THE EXPRESS TO LONDON.
“What messages are we to leave for Captain Desfrayne, my dear?” asked
Lady Quaintree of Lois.
They had both left his name to the last, each loath to be the one to
recall it.
Her ladyship noted, while apparently trying to master a refractory
button on her glove, that the rose tint on Lois’ cheeks deepened, and
then flowed over the rest of her face, while the long, dark lashes
drooped.
“Dear madam,” said the young girl, “that is a question I should rather
have asked you, who know so much better than I do the proper things to
be said.”
“Proper, my love,” repeated the old lady, smiling. “It is not a matter
of saying ‘proper’ or ‘civil’ things. What do you wish to say?”
The color faded from Lois’ face, and then flowed back again in a
roseate glow.
“I am sure Miss Dormer and I are both most grateful to Captain
Desfrayne for his kindness----” began Lois.
Blanche put her hands on Lois’ waist, and gave her a gentle shake, and
a glance of reproach.
“‘Miss Dormer!’ You unkind Lois!” she said. “I thought I had asked you
to call me Blanche.”
Lois felt as if she must say things worthy of smiling rebuke, whether
she willed it or not.
“Come, we must leave some message, in case the captain should happen to
call,” said Lady Quaintree.
“Mrs. Ormsby,” she continued, turning to the housekeeper, who was
following to attend them to their carriage, “if Captain Desfrayne--the
gentleman who dined here yesterday--should come during the day, will
you be good enough to inform him that we were unexpectedly summoned to
London on the most urgent affairs?”
“I will do so, my lady,” replied Mrs. Ormsby.
The carriage drove off, containing the three ladies, Justine and the
one or two other servants immediately attending them. There was no time
to send for Blanche’s maid; but it was agreed that she should be sent
for at once on their arrival at Lowndes Square.
Lois gazed at the stately Hall and its lovely grounds, with strange,
mingled feelings, as the carriage bore her swiftly away. An
uncomfortable sensation rose in her throat, as if tears of regret were
stealing from their hiding-place, as she reflected that she was in all
likelihood losing a chance of seeing Paul Desfrayne, and hearing his
promised explanation.
“He will come to-day; and I shall not be here,” she thought.
His face and form haunted her, try as she would to banish the
recollection. A dangerous longing, inexplicable to herself, rose in
her heart, just to see him once more. A wicked longing, she knew, if
he belonged to another. And the impediment which hindered him from
addressing her was evidently an insuperable one. His words, although
mystifying, left no doubt.
“I wish I had never seen or heard of him,” she said to herself. “Yet
why should I let myself think of him in this foolish, weak way. My
pride, if nothing else, should forbid my wishing even to see him. It is
enough that he has assured me he can never think of me. Why do I think
about him, except as a harassing care forced on me? I have known him
but a few days; he is a stranger, an absolute stranger to me, and yet I
continue to brood over his words, and my resentment against him seems
gone.”
The drive to the station was even pleasanter than the drive of the
day before. As yet the day was tolerably cool, and snow-white clouds
flecked a sky of purest blue.
Lady Quaintree was not sorry to be rid of the handsome claimant to her
protégée’s hand, heart, and desirable fortune, if it were only for a
while. She could not, for all her maternal pride, be blind to the fact
that Paul Desfrayne would be a formidable rival to her Gerald, unless
the latter could secure a very firm interest in the affections of the
young lady who might be addressed by both.
A polite guard chose a convenient compartment for the ladies. A smile,
a hasty uplifting of the finger to his cap as Lady Quaintree’s delicate
pearl-gray glove approached his brown palm, and then he closed the door
respectfully.
But at the last moment, and just as the guard blew his whistle, a
gentleman came rushing on the platform.
“Going by the express, sir? Here you are, sir--here you are. Not a
minute to be lost,” cried the guard.
The good fellow had intended that the ladies should have their
compartment all to themselves; but he had no time to move from the spot
where he stood. The train began to draw its snakelike body to move out
from the station. He threw open the door, and the gentleman sprang
lightly on the step, steadied himself for an instant, and then entered.
The three ladies turned their gaze simultaneously on their fellow
passengers, and the same exclamation escaped their lips at the same
moment:
“Captain Desfrayne!”
* * * * *
Truly, Captain Desfrayne on his way to London to consult Frank
Amberley. He recognized the ladies as he balanced himself on the step
of the carriage.
Had it been possible, he would have drawn back, and gone anywhere
rather than continue this journey in Lois’ company. For a second his
eyes met hers. New hope, clouded by pain and uncertainty, beamed in
his; fear, timid reproach, inquiry, doubt, glanced from hers.
Blanche could not help exchanging a look of amazement with Lois, nor
could it escape her notice that the telltale crimson mounted to Miss
Turquand’s cheeks, just now so pale.
“Captain Desfrayne! An unexpected pleasure,” said Lady Quaintree,
extending her hand, though secretly ill pleased.
“Quite so,” answered Captain Desfrayne, himself anything but delighted.
“I had not the most distant idea you and Miss Turquand intended to quit
Flore Hall so soon.”
He could not hinder his eyes from wandering to Lois’ face. The young
girl, filled with anger at his inconsistent conduct, averted her head,
and gazed from the window. When she stole a glance at him again, he was
looking from the window on his side, his face clouded by the care and
trouble that seemed rarely absent.
Nobody said much during the journey; for subjects of conversation were
not readily found, and even Blanche had abundant matter for mental
consideration.
To Lois and Paul Desfrayne, it seemed like a dream more than reality.
The thickly clustered houses, the red-tiled roofs and chimney-pots
began to give intimation that they were nearing London.
“We may not hope, then, to see much of you this week, at any rate?”
Lady Quaintree observed, shaking herself out of a brief slumber.
He shook his head.
“I must go back to Holston as soon as I can,” he replied.
The express slackened speed, and at last rolled into the terminus.
Gerald was waiting for his mother on the platform. He assisted her
from the carriage, leaving the care of the two young girls to Captain
Desfrayne.
Lady Quaintree eagerly paused to make anxious inquiries about her
husband. She had moved on a few steps, and Captain Desfrayne felt he
must offer some kind of excuse to Lois for not affording her the clue
to his mysterious behavior he had promised. He laid a tremulous hand on
her wrist, and drew her some steps away from her friend.
“Miss Turquand,” he said eagerly, looking her full in the face, a
deeply troubled, excited expression in his eyes, “I must entreat of
you not to judge me harshly, but with mercy and kindness. I merit all
your pity. I am a most unhappy man. It would have been well if I could
have explained my position last night, as I meant to do; but this is no
time or place to end the conversation then begun and interrupted. May I
beseech you to suspend your judgment until I have been able to tell you
how I am circumstanced?”
“I have no right to judge you,” said Lois coldly. “If you are unhappy,
you have my pity.”
She felt piqued that he fixed no time for giving her the promised
explanation. He left her still mystified.
“Will you give me your promise not to condemn me until you have heard
my story?” urged Paul Desfrayne.
“I repeat, I have no right to judge you,” said Lois. “Those who have
the care of me and my affairs have the best right to hear what you have
to say.”
If her words sounded cold and repelling to her hearer, they were yet
more so to herself. She felt that she spoke harshly, and with scarcely
veiled bitterness, and, as she saw the young man droop his head, she
hastily added, with a softened tone:
“Your language, sir, is strange and perplexing to me. You allude
to some unhappy circumstances, of which, as you say, I am entirely
ignorant. If you see fit to explain these circumstances to me, I think
you may count on my sympathy. If you do not deem it necessary that I
should be further acquainted with them, let it be forgotten that you
have ever touched on them at all.”
The young girl, faint and agitated from contending feelings, put out
her hands like one who does not see her way clearly. Blanche, who had
drawn back, stepped hastily to her side, and gave her an arm to lean
upon.
“My poor darling!” whispered Blanche tenderly.
The sympathetic accents vibrated on Lois’ heart like an electric
shock. She roused herself from the momentary weakness to which she had
yielded, and extended her hand to Captain Desfrayne.
“Adieu, sir,” she said.
The young man caught her hand, and involuntarily pressed the slender
fingers within his own. He gazed for an instant into the dreamy eyes,
so pure, so frank, so truthful, so trusting, then, loosing the little
hand, turned away with a deep sigh.
As he did so, Lady Quaintree looked back, and made a signal to the
girls to accompany her to the carriage, which was in waiting. She
smiled in her own gracious way upon the young officer, though she
really wished him at Jericho.
He advanced, and lifted his hat.
“I presume, madam, I can be of no service to you?” he said, glancing
for a moment at the Honorable Gerald, who was unknown to him.
Lady Quaintree, remembering that the young men were strangers to each
other, introduced them.
“If you should happen to make a longer stay in town than you count on,”
she said, “we shall be very pleased to see you, either this evening,
or to-morrow, or at any time it may suit you to come. I find my lord’s
illness is not of so serious a nature as at first appeared.”
An interchange of civil smiles, a shake or two of the hand, some polite
valedictory salutations, and the brief whirling scene was over--past as
a dream.
“I think I was right,” murmured Blanche, in her friend’s ear, as they
drove off in Lady Quaintree’s luxurious carriage.
Lois tightly pressed the hand that tenderly sought her own; but did not
meet Blanche’s eye, which she feared for the moment.
Paul Desfrayne threw himself into a hansom.
“Alderman’s Lane,” he cried to the driver.