"Godfrey! Is it actually you!" And looking up, I saw my well-beloved
standing upon the oak minstrels' gallery, fresh and sweet in a white
serge gown, and little changed from those old well-remembered days when
we had met and wandered together beside the sea. Ah! how my heart leapt
at sight of her.
She ran swiftly down the stairs, and next moment I held both her soft
hands in mine and was looking into those beautiful blue eyes that for
years had been ever before me in my day-dreams. Assuredly no woman on
earth was fairer than she! Love does not come at will; and of goodness
it is not born, nor of gratitude, nor of any right or reason on the
earth.
"Fancy!" she cried. "Fancy your coming here. But why have you come?"
she asked anxiously. "You don't know in what peril your presence here
places me."
"Have you seen Lucie?" I asked.
"Not since she went to Italy. Has she returned?"
"Yes. I am here in order to tell you something."
"Then let's go into the garden. My father has gone in the car to
Bewdley." And she led me through the old stone-paved corridor and
across the quiet ancient courtyard and out into a beautiful rose-garden
where the high box-hedges were clipped into fantastic shapes, and the
roses climbed everywhere upon their arches.
"What a delightful place!" I exclaimed. "I had no idea that Wichenford
was like this."
"Hadn't you?" she laughed. Then sighing, she added: "Yes. I love it
just as much as dear old dad does. Let us sit here." And she sank upon
an old seat of carved stone, grey and lichen-covered. It was in a spot
where we were hidden by the foliage, yet before us spread the beautiful
gardens with the long terrace, and beyond the broad undulating park with
the great old oaks in all their autumn glory.
There in the quiet tranquillity, the silence only broken by the song of
the birds, I briefly told my love of the attempt made upon my life and
of the death of Lucie's father--a story which held her speechless in
amazement.
We sat there hand in hand.
"I had no idea that you were ill, otherwise I should have, of course,
gone at once to see you," she said, with the old love-looking in her
dear eyes as she looked at me.
"Ah! I knew you would, my darling!" I cried, raising her hand to my
lips. "I dare not write for fear that my letter might fall into that
man's hands. I called upon your aunt, and she told me that you are to
be married shortly. Is that really so?" I asked huskily.
"Alas! Godfrey, it is," she murmured. "I have tried and struggled and
schemed, but I cannot escape. Ah! if my father only knew the truth
concerning him! But I am compelled to wear a mask always--always. It
is horrible!" And she covered her face with her hands.
"Yes, horrible!" I echoed. "Why don't you let me stand before that
thief and accuse him?"
"And reveal my secret to my father. Never--never! I would die rather
than he should know." And her face grew pale and hard, and her small
hand trembling in mine.
"Ella!" I cried, kissing her passionately on her cold white lips. "How
can I save you? How can I gain you for my own? This awful suspense is
killing me."
"Godfrey," she answered, in a low, distinct voice, "we can never be man
and wife--impossible, why therefore let us discuss it further? We love
each other with a fond true love, it is true, fonder than man and woman
ever loved before, yet both of us are longing for the unattainable," she
sighed. "My future, alas! is not in my own hands."
"Ah! yes!" I cried in despair. "I see it all! Your fear prevents you
from allowing me to unmask this man--you fear that your father should
learn your secret!"
"I fear that you, too, should learn it--that instead of loving me," she
said, with a wild look in her splendid eyes, "you would hate me!"