"No, no," she rejoined earnestly, "it is not that only. You are my friend, good Richard, and I do not wish to see you eating out your heart in vain and foolish regrets. What you . . . what you wish could never—never be. Good master, if you were rich to-morrow and I penniless, I could never be your wife."
"You mean that you could never love me?" he asked.
She was silent. A fierce wave of jealousy—mad, insane, elemental jealousy seemed suddenly to sweep over him.
"You love someone else?" he demanded brusquely.
"What right have you to ask?"
"The right of a man who would gladly die to see you happy."
He spoke harshly, almost brutally. Jealousy had killed all humility in him. Love—proud, passionate and defiant—stood up for its just claims, for its existence, its right to dominate, its desire to conquer.
But even as he thus stood before her, almost frightening her now by the violence of his speech, by the latent passion in him, which no longer would bear to be held in check, the bank of clouds which up to now had obscured the brilliance of the summer sky, finally swept away eastwards, revealing the luminous firmament and the pale crescent moon which now glimmered coldly through the branches of the trees.
A muffled sound as of someone treading cautiously the thick bed of moss, and the creaking of tiny twigs caused Richard Lambert to look up momentarily from the form of the girl whom he so dearly loved, and to peer beyond her into the weirdly illumined density of the wood.
Not twenty yards from where they were, a low wall divided the park itself from the wood beyond, which extended down to Acol village. At an angle of the wall there was an iron gate, also the tumble-down pavilion, ivy-grown and desolate, with stone steps leading up to it, through the cracks of which weeds and moss sprouted up apace.
A man had just emerged from out the thicket and was standing now to the farther side of the gate looking straight at Lambert and at Sue, who stood in the full light of the moon. A broad-brimmed hat, such as cavaliers affected, cast a dark shadow over his face.
It was a mere outline only vaguely defined against the background of trees, but in that outline Lambert had already recognized the mysterious stranger who lodged in his brother's cottage down in Acol.
The fixed intensity of the young man's gaze caused Sue to turn and to look in the same direction. She saw the stranger, who encountering two pairs of eyes fixed on him, raised his hat with a graceful flourish of the arm: then, with a short ironical laugh, went his way, and was once more lost in the gloom.
The girl instinctively made a movement as if to follow him, whilst a quickly smothered cry—half of joy and half of fear—escaped her lips. She checked the movement as well as the cry, but not before Richard Lambert had perceived both.
With the perception came the awful, overwhelming certitude.
"That adventurer!" he exclaimed involuntarily. "Oh my God!"
But she looked him full in the face, and threw back her head with a gesture of pride and of wrath.
"Master Lambert," she said haughtily, "methinks 'twere needless to remind you that—since I inadvertently revealed my most cherished secret to you—it were unworthy a man of honor to betray it to any one."
"My lady . . . Sue," he said, feeling half-dazed, bruised and crushed by the terrible moral blow, which he had just received, "I . . . I do not quite understand. Will you deign to explain?"
"There is naught to explain," she retorted coldly. "Prince Amédé d'Orléans loves me and I have plighted my troth to him."
"Nay! I entreat your ladyship," he said, feeling—knowing the while, how useless it was to make an appeal against the infatuation of a hot-headed and impulsive girl, yet speaking with the courage which ofttimes is born of despair, "I beg of you, on my knees to listen. This foreign adventurer . . ."
"Silence!" she retorted proudly, and drawing back from him, for of a truth he had sunk on his knees before her, "an you desire to be my friend, you must not breathe one word of slander against the man I love. . . ."
Then, as he said nothing, realizing, indeed, how futile would be any effort or word from him, she said, with growing enthusiasm, whilst her glowing eyes fixed themselves upon the gloom which had enveloped the mysterious apparition of her lover:
"Prince Amédé d'Orléans is the grandest, most selfless patriot this world hath ever known. For the sake of France, of tyrannized, oppressed France, which he adores, he has sacrificed everything! his position, his home, his wealth and vast estates: he is own kinsman to King Louis, yet he is exiled from his country whilst a price is set upon his head, because he cannot be mute whilst he sees tyranny and oppression grind down the people of France. He could return to Paris to-day a rich and free man, a prince among his kindred,—if he would but sacrifice that for which he fights so bravely: the liberty of France!"
"Sue! my adored lady," he entreated, "in the name of Heaven listen to me. . . . You do believe, do you not, that I am your friend? . . . I would give my life for you. . . . I swear to you that you have been deceived and tricked by this adventurer, who, preying upon your romantic imagination . . ."
"Silence, master, an you value my friendship!" she commanded. "I will not listen to another word. Nay! you should be thankful that I deal not more harshly with you—that I make allowances for your miserable jealousy. . . . Oh! why did you make me say that," she added with one of those swift changes of mood, which were so characteristic of her, and with sudden contrition, for an involuntary moan had escaped his lips. "In the name of Heaven, go—go now I entreat . . . leave me to myself . . . lest anger betray me into saying cruel things . . . I am safe—quite safe . . . I entreat you to let me return to the house alone."
Her voice sounded more and more broken as she spoke: sobs were evidently rising in her throat. He pulled himself together, feeling that it were unmanly to worry her now, when emotion was so obviously overmastering her.
"Forgive me, sweet lady," he said quite gently, as he rose from his knees. "I said more than I had any right to say. I entreat you to forgive the poor, presuming peasant who hath dared to raise his eyes to the fairy princess of his dreams. I pray you to try and forget all that hath happened to-night beneath the shadows of these elms—and only to remember one thing: that my life—my lonely, humble, unimportant life—is yours . . . to serve or help you, to worship or comfort you if need be . . . and that there could be no greater happiness for me than to give it for your sweet sake."
He bowed very low, until his hand could reach the hem of her kirtle, which he then raised to his lips. She was infinitely sorry for him; all her anger against him had vanished.
He was very reluctant to go, for this portion of the park was some distance from the house. But she had commanded and he quite understood that she wished to be alone: love such as that which he felt for his sweet lady is ever watchful, yet ever discreet. Was it not natural that she did not care to look on him after he had angered her so?
She seemed impatient too, and although her feelings towards him had softened, she repeated somewhat nervously: "I pray you go! Good master, I would be alone."
Lambert hesitated a while longer, he looked all round him as if suspicious of any marauders that might be lurking about. The hour was not very late, and had she not commanded him to go?
Nor would he seem to pry on her movements. Having once made up his mind to obey, he did so without reserve. Having kissed the hem of her kirtle he turned towards the house.
He meant to keep on the tiny footpath, which she would be bound to traverse after him, when she returned. He felt sure that something would warn him if she really needed his help.
The park and woodland were still: only the mournful hooting of an owl, the sad sighing of the wind in the old elms broke the peaceful silence of this summer's night.
CHAPTER VII
THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES
Sue waited—expectant and still—until the last sound of the young man's footsteps had died away in the direction of the house.
Then with quick impulsive movements she ran to the gate; her hands sought impatiently in the dark for the primitive catch which held it to. A large and rusty bolt! she pulled at it—clumsily, for her hands were trembling. At last the gate flew open; she was out in the woods, peering into the moonlit thicket, listening for that most welcome sound, the footsteps of the man she loved.
"My prince!" she exclaimed, for already he was beside her—apparently he had lain in wait for her, and now held her in his arms.
"My beautiful and gracious lady," he murmured in that curiously muffled voice of his, which seemed to endow his strange personality with additional mystery.
"You heard? . . . you saw just now? . . ." she asked timidly, fearful of encountering his jealous wrath, that vehement temper of his which she had learned to dread.
Strangely enough he replied quite gently: "Yes . . . I saw . . . the young man loves you, my beautiful Suzanne! . . . and he will hate me now . . ."
He had always called her Suzanne—and her name thus spoken by him, and with that quaint foreign intonation of his had always sounded infinitely sweet.
"But I love you with all my heart," she said earnestly, tenderly, her whole soul—young, ardent, full of romance, going out to him with all the strength of its purity and passion. "What matter if all the world were against you?"
As a rule when they met thus on the confines of the wood, they would stand together by the gate, forming plans, talking of the future and of their love. Then after a while they would stroll into the park, he escorting her, as far as he might approach the house without being seen.
She had no thought that Richard Lambert would be on the watch. Nay! so wholly absorbed was she in her love for this man, once she was in his presence, that already—womanlike—she had forgotten the young student's impassioned avowal, his jealousy, his very existence.
And she loved these evening strolls in the great, peaceful park, at evening, when the birds were silent in their nests, and the great shadows of ivy-covered elms enveloped her and her romance. From afar a tiny light gleamed here and there in some of the windows of Acol Court.
She had hated the grim, bare house at first, so isolated in the midst of the forests of Thanet, so like the eyrie of a bird of prey.
But now she loved the whole place; the bit of ill-kept tangled garden, with its untidy lawn and weed-covered beds, in which a few standard rose-trees strove to find a permanent home; she loved the dark and mysterious park, the rusty gate, that wood with its rich carpet which varied as each season came around.
To-night her lover was more gentle than had been his wont of late. They walked cautiously through the park, for the moon was brilliant and outlined every object with startling vividness. The trees here were sparser. Close by was the sunk fence and the tiny rustic bridge—only a plank or two—which spanned it.
Some thirty yards ahead of them they could see the dark figure of Richard Lambert walking towards the house.
"One more stroll beneath the trees, ma mie," he said lightly, "you'll not wish to encounter your ardent suitor again."
She loved him in this brighter mood, when he had thrown from him that mantle of jealousy and mistrust which of late had sat on him so ill.
He seemed to have set himself the task of pleasing her to-night—of making her forget, mayhap, the wooing of the several suitors who had hung round her to-day. He talked to her—always in that mysterious, muffled voice, with the quaint rolling of the r's and the foreign intonation of the vowels—he talked to her of King Louis and his tyranny over the people of France: of his own political aims to which he had already sacrificed fortune, position, home. Of his own brilliant past at the most luxurious court the world had ever known. He fired her enthusiasm, delighted her imagination, enchained her soul to his: she was literally swept off the prosy face of this earth and whirled into a realm of romance, enchanting, intoxicating, mystic—almost divine.
She forgot fleeting time, and did not even hear the church bell over at Acol village striking the hour of ten.
He had to bring her back to earth, and to guide her reluctant footsteps again towards the house. But she was too happy to part from him so easily. She forced him to escort her over the little bridge, under the pretense of terror at the lateness of the hour. She vowed that he could not be perceived from the house, since all the lights were out, and everyone indeed must be abed. Her guardian's windows, moreover, gave on the other side of the house; and he of a surety would not be moon or star gazing at this hour of the night.
Her mood was somewhat reckless. The talk with which he had filled her ears had gone to her brain like wine. She felt intoxicated with the atmosphere of mystery, of selfless patriotism, of great and fallen fortunes, with which he knew so well how to surround himself. Mayhap, that in her innermost heart now there was a scarce conscious desire to precipitate a crisis, to challenge discovery, to step boldly before her guardian, avowing her love, demanding the right to satisfy it.
She refused to bid him adieu save at the garden door. Three steps led up straight into the dining-room from the flagged pathway which skirted the house. She ran up these steps, silently and swiftly as a little mouse, and then turned her proud and happy face to him.
"Good-night, sweet prince," she whispered, extending her delicate hand to him.
She stood in the full light of the moon dominating him from the top of the steps, an exquisite vision of youth and beauty and romance.
He took off his broad-brimmed hat, but his face was still in shadow, for the heavy perruque fell in thick dark curls covering both his cheeks. He bent very low and kissed the tips of her fingers.
"When shall we meet again, my prince?" she asked.
"This day week, an it please you, my queen," he murmured.
And then he turned to go. She meant to stand there and watch him cross the tangled lawn, and the little bridge, and to see him lose himself amidst the great shadows of the park.
But he had scarce gone a couple of steps when a voice, issuing from the doorway close behind her, caused her to turn in quick alarm.
"Sue! in the name of Heaven! what doth your ladyship here and at this hour?"
The crisis which the young girl had almost challenged, had indeed arrived. Mistress de Chavasse—carrying a lighted and guttering candle, was standing close behind her. At the sound of her voice and Sue's little cry of astonishment rather than fear, Prince Amédé d'Orléans too, had paused, with a muttered curse on his lips, his foot angrily tapping the flagstones.
But it were unworthy a gallant gentleman of the most chivalrous Court in the world to beat a retreat when his mistress was in danger of an unpleasant quarter of an hour.
Sue was more than a little inclined to be defiant.
"Mistress de Chavasse," she said quietly, "will you be good enough to explain by what right you have spied on me to-night? Hath my guardian perchance set you to dog my footsteps?"
"There was no thought in my mind of spying on your ladyship," rejoined Mistress de Chavasse coldly. "I was troubled in my sleep and came downstairs because I heard a noise, and feared those midnight marauders of which we have heard so much of late. I myself had locked this door, and was surprised to find it unlatched. I opened it and saw you standing there."
"Then we'll all to bed, fair mistress," rejoined Sue gayly. She was too happy, too sure of herself and of her lover to view this sudden discovery of her secret with either annoyance or alarm. She would be free in three months, and he would be faithful to her. Love proverbially laughs at bars and bolts, and even if her stern guardian, apprised of her evening wanderings, prevented her from seeing her prince for the next three months, pshaw! a hundred days at most, and nothing could keep her from his side.
"Good-night, fair prince," she repeated tenderly, extending her hand towards her lover once more, while throwing a look of proud defiance to Mistress de Chavasse. He could not help but return to the foot of the steps; any pusillanimity on his part at this juncture, any reluctance to meet Editha face to face or to bear the brunt of her reproaches and of her sneers, might jeopardize the romance of his personality in the eyes of Sue. Therefore he boldly took her hand and kissed it with mute fervor.
She gave a happy little laugh and added pertly:
"Good-night, mistress . . . I'll leave you to make your own adieux to Monseigneur le Prince d'Orléans. I'll warrant that you and he—despite the lateness of the hour—will have much to say to one another."
And without waiting to watch the issue of her suggestion, her eyes dancing with mischief, she turned and ran singing and laughing into the house.
CHAPTER VIII
PRINCE AMÉDÉ D'ORLÉANS
At first it seemed as if the stranger meant to beat a precipitate and none too dignified retreat now that the adoring eyes of Lady Sue were no longer upon him. But Mistress de Chavasse had no intention of allowing him to extricate himself quite so easily from an unpleasant position.
"One moment, master," she said loudly and peremptorily. "Prince or whatever you may wish to call yourself . . . ere you show me a clean pair of heels, I pray you to explain your presence here on Sir Marmaduke's doorstep at ten o'clock at night, and in company with his ward."
For a moment—a second or two only—the stranger appeared to hesitate. He paused with one foot still on the lowest of the stone steps, the other on the flagged path, his head bent, his hand upraised in the act of re-adjusting his broad-brimmed hat.
Then a sudden thought seemed to strike him, he threw back his head, gave a short laugh as if he were pleased with this new thought, then turned, meeting Mistress de Chavasse's stern gaze squarely and fully. He threw his hat down upon the steps and crossed his arms over his chest.
"One moment, mistress?" he said with an ironical bow. "I do not need one moment. I have already explained."
"Explained? how?" she retorted, "nay! I'll not be trifled with, master, and methinks you will find that Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse will expect some explanation—which will prove unpleasant to yourself—for your unwarrantable impudence in daring to approach his ward."
He put up his hand in gentle deprecation.
"Impudence? Oh, mistress?" he said reproachfully.
"Let me assure you, master," she continued with relentless severity, "that you were wise an you returned straightway to your lodgings now . . . packed your worldly goods and betook yourself and them to anywhere you please."
"Ah!" he sighed gently, "that is impossible."
"You would dare? . . ." she retorted.
"I would dare remain there, where my humble presence is most desired—beside the gracious lady who honors me with her love."
"You are insolent, master . . . and Sir Marmaduke . . ."
"Oh!" he rejoined lightly, "Sir Marmaduke doth not object."
"There, I fear me, you are in error, master! and in his name I now forbid you ever to attempt to speak to Lady Susannah Aldmarshe again."
This command, accompanied by a look of withering scorn, seemed to afford the stranger vast entertainment. He made the wrathful lady a low, ironical bow, and clapped his hands together laughing and exclaiming:
"Brava! brava! of a truth but this is excellent! Pray, mistress, will you deign to tell me if in this your bidding you have asked Sir Marmaduke for his opinion?"
"I need not to ask him. I ask you to go."
"Go? Whither?" he asked blandly.
"Out of my sight and off these grounds at once, ere I rouse the servants and have you whipped off like a dog!" she said, angered beyond measure at his audacity, his irony, his manner, suggestive of insolent triumph. His muffled voice with its curious foreign accent irritated her, as did the shadow of his perruque over his brow, and the black silk shade which he wore over one eye.
Even now in response to her violent outburst he broke into renewed laughter.
"Better and better! Ah, mistress," he said with a shake of the head, "of a truth you are more blind than I thought."
"You are more insolent, master, than I had thought possible."
"Yet meseems, fair lady, that in the lonely and mysterious stranger you might have remembered your humble and devoted servant," he said, drawing his figure up towards her.
"You! an old friend!" she said contemptuously. "I have ne'er set eyes on you in my life before."
"To think that the moon should be so treacherous," he rejoined imperturbably. "Will you not look a little closer, fair mistress, the shadows are somewhat dark, mayhap."
She felt his one eye fixed upon her with cold intentness, a strange feeling of superstitious dread suddenly crept over her from head to foot. Like a bird fascinated by a snake she came a little nearer, down the steps, towards him, her eyes, too, riveted on his face, that curious face of his, surrounded by the heavy perruque hiding ears and cheeks, the mouth overshadowed by the dark mustache, one eye concealed beneath the black silk shade.
He seemed amused at her terror and as she came nearer to him, he too, advanced a little until their eyes met—his, mocking, amused, restless; hers, intent and searching.
Thus they gazed at one another for a few seconds, whilst silence reigned around and the moon peered down cold and chaste from above, illumining the old house, the neglected garden, the vast park with its innumerable dark secrets and the mysteries which it hid.
She was the first to step back, to recoil before the ironical intensity of that fixed gaze. She felt as if she were in a dream, as if a nightmare assailed her, which in her wakeful hours would be dissipated by reason, by common sense, by sound and sober fact.
She even passed her hand across her eyes as if to sweep away from before her vision, a certain image which fancy had conjured up.
His laugh—strident and mocking—roused her from this dreamlike state.
"I . . . I . . . do not understand," she murmured.
"Yet it is so simple," he replied, "did you not ask me awhile ago if nothing could be done?"
"Who . . . who are you?" she whispered, and then repeated once again: "Who are you?"
"I am His Royal Highness, Prince Amédé d'Orléans," said Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse lightly, "the kinsman of His Majesty, King Louis of France, the mysterious foreigner who works for the religious and political freedom of his country, and on whose head le roi soleil hath set a price . . . and who, moreover, hath enflamed the romantic imagination of a beautiful young girl, thus winning her ardent love in the present and in the near future together with her vast fortune and estates."
He made a movement as if to remove his perruque but she stopped him with a gesture. She had understood. And in the brilliant moonlight a complete revelation of his personality might prove dangerous. Lady Sue herself might still—for aught they knew—be standing in the dark room behind—unseen yet on the watch.
He seemed vastly amused at her terror, and boldly took the hand with which she had arrested his act of total revelation.
"Nay! do you recognize your humble servant at last, fair Editha?" he queried. "On my honor, madam, Lady Sue is deeply enamored of me. What think you of my chances now?"
"You? You?" she repeated at intervals, mechanically, dazed still, lost in a whirl of conflicting emotions wherein fear, amazement, and a certain vein of superstitious horror fought a hard battle in her dizzy brain.
"The risks," she murmured more coherently.
"Bah!"
"If she discover you, before . . . before . . ."
"Before she is legally my wife? Pshaw! . . . Then of a truth my scheme will come to naught . . . But will you not own, Editha, that 'tis worth the risk?"
"Afterwards?" she asked, "afterwards?"
"Afterwards, mistress," he rejoined enigmatically, "afterwards sits on the knees of the gods."
And with a flourish of his broad-brimmed hat he turned on his heel and anon was lost in the shadows of the tall yew hedge.
How long she stood there watching that spot whereon he had been standing, she could not say. Presently she shivered; the night had turned cold. She heard the cry of some small bird attacked by a midnight prowler; was it the sparrow-hawk after its prey?
From the other side of the house came the sound of slow and firm footsteps, then the opening and shutting of a door.
Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse had played his part for to-night: silently as he had gone, so he returned to his room, whilst in another corner of the sparrow-hawk's nest a young girl slept, dreaming dreams of patriots and heroes, of causes nobly won, of poverty and obscurity gloriously endured.
Mistress de Chavasse with a sigh half of regret, half of indifference, finally turned her back on the moonlit garden and went within.