"Yes, my father bought the place," said Maude. "I asked him to do so,
and he consented at once. I could not have let it pass to strangers.
You see, I had been so happy here; it was here that you asked me to be
your wife. And father has offered to settle it upon us," she blushed
slightly, and her eyes became downcast. "He is no longer--opposed to
our marriage; he knows that I would marry you if all the world cried
'No!'"
They had been sitting talking for nearly an hour. She had recovered
from the shock of his sudden presence, and was seated beside him--so
close that she could touch him with her hand--calm now, but with a glow
in her usually pale cheek, a light in her eyes which had been absent
for many a weary month past. He had given her, mostly in answer to her
eager questions, a very abbreviated account of his life in Australia;
telling her less even than he had told Ida; and it is needless to
remark, saying nothing of the cause of his hasty return.
"Ah, well," she said, drawing a long breath, "it is all over now,
Stafford. Ah, it is good to have you back safe and sound. You are well,
are you not? You look pale and thin and--and tired. But I suppose it's
the journey. Yes, it is all over; you need not wander any longer; you
have come back to me, have you not, Stafford? If you knew how I have
missed you, how I have longed for you! And now you will settle down and
take your place in the world and be happy! Do you think I shall not
make you happy, Stafford? Ah, do not be afraid;" her eyes sought his
and her hand stole towards his arm.
He rose and leant against the mantel-shelf.
"I only know that I am quite unworthy of you, Maude," he said, gravely.
She looked up at him and laughed.
"Are you? Who cares! Not I! _I_ only know that I love you so dearly
that if you were the blackest villain to be found in fiction, it would
make no difference to me."
He was filled with shame and self-reproach, and turned away his head
that she might not see the shame in his eyes.
"How did you come?" she asked, presently. "If my father were only at
home! You could stay with us, then."
"I am staying at The Woodman," he said.
She regarded him with some surprise.
"Last night! Late, do you mean? Did you meet, see anyone?"
There was a dawning suspicion in her eyes, and she regarded his averted
face keenly; she noticed that he hesitated and seemed embarrassed.
"No one you know," he replied, feeling that it was impossible for him
to speak Ida's name.
"How do you know?" she asked, with a curious smile. "Who was it?"
"I met Miss Heron of Herondale," he said, trying to speak casually, and
wondering what she would say, hoping fervently that she would ask no
more questions.
The blood rushed to her face, her eyes flashed and her lips tightened;
but she did not speak, and moved away to the window, standing there
looking out, but seeing nothing. He had gone to _her_ the moment he had
returned: what did it mean? But she dared not ask; for she knew
instinctively how slight was the chain by which she held him. With an
effort she restrained the rage, the fierce jealousy, which threatened
to burst forth in violent reproaches and accusation; and after a minute
or two she turned to him, outwardly calm and smiling.
"Have you made any plans, Stafford?" she asked. "My father was speaking
of your return; he thought of writing to you. Dearest, there must be no
reserve between us now--now that you have come back. See, I speak quite
frankly. My father thinks--thinks that our marriage should take place
at once. He has withdrawn his objection, and--and you will not thwart
him, Stafford? It is hard for me to have to say this; but--but you will
understand."
"I understand," he said in a low voice. "I am grateful to your father.
Our marriage shall take place as soon as you please. It is for you to
fix the date, Maude."
She nestled against him and touched his coat with her lips.
"I am ashamed of myself," she murmured; "but, ah, well! love casteth
out shame."
A servant knocked at the door.
"The horse is round, miss," he announced.
"I was going for a ride," she said; "but I will send the horse
away--unless you will ride with me. You will, Stafford?"
"Certainly," he said, glad of the interruption to this _tête-à-tête_
which had been to him a positive torture.
"I will not be five minutes," she said, brightly. "You'd like to go
over the house? They shall bring you something to drink in the
smoking-room, or here, if you like: you are lord and master."
She went up to her room, and, when she had rung for her maid, paced up
and down feverishly. He had gone to that girl before he had come to
her! She was racked with hate and jealousy, which was all the harder to
bear because she knew she must hide them within her bosom, that no word
or look of hers must let him see that she knew of her rival. Some time,
after they were marred, she would tell him: but not till she was safe.
She got into her habit quickly and went down to him. He was standing
where she had left him, and as she entered the room she saw before he
had time to turn to her with a smile, how haggard and harassed he
looked.
"You have been quick," he said.
"Yes; I am learning one of my wifely duties: not to keep my husband
waiting." They went out, and Pottinger, standing by the horses, touched
his hat and grew red with joy at sight of his master.
"Well, Pottinger! Glad to see you!" said Stafford; and he was genuinely
glad. "You're looking well, and the horse is too. Halloo! you're put
the side-saddle on Adonis," he added, as he went up and patted the
horse.
Pottinger touched his hat again.
"Yes, sir; Miss Falconer's been riding him, and I did not know that I
ought to change the saddle. I can do so in a minute--"
"No, no," said Stafford; "never mind. I will ride the hunter, as you
have the saddle on him. You like Adonis, Maude?"
"Oh, yes," she replied. "Though I'm not quite sure he likes me," she
added, with a laugh.
Stafford put her up, and noticed, with some surprise, that Adonis
seemed restless and ill at ease, and that he shivered and shrank as he
felt Maude on his back.
"What is the matter with him?" he said. "He seems fidgety. Does the
saddle fit?"
"Yes, sir," said Pottinger, with a half-nervous glance at Maude,
followed by the impassive expression of the trained servant who cannot
speak out.
"He is troublesome sometimes," said Maude; "but I can manage him quite
easily."
"Oh, yes," assented Stafford; "he is as quiet as a lamb; but he is
highly bred and as highly strung."
As they were starting, Pottinger murmured:
"Don't curb him too tightly, miss."
Maude ignored the warning; and she and Stafford rode out. The rain had
ceased, the clouds had passed away, and in the joy of his nearness, her
spirits rose, a feeling of triumph swelled in her bosom.
"How little I thought yesterday, even this morning, that we should be
riding side by side, Stafford," she said. "How little I thought I
should have you back again, my own, my very own! Don't all these months
you've been away seem like a dream to you? They do to me." She drew a
long breath. "Let us ride across the dale."
"You will find it wet there, had you not better keep to the road?"
"No, no," she said; "Adonis is dying for a gallop; see how he is
fretting."
Stafford looked at the horse curiously. He was champing his bit and
throwing up his head in a nervous, agitated manner which Stafford had
never seen him display before.
"I can't make the horse out," he said, more to himself than Maude.
"Perhaps he'll be all right after a gallop."
They crossed the road at a trot, which was an uneven one on Adonis's
part, and got on the moor. Maude, still in high spirit, still buoyed up
by her feeling of triumph, talked continuously; telling him some of the
London news, planning out their future. They would have a house in
London, Stafford should take his proper place in the world; they would
step back to the high position which was his by right, as a peer of the
realm. Stafford was scarcely listening. A question was haunting him, a
question which he could not thrust from him: he was going to marry
Maude Falconer, going to take the hard and stony road of duty which
Ida, in her noble way, had pointed out to him. Ought he not to tell
Maude about Ida and his broken engagement to her; would it not be
better for both of them, for all of them, if he were to do so? He would
have to tell her that he could not live at the Villa; she would want to
know the reason; would it not be better to tell her?
He raised his head to begin; when suddenly he saw, going up the hill in
front of them, a horse and horsewoman. She was walking up slowly, and,
long before her figure stood out against the clear sky, he saw that it
was Ida. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that his heart stood
still. That she should have appeared before him in his sight, at such a
moment, while he was riding beside his future wife--his future
wife!--filled him with bitterness. His face must have paled, or Maude
must have seen him start, for she looked at him and then turned her
head and looked in the direction in which his eyes were fixed. She
recognised Ida instantly; the colour rushed to her face; her hand
tightened on her rein spasmodically; for a moment she felt inclined to
turn aside, to ride away, escape from the girl she hated and loathed.
And then she was moved by another impulse; the demon of jealousy
whispered: "This is the moment of your triumph; why not enjoy it to the
full; why not let her feel the bitterness of defeat? There is your
rival! Let her see with her own eyes your triumph and your happiness."
The temptation was too great for her, and she yielded to it.
"Who is that riding up the hill?" she said, controlling her voice
admirably. "It is Miss Heron, is it not?"
"Yes, it is," he said, as impassively as he could.
Her lips curled scornfully at his assumption of indifference. "I have
seen her and met her," she said, "but I have not been introduced to
her. Let us overtake her, and you can introduce me. I should like to
know her."
He looked straight before him, his face grave and set.
"Is it worth while?" he said in a low voice. "Some other time--"
"Why not now?" she asked. "We can catch her quite easily."
The moment had come for him to tell her.
"Not now," he said, huskily. "I have something to tell you, Maude;
something you ought to know before--before you make Miss Heron's
acquaintance."
She turned to him with a low laugh.
"Do you think I don't know?" she said, between her teeth. "I have know
all along! I read the letter you wrote to her--I got it--stole it, if
you like--from Pottinger. I have known all along--do you not think I
have been very patient, very discreet? Even now I bear no malice. I can
forget the past, forget and forgive. Why should I not, seeing that I am
assured of your love and good faith? You will see how completely I
forget, how little importance I attach to your fancy for the girl; a
fancy which I am sure you have quite outgrown. Oh, I can trust you! We
will join Miss Heron by all means."
His face was dark and heavy.
"Do not, Maude, until you've heard all," he began, but with a scornful
laugh that yet had something doubting and desperate in it, she sent
Adonis on. He sprang forward nervously and shivering under a stroke
from her whip, and swiftly lessened the distance between him and
Rupert, who heard his approach before Ida did, and who neighed a
welcome. Ida turned and saw who was following her, saw Stafford just
behind, and gathering her reins together she rode Rupert quickly to the
top of the hill.
"Miss Heron!" cried Maude, in a voice of covert insolence, but almost
open triumph. "Miss Heron, stop, please!"
Ida did stop for a moment, then, feeling that it was impossible for her
to meet them, that day, at any rate, she let Rupert go again. By this
time, Stafford had almost gained Maude's side. His face was dark with
anger, his teeth clenched tightly. He knew that Maude intended to
flaunt her possession of him before Ida. In a low but perfectly
distinct voice, he said:
"Stop, Maude! Do not follow her." She looked over her shoulder at him,
her face flushed, her eyes flashing.
"Why not?" she demanded, scornfully. "Is she afraid, or is it you who
are afraid? Both, perhaps? We shall see!"
Before he could catch her rein she had struck Adonis twice with the
sharp, cutting whip, and with a shake of his head and a snort of rage
and resentment, he stood on his haunches for a moment, then leapt
forward and began to race down the hill. Stafford saw that the horse
had bolted, either from fear or anger; he knew that it would only
increase Maude's peril if he galloped in pursuit behind her; he,
therefore, checked his horse and made, in a slanting line, for a point
towards which he judged Adonis would go. Maude was swaying in her
saddle, in which she could only keep herself by clutching at the
pommel; it seemed every moment as if she must fall, as if the horse
itself must fall and throw her like a stone down the steep hill.
Ida, the moment she had got over the top of the hill, had ridden
quickly, and, of course, quite fearlessly and safely, and had got
Rupert so well in hand, as usual, that when she heard the clatter
behind her, and, turning, saw the peril in which Maude had put herself,
she was able to pull Rupert up. It was almost a repetition of what had
occurred the other day; but this time Maude Falconer's peril was
infinitely greater; for her horse was half mad and tearing down the
steep hill-side, rendered doubly dangerous by the loose stones, and was
all too evidently indifferent whether he stood or fell. And yet another
risk lay just below; for William had been digging in that spot for
stones to mend the bank, and even if the maddened horse saw the hole,
it was more than probable that he would not be able to pull up in time.
Such moments as these form the criterion of true courage. There was
only one way in which Ida could save, or attempt to save, the
white-faced woman who was drawing towards her at breakneck speed. What
she would have to attempt to do would be to ride straight for the
oncoming horse, swerve almost as she reached it, and keep side by side
with it until she could succeed either in turning it away from that
horrible hole, or stop it by throwing it. She did not hesitate for a
moment.
It may be said in all truth that at that moment she forgot that the
woman whose life she was going to save was Maude Falconer; she did not
realise the fact--or, if she did, she was indifferent to it--that she
was risking her own life to save the woman who had robbed her of
Stafford. There was the life to be saved, and that was enough for Ida.
She slipped her foot almost out of the stirrup, felt Rupert's mouth
firmly but gently, leant forward and whispered a word to him, which it
is very likely he understood--perhaps he saw all the game even before
she did--and, with an encouraging touch of her hand, she let him go.
He sprang forward like an arrow from the bow. As they drew near the
flying horse, Ida shifted her whip to her left hand, so that her right
should be free, and, leaning as far in the saddle as she could with
safety, she made a snatch at Adonis's rein at the moment she came
alongside him. She would have caught the rein, she might have stopped
the horse or turned it aside--God alone knows!--but as her fingers
almost grasped it, Maude, steadied in her seat by the nearness of her
would-be rescuer, raised her whip and struck Ida across the bosom and
across the outstretched hand. The blow, in its finish, fell on Adonis's
reeking neck. With a snort he tore away from the other horse and swept
onwards, with Maude once again swaying in her saddle. Ida gazed at her
in speechless terror for an instant, then, as if she could look no
longer, she flung up her arm across her eyes.
A moment afterwards a cry, a shrill scream, that rang in her ears for
many a day afterwards, rose above the clatter of Adonis's hoofs, and
before the cry had died away horse and rider had fallen with awful
force into and across the hole. Then came a dead silence, broken only
by the sound of the horse's iron shoes as he kicked wildly and pawed in
a vain attempt to rise. Ida rode up, and flinging herself to the
ground, tried to approach the struggling animal. But, indeed, it was
horror and not fear that struck her motionless for a moment; for horse
and rider were mixed in awful confusion, and already Maude Falconer's
graceful form was stained with blood, and battered by the madly kicking
animal, now in its death-throes.
An instant after, before she could recover from her paralysis of
terror--the whole affair was one of a moment and had passed as quickly
as a flitting cloud--Stafford was by her side, and at work extricating
woman from horse. It was not an easy task, for though Adonis was now
dead, a part of Maude's body lay under his shoulder; but with utmost
herculean strength Stafford succeeded in getting her clear, and lifted
her out of the hole on to the grass. Kneeling beside him, Ida, calm
now, but trembling, raised Maude's head on her knee and wiped the blood
from the beautiful face. Its loveliness was not marred, there was no
bruise or cut upon it, the blood having flown from a wound just behind
the temple.
Stafford ran to the brook for some water and tried to force a few drops
through the clenched teeth, while Ida bathed the white brow. Suddenly a
tremor ran through him, and he put his hand over Maude's heart. It was
quite still; he bent his cheek to her lips; no breath met them. For a
moment or two he could not speak, then he stayed Ida's ministering
hand, and looking up at her, said:
"It is of no use. She is dead!"