Her cheeks burned with a fire which seemed to her like the fire of shame. Her tongue seemed hung with sudden weights. She had doubted him.
The hideousness of it oppressed her like a nightmare; yet her voice did not falter.
"You remember those dying words of Rachel Kynaston?"
"I have never forgotten them," he answered simply.
"They laid a charge upon me. I told myself that it was a sacred charge.
Listen, my love--listen, and hate me! I have been to detectives. I paid them money to hunt you down; I have done this, I who love you. No, don"t draw your arms away. I have done this. It was before I knew. Oh, I have suffered! G.o.d! how I have suffered! It has been an agony to me. You will forgive me! I will not let you go unless you forgive me."
He looked down at her in silence. His cheeks were pale and his eyes were grave. Yet there was no anger.
"I will forgive you, Helen," he whispered--"nay, there is nothing to forgive. Only tell me this: you do not doubt me now?"
"Never again!" she cried pa.s.sionately. "G.o.d forgive me that I have ever doubted you! It is like a horrible dream to me; but it lies far behind, and the morning has come."
He kissed her once more and opened his arms. With a low happy laugh she shook her tumbled hair straight, and hand in hand they walked slowly away.
"You have been long gone," she whispered reproachfully.
He sighed as he answered her. How long might not his next absence be!
"It has seemed as long to me as to you, sweetheart," he said. "Every moment away from you I have counted as a lost moment in my life."
"That is very pretty," she answered. "And now you are here, are you going to stay?"
"Until the end," he said solemnly. "You know, Helen, that I am in deadly peril. The means of averting it which I went abroad to seek, I could not use."
She thought of those letters, bought and safely burnt, and she pressed his fingers. She would tell him of them presently.
"They shall not take you from me, Bernard, now," she said softly. "Kiss me again, dear."
He stooped and took her happy upturned face with its crown of wavy golden hair between his hands, looking fondly down at her. The thought of all that he might so soon lose swept in upon him with a sickening agony, and he turned away with trembling lips and dim eyes.
"G.o.d grant that they may not!" he cried pa.s.sionately. "If it were to come now, how could I bear it to the end?"
They walked on in silence. Then she who had, or thought she had, so much more reason to be hopeful than he, dashed the tears away from her eyes, and talked hopefully. They would not dare to lay a finger upon Bernard Maddison, whatever they might have done to poor Mr. Brown. His great name would protect him from suspicion. And as he listened to her he had not the heart to tell her of the men who had followed him abroad, that he was even then doubtless under surveillance. He let her talk on, and feigned to share her hopefulness.
The time came when they pa.s.sed into the grounds of the Court, and then she thought of something else which she must say to him.
"We have a visitor, Bernard--only one; but I"m afraid you don"t like him."
Something told him who it was. He stopped short in the path.
"Not Sir Allan Beaumerville?"
She nodded.
"Yes. I"m so sorry. He invited himself; and there is something I must tell you about him."
His first instinct was to refuse to go on, but it was gone in a moment, after one glance into Helen"s troubled face.
"Don"t look so ashamed," he said, smiling faintly. "I"m not afraid of him. What is it you were going to tell me about him?"
"He went out the other day alone, to do some botanizing," she said. "Do you know where I saw him?"
He shook his head.
"No. Where?"
"In your cottage. I saw him sitting at your table, and I saw him come out. He looked terribly troubled, just as though he had found out something."
He seemed in no wise so much disturbed as she had feared.
"It"s astonishing how many people are interested in my affairs," he said with grim lightness.
"No one so much as I am," she whispered softly. "Bernard, I must tell you something about papa. I had almost forgotten."
"Yes. Has he been exercising a landlord"s privilege, too?"
"Of course not, sir. But, Bernard, people have been talking, and he has heard them, and----"
Her face grew troubled, and he stood still.
"He suspects, too, does he? Then I certainly cannot force him to become my host."
She took hold of both of his hands, and looked up at him pleadingly.
"Don"t be stupid, Bernard, dear, please. I didn"t say that he suspected.
Only people have been talking, and of course it leaves an impression.
You must make friends with him, you know. Won"t you have something to ask him--some day--perhaps?"
She turned away, blushing a little, and he was conquered.
"Very well, love, I will come then," he said. "Only, please, you must go and tell him directly we get there; and if he would rather not have me for a guest, you must come and let me know. I will sit at no man"s table under protest," he added, with a sudden flush of pride.
"He"ll be very pleased to have you," she said simply. "A few words from me will be quite enough."
"Your empire extends further than over my heart, I see," he said, laughing. "There is your father coming round from the stables. Suppose we go to him."
They met him face to face in the hall. When he saw who his daughter"s companion was he looked for a moment grave. But he had all the courtly instincts of a gentleman of the old school, and though outside he might have acted differently, the man was under his own roof now, and must be treated as a guest. Besides, he had implicit faith in his daughter"s judgment. So he held out his hand without hesitation.
"Glad to see you, Mr. Maddison. We began to fear that you had deserted us," he said.
"I have been away longer than I intended," Bernard Maddison answered quietly.
"Of course you dine here," Mr. Thurwell continued, moving away. "You"ll find Beaumerville in the library or the smoke room. You know your way about, don"t you? My gamekeeper wants to speak to me for a moment. I shan"t be long."
He crossed the hall, and entered his own room. Helen slipped her arm through her lover"s, and led him away in the opposite direction, down a long pa.s.sage to the other end of the house.