Only a girl's love
"I haven't any left, Lil!" he said; "there is only an aching void where
my heart used to be. I lost it weeks ago--or was it months or years? I
can't tell which now!--and she to whom I gave it, she whom I thought
an angel of purity, a dove of innocence, has thrown it in the dirt and
trampled upon it!"
"Ley, Ley, you torture me! Of whom are you speaking?"
"Of whom should I be speaking but the one woman the world holds for me?"
"Lenore!" she murmured, incredulously.
"Lenore!" and he laughed bitterly. "No; she did not pronounce her name
so. I am speaking and thinking of Stella Etheridge."
Her hand trembled, but she did not withdraw it.
"Stella?"
"Yes," he said, and his lips twitched. "A star. A star that will shine
in another man's bosom, not in mine as I, fool that I was, dreamed
that it would. Lil, I believe that there is only one good woman in the
world, and she sits near me now."
"Oh, Ley, Ley--but tell me!"
"There is so little to tell," he said, wearily. "I cannot tell you all.
This will suffice, that to-night I expected and hoped to have been able
to call her my wife, instead--well, you see, I am sitting here!"
"Your wife?" she murmured. "Stella Etheridge your wife. Was that--that
wise, Ley?"
"Wise! What have I to do with wisdom?" he retorted. "I loved her--loved
her passionately, madly, as I never, nor shall ever, love another
woman! Heaven help me, I love her now! Don't you see that is the worst
part of it. I know, as surely as I am sitting here, that my life has
gone. It has gone to pieces on the rocks like a goodly ship, and there
is an end of it!"
There was silence for a moment, then she spoke, and, woman-like, her
thoughts were of the woman.
"But she, Ley? How is it with her?"
He laughed again, and the gentle girl shuddered.
"Don't Ley," she murmured.
"She will be all right," he said. "Women are made like that--all
excepting one," and he touched her dress.
"And yet--and yet," she murmured, troubled and sorrowful, "now I look
back I am sure that she loved you, Ley! I remember her face, the look
of her eyes, the way she spoke your name. Oh, Ley, she loved you!"
"She did--perhaps. She loves me now so well, that on our
wedding-day--wedding-day!--she allows a man to step in between us and
claim her as his own!"
Maddened by the memory which her words had called up he would have
risen, but she held him down with a gentle hand.
"A man! What man, Ley?"
"One called Jasper Adelstone, a lawyer; a man it would be gross
flattery to call even a gentleman! Think of it, Lil. Picture it! I wait
to receive my bride, and instead of it happening so, I am sent for to
meet her at this man's chambers. There I am informed that all is over
between us, and that she is the affianced wife of Mr. Jasper Adelstone."
"But the reason--the reason?"
"There is none!" he exclaimed, rising and pacing the room, "I am
vouchsafed no reason. The bare facts are deemed sufficient for me. I am
cast adrift, as something no longer necessary or needful, without word
of reason or even of rhyme!" and he laughed.
She was silent for a moment, then a murmur broke from her lips.
"Poor girl!"
He stooped and looked down at her.
"Do not waste your pity, Lil," he said, with a grim smile. "With her
own lips she declared that what she did she did of her own free will!"
"With this man standing by her side?"
He started, then he shook his head.
"I know what you mean!" he said, hoarsely. "And do you not see that
that is the worst of it. She is in his power; there is some secret
understanding between them. Can I marry a woman who is in another man's
power so completely that she is forced to break her word to me, to jilt
me for him!--can I?"
His voice was so hoarse and harsh as to be almost inarticulate, and he
stood with outstretched, appealing hands, as if demanding an answer.
What could she say? For a moment she was silent, then she put out her
hand to him.
"And you have left her with him, Ley?"
The question sent all the blood from his face.
"Yes," he said, wearily, "I have left her with her future husband.
Possibly, probably, by this time she has become his wife. One man can
procure a marriage license as easily as another."
"You did that! What would papa and my mother have said?" she murmured.
He laughed.
"What did, what should I care? I tell you I loved her madly; you do not
know, cannot understand what such love means! Know, then, Lil, that I
would rather have died than lose her--that, having lost her, life has
become void and barren for me--that the days and hours until I forget
her will be so much time of torture and regret, and vain, useless
longing. I shall see her face, hear her voice, wherever I may be, in
the day or in the night; and no pleasure, no pain will efface her from
my memory or my heart."
"Oh, Ley!--my poor Ley!"
"Thus it is with me. And now I have come to say 'good-bye.'"
"Good-bye. You are going--where?"
"Where?" he echoed, with the same discordant laugh. "I neither know nor
care. I am afraid all places will be alike for awhile. The whole earth
is full of her; there is not a wild flower that will not remind me of
her, not a sound of music that will not recall her voice. If I meet
a woman I shall compare her with my Stella--_my_ Stella! no, Jasper
Adelstone's! Oh, Heaven! I could bear all but that. If she were dead, I
should have at least one comfort--the consolation of knowing that she
had belonged to no other man--that in some other remote world we might
meet again, and I might claim her as mine! But that is denied to me. My
white angel is stained and besmirched, and is mine no longer!"
Worn out by the passion of his grief, he dropped on the seat at her
feet, and hid his face in his hands.
She put her arm round his neck, but spoke no word. Words at such
moments are like gnats round a wound--they can only irritate, they
cannot heal.
They sat thus motionless for some minutes, then he rose, calmer but
very white and worn.
"This is weak of me, worse than weak, inconsiderate, Lil," he said,
with a wan smile. "You have so much of your own sorrows that you should
be spared the recital of other people's woes. I will go now. Good-bye,
Lil!"
"Oh, what can I do for you?" she murmured. "My dear! My dear!"
He stooped and kissed her, and looked down at her pale face so full of
sorrow for his sorrow, and his heart grew calmer and more resigned.
"Nothing, Lil," he said.
"Yes," she said in a low voice; "if I can do nothing else I can pray
for you, Ley!"
He smiled and stroked her hair.
"You are an angel, Lil," he said, softly. "If all women were made like
you, there would be no sin and little sorrow in the world. In the
future that lies black and drear before me I shall think of you. Yes,
pray for me, Lil. Good-bye!" and he kissed her again.
She held him to the last, then when he had gone she buried her face in
her hands and cried. But suddenly she sat up and touched the bell that
stood near her.
"Crying will do no good for my Ley," she murmured. "I must do more
than that. Oh, if I could be strong and hale like other girls for an
hour, one short hour! But I will, I must do something! I cannot see him
suffer so and do nothing!"
Her one special maid, a girl who had been with her since her childhood
and knew every mood and change in her, came in and hurried to her side
at the sight of her tear-dimmed eyes.
"Oh, Lady Lilian, what is the matter? You have been crying!"
"A little, Jeanette," she said, smiling through her tears. "I am in
great trouble--Lord Leycester is in great trouble----"
"I have just met him, my lady, looking so ill and worried."
"Yes, Jeanette; he is in great trouble, and I want to help him," and
then, with fear and trembling, she announced an intention she had
suddenly formed. Jeanette was aghast for a time, but at last she
yielded, and hurried away to make the preparation for the execution of
her beloved mistress's wishes.
CHAPTER XXXII.
As the door closed on Lord Leycester, Stella's heart seemed to leave
her bosom; it was as if all hope had fled with him, and as if her doom
was irrevocably fixed. For a moment she did not realize that she was
leaning upon Jasper Adelstone for support, but when her numbed senses
woke to a capacity for fresh pain, and she felt his hand touching hers,
she shrank away from him with a shudder, and summoning all her presence
of mind, turned to him calmly:
"You have worked your will," she said, in a low voice. "What remains?
What other commands have you to lay upon me?"
He winced, and the color struggled to his pale face.
"In the future," he said, in a low voice, "it will be your place to
command, mine to obey those commands, willingly, cheerfully."
Stella waved her hand with weary impatience.
"I am in your hands," she said; "what am I to do now? where am I to go?
No! I know that; I will go back----" then she stopped, and a look of
pain and fear came upon her beautiful face as she thought of the alarm
with which her uncle would discover her flight, and the explanation
which he would demand. "How can I go back? What can I say?"
"I have thought of that," he said, in a low voice. "I had foreseen the
difficulty, and I have provided against it. I know that what I have
done may only increase your anger, but I did it for the best."
"What have you done?" asked Stella.
"I have telegraphed to your uncle to say that I had tempted you and
Frank to run up to town, and that I would bring you back this evening.
I knew he would not be anxious then, seeing that Frank was with you."
Stella stared at the firm, self-reliant face. He had provided for every
contingency, had foreseen everything, and had evidently felt so assured
of the success of his plans. She could not refrain a slight shudder as
she realized what sort of a man this was who held her in his power. She
felt that it were as useless to attempt to escape him as it would be
for a bird to flutter against the bars of its cage.
"Have I done wrong?" he asked, standing beside her, his head bent, his
whole attitude one of deference and humility.
She shook her head.
"No, I suppose not. It does not matter if he can be spared pain."
"He shall be," he responded. "I will do all in my power to render both
him and you and Frank happy."
She looked at him with a pitiful smile.
"Happy!"
"Yes, happy!" he repeated, with low but intense emphasis. "Remember,
that, though I have won you by force, I love you; that I would die for
you, yes, die for you, if need were----"
She rose--she had sunk into a chair--and put her hand to her brow.
"Let me go now, please," she said, wearily.
He put on his hat, but stopped her with a gesture.
"Frank," he said.
She knew what he meant, and inclined her head.
Jasper went to the door and called him by name, and he entered. Jasper
laid his hand on his shoulder and kept it there firmly, notwithstanding
the boy's endeavor to shrink away from him.
"Frank," he said, in his low, quiet voice, "I want to say a few words
to you. Let me preface them with the statement that what I am going to
say your cousin Stella fully endorses."
Frank, looking at Stella--he had not taken his eyes from her face--said:
"Is that so, Stella?"
She inclined her head.
"I want you," said Jasper--"we want you, we ask you, my dear Frank, to
erase from your memory all that has occurred here this morning, and
before that; remember only that your cousin Stella is my affianced
wife. I am aware that the suddenness of the thing causes you surprise,
as is only natural; but get over that surprise, and learn, as soon as
possible, to recognize it as an inevitable fact. Of all that has passed
between--between"--he hesitated at the hated name, and drew a little