"I will tell you everything, at the risk of making you angry, at the risk of your—sending me away."

He paused for a moment, as if he were choosing his words with a care that sprang from his fear lest he should indeed rouse her anger and—lose her.

"The first day I saw you—you remember?"

As if she could forget! She knew as he asked the question that no trifling detail of that first meeting was forgotten, that every word was engraven on her memory.

"When I saw you riding down the hill, I thought I had never seen any girl so beautiful, so lovely—"

The colour rose slowly to her face, but died away again: the least vain of women is moved when a man tells her she is beautiful—in his eyes, at any rate.

"And when you spoke to me I thought I had never heard so sweet a voice; and if I had, that there had never been one that I so longed to hear again. You were not with me long, only a few minutes, but when I left you and trumped over the hill to the inn I could not get you out of my mind. I wondered who you were, and whether I should see you again." The horses moved, and instinctively she looked over her shoulder towards them.

"They will not go: they are quite quiet," he said. "Wait—ah, wait for a few minutes! I have a feeling that if I let you go I shall not see you again; and that would—that would be more than I could bear. That night at the inn the landlord told me about you. Of course he had nothing but praise and admiration for you—who would have any other? But he told me of the lonely life you led, of the care you took of your father, of your devotion and goodness; and the picture of you living at the great, silent house, without friends or companions—well, it haunted me! I could see it all so plainly—I, who am not usually quick at seeing things. As a rule, I'm not impressed by women—Howard says I am cold and bored—perhaps he's right; but I could not get you out of my mind. I felt that I wanted to see you again."

He paused again, as if the state of mind he was describing was a puzzle to himself—paused and frowned.

"I left the inn and started up the road—I suppose I wanted to get a glimpse of the house in which you lived. Yes; that must have been it. And then, all at once, I saw you. I remember the frock you wore that night—you looked like an angel, a spirit standing there in the moonlight, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Are you angry with me for saying so? Don't be; for I've got to tell you everything, and—and—it's difficult!"

He was silent a moment. Her head was still down-bent, her small white hand hung at her side; she was quite motionless but for the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of her bosom.

"When you came to me, when you spoke to me, my heart leapt as if—well, as if something good had happened to me—something that had never happened before. When I went away the picture of you standing at the door, waving your hand, went with me, and—stayed with me. I could not get you out of my mind—could think of nothing else. Even in the meeting with my father, whom I hadn't seen for so long, the thought of you kept with me. I tried to get rid of it—to forget you, but it was of no use: sleeping and waking, you—you were with me!"

His voice grew almost harsh in its intensity, and the hand that had hung so stilly beside her closed on the skirt of her dress in her effort to keep the hot blush from her face.

"When I rode out the next day it was only with the hope of seeing you. It seemed to me there was only one thing I wanted: to see you again; to look into your eyes, to hear you speak. All that I had heard about you—well, I dwelt upon it, and I felt that I must help you. It seemed as if Fate—Chance—oh, I don't know what to call it!—had sent me to help you. And when I saw you—ah, well, I can't expect you to understand what I felt!"

He stopped again, as if he himself were trying to understand it.

"The feeling that fate had something to do with it—you see, it was quite by chance I started fishing that afternoon, that I saw you at the house—gave me courage to ask you to let me help you. It sounded ridiculous to you—of course it did!—but if you only knew how much it meant to me! It meant that I should see you again; perhaps every day for—for a long time: ah, well, it meant just life and death to me. And now—!"

His breath came fast, his eyes dwelt upon her with passionate eagerness; but he forced himself to speak calmly than he might not frighten her from his side, might not lose her.

—"Now the truth has come upon me, quite suddenly. It was just now when I saw that you cared what had happened to me, cared if I were hurt!—Oh, I know, it was just because you were frightened, it was just a woman's pity for a fellow that had come to harm, the fear lest I had broken any bones; but—ah, it showed me my heart, it told me how much I loved you! Yes; I love you! You are all the world to me: nothing else matters, nothing!"

Her lips quivered, but she did not speak, and the look of trouble, of doubt, did not leave her face. He waited, his eyes seeking hers, seeking them for some sign which might still the passion of fear and suspense with which he was battling, then he said in a low voice that thrilled with the tempest of emotion which raged under his forced calm:

"Will you not speak to me? Are you angry?"

She raised her head and looked at him—a strange look from so young a girl. It was as if she were fighting against the subtle spell of his words, the demand for her love which shone in his eyes.

"No, I am not angry," she said at last; and her voice, though very low, was calm and unshaken.

He made a movement towards her, but she shrank back, only a little, but perceptibly, and he checked the movement, the desire to take her in his arms.

"You are not angry? Then—Ida—I may call you so?—you don't mind my loving you? Dearest, will you love me just a little in return? Wait!" for she had shrunk again, this time more plainly. "Don't—don't answer without thinking! I know I have startled you, that I ought not to have spoken so soon, while you only know so little of me—you'd naturally say 'no,' and send me away. But if you think you can like me—learn to love me—"

He took her hand, hanging so temptingly near his own; but she drew it away.

"No; don't touch me!" she said, with a little catch in her voice. "I want to think—to understand." She paused for a moment, her eyes still seeking the distant hills, as if in their mysterious heights she might find something that should explain this great mystery, this wonderful thing that had happened to her. At last, with a singular gesture, so girlish, so graceful that it made him long still more intensely to take her in his arms, she said in a low voice:

"I do not know—No! I do not want you to touch me, please!" His hand fell to his side. "I can't answer you. It is so—so sudden! No one has ever spoken to me as you have done—"

He laughed from mere excess of joy, for her pure innocence, her unlikeness, in her ignorance of love and all pertaining to it, to the women he knew, made the charm of her well-nigh maddening. To think that he should be the first man to speak of love to her!

"I am not angry—ought I to be? Yes, I suppose so. We are almost strangers—have seen so little of each other."

"They say that love, all true love, comes at first sight," he said in his deep voice. "I used to laugh at the idea; but now I know it is true. I loved you the first time I met you, Ida!"

Her lip quivered and her brows knit.

"It seems so wonderful," she said, musingly, "I do not understand it. The first time! We scarcely spoke—and I was almost angry with you for fishing in the Heron. And I did—did not think of you—"

He made a gesture, repudiating the mere idea.

"Is it likely! Why should you?" he said. "I was just an ordinary man, crossing your path for the first and perhaps the only time. Good heavens! there was no reason why you should give a thought to me, why I should linger in your mind for half a moment after I was out of your sight. But for me—Haven't I told you how beautiful you are, Ida! You are the loveliest, the sweetest.—But, even if you had not been—I mean it is not because you are so beautiful that I love you—" She looked at him with a puzzled, troubled look.

"No! I can't explain. See, now, there's not a look of yours, not a feature that I don't know by heart as if I'd learnt it. When I am away from you I can see you—see the way your hair clusters in soft little curls at your forehead, the long lashes sweeping your cheek, the—the trick your eyes have of turning from grey to violet—oh, I know your face by heart, and I love it for its beauty; but if you were to lose it all, if you were not the loveliest creature God had ever made, it would make no difference. You would still be you: and it is you I want. Ida—give yourself to me—trust me! Oh, dearest, you don't know what love is! Let me teach you!"

Once again he got hold of her hand; and she let it remain in his grasp; but her quiescence did not mean yielding, and he knew it.

"No," she said, with a deep breath. "It is true that I do not know. And I am—afraid." A wan little smile that was more piteous than tears curved her lips: for "afraid" seemed strange coming from her, the fearless child of the hills and dales. "If—if I said 'yes'—Ah, but I do not!" she broke off as he made to draw her to him, and she shrank back. "I do not! I said 'if,' it would not be true; it would not be fair. For I do not know. I might be—sorry, after—after you had gone. And it would be too late then."

"You're right," he assented, grimly. "Once I got you, no power on earth should make me let you go again."

Her lips quivered and her eyes drooped before his. How strange a thing this love was, that it should change a man so!

"I don't want to force you to answer," he said, after a pause. "Yes, I do! I'd give half the remainder of my life to hear you say the one word, 'yes.' But I won't. It's too—too precious. Ah, don't you understand! I want your love, your love, Ida!"

"Yes, I understand," she murmured. "And—and I would say it if—if I were sure. But I—yes, I am all confused. It is like a dream. I want to think, to ask myself if—if I can do what you want."

She put up her hand to her lips with a slight gesture, as if to keep them from trembling.

"I want to be alone to think of all—all you have told me."

Her gauntlet slipped from her hand, and he knelt on one knee and picked it up, and still kneeling, took both her hands in his. It did not occur to him to remember that the woman who hesitates is won; something in her girlish innocence, in her exquisitely sweet candour, filled him with awe.

"Dearest!" he said, in so low a voice that, the note of the curlew flying above them sounded loud and shrill by contrast. "Dearest!—for you are that to me!—I will not press you. I will be content to wait. God knows you are right to hesitate! Your love is too great, too precious a thing to be given to me without thought. I'm not worthy to touch you—but I love you! I will wait. You shall think of all I have said; and, let your answer be what it may, I won't complain! But—Ida—you mustn't forget that I love you with all my heart and soul!"

She looked down at his handsome face, the face over which her lips had hovered only a short time since, and her lips moved.

"You—you are good to me," she said, in a faintly troubled voice. "Yes, I know, I feel that. Perhaps I ought to say 'no!'"

"Don't!" he said, almost fiercely. "Wait! Let me see you again—you scarcely know me. Ah, Ida, what can I do, how can I win your love?"

She drew her hands from his with a deep breath.

"I—I will go now," she said. "Will you let me go—alone?"

He rose and went towards the horses. His own raised its head and seemed inclined to start, but stood uncertain and eventually remained quiet beside the chestnut. Stafford brought them to where Ida still stood, her eyes downcast, her face pale.

With his own bridle over his arm he put her into the saddle, resisting even in that supreme moment the almost irresistible desire to take her in his arms.

She murmured a "Thank you," as she slowly put on her left gauntlet. He drew the other from her, and as she looked at him questioningly, he put it to his lips and thrust it under his waistcoat, over his heart.

The colour flooded her face, but the blush was followed by the old look of trouble and doubt. She held out her ungloved right hand and he took it and held it for a moment, then raised it to his lips; but he did not kiss it.

"No!" he said, with stern repression. "I will take nothing—until you give it me."

She inclined her head the very slightest, as if she understood, as if she were grateful; then letting her eyes rest on his with an inscrutable look, she spoke softly to the horse and rode away, with Donald and Bess clamouring joyously after her, as if they had found the proceedings extremely trying.

Stafford flung his arm across his horse, and leaning against it, looked after her, his eyes fixed wistfully on the slight, graceful figure, until it was out of sight; then he gazed round him as if he were suddenly returning from a new, mysterious region to the old familiar world. Passion's marvellous spell still held him, he was still throbbing with a half-painful ecstasy of her nearness, of the touch of her hand, the magic of her voice.

For the first time he was in love. In love with the most exquisite, the most wonderful of God's divine creatures. He knew, as he had said, that her answer meant life or death to him, the life of infinite, nameless joy, the death of life in death.

Was he going to lose her?

The very question set him trembling. He held out his quivering hand and looked at it, and set his teeth. Heaven and earth, how strange it was! This girl had taken possession of him body and soul; every fibre of his being clamoured for her. To be near her, just to be able to see her, hear her, meant happiness; to be torn from her—

The sweat broke out on his forehead and he laughed grimly.

"And this is love!" he said, between his teeth. "Yes—and it's the only love of my life. God help me if you say 'no,' dearest! But you must not—you must not!"



CHAPTER XV.

Quite an hour after Stafford had started to meet Ida, Miss Falconer made her appearance, coming slowly down the stairs in the daintiest of morning frocks, with her auburn hair shining like old gold in the sunlight, and an expression of languor in her beautiful face which would have done credit to a hot-house lily.

She had slept the sleep of the just—the maid who had gone to wake her with her early cup of tea had been almost startled by the statuesqueness of her beauty, as she lay with her head pillowed on her snow-white arm and her wonderful hair streaming over the pillow—had suffered herself to be dressed with imperial patience, and looked—as Howard, who stood at the bottom of the stairs—said to himself, "like a queen of the Incas descending to her throne-room."

"Good-morning, Miss Falconer," he greeted her. "It's a lovely morning; you'll find it nicely aired." She smiled languidly.

"That means that I am late." she said, her eyes resting languidly on his cynically smiling face.

"Good heavens, no!" he responded. "You can't be late or early in this magic palace. Whenever you 'arrive' you will find things—'things' in the most comprehensive sense—ready for you. Breakfast at Brae Wood is the most moveable of feasts. I've proved that, for I'm a late bird myself; and to my joy I have learned that this is the only house with which I am acquainted that you can get red-hot bacon and kidneys at any hour from eight to twelve; that lunch runs plenteously from one to three, and that you can get tea and toast—my great and only weakness, Miss Falconer—whenever you like to ring for it. You will find Lady Clansford presiding at the breakfast-table: I believe she has been sitting there—amiable martyr as she is—since the early dawn."

She smiled at him with languid approval, as if he were some paid jester, and went into the breakfast-room. There were others there beside Lady Clansford—most of them the young people—it is, alas! only the young who can sleep through the bright hours of a summer's morn—and a discussion on the programme of the day was being carried on with a babel of voices and much laughter.

"You shall decide for us, Miss Falconer!" exclaimed one of the young men, whose only name appeared to be Bertie, for he was always addressed as and spoken of by it. "It's a toss-up between a drive and a turn on the lake in the electric launch. I proposed a sail, but there seemed to be a confirmed and general scepticism as to my yachting capacities, and Lady Plaistow says she doesn't want to be drowned before the end of the season. What would you like to do?"

"Sit somewhere in the shade with a book," she replied, promptly but slowly.

There was a shout of laughter.

"That is just what Mr. Howard replied," said Bertie, complainingly.

"Oh, Mr. Howard! Everyone knows that he is the laziest man in the whole world," remarked Lady Clansford, plaintively. "What is Mr. Orme going to do? Where is he? Does anyone know?"

There was a general shaking of heads and a chorus of "Noes."

"I had a swim with him this morning, but I've not seen him since," said Bertie. "It's no use waiting for Orme; he mightn't turn up till dinner-time. Miss Falconer, if I promise not to drown you, will make one for the yacht? The man told me it would be all ready."

She shook her head as she helped herself to a couple of strawberries.

"No, thanks," she said, with her musical drawl. "I know what that means. You drift into the middle of the lake or the river, the wind drops, and you sit in a scorching sun and get a headache. Please leave me out. I shall stick to my original proposal. Perhaps, if you don't drown anyone this time, I may venture with you another day."

She leant back and smiled at them under her lids, as the discussion flowed and ebbed round her, with an air of placid contempt and wonder at their excitement; and presently, murmuring something to Lady Clansford, who, as chaperone and deputy hostess was trying to coax them into some decision, she rose and went out to the terrace.

There, lying back in a deck-chair, in a corner screened from any possible draught by the glass verandah, was Mr. Howard with one of Sir Stephen's priceless Havanas between his lips, a French novel in his hand, and a morning paper across his knees. He rose as she approached, and checking a sigh of resignation, offered her his chair.

"Oh, no," she said, with a smile which showed that she knew what the effort of politeness cost him. "You'd hate me if I took your chair, I know; and though, of course, I don't in the least care whether you hate me or not, I shouldn't like putting you to the trouble of so exhaustive an emotion."

Howard smiled at her with frank admiration.

"Let's compromise it," he said. "I'll drag that chair up here—it's out of the sun, you know—so, and arrange these cushions so, and put up the end for your feet so, and—how is that, Miss Falconer?"

"Thanks," she murmured, sinking into the soft nest he had made.

"Do you object to my cigar? Say so, if you do, and—"

"You'll go off to some other nook," she put in. "No, I like it."

His eye shone with keen appreciation: this girl was not only a beauty—which is almost common nowadays—but witty, which is rare.

"Thanks! Would you like the paper? Don't hesitate if you would; I'm not reading it; I never do. I keep it there so that I can put it over my face if I feel like sleeping—which I generally do."

She declined the paper with a gesture of her white hand. "No, I'd rather talk; which means that you are to talk and I'm to listen: will it exhaust you too much to tell me where the rest of the people are? I left a party in the breakfast-room squabbling over the problem how to kill time; but where are the others? My father, for instance?"

"He is in the library with Baron Wirsch, Mr. Griffenberg, and the other financiers. They are doubtless engaged in some mystic rites connected with the worship of the Golden Calf, rites in which the words 'shares,' 'stocks,' 'diamonds,' 'concessions,' appear at frequent intervals. I suppose your father, having joined them, is a member of the all-powerful sect of money-worshippers."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I suppose so. And Mr. Orme—is he one of them?" she asked, with elaborate indifference.

Howard smiled cynically.

"Stafford! No; all that he knows about money is the art of spending it; and what he doesn't know about that isn't worth knowing. It slips through his fingers like water through a sieve; and one of those mysteries which burden my existence is, how he always manages to have some for a friend up a tree."

"Is he so generous, then?" she asked, with a delicate yawn behind her hand.

Howard nodded, and was silent for a moment, then he said musingly:

"You've got on my favorite subject—Stafford—Miss Falconer. And I warn you that if I go on I shall bore you."

"Well, I can get up and go away," she said, languidly. "He is a friend of yours, I suppose? By the way, did you know that he stopped those ridiculous horses last night and probably saved my life?"

"For goodness sake don't let him hear you say that, or even guess that you think it," he said, with an affectation of alarm. "Stafford would be inexpressibly annoyed. He hates a fuss even more than most Englishmen, and would take it very unkindly if you didn't let a little thing like that pass unnoticed. Oh, yes, I am his greatest friend. I don't think"—slowly and contemplatively—"that there is anything he wouldn't do for me or anything I wouldn't do for him—excepting get up early—go out in the rain—Oh, it isn't true! I'm only bragging," he broke off, with a groan. "I've done both and shall do them whenever he wants me to. I'm a poor creature, Miss Falconer." "A martyr on the altar of friendship," she said. "Mr. Orme must be very irresistible."

"He is," he assented, with an air of profound melancholy. "Stafford has the extremely unpleasant knack of getting everybody to do what he wants. It's very disgusting, but it's true. That is why he is so general a favourite. Why, if you walk into any drawing-room and asked who was the most popular man in London, the immediate and unanimous reply would be 'Stafford Orme.'"

She settled the cushions a little more comfortably.

"You mean amongst men?" she said.

Howard smiled and eyed her questioningly.

"Well—I didn't," he replied, drily.

She laughed a little scornfully.

"Oh, I know the sort of man he is," she said. "I've read and heard about them. The sort of man who falls in love with every woman he meet. 'A servant of dames'!"

Howard leant back and laughed with cynical enjoyment.

"You never were further out," he said. "He flirts—oh, my aunt, how he flirts!—but as to falling in love—Did you ever see an iceberg, Miss Falconer?"

She shook her head.

"Well, it's one of the biggest, the most beautiful frauds in the world. When you meet one sailing along in the Atlantic, you think it one of the nicest, sweetest things you ever saw: it's so dazzlingly bright, with its thousand and one colours glittering in the sunlight. You quite fall in love with it, and it looks so harmless, so enticing, that you're tempted to get quite close to it; which no doubt is amusing to the iceberg, but is slightly embarrassing for you; for the iceberg is on you before you know it, and—and there isn't enough left of you for a decent funeral. That's Stafford all the way. He's so pleasant, so frank, so lovable, that you think him quite harmless; but while you're admiring his confounded ingratiating ways, while you're growing enthusiastic about his engaging tricks—he's the best rider, the best dancer, the best shot—oh, but you must have heard of him!—he is bearing down upon you; your heart goes under, and he—ah, well, he just sails over you smiling, quite unconscious of having brought you to everlasting smash."

"You are indeed a friend," she said with languid irony.

"Oh, you think I'm giving him away?" he said. "My dear Miss Falconer, everybody knows him. Every ball-room every tennis-court, is strewed with his wrecks. And all the time he doesn't know it; but goes his way crowned with a modesty which is the marvel and the wonder of this most marvellous of ages."

"It sounds like a hero out of one of 'Ouida's' novels," she remarked, as listlessly as before.

But behind her lowered lids her eyes were shining with a singular brightness.

Howard turned to her delightedly.

"My dear Miss Falconer, if you were a man I should ask to shake hands with you. It so exactly describes him. That's just what he is. As handsome as the dew—I beg your pardon!—as frank as a boy, as gentle as a woman, as staunch, as a bull-dog, as brave—he would have stopped a drayman's team just as readily as yours last night—and as invulnerable as that marble statue."

He pointed to a statue of Adonis which stood whitely on the edge of the lawn, and she raised her eyes and looked at it dreamily.

"I could break that thing if I had a big hammer," she said.

"I daresay," he said. "But can't break Stafford. Honestly "—he looked at her—"I wish you could!"

"Why?" she asked, turning her eyes on him for the first time.

Howard was silent for a moment, then he looked at her with a curious gravity.

"Because it would be good for him: because I am afraid for him."

"Afraid?" she echoed.

"Yes," he said, with a nod. "Some day he will run against something that will bring him to smash. Some woman—But I beg your pardon. Do you know, Miss Falconer, that you have a dangerous way of leading one to speak the truth—which one should never—or very rarely—do. Why, on earth am I telling you all this about Stafford Orme?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"You were saying 'some woman,'" she said.

He gave a sigh of resignation.

"You are irresistible! Some woman who will be quite unworthy of him. It's always the case. The block of ice you can not smash with your biggest hammer is broken into smithereens by a needle. That's the peril before Stafford—but let us hope he will prove the exception to the rule and escape. He's safe at present, at any rate."

She though of the scene she had witnessed, the girl sitting sideways on Stafford Orme's horse, and her face flushed for an instant.

"Are you sure?" she said.

"Quite!" he responded, confidently. "I know all Stafford's flirtations, great and small: if there was anything serious he would tell me; and as he hasn't—there isn't."

She laughed; the slow, soft laugh which made Howard think suddenly, strangely, of a sleepy tigress he had once watched in a rajah's zoo, as she lay basking in the sun: a thing of softness and beauty and—death.

"We've had a most amusing conversation, Mr. Howard," she said. "I don't know when I've been so interested—or so tempted."

"Tempted?" He looked at her with a slow, expectant smile.

"Oh, yes," she murmured, turning her eyes upon him with a half-mocking light in them. "You have forgotten that you have been talking to a woman."

"I don't deny it," he said. "It's the finest compliment I could pay you. But—after?"

"And that to a woman your account of your hero-friend is—a challenge."

He nodded and paused, with his cigar half-way to his lips.

"I'm greatly tempted to accept it, do you know!" she said.

He laughed.

"Don't: you'll be vanquished. Is that too candid, too—brutal?" he said.

"So brutal that I will accept it," she said. "Is that ring of yours a favorite?"

"I've had it ever since I can remember. It was my mother's," he said, rather gravely.

She held out her hand, upon which the costly gems glittered in the sunlight.

"Choose one to set against it," she said quite quietly.

Howard, roused for once from his sleepy cynicism, met her gaze with something like astonishment.

"You mean—?" he said, in a low voice.

"I mean that I am going to try to meet your iceberg. You will play fair, Mr. Howard? You will stand and look on and—be silent?"

He smiled and leant back as if he had considered her strange, audacious proposal, and felt confident.

"On my honour," he said, with a laugh. "You shall have fair play!" She laughed softly. "You have not chosen my stake," she said meaningly.

"Ah, no. Pardon! Let me see." He took her hand and examined the rings. "This—I think it's the most valuable."

"It does not matter," she said. "You will not win it. May I look at yours?"

He extended his hand with an amused laugh; but without a smile, she said:

"Yes, it is a quaint ring; I like quaint things. I shall wear it on my little finger."

She dropped his hand quickly, for at that moment Stafford rode round the bend of the drive. His face was grave and almost stern in its preoccupation, but he caught sight of them, and raised his hat, then turned his horse and rode up to the terrace.

"Good-morning, Stafford," exclaimed Howard. "Where have you been? Hallo! Anything happened? You're coated all over with mud: had a fall?"

He nodded carelessly as he turned to the beautiful girl, lying back now and looking up at his handsome face with an air of languid indifference.

"What a lovely day, Miss Falconer! Where are all the others? Are you not going for a drive, on the lake, somewhere?"

"I have just been asking Mr. Howard to take me for a row," she said, "but he has refused."

Stafford laughed and glanced at his watch.

"I can quite believe it: he's the laziest wretch in existence. If you'll transfer the offer to me, we'll go after lunch. By George, there's the bell!"

"Thanks!" she murmured, and she rose with her slow grace. "I'd better get into an appropriate costume. Mr. Howard, what will you bet me that it does not rain before we start. But you never bet, you tell me!"

"Not unless I am sure of winning, Miss Falconer," he said, significantly.

She looked after Stafford as he rode away to the stable.

"Nor I," she retorted, with a smile. "As you will see."



CHAPTER XVI.

When Stafford and Maude Falconer went down to the lake after luncheon, they found a party from the Villa just embarking on board one of the launches; the air was filled with laughter and chatter, and the little quay was bright with the white flannels of the men and the gay frocks of the women. The party greeted the two with an exuberant welcome, and Bertie called out to ask them if they were coming on board.

"Perhaps you would rather go on the launch, Miss Falconer?" said Stafford; but she shook her head.

"No, thanks," she said, languidly. "I hate crowds of that kind. I'd rather stick to our original proposition; it will bore me less. But perhaps you'd rather join them?"

"Is it likely?" said Stafford, with a smile, as he signed to the man to bring up a skiff. "Now, let me make you as comfortable as I can. We ought to have had a gondola," he added, as he handed her to the seat in the stern.

She leant back with her sunshade over her shoulder, and Stafford, as he slipped off his blazer and rowed out towards the centre of the lake, looked at her with unconscious admiration. She was simply, perfectly dressed in a yachting costume of white and pale-blue, which set off to the fullest advantage her exquisite complexion and her red-gold hair. But it was admiration of the coldest kind, for even at that moment he was thinking of the girl in the well-worn habit, the girl he loved with a passion that made his slightest thought of her a psalm of worship.

And Maude, though she appeared half asleep, like a beautiful wild animal basking in the warmth of the sun, glanced at him now and again and noted the strength and grace of his figure, the almost Grecian contour of the handsome face. She had made her wager with Howard on the spur of the moment, prompted by the vanity of a woman piqued by the story of Stafford's indifference to her sex; but as she looked at him she wondered how a woman would feel if she fell in love with him. But she had no fears for herself; there was a coldness in her nature which had hitherto guarded her from the fever which men call love, and she thought herself quite secure. There would be amusement, triumph, in making him love her, in winning her wager with that cynical Mr. Howard, who boasted of his friend's invulnerability; and when she had conquered, and gratified her vanity—Ah, well, it would be easy to step aside and bring the curtain down upon her triumph and Stafford's discomfiture. She would wear that Mr. Howard's ring, and every time she looked at it, it should remind her of her conquest.

Stafford rowed on in silence for some minutes. His beautiful companion did not seem to want him to talk and certainly showed no desire to talk herself; so he gave himself up to thinking of Ida—and wishing that it was she who was sitting opposite him there, instead of this girl with the face of a Grecian goddess, with the lustrous hair of an houri. At last, feeling that he ought to say something, he remarked, as he gazed at the marvellous view:

"Very beautiful, isn't it?"

She raised her eyes and let them wander from the glittering water to the glorious hills.

"Yes, I suppose it is. I'm afraid I don't appreciate scenery as much as other people do. Perhaps it is because one is always expected to fall into raptures over it. Does that shock you? I'm afraid I shock most people. The fact is, I have been brought up in a circle which has taught me to loathe sentiment. They were always gushing about their feelings, but the only thing they cared for was money!"

"That ought to have made you loathe money," said Stafford, with a smile, and a certain kind of interest; indeed, it was difficult not to feel interested in this beautiful girl, with the face and the form of a goddess, and, apparently, as small a capacity of emotion.

"Oh, no," she said, languidly; "on the contrary, it showed me the value of money. I saw that if I had not been rich, the daughter of a rich man, I should have been of no account in their eyes. They were always professing to love me, but I was quite aware that it was because I was rich enough to be able to buy pleasure for them."

"Unpleasant kind of people," remarked Stafford.

"No; just the average," she said, coolly. "Nearly all men and women are alike—worldly, selfish, self-seeking. Look at my father," she went on, as coolly as before. "He thinks of nothing but money; he has spent his life fighting, scrambling, struggling for it; and look at yours—"

"Oh, hold on!" said Stafford, laughing, but reddening a little. "You're very much mistaken if you think my father is that kind of man."

She smiled.

"Why, everybody has some story of his—what shall I call it?—acuteness, sharpness; and of the wonderful way in which he has always got what he wanted. I don't want to be offensive, Mr. Orme, but I'm afraid both our fathers are in the same category. And that both would sacrifice anything or anyone to gain their ends."

Stafford laughed again.

"You're altogether wrong, Miss Falconer," he said. "I happen to know that my governor is one of the most generous and tender-hearted of men and that whatever he has gained it is by fair means, and by no sacrifice of others."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I envy your faith in him. But then you are a very enviable man, I'm told."

"As how?" asked Stafford. "Pretty here, isn't it? Here's one of those beastly steamers coming: they spoil the lake, but they're very convenient, I suppose."

She glanced at the big steamer puffing towards them obtrusively and sending a trail of smoke across the green and violet of the hills.

"Oh, I'm told you are the most popular man in London; that you have the world at your feet, that you are only waiting to see which duchess you prefer to throw your handkerchief to—"

Stafford coloured.

"What rot!—I beg your pardon, Miss Falconer. Of course, I know you are only chaffing me."

"Isn't it true—about the duchess, I mean?" she asked, so coolly, so indifferently, that Stafford was compelled to take her seriously.

"Nary a word," he said, brightly; then, with a sudden gravity: "If you happen to hear such nonsense again, Miss Falconer, you can, if you care to, contradict it flatly. I am not in the least likely to marry a duchess; indeed, I wouldn't marry the highest and greatest of them, if she'd have me, which is highly improbable."

"Do you mean to say that you have no ambition, that you would marry for—love?" she asked.

Stafford stopped rowing for a moment and looked at her grimly.

"What on earth else should I marry for?" he asked. "Wouldn't you?"

Before she could answer, the steamer came abreast of them, and so close that the swell from its screw set the slight, narrow skiff dancing and plunging on the waves.

Maude uttered a faint cry and leant forward, and Stafford, fearing she was going to rise, stretched out his hand, and touching her knee, forced her into her seat again, and kept her there until the swell had subsided.

The colour flooded her face at the pressure of his strong hand, which was like a steel weight, and she caught her breath. Then, as he took his hand away and resumed rowing, he said: "I beg your pardon! I was afraid you were going to get up—a girl I once had in a boat did so and we upset."

"The boat is very small," she said, in a low voice, almost one of apology.

"Oh, it's all right, so long as you sit still, and keep your head," he said. "It could ride over twice as big a swell as this."

She looked at him from under her lowered lids with a new expression in her face, a faint tremor on her lips; and, as if she could not meet his eyes, she glanced back with an affectation of interest at the steamer. As she did so, something dropped from it into the lake.

"What was that?" she said. "Something fell overboard."

"Eh? A man, do you mean?" he asked, stopping.

"Oh, no; something small."

"A parcel, somebody's lunch, perhaps," he said; and he rowed on.

She leant back, her eyes downcast; she still seemed to feel that strong, irresistible pressure of his hand under which she had been unable to move.

"There ought to be an echo somewhere here," he said, as they came opposite one of the hills, and he gave the Australian "coo-ee!" in a clear, ringing voice, which the echo sent back in a musical imitation.

"How true it was!" she said, and she opened her lips and sang a bar or two of the "Elsie" song.

Stafford listened to the echo, which was almost as soft and sweet as the girl's notes.

"What a wonderful voice you have!" he said, almost unconsciously. "I never heard a sweeter. What was that you sang?"

"That thing of Wagner's," she replied; and quite naturally she began the air and sang it through.

Stafford let the boat drift and leant upon the oars, his eyes fixed on her face, a rapt and very eloquent admiration in his own.

"Ah—beautiful!" he said in a low voice. "What a delight it must be to you to be able to sing like that! I can understand a whole theatre crying over that song sung as you sing it!"

She glanced at him with an affectation of languid amusement; but she was watching him intently.

"That's not the best in the opera," she said. "I like this better;" and she sang the "Swan" song; sang it so low that he leant forward to catch the notes which flowed like silver from her soft, red lips; and when she finished it he drew a long breath and still leant forward looking at her.

"Thank you, thank you!" he said, with so much of admiration and gratitude in his voice, that, as if to apologise for it, he said: "I'm fond of music. But I'm forgetting your tea! Shall we pull back to the Ferry Hotel and get some?"

"I'm in your hands," she replied, languidly.

He turned-the boat and pulled back along the centre of the lake in silence. Suddenly she bent forward.

"There is something in the water," she said; "something alive."

"It's a—yes, it's a dog," he said. "That is what you saw drop over the steamer. By George! the poor little chap looks in distress: seems as if he were nearly done. Can you steer?" he asked, sharply.

"Oh, yes," she replied, languidly. "Why?"

"Because I'm going for him, and it will help me if you can steer straight for him. He looks nearly played out."

"Why should you trouble—it's a long way off; it will be drowned before you can get to it," she said.

"I'll have to go for it anyway," he said, cheerfully; and he began to row hard.

Distance is deceptive on a lake, and the dog was farther off than they thought; but Stafford put his back into it as hard as he had done in his racing days, and Maude Falconer leant back and watched him with interest, and something even stronger than interest, in her masked eyes. He had turned up the sleeves of his flannel shirt, and the muscles on his arms were standing out under the strain, his lips were set tightly, and there was the man's frown of determination on his brow.

"It has gone down: it's no use," she said. "You may as well stop and rest."

He looked over his shoulder.

"No! He has come up again!" he exclaimed: it was noticeable that he called the dog "he," while she spoke of it as "it." "We shall get him in time. Keep the boat straight!"

The words were uttered in a tone of command, and they moved her as the touch of his hand had done; and she set her mind upon the task as she had never before set it upon anything.

Reaching well forward, pulling with the long, steady stroke of the practised oarsman, Stafford sent the boat along like an arrow, and presently he drove it up to the spot where the dog strove in its death straggle.

It was a tiny black-and-tan terrier, and Stafford, as he looked over his shoulder, saw the great eyes turned to him with a piteous entreaty that made his heart ache.

"Turn the boat—quick!" he cried; and as the skiff slid alongside the dog, he swooped it up.

The mite gave a little gasping cry like a child, and closing its eyes sank into Stafford's arms with a shudder.

"Is it dead?" asked Maude Falconer, looking not at the dog but at Stafford, for his face, which had been red with exertion a moment ago, had become suddenly pale.

"I don't know—no!" he said, absently, all his thoughts centered on the dog.

He wiped it as dry as he could with his blazer, then turning aside, he opened his shirt and put the cold morsel in his bosom.

"Poor little beggar, he's like ice!" he said, in a low voice. "He would never have got to the shore; he's so small. If I'd some brandy! We'll get some at the ferry. Can you row?"

"No," she said. "Yes; I mean, I'll try."

He held out his hand.

"Mind how you cross. Take off your gloves first, or you'll blister your hands."

She obeyed, her eyes downcast. They exchanged places and he showed her how to hold the sculls.

"You'll do very well. You can row as slowly as you like. He's alive; I can feel him move! Poor little chap! Sorry to trouble you, Miss Falconer, but the only chance of saving him is to keep him warm."

She was silent far a moment, then she glanced at him.

"You're fond of dogs?"

"Why, of course," he answered. "Aren't you?"

"Y-es; but I don't think I'd risk pneumonia for one. You were feverishly hot just now, and that little beast must be stone cold; you'll get bronchitis or something, Mr. Orme."

"Not I!" he laughed, almost scornfully. "He's pulling round, poor little beast! Here we are."

He reached for his coat and wrapped the terrier in it, and quite unconscious of the girl's watchful eyes, held the little black-and-tan head to his face for a moment.

"All right now?" he murmured. "You've had a narrow squeak for it, old chappie!" With the dog under his arm, he helped Maude Falconer ashore and led the way to the hotel.

"Tea," he said to the waiter; "but bring me some brandy and milk first—and look sharp."

Maude sank on to one of the benches in the beautiful garden in the centre of the lake and looked straight before her; and Stafford cuddled the dog up to him and looked impatiently for the waiter, greeting him when he came with:

"What an infernal time you're been!"

Then he poured a little of the brandy down the dog's throat, and bending over him repeated the close three or four times; and presently the mite stirred and moved its head, and opening its eyes looked up into Stafford's, and weakly putting out its tongue, licked his hand.

Stafford laughed—for the well-known reason.

"Plucky little chap, isn't he?" he said, with a moved man's affectation of levity. "He's made a splendid fight for it and won through. He's a pretty little morsel—a well-bred 'un: wonder whom he belongs to?"

"To you—at least his life does," said Maude Falconer. "You couldn't have fought harder for it if it had been a human being."

"Oh, a dog's the next thing, you know," he said, apologetically. "I'm afraid it's been an awful nuisance and trouble for you. You haven't blistered your hands, I hope? Let me see!"

She stretched out her hands, palm upwards, and he took them and examined them.

"No. That's all right! 'All's well that ends well.' You want a few lessons with the sculls, Miss Falconer, and you'd make a splendid boat-woman. Perhaps you'd let me give you one or two?"

"Thank you; yes," she said; and to his surprise with less of her usual half-scornful languor.

"Here's the tea. Any particular kind of cake you fancy?"

She said that the cakes would do, and poured out the tea; but he put some milk into his saucer and gave some to the terrier, slowly, methodically, and with a tenderness and gentleness which was not lost upon the girl who watched him covertly before paying any attention to his own tea.

"I wonder whether you could stand, my little man," he said, and he put the terrier on the ground.

It stood upright and shivering for a moment, then it put its tiny paws on Stafford's knee and looked up into his face appealingly. "Not up to your usual form just yet, eh?" said Stafford, and he picked it up gently and put it on his knee.

Maude Falconer looked at him.

"Give it to me," she said. "Men have no lap. He'll be more comfortable with me."

"But he's wet still," he said. "He'll spoil that pretty dress of yours."

"My pretty dress was made to be spoiled," she said, "Give it to me, please, and get your tea."

"Do you mean it?" he asked, with a surprise which made her flush with resentment, and something like shame.

For reply, she bent forward, took the dog from him, and tried to settle it on her lap; but the mite looked piteously at Stafford and whined, its big eyes imploring him to let it come back.

But Stafford stroked it and bade it sit still, and presently it curled itself up.

"It has gone to sleep," said Maude. "It has soon forgotten its trouble."

"It's a way dogs have," said Stafford. "May I smoke? George! what a lovely afternoon!"

She glanced at him as he leant back in his chair, his long legs stretched out and crossed before him.

"You look happy," she said, with a faint smile.

"Oh, I am," he said, with a sudden flush and a start; for now the dog was off his mind, it had instantly swung back to Ida.

"It's the reward of a generous action," she said, and again, the mocking note was absent from her voice.

Stafford laughed.

"That's putting it rather high," he said.

They sat on in silence: Stafford thinking of Ida, Maude looking down at the sleeping dog, and thinking that only a few minutes ago it had been lying in the bosom of the man who sat beside her: the man whom she had backed herself to fool; but for whom a strange sensation of admiration—and was it a subtle fear?—was stirring within her.

"By George! we must be going!" he said, suddenly.

When they got to the boat he proposed to roll the terrier in his coat, but Maude shook her head.

"I'll nurse it going home," she said.

"You will? That's very good of you!" he said, quite gratefully.

"He's a lucky little beggar!" he remarked, after awhile, as he looked at the black little morsel curled up on the pretty dress. "Supposing he isn't claimed, would you care to have him, Miss Falconer?"

She looked down at the dog.

"Thank you," she said. "But what shall I give you in return. It's unlucky to give an animal without some consideration."

"Oh, give me another song," he replied. "There is nobody about."

She opened her lips, then checked herself.

"No, I can't sing again," she said, in a low voice.

"Oh, all right. It isn't good for you to sing too much in the open air. I'll wait till this evening, if you'll be good enough to sing for us then."

They landed and walked up to the house. As they reached the bend leading to the entrance path, she stopped and held out the dog, which had been staring at Stafford and whining at intervals.

"Take it, please. It is fretting for you, and I'd rather not keep it."

"Really?" he said, and she saw his face brighten suddenly. "All right, if you'd rather. Come here, little man! What's your name, I wonder? What shall we call him while we've got him?"

"Call him 'Tiny;' he's small enough," she said, with a shrug of her shoulders.

"Tiny it is!" he assented, brightly. "He'll answer to it in a day or two, you'll see. I hope you haven't quite spoilt your dress, Miss Falconer, and won't regret your row!"

She looked at her dress, but there was a sudden significance in her slow, lingering response.

"I—don't—know!"

As she went up the stairs she looked over the rail and saw Stafford's tall figure striding down the hall. He was softly pulling the terrier's ears and talking to it in the language dogs understand and love; and when she sank into a chair in her room, his face with its manly tenderness was still before her, his deep musical voice, with its note of protection and succour, still rang in her ears.

She sat quite motionless for a minute or two, then she rose and went to the glass and looked at herself; a long, intent look.

"Yes, I am beautiful," she murmured, not with the self-satisfaction of vanity, but with a calculating note in her voice. "Am I—am I beautiful enough?"

Then she swung away from the glass with the motion which reminded Howard of a tigress, and, setting her teeth hard, laughed with self-scorn; but with something, also, of fear in the laugh.

"I am a fool!" she muttered. "It can't be true. So soon! So suddenly! Oh, I can't be such a fool!"



CHAPTER XVII.

If everybody was not enjoying himself at the Villa it certainly was not the fault of the host, Sir Stephen Orme. Howard, as he drew his chair up beside Stafford, when the ladies had left the room after dinner, and the gentlemen had begun to glance longingly at the rare Chateau claret and the Windermere port, made a remark to this effect:

"Upon my word, Staff, it is the most brilliant house-party which I have ever joined; and as to your father in his character of host—Well, words fail to express my admiration."

Stafford glanced at his father at the head of the table and nodded. Sir Stephen had been the life and soul and spring of the dinner; talking fashionable gossip to Lady Fitzharford on one side of him, and a "giddy girl of twenty" on the other; exchanging badinage with "Bertie," and telling deeply interesting stories to the men; and he was now dragging reluctant laughter from the grim Baron Wirsch and the almost grimmer Griffenberg, as he saw with one eye that the wine was circulating, and with the other that no one was being overlooked or allowed to drop into dullness.

"A most marvellous man! Nearly all the morning he was closeted with the financiers; in the afternoon he went for a ride with Lady Clansford; he was in attendance at the solemn function of afternoon tea; he played croquet—and played it well—at half-past five; at six I saw him walking round the grounds with the Effords and the Fitzharfords, and now he is laughing and talking with the abandon of a boy of five-and-twenty, while the boy of five-and-twenty sits here as grave and silent as if he had been working like a horse—or a Sir Stephen Orme—instead of fooling about the lake with the most beautiful woman in the party."

"And his friend has spent the day in a deck-chair on the terrace," retorted Stafford.

"At any rate, I have been out of mischief," said Howard. Then he remembered his wager with Maude Falconer, and added, rather remorsefully: "At least I hope so. By the way, don't you echo my expression of opinion that Miss Falconer is the most beautiful woman here—or elsewhere?"

Stafford woke from the reverie into which he nearly always dropped when Howard was talking, and nodded indifferently.

"Oh, yes; she is lovely, of course."

"How good of you, how kind and gracious!" retorted Howard, ironically. "So my prince deigns to approve of her? And you also condescended to admit that she is—er—rather clever?"

"I daresay," said Stafford. "I've seen so little of her. She seems to me rather blase and cold."

Howard nodded.

"Yes; but the worst of it is, you can't count upon that kind of girl: they are apt to warm up sometimes, and quite unexpectedly: and when they do they—well, they boil like a geyser or a volcano. And then—well, then it is wise to get out of reach. I once knew a woman who was considered to be as cold as charity—or a rich relation—but who caught fire one day and burnt up the man who ignited her. Of course this is my delicate way of saying: 'Beware, oh, my prince!'"

Stafford smiled. Miss Falconer's nature was a matter of profound indifference to him. There was only one woman on whom he could bestow a thought, and he was thinking of her now, wondering when he should see her, whether he might dare to tell her of his love again, to ask her for her answer.

Once or twice his father looked across at him, and nodded and smiled as if he loved to see him, and wanted to speak to him; and Stafford smiled and nodded back, as if he understood.

When the men rose to go to the drawing-room, Sir Stephen caught him up at the door, and laid a hand upon his arm.

"Happy, dear boy?" he asked in a low voice, full of affection. "I've seen scarcely anything of you. No, no, I'm not complaining! It was understood that you were to have a free hand—but—but I've missed you! Never mind; this crowd will have gone presently, and then—ah, then we'll have a jolly time to ourselves! Things are going well," he added, with a significant smile, as he glanced at Wirsch and Griffenberg, who, well-fed and comfortable, were in front of them.

"I'm glad, sir," said Stafford.

Sir Stephen smiled, but checked a sigh and a shrug of the shoulders.

"Yes, my little schemes are flourishing; but"—he looked at the financiers again—"they are rather a hard team to drive!"

As Stafford entered the drawing-room, he heard Lady Clansford enquiring for Miss Falconer.

"We want her to sing, Mr. Orme, and I cannot find her."

"I think she is on the terrace," said Bertie, who always seemed to know where everybody was.

Stafford went out by one of the windows, and saw Maude Falconer pacing up and down at the end of the terrace. She was superbly dressed, and as he looked at her, he involuntarily admired the grace of her movements. Mr. Falconer was walking with bent head and hands behind his back; but now and again he looked at her sideways with his sharp eyes. Stafford did not like to interrupt them, and withdrew to the other end of the terrace, with a cigarette, to wait till they joined him.

"Young Orme has come out to look for you," said Mr. Falconer, without turning his head.

"I know," she said, though she also had not turned. "They want me to sing. I will go in directly. You have not answered my question, father. Is Sir Stephen very rich, or is all this only sham? I have heard you say so often that display very often only covers poverty."

Falconer eyed her curiously.

"Why do you want to know? What does it matter to you?"

She shrugged her shoulders impatiently, resentfully, and he went on:

"Yes, he's rich; confoundedly so. But he is playing a big game, in which he is running some risks; and he'll want all his money to help him win it."

"And are you joining him in the game?" she asked.

He looked at her with surprise. There was a note in her voice which he had never heard before, a note which conveyed to him the fact that she was no longer a girl, but a woman.

"Upon my soul, I don't know why you ask! Well, well!"—she had repeated the impatient gesture. "I haven't made up my mind yet. He wants me to join him. I could be of service to him; on the other hand, I could—yes, get in his way; for I know some of the points of the game he is playing. Yes, I could help him—or spoil him."

"And which are you going to do?" she asked, in a low voice, her eyes veiled, her lips drawn straight.

Falconer laughed grimly. "I don't know. It all depends. Which would you do?" he asked, half sarcastically.

She was silent for a moment, then she said: "You knew Sir Stephen some time ago—years ago, father?"

Falconer nodded. "I did," he said, shortly.

"And you were friends, and you quarrelled?"

He looked at her with an air of surprise.

"I saw you both when you stood opposite each other after the carriage accident," she said, coolly. "I am not blind, and I am not particularly stupid. It didn't strike me at the time that there had been anything wrong between you, but I have since seen you look at Sir Stephen, and—you have an expressive face sometimes, oh, my father!"

He grinned grimly.

"You appear to keep your eyes open, Maude. Yes; there was a row between us, and there was a grudge—"

—"Which you mean to pay off?" she said, as impassively as if they were speaking of the merest trivialities.

"Which I could pay off—gratify, if I liked," he admitted.

"How?" she asked.

He did not reply, but glanced at her sideways and bit at the cigar which he had stopped to light.

"Shall I tell you, if I were a man and I wanted revenge upon such a man as Sir Stephen Orme, what I should do, father?" she asked, in a low voice, and looking straight before her as if she were meditating.

"You can if you like. What would you do?" he replied, with a touch of sarcastic amusement.

She looked round her and over her shoulder. The windows near them were closed, Stafford with his cigarette was too far off to overhear them.

"If I were a man, rich and powerful as you are, and I owed another a grudge, I would not rest night or day until I had got him into my power. Whether I meant to exact my revenge or not, I would wait and work, and scheme and plot until I had him at my mercy so that I could say, 'See now you got the better of me once, you played me false once, but it is my turn now.' He should sue for mercy, and I would grant it—or refuse it—as it pleased me; but he should feel that he was in my power; that my hand was finer than his, my strength greater!" He shot a glance at her, and his great rugged face grew lined and stern.

"Where did you get those ideas? Why do you talk to me like this?" he muttered, with surprise and some suspicion.

"I am not a child," she said, languidly. "And I have been living with you for some time now. Sir Stephen Orme is a great man, is surrounded by great and famous people, while you, with all your money, are"—she shrugged her shoulders—"well, just nobody."

His face grew dark. She was playing on him as a musician plays on an instrument with which he is completely familiar.

"What the devil do you mean?" he muttered.

"If I were a man, in your place, I would have the great Sir Stephen at my feet, to make or to break as I pleased. I would never rest until I could be able to say: 'You're a great man in the world's eyes, but I am your master; you are my puppet, and you have to dance to my music, whether the tune be a dead march or a jig.' That is what I should do if I were a man; but I am only a girl, and it seems to me nowadays that men have more of the woman in them than we have."

He stopped and stared at her in the moonlight, a dark frown on his face, his eyes heavy with doubt and suspicion.

"Look here, my girl," he said, "you are showing up in a new light to-night. You are talking as your mother used to talk. And you aren't doing it without a purpose. What is it? What grudge can you, a mere girl who has only known him for a couple of days, have against Sir Stephen?"

She smiled.

"Let us say that I am only concerned for my father's wounded pride and honour," she said. "Or let us say that I have a game of my own to play, and that I am asking you to help me while you gratify your own desire for revenge. Will you help me?"

"Tell me—tell me what your game is. Good Lord!"—with a scowl. "Fancy you having a game: it's—it's ridiculous!"

"Almost as ridiculous as calling me a girl and expecting to see me playing with a doll or a hoop," she returned, calmly. "But you needn't reply. I can see you mean to do it, like a good and indulgent father; and some day, perhaps soon, I will, like a good and dutiful daughter, tell you why I wanted you to do it. Is that you, Mr. Orme? Will I come and sing? Oh, yes, if you wish it. Where is the little dog?" she asked, looking up at him with a new expression in her languorous eyes, as she glided beside him.

"Asleep on my bed," replied Stafford, with a laugh. "My man has turned him off and made him a luxurious couch with cushions three or four times, but he would persist on getting on again, so he'll have to stay, I suppose?"

"Are you always so good-natured?" she asked, in a low voice. "Or do you reserve all your tenderness of heart for dogs and horses—as Mr. Howard declares?"

"Mr. Howard is too often an ass," remarked Stafford, with a smile.

"You shall choose your song, as a reward for your exertions this afternoon," she said, as he led her to the piano.

Most of the men in the crowd waiting eagerly for the exquisite voice would have been moved to the heart's core by her tone and the expression in her usually cold eyes, but Stafford was clothed in the armour of his great love, and only inclined his head.

"Thanks: anything you like," he said, with the proper amount of gratitude.

She shot a glance at him and sank into the music-seat languidly. But a moment afterwards, as if she could not help herself, she was singing a Tuscan love-song with a subdued passion which thrilled even the blase audience clustered round her. It thrilled Stafford; but only with the desire to be near Ida. A desire that became irresistible; and when she had finished he left the room, caught up his hat and overcoat and went out of the house.

As he did so, Mr. Falconer walked past him into the smoking-room. Mr. Griffenberg was alone there, seated in a big arm-chair with a cigar as black as a hat and as long as a penholder.

Falconer wheeled a chair up to him, and, in his blunt fashion, said:

"You are in this railway scheme of Orme's, Griffenberg?" Mr. Griffenberg nodded.

"And you?"

"Yes," said Falconer, succinctly. "I am joining. I suppose it's all right; Orme will be able to carry it through?"

Griffenberg emitted a thick cloud of smoke.

"It will try him a bit. It's a question of capital—ready capital. I'm helping him: got his Oriental shares as cover. A bit awkward for me, for I'm rather pushed just now—that estate loan, you know."

Falconer nodded. "I know. See here: I'll take those shares from you, if you like, and if you'll say nothing about it."

Mr. Griffenberg eyed his companion's rugged face keenly.

"What for?" he asked.

Mr. Falconer smiled.

"That's my business," he said. "The only thing that matters to you is, that by taking the shares off your hands I shall be doing you a service."

"That's true: you shall have 'em," said Mr. Griffenberg; "but I warn you it's a heavy lot."

"You shall have a cheque to-morrow," said Mr. Falconer. "Where did you get that cigar: it takes my fancy?"

Mr. Griffenberg produced his cigar case with alacrity: he liked Mr. Falconer's way of doing business.

At the moment Stafford left the Villa, Ida was standing by the window in the drawing-room of Heron Hall. On the table beside her lay a book which she had thrown down with a gesture of impatience. She was too restless to read, or to work; and the intense quietude of the great house weighed upon her with the weight of a tomb.

All day, since she had left Stafford, his words of passionate love had haunted her. They sang in her ears even as she spoke to her father or Jessie, or the dogs who followed her about with wistful eyes as if they were asking her what ailed her, and as if they would help her.

He loved her! She had said it to herself a thousand times all through the long afternoon, the dragging evening. He loved her. It was so strange, so incredible. They had only met three or four times; they had said so little to each other. Why, she could remember almost every word. He loved her, had knelt to her, he had told her so in passionate words, with looks which made her heart tremble, her breath come fast as she recalled them. That is, he wanted her to be his wife, to give herself to him, to be with him always, never to leave him.

The strangeness, the suddenness of the thing overwhelmed her so that she could not think of it calmly. He had asked her to think of it, to decide, to give him an answer. Why could she not? She had always, hitherto, known her own mind. If anyone had asked her a question about the estate, about the farm, she had known what to answer, important as the question might have been. But now she seemed as if her mind were paralyzed, as if she could not decide. Was it because she had never thought of love; because she had never dreamt that anyone would love her so much as to want to have her by his side for all his life?

As she looked through the window at the moonlight on the lawn, she thought of him; called up the vision of his tall, graceful figure and handsome face—yes; he was handsome, she knew. But she had scarcely given a thought to his face; and only felt that it was good to have him near her, to hear him talk in his deep voice, broken sometimes by the short laugh which sounded almost boyish. It had been good to have him near her—But then, she had been so lonely, had seen so few men—scarcely any at all—Suppose when she met him next she said "No," told him that she could not love him, and he went away, leaving her forever; would she be sorry?

She turned away from the window suddenly, nearly stumbling over Donald, who was lying at her feet, his nose on his paws, his great eyes fixed sadly and speculatively on her face, and caught up the book. But his face came between her and the page, and she put the book down and went into the hall.

Her father was in the library, there was no sound in the house to drown the voice, the passionately pleading voice which rang in her ears.

"I must go out," she said, "I shall be able to think in the air, shall be able to decide."

She caught up a shawl and flung it carelessly over her head, quite unconscious that the fleecy, rose-coloured wool made an exquisite frame for the girlish loveliness of her face, and opening the door, went slowly down the broken, lichen-covered steps, the two dogs following at her heels.

She drew in the keen but balmy air with a long breath, and looked up at the moon, now a yellow crescent in the starry sky; and something in the beauty of the night, something subtly novel thrilled her with a strange sense of throbbing, pulsing joy and happiness, underneath which lurked as subtle a fear and dread, the fear and dread of those who stand upon the threshold of the unknown; who, in passing that threshold, enter a world of strange things which they never more may leave.

Love: what was it? Did she feel it? Oh, if she could only tell! What should she say to him when she met him; and when should she meet him? Perhaps he had come to regret his avowal to her, had been wearied and disappointed by her coldness, and would not come again! At the thought her heart contracted as if at the touch of an icy hand. But the next moment it leapt with a suffocating sense of mystery, of half-fearful joy, for she saw him coming across the lawn to her, and heard her name, spoken as it had never yet been spoken excepting by him; and she stood, still as a statue, as he held out his hand and, looking into her eyes, murmured her name again.

"Ida!"



CHAPTER XVIII.

"Ida!"

It was the lover's cry of appeal, the prayer for love uttered by the heart that loves; and it went straight to her own heart.

She put out her hand, and he took it and held it in both his.

"I have come for your answer," he said in the low voice that thrills; the voice which says so much more than the mere words. "I could not wait—I tried to keep away from you until to-morrow; but it was of no use. I am here, you see, and I want your answer. Don't tell me it is 'No!' Trust me, Ida—trust to my love for you. I will devote my life to trying to make you happy. Ah, but you know! What is your answer? Have you thought—you promised me you would think?"

"I have thought," she said, at last. "I have thought of nothing else—I wanted to tell you the truth—to tell you truly as I would to myself—but it is so hard to know—Sometimes when I think that you may go away, and that I may not see you again, my heart sinks, and I feel, oh! so wretched."

He waited for no more, but caught her to him, and as she lay in his arms only slightly struggling, her face upturned, he bent his own, almost white with passion, and kissed her on the lips, and not once only.

The blood rushed to her face, her bosom rose and fell, and, her face grown pale again, her eyes gazed up into his half fiercely, half appealingly; then suddenly they grew moist, as if with tears, her lips quivered, and from them came, as if involuntarily, the words of surrender, the maiden confession:

"I love you!"

He uttered a low, sharp cry, the expression of his heart's delight, his soul's triumph.

"You love me! Ida! How—how do you know—when?" She shook her head and sighed, as she pressed her cheek against his breast.

"I don't know. It was just now—the moment when you kissed me. Then it came to me suddenly—the knowledge—the truth. It was as if a flash of light had revealed it to me. Oh, yes, I love you. I wish—almost I wish that I did not, for—it hurts me!"

She pressed her hand to her heart, and gazed up at him with the wonder of a child who is meeting its first experience of the strange commingling of pain and joy.

He raised her in his arms until her face was against his.

"I know—dearest," he said, almost in a whisper. "It is love—it is always so, I think. My heart is aching with longing for you, and yet I am happy—my God, how happy! And you? Tell me, Ida?"

"Yes, I am happy," she breathed, with a deep sigh, as she nestled still closer to him. "It is all so strange—so unreal!"

"Not unreal, dearest," he said, as they walked under the trees, her head against his shoulder, his arm round her waist and supporting her. "It is real enough, this love of mine—which will last me till my death, I know; and yours?"

She gazed straight before her dreamily.

"There can be no heaven without you, without your love," she answered, with a solemn note in her sweet voice.

He pressed her to him.

"And you have thought it all out. You have realised that you will be my wife—my very own?"

"Yes," she said. "I know now. I know that I am giving you myself, that I am placing all my life in your hands."

"God help me to guard it and make it happy!" he said; then he laughed. "I have no fear! I will make you happy, Ida! I—I feel that I shall. Do you understand what I mean? I feel as if I had been set apart, chosen from all the millions of men, to love you and cherish you and make you happy! And you, Ida?"

She looked up at him with the same far-away, dreamy expression in her wonderful eyes.

"Now at this moment I felt that I, too, have been set apart for you: is it because you have just said the same? No, because I felt it when you kissed me just now. Ah, I am glad you did it! If you had not I might not have known that I loved you, I might have let you go forever, thinking that I did not care. It was your kiss that opened my heart to me and showed me—."

He bent over her until his lips nearly touched hers. "Kiss me in return—of your own accord, Ida! But once, if you will; but kiss me!"

Without a blush, solemnly as if it were a sacrament, she raised her head and kissed him on the lips.

There fell a silence. The world around them, in the soft shimmer of the crescent moon, became an enchanted region, the land that never was on earth or sea, the land of love, in which all that dwell therein move in the glamour of the sacred Fire of Love.

Stafford broke it at last. It is the man who cannot be contented with silence; he thirsts for his mistress's voice.

"Dearest, what shall I do? You must tell me," he said, as if he had been thinking. "I will do whatever you wish, whatever you think best. I've a strong suspicion that you're the cleverest of us; that you've got more brains in this sweet little finger of yours than I've got in my clumsy head—"

She laughed softly and looked at the head which he had libelled, the shapely head with its close-cut hair, which, sliding her hand up, she touched caressingly.

"Shall I come to your father to-morrow, Ida? I will ride over after breakfast—before, if you like: if I had my way I'd patrol up and down here all night until it was a decent time to call upon him."

She nestled a little closer to him, and her brows came level with sudden gravity and doubt.

"My father! I had not thought of him—of what he would say—do. But I know! He—he will be very angry," she said, in a low voice.

"Will he? Why?" Stafford asked. "Of course I know I'm not worthy of you, Ida; no living man is!"

"Not worthy!"

She smiled at him with the woman's worship already dawning in her deep grey eyes.

"It is I who am not worthy. Why, think! I am only an inexperienced girl—living the life of a farmer's daughter. We are very poor—oh, you do not know how poor! We are almost as poor as the smallest tenant, though we live in this big house, and are still regarded as great people—the Herons of Herondale."

"That's one of the things I have been thinking of," said Stafford. "What lovely hair you have, Ida! It is not often that dark hair is so soft, is it?"

He bent down and drew a look, which his caresses had released, across her lips, and kissed her through it.

"You are lords of the soil, people of importance and rank here, while we are—well, just ordinary folk. I can quite understand your father objecting. Dearest, you are worthy of a duke, a prince—"

She put her hand up to his lips to silence the lover's extravagant flattery.

"It is not that—the difference—which is all to your advantage," she said. "My father may think of it," she went on with innocent candour. "But it would be the same if you were of the highest rank. He does not want me to leave him."

"And if he were less anxious to keep you he would not give you to me, who am, in his opinion, and rightly, so much your inferior," said Stafford. "But I ought to go to him, dearest. I ought to go to-morrow."

She trembled a little as she nestled against him. "And—and—your father, Sir Stephen Orme?" she said. "What will he say?"

Stafford laughed slowly and confidently.

"Oh, my father? He will be delighted. He's the best of fathers, a perfect model for parents. Ever since I can remember he has been good to me, a precious sight better, more liberal and generous, than I deserved; but lately, since I've known him—Ah, well, I can only say, dearest, that he will be delighted to hear that I have chosen a wife; and when he sees you—"

He stopped and held her at arm's length for a moment and looked down into the lovely face upturned to his with its sweet, girlish gravity.

—"Why, he will fall in love with you right out of hand! I think you will like my father, Ida. He—well, he's a taking sort of fellow; everybody likes him who knows him—really knows him—and speaks well of him. Yes, I'm proud of him, and I feel as safe as if he were here to say, in his hearty, earnest way: 'I wish you good luck, Stafford! And may God bless you, my dear!'"

He flushed and laughed as if a little ashamed of his emotional way of putting it.

"He's full of—of the milk of human kindness, is my father," he said, with a touch of simplicity which was one of the thousand and fifteen reasons why Ida loved him.

She gazed up at him thoughtfully and sighed.

"I hope he will like me," she said, all the pride which usually characterized her melted by her love. "I am sure that I shall like him—for loving you."

"You will see," said Stafford, confidently. "He will be as proud as a duke about you. You won't mind if he shows it a little plainly and makes a little fuss, Ida? He's—well, he's used to making the most of a good thing when he has it—it's the life he has led which has rather got him into the way of blowing a trumpet, you know—and he'll want a whole orchestra to announce you. But about your father, dearest? Shall I come to-morrow and ask for his consent?"

She looked up at him with doubt and a faint trouble in her beautiful eyes, and he heard her sigh regretfully.

"I am afraid," she said, in a low voice.

"Afraid?" He looked at her with a smile of surprise. "If anyone were to tell me that it was possible for you to be afraid, I shouldn't believe them," he said. "Fear and you haven't made acquaintance yet, Ida!"

She shook her head.

"I am so happy, so intensely happy, that I am afraid lest the gods should be jealous and snatch my happiness from me. I am afraid that if you come to-morrow, my father will say 'No,' will—"

—"Will have me shown out," said Stafford, gravely. "I see. I shouldn't be surprised."

"And—and then I should not be able to see you again."

He laughed at the idea.

"My dearest, if all the fathers in the world said 'No,' it wouldn't make any difference to me," he said, with that air of masterfulness, that flash of the eye which a woman loves in a man. "Do you think I should give you up, that I should be content to say, 'I'm very sorry, sir,' and go off—leave you—keep away from you!" He laughed again, and she nestled a little closer, and her small hand closed a little more tightly on his arm. "And you wouldn't give me up, refuse to see me, even if your father withheld his consent, would you, Ida?" he asked.

She looked straight before her dreamily. Then raised her eyes to his gravely.

"No; I could not. It is just that. I could not. Somehow I feel as if I had given you the right to myself and that nothing could alter it, nothing could take me away from you!"

How was it possible for him to refrain from lifting her in his arms and kissing the sweet, soft lips which made such a confession.

They walked on for a minute or two in silence, when she went on, as if she had been still considering the matter:

"No, you must not come, Stafford. My father is not strong, and—and—ah! well, you know, you saw him that other night—the first night we met—do you remember? And he was walking in his sleep again the other evening. If you were to come—if I were to tell him that—that you had asked me to be your wife, he might fly into a passion; it might do him harm. Some time ago, when he was ill, the doctor told me that he must be kept quite quiet, and that nothing must be allowed to excite or irritate him. He is very old and leads so secluded a life—he sees no one now but myself. Oh, how I would like you to come; how good it would be if—if he would give me to you as other fathers give their daughters! But I are not risk it! I cannot! Stafford"—she put her hands on his breast and looked up at him—"am I wrong to tell you all this—to let you see how much I love you? Is it—unmaidenly of me? Tell me if it is, and I will not do so for the future. I will hide my heart a little better than I am doing at present. Ah, see, it is on my sleeve!"

He took her arm and kissed the sleeve where her heart was supposed to be.

"I've read that men only love while they are not sure of a woman's love; that with every two persons it is one who loves and the other who permits himself or herself to be loved. Is that true, Stafford? If so, then it is I who love—alas! poor me!"

He drew her to him and looked into her eyes with a passionate intensity.

"It's not true," he said, almost fiercely. "For God's sake don't say such things. They—they hurt, and hurt badly; they leave a bitter taste in the mouth, a nasty pang behind. And if it were true—but it isn't, Ida!—it is I who love. Good Lord! don't you know how beautiful you are? Haven't you a looking-glass in your room? don't you know that no girl that ever was born had such wonderful eyes, such beautiful hair? Oh, my heart's love, don't you know how perfect you are?"

They had stopped under some trees near the ruined chapel, and she leant against one of them and looked up at him with a strange, dreamy, far-away look in her eyes which were dark as the purple amethyst.

"I never thought about it. Am I—do you think I am pretty? I am glad; yes I am glad!"

"Pretty!" he laughed. "Dearest, when I take you away from here, into the world, as my wife—my wife—the thought sends my blood coursing through my veins—you will create so great a sensation that I shall be half wild with pride; I shall want to go about calling aloud: 'She is my wife; my very own! You may admire—worship her, but she is mine—belongs to me—to unworthy Stafford Orme!'"

"Yes?" she murmured, her voice thrilling. "You will be proud of me? Of me, the poor little country girl who rode about the dales in a shabby habit and an old hat? Stafford, Jessie was telling me that there is a very beautiful girl staying at the Villa at Brae Wood—one of the visitors. Jessie said she was lovely, and that all the men-servants, and the maids, too, were talking about her. She must be more beautiful than I am."

"Which of the women do you mean?" he said, indifferently, with the supreme indifference which the man who is madly in love feels for every other woman than the one of his heart.

"She is a fair girl, with blue eyes and the most wonderful hair; 'chestnut-red with gold in it,' as Jessie described it to me. And she says that this girl wears the most beautiful diamonds—I am still quoting Jessie—and other precious stones, and that she is very 'high and mighty,' and more haughty than any of the other ladies. Who is it?"

"I think she must mean Miss Falconer—Miss Maude Falconer," said Stafford, as indifferently as before, as he smoothed one of the silken tresses on her brow, and kissed it as it lay on his finger. "It is just the way a slave would describe her."

"And is she very beautiful?" asked Ida.

"Yes, I suppose she is," he said.

"You suppose!" she echoed, arching her brows, but with a frank smile about her lips, the smile of contentment at his indifference. "Don't you know?"

"Well, yes, she is," he admitted. "I've scarcely noticed her. Oh, but yes, she is; and she sings very well. Yes, I can understand her making a sensation in the servants' hall—she makes one in the drawing-room. But she's not my style of beauty. See here, dearest: it doesn't sound nice, but though I've spent some hours with Miss Falconer and listened to her singing, I have only just noticed that she is good-looking, and that she has a wonderful voice: they say up at the Villa that there's nothing like it on the stage—excepting Patti's and Melba's; but all the time she has been there I have had another face, another voice, in my mind. Ever since I saw you, down there by the river, I have had no eyes for any other woman's face, however beautiful, no ears for any other woman's voice, however sweet." She was silent a moment, as she clasped her hands and laid them against his cheek.

"How strange it sounds! But if you had chanced to see her first—perhaps you would not have fallen in love with me? How could you have done so? She is so very lovely—I can see she is, by Jessie's description."

He laughed.

"Even if I had not seen you, there was no chance of my falling in love with Miss Falconer, dearest," he said, smiling at her gravity and earnestness. "She is very beautiful, lovely in her way, if you like; but it is not my way. She is like a statue at most times; at others, just now and again, like a—well, a sleek tigress in her movements and the way she turns her head. Oh, there wasn't the least danger of my falling in love with her, even if I hadn't seen the sweetest and loveliest girl in all the wide world."

"And you will feel like that, feel so sure, so certain that you love me, even though you have seen and will see so many women who are far more beautiful than I am?" she said, dreamily.

"Sure and certain," he responded, with a long sigh. "If I were as sure of your love as I am of mine for you—Forgive me, dearest!" for she had raised her eyes to his with an earnestness that was almost solemn.

"You may be sure," she said, slowly. "I shall love you as long as I live. I know it! I do not know why. I only—feel it. Perhaps we may be parted—"

He laughed—but his hand closed on hers, and gripped them tightly.

—"But I shall always love you. Something has gone out of me—is it my heart?—and I can never take it back from you. Perhaps you may grow tired of me—it may be. I have read and heard of such things happening to women—you may see someone more beautiful than Miss Falconer, someone who will lead you to forget the little girl who rode through the rain in Herondale. If so, there will be no need to tell me; no need to make excuses, or ask for forgiveness. There would be no need to tell me, for something here"—she drew her hand from his and touched her bosom—"would tell me. You would only have to keep away from me—that is all. And I—ah well I should be silent, quite silent."

"Dearest!" he murmured, reproachfully, and with something like awe, for her brows were knit, her face was pale as ivory, and her eyes glowed. "Why do you say this now, just as—as we have confessed our love for each other? Do you think I shall be faithless? I could almost laugh! As if any man you deigned to love could ever forget you, ever care a straw for any other woman!"

She turned to him with a shudder, a little cry that was tragic in its intensity, turned to him and clenched her small hands on his breast.

"Swear to me!" she panted; then, as if ashamed of the passion that racked her, her eyes dropped and the swift red flooded her face. "No! you shall not swear to me, Stafford. I—I will believe you love me as I shall love you forever and forever! But if—if the time should come when some other girl shall win you from me, promise me that you will not tell me, that you will just keep away from me! I could bear it if—if I did not see you; but if I saw you—Oh!"—something like a moan escaped her quivering lips, and she flung herself upon his breast with the abandon, the unself-consciousness of a child.

Stafford was moved to his inmost heart, and for a moment, as he held her within the embrace of his strong arms, he could not command his voice sufficiently for speech. At last he murmured, his lips seeking hers:

"Ida! I swear that I will love you forever and forever!"

"But—but—if you break your vow, you promise that you will not come to me—tell me? I shall know. Promise, ah, promise!"

"Will nothing less content you? Must I?" he said, almost desperate at her persistence. "Then I promise, Ida!"



CHAPTER XIX.

There is something solemn and awe-inspiring in perfect happiness.

How many times in the day did Ida pull up Rupert and gaze into the distance with vacant, unseeing eyes, pause in the middle of some common task, look up from the book she was trying to read, to ask herself whether she was indeed the same girl who had lived her lonely life at Herondale, or whether she had changed places with some other personality, with some girl singularly blessed amongst women.

Jessie and Jason, even the bovine William, who was reputed the stupidest man in the dale, noticed the change in her, noticed the touch of colour that was so quick to mount to the ivory cheek, the novel brightness and tenderness in the deep grey eyes, the new note, the low, sweet tone of happiness in the clear voice. Her father only remained unobservant of the subtle change, but he was like a mole burrowing amongst his book and gloating secretly over the box which he concealed at the approach of footsteps, the opening of a door, and the sound of a voice in a distant part of the house.

But though the servants remarked the change in their beloved mistress, they did not guess at its cause; for, by chance rather than design, none of them had seen Ida and Stafford together. And yet they met daily. Sometimes Stafford would ride over from Brae Wood and meet her by the river. There was a hollow there, so deep that it hid not only themselves but the horses, and here they would sit, hand in hand, or more often with his arm round her and her small, shapely head with its soft, but roughened hair, upon his breast. Sometimes he would row across the lake and they would walk side by side along the bank, and screened by the trees in which the linnet and the thrush sang the songs which make a lover's litany; at others—and these were the sweetest meeting of all, for they came in the soft and stilly night when all nature was hushed as if under the spell of the one great passion—he would ride or walk over after dinner, and they would sit in the ruined archway of the old chapel and talk of their blank past, the magic present, and the future which was to hold nothing but happiness.

Love grows fast under such conditions, and the love of these two mortals grew to gigantic proportions, absorbing the lives of both of them. To Stafford, all the hours that were not spent with this girl of his heart were so much dreary waste.

To Ida—ah, well, who shall measure the intensity of a girl's first passion? She only lived in the expectation of seeing him, in his presence and the whispered words and caresses of his love; and, in his absence, in the memory of them. For her life meant just this man who had come and taken the heart from her bosom and enthroned his own in its place.

They told each other everything. Stafford knew the whole of her life before they met, all the little details of the daily routine of the Hall, and her management of the farm; and she learnt from him all that was going on at the great, splendid palace which in his modesty Sir Stephen Orme had called the Villa. She liked to nestle against him and hear the small details of his life, as he liked to hear hers; and she seemed to know all the visitors at the Villa, and their peculiarities, as well as if she were personally acquainted with them.

"You ought not to leave them so much, Stafford." she said, with mock reproof, as they sat one afternoon in the ballow by the river. "Don't you think they notice your absence and wonder where you are?"

"Shouldn't think so," he replied. "Besides, I don't care if they do. All my worry is that I can't come to you oftener. Every time I leave you I count up the hours that must pass before I see you again. But I expect most, if not all, of the visitors will be off presently. Most of 'em have been there the regulation fortnight; a good many come backwards and forwards; they're the city men, the money men. My father is closeted with them for hours every day—that big scheme of his seems to be coming off satisfactorily. It's a railway to some place in Africa, and all these fellows—the Griffenbergs, and Beltons, that fat German baron, Wirsch, and the rest of them, are in it. Heaven knows why my father wants to worry about it for. I heard one of them say that he calculated to make a million and a half out of it. As if he weren't rich enough!"