"Is _this_ all?" he demanded. "I will answer your objections when I have thoroughly heard them. I am my own master--but--that much is due to you."
"I tell you she is beneath you--beneath you!" Lady Helena said vehemently. "The Catherons have always married well--into ducal families. Your grandmother--my sister--was, as I am, the daughter of a marquis."
"And _my_ mother was the daughter of a soap-boiler," he said with bitterness. "Don"t let us forget _that_."
"Why do you speak to me of her? I can"t bear it. You know I cannot.
You do well to taunt me with the plebeian blood in your veins--you, of all men alive. Oh! why did you ever see this designing girl? Why did she ever come between us?"
She was working herself up to a pitch of pa.s.sionate excitement, quite incomprehensible to her nephew, and as displeasing as it was incomprehensible.
"When you call her designing, Lady Helena," he said, in slow, angry tones, "you go a little too far. In no way has Miss Darrell tried to win me--"tis the one drawback to my perfect happiness now that she does not love me as I love her. She has told me so frankly and bravely.
But it will come. I feel that such love as mine must win a return. For the rest, I deny that she is beneath me; in all things--beauty, intellect, goodness--she is my superior. She is the daughter of a scholar and a gentleman; her affection would honor the best man on earth. I deny that I am too young--I deny that she is my inferior--I deny even _your_ right, Lady Helena, to speak disparagingly of her.
And, in conclusion, I say, that it is my unalterable determination to marry Edith Darrell at the earliest possible hour that I can prevail upon her to fix our wedding-day."
She looked at him; the unalterable determination he spoke of was printed in every line of his set face.
"I might have known it," she said, with suppressed bitterness; "he is his father"s son. The same obstinacy--the same refusal to listen to all warning. Sooner or later I knew it must come, but not so soon as this."
The tears coursed slowly over her cheeks, and moved him as nothing she ever could have said would have done.
"For Heaven"s sake, aunt, don"t cry," he said hurriedly. "You distress me--you make me feel like a brute, and I--really now, I don"t think you ought to blame me in this way. Miss Darrell is not a Lady Gwendoline, certainly--she has neither rank nor wealth, but in my sight their absence is no objection whatever. And I love her; everything is said in that."
"You love her," she repeated mournfully. "O my poor boy, my poor boy!"
"I don"t think I deserve pity," Sir Victor said, smiling again. "I don"t feel as though I did. And now tell me the real reason of all this."
"The real reason?"
"Certainly; you don"t suppose I do not see it is something besides those you have given. There is something else under all this. Now let us hear it, and have done with it."
He took both her hands in his and looked at her--a resolute smile on his fair blonde face.
"Troubles are like certain wild animals," he said; "look them straight in the eye and they turn and take to flight. Why should I not marry at twenty-three? If I were marrying any one else--Lady Gwendoline for instance--would my extreme juvenility still be an obstacle?"
"You had much better not marry at all."
"What! live a crusty old bachelor! Now, now, my good aunt, this is a little too much, and not at all what I expected from a lady of your excellent common-sense."
"There is nothing to make a jest of, Victor. It _is_ better you should not marry--better the name of Catheron should die out and be blotted from the face of the earth."
"Lady Helena!"
"I know what I am saying, Victor. _You_ would say it too, perhaps, if you knew all."
"You will tell me all. Oh yes, you will. You have said too much or too little, now. I must hear "all," then I shall judge for myself. I may be in love--still I am amenable to reason. If you can show me any just cause or impediment to my marriage--if you can convince me it will be wrong in the sight of Heaven or man, then, dearly as I love her, I will give her up. But your proof must be strong indeed."
She looked at him doubtfully--wistfully.
"Would you do this, Victor? Would you have strength to give up the girl you love? My boy, my son, I don"t want to be hard on you. I want to see you happy, Heaven knows, and yet--"
"I will be happy--only tell me the truth and let me judge for myself."
He was smiling--he was incredulous. Lady Helena"s mountain, seen by _his_ eyes, no doubt, would turn out the veriest molehill.
"I don"t know what to do," she answered, in agitated tones. "I promised her to tell you if this day ever came, and now it is here and I--oh!"
she cried out pa.s.sionately, "I _can"t_ tell you!"
He grew pale himself, with fear of he knew not what.
"You can, you will--you _must_!" he said resolutely. "I am not a child to be frightened of a bogy. What terrible secret is there hidden behind all this?"
"Terrible secret--yes, that is it. Terrible secret--you have said it!"
"Do you, by any chance, refer to my mother"s death? Is it that you knew all these years her murderer and have kept it secret?"
There was no reply. She covered her face with her hands and turned away.
"Am I right?" he persisted.
She rose to her feet, goaded, it seemed, by his persistent questioning into a sort of frenzy.
"Let me alone, Victor Catheron," she cried. "I have kept my secret for twenty-three years--do you think you will wring it from me all in a moment now? What right have you to question me--to say I shall tell, or shall not? If you knew all you would know you have no rights whatever--none--no right to ask any woman to share, your life--no right, if it comes to that, even to the t.i.tle you bear!"
He rose up too--white to the lips. Was Lady Helena going mad? Had the announcement of his marriage turned her brain? In that pause, before either could speak again, a knock that had been twice given unheard, was repeated a third time. It brought both back instantly from the tragic, to the decorum of every-day life. Lady Helena sat down; Sir Victor opened the door. It was a servant with a note on a salver.
"Well, sir," the baronet demanded abruptly. "What do you want?"
"It"s her ladyship, Sir Victor. A lady to see your ladyship on very important business."
"I can see no one this morning," Lady Helena responded; "tell her so."
"My lady, excuse me; this lady said your ladyship would be sure to see her, if your ladyship would look at this note. It"s the lady in mourning, my lady, who has been here to see your ladyship before.
Which this is the note, my lady."
Lady Helena"s face lit up eagerly now. She tore open the note at once.
"You may go, Nixon," she said. "Show the lady up immediately."
She ran over the few brief lines the note contained, with a look of unutterable relief. Like the letter, it was signed "Inez."
"Victor," she said, turning to her nephew and holding out her hand, "forgive me, if in my excitement and haste I have said what I should not. Give me a little time, and everything will be explained. The coming of In--this lady--is the most opportune thing in the world. You shall be told all soon."
"I am to understand then," Sir Victor said coldly, "that this stranger, this mysterious lady, is in your confidence; that she is to be received into mine--that she is to be consulted before you can tell me this secret which involves the happiness of my life?"
"Precisely! You look angry and incredulous, but later you will understand. She is one of our family--more at present I cannot say. Go, Victor; trust me, believe me, neither your honor nor your love shall suffer at our hands. Postpone the driving-party, or make my excuses; I shall not leave my rooms to-day. To-morrow, if it be possible, the truth shall be yours as well as mine."
He bowed coldly--annoyed, amazed, and went. What did all this mean? Up to the present, his life had flowed peacefully, almost sluggishly, without family secrets or mystifications of any kind. And now all at once here were secrets and mysteries cropping up. _What_ was this wonderful secret--_who_ was this mysterious lady? He must wait until to-morrow, it appeared, for the answer to both.