The gray wolf's daughter

By Gertrude Warden

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Title: The gray wolf's daughter

Author: Gertrude Warden

Release date: May 30, 2024 [eBook #73734]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: The Federal Book Company, 1894

Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAY WOLF'S DAUGHTER ***





 The
 Gray Wolf’s Daughter.

 BY
 GERTRUDE WARDEN,
 _Author of “A Race for Love,” “Mam’zelle Bebe,” “The Secret of a
 Letter,” etc._




 NEW YORK:
 THE FEDERAL BOOK COMPANY,
 PUBLISHERS.




 [COPYRIGHT]

 Copyright, 1894,
 BY
 Edward Harrison.
 [_All Rights Reserved._]




 CONTENTS.

 Prologue. Part I
 Prologue. Part II
 I.--Knights Errant
 II.--Stella
 III.--A Siren
 IV.--Enemies
 V.--Coming Conflicts
 VI.--Lord Carthew’s Wooing
 VII.--A Kiss Too Long
 VIII.--An Old Friend
 IX.--The Gypsy’s Prophecy
 X.--Father and Daughter
 XI.--An Old Story
 XII.--For Better, for Worse
 XIII.--The Sending of The Token
 XIV.--“The Romanys Have not Forgotten”
 XV.--The Wedding Eve
 XVI.--The Charm
 XVII.--A Mad Bride
 XVIII.--The Wedding Journey
 XIX.--Found!
 XX.--Lord Carthew Finds His Wife
 XXI. AND LAST.--The Curse Fulfilled




 THE GRAY WOLF’S DAUGHTER.

 PROLOGUE.--PART I.

On a stormy afternoon in October, in the thirtieth year of Queen
Victoria’s reign, a young doctor sat before the fire in his new home
at the sleepy old Surrey town of Grayling, warming his hands, and
thinking, not too cheerfully, of his prospects.

Ernest Netherbridge was not a genius, but he was a thoughtful,
intelligent, painstaking, and unselfish man. Grayling had not yet
found out his good qualities; the inhabitants, never greatly
distinguished for lucidity of vision, had only had time to discover
that his “bedside manner” was less soothing than that of his
predecessor, and that he had an unpleasant trick of telling them that
they ate and drank too much for their health. Young Dr. Netherbridge
had also the bad taste to ascribe melancholy to “liver,” fainting fits
and ladylike super-sensitiveness to “anæmia,” and hysterics to
ill-temper. Consequently he was not popular, and he knew it.

No one, therefore, was more surprised than he when a handsome closed
carriage, drawn by two splendid bays, was pulled up before his door,
and a footman, after a reverberating rat-tat-tat, delivered a note,
emblazoned with an imposing coat of arms, to Dr. Netherbridge’s
housekeeper for her master.

On breaking the seal the doctor’s surprise increased. The letter was
sent from the Chase, a very large estate, which extended for several
miles in the vicinity of Grayling, and which belonged to Sir Philip
Cranstoun, the representative of one of the oldest families in Surrey,
a man reputed equally wealthy and eccentric, concerning whom wonderful
tales were whispered round Grayling tea-tables. The letter was written
in a small and cramped man’s handwriting, and ran as follows:


 “Sir Philip Cranstoun, having heard that Dr. Netherbridge invariably
 speaks the truth to his patients, would be glad if he will at once
 proceed to the Chase in the carriage sent herewith, and give his
 opinion upon a patient there. Sir Philip wishes to inform Dr.
 Netherbridge that the abilities of Sir Curtis Clarkson, Sir Percival
 Hoare, and Dr. Tracey Wentworth have all been exerted in vain over
 this special case, the drawback in every instance being their
 inability to speak the truth. This, Sir Philip hopes to hear from Dr.
 Netherbridge.”


The doctor put down the letter, surprised and interested. Sir Curtis
Clarkson and Sir Percival Hoare were names to conjure with, London
physicians of great and established reputation, favored by royalty,
and believed in unquestioningly by the wealthier middle classes. Dr.
Tracey Wentworth was a highly popular practitioner from Guildford, in
his profession a triton against a minnow when compared with the
struggling young doctor who was now called to supersede him.

Ernest Netherbridge pondered for a few moments. After all, he
reflected, although he might well fail over a case which had puzzled
better heads than his, at least he could exercise his favorite and
unpopular virtue of candor without fear of the consequences. Should he
succeed in pleasing so great a local magnate as Sir Philip Cranstoun,
a justice of the peace, and one of the largest landowners in the south
of England, it would greatly help to establish his position and
practice in the town of his adoption. The thing was at least worth
trying for. Taking his overcoat and slipping a scarf round his neck,
for he was by no means robust, Dr. Netherbridge stepped out of his
house, and entering the roomy and comfortable carriage in waiting for
him, was soon whirling along a quiet country road toward the great
gates leading to the Chase.

The wind whistled through the scantily clad branches of the swaying
trees, scattering their yellow and russet leaves, and whirling them in
dancing eddies a little way above the moist earth below. Dr.
Netherbridge had never been within the precincts of the great park;
indeed, since his marriage three years previously, Sir Philip
Cranstoun had discouraged visitors, and no one in Grayling appeared to
have even seen Lady Cranstoun, concerning whose remarkable beauty,
however, reports were freely circulated. Considerable interest and
curiosity dominated the young doctor’s mind as he was driven rapidly
along the wide avenue of over-arching giant elmtrees, which formed a
characteristic feature of the Cranstoun Chase enclosure.

The house itself was a great rambling, gray stone mansion, closely
covered with ivy, of ancient origin, and in some of the older portions
possessing a thickness of wall suitable for the old ante-gunpowder
days. From time to time the original building had been added to by
various members of the family, but although numerous additions had
been made in the course of the five hundred years since the first
Squire Cranstoun erected his fortified hunting seat within the forest,
the gray pile was dignified and imposing still, although it resembled
more a fortress than a home.

A very broad flight of shallow steps led to the heavy Gothic entrance,
on either side of which life-sized wolves in stone supported the
Cranstoun arms. For many hundred years the wolf’s head, grasped in a
mail-covered hand, had been the device of the family, to whom
tradition assigned many of the wolf’s characteristics of treachery and
vindictiveness, while the motto, “Cranstoun, Remember!” was said to be
derived from a bloodthirsty legend of long delayed vengeance in the
days of the Norman Conquest.

As the carriage drew up before the entrance, the heavy oak doors were
thrown open and Dr. Netherbridge ascended the steps, and entered the
house. The hall was spacious and impressive as the exterior, hung with
ancient swords and spears, and guarded by four glistening figures in
complete armor, which, as the firelight from a wide hearth below a
massive marble mantelpiece struck them, added to the sombre appearance
of the house.

A stout, elderly man, evidently the butler, and two footmen stood in
the hall. Sir Philip was out, they informed the doctor. He had been
absent since the morning, and had caused a message to be conveyed to
his house, together with a letter for Dr. Netherbridge, which he had
wished to have immediately delivered.

“Has Lady Cranstoun been ill long?” the doctor inquired.

“For some time, sir. But her ladyship’s maid will be able to inform
you as to all that, if you will be so kind as to follow me.”

Lady Cranstoun’s apartments were little less gloomy than the hall. No
flowers, no dainty knick-knacks relieved their mediæval simplicity.
In the bedroom and the adjoining sitting-room the floors were polished
and spread with rugs, the walls covered with moth-eaten tapestry,
while the massive bed and the chairs were formed of dark oak. An oak
settle was drawn before the fire in the sitting-room, which
communicated by a recess draped with heavy velvet curtains with the
bedroom beyond. On a fur rug thrown across the settle, a figure in
white draperies lay with face turned to the firelight. On a chair
near, a white-capped nurse sat, holding in her hand a book from which
she had been reading, while a dark-complexioned, pleasant-faced woman,
evidently a servant, stood at a little distance, with hands tightly
clasped, and a look of keen anxiety printed on her features.

“It is the doctor, my lady,” the servant said, approaching the
motionless, recumbent figure of her mistress.

Lady Cranstoun uttered a low exclamation of impatience.

“Of what use is a doctor to me?” she murmured. “Send him away,
Margaret! What good have they done me yet?”

“But this is a new doctor, my lady. If you would only let him see
you.”

The nurse rose at this point and added her entreaties to those of the
old servant, before crossing the room to where the doctor stood.

“Lady Cranstoun lies like that hour after hour,” she whispered. “She
neither eats nor sleeps, and she can hardly bear to be spoken to.”

Dr. Netherbridge came quietly forward, and placing himself between the
oak settle and the fire, looked directly into Lady Cranstoun’s face.
The invalid, raising her hollow eyes, perceived a small, slight man of
about thirty, with a pale face, a dark mustache and beard, and
singularly penetrating and reliable dark blue eyes. He on his part
beheld a tall young woman of apparently not more than twenty years of
age, and of truly remarkable beauty, even though her face and arms
were now slender to emaciation, and her pallor was almost corpselike.
Her face was small, her features were delicate, and her hair, of which
she possessed a wavy abundance, was the blackest he had ever seen. But
her beauty and her fragility, both of which were strongly apparent,
were forgotten by the doctor in the effect produced upon him by her
eyes, surely the largest, darkest, and most hopelessly sad in
expression that ever gazed out of a despairing woman’s face.

Almost mechanically he raised her wrist, and began to feel her quick,
feverish pulse. Her hand was extremely cold, although her dry, red
lips looked hot and parched. A strong sympathy for her filled his mind
as he drew a chair up to the oak settle, and began asking her some
questions concerning her illness.

At first she answered in monosyllables and evidently at random,
staring into the fire, and speaking in a scarcely audible voice.
Gradually, however, she took to watching his face, and at last,
sitting up with some show of energy, she asked the nurse to wait in
the adjoining room while she described her symptoms to the doctor.

“Seeing you sitting there fidgets me,” she said. “I can’t collect my
thoughts.”

She spoke English correctly enough, in a sweet, rich voice, yet
something in her manner struck the doctor as rough and unusual in a
woman of birth and breeding. As soon as the nurse had moved away, Lady
Cranstoun turned impulsively to the dark-complexioned servant.

“Go after her, and prevent her from listening,” she whispered,
rapidly, and the woman obeyed.

“Now draw your chair close up,” she said, imperiously, to the doctor.
“I have a great deal to say. There is something about your face which
makes me think I can trust you. And I do so badly need some one to
trust. Stay, though; do you know Sir Philip Cranstoun?”

“I have never seen him in my life.”

“I’m glad of that! How did you come to be sent for?”

Thinking it might help him to gain her confidence, Dr. Netherbridge
drew from his pocket Sir Philip’s summons.

Lady Cranstoun read it eagerly. After she had returned it to him,
silence reigned for a few seconds. Her next question appeared
startlingly irrelevant.

“The sessions are on at Guildford to-day, are they not?”

“I believe so.”

“And Sir Philip’s note was sent here from Guildford ordering the
carriage to go for you?”

“No doubt he was very anxious about you,” said the doctor, hardly
realizing what he was expected to say.

She stared at him for a few seconds, and then broke into a bitter,
mirthless laugh.

“You don’t know, then?” she said. “After all, why should you? Yet I
feel sure I can trust you. What is your name?”

“Ernest Netherbridge.”

“Dr. Netherbridge, Sir Philip hates me only a little less than I hate
him.”

Silence again. It was obviously impossible to comment upon such an
unexpected statement.

She stared at the fire, and then, suddenly clasping her thin white
hands, she fixed her great eyes beseechingly upon his face.

“Will you help me?” she asked, in a whisper full of intensity. “I
haven’t a friend in the house except Margaret. Every one is against
me.”

“Surely your illness makes you fanciful,” he was beginning, when she
cut him short impatiently.

“Ah! don’t talk like that--like the others did! Sir Philip so longs
for an heir. We had a child, a boy, who died--I am glad, very glad
that he is dead--and he wishes me to have every care now, not for my
sake, but for the sake of the family name. I have been trying to
starve myself; I suppose you can see that; but if you will give me the
information I want, I will take your medicines or anything.”

“Tell me what you want me to do, Lady Cranstoun.”

“Find out for me all that took place in court to-day. Sir Philip went
to Guildford early--I found out so much--but they will not let me see
the papers, they will not let me hear!”

She was quivering from head to foot in fierce, ungovernable
excitement, and her eyes were shining with a feverish glitter.

“There is some great anxiety on your mind,” he said, kindly. “Will you
not confide in me more fully?”

She glanced nervously about her, and finally thrust her hand among the
folds of her dress about her neck, and slipped in his hand a crumpled
letter, ill-spelt, and written evidently by an imperfectly educated
person.


 “My Own Daughter Clare” (it began),

 “Your brother Jim sets sail for America on Tuesday next, and we all
 hope if once he gets out in Canada with Uncle Pete he’ll do well. But
 you know what the boy always was about you. It was ever Clare first,
 and the rest of us nowhere. He won’t budge a foot without seeing you,
 and giving a good-by kiss to his little sister, for all she’s a great
 lady now. Now, my girl, it’s hard enough to have had never a sight of
 you for them three years, save now and again as you’ve drove past in
 your carriage, and that one time you contrived to slip off to the old
 cottage for half an hour. I’m hungering to speak to my beautiful girl.
 Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve thought I seen a sad look on your face of
 late. It’s wicked and unnatural for Sir Philip to part flesh and
 blood, and as to us not being gentlefolks, he should have thought of
 that afore he took ye. What you say he threatened about shooting as
 poachers any on us as come within his property, that’s mere tall talk.
 What harm to anybody will it do for your father and brother to see you
 for ten minutes or so, and give you a good-by kiss, and tell you how
 dear you are to us still? So, my girl, to-morrow night, at any time
 between nine and eleven, do you slip out to the shrubbery at the back
 of the paddock. If it rains hard we shan’t expect you, but if it’s
 fine, seeing as the gray wolf is away, we know you’ll come, my pretty,
 to your loving brother, and your old father.”


Dr. Netherbridge read the letter carefully, and returned it to Lady
Cranstoun. He was beginning to understand several things which had
puzzled him. One point was very clear--Sir Philip Cranstoun had
married beneath him, and had forbidden his young wife from
communicating in any way with her relations.

“Did you go?” the doctor asked.

She supported herself on her elbow, and spoke in quick, gasping tones:

“It was a beautifully clear night. I thought Sir Philip was away, but
he had returned from London without my knowledge. Somehow, some
one--one of the spies who are about me, waking and sleeping--picked up
and read this letter. I can only suppose this, for all I know is that
as I crept out of the house at about half-past nine I was followed.
Just as I reached the shrubbery, and caught sight in the moonlight of
my father and brother in waiting under the dark shadow of the trees, I
was seized from behind, something was thrust into my mouth and over my
eyes, and I was carried back into the house. I fought and struggled,
but to no purpose, and I could plainly hear several shots, the sound
of a scuffle, and a great cry as of a man in mortal agony. From that
day to this I have been able to learn nothing of what happened on that
night. But yesterday Margaret overheard Sir Philip telling his steward
that he was going to Guildford to-day, where the sessions are held, to
appear as a witness against some poachers who were found in his
grounds several weeks ago, and who have been in jail ever since. Dr.
Netherbridge, I am certain he meant my father and my brother!”

“But how could that be?” he asked, trying to allay her fierce
excitement. “Your father and brother are not poachers surely?”

A faint red color stole into her white cheeks.

“My people don’t see that the rich are injured by the loss of a hare
or a rabbit now and again,” she muttered with lowered eyelids. “They
should belong to the people, wild game like that, and a bird or
two--but that’s not what we were talking of. It was no poaching
brought out Jim and father that night. Sir Philip knew that right
enough. He made me take a solemn oath never to betray to anybody what
he called my disgraceful origin. Disgraceful!” she repeated, with
burning cheeks. “A Carewe’s as good as a Cranstoun any day, as I’ve
told him often enough. I’ve never broken my vow until to-day; not even
Margaret knows who my people are. But I’ve told you, because I must
and will know what has happened to my father and my brother Jim
to-day.”

As he watched her talking, and noted the English nature of her beauty,
the intense blue-blackness of her hair, and a certain touch of
wildness about her free, graceful gestures and rapid speech, another
conviction came home to Ernest Netherbridge’s mind, and this was that
Lady Cranstoun, wife of Sir Philip Cranstoun, of the Chase, Surrey,
Cranstoun Hall, in Aberdeenshire, and Berkeley Square, London, had in
her veins the untamable blood of the true “Egyptian,” those despised
wanderers over the face of the earth who are found and hated in all
the chief countries of Europe.

In spite of his patient’s beauty, Dr. Netherbridge could not help
wondering how so proud a man as Sir Philip was considered had ever
been so far carried away by his feelings as to wed a girl of gypsy
origin. Lady Cranstoun seemed to divine what was passing in his mind.
Raising herself to a sitting position, she tapped one slender
well-arched foot upon the ground while she said, as though in answer
to his thought:

“Of course, you wonder how Sir Philip came to marry me. I can see that
in your face. When I was only eight years old I got blamed for
something, as we were on the road going from fair to fair in the
summer. So I ran away in a rage, and walked till I was tired and fell
asleep under a hedge by the wayside, in Devonshire. A rich lady drove
by, the Hon. Mrs. Neville, a widow without children, Sir Philip
Cranstoun’s eldest sister. Because I was so pretty, she had me lifted
into her carriage, and took me to her beautiful home and had me
educated, taught French, and music, and dancing, and drawing, and all
that, meaning me to be a governess. Every now and then I broke loose
and went tramping through the fields and lanes after my own people,
whom I loved the best all along. Often and often, when my fingers
ached with practising the piano, and I felt all stiff in tight clothes
and shoes, I’d long for the old free life again. But when I saw my
people, stealing out at night to them, they begged me to stay where I
was. I could help them with money, and times were hard. Before my
mother died she made me promise to remain a lady, and Mrs. Neville was
kind enough to me by fits and starts, and very proud of what training
and education had done. She used to show me off as a sort of
successful experiment, too, before people, and that made me mad. She
was a hard, capricious woman, like all the Cranstouns in nature, and
was all for breaking what she called my absurd pride, and reminding me
I’d only been a vagrant after all. But she didn’t do so much of that
as she’d have liked, because I told her I’d run away, and that
wouldn’t have suited her, as I played and read to her, and amused her,
and she couldn’t well do without me. But I never could be reconciled
to the notion of being a dependent, and so when Sir Philip Cranstoun
came on a visit--he was a handsome enough man of five-and-twenty then,
and me only a little bit over sixteen--and he glared at me, and could
hardly let me out of his sight, and said he loved me, I got all
excited between the notion of being a great lady and being loved and
being free from Mrs. Neville’s taunts. But Philip wanted me to run
away with him, but I wouldn’t hear of it, and refused to speak to him.
I was very pretty then, prettier than you can think just seeing me
now, and he was regularly crazy about me. So, early one morning, he
made me meet him in a church at Torquay, and we were married. Just
three years ago it was yesterday, a day I shall curse as long as I
live!”

“Surely,” said the doctor, as she paused, apparently lost in sombre
thought, “Sir Philip must have been very deeply attached to you?”

“Yes,” she returned, bitterly, “and for how long? First, nothing was
too good for me, but that state lasted only a few weeks, and even then
I was afraid of him. Then violent, raging scenes of jealousy if, when
we were in Italy, I so much as looked at a waiter and asked him for
bread. Then, forever storming at me, and reproaching me, if a
gondolier so much as called me the ‘beautiful signora.’ And, after
that, scenes constantly. I’ve a temper like fire myself, I own. We
Carewes have never been known for meekness, and even when I was a baby
child I’d been taught to think myself a princess. All his life Sir
Philip had his own way in everything, and all who came in his path had
obeyed him, cowed by his masterful temper and sullen fury. But I
withstood him. I thought he loved me well enough to let me have my
way, and when I found out my mistake I began to hate him, and more
than once tried to run away from him. But he followed, and swore he
would murder me if I dared, gypsy as I was, to bring disgrace upon his
ancient name. Gradually, my will and my health seemed to be breaking
down. Our first child pined away and died, because I could not care
for it--could not look at it. It was his child, like him, I thought,
even at that age, and so I could not love it. When his son died, Sir
Philip was mad with anger, but I had grown past caring. It isn’t all
my fault, Dr. Netherbridge,” she added, suddenly, while big tears
rolled down her cheeks. “I may have been silly when I married, but I
tried my utmost for over a year to love Sir Philip, and to please him,
but he is more a fiend than a man, I think, and I would rather die
than see a child of mine grow up resembling him. It is all these
thoughts which, together with my awful anxiety for my father and Jim,
are breaking my heart, and ruining my health. It is hate, and terror,
and misery, and cruel, cruel anxiety, which make me starve myself and
hope to die. But now that I have trusted you, and told you everything,
you will befriend me, will you not? Come to-morrow early, and let me
know everything--everything, mind--that took place in court to-day,
and I will let you cure me, if you choose. Will you promise?”

“I promise,” he said, “to do everything in my power to serve you,” and
with that assurance he took his leave.




 PROLOGUE.--PART II.

As Dr. Netherbridge left Lady Cranstoun’s apartments, and proceeded
down the broad oak staircase to the ground floor, he found a man
servant waiting for him in the hall.

“Sir Philip has just arrived, sir, and wishes to see you before you
go. Will you kindly come to the library?”

The little doctor followed the man, filled with considerable curiosity
as to what manner of man could have inspired so strong a sensation of
fear and dislike in the breast of his young wife. Lady Cranstoun’s
father had spoken of the son-in-law who would not acknowledge his
existence as the “gray wolf.” But then Gypsy Carewe was hardly an
unprejudiced person, and Dr. Netherbridge, who always desired to
preserve an impartial mind, reminded himself of the fact that a girl
of Clare Cranstoun’s undisciplined, keenly emotional nature would
necessarily be an extremely trying companion to a man as reserved and
proud as Sir Philip was popularly supposed to be.

“Dr. Netherbridge, sir.”

The servant threw open the library door after a deferential tap on its
panels, which was followed by a curt “Come in!” The young doctor found
himself in a spacious apartment completely lined with oaken book-cases
well filled with volumes. Before the fire, in the Englishman’s
favorite attitude, his hands behind him, and his feet set rather wide
apart on a lion-skin rug, stood a broad-shouldered and deep-chested
man, rather below the medium height, with a square pale face, and
black hair which, in spite of the fact that he was but
eight-and-twenty, was already streaked with gray. In some indefinable
way Sir Philip impressed all who saw him with the sense of power, of
mental as well as physical force of very exceptional kind. In features
he somewhat resembled the first Napoleon Bonaparte, but, if anything,
his mouth was even more rigidly compressed and hard in outline than
that of the great conqueror. He appeared to be a man of superb health
and physique, notwithstanding his exceptional pallor, which contrasted
strangely with the inky blackness of his eyebrows, and of the lashes
which bordered his deep-set, glittering, steel-gray eyes. He gazed
keenly at the doctor, and then with haughty condescension waved his
long white hand toward a chair, which the latter did not take, but
remained standing.

“You have seen Lady Cranstoun?” Sir Philip began abruptly, in a
low-pitched but peculiarly grating voice.

“I have just left her.”

“What is your opinion?”

“She is extremely ill, but more so in mind than in body.”

Sir Philip smothered an exclamation of impatience.

“As I presume your business doesn’t extend to the mind, perhaps you
will be good enough to tell me what is wrong with the body?”

“Certainly, Sir Philip. Lady Cranstoun is deliberately starving
herself because she does not wish to live.”

Sir Philip’s black eyebrows bent heavily over his eyes, which gleamed
with suppressed anger.

“Can’t she be made insensible by drugs, and food be administered to
her then?” he asked, harshly.

“Scarcely. But she has promised me to take the medicine which I shall
send her as soon as I get back; and there will be no possibility of
her death from inanition while she takes that. She seems to me to have
naturally a splendid constitution, and there is no doubt that if she
can be persuaded to take nourishment, and to cease from worrying, her
health will be all that can be desired.”

“You seem to have had exceptional success with your patient,” sneered
Sir Philip, with a short and very unpleasant laugh. “Her other doctors
couldn’t get a word out of her. Pray what method did you adopt to
loosen her tongue?”

Ernest Netherbridge was a quiet tempered man, by no means easily
roused to wrath. But there was something in the hard contempt of the
Baronet’s manner which seemed to rouse all the latent aggressiveness
of his nature. Looking Sir Philip full in the eyes, he answered his
question steadily.

“I was extremely sorry for Lady Cranstoun, Sir Philip, and possibly I
made up in sympathy for what I lacked in skill.”

A very slight flush passed over Sir Philip’s colorless face.

“I am extremely grateful for your most kind pity for my wife,” he
said, with biting sarcasm. “In her name and my own I offer you my
hearty thanks for your sympathy. May I ask how she has merited it?”

“Certainly. Lady Cranstoun is very young. I understood her to say she
is still under twenty. She appears to be very dull and lonely, and a
prey to great depression. Also, she had not, so she told me, been
outside the house for two months. Hers is a temperament imperatively
demanding fresh air, plenty of exercise and change of scene, and
bright and sympathetic society. Had she more of these things, I think
it unlikely that she would entertain the idea of suicide, and require
such constant watching as she does now.”

“I am deeply obliged to you for your valuable advice as to how my wife
should be treated. Perhaps it is a little outside your province as a
general country practitioner; but I am none the less sensible of your
generosity in conferring it upon me.”

“Sir Philip,” returned the little doctor, taking his hat from the
table, “in your letter you requested me to speak the truth.
Unfortunately for my success in my profession, I am unable to do
otherwise, and I can only regret that it has been unpalatable to you.
I wish you good evening.”

“Stop!” Sir Philip called out, imperiously, as Dr. Netherbridge
reached the door. “You will please send Lady Cranstoun’s medicine, and
call to see her to-morrow. I will send the carriage for you at noon.
If she has taken the whim in her head to be cured by you, she must
have her way. Oh, by the bye, I may mention to you what you have no
doubt found out for yourself. Lady Cranstoun’s father, Mr. Carewe, of
Yorkshire, died in a madhouse, and I have often reason to fear my wife
has inherited a touch of the complaint. Her statements since her
illness began are incoherent in the extreme, and totally unreliable.
But you will, of course, make allowance for that. Good-evening.”

“Good-evening, Sir Philip.”

Dr. Netherbridge seemed to breathe more freely when he found himself
outside the gray fortress-like walls of the Chase. No patient he had
ever yet had could approach in interest that fragile creature with the
deathly white face and great dark eyes, whose husband was her worst
enemy, and whose servants were her spies.

“You will be my friend, will you not?”

The words and the pathetic look which accompanied them haunted the
young man. Especially since he had seen her husband a deep pity for
her had taken possession of his mind. In speaking of his wife, Sir
Philip’s voice, naturally hard, grew harder still, and the cold gleam
of his eyes appeared absolutely diabolical. The whole of the
Cranstouns’ miserable married life seemed to be laid bare before the
doctor as he made his way thoughtfully toward his bachelor home, borne
along the dark roads in the comfortable carriage in which he had come.
He pictured to himself the spoiled, impulsive girl, little more than a
child, whose strange beauty and proud maidenliness had won Sir Philip
Cranstoun’s short-lived but passionate love. Such a union could only
end in one way between so ill-matched a pair, and the woman who, with
kind and tender but firm treatment, might have proved herself a loving
and devoted wife and mother, had been cowed, terrified, sneered at,
and repressed, until she had become the miserable nerve-wracked
creature whom he had just seen.

It was with some approach to excitement that the little doctor
prepared to inquire of his housekeeper--a garrulous, gossiping, stout
woman--concerning what had taken place before the Recorder that day.
But the initiative was taken by Mrs. Brooks herself, who, as she laid
his frugal supper on the table, plunged at once into the subject on
her mind:

“Lor’, sir! to think of your going off in the Cranstoun carriage, like
that! It’ll make some folks I know that live in a great house outside
the town, with a brass plate, and a boy in buttons to carry round the
medicine-bottles in a basket, fit to burst themselves of envy. When
you’re rested, sir, I’m just longing to know all about the Chase. I’ve
always heard tell it’s such a fine place, grand enough for a royal
dook. But to think of poor Sir Philip having such things said to him
in court to-day, and all along of an impudent poacher fellow, who, I
dare say, fully deserves his five years and more if the truth be
known.”

The doctor put down his knife and fork.

“What do you mean, Mrs. Brooks?” he asked. “Tell me just what
happened.”

“Willingly, sir. If I might make so bold as to take a chair, being
rather bad like, with rheumatism in the knees. It was this way, sir.
My young sister-in-law, my brother William’s wife, you know, sir, she
lives just across the way to the court-house, and William being in the
force, she gets in to see the cases, and mostly drops in to tea with
me afterward, to tell me about them; well, to-day she says there was a
big, dark, young man, and well enough looking for his class of life,
as was brought up on a charge of unlawfully wounding one of Sir Philip
Cranstoun’s gamekeepers in a plantation near the Chase some few weeks
ago. It appears it was about ten or a little before, and two of Sir
Philip’s men, one of them with his arm all bandaged up, and a wound in
his head, gave evidence as they were on the lookout for poachers, when
they caught sight of this young man and another in a plantation near
the Chase. Both were well-known poachers, and awful desperate men. The
gamekeepers crept silently until they came upon them; but the poachers
were very powerfully built and violent, and in the fight Sir Philip’s
men were getting the worst of it, and the older ruffian had his knife
out to murder the gamekeeper, as he knelt on his chest, pinning him to
the ground, when Sir Philip himself, who was in the woods with his
gun, hearing the scuffle, came up in the nick of time, and shot the
poacher dead.”

Dr. Netherbridge started from his chair.

“Dead, do you say?” he asked. “Be quite sure. Do you really mean that
Sir Philip Cranstoun, with his own hand, shot one of the poachers
dead?”

“With his own gun, sir, most certainly. The man’s been buried for
weeks now. It all came out at the inquest, when Sir Philip and his
gamekeeper attended to explain the accident. Didn’t you read of it in
the papers?”

“No; or if I did, I did not attach much importance to it _then_. It is
different now, and horrible, most horrible! What was the dead man’s
name?”

“Hiram Carewe, sir, a man of forty-one, a gypsy fellow, against whom
more than one could bear witness he was a confirmed poacher, as was
his precious son, James Carewe, who is now starting his five years.
But you never heard anything like the savage way in which he turned
upon Sir Philip when he saw him in the witness-box. ‘You murdered my
father,’ he shouted out. ‘You, Philip Cranstoun, liar, and coward!
Your men are liars and perjurers, too. You know right well what father
and I came to the Chase for, and that we never struck a blow but in
self-defence. We hadn’t a weapon about us but our clasp-knives, and
after you’d murdered my father you were three to one against me, and I
had to fight for my life. You’re a perjurer and a villain, but I swear
I’ll be even with you yet.’ He was hushed down, of course, and when
the doctors had proved how bad the gamekeeper’s wounds were, he being
dreadfully hacked about the neck and shoulders by James Carewe’s
knife, the jury found him guilty of unlawfully wounding with intent to
kill, and gave him five years, as served him right. But, lor’, sir,
that wasn’t the end of it, for poor Sir Philip, who in his evidence
said all he could to screen the man, I’m sure, as soon as he was
leaving the building to get on his horse, as his groom was holding for
him, up comes a ragged, wicked-looking, old gray-haired gypsy woman,
all yellow and wrinkled, with a pair of eyes like burning coals, so
William’s wife told me. ‘Where’s my son’s murderer?’ she yelled.
‘Where’s the man who’s killing my Hiram’s child?’ Up she come close to
Sir Philip, before any one could stop her, and flings in his face a
handful of mud she picked up in the roadway. Sir Philip he swears, and
the witch she shrieks with laughter. Then suddenly she stops, lifts
her finger, and rolls out the most awful curse a body ever heard.
William’s wife said it made her cold to her bones to listen. The woman
cursed his whole life and all that he did. He should lose wife and
child, she said, his name should become a scoff and a byword
throughout the land; he should be wretched at home and hated abroad;
no one should ever love him again; and she would live, if it was for
fifty years, to laugh at him, as he lay dying in a miserable hovel,
deserted and alone.

“She took such a tone of command, and looked so terrible, that the
people about seemed afraid to stop her; and even Sir Philip himself,
as he stood wiping the mud from his face, seemed sort of dazed like
for the minute. As soon as she’d finished, he was for calling for the
police, but not as if he was in much of a hurry for them, and no one
meddled with the old woman, who went off muttering and cursing. But
there was a sharp stone in the mud she threw, and William’s wife saw
the blood running down the side of Sir Philip’s face as he wiped it
with his handkerchief. But, poor man! what a day for him, to be
insulted like that, and out of court, all on account of a pack of
filthy gypsies. And they do say, though, of course, I’m not so silly
as to believe it, that those gypsies have the evil eye, and that it’s
most awful unlucky to be cursed by one of them. William’s wife said
she felt she’d rather have died at once than have such things said to
her. The old woman’s eyes looked that dreadful that William’s wife was
taken with hysterics as she was telling me about the affair. Lor’,
sir, I do hope nothing dreadful will happen in consequence.”

Dr. Netherbridge dismissed Mrs. Brooks presently, and going over to
the Boar’s Head Hotel, where the latest local gossip was always to be
heard, he found that his housekeeper’s account had been in no way
exaggerated. James Carewe’s threats in court occupied a measure of
public attention, but the gypsy woman’s curse was the cream of the
news, and much solemn head-wagging took place over it. Not one person
there, however, had the slightest suspicion of the relationship which
existed between these poachers and gypsies and the lovely wife of Sir
Philip Cranstoun, and Dr. Netherbridge returned to his home oppressed
by the terrible responsibility which developed upon him of imparting
the news of her father’s death and her brother’s imprisonment to Lady
Cranstoun in her present critical state of health.

As to the chief actor in these scenes, Sir Philip Cranstoun, he was in
his secret heart less unmoved by to-day’s events than he made himself
appear. Old Mrs. Carewe’s curse lingered in his ears as he sat by his
lonely dinner-table, trying vainly to dim his recollection of that
unpleasant scene outside the court-house by deep draughts of rare old
wine. But no amount of drinking had ever yet clouded his faculties,
which to-night seemed abnormally on the alert.

His marriage had been a great, a terrible mistake, he told himself, as
he sat in a deep, comfortable arm-chair before the great fire-place.
Disdaining women of his own rank as silly, and those of a lower
position in life as coarse and vulgar, nature had suddenly revenged
herself upon him for his indifference to the other sex by inspiring in
him a mad love for his sister’s beautiful gypsy _protégée_. In the
height of this he had married her, and his passion had cooled almost
as rapidly as it had grown hot. Instead of a docile and humble tool,
he found a proud and self-willed girl, who seemed in no way impressed
by his extraordinary condescension and kindness in making her Lady
Cranstoun. Very speedily his love turned to a sombre dislike, and he
set himself to work to crush all opposition out of her nature. On one
point particularly he had insisted from the first. She must utterly
and forever renounce her kindred, whose very existence he considered
as an insult to him. His last remaining spark of affection for her was
extinguished when he discovered that she had disobeyed his strenuous
orders on this point, and had contrived to see and speak with her
relatives. But his wish for an heir, and his fear lest the estates,
which were strictly entailed, should pass to his brother, whom he
heartily detested, forced him to tolerate his wife’s presence, and his
anger, therefore, knew no bounds when, owing, as he believed to
Clare’s indifference and neglect, his infant son’s life faded away. On
that unlucky night when Hiram Carewe met his death, Sir Philip, who
had been informed of the gypsies’ intention to visit his daughter, set
his men on to seize the Carewes as poachers, and drive them out of the
grounds. His men, over-zealous in executing their master’s orders,
attacked the Carewes so savagely that, the wild gypsy blood of the
latter being roused, one of the gamekeepers might well have paid for
his obedience with his life but for Sir Philip’s shot. The Baronet had
no intention of killing his wife’s father, although he was viciously
glad of an opportunity to wound him. He hated Lady Cranstoun’s gypsy
kindred most heartily, and wished them all out of the world; but it
was a momentary matter of regret with him that his hand had fired the
fatal shot which made Clare a orphan. After that point, affairs seemed
taken out of his hands. The police interference, the inquest, and
James Carewe’s trial, had all taken place without any impetus on his
side; the one imperative necessity was that Lady Cranstoun should be,
for some time at least, kept in ignorance of the fate of her father
and brother.

Even as he thus reasoned, the door of the dining-room was suddenly
opened, and Clare Cranstoun, corpse-like in her pallor, her long black
hair dishevelled about her shoulders, and her eyes gleaming with what
looked like madness, advanced toward him, ghost-like in her loose
white dressing-gown, and he knew in an instant that she had learned
the truth.

Sir Philip’s groom had, indeed, described to Margaret the scene
outside the courthouse that afternoon, and the woman, totally ignorant
of the interests at stake, had retailed the story to her mistress as
she was brushing her hair for the night.

“My father! My brother!” Lady Cranstoun murmured, with parched lips,
as she staggered forward into the room. “What have you done with
them?”

Looking at her, he realized that it was impossible to deceive her
longer. He pushed a chair toward her, but she impatiently declined it.

“I am sorry to say,” he answered then, in those hard, level tones of
his, “that your father and your brother plotted with you to disobey my
orders. It is you who are to blame for the consequences.”

“Where are they?” she cried, wildly.

“Your father was mistaken for a poacher, and was accidentally shot in
a scuffle----”

“Murdered! Murdered by you!” she shrieked, wringing her hands as one
distraught. “My father--my poor father!”

Sir Philip laid his hand on the bell-rope.

“For three years,” he said, coldly, “I have been trying to prove to
you that it is worse than useless to try to disobey my orders. This
unfortunate accident will, I hope, convince you of your folly. As to
the other poaching gypsy, James Carewe, I did what I could to get him
off, but he had savagely assaulted one of my keepers, and has got five
years for it. In future you will know better than to attempt to hold
any communication with your disreputable family.”

She stared at him with distended eyes.

“In future!” she repeated, in a low, altered voice. “What have you to
do with my future?”

Her tone was so singular that he looked into her face for the first
time during this interview, and read there a burning hate, stronger
and deeper than ever he was capable of cherishing. Without a word she
turned from him, and left the room as the servant entered it in
response to his master’s ring.

That night, in a storm of wind and rain, an old woman and a lad of
sixteen waited in the woods outside the Chase, with a horse stolen
from Sir Philip’s stables, the bridle of which was held by Brian
Carewe. And at one o’clock a figure, in the black cloak, bonnet, and
long veil of a nurse, stole from the great oak doors, and over the
slippery dead leaves that cumbered the steps, to join them. The old
woman helped her on the horse and mounted it behind her, the lad held
the bridle; and so by devious ways through the forest, known only to
gypsies, Lady Cranstoun, of the Chase, left her husband’s home never
to return.

Rather more than a month later, while still the hue and cry over Lady
Cranstoun’s disappearance, as it was rumored during an attack of
delirium and fever, rang through the countryside, Dr. Ernest
Netherbridge, reading a medical work before his study fire at
midnight, was disturbed by a late caller.

His housekeeper was in bed, and he himself opened the door upon a
tall, handsome, black-browed lad, and a covered cart, drawn by a
powerfully-built horse, with flanks steaming in the frosty air.

It was a case of life and death, the lad said, and the patient was his
sister. Dr. Netherbridge was an absolutely unselfish man in following
his profession, and slipping on his overcoat, he entered the cart, and
was driven for over an hour and a half through the dark country roads
until the driver, who had been monosyllabic or silent on the way, drew
up near a thatched cottage a little back from the road.

“You’ll find my sister and her grandmother within. I’ll wait here to
drive you home,” he said.

Dr. Netherbridge tapped at the cottage door, which was opened by an
evil-looking old woman, with unkempt hair bound with a bright-colored
kerchief. After hearing his name, she conducted him to the invalid’s
room, where two women, apparently nurses, were busy, the one in trying
to quiet a baby ten days old, the other bending over the still figure
of its mother stretched upon the bed.

One glance at the waxen face, the blue-black hair, delicate features
and great dark eyes told Dr. Netherbridge that this mysterious patient
was none other than the missing Lady Cranstoun, and that the baby girl
whose fretful cries filled the room was the child concerning whom the
Baronet was so anxious.

The mother was intensely weak, hardly, indeed, alive at all. Dr.
Netherbridge administered and prescribed what remedies he could. But
before leaving he thought well to inform old Mrs. Carewe, the sick
woman’s grandmother, that he had recognized the patient, and should at
once communicate the fact to her husband.

“That is just why I sent for you,” said the old woman, while a smile
of malevolent cunning lit up her face. “As soon as my Clare is dead,
and she won’t live above a few hours now, doctor or no doctor, that
child will be sent to her father, Sir Philip Cranstoun. Poor folks
like us, with no men to work for us, can’t afford to bring up a
Baronet’s daughter properly. And your word will be needed in proof of
her identity.”

On the following day, when he called at the Chase with his statement,
Dr. Netherbridge learned that a neighboring farmer had been
commissioned to bring a basket to the house, within which reposed an
infant eleven days old, upon whose gown was pinned a paper with the
following words:


 “This is Stella Cranstoun, daughter of Sir Philip Cranstoun and Clare
 his wife, formerly Clare Carewe. She was born on the twelfth of
 November. Her mother, Lady Cranstoun, died at four o’clock this
 morning.--Signed, Sarah Carewe; Mary Wrexham, nurse; Julia Tait,
 nurse;” and dated carefully.


Thus was Sir Philip freed from his matrimonial perplexities, and left
with an altogether undesired infant daughter on his hands.




 CHAPTER I.
 KNIGHTS ERRANT.

Eighteen years had passed since the flight of Clare Lady Cranstoun
and the birth of her daughter Stella.

The touch of spring was upon the Surrey meads and Surrey hills, and a
tender gray-green veil adorned the boughs laid bare by winter winds.

Before an ideal country-house, low and rambling, with plentiful green
lattice-work for the creepers beginning now to bud, and broad terraces
sheltered by verandas overlooking a trim tennis-lawn and a
flower-garden gay with hyacinths and daffodils, in joyous flower, a
comely group was gathered. Two young men, who had been for three days
guests, were taking leave of Mr. and Mrs. Braithwaite, the three
pretty Misses Braithwaite, their still prettier cousin, and the two
young brothers of the family.

A more attractive and typically English group could hardly be
imagined. Father and mother, plump, handsome, and well-fed, surveying,
with excusable pride, their three fair-haired girls, all of whom
possessed wide shoulders, slender waists, fresh complexions, and clear
gray eyes. The Misses Braithwaite and their cousin could all ride,
drive, play lawn tennis and the newest dance music, and they one and
all looked forward to the time when they should marry “well,” and
spend every season in London. Between these four young ladies there
existed a marked and charming likeness; but the two young men, from
one of whom at least they were so regretfully parting, were extremely
dissimilar in appearance, voice, and manner.

The elder was a man of seven-and-twenty, fully six feet four inches in
height, and of massive build and proud, erect carriage, which made him
appear even taller than he really was. His hair, of a golden-brown
color, curled closely over his handsome head, which was set upon his
broad shoulders like that of a young Hercules. His features were well
cut, his brown eyes as clear and beautiful in color as those of a
collie-dog, and a drooping yellow mustache shaded the outlines of a
mouth which at times, when closely shut, gave a look of hardness to
his expression. In a word, he was a superb specimen of young English
manhood, and as if nature had never wearied in her gifts, she united
to a superb frame and handsome face a particularly rich and mellow
voice.

And yet there was but little doubt that if the eyes of the four young
ladies occasionally rested upon him with admiration, their serious
attentions were all reserved for his companion, who could not, by the
grossest flattery, have been termed even ordinarily good-looking.

A short, slight man of five-and-twenty, pale and sallow of skin, with
close-cropped black hair, penetrating light gray eyes, set too near
together in his head, a long, clean-shaved upper lip, short nose and
wide mouth, of which the lower jaw slightly protruded; he was not as
directly ugly as this description would suggest, but was fatally
plain, insignificant, and uninteresting. His manners, too, in contrast
with the easy geniality of his friend, were abrupt and sarcastic, and
his voice was far from pleasant. To some men he was attractive by
reason of his unusual intelligence and originality; but to the
ordinary lawn-tennis-playing young lady there was nothing to recommend
his appearance or his manners.

The attention shown to him by the entire Braithwaite family was the
more remarkable in that he took very little notice of the girls,
scarcely even troubling himself to look at them, and showing clearly
his wish to escape from their friendly blandishments. Mrs. Braithwaite
was his mother’s second cousin, which accounted somewhat for the favor
shown him over and above what was displayed toward his companion; but
to his own cynical mind the true reason of the family attentions was
that here were four marriageable girls, all in want of a wealthy
husband, and that he, Viscount Carthew, only son of the Earl of
Northborough, and heir to a splendid rent-roll as well as to the
fortune of his mother, who had been an American heiress, was an
admirable _parti_, whereas the handsome young giant beside him
possessed little in the world but his muscles and sinews and the big
black mare, who stood now pawing the ground, impatient to set off
again upon their travels.

When at last the two friends had ridden down the gravel drive, passed
out of the gates, and waved a last good-by to Mr. Braithwaite’s pretty
niece and daughters, Lord Carthew was not slow in expressing his
opinion concerning them.

“Isn’t it truly disgusting, Hilary,” he began, “to see four healthy
young women with good looks, for such as admire well-groomed animals
without expression, each and every one of them trained to set her cap
at an ugly and ill-tempered young man, solely because he will have
money and a title? If I were passably good-looking or attractive in
manner, I could find it in my heart to make excuses for them. But as
it is, they make me long to ‘take some savage woman,’ as the fellow in
‘Locksley Hall’ suggested, and go and live with her in some island
where the currency is cowrie shells, and the title of lord means no
more than that of chimney sweep.”

Hilary Pritchard laughed with the easy-going good nature
characteristic of big young men.

“You talk as if savages were all radicals,” he said. “I’d bet you
anything you like that rank and money are quite as much esteemed among
them as here with us, and a lady whose husband can hang up fourteen
scalps over her front door would think twice before she called on
another woman with only six or seven of such trophies. Look at the way
in which Africans kow-tow to their chiefs. Rank and titles are visible
signs of power, and power will always be reverenced.”

“Yes; but not fallen in love with. Conceive the notion that those
nasty girls played at me, sang at me, rode and drove at me for two
mortal days, and all in the hope of what? Securing my affection? Not a
bit of it. Just with the idea of persuading me that they were in love
with me, so that one of them might run a chance of becoming some day
Countess of Northborough.”

“How bitter you are against women!” exclaimed his friend, lighting a
cigar. “Now _I_ thought them very nice and very pretty girls.”

“_You_ can appreciate them, because you stand on your own merits,”
grumbled Lord Carthew. “When you fall in love with a girl, you will
know her affection is disinterested. I don’t see how girls can help
falling in love with a fellow like you,” he added, glancing with
envious admiration at Pritchard’s fine figure.

“My dear Claud, that speech shows how little you understand women’s
tastes. Last season I went about a good bit with an aunt who is fond
of society, and I never had the ghost of a chance of talking to any
specially agreeable women. The little men, writer-chaps, or
long-haired, foreign musicians, or else your dapper little, well-oiled
and varnished tea-and-scandal-loving exquisites--those are the men who
win women’s hearts. I assure you that after remarking with surprise
how large I am, they take no more interest in me than if I were so
much beef.”

“That’s all your confounded modesty. A man of six feet four can afford
to be modest. All this discontent of mine arises from intense
self-appreciation. The fact is, I have something of the ridiculous
sentimental schoolgirl notion of being ‘loved for myself alone,’ isn’t
that the expression? And it chafes me to think, now that my people are
forever worrying me to get married, that there is nothing about me but
my money and my position to make a girl care for me. Absurd, isn’t
it?--and rather _bourgeois_ to cherish these conventional notions
about marriage. But I have no doubt I shall live them down, and within
the next year or so shall lead to the altar, at St. Paul’s,
Knightsbridge, or St. Margaret’s, Westminster, quite the conventional
young English lady, fair-haired, gray-eyed, pink-skinned, with a waist
squeezed into the smallest possible breathing compass, and a train of
brocade carried by two dressed-up little boys, and from six to ten
bridesmaids, all equally well-born and well-looking, who would all
have been equally ready to marry my name and position if I had asked
them, unless any other man with more to offer had made a higher bid
for their valuable affections.”

He spoke in hard, level tones, but Hilary, who had been Lord Carthew’s
chum at Oxford, and both knew and understood him, realized by the
slight nervous twitching of the speaker’s eyes and eyebrows how much
of truth and of genuine feeling lay under this pretence of cynical
indifference.

Very few people thoroughly understood Claud Viscount Carthew. Great
things had been expected of him during his University career, where he
had distinguished himself by his brilliant acquirements as much as by
his notable eccentricities. In politics he was theoretically a radical
of radicals, but Hilary, one of the very few men of his time with whom
he was really intimate, understood quite well the intensity of the
pride which was masked under an affectation of socialistic doctrines.
The Earl of Northborough, a powerful and prominent Conservative peer,
trusted to time to cure his only son of his levelling tendencies, and
was strongly desirous of seeing him married to some lady in his own
rank of life, who might be trusted to tone down Lord Carthew’s
idiosyncracies.

Whether owing or not to the sturdy and independent spirit brought into
the family on the side of his mother, a Pennsylvania heiress of old
Puritan stock, certain it was that Claud Bromley Viscount Carthew was
utterly unlike any other heir to an earldom in England. He was
singularly free from vices, and unfashionable enough to be strictly
honorable in paying his debts. He held the unusual opinion that it was
as necessary and important to pay a tailor for a coat as a friend for
a gambling debt. He also worked as hard for his exams as though he
intended to be a parson or a schoolmaster, or as though a couple of
letters after his name could be of any material value to a man who
would some day be worth fifty thousand a year. His theories on
marriage were also archaic in the extreme, in the opinion of his
equals. He was anxious not only to marry a woman he loved, but a woman
who loved him, and until she appeared on the scene he had not the
slightest desire to amuse himself in the society of less estimable
sirens. Music-halls bored him, and he had too much respect for his own
intelligence to cloud it by drink. In field sports and out-door
exercises he did not shine, but he liked them, and he heartily admired
physical courage, strength, and endurance. Hilary Pritchard, the son
of a Yorkshire “gentleman farmer” of very moderate means, had first
attracted Lord Carthew’s attention by the ease with which he excelled
in running, jumping, leaping, and “putting the stone.” Young Pritchard
was as bad at study as he was admirable in athletics, and Lord Carthew
was filled with enthusiasm by the evidences in him of just those
qualities which he himself lacked. The farmer’s son’s disposition was
also a happy foil to that of the Earl of Northborough’s heir. Hilary’s
was in no sense an introspective, analytical, or self-torturing mind.
He enjoyed life thoroughly in a simple and manly fashion, took people
in general as he found them, was cautious in his friendships, shrewd
in his judgments, strong and rooted in his rare loves and hates, and
for the rest, a most cheery and optimistic companion, of untiring
physical strength and unfailing good humor.

For five years the two young men had been great friends; but a break
was soon to come between them. It had been arranged in the Pritchard
family that in the autumn of the year Hilary was to proceed to Canada,
there to start farming on his own account on some land left to him by
a relative. Almost at the same time the question of Lord Carthew’s
marriage had been prominently discussed in the Earl of Northborough’s
family circle, and Claud was well aware that his parents hoped to see
it take place within the year, if only a suitable bride could be
found.

In view of these coming changes, the two college chums had resolved in
this springtime of the year to carry out an oft-proposed plan for a
journey in Kent, Surrey, and Hampshire, of about three weeks’
duration, on horseback, and unattended, carrying what luggage they
required in their knapsacks on their saddles.

Hilary Pritchard on “Black Bess,” and Lord Carthew on a chestnut cob,
had therefore started some ten days previously from a country seat in
the Isle of Wight, belonging to the latter’s father. They had had
lovely weather, and a very enjoyable tour, but so far no adventures
worth mentioning, and the only point which had particularly struck
Lord Carthew was what he considered as the unnecessary deference and
snobbish attentions paid to him by hotel servants and chance
strangers, solely because he was a son to Lord Northborough.

After riding on without speaking a short time, Claud suddenly turned
in his saddle, and addressed his friend with twinkling eyes, and a
look of great satisfaction.

“Look here, Hilary!” he exclaimed, “you won’t believe me on this
subject of the disgusting sycophancy shown toward a title? You won’t
admit that everybody treats me much better than they do you? Very
well. I have a proposal to make. We have planned out about a fortnight
longer of wandering. For the remainder of the time we will change
_rôles_. You shall be Lord Carthew, and I will be Hilary Pritchard.”

“Nonsense!”

“No; but I mean it seriously. In the first place, to convince you that
I am right; then again for the humor of the thing. My third reason
will sound so ridiculous that I can hardly put it into words. One of
my favorite theories is that events happen to us, and opportunities
come in our way, just when we are ripe for them. Sometimes a
premonition warns us beforehand. Often enough we disregard it, and
miss the opportunity. There’s more than you think in the old Jewish
notion of being ‘warned in a dream.’ My grandmother was a Scotchwoman,
you know, Lady Kate Douglas, and great at second sight. Before I could
speak plainly, she had communicated some of her beliefs to me.”

“You’re just like the rest of these very clever fellows,” said his
friend, indulgently. “When you’ve left off believing in everything
else, you’re bound to have faith in some superstitious fad. Well, and
what have you been dreaming about now?”

No one had ever yet succeeded in laughing Lord Carthew out of any
idea, however erratic.

“I started this tour,” he said, quietly, “in search of adventures, you
know, and so far we haven’t had any. But you must remember I am also
in search of a wife, and I have a rooted conviction that if I find one
to my liking it won’t be in the beaten track, but that I shall have to
go out of my way to seek her out.”

“My dear Claud,” Hilary began, in a tone of some alarm, “does this
mean that your radicalism is going to land you in the arms of a
milkmaid? A rustic countess, with red elbows and a strong dialect?”

“I should never dream of marrying any woman without good breeding and
refinement,” the other returned in quiet, decided tones. “But if she
be a lady, it will be immaterial to me whether her parents are
received at Court or not. Only she must be something unlike the girls
I am used to meeting. My sisters, and my sisters’ friends, and girls
like the Braithwaites, I cannot tell you how they bore me. I don’t
quite know what I do want, but most certainly I don’t want them.”

“Granted. But what has all this to do with your mad proposal to
exchange names with me? Of course, I shouldn’t consent. But what
possible connection is there between your ideal ladylove, and your
last crazy notion?”

“More than you think. If we should meet her--don’t laugh, anything is
possible--if we should, as I say, during the next fortnight, happen to
light upon just the woman I am waiting for, I am eccentric enough to
wish to stand before her on my own poor merits, with my plain face,
and insignificant appearance, my bad temper, and all the rest of
it--just Mr. Pritchard, going out to Canada to make his fortune in the
autumn. Then I should endeavor to gain her interest, and in time her
affection.”

“What an extraordinary chap you are for talking nonsense seriously!
One would think you expected your ideal young woman to drop from the
clouds at the present moment.”

“Perhaps I do. Did I ever tell you of my visit to Kyro, the
fashionable fate-reader, in Bond Street, last Christmas?”

“You don’t mean to say, Carthew, that you are going to take on
palmistry?”

“I had an hour to fill in before meeting my father,” Lord Carthew
continued, quite unmoved by his companion’s raillery, “and as it was
too cold to study the shops, and there were no picture-galleries worth
seeing open, I dropped into Mlle. Kyro’s. You know what a success she
made of it until the police, tired of running in old women for getting
sixpences out of servant girls, shut up her entertainment. Well, she
was a very charming woman, and didn’t go in for any ‘fee, faw, fum,’
at all. She studied my face and my hands, and after some very happy
guessing at what had already happened to me, she proceeded to foretell
that in the spring of this year I should meet unexpectedly, while on a
journey, a lady with whom I should fall madly in love. Meeting her
would, so she declared, alter the whole course of my life.
Furthermore, I should marry, and go through a whole sea of trouble,
and as far as she would tell me, even worse misfortunes were in store.
Kyro, however, with tears in her eyes--very pretty eyes, by the
way--begged me to be the arbiter of my own fate. All these troubles
could be avoided, so she assured me, if I would be guided by reason
and not by passion. I thanked her for her good advice; she gave me a
cup of tea and I left the fee on the table, and there is the end of
it--or perhaps, the beginning.”

“You are not going to tell me,” exclaimed Hilary, “that a man of your
intellectual attainments attaches the slightest importance to such
utter nonsense as professional fortune-telling? I shall begin to
believe study has turned your brain.”

“Just as you like,” said Lord Carthew, shrugging his shoulders with
sudden indifference. “But to return to our former subject, grant me
this favor, Hilary. It will certainly be our last outing together for
a long time, possibly forever. You are going to settle out there, you
will marry----”

“Not exactly,” broke in Hilary, with hearty emphasis. “Marriage isn’t
part of my programme, by any means. I’ve got to make my way and to
make money, and I don’t want a burden around my neck to start with.”

“Anyhow, our ways will widen apart. It will do you no harm to lend me
your name for a few days. I will solemnly vow not to bring it into
discredit, and if the trick be found out, it will only be considered
as another freak of ‘mad Carthew,’ as they call me at Oxford.”

“I don’t care to go masquerading about the country in borrowed
plumes----”

“Still, you must, just for a day or two, until I have made you own I
was in the right, about the snobbishness and all that. How can it
affect you? We shall probably only meet innkeepers, chance visitors,
waiters, and hostlers, and you are just leaving England and not in the
least likely to see any of them again.”

He was so persistent in his arguments that Hilary at length agreed,
for peace and quiet, to fall in with his views, at least tacitly.

“But you must do all the lying,” he stipulated. “I lie with the most
confounded clumsiness. Besides, I don’t like it. I’ll humor your whim
so far as to call you Claud only and not Carthew, and to answer to my
own name. And on your head be all the complications which may arise
from your silly freak.”

The time had passed swiftly by in talk, and the shadows had grown
longer in the lanes, where the air was sweet with budding hawthorn,
and birds twittered in the hedges. For the past hour their way had led
them alongside of a very spacious and thickly-wooded park, and at this
point Lord Carthew, curious as to its ownership, questioned a passing
field laborer, who looked at him in surprise.

“That’s the Chase, sir, Sir Philip Cranstoun’s place,” he said, with
evident compassion for the inquirer’s ignorance as he passed on.

“Cranstoun?” Lord Carthew repeated the name meditatively. “He’s a
Baronet, to be sure, and has a capital place, Cranstoun Hall, near
Balmoral. Splendid shooting. He’s a distant connection of ours through
his wife, who was Lady Gwendolen Douglas, daughter of the Duke of
Lanark. She was my grandmother’s niece; consequently, she is some
relation to me, but what I can scarcely define.”

“Are you going to look her up, too, on the strength of it?”

“Not exactly. I know other members of the family. The type is
unmistakable. Long, lean, fair, with watery blue eyes, sandy hair,
high noses, and the most extraordinary amount of pride and narrowness.
I wish Sir Philip Cranstoun joy of his bargain.”

“Do you know him?”

“No. But I’ve heard about him from men who have shot at his Scotch
place. Hard as nails and proud as Lucifer, that is the character his
guests give him. He has some children, I believe, but I don’t know how
many. They must be a most unpleasant lot, if there’s anything in
heredity. For myself, I can’t imagine a more disagreeable blend than a
Cranstoun and a Douglas.”

They had ridden many miles since lunch, and by six o’clock, when they
arrived at a little wayside inn, the Cranstoun Arms, they were both
hungry enough to be glad of the simple fare provided. The landlord had
not been settled there for more than three years. He was a cheerful
and garrulous person, and quite ready to chat about Sir Philip, whom,
however, he had only seen on two occasions. As to Lady Cranstoun and
the young lady, the former was an invalid, and never drove about
except in a closed carriage accompanied by her daughter, and the
landlord could not personally express an opinion concerning them.

Concerning Sir Philip’s hard, stern character he had much to impart.
The Baronet was especially renowned for his rancor against gypsies. If
any one of that nomadic tribe was found trespassing upon his land, he
would invariably contrive to have them accused of poaching or
thieving.

“Sir Philip, he’d go five miles to hang a gypsy, they say about here.
It’s wonderful how he do hate them. There’s a story that some twenty
odd years ago one of ’em cursed him in the market-place, nigh the
court-house. Folks say a gypsy’s curse sticks. But lor’! what won’t
people say?”




 CHAPTER II.
 STELLA.

By half-past six Lord Carthew and Hilary, having finished their
improvised meal, strolled down the country road together, smoking,
glad to stretch their legs after being so long in the saddle.

The former especially was in high glee because of mine host’s
deferential manner toward Hilary when he was told by Claud that his
name was Lord Carthew.

“Until that moment, as you saw,” he exclaimed, “the eggs and bacon and
cold beef were supposed to be quite good enough for us. But as soon as
the good man found that you had what cockneys call ‘a handle to your
name,’ he promptly started profuse and tiresome apologies. It’s such a
relief to have that sort of rubbish lavished on you instead of on me.”

“I think you make an absurd fuss about trifles,” observed Hilary,
calmly.

One great reason for the warm affection cherished by “mad Lord
Carthew” for his friend was Hilary’s utter absence of either arrogance
or toadyism. The sturdy Yorkshire independence of young Pritchard
never degenerated into the roughness which sometimes characterizes
Northerners. He was proud of his family in his way. The Pritchards had
farmed their own land for over two hundred and fifty years, and their
present homestead had been built in the days of Elizabeth. Lord
Carthew had had to make the first advances toward friendship, but once
he had succeeded in winning Hilary’s respect and liking, the latter
was too sensible to withdraw proudly from his companionship because he
was not his equal in social position.

“You worry about things, trifles as it seems to me, in such an
extraordinary way,” he said. “Now this evening, what can be pleasanter
than this scene, the little wood by the roadside, where every tree is
budding into leaf, the primroses in yellow patches among the ground
ivy, and that fresh, delicious smell of spring in the air? I’m
thankful I was sent away from home to Harrow and Oxford, and an
accountant’s office in London. I suppose if I’d never left the country
I should never have seen any beauty in it.”

“You would have felt it, but would have been unable to put it into
words,” returned his friend. “Let’s explore this wood a bit, and see
where it leads to.”

They struck in over the moss under the young trees. Straight ahead of
them, as they pushed their way through the branches, they saw a high,
precipitous bank, crowned by a low stone wall, and beyond more trees.

“That will be Sir Philip Cranstoun’s place again, I suppose,” observed
the Viscount. “He’s got a good bit of land enclosed about here.”

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when both men heard the sound
of a horse’s hoofs trampling over the dry leaves and young twigs
behind them. Pressing a little forward, they came to a point where a
passage seemed to have been made through the trees, not much more than
four feet wide. Standing within the shadow of the woods so that their
figures were hidden, both young men turned their gaze in the direction
of the horse’s galloping feet, and through an opening in the trees
both saw at the same moment a young girl, mounted on a beautiful
little black thoroughbred, flying towards them.

She was making straight for the bank. Her small, half-childish face
was pale, her mouth fast shut, while her great dark eyes shone with
excitement. Under her soft felt hat her dark hair, tossed by the wind,
fluttered in soft ringlets round her face, rebellious of the hairpins
which held it in check in a coil at the back of her head. In figure
she was very slender and youthful looking, and her plain dark green
habit emphasized her lack of superfluous curves. Even though she
passed so quickly, both the two friends received the same powerful
impression of excitement, intensity, and enjoyment stamped upon her
features.

“She can’t be going to jump that wall!”

The same exclamation was on the lips of both. At the foot of the bank
rider and steed paused. The girl stooped over her horse’s neck, and
murmured something in caressing tones. Then she lifted the reins, the
little thoroughbred ran up the bank like a cat, lifted his forefeet,
and disappeared with his rider over the wall.

“By Jove!”

“I never saw anything neater!”

Just an interchange of these remarks, and then Claud and Hilary
instinctively made their way to the bank, and slowly and laboriously
ascended its steep sides. The stone wall was about five feet high, and
over the other side the ground shelved again in an awkward dip before
what seemed the fringe of a dense wood.

Hilary paused by the wall, but found that Claud had already begun to
climb it by means of the uneven stones.

“We can’t go any farther,” said the Yorkshireman, quietly; “this is
private property.”

“What does that matter? We are out for adventures. I never saw any one
with a seat like that child’s, did you?”

“She rides well, certainly,” Hilary returned, deliberately; “but she
isn’t a child.”

“Fifteen, I should say.”

“Or a little more.”

“Anyhow, I am interested, and am going over.”

“I shall have to stand by you, and keep you out of mischief, I
suppose.”

A few scrambling steps, a slide, and a roll, brought them to the base
of the declivity, and within the precincts of Cranstoun Chase
enclosure. The identity of the girl had not suggested itself to either
of them; but simultaneously within their hearts the sight of her had
aroused a strange feeling of interest and excitement. About that
small, pale face, shining dark eyes and lithe, girlish form, there
clung a fascination which both men felt powerless to resist. And
although he had not yet had time to realize it, Lord Carthew, for his
part, had fallen in love at first sight with the beauty and the daring
of the thoroughbred’s rider.

Dusk was gathering about them; yet they pressed on, both filled with
the overmastering desire to catch another glimpse of that charming
vision. After forcing their way in silence through the thick
undergrowth, they came upon a wide, grassy avenue ploughed by the
recent tramp of horses’ feet. As they emerged from among the trees
again, upon their ears came the sound of a horse’s flying feet tearing
up the turf. A good way off yet they could see her, and see, too, the
antics of the small, black horse, beside himself with excitement,
rearing, plunging, and throwing up his heels in a way which would have
unseated any but a clever and experienced rider.

Suddenly the thoroughbred paused, raised his head, sniffing the air,
and then started off at a mad pace along the turf avenue. It seemed
patent to the two spectators that he was running away with his daring
rider, the more so as a little feminine shriek reached their ears.

Clearly it was their duty to stop him. The girl would most certainly
break her neck if thrown at that rate of progress. Their plans were
formed after a second’s deliberation. As the horse neared them, coming
like the wind, with clods of earth torn up by his heels flying in the
rear, Lord Carthew sprang into the open, waving the animal back, and
in the moment’s pause of alarm, Hilary dashed forward and seized the
reins, hanging on to them with all his weight.

Snorting, and quivering in every limb, the horse at length came to a
standstill, and looked with wide-open, bloodshot eyes at his captor.
He for his part had his gaze fixed upon the rider.

For a moment she stared down at his face, which was not so very far
below her own, without speaking. Her great clear eyes were distended,
like those of her horse, and in the twilight her face seemed to wear
an unearthly pallor. His hand was still upon her bridle. She withdrew
her eyes from his, and asked, petulantly:

“Why did you stop my horse?”

“He was running away with you.”

She laughed disdainfully as she repeated!

“Running away--with _me_!”

“I heard you scream.”

“Yes. Because I was enjoying myself.”

“No one ought to ride at such a pace as that,” he said, coolly, still
with his brown eyes fixed upon hers. “It is dangerous.”

“Not to me. And who are you, and what right have you to lecture me?
Take your hand off my bridle, and let me go.”

As she spoke she gave a sharp cut with her whip on her horse’s
shoulder. The animal reared and plunged, and simultaneously the clear,
sharp “ping” of a shot rang through the silent woods.

Hilary’s hand dropped from the bridle, and a short exclamation of pain
escaped his lips as his arm dropped by his side. Through the sleeve of
his shooting-coat near the shoulder the blood oozed out, and began
rapidly pouring down his arm. Lord Carthew sprang to his assistance.

“I am shot,” Hilary said. “It serves me right for interfering with a
woman. Carthew, let’s get out of this.”

The girl, whose horse had dashed on ahead as soon as Hilary’s
restraining hand was withdrawn, returned now, and uttered a little cry
of horror as she saw that Hilary was wounded.

“How did it happen?” she asked breathlessly.

“Some one in the woods over there shot him in the shoulder as he was
holding your horse,” returned Lord Carthew. “I must get him to the
nearest inn as soon as possible.”

“No,” she exclaimed, impulsively. “Look how the blood is pouring from
his shoulder! It is all my fault. We have a doctor staying in the
house. Your friend must be taken home.”

“Home! Where?”

“To the Chase. I am Miss Cranstoun.”

Even in the hurry of the moment and the anxiety he felt on his
friend’s account, for Hilary was very pale and evidently in pain, Lord
Carthew could hardly refrain from a look of surprise at the girl’s
statement. She was so utterly unlike his ideal of what “the product of
a union between a Douglas and a Cranstoun” would be. No “long, limp,
watery-eyed fairness” was here, but a small face, eloquent in its
every line, a sensitive white skin, mobile red lips whose expression
changed constantly, and eyes more wonderful even by this imperfect
light than any he had ever seen, eyes strangely luminous, dilated
pupils, and a border to the iris of so dark a blue that it seemed
almost black. He could not have said at that moment whether she was
adorably beautiful or only supremely interesting. She had captured and
chained his imagination, and her every movement seemed to him the
perfection of grace. Without any assistance she sprang off her horse,
and taking his bridle, approached Hilary timidly.

“If you feel faint,” she said, “will you not mount my horse, and let
me lead him to the house? Indeed, I don’t think you can walk. And may
I try to bind your shoulder?”

Her voice was very sweet, and her gentle, even humble manner of
speaking delighted Claud. He was astonished to hear his friend answer
so coldly:

“I require no assistance, thank you, Miss Cranstoun. I am only sorry I
spoiled your ride. Claud, we must get back to the inn as soon as
possible.”

With that he raised his hat with his left hand, and turning his back
on the lady, began to make his way through the trees in the direction
whence they had come.

“Go after him! Go after him!” the girl whispered to Lord Carthew,
clasping her small hands impulsively, while tears sprang to her eyes.
“He is not fit to be alone. I can see he is badly hurt.”

Her words were only too true. A few seconds later Claud, hurrying
after his friend, found him leaning against a tree, with set, white
face, and half-closed eyes.

“I’m all right,” Hilary muttered in response to Carthew’s anxious
inquiry. “Let’s--get--on.”

His voice sounded faint and muffled. Under the trees, in the waning
light, it was impossible to see his face, but Claud realized that he
was in great pain.

Here was a predicament indeed! Hilary weighed nearly fourteen stone. A
space of tangled underwood, a bank, a wall, a steep declivity, another
wood, and a walk of half a mile, separated the young men from the
nearest inn. Even could they contrive to reach it, one wounded and
half-insensible man and his slenderly-built companion, the
accommodation would be of the poorest, and they were several miles
from the nearest town, that of Grayling. Miss Cranstoun had offered
the hospitality of her home, but Hilary had refused it, and Claud knew
him to be extremely obstinate. Clearly he could not remain where he
was, trespassing in the grounds of the Chase, with the night fast
approaching, and Lord Carthew tried to rouse him.

“Hilary, old boy,” he said, “remember where we are, and what a
distance we have to go. Won’t it be better to accept Miss Cranstoun’s
offer and go to her house, to get your wound dressed by the doctor
there?”

Hilary suddenly raised his head, and spoke in tones of unexpected
emphasis.

“I wish I’d let the little vixen break her neck!” he remarked,
viciously. “And I certainly am not going to accept the hospitality of
a man who takes snapshots at any stranger who is fool enough to try to
oblige his daughter.”

There was a sound of quick footsteps over the dead leaves and twigs.
Miss Cranstoun had joined them in time to overhear Hilary’s last
words. It was too dark to see her face, but her tone was courteous, if
cold.

“It was not my father who fired that shot,” she said, quietly, “but
one of the keepers. Stephen!” she called, authoritatively, to some one
behind her. “This is the gentleman whom you wounded by your stupid
mistake.”

The squarely built figure of a young, black-bearded man, in the dress
of a gamekeeper and carrying a gun, appeared in attendance on her.

“I am very sorry, gentlemen,” he said, in a dogged manner, without
looking at them, “but in the half light I thought it was a tramp
worrying the young mistress, and so I fired my gun off to frighten
him. I hadn’t any thought to hit any one.”

“Your confounded carelessness may have very serious results,” said
Lord Carthew. “My friend is half-unconscious now from loss of blood.
You must help me to get him out of this wood, and to bind up his
shoulder roughly until we can get a doctor for him.”

Hilary muttered an impatient protest as the gamekeeper, in obedience
to a few hurried words of command from Miss Cranstoun, assisted Hilary
back to the spot where they had left the horse, with his bridle
fastened to a tree. The young Yorkshireman’s coat was already
saturated with blood, and Miss Cranstoun stood by, silent and very
white, while Lord Carthew and her father’s servant drew off the
wounded man’s coat, and made with their handkerchiefs a temporary
bandage for the injured shoulder.

“He must come to the house at once,” burst from her lips at last. “You
can see quite well he can hardly walk. Stephen, alter the saddle, and
help him on to Zephyr.”

“I can very well walk, Miss Cranstoun. There is not the slightest need
for all this fuss and trouble,” said Hilary, still with the same
coldness he had before shown in his manner towards her.

“Nonsense, man! Miss Cranstoun is perfectly right, and we are very
much obliged to her. Now, help us all you can in getting on this
horse, for lifting you is no light matter, I can tell you.”

A feeling of growing faintness did more than his friend’s injunctions
in inducing Hilary to comply. Zephyr snorted and fidgeted. The
difference between seven stone twelve and thirteen stone twelve was an
appreciable one; but Stephen’s strong hand was on the bridle, and
Zephyr’s mistress walked alongside, patting and caressing the animal,
and reducing his nervous excitement into comparative quiet by the
magic of her touch.

Lord Carthew followed in silence until, the short cut between the
trees becoming narrow, Miss Cranstoun stepped back, and he found
himself beside her.

It had grown too dark for him to see more than the outline of her
slight figure and delicate profile as she walked behind the horse,
lifting her riding-habit from the ground with the hand in which she
carried her workmanlike-looking hunting-crop.

“I cannot tell you how sorry I am about this accident,” she said,
addressing Lord Carthew suddenly. “I am sure your friend meant to be
kind. But I thought there was no one about, and I screamed in that
silly way from sheer enjoyment. It isn’t riding that I care for, but
_flying_. And I did not guess that any one would be in the woods so
late, so I was just having a gallop before dinner. I have never been
thrown in my life. I am never so happy or so comfortable as when I am
on horseback, and unless Zephyr is going as fast as he can, neither he
nor I enjoy ourselves. But I can understand that to strangers it might
look dangerous. And I am dreadfully sorry about the accident to your
friend. Will you tell me his name?”

In this young girl’s whole manner there was something so simple,
innocent, and frank that Claud was more than ever enchanted with her.
That feeling of fate which had haunted him all through his recent tour
was upon him now. Here were all the conditions of Kyro’s prophecy
fulfilled. The lady whom he was to meet on a journey, and with whom he
was to fall madly in love, was walking by his side, and speaking to
him in a voice which went straight to his heart, awakening hitherto
unknown chords of sweetness there. All the romance, the sentiment, and
the poetry, dormant in the nature of this singular young man, started
into life at the proximity of this charming creature, at once so
daring as a rider, so maidenly and gentle as a woman. Here was an
opportunity of applying his test. He remembered it, and said
unhesitatingly, in answer to Miss Cranstoun’s question:

“My friend is Lord Carthew.”

“Oh!”

It must have been fancy, he told himself, but her ejaculation seemed
to express disappointment; and he noticed that she did not, when they
struck into a wider path, walk as before by the side of the horse, but
remained in the rear, much to his own secret satisfaction.

“I am afraid we shall be disturbing your parents,” he said, after a
few moments’ silence.

“My father is in London,” she answered; “and mamma is an invalid.
Lately she has been more delicate than usual, and an old friend and
doctor of hers is happily staying with us, Dr. Morland Graham. I hope
he will be able to set your friend right again. I shall never forgive
myself if the wound proves to be a serious one.”

“I can’t see where you are to blame. It was my stupid blundering into
private property in the course of an evening stroll with my friend
that was the origin of the mischief, and our officious interference
during your ride. But your man was certainly too free with his powder
and shot. Have you had him in your service long?”

“Four or five years. He is very clever with dogs and horses. My father
has a special dislike against tramps, and Stephen, in his over-zeal
just now, was only obeying orders. The men are all told to frighten
away intruders from the grounds by any means in their power.”

“Still it’s rather drastic to shoot any chance stranger,” he
suggested; “especially as I have heard that the Chase is a very
interesting old historical mansion, and likely to attract
antiquarians.”

“People say that,” she answered, thoughtfully. “But I can never see
anything to admire in it myself. It is called mediæval, which makes
me feel sorry for the Middle Ages.”

“You have the most wonderful legends in your family--have you
not?--connected with your motto, ‘Cranstoun, Remember!’ I am greatly
interested in antiquarian researches, and my family--I mean Lord
Carthew’s family--being connected by marriage with your mother’s, has
made the hunting out of these tales of interest to me.”

“Is Lord Carthew related to my mother?” she asked, with interest. “She
will be very glad to welcome him and you also. You have not told me
your name?”

“Oh! it is so entirely undistinguished as to be hardly worth
mentioning. Claud Pritchard, farmer, from Yorkshire, on a short and
last tour with my old college friend before leaving England to try and
make my fortune in Canada.”

“Indeed!” she said. “You don’t look in the least like a farmer. But
here is the Chase.”

The great, gloomy pile stood before them, occupying a considerable
space of land, but hemmed in so closely with trees that its full
dimensions were somewhat lost on the spectator. Lights burned here and
there in the windows, but the whole impression given by the ivy-hung,
gray stone building was one of prison-like silence and solitude.

Stephen Lee’s sturdy ringing of the deep-toned bell brought a man
servant in sombre livery to the door, who, after exchanging a few
words with the young gamekeeper, descended the broad, shallow steps
between the grim-visaged stone wolves that guarded the entrance, and
offered to assist Hilary into the house. Miss Cranstoun meanwhile had
disappeared into the house. As Lord Carthew and his friend entered it,
she returned to greet them on the threshold, accompanied by a portly,
gray-haired man of between fifty and sixty, to whom she was rapidly
explaining the situation.

The great bare hall, with its timbered roof, and four motionless
figures in full armor ranged between the worn and faded tapestry on
the walls, surmounted by trophies of arms and implements of the chase,
which glittered as the firelight played on them, struck Lord Carthew
as a perfectly fitting background for Miss Cranstoun’s slender figure
and the strange ethereal beauty of her face. Amid petty or
conspicuously modern surroundings she would have seemed, so he told
himself, wholly out of place.

Other impressions crowded upon him. For one thing, the servants all
looked bewildered and alarmed, and even in the fashionable London
doctor’s manner there was a touch of constraint, as though he was not
quite certain of his ground. As for Hilary the hall and every one in
it seemed rocking round him. The pain in his shoulder was acute, and
the action of riding had caused the blood to burst through the
temporary bandages over the severe gunshot wound which Stephen Lee’s
weapon had inflicted. He had hardly heard what was being said about
him as they led him to a room, the library, as he afterwards learned,
and laid him on a sofa, at which point he very quietly fainted.

When he came to, he was lying on an old-fashioned four-poster bedstead
in a great, ghost-like apartment, hung with tapestry--as he afterwards
learned, a guest-chamber of the Chase. A woman was on her knees trying
to persuade a fire to burn in a seldom-used chimney, and another
servant, elderly and dark-complexioned, stood near his bedside,
attending to the instructions of Dr. Morland Graham, while Lord
Carthew watched him from the foot of the bed.

“You place the bandage so,” the doctor was saying, “and as soon as he
recovers consciousness, give him a dose of this. Your friend has had a
nasty accident, Mr. Pritchard, but a man of his superb physique will
soon get over a trifle of this kind, provided that fever does not
intervene. What a magnificently made young man Lord Carthew is, to be
sure! Quite unlike his father the Earl. I was dining with Lord
Northborough a few weeks ago. I suppose you will let him know of his
son’s accident?”

“Leave that to me,” returned Claud, promptly.

A voice from the bed attracted their attention at this point:

“What on earth are you two talking about? And where am I?”

“Hush, hush! my dear Lord Carthew! You really must not excite
yourself. You are in very good hands indeed. I informed Lady Cranstoun
that you must not be moved to-night, and she instantly insisted that
you and Mr. Pritchard should be her guests until you have completely
recovered. She is greatly distressed at your accident, I assure you.
I must leave you now and join the ladies at dinner, which has been
postponed for over an hour. You will soon be about again, believe me.”

“But why do you call me Lord Carthew?” Hilary inquired, trying to sit
up.

The doctor exchanged a sympathetic glance with Claud.

“Poor fellow!” he murmured. “Loss of blood--consequent weakness. He is
wandering in his mind.”




 CHAPTER III.
 A SIREN.

As soon as the doctor had left the room, Hilary endeavored to
struggle into a sitting position, from which he was restrained by
Margaret, who had been told off to nurse him.

“Do, pray, keep quiet, my lord; you will undo all the doctor’s work.
Now, take your medicine and lie still, please.”

“I’ll take the medicine if you like, but on condition that you go away
then, nurse, if you please, and leave me to talk to my friend here.”

“Don’t let him talk too much and excite himself,” was Margaret’s
parting admonition to Lord Carthew as she left the room.

As soon as they were alone, Hilary plunged into his subject,
regardless of his friend’s warning gesture. From where he lay on the
bed, the wounded man could not see the kneeling figure of the servant
over the fire on the farther side of the great, bare room.

“What is all this foolery about changing names with me?” he began. “It
must be stopped at once. I won’t stay for five minutes in the house
under false pretences.”

“I am afraid you won’t be able to do much more with that fire,” Lord
Carthew observed, raising his voice as he addressed the servant, while
he glanced meaningly at his friend.

“I am afraid not, sir,” returned the woman, civilly. A few moments
later she left the room, and carefully applied her ear to the keyhole
outside, from which position she was enabled now and then to overhear
scraps of the conversation within.

“Now let us talk this matter out quietly and in as few words as
possible,” Lord Carthew began, drawing a chair to his friend’s
bedside. “What does it matter to you for twenty-four hours what they
call you? You will probably never see any of these people again. I
have introduced us both in one set of names to Miss Cranstoun, and she
has passed us on under those names to the doctor and to her mother.
It’s impossible to go back now. You had agreed to the arrangement
which we started earlier in the day. There is no reason why we should
not play our little comedy out just because an unlucky accident has
intervened.”

“I utterly decline to be a party to such nonsense,” exclaimed Hilary,
angrily, the blood rushing to his face. “It’s all very well for you. A
man who assumes a rank lower than his own is at worst a romantic fool;
but a commoner who tries to pass himself off as a lord is a paltry
cad, and it’s a situation I won’t fill for a single moment.”

“You can’t alter things now, as I said before,” Lord Carthew urged.
“When it comes out--I should say, if it comes out at any time that we
have changed places--I shall own up that it was a foolish freak of
mine, carried out in spite of your opposition. Now lie still and try
to go to sleep, there’s a good fellow. I can’t eat a second dinner,
and I’m certainly not in drawing-room trim. Still I want to see as
much of my--or rather of your--relatives as I can while we’re here, so
that unless there’s anything I can do for you----”

“There’s certainly something you can do,” roared the wounded man, “and
that at once. You must contradict your former ridiculous statement,
and explain our true positions instantly to Miss Cranstoun and her
mother. Otherwise, I shall get out of bed and go downstairs and do it
myself, in spite of all the doctors in England.”

Almost before he had finished speaking, Lord Carthew had left the
room, so quickly indeed that he barely escaped stumbling over the
kneeling form of the servant outside the door, who immediately
affected to be occupied in straightening the mat. He was extremely
sorry for Hilary’s accident, and most anxious to see him well out of
it. But he was also already fathoms deep in love, and longing to feast
his eyes upon Miss Cranstoun again; besides had not the doctor
declared that Hilary would be all right provided that fever did not
follow, and that he must not be allowed to excite himself by talking?

In the oak-panelled dining-room, Lord Carthew found three persons
seated at dinner, and he was instantly struck by the utter absence of
resemblance between Lady Cranstoun and the young girl whom he supposed
to be her daughter. The former was just such a Douglas as he had
described to Hilary; tall, sandy-haired, and limp, with a thin face, a
high nose and colorless blue-gray eyes under white lashes, a perfectly
well-bred and entirely uninteresting personage of about
eight-and-forty years of age, in gray silk, shrouded by a voluminous
white knitted shawl of Shetland wool.

She gave Lord Carthew a long, nerveless, white hand in greeting, and
inquired after his friend, expressing her regret at the accident. Even
while answering her polite inquiries, Claud’s eyes involuntarily
travelled to the face of Miss Cranstoun, who, dressed in a girlish
dinner costume of ivory silk, sat beside Dr. Morland Graham. In the
lamplight she looked even more attractive than in the half-obscurity
in which he had before seen her. Her cheeks had but little color as
contrasted with the vivid scarlet of her lips, but to Lord Carthew’s
keenly observant eyes, this pallor, and the extraordinary brightness
of her eyes, suggested in no way ill health, but rather a vivid and
ardent nature under strong repression. Her gown was cut low about the
throat, and the sleeves were little more than elbow length, showing
off the fairness and purity of her skin and the delicacy of her slim
wrists. A turquoise brooch was her only ornament, and seemed to carry
out in color the intense blue of her eyes between the black pupils and
the nearly purple borders to the iris. Her whole appearance was poetic
and interesting in a high degree, but the young viscount remarked that
her manner had lost something of its naïve frankness, and had become
more sedate and restrained than before.

“I am the more interested in Lord Carthew,” Lady Cranstoun was saying,
“because we are connections. Lord Northborough’s mother was a Douglas,
and my aunt.”

She spoke in slow, unmusical tones, with a slight Scotch accent. Lord
Carthew rightly judged that, being a Douglas, she would have an
exaggerated pride of birth, which was indeed the poor lady’s chief
weakness. A single question from him sufficed to start her on her
favorite subject of the numerous marriages and relationships of her
father, the Duke of Lanark’s, family. As her appetite was poor, and no
one could be rude enough to interrupt her at her own table, she was
soon deep in the intricacies of the Douglas ancestry and Douglas
marriages, while Dr. Graham set himself steadily to enjoy the good
fare before him, and Miss Cranstoun kept her eyes steadily fixed on
her plate, her cheeks flushed, and her dark eyebrows contracted with
annoyance.

The dinner was good, the wines were few but excellent, and the greater
part of the table service was in solid old silver, adorned with the
motto “Cranstoun, Remember,” and the mailed hand grasping a wolf’s
head, which was the family device. Opposite Lord Carthew, as he sat at
table, there hung a portrait of a man in armor, whose sinister light
eyes seemed to follow his every movement. Look which way he would,
from Stella Cranstoun’s beautiful face to the doctor’s plump, bland
visage, or Lady Cranstoun’s washed-out countenance, Lord Carthew found
his gaze fascinated and held by the pale, square, inscrutable face of
the man in armor, about whose narrow, close-shut lips a bitter smile
seemed to be playing.

“That is a wonderful picture opposite, Lady Cranstoun,” he felt
compelled to say at last. “By this light and at this distance I can
hardly distinguish whether it is really old, or only painted in the
old manner.”

His hostess did not at once answer him, and he noted that she grew a
shade or two paler, and that a frightened, furtive look came into her
eyes. Miss Cranstoun ceased speaking to the doctor, and looked
inquiringly toward her.

“The picture is modern,” Lady Cranstoun said at last, and paused
again.

“It is a portrait of my father,” Stella added, with marked, even, as
it seemed, defiant distinctness.

“An excellent piece of work, is it not?” Dr. Graham remarked, breaking
in upon the silence which followed Miss Cranstoun’s statement. “The
tone really reminds me of a Murillo--so dignified, and sombre, and
mellow. Quite a harmony in gray, as we should call it in our
latter-day studio slang. The work attracted considerable attention
when it was hung in the Royal Academy five years ago. You see Sir
Philip is represented in a suit of armor worn by a member of his own
family at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. In his hand he holds a sword
with lowered point, and he stands as though waiting for an enemy to
attack him. The manipulation of the armor is most dexterously
rendered, the effect of a low light upon it from the sky being
reproduced admirably, really admirably. Herkomer has never done
anything better.”

Involuntarily, as the doctor rambled on in his deep mellifluous tones,
Lord Carthew’s eyes left Sir Philip’s portrait, and fixed themselves
upon the face of his daughter. For one brief moment he caught upon her
lovely features a cold, mocking expression almost identical with that
which distinguished her father’s; but almost before he had had time to
feel shocked and astonished thereby, Stella had turned to the doctor,
and was asking him if he knew anything of the pictures which would
attract the most attention at the forthcoming Academy exhibition, and
listening with apparent interest to his replies.

In answer to Claud’s inquiry whether she went often to London to see
the pictures, Miss Cranstoun answered that she had only been in London
three or four times in her life.

“I read all about pictures and music in the ladies’ papers,” she said.
“Mamma is so delicate, the journey to London tires her. But next month
I am to be presented by my grandmamma, the Duchess of Lanark, and
then, I suppose, I shall be taken to see everything.”

“You must be looking forward to your _début_, I imagine?” said Lord
Carthew.

She looked across at him steadily, and then answered quietly:

“I suppose I ought to. But mamma will be dull without me.”

“Indeed I shall, my dear child,” Lady Cranstoun returned, with a look
toward the young girl of so much kindness and affection that in
Claud’s eyes it redeemed her plainness.

After the dessert had been served on heavy silver salvers, Lady
Cranstoun rose, and followed by her daughter, glided quietly from the
room. A pause attended their exit. Then Lord Carthew observed
suddenly:

“If that portrait really resembles my absent host, he must be a man of
very singular and striking appearance.”

“He is indeed,” returned Dr. Graham, with emphasis. “Shall we adjourn
to the smoking-room? The tapestry in this room is liable to be injured
by smoke.”

The smoking-room was the most genuinely comfortable room in the house
which Claud had yet seen. Presumably Sir Philip, realizing that
mediæval furniture did not blend with a proper enjoyment of Sir
Walter Raleigh’s weed, had in this one instance adopted wholly modern
and fashionable methods of decoration. The books which filled a case
against the wall were nearly all French novels, the lounges were the
perfection of comfort, and everything, from the shaded lamp to the
liqueur stand, was from a London West-end firm.

As Dr. Graham closed the door upon them Lord Carthew unconsciously
heaved a sigh of relief. He himself had been reared in a spacious
ancestral home, and had spent his boyhood between Northborough Castle
in the Isle of Wight, Belgrave Square in London, and the comfortable
country seat which his father had built himself in Norfolk. But Lord
Northborough was both a man of the world and a patron of the arts,
while Claud’s American mother seized with avidity upon every new
device for beautifying her homes. The solemn bareness of the Chase was
wholly new to him, and being keenly sensitive, Lord Carthew was,
moreover, oppressed by an indefinable sentiment in the air of chilly
gloom and repression, which Lady Cranstoun’s dejected, nervous
manners, and the compressed lips of her beautiful daughter, helped to
accentuate.

“Now tell me, Dr. Graham,” he began, stretching his feet toward the
pleasant warmth of the wood fire, “what manner of man is this Sir
Philip Cranstoun? I have heard a good deal about him, and I am rather
anxious to meet him.”

Dr. Graham stirred the fire, cleared his throat, and glanced somewhat
apprehensively round the room.

“Sir Philip Cranstoun,” he began, “is a man of five or six and forty,
in the prime of life, in fact, a stanch Conservative and belonging to
one of the oldest families in England.”

“Yes, I know all about that. But what I mean is--what is he like in
his own home, toward his family, for instance, and his servants?”

“Sir Philip,” returned the wary doctor, “is a good deal away, and Lady
Cranstoun’s health does not permit her to accompany him to Scotland,
or even to London. Miss Cranstoun, who is a most devoted daughter,
invariably remains by her mother’s side, and has, I believe, never
been out of England. But she has had every advantage of education;
masters and mistresses have attended at the Chase ever since she was
five years old, when I first made her acquaintance, to instruct her in
English, French, German, Italian and Latin, music, singing, painting,
dancing, and calisthenics; she is also an admirable horsewoman.”

“The last I know from personal observation,” returned Lord Carthew.
“But we were speaking of her father. Is he not proud of such a lovely
and accomplished daughter?”

The doctor glanced at him slyly out of the corners of his worldly,
good-natured eyes.

“I presume, Mr. Pritchard,” he said, “that you are acquainted with
some details of the daily life here and do not need any enlightenment
from me?”

“Not at all,” Lord Carthew answered, frankly. “But I am of an
observing disposition, and I have already formed an impression that
every one in this house is cowed and dominated by its master, his
daughter included.”

“You are perfectly right,” the doctor assented, after a short pause.
“Miss Cranstoun is a charming girl; I like and admire her greatly. But
it is useless to deny the friction which occasionally results from her
father’s admonitions. Sir Philip is--er--well--he is not a popular
man, and Miss Cranstoun, well-bred and affectionate as she most
certainly is by nature, is not the kind of girl to endure being
_driven_. She has a good deal of her father’s spirit, in short. Most
certainly she does not get it from her mother, although when I knew
Lady Gwendolen Douglas before her marriage, she was the handsomest and
liveliest of the Duke of Lanark’s daughters. She has altered very
greatly, very greatly indeed.”

Reading between the doctor’s words, Lord Carthew realized several
things which the former left unsaid. For one, that Sir Philip was an
intolerable tyrant and despot, who tried to grind the hearts of his
amiable wife and lovely daughter under the iron heel of his will; for
another, that between him and Stella Cranstoun an incessant struggle
was waging; and for still another, that Dr. Morland Graham cordially
disliked the baronet, although he was too politic to put his feelings
into actual words.

“I very much hope,” Dr. Graham went on musingly, as he contemplated
the glowing tip of his cigar, “that Miss Cranstoun will soon be
happily married.”

A keen pang of jealousy shot through Lord Carthew’s heart.

“Has she any avowed admirer then?” he inquired, in would-be careless
tones.

“Dear me, no! Beyond her French and German masters, and the old vicar
of Grayling, and myself, she has hardly had any acquaintance with the
other sex. A more absolutely fancy-free young lady, I should say,
never existed. But she has so much charm and individuality, as well as
beauty, that when once she enters into social life in London, under
the judicious guardianship of her grandmother, the Duchess of Lanark,
there is not much doubt that suitors will not long be lacking.
Although I understand that the Chase is in strict entail to the heirs
male of the Cranstoun family, as well as the Scotch property, Sir
Philip’s daughter will no doubt be some day possessed of a very
comfortable little income, which in these extravagant, money-loving
days,” added the doctor, smiling, as he took a cup of coffee which a
servant brought into the room at that moment on a silver salver, “is a
thing which is supposed to enhance any young lady’s attraction.”

Lord Carthew said nothing, and remained for a short time plunged in
thought. Not only had he fallen in love at first sight, but his
instinct had happily guided his affections to exactly the right
object. In spite of his thin veneer of almost revolutionary theories,
Lord Northborough’s heir was at heart a Tory and an aristocrat, and
Sir Philip’s daughter was a thousand times the more desirable in his
eyes because she was a Cranstoun on her father’s side, and
granddaughter to the Duke of Lanark. Had he experienced the same
overmastering feeling of instantaneous love for a lowly-born girl, he
would certainly have regretted it, and would possibly have done his
best to conquer it. But in this case no such self-restraint was
necessary. If only he could gain her affection, above all in the
homely guise of Mr. Pritchard, son to a Yorkshire yeoman, perfect
married happiness awaited him.

Dr. Morland Graham, leaning back in his chair, smoking, and enjoying
an after-dinner mood of benevolent calm, watched his companion with
some amusement, and wondered for what freak Lord Northborough’s son
and heir, bearing a strong resemblance to his father and sporting on
his finger a signet-ring upon which his family crest was plainly
discernible as he held his cigar to his lips, was wandering about the
county under the alias of Pritchard. Dr. Morland Graham liked to be on
good terms with his aristocratic patients; he liked to know their
little secrets, and they, being only mortal, were usually ready enough
to confide them to “that dear kind, sympathetic Dr. Graham.” He knew
quite well that the Earl and his wife were extremely anxious to see
their only son, the “mad viscount,” married and settled, and it
occurred to the worthy doctor that this might be an excellent
opportunity for ameliorating the lot of Stella Cranstoun, who, once
under the protecting care of a husband of wealth and position, would
be free forever from the petty tyranny of her absolutely detestable
father.

Lord Carthew knew nothing of the doctor’s musings. One thought alone
possessed him. To see Stella as soon as possible, to talk to her, to
draw her out of her reserve and gradually get her to confide in him.
As if divining his wishes, Dr. Graham suggested an adjournment to the
drawing-room, and proposed to Lady Cranstoun, who was reclining on a
sofa, a game of chess.

The drawing-room was extremely large, and furnished in a chilly,
old-fashioned style. The faded carpet belonged to the first years of
Queen Victoria’s reign and was covered by day with a drugget, for Sir
Philip Cranstoun was economical to stinginess in the appointment of
his household. The walls were painted in white and gold, the furniture
was of old-fashioned shape, covered by day with chintz, and
resplendent at night in amber satin. A grand piano and a harp seemed
lost in the distant and ill-lighted recesses of the room, which
curtained four long windows opening on to a stone terrace at the back
of the house. Near a tall standard lamp Lady Cranstoun’s sofa was
standing, and close by, on a cushion on the hearthrug, her slender
arms clasping her knees, and her eyes fixed on the fire, Stella
Cranstoun was seated, with the head of a handsome collie dog resting
on her knee.

As the two gentlemen entered the room, she looked up quickly, but did
not speak, and it was only after the doctor had suggested the game of
chess that Miss Cranstoun inquired eagerly:

“How is he now? Is he better?”

Lord Carthew flushed guiltily. In his desire to see Stella again he
had forgotten his friend completely. But the doctor’s conscience was
not so sensitive, and he answered, in his blandest professional tones,
that Lord Carthew had been given a sedative before dinner, and that it
was not advisable to disturb him at present.

“You haven’t been up then?” Stella murmured reproachfully to Claud,
while Lady Cranstoun rang for the footman to remove her coffee-cup and
to draw the chess-table up to her sofa.

“No. The nurse said he must not excite himself by talking.”

He felt it was rather a lame excuse, the more so as he felt her dark
eyes fixed almost indignantly upon his face.

“You see,” she said, lowering her gaze, and slightly blushing, “I feel
that the accident was all my fault, and that is what makes me so
anxious.”

“I will go at once, and let you know how he is,” he returned, and left
the room for that purpose after she had rewarded him with a smile of
gratitude.

Hilary was not asleep. He was tossing in bed, with flushed cheeks and
bright eyes. Margaret, the nurse, was in the room, so he addressed his
friend in an indignant torrent of broken French.

“What possesses you to let the servants suppose you and I have changed
places?” he burst out, angrily. “I simply won’t stand their ‘my
lording’ me much longer. I didn’t come here to be made a fool of.”

His noisy, excited manner was so unlike his usual easy-going and
pleasant disposition that Lord Carthew, watching him, could not but
conclude that he was feverish, especially as Hilary seemed desperately
thirsty. After handing him some ice, which by the doctor’s orders had
been placed by the bedside, Lord Carthew took a seat near, and tried
to calm him, while Margaret discreetly left the room.

“Look here, Hilary,” he said, “I will confess the truth. I have fallen
in love at last, and Kyro’s prediction is fulfilled. That is why I so
particularly wish to remain Mr. Pritchard for a few hours longer.”

Hilary became suddenly quiet.

“It’s that crazy girl who took the jump, and whose obstinacy and
foolhardiness brought me this nice little charge of gunshot in my
shoulder, I suppose?” he said.

“It is Miss Cranstoun certainly, but--”

“Oh! spare me a lover’s rhapsodies, old chap. Under the circumstances,
you can scarcely expect me to regard her as you do.”

“She is more sorry about the accident than I can possibly tell you,
and blames herself entirely----”

“Oh, I dare say. Well, go back and make love to her by all means. What
is that?”

The sweet notes of a pure soprano voice were wafted up to them from
the drawing-room immediately below. Some one was singing the Lorelei
to the accompaniment of harp.

Lord Carthew crossed to the door and held it open. Something wild and
plaintive in the quality of Stella’s voice, for he knew well the
singer could be none other than she, touched him deeply, and seemed to
draw him like a magnet to her side. Holding the door open, he glanced
at the bed whereon Hilary lay with closed eyes and frowning brows, as
though asleep, an impression which he carried out further by remaining
silent when Claud addressed him.

Feeling his conscience freed from responsibility, Lord Carthew
returned to the drawing-room. Lady Cranstoun and the doctor were deep
in their game of chess, and in the half light he could see Stella
seated at the harp, across the strings of which her delicate hands
were straying, while the last note of the old German _volkslied_
lingered on her lips, a strangely poetic picture of beauty and harmony
which Lord Carthew was destined to carry in his mind for all time.




 CHAPTER IV.
 ENEMIES.

As Lord Carthew approached, the girl ceased playing.

“Is he better?” she asked. “Will my singing disturb him?”

“It will soothe him, I should say. Only a faint sound of it can be
heard in his room. He seemed to fall asleep just as I left.”

“Did you tell him,” she asked, with flushed cheeks and lowered lashes,
while her fingers strayed over the strings without striking them, “how
very, very sorry I am for my thoughtless folly?”

“You are too hard upon yourself,” he said, taking a seat near her, and
drinking in every detail of the charming picture before him, “and to
ease your mind I will make a confession. My friend and I--or, at
least, I can answer for myself--were prompted by impertinent curiosity
when we entered your grounds. It was not by accident that we strayed
into them, but of malice prepense. The fact is, we are both devoted to
horseflesh, and as we rambled about, smoking, in a wood by the
wayside, you flashed past us on your black horse, and took a jump
which seemed almost impossible. In our admiration and delight, we
forgot the rules which hold good with regard to our neighbor’s
landmark, and scrambling up the bank and over the wall, and down the
bank again, we forced our way through the trees and sighted you again.
Your horse was rearing and plunging; by the half light at that
distance it seemed as though he had got the bit well between his
teeth, and was running away with you, and your scream strengthened
that impression. Then came our unlucky interference, and its
deplorable result.”

“Did you think that jump impossible?” she asked, turning wide-open
eyes upon him. “Zephyr and I often take it. Zephyr can jump almost
anything. He goes out of his way to find jumps, and he is never
happier than when he finds something that looks difficult.”

“Aren’t your people afraid lest some accident should befall you when
you ride about the park unattended?”

“My people?”

She looked at him in surprise as she spoke, and then in some confusion
struck several chords lightly on the harp.

“My father is a great deal away,” she said, in a somewhat constrained
tone; “and of course, I do not make mamma nervous by telling her the
pranks Zephyr and I enjoy together.”

“You are fond of riding?”

“Fond of it!” she repeated, slowly, while her face lit up with sudden
enthusiasm; “I could not live without it. After a certain number of
hours have passed in the house, my foot seems to tingle to be in the
stirrup again, and my fingers burn to take hold of the reins. Whatever
the weather it is the same; I want to be away and outside and in it!
If I hear the wind wailing and sighing in the trees round the house, I
long to feel it whirling round me, blowing sad thoughts away; and even
when a thunderstorm is at its height, it seems to draw me like a
magnet. I want to be part of the storm, drenched with the rain,
wrapped round with the lightning, horse and I both stirred to the last
touch of quivering excitement, driven along, with the thunder rumbling
and crashing behind us! Then I feel alive and happy--so happy that I
can rise in my saddle and scream like a child from sheer delight!”

In the low light where they sat, he could see the faint color come and
go in her face as the eager words came softly from her parted lips.
Her eyes shone out like sapphire stars and seemed to glow with some
inner light. To him she was not a nineteenth century young English
lady, but a princess from a fairy tale.

“What would you do,” he asked, half laughing and half tenderly, “if by
some accident or illness you were kept a prisoner in the house?”

“I should die--if it were in _this_ house,” she answered quietly,
looking straight into his face for the first time. “I suppose to you,
who are a stranger here, the Chase appears simply an interesting old
historical mansion. To me it seems a prison, haunted by the spirits of
all the women who have been unhappy here.”

“You have studied the records and legends of your family, no doubt?”

“They were given to me as soon as I could read. Before I heard of
Cinderella and the Sleeping Beauty, I had gone through those horrible
tales of treachery and murder, and tyranny. Cranstouns of mediæval
times hardly ever died in their beds, and the lives of their ladies
were records of martyrdom, except in those cases when they also had
some spirit, and turned against their brutal lords. Pride of race,
cruelty, cunning, and revengefulness--there you have the dominant
notes in the characters and lives of my ancestors, qualities which to
me are all equally hateful.”

“Yet if there is anything in heredity, you should be intensely proud
of your family on both sides,” he said. “The Douglases are to the full
as proud as any Cranstoun can be.”

“But mamma wears her pride with a difference,” she said, quickly. “It
is more like the interest any one might take in some heirloom, not
because it is something peculiar to herself, and raising her above all
other people. It is impossible to imagine any one more gentle and kind
than mamma. She suffers a deal, and bears it beautifully. Her heart
constantly troubles her, yet she must be in terrible pain before she
utters a complaint. I am not a bit like her, I am sorry to say,” she
added, humbly. “I shall never have her gentleness, her patience and
resignation. When I am angry, I hate--mamma is incapable of hatred. I
don’t know how I should have lived at all but for her constant
kindness.”

Tears suddenly gathered in Miss Cranstoun’s eyes. Hastily brushing
them away, she turned to Lord Carthew with a sweet smile.

“I ought to apologize,” she said, “for my very bad manners in talking
of myself and my private affairs to you when I have never met you
before to-day. But somehow I hardly feel that you are a stranger.”

She spoke in all simplicity, but the most practised coquette could
hardly have chosen words better calculated to heighten the feelings of
love and admiration which filled the young man’s heart.

She should be painted just so for the Academy, he was telling himself,
seated at her harp, with one little hand showing off the supple wrist,
slim fingers, and rosy nails, as it strayed over the strings. But what
painter could reproduce her charm, the purity of her eyes and lips,
the girlish grace of her form, and especially that light shining round
her dilated pupils? Would Millais understand her temperament, and do
her justice? Hardly. Sargent might. Yes, it must be painted by
Sargent, this picture of a young girl in simple white silk
dinner-dress, playing a harp before a hazy background; and the name of
the picture should be “Portrait of Viscountess Carthew.”

Meanwhile, he was telling her that so far from boring, her talk had
interested him greatly.

“I am honored by what you say,” he said, “when you tell me I do not
seem wholly a stranger to you. It is the more amiable of you to treat
me with such gracious cordiality as I am not at all in your own sphere
of life, but just what is now called a ‘gentleman farmer,’ and in the
old days before the term gentleman was invented, was simply yeoman, a
name quite good enough for me. Altogether, a poor, struggling, and
undistinguished person, whose parents denied themselves every luxury
to give him a college education, by which he had not the wits to
profit; just capable of those simple and ineffective qualities of
gratitude, affection, and loyalty, and capable of very little else,
believe me.”

She turned her sweetest smile upon him.

“Do you know,” she said, nodding confidentially towards him, “that I
believe that is just the reason why I feel as if we were already
friends? All my life I have had the value of birth and rank
exaggerated to me. I have been taught to consider myself made of too
fine a stuff to associate with any one in the neighborhood. I have
never been allowed to play with other children, and when I was a baby
child my nurses were constantly changed lest I should get too fond of
any one so low and common as a nurse. I have been given the ‘Peerage,’
and the ‘County Families of England,’ and ‘Tales of Aristocratic
Families,’ and ‘Legends of Ancestral Houses,’ and similar books, to
amuse myself with ever since I could read; my German master was a
decayed baron, and my French tutor the son of a marquis. I have always
been forbidden to speak to the servants, except to give orders, and
they also are very frequently changed. This is particularly so in the
case of the lady’s maid who waits upon mamma and me; she never remains
longer than a year, usually only a few months, just long enough to
learn our ways and suit us. And do you know what the consequence of
all this has been? As soon as I could be free from the presence of my
nursery-governess--a very stiff person of over fifty, who could not
forget she had once been in a duke’s family--I used to run away to my
great, bare nursery, and dressing my dolls in rags, would pretend they
were peasants, and hop-pickers, and beggars. And especially,” she
added, her face lighting up with a mischievous gleam, “I loved making
my dolls into poachers and tramps, and, best of all, gypsies. This was
sheer naughtiness, I know, because Margaret had once told me that Sir
Philip particularly detested gypsies, and that I was never on any
account to mention them before him. I used to get up a little play in
which a gypsy was unjustly accused of stealing and tried for it before
my father, who was represented by a black-faced doll in a red coat. My
father would try the gypsy and condemn him to be hanged, and then,
just as the sentence was being carried out, a gallant young gentleman
doll would come riding up on the shaft of an old wheelbarrow and cut
him down. There was no game I enjoyed playing so much as that.”

Lord Carthew laughed with her, but was a good deal touched at the same
time. The picture of the lonely child, snubbed and repressed and
deprived of all healthy young companionship, secretly planning
revolutionary dramas with her dolls, struck him as being equally
original and pathetic. Stella Cranstoun’s utter dissimilarity from the
young ladies of his acquaintance was a source of great delight to him.
Her perfectly clear and distinct enunciation and sweet-toned voice
came as a blessed relief after the fashionable high key and slipshod
speech in vogue in London at that time, which had been aptly aped by
the pretty Braithwaite girls. Stella’s somewhat old-fashioned method
of speech, which was that of a well-educated girl who had heard little
but read much, and her entire ignorance of slang and absence of
self-consciousness, were equally charming to him, The one desire of
fashionable women, as he knew well, is to speak, move, dress, and
behave in precisely the same style as the known leaders of society.
But Stella had no idea that it behooved her to mould herself on some
one else’s model; she was consequently altogether modest, natural, and
unaffected, and unlike any woman he had ever met before.

As to her strong natural sympathy with the poorer classes, the result,
as he imagined, of the repressive system on which she had been reared,
he himself affected and believed that he possessed the same quality.
Theoretically, he looked upon a costermonger as a man and a brother,
and failed to see the use of the House of Lords; practically, he
regarded the lower orders as interesting curiosities, and strongly
resented the admission of brewers into the peerage. Stella’s
republican sympathies would impel her, no doubt, in the direction of
soup-kitchens and schools when she became Lady Carthew, and
soup-kitchens and schools were very desirable outlets for the generous
instincts of a future countess. For under her gentle, graceful manner,
it was impossible for any one unacquainted with her earliest history
to detect an absolute hatred of aristocratic proclivities; in the
granddaughter of a Duke her unconventional sentiments were piquant and
interesting, and in no way suggestive of the fierce blood dormant in
the veins of the daughter of a gypsy.

Stella herself had not the least suspicion of her Romany descent. Not
a servant remaining at the Chase had seen the first Lady Cranstoun, or
knew aught of her beyond a brief record in the local papers of her
death, eighteen years ago, with the one exception of Margaret. And
even Margaret knew very little. Only that on the thirteenth day of
December, eighteen years ago, Dr. Ernest Netherbridge and two women
had arrived at the Chase, immediately after a farmer’s cart had
carried thither a certain bundle, from which feeble cries proceeded.
For fully an hour the visitors were closeted with Sir Philip in his
study, after which time they left in the carriage and were driven to
Grayling railway station, where the two women entered a train for
London. Three months later, at St. George’s, Hanover Square, Sir
Philip Cranstoun was married to the Lady Gwendolen Douglas, daughter
of the Duke of Lanark, a woman of no particular beauty and rather over
thirty years of age. The following Christmas the second Lady Cranstoun
gave birth to a girl, a weakly creature who, after a few days of
wailing remonstrance, faded out of this life altogether. The mind of
Lady Cranstoun, never of the strongest order, gave way under the
strain; in the care of nurses she was taken by her husband to London,
whence she returned in a few months’ time with a lovely dark-haired
and blue-eyed baby girl whom she persisted in regarding as her own, in
which belief was upheld by her husband, and by all those about her.

Thus the infant child of Clare Carewe the gypsy made her second entry
into the house of her ancestors, having been adopted in order to save
her stepmother’s wandering wits. For years Sir Philip, after his
wife’s complete recovery, hoped against hope that she might yet bring
him an heir; but fate was against him, and the gypsy’s child was the
only descendant he might now hope to possess.

Against this daughter, lovely and intelligent as she proved herself to
be, the Lord of Cranstoun Chase cherished a deep-rooted and immovable
dislike, which showed itself in every glance that he directed toward
her. The resemblance which she undoubtedly bore to the woman who had
defied him and fled from him intensified this feeling a hundredfold,
and the girl’s proud if silent rebellion against his harshness and
unkindness was a perpetual reminder of the untamable spirit which she
had inherited from her Romany ancestors.

He was morbidly fearful, too, lest that bad strain, as he considered
it, should some day break out in her, and prompt her to a course of
conduct which might bring discredit upon his name. All that could be
done in the way of conventional training, carefully supervised
reading, and a closely watched and guarded existence, he had resorted
to in her training. So far he could complain of nothing in Stella’s
conduct, except indeed, the scornful curl of her lip and flashing of
her dark eyes when he indulged in any fresh act of petty domestic
tyranny. All that man could do to wipe out the disgraceful mistake of
his first marriage he had already done. Not only had he chosen for
second wife a duke’s daughter and a Douglas, but he had brought up his
daughter Stella, the descendant of a long line of wild gypsy Carewes,
in the belief that she also was a Douglas by descent, and that the
Duke of Lanark’s daughter was her mother.

The excellent understanding which prevailed between Lady Cranstoun and
her supposed daughter, so far from pleasing, annoyed and irritated
him. The feeling he inspired in his wife was one of absolute terror.
To a woman of Lady Cranstoun’s weak and delicate health, the very
sound of her husband’s voice was painful. In his presence she was
conscious of a guilty and apologetic feeling. He had wished for an
heir to keep the estates among his children, and she had failed to
give him one; he had never loved her, and now he wished her dead.
Stella’s high spirit and determined will seemed a shield between her
and her husband’s displeasure, and the two ladies formed a party in
the house tacitly opposed to him, although forced to a show of
obedience and resignation.

As to the servants at the Chase, there were three women besides
Margaret and the lady’s maid, a butler and two footmen. Not one,
except Margaret, had been in the house more than two years, and
Margaret, the most discreet and silent of women, was retained chiefly
because she was able to explain their business to the newcomers, and
because of her notable expertness with her needle and as a sick-nurse.
But in a household staff of eight, Sir Philip had seldom much
difficulty in filling one post, that of spy. A quiet-mannered
housemaid named Dakin, noiseless and freckled, and white about the
eyelashes, was at present entrusted with the task of acquainting her
master, by letter, telegram, or word of mouth, concerning all the
details of home life at the Chase, and it was this person who had lit
the fire in the bedroom apportioned to Hilary, and who had
subsequently listened at the keyhole to scraps of the conversation
between the patient and his friend.

The result of her observation she decided to transmit at once to her
master, and during dinner she asked and obtained leave of absence from
housekeeper Margaret and hurried down toward the lodge gates, close to
which an inn and a few cottages were clustered about the small post
and telegraph office of the nearest village.

In her pocket Dakin carried a piece of paper upon which a cipher was
written, and by the aid of this she dispatched the following message
to Sir Philip Cranstoun’s telegraphic address in London:


 “This evening Stephen Lee shot a trespasser. Wounded man brought to
 house, also friend. Wounded man called Lord Carthew; friend called Mr.
 Pritchard. Staying here to be nursed. Have made discovery. Two men
 have exchanged names. Wounded man is Pritchard, friend Lord Carthew.

                                                     “Dakin.”


While this message was being dispatched to her lord and master in
London, Lady Cranstoun was peacefully enjoying her favorite diversion
of a game of chess with the doctor. Just after the successful
accomplishment of a somewhat difficult move, she remembered that her
daughter and Mr. Pritchard were being left altogether in
_tête-à-tête_ at the other end of the vast drawing-room. With her
fingers nervously touching a bishop, she appealed to her old friend
Dr. Graham.

“Ought I to leave Stella with a stranger?” she asked doubtfully. “She
has hardly ever talked so much to any one before, and Sir Philip would
be furious if there was any idea of a sentimental feeling between
Stella and this gentleman. You see, from what he says, he has no
money, or family, or anything. Sir Philip is so utterly bent upon
Stella making a brilliant marriage. Now if it had been his friend,
Lord Carthew--”

“Make your mind easy, my dear lady,” said the doctor, soothingly. “I
don’t think there is much fear of any _tendresse_ between Stella and
Mr. Pritchard. A little cheerful society will do her good.”

Thus reassured, Lady Cranstoun went on with her game, while Stella
naïvely questioned Lord Carthew about his life at Oxford, and he,
dropping for the moment his _rôle_ of undistinguished and
unintellectual farmer, talked his best to her concerning his way of
life and of study at the University.

“And Lord Carthew,” she asked softly; “was he a good scholar?”

“Not particularly. But there was no man like him for the long jump, or
for running either, in spite of his size. At cricket, football,
rowing, and swimming, it was the same. He was _facile princeps_. A
splendid fellow, isn’t he?”

“He is certainly very big. He is not clever, then?”

“Well, there are different sorts of cleverness. He doesn’t care very
much for reading if there’s a good horse to be had. And by the way, he
himself has a beauty--‘Black Bess,’ a long-neck, powerful creature,
who carries him as though he were no heavier than a cat.”

“Is Lord Carthew revengeful?” she asked presently. “I mean, do you
think he will ever forgive me?”

“Of course he would, if he had anything to forgive. What makes you
dwell upon that idea that he would blame you?”

“I heard what he said to you in the wood,” she answered, blushing
deeply.

Lord Carthew hardly knew how to explain away his friend’s harsh words.
Already he had been greatly surprised by Hilary’s antagonistic
attitude toward. Sir Philip’s lovely daughter, although, perhaps, in
his secret heart he was not ill-pleased thereby. Hilary had neither
the intention nor the desire to get married, and he was far too
handsome to be regarded without alarm as a rival. It was, therefore,
by no means a misfortune that he should have taken so strong a dislike
against Stella, although Lord Carthew was too loyal not to praise his
friend to her in his absence.

That evening was one of the most delightful he had ever experienced.
Every moment he fell deeper in love with this beautiful girl, who
seemed to realize the ideal of perfect womanhood which he had dreamed
of since he had arrived at man’s estate. Her manner to him was frank
and friendly, and she so evidently liked his society that he went to
bed feeling both hopeful and elated. Yet when the subject of his
thoughts retired to her own room, it is to be feared that Lord
Carthew’s image by no means occupied her mind.

The windows of her bedroom, large, gloomy, and scantily furnished like
the rest of the house, were open, and a flood of moonlight poured into
the room. Stella walked toward it, and stood within its silver
radiance, with delicate face upturned toward the stars.

“He must have disliked me very much to speak like that,” she murmured,
as she slowly began to unfasten her gown, without lighting the candles
on her dressing-table. “Will he ever forgive me, I wonder? I could ask
his pardon better if he were not what he is; if he and that kind Mr.
Pritchard could only change places!”

A sudden thought struck her, and caused her to quickly fasten her
dress again. Crossing the room she opened her bedroom door and
listened. There was no sound in the wide corridor, in which Lady
Cranstoun’s rooms as well as her daughter’s were situated. At the
other end was the guest-chamber assigned to the wounded man, while Dr.
Graham and Lord Carthew occupied rooms in another part of the house.

After a moment’s hesitation Stella ran lightly to the room occupied by
Hilary and tapped at the door, which was at once opened, as she
expected, by Margaret.

“How is he?” Stella whispered.

“He’s wandering, miss. Dr. Graham and the other young gentleman came
to see him, and he seemed asleep then, though the doctor didn’t quite
like the looks of him. But now he seems delirious, and if he gets
worse I must rouse the doctor. You needn’t fear to look in; he won’t
recognize you.”

Hilary’s face was flushed, and his brown eyes glittered unnaturally as
he muttered under his breath an unintelligible string of words and
tossed his head from side to side on the pillow.

Tears started to Stella’s eyes as she watched him.

“Margaret,” she said suddenly, “shall I try to soothe him with my
touch on his forehead? I always charm away mamma’s headaches.”

Margaret shook her head doubtfully.

“I don’t suppose you’ll have much effect,” she said, “but there’s no
harm in your trying.”




 CHAPTER V.
 COMING CONFLICTS.

Margaret stood on one side of Hilary’s pillow, and her young
mistress on the other, while the latter passed her slim fingers slowly
and lightly about the wounded man’s fevered forehead.

As the old servant watched her standing there in her white gown, her
pale sensitive face framed in blue-black hair, her black lashes
lowered over her luminous eyes, and her mouth hard set in the supreme
effort of will-power exercised over the troubled nerves of the
patient, the thought came to Margaret that it was truly astonishing
that any one could suppose Stella Cranstoun to be the daughter of Lady
Gwendolen.

Old Margaret was a silent woman, gifted with but little imagination,
and her knowledge of physiognomy was not sufficiently developed to
enable her to realize in what special features of the girl before her
the Cranstoun characteristics were grafted on the wild Carewe growth.
To Margaret’s way of thinking, Stella was not so handsome as her
mother, but “a deal more ladylike and amiable.” The first Lady
Cranstoun’s eyes were of a brown so dark that it appeared almost
black; until her last illness her figure and her handsome red mouth
was a trifle coarse in outline. There was no coarseness in Stella’s
face, but behind the eyes a light seemed to shine, telling of some
strange force and fire within, kept in check by a determined will. Her
touch was instinct with magnetism, and soon Hilary ceased his uneasy
tossing of his head on the pillows and seemed to pass from a fevered
nightmare into sweet and pleasant dreams.

Some one, he thought, some one very lovely, very tender, with dark
blue eyes and dusky hair, was soothing and caressing him. He could not
clearly see her face in his dream-fancies, but the feeling of her
presence was delightful, and presently, half-waking from what seemed a
feverish sleep, he heard her voice, sweet and rippling and sounding as
though it came from a long way off, speaking to some one.

“You see, Margaret, my touch has soothed him to sleep. I wish he were
not a lord.”

“That is just what would make your father like him, miss.”

“And just what would make me hate him as much as he hates me.”

“Why should he hate you?”

“Because I was the cause of his accident. I heard him speak so
bitterly about me to his friend. Margaret, do you think he will soon
get well?”

“Oh, yes. He’s only a bit weak and light-headed from loss of blood.
This time three days he will be miles away.”

“And I shall never see him again. Well, I am sorry. I must go now; he
seems to be sleeping quietly. Good-night, Margaret.”

For one moment more, Hilary felt her soft, cool finger-tips upon his
eyelids; then he realized that she was gone, and nothing left to him
but dreams of her.

“What is your name?” he asked of Margaret in the morning, while he was
still pondering how much of his over-night dreams had been true.

“Margaret, my lord.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” he said, irritably and relapsed
into silence.

Meantime, Lord Carthew had also spent the night in dreaming of Stella
Cranstoun, and was looking eagerly forward to meeting her the next
morning.

When the breakfast-gong summoned him, he was shown into a room of
moderate size where the table was laid for two, and behind the tea-urn
he found the fair Stella awaiting him, with Lady Cranstoun’s apologies
for her absence.

“Mamma breakfasts in bed, if a cup of tea can be called breakfast, and
Dr. Graham had to leave for London half an hour ago,” Stella
explained, while Lord Carthew decided that by daylight, in blue serge
with a collar and cuffs of point lace as her only ornaments, she
seemed, if possible, even more desirable than in her riding-habit or
her white silk evening-gown on the preceding day.

Questioned about his friend, Lord Carthew declared that Hilary had a
good night and was certainly no worse.

“Very soon, indeed, he will be able to be moved, I believe,” he said.

“There need be no hurry about that,” she said hastily; and then, to
his great joy, she blushed.

“I hope we may have the pleasure of meeting Sir Philip Cranstoun
before we leave,” he observed presently, and at once noted how her
face clouded at the mention of her father’s name.

“I don’t know when he will return,” she said, and at once dropped the
subject.

A little questioning as to the way in which she spent her time
elicited the fact that already that morning, so early as half-past
six, Zephyr had been saddled, and had carried his mistress for half an
hour’s canter in the park.

“And tell me what you would like to do after breakfast,” she said.
“Would you care to see the curiosities of the Chase--old pictures, and
old armor, and old tapestries? Or would you like to quietly study the
books in the library or smoking-room, with a cigar? Or would you like
a ride or drive in the neighborhood?”

“If you haven’t had enough of riding, I should be very glad of a
mount, if you and Zephyr will be so kind as to accompany me. The fact
is, my friend and I have left our horses at an inn in a village close
by, and I am fearful as to how they may be treated if left longer to
the landlord’s tender mercies.”

“I shall not be more than a few minutes putting my habit on, and it
will be so nice to have some one to ride with,” she said with a
charming smile, as she left the room.

Mental pictures arose again in his mind. He imagined her riding in the
Row beside him, the “mad viscount” and his lovely bride, every man
there envying him his newly found treasure. Not only would she
outshine every woman there in beauty, but also in the management of
her horse. He pictured his friends and acquaintances clamoring for an
introduction, and Stella talking to them with her sweet seriousness
and total absence of coquetry and affectation. He longed, like any
romantic schoolboy, for her love, which he set himself with all his
heart and all his intellect to win.

She, for her part, liked him immensely. She had seen very few men, and
she did not think him ugly by any means, but most interesting looking.
She could not divine that as she accepted his aid to spring into her
saddle, the mere contact of her slim foot, resting birdlike, in his
hand, sent a quiver of delight through the young man’s frame. His
manner appeared so unemotional, his face so unmoved, that she never
once suspected the passion for her which was taking hold of his entire
mind and soul. Nor while she talked freely and gayly to him about the
tenantry and the country round, could _he_ guess that before her eyes
all the while there seemed to flit the remembrance of a bronzed and
handsome face, the brows contracted in pain, the strong white teeth
gnawing the lip under the drooping golden mustache, and the short
brown curls disordered on a shapely head against the white pillow.

So they rode and talked, under the pale green leaves that were
bursting into a delicate lace-work on the branches overhead, happy
together to all outward seeming, but at cross purposes in reality; he
thinking that she listened and understood, she believing him merely
friendly, and wishing she could change his sympathetic kindness for
the cold disapprobation of that other one who had been wounded through
her folly.

From the darker shadows of the undergrowth a pair of malevolent eyes
followed them.

“What is she talking so free and smiling with that ugly swell for?”
Stephen Lee asked himself. “Bad luck to the day when he and that
hulking giant trespassed into these grounds. I wish I’d ’a’ killed him
and this chap, too.”

Down in his fierce heart, Stephen Lee cherished a secret passion for
his beautiful young mistress, the existence of which she never once
suspected. Unknown to her, his destiny was influenced by hers, and he
was the means of communicating news concerning her at stated times to
some birds of evil omen who were sometimes to be found at nightfall
hovering within the confines of Cranstoun woods. Sir Philip would have
been furious indeed could he have guessed that a member of the hated
gypsy tribe had been for five years earning his living in his service;
yet such was the case. The handsome, black-bearded young keeper, known
as Stephen Lee, and one of the best men on the Cranstoun estates, was
a true Romany, and hated his master with a hatred to the full as
bitter as Sir Philip cherished against the entire gypsy tribe.

Yet at this moment, as he watched Stella and Lord Carthew ride by
laughing and talking gayly, Stephen found himself wishing Sir Philip
home again.

“The gray wolf would soon put a stop to this,” he said. “If it was the
other chap, the lord, he might forgive it. I know right enough he
means to try and marry her to some tip-top swell. But old Sarah will
see her way to prevent that, I reckon.”

He was muttering to himself, when a hard, rasping voice, speaking in
low tones immediately behind him, made him start in surprise.

“Is that the friend of the man you shot?”

Sir Philip himself stood among the brushwood, attired in a light tweed
suit, as cool and unmoved as though he had not been absent from home
for more than a month. The accident had only taken place on the
preceding evening, and Stephen judged by the small handbag that Sir
Philip was carrying, and by the direction from which he was coming,
that he had not been home. Yet already he was quite well acquainted
with what had taken place in the woods on the preceding evening. But
Stephen Lee had long before this suspected some system of spying by
which the master of the Chase contrived to inform himself of the
doings of his household in his absence, and he was not therefore much
surprised by Sir Philip’s question, to which he responded, after his
wont, in a civil monosyllable:

“Yes, sir.”

“This is the man called Pritchard?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How is Lord Carthew?”

“Better.”

“Did you shoot him accidentally?”

“Partly.”

“Explain yourself.”

“You have often told me to keep off tramps and trespassers and such
like,” the man answered, with a forced and rather sullen civility.
“Lord Carthew stopped Miss Cranstoun’s horse and seemed to be annoying
her. I fired to frighten him and he got hurt.”

“Ah!”

Sir Philip paused for a moment. His eyes followed the retreating
figures of Lord Carthew and Stella as, with their heads inclined
together in converse, they rode on together to a bend in the avenue
between the trees. Then he turned to Stephen, his face set and
mask-like as usual.

“You were only obeying orders,” he said, and threw the man half a
crown.

The gypsy picked it up and glowered after his employer as the latter
bent his steps towards the house.

“I’ll drink to your destruction in this world and the next,” he said;
“but I’m hanged if I can make out what you are up to. Old Sarah will
understand, perhaps. She’s a match in cunning even for _you_.”

All this time Lord Carthew was learning from Stella’s lips all that
there was to tell of her life as it was lived on the surface. She was
seventeen last Christmas, she told him, and she believed it to be
true, ignoring that first year of life which she had passed in London
as the unloved child of a gypsy mother. For months past she had been
trained in the correct way of bowing, kissing the Queen’s hand, and
backing out of the royal presence over her train by a duly qualified
lady, who had attended at the Chase in order to impart to her this
highly necessary instruction, and she made Lord Carthew laugh by her
lively description of these lessons.

“Don’t you feel horribly nervous about it?” he asked.

She turned her large black eyes upon him in surprise.

“Oh, no, not in the least,” she answered. “All this London trip I
should look forward to eagerly, I think, but for leaving poor mamma,
and--and for something else.”

He saw by the sadness in her look and the way in which she shut her
mouth fast that some especially anxious thought connected with this
stay in London troubled her.

“Won’t you tell me what is the other thing?” he asked, gently. “You
have already said you regard me as a friend, and it will be a relief
to you to tell me your worries, since you say you have never any one
to speak to.”

“I don’t know quite how to put it,” she said, as she meditatively
stroked her horse’s neck and ears with her whip. “It seems so
egotistical to be boring you with so much about myself. But this
season, this presentation to the Queen, and the balls and parties that
will follow, for which I have been trained so long, what will it all
mean in the end, but that I am to show off my graces and
accomplishments and wear smart clothes, so that I may attract an offer
of marriage? And if any come, there will be no question of love or
liking on my part; my father’s intention is just to hand me over to
the best bidder. The Chase is gloomy and dreary and prison-like, and I
am often very lonely; but it is a thousand times better than to be
married to the man who has the highest title and the largest fortune
among those who may condescend to take notice of me,” she went on,
bitterly. “Why, if I could stoop to such a marriage, there would not
be a scullery-maid at the Chase, or a cottager on my father’s
property, who would not have the right to despise me!”

“But you might meet some one among these men of rank and wealth whom
you might like,” suggested Lord Carthew. “Having a title and money
doesn’t absolutely debar any one from being capable of inspiring
love.”

“I suppose it is my training and my contradictory nature,” she said,
“but I must own that the fact of a man wearing a title would be a
reason with me for having a strong prejudice against him to start
with.”

“Isn’t that rather unfair?”

“I suppose it is; but I have had that formula that I was being
educated solely with a view to marrying ‘well,’ and adding extra
lustre to the name of Cranstoun dinned into me until I have revolted
against it. And I know that after this season, when I am to be taken
out and dressed, and inspected by eligible London bachelors, there
will be terrible quarrels between my father and me, which will worry
and terrify poor mamma beyond measure. You see, Mr. Pritchard,” she
said, turning to him with that sweet, frank smile he had already
learned to love, “I am indeed talking to you as though I had known you
all my life. I dare say it is a good deal what you told me about your
leaving England so very shortly which makes me so ready to confide in
you. It seems much easier to be frank with a friend whom one may not
see again for many years; and then when I heard you tell mamma your
people were just yeoman farmers, and that you had nothing in wealth or
position to be proud of, I warmed to you at once, and quite longed for
a talk with you. The very name of Cranstoun and the expressions ‘old
family,’ ‘county family,’ ‘blue blood,’ ‘rank, title, wealth,
position, and ancestry,’ somehow produce a feeling of intense
annoyance in me. I have been so much trained and preached to, in
fact,” she concluded, laughing, “that at heart I have reverted to the
savage, and that ideal of my father’s of which he constantly speaks as
my vocation in life, to marry some man of brilliant position and
fortune, is so detestably repugnant to me that I would far rather kill
myself than submit to it.”

He listened, deeply interested, but a little puzzled. The romantic
novelty of her sentiments amused and attracted him by their
dissimilarity from the point of view taken of such subjects by the
ordinary young Englishwoman of good education and good family, who is
usually quite as anxious as her parents and guardians to make what is
called “a good match,” and who only hopes that her future husband may
be presentable enough for her to like him.

The clew to the mystery of Stella’s character Lord Carthew did not
possess. As much as an emotional woman can dread and hate a man and a
system, so strongly had Stella’s mother hated and feared Sir Philip
Cranstoun and the aristocratic lords of the soil of whom he was a
representative, and a very strong measure of the same rebellion, the
same hatred, she had transmitted to her daughter. So that it
necessarily came about that Stella tried not to think about Hilary
Pritchard because she believed him to be Lord Carthew, while her heart
and sympathies went readily out to Lord Carthew, whom she believed to
be an altogether poor and undistinguished person.

This was exactly the state of mind in which her father, Sir Philip,
desired to find her. The far-seeing Baronet had some time ago set
himself to the task of investigating the means and position of certain
eligible bachelors among the aristocracy whom Stella was likely to
meet in London. And among these, few had a fairer record in the matter
of eligibility than Claud Edward Clayton Bromley, Viscount Carthew,
heir to the Earl of Northborough.

That horrible blot, the introduction of the gypsy Carewe element into
the annals of the Cranstouns, might well be wiped out by such an
alliance. Sir Philip’s keen eyes had noted what his daughter’s had
totally failed to observe, the intensity of Lord Carthew’s regard as
he turned toward Stella on his horse and drank in her words. As to
what the girl’s sentiments in the matter were, that did not trouble
Sir Philip for one moment. She had only been admitted into his
household on suffrage, he told himself, a wretched infant, born in a
hovel, and brought to his house by beggars. He did not know, so he
argued, that she was even his wife’s child at all. When he said this,
however, he lied, for the girl’s resemblance to her mother was very
striking. In any case, it was not for her own sake, but to save her
noble stepmother’s reason, that baby Stella was taken from her
hiding-place in London and brought up in her father’s house. And a
hundred times a day Sir Philip punished her for her lost mother’s
pride and passionate temper.

If she liked flowers and she planted them, orders were given for them
to be uprooted and destroyed. A Miss Cranstoun must not soil her hands
by gardening. No servant that she liked was allowed to be about her,
and in her growing girlhood books that she seemed to enjoy were
invariably taken away. These petty tyrannies Stella had endured for
years in proud silence. It was as though she had been reserving her
strength for some great struggle which was one day to take place, and
to alter for all time the relations between herself and her father.
For a long time she had felt it, as it were, hovering in the air, and
that it would be upon the subject of her marriage she had no doubt.
Only, she supposed that the trip to London would be the starting point
for their quarrel, nor could she guess that this kindly new friend,
who rode beside her and listened with such sympathetic interest to her
little troubles, would be closely associated with the crucial conflict
which was shortly to wage between herself and her father.




 CHAPTER VI.
 LORD CARTHEW’S WOOING.

Mine host at the wayside inn, where the two young men had left their
horses on the preceding day, was duly surprised and impressed by the
appearance of one of his guests in company with no less a personage
than Miss Cranstoun of the Chase.

Sir Philip Cranstoun was the innkeeper’s landlord, and although he had
hardly ever caught more than a fleeting glimpse of the young lady, he
knew who she must be by the livery of the groom, who rode at some
distance behind the young lady, and her cavalier, on a sturdy cob not
given to exerting himself.

“I assure you, sir, that I never had the least idea that you and Lord
Carthew wouldn’t come back to pay your little trifle here, as you
suggest,” the man said, all deference and smiles. “Seeing as you’d
left a hundred guineas or more of horseflesh in my stables, it wasn’t
likely, sir, was it?”

Stella at once begged to see the horses, and Lord Carthew hastened to
help her down from her saddle, a proceeding which took far too little
time in his opinion, for Stella was lithe and active as a sailor lad.
Gathering her neat, dark green habit into her small hand in its
dogskin glove, she followed the landlord and her guest to the inn
stables, while the groom held the horses upon which they had come.

Black Bess and the chestnut cob duly made their appearance, and were
stroked and made much of by Stella, who, somewhat to Lord Carthew’s
chagrin, manifested a decided preference for the big black mare.

“She isn’t what I call a ’andsome ’oss, either, if I may make so bold
as to say so,” observed the old hostler of the inn, critically. “At
least, not for such a young gentleman as his lordship. But she looks
like a good ’un to go and to stay. This ’ere chestnut of yours, sir,
’as a lot more blood in ’im now, ’asn’t ’e?”

“He has a long pedigree, certainly,” returned Lord Carthew. “But my
friend weighs fourteen stone against my ten, and wants more bone and
muscle than I do in his mount.”

“That ’e do, sure enough, sir. And this ’ere animal,” signifying Black
Bess, “she’d carry the Mayor and Corporation o’ London by turns all
day long and be as frisky as a colt at bedtime. She’s as strong as a
dray ’oss, she is.”

Stella’s fair cheek was pressed against Black Bess’ long, black satin
neck, and her soft, cooing voice, beloved of all dumb things, was
murmuring friendly speeches into the ears of the mare, which were
pricked up, and moving quickly backward and forward in appreciation of
the attention paid her.

Lord Carthew meanwhile was increasing Stella’s liking for him by
giving minute directions as to the food for the animals until they
would be wanted again by their masters. Stella would have suggested
that they should be sent to the Chase stables, but Lady Cranstoun had
given her no instruction on that point and fear of her father
restrained her.

“I should like to take you for some pretty ride in the neighborhood,”
she explained to Claud after they had again mounted their horses, “but
in that case I must ask the way of the groom. Except for a few mad
spins late at night, I have been very little outside the park, except
in a closed carriage with mamma. You see, there are a good many square
miles enclosed round the Chase, so that I get plenty of riding and
some capital hurdles and ditches, too. But Sir Philip has forbidden me
to go outside at all.”

“Don’t you want to sometimes?”

“Why, of course I do,” she answered simply. “Just because I am ordered
not to, for no other reason. In the evenings, when Sir Philip is away,
I ride as near the boundaries of the Chase enclosure as possible, and
sometimes I can’t resist taking a jump over and cantering along the
roads in the early moonlight. Sometimes, as if he knew we were doing
wrong, Zephyr flies so fast his hoofs seem hardly to touch the ground,
and I am sure, as we flash by the few country folk trudging along the
lonely roads, they think we are wraiths, and go home and make stories
about us.”

“Why you are a modern version of Tennyson’s ‘Lady of Shalott,’” he
exclaimed, and then quoted in clear, rhythmical fashion:


 “‘Four gray walls and four gray towers.’


That’s a good description of the Chase, isn’t it? even if in your case
they do not ‘overlook a space of flowers.’ And the continuation
applies:


 “‘But who hath seen her wave her hand?
 Or at the casement seen her stand?
 Or is she known in all the land,
  The Lady of Shalott?

 Only reapers, reaping early
 In among the bearded barley,
 Hear a song that echoes cheerly,
 From the river winding clearly,
  Down to towered Camelot.
 And by the moon the reaper, weary,
 Piling sheaves in upland airy,
 Listening, whispers, “’Tis the fairy
  Lady of Shalott.”’”


She had reined in her horse and was listening in eager delight.

“I have never read a word of Tennyson,” she said. “The only
poetry-books allowed me have been Milton and Wordsworth and some
selected readings from Pope and Shakespeare. Sir Philip says that
reading poetry fosters romantic and ridiculous notions, and that I
should only read the poets his mother read, and know the others by
name. But I like what you have quoted better than anything I have ever
read yet. What became of the Lady of Shalott?”

“Oh, you must not take her for your prototype,” he said quickly. “She
used to ‘weave by night and day, a magic web with colors gay,’ and she
was never allowed to look out of the window to see the surly village
churls, and red cloaks of the market girls, pass onward to Shalott.
She had to content herself with seeing their reflections in a magic
mirror which hung on a wall in her room. A curse was to fall upon her
should she turn from its reflections and gaze on the realities of
life, until one day, when there passed by ‘two young lovers lately
wed; “I am half sick of shadows,” said the Lady of Shalott.’”

“But that was not the end, surely?” asked Stella, with childlike
eagerness. “The day came, of course, when she looked out on life
itself, braving any curse which might befall her.”

“Oh, yes; trust her for that. She was a woman as well as a fairy, you
see:


 “‘A bow-shot from her bower-eaves
 He rode between the barley sheaves,
 The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves,
 And flamed upon the brazen greaves
  Of bold Sir Lancelot.’


He was her fate, I suppose. Anyhow, as a modern writer would say, the
‘exact psychological moment of her life had arrived,’ and:


 “‘She left the web, she left the loom,
 She made three paces thro’ the room,
 She saw the water-lily bloom,
 She saw the helmet and the plume,
  She look’d down to Camelot.
 Out flew the web and floated wide;
 The mirror crack’d from side to side;
 “The curse is come upon me,” cried
  The Lady of Shalott.’”


“And what was the end?” asked Stella. She had followed each line,
conjuring up mental pictures of the scenes. But bold Sir Lancelot she
saw in a brown-eyed giant, with a golden mustache drooping over a
mouth that was a little hard in outline. And for the lady it was
pardonable girlish egotism if she saw herself, living as she did in
semi-imprisonment, confined within those “four gray walls” and the
demesnes adjacent. What did she herself know more of life than was
pictured in the old-fashioned books to which she had access, or hinted
at in the prim and guarded talk of her instructors? Of life as it
really was, its passion, its pain, its hopes, and fears, and sorrows,
its mad delights and long regrets, its brilliant colors and heavy
shadows, she knew no more than the Lady of Shalott learned from her
mirror as she caught sight of the village maidens and gay young
knights reflected there. Until _he_ came! And how would it end after
that, she wanted to know.

“Oh, poor Lady of Shalott, she had better have been content with her
looking-glass and her needlework,” said Lord Carthew. “Apparently, she
went straight to her death resignedly, after falling in love at first
sight with Lancelot. She ‘found a boat, beneath a willow left afloat,
and round about the prow she wrote _The Lady of Shalott_.’ In this she
was wafted up along the river to ‘many-towered Camelot,’ where all the
gay knights and ladies were enjoying themselves, foremost among them
being Sir Lancelot of the Lake, lover of Queen Guinevere:


 “‘Under tower and balcony,
 By garden wall and gallery,
 A gleaming shape she floated by,
 Dead-pale between the houses high,
  Silent into Camelot.’


Then they all came out and looked at her, and read her name on the
prow.


 “‘Who is this? and what is here?’
 And in the lighted palace near,
 Died the sound of royal cheer;
 And they crossed themselves for fear,
  All the knights of Camelot:
 But Lancelot mused a little space;
 He said, ‘She has a lovely face,
 God in His mercy lend her grace,
  The Lady of Shalott.’”


Tears had started to Stella’s eyes as Lord Carthew finished reciting
the verses.

“Sir Lancelot never guessed that she loved him, then?” she asked.

“Not in that poem. But you are taking it quite seriously, Miss
Cranstoun. I shall be angry with myself if I have saddened you.”

“You will think me very silly,” she said, “but I never get a chance of
reading poetry, or of listening to stories told. And you repeat poetry
so well, and tell tales in such an interesting manner, I could listen
for weeks at a stretch.”

His heart leaped up with delight at her words; but when he spoke
again, after a slight pause, he had perfect control of his voice.

“Do you know,” he said, “that during the last half hour I have been
thinking a great deal of what you were telling me a little while ago
about your dread of the consequences of going to London. You have been
amiable enough to treat me as your friend, and in that character I
have been trying to discover some way out of your difficulties. You
are tired of living here, and find the life intolerably dull, do you
not? You long to see the world with your own eyes, to travel, to go
out and come in as you like, to be no longer repressed and restrained,
and blamed when you do not deserve it? You would like to visit strange
countries, to sail in ships to foreign places, to see something of
gayety and brightness in the great cities of the world?”

“Yes; oh, yes!”

Her gypsy blood had mantled in her cheeks, her breath came quickly,
and her eyes sparkled with excitement at the pictures his words
conjured up before her.

“And you also long, I am sure, sometimes, when you are alone in that
great dreary house,” he went on, softly, “for love and affection, for
a tenderness that shall wrap you round, and guard you from all worry
and trouble, for the arms of some one who would love you above
everything else in the world clasped round you; for the loving
companionship of some one who would think of you always, understand
you in everything, and answer your mind with his, for love that is
friendship, and friendship that is love; the love that will grow gray
beside you, and find you dearer and more beautiful when your youth is
past than even you are now.”

She faltered, blushed, and looked at him quickly.

“I have mamma----” she was beginning, when he stopped her by laying
his hand lightly upon her own, which held the reins on her horse’s
neck.

“Wait a moment, please, Miss Cranstoun. I don’t want you to speak
until you have heard me out. I love you, and I want you to be my wife.
Don’t start and draw back. There is nothing after all so very
wonderful in such a statement. I knew when I first saw you last night
that I should ask you to marry me, and since that moment I have only
been waiting for the terms to come to me. I am not in the least
attractive, I know. But there’s this to be in my favor, that I am too
plain to be conceited, or to have my head turned by women’s
flatteries. You are not happy here, and you lead a caged-bird sort of
life. As my wife, you would be free as air, and your will would be
law. Of course I don’t expect you to love me--not for a long time yet.
But in time,” he added, wistfully, “in time, as you realize that you
are everything in the world to me, I think you will grow to like me a
little. You see, we are such good friends, and I should understand
you, and that is something to begin with, is it not? And we would
travel all over Europe--all over the world, if you like. Of course,”
he went on in some confusion, noting her look of surprise, “it is not
as though I were very rich. But I have some money saved, quite enough
to enable me to give my bride a long and delightful wedding tour by
sea and land before starting for my Canadian farm. Don’t answer me
directly--don’t say anything at all just now. Think it over, and let
me know. I will speak to Lady Cranstoun when we get back, and you can
consult with her.”

“But, Mr. Pritchard,” she said, turning her great, startled eyes upon
him, “do you think for a moment my father would consent? He would be
furiously angry, and horribly insulting at the mere idea. Don’t, pray
don’t speak of this any more. Let us forget all about it, and go on
being merely friends.”

“That is impossible,” he answered, gently. “Tell me truthfully, Miss
Cranstoun, is your objection to a marriage with me based solely upon
the fear of your father’s disapproval?”

“Yes--no--that is--I don’t want to marry you, Mr. Pritchard! I have
never thought of such a thing!”

The words burst from her lips, and a bewildered, troubled look clouded
her fair face.

“Well, I will give you time to think of it,” he said, quietly. “As to
Sir Philip’s objections, I have little doubt that I can overcome
_them_.”

“You don’t know my father,” she said, with meaning. “Sometimes I
wonder why he hates me us he does. But I am certain of one thing: he
would far rather see me dead than married to any one who is not my
superior in rank and fortune.”

“Still I don’t fear his opposition,” returned Lord Carthew, with a
smile. “I am better off than you know, and may possibly even succeed
to a title some day.”

“Had you told me that at first,” she said reproachfully, “we should
not have been such friends.”

“You would soon forget it,” he said, smiling again. “A title, after
all, is not a thing a man wears on his coat. May I take it that if
your parents consent you will at least not decide against me?”

“Don’t!” she exclaimed. “You have surprised and startled me so much I
can hardly think coherently. You see, I am not used to receiving
offers of marriage. This is my first. I suppose it is a great honor,
but--let’s have a gallop, shall we? The horses must be quite tired of
walking.”

Away she flew, at break-neck speed, after a shake of the reins and a
word to Zephyr, who needed no whip to urge his pace, and gave Lord
Carthew work indeed to follow him.

Flushed and out of breath, they at length drew up their steeds before
the steps of the Chase, having re-entered the lodge gates after a
spirited canter through the lanes, the horses neck to neck part of the
time, but eventually with Zephyr a long way ahead. Stella was radiant
and laughing as Lord Carthew sprang from his horse to assist her to
dismount, the groom having been left jolting steadily far behind. Lord
Carthew felt at that moment happier and more hopeful than he had ever
been before, and both were talking and laughing in merry boy and girl
fashion upon the result of their extempore race as they ascended the
broad, shallow steps to the entrance of the house.

Before they had had time to touch the bell, the massive doors were
opened to them, and just within the hall immediately before them stood
the master of the house, pale, gray-haired, gray-eyed, his square
face, with its handsome clear-cut features and unpleasantly sinister
expression, shown up by the clear sunshine of an April day.

Lord Carthew glanced at Stella. All gayety and brightness had died
from her face at sight of her father, and instead came that look of
fixed self-repression and endurance which he had once before noted
there.

“So you have been enjoying an early ride,” Sir Philip remarked to his
daughter, in grating tones. “Have you and this gentleman been
unattended, may I ask? If not, where is the groom?”

“His horse could not keep up with the others,” Stella answered,
briefly.

“And who is this gentleman? May I have the honor of being presented to
him?”

“Mr. Pritchard, my father, Sir Philip Cranstoun,” said the girl, in
level tones, from which all the glad youthful ring had departed. “If
you will excuse me,” she added, “I will go and change my habit.”

With a little formal bend of the head, she left them, and walked in
stately fashion up the staircase until she passed out of their sight,
when she suddenly quickened her steps, and flew like a bird down the
corridor to Lady Cranstoun’s room.

She found that lady lying on a couch, very white and feeble, wrapped
in a cashmere morning-gown, and trembling in every limb.

“Oh! my dear, my dear!” Lady Cranstoun murmured, wringing her limp,
white hands, “I am so thankful that you have come back. Your father
has returned, and has been asking me questions. He compelled me to
tell him where you were. I expected a storm, but he said nothing,
which seems so much more dangerous. I am in such terror of what he may
say to you.”

Stella drew a footstool to the side of Lady Cranstoun’s sofa, and
taking one of her hands in both her own, gently kissed it, and rubbed
her cheek against it.

“Mamma,” she said, “how would you like to leave the Chase, and come
and stay with me in a nice house, where every one would love you, and
no one would bully and frighten you, and where you would have nice
servants instead of spies, and where your relations would be honored
and welcomed, instead of being insulted whenever they came to visit
you?”

“It sounds delightful,” returned the poor lady, sighing, “but, of
course, it is impossible. What put such ideas into your head?”

“Mr. Pritchard has just asked me to marry him.”

Lady Cranstoun sat up on her sofa.

“My dear, you astonish me!” she exclaimed. “It is so extremely
sudden.”

“He says he decided to propose to me as soon as he saw me yesterday,”
returned Stella, demurely.

“But it is utterly out of the question. Of course he is a gentleman,
and well educated, and has very agreeable manners; but, my dear, he
told me himself that he is a farmer’s son, and has neither money nor
family. Oh, dear--oh dear! it is all my fault for allowing you to be
so much with him. But he seemed so little like a love-making sort of
man, so plain and intellectual, I never dreamed any harm would come of
it. I did certainly suggest to Dr. Graham that I ought not to leave
you together while we were playing chess; but he reassured me so
strongly that I thought no more about it. Sir Philip will be furious.
He will never forgive me. And you--my poor dear child--I hope, oh, I
do hope, that you have not grown fond of him.”

“Don’t worry, dear mamma. I don’t care a bit about him, at least not
in that way. He is very clever, and very kind, and, I believe, very
good, too, and I am sure he is fond of me, and would be very good to
both of us; and it would be lovely, wouldn’t it, to be free of the
Chase forever? As to his farm in Canada, he says it doesn’t matter
about going to that yet, and that he has a lot more money saved than
any one knows of, and that he will take me all over the world. You
know Dr. Graham has always said a voyage to the Cape would do you
good, and I thought of that directly; we would all go to the Cape
together in a sailing ship. Think,” she exclaimed, springing up from
her kneeling position, and beginning to pace restlessly up and down
the room, “how beautiful it would be to be upon the great, wide sea,
which I have only once seen in my life, with the bright sun sparkling
on the waves, and you and I on deck under an awning, such as I have
read about in books of travel; you on a deck-chair, and I mixing you
your iced lemonade, and reading aloud while beautiful warm breezes
blew over you and made you well; and above all,” here she came and
knelt by Lady Cranstoun’s side, and lowered her voice to an impressive
whisper, “with _no Sir Philip_!”

“Hush, hush, dear!” the elder lady exclaimed, nervously glancing at
the door. “In your picture you leave out the man, I see. But what does
it matter? Even if you loved him, and wanted to marry him for other
reasons than to escape from this house, your father would not hear of
it. He has said thousands of times that you _must_ marry a title. Now,
if it had only been Lord Carthew----”

“Don’t, mamma!” exclaimed the girl, for the first time blushing
scarlet. “Lord Carthew detests me. Anyhow, we were not talking of him.
Mr. Pritchard isn’t a bit afraid of Sir Philip. He says if _he_ is the
only obstruction, he can soon remove _that_. It appears he is coming
into a title and fortune, and can prove it to Sir Philip. But even
then,” she added, “I couldn’t marry him, could I, without loving him?”

“I should like to see you happy with a good husband, my darling,” said
Lady Cranstoun, tears coming into her faded eyes as she stroked the
girl’s cheek. “Of course, I would much prefer you to marry a man of
good birth and of some fortune; but your happiness is the chief
thing.”

A little later, Stella, going down to the drawing room for a novel
which Lady Cranstoun was reading, was joined there by Lord Carthew.

“I have spoken to your father,” he said.

“What did he say?” inquired Stella, curiously.

“He offers no objection against me, provided I can succeed in winning
your affections.”

“I am quite sure Sir Philip didn’t say _that_,” she exclaimed,
laughing. “He wouldn’t think my affections had anything to do with the
matter.”

“But they have everything to do with it, from my point of view,” he
said, standing before her, and looking steadfastly into her face. “I
don’t expect or hope that you will love me yet. But if you will marry
me, I will engage that you shall be a great deal happier than you are
now.”

“That might easily be, now that Sir Philip has returned.”

She spoke half under her breath, and as it were involuntarily, and
then stood a few moments, reflecting. Lord Carthew was a little, a
very little, shorter than she, and even such a fancy-free maiden as
Stella had her ideals of the man she might some day grow to love. Like
most very young girls’ ideals, he was of exaggerated height and length
of limb. Lord Carthew was of pale and sallow complexion, in spite of
the fact that he usually enjoyed excellent health. Gazing at him thus
in the sunlight, and regarding him for the first time in the light of
a possible husband, Stella noted that his deep-set, intelligent eyes
were of a greenish-gray, and set too near together in his head for
beauty or symmetry. Herself a brunette, she admired fair, florid skins
and light hair in others. Lord Carthew was clean-shaved, and Stella’s
conventional ideal invariably wore a golden mustache, similar to the
one on the face of the wounded man upstairs. Lord Carthew’s upper lip
was long, and his lower jaw slightly protruded. To a student of
physiognomy, his mouth and chin clearly indicated an intense loyalty
and fidelity in love and friendship, combined with a bull-dog
obstinacy and tenacity of purpose, and his whole face denoted unusual
intelligence, will, and power of loving.

But Stella was a young girl of eighteen, and saw none of these things.
Her feminine instinct taught her that this man was an honorable
gentleman, but what she particularly noted with dissatisfaction was
that, in moments of repressed excitement, as in the present instance,
Lord Carthew’s eyes and eyebrows twitched in a nervous fashion
peculiar to some oversensitive temperaments.

Her survey over, she turned away with a half-sigh. Why was not this
man, who loved her, more like that other man, who disliked her? But
the next moment she tried to put that thought away as humiliating. She
was certain Lord Carthew would be very good to her, and to her mamma
also. And oh! to be free from Sir Philip’s sneering, and bullying, and
hectoring!

“Only tell me one thing,” Lord Carthew said at last. “Have I a rival?”

Stella flushed deeply, but answered on the instant.

“No, no! How could you possibly have? I have hardly spoken to a man
before, except Sir Philip, and the doctor, and my teachers. No, it
isn’t that I love any one else, but--but----”

“But you don’t love me? Well, that would be impossible. There is
nothing about me to make a beautiful young girl fall in love at first
sight. But, my dear Miss Cranstoun, you have certainly beauty enough
for two!”

She laughed and blushed with pleasure. She had so far in her life had
hardly any compliments.

“Would you take mamma away from here as well?” she asked. “I mean,
if--if I ever said yes.”

“Of course I would, if she would come. She is my kinswoman, you
know--at least, my friend’s kinswoman.”

“I’ll think about it, and tell you later,” she said, springing away
with one of her swift, bird-like movements, and was gone before he
could speak again.

On the way to her own room, she passed the apartments which had first
been occupied by the first Lady Cranstoun, and which were now given to
the supposed Lord Carthew. The doors both of the bedroom and
sitting-room were wide open. Stella glanced into the latter, and
perceived the wounded man lying fully dressed on a sofa near the fire,
apparently asleep, for his eyes were closed and his dark eyelashes
rested on his cheek. He looked paler than usual, but handsomer than
ever, with the extra touch of delicacy imparted by loss of blood and
unaccustomed weakness.

Stella looked again, and creeping in, stood gazing down upon him until
her breath came quickly, and tears gathered in her eyes. Under his
half-closed lids, Hilary was watching her, and when he saw her red lip
quiver and her arms involuntarily moving toward him, his self-control
broke down. Suddenly stretching up his right arm, he drew her head
down to his, and pressed his lips passionately to hers.




 CHAPTER VII.
 A KISS TOO LONG.


 “Alas, how easily things go wrong!
 A sigh too much or a kiss too long;
 There comes a mist and a blinding rain,
 And things are never the same again!”


Stella had never heard the verses, but something of the same thought
entered into her mind as she drew back, pale and quivering, after that
one passionate kiss interchanged between her and Hilary.

In one magical moment she had learned so much--had learned that she
loved Hilary, that he loved her, and, moreover, that the thought of
marrying her suitor of the morning, which up to now she had been able
to cherish at least without aversion, had suddenly grown intolerable
to her. All this had been taught her by a kiss, the first which ever a
man had laid upon her lips.

With downcast eyes and rapidly beating heart, she stood now before
Hilary, as he rose from the sofa and bent down toward her, holding
both her little trembling hands in one of his.

“It was my fault,” he whispered, humbly. “Forgive me.”

“I--I have nothing to forgive,” the girl said, unsteadily, still
without looking up. “I must go, Lord Carthew.”

“If I were really Lord Carthew,” he said, “there might be some excuse.
But I am not. By a freak of my friend’s, we had changed names for a
while when that accident happened to me. But I never intended the
trick to continue. It is true that he begged me, as a favor, to keep
silence on the subject, especially before you. But, after my folly and
imprudence, I must confess the truth. I cannot masquerade any longer.
Miss Cranstoun, try to forgive me.”

“I have nothing to forgive.”

“You see,” he went on, unheeding, letting her hands go, and standing
at some distance from her, “I was half-dreaming--weakness, I dare say,
proceeding from the ridiculous semi-invalid position I’ve been in
during the last eighteen hours. Suddenly, on opening my eyes, I saw a
face, a very lovely woman’s face, close to me. It seemed a part of my
dreams; I did not stop to consider who she was, and I kissed her.”

“You thought it was some one else, then?”

“I did not say so. But will you forgive me?”

“I forgive you. I understand; I was only a part of your dream. Please
tell me again what you were saying just now. I could not quite grasp
it. What is your real name?”

“Hilary Pritchard. Here,” he continued, fumbling with one hand in his
pocket, “here are cards, letters, and papers, to prove it. No one who
knows the Northborough family could suppose that I belong to it. But
Lord Carthew was my college chum, and I like him as well almost as one
man can like another. I am all the more sorry because I have annoyed
a lady whom I know he very greatly admires.”

“So it is Lord Carthew I have been talking to all last evening and
this morning,” Stella observed, reflectively. “That explains a great
deal.”

She broke off abruptly. What she really meant was that it explained
the fact of her father’s acquiescence to the proposed marriage between
herself and his younger guest; and also to the latter’s way of talking
as though he were wealthy and heir to a title, as well as other points
which had puzzled her.

The door of the sitting-room in which they stood was wide open, and
Dakin, the housemaid, passed along the corridor, apparently without
paying any particular attention to Stella and Hilary; but Stella
disliked and distrusted the woman, and moved toward the door as Dakin
made a great pretence of going down the staircase to the ground-floor.

“I will say good-by now, Miss Cranstoun,” said Hilary, in a
constrained voice. “I shall be leaving the house almost immediately.
May I leave it to you to make my apologies to Lady Cranstoun?”

“But you will stay to luncheon, surely?” Stella suggested. “It will
seem so strange if you go like this. And besides, you are not nearly
strong enough to be moved yet. You can hardly walk, and last night you
were delirious, I know.”

“How do you know?”

She blushed deeply.

“I charm away mamma’s headaches,” she answered, in confusion. “I
believe I have some kind of magnetism in my touch. So I asked Margaret
to let me soothe you.”

“It was you, then. I woke out of a horrid nightmare, and felt your
touch, and heard your voice.”

His tones vibrated with deep feeling, which he was trying vainly to
suppress. Stella, on her part, was torn between a desire to escape and
a longing to remain near him.

The first luncheon-gong rang out in the interval of silence. Stella
held out her hand to him.

“Won’t you stay?” she asked.

“I cannot.”

He was holding her hand close, and through both their frames electric
currents seemed to tingle. The very air about them was charged with
electricity to them, so that both were quivering and excited.

They were standing near the open door, when suddenly Stella turned,
laid her two small hands lightly upon Hilary’s sleeve, and looked up
in his face, her own pale, but transfigured into more than its usual
loveliness by passionate feeling.

“Was it only a dream?” she breathed rather than said. “Or do you love
me?”

Mortal man could hold out in pride no longer. In an instant he had
gathered her up in his arms, and was covering her cheeks, her eyes,
and her lips with close, hot kisses, while he murmured incoherent
words of love into her ear.

Only for one mad, never-to-be-forgotten moment did he hold her thus,
she unresisting, clinging timidly to him, letting her soft lips meet
his in answering passion.

Then he remembered all the difference between them, all the barriers,
all the impossibilities. As in a flash he realized her father’s wrath,
her mother’s astonishment, and the indignation of his loyal friend,
Lord Carthew, and leading Stella gently to the door, he kissed her
hands in token of farewell.

“Good-by,” he whispered. “I will write.”

Then he shut the door, and finding herself alone in the corridor,
dazed and agitated, Stella fled to her own room, and kneeling down
before an arm-chair by the fire, buried her face in her hands, to
enact in imagination the scene again which she had just gone through,
to thrill with ecstasy as she recalled Hilary’s kisses, to blush until
her delicate skin seemed scorched as she remembered her own timid
response, and to long with every fibre of her being for the moment
when she would see him again.

She knew full well now what even to herself she would not own, she
hardly understood before, that from the moment when that man of superb
figure and perfect face had laid his hand upon Zephyr’s bridle on the
preceding evening, and looked into her eyes, she had loved him, and
that but for that she would hardly have braved her father’s anger by
insisting upon Hilary’s removal to the Chase.

She had believed that he positively disliked her, and had secretly
reproached herself for letting her thoughts dwell so persistently upon
a man who scorned her. Only during the past ten minutes had she
learned the truth, that against his will he loved her as passionately
as she loved him. That one glorious fact outweighed all other
considerations in her mind. As to Lord Carthew, he was as completely
forgotten as though he had never existed. His intelligence, his kindly
sympathy, his interesting talk, were of no more account in her eyes
than his wealth and title. The strain of wild gypsy blood in her veins
was showing itself fully now. She loved as gypsy natures can, with a
passionate self-abandonment, counting the world and all that it
contains of no value when compared with the love of the one person
existing who could make life worth living.

Yet she was a Cranstoun, too--trained in habits of strict self-control
from her infancy; and when the second summons to luncheon came, she
sprang up instinctively, smoothed her hair, looked at herself fixedly
in the glass, and hoped that others would not notice the strange glow
in her cheeks and light in her eyes, and went down to lunch in her
plain serge gown, her eyes like two dancing stars, and her mouth all
tremulous with smiles.

It was almost with a start that she came face to face with Lord
Carthew, and realized that he was staying in the house. Lady Cranstoun
glanced at her nervously. She was a few minutes late, and Sir Philip
never overlooked the least unpunctuality. To-day, however, to her
great astonishment, he made no comment upon it. He and Lord Carthew
seemed to get on unusually well together; both had travelled a good
deal in Europe, the former unaccompanied by his wife and daughter, and
they naturally fell to discussing the various hotels at which they had
stayed.

Stella was heartily glad that no part of the conversation devolved
upon her. She sat in her usual place at the head of the table, Lady
Cranstoun not being equal to any of the duties of hostess,
mechanically doing all that was required of her, and all the time
wondering whether Hilary had left the house yet, how he would stand
the journey in his weak condition, whether by any chance she should
see him again before his departure, and if not, how soon he would
write to her. Lord Carthew noticed the brightness of her eyes and her
absent-minded expression, and with a thrill of joy hoped it might
arise from her half-given promise to himself. His interview with her
father had been short, but characteristic of both men.

He had followed the dreaded gray wolf into his vast library,
surrounded by well-filled oaken bookcases, and had watched him take
his accustomed place with his back to the fire, sarcastic, and
critical.

“Sir Philip,” Lord Carthew had begun, plunging at once into his
subject, as he seated himself deliberately in a deep arm-chair,
“first, I must thank you for the hospitality extended to my friend and
myself since yesterday evening. You have no doubt heard of my friend’s
unlucky accident, entirely the result of our trespassing in your
grounds. Next, I must inform you that while out riding this morning, I
made your daughter an offer of marriage.”

“Indeed, Mr.--Pritchard, I think the name is?”

“No, that is not my name, but that of my friend upstairs. To please a
whimsical fancy of my own, we had changed names for the nonce during
our travels. My name is Lord Carthew, and my father, Lord
Northborough, is connected with Lady Cranstoun’s family.”

“May I ask if you are in the habit of going about under an _alias_?”

“I don’t think I have ever had occasion to use any name but my own
until yesterday. The point is, that as Miss Cranstoun expressed an
indifference to titles which almost amounted to hostility, I took
advantage of the fact to continue the jest, and to do my wooing in the
name of my old college friend, whose people are gentlemen farmers in
Yorkshire.”

“Very romantic,” sneered Sir Philip. “May I ask whether this ‘Lord of
Burleigh’ style of courtship won my daughter’s heart?”

“I could not say that. Miss Cranstoun has known me a few hours only,
and I am not possessed of those graces and attractions which charm at
first sight. But at least she did not repel me, and even promised to
think about the matter, subject, of course, to your approval.”

It was difficult for Sir Philip to keep all signs of his satisfaction
from his hard and impassive face.

“I will tell you plainly, Lord Carthew,” he said, after a moment’s
pause, “that after what you have told me, I shall require better
proofs of your identity than your bare word if you wish me to consider
you in the light of a suitor to my daughter’s hand. We Cranstouns are,
as you may know, among the oldest, absolutely the oldest families in
England, and on her mother’s side my daughter is granddaughter to the
Duke of Lanark. I do not think my daughter is especially attached to
me, although she is most devoted to my wife. But she has been brought
up in habits of the strictest obedience, and would not think of
encouraging any admirer without my full sanction. Had you been this
Mr. Pritchard you were pleased to personate, I should most certainly
have never given it.”

“My friend is a gentleman, sir,” returned Lord Carthew, coldly; “and a
man of such high character and superb appearance that any girl might
well fall in love with him, and any father be proud to be connected
with him.”

“In that case, you must pardon me for saying so, but are you not
committing an error of judgment in taking him with you when you go
wife-hunting?”

The bitterness of the sarcasm, reflecting as it did upon his
undistinguished appearance, stung Lord Carthew for one moment only,
and he winced. Then, recovering himself, with an easy smile, he
answered that fortunately for him Mr. Pritchard was not a marrying
man, and proposed, indeed, shortly to leave England and seek his
fortune out West. In the mean time he should be glad to know whether
Sir Philip had any objection to offer against him, Lord Carthew, in
the character of candidate for his daughter’s hand.

“My parents are extremely desirous that I should at once marry some
lady of birth and beauty,” he continued. “My father intends settling
fifteen thousand a year and a house in town upon me as soon as my
choice is made. But I have hardly ever hoped to see my ideals all
realized so perfectly as they are in your lovely and charming
daughter.”

The two men having come to a thorough understanding, it was hard to
say which was the more eager to hurry on the marriage. Even the
strongest and hardest of men, to all appearance, usually have one weak
spot, one touch of human foolishness about them, and in Sir Philip
Cranstoun’s mind there lingered always a haunting fear lest the old
gypsy woman’s prophecy of disgrace and shame to be brought upon him by
his descendants might some day be verified. Over his wife he exercised
the same unquestioned, domineering authority as over the servants of
his household; but he had long ago recognized the proud, dumb protest
in his daughter’s obedience, and had realized that she inherited
something of his own will-power, together with a capability for
passionate resentment and other qualities at the existence of which he
could but guess.

He was all the more relieved at the thought that she would, by her
brilliant marriage with the future Earl of Northborough, at once
retrieve the mistake he himself had made twenty years ago in wedding
Clare Carewe, and relieve his mind from all lurking anxiety on her
account. Lord Carthew was evidently a man of originality and strength
of purpose; even Sir Philip, who cherished a chronic contempt for
nearly all his kind, was compelled to recognize this, and he
congratulated himself heartily on his own sagacity in keeping as
secret, even from herself, his daughter’s half humble origin.

After luncheon Lord Carthew, instead of joining his host in the
smoking-room, repaired to the drawing-room, which Stella quitted
almost as soon as he entered.

He noted her action, and erroneously attributed it to her natural
modesty and shyness in not wishing his offer of marriage to be
discussed before her mother. But in truth, Stella was not thinking of
him at all. She merely wished to be alone that she might think over
the emotions of the morning, and she had hardly given a moment’s
thought to Lord Carthew and his proposal after that brief but
momentous interview with Hilary Pritchard.

It was easy enough, so Lord Carthew found, to win Lady Cranstoun’s
approval of the match. Seating himself near her sofa, he told her in a
few well-chosen words of his love for her daughter, and the ruse he
had practised in pleading his cause in his friend’s name.

“I can never understand my dear Stella’s extraordinary objections
against wealth and position!” exclaimed Lady Cranstoun. “For my part I
am delighted about the whole affair. I thought from the moment when I
first saw you that you had the Douglas eyes. Do you know, with her
strange opinions, I have always been nervous as to whom Stella would
marry? She is so utterly unlike ordinary girls, you see, and I am the
more relieved that it has all turned out so well.”

“You really think she will have me, then?”

“Certainly I do,” returned Lady Cranstoun, opening her pale blue eyes
in surprise. “Of course, as she says, she has not known you long
enough to love you; but she has a very high regard for you, and you
seem to have similar tastes. She even--I hope I am not betraying her
confidence--but she even asked me if I should like to go for a voyage
with you after you were married, and drew a most charming picture of
the deck of a ship with all of us assembled there.”

A faint color came into the poor lady’s face as she spoke. The
prospect of leaving the Chase, and her husband’s cold, tyrannical
dislike, seemed to momentarily restore her lost youth and health. Lord
Carthew was delighted at her encouraging words.

“There is no breach of confidence,” he said. “Your daughter said as
much to me. I think I may consider myself as the happiest man in
England at this moment.”

Meanwhile, under the trees of the same shrubbery where her
grandfather, Hiram Carewe, was shot down and murdered nineteen years
before, Stella Cranstoun walked, with feet that seemed hardly to touch
the ground, her thoughts absorbed by Hilary. She would not think of
the future. The fact that he loved her should be enough for her for
one happy day at least, until she could hear from him.

Turning into a fresh glade, where the branches overarched above her,
she came unexpectedly face to face with her father. The flush died
from her cheeks, the light from her eyes. She bowed coldly and would
have passed on, when he barred her progress with his arm.

“Wait!” he said. “I have something to ask you. What is this about a
proposal of marriage made to you this morning by a Mr. Hilary
Pritchard?”

She looked at him scornfully. She knew quite well that he was trying
to deceive her.

“You have been misinformed,” she said. “The gentleman who asked me to
marry him was Viscount Carthew.”

“And what was your answer?”

“I have not yet given it. But it will most certainly be ‘No!’”




 CHAPTER VIII.
 AN OLD FRIEND.

Father and daughter faced each other under the delicate spring
foliage, both pale, set, and determined.

Sir Philip spoke first.

“If Lord Carthew has done you the honor to ask you to marry him,” he
said, “you will most certainly accept him.”

“That I shall never do,” she answered, her heart beating high with
excitement at her own temerity.

“What imbecile school-girl freak is this?” he asked, harshly. “This
morning you were encouraging him.”

“I did not know my own mind this morning,” she said, blushing deeply;
“and I did not know Lord Carthew’s real position. He belongs to a
class I greatly dislike.”

“He belongs to the class from which your husband will come, or you
will die an old maid. You have been reared, trained, educated, solely
for this end, and you will be presented at Court next month as
Viscountess Carthew on her marriage.”

“I will never marry Lord Carthew.”

He took her roughly by the shoulder. He hated her proud, pale face, so
like her dead mother’s at that moment that he could almost hear
Clare’s voice speaking to him from the dead. He longed to strike those
firmly shut lips, to bring a look of fear into those dauntless eyes.
But he contented himself by gripping her shoulder with all his
strength, so that for days afterward five dark bruise-marks showed the
clutch of his cruel fingers.

“You have never yet set your will up in opposition to mine,” he said,
in a low voice. “And I warn you not to try. In dealing with me it is
better to bend, to avoid being broken. Go back to the house now, to
your own room, and think over what I have said. Before this month is
over you will marry Lord Carthew.”

“That I shall never do!”

Her voice rang out in clear defiance, accentuated a little by the
sharp pain of his grasp upon her arm. He threw her roughly off, and
proceeded on his walk through the grounds, while she retraced her
steps, trembling with indignation and anger, toward the house. As she
emerged from among the trees, she came upon Stephen Lee, the keeper.
His face was flushed, and his eyes shone so strangely that the idea
occurred to her that he must have been drinking, and she was walking
quickly past him when he stopped her.

“I beg your pardon, miss. But may I make so bold as to ask whether
he--Sir Philip, I mean--was hurting you in any way just now? It seemed
to me he gripped your arm that tight he must have hurt you.”

“My father, do you mean?” Stella asked in cold surprise. “Certainly
not, Stephen. Why did you ask such a thing?”

“Because,” answered Stephen, with a sudden half-suppressed savagery of
manner, “if he laid a finger upon you to really hurt you like, I’d
shoot him down like a dog!”

“You must be mad!” the girl exclaimed, with a fine mixture of pity and
disdain. “Quite mad!”

“Maybe, miss. But not so mad as you think, and not so much beneath you
as you think, neither. Anyway, I’m not too mad to have heard and
understood every word as you and Sir Philip were saying just now under
the trees. And if you are going to be tormented by this Lord Carthew
as I shot in the shoulder--lord or no lord, I’d put another lot of
shot through him as soon as look at him.”

Stella was intensely surprised by the man’s method of address, and
still inclined to the belief that he had probably been drinking. But
it occurred to her on the instant that there might be danger to the
man she loved in allowing Stephen to continue in the dark as to his
identity.

“The gentleman who was wounded by your clumsiness last night was not
Lord Carthew, but a friend of his, named Mr. Pritchard,” she said.
“And please understand, Stephen, that the interest you appear to take
in my affairs is neither pleasant nor desirable to me. I must ask you
to say no more on the subject, and not to offend in this way again.”

The young man ground his teeth with anger as she passed him on her way
to the house, with heightened color, and her proud little head more
erect than usual.

“I oughtn’t to ha’ said so much,” he muttered to himself, as he
watched her. “But when I see the gray wolf grip her shoulder, I could
ha’ murdered him. It would take her haughtiness down a bit to learn as
she and me are second cousins, come of the same old gypsy stock. But
Granny Sarah will tell her the truth some day, she swears, and bring
her pride a peg lower. Sarah’s got some deep game in her wicked old
head lately; I can see that by her nods and grins, and mutterings to
herself. She and Uncle James are hatching a plot together, I’ll be
bound; and between them they’ll serve the gray wolf out, if they swing
for it!”

Lord Carthew was still chatting comfortably with Lady Cranstoun in the
library when Stella returned to the house. On the floor above, she
noticed in passing that the two rooms which had been used by Hilary
were wide open and empty. Her heart sank at the sight, and she turned
eagerly toward Margaret, whom she saw approaching down the corridor.

“Has he gone?” the girl asked, anxiously. “And when did he go? And oh,
Margaret, do you think it was safe for him to be moved yet?”

“Of course it wasn’t safe,” the woman answered, rather crossly. “But,
dear me, when young gentlemen get notions in their heads there’s no
stopping them. If you’ll come into your room, miss, I notice the hem
of your dress is frayed, and I’ll see to it for you.”

Stella passed into her bedroom, and Margaret, following her, carefully
closed the door. Then she came over to where her young mistress stood,
and whispered in her ear:

“There’s spies about. One can’t be too careful. Here’s a bit of a note
was left for you. Read it, while I pretend to see to your dress.”

With trembling fingers, Stella tore open the envelope, and read the
following words, written in pencil on a half-sheet of paper:


 “Good-by, my dear and only love. Try to forgive me. And forget me as
 fast as possible. I shall think of you always, but as of one far above
 me, meant to make some better fellow happy. I must not see you again,
 and I must not write to you. It would not be fair or honest. Good-by,
 dear, again.

                                                     “Hilary.”


Stella gave a little cry of pain.

“Where has he gone, Margaret?” she whispered, while the tears started
to her eyes. “To London, or to Yorkshire? Can you tell me?”

“He didn’t say a word, miss; but he seemed in a great hurry to get
off. If I was you I wouldn’t trouble my head about him. Handsome is as
handsome does, _I_ say.”

“Surely he ought not to be alone. Lord Carthew should go after him!”
Stella exclaimed. “I must speak to him!”

She made a quick movement toward the door, and then checked herself.
It was impossible, she felt, to face Lord Carthew at this moment. She
had forgotten until now her half-promise of the morning, but it
recurred to her as she realized the difficulty of explaining to the
Viscount the knowledge she possessed of Hilary’s movements. She must
trust to chance for Lord Carthew to find out that his friend had left
the house. Meantime, resentment against her father kept her from going
downstairs lest she should meet him. Anxiety on Hilary’s account made
her restless. Putting on her hat and cloak, she ran lightly downstairs
at about five o’clock, and stealthily out by the front entrance. The
wind had freshened, and a little rain was blown into her face. She
hurried on beneath the thickly planted trees in the park, urged by she
knew not what impulse, until, as she neared the lodge gates, she met
coming in her direction a horsey-looking man, whom she at once
recognized as the hostler of the inn where Hilary’s Black Bess and
Lord Carthew’s chestnut cob were put up.

The man recognized her and touched his cap. She stopped him at once.

“Are you going to the house?” she asked. “Have you a message for some
one? And has anything happened?”

“Well, miss, the fact is that Lord Carthew, one of the young gentleman
as was staying up at the Chase, we think as he’d got a bit of fever
over his wound, for about two o’clock this afternoon in he staggers to
the inn-yard all alone, and pale as a co’pse. ‘Hullo, my lord, is it
you?’ I begins, being the first to see him, when he cuts me short
like, telling me it ain’t his name, and that he’s called plain Mr.
Pritchard. Then he orders me to saddle Black Bess at once, and be
quick about it. I thought he looked a bit queer and feverish, so I
makes a long job of it, but I had to get it through at last. When
mounted, he was that weak he could hardly hold the reins, but he
chucks me a sovereign and rides out of the yard, sitting as upright as
you or me could do--begging your pardon, miss. I felt sort of anxious
about him, but I’d a deal of work on hand, being market-day in
Grayling, when about an hour later who should come clattering back
into the yard but bonny Black Bess, with her master hanging half
unconscious over her neck, and his shoulder all covered with blood,
owing to his wound having broken out again. I never did see a
sensibler animal nor that mare. It’s my belief that Lord Carthew had
nothing to do with it, but that that there animal’s own instinct told
him to make the best of his way back to us. My master, he wanted to
drive his lordship back here to the Chase, miss; but Lord Carthew, he
was conscious by that time, and he wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Send for a
doctor,’ he said; ‘any one about here will do. Let him patch up this
wretched scratch so that I can get on with my journey to London.’ So,
as they couldn’t spare me, our boy was sent to Grayling in the cart to
fetch Dr. Netherbridge, as has been settled in the town twenty years
or more, and is a very good doctor as doctors go, though I don’t much
believe in ’em myself. The boy he couldn’t find the doctor at first,
and when at last he brings him, his lordship was pretty bad,
particular when he was called by his own name. Dr. Netherbridge he
takes the boss aside and asks him a few questions. Then he says, ‘Send
some sensible person to the Chase to inform Lord Carthew’s friend of
his condition.’ Says the boss, hemming and ha’ing, ‘Sir Philip’s my
landlord,’ he says, ‘and I don’t want to be party to nothing that’ll
put his back up. He’s a very difficult gentleman to deal with.’ Says
Dr. Netherbridge, with a queer sort o’ smile to himself like, ‘I don’t
need to be told,’ says he, ‘of what Sir Philip Cranstoun is like. I’ve
had some dealings with him a good many years ago. Don’t send a message
by a boy,’ he says, ‘but by some one you can trust.’ With that the
boss asks me to do the office, as I ain’t specially afraid of
anything, living or dead, miss, saving your presence, and away I
comes.”

They were nearing the lodge gates now, Stella having turned in that
direction as soon as the man had arrived at his recital of what had
befallen Hilary.

“I will come with you,” she said, in tones that allowed of no
opposition. “I must see how he is. He is my mother’s guest, and it was
partly my fault that the accident happened to him. He stopped my horse
last night, thinking it was running away with me, and one of the
keepers fired to frighten him and accidentally hit him. And what he
says about his name is not a proof of fever, but perfectly true. Lord
Carthew, his friend, had changed names with him in jest; his name is
Mr. Hilary Pritchard.”

“Well, young gentlemen are up to queer larks certainly,” the man
observed, but Stella’s manner did not encourage him to talk, and she
walked so fast that it was all he could do to hasten his slow,
bow-legged, stableman’s gait sufficiently to keep up with her.

Dusk was falling fast as they reached the inn. Before the door stood
the light cart in which the doctor had arrived, ready for his return
journey. Already Stella was beginning to feel nervous and
self-conscious, as she noted the curious glances of the farming folk
gathered under the old-fashioned arched entrance to the yard. The bar
stood on one side of the building, the coffee-room on the other; the
latter room was empty as Miss Cranstoun was shown into it, and she
glanced around in some curiosity. It was a low-ceilinged apartment of
considerable antiquity, but marred and vulgarized by a cheap varnished
paper above the dark wood wainscoting round the walls, by flaming
gas-jets, the light from which flickered on colored prints of racing
scenes and tradesmen’s calendars, and by a small, mean fireplace,
totally inadequate to the size of the room.

A man’s gloves and walking-stick lay on the long wooden table, stained
with the rings left by glasses and pots, and almost as soon as Stella
entered the room a gentleman came in hastily to claim them.

The newcomer was short and pale, with brown hair and beard plentifully
streaked with gray, and a face redeemed from plainness by thoughtful
and penetrating blue eyes.

He came in with his hat on, but at sight of Stella he removed it,
exclaiming as he did so, in evident surprise:

“Miss Cranstoun!”

“That is my name. Do you know me?”

“I knew you directly, by your remarkable likeness to your mother,” he
answered, and then suddenly stopped and blushed very red.

For he had seen the look of astonishment in her face, and remembered
that every one in Grayling supposed Miss Cranstoun to be the daughter
of Lady Gwendolen, a rumor which, as he had never seen the young lady,
he was not in a position to discredit, though he often wondered what
had been the fate of the infant girl whom he himself had seen conveyed
to her father’s house and sent away from thence in the nurse’s care,
one winter’s morning eighteen years ago.

The mystery was solved now. She stood there before him, a slimmer,
more fairy-like, and more refined version of her mother; even her
voice, in its rich, soft intonation, recalled to his mind the unhappy
Clare Lady Cranstoun.

“No one has ever called me like my mother before,” she was saying. “I
did not know you had ever met her. She is a great invalid.”

“What can I do for you now?” he asked, to change the dangerous
subject.

“A man from the stables here met me in the park,” she answered, her
color rising high, “and told me of an accident to a gentleman who was
staying at our house last night. I suppose you know all about
it--about how it happened, I mean, and how the wound broke out again.
You have just come from seeing him, have you not? How is he? Pray tell
me!”

Dr. Ernest Netherbridge was a man of extremely observant mind, and he
drew his own conclusions from the evident interest shown by the young
lady before him for the handsome young giant upstairs.

“He is very feverish, and has a nasty wound in the shoulder, which has
not been improved by the shaking and jolting he has gone through
to-day. I understand that he was your father’s guest last night?”

“My father has never seen him; he only returned home to-day, and Mr.
Pritchard left before luncheon. He seemed very anxious to get back to
London,” faltered Stella, conscious that she was blushing crimson
under the steady gaze of Dr. Netherbridge’s blue eyes. “You have not
told me yet whether there is any danger, and whether--whether I can
see him.”

“I should not say there was any absolute danger except the risk that
fever might supervene after the very unwise exertions of to-day. I
intended going myself to Grayling to fetch a reliable nurse of my
acquaintance. As to seeing him----” he paused, and looked at her
doubtfully. “May I ask,” he inquired, abruptly, “whether the sight of
you is likely to disturb him?”

She blushed deeper still.

“It might perhaps excite him a little,” she stammered; “but I would be
very quiet, and would not speak more than you let me.”

“I am afraid it would be inadvisable,” said the little doctor, shaking
his head. “Quiet is so essential. With rest and care, and obedience to
orders, he ought to be as right as possible within a week. But any
excitement to-night might produce the worst possible effect.”

Tears started to Stella’s eyes.

“Dr. Netherbridge,” she said, humbly, “I have an idea that I shall not
have another opportunity of seeing Mr. Pritchard, perhaps, for a very
long time. If I write something on a slip of paper, will you let him
have it when he is better, and will you yourself tell him that I came,
and that I may not be allowed to do so again? And may I see him just
for one moment, without his seeing me?”

The doctor reflected a moment.

“He was sitting in an arm-chair when I left him,” he said. “He had
refused strenuously to go to bed, and persisted in declaring he must
get on to London to-night. If you will promise not to let your
presence be known, you might come with me now, and see him at least.”

She stole up the stairs after the doctor, her heart beating wildly.
Before a half-open door on the floor above he paused, and beckoned to
her to join him. She was so much taller than he that she easily saw
over his shoulder into the room. Hilary was leaning back in an old
chintz-covered arm-chair. His coat was half off, and his wounded arm
was resting in a sling fastened round his neck. His eyes were closed,
and his brows contracted as if in pain. Tears rolled down Stella’s
face as she looked at him. The room was lit by a single candle, and
where she stood she was in semi-darkness, and undistinguishable.
Something seemed to tell her that it might be long, very long, before
she looked upon his face again, and that this love which had so
suddenly sprung up within her heart was destined to be “tried by pain”
indeed. A sob rose in her throat, and turning quickly away, that it
might not be overheard by Hilary, she groped her way down to the
coffee-room through her tears, and taking pen and paper from a side
table, she scribbled the following lines:


 “Please write to me. I have just seen you, but dared not let you
 know I was here. Please do not forget me, for I shall not forget you.
 And pray do not leave off loving me, for I cannot leave off loving
 you.

                                            “Stella Cranstoun.”


She folded the note, placed it in an envelope addressed to “Hilary
Pritchard, Esq.,” and placed it in Dr. Netherbridge’s hands.

“You will give it to him, won’t you?” she asked, and he promised.

“Thank you, Dr. Netherbridge, and good-by!”

“You are surely not returning to the Chase alone? It must be half an
hour’s walk, and it is so late.”

“Twenty minutes, as I walk it. And it isn’t half-past six yet. I will
send Lord Carthew to his friend. Good-night!”

Before he could say another word she had fled from the room, passed
swiftly out from the arched entrance to the inner yard on to the road,
and disappeared in a bend of the way, leaving Dr. Netherbridge to
ponder on the strange chance which had made him acquainted with the
girl whom he had first seen as a helpless infant of not more than two
days old, more than eighteen years before.




 CHAPTER IX.
 THE GYPSY’S PROPHECY.

“Let me cross your hand with a bit of silver, my pretty lady! Let me
tell your fortune, deary--all about the fair young gentleman you love
so true, and the dark one you won’t have, for all his gold and rank.”

The words, uttered in a hoarse, croaking voice close to Stella’s ear,
as she sped through the trees of the park in the darkness, made her
start and utter a little cry of fright. The terms, too, were so
strangely appropriate to her own circumstances that it seemed as
though they were spoken in response to her thoughts. Turning in
considerable alarm, she perceived a few steps behind her the small,
bent form of a very old woman, in appearance almost a centenarian,
wrapped in a hooded cloak of some dark woollen material. From under
the scattered white locks straying over her wrinkled brow an
extraordinarily brilliant pair of eyes gleamed out, belying her
apparent decrepitude, and carrying out still further the weird and
witch-like effect of her whole appearance as she stood before Stella,
leaning heavily on a stick, with skinny, trembling fingers.

Stella Cranstoun possessed the instinctive reverence for age which
exists in all generous-minded young people. The uncanny appearance of
the old woman considerably startled her in her overwrought state of
mind; but she easily forgot her temporary alarm in an unselfish fear
as to what might befall the aged creature before her should Sir Philip
chance to hear of her presence within his grounds.

“Are you a gypsy?” Stella asked, stopping short, and looking fixedly
at the old woman.

“Ay, my deary; I’m a gypsy, sure enough. Old Sarah is a true Romany.
But the Romanys are your friends, my pretty. You’ve got no call to be
afraid of them.”

“Do you know who I am, then?” the young girl asked, fascinated in
spite of herself by those strangely bright eyes.

Sarah Carewe burst into a hoarse, mirthless laugh, which reminded
Stella more of a raven’s croak than of the ordinary way of expressing
amusement.

“Do I know my Clare’s girl when I see her?” she asked. “My Clare, that
died in my arms when you was a little, helpless baby. You’ve got her
eyes, my pretty, and her face; for all you’re not so round and
_dimber_ as she was in her prime.”

“You are making some mistake,” Stella said. “I am the daughter of Sir
Philip Cranstoun, of the Chase. If you want money I will give you what
I have about me with pleasure; but you must get out of the park as
soon as possible, for my father is dreadfully bitter against tramps
and gypsies, especially gypsies.”

An evil scowl contracted the hag’s white eyebrows.

“_Sallah!_” she muttered, under her breath; and although Stella did
not understand her, she easily guessed that the expression conveyed a
malediction. “He’s hard on us, is he? Let him wait a bit.” Then,
changing suddenly to a wheedling tone, she begged again to be allowed
to tell Stella’s fortune. In vain the girl pressed money upon her, and
tried by warnings and entreaties to get rid of her, while she hurried
on toward the house. Old Sarah was not to be shaken off, and professed
herself fearless as to the consequences which might befall her if seen
by one of Sir Philip’s keepers. Stella began to be seriously
frightened at length lest the woman might come to some harm, knowing
her father’s orders.

“Now, pray, take this half-sovereign,” she urged, “and go back out of
the park at once. In a few seconds we shall be in sight of the house,
and the dogs are trained to fly at any one who is not smartly dressed.
And only yesterday Stephen Lee, one of the keepers, shot a gentleman,
who was accidentally trespassing, in the shoulder, and wounded him
very seriously.”

“Don’t I know, my pretty? And isn’t Stephen Lee son to my own
daughter’s child, and am I not his old _mami_? He won’t hurt me, never
fear. Cross my hand with the bit of gold, and I’ll go.”

In order to rid herself of her, as it was now close on the dinner-hour
at the Chase, Stella let her soft white hand be clutched within
Sarah’s lean fingers, and stood watching, impatient, and yet a little
interested in spite of herself, as the gypsy took a box of matches and
a dirty end of candle from her pocket, and peered into her victim’s
palm under the lightly falling rain.

“I see a prison, my deary, and a marriage forced upon you--marriage
with a dark gentleman, who loves you, dear, and who is a great lord;
but your heart is given to the fair man. I see starvation and a death,
and only one way of help for you.”

She droned the words monotonously, as though some inner force were
dictating them to her, doubtless a trick of her trade, but none the
less impressive to an imaginative young girl.

“Go on!” whispered Stella. “And pray make haste. I _must_ get home.”

“You must ask your own people to save you,” said the old woman,
raising the forefinger of her right hand impressively. “Only the
Romanys can help you. Trust no one else, and when despair comes, send
this token to me--to old Sarah Carewe, that held you in her arms when
you first opened your eyes on this wicked world.”

Suddenly blowing out the candle, she fumbled in her pocket, and then
thrust into Stella’s hand what appeared to be a small silver coin
strung on a piece of dirty red silk cord.

“When you want my help,” she said, “give this to Stephen Lee, and I
will save you. You shall marry the man you love, and live a life of
freedom and happiness, as a Romany _doxy_ should; and the black lord
and the gray wolf may go hang together. Good-night, my pretty.
_Beenship rat._ And remember old Sarah!”

She waved her shrivelled hand in token of parting benediction, and
slunk away among the trees with a swiftness astonishing in a woman of
her years, leaving Stella, with her brain filled by bewildering
questions and ideas, to make the best of her way to the house.

The first dinner-bell had already rung as she entered her room to
dress for dinner. The lady’s maid, who attended both upon her and Lady
Cranstoun, was full of comments upon her moist dress and boots.

“Dear me, miss! how wet your things are! And you seem all flushed as
though you had hurried. I do hope you won’t have taken a chill.”

Stella disliked the girl--a tall, shifty-eyed creature, with a
retreating chin and a tendency to gossip, who had only been in Sir
Philip’s service a short time.

“Don’t waste time in remarks, Ellen,” she said, quietly, “but help me
into my white silk dress.”

Fortunately, she was able to enter the dining-room at a quarter past
seven, on the last stroke of the gong, but by the peculiarly cold and
evil gleam of Sir Philip’s eyes as they rested upon her she knew that
he was already greatly angered against her. This she attributed to the
fact of their conversation in the shrubbery that morning; but what she
did not guess at was a certain short interview which had taken place
between her father and the housemaid Dakin a few minutes before
dinner, while Lady Cranstoun and Lord Carthew were still dressing for
that meal.

Dakin knew that Sir Philip, who carried punctuality to an excess
extremely uncomfortable for other people, would be in his study long
before dinner; she therefore tapped at the door discreetly, and on
being admitted, stated that she had “something to say which she
thought Sir Philip might like to hear.”

She was a plain, sallow-faced woman of forty, with a slight cast in
her dark eyes, and extremely quiet in dress and manner, and she stood,
rolling a little corner of her snowy muslin apron over and over in her
fingers while she spoke.

“It was before lunch, sir,” she said, in a low, apologetic voice. “I
was passing along the corridor, when, as I was walking by the rooms of
the young gentleman that was wounded, and that first of all called
himself Lord Carthew, what did I see by accident, but----”

“Spare me all this circumlocution, Mrs. Dakin. You were spying, as I
pay you to do, and you saw--what?”

“Only Miss Stella, sir, hugging and kissing the young gentleman,”
returned Dakin, with humble vindictiveness.

“The young gentleman! What young gentleman?”

“Mr. Pritchard, sir, that got his arm shot. You didn’t see him, I
think. He was very big and very handsome, and he was calling Miss
Stella his dear and his darling, which, begging your pardon, sir, she
seemed quite to like and encourage him.”

Sir Philip muttered an oath under his breath, and stamped his heel on
the carpet.

“When did this happen?” he asked sharply. “Before or after her ride?”

“After, sir; oh, some time after. Miss Cranstoun had had time to
change into her serge housedress. Indeed, it was just before luncheon,
for it was the first luncheon-bell that gave them a fright. You see,
sir, it was rather indiscreet, for they stood in the sitting-room
quite near the door, which was wide open, so as I couldn’t help seeing
them.”

“What happened then?”

“He said he would write, sir, and then he kissed her again, and she
him; and they said good-by. And during luncheon he went away, after
giving me orders not to tell any one he had gone until an hour or two
had passed, and half a sovereign. And he gave a pound to Margaret, and
two letters, one for Lady Cranstoun, and one for Lord Carthew.”

“Have they received those letters yet?”

“I placed them on the dressing-tables in Lady Cranstoun’s and in Lord
Carthew’s rooms, sir. But neither of them went upstairs after lunch
until just now to dress for dinner.”

“No letter was left for Miss Cranstoun, then?”

“Not so far as I know, sir. Directly after lunch Miss Cranstoun went
out in the grounds for a short time. Then she came back to her own
room, but she wasn’t there at six o’clock, as I found out from her
maid, who couldn’t tell me what had become of her.”

“Go upstairs and find out quietly if she’s in her room now.”

He almost trembled with apprehension during the few minutes of Dakin’s
absence. Her news had very seriously disturbed him, coming as it did
after Stella’s defiant declaration in the shrubbery that she would
never marry Lord Carthew. Her words, taken by themselves, had affected
him but little; but in conjunction with the fact that she had had the
audacity and the folly to choose a lover for herself, they became very
serious indeed. Was it possible that she had already actually eloped
with this farmer’s son, whom she had only met for the first time
yesterday evening? Was all his cunning concealment of her mother’s
humble origin to be wasted if once the wild gypsy blood in her had a
chance of asserting itself? Was his name to be disgraced, after the
pains he had taken to clear it from all possible taint of his
miserable first marriage? That old gypsy hag, when she cursed him
before the court-house eighteen years ago, had prophesied that his
children should bring disgrace upon his name. Were her words coming
true already?

The housemaid’s entrance set his fears at rest for the time.

“I listened outside the bedroom door, sir,” the woman said, “and Ellen
was dressing Miss Cranstoun, and remarking that her serge gown and her
boots are wet. So she must have been out walking.”

Sir Philip was puzzled. Could the fellow be hanging about the grounds
still? he wondered. But if he wished to make love to Stella, why had
he, hampered as he was by a wounded limb, already left the shelter of
the Chase?

“Understand,” he said, to the woman, sternly, “I am extremely annoyed
that you should have let Miss Cranstoun give you the slip this
afternoon. Every movement of hers must be watched at this point and
reported tome. Either you or the lady’s maid, Ellen, must dog her
footsteps everywhere. She must never be again allowed to leave the
house alone.”

At dinner Lord Carthew informed his host that he was much disturbed by
a letter he had just read which had been left for him by his friend.

“I dropped into his sitting-room a little before luncheon,” he
explained, “and found him lying, fully dressed, asleep on the sofa. I
didn’t like to disturb him, and half hoped to see him at lunch. After
lunch, I was so pleasantly employed talking to Lady Cranstoun, chiefly
about you, Miss Stella, that the afternoon flew by I can’t tell how.
Then when I went just now to see my friend, I found that he had flown,
leaving only a note in which he asks me to make his excuses to Lady
Cranstoun, and to thank her for her kindness, but that as he is quite
well, he will not trespass upon it any longer, but will at once return
to London, where a doctor of his acquaintance will soon set him up
again.”

“Mr. Pritchard left a note for me also,” put in Lady Cranstoun, “in
which he said much the same thing. It seems so curious that he should
have been our guest, and yet that I have never seen him. But I very
much hope that he will come to no hurt through making a move so
suddenly. He is a very dear friend of yours, is he not?” She turned to
Lord Carthew with almost an affectionate touch in her manner. She was
slightly flushed this evening, and her pale blue eyes positively
shone. It had always been a subject of dread with her lest her beloved
Stella should be forced into some marriage totally distasteful to her
by her father’s tyranny. But her short interview with Stella that
morning, and her long talk with Lord Carthew in the afternoon, had
convinced her that here was the ideal husband for her daughter--rich,
titled, a connection of her own, and at the same time intellectual,
generous, affectionate, and of a singularly high character. His manner
to her was perfect. After so many wretched years of slighting and
snubbing and terrorizing which she had patiently endured from her
husband, the gentle deference and kindly sympathy of Lord Carthew came
to her as something altogether new and delightful. If only she herself
at Stella’s age had had the good fortune to secure the affection of
such a man, she felt that her lot would have been different indeed.
Knowing something, too, of the volcanic depths of Stella’s nature, of
her determination, her impulsiveness, and her powers of loving and
hating in what seemed to poor Lady Cranstoun an exaggerated and
incomprehensible degree, her motherly heart was the more rejoiced that
a man of originality and evident force of character had seen fit to
throw the handkerchief to her.

What Lady Cranstoun, unfortunately, altogether failed to take into
account was that strange magnetism which occasional members of
opposite sexes exercise over each other, not always with the happiest
results. Beautiful, luckless Clare Carewe had aroused such a passion
in the breast of even the cold and calculating Sir Philip twenty years
ago, and at the present moment Sir Philip’s daughter was consumed by
just such an unreasoning and overwhelming love for Hilary Pritchard,
who, after all, had done little more than look into her eyes, speak
somewhat disparagingly about her, catch her in his arms in that one
mad embrace, and then leave the house, apparently without the wish or
the intention to see her again. Hilary had neither rank, nor fortune,
nor family; he was not Lord Carthew’s equal in intelligence, nor was
he a man of such original and large-minded views. He had sometimes
flirted with nice and pretty girls of his acquaintance, but he had
seldom devoted much thought to any woman, a good run to hounds being
in his opinion far better than the most fascinating courtship, and no
woman in the world the equal of his mare, Black Bess.

As to marriage, Hilary had no wish for such a binding and fettering
arrangement for many years to come. There was the Canadian legacy to
be made into a profitable investment first. In time, no doubt, a wife
and children would be nice to come home to on winter evenings, but he
had scarcely ever regarded even their remote possibilities except as
so much more or less ornamental and expensive furniture in his future
homestead.

He had not meant to fall in love with Stella Cranstoun. Nothing was,
in fact, further from his thoughts than to fall in love with anybody.
Against his will, her personality affected him, and from the moment
when he laid his hand upon her bridle-rein until he parted from her in
the corridor, through all the physical pain of his wound, the thought
of her beauty haunted his mind, try as he would to cast it out. She
was altogether unsuited to him, and marriage with her would be
impossible. What was there in common between the granddaughter of a
Duke, the child of one of the proudest men in England, and himself,
the son of a plain yeoman, of neither family nor fortune?

Stella, of course, could not guess that this was her lover’s state of
mind, but something of it she gathered from Lord Carthew’s talk when,
in answer to Lady Cranstoun’s inquiry as to whether Hilary was a
particular friend of his, he said, warmly:

“I am extremely attached to him. I attribute his sudden departure
to-day to his intense independence of character, which he sometimes
carries even to an aggressive extent. He was very angry over what he
chose to consider as the false position in which he was placed by my
whim in changing names with him, for which trick I have not yet
sufficiently apologized to you or to Miss Cranstoun.”

He turned eagerly to Stella as he spoke, but she rewarded him only by
a frigid bend of the head.

“I have already told you,” he went on, a little chilled by her manner,
“of my disgust at the snobbishness of those people who, because of my
superior rank, loaded me with attentions, and almost ignored the
existence of my handsome friend. At a house where we recently visited,
four pretty girls, set on, I suppose, by their parents, hardly so much
as talked to him, and made a dead set at me. Now, this was
ridiculously unnatural, for my friend is the most superbly handsome
man I have ever seen, a giant in height, and one of the finest
athletes in the University, with a face, too, which cannot fail to
attract women, to whom, however, I must own, he is extremely
indifferent.”

“Your friend, then,” interposed Sir Philip, who was keenly watching
the effect of this talk upon his daughter, “has no intention of
marrying at present, I presume?”

“So far from it,” Lord Carthew returned, “he has not the slightest
wish to settle down in matrimony for many years to come. He has the
bad taste, indeed, not to think about women at all; which is,
perhaps,” he added, with a laugh, “considering Hilary’s remarkable
natural advantages, a very good thing for us plain little fellows.”




 CHAPTER X.
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

Lord Carthew spoke as he did of his friend’s prospects and
intentions with perfect frankness and loyalty, never for one moment
suspecting the effect which his words might produce in the mind of
Stella Cranstoun.

He really believed that Hilary had the bad taste to dislike that young
lady, and he was certainly not ill-pleased by such a manifestation of
feeling on the part of his handsome friend. Not for an instant did the
suspicion cross his mind that two persons present were listening with
intense, even breathless, interest to his careless words.

“I must go up to town the first thing to-morrow morning,” he said,
presently, “to find out how Hilary is. Of course he is enormously
strong, but for that very reason he is the more likely to overestimate
his powers of recuperation. Early in the autumn he will be going out
to settle in Canada on a farm which has been left to him, and I
believe he proposes to spend some years there, so that we shall not
long have a chance of being together. He is a capital business man, as
long-headed and keen-sighted over a bargain as most Yorkshiremen are,
and I have no doubt that he will carry out his expressed
determination, and make the property pay.”

“By which time, probably, he will modify his views on the marriage
state sufficiently to permit of his mating with some honest, robust
person in his own rank of life, who will rear for him a squarely built
and solid brood of Anglo-Canadian olive-branches,” remarked Sir
Philip, still with his eyes furtively watching his daughter.

“Here is to your friend the farmer’s health and prosperity,” he added,
sipping his brown sherry with the air of a connoisseur. “A man in that
position is very wise in deferring marriage as long as possible. In
the case of the lower middle-class, too often ‘a young man married is
a man that’s marred.’”

“One must always take Anne Hathaway into consideration when one
recalls Shakespeare’s reflections on the marriage state,” observed
Lord Carthew. “A man who at eighteen marries a woman of
six-and-twenty, beneath him in rank, and of questionable character, is
hardly likely to entertain a high opinion of wedded life. Speaking for
myself, I have always looked forward with out-of-date eagerness and
interest to the day when I should bring home my bride. And I am most
anxious to see my father and mother on the subject at the present
time.”

His eyes rested lovingly upon Stella, but as he had not directly used
her name, she could hardly utter a disclaimer. The blood rushed to her
cheeks as she realized that she was being placed in a wrong position
altogether. Lord Carthew treated her, spoke to her, and alluded to
her, as though there were some compact between them; and yet, as she
had promised nothing, there was nothing to retract. If she were to
assure him again privately, after dinner, that she did not love him,
that would but be repeating what she had said to him before; he had
said that he did not expect her love, and was glad to be content as
yet with merely her liking. How could she say:

“This morning I hardly knew that I had fallen in love with your friend
at first sight, and I believed he disliked me extremely; also, the
prospect of an escape from the Chase, and from my father’s tyranny,
for both my mother and myself, seemed too good to be missed. But after
you had spoken to me, and I had more than half encouraged you, your
friend kissed me, and instantly I knew that I loved him with all my
heart, as he loved me, and that marriage with you was absolutely
impossible.”

Clearly she could not make such a statement, especially in the face of
what Lord Carthew himself had said of Hilary’s rooted aversion against
marriage, together with the significant fact of his hasty departure
from the Chase, without so much as telling her in so many words that
he loved her.

Stella was intensely miserable that evening. Every now and then she
told herself, in passionate self-reproach, that hers was the fault,
that Hilary had not loved her, had not meant to kiss her. It was
merely, as he himself had said, like a part of his dream; it was that
little gesture of hers toward him which had hastened that one quick
embrace of which he had already so plainly repented. She almost cried
aloud in humiliation at the thought, and the blushes coursed over her
cheeks under her lowered lashes so swiftly and unaccountably that poor
Lord Carthew was to be pardoned if he began to lay the dear delight to
his soul that she was thinking of him. Of what else, indeed, could she
be thinking? he asked himself, as he noted her evident abstraction,
her strange reserve, and those sudden changes of color.

When Lady Cranstoun and Stella retired to the drawing-room, the
former, settling herself upon her sofa, motioned to the young girl to
draw her low stool up beside her, and tenderly stroked her hair.

“I am so glad, my dear,” she murmured, while her gentle eyes filled
with tears, “so very, very glad. And I like him extremely. He is the
ideal son I always wished to have. I cannot tell you what a relief it
all is to my mind. He is my own relation, too. I have not felt so
happy for many, many years.”

“What do you mean, mamma dear?” stammered Stella, feeling terribly
guilty.

“Ah, my child, you know well enough. And now I will tell you
something, dear; if I have often seemed rather selfish in the way in
which I have taken care of myself, and tried to avoid excitement and
ward off attacks of illness, it has been because of my awful dread of
leaving you with _him_--your father. Heaven knows, I have been always
a poor companion for a lovely, bright, young girl, and not much
protection for you against his anger. But still, you have always felt,
have you not, that your mother was with you, that she loved you, and
sympathized with you, and suffered with you? You have never felt the
bitter loneliness of being without a friend to love you among enemies?
When I have been feeling tired, ill, and worn out, I have said to
myself, ‘I must not give way; I must not die until my Stella is
happily provided for.’ I could not die and leave you with _him_. But
now if, as Lord Carthew suggests, the marriage takes place almost
immediately--and, indeed, what is there to hinder it?--I shall have my
mind at peace, knowing that you will be safe under the protection of a
good man’s love. I can die quietly, happily, and thankfully,
remembering that.”

“Don’t, don’t talk about dying!” cried Stella, bursting into a flood
of tears, and covering Lady Cranstoun’s wasted hands with kisses. “I
could not lose you--you must not die! And--and I don’t love Lord
Carthew. I never shall. I know he is good and clever, and all that you
say, but--but I cannot marry him!”

Lady Cranstoun sat upright on her sofa, looking very white and wan.

“Don’t, darling, for my sake, be capricious any more,” she whispered.
“As to disliking him because he is a viscount instead of a farmer, as
you thought at first, that is foolish and beneath you. You are only
joking, my dear, are you not? You would not disappoint me so bitterly,
after all our talk this morning, about that voyage to the Cape, and
how I was to come and stay with you, and--and----”

The words died upon her lips. An ashen gray tint spread over her face,
and she fell back among her cushions in a fainting-fit. Her feeble
frame was not equal to the strain of the day’s excitement, culminating
in the shock of Stella’s refusal to carry out the contract to which
she seemed so willing a party in the morning, and on which Lady
Cranstoun had set her heart.

Stella overwhelmed herself with reproaches as she assisted Margaret to
restore the invalid to consciousness. The gentlemen were still in the
dining-room; they were, indeed, discussing the question of marriage
settlements in a highly amicable manner. But to Stella’s great relief,
Dr. Morland Graham returned from town just at the moment when his
patient recovered consciousness, and by his advice she was taken off
to bed, where she soon fell asleep, worn out by the fatigue and
excitement of the day.

“I want to talk to you about your dear mamma,” said Dr. Graham, in his
most benevolent professional manner, as he accompanied Miss Cranstoun
back to the drawing-room. “I don’t think even you quite realize her
extreme weakness. Her heart is in such an enfeebled state that she
must on no account be exposed to the slightest shock. She may die in a
fainting-fit similar to the one she had to-night, and the finest
medical skill in the world would not save her. She must not be
thwarted or disappointed, if her life is to be prolonged, say for a
year or two longer. May I ask whether there was any apparent reason
for her last seizure?”

“Yes,” answered Stella, after a moment’s hesitation. “We--we were
talking about an offer of marriage which I have just received.”

“Indeed! That is most interesting. May I be allowed to congratulate
you? And who is the happy man?”

“Wait, please! The man is Lord Carthew, who for some silly freak
changed names with his friend when he came here last night.”

The doctor laughed, a long, low, comfortable, and self-satisfied
laugh.

“The young gentleman did not deceive _me_,” he said, complacently. “I
know Lord Northborough well, and the family likeness between him and
his son is remarkable.”

“Apparently,” said the young lady, angrily, “_I_ was the only person
whom it was deemed necessary to deceive. In the name of Pritchard,
Lord Carthew asked me to marry him, and I told him I would think about
it. I _did_ think about it, and I decided against him, but in the mean
time he had had interviews with my father and mother in which he
appears to have presented himself in the light of an accepted suitor.
But I haven’t the slightest intention of marrying him. In fact,” she
added, vigorously, “the very idea of it makes me _hate_ him!”

“I really,” began the doctor, “can see nothing in the young
gentleman’s manners or style to justify your dislike----”

“It isn’t that!” she interrupted, eagerly. “Dr. Graham, you are a
clever man--you understand men and women. Don’t you know quite well
that it is possible to like people very much as friends, but to
_loathe_ them in the suggested capacity of husbands or wives?”

“Certainly, certainly. But in this case the match appears so
exceptionally happy--however, the subject in discussion is your
mamma’s health. You tell me you were talking over the proposed
marriage with her. I suppose that she is in favor of it?”

“She has set her heart upon it,” said Stella, with a sigh. “And as
soon as I told her my objections she fainted.”

“One thing is quite certain,” said Dr. Graham, emphatically. “If you
wish to preserve her life, you must at least affect to fall in with
her views for the present.”

“But they want to marry me off at once,” she cried, desperately, “even
before I am presented at Court!”

“Well, well!” returned the doctor, soothingly, “I shouldn’t think your
fate such a _very_ hard one, after all. The Earl of Northborough is
one of the most distinguished statesmen in England, in high favor at
Court, with a wife who brought him about a million, and Lord Carthew
is the only son. All the beautiful and well-bred girls in London have
been setting their caps at him for the past two years.”

“You don’t understand!” she cried. “These things are nothing, less
than nothing, to me. So far from coveting wealth and rank, I would
avoid them. My ideal of marriage is quite--quite different.”

She stopped short and blushed deeply.

“I cannot make you understand,” she said again, and turned away.

“I can understand two things, Miss Stella,” he answered, gravely;
“caprice on the one hand, and duty on the other.”

She turned sharply round and faced him.

“Duty!” she repeated, coldly. “I don’t understand you.”

“The daughter of Sir Philip Cranstoun and granddaughter of the Duke of
Lanark is not in a position to marry for mere caprice any person she
may happen to take a fancy to,” he said. “_Noblesse oblige._ You must
keep up the traditions of your family and marry some one in your own
rank of life. It is a duty which you owe to your family, your
training, and your parents. In your case, the duty is all the more
clearly marked out for you, as Lady Cranstoun’s health depends
entirely upon your fulfilment of her clearly expressed wishes; if you
disappoint her in her very natural and loving wish to see you happily
married to so intellectual and high-minded a nobleman as Lord Carthew,
her death may lie at your door.”

Stella rose from her chair and walked away from him toward the window.
She felt that a net was being drawn about her feet, and her former
liking for Lord Carthew turned to a resentful dislike. With her heart
throbbing in her bosom at the very thought of another man, with every
fibre of her being tingling with passionate love for him, how could
she tamely endure the suggestions that, even for her mother’s sake,
she must marry Lord Carthew? It was useless to reason with her. The
gypsy Carewe blood in her veins was burning with unreasoning passion.
She loved Hilary Pritchard, loved him with such unquestioning ardor
that she would only too gladly have left her home that night to follow
him, penniless and barefooted, throughout the world. Arguments were
wasted upon such a nature. There was no trace of the cold and proud
Douglas element in _her_ temperament; eccentric, strong-willed
Cranstoun, and wild, lawless Carewe had united to produce this
strange, half-tamed creature, with only a coating of education and
repressive training over the primeval passions, the wandering
instincts, and the marked rebellion against all constituted authority
which characterize her race.

All the gypsy in her was dominant to-night as, with flushed cheeks and
glittering eyes, she went up to her harp, and striking a few effective
chords, sat down before it, and broke into a Hungarian air, which had
greatly taken her fancy among some new music which had arrived from
town during her father’s absence. Perhaps her strange meeting with old
Sarah Carewe had put the thought of the gypsy race into her head; or
else it was that in her present excitable, rebellious, and agitated
mood, the wild Zingari music appealed to her feelings; certain it is
that she threw all the repressed intensity of her nature into the
song. She was an excellent musician, and played from memory,
suggesting the air, now wild, now plaintive, by a succession of
chords. The words, too, a lament supposed to be uttered by a dying
“Egyptian,” chimed in with her own frame of mind sufficiently well to
enable her to throw her whole soul into her voice.

Even that well-regulated person, Dr. Morland Graham, was astonished
and excited by her performance. How came the daughter of Lady
Gwendolen to possess such dramatic intensity and fire? he asked
himself, while the girl’s sweet soprano notes clove the air, and the
strange wailing pathos of her tones brought actual tears to his eyes.

Two other listeners had entered the room. Stella sang on, unheeding
them, while Lord Carthew watched her, entranced in admiration, and her
father regarded her with a heavy scowl of intense disapprobation.

The picture she made, sitting there in her slender, girlish beauty,
her cheeks pale with excitement, her eyes aglow, her dusky hair
framing her small, sensitive face, and that sweet, pathetic voice
ringing out the wild love, the longing for liberty, and the loneliness
of the dying gypsy--all these things, which filled the other two men
present with wondering admiration, irritated Sir Philip beyond
measure. How dared she sing gypsy songs in his presence? Above all,
how dared she reveal in her singing that warm southern nature which he
so strongly mistrusted, and the possession of which in his daughter he
regarded as something in the light of a disgrace?

The song ceased. The singer drooped her head, as though exhausted by
the effort, while her fingers still lingered about the strings. A
burst of applause, coming simultaneously from Lord Carthew and Dr.
Graham, caused her to start violently. She had completely forgotten
that she was not quite alone.

“I have never heard singing like yours,” the young viscount said,
coming to her side. “You made me cry, and I am not very easily moved.
It is not only your voice which is lovely, but your expression. Do you
know what you made me think of as you sat there, telling of your
longing for fresh air and freedom, and the joys of life?”

“No.”

“Of that line I told you of this morning, when Tennyson’s heroine saw
the lovers pass:


 “‘“I am half sick of shadows,” said
  The Lady of Shalott.’”


She looked up at him, and smiled involuntarily. He certainly
understood at least a portion of what was in her mind.

“Your daughter is a most accomplished musician, and a beautiful
singer,” Dr. Graham was saying to Sir Philip.

“I do not approve of that class of song,” Sir Philip’s rasping voice
made answer. “It is theatrical and tawdry in sentiment, and in my
opinion not a song for a gentlewoman to sing.”

Stella glanced at her father. Seeing that he appeared to be engaged in
conversation by Dr. Graham, she resolved to tell Lord Carthew that his
friend Hilary Pritchard was not in London, but lying at the inn near
the lodge gates of the Chase.

“I have something I want to say to you,” she began, speaking very
softly, lest her father might overhear her. But she was not quick
enough for the gray wolf. In an instant he had left the doctor and
joined her.

“I understand,” he said, addressing Lord Carthew with an affectation
of geniality, “that you are a good chess-player. Dr. Graham here is a
great authority on chess, and one of the best players in London. Will
you and he have a game while I go with my daughter to see how my wife
is now?”

His guests could do no less than follow his suggestion, while Stella,
her heart beating fast with apprehension, followed her father out of
the room.

As soon as the door was closed, he turned upon her harshly.

“Come to my study,” he said. “I have something to say to you.”




 CHAPTER XI.
 AN OLD STORY.

In the study, Sir Philip Cranstoun assumed his favorite position,
with his back to the fire, and his feet planted firmly on the
hearth-rug.

Stella stood at a little distance, her hands folded over the back of a
tall, carved oak chair. Looking at her under his heavy black eyebrows,
her father was instantly reminded of another scene which had taken
place in that same house more than eighteen years ago, on the night
when Clare Lady Cranstoun first learned of her father’s murder.

“I called you in here,” the Baronet began, abruptly, “to speak of your
forthcoming marriage.”

Stella tightened her lips, and held fast to the back of the chair, but
she did not speak.

“Your forthcoming marriage,” reiterated Sir Philip, “with my friend,
Lord Carthew.”

Still no word came from Stella. Her disdainful silence irritated her
father.

“Carthew is noted for his eccentricity,” he sneered. “Hence, no doubt,
his lucky admiration for you. Very few men would have forgiven the
exhibition you made of yourself just now over that silly and vulgar
song.”

The color came faintly into her cheeks, but she still kept silent.
Silence was her best weapon against her father, as she knew well.

“The marriage will take place early in May,” he proceeded; “so you
must make your preparations, and name a date for the ceremony not
later than the sixteenth of the month. Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” she answered, raising her eyes at length, and steadily meeting
his gaze, “I hear you; but I shall not marry Lord Carthew.”

“You will marry him,” he said, a dark flush spreading under his pallid
skin. “So surely as you stand there you will marry him!”

“I shall not!”

Her voice rang out now clear and sharp, and into her fair face came a
look of dogged resistance, at sight of which Sir Philip’s smouldering
wrath broke into a flame.

“You will do as I tell you!” he swore, the veins in his forehead
starting into ugly prominence. “You, a beggar’s brat, born in a hovel,
dare to set your will against mine! You should by rights be tramping
from door to door at the heels of some filthy caravan, selling brooms,
and stealing chickens, with a hedge to sleep under, and the police on
your track! Do you know what you are--you, with your white face, and
your defiant airs and graces, who do not consider an earl’s son good
enough for you, but must needs disgrace yourself by a servant-girl
flirtation in the corridor with a man who will make your folly a
smoking-room jest? You think yourself a duke’s grandchild, a Douglas
by descent, and daughter to my wife, Lady Gwendolen. But you came into
this world some months before I ever saw that lady; you were born in a
miserable cabin, and your mother was a wayside tramp, a common gypsy!”

He hurled the words at her with stinging emphasis. She stood before
him, pale as ashes, her eyes distended, quivering in every limb. But
for the support of the chair she would have fallen to the ground. A
hundred little incidents seemed to start simultaneously to prominence
in her mind as she listened to him, chief among them being the old
fortune-teller’s assurance that she was a “Romany,” and that the
gypsies would befriend her.

Stephen Lee, too, through whom she was to communicate if necessary
with old Sarah, had he not told her only that day that there was not
so much difference between her rank and his as she supposed? And Dr.
Netherbridge’s strange recognition of her by her “likeness to her
mother,” was not that also a link in the chain?

The room seemed to rock round her, and the ground to give way under
her feet. Something told her that her father was speaking the truth,
and her heart contracted with pain as she realized that gentle,
affectionate Lady Cranstoun, from whom she had received the only
tenderness and kindness which had as yet warmed her young life, might
not really be her mother after all.

But whatever she felt, however great her astonishment, dismay, and
even horror at his words, it was chiefly necessary to retain her
self-control, and no cry, no exclamation escaped her lips as she
mutely waited for her father to say more.

“When my wife, Lady Gwendolen, lost her child,” Sir Philip went on,
mercilessly, “you were sent for and admitted into this house on
sufferance, lest she should lose her reason. The poor, weak-witted
thing chose to believe that you were hers, and partly to humor her,
partly to conceal your disgraceful origin, I allowed the deception to
be kept up until now. You would never have known from what beggar’s
stock you sprang but from your folly and pride, which to me, who know
the truth about your origin, is equally offensive and ridiculous.”

“Will you tell me one thing?” she asked, in an unnaturally steady
voice. “You say I am not Lady Cranstoun’s child; am I yours?”

She could not keep the eagerness she felt out of her tones. He glanced
at her curiously, ignoring her reason for the question.

“You are a gypsy’s child,” he answered, hoping to humiliate her.

“Not yours?” she cried, a ray of unmistakable relief flashing into her
face. “Not yours! Oh, thank Heaven!”

In an instant he saw his mistake. The thought that she owed him
neither reverence nor respect had come as a joyful relief to her.

“You are my daughter,” he said, harshly, “and you have to obey me.
Fortunately for you, no one suspects the truth, or you would certainly
not have been honored by an offer of marriage from the heir to Lord
Northborough.”

He had purposely chosen such words in alluding to her mother that
Stella might infer that she had no legal title to the name she bore.
The object he had in view was to humble her pride, and whether or not
he broke her heart at the same time was a matter of perfect
indifference to him.

As he finished speaking, she began to move toward the door. A mist
seemed to hang before her eyes, and she was trembling so much that her
feet could hardly bear her weight; but she was as proud as he, and
fully resolved that he should not see the full effect of his words
upon her.

“Understand,” he called after her, “your marriage will take place
early in May.”

She turned and faced him at the door.

“Lord Carthew shall hear to-night every word that you have said to me.
Then, as you suggest, he will cease from troubling me.”

“I forbid you to exchange one word with him on the subject.”

Joining her by the door, he gripped her arm in his fingers as he had
done in the morning. The pain of his clutch was intense, but she never
winced under it.

“It is my duty to tell him, Sir Philip,” she said, as though she were
addressing a stranger.

“Go to your room at once, and do not presume to leave it until you
have my permission.”

“As you please. But as soon as I meet Lord Carthew, he shall hear
every word.”

Baffled and furious, he released his hold on her arm, and following
her upstairs, he watched her enter her own room, and drawing out the
key, turned it on the outside, and slipped it into his pocket. He had
totally miscalculated the effect upon her of the announcement he had
made. He imagined that it would lower her pride to the dust, and break
down once and forever her opposition to his will. But she had gone
from the study with head erect and flashing eyes; and so far from
dreading lest the secret of her humble birth should become known, she
had instantly decided upon sharing it with the last person in the
world who ought to be made aware of it.

More than ever it was necessary to hurry on this match with Lord
Carthew. In such a spirit as that in which Stella now found herself,
it was impossible to say what reckless step she might take. On
returning to the drawing-room, therefore, Sir Philip pretended to read
a newspaper, while his two guests finished their game, and he
afterward contrived, in the course of a short talk with Lord Carthew,
to strongly encourage that young gentleman’s hopes, and indeed to turn
them to certainties.

“I have been having a little talk with my daughter,” he began, as the
gentlemen sipped their grog and enjoyed a parting smoke before
retiring for the night. “She is quite willing that the wedding shall
take place during the second week in May. I haven’t a doubt that this
house is extremely lonely for Stella, and that in her secret heart she
is overjoyed at the thought of leaving it. The only difficulty is that
she has never been separated from her mother, and I rather fancy that
that is what she wanted to speak to you about just when I came up and
interrupted her.”

“I shall be delighted if Lady Cranstoun will come with us when we set
up housekeeping in town,” Lord Carthew answered, his plain face
radiant with happiness. “I will talk over all arrangements with my
mother when I go up to town to-morrow. I ought to go up early, because
I am really anxious about my friend Hilary. Dr. Graham has been
declaring how extremely rash it was for him to leave the shelter of
your roof at present, and I am most anxious to find out whether he has
suffered any ill effects from the journey.”

Lord Carthew retired to his room that night with a light heart, which
not even the recollection of the palmist Kyro’s prediction could
depress. “A passionate love affair, a hasty marriage, followed
speedily by overwhelming misfortunes,” such were the terms of the
prophecy made for his future a few weeks before. But now, in the
belief that he had secured at least the warm friendship and willing
consent of a lovely, high-born, fascinating, and gifted bride, Claud
felt that he could laugh such gloomy predictions to scorn. Stella
liked him, and would soon grow to love him, for Lord Carthew fully
believed, as do so many men, that love is a plant which can be induced
to grow in any woman’s heart with proper care and trouble.

Not for one moment did he suspect that the beautiful girl whom he
hoped so shortly to make his wife was at that moment pacing up and
down the boards of her bedchamber, completely dressed, with all idea
of slumber banished from her mind, and her head in a whirl of
passionate and rebellious thoughts, of which not one was devoted to
him.

Her father’s statements had affected her to the full as much as he
intended, but in a totally different direction from that which he had
expected. So far from the knowledge of her mother’s humble origin
inclining her to gratefully accept Lord Carthew’s offer, it seemed to
her to place an insuperable and not unwelcome barrier between them.

“Hilary thought I was his superior in position,” she said to herself;
“and oh, how glad I am that that is altered now! He was so humble, he
begged my pardon so earnestly for having taken me into his arms; and I
am only a poor gypsy’s daughter after all--beneath him, not above him!
He must know that. I must tell him, and as soon as possible, before he
has time to leave the neighborhood.

“And my mother--what became of her? Is she dead? Can any one tell me
of her? Would Margaret know? She has been in the house many years, but
she would not tell, I think. But there was the little doctor, who knew
I was Miss Cranstoun because I was so like my mother. He must have
known her, then. Did not the hostler tell me that when Dr.
Netherbridge sent him here last night he told him that he knew the
Chase, and knew Sir Philip, and had been here years ago? I must see
this doctor privately, and at once must find out who and what my
mother was. If she ever loved my father--and could any one love him, I
wonder?--she must have been very, very miserable.”

Until the day broke, Stella remained lost in excited thought,
wide-awake, and either walking restlessly up and down the room, or
rocking herself backward and forward in a rocking-chair. Her desire to
see Hilary immediately grew stronger every moment. She fully believed
that when he knew her to be of humble birth, he would no longer avoid
her, but would give his love as frankly as he would accept hers. Yet
she felt that she must first of all see Dr. Netherbridge, and learn
from him the truth about her mother. Her cheeks grew hot with shame at
the thought that she had perhaps no right to bear the name of
Cranstoun. The idea was so inexpressibly painful that she tried to
banish it from her mind; but it returned again and again with a
persistency not to be denied. Could she once ascertain that to be a
fact, she decided, in an outburst of grief and humiliation, that she
would escape from the Chase, and hide herself as far away as possible,
unknown to any one. If she was indeed without either legal father or
mother, she would no longer live upon grudgingly doled-out charity,
but would go into the world and earn a living for herself, as many
other poor and friendless girls were doing daily, banishing from her
mind forever all thoughts of love and marriage.

She was fully resolved of one thing: that no man but Hilary Pritchard
should be her husband; but she would never come to him with a stain
upon her name.

Then, again, her reflections were disturbed by the memory of the
gentle lady who believed her to be her daughter. How could she
possibly desert her under any circumstances? Whatever the amount of
her obligation toward Sir Philip, Stella realized that the love and
duty she owed to Lady Gwendolen were none the less, but rather the
more, urgent, should there, indeed, be no blood relationship between
them. The more she pondered, the more troubled her mind became, and
she longed above all things for the daybreak in order that she might
put into action some of the plans which were formulating in her brain.

Meantime, she was locked in, and could only be let out at Sir Philip’s
pleasure. This reflection filled her with a deep annoyance, and she
set about evolving methods of escape.

There were two windows in her room, both tall and wide, divided by
woodwork into squares about a foot high. She was only on the first
floor, and the ivy which clung about every part of the walls would
appear to offer a tolerably easy means of descent to one as light and
agile as she. By half-past five o’clock she could endure her attitude
of waiting and thinking no longer. Performing her toilet hastily, she
changed her white silk evening gown into her serge morning costume,
donned her hat and jacket, and pushing up the heavy sash of one of the
windows, looked down on the terrace below and across at the trees to
see whether her movements were observed.

No one was astir yet. A faint morning haze lay upon the fresh spring
foliage about the treetops, and the morning sun, as it tried to burst
through the vapor which rose from the damp earth, turned the dewdrops
on the grass to shimmering diamonds. Catching her skirts close to her,
she ventured one slender foot over the ledge of the window, testing
the strength of the support accorded by the ivy. Luckily for her, the
roots of a great ivy tree started at a point exactly between the
windows of her room, and the branches were strong enough to support a
far heavier burden than her light frame. A few scrambling steps, a
prodigious rustling of ivy leaves, some tiny stones displaced, and
then, with a flushed face, a dusty dress, and the palms of her soft
hands a little cut and scratched, Stella found herself standing on the
terrace, free.

A few moments later, she was running like a startled hare in the
direction of a weak point in the wall which surrounded the Chase
enclosure, as she particularly wished to avoid awaking the
lodge-keepers from their slumbers. By a quarter past six she had
reached the inn where Hilary was staying. The window-blinds were all
drawn down, and no one was stirring but her friend the hostler, who,
whistling an air popular in London some months before, was pottering
about the stable-yard.

Catching sight of the tall, slight, girlish figure in plain blue serge
gown and close-fitting serge jacket, he dropped in surprise the great
horse-sponge and the bucket with which he was laden, and uttered a
prolonged whistle of astonishment.

“Miss Cranstoun, as I’m alive!” he exclaimed. “Why, who’d ha’ thought
of seeing you so early, miss?”

“I have to go into Grayling as soon as possible, and I want you to
lend me a horse,” she explained. “I will bring it back to your stables
very shortly, and will take great care of it. I could not get one at
home, as every one was asleep when I left.”

The man’s eyes twinkled. Not being a householder, and coming as he did
from London, the hostler had none of the local dread of Sir Philip
Cranstoun’s displeasure.

“How would you like to borrow our young gentleman’s Black Bess, that
you admired so much, for a little spin?” he suggested. “She takes a
bit of riding, but I lay you’ll manage her.”

The offer was one after Stella’s own heart, and after a short time
spent in fitting upon Black Bess’ back the unaccustomed side-saddle,
Stella sprang lightly into her seat, and stroking the mare’s glossy
black neck, turned her head toward Grayling and started her off in a
gallop.

At first the mare, who had never before been ridden by a lady, was
sorely puzzled by the flapping of Stella’s gown, and curved her long
neck every now and then in a vain attempt to bite at her rider’s
skirts. Gradually, however, getting used to this phenomenon, and
realizing the difference between Stella’s weight and Hilary’s, she put
her head down and made one determined effort to run away with her
unusual burden. Baffled in this attempt, she settled down to the
inevitable, and carried Stella as the girl had never been carried
before, skimming over the ground in a way which would have left even
fleet-footed Zephyr far behind.

Grayling, at seven o’clock, was still chiefly asleep, but a
red-cheeked Grayling boy, who was spinning a top in the principal
thoroughfare, desisted from his occupation in order to stare at
Stella, and to inform her, in a drawling Surrey dialect, of the
whereabouts of Dr. Ernest Netherbridge’s house.

The little doctor was no longer a bachelor. A knowledge of the fact
that many steady-going provincial patients preferred their doctors
married, together with the extreme dulness of having “no one to come
home to,” had induced him some few years before to relinquish his
vague ideals of a beautiful and attractive helpmeet, and to satisfy
his wish for companionship and a more extensive income in the person
of a spinster of uncertain age who was popularly supposed in Grayling
to have been “setting her cap at the doctor” for over fifteen years.

And this person it was, in brown woollen and a large white apron, who
opened the door on lovely Stella Cranstoun and Black Bess, and
waspishly demanded to know her business with the doctor.




 CHAPTER XII.
 FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE.

“I have to see Dr. Netherbridge on business,” said Stella, while the
doctor’s wife peered out with disapproval at her matutinal visitor’s
fresh young face.

“Oh!” said Mrs. Netherbridge, dryly. “Are you ill?”

“No.”

“My husband, Dr. Netherbridge, is not accustomed to receive visitors
who do not come about illness at seven o’clock in the morning. He
isn’t down yet. If you want to see him, you had better call again.”

And with that, Dr. Netherbridge’s helpmeet was shutting the door in
Stella’s face, when a man’s voice from the floor above was heard
inquiring who the visitor was.

“I am Miss Cranstoun, from the Chase, Dr. Netherbridge, and I shall be
grateful if you can spare me a few minutes’ conversation.”

“Certainly--certainly. I will be down immediately. Letitia, show Miss
Cranstoun into the drawing-room.”

The top-spinning boy, finding time hanging heavily on his hands, had
followed Stella to the doctor’s house, and remained near, staring,
while the young lady, holding Black Bess’ bridle, stood parleying with
Mrs. Netherbridge by the open door. Stella caught sight of him now,
and addressed him, with one of her charming smiles.

“Are you clever enough to hold this horse for me while I go inside the
house for a few minutes?” she inquired. “You shall have sixpence for
your trouble.”

The boy nodded, and Stella followed Mrs. Netherbridge, who, with
frosty civility, showed her into a prim and old-maidish drawing-room,
where she was soon joined by Dr. Netherbridge.

“Forgive me for disturbing you so early,” Stella began. The little
doctor’s face inspired in her exactly the same feeling of confidence
and friendliness which her mother had felt toward him years ago.

“I have come,” she continued, “because I think you are the only person
who can and will tell me the truth on a most important point.
Yesterday, when you saw me for the first time, you said you recognized
me by my likeness to my mother. The present Lady Cranstoun and I are
totally dissimilar; you cannot, therefore, have meant _her_.”

Her brilliant dark-blue eyes were fixed searchingly, imploringly upon
his face. Dr. Netherbridge was too sincere not to change color and
show some slight sign of embarrassment.

“Family likenesses are unaccountable things,” he was beginning, when
she cut him short.

“There is no longer any need for concealment,” she said, eagerly.
“Last night Sir Philip Cranstoun told me I was born in a hovel, and
daughter of a gypsy. Are those things true?”

“You were certainly born in a small cottage on your father’s property
in this neighborhood,” the doctor answered; “and your mother was of
gypsy extraction.”

“Tell me all you can about her.”

“She must have been extremely beautiful when in good health. At the
time when I first met her, she was very little older than you are now,
but she was deliberately starving herself to death, and her beauty was
necessarily impaired.”

“How did you come to know her?” she asked, hanging upon his words in
deep anxiety. “Was she--was she allowed to come to the Chase?”

“Allowed to come? Surely. Lady Cranstoun lived there until a few weeks
before your birth, when, presumably after a quarrel with your father,
she fled from her home at night, and went back to her own people.”

Stella sank into a chair, her hands tightly clasped together. Dr.
Netherbridge saw the unmistakable relief in her face, and hastened to
remove any doubt which might still trouble her as to her position.

“Your mother’s maiden name was Clare Carewe. She herself told me her
history. As a very little girl, she ran away from the caravan in which
she was brought up, and her beauty having attracted the attention of a
very rich lady, who was Sir Philip Cranstoun’s sister, she was
educated and adopted by her; and from her house at Torquay, Sir Philip
secretly married her. Their first child died, and, so far as I could
judge, it was a most unhappy marriage. Finally, one night, when some
of your mother’s relations made their way into the plantation to speak
to her, they were savagely attacked by gamekeepers as poachers; one of
the gypsies, who was unhappily Lady Cranstoun’s father, was
accidentally shot, and her brother was sentenced to five years’
imprisonment, in spite of Sir Philip’s efforts to save him.”

“How terrible!” burst from Stella’s lips. “How she must have
suffered!”

“She did indeed. Very soon after your birth, I was sent for by a gypsy
lad, and on the following day I accompanied two nursewomen to your
father’s house. Your mother, meanwhile, had died, and the gypsies had
removed her body. I broke the news to Sir Philip, but as soon as he
heard that the child was a girl, he flew into a furious passion, and
ordered the women to take you away; nor could I do more than insist
that he should know the address in London to which you were taken and
provide some money for your maintenance. From that day I never met you
until yesterday. But I shall never forget your mother’s face, and at
first sight of you the likeness impressed me so strongly that I spoke
without thinking.”

“Thank you,” she said, after a pause, rising and giving him her hand.
“Thank you for your kindness to my mother, and to me also. I must be
getting back now.”

She paused a minute. Then she asked curiously:

“What were they like, these gypsy people, my mother’s relations?”

“Very big, handsome men, from what I remember, and evidently of very
strong family affections. There was an old woman, too, reputed to be a
witch. I believe she is still alive, and that the peasants about here
actually go to her to have illnesses or scars and moles charmed away.
I hope I have told you nothing to distress you,” he added, kindly.

“No; I am grateful to you,” she answered, rewarding him with a smile
as she passed from the room, almost colliding with Mrs. Netherbridge,
who was fluttering about in the passage outside suspiciously near the
keyhole.

Stella threw a shilling to the boy who held Black Bess, and with very
slight assistance from him, vaulted into the saddle and turned the
mare’s head in the direction where her master lay. Black Bess flew
like an arrow from a bow, and the journey occupied even less time than
in coming. The blood rushed over Stella’s face and neck as she saw,
standing in the courtyard of the inn, watching her ride up, the tall,
massive figure of Hilary Pritchard, with one arm in a sling, the sun
shining on his yellow curls.

Without a word, he helped her to dismount, and entered the coffee-room
with her. It was but a little after eight o’clock, and no one was
there except a servant, bustling in and out, laying the breakfast
things. To her Hilary turned, and begged her not to trouble, as he
should not want the meal for a long while yet, and the girl, with a
demure nod that was almost a wink, left the room, and contented
herself with peeping through the glass upper portion of the door.

Hilary led Stella to a seat and sat beside her, looking down into her
lowered face. Until now she had been self-possessed and buoyed up by a
determination to carry her mission through. Now she faltered and
trembled, hardly daring to look into her lover’s face.

“You will forgive me for borrowing Black Bess?” she said at last.

“Forgive you! What a request! She has never carried a lady before, and
never will again any other than you. But won’t your parents be angry
with you for coming off here like this? It was my friend the hostler
who woke me up to tell me that Miss Cranstoun had borrowed my mare to
go into Grayling, and that at the pace she was going she would soon be
back. I got up at once--there is nothing the matter with me to-day.”

“You look certainly better than you did yesterday night,” she said,
and then stopped short, blushing deeply.

“I know about your goodness in coming to see how I was,” he said,
lifting her hand to his lips. “Our good genius the hostler told me of
it this morning. But, my dear girl, are you wise in coming this
morning? It is all so hopeless. Look at the difference between us. It
was the height of presumption on my part to dare to fall in love with
you; and, indeed, nothing was farther from my intention.”

“I loved you the moment you laid your hand on Zephyr’s bridle and
looked up into my face,” she murmured, nestling closer to him, and
letting her hand steal into his. “I really wanted to obey you as soon
as you spoke to me, but I suppose a spirit of perversity urged me the
other way. When you were wounded, I was in an agony of anxiety and
remorse; otherwise, I should never have dared to bring you to the
house. But all that about our not being equals is done away with now.
It is true that I am Sir Philip Cranstoun’s daughter, but my mother
was his first wife, and she was nothing more than a beautiful gypsy,
brought up on charity by a rich lady. So you see,” she added,
triumphantly, “it is all the other way round, and _I_ am not good
enough for _you_!”

He was silent for a few moments.

“Have you told Lord Carthew what you have told me?” he asked at
length.

“No. But I mean to. He will soon take back his offer, then.”

“His offer?” he repeated, in surprise. “Has he made you an offer,
then?”

“Yes. Didn’t you know? Oh, of course, I have never had an opportunity
of telling you. Lord Carthew asked me to marry him while we were out
riding yesterday morning.”

“What did you say?”

“I--oh--I said I would think about it, or something of that sort.”

“You did not say ‘No’ outright?”--in a disappointed tone. “Stella, was
all that before, or _after_, I woke up and saw you?”

“Oh, how can you ask me? It was _before_, of course?”

“And you were ready to marry Carthew at the time?”

“Don’t--don’t--be hard on me, and don’t look so stern and cold. How
can I make you understand? You had said things against me that I had
overheard. I believed, I really and truly believed, that you couldn’t
bear me. And it made me mad with myself to find that I couldn’t keep
you out of my thoughts for one minute. It seemed so dreadful--so
forward and unwomanly--to be always thinking of a man who cared
nothing for me. Then, too, you must remember that I longed with all my
heart to escape from the Chase. You don’t know what our lives have
been, poor mamma’s and mine, ever since I can remember. Lord Carthew
knows----”

“Oh, Lord Carthew knows?” interrupting her, jealously. “You could
confide in _him_, but not in me.”

She looked at him very sweetly for a moment, and then burst out
laughing.

“Dear Hilary,” she said, “remember that it is only two days since we
first met, and that this is the first chance of a real talk we have
had together. Whereas Lord Carthew and I----”

“You have had many interesting talks, I have no doubt,” he said,
morosely, his handsome face clouding. “He is far cleverer than I, and
can talk well on any subject. The wonder is that you don’t prefer him
to me.”

“Isn’t it?” she assented, demurely, rubbing her cheeks softly against
his coat-sleeve. “But there is no accounting for tastes, and--it may
be my mad gypsy origin--but I decidedly prefer _you_.”

He raised one of her little hands to his lips and covered the
finger-tips with kisses, smiling in spite of himself at the coquetry
which had come so naturally to her in so short a time.

“Go on with what you were saying about the sadness of your life,” he
said. “I want to know everything that you told Carthew.”

Stella had had hardly any experience of men; but she was a true woman,
and her keen feminine instinct taught her that this man she loved was
of a totally different temperament from the man who loved her.
Hilary’s mind was of a direct, practical, common-sense order. In all
his life he had thought but little of love for women, and now that the
feeling overmastered him, he was inclined to question its authority,
as well as to fly into paroxysms of jealousy without sufficient
reason. He was not in the least conceited, and rather overrated Lord
Carthew’s higher mental endowments, together with his eloquent tongue,
high rank and wealth, when pitted against his own dower from nature of
bone, and muscle, and manly beauty. He knew that Carthew loved Stella,
and it would have seemed very natural to him that his passion should
be returned. Above all, he did not wish to act toward his friend in a
dishonorable and disloyal manner. Against his will, his blood leaped
in his veins, as the young girl leaned toward him, lifting her
beautiful, innocent eyes, with the light of love shining in them, to
his face. Against his will, he clasped his arm about her waist, and
felt that the world before him, with all its hopes, was well lost for
the sake of a kiss from her soft, red lips.

“I can’t talk to you if you stop me like that,” Stella remonstrated,
with a happy little laugh; “and do, pray, remember that that door is
partly of glass, and people can see through it. Another moment and
they will be having breakfast at the Chase. If my father finds out
where I have been, he will half kill me.”

“Is he so bad as that?” he asked, wonderingly.

“He is, indeed. You haven’t even seen him, and you cannot, therefore,
understand. Hilary, he _hates_ me, and until this morning I have never
been able to understand why, or why, try as I might to like him, and
to feel dutifully toward him, a cold shudder of dislike creeps over me
when he comes near. Last night he grew furiously angry with me because
I refused to marry Lord Carthew, and he told me then for the first
time, with the idea, I suppose, of humiliating me, that my dear mamma
was not my mother at all, but that I was really the daughter of an
ignorant gypsy woman. It seemed too strange to be believed, but it was
all true. This morning at six o’clock I climbed out of my bedroom
window, as he had locked me into my room, and came here to borrow a
horse with which to find out Dr. Netherbridge at Grayling. He
confirmed Sir Philip’s words. The first Lady Cranstoun was a lovely
gypsy girl, brought up on charity by Sir Philip’s sister, with whom he
fell in love, and made a most wretched marriage. Not many days before
I was born, my mother, heart-broken at the treatment she received, ran
back to her own people, and among them, in a tumble-down little
cottage not far from here, I was born, eighteen and a half years ago.
So now you understand,” she concluded, triumphantly, “that so far from
being a great lady, I come from the class of people who are driven
from town to town by the police, branded as thieves and poachers, with
the band of every respectable man and woman against them.”

She spoke bitterly, and something in her words and tone shocked Hilary
a little. He had none of the love for the original and the unexpected
in woman which had probably come to Lord Carthew from his brilliant
little American mother. Hilary’s mother was the pretty and graceful
daughter of a country clergyman, who had in her youth revelled in
lawn-tennis and crewel-work, and whose ideas on all subjects were
equally orthodox and limited. Hilary was fond of his mother, and she
had heretofore supplied his ideal of femininity; he had not yet had
time to adjust his aspirations toward a different standard.

“Do you quite realize what you are doing, I wonder?” he asked her
suddenly, turning and taking her face into his hand while he
scrutinized it closely, with a half-angry, half-hungry look. “What you
are doing, I mean, in throwing over a man like Carthew for the sake of
a man like me? He is heir to an earldom; his father is well off, and
in a very brilliant position; his mother is extremely wealthy; he
distinguished himself so greatly at college that people expect great
things of him. While, as for me, the higher education was wasted on
me; I was never good for anything but athletics. I am leaving England
to rough it in Canada, trying to make a farm pay. I can keep a wife,
certainly, upon what I have, but not such a wife as you.”

“Don’t you want me?” she asked, simply, looking him straight in the
eyes.

“Want you? Good heavens! I would give my soul for you! But I won’t be
played with. By some magic of your own you have made me love you, and
you must take the consequences. Stella, I love you, and if you plight
me your troth now, I _must_ marry you. If you now, in the face of what
I have put before you and what you know, still choose to cling to me,
I swear to you that I will marry no woman but you, and that you shall
marry no man but me!”

She looked into his face, flushed and excited as it was, his brown
eyes shining like her own.

“On my honor, I swear,” she said, solemnly, “that whatever pressure is
brought to bear upon me, I will marry no one but you, Hilary
Pritchard.”

Their lips met in that interminably long kiss of first love, given and
returned, the kiss which comes once in a lifetime to a chosen few, and
to many comes never at all--a kiss in which time and space are
obliterated, and in which two spirits seem to meet in regions far
beyond this work-a-day world of ours.

Moved out of herself, in an ecstasy of emotion, perhaps at the
happiest, certainly at the first perfectly happy moment of her life,
Stella felt rather than heard a harsh, low-pitched voice, asking for
Miss Cranstoun in the hall immediately outside the coffee-room.

She turned instinctively toward Hilary for protection as she
whispered:

“It is my father!”

He flung his arm round her and held her to him a moment. The next, the
door was burst open, and Sir Philip Cranstoun stood before them, white
and quivering with rage. For a moment he stared at the pair before
him, taking in every detail of Hilary’s appearance. Then he addressed
his daughter in tones of withering scorn.

“May I ask who is this person with whom you appear to be on such
extremely familiar terms?”

Stella slipped her hand within Hilary’s and gained strength from the
contact.

“It is Mr. Hilary Pritchard,” she said, “the gentleman I have promised
to marry.”




 CHAPTER XIII.
 THE SENDING OF THE TOKEN.

At seven o’clock that same morning, Sir Philip had been aroused from
his slumbers by Dakin.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the spy, “but I can’t help thinking
Miss Cranstoun has somehow got away. You see, you have taken away the
key of her room, and I can see a good way in through the keyhole. And
the bed’s empty; it doesn’t look as if it had been slept in, and I
can’t see any sign of her walking about the room.”

With a muttered execration, Sir Philip dismissed Dakin, and, hastily
dressing himself, repaired to the door of Stella’s room and rapped
several times sharply upon the panels. Getting no answer, he turned
the key in the lock and called to her to come out, before throwing the
door open, to find that the bird had flown.

It was easy enough to see how she had escaped. The window was wide
open, and the ivy a little below torn and disarranged. Rage and alarm
combined to give Sir Philip an extremely bad quarter of an hour, as he
turned over in his own mind all possible places to which she might
have gone, while his horse was bearing him toward the nearest gates of
the Chase enclosure.

Sir Philip had no idea of Hilary’s detention at the inn, but as the
hostlery was on the direct road to Grayling, from which town he
surmised that Stella would take the train for London, he resolved to
stop for a moment to inquire whether anything had been seen of her.

Hilary’s friend, the hostler, was holding the bridle of Black Bess at
the entrance, when the Squire rode up on his gray hunter, and Sir
Philip noticed at once that the mare carried a side-saddle.

“So you have lady visitors here, I see?” he said, pulling up his horse
before the archway.

Jim the hostler’s sympathies were all with the lovers, and he
recognized at once the necessity for putting the angry father off the
scent.

“Not as I knows on, sir,” he answered, pulling his forelock.

“Then what is the meaning of that side-saddle?”

“I suppose the missis is going for a ride, sir,” the man answered,
with an affectation of stupidity in his face and manner.

“What! on that horse? That isn’t one of your animals?”

“No, sir. It’s been left here by a gentleman for a day or two, and
we’ve got to exercise it every day.”

Still Sir Philip did not appear satisfied, and the hostler was
wondering whether he could not by some means convey a warning to the
young couple in the coffee-room, when, as ill-luck would have it, his
master, the landlord, came out into the courtyard at that identical
moment, and in answer to Sir Philip’s point-blank inquiry as to
whether he had seen Miss Cranstoun, blurted out that she was at that
moment within the house, talking to a friend in the coffee-room.

The landlord was thinking of his lease, and not of Stella’s love
affair, and he volunteered the further information that Miss Cranstoun
had only been there about ten minutes, having borrowed Mr. Pritchard’s
horse to go to Grayling and back.

This was the first intimation which the baronet received that Hilary
was not in London, and it made instantly clear to him Stella’s
disappearance from the Chase in the evening of the preceding day. She,
his own daughter, Miss Cranstoun of the Chase, was actually carrying
on a love affair at his very lodge gates, and making appointments with
a farming adventurer at an inn on her father’s land, under the eyes of
hostlers, and potmen, and farm laborers.

Rage almost choked him as he laid his hand on the door of the
coffee-room, and the sight which met his eyes as he opened it was
hardly calculated to assuage his anger. A superbly handsome young
giant, with one arm in a sling, was seated close to Stella in a
window-seat at the farther end of the room. It was easy enough to see
that they were lovers. He was speaking eagerly, and she was hanging on
his words, with her two hands clasped in one of his.

On Sir Philip’s entrance they started, and both of them rose to their
feet; but Hilary still retained Stella’s hand.

Sir Philip carefully closed the door behind him, and came close up to
the other two occupants of the room. In spite of the storm which raged
within him, he was beyond everything anxious to avoid any scene by
which his private affairs would become known to the people of the inn.

It was therefore in a voice so low as to be inaudible to any possible
listeners outside the room that he addressed himself to Hilary, fixing
him with his cold, glittering, light eyes as he spoke.

“What is your name?”

“Hilary Pritchard.”

“And what are you doing here with my daughter?”

“I have been asking her to marry me, Sir Philip!”

“You are not aware, then, that she is already engaged to be married to
Lord Carthew, by whose want of judgment a fellow like you got
introduced into a respectable house.”

“You have made some mistake, I think,” returned the young man,
resolutely keeping his temper in the face of provocation. “Your
daughter loves me, and she will never marry Lord Carthew.”

“My daughter is under age, sir, and her folly and inexperience would
make her an easy prey to the wiles of a cad and an adventurer such as
you. Luckily, I have interfered to save her good name. You entered my
house on sufferance, and taking advantage of my absence, and of your
friend’s foolish confidence in you, you presumed to make love to this
young lady in much the same rough-and-ready style as you would adopt
toward the haymakers and farmhands in your own rank of life. You, a
nobody, a penniless, intending emigrant, dared to try to steal my
daughter’s affections from your friend, to whom she had pledged them.
I have no hesitation in saying that your conduct has been mean,
cowardly, treacherous, and unmanly in the extreme. I would rather see
my daughter dead than lowered by any association with a low-born and
ungrateful pauper such as you.”

As he spoke, by a sudden movement he wrenched their hands asunder, and
seizing that of his daughter’s within his own, began to move toward
the door.

Hilary Pritchard had grown very pale under Sir Philip’s fierce
invective, but he did not condescend to defend himself against the
latter’s accusations.

“I hold you to your promise, Stella,” he said, quietly.

“I swear to you I will marry no one but you,” she returned.

One last, long look was interchanged between them, and then Stella was
dragged from the room by her father, who had pulled her hand through
his arm, and who, as soon as he reached the courtyard, gave orders in
an unconcerned voice that the side-saddle should be changed from Black
Bess to a horse belonging to the inn, the loan of which he required
for an hour or two.

“I fear we shall be late for breakfast,” he said, turning to his
daughter with an assumption of geniality, and speaking in a raised
tone of voice so that he might be overheard by all within range.
“Stella, you managed to get through your business in Grayling with
wonderful celerity. I never expected to find you back here so soon. I
am glad we found Mr. Pritchard none the worse for his unlucky
accident.”

Stella disdained to act up to his pretence of fatherly affection. It
was nothing to her if the whole world knew that she loved Hilary
Pritchard and that her father had come to part them. Sir Philip’s
family pride was, from her point of view, equally incomprehensible and
ridiculous. So she stood by his side, he detaining her hand in his arm
with a grasp which, while it affected to be fatherly, was really
vindictive and painful to bear, and which she endured with a set,
white face, blazing eyes, and tightly compressed lips.

In much the same fashion they rode away, she sitting straight upon her
horse, staring before her, unheeding the friendly talk he affected to
address to her. But Jim the hostler noticed that all the while he
spoke Sir Philip’s fingers touched his daughter’s bridle-rein.

“He’s a brute, that’s what _he_ is, for all his soft sawder,” was
Jim’s comment.

More than once during the ride home a mad longing seized Stella to
escape from her father’s tyranny. But Sir Philip’s gray would easily
have outstripped in speed the sorry hack upon which she was mounted,
even if her father’s hand had not held her bridle. Every cruel and
bitter taunt which his brain could conceive was hurled at her on their
progress between the inn and the Chase. But no words could provoke a
response from her. She was trying to remind herself that he was her
father, and that even if she could not love him she must at least
endeavor not to hate him.

At the doors of the house she sprang from her horse and ran swiftly up
the stairs to Lady Cranstoun’s room. Her stepmother was still in bed,
sitting up, wrapped in a white woollen shawl, drinking her coffee. She
had not quite recovered from the strain of the preceding day, and Dr.
Graham had prescribed complete rest and freedom from all excitement.

“I was wondering you had not come to say good-morning to me,” she
said, “but Margaret said Sir Philip had locked you in your room. Was
that true?”

“Don’t let’s talk of him, dear,” returned the young girl, kissing her
affectionately, and kneeling down at the bedside, caressing one of her
hands. “Let’s try to think he doesn’t exist.”

“Something has happened!” exclaimed the poor lady, apprehensively.
“You are dreadfully pale, and your hands are quivering. There are
tears in your eyes, too. Tell me, Stella, quickly, what is the
matter?”

“It is nothing,” she answered. “I am overtired after a bad night. That
is all.”

“It was not true--what you said last night in fun--about not marrying
Lord Carthew, was it, dear?”

“No; it was not true.”

Sir Philip’s voice broke sharply in upon their talk. He had entered
the room unperceived, and was standing on the other side of the bed.

Stella rose at sight of him, but remained with her arm round Lady
Cranstoun.

“The marriage will take place in the second week of May,” Sir Philip
proceeded, fixing a threatening glance upon his daughter.

“I am so glad; oh, I am so glad, my dear, dear child!”

Stella did not speak. She dared not at the moment undeceive her or
banish from her face that unwonted look of happiness and hope.

Lady Cranstoun kissed her affectionately, and then as though nerving
herself for a great effort, and timidly retaining the girl’s hands in
hers, she addressed her husband.

“I have not told you before, Philip,” she began, “in fact, I have not
had an opportunity, that while you were away, feeling that I might die
any minute, I sent to town for my father’s lawyer.”

“Without consulting _me_?”

“Yes. You see, there is that legacy of my Uncle Charles, which I came
into last year----”

“Well?”

“It isn’t very much--only five thousand pounds, in fact--but I have
left it by will to Stella when she attains the age of twenty-one. You
see, the estates being entailed, I did not like the idea of my little
girl being without pocket-money. And it will be a nice little sum for
herself when she marries Lord Carthew.”

Sir Philip was for the moment struck dumb with surprise and
indignation. That his colorless, obedient wife should dare in his
absence to make a will, leaving money away from him to his rebellious
daughter, struck him as a most unwifely and outrageous liberty, and
the desire to sting and humiliate both his wife and daughter became
too strong to be resisted.

“_Your_ little girl!” he repeated, with a hard laugh. “Haven’t you
grown out of that silly delusion yet? _Your_ child died years ago, as
a weakly, miserable baby. That girl beside you, to whom you are so
anxious to will your money, is no relation to you, but simply the
daughter of my first wife, who died at her birth, exactly three months
before I married you.”

“Philip! Stella! It is not true--say it is not true!” gasped Lady
Cranstoun.

“How can you be so cruel?” exclaimed the young girl, turning in
passionate reproach upon her father. “Don’t worry, and don’t listen,
mamma, dear. You know that I am yours, and that I love you!”

“Your dutiful affection is not without its reward,” sneered Sir
Philip. “Five thousand pounds is certainly a great deal more than you
would ever get from _me_. But it is time this mother and daughter
nonsense was done away with, except for the purpose of giving the girl
a more respectable ancestry than she could show as the daughter of a
gypsy. Where did you suppose she got her beauty from? You Douglases
have always been an ugly, high-cheekboned race. There is nothing of
the Douglas about _her_.”

Lady Cranstoun was moaning as if in pain, and her pale eyes had a
hunted, terrified expression as she turned them helplessly from her
husband to Stella.

“Not my child,” she whispered. “Not--my--child!” and as the words left
her lips, she fell backward in Stella’s arms, cold and motionless, to
all appearance dead already.

“You have killed her!” the latter cried, as she vainly tried to
restore animation to the still figure, and for a few moments Sir
Philip believed, not without a momentary pang of self-reproach, that
she was right. Gradually, however, under Dr. Graham’s care,
consciousness returned, but only feebly; and throughout the morning
she fell from one fainting-fit into another. Stella never left her for
a moment, and everything that skill and care could do was done to
prolong the faint flicker of life within her wasted frame. A heart
specialist was telegraphed for from London, and Lord Carthew, who had
intended leaving for town early in the day, having heard no word of
Hilary’s presence in the vicinity, delayed his journey until he could
hear the doctor’s verdict.

It was unfavorable in a high degree. Lady Cranstoun was, so the great
man agreed with Dr. Graham, slowly dying, and could not possibly last
through the night. Toward evening she suddenly appeared to rally,
recognized and spoke to Stella, and asked in a clear, distinct voice
for Lord Carthew. When the young man came, she gave him her hand, and
drew his toward that of Stella, which rested on the coverlet beside
her.

“Be--very good--to her,” she murmured; and so, still occupied with
thoughts for Stella’s future, she closed her eyes and fell asleep,
never to open them on this world again.

To Stella the blow was terrible, overwhelming. The tie between her and
her step-mother, as she now knew her to be, had been extremely strong,
cemented by unselfishness on both sides, the girl patiently giving up
the greater portion of her day in attendance and nursing, and the
woman keeping silent about her sufferings, lest she might too greatly
sadden her young companion. Such faults and foibles as Lady Cranstoun
possessed, her intense timidity and cowardice, her limited
intelligence, and excessive pride of birth, were but trifling when
weighed against her kindly and affectionate nature. Stella’s own
mother, had she lived, could not possibly have shown more sympathy and
affection toward her child, whom she would probably have tormented by
her violent and jealous nature.

Lord Carthew’s heart was deeply touched by the sight of Stella’s
grief. He had no opportunity of speaking to her between the time of
leaving the house and his attendance at Lady Cranstoun’s funeral four
days later. Even then he did not see her. She was utterly prostrated
by grief, Sir Philip informed him, and he did not think fit to add
that from the hour of Lady Cranstoun’s death, the girl had been kept a
close prisoner, the maid Ellen or Dakin sleeping in her room, which
had been changed, so that no escape by the window was possible.

“I think the sooner you marry her and take her away with you the
better,” Sir Philip said, as the two men were returning in the
mourning-coach from the scene by the Cranstoun vault in Grayling
Cemetery after the ceremony. “The poor child has cried herself ill;
she will scarcely eat, and refuses to leave the house. I am really
growing extremely anxious about her. Your letters are the only things
that seem to give her any pleasure, although, as she says, she hasn’t
the heart to answer them yet.”

As a matter of fact, Lord Carthew’s letters had been opened and read
by Sir Philip on their arrival each day, and subsequently laid upon
the dressing-table of Stella, for the amusement, apparently, of Dakin
and Ellen, since the lady to whom they were addressed had never so
much as touched one of them. They were good letters, too; full of
affection and intelligence, if a little didactic in tone; too good by
far to be wasted upon a cynical man of the world and two uneducated
female spies.

“I am almost afraid for her reason,” continued Sir Philip. “A change
of surroundings is imperative, so the doctor tells me. The attachment
between mother and daughter was so great that the blow is
proportionately heavy. In fact, my dear Carthew, it is now the
twentieth of April, and I propose that the marriage, which, of course,
will be strictly private, should take place at the date originally
fixed--the tenth of May. It was her poor mother’s last wish, as you
know, and under such circumstances should have with us the weight of a
command.”

To this suggestion Lord Carthew agreed warmly. He was greatly
disappointed at not seeing his fair _fiancée_, but was to some extent
soothed by a fictitious message, brought to him by her maid Ellen, to
the effect that Miss Cranstoun was so ill that she had not risen that
day, but that she sent her love and asked him to excuse her.

Just for the few minutes while Ellen was repeating these words to Lord
Carthew, in her master’s presence, having been previously taught them
by Sir Philip himself, Stella was left alone in her bedroom, the door
of which was carefully locked, and the window securely barred. It was
her first moment of solitude since Lady Cranstoun’s death, and as luck
would have it, Stephen Lee was standing on the terrace immediately
beneath her window, which was situated in a turret on the third floor
of the building.

For the past four days, although Stella knew it not, Stephen had taken
every possible opportunity of hanging about the house, the serious
illness of one of the collies--an illness so opportune for his plans
that he might be almost suspected of having some hand in it--forming
an excellent excuse for loitering near the house, young Stephen being
renowned for his success as a horse and dog doctor.

As soon, therefore, as Stella’s pale face was pressed against her
prison bars, her eyes fell upon the handsome, swarthy countenance and
black beard of the young gamekeeper, and the words spoken by old
Sarah, the gypsy fortune-teller, flashed back into her mind.

The hag had sworn to her that the “Romanys” were her friends, her
people, and that they would help her to escape, if escape were
necessary. At the time, her words seemed mere incomprehensible jargon,
and her allusions to “Clare,” and assertions that Stella was “Clare’s
child,” had seemed the idle chatter of a woman whose wits were
wool-gathering in second childhood.

But now all that was changed. The key to the mystery was in Stella’s
possession, and her cheeks flushed and her heart beat high with
excitement and hope as she recalled the fact that her mother had
escaped out of Sir Philip’s power back to her own people, if it was
only to die, and that she, Stella, might well do the same. Old Sarah
had told her what to do if she needed her help. She had but to place
within the hands of Stephen Lee that little old coin, slung on a piece
of red silk string, which she still carried about her, and succor
would most certainly come.

In an instant she had made a rapid gesture to Stephen, whose eyes were
upturned to her window. He glanced quickly round, and nodded; then
noted, with the keen eye of a man who spent his life out of doors, the
direction taken, in falling, by the little medal as it was cast down
by Stella’s hand, caught it in his fingers, slipped it in his pocket,
and walked leisurely away, as though nothing had happened.

Stella had just time to close the window and retire from its vicinity,
when the maid Ellen returned. Her presence and that of Dakin were
detestable to Stella, who could not even weep for Lady Cranstoun’s
death free from their curious and vulgar gaze, nor would she ever
exchange a word with either of them.

To-day, for the first time, buoyed up by this new hope of escape, she
seemed indifferent to the woman’s presence.

Her hope lay in the gypsies, and with all the wild gypsy element in
her blood, she was longing to be free.




 CHAPTER XIV.
 “THE ROMANYS HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN.”

On leaving the terrace before the Chase, Stephen Lee struck
immediately into the forest in a northerly direction.

The circumference of the Chase enclosure measured fully ten miles, but
there was barely a yard of the space that was not known to the
gypsy-bred lad, who had been familiarized with it in bygone poaching
days of childhood long before the period when, as a decently dressed
and apparently respectable lad, he had applied for and obtained a
situation about the dairy farm on the property. Very soon his
usefulness caused him to be promoted. He had “ways” with horses, dogs,
cows, and sheep; could repair a fence or sow a field, break in a horse
or administer medicine to a sick dog, with equal cleverness.

He was, so his fellow-servants decided, inordinately proud and
unsociable, for what reason none of them could satisfactorily fathom.
He broke in Sir Philip’s hunters and taught Miss Cranstoun to ride,
being himself little more than three years older than she. He did not
drink, and had, so far as others knew, neither sweetheart nor friends;
yet now and then he would mysteriously disappear for hours together,
nor would he afterward even attempt to explain his absences.

The evening was closing in as he made his way in and out the
undergrowth in a direct cut through the wood; and it was only after
more than an hour of very rapid walking that he began to slacken his
speed.

The trees grew very closely together at this point, so closely,
indeed, that it seemed impossible to force a path between them. But
Stephen knew the track and could almost have found it blindfold, and
after about a quarter of an hour more of difficult walking he came
upon an open space of grassy mounds, crowned by the ruins of an
ancient hunting tower, dating back to a very early period, of which,
however, little more than four stout ivy-hung walls, and a portion of
a low battlemented tower remained. The ruin was not large enough to be
imposing, nor had it any known historical interest. Very few people
knew of its existence, as it was not discernible over the tops of the
tall trees by which it was surrounded; yet that it was known to at
least one person was evident now, for from the ruined tower a thin
blue line of smoke rose into the clear evening air.

No way of entering the ruin was visible, the base of the tower and of
the low building attached to it being blocked up by rubble, by
overgrown bushes, and by fallen masonry. But Stephen Lee made straight
for a portion of the ruin heavily veiled with ivy, and removing this
with one hand, he came upon a low archway of stonework completely
blocked by a solid wooden door. Upon this he tapped with the handle of
a knife he carried in his belt, and softly whistled. The signal was
answered, and the sound of a rusty bolt being withdrawn was the
prelude to the apparition of old Sarah Carewe’s face in the doorway.

Entering, Stephen found himself in an improvised chamber formed partly
by the tower and partly by roughly hewn timber roofing to the adjacent
walls. Dry leaves thickly covered the ground, and on a heap of them in
front of the fire the brawny figure of a man in the prime of life was
stretched, revelling in the smoky warmth of a fire of peat and sticks.

An oil lamp, hanging from the roof, lit up the scene, which was not
wanting in elements of the picturesque. By its feeble illumination,
assisted by the firelight, a few pieces of extempore furniture could
be discerned, such as a wooden table, two or three stools, an iron
pot, and some other cooking utensils, and in the far corner a long,
shallow box of wood, upon which some rags and rugs were stretched to
form a not unacceptable couch for such as needed not luxury to induce
slumber.

To Stephen all these details were familiar, as was the bent and
shrunken form of his great-grandmother, Sarah Carewe, of whom he stood
in some considerable awe. In her seventy-ninth year, Mrs. Carewe might
well have lived through the century with which she was popularly
credited; her energy was boundless, and her brain as keen and cunning
as when, nearly sixty years before, she had become the proud mother of
Hiram Carewe, shot down by Sir Philip Cranstoun’s hand on that
memorable evening eighteen and a half years ago.

“_Baish down_, lad,” she said, pointing to a stool by the fire. “Uncle
Jim and me have been looking for you for the past two hours. What’s
the news up at the house?”

He drew the token from his pocket and laid it in her hand.

“This,” he said. “She is a prisoner, as you know, and she threw it me
from her room window. The lord was there to-day at the burying.
They’re driving her close to marry him, curse him! He’s as ugly as a
monkey, and I could throttle him with one hand.”

“Her fancy is a lot handsomer,” laughed the old crone. “I don’t blame
Clare’s girl for fixing on a good-looking man.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, half-fearfully, half-savagely, pausing
in the act of knocking the ashes out of a pipe he had taken from his
pocket.

Sarah Carewe shook with creaking laughter, holding her hands to her
sides as she looked at her angry descendant.

“Why, I mean as how you shot the right chap when you potted the big
’un,” she said. “That’s the one she’s set her mind on.”

“Who? That Pritchard cove? He’s left the place, and gone to the
Cranstoun Arms and then to London----”

“A lot _you_ know,” she cried, in her shaky treble. “He went to the
Cranstoun Arms right enough, and Stella visited him there twice. The
morning of the day that cursed Sir Philip’s _mort_ went to glory,
Stella was nabbed by her father, chatting with her spark, with his arm
still tied up from your shot.”

“Hang him! I wish I’d killed him!” muttered Stephen. “And I would if
I’d known what was coming. Something told me as he caught Zephyr’s
rein, and stared up at her, that he’d be after her; that’s why I
fired. But why didn’t you tell me all this before, _mami_ Sarah? It’s
all along of your promise to me about her that I’m working for you.
You know right well you swore by your tricks and magic to make her
come to me, and love me, and choose me for her mate before every one.
And here I stand by to see her in love with one man, and married to
another. I haven’t done your bidding, and your spying, ay, and your
_choaring_ and thieving too, if it comes to that, in the pay of a man
whose throat I’d like to cut, all these years, to be hocused and
laughed at now. I tell you, _mami_ Sarah,” he added, starting from the
stool, and stamping heavily upon the ground, having worked himself up
to a frenzy, “I won’t be made a fool of any longer!”

The man by the fire rolled over, and looked up at him, speaking for
the first time.

“You talk of wanting to cut Philip Cranstoun’s throat,” he began,
slowly. “What call have _you_ to hate him, like I have, and _mami_
here? For eighteen years, come last October, we’ve been waiting,
_mami_ and me, to get our knife into him, and our chance has come at
last! You’re young and green, lad; we don’t let you into all our
secrets. You follow orders, and do as the _nais nort_ tells
you--_she’s_ got her head screwed on right. Do you think a man forgets
to pay a debt like mine? Think of it, lad! I was younger than you are
now, and I loved my sister Clare--Sarah here can tell you how I loved
her. When she was brought up grand as a regular _been rawnie_, she
used to steal away to see brother Jim on the sly. The girl Stella
you’re so sweet on ain’t a patch on her mother--my sister Clare. She’d
a pair of eyes like stars dancing in a pool at moonlight, and teeth
like little round dewdrops. And he married her, and broke her heart,
and swore he’d shoot down any of her relations as he should find
loitering about his place. But that night, which was to be my last in
England afore I sailed to America, to a splendid opening there with
uncle Pete, that’s long ago dead, says I to father, ‘I must have one
more look at Clare, for maybe I’ll never come back again.’ Father was
against it at first, but I’d take no advice, and he wanted badly to
speak to her, seeing she’d written to say she was breaking her heart;
so we went. Oh, you’ve heard the story of how, so soon as she’d crept
over the grass to us, her father and brother, by the moonlight, all in
white silks and satins, to wish us good-by, she was seized and
blindfolded, and dragged away, while he, that double villain, that
cursed Philip Cranstoun, shot my father down where he stood by my
side! No call to tell you how I fought to punish them, nor how, when
they’d nabbed me, being three to one, they made a pretence of a trial,
and give me five years--five years in prison for seeing my father
murdered in cold blood, and trying to get at them as shot him down.
Well, I’ve lived through them five years; I’m a tough un to kill. You
think of it, lad--you as lives as I lived for the most part, under the
sky, with the free air blowing in your face all day--think what prison
is: Four bare walls, a dog’s work in front of you, and a slave-driver
to see as you do it; and all the while eating your heart out with
knowing it was unjust, the cruel injustice of a titled scoundrel as
had broken your sister’s heart, and made a jailbird of you, and
murdered your father. And all for what? For his own dirty pride--pride
of his family, as are no older than us Carewes; pride that I’ll humble
in the dust yet, if I spend the rest of my life in quod for it.”

“There ain’t no talk of quod for this business of ours, dearie,” put
in the old crone, as she stirred the fire with a bent iron stick. “You
shall have your revenge, sure enough, and so will I. Your _dadi_ Hiram
was my own first-born, that I’d seen grow up from the stoutest and
prettiest _kinchin_ to the finest man in the country-side. And my eyes
have seen what yours have not: your sister, my bonny Clare, as she lay
dying in my arms, making me swear on her child’s head that I would
punish Philip Cranstoun. ‘He swore he would break my pride,’ she said,
with the death-rattle in her throat. ‘_Mami_, break his. Disgrace is
worse than death to him. He has brought death upon me; bring disgrace
upon him.’ I seem to hear her voice now, and to see her glazing eyes
light up for the last time as she said the words.”

She sat still for a while, staring into the flaming logs over the
outstretched figure of James Carewe. A wonderful Rembrandtesque study
they would have made, those three generations of gypsies, had any
Dutch painter been there to fix the scene on canvas, with its sombre
tone lit by the ruddy firelight. The woman, in her heavy cloak, the
hood fallen back, and disclosing a faded red and yellow silk
handkerchief wound round her head, from which scattered white elf
locks fell over her wrinkled brow and sunken cheeks. Only a great
artist could have reproduced the look in her glittering black eyes, a
look that took in a past of wrongs and sufferings, and brooded in
cruel, anticipative joy over a future of revenge.

The man at her feet was himself a model of rugged power and a certain
swarthy beauty. His coal-black hair and beard were plentifully
streaked with gray; his dark skin was unnaturally pallid, and in his
sunken black eyes there lurked an expression not good to see, the look
of a strong man deeply wronged, at war with society, and ripe for
revenge. His dress was careless and dirty; long ago he had ceased to
have any pride in his appearance, and those years of prison life,
followed by the misery of police supervision, had changed him from a
handsome, gallant lad, full of strength and possibilities, to a surly
and brooding loafer, whose hand was against every man’s and whose
whole nature was in sullen revolt against the established order of
things.

The third member of the group by the fire added no little to the
strange picturesqueness of the scene as he leaned with folded arms
against the wall, listening eagerly while his elders recounted their
past experiences. Stephen Lee was grandson to Sarah’s second child, a
daughter, married to a gypsy of the name of Lee. But for some years
past Stephen’s lines had fallen in comparatively pleasant places, and
in his smart velveteen coat, corduroy breeches, and gaiters, he formed
a strong contrast to the ragged and neglected appearance of his uncle,
and to the tatters of old Sarah.

“You’ve got good cause to hate the gray wolf,” he said, after a pause.
“I’ve been taught to hate him ever since I could speak, and I never
set eyes on him without tingling to put a bullet through him. It’s the
way he treats Stella as maddens me. You talked of prison just now;
well, she’s imprisoned, shut in with two cursed women spies, one or
the other, turn and turn about, watching her all the time. Lady
Cranstoun was good to her, I will say that, for all she wasn’t her
mother. But now she’s gone, that girl’s heart’s wellnigh broken; and
when I pass the house at night and see the light up in her
turret-window, I’m mad to burn the place down with everything and
every one in it except _her_. But you two don’t know her as I do. You
haven’t watched her grow up each day. She’s a regular lady, and looks
down on such as me, for all I’m her cousin if she but knew it. Say
what you like, _mami_, she won’t love a fellow like me. And on the
tenth of May they’re going to marry her to this lord. I heard the gray
wolf tell the other so, coming from the burying. Stella’s sent you
that token, and you’ve got to save her. Though how in thunder you’re
going to do it, and bring the disgrace upon Philip Cranstoun’s name as
you talk so much about, it beats me to imagine.”

Again the old woman laughed the mirthless, rattling laugh of old age,
and this time James Carewe raised his head from his arms, exchanged a
glance with her, and turned over on his side again to face the fire,
with the nearest approach to a laugh he ever made. Their
incomprehensible merriment annoyed Stephen greatly, and he muttered an
oath or two under his breath as he watched them.

“_Chee, chee_, lad!” remonstrated the crone. “You will laugh too when
we’ve done the trick, and spirited the girl away, and hocused her
father and her bridegroom. Your part of the business now is, first, to
carry her a letter I mean to write her; and next, to make believe
you’ve fallen in love with one of them two women as spy upon her. Have
you got paper and pencil about you?”

Stephen took from his pocket a thick leather-covered account-book,
and, tearing out a sheet, handed it to her.

“Not me!” she returned, shaking her head. “I leave all that to boys
like you. Write down what I say: ‘From Sarah Carewe to Stella
Cranstoun--The Romanys have not forgotten. Pretend to agree to the
marriage, so that the watch may be relaxed. On your wedding-eve help
will come. Hope and trust. Your mother’s friends watch over you, and
soon you will be free.’ And now,” old Sarah added, “you must contrive
that this shall be given her. Hang about until you see Margaret. She’s
timid, but she’s square. If Stella plays her part, and cods them into
thinking she’s come round, we’ll cheat the gray wolf yet, and within a
month--ay, less than that, Jim, my boy--you and me will have a laugh,
a right good laugh together, and even Steve here can join in then!”

Thoroughly mystified, but accustomed from childhood to unquestioningly
obey the orders of old Sarah, whose reputation for abnormal sagacity,
together with her undoubted magnetic powers, had earned her a great
reputation among her own class, as well as among credulous and
open-handed members of the public, Stephen presently left the ruins
and returned to the Chase. Joining the other servants at supper that
night, and listening to their talk about the coming marriage, he
contrived by a look to signify to Margaret that he had something to
say to her. Greatly surprised, but ready-witted as women of all
classes usually prove in an emergency, she presently, as she sat next
to him at table, contrived to knock her supper-plate off on to the
floor with a great clatter.

Down went her head under the table, and down went Stephen’s. The
result was a collision, and under cover of the laughter which ensued,
she felt him slip a tiny piece of folded paper into her hand, and
heard him whisper:

“For the mistress.”




 CHAPTER XV.
 THE WEDDING EVE.

Housekeeper Margaret was a quiet, reserved, and cautious woman with
the caution bred of extreme nervousness and dread of being bullied.

Her fear of Sir Philip was extreme. She was a woman of limited
intelligence, and much addicted in the privacy of her own room, when
there was no one to observe her, to the consumption of cheap
sensational literature. Ever since the night of Clare Lady Cranstoun’s
disappearance Margaret had cherished the conviction that Sir Philip
had secretly murdered her; luckily she kept this belief to herself,
but it naturally did not lessen her fear of him.

She was not at all popular with her fellow-servants, and, strange to
say, they were somewhat afraid of her. The fact that she was the only
female servant who had been retained at the Chase more than a few
years, together with her silent, reserved manners, really born of
nervousness, made the others restrained and uncomfortable before her;
even Dakin, the spy, did not know how far Margaret might be in her
master’s confidence, and invariably treated her with elaborate
respect, an example which was followed by all the other servants, the
more willingly as Sir Philip doled out the housekeeping money both
before and after his second wife’s death into Margaret’s hands.

In her secret heart Margaret was far from preserving the adamantine
character with which she was credited. So far from it, indeed, she
took an intense interest in Stella’s love affair, and considered
Hilary Pritchard an ideal hero of romance, his splendid figure,
handsome face, and genial, grateful manners having made a strong
impression upon her during the short period while he remained under
her care.

When, therefore, Stephen Lee handed her the note for Stella, under
pretence of assisting her to pick up the plate she had purposely
dropped from the kitchen table, Margaret instantly jumped to the
conclusion that it must be another communication from Stella’s
handsome sweetheart, Hilary, which the latter had contrived to
transmit to the young gamekeeper.

It was very desirable, so Margaret decided, that Stella should receive
the note that same night. “It will comfort the poor dear,” she said to
herself, “and, maybe, make her sleep better to know that her young
gentleman is thinking of her.”

But since her lady’s death, Margaret had had no opportunity of seeing
Stella, and it would have provoked comment and inquiry had she tried
to do so now. Presently, however, when Ellen, the lady’s maid, gave
vent to a grumbling remark that she “supposed some supper would have
to be taken up to Miss Stella, since she hadn’t touched anything that
day, and she must be kept alive somehow until she was married and done
for,” it occurred to Margaret that her chance had come. Miss
Cranstoun’s supper consisted of a wing of a bird, some Camembert
cheese and salad, and some Burgundy in a decanter, the doctor having
ordered her that wine. Margaret decided intuitively that even if
Stella ate nothing, long fasting would have made her so faint that she
would probably sip a glass of wine. Risking detection, therefore, she
contrived to slip the piece of folded paper she had received from
Stephen under the decanter under pretence of smoothing the cloth under
the tray in passing. Only Stephen Lee saw her do it; not much escaped
his keen gypsy eyes. But in order to complete her work it was
necessary that Ellen’s attention should be turned in some other
direction than the tray she was about to carry up to her mistress, and
towards that end he suddenly made a remark in an awkward shamefaced
manner, all the more effective because it appeared spontaneous and
genuine.

“If I was Lord Carthew,” he said, “it’s not the missus I’d be after,
but the maid.”

The lie almost choked him as he mentally contrasted the limp, round
back, colorless eyes, and retreating chin of Ellen with the willowy,
supple form, delicate features, and luminous eyes of his adorable
cousin. But the lady’s maid herself saw no inappropriateness in the
compliment, which was the more valuable as the young gamekeeper seldom
joined the kitchen circle and had never before paid the least
attention to any of the women. Ellen therefore bridled with pride and
satisfaction as she caught up the supper-tray and made her way to Miss
Cranstoun’s room in the turret, the door of which was opened to her by
Dakin.

“What a time you’ve been!” exclaimed the latter. “I’ve been just
longing to get down to my supper.”

“Young Stephen Lee’s been in the servants’ hall,” said Ellen, in a
loud whisper, and Stella, hearing the words, listened with all her
ears.

“Lor’, he’s that complimentary,” giggled Ellen. “Says he, ‘If I was
Lord Carthew,’ he says, ‘it’s not the mistress I’d be after, but the
maid.’ I got that hot and uncomfortable at the way he said it and
looked at me that I had to ketch up the tray and run upstairs out of
the way. It never seemed to me he was a marrying sort of man; but
there, perhaps he was only waiting until Miss Right came along.”

Dakin stared, with a striking absence of sympathy. She was wondering
what a fine, handsome young fellow like Stephen could see in the
pallid, watery-eyed, flabby-looking young woman before her. Only
Stella, as she reclined on a sofa in the bedroom, to all appearance
absorbed in listlessly turning over the pages of a novel, could guess
at anything between the lines of Stephen Lee’s compliment. That
Stephen should dare to lift his eyes as high as her, his master’s
daughter, had not entered her mind. But she knew now that he was a
gypsy of the same wild, untamed race as herself, and she guessed that
his motive for entering the servants’ hall that night was to bring
some message from old Sarah, and that his unwonted gallantry toward
the far from comely Ellen was a trick to cover some scheme of his for
the future.

It was therefore not without prescience of what might be in store for
her that Stella watched the tray which was placed on a little table
near her couch. She fully expected, indeed, that a communication of
some kind would be lurking among the articles upon it, and when,
presently, waiting her opportunity until Ellen, under pretence of
rearranging the ornaments on the mantelpiece, became absorbed in the
reflection of her own plain features in the looking-glass, she began
to closely examine the contents of the supper-tray, the result was
that her fingers speedily closed on Sarah’s message. Slipping it into
the open pages of her book, with her heart beating high with
excitement, Stella read the pencilled words with eager eyes. Not for
one moment did she doubt the gypsy’s power to help her. “Your mother’s
friends watch over you, and soon you will be free.” The words came as
light in the darkness to the girl, drooping under the forced
confinement to the house, and the detestable system of _espionage_ by
which she was never for one moment free from Dakin’s or Ellen’s prying
eyes. It was true that when she thought of Lord Carthew, and recalled
his sympathetic talk on the morning when he had compared her to the
“Lady of Shalott,” and the charm of his manner toward the late Lady
Cranstoun, she was not so unjust or so prejudiced as to believe that
he was a party to the system which was depriving her of her liberty
and breaking down her health in order to force her into an uncongenial
marriage. She believed, on the contrary, that could she only obtain an
hour’s uninterrupted talk with the young Viscount, he would be the
first to condemn her father’s drastic treatment and to yield his claim
to her hand when she informed him that she was passionately in love
with another man. She knew all this, but knew, too, that Sir Philip
would never allow a meeting between her and Lord Carthew, whose town
address she did not even know. Grief for Lady Cranstoun’s death,
desperate anxiety as to her own future, a perpetual longing to see
Hilary again and to be assured of his love and faithfulness, the
impossibility of even communicating with him, the misery of her
present situation, bereft of love, hope, sympathy, and even of
seclusion, and above all, the terrible trial of absence of fresh air
and outdoor exercise to a girl of her race and temperament, these
things were seriously affecting her health. But for the hope held out
in Sarah’s message Stella would hardly have lived through the twenty
days that followed.

Her nights were sleepless, and what slumber she enjoyed came to her by
day and by the use of opiates, which her father, who would allow no
doctor to see her, caused to be administered to her in her tea and
coffee; and it was in a deep sleep, brought on by a dose of this kind,
that Lord Carthew saw her, lying fully dressed on the sofa, the
window, which was open to allow the fresh spring air to blow through
the room, letting in a torrent of clear, bright sunlight, which seemed
absolutely to shine through the girl’s attenuated form as she lay
resting among cushions, her cheeks of a marble whiteness under her
long, black eyelashes.

Sir Philip himself brought his future son-in-law to see his daughter,
as the latter, on his third visit, would not be denied.

“If you don’t let me see her, I shall think she is dead,” he said,
half laughing, but half seriously, too.

“My dear Carthew, I have really been afraid of startling you. The poor
child’s grief has been so excessive that she is wasted to a shadow.
She is morbidly fearful lest you may be shocked at the change in her;
but I will myself go and prepare her for your visit, and entreat her
to receive you.”

“Seeing that we are to be married in a week, it would seem very
strange if I could not see her for a few minutes,” observed Lord
Carthew; and Sir Philip recognizing a certain doggedness in his tone,
knew that he had made up his mind. Not for the first time the Baronet
realized that his future son-in-law had a strong will of his own, and
he rejoiced to see it manifested. A husband with a strong will, he
told himself, was imperatively necessary in the case of a girl with
Stella’s erratic and vagrant instincts. It was, indeed, almost pitiful
to consider Sir Philip’s anxiety that the marriage between Lord
Northborough’s heir and his daughter should come off without any
hitch. The chatelain of the Chase was accustomed to be obeyed in fear
and trembling, and he never once questioned the wisdom of his own
decrees. It was of vital importance, so he told himself, that Stella
should marry Lord Carthew, and he was placed in a position of extreme
difficulty by the fact that if Stella and Claud once met before the
ceremony, the girl would undoubtedly blurt out the terrible facts of
her preference for Hilary Pritchard, and of her gypsy descent. The
dread of such a contingency prevented Sir Philip from resting by night
or by day. He did not like the Chase, but he remained in the house
simply and solely to prevent his daughter from running away, as he
felt sure she would do should the least opportunity present itself.

On the day, therefore, when he conducted Lord Carthew into the
presence of his lovely _fiancée_, Sir Philip ascertained first of all
that the latter was under the influence of an opiate which would
prevent her from recognizing and speaking to her future husband. Thus
satisfied that no ill result could ensue, Sir Philip led Lord Carthew
to the couch of his pale lady love, as she lay asleep, with her thin
face on her thinner hand, Dakin, the black-browed and shifty-eyed,
hovering in close attendance.

Stella’s heavy mourning accentuated her unearthly pallor. Even Sir
Philip was startled, so deathlike was her appearance, while Lord
Carthew’s heart was stirred to infinite pity.

“Poor child!” he murmured. “Poor child!”

Kneeling by her side, he very tenderly, very reverently lifted the
hand which hung over the side of the sofa to his lips before he took
from his pocket and slipped on her third finger a superb diamond
engagement-ring.

“I wish she would awaken and speak to me,” he said, wistfully. “I
wanted to ask her about our honeymoon--whether she would like to go at
once in my yacht to the Mediterranean, or, as she is so delicate,
whether a stay of a few days in the Isle of Wight before setting out
on our travels might not be the best thing for her. My father has
placed Northborough Castle at my disposal, and it would not be much of
a journey from here. Has she been asleep long?” he inquired of Dakin.

The woman was primed with her answer.

“No, my lord, not long. Poor young lady, she was awake all night. She
_do_ grieve dreadfully over her mamma’s death; she don’t seem to have
the heart to sleep or eat or go out. But she gets a bit excited about
her trousseau, my lord. That’s the only thing now that seems to
interest her.”

This was a daring flight of fancy on the part of Dakin, for Stella had
not even troubled to look at the patterns for materials, the gloves,
and shoes, and cloaks, and dresses, which every day brought her.

“She looks dreadfully ill,” said the lover, anxiously. “What does the
doctor say?”

“There’s nothing the matter with her but fretting, my lord, and change
of scene is bound to cure her in no time.”

“I have brought down a present from my mother to my bride,” Lord
Carthew next remarked, drawing a large, flat jeweller’s case from his
pocket. “I had hoped to have clasped them round Stella’s neck myself.”

He opened the lid and displayed before Sir Philip’s approving eyes
five rows of superb pearls, caught here and there by diamond clasps.

“My mother would like to have presented the gift in person,” he
explained, “but when I told her of Stella’s extreme delicacy and
nervous depression, she agreed that it would be better not to see her
until the wedding-day. She pleaded so hard, however, to be allowed to
come to the wedding that I could not refuse her. Of course she
perfectly understands how essentially quiet the affair will be, so
soon after Lady Cranstoun’s death. I suppose you have made every
arrangement for the service to be read in the chapel here?”

“Certainly. It is a little in disrepair and I have workmen employed at
this moment in putting it right,” answered Sir Philip. “Only my
father-in-law, the Duke of Lanark, will be present besides myself. He
has not seen Stella for some time, but she was always his favorite
grandchild, and he much desires to be present. Stella is fond of him
and glad to have him.”

With much relief Sir Philip saw his future son-in-law depart for town
that same evening. He had been dreading lest Stella should
unexpectedly awaken and spoil all. Everything was going on as well as
could be expected. According to Dakin and Ellen, Stella, although she
took no active interest in her trousseau, consented to stand passive
while hats and gowns were tried upon her, and made no remark even when
she was “fitted” for her wedding-dress. The servants thought that she
must be getting reconciled to the idea of the marriage; but as she
never spoke, it was difficult for them to pronounce on the subject
with certainty. This neutral attitude was at least better than active
opposition, and Sir Philip’s heart was elated by hope that nothing
would occur to mar the ceremony.

It was the more irritating to him, therefore, when on the night before
the wedding eve a strange and ominous dream troubled his repose. He
thought that he was standing within some vast cathedral, in which,
amid much pomp and magnificence, to the strains of a superb organ, and
before the eyes of the highest in the land, the nuptials of his
daughter and Lord Carthew were being celebrated. He thought he was
giving his daughter away, was standing close by her side and placing
her hand within that of her bridegroom, when a cold film seemed to
hang across him, and he perceived the spirit of his dead wife Clare,
with one hand uplifted in warning, and the other stretched
protectingly around her daughter, who seemed unconscious of her
presence.

Suddenly the light in the church flickered and paled; people looked at
each other, whispering and alarmed. Bride and bridegroom sprang apart,
affrighted, and instead of the rich notes of the organ came the
shrill, eldritch laughter of the hag Sarah Carewe, as she croaked again
in his ears the curse which she had uttered on the day when James
Carewe was sentenced for defending his father.

It was a horrible dream, and Sir Philip awoke unnerved and alarmed. At
the same hour of the night visions of help and escape hovered over
Stella, the memory of which kept her in a fever of excitement
throughout the day. Mechanically she let them attire her in her bridal
robes in the afternoon, and Sir Philip was sent for to see her in
them.

She was white as her dress, and her eyes shone strangely. The look of
strain and tension about her face startled her father, suggesting, as
it did, a state of mind bordering on insanity. Had these three weeks
of solitary confinement been too much for her? he wondered.

“I am glad,” he said, speaking more gently than usual, “to see that
you are prepared to accept with pleasure the brilliant fate in store
for you.”

She stared at him for a moment, and then disconcerted him by giving
vent to a low, mirthless laugh as she turned away.

Alarmed by something unexpected and uncanny in her manner, Sir Philip
took Dakin apart, and gave orders that for the rest of the evening
Miss Cranstoun was to be closely watched, but allowed apparent liberty
of action.

“Does she seem to you at all light-headed?” he asked, and Dakin owned
that that idea had occurred to her.

“Let her move about the house,” Sir Philip said, “always, of course,
with one or two persons within call. Fretting and starving in that
foolish way have pulled her down badly.”

All the watching during that evening, however, fell to Dakin’s share,
for handsome Stephen Lee presented himself in the servants’ hall, and
made such open love to Ellen that that young woman forgot everything
in the joy of her supposed conquest.

Finding that she was able to leave her room unmolested, and
remembering well old Sarah’s promise of help on the wedding eve,
Stella took the opportunity while her father was at dinner of running
lightly down the broad oak staircase toward the hall door. Here she
paused a moment, and then suddenly, with trembling fingers and
thumping heart, she drew back the bolt of the door.

Dakin was close behind her, although she knew it not; and Dakin
followed her young mistress out on the terrace, hiding in the shadow
of the doorway, and watched her hesitate a moment, and then speed
across the grass to where the woods began, and lose herself among the
gathering shadows.




 CHAPTER XVI.
 THE CHARM.

Stella’s sudden disappearance startled Dakin.

She had believed the girl to be too seriously ill to attempt to run
away. But, after all, as she told herself, stepping gingerly on to the
wet grass after her errant charge, Miss Cranstoun couldn’t go very
far. Still she was nervous. Sir Philip had given particular orders
that his daughter should have more liberty this evening, but he had
said nothing about permitting her to stray about the grounds.

Mrs. Dakin was not wholly inhuman, although of a mean, hard, vulgar,
and sordid nature. She had been promised five and twenty pounds, to be
divided between her and Ellen, to whom she decided that the odd five
pounds should go as soon as the wedding ceremony was over, and she
wanted to earn it. At the same time Stella’s appearance this evening
had been so strange, her eyes had appeared so unnaturally large and
bright, and her face of so waxen and unhealthy a pallor, that the spy
had serious misgivings as to whether she would be alive and in her
right mind for the ceremony of the morrow. Consequently, she had
decided that a little fresh air might do the girl good, and as Stella
was wearing a white woollen shawl over her shoulders, there was no
particular danger of her catching a cold, even though the evening was
damp and chilly.

Mrs. Dakin approached the outskirts of the wood and called Stella’s
name, not too loudly, being in great dread lest she should draw Sir
Philip’s anger upon her own head for losing sight of her.

“Miss Cranstoun! Miss Cranstoun! Miss Stella! Pray come in. You’ll be
catching cold!”

Only a faint echo thrown from the thick walls of the Chase answered
her. Unaccustomed to country sights and sounds, the last murmurs of
the birds twittering good-nights to each other from the trees and the
sound of the light rain which began to patter on the leaves made her
nervous. The wood seemed full of rustlings, and almost, as it appeared
to her, of human laughter, fitful and mocking.

Was Miss Stella hidden anywhere and laughing at her? Such a course of
conduct seemed very unlike her young mistress, who never scrupled to
show her proud dislike and distrust for the paid spies by whom she was
surrounded. And yet, if it was not Stella, who could it be, for there
undoubtedly _was_ laughter sounding somewhere in the twilight woods?

Dakin was growing frightened. It was now fully twenty minutes since
Stella had given her the slip. She did not know her way about the
property, and could see no sign of Miss Cranstoun anywhere. With her
neat black gown torn and her hands badly scratched by the brambles,
she made her way out again into the open, resolved upon engaging
further help in the discovery of her mistress. To her great relief,
she caught sight of Stephen Lee, sauntering along with his hands in
his pockets from the direction of the kitchen quarters. He looked less
saturnine than usual, and a smile actually lurked about his mouth.
Without hesitation, Dakin ran toward him.

“Mr. Lee!” she exclaimed; “the very man I want! I came out here with
my young lady for her to get a breath of fresh air, and I’ve lost her
somehow in the wood. You know your way in and out of them trees--find
her at once, there’s a good fellow, and I’ll give you five shillings
for yourself. She’s ill and upset, and I’m almost afraid,” she added,
lowering her tone, “if she’s left alone that she’ll be doing herself
a mischief.”

The blood rushed all over the young gypsy’s face in an instant. He
guessed that old Sarah had some hand in Stella’s disappearance, yet he
had no more idea than Dakin as to where Stella was or what old Mrs.
Carewe’s plans with regard to her could be. His own instructions had
been simply to make love to the lady’s maid, and so to withdraw her
attention from her mistress, and at this task he had succeeded only
too well.

He stood now, hesitating a moment, as Dakin addressed him. Old Sarah
was about in the woods, probably, and James Carewe also; of that he
felt as certain as that a gypsy’s caravan was encamped immediately
outside the Chase demesne on a piece of waste land, not very far from
the ruined tower. He must not meddle in grandame Sarah’s concerns for
certain. If Sarah intended to spirit Stella away that night, she would
most certainly do so, and if she did _not_ mean that, what was the
sense of all her prophecies about Stella’s relenting toward
him--Stephen--and showing signs of returning his love?

He was so long silent that Dakin grew impatient.

“Why, man,” she cried, “why are you standing, staring, there? She is
lost in the wood--your young mistress--can’t you understand?”

“I understand right enough,” he answered in a surly tone; “but I’ve
got to think out for myself which path she’d be likely to take. You
wait on the terrace steps, missis, and I’ll see if I can find her.”

He struck into the wood, and made his way rapidly through the branches
until he reached a point at which he calculated that Dakin could not
hear him. The sky had grown very dark by this time with falling dusk,
and the rain-clouds. Here, under the overarching branches, it was
difficult even for Stephen’s hawk-eyes to distinguish anything.
Stopping still, he uttered three times the same low, peculiar whistle
with which he had heralded his approach to the ruined tower. Then he
listened, and very faintly, as from some distance, he caught an
answering sound.

Again he gave the signal, and this time the responsive whistle was
nearer, and the sound of breaking twigs heralded the approach of one
or more persons through the brushwood. He hardly knew whether or not
to feel surprised when, through an opening of the boughs, he perceived
two female figures approaching him. One was Stella, with her white
woollen shawl drawn about her head and shoulders, the other was _mami_
Sarah, looking very bent and tiny, as she hobbled along beside her
tall companion.

“You are here all right, then,” said the old woman to him. “Good
boy--good boy! Now, see this young lady back into the house. She’s
been having a little talk with poor old Sarah. She knows old Sarah’s
her friend, don’t you, deary?”

The girl bent her head in a dazed fashion, as it seemed to Stephen.
He, for his part, utterly failed to understand the whole business.

“I came into the woods to find Miss Cranstoun,” he said, doubtfully.
“It was that spy woman sent me. I thought--I hoped,” he stammered,
“that you, _mami_ Sarah, might have helped Miss Cranstoun to escape.”

The crone broke into her creaking laugh.

“Leave it to me, Steve,” she muttered; “old Sarah knows her business.
Steve needn’t teach his great-grandmother. Remember all I’ve said to
you, dearie,” she added, turning to Stella, “and as for this young
man, though you’re Miss Cranstoun of the Chase, he’s your cousin, and
you may trust him. Now, good-night to you, my dearies, both. A
handsome pair they make, a handsome pair!”

So, muttering and gibbering to herself, old Mrs. Lee disappeared again
among the trees, huddled in her hooded cloak, and as like the
realization of a witch in a fairy-tale as could be imagined, leaving
Stephen and Stella standing opposite each other in the dusk, while the
rain pattered on the branches above their heads.

Stephen was the first to break the silence. Some strange fear of the
girl possessed him; he had always been in awe of her, and her unmoved
manner of receiving Sarah’s communication struck him as being out of
place and strange.

“Do you really wish to go back to the house, Miss Cranstoun?” he
asked.

“Yes.”

“You have no desire to escape? Because you have only to say the word,
and I will lay down my life trying to set you free. Don’t you want to
be free?”

“No.”

She spoke mechanically, although he felt that in the darkness her eyes
were fixed searchingly upon him.

He drew a long breath, and then said, in the same constrained tones:

“The woman Dakin is waiting for you on the terrace. Shall I take you
to her?”

“Yes.”

Without another word he led the way through the trees on to the grass
before the house. It was considerably more than half an hour since
Dakin had lost Stella, but she was there on the terrace, anxiously
awaiting her.

The rain had ceased, and the sky was clear. There was still sufficient
light for Stephen, as he suddenly turned to look at his young
mistress, to distinguish her features and expression.

As he did so, his heart grew cold within him, for the look in her
dilated dark eyes was not only wild, but absolutely wicked.




 CHAPTER XVII.
 A MAD BRIDE.

“I thought you were lost, miss--I did, indeed,” protested Dakin, as
Miss Cranstoun, hardly deigning to notice her, swept past her into the
house. “And if Sir Philip thought I’d let you run out of the house
like that---- Lor’, here he is!”

Mistress and maid were crossing the wide hall as Sir Philip entered it
from the dining-room. Miss Cranstoun’s shawl had fallen back, and her
plentiful blue-black hair, disarranged by the woollen wrap, curled in
picturesque disorder round her face. The Baronet advanced to meet her,
and then suddenly stopped. He did not even see Dakin in attendance as
his pale face grew paler still, and his dry lips murmured:

“Clare!”

It was only a trick of light, no doubt, but he had never seen Stella
look so startlingly like her dead mother as she did to-night; the same
proud, defiant carriage of the head, the same flashing dark eyes, and
curved, scornful, red lips. Twenty years seemed to have slipped away,
and he himself to be taken back into the body of a young fool,
bringing his beautiful, low-bred bride into the home of his fathers.

Speech would dispel the hateful illusion; he realized that, and
uttered his daughter’s name sharply:

“Stella!”

“Yes.”

“Be sure that you are dressed in time to-morrow. The train for
Portsmouth leaves Grayling Station at two o’clock. Neither Lord
Carthew nor I like to be kept waiting. Do you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“I shall probably not see you to-morrow until you are dressed for the
ceremony. You will, of course, wear the pearl necklace Lady
Northborough sent you. I hope you have by this time realized fully the
honor that Lord Carthew is conferring on you by making you his wife.”

No answer. She was looking him full in the eyes with an expression he
had never before seen in hers, such an expression as his own face
often wore--scornful, sarcastic, and hard.

“On my side,” he continued, longing to humble her untamable spirit,
“on my side, indeed, there is no question of honoring. The Cranstouns
can vie with the Guelphs for antiquity of race; but as the daughter of
such a mother as yours, it should, indeed, be gratifying to you that a
man of Lord Carthew’s rank should have asked for your hand.”

She did not answer in words, but broke into a low laugh of
unmistakable contempt. It was the second time that evening that she
had laughed at him, and something defiant and insolent in her manner
provoked him beyond endurance. He seized both her slender hands in one
of his, and shook her savagely.

“Be silent!” he muttered.

Into her dark eyes there flashed a look which seemed the reflex of his
own in savagery. Then, suddenly lowering her head, she buried her
teeth in his fingers, causing him instantly to let her go; whereat she
looked at him, laughed again, and fled away up the stairs.

The assiduous Dakin, who had stolen to the floor above unobserved
during the little passage of arms between father and daughter, led the
way to the turret bedroom. It made her flesh creep, she admitted
afterward, to hear Miss Cranstoun laughing to herself as she glided
in. Stella walked straight up to the wedding-dress, which lay upon the
bed, a perfectly plain garment of high-necked white satin, with a long
tulle veil.

As Miss Cranstoun turned the dress over, she laughed again, and
flitting about the room, she next lighted on the case containing the
pearl necklace. A little exclamation of pleasure escaped her lips as
she opened it; until that moment she had not troubled to do so. Now
she clasped it round her neck and stood before the looking-glass,
trying the effect.

Dakin, watching her, decided that she had never seen her look so
handsome. A feverish flush tinged her ordinarily pale face, and her
eyes shone with unnatural brilliancy. Seizing the wedding-dress, she
motioned to Dakin to assist her into it, grumbling the while in a low
undertone, quite unlike her usual clear, sweet voice, about the fit.

Dakin had very little doubt by this time that the poor girl’s mind was
temporarily deranged. She had been but a comparatively short time in
the Cranstoun service, but she knew enough of Stella’s outward manner
to be sure that this strange, restless irritability, these low,
cunning fits of laughter, and this rough impatience of movement,
differed entirely from Stella’s natural deportment. Once convinced
that Miss Cranstoun was a little “off her head,” Dakin was extra
anxious to please her. It was not her place, but Ellen’s, to help her
to dress, and to make alterations in the fit of her gown; but rather
than excite her to any outward paroxysm, Dakin pinned and stitched for
a good hour, and felt genuinely thankful that it was Ellen, and not
she, who had to sleep that night in the same room with the bride of
to-morrow.

When the lady’s maid at length entered the bedroom after supper, Dakin
was curious to see whether she also would note the alteration for the
worse in Stella’s manner. At first, the young woman was too much
absorbed in Mr. Stephen Lee’s compliments to pay heed to anything
around her; but gradually, as she whispered apart to Dakin, she became
aware that Miss Cranstoun, seated by the fire in a white cashmere
dressing-gown, with her black hair loose about her shoulders, was
listening to her silly confidences, and staring at her with great,
gleaming eyes.

Ellen tried to go on with her chatter, but came suddenly to a full
stop.

“What’s wrong with her?” she asked of Dakin, in an awestruck whisper.

Dakin, with her back to her young mistress, touched her forehead
significantly, and shook her head.

“Mad?”

Ellen’s pale lips formed rather than uttered the words.

Dakin nodded, and held up her finger warningly.

“They get that sharp when they’re that way,” she whispered,
confidentially. “If she’s violent in the night I’ll be sleeping in the
next room, and I’ll come to you.”

But this was not enough for Ellen. Shaking with fear, she protested
that she could not be left alone with a mad woman, and that unless
Dakin promised to sleep with her she would go right down to Sir Philip
and tell him then and there that the marriage must be put off because
his daughter was crazy. This threat had the effect of persuading Dakin
to stay, the more so as she could see Miss Cranstoun watching them,
and laughing softly to herself as the unhappy spies took whispering
counsel together. Neither of them slept that night, except for
occasional broken snatches, from which they were awakened with a start
by fitful bursts of the same crazy laughter from the bride of the
ensuing day.

Stella’s wedding morn was clear and fair. Scarcely a cloud marred the
blue clearness of the sky, and the sun shone bright upon the
bridegroom as he drove with his mother from Grayling Station in the
carriage sent from the Chase to meet them. Lord Northborough had been
unable to attend the ceremony, owing to a sudden Parliamentary crisis
and impending change of Ministry. But Lady Northborough made up by her
vivacity and high spirits for her husband’s absence. She was a typical
American, highly educated, witty, fascinating, and sympathetic. She
was not beautiful, but always exquisitely dressed, and dainty as a
Dresden china statuette. This morning, in silver-gray brocade and rare
old white lace, she looked a little picture as she chattered and
smiled at her son during the drive.

“I’m just mad with anxiety to see your lovely Stella,” she was saying.
“I’m so glad you are going to marry a beauty. I do love pretty women.”

“There isn’t the slightest doubt about Stella’s beauty, mother; but
I’m afraid you’ll think she looks terribly delicate. She has been
wearing herself to a shadow, crying over her mother’s death. There
seems to be no sympathy at all between her and her father. The man is
made of cast-iron. But Stella’s prettiness is her least charm. She is
so frank and innocent, so naïve, and at the same time so refined; her
face is as pure as a child’s, and yet as tender as a woman’s; but if I
once begin, I shall rhapsodize over her until we reach the house. She
has been bought up in the most conventual manner; even Tennyson has
been kept from her, and she listened to the ‘Lady of Shalott’ as a
child does to a fairy-tale. She has herself lived like that; shut up,
as the Lady of Shalott was, among dreams. It is by that name that I
like to think of her.”

“Fanciful boy!” his mother murmured, fondly tapping his cheek lightly
with her gloved fingers. “How can people consider you hard and
sarcastic? Only your little mother understands you as you really are.”

“Dear little mother! But one thing disappoints me. I can find no trace
of Hilary Pritchard. He has not returned to his rooms in town, nor is
he at his Yorkshire home. In the state he was in, with a gunshot wound
in his shoulder, his disappearance is the more inexplicable.”

“Don’t you think,” Lady Northborough suggested, with her fine woman’s
instinct, “that he, too, may have fallen a victim to the charms of
your beautiful Miss Cranstoun, and that that may be his reason for
stopping away?”

“Quite impossible,” her son answered, decidedly. “He had taken a most
unaccountable dislike against her at first sight.”

“Ah! That sounds bad!”

“And he saw nothing of her. He left the very day after his arrival,
while every one was having luncheon, rather than stay an hour longer
in the house, although he was not fit to travel.”

“Mysterious conduct on his part, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, part of his pride and independence, I suppose. Besides, why
should he keep away? He doesn’t even know that I am going to be
married to Miss Cranstoun.”

“Not when the fact has been announced in every society paper for the
past fortnight?”

“I forgot that. But I repeat, little mother, his absence has nothing
to do with my marriage, and his conduct in avoiding me hurts me very
deeply--unless, indeed, it may arise from illness. But here we are
within the Chase enclosure. Splendid timber, isn’t it?”

The Chase chapel had been unused, save as a lumber-room, for very many
years. The Cranstouns were not a religious race, and the beautiful
little mediæval building had been desecrated by being utilized
alternately as a barn and a box-room. But for the masses of white
flowers on the altar, there was no attempt at decoration, an omission
accounted for by Lady Cranstoun’s recent death.

Round about the arched graystone doorway of the chapel the servants
and retainers of the Chase were assembled, and a faint cheer went up
as Lord Carthew helped his mother to descend from the carriage. The
Squire was not popular with his tenants any more than with his
domestics; he had an absolute genius, indeed, for making himself
disliked by all classes among whom he moved. Still, he was all
powerful in the district, and great interest was felt in the beautiful
daughter whom hardly any one had ever seen outside the Chase
enclosure. The crowd round the chapel doors was necessarily a
comparatively small one, comprising, as it did, only the tenants of
farms and cottages within easy distance of the house, and among them a
little, wrinkled, aged woman, neatly dressed in a cotton gown, a
shawl, apron, and large straw bonnet, was hardly noticed at first,
each group supposing her to belong to some other in the party.

There was no way into the chapel save through the Norman archway, and
to enter it from the house it was necessary to walk some yards along
the terrace. Inside the little building, which smelt musty and
disused, two clergymen were waiting: Canon Wrextone, who had been a
college contemporary of Sir Philip Cranstoun, and the Rev. John
Turner, of Grayling. The Canon was a stout, genial man of the world;
the Vicar of Grayling, a pale, ascetic-looking man of middle age. In
one of the few high oak pews, too, there sat his Grace the Duke of
Lanark, the late Lady Gwendolen’s father, a tall, bent, old gentleman
of seventy-five, in deep mourning, with the pallor of eld upon his
face, which was almost as colorless as his snow-white hair.

The head of the house of Douglas had felt it to be his duty to grace
by his presence the union of her whom he believed to be his daughter’s
child with Lord Northborough’s heir, who himself had the extreme honor
of being connected by marriage with the Douglas family. His duchess
had not accompanied him, as she had an equally strong objection
against the Chase and its master, and considered that a wedding so
close on the heels of her daughter’s death was indecorous in the
extreme. But Lord Northborough and the Duke were political allies, and
the Earl had joined with Sir Philip in begging the favor of his
presence. The old gentleman had therefore journeyed down, attended by
his valet, who sat at some distance behind his master. The Duke was
curious to see his granddaughter, of whose remarkable beauty he had
heard with surprise. The Douglases had been plain for generations, and
it seemed a little sacrilegious for a Douglas’ daughter to be
beautiful.

But no eyes watched for the bride’s appearance more keenly than those
of the little, wizened old woman in the neat cotton gown and straw
bonnet. Her bent frame was actually quivering with excitement as she
hung on her stick, with her piercing eyes fixed upon the entrance
doors to the house through which the bride must pass on her way to the
chapel. Stephen Lee, having received strict orders not to recognize
his old relation, kept at some distance from her, attired, as were all
the grooms, gamekeepers, stable and farmhands among the crowd, in his
best clothes, and looking a handsome and attractive figure in his
brown velveteen coat, smart corduroys, and gaiters.

In his secret heart he was profoundly angry, anxious, and unhappy.
What did old Sarah mean by her promise to save Stella from a
distasteful marriage, when here they were at the church doors, waiting
for the girl to appear in her wedding-dress, and be married to this
infernal whipper-snapper of a swell, whom he, Stephen, could have
felled with one hand? What, too, had passed between Stella and Sarah
in the course of that interview in the woods last night, and what was
the meaning of that strange look he had seen in Stella’s eyes?

Sarah was up to some trick, that was certain, but of what nature he
had no means of divining; meantime the chapel held already a duke, a
countess, two ministers of the Church, and the young bridegroom, only
waiting for Stella’s appearance to begin the ceremony.

At last she came, radiant sunshine falling down on her as she emerged
from the doors on to the terrace, her fingers laid upon her father’s
arm, towering over him in height, and looking, in her plain trained
gown of white satin, taller and more commanding than she had ever yet
appeared. Sir Philip’s face was set like a mask. It was impossible to
say what were his feelings, but his cold heart in reality was aflame
with astonishment, indignation, and rage.

Stella had kept him waiting in the hall, watch in hand; had then
sauntered leisurely down the broad oak staircase in her wedding-gown,
attended at a distance by the two frightened satellites, Ellen and
Dakin, and by old Margaret, whose features wore a scared and troubled
look. Miss Cranstoun had offered no apologies to her father for
keeping him waiting, but had coolly crossed to where he was standing,
and looked at him with shining eyes, in which some strange laughter
seemed hidden, from behind her veil.

“What are you waiting for?” he had asked in his harshest tones.

“Your arm, of course.”

There was more than defiance, there was an insolence in her tone and
manner utterly new to him. Nevertheless, there was no time to be lost
in reprimands or punishments now. He dreaded beyond all things lest
she might make a scene in church before Lady Northborough and the
Duke. Her fear of him and constraint in his presence seemed to have
vanished. Some subtle change had come over her state of mind toward
him. She actually shook his arm impatiently as he stood a moment, pale
with anger, regarding her.

“Get on to the church,” she muttered, roughly. “Don’t waste time.”

The grasp of her fingers tightened on his arm. This time it was
actually she who was hurting him, as she clutched his skin through his
coat. He glanced at her quickly, and then at the faces of the women
behind her. The idea which possessed their brains entered his also,
and he asked himself whether grief and harsh treatment could have
temporarily deprived his daughter of her reason.

As Sir Philip led the bride along the terrace toward the church door,
a murmur of admiration ran through the crowd. Her face had lost its
pallor; through the tulle veil a bright color showed in her cheeks,
and contrasted with the intense purple-blue of her restless, gleaming
eyes. Two persons her gaze sought in the crowd about the doors. First
they lighted upon old Sarah Carewe, and that look in her eyes which
was almost a smile deepened and broadened. Next, her gaze sought out
Stephen Lee, and seemed to read in one piercing glance, as she passed
close to him, the hopeless passion for her which consumed him. As
though by accident, she dropped her lace handkerchief at the church
door. One or two persons among the crowd pressed forward to pick it
up, and among them Stephen, who, as he transferred it to the bride’s
hand, felt, to his utter astonishment, that she had slipped a piece of
paper into his fingers.

Speechless with amazement, he watched her enter the church; the doors
were clanged to behind her, and every eye was fixed upon her as she
walked proudly up the aisle, leaning on her father’s arm. Lady
Northborough could hardly refrain from a little cry of admiration. Her
son’s description had prepared her for something ethereal, thin and
pale to a fault; but this queenly young creature, with the proud
little dark head, the perfect figure, and startlingly brilliant
coloring, was no subject for pity, but rather for wondering
admiration.

“Gad! Where did the girl get her good looks from?” muttered the old
Duke, who had occasionally an awkward habit of thinking aloud.

As to Lord Carthew, he was enraptured by the alteration for the better
in his lovely bride’s appearance. The strange restlessness of her
glances he attributed to her natural nervousness, which caused her
also to whisper and mumble the necessary responses in the service with
even less than the ordinary bride’s accuracy. Sir Philip, watching his
daughter closely, felt every moment more convinced that the girl’s
brain and memory were momentarily clouded. She stared about her
without reverence, but with evident curiosity, during the service, to
which she paid not the slightest attention, and her bridegroom
especially she continually regarded with a kind of amused wonder, as
some specimen of humanity the like of whom she had never seen before.
But no one else seemed to heed her irreverent behavior or to note that
strange look as of suppressed laughter in her dancing eyes, and Sir
Philip drew a deep sigh of relief when the ceremony was over, and the
signing of the book followed.

Here again a strange thing happened. The newly made Lady Carthew,
after receiving with an odd little laugh the congratulatory kisses of
her grandfather, the Duke, and the Countess, her mother-in-law,
murmured that her hand shook so badly she could not hold a pen, and
was with difficulty persuaded to scrawl “Stella Cranstoun,” in an
almost undecipherable hand, on the page before her. Strange fears and
fancies filled Sir Philip’s mind. Was her feverish color, her strange
behavior, due to a partially paralyzed brain and nerves, he wondered.
Still, she was Lady Carthew, and he had triumphed; but that strange
likeness to her dead mother, which seemed so much stronger to-day than
it had ever been before, troubled him, and that incomprehensible laugh
in her eyes.

“I wish Carthew joy of his bargain,” was Sir Philip’s mental comment.
“But, in any case, she is in his charge now, and safely off my hands,
so that there is no chance of that senseless old gypsy prophecy being
realized.”




 CHAPTER XVIII.
 THE WEDDING JOURNEY.


 “Go to Grayling Station, and get into the two o’clock Portsmouth
 train with Lord C. and me.”


Such was the message, scrawled in a shaky handwriting, on the scrap of
paper thrust by the bride into Stephen Lee’s hand.

It perplexed him beyond measure, but it seemed to him that her will
was law, and he must obey. For more than five years he had cherished a
dog-like devotion, of which she had been apparently quite unconscious.
Yet now she wanted him, and he could not choose but obey her orders.
First, however, he must contrive to show the paper to old Sarah, and
this he succeeded in doing while the bridal party were leaving the
church, at which time the crowd had eyes for none but the chief actors
in the ceremony.

Quickly running her eye over the bit of paper he had slipped into her
hand, for the old woman’s sight was excellent in spite of her years,
Sarah grinned in intense and evident amusement as she thrust it back
upon him. Stephen was angry with her for her inexplicable merriment,
but there was no time for controversy now; and abruptly leaving the
group about the doors, he strode away in the direction of Grayling.

“Your daughter’s a handsome girl, sir,” the Duke observed to Sir
Philip Cranstoun, as he and his host, with Lady Northborough and her
son, sat in the vast and gloomy dining-hall of the Chase, facing that
sardonic gray portrait in armor which had so greatly interested Lord
Carthew on the occasion of his first visit to the house--“a very fine
girl indeed. And I don’t wonder that Carthew here had his head turned.
Can’t think where she gets her looks from. You’re not a beauty
yourself, Cranstoun, and we Douglases have never been good-looking.
Only known her a month, eh, Carthew? Well, well, marry in haste and
repent at leisure, you know!”

“Now, Duke, you are just too cruel!” exclaimed Lady Northborough, as
the old gentleman wheezed with elderly laughter over his own humor.
“Stella is quite too lovely, and would certainly have been the most
beautiful _débutante_ at the Drawing-Room this year but for her
unhappy mourning. Now mind, Claud, dear, that you get her quite well
at Northborough Castle, and on the yacht. Though, really, she doesn’t
look a bit ill now; but that’s on account of her lovely complexion.”

“Handsome is as handsome does,” persisted the old gentleman,
teasingly. “Cranstoun, I am a judge of character, and I shouldn’t be
surprised if Carthew here had caught a Tartar in your child and my
granddaughter.”

For the first time in his life, Sir Philip seemed to have lost his
gift of bitter speech. The Duke of Lanark’s words filled him neither
with indignation nor amusement, but with something approaching alarm.
The Stella he had always known, with her sensitiveness, refinement,
and proud self-control, seemed to have altered into something strange
and fierce, wholly beyond his influence. This impression deepened when
she presently entered the room, in her going-away costume of soft gray
crape, and gray velvet cape trimmed with gray ostrich feathers, which
last also adorned her large, shady hat. It had seemed unlucky to start
a honeymoon in black, so for the time her mourning for her mother had
been mitigated by this very becoming compromise.

The new Viscountess Carthew was buttoning one of her long gray Suède
gloves as she came in. She stopped in her employment at the threshold
of the dining-room, and gazed with a sort of bold, amused curiosity at
the group who sat discussing an elegant lunch of old wines and cold
viands at the other end of the room. Her bridegroom hurried to meet
her, followed by the Duke of Lanark.

“Allow me, my dear,” the latter said, and deftly fastened the button,
while almost at the same time he clasped round her wrist a magnificent
bangle of rubies and diamonds.

“From your grandmother and myself,” he said, with a courtly bow.

She flushed with pleasure, and her wonderful eyes sparkled at sight of
the jewels. She was almost as tall as he, and seemed to tower over her
bridegroom, her father, and little Lady Northborough, who tripped up
to her, full of compliments and admiration.

Under a thin gray net veil the bride looked more beautiful than ever,
and Claud found himself wondering why he had never before noted the
wonderful tints of her skin, where the whites and reds were indeed
“cunningly laid on” by Nature’s lavish hand. She was strangely silent,
though, and hardly spoke one word in reply to Lady Northborough’s
fluent effusiveness. As to her father, she pointedly ignored him, and
every one present noted with a shock of surprise that when, at the
very last moment of leaving her home, as she stood on the terrace
steps before entering the carriage, Sir Philip took her hand and would
have kissed her cheek, she drew sharply back, and laughed in a way not
pleasant to hear.

The next moment she had sprung lightly into the open carriage, and
Lord Carthew, after taking an affectionate leave of his mother, got in
beside her, the signal was given to the coachman, the gray horses
started at a brisk pace, and without rice, or satin slippers, or any
other harbingers of good luck in their rear, the bridal pair started
on their journey.

Lord Carthew was very loath to begin his married life with
fault-finding. But his bride’s conduct on the steps had startled and
shocked him.

“I am sorry, dearest,” he said, gently, “that you did not part friends
from Sir Philip.”

She turned her head sharply, and looked straight into his eyes under
the brim of her shady gray hat.

“_I hate him!_” she whispered, emphatically, drawing her full red lips
back from her white teeth, with a grimace which had something animal
in its ferocity.

He felt startled and chilled by the sight. He knew quite well that
Stella did not love her father. In her frank and naïve confidences,
she had acknowledged this, but always with regret. To-day, with her
beauty enhanced by what seemed a sudden and astonishing return to
bodily health, she seemed already to have lost some of the womanly
charm which had gone as far to win his heart as her personal
attraction.

Even before the bridal pair had entered the train at Grayling Station,
Lord Carthew began to be glad of his bride’s silence.

So long as she sat by his side without speaking, beautiful as a poet’s
dream, he could go on attributing to her all kinds of ideal qualities.
But, although he would hardly yet acknowledge it even to himself, when
she spoke she dispelled the illusion.

Not only did she display the utmost vindictiveness on the mention of
her father’s name, but she appeared hardly to listen when he spoke to
her of his mother, and of the latter’s admiration for his bride; and
when he went on to descant on the beauties of the scenery in which
they were going to pass the first days of the honeymoon, she cut him
short by saying, abruptly, that she would “sooner go to London.”

Her voice jarred upon him. Hitherto he had admired its melodious
accents--to-day they sounded hoarse and rough, and he inquired
anxiously if she had taken a chill.

“No,” she answered, staring vacantly at him. “Why do you ask?”

“Your voice sounded a little strained and hoarse to me.”

“I have a bad cold,” she said, quickly. “I did not like to worry you
about it before. I caught it last night. Sir Philip had kept me a
prisoner in my room ever since my mother’s death, and last night while
dew and rain were falling I managed to give them all the slip and ran
into the wood. I got my feet wet, lost my voice, and have been feeling
queer ever since.”

This was the longest speech she had made that day. Lord Carthew
listened to it, trying in vain to catch the sweet cadences of the
voice which he had loved so well. In some way, for which he was at a
loss to account, the soul seemed to have gone out of the girl beside
him, leaving only the beautiful body behind it.

He tried to think that she was nervous in her new position, and hoped
that time and companionship would bring back that frank confidence
which had so much delighted him. But meantime he also relapsed into
silence, which was hardly broken until they reached the railway
station at Grayling.

Here they were met by Lord Carthew’s valet, and Lady Northborough’s
maid, lent by the Countess to her daughter-in-law for the honeymoon on
account of her exceptional tact and cleverness. Lady Carthew’s bright
eyes, glancing about beyond these persons, sought for Stephen Lee, and
perceived him at length by the third-class portion of the train.

Dispatching Lord Carthew for a book, she beckoned to Stephen, who,
flushed and confused, came at her bidding.

“I shall take you on as my groom,” she said. “You shall leave the
Chase, and enter my service.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“We’re a bit late for the train, and can’t talk here,” she said, her
restless eyes roving about the platform. “When the train stops at
Peterstone, come to my carriage.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Stephen retired as Lord Carthew returned, book in hand, and assisted
his bride into a luxurious saloon which he had reserved for their use
on the journey.

“Was not that the keeper who shot poor Hilary I saw you speaking to
just now?” he asked, carelessly, as the train began to start, while he
was still arranging on the table the baskets of flowers which had been
prepared by the station-master as a compliment to Sir Philip’s
daughter.

“Yes; Stephen Lee. He taught me to ride, and I want him in my service
now as a groom. He’s in this train.”

Lord Carthew did not speak for a few moments. He was, indeed, too much
surprised at first to make any remark.

“Is it by your wish that the man is coming by this train?” he asked,
at length, in a constrained voice.

She nodded.

“Yes. I have engaged him, and I thought he might as well come along
now.”

“The fact is,” he said, after another pause, “I have a not unnatural
prejudice against the fellow who was clumsy enough to have wounded my
friend. I own, too, I don’t like the appearance of the man. There is a
surly, gypsy-like look about him, which sets me against him.”

She turned and looked at him critically, a mocking light shining in
her eyes.

“You don’t like his looks?” she repeated. “Well, in _my_ opinion, he’s
a lot better looking than _you_ are.”

Lord Carthew flushed with annoyance.

Was this his ideal Lady of Shalott, this the girl like a fairy
princess come to life, all poetry, romance, and charm? She looked back
at him, full in the eyes. Suddenly her face changed, and seemed to
grow softer, and more what used formerly to appear to him.

“I was only laughing,” she said, in a very low voice. “I don’t know
what’s the matter with me to-day. I think I am over-excited, and too
glad to get away from that dreary prison, which the Chase has been to
me. Why do you look at me in that shocked sort of way? Are you sorry
you married me now that you have got me safe?”

Before he could answer, she had taken off her large hat and veil.
Without them she looked more beautiful than ever, with the naturally
waving and silky curls of her blue-black hair framing her exquisite
face. Coming nearer to him, she nestled her head on his shoulder with
a spontaneous gesture of affection, and lifting her long, soft eyes to
his, she inclined her red lips toward his face in a little _moue_,
irresistible in so beautiful a woman.

Lord Carthew was only a man, and in an instant he had forgotten all
that she had said and done amiss in his delight at her unexpected
tenderness. In a transport of passionate love, he pressed her in his
arms, and repeatedly kissed her lips, her eyes and cheeks, and the
soft curls about her brow.

“How adorably beautiful you are, my darling!” he exclaimed, as he
caressed her face with his hand. “It is strange that I never until
to-day realized your wonderful loveliness. You were always so pale,
but to-day you have a color like a _la France_ rose, and eyes that
will make your diamonds look dowdy and dull. Have you the least idea
how beautiful you are, Stella?”

She smiled for answer, and appeared pleased at his kisses and
caresses. It was not until afterward that her ready affection struck
him as unusual in a girl of her training. At the time, being very much
in love, he was too much delighted to analyze her conduct.

At Peterstone Station there was a stoppage of a few minutes, and Lady
Carthew, who was intensely restless, ran to the window, looked up and
down the platform, and then suddenly turning on her bridegroom,
informed him that she was longing for a cup of tea.

“I will tell Trevor,” he said, and was hurrying to the window to
summon his servant when she laid her hands on his arm.

“I would rather you fetched it me yourself,” she said, coaxingly. “I
shall not enjoy it from any one else.”

Thus adjured, Lord Carthew could do nothing less than spring out of
the carriage at once to carry out his lady’s behests. The moment he
had gone, his bride stretched herself, yawned, arranged her hair at
the looking-glass, and then leaned out of the window again. As she
expected, Stephen Lee stood a little way down the line, watching her
saloon, and she motioned with her hand for him to join her.

All the other passengers by the Portsmouth train were fully aware that
Lord Northborough’s heir was travelling toward his father’s seat, in
the Isle of Wight, on his honeymoon journey with Sir Philip
Cranstoun’s daughter. The rank of the pair and the extreme beauty of
the bride naturally attracted many curious glances in the direction of
the saloon, and at Peterstone several of their more inquisitive
fellow-travellers left their seats in order to stroll about the
platform, in the hope of getting a good look at the newly made
Viscountess Carthew.

The bride herself appeared utterly indifferent to their scrutiny. She
was sitting by the open door of the saloon, talking in low and, as it
appeared, familiar tones with a handsome, black-bearded man in the
dress of a gamekeeper, and her conversation, could the bystanders have
heard it, would have considerably surprised them.

“Don’t be afraid of me, Stephen,” she was saying. “You know we are
cousins. Old grandmother Sarah told me so. It’s a relief to look at a
handsome man after being shut up in this carriage with that little
monkey of a Carthew.”

Stephen stared at her in undisguised astonishment, but she only
laughed.

“Well, isn’t he ugly?” she asked, and began to mimic the slight
nervous twitching of the facial muscles which characterized Lord
Carthew in moments of excitement. “Now, if he was like _you_,” she
added, looking straight into the young gypsy’s eyes with a long, soft
glance, “perhaps I shouldn’t get so bored over his compliments and his
love-making.”

Sarah Carewe’s prophecy was certainly coming true. And yet, such is
the contrary disposition of men, Stephen, who had for years
passionately longed for the right to address one word, one look of
love, toward his young mistress, felt a shock of disappointment, and
even of disgust, when she thus went out of her way to lower herself to
his level, and hardly knew how to answer her.

She had closed the saloon door, and was leaning out of the window,
whispering something to Stephen, with her cheek actually touching his,
when Lord Carthew returned with the tea. At first he could hardly
believe his eyes when they rested upon his bride and her father’s
servant in this familiar and even affectionate converse. It seemed too
horrible, too degrading, to be true that here, under the gaze of
grinning railway porters and curious and amused third-class
passengers, his wife, his lovely, refined and innocent Stella, was
publicly flirting with her father’s gamekeeper on a railway platform
at three o’clock in the afternoon of her wedding-day! But the evidence
of his eyes could not be doubted, and if anything were needed to
acquaint Lord Carthew with the extent of his misfortune, Lady
Carthew’s next words, which he plainly overheard, would have done so.

“Well, I wish you could change places with him, Stephen.”

“Stand out of my way, if you please!”

The words, very quietly uttered immediately behind him, made Stephen
start. But the bride merely laughed as she saw her husband’s white
face, and heard his voice, in hard, level tones, suggesting that she
should sit farther away from the door, as her movements were being
watched by a crowd.

“I like a crowd,” she said insolently.

“_I_ do not,” he returned, closing the door, drawing up the window,
and placing the tea upon the table before her.

Stephen Lee strolled back to his own compartment, but his indifference
was only assumed. He was utterly dazed and puzzled. “’Tis some trick
of old Sarah’s,” he kept on repeating to himself, and his bewilderment
was so great that he hardly troubled his mind by surmises as to what
would pass between the bride and bridegroom, left alone together again
after the episode of the station.

What did actually happen became a fruitful topic for society
newspapers for many, many months afterward.

Lord Carthew’s face was fixed like a mask as he seated himself on the
opposite side of the carriage to his bride, while the train began
slowly moving out of the station. It vexed him that presently he could
not control that nervous twitching at this moment when he needed all
his firmness, all his dignity. He could not speak to her, for with all
his radical notions he was essentially a proud man, with a very high
ideal of womanhood, and a still higher ideal of the position and
duties of the woman he had chosen for his wife. Her conduct filled his
mind with the utmost dismay, and a sensation of strong repulsion
against her began to overmaster him.

“Are you cross?” she asked at last, lightly, breaking the silence. “I
only mean to tease you.”

“Stella,” he exclaimed in desperation, “are you mad? Are you not
capable of appreciating the value of your own actions, or has grieving
over your recent loss turned your brain? Do you understand that you
are my wife, Lady Carthew, that my honor is yours, and that it is
outraging my name and your own reputation to make yourself a
laughing-stock for station idlers by vulgar familiarity with one of
your father’s servants? Stella, I can hardly believe it possible that
I should have to address such words to _you_; _you_, whom I have
reverenced as the most innocent, most refined of women! You cannot
surely know what you are doing; fever must have mounted to your
brain--great Heaven! If I thought you were truly responsible for such
coarse and immodest behavior, I would never willingly look upon your
face again!”

He had risen in his excitement, and stood staring across at her,
noting with ever-increasing wonder and disgust the way in which she
leaned forward, with her elbow on the table, and her face resting on
her right hand, while with her left she drummed an impatient tattoo in
front of her.

She looked up at him, furtively.

“Am I to understand,” she asked, “that you hope I’m mad?”

“You are to understand,” he broke out, passionately, “that only
temporary insanity would, in my eyes, excuse your revolting conduct.”

“Well,” she cried, suddenly opening the carriage-door, “here goes for
a little more insanity! I’m tired of you already. By-by, dearest!”

On the last word, to Lord Carthew’s horror, she sprang from the open
door of the now rapidly moving train, and was lost to sight almost
immediately as the engine entered a tunnel.

To communicate with the guard was hopeless until the train had passed
through, by which time, after a prolonged search, Lord Carthew
realized that in this particular carriage the communicator was
missing.

His nerves were stunned by the unexpectedness of the blow. That Stella
was mad, he had now not the slightest doubt, but this conviction did
not decrease his anxiety on her account. An overwhelming dread, too,
of the scandal which her crazy conduct would cause, increased his
mental disquiet. What if his unfortunate bride were crushed to pieces,
or maimed for life by her terrible leap! It seemed impossible that she
could escape some such fate, for he could not even say for certain
that she had jumped clear of the tunnel. The train was an express from
this point to Portsmouth, and every moment the speed was increasing.
He tried thrusting his head through the window of the saloon, and
endeavored to attract the guard’s attention; but the wind, driving
through his hair, and seeming to cut his face as the express darted
on, blew his cries in the other direction. All that he could do was to
draw down the blinds of the saloon so that Lady Carthew’s
disappearance should not be noted by curious passers-by when the train
stopped, and to possess his soul with such patience as he might until
Portsmouth was reached at last.

Arrived there, he summoned the guard and the station-master, pledged
them to secrecy, and informed them of the disastrous accident by which
his bride, leaning against an imperfectly closed door, had been
precipitated on to the line, not far from Peterstone Station.

Instantly the telegraph wires were set at work, but no trace of the
missing bride could be found at first, until a telegram, addressed to
Lord Carthew, care of station-master, Portsmouth, and sent from
Clapham Junction Station, was handed in to the distracted husband.

The message ran:


 “Off to London. Stella Carthew.”




 CHAPTER XIX.
 FOUND!

It was three days after Lord Carthew’s wedding. Hilary Pritchard was
lodging in an hotel off the Strand, and was sitting in the coffee-room
at breakfast on a misty May morning.

He was in extremely low spirits and very bad temper, and while waiting
for his tea and eggs, he drew from his pocket a notice, cut from a
newspaper two days old, which set forth that on a given date, Stella,
only daughter of Sir Philip Cranstoun, J. P., of the Chase, Surrey,
and Cranstoun Hall, Aberdeenshire, was married to Viscount Carthew,
eldest son of the Earl of Northborough, by the Rev. Canon Wrextone,
assisted by the Rev. John Turner.

Hilary had read the words until long ago he had known them by heart.
He had even, sorely against his will, written down to Northborough
Castle to congratulate his friend in as few words as possible on his
marriage, and to inform him that he purposed starting for Canada at
least two months earlier than he had originally intended. In this
letter he had mentioned the name of the hotel at which he was staying.
Until now he had been anxious to keep his address a secret from his
friend, from a feeling that he had not acted fairly by Lord Carthew in
the matter of Stella Cranstoun; but now, since she had elected to
marry her wealthy and titled suitor, Hilary’s conscience was clear.
There was no longer any need for mystery, and he therefore told Lord
Carthew, in his extremely brief congratulatory letter, that he was
staying in this place for a few days, settling his affairs, before
going north to take leave of his parents, on setting out for his new
home across the sea.

He was conscious of a feeling of disloyalty in that he could not
banish from his mind those two short love-scenes which had passed
between himself and Stella. He told himself again and again that she
was now his friend’s wife, and that she was most certainly a coquette,
who had been amusing herself at his expense. “She would presently, if
I were still in England, ask her husband to invite me to stay at one
of their country seats,” he told himself, bitterly. “That’s how flirts
always behave toward their old sweethearts when they’ve married
another fellow. Ask them to stay, that he may see and envy the other
fellow’s happiness. See them make love to their husbands _at_ him, and
call him by his Christian name when they are alone. ‘_Dear_ Jack,’ or
‘_dear_ Hilary, it wasn’t _my_ fault I didn’t marry _you_, you know. I
am very happy now, of course, but I was forced into it, and--you don’t
bear me any grudge, do you?’ Then if they can, and if the husband is
fool enough to stand it, they make a tame cat of the old sweetheart,
and do their best to prevent him from marrying any one else,
sacrificing his life’s happiness on the altar of their own petty,
miserable vanity.”

With which cynical, if partially true, reasoning he strove to allay
the gnawing bitterness at his heart, and to forget the passionate love
which Stella had so suddenly aroused there.

He was very “hard hit,” for certain. Stella’s shining dark-blue eyes
seemed to be gazing at him from every corner, and with her voice they
haunted his dreams, from which he awoke with outstretched arms to meet
the empty air. He had never meant to fall in love with her or with
anybody, and it angered him to think that even incessant occupation
and bodily activity could not stifle the constant pain at his heart.
To a man of his essentially manly and practical nature, it seemed
little short of contemptible to be thus dominated by a hopeless
feeling of love for a woman, particularly now that she had become the
wife of his friend; and he longed, with all his soul, for the moment
when he should set sail for Canada, and, among new work and new
surroundings, forget this foolish infatuation.

So he sat, brooding, over the breakfast-table, in a moody frame of
mind with which, until the past few days, he had been totally
unacquainted, until the voice of the elderly, greasy-looking English
waiter recalled him to his immediate surroundings.

“A gentleman, sir, to see you on very pressing business. ’Ere is ’is
card, sir.”

A touch of unwonted reverence in the man’s voice and manner attracted
Hilary’s attention. He took up the card and read thereon, with great
surprise, the name of Lord Carthew.

But two days married, and already in London visiting his bachelor
friends! Hilary had read in an evening paper that the bridal pair
intended spending a few days at the Earl of Northborough’s seat in the
Isle of Wight before undertaking a lengthened cruise in the
Mediterranean. A presentiment of something wrong filled his mind as he
told the waiter to show the gentleman in.

It was half-past eight o’clock, and as yet Hilary was the sole
occupant of the coffee-room. There were no strangers present to note
the pale and worried appearance of the man who only two days before
had made a love-match with a beautiful and accomplished lady.

“Carthew!” Hilary exclaimed, springing from his seat and grasping his
friend by the hand. “What is wrong?”

“Don’t you know? Thank Heaven! it hasn’t got about much yet, then!
But, of course, it can’t be kept a secret much longer.”

“Man alive, what do you mean? What is it that should be kept a secret?
Has anything happened to _her_--to Lady Carthew?”

His friend sat down by the table and wearily rested his head on his
hand.

“I haven’t slept for three nights,” he said. “Anxiety about her has
banished rest by night and day. She is mad, Hilary, I am certain of
it. No other explanation could explain, could justify her conduct. She
sprang from the train on our wedding journey, and I have not seen her
since.”

“And you can sit quietly there and tell me such a thing!” almost
shouted Hilary, stirred to violent indignation by what he supposed to
be his friend’s callous apathy. “Good heavens! Carthew, what are you
made of?”

Lord Carthew looked at him and frowned.

“There is no need for this excitement on your part,” he said, coldly.
“Lady Carthew was not injured by her escapade. Indeed, within three
hours of her leap, she telegraphed to me from Clapham Junction,
informing me that she was on her way to London. I was forced to go on
first to Northborough, where all manner of rejoicings had been
prepared, to quiet them with some story of Lady Carthew’s health which
had necessitated a change of plans. But I wired to a detective agency
to find out her address, and communicate with me at my club. Imagine,
Hilary, the awful disgrace of the thing. Having to call in
professional spies to find out one’s own wife! Worst of all, this
girl, who seemed the perfection of modesty and refinement, has,
through her mental affliction, become so strangely different that you
would hardly know her. All her reserve, all her delicacy and grace
have left her. In the short time we spent together, she contrived to
make me the laughing-stock of a vulgar crowd by her open flirtation
with her father’s gamekeeper, that gypsy fellow who shot you in the
arm.”

Hilary’s face betokened amazement, largely tinctured by incredulity;
but the latter quality he refrained from expressing, as he asked,
quietly:

“Have the detectives furnished you with any clue?”

“So far, with two incorrect ones. I have in my hands now a third
address to a lodging-house in Duchess Street, Oxford Street, whither
they have tracked a woman who exactly answers to the description I
have furnished. I was on my way thither from the detective office
when, passing this street, I resolved to speak with you. Hilary, I
hardly know whether I hope or dread to find her. I have suffered so
much during the past three days that I have come to wish that she or I
were dead.”

“But your love for her----”

“She herself killed that. My great dread is lest the affair should
reach the ears of my people. If I can only find her first, and put her
away somewhere quietly until she recovers her reason! That is my one
hope now.”

Hilary, on his part, was so profoundly shocked by his friend’s story
that he knew not what to suggest by way of alleviating his grief and
anxiety. The pair very shortly afterward parted, Lord Carthew having
promised to return and report the success or failure of his mission.

Hilary had long ago forgotten his breakfast. Swallowing a cup of tepid
tea, he sought the open air, there to reflect on the strange story he
had just heard. He had struck into the Strand, and was about to cross
Trafalgar Square, when his attention was attracted by the figure of a
girl, tall, slender, and attired in shabby black, who stood,
hesitating and frightened, between the rows of hurrying cabs,
carriages, and omnibuses which were incessantly passing.

Something in the outline of her figure, for her face was concealed by
a thick black crape veil, attracted Hilary’s attention so strongly
that he resolved at once to see her over the crossing, that he might
set at rest a strange suspicion which shot across his heart.

In a few seconds he was at her side, addressing her as a stranger, and
offering to escort her over the road through the crowded traffic. But
she, regardless of the publicity of the spot, gave a little cry of
surprise and delight at sight of him, and throwing back her veil,
displayed the lovely, flushed face and brilliant eyes of Stella.

“Hilary!” she murmured, joyfully. “Oh, I _am_ so glad! Yes, see me
across the road--I am not used to crowds, and take me somewhere where
we can have a beautiful long talk. It is my first walk alone in
London, and I haven’t the least idea where we are.”

He listened to her in ever-increasing wonder, and after piloting her
safely through the vehicles, he led her down to the comparative
seclusion of St. James’ Park.

There he turned and faced her.

“I have just parted from your husband,” he said, sternly.

She stared at him, and then burst out laughing.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “Is it a jest?”

“Is _this_ a jest?” he asked, impressively, taking from his
pocket-book the announcement of the marriage, cut from the _Morning
Post_, and thrusting it into her hand.

She read it with knitted brows and evident amazement, and then looked
up at him, pale to the lips.

“What can it mean, Hilary?” she faltered. “Surely I can’t have been
married without knowing it! And yet of what happened between my
leaving the Chase and finding myself here in London I can remember
nothing at all!”




 CHAPTER XX.
 LORD CARTHEW FINDS HIS WIFE.

Hilary stared at Stella in undisguised amazement as she made the
astonishing confession that, from the time of leaving the Chase until
her arrival in London, she could remember nothing of what had happened
to her.

Her statement seemed to fit in only too well with Lord Carthew’s
belief that she was not in her right mind on her wedding-day.

It was necessary to learn fuller details, and Hilary led her to a
bench in the Park, and seated himself beside her.

“Now, tell me,” he said, kindly but firmly, “all that has happened
since you and I were parted by your father at the Cranstoun Arms.”

Willingly enough she obeyed, beginning with Lady Cranstoun’s death,
and her own subsequent close imprisonment and supervision, and the
pressure which was brought to bear upon her to induce her to marry
Lord Carthew. She left out nothing, and dwelt particularly over the
gypsy Sarah Carewe’s offer of help “on her wedding-eve,” in the note
conveyed to her by means of Stephen Lee.

Hilary’s brows darkened as she uttered the gamekeeper’s name, and he
recalled what Lord Carthew had said of Stella’s extraordinary conduct
toward him on her wedding journey.

“Are you on such close and confidential terms with this Lee, then, may
I ask, that you entrust letters and messages to him?”

Stella’s dark-blue eyes opened wide in what looked like innocent
surprise.

“Close and confidential terms?” she repeated. “Why, he is the
gamekeeper! I hardly ever see him, and I shall never forgive him for
hurting you. Surely, Hilary, you are not going to be jealous of the
servants?”

He noticed that she dwelt affectionately upon his name, not in the
least as if she realized that she was now another man’s wife.

“Go on,” he said. “When did you see this man Lee last?”

“Not since I dropped him the signal from the window,” she answered,
promptly. “Old Sarah told me to employ him, so I suppose he must be a
gypsy, too. But let me get on with my story. I can’t tell you how ill
I got by being kept shut in my room all those days, and half-starved;
but that was my fault, since I was too unhappy to eat. By the
wedding-eve, the date on which I was promised help from the gypsies,
I was half-desperate, and the strangest fancies began to crowd into my
head. I wanted to tear down the bars in my room and jump from the
window. I had an idea that if once I could get away to the forest, I
might join the gypsies and escape. That afternoon and evening I was
not so closely watched; for the first time for weeks I was able to
creep out of my room, and down the stairs to the front door. When once
I stood in the open air again, I felt intoxicated with joy, and I ran
as fast as my feet could carry me into the wood. An idea came into my
mind that if the gypsies could not help me, rather than marry any one
but you I would drown myself in a tarn I know of, where no one would
think of looking for me for weeks, perhaps for months. But before I
had run more than a few yards, the old gypsy, Sarah Carewe, who is
really, I believe, my great-grandmother, suddenly appeared before me
among the trees, like some witch in a fairy-tale. She took my hand,
and made me walk very fast beside her into the woods; then she
suddenly stopped, and drawing down my face to hers in the gathering
darkness, she peered into my eyes with her wonderful bright stare, and
stroked my face down with both hands, murmuring soothing words in some
language I did not understand. Just as I felt myself growing strangely
weak and sleepy, she took a small bottle from her pocket, drew the
cork out, and commanded me to drink out of it. I obeyed her without
hesitation. I seemed to have no power of resistance. From that moment
I can remember nothing at all until two days ago, when I found myself
in small, shabby rooms which I had never seen before, with an elderly
woman, who slept in another bed in the same room with me. She told me
that she was a nurse, that her name was Julia Tait; that she had held
me in her arm as a tiny baby, and had seen my mother die. Further,
that I had been put in her care for a few days by friends, and that I
must not ask questions, or leave the house except in her company. She
got me these clothes, and treated me kindly enough, taking me out
twice. But she would not talk, and this morning, while she was still
asleep, I dressed and slipped out. I was mad to be in the open air
after living so long shut up at the Chase. Then, too, I knew you had
come to London, and you had told me you always stayed somewhere near
Charing Cross and the Strand. So I made my way here, and just as
though you had dropped from the clouds, I found you. Why, Hilary, you
haven’t yet said you are glad to see me.”

She had evidently again forgotten the tie which bound her to his
friend. With an effort, he resolved to recall it to her.

“What is the address where you are now staying?” he asked.

“Duchess Street, Oxford Street. Mrs. Tait thinks I haven’t noticed it
painted up, but I have.”

“Stella,” he said, gravely and impressively, “your husband, Lord
Carthew, is at Duchess Street at this very moment searching for you.
Some detectives whom he employed to find you, after you had jumped out
of the train on your wedding journey, set him on your track. When he
comes back to my hotel, what can I say to him?”

She sprang from her seat, white and trembling.

“Hilary!” she said, “I can see you believe I am mad. But do I look or
speak like a mad woman? Is it possible that I could do all these
things of which you tell me and yet remember nothing?”

“I cannot say,” he answered. “On my soul, I understand nothing of the
business. But, my dear child, you must see plainly what my duty is.
Carthew confided in me; I cannot act against him in this.”

“Hilary!” she exclaimed again, while a hunted, terrified look came
into her eyes, “you could not be so cruel as to give me up to him,
after all I have suffered for your sake! If--if Lord Carthew’s tale
and that notice in the paper are true, then I am mad, quite, quite
mad. And if I am sane, I would rather die than be Lord Carthew’s wife.
I have no friend in the world but you; for after what you have told
me, I cannot tell whether Sarah Carewe is my friend or--my worst
enemy. I have told you that I meant to kill myself rather than be
married to any one but you; and yet you would give me up to this man,
whose wife I will never be. I would rather die!”

She spoke in low tones of passionate intensity, standing before him
with clasped hands and tears shining in her eyes. Very pale, very
slender and fragile she looked, in her shabby and ill-fitting clothes,
which yet could not wholly conceal the graceful outlines of her tall,
slim figure. The flush of pleasure which had tinged her cheeks at
first sight of him had died away and given place to a look of absolute
despair. As he looked at her, Hilary’s resolution was taken. Rising
from the bench, he drew her hand through his arm.

“Listen, dear,” he said. “I can no more explain this wretched business
than you can. But until it becomes clear, you must trust me and look
upon me as a brother, and I, so Heaven help me, will treat you and
think of you as a dear sister. I have an aunt, Mrs. Sinclair, who
lives in Bayswater. She is a rich woman, a childless widow, and very
kindly. I will place you in her care for the present, while I
thoroughly investigate this business. Meantime I will pledge myself on
my honor to say no word to any one which shall reveal your
whereabouts. Will that suit you?”

“Yes, Hilary. I will do everything you tell me.”

While they were driving together in a hansom in the direction of Mrs.
Sinclair’s residence, Lord Carthew, in his search after his wife, was
undergoing a very strange experience. At the Duchess Street lodgings
he gathered little but that an elderly woman named Tait, a
professional nurse, lived there, and that three days ago a very old
woman had driven up in a four-wheeled cab, and had placed a pretty
young invalid lady, who appeared to be in a fainting condition, in
Mrs. Tait’s care. On this particular morning the young lady had gone
out alone at about seven o’clock, and shortly afterward Mrs. Tait, who
appeared distressed at the girl’s absence, had left, presumably in
search of her.

Puzzled and anxious, Lord Carthew left, deciding that he would call
again, and he was proceeding down Regent Street when, to his
astonishment, from the doors of a well-known fashionable millinery
establishment he saw, as he believed, his newly made bride emerge,
followed by a bowing shopman, laden with parcels.

She was dressed in the identical gray crape costume she had worn on
her wedding journey, and she walked leisurely, with her proud head
held erect and the sunshine lighting up her lovely face, to a smart
victoria which waited for her by the pavement.

A man-servant in dark livery opened her carriage-door, a tall,
finely-built man in whom, in spite of the absence of beard about his
chin, Lord Carthew traced a marked resemblance to the gamekeeper,
Stephen Lee.

Neither the lady nor the man perceived Lord Carthew, who, as the
victoria drove away, sprang into a hansom which he directed to follow
on the track of the carriage. Down Regent Street, the Haymarket, and
across Trafalgar Square, went pursuer and pursued, until, passing down
Northumberland Avenue, the victoria drew up with a flourish before the
doors of a fashionable hotel greatly patronized by Americans and
wealthy travellers passing through London.

The swarthy groom assisted his mistress to alight, and she then,
conscious of the admiring ogle of several smart young men who were
lounging about the hotel entrance, stopped to give a prolonged order
to the coachman before leisurely walking up the hotel steps, throwing,
as she did so, many glances of bold coquetry to right and left of her.

Lord Carthew waited for her to have time to proceed to her room before
entering himself, and after asking at the office for an imaginary
friend, inquired the name of the lady who had just entered.

“That, sir, is Viscountess Carthew. She was only married three or four
days ago, and she is waiting here until her husband, who is detained
in the country on urgent private affairs, joins her.”

There was something embarrassed about the clerk’s manner. Evidently he
was of opinion that the new Viscountess Carthew was a lady whose exact
position needed explaining.

“I am Lord Carthew,” said Claud, quietly. “Lady Carthew is suffering
from the effects of recent brain fever.”

“Indeed, sir!”

The man looked polite but incredulous.

“We understood, my lord,” he went on, “that the lady was the daughter
of Sir Philip Cranstoun, who has visited this hotel several times. We
therefore communicated with him last night on the subject of Lady
Carthew. We thought ourselves that she seemed--ill.”

From the curious emphasis which the man laid on the words, Lord
Carthew guessed that his wife had already gained an unenviable
notoriety by her behavior in the establishment. There was a look of
evident relief on the face of the manager of the hotel, to whom the
clerk communicated the news that Lord Carthew had arrived to join his
bride. Claud noted this, being hypersensitive on the subject, and he
smarted with an indignant sense of injury as he followed an attendant
up the wide marble stairs to Lady Carthew’s rooms on the first floor.

The apartment into which the unhappy bridegroom was shown was a
palatially furnished drawing room. On a side-table several bottles of
champagne were standing, and at the moment when Lord Carthew entered,
a vapid and vicious-looking youth, of the ordinary “stage-door loafer”
type, was drinking the health of the lady, whose name he mentioned in
loud, drawling tones as he drained his glass.

“Here’s Lady Carthew’s health, and my love to her! Lady Carthew,” he
repeated, raising his voice louder, so as to be heard by the occupant
of the adjoining room, “do hurry up, there’s a good soul. We’re boring
ourselves dreadfully without you.”

“We” consisted of another youth of much the same calibre, and of a
stout, florid, dark man of foreign appearance, whom his companions
addressed as “Count.” By the table stood Stephen Lee, opening another
bottle of champagne, his face set in a sullen frown of disapproval.

“I say, Count,” drawled the youth who sprawled on the sofa, “hope you
travel with your stiletto up your sleeve. Lady Carthew’s man here has
such a confoundedly cut-throat look that he makes me quite nervous.”

The noise of the door closing made the youth turn his head. At sight
of Lord Carthew he stared superciliously.

“Hullo! Here’s another chap to luncheon! Quite a party we shall be.
Ah, here she is at last, lookin’ rippin’, positively rippin’!”

Was it, could it be, his Stella, his modest and refined lady-love,
this bold-eyed woman with the coarse laugh, who, in a gorgeous
tea-gown of red brocade, far too elaborate and vivid in color for
morning wear, swept into the room, returning the vulgar and silly
banter of her chosen acquaintances in the style of a fourth-rate
barmaid?

She did not at first notice Lord Carthew as he stood, pale and
motionless, by the door. But even when she perceived him, she was in
no way abashed.

“Why, I declare,” she cried, with a loud laugh, “there’s my husband.
Where did you boys pick him up? Glad to see you, Carthew. Have a drop
of fizz? Stephen, open another bottle for his lordship.”

The three men had risen in surprise at the mention of Lord Carthew’s
name, and now glanced undecidedly from their hostess, whom they had
met for the first time in the hotel entrance a few hours ago, to the
small, plain man whom she claimed as her husband. Lady Carthew had
flung herself easily into a deep arm-chair, and was to all appearance
heartily enjoying their embarrassment, when another tap at the
drawing-room door heralded the entrance of a short, pale man of about
fifty, with a handsome, sinister face, which displayed a marked
resemblance to that of the black-haired, blue-eyed woman in scarlet
who lounged and laughed before him.

For the second time Lady Carthew showed neither confusion nor
surprise.

“Well, I’m blest if it isn’t my dad!” she cried in a hoarse voice,
which did much to counteract the effect of her remarkable beauty. “A
jolly old family party we’ll make, though I can’t say I’m as fond of
my papa as I ought to be, seeing what a nice, affectionate old
gentleman he is. Don’t go, boys! The fun is just going to begin!”

“Is she mad?” Sir Philip asked aloud of his son-in-law.

“I suppose so.”

“Mad! Not a bit of it,” laughed the lady. “As sane as you are, and a
lot saner. _I_ should never have made the mistake _you_ did,” she
continued, addressing her father, “of marrying a gypsy out of a
caravan, and then thinking you could bring her daughter up and palm
her off as a Duchess’ grandchild merely by stuffing her head full of
book-learning. You and Carthew there are both a couple of fools. But I
mean to lead you a pretty dance, and thoroughly enjoy myself. I’m not
mad enough to be shut up, and not bad enough to be divorced; and I
shall remain Sir Philip Cranstoun’s daughter and Lord Carthew’s wife
for years to come. I know a good thing when I see it!”

The three men had taken their hats, and now clumsily excused
themselves; they did not care for the expression on Sir Philip
Cranstoun’s face. As the door closed upon them, Lord Carthew turned to
his father-in-law.

“Is what she says true?” he asked, sternly. “That you deceived me, and
that she is really the daughter of a gypsy?”

“It is quite true,” said the woman, laughing again. “My mother’s name
was Clare Carewe, and that fellow who was waiting at table--don’t go,
Stephen--is a relative of mine, a second cousin. _He’d_ have been my
fancy, not a little, ugly whipper-snapper like you,” she added,
candidly, addressing her husband; “only the title was a temptation,
you see. I _do_ like having a handle to my name!”

“Sir Philip,” said Claud, turning sharply toward the Baronet, “this is
_not_ Stella. Who is it?”

“Your wife and Sir Philip Cranstoun’s daughter,” she cried, rising to
her full height, and filling herself a brimming glass of champagne.
“And I’ve let most people know all about me and my relations since I
came here, I can tell you. Luncheon-parties, tea-parties,
supper-parties, every day--rare old time; not a man but envied you
your luck for having such a daughter, Sir Philip Cranstoun, and such a
wife, my Lord Carthew!”

She made each of them a mock curtsey as she spoke, and then tossed off
the wine.

“Here’s to our happy married life!” she cried. “You’ll both of you be
pleased to hear that a newspaper man called upon me yesterday
afternoon, and took down all about me--an interview, they call it,
don’t they? All about my esteemed daddy marrying a gypsy, and me
bolting on my wedding journey. He _did_ laugh at _that_, I can tell
you! And it’ll all be in the papers to-morrow morning!”




 CHAPTER XXI. AND LAST.
 THE CURSE FULFILLED.

Sir Philip Cranstoun walked out of the hotel that afternoon a beaten
man.

He and Lord Carthew were equally powerless before this woman, whose
audacity, vulgarity, and cunning were equally astonishing as revolting
to both of them.

The gray wolf had been scoffed at and insulted to his face, not only
by this hoarse-voiced virago, whose features resembled so strangely
those of his late wife and of her daughter Stella, but by his own
former servant, Stephen Lee, who had laughed to scorn his threats of
punishment and dismissal.

“I’ve always hated you,” the young gamekeeper had said. “I only
entered your service that I might bide my time, and see you made a
fool of, and disgraced in the eyes of the world; and if your daughter
here can’t do it, nobody can. You’ll rue the day you meddled with the
Romanys and shot down Hiram Carewe in cold blood before you’ve done.”

Lord Carthew’s resentment against his father-in-law knew no bounds.
Not for an instant did he believe the Baronet’s labored explanation.
He remained convinced that he had been the victim of a trick, and that
Sir Philip, having two daughters, had palmed off upon him the other
instead of Stella, and now refused to own to his villany.

“Your conduct has been infamous, sir. It places you outside the pale
of decency. I shall at once call in the law to get your daughter, whom
you have married to me under a false name and by a knavish trick,
returned upon your hands.”

Such was the nature of his parting words to Sir Philip as he left him
at the hotel door.

That hateful old woman’s prophecy returned upon Sir Philip’s brain
with maddening iteration.

“You shall be wretched at home, and hated abroad! No one shall ever
love you! Your children shall bring disgrace and shame upon you! You
shall die in a miserable garret, and I, Sarah Carewe, shall live to
laugh at you as you lie dying!”

The first part of the prophecy was being verified indeed; as to the
last, that was, of course, sheer mouthing. No doubt the old hag who
uttered it, and who would by this time have been over eighty, had long
been mouldering in her grave, while he, Sir Philip Cranstoun----

“I beg your pardon, sir, but is your name Sir Philip Cranstoun?”

The speaker was a respectably dressed man of swarthy complexion and
handsome features, apparently about five and thirty years of age.

“Why do you want to know?” the Baronet inquired curtly, eying the
stranger, who had the appearance of a well-to-do mechanic, with
suspicion.

“I beg pardon, sir, but it’s about your daughter, a young lady called
Miss Stella Cranstoun, I want to speak to you.”

“What about her?”

“Well, sir, I’m a Surrey man, and I know you and her by sight. I’m
working in London now, and in the house in Whitechapel where I’m
lodging a young lady was brought three days ago, in the care of two
elderly women, who won’t let her put her head outside the door. And
I’d take my oath, sir, she’s your daughter, Miss Stella Cranstoun. I
can take you to the house, sir, in a cab, if you like. I was half a
mind to write about it down to the Chase, but I thought how you’d
think it a liberty; but as soon as I spotted you just now as I was
going back to my work, thinks I, I must up and speak to him.”

The man’s manner was so genuine, and the affair of such pressing
importance that Sir Philip, after a moment’s hesitation, decided to
accompany him. A four-wheeled cab was crawling past, driven by a
dark-faced, clean-shaven man, no longer young. The cabman pulled up as
he saw Sir Philip looking for a conveyance, and the latter sprang in
and ordered the man who had addressed him to take his place on the box
and direct the driver.

This order was at once obeyed. Once on their way toward Whitechapel,
the two men looked at each other. The Fates were against Sir Philip
Cranstoun that day, for the driver was his brother-in-law, James
Carewe, whom he had caused to serve five years in prison, and his
companion was James’ younger brother Brian, who had helped Clare Lady
Cranstoun to escape from her husband’s home.

It had been Brian’s business to “shadow” his family enemy, and this
cab-driving plan was only one out of many plots woven by the moving
and directing spirit of the Carewes, old Sarah, to get her prey into
her hands. No suspicion of his danger crossed Sir Philip’s mind as he
let himself be rapidly driven eastward. He was longing to revenge
himself by extra harshness of treatment upon his daughter Stella for
daring to escape from his control and send a substitute in her stead
to be wedded to Lord Carthew.

Suddenly, while these malevolent thoughts filled his mind, a violent
lurch of the cab hurled him upon his hands and knees; the next moment
a blow in the chest from the shaft of a heavy van into which the cab
had been deliberately driven, felled him, stunned and bleeding, as he
attempted to rise. He heard the crash of glass, the noise of loud
talking; then insensibility came to dull the exquisite pain he was
suffering, and he knew no more until he opened his eyes in a mean and
squalid room, and became conscious that several people were standing
round his bed, and that the cracked and quavering voice of a very old
woman was sounding close to his ear.

“Make him conscious--make him conscious for a bit, dear, good doctor,
before he dies. You see, he’s a relation of mine; he married the
daughter of my boy Hiram--oh, you needn’t look surprised! Sixty years
ago _I_ was pretty enough for a swell to have married _me_.”

“Doctor,” muttered the injured man, “where am I? And what has happened
to me?”

“You have had a very serious accident--a heavy van ran into your cab
in a street not far from here. This is Elizabeth Street, Whitechapel.”

“Let me be moved at once to my house in Berkeley Square.”

“Impossible. It would be madness to move you in your present state.”

“Shall I die?”

“I hope not. I cannot say. But you must be prepared.”

“He won’t die, doctor, dear, until I have spoken to him,” put in the
old crone, pressing close to the wounded man’s pillows. “That’s what
he’s waiting for. He’s waiting to hear the voice of old Sarah Carewe,
whose son he murdered, and whose grandchild’s heart he broke; the
voice he heard cursing him outside the court-house, where he swore
James Carewe’s liberty away. But James Carewe has been even with you,
Philip Cranstoun, for it was he who drove your cab to-day. And Clare,
my dear grandchild, will rest in her grave when she knows how I’ve
carried out her prayer to bring up your children to hate and to
disgrace you when those twin girls, Stella and Lura Cranstoun, were
born to her. I let you keep the one, and you well-nigh broke her heart
as you broke her mother’s. But old Sarah saved her, and she’ll marry
her own young spark, the farmer, while I’ll wager my little Lura will
set all tongues wagging with her doings. She’s an imp of evil even _I_
can’t manage, and she’s been trained to hate you as I do. Romanys have
good memories, Sir Philip Cranstoun. Old Sarah told you she would live
to laugh at you as you lay dying in a garret, and her words have come
true!”

Her voice rose to a shriek of triumph on her last words, and there was
a fiendish glee in the shrill laugh that accompanied them. The dying
man turned his head aside with a shudder of repugnance, and motioned
to the doctor to approach him.

“Stella, my daughter Stella; I want her,” he whispered. “Where is
she?”

The doctor turned to the old woman, who, as though exhausted by the
excitement of the moment for which she had waited so long, had sunk
upon a chair, looking extraordinarily old and feeble.

“Oh, he can see her if she likes,” she mumbled. “_His_ bullying days
are over.”

Not until late that same evening could Stella be found, Brian Carewe
having applied in vain at the lodgings in Duchess Street, where she
had been placed by old Sarah after the latter had brought her, drugged
and insensible, in the caravan to London. But Brian had the gypsy
instinct of tracking, and enlisting the aid of his nephew, Stephen
Lee, who had long ago discovered the fraud perpetrated upon Lord
Carthew, he sought out the address of Hilary Pritchard, and through
him that of the latter’s aunt, in whose care Stella had been placed
that day.

And by the light of a candle flickering in the wind, which blew
through the broken window-panes of a wretched garret, Stella saw her
father for the last time, and on her knees beside his bed freely
forgave him for any grief he might have caused her, and soothed his
last moments with a daughter’s tenderness as freely given as it was
wholly undeserved.

 * * * * * * * *

Mr. and Mrs. Hilary Pritchard are settled in the Canadian homestead
now, where they live in perfect happiness and ever-increasing worldly
prosperity. The law has long since freed Lord Carthew from his
unfortunate marriage, concerning which the world has forgotten to
talk; but the money which he settled upon Lura only accelerated her
end by enabling her to indulge in her passion for drinking. At once
the means and the victim of a long-deferred vengeance, she died
miserably at the age of four and twenty. Old Sarah only survived her
enemy, Sir Philip, by a few months; and as to James Carewe, and Brian,
and Stephen Lee, they are living out unprofitable lives in the way
best suited to their roving, restless temperaments.

But Stella was only one-third gypsy after all. Such freedom-loving
instincts as she has are tempered by a gracious womanliness and
unobtrusive refinement, which make her a queen among the settlers and
farmers in her new home, where, blessed with her husband’s and her
children’s love, she can forget the sorrows and the trials of her
girlhood’s years.

 THE END.




 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Gertrude Warden was the pseudonym of Gertrude Isobel Price.

She was the younger sister of author/actress Florence Warden.

Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g. evening-gown/evening gown,
stepmother/step-mother, etc.) have been preserved.

Alterations to the text:

Punctuation: fix a few quotation mark pairings.

[Prologue.--Part II]

“William’s wife she said she felt she’d rather have died at once”
delete first _she_.

Change “a neighboring farmer had been _commisioned_ to bring” to
_commissioned_.

[Chapter VII]

“as well as other points which had _puzzed_ her” to _puzzled_.

[Chapter XII]

“saw the _unimstakable_ relief in her face, and hastened” to
_unmistakable_.

[Chapter XV]

“into the presence of his lovely _fianceé_” to _fiancée_.

“the shrill, eldritch laughter of the hag Sarah _Carew_” to _Carewe_.

[Chapter XVI]

“Stephen’s hawk-eyes to distinguish anything Stopping still”
add period after _anything_.

[Chapter XVII]

“He did not even see Dakin in _attendancce_ as his pale face”
to _attendance_.

“could hardly refrain from a little cry of _admiraton_” to
_admiration_.

“to whisper and mumble the necessary _reponses_ in the service”
to _responses_.

[Chapter XVIII]

(“Handsome is as handsome does,” persisted the old old gentleman)
delete one _old_.

(“_Tis_ some trick of old Sarah’s,” he kept on repeating) to _’Tis_.

[Chapter XIX]

“you don’t bear me any _gruge_, do you?” to _grudge_.

[Chapter XX]

“he gathered little but that an _eldely_ woman named Tait” to _elderly_.

 [End of text]








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