Only a Girl's Love, Charles Garvice [a book to read .txt] 📗

"'Come joy or woe, come pain or pleasure,
Come poverty or richest treasure,
I cling to thee, love, heart unto heart,
Till death us sever, we will not part.'"

Stella repeated the words after him with a faint smile on her lips, which died away under the glow of his earnest eyes.

Then, as the last words dropt hurriedly from her lips, he took her in his arms and kissed her.

"Now we are betrothed, Stella, you and I against all the world."

As he spoke a cloud sailed across the moon, and the shadows now at their feet suddenly changed from silver to dullish lead.

Stella shuddered in his arms, and clung to him with a little convulsive movement that thrilled him.

"Let us go," she said; "let us go. It seems almost as if there were spirits here! How dark it is!"

"Only for a moment, darling!" he said. "See?" and he took her face and turned it to the moonlight again. "One kiss, and we will go."

With no blush on her face, but with a glow of passionate love in her eyes, she raised her face, looked into his for a moment, then kissed him.

Then they turned, and went toward the boat; but this time she clung to his arm, and her head nestled on his shoulder. As they turned, something white and ghost-like moved from behind the trees, in front of which they had been standing.

It stood in the moonlight looking after them, itself so white and eerie that it might have been one of the good fairies; but that in its face—beautiful enough for any fairy—there glittered the white, angry, threatening look of an evil spirit.

[134]

Was it the nearness of this exquisitely-graceful figure in white which by some instinct Stella had felt and been alarmed at?

The figure watched them for a moment until they were out of sight, then it turned and struck into a path leading toward the Hall.

As it did so, another figure—a black one this time—came out of the shadow, and crossed the path obliquely.

She turned and saw a white, not unhandsome, face, with small keen eyes bent on her. She, the watcher, had been watched.

For a moment she stood as if half-tempted to speak, but the next drew the fleecy shawl round her head with a gesture of almost insolent hauteur.

But she was not to escape so easily; the dark, thin figure slipped back, and stooping down picked up the handkerchief, which in her sweeping gesture she had let drop.

"Pardon!" he said.

She looked at him with cool disdain, then took the handkerchief, and with an inclination of her head that was scarcely a bow would have passed on again, but he did not move from her path, and hat in hand stood looking at her.

Proud, fearless, imperiously haughty as she was, she felt constrained to stop.

He knew by the mere fact of her stopping that he had impressed her, and he at once followed up the advantage gained.

If she had wanted to pass him without speaking she should have taken no notice of the handkerchief, and gone on her way. No doubt she now wished that she had done so, but it was too late now.

"Will you permit me to speak to you?" he said, in a quiet, almost a constrained voice, every word distinct, every word full of significance.

She looked at him, at the pale face with its thin, resolute lips and small, keen eyes, and inclined her head.

"If you intend to speak to me, sir, I apprehend that I cannot prevent it. You will do well to remember that we are not alone here."

Still uncovered, he bowed.

"Your ladyship has no need to remind me of that fact. No deed or word of mine will cause you to wish for a protector."

"I have yet to learn that," she said. "You appear to know me, sir!"

No words will convey any idea of the haughty scorn expressed by the icy tone and the cold glance of the violet eyes.

A faint smile, deferential yet self-possessed, swept across his face.

"There are some so well known to the world that their faces are easily recognized even in the moonlight; such an one is the Lady Len——"

She put up her hand, white and glittering with priceless gems, and at the commanding gesture he stopped, but the smile swept across his face again, and he put up his hand to his lips.

[135]

"You know my name; you wish to speak to me?"

He inclined his head.

"What have you to say to me?"

She had not asked his name; she had treated him as if he were some beggar who had crept up to her carriage as it stood at rest, and by a mixture of bravado and servility gained her ear. There was a fierce, passionate resentment at this treatment burning in his bosom, but he kept it down.

"Is it some favor you have to ask?" she said, with cold, pitiless hauteur, seeing that he hesitated.

"Thanks," he said. "I was waiting for a suggestion—I must put it in that way. Yes, I have to ask a favor. My lady, I am a stranger to you——"

She waved her hand as if she did not care so much as a withered blade of grass for his personal history, and with a little twitch of the lips he continued:

"I am a stranger to you, but I still venture to ask your assistance."

She looked and smiled like one who has known all along what was coming, but to please his own whim, had waited quite naturally.

"Exactly," she said. "I have no money——"

Then he started and stood before her, and what there was of manliness awoke within him.

"Money!" he said. "Are you mad?"

Lady Lenore stared at him haughtily.

"I fear that you are," she said. "Did you not demand—ask is too commonplace a word to describe a request made by a man of a woman alone and unprotected—did you not demand money, sir?"

"Money!" he repeated; then he smiled. "You are laboring under a misapprehension," he said. "I am in no need of money. The assistance I need is not of a pecuniary kind."

"Then what is it?" she asked, and he detected a touch of curiosity in the insolently-haughty voice. "Be good enough to state your desire as briefly as you can, sir, and permit me to go on my way."

Then he played a card.

With a low bow he raised his hat, and drew from the path.

"I beg your ladyship's pardon," he said, respectfully, but with a scarcely feigned air of disappointment. "I see that I have made a mistake. I apologize most humbly for having intruded upon your good nature, and I take my leave. I wish your ladyship good-evening," and he turned.

Lady Lenore looked after him with cold disdain, then she bit her lip and her eyes dropped, and suddenly, without raising her voice, she said:

"Wait!"

He turned and stood with his hand thrust in the breast of his coat, his face calm and self-possessed.

She paused a moment and eyed him, struggling, if the truth were known, and no doubt he knew it, with her curiosity and[136] her pride, which last forbade her hold any further converse with him. At last curiosity conquered.

"I have called you back, sir, to ask the nature of this mistake you say that you have made. Your conduct, your manner, your words are inexplicable to me. Be good enough to explain."

It was a command, and he inclined his head in respectful recognition.

"I am a student of nature, my lady," he said, in a low voice, "and I am fond of rambling in the woods here, especially at moonlight; it is not a singular fancy."

Her face did not flush, but her eyes gleamed; she saw the sneer in the words.

"Go on, sir," she said, coldly.

"Chance led me to-night in the direction of the river. I was standing admiring it when two individuals—the two individuals who have just left us—approached. Suspecting a love tryst, I was retreating, when the moon revealed to me that one of the individuals was a person in whom I take a great interest."

"Which?" she asked, coldly and calmly.

"The young lady," he replied, and his eyes drooped for a moment.

"That interest rather than curiosity,"—her lips curled, and she looked up at him with infinite scorn—"interest rather than curiosity prompted me to remain and, an unwilling listener, I heard the strange engagement—betrothal, call it what you will—that took place."

He paused. She drew the shawl round her head and eyed him askance.

"In what way does this concern me, sir?" she demanded, haughtily.

"Pardon! you perceive my mistake," he said, with a fitting smile. "I was under the impression that as interest or curiosity prompted you also to listen, you might be pleased to assist me."

She bit her lip now.

"How did you know that I was listening?" she demanded.

He smiled.

"I saw your ladyship approach; I saw you take up your position behind the tree, and I saw your face as they talked."

As she remembered all that that face must have told him, her heart throbbed with a wild longing to see him helpless at her feet; her face went a blood red, and her hands closed tightly on the shawl.

"Well, sir?" she said at last, after a pause, during which he had stood eying her under his lowered lids. "Granting that you are right in your surmises, how can I assist you, supposing that I choose to do so?"

He looked at her full in the face.

"By helping me to prevent the fulfillment of the engagement—betrothal, which you and I have just witnessed," he said, promptly and frankly.

She was silent a moment, her eyes looking beyond him as if she were considering, then she said:

[137]

"Why should I help you? How do you know that I take any interest in—in these two persons?"

"You forget," he said, softly. "I saw your face."

She started. There was something in the bold audacity of the man that proved him the master.

"If I admit that I do take some interest, what proof have I that I shall be following that interest by confiding in you?" she asked, haughtily, but less haughtily than hitherto.

"I can give you a sufficient proof," he said, quietly. "I—love—her."

She started. There was so calm and cool and yet intense an expression in his voice.

"You love her?" she repeated. "The girl who has just left us?"

"The young lady," he said, with a slight emphasis, "who has just plighted her troth to Lord Leycester Wyndward."

There was silence for a moment. His direct statement of the case had told on her.

"And if I help you—if I consent—what shape is my assistance to take?"

"I leave that to you," he said. "I can answer for her, for Stella Etheridge—that is her name."

"I do not wish to mention names," she said, coldly.

"Quite right," he said. "Trees have ears, as you and I have just proved."

She shuddered at the familiar, confident tone in his voice.

"I will not mention names," he repeated, "let us say 'him' and 'her.' Candidly—and between us, my lady, there should be nothing but candor—I have sworn that nothing shall come of this betrothal. I love her, and—I—hate him."

She looked at him. His face was deadly white, and his eyes gleamed, but a smile still played about his lips.

"You," he continued, "hate her, and—love—him."

Lady Lenore started, and a crimson flush of shame stained her fair face.

"How dare you!" she exclaimed.

He smiled.

"I have shown you my hand, my lady; I know yours. Will you tell me that I am wrong? Say the word—say that you are indifferent how matters go—and I will make my bow and leave you."

She stood and looked at him—she could not say the word. He had spoken the truth; she did love Lord Leycester with a passion that surprised her, with a passion that had not made itself known to her until to-night, when she had seen him take into his arms another woman—had heard his protestations of love for another woman, and seen him kiss another woman.

Wounded pride, self-love, passionate desire, all fought for mastery within her bosom, and the man who stood calmly before her knew it.

He read every thought of her heart as it was mirrored on the proud, beautiful face.

[138]

"I do not understand," she said. "You come to me a perfect stranger, and make these confessions."

He smiled.

"I come to you because you and I desire to accomplish one end—the separation of these two persons. I come to you because I have already found some means toward such an end, and