Only a girl's love
He was silent, and Stella stood, her eyes bent on the ground. Even yet
she did not realize the power he held over her--over those she loved.
"I am very grateful," she said at last. "I am fully sensible of all
that you have done for us, and I am sorry that--that I should have
spoken as I did, though"--and she raised her eyes with a sudden frank
wistfulness--"I was much provoked."
"What was I to do?" he asked. She shook her head. "Could I stand idle
and see you drift to destruction?"
"I shall not go to destruction," she said, with a troubled look. "You
do not know Lord Leycester--you do not know--but we will not speak
of that," she broke off, suddenly. "I will go now, please. I am very
grateful, and--and--I hope you will forgive all that has passed!"
He looked at her.
"I will forgive all--_all_," he emphasized, "if you will turn back; if
you will go back to your home, and promise that this thing which he has
asked you to do shall not come to pass."
She turned upon him.
"You have no right----" then she stopped, smitten with a sudden fear
by the expression of his face. "I cannot do that," she said, in a
constrained voice.
He closed his hands tightly together.
"Do not force me," he said. "You will not force me to compel you?"
She looked at him tremblingly.
"Force!"
"Yes, force! You speak of gratitude; but I do not rely on that. If you
were really grateful to me you would go back; but you are not. I cannot
trust to gratitude." Then he came closer to her, and his voice dropped.
"Stella, I have sworn that this shall not be--that he shall not have
you! I cannot break my oath. Do you not understand?"
She shook her head.
"No! I know that you cannot prevent me."
"I can," he said. "You do not understand. I saved the boy, but I can
destroy him."
She shrank back.
"With a word!" he said, almost fiercely, his lips trembling. "One word,
and he is destroyed. You doubt? See!" And he drew a paper from his
pocket-book. "The crime he committed was forgery--forgery! Here is the
proof!"
She shrank back still further, and held up her hands as if to shut the
paper from her sight.
"Do not deceive yourself," he said, in his intense voice; "his safety
lies in my hands--I hold the sword. It is for you to say whether I
shall let it fall."
"Spare him!" she breathed, panting--"spare me!"
"I will spare him--I will save both him and you. Stella, say but the
word; say to me here, now, 'Jasper, I will marry you,' and he is safe!"
With a low cry she sank against the door, and looked at him.
"I will not!" she panted, like some wild animal driven to bay.
"I will not."
His face darkened.
"You hate me so much?"
She was silent, regarding him with the same fearful, hunted look.
"You hate me!" he said, between his teeth. "But even that shall not
prevent me from having my way. You will learn to hate me less--in time
to love me."
She shuddered, and he saw the shudder, and it seemed to lash him into
madness.
"I say you shall! Such love as mine cannot exist in vain, cannot be
repelled; it must, it must win love in return. I will chance it. When
you are my wife--do not shrink, mine you must and shall be!--you will
grow to a knowledge of the strength of my devotion, and admit that I
was justified----"
"No, never!" she panted.
He drew back, and let his hand fall on the back of the chair.
"Is that answer final?" he said hoarsely.
"Never!" she reiterated.
"Remember!" he said. "In that word you pronounce the doom of this lad;
by that word you let fall the sword, you darken the few remaining years
of an old man's life with shame!"
White and breathless she sank on to the floor and so knelt--absolutely
knelt--to him, with outstretched hands and imploring eyes.
He looked at her, his heart beating, his lips quivering, and his hand
moved toward the bell.
"If I ring this it is to send for a constable. If I ring this, it is to
give this lad into custody on a charge of forgery. It is impossible for
him to escape, the evidence is complete and damning."
His hand touched the bell, had almost pressed it, when Stella uttered a
word.
"Stay!" she said, and so hoarse, so unnatural was the sound of her
voice, that it went to his heart like a stab.
Slowly, with the movement of a person numbed and almost unconscious,
she rose and came toward him.
Her face was white, white to the lip, her eyes fixed not on him, but
beyond him; she had every appearance of one moving in a dream.
"Stay?" she said. "Do not ring."
His hand fell from the bell, and he stood regarding her with eager,
watchful eyes.
"You--you consent?" he asked hoarsely.
Without moving her eyes, she seemed to look at him.
"Tell me," she said, in slow, mechanical tones, "tell me all--all that
you wish me to do, all that I must do to save them."
Her agony touched him, but he remained inflexible, immovable.
"It is soon told," he said. "Say to me, 'Jasper, I will be your wife!'
and I am content. In return, I promise that on the day, the hour in
which you become my wife, I will give you this paper; upon it the boy's
fate depends. Once this is destroyed he is safe--absolutely."
She held out her hand mechanically.
"Let me look at it."
He glanced at her, scarcely suspiciously but hesitatingly, for a
moment, then placed the paper in her hands.
She took it, shuddering faintly.
"Show me!"
He put his finger on the forged name. Stella's eyes dwelt upon it with
horror for a moment, then she held out the paper to him.
"He--he wrote that?"
"He wrote it," he answered. "It is sufficient to send him----"
She put up her hand to stop him.
"And--and to earn the paper I must--marry you?"
He was silent, but he made a gesture of assent.
She turned her head away for a moment, then she looked him full in the
eyes, a strange, awful look.
"I will do it," she said, every word falling like ice from her white
lips.
A crimson flush stained his face.
"Stella! My Stella!" he cried.
She put up her hand; she did not shrink back, but simply put up her
hand, and it was he who shrank.
"Do not touch me," she said, calmly, "or--or I will not answer for
myself."
He wiped the cold beads from his brow.
"I--I am content!" he said. "I have your promise. I know you too well
to dream that you would break it. I am content. In time--well, I will
say no more."
Then he went to the table and pressed the bell.
She looked up at him with a dull, numbed expression of inquiry which he
understood and answered.
"You will see. I have thought of everything. I foresaw that you would
yield and have planned everything."
The door opened as he spoke, and Scrivell came in followed by
Frank, who hurled Scrivell out of the way and sprang before Jasper,
inarticulate with rage.
But before he could find breath for words, his eyes fell upon Stella's
face, and a change came over him.
"What does this mean?" he stammered. "What do you mean, Mr. Adelstone,
by this outrage? Do you know that I have been kept a prisoner----"
Jasper interrupted him calmly, quietly, with an exasperating smile.
"You are a prisoner no longer, my dear Frank!"
"How dare you!" exclaimed the enraged boy, and he raised his cane.
It would have fallen across Jasper's face, for he made no attempt to
ward it, but Stella sprang between them, and it fell on her shoulder.
"Frank," she moaned rather than cried, "you--you must not."
"Stella," he exclaimed, "stand away from him. I think I shall kill him."
She laid her hand upon his arm and looked up into his face with, ah!
what an anguish of sorrowful pity and love.
"Frank," she breathed, pressing her hand to her bosom, "listen to me.
He--Mr. Adelstone was--was right. He has done all for--for the best.
You--you will beg his pardon."
He stared at her as if he thought that she had taken leave of her
senses.
"What! What do you say!" he cried, below his breath. "Are you mad,
Stella?"
She put her hand to her brow with a strange, weird smile.
"I wish--I almost think I am. No, Frank, not another word. You must not
ask why. I cannot tell you. Only this, that--that Mr. Adelstone has
explained, and that--that"--her voice faltered--"we must go back."
"Go back? Not go to Leycester?" he demanded, incredulous and
astonished. "Do you know what you are saying?"
She smiled, a smile more bitter than tears.
"Yes, I know. Bear with me, Frank."
"Bear with you? What does she mean? Do you mean to say that you have
allowed yourself to be persuaded by this--this hound----?"
"Frank! Frank!"
"Do not stop him," came the quiet, overstrained voice of 'the hound.'
"This hound, I said," repeated the boy, bitterly. "Has he persuaded you
to break faith with Leycester? It is impossible. You would not, _could_
not, be so--so bad."
Stella looked at him, and the tears sprang to her eyes.
"Have pity, and--and--send him away," she said, without turning to
Jasper.
He went up to Frank, who drew back as he approached, as if he were
something loathsome.
"You are making your cousin unhappy by this conduct," he said. "It is
as she says. She has changed her mind."
"It is a lie," retorted Frank, fiercely. "You have frightened her and
tortured her into this. But you shall not succeed. It is easy for you
to frighten a woman, as easily as it is to entrap her; but you will
sing a different tune before a man. Stella, come with me. You must, you
_shall_ come. We will go to Lord Leycester."
"It is unnecessary," cried Jasper, quietly. "His lordship will be here
in a few minutes."
Stella started.
"No, no," she said, and moved to the door. Frank, staring at Jasper,
caught and held her.
"Is that a lie, too?" he demanded. "If not--if it be true--then we
will wait. We shall see how much longer you will be able to crow, Mr.
Adelstone!"
"Let us go, Frank," implored Stella. "You will let me go now?" And she
turned to Jasper.
Frank was almost driven to madness by her tone.
"What has he said and done to change you like this?" he said. "You
speak to him as if you were his slave!"
She looked at him sadly.
Jasper shook his head.
"Wait," he said--"it will be better that you wait. Trust me. I will
spare you as much as possible; but it will be better that he should
learn all that he has to learn from your lips, here and now."
She bowed her head, and still holding Frank's arm sank into a chair.
The boy was about to burst out again, but she stopped him.
"Hush!" she said, "do not speak, every word cuts me to the heart. Not a
word, dear--not another word. Let us wait."
They had not long to wait.
There was a sound of footsteps, hurried and noisy, on the stairs--an
impatient, resolute voice uttering a question--then the door was thrown
open, and Lord Leycester burst in!
CHAPTER XXX.
Leycester looked round for a moment eagerly, then, utterly disregarding
Jasper, he hurried across to Stella, who at his entrance had made an
involuntary movement towards him, but had then recoiled, and stood with
white face and tightly-clasped hands.
"Stella!" he exclaimed, "why are you here? Why did you not come to
Waterloo? Why did you send for me?"
She put her hand in his, and looked him in the face--a look so full of
anguish and sorrow that he stared at her in amazement.
"It was I who sent for you, my lord," said Jasper, coldly.
Leycester just glanced at him, then returned to the study of Stella's
face.
"Why are you here, Stella?"
She did not speak, but drew her hand away and glanced at Jasper.
That glance would have melted a heart of stone, but his was one of fire
and consumed all pity.
"Will you not speak? Great Heaven, what is the matter with you?"
demanded Leycester.
Jasper made a step nearer.
Leycester turned upon him, not fiercely, but with contempt and