"You may do so," she replied; "and, although he will never look upon me again, he will protect me from you."
She saw the angry light flame in his eyes; she heard his breath come in quick, short gasps, and the danger of quarreling with him struck her.
She laid her hand upon his arm, and he trembled at the gentle touch.
"Hugh," she said, "do not be angry. You are a brave man; I know that in all your life you never shrank from danger or feared peril. The brave are always generous, always n.o.ble; think of what I am going to say. Suppose that, by the exercise of any power, you could really compel me to be your wife, what would it benefit you? I should not love you, I tell you candidly. I should detest you for spoiling my life--I would never see you. What would you gain by forcing me to keep my promise?"
He made no reply. The wind bent the reeds, and the water came up the bank with a long, low wash.
"I appeal to your generosity," she said--"your n.o.bility of character.
Release me from a promise I made in ignorance; I appeal to your very love for me--release me, that I may be happy. Those who love truly,"
she continued, receiving no reply, "never love selfishly. If I cared for any one as you do for me, I should consider my own happiness last or all. If you love me, release me, Hugh. I can never be happy with you."
"Why not?" he asked, tightening his grasp upon her arm.
"Not from mercenary motives," she replied, earnestly; "not because my father is wealthy, my home magnificent, and you belong to another grade of society--not for that, but because I do not love you. I never did love you as a girl should love the man she means to marry."
"You are very candid," said he, bitterly; "pray, is there any one else you love in this way?"
"That is beside the question," she replied, haughtily; "I am speaking of you and myself. Hugh, if you will give me my freedom if you will agree to forget the foolish promise of a foolish child--I will respect and esteem you while I live; I shall bless you every day; your name will be a sacred one enshrined in my heart, your memory will be a source of pleasure to me. You shall be my friend, Hugh, and I will be a true friend to you."
"Beatrice," he cried, "do not tempt me!"
"Yes, be tempted," she said; "let me urge you to be generous, to be n.o.ble! See, Hugh, I have never prayed to any man--I pray to you; I would kneel here at your feet and beseech you to release me from a promise I never meant to give."
Her words touched him. She saw the softened look upon his face, the flaming anger die out of his eyes.
"Hugh," she said, softly, "I, Beatrice Earle, pray you, by the love you bear me, to release me from all claim, and leave me in peace.
"Let me think," he replied; "give me a few minutes; no man could part so hastily with the dearest treasure he has. Let me think what I lose in giving you up."
Chapter XL
They stood for some time in perfect silence; they had wandered down to the very edge of the lake. The water rippled in the moonlight, and while Hugh Fernely thought, Beatrice looked into the clear depths. How near she was to her triumph! A few minutes more and he would turn to her and tell her she was free. His face was growing calm and gentle.
She would dismiss him with grateful thanks; she would hasten home. How calm would be that night"s sleep! When she saw Lord Airlie in the morning, all her sorrow and shame would have pa.s.sed by. Her heart beat high as she thought of this.
"I think it must be so," said Hugh Fernely, at last; "I think I must give you up, Beatrice. I could not bear to make you miserable. Look up, my darling; let me see your face once more before I say goodbye."
She stood before him, and the thick dark shawl fell from her shoulders upon the gra.s.s; she did not miss it in the blinding joy that had fallen upon her. Hugh Fernely"s gaze lingered upon the peerless features.
"I can give you up," he said, gently; "for your own happiness, but not to another, Beatrice. Tell me that you have not learned to love another since I left you."
She made no reply--not to have saved her life a thousand times would she have denied her love for Lord Airlie. His kiss was still warm on her lips--those same lips should never deny him.
"You do not speak," he added, gloomily. "By Heaven, Beatrice, if I thought you had learned to love another man--if I thought you wanted to be free from me to marry another--I should go mad mad with jealous rage! Is it so? Answer me."
She saw a lurid light in his eyes, and shrank from him. He tightened his grasp upon her arm.
"Answer me!" he cried, hoa.r.s.ely. "I will know."
Not far from her slept the lover who would have shielded her with his strong arm--the lover to whom every hair upon her dear head was more precious than gold or jewels. Not far from her slept the kind, loving father, who was prouder and fonder of her than of any one on earth.
Gaspar Laurence, who would have died for her, lay at that moment not far away, awake and thinking of her. Yet in the hour of her deadly peril, when she stood on the sh.o.r.e of the deep lake, in the fierce grasp of a half-maddened man, there was no one near to help her or raise a hand in her defense. But she was no coward, and all the high spirit of her race rose within her.
"Loosen your grasp, Hugh," she said, calmly; "you pain me."
"Answer me!" he cried. "Where is the ring I gave you?"
He seized both her hands and looked at them; they were firm and cool--they did not tremble. As his fierce, angry eyes glanced over them, not a feature of her beautiful face quivered.
"Where is my ring?" he asked. "Answer me, Beatrice."
"I have not worn it lately," she replied. "Hugh, you forget yourself.
Gentlemen do not speak and act in this way."
"I believe I am going mad," he said, gloomily. "I could relinquish my claim to you, Beatrice for your own sake, but I will never give you up to be the wife of any other man. Tell me it is not so. Tell me you have not been so doubly false as to love another, and I will try to do all you wish."
"Am I to live all my life unloved and unmarried?" she answered, controlling her angry indignation by a strong effort, "because when I was a lonely and neglected girl, I fell into your power? I do not ask such a sacrifice from you. I hope you will love and marry, and be happy."
"I shall not care," he said, "what happens after I am gone--it will not hurt my jealous, angry heart then, Beatrice; but I should not like to think that while you were my promised wife and I was giving you my every thought, you were loving some one else. I should like to believe you were true to me while you were my own."
She made no answer, fearing to irritate him if she told the truth, and scorning to deny the love that was the crowning blessing of her life.
His anger grew in her silence. Again the dark flush arose in his face, and his eyes flamed with fierce light.
Suddenly he caught sight of the gold locket she wore round her neck, fastened by the slender chain.
"What is this thing you wear?" he asked, quickly. "You threw aside my ring. What is this? Whose portrait have you there? Let me see it."
"You forget yourself again," she said, drawing herself haughtily away.
"I have no account to render to you of my friends."
"I will see who is there!" he cried, beside himself with angry rage.
"Perhaps I shall know then why you wish to be freed from me. Whose face is lying near your heart? Let me see. If it is that of any one who has outwitted me, I will throw it into the depths of the lake."
"You shall not see it," she said, raising her hand, and clasping the little locket tightly. "I am not afraid, Hugh Fernely. You will never use violence to me."
But the hot anger leaped up in his heart; he was mad with cruel jealousy and rage, and tried to s.n.a.t.c.h the locket from her. She defended it, holding it tightly clasped in one hand, while with the other she tried to free herself from his grasp.
It will never be know how that fatal accident happened. Men will never know whether the hapless girl fell, or whether Hugh Fernely, in his mad rage, flung her into the lake. There was a startled scream that rang through the clear air, a heavy fall, a splash amid the waters of the lake! There was one awful, despairing glance from a pale, horror-stricken face, and then the waters closed, the ripples spread over the broad surface, and the sleeping lilies trembled for a few minutes, and then lay still again! Once, and once only, a woman"s white hand, thrown up, as it were, in agonizing supplication, cleft the dark water, and then all was over; the wind blew the ripples more strongly; they washed upon the gra.s.s, and the stir of the deep waters subsided!
Hugh Fernely did not plunge into the lake after Beatrice--it was too late to save her; still, he might have tried. The cry that rang through the sleeping woods, seemed to paralyze him--he stood like one bereft of reason, sense and life. Perhaps the very suddenness of the event overpowered him. Heaven only knows what pa.s.sed in his dull, crazed mind while the girl he loved sank without help. Was it that he would not save her for another that in his cruel love he preferred to know her dead, beneath the cold waters, rather than the living, happy wife of another man? Or was it that in the sudden shock and terror he never thought of trying to save her?
He stood for hours--it seemed to him as years--watching the spot where the pale, agonized face had vanished--watching the eddying ripples and the green reeds. Yet he never sought to save her--never plunged into the deep waters whence he might have rescued her had he wished. He never moved. He felt no fatigue. The first thing that roused him was a gleam of gray light in the eastern sky, and the sweet, faint song of a little bird.
Then he saw that the day had broken. He said to himself, with a wild horrible laugh, that he had watched all night by her grave.
He turned and fled. One meeting him, with fierce, wild eyes full of the fire of madness, with pale, haggard face full of despair, would have shunned him. He fled through the green park, out on the high-road, away through the deep woods--he knew not whither never looking back; crying out at times, with a hollow, awful voice that he had been all night by her grave; falling at times on his face with wild, woeful weeping, praying the heavens to fall upon him and hide him forever from his fellow men.
He crept into a field where the hedge-rows were bright with autumn"s tints. He threw himself down, and tried to close his hot, dazed eyes, but the sky above him looked blood-red, the air seemed filled with flames. Turn where he would, the pale, despairing face that had looked up to him as the waters opened was before him. He arose with a great cry, and wandered on. He came to a little cottage, where rosy children were at play, talking and laughing in the bright sunshine.