Sophia, Stanley J. Weyman [new ebook reader TXT] 📗

love that resentment had held at bay, returned in a flood and overwhelmed him. Sinking under remorse, feeling that he would now die for a glance from her eyes whom he had again and hopelessly offended, he rushed after her. Overtaking her at the foot of the steps, he implored her, with humble, incoherent prayers, to forgive him--to forgive him once more, only once more, and he would be her slave for ever!

"It's only one chance I ask," he panted. "Give me one more chance of--of showing that I am not the brute you think me. Oh, Lady Betty, forgive me, and--and forget what I said. You've cut me to the heart every hour for days past; you haven't looked at me; you've treated me as if I were something lower than a thief-taker. And--and when I was smarting under this, because I'd rather have a word from your lips than a kiss from another, you came to me, and I--I've misbehaved myself worse than before."

"No, not worse," Lady Betty said, in her cold, clear voice. "That was impossible."

"But as bad as I could," Tom confessed, not over-comforted. "Oh why, oh why," he continued, piteously, "am I always at my worst with you? For I think more of you than of any one. I'm always thinking of you. I can't sleep for thinking--what you are thinking of me, Lady Betty. I'd lie down in the dust, and let you walk over me if it would give you any pleasure. If it weren't for those d----d windows I'd kneel down now and ask your pardon."

"I don't see what difference the windows make," Lady Betty said, in her coldest tone. "They don't make your offence any less."

Tom might have answered that they made his punishment the greater; but, instead, he plumped down on the lowest step, careless who saw him if only Betty forgave him. "Oh, Lady Betty," he cried, "forgive me!"

"That is better," she said, judiciously.

"Oh, Lady Betty," he cried, "I humbly ask you to forgive me."

Lady Betty looked at him quietly from an upper step.

"You may get up," she said. "But I warn you, sir, you have yet to earn your pardon. You have promised much, I want but a little. Will you take a note from me to Lewes to-night?"

"If I live!" he cried, his eyes sparkling. "But that's a small thing."

"I trust in small things first," she answered.

"And great afterwards!"

She had much ado not to laugh, he looked at her so piteously, his hands clasped. "Perhaps," she said. "At any rate the future will show. Here is the note." She passed it to him quickly, with one eye on the windows. "You will tell no one, you will mention it to no one; but you will see that it reaches his hands to-night."

"It shall if I live," Tom answered fervently. "To whom am I to deliver it?"

"To Sir Hervey."

Tom swore outright, and turned crimson. They looked at one another, the man and the maid.

When Betty spoke again--after a long, strange pause, during which he stood holding the note loosely in his fingers as if he would drop it--it was in a tone of passion which she had not used before. "Listen!" she said. "Listen, sir, and understand if you can--for it behoves you! There is an offence that passes forgiveness. I believe that a moment ago you were on the point of committing it. If so, and if you have not yet repented, think, think before you do commit it. For there will be no place for repentance afterwards. It is not for me to defend my conduct, nor for you to suspect it," the young girl continued proudly. "That is my father's right, and my husband's when I have one. It imports no one else. But I will stoop to tell you this, sir. If you had said the words that were on your lips a moment ago, as surely as you stand there to-day, you would have come to me to-morrow to crave my pardon, and to crave it in shame, in comparison of which anything you have felt to-day is nothing. And you would have craved it in vain!" she continued vehemently. "I would rather the lowest servant here--soiled my lips--than you!"

Her passion had so much the better of her, when she came to the last words, that she could scarcely utter them. But she recovered herself with marvellous rapidity. "Do you take the note, sir," she said coldly, "or do you leave it?"

"I will take it, if it be to the devil!" he cried.

"No," she answered quickly; and she stayed him by a haughty gesture. "That will not do! Do you take it, thinking no evil? Do you take it, thinking me a good woman? Or do you take it thinking me something lower, infinitely lower, than the creatures you make your sport and pastime?"

"I do, I do believe!" Tom cried; and, dropping on his knees, he hid his face against her hoop-skirt, and pressed his lips to the stuff. And strange to say when he had risen and gone--without another word--there were tears in the girl's eyes. Tom had touched her.

CHAPTER XXVI A DRAGON DISARMED

It was five o'clock in the morning. The low sun shone athwart the cool, green sward of the park, leaving the dells and leafy retreats of the deer in shadow. In the window recess of the hall, whence the eye had that view, and could drink in the freshness of the early morning, the small oak table was laid for breakfast. Old plate that had escaped the melting-pot and the direful year of the new coinage, dragon china imported when Queen Anne was young, linen, white as sun and dew or D'Oyley could make it, gave back the pure light of early morning, and bade welcome a guest as dainty as themselves. Yet Lady Betty, for whom the table was prepared, and who stood beside it in an attitude of expectation, tapped the floor with her foot and looked but half pleased. "Is Lady Coke not coming?" she asked at last.

"No, my lady," Mrs. Stokes answered. "Her ladyship is taking her meal in her room."

"Oh!" Lady Betty rejoined drily. "She's not ailing, I hope?"

"No, my lady. She bade me say that the chariot would be at the door at half after five."

Betty grimaced, but took her seat in silence, and kept one eye on the clock. Had her messenger played her false? Or was Coke incredulous? Or what kept him? Even if he did not come before they set out, he might meet them on the hither side of Lewes; but that was a slender thread to which to trust, and Lady Betty had no mind to be packed home in error. As the finger of the clock in the corner moved slowly downwards, as the sun drank up the dew on leaf and bracken, and the day hardened, she listened, and more intently listened for the foot that was overdue. It wanted but five minutes of the half hour now! Now it wanted but three minutes! Two minutes! Now the rustle of my lady's skirts was on the stairs, the door was opened for her to enter and--and then at last, Betty caught the ring of spurred heels on the pavement of the terrace.

"He's come!" she cried, springing from her seat, and forgetting everything else in her relief. "He's come!"

Sophia from the inner threshold stared coldly. "Who?" she asked. It was the first time the two had met in the morning and had not kissed; but there are bounds to the generosity of woman, and Sophia could not stoop to kiss her rival. "Who?" she repeated, standing stiffly aloof, near the door by which she had entered.

"You will see!" Betty cried, with a bubble of laughter. "You will see."

The next moment Sir Hervey's figure darkened the open doorway, and Sophia saw him and understood. For an instant surprise drove the blood from her cheeks; then, as astonishment gave place to indignation, and to all the feelings which a wife--though a wife in name only--might be expected to experience in such a position, the tide returned in double volume. She, did not speak, she did not move; but she saw that they understood one another, she felt that this sudden return was concerted between them; and her eyes sparkled, her bosom rose. If she had never been beautiful before, Sophia was beautiful at that moment.

Sir Hervey smiled, as he looked at her. "Good morning, my dear," he said cheerily. "I'm of the earliest, or thought I was. But you had nearly stolen a march on me."

She did not answer him. "Lady Betty," she said, without turning her head or looking at the girl, "you had better leave us."

"Yes, Betty, away with you!" he cried, good humouredly. "You'll find Tom outside." And as Betty whisked away through the open door, "You'll pardon me, my dear," he continued quietly, but with dignity, "I have countermanded the carriage. When you have heard what I have to say you will agree with me, I am sure, that there is no necessity for our guest to leave us to-day." He laid his whip aside, as he spoke, and turned to the table from which Lady Betty had lately risen. "I have not broken my fast," he said. "Give me some tea, child."

A wild look, as of a creature caged and beating vain wings against bars, darkened Sophia's eyes. She was trembling with agitation, panting to resist, outraged in her pride if not in her love; and he asked for tea! Yet words did not come at once, his easy manner had its effect; as if she acknowledged that he had still a right to her service, she sat down at the little table in the window bay. He passed his legs over the bench on the other side, and sat waiting, the width of the table only--and it was narrow--between them. As she washed Betty's cup in the basin the china tinkled, and betrayed her agitation; but she managed to make his tea and pass it to him.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "And now for what I was saying. Lady Betty sent me a note last night, stating that she was to go to-day, unless I interceded for her. It was that brought me back this morning."

Sophia's eyes burned, but she forced herself to speak with calmness. "Did she tell you," she asked, "why she was to go?"

Sir Hervey shrugged his shoulders. "Well," he said, with a smile, "she hinted at the reason."

"Did she tell you what I had said to her?"

"I am afraid not," he said politely. "Probably space----"

"Or shame!" Sophia cried; and the next moment could have bitten her tongue. "Pardon me," she said in an altered tone, "I had no right to say that. But if she has not told you, 'tis I must tell you, myself. And it is more fitting. I am aware that you have discovered--all too soon, Sir Hervey--that our marriage, if it could be called a marriage, was a mistake. I cannot--I cannot," Sophia continued, trembling from head to foot, "take all the blame of that to myself, though I know that the first cause was my fault, and that it was I led you to commit the error. But I cannot take all the blame," she repeated, "I cannot! For you knew the world, you should have known yourself, and what was likely, what was certain to come of it! What has come of it!"

Sir Hervey drummed on the table with his fingers, and when he spoke, it was in a tone of apology. "The future is hard to read," he said. "It is easy, child, to be wise