Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: Cover]
[Illustration: "She turned a white set face upon her self-elected
escort." _A Woman Martyr_. _Page 10_.]
A WOMAN MARTYR
BY
ALICE MANGOLD DIEHL
AUTHOR OF "PASSION PUPPETS"
"THE KNAVE OF HEARTS" "FIRE" ETC. ETC
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ADOLF THIEDE
LONDON
WARD, LOCK AND CO. LIMITED
NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE
1903
Contents
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER I
A sharp shower pattering on the foliage of the sycamores and elms was
scattering the equestrians in the Row. Fair girls urged their hacks
into a canter and trotted swiftly homewards. Other riders, glancing
upwards, and deciding that the clouds had done their worst, drew up
under the trees. Among these was a slight, graceful girl in a
well-fitting habit with a pale, classic face, and the somewhat Venetian
combination of dark brown eyes and red-gold hair. With a slight wave of
her whip to her groom--who halted obediently under a neighbouring
tree--she reined in her slender-limbed bay mare under a horse-chestnut
tree whose shelter was still undemanded.
There she sat still in her saddle, with a slight frown--biting her
lip--as she asked herself again and again, "Did he see me? Has he ridden
out of the park?"
When she cantered along just as the shower began, she fancied she
recognised an admirer she had believed to be far away, walking his horse
in the same direction as herself. This was Lord Vansittart--a man who
had several times repeated his offer of marriage--an offer she did not
refuse because he had not stirred her heart--for she loved him, and
passionately--but for other reasons. Although it had caused her bitter
pain, she had at least been determined enough in her "No" to send him
off, in dudgeon, to seek forgetfulness in other climes.
And now he had appeared again!
Her first feeling had been dismay, mingled with involuntary ecstacy
which startled her. Then came a wild, almost uncontrollable impulse just
to speak to him--to touch his hand, to look into those love laden eyes
once more--only once more!
She gazed furtively here and there, divided between the hope and fear
that her longing would be sated--she would meet him. Riders passed and
repassed. The little crowds gathered, thickened, dispersed. She was
disappointedly telling herself that as the shower had temporarily
subsided she ought to be returning home, when her heart gave a leap. A
rider who was trotting towards her was the man--the man strongly if
slightly built, handsome, fair, if stern--who alone among men had
conquered that heart, who, although despair had driven her to hold her
own against him, was her master.
It was all over--fate had decided--they two must once more meet! There
was no escape.
He rode up. She blanched, but looked him steadily in the face. He
gazed sadly, beseechingly, yet with that imperious compelling glance
which had so often made her quail--into those beautiful brown eyes.
"We meet again, you see," he said, in a harsh, strained voice. He felt
on the rack--to him, wildly panting, yearning to take her in his arms
after weary, maddening months of longing, that gulf between them seemed
a very hell.
"So it seems," she said, with a pitiful attempt at a laugh. "I thought
you were in Kamschatka, or Bombay--or anywhere!"
"I have come back," he returned, lamely, mechanically accompanying her
as she rode out of shelter--she would not, could not, stay there and
bandy words with him! "I felt--I must know--the worst!"
Involuntarily she reined in, and so suddenly that she startled her
steed, and it was some moments before the mare's nerves were calmed.
Then she turned a white, set face upon her self-elected escort.
"What do you mean, Lord Vansittart?" she asked scornfully, and her eyes
flashed.
"You--know," he hoarsely said. "I am not so utterly vain as to think
that where I have failed, other and--and--more attractive fellows may
not succeed!"
"You know, or ought to know, that what you are saying is absurd!" she
faltered. What had she thought, feared? She hardly knew, she only felt
a tremendous relief. Thank Heaven, even had she been secretly vowed to
the cloister, her conduct since their parting could not have borne
closer scrutiny! "You must remember--what I said--I never, never, intend
to marry--anyone. I shall never, never, change my mind--about _that_!"
He said nothing; but glanced at her--a curious glance. A puzzle to him
since he first had felt encouraged to believe from symptoms which only a
watchful, anxious lover would perceive, that she involuntarily, perhaps
even unconsciously, loved him--she had remained an insoluble problem
during the long days of their separation when he pondered on the subject
the slow, lagging hours through--and, now again, she bid fair to be as
great a problem as ever. For he felt, he knew, that her reception of
him--her pallor, the strange look in her eyes and the curious pitch of
her voice--why, the veriest fool alive would not have mistaken her
demeanour or one of its details for indifference!
"I--I think you mistake yourself," he began slowly, revolving certain
ideas which he had jotted down at intervals for his future guidance, in
his mind. "I suppose you do not believe in marriage. You have seen its
failure! Is that it?"
"Perhaps," she said. "I really can't tell, myself. All I know is, that
I am firmly resolved not to marry--any one!" She spoke doggedly, with
almost a childish obstinacy.
"But--you do not bar friendship?" he said, earnestly, appealingly.
"Supposing some one of the unfortunate men you determine to have nothing
to do with were to wish to devote his whole life and energies to you,
secretly, but entirely--with the absolute devotion of a would-be
anchorite or martyr--what then? You would not refuse to give the poor
devil a chance? I mean, to give him something in return; if friendship
were too much to expect, tolerance, pity, a look now and then, or a
word, you would allow him to play your faithful knight, of course in
strict secrecy, from afar, unsuspected by the world?"
A faint colour suffused her lovely face. She looked at him, furtively.
"Some people may care for that sort of thing--I don't!" she bluntly
said. "Oh, Lord Vansittart! why will you not, can you not, see and
understand that all I want of--of--everyone is to be let alone? I have
my own ideas of what my life should be; surely any one professing
interest in me ought to respect them!"
"I respect your every thought," he eagerly, if somewhat perplexedly
returned. "Only--I should like thoroughly to understand the kind of
life you wish to lead. Because--well, I will not beat about the bush.
Joan! you know I love you! You are my very life! And if I cannot be
nearer than I am now, my only happiness and motive for living must be to
serve you in some way, to see you, speak to you, help you, be your very
slave----"
Just as his voice was most impassioned his appeal was interrupted. An
elderly gentleman rode swiftly up and tapped him on the arm.
"Why, Vansittart! can I believe my eyes?" he exclaimed, somewhat
breathlessly. "Joan, where has he dropped from?"
It was Sir Thomas Thorne, the wealthy uncle who had adopted Joan, his
late brother's only child, at her mother's death a few years previously.
The admired beauty, whose only flaw seemed to be her adamantine pose in
regard to her many suitors, was known to be sole heiress of the wealthy
baronet and his wife, who were not only childless, but curiously devoid
of near relations.
"From Paris, Sir Thomas," he replied, as easily as he could. Then he
gave a brief account of his wanderings. He seemed to have roamed and
ranged over the earth, prowling about for some interest, which evaded
him from Dan to Beersheba. Sir Thomas listened with a peculiar twist of
his thin, fine lips and a curious twinkle in his shrewd, handsome old
eyes.
"Come in to lunch," he genially, if abruptly, proposed, as they left the
park. "My lady will be delighted to see you--you are one of her
particular favourites."
What could Vansittart do but accept? With many deprecatory glances at
Joan--which, as she rode on looking straight before her, she either did
not, or would not see,--he accompanied uncle and niece through the pale
sunshine which now bathed the wet streets and shone upon the dripping
bushes and bright green foliage of the trees, to the door of Sir Thomas'
tastefully beflowered mansion in one of the largest West-end squares.
Here, before the groom had had time to wait upon his mistress, he was
off his horse, and at her stirrup.
"Forgive me," he pleaded, as she eluded his help and sprang lightly
down. "I could not resist the temptation!"
Had she heard him? She had marched on into the house. "She will not
appear at luncheon," he told himself bitterly, as he accompanied the
very evidently friendly Sir Thomas up the steps and through the hall.
"She will make some plausible excuse to avoid me, as she has always
done, worse luck!"