The League of the Leopard

"It is confoundedly hard on an unfortunate and innocent man! This is a situation which will require considerable explaining, and I shall probably never have an opportunity for attempting it," he muttered.

In the meantime Lilian Chatterton felt the hot blood surge upward from her neck, and was thankful that the darkness partly hid her face. It is true that she had effectively, so she hoped, put an end to any aspirations Dane might have cherished; but when he had once accepted the position there was no longer any necessity to conceal the fact that to a certain degree she found his society congenial, or to consider how far her interest in him might carry her. His complaisance had been the more gratifying because she fancied it was not every woman who could bend such an individual to her will. Lilian, however, had not only set up a somewhat elevated standard of conduct for herself, but was inclined to judge harshly those who fell beneath it; and now she was unmistakably, if illogically, angry. The knowledge that the man had gone out fresh from her presence to keep such an assignation stung her pride to the quick, and brought the crimson to her very forehead. It was, she considered, an unforgivable insult. Still, she had but seen him dimly for a second, and might be mistaken, and so she turned toward her companion.

"It is curious that I should fancy there was something familiar in the voices we overheard," she said as lightly as she could.

Maxwell had learned discretion.

"Voices are always deceptive," he answered. "One should never trust to a fanciful resemblance. The bridge is a favorite trysting-place for rustic lovers; as one result of the sudden appearance of a pair of them, this excitable beast managed to upset me the last time I approached it."

Carsluith Maxwell had done his best for his friend, and it was not his fault that he had only confirmed the girl's suspicions, and set her wondering if all men were equally perfidious.

"That being so, was it not very thoughtless of you to drive me this way?" she inquired, with some asperity.

"Guilty," laughed Maxwell. "May I plead in extenuation that it is the longest?"

He sprang down and looped the reins round a gatepost when they reached the winding drive which led up to The Larches.

"Do you mind alighting here, Miss Chatterton?" he asked.

"No," said Lilian. "But may I inquire the reason?"

"A desire not to risk your safety a second time. The drive is very dark, the horse addicted to bolting on opportunity; and it would be hard to do justice to what I must tell you if I were forced to watch him. The task is sufficiently beyond me already; I would give a good deal for the power of eloquence."

Lilian was startled, for the speaker had certainly not worn his heart on his sleeve.

"Could you not wait until to-morrow?" she asked with some trepidation.

"I am afraid not," said Maxwell, a trifle grimly. "I fear this must be a surprise to you, but circumstances prevent my waiting, and it is even better to hear one's sentence than to remain in suspense. Won't you listen?"

Lilian, seeing there was no escape, bent her head; and, if Maxwell had not the gift of eloquence, he could compress a good deal into a few brief sentences. There was no superfluous protestation. The man spoke abruptly, but Lilian could not doubt the earnestness in his voice, or, as he stood hat in hand under the lamplight, mistake the look in his eyes. She saw that what he offered was the enduring love of one who could be trusted to the utmost, and the few pointed words revealed depths of tenderness she had hardly suspected in him.

"I am sorry, very sorry – but it is impossible," she said softly.

Maxwell moved a pace or two forward, and his face seemed to have grown suddenly haggard.

"Think," he urged hoarsely. "This means so much to me. Will it always be impossible? I shall not change."

Lilian fancied she could believe him. She looked him fully in the eyes as she answered.

"It can never be possible. I am sorry. If I had known, I should have tried to warn you. You must forget me."

Maxwell recognized finality in her tone. For the space of several seconds he turned his head away. Then he faced round again, speaking very quietly:

"You have nothing to reproach yourself with. The mistake was mine. I shall, however, never forget you; and I want you to promise that if any adversity overtakes you – which God forbid – you will remember me. I sail for Africa shortly, and it may be long before we meet again. Now I will walk with you up the drive."

He held out his arm, and Lilian wondered a little at his composure as she laid her hand on it and they passed together into the blackness of the firs.

Miss Chatterton had not long joined her aunt when Dane came in, and glanced in her direction as he made some not oversapient observation to Chatterton. She did not avoid his gaze, but met it coldly, and, gathering up some needlework, moved without ostentation, but deliberately, out of the room. No speech could have been plainer, and Dane grew hot, while the fingers of one hand contracted without his will.

"You don't look well, Hilton," remarked Thomas Chatterton. "Is your head troubling you?"

"No," said Dane. "I must have walked tolerably fast, and I am perhaps a trifle shaky yet. With Mrs. Chatterton's permission I will go out and smoke a cigar."

He passed out, and the iron-master smiled as he looked at his wife.

"Can you tell me what is the meaning of this?" he asked.

"Your inquiry is indefinite; and why do you ask me?"

"Because I think you ought to know," Chatterton answered dryly. "Women generally have a finger in it whenever there is trouble."

"Even if true, that is not strikingly original," Mrs. Chatterton retorted. "I have not noticed anything unusual."

"Then listen," and Chatterton pointed toward the window. "When a young man goes out for a stroll he does not usually stamp in that savage fashion upon the gravel. Now, I want your candid opinion."

"You shall have it," said the lady, smiling. "I believe that no good ever resulted from a choleric elderly gentleman's interference in affairs beyond his comprehension."

Meanwhile Carsluith Maxwell stood talking to his sister in the hall of Culmeny.

"After what has happened, the sooner I get out on my African venture the more pleasant it will be for all concerned," he said gloomily. "It is a good country where one can forget one's troubles; in fact, there are so many peculiarly its own that I don't know a better."

"Poor Carsluith! It will be a heavy disappointment to father. He is failing more rapidly than I care to notice, and had begun to lean on you. I don't think I can forgive her. Yes; go out, and forget her."

"It was not Miss Chatterton's fault," Maxwell declared quickly. "She never, to use the inappropriate phrase, encouraged me. It was my own folly to hope that she could stoop to me."

"Without any wish to flatter you, I consider that Miss Chatterton might have stooped a good deal farther," said Margaret Maxwell. "However, we need not go into that; and I am only sorry you are so hardly hit. I wonder if it was because of Dane?"

"No," Maxwell answered with decision. "I can't exactly tell you why, but I am certain it was not because of Dane."

His sister said nothing further, though she was not convinced. Her heart was heavy for her brother, because she knew the Maxwell temperament, and that he was not the man to change.

Carsluith passed out into the darkness, and leaning against a fir, spoke half aloud:

"No man Miss Chatterton had smiled upon could scatter his affections as Dane seems to have done. Pshaw! The thing is perfectly impossible!"

This was, perhaps, a greater tribute to the speaker's loyalty than to his knowledge of human nature, though Carsluith Maxwell was usually accounted a shrewd man.

CHAPTER VI

DANE'S SILENCE

It was in a combative humor that Hilton Dane presented himself in court on the day of the poacher's trial. It was impossible to ignore the summons, which alone had delayed his departure from The Larches; but the time he spent there waiting had passed very uncomfortably. Lilian had, so far as she could do so without attracting attention, sedulously avoided his company; and he fancied that both Chatterton and his wife regarded him with suspicion. Dane, knowing the iron-master's opinions, surmised that Chatterton would not have blamed him had he frankly related all that had passed; but he had pledged himself to secrecy, and it never occurred to him to break his promise.

Therefore he kept his own counsel, and went into court prepared for battle, further fortified by a contempt for the assumed omnipotence of petty local magnates which men of his kind, who have tasted power in the vigorous life of the newer lands, acquire. He decided that the prisoner, who was very young, looked free from inherent vice, and worthy of a chance to prove himself, in the main, honest. He was not absolutely certain that the man was the one with whom he had grappled, and he gave him the full benefit of the doubt. His answers provided the neighborhood with a sensational topic for conversation, and, while there were some who laughed at the legal functionaries' discomfiture and the witness's nonchalance, the game preservers in the vicinity were emphatic in their indignation.

In any case, Dane left the court amid the plaudits of the assembled quarrymen, which the officials could not restrain. He hated the rôle of popular hero but he felt a certain grim satisfaction, though he guessed that every word he had spoken might cost him dearly. Also, because he did nothing by halves, he sought the discharged prisoner.

"I don't know whether you are the right man or not, and I don't want to," he said dryly. "If you are a wholly worthless rascal, you will no doubt drift back into the clutches of the police, when it is probable that the worthy gentlemen I addressed to-day will see that you don't get out again. It would not surprise me if they starved you out of this neighborhood; so, if you desire to make a fresh start, you will take this letter to the English waterworks contractor to whom it is addressed – and send your sister as much as possible of what he pays you."

"Would you believe that I'm sairly sorry, sir?" began the lad; but Dane turned upon him with a laugh and a frown.

"Sorry for what? Prove it by turning honest. Do you wish to convince me I did wrong to-day?"

The poacher departed with grateful protestations, and Dane was glad that he had vanished before Maxwell came up.

"I don't know whether I ought to congratulate you on your forensic abilities, or otherwise, but the spectacle was worth the journey," he said. "I hardly suspected that you possessed such talents; but why you displayed them is, of course, another question."

"It is also my particular business," Dane replied stiffly, and frowned when Maxwell smiled significantly.

"Confound you! Do you think – " he broke out; and Maxwell smiled again in ironical fashion as he moved away.

"I might make use of your own rejoinder, and say that I generally find it saves trouble to keep my opinions to myself," he returned. "However, since you asked me, what would any person of the most modest discernment think?"

Dane groaned inwardly as he climbed into the waiting vehicle, for the last speech placed beyond all doubt the fact that the occupants of the dog-cart had recognized him at Hallows Brig; and he knew that Lilian Chatterton held somewhat puritanical views. He had, it was evident, involved himself hopelessly.

That very evening, just as Dane had finished packing his few possessions, an irate game-preserving gentleman drove over to The Larches to express his indignation.

"I would not like to hurt your feelings, Chatterton, but your young friend did not give wholly unbiased testimony to-day," he said. "Considering his evident desire to shield the prisoner, I e'en felt it my duty to – "

He got no farther, for the choleric iron-master was equally loyal to those he honored with his good opinion, and prompt on any challenge to take up the cudgels.

"If that is all you called to tell me, you might have spared yourself the trouble, Black," he interrupted. "I have known Hilton Dane from boyhood, as I knew his father before him; and I haven't the slightest objection to hurting the feelings of any man who impugns the honesty of my friends."

"I'm thinking ye are very generous," replied Black, relapsing into his native idiom. "Man, do not be so testy, but bide and listen. He described his adversary so well that the police at once identified and arrested him; but he appeared troubled with a distressfully bad memory in court to-day.

"'What are ye meaning by the words, "A man like the prisoner"?' the fiscal asked him; and Mr. Dane answers: 'Just what I say.'

"'Can you not swear to him?' asked the fiscal severely; and your young friend smiled. 'Could you swear to the complexion and color of the eyes of any man who, on a dark night, had just kicked you hard upon the knee?' says he.

"It was not even respectful; and when the rabble cheered there was more than me who agreed with the fiscal: 'This place is a court of justice – or it ought to be,' said he."

Black, pausing, betrayed his indignation with a gesture, while Chatterton laughed in aggressive fashion.

"Considering my worthy neighbors' prejudices, I think there was something in that last remark," he said.

Just then Lilian, who may have overheard part of the colloquy, appeared in an opening in the tall hedge.

"Did you convict the malefactor, Mr. Black?" she asked.

"No," said that gentleman ruefully. "Unfortunately we did not, although I'm thinking that we did our best."

Lilian smiled a little, and Chatterton's eyes twinkled as he glanced at her encouragingly.

"Was that quite in accordance with the spirit of our glorious constitution?" she asked.

"Eh?" said Black sharply. "What's this I'm saying; and I see ye are laughing at me. I mean his guilt was manifest, but a friend of yours showed considerable audacity, forby a trace of talent, in his efforts to release him. Ye will mind that it's a principle of British justice to give even a poacher fair play, my dear young lady."

"So I was always taught," Lilian replied artlessly.

Thomas Chatterton chuckled again, and pointed toward a man who, in turn, passed through the opening in the hedge.

"I fancy that Mr. Black is anxious to talk to you, Hilton," he said.

Black, however, had evidently found two adversaries sufficient without engaging a third, and, as sometimes happens, he did not recollect the crushing things he might have said until the opportunity had passed; so, after a stiff greeting, he allowed Chatterton, who was rarely ungenerous to a beaten enemy, to lead him away.

Lilian had disappeared, but not before the manner in which she had ignored Dane had roused him to precipitate action. He forgot his prudence in a sudden fit of anger, and, remembering only that he might never have another opportunity for speech with her, he followed the girl. Miss Chatterton, however, had a fair start, and, perhaps being warned by the sound of his hurried footsteps, made the most of it; so that while Dane pursued her down two avenues, and through a shrubbery, the situation grew rapidly ludicrous. The humor of it did not strike him then, and he saw only the flicker of a white dress receding before him. Finally he came upon the fugitive in a narrow path between rows of choice chrysanthemums, where, as there was no room for two to pass, Lilian turned upon him with an ominous light in her eyes. It was evident that Miss Chatterton was seriously angry, as well as a little breathless.

"What brings you here?" she demanded.

Dane was not, as a rule, readily disconcerted; but for a moment the power of lucid speech deserted him.

"I came – " he gasped.

"That is unfortunately evident," retorted Lilian, chillingly. "What I desire to know is why, considering the size of the garden, you must, after seeing I wished to be alone, choose this particular path!"

Dane had slight cause for merriment, but he actually laughed.

"Any other place would have suited me, but you went so fast!"

This was a blunder, and he realized it as he heard the gravel crunch in a manner that suggested the pressure of somebody's heel. Lilian had clearly roused herself to face the situation.

"Admitting that it was so, will you explain why you cannot take a hint?"

"I will," Dane said quietly, though he was once more maladroit. "I wished to ask why you have avoided me like contagion lately?"

"Is that a necessary question, or is it generous to place the onus of such an explanation upon me?"

"Perhaps not," he admitted. "I am not so quick of wit as I could wish, to-day, but I am going away early to-morrow, and it may be very long before I see you again; so I could not help asking it. We have known each other a long time, Lily, and I would not care to leave England feeling that you were displeased with me."

"Have I told you that I was displeased?" asked the girl.

"Speech was hardly necessary."

Lilian Chatterton was not deficient in courage, and she no longer tried to evade the difficulty. "Please understand that I have neither the right nor the desire to inquire into your motives, but – since you insist – there are limits within which one must restrict one's friendship; and after comparing your own account of your nocturnal adventures with what I heard Mr. Black relate about your conduct in court to-day, it is hardly possible to avoid concluding that you have overstepped them."

"There may be an explanation. Is it fair, as you reminded that very gentleman, to condemn any one unheard?"

"Can you furnish one?" asked Lilian, with a quickness which was not wholly lost upon her companion. If he had spoken plainly, it is possible that the explanation might have changed a good deal for both of them; but that was just what the man had pledged himself not to do. He was not a casuist, and, having no time for reflection, saw only one course open to him. It was too late when he realized that it was the worst one possible from any point of view.

"I am afraid I cannot, at present," he said.

The girl's eyes grew almost wicked, for his hesitation was fatal, and she was angry that she had even allowed him to draw her into the discussion.

"That is comprehensible," she said. "You must already have taxed your imagination severely, and it is perhaps natural that the testimony of a quite disinterested gentleman should be more convincing. Besides, as I said already, it is certainly not my part to judge you."

"Then I can only hope that you will hear the full truth from some other person you consider more worthy of credit," Dane said somberly.

Miss Chatterton returned no answer, but, drawing her skirt to her side, brushed past the man, who stepped recklessly among the chrysanthemums. She had, of course, no intention of looking back in his direction, but, on turning at the end of the alley, it was almost necessary to do so, and she sometimes remembered, with both a smile and a sigh, how he had stood, a somewhat commanding, as well as a slightly ludicrous figure, staring straight before him, knee-deep among the chrysanthemums. That, however, was afterward, for then Lilian was in a royal rage with herself as well as the man, because she had allowed anything he could say or do to disturb her serenity.

Dane sighed a little, but there was resolution as well as indignation in his face as he moved away, and left the gardener, who had witnessed the scene with indignation, to assess the damage.

"Would nothing fit yon theatrical ijiot but stamping my new quilled Regents flat?" the gardener grumbled.

Early the next morning Chatterton and Dane stood waiting for the South express in the little country station.

"I don't altogether understand what you have been doing, Hilton, and, though nobody seems quite pleased with you, I won't ask," said the iron-master. "I know you had a good reason for it, whatever it was; and if that meddlesome Black or any of his friends feel inclined to make further unpleasant suggestions, I shall enjoy the opportunity for a little plain speaking. If you ever change your mind, remember what I said; and don't close with any offer unless it's tempting, but come back and wait at The Larches for a better. I can't help saying I'm sorry you did not altogether hit it with Lilian. Modern young women, however, often appear to consider cheap smartness more becoming than the genuine cordiality they may feel."

"It was not Miss Chatterton's fault, sir," declared Dane, who, growing slightly confused, wished the iron-master would favor anything else with his fixed attention. He was thankful that the approach of the express prevented the conversation from progressing further in that direction.

A few evenings later, Lilian dismounted from her pony in the shadow of a copse. For some reason she had been restless all day, and sought solace in a ride across the moor. The saddle had slipped a little, and she spent some time tightening the girth. Meanwhile two men came to a standstill in the stubble beyond the hedge, and she recognized Carsluith Maxwell in one spare figure. The sunset beat into his face, and she saw it was stamped with a curious melancholy as he looked down the deep-wooded valley toward Culmeny. Ridges of brown moorland, whose slopes were streaked by dark firs, hemmed the hollow in, and the tower rose blackly in the mouth of it against the shimmer of the sea.

"It is an inheritance to be proud of, sir," Carsluith said. "Perhaps it is because of the contrast with the rank luxuriance of the tropics, and their stifling heat, but each time I come home to the old place and breathe this keen sweet air, I feel that I love it better."

The second man, turning, laid his hand on the speaker's shoulder, and as he did so Lilian recognized the master of Culmeny.

"It will be yours some day which cannot be very distant now," the elder man replied. "It is a barren heritage, and I have long regretted that, after the girls are provided for, its revenues will do little more than cover the interest on the burden you must take up along with it."

"I hope that day will be long in coming, sir; and I shall never rest contented until by some means I win enough to restore our former prosperity. To-morrow will see me on my way to London, and we must hope that my latest venture will prove successful!"

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