At this both Dulce and Roger start, and the former changes color visibly.
"I really wonder _where_ he can be," says Julia.
"So do I," murmurs Dulce, faintly, but distinctly, feeling she is in duty bound to say something. "Stephen never used to miss a day."
"Here I am, if you want me," says Stephen, coming leisurely up to them from between the laurels. "I thought I heard somebody mention my name."
He is looking pale and haggard, and altogether unlike the languid, unemotional Stephen of a month ago. There are dark circles under his eyes, and his mouth looks strangely compressed, and full of an unpleasant amount of determination.
"I mentioned it," says Dulce. She is compelled to say this, because he has fixed his eyes upon her, and plainly everybody expects her to reply to him.
"Did you want me?" asks he, casting a scrutinizing glance upon her. So absorbed is he in his contemplation of her that he has positively forgotten the fact that he has omitted to bid any one a "fair good-morrow."
"I was certainly wondering where you were," says Dulce, evasively. She is frightened and subdued--she scarcely knows why. There is something peculiar in his manner that overawes her.
"It was very good of you to remember my existence. Then you were only wondering at my absence. You did not want me?"
Dulce makes no reply. She would have given anything to be able to make some civil, commonplace rejoinder, but at this moment her wits cruelly desert her.
"I see. Never mind," says Stephen. "Well, even if you don"t want me, I do want _you_--you will come with me as far as the Beeches?"
His tone is more a command than a question. Hearing it, Roger moves involuntarily a step forward, that brings him nearer to Dulce. He even puts out his hand as though to lay it upon her arm, when Stephen, by a gesture, checks him.
"Don"t be alarmed," he says, with a low, sneering laugh, every vestige of color gone from his face. "I shall do her no harm. I shan"t murder her, I give you my word. Be comforted, she will be quite as safe with me as she would even be with--_you_." He laughs again, dismisses Roger from his thoughts by an indescribable motion of his hand, and once more concentrates his attention upon the girl near him, who, with lowered eyes and a pale, distressed face, is waiting unwillingly for what he may say next.
All this is so unusual, and really, every one is so full of wonder at Stephen"s extraordinary conduct, that up to this none of the spectators have said one word. At this juncture, however, Sir Mark clears his throat as if to say something, and, coming forward, would probably have tried the effect of a conciliatory speech, but that Stephen, turning abruptly away from them, takes Dulce"s hand in his, and leads her in silence and with a brow dark as Erebus, up the gravelled path, and past the chilly fountain, and thus out of sight.
It is as though some terrible ogre from out of a fairy tale had descended upon them and plucked their fairest damsel from their midst, to incarcerate her in a "donjon keep" and probably eat her by and by, when she is considered fit to kill.
"Do--_do_ you think he has gone mad?" asked Julia, with clasped hands and tearful eyes.
"My dear Mark, I think something ought to be done,--some one ought to go after her," says Portia, nervously. "He really looked quite dreadful."
"I"ll go," says Roger, angrily.
"No, you won"t," says Sir Mark, catching hold of him. "Let them have it out,--it is far the best thing. And if she gets a regular, right-down, uncommonly good scolding, as I hope she will"--viciously,--"I can only say she richly deserves it."
"I can only say I don"t know whether I am standing on my head or on my heels," says Mr. Browne, drawing a long breath; "I feel cheap. Any one might have me now for little or nothing--quite a bargain."
"I don"t think you"d be a bargain at any price," says Sir Mark; but this touching tribute to his inestimable qualities is pa.s.sed over by Mr.
Browne in a silence that is almost sublime.
"To think Stephen could look like that!" he goes on, as evenly as if Sir Mark had never spoken. "Why, Irving is a fool to him. Tragedy is plainly his _forte_. Really, one never knows of what these aesthetic-looking people are capable. He looked murderous."
At this awful word the children--who have been silent and most attentive spectators of the late scene, and who have been enchanted with it--turn quite pale, and whisper together in a subdued fashion. When the whispering has reached a certain point, the Boodie gives Jacky an encouraging push, whereupon that young hero darts away from her side like an arrow from a bow, and disappears swiftly round the corner.
Meanwhile, having arrived at the Beeches, a rather remote part of the ground, beautiful in Summer because of the luxuriant foliage of the trees, but now bleak and bare beneath the rough touch of Winter, Stephen stops short and faces his companion steadily. His glance is stern and unforgiving; his whole bearing relentless and forbidding.
To say Miss Blount is feeling nervous would be saying very little. She is looking crushed in antic.i.p.ation by the weight of the thunderbolt she _knows_ is about to fall. Presently it descends, and once down, she acknowledges to herself it was only a shock after all, worse in the fancy than in the reality; as are most of our daily fears.
"So you wish our engagement at an end?" says Stephen, quite calmly, in a tone that might almost be termed mechanical.
He waits remorselessly for an answer.
"I--you--I didn"t tell you so," stammers Dulce.
"No prevarications, please. There has been quite enough deception of late." Dulce looks at him curiously. "Let us adhere to the plain truth now at least. This is how the case stands. You never loved me; and now your cousin has returned you find you do love him; that all your former professions of hatred toward him were just so much air--or, let us say, so much wounded vanity. You would be released from me. You would gladly forget I ever played even a small part in the drama of your life. Is not all this true?"
For the second time this afternoon speech deserts Dulce. She grows very white, but answer she has none.
"I understand your silence to mean yes," goes on Stephen, in the same monotonous tone he had just used, out of which every particle of feeling has been absolutely banished. "It would, let me say, have saved you much discomfort, and your cousin some useless traveling, if you had discovered your pa.s.sion for him sooner." At this Dulce draws her breath quickly, and throws up her head with a haughty gesture. Very few women like being _told_ they entertain a pa.s.sion for a man, no matter how devotedly they adore him.
Mr. Gower, taking no notice of her silent protest, goes on slowly.
"What your weakness and foolish pride have cost _me_," he says, "goes for nothing."
There is something in his face now that makes Dulce sorry for him. It is a want of hope. His eyes, too, look sunk and wearied as if from continued want of sleep.
"If by my reprehensible pride and weakness, of which you justly accuse me, I have caused you pain--" she begins tremulously, but he stops her at once.
"That will do," he says, coldly. "Your nature is incapable of comprehending all you have done. We will not discuss that subject. I have not brought you here to talk of myself, but of you. Let us confine ourselves to the business that has brought me to-day--for the last time, I hope--to the Court."
His tone, which is extremely masterful, rouses Dulce to anger.
"There is one thing I _will_ say," she exclaims, lifting her eyes fairly to his. "But for _you_ and your false sympathy, and your carefully chosen and most insidious words that fanned the flame of my unjust wrath against him, Roger and I would never have been separated."
"You can believe what you like about that," says Gower, indifferently, unmoved by her vehement outburst. "Believe anything that will make your conduct look more creditable to you, anything that will make you more comfortable in your mind--if you _can_. But as I have no wish to detain you here longer than is strictly necessary, and as I am sure you have no wish to be detained, let us not waste time in recriminations, but come at once to the point."
"What point? I do not understand you," says Dulce, coldly.
"Yesterday, when pa.s.sing by the southern end of the lake, hidden by some shrubs, I came upon you and your cousin unawares, and heard you distinctly tell him (what I must be, indeed, a dullard, not to have known before) that you did not love me. This was the substance of what you said, but your tone conveyed far more. It led me to believe you held me in positive detestation."
"Oh! You were eavesdropping," says Dulce, indignantly.
Stephen smiles contemptuously.
"No, I was not," he says, calmly. He takes great comfort to his soul in the remembrance that he might have heard much more that was not intended for his ears had he stayed in his place of concealment yesterday, which he had not. "Accident brought me to that part of the lake, and brought, too, your words to my ears. When I heard them I remembered many trivial things, that at the moment of their occurrence had seemed as naught. But now my eyes are opened. I am no longer blind. I have brought you here to tell you I will give you back your promise to marry me, your _freedom_"--with a sudden bitterness, as suddenly suppressed--"on _one_ condition."
"And that?" breathlessly.
"Is, that you will never marry Roger without my consent."
The chance of regaining her liberty is so sweet to Dulce at this first moment that it chases from her all other considerations. Oh, to be free again! In vain she strives to hide her gladness. It will _not_ be hidden. Her eyes gleam; her lips get back their color; there is such an abandonment of joy and exultation in her face that the man at her side--the man who is now resigning all that makes life sweet to him--feels his heart grow mad with bitter hatred of her, himself, and all the world as he watches her with miserable eyes. And he--poor fool!--had once hoped he might win the priceless treasure of this girl"s love! No words could convey the contempt and scorn with which he regards himself.
"Do not try to restrain your relief," he says, in a hoa.r.s.e, unnatural tone, seeing she has turned her head a little aside, as though to avoid his searching gaze. "You know the condition I impose--you are prepared to abide by it?"
Dulce hesitates. "Later on he will forget all this, and give his consent to my marrying--any one," she thinks, hurriedly, in spite of the other voice within her, that bids her beware. Then out loud she says, quietly: