Only a girl's love
Suddenly he felt a hand upon his arm, and looking up, saw a staid,
elderly man, with "doctor" written plainly on his face.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "You know this poor lad?"
Leycester nodded.
"So I understood from a word you let drop on the cliff. As that is the
case, perhaps you would not mind breaking it to his friends?"
"His friends?" asked Leycester, mechanically.
The doctor nodded.
"They are staying at that cottage," he said, pointing. "They should be
here at once."
Leycester rose, dazed for a moment; then he said, in a low voice:
"I understand. Yes, I will do it."
Without another word, he strode off. It was no great distance, but
he had not to traverse it, short as it was. At the turn of the road
a slight, girlish figure came flitting toward him. It was Stella. He
stopped irresolute, but at that moment she had no thought even for
him. Without hesitating, she came toward him, her face pale, her hands
outstretched.
"Leycester! where is he?"
Without thinking he put his arm round her and she rested on his breast
for a moment.
"Stella, my Stella! be brave."
She uttered a little inarticulate cry, and hid her face for a moment,
then she raised her head, and looked at him.
"Take me to him!" she moaned, "take me to him. Oh my poor boy! my poor
boy!"
In silence he led her to the inn, and she passed up the stairs. The
fishermen gathered round the door drew back and turned their eyes from
him with respectful sympathy, and he stood looking out at the sea. The
minutes passed, years they seemed to him, then he heard the doctor's
voice.
"Will you go up-stairs, my lord?"
Leycester started, and slowly ascended the stairs.
Stretched on a small bed lay the poor erring boy, white and death-like,
already in the shadow of death. Beside him knelt Stella, her hand
clasping his, her face lying beside his.
He looked up as Leycester entered, and raised a thin white hand to
beckon him near. Instinctively Leycester knelt beside him.
"You want to see me, Frank?"
The boy raised his eyelids heavily, and seemed to make a great struggle
for strength.
"Leycester," he said, "I--I have something to give you. You--you will
understand what it means. It was the charm that bound her to him. I
have broken it--broken it! It was for my sake she did it, for mine! I
did not know it till to-night. Take it, Leycester," and slowly he drew
from his breast the forged paper.
Leycester took it, deeming the boy delirious, and Frank seemed to read
his thought.
"You will understand," he panted. "I--I--forged it, and he knew it,
and held the knowledge and the paper over her head. You saved my life,
Leycester: I give you something better than life, Leycester; I give
you--her--Stella!"
His lips quivered, and he seemed sinking; but he made a last effort.
"I--I am dying, Leycester. I am glad, very, very glad. I don't wish to
live. It is better that I should die!"
"Frank!" broke from Stella's white lips.
"Don't cry, Stella. While I lived he--he would have held you bound. Now
I am dying----" Then his voice failed and his eyes closed, but they saw
his lips move, and Stella, bending over him, heard the words--"Forgive,
forgive!"
With a loud cry she caught him in her arms, but he had passed away,
even beyond her love, and the next moment she fell fainting, still
holding him to her bosom, as a mother holds her child.
An hour afterward Leycester was pacing the beach, his arms folded
across his breast, his head bent, a storm of conflicting emotions
raging within. The boy had spoken truly. The time had come when he
understood fully the lad's words. He had gleaned much from the forged
bill, which, all torn and stained, lay hidden in his pocket; but the
full meaning of the mystery had been conveyed to him by the delirious
words of Stella, who lay in a high fever.
He had just left her, and was now waiting for the doctor, waiting for
his verdict--life or death. Life or death! He had often heard, often
used the words, but never until this moment knew their import.
Presently the doctor joined him, and Leycester uttered the one word:
"Well?"
"She will live," he said.
Leycester raised his head and drew a long breath. The doctor continued:
"Yes, I think I may say she will pull through. I shall know more
to-morrow. You see, she has undergone a severe strain; I do not allude
to the tragic incidents of the evening; those in themselves are
sufficient to try a young girl; but she has been laboring under extreme
nervous pressure for months past."
Leycester groaned.
"Come, come, my lord," said the doctor, cheerfully. "You may depend
upon me. I should not hold out hope unless I had good reason for so
doing. We shall save her, I trust and believe."
Leycester inclined his head; he could not speak. The doctor looked at
him gravely.
"If you will permit me, my lord," he said, "I would suggest that you
should now take some rest. You are far from strong yourself."
Leycester smiled grimly.
"Far from strong," repeated the doctor, emphatically. "And there is a
great deal more endurance before you. Be advised and take some rest, my
lord.
"The landlord has been speaking to me, sir, about the unfortunate man
you found. It seems that there are papers and valuables--jewelry, and
such like. Will your lordship take charge of them until the police
arrive? I understand that you knew him."
"Yes, I knew him," said Leycester. He had, in truth, almost forgotten
Jasper Adelstone. "I will take charge of the things, if you wish it."
"Follow me, then," said the doctor.
They went to the inn, and up the stairs, with that quiet, subdued step
with which men approach the presence of grim death, and stood beside
the bed upon which lay all that remained of the man who had so nearly
wrecked two lives.
Leycester looked down at the white face, calm and
expressionless--looked down with a solemn feeling at his heart, and the
doctor drew some papers from the coat.
"These are them," he said, "if your lordship will take charge of them."
Leycester took them, and as he did so, he glanced mechanically at them
as they lay in his hand, and uttered an exclamation.
There in his hand lay the note which Lenore had written, bidding Jasper
Adelstone meet her in the wood. He knew the writing in a moment, and
before he had time to prevent it, had read the few pregnant words.
The doctor turned round.
"What is the matter?"
Leycester stood, and for the first time that awful night trembled.
The idea of treachery and deceit so connected with Lenore utterly
unnerved him. He knew, he felt as if by instinct, that he held in his
hand a link in the chain of cunning and chicanery which had so nearly
entangled him, and the thought that her name would become the prey of
the newspapers was torture.
"Doctor," he said, and his voice trembled, "I have seen by accident
a letter written to this unfortunate man. It consists of a few lines
only. It will compromise a lady whose good name is in my keeping----"
The doctor held up his hand.
"Your lordship will be guided by your sense of honor," he said.
Leycester inclined his head and put the note in his pocket.
Then they went down, and the doctor strode off to the cottage and left
Leycester still pacing the beach.
Yes, the boy had spoken truly. He saw it all now. He knew how it had
been brought to pass that Stella had been entrapped into Jasper's
chambers; he saw the unscrupulous hand of a woman weaving the threads
of the net in which they had been entangled. Minute details were not
necessary, that little note in the dainty hand-writing told its own
story; Jasper Adelstone and Lady Lenore Beauchamp had been in league
together; death had squared the reckoning between him and the man, but
he had still to settle the tragic account with the woman.
The night passed, and the dawn broke, and the little doctor returning,
weary and exhausted, found the tall figure still pacing the beach.
CHAPTER XLI.
Lenore sat in her dainty room, her long golden hair flooding her
white shoulders, her fair face reflected in the Venetian mirror with
its edging of antique work and trimming of lace. Not even a Venetian
mirror could have desired to hold a fairer picture; youth, beauty, and
happiness, smiled from its surface. The rich, delicately curved lips
smiled to-night, with an ineffable content, and serene satisfaction.
There was a latent gleam of triumph in the violet eyes, eloquent
of triumph and victory. She had conquered; the desire of her life
was nearly within her grasp; two days--forty-eight hours--more and
Leycester Wyndward would be hers. An ancient name, an historic title,
an immense estate were to be hers. To do her justice at this moment,
she thought neither of the title nor the estate; it was of the man, of
the man with his handsome face, and musical voice, and _debonnaire_
manner that she thought. If they had come and told her, there where she
sat, that it had been discovered that he was neither noble nor rich,
she would not have cared, it would not have mattered. It was the man,
it was Leycester himself, for whom she had plotted and schemed, and she
would have been content with him alone.
Even now, as she looked at the beautiful reflection in the mirror, it
was with no thought of her own beauty, all her thoughts were of him;
and the smile that crossed the red lips was called up by no spirit of
vanity, but by the thought that in forty-eight hours, the wish and the
desire of her life would be gratified.
In silence the maid brushed out the wealth of golden tresses, of which
she was almost as proud as the owner herself; she had heard a whisper
in the servants' hall, but it was not for her to speak. It was a rumor
that something had happened to Lord Leycester, that he had not returned
yet, and that one of the wild fits, with which all the household were
familiar, had seized him, and that he was off no one knew where.
It was not for her to speak, but she watched her beautiful mistress
covertly, and thought how quickly she could dispel the smile of
serenity which sat upon the fair face.
Quiet as the wedding was intended to be, there was necessarily some
stir; the society papers had got hold of it, and dilated upon it in
paragraphs, in which Lenore was spoken of as "our reigning beauty,"
and Leycester described as the son of a well-known peer, and a man of
fashion. Quite an army of upholsterers had been at work at the house
in Grosvenor Square, and another army of milliners and dressmakers
had been preparing the bride's _trousseau_. A pile of imperials and
portmanteaus stood in the dressing-room, each bearing the initials "I,"
with the coronet.
One or two of the Beauchamps, the present earl and a brother--together
with three young lady cousins, who were to act as bridesmaids--had been
invited, and were to arrive the following evening. Certainly there
must be some slight fuss, and Lenore, as she thought of Leycester's
absence, ascribed it to his dislike to the aforesaid fuss, and his
desire to escape from it.
The maid went at last, and Lenore, with a happy sigh, went to sleep.
At that time Leycester was pacing the beach at Carlyon, and Jasper
and poor Frank were lying dead. Surely if dreams come to warn one of
impending trouble, Lady Lenore should have dreamed to-night; but she
did not. She slept the night through without a break, and rose fresh
and beautiful, with only twenty-four hours between her and happiness.
But when she entered the breakfast-room, and met the pale, anxious face
of the countess, and the grave one of the earl, a sudden spasm of fear,
scarcely fear, but apprehension, fell upon her.
"What is the matter?" she asked, gliding to the countess, and kissing
her.