Only a Girl's Love

But as he entered, she stopped suddenly, and the smile which had flown to her face to welcome him disappeared.

"Ley!" she breathed, looking up at his pale, haggard face and dark-rimmed eyes; "what has happened? What is the matter?"

He stood beside her, and bent and kissed her; his lips were dry and burning.

"Ley! Ley!" she murmured, and put her white arm round his neck to draw him down to her, "what is it?"

Then she scanned him with loving anxiety.

"How tired you look, Ley! Where have you been? Sit down!"

He sank into a low seat at her feet, and motioned to the piano.

"Go on playing," he said.

She started at his hoarse, dry voice, but turned to the piano, and played softly, and presently she knew, rather than saw, that he had hidden his face in his hands.

Then she stopped and bent over him.

"Now tell me, Ley!" she murmured.

He looked up with a bitter smile that cut her to the heart.

"It is soon told, Lil," he said, in a low voice, "and it is only an old, old story!"

"Ley!"

"I can tell you – I could tell only you, Lil – in a very few words. I have loved – and been deceived."

She did not speak, but she put her hand on his head where it lay like a peaceful benediction.

"I have staked my all, all my happiness and peace, upon a cast and have lost. I am very badly hit, and naturally I feel it very badly for a time!"

"Ley!" she murmured, reproachfully, "you must not talk to me like this; speak from your heart."

"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 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.