> +her guests; and when one thinks of the many hundred +times Lady Merivale had stood by that door, and undergone +that terrible ordeal, one is filled with amazement and +awe at her courage and physical strength.</p> + +<p>For forty years she had been standing at doors, receiving +and meeting guests; yet she stood tonight as smiling and +courageous as ever.</p> + +<p>At last Lady Bell reached her hostess, and Lady Merivale, +tired and done up as she was, gave her special recognition.</p> + +<p>“Must you go, Lady Bell? Well, good-night. And +thank you for making my poor little dance a success. +Thank you very much.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell said nothing, but she smiled “in her old colonial” +way, as they called it, and threaded through the +lane of human beings on the stairs.</p> + +<p>“Lady Earlsley’s carriage!” shouted the footman in the +gorgeous Merivale livery, and a little brougham drove up.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell hated show and magnificence.</p> + +<p>Her stables and coach-houses were crowded with horses +and carriages, her wardrobes filled to repletion with +Worth’s costumes and Elise’s “confections,” as bonnets are +called now-a-days, but a plain little brougham was her +favorite vehicle, and the simplest of costumes pleased her +best.</p> + +<p>All the way down the stairs she had to nod and smile and +exchange farewells, and at the bottom, in the hall, on the +stone steps themselves, she was surrounded by men eager +to secure the privilege of putting her into her little +brougham.</p> + +<p>But she avoided them all, and sprang in as if she had +not been dancing for four hours, and throwing herself back +into the corner, exclaimed:</p> + +<p>“Thank goodness, that is over. Poor old Fellowes! you +are worn out. Confess it.”</p> + +<p>“I am rather tired, my dear,” said Mrs. Fellowes, who +had been sitting against a wall all the evening.</p> + +<p>“Tired! of course you are; it’s ever so much more tiring +looking on than dancing, and joining in the giddy round. +I don’t feel a bit tired; I’m a little bored.”<span class="pagenum">[124]</span></p> + +<p>“Bored! what a word, my dear Bell,” murmured Mrs. +Fellowes, sleepily.</p> + +<p>“It’s a good word—it’s an expressive word—and it just +means really what I feel.”</p> + +<p>“And yet you received more attention than any woman—any +girl—in the room, my dear,” murmured Mrs. Fellowes.</p> + +<p>“My money-bags may have done so,” said Lady Bell, +scornfully; “not I. Do you think that if I were as penniless +as one of Lady Southerly’s daughters, I should receive +as much attention? Fellowes, don’t you take to +flattering me. I couldn’t stand that.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to flatter you, my dear Bell; but when +the prince himself dances twice with you——”</p> + +<p>“Of course he did. I am a celebrity. I am the richest +young woman in the kingdom, and he would have done +it if I had been as ugly as sin—which isn’t ugly, by the +way.”</p> + +<p>“What strange things you say,” murmured Mrs. Fellowes, +with mild rebuke. “I’m sure no girl received more +attention than you have tonight. I sat and watched you, +my dear, and a spectator sees more of the game than a +player.”</p> + +<p>“You are right, it is all a game, a gamble,” retorted Lady +Bell. “All those nice young men were playing pitch and +toss who should make the hardest running with the great +heiress. Do you think I am blind? I can see through +them all, and I despise them. There isn’t a man among +them but would pay me the same court if I were as plain +as Lucifer——”</p> + +<p>“My dear Bell——”</p> + +<p>“But it is true,” said Lady Bell. “I can read them all. +And if they knew how I despised them, even while I smile +upon them, they would keep at arm’s length for very +shame. I wish I hadn’t a penny in the world.”</p> + +<p>“My dear Bell!” ejaculated Mrs. Fellowes, really and +truly shocked at such a fearfully profane wish.</p> + +<p>“I do! I do! I should then find out if any one of them +cared for me—for myself. You say I am beautiful, but +you are so partial; do you think I am beautiful enough +to cause any man to risk his all in life for my sake?”<span class="pagenum">[125]</span></p> + +<p>“I don’t know. I don’t just follow you,” said poor Mrs. +Fellowes.</p> + +<p>“No, you are half asleep,” retorted Lady Bell. “There, +curl yourself up and snooze. I shan’t talk any more.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell leaned forward, and looked up at the stars—the +same stars that seemed so numerous to poor Jack—and +pondered over the events of the evening.</p> + +<p>It was true that a prince of the blood had danced there +with her; it was true that, all through the evening, she +had been surrounded by a court of the best men in London; +it was true that she had sent one half the women home +burning with envy and malice and all uncharitableness; +but still she was not happy.</p> + +<p>“No,” she murmured, unheard by the sleeping companion; +“the dream of my life has not yet been fulfilled. +I have not yet met the man to whom I could say, ‘I am +yours, take me!’ Perhaps I never shall; and until I do, I +will remain Lady Bell, though they buzz round my money-bags +till I am deaf with their hum.”</p> + +<p>The brougham was going at a great pace, simply because +the coachman very reasonably desired to get home and +to bed; and Lady Bell saw the houses flit past as if they +had been part of a panorama got up for her special amusement.</p> + +<p>But suddenly the brougham swerved, and, indeed, nearly +upset, and the stillness of the night was broken by what +seemed remarkably like an oath by the coachman.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell felt that something was wrong; but she +neither turned color nor lost her presence of mind.</p> + +<p>Putting her head, with a thousand pounds of jewels on +it, through the window, she said, in clear tones:</p> + +<p>“What is the matter, Jackson?”</p> + +<p>“I—whoa! I don’t quite know, my lady; I think it is +a man. Something came right across the road. Yes, it +is a man.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell opened the brougham door, stepped into the +road—the light from the lamp flashing on her pearls—and +went toward the horse.</p> + +<p>“Keep away from her hind legs, for goodness’ sake, my +lady,” ejaculated Jackson. “Keep still, will you!” this +was of course addressed to the horse.<span class="pagenum">[126]</span></p> + +<p>“What is it? what is it?” asked Lady Bell, peering about.</p> + +<p>“Here, my lady, on the near side—on the left. It’s +down in the road, whatever it is.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell went behind the brougham to the near side—she +was too well acquainted with horses and their moods +to cross in front of the horse’s eyes—and looked about her. +For a moment she could see nothing, but presently, when +her eyes had become used to the darkness, she saw a man +lying, as it seemed, right under the horse’s body.</p> + +<p>Her impulse—and she always acted on that impulse—was +to pull him out. But to pull a man even an inch is a +difficult task even for the strongest girl, and after a moment’s +tug she was about to tell Jackson to alight while +she stood at the horse’s head, when suddenly the prostrate +man staggered to his feet, and leaned against the brougham +as if it had been specially built and brought there for that +purpose.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell went up to him and laid her hand upon his +arm.</p> + +<p>“What has happened?” she said, anxiously. “Were you +run over—are you hurt?”</p> + +<p>Jack—for it was Jack—opened his eyes and stared at +her with the gravity of a man suddenly sobered.</p> + +<p>“No,” he said, “I am not hurt. Don’t blame the man, +it was my fault. Not hurt at all. Good-night.”</p> + +<p>And he feels for his hat, which at that moment was +lying under the carriage a shapeless mass.</p> + +<p>As he spoke Lady Bell saw something drop on to his +hand, and looking at it saw that it was a drop of blood.</p> + +<p>With a shudder—for she could not bear the sight of +blood—she said:</p> + +<p>“Not hurt! Why, you are bleeding.”</p> + +<p>“Am I?” said Jack, gravely and curtly. “It will do me +good. Don’t you be alarmed, miss. I am used to being +upset, and my bones are too hard to break. Good-night.”</p> + +<p>And he made for the pavement pretty steadily. But a +hand, soft and warm, and strong also, stayed him.</p> + +<p>“Stop,” said Lady Bell; “I am sure you are hurt. How +did you come to be run over?”</p> + +<p>“Got in the way of the horse, I suppose,” said Jack, +quietly. “That is the usual way.”<span class="pagenum">[127]</span></p> + +<p>“But—but,” said Lady Bell; and she looked at the +handsome face scrutinizingly.</p> + +<p>Then she stopped, for her scrutiny had discovered two +facts; first, that the individual who had been run over was +a gentleman; secondly, that he had been drinking.</p> + +<p>“Wait,” she said, still keeping her hand on his arm; +“you are not fit to go alone without some assistance, and +I am sure you are hurt. Look, you are bleeding.”</p> + +<p>“A mere nothing,” said Jack; “don’t trouble. Allow +me to put you in—I shall get home all right.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell, still keeping her eyes fixed on his face, shook +her head.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t leave you like this,” she said. “Where do +you live?”</p> + +<p>“Where do I—live?” repeated Jack. “Spider Court, +Temple. It’s no distance from here.”</p> + +<p>“The Temple!” exclaimed Lady Bell. “It must be +miles away.”</p> + +<p>“A hansom,” smiled Jack.</p> + +<p>“But there are no cabs here, not one. I cannot leave +you like this—you must get into the brougham.”</p> + +<p>“Not for worlds! I have given you quite enough trouble,” +he said. “I shall find my way home somehow.”</p> + +<p>“No,” she said; “I cannot let you go without seeing you +safe into a cab. There are none here. You do not know—I +do not know—how much you are hurt. You must +let me take you to your home.”</p> + +<p>“I assure you I am all right,” he said.</p> + +<p>“And I refuse to accept your assurance,” said Lady Bell, +with a little shudder at the streak of blood which oozed +from his forehead. “Come, you will not refuse to obey a +lady. I wish you to enter my brougham.”</p> + +<p>“No, I can’t refuse to obey a lady,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Then come with me,” said Lady Bell.</p> + +<p>“Where to, my lady?” asked Jackson, who was used to +her ladyship’s willfulness, and sat, patient as Job, waiting +for the issue of this strange adventure.</p> + +<p>“To—where did you say?” asked Lady Bell.</p> + +<p>“Spider Court,” said Jack; “but I wish you’d let me go +out and walk. It must be right out of your way.”<span class="pagenum">[128]</span></p> + +<p>“Spider Court, Temple,” said Lady Bell, and the +brougham rolled on.</p> + +<p>Through it all Mrs. Fellowes had remained in the deep +sleep which the gods vouchsafe to good women of her age, +and the two—Lady Bell and Jack—were, to all intents +and purposes, alone.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell looked at him as he sat in his corner, the +thin, red stream trickling down from his forehead, and +shuddered; not at him, but at the blood.</p> + +<p>“How did you come to be run over?” she asked. “Did +you fall?”</p> + +<p>“Must have done,” he said, coolly; “anyway I’ll swear +it wasn’t the coachman’s fault.”</p> + +<p>“I am not going to blame the coachman,” said Lady +Bell, with the shadow of a smile.</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” said Jack. “It was all my fault. I’d +been—been to see a favorite aunt.”</p> + +<p>“You had been to your club,” said Lady Bell.</p> + +<p>“How did you know that?” he said.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell smiled again, and Jack, his eyes fixed upon +her, thought the smile wonderfully fascinating.</p> + +<p>“A little bird told me,” she said.</p> + +<p>“The little bird was right,” said Jack, shaking his head, +with penitence and remorse written on every feature. “I +have been dining at my club. Perhaps the little bird told +you everything else?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; the little bird also whispered that you had——”</p> + +<p>“Drank too much champagne? Confound those fellows! +Wonderful little bird!” muttered Jack.</p> + +<p>“It is very wicked of you,” said Lady Bell, gravely, her +eyes fixed on his face, that, notwithstanding its streak of +red, looked wonderfully handsome.</p> + +<p>While she looked, she almost convinced herself that she +had never seen such a handsome face, nor such frank eyes.</p> + +<p>“It was very wicked of you,” she repeated, in a voice +pitched in a low key, no doubt out of consideration for the +sleeping watch dog.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said, “I am a bad lot; I am not fit to be here +with you. I have been dining at my club; but how you +knew it, I can’t conceive. And—and——”</p> + +<p>“Don’t tell me any more,” said Lady Bell. “I am sorry<span class="pagenum">[129]</span> +that you should have been run over, and I hope you are +not hurt. That—that is blood running down your face. +Why do you not wipe it off? I can’t bear it.”</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon,” said Jack, and he fumbled for his +pocket-handkerchief, which at that moment was lying under +the seat in the billiard-room.</p> + +<p>“Here, take this,” said Lady Bell, and she put her own +delicate lace-edged one in his hand.</p> + +<p>Jack mopped his forehead diligently.</p> + +<p>“Is it all off?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“No, it keeps running,” replied Lady Bell, with a little +thrill of horror. “I believe you are much hurt.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not; I give you my word,” said Jack. “There—no, +I’ll keep it until it’s washed.” And he thrust the delicate +cobweb into his pocket.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell leaned back, but her eyes wandered now and +then to the handsome face, pale through all its tan.</p> + +<p>Presently, wonderfully soon, as it seemed to her, the +brougham came to a stop, and Jackson, bending down to +the window, said:</p> + +<p>“Spider Court, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“Spider Court,” said Jack. “Then I’m home. I’m +very much obliged to you, and I wish I didn’t feel so much +ashamed of myself. Hark! who’s that?” for someone had +come to the carriage door.</p> + +<p>“It is I—Leonard. Is that you, Jack?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Jack, and he got out and closed the door. +“This lady——”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell leaned out and looked at Leonard Dagle’s anxious +face earnestly.</p> + +<p>“Your friend has met with an accident,” she said, “and +I have brought him home.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, thank you,” sighed Leonard.</p> + +<p>“I hope he is not much hurt,” said Lady Bell. “His +forehead is cut. Will you—will you be so kind as to let +me know if it is anything serious?”</p> + +<p>“Anything serious! A mere scratch,” ejaculated Jack, +carelessly.</p> + +<p>But Lady Bell did not look at him.</p> + +<p>“Here is my card,” she said, taking a card-case from<span class="pagenum">[130]</span> +the carriage basket. “Will you please let me know? +Good-night.”</p> + +<p>And she held out her hand.</p> + +<p>Leonard did not see it, and merely raised his hat. But +Jack, who was nearest, took the hand and held it for a +moment.</p> + +<p>“Good-night, good-night,” he said. “I shall never forgive +myself for causing you trouble.”</p> + +<p>And in his earnestness his hand, quite unconsciously, +closed tightly on her white, warm palm.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell dropped back into her seat, a warm flush +spreading over her face; and Mrs. Fellowes, awakened by +the stopping of the brougham, exclaimed, with a yawn:</p> + +<p>“Home at last!”</p> + +<p>“No, miles away,” said Lady Bell. “Go to sleep again, +my dear.”</p> + +<p>Leonard took Jack’s arm within his, though there was +no occasion for it, for Jack was sober enough now, and +led him upstairs.</p> + +<p>“My dear Jack,” he exclaimed, reproachfully, “what +have you been doing?”</p> + +<p>“Falling under a cab,” said Jack, gravely.</p> + +<p>“A cab!” retorted Leonard; “a lady’s brougham, you +mean!”</p> + +<p>And he took the card to the light.</p> + +<p>“Why!” he exclaimed, with an expression of amazement. +“Lady Isabel Earlsley! Good Heaven! that’s the heiress.”</p> + +<p>“Eh?” said Jack, indifferently. “What’s her name? +She’s a brick, if ever there was one. Oh, Jupiter, I wish I +was in bed!”</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + + +<p>It was Una’s first night in London. Weary as she was +she could not find sleep; the dull roar of the great city—which +those who are used to take no heed of—rang in her +ears and kept her awake. Her brain was busy, too; and +even as she closed her eyes the endless questions, which the +strange events of the day had given birth to, pursued and +tormented her. She could scarcely realize that she had +left Warden Forest, that she was here in London, the<span class="pagenum">[131]</span> +place of her most ardent dreams! And then how singular, +how mysterious was that coincidence which had brought it +about.</p> + +<p>Until Jack Newcombe, the young stranger, had come to +Warden, she had never heard the name of Davenant, and +now she was actually living under the roof of Stephen +Davenant’s mother.</p> + +<p>With half-closed eyes she recalled all that Jack had said +about Stephen Davenant, and it did not require much +effort to recall anything Jack had said, for every word was +graven on her heart, and it had seemed to her as if he had +spoken disparagingly of this Stephen, and had implied +that he was not as good as he was supposed to be.</p> + +<p>She herself, as she lay, her beautiful head pillowed on +her round white arm, was conscious of a strange feeling +which had taken possession of her in Stephen’s presence—not +of dislike, but something of doubt, something also of a +vague fear.</p> + +<p>And yet he could not but be good and generous, for +was it not to him that she owed all that had happened to +her? And did not his mother, the timid, gentle woman +who had already won Una’s heart, speak of him as great +and good?</p> + +<p>Alas! and a faint flush stole over her cheek, and a long +sigh stole from her lips—alas! it was that other—Jack +Newcombe—who was bad; it was he whom she was to +avoid.</p> + +<p>And so, notwithstanding that she was in the very city of +her dreams, she fell asleep with a vague sadness in her +heart.</p> + +<p>Quiet as Walmington Square is, the noise of the market +carts passing to Covent Garden awoke her soon after dawn.</p> + +<p>She looked round with a stare of amazement as her eyes +fell upon the dainty room, with its costly furniture and +rich hangings, and listened for a moment, as if expecting +to hear the rustle of the great oaks which surrounded the +cottage at Warden; then she remembered the change that +had befallen her, and springing out of bed, ran to the +window.</p> + +<p>All the square was asleep; the blinds were closely drawn<span class="pagenum">[132]</span> +in all the houses, and only the birds on the trees seemed +thoroughly awake.</p> + +<p>She could hear the market carts rumbling in the great +thoroughfare beyond, and as she had gone asleep with the +rattle of wheels in her ears, she asked herself, wonderingly:</p> + +<p>“Does London never rest?”</p> + +<p>She remembered that Mrs. Davenant had showed her a +bathroom communicating by a door from her own room, +and then—with her cold water was as necessary as air—went +and had her bath; then she dressed herself, and, +opening her door, went downstairs.</p> + +<p>To her amazement, all the house seemed wrapped in +slumber.</p> + +<p>At home, at the cottage at Warden, Gideon and all of +them were up with the lark, and life began with the morning +sun.</p> + +<p>She stole into the drawing-room, and, unfastening the +shutters with some little difficulty, opened the window and +leaned out to breathe the fresh air; but it seemed as if the +air was asleep, too, or, in its journey from the country, +had lost itself in the maze of houses, and failed to reach +Walmington Square.</p> + +<p>Una looked out dreamily, wondering who and what sort +of people lived in the huge blocks of dwellings that surrounded +her, and wondered, faintly, whether she could be +looking at the spot where Jack Newcombe dwelt.</p> + +<p>She could not guess that Jack had not come back from +Hurst Leigh yet, but was waiting for the squire’s funeral.</p> + +<p>Instinctively she turned to the table and took up the album +and went back to the window with the book open at +the page which contained Jack’s portrait.</p> + +<p>How beautiful the face was! And yet, she thought, +with a warm glow in her eyes, that she had seen it look +still more beautiful, as she had looked down at it the +morning he lay sleeping at her feet.</p> + +<p>Presently a servant came into the room, and startled at +the sight of the white figure by the window, uttered an +exclamation.</p> + +<p>“Good-morning,” said Una.<span class="pagenum">[133]</span></p> + +<p>Closing the book she came forward and held up her +face to be kissed, as she had always done to Mrs. Rolfe.</p> + +<p>The maid—a pretty young girl, fresh from Devonshire—stared +at her and looked half-frightened, while a crimson +flush of embarrassment came into her face.</p> + +<p>“Good-morning, miss,” she said, nervously, and hastily +turned and fled.</p> + +<p>Una looked after her a moment, and pondered; and she +would have made a superb study for a painter at that moment.</p> + +<p>How had she frightened the pretty girl, and why had she +declined to kiss her?</p> + +<p>Una could not understand it. Hitherto she had lived +only with equals, and could not be expected to guess that +it was a breach of the proprieties to kiss this pretty, daintily-dressed +little hand-maiden.</p> + +<p>As for Mary, the maid, she flew into the kitchen and +sank into a chair, gasped at the cook, speechless for a moment.</p> + +<p>“What do you think, cook?” she exclaimed, “that young +lady—Una, as the mistress calls her—is up already. I +found her in the drawing-room, and—and she said ‘Good-morning,’ +and came up to me as if she—she wanted me to +kiss her.”</p> + +<p>“You must be out of your mind, Mary,” said the cook, +sternly.</p> + +<p>But Mary stuck to her assertion, and at last it was +decided that Una was either out of <i>her</i> mind, or that she +was no lady.</p> + +<p>“And that I am sure she is,” exclaimed Mary, and the +other servants assented heartily. “If there ever was a +true lady, this one is, whoever or whatever she may be. +Perhaps she’s just come from boarding-school.”</p> + +<p>But the cook scoffed at the idea.</p> + +<p>“Boarding-school!” she exclaimed incredulously. “Do +you think they don’t know the difference between mistress +and servants there? It’s the first thing that is taught +them.”</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, quite unconscious of the discussion which +her ingenuous conduct had caused, Una wandered about +the room, examining, with unstinted curiosity, the exquisite<span class="pagenum">[134]</span> +china and valuable paintings, the Collard and Collard +grand piano, and the handsomely-bound books.</p> + +<p>An hour or two passed in this way; then she heard a bell +ring and Mary entered, and, eying her shyly, said:</p> + +<p>“Mistress says will you be kind enough to step up to her +room, miss.”</p> + +<p>Una went upstairs and knocked at Mrs. Davenant’s +door, and in answer to the “come in,” entered, and found +Mrs. Davenant in the hands of her maid Jane.</p> + +<p>Una crossed the room with her swift, light step, and +kissed the face turned up to her with a timid, questioning +smile on it.</p> + +<p>“My child,” exclaimed Mrs. Davenant, “have you been +up all night? I sent Jane to your room to help you +dress.”</p> + +<p>Una started, and a smile broke over her face.</p> + +<p>“To help me dress?” she repeated, Jane regarding her +with wide open eyes the while. “Why should she do +that? I have always dressed myself ever since I can remember.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant flushed nervously.</p> + +<p>“I—meant to brush your hair and tie your ribbons—as +she does mine; but it does not matter if you would rather +not have her.”</p> + +<p>“I should not like to trouble her,” said Una.</p> + +<p>“And how long have you been up, my dear?”</p> + +<p>“Since five,” said Una, quietly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant stared aghast, and Jane nearly dropped +the hair-brush.</p> + +<p>“Since five! My dear child! Ah! I see, you—you +have been used to rising early. I am afraid you will soon +lose that good habit. We Londoners don’t rise with the +lark.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think there are any larks here,” remarked Una, +gravely; “and at this time of the year the lark begins to +sing at four. I have often watched him rise from his nest +in the grass.”</p> + +<p>“My poor child, you will miss the country so much.”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Una; “I am so anxious to see the world, you +know.”</p> + +<p>“Well, we will begin today.”<span class="pagenum">[135]</span></p> + +<p>“Una, you know I wish you to be quite—to be very +happy with me. And—and I hope if there is anything +that you want you will ask for it without hesitation.”</p> + +<p>“Anything I want?” repeated Una, with a smile. “Is it +possible that any one could want anything more than is +here? There seems to be everything. I was thinking, as +you spoke, of what my father would say if he saw this +table, with all the things to eat, and the silver and glass.”</p> + +<p>“My dear child, this is nothing. I live very simply. If +you saw, as you will see, some of the homes of the wealthy, +some of the homes of the aristocracy, you would discover +that what you deem luxury is merely comfort.”</p> + +<p>“I was never uncomfortable at the cottage,” said Una, +gravely.</p> + +<p>“That is because you were unused to anything better, +and—and—you must not speak of the past life too much, +Una. I mean to strangers. Strangers are so curious, and—and +my son, Stephen, does not wish everyone to know +where you come from and how you lived.”</p> + +<p>“Does he not? Well, I will not speak of it; but I do not +understand—quite——”</p> + +<p>“Neither do I. I am afraid I do not always understand +Stephen; but—but I always do as he tells me.”</p> + +<p>And she looked up with the anxious, questioning expression +which Una noticed was always present when Stephen +Davenant was mentioned. Was Mrs. Davenant afraid of +her son?</p> + +<p>Una mused for a minute in silence; then she looked up +and said:</p> + +<p>“I ought to do what Mr. Stephen wishes. Do you know +what he wants me to do?”</p> + +<p>“You are to be companion to me, my dear.”</p> + +<p>“I am very fond of fairy tales,” she said; “but I have +never read one more strange and beautiful than this.”</p> + +<p>“Let me show you how to put on your gloves, dear,” she +said. “Yes, you have got a small hand, and a beautifully-shaped +one, too. Strange, small hands are a sure sign of +high birth.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps I am a princess in disguise. No! I am a +woodman’s daughter in the disguise of a princess, that +is it.”<span class="pagenum">[136]</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant looked at her curiously.</p> + +<p>“You are not ashamed of being a woodman’s daughter, +Una,” she said; “but yet—perhaps the time will come +when you will——”</p> + +<p>Una’s opened-eyed surprise stopped her.</p> + +<p>“Ashamed?” she echoed, with mild astonishment. +“Why?”</p> + +<p>“I—I don’t know. Never mind, my dear,” said Mrs. +Davenant, as the brougham stopped.</p> + +<p>“You are a strange child, and—and you say such +strange things so naturally that I am puzzled to know how +to speak to you.”</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + + +<p>As the days passed on, Mrs. Davenant grew to understand +more fully the innocent but frank and brave nature +of the beautiful girl whom her son Stephen had so strangely +committed to her charge; grew to understand and to +love her, and, bit by bit, her nervousness and timidity wore +off in Una’s presence. Insensibly she grew to lean and +rely on the girl, who, with all her innocence and ignorance +of the world, was so gently calm and self-possessed, and +Una, in return, lavished her love upon the timid, shrinking +woman.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant had heard no word from Stephen; she +was accustomed to such silence, and almost dreaded to +hear, lest it should be a message tearing Una from her +side. She did not know that Stephen was master of Hurst +Leigh and all the immense wealth of Ralph Davenant.</p> + +<p>Una did not know that Jack Newcombe was back here in +London, almost within half an hour of her. When she +thought of her father and mother there in Warden, it was +always with the confident trust that they were well, for +she felt that if it were otherwise, Gideon would somehow +let her know. She was quite ignorant that the cottage +was empty and deserted.</p> + +<p>Indeed, there was not much time for thought. Day +after day brought its succession of wonderful sights and +experiences, as the little green brougham bore them about<span class="pagenum">[137]</span> +town, and Mrs. Davenant showed her all the marvels of +the great city.</p> + +<p>Una was dazzled, bewildered sometimes: but her instinctive +good taste helped her to keep back all extravagant +expressions of surprise on her voyage through Fairyland.</p> + +<p>One day, however, an exclamation of delight escaped +her, as she came in sight of a jeweler’s window, opposite +which the brougham had stopped.</p> + +<p>To her who had only read of precious stones, and regarded +them as objects almost fabulous, the window looked +as if it contained the wealth of the Indies and of Aladdin’s +palace combined.</p> + +<p>They entered and Mrs. Davenant asked to see some +ladies’ watches, selected one and a handsome albert, and, +with a smile, arranged them at Una’s waist, in which, to +her equal amazement, she found a pocket already provided.</p> + +<p>Pale with emotion, she could not utter a word, and to +hide the tears that sprang into her eyes, turned aside to +look at a case containing a magnificent set of brilliants. +The jeweler politely unlocked the case, and placed the +bracelet in her hand.</p> + +<p>“A really magnificent set. It is sold. They were purchased +by Lady Isabel Earlsley.”</p> + +<p>“Lady Earlsley,” said Mrs. Davenant. “Ah, yes; she +is fond of diamonds, is she not?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and of other precious stones, too, madam. She +has excellent taste and discrimination. Perhaps you have +seen her set of sapphires?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Mrs. Davenant, in her quiet way, “I have +met Lady Earlsley, but I have not seen them.”</p> + +<p>The jeweler opened an iron safe, and took out a case +containing a superb, a unique set of sapphires, and handed +them to her.</p> + +<p>“This is it—I have it to alter. They are the purest in +the world—finer even than her ladyship’s rubies, which are +considered, but wrongly, matchless.”</p> + +<p>Una stared open-eyed, and the jeweler, pleased by her +enthusiasm and admiration, took the set from its case and +laid it in her hands.</p> + +<p>As Una was bending over them fascinated, a handsome<span class="pagenum">[138]</span> +carriage drew up, and the shop door was opened by a footman +in rich livery.</p> + +<p>Una looked up, and saw a beautiful girl who, pausing in +the doorway, stood regarding her.</p> + +<p>The eyes of the two girls met, Una’s with an instant +frank admiration in her calm depths—a curious, half-amazed, +but also admiring stare in the bright, dark eyes +of the other.</p> + +<p>The jeweler glanced from the new-comer to the gems +in Una’s lap, and changed color. Mrs. Davenant started +nervously, and turned pale.</p> + +<p>With a quick, bird-like, but thoroughly graceful movement, +the richly-dressed lady turned, and with a smile of +recognition, bowed.</p> + +<p>“Mrs.——” she said, and hesitated.</p> + +<p>“Davenant,” said Mrs. Davenant. “How do you do, +Lady Earlsley?”</p> + +<p>Lady Isabel Earlsley, the great heiress and queen of +fashion, held out her hand in her quick, impulsive way, +but turned her quick glance on Una, whose eyes had never +left the dark, bewitching face.</p> + +<p>“Your daughter, Mrs. Davenant?”</p> + +<p>Poor Mrs. Davenant trembled with nervous agitation.</p> + +<p>“No—no—a young friend, Miss Rolfe,” she answered, +tremulously.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell went straight up to Una and held out her +hand, her eyes fixed on the now flushed face.</p> + +<p>“How do you do?” she said, in the almost blunt fashion +which her admirers declared so charming, and which, +though envious tongues declared an affectation, was a perfectly +natural consequence of her early life.</p> + +<p>Una put her hand in the delicate white gloved one, and +the two women looked at each other for a moment in +silence.</p> + +<p>Was it possible at that moment that some prophetic +instinct whispered to the heart of each that the threads of +both their lives were doomed to be entangled together?</p> + +<p>Then Una suddenly remembered that she had in her +hand the jewels belonging to this young lady, and with a +grave smile she put them back in their case.</p> + +<p>“You are looking at my sapphires, I see,” said Lady<span class="pagenum">[139]</span> +Bell, in a tone which set the soul of the alarmed jeweler +at rest. “Do you admire them? Are they fine, do you +think?”</p> + +<p>Una smiled.</p> + +<p>“I do not know. They are very beautiful. I have never +seen anything like them before.”</p> + +<p>“Really,” said Lady Bell, with a nod; “I don’t care for +them. They don’t suit me; there is not enough color in +them.” Then, turning to the jeweler, she said, in that +quiet tone of command which for the first time fell upon +Una’s ears: “Give me the rubies, please.”</p> + +<p>The man hastened to hand her a case from the safe, +and Lady Bell placed the contents in Una’s lap.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” she said, with a smile, as Una’s eyes opened wide +with admiration, at once childish and yet dignified, “you +are of my opinion, too. But the sapphires would suit you +best. I wish I were your husband.”</p> + +<p>Una looked up with a smile of grave astonishment; and +Lady Bell turned with a light laugh to Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>“How puzzled she looks! I mean,” she went on to Una, +“that if I were your husband I would give you the sapphire +set; though a lover would be more suitable, would it not?”</p> + +<p>Then seeing Una’s grave, open-eyed wonder, Lady Bell +turned to Mrs. Davenant, and in a low tone, said:</p> + +<p>“Who is she, Mrs. Davenant?—has she just come out of a +convent? She is simply lovely; her eyes haunt me—who +is she?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant stammered, and fidgeted speechlessly.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” said Lady Bell, quickly, in the same low tone. +“You think I’m rude and ill-bred. They all do when I +ask a simple question, or show the slightest interest in +anything.” She glanced at Una lingeringly: “I mustn’t +ask, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>“I—I—she is new to London,” said Mrs. Davenant. “It +is her first day——”</p> + +<p>“Her first day!” echoed Lady Bell, her eyes twinkling. +“Do you mean that she was never in London before? How +I envy her; I who am sick and weary of it! Yes, the +glamour is on her; I can see it in her eyes—on her face. +She is like some beautiful wild bird who has settled on an +inhabited island for the first time, and is marveling at the<span class="pagenum">[140]</span> +strange sights and faces—look at her!” and she touched +Mrs. Davenant’s arm.</p> + +<p>Una, quite unconscious of their scrutiny, was sitting +looking dreamily into the street with its ceaseless throng +of carriages and people. Lady Bell had hit upon a happy +simile; she looked like some beautiful bird, half stupefied +by the strange life moving around her.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant rose; but Lady Bell, with a gentle pressure, +forced her back into her seat.</p> + +<p>“Not this minute; leave her for a minute. See what a +beautiful picture she makes! New to London! Do you +know what will happen when London finds that she is in +its midst?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant looked up helplessly. She, too, looked +like a bird—like some frightened pigeon in the clutch of +a glittering hawk.</p> + +<p>“You can’t guess,” went on Lady Bell, with a smile. +“Well, it will make a queen of her—all London will be at +her feet within a month, and I—I shall be dethroned.”</p> + +<p>The last few words were spoken—- murmured—almost +inaudible, and in a tone that was half sad, half mocking. +But suddenly her mood changed; and with a smile that lit +up her face, and seemed to dance like a flash of sunlight +from eyes to lips and back again, she said:</p> + +<p>“At any rate be mine the credit of discovering her. I am +the first at the shrine of the new goddess!” and touching +Una’s hand with the top of her gloved finger, she said: +“Miss Rolfe, Mrs. Davenant has been kind enough to +promise to come and see me tomorrow night. Are you +fond of dancing?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Una, with a smile. “I do not know +how to dance——”</p> + +<p>“Heavens!” murmured Lady Bell.</p> + +<p>“You forget, Lady Bell,” murmured poor Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>“Ah, yes, yes; I remember,” said Lady Bell, hastily. +“Well, you will come and see how you like it, won’t you?”</p> + +<p>Una looked at Mrs. Davenant inquiringly, and Lady Bell +looked from one to the other impatiently.</p> + +<p>“Do not say ‘No,’ pray, Mrs. Davenant,” she said, with +her dark, bright eyes. “I have set my heart upon it, and a<span class="pagenum">[141]</span> +disappointment is intolerable. Besides, why should you say +‘No?’ You would like to come?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I should like to come,” said Una gravely.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell looked at her as if fascinated.</p> + +<p>“From a convent, certainly,” she murmured.</p> + +<p>“Then it’s settled. Remember! I shall look for you—shall +wait for you with impatience. Mrs. Davenant, I +count upon you.”</p> + +<p>“But—but I cannot go out, Lady Earlsley—I am in +mourning.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell sighed impatiently.</p> + +<p>“I am so sorry! I have never set my heart upon anything +so much in my life,” she said. “Something tells me that +we shall be great friends! Are you fond of jewels, lace, +books?—what are you specially fond of?” And she seemed +to dazzle Una with her smile. “You shall see them all—everything. +Yes, let her come, and I will take such care of +her as if she were something too precious to be touched; she +shall not leave my side all the evening. Let her come, +Mrs. Davenant!”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant paled and flushed in turn. What would +Stephen say—would he be displeased or gratified? What +should she do? She could not resist the half-imploring, +half-commanding eyes which Lady Bell flashed upon her, +and at last murmured a frightened “Yes.”</p> + +<p>With a smile that seemed to set the diamonds scintillating, +Lady Bell shook hands with Mrs. Davenant, and taking +Una’s, held it for a moment in silence, then, with a +sudden gravity, she said:</p> + +<p>“Good-bye. I will take care of you. I will be your +<i>chaperon</i>. We shall meet again,” and was gone.</p> + +<p>So interested and absorbed had she been in Una that she +had quite forgotten her purpose in entering the shop, and +had gone without another word to the jeweler.</p> + +<p>He showed no surprise, however, but smiled complacently +as he put the jewels back into their cases, being quite used +to Lady Bell’s vagaries, and he bowed Mrs. Davenant and +Una out with increased respect and deference.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell, attended by the two footmen, entered her +carriage, and Mrs. Fellowes, her friend and companion,<span class="pagenum">[142]</span> +who had been sleeping peacefully, awoke with a little +start.</p> + +<p>“Well, my dear, have you got the rubies?”</p> + +<p>“The rubies?” said Lady Bell. “No, I quite forgot +them.”</p> + +<p>“Forgot them!” said Mrs. Fellowes.</p> + +<p>“Yes. What are stupid rubies compared with an angel?”</p> + +<p>“My dear Lady Bell!” exclaimed Mrs. Fellowes, “what +are you talking about?”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell leaned back with her hands folded in her lap, +and her eyes musingly staring at nothing.</p> + +<p>“Yes, an angel,” she repeated. “I never believed in them +until today, but I have seen one this morning—in a jeweler’s +shop.”</p> + +<p>“Lady Bell, how strangely you talk. I am getting +alarmed.”</p> + +<p>“You always are,” said Lady Bell, coolly. “I repeat, +I have seen an angel. You are always trying to flatter me +by talking of my beauty and such nonsense; but I have +seen today a real beauty. Not a mere pretty pet mortal +like myself, but one of the celestials! With eyes like a wild +bird’s, and a lady, too, I’ll be sworn!”</p> + +<p>“My dear Bell, what language!” murmured Mrs. Fellowes.</p> + +<p>“A perfect lady; her hands, her voice would vouch for +that. Her voice is like a harp. If I had been a man I +should have fallen in love with her on the spot.”</p> + +<p>“Fallen in love,” said Mrs. Fellowes. “My dear Bell,” +with a politely suppressed yawn, “I am half inclined to +think you have taken leave of your senses, and you will +drive me out of mine. One night it is a young man whom +we nearly run over; a—I must say—a tipsy young man.”</p> + +<p>“No; he had only taken too much wine.”</p> + +<p>“Well, if that isn’t being tipsy——”</p> + +<p>“Don’t, don’t,” said Lady Bell, pleadingly; “we might +have killed him.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know that he would have been much loss to the +world at large,” said Mrs. Fellowes.</p> + +<p>“Home!” said Lady Bell to the footman; and she sank +back with a brilliant flush on her face.<span class="pagenum">[143]</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant drove home also, and in considerable perturbation. +What had she done? What would Stephen say?</p> + +<p>Fortunately for that young man’s peace of mind, he was +resting at ease at Hurst Leigh, little dreaming that Lady +Bell, or any one else, would meet Una, and coax her out of +his mother’s nerveless hands.</p> + +<p>Una, with quick sympathy, saw that her companion was +distressed, and with a gentle touch of her hand, said:</p> + +<p>“You do not like me to go to this lady’s house. I will +not go. No; I will not go.”</p> + +<p>“My dear,” she replied, with a sigh, “it isn’t in our +hands now. You don’t know Lady Bell—nor do I very +well; but I know enough of her to be convinced that if you +do not go tomorrow night, she would come and fetch +you, though she left all her guests to do so.”</p> + +<p>“Is she then so—so accustomed to having her own way?”</p> + +<p>“Always; she always has her own way. She is rich—very, +very rich—and petted; and she is even more than +that; she—she—I don’t know how to explain myself. Well, +my dear, she is a sort of queen of society, and more powerful +than many real queens.”</p> + +<p>“So that when she commands such as I am I must obey,” +said Una, with her low, musical laugh.</p> + +<p>“Just so,” said Mrs. Davenant, with a sigh. “But you +will be careful, my dear. I mean, don’t—don’t let her put +you forward, remind her of her promise to keep you at her +side.”</p> + +<p>“I think I would rather not go.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be frightened, my dear,” said Mrs. Davenant, +kindly; but Una’s calm, steady look of response showed her +that there was no fear in the young, innocent heart.</p> + +<p>“No, I am not frightened,” she said. “I do not know +what I am to fear.”</p> + +<p>Having consented to Una’s going, Mrs. Davenant lost no +time in making the few necessary preparations. She selected +a plain but rich evening dress, set her own maid to +make the required alterations, selected from her own store +a sort of old Honiton, and gave orders that some white +flowers should be bought at Covent Garden the next +morning.</p> + +<p>“White flowers, my dear,” she said, nervously. “Because<span class="pagenum">[144]</span> +I—I am not sure that Stephen would not consider that +your being in the house with me you are not in mourning. +But, then, you are no relation, my dear.”</p> + +<p>“I wish I were,” said Una, kissing her.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + + +<p>At nine o’clock the next evening the quiet-looking green +brougham came round to the door, and took them rapidly +to Park Lane.</p> + +<p>Una had already grown almost weary of staring out of +the carriage window, but her wonder and interest revived +as she saw in the dusky twilight the green trees and flowers +in the most beautiful park in the world, and amazed at the +magnificent buildings past which they rolled.</p> + +<p>Presently the brougham drew up at a corner house facing +the park; an awning was suspended from the gateway to +the pavement, and three footmen in splendid liveries, which +she recognized as those she had seen worn by the servants +attending Lady Bell’s carriage, were standing to receive +the guests; one of them opened the brougham door and escorted +them into the hall, which seemed to Una, with its +flowers and mirrors, its rich hangings and statues, a fairy +palace, and was about to usher them into the drawing-room, +when, upon hearing Mrs. Davenant’s name, he bowed, and +took them into a small room at the side, which was Lady +Bell’s boudoir.</p> + +<p>“I will tell her ladyship,” he said.</p> + +<p>Una had scarcely time to take in the exquisite beauty of +the room, with its antique furniture and costly knicknacks, +when the door opened and Lady Bell entered. She was +exquisitely dressed; diamonds—the diamonds Una had seen +at the jeweler’s—glittering in her hair and on her neck +and on her arms, and seemed to Una like some vision +which at a breath would vanish and leave the room to its +subdued twilight again.</p> + +<p>With outstretched hands she came toward them, with +her eyes dancing and her cheeks flushed.</p> + +<p>“You have kept your word and brought my wild bird! +I knew you would come,” and she took a hand of each, but +suddenly reached up and kissed Una. “Yes, I felt that you<span class="pagenum">[145]</span> +would come, but it is good of you all the same, and to +show you that I am grateful, I will let you go at once, this +minute, dear Mrs. Davenant!”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant looked relieved.</p> + +<p>“Thank you! thank you, Lady Bell!” she said. “You—you——”</p> + +<p>“Will take care of your bird? Yes, that I will. You +may trust her to me; not a feather shall be ruffled.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant murmured something about the time she +would come for her, and then with a timid look from one +to the other was gone.</p> + +<p>“And now,” said Lady Bell, “let me look at you,” as if +she had not been doing so ever since she entered the room. +“My dear, my dear, you are——” she stopped short. “No, +I’ll not be the first to teach you vanity. But tell me, do +you ever look in your glass, Miss Rolfe—Miss Rolfe, I don’t +like that name, I mean between you and me. My name is +Bell, and yours is——”</p> + +<p>“Mine is Una.”</p> + +<p>“Una! That is delightful! And have you your lion? +Where is he?”</p> + +<p>Una had never read the story of “Una and the Lion,” +and looked calmly puzzled.</p> + +<p>“Well, if you have not one already, you soon will have. +You don’t understand me. I am glad of that. But will +you come now? This is a very, very quiet little party, but +you may be amused. And I will keep you by my side all +the evening. Come,” and she drew Una’s arm through her +own white one and led her through the corridor into the +ball-room.</p> + +<p>It was not a large room. Lady Bell detested huge and +crowded assemblies too much to permit them at her own +house, but it was, as a ball-room, perfect. There was +light, and just enough light, to show the tasteful magnificence +of the decorations, and nothing of that fearful glare +from innumerable lights, and their reflections in huge mirrors, +which make most ball-rooms so trying and unbearable. +The band had just commenced as they entered, and the +whole scene, the beautiful room with its soft draperies of +Persian damask, the Venetian mirrors, the rich dresses of +the ladies, and the soul-moving strains of the best band in<span class="pagenum">[146]</span> +London, for the moment overawed and startled the girl +fresh from the primeval forest.</p> + +<p>For a moment her eyes dilated almost with fear, and she +unconsciously drew back, but Lady Bell, with a gentle +pressure of the arm, drew her forward, and skillfully avoiding +the dancers, took her to the further end of the room, +where, in a recess lined with ferns and tropical plants, were +arranged some seats so placed as to be almost hidden from +the room, while they allowed the sitter a full view of it.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell drew a fauteuil still further into the recess, +and playfully forced Una into it.</p> + +<p>“There, my wild bird, is your cage. You can see all the +world without being seen, and here you and I will take a +peep at it. Now, don’t you want to know all their names +and all about them?”</p> + +<p>Una smiled. She was a little pale and was trembling +slightly.</p> + +<p>“No; I am too surprised and astonished at present. How +beautiful it is, and how lovely they are.”</p> + +<p>“The women?” said Lady Bell, with a laugh, and a +glance at the unconscious face beside her, which she knew +outshone all others there. “You think so! Well, there +are some pretty women here. There is Lady Clarence—the +one in light blue and swansdown—and Mrs. Cantrip—she +was the beauty last season. You don’t understand?”</p> + +<p>“Last season!” said Una. “Who is the beauty this?”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell laughed and flushed a little.</p> + +<p>“Never mind, child,” she said. “One who doesn’t care a +farthing about it, at any rate. But look, do you see that +tall lady there, dancing with the short man with whiskers? +She is the Countess of Pierrepoint, and he is the Duke of +Garnum——”</p> + +<p>“A duke?” said Una, surprised.</p> + +<p>“You expected to see a man seven feet high in his ducal +robes?” she said. “See those two men who have just come +in? The dark one is Sir Arkroyd Hetley, the other, the boy—the +baby they call him—is a marquis, the Marquis of +Dalrymple. They are always together. They are coming +to shake hands with me.”</p> + +<p>Una drew further into the shade as the two men, after +hunting about the room, came up to the recess, and listened<span class="pagenum">[147]</span> +as they paid their compliments and seemed anxious to remain, +but Lady Bell sent them off quite plainly and distinctly, +and sat looking toward the door, and presently she +ceased talking, and her bright, beautiful face grew quiet +and almost sad, certainly wistful, and at last she sighed +and murmured:</p> + +<p>“No, he will not come.”</p> + +<p>“Who will not come?” said Una. “Are you expecting any +one?”</p> + +<p>“Did I speak?” she said. “Yes, I am expecting someone, +but he will not come. People one expects and wants never +do—never do. You will find that out in time, wild bird; +you will find—ah!” and she started and turned pale, and +her hand, which had been laid on Una’s arm, closed over it +with a sudden grip and flutter.</p> + +<p>Una looked up, and her face went deadly white.</p> + +<p>The room seemed to spin round with her, and the lights +to flood her brain and paralyze her, for there, towering +above the throng, stood Jack Newcombe.</p> + +<p>Jack Newcombe—not in his rough tweed suit, but in +evening dress; Jack, not with the frank, tender, pleasant +smile which always rested upon his face as it appeared in +her dreams, but with a cold, half-irritable, and wholly +bored expression.</p> + +<p>Slowly she rose and glided into the shadow of the recess +and hid herself, her heart beating wildly, her whole form +trembling with a strange ecstasy of mingled fear and delight.</p> + +<p>At last she saw him again.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + + +<p>Poor Jack! How came he to be in Lady Bell’s ball-room?</p> + +<p>The morning after she had nearly driven over him he +woke to find Leonard Dagle, his friend and fellow lodger, +standing beside his bed and looking down at him with a +grave smile on his intellectual face.</p> + +<p>“Hallo!” said Jack, “the house on fire?”</p> + +<p>“Not at present,” said Leonard, “though it would soon +be if you lived in it alone. Why don’t you blow your<span class="pagenum">[148]</span> +candle out, and not chuck your slippers at it? How are +you this morning?”</p> + +<p>“How am I?” said Jack, staring. “How should I be? +Quite well of course,” which was quite true, for Jack and +the headache had not been introduced to each other.</p> + +<p>“That’s all right,” said Leonard, with a smile. “Perhaps +you remember last night’s tragic occurrence, then?”</p> + +<p>Jack thought for a moment, then shook his head gravely.</p> + +<p>“Len, I’m an idiot. I always was. It’s a good job +idiocy isn’t catching or you’d have caught it of me long +ago. I made a confounded idiot of myself last night. It +was all Dalrymple and Hetley’s fault, and I wish they’d +knock champagne off the club wine list. Did I take too +much, Len?”</p> + +<p>“What do you think?” said Leonard, grimly.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid I did. For the first time in my life, or +nearly—but I didn’t touch a card, Len.”</p> + +<p>“I knew you wouldn’t do that.”</p> + +<p>“No, a promise is a promise with me,” said Jack. “And +I didn’t drink much, Len, ’pon my honor; but I was upset, +and when a man is upset he——”</p> + +<p>“He generally tries to get run over,” said Leonard, with +a smile.</p> + +<p>Jack stared, then he laughed.</p> + +<p>“By George! yes. I remember!”</p> + +<p>“But always does not get the luck to be rescued by a +beautiful young lady—who is an heiress—and who, instead +of giving him in charge for blocking the queen’s highway, +brings him home in her brougham.”</p> + +<p>“It was a kind thing to do, certainly,” said Jack, with a +yawn.</p> + +<p>“Kind is a mild way of putting it,” remarked Leonard.</p> + +<p>“It was more than I deserved,” said Jack; “much more, +and she’s a brick.”</p> + +<p>“The man who calls Lady Isabel Earlsley a brick should +be a bold man.”</p> + +<p>At last Jack looked up, and pressing his chair back, said:</p> + +<p>“And now, old man, let’s hold a council of war. Subject +to be considered: the future of a young man who has been +cut off with a shilling—by George! the poor old fellow<span class="pagenum">[149]</span> +didn’t even leave me that—who knows no trade, who cannot +dig, and to beg is ashamed, and who is penniless.”</p> + +<p>“Quite penniless, Jack?” asked Leonard.</p> + +<p>Jack rose, and sauntering to a drawer, pulled forth an +old tobacco pouch, and pouring the contents on to the table +proceeded to count the small—very small—heap of coin.</p> + +<p>“Twenty-one pounds six-and-fourpence farthing—no; +it’s a brass button—and a brass button.”</p> + +<p>“Can’t carry on this way long with that small amount +of ammunition, Jack.”</p> + +<p>“Just so, old Solomon. Well, what’s to be done?”</p> + +<p>“You might enlist.”</p> + +<p>“Get shot, and break your heart. No, I’m too fond of +you, Len. Go on; anything else?”</p> + +<p>“Upon my word, you can’t do anything.”</p> + +<p>“Nary thing,” admitted Jack, with frank candor.</p> + +<p>“What do men—well-born and high-bred men like +you——”</p> + +<p>“What will you take to drink?” said Jack, bowing low.</p> + +<p>“Who have no money, and no brains——”</p> + +<p>Jack bowed again, and pitched the sugar tongs at him.</p> + +<p>“What do they do? They generally marry an heiress, +Jack.”</p> + +<p>“I shall never marry.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve heard that remark before. The last it was from a +man who married a fortnight afterward.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not going to marry in a fortnight. Go ahead.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve done,” said Leonard with a shrug.</p> + +<p>“Solomon is dried up,” said Jack. “You don’t keep a +large stock of wisdom on hand, old man.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve given you the best I’ve got, and good advice too, +with a foundation to go upon. Your heiress is ready to +your hand.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” said Jack.</p> + +<p>Leonard was about to reply, when the housekeeper entered +and brought him a card. He looked at it; it bore Lady +Isabel Earlsley’s name, and on the back was written:</p> + +<p>“To inquire whether Mr. Newcombe was hurt last +night?”</p> + +<p>Leonard pitched it across the table, as an answer to +Jack’s question.<span class="pagenum">[150]</span></p> + +<p>Jack read the card and flushed hotly, then threw it +down again.</p> + +<p>Leonard took up a piece of paper, and rapidly wrote:</p> + +<p>“Mr. Newcombe’s compliments, and he was not in any +way injured by last night’s accident, which he deeply regrets +as having caused Lady Earlsley so much trouble,” +and gave it to the housekeeper.</p> + +<p>“What have you written?” asked Jack sulkily.</p> + +<p>“What you are too much of a bear to write,” said Leonard, +with a smile—“an answer and an apology. Jack, you +are a favorite of fortune. Half the men in London would +give the forefinger of their right hand to get such a message +from Lady Bell. I know her——”</p> + +<p>“So do I,” broke in Jack, roughly; “I heard all about her +at the club last night. Hetley and Dalrymple bored me to +death about her. She’s a great heiress and a beauty, and +all the rest of it. I know, and I don’t want to hear any +more.”</p> + +<p>Jack went up to Len and laid his hand on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Forgive me, old fellow; but I—my heart is full. Only +one woman in the world has any interest for me, and she +has gone—up to the sky again, I suppose. What do I care +for Lady Bell, or Lady anyone else? I tell you I laid +awake half the night thinking of that beautiful face, and +dreamed of her eyes the rest of the night; and I’d give all +the world if I had it, to find her. And much good it would +do me if I succeeded? I couldn’t ask her to share twenty-one +pounds six and a brass button!”</p> + +<p>“Forgive <i>me</i>, Jack,” said Leonard, quietly. “I know +what you mean. I’m in love myself. But—but at any rate +you can’t treat Lady Bell rudely. You must call and +thank her.”</p> + +<p>“Confound her!” said Jack, and hurried out of the room.</p> + +<p>Leonard looked after him, and then went on with his +work. He saw no more of him until late in the evening, +when Jack came in and threw himself into a chair, looking +weary if not exhausted.</p> + +<p>“What have you been doing, Jack?” asked Leonard.</p> + +<p>“Looking for a needle in a bundle of hay,” replied +Jack, grimly.</p> + +<p>Leonard nodded.<span class="pagenum">[151]</span></p> + +<p>“I’ve been walking about ever since I left you, with +scarcely a rest. I’ve walked through every thoroughfare in +London. I’ve looked into windows and into shops. I’ve +been warned off and told to move on by the police, who +thought I was a burglar on the search for a job; and here +I am and there is she as far off as ever. And yet I feel—Heavens +knows why—that she is here in London. Len, if +you smile I shall knock you down.”</p> + +<p>“I was never farther from smiling than I am at this +moment,” said Leonard quietly.</p> + +<p>“Do you know what I would do if—if the squire had left +me any money?” went on Jack, fiercely; “I would spend +every penny of it in searching for her. I’d have a hundred—a +thousand detectives at work. I’d never give them rest +night or day till they found her.”</p> + +<p>“And then?” said Leonard.</p> + +<p>Jack groaned and lit his pipe. Leonard looked at him.</p> + +<p>“I thought you had gone to call on Lady Earlsley,” he +said.</p> + +<p>Jack looked very much as if he really meant to knock +him down, and marched off to bed.</p> + +<p>When he came in to breakfast the next morning Leonard +noticed that he was dressed in proper walking attire, instead +of the loose, free and easy, well-worn suit of cheviot, +but he said nothing. Jack looked up.</p> + +<p>“You are staring at my get-up, Len. Well, I’ll do it; +but mind it is only to please you. What should I care +what she thinks? though I ought to do it, I know. I’ll call +and thank her, and then let there be an end of it. I can’t +bear any chaff of that sort even from you, old fellow.”</p> + +<p>Leonard nodded without a word, for he saw that the once +frank face had lost its careless <i>sang froid</i> expression, and +looked harassed and even haggard.</p> + +<p>Jack smoked a pipe in silence, watching Leonard’s rapidly +moving pen; then, without a word, went out.</p> + +<p>Two hours later he came in, and with an air of relief +and even a smile, said:</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ve done it, and it’s over.”</p> + +<p>“Well?” said Leonard, curiously.</p> + +<p>“Well, nothing; she wasn’t at home,” said Jack, triumphantly.<span class="pagenum">[152]</span></p> + +<p>“Not at home. What sort of a place was it?”</p> + +<p>“The best place in Park Lane,” said Jack. “No end of +flunkeys about, and the rest of it. Looks as if she rolled +in gold, as she must do to have the place at all.”</p> + +<p>“And you didn’t see her?” asked Leonard.</p> + +<p>Jack colored and frowned.</p> + +<p>“What a curious beggar you are! Yes, I did see her; +her carriage drove up just as I was going away.”</p> + +<p>“And you spoke to her?”</p> + +<p>“No, I just raised my hat and walked away,” said +Jack, gravely.</p> + +<p>Leonard shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“She will think you a boor.”</p> + +<p>“So I am,” said Jack. “What does it matter? Tell me +something about yourself. I am sick of myself. What +have you been doing?”</p> + +<p>Leonard’s pale face flushed.</p> + +<p>“I’ve been to Cheltenham Terrace,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Well, did you see her?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Leonard, sadly. “I saw that the blinds in +the upper windows were down, and I went to the next door, +and asked if anyone was ill.”</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, her grandfather, old Mr. Treherne, was ill, they +said, and I came away.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Jack, “at any rate you know where to find +her—while I——”</p> + +<p>“I saw her shadow on the blind,” said Leonard, simply. +“I could swear to it among a hundred. I watched her +beautiful profile for an hour in that railway carriage.”</p> + +<p>“Treherne, Laura Treherne,” said Jack. “It is a pretty +name. What took her to Hurst Leigh that night, I +wonder? The night the squire died. Len, it is a romance, +but I envy you. If I knew where Una lived I’d hang about +the house night and day until I saw her. Len, do you know +what it is to be hungry, to be parched and dried up with +thirst so that you would give all you possessed—ten years +of your life for a draught of water? That is just how I +feel when I think of that beautiful face, with its soft +brown eyes and innocent smile! And when do I not think +of her?”<span class="pagenum">[153]</span></p> + +<p>“And you didn’t speak to Lady Bell?” said Leonard.</p> + +<p>Jack made a hasty explanation and made for the door, +nearly running against the housekeeper.</p> + +<p>“A letter for you, sir,” she said.</p> + +<p>Jack tore it open, read it and threw it to Leonard.</p> + +<p>The envelope was a dainty gray color, and stamped with +an elaborate coat of arms, with the initials I. E. in cipher +underneath, and inside was a card of invitation to a ball, +filled in by a lady’s delicate hand, with a line in addition.</p> + +<p>“With Lady Earlsley’s compliments and regret that she +was from home when Mr. Newcombe called.”</p> + +<p>“Jack, what condescension. You must go!”</p> + +<p>Jack stammered, and argued, and protested. He was +too honest to plead that he was in mourning; but he simply +swore that he would not go.</p> + +<p>The day came round and the evening fell, and Jack +came into the sitting-room in evening dress, his tall form +seeming to fill the room.</p> + +<p>Leonard used to say that it was a treat to see Jack in +evening dress; that he was one of the few men who looked +to advantage in it, and he turned from his eternal pen and +ink to look at him with an approving smile.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Jack, fiercely, “I am going; I am a fool, but +how can a man stand against such a perpetual old nuisance +as you are? But mind, I am just going in and out again, +and after this there is an end of it. I shall enlist!” and out +he went.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + + +<p>Jack called a hansom—of course he could have walked, +but he had no idea of economy or the value of money—and +was driven to Park Lane.</p> + +<p>Half a dozen times on the way he felt inclined to stop +the cab, jump out and go to the club—anywhere but Lady +Bell’s; but nevertheless, he found himself in Park Lane, +and ascending the staircase. He saw at once, by a few unmistakable +signs, that the party was a small and select +one, and furthermore, judging by the tasteful magnificence +of the appointments, that Lady Bell’s wealth had not been +very much exaggerated.<span class="pagenum">[154]</span></p> + +<p>He made his way slowly, for a dance was just over, and +the stairs were lined, as usual, with people mostly whom +he knew, and had to stop to speak to. Amongst them +were Sir Arkroyd Hetley, and Dalrymple, of course together.</p> + +<p>“Hullo, here’s the Savage!” cried Hetley. “How do you +do, Jack? You’ve soon got on the war trail, old fellow,” +he added in a low voice and with a significant smile.</p> + +<p>Jack growled something and made his way into the +room.</p> + +<p>For a moment he could see nothing of Lady Bell, then as +she came out of the fernery and advanced toward him her +dark eyes flashing, or rather gleaming softly, with a faint, +delicious color mantling on her cheeks, he felt almost the +same shock of surprise which had fallen on Una.</p> + +<p>He had scarcely noticed her the other night, had scarcely, +indeed, seen her, and he now saw, as it were for the +first time, her beauty, set off and heightened by the aid of +one of Worth’s happiest dresses, and Emanuel’s diamonds. +In spite of himself he was dazzled, and his frank eyes +showed that he was.</p> + +<p>And Lady Bell? Well, though his face had scarcely left +her mind’s eye since she had seen it, she was not disappointed.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding the rather bored and surly—not to say +ferocious expression which set upon it—she thought +him handsomer than even she had remembered him.</p> + +<p>“This is very kind of you, Mr. Newcombe,” she said +speaking first, for Jack had contented himself with bowing +over her hand.</p> + +<p>“Kind?” said Jack, in his straightforward way.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell hesitated, and for the first time, perhaps, in +her life, smiled shyly.</p> + +<p>“I heard—they tell me—that it is as difficult to get Mr. +Newcombe to a dance as a prince of the blood royal.”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t much in my way,” said Jack, quietly; “I am not +a dancing man—that is, I don’t care for it.”</p> + +<p>“Then it was kind,” said Lady Bell, recovering her courage +and smiling at him with that wonderful smile which +Hetley and all the rest of them talked so much about.<span class="pagenum">[155]</span></p> + +<p>Jack looked at her. Yes, certainly she was very beautiful, +and there was a subtle something in that smile.</p> + +<p>His ill-temper began to disappear.</p> + +<p>“I should say,” he said, “that a man ought to feel lucky +at the chance of getting here.”</p> + +<p>“They also told me,” said Lady Bell, archly, “that you +never paid compliments.”</p> + +<p>“Someone seems to have been taking a great deal of +trouble to make me out a regular boor,” said Jack, with +his curt laugh. “Did they also tell you that I lived in the +woods up a tree, and existed on wild animals?”</p> + +<p>“Like a savage?” said Lady Bell, wickedly.</p> + +<p>Jack flushed and looked at her; then her smile conquered +and he laughed.</p> + +<p>“Yes, that is what they call me, confound their impudence! +But I’m a very tame kind of a savage, Lady +Earlsley; I shan’t scalp you.”</p> + +<p>“It wouldn’t matter much, would it?” she retorted. +“They make such beautiful false hair now.”</p> + +<p>Jack looked down on the soft, glossy head, with its thick, +light coils, and smiled.</p> + +<p>“Are you going to change your mind and scalp me, after +all?” she said. “You make me tremble when you look like +that.”</p> + +<p>Jack laughed right out.</p> + +<p>“No,” he said; “even a savage is incapable of such +ingratitude. I have come to-night, Lady Earlsley, to +thank you for your kindness the other night, and to tell +you how sorry I am that—that you should have had so +much trouble!”</p> + +<p>And a blush managed to show itself under the tan.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell looked down.</p> + +<p>“It was no trouble,” she said. “I was afraid that you +were hurt. It was very clumsy and stupid of my man.”</p> + +<p>“It was all my fault,” said Jack, penitently. “I——”</p> + +<p>“Do not say any more,” she said, gently, and she put +her finger tips on his arm.</p> + +<p>Jack looked at her, and met her gaze, full of concealed +interest, and his own eyes fell before it.</p> + +<p>They had been standing near the fernery, behind which +stood Una; she could hear every word, see every look.<span class="pagenum">[156]</span></p> + +<p>Pale and almost breathless she stood, her hands clasped +in front of her, her heart beating fast, her eyes fixed on +Jack’s face. She longed to fly, yet could not move a +foot. Something, his very presence, his very voice, held +her like a chain.</p> + +<p>She felt that if he were to turn and, seeing her, say, +“Follow me!” she must follow him, though it were to +the end of the earth.</p> + +<p>A storm of conflicting emotions battled within her for +mastery; a wild delight at his presence, an intense longing +that his eyes might turn and rest on her, and at the +same time an awful miserable feeling, which she did not +know was jealousy.</p> + +<p>How beautiful they looked, these two, Lady Bell, the +heiress, in her rich dress and splendid jewels, and he, +with his tanned face and bold, fierce eyes, his stalwart +frame towering above all others, and sinking them into +insignificance. How well matched they seemed. Why—why +did Lady Bell smile at him like that? No wonder +his face had grown brighter. Who could resist that +bewitching smile?</p> + +<p>The music of a waltz commenced and recalled her to +a sense of her position. With a start she drew still further +back, so that she was quite out of sight.</p> + +<p>“There’s a dance,” said Jack, in his blunt way. “I +would ask if you were free to give it to me, but I cannot +dance to-night. I am in mourning. Don’t let me keep +you, though.”</p> + +<p>“That is a plain intimation,” said Lady Bell; “but I +am sorry that you are in trouble. In sober earnest it was +kind of you to come. I hope it was no one near to you.”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Jack, and his face clouded at the recollection +of Hurst Leigh. “It was a very dear old friend who +had been very good to me.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell inclined her head, and her voice grew wonderfully +soft.</p> + +<p>“I see that I must not keep you. I shall not be offended +if you leave us at once. If I had known——”</p> + +<p>Now here was Jack’s opportunity. Why did he not +seize it and go?<span class="pagenum">[157]</span></p> + +<p>“Thanks,” he said; “although I won’t dance I’ll stay +a little while if you’ll permit me.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell bowed.</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” she said, almost humbly, as if he had +granted her a great favor, as it seemed to Una.</p> + +<p>At this moment the great—or little—duke came up +with a smile.</p> + +<p>“Am I fortunate enough to find you free for this, Lady +Earlsley?”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell looked at her card, carefully keeping it out of +his reach, and shook her head.</p> + +<p>“I’m so sorry! My partner will be here directly, I +expect.”</p> + +<p>The duke bowed, expressed his regret, and moved off, +not without a glance at Jack, who stood calm and possessed; +and Una knew, notwithstanding all her ignorance, +that Lady Bell was not engaged, but had refused the duke +that she might keep Jack by her side; and with this knowledge +the demon jealousy sprang into life, and made himself +fully known.</p> + +<p>With an awful aching of the heart she sank into a seat +and hid her face in her hands.</p> + +<p>What right had she there—she, the ignorant, untaught +forest girl, among these grand people? Even supposing +that he saw her he would not remember her, and if he +did he would not care to waste a glance or a word on her, +while such a beautiful creature as Lady Bell was willing +to refuse a duke for his sake.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the brilliant scene seemed to grow dark and +joyless; the music sounded harsh and out of tune; all the +beauty had vanished, and she longed to be sitting in the +depths of Warden Forest.</p> + +<p>“Your partner doesn’t seem to turn up,” said Jack. +“He’s an ungrateful idiot.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell laughed and sank down in a fauteuil just in +front of the recess.</p> + +<p>“I forgive him,” she said, and she swept her skirts aside +to make room for him.</p> + +<p>Jack sat down, not gratefully, but quite courtly.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell was silent for a moment, then she said:<span class="pagenum">[158]</span></p> + +<p>“I would have sent a card for your friend, but I could +not remember his name.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Len,” said Jack, shaking his head. “I’m afraid he +would not have come. He never goes out—at least not to +this sort of thing. He’s a book worm, and doesn’t care +for the gaieties. His name is Leonard Dagle.”</p> + +<p>“He is a great friend of yours?”</p> + +<p>“The best that ever man had,” said Jack, quietly; “more +than a brother.”</p> + +<p>“You live with him?” she said, with an interest only too +palpable to the listening Una, whom Lady Bell had quite +forgotten.</p> + +<p>“Yes, we live together—have done so for years—always +shall, I hope, till——”</p> + +<p>He paused.</p> + +<p>“Till death, were you going to say?” said Lady Bell.</p> + +<p>“No, I wasn’t,” said Jack, simply. “I was going to say +till I took his advice and—enlisted.”</p> + +<p>“Enlisted!” she repeated, turning her beautiful face full +upon him.</p> + +<p>Jack colored and frowned.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said, stoutly; and though he said not a word +more, Lady Bell knew that he was poor and in trouble.</p> + +<p>It was just the one thing wanted to finish the romance. +He was poor and in trouble, while she was rich beyond +the dreams of avarice. Why should she not say as she +longed to do:</p> + +<p>“You want money. See, here am I who have more than +I know what to do with; take some of it and make me +happy!”</p> + +<p>Instead, she thought it only, and remained silent.</p> + +<p>“How hot it is,” she said presently. “It is more than +time to leave London. One longs for the green fields and +the sea.”</p> + +<p>“It is late,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>“We are staying in town,” she said, “because my father +is a bookworm and can only live near a library—he only +exists elsewhere. I cannot find it in my heart to tear him +away from the British Museum; but we make the best of +it. We are going to have a water-party to-morrow at Richmond.”<span class="pagenum">[159]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>She waited for him to ask for an invitation; then, pressing +her lip with her fan, said:</p> + +<p>“Will you join us?”</p> + +<p>Jack hesitated a moment.</p> + +<p>“I shall be delighted,” he said.</p> + +<p>“You don’t look it,” she said. “But I forgot—savages +rarely smile. At any rate, we start to-morrow at twelve +o’clock. Sir Arkroyd is going to drive us down in Lord +Dalrymple’s drag.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps there isn’t room,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>“Are you trying to find an excuse for not coming?” she +said, smiling on him.</p> + +<p>Jack frowned, and then laughed.</p> + +<p>“I’ll come,” he said.</p> + +<p>Yes, there was a nameless charm about her which had +made itself felt already. Was it her beauty or her frankness—the +latter so different to the cut-and-dried and +measured manner of the ordinary women of society?</p> + +<p>“I’ll come,” he said.</p> + +<p>Then he looked around.</p> + +<p>“This is a beautiful room. Where did you get all the +flowers from? Some of them I never saw before in London.”</p> + +<p>“Do you like them?” she said. “Many of them we +brought over with us from ‘across the seas,’ the others I +ransacked London to get—at least, poor Mrs. Fellowes +did.”</p> + +<p>“Why poor?” he said.</p> + +<p>“Because she has the misfortune to be my companion, +and I worry her to death.”</p> + +<p>“A pleasant death,” he muttered.</p> + +<p>“Thanks,” she said. “That is the second compliment +you have paid me. And yet they say you are not gallant, +as the French have it.”</p> + +<p>“It’s the heat,” said Jack, in his grim way.</p> + +<p>“You will find some ices in the ante-room there, behind +that lace curtain.”</p> + +<p>“Shall I get you one?” said Jack.</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>“Thanks! Yes, that is the way,” and she rose to point<span class="pagenum">[160]</span> +to a winding path made through the rows of ferns and +tropical plants.</p> + +<p>He had to pass her in going, and in doing so he struck a +spray of a palm with his head; it recoiled, and caught some +of its soft, spiky leaves in her hair.</p> + +<p>She uttered a half-laughing cry, and Jack turned.</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I am awfully clumsy. +Allow me.”</p> + +<p>She bent her head toward him, laughing, and Jack disentangled +the silken threads from the great clinging leaf. +In doing so he again proved his clumsiness, for the silken +threads got round his fingers.</p> + +<p>He could feel her soft, peach-like face against his wrist, +and being human his blood thrilled.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell looked up. Her face was pale, and her eyes +drooping and languid.</p> + +<p>“Are you going to scalp me after all?” she murmured.</p> + +<p>Jack’s heart beat strangely.</p> + +<p>“I—I am very sorry,” he muttered below his breath, and +with lowered eyes he went on.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell looked after him and drew a long breath. A +sigh that almost echoed hers startled her, and turning she +saw Una, sitting where she had left her, with her hands +clasped in her lap.</p> + +<p>“My child,” said Lady Bell, “I had almost——”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you had quite forgotten me,” said Una, with a +strange smile.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell flushed and looked at her. Her lovely face +was pale and her eyes clouded with a strange look of +pain and weariness.</p> + +<p>“Forgive me, my child,” she said. “You are quite +pale—you are tired. It is too hot. Wait! there are some +ices coming.”</p> + +<p>“No, no,” said Una, with a sudden shrinking. “Please +leave me—do not bring him here—I mean——” she stammered, +“I would rather be alone. Go and dance, Lady +Bell.”</p> + +<p>“What a timid fawn it is,” said Lady Bell, caressingly. +“There, go and sit in the shade there. Don’t be frightened; +I promised to take care of you.”<span class="pagenum">[161]</span></p> + +<p>“I am not frightened,” said Una, quietly, “but I would +rather——”</p> + +<p>“I understand,” said Lady Bell, quickly; then she said, +trying to speak carelessly and toying with her fan: “Did +you see the gentleman I was speaking to, dear?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Una, calmly.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think that he is very handsome?”</p> + +<p>Una’s heart beat so fast that she could scarcely speak.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she answered, at last.</p> + +<p>“What a cold Diana it is!” said Lady Bell, caressingly. +“What an icy ‘yes.’ My dear, he is the handsomest man in +the room.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Una, sadly.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell looked at her.</p> + +<p>“I see, for all your yesses, that you don’t think so,” she +said, with a laugh. “Do you know they call him the +Savage, and that it is quite an achievement on my part to +get him here? I made his acquaintance by accident. Mrs. +Fellowes is quite shocked over it. But I always do as I +like. I’ve got a fancy, Una—you’d never guess it.”</p> + +<p>“What is it?” said Una, raising her dark eyes gravely +to the beautiful, witching face.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell smiled.</p> + +<p>“I have a fancy for taming the Savage,” she said, more +to herself than to Una; “it will be so amusing.”</p> + +<p>Una turned her head aside.</p> + +<p>“For him, do you mean?” she asked, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell stared at her, and her color came and went +amusedly.</p> + +<p>“What a strange child it is! For him? No, for me! +And—yes, for him too. What right has he to pretend to +be invincible? Do you think I shall succeed?”</p> + +<p>Una looked at her with an aching heart.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she answered; “I think you will succeed.”</p> + +<p>“What a flatterer it is!” said Lady Bell, playfully. +“Hush! here he comes; half tamed already. Now for the +first lesson,” and, to Una’s surprise she glided from the +recess and was instantly lost in the crowd. A moment +after Una saw her dancing with the duke.</p> + +<p>She drew back into the shadow and watched Jack. He +came along slowly, the ice in his hand, and looked around<span class="pagenum">[162]</span> +for Lady Bell, with astonishment and something like anger +in his face for a moment. Then he saw her dancing with +the duke in the center of the room, looked round for some +place to put the ice down, and, seeing none convenient, +gently pitched it, plate and all, into a fountain, to the +considerable astonishment of the gold fish.</p> + +<p>Then he sat down and thrusting his hands into his pockets, +seemed lost in thought; his head thrown back, almost +touched Una’s arm, and she wondered whether he would +be glad or sorry, or simply indifferent, if she rose and +stood before him, or called him by name.</p> + +<p>Yes, there he sat, within reach of her hand. She had +often dreamed of him as being near her, but it was no +dream now.</p> + +<p>An infinite longing to touch, to speak to him, possessed +her, and if he would but turn and look at her as he had +looked that morning by the lake!</p> + +<p>She struggled hard against the temptation, and sat motionless, +all her heart going out toward him.</p> + +<p>If she had known that Jack, even at that moment, was +thinking of her, and recalling her every look and word. +It was one of Strauss’ waltzes they were playing, but he +heard it not; in his ears was the rustle of the forest trees +and the ripple of the lake; before him was one of the most +beautiful ball-rooms in London, before him moved, in a +glittering pageant, the pick of London’s beauty and rank, +but he saw them not; he was looking in fancy into the +lovely face of the innocent forest girl.</p> + +<p>The dance was over, but still Lady Bell did not come; +couples, arm-in-arm, promenaded past him, but still Jack +sat, and dreaming of the girl who sat longing, longing for +a word or look from him, just behind him. Suddenly Una +felt something drop into her lap. It was a blossom from +one of the tropical plants.</p> + +<p>She took it up and looked at it absently; then, as if by +a sudden inspiration, she raised it to her lips and kissed it, +and rising, dropped it on his knee and fled.</p> + +<p>Jack started, and stooping picked up the flower, looked +at it for a moment, and then turned and looked up to see +whence it had come.<span class="pagenum">[163]</span></p> + +<p>As he did so he saw reflected dimly in a mirror framed +in palm leaves a girl’s face.</p> + +<p>With a bound he darted to his feet, and naturally +enough made for the reflection; but ere he could reach the +mirror the face had vanished.</p> + +<p>Pale and trembling with eagerness he turned—but Una +had glided through the ferns and reached the ante-room—and +came face to face with Lady Bell.</p> + +<p>She was flushed and laughing, her eyes dancing with the +excitement of the dance.</p> + +<p>“Well,” she said, “where is my ice?”</p> + +<p>Jack, startled and bewildered, stared at her.</p> + +<p>“I must have been dreaming,” he muttered.</p> + +<p>“Dreaming,” she said. “What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>He passed his hand over his brow.</p> + +<p>“Your ice!” and he glanced at the fountain. “I—I beg +your pardon. What did I do with it? I will get you another.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind!” said Lady Bell, laughing; “I do not care +for it now; I am too hot. Have you been asleep?”</p> + +<p>“Asleep!” he said, striving to recover his coolness; +“nearly. What could I do when you left me?”</p> + +<p>“The third compliment,” she said, with a smile. +“Where are you going now?” for Jack, with his eyes fixed +on the end of the fernery, was moving slowly away.</p> + +<p>“I—I’m afraid I must go,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Good-night!” she said, turning away coldly.</p> + +<p>Jack “pulled himself together,” as he would have called +it, and sat down beside her.</p> + +<p>“No,” he said, “I will stay if I may.”</p> + +<p>She turned to him with a gentle smile.</p> + +<p>“No; go now, please. I am not ungrateful. It was +very kind of you to come. You will not forget tomorrow?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Jack, fingering his crush hat. “I will not +forget tomorrow—how could I?”</p> + +<p>She held out her hand—not a tiny, meaningless one, but +a long, shapely eloquent hand—and put it into his broad, +strong one.</p> + +<p>“Good-night!” she said, and her voice grew wondrously<span class="pagenum">[164]</span> +low and gentle in its caressing, clinging tones. “Good-night!”</p> + +<p>Jack felt the slender fingers, warm through the thin +gloves, cling round his fingers.</p> + +<p>“Good-night,” she said, hurriedly. “Good-night.”</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + + +<p>Jack walked leisurely enough through the fernery looking +this way and that in search of the phantom girl; but +once clear of the ball-room, he hurried through the ante-rooms +and down the staircase—utterly ignoring the adieus +which were sent after him by the crowd on the stairs—and +reached the hall.</p> + +<p>The carriages were already taking up, and without +ceremony he pushed through the footmen into the open +air.</p> + +<p>“Has a carriage left just now—five minutes ago?” he +asked.</p> + +<p>“Two or three, sir,” said the footmen, and, too busy to +answer any further questions, he dashed off.</p> + +<p>Jack waited just outside the stream of light for nearly +an hour, his coat collar turned up, his hands thrust in his +pockets. But though many a beautiful face passed him +and was driven away, Una’s lovely face was not amongst +them.</p> + +<p>“I must have fallen asleep and been dreaming,” he muttered. +“How could she possibly have been there?”</p> + +<p>Then he called a hansom, and was driven to the club.</p> + +<p>His blood was on fire, his brain was in a whirl; two +faces—Una’s and Lady Bell’s—seemed to dance before his +eyes. Do something he must to get rid of them, or they +would drive him mad.</p> + +<p>There was only one thing to do—play. Before the morning +he had lost every penny of his twenty-one pounds six +and fourpence, and a couple of hundred besides.</p> + +<div class="asterisks">********</div> + +<p>Chance had favored Una in her escape; no sooner had +she reached the staircase than she heard Mrs. Davenant’s +carriage announced. To get her shawl and make her way +down the staircase was the work of a few moments, and<span class="pagenum">[165]</span> +the brougham was rolling away toward Walmington Square +before Jack had got down to the hall.</p> + +<p>“Well, my dear,” said Mrs. Davenant, “have you enjoyed +yourself? You look pale and tired.”</p> + +<p>Una shrunk into her corner.</p> + +<p>“I am rather tired,” she said, in a low voice, “it was all +so new and strange.”</p> + +<p>“And was Lady Bell kind?”</p> + +<p>“Very kind,” answered Una, with a sigh. “How beautiful +she is!”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Mrs. Davenant, “she is a very fortunate girl. +Youth and beauty and wealth, she has much to make her +happy. Tell me whom you saw, my dear.”</p> + +<p>Una flushed and trembled. She went over the names of +some of the great people, but she said nothing of Jack. +She could not bring her trembling lips to frame his name.</p> + +<p>“All the best people in town,” said Mrs. Davenant, with +a smile. “You will be a fashionable young lady before +long, Una.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, no!” breathed Una, with a sudden pallor. +“Perhaps I shall never go again.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant looked at her curiously, and relapsed +into silence until they reached home.</p> + +<p>Then, as they entered the drawing-room, she said, with a +little nervous smile:</p> + +<p>“I have heard from my son Stephen, Una.”</p> + +<p>“From your son?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Mrs. Davenant. “It is good news. He has +become very rich. His uncle, Squire Davenant, has left +him everything he possessed.”</p> + +<p>Una started and turned pale. Then Jack had been left +nothing! That was why he had looked so grave and +troubled.</p> + +<p>“Everything?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Everything,” said Mrs. Davenant, with a sigh: “the +Hurst and the estate, and all the money, and he is very +rich—very rich indeed.”</p> + +<p>Una looked before her dreamily. She could not say, “I +am very glad.” Mrs. Davenant waited a moment.</p> + +<p>“There is a message for you, my dear,” she said timidly, +fingering the letter.<span class="pagenum">[166]</span></p> + +<p>“For me!” said Una, looking up with a start.</p> + +<p>“Yes; Stephen is so thoughtful! He never forgets others +even in the midst of his great prosperity. He sends his +kind regards, and trusts that you do not miss Warden, and +that you will not find our quiet life too dull. He little +thinks how we have plunged into gayety already. He +would be surprised if he knew it.”</p> + +<p>Indeed Stephen would, with a vengeance!</p> + +<p>“It is very kind of him,” said Una, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant sighed.</p> + +<p>“He is always kind and thoughtful. He tells me that +he will not be able to come home just yet awhile. It seems +that there is a great deal to see to. The estate was greatly +neglected, and there’s some business to be done with the +lawyers; that keeps him there. But he says he will come +as soon as he can, and, meanwhile, I am to make you as +happy as I can. I hope I have done that already, dear,” +she added, with simple affection.</p> + +<p>Una rose and kissed her.</p> + +<p>“Indeed, yes; I am very happy.”</p> + +<p>Then she turned her face away to hide her tears.</p> + +<p>“Come, you must go to bed,” said Mrs. Davenant, “or +you will lose all your fresh roses.”</p> + +<p>And she put her candle in her hand, and kissed her +tenderly.</p> + +<p>It was some time before Una fell asleep. The events +of the night flitted like phantom visions across her eyes, +and Jack’s face rose to haunt her, with its tender, troubled +look in the dark eyes.</p> + +<p>The squire had willed all to Stephen then, and Jack +was poor and forgotten.</p> + +<p>The sun was high in the heavens when she awoke, and +breakfast was on the table by the time she had got down.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant looked up with a smile.</p> + +<p>“I am so glad to have you safe, dear,” she said. “Come, +you have got all your roses back again; and, see here, you +cannot guess whom this is from;” and she held up a note. +“It is from Lady Bell. It is an awful scolding for your +running away last night. She says that you flew away +like a bird, and that she had no sooner missed you than +she heard that you had gone.”<span class="pagenum">[167]</span></p> + +<p>Una colored.</p> + +<p>“Was it rude of me?” she said. “I am sorry.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind, my dear; she has evidently forgiven you, +or she says she will, if you will go with her for a water +picnic to-day.”</p> + +<p>Una turned pale again.</p> + +<p>“I!” she said, below her breath.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant opened the note.</p> + +<p>“Yes; she says she will take no denial. They are going +to drive down to Richmond, and she will call for you on +the way. Would you like to go, my dear?”</p> + +<p>Una thought a moment. She longed for, yet dreaded, +the meeting which she knew must take place between +Jack and her if she went.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant took her silence for consent.</p> + +<p>“There is no need of an answer, my dear,” she said, with +a little laugh; “Lady Bell will take no heed of a refusal. +There’s the note.”</p> + +<p>And she threw it across the table.</p> + +<p>Una read the kindly-imperative little letter, and sighed +as she examined the brilliant crest stamped at the head of +the paper.</p> + +<p>“It is very kind,” she said. “Yes, I will go, if you are +sure you do not mind my leaving you.”</p> + +<p>After breakfast, Mrs. Davenant and Jane entered into a +consultation as to what Una should wear, Una standing by +with a quiet smile.</p> + +<p>At last they decided that a dainty-figured satin should +be honored; and both of them, notwithstanding Una’s protests, +insisted upon assisting at her toilet.</p> + +<p>They could not have chosen anything more suited to +her fresh, virginal beauty than the simple, delicate dress; +and when Jane had brushed the soft, silken hair until it +shone and flashed like strands of golden haze, and coiled it +into a knot, Mrs. Davenant could not suppress an exclamation +of satisfaction and admiration.</p> + +<p>As for Una, she had not yet learned to view her changed +self without surprise, and stared at the tall, beautiful +woman which the glass reflected as though she could not +believe that it was herself.</p> + +<p>They were still looking at her, and Jane’s restless<span class="pagenum">[168]</span> +fingers were touching a bow here and a fold there, when +they heard the rattle of heavy wheels outside, and Mrs. +Davenant hurried her downstairs.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell was already in the drawing-room, and took +Una in her arms as if she were a school-girl, instead of a +woman taller than herself.</p> + +<p>“My child, I came to scold you—I meant to have a fearful +scene; but you have taken it all out of me!” And she +held Una by her elbows, and looked at her admiringly. +“Child, you are a picture! I’ve half a mind to drive off +without you. What will become of me? Mrs. Davenant, +don’t you think I am very stupid to commit suicide in this +way?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant smiled, and looked at Lady Bell’s beautiful +face, all bright as if with sunlight, and shook her head +gently.</p> + +<p>“Bah!” said Lady Bell, pouting. “I am nothing but a +foil to her; but I shall be useful, at least. Come, we must +be off. What is that—milk?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Una, offering her a glass, with a smile.</p> + +<p>“She drinks nothing else,” said Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>“That accounts for her complexion,” said Lady Bell. +“No, it doesn’t! If I drank all the dairies in London dry, +I shouldn’t get such milk and roses on my cheeks.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t turn her head,” murmured Mrs. Davenant, under +her breath.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell laughed.</p> + +<p>“My dear Mrs. Davenant, it is just what she wants! +There isn’t a spark of vanity in her composition; she isn’t +quite a woman, for no woman is without vanity. Look at +her, as grave and stern as a judge!” and she touched Una’s +arm with her sunshade.</p> + +<p>Una started—she had been wondering whether Jack +would be there outside, on the drag, and was listening for +his voice amongst those which came floating through the +open window.</p> + +<p>Trembling inwardly she followed Lady Bell out.</p> + +<p>The four horses were champing and pawing impatiently.</p> + +<p>The drag was nearly full, and, for a moment, Una saw +only a confused group of women in dainty morning<span class="pagenum">[169]</span> +dresses, and of men in white flannel and cheviot. A second +glance convinced her that Jack was not there.</p> + +<p>As they appeared on the steps the laughter and voices +ceased, and a well-bred glance of curiosity was turned upon +her.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell was, however, equal to the occasion.</p> + +<p>“Come along, Una,” she said, gayly. “Fanny, will you +make room beside you for Miss Rolfe?”</p> + +<p>The Countess of Pierrepoint smiled.</p> + +<p>“How do you do, Miss Rolfe!” she said graciously. “I +hear you were at Lady Bell’s dance last night; why did +you let her hide you so completely?”</p> + +<p>Una was silent.</p> + +<p>Fortunately Dalrymple made so much bustle and fuss in +starting, that conversation for a minute or two was impossible; +and before that minute or two had passed, Una +had gained her self-possession.</p> + +<p>Seated about, she recognized several of the people Lady +Bell had pointed out on the preceding evening: Lady +Clarence, Mrs. Cantrip, the Marchioness of Fairfield. Beside +Dalrymple, who had all his work cut out in keeping +the four spirited nags in good conduct in the crowded +London streets, sat, as a matter of course, Sir Arkroyd +Hetley, while one or two other men—one of whom she +heard addressed as the viscount—was with the ladies.</p> + +<p>Had Una been naturally nervous, her timidity could not +long have existed in such an atmosphere.</p> + +<p>Her companions were among the highest in the land; +but there was less reserve and ceremony than would have +been found in a similar gathering of middle-class people. +The men were laughing and chatting, ever and again +turning round to make some light-hearted remark, or pass +some joke round. They were all, it was evident, bent on +enjoying themselves.</p> + +<p>Very soon Una found herself brought into the conversation, +Lady Bell talking to her continually, and pointing +out the lions of the road.</p> + +<p>The roses came back into Una’s face in full bloom, her +heart beat more lightly, and her spirits rose as the four +impatient horses dashed along the roads which now ran +through the beautiful vicinity of Richmond.<span class="pagenum">[170]</span></p> + +<p>She had almost—almost—forgotten that Jack was not +there, when happening to glance round suddenly at Lady +Bell, she saw her looking dreamily before her, evidently +lost in thought, with a wistful drooping of the bright red +lips and a disappointed shadow in the dark eyes.</p> + +<p>Then Una knew that it was not only she herself who felt +the absence of the missing one.</p> + +<p>However, Lady Bell soon rallied, and when they drove +up to the hotel she was as bright as ever.</p> + +<p>The luncheon had been sent up to Thames Dutton, one +of the prettiest parts of the Thames, and it had +been arranged that the gentlemen should row up to +the island, hence the white flannel and cheviot costumes. +They found boats awaiting them at the river side, and, +with much laughing and gayety, started.</p> + +<p>It was a beautiful scene, the river gleaming like a flood +of silver between its banks of green meadows and stately +trees, the three boats with their bright colored occupants. +Una, who was of nature’s own kin, was filled with delight; +it was better than being at Warden. She leaned back in +her comfortable seat in the stern of the foremost boat, rapt +in silent enjoyment.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell looked at her rather wistfully.</p> + +<p>“How happy you look, child,” she said, in a lower voice +than usual.</p> + +<p>“I am quite happy,” said Una, simply.</p> + +<p>“You are just the person for a picnic,” said Lady Clarence. +“I feel sure that you would look just as contented +and serene if it rained in torrents, while the rest of us +would be running about bemoaning our spoiled clothes.”</p> + +<p>Una laughed.</p> + +<p>“I am not afraid of rain,” she said.</p> + +<p>“That’s fortunate, Miss Rolfe,” said Dalrymple, who +was pulling stroke, and exerting himself nobly, while Hetley, +pulling behind him, allowed him to do all the work. +“That’s fortunate, as we shall be sure to have a shower or +two—always do at a water picnic.”</p> + +<p>“No prophesying, marquis!” cried Lady Bell. “There +isn’t a cloud in the sky; there isn’t a sign of wet.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry for that,” he said, with mock gravity, “for +I’m fearfully thirsty.”<span class="pagenum">[171]</span></p> + +<p>They paid no attention to this broad hint, however, until +they were going through Teddington Lock, when Lady +Bell produced some champagne and soda water, and Hetley +made a cooling cup.</p> + +<p>When it came to Una’s turn—they all drank out of the +same cup, a splendid silver tankard, chased with the Earlsley +arms—she glanced at it askance and shook her head.</p> + +<p>“But you must, my dear Una,” said Lady Bell. “You +will be parched.”</p> + +<p>“Let me have some water,” said Una, and making a cup +of her hand—a trick she had learned at a very early age—she +bent over the boat and as quietly and naturally drank +a draught.</p> + +<p>The countess looked at her earnestly, and Sir Arkroyd +muttered to Dalrymple:</p> + +<p>“Where did she come from?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Dalrymple, in the same tone. “I’d +stick to water all the day if she’d let me drink it out of the +same cup. Isn’t she beautiful—perfectly lovely!”</p> + +<p>“Hush, she’ll hear you,” muttered Sir Arkroyd, warningly.</p> + +<p>But he need not have feared.</p> + +<p>Una sat like the dream-maiden in the ballad, deaf to all +but the plash of the oars and the music of the birds.</p> + +<p>Presently the stately pile of Hampton Court Palace +glided, as it were, into their view, and with a long pull +Dalrymple sent the boat to the island.</p> + +<p>The two other boats were close behind, and then these +grand people who were accustomed to be waited on hand +and foot, got out and dragged hampers under the shadow +of the oaks and willows; and the countess and Lady Clarence +laid the cloth, while Lady Bell and the rest knelt +beside the hampers and pulled out the things one by one. +Then Sir Arkroyd was sent to lay the champagne bottles +in the shallow water, and Dalrymple was handed a dish +and the ingredients for making the salad.</p> + +<p>In a few minutes luncheon was set out to the accompaniment +of much laughter, and a few accidents. One of +the champagne bottles had slid into the deep water, and +disappeared to the bottom of the river to astonish the +fish. The corkscrew followed it; and dismay fell on all,<span class="pagenum">[172]</span> +until the viscount calmly produced another from his +pocket.</p> + +<p>“Never go to a picnic without a corkscrew,” he said, +shaking his head. “Generally have to produce it, too.”</p> + +<p>Then there was much dragging about of hampers, +and arranging of shawls and boat cushions to provide seats +for the ladies; but at last all were seated, and Dalrymple, +brandishing a knife in dangerous proximity to Lady +Pierrepoint’s head, cut the first slice of raised pie.</p> + +<p>Then it was discovered how easy it is to make jokes at a +picnic. You can’t be stately and ceremonious sitting +cross-legged on the grass, and balancing your plate on your +knees; especially when, in consequence of there not being +quite enough knives, you have to lend the one you are +using to your next-door neighbor.</p> + +<p>As usual, too, there were not quite enough plates and +those dainty gentlemen, who went into fits if a fly fell into +their wineglasses at the club, bent down on their hands +and knees and washed plates in the river.</p> + +<p>“And there is no rain,” said Lady Bell.</p> + +<p>“Then one of us will have to fall into the river,” said +the viscount, solemnly. “Must have rain or an accident at +a picnic, you know. Will you have some more cream, Lady +Earlsley?”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell shook her head, laughingly.</p> + +<p>“No, thanks; I have enjoyed it all immensely. Why +cannot we have a picnic every day?”</p> + +<p>But Una, who sat next her, had noticed that she scarcely +touched anything.</p> + +<p>“Let us go into Bushey Park, and turn savages,” said +Dalrymple. “Halloa; speaking of savages, what a pity the +Savage isn’t here. This is just in his line.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell bent down suddenly to take a flower from +the cloth.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Newcombe was detained in town,” she said, +calmly; but Una could detect the faint quiver in her +voice.</p> + +<p>“Poor old Jack,” said Dalrymple, after a pause, “seems +to be cut up about something lately. Do you remember +how queer he was that night he came back from the country, +Arkroyd?”<span class="pagenum">[173]</span></p> + +<p>Lady Bell looked up suddenly.</p> + +<p>“Let us go for a ramble. You may smoke, gentlemen,” +she added. “Now don’t shake your heads as if you never +did such a thing. I can see your cigar-case peeping out of +your pocket, Lord Dalrymple.”</p> + +<p>And linking her arm in Una’s, she sauntered away.</p> + +<p>They strolled in silence for some minutes, until Una, +happening to look up, saw that Lady Bell’s face was quite +pale, and that something suspiciously like tears were veiling +the brightness of the dark eyes.</p> + +<p>“Lady Bell!” she murmured.</p> + +<p>“Hush!” said Lady Bell, gently. “Don’t notice me, +child! Oh, how sick I am of it all! What a long day it +seems! How can they sit there laughing and chattering +like a set of monkeys?”</p> + +<p>“What is the matter?” said Una, in her low, musical +voice.</p> + +<p>“Nothing,” said Lady Bell, softly; then she paused and +tried to laugh. “Una, my sweet, innocent, I’ve got a complaint +which you know nothing of; it is called the heartache. +There is no cure for it, I am afraid; at least, not for +mine. Tut! there, there! your great, grave eyes torture +me; they seem to go to the bottom of my soul. Not a word +more. Here they come!”</p> + +<p>And the next instant she turned round, all life and +gayety.</p> + +<p>Una sauntered on, her heart beating wildly. Was Lady +Bell’s heartache produced by the absence of Jack Newcombe? +Yes, that must be it!</p> + +<p>With a sigh she drew away still further from the rest, +and seating herself on the trunk of a tree by the riverside, +watched the silver stream as it flowed past and was lost +in the setting sun.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she saw in the distance a white speck that +looked like a bird, flitting up the middle of the stream. +The speck grew larger; and she saw that it was a light +boat putting toward the island.</p> + +<p>Gradually it came nearer and nearer, and she saw that it +contained one man only, and that he was clad in white +flannel.</p> + +<p>It was a light water-boat—a mere speck of white it<span class="pagenum">[174]</span> +looked now on the golden stream—and to Una, who had +never seen an outrigger before, it seemed an almost impossible +feat to sit in it.</p> + +<p>But the sculler managed it with the greatest ease, and +with every stroke sent it flying forward.</p> + +<p>With regular rhythmical action he pulled on, and very +soon she could see his great arms bared to the shoulders.</p> + +<p>She watched it absently for some minutes, but presently +the rower turned his head, and something in the movement +struck her and made her heart bound.</p> + +<p>Agitated and trembling she rose and stood staring down +the stream.</p> + +<p>A curve of the island hid the boat suddenly, and she +stood watching for it to appear again; but the minutes +passed on and it did not come. Then suddenly she heard a +peal of laughter and the clatter of voices, and she knew +that the boat had pulled into the island.</p> + +<p>With a vague hope and dread commingled she sank to +the seat again, and sat striving to still the wild beating +of her heart.</p> + +<p>Presently she heard her name called. It was Lady +Bell’s voice, and how changed; there was no false ring +in it now; clear and joyous it rang out:</p> + +<p>“Una! Una! Where are you?”</p> + +<p>There was no escape. She knew she must go, but she +waited for full three minutes. Then, nerved to an unnatural +calm, she rose and moved slowly forward. They +were all seated again; she could see them.</p> + +<p>Dalrymple and Sir Arkroyd were stretched at full +length, smoking; the ladies, in their dainty sateens and +pompadours, were grouped near them, and a little apart +sat Lady Bell, a cup in one hand and a knife in the other, +her face turned toward someone eating. Though his back +was toward her, Una recognized him. It was Jack Newcombe. +He had turned down his sleeves and put on his +white flannel jacket, and was eating and chatting at one +and the same time.</p> + +<p>“Yes, better late than never,” she heard him say, and +with every word of his deep, musical voice her heart +leaped as if in glad response. “I found I could get away,<span class="pagenum">[175]</span> +and I jumped in the train, to learn at Richmond that you +had just started. I got an outrigger, and here I am.”</p> + +<p>“Just in time to help wash up,” said Dalrymple. “We’ve +eaten all the strawberries, old man, and there isn’t much +cream. It’s lucky for you there is any pie.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t pay any attention to them, Mr. Newcombe,” +said Lady Bell, and how soft and sweet her voice sounded, +with its undertone of tenderness. “I am so sorry you are +late. Do not let them hurry you. You must be so tired. +Let me give you some ham—some tongue, then?”</p> + +<p>And she herself cut a slice and put it on his plate.</p> + +<p>“Don’t let me stop the fun,” said Jack, in his grave way. +“Go on with your games. What was it—kiss-in-the-ring?”</p> + +<p>There was a laugh; the lightest joke will serve at a picnic.</p> + +<p>“I was haunted by the dread that I should come just +in time to find everything cleared up. What a beautiful +day! No, no more, thanks.”</p> + +<p>“Let me give you some champagne,” said Lady Bell, and +reached forward with the goblet in her hand.</p> + +<p>Jack took it, and nodded over it in true picnic fashion.</p> + +<p>“Thanks,” he said, and raised it to his lips.</p> + +<p>At that moment Lady Bell looked up, and, seeing Una +standing still and motionless, beckoned her.</p> + +<p>Mechanically Una went round to her, and so stood in +front of Jack.</p> + +<p>His eyes were fixed at the bottom of the cup at the moment, +but presently he lifted them, and, with a sharp cry, +he let the cup fall to the ground and sprang to his feet.</p> + +<p>And then he stood staring at her downcast face with +startled eyes and pale countenance.</p> + +<p>“Hallo! Take care!” cried Dalrymple. “What are you +up to now, Savage? Anything bitten you?”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell looked from one to the other, from Una’s +white, downcast face to Jack’s pale, startled one.</p> + +<p>“Una,” she breathed, “what is it?”</p> + +<p>But Jack recovered himself.</p> + +<p>“Just like you fellows,” he said. “Didn’t you know that +you had pitched me on an ants’ nest? What did you say,<span class="pagenum">[176]</span> +Lady Bell? I beg your pardon. T don’t think there is +much spilled, and there is nothing broken.”</p> + +<p>And he knelt down and picked up the cup.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell laughed.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t think what was the matter,” she said. “Are +you really bitten?”</p> + +<p>“Just like Jack,” said Sir Arkroyd, with philosophic +calmness. “He is never happy unless he is breaking +something. I give you my word that he smashes more +glasses at the club than any other man.”</p> + +<p>“Always was clumsy,” said Jack, with a constrained +laugh.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell smiled.</p> + +<p>“You have quite frightened my friend, Miss Rolfe,” she +said. “Una, this unfortunate gentleman is Mr. Newcombe.”</p> + +<p>Jack had given her time, and she was able now to look +at him calmly. Jack bowed, his eyes glancing at her as if +they scarcely dared trust the evidence of their own +senses.</p> + +<p>“Pray forgive me,” he said. “I am very awkward. But +I don’t break quite so many things as they say. Is there +any more champagne, Lady Earlsley? I don’t deserve it, +I know——”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell took up a bottle.</p> + +<p>“Pour this into the cup, Una,” she said, with a smile. +“It is true he doesn’t deserve it, but we will be merciful.”</p> + +<p>Una took the bottle and leaned forward, and as she did +so Jack rose and stood before her, so that he screened her +trembling hand from the eyes of the rest.</p> + +<p>His own trembled, his own heart beat wildly; all else +save the beautiful face so close to his own swam before his +eyes.</p> + +<p>Was he dreaming, or was it really she? He could not +trust his eyes, he felt that he must touch her.</p> + +<p>Slowly he put out his hand, and gently, tremblingly +touched her white, slender wrist.</p> + +<p>Instantly she raised her eyes and looked at him, a long, +piteous look, as if he had struck her.</p> + +<p>Yes, it was she. It was Una, his forest-maiden!</p> + +<p>With a long breath he raised the cup to his lips and<span class="pagenum">[177]</span> +drained it, then sank down on the grass and took up his +plate, scarcely knowing what he was doing.</p> + +<p>The laughing voices around him seemed blurred and +indistinct in his ears, the green trees and silver stream +seemed to fade and vanish, and give place to the silent +glade in which he had sat with the same beautiful girl +bending over him.</p> + +<p>Mechanically he went through the pretense of eating until +a burst of laughter recalled him to himself.</p> + +<p>“Look here!” shouted Dalrymple in boyish glee. “Here’s +the Savage, busy eating nothing!”</p> + +<p>Jack laughed, awakened to the sense of the situation. +He must nerve himself, if only for her sake.</p> + +<p>“It must be sunstroke,” he said lightly, staring at his +empty plate. “Will somebody give me a piece of cake? I +have always doted on cake. I like a piece with the candied +peel on it, Lady Bell. Thanks. Now I am just going to +begin my luncheon.”</p> + +<p>“Those persons who are tired of watching the Savage +satisfy his barbaric appetite are requested to withdraw!” +drawled Dalrymple, and he leaped to his feet, laughing.</p> + +<p>“Seriously, if anyone would like to go up to the palace, +I’ve an open door. I should like a row.”</p> + +<p>There was an instant clamor. Three parts of the party +wanted to see the palace, and a couple of boat loads +started.</p> + +<p>Lady Clarence, Lady Bell, Una, and Jack remained.</p> + +<p>He still kept up the pretense of eating and drinking; +and Lady Bell, kneeling opposite him, seemed never to +grow weary in supplying his wants.</p> + +<p>Una, seated at a little distance, noticed with what eager +attention she hung upon every word he uttered. And Jack +kept on talking as if his life depended on it. But presently +his patience came to an end.</p> + +<p>He put down his plate resolutely.</p> + +<p>“No more, thanks, or I shall be too heavy for the outrigger. +Now, then, can’t I help pack up?”</p> + +<p>But Lady Bell wouldn’t hear of it.</p> + +<p>“No, you shall light your pipe,” she said, “and watch +us. Come, Una. I know you are dying to help us.”<span class="pagenum">[178]</span></p> + +<p>Una awoke with a start and knelt down beside the plates +and dishes while Lady Bell went for the hamper.</p> + +<p>Jack seized his opportunity. Bending forward, he whispered:</p> + +<p>“Una!”</p> + +<p>She half turned her face, pale and dreamy.</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“Is it really you? How did you come here? Am I +dreaming?”</p> + +<p>“It is I,” she said, in her low, musical voice.</p> + +<p>“But—but,” he said, “how did you come here? I did +not know you were in London. I have been looking for +you.”</p> + +<p>Her heart gave a great leap. He had been looking for +her.</p> + +<p>“I have been searching for you everywhere, Una. Did +you think I should not come back? I went to Warden——”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said eagerly.</p> + +<p>“And I found the cottage shut up and your people +gone.”</p> + +<p>“Gone?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, gone, and I did not know what to do. So I came +to town, and—and I looked for you everywhere. Ah! you +thought that I had forgotten you, as you had forgotten +me.”</p> + +<p>Her lovely face flushed, and she turned her dove-like +eyes upon him, with a reproachful look in their depths.</p> + +<p>“Forgotten him!”</p> + +<p>“I cannot understand it,” he went on, drawing still +nearer to her, his eyes eagerly scanning her face.</p> + +<p>She smiled faintly. A great joy welled up in her heart, +every nerve was tingling with happiness, she scarcely +heard him. The words, “I have been searching for you,” +rang in her ears.</p> + +<p>“I scarcely understand it myself,” she said; “it seems +like a dream.”</p> + +<p>Jack glanced toward the bank. They had finished the +packing, and would interrupt them in another minute.</p> + +<p>“Where are you staying? You are on a visit?”<span class="pagenum">[179]</span></p> + +<p>“I am staying with Mrs. Davenant,” said Una, in the +same low voice.</p> + +<p>Jack started, and the unlit pipe nearly fell from his +hand.</p> + +<p>“With Mrs. Davenant?” he exclaimed. “With Stephen’s +mother?”</p> + +<p>Una nodded.</p> + +<p>“Yes; he has been very kind and good to me.”</p> + +<p>Jack stared breathless.</p> + +<p>“Stephen good to you!” he said, fiercely. “What do +you mean? Am I dreaming?”</p> + +<p>“It was he who came to Warden with Mrs. Davenant,” +said Una, vaguely, troubled by the stern look of suspicion +which had settled like a cloud on Jack’s face.</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand,” he said grimly. “Stephen—Stephen! +How did he know of your existence?”</p> + +<p>“Some friend,” said Una; “I do not quite know. At any +rate, it was through him. And I like Mrs. Davenant.”</p> + +<p>Jack nodded.</p> + +<p>“Yes, she is a good woman. But Stephen——”</p> + +<p>And he passed his hand over his brow.</p> + +<p>Una looked at him timidly.</p> + +<p>“Are you angry?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Angry! with you!” he exclaimed, bending nearer, with +a look of tender devotion. “How could you think it? No, +I am not angry—only puzzled. I cannot make it out. +Never mind! don’t look so troubled, my dear—Miss Rolfe, +I mean. At any rate, I have found you. Oh, Una!—Miss +Rolfe, I mean—if you knew how I have searched for +you, and”—with a groan—“what a fool I have been!”</p> + +<p>“I thought you had forgotten me,” said Una, with that +sweet humility of love.</p> + +<p>Jack’s eyes gleamed.</p> + +<p>“I have not forgotten you for one moment—not for one +moment! Una, I——Oh, confound it! here they are.”</p> + +<p>He broke off impatiently, as Lady Bell and the rest +came back.</p> + +<p>“What are we going to do now?” she said, with her +bright smile. “Some of them have gone to the palace. +Shall we wait for them, or go and meet them! What do +you say, Mr. Newcombe?”<span class="pagenum">[180]</span></p> + +<p>But Jack would not stir.</p> + +<p>“They’ll come back,” he said, absently, his eyes drawn +toward the downcast face.</p> + +<p>How lovely it was! If they would only all go away, +and leave them alone! He had so much to say—so much +to ask.</p> + +<p>But Lady Bell showed no sign of going; instead, she +threw herself down on the grass beside them, and commenced +to talk.</p> + +<p>Had he enjoyed the pull up? Why had he not driven +down with them? She didn’t believe in particular business; +and so on.</p> + +<p>Jack pulled at his pipe, and returned absent, scarcely +civil answers. At last Lady Bell noticed his abstraction, +and turned her head away in silence.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Una sat speechless, her face turned toward +the river, her whole soul absorbed by his presence. It +frightened her, this feeling of absorption. She found herself +waiting and listening for every word that dropped +from his lips as if her life depended on it. She trembled +lest he should touch her.</p> + +<p>His manner filled her with an ecstasy of pleasure that +was almost pain. How handsome he looked, stretched out +at full length, his tanned face turned to the sky, his tawny +mustache sweeping his clear cut lips; she felt, rather than +knew, that his eyes sought her face, and she dared not +turn her eyes toward him, though she longed to do so.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> + + +<p>Presently, to the relief of Una, at least, the other boats +came back; the third boat was got ready, the hampers put +on board, and the ladies seated.</p> + +<p>Jack stood near the stern, and took Una’s hand in his +to help her to embark.</p> + +<p>“Take care,” he said, aloud, then in an undertone, he +added: “I shall see you at Richmond.”</p> + +<p>“Are you going to row the outrigger down, Savage?” said +Dalrymple, eying the first boat enviously.</p> + +<p>Jack turned to him eagerly.</p> + +<p>“No, I’ll take your place in this boat; I can see you are<span class="pagenum">[181]</span> +longing for mine. Here, get in”; and before Dalrymple +could refuse, Jack had almost lifted him into the outrigger, +and leaped into his place in Lady Bell’s boat.</p> + +<p>All the darkness vanished from his brow. He was sitting +opposite Una; so near, that when he leaned forward +to make the stroke, his hand almost touched her dress.</p> + +<p>“Are you coming with us?” said Lady Bell; “I am so +glad.”</p> + +<p>“So am I,” said Jack; but his eyes went to Una’s face.</p> + +<p>“Now, then,” said Jack, as he bent forward.</p> + +<p>“Steady, old man,” said Sir Arkroyd; “we haven’t all +got blacksmith’s muscles!”</p> + +<p>But Jack was wild, delirious with joy, and he pulled, +heart and soul, his great, strong arms bare to the elbows.</p> + +<p>“What a lovely night!” said Lady Bell. “Won’t anybody +sing?”</p> + +<p>Of course no one replied.</p> + +<p>“Sing something, my dear child,” she said to Una. “You +have a singing face. You have no idea how beautiful it +sounds on the water.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, no,” said Una, shrinking modestly.</p> + +<p>Jack looked up.</p> + +<p>“Sing,” he murmured, pleadingly. As if he had uttered +a command, she looked at him with meek obedience, and +began the song he had heard her singing in the forest.</p> + +<p>Is there anything more exquisite on earth than the voice +of a young girl? Una knew nothing of the science of +song; she had had no master, no instruction of any sort; +but her voice was clear and musical as a young thrush’s +and she sang straight from her heart.</p> + +<p>No need to tell Jack to pull slower! He ceased rowing, +and rested on his oar, his eyes fixed on her face, his lips +half apart.</p> + +<p>The other boats stopped also as the music of the sweet, +young voice floated down the stream, and one and all felt +the spell.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell sat with lowered lids and pale face, and when +the last note died away and she looked up, her eyes were +moist.</p> + +<p>“My dear,” she said, in a low voice, “where did you learn +to sing like that?”<span class="pagenum">[182]</span></p> + +<p>Una, half frightened at the effect she had produced, +flushed and sank back into her seat.</p> + +<p>“I have never learned,” she said, quietly.</p> + +<p>There was a murmur, and Lady Clarence turned and +looked at her curiously.</p> + +<p>“You have a beautiful voice,” she said, “and exquisite +taste, or you could not sing as you do. It is a pity you +have not been thoroughly trained. You should have a master.”</p> + +<p>“She shall!” said Lady Bell, impulsively. “She shall +have the best. It would be criminal to let such a gift be +wasted!”</p> + +<p>Jack looked up with a flush of pleased gratitude, and +Lady Bell happened to catch that glance.</p> + +<p>With a slight start she turned pale, and looked from his +face all aglow with the fervor of loving admiration to +Una’s downcast one, and then, with something like a shudder, +she, too, sank back into the seat.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t—isn’t it cold?” she said, in a strangely changed +voice.</p> + +<p>“Is it?” said Jack, musing. “We’ll row on,” and he +bent to the oar again.</p> + +<p>A peculiar silence fell upon them all; it seemed as if +they were still listening to the sweet voice. Lady Bell +closed her eyes and remained motionless, and Jack pulled +as if he had undertaken to reach Richmond within a given +time.</p> + +<p>At Richmond tea was brought to them on the terrace +while the horses were put to, and very soon they were +dashing toward London.</p> + +<p>Dalrymple declared that his arms were too stiff to allow +him to handle the four grays properly, and Jack was unanimously +voted to the box.</p> + +<p>He looked rather inclined to refuse, but seeing that Una +had been seated close behind him, he climbed up and took +the reins without a word.</p> + +<p>For the first mile or two he had quite enough to do to +keep the nags in hand; but he could feel that Una was +close behind him, could feel her breath on his cheek, and +hear every word of the clear, low-pitched voice, and he was +deliriously happy.<span class="pagenum">[183]</span></p> + +<p>Presently, when he had got the horses into steady working, +he turned his head and pointing with his whip, as if +he were directing her attention to some object in the landscape, +said in a low voice:</p> + +<p>“Una, can you hear me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said, leaning forward.</p> + +<p>“I have been thinking it all over,” he said, “but I can’t +make head or tail of it. It’s all a mystery. However, I +know where you are now, and that’s something; and I can +come and see you, and that’s everything—to me. Are you +angry with me for speaking so—so boldly?”</p> + +<p>“No,” she faltered.</p> + +<p>“And I may come and see you? I know Mrs. Davenant; +she is a good creature, though she thinks me everything +that’s bad—and she’s not far wrong, I’m afraid——”</p> + +<p>Una sighed faintly.</p> + +<p>“And perhaps she’ll tell me what it means, and why +Stephen has sent you to be with her. Why, Una, did your +father allow you to come? He loathed me for being a distant +relative of the Davenants.”</p> + +<p>“I do not know,” said Una, troubled.</p> + +<p>“Never mind,” said Jack, hastening to soothe her; “it’s +sure to be all right, if he did it. I liked your father, notwithstanding +he was so rough with me. I liked him because +he took such care of you. Steady, silly!” This was to the +near leader, and not to Una. “What a lovely night! Are +you enjoying it?—are you happy?”</p> + +<p>A sigh, faint and tremulous, was full answer.</p> + +<p>“Please Heaven, we’ll have many a night like this. +Happy! I could go half mad with delight at having you +so near me. Una—I may call you Una?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she murmured.</p> + +<p>“Can you guess—you sweet, innocent flower—what +makes me so happy?”</p> + +<p>“Tell me!” she answered, in a low voice, and leaning forward +until her soft, silken hair almost touched his.</p> + +<p>Jack’s heart beat fast, and his blood bounded in his +veins.</p> + +<p>“It is because I love you. I love you! Do you understand? +Ah, my darling! you don’t know what love is. +But I ought not to call you so—not yet. I can’t see your<span class="pagenum">[184]</span> +face; perhaps I shouldn’t dare to be so bold if I could. +Speak to me, Una; speak to me. Tell me that you are not +angry. Tell me that, while I have never had your sweet +face out of my mind since that day we parted in Warden, +you have thought once or twice of me. I don’t deserve it. +I’m a bad lot; but I love you, Una. Do you love me?”</p> + +<p>There was no reply; but there was a soft nestle beside +him, and then he felt her hand timidly touch his arm.</p> + +<p>He slipped the whip and reins into one hand, and seized +the little trembling hand and enclosed it as if he meant +thus to swallow it up forever.</p> + +<p>But, alas! the horses were going down hill, and were +fidgeting and pulling; and with impatient exclamation at +their stupidity, he was obliged to let the little hand go; +but it did not go far; he could feel it touching, softly and +timidly, the edge of his coat-sleeve, and that was enough +for him. It was a mercy and a miracle that the drag was +not upset, for he scarcely knew where or how he was +driving, and it was more by instinct and habit that he +brought the team safe and sound, but sweating tremendously, +before the house in Park Lane.</p> + +<p>“You must all come in,” said Lady Bell.</p> + +<p>The gentlemen looked at their white flannels apologetically, +but Lady Bell laughed.</p> + +<p>“Let us pretend that we are our own masters and mistresses +for one night,” she said, “and not the slaves of +Fashion.”</p> + +<p>Jack stood out. He felt that, for the present, it behooved +him to be discreet, and he knew that if he were +not, it would be impossible for him to conceal the romantic +love which burned through and through him. Besides, he +knew that there would be no opportunity of speaking to +Una there; and he felt that it would be agony for him to +assume the conventional air of polite indifference to her +for that evening, at least.</p> + +<p>So he went. But he stood on the pavement to help her +down; and as he held her in his arms, he kept her for one +moment poised between heaven and earth; and as he put +her down, his lips touched her arm, and she knew it.</p> + +<p>“I’ll see to the horses, Dal,” he said; and he leaped up, +and drove off as if he were possessed.<span class="pagenum">[185]</span></p> + +<p>“That’s what the Savage calls seeing to them!” grumbled +Dalrymple. “He’ll throw ’em down, or run over somebody, +and I shall be fined five pounds for furious driving.”</p> + +<p>Jack was conscientious—where horses were concerned—and +he sat on the rack and saw them rubbed down and fed +with the patience of a martyr; then he jumped into a hansom, +was driven to Spider Court, and, bursting into the +room, fell into a chair and flung his cap at Leonard’s +head.</p> + +<p>“Mad at last!” said Leonard.</p> + +<p>“Yes, stark, staring, ramping mad, old fellow. I’ve +found her!”</p> + +<p>“No!” said Leonard, turning round.</p> + +<p>“Yes! Yes! And I’ve spent the day with her. She’s +here in London, and who do you think she is staying with? +With Mrs. Davenant, Stephen’s mother!”</p> + +<p>“Stephen’s mother!” said Leonard, with surprise. +“Nonsense.”</p> + +<p>“Fact! What do you make of it?”</p> + +<p>Leonard Dagle mused in silence.</p> + +<p>“I can make nothing of it,” he said at last.</p> + +<p>“Did she know Mrs. Davenant?”</p> + +<p>“No; that’s the mystery. Stephen, it seems, is the +cause of her being here. He found out her father—how I +can’t guess—he must, of course, have known her before; +there’s nothing wonderful in that. But what is wonderful +is that Stephen should do anyone a good turn, unless—unless—” +and his face darkened suddenly and grew fierce—“unless +he had some end in view.”</p> + +<p>“What end could he have in view here?” said Leonard.</p> + +<p>“That’s what I can’t make out; can you?”</p> + +<p>Leonard shook his head.</p> + +<p>“It’s a strange story throughout.”</p> + +<p>“It is,” said Jack, grimly. “But, Stephen Davenant, if +you mean any mischief, look out! I’m on your track, my +friend! But, Len, old man, you look rather done up. +What’s the matter?”</p> + +<p>Leonard passed his hand over his brow.</p> + +<p>“Something strange and mysterious also,” he said. “I +went to Cheltenham Terrace an hour ago, just on the +chance of getting a glimpse of—of——”<span class="pagenum">[186]</span></p> + +<p>“Of Laura Treherne. Well, old man?”</p> + +<p>“And I met with a similar shock to yours in Warden +Forest. I found the house shut up, and she—gone, vanished, +disappeared!”</p> + +<p>“What!” exclaimed Jack.</p> + +<p>Leonard paced up and down.</p> + +<p>“I went to inquire next door, and I learned that old Mr. +Treherne was dead—you remember my telling you that the +blinds were down—that the funeral took place yesterday, +and Miss Treherne had gone. They only lodged there, it +seems, and of course she could go at any moment. Where +she has gone no one seems to know. So there is an end to +my little romance! But no! it shall not end there.”</p> + +<p>“No; take courage by my luck, old man,” said Jack, laying +his hand on his shoulder—“take courage by me! Let +us talk about it.”</p> + +<p>“No, no!” said Leonard, shrinking; “I cannot—yet. You +don’t know how I feel. Tell me what happened today. +Was she glad to see you? Did you let her see that you +cared for her? Of course you did.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Jack, with a proud, happy smile. “Yes, I +told her that I loved her, and—oh, Len! Len! I know that +she cares for me!”</p> + +<p>Leonard stared at him gravely, and put down a paper +which he had taken up. But Jack saw it and took it off +the table.</p> + +<p>“What are you reading there, Len?”</p> + +<p>Leonard took it out of his hand.</p> + +<p>“My poor, light-hearted, unreasoning Jack,” he said. +“It’s Levy Moss’ reminder about that bill!”</p> + +<p>Jack’s face fell and he dropped into a chair.</p> + +<p>“Quite right, Len,” he said, hoarsely. “I am an unreasoning +fool! What have I done? I’ve behaved like a +blackguard! I’ve got this angel to admit that she loved me—me, +a beggar—more than a beggar! But I swear I forgot—I +forgot everything when I was near her. Oh, +Heaven, Len, it’s hard lines! What shall I do! If the +poor old squire had but left me a few hundreds a year, how +happy we could be!”</p> + +<p>“But he hasn’t,” said Leonard, gravely and gently. “And<span class="pagenum">[187]</span> +what are you going to do? There’s the money you lost last +night——”</p> + +<p>Jack groaned.</p> + +<p>“What an idiot I was. Len, I swear to you that I was +nearly driven out of my mind last night. First there was +Lady Bell—she was more than civil, and bearing in mind +all you said and wanted me to do, I made myself agreeable, +and—and—she’s very beautiful, Len, and when she looks +right into your eyes and smiles, she seems to do what she +likes with you. Len, I was nearly gone when that vision—as +I thought it—came into the glass amongst the ferns. I +thought it was a vision—I know now that she was there—and +it drove me silly. I bolted out and made for the club, +and played to forget it all.”</p> + +<p>“And made bad matters worse,” said Leonard. “You’re +in a hole, Jack, I’m afraid. Moss won’t wait; there are +other bills, and there’s the I. O. U. of last night, and you’ve +lost the money you had, and you’ve asked this young girl +to love you. You mean to marry her—I say, you mean +to marry her. On what? How can you go to her father—who +already doesn’t seem altogether prepossessed in your +favor—and ask him to give his daughter to a penniless +gentleman? Mind—a gentleman! If you were a woodman +like himself, your being hard up wouldn’t matter. +You could take an ax, or whatever they use, and earn your +living. But you can’t go and ask him to let her share your +over-due bills and I. O. U.’s.”</p> + +<p>Jack groaned.</p> + +<p>“What shall I do, Len? My darling, my darling!”</p> + +<p>Leonard sighed. His heart—the heart of as true a +friend as ever the world held—ached for the wild, thoughtless +youth.</p> + +<p>“Was Lady Bell there?” he asked, quietly.</p> + +<p>Jack leaped to his feet.</p> + +<p>“Lady Bell! I see what you mean!” he groaned. “Len, +you are in love yourself, and yet you ask me to sell myself——”</p> + +<p>Leonard flushed.</p> + +<p>“Jack, much as I care for you, I swear that I am thinking +as much of her good and happiness as of your own. If +you marry her—which, after all, you <i>cannot</i>—if you could<span class="pagenum">[188]</span> +you would make her life miserable; if you marry Lady Bell, +you will at least make <i>her</i>—happy.”</p> + +<p>Jack paced up and down for a moment. Then he +turned, white and haggard, and held out his hand:</p> + +<p>“You are right. Would to Heaven you were not! I +see it, I cannot help it. I will not make her life miserable. +But—but—I must go and tell her. Heaven help us both!”</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> + + +<p>Where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise. Quite ignorant +and unconscious of all that was going on in London, +Stephen remained down at the Hurst.</p> + +<p>What he had written to his mother was quite true; as a +matter of fact Stephen was far too clever to write direct +falsehoods—he was kept at Hurst Leigh very much against +his will.</p> + +<p>Squire Ralph had left him everything—money, house, +lands, everything excepting the few legacies to servants, +and Stephen had been hard at work, and was still hard at +work ascertaining how much that everything was.</p> + +<p>And, as day followed day, and disclosure succeeded disclosure, +he became fascinated and possessed by the immense +wealth which had fallen into his hands, or, say rather, +which he had seized upon.</p> + +<p>For many years the old squire had lived upon less than +half his income; the remainder he had invested and speculated +with, and as often happens to the miser, the luck of +Midas had fallen upon him.</p> + +<p>Everything he touched had turned to gold. The most +unlikely speculations had proved successful; properties +which he had bought for a mere song, and which had been +regarded by the most wary as dangerous and profitless, had +become profitable and valuable.</p> + +<p>Some of these risky speculations he had, not unnaturally, +kept concealed from the prudent Hudsley, who only now, +by the discovery of scrip and bonds in out-of-the-way desks +and bureaus, learned what kind of man his old friend had +really been.</p> + +<p>Not a day passed but it brought to light some addition to +the old man’s gains, and served to swell the immense total.<span class="pagenum">[189]</span></p> + +<p>Even the lands round Hurst had been manipulated by +the old man, so that leases ran out almost at his death, and +rents were raised.</p> + +<p>One speculation will serve as an instance; he had purchased, +some fifteen years before his death, the freehold of +an estate bordering upon London; and in a locality which +was then regarded as hopelessly unfashionable. A great +capitalist had ruined himself by building large houses on +the property, foreseeing that at some time or other the tide +of the great city would reach this hitherto high and dry +spot. But he had made a miscalculation, and he died before +the tide which was to bring him wealth reached his +property; old Ralph had then stepped in and bought it—houses, +land, everything. In ten years’ time the tide of +fashion rolled that way, and now what had once been a +neglected and forgotten quarter was the center of fashionable +London.</p> + +<p>It reads like a romance, but like many other romances, it +was true.</p> + +<p>Old Ralph himself had no idea of his own wealth, and +that when he died he should leave behind him one of +the most colossal fortunes in England.</p> + +<p>Almost stunned by the immense total—so far as it had +been arrived at—Stephen went about the place silent and +overwhelmed.</p> + +<p>But one thought was always ringing like a bell in his +brain—“And I had nearly lost all this!”</p> + +<p>Sometimes, in the quiet of the library, where he sat +surrounded by books and papers, by accountants’ statements +and estimates, he would grow pale and tremble as he reflected +by what a narrow chance he had secured this Midas-like +wealth.</p> + +<p>But had he secured it? and when the question presented +itself, as it did a hundred, aye, a thousand times a day, he +would turn ashy pale, and clutch the edge of the table to +keep himself from reeling.</p> + +<p>Where was that will—the real, true, valid will—which +left everything away from him to Una?</p> + +<p>Day by day, while going over the accounts, he found +himself waiting, watching, expecting someone—whom he +could not imagine—coming in and saying: “This is not<span class="pagenum">[190]</span> +yours; here is the will. I found it so and so, at such and +such a time!” and he felt that if such a moment occurred +it would kill him.</p> + +<p>But as the days passed and no one came to contest his +claim to the property, he grew more confident and assured, +and at last he nearly succeeded in convincing himself that +he really had burned the will.</p> + +<p>“After all,” he mused, over and over again, “that is the +only probable, the only possible explanation. Is it likely +that if anyone had the accursed thing they would keep it +hidden? No! If they were honest, they would have declared +it at once; if dishonest, they would have brought it +to me and traded upon it. Yes, I was half mad that night. +I must have destroyed it at the moment Laura knocked +at the window.”</p> + +<p>But all the same he determined to make his position secure. +Immediately he had arranged matters at the Hurst +he would go to London and marry Una.</p> + +<p>“She is all safe and sound there,” he mused, with a +satisfied smile. “My mother leads the life of a hermit. +The girl herself has no friends—not one single soul in +London. I shall be her only friend, and—the rest is easy.”</p> + +<p>Poor Stephen!</p> + +<p>Then he would give a passing thought to Laura, and +now and then would take from his pocket half a dozen letters, +which she had written to him since the night of her +journey to Hurst.</p> + +<p>To not one of these had he replied, and the last was +dated a week back.</p> + +<p>“By this time,” he thought, “she has forgotten me, or +what is better, has learned that plain Stephen Davenant +and Squire Davenant of Hurst Leigh are two very different +men. Poor Laura! Well, well, I must do something +for her. I’ll make her a handsome present. Say a +thousand pounds; perhaps find a husband for her. She’s +a sensible girl, too sensible to dream that I should think of +marrying her now. After all, what harm is done? We +were very happy, and amused ourselves with innocent flirtation. +A mere flirtation, that is all.”</p> + +<p>And he tried to forget the pale face and flashing eyes +which turned toward him that night at parting with such<span class="pagenum">[191]</span> +a strange look of warning. But he did not always succeed +in forgetting. Sometimes the remembrance of that +face rose like a vision between his eyes and the endless rows +of figures, and made him shudder with mingled fear and +annoyance.</p> + +<p>“It has been a lesson to me,” he would say, after awhile. +“It is the only weakness I have ever been guilty of, and +see how I am punished. I deserve it, and I must bear it.”</p> + +<p>It punished him, and it told upon him. The pallor +which had come upon his face the day the will was read +had settled there. The old look of composed serenity +and “oiliness,” as Jack called it, had gone, and in the place +was a look of strained intentness, as if he were always listening, +and watching, and waiting.</p> + +<p>He was a fine actor, and would have made a fortune on +the boards, and he managed to suppress this look at times, +but the effort of suppression was palpable; he showed that +he was affecting a calmness and serenity which he did not +possess.</p> + +<p>By two men, of all others, this change in him was especially +noticed—by Mr. Hudsley and old Skettle.</p> + +<p>The old lawyer and his clerk were necessarily with him +every day; Stephen could not move a step without them. +He hated Hudsley, whose keen, steel-like eyes seemed to +penetrate to his inmost heart; and he detested Skettle, +whose quiet, noiseless way of moving about and watching +him from under his wrinkled lids, irritated Stephen to such +an extent that sometimes he felt an irresistible desire to +fling something at him.</p> + +<p>But both of the men were indispensable to him at present, +and he determined to wait until everything was +straight before he cut all connections with them.</p> + +<p>“Once let me get matters settled,” he muttered to himself +over and over again, “and those two vultures shall +never darken my doors again.”</p> + +<p>And yet Hudsley was always scrupulously polite and +civil, and Skettle always respectful.</p> + +<p>With his characteristic graveness, Mr. Hudsley went +through the work systematically and machine-like.</p> + +<p>But Stephen noticed when he came to announce some +fresh edition to the great Davenant property, he never even<span class="pagenum">[192]</span> +uttered a formal congratulation, or seemed pleased and +gratified.</p> + +<p>One day Stephen, nettled beyond his usual caution, said: +“You must be tired of all this, Mr. Hudsley. I notice +that it seems to annoy you.”</p> + +<p>And the old lawyer had looked up with grim impassibility.</p> + +<p>“You are mistaken, Mr. Stephen. I am never tired, and +I am never annoyed.”</p> + +<p>“At least you must be surprised,” said Stephen; “you +had no idea that my uncle had left so much.”</p> + +<p>“No, I am not even surprised,” retorted Mr. Hudsley, +if his calm reply could be called a retort. “I have lived +too long to be surprised by anything.”</p> + +<p>And there was something in his keen, icy look which +silenced Stephen, and made him bend over his papers +suddenly.</p> + +<p>Others noticed the change which had come over the +once sleek, smooth-spoken young man. It got to be remarked +that he rarely left the Hurst grounds, and that +what exercise he took was on the terrace in front of the +library, or on the lawn below it. It was said that he paced +up and down this lawn for hours.</p> + +<p>It was said, too, that he rarely addressed a servant in or +out of the house. All the orders came through the valet +Slummers.</p> + +<p>Mention has been made of Slummers. It would have +been difficult to describe him. He was called in the village +“the Shadow,” because he was so thin and noiseless, so +silent and death-like.</p> + +<p>In addition to his noiselessness, he had a trick of going +about with closed eyes, or with his lids so lowered that it +looked as if his eyes were closed.</p> + +<p>Bets had been made upon the supposed color of those +visional organs, but had never been decided, for never by +any chance did he look anyone in the face when speaking; +and when by some accident those sphinx-like lids were +raised they were dropped again so quickly that examination +of what lay behind them was impossible.</p> + +<p>Secretiveness was part and parcel of this man. He never +did anything openly. When he gave an order it was in a<span class="pagenum">[193]</span> +round-about way. The simplest action of his daily life +was enveloped in mystery. Even his meals were taken in +a room apart; only a few of the servants knew the room +he occupied. Then he seemed ubiquitous. He was everywhere +at once, and turned up when least expected.</p> + +<p>With noiseless step he came and went about the house; +now in the servants’ hall, now in the library closeted with +his master, now in the stables looking under his lids at the +horses, counting, so said the grooms, every oat that went +into the mangers. Not a thing was done in the house but +he was acquainted with it.</p> + +<p>And he knew everything! Not a secret was kept from +him. Had anyone in the village an episode in his life, +which he hoped and deemed hidden and forgotten, Slummers +knew it, and managed by some dropped word or look +to let the miserable man know that he knew it.</p> + +<p>Before he had been at Hurst a week he had half the +servants and villagers in his power.</p> + +<p>Power! That was the secret mainspring of the man’s +existence. He loved power.</p> + +<p>Give even the fiend his due. This man had one good +quality, he was devoted to his master. Saving this one +great event of his life—the theft and loss of his will—Stephen +trusted him in everything.</p> + +<p>And Slummers admired him. In his eyes Stephen was +the cleverest man on earth, and being the cleverest man +on earth Slummers was content to serve him. Yes, Slummers +was devoted to his master, but he made up for it in +his detestation of the rest of mankind in general, and +of one man in particular—Jack Newcombe.</p> + +<p>Between Jack—honest, frank, and reckless Jack—and +the serpent-like Slummers there had been a feud which had +commenced from the moment of their first introduction.</p> + +<p>On that occasion Slummers had been sent with a message +to Jack’s room. Jack happened to be out, and Slummers +whiled away the tediousness of waiting by opening a +drawer in Leonard’s table and reading some unimportant +letters. Jack, coming in with his usual suddenness, caught +him and kicked him. Jack had forgotten it long ago, +but Slummers had not, and he waited for the time till he +could return that kick in his own fashion.<span class="pagenum">[194]</span></p> + +<p>The days passed, and Mr. Hudsley’s task appeared to be +nearing a conclusion.</p> + +<p>One morning he came up to the Hurst, his hands behind +his back, his head bent as usual, and asked for Stephen.</p> + +<p>Stephen was in the library, and Slummers noiselessly +ushered in the lawyer. It happened to be what Stephen +would have called one of his bad mornings. He was seated +at the table, not at work, but looking at the pile of papers +with lack-luster eyes, that saw nothing, and pale, drawn +face.</p> + +<p>Hudsley had seen him like this before, but his keen eyes +looked like steel blades.</p> + +<p>Stephen started and put his thin, white hand across his +brow.</p> + +<p>“Good morning,” he said. “Good morning. Any news? +Sit down.”</p> + +<p>But Hudsley remained standing.</p> + +<p>“I have no news,” he said. “I think I may say that +there are no more surprises for us. You know the extent +of the fortune which you hold!”</p> + +<p>He did not say “which is yours,” or “which your uncle +left you.” Simply “which you hold.” On Stephen’s +strained mind the phrase jarred. He nodded and kept his +eyes downcast.</p> + +<p>“The business that lies within my province,” continued +Mr. Hudsley, “is completed. What remains is the work +of an accountant. My task is done.”</p> + +<p>“I am sure,” said Stephen, smoothly, “that you do not +need any assurance of my gratitude——”</p> + +<p>The old man waved his wrinkled hand.</p> + +<p>“I have been the legal adviser of the Davenant family for +the last forty years,” he said, “and I know my duty. I +trust I have done it so far as you are concerned,” he said, +sternly. “And now I have come to you to request you to receive +what papers and documents are in my charge—my +clerk, Skettle, will hand them to you and take your receipt—and +to inform you that I wish to withdraw from +my position as your legal adviser.”</p> + +<p>Stephen’s pale face winced and shrunk, and he raised his +eyes suspiciously.<span class="pagenum">[195]</span></p> + +<p>“Mr. Hudsley, you surprise me! May I ask your reasons +for this abrupt withdrawal?”</p> + +<p>“My reasons are my own,” said Hudsley, dryly; “I may +say that I am growing old, and that I am disinclined to +undertake the charge of so large an estate.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Stephen, with a sickly smile. “Such a reason +is unanswerable. But I deeply regret it—deeply. My +uncle always trusted you.”</p> + +<p>“He did nothing of the sort,” interrupted Mr. Hudsley, +sternly. “He trusted no man.”</p> + +<p>“At any rate, I have placed implicit and well-merited +confidence in you,” said Stephen.</p> + +<p>The old man looked at him and Stephen trembled.</p> + +<p>“I—I hope I shall find your bill of costs among the papers?” +he said, hoarsely.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Mr. Hudsley. “What service I have rendered +you I consider as rendered to the estate. The estate has +paid me sufficiently hitherto. I need, I will receive no +other payment.”</p> + +<p>“But——” urged Stephen.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hudsley waved his hand.</p> + +<p>“I am quite resolved, sir. If you should need any information +respecting any business that has occurred up to +the present, I am at your service; but for the future I beg +to withdraw. Good-morning.”</p> + +<p>Stephen rose, and held out his hand.</p> + +<p>“At least, Mr. Hudsley,” he said, “we part as friends, +notwithstanding this hasty resolution of yours?”</p> + +<p>“It is not hasty, sir,” said Hudsley, and just touching the +cold, thin hand, he bowed and left the room.</p> + +<p>Stephen sank into a chair, and wiped the drops of cold +sweat that had accumulated on his brow.</p> + +<p>“He suspects me,” he muttered. “He suspects! But he +suspects only, and he can do nothing, or he would have +done it. Yes; he is powerless. Let him go! let him go!” +he repeated; and he paced the room.</p> + +<p>Gradually the relief of Hudsley’s withdrawal broke upon +him, and his step grew lighter.</p> + +<p>“Yes, let him go! Now I am free—I am my own master! +master of wealth undreamed of! And I’ll use it! By +Heaven, I’ll be happy! Let him go! I meant to get rid of<span class="pagenum">[196]</span> +him—he has saved me an unpleasant scene. And now to +work, to work!”</p> + +<p>He ran rather than walked across the room, and rang +the bell.</p> + +<p>Slummers opened the door almost instantly and stood +motionless and silent.</p> + +<p>“Has—has that old idiot gone?” asked Stephen.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” said Slummers.</p> + +<p>Stephen laughed hoarsely.</p> + +<p>“Let the past go with him!” he said. “Slummers, go to +my room and bring a roll of papers from my bureau-drawer. +You know what they are! Plans and estimates. +Do you know what I am going to do?”</p> + +<p>Slummers raised his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Of course you do!” said Stephen with the same laugh. +“I’m going to make a clean sweep here, Slummers. I’m +going to pull half this beastly place to the ground. Alterations, +Slummers—alterations that will make Hurst a place +for a man to live in, not a tomb, as it is at present.”</p> + +<p>“You are right, sir, it is a tomb,” said Slummers, in his +low, hollow voice.</p> + +<p>Stephen shuddered.</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes; but I mean to alter that. I’ll make it fit to +live in, fit to bring a young bride to. Fetch the plans, +Slummers; I’ll go over them at once, this minute. Yes, I +will change the place till the very trees shall not know it. +Fetch the plans! I’ll pull the whole of it down, every stick +and stone! I hate it—hate it! I’ll change the name! +I can do it. I can do anything now, or what is the use +of this money? Fetch the plans! Fetch——” He broke +off suddenly and staggered.</p> + +<p>Slummers sprang nervously forward and caught him, and +putting him into a chair, poured out some neat brandy and +gave it to him.</p> + +<p>Stephen tugged at his collar and struggled for a moment, +then sank back helplessly.</p> + +<p>“Stop!” he said, “stay here. Don’t go. I—I can hear +voices—an old man’s voice—what is it?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing—nothing,” said Slummers. “Be calm, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Calm—I am calm!” retorted Stephen. “It’s this +beastly house, it’s full of noises! Give me some brandy—and—get<span class="pagenum">[197]</span> +the time table. I’ll go to London to-morrow, +Slummers. Yes, I’ll go to London!”</p> + +<p>And the master of Hurst, the owner of a million and +more, sank back in his chair and fingered the time table +with trembling fingers.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> + + +<p>“Jack Newcombe!” exclaimed Mrs. Davenant, looking at +the card which Mary had brought in. “Jack Newcombe!” +she repeated a second time. “My dear, come here!”</p> + +<p>Una was sitting beside the open window, a book in her +lap, her eyes fixed on the sun setting just behind the chimneys.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said, her face flushed, her eyes glowing as if +the sun were reflected in them; but she did not move.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant hurried across the room with the card in +her hand.</p> + +<p>“Una, dear, see here,” she said, nervously. “Here is +Jack Newcombe! You’ve heard me speak of him.”</p> + +<p>Una, feeling guilty and deceitful, hung her head.</p> + +<p>Her heart beat fast. For two days she had waited and +watched for him—never for a moment had he been absent +from her mind.</p> + +<p>And now he was here, in the next room.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said, “I—I remember.”</p> + +<p>“Well, my dear, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know +what he wants—do you?—but of course you don’t!”</p> + +<p>Una flushed crimson to her very neck.</p> + +<p>“I think you had better go, my dear,” said Mrs. Davenant, +fidgeting with the card.</p> + +<p>Una did not move.</p> + +<p>“Why?” she asked, raising her eyes for the first time.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant moved her head nervously.</p> + +<p>“Because—I don’t think Stephen—I mean—Jack Newcombe +is the sort of man you ought to know.”</p> + +<p>“But,” said Una, softly and with a steady look in her +dark eyes, “I do know him already.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant stared.</p> + +<p>“You know him? Jack Newcombe?”</p> + +<p>Una nodded.<span class="pagenum">[198]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said in a low voice. “I met him up the river. +I saw him at Lady Bell’s—he is a friend of hers——”</p> + +<p>“But why didn’t you tell me?” said Mrs. Davenant, looking +distressed and frightened.</p> + +<p>Una felt guilty.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” she said in reply. “I think it was because +I knew you would feel angry.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant stared at her. It was like the reply of a +child in its simple, naked truth.</p> + +<p>“Well, well,” she said, with a troubled voice, “of course +you couldn’t help it, and I couldn’t help it. And”—here +the door opened quietly, and Jack’s head appeared, and +Mrs. Davenant started.</p> + +<p>Seeing that they were alone, Jack came in with his usual +coolness, though his heart beat; and he crossed the room, +and took Mrs. Davenant’s hand and kissed her forehead.</p> + +<p>And the poor woman melted in a moment, as she always +did when Jack was actually present. As a matter of simple +truth, she was really as fond of him as if he had been her +own son, and but for Stephen, Jack would have seen her +oftener.</p> + +<p>He had lost his mother in early boyhood, and the kind-hearted, +affectionate, timid Mrs. Davenant had often dried +his boyish tears and held him in her arms. Even now, notwithstanding +Jack’s wickedness, of which Stephen made the +most, her heart went out toward him.</p> + +<p>He had not been near her for some months, nearly a +year, all through Stephen, and she had almost given him +up; but Jack’s kiss revived all the old tenderness. And +what woman could resist his handsome face and frank, +manly way?</p> + +<p>“Well, ma’am,” he said—and “ma’am” sounded in her +ears and in Una’s almost like “mother”—“and how are +you? And aren’t you glad to see me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Jack,” said Mrs. Davenant, nervously.</p> + +<p>“Then why do you keep me in the draughty hall for half +an hour? Do you want me to catch cold?”</p> + +<p>“Half an hour?” murmured Mrs. Davenant. “I’m sure +you haven’t been there three minutes.”</p> + +<p>“Two minutes and a half too long,” he said, smiling. +He was giving Una time to recover herself.<span class="pagenum">[199]</span></p> + +<p>“You never come to see me now, Jack,” said Mrs. Davenant, +looking up at him sadly.</p> + +<p>“And now I do, you keep me outside. Besides, you never +ask me. Who’s that in the back room, ma’am?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant started; she had almost forgotten Una.</p> + +<p>“You know her!” she said.</p> + +<p>Jack had got his cue.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s Miss Rolfe,” he said, and then he crossed the +room and held out his hand.</p> + +<p>Una rose, and without a word put her hand in his, her +eyes downcast, lest the love which beamed in them should +escape against her will.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Jack, “I have had the pleasure of meeting +Miss Rolfe once or twice lately.”</p> + +<p>Then he turned away from her and began talking to Mrs. +Davenant, as if Una were not in the room.</p> + +<p>It was just what Una wanted. She felt that she could +not speak, and for the present it was happiness enough to +have him in the same room with her, and to hear his voice.</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Davenant, now that the first shock was over, +was glad enough to sit down and listen to the frank, +musical voice—so unlike Stephen’s measured, modulated +tone.</p> + +<p>Presently she said in a low, nervous tone:</p> + +<p>“Jack, I am so sorry!”</p> + +<p>Jack nodded, and his face dropped.</p> + +<p>“About the poor squire? Yes! Never mind. It is all +right. No! It’s all wrong for me, but all right for +Stephen.”</p> + +<p>“But Stephen doesn’t—doesn’t want it all,” she murmured.</p> + +<p>Jack looked another way; he had a different opinion.</p> + +<p>“Never mind,” he said, “don’t let us worry about it—you +and I. It’s all past and gone, and there’s no help +for it.”</p> + +<p>“But you have worried,” she said. “You don’t look so +well as you did, Jack. I hope—I do hope,” and her voice +faltered.</p> + +<p>Jack’s face flushed for a moment.</p> + +<p>“You are going to scold me, as usual,” he said. “Well,<span class="pagenum">[200]</span> +go on, it will be your last opportunity, ma’am. I’ve reformed.”</p> + +<p>There was something in his tone, something so earnest +and grave, that she looked at him anxiously.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Jack, I wish—I wish you would be more steady.”</p> + +<p>“Wait and see,” he said, gravely, and in a low voice.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant wiped her eyes, and glanced at the clock. +It was near the dinner hour.</p> + +<p>“Do you want me to go?” said Jack, in his blunt way, +and he took up his hat and gloves.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant hesitated a moment.</p> + +<p>“You wouldn’t stop to dinner, if I asked you,” she said, +with a faint smile.</p> + +<p>Una’s heart gave a great leap.</p> + +<p>“Try me,” said Jack. “Yes, I’ll stay. Now don’t look +frightened and disappointed, or I’ll go.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant rose, with her rare laugh.</p> + +<p>“I must go and tell them,” she said, “or you’d be +starved,” and she left the room.</p> + +<p>Jack went and stood beside the silent, motionless figure +and looked down at her with infinite yearning and infinite +sorrow. He had come resolved to tell her the truth and to +bid her to forget him.</p> + +<p>“Una,” he said, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>She raised her eyes, and in an instant his grand resolution, +built up with such care for the last two days, crumbled +into dust. With something like a groan he was on +his knee and caught her to his breast.</p> + +<p>For a moment she resigned herself to the exquisite joy +of his embrace, and with downcast eyes drooped beneath +his passionate kisses, then with an effort she regained possession +of the soul which had slipped from her into his, as +it were, and gently disengaged herself.</p> + +<p>“No, no, you frighten me!” she murmured, as Jack’s +arm drew her toward him again.</p> + +<p>“My darling! There!” and he kissed her hands. “How +can I do it? It is too much to ask of mortal man.”</p> + +<p>“Do what?” she murmured.</p> + +<p>Jack’s face paled.</p> + +<p>“Nothing—nothing,” he said.<span class="pagenum">[201]</span></p> + +<p>“And are you really going to stay?” she murmured, her +eyes beaming with pleasure.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said, “I came on purpose. If she had not +asked me I meant to ask her.”</p> + +<p>“And you love her, don’t you? Is she not good—and +isn’t it cruel to deceive her,” said Una, and she hung her +head.</p> + +<p>“She’s the dearest old lady in the world,” said Jack, enthusiastically, +who would have loved a gorilla, much less +Mrs. Davenant, if it had been kind to Una. “Why, she was +a second mother to me until Stephen grew up—and she has +been kind to you. I can see that for myself. But you must +tell me all about it—all about everything tonight. Think, +my darling! we shall be together here all the evening! No +noisy crowd to prevent us talking—no interference. I +shall want to know everything. Hush! here she comes,” +and with another swift kiss he rose and went into the next +room. Una stole out and upstairs to dress.</p> + +<p>Quite unsuspicious, Mrs. Davenant came back smiling. +She had ordered one or two of Jack’s favorite dishes, and +had come to ask him about the claret.</p> + +<p>“There is some of the Chateau la Rose, Jack. Would +you like to have it warmed a little?” she asked, anxiously.</p> + +<p>“Let them put a bottle in the kitchen somewhere,” said +Jack. “It will get right there by dinner time. Eight +o’clock you dine, I know. I’ll just run home and dress, +and be back punctually to the minute.”</p> + +<p>“It will be the first time in your life then,” said Mrs. +Davenant.</p> + +<p>For the first time in his life then Jack was punctual. +At five minutes to eight a hansom dashed up to the door, +and Jack, in evening dress, with his light overcoat, strode +up the steps and into the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>It was empty, but a minute afterward he heard the rustle +of a woman’s dress, and turned as Una entered the room. +She wore the dress she had worn at Lady Bell’s, and Jack, +who had not yet seen her in her “war paint”—as he would +have described it—was startled; and Una, as she saw the +look of surprise and rapt admiration, felt, like a true +woman, a glow of satisfaction and pleasure. It was not +that she was beautiful, but that he should think her so.<span class="pagenum">[202]</span></p> + +<p>“My darling,” he murmured, holding her at arm’s +length; “what magic charm do you possess that enables you +to grow more beautiful every time I see you? Or is it all a +mistake, and are you another Una than the Una of Warden +Forest?”</p> + +<p>Una put her hands on his shoulders trustfully, and +turned her face up to him.</p> + +<p>“Tell me,” she murmured, “which Una do you like +best?”</p> + +<p>Jack thought a moment.</p> + +<p>“I love them both so well,” he said, “that I can’t decide.” +And he kissed her twice. “One is for the Una of the +Forest, and one for the Una of the world,” he said.</p> + +<p>She had only time to slip from his arms when Mrs. +Davenant entered.</p> + +<p>“What do you say to punctuality, ma’am?” he exclaimed, +triumphantly, as he gave her his arm and lead her into the +dining-room.</p> + +<p>Jack was a favorite, for all his wickedness, wherever he +went. It was no sooner known that he was to dine in the +house, that the cook awoke to instant energy and enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>“Master Jack’s a gentleman worth cooking a dinner for,” +she declared. “It’s a waste of time to worry yourself for +women folk; they don’t know a good dinner from a bad +one; but Master Jack—oh, that’s a different thing! He +knows what clear soup ought to be; and he shall have it +right, too.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant herself was surprised at the elaborate +little dinner.</p> + +<p>“I wish you’d dine with us every day, my dear Jack,” she +said.</p> + +<p>Jack glanced demurely at Una, in time to catch the +sparkle in her dark eyes.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid you’d soon get tired of me,” he said. “But, +seriously, I should improve the cooking; not this day’s, I +mean, but the usual ones. You’ve got a treasure of a cook, +ma’am.”</p> + +<p>And, of course, this was carried down by Mary to the +empress of the kitchen, and her majesty was rewarded for +all her trouble.<span class="pagenum">[203]</span></p> + +<p>“What did I tell you?” she demanded. “Master Jack +knows.”</p> + +<p>Jack’s appetite was always good, in love or out of it, and +this evening would have been the happiest in his life but +for certain twinges of conscience.</p> + +<p>What should he say to Leonard, the faithful friend, when +he got home and was asked how he had parted from Una? +However, he stifled conscience—it is always easy to do that +at dinner time.</p> + +<p>“Will you have some more claret?” asked Mrs. Davenant, +as she and Una prepared to leave him. “You can +smoke a cigarette, if you like; but open the window afterward.”</p> + +<p>“I won’t have any more claret, and I won’t smoke,” said +Jack. “I’ll just finish this glass and come with you for a +cup of tea.”</p> + +<p>Five minutes of solitude spent in going over every look +and word of the lovely creature he had won, were enough +for Jack.</p> + +<p>He found them seated at the window; Una in a low +chair, almost at Mrs. Davenant’s feet. They both looked +up, as if glad to see him; and Mrs. Davenant at once rang +for tea and coffee.</p> + +<p>Una rose, and officiated with calm self-possession and +accustomed ease—no one would have guessed that her acquaintance +with a London drawing-room, and its accompanying +forms and ceremonies, was only that of a few +weeks—and brought Jack his cup.</p> + +<p>In taking it, he tried to touch her hand, and nearly upset +the cup.</p> + +<p>“Take care, my dear Jack,” said Mrs. Davenant. “Has +he spoiled your dress, my dear?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Una, her face red as a rose. “It was my +fault.”</p> + +<p>“Yes; it was her fault,” said Jack, significantly.</p> + +<p>“You always were clumsy, my dear Jack,” said Mrs. +Davenant. “You are too big.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll get myself cut down a foot or two,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>Happy! They were as happy as any two women in London, +notwithstanding Jack’s wickedness.</p> + +<p>Jack glanced at the piano.<span class="pagenum">[204]</span></p> + +<p>“I wish you could play,” he said to Una.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant looked at him.</p> + +<p>“How do you know she cannot?” she said.</p> + +<p>Jack looked embarrassed.</p> + +<p>“I rather fancy I heard U—Miss Rolfe—admit as much. +But she can sing, I know.”</p> + +<p>“And you can play for her,” said Mrs. Davenant. “You +used to play very nicely when you were a boy,” and she +sighed.</p> + +<p>Jack looked dubious for a moment, then, with sudden +assurance and confidence, jumped up.</p> + +<p>“Let me try. Will you come, Miss Rolfe?”</p> + +<p>Una followed him to the piano, and Jack turned out all +the music from the canterbury on the floor.</p> + +<p>“Come and see if there is anything you know,” he said, +and Una knelt down beside him.</p> + +<p>Of course Jack’s hand was on hers in a moment.</p> + +<p>“I nearly let the cat out of the bag just then,” he said. +“I must be careful.”</p> + +<p>“But why?” asked Una. “Why may we not——” she +paused, then, having raised her eyes, she continued—“why +may she not know?”</p> + +<p>“So she shall,” said Jack, “all in good time. I can’t consent +to share my secret all in one evening! Besides——”</p> + +<p>“Cannot you find anything,” said Mrs. Davenant, sleepily, +from the next room.</p> + +<p>Jack stuck up some music on the stand and sat down.</p> + +<p>He had played well at one time, in a rough fashion, and +had a wonderful ear, and, quite regardless of the music, he +launched into a prelude.</p> + +<p>“Sing the song you sang the other evening, my darling,” +he whispered. “I remember every note of it.”</p> + +<p>Una obeyed instantly. Free from any spark of vanity, +she knew nothing of the shyness which assails self-conscious +people. Jack, with his acute ear, played a running accompaniment +easily enough; it was true he had remembered +every note of it.</p> + +<p>“You nightingale,” he whispered, looking up at her, and +the fervent admiration of his eyes made her heart throb.</p> + +<p>“Now sing something yourself, Jack,” said Mrs. Davenant.<span class="pagenum">[205]</span></p> + +<p>Jack thought a moment, his fingers straying over the +keys, then softening his full baritone voice as much as +possible, he sang—“Yes, dear, I love but thee!”</p> + +<p>It was an old English song, one of the sweetest of the old +melodies which even now have power to rouse a <i>blase</i> audience +to enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>Una stood behind him entranced, bewitched; he sang +every word to <i>her</i>.</p> + +<p>“Yes, dear, I love but thee!”</p> + +<p>Oh, Heaven, it was too great a joy!</p> + +<p>Unconsciously she drew nearer and put her hand upon +his shoulder, timidly, caressingly, and as the music ceased, +Jack turned and caught it prisoner in his.</p> + +<p>“Yes, dear, I love but thee!” he murmured.</p> + +<p>“And I”—she breathed, her eyes melting with passionate +tenderness—“and I love but thee.”</p> + +<p>“My darling,” he whispered, “do you know what you are +giving me—your precious self—and to whom you are +giving it?”</p> + +<p>The voice fell; conscience was awake again.</p> + +<p>“Una,” he went on, hurriedly, passionately. “I am not +worthy of your love——”</p> + +<p>“I love but thee!” she breathed, softly.</p> + +<p>“You do not know, you who are so ignorant of the world, +what it means to wed a man like myself, penniless, worthless—oh, +Heaven, forgive me!”</p> + +<p>“I love but thee!” she breathed, for all her answer.</p> + +<p>Jack bent his head over her hand.</p> + +<p>“What can I do?” he murmured, bitterly. “I cannot give +her up.”</p> + +<p>Then he looked up.</p> + +<p>“Have you no fear, Una? Do you trust me so entirely? +Think, can you face poverty and all its trials. Dear, I am +very poor, worse than poor.”</p> + +<p>She smiled an ineffable smile.</p> + +<p>“And I am rich—while I have your love.”</p> + +<p>Then suddenly her voice changed, and with a look of +terror she bent over him, almost clingingly.</p> + +<p>“What is it you are saying? Jack! Jack! you will not +leave me?”<span class="pagenum">[206]</span></p> + +<p>Jack started to his feet, and regardless of waking Mrs. +Davenant, took her in his arms.</p> + +<p>“Never, by Heaven!” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>There was one moment of ecstatic joy, then suddenly +Una drew back; and with a gesture of alarm, pointed to +the looking-glass. Jack raised his head, and with a sudden +cry drew her nearer to him as if to protect her.</p> + +<p>Reflected in the glass was the thin figure of Stephen +Davenant, looking rather like a ghost than a man—silent, +motionless, with pallid face, and set, rigid eyes.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> + + +<p>White and haggard, Stephen stood in shadow-way, his +eyes fixed on Jack and Una with an expression of mingled +astonishment and rage beyond all description.</p> + +<p>Jack was too astonished by what seemed as much an apparition +as a reality, to withdraw his arm from round +Una’s waist, and it was she who first recovered self-possession +enough to cross over to Mrs. Davenant and wake her.</p> + +<p>Her movement seemed to recall Stephen to a sense of the +situation, and in a moment he rose and coped with it.</p> + +<p>Another man, a weaker man, coming thus suddenly upon +what looked like the wreck of all his deeply-laid plans, +upon seeing the girl, whom it was all-important he should +secure for himself, in the arms of the man he hated and +feared most in the world, would have given vent to his +wrath and disappointment. But not so Stephen. By a +vast effort, he suppressed the evil glance in his eyes, forced +a smile to his compressed lips, and came across the room +with outstretched hand and an expression of warmest and +most affectionate greeting.</p> + +<p>“My dear Jack!” he exclaimed, in his soft tones, almost +rough in their warmth and geniality. “Now, this is a +pleasant surprise. How do you do? how do you do?”</p> + +<p>But almost before Jack knew it, Stephen had seized him +by the hand, and was swinging it convulsively, smiling so +that all his teeth glittered and shone in the candle-light.</p> + +<p>Jack was taken by surprise, and returned the greeting +cordially; indeed, what else could he do, seeing that he<span class="pagenum">[207]</span> +was in Stephen’s mother’s house, and making love to Stephen’s +<i>protegee?</i></p> + +<p>“Quite a surprise!” said Stephen, laughing; and then, +still talking to Jack, he crossed over and bent down to kiss +his mother. “How do you do, my dear mother? Now +don’t be angry at my taking you so unexpectedly.”</p> + +<p>“Angry, my dear Stephen!” faltered Mrs. Davenant; +and indeed, it was not anger so much as fear that shone +in the timid eyes.</p> + +<p>Then, having got himself completely under control, +Stephen raised his eyes to Una, and held out his hand.</p> + +<p>“And how do you do, Miss Rolfe? I hope your health +has not suffered in this close London of ours. May I say +that there are no signs of such an ill result in your face?”</p> + +<p>Una gave him her hand, and smiled at him in her quiet, +grave way.</p> + +<p>“I am very well, thank you,” she said.</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” said Stephen—“that’s right!”</p> + +<p>And he stood and looked from one to the other, rubbing +his white, soft hands, and smiling as if he were over-running +with the milk of human kindness.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Mrs. Davenant had risen, and was fluttering +about nervously.</p> + +<p>“Have you dined, Stephen? We can get some dinner, or—or +something directly.”</p> + +<p>“My dear mother, I dined at my rooms two hours ago; +but if you have a cup of tea, now; but don’t trouble—it +does not matter in the slightest.”</p> + +<p>Fresh tea was brought in, and Una, as usual, officiated. +Stephen, leaning over a chair-back, talked to Jack and Mrs. +Davenant, but his eyes turned continually on the graceful +figure and the beautiful profile; and not one of them +guessed the rage and fury which boiled and simmered +under his calm and amiable exterior.</p> + +<p>Already, as if some one had told him, he knew that Una +had been out into the world. Her dress, her manner told +him that; and while he smiled lovingly at his mother, he +was crying out inwardly:</p> + +<p>“Fool! fool! to trust Una to her.”</p> + +<p>He took his cup of tea, his hand as steady as a rock, and +chatted with Jack, full of the pleasantest interest.<span class="pagenum">[208]</span></p> + +<p>Where had he been, and what had he been doing? and +was he in those eccentric but charming rooms of his in the +Temple still? and how was his friend Leonard Dagle?</p> + +<p>He was full of questions, questions which Jack answered +in his curt, brief fashion. And all the while Stephen was +weighing the situation, realizing all its danger and peril, +and determining on a course of action.</p> + +<p>“Just one more cup, Miss Rolfe, if you please. Tea is +my favorite beverage—I am quite an old washerwoman!”</p> + +<p>Then he took his cup, and sat down beside her.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said, not in a particularly low tone, but in his +softest manner—“yes, I am glad to see that your health has +not suffered in London. I trust you have been happy?”</p> + +<p>Una looked up with a faint flush on her face.</p> + +<p>“I have been—I am very, very happy,” she said, and +Jack’s face flushed too with the delight at the accent on +“I am.”</p> + +<p>“That is right,” said Stephen, with the air of an old, old +friend, “and I hope my mother has found some amusement +for you—that she has shown you something of the great +world.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Una, and she glanced at Mrs. Davenant, +from whose pale face all traces of the calm serenity which +had reigned there during the earlier part of the evening +had entirely fled—“yes, I have been very gay—is not that +the word? I have been to a ball, and to a picnic, and have +seen all the sights.”</p> + +<p>“And where was the ball?”</p> + +<p>“At Lady Earlsley’s,” said Una.</p> + +<p>Stephen opened his eyes and smiled.</p> + +<p>“My dear Miss Rolfe, you have penetrated the most exclusive +of social rings! Lady Earlsley’s! Come, that is +very satisfactory; and Jack—Jack is my cousin—well, very +nearly cousin, you know, I hope he has made himself useful +and agreeable?”</p> + +<p>Una glanced shyly and gravely at Jack—a glance that +told everything, even if Stephen had not seen her in Jack’s +arms.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said, in a low voice, “Mr. Newcombe has been +very—kind.”</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled and showed all his teeth.<span class="pagenum">[209]</span></p> + +<p>“I am afraid there will be nothing left for me to do,” +he said.</p> + +<p>Then, in a lower voice, he added:</p> + +<p>“You will be glad to hear that I have news of your +father.”</p> + +<p>Una looked up breathlessly. The question had been hovering +on her lips.</p> + +<p>Stephen nodded.</p> + +<p>“Yes, he wrote me from a place in Surrey called—tut—tut! +The name has escaped me! They are quite well, and +send their fondest love.”</p> + +<p>Una’s eyes filled.</p> + +<p>“Why did they leave the cottage so suddenly?” she said.</p> + +<p>“Because your father wished for a change. I told you +truth, you see, when I said that your departure would be +good for him, and wean him from his seclusion.”</p> + +<p>“Why does he not come to see me?” asked Una.</p> + +<p>“He is coming, my dear Una,” said Stephen. “But at +present he is very much engaged, and quite satisfied with +my favorable report of your health and happiness. But +come, I must not make you homesick. Were you not playing +when I came in?”</p> + +<p>Una flushed.</p> + +<p>“Jack—Mr. Newcombe—was playing,” she said; “I was +singing.”</p> + +<p>“Pray don’t let me interrupt you,” said Stephen, genially, +“or I shall feel like an intruder, and walk off again. +Jack, go on with your music, my dear fellow.”</p> + +<p>But Jack declined promptly, though politely.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid I must be off,” he said, looking at his watch, +and then at Una, wistfully.</p> + +<p>“Not yet,” said Stephen. “I have a whole budget of +news to tell you. I dare say you wonder why I haven’t +been up before this; but there was so much to do—a surprising +deal.”</p> + +<p>Jack nodded curtly. He certainly didn’t want to finish +up this particular evening by hearing Stephen’s talk of the +Hurst.</p> + +<p>“No doubt,” he said. “You must come and dine with me +and tell me. Good-night, Mrs. Davenant!”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant gave him her hand.<span class="pagenum">[210]</span></p> + +<p>“Must you go, Jack?” she said, tremulously. “You—you +will come again?”</p> + +<p>“Most certainly I will,” said Jack, significantly.</p> + +<p>Una had risen and gone to the piano to gather up the +music which Jack, with his usual untidiness, had scattered +about.</p> + +<p>He followed her, and knelt down as if to help her.</p> + +<p>“Good-night, my darling!” he murmured, touching her +arm caressingly. “Don’t be afraid.”</p> + +<p>Una raised her arm and touched it with her lips.</p> + +<p>“Afraid—of whom?”</p> + +<p>“Of—nobody!” said Jack, rather ungrammatically.</p> + +<p>“Not of Mr. Davenant, who has been so kind?” she whispered, +with a surprised look.</p> + +<p>Jack bit his lip.</p> + +<p>“No, no; certainly not. Oh, yes, he has been kind.”</p> + +<p>Then with a long, loving look into her sweet face he +crossed the room.</p> + +<p>“Good-night, Stephen.”</p> + +<p>“You are really going? Well, then, I’ll go with you,” +said Stephen. “Mother will not mind my running away +tonight, I am rather tired.”</p> + +<p>And he stooped and kissed her, and went to the door.</p> + +<p>It almost seemed as if he had forgotten Una; but he +turned suddenly and held out his hand, a bland, benevolent +smile on his pale face.</p> + +<p>“Good-night, good-night,” he murmured, softly, and followed +after Jack, who, the moment he reached the pavement, +looked out for a hansom; but Stephen linked his arm +in Jack’s, and said:</p> + +<p>“Are you in a hurry, my dear Jack? If not, I’ll walk a +little way with you; or will you come toward my rooms?”</p> + +<p>Jack consented to the latter course, by turning in the +direction of the “Albany” in silence.</p> + +<p>He felt that Stephen was playing a part—why or wherefore +he could not guess—and now that he had recovered +from his surprise at Stephen’s sudden appearance, his old +mistrust and dislike were returning to him.</p> + +<p>They walked on in silence for some few moments, then +Stephen said:</p> + +<p>“I wanted to have a few words with you, my dear Jack.<span class="pagenum">[211]</span> +I should have written, but I felt that I could make myself +understood better by word of mouth.”</p> + +<p>Jack nodded.</p> + +<p>“Of course, what I have to say concerns my poor uncle’s +death and its consequences.”</p> + +<p>Jack was silent still. He would not help him in the +slightest.</p> + +<p>“I cannot but feel that those consequences, while they +have been distinctly beneficial to me, have—and to put it +plainly, and I wish to speak plainly, my dear Jack—have +been unfortunate for you.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Jack, grimly.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Stephen, softly, “I had hoped, I still hope, +that you will allow me the happiness of setting right, to +some extent, the wrong—yes, I will say wrong—done you +by my uncle’s will.”</p> + +<p>“That’s impossible,” said Jack, gravely.</p> + +<p>“But, my dear Jack, why not? It is my right. Have +you any idea of the fortune——”</p> + +<p>“Not the slightest,” said Jack, breaking in abruptly, +“and it’s no business of mine; large or small, I hope you’ll +enjoy it. It was the squire’s to do as he liked with, and I +suppose he did as he liked; and there’s an end of it.”</p> + +<p>Stephen winced and bit his lip.</p> + +<p>“And now,” said Jack, quietly, but with his heart beating +wildly, “I want a word with you, Stephen.”</p> + +<p>“Say on, my dear Jack. If there is anything I can do +for you——”</p> + +<p>“Yes, there is,” said Jack. “I want to know—I want +you to tell me—something respecting Miss Rolfe.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Rolfe!” said Stephen, softly.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” continued Jack. “You’ll want to know, before I +go any further, on what grounds I ask for information. +I’ll tell you. I have asked Miss Rolfe to be my wife.”</p> + +<p>Stephen feigned a start of astonishment.</p> + +<p>“My dear Jack, isn’t that rather sudden—rather premature?”</p> + +<p>“It may be sudden, I don’t know whether it is premature; +that’s for Miss Rolfe to decide. And she has decided.”</p> + +<p>Stephen moistened his lips; they burned like coals.<span class="pagenum">[212]</span></p> + +<p>“She has accepted you?”</p> + +<p>“She has,” said Jack, who felt reluctant to utter one +word more than was necessary.</p> + +<p>Stephen pulled up and held out his hand.</p> + +<p>“My dear Jack, I congratulate you. I congratulate +you,” he exclaimed, fervently. “You are indeed a happy +man.”</p> + +<p>Jack, confounded, allowed his hand to be wrung by the +soft, white palm that burned hot and dry.</p> + +<p>“You are a lucky fellow, my dear Jack. Miss Rolfe is +one in a thousand. I question if there is a more beautiful +girl in London—and her disposition. You are indeed a +lucky fellow.”</p> + +<p>“Thanks, thanks!” said Jack, still overwhelmed by this +flood of good will. “And now, perhaps you will tell me +what I had better do in the affair! You see I find her +visiting—settled, rather, at your mother’s house, and +neither she nor your mother seem to know why or wherefore——”</p> + +<p>Stephen interrupted him with a pressure of the arm.</p> + +<p>“I understand, my dear Jack; your anxiety for information +is only natural. I am very glad I came up this evening—very +glad! And now, as I feel rather tired, would +you mind coming up to my rooms? and we’ll have a hansom, +after all.”</p> + +<p>Jack hailed a cab, and they were rattled to the Albany.</p> + +<p>Of course they could not talk, and Stephen had therefore +time to perfect his scheme; for he had already begun to +plot and plan.</p> + +<p>The door of the chambers was opened by Slummers, his +tall, square figure dressed in black, his discreet, shifty eyes +absolutely veiled under his lids.</p> + +<p>“Let us have some Apollinaris and the liquor-case, +Slummers,” said Stephen, “and that box of cigars which +Mr. Newcombe liked. Sit down, my dear Jack.”</p> + +<p>And he wheeled forward a chair facing the light, and +took one for himself, so that his own face should be shaded.</p> + +<p>Jack looked round the room while Slummers brought +the tray.</p> + +<p>The four walls were nearly covered with books, all of +them of the dryest and most serious kind. Where any space<span class="pagenum">[213]</span> +was left, it was filled up with portraits of eminent divines +and philanthropists, and every article in the room was +neatly and methodically arranged. In fact, it presented +as marked a contrast to Jack’s rooms as it was possible to +conceive.</p> + +<p>Jack had not been inside it for years, but he remembered +distinctly how he used to loathe the room and its +“fixings.”</p> + +<p>“Now, my dear Jack, pray help yourself—those cigars I +know you approve; I heard you praise them at the Hurst, +and I brought a box at once.”</p> + +<p>“Thanks,” said Jack, and he lit a cigar.</p> + +<p>Stephen mixed the Apollinaris and brandy; and leaned +back serene and amiable.</p> + +<p>“And now, my dear Jack, I am ready to answer all questions.”</p> + +<p>Jack looked down and frowned thoughtfully. He did +not know how to put them. Stephen smiled maliciously +behind his hand.</p> + +<p>“You want to know how it comes about that Miss Rolfe +is under my mother’s charge—under my charge, I may +say?”</p> + +<p>“Under yours?” said Jack, grimly.</p> + +<p>Stephen nodded.</p> + +<p>“It is a very simple affair, Jack. There is no mystery. +The fact is, I have known Miss Rolfe’s father for some +years. He is a very good fellow, but very eccentric.”</p> + +<p>“I know,” said Jack; “I’ve seen him.”</p> + +<p>Stephen started, and concealed his expression of surprise +by reaching for his glass.</p> + +<p>“Ah, then, no doubt, you noticed that his appearance and +manner does not correspond with the station he occupies?”</p> + +<p>“I did,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, just so. Well, my dear Jack, my poor friend +Rolfe has been in early life unfortunate—money matters, +which I never quite understand. Like most men of his +kind, he got disgusted with the world and hid himself—there +is no other word for it. But it is one thing to hide +yourself and quite another to bury your children. My +friend Rolfe felt this when he awoke to the fact that his +daughter had grown from a child to a young woman, and<span class="pagenum">[214]</span> +like a sensible man he applied to one who was conversant +with the world, and one in whom he could have, I trust, +full confidence—my self.”</p> + +<p>Jack sat silently regarding the white, calm face with +grim, observant eyes.</p> + +<p>“He did not appeal to an old friendship in vain. I undertook +the charge of Miss Rolfe on one condition. I may +say two—one on her side, one on mine. Hers was that she +should live with my mother, under her protecting wing, as +it were; mine was that I should be the absolute guardian of +the young girl committed to my charge.”</p> + +<p>Jack stared.</p> + +<p>“You are Una’s guardian?” he said, at last, with unconcealed +surprise, as Gideon Rolfe’s curse upon the race of +Davenants flashed upon his memory.</p> + +<p>Stephen Davenant smiled.</p> + +<p>“You are surprised, my dear Jack. But think! It is +very natural. Unless I had unquestionable control over the +young lady, how could I answer for her safety? How +guard her against the attacks of fortune hunters——”</p> + +<p>Jack started.</p> + +<p>“Fortune hunters!” he exclaimed. “Do you mean to +say that Una is an heiress?”</p> + +<p>Stephen’s face had flushed and turned deadly pale.</p> + +<p>He had actually been thinking of Una Davenant while +he had been talking of Una Rolfe.</p> + +<p>“You did not hear me out, my dear Jack,” he said, softly, +recovering his composure instantly. “I was going to say +against the attack of fortune hunters who might besiege +her under the impression that, as my ward, she would be +possessed of wealth, instead of being, as you know, absolutely +penniless.”</p> + +<p>Jack nodded.</p> + +<p>“At any rate,” he said, grimly, “I was not so deceived.”</p> + +<p>“My dear Jack!” exclaimed Stephen, reproachfully, “do +you suppose that I do not know that! You, who are the +soul of honor and disinterestedness, are not likely to be +mistaken for a fortune hunter by anyone, least of all by me, +who know and love you so well!”</p> + +<p>Jack winced, as the vision of Lady Bell rose before his +eyes.<span class="pagenum">[215]</span></p> + +<p>“Go on,” he said, impatiently.</p> + +<p>“Well, my dear Jack,” said Stephen with a smile, and +rubbing his hands softly, “is it not rather for you to go on? +I am Una’s guardian, you are her lover.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said Jack, rising and pacing up and down the +room. “You want me to ask your consent formally. Well, +I do so.”</p> + +<p>Stephen laughed as if at an excellent joke.</p> + +<p>“What a grim, thorough-going old bulldog you are, my +dear Jack!” he exclaimed affectionately. “You ask my +consent, as if you did not know that you have it, and my +best, my very heartiest wishes into the bargain. But, Jack, +don’t you see why I am so pleased—why this makes me so +happy? It is because now you will be compelled to do me +the favor of taking a share of the poor squire’s money!”</p> + +<p>Jack started as if he had been stung.</p> + +<p>“You see, my dear fellow! you can’t marry on nothing—now, +can you? Love must have a cottage, and—but I beg +your pardon, my dear fellow! I am, perhaps, going too +far. Much to my grief and regret you have never confided +in me as I should have wished, and perhaps—I hope that +it may be so—you have some means——”</p> + +<p>Jack paced up and down, the perspiration standing on +his knitted brow.</p> + +<p>In the ecstatic joy which had fallen upon him like a +glamour during those few short hours with Una, he had +absolutely forgotten that he was penniless, and in debt, and +without a prospect in the wide world.</p> + +<p>And now it all rushed back upon him; every softly-spoken +word of Stephen’s fell upon him like a drop in an +icy shower bath, and awoke him from his dream to the +stern reality.</p> + +<p>What was he to do? Great Heaven, was he actually +driven to accept Stephen’s charity?</p> + +<p>A shudder ran through him, a pang of worse than +wounded pride.</p> + +<p>Become a pensioner of Stephen Davenant’s! No, it was +simply impossible. White and haggard with the struggle +that was going on within him, he turned upon the smiling +face.</p> + +<p>“What you want—what you propose, is impossible,” he<span class="pagenum">[216]</span> +said, hoarsely. “I cannot and will not do it. I would +rather beg my bread——”</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled. It was a delicious moment for him, and +he prolonged it.</p> + +<p>“My dear Jack! what would Mr. Gideon Rolfe say if I +gave his daughter to a beggar? I use your own words. It +is ridiculous. But come, sit down. Grieved as I am at +what I must call your mistaken obstinacy, I can’t help +being touched by it. You always were willful, my dear +Jack, always. Alas! it was that very willfulness that +estranged you from my uncle——”</p> + +<p>“No more of that,” said Jack, sternly.</p> + +<p>Stephen made a gesture with his hand.</p> + +<p>“And it would, if another man were in my place, rob you +of your sweetheart; but it shall not. I am determined to +prove to you, my dear Jack, that my desire to be a friend is +sincere and true. Let me think. There may be some +loophole in your pride which I can creep in at.”</p> + +<p>Jack went back to his seat and lit another cigar, and +Stephen appeared lost in thought, but in reality he +watched through his fingers, and gloated over the despair +and trouble depicted on Jack’s miserable countenance.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have it. Come, Jack, you won’t refuse assistance +when it comes from the hand of her Majesty? You +won’t object to a government appointment?”</p> + +<p>“A government appointment?” said Jack, vaguely.</p> + +<p>Stephen nodded.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he went on. “By a singular chance I have acquired +some influence with the present government. One +of these men has a seat in Wealdshire, which really hangs +on the Hurst influence. The squire never interfered, but +I could do so; and—you see, my dear Jack—a snug little +sinecure, say of a thousand a year! It is not much, it is +true; but Una has not been accustomed to wealth so long +as to feel a thousand a year to be poverty.”</p> + +<p>Jack rose and paced the room. Was he dreaming, or +was this a different Stephen to the one he knew and disliked? +He had heard of sudden wealth as suddenly transforming +the nature of a man. Had Stephen’s nature undergone +this marvelous change?</p> + +<p>He doubted and mistrusted him, but here was the absolute<span class="pagenum">[217]</span> +evidence. What could Stephen gain by this generosity? +Nothing—absolutely nothing. It was strange, +passing strange; but who was he that he should refuse to +believe in the generosity and virtue of another man, +especially when that generosity was exerted on his behalf?</p> + +<p>Struggling against his suspicion and prejudice, Jack +strode round the table and held out his hand.</p> + +<p>“Stephen, I—I have wronged you. You must be a good +fellow to behave in this way, and I—well, I have been a +brute, and don’t deserve this on your part.”</p> + +<p>Stephen winced under the hard grip of the warm, honest +hand.</p> + +<p>“Not a word more, my dear Jack; not a word more,” he +exclaimed. “This—this is really very affecting. You +move me very much.”</p> + +<p>And he pressed his spotless handkerchief to his eyes.</p> + +<p>Jack’s ardor cooled at once, and the old disgust and suspicion +rose; but he choked them down again, and sat down.</p> + +<p>“Not a word more,” said Stephen, with a gulp, as if he +were swallowing a flood of tears. “I have long, long felt +your coldness and distrust, my dear Jack, but I vowed to +live it down, and prove to you that you have wronged me. +Believe me that my good fortune—my unexpected fortune—was +quite imbittered to me by the thought that you +would misjudge me.”</p> + +<p>Jack pulled at his cigar grimly. Stephen was on the +wrong track, and he saw it, and hastened to change it.</p> + +<p>“But now, my dear Jack, we shall understand each +other. You will believe me that I have your welfare deeply +at heart. Who else have I to think of—except my mother, +my dear mother? And we may conclude that our little +negotiation as suitor and guardian is ended. Eh, Jack? +You shall have the appointment and Una—lucky fellow +that you are—and I shall be rewarded by seeing you +happy.”</p> + +<p>Jack nodded. The mention of Una had filled him with +gratitude. He could not forget that he owed her in two +ways to Stephen.</p> + +<p>“You are a good fellow, Stephen,” he said, “and you +deserve <i>your</i> luck. After all, you’ll make a better master +of Hurst than I should. You’ll take care of it.”<span class="pagenum">[218]</span></p> + +<p>Stephen sighed. He was going to gloat again.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. I wish to do my duty. It is an immense +sum of money, Jack; immense.”</p> + +<p>Jack nodded again.</p> + +<p>“I’m glad of it,” he said, easily. “I don’t envy you. I +did once, and not very long ago. But I rank Una above +the Hurst even, and if I have her, you are welcome to the +Hurst.”</p> + +<p>Stephen winced, and looked at him from the corners of +his eyes. Was there any significance in the speech? But +Jack’s face was open and frank, as usual.</p> + +<p>“That’s a bargain,” said Stephen, laughing.</p> + +<p>Jack thought a moment.</p> + +<p>“But what about Mr. Rolfe?” he said, dubiously.</p> + +<p>“Leave him to me,” said Stephen, confidently. “I will +manage him. And, by the way, I think for the present that +we had better keep our little engagement quiet. You understand? +He had better hear it from my lips, and—you +quite see, Jack?”</p> + +<p>Jack didn’t quite see. He would have preferred to go to +Gideon Rolfe and have the matter out—fight it out if need +be—but he was, so to speak, in Stephen’s hands.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” he said.</p> + +<p>“And now have another cigar, my dear Jack, you’ve +eaten that one.”</p> + +<p>But Jack was anxious to go. He wanted to be alone to +think over this strange interview, and realize that Una +was his.</p> + +<p>“Well, if you will go,” said Stephen, reluctantly; “but +mind, I shall expect you to make this your second home.”</p> + +<p>Jack glanced round rather dubiously.</p> + +<p>“And of course we shall see you at the Square?”</p> + +<p>This invitation Jack accepted heartily, and once more +he wrung Stephen’s hand.</p> + +<p>“Good-night, good-night, my dear Jack,” said Stephen, +and he took a candle from the table to light him down the +stairs, and smiled till every tooth in his head showed like a +grave-stone.</p> + +<p>Then, as Jack’s heavy step faded away and was lost, +Stephen went back into the room, closed the door, and sinking<span class="pagenum">[219]</span> +into a chair sat motionless, with folded arms and haggard +face.</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” he muttered, “I have played the best game—I +have gulled him. Another man would have attempted +to thwart him openly, and have raised a storm. My plan is +the wiser. But to think that fate should have played me +such a trick! and I thought she was safe and secure!” and +he wiped the drops of cold sweat from his knitted brow. +“Fool, fool that I was! Better to have left her there in +the heart of the Forest! And yet—and yet—” he mused, +“it is not so bad. The man might have been more powerful +and cunning than the idiot whom I have in the hollow of +my hand. Curse him! curse him! I never look on his +face but I tremble. I hate him!” and he stretched out his +closed hand as if with a curse.</p> + +<p>As he did so it came into contact with Jack’s glass.</p> + +<p>In a paroxysm of fury he caught up the glass and dashed +it into the fire-place.</p> + +<p>It relieved and brought him to his senses.</p> + +<p>With a gesture of self-contempt he rose and rang the +bell.</p> + +<p>Slummers stole in with his noiseless step and stood beside +the table with downcast eyes, which, nevertheless, had +taken in the broken tumbler.</p> + +<p>“I’ve broken a glass, Slummers,” said Stephen, with affected +carelessness. “Never mind, leave it till the morning. +Now, then, what have you learned?”</p> + +<p>Slummers cleared his throat, and barely opening his thin +lips, replied:</p> + +<p>“A great deal, considering the time, sir. The young lady +at Mrs. Davenant’s——”</p> + +<p>“I know all about her,” said Stephen, breaking in impatiently. +“What about Mr. Newcombe?”</p> + +<p>Nowise embarrassed, Slummers wiped his dry lips with +a handkerchief as spotless as his master’s.</p> + +<p>“It is as you expected, sir. Mr. Newcombe is in difficulties.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” said Stephen, with evident satisfaction.</p> + +<p>“He has been playing and giving paper. There are some +old bills out, too. These are in the hands of Moss the +money-lender.”<span class="pagenum">[220]</span></p> + +<p>Stephen nodded and rubbed his hands.</p> + +<p>“I know Moss—a hard man. Go on.”</p> + +<p>“But they say,” continued Slummers, raising his eyes for +a moment to his master’s face, “that Mr. Newcombe is going +to set things right by marrying an heiress.”</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled and leaned back in his chair.</p> + +<p>“Oh, they do, do they; and who is this most fortunate +young lady?”</p> + +<p>“Lady Isabel Earlsley.”</p> + +<p>Stephen started forward.</p> + +<p>“What!”</p> + +<p>“Lady Isabel Earlsley,” repeated Slummers, without the +slightest change of voice or countenance.</p> + +<p>“No—it’s a lie!” said Stephen, with a chuckle. “Where +did you hear it?”</p> + +<p>“At the club. It is the talk of town, sir. Mr. Newcombe +has been in close attendance upon her ladyship for some +time. They say that her ladyship’s brougham nearly ran +over him, and that she took him home. It is true; her own +coachman told me.”</p> + +<p>Stephen leaned back and hid his face with his hand, his +busy brain at work on this last turn of the wheel.</p> + +<p>“Go on,” he said.</p> + +<p>“That is all, sir.”</p> + +<p>Stephen was silent for a minute or two, then he turned +to the writing table and wrote for some minutes.</p> + +<p>“Go to Moss to-morrow morning,” he said, “and tell him +not to press Mr. Newcombe, and I don’t think he will require +more than the hint—but you may say I will buy all +Mr. Newcombe’s bills at a fair price. Mind! I want every +I O U and bill that Mr. Newcombe gives. You understand?”</p> + +<p>“I understand, Mr. Stephen,” said Slummers, and a +faint, malicious smile stole over his face.</p> + +<p>“And if Mr. Moss likes to oblige Mr. Newcombe with a +little loan, I will take the bill. You understand?”</p> + +<p>Slummers nodded.</p> + +<p>“Here is the letter to Moss for his own satisfaction. He +will not mention my name.”</p> + +<p>Slummers took the note. Stephen passed his hand over +his forehead, and turned his back to the light.<span class="pagenum">[221]</span></p> + +<p>“Any—any other news, Slummers?”</p> + +<p>Slummers smiled behind his hand.</p> + +<p>“I have been to Cheltenham Terrace. We were rightly +informed, sir. Old Mr. Treherne is dead, and Miss Treherne +has disappeared.”</p> + +<p>Stephen drew a breath of relief.</p> + +<p>“Indeed,” he said. “Very good. Let me see, is there +anything else?”</p> + +<p>Slummers coughed.</p> + +<p>“Nothing, sir, except to remind you that you have to +speak at the charitable meeting tomorrow night.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, yes, thank you, very good, Slummers. Be good +enough to hand me the last charitable reports. Good-night.”</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> + + +<p>Happy! If ever two young people were happy, Una and +Jack were. To Una the days passed like a happy dream +time. Her sky was without a cloud; it almost seemed as if +the world had been made for her, so entirely did everything +lend itself to her enjoyment.</p> + +<p>Every morning, soon after breakfast, Jack’s quick, +buoyant step was heard ascending the stone steps of the +house in Walmington Square, and he would come marching +into the breakfast room with some palpable excuse +about his just happening to pass, and Mrs. Davenant would +smile her gentle welcome, and Una—well, Una’s eyes were +eloquent, if her tongue was mute, and would speak +volumes.</p> + +<p>And Jack would lounge about for an hour, telling them +all the news, and perhaps smoking a cigarette, just inside +the conservatory; and Una was sure to find an excuse for +being near him.</p> + +<p>Indeed, if that young lady could be within touching distance +of her god and hero, she seemed passing content. He +was the very light of her life, soul of her soul; every day +seemed to increase the passionate devotion of her first, her +maiden love, for the wild, young ne’er-do-well.</p> + +<p>And she was repaid. Jack thought that there never had +been, since Eve began the sex, such a marvel of beauty and<span class="pagenum">[222]</span> +grace and virtue as Una. He would sit for half-an-hour +smoking and watching her in silence.</p> + +<p>“Didn’t one of those clever fellows say of a certain +woman that to know her was a liberal education?” he said +to Mrs. Davenant. “Well, I say, that to be in Una’s presence, +to watch her moving about in that quiet, graceful +way of hers, and then to catch a smile now and again, is +like reading a first-class poem; better, indeed, for me, because +I don’t go in for poetry.”</p> + +<p>Not that these young lovers spent all their time in silently +watching each other. Every day Jack arrived with +some plan for their amusement and enjoyment. Sometimes +it would be:</p> + +<p>“Well, what are you going to do today? What do you +say to taking the coach to Guildford, getting a snack there, +and back in the evening?”</p> + +<p>Una’s face would light up, and Mrs. Davenant would +smile agreeably, and in half-an-hour they would be ready, +and Jack, as proud of Una’s beauty as if it were unique, +would escort them to the “White Horse” in Piccadilly, and +away they would spin through the lovely Surrey valleys to +that quaintest of old towns in the hills. Sometimes Jack +himself would take the ribbons, and, with Una by his side, +“tool the truck,” as he called the handsome coach, back to +town.</p> + +<p>Then, again, he never came without a box for one of the +theaters or a stall for a concert; and though not over fond +of classical music himself, was quite content to sit and +watch the look of rapt delight in Una’s face as she listened +absorbed in Joachim’s wonderful violin.</p> + +<p>But most of all, I think, they enjoyed their days on the +river, when Jack, attired in his white flannels, would pull +the two ladies up to Walton or Chertsey, and give them +tea in one of the quiet, river-side inns.</p> + +<p>Ah! those evenings, those moonlight nights, when the +boat drifted down stream, and the two young people sat, +hand in hand, whispering those endless exchanges of confidence +which go to make up lovers’ conversations.</p> + +<p>It was wonderful that Mrs. Davenant did not catch cold, +but Jack took great care of her, and wrapped her up in<span class="pagenum">[223]</span> +his thick ulster; and she never seemed to grow tired of +witnessing their happiness.</p> + +<p>Sometimes Jack would ask Stephen to join them, but +Stephen would always find an excuse. Now it was because +he had an engagement with the lawyers; at another time +he had promised to speak at some philanthropic meeting, or +had promised to dine at the club. He would, however, +occasionally dine at the Square, or drop in and take a +cup of tea; and wore always the same friendly smile and +genial manner.</p> + +<p>Jack had become quite convinced that he had done +Stephen a great deal of injustice, and now thought that +Stephen was everything that was kind and thoughtful.</p> + +<p>It was only at chance times, when Jack happened to +catch the pale face off its guard, that the old doubts rose +to perplex and trouble him; but then he always set them +to rest by asking himself what Stephen could possibly have +to gain by acting as he did.</p> + +<p>Of course, all these outings by land and water cost a +great deal of money, but Jack had found Moss, the money-lender, +most suddenly and strangely complaisant.</p> + +<p>Instead of dunning him for what was owing, Moss actually +pressed him to borrow more, and Jack, always too +careless in money matters, was quite ready to oblige him.</p> + +<p>“I can pay him out of my salary, when I get the appointment,” +he said to Leonard, in response to the latter’s remonstrances +and warnings.</p> + +<p>“Yes, when you get it,” said Leonard.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” said Jack. “Do you mean to hint +that Stephen isn’t to be relied upon?”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t the honor of knowing much of Mr. Davenant,” +said Leonard, “and so can’t say whether he is more +reliable than most public men who promise places and appointments; +but I do know that men have grown gray-headed +while waiting for one of those said places.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t know Stephen,” said Jack, confidently. “He +can manage anything he likes to set his mind on. He is +not one of my sort. He can’t let the grass grow under his +feet. There, stop croaking, and come and dine at the +Square.”<span class="pagenum">[224]</span></p> + +<p>And Leonard would go, for he and Una had, as Jack +said, “cottoned to one another.”</p> + +<p>Una felt all sorts of likings and gratitude for the man +who had always been Jack’s friend, and none of the jealousy +which some girls feel for their lover’s bachelor acquaintances.</p> + +<p>“I am sure he is good and true, Jack,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Good! There isn’t a better man in England,” Jack +affirmed. “And he’s as true as steel. Poor old Len!”</p> + +<p>“Why do you pity him?” said Una, who had not altogether +lost her way of asking direct questions.</p> + +<p>“Well, you see, there’s a lot of romance about Len,” said +Jack; and he told her about Leonard’s meeting with Laura +Treherne.</p> + +<p>“And he has never found her?” said Una.</p> + +<p>“Not from that day to this,” answered Jack.</p> + +<p>“And yet he still remembers and loves her,” murmured +Una. “Yes, I like your friend, Jack, and I do hope he +will meet with this young lady and be happy. I should like +all the world to be as happy as I am!”</p> + +<p>“Ah, but don’t you see all the world aren’t angels like +you, you know,” retorted Master Jack, kissing her.</p> + +<p>Though, in accordance with Stephen’s advice, the engagement +had not been made public, the outside world was +beginning to get an inkling of what was going on in Walmington +Square.</p> + +<p>Jack’s friends at the club chaffed him on the unfrequency +of his visits.</p> + +<p>“There’s some mischief the Savage is planning,” said +Dalrymple. “You scarcely ever see him here now; he +doesn’t play, and shuns the bottle as if it were poison, and +he’s altogether changed. I shouldn’t be surprised if he +were to take to public meetings like that distant cousin of +his, Stephen Davenant.”</p> + +<p>“It is my opinion,” said Sir Arkroyd Hetley, “that he +spends all his time at Walmington Square, for my man +sees him going and coming at all hours. The Savage is in +love.”</p> + +<p>And gradually those rumors spreading, like the ripple of +a stone in a pool, reached Park Lane, and got to Lady +Bell’s ears.<span class="pagenum">[225]</span></p> + +<p>She had gone out of town for a week or two, and had, +of course, seen nothing of Jack or Una, but on her return +she drove to the Square.</p> + +<p>Una and Mrs. Davenant were sitting by the tea table, +and wondering whether Jack would come in.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell’s entrance made quite a little flutter.</p> + +<p>“How do you do, Mrs. Davenant, and how do you do, +Wild Bird?” and she kissed Una, and holding her at arm’s +length, scanned her smilingly. “What have you been doing +to look so fresh and happy?” Here Una’s face over-spread +with blushes. “What a child it is! But see, here +I am just from the seaside, and as pale, or rather as yellow +as a guinea, while you are like a dairy-maid. My dear girl, +you positively beam with happiness.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant and Una exchanged glances—glances +that were not lost upon Lady Bell’s acuteness.</p> + +<p>“Is there a secret?” she said, quickly. “Have you +come into a fortune? But, no, that can’t be it, for I +know that I’ve never been thoroughly happy since I came +into mine.”</p> + +<p>“You always look happy, Lady Bell,” said Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>“My dear, don’t judge by appearances,” said Lady Bell, +in her quick way. “I am not always happy; most of my +time I am bored to death; I am always worried and hurried. +Oh, by-the-way, speaking of worries, can you recommend +me a maid? My own, a girl who came from the +colonies with me, and swore, after a fashion, never to leave +me, has gone and got married. I should be angry if I +didn’t pity her.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you believe in the happiness of the married +state, then?” asked Mrs. Davenant, while Una looked on +smilingly.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Lady Bell, shortly. “Men are tyrants and +deceivers; there is no believing a word they say. A woman +who marries is a slave, and——”</p> + +<p>She broke off sharply, for the door opened and Jack entered. +A warm flush rose to Lady Bell’s face, and she +was too much occupied in concealing it to observe the similar +flush which flooded Una’s cheeks.</p> + +<p>Jack was striding in with Una’s name on his lips, but<span class="pagenum">[226]</span> +he stopped short at sight of Lady Bell, and the flush +seemed an epidemic, for it glowed under his tan.</p> + +<p>“I thought you were at Brighton, Lady Bell,” he said, +as he shook hands.</p> + +<p>“So I was—three hours ago. I came away suddenly; +got tired and bored of it before I had been there three days. +If there is one place more unendurable than another it is +the fashionable watering-place. I bore it until this morning, +and then poor Mrs. Fellowes and I made a bolt of it, +or rather I bolted and dragged her with me. I left Lord +Dalrymple and Sir Arkroyd in happy unconsciousness of +our desertion.”</p> + +<p>“Then, at this moment, they are wandering about the +Parade in despair,” said Jack, laughing. And, as he +laughed, he looked from one girl to the other, making a +mental comparison. Yes, Lady Bell was beautiful, with +a beauty undeniable and palpable, but how it paled and +grew commonplace beside Una’s fresh, spiritual loveliness.</p> + +<p>He had held her hand for a moment when he entered, +and now, as he carried the tea cup, he got an opportunity +of touching her arm, lovingly, caressingly.</p> + +<p>He longed to take her by the hand and say to Lady +Bell:</p> + +<p>“This is my future wife, Lady Bell,” but he remembered +Stephen’s advice, and was on his guard, so much +so that though she watched them closely, Lady Bell saw +no sign of the existing state of things.</p> + +<p>It was singular, but since Jack’s arrival she did not +seem at all bored or worried, but rattled on in her gayest +mood.</p> + +<p>“And what have you been doing since I left town?” she +asked Una. “I hope Mr. Newcombe has made himself useful +and attentive;” and she looked at Jack, who nodded +coolly enough, though Una’s face crimsoned.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’ve been doing the knight errant, Lady Bell. +Mrs. Davenant and I are old friends—relations, indeed.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, yes,” said Lady Bell. “I hear your son, Mr. Stephen, +is in London.”</p> + +<p>In a moment Mrs. Davenant’s face lost its brightness.</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” she said, nervously; “yes, he is in London.”</p> + +<p>“Where is he?” said Lady Bell, looking round as if she<span class="pagenum">[227]</span> +expected to see him concealed behind one of the chairs. +“He’s always addressing public meetings, isn’t he?”</p> + +<p>“Not always, Lady Earlsley,” said Stephen, from the +open doorway.</p> + +<p>“Good heavens! Speak of the—angels, and you hear the +rustle of their wings!” exclaimed Lady Bell, not at all +embarrassed. “How did you come in, Mr. Davenant?”</p> + +<p>“By the door, Lady Earlsley, which was open. Mother, +you will lose all your plate some day.”</p> + +<p>“And what public meeting have you come from now?” +asked Lady Bell, with a smile.</p> + +<p>“I have been walking in the park,” said Stephen, “and +am at your ladyship’s service.”</p> + +<p>“I am glad of it,” said Lady Bell, quickly, “for I want +you—all of you to come and dine with me tonight.”</p> + +<p>“Tonight!” echoed Jack.</p> + +<p>“Tonight! Why not? You have plenty of time to +dress. Come, it will be charity—there’s an argument for +you, Mr. Davenant—for Mrs. Fellowes and I are all alone; +papa has gone to some learned society meeting. Come, I’ll +go home at once and tell them to get your favorite wines +ready. What <i>is</i> your favorite, Mr. Newcombe?”</p> + +<p>Jack laughed.</p> + +<p>“I’d come and dine with <i>you</i>, Lady Bell, if you gave us +ginger beer,” he said.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell laughed, but she looked pleased.</p> + +<p>“Now, that is what I call a really good compliment—for +a Savage,” and she glanced at Jack archly. “We’ll say +half-past eight tonight to give you time to finish your +chat. <i>Au revoir</i>,” and waving her daintily-gloved hand, +she flitted from the room.</p> + +<p>“Would he dine with me if I had only ginger beer to +offer him?” she asked herself, as she went back in the +brougham. “Would he? He looks so honest and so true!—so +incapable of a mean, unworthy action! I wish I were +as poor—as poor as Una. How quietly she sits. She has just +the air of one of the great ones of the earth—the air which +I, with all my title and wealth, shall never have. I wonder +who she is, and whether Mr. Stephen thinks her as +beautiful as I do! He looked at her as he went in—well, +just as I would that <i>some one else</i> would look at me. How<span class="pagenum">[228]</span> +handsome he is, so different to Stephen Davenant. Ah, +me! I know now why Brighton was so hateful; if Jack +Newcombe had been there I should not have hungered and +pined for London! What a miserable, infatuated being I +am. I am as bad as that foolish maid of mine. Yes, just +as bad, for if Jack Newcombe came and asked me, I should +run away with him as she did with her young man!”</p> + +<p>Still thinking of him, she reached home and went up to +her own room, where Mrs. Fellowes, the long-suffering, +hastened to meet her.</p> + +<p>“My dear, I’m so glad you’ve come. How long you +have been.”</p> + +<p>“My dear, you say that every time I come in. What is +the matter—another maid run away?”</p> + +<p>“No, but a maid has come, at least a young person—I +was going to say lady—who wants the situation.”</p> + +<p>“Well, a lady’s maid ought to be a lady,” said Lady +Bell, languidly. “Where is she?”</p> + +<p>“In my room,” said Mrs. Fellowes. “She came with a +note from Lady Challoner. It seems the poor girl has +been in trouble—she has lost her father—and not caring +to go for a governess——”</p> + +<p>“For which I don’t blame her,” said Lady Bell.</p> + +<p>“She is desirous of getting an engagement as a companion +or lady’s maid.”</p> + +<p>“A companion’s worse off than a governess, isn’t she?” +said Lady Bell, naively.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fellowes smiled.</p> + +<p>“Yes. What is her name?” asked Lady Bell.</p> + +<p>“Well, there’s the point,” said Mrs. Fellowes. “Her name +is Laura Treherne, but as some of her friends—she hasn’t +many, she says—might think that she had done wrong in +taking a menial situation she wishes to be known by some +other name.”</p> + +<p>“I hate mysteries and aliases,” said Lady Bell. “I +don’t think I shall engage her. She’ll be too proud to do +my hair and copy all my dresses in common material. +Well, I’ll see her.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll send her away if you like,” said Mrs. Fellowes; +“but I think you’ll like her.”</p> + +<p>“Do you? Then I know exactly what she’s like before I<span class="pagenum">[229]</span> +see her if she has taken your fancy. Some prim old maid +in black cotton and thick shoes.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fellowes smiled and rang the bell, and bade a +servant to ask the young person who was waiting to step +that way.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell began taking off her gloves yawningly, but +stopped suddenly, and looked up with an air of surprise +as the door opened and a tall girl, with dark hair and eyes, +entered.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> + + +<p>Lady Bell overmastered her surprise, and asking the +young girl to sit down, looked at her critically as she did +so.</p> + +<p>Yes, the girl was a lady, there could be no doubt of that. +But it was not only the evidence of refinement in the face +and the manner of the girl that struck Lady Bell; there +was an expression in the dark eyes and clear-cut lips, +slightly compressed, which roused her interest and curiosity.</p> + +<p>It was a face with a history.</p> + +<p>For the first time she looked at Lady Challoner’s note.</p> + +<p>“I see,” she said, “that Lady Challoner knows you, Miss +Treherne.”</p> + +<p>“She knew my grandfather,” was the quiet answer. “He +is dead.”</p> + +<p>“Lately?” said Lady Bell, glancing at the note.</p> + +<p>Laura Treherne bent her head.</p> + +<p>“Two months ago,” she said, sadly.</p> + +<p>“And have you no friends with whom you could go and +live?”</p> + +<p>“None who would care to have me, or to whom I should +wish to go.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell was silent for a moment—the girl interested +her more each minute.</p> + +<p>“Are you taking a wise step in seeking for a situation +which is considered menial?” she asked.</p> + +<p>Laura Treherne paused for a moment.</p> + +<p>“I do not think it degradation to serve Lady Earlsley,” +she said.<span class="pagenum">[230]</span></p> + +<p>Lady Bell smiled, not ill pleased.</p> + +<p>“You mean to say that you would not accept any situation?”</p> + +<p>Laura Treherne inclined her head.</p> + +<p>“How did you know that I wanted a maid?”</p> + +<p>“I heard it in the house where I am lodging,” she replied.</p> + +<p>“And you knew me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; I had heard of you, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“Have you any other testimonials besides this note of +Lady Challoner’s?”</p> + +<p>“None, my lady.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell hesitated.</p> + +<p>“It is quite sufficient,” she said; “but I am afraid you +do not understand the duties of a lady’s maid.”</p> + +<p>“I think so, my lady. What I do not know now, I can +soon learn.”</p> + +<p>“That’s true. And I see you do not wish your real name +to transpire?”</p> + +<p>“I would rather that it did not. I would rather be known +by some other name,” answered Laura Treherne.</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>There was a moment’s hesitation, and the dark face +paled slightly.</p> + +<p>“I thought Lady Challoner had explained. My +friends——”</p> + +<p>“You do not care for your friends to know that you are +in a situation? You think their pride would be greater +than your own?”</p> + +<p>“Exactly, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll engage you,” she said. “When can you come? +I have no maid at present.”</p> + +<p>“Now, at once, if your ladyship wishes. I will stay +now, and send for my luggage, if you please.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” said Lady Bell. “Come to my room in half +an hour, and we will arrange matters. You have said +nothing about salary.”</p> + +<p>“That I leave in your ladyship’s hands.”</p> + +<p>“Like the cabmen,” said Lady Bell, laughing. “Well, +come to my room in half an hour.”<span class="pagenum">[231]</span></p> + +<p>Laura Treherne bowed and left the room, and Mrs. Fellowes +lifted up her voice in remonstrance.</p> + +<p>“My dear Bell, that letter may be a forgery.”</p> + +<p>“It might be, but it isn’t. I can read faces, and I like +that young lady’s. Yes, she’s a lady, poor girl. Well, she +might have hit upon a worse mistress; I shan’t bang her +about the head with a hair brush when I’m in a temper, +as Lady Courtney does her maid. There, spare your remonstrances, +my dear. The girl’s engaged, and I mean to +keep her. And now there are three or four people coming +to dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Davenant, Jack—I mean Mr. +Newcombe—and that strange girl, Una. What a lovely +creature she is! Do you know I rather think she will become +Mrs. Stephen Davenant.”</p> + +<p>“She is a very nice girl,” said Mrs. Fellowes. “She +ought to make a good match.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Ay de me</i>,” said Lady Bell, with a sigh. “I’m sick of +that word. Men and women don’t ‘marry’ now, they make +‘good matches.’ My dear, I hate your worldly way of +looking at matrimony. If I were a poor girl, I’d marry +the man of my heart, if he hadn’t a penny. Ah, and if he +were the baddest of bad lots.”</p> + +<p>“Like Jack Newcombe, for instance,” said Mrs. Fellowes, +archly.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Lady Bell, turning with the door in her +hand; “like Jack Newcombe,” and she ran up to her room.</p> + +<p>Punctual to the minute, Laura Treherne knocked at the +door of the dressing-room. Lady Bell was seated before +the glass, surrounded by her walking clothes, which, as +was her custom, she had slipped out of or flung carelessly +aside.</p> + +<p>Without a word Laura picked them up and put them +in the wardrobe, and without a word took up the hair +brushes. Lady Bell watched her in the glass, and gave her +a hint now and then, and when her hair was dressed +glanced round approvingly.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said, “that is very nice; and you have not +hurt me once. The last maid used to pull me terribly. I +suppose she was thinking of her young man. By the way, +are you engaged?”</p> + +<p>The dark face flushed for a moment, then grew pale.<span class="pagenum">[232]</span></p> + +<p>“No, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“I’m glad of it. Take my advice and don’t be. That +sounds selfish, doesn’t it. Now you want to know what I +am going to wear. I don’t know myself. What would you +choose? Go to the wardrobe.”</p> + +<p>Laura went to the wardrobe, and came back after a +minute or two with a dress of black satin and lace looped +up with rosebuds of the darkest red. It was one newly +arrived from Worth.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell nodded.</p> + +<p>“Yes, that just suits me. Give me a lady for good taste! +And now choose the ornaments. There is the jewel-box.”</p> + +<p>Laura chose the set of rubies and diamonds, and Lady +Bell smiled again.</p> + +<p>“I shall look rather Spanish. Never mind. Let us try +them.”</p> + +<p>With deft and gentle hands Laura helped her to dress, +and Lady Bell nodded approval.</p> + +<p>“Am I ready?”</p> + +<p>Laura hesitated a moment.</p> + +<p>“Will your ladyship wear the pendant?”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell glanced in the glass.</p> + +<p>“Ah, I see, you think that is rather too much against the +rosebuds. You are right. Take it off, please. Thanks. +Put the key of the jewel-box in your pocket. Stay! there +is a chain for you to wear it on;” and she took out a small +gold chain. “You can keep that as your own.”</p> + +<p>Laura Treherne flushed, and she inclined her head gratefully.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell was relieved; her last maid used to overwhelm +her with thanks.</p> + +<p>“And now I will go down. By the way, will you please +tell Simcox—that’s the butler—that the gentlemen will +want Lafitte, at least, Mr. Newcombe will. I don’t know +what Mr. Stephen Davenant drinks. What’s the matter?” +she broke off to inquire, for she heard Laura stumble and +fall against the wardrobe.</p> + +<p>There was a moment’s pause; then, calmly enough, +Laura said:</p> + +<p>“My foot caught in your ladyship’s dress, I think.”</p> + +<p>“Have you hurt yourself?” asked Lady Bell, kindly.<span class="pagenum">[233]</span> +“You have gone quite pale! Here, take some of this sal-volatile.”</p> + +<p>But Laura declined, respectfully. It was a mere nothing, +and she would be more careful of alarming her ladyship +for the future.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell looked at her curiously. The quiet, self-contained +manner, so free from nervousness or embarrassment, +interested her.</p> + +<p>She stopped her as Laura was leaving the room.</p> + +<p>“We haven’t fixed upon a name for you yet,” she said.</p> + +<p>“No, my lady; any name will do.”</p> + +<p>“It is a pity to change yours—it is a pretty one.”</p> + +<p>“Will Mary Burns do, my lady? It was my mother’s +name.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” said Lady Bell; “I will tell Mrs. Fellowes +that you will be known by that.”</p> + +<p>“That girl has a history, I know,” she thought, as she +went downstairs.</p> + +<p>Punctual almost to the minute, Mrs. Davenant’s +brougham arrived.</p> + +<p>The evenings had drawn in, and a lamp was burning +in the hall; and a small fire made the dining-room comfortable.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell welcomed Una most affectionately.</p> + +<p>“Now we will have a really enjoyable evening,” she said. +“I hate dinner parties, and if I had my way, would never +give nor go to another one. If it were only a little colder, +we’d sit round the fire and bake chestnuts. Have you ever +done that, Wild Bird?”</p> + +<p>“Often,” said Una, with a quiet smile, and something +like a sigh, as she thought of the long winter evenings in +the cot. How long ago they seemed, almost unreal, as if +they had never happened.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Una is very accomplished,” said Jack; “I believe +she could make coffee if she tried.”</p> + +<p>Very snug and comfortable the dining-room looked. +Lady Bell had dispensed with one of the footmen, and had +evidently determined to make the meal as homely and unceremonious +as possible.</p> + +<p>Never, perhaps, had the butler seen a merrier party. +Even Stephen was genial and humorous; indeed he seemed<span class="pagenum">[234]</span> +to exert himself in an extraordinary fashion. Lady Bell +had given him Una to take in, and he was most attentive +and entertaining—so much that Jack, who was sitting opposite, +and next to Lady Bell, felt amused and interested +at the change which seemed to have come over him.</p> + +<p>Could he have seen the workings of the subtle mind +concealed behind the smiling exterior, he would have felt +very much less at his ease; for even now Stephen was plotting +how best he could mold the material round him to +serve his purpose, and while the laugh was lingering on +his smooth lips, his heart was burning with hate and jealousy +of the rival who sat opposite.</p> + +<p>For it had come to this, that he desired Una, and not +only for the wealth of which he had robbed her, but for +herself. As deeply as it was possible for one of his nature +he loved the innocent, unsuspecting girl who sat beside +him.</p> + +<p>Tonight, as he looked at the beautiful face and marked +each fleeting expression that flitted like sunshine over it: +as he listened to the musical voice, and felt the touch of +her dress as it brushed his arm, a passionate longing +seized and mastered him, and he felt that he would risk all +of which he was wrongfully possessed to win her—ah, and +if she were, indeed, only the daughter of a common woodman.</p> + +<p>“Curse him!” he murmured over his wine glass, as his +eyes rested on Jack’s handsome face. “If he had not +crossed my path, she would have been mine ere now; no +matter, I will strike him out of it, as if he were a viper in +my road.”</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, quite unconscious of Stephen’s generous +sentiments, Jack went on with his dinner, enjoying it +thoroughly, and as happy as it is given to a mortal to be.</p> + +<p>Presently the conversation turned upon their plans for +the autumn.</p> + +<p>“What are we all going to do?” said Lady Bell. “You, I +suppose, Mr. Davenant, will go down to your place in +Wealdshire—what is it called?”</p> + +<p>“Hurst Leigh,” said Stephen, quietly. “Yes, I must go +down there, I ought to have been there before now, but I +find so many attractions in town,” and he smiled at Una.<span class="pagenum">[235]</span></p> + +<p>“And you, my dear?” said Lady Bell to Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>“My mother will go down with me,” said Stephen.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant glanced at him nervously.</p> + +<p>“And that means Miss Wild Bird, too, I suppose?” remarked +Lady Bell.</p> + +<p>“If Miss Una will honor us,” said Stephen, with an inclination +of the head to Una. “Yes, we shall make quite +a family party. You will join us, of course, Jack?”</p> + +<p>Jack, who had looked up rather grim at the foregoing, +bit his lip.</p> + +<p>“I don’t quite know,” he said, gravely.</p> + +<p>“Surely you will not let the poachers have all the birds +this year, Jack!” said Stephen, brightly. “Besides my +mother will be quite lost without you.”</p> + +<p>“Do come, Jack,” whispered Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>“I’ll see,” said Jack, grimly, and Una looked down uneasily; +she understood his reluctance to go to the old place.</p> + +<p>“Oh, we will take no refusal,” said Stephen, buoyantly. +“And what are your plans, Lady Bell?”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell looked up with rather a start and a flush.</p> + +<p>“I—I—don’t quite know,” she said. “I had been thinking +of going to a small place we have at Earl’s Court.”</p> + +<p>“Earl’s Court!” exclaimed Jack. “Why, that is only +thirteen miles or so from the Hurst.”</p> + +<p>“Is it?” said Lady Bell. “I didn’t know. I haven’t +seen it. I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t made a round +of inspection of the property yet. My stewards are always +bothering me to do so, but I don’t seem to have +time.”</p> + +<p>“A sovereign cannot be expected to visit the whole of +her kingdom,” said Stephen, with a smile.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell sighed.</p> + +<p>“I often wish the old earl had left me five hundred a +year and a cottage somewhere,” she said, quietly. “I +should have been a happier woman. Oh, here is the claret. +Give Mr. Newcombe the Lafitte, Simcox. Mr. Davenant——”</p> + +<p>“I always follow Jack’s suit,” said Stephen, rising to +open the door for the ladies. “He is an infallible guide in +such matters.”</p> + +<p>“Fancy a woman lamenting the extent of her wealth,”<span class="pagenum">[236]</span> +he said, with something like a sneer, as he went back to +the table. “If any girl ought to be happy that girl ought +to be. What a chance for some young fellow! My dear +Jack, if I had been in your place——”</p> + +<p>Jack looked up with a tinge of red in his face.</p> + +<p>“What nonsense. Lady Bell knows better than to be +caught by such chaff as I am. Besides, I am more than +content. I wouldn’t exchange Una for a Duchess, with +the riches of Peru in her pockets. What about the commissionership, +or whatever it is, Stephen?”</p> + +<p>“All in good time, my dear Jack. Those sort of things +aren’t done in a moment; the matter is in hand, and we +shall get it, be sure. Meanwhile, if you want any +money——”</p> + +<p>“Thanks, no,” said Jack, easily.</p> + +<p>He had only that morning negotiated a bill with Mr. +Moss for another hundred pounds.</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled evilly behind his pocket handkerchief. +He held that bill in his pocketbook at that moment, in +company with all Jack’s previous ones.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> + + +<p>The two men sat beside the fire almost in silence. Jack +was trying to get over his reluctance to go to the Hurst, +and wondering what would become of him if he did not, +and Una left him all alone in town; and Stephen was +wondering whether it was time to strike the blow he meditated.</p> + +<p>Very soon Jack jumped up.</p> + +<p>“If you’ve had enough wine, let us join the ladies,” he +said, and went toward the door.</p> + +<p>Stephen followed him, but turned back to fetch his +pocket handkerchief.</p> + +<p>Lying beside it, on the table, was a rose which had fallen +from the bosom of Una’s dress. He took it up, and looked +at it with that look which a man bestows on some trifle +which has been worn by the woman he loves, and then, +as if by an irresistible impulse, raised it to his lips, kissing +it passionately, and put it carefully in his bosom. As +he did so, he raised his eyes to the glass, which reflected<span class="pagenum">[237]</span> +one side of the room, and saw the slight figure of a woman +standing in the open door and watching him.</p> + +<p>The light from the carefully shaded lamp was too dim +to allow him to see the face distinctly, but something in +the figure caused him to feel a sudden chill.</p> + +<p>He turned sharply and walked to the door; but the hall +was empty and there was no sound of retreating footsteps.</p> + +<p>“Some servant maid waiting to come in to clear the table,” +he muttered.</p> + +<p>But he returned to the dining-room, and drank off a +glass of liquor before going to the drawing-room, from +which ripples of Jack’s frank laughter were floating in the +hall.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell was seated at the piano, playing and singing +in her light-hearted, careless fashion; Jack and Una were +seated in a dimly-lit corner, talking in an undertone.</p> + +<p>Stephen went up to the piano and stood apparently listening +intently, but in reality watching the other two under +his lowered lids.</p> + +<p>The presence of the rose in his bosom seemed to heighten +the passion which burned in his heart; and the sight of +Jack bending over Una, and of her rapt, up-turned face +as she looked up, drinking in his lightest word as if it +were gospel, maddened him.</p> + +<p>It was with a start that he became conscious that Lady +Bell had ceased playing, and that she, like him, was watching +the lovers.</p> + +<p>“Miss Una and Mr. Newcombe seem very good friends,” +she said, with a forced smile.</p> + +<p>“Do they not?” said Stephen, in his softest voice. “Too +good.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell looked up at him quickly.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>Stephen looked down at her gravely.</p> + +<p>“Can you keep a secret, Lady Bell?” he said, hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>“Sometimes,” she said. “What is it?”</p> + +<p>Stephen glanced across at Jack and Una.</p> + +<p>“I’m rather anxious about our young friends,” he said, +his voice dropped still lower, his head bent forward with<span class="pagenum">[238]</span> +such an insidious smile that Lady Bell could not, for the +life of her, help thinking of a serpent.</p> + +<p>“Anxious!” she echoed, her heart beating. “As how?”</p> + +<p>“Can you not guess?” he said, raising his eyebrows.</p> + +<p>“You—you mean that they may fall in love with each +other. Well, they are not badly matched,” said Lady Bell, +bravely, though her heart was aching.</p> + +<p>“Not badly, in one sense,” said Stephen, after a pause; +“but as badly as two persons could be in all others. They +are a match as regards their means. They are both penniless.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell looked up with a start.</p> + +<p>“Is—is Mr. Newcombe so badly off? I thought—that +is, I fancied he had a wealthy uncle——” She paused.</p> + +<p>“You mean Mr. Ralph Davenant,” said Stephen, calmly, +and with an air of sadness. “I am sorry to say that +he left everything which he possessed to a less worthy +person—to me.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell looked at him inquiringly.</p> + +<p>“To me,” he repeated, “and poor Jack was—well, disinherited, +and left penniless. It is of him I think when +I say that I am anxious about them; naturally, I think of +him. Miss Rolfe is a friend of my mother’s, and has been +used to a straitened life; but poor Jack does not know +what poverty means, and in his ignorance may drift into +an entanglement which may embitter her life. No man in +the world is less fitted for love in a cottage, and nothing +to pay the rent, than Jack Newcombe. You, who have +seen something of him, must have remarked his easy-going, +careless nature, his utter ignorance of the value of +money, his unsuitableness for a life of poverty and privation.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell’s heart beat fast.</p> + +<p>“But—but—” she said, “you have plenty.”</p> + +<p>“Of which Jack will not take one penny. You see he is +as proud as he is poor.”</p> + +<p>“I like him for that,” murmured Lady Bell.</p> + +<p>“Yes, so do I; though it pains and grieves me. If Jack +would permit me to help him, Lady Bell, he might marry +Una Rolfe tomorrow; but as it is, I fear, I am anxious. +Another man would be wiser, but Jack has no idea of prudence,<span class="pagenum">[239]</span> +and would plunge head first into all the misery of +such a union without a thought of the morrow.”</p> + +<p>“And you—you think he loves her,” murmured Lady +Bell; and she waited for an answer as a man on his trial +might wait for the verdict of the jury.</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled. He could read Lady Bell’s heart as if +it were an open book.</p> + +<p>“Loves her! No, certainly not—not yet. He is amused +and entertained, but love has not come yet.”</p> + +<p>“And she?” asked Lady Bell, anxiously, her eyes fixed +on Una’s face.</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled again.</p> + +<p>“No, not yet. She is ignorant of the meaning of the +word. I have taken some trouble to arrive at the truth, +and I am sure of what I say. It is well for her that she is +not, for anything like a serious engagement would be simply +madness. Poor Jack! His future lies so plainly before +him, and if he would follow it, the rest of his life +might be happiness itself.”</p> + +<p>“You mean that he should marry for money,” said Lady +Bell, coldly.</p> + +<p>“No, not for money alone,” murmured Stephen. “Jack +is too high-minded to be guilty of such meanness; but is +it not possible to marry for love and money, too, Lady +Bell?”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell turned her head aside; her heart beating fast. +The voice of the tempter sounded like music in her ear. +Why should not he marry for love as well as money? She +had both. She loved him passionately, and she would pour +her money at his feet to do as he liked with; to squander +and make ducks and drakes of, if he would but give her a +little love in return.</p> + +<p>As she looked across the room at him, that awful, +wistful longing which only a woman who loves with all +her heart can feel, took possession of her and mastered +her.</p> + +<p>“Why do you tell me this?” she asked, sharply turning +her face, pale and working.</p> + +<p>“Because,” murmured Stephen, “because I have Jack’s +interest so much at heart that I am bold enough to ask +for aid where I know it can be of avail.”<span class="pagenum">[240]</span></p> + +<p>“Do you mean that you ask <i>me?”</i> she said, tremulously. +“What can I do?”</p> + +<p>“Much, everything,” he whispered, his head bent low, +almost to her ear. “Ask yourself, dear Lady Bell, and you +will understand me. Let me be plain and straightforward, +even at the risk of offending you. There was a time, +not many months ago, when I and his best friends thought +Jack had made a choice at once happy and wise.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell rose and moved to and fro, and then sank +down again trembling with agitation.</p> + +<p>“You mean that—that he was falling in love with me?”</p> + +<p>Stephen inclined his head with lowered eyes.</p> + +<p>“It is true,” he said. “You cannot fail to have seen +what all observed.” And he went on quickly—“And but +for this fancy—this passing fancy—all would have been +well. Lady Bell, I am speaking more openly than I ever +have spoken to woman before. I am risking offending you, +but I do so from the affection which I bear my cousin. +Lady Bell, I implore you to help me in saving him from a +step which will plunge him into life-long misery. He is +totally unfitted to battle with the world; married wisely +and well, he would be a happy and contented man; married +unwisely and badly, no one can picture the future.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell rose, her face pale, her eyes gleaming under +the strain which she was enduring.</p> + +<p>“Don’t say any more,” she said; “I—I cannot bear it. +You have guessed my secret; I can feel that. Yes, I would +save him if I could, and if you are sure that—that there is +no engagement——”</p> + +<p>“There is none,” said Stephen, lying smoothly. “There +can be none; the idea is preposterous.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell moved away as he spoke, and turned over +some book on the table to conceal her agitation, and Stephen, +humming a popular hymn tune, crossed the room +and looked down at Jack and Una with a benedictory +smile, as if he was blessing them.</p> + +<p>“Are you aware of the time, and that Lady Bell’s hall +porter is uttering maledictions for our tardiness?” he said, +playfully.</p> + +<p>Jack looked at his watch.<span class="pagenum">[241]</span></p> + +<p>“By Jove! No idea it was so late. Are you ready, Mrs. +Davenant?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant woke from a sleep, and she and Una went +upstairs.</p> + +<p>“I see you have a new maid,” she said, when they came +down again. “What a superior-looking young girl.”</p> + +<p>“Is she not?” said Lady Bell, absently. “She is more +than superior, she is interesting. She has a history.”</p> + +<p>Stephen, standing by, folding and unfolding his opera +hat, smiled.</p> + +<p>“Very interesting; but take care, Lady Bell; I am always +suspicious of interesting people with a history.”</p> + +<p>As he spoke, a pale, dark face looked down upon him +from the upper landing for a moment, then disappeared.</p> + +<p>“You will come with us, Stephen?” said Mrs. Davenant, +nervously.</p> + +<p>“No, thanks. I should like the walk. Good-night,” and +he kissed her dutifully, and shook hands with Jack and +Lady Bell.</p> + +<p>“Going to walk?” cried Mrs. Davenant. “It is very +chilly, and you’ve only that thin overcoat.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve a scarf somewhere—where is it?” said Stephen.</p> + +<p>Una stooped, and picked up a white scarf.</p> + +<p>“Here it is,” she said, laughing, and all innocently she +threw it round his neck.</p> + +<p>“Will you tie it, please?” said Stephen, in an ordinary +tone, and Una, laughing still, tied it.</p> + +<p>Stephen stood motionless, his eyes cast down; he was +afraid to raise them lest the passion blazing in them should +be read by all there.</p> + +<p>“Thanks. I cannot catch cold now,” he said, as he took +her hand and held it for a moment.</p> + +<p>He put them into the brougham, and under the pretext +of arranging her shawl, touched her hand once again; then +he stood in the chilly street and watched the brougham till +it disappeared in the distance.</p> + +<p>Then he turned and walked homeward.</p> + +<p>“One step in the right direction,” he muttered. “Take +care, Master Jack; I shall outwit you yet.”</p> + +<p>As he ascended the stairs of his chambers, Slummers +came out to meet him.<span class="pagenum">[242]</span></p> + +<p>“There is a—person waiting for you, Mr. Stephen,” he +said.</p> + +<p>Stephen stopped, and his hand closed on the balustrade; +his thoughts flew to Laura Treherne.</p> + +<p>“A—woman, Slummers?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir, a man,” said Slummers.</p> + +<p>“Very good,” said Stephen, with a breath of relief. +“Who is it—do you know?”</p> + +<p>Slummers shook his head.</p> + +<p>“A rough sort of man, sir; says he has come on business. +He has been waiting for hours.”</p> + +<p>“I am very sorry,” said Stephen, aloud and blandly, for +the benefit of the visitor. “I am sorry to have kept anyone +waiting. But it is rather late——”</p> + +<p>He entered the room as he spoke, and started slightly, +for standing in the center of the apartment was Gideon +Rolfe.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding the start Stephen came forward with +outstretched hand and a ready smile of welcome.</p> + +<p>“My dear Mr. Rolfe, I am indeed sorry that you should +have been kept so long. If I had only known that you +were coming——”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe waived all further compliment aside with +a gesture of impatience.</p> + +<p>“I wished to see you,” he said. “Time is no object to +me.”</p> + +<p>Stephen shut the door carefully and stood in a listening +attitude. He knew it was of no use to ask his visitor to sit +down.</p> + +<p>“You have come to inquire about your daughter?”</p> + +<p>“No, I have not,” said Gideon Rolfe, calmly. “I know +that she is well—I see her daily. I came to remind you +of our contract—I came to remind you of your promise +that no harm should come near her.”</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled and shook his head.</p> + +<p>“And I trust no harm has come near her, my dear Mr. +Rolfe.”</p> + +<p>“But I say that it has,” said Gideon Rolfe, coldly. “I +have watched her daily and I know.”</p> + +<p>“To what harm do you allude?” asked Stephen, bravely.<span class="pagenum">[243]</span></p> + +<p>“Do you deny that the young man Jack Newcombe is +near her?”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Stephen, and he drew a long breath.</p> + +<p>Then he commenced untying the scarf, his acute brain +hard at work.</p> + +<p>Here was an instrument ready to his hand, if he chose +to use it properly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I understand. No, I do not deny it; I wish that +I could do so, for your sake and for Una’s,” he said +gravely.</p> + +<p>“Speak plainly,” said Gideon Rolfe, hoarsely.</p> + +<p>“I will,” said Stephen. “Plainly then, Mr. Newcombe +has chosen to fall in love with—your daughter! That accounts +for his constant attendance upon her.”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe’s face worked.</p> + +<p>“I will take her back,” he said, grimly.</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled.</p> + +<p>“Softly, softly. There are two to that bargain, my dear +Mr. Rolfe. For Miss Una to go back to a state of savagery +in Warden Forest is impossible. You, who have seen her +in her new surroundings, and the change they have +wrought in her, must admit that.”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe wiped the perspiration from his brow.</p> + +<p>“I know that she is changed,” he said. “She is like a +great lady now. I see her dressed in rich silks and satins, +and coming and going in carriages, with servants to wait +upon her, and I know that she is changed, and that she has +forgotten the friends of her childhood—forgotten those +who were father and mother to her——”</p> + +<p>“You wrong Miss Una,” said Stephen, smoothly. “Not +a day passes but she inquires for you and deplores your +absence——”</p> + +<p>“But,” went on Gideon, as if he had not been interrupted, +“I have not forgotten her, nor my promise to her +mother. In a weak moment, moved by your threats more +than your persuasions, I consented to part with her, but I +would rather she were dead than that should happen—which +you say will happen.”</p> + +<p>“Pardon me,” said Stephen, blandly, and with an evil +smile. “I said that Mr. Newcombe had fallen in love with +her; I did not say that he would marry her. <i>I</i> would<span class="pagenum">[244]</span> +rather she were dead than that should happen,” and he +turned his face for one moment to the light.</p> + +<p>It was pale even to the lips, the eyes gleaming with resolute +purpose.</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe looked at him in silence for a moment.</p> + +<p>“I do not understand,” he said, in a troubled voice.</p> + +<p>“Let me make it clear to you,” said Stephen. “Against +my will and wish these two have met and become acquainted. +Against my will and wish that acquaintance +has ripened into”—he drew a long breath as if the word +hurt him—“into love, or what they mistake for love. +Thus far it has gone, but it must go no further. I am at +one with you there. You and I must prevent it. You +cannot do it alone, you know. You have no control over +Miss Una; you who are not her father and in no way related +to her.”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe set his teeth hard.</p> + +<p>“You see,” said Stephen, with a haggard smile, “alone +you are helpless. Be sure of that. If you move in the +matter without me, I will declare the secret of her birth. +Stop! be calm! But you and I can put an end to this engagement.”</p> + +<p>“They are engaged?” muttered Gideon Rolfe.</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled contemptuously.</p> + +<p>“My good friend, this matter has passed beyond your +strength. Leave it to me. Yes, they are engaged; the affair +has gone so far, but it must go no further. While +you have been lurking outside area gates and behind carriages +I have been at work, and I will stop it. I am not +too proud to accept your aid, however. When the time +comes I will ask your aid. Give me an address to which +to write to you.”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe, with a suspicious air, drew a piece of +paper from his pocket and wrote an address.</p> + +<p>“This will find you?” said Stephen. “Good. When the +time comes I will send for you; meanwhile”—and he +smiled—“you can go on haunting area gates and watching +carriages, but be sure of one thing, that this marriage +shall never take place.”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe watched the pale face grimly.<span class="pagenum">[245]</span></p> + +<p>“I must know more,” he said. “How will you put an +end to this?”</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled. It was not a pleasant smile.</p> + +<p>“You want to see the <i>modus operandi?</i> How the conjurer +is going to perform the wonderful feat? Well, it +is very simple. My friend and somewhat cousin, for all his +romance, will not care to marry a girl whose name is +stained with shame. If I know my dear Jack, he will not +care to make an illegitimate child of Gideon Rolfe, the +woodman, Mrs. Newcombe.”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe started.</p> + +<p>“You will tell him?” he said, hoarsely.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Stephen; “I shall tell him the truth, of +course concealing the proper names, and you must be here +to confirm my statement. That is all you have to do. +Mind! not a word of my uncle’s connection with the matter, +or all is lost. You understand?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I understand,” said Gideon, hoarsely. “I care not +by what means so that the marriage is prevented.”</p> + +<p>“Nor I,” said Stephen, coolly; “and now we are agreed +on that point. When I want you I will write to you. Until +then—will you take any refreshment?”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe waved his hand by way of negative, and +Stephen rang the bell. “Show this gentleman out, Slummers. +Mind the lower stairs, the gas has been put out. +Good-night, good-night.”</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> + + +<p>It was settled that Mrs. Davenant, Una and Stephen +should go to the Hurst in a week’s time. Jack had definitely +declined to go to the Hurst. He felt that he would +rather bear the absence of Una for a week or two than go +to the old house, haunted as it was, for him, with so many +memories; but lo and behold, a few days after the dinner +party, had come a note from Lady Bell’s father, asking +him to visit Earl’s Court.</p> + +<p>Of course, Jack accepted gladly enough, without a +thought of Lady Bell, and only remembering that a good +nag would take him from Earl’s Court to Hurst in an hour +and a half, or less.<span class="pagenum">[246]</span></p> + +<p>The week passed rapidly, and with something like restlessness +Lady Bell organized all kinds of outings and expeditions, +in all of which Jack’s services were found to be +indispensable.</p> + +<p>He could not exactly tell how it happened; but he +seemed to spend almost as much time with Lady Bell as +with Una. Now it was to go and try a horse which Lady +Bell wanted to buy; then to select some dogs to take down +to Earl’s Court; and, again, to buy and send down pony-carriages +and dog-carts.</p> + +<p>There was always something to take him to Park Lane, +and though Jack felt inclined to kick at these demands +upon his time, which would otherwise have been spent near +Una, he could not see his way to refuse. Then he was +fond of buying horses, and dogs, and carriages, and used to +hold a <i>levee</i> at Spider Court of disreputable-looking men +in fustian corduroys, much to Leonard Dagle’s disgust.</p> + +<p>“It seems to me, Jack,” he said, “that you have become +Lady Bell’s grand vizier. Do you choose her dress for +her?”</p> + +<p>“Chaff away, old man,” said Jack. “It was only the +other day that you were badgering me with being cool to +her.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, with a purpose,” said Leonard; “but that purpose +has disappeared. Have you been to the Square yet this +morning?”</p> + +<p>“No; I’m going now. No, I can’t, confound it! I +promised to see to the harness for the pair of ponies Lady +Bell bought.”</p> + +<p>Leonard smiled rather grimly.</p> + +<p>“How Miss Una must love Lady Bell,” he said, ironically.</p> + +<p>“So she does,” said Jack, sharply. “Now don’t pretend +to be cynical, Len. You know as well as I do that I would +spend every hour of my life by Una’s side if I could; but +what can I do?”</p> + +<p>“All right!” said Len, and he fell to work again.</p> + +<p>Strangely enough now, that Jack was so much occupied +with Lady Bell’s affairs, Stephen happened to find more +leisure to visit his mother, and very often he accompanied +her and Una to some concert or picture-gallery to which<span class="pagenum">[247]</span> +Jack was prevented from going. Stephen seemed, in addition, +quite changed, and had become quite the man of +pleasure in contrast to his former habits.</p> + +<p>He rarely appeared at the Square without a nosegay or a +new novel; he took the greatest interest in any subject +which interested Una, and was as attentive to her as if he +had been the most devoted of lovers. Now that Jack was +so much absent, it was he who sat opposite her in the little +brougham, who leaned over her chair at the theater, or rode +beside her in the Row.</p> + +<p>At first Una felt rather constrained by his constant attendance; +she had been so used to have Jack at her side +that she felt embarrassed with Stephen; but Stephen, +whose tact was second only to his cunning, soon put her at +her ease. She found that it was not necessary to talk to +him, that she might sit by his side or ride with him for +an hour without uttering a word, and was quite free to +think of Jack while Stephen chatted on in his smooth, insinuating +voice.</p> + +<p>And so the very effect Stephen desired to produce came +about; she got accustomed to have him near her, and got to +feel at her ease in his presence. But how long the mornings +seemed! and how she longed for Jack and wondered +what he was doing! If anyone had openly told her she +was jealous of Lady Bell, she would have repudiated the +idea with scorn too deep for anything but a smile; and +yet—and yet—that bright, happy look which Lady Bell +had so much admired, grew fainter and fainter, and nearly +disappeared, reviving only when Jack hurried in to +spend a few hours with her, and then hurried off to keep +some engagement with Lady Bell or on Lady Bell’s affairs.</p> + +<p>But never by word or look did Una show that his absence +pained her; instead, she was always the first to remind +him of his engagements and to bid him depart.</p> + +<p>At last the day arrived for her departure to Hurst. Lady +Bell did not go down to Earl’s Court till three days later, +and Jack, of course, had to remain in town for a day or +two after that.</p> + +<p>“It is the first time we have been parted for twenty-four +hours since that happy day I learned you loved me, my darling!”<span class="pagenum">[248]</span> +he whispered as he held Una in his arms: “I almost +wish that I had accepted Stephen’s invitation. But—but +I could not sleep under the old roof—by Heaven, I +could not! You cannot understand——”</p> + +<p>“But I do,” murmured Una; “and I am glad you are not +coming. If——”</p> + +<p>And she paused.</p> + +<p>“Well, darling?” asked Jack, kissing her.</p> + +<p>“If you had said half a word, I would not have gone.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?” said Jack, with a sigh. “Yes, I am glad +you are going. You will see the old house in which I was +so happy as a boy—which I once thought would have been +mine.”</p> + +<p>“Dear Jack!” she murmured; and her hand smoothed +the hair from his forehead caressingly and comfortingly.</p> + +<p>“Well, never mind,” said Jack; “it is better as it is. +Perhaps I should have had the Hurst, and have lost you; +and I would rather lose the whole earth than you, my darling! +Besides, Stephen has turned out a better fellow than +I thought him, and deserves all he has got, and will make +a better use of it than I should. No, I am content—I have +got the greatest treasure on earth!”</p> + +<p>And he pressed her closer to him, and kissed her again +and again until, from very shame, she slid from his grasp.</p> + +<p>Stephen had engaged a first-class carriage, had even +taken the precaution to order foot-warmers, though the +weather was not yet winterish, and if he had been the +personal attendant on a sovereign, and that sovereign had +been Una, he could not have been more anxious for her +comfort. He was so thoughtful and considerate that there +was nothing left for Jack to do but go down to the station +and see them off.</p> + +<p>“Four days only, my darling,” he whispered, as the +train was starting; “they will seem years to me.”</p> + +<p>And he clung to her hand to the last moment, much to +the disgust of the guard and porters, who expected to see +him dragged under the train. Then he went back to +Spider Court, feeling cold, chilly and miserable, as if the +sun had been put out.</p> + +<p>“Len, I wish I had gone!” he exclaimed, as he opened +the door.<span class="pagenum">[249]</span></p> + +<p>But there was no Len to hear him—the room was empty.</p> + +<p>“Great Heaven! has everyone disappeared?” he exclaimed, +irritably, and flung himself out of the house and +into a hansom.</p> + +<p>“Where to?” said the cabman, and Jack, half absently, +answered:</p> + +<p>“Park Lane.”</p> + +<p>The man had often driven him before, and he drove +straight to Lady Bell’s.</p> + +<p>Jack walked into the drawing-room quite naturally—the +room was familiar to him—and sat down before the +fire; and Lady Bell came in with outstretched hand.</p> + +<p>It was a comfort to have someone left, and Jack greeted +her warmly, more warmly than he knew or intended. Lady +Bell’s face flushed as he held her hand longer than was +absolutely necessary.</p> + +<p>“Thank Heaven! there is someone left,” he said, devoutly. +“They have all gone, and Len is out, and——”</p> + +<p>“I am left,” said Lady Bell. “Well, you are just in +time for luncheon. I half expected you, and I have told +them to make a curry.”</p> + +<p>Curry was one of Jack’s weaknesses.</p> + +<p>“That is very kind of you,” he said, gratefully. He felt, +very unreasonably, neglected somehow. “You always seem +to know what a fellow likes.”</p> + +<p>“That’s because I have a good memory,” said Lady Bell, +smiling down at him. “I shall take care to have plenty of +curries at Earl’s Court. And, by the way, will you choose +a paper for the smoking-room down there? I have told +them that they must do it at once.”</p> + +<p>Jack rose without a word; he had been choosing papers +and decorations for a week past, and it did not seem +strange. Luncheon was announced while they were discussing +the paper, and Jack gave her his arm. Mrs. Fellowes +was the only other person present, and she sat reading +a novel, deaf and blind to all else. Not but what she +might have heard every word, for the young people talked +of the most commonplace subjects, and Jack was very absent-minded, +thinking of Una, and quite unconscious of<span class="pagenum">[250]</span> +the light which beamed in Lady Bell’s eyes when they +rested on him.</p> + +<p>Then they rode in the Row; he could do no less than +offer to accompany her, and Mrs. Fellowes wanted to see +a piece at one of the theaters, and Jack went to book +seats, and took one for himself, and sat staring at the +stage and thinking of Una; but he sat behind Lady Bell’s +chair, and spoke to her occasionally, and Lady Bell was +content.</p> + +<p>Hetley and Arkroyd were in the stalls, and saw him.</p> + +<p>“Jack’s making the running,” said Lord Dalrymple, +eying the box through his opera glass. “He’s the winning +horse, and we, the field, are nowhere.”</p> + +<p>And not only those two, but many others, remarked on +Jack’s close attendance on the great heiress, and not a few +who would have gone to the box if he had not been there, +kept away.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Jack, simple, unsuspecting Jack, was bestowing +scarcely a thought on the beautiful woman by his +side, and thinking of Una miles away.</p> + +<p>The theater over, and Lady Bell put into the carriage, +he looked in at the club, sauntered into the card-room, +smoked a cigar in the smoking-room, and then went home +to Spider Court.</p> + +<p>Much to his surprise he found Leonard up, not only up, +but pacing the room, his face flushed and agitated.</p> + +<p>“Hallo!” exclaimed Jack, “what’s the matter? And +where on earth have you been?”</p> + +<p>“Jack, I have found her!”</p> + +<p>“That’s just what I said some months ago!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know. I have been thinking how strangely +alike our love affairs have been. It is my turn now. I +have found her!”</p> + +<p>“What, this young lady, Laura Treherne?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Leonard, with a long breath.</p> + +<p>“Tell me all about it,” said Jack. “Hold hard a minute, +till I get something to drink. Now, fire away.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Leonard, still pacing up and down, and +seeming scarcely conscious of Jack’s presence, “I was +walking in the park. You know the place, that quiet walk +under the beeches. I was thinking of you and your love<span class="pagenum">[251]</span> +affairs, when I saw, sitting under a tree, a figure that I +knew at once. For a moment I could not move, and +scarcely think; then I wondered how I should get to speak to +her; but presently, when I had pulled myself together, +I saw that she had dropped her handkerchief, and I went +and picked it up and took it to her.”</p> + +<p>“A fine opening,” muttered Jack.</p> + +<p>Leonard Dagle evidently did not hear him.</p> + +<p>“Well, she started when I approached her, and merely +thanked me with a bow, but I was determined not to let +her go this time, and I said, ‘Pardon me, but we have met before.’ +‘Where?’ said she. ‘In a railway carriage,’ I said, +and she looked at me, and trembled. ‘I remember,’ she +said, and I swear I saw her shudder. ‘Since then,’ I said, +‘I have sought you far and near.’ ‘Why should you do +that?’ she asked.”</p> + +<p>“A very natural question,” interjected Jack.</p> + +<p>“Then I told her. I told her that from that hour I had +been unable to rid my mind of her face, that it had +haunted me; that I had followed her and learned her address; +and that though I had lost her I had sought her all +over London.”</p> + +<p>“Was she angry?” asked Jack.</p> + +<p>“At first she was,” said Leonard, “very angry, but something +in my voice or my face—Heaven knows I was earnest +enough! convinced her that I meant no harm, and she +listened.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Jack, interested and excited.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Leonard, “we sat talking for an hour, perhaps +more, and she has promised to meet me again; at +least she admitted that she walked in the park every afternoon. +I tried to get her address, but she told me plainly +that she would not give it to me.”</p> + +<p>“And is that all you learned?” asked Jack, with something +like good-natured contempt.</p> + +<p>“No!” replied Leonard. “I learned that she had been injured—oh, +not in the way you think—and that she had +some purpose to effect—some wrong to right.”</p> + +<p>“And of course you offered to help her?” said Jack.</p> + +<p>“I offered to help her; I laid my services, my whole +time and strength, at her disposal; I went so far as to beseech<span class="pagenum">[252]</span> +her to tell me what this purpose, this wrong was; +but she would not tell me, and so we parted. But we are +to meet again. She is much changed; paler and thinner +than when I saw her in the railway carriage, but still +more beautiful in my eyes than any other woman in the +world.”</p> + +<p>“It is a strange affair,” mused Jack. “Quite a romance +in its way. Isn’t it funny, Len, that both our love affairs +should be romantic, and so much alike!”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Leonard, “very. But mine has scarcely begun, +while yours has ended happily, or will do so, if you +do not play the fool!”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” asked Jack, sharply.</p> + +<p>“Where have you been to-night?” asked Leonard.</p> + +<p>“To the theater with Lady Bell.”</p> + +<p>“I expected as much,” said Leonard, and he fell to at +his writing, and would say no more, though Jack stormed +and raved.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the Davenant party had, thanks to Stephen, +made a comfortable journey. They found a carriage and +pair waiting for them at the station; not the ramshackle +vehicle of the old squire’s time, but a new carriage from +the best man in Long Acre, and they were rolled along the +country lanes in a style Ralph Davenant would have marveled +at.</p> + +<p>Presently they came in sight of the Hurst, and Mrs. +Davenant uttered an exclamation.</p> + +<p>“Why, Stephen, it is altered!” she said.</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled proudly.</p> + +<p>Short as the time had been he had effected a radical +change in the old house; a hundred workmen had been +busy, and the ramshackle old mansion had been transformed. +Wings had been added, the grounds had been +newly laid out; the road, even, had been altered, and they +drove through an avenue of thriving young limes.</p> + +<p>Una, silent and interested, kept her eyes fixed on the +house. She had often heard Jack describe it, but this palatial +residence did not answer to his description. Stephen’s +money and energy had entirely transformed the place.</p> + +<p>The carriage pulled up at the entrance, and half a dozen +grooms flew to the horses’ heads: footmen in handsome<span class="pagenum">[253]</span> +liveries stood in attendance, and the servants formed a +lane for their master to pass through. Una had often read +of such a reception, but here was a reality.</p> + +<p>Stephen helped her to alight, and took her and his +mother on his arm, his head erect, a warm flush on his +cheek.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the flush disappeared and a frown took its +place as he saw amongst the crowd gathered together at +the entrance the parchment-like visage of old Skettle.</p> + +<p>But the frown disappeared as he entered the house, and +stood silent, listening to the approving comments of Mrs. +Davenant.</p> + +<p>“My dear Stephen,” she said, “you have certainly altered +the place—I should not have known it. And is this what +was the gloomy old Hall?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Stephen, proudly, and he glanced round at +the alterations with an air of satisfaction, and looked at +Una’s face for some sign of approval.</p> + +<p>But Una was looking around anxiously. If it was so +much altered, then it was not the old home that Jack knew +and remembered.</p> + +<p>“You will find everything altered and improved, I hope,” +said Stephen.</p> + +<p>Altered, indeed! They have even shifted the old staircase, +so that it would have been difficult to have found the +room in which the old squire died, exclaiming:</p> + +<p>“You thief! you thief! what have you done with the +will?”</p> + +<p>Yes, indeed, there was great alteration. The old squire, +if he had come to life again, would not have known Hurst +as Stephen had made it. Masons, carpenters, and decorators +had been at work to some purpose. Everything was +changed, and unmistakably for the better.</p> + +<p>Stephen looked around with an air of pride.</p> + +<p>“They have been very quick,” he said. “I placed it in +good hands. You will find everything you require up-stairs. +You must know,” he said, turning to Una, “that I +found the place little better than a barn, and have done +my best to make it fit to receive you! You are looking +at the portraits,” he added, seeing Una’s gaze wandering +along the double line of dead and gone Davenants. Most<span class="pagenum">[254]</span> +of them you would not have seen two months ago, they +had been terribly neglected, but I have had them cleaned +and renewed. That is the old squire, my poor uncle,” and +he sighed comfortably.</p> + +<p>Una paused before this, the last portrait of the series, +and looked at it long and curiously, and the other two +stood and watched her, Stephen with a keen glance of +scrutiny and with a nervous tremor about his heart. If +she could but know that she was looking at the portrait of +her own father! Una turned away at last with a faint +sigh. She was thinking that this was the old man who +had once loved Jack and left him to poverty.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant shuddered slightly.</p> + +<p>“He was a terrible old man, my dear,” she murmured, +“and always frightened me. I trembled when he looked +at me.”</p> + +<p>“He does not look so terrible,” said Una, sadly.</p> + +<p>Stephen fidgeted slightly.</p> + +<p>“Come,” he said, “you must not catch cold. Your maids +are here by this time. Will you go up to your room? The +housekeeper will show them to you, and I hope you will +find everything comfortable.”</p> + +<p>Very slowly, looking to right and left of her, Una followed +Mrs. Davenant up the broad staircase.</p> + +<p>The place seemed to have a strange fascination for her; +she could almost have persuaded herself that she had been +in it before, and it seemed familiar, though so much +changed from all likeness to Jack’s description of it.</p> + +<p>They found the rooms upstairs beautifully decorated, +and furnished in the most approved and luxurious style. +Lady Bell’s house in Park Lane even was eclipsed.</p> + +<p>“Stephen has made it a palace,” said Mrs. Davenant. +“How I used to hate it in the old time! it was so dark +and grim and gloomy, always felt dull and damp. Stephen +tells me that he has had it thoroughly drained after +the new fashion, and that it is quite dry. Such a palace +as this wants a mistress; I wish he would marry.”</p> + +<p>“Why do you not tell him so?” said Una, with a smile.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant shook her head nervously.</p> + +<p>“That would do no good, my dear,” she said. “I sometimes +think he will never marry.”<span class="pagenum">[255]</span></p> + +<p>And she glanced at Una with some embarrassment. A +dim suspicion had of late crossed her mind that if Una +had been free, Stephen might have stood in Jack’s place. +She could not help noticing Stephen’s close attendance +on Una—a mother’s eyes are sharp to note such +things.</p> + +<p>If the old squire could have seen the dining-room and +the elaborate <i>menu</i> that evening, he would have stared +and sworn. Stephen had engaged a French cook; the appointments +were as perfect as they could be; the servants +admirably trained, and as to the wines the Hurst cellar +stood second to none in the country.</p> + +<p>It almost seemed as if he were sparing no pains to impress +on Una all that the wife of Stephen Davenant +would possess. And Una, more than half the dinner-time, +was thinking of Jack, and fondly picturing the little house +they had so often talked of setting up when the commissionership +came home. Just at the same time, Jack was +leaning over Lady Bell’s chair in the theater.</p> + +<p>Stephen was in his best mood, and exerted himself to +the uttermost. He described the neighborhood, planned +excursions and expeditions; told innumerable anecdotes of +the village folk, and played the host to perfection.</p> + +<p>In a thousand ways he showed his anxiety for Una’s +comfort; and after dinner he had the place lit up, and +went over it, asking her opinion on this point and the +other, and humbly begging her to suggest alterations. So +much so that Una began to grow shy and reserved, and +shrank closer to Mrs. Davenant; and Stephen, quick to +see when he was going too fast, left them and went to the +library to write letters.</p> + +<p>Now, strange to say, of all the rooms in the house, this +one room remained unaltered. He had not allowed it to +be touched—indeed it was kept closely locked, and the key +never left him night and day. Just as it had been on the +night of the squire’s death, when Stephen stood with the +stolen will in his hand, so it was now.</p> + +<p>He never entered it without a shudder, and all the time +he was in it his eyes unconsciously wandered over the +floor and furniture as if mechanically searching for something.<span class="pagenum">[256]</span></p> + +<p>It exerted a strange, weird influence over him, and +seemed to draw him into it. Tonight he paced up and +down, looking at the familiar objects, and making no attempt +to write his letters.</p> + +<p>His brain was busy, not with schemes of ambition and +avarice, but of love. The blood ran riot in his veins as he +thought that Una was under the same roof as himself, and +one mighty resolve took possession of him.</p> + +<p>“She shall never leave it but to come back as my wife,” +was his resolve.</p> + +<p>Even the lost will did not trouble him tonight. He +had Una in his grasp, Una upon whom everything turned.</p> + +<p>It was far into the morning before he went to bed, and +at the head of the stairs he turned and looked round with +a proud smile.</p> + +<p>“All—all mine!” he muttered, “and I will have her, +too,” and he went to sleep and dreamed, not of Una, but +of Laura Treherne.</p> + +<p>All through the watches of the night the pale, dark face +haunted him. At times he saw it peering at him through +the library window, at others it was pursuing him along an +endless road; but always it wore a threatening aspect and +filled him with a vague terror.</p> + +<p>Some men’s conscience only awake at night.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> + + +<p>If Una had been a queen visiting some distant part of +her realm, more elaborate preparations for her amusement +could not have been made.</p> + +<p>Not a day passed but Stephen had got some proposition +for pleasuring, and he never tired of hunting up some +place to go.</p> + +<p>One morning they would drive to some romantic and +historic spot; another there would be some flower show or +<i>fete</i>, which he insisted upon them seeing; on others, they +would play lawn tennis in the now beautiful grounds. The +fame of the new Hurst had spread abroad, and those of the +county families who were in residence called at once, and +dinner parties were given and accepted. So the week<span class="pagenum">[257]</span> +glided by quickly, even to Una, who reckoned time by the +day on which she would see Jack.</p> + +<p>Every morning there came a scrawl—Jack’s handwriting +was mysterious and terrible—from him; in every letter +he expressed his longing to see her, and the hateful +time he was having in town. But every letter had some +mention of Lady Bell; and it was evident that he spent +most of his time at Park Lane.</p> + +<p>But Una was not jealous—she put away from her resolutely +any feeling of that kind.</p> + +<p>“I am so glad that Lady Bell is in town, and that Jack +has some place to go to,” she said to Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Davenant smiled; but sighed at the same time. +To her, as to others, it seemed that Jack spent too much +time in attendance upon the great heiress.</p> + +<p>Stephen’s money flew, it was scattered about in every +direction; but still he was not popular. Men touched their +hats, but they never smiled as they had done at the old +squire, and as they had done at Jack. There was something +about Stephen that the Hurst folk could not and +would not take to; and even while they were drinking with +his money, they talked of Master Jack and shook their +heads regretfully.</p> + +<p>And Stephen knew it, and hated them all; but most of +all hated old Skettle. It seemed as if the old man was +ubiquitous; he was everywhere. Stephen could not take +a walk outside the grounds but he came upon the old man; +and, though Skettle always raised his hat and gave him +“Good-day,” Stephen felt the small, keen eyes watching +him. Of Hudsley he had seen nothing.</p> + +<p>At last the county papers announced the important fact +that Lady Earlsley had arrived at Earl’s Court, and Una +knew that in two days she would see Jack.</p> + +<p>That night Stephen was more attentive than ever. They +had been dining out at a neighbor’s, and were sitting in +the drawing-room, talking over the evening. The prospect +of Jack’s coming had brought a glad light to Una’s +eyes—a brighter color to her face. In two days she should +see him! In her happiness she felt amiable and tender +to all around her, and, for the first time, she responded to +Stephen’s unceasing devotion. He had brought in from<span class="pagenum">[258]</span> +the new library a whole pile of books relating to the county, +and was showing and explaining the illustrations.</p> + +<p>“That is Earl’s Court,” he said; “a beautiful place, isn’t +it? But Lady Bell has several grander places than that.”</p> + +<p>“She is very rich,” said Una.</p> + +<p>“Very,” he said, thoughtfully. “It’s a pity that she +does not marry.”</p> + +<p>Una smiled.</p> + +<p>“She says that she will never marry,” she said.</p> + +<p>Stephen looked up.</p> + +<p>“And yet a little while ago they were saying that she +would be married before the year was out.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed!” said Una.</p> + +<p>“It would be a grand match for any one,” said Stephen. +“It would have been a great match for him.”</p> + +<p>“For him?” said Una. “Who was it?”</p> + +<p>Stephen started and looked embarrassed, as if he had +made a slip of the tongue.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he said, with a little, awkward laugh; “but—are +you jealous? Perhaps I ought not to tell tales out of +school, though the affair is off long ago, and he has made +a happier choice.”</p> + +<p>Una put the fire screen on one side and looked at him +calmly. He was sitting almost at her feet. Mrs. Davenant +was dozing in her accustomed arm-chair.</p> + +<p>“Of whom do you speak?” she asked.</p> + +<p>Stephen hesitated, as if reluctant to reply.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he said, “it is mere gossip, of course, but gossip +awarded the great prize of the season to a near and +dear friend of yours.”</p> + +<p>Una’s heart beat fast. She guessed what was coming.</p> + +<p>“Tell me,” she said, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>“Tut!” said Stephen, as if ashamed to retail such idle +gossip.</p> + +<p>“Well, they said that Jack meant to marry the great +heiress.”</p> + +<p>“It is not true,” Una said; but her color went, and left +her quite pale and cold.</p> + +<p>“Of course not,” said Stephen, cheerfully; “though I +would not say but there was some excuse for the rumor. +Jack was a great deal at Park Lane until he met—one who<span class="pagenum">[259]</span> +shall be nameless.” And he looked up at her with a smile. +“Why, they went so far as to congratulate him,” he said, +laughing as if at an excellent joke. “And indeed I think +if Jack had said ‘Yes,’ Lady Bell would not have said +‘No.’ So, you see, that you have made a veritable conquest!”</p> + +<p>And he laughed again.</p> + +<p>But there was no answering smile on Una’s pale face. +It was not of Lady Bell she thought, but of herself and +Jack.</p> + +<p>It was true she had stepped in between Jack and +wealth and prosperity—she, the penniless daughter of a +woodman, had prevented his marrying the great heiress +and becoming the master of Earl’s Court and all the +Earlsley wealth! A chill passed over her, and she raised +the screen to hide her face from Stephen’s eye.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it would have been a great match for Jack,” he +said, carelessly—“it would have set him on his feet, as +they say. But he is still more fortunate.” And he sighed.</p> + +<p>Una rose.</p> + +<p>“I think I will go up now,” she said; and she went and +woke Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>Stephen escorted them to the head of the stairs, smiling +as if nothing had been said, and then went straight to the +old library and rang the bell.</p> + +<p>It was understood that no one was to answer the library +bell but Slummers, and Slummers now appeared.</p> + +<p>Stephen wrote two letters; one ran thus:</p> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">My Dear Mr. Rolfe</span>:—Be kind enough to be at my +chambers tomorrow morning at eight o’clock.”</p> + +<p>The other was still more short; it was addressed to Mr. +Levy Moss:</p> + +<p>“Put on the screw at once.”</p> + +<p>Calmly and leisurely he put them in their envelopes, as +if the fate and happiness of two souls were not hanging +upon them, and gave them to Slummers.</p> + +<p>“Take the morning express and deliver these yourself,” +he said, quietly. “I shall follow you by the midday +train. When you have done so, find Mr. Newcombe and +keep him in sight. You understand?”</p> + +<p>“Quite, sir,” said Slummers, and disappeared as silently +as usual.<span class="pagenum">[260]</span></p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> + + +<p>It was Jack’s last day in town. Tomorrow he would be +at Earl’s Court, and in the evening would be riding as +fast as a horse could carry him to Una.</p> + +<p>The hours seemed to drift with leaden wings.</p> + +<p>It was no use going to Park Lane, for the blinds were +down, and Lady Bell was at Earl’s Court. It was no use +going to the club, for the whitewashers had taken possession +of it; never had Jack been so utterly bored and +wearied. At last he strolled into the park, and sat on one +of the seats and stared at the Row, giving himself up to +thoughts of Una, and picturing their meeting on the +morrow.</p> + +<p>He lingered in the park till dusk: then he went home to +dress.</p> + +<p>“Still writing, old man?” he said, as he entered, and +laid his hand on Leonard’s shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Halloa! is that you, Jack?” said Leonard, throwing +down his pen. “I have been expecting you.”</p> + +<p>“Why for?” asked Jack, yawning. Then he looked up +curiously. “I wish I’d known it; I’d have come home. +Look here, Len, we’ll go and dine somewhere; if there +is anything left to eat in this howling desert of a London. +If ever any man was bored to death and sick of it, +I am this day. Twenty-four hours more of it, and I +should chuck myself into the Serpentine! I never spent +such a day——”</p> + +<p>He stopped suddenly, for he became conscious that +Leonard was standing, looking down at him with a grave +and earnest regard.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter, old man?” he asked.</p> + +<p>Leonard hesitated.</p> + +<p>“Jack,” he said, at last, “Moss has been here.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, has he?” said Jack, carelessly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, and there is trouble about. He is pressing for +his money.”</p> + +<p>“What!” exclaimed Jack.</p> + +<p>Leonard nodded.</p> + +<p>“Yes, he means mischief; he made quite a fuss here. +Said he had a heavy claim to meet——”<span class="pagenum">[261]</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, I know that old yarn.”</p> + +<p>“And that he must and would have money to meet those +bills of yours.”</p> + +<p>Jack looked grave.</p> + +<p>“Did he mean it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Leonard. “Thanks to you, I know Mr. +Levy Moss by this time, and I am sure he was in earnest.”</p> + +<p>“Confound him!” muttered Jack.</p> + +<p>“Confounding him won’t pay him,” said Leonard, sensibly.</p> + +<p>Jack rose and paced the room.</p> + +<p>“What am I to do, Len?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Leonard. “If I could help you—but +all I have wouldn’t meet one bill.”</p> + +<p>“And I wouldn’t take it if it would,” said Jack. “But +I can’t understand it! Only last week he was bothering +me to take a hundred or two.”</p> + +<p>Leonard shook his head.</p> + +<p>“All I can tell you is, that he was simply furious. He +said that he must and would have some money, that if you +did not pay him he would——”</p> + +<p>“Well?” said Jack, grimly.</p> + +<p>“That he would put you through the Court,” said Leonard.</p> + +<p>Jack turned pale.</p> + +<p>“What am I to do?” he said. “I have been relying on +the commissionership that Stephen promised, and Moss +seemed quite willing to wait. I can’t find any money.”</p> + +<p>Leonard shook his head.</p> + +<p>“The man was furious. Worse than I have ever seen +him. You will have to find some money somewhere. +How much do you owe him?”</p> + +<p>Jack tilted his hat on one side and scratched his head.</p> + +<p>“Hanged if I know. He has let me have a great deal +lately. Five hundred, perhaps.”</p> + +<p>“Jack, you have been a fool,” said Leonard. “I told +you that it was no use counting upon the place your +cousin Stephen promised you.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t so much care for myself, but Una, Una,” said +Jack, with a groan. Then he jumped up. “Let us go and +get some dinner, and think it over.”<span class="pagenum">[262]</span></p> + +<p>They went to a well-known house in Strand, and Jack, +careless Jack, ordered a dinner fit for a prince, and enjoyed +it as he would have enjoyed it if he had been going +to be hanged on the morrow.</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand Moss,” he said. “He was everything +that was agreeable and pleasant a few days ago.”</p> + +<p>“And today he was like a wolf hunting for a bone,” said +Leonard. “Hello, who’s this?” for a gentleman had entered +the dining-room and approached their table.</p> + +<p>“Why, it’s Stephen!” exclaimed Jack, forgetting Moss +in a moment. “Just in time, Stephen, we’ll have another +bottle of claret up. What on earth brings you to town? +And how is—how are they all?”</p> + +<p>Stephen sat down with a grave smile, and just sipped +the claret, the best the house had on its list. And he sat +and talked till the wine was finished, the greater part of +which Jack drank, then he said:</p> + +<p>“Jack, I want you to come to my chambers; I have +something to tell you.”</p> + +<p>“All right,” said Jack. “Leonard can find his way +home very well.”</p> + +<p>Stephen called a hansom, and they were rattled away to +the Albany.</p> + +<p>As they ascended the stairs, Stephen laid his hand on +Jack’s arm.</p> + +<p>“Jack, I am sorry to say I have bad news for you. +You will be calm.”</p> + +<p>“Bad news!” said Jack, and his heart stood still. +“What is it? Una——”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Stephen; “it is about Una. You will be +calm, my dear Jack?”</p> + +<p>Jack leaned against the balustrade and drew a long +breath.</p> + +<p>“Is she ill—dead?” he gasped.</p> + +<p>“Neither,” said Stephen. “Come, be a man.”</p> + +<p>“I am ready,” said Jack. “If she is neither ill nor dead +I can bear anything else.”</p> + +<p>Stephen opened the door, and Jack, entering, saw +Gideon Rolfe standing on the hearthrug.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Rolfe!” he exclaimed. “How do you do? I am +very glad to see you!” and he held out his hand.<span class="pagenum">[263]</span></p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe nodded and turned aside.</p> + +<p>“What is it? What is the matter?” asked Jack, turning +to Stephen, who had carefully closed the door and stood +with knitted brow and sad countenance.</p> + +<p>At Jack’s question he glanced at Rolfe, and then, with a +sigh, said:</p> + +<p>“Yes, Jack, I will tell you. It will come better from +me than Mr. Rolfe. Jack, you were right in suspecting +that the business referred to Una. She is quite well—and +happy. But—but I am afraid your engagement must +cease.”</p> + +<p>At this, Jack’s calmness came back to him, and with +something like a smile, he said, scornfully:</p> + +<p>“Indeed!”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Gideon Rolfe, but Stephen held up his +hand and silenced him.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you will tell me for what reason?” said Jack, +quietly.</p> + +<p>“For a sad, very sad reason,” said Stephen, in a subdued +and mournful tone. “Jack, my heart bleeds for you——”</p> + +<p>“Never mind your heart,” said Jack, curtly. “Come +to the point, Stephen.”</p> + +<p>“I sympathize with you deeply,” continued Stephen, not +at all affronted. “The fact is, Mr. Rolfe has tonight +made a communication respecting our dear young friend, +which has completely overwhelmed me——”</p> + +<p>“Let me see if it will overwhelm me,” said Jack. “What +is it?”</p> + +<p>“My dear Jack, it is a story involving shame——”</p> + +<p>“Shame!” echoed Jack, and his brow darkened. “To +whom?”</p> + +<p>“To those who can feel shame no longer,” said +Stephen; “but alas! its shadow falls on a young life as innocent +and pure as the angels.”</p> + +<p>“On Una?” demanded Jack, fiercely.</p> + +<p>Stephen bowed his head.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Jack. Una is a nameless child—she is illegitimate.”</p> + +<p>Jack reeled and fell into a chair, and there he sat for +a moment.</p> + +<p>“It is a lie!” he said at last.<span class="pagenum">[264]</span></p> + +<p>“It is true!” said the deep voice of Gideon Rolfe; and +Jack, fixing his startled eyes on the rough, ragged face, +knew that it was the truth.</p> + +<p>With a groan he covered his face with his hands; then +he started up and struck the table a blow that made +Stephen wince.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he exclaimed, with a short laugh—“well, what +business is it of anyone’s but mine and Una’s? What do +I care whether she is illegitimate or not? Let her be the +daughter of whom she may, married or unmarried, it matters +not to me. She <i>is</i> Una, and that is enough!”</p> + +<p>His voice rang out loud and clear as a bell’s tone, and +he looked from one to the other defiantly.</p> + +<p>“And now that is settled,” he said, sternly. “Let us +come to particulars, to proof. Mr. Rolfe, though I know +you are averse to our marriage, I believe you. I do not +think you are capable of inventing a lie—a base, fiendish +lie—to serve your ends. But all the same I ask, and not +without reason, some proofs. First, who are Una’s parents?”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe was about to reply, but a glance from +Stephen stopped him.</p> + +<p>“That is the question I have implored Mr. Rolfe to +answer,” he said. “I have entreated him to give us some +information, but he declines. It is a secret which he says +shall go down to the grave with him, unless——”</p> + +<p>“Unless what?” demanded Jack, hoarsely.</p> + +<p>“Unless you are still determined to hold Una to her +engagement. Then——”</p> + +<p>He paused, and Jack looked from one to the other.</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“Then he declares he will go to Una and inform her of +the shame that clings to her name.”</p> + +<p>Jack uttered a low cry and sank back in his chair. He +saw by what heavy chains he was bound. To get possession +of Una he must inflict the agony of shame upon her.</p> + +<p>If ever a man loved truly and nobly Jack loved Una. +He would have died the death to spare her a moment’s +pain; and here was this man threatening to darken and +curse her whole life if he, Jack, did not relinquish her.<span class="pagenum">[265]</span></p> + +<p>“Are you human?” he said, turning his eyes upon Gideon +Rolfe with a wild, hunted gaze.</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe smiled bitterly.</p> + +<p>“I am human enough to prevent this marriage.”</p> + +<p>Jack rose and confronted him.</p> + +<p>“I will not give her up,” he said hoarsely. “I defy +you!”</p> + +<p>“Good!” said Gideon Rolfe. “Then I go to the girl and +acquaint her with the true story of her birth. If I know +her—and I do—she has sufficient pride to prevent her +staining so honorable a family as the Davenants by marrying +into it,” and he sneered bitterly.</p> + +<p>Jack’s face flushed.</p> + +<p>“You professed to love her,” he said. “Are you totally +indifferent to her happiness?”</p> + +<p>“No happiness could follow her union to one of your +race,” said Gideon Rolfe.</p> + +<p>Stephen trembled. He was playing a dangerous and +desperate game. A word from Rolfe might put Jack in +possession of Una’s real parentage, and Stephen would +be ruined.</p> + +<p>“My dear Jack,” he said, sorrowfully, “I have besought +Mr. Rolfe, almost on my knees, to hold his hand, but he is +like stone—immovable.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause.</p> + +<p>Jack stood, his brain in a whirl, his heart beating wildly. +His frenzied brain saw the whole thing clearly. On one +side stood his passionate love and his life-long happiness, +on the other Una’s shame and agony.</p> + +<p>“I love her so!” he moaned.</p> + +<p>“You say that you love her,” said Gideon Rolfe, sternly. +“Prove it by saving her from the knowledge of the shame +which clings to her name. If your love is worth anything +it will make that sacrifice. Remember, it is on your side +only. She is young—a mere girl, a few weeks, months at +most, and she will have learned to forget you.”</p> + +<p>“That’s a lie, at least,” groaned Jack. “I know her better +than you.”</p> + +<p>“No matter,” said Gideon Rolfe, coldly. “Time will +heal a disappointed love; no time can heal an undying +shame.”<span class="pagenum">[266]</span></p> + +<p>Jack rose and paced the room.</p> + +<p>“Leave me alone for a few minutes,” he said hoarsely. +“I must think this out; nothing you can say can influence +me.”</p> + +<p>At a signal from Stephen, Gideon Rolfe remained silent.</p> + +<p>Five minutes passed and then Jack came to the light.</p> + +<p>The handsome face was haggard and white and so +changed that ten years might have passed over his head in +those few minutes.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Rolfe,” he said, and his voice was broken and +hollow, “why you bear me such deadly enmity I cannot +imagine, and you will not tell me?”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe made a gesture of assent.</p> + +<p>“It is a mystery to me; I only know its results. Once +more I ask you to relent, and spare the unhappiness of +both of us.”</p> + +<p>“I am resolved,” said Gideon. “Either relinquish her +or I tell her all. The decision is in your hands. I do not +doubt you will seize your happiness, even at the cost of +her shame.”</p> + +<p>“Then you wrong me,” said Jack. “Rather than she +should know the shadow which hangs on her life I relinquish +her.”</p> + +<p>A light gleamed in Stephen’s eyes, and his lips twitched.</p> + +<p>“This I do,” continued Jack, in a voice so low and +broken that it scarcely reached them, “placing implicit +trust in your assertion that she is—as you state.”</p> + +<p>He drew a long breath.</p> + +<p>“I dare not risk it; but if in the future I should find +that you have played me false—if, I say, this should prove +a lie, then I tell you beware, for, as there is a Heaven +above us, I will take my vengeance.”</p> + +<p>“So be it,” said Gideon Rolfe, grimly. “Now write,” +and he pointed to a bureau on which stood pen and paper, +as if prepared for use.</p> + +<p>Jack started.</p> + +<p>“You will not take my word?” he said, bitterly.</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe hesitated; but, at a glance from Stephen, +said:</p> + +<p>“Let the knowledge that the engagement is at an end +come from you; it will be better so.”<span class="pagenum">[267]</span></p> + +<p>Jack went to the bureau and sank into a chair.</p> + +<p>Yes, if the blow must be dealt it better be by his hands, +as tenderly as possible.</p> + +<p>He sat for some moments with his head in his hands, +as utterly oblivious of the presence of the others as if +they were absent.</p> + +<p>Before him rose the lovely face with its trustful eyes; +in his ears rang the musical voice which he should never +hear again.</p> + +<p>What should he write? Why should he write?</p> + +<p>Stephen stole behind him.</p> + +<p>“You will be careful to conceal the truth, my dear +Jack,” he murmured.</p> + +<p>Jack started, and turned upon him with a look that +caused Stephen to shrink back behind the table.</p> + +<p>“For what am I giving up what is most precious in +life?” he said hoarsely.</p> + +<p>Then in sheer despair he seized the pen, and wrote in a +trembling hand:</p> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">My Dearest</span>:—Since you left me, circumstances have +occurred which have changed the current of both our lives. +I dare not tell you more, but I pray, I beseech, you not +to misjudge me. If you knew the position in which I am +placed, you would understand why I am acting thus, and +instead of condemning, pity me. Una, from this moment +our lives are separate. Heaven send you happiness, and—as +I know your true, loving heart—forgetfulness. I +cannot tell you more—would to Heaven that I could. +From the first I have been unworthy of you; I am more +unworthy now than ever. I dare not ask of you to remember +me; forget me, Una, forget that such a person as +I ever crossed your path. Would to Heaven that we had +never met! Don’t think hardly of me, my darling, whatever +you may hear. What I am doing is as much for your +good as for mine. Good-bye. I shall never cease to remember +and love you, whatever happens. Good-bye!</p> + +<div class="sign"> +“<span class="smcap">Jack.</span>” +</div> + +<p class="r2">Blotted and smeared, he enclosed it in an envelope, and +dropped it before Gideon Rolfe; then he looked round +for his hat.</p> + +<p>“A glass of wine, Jack?” murmured Stephen.<span class="pagenum">[268]</span></p> + +<p>But Jack took no more notice than if he had been deaf, +and seizing his hat staggered from the room.</p> + +<p>Stephen drew a long breath.</p> + +<p>“Well, Mr. Rolfe,” he said, “we have conquered. As +for this note, I will see that it is delivered at a proper +opportunity.”</p> + +<p>“Good,” said Gideon Rolfe; then he paused, and +frowned sternly. “I am sorry for the young man.”</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled, and waved his hand.</p> + +<p>“A mere fancy,” he said, lightly. “My dear Jack is +apt to take these matters as very serious, but he generally +manages to get over them. And now what will you take +to drink, Mr. Rolfe?”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe waved his hand and put on his hat.</p> + +<p>“I leave the letter with you,” he said. “Good-night.”</p> + +<p>Stephen filled a wine glass with brandy, and drank it +off, his hand shaking. Then he eyed Jack’s letter curiously, +and at last held the envelope over the steam of the +hot water, and drew it apart.</p> + +<p>“A very sensible letter,” he muttered, as he read. +“Ambiguous, but all the better for that. Really, anyone +reading this, would conclude that Jack had made up his +mind to marry Lady Bell, and was ashamed to say so.”</p> + +<p>Then he reclosed the envelope, and went to bed, and +slept the sleep of the just.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Jack strode around the streets of London, +his brain in a whirl, half mad with “the desperation of +despair,” as a poet has it.</p> + +<p>At last he reached home, and found the rooms dark and +lonesome, and Leonard in bed.</p> + +<p>He sat down and wrote a short note to Lady Bell, telling +her that things had turned up which prevented him +coming to Earl’s Court—giving no reason, but just simply +the fact. Then he turned out, and he walked about till +daylight.</p> + +<p>When he came in Leonard was at breakfast, and stared +aghast at Jack’s haggard face and changed appearance.</p> + +<p>“My dear old man,” he commenced, but Jack cut him +short.</p> + +<p>“Len, I’m the most miserable wretch in existence.<span class="pagenum">[269]</span> +Don’t ask me the why and the wherefore; but all is over +between me and Una.”</p> + +<p>“Impossible!” said Leonard.</p> + +<p>“Impossible, but true,” retorted Jack. “All is over between +us, and if you value our friendship you will not +mention her name again.”</p> + +<p>“But——” said Leonard.</p> + +<p>“Enough,” said Jack. “I tell you that it is so.”</p> + +<p>“Moss has been here again,” Leonard said.</p> + +<p>“I don’t care.”</p> + +<p>“But, my dear fellow——”</p> + +<p>“I don’t care,” said Jack, stolidly. “A hundred Mosses +wouldn’t matter to me now. Let him do his worst.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t know what his worst is,” said Leonard. “He +has got you in his power.”</p> + +<p>“All right,” said Jack, coolly. “Let him exercise it to +his uttermost.”</p> + +<p>Leonard had never seen Jack like this.</p> + +<p>“Listen to me,” he said. “If Moss does all he can do, +he can expel you from any club in London, can make +you an utter out-cast. Come, Jack, be reasonable.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t be reasonable!” retorted Jack. “I am utterly +ruined and undone. With Una everything that is worth +living for has gone. I care nothing for Moss or anything +he can do.”</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> + + +<p>“In another hour he will be here,” said Una, as she stood +at her dressing-room window, and looked out upon the +lawns and park of Hurst, where they stretched down toward +the road.</p> + +<p>“Another hour!” and at the thought, a smile—yet +scarcely a smile, but a suitable light like a sun ray stole +over her face.</p> + +<p>The great poet Tennyson has, in one of his greatest +poems, portrayed a girl who, all unconscious of the bitter +moments awaiting her, decked herself in her brightest +ribbons to receive her expected lover.</p> + +<p>Bright ribbons are out of fashion now, but Una had +paid some, for her, extraordinary attention to her toilet.<span class="pagenum">[270]</span> +Jack was never tired of calling her beautiful; had even +gone so far as to speak of her loveliness, and it had raised +no vanity in her; but this evening she felt she would like +to appear really and truly beautiful in his eyes, so beautiful +that even Lady Bell’s spirited face should be forgotten.</p> + +<p>She had chosen the dress he liked best; had selected, with +unusual care, a couple of flowers from the costly bouquet, +which, morning and evening, was sent to her room from +the hot-houses, and had decked herself in the locket and +bracelet, and ring which Jack had given her.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant had made her many presents of jewelry, +some of it costly, and even rare; but she would not wear +anything but Jack’s own gifts tonight.</p> + +<p>“He will come fresh from Lady Bell’s diamonds and +sapphires, and would think little of mine, beautiful as +they are; but he will like to see his locket and his bracelet, +and will know that I love him best.”</p> + +<p>Not once, but twice and thrice she had moved from the +window to the glass, and looked into it. Not with any +expression of pleased vanity, but rather with merciless +criticism. For the first time, she would like to be as +beautiful as Jack thought her. For the last few days she +had been rather silent, and somewhat pale. Stephen’s +cunning hints respecting Jack and Lady Bell had had +their effect; but tonight’s expectation, and the nearness of +Jack’s approach, had brought a faint rose-like tint to +her cheeks, and her eyes shone with the subtle light of +love and hope.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant looked up at her as she entered the +drawing-room and smiled affectionately.</p> + +<p>“How well you look tonight, dear,” she said, as she +kissed her and drew her down beside her. “I’m inclined +to believe Jack, when he says that you grow more beautiful +than ever.”</p> + +<p>“Hush,” said Una, but with a blush. “Jack says so +many foolish things, dear.”</p> + +<p>“If he never said anything more foolish than that he +would be a wise man,” said Mrs. Davenant. “How long +would he be now, dear?”</p> + +<p>Una glanced at the clock.<span class="pagenum">[271]</span></p> + +<p>“Just forty minutes,” she said simply.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant smiled and patted her hand.</p> + +<p>“Counting the very minutes,” she murmured, gently. +“What a thing love is! What would life be without it?”</p> + +<p>“Death,” said Una, with a grave smile. “Worse than +death.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant sighed.</p> + +<p>“Jack is a happy man,” she said. “I wonder whether +Stephen will come down this evening?”</p> + +<p>“Do you not know?” said Una, absently.</p> + +<p>“No,” replied Mrs. Davenant. “I thought, perhaps, +he might have told you.”</p> + +<p>“Me!” said Una, with open eyes. “Oh, no. Why should +he?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t know,” said Mrs. Davenant, quietly. “He +tells you everything, I think.”</p> + +<p>Una smiled.</p> + +<p>“He is very good and kind,” she said, still a little absently. +“Oh, very kind. No one could have taken more +trouble to make me happy.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Stephen likes to see you happy,” said Mrs. Davenant, +softly. “Poor Stephen!” and she sighed.</p> + +<p>But Una heard neither the expression of pity nor the +sigh. She had risen, and was moving about the room with +that suppressed impatience which marks the one who wafts +an expected joy.</p> + +<p>Presently her quick ears heard the rattle of approaching +wheels, and with a throbbing heart she looked at the +clock. It wanted ten minutes to the appointed time for +Jack’s arrival. With a quick flush of gratitude for his +punctuality she moved to the door, and stole swiftly and +softly to her own room, to regain composure. She heard +the carriage pull up and go away to the stables—heard +the hurried tread of footsteps in the marble hall—and +then, with the faint flush grown into a full-blown blush, +went downstairs and entered the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>A sudden shock of disappointment chilled her. Stephen +was standing before the fire warming his hands, but Jack +was not there.</p> + +<p>Stephen, in the glass, saw her enter, saw the sudden<span class="pagenum">[272]</span> +start and disappearance of the warm flush, and turned to +meet her.</p> + +<p>He looked tired, pale and worn, and the smile with which +he met her was a singular one, one that would have been +almost triumphant but for the expression of anxiety underlying +it.</p> + +<p>“I have got back, you see,” he said. “And are you quite +well?”</p> + +<p>Una murmured an inaudible response, and he went +back to the fire and bent over it, warming his hands, his +face grown, if anything, still paler.</p> + +<p>“How beautiful she looks!” he thought. “How beautiful! +Worth risking all for—all!”</p> + +<p>“Won’t you go up and dress, Stephen?” said Mrs. +Davenant. “There is a large fire in your room, and in +Jack’s too; I have just been into both of them.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” he said, not nervously, but with almost an +absent air, and he left the room.</p> + +<p>“Stephen looks tired,” said Mrs. Davenant. “I’m +afraid he has had some business that has worried him. I +can always tell by his face.”</p> + +<p>“I am very sorry,” said Una, gently. “Yes, he did look +tired and worried,” she added, but with her eyes on the +clock. The hands went round to the hour—an hour beyond +Jack’s time—and the butler announced dinner.</p> + +<p>“Oh, we will wait a little while for Mr. Newcombe!” +said Mrs. Davenant, but Una, with a little flush, murmured:</p> + +<p>“No, do not, please; Mr. Davenant must want his dinner. +Please do not wait;” and Mrs. Davenant, never able +to stand out against anyone’s will, rose and put her arm +in Una’s and they went into the dining-room. Stephen +followed and sat down without making any remark on +Jack’s absence; even when Mrs. Davenant said to the butler—“Let +them be sure and keep the soup hot for Mr. +Newcombe,” Stephen made no observation.</p> + +<p>Dish after dish disappeared, and Una made a faint pretence +at eating as usual, and joined in the conversation +between Stephen and Mrs. Davenant, but her eyes were +continually straying toward the clock, her ears straining +for the sound of wheels or a galloping horse.<span class="pagenum">[273]</span></p> + +<p>The dinner was a thing of the past, and the soup had +been kept hot in vain; no Jack arrived. Gradually silence +had fallen on the three, and when Mrs. Davenant rose it +was with a sigh of loving sympathy with the troubled heart +that ached so near her own.</p> + +<p>“I cannot think what has kept him,” she said, when +they were alone together in the drawing-room. “If it +were anyone but Jack I should feel nervous—but even I +cannot feel nervous about <i>him</i>. It is a plain, easy road +from Earl’s Court, and he rides like a—a centaur.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps,” said Una, with her eyes fixed on the fire—“perhaps +Lady Bell pressed him to stay to dinner, and he +will be here presently.”</p> + +<p>“That must be it,” said Mrs. Davenant, hopefully. “He +will come in directly, making a most tremendous noise, +and raging against whatever has been keeping him. +Jack’s rages are dreadful while they last—they don’t last +long!”</p> + +<p>Una smiled, and listened.</p> + +<p>Stephen entered—so noiselessly that she almost started—and +stooped over his mother.</p> + +<p>“There are some things in the breakfast room I +brought from London, will you go and see to them?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant rose instantly.</p> + +<p>“Una, dear,” she said, “see to the tea, I will be back directly.”</p> + +<p>Una nodded, and sat down at the gypsy table. Stephen +stood beside the fire, one white hand stretched out to the +blaze, his face turned toward her, his eyes watching her +under their lowered lids. His heart beat nervously, the +task before him seemed to overmaster him, and he shrank +from it; with one hand he felt Jack’s letter, lying like an +asp in his breast coat pocket.</p> + +<p>“There is a cold wind tonight,” he said absently. “Jack +said the wind had gone round this morning.”</p> + +<p>“Jack,” said Una, raising her eyes, with a sudden +flame of color in her face. “Have you seen him? You +have been to Earl’s Court?”</p> + +<p>Stephen frowned as if angry at making a slip.</p> + +<p>“No—no,” he said with gentle hesitation. “No; I saw +him in London. He is not at Earl’s Court.”<span class="pagenum">[274]</span></p> + +<p>“Not at Earl’s Court!” said Una, with surprise. “How +is that? Oh, he is not ill?”</p> + +<p>And her breath came sharply.</p> + +<p>Stephen turned to the fire, with knitted brow and compressed +lip, and fidgeted with the poker.</p> + +<p>“No,” he replied, slowly, and as if uncertain what to +say—“he is not ill.”</p> + +<p>“Then why did he not go?” asked Una.</p> + +<p>Stephen remained silent; and still keeping her eyes +fixed on his pale face, she rose and glided to his side.</p> + +<p>“You have something to tell me,” she said, laying her +hand on his arm, and speaking in a low, panting voice. +“What is it? You will tell me, will you not? Has anything +happened to Lady Bell? Is she at Earl’s Court?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she is at Earl’s Court,” he said, almost bitterly, +“and she is quite well, I believe.”</p> + +<p>“Then,” said Una, in a low voice, which she tried vainly +to keep steady—“then it is something concerning Jack. +Oh, why do you keep me in suspense?”</p> + +<p>Her misery maddened him.</p> + +<p>“I will tell you that he is quite well,” he said, almost +sharply. “I left him in perfect health. I dined with +him, and he made an excellent dinner.”</p> + +<p>“You are angry with him! What has he done to make +you angry?” she asked.</p> + +<p>He raised her hand, and let it fall with a gesture of +noble indignation.</p> + +<p>“What has he done?” he repeated, as if to himself. “I +can find no words to describe it adequately. My poor +Una!”</p> + +<p>And he turned to her, and laid his hand caressingly and +pityingly on her arm.</p> + +<p>Una, white and cold, was all unconscious of his touch.</p> + +<p>Stephen drew her gently to a low seat, and stood over +her, his hand resting with the same caressing pity on her +arm.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I must tell you,” he said, his voice low and gentle. +“Would to Heaven I had been spared the task. Dear +Una! you will be calm—I know your brave spirit and +true, courageous heart. You will summon all your +strength to bear the blow it is left for me to deal you—me<span class="pagenum">[275]</span> +who would lay down my life to spare you a moment’s +pain!”</p> + +<p>She scarcely heeded him. Her eyes, fixed on his face, +were dilated with fear and dread, her lips white and apart +with suspense.</p> + +<p>“Tell me,” she murmured. “It is something to do with +Jack?”</p> + +<p>“It is,” he said. “It is.”</p> + +<p>“He is dead!” she breathed.</p> + +<p>And her eyes closed, as a shudder ran through her +frame.</p> + +<p>“Would to Heaven he had died, ere this night’s work,” +said Stephen, in a low, fierce voice. “No; I have told +you the truth. I left him well and—Heaven forgive him—happy.”</p> + +<p>Una drew a long breath, and smiled wearily.</p> + +<p>“What can you have to tell me about him that is so +dreadful, if he is alive and happy?”</p> + +<p>“He is alive, but he must be dead to you, dear Una,” +said Stephen.</p> + +<p>“Dead to me!” repeated Una, as if the words had no +meaning for her. “Dead to me! I—I do not understand.”</p> + +<p>Then, as he stood silent, with a look of gentle pity and +sorrow on his pale face, a sharp expression of apprehension +flashed across her face.</p> + +<p>“Say that again,” she said. “You—you mean to tell me +that he has left me?”</p> + +<p>Stephen lowered his head.</p> + +<p>Una was silent, while the clock ticked three, then three +words came swiftly and sharply from her white lips:</p> + +<p>“It is false!”</p> + +<p>Stephen started.</p> + +<p>“Would to Heaven it were,” he murmured.</p> + +<p>“Gone! left me without a word,” said Una, with a smile +of scorn. “Can you ask—can you expect me to believe +it?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Stephen. “No one would believe such base +and hideous treachery without proof.”</p> + +<p>“Proof!” she echoed, faintly, and with sudden sinking +of the heart. “Proof! Give it to me!”<span class="pagenum">[276]</span></p> + +<p>Stephen drew the letter from his pocket slowly and +reluctantly.</p> + +<p>Una saw it and shivered.</p> + +<p>“It is from him; give it to me,” she said.</p> + +<p>And she held out her hand.</p> + +<p>Stephen took it in his, and held it for a moment.</p> + +<p>“Wait—for Heaven’s sake wait,” he murmured, with +agitation. “I meant to break it to you—to explain——”</p> + +<p>“Give it to me,” was all she said, and she shook his hand +off impatiently.</p> + +<p>“Take it,” said Stephen, with a tremor in his voice, +“take it, and would to Heaven he had found some other +messenger to bear it.”</p> + +<p>Una took the letter and slowly but steadily carried it +to another part of the room.</p> + +<p>There she stood and looked at it as if she were waiting +to gain strength to open it.</p> + +<p>At last, after what seemed an eternity to Stephen, who +was watching her in the glass, she broke open the envelope +and read.</p> + +<p>Not twice, but thrice she read it, as if she meant to +engrave every line on her heart, then she thrust the letter +in her bosom and came back to the fire.</p> + +<p>Stephen turned, and with a low cry of alarm at sight +of her altered face, moved toward her; but she put up her +hand to keep him back.</p> + +<p>Altered! Not only in face but in bravery. A minute +ago she had been a gentle-hearted, suffering, tortured +girl, now she was an injured, deserted woman.</p> + +<p>“Thanks,” she said, and the words fell like ice from her +lips. “You spoke of an explanation. Will you tell me all +you know, Stephen?”</p> + +<p>“Pray—not now,” he murmured. “Tomorrow——”</p> + +<p>But she stopped him with a smile, awful to see in its +utter despair and unnatural calmness.</p> + +<p>“Now, please.”</p> + +<p>“It—it is too easy of explanation,” said Stephen +hoarsely. “He was tempted and he has fallen. He has +bartered his honor for gold. Ask me no more.”</p> + +<p>Una drew a long breath.</p> + +<p>“It is needless,” she said. “You mean that he has left<span class="pagenum">[277]</span> +me, because I am poor, for Lady Earlsley, who can make +him rich.”</p> + +<p>Stephen turned away and sighed heavily.</p> + +<p>Una looked at him for a moment, then sat down at the +tea-table.</p> + +<p>“You will have some tea?” she said calmly.</p> + +<p>Stephen started and looked at her. She had taken up +the cream ewer with an unfaltering hand. Great +Heaven! could it be possible that she did not feel it—that +she did not really love Jack after all! A wild feeling +of exultation rose within his heart.</p> + +<p>“Thank Heaven!” he murmured, “you can meet such +treachery as it deserves—with scorn and contempt.”</p> + +<p>She looked up at him with a strange smile on her cold, +white face, and held out a tea-cup. But as he came near +her, the cup dropped from her hand with a crash, and +she fell back like one stricken unto death.</p> + +<div class="asterisks">****</div> + +<p>That same evening, Lady Bell stood in the drawing-room +of Earl’s Court. She was richly dressed, more richly +than was usual with her; upon her white neck and arms +sparkled the diamond set which she wore only on the most +special occasions. The room was full. Four or five of +the country families had been dining with her, and the +buzz of conversation and sound of music rose and fell together +confusedly.</p> + +<p>Surrounded, as usual, by a little circle of courtiers, she +reigned, by the right of her beauty, her birth, and her +wealth, a queen of society.</p> + +<p>Brilliant and witty she, so to speak, kept her devoted +adherents at bay, her beautiful face lit up with the smile +which so many found so falsely fascinating, her eyes shining +like the gems in her hair. Never had she appeared so +beautiful, so irresistible.</p> + +<p>Regarding her even most critically one would have assented +to the proposition that certainly if any woman in +the world was happy that night it was Lady Isabel Earlsley.</p> + +<p>And yet beneath all her brilliance Lady Bell was hiding +an aching heart. Half the country was there at her feet, +and only one of all her invited guests absent, and he a<span class="pagenum">[278]</span> +poor, tireless, ne’er-do-well. But Lady Bell would willingly, +joyfully have exchanged them all for that one man, +for that scapegrace with the bold, handsome face and +frank, fearless eyes.</p> + +<p>Since mid-day she had been expecting him. Like Una, +her eyes had wandered to the clock, and she had told the +minutes over; but he had not come, and now, with that +false gayety of despair, she was striving, fighting hard to +forget him.</p> + +<p>But her eyes and ears refused to obey her will, and +were still watching and waiting, and suddenly her glance, +wandering over her fan, saw a figure standing in the doorway.</p> + +<p>It was not a man’s, it was that of Laura Treherne’s—Mary +Burns.</p> + +<p>Not one of them around her noticed any difference in +her smile or guessed why she dismissed them so easily +and naturally. She did not even march straight for the +door, but making a circuit, gradually reached the hall.</p> + +<p>Pale and calm and self-possessed as usual, the strange +maid was waiting for her.</p> + +<p>“Well!” said Lady Bell, and her voice was scarcely above +a whisper. “Has—has he come?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Laura Treherne. “But though your ladyship +told me only to let you know of Mr. Newcombe’s arrival, +I thought it best to bring you this letter.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell almost snatched it from her hand.</p> + +<p>“You did right,” she said.</p> + +<p>With trembling hands she broke open the envelope, not +noting that it opened easily as if it had been tampered +with, and read the note.</p> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">Dear Lady Bell</span>—I am sorry I cannot come as arranged. +I am in great trouble, and cannot leave London.</p> + +<div class="sign"> +<span class="ri4">“Yours truly,</span><br /> +<span class="ri0 smcap">Jack Newcombe</span>.” +</div> + +<p class="r2">Lady Bell looked at the few lines for full a minute, then +she pressed the letter to her lips. As she did so, she saw +that the slight figure in its dark dress was still standing +in front of her, and she started.</p> + +<p>“Why are you waiting?” she said angrily.<span class="pagenum">[279]</span></p> + +<p>Laura Treherne turned to go, but Lady Bell called to +her.</p> + +<p>“Wait. I beg your pardon. I am going to London +tomorrow by the first train. Will you have everything +ready?”</p> + +<p>Laura Treherne bowed.</p> + +<p>“Yes, my lady.”</p> + +<p>“And—and—you need not sit up,” said Lady Bell.</p> + +<p>“Thanks, my lady,” was the calm response. And the +dim figure disappeared in the distance.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2> + + +<p>Christmas was near at hand; but notwithstanding that +nearly everybody who had a country house, or an invitation +to one, was away in the shires, London was by no means +empty. There were still “chariots and horsemen” in the +park; and the clubs were pretty well frequented. Not a +few have come to the conclusion that after all London is +at its best and cheerfulest in mid-winter; and that plum +pudding and roast beef can be enjoyed in a London +square as well, if not better, than in the country.</p> + +<p>Among these was Lady Bell. Although she had two +or three country houses which she might have filled with +guests, she, for sundry reasons, preferred to remain in +Park Lane.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, like Leonard Dagle, she thought that there +was no place like London. He would have his idea that +there was no place in it like Spider Court. Spring, summer, +autumn, and winter, with perhaps, just a short interregnum +of a fortnight in summer, Leonard stuck to +Spider Court; and on this winter evening he was sitting +in his accustomed place, busily driving the pen.</p> + +<p>There was a certain change about Leonard which was +worthy of remark. He looked, not older than we saw him +last, but younger. In place of the weary, abstracted air, +which had settled upon him during the long months of +the search of Laura Treherne, there was an expression of +hopefulness and energy which was distinctly palpable. +The room too looked changed. It was neater and less +muddled; and though the boxing gloves and portraits of<span class="pagenum">[280]</span> +actresses and fair ladies of the ballet still adorned the +walls, the floor and chairs were no longer lumbered with +Jack’s boots and gloves, cigar boxes, and other impedimenta.</p> + +<p>Perhaps Leonard missed these untidy objects, for he was +wont to look up from his work and round the room with +a sigh, and not seldom would rise and stalk into the bed-room +beyond his own; the bed-room which Jack kept in +a similar litter, but which now was neat and tidy—and +unoccupied.</p> + +<p>At such times Leonard would sigh and murmur to +himself, “Poor Jack!” and betaking himself to his writing +desk again would pull out a locket and gaze long and +earnestly on a face enshrined therein, a face which strikingly +resembled that of Laura Treherne, and so would +gain comfort and fall to work again.</p> + +<p>Tonight, he had wandered into the unoccupied room +and had glanced at the portrait two or three times, for he +felt lonely and would have given a five-pound note to hear +Jack’s tread upon the stairs, and his voice shouting for +the housekeeper to bring him hot water.</p> + +<p>“Poor Jack!” he murmured, “where is he now?” For +some months had elapsed since he had found a few lines +of sad farewell from Jack lying on his writing desk, but +pregnant with despair and reckless helplessness. And +Jack had gone whither not even Mr. Levy Moss, who +sought him far and wide, could discover; and not Mr. Moss +alone, but Lady Bell Earlsley; fast as she had traveled +from Earl’s Court to London, she arrived too late to see +Jack, too late to learn from his lips the nature of the +trouble which he had spoken of in his short note to her. +And from Leonard even, she could not learn much. He +could only tell her that Jack and Una’s engagement was +broken off, and by Jack himself, but for what reason he +could not tell or guess. And with that Lady Bell had +to be, not content, but patient.</p> + +<p>“You were his dearest friend,” she said to Leonard, +“can you not guess where he has gone?”</p> + +<p>And Leonard had shaken his head sorrowfully. “I +cannot even guess. He was utterly miserable and reckless;<span class="pagenum">[281]</span> +he once spoke, half in jest, of enlisting. He was in +great trouble.”</p> + +<p>“Money trouble?” Lady Bell had asked.</p> + +<p>“Money trouble,” assented Len, and Lady Bell had +sunk into Leonard’s chair and wrung her white hands.</p> + +<p>“Money! money! how I hate the word! and here I am +with more of the vile stuff than I know what to do with!”</p> + +<p>“That would make no difference to Jack,” Leonard +said, quietly; and Lady Bell had sighed—she almost +sobbed—and gone on her way as near broken-hearted as a +woman could be.</p> + +<p>And then she had sought for him as openly as she +dared, but with no result, save discovering that there were +hundreds of young men who answered to Jack’s description, +and who were all indignant when they applied in response +to the advertisements and found that they were not +the men wanted.</p> + +<p>And so the months had rolled on, and the “Savage” was +nearly forgotten at the Club, excepting at odd times when +Hetley or Dalrymple remembered how well he used to tool +a team to the “Sheaves,” or row stroke in a scratch eight. +My friend, if you want to find out of how little importance +you are in your little world, disappear for a few +months, and when you come back you will find that your +place has been excellently well filled, excepting in the +hearts of the one or two faithful men and women who +loved you.</p> + +<p>The world went on very well without Jack, and only +two or three hearts ached, really ached, at his absence—Len, +honest Len, in his den in Spider Court; Lady Bell, +in Park Lane; and that other tender, loving, and tortured +heart in the old new house at Hurst.</p> + +<p>Leonard often thought of that tender heart, and sighed +over it as he sighed for Jack. It was still a mystery to +him, their separation; he knew that Una was still at the +Hurst, but that was all. No news of her ever reached him. +At times he ran across Stephen in London, and exchanged +a word or a bow with him, and had noticed that he was +looking better and sleeker, and less pale—more flourishing +in fact, than he had done for some time.</p> + +<p>He, too had come to Spider Court, and expressed profound<span class="pagenum">[282]</span> +grief at Jack’s disappearance, and had gone away +after wringing Leonard’s hand sympathetically.</p> + +<p>Leonard sat thinking over this far more than was good +to the work he had in hand, when he heard the door open, +and half starting, said absently:</p> + +<p>“Nothing more wanted tonight, Mrs. Brown.”</p> + +<p>But a step, certainly not Mrs. Brown’s, crossed the +room, and a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and +looking up, he saw Jack’s face above him.</p> + +<p>“Jack!” he exclaimed, clutching him as if he expected to +see him disappear again. “It is you, really you? Great +Heaven!”</p> + +<p>There was reason for the exclamation; for though it was +Jack, he was so altered as to have rendered the description +of him in the advertisements quite useless. Thin, pale, +careworn, it was no more the old Jack than the living +skeleton is Daniel Lambert.</p> + +<p>“Great Heaven! Is it really you, Jack?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it is I! what is left of me, Len. You—you are +looking well, old man. And the old room; how cheery it +seems.”</p> + +<p>And he laughed—the shadow of the old laugh—even +more pitiable than tears.</p> + +<p>“For Heaven’s sake be quiet; don’t speak just yet,” said +Len, with a husky voice. “Sit down. You’ve frightened +me, Jack. Have you been ill?”</p> + +<p>“Slightly,” said Jack, with a smile.</p> + +<p>“And where have you been? Tell me all about it—no, +don’t tell me anything yet.”</p> + +<p>And he went to the cupboard, and brought out the +whisky, and mixed a stiff glass.</p> + +<p>“Now, then, old man, where’s the cigars? here—here’s +a light. Now then—no; take off your boots. I’ll tell +Mrs. Brown to air the bed and get your dressing-gown. +And what about supper?”</p> + +<p>And with a suspicious moisture in his eyes, Len turned +from the room.</p> + +<p>“Staunch as a woman, tender as a man.” It was a +wise saying, whoever wrote it.</p> + +<p>Jack sipped his whisky and water, and smoked his cigar,<span class="pagenum">[283]</span> +and pulled himself together, which was just what Len +wanted to get him to do; and then Len came back.</p> + +<p>“Now then, old man, out with it. Where have you +been?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve been to America,” said Jack. “Don’t ask me any +particulars, Len; I wouldn’t tell you much if you did. +I’ve been nearly out of my mind half the time, and down +with one of their charming fevers the remainder. You +won’t get enough information out of me to write even a +magazine article, old man.”</p> + +<p>And he smiled, with a faint attempt at badinage.</p> + +<p>“Great Heaven!” exclaimed Len, again; “and—and is +that all?”</p> + +<p>“That’s all it amounts to,” said Jack, wearily. “You +want to know how I came back, and why? Well, I can +scarcely tell why. I got so sick of trying to get knocked +on the head, and failing miserably, that I got disgusted +with the country, weary of wandering about, and resolved +that it would be better to come and give Levy Moss his +revenge. He’s still alive, I hope?”</p> + +<p>“And you got back?” said Len.</p> + +<p>“I worked my passage over,” said Jack, curtly. “I was +a bad hand, and caught cold on the top of the last affair, +and just managed to pull myself together to reach London, +and here I am. Not very lucid, Len, is it? But +there’s no more to tell.”</p> + +<p>Leonard looked at him with infinite pity, and mixed +another glass of whisky.</p> + +<p>“Poor old Jack,” he murmured.</p> + +<p>“And now it’s your turn,” said Jack, lighting another +cigar. “Tell me all the news, Len, about yourself first. +How are Hetley, and Dalrymple, and the rest of them? +But yourself first, Len. You look well—better than when +I left. Things have gone right with you.”</p> + +<p>“Then you have not forgotten?” said Len, gratefully.</p> + +<p>“It is not likely,” he said, quietly. “I have thought of +you many a night as I lay burning with that confounded +fever. Are you married?” and he looked round the room +as if he expected to see Mrs. Dagle in some dim corner.</p> + +<p>Leonard blushed.<span class="pagenum">[284]</span></p> + +<p>“Nonsense! No, Jack, I’m not married. But—I’m +very happy, old man—should have been quite happy, but +for missing you.”</p> + +<p>Jack nodded.</p> + +<p>“I’m glad of that. Glad it has all worked round, and +that you have missed me, too. Where is she—Laura Treherne? +You see I remember her name.”</p> + +<p>Leonard hesitated, and looked troubled.</p> + +<p>“I—I’m afraid I mustn’t tell you. You see, Jack, +there’s still some kind of mystery hanging about this love +affair of mine. It is Laura’s wish that I should keep +silent as to her whereabouts. I give you my word I +don’t understand why. But I don’t want to talk of myself +and my affairs, Jack. There is something and someone +else you want to hear about.”</p> + +<p>Jack looked up with a sudden start, and held up his +hand.</p> + +<p>“No, not a word!” he said. “Don’t tell me a word. I—that +affair is over—dead and buried. Don’t speak her +name, Len, for Heaven’s sake. Let that rest forever between +us.”</p> + +<p>Len sighed.</p> + +<p>“Tell me more about yourself,” said Jack, impatiently, +as if anxious to get away from the other subject. “There +is some mystery, secret, you say.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Leonard, humoring him, “there is a mystery +and secret, which, much as I love her, and I hope and believe +she loves me, Laura will not trust—well, I will not +say ‘trust’—which she does not feel authorized to confide +to me.”</p> + +<p>“I remember,” said Jack, “your telling me that she had +some task, or mission, or something to accomplish—sounds +strange.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Leonard, with a sigh, “and that mission is +still unaccomplished, and blocks the marriage. But I am +content to wait and trust, and I am happy.”</p> + +<p>Jack sighed.</p> + +<p>“You deserve to be, old fellow!” he said.</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t!” exclaimed Leonard, remorsefully, “for +flaunting my happiness in your face, Jack. And now,<span class="pagenum">[285]</span> +here’s the supper,” he added, as a waiter from a neighboring +chop-house brought in a tray.</p> + +<p>Jack sat down, and Leonard waited upon him, hanging +over him, and watching him as if every mouthful he ate +did him, Leonard, good; meanwhile chatting cheerfully.</p> + +<p>“London pretty full, Jack; lots of people up this year.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Jack, then he looked up. “I suppose I +shan’t be able to show up, because of Moss, Len?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, he won’t know you are here! And we’ll cut it. +We’ll go down to the country somewhere, Jack, before +anyone sees you. You haven’t met anyone, have you?”</p> + +<p>“Met them, no. But I have seen Stephen.”</p> + +<p>“Stephen Davenant?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I saw him, but I don’t think he saw me. He is +looking well.”</p> + +<p>Leonard nodded.</p> + +<p>“He did not see you—but it wouldn’t have mattered.”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Jack, with a sigh. “Len, this is the first +‘square meal,’ as they say over the sea, that I’ve enjoyed +since I left. I’m very tired.”</p> + +<p>“I can see that,” said Leonard. “Go off to bed, old +man. We’ll have no more questions tonight.”</p> + +<p>Jack rose and took his candle.</p> + +<p>“Yes, one more,” he said, as he held Leonard’s hand, +tightly. “Is—is she well, Len?”</p> + +<p>Leonard nodded.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I think so——”</p> + +<p>“That’s all,” said Jack, resolutely. “Good-night, Len, +good-night,” and he turned away quickly.</p> + +<p>Leonard stole into Jack’s room several times that night +and looked down upon the tired, weary face, still handsome +for all its lines and haggardness, handsomer some +might have thought, for suffering sets a seal of dignity +upon a man’s face if there be sterling stuff in him. +Leonard looked down at it pityingly.</p> + +<p>“Poor old man; he has had a hard time of it if any man +has.”</p> + +<p>Jack turned up at breakfast time looking much refreshed.</p> + +<p>“First good night’s rest I’ve had since—oh, too long<span class="pagenum">[286]</span> +to remember, Len. Dreamed that all that has happened +was only a dream, and that I was waking up and going +to see——” he broke off suddenly and sighed.</p> + +<p>Leonard was delighted to see him so much better.</p> + +<p>“We’ll leave town directly, Jack,” he said. “I’ve just +done my usual batch of work, and am free. We’ll spend +our Christmas at some old inn——”</p> + +<p>Jack looked at him gratefully.</p> + +<p>“You’re a staunch old man, Len,” he said, quietly. +“You’d sacrifice your sweetheart to your friend.”</p> + +<p>Len colored.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure she’d be the first to urge us to go,” he said. +“Laura is so unselfish.”</p> + +<p>“She shan’t be sacrificed for me,” said Jack. “No, Len, +I’ll go off by myself, before anyone knows I’m back—hallo! +what’s that?”</p> + +<p>It was a footstep on the stairs, Len motioned for Jack +to retreat into the bedroom, and only just in time, for, +barely stopping to knock, Mr. Levy Moss opened the door.</p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2> + + +<p>“Good-morning, Mr. Dagle,” said Moss, his eyes roaming +about the room. “Here I am again, you see, Mr. +Dagle; and where is Mr. Newcombe? He’s here, I know.”</p> + +<p>“If you know so much you’ve no need to ask,” said +Leonard. “Who told you he was here?”</p> + +<p>Levy Moss winked one bleared eye cunningly.</p> + +<p>“I’m smart, Mr. Dagle; I keep my eyes open and my +feet a-moving.”</p> + +<p>“Just so,” said Leonard, “and if you’ll be good enough +to move them out of my room I shall be obliged. Please +observe that these are <i>my</i> rooms, Mr. Moss, and not Mr. +Newcombe’s, and that I am not desirous of further visits +from you.”</p> + +<p>“You’re sharp, too, Mr. Dagle,” said Moss; “but Mr. +Newcombe’s here; you don’t want two cups and saucers, +and two plates, you know, for your breakfast, eh?”</p> + +<p>“Get out!” said Len, who, when he was roused was, +like most quiet men, rather hot-headed. “Get out! and,<span class="pagenum">[287]</span> +by the way, if you meet Mr. Newcombe, I’d advise you to +keep clear of him; he’s back from America and carries two +revolvers and a bowie knife, and I needn’t tell you, who +know him so well, that he’d as soon put a bullet through +your head or stick the knife in between your ribs as look +at you—far rather, perhaps.”</p> + +<p>Moss turned pale.</p> + +<p>“I hope Mr. Jack won’t do anything rash.”</p> + +<p>“I won’t answer for him. They don’t think much of +killing your sort of people on the other side, Moss. Get +out,” and Mr. Moss shuffled out; Leonard bolting the door +after him.</p> + +<p>Jack came in and sat down quietly and gravely.</p> + +<p>“I’ve frightened him,” said Leonard, smiling. “He’ll +keep clear of you for a day or two. But how did he know +you were back? He couldn’t have been keeping watch +for all these months.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know; someone must have seen me, and told +him; I don’t know who, Len. I’m going out.”</p> + +<p>“Now, Jack?” said Leonard, fearfully.</p> + +<p>Jack smiled.</p> + +<p>“No, Len; I won’t cut it again without telling you +and saying ‘good-by.’ I’m only going for a walk; and I’ll +be back to dinner.”</p> + +<p>Leonard looked after him, still rather anxiously; +there was a look of determination on the pale, thoughtful +face which alarmed him.</p> + +<p>Jack walked to Regent street—please mark that he +didn’t call a hansom; though Len had pressed some money +upon him—and then into Piccadilly, and still with the +thoughtful look of determination on his face, into Park +Lane, and ascended the steps of Lady Bell’s villa.</p> + +<p>A footman, who knew not Jack, opened the door, and +Jack, who had not any cards, gave his name, which the +footman gave to Lady Bell’s maid as “Mr. Bluecut.”</p> + +<p>Jack walked into the drawing-room, every article of +which was familiar to him; and sat down in the chair +which he had so often drawn close to Lady Bell’s, only a +few months back; and yet how long, long ago it seemed.</p> + +<p>Presently the door opened, and Lady Bell came in.<span class="pagenum">[288]</span></p> + +<p>He saw her in the glass before she saw him.</p> + +<p>Tastefully and simply dressed, she looked, if anything, +more beautiful than ever, but not so bright and restless; +Jack noticed that. There was an undefinable change +about her, just as if she had gone through some trouble, +or had done battle with some grief.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she looked round and saw him, and stopped; +one hand holding a chair, her face going from white to +crimson.</p> + +<p>Jack rose.</p> + +<p>“I’ve startled you; I’m very sorry.”</p> + +<p>Lady Bell recovered herself, and went to him with outstretched +hand and a look in her dark eyes that she tried +to keep out of them.</p> + +<p>“Jack,” she said, almost involuntarily.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it’s I; like the bad penny, back again, Lady Bell.”</p> + +<p>And he sat down and laughed.</p> + +<p>She sank into a chair beside him, and looked at his +careworn face.</p> + +<p>“Where have you been?” she asked, softly.</p> + +<p>“To America,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>“You have been ill?” she said, still more softly.</p> + +<p>Jack nodded.</p> + +<p>“Yes. I’m all right now. And you? You don’t look +quite the thing?”</p> + +<p>“Do I not?” she said, with a smile. “I am quite well. +And is that all you are going to tell me of your wanderings?”</p> + +<p>“No. I’ll tell you everything some other time,” said +Jack, quietly.</p> + +<p>“You are not going away again, then?” she asked, looking +at him, and then away from him.</p> + +<p>Jack flushed.</p> + +<p>“That depends,” he said, quietly.</p> + +<p>“Depends on what?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“On you,” he said.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell started, and the crimson flush flooded her +face and neck. Her lips trembled, and she looked away.</p> + +<p>“On me?” she murmured, faintly.<span class="pagenum">[289]</span></p> + +<p>“On you,” said Jack, earnestly. “Lady Bell, I have +come back to ask you to be my wife.”</p> + +<p>She was silent; her face turned from him, so that he +could not see the tears that welled up in her eyes.</p> + +<p>Jack took her hand.</p> + +<p>“Lady Bell, I know that I am not worthy of you—know +it quite well. There isn’t a man in the world who is; I, +least of all. I know, too, what the world would say if you +should answer ‘Yes.’ It will impute all sorts of base motives +to me. But, as Heaven is my witness, it is not for +your wealth that I ask you to be my wife. I am poor, and +in all sorts of trouble; but if you were poorer than I am +I would still ask you.”</p> + +<p>“You would?” she murmured.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said, quietly. “Yes, I can say that, though +I tell you in the same breath that I am, at this moment, +being hunted for money. And I think you will believe +me.”</p> + +<p>She made a gesture of assent with her hand.</p> + +<p>“Dear Lady Bell,” he continued, “during the last few +months I have been looking back to those happy days we +spent together; and when a man’s down with the fever he +looks back with keen and wise insight into the turn of +things, and knows when he was happy in the past, and +with whom; and I swore that, if ever I pulled through and +got back, I would ask you if you did not think we might +be as happy in the future as in the past. Dear Bell, I +would try and make you happy. Will you be my wife?”</p> + +<p>Trembling in every limb, she sat silent, and with averted +face. Then, suddenly and yet slowly, she turned her +eyes upon him—eyes full of ineffable love and sadness.</p> + +<p>Slowly, softly, she put her other hand in his, and smiled +at him.</p> + +<p>“You ask me to be your wife, Jack?”</p> + +<p>“I do,” he said. “Your answer, dear Bell?”</p> + +<p>“Is—No,” she said.</p> + +<p>Jack started, and his eyes fell before the deep love and +tenderness in hers. He would have drawn his hand away, +but she still held it gently.<span class="pagenum">[290]</span></p> + +<p>“Do you ask me why, Jack? I will tell you. It is +because you do not love me.”</p> + +<p>He looked up with a start, and turned pale.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell shook her head gently.</p> + +<p>“Do not speak—it is useless. Besides, you would not +tell me a lie, Jack. Listen; I, too, have been looking +back; I, too, have learned a lesson—a truth—while you +have been away. And that truth is, that others may love +as truly and deeply as myself; and that others may find +it as impossible to forget——”</p> + +<p>Jack, pale and agitated, stopped her.</p> + +<p>“The past is buried,” he said, hoarsely—“let it rest.”</p> + +<p>“It is not buried—it cannot be. See! it revives—springs +up, even without the mention of her name. Jack, +you do not love me—you cannot; for all your love has +been given, is still given, to Una.”</p> + +<p>“For Heaven’s sake!” he implored, rising and pacing +the room.</p> + +<p>Lady Bell looked at him.</p> + +<p>“Ah, how you love her still, Jack! See how right I +was; and yet you would come to me.”</p> + +<p>And the tears fall slowly.</p> + +<p>“Forgive me,” said Jack, bending over her humbly, imploringly—“forgive +me! You—you are right. But I +swear I thought it was over for me. You knew me better +than I knew myself.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, for a good reason, Jack,” she murmured; “for I +love you.”</p> + +<p>Jack winced.</p> + +<p>“I have been a brute!” he murmured.</p> + +<p>“No, Jack,” she said—and she put her hand on his arm +and looked up at him with a smile—“you meant well and +honestly. You did not know how it stood with you. I +could not have loved you so well if you had been false—if +you had forgotten her. I have been thinking it out, Jack; +and I know now that to love once—as you and I love—is +to love forever.”</p> + +<p>“But it is past,” he said, “utterly, irrevocably past. You +do not know the barrier that stands immovably between +her and me.”<span class="pagenum">[291]</span></p> + +<p>“Do I not?” she murmured, inaudibly. “Be it what it +will, your love and hers stand firm on either side of it. +But no more of that, Jack. I am glad you have come to +me—very, very glad. And though I cannot be your wife, +Jack”—with what tenderness and sadness those two words +were breathed—“I can be your friend. I want you to +promise me something.”</p> + +<p>Jack pressed her hand. He could not trust himself +to speak.</p> + +<p>“I want you to promise that you will not go away again, +that you will not leave London whatever happens—mind, +whatever happens—without letting me know! I may ask +that much, Jack?”</p> + +<p>“You may ask anything,” he said, huskily; “I will do +anything you ask of me—simply anything.”</p> + +<p>“I think you would,” she said. “Then I have your +promise? And, Jack, this must make no difference between +us; you will come and see me?”</p> + +<p>“I do not deserve to come within a mile of you.”</p> + +<p>She smiled.</p> + +<p>“And so punish me for not saying ‘yes,’” she said, with +a little attempt at archness. “That would be hard for +me, Jack. I should lose lover and friend as well.”</p> + +<p>“You are the truest-hearted woman in the world,” said +Jack, deeply moved.</p> + +<p>“Except one,” said Lady Bell. “There, go now, Jack, +and come to dinner tonight, and bring Leonard Dagle +with you—another true heart.”</p> + +<p>“I will,” said Jack, simply. And he held out his hand.</p> + +<p>She held out both of hers, and looked at him with a +strange, wistful yearning in her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Jack,” she breathed, softly, “will you kiss me for the +first and last time?”</p> + +<p>Jack drew her toward him and kissed her. Then, with +a little sigh, she left him. How Jack got out he knew +not, for his eyes were strangely dim and useless.<span class="pagenum">[292]</span></p> + + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2> + + +<p>A dim light was burning in the drawing-room of the +Hurst. Outside, the storm was raging wild and pitiless, +making the warm room seem like a harbor of refuge. Beside +the fire sat Mrs. Davenant, half dozing over a piece +of finest needlework for the village working club. She +was alone in the room, and every now and then glanced +anxiously toward the door. Presently it opened, and the +tall figure of Stephen entered and crossed over to her.</p> + +<p>“Mother,” he said, and there was a tremulous ring in +his voice and a quiver in his lips that were in marked +contrast to his usual smooth calm.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant looked up with a glance of alarm. +“Una!” she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“Hush!” he said, laying his hand on her shoulder. +“Una,” and his voice dwelt on the name. “Una is asleep. +She has gone to her own room for a little while. Mother,” +he said, slowly, “she has consented.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant looked up and trembled: “Oh, Stephen!”</p> + +<p>He nodded, and stood before the fire, looking up with +a smile of undisguised triumph and joy. “Yes, she has +consented. It was—well, hard work; but my love overmastered +her. I told her that you agreed with me that +the sooner the marriage took place the better. You do, +do you not?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” murmured Mrs. Davenant.</p> + +<p>“She wants change; nothing but entire change of life +and thought will do her good. Mother, if she remained +here, if something were not done, she would”—he paused, +and went on hoarsely, “she would die!”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant shuddered and her eyes filled. “My +poor, poor Una!” she murmured.</p> + +<p>Stephen moved impatiently. “She will not need your +pity, mother. A few weeks hence and you will have no +reason to pity her. I’ll stake my life that I bring her back +here with the roses in her cheeks, with the smile in her +eyes, as of old. Mother, you do not know what such +love as mine can do!” and his voice trembled with suppressed +passion.<span class="pagenum">[293]</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant looked up at him, tearfully.</p> + +<p>“You—you are much changed, Stephen,” she murmured.</p> + +<p>“I am,” he said, with a curt laugh. “I am changed, am +I not? I scarcely know myself. And she has done it. +She! My beautiful queen, my lily! Yes, she shall be +happy, if man can make her.” He was silent a moment, +dwelling on his love and future, and looked, as he spoke, +much changed. Then he awoke at a question from his +mother.</p> + +<p>“When is it to be, Stephen?”</p> + +<p>“Tomorrow,” he said, quietly.</p> + +<p>“Tomorrow!” gasped. Mrs. Davenant. “Impossible!”</p> + +<p>“Not at all,” he said, curtly. “Remember, I told you +not to be surprised, that it would come suddenly.”</p> + +<p>“But——”</p> + +<p>He made a movement of impatience.</p> + +<p>“Do you think I have not made preparations? See,” +and he took a paper from his pocket, “I have had the +license for a week past. It is no ordinary marriage. We +want no bridesmaid and wedding favors. She would not +have them—or me, if you insisted upon it. It is principally +on the condition that the ceremony shall be quite +private—secret almost—that she has consented.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant stared at the fire.</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled.</p> + +<p>“You do not understand me, even yet, mother,” he said. +“Did you ever know anything fail me?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant shuddered, or was it the play of the fire-light?</p> + +<p>“Never,” she said, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled again.</p> + +<p>“I have seen this coming, have seen my way to it for +months past; I have swept every barrier away——” He +stopped suddenly and bit his lip—“and now for our plans, +mother. Try and collect yourself; this has surprised and +upset you,” he said, sharply.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant sat up and looked at him attentively.</p> + +<p>“Tomorrow we start, without fuss or bother, for Clumley. +I have ordered them to take a pair of horses to the<span class="pagenum">[294]</span> +half-way house, so that we can change without loss of +time. I have also sent a letter to the clergyman telling +him to be prepared for us, and keep his own counsel. We +shall reach Clumley, traveling easily, by half-past ten. +There will be no wedding breakfast—thank Heaven! no +fuss or ceremony. We shall go straight from the church +to London, and thence to Paris. Excepting ourselves and +clergyman no one can know anything of the matter until +the marriage is over, then——” and he drew a long breath +and smiled.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant, pale and trembling, stared up at him.</p> + +<p>“And—and Una? Does she agree to all this?”</p> + +<p>“Una agrees to everything,” he said, impatiently. “She +herself stipulated that it should be done quietly, and”—with +a smile—“if this is not quietly, I do not know what +is. And now, my dear mother, go and make what preparations +are absolutely necessary, and make them yourself, +and unaided. Remember there must be no approach to +any wedding party. We are only going to take an outing +for a day or two. You understand?”</p> + +<p>“I understand,” she faltered; “and when will you be +back, Stephen?” she asked, pitiably. “I—I—you won’t be +away long, Stephen? I shall miss her so.”</p> + +<p>Stephen patted her on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be afraid, mother. We shall not be away too +long. I am too proud of my beautiful bride to hide her +away. I want to see her here, mistress of the Hurst. My +wife! my wife! Hush! here she comes. Do not upset +her.”</p> + +<p>And, with a quick, noiseless step, he went out as Una +entered.</p> + +<p>Framed in the doorway, she stood for a moment like a +picture. Paler and slighter than in the old days, she had +lost none of her beauty. Stephen had cause to be proud +of his bride. There would be no lovelier woman in Wealdshire +than the future mistress of the Hurst. And yet, if +Jack could have seen her that moment, what agony her +face would have cost him; for his eyes, quickened by his +passionate love, would have read and understood that subtle +change that had fallen on the beautiful face; would<span class="pagenum">[295]</span> +have read the settled melancholy which sat enthroned on +the dark eyes, and gave them the dreamy, far-away look +which never left them for a moment.</p> + +<div class="pcenter"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Communing with the past, she walked;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alive, yet dead to all the world.”<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>Slowly she crossed the room, and stood just where Stephen +had stood, and looked into the fire; but not as he had +looked—triumphantly, joyfully; but with an absent, +dreamy air.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant put out her hand, and touched her arm.</p> + +<p>“Una!”</p> + +<p>She turned her head, and looked at her questioningly, +with a weary, uninterested gaze.</p> + +<p>“Una, he—Stephen has told me. Oh, my darling, I +hope you will be happy!”</p> + +<p>Una smiled—a cold, mechanical smile.</p> + +<p>“Happy? Yes, he says I shall be happy. Do you +think,” and she looked calmly at the anxious, nervous face, +“do you think I shall be happy?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant drew her toward her.</p> + +<p>“My dear, you frighten me. You—you are so—so +strange and cold. Cold! Your hands are like ice. Oh, +Una, do you know what it means—this that you are going +to do? It is not too late. Think, Una. You know how +I love you, dear. That I would give all the world to call +you—what you are, my heart of hearts—my own daughter. +But, oh, Una! if you think, if you are not quite sure +that you will be happy——”</p> + +<p>Una looked straight at the fire.</p> + +<p>“He says so,” she said, in the same hard, cold voice; +“he is clever and wise. He is your son; why do you doubt +him?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant shivered.</p> + +<p>“I—I don’t doubt him, dear. Yes, he is my son; he has +been a good son to me. But you are to be his wife; think.”</p> + +<p>“I have thought,” said Una, quietly. “It will make him +happy—he says so; and the rest does not matter to me. +Yes, I have thought; I am tired with thinking”; and she +put her hand to her brow with a sharp gesture, half wild,<span class="pagenum">[296]</span> +half weary. “I will make him happy, and I shall always +be with you, whom I love. What does the rest matter?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant uttered a little moan.</p> + +<p>“And—and have you quite forgotten?”</p> + +<p>Una looked at her calmly, but with a faint shadow in +her eyes and a touch of pain on her lips.</p> + +<p>“Forgotten! No, I shall not forget until I am dead; +perhaps not then; who knows?” and the dreamy look came +back. “But that cannot matter. He, Stephen, is content; +I have told him all, and he is content. He is +easily satisfied.” And for the first time a smile of bitterness +crossed her lips. “Why should he love me so?” +she said, curtly. “Why should he be so anxious to make +me his wife? I cannot understand it. Is it because he +thinks that I am beautiful? I looked in the glass just +now, and it seemed a dead face.”</p> + +<p>“Una!”</p> + +<p>She turned and smiled.</p> + +<p>“It is true. But I have made you cry. Don’t do that, +dear. At least, we shall be together, shall we not?”</p> + +<p>In answer, the poor woman took her in her arms, and +cried over her; but Una shed not a single tear.</p> + +<p>No, Stephen was not likely to fail. There were not +likely to be any hitches in anything he undertook.</p> + +<p>Even the weather seemed to conform to his plans and +wishes, for the morning broke clear and bright, so that he +might say:</p> + +<p>“Happy is the bride whom the sun shines on.”</p> + +<p>Without fuss or bustle, the traveling chariot, with its +pair of handsome bays, drew up to the door; a couple of +portmanteaus, no larger than was necessary for a day or +two’s outing, were put in the box; and Slummers, in his +tall hat and black overcoat, looking very much like the +old-fashioned banker’s clerk, stood with the carriage door +in his hand.</p> + +<p>Presently Stephen came down the steps, dressed in a +traveling suit, and looking as calm as usual, but for the +touch of color in his face. He had grown younger in appearance, +less prim and formal, and altogether better-looking. +If he could have lost the trick of looking from under<span class="pagenum">[297]</span> +his lowered eyelids, he would have been worth calling +handsome. He exchanged a word with Slummers.</p> + +<p>“All right, sir. The horses are at Netherton; everything +is arranged exactly according to your wishes.”</p> + +<p>“And no one suspects anything?”</p> + +<p>“Not a soul,” said Slummers, with a smile.</p> + +<p>This morning’s work was the sort of thing Slummers +liked. He was enjoying himself, and as happy as his +master.</p> + +<p>Stephen went into the house again, and presently Mrs. +Davenant and Una appeared. Notwithstanding Stephen’s +warning, Mrs. Davenant’s eyes were red; but Una showed +no traces of emotion; pale, almost white, she looked calmly +around her.</p> + +<p>In the night she had started out of her sleep, calling +wildly, piteously, on Jack to come and save her. But +there was no Jack here—only Stephen, smiling and watchful +as he came to meet her and help her into the carriage. +For a moment her hand touched his bare wrist, and he +felt it cold as ice even through her glove; but he smiled +still as if he had no fear.</p> + +<p>“Once mine,” he thought, “and all will be well!”</p> + +<p>Quietly, with no fuss or bustle, Slummers closed the +door, mounted the box, and the horses started off.</p> + +<p>Stephen looked at his watch, and smiled.</p> + +<p>“Punctual almost to the minute,” he said. “Are you +warm enough, my darling?”</p> + +<p>And he bent forward, and arranged the costly furs round +the slight form.</p> + +<p>“Quite,” she said; but she shrank into her corner with a +little shiver.</p> + +<p>Stephen left her to herself, but would not remain silent, +chatting with, or rather to, Mrs. Davenant, in a strain of +easy cheerfulness, his eyes wandering to the pale face just +showing above the pile of furs.</p> + +<p>Their hoofs ringing on the road, which a few hours of +early frost had made hard, the horses, the finest pair in +the county, for Stephen was critical in such matters and +liked the best, spun the distance, and again, almost punctual<span class="pagenum">[298]</span> +to the minute, the village of Netherton, to which +Stephen had sent the change of horses, was reached.</p> + +<p>Slummers stepped down from the box, and was seen +to enter the inn yard.</p> + +<p>“The horses ought to be out and waiting,” said Stephen, +with a little impatience.</p> + +<p>A moment or two passed, and then Slummers came to +the carriage door.</p> + +<p>Stephen jumped out.</p> + +<p>“What is it? Why do you not put the horses to?”—for +the others had been taken out and were standing in the +stable.</p> + +<p>Slummers, for the first time in his life, changed color +and hesitated.</p> + +<p>“There has been some mistake, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Mistake!”</p> + +<p>“The horses are not here.”</p> + +<p>Stephen glared at him.</p> + +<p>“I can’t understand it, sir. I gave your orders most +minutely, but George has taken the horses on to Clumley.”</p> + +<p>Stephen bit his lip and glanced at the carriage.</p> + +<p>“Put the others back,” he said, “and tell Masters to +drive for his life.”</p> + +<p>Slummers hesitated and went to the coachman, coming +back in a moment with an uneasy countenance.</p> + +<p>“I’m—I’m afraid they won’t reach Clumley in time, +sir,” he said. “Masters says that it is impossible. Calculating +on fresh horses, he has forced them a bit on the road, +and they are used up. If you will look at them, sir——”</p> + +<p>Stephen uttered an oath, and his face twitched.</p> + +<p>The coachman came up, troubled but respectful. It +was no fault of his.</p> + +<p>“I thought I should get the change here, sir. I couldn’t +do it, unless the horses had a quarter of an hour and a +wipe down, and then——”</p> + +<p>He paused and shook his head.</p> + +<p>Stephen controlled himself, though his face was white.</p> + +<p>“A quarter of an hour,” he said. “We will wait so +long, and not a moment longer. Then drive as if your life +depended on it. Do not spare the horses.”<span class="pagenum">[299]</span></p> + +<p>Then he went to the carriage and forced a smile.</p> + +<p>“A little delay,” he said, cheerfully. “Would you like +to get out for a quarter of an hour, darling?”</p> + +<p>Una shook her head.</p> + +<p>“I do not care”; but Mrs. Davenant looked at her and +spoke out.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Stephen,” she said. “My dear, you are half +frozen.”</p> + +<p>Stephen went to the window of the inn and looked into +the room, then went back.</p> + +<p>“Come,” he said. “There is a pleasant fire. A rest +and the warmth will do you good. Come,” and, wrapping +a huge fur round her, he took her on his arm and entered +the inn.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Davenant followed into the room. A fire was +burning in the old-fashioned grate. Stephen drew a chair +near to the welcome blaze and led Una to it. White and +indifferent she sat and looked at the flames.</p> + +<p>“It is only for a few minutes, darling, then we shall be +off. Come, drink some of this,” and he held a glass of +hot spirit and water to her hand.</p> + +<p>Una shook her head.</p> + +<p>“Thanks, I could not,” she said, simply.</p> + +<p>Stephen motioned to his mother.</p> + +<p>“See that she takes some,” he said, in a low voice. “I +will go and look after the horses,” and he turned. As he +did so the door opened, and a lady entered.</p> + +<p>For a moment, in the dim light of the low room, Stephen +did not recognize her, then a chill fell on him as if a cold +hand had laid on his heart. He staggered back, and then +she raised her veil and looked at him.</p> + +<p>Not a word passed. Face to face, eye to eye, they stood. +A moment passed. Una had not looked round, only Mrs. +Davenant stood speechless and trembling. Then, as if +with an effort, Stephen regained possession of his quaking +soul, and stole nearer to her.</p> + +<p>“Laura,” he whispered, glancing behind him. “You +here? You want me? Well, let us come outside.”</p> + +<p>A smile, calm and scornful, flashed from her dark face.</p> + +<p>“You cannot pass,” she said.<span class="pagenum">[300]</span></p> + +<p>A wild devil leaped, full grown, into his bosom, and he +raised his hand to strike her, but the next instant he was +grasped by the shoulder and flung aside, and Gideon Rolfe +stood over him.</p> + +<p>The room whirled round; scarcely conscious that other +figures had entered and surrounded him, he staggered to +his feet. Then a cry, two words, “Father! Jack!” smote +upon his ear, and with an effort he turned and saw Jack’s +tall form towering in the low room, with Una clasped +tightly, lying prone in his arms.</p> + +<p>It was all over. Just as the criminal in the dock, when +he sees the judge placing the black cap on his head, knows +that his doom is sealed, Stephen knew that all was lost. +But the will was not all subdued yet.</p> + +<p>There was Davenant blood in his veins. White to the +very lips, he stood and glared at them, one hand grasping +the table, the other thrust in his breast. Then an evil smile +curled the cunning mouth.</p> + +<p>“Cleverly planned,” he said, speaking as if every word +cost him a pang. “You have beaten me, thus far. Gideon +Rolfe, I congratulate you upon the success of your maneuvers; +in another hour your daughter would have been +the mistress of Hurst; she will, now, I presume, be the +wife of a beggar.”</p> + +<p>Gideon Rolfe looked at him with stern, immovable eyes.</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled and took up his hat.</p> + +<p>“You have robbed me of my bride,” he said; “permit me +to return to the home which still remains to me.”</p> + +<p>There was an intense silence. Then a slight stir as +Jack, carrying Una in his arms, left the room, followed +by Mrs. Davenant. With haggard eyes Stephen watched +them, then, with a convulsive movement, he took up his +hat.</p> + +<p>“You will find me at the Hurst,” he said; “I will go +there. If there is any law in the land which can punish +you, I will have it, though it cost me a fortune. Yes, I +will go home.”</p> + +<p>Still they were silent. Whether from pity, or awe at +the sight of his misery, they were silent. He looked round<span class="pagenum">[301]</span> +and, as if he had called, Slummers glided to his side. +They had already reached the door, when a voice said:</p> + +<p>“Tell him.”</p> + +<p>It was Jack who had returned to the room.</p> + +<p>At the sound of the voice, grave and pitying, Stephen +swung round as if he had been stung.</p> + +<p>“You are here still,” he said, and a glance of malignant +hatred distorted his face. “I thought you were in jail by +this time. You were waiting to take your wife with you. +It would have been wiser to allow her to go to the Hurst.”</p> + +<p>“Tell him,” said Jack.</p> + +<p>With a slow, almost reluctant movement, Laura Treherne +drew a paper from under her jacket and held it up.</p> + +<p>Stephen looked at it for a moment as if his sight had +failed him, then he smiled.</p> + +<p>“The plot thickens,” he said. “You have robbed me of +my wife; you have, no doubt, some ready-forged document +to rob me of my estate. Am I to give the credit to you +for this?” Then he broke out wildly, with a mad laugh. +“It is a forgery! a forgery! I will swear it. There is no +such will. The marriage never took place. You’ve to +prove both yet! You are not so clever as I thought. You +should have stopped short where you were. You have got +her, be satisfied; the rest is mine! Mine, and you cannot +take it from me,” and he held his clinched fist toward Jack +as he held all Hurst in his grasp.</p> + +<p>“Show him,” said Gideon Rolfe.</p> + +<p>Stephen waved his hand contemptuously.</p> + +<p>“A stale trick,” he said. “A clumsy forgery. You cannot +connect it with my uncle’s death. Go to your lawyer—Hudsley, +if you will; he will be ready enough to help you—and +he will tell you that proof is impossible.”</p> + +<p>As he spoke his voice grew clearer. It was a relief to +his overwrought brain to fight them on ground he had +often mentally surveyed. With an insolent smile on his +face he leaned both hands on the table and looked at them.</p> + +<p>“Come,” he said, “you have not won everything yet. +The Hurst is mine; I laugh your forgery to scorn. I will +spend every penny of the estate to contest it. I assert that +this paper was forged—last night—if you like. You cannot<span class="pagenum">[302]</span> +prove it was in existence an hour sooner; I defy you. +You have overreached yourselves. Take care! This is +your hour. Mine will come when I see you in the dock.”</p> + +<p>In his excitement he had not noticed the entrance of +the bent figure of Skettle, and he turned with a start as +the thin, dry voice, close to his elbow, croaked:</p> + +<p>“Quite right, Mr. Stephen. That’s their weak point—want +of connection. If they could carry it back, say to +the night of the squire’s death, now, it would be different.”</p> + +<p>Stephen looked round with a cunning smile of defiance.</p> + +<p>“This old fool will bear me out. Show him your will.”</p> + +<p>“A daring forgery this, Mr. Stephen, if it is a forgery. +Leaves the Hurst to Miss Una, the squire’s legitimate +daughter. Fifty thousand to Master Jack; and a set of +sermons to you.”</p> + +<p>“No doubt,” he said, with a hoarse laugh; “it was not +worth their while to do things by halves.”</p> + +<p>“Been scorched, too,” said Skettle. “Bit torn out by the +seal. Now, if they could find that bit in the possession of +a respectable man, who could prove that he found it on the +night, say, of the squire’s death, well—it would go hard +with you, Mr. Stephen.”</p> + +<p>“But they cannot.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Skettle; and slowly drawing out +a leather pocket book of ancient date, he took out a +piece of paper and fitted it to the will.</p> + +<p>“It is a conspiracy!”</p> + +<p>“It is the will I saw you looking for the night of the +squire’s death.”</p> + +<p>“Let me go.” And leaning heavily on the arm of his +fellow-knave, he moved with the gait and bearing of an old +man, to the door.</p> + +<p>“Great Heaven, this is awful!” said Jack.</p> + +<div class="asterisks">********</div> + +<p>Winter had passed and spring had clothed the earth with +her soft, green mantle, and in her glad sunlight that sat +like a benediction on the great elms and smooth lawn of +Hurst, a party of ladies and gentlemen were standing on +the stone steps that led up to the entrance.</p> + +<p>It was, in a word, the wedding day of Squire Jack Newcombe +and Miss Una Davenant, and these good and tried<span class="pagenum">[303]</span> +friends were waiting about the steps to see the bride and +bridegroom start for their honeymoon.</p> + +<p>That Len and Laura and Lady Bell should be there +calls for no surprise, but how comes it that Gideon Rolfe +should be a willing witness to the marriage of Una with +one of the hated race of Davenants? Well, when the +cause of hatred is removed, all hate vanishes from the heart +of an honest man.</p> + +<p>On the day he learned that the old squire had not +wronged the girl he had stolen from Gideon, Gideon’s +hatred had flown, and in its place had sprung up a longing +for atonement; and what better step could he take toward +burying the old animosity than in giving his adopted +daughter to the man of her choice—the man who would +make her, as her mother had been before her, the Squire +of Hurst’s wife?</p> + +<p>And thus it came to pass that he stood silently, but not +grimly waiting for his daughter—for she was still his +daughter—to pass out to the new life of happiness. And +presently there rose a buzz and a hum of excitement in +the house, and the stalwart figure of Jack appeared on the +top step. A moment later and the beautiful face of Una +was by his side. No longer pale, but bright with blushes, +and glowing with health and happiness, she stood, half timidly, +pressing close to the proud fellow beside her.</p> + +<p>Is it all a dream in her eyes, dimmed as they are by +happy tears? Can it be true that Jack is all her own—that +these good friends and true are really clustering +round her, bidding her Godspeed and yet hindering her +going as if they were loth to let her go? Perhaps she does +not realize it all until they part and let her pass to where +the old bent figure of Stephen’s mother stands waiting +to see the last of the girl whom she has loved and still +loves as a daughter.</p> + +<p>Then as Una takes the trembling figure in her arms and +kisses the pale face, she realizes it all, and through sobs +she hears the faltering voice murmuring:</p> + +<p>“God bless you, my darling! God bless and keep you!”</p> + +<p>And as the broken benediction falls from the trembling +lips, the crowd stand back, silent and tearful, and Jack and +his bride are allowed to enter the carriage at last. Then<span class="pagenum">[304]</span> +breaks forth the cheer from outside the gates, and so, +wafted around by blessings and good wishes, they commence +their real life. A month later they will come back +to find those friends who saw them depart, eager to welcome +them back.</p> + +<p>“No coming home to a silent house, my wild bird!” says +Jack. “We’ll have them all here, everyone of them. I’d +have all the world to see my darling, if I could.”</p> + +<p>“My darling! my darling! they might take all the rest +if they would leave me you.”</p> + +<p>And Stephen? There is no difficulty in finding Stephen—he +is too public a man. You can see and hear him any +evening during the month of charitable meetings, if you +will but go to the proper places.</p> + +<p>There amongst philosophers and social reformers, you +will see a tall, thin gentleman, with a white face and spotless +linen, who, when he comes forward to make his speech, +is received with deafening cheers, and who never fails to +draw tears from the audience by his pathos and tender-souled +eloquence; and when the meeting is over, if you +wait beside the private entrance to the hall, you will see +another tall, thin, black-coated man, who is like a reflection +of the great philanthropist for whom he is waiting, and +who, when he emerges, will take him by the arm and lead +him to his brougham. For, excepting when he is before +the public, Stephen is an injured, broken-down man, only +at times able to whine out the story of the wrongs wrought +him by the hands of those he most trusted. By his own +account he has been robbed of his wife, his estate, his all, +and left to the charity of a generous public; and it is only +Slummers, besides Stephen himself, who knows that a +check arrives punctually each quarter from Jack’s lawyer +for the support of the man who returns forgiveness and +generosity with undying hate and calumny. Yes, Stephen +Davenant is regarded as a deeply injured man, and when +he appears, with his pale face, and soft, mournful voice, +there is always a show of handkerchiefs.</p> + +<p>But Jack and Una are quite content, and whenever his +name is mentioned, it is with more pity than anger. +There is no room for aught else in their hearts but love.</p> + + +<p class="center">[THE END.]</p> + +<hr class="l1"/> + +<div class="adverts"> +<p><span class="pagenum">[305]</span></p> + +<p class="g2"><a name="Advertisements" id="Advertisements"></a>PATRIOTIC</p> + +<p class="g4">Recitations and Readings</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Compiled by Charles Walter Brown</i></p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/ad01a.png" width="102" height="153" alt="Patriotic Recitations and Readings" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>This is the choicest, newest and most complete +collection of Patriotic recitations published, and includes +all of the best known selections, together with +the best utterances of many eminent statesmen. Selections +for Decoration Day, Fourth of July, Washington’s +and Lincoln’s Birthdays, Arbor Day, Labor Day, and +all other Patriotic occasions.</p> + +<p>There are few more enjoyable forms of amusement +than entertainments and exhibitions, and there is +scarcely anything more difficult to procure than new +and meritorious material appropriate for such occasions. This book is +designed to fill the want.</p> + +<p class="price"> +Handsomely bound in Paper Covers <span class="rght">25 Cents</span><br /> +Cloth <span class="rght">50 Cents</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr class="l3"/> + +<p class="g3">Complete Guide to Dancing</p> + +<p class="g2">Ball Room Etiquette<br /> +and Quadrille Call Book</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/ad01b.png" width="114" height="153" alt="Complete Guide to Dancing" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Containing all the new and modern square dances +and tabulated forms for the guidance of the leader or +others in calling them. Full and complete directions for +performing every known square dance, such as Plain +Quadrilles, Polka Quadrilles, Prairie Queen, Varieties +Quadrille, Francaise, Dixie Figure, Girl I Left Behind +Me, Old Dan Tucker, Money Musk, Waltz Lanciers, +Military Lanciers, Columbian Lanciers, Oakland Minuet, +Waltz Quadrilles, etc., etc.</p> + +<p>The “German” introduces over One Hundred of +the newest and most popular Figures, fully described, and conveniently +grouped for ready reference.</p> + +<p>Every information in regard to the service of Ball-Room Etiquette, +duties of Leaders and general instruction is fully and clearly given.</p> + +<p class="price"> +Handsomely bound in Paper Covers <span class="rght">25 Cents</span><br /> +Cloth <span class="rght">50 Cents</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr class="l3"/> +<p>For sale by all Book and News Dealers, or will be sent to any address +in the United States, Canada or Mexico, postage paid, on receipt +of price, in currency, money order or stamps.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="g2"><i>M. A. Donohue & Co.</i></span> +<span class="rght"><b>407-429 DEARBORN ST.<br /> CHICAGO</b></span></p> +<hr class="l4"/> +<p><span class="pagenum">[306]</span></p> + + +<p class="g1">LIFE AND SAYINGS OF</p> + +<p class="g4">Theodore Roosevelt</p> + +<p class="g1">By THOMAS W. HANDFORD</p> + +<p class="center"><b>Introduction by Charles Walter Brown, A. M.</b></p> + +<p class="hangingindent">Author of “Ethan Allen,” “John Paul Jones,” “Nathan Hale,” +“Lafayette,” “Pulaski,” “Washington,” “Abraham Lincoln,” +“Sherman,” etc.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/ad02.png" width="211" height="310" alt="Life and Sayings of Theodore Roosevelt" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>There are lessons in the lives of +men much more potent than +all the teaching of the best books +and the wisest teachers. President +Roosevelt is one of the brightest +and brainiest men of his generation. +A man in whom all the qualities +of true manliness are linked +with indomitable perseverance and +crowned with a royal sincerity. +Because of this he is worthy to be +an object lesson to the young men +of America, and is proving an inspiration +to the noble ideal of +American citizenship. This great +book should be in every home and in every public school +library in the United States.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It is a most creditable work.<br /> <span class="rght">—<i>Indianapolis Sentinel.</i></span><br /></p> + +<p>I have read it with great interest and pleasure.<br /> +<span class="rght">—<i>John Hay, Secretary of State.</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The work reflects great credit on its authors.<br /> +<span class="rght">—<i>A. Chamberlaine, Governor of Connecticut.</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It should have a place in every library in the land.<br /> +<span class="rght">—<i>Joseph W. Fifer, Ex-Governor of Illinois.</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It is varied, animated, full of strong meat, with not a dull +page.<br /> +<span class="rght">—<i>Congressman R. R. Hitt, (Illinois).</i></span><br /> +</p></div> + +<p>Large, thick, 12mo. cloth, 320 pages; many text and +full page half-tone illustrations; large, clear type, best +book paper, and beautifully bound in red silk cloth stamped +with unique dies in gold and inks. Price, $1.00 postpaid.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><b>For sale by all book and newsdealers, or sent to any +address in the United States, Canada, or Mexico, postage +paid, on receipt of price, in currency, money order or +stamps.</b></p></div> + +<p class="center"><span class="g2">M. A. DONOHUE & CO.,</span> +<span class="rght"><b>407-429 DEARBORN ST.<br /> <big>CHICAGO</big></b></span></p> +<hr class="l4"/> +<p><span class="pagenum">[307]</span></p> + + +<p class="g4">SWEET DANGER</p> + +<p class="g1">By ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>Author of “Poems of Pleasure,” “Poems of Passion,” etc.</b></p> + +<p>Ella Wheeler Wilcox needs no introduction to our readers. Her +name is a household word wherever English is spoken. The public has +long awaited a prose work from the pen of this gifted writer that should deal +with the sentiments and emotions as forcibly as she has done in verse. “Sweet +Danger” represents that effort in the fullest sense. It is creating a sensation +even among readers of the French school of fiction.</p> + +<p class="price"> +12mo, Paper <span class="rght">Price, $0.50</span><br /> +12mo, Cloth <span class="rght">“ 1.25</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr class="l3"/> +<p class="g4">Madame Dubarry</p> + +<p class="g2">THE KING’S MISTRESS</p> + +<p class="center"><b>Illustrated.</b></p> + +<p class="g1">By GEORGE MOREHEAD</p> + +<p>Mrs. Leslie Carter, the famous American actress, having selected +Madame Dubarry as the central figure in her new play, the life story of +the famous mistress of Louis XV of France becomes a topic of universal interest +to American readers, and the brilliancy, the extravagance and the wickedness of +the court just prior to the French Revolution has been the subject of many interesting +works of realistic fiction—the most notable of which is “Madame +Dubarry.” Heretofore, no book available to English readers has obtained, and +this translation is designed to supply the pressing demand.</p> + +<p class="price"> +12mo, Paper <span class="rght">Price, $0.50</span><br /> +12mo, Cloth, Ornamental Cover <span class="rght">“ 1.25</span><br /> +</p> + + +<hr class="l3"/> +<p class="g4">TOLD BY TWO</p> + +<p class="g1">By MARIE ST. FELIX</p> + +<p>This is the latest and therefore the best of this celebrated author’s Books. It +is full of epigram and gives an excellent description of the Bermudas and +the Winter Colony there. It is full of thrilling romance, with innumerable happenings +to a giddy young married woman of New York and a bachelor from Boston. +Plenty of rich, spicy dialogue—it is replete with up-to-date expletives. +Lovers of realistic fiction will revel in this literary feast.</p> + +<p class="price"> +12mo, Paper <span class="rght">Price, $0.50</span><br /> +12mo, Cloth, Ornamental Cover <span class="rght">“ 1.25</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr class="l3"/> +<p class="center"><b>Price, 50c. each, Paper Covers, or the Three for $1.00.</b></p> + +<p>Sent postpaid to any address in the United States, Canada or Mexico upon +receipt of price, in currency, express or postal money order or stamps.</p> + +<p class="g2"><big>M. A. Donohue & Co.</big><br /> +<small>407-429 DEARBORN STREET, CHICAGO</small></p> +<hr class="l4"/> +<p><span class="pagenum">[308]</span></p> + + +<p class="g3">Donohue’s Padded<br /> +Leather <i><big>POETS</big></i></p> +<p class="center"><i>12MO ILLUSTRATED</i></p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/ad04.png" width="325" height="301" alt="Donohue’s Padded Leather POETS" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>An assortment of 52 +titles of the works of +the world’s greatest +poets. Printed from entirely +new plates, on a superior +grade of book paper. Bound +in genuine leather, stamped +from unique embossing dies +on both the front and back +covers; title stamped on the +front and back in gold; full +gilt edges, with red under the +gold edge; round corners; +fancy paper linings; silk headbands; +illuminated title page +in two colors from original +design; each book wrapped +and packed in a neat box.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>PRICE, $1.50</b></p> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="List of Poets"> +<tr><td align="left">Browning, Robert.</td><td align="left">Longfellow.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Browning, Elizabeth B.</td><td align="left">Lady of the Lake.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Bryant.</td><td align="left">Laila Rookh.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Byron.</td><td align="left">Light of Asia.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Burns.</td><td align="left">Lowell.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Campbell.</td><td align="left">Lucile.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Chaucer.</td><td align="left">Marmion.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.</td><td align="left">Miles Standish, Courtship of</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Coleridge.</td><td align="left">Milton.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Cowper.</td><td align="left">Moore.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Dante.</td><td align="left">Poe.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Evangeline.</td><td align="left">Pope.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Familiar Quotations.</td><td align="left">Paradise Lost.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Favorite Poems.</td><td align="left">Proctor.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Goethe.</td><td align="left">Poetical Selections.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Goldsmith.</td><td align="left">Princess, The; Maud, etc.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Hood.</td><td align="left">Rubiayat of Omar Khayyam.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Hemans, Mrs.</td><td align="left">Sacred Gems.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Homer’s Odyssey.</td><td align="left">Scott.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Homer’s Iliad.</td><td align="left">Schiller.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Hiawatha.</td><td align="left">Shelley.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Holmes.</td><td align="left">Shakespeare.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Idylls of the King.</td><td align="left">Tennyson.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">In Memoriam.</td><td align="left">Thackeray.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Kipling.</td><td align="left">Whittier.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Keble’s Christian Year.</td><td align="left">Wordsworth.</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>For sale by all Book and Newsdealers, or sent to any address in the United States, Canada, +or Mexico, postage prepaid, on receipt of price, in currency, money order or stamps.</p> + +<p class="g2">M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY<br /> +<small>407-429 Dearborn Street, CHICAGO</small></p> +<hr class="l3"/> +<p><span class="pagenum">[309]</span></p> + + +<p class="g1">THE GREATEST LIFE OF</p> + +<p class="g5">Abraham Lincoln</p> + +<p class="g0">YET PUBLISHED</p> + +<hr class="l2"/> + +<p class="center"><b>By HON. JOS. H. BARRETT,<br /> +and CHARLES WALTER BROWN, A. M.</b></p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/ad05.png" width="193" height="296" alt="Lincoln" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>In this great work which embraces +the complete life of the greatest man of +modern times, nothing has been omitted +or slighted. His early History, Political +Career, Speeches, both in and out of Congress, +the great Lincoln-Douglas Debates, +every state paper, speech, message +and two inaugural addresses are +given in full, together with many characteristic +STORIES AND YARNS by and +concerning Lincoln, which have earned +for him the sobriquet</p> + +<p class="g2">The Story Telling<br /> +President.</p> + +<p>In addition there is included a COMPLETE ACCOUNT OF +HIS ASSASSINATION, death and burial, together with the trial +and execution of his assassins.</p> + +<p>This immense volume of 850 pages contains nearly 360,000 +words, being six times larger than the average school history. +Size of book 6-1/2×9,3 inches thick, weighing nearly 3 pounds.</p> + +<p class="g0">PRICE, $1.00.</p> +<hr class="l3"/> +<p>Sent postpaid to any address in the United States, Canada or +Mexico upon receipt of price, in currency, express or postal money +order or stamps.</p> + + +<p class="g2">M. A. Donohue & Co.<br /> +<small>407-429 Dearborn Street, CHICAGO</small></p> +<hr class="l4"/> +<p><span class="pagenum">[310]</span></p> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Bound to Win"> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="g4">Bound to Win Series</span></td><td align="center"><b>FOR BOYS</b></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>PRICE 75 CENTS EACH</b></td><td align="center"><b>58 Titles</b></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/ad06.png" width="263" height="314" alt="Risen from the Ranks" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>This new series is proving the +most popular line of books +for boys published this year. +Look at the names of the authors +of all of the books and you will +see the reason:</p> + +<p class="center"><b>Alger, Cooper, Ellis, Henty, +Kingston, Optic, Reid, Etc.</b></p> + +<p>What a galaxy of boys’ favorites! +They are printed from new plates, on +a superior quality of paper and bound +in the best binders cloth; title stamped +on back and side in three colors ink +from appropriate designs made especially +for this series.</p> + +<div class="centered r2"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="List of books in Bound to Win Series"> +<tr><td align="right">1.</td><td align="left">Adventures Among the Indians</td><td align="left">W. H. G. Kingston</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">2.</td><td align="left">Afloat in the Forest</td><td align="left">Reid</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">3.</td><td align="left">All Aboard</td><td align="left">Oliver Optic</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">4.</td><td align="left">Among the Malays</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">5.</td><td align="left">Boat Club</td><td align="left">Oliver Optic</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">6.</td><td align="left">Bonnie Prince Charlie</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">7.</td><td align="left">Bound to Rise</td><td align="left">Alger, Jr.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">8.</td><td align="left">Boy Knight, The</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">9.</td><td align="left">Brave and Bold</td><td align="left">Alger, Jr.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">10.</td><td align="left">Bravest of the Brave</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">11.</td><td align="left">By England’s Aid</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">12.</td><td align="left">By Pike and Dyke</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">13.</td><td align="left">By Sheer Pluck</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">14.</td><td align="left">Capt. Bayley’s Heir</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">15.</td><td align="left">Cash Boy, The</td><td align="left">Alger, Jr.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">16.</td><td align="left">Cast Up by the Sea</td><td align="left">Baker</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">17.</td><td align="left">Cornet of Horse</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">18.</td><td align="left">Desert Home</td><td align="left">Mayne Reid</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">19.</td><td align="left">For Name and Fame</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">20.</td><td align="left">For the Temple</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">21.</td><td align="left">Friends tho’ Divided</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">22.</td><td align="left">Golden Canon</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">23.</td><td align="left">Hero of Pine Ridge</td><td align="left">Butler</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">24.</td><td align="left">In Freedom’s Cause</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">25.</td><td align="left">In the Reign of Terror</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">26.</td><td align="left">In Times of Peril</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">27.</td><td align="left">Jack Archer</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">28.</td><td align="left">Jack Harkaway’s School Days</td><td align="left">Hemyng</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">29.</td><td align="left">Julius the Street Boy</td><td align="left">Alger, Jr</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">30.</td><td align="left">Lion of St. Mark</td><td align="left">enty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">31.</td><td align="left">Lion of the North</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">32.</td><td align="left">Lone Ranch</td><td align="left">Mayne Reid</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">33.</td><td align="left">Now or Never</td><td align="left">Oliver Optic</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">34.</td><td align="left">One of the 28th</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">35.</td><td align="left">Out on the Pampas</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">36.</td><td align="left">Pathfinder</td><td align="left">Fenimore Cooper</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">37.</td><td align="left">Paul the Peddler</td><td align="left">Alger, Jr.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">38.</td><td align="left">Pilot, The</td><td align="left">Fenimore Cooper</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">39.</td><td align="left">Poor and Proud</td><td align="left">Oliver Optic</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">40.</td><td align="left">Rifle Rangers</td><td align="left">Mayne Reid</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">41.</td><td align="left">Risen from the Ranks</td><td align="left">Alger</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">42.</td><td align="left">Robinson Crusoe</td><td align="left">D. DeFoe</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">43.</td><td align="left">Scalp Hunters</td><td align="left">Mayne Reid</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">44.</td><td align="left">Slow and Sure</td><td align="left">Alger, Jr.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">45.</td><td align="left">Star of India</td><td align="left">E. S. Ellis</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">46.</td><td align="left">Store Boy, The</td><td align="left">Alger, Jr.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">47.</td><td align="left">Strive and Succeed</td><td align="left">Alger, Jr.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">48.</td><td align="left">Strong and Steady</td><td align="left">Alger, Jr.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">49.</td><td align="left">Sturdy and Strong</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">50.</td><td align="left">Through the Fray</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">51.</td><td align="left">Try Again</td><td align="left">Oliver Optic</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">52.</td><td align="left">Uncle Tom’s Cabin</td><td align="left">Stowe</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">53.</td><td align="left">With Clive in India</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">54.</td><td align="left">Young Buglers</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">55.</td><td align="left">Young Carthaginians</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">56.</td><td align="left">Young Colonists</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">57.</td><td align="left">Young Midshipman</td><td align="left">Henty</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">58.</td><td align="left">Young Outlaw, The</td><td align="left">Alger, Jr.</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><b>For sale by all Book and Newsdealers, or will be sent to any address +in the U. S., Canada or Mexico, post paid, on receipt of price, +75c each, in currency, money order or stamps.</b></p></div> + + +<p class="center"><span class="g2">M. A. Donohue & Co.</span> +<span class="rght"><b>407-429 Dearborn St.<br /> CHICAGO</b></span></p> +<hr class="l4"/> +<p><span class="pagenum">[311]</span></p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/ad07.png" width="232" height="321" alt="Young Hunters" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="g5a">THE<br /> +YOUNG<br /> +HUNTERS<br /> +SERIES</p> + +<p class="g0">BY</p> + +<p class="g1">CAPTAIN RALPH BONEHILL</p> +<hr class="l2"/> +<p class="g3">Gun and Sled</p> + +<p class="g3">Young Hunters of<br /> +Porto Rico</p> + +<p class="center"><b>PRICE 75C, POSTPAID</b></p> +<hr class="l2"/> +<p class="center"><span class="g1">CHICAGO</span><br /> +<span class="g3">M. A. Donohue & Co.</span><br /> +<b>407-429 DEARBORN ST.</b></p> +<hr class="l4"/> +<p><span class="pagenum">[312]</span></p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/ad08.png" width="233" height="325" alt="Down the Slope" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center g5a r2">WORKS OF<br /> +JAMES OTIS</p> + +<div class="centered r2"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Works of James Otis"> +<tr><td align="left"><hr class="l2"/></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="g3">Down the Slope</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="g3">Messenger 48</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="g3">Teddy</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="g3">Telegraph Tom’s Venture</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><hr class="l2"/></td></tr> +</table></div> +<p class="center"><b>PRICE 75 CENTS, POSTPAID.</b></p> + +<hr class="l3"/> +<p class="center"> +<b>CHICAGO</b><br /> +<span class="g3">M. A. Donohue & Co.</span><br /> +<b>415-429 Dearborn St.</b></p> +<hr class="l4"/> +<p><span class="pagenum">[313]</span></p> + + +<p class="g4"><i>Ella Wheeler Wilcox</i></p> + +<p class="g1"><i>POEMS of REFLECTION</i></p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/ad09.png" width="263" height="393" alt="Poems of Reflection" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>The most noted and helpful poetical +work of this famous writer +is here collected in popular form +in a suitable binding for birthday +or holiday presentations, or for table +or library. Stamping done in +light green upon dark over special +design in gold.</p> + +<p>Among the “<span class="smcap">Poems of Reflection</span>,” +a few may be named, as follows: +Penalty, Life Lines from +“Maurine,” When, Only Dreams, +“In the Night,” Contentment, +Mother’s Loss, The Women, “Vampires,” +Dying, The King and Siren, +Sunshine and Shadow, “Whatever +is,—is Best,” Worldly Wisdom, My +Comrade, So Long In Coming, Perished, +The Belle’s Soliloquy, My +Vision, Dream Time, The Belle of +the Season, Joy, Bird of Hope, A Golden Day, Fading, All the +World, Old, Daft, Hung, When I am Dead, Ghosts, Out of the +Depths, Mistakes, Presumption, Song of the Spirit, A Dream, +Dying, Our Angel. This book is poetical inspiration of the highest +order for sustaining and strengthening the heart and mind +for the disappointments, vicissitudes and achievements of life.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>PRICE 75 CENTS</b></p> + +<p class="g2">Poems Of Love,<small> by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.</small></p> + +<p>A beautiful book—companion to “Poems of Reflection.” +The following is a selection from a few of the poems in the +<span class="smcap">Poems of Love</span>: Sweet Danger, A Fatal Impress, Love, I Will +be True, The Kingdom of Love, Love will Wane, A Maiden’s +Secret, Lines from “Maurine.” This book is handsomely bound +in the style of Poems and Reflections.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>CLOTH, PRICE 75 CENTS</b></p> + +<p class="g2">Sweet Danger, <small>by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.</small></p> + +<p>This popular author tells the story of love in this book as +it has never been elsewhere told.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>CLOTH, PRICE 75 CENTS</b></p> + +<p class="center">Sent prepaid on receipt of price,</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="g2">M. A. DONOHUE & CO.,</span> +<span class="rght">407-429 Dearborn Street:<br /> CHICAGO</span></p> +<hr class="l4"/> +<p><span class="pagenum">[314]</span></p> + + +<p class="g2">Picturesque American Biographies</p> + +<p>“In John Paul Jones and Ethan Allen, Mr. Brown found two of the +most picturesque figures in the life of the country, and he has shown +himself able to deal with them as historical persons, without detracting +anything from the romantic qualities of their individuality. He +competes with historical fiction by developing the superior interest +of the facts as they grew out of the life of his heroes and the life of +their times. Few biographies intended for popular reading and the +widest general circulation illustrates this same faculty of measuring +statement and giving its governing value to fact while developing the +picturesque and the romantic as it lies latent in history.”—<span class="smcap">William +Vincent Byars</span> in <i>The St. Louis Star</i>.</p> + +<hr class="l3"/> + +<p class="g1"><span class="lft"> +<small>LIFE AND<br /> +DEEDS OF</small></span> +<span class="center"><big>ETHAN ALLEN</big></span> +<span class="rght"><small>AND THE GREEN<br /> +MOUNTAIN BOYS</small></span></p> + +<p class="center r2"><b>By Charles Walter Brown, A. M.</b></p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/ad10a.png" width="215" height="317" alt="Ethan Allen" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Author of “John Paul Jones,” “Nathan +Hale,” “Lafayette,” “Pulaski,” “Washington,” +“Abraham Lincoln,” “Sherman.”</p> + +<p class="center"><b>16 ILLUSTRATIONS</b></p> + +<p>“It is the best ‘life’ of Ethan Allen published.”—<i>Chicago +Chronicle.</i></p> + +<p>“It abounds in incidents, anecdotes and adventures.”—<i>Louisville +Courier Journal.</i></p> + +<p>“It is a painstaking and accurate biography, +possessing the fascination of romance.”—<i>St. +Louis Republic.</i></p> + +<p>“The account of the expedition into Canada +and Allen’s lamentable capture by the +British, near Montreal, holds the reader’s +attention with all the force of a work of +fiction.”—<i>Chicago Journal.</i></p> + +<p>12mo, cloth, 5<small>5⁄8</small>x7<small>7⁄8</small>, nearly 300 pages. Price, Postpaid <span class="rght">$1.00</span></p> +<hr class="l3"/> + +<p class="g1"><span class="lft"> +<small>LIFE AND<br /> +DEEDS OF</small></span> +<span class="center"><big>JOHN PAUL JONES</big></span> +<span class="rght"><small>OF NAVAL<br /> +FAME</small></span></p> + +<p class="center"><b>By Charles Walter Brown, A. M.</b></p> + +<p class="center"><b>12 ILLUSTRATIONS</b></p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/ad10b.png" width="220" height="317" alt="John Paul Jones" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>“This book is a credit to any publishing +house.”—<i>Detroit Free Press.</i></p> + +<p>“The publication is a careful and commendable +one.”—<i>Chicago Journal.</i></p> + +<p>“The public will readily welcome this +new and valuable biography of John Paul +Jones.”—<i>Indianapolis Sentinel.</i></p> + +<p>“Mr. Brown is a faithful biographer and +historian, and has the happy knack of +making his hero live again in the imagination +of his host of readers.”—<i>Literary +Life, New York.</i></p> + +<p class="hangingindent"> +Size, 5<small>5⁄8</small>x7<small>7⁄8</small>, early 300 pages; 12mo, cloth. Price, Postpaid +<span class="rght"> $1.00</span></p> +<p class="hangingindent">This set of two volumes, “Allen” and +“Jones” sent to one address, express +paid, for <span class="rght"> $1.25</span> +</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="g2">M. A. DONOHUE & CO.,</span> +<span class="rght">407-429 Dearborn Street<br /> CHICAGO</span></p> +<hr class="l4"/> +<p><span class="pagenum">[315]</span></p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/ad11.png" width="226" height="326" alt="Young Oarsmen of Lake View" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="g5a"> +<i>...The...<br /> +Young<br /> +Sportsman<br /> +Series</i></p> + +<p class="center r2"><i><b>By Captain Ralph Bonehill</b></i></p> + +<p class="center r2"><span class="g4">Young Oarsman of<br /> +Lake View</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="g4">Leo, the Circus Boy</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="g4">Rival Cyclists</span></p> + +<p class="center"><big><b><i> PRICE <span class="g5">75c</span> +POST PAID</i></b></big></p> + +<p class="g3"><i>CHICAGO<br /> +M. A. Donohue & Co.<br /> +<small>407-429 Dearborn St.</small></i></p> +<hr class="l4"/> +<p><span class="pagenum">[316]</span></p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/ad12.png" width="236" height="326" alt="Winged Arrows Medicine" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center r4"><span class="g4">WORKS</span><br /> +<span class="g3">OF</span><br /> +<span class="g5a">HARRY<br /> +CASTLEMON</span></p> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="10" summary="Works of Harry Castlemon"> +<tr><td align="left"><hr class="l3"/></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="g3">The First Capture</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="g3">A Struggle for a Fortune</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="g3">Winged Arrow’s Medicine</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><hr class="l3"/></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p class="center"><b>PRICE 75C POSTPAID</b></p> + +<hr class="l3"/> + +<p class="g2">CHICAGO<br /> +<big>M. A. DONOHUE & CO.</big><br /> +<b><small>415-429 Dearborn St.</small></b></p> +<hr class="l4"/> +<p><span class="pagenum">[317]</span></p> + + +<p class="g4">On a Slow Train Through Arkansaw</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/ad13.png" width="326" height="388" alt="On a Slow Train Through Arkansaw" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center r4"><i>By Thomas W. Jackson</i></p> + +<p class="center"><i><big>THE FUNNIEST OF<br /> +ALL BOOKS</big></i></p> + +<p class="center">Over 900,000 sold since<br /> +Jan. 20, 1904</p> + +<p>It tells of all the funny +things that happened on +a slow train. Many +funny Railroad Stories, +Sayings of the Southern +Darkies. All the latest +and best Minstrel Jokes +of the Day. Paper Covers. +Price, 25 cents.</p> +<hr class="l3"/> + +<p><span class="lft g1a">900,000 Copies </span></p> + +<p>of “On a Slow Train Through Arkansaw” +were sold in 9 months. It still sells at the +rate of nearly 50,000 a month, but</p> + + +<p class="g3"><i>THREE YEARS IN ARKANSAW</i></p> + +<p><span class="lft g1a">JUST OUT </span></p> + +<p>Bids fair to outsell that immensely popular +book. “The Most Unique Book Ever Published.”</p> + +<p>“A complete history of the funny, comical, unreasonable, rich, +rare and peculiar things that happened, transpired and turned up +during my three years of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness +along the rocky path of life down in old Arkansaw.”—<i>M. Hughes.</i></p> + +<p class="center">Paper Covers, Price, 25 cents.</p> +<hr class="l3"/> + +<h2>THROUGH MISSOURI ON A MULE</h2> + +<p class="center"><i><b>“Worse than Arkansaw” ALL NEW.</b></i></p> + +<p>By Thomas W. Jackson, author of “On a Slow Train Through +Arkansaw.” Contains funny Railroad Stories, Old Time Darky +Sayings, Minstrel Jokes, all the late and funny sayings of the day.</p> + +<p class="center">Paper Covers, Price, 25 cents.</p> +<hr class="l3"/> + +<p>For sale by all Book and Newsdealers, or will send to any address +in the United States, Canada or Mexico, postage prepaid, +on receipt of price, in currency, money order or stamps.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="g2"><i>M. A. DONOHUE & CO.,</i></span> +<span class="rght"><i>407-429 Dearborn St.<br /> CHICAGO, ILL.</i></span></p> +<hr class="l4"/> +<p><span class="pagenum">[318]</span></p> + + +<p class="center"><span class="g5">LOVE LETTERS</span><br /> + +<span class="g1">With Directions How To Write Them</span></p> + +<p class="g0">By INGOLDSBY NORTH.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/ad14a.png" width="111" height="155" alt="Love Letters" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>This is a branch of correspondence which fully +demands a volume alone to provide for the various +phases incident to Love, Courtship and Marriage. +Few persons, however otherwise fluent with the pen, +are able to express in words the promptings of the +first dawn of love, and even the ice once broken +how to follow up a correspondence with the dearest +one in the whole world and how to smooth the +way with those who need to be consulted in the +matter. The numerous letters and answers in this +book go far to overcome the difficulties and embarrassment inseparable +from letters on this all-absorbing topic in all stages from +beginning to end of a successful courtship, aided in many instances +by the author’s sensible comments on the specimen letters, and +his valuable hints under adverse contingencies. It also contains +the Art of Secret Writing, the Language of Love portrayed and +rules in grammar.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>Paper Covers, 25 Cents. Cloth, 50 Cents.</b></p> +<hr class="l3"/> + + +<p class="center"><span class="g1">THE COMPLETE</span><br /> + +<span class="g5">LETTER WRITER</span></p> + +<p class="center"><b>Being the only Comprehensive and Practical Guide and<br /> +Assistant to Letter Writing Published.</b></p> + +<p class="center"><b>Edited by CHARLES WALTER BROWN, A. M.</b></p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/ad14b.png" width="108" height="152" alt="The Complete Letter Writer" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>There are few books that contain such a fund of +valuable information on the everyday affairs of life. +In addition to every conceivable form of business +and social correspondence, there are letters of Condolence, +Introduction, Congratulation, Felicitation, +Advice and Favor; Letters accompanying presents; +Notes on Love, Courtship and Marriage; Forms of +Wedding Anniversaries, Socials, Parties, Notes, +Wills, Deeds, Mortgages; Tables, Abbreviations, +Classical Terms, Common Errors, Selections for +Autograph Albums; Information concerning Rates on Foreign and +Domestic Postage, together with a dictionary of nearly 10,000 +Synonyms and other valuable information which space will not +admit of mention. The book is printed from new plates, on a superior +quality of paper and bound in substantial and durable +manner. 12mo.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>Paper Covers, 25c. Cloth, 50c. Cloth, 320 Pages, Price $1.00</b></p> + +<p>For sale by all book and newsdealers, or sent to any address in +the U. S., Canada or Mexico, postage prepaid on receipt of price +in currency, money order or stamps.</p> + + +<p class="center r2"><span class="g2">M. A. DONOHUE & CO.,</span> +<span class="rght">407-429 DEARBORN ST.<br /> CHICAGO</span></p> +<hr class="l4"/> +<p><span class="pagenum">[319]</span></p> + + +<p class="g4"><i>The Voter’s Manual<br /> +and Argument.</i></p> + +<p class="g1">SETTLER FOR THE VEST POCKET</p> + +<p>A strictly non-partisan compilation of political facts and +statistics, designed for ready reference, containing information +with which every voter in the United States should be familiar. +Concise, correct, convenient. A new and valuable work.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p><b>Bound in leather, title on side in gold, 35 cents.</b><br /> +<b>Bound in cloth, 20 cents.</b></p></div> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/ad15.png" width="177" height="269" alt="Hoyle’s Book of Games" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="g3 r2">Hoyle’s Book of Games</p> + +<p>Containing all of the games played with +cards, also containing rules for Backgammon, +Chess, Checkers, Billiards, Pool, Bagatelle, +Bowls, etc. Numerous diagrams and engravings. +The best and most complete edition of +Hoyle published. Printed from new plates, +substantially bound in cloth, stamped in ink +and gold.</p> + +<p class="center"><b><big>Price, $1.00</big></b></p> + +<p class="center"><b>Bound in paper, 25 cents.</b></p> + +<hr class="l3"/> +<p class="g1">LEAVES FROM</p> + +<p class="g3"><i>Conjurer’s Scrap Book</i></p> + +<p class="g1">OR MODERN MAGICIANS AND THEIR WORKS</p> + +<p>By H. J. Burlingame. 274 pages. 7¾ × 5½ inches, containing +numerous illustrations. This work presents modern magic +in a skillful manner and shows how the startling and marvelous +performances of magicians are accomplished. It is a very interesting +and desirable publication.</p> + +<p class="center"><big><b>Price, $1.50</b></big></p> + +<p class="center"><i><b>Sent Prepaid on Receipt of Price</b></i></p> + + +<p class="g1"><big>M. A. DONOHUE & CO.,</big><br /> +<small>407-429 DEARBORN ST.,</small><br /> +CHICAGO.</p> +<hr class="l4"/> +<p><span class="pagenum">[320]</span></p> + + +<p class="center g5">VASSAR SERIES</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/ad16.png" width="206" height="306" alt="Vassar Series" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="g2">FOR GIRLS.</p> + +<p class="center"><b>ILLUSTRATED</b></p> + +<p>This is the most attractive and carefully +selected series of stories for girls +published. Each book is a masterpiece +by a master hand and was selected not +merely because of the established reputation +of its author but because it +had earned a place in every home where +there are girls. Uniform cloth binding, +title in gold, sides and back stamped in +inks.</p> + +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap">Price Per Volume</span> 75c.</p> + +<div class="centered r2"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="List of Titles in Vassar Series"> +<tr><td align="right">1</td><td align="left">Adventures of a Brownie, as Told to My Child, Mulock.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">2</td><td align="left">Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and through the Looking Glass, Carroll.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">3</td><td align="left">Arabian Nights.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">4</td><td align="left">Andersen’s Fairy Tales, Andersen.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">5</td><td align="left">Aunt Diana, Rosa N. Carey.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">6</td><td align="left">Averil, Rosa N. Carey.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">7</td><td align="left">Black Beauty, Anna Sewall.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">8</td><td align="left">Book of Golden Deeds, Yonge.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">9</td><td align="left">Cuckoo Clock, Molesworth.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">10</td><td align="left">Deb and Duchess, Meade.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">11</td><td align="left">Esther, Rosa N. Carey.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">12</td><td align="left">Fairy Book, Miss Mulock.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">13</td><td align="left">Flat Iron for a Farthing, Mrs. Ewing.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">14</td><td align="left">Four Little Mischiefs, Rosa Mulholland.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">15</td><td align="left">Girl in Ten Thousand, Meade.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">16</td><td align="left">Girl Neighbors, Sara Tyler.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">17</td><td align="left">Girls and I, and Girls in Black, Mrs. Molesworth.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">18</td><td align="left">Grandmother Dear, Mrs. Molesworth.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">19</td><td align="left">Grimm’s Household Stories, Grimm.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">20</td><td align="left">Grimm’s Popular Fairy Tales, Grimm.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">21</td><td align="left">In the Golden Days, Lyall.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">22</td><td align="left">Jackanapes, Mrs. Ewing.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">23</td><td align="left">Lamplighter, The Cummings.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">24</td><td align="left">Little Lame Prince, Mulock.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">25</td><td align="left">Little Susy Stories containing: Little Susy’s Six Birthdays, Little Susy’s Six Teachers, Little Susy’s Little Servants, Prentiss.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">26</td><td align="left">Margery Merton’s Girlhood, A. Corkran.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">27</td><td align="left">Meg’s Friend, A. Corkran.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">28</td><td align="left">Merle’s Crusade, Carey.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">29</td><td align="left">Naughty Miss Bunny, Mulholland.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">30</td><td align="left">Old, Old Fairy Tales.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">31</td><td align="left">Our Bessie, Rosa N. Carey.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">32</td><td align="left">Palace Beautiful, Meade.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">33</td><td align="left">Pilgrim’s Progress, Ill., John Bunyan.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">34</td><td align="left">Polly, A New Fashioned Girl, Meade.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">35</td><td align="left">Queenie’s Whim, Carey.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">36</td><td align="left">Robin Redbreast, Mrs. Molesworth.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">37</td><td align="left">Schonberg-Cotta Family, Mrs. Charles.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">38</td><td align="left">Six to Sixteen, Mrs. Ewing.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">39</td><td align="left">Six Little Princesses and What They Turned Into, Mrs. Prentiss.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">40</td><td align="left">Sweet Girl Graduate, A, L. T. Meade.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">41</td><td align="left">Taming a Tomboy, Emmy von Rhoden.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">42</td><td align="left">Three Bright Girls, A. E. Armstrong.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">43</td><td align="left">Two Little Maids, Verdier.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">44</td><td align="left">“Us,” Mrs. Molesworth.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">45</td><td align="left">Very Odd Girl, A, A. E. Armstrong.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">46</td><td align="left">Water Babies, C. Kingsley.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">47</td><td align="left">Wide, Wide World, E. Wetherell.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">48</td><td align="left">Wild Kitty, L. T. Meade.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">49</td><td align="left">World of Girls, A, Meade.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">50</td><td align="left">Young Mutineer, Meade.</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p class="center g0"> +<big>M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY</big><br /> +407-429 DEARBORN STREET,—CHICAGO +</p> +</div> + +<hr class="l1"/> +<div class="tnote"><h2><a name="Transcribers_Notes" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes:</a></h2> + +<p>Obvious printer’s errors were silently corrected.</p> + +<p>Errors in the names were corrected for consistency and changed to either +the first or the most occurring one:</p> +<ul><li>Stephen Davenant was called Stephen Newcombe on page 26</li> +<li>Mrs. Davenant's maid Jane was called Janet on page 134</li> +<li>Mrs. Cantrip on page 146 was called Cantup on page 169</li> +<li>Walmington Square was called Washington Square on page 221.</li></ul> + +<p>Otherwise the author's writing style has been preserved, including:</p> +<ul><li>archaic and inconsistent spelling</li> +<li>inconsistent hyphenation</li> +<li>French words written without accents.</li></ul> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir, by +Charles Garvice + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONLY ONE LOVE, OR WHO WAS THE HEIR *** + +***** This file should be named 35523-h.htm or 35523-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/5/2/35523/ + +Produced by Heather Clark, eagkw and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir + +Author: Charles Garvice + +Release Date: March 9, 2011 [EBook #35523] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONLY ONE LOVE, OR WHO WAS THE HEIR *** + + + + +Produced by Heather Clark, eagkw and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + +ONLY ONE LOVE + +Or + +WHO WAS THE HEIR + + +By + +CHARLES GARVICE + +Author of + + "Claire," "Elaine," "Her Heart's Desire," "Leola Dale's Fortune," + "Her Ransom," "Leslie's Loyalty," "Lorrie; or, Hollow Gold," + "The Marquis," "Only a Girl's Love," + "She Loved Him," "A Wasted Love," + Etc. + + +CHICAGO + +M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY + +407-429 Dearborn Street + + + + + M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY + PRINTERS AND BINDERS + 407-429 DEARBORN STREET + CHICAGO + + + + +ONLY ONE LOVE + +Or, + +Who Was The Heir? + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +One summer's evening a young man was tramping through the Forest of +Warden. "Forest of Warden" sounds strange, old-fashioned, almost +improbable; but, thank Heaven, there yet remain, in over-crowded +England, some spots, few and far between though they may be, still +untouched by the greedy fingers of the destroyers, whom men call +Progress and Civilization. + +To this grand old forest, for instance, whose dim shades echo the soft +pit-pat of the deer and the coo of the wood-pigeon, comes not the +tourist, with hideous knapsack and suit of startling check; no panting +locomotive belches out its cloud of coal smoke to dim the brightness of +the sky and choke the elms and oaks which reared their stately heads +before their fell enemy, the steam engine, was dreamt of. + +So remote and unfrequented is the forest that there is scarcely a road +from end to end of its umbrageous length, for the trail made by the +rough carts of the woodmen and charcoal burners could scarcely be +dignified by the title of thoroughfare, and a few footpaths that wind +about the glades are so faint and seldom used as to be scarcely +distinguished from the undergrowth of ferny moss around. + +Along one of the footpaths the young man tramped, occasionally stopping +for a moment to look up at the sky which shone redly through the +openings of the trees or to watch some frightened hare scamper across +the glade. + +Every now and then a herd of deer would flit through the undergrowth, +turning toward him distended eyes of alarm and curiosity, for of the two +kinds of men with whom they were acquainted--charcoal burners and +woodmen--he was neither; nor did he belong to the tribe of tourists, for +he carried no knapsack, and instead of the inevitable check and +knickerbockers, was clad in a loose Cheviot suit, which, though well +worn, bore about it the unmistakable stamp of Saville Row. + +That he was young and light-hearted was evident from the fact that he +broke out into an occasional snatch of an air from the last new popular +_opera bouffe_, notwithstanding that the evening was closing in and he +had most completely and emphatically lost his way. + +Now, to lose your way in a forest reads rather romantic and entertaining +than otherwise, but like shipwreck, or falling into the hands of Greek +banditti, it is a much pleasanter thing on paper than in reality. + +A bed of moss, though very charming in the daytime, is not nearly so +comfortable as a spring mattress, and is sure to be damp, and primeval +oaks, majestic and beautiful as they are, do not keep out the draught. +The worst room in the worst inn is preferable to a night's lodging in +the grandest of forests. + +But, though he had never been in the Warden Forest before, the young man +knew it would be midsummer madness to hope for an inn and was wandering +along on the chance of coming across some woodman's hut, or by meeting a +stray human being of whom he could inquire his way. + +He was tired--he had been walking since morning, and he was hungry and +athirst, but he tramped on, and smoked and sang as carelessly as if he +were strolling down the shady side of Pall Mall. + +Slowly the sun set, and the glades, which had been dusky an hour ago, +grew dark. The faint footpath grew still more indistinct, the +undergrowth denser and more difficult for persons walking. + +The pedestrian fought on for some time, but at last, as he stumbled over +one of the gnarled roots which a grand chestnut had thrust up through +the ground, he stopped and, looking round, shook his head. + +"A regular babe in the wood, by Jove!" he exclaimed. "I shall have to +make a night of it, I expect. Wonder whether the robins will be good +enough to cover me over in the proper nursery-book style? Is it any good +halloing, I wonder? I tried that an hour ago, much to the disgust of the +live animals; and I don't think I can kick up a row at this time of +night. Let's see how the 'bacca goes. Hem! about three--perhaps four +pipes. I wish I had something to eat and drink; what a fool I was to +leave that piece of steak at breakfast. Steak! I mustn't think of +it--that way madness lies. Well, this looks about as sheltered a spot as +I could find--I'll turn in. I wonder if anybody has, ever since the +world began, hit upon a short cut? I never have, and hang me if I'll try +it again. By George! the grass is wet already. Such a likely place for +snakes--find my pocket full when I wake, no doubt." + +Then, with a laugh, he dropped down amongst the long brake; but the idea +of going to bed in a forest, at the early hour of nine, was too much for +him, and instead of composing himself to rheumatic slumber, he began to +sing: + + "Oh, wake and call me early, mother, + Call me early, mother, dear." + +Scarcely had he finished the line when there came through the darkness, +as if in response, a short, sharp bark of a dog. + +The wanderer leapt to his feet as if something had bitten him, and after +listening intently for a moment, exclaimed: + +"Another chance, by Jove!" and sent up a shout that, ringing through the +stillness, echoed from tree to tree, and at last called forth the +answering bark from the distant dog. + +Knocking out his pipe as he ran, he made his way as best he could toward +the sound, shouting occasionally and listening warily to the dog's +response. + +At last, after many a stumble, he found himself in a narrow glade, at +the end of which, faintly defined against the patch of sky, stood the +figure of a man. + +"Saved, by George!" exclaimed the youth, with mock melodramatic +emphasis. + +"Halloa! Hi! Wait a moment there, will you?" he shouted. + +The figure stopped and turned its head, then, after what seemed a +moment's hesitation, brought back the dog, which was running toward the +belated youth, and suddenly disappeared. + +The wanderer pulled up and stared about the glade with an astonishment +which immediately gave place to wrath. + +"Confound his impudence!" he exclaimed, fiercely. "I'll swear he saw me! +What on earth did he mean by going off like that? Did the fool think I +was a ghost? I'll show him I'm a ghost that carries a big stick if I +come up with him. Confound him, where----" Then, as a sudden thought +struck him, he set off running down the glade, barking like a dog. + +No live, real dog could withstand such an invitation. The dog ahead set +up an angry echo, through which the youth could hear the man's angry +attempt to silence the animal, and guided by the two voices, the +wanderer struck into a footpath, and running at a good pace, came +suddenly into a small clearing, in which stood a small wooden hut, +before the door of which man and dog were standing as if on guard. + +For a moment the two men stood and regarded each other in silence, the +youth hot and angry, the man calm and grim. + +Each, in his way, was a fine specimen of his class; the man, with his +weather-beaten face and his thick-set limbs, clad in woodman's garb; the +youth, with his frankly handsome countenance and patrician air. + +"What the deuce do you mean by leaving a man in the lurch like this?" +demanded the young man, angrily. "Did you take me for a ghost?" + +The woodman, half leaning on his long-handled axe, regarded him grimly. + +"No. I don't come at every man's beck and call, young sir. What's your +will with me?" + +"Why didn't you stop when I called to you just now?" retorted the youth, +ignoring the question. + +"Because it didn't suit me," said the man, not insolently, but with +simple, straightforward candor. "You are answered, young sir; now, what +do you want?" + +The young man looked at him curiously, conquering his anger. + +"Well, I've lost my way," he said, after a moment's pause. + +"Where are you going?" was the quiet response. + +"To Arkdale." + +The woodman raised his eyes, and looked at him for a moment. + +"Arkdale? Yes, you are out of the way. Arkdale lies to the west. Follow +me, young sir, and I'll show you the road." + +"Stop a moment," said the other; "though you declined to wait for me +just now, you would not refuse to give me a glass of water, I suppose." + +The man turned, he had already strode forward, and laid his hand on the +latch of the cottage door. + +The young man was following as a matter of course; but the woodman, with +his hand still on the latch, pointed to a wooden seat under the window. + +"Take your seat there, sir," he said, with grim determination. + +The other stared, and the hot blood rose to his face; but he threw +himself on the bench. + +"Very well," he said; "I see you still think me a ghost; you'll be more +easy when you see me drink. Look sharp, my good fellow." + +The woodman, not a whit moved by this taunt, entered the cottage, and +the young man heard a bolt shot into its place. + +A few moments passed, and then the man came out with a plate and a +glass. + +"Thanks," said the young man. "What's this?" + +"Cider--cake," was the curt answer. + +"Oh, thanks," repeated the other; "jolly good cider, too. Come, you're +not half a bad fellow. Do you know I meant to give you a hiding when I +came up to you?" + +"Very like," said the man, calmly. "Will you have any more?" + +"Another glass, thanks." + +With his former precaution in the way of bolting and barring, the man +entered the cottage and reappeared with a refilled glass. + +This the young man drank more leisurely, staring with unconcealed +curiosity at his entertainer. + +It was a kind of stare that would embarrass six men out of ten, and +madden the remaining four; but the woodman bore it with the calm +impassiveness of a wooden block, and stood motionless as a statue till +the youth set down the glass, then he raised his hand and pointed to the +west. + +"Yonder lies Arkdale." + +"Oh! How far?" + +"Four miles and a half by the near road. Follow me, and I will put you +into it." + +"All right, lead on," said the other; but as he rose he turned, and +while refilling his pipe stared at the closely locked cottage. + +"Comfortable kind of crib that, my man." + +The woodman nodded curtly. + +"You are a woodman?" + +Another nod. + +"And poacher too, eh? No offense," he added, coolly. "I only supposed so +from the close way in which you keep your place locked up." + +"Suppose what you please," retorted the woodman, if words so calmly +spoken could be called a retort. "Yonder lies your road, you'd best be +taking to it." + +"No hurry," retorted the young man, thrusting his hands in his pockets +and smiling at the ill-concealed impatience which struggled through the +grave calm on the weather-beaten face. "Well, I'm coming. You're not +half such a bad sort, after all. What have you got inside there that you +keep so close, eh? Some of the crown jewels or some of the Queen's +venison? Take my advice, old fellow--if you don't want people to be +curious, don't show such anxiety to keep 'em out of your crib." + +The man, pacing on ahead, knit his brows as if struck by the idea. + +"Curious folk don't come this way, young sir," he said, reluctantly. + +"So I should think," retorted the other. "Well, I'm not one of the +curious, though you think I am. I don't care a button what you've got +there. Will you have a pipe? I've got some 'bacca." + +The man shook his head, and they walked on in silence for some minutes, +the footpath winding in and out like a dimly-defined serpent. Presently +it widened, and the woodman stopped short and pointed down the leafy +lane. + +"Follow this path," he said, "until you come to a wood pile; take the +path to the left of it, and it will bring you to Arkdale. Good-night, +young sir." + +"Here, stop!" said the young man, and he held out his hand with a dollar +in it. "Here's a trifle to drink my health with." + +The woodman looked at the coin, then shook his head slowly; and with +another "good-night" turned and tramped off. + +Not at all abashed the young man restored the coin to his pocket, +laughed, and strode on. + +The woodman walked back a few yards, then stopped, and looked after the +stalwart figure until it deepened in the gloom, a thoughtful, puzzled +expression upon his face, as if he were trying to call up some +recollection. + +With a shake of his head, denoting failure, he made his way to the +cottage, unlocked it and entered. + +The door opened into what appeared to be the living room. It was small +and plainly furnished, after the manner of a woodman's hut, and yet, +after a moment's glance, a stranger would have noticed a subtle air of +refinement in common with better habitations. + +The table and chairs were of plain deal, the walls were of pine, stained +and varnished, but there was a good thick carpet on the floor, and on +one side of the room hung a bookcase filled with well-bound volumes. + +Beside the table, on which was spread the supper, stood a chair, more +luxurious than its fellows, and covered with a pretty chintz. The knife +and fork laid opposite this chair was of a better quality than the +others on the table; and beside the knife and fork lay a white napkin +and a daintily engraved glass; the other drinking vessels on the table +were of common delf. As the woodman entered, a woman, who was kneeling +at a fire in an adjoining room, looked round through the doorway. + +"Is't you, Gideon?" + +"Yes," he answered. "Where is Una?" + +"Una? Isn't she with you? I heard voices. Who was it?" + +"Where is Una?" he said, ignoring her question. + +"In the clearing, I suppose," said the woman. "She went out a few +minutes ago. I thought she went to meet you?" + +The man opened the door and called the dog, who had been wandering round +the room in an uneasy fashion. + +"Go, Dick," he said. "Go fetch her!" + +Then he came and stood by the fire thoughtfully. + +"No," he said, "it was not Una. I wish she wouldn't leave the cot after +dusk." + +"Why not? What's the fear? What has happened? Who was that I heard with +you?" + +"A stranger," he said, "a young gentleman lost his way. How long has she +been gone?" + +"Not ten minutes. A young gentleman. Think of that! How came he here?" + +"Lost his way. He followed me through the Chase. He has gone on to +Arkdale." + +"Lost his way," repeated the woman. "Poor fellow! Five miles it is to +Arkdale! A gentleman! A gentleman, did thee say?" + +"Ay," responded the man, frowning. "An outspoken one, too; I heard him +at the bottom of the Chase and thought to give him the slip, but he was +cunning, he teased the dog and ran us down. I had hard work to get rid +of him; he looked sore tired. No matter, he's gone," and he gave a sigh +of relief. "'Tis the first stranger that has come upon us since she +came." + +"Lost his way," murmured the woman, as she lifted a saucepan from the +fire, "and a gentleman. It is a rare sight in Warden Forest. Why, +Gideon, what has happened to thee?" and saucepan in hand, she stared at +her husband's cloudy brow. + +"Tut--nothing!" he answered, thrusting a projecting log into the fire +with his foot. "The young man's face seemed--as I thought--'twas but a +passing fancy--but I thought it was familiar. It was the voice more than +the face. And a bold face it was. I wish," he broke off, "that the lass +would come in. From to-night I will have no more wanderings after +sunset! One stranger follows another, and it is not safe for her to be +out so late----" + +"Hush!" interrupted the woman, holding up a forefinger. "Here she +comes." + +"Not a word!" said Gideon, warningly. + +As he spoke the door opened, the dog bounded in with a short yelp of +satisfaction, and close behind him, framed like a picture in the dark +doorway, stood a young girl. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +She had evidently run some distance, for she stood panting and +breathless, the color coming and going on her face, which shone out of +the hood which half covered her head. + +She was dressed in a plain cotton dress which a woodman's daughter might +wear, and which was short enough in the skirt to reveal a shapely foot, +and scant enough in the sleeves to show a white, shapely arm. + +But no one would have wasted time upon either arm or foot after a glance +at her face. + +To write it down simply and curtly, it was a beautiful face; but such a +description is far too meager and insufficient. It requires an artist, a +Rembrandt or a Gainsborough, to describe it, no pen-and-ink work can do +it. Beautiful faces can be seen by the score by anyone who chooses to +walk through Hyde Park in the middle of the season, but such a face as +this which was enframed by the doorway of the woodman's hut is not seen +in twenty seasons. + +It was a face which baffles the powers of description, just as a sunset +sky laughs to scorn the brush of the ablest painter. It was neither dark +nor fair, neither grave nor sad, though at the moment of its entrance a +smile played over it as the moonbeams play over a placid lake. + +To catalogue in dry matter-of-fact fashion, the face possessed dark +brown eyes, bright brown hair, and red, ripe lips; but no catalogue can +give the spirit of the face, no description convey an idea of the swift +and eloquent play of expression which, like a flash of sunlight, lit up +eyes and lips. + +Beautiful! The word is hackneyed and worn out. Here was a face more +than beautiful, it was soulful. Like the still pool in the heart of a +wood, it mirrored the emotion of the heart as faithfully as a glass +would reflect the face. Like a glass--joy, sorrow, pleasure, mirth, were +reflected in the eloquent eyes and mobile lips. + +Of concealment the face was entirely ignorant; no bird of the forest in +which she lived could be more frank, innocent of guile, and ignorant of +evil. + +With her light summer cloak held round her graceful figure, she stood in +the doorway, a picture of grace and youthful beauty. + +For a moment she stood silent, looking from the woodman to his wife +questioningly, then she came into the room and threw the hood back, +revealing a shapely head, shining, bronze-like, in the light of the +lamp. + +"Did you send Dick for me, father?" she said, and her voice, like her +face, betokened a refinement uncommon in a woodman's daughter. "I was +not far off, only at the pool to hear the frogs' concert. Dick knows +where to find me now, he comes straight to the pond, though he hates +frogs' music; don't you, Dick?" + +The dog rubbed his nose against her hand and wagged his tail, and the +girl took her seat at the table. + +To match face and voice, her mien and movements were graceful, and she +handled the dinner-napkin like--a lady. It was just that, expressed in a +word. The girl was not only beautiful--but a lady, in appearance, in +tone, in bearing--and that, notwithstanding she wore a plain cotton gown +in a woodman's hut, and called the woodman "father." + +"You did not come by your usual path, father," she said, turning from +the deerhound, who sat on his haunches and rested his nose in her lap, +quite content if her hand touched his head, say once during the meal. + +"No, Una," he replied, and though he called her by her Christian name, +and without any prefix there was a subtle undertone in his voice and in +his manner of addressing her, which seemed to infer something like +respect. "No, I went astray." + +"And you were late," she said. "Was anything the matter?" she added, +turning her eyes upon him, with, for the first time, an air of +interrogation. + +"Matter? No," he said, raising himself and coming to the table. "What +should be? Yes, I came home by another path, and I don't think you must +come to meet me after dark, Una," he added, with affected carelessness. + +"No?" she asked, looking from one to the other with a smile of surprise. +"Why not? Do you think I should get lost, or have you seen any wolves in +Warden Forest, father? I know every path from end to end, and wolves +have left merry England forever." + +"Not quite," said Gideon, absently. + +"Yes, quite," and she laughed. "What Saxon king was it who offered +fivepence for every wolf's head? We were reading about it the other +night, don't you remember?" + +"Reading! you are always reading," said the woman, as she put a smoking +dish on the table, and speaking for the first time. "It's books, books, +from morn to night, and your father encourages you. The books will make +thee old before thy time, child, and put no pence in thy father's +pocket." + +"Poor father!" she murmured, and leaning forward, put her arms round his +neck. "I wish I could find in the poor, abused books the way to make him +rich." + +Gideon had put up his rough hand to caress the white one nestling +against his face, but he let his hand drop again and looked at her with +a slight cloud on his brow. + +"Rich! who wants to be rich? The word is on your lips full oft of late, +Una. Do _you_ want to be rich?" + +"Sometimes," she answered. "As much for your sake as mine. I should like +to be rich enough for you to rest, and"--looking round the plainly +furnished but comfortable room--"and a better house and clothes." + +"I am not weary," he said, his eyes fixed on her with a thoughtful air +of concealed scrutiny. "The cot is good enough for me, and the purple +and fine linen I want none of. So much for me; now for yourself, Una?" + +"For myself?" she said. "Well, sometimes I think, when I have been +reading some of the books, that I should like to be rich and see the +world." + +"It must be such a wonderful place! Not so wonderful as I think it, +perhaps, and that's just because I have never seen anything of it. Is it +not strange that for all these years I have never been outside Warden?" + +"Strange?" he echoed, reluctantly. + +"Yes; are other girls so shut in and kept from seeing the world that one +reads so pleasantly of?" + +"Not all. It would be well for most of them if they were. It has been +well for you. You have not been unhappy, Una?" + +"Unhappy! No! How could one be unhappy in Warden? Why, it's a world in +itself, and full of friends. Every living thing in it seems a friend, +and an old friend, too. How long have we lived in Warden, father?" + +"Eighteen years." + +"And I am twenty-one. Mother told me yesterday. Where did we live before +we came to Warden?" + +"Don't worry your father, Una," said Mrs. Rolfe, who had been listening +and looking from one to the other with ill-concealed anxiety; "he is too +weary to talk." + +"Forgive me, father. It was thoughtless of me. I should have remembered +that you have had a hard day, while I have been idling in the wood, and +over my books; it was stupid of me to trouble you. Won't you sit down +again and--and I will promise not to talk." + +"Say no more, Una. It grieves me to think that you might not be content, +that you were not happy; if you knew as much of the world that raves and +writhes outside as I do, you would be all too thankful that you are out +of the monster's reach, and that all you know of it is from your books, +which--Heaven forgive them--lie all too often! See now, here is +something I found in Arkdale;" and as he spoke he drew from the +capacious pocket of his velveteen jacket a small volume. + +The girl sprang to her feet--not clumsily, but with infinite grace--and +leaned over his shoulder eagerly. + +"Why, father, it is the poems you promised me, and it was in your pocket +all the while I was wearying you with my foolish questions." + +"Tut, tut! Take your book, child, and devour it, as usual." + +Once or twice Gideon looked up, roused from his reverie by the rustling +of the trees as the gusts shook them, and suddenly the sky was rent by a +flash of lightning and a peal of thunder, followed by the heavy rattle +of the rainstorm. + +"Hark at the night, father!" she said, raising her eyes from the book, +but only for a moment. + +"Ay, Una," he said, "some of the old elms will fall to-night. Woodman +Lightning strikes with a keen ax." + +Suddenly there came another sound which, coming in an interval of +comparative quiet, caused Una to look up with surprise. + +"Halloa there! open the door." + +Gideon sprang to his feet, his face pale with anger. + +"Go to your room, Una," he said. + +She rose and moved across the room to obey, but before she had passed up +the stairs the woodman had opened the door, and the voice came in from +the outside, and she paused almost unconsciously. + +"At last! What a time you have been! I've knocked loud enough to wake +the dead. For Heaven's sake, open the door and let me in. I'm drenched +to the skin." + +"This is not an inn, young sir." + +"No, or it would soon come to ruin with such a landlord. It's something +with four walls and a roof, and I must be content with that. You don't +mean to say that you won't let me come in?" + +"I do not keep open house for travelers." + +"Oh, come," exclaimed the young man, with a short laugh. "It's your own +fault that I am back here; you told me the wrong turning. I'll swear I +followed your directions. I must have been walking in a circle; anyhow I +lost my way, and here I am, and, with all your churlishness, you can't +refuse me shelter on such a night as this." + +"The storm has cleared. It is but an hour's walk to Arkdale; I will go +with you." + +"That you certainly will not, to-night, nor any other man," was the +good-humored retort. "I've had enough of your confounded forest for +to-night. Why, man, are you afraid to let me in? It's a nasty thing to +have to do, but----" and with a sudden thrust of his strong shoulder he +forced the door open and passed the threshold. + +But the woodman recovered from the surprise in a moment and, seizing him +by the throat, was forcing him out again, when, with a low cry, Una +sprang forward and laid her hand on his arm. + +At her touch Gideon's hands dropped to his side. The stranger sprang +upright, but almost staggered out with discomfited astonishment. + +For the first time in her life she stood face to face with a man other +than a woodman or a charcoal-burner. And as she looked her heart almost +stopped beating, the color died slowly from her face. Was it real, or +was it one of the visionary heroes of her books created into life from +her own dreaming brain? + +With parted lips she waited, half longing, half dreading, to hear him +speak. + +It seemed ages before he found his voice, but at last, with a sudden +little shake of the head, as if he were, as he would have expressed it, +"pulling himself together," he took off his wide hat and slowly turned +his eyes from the beautiful face of the girl to the stern and now set +face of the woodman. + +"Why didn't you tell me that you had a lady--ladies with you?" half +angrily, half apologetically. Then he turned quickly, impulsively, to +Una. "I hope you will forgive me. I had no idea that there was anyone +here excepting himself. Of course I would rather have got into the first +ditch than have disturbed you. I hope, I do hope you believe that, +though I can't hope you'll forgive me. Good-night," and inclining his +head he turned to the door. + +Una, who had listened with an intent, rapt look on her face, as one sees +a blind man listen to music, drew a little breath of regret as he ceased +speaking, and then, with a little, quick gesture, laid her hand on her +father's arm. + +It was an imploring touch. It said as plainly as if she had spoken: + +"Do not let him go." + +"Having forced your way into my house you--may remain." + +"Thanks. I should not think of doing so. Good-night." + +"No; you must not go. He does not mean it. You have made him angry. +Please do not go!" + +The young man hesitated, and the woodman, with a gesture that was one of +resigned despair, shut the door. + +Then he turned and pointed to the next room. + +"There's a fire there," he said. + +"I'd rather be out in the wood by far," he said, "than be here feeling +that I have made a nuisance of myself. I'd better go." + +But Gideon Rolfe led the way into the next room, and after another look +from Mrs. Rolfe to Una, the young man followed. + +Una stood in the center of the room looking at the door behind which he +had disappeared, like one in a dream. Then she turned to Mrs. Rolfe. + +"Shall I go, mother?" + +"Yes. No. Wait till your father comes in." + +After the lapse of ten minutes the woodman and the woodman's guest +re-entered. The latter had exchanged his wet clothes for a suit of +Gideon's, which, though it was well-worn velveteen, failed to conceal +the high-bred air of its present wearer. + +Meanwhile Mrs. Rolfe had been busily spreading the remains of the +supper. + +"'Tis but plain fare, sir," she said; "but you are heartily welcome." + +"Thanks. It looks like a banquet to me," he added, with the short laugh +which seemed peculiar to him. "I haven't tasted food, as tramps say, +since morning." + +"Dear! dear!" exclaimed the wife. + +Una, calling up a long line of heroes, thought first of Ivanhoe, +then--and with a feeling of satisfaction--of Hotspur. + +Figure matched face. Though but twenty-two, the frame was that of a +trained athlete--stalwart, straight-limbed, muscular; and with all +combined a grace which comes only with birth and breeding. + +Wet and draggled, he looked every inch a gentleman--in Gideon's suit of +worn velveteen he looked one still. + +Silent and motionless, Una watched him. + +"Yes," he said, "I got some lunch at the inn--'Spotted Boar' at +Wermesley--about one o'clock, I suppose. I have never felt so hungry in +my life." + +"Wermesley?" said the wife. "Then you came from----" + +"London, originally. I got out at Wermesley, meaning to walk to Arkdale; +but that appears to be easier said than done, eh?" + +Gideon did not answer; he seemed scarcely to hear. + +"I can't think how I missed the way," he went on. "I found the charcoal +burner's hut, and hurried off to the left----" + +"To the right, I said," muttered Gideon. + +"Right, did you? Then I misunderstood you. Anyhow, I lost the right +path, and wandered about until I came back to this cottage." + +"And you were going to stay at Arkdale? 'Tis but a dull place," said +Mrs. Rolfe. + +"No; I meant taking the train from there to Hurst Leigh----Hurst +Leigh," repeated the young man. "Do you know it? Ah," he went on, "don't +suppose you would; it's some distance from here. Pretty place. I am +going to see a relative. My name is Newcombe--Jack Newcombe I am +generally called--and I am going on a visit to Squire Davenant." + +Gideon Rolfe sprang to his feet, suddenly, knocking his chair over, and +strode into the lamplight. + +The young man looked up in surprise. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. + +With an effort Gideon Rolfe recovered himself. + +"I--I want a light," he said; and leaning over the lamp, he lit his +pipe. Then turning toward the window, he said: "Una, it is late; go to +bed now." + +She rose at once and kissed the old couple, then pausing a moment, held +out her hand to the young man, who had risen, and stood regarding her +with an intent, but wholly respectful look. + +But before their hands could join, the woodman stepped in between them, +and waving her to the stairs with one hand, forced the youth into his +seat with the other. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +A hearty meal after a long fast invariably produces intense sleepiness. + +No sooner had the young gentleman who was called, according to his own +account, Jack Newcombe, finished his supper than he began to show +palpable signs of exhaustion. + +He felt, indeed, remarkably tired, or be sure he would have demanded the +reason of the woodman's refusal to allow his daughter to shake hands. + +For once in a way, Jack--who was also called "The Savage" by his +intimate friends--allowed the opportunity for a quarrel to slide by, and +very soon also allowed the pipe to slide from his mouth, and his body +from the chair. + +Rousing himself with a muttered apology, he found that the woodman alone +remained, and that he was sitting apparently forgetful of his guest's +presence. + +"Did you speak?" said Jack, rubbing his eyes, and struggling with a very +giant of a yawn. Gideon looked round. + +"You are tired," he said, slowly. + +"Rather," assented the Savage, with half-closed eyes; "it must have been +the wind. I can't keep my head up." + +The woodman rose, and taking down from a cupboard a bundle of fox-skins, +arranged them on the floor, put a couple of chair-cushions at the head +to serve as pillows, and threw a riding-cloak--which, by the way, did +not correspond with a woodman's usual attire, and pointed to the +impromptu bed. + +"Thanks," said Jack, getting up and taking off his coat and boots. + +"It is a poor bed," remarked the woodman, but the Savage interrupted him +with a cheerful though sleepy assurance that it needed no apologies. + +"I could sleep on a rail to-night," he said, "and that looks comfortable +enough for a king! Fine skins! Good-night!" and he held out his hand. + +Gideon looked at it, but refusing it, nodded gravely. + +"You won't shake hands!" exclaimed the Savage, with a little flush and +an aggrieved tone. "Come, isn't that carrying the high and imposing +rather too far, old fellow? Makes one feel more ashamed than ever, you +know. Perhaps I'd better march, after all." + +"No," said Gideon, slowly. "It is not that I owe you any ill-will for +your presence here. You are welcome, but I cannot take your hand. +Good-night," and he went to the stairs. + +At the door, however, he paused, and looked over his shoulder. + +"Did you say that--Squire Davenant was your uncle, Mr. Newcombe?" + +"Eh--uncle? Well, scarcely. It's rather difficult to tell what +relationship there is between us. He's a sort of cousin, I believe," +answered Jack, carelessly, but yet with a touch of gravity that had +something comical about it. "Rum old boy, isn't he? You know him, don't +you?" + +Gideon shook his head. + +"Oh, I thought you did by the way you looked when I mentioned his name +just now. Good thing you don't, for you might have something to say +about him that is not pleasant, and though the old man and I are not +turtle doves just now, I'm bound to stand up for him for the sake of old +times." + +"You have quarreled?" the old man said; but the Savage had already +curled himself up in the fox-skins, and was incapable of further +conversation. + +Gideon Rolfe crossed the room, and holding the candle above his head, +looked down at the sleeper. + +"Yes," he muttered, "it's the same face--they are alike! Faces of angels +and the hearts of devils. What fate has sent him here to-night?" + +Though Jack Newcombe was by no means one of those impossible, perfect +heroes whom we have sometimes met in history, and was, alas! as full of +imperfections as a sieve is of holes, he was a gentleman, and for a +savage, was possessed of a considerable amount of delicacy. + +"Seems to me," he mused, "that the best thing I can do is to take my +objectionable self out of the way before any of the good folks put in an +appearance. The old fellow will be sure to order me off the premises +directly after the breakfast; and I, in common gratitude, ought to save +him the trouble." + +To resolve and to act were one and the same thing with Jack Newcombe. +Going into the adjoining room, he got out of the woodman's and into his +own clothes, and carefully restored the skins and the cloak to the +cupboard. Then he put the remainder of the loaf into his pocket, to +serve as breakfast later on, then paused. + +"Can't go without saying good-by, and much obliged," he muttered. + +A bright idea struck him; he tore the blank leaf from an old letter +which he happened to have with him, and after a few minutes' +consideration--for epistolary composition was one of the Savage's +weakest points--scribbled the following brief thanks, apology, and +farewell: + +"Very much obliged for your kindness, and sorry to have been such a +bore; shouldn't have intruded if I'd known ladies were present. Will you +oblige me by accepting the inclosed"--he hesitated a moment, put back +the sovereign which he had taken from his pocket, and filled up the +line--"for your wife." + +Instead of the coin, he wrapped up a ring, which he took from his little +finger. + +He smiled, as he wrapped it up, for he remembered that the wife had +particularly large hands; and he thought, cunningly, "_she_ will get +it." + +Having placed this packet on the top of the cheese, he took a last look +round the room, glanced toward the stairs rather wistfully--it was +neither the woodman nor his wife that he longed to see--gently unbarred +the door, and started on his road. + +Choosing a sheltered spot, the Savage pulled out his crust, ate it +uncomplainingly, and then lay down at full length, with his soft hat +over his eyes, and while revolving the strange events of the preceding +night, and striving to recall the face of the young girl, fell asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +A more beautiful spot for a siesta he could not have chosen. At his feet +stretched the lake, gleaming like silver in the sun, and set in a frame +of green leaves and forest flowers; above his head, in his very ears, +the thrushes and linnets sang in concert, all the air was full of the +perfumes of a summer morning, rendered sweeter by the storm of the +preceding night, which had called forth the scent of the ferns and the +honeysuckle. + +As he lay, and dreamt with that happy-go-lucky carelessness of time and +the daily round of duties which is one of the privileges of youth, there +rose upon the air a song other than that of the birds. + +It was a girl's voice, chanting softly, and evidently with perfect +unconsciousness; faintly at first, it broke upon the air, then more +distinctly, and presently, from amongst the bushes that stood breast +high round the sleeping Savage, issued Una. + +The night had had dreams for her, dreams in which the handsome face, +with its bold, daring eyes, and quick, sensitive mouth, had hovered +before her closed eyes and haunted her, and now here he lay at her feet. + +How tired he must be to sleep there, and how hungry! for, though she had +not seen the note--nor the ring--she knew that he had gone without +breakfast. + +"Poor fellow!" she murmured--"his face is quite pale--and--ah----!" she +broke off with a sudden gasp, and bent forward; a wasp, which had been +buzzing around his head for some time, swept his cheek. + +Too fearful of waking him to sweep the insect aside, she knelt and +watched with clasped hands and shrinking heart; so intent in her dread +that the wasp should alight on his cheek and sting him as almost to have +forgotten her fear that he should awake. + +At last the dreaded climax occurred; the wasp settled on his lips; with +a low, smothered cry, she stretched out her hand, and, with a quick +movement, swept the wasp off. But, lightly as her finger had touched his +lips, it had been sufficient to wake him, and, with a little start, he +opened his eyes, and received into them, and through them to his heart +the girl's rapt gaze. + +For a minute neither moved; he lest he should break the dream; she, +because, bird-like, she was fascinated; then, the minute passed, she +rose, and drew back, and glided into the brake. + +The Savage with a wild throb of the heart, saw that his dream had grown +into life, raised himself on his elbow and looked after her, and, as he +did so, his eye caught a small basket which she had set down beside him. + +"Stay," he called, and in so gentle a voice that his friends who had +christened him the Savage would have instantly changed it to the Dove. + +"Stay! Please stay. Your basket." + +"Why did you run from me?" asked the Savage, in a low voice. "Did you +think that I should hurt you?" + +"Hurt me? No, why should you?" and her eyes met his with innocent +surprise. + +"Why should I, indeed! I should have been very sorry if you had gone, +because I wanted to thank you for your kindness last night." + +"You have not to thank me," she said, slowly. + +"Yes," he assented, quietly. "But for you----" then he stopped, +remembering that it was scarcely correct to complain of her father's +inhospitality; "I behaved very badly. I always do," he added--for the +first time in his life with regret. + +"Do you?" she said, doubtfully. "You were wet and tired last night, +and--and you must not think ill of my father; he----" + +"Don't say another word. I was treated better than I deserved." + +"Why did you go without breakfast this morning?" she said, suddenly. + +"I brought it with me," he replied. "You forgot the loaf!" and he +smiled. + +"Dry bread!" she said, pityingly. "I am so sorry. If I had but known, I +would have brought you some milk." + +"Oh, I have done very well," he said, his curt way softened and toned +down. + +"And now you are going to Arkdale?" she said, gently. + +"That is, after I have gone to rest for a little while longer; I am in +no hurry; won't you sit down, Una? Keep me company." + +To her there seemed nothing strange in the speech; gravely and +naturally she sat down at the foot of an oak. + +"You think the forest is lonely?" she said. + +"I do, most decidedly. Don't you?" + +"No; but that is because I am used to it and have known no other place." + +"Always lived here?" he said, with interest. + +"Ever since I was three years old." + +"Eighteen years! Then you are twenty-one?" murmured Jack. + +"Yes; how old are you?" she asked, calmly. + +"Twenty-two." + +"Twenty-two. And you have lived in the world all the time?" + +"Yes--very much so," he replied. + +"And you are going back to it. You will never come into the forest +again, while I shall go on living here till I die, and never see the +world in which you have lived. Does that sound strange to you?" + +"Do you mean to say that you have never been outside this forest?" he +said, raising himself on his elbow to stare at her. + +"Yes. I have never been out of Warden since we came into it." + +"But--why not?" he demanded. + +"I do not know," she replied, simply. + +"But there must be some reason for it? Haven't you been to Arkdale or +Wermesley?" + +"No," she said, smiling. "Tell me what they are like. Are they gay and +full of people, with theaters and parks, and ladies riding and driving, +and crowds in the streets?" + +"Oh, this is too much!" under his breath. "No, no--a thousand times no!" +he exclaimed; "they are the two most miserable holes in creation! There +are no parks, no theaters in Arkdale or Wermesley. You might see a lady +on horseback--one lady in a week! They are two county towns, and nothing +of that kind ever goes on in them. You mean London, and--and places like +that when you speak of theaters and that sort of thing!" + +"Yes, London," she says, quietly. "Tell me all about that--I have read +about it in books." + +"Books!" said the Savage, in undisguised contempt; "what's the use of +_them_! You must see life for yourself--books are no use. They give it +to you all wrong; at least, I expect so; don't know much about them +myself." + +"Tell me," she repeated, "tell me of the world outside the forest; tell +me about yourself." + +"About myself? Oh, that wouldn't interest you." + +"Yes," she said, simply, "I would rather hear about yourself than about +anything else." + +"Look here, I don't know what to tell you." + +"Tell me all you can think of," she said, calmly; "about your father and +mother." + +"Haven't got any," he said; "they're both dead." + +"I am sorry," she said. + +"Yes, they're dead," he said; "they died long ago." + +"And have you any brothers and sisters?" + +"No; I have a cousin, though," and he groaned. + +"I am so glad," she said, in a low voice. + +"Don't be. I'm not. He's a--I don't like him; we don't get on together, +you know." + +"You quarrel, do you mean?" + +"Like Kilkenny cats," assented the Savage. + +"Then he must be a bad man," she said, simply. + +"No," he said, quietly; "everybody says that I am the bad one. I'm a +regular bad lot, you know." + +"I don't think that you are bad," she said. + +"You don't; really not! By George! I like to hear you say that; but," +with a slow shake of the head, "I'm afraid it's true. Yes, I am a +regular bad lot." + +"Tell me what you have done that is so wrong," she said. + +"Oh--I've--I've spent all my money." + +"That's not so very wrong; you have hurt only yourself." + +"Jove, that's a new way of looking at it," he muttered. +"And"--aloud--"and I've run into debt, and I've--oh, I can't tell you +any more; I don't want you to hate me!" + +"Hate you? I could not do that." + +He sprang to his feet, paced up and down, and then dropped at her side +again. + +"Well, that's all about myself," he said; "now tell me about yourself." + +"No," she said; "not yet. Tell me why you are going to Arkdale?" + +"I'm going to Arkdale to take a train to Hurst Leigh to see my uncle, +cousin, or whatever he is--Squire Davenant." + +"Is he an old man?" + +"Yes, a very old man, and a bad one, too. All our family are a bad lot, +excepting my cousin, Stephen Davenant." + +"The one you do not like?" + +"The same. He is quite an angel." + +"An angel?" + +"One of those men too good to live. He's the only steady one we've got, +and we make the most of him. He is Squire Davenant's heir--at least he +will come into his money. The old man is very rich, you know." + +"I see," she said, musingly; then she looked down at him and added, +suddenly: "You were to have been the heir?" + +"Yes, that's right! How did you guess that? Yes, I was the old man's +favorite, but we quarreled. He wanted it all his own way, and, oh--we +couldn't get on. Then Cousin Stephen stepped in, and I am out in the +cold now." + +"Then why are you going there now?" she asked. + +"Because the squire sent for me," he replied. + +"And you have been all this time going?" + +"You see, I thought I'd walk through the forest," he said, +apologetically. + +"You should be there now--you should not have waited on the road! Is +your Cousin Stephen--is that his name?--there?" + +"I don't know," he said, carelessly. + +"Ah, you should be there," she said. "Squire Davenant would be friendly +with you again." + +"I'm afraid you haven't hit the right nail on the head there," he said. +"I rather think he wants to give me a good rowing about a scrape I've +got into." + +"Tell me about that." + +"Oh, it's about money--the usual thing. I got into a mess, and had to +borrow some money of a Jew, and he got me to sign a paper, promising to +pay after Squire Davenant's death; he called it a _post obit_--I didn't +know what it was then, but I do now; for the squire got to hear of it, +but how, hanged if I can make out; and he wrote to me and to the Jew, +saying that he shouldn't leave me a brass farthing. Of course the Jew +was wild; but I gave him another sort of bill, and it's all right." + +"Excepting that you will lose your fortune," said Una, with a little +sigh. "What will you do?" + +"That's a conundrum which I've long ago given up. By Jove! I'll come and +be a woodman in the forest!" + +"Will you?" she said. "Do you really mean it?--no, you were not in +earnest!" + +"I--why shouldn't I be in earnest?" he says, almost to himself. "Would +you like me to? I mean shall I come here to--what do you call +it--Warden?" and he threw himself down again. + +"Yes," she said; "I should like you to. Yes, that would be very nice. We +could sit and talk when your work was done, and I could show you all the +prettiest spots, and the places where the starlings make their nests, +and the fairy rings in the glades, and you could tell me all that you +have seen and done. Yes," wistfully, "that would be very nice. It is so +lonely sometimes!" + +"Lonely, is it?" he said. "Lonely! By George, I should think it must be! +I can't realize it! Books, it reads like a book. If I were to tell some +of my friends that there was a young lady shut up in a forest, outside +of which she had never been, they wouldn't believe me. By the way--where +did you go to school?" + +"School? I never went to school." + +"Then how--how did you learn to read? and--it's awfully rude of me, you +know, but you speak so nicely; such grammar, and all that." + +"Do I?" she said, thoughtfully. "I didn't know that I did. My father +taught me." + +"It's hard to believe," he said, as if he were giving up a conundrum. "I +beg your pardon. I mean that your father would have made a jolly good +schoolmaster, and I must be an awful dunce, for I've been to Oxford, and +I'll wager I don't know half what you do, and as to talking--I am not +in it." + +"Yes, my father is very clever," she said; "he is not like the other +woodmen and burners." + +"No, if he is, they must be a learned lot," assented Jack; "yes, I think +I had better come and live here, and get him to teach me. I'm afraid he +wouldn't undertake the job." + +"Father does not like strangers," she said, blushing as she thought of +the inhospitable scene of the preceding night. "He says that the world +is a cruel, wicked place, and that everybody is unhappy there. But I +think he must be wrong. You don't look unhappy." + +"I am not unhappy now," said Jack. + +"I am so glad," she said; "why are you not?" + +"Because I am with you." + +"Are you?" she said, gently. "Then it must be because I am with you that +I feel so happy." + +The Savage flushed and he looked down, striving to still the sudden +throb of pleasure with which his heart beat. + +"Confound it," he muttered, "I must go! I can't be such a cad as to stop +any longer; she oughtn't to say this sort of thing, and yet I--I can't +tell her so! No! I must go!" and he rose and took out his watch. + +"I am afraid I must be on the tramp." + +"Yes," she assented; "you have stayed too long. I hope you will find +that the Squire Davenant has forgiven you. I think he cannot help it. +And you will have your fortune and will go back into the world, and will +quite forget that you lost your way in Warden Forest. But I shall not +forget it; I shall often think of it." + +"No," he said, "I shan't forget it. But in case I should, will you give +me something--no, I won't ask it." + +"Why not?" she said, wonderingly. "Were you going to say, will I give +you something to help you to remember?" + +"Yes, I will. What shall I give you?" and she looked around. + +Jack looked at her. His bad angel whispered in his ear, "Ask her to give +you a kiss," but Jack metaphorically kicked him out of hearing. + +"Give me a flower," he said, and his voice was as gentle as its deep +ringing bass could be. + +Una nodded, and plucking a dog rose held it out to him. + +"There," she said; "at least you will remember it as long as the rose +lasts. But it soon dies," and she sighed. + +Jack took it and looked at it hard. Then he put it to his lips. + +"There is no smell to a dog rose," said Una. + +"Ah no! I forgot. Just so. Well, good-by. We may shake hands, Una. That +is your name, isn't it? How do you spell it?" + +"U--n--a," she said, giving him her hand. + +"It's a pretty name," he said, looking at her. + +"Is it?" she said, dreamily. "Yes, I think it is, now. Say it again." + +"Una, good-by. We shall meet again." + +"Do you think so? Then you will have to come to Warden again." + +"And I will. I will come soon. Oh, yes, we shall meet again. Good-by," +and, yielding to the temptation, he bent and touched her hand--Heaven +knows, reverently enough--with his lips. + +A warm flush spread over the girl's face and neck, and she quivered from +head to foot. It was the first kiss--except those of her father and +mother--that she had ever received. + +"Good-by," he repeated, and was slowly relinquishing her hand, the hand +that clung to his, when a hand of firmer texture was laid on his arm and +swung him round. + +It was Gideon Rolfe, his face white with passion, his eyes ablaze, and a +heavy stick upraised. + +The Savage had just time to step back to avoid the blow and plant his +feet firmly to receive a renewed attack; but with an effort the old man +restrained himself, and struggling for speech, motioned the girl away +with one hand and pointed with the other to Jack. + +"You scoundrel!" he gasped, hoarsely. "Go, Una, go. You scoundrel! I +warmed you at my hearth, you viper! and you turn to sting me. Go, +Una--go at once. Do you disobey me?" + +White and trembling, the girl shrank into the shade. + +"You villain!" went on the old man, struggling with his passion. + +"Stop!" exclaimed Jack, the veins in his forehead swelling ominously. +"You must be mad! Don't strike me!--you are an old man!" + +"Strike you! No, no; blows are of no avail with such as you! Curs take +no heed of blows! What other way can one punish the scoundrel who repays +hospitality by treachery? Was it not enough that you forced your way +into my house, broke my bread, but you must waylay a credulous girl and +lead her in the first step to ruin. Oh, spare your breath, viper! I know +you and your race too well. Ruin and desolation walk hand in hand with +you; but you have reckoned without your host here. My knowledge of you +arms me with power to protect a weak, innocent girl from your wiles. +Scoundrel!" + +"You use strong words," he said, and his voice was low and hoarse. "You +are an old man and--you are her father. You call me a scoundrel; I call +you a fool, for if I were half the scoundrel you think me, you'd be to +blame for any harm I might have done. I've done none. But that's no +thanks to you, who keep such a girl as she is shut up as you do, and +leave her to wander about unprotected. You know me, you say, and you +know no good of me; that's as it may be, but I say when you call me a +scoundrel, you lie!" + +"Yes, I know you. I know the stock from whence you sprung, villains all! +I thought that here, at least, I was safe from your kind; but Fate led +you here--thank Fate that I let you go unhurt. Take an old man's advice, +and, unlike your race, for once leave the prey which you thought so easy +to destroy. Go!" + +"I am going," he said, grimly. "I shall go, because if I stayed all +night I should not convince you that I am not the scoundrel you suppose +me. But, if you think that I am to be frightened by these sort of +threats, you are mistaken. I have said that I will come back, and I +_will_!" and with a curt nod he strode off. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +It was the evening of the day on which Jack Newcombe had parted from +Gideon and Una, and the young moon fell peacefully on the irregular pile +of the ancient mansion known familiarly for twenty miles of its +neighborhood as The Hurst. + +The present owner was one Ralph Davenant, or Squire Davenant, as Jack +Newcombe had called him, and as he was called by the county generally. + +He was an old man of eighty, who had lived one-half his life in the +wildest and most dissipated fashion, and the other half in that most +unprofitable occupation known as repenting thereof. + +I say "known as," for if old Squire Davenant had really repented, this +story would never have been written. + +If half the stories which were told of him were true, Ralph Davenant, +the present owner of Hurst, deserves a niche in the temple of fame--or +infamy--which holds the figures of the worst men of his day. He had been +a gambler, a spendthrift, a rogue of the worst kind for one half his +life; a miser, a cynic, a misanthrope for the other. + +And he now lay dying in his huge, draughty bed-chamber, hung with the +portraits of his ancestors--all bad and filled with the ghosts of his +youth and wasted old age. + +As it was, he lay quite still--so still that the physician, brought down +from London at a cost of--say, ten guineas an hour, was often uncertain +whether he was alive or dead. + +There was a third person in the room--a tall, thin young man, who stood +motionless beside the bed, watching the old man, with half-closed eyes +and tightly compressed lips. This was Stephen Davenant, the old man's +nephew, and, as it was generally understood, his heir. Stephen Davenant +was called a handsome man, and at first sight he seemed to merit that +description. It was not until you had looked at him closely that you +began to grow critical and to find fault. He was dark; his hair, which +was quite black, was smooth, and clung to his head with a sleek, slimy +closeness that only served to intensify the paleness, not to say pallor, +of the face. Pallor was, indeed, the prevailing characteristic, his lips +even being of a subdued and half-tinted red; they were not pleasant +lips, although for every forty minutes out of the sixty they wore a +smile which just showed a set of large and even teeth, which were, if +anything, too faultless and too white. Jack said that when Stephen +smiled it was like a private view of a cemetery. + +In short, to quote the Savage again, Stephen Davenant was an admirable +example, as artists would say, of "a study in black and white." + +As he stood by the bed, motionless, silent, with the fixed regard of his +light gray eyes on the sick man, he looked not unlike one of those sleek +and emaciated birds which one sees standing on the bank of the Ganges, +waiting for the floating by of stray dead bodies. + +And yet he was not unhandsome. At times he looked remarkably well; when, +for instance, he was delivering a lecture or an address at some +institute or May meeting. His voice was low and soft, and not seldom +insinuating, and some of his friends had called him, half in jest, half +in earnest, "Fascination Davenant." + +It will be gathered from this description that to call all the race of +Davenants bad was unfair; every rule has its exception, and Stephen +Davenant was the exception to this. He was "a good young man." + +Fathers held him up as a pattern to their wayward sons, mothers +patronized and lauded him, and their daughters regarded him as almost +too good to live. + +The minutes, so slow for the watchers, so rapid to the man for whom they +were numbered, passed, and the old cracked clock in the half-ruined +stables wheezed out the hour, when, as if the sound had roused him, old +Ralph moved slightly, and opening his eyes, looked slowly from one +upright figure to the other. + +Dark eyes that had not even yet lost all their fire, and still shone out +like a bird's from their wrinkled, cavernous hollows. + +Stephen unlocked his wrist, bent down, and murmured, in his soft, silky +voice: + +"Uncle, do you know me?" + +A smile, an unpleasant smile to see on such a face, glimmered on the old +man's lips. + +"Here still, Stephen?" he said, slowly and hollowly. "You'd make a +good--mute." + +A faint, pink tinge crept over Stephen's pale face, but he smiled and +shook his head meekly. + +"Who's that?" asked Ralph, half turning his eyes to the physician. + +"Sir Humphrey, uncle--the doctor," replied Stephen, and the great doctor +came a little nearer and felt the faint pulse. + +"What's he stopping for?" gasped the old man. "What can he do, and--why +don't he go?" + +"We must not leave you, uncle, till you are better." + +A faint flame shot up in the old man's eyes. + +"Better, that's a lie, you know. You always were----" Then a paroxysm of +faintness took him, but he struggled with and overcame it. + +"Is--is--Jack here?" he asked. + +"I regret to say," he replied, "that he is not. I cannot understand the +delay. I hope, I fervently hope, that he has not willfully----" + +"Did you tell him I was dying?" asked Ralph, watching him keenly. + +"Can you doubt it?" murmured Stephen, meekly. "I particularly charged +the messenger to say that my cousin was not to delay." + +The old man looked up with a sardonic smile. + +"I'll wait," he muttered, and he closed his eyes resolutely. The minutes +passed, and presently there was a low knock at the door, and a servant +crept up to Stephen. + +"Mr. Newcombe is below, sir." + +Stephen looked warningly at the bed, and stole on tiptoe from the +room--not that there was any occasion to go on tiptoe, for his ordinary +walk was as noiseless as a cat's--down the old treadworn stairs, into +the neglected hall, and entered the library. + +Bolt upright, and looking very like a Savage indeed, stood Jack +Newcombe. + +With noiseless step and mournful smile, Stephen entered, closed the +door, and held out his hand. + +"My dear Jack, how late you are!" + +With an angry gesture Jack thrust his hands in his pockets, and glared +wrathfully at the white, placid face. + +"Late!" he echoed, passionately. "Why didn't you tell me that he was +dying?" + +"Hush!" murmured Stephen, with a shocked look--though if Jack had +bellowed in his savagest tone, his voice would not have reached the room +upstairs. "Pray, be quiet, my dear Jack. Tell you! Didn't my man give +you my message? I particularly told him to describe the state of my +uncle's health. Slummers is not apt to forget or neglect messages!" + +"Messages!" said Jack, with wrathful incredulity; "he gave me none--left +none, rather, for I was out. He simply said that the squire wanted to +see me." + +"Dear, dear me," murmured Stephen, regretfully. "I cannot understand it. +Do you think the person who took the message delivered it properly? +Slummers is so very careful and trustworthy." + +"Oh," said Jack, contemptuously. "Do you suppose anyone would have +forgotten to tell me if your man had told them that the squire was +dying? I don't if you do, and I don't believe you do. You're no fool, +Stephen, though you have made one of me," and he moved toward the door. + +"Stay," said Stephen, laying his white hand gently on Jack's arm. "Will +you wait a few minutes? Though by some unfortunate accident you were not +told how ill my uncle is, I assure you that he is too ill now to be +harassed----" + +"Oh, I know what you mean without so many words," interrupted Jack, +scornfully. "Make your mind easy, I am not going to split upon you. +Bah!" he added, as Stephen shook his head with sorrowful repudiation. +"Do you suppose that I don't know that your man was instructed to keep +it from me? What were you afraid of--that I should cut you out at the +last moment? You judge me by your own standard, and you make a vast +mistake. It isn't on account of the money--you are welcome to that--and +you deserve it, for you've worked hard enough for it; no, it's not on +that account, it's--but you wouldn't understand if I told you. I am +going up now," and he sprang up the stairs quickly. + +Stephen followed him, and entered the room close behind him. The old man +looked up, motioned with his hand to Jack, looked at the other two and +quietly pointed to the door. + +Stephen's eyes closed and his lips shut as he hesitated for a moment, +then he turned and left with the physician. + +"I think," said Sir Humphrey, blandly, and looking at his watch--one of +a score left him by departed patients, "I think that I will go now, Mr. +Davenant; I can do no good and my presence appears only to irritate your +uncle." + +The great doctor departed, just thirty guineas richer than when he came, +and Stephen went into the library and closed the door, and as he did so +it almost seemed as if he had taken off a mask and left it on the mat +outside. + +The set, calm expression of the face changed to one of fierce, +uncontrollable anxiety and malice. With sullen step he paced up and down +the room, gnawing--but daintily--at his nails, and grinding the white +tombstones. + +"Another half hour," he muttered, "and the fool would have been too +late? Will he tell the old man? Curse him; how I hate him! I was a fool +to send for him--an idiot! What is he saying to him? What are they +doing? Thank Heaven, that old knave Hudsley isn't there! They can't do +anything--can't, can't! No, I am safe." + +Stephen Davenant need not have been so uneasy; Jack was not plotting +against him, nor was the old man making a will in the Savage's favor. + +Jack stood beside the bed, waiting for one of the attacks of faintness +to pass, looking down regretfully at the haggard, death-marked face, +recalling the past kindnesses he had received from the old man, and +remorsefully remembering their many quarrels and eventful separation. + +"Bad lot" as he was, no thought of lucre crossed the Savage's mind; he +forgot even Stephen and the cowardly trick he had played him, and +remembered only that he was looking his last on the old man, who, after +his kind, had been good, and so far as his nature would allow it, +generous to him. + +At last old Ralph opened his eyes. + +"Here at last," he said; and by an effort of the resolute will, he made +himself heard distinctly, though every word cost him a breath. + +"I'm sorry I'm so late," he said; and his voice was husky. "I didn't +know----" + +The old man looked at him shrewdly. + +"So Stephen didn't send? It was just like him. A good stroke." + +"Yes, he sent," said Jack; "but----" + +The old man waved his hand to show that he understood. + +"A sharp stroke. A clever fellow, Stephen. You always were a fool." + +"I'm afraid so, sir," he said quietly. + +"But Stephen is a knave, and a fool, too," murmured the old man. "Jack, +I wish--I wish I could come back to the funeral." + +"To see his face when the will's read," explained old Ralph, with a grim +smile. + +Jack colored, and, I am ashamed to say, grinned. + +A sardonic smile flitted over the old man's face. + +"Be sure you are there, Jack; don't let him keep you away." + +"Not that you will be disappointed--much," said the old man. + +"Don't think of me, sir," said Jack, with a dim sense of the discordance +in such talk from such lips. + +"I have thought of you as far--as--as I dared. Jack, you are an honest +fool. Why--why did you give that _post obit_?" + +"I don't know," said Jack, quietly. "Don't worry about that now." + +"Stephen told me," said the old man, grimly. "He has told me every piece +of wickedness you have done. He is a kind-hearted man, is--Ste--phen." + +"We never were friends, sir," he said. "But don't talk now." + +"I must," murmured the old man. "Now or never, and--give me your hand, +Jack." + +"I've had yours ever since I came in," said Jack, simply. + +"Oh, I didn't know it. Good-by, boy--don't--don't end up like this. +It--and--for Heaven's sake don't cry!" for Jack emitted a suspicious +little choking sound, and his eyes were dim. "Good-by; don't be too +disappointed. Justice, Jack, justice. Where is Stephen?--send him to me. +I"--and the old sardonic smile came back--"I like to see him--he amuses +me!" + +The eyes closed; Jack waited a moment, then pressed the cold hand, and +crept from the room. + +Half way down the stairs he leaned his arm on the balustrade and dropped +his face on it for a minute or two, then choking back his tears, went +into the library--where Stephen was sitting reading a volume of +sermons--and pointed up-stairs. + +"My uncle wants me?" murmured Stephen. "I will go. Might I recommend +this book to you, my dear Jack; it contains----" + +Jack, I regret to say, chucked the volume into a corner of the room, and +Stephen, with a mournfully reproachful sigh, shook his head and left the +room. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +"Villains," says an old adage, "are made by accident." Now mark how +accident helped to make a villain of the good Stephen Davenant. + +He passed up the stairs and entered the bedroom. As he did so his foot +struck against a chair and caused a little noise. The dying man heard +it, however, and opening his eyes, said, almost inaudibly: + +"Is that you, Hudsley?" + +Stephen was about to reply, "No, it is I--Stephen," but stopped, +hesitated, and as if struck by a sudden idea, drew back behind the +bed-curtains. + +Whatever that idea was, he was considerably moved by it; his hands +shook, and his lips trembled during the interval of silence before the +old man repeated the question: + +"Is that you, Hudsley?" + +Then Stephen, wiping his lips, answered in a dry voice utterly unlike +his own, but very remarkably resembling that of the old solicitor, +Hudsley: + +"Yes, squire, it's Hudsley." + +The dying man's hearing was faint, his senses wandering and dimmed; he +caught the sense of the words, however, for with an effort he turned his +head toward the curtains. + +"Where are you?" he asked, almost inaudibly; "I can't see you; my sight +has gone. You have been a long while coming. Hudsley, you thought +you--knew--everything about the man who lies here; you were wrong. +There's a surprise for you as well as the rest. Did you see Jack?" + +Stephen had no need to reply: the old man rambled on without waiting, +excepting to struggle for breath. + +"He is down-stairs. Poor boy! it's a pity he is such a fool. There was +always one like him in the Newcombe family. But the other--Stephen--the +man who has been hanging about me all this time, eager to lick my boots +so that he might step into them when I was gone; he is a fool and a +knave." + +Stephen's face went white and his lips twitched. It is probable that he +remembered the adage: "Listeners hear no good of themselves." + +"He is the first of his kind we have had in the family. Plenty of fools +and scamps, Hudsley, but no hypocrites till this one. Well, he'll get +his deserts. I'd give a thousand pounds to come back and hear the will +read, and see his face. He makes so sure of it, too, the oily eel!" + +Stephen writhed like an eel, indeed, and his lips blanched. Was the old +man delirious, or had he, Stephen, really played the part of sycophant, +toady and boot-licker all these years for nothing? + +Great drops of sweat rolled down his face, his tongue clove to the roof +of his mouth, and his knees shook so that he had to steady himself by +holding the curtain. + +"Yes, disappointed all. You don't understand. You think that you know +everything. But no; I trusted you with a great deal, but not with all. +How dark it is! Hudsley, you are an old man; don't finish up like--like +this. Only one soul in the wide world is sorry that I'm going; and he's +a fool. Poor Jack! I remember----" + +Then followed, half inaudibly, a string of names belonging to the +companions of his youth. Most of them were dead and forgotten by him +until this hour, when he was about to join their shades. + +"Ah, the old time! the old time. But--but--what was it I was saying? +I--I--Hudsley--quick! for Heaven's sake! I--the key--the key----" + +Stephen came round, in his eagerness risking recognition. + +"The key?" he asked, so hoarsely that his voice might well be taken for +an old man's. "What key?" + +"Feel--under my pillow!" gasped Ralph Davenant. + +Stephen thrust his trembling hand under the pillow, and, with a leap of +the heart, felt a key. + +"The safe!" murmured a faltering voice. "The bottom drawer. Bring them +to me! Quick!" + +Stephen glided snake-like across the room to a small safe that stood in +a recess, opened the door, and with trembling hands drew out the drawer. +His hands shook so, his heart beat to such an extent, that as a movement +in the next room struck upon his ears, he could scarcely refrain from +shrieking aloud; but it was only the nurse, whom the old man would only +allow to enter the room at intervals; and setting his teeth hard, and +fighting for calm, Stephen took out two documents. + +One was a parchment of goodly proportions. + +Both were folded and endorsed on the back--the parchment with the +inscription, "Last will and testament of Ralph Davenant, Gent., Jan. +18--." + +With eyes that almost refused to do their task, Stephen turned the other +paper to the light, and read, "Will, July 18--." This inscription was +written in an old man's hand--the parchment was engrossed as usual. + +Two wills! The one--the parchment, however, was useless; the other--the +sheet of foolscap--was the last. + +"Well," rose the voice from the bed, hollow and broken, "have you got +them?" + +Stephen came up and stood behind the curtain, and held the wills up. + +"Yes, yes," he said. "The first is--is in whose favor?" + +The old man struggled for breath. White, breathless himself with the +agony of anxiety and fear--for any moment someone might enter the +room--Stephen stood staring beside him. He dared not undo the tapes and +glance at the wills, in case of interruption--dared not conceal them, +for Hudsley might appear on the scene. With the wills clasped in his +hand, he stood and waited. + +The faintness passed--old Ralph regained his voice. + +"One is parchment--the other is paper. The parchment one you drew up; +you know its contents--I want it destroyed, or, stay, keep it. It will +add to the deceitful hound's disappointment. The other--ah, my God--it +is too late--Hudsley, there is a cruel history in that paper. No hand +but mine could pen it. But--but--I have done justice. Too late!--why do +you say--too late? Why do you mock a dying man? Mind, Hudsley, I trust +to you. It is a sound will, made in sound body--and--mind. Don't leave +that hypocritical hound a chance of setting it aside. I trust to you. +Stop, better burn the first will; burn it here now--now," and in his +excitement he actually raised his head. Raised it to let it drop upon +the pillow again with exhaustion. + +Stephen stood and glared, torn this way and that by doubt and +uncertainty. + +"Justice," he whispered hoarsely. "The first will, my will leaves all +to----" + +"To that hound Stephen!" gasped the old man. "I did it in a weak moment +and repented of it. Leaves all to him; but not now." + +Stephen hesitated no longer. With the quick, gliding movement of a cat +he reached the iron safe, replaced the parchment in the drawer and +locked the outer door, and thrust the paper will into his pocket. + +Scarcely had he done so, before he had time to get to his place, the +door opened and Hudsley, the lawyer, entered. + +He was an old man, as thin and bent as a withy branch, with a face +seamed and wrinkled, like his familiar parchment, with the like spots; +his dark, keen gray eyes, which looked out from under his shaggy +eyebrows, like stars in a cloudy sky. + +As he entered, Stephen came forward, his back to the light, his face in +the shadow, and held out his hand. + +Hudsley took it, held it for a moment, and dropped it with a little, +irritable shudder--the slim, white hand was as cold as ice--and, +turning to the bed, looked anxiously at the dying man. + +"Great heaven!" he said, "is he dead?" + +A savage hope shot up in Stephen's heart, but he looked and shook his +head. + +"No. You have been a long time coming, Mr. Hudsley." + +"I have, sir, thanks to your man's stupidity," said the lawyer, in an +angry whisper. "He came for me in a confounded dogcart!" + +"The quickest vehicle to get ready," murmured Stephen. "I told him, to +take the first that came to hand." + +"And the result," said the lawyer impatiently. "The result is that we +lost half an hour on the road! Does your man drink, Mr. Stephen?" + +"Drink! Slummers drink!" murmured Stephen. "A most steady, +respectable--I may say conscientious--man." + +"He may be conscientious, but he's a very bad driver. I never saw such a +clumsy fellow. He drove into a ditch half a mile after we had started." + +"Dear, dear," murmured Stephen regretfully. "Poor Slummers. It is not +his fault. He is a worthy fellow, but too sympathetic, and my uncle's +illness quite upset him----" + +"Hush!" interrupted Mr. Hudsley, holding up his finger and bending down. + +"Squire, do you know me? I am Hudsley." + +The dying man moved his hand faintly in assent. + +"Yes. Have you done as I told you?" + +"You have told me nothing yet." + +"The safe!--the key!--the pillow!" said the Squire. + +Hudsley caught his meaning and felt under the pillow, and Stephen, as if +to assist, thrust his hand under, and withdrew it with the key in his +fingers. + +"Why--again?" came the voice, broken and impatient. "You have done it! +you have burnt the first." + +"What is he saying?" he asked. + +"You have burned it; show me the other--the last; let me--touch it." + +Hudsley opened the safe and took the first will from the drawer. + +"Two, did he say?" he muttered: "there is only one here--the will;" and +he came to the bed with it. + +"There is only one will here, of course, squire," he said, bending down +and speaking slowly and distinctly. + +"Yes--you, you have--burned the other. Speak. I cannot see, but I can +hear you." + +"I have burned none," said Hudsley. "Have only just come--there is only +one will here." + +"Which?" gasped the dying man. + +"The will of January--Mr. Stephen----" + +Before they could finish, they saw, with horror, the dying man half +raise himself, his face livid, his hands wildly clutching the air, his +eyes, by accident, turned toward Stephen. + +"You--you thief!" he gasped. "Give it to me!--give--give--oh, God! Too +late?--too la----" + +It was too late. Before the nurse and Jack could rush into the room, +horrified by the shriek which rang from Stephen's white lips, old Ralph +Davenant had fallen back dead! + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Half an hour afterward Stephen Davenant passed down the stairs on +tiptoe, though the tramp of an armed host could not disturb old Ralph +Davenant now--passed down with his hand pressed against his breast +pocket, in which lay the stolen will. Had the sheet of blue foolscap +been composed of red-hot iron instead of paper, Stephen could not have +felt its presence more distinctly and uncomfortably; it seemed to burn +right through his clothes and scorch his heart; he could almost fancy, +in his overstrained state, that it could be seen through his coat. + +He paused a moment outside the library door, one white hand fingering +his pale lips, the other vainly striving to keep away from his breast +pocket, and listened to the tramp, tramp of Jack as he walked up and +down the room. Any other face would have been more endurable than +Jack's, with its fiercely frank gaze and outspoken contempt. + +At last he opened the door and entered, his handkerchief in his hand. +Jack stopped and looked at him. + +"I have been waiting for you," he said. + +"My poor uncle!" + +Jack looked at him with keen scrutiny, mingled with unconcealed scorn. + +"I have been waiting for you, in case you wished to say anything before +I went." + +"What?" murmured Stephen, with admirably feigned surprise and regret. +"You will not go, my dear Jack! not to-night." + +"Yes, to-night," said Jack quietly. "I couldn't stop in the house--I +shall go to the inn." + +"But----" + +"No, thanks!" said Jack, cutting him short. + +"Oh, do not thank me," murmured Stephen, meekly. "I may have no right to +offer you hospitality, the house may be yours." + +"Well, I think you could give a pretty good guess on that point," said +Jack, bluntly; "but let that pass. I am going to the 'Bush.' If you or +Mr. Hudsley want me--where is Hudsley?" he broke off to inquire. + +"Mr. Hudsley is up-stairs sealing up the safe and things," said Stephen +humbly. "He wished me to assist him, but I had rather that he should do +it alone--perhaps you would go through the house with him?" + +Jack shook his head. + +"As you please," murmured Stephen, with a resigned sigh. "Mr. Hudsley is +quite sufficient; he knows where everything of importance is kept. You +will have some refreshments after your journey, my dear Jack?" + +"No, thanks," said Jack; "I want nothing--I couldn't eat anything. I'll +go now." + +"Are you going, Mr. Newcombe?" said Mr. Hudsley, entering and looking +from one to the other keenly. + +"I am going to the 'Bush;' I shall stay there in case I am wanted." + +"The funeral had better be fixed for Saturday. You and Mr. Stephen will +be the chief mourners." Then he turned to Stephen. "I have sealed up +most of the things. Is there anything you can suggest?" + +"You know all that is required; we leave everything to you, Mr Hudsley. +I think I may speak for my cousin--may I not, Jack?" + +Jack did not reply, but put on his gloves. + +"I will go now," he said. "Good-night, Mr. Hudsley." + +The old lawyer looked at him keenly as he took his hand. + +"I shall find you at the 'Bush?'" he said. + +"Yes," replied Jack, and was leaving the room when Stephen rose and +followed him. + +"Good-night, my dear Jack," he said. "Will you not shake hands on--on +such an occasion?" + +Jack strode to the door and opened it without reply, then turned and, as +if with an effort, took the hand which Stephen had kept extended. + +"Good-night," he said, dropping the cold fingers, and strode out. + +Stephen looked after him a moment with his meek, long-suffering +expression of face changed into a malignant smile of triumph, and his +hand went up to his breast pocket. + +"Good-night, beggar!" he murmured, and closed the door. + +Mr. Hudsley was still standing by the library-table, toying absently +with the keys, a thoughtful frown on his brow, which did not grow +any lighter as Stephen entered, making great play with the +pocket-handkerchief. + +"I think I also may go now, Mr. Stephen," he said. "Nothing more can be +done to-night. I will be here in the morning with my clerk." + +"I suppose nothing more can be done. You have sealed up all papers and +jewels? I am particularly anxious that nothing shall be left informal." + +"I don't think there is anything unsealed that should have been." + +"A very strange scene, the final one, Mr. Stephen." + +"Awful, awful, Mr. Hudsley. My poor uncle seemed quite delirious at the +last." + +"Hem!" grunted the old lawyer, putting his hat to his lips and looking +over it at the white, smooth face. "You think he was delirious----" + +"Don't you, Mr. Hudsley? Do you think that he was conscious of what he +was saying? You have been his legal adviser and confidant for years; you +would know whether there was any meaning in his wild and incoherent +statement about the will. As you are no doubt aware, my poor uncle never +broached the subject of his intentions to me." + +"I know of only one will--that of last year. That will I executed for +him; it is the will locked up in the safe up-stairs. I have a copy at +the office," he added, dryly. + +"You--you don't think there is any other--any other later will?" he +asked, softly. + +"I didn't think so until an hour ago. I am not sure that I think so now. +Do you?" + +"No," he said, shaking his head. "My uncle was not the man to draw up a +will with his own hand, and his confidence, and I may say affection for +you, were so great that he would not have gone to any other legal +adviser to do it for him. No, I do not think there is any other will; of +course, I do not know the contents of the will in the safe." + +"Of course not," said Mr. Hudsley, in a tone so dry that it seemed to +rasp his throat. + +"And yet I cannot understand, my poor uncle's outbreak, except by +attributing it to delirium." + +"Hem!" said Mr. Hudsley. "Well, in case there should have been any +meaning and significance in it, my clerk and I will make a careful +search to-morrow." + +"Yes," murmured Stephen, "and I devoutly trust that should a later will +be in existence, you may find it." + +"I hope we may," said Mr. Hudsley. "Good-night!" + +Stephen accompanied him to the door as he had accompanied the doctor and +Jack, and saw him into the brougham, and then turned back into the house +with a look of release, which, however, gradually changed to one of +lurking fear and indefinite dread. + +"Conscience makes cowards of us all." + +It makes a worse coward of Stephen Davenant than he was naturally. + +As he stood in the deserted hall, and looked round, at its vast dimness, +at the carved gallery and staircase, somber and dull for want of +varnish, and listened to the faint, ghostly noises made by the +awe-stricken servants moving to and fro overhead, a chill crept over +him, and he wished that he had kept one of them, even Jack, to bear him +company. + +With fearful gaze he peered into the darkness, scarcely daring to cross +the hall and enter the library. For all the stillness, he fancied he +could hear that last shriek of the dying man ringing through the house; +for all the darkness, the slim, bent figure seemed to be moving to and +fro, the dark piercing eyes turned upon him with furious accusation. +Even when he had summoned up courage to enter the library, locking the +door after him, the eyes seemed to follow him, and with a shudder that +shook him from head to foot he poured out a glass of brandy and drank it +down. + +The Spirit of Evil certainly invented brandy for cowards. + +Stephen set down the empty glass and looked round the room--another man. + +He even smiled in a ghostly kind of fashion as he took the will from his +pocket and opened it. + +"Poor Jack!" he murmured, with a sardonic display of the white teeth. +"This no doubt makes you master of Hurst Leigh; but Providence has +decreed that the spendthrift shall be disappointed. Yes, I am the humble +instrument chosen. I am----" + +He stopped suddenly with a start, for he had been reading as he +soliloquized, and he had come upon words that struck him to the very +heart's core. + +Was he dreaming, or had his senses taken leave of him? + +With beating heart and white, parched lips he stared at the paper until +the lines of crabbed handwriting danced before his astounded eyes. + +If brevity is the soul of wit, old Ralph Davenant's will was wit itself. +It consisted of five paragraphs. + +The first was merely the usual preamble declaring the testator to be of +sound mind. + +The second ran thus: + +"To John Newcombe I will and bequeath the sum of fifty thousand pounds, +the said sum to be realized by the sale or transfer of bonds and stocks, +at the discretion of James Hudsley." + +Enough in this to move Stephen, but it paled into insignificance before +what followed: + +"To my nephew, Stephen Davenant, I will and bequeath the set of Black's +sermons in twenty-nine volumes, standing on the second shelf in the +library, having remarked the affection which the said Stephen Davenant +bore the said volumes, and accepting his repeated assertions that his +attendance upon me was wholly disinterested." + +An ugly flash and an evil glitter swept over Stephen's white face and +eyes, and his teeth ground together maliciously. + +"To each and every one of my servants I bequeath the sum of one hundred +pounds, such sum to be forfeited by each and every one who assumes +mourning for my death, which each and every one has anxiously looked +forward to. + +"And lastly, I will and bequeath the remainder of my property of +whatsoever kind, be it money, houses, lands, or property of any +description, to my only daughter and child, Eunice Davenant, the same to +be held in trust for her sole use and benefit by James Hudsley. + +"And I hereby inform him, and the world at large, that the said Eunice +Davenant is the only issue of my marriage with Caroline Hatfield; that +the said marriage was celebrated in secret at the Church of Armfield, in +Sussex, in June, 18--. And that the said Eunice Davenant, my daughter, +is in the keeping of one Gideon Rolfe, woodman, of Warden Forest, who +has reared her as his own child, and who is unacquainted with the facts +of my secret marriage, and I decree and appoint James Hudsley sole +guardian, trustee, and ward of the aforesaid Eunice Davenant, and at her +hands I crave forgiveness for my neglect of her mother and herself. + + "(Signed) RALPH DAVENANT, + "Hurst Leigh. + "Witness--George Goodman, + "Coachman, Hurst Leigh. + "Martha Goodman, + "Cook, Hurst Leigh." + + +White, breathless, Stephen held the paper in his clinched hands and +stared at the astounding contents. + +Eunice Davenant the squire's daughter. + +His overstrained brain refused to realize it. + +Old Ralph Davenant married! Married! It was impossible. + +_Oh, yes, that was it._ A smile, a ghastly smile shone on his face. _It +was a joke_--a vile, malicious joke, worthy of the crabbed, +misanthropical old man! A villainous joke, set down just to bring about +litigation, and create trouble and confusion between the two young men, +himself and Jack Newcombe. And yet--and the smile died away and left his +face fearful and haggard--and yet that awful fury of the dying man when +he knew that the will had been stolen. + +No, it was no jest. The marriage had taken place; there _was_ a +daughter, and she was the heiress of all that immense, untold wealth, +except the fifty thousand pounds left to Jack Newcombe, while he--he, +Stephen Davenant, the next of kin, the man who had been working, lying, +toadying for the money, was left with a set of musty sermons. + +Rage filled his heart; stifling, choking with fury, the disappointed +schemer struck the senseless paper with his clinched fist, and ground +his teeth at it; then, suddenly, as if by a swift inspiration, he +remembered that this accursed will, which would reduce him to beggary, +and leave an unknown girl and his hated cousin wealthy, was in his +hands; that he and he only knew of its existence. With a sudden +revulsion of feeling he sprang to his feet, and held the paper at arm's +length and laughed softly at it, as if it were endued with sense, and +could appreciate its helplessness. + +Then he drew the candle near, folded the paper into a third of its size, +held it to the candle--and drew it back again, overcome by that +fascination which almost invariably exercises itself on such +occasions--that peculiar reluctance to destroy the thing whose existence +can destroy the possessor. + +The flame flickered and licked the frail paper; the smoke curled round +its edge; and yet--and yet he could not destroy it. + +Instead, he sat down, and with clinched teeth unfolded the will and +read it--read it again and again, until every word was burned and seared +into his brain. + +"Eunice Davenant! Eunice Davenant! Curse her!" he groaned out. + +But even as the words left his lips a sound rose, the unmistakable +tap--tap of something--some finger striking the window-pane. + +Biting his bloodless lips to prevent himself calling out in his ecstasy +of fear, he thrust the will into his pocket, caught up the candle, swept +the curtains aside, and started back. + +The light fell full upon the face of a young girl. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +The face at the window was that of a young girl of about two-and-twenty. + +It would be hard to say whether Stephen Davenant was pleased or annoyed +by this apparition. That he was surprised there could be no doubt, for +he almost dropped the candle in his astonishment, and fumbled at the +lock of the window for some moments before he could open it. + +"Laura!" he exclaimed, "can it be you? Great Heavens! Impossible!" + +With a little gasp of relief and suppressed excitement, the girl stepped +into the room, and leaned upon his arm, panting with a commingling of +weariness and fear. + +"My dear Laura," he said, still holding the candle, "how did you come +here? Why----" + +"Oh, Stephen, is it really you? I was afraid that I had made some +mistake--that I had come all this way----" + +"You do not mean to say you have come all the way from London +alone--alone!" + +"Yes, I have come all the way from London. Do not be angry with me, +Stephen. I--I could not wait any longer. It seemed so long! Why did you +leave me without a word? I did not know whether you were alive or dead. +Three weeks--think, three weeks! How could you do it?" + +"Hush! hush! Do not speak so loud," he whispered. "Did anyone see you +come in?" + +"No one. I have been waiting in the shrubs for--oh, hours! I saw the +visitors go away--an old gentleman and a young one--and I saw your +shadow behind the blind," and she pointed to the window. "I have been +outside waiting, and dreading to knock in case you should not be alone." + +"You--you saw my shadow?" he said, with an uneasy smile. "Did you see--I +mean, what was I doing?" + +"I did not see distinctly; I was listening for voices. Oh, Stephen, I am +so weary!" + +He drew a chair for her, and, motioning her to sit, mixed a glass of +brandy-and-water, and stood over her holding her wrist and looking down +at her with an uneasy smile. + +"Now," he said, taking the glass from her, "tell me all about it--how +you came, and why? Speak in a whisper." + +"You don't need to ask me why, Stephen," she said, leaning forward and +laying her hand upon his arm, her dark eyes fixed on his half-hidden +ones. "Why did you leave me so long without a word?" + +"I will tell you directly," he answered. "Tell me how you came--alone! +Great Heaven!" + +"Alone, yes; why not? I was not afraid. I came by the train." + +"But--but----" he said, with a little flush and a shifting glance, "how +did you know where I was?" + +"You would never guess! You do not deserve that I should tell you. Well, +I followed Slummers!" + +"Followed Slummers!" he echoed, with a forced smile. + +"Yes, I met him in the street; you are going to ask me why I did not ask +him where you were," she broke off with a smile and a shake of her head. + +"Because I knew he would not tell me. Stephen, I do not like that man, +and he does not like me. Why do you trust him so?" + +"You followed Slummers--well?" + +"To the station. I was behind him when he took his ticket, and I took +one for the same place. I was quite close behind him, but he did not see +me. I got into the train at the last moment, and I followed him from the +station here." + +"My dear Laura," he murmured, soothingly; "how rash, how thoughtless!" + +"Was it?" she said. "Perhaps it was. I did not stop to think." + +"But now--now what are you to do?" + +"Don't be angry with me, Stephen, now I _am_ here. You must tell me what +I am to do." Then her eyes wandered round the house. "What a large +house! Is it yours, Stephen?" + +"Eh?" he said, starting slightly. "I--I--don't know--I mean it was my +uncle's. I was going to write to-night and tell you where I was, and why +I did not write before." + +"Why didn't you?" she said, with gentle reproach. + +"Because," he replied, "I could not--it was impossible. I could not +leave the house, and could not trust the letter to a servant. My uncle +has been very ill: he--he--lies dead up-stairs." + +"Up-stairs! Oh, Stephen!" + +"You see," he exclaimed reproachfully, "that I have a good excuse, that +I have not desert--left you without a word for no cause." + +"Forgive me, Stephen, dear!" she murmured, penitently. "Do not be angry +with me. Say you are glad to see me now I have come." + +"Of course I am glad to see you, but I am not glad you have come, my +dear Laura. What am I to do with you? I am not alone here, you know. The +house is full of servants; any moment someone may come in. Think of the +awkward position in which your precipitancy has placed me--has placed +both of us!" + +"I never thought of that--I did not know. Why did you not tell me you +were with your uncle? Oh, Stephen, why have you hidden things from me?" + +"Hidden things?" he echoed, with ill-concealed impatience. "I did not +think that it was worth telling. I did not know that I was coming--I was +fetched suddenly. Now that I come to think of it, I told Slummers to +call and tell you." + +"And he forgot it--on purpose. I hate Slummers!" + +"Poor Slummers!" murmured Stephen. "Never mind him, however. We must +think now of what is to be done with you. You--you cannot stay here." + +"Can I not? No, I suppose not. I can go back," she added, with a touch +of bitterness. + +"My darling," he said, coaxingly, "I am afraid you must go back. There +is an up-train--the last--in half an hour." + +The girl leaned back and clasped her hands in her lap. + +"I am very sorry," he said, grasping her arm; "but what can I do? You +cannot stay here. That's impossible. There is only one inn in the place, +and your appearance there would arouse curiosity, and--oh, _that_, too, +is quite impossible! My poor Laura, why did you come?" + +"Yes," she said, slowly, "it was foolish to come. You are not glad to +see me, Stephen." + +He bent over her and kissed her, but she put him from her with a touch +of her hand, and rose wearily. + +"I will go," she said. "Yes, I was wrong to come. Tell me the way," and +she drew her jacket close. + +"Don't look so grieved, dear," he murmured. "What am I to do? If there +was any place--but there is not. See, I will come with you to the +station. We shall have to walk, I am afraid; I dare not order a +carriage. My poor child, if you had only foreseen these difficulties." + +"Do not say any more," she interrupted coldly. "I am quite convinced of +my folly and am ready to go." + +"Sit down and wait while I get my hat. We must get away unobserved. +Suspicious eyes are watching my every movement to-night. I can't tell +you all, but I will soon. Sit down, my darling; I will not be gone a +moment. If anyone comes to the door, step through the window and conceal +yourself." + +Unlocking the door noiselessly he went out, turning the key after him. + +Barely a minute elapsed before he was in the room again. + +Warm though the night was he put on an overcoat and turned up the collar +so that it hid the lower part of his face. + +Locking the door after him, he came up to the table, poured out another +glass of brandy-and-water, and got some biscuits. + +"Come," he said, "you must eat some of these. Put some in your pocket. +And you must drink this, my poor darling, or you will be exhausted." + +She put back the glass and plate from her with a gesture of denial. + +"I could not eat," she said. "I do not want anything, and I shall not be +exhausted. Let us go; this house makes me shudder," and she moved to the +window and passed out. + +"Laura, my dear Laura," murmured Stephen, in his most dulcet tones, "why +are you angry with me?" + +"I am not angry with you," she said, and the voice, cold and +constrained, did not seem the same as that in which she had greeted him +a quarter of an hour ago. "I am angry with myself; I am filled with +self-scorn." + +"My dear Laura," he began, soothingly, but she interrupted him with a +gesture. + +"You are quite right; I was wrong to come. You have not said so in so +many words, but your face, your eyes, your very smile have told me so +plainly." + +"What have I said?" + +"Nothing," she answered, without hesitation, and with the same air of +cold conviction. "If you had said angry words, had been harsh and +annoyed openly, and yet been glad to see me, I could have forgiven +myself, but you were not glad to see me. If I had been in your +place--but I am a woman. Don't say any more. Is the station near?" + +"My dear Laura," murmured Stephen for the third time, and now more +softly than ever, "more must be said. I am anxious, naturally anxious, +to learn whether this--this sudden journey can be concealed." + +It was quite true, he was anxious, very anxious--on his own account. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +"Come," he said; "it is all right, then. Do not take the matter so +seriously, my darling Laura. The worst part of it is that you should +have made such a journey alone, and have to go back alone, and at night! +That is what grieves me. If I could but go with you--and yet that would +scarcely be wise--but it is impossible under the circumstances. Come, +give me your arm, my dear Laura." + +A little shiver ran through her frame, and she caught her breath with a +stifled sob. + +"Come, come, my darling," he murmured; "don't look back, look forward. +In an hour or two you will be home." + +"Do you think I am afraid?" she asked, and her voice trembled, but not +with fear. "No, I am looking back. Oh, Stephen, do you remember when we +met first?" + +"Yes, yes," said Stephen, soothingly, and with an anxious, sidelong look +about--to be seen promenading the high road with a young woman on his +arm on the night of his uncle's death would be the ruin of his carefully +built-up reputation. "Yes, yes," he murmured. "Shall I ever forget? How +fortunate you lost your way, Laura, and that you should have come up to +me to ask it, and that I should have been going in that direction. And +yet the thoughtless speak of chance!" + +And he cast up his eyes with unctuous solemnity, though there was no one +in the dark road to be impressed by it. + +"Chance," said the girl, sadly--"an evil or a good chance for me--which? +Stephen, I sometimes wish that we had never met--that I had not crossed +your path, and so have left the old life, with its dull, quiet and sober +grayness; but the die was cast that afternoon. I went back to the quiet +home, to the old man who had been my father, mother and all to me, and +life was changed." + +"Your grandfather has no suspicion?" + +"No, he trusts me entirely. If he asks a question when I go to meet you, +he is satisfied when I tell him that I am going to a neighbor. Stephen, +if I had had a mother, do you think I should have deceived her also?" + +"Deceived? Deceived is too harsh a word, my dear Laura. We have been +obliged, for various reasons, to use some reserve--let us say candidly, +to conceal our engagement. You have not mentioned my name to anyone?" he +broke off. + +"To no one," she answered. + +"Such concealment was necessary. My uncle was a man of rough and hasty +temper, ill-judging and merciless." + +"But," she said, with a sudden eagerness, and a slight shudder, "he--he +is dead now, Stephen. There is no need for further concealment." + +"Softly, softly, dear Laura. We must be patient--must keep our little +secret a little while longer. I can trust my darling to confide in +me--yes, yes, I know that----" + +"Stephen, to-night for the first time--why, I know not--I have +doubted--no, not doubted, for I have fought hard against the suspicion +that I was wrong to trust you." + +"My dearest!" he murmured reproachfully. + +"You were wrong to leave me for so long without a word--you put my love +to too severe a test. I--I cannot say whether it has stood it or not. +To-night I am full of doubt. Stephen--look at me!" + +He turned his face and looked down. He had not far to look, for she was +tall, and in the moment of excitement had drawn herself to her full +height. The moon, sailing from amongst the clouds, shone on her upturned +face; her lips were set, and the dark eyes gleamed from the white face. + +"Look at me, Stephen. If--I say if--there is the faintest idea of +treachery lurking in your mind----" + +"My dearest----" + +"Cast it out! Here, to-night, I warn you to cast it out! Such love as +mine is like a two-edged sword, it cuts both ways, for love--or hate! +Stephen, I have loved, I have trusted you--for mine, for your own sake, +be true to me!" + +He was more impressed than alarmed. This side of her character had been +presented to him to-night for the first time. Hitherto the beautiful +girl had been all smiles and humble devotion. Was she bewitched, or had +he been mistaken in her. Perhaps it was the moon, but suddenly his face +looked paler than ever, and the white eyelids drooped until they hid the +shifting eyes, as he put his arm around her. + +"My dearest! What can you mean? Deceive you! Treachery! Can you deem +me--_me_--capable of such things. My dearest, you are overtired! And +your jacket has become unbuttoned. Listen, that is the railway bell. +Laura, you will not leave me with such words on your lips?" + +"Forgive me, Stephen." + +"I have done so already, dearest, and now we must part! It is very +hard--but--I cannot even go with you to the platform. Someone might see +us. It is for your sake, darling." + +"Yes, yes, I know," she said, with a sigh. "Good-bye--you will write or +come to me--when?" + +"Soon, in a day or two," he said. "Do not be impatient. There is much to +be done; my poor uncle's funeral, you know. Good-bye. See! I will stay +here and watch the train off. Good-bye, dear, dear Laura!" + +She put her arm round him and returned his kiss, and glided away, but at +the turn of the road leading to the station she turned and, holding up +her hand, sent a word back to him. + +It was: + +"Remember!" + +Stephen waited until the train puffed out of the station, and not until +it had flashed some distance did the set smile leave his face. + +Then, with a rather puzzled and uneasy expression, he turned and walked +swiftly back to the house. + +His brain was in a whirl, the sudden appearance of the young girl coming +on the top of the other causes of excitement bewildered him, and he felt +that he had need of all his accustomed coolness. The sudden peril and +danger of this accursed will demanded all his attention, and yet the +thought of the girl would force itself upon him. He had met her, as she +had said, in the streets, and had commenced an acquaintance which had +resulted in an engagement. Alone and unprotected, save for an old +grandfather, and innocent of the world, Laura Treherne had been, as it +were, fascinated by the smooth, soft-spoken Stephen, from whose ready +tongue vows of love and devotion rolled as easily as the scales from a +serpent in spring-time. And he, for his part, was smitten by the dark +eyes and quick, impulsive way of the warm-hearted girl. + +But there had come upon him of late a suspicion that in binding himself +to marry her he had committed a false step; to-night the suspicion grew +into something like certainty. + +To tell the truth, she had almost frightened him. Hitherto the dark eyes +had ever turned on his with softened gaze of love and admiration; +to-night, for the first time, the hot, passionate nature had revealed +itself. + +The deep-toned "Remember!" which came floating down the lane as she +disappeared rang unpleasantly in his ears. Had he been a true-hearted +man the girl's spirit would have made her more precious in his eyes; +but, coward-like, he felt that hers was a stronger nature than his, and +he began to fear. + +"Yes," he muttered, as he unlocked the library window, and sank into a +chair. "It was a weak stroke, a weak stroke! But I can't think of what +is to be done now, not now!" + +No, for to-night all his attention must be concentrated on the will. + +Wiping the perspiration from his brow, he lit another candle. This time +nothing should prevent him from destroying the accursed thing which +stood between him and wealth; he would burn it at once--at once. With +feverish eagerness he thrust his hand in his coat, then staggered and +fell back white as death. + +_The pocket was empty. The will was not there._ + +"I--I am a fool!" he muttered, with a smile. "I put it in the other +coat," and he snatched up the overcoat, but a glance, a touch showed him +that it was not there either. + +Wildly, madly he searched each pocket in vain, went on his knees and +felt, as if he could not trust his sight alone, every inch of the +carpet; turned up the hearth-rug, almost tore up the carpet itself, +shook the curtains, and still hunted and searched long after the +conviction had forced itself upon his mind that in no part of the room +could the thing be hidden. + +Then he paused, pressing his hand to his brow and biting his livid lips. +Let him think--think--think! Where could it be? He had not dropped it on +the stairs or in any other part of the house, for he remembered, he +could swear, that he had felt the thing as he stood in the study +buttoning up his overcoat. If not in the house, where then? + +Throwing aside all caution in his excitement, he unfastened the window, +and, candle in hand, examined the grand terrace, traced every step which +he had taken across the lawn--and all to no purpose. + +"It is lying in the road," he muttered, the sweat dropping from his +face. "Heaven! lying glaring there, for any country clown to pick up and +ruin me. I must--I will find it! Brandy--I must have some +brandy--this--this is maddening me!" + +And indeed he seemed mad, for though he knew he had not passed it, he +went back, still peering on the ground, the candle held above his head. +Suddenly he stumbled up against some object, and, looking up, saw the +tall figure of a man standing right in his path. With a wolfish cry of +mingled fear and rage, he dropped the candle and sprang on to him. + +"You--you thief!" he cried, hoarsely; "give it to me--give it me!" + +The man made an effort to unlock the mad grasp of the hands round his +throat, then scientifically and coolly knocked his assailant down, and, +holding him down writhing, struck a match. + +Gasping and foaming, Stephen looked up and saw that it was Jack +Newcombe--Jack Newcombe regarding him with cool, contemptuous surprise +and suspicion. + +"Well," he said contemptuously, "so it's you! Are you out of your mind?" +and he flung the match away and allowed Stephen to rise. + +Trembling and struggling for composure, Stephen brushed the dust from +his black coat and stood rubbing his chest, for Jack's blow had been +straight from the shoulder. + +"What have you got to say for yourself?" said Jack, sternly. "I asked +you if you had gone mad. What are you doing here with a candle, and +behaving like a lunatic?" + +Stephen made a mighty effort for composure, and a ghastly smile +struggled to his face. + +"My dear Jack, how you startled me!" he gasped. "I was never so +frightened in my--my life!" + +"So it appeared," said Jack, with strong disgust in his voice. "Pick up +the candle--there it is." + +And he pointed with his foot. But Stephen was by no means anxious for a +light. + +"Never mind the candle," he said. "You are quite right--I must have +seemed out of my mind. I--I am very much upset, my dear Jack." + +"Are you hurt?" inquired Jack, but with no great show of concern. + +"No, no!" gasped Stephen; "don't distress yourself, my dear Jack--don't, +I beg of you. It was my fault, entirely. The--the fact is that I----" + +He paused, for Jack had got the candle, lit it, and held it up so that +the light fell upon Stephen's face. + +"Now," he said, his tone plainly intimating that he would prefer to see +Stephen's face while he made his explanation. + +"The fact is," Stephen began again, "I have had the misfortune to lose a +pocketbook--no, not a pocketbook, that is scarcely correct, but a paper +which I fancied I had put in my pocketbook, and which must have dropped +out. It--it was a draft of a little legal document which my lawyer had +sent me--of no value, utterly valueless--oh, quite----" + +"So I should judge from the calm way in which you accused the first man +you met of stealing it," said Jack, with quiet scorn. + +Stephen bit his lip, and a glance of hate and suspicion shot from under +his eyelids. + +"Pray forgive me, my dear Jack," he said, pressing his hand to his brow, +and sighing. "If you had sat up for so many nights, and were so worn and +overwrought, you would have some sympathy with my overstrained nerves. I +am much shaken to-night, my dear Jack--very much shaken." + +And indeed he was, for the Savage's fist was by no means a soft one. + +Jack looked at him in silence for a moment, then held the candle toward +him. + +"You had better go to the house and get some of the servants to help you +look for the paper," he said. "Good-night." + +"Oh, it is of no consequence," said Stephen, eagerly. "Don't go--stop a +moment, my dear Jack. I--I will walk with you as far as the inn." + +"No, thanks," said Jack, curtly; then, as a suspicious look gleamed in +Stephen's eyes, he added: "Oh, I see! you are afraid I should pick it up +in the road. You had better come." + +Stephen smiled, and laid his hand on Jack's arm. + +"You--you are not playing a joke with me, my dear Jack? You haven't got +the--document in your pocket all the time?" + +"If I said that I hadn't you wouldn't believe me, you know," he replied. +"There, take your hand off my coat!" + +"Stop! stop!" exclaimed Stephen, with a ghostly attempt at a laugh. +"Don't go, my dear Jack; stop at the house to-night. I should feel very +much obliged, indeed, if you would. I am so upset to-night that I--I +want company. Let me beg of you to stop." + +And in his dread lest Jack should escape out of sight, he held on to his +arm. + +Jack shook him with so emphatic a movement of disgust that Stephen was +in imminent danger of making a further acquaintance with the lawn. + +"Go indoors," he said sternly, "and leave me alone. I'd rather not sleep +under the same roof with you. As for your lost paper, whatever it may +be, you had better look for it in the morning, unless you want to get +into further trouble," and he turned on his heel and disappeared. + +Stephen waited until he had got at a safe distance, and, blowing out the +candle, followed down the road with stealthy footsteps, keeping a close +watch on the rapidly-striding figure, and examining the road at the same +time. But all to no purpose; Jack reached and entered the inn without +stopping, and neither going nor returning could Stephen see anything of +the missing will. + +Two hours afterward he crept back and staggered into the library more +dead than alive, one question rankling in his disordered brain. + +Had Jack Newcombe found the will, and, if not, where was it? + +After a time the paroxysm of fear and despair passed, and left him +calmer. His acute brain, overwhelmed but not crushed out, began to +recover itself, and he turned the situation round and round until he had +come to a plan of action. + +It was not a very definite one, it was rather vague, but it was the most +reasonable one he could think of. + +There in Warden Forest, living as the daughter of a woodman, who was +himself ignorant of her legitimacy, was the girl. I am sorry to say that +he cursed her as he thought of her. Where was the will? Whoever had got +it would no doubt come to him first to make terms, and, failing to make +them, would go to the real heiress. + +Stephen, quick as lightning, resolved to take her away. + +But where? + +He did not much care for the present, so that it was somewhere under his +eyes, or in the charge--the custody, really--of a trustworthy friend. + +The only really trustworthy friend whom Stephen knew was his mother. + +"Yes, that is it," he muttered. "Mother shall take this girl as--as--a +companion. Poor mother, some great ignorant, clodhopping wench who will +frighten her into a nervous fit. Poor mother!" And he smiled with a +feeble, malicious pleasure. + +There are some men who take a delight in causing pain even to those who +are devoted to them. + +"Dear mother," he wrote, "I have to send you the sad news of my uncle's +death. Need I say that I am utterly overwhelmed in grief. I have indeed +lost a friend!" ("The malicious, mean old wolf," he muttered, in +parenthesis.) "How good he was to me! But, mother, even in the midst of +our deepest sorrows, we must not forget the calls of charity. I have a +little duty to perform, in which I require your aid. I fear it will +necessitate your making a journey to Wermesley station on this line. If +you will come down by the 10:20 on Wednesday, I will meet you at +Wermesley station. Do not mention your journey, my dear mother; we must +not be forgetful that we are enjoined to do good by stealth. + "In great affliction, + "Your loving son, + "STEPHEN DAVENANT." + + +It was a beautiful letter, and clearly proved that Stephen was not only +a bad man, but an extremely clever and dangerous one--for he could +retain command over himself even in such moments as these. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +Let us hasten from the gloomy atmosphere of Hurst Leigh, and, leaving +the presence of the thwarted old man lying upstairs, and the no less +thwarted young man writhing in torturing dread in the darkened library, +return to Warden Forest. + +With fleet feet Una fled from the lake, the voices of the woodman and +Jack Newcombe ringing in her ears, a thousand tumultuous emotions +surging wildly in her heart. + +Until the preceding night Gideon Rolfe had seemed the calmest and most +placable of fathers; nothing had occurred to ruffle his almost studied +impassability. New and strange experiences seemed to crowd upon her so +suddenly that she scarcely accepted them as real. Had she been dreaming, +and would she wake presently to find the handsome young stranger, with +his deep musical voice, and his dark, eloquent eyes, the phantom of a +vision? + +As she came in sight of the cottage she turned aside and, plunging into +the depths of the wood, sank down upon a bank of moss and strove to +recall every word, every look, every slight incident, which had passed +since the arrival of the stranger; and, as she did so, she seemed +vaguely conscious that a change, indefinite yet undeniable, had fallen +upon her life. The very trees, the atmosphere itself, seemed changed, +and in place of that perfect, unbroken calm which had hitherto enwrapped +her life, a spirit of unrest, of vague longing, took possession of her. + +A meteor had crossed the calm, serene sky of her existence, vanishing as +quickly as it had come, and creating a strange, aching void. + +Still it was not at all painful, this novel feeling of wistfulness and +unrest; a faint echo of some mysterious delight rang in the inner +chambers of her young soul, the newly awakened heart stirred within her +like an imprisoned bird, and turned to the new light which had dawned +upon her. That it was the celestial light of love she was completely +ignorant. She only knew and felt, with all the power of mind and soul, +that a spirit had fallen upon her life, that she had, half-blinded, left +the road of gray, unbroken calm, never to return--never to return. + +Step by step she recalled all that had passed, and sat revolving the +strange scene with ever-increasing wonder. + +What did it mean? Why should her father be angry with the youth? Why +should he accuse and insult him, and drive her away as if from the +presence of some wild animal who was seeking to devour her? + +Wild animal! A smile, sad and wistful, flitted over her beautiful face +as she called up the handsome face and graceful form of the youth. Was +it possible that one so base as her father declared him to be could look +as this youth had looked, speak as he had spoken? With a faint, +tremulous, yet unconscious blush, she remembered how graceful he looked +lying at her feet, his lips half parted in a smile, his brow frank and +open as a child's. + +And yet he himself had said, half sadly, that he was wild and wicked. +What could it mean? + +Innocent as a nun, ignorant of all that belonged to the real living +world, she sat vainly striving to solve this, the first enigma of her +inner life. + +Once, as she sat thinking and pondering, her eyes cast down, her brows +knit, her fingers strayed to her right arm with a gentle, almost +caressing touch. It was the arm upon which Jack's hand had rested: even +now she seemed to feel the pressure of the strong fingers just as she +heard the ring of his deep, musical voice, and could feel the gaze of +his dark, flashing eyes; they had looked fierce and savage when she had +first seen them at the open door of the cottage last night, but this +morning they had worn a different expression--a tender, half-pitying, +and wholly gentle expression, which softened them. It was thus she liked +to remember them--thus she would remember them if she never saw them +again. + +And as this thought flashed across her mind a wistful sadness fell upon +her, and a vague pain came into her heart. Should she never see him +again? Never! She looked round mournfully, and lo! the whole world +seemed changed; the sun was still shining, the trees were still crowned +in all their glory of summer leafage, but it all looked gray and dark to +her; all the beauty and glory which she had learned to love had +gone--vanished at the mere thought that she should never see him again. + +Slowly she rose, and with downcast eyes moved toward the cottage. She +passed in at the open door and looked round the room--that, too, seemed +altered, something was missing; half-consciously she wandered round, +touching with the same half-caressing gesture the chair on which Jack +Newcombe had sat, opened the book at the page which she was reading +while he was eating his supper; a spell seemed to have fallen upon her, +and it was with a start like one awakening from a dream that she turned +as a shadow fell across the room and Gideon Rolfe entered. + +She turned and looked at him questioningly, curiously, but without fear. +The cry of alarm when he had broken in upon them by the lake had been on +Jack's account, not her own; never since she could remember had Gideon +Rolfe spoken harshly to her, looked angrily; without a particle of fear, +rather with a vague wonder, she looked and waited for him to speak. + +The old man's face wore a strange expression; all traces of the fierce +passion which had convulsed it a short time ago had passed away, and in +its place was a stern gravity which was almost sad in its grim +intensity. + +Setting his ax aside, he paced the room for a minute in silence, his +brows knit, his hands clasped behind his back. + +Una glided to the window and looked out into the wood, her head leaning +on her arm. + +"Una," he said, suddenly, his voice troubled and grave, but not unkind. + +She started, and looked around at him; her spirit had fled back to the +lake again, and she had almost forgotten that he was in the room. + +"Una, you must not wander in the forest alone again." + +"No! Why not?" + +He hesitated a moment, as if he did not know how to answer her; then he +said, with a frown: + +"Because I do not wish it--because the man you saw here last night, the +man you were with by the lake, may come again"--a faint light of +gladness shone in her eyes, and he saw it, and frowned sternly as he +went on--"and I do not wish you to meet him." + +She was silent for a moment, her eyes downcast, her hands tightly +clasped in front of her; then she looked up. + +"Father, tell me why you spoke so angrily to him--why do you not want +him to come to Warden again?" + +"I spoke as he deserved," he answered; "and I would rather that Warden +should be filled with wild beasts than that he should cross your path +again." + +Her face paled slightly, and her eyes opened with wonder and pain. + +"Is he so very bad and wicked?" she asked, almost inaudibly. + +Gideon Rolfe strode to and fro for a moment before he answered. How +should he answer her?--how warn and caution her without destroying the +innocence which, like the sensitive plant, withers at a touch? + +"Is it not sufficient that I wish it, Una?" he said. "Why are you not +satisfied? Wicked! Yes, he's wicked; all men are wicked, and he's the +most wicked and base!" + +"You know him, father?" she asked. "You would not say so if you did not. +I am sorry he is so bad." + +"Look at me, Una," he said. + +She turned, her eyes downcast and hidden, her lips trembling for a +moment. + +"Yes, father." + +"Una," he said, "what is the meaning of this? Why are you changed--why +do you shrink from me?" + +She looked up with a curious mixture of innocent pride and dignity. + +"I don't shrink from you, father," she said in a low voice. + +Gideon's hand dropped from her shoulder, and the frown gave place to a +sad expression. "Has the time I looked forward to with fear and dread +come at last?" he murmured, inaudibly, and he paced to and fro again, as +if endeavoring to arrive at some decision. + +Una watched him with dreamy, questioning eyes, in which shone a tender +mournfulness. Why were all men wicked? Why was this one man, with the +handsome face and the musical voice, more wicked than the rest? What was +it that her father knew that should make him hate the youth so? These +were the questions that haunted her as she waited silent and motionless. + +At last, with a wave of the hand, as if he were putting some decision on +one side, Gideon Rolfe turned to her and motioned her to the +window-seat. "Una," he said, "last night you were wondering why your lot +should be different from that of other girls; you were wondering why I +have kept you here in Warden, and out of the world. It is so, is it +not?" + +She did not answer in words, but her eyes said "yes," plainly. + +Gideon Rolfe sighed, and passed his hand over his brow; it was a hand +hardened by toil, but it was not the hand of a peasant, any more than +was his tone or his words those of one. + +"Una, I have foreseen this question; I have been expecting it, and I had +resolved that when it came I would answer it. But," and his lips +twitched, "I cannot do it--I cannot," and his brow contracted as if he +were suffering some great, mental anguish. "For my sake, do not press +me. In time to come, sooner or later, you must know the secret of your +life, you must learn why and wherefore your whole life has been spent in +seclusion; you have guessed that there is some mystery, some +story--there is. It must remain a mystery still. For your own sake I +dare not draw aside the veil which conceals; for your own sake my lips +are for the present sealed. Child, can you tell me that, secluded and +lonely as your life has been, it has been an unhappy one?" + +"Father!" she murmured, and her eyes filled slowly. + +"God forgive me if it has been!" he said, sadly. "I have striven to make +it a happy one." + +Silently she rose and laid her hand upon his arm and put up her lips to +kiss him, but with a gentle gesture he put her away from him. + +"Una, listen to me. All my life I have had but one aim, one purpose, +your happiness and welfare. For your sake I left the world and an +honored name----" he stopped suddenly, warned by the gentle wonder of +her gaze, and with a faint color in his face hurried on--"for your sake, +and yours only. Do you think that it is by choice that I have kept you +hidden from the world? No, but of necessity. Una, between the world and +you yawns a wide gulf. On this side are peace, and innocence, and +happiness; on the other," and his voice grew grave and solemn, "lie +misery and--shame." White and wondering, she gazed at him, and the +innocent wonder in the beautiful face recalled him to himself. "Enough! +You can trust me, Una; it is no idle, meaningless warning. Remember what +I have said, when your thoughts turn to the world beyond the forest, +when you grow weary and impatient with the quiet life which, though it +may seem sad and weary, is the only one you can ever know without +passing that gulf of which I have spoken." + +"And now I want you to give me a promise, Una." + +"A promise, father?" she echoed, in a low voice. + +"Yes; I want you to promise me that if this--this young man should come, +as he has threatened to do--that if he should come to you, and speak to +you, you will not listen, will not speak to him." + +An impatient frown knitted Gideon Rolfe's brow. + +"Is this so much to ask you?" he said, in a low voice. "Is it so grave +a thing to demand of you that you should avoid a man whom you have seen +but twice in your life, one whom you know to be wicked and worthless?" + +"Girl," he exclaimed, in low, harsh accents, "has the curse fallen upon +you--already? Has he bewitched you? Speak? Why do you not speak? Has all +the careful guarding of years been set at naught and rendered of no +avail by the mere sight of one of his race, by a few idle words spoken +by one of his hateful kin?" + +He grasped her shoulder; instantly, with a revulsion of feeling, he +withdrew his hand, and bent his head with a gesture almost of humility. + +"Una, forgive me. You see how this unmans me--can you not understand how +great must be the danger from which I wish to save you? Promise me what +I ask you, for your own sake--ay, and for his." + +"For his?" she murmured. + +"Yes, for his. Let him but attempt to cross your path again, and I will +not hold my hand. I held it once--would to Heaven I had not! I say, for +his sake, promise that you will hold no speech with him!" + +"Father, what has he done to make you hate him so?" she asked. + +"I cannot, I will not tell you more than this: His race has ruined my +life and yours--ruined it beyond all reparation here and hereafter. No +more. I wait for your promise." + +"I promise," she said. + +"Good," he said. "I can trust you, child." + +"Yes, you can trust me," she said, in a low voice; then with slow, +listless steps she crossed the room and stole up-stairs. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +The Savage, wholly unconscious of, and totally indifferent to, the fact +that his every footstep was watched by Stephen, entered the "Bush" Inn +and went straight to his room, the little knot of regular customers, who +were drinking and smoking in the parlor, either rising respectfully as +he entered or maintaining an equally respectful silence until he was out +of hearing. + +"Mr. Jack's a fine fellow," said the landlord, looking at the fire +solemnly. "Did you notice his face as he went through? I'm afraid it's +all over with the old squire. Well, well, rest his soul, I say. I'm not +one to bear grudges against the dead." + +There was, if not a hearty, a unanimous assent to this dutiful +sentiment, and the landlord, encouraged, ventured a little further, +looking first over his shoulder to see if the door was shut, and then +glancing at a little wrinkled faced man who sat in the corner by the +fireplace, and looked, in his rusty black suit, like a lawyer's clerk, +as indeed he was. + +"All over now, Mr. Skettle," said the landlord, with a little cough. "I +wonder--ahem--who'll be the next squire?" + +The old clerk peered out from under his hairless brows, and shook his +head with a dry smile; it was a very fair imitation of his master's, Mr. +Hudsley's, manner, and never failed to impress the company at the +"Bush." + +"Aha!" he breathed. "Hem--yes. Time will prove--time will prove, +Jobson." + +Jobson, the landlord, looked round and winked with impressive +admiration, as much as to say, "Deep fellow, Skettle; knows all about +it, mind you, but not a word!" + +"Well," said the parish clerk, with a shake of the head, "if wishing +would make the mare to go, I know who'd be the Squire o' Hurst," and he +pointed with his pipe to the ceiling, above which the Savage was +thoughtfully pacing to and fro. + +"We've had enough o' Davenants," began the miller; but Jobson stopped +him with a warning gesture. + +"No names, South--no names; this air a public house, and I'm a man as +minds my own business." + +"So was the last squire," retorted the miller, who was not to be put +down--"leastways, he didn't meddle or help his neighbors. Not one +shilling have I took from the Hurst since I was that high. Is there a +man in this room as can say he'll be a penny the worse for Squire +Ralph's death? + +"And from what I see it seems to me that if things go on as they appear +to be going, we shan't be much better for the new squire, if the name's +to be the same." + +"A nice spoken gentleman, Mr. Stephen," muttered the tailor, from behind +the table. + +The miller smiled and shook his head. + +"There's some grain as grinds so soft that you can't keep it on the +ground from the wind; but it don't make good bread, neighbor. No! Now +the youngster up above," and he jerked his head toward the ceiling, "he +comes of a different branch--same tree, mind yer, but a healthier +branch. It will be good news for Hurst Leigh if it's found that Master +Jack is to be our head." + +"Nothing soft about Mr. Jack. If all we hear be true, it's a pretty wild +branch of the tree he comes from." + +"They say he's wild. No doubt; he always was. I can remember him a boy +home for the holidays. He used to come down to the mill and poach my +trout--a bit of a boy no higher than that"--and he put his hand against +the table--"as fine a boy as ever I see. One day I caught him, and told +him I'd either give him a thrashing or tell his uncle; for, do yer see, +we allus called the old squire his uncle. + +"'All right,' said he, 'wait till I've landed this fish and we'll settle +it between us like gentlemen.' Another time I found him in the orchard. +'Well, Master Jack,' says I, 'bean't you got enough apples at the Hurst, +but you must come and plague me?' He thought a moment, then he looks up +with that audacious flash in his eyes, and says, quiet enough: 'Stolen +fruit is the sweetest, South. If you feel put upon, take it out of the +Hurst Orchard. I give you leave.' What was to be done with a boy like +that? Fear! He didn't know what fear was. Do any o' you remember that +roan mare as the old parson had? Well, Master Jack hears us talking o' +the spiteful beast one day, and nothing 'ud do but he must go off and +ask the parson to let him ride 'un. Of course the old fellow said no. +Two nights after that the young varmint breaks open the stables, takes +out the mare, saddles her, and rides her out to the common. I was late +at the mill that night, and I hears her come clattering down the yard +like a fire-engine, with Master Jack on her back, his eyes flashing and +his hair a-flying, and him a-laughing as if it was the rarest bit o' fun +in the world. I'd just time to cut across the meadow to the five-barred +fence, and here he come past me, making straight for the fence, waving +his hand and shouting someut about Dick Turpin. Ah, and he took the +fence, too, and when that vicious beast threw him, and we came up to +him, lying all o' a heap, with his arm broke, and the blood streaming +from his face--what's he do but laugh at us, and swear as we'd startled +her! And as for fighting! There warn't a week but what he'd come to the +mill, all cut and mauled, for the missis to wash him and put him to +rights. He'd never go home to the Hurst those times. Even then the old +squire and him didn't agree. The old man called him a Savage, and I hear +as that's what they call him up in London, and yet there warn't a house +in Leigh as he warn't welcome in. Many and many a time he's slept up in +the mill loft after one of his harum-scarum tricks, and many's the time +I've faced the old squire when he's come after him with a horsewhip." + +"They say that he run through all the money, as was his by rights, up in +London in fast living," said the parish clerk, gravely. + +"May be," said the miller, curtly. "If fast living means open-handed +living, it's like enough; he never could keep a shilling when he was a +boy, the first tramp as passed had it, safe as a gun. What's bred in the +bone must come out in the flesh. Here's to the new squire--if it be +Master Jack," and the sturdy old man raised his glass and emptied its +contents at one vigorous but steady pull. + +Meanwhile the subject of the discussion paced to and fro, pulling at his +brier, and indulging in a study of the brownest description. + +Never perhaps in his life had Jack been so upset, so serious and so +sobered. + +In the first place the sudden--or rather sudden to Jack--death of the +old man with whom he had lived and quarreled as a boy, affected him more +deeply than even he was aware. There in the silent room in the inn, he +recalled all the old man's good qualities, all the little kindnesses he +had done him, Jack, and more than all, the few last solemn and quite +unexpectedly affectionate words which had dropped from his dying lips. + +Jack, puffing at his pipe and rubbing his short hair with a puzzled +frown, went over the scene again and again, and with no mercenary +thoughts of the old man's declaration that he had remembered Jack in his +will, but with reference to the mysterious allusions in the disposal of +the large part of the property; then Jack's mind would fly off to the +fearful scene at the actual death. + +The wild cry, the white and horrified face of Stephen, the puzzled and +sternly questioning one of the old lawyer. What did it mean? + +And still more mysterious, what was the meaning of Stephen's conduct on +the lawn? What was he hunting for with such intense eagerness as to make +him fly at Jack like a madman? + +Jack--as no doubt the reader will have surmised--was not clever. + +He could not piece this and that together, and from disjointed incidents +form an intelligent whole, as a child does with a box of puzzles. + +The whole thing was a mystery to him, and grew more confusing and +bewildering the more he thought of it. + +It takes a villain thoroughly to appreciate a villain, a thief to +understand and catch a thief; and Jack, being neither one nor the other, +utterly failed to understand Stephen. + +That he disliked him, with a feeling more like contempt than hatred, was +a matter of course, but if any one had told Jack straight out that +Stephen had abstracted the will, Jack would in all probability have +refused to credit it. Will stealing and all such meanness was so +thoroughly out of his line that he would not have understood how +Stephen, led on step by step, could have possibly been guilty of it. + +Then again, something else came forcing itself on these thoughts +concerning the strange events at the Hurst. For the life of him he could +not forget the Forest of Warden and all that had happened to him within +its leafy shades. + +At one moment it seemed as if years must have elapsed since he lost his +way and forced an entrance at the woodman's hut, at another he was half +inclined to believe that he had dined rather heavily at the club and +dreamed it all. Like Una, he could not realize that they had met, +touched hands and exchanged speech. + +Jack could not get the beautiful face out of his mental vision; it +mingled with the wan face of the dying man, with Stephen's pale, +distorted countenance; it seemed to beam and shine upon him from the +dark corners of the room with the same frank, pure, innocent smile with +which it had shone down upon him as he lay at her feet in the woods. + +And then the girl's surroundings! The extraordinary father, with his +laborer's dress and his refined speech and bearing. What mystery +enveloped the little group of persons buried in the depths of a wood, +living apart from the world? + +Jack rumpled his hair and drew a long breath eloquent of confusion and +bewilderment. + +It was certainly extraordinary! Three days ago he had left London, +prosaic London, and was now plunged to the neck in a sea of romance and +secrecy. + +On one thing he was, however, resolved. He would keep his threat or +promise. He would go to Warden Forest and see that beautiful face again, +though he had to brave the anger of twenty mysterious woodmen. He +thought at first that he would start on the morrow, but some +feeling--perhaps some reverence and respect for the dead man--made him +change his mind. + +"No," he said to himself, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and +prepared for bed; "I'll stay here over the funeral, and then----" + +But, though he felt tired and worn out, it was hours before he could +sleep, and when he did, his spirit fled back to Warden Forest, and the +face that had haunted him waking hovered about him in dreams. + +Was it love; love at first sight? Jack would have been first to laugh at +the idea; but it is worthy of note that all the loves which had occurred +in his wild, reckless life had never, in their warmest epochs, moved him +as the remembrance of Una had done; not one had had the power to disturb +his sleep or to bring him dreams. + +Jack kept to his resolution. Five days passed, and he stuck to the +"Bush" manfully. They were, perhaps, the dreariest days he ever spent in +his life, and he never thought of them afterward without a shudder. + +Every day he was tempted to take flight and go to London until the day +of the funeral; but his promise to Hudsley kept him at his post. He +would not even leave the "Bush." + +On the first day, a note, written on the deepest of mourning paper, had +come from Stephen, begging him to come to the Hurst; but he had written +a firm and what was for him a polite refusal. Of Stephen himself he saw +nothing. Mr. Hudsley had also sent, and asked him to stay at his house; +and this, too, Jack had declined. + +The fact was he wanted to be left alone, to think over the strange +adventures in the forest, to dwell with unceasing wistfulness on the +beautiful face and sweet, musical voice. + +So he clung to the inn; taking a morning dip in the river; strolling +about, with his brier pipe in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, +exchanging a word with this man and the other, and bestowing his odd +change on any children he happened to meet. Sometimes he would drop in +at one of the cottages, where he was so welcome when a boy, and smoke +and chat; but usually he kept to his room. + +But wherever he went he was the observed of all observers. Every night +the little club that met in the "Bush" parlor talked about him, and +wondered why he didn't go to the Hurst, and whether he would be the new +squire. + +The day of the funeral arrived at last--a cold, wet day, that +foreshadowed the approaching autumn; and Jack put on his black +suit--made by the village tailor who had described Stephen as a +nice-spoken gentleman--and went up to the Hurst. + +It was the first time he had been near it since the night he had the +scuffle with Stephen on the lawn; and, to Jack's eyes, it looked +gloomier than ever. + +As he entered the hall, a shrunken figure in shabby black came to meet +him; it was old Skettle, Hudsley's clerk. + +The old man peered at him curiously, and made him a respectful bow in +response to Jack's blunt greeting, and opened the library door. + +Mr. Hudsley was standing at the table, and looked up with his wrinkled +face and keen eyes--not a trace of expression beyond keenness in them. +Jack shook hands with him and looked around. + +"Where is Stephen?" he said. + +As he spoke the door opened and Stephen entered. Jack, frank and candid, +stared at him with astonishment. + +"Are we ready?" + +And they passed out. + +In silence they stood beside the grave while all that was mortal of +Ralph Davenant was consigned to the earth, and in silence they returned +to the library. + +With the same stony, impassive countenance, Mr. Hudsley seated himself +at the head of the table; Stephen sank into a chair beside him, and sat +with his eyes hidden under the white lids; Jack stood with folded arms +beside the window, glancing at the far-stretching lawns and watching the +servants as they filed in, a long line of black. + +When they had all entered Mr. Hudsley drew from his pocket a folded +parchment, slowly put on his spectacles, and without looking round, +said: + +"I am now about to read the last will and testament of Ralph Davenant." + +There was a pause, a solemn pause, then he looked up and said: + +"This will was drawn up by me on January--last year. It is the last will +of which I have any cognizance. A careful search has been made, but no +other document of the kind has been found. That is so, Mr. Stephen, is +it not?" and he turned to Stephen so suddenly that all eyes followed +his. + +Stephen paused a moment, then raised his lids, and with a shake of his +head and a sigh murmured an assent. + +Mr. Hudsley allowed his keen eyes to rest on him for an instant, then +slowly looked in the direction of Jack. + +"A most careful search," he repeated. + +Jack, feeling that the remark was addressed to him, nodded and looked at +the lawn again. + +Mr. Hudsley cleared his throat, and opened the crackling parchment. + +There was an intense silence, so intense that Stephen's labored +breathing could be heard as plainly as the rain on the windows. + +In the same dry, hard voice Mr. Hudsley began to read. Clause by clause, +wrapped in the beautiful legal jargon in which such documents are, for +some inscrutable reasons, worded, no one understanding the import, but +suddenly familiar words struck upon the ear. They were the servants' +legacies, and a mourning ring to Mr. Hudsley; then, in a stillness that +was oppressive, there fell the words: + +"To my nephew, Stephen Davenant, I will the whole and sole remainder of +all I possess, be it in lands or money, houses or securities, all and of +every kind of property, deducting only the afore-mentioned legacies." + +A thrill ran through the assemblage, every eye turned, as if magnetized, +to the white, death-like face of the heir. + +There he sat, the new squire, the owner of Hurst Leigh and the uncounted +thousands of old Ralph Davenant, motionless, white, too benumbed to +tremble. + +Slowly Mr. Hudsley read over the signatures, and then slowly commenced +to fold the parchment. + +Then, from the shadow of the curtains, Jack emerged, pale, too, but with +cool, calm dignity. + +Quite quietly, and with perfect self-possession, he came to the table +and looked at the dry, wrinkled face. + +"So I understand, Mr. Hudsley, that the squire has left me--nothing." + +Mr. Hudsley looked up, no trace of expression on his face. + +"Quite right, Mr. Newcombe," he replied. + +"He has not named me," said Jack. + +"He has not named you in this will." + +Jack bowed, and was turning from the table when Stephen started to his +feet. + +For one moment his eyes rested on Jack's face with an awful, piercing +look of scrutiny, then his eyes lit up with a malicious gleam of +triumph, but it disappeared instantly, and with a gesture of honest +generosity and regret, he exclaimed: + +"Not named! My dear Jack! But stay! I see how it is. My uncle felt that +he could trust to my feeling in the matter. He knew that you would not +have to look to me in vain." + +Jack turned and looked at him with infinite contempt and unbelief, and +then slowly passed out. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Two days passed since Una had given her promise that should Jack +Newcombe come to seek her she would hold no converse with him. How much +that promise had cost her no one could say; she herself did not know. +She only knew that whereas her life had always seemed dull and +purposeless, it had, since Jack Newcombe's visit, grown utterly dreary +and joyless. + +Was it love? She did not ask herself the question. Had she done so, she +could not have answered it. + +Any school-girl of fifteen feeling as Una felt would have known that she +was in love, but Una's only schooling had consisted of the few stern +lessons of Gideon Rolfe. + +"I can never see him, hear him, speak to him again," was her one sad +reflection; "but if I could be somewhere near him, unseen!" + +Then, through her brain, her father's words rang with melancholy +persistence. This youth, whose eyes had seemed so frank and brave, whose +voice rang with music so new and sweet, was, so her father said, +unutterably wicked. One to be avoided as a dangerous animal! It could +not but be true; she thought her father was truth itself. + +But if it were so, then how false the world must be, for one to look and +speak so gently, and yet be so wicked! + +All day she wandered in the woods, returning to the cottage pale and +listless, to leave her plate untouched or at best trifled with. Gideon +Rolfe saw the change which had befallen her, but held his peace, though +a bitter rage filled his heart; Martha Rolfe chided her for her +listlessness, and tried to tempt her to eat; but Una put chiding and +coaxing aside with a gentle smile, and escaped to the lake where she +could dream alone and undisturbed. + +The two days passed--on the third, as she was sitting beside the spot +which had grown sacred in her eyes, with its crushed and broken ferns, +she heard steps behind. Thinking that they were those of her father or +one of the charcoal burners, she did not turn her head. The footsteps +drew nearer, and a man came out from the thick wood and stood on the +margin of the lake, and remained for a moment looking about him. + +Una was so hidden by the tall brake that she remained unseen, and sat +holding her breath watching him. + +He was tall, thin, and dressed in black, and when he turned his face +toward her, Una saw that he was not ill-looking. She might have thought +him handsome but for that other face which was always in her mental +vision. He was very pale, and looked anxious and ill at ease; and as he +stood looking before him his right hand took his left into custody. It +was Stephen Davenant. + +For a few moments he stood with a half-searching, half-absent expression +on his pale face, then turned and entered the wood again. + +Pale with wonder and curiosity, Una rose and looked after him, and to +her infinite surprise saw a carriage slowly approaching. + +A lady was seated in it, a lady with a face as pale as the man's but +with a still more anxious and deprecating expression. + +Una, with the quickness of sight acquired by a life spent in communion +with nature, could see, even at that distance, that the lady's eyes were +like those of the man's, and, furthermore, that she was awaiting his +approach with a nervous timidity that almost amounted to fear. + +With fast beating heart Una watched them wondering what could have +brought them to Warden, wondering who and what they were, when suddenly +her heart gave a great bound, for the gentleman, turning to the driver, +said, in a soft, low voice: + +"We are looking for the cottage of a woodman, named Gideon Rolfe." + +"Never heard of it, sir. Do you know what part of the forest it is in?" + +"No," said Stephen. + +"Then it's like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay," retorted the +man. + +"However difficult, it must be found," said Stephen. "Drive on till you +come to some road and follow that. It may lead us to some place where we +can ascertain the direction of this man's cottage." + +The man touched his horse with the whip, and still Una stood as if +spell-bound, but, suddenly remembering that they were going in the +opposite direction to the cottage, she was about to step forward, when +she heard the bark of the dog, and almost as if he had sprung from the +ground, Gideon Rolfe stood beside the carriage. + +"Ah, here is someone," said Stephen. "Can you tell us the road to the +cottage of Gideon Rolfe, the woodman, my man?" he asked. + +"And what may be your business with him?" + +"Why do you ask, my good man?" he replied. + +"Because I am he you seek," said Gideon. + +"You are Gideon Rolfe? How fortunate." + +"That's as it may prove," said Gideon, coldly. "What is your business?" + +"It is of a nature which, I think, had better be stated in a more +convenient spot. Will you kindly permit me to enter your cottage and +rest?" + +Gideon looked searchingly into Stephen's face for a moment that seemed +an age to Una, then nodded curtly, and said: "Follow me." + +"Will you not ride?" asked Stephen, suavely. + +But Gideon shook his head, and shouldering his ax, strode in front of +the horse, and Stephen motioning to the driver, the carriage followed. + +"A charming spot, Mr. Rolfe--charming! Rather shall I say, retired, if +not solitary, however." + +"Say what you please, sir," retorted Gideon, grimly and calmly. "I am +waiting to learn the business you have with me." + +"Mother," he said--"this lady is my mother, Mr. Rolfe--I think, I really +think you would find it pleasant and refreshing on the bench which I +observed outside the door." + +With a little deprecatory air the lady got up and instantly left the +cottage. + +Then Stephen's manner changed. Leaning forward he fixed his gray eyes on +Gideon Rolfe's stern face and said: + +"Mr. Rolfe--my name is Davenant----" + +Gideon started, and, with a muttered oath, raised the ax. + +Stephen's face turned as white as his spotless collar, but he did not +shrink. + +"My name is Davenant," he repeated--"Stephen Davenant. I am afraid the +name has some unpleasant associations attached to it. I beg to remind +you, if that should be the case, that those associations are not +connected with any fault of mine." + +"Go on. Your name is Stephen Davenant?" + +"Stephen Davenant. I am the nephew of Squire Davenant--Ralph Davenant. +The nephew of Ralph Davenant. I think you can guess my business with +you." + +"Do you come from--him?" he asked, hoarsely. + +"In a certain sense, yes," he said. "No doubt you have heard the sad +news. My uncle is dead." + +"Dead!" he repeated fiercely. + +"Dead. My uncle died three days ago." + +"Dead!" repeated Gideon, not in the tone of a man who had lost a friend, +but in that of one who had lost an enemy. + +"Yes," said Stephen, wiping his dry eyes with his spotless handkerchief; +"my poor uncle died three days ago. I am afraid I have not broken it as +softly as I should have done. You knew him well?" + +"Yes, I knew him well." + +"Then you know how great a loss the county has suffered in----" + +"Spare your fine phrases. Come to your business with me. What brings you +here?" + +"I am here in consequence of a communication made to me by my uncle on +his death-bed. Are you alone?" + +Gideon waved his hand with passionate impatience. + +"That communication," Stephen continued, "concerns a certain young +lady----" + +"He told you?" he exclaimed. + +"My uncle told me that I should find a young lady, in whose future he +was greatly interested, in the charge of a certain person named Gideon +Rolfe." + +"Well, did he tell you any more than that?" + +Stephen made a gesture in the negative. + +"So," said Gideon Rolfe, "he left it to me to tell the story of his +crime. You are Ralph Davenant's nephew. You are the nephew of a villain +and a scoundrel!" + +It was true, then, that the man knew nothing of the secret marriage of +Ralph Davenant and Caroline Hatfield. + +"A scoundrel and a villain!" repeated Gideon, leaning forward and +clutching the table. "You say that he told you the story of his crime, +glossed over and falsified. Hear it from me. Your uncle and I were +schoolfellows and friends. I was the son of the schoolmaster at Hurst. +Your uncle left school to go to college. I remained at Hurst in my +father's house. I could have gone to college also, but I would not leave +Hurst, for I was in love. I loved Caroline Hatfield. She was the +daughter of the gamekeeper on the Hurst estate, and we were to be +married. Two months before the day fixed for our marriage your uncle, my +friend--my friend!--came home to spend the vacation. We were friends +still, and I--cursed fool that I was--took him to the gamekeeper's lodge +to introduce him to my sweetheart. Six weeks afterward he and she had +fled." + +Stephen watched him closely, his heart beating wildly. + +"They had fled," continued Gideon, in a broken voice. "My life was ended +on the day they brought me the news. I left Hurst Leigh and came here. A +year later she came back to me--came back to me to die. She died and +left me----. She left me her child. I--I loved her still and swore to +protect that child, and I have done so. There is my story. What have you +to say?" + +"It is terrible, terrible!" he exclaimed. + +"I have kept my vow. Her child has grown up ignorant of the shame which +is her heritage. Here, buried in the heart of the forest, away from the +world, I have kept and guarded her for her mother's sake. There is the +story, told without gloss or falsehood. What have you to say?" + +"You have discharged your self-appointed trust most nobly! But--but that +trust has come to an end." + +"Who says so?" + +"I say so. You have done your duty--more than your duty--I must do mine. +My uncle, on his deathbed, bequeathed his daughter to my charge." + +"To yours?" + +"To mine," said Stephen, gravely. + +"Where is your authority?" + +"That I do not come without authority is proven by the mere fact of my +presence here and by my knowledge of my uncle's secret. No one but +yourself, your wife and I know of the real identity of this girl. It was +my uncle's wish that the story of her birth should still remain a +secret--that it should be buried, as it were, in his grave. Why should +the poor girl ever learn the truth, when such knowledge can only bring +her shame and mortification?" + +"Grant that," said Gideon, "where could she better be hidden than here? +Her secret, her very existence, have been concealed from the world." + +"True, but--but the future, my dear sir--the future! You are not a young +man----" + +"I am still young enough to protect her." + +"My dear Mr. Rolfe, you may live--you look as if you would--to be a +hundred; you have discharged your self-imposed task most nobly, but you +must not forget that it has now devolved upon one who is bound by ties +of blood to fulfill it, if not so well, certainly with the best +intentions. Mr. Rolfe, I am the young girl's cousin." + +"You speak of ties of blood; say rather, the ties of shame! Suppose--I +say suppose--that I refuse to deliver her up to your care?" + +"I do not think you will do that. You forget that, after all, we have +little choice in the matter." + +Gideon Rolfe eyed him questioningly. + +"The young girl is now of age, and----" + +"Go on." + +"And supposing that you were to refuse to hand her over to my charge, I +should feel compelled to tell the story of her life, and----. Pray--pray +be calm. I beg you to remember that I am not here of my own desire; that +I am merely fulfilling my duty to my uncle, and endeavoring to obey his +last wishes. I do not blame you for your reluctance to part with her. It +does you credit, my dear Mr. Rolfe--infinite credit. But duty--duty; we +must all do our duty." + +"Has anyone of your name ever yet done his duty?" repeated Gideon, +sternly. + +"For my part, Mr. Rolfe, I have always striven to do mine; yea, even in +the face of great temptation and difficulties. I must do it now. After +all, why should you resist my uncle's wish? Consider, she, who was once +a child, is now a woman. Do you think it possible to keep her imprisoned +in this wood for the whole of her days?" + +Gideon Rolfe turned toward the window. For the first time Stephen had +found a weak spot in his armor. It was true! Already she was beginning +to pine and hunger for the world. Could he keep her much longer? + +"Come," said Stephen, quick to see the impression he had made. "Do not +let us be selfish; let us think of her welfare, as well as our own +wishes. Candidly, I must confess that I should be perfectly willing to +leave her in her present obscurity." + +Gideon Rolfe broke in abruptly. + +"Where will you take her?" he asked, hoarsely. + +"It is my intention," he said, "to place her in my mother's charge. She +lives in London, alone. There my cousin will find a loving home and a +second mother. Believing that you would naturally have some reluctance +at parting with her, not knowing with whom and where she was going, I +have brought my mother with me." + +Gideon glanced at the quiet, motionless figure seated on the bench +outside, and then paced the room again. + +"Does she know?" he asked hoarsely. + +"She knows nothing," said Stephen. "My mother can trust me implicitly. +She has long wanted a companion, and I have told her that I know of a +young girl in whom I am interested." + +"You intend to keep her secret?" said Gideon. + +"Most sacredly," responded Stephen, with solemn earnestness. + +Gideon went to the door and opened it. + +"Wait," he said, and disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +Stephen rose softly and watched him from behind the window curtains +until Gideon had vanished amongst the trees; then Stephen went out and +smiled down upon his mother with the air of a man who had just succeeded +in accomplishing some great work for the good of mankind at large. + +"Sorry to keep you waiting, mother," he said. "I have been making some +arrangements with the worthy man, her father." + +Mrs. Davenant looked up with the nervous, deprecatory expression which +always came upon her face when she was in the presence of her son. + +"It does not matter, Stephen; I am glad to rest. Where has the man gone? +He--he--doesn't he look rather superior for his station, and why does he +look so stern and forbidding?" + +"A life spent in solitude, away from the world, has made him reserved +and cold," replied Stephen, glibly, "and, of course, he feels the +parting from his daughter." + +"Poor man--poor girl!" murmured Mrs. Davenant. + +Stephen looked down at her with a contemplative smile, while his ears +were strained for the returning footsteps of Gideon Rolfe. + +"Yours is a sweetly sympathetic nature, my dear. I can already foresee +that the 'poor girl' will not long need anyone's sympathy. You are +already prepared to open your arms and take her to your heart. Is it not +so?" + +Mrs. Davenant looked up--just as if she wanted to see what he expected +of her to say, and seeing that he meant her to say "yes," said it. + +"Yes, I shall be very glad to have a young girl--a good young girl--as a +companion, Stephen. My life has been very lonely since you have been +away." + +"And I may be away so much. But, mother, you will not forget what I said +during our drive? There are special reasons why the girl's antecedents +should not be spoken of. The friend who interested me in her wishes her +to forget, if possible, everything concerning her early life." + +"I understand, Stephen." + +"And, by the way, do not allow any expression of astonishment to escape +you if, when you see her, you feel astonished at her appearance or +manner. Remember that she has spent all her life here, buried in the +forest, her sole companions a woodsman and his wife." + +"Her mother and father?" said Mrs. Davenant. + +"I said her mother and father, did I not? Just so--her mother and +father. Well, we must not expect too much. And after all, it will be far +more interesting for you to have a fresh and unsophisticated nature +about you, although she may be rather rough and rustic----" + +"I shall be quite content if she is a good girl." + +"Just so. Virtue is a precious gem though incased in a rough casket." + +Gideon Rolfe had returned, but not alone. Emerging from the deep shadow +of the trees was what looked to their astonished and unprepared eyes a +vision of some wood nymph. + +Gideon Rolfe strode forward, his face set hard and sternly cold, and as +he reached the cottage he took Una's hand in his, and looking steadily +into Stephen's eyes, said: + +"Mr. Davenant, I have informed my daughter of your mother's offer to +take her under her charge, but I have asked her to postpone her answer +until she saw you." + +Stephen bowed, and laid his white hand on his mother's arm. + +"Miss Rolfe," he said, in a low voice in which paternal kindness and +social respect were delicately blended, "this lady is my mother. Like +most mothers whose children have flown from the nest, she lives alone +and feels her solitude. She is desirous of finding some young lady who +will consent to share it with her. It is not only a home she offers you, +but--I think I may add, mother--a heart." + +"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Davenant, and as she held out her hand her +voice trembled and a tear shone in her eye. + +Una, who had been looking from one to the other, with the breath coming +in little pants through her half parted lips, drew near and put her hand +in the outstretched one, but the next moment turned and clung to +Gideon's arm with a sudden sob. + +"Oh, father, I cannot leave you!" she murmured. + +Gideon bent his head, perhaps to hide his face, which was working with +emotion. + +"Hush! it is for the best. Remember what I have said. You wanted to see +the world----" + +"Yes--with you," said Una, audibly. + +"The world and I have parted forever, Una." + +"But shall I never see you again?" + +"Yes, yes, we shall meet now and again." + +"I trust, Miss Rolfe, that we shall wean your father from his long +seclusion. You must be the magnet to draw him from his retreat into the +busy haunts of men." + +"You will come and see me?" she murmured. + +"Yes, Una. Go where you will," and he glanced over her head at Stephen, +"you may feel that I am watching over you, as I have always watched and +guarded you. If any harm comes to you----" + +"Harm?" she breathed, and looked up into his face with questioning gaze. + +"Come, Mr. Rolfe, you mustn't alarm your daughter," said Stephen, +softly. "She will think that the world is filled with lions and wolves +seeking whom they may devour. I think you may feel safe from any harm +under my mother's protection, Miss Rolfe." + +"Yes. I have never had a daughter. If you come you shall be one to me." + +"You think me ungrateful?" said Una to her, in her simple, frank way. + +"No, my dear," replied Mrs. Davenant. "I think you only show a naturally +affectionate heart. You have never been from home before." + +"Never," said Una. "Never out of the woods." + +"My poor child. No, I do not think you ungrateful. I like to see that +you feel leaving home so much. For you will come, will you not? I shall +be disappointed and grieved if you do not, now that I have seen you." + +"Now that you have seen me," said Una. + +"Yes, my dear. For I am sure that I shall love you, and I hope that you +will grow fond of me." + +"Do you?" said Una, musingly. "Yes," she said, after a pause, "I shall +love you." + +"Will you kiss me, my dear," she said; and Una bent and kissed her. + +"And now that you think--that you are sure you will like me--you will +come," said Mrs. Davenant. + +Una looked before her thoughtfully, almost dreamily, for a moment, then +replied: + +"Yes, my father wishes me to go. Why does he wish me to go into the +world he hates and fears so much? It was only the other day that he +warned me against wishing for it, and told me that I should never be +happy if I left Warden. Why has he changed so suddenly?" + +"I--I think it must have been Stephen who persuaded him. I heard them +talking together." + +"Stephen--that is your son," said Una. + +"Yes, he is my son; he is very good and clever--so very clever! He has +been a most affectionate son to me, and has never caused me a day's +uneasiness." + +"All sons are not so?" she asked. + +"No, indeed," responded Mrs. Davenant. + +"Is he ill?" asked Una, after a pause. + +"Ill!" + +"Because he is so pale," she said. + +"Yes, Stephen is pale. It is because he thinks and reads so much, and +then he is in great trouble now; his uncle died three days ago." + +"Is that why he is dressed in black--and you, too? I am very sorry." + +"Thank you, my dear," said Mrs. Davenant, "that was very nice of you to +say that. I can see you have a kind heart. Yes, his uncle is just dead, +Mr. Ralph Davenant--Squire Davenant. Why did you start?"--for Una had +started and turned to her with a sudden flash of intense interest in her +eyes--"did you know him? Ah, no, you could not, if you have not been out +of the forest--how strange it seems!--but you have heard of him, +perhaps?" + +"Yes, I have heard of him." + +At that moment the door opened, and Stephen and Gideon Rolfe came out. + +The usual smile sat upon Stephen's face, in strange contrast to the +stern, set look on his companion's. + +Raising his hat to Mrs. Davenant as he approached, Gideon put his hand +on Una's shoulder. + +"Go indoors, Una, to your mother," he said quietly. + +Una rose, and after a momentary glance at each of their faces, went +inside. Stephen opened and held the door for her, then closed it and +came back to the others. + +"Mother," he said, "Mr. Rolfe and I have made our arrangements, and he +agrees with me that it would be wiser, now that the news is broken to +Miss Rolfe, for her to accompany you back to town this afternoon." + +Mrs. Davenant nodded, and glanced timidly at Gideon's stern face. + +"We have won Mrs. Rolfe over to our side, and she is already making the +few preparations necessary for Miss Rolfe's journey." + +Gideon Rolfe inclined his head as if to corroborate this, then he said: + +"Will you come inside, madam, and partake of some refreshment?" + +"I would rather wait here. Mr. Rolfe, I hope you feel that, in trusting +your daughter to my charge, that she will at least have a happy home, if +I can make one for her?" + +"That I believe, madam." + +"Yes, I have quite convinced Mr. Rolfe that the change will be +beneficial to Miss Rolfe, and that she will be taken every care of. I +suppose you are quite old friends already, eh, mother?" + +"I think she is a beautiful girl whom one could not help loving," +murmured Mrs. Davenant. + +Half an hour passed, and then Una and Martha came out. Una was pale to +the lips, the other was red-eyed with weeping, and her tears broke out +afresh when Mrs. Davenant shook hands with her and assured her that her +daughter should be happy. + +"Thank you, ma'am," said Martha. "It's what I said would come to pass. +Gideon couldn't expect to keep her shut up here, like a bird in a cage, +forever and a day. It was against reason, but it is so sudden," and her +sobs broke into her speech and stopped her. + +Mrs. Davenant's eyes were wet, and she glanced at Stephen, half inclined +to postpone the journey; but Gideon Rolfe had called the carriage to the +door, and the box was already on the seat. + +With the same set calm which he had maintained throughout, Gideon took +Una in his arms, held her for a moment and whispering, "Remember, +wherever you are I am watching over you!" put her in the carriage in +which Stephen had already placed his mother. + +He, too, had a word to whisper. It was also a reminder. + +"Remember, mother, not another word of the past. Her life begins from +today." + +Then he looked at his watch, and said aloud: + +"You will just have time to catch the train. Good-bye." + +With the most dutiful affection, he kissed his mother, then went round, +and, bare-headed, offered his hand to Una. + +"Good-bye, Miss Rolfe," he said. "You are now starting on a new life. No +one, not even your father, can more devoutly wish you the truest and +fullest happiness than I do." + +Una, half-blinded with her tears, put her hand in his; but almost +instantly drew it away, with something like a shudder. It was cold as +ice. + +The next moment the carriage started, and the two men were left alone. + +For fully a minute they stood looking at it, till it had been swallowed +up by the shadows of the trees; then Gideon turned, his face white and +working. + +"Stephen Davenant," he said, in slow, measured tones, "one word with you +before we part. You have gained your end--be what it may; I say for your +sake, let it be for good; for if it be for evil, you have one to deal +with who will not hold his hand to punish and avenge. Rather than let +her know the heritage of shame which hangs over her, I have let her go. +If you value your safety, guard her, for at your hands I require her +happiness and well being." + +Stephen's face paled, but the smile struggled to its accustomed place. + +"My dear Mr. Rolfe," he began, but Gideon stopped him with a gesture. + +"Enough. I set no value on your word. There is no need for further +speech between us. From this hour our roads lie apart. Take yours, and +leave me mine." + +"This is very sad. Well, well; as you say, I have gained my end, but, as +I would rather put it, I have done my duty, and I must bear your +ungrounded suspicions patiently. Good-bye, my dear sir--good-bye." + +"I have sworn never to touch the hand of a Davenant in friendship," he +said, grimly. "There lies your path"--and he pointed to the Wermesley +road--"mine is here, for the present." + +And with a curt nod, he turned toward the cottage. + +With a gentle sigh and shake of the head, Stephen, after lingering for a +moment, as if he hoped that Gideon's heart might be softened, turned and +entered the wood. + +Once in the shadow and out of sight, the smile disappeared, and left his +face careworn, restless and anxious. + +"Fate favors me," he muttered. "That boor knows--guesses--nothing of the +truth. I never thought to get the girl out of his clutches so easily! +Now she is under my watch and ken--I hold her in my hand. But--but"--he +mused, his lips twitching, his eyes moving restlessly to and fro--"what +shall I do with her? Beautiful--she is lovely! How long will she escape +notice in London? Someone will see her--some hot-headed fool--and fall +in love. She might marry. Ah!" + +And he stooped amongst the brakes and ferns, and looked up, with a +sudden, dull-red flush on his pale cheek, a bright glitter in his light +eyes, while a thought ran like lightning through his cunning brain. + +"Marry her! Why--why should not I?" + +An answer came quickly enough in the remembrance of the pale dark face +of Laura Treherne, the girl to whom he was pledged. + +But with a gesture of impatience he swept the obtrusive remembrance +aside. + +"Why not?" he muttered. "Then, at one stroke, I should secure myself. By +Heaven--I will! I will!" + +So elated was he by the thought that he stopped and leaned against a +tree and took off his hat, allowing the cool breezes to play upon his +white forehead. + +"Beautiful, and the real heiress of Hurst Leigh," he muttered. "Why +should I not? By one stroke I should make myself secure, and set that +cursed will at defiance, let it be where it may! I will! I will!" he +repeated, setting his teeth; then, as he put on his hat, he smiled +pitifully and murmured: + +"Poor Laura, poor Laura!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +Una saw her last of Warden Forest through a mist of tears; while a tree +remained in sight her face was turned toward it, and in silence she bade +farewell to the leafy world in which her life had passed with so much +uneventfulness--in silence listened to the soughing of the breeze that +seemed to voice her a sad good-bye. + +Her companion sat in silence, too, holding the soft, warm hand which +clung to hers with an eloquent supplication for protection and sympathy. + +But youth and tears are foes who cannot abide long together, and by the +time the little railway village of Wermesley was reached, Una's eyes +were full of interest and curiosity. + +As the fly rumbled over the unkept streets toward the station, past the +few tame shops and the dead-and-alive hotel, her color came and went in +rapid fluctuations. + +"Is--is this the world?" she asked, in a low voice. + +Mrs. Davenant looked at her with a smile, the first which Una had seen +on the thin, pale face. She had yet to learn that Mrs. Davenant never +smiled in her son's presence. + +"The world, my dear?" she replied. "Well, yes; but a very quiet part of +it." + +"And yet there are so many people in the streets, and--ah!" she drew +back with an exclamation as the train shrieked into the station. + +Mrs. Davenant started--she was nervous herself, and had not yet realized +that she had for companion one who was as ignorant of our modern +high-pressure civilization as a North American Indian. + +"That is the train; don't be frightened, my dear," she said. + +"Forgive me. I know it is the train--I have read about it. I am not +frightened," she added, quietly, and with a touch of gentle dignity that +puzzled Mrs. Davenant. + +"My dear," she said, "I am not finding fault, or chiding you, it is only +natural that you should be surprised, but you will find a great deal +more to be surprised at when we get to London." + +Una inclined her head as she mentally registered a resolution to +conceal, at any cost, any surprise or alarm she might feel on the rest +of the journey. + +Nevertheless, she kept very close to Mrs. Davenant as they passed to the +train, and shrank back into the corner of the carriage driven there by +the stupid stare of one or two of the passengers. + +"Now we are all right," said Mrs. Davenant, gently. "We shall not sleep +now till we get to town." + +"To London--we are going to London?" asked Una in a low voice. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Davenant. "That is where I live; I live in a great +square at the West-end." + +"I know the points of the compass," said Una, with a smile; "my father +taught me," and she sighed--"poor father!" + +"I think your father must be a very clever man, my dear. He appears to +have taught you a great deal--I mean"--she hesitated--"you speak so +correctly." + +"Do I?" said Una. "Yes, my father is very clever. He knows everything." + +"It is very curious," she said. "I mean--I hope you won't be +offended--but men in his position are not generally so well informed." + +"Are they not?" said Una, quietly. "I don't know. Perhaps my father +learned all he knows from books." + +"And taught you in the same way. Tell me what books you have read." + +Una smiled softly, and as she did so, Mrs. Davenant started, and looked +around at her with something like fright in her grave, still eyes. + +"What is the matter?" asked Una. + +"No--nothing," replied the other. "I--you reminded me of somebody when +you laughed, I can't tell whom. But the books, you were going to tell me +about the books." + +"I can't remember all," said Una, and then she mentioned the titles of +some of the well-bound volumes which stood on the little bookshelf in +the hut. + +Mrs. Davenant regarded her curiously. + +"Those are all books of a world that existed long ago," she said. "You +have never read any novels--any novels of present day life?" + +"No, I think not." + +"Then you are absolutely ignorant of life as it is," said Mrs. Davenant. + +"Yes, I suppose so," assented Una. + +"I can understand now how useful fiction really is," murmured Mrs. +Davenant. "It is by it alone that a future age will understand what ours +is. You are entering upon some strange experiences, Miss Rolfe." + +Una started; the name was so unfamiliar to her that she hardly +recognized it. + +"Please don't call me that," she said, laying her hand on Mrs. +Davenant's arm. "My name is Eunice--Una. Call me Una." + +"I will," said Mrs. Davenant. + +"You have promised to love me, you know." + +"A promise easy to keep, my dear," she said, and her eyes grew moist. "I +little thought when my son Stephen telegraphed to meet him that he was +taking me to a daughter." + +"Your son Stephen--he sent for you!" said Una, with frank curiosity. +"How did he know of my existence?" + +"Through some friend," said Mrs. Davenant, with much hesitation and +nervous embarrassment. "My son is a very good man, and always +interesting himself in some good cause or other--something that will +benefit his fellow creatures. You--you will like my son when you know +more of him," she added, and though she spoke with pride there was a +touch of something like fear in her voice, which always came when she +mentioned his name or spoke of his goodness. + +"Yes," said Una, simply, "I will for your sake." + +"Thank you, my dear," murmured Mrs. Davenant. + +"But how," went on Una, after thinking a moment, "how did his friend +know anything about me? Did my father----" + +"I don't know, Una," said Mrs. Davenant, nervously. "Stephen doesn't +always tell me everything; you see he has so much to think of, and just +now he is in great trouble, you know." + +"Ah! yes," said Una, gently; "and he had not time to tell you. But he +will. I am sorry he is in such trouble." Then, after a pause, she said: +"Are you rich?" + +Mrs. Davenant started. The question, so unusual and so strange, +bewildered her by its suddenness and its frankness. + +"Rich, my dear?" she said. "Yes--I suppose I am rich." + +"And he is rich?" + +"He will be, perhaps; we do not know until his uncle's will is read." + +"I know what a will is," said Una, with a smile. "It is the paper which +a man leaves when he dies, saying to whom he wishes his money to go. And +Stephen----" + +"You should say Mr. Stephen, or Mr. Davenant, my dear," she said. "I +don't mind your calling him Stephen, but--but----" She looked round in +despair. How was she to explain to this frank, beautiful girl the laws +of etiquette? "But everyone who speaks of those to whom they are not +related say Mr., or Mrs., or Miss." + +"I see," said Una. "Then Mr. Davenant expects to get his uncle's money, +and then he will be rich. I am very glad. And he does not live in the +same house with you?" + +"No," replied Mrs. Davenant--and surely there was something like a tone +of relief in her voice--"no; when he is in London he lives in chambers +in rooms by himself; but he has been staying at Hurst Leigh." + +"At Hurst Leigh!" echoed Una, softly, and a faint color stole over her +face. How wonderful it was! That other--he whose face was always with +her, was going there! + +"At Hurst Leigh," repeated Mrs. Davenant. "Do you know it?" + +Una shook her head silently. She longed to ask more, to ask if Mrs. +Davenant knew the youth who had taken shelter in the cottage, but she +simply could not. Love is a wondrous schoolmaster--he had already taught +her frank, out-spoken nature the art of concealment. + +"It is a grand place," continued Mrs. Davenant. "A great, huge place," +and she shivered faintly, "and--and if Squire Davenant has left it to +Stephen, he will live there." + +"You don't like it?" said Una, with acute intuition. + +"No," replied Mrs. Davenant, with unusual earnestness. "No, oh no! it +frightens me. I was never there but once, and then I was glad--very, +very glad to get away, grand and beautiful as it was!" + +"But why?" asked Una, eagerly. + +"Because--have you never heard of Ralph Davenant?" + +Una hesitated a moment. She had heard of him. + +"He was a wonderful man, but terrible to me. His eyes looked through +one, and then he had been so wicked." + +She stopped short, and Una sighed. So there was another person who was +wicked. + +"Why are men so wicked?" she asked, in a low voice. + +"I--I--don't know. What a singular question," said Mrs. Davenant. "No +one knows. Perhaps it is because they have different natures to ours. +But you need not look so grieved, my dear," she added, with a little +smile, "you need not know any wicked men." + +"Who can tell? One does not know; wicked men are just like the others, +only we like them better." + +Mrs. Davenant stared at her, and utterly overwhelmed by the strange +reply, sank into her corner and into silence. + +The panting engine tore along the line, and presently the clear +atmosphere was left behind, and the cloud of smoke which hangs over the +Great City came down upon them and took them in, and infolded them. + +To Una's amazement the train seemed to glide over the tops of houses, +houses so thick that there seemed but two, or three inches between them. +With suppressed excitement--she had resolved to express no surprise or +fear--she watched through the window. Sometimes she caught sight of +streets thronged with people, and with commingled alarm and curiosity, +wondered what had happened to draw them all together so. + +She would not ask Mrs. Davenant, for wearied by her double journey, she +was leaning back with closed eyes. + +Suddenly the train stopped--stopped amidst the noise and confusion of a +large terminus--Mrs. Davenant woke, a porter came to the door, received +instructions as to the luggage and handed them out. + +Notwithstanding her resolution, Una felt herself turning pale. + +From Warden Forest to a London railway station. + +"Keep close to me, dear," said Mrs. Davenant, who seemed only nervous +and helpless in her son's presence. "Come, there is a cab." + +In silence Una followed. Men--and women, too,--turned to look at the +tall, graceful figure in its plain white dress, and stared at the lovely +face, with its half-frightened, half-curious, downcast eyes, and Una +felt the eyes fixed on her. + +"Why--why do they look at me so?" she asked, when they had entered the +cab. + +Mrs. Davenant regarded her with a smile, and evaded the frank, open +eyes. Was it possible that the girl was ignorant of her marvelous +beauty? + +"People in London always stare, my dear Una," she replied, "and they see +that you are strange." + +"It is my dress," said Una, who had been looking out of the window at +some of the fashionably-attired ladies. "It is different to theirs. +See--look at that lady! Why does she wear so long a dress? she has to +hold it up with one hand." + +"It is your dress, no doubt, my dear," she said. "We must alter it when +we get home." + +The cab rolled into the street, and Una was rendered speechless. + +But for her resolve she would have shrunk back into the farthest corner +of the cab. The number of people, the noise, alarmed her, and yet she +felt fascinated. + +Were all the people mad that they hurried on so with such grave and +pre-occupied faces. She had never seen her father hurry unless he had +cut down a tree that had been struck by lightning, and which might +injure others in its fall unless cut down with greatest care. + +Presently they passed into one of the leading thoroughfares, already lit +up, its shops gleaming brightly with the gas-light, its ceaseless line +of cabs, and omnibuses, and carriages. + +At last, when her eyes were weary with looking, she murmured: +"This--this--is the world then at last." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Davenant, with a sigh. "This is the world, Una!" + +"And are those palaces!" asked Una, as they passed through the West End +streets and squares. + +"No," said Mrs. Davenant; "they are only houses, in which rich people +dwell, as you would call it." + +"And the trees! Are there no trees?" asked Una, with, for the first +time, a sigh. + +"Not here, dear. There are some in the parks; some even in the middle of +the city itself. You will miss your trees, Una." + +"Yes, I shall miss my trees. But this--this world seems so large; I +thought that----" + +"Well," said Mrs. Davenant, amused with her bewilderment. + +"I thought that people in the world knew each other; but that is +impossible." + +And she sighed, as she thought that, after all, now that she was in the +world, she was no nearer that one being who, for her, was the principal +person in it. + +"Very few people know each other, Una. It's a big world, this London. I +wonder whether you will be happy?" + +Una turned to her with a look upon her face that would have melted a +sterner heart than Mrs. Davenant's. + +"I shall be happy, if you will love me," she said. + +Something in the frank, simple reply made Mrs. Davenant tremble. What +had she undertaken in the charge of this simple, pure-natured girl, +whose beauty caused people to turn and stare at her, and whose innocence +was that of a child? + +Through miles and miles of streets, as it seemed to Una, the cab made +its slow, rumbling way; houses, that were palaces in her eyes, flitted +past; and at last they stopped before a palace, as it seemed to Una, in +a quiet square. + +The door of the house opened, and a servant came out and opened the cab +door. + +In silent wonderment Una entered the hall, lit with its gas-lamps and +lined with flowers, and followed Mrs. Davenant into what was really the +drawing-room of a house in Walmington Square; but which seemed to Una to +be the principal apartment in some enchanted castle. + +But true to her resolve, she stood calm and silent, feeling, rather +than seeing, that the eyes of the servant were fixed upon her with +curious interest. + +"Come upstairs, Una, dear," said Mrs. Davenant, and Una followed her +into another fairy chamber. Flowers, of which Mrs. Davenant, like most +nervous persons, was inordinately fond, seemed everywhere: they lined +the staircase and the landing, and bloomed in every available corner. + +Mrs. Davenant entered her own room, then opened a door into an adjoining +one. + +"This is your room, my dear," she said. "If--if--you like it----" + +"Like it!" said Una, with open eyes and beating heart. "Is--is this +really mine?" and she looked round the dainty room with incredulous +admiration. + +"If--if you like it, my dear," said Mrs. Davenant. + +"How could I do otherwise? It is too beautiful for me----" + +"I don't think anything could be too beautiful for you, Una," said Mrs. +Davenant, with a significance that was entirely lost on Una. "If there +is anything you want--I can't give you any trees, you know." + +"I shan't want trees while the flowers are here. It is nothing but +flowers." + +"I am very fond of them," said Mrs. Davenant, meekly. "You will hear a +bell ring in half an hour; come to me then, I shall wait in the next +room for you. I will not lock the door," and she left her. + +Una felt dazed and stunned for a few minutes, then she made what +preparations were possible. She chose from her box, which had been +conveyed to her room by some invisible agency apparently, a plain muslin +dress, and, more by instinct than any prompting of vanity, fastened a +rose in her hair. + +She had scarcely completed her simple toilet when the bell rang, and she +went into the next room. + +A maid servant--Una noticed that it was not the one who had opened the +door--was in attendance upon Mrs. Davenant, and dropped a courtesy as +Mrs. Davenant said, in her nervous, hesitating fashion: + +"This is Miss Rolfe, Jane." + +Una smiled, and was about to hold out her hand, but stopped, seeing no +movement of a similar kind on the part of the neatly-dressed girl. + +"Jane is my own maid, Una," said Mrs. Davenant. "She will attend to you +when you want her." + +Jane dropped another courtesy, but Una detected a glance of curiosity +and scrutiny at the plain white muslin. + +"Come," said Mrs. Davenant, "let us go down. Dinner is ready," and she +led the way down-stairs. + +Another fairy apartment broke upon Una's astonished vision as they +entered the dining-room. + +Small as the houses are in Walmington Square, Una, accustomed only to +the small room in the hut, thought that this dining-room was large +enough to be the banquet hall of princes. + +But, whatever surprise Una felt, she, mindful of her resolve, concealed. + +Not even the maid in waiting could find anything to condemn. When she +went down-stairs her verdict was favorable. + +"Whoever she is," she said, "she's a lady. But where on earth she comes +from, goodness only knows. A plain muslin dress that might have come out +of the ark." + +Dinner was over at last. A "last" that seemed to Una an eternity. Mrs. +Davenant rose and beckoned her to follow, and they went into the +drawing-room. + +"Are you very tired, Una?" + +"No," said Una, thinking of her long wanderings in Warden Forest, "not +tired at all, but very surprised." + +"Surprised?" said Mrs. Davenant, questioningly. + +"Yes. Do all the people in London live like this--in such beautiful +houses, with people to wait upon them, and with so many things to eat, +and with such pretty things in the houses?" + +"Not all," said Mrs. Davenant, watching the tall, graceful figure as it +moved to and fro--"not all. But it would take too long to explain. You +think these are pretty things; what will you say when you see the great +sights--sights which we Londoners think nothing of?" + +Una did not answer; she had been looking round the room at the pictures, +mostly portraits, on the walls. + +"Are these pictures of friends of yours?" she said. "Who is that?" + +"That? That is the portrait of a man I was speaking of in the train. +That is Ralph--Squire Davenant--when he was a young man." + +It was a portrait of Ralph Davenant in his best--and worst--days. It had +been painted when men wore their hair long, and brushed from their +foreheads. One hand, white as the driven snow, was thrust in his breast, +the other held a riding-whip. + +Una looked at it long and earnestly, and Mrs. Davenant, impressed by her +long silence, rose and stood beside her. + +"Yes," she said, "that is Ralph Davenant. It was painted when he was +about your age, my dear. Ah----" + +"What is the matter?" + +Mrs. Davenant, pale and excited, took up a hand-mirror from one of the +tables and held it in front of Una. + +"Look!" she exclaimed. + +"Well?" she said. + +"Well?" echoed Mrs. Davenant. "Don't you see? Look again. The very +image! It is himself come to life again; it is Ralph Davenant turned +woman!" she exclaimed. + +And before Una could glance at the glass a second time Mrs. Davenant +threw it aside. + +"Am I so like?" said Una, with a smile. "How mysterious! And that is so +beautiful a face." + +"Beautiful eyes, and you are----" said Mrs. Davenant, but stopped in +time, warned by Una's frank, questioning gaze. "If you like to look at +portraits," she said, "there is an album there; look over that." + +Una took up the album and turned over its pages; suddenly she stopped, +and the color flew to her face. + +With unconcealed eagerness she came toward Mrs. Davenant with the open +album in her hand. + +"Look!" she said; "who is that?" + +"That," said Mrs. Davenant, peering at it, "that is--Jack Newcombe." + +"Jack Newcombe," said Una, breathlessly. "You know him?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Davenant, with a sigh. "Poor Jack! Shut the book, my +dear." + +"Why do you say 'Poor Jack?'" said Una, with a hollow look in her +beautiful eyes. + +"Because--because he is a wicked young man, my dear," said Mrs. +Davenant. "Poor Jack!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +Amidst a profound silence Jack walked slowly and quietly out of the +house. There was no anger in his heart against the old man whose +favorite he had once been--for the moment there was scarcely any anger +against Stephen; surprise and bewilderment overwhelmed every other +feeling. + +He had not expected a large sum of money--had certainly not expected the +Hurst; and but for the words spoken by the dying man, he would not have +expected anything at all, after having offended him in the matter of the +money-lenders and the post-obit. But most assuredly the squire had +intimated that there would be something--something, however small. + +And now he was told that there was nothing, that his name was not even +mentioned. + +Apart from any mercenary consideration, Jack was cut up and +disappointed; if there had been a simple mourning ring, a few of the old +guns out of the armory--anything as a token of the old man's +forgiveness, he would have been satisfied; but nothing, not one word. + +Then, again, he could not understand it, near his end as he was when he +spoke to him. The squire was as sane and clear-headed as he had been at +any time of his life, or at least so it seemed to Jack; and he certainly +had given him to understand that he had left him some portion of his +immense wealth. + +It was another link in the chain of mysteries which had seemed to coil +around Jack since he started from London. + +Slowly and thoughtfully he made his way back to the "Bush," and began to +pack up the small portmanteau which had been sent from town. + +Hurst Leigh was no place for him; every minute he remained in it seemed +intolerable to him. He would go straight back to town by the next train. + +Suddenly a thought struck him, and he paused in his task of packing the +portmanteau, an operation which he reduced to its simplest by thrusting +in anything that came first and jamming it down tight with his fist; he +stopped and looked up with a red flush on his handsome face. Why +shouldn't he go to Warden Forest on his way back? + +In a moment, the idea thrilled him with the delight of anticipation, the +next, a shade came over his brow. Why shouldn't he? Rather, why _should_ +he? What was the use of his going? If he had no business there before, +he had less excuse now. He was next door to a beggar--and---- + +Realizing for the first time the blow that had been dealt him by the +squire's neglect, he continued at the jamming process, jumped and kicked +at the portmanteau till it consented to be locked, and then went down to +the bar and called for his bill. + +There were several people hanging about--a funeral is a good excuse for +a holiday in a country village--but Jack, in his abstraction, scarcely +noticed the little group of men who sat and stood about, and merely +nodded in response to the respectful and kindly greetings. + +"But, Mr. Jack," said Jobson, with a deeply respectful air of surprise, +"you don't think of going right away at once, sir?" + +"Yes, I'm off, Jobson," said Jack. "What's the next train?" + +"To London?" said a dry, thin voice behind him; and Jack turned and saw +Mr. Hudsley's clerk--old Skettle. "There's no train to London till seven +o'clock; there's a train to Arkdale in an hour, but it stops there." + +"All right," he said, "I'll go to Arkdale; and, by the way, Jobson, I +don't want to be bothered with the portmanteau; send it on by rail to my +address--Spider Court, the Temple, you know." + +Jobson touched his cap, and while he was making out the bill Jack lit +his pipe and paced up and down, his hands in his pockets, the knot of +men watching him out of the corners of their eyes with sympathetic +curiosity. + +Jack paid the bill--so moderate a one that he capped it with half a +sovereign over; and with a "good-day" all round, started off. He had not +got further than the signpost, when he felt a touch on his arm, and, +turning, saw that old Skettle had followed him. + +"Halloa," said Jack, in his blunt way, "what's the matter?" + +The old man looked up at him from under his wrinkled lids, and fumbled +at his mouth in a cautious sort of a way. + +"I'm very sorry things have gone on so crooked up at the Hurst, Master +Jack," he said, respectfully. + +"But not more sorry than I am, Skettle, thank you." + +"I'm afraid it's rather unexpected, Master Jack," he continued, his +small, keen eyes fixed, not on Jack, but on his second waistcoat-button, +counting from the top. + +"Well, yes, it is," said Jack, tugging at his mustache. "Very much so. +I've got a hit in the bread-basket this time, Skettle, and I'm on my +back again." + +Old Skettle looked a keen glance at the handsome face and frank eyes +that were looking rather ruefully at the ground. + +"Hitting below the belt is not considered fair, is it, Master Jack?" he +asked. + +"Eh, what?" said Jack, who had not been paying much attention. "No, +according to the rules; but what do you mean by the question? You are +always such a mysterious old idiot, you know. You can't help it, I +suppose." + +Old Skettle smiled, if the extraordinary contortion of the wrinkled face +could be called by so flattering a designation. + +"I've seen such mysterious things since I first went into Mr. Hudsley's +office to sweep the floor----" + +"Now, then," said Jack, "none of that game; going into the old story, +which I have heard a hundred times, of how you went as an office boy, +and have risen to the proud position of confidential clerk. You're like +one of the old fellows in the play, who draws a chair up to the +footlights, and says, 'It's seven long years ago----' and the people +begin to clear out into the refreshment bar, and wait there till he's +done. Where were you? Oh, 'mysterious experiences.' Well, go on." + +But old Skettle had, apparently, nothing to say; he had, while Jack had +been speaking, changed his mind. + +"I beg pardon for stopping you, Master Jack," he said. "I felt I +couldn't let you go out of the old place without expressing my +sympathy." + +"Thanks, thanks," said Jack, holding out his hand. "You're one of the +right sort, Skettle, and so's Hudsley. I believe he's sorry, too. Looks +a little puzzled, too. Puzzled isn't the word for what I feel. I've got +the sensation one experiences when he's been sitting through one of the +old-fashioned melo-dramas. Not even a mourning-ring, or a walking-stick. +Poor Squire--well, I forgive him. He had a right to do what he liked +with his own." + +"Just so, Master Jack, but it's hard for you," said Skettle. "Not a +mourning-ring. By the way, sir," and something like a blush crept over +his wrinkled face. "If--if you should be in want of a little money----" + +Jack stared, then laughed grimly. + +"Well, you certainly must be mad, Skettle," he interrupted. "Want money! +When didn't I want it? But don't you be idiot enough to lend me any. It +would be a jolly bad speculation, old fellow. There is not a Jew in +London would take my paper. No, Skettle, it would be downright robbery, +and I don't think I could rob you, you know." + +"Do you remember the day you swam across the mill-pond, and fished my +little boy out, Master Jack?" + +"You take care I shan't forget it, Skettle," said Jack, with a smile. +"It was a noble deed, wasn't it? Every time you mention it, I try to +feel like a hero, but it won't come. How is little Ned?" + +"He's well, sir; he's in London now, working his way up. He'd have been +in the church-yard if it hadn't been for you." + +"Why, Skettle, this is worse than ''Twas seven long years ago!'" +exclaimed Jack. + +"On that day, Master Jack, I swore that if ever a time came when I'd a +chance of serving you, I'd do it. It did not seem very likely then, for +we all thought you'd be the next squire; but now, Master Jack, I should +be grateful if you'd borrow ten pounds of me." + +"Nonsense," cried Jack. "Don't be an idiot, Skettle. _You_ a lawyer! +why, you're too soft for anything but a washerwoman. There, good-bye; +remember me to little Ned when you write, and tell him I hope he'll grow +up a little harder than his father. Good-bye," and he shook the thin, +skinny claw heartily. + +Old Skettle stood and looked after him, his right hand fumbling in his +waistcoat pocket; and when Jack had got quite out of sight he pulled the +hand out, and with it a small scrap of paper with a few words written on +it, and a seal. It was just such a scrap of paper which might have been +torn from a letter, and the seal was the Davenant seal, with its griffin +and spear plainly stamped. + +Old Skettle looked at it a moment curiously, then shook his head. + +"No, I was right after all in not giving it to him; it may be +nothing--nothing at all. And yet--it's the squire's handwriting, for +it's his seal, and what was it lying outside the terrace for? Where's +the other part of it, and what was the other part like? I'll keep it. I +don't say that there's any good in it, but I'll keep it. Not a +mourning-ring or a walking-stick! All--house, lands, money--to Mr. +Stephen, with the sneaking face and the silky tongue. Poor Master Jack! +I--I wish he'd taken that ten-pound note; it burns a hole in my pocket. +Not--a--mourning-ring," he muttered. "It's not like the squire, for he +was fond of Master Jack, and if I'm not half the idiot he called me, the +old man hated Mr. Stephen. I seem to feel that there's something wrong. +I'll keep this bit of paper;" and he restored the scrap to its place and +returned to the "Bush" with as much expression on his face as one might +expect to see on a blank skin of parchment. + +Jack was more moved than he would have liked to admit by old Skettle's +sympathy and offer of assistance, and in a softened mood, produced by +the little incident, sat and smoked his pipe with a lighter spirit. + +After all he was young, and--and--well, things might turn up; at any +rate, if the worst came to the worst, he could earn his living at +driving a coach-and-four, or, say, as a navvy. + +"I shouldn't make a bad light porter," he mused, "only there are no +light porters now. I wonder what will become of me. Anyhow, I'd rather +live on an Abernethy biscuit a day than take a penny from Stephen or +borrow ten pounds from Skettle. Stephen. Squire of Hurst Leigh! He'll +make a funny squire. I don't believe he knows a pheasant from a +barn-door fowl, or a Berkshire pig from a pump-handle. I should have +made a better squire than he. Never mind; it's no use crying over spilt +milk!" + +Jack was certainly not the man to cry over milk spilt or strewn, and +long before the train had reached Arkdale he had forgotten his ill-luck +and the mystery attending the will, and all his thoughts were fixed on +the beautiful girl who dwelt in a woodman's hut in the midst of Warden +Forest. + +Forbidden fruit is always the sweetest, and Jack felt that the fruit was +forbidden here. What on earth business had he, a ruined man, to be +lounging about Warden, or any other forest, in the hope of getting a +sight of, or a few words with, a girl, whom, be she as lovely as a peri, +could be nothing to him? What good could he do? On the contrary, +perhaps, a great deal of harm; for ten to one the woodman would cut up +rough, and there would be a row. + +But he felt, somehow, that he had made a promise, and promises were +sacred things to Jack--excepting always promises to pay--and a row had +rather a charm for him. + +Nevertheless, when the train drew up at Arkdale Station, he had quite +resolved to wait until the London train came up, and as such resolutions +generally end, it ended in giving up the idea and starting for Warden. + +Jack was not sentimental. Men with good appetites and digestions seldom +are; but his heart beat as he entered the charmed center of the great +elms and oaks which fringed the forest, and the whole atmosphere seemed +full of a strange fascination. + +"I wonder what she will say, how she will look?" he kept asking himself. +"I'd walk a thousand miles to hear her voice, to look into her eyes. Oh, +I'm a worse idiot than old Skettle! What can her eyes and her voice be +to me? By Jove, though, I might turn woodman and--and----" marry her, +he was going to say, but the thought seemed so bold, so--well, so coarse +in connection with such a beautiful person, that Jack actually blushed +and frowned at his effrontery. + +He found no difficulty in recognizing the way, and strode along at a +good pace, which, however, grew slower as he neared the clearing in +which stood Gideon Rolfe's cottage, and just before he emerged from the +wood into it he stopped, and felt with a faint wonder that his heart was +beating fast. + +It was a new sensation for Master Jack, and it upset him. + +"This won't do," he said; "I must keep cool. A child would get the +better of me while I am like this; and I mustn't forget I've got to face +that wooden-faced woodman. Courage, my boy, courage!" + +And with a resolute front he stepped into the clearing. + +Yes, there was the cottage, but why on earth were the shutters up. + +With a strange misgiving he walked up to the door and knocked. + +There was no answer. He knocked again and again--still no answer. + +Then he stepped back and looked up at the chimney. There was no smoky +trail rising through the trees. He listened--there was no sound. His +heart sank and sank till he felt as if it had entered his boots. + +With a kind of desperate hope he knelt on the window-sill and looked +through a hole in the shutter into the room. + +It was bare of furniture--empty, desolate. + +He got down again and looked about him like one who, having buried a +treasure, goes to the spot and finds that it has gone. + +Gone--that was the word--and no sign! + +It was incredible. Three days--only three days. What had happened? +Was--was anyone dead? And at this thought his face grew as pale as the +tan would allow it. + +No; that was absurd. People--she--could not have died and been buried in +three days! Then, where was she? Was it possible that the old man had +actually left the wood--thrown up his livelihood--because of his +(Jack's) visit to the cottage? + +A great deal more disturbed and upset than he had been over the squire's +will, he paced up and down. He sat down on the seat outside the +window--the seat where he had drunk his cider and eaten his cake--the +seat where Mrs. Davenant sat so patiently--and he lit his pipe and +smoked in utter bewilderment. + +Disappointment is but a lukewarm word by which to describe his feelings. + +He felt that he had looked forward to seeing Una as a sort of set-off +against the terrible blow which the squire's will had dealt him, and now +she was gone! + +I am afraid to say how many hours he sat smoking and musing, in the vain +hope that she, or Gideon Rolfe, or someone would come to tell him +something about it; but at last he realized that she had indeed flown; +that the nest which had contained the beautiful bird was empty and void; +and with a heart that felt like lead, he set out for Wermesley. + +By chance, more than calculation, he caught the up-train, and was +whirled into London. + +Weary, exhausted rather, he signaled a hansom, and was driven to Spider +Court. + +Spider Court is not an easy place to find. It is in the heart of the +Temple, and consists of about ten houses, every one of which, like a +Chinese puzzle, contains a number of houses within itself. + +Barristers--generally briefless--inhabit Spider Court; but it is the +refuge of the hard-working literary man, and of the members of that +strange class which is always waiting for "something to turn up." + +Jack ascended the stairs of No. 5, passed various doors bearing the +names of the occupants on the other side of them, and opened a door +which bore the legend: + + "Leonard Dagle. + "John Newcombe." + +painted in small black letters on its cross-panel. + +It was not a large room, and it was plainly furnished; but it looked +comfortable. Its contents looked rather incongruous. + +At the end of the room, close by the window, which only allowed about +four hours of daylight to enter it, stood a table crowded with papers, +presenting that appearance which ladies generally call "a litter." The +table and book-shelf, filled with heavy-looking volumes, would give one +the impression that the room belonged to a barrister or a literary man, +if it were not for a set of boxing-gloves and a pair of fencing foils, +which hung over the fireplace, and the prints of ballet-girls and famous +actresses which adorned the walls. + +As Jack entered the room, a man, who was sitting at the table, turned +his head, and peering through the gloom which a single candle only +served to emphasize, exclaimed: + +"Jack, is that you?" + +The speaker was the Leonard Dagle whose name appeared conjointly with +Jack's on the door of the chambers. + +Seen by the light of the single candle, Leonard Dagle looked handsome; +it was left for the daylight to reveal the traces which life's battle +had cut in his regular features. One had only to glance at the face to +be reminded of the old saying of the sword wearing the scabbard. It was +the face of a man who had fought the hard fight of one hand against the +world, and had not yet won the victory. + +Leonard Dagle was Jack's old chum; friends he had in plenty--dangerous +friends many of them--but Leonard was his brother and companion in arms. +They had shared the same rooms, the same tankard of bitter, sometimes +the same crust, for years. + +There was not a secret between them. Either would have given the other +his last penny and felt grateful for the acceptance of it. It was a +singular friendship, for no two men could be more unlike than Leonard +Dagle, the hard-working barrister, and Jack Newcombe, the spendthrift, +the ne'er-do-well, and--the Savage. + +"Is that you, Jack?" exclaimed Leonard, straightening his back. "Home +already?" + +"Yes, I'm back." + +"What's the matter--tired?" + +"Tired--bored--humbled--thoroughly used up! I've got news for you, +Len." + +"Bad or good?" + +"Bad as they can be. First the squire's dead!" + +"Dead?" + +"Yes, dead and buried. Poor old fellow!" + +"I am very sorry. Then you--then you--am I addressing the Squire of +Hurst Leigh?" + +"You are addressing the pauper of Spider Court." + +"Jack, what do you mean?" + +"I mean that the poor old fellow has died and left me nothing--not even +a mourning-ring." + +"I'm very sorry. Left you nothing, my dear old man!" + +"Don't pity me. I can't stand that. Say serves you right, say anything. +After all, what did I deserve?" + +"But you expected something," said Leonard. + +"Yes, and no. I expected nothing till I got there, and then did. I saw +him for a few minutes before he died, and he said--certainly said--that +I--well, that there would be something for me." + +"And there is nothing." + +"Not a stiver. Mind I don't complain, Len. I didn't deserve it." + +"Where has it all gone? He was a rich man, was he not?" asked Leonard. + +"Rich as a Croesus," replied Jack, "and it has all gone to Stephen +Davenant." + +"That is the man that goes in for philanthropy and all that sort of +thing." + +"That's the man," replied Jack. + +"Tell me all about it," said Leonard, after a long pause. + +And, with many pauses, Jack told his story. + +Leonard Dagle listened intently. + +"It's a strange story, Jack," he said. "I--I--it rather puzzles me. +There could be--of course, there could be nothing wrong." + +"Wrong, how do you mean?" exclaimed Jack. + +"Well, Stephen Davenant's conduct is rather peculiar--isn't it?" + +"Oh, he's half out of his mind," said Jack, carelessly. "He has been +playing a close game for the money, and hanging about the old man till +he has got as hysterical as a girl. What do you think could be wrong? +Everything was as correct as it could be--family lawyer, who made out +the will, and all the rest of it." + +"Then you think the squire was wandering in his mind at last?" + +"That's it," said Jack. "He wanted to provide for me--to leave me +something, and he fancied he'd done it. It's often the case, isn't it?" + +"I've met with such cases," said Leonard. + +"Just so," said Jack. "Is there anything to drink?" he asked, abruptly, +as if he wanted to change the subject. + +"There's some whiskey----" + +Jack mixed himself a tumbler and sat on the edge of the table, and +Leonard Dagle leaned back and watched him. + +"There's something else, Jack," he said. "Out with it; what is it?" + +"What a fellow you are, Len. You are like one of those mesmeric men; +there's no keeping anything from you. Well, I've had an adventure." + +"An adventure?" + +"Yes, I'm half under the impression that it's nothing but a dream. Len, +I've seen the most beautiful--the most--Len, do you believe in witches? +Not the old sort, but the young ones--sirens, didn't they call them; who +used to haunt the woods and forests and tempt travelers into quagmires +and ditches. The innocent-looking kind of sirens, you know. Well, I've +seen one!" + +"Jack, you've been drinking; put that glass down." + +"Have I? Then I haven't. Look here," and he told the story of his +wanderings in Warden, and all it had led up to. + +"How's that for an adventure?" he said, when he had finished. + +"It would do for a mediaeval romance. And she has gone, you say?" + +"Clean gone," said Jack, with a sigh and a long pull at the tumbler. +"Gone like a--a dream, you know. How is that for an adventure? You don't +believe in them, though." + +Leonard Dagle looked up, and there was a strange, half-shy expression in +his face. + +"You are right, Jack. I didn't till the day before yesterday." + +"The day before yesterday? What do you mean?" + +"Simply that I, too, have had an adventure." + +"Seems to me that we're like those confounded nuisances who used to meet +on a coach and tell stories to amuse themselves. Go on; it's your turn +now." + +"Mine's soon told. After you started for Hurst Leigh I got a letter from +a man at Wermesley----" + +"Wermesley!" exclaimed Jack. "Why----" + +"Yes, it is on the same line. He wanted me to go down to look over some +deeds, and I went. I took a return ticket and got into the last train. +When I got into the carriage--I went 'first' on the strength of the +business--I saw a young lady--mind, a young lady--seated in a corner. It +struck me as rather odd that a young girl should be traveling alone at +this time of night, and I shifted about until I could get a good look at +her. Jack, you're not the only man that has seen a beautiful girl within +the last week." + +"Beautiful, eh?" cried Jack, interested. + +"Beautiful in my eyes. The sort of face that Cleopatra might have had +when she was that girl's age. I never saw such eyes, and I had plenty of +opportunity of seeing them, for she seemed quite unconscious of my +presence. Jack, I'm a shy man, and I'm often sorry for it, but I was +never sorrier than I was then, for I'd have given anything to have been +able to speak to her and hear her speak. There she sat, looking like a +picture, quite motionless, with her eyes fixed on the flare of the lamp; +and there I sat and couldn't pluck up courage to say a word. At last we +got to London; they came for the tickets, and she couldn't find hers. I +went down on my hands and knees, and at last I found the ticket under +the seat. I looked at it as I gave it to the porter; and where do you +think it was from?" + +Jack shook his head. He didn't think it much of an adventure after Una +and Warden Forest. + +"You'll never guess. What do you say to Hurst Leigh?" + +"Hurst Leigh! Why, who was she? Somebody I know, perhaps." + +"I found my tongue at last, and said, 'You have had a long journey. +Hurst Leigh is a beautiful place.' And what do you think she said?" + +Jack shook his head. + +"She said, 'I don't know. I have never been there before today.' That's +all until we got to the terminus, then I asked her if I could get her +luggage. 'I haven't any,' she said. 'Could I get her a cab?' I asked. +Yes, I might get her a cab. I went and found a cab and put her in it; +and, if I had a shadow of a doubt as to her being a lady, the way in +which she thanked me would have dispelled it. I asked her where I should +direct the cabman to drive, and she said 24 Cheltenham Terrace. And--and +then she went." + +"Well?" + +"Well, I--of course you'll call me a fool, Jack, I am quite aware of +that--I followed in another cab." + +"Good heavens! You've been drinking!" + +"No. I followed, and when she had gone I knocked at the door of the next +house and asked the name of the people who lived next door. They--for a +wonder--were civil, and told me. She lives with her grandfather, and her +name is Laura Treherne." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +"Her name is Laura Treherne," said Leonard. + +"Laura Treherne. Never heard the name before." + +"Nor I, but it belongs to the most beautiful creature I have ever seen." + +"That's because you haven't seen Una Rolfe," put in Jack, coolly. "But I +say, Len, what has come to us? We've both caught the universal epidemic +at the same time. It's nothing wonderful in me, you know--but +you--_you_, who wouldn't look at a woman! Have you got it bad, Len?" + +"Very bad, Jack. Yes, the time which Rosseau calls the supremest in +one's life, has come to me. As a novice in the art of love-making, I +come to you for advice." + +"Why, it's easy enough in your case. You know where to put your hand +upon the lady. What are you to do? Why, disguise yourself as a sweep, +and go and sweep the chimneys at 24 Cheltenham Square, or pretend you're +the tax collector, or 'come to look at the gas meter.' You've got half a +dozen plans, but I--what am I to do? I've seen the most beautiful +creature in existence, and if I'm not in love with her----" + +"I should say you were," said Leonard, gently. + +"Yes, I am. I knew it when I found that confounded cottage empty. But +what am I to do? I haven't the faintest clew to her whereabouts. The old +gentleman with the hatchet may have murdered his whole family--her +included--or emigrated to Australia." + +"It is very strange. Didn't you notice any sign of a move about the +place the first night you were there?" + +"No, none. Everything looked as if it had been going on for a hundred +years--excepting Una--and meant to go on for another hundred. Len, I'm +afraid we've been bewitched. Perhaps it's all a dream; I haven't been +down to Hurst and you haven't been down to Wermesley. We shall wake up +directly--oh, no! The poor squire! Len, it's all true, and we're a +couple of young fools!" + +"Speak for yourself, old fellow. I have been a fool until three days +ago, now I am as wise as Solomon, for I have learned what love is." + +"So have I--I have also learned the vanity of human wishes, and the next +thing I shall have to learn will be some way of earning a livelihood. I +should prefer an honest one, but--poor men can't afford to be +particular, and honesty doesn't seem to pay now-a-days. I feel so hard +up and reckless that I could become a bank director or a member of +Parliament without feeling a pang of conscience." + +Leonard looked up at him, for the vein of bitterness was plainly to be +detected running through Jack's banter; and Leonard knew that when Jack +was bitter--which was but once a year, say--he was reckless. + +"We must talk it over. Sit down--get off that table; you're making a +perfect hash of my papers--and let's talk it over. You won't go out +tonight." + +"Yes, I shall. I shall go down to the club." + +"No, no, keep away from the club tonight, Jack." + +"What are you afraid of? Do you think I shall want to gamble? I've no +money to lose." + +"That's the very reason you'll want to play. Do keep at home tonight." + +"I couldn't do it, old man," he said. "I'm on wires--I'm all on fire. If +I sat here much longer, I should get up suddenly, murder you, and sack +the place. The Savage has got his paint on, and is on the trail." + +"Don't be a fool, Jack. You are hot and upset. Keep away from the club +tonight. Well, well--let the _ecarte_ alone, at any rate." + +"All right, I'll promise you that. I won't touch a card tonight. +_Ecarte!_ I couldn't play beggar-my-neighbor tonight! Len, I wish you +were a bigger man; I'd get up a row, and have a turn-to with you. Sit +down here! I couldn't do it. I want to be doing something--something +desperate. You can sit here and dream over your complaint; I can't--I +should go mad! Don't sit up for me." + +Leonard looked after him as he disappeared into one of the two bedrooms +which adjoined the common sitting-room, and, with a shake of his head, +muttered, "Poor Jack!" and returned to his work. + +Jack took a cold bath, dressed himself, and merely pausing to shout a +good-night, as he passed down the stairs, went into the street, and +jumped into a hansom, telling the man to drive to the Hawks' Club. + +It was rather early for the "Hawks," and only a few of them had +fluttered in. It was about the last club that such a man as Jack should +have been a member of. It was fast, it was expensive, it was +fashionable, and the chief reason for its existence lay in the fact that +play at any time, and to any extent, could be obtained there. + +When Jack entered the cardroom, that apartment was almost empty, but the +suspicious-looking tables were surrounded by chairs stuck up on two +legs, denoting that they were engaged, and those men who were present +were all playing. + +Every head was turned as he entered, and a buzz of greeting rose to +welcome him. + +"Halloa; you back, Jack!" said a tall, military-looking man, who was +known as the "Indian Nut," because he was one of the most famous of our +Indian colonels. "You're just in time to take a hand at loo." + +"No; come and join us," said young Lord Pierrepoint, from another table, +at which nap was being played. + +But if you could only wring a promise out of Jack, you could rest +perfectly certain that he would keep it; and he shook his head firmly. + +"Nary a card." + +"What! Don't you feel well, Jack?" + +"No, I'm hungry. I'm going to get something to eat." + +"Dear me, I didn't know you did eat, Jack. However, man, come and sit +down, and don't fidget about the room like that." + +"Len's right, the club won't do neither. I couldn't hold a card straight +tonight. I'll get some dinner, and go back, and we'll have it all over +again." + +It was a wise and virtuous resolution; and, unlike most resolves, Jack +meant to keep it. But alas! before he had got through with his soup, the +door opened and two men strolled in. + +They were both young and well-known. The one was Sir Arkroyd Hetley; the +other, the young Lord Dalrymple, whose coronet had scarcely yet warmed +his forehead, as the French say. + +Both of them uttered an exclamation at seeing Jack, and made straight +for his table. + +"Why, here's the Savage!" exclaimed Dalrymple. "Back to his native +forest primeval." + +"Been on the war trail, Jack?" asked Sir Arkroyd. "How are the squaws +and wigwams? Seriously, where have you been, old man?" + +"Yes, I have been on the war trail," he said. + +"And got some scalps, I hope," said Dalrymple. "What are you +doing--dining? What do you say, Ark, shall we join him? It's so long +since I've eaten anything that I should like to watch a man do it before +I make an attempt." + +The footman put chairs and rearranged the table, and the two men chatted +and conned over the _carte_. + +"You don't look quite the thing, Jack. Been going it in the forest, or +what?" + +"Yes, I've been going it in the forest, Dally." + +"Been hunting the buffalo and chumming up with his old friend, Spotted +Bull," said Arkroyd. "Bet you anything he hasn't been out of London, +Dally." + +"Take him," said Jack. "I've been out of London on a little matter of +business." + +"He's been robbing a bank," said Arkroyd, "or breaking one." + +"Neither. Stop chaffing, you two, and tell a fellow what's going on." + +"Shall we tell him, Dally? Perhaps he'll try to cut us out. It wouldn't +be a bad idea to start a joint stock company, all club together, you +know, and work it in that way, the one who wins to share with the other +fellows." + +"Wins what? What on earth are you talking about? Is it a sweepstake, a +handicap, or what----" + +"No, my noble Savage. It's the heiress." + +"Oh," said Jack, indifferently, and he sipped his claret critically. + +"What has come to you, Jack? Have you decided to cut the world or have +heiresses become unnecessary? Perhaps someone has left you a fortune, +old man; if so, nobody will be more delighted than I shall be--to help +you spend it." + +A flush rose to Jack's face, and his eyes flashed. He had been drinking +great bumpers of the Hawks' favorite claret--a heady wine which Jack +should never have touched at any time, especially not tonight. + +"No, no one has left me a fortune; quite the reverse. But you'd better +tell me about this heiress, I see, or you'll die of disappointment. Who +is she--where is she?--what is she? Here's her good health, whoever she +is," and down went another bumper of the Lafitte; and as it went down, +it was to Una he drank, not to the unknown one. + +"Do you remember Earlsley?" said Arkroyd. "Oh, no, of course not, you +must have been in your cradle in the wigwam in that time. Well; old +Wigsley died and left his money to a fifty-second cousin, who turned out +to be a girl. No one knew anything about her; no one knew where to find +her; but at last there comes a claimant in the shape of a girl from one +of the Colonies--Canada. That isn't a colony, is it, though? +Australia--anywhere--nobody knows, you know. She came over with her +belongings--a rum-looking old fellow, with a white head of long hair, +like, a--a--what's got a long head of white hair, Dally?" + +"Try patriarch," murmured the marquis. + +"Well, in addition to the money, and there's about a million, more or +less--she's got the most beautiful, that isn't the word, most charming, +fascinating little face you ever saw. If she looks at you, you feel as +if you never could feel an ache or pain again as long as you lived." + +"Ark, you've had too much champagne." + +"No; 'pon my honor. Isn't it right, Dally?" + +"Yes, and if she smiles," said Dalrymple, "you never could feel another +moment's unhappiness. The prettiest mouth--and when it opens, her +teeth----" + +"Oh, confound it!" exclaimed Jack, brusquely. "You needn't run over her +points as if she were a horse; I don't want to buy her." + +As a matter of fact, he had only caught the last word or two, for while +Arkroyd had been talking he had been thinking of that other beautiful +girl--not a doll, with teeth and a smile, but an angel, pure and +ethereal--a dream--not a fascinating heiress. + +"Buy her!" exclaimed Arkroyd. "Listen to him! Don't I tell you she's +worth a million?" + +"And I'd make her Countess of Dalrymple tomorrow if she hadn't a penny, +and would have me," said Dalrymple. + +"Try her," said Jack, curtly. + +"No use, my dear Savage," he said, tugging at his incipient fringe of +down ruefully. "She won't have anything to say to yours truly, or to any +one of us for that matter. She only smiles when we say pretty things, +and shows her teeth at us. Besides, the title wouldn't tempt her. She's +got one already. Don't I tell you she's one of the Earlsley lot? No; +we've all had a try, even Arkroyd. He even went so far as to get a +fellow to write a poem about her in one of the society journals, and +signed it 'A. H.;' but she told him to his face that she didn't care for +poetry. It was a pretty piece, too, wasn't it, Ark?" + +"First-rate," said Arkroyd, with as much modesty as if he had written +it. "But it was all thrown away on Lady Bell." + +"On whom?" said Jack, waking up again. + +"On Lady Bell--Isabel Earlsley is her name. You're wool-gathering +tonight, Jack." + +"Oh, Lady Bell, is it?" said Jack, carelessly. "Go ahead. Anything +else?" + +"No, that's all, excepting that I'll wager a cool thousand to a china +orange that you'll change your tone when you see her, Savage." + +"Perhaps," said Jack, "but your description doesn't move me; not much, +Ark. You're not good at that sort of thing. It isn't in your line. The +only things you seem to have remarked are her smile and her teeth." + +"Savage, you are, as usual, blunt, not to say rude. Let us have another +bottle of Cliquot." + +Jack shook his head, but another bottle came up, and he sat and took his +share in silence, and, indeed, almost unconsciously. For all the +attention he paid to the chatter of his two friends they might not have +been present. + +His thoughts flew backward to the shady grove of Warden Forest, to the +girl who, like a vision of purity and innocence and loveliness, had +floated like a dream across his life. + +He gave one passing thought to Len, too, and his story. + +It was a strange coincidence that they should both have met their fates +at one and the same time, or nearly so. + +He would have thought it stranger still if he could have lifted the veil +of the future and seen how closely the web of his life was woven with +the woof, not only of Una's, but of Laura Treherne, and also of Lady +Bell Earlsley. + +All unconscious he had turned a leaf of his life's book, and had begun a +new chapter in which these three women were to take a part. + +But he sat and drank the champagne, knowing nothing of this, and--I am +sorry to have to say it--he was rapidly arriving at that condition in +which it is dangerous to be within a mile of that fascinating fluid. +When a man passes from a state of half-feverish restlessness and +dissatisfaction to one of comparative comfort, and that by the aid of +the cheering glass, it is time to put the cheering glass aside and go +home. + +Jack did not go home; on the contrary, he went into the billiard-room, +and Cliquot followed, as a matter of course. + +For a time Jack had managed to forget everything excepting his promise +to Len; he would not enter the card-room, but he stuck to pool and +champagne. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +I am not going to apologize for our hero, nor am I going to gloss over +his faults with any specious special pleading. No man is either wholly +good or wholly bad; certainly Jack was not wholly good; he was human, +very human, and blessed, or cursed, with a hot, passionate blood, which +made him more liable to trip than most men. But, at the same time, this +in justice must be said of him, that he very rarely sinned in this way. + +Tonight his blood was at full heat; the love which had sprung up like a +tongue of flame in his heart burned and maddened him, and to this +newly-born love was added the disappointment and bewilderment of Una's +sudden disappearance. Add, too, that he had been overstrained and upset, +and--well, there are the excuses and apologies, after all. + +Somewhere about two o'clock, when the club was full with men who had +dropped in from theater and ball-room, and amidst the popping of corks +and click of pool balls, a certain feeling came over poor Jack that he +had taken quite as much, and more, of the sparkling juice than was good +for him; and with that consciousness came the resolution to go home. + +The game was just over, and without a word he put up his cue, motioned +to a footman to bring him his hat, and, scarcely noticed in the crowd +and bustle, slowly descended the broad and indeed magnificent staircase +for which and its palatial hall the club was famous. + +He descended very slowly, with his hand on the balustrade, and having +reached the bottom, he filled a glass with water from the crystal filter +that stood on a side table in the porter's box, and sallied out. + +The night air struck upon his hot brow in a cool and welcome fashion, +and Jack stood for a moment or two, fighting with the hazy and +stupefying effects of the night's work. + +"I won't go home yet," he muttered. "Len will be cut up; he always is. +He's as bad as a father--almost as bad as a mother-in-law. Well, I +didn't touch the cards, anyhow. And if it had not been for those two +idiots, Ark and Dally, I shouldn't have got so far into the champagne. +How bright the stars shine--an unaccountable number of them tonight." +Poor Jack! "Never saw such a quantity! No, I won't go home yet. I'll +walk it off if I have to walk till tomorrow morning. Where am I? Ah! +where is _she_? Thank Heaven, she isn't near me now! I'm glad she's +gone; I'm glad I shall never see her any more. I'm not fit to see her; +not worthy to touch her hand. But I did touch it," and, with a kind of +wonder at his audacity, he stretched out his hand and stared at it under +the gas-lamp. + +Then he walked on perfectly indifferent to the direction, perfectly +indifferent to the weariness which was gradually--no, rapidly--coming on +him. + +Just at this time, while he was walking off the drowsy dream that had +got possession of him, a stream of carriages was slowly moving down Park +Lane, taking up from one of the best known houses in town--Lady +Merivale's. + +Lady Merivale was one of the leaders of _ton_ and had been one as long +as most middle-aged people could remember. To be seen at Lady Merivale's +was to be acknowledged as one of that small but powerful portion of +humanity known as "the upper ten." + +It was one of her ladyship's grand balls, and not only were the ball and +drawing-rooms full, but the staircase also, and any one wishing to enter +or exit had to make his way down a narrow line flanked on either side by +the youth and nobility of the best kind of society. + +That it had been a great success no one who knows the world--and Lady +Merivale--needs to be told. It had, perhaps, been one of her greatest, +for in addition to two princes of the blood royal, she had secured the +great sensation of the day, the young millionairess, Lady Isabel +Earlsley. + +And this was no slight achievement, for Lady Bell, as she was generally +called, was a wilful, uncertain young personage, from whom it was very +hard to procure a promise, and who, not seldom, was given to breaking it +when made, at least, so far as acceptation of invitations went. + +But she was there tonight; as the next issue of the _Morning Post_ would +testify. + +Jack had been really too careless and scornful in his indifference. Lady +Bell was not only beautiful, she was--what was more rare than +beauty--charming. She was rather short than tall; but not too short. She +had a beautiful figure; not a wasp waist by any means, but a natural +figure, full of power and grace. Her skin was, well, colonial; +delicately tinted and creamy; and her eyes--it is difficult to catalogue +her eyes, because their lights were always changing--but the expression +which generally predominated was one of half-amused, half-mocking light. + +With both expressions she met the open admiration of the gilded youths +who thronged round her, amused at their foppery, mocking at their +protestations of devotion. + +Tonight she was dressed neither magnificently nor superbly, but with, +what seemed to the women who gazed at her with barely concealed envy, +artful simplicity. + +Her dress was of Indian muslin, priceless for all its simplicity; and +she wore glittering in her hair, on her arms, and on her cream-white +bosom, pearls, that, in quantity and quality would have made the fortune +of any enterprising burglar. + +By her side stood--for they were moving toward the door, on their way to +an exit--an elderly woman, with an expressionless face, simply and +plainly dressed. She was generally spoken of as the watch dog; but she +scarcely deserved that name, for Lady Bell was quite capable of watching +over herself; and Mrs. Fellowes, the widow of the Indian colonel, was +too mild to represent any sort of dog whatever. + +Surrounded by a crowd of devoted courtiers, the great heiress and her +companion moved toward the door where the hostess stood receiving the +farewells and thanks of her guests; and when one thinks of the many +hundred times Lady Merivale had stood by that door, and undergone that +terrible ordeal, one is filled with amazement and awe at her courage and +physical strength. + +For forty years she had been standing at doors, receiving and meeting +guests; yet she stood tonight as smiling and courageous as ever. + +At last Lady Bell reached her hostess, and Lady Merivale, tired and done +up as she was, gave her special recognition. + +"Must you go, Lady Bell? Well, good-night. And thank you for making my +poor little dance a success. Thank you very much." + +Lady Bell said nothing, but she smiled "in her old colonial way," as +they called it, and threaded through the lane of human beings on the +stairs. + +"Lady Earlsley's carriage!" shouted the footman in the gorgeous Merivale +livery, and a little brougham drove up. + +Lady Bell hated show and magnificence. + +Her stables and coach-houses were crowded with horses and carriages, her +wardrobes filled to repletion with Worth's costumes and Elise's +"confections," as bonnets are called now-a-days, but a plain little +brougham was her favorite vehicle, and the simplest of costumes pleased +her best. + +All the way down the stairs she had to nod and smile and exchange +farewells, and at the bottom, in the hall, on the stone steps +themselves, she was surrounded by men eager to secure the privilege of +putting her into her little brougham. + +But she avoided them all, and sprang in as if she had not been dancing +for four hours, and throwing herself back into the corner, exclaimed: + +"Thank goodness, that is over. Poor old Fellowes! you are worn out. +Confess it." + +"I am rather tired, my dear," said Mrs. Fellowes, who had been sitting +against a wall all the evening. + +"Tired! of course you are; it's ever so much more tiring looking on than +dancing, and joining in the giddy round. I don't feel a bit tired; I'm a +little bored." + +"Bored! what a word, my dear Bell," murmured Mrs. Fellowes, sleepily. + +"It's a good word--it's an expressive word--and it just means really +what I feel." + +"And yet you received more attention than any woman--any girl--in the +room, my dear," murmured Mrs. Fellowes. + +"My money-bags may have done so," said Lady Bell, scornfully; "not I. Do +you think that if I were as penniless as one of Lady Southerly's +daughters, I should receive as much attention? Fellowes, don't you take +to flattering me. I couldn't stand that." + +"I don't want to flatter you, my dear Bell; but when the prince himself +dances twice with you----" + +"Of course he did. I am a celebrity. I am the richest young woman in the +kingdom, and he would have done it if I had been as ugly as sin--which +isn't ugly, by the way." + +"What strange things you say," murmured Mrs. Fellowes, with mild rebuke. +"I'm sure no girl received more attention than you have tonight. I sat +and watched you, my dear, and a spectator sees more of the game than a +player." + +"You are right, it is all a game, a gamble," retorted Lady Bell. "All +those nice young men were playing pitch and toss who should make the +hardest running with the great heiress. Do you think I am blind? I can +see through them all, and I despise them. There isn't a man among them +but would pay me the same court if I were as plain as Lucifer----" + +"My dear Bell----" + +"But it is true," said Lady Bell. "I can read them all. And if they knew +how I despised them, even while I smile upon them, they would keep at +arm's length for very shame. I wish I hadn't a penny in the world." + +"My dear Bell!" ejaculated Mrs. Fellowes, really and truly shocked at +such a fearfully profane wish. + +"I do! I do! I should then find out if any one of them cared for me--for +myself. You say I am beautiful, but you are so partial; do you think I +am beautiful enough to cause any man to risk his all in life for my +sake?" + +"I don't know. I don't just follow you," said poor Mrs. Fellowes. + +"No, you are half asleep," retorted Lady Bell. "There, curl yourself up +and snooze. I shan't talk any more." + +Lady Bell leaned forward, and looked up at the stars--the same stars +that seemed so numerous to poor Jack--and pondered over the events of +the evening. + +It was true that a prince of the blood had danced there with her; it was +true that, all through the evening, she had been surrounded by a court +of the best men in London; it was true that she had sent one half the +women home burning with envy and malice and all uncharitableness; but +still she was not happy. + +"No," she murmured, unheard by the sleeping companion; "the dream of my +life has not yet been fulfilled. I have not yet met the man to whom I +could say, 'I am yours, take me!' Perhaps I never shall; and until I do, +I will remain Lady Bell, though they buzz round my money-bags till I am +deaf with their hum." + +The brougham was going at a great pace, simply because the coachman very +reasonably desired to get home and to bed; and Lady Bell saw the houses +flit past as if they had been part of a panorama got up for her special +amusement. + +But suddenly the brougham swerved, and, indeed, nearly upset, and the +stillness of the night was broken by what seemed remarkably like an oath +by the coachman. + +Lady Bell felt that something was wrong; but she neither turned color +nor lost her presence of mind. + +Putting her head, with a thousand pounds of jewels on it, through the +window, she said, in clear tones: + +"What is the matter, Jackson?" + +"I--whoa! I don't quite know, my lady; I think it is a man. Something +came right across the road. Yes, it is a man." + +Lady Bell opened the brougham door, stepped into the road--the light +from the lamp flashing on her pearls--and went toward the horse. + +"Keep away from her hind legs, for goodness' sake, my lady," ejaculated +Jackson. "Keep still, will you!" this was of course addressed to the +horse. + +"What is it? what is it?" asked Lady Bell, peering about. + +"Here, my lady, on the near side--on the left. It's down in the road, +whatever it is." + +Lady Bell went behind the brougham to the near side--she was too well +acquainted with horses and their moods to cross in front of the horse's +eyes--and looked about her. For a moment she could see nothing, but +presently, when her eyes had become used to the darkness, she saw a man +lying, as it seemed, right under the horse's body. + +Her impulse--and she always acted on that impulse--was to pull him out. +But to pull a man even an inch is a difficult task even for the +strongest girl, and after a moment's tug she was about to tell Jackson +to alight while she stood at the horse's head, when suddenly the +prostrate man staggered to his feet, and leaned against the brougham as +if it had been specially built and brought there for that purpose. + +Lady Bell went up to him and laid her hand upon his arm. + +"What has happened?" she said, anxiously. "Were you run over--are you +hurt?" + +Jack--for it was Jack--opened his eyes and stared at her with the +gravity of a man suddenly sobered. + +"No," he said, "I am not hurt. Don't blame the man, it was my fault. Not +hurt at all. Good-night." + +And he feels for his hat, which at that moment was lying under the +carriage a shapeless mass. + +As he spoke Lady Bell saw something drop on to his hand, and looking at +it saw that it was a drop of blood. + +With a shudder--for she could not bear the sight of blood--she said: + +"Not hurt! Why, you are bleeding." + +"Am I?" said Jack, gravely and curtly. "It will do me good. Don't you be +alarmed, miss. I am used to being upset, and my bones are too hard to +break. Good-night." + +And he made for the pavement pretty steadily. But a hand, soft and warm, +and strong also, stayed him. + +"Stop," said Lady Bell; "I am sure you are hurt. How did you come to be +run over?" + +"Got in the way of the horse, I suppose," said Jack, quietly. "That is +the usual way." + +"But--but," said Lady Bell; and she looked at the handsome face +scrutinizingly. + +Then she stopped, for her scrutiny had discovered two facts; first, that +the individual who had been run over was a gentleman; secondly, that he +had been drinking. + +"Wait," she said, still keeping her hand on his arm; "you are not fit to +go alone without some assistance, and I am sure you are hurt. Look, you +are bleeding." + +"A mere nothing," said Jack; "don't trouble. Allow me to put you in--I +shall get home all right." + +Lady Bell, still keeping her eyes fixed on his face, shook her head. + +"I couldn't leave you like this," she said. "Where do you live?" + +"Where do I--live?" repeated Jack. "Spider Court, Temple. It's no +distance from here." + +"The Temple!" exclaimed Lady Bell. "It must be miles away." + +"A hansom," smiled Jack. + +"But there are no cabs here, not one. I cannot leave you like this--you +must get into the brougham." + +"Not for worlds! I have given you quite enough trouble," he said. "I +shall find my way home somehow." + +"No," she said; "I cannot let you go without seeing you safe into a cab. +There are none here. You do not know--I do not know--how much you are +hurt. You must let me take you to your home." + +"I assure you I am all right," he said. + +"And I refuse to accept your assurance," said Lady Bell, with a little +shudder at the streak of blood which oozed from his forehead. "Come, you +will not refuse to obey a lady. I wish you to enter my brougham." + +"No, I can't refuse to obey a lady," he said. + +"Then come with me," said Lady Bell. + +"Where to, my lady?" asked Jackson, who was used to her ladyship's +willfulness, and sat, patient as Job, waiting for the issue of this +strange adventure. + +"To--where did you say?" asked Lady Bell. + +"Spider Court," said Jack; "but I wish you'd let me go out and walk. It +must be right out of your way." + +"Spider Court, Temple," said Lady Bell, and the brougham rolled on. + +Through it all Mrs. Fellowes had remained in the deep sleep which the +gods vouchsafe to good women of her age, and the two--Lady Bell and +Jack--were, to all intents and purposes, alone. + +Lady Bell looked at him as he sat in his corner, the thin, red stream +trickling down from his forehead, and shuddered; not at him, but at the +blood. + +"How did you come to be run over?" she asked. "Did you fall?" + +"Must have done," he said, coolly; "anyway I'll swear it wasn't the +coachman's fault." + +"I am not going to blame the coachman," said Lady Bell, with the shadow +of a smile. + +"That's right," said Jack. "It was all my fault. I'd been--been to see a +favorite aunt." + +"You had been to your club," said Lady Bell. + +"How did you know that?" he said. + +Lady Bell smiled again, and Jack, his eyes fixed upon her, thought the +smile wonderfully fascinating. + +"A little bird told me," she said. + +"The little bird was right," said Jack, shaking his head, with penitence +and remorse written on every feature. "I have been dining at my club. +Perhaps the little bird told you everything else?" + +"Yes; the little bird also whispered that you had----" + +"Drank too much champagne? Confound those fellows! Wonderful little +bird!" muttered Jack. + +"It is very wicked of you," said Lady Bell, gravely, her eyes fixed on +his face, that, notwithstanding its streak of red, looked wonderfully +handsome. + +While she looked, she almost convinced herself that she had never seen +such a handsome face, nor such frank eyes. + +"It was very wicked of you," she repeated, in a voice pitched in a low +key, no doubt out of consideration for the sleeping watch dog. + +"Yes," he said, "I am a bad lot; I am not fit to be here with you. I +have been dining at my club; but how you knew it, I can't conceive. +And--and----" + +"Don't tell me any more," said Lady Bell. "I am sorry that you should +have been run over, and I hope you are not hurt. That--that is blood +running down your face. Why do you not wipe it off? I can't bear it." + +"I beg your pardon," said Jack, and he fumbled for his +pocket-handkerchief, which at that moment was lying under the seat in +the billiard-room. + +"Here, take this," said Lady Bell, and she put her own delicate +lace-edged one in his hand. + +Jack mopped his forehead diligently. + +"Is it all off?" he asked. + +"No, it keeps running," replied Lady Bell, with a little thrill of +horror. "I believe you are much hurt." + +"I'm not; I give you my word," said Jack. "There--no, I'll keep it until +it's washed." And he thrust the delicate cobweb into his pocket. + +Lady Bell leaned back, but her eyes wandered now and then to the +handsome face, pale through all its tan. + +Presently, wonderfully soon, as it seemed to her, the brougham came to a +stop, and Jackson, bending down to the window, said: + +"Spider Court, my lady." + +"Spider Court," said Jack. "Then I'm home. I'm very much obliged to you, +and I wish I didn't feel so much ashamed of myself. Hark! who's that?" +for someone had come to the carriage door. + +"It is I--Leonard. Is that you, Jack?" + +"Yes," said Jack, and he got out and closed the door. "This lady----" + +Lady Bell leaned out and looked at Leonard Dagle's anxious face +earnestly. + +"Your friend has met with an accident," she said, "and I have brought +him home." + +"Thank you, thank you," sighed Leonard. + +"I hope he is not much hurt," said Lady Bell. "His forehead is cut. Will +you--will you be so kind as to let me know if it is anything serious?" + +"Anything serious! A mere scratch," ejaculated Jack, carelessly. + +But Lady Bell did not look at him. + +"Here is my card," she said, taking a card-case from the carriage +basket. "Will you please let me know? Good-night." + +And she held out her hand. + +Leonard did not see it, and merely raised his hat. But Jack, who was +nearest, took the hand and held it for a moment. + +"Good-night, good-night," he said. "I shall never forgive myself for +causing you trouble." + +And in his earnestness his hand, quite unconsciously, closed tightly on +her white, warm palm. + +Lady Bell dropped back into her seat, a warm flush spreading over her +face; and Mrs. Fellowes, awakened by the stopping of the brougham, +exclaimed, with a yawn: + +"Home at last!" + +"No, miles away," said Lady Bell. "Go to sleep again, my dear." + +Leonard took Jack's arm within his, though there was no occasion for it, +for Jack was sober enough now, and led him upstairs. + +"My dear Jack," he exclaimed, reproachfully, "what have you been doing?" + +"Falling under a cab," said Jack, gravely. + +"A cab!" retorted Leonard; "a lady's brougham, you mean!" + +And he took the card to the light. + +"Why!" he exclaimed, with an expression of amazement. "Lady Isabel +Earlsley! Good Heaven! that's the heiress." + +"Eh?" said Jack, indifferently. "What's her name? She's a brick, if ever +there was one. Oh, Jupiter, I wish I was in bed!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +It was Una's first night in London. Weary as she was she could not find +sleep; the dull roar of the great city--which those who are used to take +no heed of--rang in her ears and kept her awake. Her brain was busy, +too; and even as she closed her eyes the endless questions, which the +strange events of the day had given birth to, pursued and tormented her. +She could scarcely realize that she had left Warden Forest, that she was +here in London, the place of her most ardent dreams! And then how +singular, how mysterious was that coincidence which had brought it +about. + +Until Jack Newcombe, the young stranger, had come to Warden, she had +never heard the name of Davenant, and now she was actually living under +the roof of Stephen Davenant's mother. + +With half-closed eyes she recalled all that Jack had said about Stephen +Davenant, and it did not require much effort to recall anything Jack had +said, for every word was graven on her heart, and it had seemed to her +as if he had spoken disparagingly of this Stephen, and had implied that +he was not as good as he was supposed to be. + +She herself, as she lay, her beautiful head pillowed on her round white +arm, was conscious of a strange feeling which had taken possession of +her in Stephen's presence--not of dislike, but something of doubt, +something also of a vague fear. + +And yet he could not but be good and generous, for was it not to him +that she owed all that had happened to her? And did not his mother, the +timid, gentle woman who had already won Una's heart, speak of him as +great and good? + +Alas! and a faint flush stole over her cheek, and a long sigh stole from +her lips--alas! it was that other--Jack Newcombe--who was bad; it was he +whom she was to avoid. + +And so, notwithstanding that she was in the very city of her dreams, she +fell asleep with a vague sadness in her heart. + +Quiet as Walmington Square is, the noise of the market carts passing to +Covent Garden awoke her soon after dawn. + +She looked round with a stare of amazement as her eyes fell upon the +dainty room, with its costly furniture and rich hangings, and listened +for a moment, as if expecting to hear the rustle of the great oaks which +surrounded the cottage at Warden; then she remembered the change that +had befallen her, and springing out of bed, ran to the window. + +All the square was asleep; the blinds were closely drawn in all the +houses, and only the birds on the trees seemed thoroughly awake. + +She could hear the market carts rumbling in the great thoroughfare +beyond, and as she had gone asleep with the rattle of wheels in her +ears, she asked herself, wonderingly: + +"Does London never rest?" + +She remembered that Mrs. Davenant had showed her a bathroom +communicating by a door from her own room, and then--with her cold water +was as necessary as air--went and had her bath; then she dressed +herself, and, opening her door, went downstairs. + +To her amazement, all the house seemed wrapped in slumber. + +At home, at the cottage at Warden, Gideon and all of them were up with +the lark, and life began with the morning sun. + +She stole into the drawing-room, and, unfastening the shutters with some +little difficulty, opened the window and leaned out to breathe the fresh +air; but it seemed as if the air was asleep, too, or, in its journey +from the country, had lost itself in the maze of houses, and failed to +reach Walmington Square. + +Una looked out dreamily, wondering who and what sort of people lived in +the huge blocks of dwellings that surrounded her, and wondered, faintly, +whether she could be looking at the spot where Jack Newcombe dwelt. + +She could not guess that Jack had not come back from Hurst Leigh yet, +but was waiting for the squire's funeral. + +Instinctively she turned to the table and took up the album and went +back to the window with the book open at the page which contained Jack's +portrait. + +How beautiful the face was! And yet, she thought, with a warm glow in +her eyes, that she had seen it look still more beautiful, as she had +looked down at it the morning he lay sleeping at her feet. + +Presently a servant came into the room, and startled at the sight of the +white figure by the window, uttered an exclamation. + +"Good-morning," said Una. + +Closing the book she came forward and held up her face to be kissed, as +she had always done to Mrs. Rolfe. + +The maid--a pretty young girl, fresh from Devonshire--stared at her and +looked half-frightened, while a crimson flush of embarrassment came into +her face. + +"Good-morning, miss," she said, nervously, and hastily turned and fled. + +Una looked after her a moment, and pondered; and she would have made a +superb study for a painter at that moment. + +How had she frightened the pretty girl, and why had she declined to kiss +her? + +Una could not understand it. Hitherto she had lived only with equals, +and could not be expected to guess that it was a breach of the +proprieties to kiss this pretty, daintily-dressed little hand-maiden. + +As for Mary, the maid, she flew into the kitchen and sank into a chair, +gasped at the cook, speechless for a moment. + +"What do you think, cook?" she exclaimed, "that young lady--Una, as the +mistress calls her--is up already. I found her in the drawing-room, +and--and she said 'Good-morning,' and came up to me as if she--she +wanted me to kiss her." + +"You must be out of your mind, Mary," said the cook, sternly. + +But Mary stuck to her assertion, and at last it was decided that Una was +either out of _her_ mind, or that she was no lady. + +"And that I am sure she is," exclaimed Mary, and the other servants +assented heartily. "If there ever was a true lady, this one is, whoever +or whatever she may be. Perhaps she's just come from boarding-school." + +But the cook scoffed at the idea. + +"Boarding-school!" she exclaimed incredulously. "Do you think they don't +know the difference between mistress and servants there? It's the first +thing that is taught them." + +Meanwhile, quite unconscious of the discussion which her ingenuous +conduct had caused, Una wandered about the room, examining, with +unstinted curiosity, the exquisite china and valuable paintings, the +Collard and Collard grand piano, and the handsomely-bound books. + +An hour or two passed in this way; then she heard a bell ring and Mary +entered, and, eying her shyly, said: + +"Mistress says will you be kind enough to step up to her room, miss." + +Una went upstairs and knocked at Mrs. Davenant's door, and in answer to +the "come in," entered, and found Mrs. Davenant in the hands of her maid +Jane. + +Una crossed the room with her swift, light step, and kissed the face +turned up to her with a timid, questioning smile on it. + +"My child," exclaimed Mrs. Davenant, "have you been up all night? I sent +Jane to your room to help you dress." + +Una started, and a smile broke over her face. + +"To help me dress?" she repeated, Jane regarding her with wide open +eyes the while. "Why should she do that? I have always dressed myself +ever since I can remember." + +Mrs. Davenant flushed nervously. + +"I--meant to brush your hair and tie your ribbons--as she does mine; but +it does not matter if you would rather not have her." + +"I should not like to trouble her," said Una. + +"And how long have you been up, my dear?" + +"Since five," said Una, quietly. + +Mrs. Davenant stared aghast, and Jane nearly dropped the hair-brush. + +"Since five! My dear child! Ah! I see, you--you have been used to rising +early. I am afraid you will soon lose that good habit. We Londoners +don't rise with the lark." + +"I don't think there are any larks here," remarked Una, gravely; "and at +this time of the year the lark begins to sing at four. I have often +watched him rise from his nest in the grass." + +"My poor child, you will miss the country so much." + +"No," said Una; "I am so anxious to see the world, you know." + +"Well, we will begin today." + +"Una, you know I wish you to be quite--to be very happy with me. +And--and I hope if there is anything that you want you will ask for it +without hesitation." + +"Anything I want?" repeated Una, with a smile. "Is it possible that any +one could want anything more than is here? There seems to be everything. +I was thinking, as you spoke, of what my father would say if he saw this +table, with all the things to eat, and the silver and glass." + +"My dear child, this is nothing. I live very simply. If you saw, as you +will see, some of the homes of the wealthy, some of the homes of the +aristocracy, you would discover that what you deem luxury is merely +comfort." + +"I was never uncomfortable at the cottage," said Una, gravely. + +"That is because you were unused to anything better, and--and--you must +not speak of the past life too much, Una. I mean to strangers. Strangers +are so curious, and--and my son, Stephen, does not wish everyone to know +where you come from and how you lived." + +"Does he not? Well, I will not speak of it; but I do not +understand--quite----" + +"Neither do I. I am afraid I do not always understand Stephen; but--but +I always do as he tells me." + +And she looked up with the anxious, questioning expression which Una +noticed was always present when Stephen Davenant was mentioned. Was Mrs. +Davenant afraid of her son? + +Una mused for a minute in silence; then she looked up and said: + +"I ought to do what Mr. Stephen wishes. Do you know what he wants me to +do?" + +"You are to be companion to me, my dear." + +"I am very fond of fairy tales," she said; "but I have never read one +more strange and beautiful than this." + +"Let me show you how to put on your gloves, dear," she said. "Yes, you +have got a small hand, and a beautifully-shaped one, too. Strange, small +hands are a sure sign of high birth." + +"Perhaps I am a princess in disguise. No! I am a woodman's daughter in +the disguise of a princess, that is it." + +Mrs. Davenant looked at her curiously. + +"You are not ashamed of being a woodman's daughter, Una," she said; "but +yet--perhaps the time will come when you will----" + +Una's opened-eyed surprise stopped her. + +"Ashamed?" she echoed, with mild astonishment. "Why?" + +"I--I don't know. Never mind, my dear," said Mrs. Davenant, as the +brougham stopped. + +"You are a strange child, and--and you say such strange things so +naturally that I am puzzled to know how to speak to you." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +As the days passed on, Mrs. Davenant grew to understand more fully the +innocent but frank and brave nature of the beautiful girl whom her son +Stephen had so strangely committed to her charge; grew to understand and +to love her, and, bit by bit, her nervousness and timidity wore off in +Una's presence. Insensibly she grew to lean and rely on the girl, who, +with all her innocence and ignorance of the world, was so gently calm +and self-possessed, and Una, in return, lavished her love upon the +timid, shrinking woman. + +Mrs. Davenant had heard no word from Stephen; she was accustomed to such +silence, and almost dreaded to hear, lest it should be a message tearing +Una from her side. She did not know that Stephen was master of Hurst +Leigh and all the immense wealth of Ralph Davenant. + +Una did not know that Jack Newcombe was back here in London, almost +within half an hour of her. When she thought of her father and mother +there in Warden, it was always with the confident trust that they were +well, for she felt that if it were otherwise, Gideon would somehow let +her know. She was quite ignorant that the cottage was empty and +deserted. + +Indeed, there was not much time for thought. Day after day brought its +succession of wonderful sights and experiences, as the little green +brougham bore them about town, and Mrs. Davenant showed her all the +marvels of the great city. + +Una was dazzled, bewildered sometimes: but her instinctive good taste +helped her to keep back all extravagant expressions of surprise on her +voyage through Fairyland. + +One day, however, an exclamation of delight escaped her, as she came in +sight of a jeweler's window, opposite which the brougham had stopped. + +To her who had only read of precious stones, and regarded them as +objects almost fabulous, the window looked as if it contained the wealth +of the Indies and of Aladdin's palace combined. + +They entered and Mrs. Davenant asked to see some ladies' watches, +selected one and a handsome albert, and, with a smile, arranged them at +Una's waist, in which, to her equal amazement, she found a pocket +already provided. + +Pale with emotion, she could not utter a word, and to hide the tears +that sprang into her eyes, turned aside to look at a case containing a +magnificent set of brilliants. The jeweler politely unlocked the case, +and placed the bracelet in her hand. + +"A really magnificent set. It is sold. They were purchased by Lady +Isabel Earlsley." + +"Lady Earlsley," said Mrs. Davenant. "Ah, yes; she is fond of diamonds, +is she not?" + +"Yes, and of other precious stones, too, madam. She has excellent taste +and discrimination. Perhaps you have seen her set of sapphires?" + +"No," said Mrs. Davenant, in her quiet way, "I have met Lady Earlsley, +but I have not seen them." + +The jeweler opened an iron safe, and took out a case containing a +superb, a unique set of sapphires, and handed them to her. + +"This is it--I have it to alter. They are the purest in the world--finer +even than her ladyship's rubies, which are considered, but wrongly, +matchless." + +Una stared open-eyed, and the jeweler, pleased by her enthusiasm and +admiration, took the set from its case and laid it in her hands. + +As Una was bending over them fascinated, a handsome carriage drew up, +and the shop door was opened by a footman in rich livery. + +Una looked up, and saw a beautiful girl who, pausing in the doorway, +stood regarding her. + +The eyes of the two girls met, Una's with an instant frank admiration in +her calm depths--a curious, half-amazed, but also admiring stare in the +bright, dark eyes of the other. + +The jeweler glanced from the new-comer to the gems in Una's lap, and +changed color. Mrs. Davenant started nervously, and turned pale. + +With a quick, bird-like, but thoroughly graceful movement, the +richly-dressed lady turned, and with a smile of recognition, bowed. + +"Mrs.----" she said, and hesitated. + +"Davenant," said Mrs. Davenant. "How do you do, Lady Earlsley?" + +Lady Isabel Earlsley, the great heiress and queen of fashion, held out +her hand in her quick, impulsive way, but turned her quick glance on +Una, whose eyes had never left the dark, bewitching face. + +"Your daughter, Mrs. Davenant?" + +Poor Mrs. Davenant trembled with nervous agitation. + +"No--no--a young friend, Miss Rolfe," she answered, tremulously. + +Lady Bell went straight up to Una and held out her hand, her eyes fixed +on the now flushed face. + +"How do you do?" she said, in the almost blunt fashion which her +admirers declared so charming, and which, though envious tongues +declared an affectation, was a perfectly natural consequence of her +early life. + +Una put her hand in the delicate white gloved one, and the two women +looked at each other for a moment in silence. + +Was it possible at that moment that some prophetic instinct whispered to +the heart of each that the threads of both their lives were doomed to be +entangled together? + +Then Una suddenly remembered that she had in her hand the jewels +belonging to this young lady, and with a grave smile she put them back +in their case. + +"You are looking at my sapphires, I see," said Lady Bell, in a tone +which set the soul of the alarmed jeweler at rest. "Do you admire them? +Are they fine, do you think?" + +Una smiled. + +"I do not know. They are very beautiful. I have never seen anything like +them before." + +"Really," said Lady Bell, with a nod; "I don't care for them. They don't +suit me; there is not enough color in them." Then, turning to the +jeweler, she said, in that quiet tone of command which for the first +time fell upon Una's ears: "Give me the rubies, please." + +The man hastened to hand her a case from the safe, and Lady Bell placed +the contents in Una's lap. + +"Ah!" she said, with a smile, as Una's eyes opened wide with admiration, +at once childish and yet dignified, "you are of my opinion, too. But the +sapphires would suit you best. I wish I were your husband." + +Una looked up with a smile of grave astonishment; and Lady Bell turned +with a light laugh to Mrs. Davenant. + +"How puzzled she looks! I mean," she went on to Una, "that if I were +your husband I would give you the sapphire set; though a lover would be +more suitable, would it not?" + +Then seeing Una's grave, open-eyed wonder, Lady Bell turned to Mrs. +Davenant, and in a low tone, said: + +"Who is she, Mrs. Davenant?--has she just come out of a convent? She is +simply lovely; her eyes haunt me--who is she?" + +Mrs. Davenant stammered, and fidgeted speechlessly. + +"Ah!" said Lady Bell, quickly, in the same low tone. "You think I'm rude +and ill-bred. They all do when I ask a simple question, or show the +slightest interest in anything." She glanced at Una lingeringly: "I +mustn't ask, I suppose?" + +"I--I--she is new to London," said Mrs. Davenant. "It is her first +day----" + +"Her first day!" echoed Lady Bell, her eyes twinkling. "Do you mean that +she was never in London before? How I envy her; I who am sick and weary +of it! Yes, the glamour is on her; I can see it in her eyes--on her +face. She is like some beautiful wild bird who has settled on an +inhabited island for the first time, and is marveling at the strange +sights and faces--look at her!" and she touched Mrs. Davenant's arm. + +Una, quite unconscious of their scrutiny, was sitting looking dreamily +into the street with its ceaseless throng of carriages and people. Lady +Bell had hit upon a happy simile; she looked like some beautiful bird, +half stupefied by the strange life moving around her. + +Mrs. Davenant rose; but Lady Bell, with a gentle pressure, forced her +back into her seat. + +"Not this minute; leave her for a minute. See what a beautiful picture +she makes! New to London! Do you know what will happen when London finds +that she is in its midst?" + +Mrs. Davenant looked up helplessly. She, too, looked like a bird--like +some frightened pigeon in the clutch of a glittering hawk. + +"You can't guess," went on Lady Bell, with a smile. "Well, it will make +a queen of her--all London will be at her feet within a month, and I--I +shall be dethroned." + +The last few words were spoken--murmured--almost inaudible, and in a +tone that was half sad, half mocking. But suddenly her mood changed; and +with a smile that lit up her face, and seemed to dance like a flash of +sunlight from eyes to lips and back again, she said: + +"At any rate be mine the credit of discovering her. I am the first at +the shrine of the new goddess!" and touching Una's hand with the top of +her gloved finger, she said: "Miss Rolfe, Mrs. Davenant has been kind +enough to promise to come and see me tomorrow night. Are you fond of +dancing?" + +"I don't know," said Una, with a smile. "I do not know how to dance----" + +"Heavens!" murmured Lady Bell. + +"You forget, Lady Bell," murmured poor Mrs. Davenant. + +"Ah, yes, yes; I remember," said Lady Bell, hastily. "Well, you will +come and see how you like it, won't you?" + +Una looked at Mrs. Davenant inquiringly, and Lady Bell looked from one +to the other impatiently. + +"Do not say 'No,' pray, Mrs. Davenant," she said, with her dark, bright +eyes. "I have set my heart upon it, and a disappointment is +intolerable. Besides, why should you say 'No?' You would like to come?" + +"Yes, I should like to come," said Una gravely. + +Lady Bell looked at her as if fascinated. + +"From a convent, certainly," she murmured. + +"Then it's settled. Remember! I shall look for you--shall wait for you +with impatience. Mrs. Davenant, I count upon you." + +"But--but I cannot go out, Lady Earlsley--I am in mourning." + +Lady Bell sighed impatiently. + +"I am so sorry! I have never set my heart upon anything so much in my +life," she said. "Something tells me that we shall be great friends! Are +you fond of jewels, lace, books?--what are you specially fond of?" And +she seemed to dazzle Una with her smile. "You shall see them +all--everything. Yes, let her come, and I will take such care of her as +if she were something too precious to be touched; she shall not leave my +side all the evening. Let her come, Mrs. Davenant!" + +Mrs. Davenant paled and flushed in turn. What would Stephen say--would +he be displeased or gratified? What should she do? She could not resist +the half-imploring, half-commanding eyes which Lady Bell flashed upon +her, and at last murmured a frightened "Yes." + +With a smile that seemed to set the diamonds scintillating, Lady Bell +shook hands with Mrs. Davenant, and taking Una's, held it for a moment +in silence, then, with a sudden gravity, she said: + +"Good-bye. I will take care of you. I will be your _chaperon_. We shall +meet again," and was gone. + +So interested and absorbed had she been in Una that she had quite +forgotten her purpose in entering the shop, and had gone without another +word to the jeweler. + +He showed no surprise, however, but smiled complacently as he put the +jewels back into their cases, being quite used to Lady Bell's vagaries, +and he bowed Mrs. Davenant and Una out with increased respect and +deference. + +Lady Bell, attended by the two footmen, entered her carriage, and Mrs. +Fellowes, her friend and companion, who had been sleeping peacefully, +awoke with a little start. + +"Well, my dear, have you got the rubies?" + +"The rubies?" said Lady Bell. "No, I quite forgot them." + +"Forgot them!" said Mrs. Fellowes. + +"Yes. What are stupid rubies compared with an angel?" + +"My dear Lady Bell!" exclaimed Mrs. Fellowes, "what are you talking +about?" + +Lady Bell leaned back with her hands folded in her lap, and her eyes +musingly staring at nothing. + +"Yes, an angel," she repeated. "I never believed in them until today, +but I have seen one this morning--in a jeweler's shop." + +"Lady Bell, how strangely you talk. I am getting alarmed." + +"You always are," said Lady Bell, coolly. "I repeat, I have seen an +angel. You are always trying to flatter me by talking of my beauty and +such nonsense; but I have seen today a real beauty. Not a mere pretty +pet mortal like myself, but one of the celestials! With eyes like a wild +bird's, and a lady, too, I'll be sworn!" + +"My dear Bell, what language!" murmured Mrs. Fellowes. + +"A perfect lady; her hands, her voice would vouch for that. Her voice is +like a harp. If I had been a man I should have fallen in love with her +on the spot." + +"Fallen in love," said Mrs. Fellowes. "My dear Bell," with a politely +suppressed yawn, "I am half inclined to think you have taken leave of +your senses, and you will drive me out of mine. One night it is a young +man whom we nearly run over; a--I must say--a tipsy young man." + +"No; he had only taken too much wine." + +"Well, if that isn't being tipsy----" + +"Don't, don't," said Lady Bell, pleadingly; "we might have killed him." + +"I don't know that he would have been much loss to the world at large," +said Mrs. Fellowes. + +"Home!" said Lady Bell to the footman; and she sank back with a +brilliant flush on her face. + +Mrs. Davenant drove home also, and in considerable perturbation. What +had she done? What would Stephen say? + +Fortunately for that young man's peace of mind, he was resting at ease +at Hurst Leigh, little dreaming that Lady Bell, or any one else, would +meet Una, and coax her out of his mother's nerveless hands. + +Una, with quick sympathy, saw that her companion was distressed, and +with a gentle touch of her hand, said: + +"You do not like me to go to this lady's house. I will not go. No; I +will not go." + +"My dear," she replied, with a sigh, "it isn't in our hands now. You +don't know Lady Bell--nor do I very well; but I know enough of her to be +convinced that if you do not go tomorrow night, she would come and fetch +you, though she left all her guests to do so." + +"Is she then so--so accustomed to having her own way?" + +"Always; she always has her own way. She is rich--very, very rich--and +petted; and she is even more than that; she--she--I don't know how to +explain myself. Well, my dear, she is a sort of queen of society, and +more powerful than many real queens." + +"So that when she commands such as I am I must obey," said Una, with her +low, musical laugh. + +"Just so," said Mrs. Davenant, with a sigh. "But you will be careful, my +dear. I mean, don't--don't let her put you forward, remind her of her +promise to keep you at her side." + +"I think I would rather not go." + +"Don't be frightened, my dear," said Mrs. Davenant, kindly; but Una's +calm, steady look of response showed her that there was no fear in the +young, innocent heart. + +"No, I am not frightened," she said. "I do not know what I am to fear." + +Having consented to Una's going, Mrs. Davenant lost no time in making +the few necessary preparations. She selected a plain but rich evening +dress, set her own maid to make the required alterations, selected from +her own store a sort of old Honiton, and gave orders that some white +flowers should be bought at Covent Garden the next morning. + +"White flowers, my dear," she said, nervously. "Because I--I am not +sure that Stephen would not consider that your being in the house with +me you are not in mourning. But, then, you are no relation, my dear." + +"I wish I were," said Una, kissing her. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +At nine o'clock the next evening the quiet-looking green brougham came +round to the door, and took them rapidly to Park Lane. + +Una had already grown almost weary of staring out of the carriage +window, but her wonder and interest revived as she saw in the dusky +twilight the green trees and flowers in the most beautiful park in the +world, and amazed at the magnificent buildings past which they rolled. + +Presently the brougham drew up at a corner house facing the park; an +awning was suspended from the gateway to the pavement, and three footmen +in splendid liveries, which she recognized as those she had seen worn by +the servants attending Lady Bell's carriage, were standing to receive +the guests; one of them opened the brougham door and escorted them into +the hall, which seemed to Una, with its flowers and mirrors, its rich +hangings and statues, a fairy palace, and was about to usher them into +the drawing-room, when, upon hearing Mrs. Davenant's name, he bowed, and +took them into a small room at the side, which was Lady Bell's boudoir. + +"I will tell her ladyship," he said. + +Una had scarcely time to take in the exquisite beauty of the room, with +its antique furniture and costly knicknacks, when the door opened and +Lady Bell entered. She was exquisitely dressed; diamonds--the diamonds +Una had seen at the jeweler's--glittering in her hair and on her neck +and on her arms, and seemed to Una like some vision which at a breath +would vanish and leave the room to its subdued twilight again. + +With outstretched hands she came toward them, with her eyes dancing and +her cheeks flushed. + +"You have kept your word and brought my wild bird! I knew you would +come," and she took a hand of each, but suddenly reached up and kissed +Una. "Yes, I felt that you would come, but it is good of you all the +same, and to show you that I am grateful, I will let you go at once, +this minute, dear Mrs. Davenant!" + +Mrs. Davenant looked relieved. + +"Thank you! thank you, Lady Bell!" she said. "You--you----" + +"Will take care of your bird? Yes, that I will. You may trust her to me; +not a feather shall be ruffled." + +Mrs. Davenant murmured something about the time she would come for her, +and then with a timid look from one to the other was gone. + +"And now," said Lady Bell, "let me look at you," as if she had not been +doing so ever since she entered the room. "My dear, my dear, you +are----" she stopped short. "No, I'll not be the first to teach you +vanity. But tell me, do you ever look in your glass, Miss Rolfe--Miss +Rolfe, I don't like that name, I mean between you and me. My name is +Bell, and yours is----" + +"Mine is Una." + +"Una! That is delightful! And have you your lion? Where is he?" + +Una had never read the story of "Una and the Lion," and looked calmly +puzzled. + +"Well, if you have not one already, you soon will have. You don't +understand me. I am glad of that. But will you come now? This is a very, +very quiet little party, but you may be amused. And I will keep you by +my side all the evening. Come," and she drew Una's arm through her own +white one and led her through the corridor into the ball-room. + +It was not a large room. Lady Bell detested huge and crowded assemblies +too much to permit them at her own house, but it was, as a ball-room, +perfect. There was light, and just enough light, to show the tasteful +magnificence of the decorations, and nothing of that fearful glare from +innumerable lights, and their reflections in huge mirrors, which make +most ball-rooms so trying and unbearable. The band had just commenced as +they entered, and the whole scene, the beautiful room with its soft +draperies of Persian damask, the Venetian mirrors, the rich dresses of +the ladies, and the soul-moving strains of the best band in London, for +the moment overawed and startled the girl fresh from the primeval +forest. + +For a moment her eyes dilated almost with fear, and she unconsciously +drew back, but Lady Bell, with a gentle pressure of the arm, drew her +forward, and skillfully avoiding the dancers, took her to the further +end of the room, where, in a recess lined with ferns and tropical +plants, were arranged some seats so placed as to be almost hidden from +the room, while they allowed the sitter a full view of it. + +Lady Bell drew a fauteuil still further into the recess, and playfully +forced Una into it. + +"There, my wild bird, is your cage. You can see all the world without +being seen, and here you and I will take a peep at it. Now, don't you +want to know all their names and all about them?" + +Una smiled. She was a little pale and was trembling slightly. + +"No; I am too surprised and astonished at present. How beautiful it is, +and how lovely they are." + +"The women?" said Lady Bell, with a laugh, and a glance at the +unconscious face beside her, which she knew outshone all others there. +"You think so! Well, there are some pretty women here. There is Lady +Clarence--the one in light blue and swansdown--and Mrs. Cantrip--she was +the beauty last season. You don't understand?" + +"Last season!" said Una. "Who is the beauty this?" + +Lady Bell laughed and flushed a little. + +"Never mind, child," she said. "One who doesn't care a farthing about +it, at any rate. But look, do you see that tall lady there, dancing with +the short man with whiskers? She is the Countess of Pierrepoint, and he +is the Duke of Garnum----" + +"A duke?" said Una, surprised. + +"You expected to see a man seven feet high in his ducal robes?" she +said. "See those two men who have just come in? The dark one is Sir +Arkroyd Hetley, the other, the boy--the baby they call him--is a +marquis, the Marquis of Dalrymple. They are always together. They are +coming to shake hands with me." + +Una drew further into the shade as the two men, after hunting about the +room, came up to the recess, and listened as they paid their +compliments and seemed anxious to remain, but Lady Bell sent them off +quite plainly and distinctly, and sat looking toward the door, and +presently she ceased talking, and her bright, beautiful face grew quiet +and almost sad, certainly wistful, and at last she sighed and murmured: + +"No, he will not come." + +"Who will not come?" said Una. "Are you expecting any one?" + +"Did I speak?" she said. "Yes, I am expecting someone, but he will not +come. People one expects and wants never do--never do. You will find +that out in time, wild bird; you will find--ah!" and she started and +turned pale, and her hand, which had been laid on Una's arm, closed over +it with a sudden grip and flutter. + +Una looked up, and her face went deadly white. + +The room seemed to spin round with her, and the lights to flood her +brain and paralyze her, for there, towering above the throng, stood Jack +Newcombe. + +Jack Newcombe--not in his rough tweed suit, but in evening dress; Jack, +not with the frank, tender, pleasant smile which always rested upon his +face as it appeared in her dreams, but with a cold, half-irritable, and +wholly bored expression. + +Slowly she rose and glided into the shadow of the recess and hid +herself, her heart beating wildly, her whole form trembling with a +strange ecstasy of mingled fear and delight. + +At last she saw him again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +Poor Jack! How came he to be in Lady Bell's ball-room? + +The morning after she had nearly driven over him he woke to find Leonard +Dagle, his friend and fellow lodger, standing beside his bed and looking +down at him with a grave smile on his intellectual face. + +"Hallo!" said Jack, "the house on fire?" + +"Not at present," said Leonard, "though it would soon be if you lived in +it alone. Why don't you blow your candle out, and not chuck your +slippers at it? How are you this morning?" + +"How am I?" said Jack, staring. "How should I be? Quite well of course," +which was quite true, for Jack and the headache had not been introduced +to each other. + +"That's all right," said Leonard, with a smile. "Perhaps you remember +last night's tragic occurrence, then?" + +Jack thought for a moment, then shook his head gravely. + +"Len, I'm an idiot. I always was. It's a good job idiocy isn't catching +or you'd have caught it of me long ago. I made a confounded idiot of +myself last night. It was all Dalrymple and Hetley's fault, and I wish +they'd knock champagne off the club wine list. Did I take too much, +Len?" + +"What do you think?" said Leonard, grimly. + +"I'm afraid I did. For the first time in my life, or nearly--but I +didn't touch a card, Len." + +"I knew you wouldn't do that." + +"No, a promise is a promise with me," said Jack. "And I didn't drink +much, Len, 'pon my honor; but I was upset, and when a man is upset +he----" + +"He generally tries to get run over," said Leonard, with a smile. + +Jack stared, then he laughed. + +"By George! yes. I remember!" + +"But always does not get the luck to be rescued by a beautiful young +lady--who is an heiress--and who, instead of giving him in charge for +blocking the queen's highway, brings him home in her brougham." + +"It was a kind thing to do, certainly," said Jack, with a yawn. + +"Kind is a mild way of putting it," remarked Leonard. + +"It was more than I deserved," said Jack; "much more, and she's a +brick." + +"The man who calls Lady Isabel Earlsley a brick should be a bold man." + +At last Jack looked up, and pressing his chair back, said: + +"And now, old man, let's hold a council of war. Subject to be +considered: the future of a young man who has been cut off with a +shilling--by George! the poor old fellow didn't even leave me that--who +knows no trade, who cannot dig, and to beg is ashamed, and who is +penniless." + +"Quite penniless, Jack?" asked Leonard. + +Jack rose, and sauntering to a drawer, pulled forth an old tobacco +pouch, and pouring the contents on to the table proceeded to count the +small--very small--heap of coin. + +"Twenty-one pounds six-and-fourpence farthing--no; it's a brass +button--and a brass button." + +"Can't carry on this way long with that small amount of ammunition, +Jack." + +"Just so, old Solomon. Well, what's to be done?" + +"You might enlist." + +"Get shot, and break your heart. No, I'm too fond of you, Len. Go on; +anything else?" + +"Upon my word, you can't do anything." + +"Nary thing," admitted Jack, with frank candor. + +"What do men--well-born and high-bred men like you----" + +"What will you take to drink?" said Jack, bowing low. + +"Who have no money, and no brains----" + +Jack bowed again, and pitched the sugar tongs at him. + +"What do they do? They generally marry an heiress, Jack." + +"I shall never marry." + +"I've heard that remark before. The last it was from a man who married a +fortnight afterward." + +"I'm not going to marry in a fortnight. Go ahead." + +"I've done," said Leonard with a shrug. + +"Solomon is dried up," said Jack. "You don't keep a large stock of +wisdom on hand, old man." + +"I've given you the best I've got, and good advice too, with a +foundation to go upon. Your heiress is ready to your hand." + +"What do you mean?" said Jack. + +Leonard was about to reply, when the housekeeper entered and brought him +a card. He looked at it; it bore Lady Isabel Earlsley's name, and on the +back was written: + +"To inquire whether Mr. Newcombe was hurt last night?" + +Leonard pitched it across the table, as an answer to Jack's question. + +Jack read the card and flushed hotly, then threw it down again. + +Leonard took up a piece of paper, and rapidly wrote: + +"Mr. Newcombe's compliments, and he was not in any way injured by last +night's accident, which he deeply regrets as having caused Lady Earlsley +so much trouble," and gave it to the housekeeper. + +"What have you written?" asked Jack sulkily. + +"What you are too much of a bear to write," said Leonard, with a +smile--"an answer and an apology. Jack, you are a favorite of fortune. +Half the men in London would give the forefinger of their right hand to +get such a message from Lady Bell. I know her----" + +"So do I," broke in Jack, roughly; "I heard all about her at the club +last night. Hetley and Dalrymple bored me to death about her. She's a +great heiress and a beauty, and all the rest of it. I know, and I don't +want to hear any more." + +Jack went up to Len and laid his hand on his shoulder. + +"Forgive me, old fellow; but I--my heart is full. Only one woman in the +world has any interest for me, and she has gone--up to the sky again, I +suppose. What do I care for Lady Bell, or Lady anyone else? I tell you I +laid awake half the night thinking of that beautiful face, and dreamed +of her eyes the rest of the night; and I'd give all the world if I had +it, to find her. And much good it would do me if I succeeded? I couldn't +ask her to share twenty-one pounds six and a brass button!" + +"Forgive _me_, Jack," said Leonard, quietly. "I know what you mean. I'm +in love myself. But--but at any rate you can't treat Lady Bell rudely. +You must call and thank her." + +"Confound her!" said Jack, and hurried out of the room. + +Leonard looked after him, and then went on with his work. He saw no more +of him until late in the evening, when Jack came in and threw himself +into a chair, looking weary if not exhausted. + +"What have you been doing, Jack?" asked Leonard. + +"Looking for a needle in a bundle of hay," replied Jack, grimly. + +Leonard nodded. + +"I've been walking about ever since I left you, with scarcely a rest. +I've walked through every thoroughfare in London. I've looked into +windows and into shops. I've been warned off and told to move on by the +police, who thought I was a burglar on the search for a job; and here I +am and there is she as far off as ever. And yet I feel--Heavens knows +why--that she is here in London. Len, if you smile I shall knock you +down." + +"I was never farther from smiling than I am at this moment," said +Leonard quietly. + +"Do you know what I would do if--if the squire had left me any money?" +went on Jack, fiercely; "I would spend every penny of it in searching +for her. I'd have a hundred--a thousand detectives at work. I'd never +give them rest night or day till they found her." + +"And then?" said Leonard. + +Jack groaned and lit his pipe. Leonard looked at him. + +"I thought you had gone to call on Lady Earlsley," he said. + +Jack looked very much as if he really meant to knock him down, and +marched off to bed. + +When he came in to breakfast the next morning Leonard noticed that he +was dressed in proper walking attire, instead of the loose, free and +easy, well-worn suit of cheviot, but he said nothing. Jack looked up. + +"You are staring at my get-up, Len. Well, I'll do it; but mind it is +only to please you. What should I care what she thinks? though I ought +to do it, I know. I'll call and thank her, and then let there be an end +of it. I can't bear any chaff of that sort even from you, old fellow." + +Leonard nodded without a word, for he saw that the once frank face had +lost its careless _sang froid_ expression, and looked harassed and even +haggard. + +Jack smoked a pipe in silence, watching Leonard's rapidly moving pen; +then, without a word, went out. + +Two hours later he came in, and with an air of relief and even a smile, +said: + +"Well, I've done it, and it's over." + +"Well?" said Leonard, curiously. + +"Well, nothing; she wasn't at home," said Jack, triumphantly. + +"Not at home. What sort of a place was it?" + +"The best place in Park Lane," said Jack. "No end of flunkeys about, and +the rest of it. Looks as if she rolled in gold, as she must do to have +the place at all." + +"And you didn't see her?" asked Leonard. + +Jack colored and frowned. + +"What a curious beggar you are! Yes, I did see her; her carriage drove +up just as I was going away." + +"And you spoke to her?" + +"No, I just raised my hat and walked away," said Jack, gravely. + +Leonard shrugged his shoulders. + +"She will think you a boor." + +"So I am," said Jack. "What does it matter? Tell me something about +yourself. I am sick of myself. What have you been doing?" + +Leonard's pale face flushed. + +"I've been to Cheltenham Terrace," he said. + +"Well, did you see her?" + +"No," said Leonard, sadly. "I saw that the blinds in the upper windows +were down, and I went to the next door, and asked if anyone was ill." + +"Well?" + +"Yes, her grandfather, old Mr. Treherne, was ill, they said, and I came +away." + +"Well," said Jack, "at any rate you know where to find her--while I----" + +"I saw her shadow on the blind," said Leonard, simply. "I could swear to +it among a hundred. I watched her beautiful profile for an hour in that +railway carriage." + +"Treherne, Laura Treherne," said Jack. "It is a pretty name. What took +her to Hurst Leigh that night, I wonder? The night the squire died. Len, +it is a romance, but I envy you. If I knew where Una lived I'd hang +about the house night and day until I saw her. Len, do you know what it +is to be hungry, to be parched and dried up with thirst so that you +would give all you possessed--ten years of your life for a draught of +water? That is just how I feel when I think of that beautiful face, with +its soft brown eyes and innocent smile! And when do I not think of +her?" + +"And you didn't speak to Lady Bell?" said Leonard. + +Jack made a hasty explanation and made for the door, nearly running +against the housekeeper. + +"A letter for you, sir," she said. + +Jack tore it open, read it and threw it to Leonard. + +The envelope was a dainty gray color, and stamped with an elaborate coat +of arms, with the initials I. E. in cipher underneath, and inside was a +card of invitation to a ball, filled in by a lady's delicate hand, with +a line in addition. + +"With Lady Earlsley's compliments and regret that she was from home when +Mr. Newcombe called." + +"Jack, what condescension. You must go!" + +Jack stammered, and argued, and protested. He was too honest to plead +that he was in mourning; but he simply swore that he would not go. + +The day came round and the evening fell, and Jack came into the +sitting-room in evening dress, his tall form seeming to fill the room. + +Leonard used to say that it was a treat to see Jack in evening dress; +that he was one of the few men who looked to advantage in it, and he +turned from his eternal pen and ink to look at him with an approving +smile. + +"Yes," said Jack, fiercely, "I am going; I am a fool, but how can a man +stand against such a perpetual old nuisance as you are? But mind, I am +just going in and out again, and after this there is an end of it. I +shall enlist!" and out he went. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +Jack called a hansom--of course he could have walked, but he had no idea +of economy or the value of money--and was driven to Park Lane. + +Half a dozen times on the way he felt inclined to stop the cab, jump out +and go to the club--anywhere but Lady Bell's; but nevertheless, he found +himself in Park Lane, and ascending the staircase. He saw at once, by a +few unmistakable signs, that the party was a small and select one, and +furthermore, judging by the tasteful magnificence of the appointments, +that Lady Bell's wealth had not been very much exaggerated. + +He made his way slowly, for a dance was just over, and the stairs were +lined, as usual, with people mostly whom he knew, and had to stop to +speak to. Amongst them were Sir Arkroyd Hetley, and Dalrymple, of course +together. + +"Hullo, here's the Savage!" cried Hetley. "How do you do, Jack? You've +soon got on the war trail, old fellow," he added in a low voice and with +a significant smile. + +Jack growled something and made his way into the room. + +For a moment he could see nothing of Lady Bell, then as she came out of +the fernery and advanced toward him her dark eyes flashing, or rather +gleaming softly, with a faint, delicious color mantling on her cheeks, +he felt almost the same shock of surprise which had fallen on Una. + +He had scarcely noticed her the other night, had scarcely, indeed, seen +her, and he now saw, as it were for the first time, her beauty, set off +and heightened by the aid of one of Worth's happiest dresses, and +Emanuel's diamonds. In spite of himself he was dazzled, and his frank +eyes showed that he was. + +And Lady Bell? Well, though his face had scarcely left her mind's eye +since she had seen it, she was not disappointed. + +Notwithstanding the rather bored and surly--not to say ferocious +expression which set upon it--she thought him handsomer than even she +had remembered him. + +"This is very kind of you, Mr. Newcombe," she said speaking first, for +Jack had contented himself with bowing over her hand. + +"Kind?" said Jack, in his straightforward way. + +Lady Bell hesitated, and for the first time, perhaps, in her life, +smiled shyly. + +"I heard--they tell me--that it is as difficult to get Mr. Newcombe to a +dance as a prince of the blood royal." + +"It isn't much in my way," said Jack, quietly; "I am not a dancing +man--that is, I don't care for it." + +"Then it was kind," said Lady Bell, recovering her courage and smiling +at him with that wonderful smile which Hetley and all the rest of them +talked so much about. + +Jack looked at her. Yes, certainly she was very beautiful, and there was +a subtle something in that smile. + +His ill-temper began to disappear. + +"I should say," he said, "that a man ought to feel lucky at the chance +of getting here." + +"They also told me," said Lady Bell, archly, "that you never paid +compliments." + +"Someone seems to have been taking a great deal of trouble to make me +out a regular boor," said Jack, with his curt laugh. "Did they also tell +you that I lived in the woods up a tree, and existed on wild animals?" + +"Like a savage?" said Lady Bell, wickedly. + +Jack flushed and looked at her; then her smile conquered and he laughed. + +"Yes, that is what they call me, confound their impudence! But I'm a +very tame kind of a savage, Lady Earlsley; I shan't scalp you." + +"It wouldn't matter much, would it?" she retorted. "They make such +beautiful false hair now." + +Jack looked down on the soft, glossy head, with its thick, light coils, +and smiled. + +"Are you going to change your mind and scalp me, after all?" she said. +"You make me tremble when you look like that." + +Jack laughed right out. + +"No," he said; "even a savage is incapable of such ingratitude. I have +come to-night, Lady Earlsley, to thank you for your kindness the other +night, and to tell you how sorry I am that--that you should have had so +much trouble!" + +And a blush managed to show itself under the tan. + +Lady Bell looked down. + +"It was no trouble," she said. "I was afraid that you were hurt. It was +very clumsy and stupid of my man." + +"It was all my fault," said Jack, penitently. "I----" + +"Do not say any more," she said, gently, and she put her finger tips on +his arm. + +Jack looked at her, and met her gaze, full of concealed interest, and +his own eyes fell before it. + +They had been standing near the fernery, behind which stood Una; she +could hear every word, see every look. + +Pale and almost breathless she stood, her hands clasped in front of her, +her heart beating fast, her eyes fixed on Jack's face. She longed to +fly, yet could not move a foot. Something, his very presence, his very +voice, held her like a chain. + +She felt that if he were to turn and, seeing her, say, "Follow me!" she +must follow him, though it were to the end of the earth. + +A storm of conflicting emotions battled within her for mastery; a wild +delight at his presence, an intense longing that his eyes might turn and +rest on her, and at the same time an awful miserable feeling, which she +did not know was jealousy. + +How beautiful they looked, these two, Lady Bell, the heiress, in her +rich dress and splendid jewels, and he, with his tanned face and bold, +fierce eyes, his stalwart frame towering above all others, and sinking +them into insignificance. How well matched they seemed. Why--why did +Lady Bell smile at him like that? No wonder his face had grown brighter. +Who could resist that bewitching smile? + +The music of a waltz commenced and recalled her to a sense of her +position. With a start she drew still further back, so that she was +quite out of sight. + +"There's a dance," said Jack, in his blunt way. "I would ask if you were +free to give it to me, but I cannot dance to-night. I am in mourning. +Don't let me keep you, though." + +"That is a plain intimation," said Lady Bell; "but I am sorry that you +are in trouble. In sober earnest it was kind of you to come. I hope it +was no one near to you." + +"No," said Jack, and his face clouded at the recollection of Hurst +Leigh. "It was a very dear old friend who had been very good to me." + +Lady Bell inclined her head, and her voice grew wonderfully soft. + +"I see that I must not keep you. I shall not be offended if you leave us +at once. If I had known----" + +Now here was Jack's opportunity. Why did he not seize it and go? + +"Thanks," he said; "although I won't dance I'll stay a little while if +you'll permit me." + +Lady Bell bowed. + +"Thank you," she said, almost humbly, as if he had granted her a great +favor, as it seemed to Una. + +At this moment the great--or little--duke came up with a smile. + +"Am I fortunate enough to find you free for this, Lady Earlsley?" + +Lady Bell looked at her card, carefully keeping it out of his reach, and +shook her head. + +"I'm so sorry! My partner will be here directly, I expect." + +The duke bowed, expressed his regret, and moved off, not without a +glance at Jack, who stood calm and possessed; and Una knew, +notwithstanding all her ignorance, that Lady Bell was not engaged, but +had refused the duke that she might keep Jack by her side; and with this +knowledge the demon jealousy sprang into life, and made himself fully +known. + +With an awful aching of the heart she sank into a seat and hid her face +in her hands. + +What right had she there--she, the ignorant, untaught forest girl, among +these grand people? Even supposing that he saw her he would not remember +her, and if he did he would not care to waste a glance or a word on her, +while such a beautiful creature as Lady Bell was willing to refuse a +duke for his sake. + +Suddenly the brilliant scene seemed to grow dark and joyless; the music +sounded harsh and out of tune; all the beauty had vanished, and she +longed to be sitting in the depths of Warden Forest. + +"Your partner doesn't seem to turn up," said Jack. "He's an ungrateful +idiot." + +Lady Bell laughed and sank down in a fauteuil just in front of the +recess. + +"I forgive him," she said, and she swept her skirts aside to make room +for him. + +Jack sat down, not gratefully, but quite courtly. + +Lady Bell was silent for a moment, then she said: + +"I would have sent a card for your friend, but I could not remember his +name." + +"Oh, Len," said Jack, shaking his head. "I'm afraid he would not have +come. He never goes out--at least not to this sort of thing. He's a book +worm, and doesn't care for the gaieties. His name is Leonard Dagle." + +"He is a great friend of yours?" + +"The best that ever man had," said Jack, quietly; "more than a brother." + +"You live with him?" she said, with an interest only too palpable to the +listening Una, whom Lady Bell had quite forgotten. + +"Yes, we live together--have done so for years--always shall, I hope, +till----" + +He paused. + +"Till death, were you going to say?" said Lady Bell. + +"No, I wasn't," said Jack, simply. "I was going to say till I took his +advice and--enlisted." + +"Enlisted!" she repeated, turning her beautiful face full upon him. + +Jack colored and frowned. + +"Yes," he said, stoutly; and though he said not a word more, Lady Bell +knew that he was poor and in trouble. + +It was just the one thing wanted to finish the romance. He was poor and +in trouble, while she was rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Why should +she not say as she longed to do: + +"You want money. See, here am I who have more than I know what to do +with; take some of it and make me happy!" + +Instead, she thought it only, and remained silent. + +"How hot it is," she said presently. "It is more than time to leave +London. One longs for the green fields and the sea." + +"It is late," said Jack. + +"We are staying in town," she said, "because my father is a bookworm and +can only live near a library--he only exists elsewhere. I cannot find it +in my heart to tear him away from the British Museum; but we make the +best of it. We are going to have a water-party to-morrow at Richmond." + +"Yes," said Jack. + +She waited for him to ask for an invitation; then, pressing her lip with +her fan, said: + +"Will you join us?" + +Jack hesitated a moment. + +"I shall be delighted," he said. + +"You don't look it," she said. "But I forgot--savages rarely smile. At +any rate, we start to-morrow at twelve o'clock. Sir Arkroyd is going to +drive us down in Lord Dalrymple's drag." + +"Perhaps there isn't room," said Jack. + +"Are you trying to find an excuse for not coming?" she said, smiling on +him. + +Jack frowned, and then laughed. + +"I'll come," he said. + +Yes, there was a nameless charm about her which had made itself felt +already. Was it her beauty or her frankness--the latter so different to +the cut-and-dried and measured manner of the ordinary women of society? + +"I'll come," he said. + +Then he looked around. + +"This is a beautiful room. Where did you get all the flowers from? Some +of them I never saw before in London." + +"Do you like them?" she said. "Many of them we brought over with us from +'across the seas,' the others I ransacked London to get--at least, poor +Mrs. Fellowes did." + +"Why poor?" he said. + +"Because she has the misfortune to be my companion, and I worry her to +death." + +"A pleasant death," he muttered. + +"Thanks," she said. "That is the second compliment you have paid me. And +yet they say you are not gallant, as the French have it." + +"It's the heat," said Jack, in his grim way. + +"You will find some ices in the ante-room there, behind that lace +curtain." + +"Shall I get you one?" said Jack. + +She nodded. + +"Thanks! Yes, that is the way," and she rose to point to a winding path +made through the rows of ferns and tropical plants. + +He had to pass her in going, and in doing so he struck a spray of a palm +with his head; it recoiled, and caught some of its soft, spiky leaves in +her hair. + +She uttered a half-laughing cry, and Jack turned. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. "I am awfully clumsy. Allow me." + +She bent her head toward him, laughing, and Jack disentangled the silken +threads from the great clinging leaf. In doing so he again proved his +clumsiness, for the silken threads got round his fingers. + +He could feel her soft, peach-like face against his wrist, and being +human his blood thrilled. + +Lady Bell looked up. Her face was pale, and her eyes drooping and +languid. + +"Are you going to scalp me after all?" she murmured. + +Jack's heart beat strangely. + +"I--I am very sorry," he muttered below his breath, and with lowered +eyes he went on. + +Lady Bell looked after him and drew a long breath. A sigh that almost +echoed hers startled her, and turning she saw Una, sitting where she had +left her, with her hands clasped in her lap. + +"My child," said Lady Bell, "I had almost----" + +"Yes, you had quite forgotten me," said Una, with a strange smile. + +Lady Bell flushed and looked at her. Her lovely face was pale and her +eyes clouded with a strange look of pain and weariness. + +"Forgive me, my child," she said. "You are quite pale--you are tired. It +is too hot. Wait! there are some ices coming." + +"No, no," said Una, with a sudden shrinking. "Please leave me--do not +bring him here--I mean----" she stammered, "I would rather be alone. Go +and dance, Lady Bell." + +"What a timid fawn it is," said Lady Bell, caressingly. "There, go and +sit in the shade there. Don't be frightened; I promised to take care of +you." + +"I am not frightened," said Una, quietly, "but I would rather----" + +"I understand," said Lady Bell, quickly; then she said, trying to speak +carelessly and toying with her fan: "Did you see the gentleman I was +speaking to, dear?" + +"Yes," said Una, calmly. + +"Don't you think that he is very handsome?" + +Una's heart beat so fast that she could scarcely speak. + +"Yes," she answered, at last. + +"What a cold Diana it is!" said Lady Bell, caressingly. "What an icy +'yes.' My dear, he is the handsomest man in the room." + +"Yes," said Una, sadly. + +Lady Bell looked at her. + +"I see, for all your yesses, that you don't think so," she said, with a +laugh. "Do you know they call him the Savage, and that it is quite an +achievement on my part to get him here? I made his acquaintance by +accident. Mrs. Fellowes is quite shocked over it. But I always do as I +like. I've got a fancy, Una--you'd never guess it." + +"What is it?" said Una, raising her dark eyes gravely to the beautiful, +witching face. + +Lady Bell smiled. + +"I have a fancy for taming the Savage," she said, more to herself than +to Una; "it will be so amusing." + +Una turned her head aside. + +"For him, do you mean?" she asked, in a low voice. + +Lady Bell stared at her, and her color came and went amusedly. + +"What a strange child it is! For him? No, for me! And--yes, for him too. +What right has he to pretend to be invincible? Do you think I shall +succeed?" + +Una looked at her with an aching heart. + +"Yes," she answered; "I think you will succeed." + +"What a flatterer it is!" said Lady Bell, playfully. "Hush! here he +comes; half tamed already. Now for the first lesson," and, to Una's +surprise she glided from the recess and was instantly lost in the crowd. +A moment after Una saw her dancing with the duke. + +She drew back into the shadow and watched Jack. He came along slowly, +the ice in his hand, and looked around for Lady Bell, with astonishment +and something like anger in his face for a moment. Then he saw her +dancing with the duke in the center of the room, looked round for some +place to put the ice down, and, seeing none convenient, gently pitched +it, plate and all, into a fountain, to the considerable astonishment of +the gold fish. + +Then he sat down and thrusting his hands into his pockets, seemed lost +in thought; his head thrown back, almost touched Una's arm, and she +wondered whether he would be glad or sorry, or simply indifferent, if +she rose and stood before him, or called him by name. + +Yes, there he sat, within reach of her hand. She had often dreamed of +him as being near her, but it was no dream now. + +An infinite longing to touch, to speak to him, possessed her, and if he +would but turn and look at her as he had looked that morning by the +lake! + +She struggled hard against the temptation, and sat motionless, all her +heart going out toward him. + +If she had known that Jack, even at that moment, was thinking of her, +and recalling her every look and word. It was one of Strauss' waltzes +they were playing, but he heard it not; in his ears was the rustle of +the forest trees and the ripple of the lake; before him was one of the +most beautiful ball-rooms in London, before him moved, in a glittering +pageant, the pick of London's beauty and rank, but he saw them not; he +was looking in fancy into the lovely face of the innocent forest girl. + +The dance was over, but still Lady Bell did not come; couples, +arm-in-arm, promenaded past him, but still Jack sat, and dreaming of the +girl who sat longing, longing for a word or look from him, just behind +him. Suddenly Una felt something drop into her lap. It was a blossom +from one of the tropical plants. + +She took it up and looked at it absently; then, as if by a sudden +inspiration, she raised it to her lips and kissed it, and rising, +dropped it on his knee and fled. + +Jack started, and stooping picked up the flower, looked at it for a +moment, and then turned and looked up to see whence it had come. + +As he did so he saw reflected dimly in a mirror framed in palm leaves a +girl's face. + +With a bound he darted to his feet, and naturally enough made for the +reflection; but ere he could reach the mirror the face had vanished. + +Pale and trembling with eagerness he turned--but Una had glided through +the ferns and reached the ante-room--and came face to face with Lady +Bell. + +She was flushed and laughing, her eyes dancing with the excitement of +the dance. + +"Well," she said, "where is my ice?" + +Jack, startled and bewildered, stared at her. + +"I must have been dreaming," he muttered. + +"Dreaming," she said. "What do you mean?" + +He passed his hand over his brow. + +"Your ice!" and he glanced at the fountain. "I--I beg your pardon. What +did I do with it? I will get you another." + +"Never mind!" said Lady Bell, laughing; "I do not care for it now; I am +too hot. Have you been asleep?" + +"Asleep!" he said, striving to recover his coolness; "nearly. What could +I do when you left me?" + +"The third compliment," she said, with a smile. "Where are you going +now?" for Jack, with his eyes fixed on the end of the fernery, was +moving slowly away. + +"I--I'm afraid I must go," he said. + +"Good-night!" she said, turning away coldly. + +Jack "pulled himself together," as he would have called it, and sat down +beside her. + +"No," he said, "I will stay if I may." + +She turned to him with a gentle smile. + +"No; go now, please. I am not ungrateful. It was very kind of you to +come. You will not forget tomorrow?" + +"No," said Jack, fingering his crush hat. "I will not forget +tomorrow--how could I?" + +She held out her hand--not a tiny, meaningless one, but a long, shapely +eloquent hand--and put it into his broad, strong one. + +"Good-night!" she said, and her voice grew wondrously low and gentle in +its caressing, clinging tones. "Good-night!" + +Jack felt the slender fingers, warm through the thin gloves, cling round +his fingers. + +"Good-night," she said, hurriedly. "Good-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +Jack walked leisurely enough through the fernery looking this way and +that in search of the phantom girl; but once clear of the ball-room, he +hurried through the ante-rooms and down the staircase--utterly ignoring +the adieus which were sent after him by the crowd on the stairs--and +reached the hall. + +The carriages were already taking up, and without ceremony he pushed +through the footmen into the open air. + +"Has a carriage left just now--five minutes ago?" he asked. + +"Two or three, sir," said the footmen, and, too busy to answer any +further questions, he dashed off. + +Jack waited just outside the stream of light for nearly an hour, his +coat collar turned up, his hands thrust in his pockets. But though many +a beautiful face passed him and was driven away, Una's lovely face was +not amongst them. + +"I must have fallen asleep and been dreaming," he muttered. "How could +she possibly have been there?" + +Then he called a hansom, and was driven to the club. + +His blood was on fire, his brain was in a whirl; two faces--Una's and +Lady Bell's--seemed to dance before his eyes. Do something he must to +get rid of them, or they would drive him mad. + +There was only one thing to do--play. Before the morning he had lost +every penny of his twenty-one pounds six and fourpence, and a couple of +hundred besides. + + * * * * * + +Chance had favored Una in her escape; no sooner had she reached the +staircase than she heard Mrs. Davenant's carriage announced. To get her +shawl and make her way down the staircase was the work of a few moments, +and the brougham was rolling away toward Walmington Square before Jack +had got down to the hall. + +"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Davenant, "have you enjoyed yourself? You +look pale and tired." + +Una shrunk into her corner. + +"I am rather tired," she said, in a low voice, "it was all so new and +strange." + +"And was Lady Bell kind?" + +"Very kind," answered Una, with a sigh. "How beautiful she is!" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Davenant, "she is a very fortunate girl. Youth and +beauty and wealth, she has much to make her happy. Tell me whom you saw, +my dear." + +Una flushed and trembled. She went over the names of some of the great +people, but she said nothing of Jack. She could not bring her trembling +lips to frame his name. + +"All the best people in town," said Mrs. Davenant, with a smile. "You +will be a fashionable young lady before long, Una." + +"Oh, no, no!" breathed Una, with a sudden pallor. "Perhaps I shall never +go again." + +Mrs. Davenant looked at her curiously, and relapsed into silence until +they reached home. + +Then, as they entered the drawing-room, she said, with a little nervous +smile: + +"I have heard from my son Stephen, Una." + +"From your son?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Davenant. "It is good news. He has become very rich. +His uncle, Squire Davenant, has left him everything he possessed." + +Una started and turned pale. Then Jack had been left nothing! That was +why he had looked so grave and troubled. + +"Everything?" she asked. + +"Everything," said Mrs. Davenant, with a sigh: "the Hurst and the +estate, and all the money, and he is very rich--very rich indeed." + +Una looked before her dreamily. She could not say, "I am very glad." +Mrs. Davenant waited a moment. + +"There is a message for you, my dear," she said timidly, fingering the +letter. + +"For me!" said Una, looking up with a start. + +"Yes; Stephen is so thoughtful! He never forgets others even in the +midst of his great prosperity. He sends his kind regards, and trusts +that you do not miss Warden, and that you will not find our quiet life +too dull. He little thinks how we have plunged into gayety already. He +would be surprised if he knew it." + +Indeed Stephen would, with a vengeance! + +"It is very kind of him," said Una, in a low voice. + +Mrs. Davenant sighed. + +"He is always kind and thoughtful. He tells me that he will not be able +to come home just yet awhile. It seems that there is a great deal to see +to. The estate was greatly neglected, and there's some business to be +done with the lawyers; that keeps him there. But he says he will come as +soon as he can, and, meanwhile, I am to make you as happy as I can. I +hope I have done that already, dear," she added, with simple affection. + +Una rose and kissed her. + +"Indeed, yes; I am very happy." + +Then she turned her face away to hide her tears. + +"Come, you must go to bed," said Mrs. Davenant, "or you will lose all +your fresh roses." + +And she put her candle in her hand, and kissed her tenderly. + +It was some time before Una fell asleep. The events of the night flitted +like phantom visions across her eyes, and Jack's face rose to haunt her, +with its tender, troubled look in the dark eyes. + +The squire had willed all to Stephen then, and Jack was poor and +forgotten. + +The sun was high in the heavens when she awoke, and breakfast was on the +table by the time she had got down. + +Mrs. Davenant looked up with a smile. + +"I am so glad to have you safe, dear," she said. "Come, you have got all +your roses back again; and, see here, you cannot guess whom this is +from;" and she held up a note. "It is from Lady Bell. It is an awful +scolding for your running away last night. She says that you flew away +like a bird, and that she had no sooner missed you than she heard that +you had gone." + +Una colored. + +"Was it rude of me?" she said. "I am sorry." + +"Never mind, my dear; she has evidently forgiven you, or she says she +will, if you will go with her for a water picnic to-day." + +Una turned pale again. + +"I!" she said, below her breath. + +Mrs. Davenant opened the note. + +"Yes; she says she will take no denial. They are going to drive down to +Richmond, and she will call for you on the way. Would you like to go, my +dear?" + +Una thought a moment. She longed for, yet dreaded, the meeting which she +knew must take place between Jack and her if she went. + +Mrs. Davenant took her silence for consent. + +"There is no need of an answer, my dear," she said, with a little laugh; +"Lady Bell will take no heed of a refusal. There's the note." + +And she threw it across the table. + +Una read the kindly-imperative little letter, and sighed as she examined +the brilliant crest stamped at the head of the paper. + +"It is very kind," she said. "Yes, I will go, if you are sure you do not +mind my leaving you." + +After breakfast, Mrs. Davenant and Jane entered into a consultation as +to what Una should wear, Una standing by with a quiet smile. + +At last they decided that a dainty-figured satin should be honored; and +both of them, notwithstanding Una's protests, insisted upon assisting at +her toilet. + +They could not have chosen anything more suited to her fresh, virginal +beauty than the simple, delicate dress; and when Jane had brushed the +soft, silken hair until it shone and flashed like strands of golden +haze, and coiled it into a knot, Mrs. Davenant could not suppress an +exclamation of satisfaction and admiration. + +As for Una, she had not yet learned to view her changed self without +surprise, and stared at the tall, beautiful woman which the glass +reflected as though she could not believe that it was herself. + +They were still looking at her, and Jane's restless fingers were +touching a bow here and a fold there, when they heard the rattle of +heavy wheels outside, and Mrs. Davenant hurried her downstairs. + +Lady Bell was already in the drawing-room, and took Una in her arms as +if she were a school-girl, instead of a woman taller than herself. + +"My child, I came to scold you--I meant to have a fearful scene; but you +have taken it all out of me!" And she held Una by her elbows, and looked +at her admiringly. "Child, you are a picture! I've half a mind to drive +off without you. What will become of me? Mrs. Davenant, don't you think +I am very stupid to commit suicide in this way?" + +Mrs. Davenant smiled, and looked at Lady Bell's beautiful face, all +bright as if with sunlight, and shook her head gently. + +"Bah!" said Lady Bell, pouting. "I am nothing but a foil to her; but I +shall be useful, at least. Come, we must be off. What is that--milk?" + +"Yes," said Una, offering her a glass, with a smile. + +"She drinks nothing else," said Mrs. Davenant. + +"That accounts for her complexion," said Lady Bell. "No, it doesn't! If +I drank all the dairies in London dry, I shouldn't get such milk and +roses on my cheeks." + +"Don't turn her head," murmured Mrs. Davenant, under her breath. + +Lady Bell laughed. + +"My dear Mrs. Davenant, it is just what she wants! There isn't a spark +of vanity in her composition; she isn't quite a woman, for no woman is +without vanity. Look at her, as grave and stern as a judge!" and she +touched Una's arm with her sunshade. + +Una started--she had been wondering whether Jack would be there outside, +on the drag, and was listening for his voice amongst those which came +floating through the open window. + +Trembling inwardly she followed Lady Bell out. + +The four horses were champing and pawing impatiently. + +The drag was nearly full, and, for a moment, Una saw only a confused +group of women in dainty morning dresses, and of men in white flannel +and cheviot. A second glance convinced her that Jack was not there. + +As they appeared on the steps the laughter and voices ceased, and a +well-bred glance of curiosity was turned upon her. + +Lady Bell was, however, equal to the occasion. + +"Come along, Una," she said, gayly. "Fanny, will you make room beside +you for Miss Rolfe?" + +The Countess of Pierrepoint smiled. + +"How do you do, Miss Rolfe!" she said graciously. "I hear you were at +Lady Bell's dance last night; why did you let her hide you so +completely?" + +Una was silent. + +Fortunately Dalrymple made so much bustle and fuss in starting, that +conversation for a minute or two was impossible; and before that minute +or two had passed, Una had gained her self-possession. + +Seated about, she recognized several of the people Lady Bell had pointed +out on the preceding evening: Lady Clarence, Mrs. Cantrip, the +Marchioness of Fairfield. Beside Dalrymple, who had all his work cut out +in keeping the four spirited nags in good conduct in the crowded London +streets, sat, as a matter of course, Sir Arkroyd Hetley, while one or +two other men--one of whom she heard addressed as the viscount--was with +the ladies. + +Had Una been naturally nervous, her timidity could not long have existed +in such an atmosphere. + +Her companions were among the highest in the land; but there was less +reserve and ceremony than would have been found in a similar gathering +of middle-class people. The men were laughing and chatting, ever and +again turning round to make some light-hearted remark, or pass some joke +round. They were all, it was evident, bent on enjoying themselves. + +Very soon Una found herself brought into the conversation, Lady Bell +talking to her continually, and pointing out the lions of the road. + +The roses came back into Una's face in full bloom, her heart beat more +lightly, and her spirits rose as the four impatient horses dashed along +the roads which now ran through the beautiful vicinity of Richmond. + +She had almost--almost--forgotten that Jack was not there, when +happening to glance round suddenly at Lady Bell, she saw her looking +dreamily before her, evidently lost in thought, with a wistful drooping +of the bright red lips and a disappointed shadow in the dark eyes. + +Then Una knew that it was not only she herself who felt the absence of +the missing one. + +However, Lady Bell soon rallied, and when they drove up to the hotel she +was as bright as ever. + +The luncheon had been sent up to Thames Dutton, one of the prettiest +parts of the Thames, and it had been arranged that the gentlemen should +row up to the island, hence the white flannel and cheviot costumes. They +found boats awaiting them at the river side, and, with much laughing and +gayety, started. + +It was a beautiful scene, the river gleaming like a flood of silver +between its banks of green meadows and stately trees, the three boats +with their bright colored occupants. Una, who was of nature's own kin, +was filled with delight; it was better than being at Warden. She leaned +back in her comfortable seat in the stern of the foremost boat, rapt in +silent enjoyment. + +Lady Bell looked at her rather wistfully. + +"How happy you look, child," she said, in a lower voice than usual. + +"I am quite happy," said Una, simply. + +"You are just the person for a picnic," said Lady Clarence. "I feel sure +that you would look just as contented and serene if it rained in +torrents, while the rest of us would be running about bemoaning our +spoiled clothes." + +Una laughed. + +"I am not afraid of rain," she said. + +"That's fortunate, Miss Rolfe," said Dalrymple, who was pulling stroke, +and exerting himself nobly, while Hetley, pulling behind him, allowed +him to do all the work. "That's fortunate, as we shall be sure to have a +shower or two--always do at a water picnic." + +"No prophesying, marquis!" cried Lady Bell. "There isn't a cloud in the +sky; there isn't a sign of wet." + +"I'm sorry for that," he said, with mock gravity, "for I'm fearfully +thirsty." + +They paid no attention to this broad hint, however, until they were +going through Teddington Lock, when Lady Bell produced some champagne +and soda water, and Hetley made a cooling cup. + +When it came to Una's turn--they all drank out of the same cup, a +splendid silver tankard, chased with the Earlsley arms--she glanced at +it askance and shook her head. + +"But you must, my dear Una," said Lady Bell. "You will be parched." + +"Let me have some water," said Una, and making a cup of her hand--a +trick she had learned at a very early age--she bent over the boat and as +quietly and naturally drank a draught. + +The countess looked at her earnestly, and Sir Arkroyd muttered to +Dalrymple: + +"Where did she come from?" + +"I don't know," said Dalrymple, in the same tone. "I'd stick to water +all the day if she'd let me drink it out of the same cup. Isn't she +beautiful--perfectly lovely!" + +"Hush, she'll hear you," muttered Sir Arkroyd, warningly. + +But he need not have feared. + +Una sat like the dream-maiden in the ballad, deaf to all but the plash +of the oars and the music of the birds. + +Presently the stately pile of Hampton Court Palace glided, as it were, +into their view, and with a long pull Dalrymple sent the boat to the +island. + +The two other boats were close behind, and then these grand people who +were accustomed to be waited on hand and foot, got out and dragged +hampers under the shadow of the oaks and willows; and the countess and +Lady Clarence laid the cloth, while Lady Bell and the rest knelt beside +the hampers and pulled out the things one by one. Then Sir Arkroyd was +sent to lay the champagne bottles in the shallow water, and Dalrymple +was handed a dish and the ingredients for making the salad. + +In a few minutes luncheon was set out to the accompaniment of much +laughter, and a few accidents. One of the champagne bottles had slid +into the deep water, and disappeared to the bottom of the river to +astonish the fish. The corkscrew followed it; and dismay fell on all, +until the viscount calmly produced another from his pocket. + +"Never go to a picnic without a corkscrew," he said, shaking his head. +"Generally have to produce it, too." + +Then there was much dragging about of hampers, and arranging of shawls +and boat cushions to provide seats for the ladies; but at last all were +seated, and Dalrymple, brandishing a knife in dangerous proximity to +Lady Pierrepoint's head, cut the first slice of raised pie. + +Then it was discovered how easy it is to make jokes at a picnic. You +can't be stately and ceremonious sitting cross-legged on the grass, and +balancing your plate on your knees; especially when, in consequence of +there not being quite enough knives, you have to lend the one you are +using to your next-door neighbor. + +As usual, too, there were not quite enough plates and those dainty +gentlemen, who went into fits if a fly fell into their wineglasses at +the club, bent down on their hands and knees and washed plates in the +river. + +"And there is no rain," said Lady Bell. + +"Then one of us will have to fall into the river," said the viscount, +solemnly. "Must have rain or an accident at a picnic, you know. Will you +have some more cream, Lady Earlsley?" + +Lady Bell shook her head, laughingly. + +"No, thanks; I have enjoyed it all immensely. Why cannot we have a +picnic every day?" + +But Una, who sat next her, had noticed that she scarcely touched +anything. + +"Let us go into Bushey Park, and turn savages," said Dalrymple. "Halloa; +speaking of savages, what a pity the Savage isn't here. This is just in +his line." + +Lady Bell bent down suddenly to take a flower from the cloth. + +"Mr. Newcombe was detained in town," she said, calmly; but Una could +detect the faint quiver in her voice. + +"Poor old Jack," said Dalrymple, after a pause, "seems to be cut up +about something lately. Do you remember how queer he was that night he +came back from the country, Arkroyd?" + +Lady Bell looked up suddenly. + +"Let us go for a ramble. You may smoke, gentlemen," she added. "Now +don't shake your heads as if you never did such a thing. I can see your +cigar-case peeping out of your pocket, Lord Dalrymple." + +And linking her arm in Una's, she sauntered away. + +They strolled in silence for some minutes, until Una, happening to look +up, saw that Lady Bell's face was quite pale, and that something +suspiciously like tears were veiling the brightness of the dark eyes. + +"Lady Bell!" she murmured. + +"Hush!" said Lady Bell, gently. "Don't notice me, child! Oh, how sick I +am of it all! What a long day it seems! How can they sit there laughing +and chattering like a set of monkeys?" + +"What is the matter?" said Una, in her low, musical voice. + +"Nothing," said Lady Bell, softly; then she paused and tried to laugh. +"Una, my sweet, innocent, I've got a complaint which you know nothing +of; it is called the heartache. There is no cure for it, I am afraid; at +least, not for mine. Tut! there, there! your great, grave eyes torture +me; they seem to go to the bottom of my soul. Not a word more. Here they +come!" + +And the next instant she turned round, all life and gayety. + +Una sauntered on, her heart beating wildly. Was Lady Bell's heartache +produced by the absence of Jack Newcombe? Yes, that must be it! + +With a sigh she drew away still further from the rest, and seating +herself on the trunk of a tree by the riverside, watched the silver +stream as it flowed past and was lost in the setting sun. + +Suddenly she saw in the distance a white speck that looked like a bird, +flitting up the middle of the stream. The speck grew larger; and she saw +that it was a light boat putting toward the island. + +Gradually it came nearer and nearer, and she saw that it contained one +man only, and that he was clad in white flannel. + +It was a light water-boat--a mere speck of white it looked now on the +golden stream--and to Una, who had never seen an outrigger before, it +seemed an almost impossible feat to sit in it. + +But the sculler managed it with the greatest ease, and with every stroke +sent it flying forward. + +With regular rhythmical action he pulled on, and very soon she could see +his great arms bared to the shoulders. + +She watched it absently for some minutes, but presently the rower turned +his head, and something in the movement struck her and made her heart +bound. + +Agitated and trembling she rose and stood staring down the stream. + +A curve of the island hid the boat suddenly, and she stood watching for +it to appear again; but the minutes passed on and it did not come. Then +suddenly she heard a peal of laughter and the clatter of voices, and she +knew that the boat had pulled into the island. + +With a vague hope and dread commingled she sank to the seat again, and +sat striving to still the wild beating of her heart. + +Presently she heard her name called. It was Lady Bell's voice, and how +changed; there was no false ring in it now; clear and joyous it rang +out: + +"Una! Una! Where are you?" + +There was no escape. She knew she must go, but she waited for full three +minutes. Then, nerved to an unnatural calm, she rose and moved slowly +forward. They were all seated again; she could see them. + +Dalrymple and Sir Arkroyd were stretched at full length, smoking; the +ladies, in their dainty sateens and pompadours, were grouped near them, +and a little apart sat Lady Bell, a cup in one hand and a knife in the +other, her face turned toward someone eating. Though his back was toward +her, Una recognized him. It was Jack Newcombe. He had turned down his +sleeves and put on his white flannel jacket, and was eating and chatting +at one and the same time. + +"Yes, better late than never," she heard him say, and with every word of +his deep, musical voice her heart leaped as if in glad response. "I +found I could get away, and I jumped in the train, to learn at Richmond +that you had just started. I got an outrigger, and here I am." + +"Just in time to help wash up," said Dalrymple. "We've eaten all the +strawberries, old man, and there isn't much cream. It's lucky for you +there is any pie." + +"Don't pay any attention to them, Mr. Newcombe," said Lady Bell, and how +soft and sweet her voice sounded, with its undertone of tenderness. "I +am so sorry you are late. Do not let them hurry you. You must be so +tired. Let me give you some ham--some tongue, then?" + +And she herself cut a slice and put it on his plate. + +"Don't let me stop the fun," said Jack, in his grave way. "Go on with +your games. What was it--kiss-in-the-ring?" + +There was a laugh; the lightest joke will serve at a picnic. + +"I was haunted by the dread that I should come just in time to find +everything cleared up. What a beautiful day! No, no more, thanks." + +"Let me give you some champagne," said Lady Bell, and reached forward +with the goblet in her hand. + +Jack took it, and nodded over it in true picnic fashion. + +"Thanks," he said, and raised it to his lips. + +At that moment Lady Bell looked up, and, seeing Una standing still and +motionless, beckoned her. + +Mechanically Una went round to her, and so stood in front of Jack. + +His eyes were fixed at the bottom of the cup at the moment, but +presently he lifted them, and, with a sharp cry, he let the cup fall to +the ground and sprang to his feet. + +And then he stood staring at her downcast face with startled eyes and +pale countenance. + +"Hallo! Take care!" cried Dalrymple. "What are you up to now, Savage? +Anything bitten you?" + +Lady Bell looked from one to the other, from Una's white, downcast face +to Jack's pale, startled one. + +"Una," she breathed, "what is it?" + +But Jack recovered himself. + +"Just like you fellows," he said. "Didn't you know that you had pitched +me on an ants' nest? What did you say, Lady Bell? I beg your pardon. T +don't think there is much spilled, and there is nothing broken." + +And he knelt down and picked up the cup. + +Lady Bell laughed. + +"I couldn't think what was the matter," she said. "Are you really +bitten?" + +"Just like Jack," said Sir Arkroyd, with philosophic calmness. "He is +never happy unless he is breaking something. I give you my word that he +smashes more glasses at the club than any other man." + +"Always was clumsy," said Jack, with a constrained laugh. + +Lady Bell smiled. + +"You have quite frightened my friend, Miss Rolfe," she said. "Una, this +unfortunate gentleman is Mr. Newcombe." + +Jack had given her time, and she was able now to look at him calmly. +Jack bowed, his eyes glancing at her as if they scarcely dared trust the +evidence of their own senses. + +"Pray forgive me," he said. "I am very awkward. But I don't break quite +so many things as they say. Is there any more champagne, Lady Earlsley? +I don't deserve it, I know----" + +Lady Bell took up a bottle. + +"Pour this into the cup, Una," she said, with a smile. "It is true he +doesn't deserve it, but we will be merciful." + +Una took the bottle and leaned forward, and as she did so Jack rose and +stood before her, so that he screened her trembling hand from the eyes +of the rest. + +His own trembled, his own heart beat wildly; all else save the beautiful +face so close to his own swam before his eyes. + +Was he dreaming, or was it really she? He could not trust his eyes, he +felt that he must touch her. + +Slowly he put out his hand, and gently, tremblingly touched her white, +slender wrist. + +Instantly she raised her eyes and looked at him, a long, piteous look, +as if he had struck her. + +Yes, it was she. It was Una, his forest-maiden! + +With a long breath he raised the cup to his lips and drained it, then +sank down on the grass and took up his plate, scarcely knowing what he +was doing. + +The laughing voices around him seemed blurred and indistinct in his +ears, the green trees and silver stream seemed to fade and vanish, and +give place to the silent glade in which he had sat with the same +beautiful girl bending over him. + +Mechanically he went through the pretense of eating until a burst of +laughter recalled him to himself. + +"Look here!" shouted Dalrymple in boyish glee. "Here's the Savage, busy +eating nothing!" + +Jack laughed, awakened to the sense of the situation. He must nerve +himself, if only for her sake. + +"It must be sunstroke," he said lightly, staring at his empty plate. +"Will somebody give me a piece of cake? I have always doted on cake. I +like a piece with the candied peel on it, Lady Bell. Thanks. Now I am +just going to begin my luncheon." + +"Those persons who are tired of watching the Savage satisfy his barbaric +appetite are requested to withdraw!" drawled Dalrymple, and he leaped to +his feet, laughing. + +"Seriously, if anyone would like to go up to the palace, I've an open +door. I should like a row." + +There was an instant clamor. Three parts of the party wanted to see the +palace, and a couple of boat loads started. + +Lady Clarence, Lady Bell, Una, and Jack remained. + +He still kept up the pretense of eating and drinking; and Lady Bell, +kneeling opposite him, seemed never to grow weary in supplying his +wants. + +Una, seated at a little distance, noticed with what eager attention she +hung upon every word he uttered. And Jack kept on talking as if his life +depended on it. But presently his patience came to an end. + +He put down his plate resolutely. + +"No more, thanks, or I shall be too heavy for the outrigger. Now, then, +can't I help pack up?" + +But Lady Bell wouldn't hear of it. + +"No, you shall light your pipe," she said, "and watch us. Come, Una. I +know you are dying to help us." + +Una awoke with a start and knelt down beside the plates and dishes while +Lady Bell went for the hamper. + +Jack seized his opportunity. Bending forward, he whispered: + +"Una!" + +She half turned her face, pale and dreamy. + +"Well?" + +"Is it really you? How did you come here? Am I dreaming?" + +"It is I," she said, in her low, musical voice. + +"But--but," he said, "how did you come here? I did not know you were in +London. I have been looking for you." + +Her heart gave a great leap. He had been looking for her. + +"I have been searching for you everywhere, Una. Did you think I should +not come back? I went to Warden----" + +"Yes," she said eagerly. + +"And I found the cottage shut up and your people gone." + +"Gone?" + +"Yes, gone, and I did not know what to do. So I came to town, and--and I +looked for you everywhere. Ah! you thought that I had forgotten you, as +you had forgotten me." + +Her lovely face flushed, and she turned her dove-like eyes upon him, +with a reproachful look in their depths. + +"Forgotten him!" + +"I cannot understand it," he went on, drawing still nearer to her, his +eyes eagerly scanning her face. + +She smiled faintly. A great joy welled up in her heart, every nerve was +tingling with happiness, she scarcely heard him. The words, "I have been +searching for you," rang in her ears. + +"I scarcely understand it myself," she said; "it seems like a dream." + +Jack glanced toward the bank. They had finished the packing, and would +interrupt them in another minute. + +"Where are you staying? You are on a visit?" + +"I am staying with Mrs. Davenant," said Una, in the same low voice. + +Jack started, and the unlit pipe nearly fell from his hand. + +"With Mrs. Davenant?" he exclaimed. "With Stephen's mother?" + +Una nodded. + +"Yes; he has been very kind and good to me." + +Jack stared breathless. + +"Stephen good to you!" he said, fiercely. "What do you mean? Am I +dreaming?" + +"It was he who came to Warden with Mrs. Davenant," said Una, vaguely, +troubled by the stern look of suspicion which had settled like a cloud +on Jack's face. + +"I don't understand," he said grimly. "Stephen--Stephen! How did he know +of your existence?" + +"Some friend," said Una; "I do not quite know. At any rate, it was +through him. And I like Mrs. Davenant." + +Jack nodded. + +"Yes, she is a good woman. But Stephen----" + +And he passed his hand over his brow. + +Una looked at him timidly. + +"Are you angry?" she asked. + +"Angry! with you!" he exclaimed, bending nearer, with a look of tender +devotion. "How could you think it? No, I am not angry--only puzzled. I +cannot make it out. Never mind! don't look so troubled, my dear--Miss +Rolfe, I mean. At any rate, I have found you. Oh, Una!--Miss Rolfe, I +mean--if you knew how I have searched for you, and"--with a groan--"what +a fool I have been!" + +"I thought you had forgotten me," said Una, with that sweet humility of +love. + +Jack's eyes gleamed. + +"I have not forgotten you for one moment--not for one moment! Una, +I----Oh, confound it! here they are." + +He broke off impatiently, as Lady Bell and the rest came back. + +"What are we going to do now?" she said, with her bright smile. "Some of +them have gone to the palace. Shall we wait for them, or go and meet +them! What do you say, Mr. Newcombe?" + +But Jack would not stir. + +"They'll come back," he said, absently, his eyes drawn toward the +downcast face. + +How lovely it was! If they would only all go away, and leave them alone! +He had so much to say--so much to ask. + +But Lady Bell showed no sign of going; instead, she threw herself down +on the grass beside them, and commenced to talk. + +Had he enjoyed the pull up? Why had he not driven down with them? She +didn't believe in particular business; and so on. + +Jack pulled at his pipe, and returned absent, scarcely civil answers. At +last Lady Bell noticed his abstraction, and turned her head away in +silence. + +Meanwhile Una sat speechless, her face turned toward the river, her +whole soul absorbed by his presence. It frightened her, this feeling of +absorption. She found herself waiting and listening for every word that +dropped from his lips as if her life depended on it. She trembled lest +he should touch her. + +His manner filled her with an ecstasy of pleasure that was almost pain. +How handsome he looked, stretched out at full length, his tanned face +turned to the sky, his tawny mustache sweeping his clear cut lips; she +felt, rather than knew, that his eyes sought her face, and she dared not +turn her eyes toward him, though she longed to do so. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +Presently, to the relief of Una, at least, the other boats came back; +the third boat was got ready, the hampers put on board, and the ladies +seated. + +Jack stood near the stern, and took Una's hand in his to help her to +embark. + +"Take care," he said, aloud, then in an undertone, he added: "I shall +see you at Richmond." + +"Are you going to row the outrigger down, Savage?" said Dalrymple, eying +the first boat enviously. + +Jack turned to him eagerly. + +"No, I'll take your place in this boat; I can see you are longing for +mine. Here, get in"; and before Dalrymple could refuse, Jack had almost +lifted him into the outrigger, and leaped into his place in Lady Bell's +boat. + +All the darkness vanished from his brow. He was sitting opposite Una; so +near, that when he leaned forward to make the stroke, his hand almost +touched her dress. + +"Are you coming with us?" said Lady Bell; "I am so glad." + +"So am I," said Jack; but his eyes went to Una's face. + +"Now, then," said Jack, as he bent forward. + +"Steady, old man," said Sir Arkroyd; "we haven't all got blacksmith's +muscles!" + +But Jack was wild, delirious with joy, and he pulled, heart and soul, +his great, strong arms bare to the elbows. + +"What a lovely night!" said Lady Bell. "Won't anybody sing?" + +Of course no one replied. + +"Sing something, my dear child," she said to Una. "You have a singing +face. You have no idea how beautiful it sounds on the water." + +"Oh, no, no," said Una, shrinking modestly. + +Jack looked up. + +"Sing," he murmured, pleadingly. As if he had uttered a command, she +looked at him with meek obedience, and began the song he had heard her +singing in the forest. + +Is there anything more exquisite on earth than the voice of a young +girl? Una knew nothing of the science of song; she had had no master, no +instruction of any sort; but her voice was clear and musical as a young +thrush's and she sang straight from her heart. + +No need to tell Jack to pull slower! He ceased rowing, and rested on his +oar, his eyes fixed on her face, his lips half apart. + +The other boats stopped also as the music of the sweet, young voice +floated down the stream, and one and all felt the spell. + +Lady Bell sat with lowered lids and pale face, and when the last note +died away and she looked up, her eyes were moist. + +"My dear," she said, in a low voice, "where did you learn to sing like +that?" + +Una, half frightened at the effect she had produced, flushed and sank +back into her seat. + +"I have never learned," she said, quietly. + +There was a murmur, and Lady Clarence turned and looked at her +curiously. + +"You have a beautiful voice," she said, "and exquisite taste, or you +could not sing as you do. It is a pity you have not been thoroughly +trained. You should have a master." + +"She shall!" said Lady Bell, impulsively. "She shall have the best. It +would be criminal to let such a gift be wasted!" + +Jack looked up with a flush of pleased gratitude, and Lady Bell happened +to catch that glance. + +With a slight start she turned pale, and looked from his face all aglow +with the fervor of loving admiration to Una's downcast one, and then, +with something like a shudder, she, too, sank back into the seat. + +"Isn't--isn't it cold?" she said, in a strangely changed voice. + +"Is it?" said Jack, musing. "We'll row on," and he bent to the oar +again. + +A peculiar silence fell upon them all; it seemed as if they were still +listening to the sweet voice. Lady Bell closed her eyes and remained +motionless, and Jack pulled as if he had undertaken to reach Richmond +within a given time. + +At Richmond tea was brought to them on the terrace while the horses were +put to, and very soon they were dashing toward London. + +Dalrymple declared that his arms were too stiff to allow him to handle +the four grays properly, and Jack was unanimously voted to the box. + +He looked rather inclined to refuse, but seeing that Una had been seated +close behind him, he climbed up and took the reins without a word. + +For the first mile or two he had quite enough to do to keep the nags in +hand; but he could feel that Una was close behind him, could feel her +breath on his cheek, and hear every word of the clear, low-pitched +voice, and he was deliriously happy. + +Presently, when he had got the horses into steady working, he turned his +head and pointing with his whip, as if he were directing her attention +to some object in the landscape, said in a low voice: + +"Una, can you hear me?" + +"Yes," she said, leaning forward. + +"I have been thinking it all over," he said, "but I can't make head or +tail of it. It's all a mystery. However, I know where you are now, and +that's something; and I can come and see you, and that's everything--to +me. Are you angry with me for speaking so--so boldly?" + +"No," she faltered. + +"And I may come and see you? I know Mrs. Davenant; she is a good +creature, though she thinks me everything that's bad--and she's not far +wrong, I'm afraid----" + +Una sighed faintly. + +"And perhaps she'll tell me what it means, and why Stephen has sent you +to be with her. Why, Una, did your father allow you to come? He loathed +me for being a distant relative of the Davenants." + +"I do not know," said Una, troubled. + +"Never mind," said Jack, hastening to soothe her; "it's sure to be all +right, if he did it. I liked your father, notwithstanding he was so +rough with me. I liked him because he took such care of you. Steady, +silly!" This was to the near leader, and not to Una. "What a lovely +night! Are you enjoying it?--are you happy?" + +A sigh, faint and tremulous, was full answer. + +"Please Heaven, we'll have many a night like this. Happy! I could go +half mad with delight at having you so near me. Una--I may call you +Una?" + +"Yes," she murmured. + +"Can you guess--you sweet, innocent flower--what makes me so happy?" + +"Tell me!" she answered, in a low voice, and leaning forward until her +soft, silken hair almost touched his. + +Jack's heart beat fast, and his blood bounded in his veins. + +"It is because I love you. I love you! Do you understand? Ah, my +darling! you don't know what love is. But I ought not to call you +so--not yet. I can't see your face; perhaps I shouldn't dare to be so +bold if I could. Speak to me, Una; speak to me. Tell me that you are not +angry. Tell me that, while I have never had your sweet face out of my +mind since that day we parted in Warden, you have thought once or twice +of me. I don't deserve it. I'm a bad lot; but I love you, Una. Do you +love me?" + +There was no reply; but there was a soft nestle beside him, and then he +felt her hand timidly touch his arm. + +He slipped the whip and reins into one hand, and seized the little +trembling hand and enclosed it as if he meant thus to swallow it up +forever. + +But, alas! the horses were going down hill, and were fidgeting and +pulling; and with impatient exclamation at their stupidity, he was +obliged to let the little hand go; but it did not go far; he could feel +it touching, softly and timidly, the edge of his coat-sleeve, and that +was enough for him. It was a mercy and a miracle that the drag was not +upset, for he scarcely knew where or how he was driving, and it was more +by instinct and habit that he brought the team safe and sound, but +sweating tremendously, before the house in Park Lane. + +"You must all come in," said Lady Bell. + +The gentlemen looked at their white flannels apologetically, but Lady +Bell laughed. + +"Let us pretend that we are our own masters and mistresses for one +night," she said, "and not the slaves of Fashion." + +Jack stood out. He felt that, for the present, it behooved him to be +discreet, and he knew that if he were not, it would be impossible for +him to conceal the romantic love which burned through and through him. +Besides, he knew that there would be no opportunity of speaking to Una +there; and he felt that it would be agony for him to assume the +conventional air of polite indifference to her for that evening, at +least. + +So he went. But he stood on the pavement to help her down; and as he +held her in his arms, he kept her for one moment poised between heaven +and earth; and as he put her down, his lips touched her arm, and she +knew it. + +"I'll see to the horses, Dal," he said; and he leaped up, and drove off +as if he were possessed. + +"That's what the Savage calls seeing to them!" grumbled Dalrymple. +"He'll throw 'em down, or run over somebody, and I shall be fined five +pounds for furious driving." + +Jack was conscientious--where horses were concerned--and he sat on the +rack and saw them rubbed down and fed with the patience of a martyr; +then he jumped into a hansom, was driven to Spider Court, and, bursting +into the room, fell into a chair and flung his cap at Leonard's head. + +"Mad at last!" said Leonard. + +"Yes, stark, staring, ramping mad, old fellow. I've found her!" + +"No!" said Leonard, turning round. + +"Yes! Yes! And I've spent the day with her. She's here in London, and +who do you think she is staying with? With Mrs. Davenant, Stephen's +mother!" + +"Stephen's mother!" said Leonard, with surprise. "Nonsense." + +"Fact! What do you make of it?" + +Leonard Dagle mused in silence. + +"I can make nothing of it," he said at last. + +"Did she know Mrs. Davenant?" + +"No; that's the mystery. Stephen, it seems, is the cause of her being +here. He found out her father--how I can't guess--he must, of course, +have known her before; there's nothing wonderful in that. But what is +wonderful is that Stephen should do anyone a good turn, +unless--unless--" and his face darkened suddenly and grew +fierce--"unless he had some end in view." + +"What end could he have in view here?" said Leonard. + +"That's what I can't make out; can you?" + +Leonard shook his head. + +"It's a strange story throughout." + +"It is," said Jack, grimly. "But, Stephen Davenant, if you mean any +mischief, look out! I'm on your track, my friend! But, Len, old man, you +look rather done up. What's the matter?" + +Leonard passed his hand over his brow. + +"Something strange and mysterious also," he said. "I went to Cheltenham +Terrace an hour ago, just on the chance of getting a glimpse +of--of----" + +"Of Laura Treherne. Well, old man?" + +"And I met with a similar shock to yours in Warden Forest. I found the +house shut up, and she--gone, vanished, disappeared!" + +"What!" exclaimed Jack. + +Leonard paced up and down. + +"I went to inquire next door, and I learned that old Mr. Treherne was +dead--you remember my telling you that the blinds were down--that the +funeral took place yesterday, and Miss Treherne had gone. They only +lodged there, it seems, and of course she could go at any moment. Where +she has gone no one seems to know. So there is an end to my little +romance! But no! it shall not end there." + +"No; take courage by my luck, old man," said Jack, laying his hand on +his shoulder--"take courage by me! Let us talk about it." + +"No, no!" said Leonard, shrinking; "I cannot--yet. You don't know how I +feel. Tell me what happened today. Was she glad to see you? Did you let +her see that you cared for her? Of course you did." + +"Yes," said Jack, with a proud, happy smile. "Yes, I told her that I +loved her, and--oh, Len! Len! I know that she cares for me!" + +Leonard stared at him gravely, and put down a paper which he had taken +up. But Jack saw it and took it off the table. + +"What are you reading there, Len?" + +Leonard took it out of his hand. + +"My poor, light-hearted, unreasoning Jack," he said. "It's Levy Moss' +reminder about that bill!" + +Jack's face fell and he dropped into a chair. + +"Quite right, Len," he said, hoarsely. "I am an unreasoning fool! What +have I done? I've behaved like a blackguard! I've got this angel to +admit that she loved me--me, a beggar--more than a beggar! But I swear I +forgot--I forgot everything when I was near her. Oh, Heaven, Len, it's +hard lines! What shall I do! If the poor old squire had but left me a +few hundreds a year, how happy we could be!" + +"But he hasn't," said Leonard, gravely and gently. "And what are you +going to do? There's the money you lost last night----" + +Jack groaned. + +"What an idiot I was. Len, I swear to you that I was nearly driven out +of my mind last night. First there was Lady Bell--she was more than +civil, and bearing in mind all you said and wanted me to do, I made +myself agreeable, and--and--she's very beautiful, Len, and when she +looks right into your eyes and smiles, she seems to do what she likes +with you. Len, I was nearly gone when that vision--as I thought it--came +into the glass amongst the ferns. I thought it was a vision--I know now +that she was there--and it drove me silly. I bolted out and made for the +club, and played to forget it all." + +"And made bad matters worse," said Leonard. "You're in a hole, Jack, I'm +afraid. Moss won't wait; there are other bills, and there's the I. O. U. +of last night, and you've lost the money you had, and you've asked this +young girl to love you. You mean to marry her--I say, you mean to marry +her. On what? How can you go to her father--who already doesn't seem +altogether prepossessed in your favor--and ask him to give his daughter +to a penniless gentleman? Mind--a gentleman! If you were a woodman like +himself, your being hard up wouldn't matter. You could take an ax, or +whatever they use, and earn your living. But you can't go and ask him to +let her share your over-due bills and I. O. U.'s." + +Jack groaned. + +"What shall I do, Len? My darling, my darling!" + +Leonard sighed. His heart--the heart of as true a friend as ever the +world held--ached for the wild, thoughtless youth. + +"Was Lady Bell there?" he asked, quietly. + +Jack leaped to his feet. + +"Lady Bell! I see what you mean!" he groaned. "Len, you are in love +yourself, and yet you ask me to sell myself----" + +Leonard flushed. + +"Jack, much as I care for you, I swear that I am thinking as much of her +good and happiness as of your own. If you marry her--which, after all, +you _cannot_--if you could you would make her life miserable; if you +marry Lady Bell, you will at least make _her_--happy." + +Jack paced up and down for a moment. Then he turned, white and haggard, +and held out his hand: + +"You are right. Would to Heaven you were not! I see it, I cannot help +it. I will not make her life miserable. But--but--I must go and tell +her. Heaven help us both!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise. Quite ignorant and +unconscious of all that was going on in London, Stephen remained down at +the Hurst. + +What he had written to his mother was quite true; as a matter of fact +Stephen was far too clever to write direct falsehoods--he was kept at +Hurst Leigh very much against his will. + +Squire Ralph had left him everything--money, house, lands, everything +excepting the few legacies to servants, and Stephen had been hard at +work, and was still hard at work ascertaining how much that everything +was. + +And, as day followed day, and disclosure succeeded disclosure, he became +fascinated and possessed by the immense wealth which had fallen into his +hands, or, say rather, which he had seized upon. + +For many years the old squire had lived upon less than half his income; +the remainder he had invested and speculated with, and as often happens +to the miser, the luck of Midas had fallen upon him. + +Everything he touched had turned to gold. The most unlikely speculations +had proved successful; properties which he had bought for a mere song, +and which had been regarded by the most wary as dangerous and +profitless, had become profitable and valuable. + +Some of these risky speculations he had, not unnaturally, kept concealed +from the prudent Hudsley, who only now, by the discovery of scrip and +bonds in out-of-the-way desks and bureaus, learned what kind of man his +old friend had really been. + +Not a day passed but it brought to light some addition to the old man's +gains, and served to swell the immense total. + +Even the lands round Hurst had been manipulated by the old man, so that +leases ran out almost at his death, and rents were raised. + +One speculation will serve as an instance; he had purchased, some +fifteen years before his death, the freehold of an estate bordering upon +London; and in a locality which was then regarded as hopelessly +unfashionable. A great capitalist had ruined himself by building large +houses on the property, foreseeing that at some time or other the tide +of the great city would reach this hitherto high and dry spot. But he +had made a miscalculation, and he died before the tide which was to +bring him wealth reached his property; old Ralph had then stepped in and +bought it--houses, land, everything. In ten years' time the tide of +fashion rolled that way, and now what had once been a neglected and +forgotten quarter was the center of fashionable London. + +It reads like a romance, but like many other romances, it was true. + +Old Ralph himself had no idea of his own wealth, and that when he died +he should leave behind him one of the most colossal fortunes in England. + +Almost stunned by the immense total--so far as it had been arrived +at--Stephen went about the place silent and overwhelmed. + +But one thought was always ringing like a bell in his brain--"And I had +nearly lost all this!" + +Sometimes, in the quiet of the library, where he sat surrounded by books +and papers, by accountants' statements and estimates, he would grow pale +and tremble as he reflected by what a narrow chance he had secured this +Midas-like wealth. + +But had he secured it? and when the question presented itself, as it did +a hundred, aye, a thousand times a day, he would turn ashy pale, and +clutch the edge of the table to keep himself from reeling. + +Where was that will--the real, true, valid will--which left everything +away from him to Una? + +Day by day, while going over the accounts, he found himself waiting, +watching, expecting someone--whom he could not imagine--coming in and +saying: "This is not yours; here is the will. I found it so and so, at +such and such a time!" and he felt that if such a moment occurred it +would kill him. + +But as the days passed and no one came to contest his claim to the +property, he grew more confident and assured, and at last he nearly +succeeded in convincing himself that he really had burned the will. + +"After all," he mused, over and over again, "that is the only probable, +the only possible explanation. Is it likely that if anyone had the +accursed thing they would keep it hidden? No! If they were honest, they +would have declared it at once; if dishonest, they would have brought it +to me and traded upon it. Yes, I was half mad that night. I must have +destroyed it at the moment Laura knocked at the window." + +But all the same he determined to make his position secure. Immediately +he had arranged matters at the Hurst he would go to London and marry +Una. + +"She is all safe and sound there," he mused, with a satisfied smile. "My +mother leads the life of a hermit. The girl herself has no friends--not +one single soul in London. I shall be her only friend, and--the rest is +easy." + +Poor Stephen! + +Then he would give a passing thought to Laura, and now and then would +take from his pocket half a dozen letters, which she had written to him +since the night of her journey to Hurst. + +To not one of these had he replied, and the last was dated a week back. + +"By this time," he thought, "she has forgotten me, or what is better, +has learned that plain Stephen Davenant and Squire Davenant of Hurst +Leigh are two very different men. Poor Laura! Well, well, I must do +something for her. I'll make her a handsome present. Say a thousand +pounds; perhaps find a husband for her. She's a sensible girl, too +sensible to dream that I should think of marrying her now. After all, +what harm is done? We were very happy, and amused ourselves with +innocent flirtation. A mere flirtation, that is all." + +And he tried to forget the pale face and flashing eyes which turned +toward him that night at parting with such a strange look of warning. +But he did not always succeed in forgetting. Sometimes the remembrance +of that face rose like a vision between his eyes and the endless rows of +figures, and made him shudder with mingled fear and annoyance. + +"It has been a lesson to me," he would say, after awhile. "It is the +only weakness I have ever been guilty of, and see how I am punished. I +deserve it, and I must bear it." + +It punished him, and it told upon him. The pallor which had come upon +his face the day the will was read had settled there. The old look of +composed serenity and "oiliness," as Jack called it, had gone, and in +the place was a look of strained intentness, as if he were always +listening, and watching, and waiting. + +He was a fine actor, and would have made a fortune on the boards, and he +managed to suppress this look at times, but the effort of suppression +was palpable; he showed that he was affecting a calmness and serenity +which he did not possess. + +By two men, of all others, this change in him was especially noticed--by +Mr. Hudsley and old Skettle. + +The old lawyer and his clerk were necessarily with him every day; +Stephen could not move a step without them. He hated Hudsley, whose +keen, steel-like eyes seemed to penetrate to his inmost heart; and he +detested Skettle, whose quiet, noiseless way of moving about and +watching him from under his wrinkled lids, irritated Stephen to such an +extent that sometimes he felt an irresistible desire to fling something +at him. + +But both of the men were indispensable to him at present, and he +determined to wait until everything was straight before he cut all +connections with them. + +"Once let me get matters settled," he muttered to himself over and over +again, "and those two vultures shall never darken my doors again." + +And yet Hudsley was always scrupulously polite and civil, and Skettle +always respectful. + +With his characteristic graveness, Mr. Hudsley went through the work +systematically and machine-like. + +But Stephen noticed when he came to announce some fresh edition to the +great Davenant property, he never even uttered a formal congratulation, +or seemed pleased and gratified. + +One day Stephen, nettled beyond his usual caution, said: "You must be +tired of all this, Mr. Hudsley. I notice that it seems to annoy you." + +And the old lawyer had looked up with grim impassibility. + +"You are mistaken, Mr. Stephen. I am never tired, and I am never +annoyed." + +"At least you must be surprised," said Stephen; "you had no idea that my +uncle had left so much." + +"No, I am not even surprised," retorted Mr. Hudsley, if his calm reply +could be called a retort. "I have lived too long to be surprised by +anything." + +And there was something in his keen, icy look which silenced Stephen, +and made him bend over his papers suddenly. + +Others noticed the change which had come over the once sleek, +smooth-spoken young man. It got to be remarked that he rarely left the +Hurst grounds, and that what exercise he took was on the terrace in +front of the library, or on the lawn below it. It was said that he paced +up and down this lawn for hours. + +It was said, too, that he rarely addressed a servant in or out of the +house. All the orders came through the valet Slummers. + +Mention has been made of Slummers. It would have been difficult to +describe him. He was called in the village "the Shadow," because he was +so thin and noiseless, so silent and death-like. + +In addition to his noiselessness, he had a trick of going about with +closed eyes, or with his lids so lowered that it looked as if his eyes +were closed. + +Bets had been made upon the supposed color of those visional organs, but +had never been decided, for never by any chance did he look anyone in +the face when speaking; and when by some accident those sphinx-like lids +were raised they were dropped again so quickly that examination of what +lay behind them was impossible. + +Secretiveness was part and parcel of this man. He never did anything +openly. When he gave an order it was in a round-about way. The simplest +action of his daily life was enveloped in mystery. Even his meals were +taken in a room apart; only a few of the servants knew the room he +occupied. Then he seemed ubiquitous. He was everywhere at once, and +turned up when least expected. + +With noiseless step he came and went about the house; now in the +servants' hall, now in the library closeted with his master, now in the +stables looking under his lids at the horses, counting, so said the +grooms, every oat that went into the mangers. Not a thing was done in +the house but he was acquainted with it. + +And he knew everything! Not a secret was kept from him. Had anyone in +the village an episode in his life, which he hoped and deemed hidden and +forgotten, Slummers knew it, and managed by some dropped word or look to +let the miserable man know that he knew it. + +Before he had been at Hurst a week he had half the servants and +villagers in his power. + +Power! That was the secret mainspring of the man's existence. He loved +power. + +Give even the fiend his due. This man had one good quality, he was +devoted to his master. Saving this one great event of his life--the +theft and loss of his will--Stephen trusted him in everything. + +And Slummers admired him. In his eyes Stephen was the cleverest man on +earth, and being the cleverest man on earth Slummers was content to +serve him. Yes, Slummers was devoted to his master, but he made up for +it in his detestation of the rest of mankind in general, and of one man +in particular--Jack Newcombe. + +Between Jack--honest, frank, and reckless Jack--and the serpent-like +Slummers there had been a feud which had commenced from the moment of +their first introduction. + +On that occasion Slummers had been sent with a message to Jack's room. +Jack happened to be out, and Slummers whiled away the tediousness of +waiting by opening a drawer in Leonard's table and reading some +unimportant letters. Jack, coming in with his usual suddenness, caught +him and kicked him. Jack had forgotten it long ago, but Slummers had +not, and he waited for the time till he could return that kick in his +own fashion. + +The days passed, and Mr. Hudsley's task appeared to be nearing a +conclusion. + +One morning he came up to the Hurst, his hands behind his back, his head +bent as usual, and asked for Stephen. + +Stephen was in the library, and Slummers noiselessly ushered in the +lawyer. It happened to be what Stephen would have called one of his bad +mornings. He was seated at the table, not at work, but looking at the +pile of papers with lack-luster eyes, that saw nothing, and pale, drawn +face. + +Hudsley had seen him like this before, but his keen eyes looked like +steel blades. + +Stephen started and put his thin, white hand across his brow. + +"Good morning," he said. "Good morning. Any news? Sit down." + +But Hudsley remained standing. + +"I have no news," he said. "I think I may say that there are no more +surprises for us. You know the extent of the fortune which you hold!" + +He did not say "which is yours," or "which your uncle left you." Simply +"which you hold." On Stephen's strained mind the phrase jarred. He +nodded and kept his eyes downcast. + +"The business that lies within my province," continued Mr. Hudsley, "is +completed. What remains is the work of an accountant. My task is done." + +"I am sure," said Stephen, smoothly, "that you do not need any assurance +of my gratitude----" + +The old man waved his wrinkled hand. + +"I have been the legal adviser of the Davenant family for the last forty +years," he said, "and I know my duty. I trust I have done it so far as +you are concerned," he said, sternly. "And now I have come to you to +request you to receive what papers and documents are in my charge--my +clerk, Skettle, will hand them to you and take your receipt--and to +inform you that I wish to withdraw from my position as your legal +adviser." + +Stephen's pale face winced and shrunk, and he raised his eyes +suspiciously. + +"Mr. Hudsley, you surprise me! May I ask your reasons for this abrupt +withdrawal?" + +"My reasons are my own," said Hudsley, dryly; "I may say that I am +growing old, and that I am disinclined to undertake the charge of so +large an estate." + +"Oh!" said Stephen, with a sickly smile. "Such a reason is unanswerable. +But I deeply regret it--deeply. My uncle always trusted you." + +"He did nothing of the sort," interrupted Mr. Hudsley, sternly. "He +trusted no man." + +"At any rate, I have placed implicit and well-merited confidence in +you," said Stephen. + +The old man looked at him and Stephen trembled. + +"I--I hope I shall find your bill of costs among the papers?" he said, +hoarsely. + +"No," said Mr. Hudsley. "What service I have rendered you I consider as +rendered to the estate. The estate has paid me sufficiently hitherto. I +need, I will receive no other payment." + +"But----" urged Stephen. + +Mr. Hudsley waved his hand. + +"I am quite resolved, sir. If you should need any information respecting +any business that has occurred up to the present, I am at your service; +but for the future I beg to withdraw. Good-morning." + +Stephen rose, and held out his hand. + +"At least, Mr. Hudsley," he said, "we part as friends, notwithstanding +this hasty resolution of yours?" + +"It is not hasty, sir," said Hudsley, and just touching the cold, thin +hand, he bowed and left the room. + +Stephen sank into a chair, and wiped the drops of cold sweat that had +accumulated on his brow. + +"He suspects me," he muttered. "He suspects! But he suspects only, and +he can do nothing, or he would have done it. Yes; he is powerless. Let +him go! let him go!" he repeated; and he paced the room. + +Gradually the relief of Hudsley's withdrawal broke upon him, and his +step grew lighter. + +"Yes, let him go! Now I am free--I am my own master! master of wealth +undreamed of! And I'll use it! By Heaven, I'll be happy! Let him go! I +meant to get rid of him--he has saved me an unpleasant scene. And now +to work, to work!" + +He ran rather than walked across the room, and rang the bell. + +Slummers opened the door almost instantly and stood motionless and +silent. + +"Has--has that old idiot gone?" asked Stephen. + +"Yes, sir," said Slummers. + +Stephen laughed hoarsely. + +"Let the past go with him!" he said. "Slummers, go to my room and bring +a roll of papers from my bureau-drawer. You know what they are! Plans +and estimates. Do you know what I am going to do?" + +Slummers raised his eyes. + +"Of course you do!" said Stephen with the same laugh. "I'm going to make +a clean sweep here, Slummers. I'm going to pull half this beastly place +to the ground. Alterations, Slummers--alterations that will make Hurst a +place for a man to live in, not a tomb, as it is at present." + +"You are right, sir, it is a tomb," said Slummers, in his low, hollow +voice. + +Stephen shuddered. + +"Yes, yes; but I mean to alter that. I'll make it fit to live in, fit to +bring a young bride to. Fetch the plans, Slummers; I'll go over them at +once, this minute. Yes, I will change the place till the very trees +shall not know it. Fetch the plans! I'll pull the whole of it down, +every stick and stone! I hate it--hate it! I'll change the name! I can +do it. I can do anything now, or what is the use of this money? Fetch +the plans! Fetch----" He broke off suddenly and staggered. + +Slummers sprang nervously forward and caught him, and putting him into a +chair, poured out some neat brandy and gave it to him. + +Stephen tugged at his collar and struggled for a moment, then sank back +helplessly. + +"Stop!" he said, "stay here. Don't go. I--I can hear voices--an old +man's voice--what is it?" + +"Nothing--nothing," said Slummers. "Be calm, sir." + +"Calm--I am calm!" retorted Stephen. "It's this beastly house, it's full +of noises! Give me some brandy--and--get the time table. I'll go to +London to-morrow, Slummers. Yes, I'll go to London!" + +And the master of Hurst, the owner of a million and more, sank back in +his chair and fingered the time table with trembling fingers. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +"Jack Newcombe!" exclaimed Mrs. Davenant, looking at the card which Mary +had brought in. "Jack Newcombe!" she repeated a second time. "My dear, +come here!" + +Una was sitting beside the open window, a book in her lap, her eyes +fixed on the sun setting just behind the chimneys. + +"Yes," she said, her face flushed, her eyes glowing as if the sun were +reflected in them; but she did not move. + +Mrs. Davenant hurried across the room with the card in her hand. + +"Una, dear, see here," she said, nervously. "Here is Jack Newcombe! +You've heard me speak of him." + +Una, feeling guilty and deceitful, hung her head. + +Her heart beat fast. For two days she had waited and watched for +him--never for a moment had he been absent from her mind. + +And now he was here, in the next room. + +"Yes," she said, "I--I remember." + +"Well, my dear, I don't know what to do. I don't know what he wants--do +you?--but of course you don't!" + +Una flushed crimson to her very neck. + +"I think you had better go, my dear," said Mrs. Davenant, fidgeting with +the card. + +Una did not move. + +"Why?" she asked, raising her eyes for the first time. + +Mrs. Davenant moved her head nervously. + +"Because--I don't think Stephen--I mean--Jack Newcombe is the sort of +man you ought to know." + +"But," said Una, softly and with a steady look in her dark eyes, "I do +know him already." + +Mrs. Davenant stared. + +"You know him? Jack Newcombe?" + +Una nodded. + +"Yes," she said in a low voice. "I met him up the river. I saw him at +Lady Bell's--he is a friend of hers----" + +"But why didn't you tell me?" said Mrs. Davenant, looking distressed and +frightened. + +Una felt guilty. + +"I don't know," she said in reply. "I think it was because I knew you +would feel angry." + +Mrs. Davenant stared at her. It was like the reply of a child in its +simple, naked truth. + +"Well, well," she said, with a troubled voice, "of course you couldn't +help it, and I couldn't help it. And"--here the door opened quietly, and +Jack's head appeared, and Mrs. Davenant started. + +Seeing that they were alone, Jack came in with his usual coolness, +though his heart beat; and he crossed the room, and took Mrs. Davenant's +hand and kissed her forehead. + +And the poor woman melted in a moment, as she always did when Jack was +actually present. As a matter of simple truth, she was really as fond of +him as if he had been her own son, and but for Stephen, Jack would have +seen her oftener. + +He had lost his mother in early boyhood, and the kind-hearted, +affectionate, timid Mrs. Davenant had often dried his boyish tears and +held him in her arms. Even now, notwithstanding Jack's wickedness, of +which Stephen made the most, her heart went out toward him. + +He had not been near her for some months, nearly a year, all through +Stephen, and she had almost given him up; but Jack's kiss revived all +the old tenderness. And what woman could resist his handsome face and +frank, manly way? + +"Well, ma'am," he said--and "ma'am" sounded in her ears and in Una's +almost like "mother"--"and how are you? And aren't you glad to see me?" + +"Yes, Jack," said Mrs. Davenant, nervously. + +"Then why do you keep me in the draughty hall for half an hour? Do you +want me to catch cold?" + +"Half an hour?" murmured Mrs. Davenant. "I'm sure you haven't been there +three minutes." + +"Two minutes and a half too long," he said, smiling. He was giving Una +time to recover herself. + +"You never come to see me now, Jack," said Mrs. Davenant, looking up at +him sadly. + +"And now I do, you keep me outside. Besides, you never ask me. Who's +that in the back room, ma'am?" + +Mrs. Davenant started; she had almost forgotten Una. + +"You know her!" she said. + +Jack had got his cue. + +"Oh, it's Miss Rolfe," he said, and then he crossed the room and held +out his hand. + +Una rose, and without a word put her hand in his, her eyes downcast, +lest the love which beamed in them should escape against her will. + +"Yes," said Jack, "I have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Rolfe once or +twice lately." + +Then he turned away from her and began talking to Mrs. Davenant, as if +Una were not in the room. + +It was just what Una wanted. She felt that she could not speak, and for +the present it was happiness enough to have him in the same room with +her, and to hear his voice. + +And Mrs. Davenant, now that the first shock was over, was glad enough to +sit down and listen to the frank, musical voice--so unlike Stephen's +measured, modulated tone. + +Presently she said in a low, nervous tone: + +"Jack, I am so sorry!" + +Jack nodded, and his face dropped. + +"About the poor squire? Yes! Never mind. It is all right. No! It's all +wrong for me, but all right for Stephen." + +"But Stephen doesn't--doesn't want it all," she murmured. + +Jack looked another way; he had a different opinion. + +"Never mind," he said, "don't let us worry about it--you and I. It's all +past and gone, and there's no help for it." + +"But you have worried," she said. "You don't look so well as you did, +Jack. I hope--I do hope," and her voice faltered. + +Jack's face flushed for a moment. + +"You are going to scold me, as usual," he said. "Well, go on, it will +be your last opportunity, ma'am. I've reformed." + +There was something in his tone, something so earnest and grave, that +she looked at him anxiously. + +"Oh, Jack, I wish--I wish you would be more steady." + +"Wait and see," he said, gravely, and in a low voice. + +Mrs. Davenant wiped her eyes, and glanced at the clock. It was near the +dinner hour. + +"Do you want me to go?" said Jack, in his blunt way, and he took up his +hat and gloves. + +Mrs. Davenant hesitated a moment. + +"You wouldn't stop to dinner, if I asked you," she said, with a faint +smile. + +Una's heart gave a great leap. + +"Try me," said Jack. "Yes, I'll stay. Now don't look frightened and +disappointed, or I'll go." + +Mrs. Davenant rose, with her rare laugh. + +"I must go and tell them," she said, "or you'd be starved," and she left +the room. + +Jack went and stood beside the silent, motionless figure and looked down +at her with infinite yearning and infinite sorrow. He had come resolved +to tell her the truth and to bid her to forget him. + +"Una," he said, in a low voice. + +She raised her eyes, and in an instant his grand resolution, built up +with such care for the last two days, crumbled into dust. With something +like a groan he was on his knee and caught her to his breast. + +For a moment she resigned herself to the exquisite joy of his embrace, +and with downcast eyes drooped beneath his passionate kisses, then with +an effort she regained possession of the soul which had slipped from her +into his, as it were, and gently disengaged herself. + +"No, no, you frighten me!" she murmured, as Jack's arm drew her toward +him again. + +"My darling! There!" and he kissed her hands. "How can I do it? It is +too much to ask of mortal man." + +"Do what?" she murmured. + +Jack's face paled. + +"Nothing--nothing," he said. + +"And are you really going to stay?" she murmured, her eyes beaming with +pleasure. + +"Yes," he said, "I came on purpose. If she had not asked me I meant to +ask her." + +"And you love her, don't you? Is she not good--and isn't it cruel to +deceive her," said Una, and she hung her head. + +"She's the dearest old lady in the world," said Jack, enthusiastically, +who would have loved a gorilla, much less Mrs. Davenant, if it had been +kind to Una. "Why, she was a second mother to me until Stephen grew +up--and she has been kind to you. I can see that for myself. But you +must tell me all about it--all about everything tonight. Think, my +darling! we shall be together here all the evening! No noisy crowd to +prevent us talking--no interference. I shall want to know everything. +Hush! here she comes," and with another swift kiss he rose and went into +the next room. Una stole out and upstairs to dress. + +Quite unsuspicious, Mrs. Davenant came back smiling. She had ordered one +or two of Jack's favorite dishes, and had come to ask him about the +claret. + +"There is some of the Chateau la Rose, Jack. Would you like to have it +warmed a little?" she asked, anxiously. + +"Let them put a bottle in the kitchen somewhere," said Jack. "It will +get right there by dinner time. Eight o'clock you dine, I know. I'll +just run home and dress, and be back punctually to the minute." + +"It will be the first time in your life then," said Mrs. Davenant. + +For the first time in his life then Jack was punctual. At five minutes +to eight a hansom dashed up to the door, and Jack, in evening dress, +with his light overcoat, strode up the steps and into the drawing-room. + +It was empty, but a minute afterward he heard the rustle of a woman's +dress, and turned as Una entered the room. She wore the dress she had +worn at Lady Bell's, and Jack, who had not yet seen her in her "war +paint"--as he would have described it--was startled; and Una, as she saw +the look of surprise and rapt admiration, felt, like a true woman, a +glow of satisfaction and pleasure. It was not that she was beautiful, +but that he should think her so. + +"My darling," he murmured, holding her at arm's length; "what magic +charm do you possess that enables you to grow more beautiful every time +I see you? Or is it all a mistake, and are you another Una than the Una +of Warden Forest?" + +Una put her hands on his shoulders trustfully, and turned her face up to +him. + +"Tell me," she murmured, "which Una do you like best?" + +Jack thought a moment. + +"I love them both so well," he said, "that I can't decide." And he +kissed her twice. "One is for the Una of the Forest, and one for the Una +of the world," he said. + +She had only time to slip from his arms when Mrs. Davenant entered. + +"What do you say to punctuality, ma'am?" he exclaimed, triumphantly, as +he gave her his arm and lead her into the dining-room. + +Jack was a favorite, for all his wickedness, wherever he went. It was no +sooner known that he was to dine in the house, that the cook awoke to +instant energy and enthusiasm. + +"Master Jack's a gentleman worth cooking a dinner for," she declared. +"It's a waste of time to worry yourself for women folk; they don't know +a good dinner from a bad one; but Master Jack--oh, that's a different +thing! He knows what clear soup ought to be; and he shall have it right, +too." + +Mrs. Davenant herself was surprised at the elaborate little dinner. + +"I wish you'd dine with us every day, my dear Jack," she said. + +Jack glanced demurely at Una, in time to catch the sparkle in her dark +eyes. + +"I'm afraid you'd soon get tired of me," he said. "But, seriously, I +should improve the cooking; not this day's, I mean, but the usual ones. +You've got a treasure of a cook, ma'am." + +And, of course, this was carried down by Mary to the empress of the +kitchen, and her majesty was rewarded for all her trouble. + +"What did I tell you?" she demanded. "Master Jack knows." + +Jack's appetite was always good, in love or out of it, and this evening +would have been the happiest in his life but for certain twinges of +conscience. + +What should he say to Leonard, the faithful friend, when he got home and +was asked how he had parted from Una? However, he stifled conscience--it +is always easy to do that at dinner time. + +"Will you have some more claret?" asked Mrs. Davenant, as she and Una +prepared to leave him. "You can smoke a cigarette, if you like; but open +the window afterward." + +"I won't have any more claret, and I won't smoke," said Jack. "I'll just +finish this glass and come with you for a cup of tea." + +Five minutes of solitude spent in going over every look and word of the +lovely creature he had won, were enough for Jack. + +He found them seated at the window; Una in a low chair, almost at Mrs. +Davenant's feet. They both looked up, as if glad to see him; and Mrs. +Davenant at once rang for tea and coffee. + +Una rose, and officiated with calm self-possession and accustomed +ease--no one would have guessed that her acquaintance with a London +drawing-room, and its accompanying forms and ceremonies, was only that +of a few weeks--and brought Jack his cup. + +In taking it, he tried to touch her hand, and nearly upset the cup. + +"Take care, my dear Jack," said Mrs. Davenant. "Has he spoiled your +dress, my dear?" + +"No," said Una, her face red as a rose. "It was my fault." + +"Yes; it was her fault," said Jack, significantly. + +"You always were clumsy, my dear Jack," said Mrs. Davenant. "You are too +big." + +"I'll get myself cut down a foot or two," said Jack. + +Happy! They were as happy as any two women in London, notwithstanding +Jack's wickedness. + +Jack glanced at the piano. + +"I wish you could play," he said to Una. + +Mrs. Davenant looked at him. + +"How do you know she cannot?" she said. + +Jack looked embarrassed. + +"I rather fancy I heard U--Miss Rolfe--admit as much. But she can sing, +I know." + +"And you can play for her," said Mrs. Davenant. "You used to play very +nicely when you were a boy," and she sighed. + +Jack looked dubious for a moment, then, with sudden assurance and +confidence, jumped up. + +"Let me try. Will you come, Miss Rolfe?" + +Una followed him to the piano, and Jack turned out all the music from +the canterbury on the floor. + +"Come and see if there is anything you know," he said, and Una knelt +down beside him. + +Of course Jack's hand was on hers in a moment. + +"I nearly let the cat out of the bag just then," he said. "I must be +careful." + +"But why?" asked Una. "Why may we not----" she paused, then, having +raised her eyes, she continued--"why may she not know?" + +"So she shall," said Jack, "all in good time. I can't consent to share +my secret all in one evening! Besides----" + +"Cannot you find anything," said Mrs. Davenant, sleepily, from the next +room. + +Jack stuck up some music on the stand and sat down. + +He had played well at one time, in a rough fashion, and had a wonderful +ear, and, quite regardless of the music, he launched into a prelude. + +"Sing the song you sang the other evening, my darling," he whispered. "I +remember every note of it." + +Una obeyed instantly. Free from any spark of vanity, she knew nothing of +the shyness which assails self-conscious people. Jack, with his acute +ear, played a running accompaniment easily enough; it was true he had +remembered every note of it. + +"You nightingale," he whispered, looking up at her, and the fervent +admiration of his eyes made her heart throb. + +"Now sing something yourself, Jack," said Mrs. Davenant. + +Jack thought a moment, his fingers straying over the keys, then +softening his full baritone voice as much as possible, he sang--"Yes, +dear, I love but thee!" + +It was an old English song, one of the sweetest of the old melodies +which even now have power to rouse a _blase_ audience to enthusiasm. + +Una stood behind him entranced, bewitched; he sang every word to _her_. + +"Yes, dear, I love but thee!" + +Oh, Heaven, it was too great a joy! + +Unconsciously she drew nearer and put her hand upon his shoulder, +timidly, caressingly, and as the music ceased, Jack turned and caught it +prisoner in his. + +"Yes, dear, I love but thee!" he murmured. + +"And I"--she breathed, her eyes melting with passionate tenderness--"and +I love but thee." + +"My darling," he whispered, "do you know what you are giving me--your +precious self--and to whom you are giving it?" + +The voice fell; conscience was awake again. + +"Una," he went on, hurriedly, passionately. "I am not worthy of your +love----" + +"I love but thee!" she breathed, softly. + +"You do not know, you who are so ignorant of the world, what it means to +wed a man like myself, penniless, worthless--oh, Heaven, forgive me!" + +"I love but thee!" she breathed, for all her answer. + +Jack bent his head over her hand. + +"What can I do?" he murmured, bitterly. "I cannot give her up." + +Then he looked up. + +"Have you no fear, Una? Do you trust me so entirely? Think, can you face +poverty and all its trials. Dear, I am very poor, worse than poor." + +She smiled an ineffable smile. + +"And I am rich--while I have your love." + +Then suddenly her voice changed, and with a look of terror she bent over +him, almost clingingly. + +"What is it you are saying? Jack! Jack! you will not leave me?" + +Jack started to his feet, and regardless of waking Mrs. Davenant, took +her in his arms. + +"Never, by Heaven!" he exclaimed. + +There was one moment of ecstatic joy, then suddenly Una drew back; and +with a gesture of alarm, pointed to the looking-glass. Jack raised his +head, and with a sudden cry drew her nearer to him as if to protect her. + +Reflected in the glass was the thin figure of Stephen Davenant, looking +rather like a ghost than a man--silent, motionless, with pallid face, +and set, rigid eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +White and haggard, Stephen stood in shadow-way, his eyes fixed on Jack +and Una with an expression of mingled astonishment and rage beyond all +description. + +Jack was too astonished by what seemed as much an apparition as a +reality, to withdraw his arm from round Una's waist, and it was she who +first recovered self-possession enough to cross over to Mrs. Davenant +and wake her. + +Her movement seemed to recall Stephen to a sense of the situation, and +in a moment he rose and coped with it. + +Another man, a weaker man, coming thus suddenly upon what looked like +the wreck of all his deeply-laid plans, upon seeing the girl, whom it +was all-important he should secure for himself, in the arms of the man +he hated and feared most in the world, would have given vent to his +wrath and disappointment. But not so Stephen. By a vast effort, he +suppressed the evil glance in his eyes, forced a smile to his compressed +lips, and came across the room with outstretched hand and an expression +of warmest and most affectionate greeting. + +"My dear Jack!" he exclaimed, in his soft tones, almost rough in their +warmth and geniality. "Now, this is a pleasant surprise. How do you do? +how do you do?" + +But almost before Jack knew it, Stephen had seized him by the hand, and +was swinging it convulsively, smiling so that all his teeth glittered +and shone in the candle-light. + +Jack was taken by surprise, and returned the greeting cordially; indeed, +what else could he do, seeing that he was in Stephen's mother's house, +and making love to Stephen's _protegee_? + +"Quite a surprise!" said Stephen, laughing; and then, still talking to +Jack, he crossed over and bent down to kiss his mother. "How do you do, +my dear mother? Now don't be angry at my taking you so unexpectedly." + +"Angry, my dear Stephen!" faltered Mrs. Davenant; and indeed, it was not +anger so much as fear that shone in the timid eyes. + +Then, having got himself completely under control, Stephen raised his +eyes to Una, and held out his hand. + +"And how do you do, Miss Rolfe? I hope your health has not suffered in +this close London of ours. May I say that there are no signs of such an +ill result in your face?" + +Una gave him her hand, and smiled at him in her quiet, grave way. + +"I am very well, thank you," she said. + +"That's right," said Stephen--"that's right!" + +And he stood and looked from one to the other, rubbing his white, soft +hands, and smiling as if he were over-running with the milk of human +kindness. + +Meanwhile Mrs. Davenant had risen, and was fluttering about nervously. + +"Have you dined, Stephen? We can get some dinner, or--or something +directly." + +"My dear mother, I dined at my rooms two hours ago; but if you have a +cup of tea, now; but don't trouble--it does not matter in the +slightest." + +Fresh tea was brought in, and Una, as usual, officiated. Stephen, +leaning over a chair-back, talked to Jack and Mrs. Davenant, but his +eyes turned continually on the graceful figure and the beautiful +profile; and not one of them guessed the rage and fury which boiled and +simmered under his calm and amiable exterior. + +Already, as if some one had told him, he knew that Una had been out into +the world. Her dress, her manner told him that; and while he smiled +lovingly at his mother, he was crying out inwardly: + +"Fool! fool! to trust Una to her." + +He took his cup of tea, his hand as steady as a rock, and chatted with +Jack, full of the pleasantest interest. + +Where had he been, and what had he been doing? and was he in those +eccentric but charming rooms of his in the Temple still? and how was his +friend Leonard Dagle? + +He was full of questions, questions which Jack answered in his curt, +brief fashion. And all the while Stephen was weighing the situation, +realizing all its danger and peril, and determining on a course of +action. + +"Just one more cup, Miss Rolfe, if you please. Tea is my favorite +beverage--I am quite an old washerwoman!" + +Then he took his cup, and sat down beside her. + +"Yes," he said, not in a particularly low tone, but in his softest +manner--"yes, I am glad to see that your health has not suffered in +London. I trust you have been happy?" + +Una looked up with a faint flush on her face. + +"I have been--I am very, very happy," she said, and Jack's face flushed +too with the delight at the accent on "I am." + +"That is right," said Stephen, with the air of an old, old friend, "and +I hope my mother has found some amusement for you--that she has shown +you something of the great world." + +"Yes," said Una, and she glanced at Mrs. Davenant, from whose pale face +all traces of the calm serenity which had reigned there during the +earlier part of the evening had entirely fled--"yes, I have been very +gay--is not that the word? I have been to a ball, and to a picnic, and +have seen all the sights." + +"And where was the ball?" + +"At Lady Earlsley's," said Una. + +Stephen opened his eyes and smiled. + +"My dear Miss Rolfe, you have penetrated the most exclusive of social +rings! Lady Earlsley's! Come, that is very satisfactory; and Jack--Jack +is my cousin--well, very nearly cousin, you know, I hope he has made +himself useful and agreeable?" + +Una glanced shyly and gravely at Jack--a glance that told everything, +even if Stephen had not seen her in Jack's arms. + +"Yes," she said, in a low voice, "Mr. Newcombe has been very--kind." + +Stephen smiled and showed all his teeth. + +"I am afraid there will be nothing left for me to do," he said. + +Then, in a lower voice, he added: + +"You will be glad to hear that I have news of your father." + +Una looked up breathlessly. The question had been hovering on her lips. + +Stephen nodded. + +"Yes, he wrote me from a place in Surrey called--tut--tut! The name has +escaped me! They are quite well, and send their fondest love." + +Una's eyes filled. + +"Why did they leave the cottage so suddenly?" she said. + +"Because your father wished for a change. I told you truth, you see, +when I said that your departure would be good for him, and wean him from +his seclusion." + +"Why does he not come to see me?" asked Una. + +"He is coming, my dear Una," said Stephen. "But at present he is very +much engaged, and quite satisfied with my favorable report of your +health and happiness. But come, I must not make you homesick. Were you +not playing when I came in?" + +Una flushed. + +"Jack--Mr. Newcombe--was playing," she said; "I was singing." + +"Pray don't let me interrupt you," said Stephen, genially, "or I shall +feel like an intruder, and walk off again. Jack, go on with your music, +my dear fellow." + +But Jack declined promptly, though politely. + +"I'm afraid I must be off," he said, looking at his watch, and then at +Una, wistfully. + +"Not yet," said Stephen. "I have a whole budget of news to tell you. I +dare say you wonder why I haven't been up before this; but there was so +much to do--a surprising deal." + +Jack nodded curtly. He certainly didn't want to finish up this +particular evening by hearing Stephen's talk of the Hurst. + +"No doubt," he said. "You must come and dine with me and tell me. +Good-night, Mrs. Davenant!" + +Mrs. Davenant gave him her hand. + +"Must you go, Jack?" she said, tremulously. "You--you will come again?" + +"Most certainly I will," said Jack, significantly. + +Una had risen and gone to the piano to gather up the music which Jack, +with his usual untidiness, had scattered about. + +He followed her, and knelt down as if to help her. + +"Good-night, my darling!" he murmured, touching her arm caressingly. +"Don't be afraid." + +Una raised her arm and touched it with her lips. + +"Afraid--of whom?" + +"Of--nobody!" said Jack, rather ungrammatically. + +"Not of Mr. Davenant, who has been so kind?" she whispered, with a +surprised look. + +Jack bit his lip. + +"No, no; certainly not. Oh, yes, he has been kind." + +Then with a long, loving look into her sweet face he crossed the room. + +"Good-night, Stephen." + +"You are really going? Well, then, I'll go with you," said Stephen. +"Mother will not mind my running away tonight, I am rather tired." + +And he stooped and kissed her, and went to the door. + +It almost seemed as if he had forgotten Una; but he turned suddenly and +held out his hand, a bland, benevolent smile on his pale face. + +"Good-night, good-night," he murmured, softly, and followed after Jack, +who, the moment he reached the pavement, looked out for a hansom; but +Stephen linked his arm in Jack's, and said: + +"Are you in a hurry, my dear Jack? If not, I'll walk a little way with +you; or will you come toward my rooms?" + +Jack consented to the latter course, by turning in the direction of the +"Albany" in silence. + +He felt that Stephen was playing a part--why or wherefore he could not +guess--and now that he had recovered from his surprise at Stephen's +sudden appearance, his old mistrust and dislike were returning to him. + +They walked on in silence for some few moments, then Stephen said: + +"I wanted to have a few words with you, my dear Jack. I should have +written, but I felt that I could make myself understood better by word +of mouth." + +Jack nodded. + +"Of course, what I have to say concerns my poor uncle's death and its +consequences." + +Jack was silent still. He would not help him in the slightest. + +"I cannot but feel that those consequences, while they have been +distinctly beneficial to me, have--and to put it plainly, and I wish to +speak plainly, my dear Jack--have been unfortunate for you." + +"Well," said Jack, grimly. + +"Well," said Stephen, softly, "I had hoped, I still hope, that you will +allow me the happiness of setting right, to some extent, the wrong--yes, +I will say wrong--done you by my uncle's will." + +"That's impossible," said Jack, gravely. + +"But, my dear Jack, why not? It is my right. Have you any idea of the +fortune----" + +"Not the slightest," said Jack, breaking in abruptly, "and it's no +business of mine; large or small, I hope you'll enjoy it. It was the +squire's to do as he liked with, and I suppose he did as he liked; and +there's an end of it." + +Stephen winced and bit his lip. + +"And now," said Jack, quietly, but with his heart beating wildly, "I +want a word with you, Stephen." + +"Say on, my dear Jack. If there is anything I can do for you----" + +"Yes, there is," said Jack. "I want to know--I want you to tell +me--something respecting Miss Rolfe." + +"Miss Rolfe!" said Stephen, softly. + +"Yes," continued Jack. "You'll want to know, before I go any further, on +what grounds I ask for information. I'll tell you. I have asked Miss +Rolfe to be my wife." + +Stephen feigned a start of astonishment. + +"My dear Jack, isn't that rather sudden--rather premature?" + +"It may be sudden, I don't know whether it is premature; that's for Miss +Rolfe to decide. And she has decided." + +Stephen moistened his lips; they burned like coals. + +"She has accepted you?" + +"She has," said Jack, who felt reluctant to utter one word more than was +necessary. + +Stephen pulled up and held out his hand. + +"My dear Jack, I congratulate you. I congratulate you," he exclaimed, +fervently. "You are indeed a happy man." + +Jack, confounded, allowed his hand to be wrung by the soft, white palm +that burned hot and dry. + +"You are a lucky fellow, my dear Jack. Miss Rolfe is one in a thousand. +I question if there is a more beautiful girl in London--and her +disposition. You are indeed a lucky fellow." + +"Thanks, thanks!" said Jack, still overwhelmed by this flood of good +will. "And now, perhaps you will tell me what I had better do in the +affair! You see I find her visiting--settled, rather, at your mother's +house, and neither she nor your mother seem to know why or +wherefore----" + +Stephen interrupted him with a pressure of the arm. + +"I understand, my dear Jack; your anxiety for information is only +natural. I am very glad I came up this evening--very glad! And now, as I +feel rather tired, would you mind coming up to my rooms? and we'll have +a hansom, after all." + +Jack hailed a cab, and they were rattled to the Albany. + +Of course they could not talk, and Stephen had therefore time to perfect +his scheme; for he had already begun to plot and plan. + +The door of the chambers was opened by Slummers, his tall, square figure +dressed in black, his discreet, shifty eyes absolutely veiled under his +lids. + +"Let us have some Apollinaris and the liquor-case, Slummers," said +Stephen, "and that box of cigars which Mr. Newcombe liked. Sit down, my +dear Jack." + +And he wheeled forward a chair facing the light, and took one for +himself, so that his own face should be shaded. + +Jack looked round the room while Slummers brought the tray. + +The four walls were nearly covered with books, all of them of the dryest +and most serious kind. Where any space was left, it was filled up with +portraits of eminent divines and philanthropists, and every article in +the room was neatly and methodically arranged. In fact, it presented as +marked a contrast to Jack's rooms as it was possible to conceive. + +Jack had not been inside it for years, but he remembered distinctly how +he used to loathe the room and its "fixings." + +"Now, my dear Jack, pray help yourself--those cigars I know you approve; +I heard you praise them at the Hurst, and I brought a box at once." + +"Thanks," said Jack, and he lit a cigar. + +Stephen mixed the Apollinaris and brandy; and leaned back serene and +amiable. + +"And now, my dear Jack, I am ready to answer all questions." + +Jack looked down and frowned thoughtfully. He did not know how to put +them. Stephen smiled maliciously behind his hand. + +"You want to know how it comes about that Miss Rolfe is under my +mother's charge--under my charge, I may say?" + +"Under yours?" said Jack, grimly. + +Stephen nodded. + +"It is a very simple affair, Jack. There is no mystery. The fact is, I +have known Miss Rolfe's father for some years. He is a very good fellow, +but very eccentric." + +"I know," said Jack; "I've seen him." + +Stephen started, and concealed his expression of surprise by reaching +for his glass. + +"Ah, then, no doubt, you noticed that his appearance and manner does not +correspond with the station he occupies?" + +"I did," said Jack. + +"Yes, yes, just so. Well, my dear Jack, my poor friend Rolfe has been in +early life unfortunate--money matters, which I never quite understand. +Like most men of his kind, he got disgusted with the world and hid +himself--there is no other word for it. But it is one thing to hide +yourself and quite another to bury your children. My friend Rolfe felt +this when he awoke to the fact that his daughter had grown from a child +to a young woman, and like a sensible man he applied to one who was +conversant with the world, and one in whom he could have, I trust, full +confidence--my self." + +Jack sat silently regarding the white, calm face with grim, observant +eyes. + +"He did not appeal to an old friendship in vain. I undertook the charge +of Miss Rolfe on one condition. I may say two--one on her side, one on +mine. Hers was that she should live with my mother, under her protecting +wing, as it were; mine was that I should be the absolute guardian of the +young girl committed to my charge." + +Jack stared. + +"You are Una's guardian?" he said, at last, with unconcealed surprise, +as Gideon Rolfe's curse upon the race of Davenants flashed upon his +memory. + +Stephen Davenant smiled. + +"You are surprised, my dear Jack. But think! It is very natural. Unless +I had unquestionable control over the young lady, how could I answer for +her safety? How guard her against the attacks of fortune hunters----" + +Jack started. + +"Fortune hunters!" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that Una is an +heiress?" + +Stephen's face had flushed and turned deadly pale. + +He had actually been thinking of Una Davenant while he had been talking +of Una Rolfe. + +"You did not hear me out, my dear Jack," he said, softly, recovering his +composure instantly. "I was going to say against the attack of fortune +hunters who might besiege her under the impression that, as my ward, she +would be possessed of wealth, instead of being, as you know, absolutely +penniless." + +Jack nodded. + +"At any rate," he said, grimly, "I was not so deceived." + +"My dear Jack!" exclaimed Stephen, reproachfully, "do you suppose that I +do not know that! You, who are the soul of honor and disinterestedness, +are not likely to be mistaken for a fortune hunter by anyone, least of +all by me, who know and love you so well!" + +Jack winced, as the vision of Lady Bell rose before his eyes. + +"Go on," he said, impatiently. + +"Well, my dear Jack," said Stephen with a smile, and rubbing his hands +softly, "is it not rather for you to go on? I am Una's guardian, you are +her lover." + +"I see," said Jack, rising and pacing up and down the room. "You want me +to ask your consent formally. Well, I do so." + +Stephen laughed as if at an excellent joke. + +"What a grim, thorough-going old bulldog you are, my dear Jack!" he +exclaimed affectionately. "You ask my consent, as if you did not know +that you have it, and my best, my very heartiest wishes into the +bargain. But, Jack, don't you see why I am so pleased--why this makes me +so happy? It is because now you will be compelled to do me the favor of +taking a share of the poor squire's money!" + +Jack started as if he had been stung. + +"You see, my dear fellow! you can't marry on nothing--now, can you? Love +must have a cottage, and--but I beg your pardon, my dear fellow! I am, +perhaps, going too far. Much to my grief and regret you have never +confided in me as I should have wished, and perhaps--I hope that it may +be so--you have some means----" + +Jack paced up and down, the perspiration standing on his knitted brow. + +In the ecstatic joy which had fallen upon him like a glamour during +those few short hours with Una, he had absolutely forgotten that he was +penniless, and in debt, and without a prospect in the wide world. + +And now it all rushed back upon him; every softly-spoken word of +Stephen's fell upon him like a drop in an icy shower bath, and awoke him +from his dream to the stern reality. + +What was he to do? Great Heaven, was he actually driven to accept +Stephen's charity? + +A shudder ran through him, a pang of worse than wounded pride. + +Become a pensioner of Stephen Davenant's! No, it was simply impossible. +White and haggard with the struggle that was going on within him, he +turned upon the smiling face. + +"What you want--what you propose, is impossible," he said, hoarsely. "I +cannot and will not do it. I would rather beg my bread----" + +Stephen smiled. It was a delicious moment for him, and he prolonged it. + +"My dear Jack! what would Mr. Gideon Rolfe say if I gave his daughter to +a beggar? I use your own words. It is ridiculous. But come, sit down. +Grieved as I am at what I must call your mistaken obstinacy, I can't +help being touched by it. You always were willful, my dear Jack, always. +Alas! it was that very willfulness that estranged you from my uncle----" + +"No more of that," said Jack, sternly. + +Stephen made a gesture with his hand. + +"And it would, if another man were in my place, rob you of your +sweetheart; but it shall not. I am determined to prove to you, my dear +Jack, that my desire to be a friend is sincere and true. Let me think. +There may be some loophole in your pride which I can creep in at." + +Jack went back to his seat and lit another cigar, and Stephen appeared +lost in thought, but in reality he watched through his fingers, and +gloated over the despair and trouble depicted on Jack's miserable +countenance. + +"Yes, I have it. Come, Jack, you won't refuse assistance when it comes +from the hand of her Majesty? You won't object to a government +appointment?" + +"A government appointment?" said Jack, vaguely. + +Stephen nodded. + +"Yes," he went on. "By a singular chance I have acquired some influence +with the present government. One of these men has a seat in Wealdshire, +which really hangs on the Hurst influence. The squire never interfered, +but I could do so; and--you see, my dear Jack--a snug little sinecure, +say of a thousand a year! It is not much, it is true; but Una has not +been accustomed to wealth so long as to feel a thousand a year to be +poverty." + +Jack rose and paced the room. Was he dreaming, or was this a different +Stephen to the one he knew and disliked? He had heard of sudden wealth +as suddenly transforming the nature of a man. Had Stephen's nature +undergone this marvelous change? + +He doubted and mistrusted him, but here was the absolute evidence. What +could Stephen gain by this generosity? Nothing--absolutely nothing. It +was strange, passing strange; but who was he that he should refuse to +believe in the generosity and virtue of another man, especially when +that generosity was exerted on his behalf? + +Struggling against his suspicion and prejudice, Jack strode round the +table and held out his hand. + +"Stephen, I--I have wronged you. You must be a good fellow to behave in +this way, and I--well, I have been a brute, and don't deserve this on +your part." + +Stephen winced under the hard grip of the warm, honest hand. + +"Not a word more, my dear Jack; not a word more," he exclaimed. +"This--this is really very affecting. You move me very much." + +And he pressed his spotless handkerchief to his eyes. + +Jack's ardor cooled at once, and the old disgust and suspicion rose; but +he choked them down again, and sat down. + +"Not a word more," said Stephen, with a gulp, as if he were swallowing a +flood of tears. "I have long, long felt your coldness and distrust, my +dear Jack, but I vowed to live it down, and prove to you that you have +wronged me. Believe me that my good fortune--my unexpected fortune--was +quite imbittered to me by the thought that you would misjudge me." + +Jack pulled at his cigar grimly. Stephen was on the wrong track, and he +saw it, and hastened to change it. + +"But now, my dear Jack, we shall understand each other. You will believe +me that I have your welfare deeply at heart. Who else have I to think +of--except my mother, my dear mother? And we may conclude that our +little negotiation as suitor and guardian is ended. Eh, Jack? You shall +have the appointment and Una--lucky fellow that you are--and I shall be +rewarded by seeing you happy." + +Jack nodded. The mention of Una had filled him with gratitude. He could +not forget that he owed her in two ways to Stephen. + +"You are a good fellow, Stephen," he said, "and you deserve _your_ luck. +After all, you'll make a better master of Hurst than I should. You'll +take care of it." + +Stephen sighed. He was going to gloat again. + +"I don't know. I wish to do my duty. It is an immense sum of money, +Jack; immense." + +Jack nodded again. + +"I'm glad of it," he said, easily. "I don't envy you. I did once, and +not very long ago. But I rank Una above the Hurst even, and if I have +her, you are welcome to the Hurst." + +Stephen winced, and looked at him from the corners of his eyes. Was +there any significance in the speech? But Jack's face was open and +frank, as usual. + +"That's a bargain," said Stephen, laughing. + +Jack thought a moment. + +"But what about Mr. Rolfe?" he said, dubiously. + +"Leave him to me," said Stephen, confidently. "I will manage him. And, +by the way, I think for the present that we had better keep our little +engagement quiet. You understand? He had better hear it from my lips, +and--you quite see, Jack?" + +Jack didn't quite see. He would have preferred to go to Gideon Rolfe and +have the matter out--fight it out if need be--but he was, so to speak, +in Stephen's hands. + +"Very well," he said. + +"And now have another cigar, my dear Jack, you've eaten that one." + +But Jack was anxious to go. He wanted to be alone to think over this +strange interview, and realize that Una was his. + +"Well, if you will go," said Stephen, reluctantly; "but mind, I shall +expect you to make this your second home." + +Jack glanced round rather dubiously. + +"And of course we shall see you at the Square?" + +This invitation Jack accepted heartily, and once more he wrung Stephen's +hand. + +"Good-night, good-night, my dear Jack," said Stephen, and he took a +candle from the table to light him down the stairs, and smiled till +every tooth in his head showed like a grave-stone. + +Then, as Jack's heavy step faded away and was lost, Stephen went back +into the room, closed the door, and sinking into a chair sat +motionless, with folded arms and haggard face. + +"Yes, yes," he muttered, "I have played the best game--I have gulled +him. Another man would have attempted to thwart him openly, and have +raised a storm. My plan is the wiser. But to think that fate should have +played me such a trick! and I thought she was safe and secure!" and he +wiped the drops of cold sweat from his knitted brow. "Fool, fool that I +was! Better to have left her there in the heart of the Forest! And +yet--and yet--" he mused, "it is not so bad. The man might have been +more powerful and cunning than the idiot whom I have in the hollow of my +hand. Curse him! curse him! I never look on his face but I tremble. I +hate him!" and he stretched out his closed hand as if with a curse. + +As he did so it came into contact with Jack's glass. + +In a paroxysm of fury he caught up the glass and dashed it into the +fire-place. + +It relieved and brought him to his senses. + +With a gesture of self-contempt he rose and rang the bell. + +Slummers stole in with his noiseless step and stood beside the table +with downcast eyes, which, nevertheless, had taken in the broken +tumbler. + +"I've broken a glass, Slummers," said Stephen, with affected +carelessness. "Never mind, leave it till the morning. Now, then, what +have you learned?" + +Slummers cleared his throat, and barely opening his thin lips, replied: + +"A great deal, considering the time, sir. The young lady at Mrs. +Davenant's----" + +"I know all about her," said Stephen, breaking in impatiently. "What +about Mr. Newcombe?" + +Nowise embarrassed, Slummers wiped his dry lips with a handkerchief as +spotless as his master's. + +"It is as you expected, sir. Mr. Newcombe is in difficulties." + +"Ah!" said Stephen, with evident satisfaction. + +"He has been playing and giving paper. There are some old bills out, +too. These are in the hands of Moss the money-lender." + +Stephen nodded and rubbed his hands. + +"I know Moss--a hard man. Go on." + +"But they say," continued Slummers, raising his eyes for a moment to his +master's face, "that Mr. Newcombe is going to set things right by +marrying an heiress." + +Stephen smiled and leaned back in his chair. + +"Oh, they do, do they; and who is this most fortunate young lady?" + +"Lady Isabel Earlsley." + +Stephen started forward. + +"What!" + +"Lady Isabel Earlsley," repeated Slummers, without the slightest change +of voice or countenance. + +"No--it's a lie!" said Stephen, with a chuckle. "Where did you hear it?" + +"At the club. It is the talk of town, sir. Mr. Newcombe has been in +close attendance upon her ladyship for some time. They say that her +ladyship's brougham nearly ran over him, and that she took him home. It +is true; her own coachman told me." + +Stephen leaned back and hid his face with his hand, his busy brain at +work on this last turn of the wheel. + +"Go on," he said. + +"That is all, sir." + +Stephen was silent for a minute or two, then he turned to the writing +table and wrote for some minutes. + +"Go to Moss to-morrow morning," he said, "and tell him not to press Mr. +Newcombe, and I don't think he will require more than the hint--but you +may say I will buy all Mr. Newcombe's bills at a fair price. Mind! I +want every I O U and bill that Mr. Newcombe gives. You understand?" + +"I understand, Mr. Stephen," said Slummers, and a faint, malicious smile +stole over his face. + +"And if Mr. Moss likes to oblige Mr. Newcombe with a little loan, I will +take the bill. You understand?" + +Slummers nodded. + +"Here is the letter to Moss for his own satisfaction. He will not +mention my name." + +Slummers took the note. Stephen passed his hand over his forehead, and +turned his back to the light. + +"Any--any other news, Slummers?" + +Slummers smiled behind his hand. + +"I have been to Cheltenham Terrace. We were rightly informed, sir. Old +Mr. Treherne is dead, and Miss Treherne has disappeared." + +Stephen drew a breath of relief. + +"Indeed," he said. "Very good. Let me see, is there anything else?" + +Slummers coughed. + +"Nothing, sir, except to remind you that you have to speak at the +charitable meeting tomorrow night." + +"Ah, yes, thank you, very good, Slummers. Be good enough to hand me the +last charitable reports. Good-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +Happy! If ever two young people were happy, Una and Jack were. To Una +the days passed like a happy dream time. Her sky was without a cloud; it +almost seemed as if the world had been made for her, so entirely did +everything lend itself to her enjoyment. + +Every morning, soon after breakfast, Jack's quick, buoyant step was +heard ascending the stone steps of the house in Walmington Square, and +he would come marching into the breakfast room with some palpable excuse +about his just happening to pass, and Mrs. Davenant would smile her +gentle welcome, and Una--well, Una's eyes were eloquent, if her tongue +was mute, and would speak volumes. + +And Jack would lounge about for an hour, telling them all the news, and +perhaps smoking a cigarette, just inside the conservatory; and Una was +sure to find an excuse for being near him. + +Indeed, if that young lady could be within touching distance of her god +and hero, she seemed passing content. He was the very light of her life, +soul of her soul; every day seemed to increase the passionate devotion +of her first, her maiden love, for the wild, young ne'er-do-well. + +And she was repaid. Jack thought that there never had been, since Eve +began the sex, such a marvel of beauty and grace and virtue as Una. He +would sit for half-an-hour smoking and watching her in silence. + +"Didn't one of those clever fellows say of a certain woman that to know +her was a liberal education?" he said to Mrs. Davenant. "Well, I say, +that to be in Una's presence, to watch her moving about in that quiet, +graceful way of hers, and then to catch a smile now and again, is like +reading a first-class poem; better, indeed, for me, because I don't go +in for poetry." + +Not that these young lovers spent all their time in silently watching +each other. Every day Jack arrived with some plan for their amusement +and enjoyment. Sometimes it would be: + +"Well, what are you going to do today? What do you say to taking the +coach to Guildford, getting a snack there, and back in the evening?" + +Una's face would light up, and Mrs. Davenant would smile agreeably, and +in half-an-hour they would be ready, and Jack, as proud of Una's beauty +as if it were unique, would escort them to the "White Horse" in +Piccadilly, and away they would spin through the lovely Surrey valleys +to that quaintest of old towns in the hills. Sometimes Jack himself +would take the ribbons, and, with Una by his side, "tool the truck," as +he called the handsome coach, back to town. + +Then, again, he never came without a box for one of the theaters or a +stall for a concert; and though not over fond of classical music +himself, was quite content to sit and watch the look of rapt delight in +Una's face as she listened absorbed in Joachim's wonderful violin. + +But most of all, I think, they enjoyed their days on the river, when +Jack, attired in his white flannels, would pull the two ladies up to +Walton or Chertsey, and give them tea in one of the quiet, river-side +inns. + +Ah! those evenings, those moonlight nights, when the boat drifted down +stream, and the two young people sat, hand in hand, whispering those +endless exchanges of confidence which go to make up lovers' +conversations. + +It was wonderful that Mrs. Davenant did not catch cold, but Jack took +great care of her, and wrapped her up in his thick ulster; and she +never seemed to grow tired of witnessing their happiness. + +Sometimes Jack would ask Stephen to join them, but Stephen would always +find an excuse. Now it was because he had an engagement with the +lawyers; at another time he had promised to speak at some philanthropic +meeting, or had promised to dine at the club. He would, however, +occasionally dine at the Square, or drop in and take a cup of tea; and +wore always the same friendly smile and genial manner. + +Jack had become quite convinced that he had done Stephen a great deal of +injustice, and now thought that Stephen was everything that was kind and +thoughtful. + +It was only at chance times, when Jack happened to catch the pale face +off its guard, that the old doubts rose to perplex and trouble him; but +then he always set them to rest by asking himself what Stephen could +possibly have to gain by acting as he did. + +Of course, all these outings by land and water cost a great deal of +money, but Jack had found Moss, the money-lender, most suddenly and +strangely complaisant. + +Instead of dunning him for what was owing, Moss actually pressed him to +borrow more, and Jack, always too careless in money matters, was quite +ready to oblige him. + +"I can pay him out of my salary, when I get the appointment," he said to +Leonard, in response to the latter's remonstrances and warnings. + +"Yes, when you get it," said Leonard. + +"What do you mean?" said Jack. "Do you mean to hint that Stephen isn't +to be relied upon?" + +"I haven't the honor of knowing much of Mr. Davenant," said Leonard, +"and so can't say whether he is more reliable than most public men who +promise places and appointments; but I do know that men have grown +gray-headed while waiting for one of those said places." + +"You don't know Stephen," said Jack, confidently. "He can manage +anything he likes to set his mind on. He is not one of my sort. He can't +let the grass grow under his feet. There, stop croaking, and come and +dine at the Square." + +And Leonard would go, for he and Una had, as Jack said, "cottoned to one +another." + +Una felt all sorts of likings and gratitude for the man who had always +been Jack's friend, and none of the jealousy which some girls feel for +their lover's bachelor acquaintances. + +"I am sure he is good and true, Jack," she said. + +"Good! There isn't a better man in England," Jack affirmed. "And he's as +true as steel. Poor old Len!" + +"Why do you pity him?" said Una, who had not altogether lost her way of +asking direct questions. + +"Well, you see, there's a lot of romance about Len," said Jack; and he +told her about Leonard's meeting with Laura Treherne. + +"And he has never found her?" said Una. + +"Not from that day to this," answered Jack. + +"And yet he still remembers and loves her," murmured Una. "Yes, I like +your friend, Jack, and I do hope he will meet with this young lady and +be happy. I should like all the world to be as happy as I am!" + +"Ah, but don't you see all the world aren't angels like you, you know," +retorted Master Jack, kissing her. + +Though, in accordance with Stephen's advice, the engagement had not been +made public, the outside world was beginning to get an inkling of what +was going on in Walmington Square. + +Jack's friends at the club chaffed him on the unfrequency of his visits. + +"There's some mischief the Savage is planning," said Dalrymple. "You +scarcely ever see him here now; he doesn't play, and shuns the bottle as +if it were poison, and he's altogether changed. I shouldn't be surprised +if he were to take to public meetings like that distant cousin of his, +Stephen Davenant." + +"It is my opinion," said Sir Arkroyd Hetley, "that he spends all his +time at Walmington Square, for my man sees him going and coming at all +hours. The Savage is in love." + +And gradually those rumors spreading, like the ripple of a stone in a +pool, reached Park Lane, and got to Lady Bell's ears. + +She had gone out of town for a week or two, and had, of course, seen +nothing of Jack or Una, but on her return she drove to the Square. + +Una and Mrs. Davenant were sitting by the tea table, and wondering +whether Jack would come in. + +Lady Bell's entrance made quite a little flutter. + +"How do you do, Mrs. Davenant, and how do you do, Wild Bird?" and she +kissed Una, and holding her at arm's length, scanned her smilingly. +"What have you been doing to look so fresh and happy?" Here Una's face +over-spread with blushes. "What a child it is! But see, here I am just +from the seaside, and as pale, or rather as yellow as a guinea, while +you are like a dairy-maid. My dear girl, you positively beam with +happiness." + +Mrs. Davenant and Una exchanged glances--glances that were not lost upon +Lady Bell's acuteness. + +"Is there a secret?" she said, quickly. "Have you come into a fortune? +But, no, that can't be it, for I know that I've never been thoroughly +happy since I came into mine." + +"You always look happy, Lady Bell," said Mrs. Davenant. + +"My dear, don't judge by appearances," said Lady Bell, in her quick way. +"I am not always happy; most of my time I am bored to death; I am always +worried and hurried. Oh, by-the-way, speaking of worries, can you +recommend me a maid? My own, a girl who came from the colonies with me, +and swore, after a fashion, never to leave me, has gone and got married. +I should be angry if I didn't pity her." + +"Don't you believe in the happiness of the married state, then?" asked +Mrs. Davenant, while Una looked on smilingly. + +"No," said Lady Bell, shortly. "Men are tyrants and deceivers; there is +no believing a word they say. A woman who marries is a slave, and----" + +She broke off sharply, for the door opened and Jack entered. A warm +flush rose to Lady Bell's face, and she was too much occupied in +concealing it to observe the similar flush which flooded Una's cheeks. + +Jack was striding in with Una's name on his lips, but he stopped short +at sight of Lady Bell, and the flush seemed an epidemic, for it glowed +under his tan. + +"I thought you were at Brighton, Lady Bell," he said, as he shook hands. + +"So I was--three hours ago. I came away suddenly; got tired and bored of +it before I had been there three days. If there is one place more +unendurable than another it is the fashionable watering-place. I bore it +until this morning, and then poor Mrs. Fellowes and I made a bolt of it, +or rather I bolted and dragged her with me. I left Lord Dalrymple and +Sir Arkroyd in happy unconsciousness of our desertion." + +"Then, at this moment, they are wandering about the Parade in despair," +said Jack, laughing. And, as he laughed, he looked from one girl to the +other, making a mental comparison. Yes, Lady Bell was beautiful, with a +beauty undeniable and palpable, but how it paled and grew commonplace +beside Una's fresh, spiritual loveliness. + +He had held her hand for a moment when he entered, and now, as he +carried the tea cup, he got an opportunity of touching her arm, +lovingly, caressingly. + +He longed to take her by the hand and say to Lady Bell: + +"This is my future wife, Lady Bell," but he remembered Stephen's advice, +and was on his guard, so much so that though she watched them closely, +Lady Bell saw no sign of the existing state of things. + +It was singular, but since Jack's arrival she did not seem at all bored +or worried, but rattled on in her gayest mood. + +"And what have you been doing since I left town?" she asked Una. "I hope +Mr. Newcombe has made himself useful and attentive;" and she looked at +Jack, who nodded coolly enough, though Una's face crimsoned. + +"Yes, I've been doing the knight errant, Lady Bell. Mrs. Davenant and I +are old friends--relations, indeed." + +"Ah, yes," said Lady Bell. "I hear your son, Mr. Stephen, is in London." + +In a moment Mrs. Davenant's face lost its brightness. + +"Yes, yes," she said, nervously; "yes, he is in London." + +"Where is he?" said Lady Bell, looking round as if she expected to see +him concealed behind one of the chairs. "He's always addressing public +meetings, isn't he?" + +"Not always, Lady Earlsley," said Stephen, from the open doorway. + +"Good heavens! Speak of the--angels, and you hear the rustle of their +wings!" exclaimed Lady Bell, not at all embarrassed. "How did you come +in, Mr. Davenant?" + +"By the door, Lady Earlsley, which was open. Mother, you will lose all +your plate some day." + +"And what public meeting have you come from now?" asked Lady Bell, with +a smile. + +"I have been walking in the park," said Stephen, "and am at your +ladyship's service." + +"I am glad of it," said Lady Bell, quickly, "for I want you--all of you +to come and dine with me tonight." + +"Tonight!" echoed Jack. + +"Tonight! Why not? You have plenty of time to dress. Come, it will be +charity--there's an argument for you, Mr. Davenant--for Mrs. Fellowes +and I are all alone; papa has gone to some learned society meeting. +Come, I'll go home at once and tell them to get your favorite wines +ready. What _is_ your favorite, Mr. Newcombe?" + +Jack laughed. + +"I'd come and dine with _you_, Lady Bell, if you gave us ginger beer," +he said. + +Lady Bell laughed, but she looked pleased. + +"Now, that is what I call a really good compliment--for a Savage," and +she glanced at Jack archly. "We'll say half-past eight tonight to give +you time to finish your chat. _Au revoir_," and waving her +daintily-gloved hand, she flitted from the room. + +"Would he dine with me if I had only ginger beer to offer him?" she +asked herself, as she went back in the brougham. "Would he? He looks so +honest and so true!--so incapable of a mean, unworthy action! I wish I +were as poor--as poor as Una. How quietly she sits. She has just the air +of one of the great ones of the earth--the air which I, with all my +title and wealth, shall never have. I wonder who she is, and whether Mr. +Stephen thinks her as beautiful as I do! He looked at her as he went +in--well, just as I would that _some one else_ would look at me. How +handsome he is, so different to Stephen Davenant. Ah, me! I know now why +Brighton was so hateful; if Jack Newcombe had been there I should not +have hungered and pined for London! What a miserable, infatuated being I +am. I am as bad as that foolish maid of mine. Yes, just as bad, for if +Jack Newcombe came and asked me, I should run away with him as she did +with her young man!" + +Still thinking of him, she reached home and went up to her own room, +where Mrs. Fellowes, the long-suffering, hastened to meet her. + +"My dear, I'm so glad you've come. How long you have been." + +"My dear, you say that every time I come in. What is the matter--another +maid run away?" + +"No, but a maid has come, at least a young person--I was going to say +lady--who wants the situation." + +"Well, a lady's maid ought to be a lady," said Lady Bell, languidly. +"Where is she?" + +"In my room," said Mrs. Fellowes. "She came with a note from Lady +Challoner. It seems the poor girl has been in trouble--she has lost her +father--and not caring to go for a governess----" + +"For which I don't blame her," said Lady Bell. + +"She is desirous of getting an engagement as a companion or lady's +maid." + +"A companion's worse off than a governess, isn't she?" said Lady Bell, +naively. + +Mrs. Fellowes smiled. + +"Yes. What is her name?" asked Lady Bell. + +"Well, there's the point," said Mrs. Fellowes. "Her name is Laura +Treherne, but as some of her friends--she hasn't many, she says--might +think that she had done wrong in taking a menial situation she wishes to +be known by some other name." + +"I hate mysteries and aliases," said Lady Bell. "I don't think I shall +engage her. She'll be too proud to do my hair and copy all my dresses in +common material. Well, I'll see her." + +"I'll send her away if you like," said Mrs. Fellowes; "but I think +you'll like her." + +"Do you? Then I know exactly what she's like before I see her if she +has taken your fancy. Some prim old maid in black cotton and thick +shoes." + +Mrs. Fellowes smiled and rang the bell, and bade a servant to ask the +young person who was waiting to step that way. + +Lady Bell began taking off her gloves yawningly, but stopped suddenly, +and looked up with an air of surprise as the door opened and a tall +girl, with dark hair and eyes, entered. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +Lady Bell overmastered her surprise, and asking the young girl to sit +down, looked at her critically as she did so. + +Yes, the girl was a lady, there could be no doubt of that. But it was +not only the evidence of refinement in the face and the manner of the +girl that struck Lady Bell; there was an expression in the dark eyes and +clear-cut lips, slightly compressed, which roused her interest and +curiosity. + +It was a face with a history. + +For the first time she looked at Lady Challoner's note. + +"I see," she said, "that Lady Challoner knows you, Miss Treherne." + +"She knew my grandfather," was the quiet answer. "He is dead." + +"Lately?" said Lady Bell, glancing at the note. + +Laura Treherne bent her head. + +"Two months ago," she said, sadly. + +"And have you no friends with whom you could go and live?" + +"None who would care to have me, or to whom I should wish to go." + +Lady Bell was silent for a moment--the girl interested her more each +minute. + +"Are you taking a wise step in seeking for a situation which is +considered menial?" she asked. + +Laura Treherne paused for a moment. + +"I do not think it degradation to serve Lady Earlsley," she said. + +Lady Bell smiled, not ill pleased. + +"You mean to say that you would not accept any situation?" + +Laura Treherne inclined her head. + +"How did you know that I wanted a maid?" + +"I heard it in the house where I am lodging," she replied. + +"And you knew me?" + +"Yes; I had heard of you, my lady." + +"Have you any other testimonials besides this note of Lady Challoner's?" + +"None, my lady." + +Lady Bell hesitated. + +"It is quite sufficient," she said; "but I am afraid you do not +understand the duties of a lady's maid." + +"I think so, my lady. What I do not know now, I can soon learn." + +"That's true. And I see you do not wish your real name to transpire?" + +"I would rather that it did not. I would rather be known by some other +name," answered Laura Treherne. + +"Why?" + +There was a moment's hesitation, and the dark face paled slightly. + +"I thought Lady Challoner had explained. My friends----" + +"You do not care for your friends to know that you are in a situation? +You think their pride would be greater than your own?" + +"Exactly, my lady." + +"Well, I'll engage you," she said. "When can you come? I have no maid at +present." + +"Now, at once, if your ladyship wishes. I will stay now, and send for my +luggage, if you please." + +"Very well," said Lady Bell. "Come to my room in half an hour, and we +will arrange matters. You have said nothing about salary." + +"That I leave in your ladyship's hands." + +"Like the cabmen," said Lady Bell, laughing. "Well, come to my room in +half an hour." + +Laura Treherne bowed and left the room, and Mrs. Fellowes lifted up her +voice in remonstrance. + +"My dear Bell, that letter may be a forgery." + +"It might be, but it isn't. I can read faces, and I like that young +lady's. Yes, she's a lady, poor girl. Well, she might have hit upon a +worse mistress; I shan't bang her about the head with a hair brush when +I'm in a temper, as Lady Courtney does her maid. There, spare your +remonstrances, my dear. The girl's engaged, and I mean to keep her. And +now there are three or four people coming to dinner, Mr. and Mrs. +Davenant, Jack--I mean Mr. Newcombe--and that strange girl, Una. What a +lovely creature she is! Do you know I rather think she will become Mrs. +Stephen Davenant." + +"She is a very nice girl," said Mrs. Fellowes. "She ought to make a good +match." + +"_Ay de me_," said Lady Bell, with a sigh. "I'm sick of that word. Men +and women don't 'marry' now, they make 'good matches.' My dear, I hate +your worldly way of looking at matrimony. If I were a poor girl, I'd +marry the man of my heart, if he hadn't a penny. Ah, and if he were the +baddest of bad lots." + +"Like Jack Newcombe, for instance," said Mrs. Fellowes, archly. + +"Yes," said Lady Bell, turning with the door in her hand; "like Jack +Newcombe," and she ran up to her room. + +Punctual to the minute, Laura Treherne knocked at the door of the +dressing-room. Lady Bell was seated before the glass, surrounded by her +walking clothes, which, as was her custom, she had slipped out of or +flung carelessly aside. + +Without a word Laura picked them up and put them in the wardrobe, and +without a word took up the hair brushes. Lady Bell watched her in the +glass, and gave her a hint now and then, and when her hair was dressed +glanced round approvingly. + +"Yes," she said, "that is very nice; and you have not hurt me once. The +last maid used to pull me terribly. I suppose she was thinking of her +young man. By the way, are you engaged?" + +The dark face flushed for a moment, then grew pale. + +"No, my lady." + +"I'm glad of it. Take my advice and don't be. That sounds selfish, +doesn't it. Now you want to know what I am going to wear. I don't know +myself. What would you choose? Go to the wardrobe." + +Laura went to the wardrobe, and came back after a minute or two with a +dress of black satin and lace looped up with rosebuds of the darkest +red. It was one newly arrived from Worth. + +Lady Bell nodded. + +"Yes, that just suits me. Give me a lady for good taste! And now choose +the ornaments. There is the jewel-box." + +Laura chose the set of rubies and diamonds, and Lady Bell smiled again. + +"I shall look rather Spanish. Never mind. Let us try them." + +With deft and gentle hands Laura helped her to dress, and Lady Bell +nodded approval. + +"Am I ready?" + +Laura hesitated a moment. + +"Will your ladyship wear the pendant?" + +Lady Bell glanced in the glass. + +"Ah, I see, you think that is rather too much against the rosebuds. You +are right. Take it off, please. Thanks. Put the key of the jewel-box in +your pocket. Stay! there is a chain for you to wear it on;" and she took +out a small gold chain. "You can keep that as your own." + +Laura Treherne flushed, and she inclined her head gratefully. + +Lady Bell was relieved; her last maid used to overwhelm her with thanks. + +"And now I will go down. By the way, will you please tell Simcox--that's +the butler--that the gentlemen will want Lafitte, at least, Mr. Newcombe +will. I don't know what Mr. Stephen Davenant drinks. What's the matter?" +she broke off to inquire, for she heard Laura stumble and fall against +the wardrobe. + +There was a moment's pause; then, calmly enough, Laura said: + +"My foot caught in your ladyship's dress, I think." + +"Have you hurt yourself?" asked Lady Bell, kindly. "You have gone quite +pale! Here, take some of this sal-volatile." + +But Laura declined, respectfully. It was a mere nothing, and she would +be more careful of alarming her ladyship for the future. + +Lady Bell looked at her curiously. The quiet, self-contained manner, so +free from nervousness or embarrassment, interested her. + +She stopped her as Laura was leaving the room. + +"We haven't fixed upon a name for you yet," she said. + +"No, my lady; any name will do." + +"It is a pity to change yours--it is a pretty one." + +"Will Mary Burns do, my lady? It was my mother's name." + +"Very well," said Lady Bell; "I will tell Mrs. Fellowes that you will be +known by that." + +"That girl has a history, I know," she thought, as she went downstairs. + +Punctual almost to the minute, Mrs. Davenant's brougham arrived. + +The evenings had drawn in, and a lamp was burning in the hall; and a +small fire made the dining-room comfortable. + +Lady Bell welcomed Una most affectionately. + +"Now we will have a really enjoyable evening," she said. "I hate dinner +parties, and if I had my way, would never give nor go to another one. If +it were only a little colder, we'd sit round the fire and bake +chestnuts. Have you ever done that, Wild Bird?" + +"Often," said Una, with a quiet smile, and something like a sigh, as she +thought of the long winter evenings in the cot. How long ago they +seemed, almost unreal, as if they had never happened. + +"Oh, Una is very accomplished," said Jack; "I believe she could make +coffee if she tried." + +Very snug and comfortable the dining-room looked. Lady Bell had +dispensed with one of the footmen, and had evidently determined to make +the meal as homely and unceremonious as possible. + +Never, perhaps, had the butler seen a merrier party. Even Stephen was +genial and humorous; indeed he seemed to exert himself in an +extraordinary fashion. Lady Bell had given him Una to take in, and he +was most attentive and entertaining--so much that Jack, who was sitting +opposite, and next to Lady Bell, felt amused and interested at the +change which seemed to have come over him. + +Could he have seen the workings of the subtle mind concealed behind the +smiling exterior, he would have felt very much less at his ease; for +even now Stephen was plotting how best he could mold the material round +him to serve his purpose, and while the laugh was lingering on his +smooth lips, his heart was burning with hate and jealousy of the rival +who sat opposite. + +For it had come to this, that he desired Una, and not only for the +wealth of which he had robbed her, but for herself. As deeply as it was +possible for one of his nature he loved the innocent, unsuspecting girl +who sat beside him. + +Tonight, as he looked at the beautiful face and marked each fleeting +expression that flitted like sunshine over it: as he listened to the +musical voice, and felt the touch of her dress as it brushed his arm, a +passionate longing seized and mastered him, and he felt that he would +risk all of which he was wrongfully possessed to win her--ah, and if she +were, indeed, only the daughter of a common woodman. + +"Curse him!" he murmured over his wine glass, as his eyes rested on +Jack's handsome face. "If he had not crossed my path, she would have +been mine ere now; no matter, I will strike him out of it, as if he were +a viper in my road." + +Meanwhile, quite unconscious of Stephen's generous sentiments, Jack went +on with his dinner, enjoying it thoroughly, and as happy as it is given +to a mortal to be. + +Presently the conversation turned upon their plans for the autumn. + +"What are we all going to do?" said Lady Bell. "You, I suppose, Mr. +Davenant, will go down to your place in Wealdshire--what is it called?" + +"Hurst Leigh," said Stephen, quietly. "Yes, I must go down there, I +ought to have been there before now, but I find so many attractions in +town," and he smiled at Una. + +"And you, my dear?" said Lady Bell to Mrs. Davenant. + +"My mother will go down with me," said Stephen. + +Mrs. Davenant glanced at him nervously. + +"And that means Miss Wild Bird, too, I suppose?" remarked Lady Bell. + +"If Miss Una will honor us," said Stephen, with an inclination of the +head to Una. "Yes, we shall make quite a family party. You will join us, +of course, Jack?" + +Jack, who had looked up rather grim at the foregoing, bit his lip. + +"I don't quite know," he said, gravely. + +"Surely you will not let the poachers have all the birds this year, +Jack!" said Stephen, brightly. "Besides my mother will be quite lost +without you." + +"Do come, Jack," whispered Mrs. Davenant. + +"I'll see," said Jack, grimly, and Una looked down uneasily; she +understood his reluctance to go to the old place. + +"Oh, we will take no refusal," said Stephen, buoyantly. "And what are +your plans, Lady Bell?" + +Lady Bell looked up with rather a start and a flush. + +"I--I--don't quite know," she said. "I had been thinking of going to a +small place we have at Earl's Court." + +"Earl's Court!" exclaimed Jack. "Why, that is only thirteen miles or so +from the Hurst." + +"Is it?" said Lady Bell. "I didn't know. I haven't seen it. I'm ashamed +to say that I haven't made a round of inspection of the property yet. My +stewards are always bothering me to do so, but I don't seem to have +time." + +"A sovereign cannot be expected to visit the whole of her kingdom," said +Stephen, with a smile. + +Lady Bell sighed. + +"I often wish the old earl had left me five hundred a year and a cottage +somewhere," she said, quietly. "I should have been a happier woman. Oh, +here is the claret. Give Mr. Newcombe the Lafitte, Simcox. Mr. +Davenant----" + +"I always follow Jack's suit," said Stephen, rising to open the door for +the ladies. "He is an infallible guide in such matters." + +"Fancy a woman lamenting the extent of her wealth," he said, with +something like a sneer, as he went back to the table. "If any girl ought +to be happy that girl ought to be. What a chance for some young fellow! +My dear Jack, if I had been in your place----" + +Jack looked up with a tinge of red in his face. + +"What nonsense. Lady Bell knows better than to be caught by such chaff +as I am. Besides, I am more than content. I wouldn't exchange Una for a +Duchess, with the riches of Peru in her pockets. What about the +commissionership, or whatever it is, Stephen?" + +"All in good time, my dear Jack. Those sort of things aren't done in a +moment; the matter is in hand, and we shall get it, be sure. Meanwhile, +if you want any money----" + +"Thanks, no," said Jack, easily. + +He had only that morning negotiated a bill with Mr. Moss for another +hundred pounds. + +Stephen smiled evilly behind his pocket handkerchief. He held that bill +in his pocketbook at that moment, in company with all Jack's previous +ones. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +The two men sat beside the fire almost in silence. Jack was trying to +get over his reluctance to go to the Hurst, and wondering what would +become of him if he did not, and Una left him all alone in town; and +Stephen was wondering whether it was time to strike the blow he +meditated. + +Very soon Jack jumped up. + +"If you've had enough wine, let us join the ladies," he said, and went +toward the door. + +Stephen followed him, but turned back to fetch his pocket handkerchief. + +Lying beside it, on the table, was a rose which had fallen from the +bosom of Una's dress. He took it up, and looked at it with that look +which a man bestows on some trifle which has been worn by the woman he +loves, and then, as if by an irresistible impulse, raised it to his +lips, kissing it passionately, and put it carefully in his bosom. As he +did so, he raised his eyes to the glass, which reflected one side of +the room, and saw the slight figure of a woman standing in the open door +and watching him. + +The light from the carefully shaded lamp was too dim to allow him to see +the face distinctly, but something in the figure caused him to feel a +sudden chill. + +He turned sharply and walked to the door; but the hall was empty and +there was no sound of retreating footsteps. + +"Some servant maid waiting to come in to clear the table," he muttered. + +But he returned to the dining-room, and drank off a glass of liquor +before going to the drawing-room, from which ripples of Jack's frank +laughter were floating in the hall. + +Lady Bell was seated at the piano, playing and singing in her +light-hearted, careless fashion; Jack and Una were seated in a dimly-lit +corner, talking in an undertone. + +Stephen went up to the piano and stood apparently listening intently, +but in reality watching the other two under his lowered lids. + +The presence of the rose in his bosom seemed to heighten the passion +which burned in his heart; and the sight of Jack bending over Una, and +of her rapt, up-turned face as she looked up, drinking in his lightest +word as if it were gospel, maddened him. + +It was with a start that he became conscious that Lady Bell had ceased +playing, and that she, like him, was watching the lovers. + +"Miss Una and Mr. Newcombe seem very good friends," she said, with a +forced smile. + +"Do they not?" said Stephen, in his softest voice. "Too good." + +Lady Bell looked up at him quickly. + +"What do you mean?" + +Stephen looked down at her gravely. + +"Can you keep a secret, Lady Bell?" he said, hesitatingly. + +"Sometimes," she said. "What is it?" + +Stephen glanced across at Jack and Una. + +"I'm rather anxious about our young friends," he said, his voice dropped +still lower, his head bent forward with such an insidious smile that +Lady Bell could not, for the life of her, help thinking of a serpent. + +"Anxious!" she echoed, her heart beating. "As how?" + +"Can you not guess?" he said, raising his eyebrows. + +"You--you mean that they may fall in love with each other. Well, they +are not badly matched," said Lady Bell, bravely, though her heart was +aching. + +"Not badly, in one sense," said Stephen, after a pause; "but as badly as +two persons could be in all others. They are a match as regards their +means. They are both penniless." + +Lady Bell looked up with a start. + +"Is--is Mr. Newcombe so badly off? I thought--that is, I fancied he had +a wealthy uncle----" She paused. + +"You mean Mr. Ralph Davenant," said Stephen, calmly, and with an air of +sadness. "I am sorry to say that he left everything which he possessed +to a less worthy person--to me." + +Lady Bell looked at him inquiringly. + +"To me," he repeated, "and poor Jack was--well, disinherited, and left +penniless. It is of him I think when I say that I am anxious about them; +naturally, I think of him. Miss Rolfe is a friend of my mother's, and +has been used to a straitened life; but poor Jack does not know what +poverty means, and in his ignorance may drift into an entanglement which +may embitter her life. No man in the world is less fitted for love in a +cottage, and nothing to pay the rent, than Jack Newcombe. You, who have +seen something of him, must have remarked his easy-going, careless +nature, his utter ignorance of the value of money, his unsuitableness +for a life of poverty and privation." + +Lady Bell's heart beat fast. + +"But--but--" she said, "you have plenty." + +"Of which Jack will not take one penny. You see he is as proud as he is +poor." + +"I like him for that," murmured Lady Bell. + +"Yes, so do I; though it pains and grieves me. If Jack would permit me +to help him, Lady Bell, he might marry Una Rolfe tomorrow; but as it is, +I fear, I am anxious. Another man would be wiser, but Jack has no idea +of prudence, and would plunge head first into all the misery of such a +union without a thought of the morrow." + +"And you--you think he loves her," murmured Lady Bell; and she waited +for an answer as a man on his trial might wait for the verdict of the +jury. + +Stephen smiled. He could read Lady Bell's heart as if it were an open +book. + +"Loves her! No, certainly not--not yet. He is amused and entertained, +but love has not come yet." + +"And she?" asked Lady Bell, anxiously, her eyes fixed on Una's face. + +Stephen smiled again. + +"No, not yet. She is ignorant of the meaning of the word. I have taken +some trouble to arrive at the truth, and I am sure of what I say. It is +well for her that she is not, for anything like a serious engagement +would be simply madness. Poor Jack! His future lies so plainly before +him, and if he would follow it, the rest of his life might be happiness +itself." + +"You mean that he should marry for money," said Lady Bell, coldly. + +"No, not for money alone," murmured Stephen. "Jack is too high-minded to +be guilty of such meanness; but is it not possible to marry for love and +money, too, Lady Bell?" + +Lady Bell turned her head aside; her heart beating fast. The voice of +the tempter sounded like music in her ear. Why should not he marry for +love as well as money? She had both. She loved him passionately, and she +would pour her money at his feet to do as he liked with; to squander and +make ducks and drakes of, if he would but give her a little love in +return. + +As she looked across the room at him, that awful, wistful longing which +only a woman who loves with all her heart can feel, took possession of +her and mastered her. + +"Why do you tell me this?" she asked, sharply turning her face, pale and +working. + +"Because," murmured Stephen, "because I have Jack's interest so much at +heart that I am bold enough to ask for aid where I know it can be of +avail." + +"Do you mean that you ask _me_?" she said, tremulously. "What can I do?" + +"Much, everything," he whispered, his head bent low, almost to her ear. +"Ask yourself, dear Lady Bell, and you will understand me. Let me be +plain and straightforward, even at the risk of offending you. There was +a time, not many months ago, when I and his best friends thought Jack +had made a choice at once happy and wise." + +Lady Bell rose and moved to and fro, and then sank down again trembling +with agitation. + +"You mean that--that he was falling in love with me?" + +Stephen inclined his head with lowered eyes. + +"It is true," he said. "You cannot fail to have seen what all observed." +And he went on quickly--"And but for this fancy--this passing fancy--all +would have been well. Lady Bell, I am speaking more openly than I ever +have spoken to woman before. I am risking offending you, but I do so +from the affection which I bear my cousin. Lady Bell, I implore you to +help me in saving him from a step which will plunge him into life-long +misery. He is totally unfitted to battle with the world; married wisely +and well, he would be a happy and contented man; married unwisely and +badly, no one can picture the future." + +Lady Bell rose, her face pale, her eyes gleaming under the strain which +she was enduring. + +"Don't say any more," she said; "I--I cannot bear it. You have guessed +my secret; I can feel that. Yes, I would save him if I could, and if you +are sure that--that there is no engagement----" + +"There is none," said Stephen, lying smoothly. "There can be none; the +idea is preposterous." + +Lady Bell moved away as he spoke, and turned over some book on the table +to conceal her agitation, and Stephen, humming a popular hymn tune, +crossed the room and looked down at Jack and Una with a benedictory +smile, as if he was blessing them. + +"Are you aware of the time, and that Lady Bell's hall porter is uttering +maledictions for our tardiness?" he said, playfully. + +Jack looked at his watch. + +"By Jove! No idea it was so late. Are you ready, Mrs. Davenant?" + +Mrs. Davenant woke from a sleep, and she and Una went upstairs. + +"I see you have a new maid," she said, when they came down again. "What +a superior-looking young girl." + +"Is she not?" said Lady Bell, absently. "She is more than superior, she +is interesting. She has a history." + +Stephen, standing by, folding and unfolding his opera hat, smiled. + +"Very interesting; but take care, Lady Bell; I am always suspicious of +interesting people with a history." + +As he spoke, a pale, dark face looked down upon him from the upper +landing for a moment, then disappeared. + +"You will come with us, Stephen?" said Mrs. Davenant, nervously. + +"No, thanks. I should like the walk. Good-night," and he kissed her +dutifully, and shook hands with Jack and Lady Bell. + +"Going to walk?" cried Mrs. Davenant. "It is very chilly, and you've +only that thin overcoat." + +"I've a scarf somewhere--where is it?" said Stephen. + +Una stooped, and picked up a white scarf. + +"Here it is," she said, laughing, and all innocently she threw it round +his neck. + +"Will you tie it, please?" said Stephen, in an ordinary tone, and Una, +laughing still, tied it. + +Stephen stood motionless, his eyes cast down; he was afraid to raise +them lest the passion blazing in them should be read by all there. + +"Thanks. I cannot catch cold now," he said, as he took her hand and held +it for a moment. + +He put them into the brougham, and under the pretext of arranging her +shawl, touched her hand once again; then he stood in the chilly street +and watched the brougham till it disappeared in the distance. + +Then he turned and walked homeward. + +"One step in the right direction," he muttered. "Take care, Master Jack; +I shall outwit you yet." + +As he ascended the stairs of his chambers, Slummers came out to meet +him. + +"There is a--person waiting for you, Mr. Stephen," he said. + +Stephen stopped, and his hand closed on the balustrade; his thoughts +flew to Laura Treherne. + +"A--woman, Slummers?" + +"No, sir, a man," said Slummers. + +"Very good," said Stephen, with a breath of relief. "Who is it--do you +know?" + +Slummers shook his head. + +"A rough sort of man, sir; says he has come on business. He has been +waiting for hours." + +"I am very sorry," said Stephen, aloud and blandly, for the benefit of +the visitor. "I am sorry to have kept anyone waiting. But it is rather +late----" + +He entered the room as he spoke, and started slightly, for standing in +the center of the apartment was Gideon Rolfe. + +Notwithstanding the start Stephen came forward with outstretched hand +and a ready smile of welcome. + +"My dear Mr. Rolfe, I am indeed sorry that you should have been kept so +long. If I had only known that you were coming----" + +Gideon Rolfe waived all further compliment aside with a gesture of +impatience. + +"I wished to see you," he said. "Time is no object to me." + +Stephen shut the door carefully and stood in a listening attitude. He +knew it was of no use to ask his visitor to sit down. + +"You have come to inquire about your daughter?" + +"No, I have not," said Gideon Rolfe, calmly. "I know that she is well--I +see her daily. I came to remind you of our contract--I came to remind +you of your promise that no harm should come near her." + +Stephen smiled and shook his head. + +"And I trust no harm has come near her, my dear Mr. Rolfe." + +"But I say that it has," said Gideon Rolfe, coldly. "I have watched her +daily and I know." + +"To what harm do you allude?" asked Stephen, bravely. + +"Do you deny that the young man Jack Newcombe is near her?" + +"Oh," said Stephen, and he drew a long breath. + +Then he commenced untying the scarf, his acute brain hard at work. + +Here was an instrument ready to his hand, if he chose to use it +properly. + +"Oh, I understand. No, I do not deny it; I wish that I could do so, for +your sake and for Una's," he said gravely. + +"Speak plainly," said Gideon Rolfe, hoarsely. + +"I will," said Stephen. "Plainly then, Mr. Newcombe has chosen to fall +in love with--your daughter! That accounts for his constant attendance +upon her." + +Gideon Rolfe's face worked. + +"I will take her back," he said, grimly. + +Stephen smiled. + +"Softly, softly. There are two to that bargain, my dear Mr. Rolfe. For +Miss Una to go back to a state of savagery in Warden Forest is +impossible. You, who have seen her in her new surroundings, and the +change they have wrought in her, must admit that." + +Gideon Rolfe wiped the perspiration from his brow. + +"I know that she is changed," he said. "She is like a great lady +now. I see her dressed in rich silks and satins, and coming and +going in carriages, with servants to wait upon her, and I know that +she is changed, and that she has forgotten the friends of her +childhood--forgotten those who were father and mother to her----" + +"You wrong Miss Una," said Stephen, smoothly. "Not a day passes but she +inquires for you and deplores your absence----" + +"But," went on Gideon, as if he had not been interrupted, "I have not +forgotten her, nor my promise to her mother. In a weak moment, moved by +your threats more than your persuasions, I consented to part with her, +but I would rather she were dead than that should happen--which you say +will happen." + +"Pardon me," said Stephen, blandly, and with an evil smile. "I said that +Mr. Newcombe had fallen in love with her; I did not say that he would +marry her. _I_ would rather she were dead than that should happen," and +he turned his face for one moment to the light. + +It was pale even to the lips, the eyes gleaming with resolute purpose. + +Gideon Rolfe looked at him in silence for a moment. + +"I do not understand," he said, in a troubled voice. + +"Let me make it clear to you," said Stephen. "Against my will and wish +these two have met and become acquainted. Against my will and wish that +acquaintance has ripened into"--he drew a long breath as if the word +hurt him--"into love, or what they mistake for love. Thus far it has +gone, but it must go no further. I am at one with you there. You and I +must prevent it. You cannot do it alone, you know. You have no control +over Miss Una; you who are not her father and in no way related to her." + +Gideon Rolfe set his teeth hard. + +"You see," said Stephen, with a haggard smile, "alone you are helpless. +Be sure of that. If you move in the matter without me, I will declare +the secret of her birth. Stop! be calm! But you and I can put an end to +this engagement." + +"They are engaged?" muttered Gideon Rolfe. + +Stephen smiled contemptuously. + +"My good friend, this matter has passed beyond your strength. Leave it +to me. Yes, they are engaged; the affair has gone so far, but it must go +no further. While you have been lurking outside area gates and behind +carriages I have been at work, and I will stop it. I am not too proud to +accept your aid, however. When the time comes I will ask your aid. Give +me an address to which to write to you." + +Gideon Rolfe, with a suspicious air, drew a piece of paper from his +pocket and wrote an address. + +"This will find you?" said Stephen. "Good. When the time comes I will +send for you; meanwhile"--and he smiled--"you can go on haunting area +gates and watching carriages, but be sure of one thing, that this +marriage shall never take place." + +Gideon Rolfe watched the pale face grimly. + +"I must know more," he said. "How will you put an end to this?" + +Stephen smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. + +"You want to see the _modus operandi_? How the conjurer is going to +perform the wonderful feat? Well, it is very simple. My friend and +somewhat cousin, for all his romance, will not care to marry a girl +whose name is stained with shame. If I know my dear Jack, he will not +care to make an illegitimate child of Gideon Rolfe, the woodman, Mrs. +Newcombe." + +Gideon Rolfe started. + +"You will tell him?" he said, hoarsely. + +"Yes," said Stephen; "I shall tell him the truth, of course concealing +the proper names, and you must be here to confirm my statement. That is +all you have to do. Mind! not a word of my uncle's connection with the +matter, or all is lost. You understand?" + +"Yes, I understand," said Gideon, hoarsely. "I care not by what means so +that the marriage is prevented." + +"Nor I," said Stephen, coolly; "and now we are agreed on that point. +When I want you I will write to you. Until then--will you take any +refreshment?" + +Gideon Rolfe waved his hand by way of negative, and Stephen rang the +bell. "Show this gentleman out, Slummers. Mind the lower stairs, the gas +has been put out. Good-night, good-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +It was settled that Mrs. Davenant, Una and Stephen should go to the +Hurst in a week's time. Jack had definitely declined to go to the Hurst. +He felt that he would rather bear the absence of Una for a week or two +than go to the old house, haunted as it was, for him, with so many +memories; but lo and behold, a few days after the dinner party, had come +a note from Lady Bell's father, asking him to visit Earl's Court. + +Of course, Jack accepted gladly enough, without a thought of Lady Bell, +and only remembering that a good nag would take him from Earl's Court to +Hurst in an hour and a half, or less. + +The week passed rapidly, and with something like restlessness Lady Bell +organized all kinds of outings and expeditions, in all of which Jack's +services were found to be indispensable. + +He could not exactly tell how it happened; but he seemed to spend almost +as much time with Lady Bell as with Una. Now it was to go and try a +horse which Lady Bell wanted to buy; then to select some dogs to take +down to Earl's Court; and, again, to buy and send down pony-carriages +and dog-carts. + +There was always something to take him to Park Lane, and though Jack +felt inclined to kick at these demands upon his time, which would +otherwise have been spent near Una, he could not see his way to refuse. +Then he was fond of buying horses, and dogs, and carriages, and used to +hold a _levee_ at Spider Court of disreputable-looking men in fustian +corduroys, much to Leonard Dagle's disgust. + +"It seems to me, Jack," he said, "that you have become Lady Bell's grand +vizier. Do you choose her dress for her?" + +"Chaff away, old man," said Jack. "It was only the other day that you +were badgering me with being cool to her." + +"Yes, with a purpose," said Leonard; "but that purpose has disappeared. +Have you been to the Square yet this morning?" + +"No; I'm going now. No, I can't, confound it! I promised to see to the +harness for the pair of ponies Lady Bell bought." + +Leonard smiled rather grimly. + +"How Miss Una must love Lady Bell," he said, ironically. + +"So she does," said Jack, sharply. "Now don't pretend to be cynical, +Len. You know as well as I do that I would spend every hour of my life +by Una's side if I could; but what can I do?" + +"All right!" said Len, and he fell to work again. + +Strangely enough now, that Jack was so much occupied with Lady Bell's +affairs, Stephen happened to find more leisure to visit his mother, and +very often he accompanied her and Una to some concert or picture-gallery +to which Jack was prevented from going. Stephen seemed, in addition, +quite changed, and had become quite the man of pleasure in contrast to +his former habits. + +He rarely appeared at the Square without a nosegay or a new novel; he +took the greatest interest in any subject which interested Una, and was +as attentive to her as if he had been the most devoted of lovers. Now +that Jack was so much absent, it was he who sat opposite her in the +little brougham, who leaned over her chair at the theater, or rode +beside her in the Row. + +At first Una felt rather constrained by his constant attendance; she had +been so used to have Jack at her side that she felt embarrassed with +Stephen; but Stephen, whose tact was second only to his cunning, soon +put her at her ease. She found that it was not necessary to talk to him, +that she might sit by his side or ride with him for an hour without +uttering a word, and was quite free to think of Jack while Stephen +chatted on in his smooth, insinuating voice. + +And so the very effect Stephen desired to produce came about; she got +accustomed to have him near her, and got to feel at her ease in his +presence. But how long the mornings seemed! and how she longed for Jack +and wondered what he was doing! If anyone had openly told her she was +jealous of Lady Bell, she would have repudiated the idea with scorn too +deep for anything but a smile; and yet--and yet--that bright, happy look +which Lady Bell had so much admired, grew fainter and fainter, and +nearly disappeared, reviving only when Jack hurried in to spend a few +hours with her, and then hurried off to keep some engagement with Lady +Bell or on Lady Bell's affairs. + +But never by word or look did Una show that his absence pained her; +instead, she was always the first to remind him of his engagements and +to bid him depart. + +At last the day arrived for her departure to Hurst. Lady Bell did not go +down to Earl's Court till three days later, and Jack, of course, had to +remain in town for a day or two after that. + +"It is the first time we have been parted for twenty-four hours since +that happy day I learned you loved me, my darling!" he whispered as he +held Una in his arms: "I almost wish that I had accepted Stephen's +invitation. But--but I could not sleep under the old roof--by Heaven, I +could not! You cannot understand----" + +"But I do," murmured Una; "and I am glad you are not coming. If----" + +And she paused. + +"Well, darling?" asked Jack, kissing her. + +"If you had said half a word, I would not have gone." + +"Why not?" said Jack, with a sigh. "Yes, I am glad you are going. You +will see the old house in which I was so happy as a boy--which I once +thought would have been mine." + +"Dear Jack!" she murmured; and her hand smoothed the hair from his +forehead caressingly and comfortingly. + +"Well, never mind," said Jack; "it is better as it is. Perhaps I should +have had the Hurst, and have lost you; and I would rather lose the whole +earth than you, my darling! Besides, Stephen has turned out a better +fellow than I thought him, and deserves all he has got, and will make a +better use of it than I should. No, I am content--I have got the +greatest treasure on earth!" + +And he pressed her closer to him, and kissed her again and again until, +from very shame, she slid from his grasp. + +Stephen had engaged a first-class carriage, had even taken the +precaution to order foot-warmers, though the weather was not yet +winterish, and if he had been the personal attendant on a sovereign, and +that sovereign had been Una, he could not have been more anxious for her +comfort. He was so thoughtful and considerate that there was nothing +left for Jack to do but go down to the station and see them off. + +"Four days only, my darling," he whispered, as the train was starting; +"they will seem years to me." + +And he clung to her hand to the last moment, much to the disgust of the +guard and porters, who expected to see him dragged under the train. Then +he went back to Spider Court, feeling cold, chilly and miserable, as if +the sun had been put out. + +"Len, I wish I had gone!" he exclaimed, as he opened the door. + +But there was no Len to hear him--the room was empty. + +"Great Heaven! has everyone disappeared?" he exclaimed, irritably, and +flung himself out of the house and into a hansom. + +"Where to?" said the cabman, and Jack, half absently, answered: + +"Park Lane." + +The man had often driven him before, and he drove straight to Lady +Bell's. + +Jack walked into the drawing-room quite naturally--the room was familiar +to him--and sat down before the fire; and Lady Bell came in with +outstretched hand. + +It was a comfort to have someone left, and Jack greeted her warmly, more +warmly than he knew or intended. Lady Bell's face flushed as he held her +hand longer than was absolutely necessary. + +"Thank Heaven! there is someone left," he said, devoutly. "They have all +gone, and Len is out, and----" + +"I am left," said Lady Bell. "Well, you are just in time for luncheon. I +half expected you, and I have told them to make a curry." + +Curry was one of Jack's weaknesses. + +"That is very kind of you," he said, gratefully. He felt, very +unreasonably, neglected somehow. "You always seem to know what a fellow +likes." + +"That's because I have a good memory," said Lady Bell, smiling down at +him. "I shall take care to have plenty of curries at Earl's Court. And, +by the way, will you choose a paper for the smoking-room down there? I +have told them that they must do it at once." + +Jack rose without a word; he had been choosing papers and decorations +for a week past, and it did not seem strange. Luncheon was announced +while they were discussing the paper, and Jack gave her his arm. Mrs. +Fellowes was the only other person present, and she sat reading a novel, +deaf and blind to all else. Not but what she might have heard every +word, for the young people talked of the most commonplace subjects, and +Jack was very absent-minded, thinking of Una, and quite unconscious of +the light which beamed in Lady Bell's eyes when they rested on him. + +Then they rode in the Row; he could do no less than offer to accompany +her, and Mrs. Fellowes wanted to see a piece at one of the theaters, and +Jack went to book seats, and took one for himself, and sat staring at +the stage and thinking of Una; but he sat behind Lady Bell's chair, and +spoke to her occasionally, and Lady Bell was content. + +Hetley and Arkroyd were in the stalls, and saw him. + +"Jack's making the running," said Lord Dalrymple, eying the box through +his opera glass. "He's the winning horse, and we, the field, are +nowhere." + +And not only those two, but many others, remarked on Jack's close +attendance on the great heiress, and not a few who would have gone to +the box if he had not been there, kept away. + +Meanwhile, Jack, simple, unsuspecting Jack, was bestowing scarcely a +thought on the beautiful woman by his side, and thinking of Una miles +away. + +The theater over, and Lady Bell put into the carriage, he looked in at +the club, sauntered into the card-room, smoked a cigar in the +smoking-room, and then went home to Spider Court. + +Much to his surprise he found Leonard up, not only up, but pacing the +room, his face flushed and agitated. + +"Hallo!" exclaimed Jack, "what's the matter? And where on earth have you +been?" + +"Jack, I have found her!" + +"That's just what I said some months ago!" + +"Yes, I know. I have been thinking how strangely alike our love affairs +have been. It is my turn now. I have found her!" + +"What, this young lady, Laura Treherne?" + +"Yes," said Leonard, with a long breath. + +"Tell me all about it," said Jack. "Hold hard a minute, till I get +something to drink. Now, fire away." + +"Well," said Leonard, still pacing up and down, and seeming scarcely +conscious of Jack's presence, "I was walking in the park. You know the +place, that quiet walk under the beeches. I was thinking of you and your +love affairs, when I saw, sitting under a tree, a figure that I knew at +once. For a moment I could not move, and scarcely think; then I wondered +how I should get to speak to her; but presently, when I had pulled +myself together, I saw that she had dropped her handkerchief, and I went +and picked it up and took it to her." + +"A fine opening," muttered Jack. + +Leonard Dagle evidently did not hear him. + +"Well, she started when I approached her, and merely thanked me with a +bow, but I was determined not to let her go this time, and I said, +'Pardon me, but we have met before.' 'Where?' said she. 'In a railway +carriage,' I said, and she looked at me, and trembled. 'I remember,' she +said, and I swear I saw her shudder. 'Since then,' I said, 'I have +sought you far and near.' 'Why should you do that?' she asked." + +"A very natural question," interjected Jack. + +"Then I told her. I told her that from that hour I had been unable to +rid my mind of her face, that it had haunted me; that I had followed her +and learned her address; and that though I had lost her I had sought her +all over London." + +"Was she angry?" asked Jack. + +"At first she was," said Leonard, "very angry, but something in my voice +or my face--Heaven knows I was earnest enough! convinced her that I +meant no harm, and she listened." + +"Well," said Jack, interested and excited. + +"Well," said Leonard, "we sat talking for an hour, perhaps more, and she +has promised to meet me again; at least she admitted that she walked in +the park every afternoon. I tried to get her address, but she told me +plainly that she would not give it to me." + +"And is that all you learned?" asked Jack, with something like +good-natured contempt. + +"No!" replied Leonard. "I learned that she had been injured--oh, not in +the way you think--and that she had some purpose to effect--some wrong +to right." + +"And of course you offered to help her?" said Jack. + +"I offered to help her; I laid my services, my whole time and strength, +at her disposal; I went so far as to beseech her to tell me what this +purpose, this wrong was; but she would not tell me, and so we parted. +But we are to meet again. She is much changed; paler and thinner than +when I saw her in the railway carriage, but still more beautiful in my +eyes than any other woman in the world." + +"It is a strange affair," mused Jack. "Quite a romance in its way. Isn't +it funny, Len, that both our love affairs should be romantic, and so +much alike!" + +"Yes," said Leonard, "very. But mine has scarcely begun, while yours has +ended happily, or will do so, if you do not play the fool!" + +"What do you mean?" asked Jack, sharply. + +"Where have you been to-night?" asked Leonard. + +"To the theater with Lady Bell." + +"I expected as much," said Leonard, and he fell to at his writing, and +would say no more, though Jack stormed and raved. + +Meanwhile the Davenant party had, thanks to Stephen, made a comfortable +journey. They found a carriage and pair waiting for them at the station; +not the ramshackle vehicle of the old squire's time, but a new carriage +from the best man in Long Acre, and they were rolled along the country +lanes in a style Ralph Davenant would have marveled at. + +Presently they came in sight of the Hurst, and Mrs. Davenant uttered an +exclamation. + +"Why, Stephen, it is altered!" she said. + +Stephen smiled proudly. + +Short as the time had been he had effected a radical change in the old +house; a hundred workmen had been busy, and the ramshackle old mansion +had been transformed. Wings had been added, the grounds had been newly +laid out; the road, even, had been altered, and they drove through an +avenue of thriving young limes. + +Una, silent and interested, kept her eyes fixed on the house. She had +often heard Jack describe it, but this palatial residence did not answer +to his description. Stephen's money and energy had entirely transformed +the place. + +The carriage pulled up at the entrance, and half a dozen grooms flew to +the horses' heads: footmen in handsome liveries stood in attendance, +and the servants formed a lane for their master to pass through. Una had +often read of such a reception, but here was a reality. + +Stephen helped her to alight, and took her and his mother on his arm, +his head erect, a warm flush on his cheek. + +Suddenly the flush disappeared and a frown took its place as he saw +amongst the crowd gathered together at the entrance the parchment-like +visage of old Skettle. + +But the frown disappeared as he entered the house, and stood silent, +listening to the approving comments of Mrs. Davenant. + +"My dear Stephen," she said, "you have certainly altered the place--I +should not have known it. And is this what was the gloomy old Hall?" + +"Yes," said Stephen, proudly, and he glanced round at the alterations +with an air of satisfaction, and looked at Una's face for some sign of +approval. + +But Una was looking around anxiously. If it was so much altered, then it +was not the old home that Jack knew and remembered. + +"You will find everything altered and improved, I hope," said Stephen. + +Altered, indeed! They have even shifted the old staircase, so that it +would have been difficult to have found the room in which the old squire +died, exclaiming: + +"You thief! you thief! what have you done with the will?" + +Yes, indeed, there was great alteration. The old squire, if he had come +to life again, would not have known Hurst as Stephen had made it. +Masons, carpenters, and decorators had been at work to some purpose. +Everything was changed, and unmistakably for the better. + +Stephen looked around with an air of pride. + +"They have been very quick," he said. "I placed it in good hands. You +will find everything you require up-stairs. You must know," he said, +turning to Una, "that I found the place little better than a barn, and +have done my best to make it fit to receive you! You are looking at the +portraits," he added, seeing Una's gaze wandering along the double line +of dead and gone Davenants. "Most of them you would not have seen two +months ago, they had been terribly neglected, but I have had them +cleaned and renewed. That is the old squire, my poor uncle," and he +sighed comfortably. + +Una paused before this, the last portrait of the series, and looked at +it long and curiously, and the other two stood and watched her, Stephen +with a keen glance of scrutiny and with a nervous tremor about his +heart. If she could but know that she was looking at the portrait of her +own father! Una turned away at last with a faint sigh. She was thinking +that this was the old man who had once loved Jack and left him to +poverty. + +Mrs. Davenant shuddered slightly. + +"He was a terrible old man, my dear," she murmured, "and always +frightened me. I trembled when he looked at me." + +"He does not look so terrible," said Una, sadly. + +Stephen fidgeted slightly. + +"Come," he said, "you must not catch cold. Your maids are here by this +time. Will you go up to your room? The housekeeper will show them to +you, and I hope you will find everything comfortable." + +Very slowly, looking to right and left of her, Una followed Mrs. +Davenant up the broad staircase. + +The place seemed to have a strange fascination for her; she could almost +have persuaded herself that she had been in it before, and it seemed +familiar, though so much changed from all likeness to Jack's description +of it. + +They found the rooms upstairs beautifully decorated, and furnished in +the most approved and luxurious style. Lady Bell's house in Park Lane +even was eclipsed. + +"Stephen has made it a palace," said Mrs. Davenant. "How I used to hate +it in the old time! it was so dark and grim and gloomy, always felt dull +and damp. Stephen tells me that he has had it thoroughly drained after +the new fashion, and that it is quite dry. Such a palace as this wants a +mistress; I wish he would marry." + +"Why do you not tell him so?" said Una, with a smile. + +Mrs. Davenant shook her head nervously. + +"That would do no good, my dear," she said. "I sometimes think he will +never marry." + +And she glanced at Una with some embarrassment. A dim suspicion had of +late crossed her mind that if Una had been free, Stephen might have +stood in Jack's place. She could not help noticing Stephen's close +attendance on Una--a mother's eyes are sharp to note such things. + +If the old squire could have seen the dining-room and the elaborate +_menu_ that evening, he would have stared and sworn. Stephen had engaged +a French cook; the appointments were as perfect as they could be; the +servants admirably trained, and as to the wines the Hurst cellar stood +second to none in the country. + +It almost seemed as if he were sparing no pains to impress on Una all +that the wife of Stephen Davenant would possess. And Una, more than half +the dinner-time, was thinking of Jack, and fondly picturing the little +house they had so often talked of setting up when the commissionership +came home. Just at the same time, Jack was leaning over Lady Bell's +chair in the theater. + +Stephen was in his best mood, and exerted himself to the uttermost. He +described the neighborhood, planned excursions and expeditions; told +innumerable anecdotes of the village folk, and played the host to +perfection. + +In a thousand ways he showed his anxiety for Una's comfort; and after +dinner he had the place lit up, and went over it, asking her opinion on +this point and the other, and humbly begging her to suggest alterations. +So much so that Una began to grow shy and reserved, and shrank closer to +Mrs. Davenant; and Stephen, quick to see when he was going too fast, +left them and went to the library to write letters. + +Now, strange to say, of all the rooms in the house, this one room +remained unaltered. He had not allowed it to be touched--indeed it was +kept closely locked, and the key never left him night and day. Just as +it had been on the night of the squire's death, when Stephen stood with +the stolen will in his hand, so it was now. + +He never entered it without a shudder, and all the time he was in it his +eyes unconsciously wandered over the floor and furniture as if +mechanically searching for something. + +It exerted a strange, weird influence over him, and seemed to draw him +into it. Tonight he paced up and down, looking at the familiar objects, +and making no attempt to write his letters. + +His brain was busy, not with schemes of ambition and avarice, but of +love. The blood ran riot in his veins as he thought that Una was under +the same roof as himself, and one mighty resolve took possession of him. + +"She shall never leave it but to come back as my wife," was his resolve. + +Even the lost will did not trouble him tonight. He had Una in his grasp, +Una upon whom everything turned. + +It was far into the morning before he went to bed, and at the head of +the stairs he turned and looked round with a proud smile. + +"All--all mine!" he muttered, "and I will have her, too," and he went to +sleep and dreamed, not of Una, but of Laura Treherne. + +All through the watches of the night the pale, dark face haunted him. At +times he saw it peering at him through the library window, at others it +was pursuing him along an endless road; but always it wore a threatening +aspect and filled him with a vague terror. + +Some men's conscience only awake at night. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +If Una had been a queen visiting some distant part of her realm, more +elaborate preparations for her amusement could not have been made. + +Not a day passed but Stephen had got some proposition for pleasuring, +and he never tired of hunting up some place to go. + +One morning they would drive to some romantic and historic spot; another +there would be some flower show or _fete_, which he insisted upon them +seeing; on others, they would play lawn tennis in the now beautiful +grounds. The fame of the new Hurst had spread abroad, and those of the +county families who were in residence called at once, and dinner parties +were given and accepted. So the week glided by quickly, even to Una, +who reckoned time by the day on which she would see Jack. + +Every morning there came a scrawl--Jack's handwriting was mysterious and +terrible--from him; in every letter he expressed his longing to see her, +and the hateful time he was having in town. But every letter had some +mention of Lady Bell; and it was evident that he spent most of his time +at Park Lane. + +But Una was not jealous--she put away from her resolutely any feeling of +that kind. + +"I am so glad that Lady Bell is in town, and that Jack has some place to +go to," she said to Mrs. Davenant. + +And Mrs. Davenant smiled; but sighed at the same time. To her, as to +others, it seemed that Jack spent too much time in attendance upon the +great heiress. + +Stephen's money flew, it was scattered about in every direction; but +still he was not popular. Men touched their hats, but they never smiled +as they had done at the old squire, and as they had done at Jack. There +was something about Stephen that the Hurst folk could not and would not +take to; and even while they were drinking with his money, they talked +of Master Jack and shook their heads regretfully. + +And Stephen knew it, and hated them all; but most of all hated old +Skettle. It seemed as if the old man was ubiquitous; he was everywhere. +Stephen could not take a walk outside the grounds but he came upon the +old man; and, though Skettle always raised his hat and gave him +"Good-day," Stephen felt the small, keen eyes watching him. Of Hudsley +he had seen nothing. + +At last the county papers announced the important fact that Lady +Earlsley had arrived at Earl's Court, and Una knew that in two days she +would see Jack. + +That night Stephen was more attentive than ever. They had been dining +out at a neighbor's, and were sitting in the drawing-room, talking over +the evening. The prospect of Jack's coming had brought a glad light to +Una's eyes--a brighter color to her face. In two days she should see +him! In her happiness she felt amiable and tender to all around her, +and, for the first time, she responded to Stephen's unceasing devotion. +He had brought in from the new library a whole pile of books relating +to the county, and was showing and explaining the illustrations. + +"That is Earl's Court," he said; "a beautiful place, isn't it? But Lady +Bell has several grander places than that." + +"She is very rich," said Una. + +"Very," he said, thoughtfully. "It's a pity that she does not marry." + +Una smiled. + +"She says that she will never marry," she said. + +Stephen looked up. + +"And yet a little while ago they were saying that she would be married +before the year was out." + +"Indeed!" said Una. + +"It would be a grand match for any one," said Stephen. "It would have +been a great match for him." + +"For him?" said Una. "Who was it?" + +Stephen started and looked embarrassed, as if he had made a slip of the +tongue. + +"Well," he said, with a little, awkward laugh; "but--are you jealous? +Perhaps I ought not to tell tales out of school, though the affair is +off long ago, and he has made a happier choice." + +Una put the fire screen on one side and looked at him calmly. He was +sitting almost at her feet. Mrs. Davenant was dozing in her accustomed +arm-chair. + +"Of whom do you speak?" she asked. + +Stephen hesitated, as if reluctant to reply. + +"Well," he said, "it is mere gossip, of course, but gossip awarded the +great prize of the season to a near and dear friend of yours." + +Una's heart beat fast. She guessed what was coming. + +"Tell me," she said, in a low voice. + +"Tut!" said Stephen, as if ashamed to retail such idle gossip. + +"Well, they said that Jack meant to marry the great heiress." + +"It is not true," Una said; but her color went, and left her quite pale +and cold. + +"Of course not," said Stephen, cheerfully; "though I would not say but +there was some excuse for the rumor. Jack was a great deal at Park Lane +until he met--one who shall be nameless." And he looked up at her with +a smile. "Why, they went so far as to congratulate him," he said, +laughing as if at an excellent joke. "And indeed I think if Jack had +said 'Yes,' Lady Bell would not have said 'No.' So, you see, that you +have made a veritable conquest!" + +And he laughed again. + +But there was no answering smile on Una's pale face. It was not of Lady +Bell she thought, but of herself and Jack. + +It was true she had stepped in between Jack and wealth and +prosperity--she, the penniless daughter of a woodman, had prevented his +marrying the great heiress and becoming the master of Earl's Court and +all the Earlsley wealth! A chill passed over her, and she raised the +screen to hide her face from Stephen's eye. + +"Yes, it would have been a great match for Jack," he said, +carelessly--"it would have set him on his feet, as they say. But he is +still more fortunate." And he sighed. + +Una rose. + +"I think I will go up now," she said; and she went and woke Mrs. +Davenant. + +Stephen escorted them to the head of the stairs, smiling as if nothing +had been said, and then went straight to the old library and rang the +bell. + +It was understood that no one was to answer the library bell but +Slummers, and Slummers now appeared. + +Stephen wrote two letters; one ran thus: + +"MY DEAR MR. ROLFE:--Be kind enough to be at my chambers tomorrow +morning at eight o'clock." + +The other was still more short; it was addressed to Mr. Levy Moss: + +"Put on the screw at once." + +Calmly and leisurely he put them in their envelopes, as if the fate and +happiness of two souls were not hanging upon them, and gave them to +Slummers. + +"Take the morning express and deliver these yourself," he said, quietly. +"I shall follow you by the midday train. When you have done so, find Mr. +Newcombe and keep him in sight. You understand?" + +"Quite, sir," said Slummers, and disappeared as silently as usual. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + +It was Jack's last day in town. Tomorrow he would be at Earl's Court, +and in the evening would be riding as fast as a horse could carry him to +Una. + +The hours seemed to drift with leaden wings. + +It was no use going to Park Lane, for the blinds were down, and Lady +Bell was at Earl's Court. It was no use going to the club, for the +whitewashers had taken possession of it; never had Jack been so utterly +bored and wearied. At last he strolled into the park, and sat on one of +the seats and stared at the Row, giving himself up to thoughts of Una, +and picturing their meeting on the morrow. + +He lingered in the park till dusk: then he went home to dress. + +"Still writing, old man?" he said, as he entered, and laid his hand on +Leonard's shoulder. + +"Halloa! is that you, Jack?" said Leonard, throwing down his pen. "I +have been expecting you." + +"Why for?" asked Jack, yawning. Then he looked up curiously. "I wish I'd +known it; I'd have come home. Look here, Len, we'll go and dine +somewhere; if there is anything left to eat in this howling desert of a +London. If ever any man was bored to death and sick of it, I am this +day. Twenty-four hours more of it, and I should chuck myself into the +Serpentine! I never spent such a day----" + +He stopped suddenly, for he became conscious that Leonard was standing, +looking down at him with a grave and earnest regard. + +"What's the matter, old man?" he asked. + +Leonard hesitated. + +"Jack," he said, at last, "Moss has been here." + +"Oh, has he?" said Jack, carelessly. + +"Yes, and there is trouble about. He is pressing for his money." + +"What!" exclaimed Jack. + +Leonard nodded. + +"Yes, he means mischief; he made quite a fuss here. Said he had a heavy +claim to meet----" + +"Oh, I know that old yarn." + +"And that he must and would have money to meet those bills of yours." + +Jack looked grave. + +"Did he mean it?" + +"Yes," said Leonard. "Thanks to you, I know Mr. Levy Moss by this time, +and I am sure he was in earnest." + +"Confound him!" muttered Jack. + +"Confounding him won't pay him," said Leonard, sensibly. + +Jack rose and paced the room. + +"What am I to do, Len?" + +"I don't know," said Leonard. "If I could help you--but all I have +wouldn't meet one bill." + +"And I wouldn't take it if it would," said Jack. "But I can't understand +it! Only last week he was bothering me to take a hundred or two." + +Leonard shook his head. + +"All I can tell you is, that he was simply furious. He said that he must +and would have some money, that if you did not pay him he would----" + +"Well?" said Jack, grimly. + +"That he would put you through the Court," said Leonard. + +Jack turned pale. + +"What am I to do?" he said. "I have been relying on the commissionership +that Stephen promised, and Moss seemed quite willing to wait. I can't +find any money." + +Leonard shook his head. + +"The man was furious. Worse than I have ever seen him. You will have to +find some money somewhere. How much do you owe him?" + +Jack tilted his hat on one side and scratched his head. + +"Hanged if I know. He has let me have a great deal lately. Five hundred, +perhaps." + +"Jack, you have been a fool," said Leonard. "I told you that it was no +use counting upon the place your cousin Stephen promised you." + +"I don't so much care for myself, but Una, Una," said Jack, with a +groan. Then he jumped up. "Let us go and get some dinner, and think it +over." + +They went to a well-known house in Strand, and Jack, careless Jack, +ordered a dinner fit for a prince, and enjoyed it as he would have +enjoyed it if he had been going to be hanged on the morrow. + +"I don't understand Moss," he said. "He was everything that was +agreeable and pleasant a few days ago." + +"And today he was like a wolf hunting for a bone," said Leonard. "Hello, +who's this?" for a gentleman had entered the dining-room and approached +their table. + +"Why, it's Stephen!" exclaimed Jack, forgetting Moss in a moment. "Just +in time, Stephen, we'll have another bottle of claret up. What on earth +brings you to town? And how is--how are they all?" + +Stephen sat down with a grave smile, and just sipped the claret, the +best the house had on its list. And he sat and talked till the wine was +finished, the greater part of which Jack drank, then he said: + +"Jack, I want you to come to my chambers; I have something to tell you." + +"All right," said Jack. "Leonard can find his way home very well." + +Stephen called a hansom, and they were rattled away to the Albany. + +As they ascended the stairs, Stephen laid his hand on Jack's arm. + +"Jack, I am sorry to say I have bad news for you. You will be calm." + +"Bad news!" said Jack, and his heart stood still. "What is it? Una----" + +"Yes," said Stephen; "it is about Una. You will be calm, my dear Jack?" + +Jack leaned against the balustrade and drew a long breath. + +"Is she ill--dead?" he gasped. + +"Neither," said Stephen. "Come, be a man." + +"I am ready," said Jack. "If she is neither ill nor dead I can bear +anything else." + +Stephen opened the door, and Jack, entering, saw Gideon Rolfe standing +on the hearthrug. + +"Mr. Rolfe!" he exclaimed. "How do you do? I am very glad to see you!" +and he held out his hand. + +Gideon Rolfe nodded and turned aside. + +"What is it? What is the matter?" asked Jack, turning to Stephen, who +had carefully closed the door and stood with knitted brow and sad +countenance. + +At Jack's question he glanced at Rolfe, and then, with a sigh, said: + +"Yes, Jack, I will tell you. It will come better from me than Mr. Rolfe. +Jack, you were right in suspecting that the business referred to Una. +She is quite well--and happy. But--but I am afraid your engagement must +cease." + +At this, Jack's calmness came back to him, and with something like a +smile, he said, scornfully: + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes," said Gideon Rolfe, but Stephen held up his hand and silenced him. + +"Perhaps you will tell me for what reason?" said Jack, quietly. + +"For a sad, very sad reason," said Stephen, in a subdued and mournful +tone. "Jack, my heart bleeds for you----" + +"Never mind your heart," said Jack, curtly. "Come to the point, +Stephen." + +"I sympathize with you deeply," continued Stephen, not at all affronted. +"The fact is, Mr. Rolfe has tonight made a communication respecting our +dear young friend, which has completely overwhelmed me----" + +"Let me see if it will overwhelm me," said Jack. "What is it?" + +"My dear Jack, it is a story involving shame----" + +"Shame!" echoed Jack, and his brow darkened. "To whom?" + +"To those who can feel shame no longer," said Stephen; "but alas! its +shadow falls on a young life as innocent and pure as the angels." + +"On Una?" demanded Jack, fiercely. + +Stephen bowed his head. + +"Yes, Jack. Una is a nameless child--she is illegitimate." + +Jack reeled and fell into a chair, and there he sat for a moment. + +"It is a lie!" he said at last. + +"It is true!" said the deep voice of Gideon Rolfe; and Jack, fixing his +startled eyes on the rough, ragged face, knew that it was the truth. + +With a groan he covered his face with his hands; then he started up and +struck the table a blow that made Stephen wince. + +"Well," he exclaimed, with a short laugh--"well, what business is it of +anyone's but mine and Una's? What do I care whether she is illegitimate +or not? Let her be the daughter of whom she may, married or unmarried, +it matters not to me. She _is_ Una, and that is enough!" + +His voice rang out loud and clear as a bell's tone, and he looked from +one to the other defiantly. + +"And now that is settled," he said, sternly. "Let us come to +particulars, to proof. Mr. Rolfe, though I know you are averse to our +marriage, I believe you. I do not think you are capable of inventing a +lie--a base, fiendish lie--to serve your ends. But all the same I ask, +and not without reason, some proofs. First, who are Una's parents?" + +Gideon Rolfe was about to reply, but a glance from Stephen stopped him. + +"That is the question I have implored Mr. Rolfe to answer," he said. "I +have entreated him to give us some information, but he declines. It is a +secret which he says shall go down to the grave with him, unless----" + +"Unless what?" demanded Jack, hoarsely. + +"Unless you are still determined to hold Una to her engagement. +Then----" + +He paused, and Jack looked from one to the other. + +"Well?" + +"Then he declares he will go to Una and inform her of the shame that +clings to her name." + +Jack uttered a low cry and sank back in his chair. He saw by what heavy +chains he was bound. To get possession of Una he must inflict the agony +of shame upon her. + +If ever a man loved truly and nobly Jack loved Una. He would have died +the death to spare her a moment's pain; and here was this man +threatening to darken and curse her whole life if he, Jack, did not +relinquish her. + +"Are you human?" he said, turning his eyes upon Gideon Rolfe with a +wild, hunted gaze. + +Gideon Rolfe smiled bitterly. + +"I am human enough to prevent this marriage." + +Jack rose and confronted him. + +"I will not give her up," he said hoarsely. "I defy you!" + +"Good!" said Gideon Rolfe. "Then I go to the girl and acquaint her with +the true story of her birth. If I know her--and I do--she has sufficient +pride to prevent her staining so honorable a family as the Davenants by +marrying into it," and he sneered bitterly. + +Jack's face flushed. + +"You professed to love her," he said. "Are you totally indifferent to +her happiness?" + +"No happiness could follow her union to one of your race," said Gideon +Rolfe. + +Stephen trembled. He was playing a dangerous and desperate game. A word +from Rolfe might put Jack in possession of Una's real parentage, and +Stephen would be ruined. + +"My dear Jack," he said, sorrowfully, "I have besought Mr. Rolfe, almost +on my knees, to hold his hand, but he is like stone--immovable." + +There was a pause. + +Jack stood, his brain in a whirl, his heart beating wildly. His frenzied +brain saw the whole thing clearly. On one side stood his passionate love +and his life-long happiness, on the other Una's shame and agony. + +"I love her so!" he moaned. + +"You say that you love her," said Gideon Rolfe, sternly. "Prove it by +saving her from the knowledge of the shame which clings to her name. If +your love is worth anything it will make that sacrifice. Remember, it is +on your side only. She is young--a mere girl, a few weeks, months at +most, and she will have learned to forget you." + +"That's a lie, at least," groaned Jack. "I know her better than you." + +"No matter," said Gideon Rolfe, coldly. "Time will heal a disappointed +love; no time can heal an undying shame." + +Jack rose and paced the room. + +"Leave me alone for a few minutes," he said hoarsely. "I must think this +out; nothing you can say can influence me." + +At a signal from Stephen, Gideon Rolfe remained silent. + +Five minutes passed and then Jack came to the light. + +The handsome face was haggard and white and so changed that ten years +might have passed over his head in those few minutes. + +"Mr. Rolfe," he said, and his voice was broken and hollow, "why you bear +me such deadly enmity I cannot imagine, and you will not tell me?" + +Gideon Rolfe made a gesture of assent. + +"It is a mystery to me; I only know its results. Once more I ask you to +relent, and spare the unhappiness of both of us." + +"I am resolved," said Gideon. "Either relinquish her or I tell her all. +The decision is in your hands. I do not doubt you will seize your +happiness, even at the cost of her shame." + +"Then you wrong me," said Jack. "Rather than she should know the shadow +which hangs on her life I relinquish her." + +A light gleamed in Stephen's eyes, and his lips twitched. + +"This I do," continued Jack, in a voice so low and broken that it +scarcely reached them, "placing implicit trust in your assertion that +she is--as you state." + +He drew a long breath. + +"I dare not risk it; but if in the future I should find that you have +played me false--if, I say, this should prove a lie, then I tell you +beware, for, as there is a Heaven above us, I will take my vengeance." + +"So be it," said Gideon Rolfe, grimly. "Now write," and he pointed to a +bureau on which stood pen and paper, as if prepared for use. + +Jack started. + +"You will not take my word?" he said, bitterly. + +Gideon Rolfe hesitated; but, at a glance from Stephen, said: + +"Let the knowledge that the engagement is at an end come from you; it +will be better so." + +Jack went to the bureau and sank into a chair. + +Yes, if the blow must be dealt it better be by his hands, as tenderly as +possible. + +He sat for some moments with his head in his hands, as utterly oblivious +of the presence of the others as if they were absent. + +Before him rose the lovely face with its trustful eyes; in his ears rang +the musical voice which he should never hear again. + +What should he write? Why should he write? + +Stephen stole behind him. + +"You will be careful to conceal the truth, my dear Jack," he murmured. + +Jack started, and turned upon him with a look that caused Stephen to +shrink back behind the table. + +"For what am I giving up what is most precious in life?" he said +hoarsely. + +Then in sheer despair he seized the pen, and wrote in a trembling hand: + +"MY DEAREST:--Since you left me, circumstances have occurred which have +changed the current of both our lives. I dare not tell you more, but I +pray, I beseech, you not to misjudge me. If you knew the position in +which I am placed, you would understand why I am acting thus, and +instead of condemning, pity me. Una, from this moment our lives are +separate. Heaven send you happiness, and--as I know your true, loving +heart--forgetfulness. I cannot tell you more--would to Heaven that I +could. From the first I have been unworthy of you; I am more unworthy +now than ever. I dare not ask of you to remember me; forget me, Una, +forget that such a person as I ever crossed your path. Would to Heaven +that we had never met! Don't think hardly of me, my darling, whatever +you may hear. What I am doing is as much for your good as for mine. +Good-bye. I shall never cease to remember and love you, whatever +happens. Good-bye! "JACK." + + +Blotted and smeared, he enclosed it in an envelope, and dropped it +before Gideon Rolfe; then he looked round for his hat. + +"A glass of wine, Jack?" murmured Stephen. + +But Jack took no more notice than if he had been deaf, and seizing his +hat staggered from the room. + +Stephen drew a long breath. + +"Well, Mr. Rolfe," he said, "we have conquered. As for this note, I will +see that it is delivered at a proper opportunity." + +"Good," said Gideon Rolfe; then he paused, and frowned sternly. "I am +sorry for the young man." + +Stephen smiled, and waved his hand. + +"A mere fancy," he said, lightly. "My dear Jack is apt to take these +matters as very serious, but he generally manages to get over them. And +now what will you take to drink, Mr. Rolfe?" + +Gideon Rolfe waved his hand and put on his hat. + +"I leave the letter with you," he said. "Good-night." + +Stephen filled a wine glass with brandy, and drank it off, his hand +shaking. Then he eyed Jack's letter curiously, and at last held the +envelope over the steam of the hot water, and drew it apart. + +"A very sensible letter," he muttered, as he read. "Ambiguous, but all +the better for that. Really, anyone reading this, would conclude that +Jack had made up his mind to marry Lady Bell, and was ashamed to say +so." + +Then he reclosed the envelope, and went to bed, and slept the sleep of +the just. + +Meanwhile Jack strode around the streets of London, his brain in a +whirl, half mad with "the desperation of despair," as a poet has it. + +At last he reached home, and found the rooms dark and lonesome, and +Leonard in bed. + +He sat down and wrote a short note to Lady Bell, telling her that things +had turned up which prevented him coming to Earl's Court--giving no +reason, but just simply the fact. Then he turned out, and he walked +about till daylight. + +When he came in Leonard was at breakfast, and stared aghast at Jack's +haggard face and changed appearance. + +"My dear old man," he commenced, but Jack cut him short. + +"Len, I'm the most miserable wretch in existence. Don't ask me the why +and the wherefore; but all is over between me and Una." + +"Impossible!" said Leonard. + +"Impossible, but true," retorted Jack. "All is over between us, and if +you value our friendship you will not mention her name again." + +"But----" said Leonard. + +"Enough," said Jack. "I tell you that it is so." + +"Moss has been here again," Leonard said. + +"I don't care." + +"But, my dear fellow----" + +"I don't care," said Jack, stolidly. "A hundred Mosses wouldn't matter +to me now. Let him do his worst." + +"You don't know what his worst is," said Leonard. "He has got you in his +power." + +"All right," said Jack, coolly. "Let him exercise it to his uttermost." + +Leonard had never seen Jack like this. + +"Listen to me," he said. "If Moss does all he can do, he can expel you +from any club in London, can make you an utter out-cast. Come, Jack, be +reasonable." + +"I can't be reasonable!" retorted Jack. "I am utterly ruined and undone. +With Una everything that is worth living for has gone. I care nothing +for Moss or anything he can do." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + +"In another hour he will be here," said Una, as she stood at her +dressing-room window, and looked out upon the lawns and park of Hurst, +where they stretched down toward the road. + +"Another hour!" and at the thought, a smile--yet scarcely a smile, but a +suitable light like a sun ray stole over her face. + +The great poet Tennyson has, in one of his greatest poems, portrayed a +girl who, all unconscious of the bitter moments awaiting her, decked +herself in her brightest ribbons to receive her expected lover. + +Bright ribbons are out of fashion now, but Una had paid some, for her, +extraordinary attention to her toilet. Jack was never tired of calling +her beautiful; had even gone so far as to speak of her loveliness, and +it had raised no vanity in her; but this evening she felt she would like +to appear really and truly beautiful in his eyes, so beautiful that even +Lady Bell's spirited face should be forgotten. + +She had chosen the dress he liked best; had selected, with unusual care, +a couple of flowers from the costly bouquet, which, morning and evening, +was sent to her room from the hot-houses, and had decked herself in the +locket and bracelet, and ring which Jack had given her. + +Mrs. Davenant had made her many presents of jewelry, some of it costly, +and even rare; but she would not wear anything but Jack's own gifts +tonight. + +"He will come fresh from Lady Bell's diamonds and sapphires, and would +think little of mine, beautiful as they are; but he will like to see his +locket and his bracelet, and will know that I love him best." + +Not once, but twice and thrice she had moved from the window to the +glass, and looked into it. Not with any expression of pleased vanity, +but rather with merciless criticism. For the first time, she would like +to be as beautiful as Jack thought her. For the last few days she had +been rather silent, and somewhat pale. Stephen's cunning hints +respecting Jack and Lady Bell had had their effect; but tonight's +expectation, and the nearness of Jack's approach, had brought a faint +rose-like tint to her cheeks, and her eyes shone with the subtle light +of love and hope. + +Mrs. Davenant looked up at her as she entered the drawing-room and +smiled affectionately. + +"How well you look tonight, dear," she said, as she kissed her and drew +her down beside her. "I'm inclined to believe Jack, when he says that +you grow more beautiful than ever." + +"Hush," said Una, but with a blush. "Jack says so many foolish things, +dear." + +"If he never said anything more foolish than that he would be a wise +man," said Mrs. Davenant. "How long would he be now, dear?" + +Una glanced at the clock. + +"Just forty minutes," she said simply. + +Mrs. Davenant smiled and patted her hand. + +"Counting the very minutes," she murmured, gently. "What a thing love +is! What would life be without it?" + +"Death," said Una, with a grave smile. "Worse than death." + +Mrs. Davenant sighed. + +"Jack is a happy man," she said. "I wonder whether Stephen will come +down this evening?" + +"Do you not know?" said Una, absently. + +"No," replied Mrs. Davenant. "I thought, perhaps, he might have told +you." + +"Me!" said Una, with open eyes. "Oh, no. Why should he?" + +"I didn't know," said Mrs. Davenant, quietly. "He tells you everything, +I think." + +Una smiled. + +"He is very good and kind," she said, still a little absently. "Oh, very +kind. No one could have taken more trouble to make me happy." + +"Yes, Stephen likes to see you happy," said Mrs. Davenant, softly. "Poor +Stephen!" and she sighed. + +But Una heard neither the expression of pity nor the sigh. She had +risen, and was moving about the room with that suppressed impatience +which marks the one who wafts an expected joy. + +Presently her quick ears heard the rattle of approaching wheels, and +with a throbbing heart she looked at the clock. It wanted ten minutes to +the appointed time for Jack's arrival. With a quick flush of gratitude +for his punctuality she moved to the door, and stole swiftly and softly +to her own room, to regain composure. She heard the carriage pull up and +go away to the stables--heard the hurried tread of footsteps in the +marble hall--and then, with the faint flush grown into a full-blown +blush, went downstairs and entered the drawing-room. + +A sudden shock of disappointment chilled her. Stephen was standing +before the fire warming his hands, but Jack was not there. + +Stephen, in the glass, saw her enter, saw the sudden start and +disappearance of the warm flush, and turned to meet her. + +He looked tired, pale and worn, and the smile with which he met her was +a singular one, one that would have been almost triumphant but for the +expression of anxiety underlying it. + +"I have got back, you see," he said. "And are you quite well?" + +Una murmured an inaudible response, and he went back to the fire and +bent over it, warming his hands, his face grown, if anything, still +paler. + +"How beautiful she looks!" he thought. "How beautiful! Worth risking all +for--all!" + +"Won't you go up and dress, Stephen?" said Mrs. Davenant. "There is a +large fire in your room, and in Jack's too; I have just been into both +of them." + +"Yes, yes," he said, not nervously, but with almost an absent air, and +he left the room. + +"Stephen looks tired," said Mrs. Davenant. "I'm afraid he has had some +business that has worried him. I can always tell by his face." + +"I am very sorry," said Una, gently. "Yes, he did look tired and +worried," she added, but with her eyes on the clock. The hands went +round to the hour--an hour beyond Jack's time--and the butler announced +dinner. + +"Oh, we will wait a little while for Mr. Newcombe!" said Mrs. Davenant, +but Una, with a little flush, murmured: + +"No, do not, please; Mr. Davenant must want his dinner. Please do not +wait;" and Mrs. Davenant, never able to stand out against anyone's will, +rose and put her arm in Una's and they went into the dining-room. +Stephen followed and sat down without making any remark on Jack's +absence; even when Mrs. Davenant said to the butler--"Let them be sure +and keep the soup hot for Mr. Newcombe," Stephen made no observation. + +Dish after dish disappeared, and Una made a faint pretence at eating as +usual, and joined in the conversation between Stephen and Mrs. Davenant, +but her eyes were continually straying toward the clock, her ears +straining for the sound of wheels or a galloping horse. + +The dinner was a thing of the past, and the soup had been kept hot in +vain; no Jack arrived. Gradually silence had fallen on the three, and +when Mrs. Davenant rose it was with a sigh of loving sympathy with the +troubled heart that ached so near her own. + +"I cannot think what has kept him," she said, when they were alone +together in the drawing-room. "If it were anyone but Jack I should feel +nervous--but even I cannot feel nervous about _him_. It is a plain, easy +road from Earl's Court, and he rides like a--a centaur." + +"Perhaps," said Una, with her eyes fixed on the fire--"perhaps Lady Bell +pressed him to stay to dinner, and he will be here presently." + +"That must be it," said Mrs. Davenant, hopefully. "He will come in +directly, making a most tremendous noise, and raging against whatever +has been keeping him. Jack's rages are dreadful while they last--they +don't last long!" + +Una smiled, and listened. + +Stephen entered--so noiselessly that she almost started--and stooped +over his mother. + +"There are some things in the breakfast room I brought from London, will +you go and see to them?" + +Mrs. Davenant rose instantly. + +"Una, dear," she said, "see to the tea, I will be back directly." + +Una nodded, and sat down at the gypsy table. Stephen stood beside the +fire, one white hand stretched out to the blaze, his face turned toward +her, his eyes watching her under their lowered lids. His heart beat +nervously, the task before him seemed to overmaster him, and he shrank +from it; with one hand he felt Jack's letter, lying like an asp in his +breast coat pocket. + +"There is a cold wind tonight," he said absently. "Jack said the wind +had gone round this morning." + +"Jack," said Una, raising her eyes, with a sudden flame of color in her +face. "Have you seen him? You have been to Earl's Court?" + +Stephen frowned as if angry at making a slip. + +"No--no," he said with gentle hesitation. "No; I saw him in London. He +is not at Earl's Court." + +"Not at Earl's Court!" said Una, with surprise. "How is that? Oh, he is +not ill?" + +And her breath came sharply. + +Stephen turned to the fire, with knitted brow and compressed lip, and +fidgeted with the poker. + +"No," he replied, slowly, and as if uncertain what to say--"he is not +ill." + +"Then why did he not go?" asked Una. + +Stephen remained silent; and still keeping her eyes fixed on his pale +face, she rose and glided to his side. + +"You have something to tell me," she said, laying her hand on his arm, +and speaking in a low, panting voice. "What is it? You will tell me, +will you not? Has anything happened to Lady Bell? Is she at Earl's +Court?" + +"Yes, she is at Earl's Court," he said, almost bitterly, "and she is +quite well, I believe." + +"Then," said Una, in a low voice, which she tried vainly to keep +steady--"then it is something concerning Jack. Oh, why do you keep me in +suspense?" + +Her misery maddened him. + +"I will tell you that he is quite well," he said, almost sharply. "I +left him in perfect health. I dined with him, and he made an excellent +dinner." + +"You are angry with him! What has he done to make you angry?" she asked. + +He raised her hand, and let it fall with a gesture of noble indignation. + +"What has he done?" he repeated, as if to himself. "I can find no words +to describe it adequately. My poor Una!" + +And he turned to her, and laid his hand caressingly and pityingly on her +arm. + +Una, white and cold, was all unconscious of his touch. + +Stephen drew her gently to a low seat, and stood over her, his hand +resting with the same caressing pity on her arm. + +"Yes, I must tell you," he said, his voice low and gentle. "Would to +Heaven I had been spared the task. Dear Una! you will be calm--I know +your brave spirit and true, courageous heart. You will summon all your +strength to bear the blow it is left for me to deal you--me who would +lay down my life to spare you a moment's pain!" + +She scarcely heeded him. Her eyes, fixed on his face, were dilated with +fear and dread, her lips white and apart with suspense. + +"Tell me," she murmured. "It is something to do with Jack?" + +"It is," he said. "It is." + +"He is dead!" she breathed. + +And her eyes closed, as a shudder ran through her frame. + +"Would to Heaven he had died, ere this night's work," said Stephen, in a +low, fierce voice. "No; I have told you the truth. I left him well +and--Heaven forgive him--happy." + +Una drew a long breath, and smiled wearily. + +"What can you have to tell me about him that is so dreadful, if he is +alive and happy?" + +"He is alive, but he must be dead to you, dear Una," said Stephen. + +"Dead to me!" repeated Una, as if the words had no meaning for her. +"Dead to me! I--I do not understand." + +Then, as he stood silent, with a look of gentle pity and sorrow on his +pale face, a sharp expression of apprehension flashed across her face. + +"Say that again," she said. "You--you mean to tell me that he has left +me?" + +Stephen lowered his head. + +Una was silent, while the clock ticked three, then three words came +swiftly and sharply from her white lips: + +"It is false!" + +Stephen started. + +"Would to Heaven it were," he murmured. + +"Gone! left me without a word," said Una, with a smile of scorn. "Can +you ask--can you expect me to believe it?" + +"No," said Stephen. "No one would believe such base and hideous +treachery without proof." + +"Proof!" she echoed, faintly, and with sudden sinking of the heart. +"Proof! Give it to me!" + +Stephen drew the letter from his pocket slowly and reluctantly. + +Una saw it and shivered. + +"It is from him; give it to me," she said. + +And she held out her hand. + +Stephen took it in his, and held it for a moment. + +"Wait--for Heaven's sake wait," he murmured, with agitation. "I meant to +break it to you--to explain----" + +"Give it to me," was all she said, and she shook his hand off +impatiently. + +"Take it," said Stephen, with a tremor in his voice, "take it, and would +to Heaven he had found some other messenger to bear it." + +Una took the letter and slowly but steadily carried it to another part +of the room. + +There she stood and looked at it as if she were waiting to gain strength +to open it. + +At last, after what seemed an eternity to Stephen, who was watching her +in the glass, she broke open the envelope and read. + +Not twice, but thrice she read it, as if she meant to engrave every line +on her heart, then she thrust the letter in her bosom and came back to +the fire. + +Stephen turned, and with a low cry of alarm at sight of her altered +face, moved toward her; but she put up her hand to keep him back. + +Altered! Not only in face but in bravery. A minute ago she had been a +gentle-hearted, suffering, tortured girl, now she was an injured, +deserted woman. + +"Thanks," she said, and the words fell like ice from her lips. "You +spoke of an explanation. Will you tell me all you know, Stephen?" + +"Pray--not now," he murmured. "Tomorrow----" + +But she stopped him with a smile, awful to see in its utter despair and +unnatural calmness. + +"Now, please." + +"It--it is too easy of explanation," said Stephen hoarsely. "He was +tempted and he has fallen. He has bartered his honor for gold. Ask me no +more." + +Una drew a long breath. + +"It is needless," she said. "You mean that he has left me, because I am +poor, for Lady Earlsley, who can make him rich." + +Stephen turned away and sighed heavily. + +Una looked at him for a moment, then sat down at the tea-table. + +"You will have some tea?" she said calmly. + +Stephen started and looked at her. She had taken up the cream ewer with +an unfaltering hand. Great Heaven! could it be possible that she did not +feel it--that she did not really love Jack after all! A wild feeling of +exultation rose within his heart. + +"Thank Heaven!" he murmured, "you can meet such treachery as it +deserves--with scorn and contempt." + +She looked up at him with a strange smile on her cold, white face, and +held out a tea-cup. But as he came near her, the cup dropped from her +hand with a crash, and she fell back like one stricken unto death. + + * * * * * + +That same evening, Lady Bell stood in the drawing-room of Earl's Court. +She was richly dressed, more richly than was usual with her; upon her +white neck and arms sparkled the diamond set which she wore only on the +most special occasions. The room was full. Four or five of the country +families had been dining with her, and the buzz of conversation and +sound of music rose and fell together confusedly. + +Surrounded, as usual, by a little circle of courtiers, she reigned, by +the right of her beauty, her birth, and her wealth, a queen of society. + +Brilliant and witty she, so to speak, kept her devoted adherents at bay, +her beautiful face lit up with the smile which so many found so falsely +fascinating, her eyes shining like the gems in her hair. Never had she +appeared so beautiful, so irresistible. + +Regarding her even most critically one would have assented to the +proposition that certainly if any woman in the world was happy that +night it was Lady Isabel Earlsley. + +And yet beneath all her brilliance Lady Bell was hiding an aching heart. +Half the country was there at her feet, and only one of all her invited +guests absent, and he a poor, tireless, ne'er-do-well. But Lady Bell +would willingly, joyfully have exchanged them all for that one man, for +that scapegrace with the bold, handsome face and frank, fearless eyes. + +Since mid-day she had been expecting him. Like Una, her eyes had +wandered to the clock, and she had told the minutes over; but he had not +come, and now, with that false gayety of despair, she was striving, +fighting hard to forget him. + +But her eyes and ears refused to obey her will, and were still watching +and waiting, and suddenly her glance, wandering over her fan, saw a +figure standing in the doorway. + +It was not a man's, it was that of Laura Treherne's--Mary Burns. + +Not one of them around her noticed any difference in her smile or +guessed why she dismissed them so easily and naturally. She did not even +march straight for the door, but making a circuit, gradually reached the +hall. + +Pale and calm and self-possessed as usual, the strange maid was waiting +for her. + +"Well!" said Lady Bell, and her voice was scarcely above a whisper. +"Has--has he come?" + +"No," said Laura Treherne. "But though your ladyship told me only to let +you know of Mr. Newcombe's arrival, I thought it best to bring you this +letter." + +Lady Bell almost snatched it from her hand. + +"You did right," she said. + +With trembling hands she broke open the envelope, not noting that it +opened easily as if it had been tampered with, and read the note. + +"DEAR LADY BELL--I am sorry I cannot come as arranged. I am in great +trouble, and cannot leave London. + "Yours truly, + "JACK NEWCOMBE." + + +Lady Bell looked at the few lines for full a minute, then she pressed +the letter to her lips. As she did so, she saw that the slight figure in +its dark dress was still standing in front of her, and she started. + +"Why are you waiting?" she said angrily. + +Laura Treherne turned to go, but Lady Bell called to her. + +"Wait. I beg your pardon. I am going to London tomorrow by the first +train. Will you have everything ready?" + +Laura Treherne bowed. + +"Yes, my lady." + +"And--and--you need not sit up," said Lady Bell. + +"Thanks, my lady," was the calm response. And the dim figure disappeared +in the distance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + + +Christmas was near at hand; but notwithstanding that nearly everybody +who had a country house, or an invitation to one, was away in the +shires, London was by no means empty. There were still "chariots and +horsemen" in the park; and the clubs were pretty well frequented. Not a +few have come to the conclusion that after all London is at its best and +cheerfulest in mid-winter; and that plum pudding and roast beef can be +enjoyed in a London square as well, if not better, than in the country. + +Among these was Lady Bell. Although she had two or three country houses +which she might have filled with guests, she, for sundry reasons, +preferred to remain in Park Lane. + +Perhaps, like Leonard Dagle, she thought that there was no place like +London. He would have his idea that there was no place in it like Spider +Court. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter, with perhaps, just a short +interregnum of a fortnight in summer, Leonard stuck to Spider Court; and +on this winter evening he was sitting in his accustomed place, busily +driving the pen. + +There was a certain change about Leonard which was worthy of remark. He +looked, not older than we saw him last, but younger. In place of the +weary, abstracted air, which had settled upon him during the long months +of the search of Laura Treherne, there was an expression of hopefulness +and energy which was distinctly palpable. The room too looked changed. +It was neater and less muddled; and though the boxing gloves and +portraits of actresses and fair ladies of the ballet still adorned the +walls, the floor and chairs were no longer lumbered with Jack's boots +and gloves, cigar boxes, and other impedimenta. + +Perhaps Leonard missed these untidy objects, for he was wont to look up +from his work and round the room with a sigh, and not seldom would rise +and stalk into the bed-room beyond his own; the bed-room which Jack kept +in a similar litter, but which now was neat and tidy--and unoccupied. + +At such times Leonard would sigh and murmur to himself, "Poor Jack!" and +betaking himself to his writing desk again would pull out a locket and +gaze long and earnestly on a face enshrined therein, a face which +strikingly resembled that of Laura Treherne, and so would gain comfort +and fall to work again. + +Tonight, he had wandered into the unoccupied room and had glanced at the +portrait two or three times, for he felt lonely and would have given a +five-pound note to hear Jack's tread upon the stairs, and his voice +shouting for the housekeeper to bring him hot water. + +"Poor Jack!" he murmured, "where is he now?" For some months had elapsed +since he had found a few lines of sad farewell from Jack lying on his +writing desk, but pregnant with despair and reckless helplessness. And +Jack had gone whither not even Mr. Levy Moss, who sought him far and +wide, could discover; and not Mr. Moss alone, but Lady Bell Earlsley; +fast as she had traveled from Earl's Court to London, she arrived too +late to see Jack, too late to learn from his lips the nature of the +trouble which he had spoken of in his short note to her. And from +Leonard even, she could not learn much. He could only tell her that Jack +and Una's engagement was broken off, and by Jack himself, but for what +reason he could not tell or guess. And with that Lady Bell had to be, +not content, but patient. + +"You were his dearest friend," she said to Leonard, "can you not guess +where he has gone?" + +And Leonard had shaken his head sorrowfully. "I cannot even guess. He +was utterly miserable and reckless; he once spoke, half in jest, of +enlisting. He was in great trouble." + +"Money trouble?" Lady Bell had asked. + +"Money trouble," assented Len, and Lady Bell had sunk into Leonard's +chair and wrung her white hands. + +"Money! money! how I hate the word! and here I am with more of the vile +stuff than I know what to do with!" + +"That would make no difference to Jack," Leonard said, quietly; and Lady +Bell had sighed--she almost sobbed--and gone on her way as near +broken-hearted as a woman could be. + +And then she had sought for him as openly as she dared, but with no +result, save discovering that there were hundreds of young men who +answered to Jack's description, and who were all indignant when they +applied in response to the advertisements and found that they were not +the men wanted. + +And so the months had rolled on, and the "Savage" was nearly forgotten +at the Club, excepting at odd times when Hetley or Dalrymple remembered +how well he used to tool a team to the "Sheaves," or row stroke in a +scratch eight. My friend, if you want to find out of how little +importance you are in your little world, disappear for a few months, and +when you come back you will find that your place has been excellently +well filled, excepting in the hearts of the one or two faithful men and +women who loved you. + +The world went on very well without Jack, and only two or three hearts +ached, really ached, at his absence--Len, honest Len, in his den in +Spider Court; Lady Bell, in Park Lane; and that other tender, loving, +and tortured heart in the old new house at Hurst. + +Leonard often thought of that tender heart, and sighed over it as he +sighed for Jack. It was still a mystery to him, their separation; he +knew that Una was still at the Hurst, but that was all. No news of her +ever reached him. At times he ran across Stephen in London, and +exchanged a word or a bow with him, and had noticed that he was looking +better and sleeker, and less pale--more flourishing in fact, than he had +done for some time. + +He, too had come to Spider Court, and expressed profound grief at +Jack's disappearance, and had gone away after wringing Leonard's hand +sympathetically. + +Leonard sat thinking over this far more than was good to the work he had +in hand, when he heard the door open, and half starting, said absently: + +"Nothing more wanted tonight, Mrs. Brown." + +But a step, certainly not Mrs. Brown's, crossed the room, and a heavy +hand was laid on his shoulder, and looking up, he saw Jack's face above +him. + +"Jack!" he exclaimed, clutching him as if he expected to see him +disappear again. "It is you, really you? Great Heaven!" + +There was reason for the exclamation; for though it was Jack, he was so +altered as to have rendered the description of him in the advertisements +quite useless. Thin, pale, careworn, it was no more the old Jack than +the living skeleton is Daniel Lambert. + +"Great Heaven! Is it really you, Jack?" + +"Yes, it is I! what is left of me, Len. You--you are looking well, old +man. And the old room; how cheery it seems." + +And he laughed--the shadow of the old laugh--even more pitiable than +tears. + +"For Heaven's sake be quiet; don't speak just yet," said Len, with a +husky voice. "Sit down. You've frightened me, Jack. Have you been ill?" + +"Slightly," said Jack, with a smile. + +"And where have you been? Tell me all about it--no, don't tell me +anything yet." + +And he went to the cupboard, and brought out the whisky, and mixed a +stiff glass. + +"Now, then, old man, where's the cigars? here--here's a light. Now +then--no; take off your boots. I'll tell Mrs. Brown to air the bed and +get your dressing-gown. And what about supper?" + +And with a suspicious moisture in his eyes, Len turned from the room. + +"Staunch as a woman, tender as a man." It was a wise saying, whoever +wrote it. + +Jack sipped his whisky and water, and smoked his cigar, and pulled +himself together, which was just what Len wanted to get him to do; and +then Len came back. + +"Now then, old man, out with it. Where have you been?" + +"I've been to America," said Jack. "Don't ask me any particulars, Len; I +wouldn't tell you much if you did. I've been nearly out of my mind half +the time, and down with one of their charming fevers the remainder. You +won't get enough information out of me to write even a magazine article, +old man." + +And he smiled, with a faint attempt at badinage. + +"Great Heaven!" exclaimed Len, again; "and--and is that all?" + +"That's all it amounts to," said Jack, wearily. "You want to know how I +came back, and why? Well, I can scarcely tell why. I got so sick of +trying to get knocked on the head, and failing miserably, that I got +disgusted with the country, weary of wandering about, and resolved that +it would be better to come and give Levy Moss his revenge. He's still +alive, I hope?" + +"And you got back?" said Len. + +"I worked my passage over," said Jack, curtly. "I was a bad hand, and +caught cold on the top of the last affair, and just managed to pull +myself together to reach London, and here I am. Not very lucid, Len, is +it? But there's no more to tell." + +Leonard looked at him with infinite pity, and mixed another glass of +whisky. + +"Poor old Jack," he murmured. + +"And now it's your turn," said Jack, lighting another cigar. "Tell me +all the news, Len, about yourself first. How are Hetley, and Dalrymple, +and the rest of them? But yourself first, Len. You look well--better +than when I left. Things have gone right with you." + +"Then you have not forgotten?" said Len, gratefully. + +"It is not likely," he said, quietly. "I have thought of you many a +night as I lay burning with that confounded fever. Are you married?" and +he looked round the room as if he expected to see Mrs. Dagle in some dim +corner. + +Leonard blushed. + +"Nonsense! No, Jack, I'm not married. But--I'm very happy, old +man--should have been quite happy, but for missing you." + +Jack nodded. + +"I'm glad of that. Glad it has all worked round, and that you have +missed me, too. Where is she--Laura Treherne? You see I remember her +name." + +Leonard hesitated, and looked troubled. + +"I--I'm afraid I mustn't tell you. You see, Jack, there's still some +kind of mystery hanging about this love affair of mine. It is Laura's +wish that I should keep silent as to her whereabouts. I give you my word +I don't understand why. But I don't want to talk of myself and my +affairs, Jack. There is something and someone else you want to hear +about." + +Jack looked up with a sudden start, and held up his hand. + +"No, not a word!" he said. "Don't tell me a word. I--that affair is +over--dead and buried. Don't speak her name, Len, for Heaven's sake. Let +that rest forever between us." + +Len sighed. + +"Tell me more about yourself," said Jack, impatiently, as if anxious to +get away from the other subject. "There is some mystery, secret, you +say." + +"Yes," said Leonard, humoring him, "there is a mystery and secret, +which, much as I love her, and I hope and believe she loves me, Laura +will not trust--well, I will not say 'trust'--which she does not feel +authorized to confide to me." + +"I remember," said Jack, "your telling me that she had some task, or +mission, or something to accomplish--sounds strange." + +"Yes," said Leonard, with a sigh, "and that mission is still +unaccomplished, and blocks the marriage. But I am content to wait and +trust, and I am happy." + +Jack sighed. + +"You deserve to be, old fellow!" he said. + +"No, I don't!" exclaimed Leonard, remorsefully, "for flaunting my +happiness in your face, Jack. And now, here's the supper," he added, as +a waiter from a neighboring chop-house brought in a tray. + +Jack sat down, and Leonard waited upon him, hanging over him, and +watching him as if every mouthful he ate did him, Leonard, good; +meanwhile chatting cheerfully. + +"London pretty full, Jack; lots of people up this year." + +"Yes," said Jack, then he looked up. "I suppose I shan't be able to show +up, because of Moss, Len?" + +"Oh, he won't know you are here! And we'll cut it. We'll go down to the +country somewhere, Jack, before anyone sees you. You haven't met anyone, +have you?" + +"Met them, no. But I have seen Stephen." + +"Stephen Davenant?" + +"Yes, I saw him, but I don't think he saw me. He is looking well." + +Leonard nodded. + +"He did not see you--but it wouldn't have mattered." + +"No," said Jack, with a sigh. "Len, this is the first 'square meal,' as +they say over the sea, that I've enjoyed since I left. I'm very tired." + +"I can see that," said Leonard. "Go off to bed, old man. We'll have no +more questions tonight." + +Jack rose and took his candle. + +"Yes, one more," he said, as he held Leonard's hand, tightly. "Is--is +she well, Len?" + +Leonard nodded. + +"Yes, I think so----" + +"That's all," said Jack, resolutely. "Good-night, Len, good-night," and +he turned away quickly. + +Leonard stole into Jack's room several times that night and looked down +upon the tired, weary face, still handsome for all its lines and +haggardness, handsomer some might have thought, for suffering sets a +seal of dignity upon a man's face if there be sterling stuff in him. +Leonard looked down at it pityingly. + +"Poor old man; he has had a hard time of it if any man has." + +Jack turned up at breakfast time looking much refreshed. + +"First good night's rest I've had since--oh, too long to remember, Len. +Dreamed that all that has happened was only a dream, and that I was +waking up and going to see----" he broke off suddenly and sighed. + +Leonard was delighted to see him so much better. + +"We'll leave town directly, Jack," he said. "I've just done my usual +batch of work, and am free. We'll spend our Christmas at some old +inn----" + +Jack looked at him gratefully. + +"You're a staunch old man, Len," he said, quietly. "You'd sacrifice your +sweetheart to your friend." + +Len colored. + +"I'm sure she'd be the first to urge us to go," he said. "Laura is so +unselfish." + +"She shan't be sacrificed for me," said Jack. "No, Len, I'll go off by +myself, before anyone knows I'm back--hallo! what's that?" + +It was a footstep on the stairs, Len motioned for Jack to retreat into +the bedroom, and only just in time, for, barely stopping to knock, Mr. +Levy Moss opened the door. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + + +"Good-morning, Mr. Dagle," said Moss, his eyes roaming about the room. +"Here I am again, you see, Mr. Dagle; and where is Mr. Newcombe? He's +here, I know." + +"If you know so much you've no need to ask," said Leonard. "Who told you +he was here?" + +Levy Moss winked one bleared eye cunningly. + +"I'm smart, Mr. Dagle; I keep my eyes open and my feet a-moving." + +"Just so," said Leonard, "and if you'll be good enough to move them out +of my room I shall be obliged. Please observe that these are _my_ rooms, +Mr. Moss, and not Mr. Newcombe's, and that I am not desirous of further +visits from you." + +"You're sharp, too, Mr. Dagle," said Moss; "but Mr. Newcombe's here; you +don't want two cups and saucers, and two plates, you know, for your +breakfast, eh?" + +"Get out!" said Len, who, when he was roused was, like most quiet men, +rather hot-headed. "Get out! and, by the way, if you meet Mr. Newcombe, +I'd advise you to keep clear of him; he's back from America and carries +two revolvers and a bowie knife, and I needn't tell you, who know him so +well, that he'd as soon put a bullet through your head or stick the +knife in between your ribs as look at you--far rather, perhaps." + +Moss turned pale. + +"I hope Mr. Jack won't do anything rash." + +"I won't answer for him. They don't think much of killing your sort of +people on the other side, Moss. Get out," and Mr. Moss shuffled out; +Leonard bolting the door after him. + +Jack came in and sat down quietly and gravely. + +"I've frightened him," said Leonard, smiling. "He'll keep clear of you +for a day or two. But how did he know you were back? He couldn't have +been keeping watch for all these months." + +"I don't know; someone must have seen me, and told him; I don't know +who, Len. I'm going out." + +"Now, Jack?" said Leonard, fearfully. + +Jack smiled. + +"No, Len; I won't cut it again without telling you and saying 'good-by.' +I'm only going for a walk; and I'll be back to dinner." + +Leonard looked after him, still rather anxiously; there was a look of +determination on the pale, thoughtful face which alarmed him. + +Jack walked to Regent street--please mark that he didn't call a hansom; +though Len had pressed some money upon him--and then into Piccadilly, +and still with the thoughtful look of determination on his face, into +Park Lane, and ascended the steps of Lady Bell's villa. + +A footman, who knew not Jack, opened the door, and Jack, who had not any +cards, gave his name, which the footman gave to Lady Bell's maid as "Mr. +Bluecut." + +Jack walked into the drawing-room, every article of which was familiar +to him; and sat down in the chair which he had so often drawn close to +Lady Bell's, only a few months back; and yet how long, long ago it +seemed. + +Presently the door opened, and Lady Bell came in. + +He saw her in the glass before she saw him. + +Tastefully and simply dressed, she looked, if anything, more beautiful +than ever, but not so bright and restless; Jack noticed that. There was +an undefinable change about her, just as if she had gone through some +trouble, or had done battle with some grief. + +Suddenly she looked round and saw him, and stopped; one hand holding a +chair, her face going from white to crimson. + +Jack rose. + +"I've startled you; I'm very sorry." + +Lady Bell recovered herself, and went to him with outstretched hand and +a look in her dark eyes that she tried to keep out of them. + +"Jack," she said, almost involuntarily. + +"Yes, it's I; like the bad penny, back again, Lady Bell." + +And he sat down and laughed. + +She sank into a chair beside him, and looked at his careworn face. + +"Where have you been?" she asked, softly. + +"To America," said Jack. + +"You have been ill?" she said, still more softly. + +Jack nodded. + +"Yes. I'm all right now. And you? You don't look quite the thing?" + +"Do I not?" she said, with a smile. "I am quite well. And is that all +you are going to tell me of your wanderings?" + +"No. I'll tell you everything some other time," said Jack, quietly. + +"You are not going away again, then?" she asked, looking at him, and +then away from him. + +Jack flushed. + +"That depends," he said, quietly. + +"Depends on what?" she asked. + +"On you," he said. + +Lady Bell started, and the crimson flush flooded her face and neck. Her +lips trembled, and she looked away. + +"On me?" she murmured, faintly. + +"On you," said Jack, earnestly. "Lady Bell, I have come back to ask you +to be my wife." + +She was silent; her face turned from him, so that he could not see the +tears that welled up in her eyes. + +Jack took her hand. + +"Lady Bell, I know that I am not worthy of you--know it quite well. +There isn't a man in the world who is; I, least of all. I know, too, +what the world would say if you should answer 'Yes.' It will impute all +sorts of base motives to me. But, as Heaven is my witness, it is not for +your wealth that I ask you to be my wife. I am poor, and in all sorts of +trouble; but if you were poorer than I am I would still ask you." + +"You would?" she murmured. + +"Yes," he said, quietly. "Yes, I can say that, though I tell you in the +same breath that I am, at this moment, being hunted for money. And I +think you will believe me." + +She made a gesture of assent with her hand. + +"Dear Lady Bell," he continued, "during the last few months I have been +looking back to those happy days we spent together; and when a man's +down with the fever he looks back with keen and wise insight into the +turn of things, and knows when he was happy in the past, and with whom; +and I swore that, if ever I pulled through and got back, I would ask you +if you did not think we might be as happy in the future as in the past. +Dear Bell, I would try and make you happy. Will you be my wife?" + +Trembling in every limb, she sat silent, and with averted face. Then, +suddenly and yet slowly, she turned her eyes upon him--eyes full of +ineffable love and sadness. + +Slowly, softly, she put her other hand in his, and smiled at him. + +"You ask me to be your wife, Jack?" + +"I do," he said. "Your answer, dear Bell?" + +"Is--No," she said. + +Jack started, and his eyes fell before the deep love and tenderness in +hers. He would have drawn his hand away, but she still held it gently. + +"Do you ask me why, Jack? I will tell you. It is because you do not love +me." + +He looked up with a start, and turned pale. + +Lady Bell shook her head gently. + +"Do not speak--it is useless. Besides, you would not tell me a lie, +Jack. Listen; I, too, have been looking back; I, too, have learned a +lesson--a truth--while you have been away. And that truth is, that +others may love as truly and deeply as myself; and that others may find +it as impossible to forget----" + +Jack, pale and agitated, stopped her. + +"The past is buried," he said, hoarsely--"let it rest." + +"It is not buried--it cannot be. See! it revives--springs up, even +without the mention of her name. Jack, you do not love me--you cannot; +for all your love has been given, is still given, to Una." + +"For Heaven's sake!" he implored, rising and pacing the room. + +Lady Bell looked at him. + +"Ah, how you love her still, Jack! See how right I was; and yet you +would come to me." + +And the tears fall slowly. + +"Forgive me," said Jack, bending over her humbly, imploringly--"forgive +me! You--you are right. But I swear I thought it was over for me. You +knew me better than I knew myself." + +"Yes, for a good reason, Jack," she murmured; "for I love you." + +Jack winced. + +"I have been a brute!" he murmured. + +"No, Jack," she said--and she put her hand on his arm and looked up at +him with a smile--"you meant well and honestly. You did not know how it +stood with you. I could not have loved you so well if you had been +false--if you had forgotten her. I have been thinking it out, Jack; and +I know now that to love once--as you and I love--is to love forever." + +"But it is past," he said, "utterly, irrevocably past. You do not know +the barrier that stands immovably between her and me." + +"Do I not?" she murmured, inaudibly. "Be it what it will, your love and +hers stand firm on either side of it. But no more of that, Jack. I am +glad you have come to me--very, very glad. And though I cannot be your +wife, Jack"--with what tenderness and sadness those two words were +breathed--"I can be your friend. I want you to promise me something." + +Jack pressed her hand. He could not trust himself to speak. + +"I want you to promise that you will not go away again, that you will +not leave London whatever happens--mind, whatever happens--without +letting me know! I may ask that much, Jack?" + +"You may ask anything," he said, huskily; "I will do anything you ask of +me--simply anything." + +"I think you would," she said. "Then I have your promise? And, Jack, +this must make no difference between us; you will come and see me?" + +"I do not deserve to come within a mile of you." + +She smiled. + +"And so punish me for not saying 'yes,'" she said, with a little attempt +at archness. "That would be hard for me, Jack. I should lose lover and +friend as well." + +"You are the truest-hearted woman in the world," said Jack, deeply +moved. + +"Except one," said Lady Bell. "There, go now, Jack, and come to dinner +tonight, and bring Leonard Dagle with you--another true heart." + +"I will," said Jack, simply. And he held out his hand. + +She held out both of hers, and looked at him with a strange, wistful +yearning in her eyes. + +"Jack," she breathed, softly, "will you kiss me for the first and last +time?" + +Jack drew her toward him and kissed her. Then, with a little sigh, she +left him. How Jack got out he knew not, for his eyes were strangely dim +and useless. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + + +A dim light was burning in the drawing-room of the Hurst. Outside, the +storm was raging wild and pitiless, making the warm room seem like a +harbor of refuge. Beside the fire sat Mrs. Davenant, half dozing over a +piece of finest needlework for the village working club. She was alone +in the room, and every now and then glanced anxiously toward the door. +Presently it opened, and the tall figure of Stephen entered and crossed +over to her. + +"Mother," he said, and there was a tremulous ring in his voice and a +quiver in his lips that were in marked contrast to his usual smooth +calm. + +Mrs. Davenant looked up with a glance of alarm. "Una!" she exclaimed. + +"Hush!" he said, laying his hand on her shoulder. "Una," and his voice +dwelt on the name. "Una is asleep. She has gone to her own room for a +little while. Mother," he said, slowly, "she has consented." + +Mrs. Davenant looked up and trembled: "Oh, Stephen!" + +He nodded, and stood before the fire, looking up with a smile of +undisguised triumph and joy. "Yes, she has consented. It was--well, hard +work; but my love overmastered her. I told her that you agreed with me +that the sooner the marriage took place the better. You do, do you not?" + +"Yes," murmured Mrs. Davenant. + +"She wants change; nothing but entire change of life and thought will do +her good. Mother, if she remained here, if something were not done, she +would"--he paused, and went on hoarsely, "she would die!" + +Mrs. Davenant shuddered and her eyes filled. "My poor, poor Una!" she +murmured. + +Stephen moved impatiently. "She will not need your pity, mother. A few +weeks hence and you will have no reason to pity her. I'll stake my life +that I bring her back here with the roses in her cheeks, with the smile +in her eyes, as of old. Mother, you do not know what such love as mine +can do!" and his voice trembled with suppressed passion. + +Mrs. Davenant looked up at him, tearfully. + +"You--you are much changed, Stephen," she murmured. + +"I am," he said, with a curt laugh. "I am changed, am I not? I scarcely +know myself. And she has done it. She! My beautiful queen, my lily! Yes, +she shall be happy, if man can make her." He was silent a moment, +dwelling on his love and future, and looked, as he spoke, much changed. +Then he awoke at a question from his mother. + +"When is it to be, Stephen?" + +"Tomorrow," he said, quietly. + +"Tomorrow!" gasped. Mrs. Davenant. "Impossible!" + +"Not at all," he said, curtly. "Remember, I told you not to be +surprised, that it would come suddenly." + +"But----" + +He made a movement of impatience. + +"Do you think I have not made preparations? See," and he took a paper +from his pocket, "I have had the license for a week past. It is no +ordinary marriage. We want no bridesmaid and wedding favors. She would +not have them--or me, if you insisted upon it. It is principally on the +condition that the ceremony shall be quite private--secret almost--that +she has consented." + +Mrs. Davenant stared at the fire. + +Stephen smiled. + +"You do not understand me, even yet, mother," he said. "Did you ever +know anything fail me?" + +Mrs. Davenant shuddered, or was it the play of the fire-light? + +"Never," she said, in a low voice. + +Stephen smiled again. + +"I have seen this coming, have seen my way to it for months past; I have +swept every barrier away----" He stopped suddenly and bit his lip--"and +now for our plans, mother. Try and collect yourself; this has surprised +and upset you," he said, sharply. + +Mrs. Davenant sat up and looked at him attentively. + +"Tomorrow we start, without fuss or bother, for Clumley. I have ordered +them to take a pair of horses to the half-way house, so that we can +change without loss of time. I have also sent a letter to the clergyman +telling him to be prepared for us, and keep his own counsel. We shall +reach Clumley, traveling easily, by half-past ten. There will be no +wedding breakfast--thank Heaven! no fuss or ceremony. We shall go +straight from the church to London, and thence to Paris. Excepting +ourselves and clergyman no one can know anything of the matter until the +marriage is over, then----" and he drew a long breath and smiled. + +Mrs. Davenant, pale and trembling, stared up at him. + +"And--and Una? Does she agree to all this?" + +"Una agrees to everything," he said, impatiently. "She herself +stipulated that it should be done quietly, and"--with a smile--"if this +is not quietly, I do not know what is. And now, my dear mother, go and +make what preparations are absolutely necessary, and make them yourself, +and unaided. Remember there must be no approach to any wedding party. We +are only going to take an outing for a day or two. You understand?" + +"I understand," she faltered; "and when will you be back, Stephen?" she +asked, pitiably. "I--I--you won't be away long, Stephen? I shall miss +her so." + +Stephen patted her on the shoulder. + +"Don't be afraid, mother. We shall not be away too long. I am too proud +of my beautiful bride to hide her away. I want to see her here, mistress +of the Hurst. My wife! my wife! Hush! here she comes. Do not upset her." + +And, with a quick, noiseless step, he went out as Una entered. + +Framed in the doorway, she stood for a moment like a picture. Paler and +slighter than in the old days, she had lost none of her beauty. Stephen +had cause to be proud of his bride. There would be no lovelier woman in +Wealdshire than the future mistress of the Hurst. And yet, if Jack could +have seen her that moment, what agony her face would have cost him; for +his eyes, quickened by his passionate love, would have read and +understood that subtle change that had fallen on the beautiful face; +would have read the settled melancholy which sat enthroned on the dark +eyes, and gave them the dreamy, far-away look which never left them for +a moment. + + "Communing with the past, she walked; + Alive, yet dead to all the world." + +Slowly she crossed the room, and stood just where Stephen had stood, and +looked into the fire; but not as he had looked--triumphantly, joyfully; +but with an absent, dreamy air. + +Mrs. Davenant put out her hand, and touched her arm. + +"Una!" + +She turned her head, and looked at her questioningly, with a weary, +uninterested gaze. + +"Una, he--Stephen has told me. Oh, my darling, I hope you will be +happy!" + +Una smiled--a cold, mechanical smile. + +"Happy? Yes, he says I shall be happy. Do you think," and she looked +calmly at the anxious, nervous face, "do you think I shall be happy?" + +Mrs. Davenant drew her toward her. + +"My dear, you frighten me. You--you are so--so strange and cold. Cold! +Your hands are like ice. Oh, Una, do you know what it means--this that +you are going to do? It is not too late. Think, Una. You know how I love +you, dear. That I would give all the world to call you--what you are, my +heart of hearts--my own daughter. But, oh, Una! if you think, if you are +not quite sure that you will be happy----" + +Una looked straight at the fire. + +"He says so," she said, in the same hard, cold voice; "he is clever and +wise. He is your son; why do you doubt him?" + +Mrs. Davenant shivered. + +"I--I don't doubt him, dear. Yes, he is my son; he has been a good son +to me. But you are to be his wife; think." + +"I have thought," said Una, quietly. "It will make him happy--he says +so; and the rest does not matter to me. Yes, I have thought; I am tired +with thinking"; and she put her hand to her brow with a sharp gesture, +half wild, half weary. "I will make him happy, and I shall always be +with you, whom I love. What does the rest matter?" + +Mrs. Davenant uttered a little moan. + +"And--and have you quite forgotten?" + +Una looked at her calmly, but with a faint shadow in her eyes and a +touch of pain on her lips. + +"Forgotten! No, I shall not forget until I am dead; perhaps not then; +who knows?" and the dreamy look came back. "But that cannot matter. He, +Stephen, is content; I have told him all, and he is content. He is +easily satisfied." And for the first time a smile of bitterness crossed +her lips. "Why should he love me so?" she said, curtly. "Why should he +be so anxious to make me his wife? I cannot understand it. Is it because +he thinks that I am beautiful? I looked in the glass just now, and it +seemed a dead face." + +"Una!" + +She turned and smiled. + +"It is true. But I have made you cry. Don't do that, dear. At least, we +shall be together, shall we not?" + +In answer, the poor woman took her in her arms, and cried over her; but +Una shed not a single tear. + +No, Stephen was not likely to fail. There were not likely to be any +hitches in anything he undertook. + +Even the weather seemed to conform to his plans and wishes, for the +morning broke clear and bright, so that he might say: + +"Happy is the bride whom the sun shines on." + +Without fuss or bustle, the traveling chariot, with its pair of handsome +bays, drew up to the door; a couple of portmanteaus, no larger than was +necessary for a day or two's outing, were put in the box; and Slummers, +in his tall hat and black overcoat, looking very much like the +old-fashioned banker's clerk, stood with the carriage door in his hand. + +Presently Stephen came down the steps, dressed in a traveling suit, and +looking as calm as usual, but for the touch of color in his face. He had +grown younger in appearance, less prim and formal, and altogether +better-looking. If he could have lost the trick of looking from under +his lowered eyelids, he would have been worth calling handsome. He +exchanged a word with Slummers. + +"All right, sir. The horses are at Netherton; everything is arranged +exactly according to your wishes." + +"And no one suspects anything?" + +"Not a soul," said Slummers, with a smile. + +This morning's work was the sort of thing Slummers liked. He was +enjoying himself, and as happy as his master. + +Stephen went into the house again, and presently Mrs. Davenant and Una +appeared. Notwithstanding Stephen's warning, Mrs. Davenant's eyes were +red; but Una showed no traces of emotion; pale, almost white, she looked +calmly around her. + +In the night she had started out of her sleep, calling wildly, +piteously, on Jack to come and save her. But there was no Jack +here--only Stephen, smiling and watchful as he came to meet her and help +her into the carriage. For a moment her hand touched his bare wrist, and +he felt it cold as ice even through her glove; but he smiled still as if +he had no fear. + +"Once mine," he thought, "and all will be well!" + +Quietly, with no fuss or bustle, Slummers closed the door, mounted the +box, and the horses started off. + +Stephen looked at his watch, and smiled. + +"Punctual almost to the minute," he said. "Are you warm enough, my +darling?" + +And he bent forward, and arranged the costly furs round the slight form. + +"Quite," she said; but she shrank into her corner with a little shiver. + +Stephen left her to herself, but would not remain silent, chatting with, +or rather to, Mrs. Davenant, in a strain of easy cheerfulness, his eyes +wandering to the pale face just showing above the pile of furs. + +Their hoofs ringing on the road, which a few hours of early frost had +made hard, the horses, the finest pair in the county, for Stephen was +critical in such matters and liked the best, spun the distance, and +again, almost punctual to the minute, the village of Netherton, to +which Stephen had sent the change of horses, was reached. + +Slummers stepped down from the box, and was seen to enter the inn yard. + +"The horses ought to be out and waiting," said Stephen, with a little +impatience. + +A moment or two passed, and then Slummers came to the carriage door. + +Stephen jumped out. + +"What is it? Why do you not put the horses to?"--for the others had been +taken out and were standing in the stable. + +Slummers, for the first time in his life, changed color and hesitated. + +"There has been some mistake, sir." + +"Mistake!" + +"The horses are not here." + +Stephen glared at him. + +"I can't understand it, sir. I gave your orders most minutely, but +George has taken the horses on to Clumley." + +Stephen bit his lip and glanced at the carriage. + +"Put the others back," he said, "and tell Masters to drive for his +life." + +Slummers hesitated and went to the coachman, coming back in a moment +with an uneasy countenance. + +"I'm--I'm afraid they won't reach Clumley in time, sir," he said. +"Masters says that it is impossible. Calculating on fresh horses, he has +forced them a bit on the road, and they are used up. If you will look at +them, sir----" + +Stephen uttered an oath, and his face twitched. + +The coachman came up, troubled but respectful. It was no fault of his. + +"I thought I should get the change here, sir. I couldn't do it, unless +the horses had a quarter of an hour and a wipe down, and then----" + +He paused and shook his head. + +Stephen controlled himself, though his face was white. + +"A quarter of an hour," he said. "We will wait so long, and not a moment +longer. Then drive as if your life depended on it. Do not spare the +horses." + +Then he went to the carriage and forced a smile. + +"A little delay," he said, cheerfully. "Would you like to get out for a +quarter of an hour, darling?" + +Una shook her head. + +"I do not care"; but Mrs. Davenant looked at her and spoke out. + +"Yes, Stephen," she said. "My dear, you are half frozen." + +Stephen went to the window of the inn and looked into the room, then +went back. + +"Come," he said. "There is a pleasant fire. A rest and the warmth will +do you good. Come," and, wrapping a huge fur round her, he took her on +his arm and entered the inn. + +Mrs. Davenant followed into the room. A fire was burning in the +old-fashioned grate. Stephen drew a chair near to the welcome blaze and +led Una to it. White and indifferent she sat and looked at the flames. + +"It is only for a few minutes, darling, then we shall be off. Come, +drink some of this," and he held a glass of hot spirit and water to her +hand. + +Una shook her head. + +"Thanks, I could not," she said, simply. + +Stephen motioned to his mother. + +"See that she takes some," he said, in a low voice. "I will go and look +after the horses," and he turned. As he did so the door opened, and a +lady entered. + +For a moment, in the dim light of the low room, Stephen did not +recognize her, then a chill fell on him as if a cold hand had laid on +his heart. He staggered back, and then she raised her veil and looked at +him. + +Not a word passed. Face to face, eye to eye, they stood. A moment +passed. Una had not looked round, only Mrs. Davenant stood speechless +and trembling. Then, as if with an effort, Stephen regained possession +of his quaking soul, and stole nearer to her. + +"Laura," he whispered, glancing behind him. "You here? You want me? +Well, let us come outside." + +A smile, calm and scornful, flashed from her dark face. + +"You cannot pass," she said. + +A wild devil leaped, full grown, into his bosom, and he raised his hand +to strike her, but the next instant he was grasped by the shoulder and +flung aside, and Gideon Rolfe stood over him. + +The room whirled round; scarcely conscious that other figures had +entered and surrounded him, he staggered to his feet. Then a cry, two +words, "Father! Jack!" smote upon his ear, and with an effort he turned +and saw Jack's tall form towering in the low room, with Una clasped +tightly, lying prone in his arms. + +It was all over. Just as the criminal in the dock, when he sees the +judge placing the black cap on his head, knows that his doom is sealed, +Stephen knew that all was lost. But the will was not all subdued yet. + +There was Davenant blood in his veins. White to the very lips, he stood +and glared at them, one hand grasping the table, the other thrust in his +breast. Then an evil smile curled the cunning mouth. + +"Cleverly planned," he said, speaking as if every word cost him a pang. +"You have beaten me, thus far. Gideon Rolfe, I congratulate you upon the +success of your maneuvers; in another hour your daughter would have been +the mistress of Hurst; she will, now, I presume, be the wife of a +beggar." + +Gideon Rolfe looked at him with stern, immovable eyes. + +Stephen smiled and took up his hat. + +"You have robbed me of my bride," he said; "permit me to return to the +home which still remains to me." + +There was an intense silence. Then a slight stir as Jack, carrying Una +in his arms, left the room, followed by Mrs. Davenant. With haggard eyes +Stephen watched them, then, with a convulsive movement, he took up his +hat. + +"You will find me at the Hurst," he said; "I will go there. If there is +any law in the land which can punish you, I will have it, though it cost +me a fortune. Yes, I will go home." + +Still they were silent. Whether from pity, or awe at the sight of his +misery, they were silent. He looked round and, as if he had called, +Slummers glided to his side. They had already reached the door, when a +voice said: + +"Tell him." + +It was Jack who had returned to the room. + +At the sound of the voice, grave and pitying, Stephen swung round as if +he had been stung. + +"You are here still," he said, and a glance of malignant hatred +distorted his face. "I thought you were in jail by this time. You were +waiting to take your wife with you. It would have been wiser to allow +her to go to the Hurst." + +"Tell him," said Jack. + +With a slow, almost reluctant movement, Laura Treherne drew a paper from +under her jacket and held it up. + +Stephen looked at it for a moment as if his sight had failed him, then +he smiled. + +"The plot thickens," he said. "You have robbed me of my wife; you have, +no doubt, some ready-forged document to rob me of my estate. Am I to +give the credit to you for this?" Then he broke out wildly, with a mad +laugh. "It is a forgery! a forgery! I will swear it. There is no such +will. The marriage never took place. You've to prove both yet! You are +not so clever as I thought. You should have stopped short where you +were. You have got her, be satisfied; the rest is mine! Mine, and you +cannot take it from me," and he held his clinched fist toward Jack as he +held all Hurst in his grasp. + +"Show him," said Gideon Rolfe. + +Stephen waved his hand contemptuously. + +"A stale trick," he said. "A clumsy forgery. You cannot connect it with +my uncle's death. Go to your lawyer--Hudsley, if you will; he will be +ready enough to help you--and he will tell you that proof is +impossible." + +As he spoke his voice grew clearer. It was a relief to his overwrought +brain to fight them on ground he had often mentally surveyed. With an +insolent smile on his face he leaned both hands on the table and looked +at them. + +"Come," he said, "you have not won everything yet. The Hurst is mine; I +laugh your forgery to scorn. I will spend every penny of the estate to +contest it. I assert that this paper was forged--last night--if you +like. You cannot prove it was in existence an hour sooner; I defy you. +You have overreached yourselves. Take care! This is your hour. Mine will +come when I see you in the dock." + +In his excitement he had not noticed the entrance of the bent figure of +Skettle, and he turned with a start as the thin, dry voice, close to his +elbow, croaked: + +"Quite right, Mr. Stephen. That's their weak point--want of connection. +If they could carry it back, say to the night of the squire's death, +now, it would be different." + +Stephen looked round with a cunning smile of defiance. + +"This old fool will bear me out. Show him your will." + +"A daring forgery this, Mr. Stephen, if it is a forgery. Leaves the +Hurst to Miss Una, the squire's legitimate daughter. Fifty thousand to +Master Jack; and a set of sermons to you." + +"No doubt," he said, with a hoarse laugh; "it was not worth their while +to do things by halves." + +"Been scorched, too," said Skettle. "Bit torn out by the seal. Now, if +they could find that bit in the possession of a respectable man, who +could prove that he found it on the night, say, of the squire's death, +well--it would go hard with you, Mr. Stephen." + +"But they cannot." + +"I don't know," said Skettle; and slowly drawing out a leather pocket +book of ancient date, he took out a piece of paper and fitted it to the +will. + +"It is a conspiracy!" + +"It is the will I saw you looking for the night of the squire's death." + +"Let me go." And leaning heavily on the arm of his fellow-knave, he +moved with the gait and bearing of an old man, to the door. + +"Great Heaven, this is awful!" said Jack. + + * * * * * + +Winter had passed and spring had clothed the earth with her soft, green +mantle, and in her glad sunlight that sat like a benediction on the +great elms and smooth lawn of Hurst, a party of ladies and gentlemen +were standing on the stone steps that led up to the entrance. + +It was, in a word, the wedding day of Squire Jack Newcombe and Miss Una +Davenant, and these good and tried friends were waiting about the steps +to see the bride and bridegroom start for their honeymoon. + +That Len and Laura and Lady Bell should be there calls for no surprise, +but how comes it that Gideon Rolfe should be a willing witness to the +marriage of Una with one of the hated race of Davenants? Well, when the +cause of hatred is removed, all hate vanishes from the heart of an +honest man. + +On the day he learned that the old squire had not wronged the girl he +had stolen from Gideon, Gideon's hatred had flown, and in its place had +sprung up a longing for atonement; and what better step could he take +toward burying the old animosity than in giving his adopted daughter to +the man of her choice--the man who would make her, as her mother had +been before her, the Squire of Hurst's wife? + +And thus it came to pass that he stood silently, but not grimly waiting +for his daughter--for she was still his daughter--to pass out to the new +life of happiness. And presently there rose a buzz and a hum of +excitement in the house, and the stalwart figure of Jack appeared on the +top step. A moment later and the beautiful face of Una was by his side. +No longer pale, but bright with blushes, and glowing with health and +happiness, she stood, half timidly, pressing close to the proud fellow +beside her. + +Is it all a dream in her eyes, dimmed as they are by happy tears? Can it +be true that Jack is all her own--that these good friends and true are +really clustering round her, bidding her Godspeed and yet hindering her +going as if they were loth to let her go? Perhaps she does not realize +it all until they part and let her pass to where the old bent figure of +Stephen's mother stands waiting to see the last of the girl whom she has +loved and still loves as a daughter. + +Then as Una takes the trembling figure in her arms and kisses the pale +face, she realizes it all, and through sobs she hears the faltering +voice murmuring: + +"God bless you, my darling! God bless and keep you!" + +And as the broken benediction falls from the trembling lips, the crowd +stand back, silent and tearful, and Jack and his bride are allowed to +enter the carriage at last. Then breaks forth the cheer from outside +the gates, and so, wafted around by blessings and good wishes, they +commence their real life. A month later they will come back to find +those friends who saw them depart, eager to welcome them back. + +"No coming home to a silent house, my wild bird!" says Jack. "We'll have +them all here, everyone of them. I'd have all the world to see my +darling, if I could." + +"My darling! my darling! they might take all the rest if they would +leave me you." + +And Stephen? There is no difficulty in finding Stephen--he is too public +a man. You can see and hear him any evening during the month of +charitable meetings, if you will but go to the proper places. + +There amongst philosophers and social reformers, you will see a tall, +thin gentleman, with a white face and spotless linen, who, when he comes +forward to make his speech, is received with deafening cheers, and who +never fails to draw tears from the audience by his pathos and +tender-souled eloquence; and when the meeting is over, if you wait +beside the private entrance to the hall, you will see another tall, +thin, black-coated man, who is like a reflection of the great +philanthropist for whom he is waiting, and who, when he emerges, will +take him by the arm and lead him to his brougham. For, excepting when he +is before the public, Stephen is an injured, broken-down man, only at +times able to whine out the story of the wrongs wrought him by the hands +of those he most trusted. By his own account he has been robbed of his +wife, his estate, his all, and left to the charity of a generous public; +and it is only Slummers, besides Stephen himself, who knows that a check +arrives punctually each quarter from Jack's lawyer for the support of +the man who returns forgiveness and generosity with undying hate and +calumny. Yes, Stephen Davenant is regarded as a deeply injured man, and +when he appears, with his pale face, and soft, mournful voice, there is +always a show of handkerchiefs. + +But Jack and Una are quite content, and whenever his name is mentioned, +it is with more pity than anger. There is no room for aught else in +their hearts but love. + + +[THE END.] + + + + +PATRIOTIC RECITATIONS AND READINGS + +Compiled by Charles Walter Brown + +[Illustration] + +This is the choicest, newest and most complete collection of Patriotic +recitations published, and includes all of the best known selections, +together with the best utterances of many eminent statesmen. Selections +for Decoration Day, Fourth of July, Washington's and Lincoln's +Birthdays, Arbor Day, Labor Day, and all other Patriotic occasions. + +There are few more enjoyable forms of amusement than entertainments and +exhibitions, and there is scarcely anything more difficult to procure +than new and meritorious material appropriate for such occasions. 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HANDFORD + +Introduction by Charles Walter Brown, A. M. + +Author of "Ethan Allen," "John Paul Jones," "Nathan Hale," "Lafayette," +"Pulaski," "Washington," "Abraham Lincoln," "Sherman," etc. + +[Illustration] + +There are lessons in the lives of men much more potent than all the +teaching of the best books and the wisest teachers. President Roosevelt +is one of the brightest and brainiest men of his generation. A man in +whom all the qualities of true manliness are linked with indomitable +perseverance and crowned with a royal sincerity. Because of this he is +worthy to be an object lesson to the young men of America, and is +proving an inspiration to the noble ideal of American citizenship. 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Donohue & Co. 407-409 Dearborn St. Chicago + + +THE YOUNG HUNTERS SERIES + +[Illustration] + +By + +CAPTAIN RALPH BONEHILL + + Gun and Sled + Young Hunters of Porto Rico + +Price 75c, postpaid + + Chicago + M. A. DONOHUE & CO. + 407-429 Dearborn St. + + +WORKS OF JAMES OTIS + +[Illustration] + + Down the Slope + Messenger 48 + Teddy + Telegraph Tom's Venture + +Price 75 Cents, Postpaid. + + Chicago + M. A. Donohue & Co. + 415-429 Dearborn St. + + +ELLA WHEELER WILCOX + +POEMS of REFLECTION + +[Illustration] + +The most noted and helpful poetical work of this famous writer is here +collected in popular form in a suitable binding for birthday or holiday +presentations, or for table or library. Stamping done in light green +upon dark over special design in gold. + +Among the "POEMS OF REFLECTION," a few may be named, as follows: +Penalty, Life Lines from "Maurine," When, Only Dreams, "In the Night," +Contentment, Mother's Loss, The Women, "Vampires," Dying, The King and +Siren, Sunshine and Shadow, "Whatever is,--is Best," Worldly Wisdom, My +Comrade, So Long In Coming, Perished, The Belle's Soliloquy, My Vision, +Dream Time, The Belle of the Season, Joy, Bird of Hope, A Golden Day, +Fading, All the World, Old, Daft, Hung, When I am Dead, Ghosts, Out of +the Depths, Mistakes, Presumption, Song of the Spirit, A Dream, Dying, +Our Angel. This book is poetical inspiration of the highest order for +sustaining and strengthening the heart and mind for the disappointments, +vicissitudes and achievements of life. + +Price 75 cents + + +Poems Of Love, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. + +A beautiful book--companion to "Poems of Reflection." The following is a +selection from a few of the poems in the POEMS OF LOVE: Sweet Danger, A +Fatal Impress, Love, I Will be True, The Kingdom of Love, Love will +Wane, A Maiden's Secret, Lines from "Maurine." This book is handsomely +bound in the style of Poems and Reflections. + +Cloth, price 75 cents + + +Sweet Danger, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. + +This popular author tells the story of love in this book as it has never +been elsewhere told. + +Cloth, price 75 cents + +Sent prepaid on receipt of price, + +M. A. DONOHUE & CO., 407-429 Dearborn Street: CHICAGO. + + +PICTURESQUE AMERICAN BIOGRAPHIES + +"In John Paul Jones and Ethan Allen, Mr. Brown found two of the most +picturesque figures in the life of the country, and he has shown himself +able to deal with them as historical persons, without detracting +anything from the romantic qualities of their individuality. He competes +with historical fiction by developing the superior interest of the facts +as they grew out of the life of his heroes and the life of their times. +Few biographies intended for popular reading and the widest general +circulation illustrates this same faculty of measuring statement and +giving its governing value to fact while developing the picturesque and +the romantic as it lies latent in history."--WILLIAM VINCENT BYARS in +_The St. Louis Star_. + + +Life And Deeds Of ETHAN ALLEN And The Green Mountain Boys + +By Charles Walter Brown, A. M. + +[Illustration] + +Author of "John Paul Jones," "Nathan Hale," "Lafayette," "Pulaski," +"Washington," "Abraham Lincoln," "Sherman." + +16 ILLUSTRATIONS + +"It is the best 'life' of Ethan Allen published."--_Chicago Chronicle._ + +"It abounds in incidents, anecdotes and adventures."--_Louisville +Courier Journal._ + +"It is a painstaking and accurate biography, possessing the fascination +of romance."--_St. Louis Republic._ + +"The account of the expedition into Canada and Allen's lamentable +capture by the British, near Montreal, holds the reader's attention with +all the force of a work of fiction."--_Chicago Journal._ + + 12mo, cloth, size 5-5/8x7-7/8, nearly 300 pages. + Price, Postpaid $1.00 + + +Life And Deeds Of JOHN PAUL JONES Of Naval Fame + +By Charles Walter Brown, A. M. + +12 ILLUSTRATIONS + +[Illustration] + +"This book is a credit to any publishing house."--_Detroit Free Press._ + +"The publication is a careful and commendable one."--_Chicago Journal._ + +"The public will readily welcome this new and valuable biography of John +Paul Jones."--_Indianapolis Sentinel._ + +"Mr. Brown is a faithful biographer and historian, and has the happy +knack of making his hero live again in the imagination of his host of +readers."--_Literary Life, New York._ + + Size, 5-5/8x7-7/8; nearly 300 pages; 12mo, cloth. + Price, Postpaid $1.00 + + This set of two volumes, "Allen" and "Jones" sent to + one address, express paid, for $1.25 + +M. A. DONOHUE & CO., 407-429 Dearborn Street Chicago + + +THE YOUNG SPORTSMAN SERIES + +[Illustration] + +By Captain Ralph Bonehill + + Young Oarsman of Lake View + Leo, the Circus Boy + Rival Cyclists + +Price 75c post paid + + CHICAGO + M. A. Donohue & Co. + 407-429 Dearborn St. + + +Works Of HARRY CASTLEMON + +[Illustration] + + The First Capture + A Struggle for a Fortune + Winged Arrow's Medicine + +Price 75c postpaid + + Chicago + M. A. DONOHUE & CO. + 415-429 Dearborn St. + + +ON A SLOW TRAIN THROUGH ARKANSAW + +By Thomas W. Jackson + +[Illustration] + +_The Funniest Of All Books_ + +Over 900,000 sold since Jan. 20, 1904 + +It tells of all the funny things that happened on a slow train. Many +funny Railroad Stories, Sayings of the Southern Darkies. All the latest +and best Minstrel Jokes of the Day. Paper Covers. Price, 25 cents. + + 900,000 Copies of "On a Slow Train Through Arkansaw" + were sold in 9 months. It still sells at the + rate of nearly 50,000 a month, but + + THREE YEARS IN ARKANSAW + + JUST OUT Bids fair to outsell that immensely popular + book. "The Most Unique Book Ever Published." + +"A complete history of the funny, comical, unreasonable, rich, rare and +peculiar things that happened, transpired and turned up during my three +years of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness along the rocky path of +life down in old Arkansaw."--_M. Hughes._ + +Paper Covers, Price, 25 cents. + + +THROUGH MISSOURI ON A MULE + +_"Worse than Arkansaw" ALL NEW._ + +By Thomas W. Jackson, author of "On a Slow Train Through Arkansaw." +Contains funny Railroad Stories, Old Time Darky Sayings, Minstrel Jokes, +all the late and funny sayings of the day. + +Paper Covers, Price, 25 cents. + +For sale by all Book and Newsdealers, or will send to any address in the +United States, Canada or Mexico, postage prepaid, on receipt of price, +in currency, money order or stamps. + +M. A. DONOHUE & CO., 407-429 Dearborn St., CHICAGO, ILL. + + +LOVE LETTERS + +With Directions How To Write Them + +By INGOLDSBY NORTH. + +[Illustration] + +This is a branch of correspondence which fully demands a volume alone to +provide for the various phases incident to Love, Courtship and Marriage. +Few persons, however otherwise fluent with the pen, are able to express +in words the promptings of the first dawn of love, and even the ice once +broken how to follow up a correspondence with the dearest one in the +whole world and how to smooth the way with those who need to be +consulted in the matter. The numerous letters and answers in this book +go far to overcome the difficulties and embarrassment inseparable from +letters on this all-absorbing topic in all stages from beginning to end +of a successful courtship, aided in many instances by the author's +sensible comments on the specimen letters, and his valuable hints under +adverse contingencies. It also contains the Art of Secret Writing, the +Language of Love portrayed and rules in grammar. + +Paper Covers, 25 Cents. Cloth, 50 Cents. + + +The Complete LETTER WRITER + +Being the only Comprehensive and Practical Guide and Assistant to Letter +Writing Published. + +Edited by CHARLES WALTER BROWN, A. M. + +[Illustration] + +There are few books that contain such a fund of valuable information on +the everyday affairs of life. In addition to every conceivable form of +business and social correspondence, there are letters of Condolence, +Introduction, Congratulation, Felicitation, Advice and Favor; Letters +accompanying presents; Notes on Love, Courtship and Marriage; Forms of +Wedding Anniversaries, Socials, Parties, Notes, Wills, Deeds, Mortgages; +Tables, Abbreviations, Classical Terms, Common Errors, Selections for +Autograph Albums; Information concerning Rates on Foreign and Domestic +Postage, together with a dictionary of nearly 10,000 Synonyms and other +valuable information which space will not admit of mention. The book is +printed from new plates, on a superior quality of paper and bound in +substantial and durable manner. 12mo. + +Paper Covers, 25c. Cloth, 50c. Cloth, 320 Pages, Price $1.00 + +For sale by all book and newsdealers, or sent to any address in the +U.S., Canada or Mexico, postage prepaid on receipt of price in currency, +money order or stamps. + +M. A. DONOHUE & CO. 407-429 Dearborn St. Chicago + + +THE VOTER'S MANUAL AND ARGUMENT. + +Settler For The Vest Pocket + +A strictly non-partisan compilation of political facts and statistics, +designed for ready reference, containing information with which every +voter in the United States should be familiar. Concise, correct, +convenient. A new and valuable work. + + Bound in leather, title on side in gold, 35 cents. + Bound in cloth, 20 cents. + + +HOYLE'S BOOK OF GAMES + +[Illustration] + +Containing all of the games played with cards, also containing rules for +Backgammon, Chess, Checkers, Billiards, Pool, Bagatelle, Bowls, etc. +Numerous diagrams and engravings. The best and most complete edition of +Hoyle published. Printed from new plates, substantially bound in cloth, +stamped in ink and gold. + + Price, $1.00 + Bound in paper, 25 cents. + + +Leaves From CONJURER'S SCRAP BOOK + +Or Modern Magicians And Their Works + +By H. J. Burlingame. 274 pages. 73/4 x 51/2 inches, containing +numerous illustrations. This work presents modern magic in a skillful +manner and shows how the startling and marvelous performances of +magicians are accomplished. It is a very interesting and desirable +publication. + +Price, $1.50 + +Sent Prepaid on Receipt of Price + + M. A. DONOHUE & CO., + 407-429 Dearborn St., + Chicago. + + +VASSAR SERIES + +FOR GIRLS. + +Illustrated + +[Illustration] + +This is the most attractive and carefully selected series of stories for +girls published. Each book is a masterpiece by a master hand and was +selected not merely because of the established reputation of its author +but because it had earned a place in every home where there are girls. +Uniform cloth binding, title in gold, sides and back stamped in inks. + +Price per volume 75c. + + 1 Adventures of a Brownie, as Told to My Child, Mulock. + 2 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and through the Looking Glass, + Carroll. + 3 Arabian Nights. + 4 Andersen's Fairy Tales, Andersen. + 5 Aunt Diana, Rosa N. Carey. + 6 Averil, Rosa N. Carey. + 7 Black Beauty, Anna Sewall. + 8 Book of Golden Deeds, Yonge. + 9 Cuckoo Clock, Molesworth. + 10 Deb and Duchess, Meade. + 11 Esther, Rosa N. Carey. + 12 Fairy Book, Miss Mulock. + 13 Flat Iron for a Farthing, Mrs. Ewing. + 14 Four Little Mischiefs, Rosa Mulholland. + 15 Girl in Ten Thousand, Meade. + 16 Girl Neighbors, Sara Tyler. + 17 Girls and I, and Girls in Black, Mrs. Molesworth. + 18 Grandmother Dear, Mrs. Molesworth. + 19 Grimm's Household Stories, Grimm. + 20 Grimm's Popular Fairy Tales, Grimm. + 21 In the Golden Days, Lyall. + 22 Jackanapes, Mrs. Ewing. + 23 Lamplighter, The Cummings. + 24 Little Lame Prince, Mulock. + 25 Little Susy Stories containing: Little Susy's Six Birthdays, + Little Susy's Six Teachers, Little Susy's Little Servants, + Prentiss. + 26 Margery Merton's Girlhood, A. Corkran. + 27 Meg's Friend, A. Corkran. + 28 Merle's Crusade, Carey. + 29 Naughty Miss Bunny, Mulholland. + 30 Old, Old Fairy Tales. + 31 Our Bessie, Rosa N. Carey. + 32 Palace Beautiful, Meade. + 33 Pilgrim's Progress, Ill., John Bunyan. + 34 Polly, A New Fashioned Girl, Meade. + 35 Queenie's Whim, Carey. + 36 Robin Redbreast, Mrs. Molesworth. + 37 Schonberg-Cotta Family, Mrs. Charles. + 38 Six to Sixteen, Mrs. Ewing. + 39 Six Little Princesses and What They Turned Into, Mrs. Prentiss. + 40 Sweet Girl Graduate, A, L. T. Meade. + 41 Taming a Tomboy, Emmy von Rhoden. + 42 Three Bright Girls, A. E. Armstrong. + 43 Two Little Maids, Verdier. + 44 "Us," Mrs. Molesworth. + 45 Very Odd Girl, A, A. E. Armstrong. + 46 Water Babies, C. Kingsley. + 47 Wide, Wide World, E. Wetherell. + 48 Wild Kitty, L. T. Meade. + 49 World of Girls, A, Meade. + 50 Young Mutineer, Meade. + +For sale by all Book and News Dealers, or sent to any address in the +United States, Canada, or Mexico, postage prepaid, on receipt of price, +in currency, money order or stamps. + + + M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY + 407-429 DEARBORN STREET,--CHICAGO + + + + + Transcriber's Notes: + + + Obvious printer's errors were silently corrected. + + Errors in the names were corrected for consistency and changed to either + the first or the most occurring one: + q -Stephen Davenant was called Stephen Newcombe on page 26 + -Mrs. Davenant's maid Jane was called Janet on page 134 + -Mrs. Cantrip on page 146 was called Cantup on page 169 + -Walmington Square was called Washington Square on page 221. + + Otherwise the author's writing style has been preserved, including: + -archaic and inconsistent spelling + -inconsistent hyphenation + -French words written without accents. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir, by +Charles Garvice + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONLY ONE LOVE, OR WHO WAS THE HEIR *** + +***** This file should be named 35523.txt or 35523.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/5/2/35523/ + +Produced by Heather Clark, eagkw and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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