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

incredulously.

"Lenore!" and he laughed bitterly. "No; she did not pronounce her name so. I am speaking and thinking of Stella Etheridge."

Her hand trembled, but she did not withdraw it.

"Stella?"

"Yes," he said, and his lips twitched. "A star. A star that will shine in another man's bosom, not in mine as I, fool that I was, dreamed that it would. Lil, I believe that there is only one good woman in the world, and she sits near me now."

"Oh, Ley, Ley—but tell me!"

"There is so little to tell," he said, wearily. "I cannot tell you all. This will suffice, that to-night I expected and hoped to have been able to call her my wife, instead—well, you see, I am sitting here!"

"Your wife?" she murmured. "Stella Etheridge your wife. Was that—that wise, Ley?"

"Wise! What have I to do with wisdom?" he retorted. "I loved her—loved her passionately, madly, as I never, nor shall[214] ever, love another woman! Heaven help me, I love her now! Don't you see that is the worst part of it. I know, as surely as I am sitting here, that my life has gone. It has gone to pieces on the rocks like a goodly ship, and there is an end of it!"

There was silence for a moment, then she spoke, and, woman-like, her thoughts were of the woman.

"But she, Ley? How is it with her?"

He laughed again, and the gentle girl shuddered.

"Don't Ley," she murmured.

"She will be all right," he said. "Women are made like that—all excepting one," and he touched her dress.

"And yet—and yet," she murmured, troubled and sorrowful, "now I look back I am sure that she loved you, Ley! I remember her face, the look of her eyes, the way she spoke your name. Oh, Ley, she loved you!"

"She did—perhaps. She loves me now so well, that on our wedding-day—wedding-day!—she allows a man to step in between us and claim her as his own!"

Maddened by the memory which her words had called up he would have risen, but she held him down with a gentle hand.

"A man! What man, Ley?"

"One called Jasper Adelstone, a lawyer; a man it would be gross flattery to call even a gentleman! Think of it, Lil. Picture it! I wait to receive my bride, and instead of it happening so, I am sent for to meet her at this man's chambers. There I am informed that all is over between us, and that she is the affianced wife of Mr. Jasper Adelstone."

"But the reason—the reason?"

"There is none!" he exclaimed, rising and pacing the room, "I am vouchsafed no reason. The bare facts are deemed sufficient for me. I am cast adrift, as something no longer necessary or needful, without word of reason or even of rhyme!" and he laughed.

She was silent for a moment, then a murmur broke from her lips.

"Poor girl!"

He stooped and looked down at her.

"Do not waste your pity, Lil," he said, with a grim smile. "With her own lips she declared that what she did she did of her own free will!"

"With this man standing by her side?"

He started, then he shook his head.

"I know what you mean!" he said, hoarsely. "And do you not see that that is the worst of it. She is in his power; there is some secret understanding between them. Can I marry a woman who is in another man's power so completely that she is forced to break her word to me, to jilt me for him!—can I?"

His voice was so hoarse and harsh as to be almost inarticulate, and he stood with outstretched, appealing hands, as if demanding an answer.

What could she say? For a moment she was silent, then she put out her hand to him.

"And you have left her with him, Ley?"

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The question sent all the blood from his face.

"Yes," he said, wearily, "I have left her with her future husband. Possibly, probably, by this time she has become his wife. One man can procure a marriage license as easily as another."

"You did that! What would papa and my mother have said?" she murmured.

He laughed.

"What did, what should I care? I tell you I loved her madly; you do not know, cannot understand what such love means! Know, then, Lil, that I would rather have died than lose her—that, having lost her, life has become void and barren for me—that the days and hours until I forget her will be so much time of torture and regret, and vain, useless longing. I shall see her face, hear her voice, wherever I may be, in the day or in the night; and no pleasure, no pain will efface her from my memory or my heart."

"Oh, Ley!—my poor Ley!"

"Thus it is with me. And now I have come to say 'good-bye.'"

"Good-bye. You are going—where?"

"Where?" he echoed, with the same discordant laugh. "I neither know nor care. I am afraid all places will be alike for awhile. The whole earth is full of her; there is not a wild flower that will not remind me of her, not a sound of music that will not recall her voice. If I meet a woman I shall compare her with my Stella—my Stella! no, Jasper Adelstone's! Oh, Heaven! I could bear all but that. If she were dead, I should have at least one comfort—the consolation of knowing that she had belonged to no other man—that in some other remote world we might meet again, and I might claim her as mine! But that is denied to me. My white angel is stained and besmirched, and is mine no longer!"

Worn out by the passion of his grief, he dropped on the seat at her feet, and hid his face in his hands.

She put her arm round his neck, but spoke no word. Words at such moments are like gnats round a wound—they can only irritate, they cannot heal.

They sat thus motionless for some minutes, then he rose, calmer but very white and worn.

"This is weak of me, worse than weak, inconsiderate, Lil," he said, with a wan smile. "You have so much of your own sorrows that you should be spared the recital of other people's woes. I will go now. Good-bye, Lil!"

"Oh, what can I do for you?" she murmured. "My dear! My dear!"

He stooped and kissed her, and looked down at her pale face so full of sorrow for his sorrow, and his heart grew calmer and more resigned.

"Nothing, Lil," he said.

"Yes," she said in a low voice; "if I can do nothing else I can pray for you, Ley!"

He smiled and stroked her hair.

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"You are an angel, Lil," he said, softly. "If all women were made like you, there would be no sin and little sorrow in the world. In the future that lies black and drear before me I shall think of you. Yes, pray for me, Lil. Good-bye!" and he kissed her again.

She held him to the last, then when he had gone she buried her face in her hands and cried. But suddenly she sat up and touched the bell that stood near her.

"Crying will do no good for my Ley," she murmured. "I must do more than that. Oh, if I could be strong and hale like other girls for an hour, one short hour! But I will, I must do something! I cannot see him suffer so and do nothing!"

Her one special maid, a girl who had been with her since her childhood and knew every mood and change in her, came in and hurried to her side at the sight of her tear-dimmed eyes.

"Oh, Lady Lilian, what is the matter? You have been crying!"

"A little, Jeanette," she said, smiling through her tears. "I am in great trouble—Lord Leycester is in great trouble——"

"I have just met him, my lady, looking so ill and worried."

"Yes, Jeanette; he is in great trouble, and I want to help him," and then, with fear and trembling, she announced an intention she had suddenly formed. Jeanette was aghast for a time, but at last she yielded, and hurried away to make the preparation for the execution of her beloved mistress's wishes.

CHAPTER XXXII.

As the door closed on Lord Leycester, Stella's heart seemed to leave her bosom; it was as if all hope had fled with him, and as if her doom was irrevocably fixed. For a moment she did not realize that she was leaning upon Jasper Adelstone for support, but when her numbed senses woke to a capacity for fresh pain, and she felt his hand touching hers, she shrank away from him with a shudder, and summoning all her presence of mind, turned to him calmly:

"You have worked your will," she said, in a low voice. "What remains? What other commands have you to lay upon me?"

He winced, and the color struggled to his pale face.

"In the future," he said, in a low voice, "it will be your place to command, mine to obey those commands, willingly, cheerfully."

Stella waved her hand with weary impatience.

"I am in your hands," she said; "what am I to do now? where am I to go? No! I know that; I will go back——" then she stopped, and a look of pain and fear came upon her beautiful face as she thought of the alarm with which her uncle would discover her flight, and the explanation which he would demand. "How can I go back? What can I say?"

"I have thought of that," he said, in a low voice. "I had foreseen the difficulty, and I have provided against it. I know that what I have done may only increase your anger, but I did it for the best."

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"What have you done?" asked Stella.

"I have telegraphed to your uncle to say that I had tempted you and Frank to run up to town, and that I would bring you back this evening. I knew he would not be anxious then, seeing that Frank was with you."

Stella stared at the firm, self-reliant face. He had provided for every contingency, had foreseen everything, and had evidently felt so assured of the success of his plans. She could not refrain a slight shudder as she realized what sort of a man this was who held her in his power. She felt that it were as useless to attempt to escape him as it would be for a bird to flutter against the bars of its cage.

"Have I done wrong?" he asked, standing beside her, his head bent, his whole attitude one of deference and humility.

She shook her head.

"No, I suppose not. It does not matter if he can be spared pain."

"He shall be," he responded. "I will do all in my power to render both him and you and Frank happy."

She looked at him with a pitiful smile.

"Happy!"

"Yes, happy!" he repeated, with low but intense emphasis. "Remember, that, though I have won you by force, I love you; that I would die for you, yes, die for you, if need were——"

She rose—she had sunk into a chair—and put her hand to her brow.

"Let me go now, please," she said, wearily.

He put on his hat, but stopped her with a gesture.

"Frank," he said.

She knew what he meant, and inclined her head.

Jasper went to the door and called him by name, and he entered. Jasper laid his hand on his shoulder and kept it there firmly, notwithstanding the boy's endeavor to shrink away from him.

"Frank," he said, in his low, quiet voice, "I want to say a few words to you. Let me preface them with the statement that what I am going to say your cousin Stella fully endorses."

Frank, looking at Stella—he had not taken his eyes from her face—said:

"Is that so, Stella?"

She inclined her head.

"I want you," said Jasper—"we want you, we ask you, my dear Frank, to erase from your memory all that has occurred here this morning, and before that; remember only that your cousin Stella is my affianced wife. I am aware that the suddenness of the thing causes you surprise, as is only natural; but get over that surprise, and learn, as soon as possible, to recognize it as an inevitable fact. Of all that has passed between—between"—he hesitated at the hated name, and drew a little breath—"Lord Leycester and Stella, nothing remains—nothing! We will forget all that, will we not, Stella?"

She made the same gesture.

"And we ask you to do the same."

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"But!" exclaimed Frank, white with suppressed excitement and indignation.

Jasper glanced at Stella, almost with an air of command, and Stella went over to Frank and laying her hand on his arm, bent and kissed him.

"It must be so, dear," she said in a low tremulous whisper. "Do not ask me why, but believe it. It is