Only a girl's love
breath--"Lord Leycester and Stella, nothing remains--nothing! We will
forget all that, will we not, Stella?"
She made the same gesture.
"And we ask you to do the same."
"But!" exclaimed Frank, white with suppressed excitement and
indignation.
Jasper glanced at Stella, almost with an air of command, and Stella
went over to Frank and laying her hand on his arm, bent and kissed him.
"It must be so, dear," she said in a low tremulous whisper. "Do not ask
me why, but believe it. It is as he has said, inevitable. Every word
from you in the shape of a question will add to my mis--will only pain
me. Do not speak, dear, for my sake!"
He looked from one to the other, then he took her hand with a curious
expression in his face.
"I will not ask," he said. "I will be silent for your sake."
She pressed his hand and let it drop.
"Come!" said Jasper with a smile, "that is the right way to take it, my
dear Frank. Now let me say a word for myself, it is this, that you do
not possess a truer friend and one more willing and anxious to serve
you than Jasper Adelstone. Is that not so?" and he looked at Stella.
"Yes," she breathed.
Frank stood with his eyes cast down; he raised them for a moment and
looked Jasper full in the face, then lowered them again.
"And now," said Jasper, with a smile and in a lighter voice, "you must
take some refreshment," and he went to the cupboard and brought out
some wine. Frank turned away, but Stella, nerving and forcing herself,
took the glass he extended to her and put the edge to her lips.
Jasper seemed satisfied, though he saw that she had not touched a drop.
"Let me see," he said, taking out his watch, "there is a train back in
half an hour. Shall we catch that?"
"Are you coming back with us?" said Frank in a quiet voice.
Jasper nodded.
"If you will allow me, my dear Frank," he said, calmly. "I won't keep
you a moment."
He rang the bell as he spoke and Scrivell entered.
There was no sign of any kind either in his face or his bearing that
he was conscious of anything out of the ordinary having happened; he
came in with his young old face and colorless eyes, and stood waiting
patiently. Jasper handed him some letters, and gave him instructions in
a business tone, then asked if the brougham was waiting.
"Yes, sir," said Scrivell.
"Come then!" said Jasper, and Scrivell held the door open and bowed
with the deepest respect as they passed out.
It was so sudden a change from the storm of passion that had just
passed over them all, that Frank and Stella felt bewildered and
benumbed, which was exactly as Jasper wished them to feel.
His manner was deferential and humble but fully self-possessed; he put
Stella in the brougham, and insisted quietly upon Frank sitting beside
her, he himself taking the front seat.
Stella shrank back into the corner, and lowered her veil. Frank sat
staring out of the window, and avoiding even a glance at the face
opposite him. Jasper made no attempt to break the silence, but sat, his
eyes fixed on the passers-by, the calm, inscrutable expression on his
face never faltering, though a triumph ran through his veins.
The train was waiting, and he put them into a carriage, lowered the
window and drew the curtain for Stella, and at the last moment bought a
bunch of flowers at the refreshment-bar, and laid it beside her. Then
he got in and unfolded a newspaper and looked through it.
Scarcely a word was spoken during the whole journey; it was an express
train, but it seemed ages to Stella before it drew up at Wyndward
Station.
Jasper helped her to alight, she just touching his hand with her gloved
fingers, and they walked across the meadow. As they came in sight of
the Hall, shining whitely in the evening sunlight, Stella raised her
eyes and looked at it, and a cold hand seemed to grasp her heart. As if
he knew what was passing in her mind, Jasper took her sunshade and put
it up.
"The sun is still hot," he said; and he held it so as to shut the hall
from her sight.
They came to the lane--to the spot where Stella had stood up on the
bank and looked down at the upturned eyes which she had learned to
love; she breathed a silent prayer that she might never see them again.
Jasper opened the gate, and a smile began to form on his lips.
"Prepare for a scolding," he said, lightly. "You must put all the blame
on me."
But there was no scolding; the old man was seated in his arm-chair, and
eyed them with mild surprise and anxiety.
"Stella," he said, "where have you been? We have been very anxious. How
pale and tired you look!"
Jasper almost stepped before her to screen her.
"It is all my fault, my dear sir," he said. "Lay the blame on me. I
ought to have known better, I admit, but I met the young people on
their morning stroll and tempted them to take a run to town. It was
done on the spur of the moment. You must forgive us!"
Mr. Etheridge looked from one to the other and patted Stella's arm.
"You must ask Mrs. Penfold," he said, with a smile. "She will be
difficult to appease, I'm afraid. We have been very anxious. It
was--well, unlike you, Stella."
"I hope I shall be able to appease Mrs. Penfold," said Jasper. "I want
her good word; I know she has some influence with you, sir."
He paused, and the old man looked up, struck by some significance in
his tone.
Jasper stood looking down at him with a little smile of pleading
interrogation.
"I have come as a suppliant for your forgiveness on more accounts than
one," he continued. "I have dared to ask Stella to be my wife, sir."
Stella started, but still looked out beyond him at the green hills and
the water glowing in the sunset. Mr. Etheridge put his hand on her head
and turned her face.
"Stella!"
"You wish to know what she has answered, sir," said Jasper to spare
Stella making any reply. "With a joy I cannot express, I am able to say
that she has answered 'Yes.'"
"Is that so, my dear?" murmured the old man.
Stella's head drooped.
"This--this--surprises me!" he said in a low voice. "But if it is
so, if you love him, my dear, I will not say 'No.' Heaven bless you,
Stella!" and his hand rested upon her head.
There was silence for a moment, then he started and held out his other
hand to Jasper.
"You are a fortunate man, Jasper," he said. "I hope, I trust you will
make her happy!"
Jasper's small eyes glistened.
"I will answer for it with my life," he said.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
"Oh, my love, my love!"
She stood with her arms outstretched toward the white walls of the
Hall, the moon shining over meadow and river, the night jay creaking in
silence.
In all her anguish and misery, in all her passionate longing and
sorrow, these were the only words that her lips could frame. All was
still in the house behind her. Frank, worn out with excitement, had
gone to his own room. The old man sat smoking, dreaming and thinking
of his little girl's betrothal. Jasper had gone--he was too wise to
prolong the strain which he knew she was enduring--and she had crept
out into the little garden and stood leaning against the gate, her
eyes fixed on the great house, which at that moment perhaps held
him--Leycester--who, a few short hours ago, was hers, and in a low
voice the cry broke from her lips:
"Oh, my love, my love!"
It was a benediction, a farewell, a prayer, in one; all her soul seemed
melting and flowing toward him in the wail. All the intense longing
of her passionate nature to fly to his protecting arms and tell him
all--to tell him that she still loved him as the flowers love the sun,
the hart the waterbrook--was expressed in the words; then, as she
remembered he could not hear them--that it would avail nothing if he
could hear them, her face dropped into her hands, and she shut out the
Hall from her hot, burning eyes. She had not yet shed one tear; if she
could but have wept, the awful tightening round her brain, the burning
fire in her eyes, would have been assuaged; but she could not weep, she
was held in thrall, benumbed by the calamity that had befallen her.
She, who was to have been Leycester's bride, was now the betrothed
of--Jasper Adelstone.
And yet, as she stood there, alone in her misery, she knew that were it
to be done again she would do it. To keep shame and disgrace from the
old man who loved her as a father--the boy who loved her as a brother,
she would have laid down her life; but this was more than life. The
sacrifice demanded of her, and which she had yielded, was worse than
death.
Death! She looked up at the blue vault of heaven with aching, longing
eyes. If she could but die--die there and then, before Jasper could lay
his hand upon her! If she could but die, so that he, Leycester, might
come and see her lying cold and white, but still his--his! He would
know then that she loved him, that without him she would not accept
even life. He would look down at her with the odd light in his dark
eyes, perhaps stoop and kiss her--and now he would never kiss her again!
How often have blind mortals clamored to the gods for this one boon
which they will not yield. When sorrow comes, the cry goes up--"Give us
death!" but the gods turn a deaf ear to the prayer. "Live," they say,
"the cup is not yet drained; the task is not yet done."
And she was young, she thought, with a sigh, "so young, and so strong,"
she might live for--for years! Oh, the long, dreary vista of years
that stretched before her, down which she would drag with tired feet
as Jasper Adelstone's wife. No thought of appealing to him, to his
mercy, ever occurred to her; she had learned to know him, during that
short hour in London, so well as to know that any such appeal would be
useless. The sphinx rearing its immovable head above the dreary desert
could not be more steadfast, more unyielding than this man who held her
in his grasp.
"No," she murmured, "I have taken up this burden; I must carry it to
the end. Would to Heaven that end were nigh."
She turned with dragging step toward the house, scarcely hearing,
utterly heedless of the sound of approaching wheels; even when they
stopped outside the gate she did not notice; but suddenly a voice
cried, in low and tremulous accents, "Stella!" and she turned, with her
hand pressed to her bosom. She knew the voice, and it went to her heart
like a knife. It was not _his_, but so like, so like.
She turned and started, for there, standing in the moonlight, leaning
on the arm of her maid, was Lady Lilian.
The two stood for a moment regarding each other in silence, then Stella
came nearer.
Lady Lilian held out her hand, and Stella came and took her by her arm.
"Wait for me in the lane, Jeanette," said Lady Lilian. "You will let me
lean on you, Stella," she added, softly.
Stella took her and led her to a seat, and the two sat in silence.
Stella with her eyes on the ground, Lilian with hers fixed on the pale,
lovely face--more lovely even than when she had last seen it, flushed
with happiness and love's anticipation. A pang shot through the tender
heart of the sick girl as she noted the dark rings under the beautiful
eyes, the tightly drawn lips, the wan, weary face.
"Stella," she murmured, and put her arm round her.
Stella turned her face; it was almost hard in her effort at
self-control.
"Lady Lilian----"
"Lilian--only Lilian."
"You have come here--so late!"
"Yes, I have come, Stella," she murmured, and the tears sprang to her
eyes, drawn thither by the sound of the other voice, so sad and so
hopeless. "I could not rest, dear. You would have come to me, Stella,
if I had--if it had happened to me!"
Stella's lips moved.
"Perhaps."
Lilian took her hand--hot and feverish and restless.
"Stella, you must not be angry with me----"