LOVE THE CONQUEROR.
Although Dare had not succeeded in persuading Miss Baynard to reverse
or modify the decision she had come to in the case of her cousin's
child, and although he was at no pains to hide his chagrin and
disappointment, he and she did not fail to part as good friends are in
the habit of parting. Neither of them had any wish to part otherwise,
and it would have been hard to say which of them would have been the
more sorry to do so; indeed, Nell was unwilling to say goodbye till
she had obtained from him an address--that of a lawyer--to which she
could write in case she should have occasion to communicate with him
about the boy.
Both of them put the selfsame question to themselves within five
minutes of their parting: "When and where, if ever, shall we meet
again?"
Dare went direct from Chelsea to Holborn. Miss Baynard had said that
her action was influenced by certain reasons which she did not feel at
liberty to specify. Was one of those reasons based on the fact that he
was now a ruined man? If so, through what channel had the information
reached her?
Finding Mr. McManus as usual in his shop, Dare at once challenged him
with being the tale-bearer. It was an accusation he made no attempt to
rebut; but that in saying what he had to Miss Baynard he had been
actuated by any feeling of ill-will towards Dare was too absurd a
notion to be entertained for one moment. However, the mischief was
done and could not be undone, and with all his faults Dare was not the
man to vent his annoyance on so helpless an object as the old
tobacconist.
But Miss Baynard had spoken as if there were more reasons than one for
the decision she had arrived at. Might not another, and perhaps the
chief one, lie in the fact that in him she had recognized the man who
had been mixed up with herself in a certain memorable adventure, and
who, when asked his name, had told her that he was none other than the
notorious "Captain Nightshade"? It was a recognition he had not
counted on, being unaware how incautiously he had afforded her the
opportunity of scanning his features by the light of the serving-man's
candle at the door of Rockmount. But that she had recognized him was
an indisputable fact. Was it, then, to be wondered at that she should
refuse in such positive terms to permit him any longer to defray young
Evan's expenses with money which she doubtless regarded as the
proceeds of robbery on the King's highway?
No, he felt bound to admit that it was not to be wondered at, and
that, in point of fact, no other course was open to her. And yet,
knowing him now to be that which he had told her he was, she had
parted from him with a cordiality in which he felt assured there was
no _arrière-pensée_. She had given him her hand frankly, and in her
beautiful eyes he had read nothing but kindliness, with just a hint of
sadness, or so he fancied, shining through it. And then, what had her
last words to him been? "Let us not say goodbye, but _au revoir_."
And this to the man who had confessed to being Captain Nightshade!
But to attempt to follow the turnings and twistings of that
incomprehensible thing, a woman's mind, was what he made no
pretensions to doing. It was enough for him that her own lips had said
_au revoir_; and that a propitious fate in its own good time would
bring them together again he did not permit himself to doubt.
Dare had had no thought or expectation of finding Miss Baynard at Lawn
Cottage; he had not even known that she was in town; consequently the
meeting was as great a surprise to him as it was to her. But what he
did know, and had known all along, was that she and the _soi-disant_
"Mr. Jack Prentice" were one and the same person. So piqued had his
curiosity been by the adventure which had brought them together after
such a strange fashion, that after her departure from Rockmount he had
caused a watch to be set upon her movements till she had been traced
back to Stanbrook. That she should prove to be the cousin of his dead
friend, Dick Cortelyon, was merely one of those coincidences such as
people who habitually keep their eyes open can see happening around
them every day.
Dare had been quite right in his surmise as to the reasons which had
actuated Nell in her refusal to allow him to contribute any longer,
even in part, towards the cost of Evan's maintenance. The fact that he
was a ruined man would of itself have been argument sufficient for the
step she had decided upon taking. But when, in addition, she had to
face the question, and it was one she could not shirk, "From what
source is the money derived which is remitted every quarter-day to
Mrs. Mardin?" she felt that no answer was needed from her. It was a
question which answered itself. And this state of things had been
going on for she knew not how long! Not another day must it last.
She had only been a couple of days back at Stanbrook when a small
packet reached her through the post. It bore the London postmark, and
was addressed in a writing wholly strange to her. She opened it, not
without curiosity, to find that all it contained was the mask worn by
her on a certain never-to-be-forgotten occasion. She had been unable
to find it when, after reaching home, she proceeded to replace Dick's
habiliments in the closet whence she had disinterred them. To the best
of her belief she had inadvertently left it behind her in the bedroom
at Rockmount, but it was a point as to which she could not be
positive. Anyhow, here it was, sent back to her by an unknown hand,
and her receipt of it in such fashion raised more than one perplexing
question.
But supposing she was in error in thinking she had left the mask at
Rockmount? In that case only one conclusion was open to her--that it
was not Mr. Ellerslie, but Mr. Dare, who had returned it. One or the
other of them it must be. If Mr. Dare were the sender of it, how
woefully in error she must have been in assuming that he had not
recognized her when they met accidentally at Lawn Cottage! And yet, by
not so much as the flicker of an eyelid had he betrayed any knowledge,
or even suspicion, of their ever having met before! If he did
recognize her on that occasion, then of course her secret--the secret
of her sex--was equally in his keeping. Perhaps he had known or
guessed it from the first! Had he not, when she reeled and all but
swooned in the saddle, caught her in his arms? and had she not, with
wandering senses, lain for a little while--a very little while--in his
embrace! Was it then he made the discovery, supposing it to have been
made at all?
Hardly had she asked herself the question before a delicious thrill
went through her from crown to foot, and all the pulses of her being
began to palpitate with a strange, new, sweet life, far sweeter than
anything she had hitherto known. She felt as a chrysalis may feel when
it bursts its husk and first spreads its wings to the sun.
She sat for some little time, her face hidden in her hands, although
she was alone, and her veins aglow with something that almost
frightened her. Then on a sudden her mood changed: she sprang to her
feet, and with clenched hands and hard-set face took to pacing her
room from end to end, doing silent battle with herself meanwhile.
Never had she been so assailed before, and she brought all the forces
of her womanly pride to bear on the insidious foe that was undermining
her outworks one by one. She had deemed herself invulnerable; she had,
as it were, set herself on a pedestal as a being apart, whom the one
great weakness of her sex--for such it seemed to her--could never
touch. And now nature was beginning to revenge itself by proving to
her that she was no stronger in some ways than the weakest of her weak
sisters. But she would not yield, she would not give way, she told
herself again and again with a sort of fierce despair, while conscious
all the while that one bastion after another was crumbling before the
enemy's assaults. "Shall not a woman remain mistress of her own fate?"
she cried despairingly.
In some things she shall, my dear Nell, but not in all, as you are
proving to your cost. There is a power within you that is stronger
than yourself.
At length, sick and weary at heart, she cast herself on her bed and
buried her face in the pillows. "Never, never will I submit!" she
moaned. But even as the words escaped her some traitor in the garrison
hauled down the flag which had flaunted itself so defiantly, and the
citadel was won.
But who the sender of the mask was remained as much a mystery as
before.