PARTED.
Half an hour had passed.
Up and down the long drawing-room Aileen wandered aimlessly, oppressed
with a dread of she knew not what, a prescience of evil, vague as it was
terrible. The dark gloom of the rainy evening was not darker than that
brooding shadow in her deep, dusky eyes.
In the library Col. Jocyln stood facing his son-in-law elect, staring
like a man bereft of his senses. The melancholy, half light coming
through the oriel window by which he stood, fell full upon the face of
Rupert Thetford, white and cold, and set as marble.
"My God!" the Indian officer said, with wild eyes of terror and
affright, "what is this you are telling me?"
"The truth, Col. Jocyln--the simple truth. Would to Heaven I had known
it years ago--this shameful story of wrong-doing and misery!"
"I don't comprehend--I can't comprehend this impossible tale, Sir
Rupert."
"That is a misnomer now, Col. Jocyln. I am no longer _Sir_ Rupert."
"Do you mean to say you credit this wild story of a former marriage of
Sir Noel's? Do you really believe your late governess to have been your
father's wife?"
"I believe it, colonel. I have facts and statements and dying words to
prove it. On my father's death-bed he made my mother swear to tell the
truth; to repair the wrong he had done; to seek out his son, concealed
by his valet, Vyking, and restore him to his rights! My mother never,
kept that promise--the cruel wrong done to herself was too bitter; and
at my birth she resolved never to keep it. I should not atone for the
sin of my father; his elder son should never deprive _her_ child of his
birthright. My poor mother! You know the cause of that mysterious
trouble which fell upon her at my father's death, and which darkened her
life to the last. Shame, remorse, anger--shame for herself--a wife only
in name; remorse for her broken vow to the dead, and anger against that
erring dead man."
"But you told me she had hunted him up and provided for him," said the
mystified colonel.
"Yes; she saw an advertisement in a London paper calling upon Vyking to
take charge of the boy he had left twelve years before. Now, Vyking, the
valet, had been transported for house-breaking long before that, and my
mother answered the advertisement. There could be no doubt the child was
the child Vyking had taken charge of--Sir Noel Thetford's rightful heir.
My mother left him with the painter, Legard, with whom he had grew up,
whose name he took, and he is now at Thetford Towers."
"I thought the likeness meant something," muttered the colonel; "his
paternity is plainly enough written in his face. And so," raising his
voice, "Mrs. Weymore recognized her son. Really, your story runs like a
melodrama, where the hero turns out to be a duke and his mother knows
the strawberry mark on his arm. Well, sir, if Mrs. Weymore is Sir Noel's
rightful widow, and Guy Legard his rightful son and heir--pray what are
you?"
The colorless face of the young man turned dark-red for an instant, then
whiter than before.
"My, mother was as truly and really Sir Noel's wife as women can be the
wife of man in the sight of Heaven. The crime was his; the shame and
suffering hers; the atonement mine. Sir Noel's elder son shall be Sir
Noel's heir--I will play usurper no longer. To-morrow I leave St.
Gosport; the day after, England--never, perhaps, to return."
"You are mad," Col. Jocyln said, turning very pale; "you do not mean
it."
"I am not mad, and I do mean it. I may be unfortunate; but, I pray God,
never a villain! Right is right; my brother Guy is the rightful
heir--not I!"
"And Aileen?" Col. Jocyln's face turned dark and rigid as iron as he
spoke his daughter's name.
Rupert Thetford turned away his changing face, quite ghastly now.
"It shall be as she says. Aileen is too noble and just herself not to
honor me for doing right."
"It shall be as I say," returned Col. Jocyln, with a voice that rang and
an eye that flashed. "My daughter comes of a proud and stainless race,
and never shall she mate with one less stainless. Hear me out, young
man. It won't do to fire up--plain words are best suited to a plain
case. All that has passed betwixt you and Miss Jocyln must be as if it
had never been. The heir of Thetford Towers, honorably born, I consented
she should marry; but, dearly as I love her, I would see her dead at my
feet before she should mate with one who was nameless and impoverished.
You said just now the atonement was yours--you said right; go, and never
return."
He pointed to the door; the young man, stonily still, took his hat.
"Will you not permit your daughter, Col. Jocyln, to speak for herself?"
he said, at the door.
"No, sir. I know my daughter--my proud, high-spirited Aileen--and my
answer is hers. I wish you good-night."
He swung round abruptly, turning his back upon his visitor. Rupert
Thetford, without one word, turned and walked out of the house.
The bewildering rapidity of the shocks he had received had stunned
him--he could not feel the pain now. There was a dull sense of aching
torture over him from head to foot--but the acute edge was dulled; he
walked along through the black night like a man drugged and stupefied.
He was only conscious intensely of one thing--a wish to get away, never
to set foot in St. Gosport again.
Like one walking in his sleep, he reached Thetford Towers, his old home,
every tree and stone of which was dear to him. He entered at once,
passed into the drawing-room, and found Guy, the artist, sitting before
the fire staring blankly into the coals, and May Everard roaming
restlessly up and down, the firelight falling dully on her black robes
and pale, tear-stained face. Both started at his entrance--all wet, and
wild, and haggard; but neither spoke. There was that in his face which
froze the words on their lips.
"I am going away to-morrow," he said, abruptly, leaning against the
mantle, and looking at them with weird, spectral eyes.
May uttered a faint cry; Guy faced him almost fiercely.
"Going away! What do you mean, Sir Rupert? We are going away together,
if you like."
"No; I go alone. You remain here; it is your place now."
"Never!" cried the young artist--"never! I will go out and die like a
dog, in a ditch, before I rob you of your birthright!"
"You reverse matters," said Rupert Thetford; "it is I who have robbed
you, unwittingly, for too many years. I promised my mother on her
death-bed, as she promised my father on his, that you should have your
right, and I will keep that promise. Guy, dear old fellow! don't let us
quarrel, now that we are brothers, after being friends so long. Take
what is your own; the world is all before me, and surely I am man enough
to win my own way. Not one other word; you shall not come with me; you
might as well talk to these stone walls and try to move them as to me.
To-morrow I go, and go alone."
"Alone!" It was May who breathlessly repeated the word.
"Alone! All the ties that bound me here are broken; I go alone and
single-handed to fight the battle of life. Guy, I have spoken to the
rector about you--you will find him your friend and aider; and May is to
make her home at the rectory. And now," turning suddenly and moving to
the door, "as I start early to-morrow, I believe I'll retire early.
Good-night."
And then he was gone, and Guy and May were left staring at each other
with blank faces.
The storm of wind and rain sobbed itself out before midnight, and in the
bluest of skies, heralded by banners of rosy clouds, rose up the sun
next morning. Before that rising sun had gilded the tops of the tallest
oaks in the park he, who had so lately called it all his own, had opened
the heavy oaken door and passed from Thetford Towers, as home, forever.
The house was very still--no one had risen; he had left a note to Guy,
with a few brief, warm words of farewell.
"Better so," he thought--"better so! He and May will be happy together,
for I know he loves her and she him. The memory of my leave-taking shall
never come to cloud their united lives."
One last backward glance at the eastern windows turning to gold; at the
sea blushing back the first glance of the day-king; at the waving trees
and swelling meadows, and then he had passed down the avenue, out
through the massive entrance-gates, and was gone.