Only a girl's love
sanest thing I've ever done in my life."
"I dare say."
"It is indeed. Look here! I am going up to London."
"I guessed that. Poor London!"
"Do stop and listen to me--I haven't a moment to spare. I want you to
do a little delicate service for me."
"I decline. What is it?" retorts Lord Charles, inconsistently.
"It is very simple. I want you to deliver a note for me."
"Oh, come, you know! Won't one of the army of servants, who devour the
land like locusts, serve your turn?"
"No; no none will do but yourself. I want this note delivered, at once.
And I don't want anyone but our two selves to know anything about it; I
don't want it to be carried about in one of the servant's pockets for
an hour or two."
Lord Charles stretched his legs and shook his head.
"Look here, Ley, isn't this rather too 'thin?'" he remonstrated. "Of
course it's to someone of the gentler sex!"
Leycester smiled.
"You are wrong," he said, with a smile. "Where's the Bradshaw, Oliver!"
and he opened the door. "Put out the note-paper, and then tell them to
get a dogcart to take me to the station."
"You will want me, my lord?"
"No, I am going alone. Look sharp!"
Oliver put out the writing materials and departed, and Leycester sat
down and stared for a moment at the crested paper.
"Shall I go?" asked Lord Charles, ironically.
"No, I don't mean to lose sight of you, old fellow," replied Leycester.
"Sit where you are."
"Can I help you? I am rather good at amorous epistles, especially other
people's."
"Be quiet."
Then he seized the pen and wrote:--
"MY DEAR FRANK--I have inclosed a note for Stella. Will you give it
to her when she is alone, and with your own hand! She will tell you
that I have asked her to come with you by the eleven o'clock train
to-morrow. Will you bring her to 24 Bruton Street? I shall meet
you there instead of meeting you at the station. You see I put it
quite simply, and am quite confident that you will help us. You know
our secret, and will stand by us, will you not? Of course you will
come without any luggage, and without letting anyone divine your
intentions."
"Yours, my dear Frank,
"LEYCESTER."
This was all very well. It was easy enough to write to the boy, because
he, Leycester, knew that if he had asked Frank to walk through fire,
Frank would do it! But Stella?
A sharp pang of doubt assailed him as he took up the second sheet of
paper. Suppose she should not come!
He got up and strode to and fro the room, his brows knit, the old look
of determination on his face.
"Drop it, Ley," said Lord Charles, quietly.
Leycester stopped, and smiled down at him.
"You don't know what that would mean, Charlie," he said.
"Perhaps I do to--her, whomsoever it should be."
Then Leycester laughed outright.
"You are on the wrong track this time, altogether," he said, "quite
wrong."
And he sat down and plunged into his letter.
Like the first, it was very short.
"MY DARLING,--Do not be frightened when you read what follows, and do
not hesitate. Think, as you read, that our happiness depends upon your
decision. I want you to come, with Frank, by the eleven o'clock train
to London, whither I am going now. I want you to take a cab and go to
24 Bruton Street, where I shall be waiting for you. You know what will
happen, my darling! Before the morrow you and I will have set out on
that long journey through life, hand-in-hand, man and wife. My pen
trembles as I write the words. You will come, Stella? Think! I know
what you will feel--I know as if I were standing beside you, how you
will tremble, and hesitate, and dread the step; but you must take it,
dearest! Once we are married all will go well and pleasantly. I cannot
wait any longer: why should I? I have written to Frank, and confided
him to your care. Trust yourself to him, throw all your doubts and
fears to the winds. Think only of my love, and, may I add, your own?"
"Yours ever,
"LEYCESTER."
He inclosed Stella's letter in a small envelope, and that, with Frank's
letter, in a larger one, which he addressed to Frank.
CHAPTER XXIV.
"There," he said, balancing it on his finger and smiling, in his eager,
impatient way--"there is the missive, Charlie. Read the superscription
thereof."
Lord Charles took the letter gingerly, and shook his head.
"The lad you picked out of the water," he said. "What does it mean? I
wish you'd drop it, Ley."
Leycester shook his head.
"This is the last time I shall ask you to do me a favor, Charlie----"
"Till the next."
"You mustn't refuse. I want you to give this to the boy. You will find
him down at Etheridge's cottage. You cannot mistake him; he is a fair,
delicate-looking boy, with yellow hair and blue eyes."
Lord Charles hesitated and looked up with a grave light in his eyes and
a faint flush on his face.
"Ley," he said, in a low voice, "she is too good, far too good."
Lord Leycester's face flushed.
"If it were any other man, Charlie," he said, looking him full in the
eyes, "I should cut up rough. I tell you that you misunderstand me--and
you wrong me."
"Then," said Lord Charles, "it is almost a worse case. Ley, Ley, what
are you going to do?"
"I am going to do what no man on earth could prevent me doing," said
Leycester, calmly, but with a fierce light in his eyes. "Not even you,
Charlie."
Lord Charles rose.
"Give me the letter," he said, quietly. "At any rate, I know when
words are useless. Is there anything else? Shall I order a straight
waistcoat? This, mark my words, Ley!--this--if it is what I conjecture
it to be--this is the very maddest thing you have ever done!"
"It is the very wisest and sanest," responded Leycester. "No, there is
nothing else, Charlie. I may wire for you to-morrow. If I do, you will
come?"
"Yes, I will come," said Lord Charles.
Oliver knocked at the moment.
"The dogcart is waiting, my lord, and there is only just time."
Leycester and Lord Charles passed out and down the stairs.
The sound of laughter and music floated faintly through the parted
curtains of the drawing-room.
"What shall I say to them?" asked Lord Charles, nodding toward the room.
Leycester smiled, grimly.
"Tell them," he said, "that I have gone to town _on business_," and he
laughed quietly.
Then suddenly he stopped as if a thought had struck him, and glanced at
his watch.
"One moment," he said, and ran lightly up the stairs to Lilian's room.
Her maid met him at the door.
"Her ladyship is asleep," she said.
Leycester hesitated, then he signed to her to open the door, and
entered.
Lady Lilian lay extended on her couch, her eyes closed, a faint,
painful smile on her face.
He stood and looked at her a moment, then he bent and lightly touched
her lips with his.
"Good-bye, Lil," he murmured. "You at least will understand."
Then he ran down, putting on his gloves, and had one foot on the
dogcart step when Lady Wyndward came into the hall.
"Leycester," she said, "where are you going?"
He turned and looked at her rather wistfully. Lord Charles fingered the
letter in his pocket, and wished himself in Peru.
"To London, mother," he said.
"Why?" she asked.
It was an unusual question for her, who rarely asked him his
intentions, or the why and wherefore, and he hesitated.
"On business," he said.
She looked at the flushed face and the fire smoldering in his eyes, and
then at Lord Charles, who jingled the money in his pocket, and whistled
softly, with an air of pure abstraction.
"What is it?" she asked, and an unusual look of trouble and doubt came
into her eyes.
"Nothing that need trouble you, mother," he said. "I shall be back--"
he stopped; when should he be back?--"soon," he added.
Then he stooped and kissed her.
Lady Wyndward looked up into his eyes.
"Don't go, Leycester," she murmured.
Almost roughly, in his impatience, he put her arm from him.
"You don't know what you ask," he said. Then in a gentle tone he said
"Good-bye," and sprang into the cart.
The horse rose for a moment, then put his fore feet down and went off
like a rocket under the sharp cut of the whip, and Lady Wyndward, with
a sigh of apprehension, turned to where Lord Charles had stood.
Had stood; for he had seized the moment of departure to steal off.
He had helped Leycester in many a mad freak, had stood in with him in
many a wild adventure, which had cost them much after trouble and no
small amount of money, but Lord Charles had a shrewd suspicion that
this which he was asked to assist in was the climax of all that had
gone before. But he felt that he must do it. As we have said, there
were times when words were of as little use as chaff with Leycester,
and this was one of them.
Ruefully, but unshaken in his devotion, he went up-stairs for his hat
and stick, and sauntered down, still wishing that he could have been in
Peru.
"There will be a terrible storm," he muttered. "His people will cut up
rough, and I shall, of course, bear some portion of the blame; but
I don't mind that! It is Ley I am thinking of! Will it turn out all
right?"
He was asking himself the question dolefully and helplessly as he
descended the stairs, when he became conscious of the graceful form of
Lady Lenore standing in the hall and looking up at him.
She had watched Lord Leycester's departure from the window; she knew
that he was going to town suddenly--knew that Lord Charles had been
closeted with him, and now only needed to glance at Lord Charles'
rueful face to be convinced that something had happened. But there was
nothing of this in her smile as she looked up at him, gently fluttering
a Japanese fan, and holding back the trailing skirts with her white,
bejeweled fingers.
Lord Charles started as he saw her.
"By Jove!" he murmured, "if it is as I think, what will she do?" and
with an instinctive dread he felt half inclined to turn and reascend
the stairs, but Lenore was too quick for him.
"We have been looking for you, Lord Charles," she said, languidly.
"Some rash individual has proposed lawn-tennis; we want you to play."
Lord Charles looked confused. The letter burnt his pocket, and he knew
that he should know no peace until he got rid of it.
"Awfully sorry," he said; "going down to the post-office to post a
letter."
Lady Lenore smiled, and glanced archly at the clock.
"No post till seven," she said; "won't it do after our game?"
"No post!" he said, with affected concern. "Better telegraph," he
muttered.
"I'll get you a form!" she said, sweetly; "and you can send it by one
of the pages."
"Eh?" he stammered, blushing like a school-boy. "No, don't trouble;
couldn't think of it. After all it doesn't matter."
Then she knew that Leycester had given him some missive, and she
watched him closely. No poorer hand at deception than poor Charles
could possibly be imagined; he felt as if the softly-smiling velvet
eyes could see into his pocket, and his hand closed over the letter
with a movement that she noted instantly.
"It is a letter," she thought, "and it is for her."
And a pang of jealous fire ran through her, but she still looked up at
him with a languid smile.
"Well, are you coming?"
"Of course," he assented, with too palpably-feigned alacrity. And he
ran down the stairs.
She caught up a sun-hat and put it on, and pointed to the racquets that
stood in their stand in the hall. She would not let him out of her
sight for a moment.
"They are all waiting," she said.
He followed her on to the lawn. The group stood playing with the balls,
and waiting impatiently.
Lord Charles looked round helplessly, but he had no time to think.
"Shall we play together?" said Lenore. "We know each other's play so
well."