"Sir, were you any other than Peregrine Vereker--old as I am, I would call you out--and shoot you with peculiar satisfaction--"
"My lord--sir--?" I stammered.
"Sir," he continued, "you will doubtless have very many excellent excuses to offer for your perfectly inexcusable conduct--but doubtless you will at least have the good taste to keep them to yourself.
Whatever your reasons, you have been the cause of much pain and very many bitter tears to--to one I hold inexpressibly dear."
"My lord, I--I have been ill--"
"And it is, I believe, mainly owing to her devotion that you still--gladden the world, sir."
"My lord, I am here to--to--give Diana my hand in fulfilment of my promise."
"Are you indeed, Mr. Vereker--you surprise me!"
"To marry her whenever she will, sir."
"Permit me to remark that you are perhaps a little tardy."
"None the less I am here, sir!"
"Your condescension, Mr. Vereker, is somewhat overpowering, such magnanimity I find vastly touching. But Diana, I am a.s.sured, had no idea of permitting you thus to immolate yourself on the altar of duty."
"That, my lord, by your favour, I mean to learn from her own lips--at once."
"Impossible, sir!" he retorted, smiling bitterly. "Quite--quite impossible."
"Impossible, my lord--impossible? Pray what--sir, what do you mean?" I stammered.
"That if indeed you are minded--a little late in the day perhaps--but if--after very mature deliberation--you at last think fit to fulfil your pledge to Diana, it will of course be necessary that you first discover her present whereabouts."
"Is she not here at Wyvelstoke with you, my lord?"
"Emphatically not, sir!"
"Then she is with Mrs. Vere-Manville at Nettlestead or in London--at least I will go there--at once."
"Then you will waste your time, sir. Diana has disappeared."
"Disappeared? Ah, you mean she has gone--run away? Pray, my lord, pray when--when did she go?"
His lordship looked at me keenly a while and when he spoke his voice seemed less harsh:
"The news would seem to disturb you, sir?"
"Beyond words, sir. Henceforth I shall know little rest until I find her. Pray when did she leave you--and how?"
"She fled--yesterday morning--stole from Wyvelstoke before daybreak--she was seen by one of the keepers stealing away in the dawn. She fled away to--hide her grief--leaving behind all her jewels and--a very--solitary, very old--man. She was all I had--my comrade, my Penthesilea--my loved daughter--"
His lordship"s voice broke upon the word, his usually upright figure seemed suddenly bowed and shrunken, he looked indeed a very grief-stricken, decrepit old man as he stood fumbling in the pockets of his shabby coat, whence he presently drew a letter that shook and rustled in his fingers as he unfolded it.
"She left this also, sir," he continued with an evident effort, "pray read it--you will find some mention of--breaking hearts the which should interest you a little--read it, sir!"
So I took the letter and saw it was this:
DEAREST PAL AND n.o.bLEST OF MEN: My poor heart is breaking, I think, and knowing how true I and deep is your love for me I would not have you see my pain. So I have run away from you awhile--fled away to the Silent Places like the poor, hurt creature I am. There I mean to hide until my wound is a little healed and then I shall come back to you, my dear, that I may surround you with my love and teach you how inexpressibly dear you are to Your would-be daughter and ever loving, grateful, DIANA.
"Has she money, sir?" I enquired, returning the letter.
"Very, very little, I fear."
"Then she cannot have gone very far."
"Ah, Peregrine--" the proud, old head drooped and the hand that crept upon my dusty coat sleeve was very thin and tremulous; "ah, Peregrine, if you love her, find her again--find her for Love"s sake--and the sake of a desolate--heartsick--old man!"
"Sir," I answered, covering this twitching hand with my own, "I will--bring her back to you--if I have to travel the world over--I will find her if it takes me all my life and every penny I possess!"
Then, mounting my horse, I swung him round and galloped away without further word of farewell or so much as one backward glance.
CHAPTER III
TELLS HOW I FOUND DIANA AND SOONER THAN I DESERVED
It was growing dark when I reached a part of the road that I seemed to recognise; therefore I checked my steed to look about me.
Surely it was here or hereabouts that, upon a never-to-be-forgotten day, I had acted the craven and, fleeing in panic, yet (heaven be praised!) had rushed back to be beaten into unconsciousness by Diana"s brutal a.s.sailant. Surely it was beneath yonder tree that I had waked to find my head pillowed in her lap, her cool hand upon my brow, her lovely face stooped above me full of tender solicitude.
Remembering which, I was seized of a sudden pa.s.sionate longing for the touch of her hand, to behold again this face radiant with love.
"My poor heart is breaking I think--so I have fled away to hide--"
As I sat my horse, seeing in fancy the blotted lines of this, her letter, to my yearning was added the triumphant a.s.surance that in spite of everything she loved me still; but this thought in turn was "whelmed in despair because of the well-nigh hopelessness of my search.
And in this moment my wandering gaze lighted upon the shadowy outline of a gate that opened in the hedge upon my right hand, upon a rolling meadow with a gloom of shadowy trees beyond.
Next moment I was afoot, leading my horse, for surely this was that gate through which she had led me, swooning with my hurts, across this meadow, amid trees and underbrush, to that ruined and desolate barn which, she had once told me, had ever been her haven of refuge.
After some little delay, I contrived to open this gate and, leading my horse, began to cross the meadow, glancing this way and that, often pausing unsure, fearful that my memory was at fault. In this hesitant manner I proceeded until I was dimly aware that the ground sloped down before me into a place of shadows thick with dense-growing trees and bushes.
All at once I halted, a prey to many swift emotions, but chief of these joy and a thrilling, hopeful expectancy, for amid the deep gloom before me I espied a faint beam of light, and I was praying within myself as, my gaze upon this blessed light, I descended into the deeper shadows. Of necessity I went very slowly and cautiously until, the trees thinning out somewhat, enabled me to make out a black looming shape that gradually resolved itself into a barn; and it was from the small opening or window beneath the gable that the beam of light shone forth.
A solitary place and dismal, far removed from the world, a very sinister place, such indeed as might well be the haunt of grisly spectres; yet, with my gaze upturned to that beckoning light, I would not have changed it, just then, for the most gorgeous palace in all the world. Suddenly I halted again, my breath in check, to stare at this dreadful place with eyes of horror, as from its impenetrable gloom came sounds that brought out the sweat upon my temples and set my hand quivering upon the bridle,--a succession of hollow knocks and rappings whose dull reverberations seemed to fill the night.