“IF HE HAD ONLY COME HIMSELF.”
“Show me into a room where I am not likely to be interrupted,” the old
soldier said to the footman who stepped forward. “And tell Lady Elaine
that I am here upon a matter of great urgency.”
The footman grasped the situation with alacrity. The colonel was a
favorite with everybody. His liberality, if not his past record for
deeds of valor, entitled him to respect, particularly in the servants’
hall.
Colonel Greyson was ushered into a small private library, and ten
minutes later Lady Elaine entered the room, her eyes anxious, troubled
and expectant.
“Good-morning, Elaine!” the old soldier said. He always addressed the
earl’s daughter with easy familiarity.
Her ladyship faintly responded to his greeting.
“There, sit down, my dear, and compose yourself. Why, you are trembling
as though with cold, while I am boiling with perspiration and bad
temper!”
Lady Elaine obeyed, smiling in a wintry sort of way.
“Perhaps it was my duty to see your father first,” the old soldier
began, “but as he is anything but a sympathetic man where young
people’s love affairs are concerned, I have come direct to you, my
dear.”
Lady Elaine paled, and her heart throbbed wildly.
“You have heard?” she hazarded.
“I have heard that two young people who passionately love each other
are trying their utmost to drift into the shoals of misery,” he
replied, kindly.
“Has Sir Harold told you anything?” she demanded, proudly.
It seemed to her a strange thing to do. Why should he make their little
differences public?
The colonel was quick to notice this.
“Elaine,” he said, “I called at Annesley Park to try and induce Sir
Harold to interest himself in local affairs. To my utter astonishment I
found him in the very depths of despair.”
The tears started to the girl’s eyes.
“Now, although I have been like a father to the lad, I had some
difficulty in learning the cause of his misery. At last he told me, in
a disjointed way, that his engagement--that your engagement, was at an
end, and that he was upon the point of starting for some outlandish
place, never to return. I told him that it was all stuff, but he
assured me that you preferred some one else to him, and I have galloped
over here to know what is really the matter. You are just sending the
lad to his death!”
“Oh, colonel, why will you be so unkind to me?” Elaine whispered.
“Because he is a fool!” blurted out the old soldier, angrily. “My
dear, you did a very silly thing in sending him some letter that he
mentioned. Why not undo the mischief at once? What do you care about
Viscount Rivington? Nothing!”
“I hate him,” said Lady Elaine, “but I cannot insult a guest whom my
father honors. Why will Sir Harold be so unreasonably jealous? Why will
he not trust me as I trust him?”
“You must pocket your pride, my dear. I don’t pretend to take sides
with Harold, but you must admit that he never runs after any other
girls. Indeed, he is barely civil to any other woman except yourself.
He is a romantic sort of fellow, a modern knight-errant, full of
poetry, chivalry and all that kind of thing. His friendship or his love
nothing will alter when once given. He is an idealist, and being so
much out of the common run of simpering, deceitful dandies, merits a
peculiar consideration. With all these super-excellent qualities, he is
as stupid as a mule, and if you don’t want to lose him you must call
him back to you--that’s the beginning and the end of it!”
For a little while Lady Elaine was silent. Then she paced the floor
like an insulted queen. It was a struggle between love and pride.
“I will think it over, Colonel Greyson,” she said, tremulously. “I will
think it over, and----”
“You will wait until it is too late, child. The mad-brained fellow will
be gone past recall,” the old soldier said, vigorously.
“Oh, what am I to do?” was her piteous cry. “I have no one to advise
me!”
“Am I not advising you? Let me go back to Annesley Park and tell him
that you wish to see him.”
“But that would mean unconditional surrender,” Lady Elaine replied,
with a flash of scorn. “I will not be treated like a willful child--no,
not if my heart were rended to atoms! What wrong have I done? Sir
Harold listens to every scrap of tittle-tattle and believes it. You
have come to champion his cause, Colonel Greyson, and in your heart you
think that I am all to blame.”
“No--no!” he protested. “You are both equally foolish. If you had seen
him as I have seen him this morning, you would throw your pride to the
winds. Do not let me go away feeling that my efforts have been in vain.
My child, I am old enough to be your father. I am a man of the world,
who has experienced the bitterness and misery of such folly as this.”
“If he had come himself!” murmured Elaine. “If he had only come
himself!”
“Shall I give him that message?” was the eager question. “Yes, I will
tell him that you wish to see him--that you have relented.”
For a minute the girl was silent. Would it be fair to Margaret Nugent?
Had she not kindly counseled her--counseled her with the best of
intentions? And to ignore her would be ungrateful--cruel!
“No, you must take no message from me yet,” she said, imperiously. “You
are probably exaggerating things, Colonel Greyson, in your anxiety to
bring about a reconciliation. You must not forget that, as Sir Harold
Annesley’s wife, I may have to live through many years of such jealous
torture as this, unless I analyze his true character before marriage.”
“What nonsense--what arrant nonsense!” the colonel exclaimed, bitterly.
“I had believed you until now to be possessed of sound reason. Lady
Elaine, I must say that, however severe your punishment may be, you
will well deserve it, and my words may recur to you again in your hour
of grief--when it will be too late--too late!”
He had not intended to be so harsh, but he could not help it.
“You are presuming, sir!” she flashed, haughtily. “I have no desire for
your censorship.”
“No, my lady; your own conscience will be quite enough to bear with!”
He jumped to his feet and turned toward the door.
“At least,” he said, “let us part friends. I have nothing but pity for
you, Lady Elaine.”
His tender tones were more than she could bear, and for a little while
she wept unrestrainedly.
“If you had cared for him as I believed,” he went on, but she
interrupted him with a passionate cry.
“Love him! I worship my darling with all the strength of my being! Oh,
colonel, my pride is broken--the barrier is swept away! I will send a
message to him to-day!”
“Can I tell him this?” he asked, joyously.
“No. You must grant me the favor of not doing so. You can say that you
have seen me, but no more. Promise, colonel!”
“Very well; I will obey my lady’s behest,” he said, reluctantly. “When
will you send this blessed relief to a tortured soul?”
“This afternoon--by one whom I can trust to deliver it with his own
hands.”
“You have made a happy man of me, Elaine. On second thought, I will
not go back to Annesley Park until I can meet Sir Harold, and see the
light of hope and happiness once more in his face. My dear, he will be
at your side within an hour of receiving your message, if horse-flesh
can carry him. You will rescue a man from the brink of inferno--a man
who loves you as woman was never loved before! Good-by! Every moment is
precious, and I will not be the cause of one being lost.”
He pressed her trembling fingers tightly, warm tears springing into his
eyes. Then with a whispered “Heaven bless both of you!” he left the
library.
Lady Elaine heard him ride away, and with a happy resolve in her heart
sought her own apartments.
In one of the passages she encountered Viscount Rivington, quite
unconscious that he had purposely placed himself in her path.
“My dear Lady Elaine,” he said, “I have been in agonies lest the
weather should be unpropitious and upset our plans for a ride to-day.”
“I do not think that I shall go out this morning, viscount,” Lady
Elaine said, sweetly.
“But your promise of yesterday!” he exclaimed, biting his lips with
vexation.
“You are not unkind enough to hold me to it when I particularly wish to
be released?” she asked.
“I am only disappointed,” he replied, bowing. “It is like a black
cloud obscuring golden sunshine to be so suddenly deprived of the
anticipation of so sweet a pleasure.”
She thanked him and passed on. But had she seen the scowl of rage and
hate that distorted the viscount’s features, my lady would never have
tolerated him even as an acquaintance again.
Elaine’s first step was to send a servant in quest of Margaret
Nugent. The Nugents, mother and daughter, lived on the outskirts of
Ashbourne, and within two miles of Seabright Hall. Mrs. Nugent was not
a wealthy woman, but she and her handsome daughter were in comfortable
circumstances.
“Nina,” Lady Elaine said to her maid, “I want you to go to The Ferns,
Mrs. Nugent’s place, and to ask Miss Margaret to come to the Hall at
once.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“You will be sure to impress upon Miss Nugent the urgency of losing no
time, Nina. And, Nina, you may use the pony carriage if you do not care
for the walk.”
“Yes, my lady. Thank you.”
The maid withdrew, and secure in the privacy of her own apartments,
Lady Elaine prepared to write one of the sweetest letters she had ever
written to the man she loved.
“My dear love!” she murmured. “I feel that I have misjudged you. I
will never bother you again with my silly caprices. Oh, how bright and
beautiful the world seems, now that my king will soon be with me again!”
She drew before her a pearl-enameled writing desk, and, having opened
it, penned the following:
MY DARLING HAROLD--Can you ever forgive me for being so cruel to you?
I have myself suffered agonies that words cannot paint. Come back to
me, my love! I will confess that I detest Viscount Rivington, and
promise you that in future your wishes shall be my law. My pride is
humbled to the dust, and you will never be jealous of me again. I can
write no more; only come to me! Forever your own.
ELAINE.
She wrote the loving words with glowing cheeks and eyes beaming with
happiness. Then she sealed up the letter, and kissed it again and again.
“Nina, my trusty maid, shall take this to my lover,” she thought, “and
while she is gone I will tell Margaret that my troubles are ended.”
She was awakened from a blissful reverie by the return of her maid,
with Margaret Nugent following close behind.
“I declare,” exclaimed Miss Nugent, “it is a positive relief to
find that there is nothing seriously wrong. Nina was so urgent,
so mysterious, that I began to anticipate all sorts of awful
possibilities; and here you are looking perfectly happy, Lady Elaine.”
Margaret’s dark eyes promptly took in the situation, as she swept into
my lady’s boudoir, while Nina retired to another room.
“You are right, Margaret; I am happier than I have been for days
and days,” Lady Elaine said. “And it is really very kind of you to
bother with my foolish troubles. I can never forget your sympathy and
kindness.” Then she told Miss Nugent all, concluding:
“You advised me for the best, but my pride is broken. I can live no
longer without my lover.”
Margaret was almost bewildered by the shock.
“You have astonished me,” she said, at last. “I can scarcely realize
that the proud daughter of a hundred earls can possibly become so
meek. But, then, we are all forced to acknowledge that man is lord of
creation, while we poor women are crushed into obedience.”
She tried to laugh, but it was a dismal failure.
“Oh, Elaine,” she added, a pang of bitterness at her heart, “I pity
your future!”
“I am not afraid,” the earl’s daughter replied, softly. “My faith, my
love is too strong.”
Even now she did not for one moment suspect Margaret Nugent hated her
as only a jealous woman can hate.
“I have written to my lover to come back and forgive me,” Lady Elaine
went on, “and now that I have seen you, Margaret, my maid shall take my
letter to him.”
For a moment Miss Nugent turned away her face to hide the flash of
malevolence that sprang to her eyes. Then she spoke quickly, eagerly:
“Oh, Lady Elaine, since my advice has not ended happily, it would be a
pleasure, indeed, for me to be the bearer of the flag of truce to my
willful cousin. His ultimate happiness is one of my dearest wishes,
and, though I have no patience with his moods and freaks, no one cares
more for Sir Harold in a sisterly way than I do. You will grant me this
one favor, please, because I am beginning to feel that in some way
I have been acting disloyally toward him. Mamma and I have to drive
to Annesley Park after lunch, and I will place your letter into Sir
Harold’s own hands.”
“How can I refuse so kind an offer?” Elaine replied. “Who so reliable
a messenger as you, Margaret? Here is my letter---here are the words
which will recall my lover.”
Miss Nugent almost snatched it from her. Then she laughed a forced
laugh, and promised that it should be given to Sir Harold within two
hours.
She gave Lady Elaine a Judas kiss, her heart throbbing with triumph.
Then she went away, saying:
“Your lover will be here soon. How happy you look, Lady Elaine!”
When she was gone the earl’s daughter wandered from room to room, from
house to arbor, wherein she and her lover had spent so many blissful
hours.
As the time sped away her heart pulsed painfully and dark circles began
to form under her eyes.
The sun cast slanting shadows on the grass, then sank to rest in a
cloud of fire. Still Sir Harold did not come.
A young moon mounted the purple sky, and my lady sought her chamber.
The clocks tolled the hours until the servants closed the windows and
doors, and there was no Sir Harold.
“He will come to-morrow,” Lady Elaine told herself; “my love will come
to-morrow.”
But the morrow brought no relief to her tortured soul. Margaret Nugent
came, with pale face and burning eyes.
“I gave Sir Harold your letter,” she said, “but he tore it to atoms and
cast it into my face. He scoffed at you and your love. Oh, Lady Elaine,
you have broken his heart! He has left Annesley Park forever!”
“Gone! Forever!”
The words struggled through the pale lips of the earl’s daughter.
“Do I hear you aright--he scoffed at my love; he destroyed my letter?
Just Heaven, help me to bear this pain!”
She fell prone to the floor, like one stricken with death.