"Oh, you are right, of course. You always are," she said. "That makes it so annoying. But there are no women or servants here now, and you can speak freely, and – and at once. Did you see Blair?"
"I had just left him when I met you," he answered.
"Well?" she said, and her eyes sought his face eagerly, impatiently. "Where has he been?"
"To Leyton Court," he replied.
"To the earl's," she said. "I thought so."
"Yes," he said slowly; "he has been to the earl."
"Well, has he done anything for him?"
"No; nothing."
A look of relief shone in her eyes.
"I am glad, glad!" she murmured.
"He offered to lend him – or give him – the money he wanted, but Blair refused."
"He refused? That was like him!" she said, with a touch of pride and satisfaction. "Yes, that was just like him. They quarreled, of course?"
"Oh, yes, they quarreled!" assented Austin Ambrose quietly. "There were the materials for a quarrel. It seems that, finding the journey tedious, Blair enlivened it by fighting with one of the rustics."
She smiled, and a strange look came into her eyes.
"Yes, that is Blair all over! And the earl heard of it?"
"Yes," he said, slowly, "he heard of it; and, as the combat took place just outside the Court gates, he was not altogether pleased. Blair's account is amusing."
"He shall tell me! He shall tell me!" she said, looking into vacancy, her cheeks mantling, her eyes glowing. "I – I have never seen him fight – "
"I dare say he would gratify any desire you may have in that direction. He is always ready to fight, and on the smallest provocation," remarked Austin Ambrose, with icy coldness.
"No," she said, "he is not! He is not easily provoked, but when he is – but what does it matter? We don't want to waste time quarreling about him. I want to hear all – all that occurred!"
"I came to tell you," he said, slowly. "The earl, notwithstanding his anger at the brawl outside the Court gates, offered to lend Blair the money to help him out of this difficulty, but Blair refused."
"And – and Ketton must go?" she said, in a tone of satisfaction.
"Ketton must go the way of the rest," he assented.
She nodded, her small eyes shining brightly – too brightly.
"Ketton gone; there is not much left to fall back upon, is there?"
"No, not much," he replied.
"And – and he will not pull up; will not retrench? You will prevent that?" and she looked at him anxiously.
He did not reply, but his silence was significant enough.
"And he thinks you his best friend, his Fides Achates. Poor Blair!" and she laughed. "All his money gone, and his estates; Ketton is the last! Yes, he cannot keep the pace much longer. He will be – what do you men call it? – 'stone broke,' and then – and then!" She drew a long breath, and her lips closed and opened. "And then he will come to me! He must come!" she exclaimed, her hand trembling. "He will come back to me, and – " She stopped suddenly, arrested by a look in his cold secretive eyes. "Is there anything else? Have you told me all?"
He was silent a moment, and she accosted him with an exclamation of impatient impetuosity.
"What else is there? Why do you sit there silent, if there is anything else to tell? Do you remember our bargain?"
"Yes, I remember it," he said, after a moment's pause, during which he looked, not at her, but just over her head, in the manner which Captain Floyd found so objectionable. "It is not so long ago that I should forget it. It was made in this room. I had the presumption to offer you – "
"Never mind that!" she broke in, but as if she had not spoken he went on in his cold, impassive manner.
"I had the presumption to offer you my hand, to beg yours! I was fool enough to imagine that your smiles and your sweet words were intended to signify that such an offer would not meet with a refusal. It was a mistake! I had forgotten that I was poor, and that you were rich. You recalled me to my senses by a laugh, which I hear still – "
"What is the use – " she tried to break in with, but he went on.
"Most men, I believe, placed in a like position, that of a rejected suitor, implore the lady who refuses them her love to grant them her friendship. I did so. But while most men mean nothing by it, I meant a great deal. If I could not have you for myself, I was ready to serve you as a grand vizier serves his sultan, or a slave its master. You accepted my offer. It was not I you wanted, but another man; that man was Blair Leyton."
"You – you put it plainly," she murmured, biting her lip.
He looked over her head.
"Yes. Truth is natural, always," he said. "I undertook to help you to gain him, asking for no definite reward, but trusting to your generosity."
"You shall ask for what you like. I will grant it," she said, "you know that."
"Yes," he said, "I know that," but his response was uttered with a significance which she did not appreciate. "You and he were engaged, the engagement is broken off; it is my task to see that it is renewed. I am engaged in that task now. Between us, it is understood there should be no concealment. Concealments would be fatal. You ask me to tell you all concerning this visit of Blair to the Court. I intend doing so. There is not much difficulty, for I have just left Blair, who has found out his heart after his fashion."
"His heart! About what?" she demanded, taking up her tea cup.
"About a girl he met there," he said, quietly and coldly.
The fragile and priceless piece of porcelain fell crushed by her fingers.
He rose courteously and picked up the fragments.
"It will spoil the set," he remarked, coolly.
"Girl – girl! What girl?" she demanded.
She was white to the lips, and her gray eyes seemed to have grown dark, almost black.
"A girl whom he found staying in the house," he rejoined, with a cool ease that maddened her. "I can describe her, for Blair was minute to weariness. She is tall, graceful, has auburn hair, large and expressive eyes, a small mouth, a clear, musical voice, an angelic smile – "
She put up her hand.
"Are – are you saying all this to – to play with me?" she said, and her voice was almost hoarse.
He raised his brows and looked above her head with an air of surprise.
"No. They are his own words," he said.
"And – and you think he is in" – she paused; something seemed to stop her utterance for a moment – "he is in love with this girl?"
He sat silent for a moment.
"If he is to be believed, he is most certainly," he responded, coldly; "very much in love – head over heels! He raved about her for nearly an hour by the clock; I timed him."
She sprung to her feet and moved to and fro, her tiny hand clutching the riding-whip until the nails ran into her soft, pink palm. Then she stopped suddenly and looked at him.
"And this – this girl?" she said. "Who is she?"
"The daughter – no, to be exact, the granddaughter of the earl's housekeeper," he said slowly, as if he enjoyed it.
She panted and drew her breath heavily.
"A servant!" she exclaimed, and she laughed, a cruel unwomanly laugh.
"By no means," he said. "She is, according to Blair, and he is a fair judge, a lady. She is an artist, and is copying the pictures in the Court gallery."
Her face grew white and anxious again.
"What – what is her name?" she demanded, and her voice was hard and hoarse.
He took an ivory tablet from his pocket and consulted it.
"Her name is Margaret – a pretty name; reminds one of Faust, doesn't it? Margaret Hale."
"Margaret Hale," she repeated slowly; then she came and stood in front of him, her gray eyes as hard as steel, her lips drawn across her white, even teeth. "And he – you say – he is in love with her?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"He says so," he said coldly.
"And – and he speaks of marrying her?"
"Apparently it is the one and absorbing desire of his life," he responded in exactly the same manner.
She opened her lips as if about to speak again, then sank on to a couch in silence.
He rose.
"I'll go," he said.
"Wait!" she said, and she stretched out her hand with the whip in it. "Austin, this – this, must be stopped, prevented – " she spoke with a panting breathlessness. "You – you understand. It must be prevented, at all costs, at any risks! You will do it! Promise me! Remember our bargain! Ask what you please, I will grant it. Half – every penny I possess – anything! You will prevent it!"
He stood looking at her without an atom of expression on his clean-cut face, which might have been a marble mask.
"I understand," he said, after the pause. "At any cost? You will not upbraid, reproach me in the future, whatever may happen?"
"No. I shall not! At any cost!" she repeated, meeting his cold glance.
He stood regarding the wall above her head for a moment, then, without a word, went out and left her.
Slowly, impassively, he paced down the stairs, his eyes fixed on the open doorway and the street beyond, but reaching the hall, which happened to be empty, he paused, and with his foot on the doorstep, he turned round and smiled.
It was a peculiar smile and difficult to analyze, but supposing a man had caught a wild animal in a trap and had left it hard and fast, to be killed at his leisure, that man might smile as Austin Ambrose smiled as he looked round the hall of Violet Graham's house in Park Lane.
CHAPTER VIII
Margaret had never been in love. If any one had asked her why not, she would have said that she was too busy, and hadn't time. Young men had admired her, and some few, the artists whom she met now and again, had fallen in love with her, but no one had ever spoken of the great mystery to her, for there was something about Margaret, with all her wildness, an indescribable maiden dignity which kept men silent.
Lord Blair had been the first to speak to her in tones hinting at passion, and it is little wonder that his words clung to her, and utterly refused to be dismissed from her mind, though she tried hard and honestly to forget them; even endeavored to laugh at them, as the wild words of a wild young man, who would probably forget that he had ever spoken them, and forget her, too, an hour or two after he had got to London.
But she could not. She said not a word of what had occurred to old Mrs. Hale, for she felt that she could not have borne the flow of talk, and comment, and rebuke which the old lady would pour out. It would have been better if she had spoken and told her all; a thing divided becomes halved, a thing dwelt upon grows and gets magnified.
Margaret brooded over the wild words Lord Blair had said until every sentence was engraved on her mind; even the expression of his face as he stood before her, defiant as a Greek god, got impressed upon her memory so that she could call it up whenever she pleased, and, indeed, it rose before her when she did not even wish it.
"This is absurd and – and nonsensical!" she exclaimed on the second day after his departure, when she suddenly awoke to the fact that she had been sitting, brush in hand, staring before her and recalling Lord Blair's handsome, dare-devil eyes, as they had looked into hers. "I am behaving like a foolish, sentimental idiot!" she told herself, dabbing some color on her canvas with angry self-reproach. "What on earth can it matter to me what such a person as Viscount Leyton said to me? I shall never see him again, and he has probably forgotten, by this time, that such a person as myself exists! I am an idiot not to be able to forget him as easily. He behaved like a savage to the very last, and I would not speak to him again if – if we were cast alone on a desert island!"
She sprung to her feet with an exclamation of annoyance, and began bundling her painting materials together, and was in the midst of clearing up, when she heard a step behind her, and saw the earl.
It was near the dinner hour, and he was in evening dress, for, though he dined alone, he always assumed the regulation attire; and Margaret, as she looked at him, could not help noticing the vague likeness between him and Lord Blair.
"Do I disturb you?" he said, in his low, grave voice, and he paused with the knightly courtesy for which he was famous.
"No, my lord. I have just finished for to-day," said Margaret, rather shyly, for she felt his greatness, which spoke in the tone of his voice, and proclaimed itself even in his gait, and the way he held himself.
With a slight inclination of his head he came and stood before the canvas.
A slight expression of surprise came over his face.
"You have made an excellent copy," he said. "I think you are capable of higher work – original work."
Margaret's face flushed with pleasure, but she said nothing. It was not for so humble an individual as herself to bandy compliments with so great a personage as the Earl of Ferrers.
"You have worked hard," he said, looking at her; "not too hard, I hope."
Now Margaret had grown rather pale during these last two days. It had been one of the results of Lord Blair's passionate words. She did not sleep much at night, and what with this and dwelling upon the scene that had passed between them, the roses which Mrs. Hale wished to see had vanished from her face.
"You are looking tired and pale," said the earl, in a gravely kind fashion.
"I am quite well, my lord," she said, standing with lowered lids under the piercing gaze of the dark-gray eyes.
"Yes, it is a very good copy," he said, returning to the picture. "I should have paid you a visit before; I have not lost my interest in art, but I have been engaged and indisposed. I have had my nephew with me," he continued, more to himself than to her – "Lord Leyton." He sighed. "You may not have seen him?"
"I have seen him, my lord," said Margaret, and for the life of her she could not help the tell-tale flush rising to her face.
His eyes rested on hers, and seemed to sink to the innermost depths of her soul.
"Have you spoken to him?" he asked, not angrily, but in the tones a judge might use.
Margaret's face grew pale again.
"I have spoken to him, my lord," she said.
The earl's face grew stern and he stood perfectly motionless, with his eyes fixed on her face.
"I am sorry for that."
"Sorry, my lord?" faltered Margaret.
"I am sorry," he repeated. "My nephew, Lord Leyton, is a wicked and unprincipled young man. He is not fit – "
"Oh, my lord!" said Margaret, all her womanly chivalry rising on behalf of the absent.
The earl looked at her, his eyes dark and severe.
"He is not fit to hold converse with such as you." Then the look of grief and surprise seemed to recall him to himself. "No matter. He has gone. It is not likely that you will see him again – "
"No, my lord," assented Margaret, with simple dignity.
"Let us say no more about him. He has nearly broken my heart; he is the one thorn in my side," he went on, notwithstanding that he had said no more should be spoken of the wicked young man. "He is a spendthrift and a gambler, and – " he stopped, suddenly. "If your work is done, permit me to walk with you on the terrace; the air is cool and inviting."
"I have finished for to-day, my lord," she said.
He went to the window and opened it wide for her, and held it open until she had passed out.
It was only to Lord Blair that he was rough and fierce.
"It is a lovely evening," he said, looking out upon the far-stretching lawns.
Margaret stood beside him in silence.
"What will you do with your Guido when you have finished it, Miss Hale?" he said, after a moment or two.
Margaret laughed softly.
"I don't know, my lord," she said at last.
"If you will sell it, I will buy it," he said.
Margaret flushed with gratification.
"I do not know its worth, but I will venture to offer you fifty pounds."
"That's a great deal too much, my lord," she said, decidedly.
"I think not," he responded, so quietly that she could say nothing else beyond "Thank you, my lord!"
"You shall paint another picture for me," he said; "not a copy this time." He paused a moment, then went on, "Choose some small piece of woodland scenery and paint it for me, if you will, Miss Hale."
"I will, my lord," said Margaret, gratefully.
Her simple response seemed to please him, and he looked at her thoughtfully, and with a sad regret. Why had not Heaven blessed him with a daughter like to this beautiful girl? was passing through his mind.
Then he said suddenly:
"You have no parents, Miss Hale?"
"No, my lord," said Margaret sadly.
"And you rely upon your own efforts?" he said gently.
"Yes," replied Margaret, "I depend entirely upon my painting, Lord Ferrers."
"It is not an ignoble dependence," said the stately old man. "You are happy in being able to rely upon yourself. And you delight in your work?"
"I am fonder of it than anything else, my lord," said Margaret, with a smile.
The earl paced toward the broad steps that lead from the terrace to the gardens, and Margaret, feeling that she must not go until she was dismissed, walked by his side.
At a turn in the path he stopped short.
"I must leave you now," he said. "Good-bye! Perhaps, some day, you will be kind enough to give me your company in another stroll. You will not forget the picture?"
"Oh, no, my lord," said Margaret, dropping a courtesy.
The earl paced slowly to his own apartments, and entering the library, sat down before the great carved writing-table.
For half an hour he sat musing.
"So young, so innocent, so much at the mercy of the cold, cruel world. Depends upon her art! Poor child, a frail dependence! Why should I not? I am rich beyond calculation, as they tell me. Why should I not do one act of common kindness, and make my money of some use to one deserving it? Hitherto it has passed, through Blair's hands to blacklegs and scoundrels."
He drew the paper toward him and took up the pen with an air of resolution and wrote a note to Messrs. Tyler & Driver, the family solicitors.
"Gentlemen," he wrote, "add a codicil to my will, bequeathing five thousand pounds to Margaret Hale, the granddaughter of Mrs. Hale, who acts as the Court housekeeper.
Very truly yours,Ferrers."
It was an important letter for Margaret, but it bore upon her future to an extent far greater than would be inferred even by the gift of so large a sum of money.
CHAPTER IX
It was only when she had left the earl that Margaret noticed how kind and gracious he had been. He had not only bought the copy of the Guido, and commissioned another picture of her, but had walked by her side and smiled upon her, treating her almost as an equal, with a gentleness and deference indeed which seemed to indicate that he thought her a superior.
"I'll go into the woods and find a subject at once," she said to herself. "And it shall be my very best picture, or – I'll know the reason why. No wonder people are fond of lords and ladies, if they are all like the great Earl of Ferrers."
No doubt, if she had known the contents of the letter he had just written to Messrs. Tyler & Driver, she would have thought still more highly of him.
She had a sketch-block and pencil in her hand, and she went through to the woods that fringed the Court lawns on three sides.
They were lovely woods: there was no more beautiful place in England than Leyton Court, and Margaret almost forgot the purpose for which she had come, as she sat in a little bushy dell, through which ran a tiny stream, tumbling in silvery cascades over the bowlders rounded by the hand of Time.
But presently, when she had drank deep of its beauty, she began to make a sketch of the dell.
What a lucky girl she was! The possessor of the silver medal, an exhibitor in the Academy, and now commissioned by no less a personage than the Earl of Ferrers.
"I shall be really famous if I go on like this," she said to herself, with a soft laugh.
Then the laugh died out on her lips, for, with a sudden spring, a young man reached the rock she was at that moment sketching, and from it dropped to her side.
It was Lord Leyton.
Margaret was so startled that she let the sketch-block fall from her hand, and sat looking at him, with the color slowly fading from her face. She had succeeded in forgetting him for a short hour or two, and here he was at her side again.
And Lord Blair assuredly looked, if not startled, pale and haggard.
For the last two days, since he had left Margaret, overwhelmed by his passionate outburst, he had been living after his wildest and most reckless fashion, and two days of such dissipation and sleeplessness, added to passion, tell even upon such perfect physical specimens of humanity as Blair Leyton.
"Lord Leyton!" she said at last.
He picked up her sketch-block, but held it, still looking at her.
"I've frightened you," he said, remorsefully; "I – I am a brute. I did not know you were here until I jumped upon that stone, when I was close upon you."
Margaret tried to smile.
"It does not matter," she said. "Give me my block, please," and she held out her hand.
He drew a little nearer, and gave her the block.
"You are sketching?" he said, his eyes fixed on her face with a wistful eagerness.
She inclined her head.
"Yes; I am painting a picture for the earl."
"For the earl!" he repeated dully, as if her voice, and not the words she said, were of importance to him.
"Yes; if you wish to see him, you will find him at home; he has just left me."
"Just left you!" he repeated as before. "No; I don't want to see him."
Margaret raised her eyes and looked at him.
"You have not come down to see him?" she said with faint surprise.
"No!" he responded. "He wouldn't see me if I had. But I didn't come to see him; I came – " then he stopped for a second. "Miss Margaret, I am afraid to tell you why I came."
"Then don't tell me," said Margaret, trying to force a smile. "It sounds as if you had come for no good purpose, my lord."
He stood silent for a second, then he flung himself at her feet, and leaning on his elbow, looked up at her with the same eager wistfulness in his handsome eyes.
"Yes, I will tell you," he said; "I came to see you!"
"To see me?" said Margaret, flushing. Then the straight brows came together. "Lord Leyton, you should not have said that!"
"Why should I not?" he demanded, "if it's true – and it is true! Miss Margaret, I have been the wretchedest man in London these last two days."
"I doubt that," said Margaret quietly, and going on with her sketch.
"It's the truth. If there was a man condemned to be hanged, I'll wager he wasn't more wretched than I have been."
"Wicked people are always wretched – or should be, my lord," said Margaret coolly.
"And I am wicked. Yes, I know," he said; "I am the vilest of the vile, in your eyes. But it isn't for what I've done in the past that I'm so miserable, it is for what I said to you in the picture gallery the other morning. Miss Margaret, I behaved like a brute! I – I – said words that – that have made me wish I were dead – "
"That will do, Lord Leyton," said Margaret, interrupting him. "If you are so sorry there need be no more said excepting that I forgive you, and will forget them. I knew that you did not mean them at the time."
His face crimsoned, and his eyes grew almost fierce.
"Stop," he said; "I don't say that. I won't. I'm sorry I was rough; I'm sorry I behaved like a bear and blared and shouted, but I did mean what I said, and mean it still."
"I don't care whether you meant it or not, it is not of the least consequence, Lord Leyton," said Margaret, and she put her pencil in its case, and closed her sketch-block.
"Wait – do wait!" he explained. "Don't go yet. I have so much to say to you, so much, and I don't know how to say it! Miss Margaret, I came down on the chance of seeing you, and all the way down I prepared a speech, but the sight of you so suddenly has driven it all out of my head, and I can think of nothing but three words of it, and – and those I dare not say."
"I must go, my lord," said Margaret, trying to speak calmly and indifferently, but feeling her heart beginning to throb and quiver under the sound of his voice and the passionate regard of his dark eyes.
"Wait – wait five minutes," he implored. "Miss Margaret, don't send me back to London feeling that you despise me. Don't do that! I'm bad enough as it is, but I shall be worse if you do that."
Margaret sank down on the stones again, and listened with her eyes guarded by their long lashes; but she still could see his face.
He drew himself a little nearer.
"Miss Margaret, are you a witch?"
"A witch?" she faltered.
"Yes," he said. "I think you must be one, for you have bewitched me."
"Lord Leyton – "
"Am I not bewitched?" he said, holding out his hands appealingly; "isn't a man bewitched when he can only think of one thing, day and night, and can get no rest or sleep from thinking of it? And that is how it is with me. I can think of nothing but you."
Margaret made a motion to get up, but he laid his hand on the edge of her skirt imploringly.
"That is how it is with me," he went on. "I tell you the simple truth. I – I have never felt like it before. None of the women I ever met made me feel like this! What is it you have done to me to steal the heart out of my body? for I feel that it is gone – gone!" and he touched his breast with his finger.
Margaret tried to smile, but there is a tragedy in real passion which, however wild the language, forbids laughter, and Lord Leyton's passion was real.
"I see your face all day, I hear your voice. I go over every word you said to me – and some of them were hard words! – and – and to-day I felt that I must get near to you, that I must come down to Leyton if I died for it. Do you believe what I say?"
"I know that I should not listen to you, my lord," she said, in a low voice.
"Why not?" he said. "It is true. Miss Margaret, you have stolen my heart; what is there left to me? I have come because I must, and now I am here I am no better, for I feel that I must tell you more, all that there is to tell, even if you send me away. But don't do that if you can help it, for Heaven's sake don't do that!" and she saw that his lips were quivering. "Margaret, you know what I would say," he went on, in the low, thrilling tones of a young and strong man's passion. "I love you!"
Margaret did not start, but a red flush rose and covered her face, then left it pale even to whiteness, and she sat as if turned to stone.
"I love you! Dear, I love you!" he murmured. "Do you – will you not believe me?"
She opened her lips, but he put up his hand.
"No, don't speak – not yet. I know what you were going to say. You were going to say that it is impossible, that we only met a few days ago, that we are strangers. Yes, I know that is what you would say. But it is of no use to say that. Do you think people can get to love by knowing each other a certain number of months – years? Margaret, I think I loved you when I saw you in the village the first time; I know I loved you when you sat by my side in the garden and let me put the rose in your dress! Only a few days ago! Why, it seems years to me – it is years! Oh, Margaret, don't be hard and cruel, and you can be so hard, so cruel! See here; I lay all my life at your feet! It's a bad lot, I know! Why, I told you so, didn't I? But – but I'll change all that! You shall see! Let me go on loving you; let me hope that, some day, you'll try and love me a little in return, and I'll turn over a new leaf! I can never be worthy of you. Oh, I know that. Why, where is there a man in all the world who could be worthy to touch the edge of your dress?" and as he spoke he raised her skirt to his lips, and far from touching herself as his lips were, she seemed to feel them. "But every day, every hour, if you will let me love you, I'll tell myself that I'm of some consequence to someone in the world, and that will keep me straight! Margaret – " he paused and crept a little nearer – "Margaret, you are an angel, and I am a – well, just the other thing; but I ask you to be my guardian angel! Dear, if you knew how I love you! I cannot get your face from before my eyes; every word you have uttered sings in my heart! I am bewitched, bewitched! And – and all I can say is, let me love you all my life, and try and love me a little!"
Pale, trembling, Margaret listened, her eyes downcast, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.
It was all so new, so strange, so unexpected that her heart throbbed and her brain whirled. His words, in their passionate assertion and entreaty, seemed to penetrate to her soul, and with it all a sense of ineffable joy and delight suffused her whole being and ran through every vein.
"You won't speak to me?" he said, with a quick sigh that was almost like a sob. "I see how it is! I am not fit; yes, I know! And I have offended you worse than I did the other morning. I – I am a fool, and I have destroyed my only chance! I meant to be so quiet and – and gentle with you, but I can't teach myself to keep quiet and soft-spoken when my heart is all on fire, and I long to clasp you in my arms and hear you tell me that you love me! Margaret, my good angel! Margaret, won't you say one little word to me? Not to send me away, but to tell me that, bad as I am, you will – well, think a little kindly of me!"
He had drawn himself still closer, so that his face almost touched the lace of her sleeves, and she could see the quiver of his lips under the thick mustache.
He waited a moment, then his head drooped.
"All right," he said; "don't speak. I see how it is. No, I'd rather you didn't speak. I might have known that you wouldn't listen to me, that you wouldn't give me any kind of hope. Good Lord, why should you? Well, I'll take myself off; I'll get out of your sight."
He had raised himself, but Margaret's hand stole out and fell, light as a feather, on his arm.
He seized it as a man dying of thirst in the desert seizes the cup of water that will save him, and covered it with hot passionate kisses.
"No, no!" she breathed, trying to draw it away. "You – you have unnerved me, Lord Leyton!"
"Go on!" he said. "I can bear it better if you will let me keep your hand!" and he pressed it to his lips again "What are you going to say, Margaret? Don't be hard upon me."
"Hard! – how can I be hard?" she faltered, and the tears came thickly into her sweet eyes. "How could anybody be hard, after such – such things as you have said? But – but – oh, my lord – isn't it all a mistake? You – you cannot lov – it is impossible!"