"Innocent!" he murmured--"Don"t be hard upon me! Think a little longer before you leave me without any hope! It means so much to my life!
Surely you cannot be cruel? Do you care for me less than you care for that old knight buried under his own effigy in the garden? Will you not think kindly of a living man?--a man who loves you beyond all things?
Oh, Innocent!--be gentle, be merciful!"
She came to him and took his hands in her own.
"It is just because I am kind and gentle and merciful," she said, in her sweet, grave accents, "that I will not marry you, dear! I know I am right,--and you will think so too, in time. For the moment you imagine me to be much better and prettier than I am--and that there is no one like me!--poor Robin!--you are blind!--there are so many sweet and lovely girls, well born, with fathers and mothers to care for them--and you, with your good looks and kind ways, could marry any one of them--and you will, some day! Good-night, dear! You have stayed here a long time talking to me!--just suppose you were seen sitting on this window-ledge so late!--it is past midnight!--what would be said of me!"
"What could be said?" demanded Robin, defiantly. "I came up here of my own accord,--the blame would be mine!"
She shook her head sadly, smiling a little.
"Ah, Robin! The man is never blamed! It"s always the woman"s fault!"
"Where"s your fault to-night?" he asked.
"Oh, most plain!" she answered. "When I saw you coming, I ought to have shut the window, drawn the curtains, and left you to clamber down the wall again as fast as you clambered up! But I wanted to tell you what had happened--and how everything had changed for me--and now--now that you know all--good-night!"
He looked at her longingly. If she would only show some little sign of tenderness!--if he might just kiss her hand, he thought! But she withdrew into the shadow, and he had no excuse for lingering.
"Good-night!" he said, softly. "Good-night, my angel Innocent!
Good-night, my little love!"
She made no response and moved slowly backward into the room. But as he reluctantly left his point of vantage and began to descend, stepping lightly from branch to branch of the accommodating wistaria, he saw the shadowy outline of her figure once more as she stretched out a hand and closed the lattice window, drawing a curtain across it. With the drawing of that curtain the beauty of the summer night was over for him, and poising himself lightly on a tough stem which was twisted strongly enough to give him adequate support and which projected some four feet above the smooth gra.s.s below, he sprang down. Scarcely had he touched the ground when a man, leaping suddenly out of a thick clump of bushes near that side of the house, caught him in a savage grip and shook him with all the fury of an enraged mastiff shaking a rat. Taken thus unawares, and rendered almost breathless by the swiftness of the attack, Clifford struggled in the grasp of his a.s.sailant and fought with him desperately for a moment without any idea of his ident.i.ty,--then as by a dexterous twist of body he managed to partially extricate himself, he looked up and saw the face of Ned Landon, livid and convulsed with pa.s.sion.
"Landon!" he gasped--"What"s the matter with you? Are you mad?"
"Yes!" answered Landon, hoa.r.s.ely--"And enough to make me so! You devil!
You"ve ruined the girl!"
With a rapid movement, unexpected by his antagonist, Clifford disengaged himself and stood free.
"You lie!" he said--"And you shall pay for it! Come away from the house and fight like a man! Come into the gra.s.s meadow yonder, where no one can see or hear us. Come!"
Landon paused, drawing his breath thickly, and looking like a snarling beast baulked of its prey.
"That"s a trick!" he said, scornfully--"You"ll run away!"
"Come!" repeated Clifford, vehemently--"You"re more likely to run away than I am! Come!"
Landon glanced him over from head to foot--the moonbeams fell brightly on his athletic figure and handsome face--then turned on his heel.
"No, I won"t!" he said, curtly--"I"ve done all I want to do for to-night. I"ve shaken you like the puppy you are! To-morrow we"ll settle our differences."
For all answer Clifford sprang at him and struck him smartly across the face. In another moment both men were engaged in a fierce tussle, none the less deadly because so silent. A practised boxer and wrestler, Clifford grappled more and more closely with the bigger but clumsier man, dragging him steadily inch by inch further away from the house as they fought. More desperate, more determined became the struggle, till by two or three adroit manoeuvres Clifford got his opponent under him and bore him gradually to the ground, where, kneeling on his chest, he pinned him down.
"Let me go!" muttered Landon--"You"re killing me!"
"Serve you right!" answered Clifford--"You scoundrel! My uncle shall know of this!"
"Tell him what you like!" retorted Landon, faintly--"I don"t care! Get off my chest!--you"re suffocating me!"
Clifford slightly relaxed the pressure of his hands and knees.
"Will you apologise?" he demanded.
"Apologise?--for what?"
"For your insolence to me and my cousin."
"Cousin be hanged!" snarled Landon--"She"s no more your cousin than I am--she"s only a nameless b.a.s.t.a.r.d! I heard her tell you so! And fine airs she gives herself on nothing!"
"You miserable spy!" and Clifford again held him down as in a vise--"Whatever you heard is none of your business! Will you apologise?"
"Oh, I"ll apologise, if you like!--anything to get your weight off me!"--and Landon made an abortive effort to rise. "But I keep my own opinion all the same!"
Slowly Robin released him, and watched him as he picked himself up, with an air of mingled scorn and pity. Landon laughed forcedly, pa.s.sing one hand across his forehead and staring in a dazed fashion at the shadows cast on the ground by the moon.
"Yes--I keep my own opinion!" he repeated, stupidly. "You"ve got the better of me just now--but you won"t always, my pert c.o.c.k Robin! You won"t always. Don"t you think it! Briar Farm and I may part company--but there"s a bigger place than Briar Farm--there"s the world!--that"s a wide field and plenty of crops growing on it! And the men that sow those kind of crops and reap them and bring them in, are better farmers than you"ll ever be! As for your girl!"--here his face darkened and he shook his fist towards the lattice window behind which slept the unconscious cause of the quarrel--"You can keep her! A nice "Innocent" SHE is!--talking with a man in her bedroom after midnight!--why, I wouldn"t have her as a gift--not now!"
Choking with rage, Clifford sprang towards him again--Landon stepped back.
"Hands off!" he said--"Don"t touch me! I"m in a killing mood! I"ve a knife on me--you haven"t. You"re the master--I"m the man--and I"ll play fair! I"ve my future to think of, and I don"t want to start with a murder!"
With this, he turned his back and strode off, walking somewhat unsteadily like a blind man feeling his way.
Clifford stood for a moment, inert. The angry blood burned in his face,--his hands were involuntarily clenched,--he was impatient with himself for having, as he thought, let Landon off too easily. He saw at once the possibility of mischief brewing, and hastily considered how it could best be circ.u.mvented.
"The simplest way out of it is to make a clean breast of everything,"
he decided, at last. "Tomorrow I"ll see Uncle Hugo early in the morning and tell him just what has happened."
Under the influence of this resolve, he gradually calmed down and re-entered the house. And the moonlight, widening and then waning over the smooth and peaceful meadows of Briar Farm, had it all its own way for the rest of the night, and as it filtered through the leafy branches of the elms and beeches which embowered the old tomb of the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin it touched with a pale glitter the stone hands of his sculptured effigy,--hands that were folded prayerfully above the motto,--"Mon coeur me soutien!"
CHAPTER V
As early as six o"clock the next morning Innocent was up and dressed, and, hastening down to the kitchen, busied herself, as was her usual daily custom, in a.s.sisting Priscilla with the housework and the preparation for breakfast. There was always plenty to do, and as she moved quickly to and fro, fulfilling the various duties she had taken upon herself and which she performed with un.o.btrusive care and exact.i.tude, the melancholy forebodings of the past night partially cleared away from her mind. Yet there was a new expression on her face--one of sadness and seriousness unfamiliar to its almost child-like features, and it was not easy for her to smile in her ordinary bright way at the round of scolding which Priscilla administered every morning to the maids who swept and scrubbed and dusted and scoured the kitchen till no speck of dirt was anywhere visible, till the copper shone like mirrors, and the tables were nearly as smooth as polished silver or ivory. Going into the dairy where pans of new milk stood ready for skimming, and looking out for a moment through the lattice window, she saw old Hugo Jocelyn and Robin Clifford walking together across the garden, engaged in close and earnest conversation. A little sigh escaped her as she thought: "They are talking about me!"--then, on a sudden impulse, she went back into the kitchen where Priscilla was for the moment alone, the other servants having dispersed into various quarters of the house, and going straight up to her said, simply--
"Priscilla dear, why did you never tell me that I wasn"t Dad"s own daughter?"
Priscilla started violently, and her always red face turned redder,--then, with an effort to recover herself, she answered--
"Lord, lovey! How you frightened me! Why didn"t I tell you? Well, in the first place, "twasn"t none of my business, and in the second, "twouldn"t have done any good if I had."
Innocent was silent, looking at her with a piteous intensity.
"And who is it that"s told you now?" went on Priscilla, nervously--"some meddlin" old fool--"