Only a girl's love
Had she but made a different choice, had she turned to the right
instead of the left, how much would have been averted; but she sped,
almost breathlessly to the left, and instead of Leycester found Jasper
waiting for her.
With a low cry she stopped short.
"Where is he?" she asked, almost unconsciously. "Let me go to him!"
Jasper stared at her, then he grasped her arm.
"You have seen him!" he said, not roughly, not fiercely, but with a
suppressed fury.
There was a rough seat cut out of the stone beside her, and she sank
into it, shrinking away from his eager watching in quest of that other.
"You have seen him!" he repeated, hoarsely. "Do not deny it!"
The insult conveyed in the words recalled her to herself.
"Yes!" she said, meeting his gaze steadily; "I have seen him. Why
should I deny it?"
"No," he said; "and you will not deny that you were running after him
when I--I stopped you. You will admit that, I suppose?"
"Yes," she answered, with a deadly calm, "I was following him."
He dropped her arm which he had held, and pressed his hand to his heart
to still the pang of its throbbing.
"You--you are shameless!" he said at last, hoarsely.
She did not speak.
"Do you realize what to-night is?" he said, glaring down at her. "This
is our marriage eve; do you hear--our marriage eve?"
She shuddered, and put up her hands to her face.
"Did you plan this meeting?" he demanded, with a fierce sneer. "You
will admit that, I suppose? It is only a mere chance that I did not
find you in his arms; is that so? Curse him! I wish I had killed him
when I met him just now!"
Then the old spirit roused itself in her bosom, and she looked up at
him with a scornful smile on her beautiful, wasting face.
"You!" she said.
That was all, but it seemed to drive him mad. For a moment he stood
breathless and panting.
The sight of his fury and suffering--for the suffering was
palpable--smote her.
Her mood changed suddenly; with a cry she caught his arm.
"Oh, Jasper, Jasper! Have pity on me!" she cried; "have pity. You wrong
me, you wrong him. He did not come to see me; he did not know I was
here! We have not spoken--not a word, not a word!" and she moaned; "but
as I stood and watched him, and saw how changed he was, and heard him
sigh, I knew that he had not forgotten, and--and my heart went out to
him. I--I did not mean to speak, to follow him, but I could not help
it. Jasper, you see--you see, it is impossible--our marriage, I mean.
Have pity on me and let me go! For your own sake let me go! Think,
think! What satisfaction, what joy can you hope for? I--I have tried to
love you, Jasper, but--but I cannot! All my life is his! Let me go!"
He almost flung her from him, then caught her again with an oath.
"By Heaven, I will not!" he cried, fiercely. "Once for all, I will not!
Take care, you have made me desperate! It is your fault if I were to
take you at your word."
He paused for breath; then his rage broke out again, more deadly for
its sudden, unnatural quietude.
"Do you think I am blind and bereft of my senses not to see and
understand what this means? Do you think you are dealing with a child?
You have waited your time, and bided your chance, and you think it has
come. Would you have dared to do this a month ago? No, there was no
certainty of the boy's death then; but now--now that you see he will
die, you think my power is at an end----"
With a cry she sprang to her feet and confronted him, terror in her
face, an awful fear and sorrow in her eyes. As the cry left her lips,
it seemed to be echoed by another close behind them, but neither of
them noticed it.
"Frank--die!" she gasped. "No, no; not that! Tell me that you did not
mean it, that you said it only to frighten me."
He put her imploring hand away with a bitter sneer.
"You would make a good actress," he said, "do you mean to tell me that
you were not counting on his death? Do you mean to tell me that you
would not have wound up the scene by begging for more time--time to
allow you to escape, as you would call it! You think that once the
boy is dead you can slip from your bargain and laugh at me! You are
mistaken; since the bargain was struck, I have strove, as no man ever
strove, to make it easy for you, to win your love, because I loved you.
I love you no longer, but I will not let you go. Love you! As there is
a Heaven above us, I hate you to-night, but you shall not go."
She shrank from him cowering, as he towered above her, like some
beautiful maiden in the old myths shrinking from some devouring monster.
"Listen to me," he said, hoarsely, "to-morrow I either give this
paper"--and he snatched the forged bill from his breast pocket and
struck it viciously with his quivering hand--"I either give it into
your hands as my wife, or I give it to the nearest magistrate. The boy
will die! It rests with you whether he dies at peace or in a jail."
White and trembling she sat and looked at him.
"This is my answer to your pretty prayer," he said, with a bitterness
incredible. "It is for you to decide--I use no further argument. Soft
speeches and loving words are thrown away upon you; besides, the time
has passed for them. There is no love, no particle of love, in my heart
for you to-night--I simply stand by my bond."
She did not answer him, she scarcely heard him; she was thinking of
that sad face that had appeared to her for a moment as if in reproach,
and vanished ghost-like; and it was to it that she murmured:
"Oh, my love--my love!"
He heard her; and his face quivered with speechless rage; then he
laughed.
"You made a great mistake," he said, with a sneer--"a very great
mistake, if you are invoking Lord Leycester Wyndward. He may be your
love, but you are not his! It is a matter of small moment--it does not
weigh a feather in the balance between us--but the truth is, 'your
love' is now Lady Lenore Beauchamp's!"
Stella looked up at him, and smiled wearily.
"A lie? No," he said, shaking his head tauntingly. "I have known it for
weeks past. It is in every London paper. But that is nothing as between
you and me--I stand by my bond. To-morrow the boy's fate lies in your
hands or in that of the police. I have no more to say--I await your
answer. I do not even demand it to-night--no doubt you would be----"
She arose, white and calm, her eyes fixed on him.
"--I say I await your answer till to-morrow. Acts, not words, I
require. Fulfill your part of the bargain, and I will fulfill mine."
As he spoke he folded the forged bill which, in his excitement, had
blown open, and put it slowly into his pocket again; then he wiped his
brow and looked at her, biting his lip moodily.
"Will you come with me now," he said, "or will you wait and consider
your course of action?"
His question seemed to rouse her; she raised her head, and disregarding
his proffered arm, went slowly past him to the house.
He followed her for a few steps, then stopped, and with his head on
his breast, went toward the cliffs. His fury had expended itself, and
left a confused, bewildering sensation behind. For the time it really
seemed, as he said, that his baffled love had turned to hate. But as he
thought of her, recalling her beauty, his hate shrank back and returned
to its old object.
"Curse him!" he hissed, "it is he who has done this! If he had not come
to-night this would not have happened. Curse him! From the first he has
stood in my path. Let her go! To him! Never! No, to-morrow she shall be
mine in spite of him, she cannot draw back, she will not!"
Then his brain cleared; he began to upbraid himself for his violence.
"Fool, fool!" he muttered, hoarsely, as he climbed the path, scarcely
heeding where he went. "I have lost her love forever! Why did I not
bear with her a few hours longer? I have borne with her so long that
I should have borne with her to the end! It was that cry of hers that
maddened me! Heaven! to think that she should love him so; that she
should have clung to him so persistently, him whom she had not seen for
months, and keep her heart steeled against me who have hung about her
like a slave! But I will be her slave no longer, to-morrow makes me her
master."
As he muttered this sinister threat, he found that he had reached
the end of the cutting that had been made in the cliff, and turned
mechanically. The wind was blowing from the sea, and the sound of the
waves rose from the depths beneath, crying hoarsely and complainingly
as if in harmony with his mood. He paused a moment and looked down
abstractedly.
"I would rather have her lying dead there," he muttered, "than that
there should be a chance of her going back to him. No! he shall never
have her. To-morrow shall set that fear at rest forever. To-morrow!"
With a long breath he turned from the edge of the cliff, to descend,
but as he did so he felt a hand on his arm, and looking up he saw the
thin, frail figure of the boy standing in the path.
He was so wrapt in his own thoughts that he was startled, and made a
movement to throw the hand off roughly, but it stuck fast, and with an
effort to command himself, he said:
"Well, what are you doing up here?"
As he put the question, he saw by the fading light that the boy's face
was deathly white--that for once the beautiful, fatal flush of red was
absent.
"You are not fit to be out at this time of night," he said, harshly.
"What are you doing up here?"
The boy looked at him, still retaining his hold, and standing in his
path.
"I have come to speak to you, Jasper," he said, and his thin voice was
strangely set and earnest.
Jasper looked down at him impatiently.
"Well," he said, roughly, "what is it? Couldn't you wait until I came
in."
The boy shook his head.
"No," he said, and there was a strange light in his eyes, which never
for a moment left the other's face. "I wanted to see you alone."
"Well, I am alone--or I wish I were," retorted Jasper, brutally. "What
is it?" then he put his hand on the boy's shoulder and looked at him
more closely. "Oh, I see!" he said, with a sneer. "You've been playing
eavesdropper! Well," and he laughed cruelly, "listeners hear no good of
themselves, though you heard no news."
A slight contraction of the thin lips was the only sign that the fell
shaft had sped home.
"Yes," he said, calmly and sternly; "I have been eavesdropping; I have
heard every word, Jasper."
Jasper nodded.
"Then you can indorse the truth of what I said, my dear Frank," and he
smiled, evilly. "I have no doubt you have not forgotten your little
escapade."
"I have not forgotten," was the response.
"Very good. Then I should advise you, if you care for your own safety
and your cousin's welfare, to say nothing of the family honor, to
advise her to come to terms--my terms. You have heard them, no doubt!"
"I have heard about them," said the boy. "I have--" he stopped a second
to cough, but his hold on Jasper's sleeve did not relax even during
the paroxysm--"I have heard them. I know what a devil you are, Jasper
Adelstone. I have long guessed it, but I know now."
Jasper laughed.
"Thanks! and now you have discharged yourself of your venom, my young
asp, we will go down. Take your hand from my coat, if you please."
"Wait," said the boy, and his voice seemed to have grown stronger; "I
have not done yet. I have followed you here, Jasper, for a purpose; I
have come to ask you for--for that paper."
Calmly and dispassionately the request was made, as if it were the
most natural in the world. To say that Jasper was astonished does not
describe his feelings.
"You--must be mad!" he exclaimed; then he laughed.
"You will not give it to me?" was the quiet demand.
Jasper laughed again.
"Do you know what that precious piece of hand-writing of yours cost