"What shall I do?" exclaimed Mr. Etheridge.
Stella came to him quickly, with a little cry of dismay.
"What is it, uncle? Are you ill--is it bad news? Oh, what is the
matter?"
And she looked up into his pale and agitated face with anxious concern.
His gaze was fixed on vacancy, but there was more than abstraction in
his eyes--there was acute pain and anguish.
"What is it, dear?" she asked, laying her hand on his arm. "Pray tell
me."
At the words he started slightly, and crushed the telegram in his hand.
"No, no!" he said--"anything but that." Then, composing himself with an
effort, he pressed her hand and smiled faintly. "Yes, it is bad news,
Stella; it is always bad news that a telegram brings."
Stella led him in; his hands were trembling, and the dumb look of pain
still clouded his eyes.
"Will you not tell me what it is?" she murmured, as he sank into his
accustomed chair and leant his white head on his hand. "Tell me what it
is, and let me help you to bear it by sharing it with you."
And she wound her arm around his neck.
"Don't ask me, Stella. I can't tell you--I cannot. The shame would kill
me. No! No!"
"Shame!" murmured Stella, her proud, lovely face paling, as she shrank
back a little; but the next moment she pressed closer to him, with a
sad smile.
"Not shame for you, dear; shame and you were never meant to come
together."
He started, and raised his head.
"Yes, shame!" he repeated, almost fiercely, his hands clinched--"such
bitter, debasing shame and disgrace. For the first time the name we
have held for so many years will be stained and dragged in the dirt.
What shall I do?" And he hid his face in his hands.
Then, with a sudden start, he rose, and looked round with trembling
eagerness.
"I--I must go to London," he said, brokenly. "What is the time? So
late! Is there no train? Stella, run and ask Mrs. Penfold. I must go at
once--at once; every moment is of consequence."
"Go to London--to-night--so late? Oh, you cannot!" exclaimed Stella,
aghast.
"My dear, I must," he said more calmly. "It is urgent, most urgent
business that calls for me, and I must go."
Stella stole out of the room, and was about to wake Mrs. Penfold, when
she remembered having seen a time-table in the kitchen, and stealing
down-stairs again, hunted until she found it.
When she took it into the studio, she found her uncle standing with his
hat on and his coat buttoned.
"Give it to me," he said. "There is a train, an early market train that
I can catch if I start at once," and with trembling fingers he turned
over the pages of the time-book. "Yes, I must go, Stella."
"But not alone, uncle!" she implored. "Not alone, surely. You will let
me come with you."
He put his hand upon her arm and kissed her, his eyes moist.
"Stella, I must go alone; no one can help me in this matter. There are
some troubles that we must meet unaided except by a Higher Power; this
is one of them. Heaven bless you, my dear; you help me to bear it with
your loving sympathy. I wish I could tell you, but I cannot, Stella--I
cannot."
"Do not then, dear," she whispered. "You will not be away long?"
"Not longer than I can help," he sighed. "You will be quite safe,
Stella?"
"Safe!" and she smiled sadly.
"Mrs. Penfold must take care of you. I don't like leaving you, but it
cannot be helped! Child, I did not think to have a secret from you so
soon!"
At the words Stella started, and a red flush came over her face.
She, too, had a secret, and as it flashed into her mind, from whence
the sudden trouble had momentarily banished it, her heart beat fast and
her eyes drooped.
"There should be no secrets between us two," he said.
"But--there--there--don't look so troubled, my dear. I shall not be
long gone."
She clung to him to the last, until indeed the little white gate had
closed behind him, then she went back to the house and sat down in his
chair, and sat pondering and trembling.
For a time the secret trouble which had befallen her uncle absorbed all
her mind and care, but presently the memory of all that had happened
to her that evening awoke and overcame her sorrow, and she sat with
clasped hands and drooping head recalling the handsome face and
passionate voice of Lord Leycester.
It was all so wonderful, so unreal, that it seemed like a stage play,
in which the magnificent house formed the scene and the noble men and
women the players, with the tall, stalwart, graceful form of Lord
Leycester for the hero. It was difficult to realize that she too took
a part, so to speak, in the drama, that she was, in fact, the heroine,
and that it was to her that all the passionate vows of the young lord
had been spoken. She could feel his burning kisses on her lips; could
feel the touch of the clinging, lingering caresses on her neck; yes, it
was all real; she loved Lord Leycester, and he, strange and wonderful
to add, loved her.
Why should he do it? she marveled. Who was she that he should deign to
shower down upon her such fervent admiration and passionate devotion?
Mechanically she rose and went over to the Venetian mirror, and looked
at the reflection which beamed softly in the dim light.
He had called her beautiful, lovely! She shook her head and smiled with
a sigh as she thought of Lady Lenore. There were beauty and loveliness
indeed! How had it happened that he had passed her by, and chosen her,
Stella?
But it was so, and wonder, and gratitude and love welled up in her
heart and filled her eyes with those tears which show that the cup of
human happiness is full to overflowing. The clock struck the hour, and
with a sigh, as she thought of her uncle, she turned from the glass.
She felt that she could not go to bed; it was far pleasanter to sit
up in the stillness and silence and think--think! To take one little
incident after another, and go over it slowly and enjoyingly. She
wandered about her room in this frame of mind, filled with happiness
one moment as she thought of the great good which the gods had given
unto her, then overwhelmed by a wave of troubled anxiety as she
remembered that her uncle, the old man whose goodness to her had won
her love, was speeding on the journey toward his secret trouble and
sorrow.
Wandering thus she suddenly bethought her of a picture that stood
with its face to the wall, and swooping down on it, as one does on
a suddenly remembered treasure, she took up Leycester Wyndward's
portrait, and gazing long and eagerly at it, suddenly bent and kissed
it. She knew now what the smile in those dark eyes meant; she knew now
how the lovelight could flash from them.
"Uncle was right," she murmured with a smile that was half sad. "There
is no woman who could resist those eyes if they said 'I love you.'"
She put the portrait down upon the cabinet, so that she could see it
when she chose to look at it, and abstractedly began to set the room
in order, putting a picture straight here and setting the books upon
their shelves, stopping occasionally to glance at the handsome eyes
watching her from the top of the cabinet. As often happens when the
mind is set on one thing and the hands upon another, she met with an
accident. In one corner of the room stood a three-cornered what-not of
Japanese work, inclosed by doors inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl;
in attempting to set a bronze straight upon the top of this piece of
furniture while she looked at the portrait of her heart's lord and
master, she let the bronze slip, and in the endeavor to save it from
falling, overturned the what-not.
It fell with the usual brittle sounding crash which accompanies the
overthrow of such bric-a-brac, and the doors being forced open, out
poured a miscellaneous collection of valuable but useless articles.
With a little exclamation of self-reproach and dismay, Stella went down
on her knees to collect the scattered curios. They were of all sorts;
bits of old china from Japan, medals, and coins of ancient date, and
some miniatures in carved frames.
Stella eyed each article as she picked it up with anxious criticism,
but fortunately nothing appeared the worse for the downfall, and she
was putting the last thing, a miniature, in its accustomed place,
when the case flew open in her hand and a delicately painted portrait
on ivory looked up at her. Scarcely glancing at it, she was about to
replace it in the case, when an inscription on the back caught her eye,
and she carried case and miniature to the light.
The portrait was that of a boy, a fair-haired boy, with a smiling mouth
and laughing blue eyes. It was a pretty face, and Stella turned it over
to read the inscription.
It consisted of only one word, "Frank."
Stella looked at the face again listlessly, but suddenly
something in it--a resemblance to someone whom she knew, and that
intimately--flashed upon her. She looked again more curiously. Yes,
there could be no doubt of it; the face bore a certain likeness to
that of her uncle. Not only to her uncle, but to herself, for raising
her eyes from the portrait to the mirror she saw a vague something--in
expression only perhaps--looking at her from the glass as it did from
the portrait.
"Frank, Frank," she murmured; "I know no one of that name. Who can it
be?"
She went back to the cabinet, and took out the other miniatures, but
they were closed, and the spring which she had touched accidentally of
the one of the boy she could not find in the others.
There was an air of mystery about the matter, which not a little
heightened by the lateness of the hour and the solemn silence that
reigned in the house, oppressed and haunted her.
With a little gesture of repudiation she put the boy's face into its
covering, and replaced it in the cabinet. As she did so she glanced
up at that other face smiling down at her, and started, and a sudden
thought, half-weird, half-prophetical, flashed across her mind.
It was the portrait of Lord Leycester which had greeted her on the
night of her arrival, and foreshadowed all that had happened to her.
Was there anything of significance in this chance discovery of the
child's face?
With a smile of self-reproach she put the fantastic idea from her, and
setting the beloved face in its place amongst the other canvases, took
the candle from the table, and stole quietly up-stairs.
But when she slept the boy's face haunted her, and mingled in her
dreams with that of Lord Leycester's.