The long July afternoon wore on. The sun that had blazed all day like a wheel of fire, dropped lower and lower into the crimson west. The wide sea shone red with the reflections of the lurid glory in the heavens, and the numberless waves glittered and flashed as if sown with stars. A faint, far-off breeze swept over the sea, salt and cold; and the fishermen"s boats danced along with the red sunset glinting on their sails.
Up and down, slowly and thoughtfully, the lady walked, her eyes fixed on the wide sea. As the rising breeze met her, she drew the scarlet shawl she wore over her black silk dress closer around her, and glanced at her boy. The little fellow was running over the sands, tossing pebbles into the surf, and hunting for sh.e.l.ls; and her eyes left him and wandered once more to the lurid splendor of that sunset on the sea. It was very quiet here, with no living thing in sight but themselves; so the lady"s start of astonishment was natural when, turning an abrupt angle in the path leading to the sh.o.r.e, she saw a man coming toward her over the sands. A tall, powerful-looking man of thirty, bronzed and handsome, and with an unmistakably military air, although in plain black clothes. The lady took a second look, then stood stock still, and gazed like one in a dream. The man approached, lifted his hat, and stood silent and grave before her.
"Captain Everard!"
"Yes, Lady Thetford--after eight years--Captain Everard again."
The deep, strong voice suited the bronzed, grave face, and both had a peculiar power of their own. Lady Thetford, very, very pale, held out one fair jeweled hand.
"Captain Everard, I am very glad to see you again."
He bent over the little hand a moment, then dropped it, and stood looking at her silent.
"I thought you were in India," she said, trying to be at ease. "When did you return?"
"A month ago. My wife is dead. I, too, am widowed, Lady Thetford."
"I am very sorry to hear it," she said, gravely. "Did she die in India?"
"Yes; and I have come home with my little daughter."
"Your daughter! Then she left a child?"
"One. It is on her account I have come. The climate killed her mother. I had mercy on her daughter, and have brought her home."
"I am sorry for your wife. Why did she remain in India?"
"Because she preferred death to leaving me. She loved me, Lady Thetford!"
His powerful eyes were on her face--that pale, beautiful face, into which the blood came for an instant at his words. She looked at him, then away over the darkening sea.
"And you, my lady--you gained the desire to your heart, wealth, and a t.i.tle? Let me hope they have made you a happy woman."
"I am not happy!"
"No? But you have been--you were while Sir Noel lived?"
"My husband was very good to me, Captain Everard. His death was the greatest misfortune that could have befallen me."
"But you are young, you are free, you are rich, you are beautiful. You may wear a coronet next time."
His face and glance were so darkly grave, that the covert sneer was almost hidden. But she felt it.
"I shall never marry again, Captain Everard."
"Never? You surprise me! Six years--nay, seven, a widow, and with innumerable attractions. Oh, you cannot mean it!"
She made a sudden, pa.s.sionate gesture--looked at him, then away.
"It is useless--worse than useless, folly, madness, to lift the veil from the irrevocable past. But don"t you think, don"t you, Lady Thetford, that you might have been equally happy if you had married _me_?"
She made no reply. She stood gazing seaward, cold and still.
"I was madly, insanely, absurdly in love with pretty Ada Vandeleur in those days, and I think I would have made her a good husband; better, however--forgive me--than I ever made my poor dead wife. But you were wise and ambitious, my pretty Ada, and bartered your black eyes and raven ringlets to a higher bidder. You jilted me in cold blood, poor love-sick devil that I was, and reigned resplendent as my Lady Thetford.
Ah! you knew how to choose the better part, my pretty Ada!"
"Captain Everard, I am sorry for the past--I have atoned, if suffering can atone. Have a little pity, and let me alone!"
He stood and looked at her silently, gravely. Then said, in a voice deep and calm:
"We are both free! Will you marry me now, Ada!"
"I cannot!"
"But I love you--I have always loved you. And you--I used to think you loved me!"
He was strangely calm and pa.s.sionless, voice and glance and face. But Lady Thetford had covered _her_ face, and was sobbing.
"I did--I do--I always have! But I cannot marry you. I will love you all my life; but don"t, _don"t_ ask me to be your wife!"
"As you please!" he said, in the same pa.s.sionless voice. "I think it is best myself; for the George Everard of to-day is not the George Everard who loved you eight years ago. We would not be happy--I know that. Ada, is that your son?"
"Yes."
"I should like to look at him. Here, my little baronet! I want to see you."
The boy, who had been looking curiously at the stranger, ran up at a sign from his mother. The tall captain lifted him in his arms and gazed in his small, thin face, with which his bright tartan plaid contrasted harshly.
"He hasn"t a look of the Thetfords. He is your own son, Ada. My little baronet, what is your name?"
"Sir Rupert Thetford," answered the child, struggling to get free. "Let me go--I don"t know you!"
The captain set him down with a grim smile; and the boy clung to his mother"s skirts, and eyed the tall stranger askance.
"I want to go home, mamma! I"m tired and hungry."
"Presently, dearest. Run to William, he has cake for you. Captain Everard, I shall be happy to have you at dinner."
"Thanks; but I must decline. I go back to London to-night. I sail for India again in a week."
"So soon! I thought you meant to remain."
"Nothing is further from my intentions. I merely brought my little girl over to provide her a home; that is why I have troubled _you_. Will you do me this kindness, Lady Thetford?"
"Take your little girl? Oh, most gladly--most willingly!"
"Thanks! Her mother"s people are French, and I know little about them; and, save yourself, I can claim friendship with few in England. She will be poor; I have settled on her all I am worth--some three hundred a year; and you, Lady Thetford, you can teach her, when she grows up, to catch a rich husband."
She took no notice of the taunt; she looked only too happy to render him this service.