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

had been compelled to take, and which he disliked, "I can't see why you should not have been married at Wyndward."

Jasper smiled.

"And risk the chance of Lord Leycester turning up at the last moment and making a scene," he might have answered, if he had replied candidly; but instead, he said, lightly:

"Oh, that would have been too commonplace for such a romantic man as your humble servant, sir."

Mr. Etheridge eyed him in his usual grave, abstracted way.

"You are the last person I should have accused of a love of the romantic," he said.

"Then there was Frank," added Jasper, in a lower voice, but not too low to reach Stella, for whom the addition was intended; "he wanted a change, and he would not have come without Stella."

They entered the cottage, in the tiny sitting-room of which Mrs. Penfold had already set the tea.

Frank was lying on a sofa whose metallic hardness had been mitigated by cushions and pillows; and certainly if he was pulling up his strength, as Jasper asserted, it was at a very slow rate.

He looked thinner than ever, and there was a dark ring under his eyes which made the hectic flush still more beautiful by contrast than when we saw him last. He greeted their entrance with a smile at Stella, and a cold evasive glance at Jasper. She went and smoothed the pillow at his head; but, as if ashamed that the other should see his weakness, he rose and walked to the door.

[260]

The old man eyed him sadly, but smiled with affected cheerfulness.

"Well, Frank, how do you feel to-night? You must be well to the front to-morrow, you know, or you will not be the best man!"

Frank looked up with a sudden flush, then set down without a word.

"I shall be very well to-morrow," he said. "There is nothing the matter with me."

Jasper, as usual, cut in with some remark to change the subject, and, as usual, did all the talking; Stella sat silent, her eyes fixed on the distant sun sinking slowly to rest. The word "to-morrow" rang in her ears; this was the last day she could call her own; to-morrow, and all after to-morrows would be Jasper's. All the past, full of its sweet hopes and its passionate love, had gone by and vanished, and to-morrow she would stand at the altar as Jasper Adelstone's bride. It seemed so great a mockery as to be unreal, and at times she found herself regarding herself as another person, in whom she took the merest interest as a spectator.

It could not be that she, whom Leycester Wyndward had loved, should be going to marry Jasper Adelstone! Then she would look at the boy, so thin, and wan, and fading, and love would give her strength to carry out her sacrifice.

To-night he was very dear to her, and she sat holding his hand under the table; the thin, frail hand that closed with a spasmodic gesture of aversion when Jasper's smirkish voice broke in on the conversation. It was wonderful how the boy hated him.

Presently she whispered—"You must go and lie down again, Frank."

"No, not here," he said. "Let me go outside."

And she drew his hand through her arm and went out with him.

Jasper looked after them with a smile.

"Quite touching to see Frank's devotion to Stella," he said.

The old man nodded.

"Poor boy!" he said—"poor boy!"

Jasper cleared his throat.

"I think he had better come with us on our wedding trip," he said. "It will give Stella pleasure, I know, and be a comfort to Frank."

The old man nodded.

"You are very kind and considerate," he said.

"Not at all," responded Jasper. "I would do anything to insure Stella's happiness. By-the-way, speaking of arrangements, I have executed a little deed of settlement——"

"Was that necessary?" asked Mr. Etheridge. "She comes to you penniless."

"I am not a rich man," said Jasper, meekly, "but I have secured a sufficient sum upon her to render her independent."

The old man nodded, gratefully.

"You have behaved admirably," he said; "I have no doubt Stella will be happy. You will bear with her, I hope, Jasper, and not forget that she is but a girl—but a girl."

[261]

Jasper inclined his head for a moment in silence. Bear! Little did the old man know how much he, Jasper, had to bear.

They sat talking for some little time, Jasper listening, as he talked, to the two voices outside—the clear, low, musical tones of Stella, the thin weak voice of the boy. Presently the voices ceased, and after a time he went out. Frank was sitting in the sunset light, his head on his hands.

"Where is Stella?" asked Jasper, almost sharply.

Frank looked up at him.

"She has escaped," he said, sardonically.

Jasper started.

"What do you mean?"

"She has gone on the cliffs for a stroll," said Frank, with a little smile at the alarm he had created and intended to create.

Jasper turned upon him with a suppressed snarl. He was battling with suppressed excitement to-night.

"What do you mean by escaped?" he demanded.

The hollow sunken eyes glared up at him.

"What did you think I meant?" he retorted. "You need not be frightened, she will come back," and he laughed bitterly.

Jasper glanced at him again, and after a moment of hesitation turned and went into the house.

Meanwhile Stella was climbing the steep ascent to the bit of table-land on the cliff. She felt suffocated and overwhelmed. "To-morrow! to-morrow!" seemed to ring in her ears. Was there no escape? As she looked down at the waves rolling in beneath her, and beating their crested heads against the rocks, she almost felt as if she could drop down to them and so find escape and rest. So strong was the feeling, the temptation, that she shrank back against the cliff, and sank down on dry and chalky turf, trembling and confused. Suddenly, as she thus sat, she heard a man's step coming up the cliff, and thinking it was Jasper, rose and pushed the hair from her face with an effort at self-command.

But it was not Jasper, it was a straighter, more stalwart figure, and in a moment, as he stood to look at the sea, she knew him. It was Leycester, and with a low, inarticulate cry, she shrank back against the cliff and watched him. He stood for a while motionless, leaning on his stick, his back turned from her, then he took up a pebble and dropped it down into the depths beneath, sighed, and to her intense relief, went down again.

But though he had not spoken, the sight of him, his dearly-loved presence so near her, shook her to her center. White and breathless she leaned against the hard rock, her eyes strained to catch the last glimpse of him; then she sank on to the ground and hiding her face in her hands burst into tears.

They were the first tears that she had shed since that awful day, and every drop seemed of molten fire that scorched her heart as it flowed from it.

If ever she had persuaded herself that the time might come when she would cease to love him, she knew, now that she had seen him again, that she could not so hope again. Never while[262] life was left to her should she cease to love him. And to-morrow, to-morrow.

"Oh, my love, my love!" she murmured, stretching out her hands as she had done that night in the garden, "come back to me! I cannot let you go! I cannot do it! I cannot!"

Nerved by the intensity of her grief she sprang to her feet, and swiftly descended the cliff. Near the bottom there were two paths, one leading to the village, the other to the open country beyond. Instinctively she took the one leading to the village, and so missed Leycester, for he had gone down the other.

Had she but made a different choice, had she turned to the right instead of the left, how much would have been averted; but she sped, almost breathlessly to the left, and instead of Leycester found Jasper waiting for her.

With a low cry she stopped short.

"Where is he?" she asked, almost unconsciously. "Let me go to him!"

Jasper stared at her, then he grasped her arm.

"You have seen him!" he said, not roughly, not fiercely, but with a suppressed fury.

There was a rough seat cut out of the stone beside her, and she sank into it, shrinking away from his eager watching in quest of that other.

"You have seen him!" he repeated, hoarsely. "Do not deny it!"

The insult conveyed in the words recalled her to herself.

"Yes!" she said, meeting his gaze steadily; "I have seen him. Why should I deny it?"

"No," he said; "and you will not deny that you were running after him when I—I stopped you. You will admit that, I suppose?"

"Yes," she answered, with a deadly calm, "I was following him."

He dropped her arm which he had held, and pressed his hand to his heart to still the pang of its throbbing.

"You—you are shameless!" he said at last, hoarsely.

She did not speak.

"Do you realize what to-night is?" he said, glaring down at her. "This is our marriage eve; do you hear—our marriage eve?"

She shuddered, and put up her hands to her face.

"Did you plan this meeting?" he demanded, with a fierce sneer. "You will admit that, I suppose? It is only a mere chance that I did not find you in his arms; is that so? Curse him! I wish I had killed him when I met him just now!"

Then the old spirit roused itself in her bosom, and she looked up at him with a scornful smile on her beautiful, wasting face.

"You!" she said.

That was all, but it seemed to drive him mad. For a moment he stood breathless and panting.

The sight of his fury and suffering—for the suffering was palpable—smote her.

Her mood changed suddenly; with a cry she caught his arm.

[263]

"Oh, Jasper, Jasper! Have pity on me!" she cried; "have pity. You wrong me, you wrong him. He did not come to see me; he did not know I was here! We have not spoken—not a word, not a word!" and she moaned; "but as I stood and watched him, and saw how changed he was, and heard him sigh, I knew that he had not forgotten, and—and my heart went out to him. I—I did not mean to speak, to follow him, but I could not help it. Jasper, you see—you see, it is impossible—our marriage, I mean. Have pity on me and let me go! For your own sake let me go! Think, think! What satisfaction, what joy can you hope for? I—I have tried to love you, Jasper, but—but I cannot! All my life is his! Let me go!"

He almost flung her from him, then caught her again with an oath.

"By Heaven, I will not!" he cried, fiercely. "Once for all, I will not! Take care, you have made me desperate! It is your fault if I were to take you at your word."

He paused for breath; then his rage broke out again, more deadly for its sudden, unnatural quietude.

"Do you think I am blind and bereft of my senses not to see and understand what this means? Do you think you are dealing with a child? You have waited your time, and bided your chance, and you think it has come. Would you have dared to do this a month ago? No, there was no certainty of the boy's death then; but now—now that you see he will die, you think my power is at an end——"

With a cry she sprang to her feet and confronted him, terror in her face, an awful fear and sorrow in her eyes. As the cry left her lips, it seemed to be echoed by another close behind them, but neither of them noticed it.

"Frank—die!" she gasped. "No, no; not that! Tell me that you did not mean it, that you said it only to frighten me."

He put her imploring hand away with a bitter sneer.

"You would make a good actress," he said, "do you mean to tell me that you were not counting on his death? Do you mean to tell me that you would not have wound up the scene by begging for more time—time to allow you to escape, as you would call it! You think that once the boy is dead you can slip from your bargain and laugh at me! You are mistaken; since the bargain was struck, I have strove, as no man ever strove, to make it easy for you, to win your love, because I loved you. I love you no longer, but I will not let you go. Love you! As there is a Heaven above us, I hate you to-night, but you shall not go."

She shrank from him cowering, as