It was an enchanted world to these two. For some time they sat side by
side, or, rather, Drake sat at Nell's feet, her hand sometimes resting,
lightly as a dove's wing, with a caress in its touch, upon his head.
There were long spells of silence, for such joy as theirs is shy of
words; but now and again they talked.
They had so much to tell each other, and each was greedy of even the
smallest detail. Drake wanted to hear of all that had happened to her
since the terrible parting on the night of the Maltbys' ball--how long
ago it seemed to them as they sat there in the sunshine that flickered
through the leaves and touched Nell's hair with flashes of light.
And Nell told him everything--everything excepting the episode of Lady
Wolfer and Sir Archie--that was not hers to tell, but Lady Wolfer's
secret, and Nell meant to carry it to the grave with her; not even to
this dearly loved lover of hers could she breathe a word of that crisis
in Ada Wolfer's life. And yet, if she had been free to tell him about it
then and there, how much better it would have been for them both, how
much difference it would have made in their lives!
"And was there no one, no other man whom you saw, who could teach you to
forget me, Nell?" he asked, half fearfully.
Nell blushed and shook her head.
"Surely there was some one among all you knew who was not quite blind,
who was sensible enough to fall in love with the loveliest and the
sweetest girl in all London?"
Nell's blush grew warmer as she remembered some of the men who had paid
court to her, who would have been her suitors if she had not kept them
at arm's length.
"There was no one," she said simply.
"Falconer?" he said, in a low voice.
The color slowly ebbed from her face, and her eyes grew rather sad as she
reflected that her happiness had been purchased at the cost of his pain
and self-sacrifice.
"Yes," she said, in a whisper, for she could not hide the truth from
him; her heart was bare to his gaze. "If--if you had not come, if he had
chosen to accept me, I should have married him. But you came at the very
moment, Drake; and at the sound of your voice----He saw my face, and
read the truth."
"Poor Falconer," he said, very gravely. "He is a better man than I am,
than I shall ever be, even under the influence of your love, and the
happiness it will bring me. I owe him a big debt, Nell; and though I
can't hope to pay it, I must do what I can to make his life more
smooth."
"He is very proud," she said, a little proudly herself.
"I know, I know; but he must let me help him in his career. I can do
something in that direction, and I will. But for him! Ah, Nell, I don't
like to think of it; I don't like to contemplate what might have
happened if I had lost you altogether. Yes; I owe him a debt no man
could hope to repay. I wish it had been I who had lived at Beaumont
Buildings and played the violin to you, instead of him. All that time I
was sailing in the _Seagull_, or wandering about Asia, wondering whether
there was anything on earth, or in the waters under the earth, that
could bring me a moment's pleasure, a moment of forgetfulness."
"And--and--you thought of me all that time? There was no one else?"
"There was no one else," he said, as simply as she had answered his
question. "Though sometimes----Do you want me to tell you the whole
truth, dearest?"
"The whole truth," she responded, looking down at him with trustful
eyes, and yet with a little anxious line on her brow. For what woman
would not have been apprehensive? She had cast him off, and he had been
wandering about the world, free to love again, to choose a wife.
"Well, sometimes I tried to efface your image from my mind, to forget
Nell of Shorne Mills, in the surest and quickest way. I went to some
dinners and receptions; I joined in a picnic or two, and an occasional
riding party. Once I sailed in a man's yacht which had three of the
local belles on board, and I tried to fall in love with one of them--any
of them--but it was of no use. Now and again I endeavored to persuade
myself that I was falling in love. There was one, a girl who was
something like you; she had dark hair, and eyes that had a look of yours
in them; and when she was silent I used to look at her and try----But
when she spoke, her voice was unlike yours, and her very unlikeness
recalled yours; and I saw you, even as I looked at her, as you stood on
the steps at the quay, or sat in the stern of the _Annie Laurie_, and my
heart grew sick with longing for you, and I'd get up and leave the girl
so suddenly that she used to stare after me with mingled surprise and
indignation. What charm do you exert, what black magic, Nell, that a
big, strong, hulking fellow like me cannot get free from the spell you
throw over him? Tell me, dearest."
Her eyes rested on him lovingly, and there was that in the half-parted
lips which compelled him to rise on his elbow and kiss them.
"And yet you could have married Lady Luce," she said, not reproachfully,
but very gravely. "Did you not think of her, Drake?"
"No," he replied gravely. "I gave no thought to her until I came home
and saw her. And it was not for love of her that I should have married
her, Nell, but in sheer desperation. You see, it did not matter to me
whom I married if I could not have you."
"And yet--ah, how hard love is!--she cares for you, Drake! I have seen
her--I saw her on the terrace, I saw her at the ball here."
He laughed half bitterly.
"My dear Nell, don't let that idea worry you. There is nothing in it; it
is quite a mistaken one. Luce is a charming woman, the most finished
product of this fin de siecle life----"
"She is very beautiful," Nell said, just even to her rival.
"I'll grant it, though compared to a certain violet-eyed girl I
know----"
Nell put her hand over his lips; and he kissed it, and went on gravely.
"No, it is not given to Luce to love any one but herself. She and her
kind worship the Golden Image which we set up at every street corner.
Rank, wealth, the notoriety that is paragraphed in the society papers,
those are what Luce worships, and marries for. By the accident of birth
I represent most of these things, and so----"
He shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
"And now chance has helped me again, for her father has inherited the
Marquisate of Buckleigh, and he will be rich. It is likely enough that
she would have jilted me again."
"But you were not engaged to her?" said Nell, drawing her hand from his
head, where it had rested lightly.
"No," he said. "But I should have been, and she knows it. The whole
truth, dearest! No, I am free, thank God! Free to win back my old
love."
Nell drew a sigh of relief, and her hand stole back to him.
"She will let me go calmly and easily enough. There are at least two
marriageable dukes in the market, and Luce----"
"Ah, Drake, I do not like to hear you speak so harshly--even of her."
"Forgive me, Nell. You are right," he said penitently. "But I can't
forget that by her play acting on the terrace that night she nearly
robbed me of you forever, and caused both of us months of misery. I
can't forget that."
"But you must!" said Nell gently. "After all, it may not have been
acting."
He laughed again, and drew her down to him.
"Ah, Nell, not even after the experience you had at Wolfe House, do you
understand the fashionable woman, the professional beauty. It was all
'theater' on Luce's part, believe me! She would have made a magnificent
actress. But do not let us talk about her any more. Tell me again how
you used to live in Beaumont Buildings. Nell, we'll go there after we
are married--we'll go and see the rooms in which you lived. I want to
feel that I know every bit of your life since we parted."
At the "after we are married," spoken with all the confidence of the
man, Nell's face grew crimson.
"And now, dearest, you will come up to the Hall?" he said, after a
pause, and as if he were stating an indisputable proposition. "By
George! how delighted the countess will be to hear of our reconciliation
and engagement! She knows nothing of our love and our parting. I told no
one; my heart was too sore; but I think I shall tell her now, and she
will be simply delighted. You'll like her, Nell; she's such a dear,
tender-hearted little woman. I don't wonder at my uncle falling in love
with her. Poor old fellow! She has been wonderfully good to me. You'll
come up to the Hall, and be treated like a princess."
"No, Drake," she said. "I must not. I must stay with--him; he needs me
still."
He was silent a moment, then he kissed her hand assentingly.
"It shall be as you will, my queen!" he said quietly. "Ah, Nell, I shall
make a bad husband; for I foresee that I shall spoil you by letting you
have your own way too much. I wanted you at the Hall, wanted you near
me. But I see--I see you are right, as always. But, Nell, there must be
no delay about our marriage. Directly Falconer is well enough to----"
She drew her hand away, but he recovered it and held it against his
face.
"There must be no other chance of a slip between the cup and the lip,"
he said, almost solemnly. "I want you too badly to be able to wait.
Besides, do you forget that we have been engaged two years? Two years! A
lifetime!"
At this moment a "Coo-ee!" sounded through the wood--an impatient and
half indignant "Coo-ee!"
It was Dick, and he approached them, yelling:
"Nell! Nell! Where on earth are you, Nell?"
They had barely time to move before he was upon them.
"I say, Nell, where on earth have you been? I'm starving----Hallo!" he
broke off, staring first at Nell's red and downcast face, and then at
Drake's smiling and quite obviously joyous one. "What----"
Drake took Nell's hand.
"We quite forgot you, Dick, and everybody and everything else. But
you'll forgive us when you hear that Nell and I have--have----"
"Made it up again!" finished Dick, with a grin that ran from ear to ear.
"By George, you don't say so! Well, I said it was only a tiff; now,
didn't I, Nell? But it was a pretty long one. Eighteen months or
thereabouts, isn't it?"
For a moment the two lovers looked sad, then Drake smiled.
"Just eighteen months too long, Dick," he said. "But you might wish us
joy."
"I do, I do--or I would, if I wasn't starving!" retorted Dick. "While
you have been spooning under the spreading chestnut tree, I've been
wrestling with the electric dynamos; and the sight of even bread and
cheese would melt me to tears. But I am glad, old man," he said, in a
grave tone--"glad for both your sakes; for any one could see with
three-quarters of an eye, to be exact, that you were both miserable
without each other. Oh, save me from the madness of love!"
"There was a very pretty girl by the name of Angel at the Maltbys'
dance," put in Drake musingly; "a very pretty girl, indeed, who sat out
most of the dances, if I remember rightly, with a young friend of mine."
Dick's face grew a healthy, brick-dust red, and he glanced shyly from
one to the other.
"Well hit, Drake, old man!" he said. "Yes; there was one, and I've seen
her in London once or twice----"
"Oh, Dick, and you never told me!" said Nell reproachfully.
"I don't tell you everything, little girl," he remarked severely; "and I
won't tell you any more now unless you come on and give me something to
eat. See here, now; I'll walk in front, and promise not to look
round----"
Nell, blushing painfully, looked at Drake appealingly, and he seized
Dick by the arm and marched him off in the direction of the lodge, Nell
following more slowly.
As they entered, the nurse came down from Falconer's room, and Nell
inquired after him anxiously.
"He is much better, miss," said the nurse; "and he asked me to say that
he should be glad if you and his lordship would go up to him."
Drake nodded, and he followed Nell up the stairs.
Falconer was sitting up, leaning back against a pile of pillows; and he
greeted them with a smile--the half-sad, half-patiently cynical smile of
the old days in Beaumont Buildings--the smile which served as a mask to
hide the tenderness of a noble nature.
Nell came into the room shyly, with the sadness of the self-reproach
which was born of the knowledge that her happiness had been gained at
the cost of this man who loved her with a love as great as Drake's; but
Drake came up to the bed boldly, and held out his hand.
"We have come--to thank you, Falconer," he said, in the tone with which
one man acknowledges his debt to another. "No, not to thank you, for
that's impossible. Some things are beyond thanks, and this that you have
done is one of them. You have brought happiness where there was nothing
but misery and despair. Some day I will tell you the story of our
separation; but that must wait. Now I can only try and express my
gratitude----"
He stammered and broke down; for with Falconer's eloquent eyes upon him,
he realized the extent of the man's self-sacrifice, and it seemed to him
that any attempt to express his own gratitude was worse than absolute
silence. Can you thank a man for the gift of your life?
Falconer looked from one to the other, the half-sad smile lighting up
his wan face.
"I know," he said simply. And indeed he knew how he should feel if he
were in the place of this lucky man, this favored of the gods. "I know.
There is no need to say anything. You are happy?"
His eyes rested on Nell. She slipped to her knees beside the bed and
took his hand; but she could not speak; the tears filled her eyes, and
she gazed up at him through a mist.
"Ah! what can I say?" she murmured.
He smiled down at her with infinite tenderness.
"You have said enough," he said simply, "and I am answered. Do you think
it is nothing to me, your happiness? It is everything--life itself!"
His dark eyes glowed. "There is no moment since I knew you that I would
not have laid down this wretched life of mine, if by so doing I could
have made you happy at a much less cost."
He turned his eyes to Drake with sudden energy.
"Don't pity me, Lord Angleford. There is no need."
Drake took his other hand and pressed it.
"You must get well soon, or her--our--happiness will be marred,
Falconer," he said warmly.
Falconer nodded.
"I shall get well," he said. "I am better already. We artists are never
beyond consolation. Art is a jealous mistress, and will brook no rival."
"And you worship a mistress who will make you famous," said Drake.
Falconer smiled.
"We are content, though she should deny us so much as that," he said.
"Art is its own reward."
Nell rose from her knees and stole from the room. When she had gone,
Falconer raised his head and looked long and seriously at Drake.
"Be good to her, my lord," he said, very gravely. "You have won a great
prize, a ruby without a blemish; value it, cherish it."
Drake nodded.
"I know," he said simply.
Nell stole into the room again. She was carrying Falconer's violin
carefully, tenderly. She put it in his hands, held out eagerly to
receive it, and he placed it in position, turned it swiftly, and began
to play, his eyes fixed on hers gratefully.
Nell and Drake withdrew to the window, their heads reverently bent.
He played slowly, softly at first, a sad and yet exquisitely sweet
melody; then the strain grew louder, though not the less sweet, and the
tiny room was throbbing with music which expressed a joy which only
music could voice.
Drake's hand stole toward Nell's, and grasped it firmly. Her head
drooped and the tears rose to her eyes, and soon began to trickle down
her cheeks. The exquisite music seemed to reach her soul and raise it to
the seventh heaven, in even which there are tears.
"Drake!" she murmured. "Drake!"
"Nell, my dearest!" he responded, in a whisper.
Then suddenly the music ceased. Falconer slowly dropped the violin on
the bed and fell back, his eyes closed, his face as calm as that of a
child falling to sleep.
"Go now," whispered Nell; and Drake stole from the room, leaving Nell
kneeling beside the musician, who had apparently fallen asleep.
Drake went down the stairs like a man in a dream, the strange, weird
music still ringing in his ears, and walked up to the Hall.
The countess met him as he entered, and he took her hand and led her
into the library without a word.
"Oh, what is it, Drake?" she asked anxiously, for she knew that
something had happened.
He placed her in one of the big easy-chairs, and stood before her, the
light of happiness on his face.
"I've something to tell you, countess," he said. "I am going to be
married."
She smiled up at him.
"I am very glad, Drake. I have expected it for some time past. What a
pity it is that she should have had to go!"
"She! Who?" he exclaimed.
For the moment he had forgotten Lady Luce.
The countess stared at him.
"Who?" she said, with surprise. "Why, who else should it be but Luce?"
His brows came together, and he made an impatient movement.
"No, no!" he said. "It is Nell--I mean Miss Lorton."
She rose with amazement depicted on her countenance.
"Miss Lorton! At the lodge?"
"Yes," he said impatiently. "We were engaged nearly two years ago. There
was a--a--misunderstanding--but it is all cleared up. I want your
congratulations, countess."
She was an American, and therefore quick to seize a point.
"And you have them, Drake. That sweet, beautiful girl! I am glad!
But--but----"
"What?" he asked impatiently.
"But Luce!" she stammered. "We all thought that----"
"You are wrong," he said, almost hoarsely. "It is Miss Lorton. Go to her
at the lodge, and----"
He said no more, but went to the writing table.
Lady Angleford, all in amaze, left the room.
He took up a pen and scribbled over a sheet of note-paper, then tore it
up. He filled several other sheets, which he destroyed, but at last he
wrote a few words which satisfied him.
Then he remembered that he did not know Luce's address; and, for want of
a better, he addressed the letter, announcing his engagement to Miss
Lorton, to Lord Turfleigh's club in London; and, like a man, was
satisfied.