"Well?"
"He would not listen to me. He ordered me from the house. He tried not to believe me, so tough is his pride. It might have been disbelief; it might have been rage that made him so white; but he looked like a marble man, face, neck, and hands. That was after the first hint. He gave me no chance to tell the whole, though I had this letter in my pocket."
"Then you gave him no proof?" questioned Lady Rose, eagerly.
"Proof? He did not wait for that. No dog was ever ordered from a door as I was. But he shall have the letter; he shall hear all that I have told you. Then he will come to terms."
"He never will!" murmured Lady Rose. "Not even to save his son"s life!"
This was said under the lady"s breath.
"And if he does not?" she questioned. "If he refuses to pay your price?"
"Then Sir Noel cannot expect me to be more merciful to his son than he is."
"What is it--tell me exactly--what is it you demand for your silence, and that paper?"
Storms took a folded sheet of foolscap from his pocket, and handed it to Lady Rose, who made an attempt to read it, but her hand shook so violently that the lines mingled together, like seaweed on a wave.
"I cannot read it; tell me."
Storms took the paper which he had prepared for Sir Noel, and read it aloud. His hand was firm enough; the agitation that shook the frame of that brave, beautiful girl, rea.s.sured him. He was certain of her influence with Sir Noel.
"Land, free hunting, the house of a gentleman. I wonder he asks so little. Does he know what a life like that is worth to us?" she thought.
"There is one thing more," said Storms. "Those things I demand for my silence. The paper I only give up when Ruth Jessup is my wife."
Lady Rose seemed to waive the subject aside as an after-consideration.
"Land and house," she said, drawing a deep breath, as if some idea had become a resolution in her mind. "Tell me, must they be in this county?"
"If Sir Noel had land in another part of England I should like it better. One might set up for a gentleman with more success among strangers," was the cool reply.
"I can give you all these things in a part of England where you have never been heard of," said the lady. "Only remember this: there must be no more appeals to Sir Noel. He must never see that paper. It must never be mentioned again to any human being. That is my condition."
"But, lady, can you make this certain? Sir Noel is your guardian."
"Not as regards this property. Have no fear, I promise it."
"And Ruth--Ruth Jessup? Without her all this goes for nothing."
"Ah, if, as you say, she loves you, that is easy. To a woman who loves, all things are possible."
"She did love me once," muttered Storms, beginning to lose heart.
"Then she loves you yet. Ruth is an honest girl, and with such change is impossible. To love once is to love forever; knowing her, you ought to be sure of this. Besides, it is understood that she is promised to you."
"She is promised to me," answered Storms, with some show of doubt, "and if it had not been--"
The young man broke off. The blue eyes of Lady Rose were fixed on him with such shrinking wistfulness that he changed the form of his speech.
"If it had not been for the hurt her father got, we might have been wedded before now."
A pang of conscience came over Lady Rose when she thought of pretty Ruth Jessup as the wife of this man who was even then trading on the life of a fellow-being. But a course of reasoning, perhaps unconsciously selfish, blinded her to the misery she might bring on that young creature, should it chance that the union was distasteful to her. She even made the property, with which the bridegroom would be endowed, a reason for wishing the marriage. "Ruth is such a sweet little lady," she reasoned, "that the life of a man who worked on his own grounds would be coa.r.s.e and rude to her. In some sort we are giving her the place of a gentlewoman. Besides, she must love the man.
Everything goes to prove that--their walks in the park, his own word.
Yes, I am doing good to her. It is a benefaction, not a bribe."
All these thoughts pa.s.sed through the mind of Lady Rose swiftly, and with a degree of confusion that baffled her clear judgment. Having resolved to redeem the good name of her guardian"s son on any terms, she sought to reconcile those terms with the fine sense of honor that distinguished her above most women.
"Remember," she said, with dignity, "I will give you the property you demand, partly for the benefit of Ruth Jessup, and partly because I would save my guardian from annoyance. Not that I for one moment believe the horrid thing you have told me. I know it to be an impossibility."
"The courts will think their own way about that," answered Storms. "An honest man"s oath, backed with this letter, will be tough things to explain there."
"It is because they are difficult to explain that I have listened to you for a moment," said Lady Rose. "For twice the reward you demand, I would not have a suspicion thrown on my guardian"s son. Of any more serious evil I have no fear."
"Well, my lady, take it your own way, believe what you like. So long as I get the property, and the wife I want, we won"t quarrel about what they are given for. Only both those things I am bound to have."
"But I cannot force Ruth Jessup to marry any man," said Lady Rose.
"All the same. It is your business now to see that she keeps to her old bargain. Or all we have agreed upon goes for nothing."
The man was getting more familiar, as this conversation went on. The sensitive pride of the young lady was aroused by his growing demands, and she dismissed him, almost haughtily.
"Go now," she said. "I will think of a safe method by which this transfer can be made. In a day or two I will see you again. Till then be silent, and prepare yourself to deliver up that paper."
"But Ruth Jessup. What of her?"
"I will see Ruth. She has a kind heart. I will see Ruth."
"Then good-day, my lady. You shall see that I know how to hold my tongue, and remember kindness too! Good-day, my lady."
Lady Rose watched the young man as he glided off through the wilderness, with flashing eyes and rising color. Up to this time she had held her feelings under firm control. Now terror, loathing, and haughty scorn kindled up the soft beauty of her face into something grandly strange.
"Slanderer! Wretch! The lands I do not care for. But that I should be compelled to urge pretty Ruth Jessup on a creature like that. Can she love him? I will go at once, or loathing of the task will keep me back forever."
CHAPTER LXIV.
JUDITH"S RETURN.
The poor father, whom Judith Hart had so cruelly abandoned, sat alone in the old house, patient in his broken-heartedness and more poverty-stricken than ever. He had no neighbors near enough to drop in upon his solitude, and all wish for reading had left him, with the thankless girl he had worshipped.
When he came home and found himself alone in the saddest of all sad hours, that in which a day pa.s.ses into eternity with the sun, his desolation was complete. It was something, when the cow he had petted into loving tameness would come to the garden wall, and look at him with her soft intelligent eyes, as if she knew of his sorrow and longed to share it with him. Sometimes he would go out and talk to her as if she possessed human sensibility--gather gra.s.s and wild flowers, and caress the animal"s neck as she licked them from his hands.
He was sitting thus lonely at the window between twilight and dark, when the figure of a woman came walking down the lane, that made the almost dead pulses of his heart stir rapidly. It was so like Judith, the free movement, the very poise of her head. The resemblance almost made him cry out. But, no, he had been mistaken before. The dusk was gathering. It must be some neighboring woman come to chat a moment with him. Some of the old friends were kind enough for that now and then when Judith was at home.