It was only when she had left the earl that Margaret noticed how kind
and gracious he had been. He had not only bought the copy of the Guido,
and commissioned another picture of her, but had walked by her side and
smiled upon her, treating her almost as an equal, with a gentleness
and deference indeed which seemed to indicate that he thought her a
superior.
"I'll go into the woods and find a subject at once," she said to
herself. "And it shall be my very best picture, or--I'll know the
reason why. No wonder people are fond of lords and ladies, if they are
all like the great Earl of Ferrers."
No doubt, if she had known the contents of the letter he had just
written to Messrs. Tyler & Driver, she would have thought still more
highly of him.
She had a sketch-block and pencil in her hand, and she went through to
the woods that fringed the Court lawns on three sides.
They were lovely woods: there was no more beautiful place in England
than Leyton Court, and Margaret almost forgot the purpose for which she
had come, as she sat in a little bushy dell, through which ran a tiny
stream, tumbling in silvery cascades over the bowlders rounded by the
hand of Time.
But presently, when she had drank deep of its beauty, she began to make
a sketch of the dell.
What a lucky girl she was! The possessor of the silver medal, an
exhibitor in the Academy, and now commissioned by no less a personage
than the Earl of Ferrers.
"I shall be really famous if I go on like this," she said to herself,
with a soft laugh.
Then the laugh died out on her lips, for, with a sudden spring, a
young man reached the rock she was at that moment sketching, and from
it dropped to her side.
It was Lord Leyton.
Margaret was so startled that she let the sketch-block fall from her
hand, and sat looking at him, with the color slowly fading from her
face. She had succeeded in forgetting him for a short hour or two, and
here he was at her side again.
And Lord Blair assuredly looked, if not startled, pale and haggard.
For the last two days, since he had left Margaret, overwhelmed by his
passionate outburst, he had been living after his wildest and most
reckless fashion, and two days of such dissipation and sleeplessness,
added to passion, tell even upon such perfect physical specimens of
humanity as Blair Leyton.
"Lord Leyton!" she said at last.
He picked up her sketch-block, but held it, still looking at her.
"I've frightened you," he said, remorsefully; "I--I am a brute. I did
not know you were here until I jumped upon that stone, when I was close
upon you."
Margaret tried to smile.
"It does not matter," she said. "Give me my block, please," and she
held out her hand.
He drew a little nearer, and gave her the block.
"You are sketching?" he said, his eyes fixed on her face with a wistful
eagerness.
She inclined her head.
"Yes; I am painting a picture for the earl."
"For the earl!" he repeated dully, as if her voice, and not the words
she said, were of importance to him.
"Yes; if you wish to see him, you will find him at home; he has just
left me."
"Just left you!" he repeated as before. "No; I don't want to see him."
Margaret raised her eyes and looked at him.
"You have not come down to see him?" she said with faint surprise.
"No!" he responded. "He wouldn't see me if I had. But I didn't come to
see him; I came----" then he stopped for a second. "Miss Margaret, I am
afraid to tell you _why_ I came."
"Then don't tell me," said Margaret, trying to force a smile. "It
sounds as if you had come for no good purpose, my lord."
He stood silent for a second, then he flung himself at her feet, and
leaning on his elbow, looked up at her with the same eager wistfulness
in his handsome eyes.
"Yes, I will tell you," he said; "I came to see you!"
"To see me?" said Margaret, flushing. Then the straight brows came
together. "Lord Leyton, you should not have said that!"
"Why should I not?" he demanded, "if it's true--and it is true! Miss
Margaret, I have been the wretchedest man in London these last two
days."
"I doubt that," said Margaret quietly, and going on with her sketch.
"It's the truth. If there was a man condemned to be hanged, I'll wager
he wasn't more wretched than I have been."
"Wicked people are always wretched--or should be, my lord," said
Margaret coolly.
"And I am wicked. Yes, I know," he said; "I am the vilest of the vile,
in your eyes. But it isn't for what I've done in the past that I'm so
miserable, it is for what I said to you in the picture gallery the
other morning. Miss Margaret, I behaved like a brute! I--I--said words
that--that have made me wish I were dead----"
"That will do, Lord Leyton," said Margaret, interrupting him. "If you
are so sorry there need be no more said excepting that I forgive you,
and will forget them. I knew that you did not mean them at the time."
His face crimsoned, and his eyes grew almost fierce.
"Stop," he said; "I don't say that. I won't. I'm sorry I was rough; I'm
sorry I behaved like a bear and blared and shouted, but I did mean what
I said, and mean it still."
"I don't care whether you meant it or not, it is not of the least
consequence, Lord Leyton," said Margaret, and she put her pencil in its
case, and closed her sketch-block.
"Wait--do wait!" he explained. "Don't go yet. I have so much to say to
you, so much, and I don't know how to say it! Miss Margaret, I came
down on the chance of seeing you, and all the way down I prepared a
speech, but the sight of you so suddenly has driven it all out of my
head, and I can think of nothing but three words of it, and--and those
I dare not say."
"I must go, my lord," said Margaret, trying to speak calmly and
indifferently, but feeling her heart beginning to throb and quiver
under the sound of his voice and the passionate regard of his dark eyes.
"Wait--wait five minutes," he implored. "Miss Margaret, don't send me
back to London feeling that you despise me. Don't do that! I'm bad
enough as it is, but I shall be worse if you do that."
Margaret sank down on the stones again, and listened with her eyes
guarded by their long lashes; but she still could see his face.
He drew himself a little nearer.
"Miss Margaret, are you a witch?"
"A witch?" she faltered.
"Yes," he said. "I think you must be one, for you have bewitched me."
"Lord Leyton----"
"Am I not bewitched?" he said, holding out his hands appealingly;
"isn't a man bewitched when he can only think of one thing, day and
night, and can get no rest or sleep from thinking of it? And that is
how it is with me. I can think of nothing but you."
Margaret made a motion to get up, but he laid his hand on the edge of
her skirt imploringly.
"That is how it is with me," he went on. "I tell you the simple truth.
I--I have never felt like it before. None of the women I ever met made
me feel like this! What is it you have done to me to steal the heart
out of my body? for I feel that it is gone--gone!" and he touched his
breast with his finger.
Margaret tried to smile, but there is a tragedy in real passion which,
however wild the language, forbids laughter, and Lord Leyton's passion
was real.
"I see your face all day, I hear your voice. I go over every word you
said to me--and some of them were hard words!--and--and to-day I felt
that I must get near to you, that I must come down to Leyton if I died
for it. Do you believe what I say?"
"I know that I should not listen to you, my lord," she said, in a low
voice.
"Why not?" he said. "It is true. Miss Margaret, you have stolen my
heart; what is there left to me? I have come because I must, and now I
am here I am no better, for I feel that I must tell you more, all that
there is to tell, even if you send me away. But don't do that if you
can help it, for Heaven's sake don't do that!" and she saw that his
lips were quivering. "Margaret, you know what I would say," he went on,
in the low, thrilling tones of a young and strong man's passion. "I
love you!"
Margaret did not start, but a red flush rose and covered her face, then
left it pale even to whiteness, and she sat as if turned to stone.
"I love you! Dear, I love you!" he murmured. "Do you--will you not
believe me?"
She opened her lips, but he put up his hand.
"No, don't speak--not yet. I know what you were going to say. You were
going to say that it is impossible, that we only met a few days ago,
that we are strangers. Yes, I know that is what you would say. But
it is of no use to say that. Do you think people can get to love by
knowing each other a certain number of months--years? Margaret, I think
I loved you when I saw you in the village the first time; I know I
loved you when you sat by my side in the garden and let me put the rose
in your dress! Only a few days ago! Why, it seems years to me--it _is_
years! Oh, Margaret, don't be hard and cruel, and you can be so hard,
so cruel! See here; I lay all my life at your feet! It's a bad lot, I
know! Why, I told you so, didn't I? But--but I'll change all that! You
shall see! Let me go on loving you; let me hope that, some day, you'll
try and love me a little in return, and I'll turn over a new leaf! I
can never be worthy of you. Oh, I know that. Why, where is there a
man in all the world who could be worthy to touch the edge of your
dress?" and as he spoke he raised her skirt to his lips, and far from
touching herself as his lips were, she seemed to feel them. "But every
day, every hour, if you will let me love you, I'll tell myself that
I'm of some consequence to someone in the world, and that will keep me
straight! Margaret--" he paused and crept a little nearer--"Margaret,
you are an angel, and I am a--well, just the other thing; but I ask you
to be my guardian angel! Dear, if you knew how I love you! I cannot get
your face from before my eyes; every word you have uttered sings in my
heart! I am bewitched, bewitched! And--and all I can say is, let me
love you all my life, and try and love me a little!"
Pale, trembling, Margaret listened, her eyes downcast, her hands
clasped tightly in her lap.
It was all so new, so strange, so unexpected that her heart throbbed
and her brain whirled. His words, in their passionate assertion and
entreaty, seemed to penetrate to her soul, and with it all a sense of
ineffable joy and delight suffused her whole being and ran through
every vein.
"You won't speak to me?" he said, with a quick sigh that was almost
like a sob. "I see how it is! I am not fit; yes, I know! And I have
offended you worse than I did the other morning. I--I am a fool, and I
have destroyed my only chance! I meant to be so quiet and--and gentle
with you, but I can't teach myself to keep quiet and soft-spoken when
my heart is all on fire, and I long to clasp you in my arms and hear
you tell me that you love me! Margaret, my good angel! Margaret, won't
you say one little word to me? Not to send me away, but to tell me
that, bad as I am, you will--well, think a little kindly of me!"
He had drawn himself still closer, so that his face almost touched the
lace of her sleeves, and she could see the quiver of his lips under the
thick mustache.
He waited a moment, then his head drooped.
"All right," he said; "don't speak. I see how it is. No, I'd rather you
didn't speak. I might have known that you wouldn't listen to me, that
you wouldn't give me any kind of hope. Good Lord, why should you? Well,
I'll take myself off; I'll get out of your sight."
He had raised himself, but Margaret's hand stole out and fell, light as
a feather, on his arm.
He seized it as a man dying of thirst in the desert seizes the cup of
water that will save him, and covered it with hot passionate kisses.
"No, no!" she breathed, trying to draw it away. "You--you have unnerved
me, Lord Leyton!"
"Go on!" he said. "I can bear it better if you will let me keep your
hand!" and he pressed it to his lips again "What are you going to say,
Margaret? Don't be hard upon me."
"Hard!--how can I be hard?" she faltered, and the tears came thickly
into her sweet eyes. "How could anybody be hard, after such--such
things as you have said? But--but--oh, my lord--isn't it all a mistake?
You--you cannot lov----it is impossible!"
"Just what I told myself!" he exclaimed almost triumphantly. "I said
it was impossible! But a starving man won't persuade himself that he
isn't hungry by telling himself that he had something to eat a week
ago. Margaret, I love you--I _do_ love you!" and he pressed her hand
against his heart, which throbbed passionately under her fingers like
an imprisoned bird. "You know that it is true--do you not?"
"I--I think it is true!" she faltered in all modesty, in all honesty,
but with a strange look in her face; "I do not know! No one has ever
spoken to me as you have spoken; no one--no one!"
"Thank God for it!" he exclaimed. "I couldn't bear to think that any
other man had been before me, Margaret! And will you try--oh, my dear,
be good to me!--will you try and love me----"
She turned her eyes upon him with a grave, touching appeal which
rendered her face angelic in its perfect maidenly innocence and
trustfulness.
"I--I will try," she murmured in so low a voice that it is wonderful
that he should have heard it.
But he did hear it, and leaning forward, caught her in his arms and
drew her to him until her head rested on his shoulders, her face
against his.
Then, as his lips clung to hers in the first love kiss that man had
ever imprinted there, she drew back, startled and trembling.
"Margaret, dearest!" he exclaimed, in tender reproach, attempting to
take her in his embrace again.
"No, no!" she panted. "Not yet--not yet! I am not sure----"
"Of me, of my love, dearest? Not sure?" he murmured reproachfully.
"Not sure of myself!" she said, locking her hands together. "I--I must
think, I cannot think now. Ah, you have bewitched _me_----" and she put
her hand to her brow, and looked down at him with a far-away, puzzled
look. "I want to be alone, to think it all over. It seems too--too wild
and improbable----"
"Think now, dearest. Give me your hand. I will not speak, I will not
look at you!" he said, soothingly.
"No, no!" she said, almost fearfully, drawing her hand from him; and
rising, she stood as if half giddy.
"You will leave me," he said, piteously, "with only----"
"I have said I--I will try!" she answered. "I will go now."
He sprung to his feet.
"Let me come with you--to the house, my dearest," he pleaded.
But she put up her hand.
"No; go now! We shall meet again--perhaps--soon."
"Yes, yes!" he responded, catching at the slightest straw of
encouragement, like a drowning man. "I won't hurry you, or harass you,
Margaret! I will try and be gentle with you. I will be a changed man
from now. You shall see. But you will let me come again soon? You will
meet me here to-morrow, Margaret?" he added, anxiously.
"The--the day after," she faltered. "Good-bye!"
He took her hand and held it to his lips, then she drew it away, and
seemed to vanish from his sight.
At twenty paces she stopped, however, and holding up the hand he had
kissed and pressed against his heart, she looked at it with a curious
look, then laid her lips where his had touched it.
Poor Margaret!