"MY SWEET GIRL LOVE."
When he got down to White Place--he had walked from the station--he
found Lady Denby alone.
"Eleanor has gone out," she said, "but only for a stroll. As you did
not come by the usual train she gave you up. Why didn't you wire?"
"I forgot it," he replied absently.
Lady Denby laughed ironically.
"What is the use of having a special wire if you don't use it?" she
said. "Have you had your dinner?"
"Oh, yes," he replied, though he had eaten nothing since the morning.
Lady Denby looked at him curiously.
"You are not looking very well, Yorke," she said. "You seem tired and
fagged, and a change is what you want."
"Well, I shall get it directly," he said, with unconscious grimness.
"Which way has Eleanor gone? I'll see if I can find her."
"She said something about going to the village," Lady Denby replied;
"but I don't expect she will get beyond the grounds. Have some coffee
or something."
He mixed a brandy and soda, more to please her than himself, and then
went out.
Remembering what Lady Denby had said, he should have kept to the park,
but he was not thinking of Lady Eleanor or the way she had taken, and
he went straight out of the gate and along the road to the village.
He was thinking, alas! not of the woman he was going to marry in two
days' time, but of Leslie Lisle; thinking that, perhaps, some day he
should meet her. What would he say to her then? Would it be just simply
"How do you do, Miss Lisle?" and go on his way again? Ah, no! Let him
meet her when he might, sooner or later he would have to tell her how
they had been separated, and why, when the knowledge of Finetta's
perfidy had come to him, it was too late to go back to her! He would
have to tell her that, would have to clear himself in her eyes!
He walked on, wrapt in bitter thoughts, haunted by the spectre which
takes the shape of 'It might have been,' and found himself far on the
London Road. He had, all unconsciously, passed the village, and he
would have still kept striding along, but that a heavy shower, which
had been threatening for some time, came pelting down. So he turned
back at a slower pace, and, as most men do when they are getting wet,
thought of a pipe.
He found his pipe and a tobacco pouch, but his match box was absent.
He hunted in the corners and crevices of his pockets for a match, but
unsuccessfully, and he was about to give up the idea of a smoke, when
he came upon the school and school-house. He stopped and looked at it
absently; he had been so absorbed in gloomy reverie as he passed it on
his way from White Place that he had not noticed it.
He stood by the little white gate in the close-cut hedge for a moment
or two to see if any one was about of whom he could ask a light; then,
as no one appeared, he pushed open the gate, walked up the narrow,
weedless path, and knocked at the door.
A neat, a remarkably neat, little handmaid answered the knock, and in
severe accents said:
"Round to the back-door, my man."
Yorke had his coat collar turned up, and his short pipe in his mouth,
and the little maid had taken him for a tramp or a pedlar.
He smiled, and entering into the humor of the thing, obediently, not to
say humbly, went round the house and presented himself at the back-door.
"Well, what is it?" asked the girl.
"Oh, I only want a light for my pipe," said Yorke. "Will you be good
enough to give me one?"
She saw her mistake in a moment, and grew crimson.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir, but we have so many tra--er--so many
strange kind of people come knocking."
"Then you do well to be careful," he said.
She ran and brought him a box of matches, and he lit his pipe and
thanked her, raising his hat, and was turning to go out of the garden,
when she said:
"Wouldn't you like to wait till the heaviest of the rain is over, sir?"
Yorke would have declined, but that he was afraid she might think he
was wounded by her mistaking him for a tramp, so he said:
"Thank you, I'll stand up under the hedge for a minute or two," and
he stood under a couple of the limes that bordered the side of the
garden, and puffed at his pipe. It did occur to him to wonder whether
Lady Eleanor had got back to White Place before the storm broke, and
whether she, in her turn, would wonder where he was; but he was just in
that frame of mind in which a man is glad to stand still and smoke and
think, and keep as far away as possible from friends and acquaintances.
Besides, after the next two days he might find it difficult, if not
impossible, to smoke a pipe in solitude. So he leant against the trunk
of the lime and went over in his mind all the details of Finetta's
confession. He saw it all as plainly as if he had been present at the
scene between her and Leslie. He understood how quick Leslie would be
to surrender him to the woman who had, as she thought, a prior right;
how greatly Leslie's maiden pride and jealousy would aid Finetta in her
task. And as he thought, his soul rose in bitter protest against the
fate which had wrecked both their lives.
He finished his pipe, and was refilling it, and had his hand upon the
tobacco pouch, when suddenly he heard a voice singing.
He paid no attention for a moment, then his hands grew motionless, and
he clutched the pouch tightly, and he looked up with a sudden flush, a
sudden light flashing in his eyes. For the voice was singing this song:
My sweet girl love, with frank blue eyes,
Though years have passed, I see you still,
There where you stand beside the mill,
Beneath the bright autumnal skies.
Then he laughed, laughed with a bitter, self-mockery.
"I'm going out of my mind," he said, with intense self-scorn. "Here's
some girl singing a silly ballad, which no doubt sells by the thousand,
and I'm actually trying to persuade myself that the voice is like
Leslie's, just because I once heard her singing it! Yes, I'm going mad,
there's no doubt of that," and half-angrily he pressed his cap on his
forehead, savagely struck a light and lit his pipe, and prepared to
march out, though it was still raining in torrents. But as he passed
the front window, framed in the red autumnal leaves of the Virginian
creeper, he heard the voice more distinctly, and he stopped and began
to tremble, looking hard toward the window.
"I am a fool!" he told himself. "I have been thinking of her so
constantly. I am so much upset that I should think any young girl I
happened to meet like her, any voice I heard like hers. This one, for
instance, is--is----."
The perspiration broke out upon his forehead, and the hand that held
the pipe shook, for at that moment the last words of the song died away
with a peculiar little trill, a soft little sigh, which he remembered
in Leslie's voice, and hers alone, most distinctly.
"It is easily proved," he muttered, and he stole across the small
square of grass up to the window, and looked in.
For a moment or two the room seemed dark, the objects within it
indistinct; then he saw a girl seated at the piano, a slim, graceful
figure in some black, softly draping stuff, that of itself seemed to
speak of Leslie. She was seated with her back toward the window, but
as he leant on the window-sill she moved her head, and a cry burst from
him. It was Leslie!
He drew back from the window-sill and leant against the wall, under the
dripping Virginian creeper, his heart knocking against his ribs, his
lips parched and dry.
What should he do? Go into the house and speak to her? Ah, not now!
Not now, just before his marriage! And yet--oh, God!--how hard it was!
Leslie in there--Leslie in there, still deeming him false, and a few
words would undeceive her. He took a couple of steps to the door, then
pulled up, and in another moment or two he would have rushed down the
path and out of the gate, but there rose, even as he turned, the sweet,
sad voice again, and his resolution melted like wax in a furnace. He
opened the door, went along the passage, paused a moment to collect
some fragment of self-possession and self-restraint, then entered the
parlor.
He stood gazing at her with hungry, longing eyes, and an ache in his
heart, which grew almost unendurable, then he said as softly as he
could:
"Leslie!"
She stopped singing, but did not turn her head. She had, in fancy,
heard him breathe her name so often.
"Leslie!" he repeated, drawing nearer.
Her hands grew motionless on the keys, and she looked round. Then she
rose slowly, like a ghost, her face growing whiter and whiter, her eyes
dilating, and "Yorke" breathed from her parted lips.
"Leslie!" he said again. "Oh, Leslie!" and he held out his arms to her.
She seemed to struggle against the potent influence he exerted, then
she came nearer, swaying a little, like one walking in her sleep.
"Oh, my darling, my darling, is it you? Really you?" he said in a
subdued voice, as if he feared to startle, frighten her.
She was almost in his arms, her bosom heaving, her lips quivering, when
she seemed to remember; and with a cry, the saddest he had ever heard,
she swayed away from him, extending one hand as if to keep him off.
He caught the hand, and held it in a grasp like that of a vice.
"You shrink from me, Leslie? Oh, my dearest--to shrink from me!"
She seemed to struggle for voice, and found it at last.
"Why--why have you come?" she breathed.
"Why have you hidden from me?" he responded, and there was almost a
touch of indignation in the earnest, pleading voice. "Why did you do
it, Leslie? Oh, God, if you knew what I have suffered----."
"You--have--suffered?" she repeated. "Ah, no, not you! It is I----." She
stopped and sighed deeply.
He almost forced her, by her hand, into a chair and knelt beside her.
"Leslie, Leslie!" he cried, striving hard to speak calmly and coolly.
"Listen to me. I'll try and explain. I'll try and tell you how this
cruel thing has been brought about. It will be hard work, for the words
sound like a jumble in my ears, and it is all I can do to keep myself
from taking you in my arms--ah, don't shrink, don't be frightened! I
will leave you to be the judge when--when you have heard all. Leslie,
that woman Finetta----."
She started and turned her face from him.
"Leslie! Leslie! She lied. She told you she was to be my wife. It was
not true, then or ever! As Heaven is my witness, there was not even
love between us, on my side. I had parted from her two days before----."
"Oh, hush!" she broke out with a kind of jerk. "I remember every
word--every word. It is burnt into my heart."
"It was false!" he said vehemently. "I can understand, imagine, all she
would say! She is an actress--would have deceived a woman of the world,
much more easily one all innocence and purity like yourself, dearest."
She looked at him as if a glimmer of hope was dawning, then her
face clouded again, and she tried to take her hand from his, but
unsuccessfully.
"You--you forget," she murmured. "The portrait. You sent it to her the
day you sent my gift to me! Your portrait!"
He could have groaned.
"No," he thundered, gripping her hand. "I sent that to you!"
"To--me?" fell from her lips.
"Yes, to you! The diamond thing I sent to her--listen and believe me,
Leslie. Look in my eyes! Ah, dearest, do you think--how could you ever
have thought--that I would be false to you? Why, I should never have
believed you false to me, though an angel had whispered it. I sent the
pendant to her because we had been good friends, and--and--ah, I must
speak openly--because I knew that she wished we might be something
more. It was a parting gift--a parting gift--from friend to friend,
that was all! But fate chose that I, like a fool, should misdirect the
packages! Leslie, the portrait was for you, the diamonds for her! Ah,
think, consider, dearest! Should I send such a thing to you? To you,
whose taste is so pure and refined!"
She began to tremble, and he drew still nearer to her.
"Why--why--did you not come--and--tell me this sooner?" she almost
wailed.
He hung his head for a moment, then he looked up and met her eyes
steadily.
"Leslie, I will tell you all. I--I have wronged you cruelly. I
have been a fool. Yes, so great, so insensate a fool as to believe
that, having learned the imposition we had practised on you, having
discovered that I was not the Duke of Rothbury, you repented of our
engagement----."
"You were not the Duke of Rothbury," she said, her brows knit; "are you
not?"
"Oh, if Dolph were only here!" he groaned. "No, dearest, I am not; and
at that time there was little chance of my ever being the duke. It is
Dolph--Mr. Temple--as we called him, who is the duke. It was a whim--a
freak of his. Oh, you see!"
Yes, she saw, and the color came to her face, and a proud, wounded look
into her lovely eyes.
"And--and you thought that it was because I believed you to be a
duke--and only because of that--that I----."
"Leslie, here on my knees I plead guilty. You cannot despise me more
than I despise myself! But, dearest, think! The last words you spoke to
Dolph the morning you parted with him! Think, was there not some slight
excuse?"
She hung her head.
"It--it is all past now," she said at last with a deep sigh. "We cannot
re-live it all! Ah, no!"
And she turned her face away as a tear rolled down her cheek. Before
that tear he lost his self-command. He forgot Lady Eleanor, forgot that
his wedding-day, as fixed, was within a few hours, and he caught her
in his arms. She uttered a low cry, and bent away from him, her hands
against his breast; but before the fire, the anguish of appeal, in his
eyes her own fell; she trembled and quivered like an imprisoned bird,
then felt herself crushed against his breast.
"Oh, my darling, my darling!" he murmured brokenly. "As if you and I
could part again! No, no, never again while life lasts! Never again,
dearest. Oh, don't cry!" He kissed the tears away, and laid her face
against his lovingly, protectingly. "Don't cry, Leslie, or I shall
think you can never forgive me! And----." He looked at the black dress.
"Where is your father?"
"Oh, Yorke, Yorke!" she sobbed.
"Hush, hush! dearest! And you bore it all alone!" he groaned. "And I
should have been by your side to help and comfort you! What shall I
say, what shall I do, to prove my remorse? It was all my fault!"
"No, no," she responded, woman-like. "Not all, Yorke! I--I ought not
to have believed that--that woman. I felt that she was not--not a good
woman, and I ought not to have trusted her. But the portrait, Yorke! It
all seemed so clear, so conclusive."
"I know," he said gravely; "I have heard it from her own lips."
"From her own lips?"
"Yes," he said gently. "She has confessed it all. If she sinned, she
has been punished. Finetta, the dancing girl, will never dance again;
she is helpless and crippled for life."
Leslie uttered a low cry of horror and shuddered.
"Oh, God forgive me! and I was just wishing she might be punished. Oh,
Yorke, where is she? I--I cannot forget her temptation, and I--I will
try and forgive her!"
"She wants to see you, dearest!" he said; "I left her this morning
with a prayer for your forgiveness on her lips. I will take you to see
her, and she will explain all that may be still dark. See, she sent you
this," and he put the locket in her hand. "But, dearest, I want to hear
all about yourself. Why are you here--and are you here alone?"
"I am the teacher here," she said. "Let me go now, Yorke, dear!"
"No, no!" he said, "I cannot!" and he held her still closer. "Tell it
to me with your head lying on my shoulder, your heart to mine----." He
stopped suddenly, and Leslie following his eyes, would have broken from
him, for two persons had entered, Lucy and Ralph Duncombe, but Yorke
still held her.
Lucy uttered a low cry of amazement, and the color flew to her face.
"Oh, come away," she whispered to Ralph.
But he strode in and confronted Yorke with indignant menace.
"No!" he said, sternly; "I am Miss Lisle's friend, and it is my duty to
protect her!"
"To protect her!" repeated Yorke mechanically, and staring at him.
"Yes!" said Ralph. "Leslie--Miss Lisle--do you know who this gentleman
is?"
Leslie, white and red by turns, raised her eyes.
"Yes!" she said, almost inaudibly.
Ralph Duncombe started.
"You know who he is? And--and that he is engaged--to be married to Lady
Eleanor Dallas the day after to-morrow!"