James Harding Miller was seated alone in a long cane deck-chair on the terrace that ran the whole length of the beautiful old house. He had drawn it out through the French windows of the smoking-room, and was idly drawing out a cigar in the semi-darkness.
"Father!" cried Lucie, rushing forward as we approached, "do you recognise our visitor?"
Instantly he jumped up, exclaiming:--
"Why Ella--Ella after all this time! Minton told me that you had called and had gone in search of Lucie. And how is your father?"
"He"s very well, thanks," was my love"s reply. "I left him at Swanage, and drove out to see if Lucie was at home."
"And Mr Leaf," exclaimed Lucie. "I think you have met him before, father?"
"Certainly," Miller said pleasantly, extending his hand to me. "You are staying here, in Studland?"
"For a couple of days or so," I answered.
"You mentioned that you had met my daughter," he remarked, and then after welcoming Ella and pressing her to remain there the night, he ordered Minton to bring us chairs, and pushed the cigars across to me.
To Miller, Ella gave the same account of herself as she had given to us.
The ident.i.ty of the person who had spread the false report concerning her death--a report which had pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth among all her friends--was a mystery, and Miller was just as surprised and just as pleased as ourselves at her reappearance.
As we sat there in the starlight I listened to Ella"s account of her free, open-air life in County Galway, for Wichenford was still let to the wealthy American; and her father, she said, preferred Ireland as a place of residence when he could not live on his own estate.
"But you never wrote to us," Miller remarked. "Often we have spoken of you, and regretted that you were no longer with us. Indeed, your portrait is still yonder in the drawing-room. Only the day before yesterday Mr Leaf noticed it, and inquired whether I knew you."
My love"s eyes met mine in a long wistful look.
"I believed that you were always abroad," she answered him. "And--well, to tell the truth, I had an idea that you had altogether forgotten me."
"Forgotten you, dear?" cried Lucie. "We have never forgotten you. How could I ever forget my dearest friend--and more especially when I knew what a terrible self-sacrifice you had made?"
"What"s that?" inquired Miller, quickly interested.
"Shall I tell him?" asked Lucie, turning to me.
"If you wish. It is only right, I think, that Mr Miller should know the truth."
Therefore, receiving Ella"s consent as well, Lucie explained to her father how I had been her friend"s secret lover, and how she had broken off our affection by force of circ.u.mstance, sacrificing herself in order to save her father from ruin.
He listened to his daughter in surprise, then sighing heavily, turned to Ella, saying sympathetically:--
"How n.o.ble of you! Ah! what you both must have suffered! You need not tell me, either of you, for I know myself what it is to lose the woman one loves. I recollect my poor dear wife and still adore her memory."
And this from a man who was suspected of being leader of a gang of international criminals!
"The bitterness of the past," I said, "will perhaps render the joy of the present all the sweeter."
"It certainly ought to. Surely your delight at finding Ella alive and well when you, like all of us, believed her dead, must be beyond bounds?"
"It is! It is!" I cried. "I, who believed that she preferred wealth to my honest love; I, who have these long years been filled with a thousand regrets and reproaches, now know the truth. I have misjudged her!"
The soft hand of my well-beloved sought my wrist and gripped it. That action conveyed more to me than any words of hers could have done.
Presently it grew chilly, and we went into the long old-fashioned drawing-room, where we found Miss Miller, a pleasant grey-faced old lady, in a cap with cherry-coloured ribbons, idling over a book.
Upon the table still stood the portrait of my dear heart, the picture which only two days before had awakened within me such bitter remembrances. The silk-shaded lamps shed a soft light over everything, illuminating for the first time my Ella"s beautiful face. In the twilight by the river I had seen that she had become even more beautiful, yet the light that now fell upon her revealed a calmness and sweetness of expression that I had not hitherto been able to distinguish. She was far more lovely than I had believed--more beautiful even than in those days of our secret love.
Those great blue eyes looked out upon me with that same love-flame as of old--eyes that were clear and bright as a child"s, the glance of which would have made any man"s head reel--cheeks that were more delicately moulded than the marbles of Michael Angelo, and a grace that was perfect, complete, adorable.
And she was mine--still my own!
Strange that this sudden happiness was actually the sequel of a tragedy!
"It is really delightful to be back here again," she remarked to Lucie, glancing round the room. "How well I remember the old days when, in the holidays, I came and stayed with you. Nothing has changed. The dear old place is just the same."
"Yes," replied Lucie. "I only wish we lived here more. But father and I are always abroad--always moving from place to place through France, Germany, Spain, Italy, just as the fit takes us. Nowadays, dear old dad is really like the Jew-errant. He can"t remain more than a few days in one place--can you, dad?" she asked, laughing across at him.
"No, my dear," was his response in a strange voice. "I must travel-- travel--always travel. To keep moving is part of my nature, I believe."
"Only fancy! he"s here in England!" she remarked to Ella. "It"s really wonderful!"
While this conversation was in progress I was afraid that old Miss Miller might refer to my call upon her; but fortunately she either did not catch my name when introduced, or did not connect me with her mysterious visitor.
The owner of Studland Manor was, I saw, somewhat uneasy when his daughter began to explain how constantly they travelled. He seemed a little annoyed that Lucie should tell us that they were constantly moving, instead of living quietly by the Mediterranean outside Leghorn, as he would have me believe.
The old-fashioned Empire clock beneath its gla.s.s shade, standing on the chimney-piece, struck eleven, and I rose resolutely to take my leave. I had expressed pleasure at my new-found happiness, shook hands all round, and asked leave to call on the morrow.
"Certainly--most certainly," answered Miller, in that breezy manner that he had sometimes a.s.sumed towards me on our last meeting. He was essentially a man of moods, sometimes brooding and strange, at others full of buoyant good-humour, "You are always welcome here, remember.
Perhaps you"ll dine with us--just pot-luck--at seven to-morrow night? I don"t expect you get much that"s worth eating down at the `Lion". We"ll induce Ella to stay over to-morrow, eh?"
My love protested that she would be compelled to return to Swanage in the morning, but we would not hear of it.
Then Miller, with a delicacy which further showed that he had taken a fancy to me, suggested that Ella might, perhaps, like to accompany me as far as the lodge-gates, and a few moments later I went forth with my love into the darkness.
For the first hundred paces, until we entered the black shadows of the old beech hedge, we walked hand-in-hand, uttering no single word.
After that long interval of mourning and black despair, I was again at her side--alone. I was beside myself for very joy.
We halted. It seemed an almost involuntary action. Then taking her tenderly in my arms I pressed my lips to hers in a first long pa.s.sionate caress.
"My love!" I murmured, with heart overflowing, "my dearest love--you for whom I have mourned, and whose dear memory I have ever revered--G.o.d has given you back to me. We have met again--you have been given to me from the grave, never to part--never--_never_!"
To my blank amazement she turned her pale white face from mine, without reciprocating my pa.s.sionate kisses. She sighed, and a shiver ran through her slight frame. Her lips were cold, and with her hands she pushed me from her with averted face.
"Ella!" I gasped, holding her, and looking into her fine eyes, though I could see no expression there, so dark was it. "Ella! Darling, may I not at least kiss you welcome on your return to me? Are you not mine-- my own?"
She made no response, only pushing me farther from her very firmly, although I felt that her tiny hands trembled. She was overcome with emotion, which she was in vain striving to suppress.
I held my breath--startled at her sudden and unaccountable change of manner. My heart was bursting. What did it mean?
"Speak, dearest!" I implored. "Tell me the reason of this? Are you not still my love? Are you not mine--as you were in the old days?"