"See, dear, I plead as a man pleads for his life! And on your answer hangs all that makes life worth living. Forgive me, Nell, and give me back your love! I have been punished enough, rest a.s.sured of that.
Forgive me that past folly and deceit, Nell! I"ll teach you to forget in time. Dearest, you loved me, did you not? You loved me until that night of the ball--at the Maltbys"--when you discovered who I was!"
Back it all came to her, and she turned her face to him with grief and reproach in her violet eyes.
"I was on the terrace," she said, almost inaudibly. "It is you who forget. It was not because you kept your right name and rank from me. I was on the terrace. I saw you and--and Lady Luce!"
He started, and his hand fell to his side. He could not speak for a moment, the shock was so great, and in silence he recalled, saw as in a flash of lightning, all the incidents of that night.
"You--you were there? You saw--heard?" he said, half mechanically.
"Yes," she said.
She was calm, unnaturally calm now, and her voice was grave and sad rather than reproachful.
"I saw and heard everything. I saw her and Lady Chesney before you came out. I heard Lady Luce telling her friend that you and she were engaged, that you had parted, but that she still cared for you, and that you would come back to her; and when you came out of the house on the terrace, I saw her--and you----Oh, why do you make me tell you? It is hateful, shameful!"
She turned her face away, as if she could not bear his gaze fixed on her with amazement, and yet with some other emotion qualifying it.
"You saw Lady Luce come to meet me, heard her speak to me, saw her kiss me?" he said, almost to himself; and even at that moment she was conscious of the fact that there was no shame in his voice, none in his eyes.
She made a motion with her hand as if imploring him to say no more, to leave her; but he caught at her hand and held it, though she strove to release it from his grasp.
"My G.o.d! and that was the reason? Why, oh, Nell! Nell! why did you not tell me what you had seen? Why did you say no word of it in your letter?
If you had done so--if you had only done so!"
She looked at him sadly.
"Was it not true? Were you not engaged to her?" she asked, almost inaudibly.
"Yes," he replied quickly. "I kept that from you; but it was true. You read of the engagement in that paragraph in the stupid paper, you remember? I ought to have told you, and I thought that it was because I had not, as well as because I had concealed my rank, that you broke with me. But, Nell, my engagement with her was broken off by herself; when there was a chance of my losing the t.i.tle and the estates, she jilted me. I was free when I asked you to be my wife. You believe that? Great heavens! you do not think me so bad, so base----"
"No," she said, with a sigh. "No; but you went back to her. Oh, I do not blame you! She is very beautiful; she was a fitting wife----"
He uttered an exclamation--it was very like an oath--and caught her hand again.
"No, no," he said, almost fiercely. "You are wrong--wrong!"
She sighed again.
"I saw you--and her," she said, as if that were conclusive.
"I know it," he said. "You saw her come toward me and greet me as if--Heaven! I can scarcely bear to speak of it, to recall it!--as if she were betrothed to me. You saw her kiss me. But, Nell--ah! my dearest, listen to me, believe me!"--for she turned away from him in the bitterness of her agony, the remembrance of the agony she had suffered that night on the terrace. "You must believe me! The kiss was hers, not mine. I would rather have died than my lips should have touched her that night."
Nell"s heart began to throb, and something--a vague hope--the touch of a joy too great and deep for words--began to steal over her.
"I am a fool, and weak, but, as Heaven is my witness, I had no thought for her that night. All my heart, my love, were yours! The very sight of her, her presence, was painful to me! Even as she came toward me, I was thinking of you, was in search of you. And her kiss! If the lips had been those of one of the statues on the terrace, it could not have moved me less. Nell, be merciful to me! What could I do? I am a man, she is a woman. Could I thrust her from me? I longed to do so; I would have told her I loved her no longer, that my love was given to another, to you, Nell; but there was no time. She left me before I could scarcely utter a word. And then I went in search of you--and the rest you know. Think, Nell! When you sent me away, did I go to her? No; I left England with my disappointment and my misery. Ah, Nell, if you had only told me that you had beheld the scene on the balcony! Go back to her--and leave you!"
He laughed with mingled bitterness and desperation. The strain was growing too tense for mere words.
At such moments as this, the man, if there is aught of manliness in him, has need of more than words.
"Think, dearest!" he said hoa.r.s.ely. "Compare yourself with poor Luce!
You say she is "beautiful." Do you never look in the gla.s.s? Dearest, you are, in all men"s sight, ten times more lovely! The pure and flawless gem against the falsely glittering paste! Oh, Nell, if my heart was not so heavy, I could laugh, laugh! And you thought I had left you for her, gone back to her! And so you sent me away to exile and misery!"
His voice grew almost stern.
"Nell! It is you who ought to plead for forgiveness! Yes! You have sinned against me!"
She started and looked at him, open-eyed in her amazement.
"Yes, you also have sinned, Nell! You ought to have spoken to me, brought your accusation. I could have explained it all; we should have been married--and happy! And I should have been spared all these months of unhappiness, this awful h.e.l.l upon earth!"
He had struck the right note at last. Convince a woman that she has been cruel to you, and, if she loves you, the divine attribute of pity will awaken in her, and bring her, who a moment before was as inflexible as adamant, to your feet.
Nell, panting for breath, looked at him; questioningly at first, then, by short degrees, pleadingly, almost penitently.
"Drake!" she breathed piteously.
He sprang forward and caught her in his arms, and pressed a torrent of kisses upon her lips, her hair.
"Nell! My love, my dearest! Oh, have I got you back again? Have I? Tell me you believe me, Nell! Tell me that I may hope; that you will love me again!"
She fought hard to resist him; but when a man holds the woman he loves, and who loves him, in his arms, the woman fights in vain. Every sense in her plays traitor, and fights on the man"s side.
Nell put her hands on his broad chest, and tried to hold him off; but he would not be denied.
"Nell, I love you!" he cried hoa.r.s.ely. "I want you. Let the past go.
Don"t hold me at arm"s length, dearest! I love you! Nell, you will take me back?"
She still struggled and protested against the flood of happiness which overwhelmed her.
"But--but she?" she said, meaning Luce. "Since you have been here----They say----Ah, Drake!"
He laughed as he pressed her to him.
"Let them say!" he retorted. "Nell, I"ll tell you the whole truth. If you had been engaged to poor Falconer, I should have married Luce----"
"Ah!" she breathed, with a shudder she could not repress.
"But you are not. And I am still free! And you are free! Nell, lift your head! Give me one kiss--only one--and I will be satisfied."
Her head still drooped for a moment, then she raised it and kissed him on the lips.
The summer breeze made music in the leaves, the linnet sang his heart out above their heads, the soft air breathed an atmosphere of love, and these two mortals were, after months of misery, happy beyond the power of words to express.
And as they sat, hand in hand, talking of the past, and picturing the future, neither of them naturally enough gave a thought to Lady Luce.
And yet he had asked her to come back to Anglemere; and without doubt she would come.