Dora Thorne, Charlotte Mary Brame [beach read book TXT] 📗

home at Knutsford?"

Dora soothed her, almost dreading the time when memory should awaken in full force. It seemed partly to return then, for Lillian gave vent to a wearied sigh, and closed her eyes.

Then Dora saw a little of wild alarm cross her face. She sprang up crying:

"Mamma, is it true? Is Beatrice dead?"

"It is true, my darling," whispered her mother, gently. "Dead, but not lost to us--only gone before."

The young girl recovered very slowly. The skillful doctor in attendance upon her sad that, as soon as it was possible to remove her, she should be carried direct from her room to a traveling carriage, taken from home, and not allowed to return to the Hall until she was stronger and better.

They waited until that day came, and meanwhile Lady Dora Earle learned to esteem Lord Airlie very dearly. He seemed to find more comfort with her than with any one else. They spoke but of one subject--the loved, lost Beatrice.

Her secret was never known. Lord Earle and Lionel Dacre kept it faithfully. No allusion to it ever crossed their lips. To Lord Airlie, while he lived, the memory of the girl he had loved so well was pure and untarnished as the falling snow. Not even to her mother was the story told. Dora believed, as did every one else, that Beatrice had fallen accidentally into the lake.

When Lillian grew stronger--better able to bear the mention of her sister's name--Lord Earle went to her room one day, and, gently enough, tried to win her to speak to him of what she knew.

She told him all--of her sister's sorrow, remorse, and tears; her longing to be free from the wretched snare in which she was caught; how she pleaded with her to interfere. She told him of her short interview with the unhappy man, and its sad consequences for her.

Then the subject dropped forever. Lord Earle said nothing to her of Lionel, thinking it would be better for the young lover to plead his own cause.

One morning, when she was able to rise and sit up for a time, Lionel asked permission to see her. Lady Dora, who knew nothing of what had passed between them, unhesitatingly consented.

She was alarmed when, as he entered the room, she saw her daughter's gentle face grow deathly pale.

"I have done wrong," she said. "Lillian is not strong enough to see visitors yet."

"Dear Lady Dora," explained Lionel, taking her hand, "I love Lillian; and she loved me before I was so unhappy as to offend her. I have come to beg her pardon. Will you trust her with me for a few minutes?"

Lady Dora assented, and went away, leaving them together.

"Lillian," said Lionel, "I do not know in what words to beg your forgiveness. I am ashamed and humbled. I know your sister's story, and all that you did to save her. When one was to be sacrificed, you were the victim. Can you ever forgive me?"

"I forgive you freely," she gently answered. "I have been in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and all human resentment and unkindness seem as nothing to me."

"And may I be to you as I was before?" he asked.

"That is another question," she said. "I can not answer it now. You did not trust me, Lionel."

Those were the only words of reproach she ever uttered to him. He did not annoy her with protestation; he trusted that time would do for him what he saw just then he could not do for himself.

He sat down upon the couch by her side, and began to speak to her of the tour she was about to make; of the places she should visit carefully avoiding all reference to the troubled past.

Three days afterward Lillian started on her journey to the south of France insisted upon by the doctor. Lord Earle and his wife took charge of their child; Lord Airlie, declaring he could not yet endure Lynnton, went with them. Lady Helena and Lionel Dacre remained at home, in charge of the Hall and the estate.

One thing the latter had resolved upon--that, before the travelers returned, the lake should be filled up, and green trees planted over the spot where its waters now glistened in the sun.

No matter how great the expense and trouble, he was resolved that it should be done.

"Earlescourt would be wretched," he said, "if that fatal lake remained."

The day after the family left Earlescourt, he had workmen engaged. No one was sorry at his determination. Lady Helena highly approved of it. The water was drained off, the deep basin filled with earth, and tall saplings planted where once the water had glistened in the sun. The boat house was pulled down, and all vestige of the lake was done away with.

Lionel Dacre came home one evening from the works in very low spirits. Imbedded in the bottom of the lake they had found a little slipper--the fellow to it was locked away in Dora's drawer. He saved it to give it to her when she returned.


Chapter XLIV


Two years passed away, and the travelers thought of returning. Lillian had recovered health and strength, and, Lord Earle said, longed for home.

One bright June day they were expected back. Lionel Dacre had driven to the station. Lady Earle had laid aside her mourning dress, and sat anxiously awaiting her son. She wished the homecoming were over, and that they had all settled down to the new life.

Her wish was soon gratified. Once again she gazed upon the face of her only and beloved son. He was little changed--somewhat sunburned, it was true; but there was less of the old pride and sternness, a kindly smile playing round his lips. There was, too, a shade of sadness that plainly would never leave him; Lord Earle could never forget his lost child.

Lady Helena looked anxiously at Dora, but there was no cause for fear. The rosy, dimpled beauty of youth had passed away, but a staid dignity had taken its place. She looked a graceful amiable woman, with eyes of wondrous beauty thickly veiled by long lashes, and a wealth of rippling black hair. Lady Helena thought her far more beautiful now than when the coy smiles and dimples had been the chief charm. She admired, too, the perfect and easy grace with which Dora fell at once into her proper place as mistress of that vast establishment.

The pretty, musical voice was trained and softened; the delicate, refined accent retained no trace of provincialism. Everything about Dora pleased the eye and gratified the taste; the girlish figure had grown matronly and dignified; the sweet face had in it a tinge of sadness one may often see in the face of a mother who has lost a child. Lady Helena, fastidious and critical, could find no fault with her son's wife.

She welcomed her warmly, giving up to her, in her own graceful way, all rule and authority. Helping her if in any way she required it, but never interfering, she made Dora respected by the love and esteem she always evinced for her.

But it was on Lillian's face that Lady Helena gazed most earnestly. The pallor of sickness had given way to a rosy and exquisite bloom. The fair, sweet face in its calm loveliness seemed to her perfect, the violet eyes were full of light. Looking at her, Lady Helena believed there were years of life in store for Ronald's only child.

There was much to talk about. Lord Earle told his mother how Hubert Airlie had gone home to Lynnton, unable to endure the sight of Earlescourt. He had never regained his spirits. In the long years to come it was possible, added Ronald, that Lord Airlie might marry, for the sake of his name; but if ever the heart of living man lay buried in a woman's grave, his was with the loved, lost Beatrice.

Lionel Dacre knew he had done wisely and well to have the bed of the lake filled up. In the morning he saw how each member of the family shrank from going out into the grounds. He asked Lord Earle to accompany him, and then the master of Earlescourt saw that the deep, cruel water no longer shimmered amid the trees.

Lionel let him bring his wife and daughter to see what had been done; and they turned to the author of it with grateful eyes, thanking him for the kind thought which had spared their feelings. Green trees flourished now on the spot where the water had glistened in the sun; birds sang in their branches, green grass and ferns grew round their roots.

Yet among the superstitious, strange stories were told. They said that the wind, when it rustled among those trees, wailed with a cry like that of one drowning, that the leaves shivered and trembled as they did on no other branches; that the stirring of them resembled deep-drawn sighs. They said flowers would never grow in the thick grass, and that the antlered deer shunned the spot.

As much as possible the interior arrangements of Earlescourt had been altered. Lillian had rooms prepared for her in the other wing; those that had belonged to her hapless sister were left undisturbed. Lady Dora kept the key; it was known when she had been visiting them; the dark eyes bore traces of weeping.

Beatrice had not been forgotten and never would be. Her name was on Lillian's lips a hundred times each day. They had been twin sisters, and it always seemed to her that part of herself lay in the church yard at the foot of the hill.

Gaspar Laurence had gone abroad--he could not endure the sight or name of home. Lady Laurence hoped that time would heal a wound that nothing else could touch. When, after some years, he did return, it was seen that his sorrow would last for life. He never married--he never cared for the name of any woman save that of Beatrice Earle.

* * * * *


A week after their return, Lillian Earle stood one evening watching from the deep oriel window the sun's last rays upon the flowers. Lionel joined her, and she knew from his face that he had come to ask the question she had declined to answer before.

"I have done penance, Lillian," he said, "if ever man has. For two years I have devoted time, care, and thought to those you love, for your sake; for two years I have tried night and day to learn, for your sake, to become a better man. Do not visit my fault too heavily upon me. I am hasty and passionate--I doubted you who were true and pure; but, Lillian, in the loneliness and sorrow of these two years I have suffered bitterly for my sin. I know you are above all coquetry. Tell me, Lillian, will you be my wife?"

She gave him the answer he longed to