The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals Part 24

Hepworth looked down into that generous face, and his own took a softer expression in the moonlight.

"Your father is against us," he said. "I think it must be open defiance, or separation--at any rate, for a time."

Clara's face clouded. She loved her father, and was a little afraid of him as well; but that was nothing to the pa.s.sionate attachment she felt for Hepworth Closs. She would have defied the whole world rather than give him up; but open disobedience was a terrible thing to her. All at once she brightened.

"Some day, you know, I shall be my own mistress. We can wait. I am so young. When I am Countess of Ca.r.s.et, come and claim me. No one can stand between us then."

She spoke firmly, and with the dignity of deep feeling, standing upright and looking bravely into his face, as if she were a peeress already, and was ready to pledge all the honor of a long race of ancestors for the faith that was in her.

"Ah, if you were only the bright, handsome girl you seem, with no dignity to keep up, no belongings but your own sweet self, how grateful I should be! From this night, Clara, we would never part."

"Oh, if it were! If I hadn't anything to expect! But, no! My old grandmother will be sure to leave me everything she has, just out of spite, when all I want on earth is my liberty, and the love that belongs to me. How I should like to--"

"To what, Clara?"

"Nothing--only I was thinking how jolly it would be just to tie on my hat, b.u.t.ton my jacket, and go off with you to America, where people can't die and leave you t.i.tles and things; but it is of no use thinking of such a thing. It would break mamma Rachael's heart; and she needs me so much."

Hepworth caught his breath. The thought had been in his mind. But for his sister, I think he would have proposed it.

"Do not tempt me, darling. We cannot abandon her."

"Oh, no," answered Clara, pouting a little, "I didn't mean anything of the kind. Of course, we have got to part now; I know that."

She clung to his arm more closely, and made him walk slower. Both their faces grew pale and sad in the moonlight. She could not speak because of the sobs that came swelling into her throat. He was silent from a bitter sense of bereavement. After those few weeks of entire happiness, was he to be driven into the cold world again, leaving the angel of his paradise behind?

They were drawing near the gate now. Hepworth would not pa.s.s into the boundaries of a man who had wounded him so grievously, so he paused by the park-wall, s.n.a.t.c.hed her to his bosom, kissed her lips, her eyes, her hair, blessing her with his soul, promising to find her again, to be faithful, begging her to love him and no one else, until he broke away from her and fled down the highway, das.h.i.+ng the tears from his eyes as he went.

She called after him. She ran a few paces with her arms extended, entreating him to come back; but he would not hear. All his brave manhood had been taxed to its utmost. He knew well enough that to go back was to take the girl with him, and he was not selfish enough for that.

So poor Lady Clara watched him, till he pa.s.sed quite away into the shadows, with her back against the wall, and her hands hanging down loose, as they had fallen after her last cry. Then she crept slowly back through the gate, which Badger had left open, and away into the depths of the park, crying as if her heart would break.

Badger saw her through the diamond-shaped panes of the lodge-window, and muttered:

"Poor thing, she has forgot the gold; but never mind, it will come."

CHAPTER XVII.

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

Lady Hope stood in the middle of the room, breathless. The supreme joy of her husband's presence drove every other feeling from her heart. She forgot her brother, her step-child, everything, in the one thought that he was near her. But, was it certain that he would come? How many months, nay, years, had pa.s.sed since he had entered that room, once so dear to him that no other apartment in that s.p.a.cious mansion seemed pleasant? She had allowed nothing to be changed since those days. Year by year those silken hangings and crimson cus.h.i.+ons had lost their brightness and grown threadbare; but he had pressed those cus.h.i.+ons and been shaded by the curtains, and that gave them a brightness and glory to her which no stuffs of India or cloth of gold could replace.

She knew that he was offended, and doubted. But would he come? His step grew slow; he paused. Would he retreat at last, and leave her there, in an agony of disappointment?

No--after a moment's hesitation, the steps advanced. The very certainty of his approach suffocated her. She had not deemed herself so weak. All the strength left her frame.

She sank down upon a couch near the window. The moonlight fell over her like a veil of silver tissue, and through it she looked like the Rachael Closs of New York.

Lord Hope tore away the silvery veil with his presence, for the shadow of his tall person fell across it, throwing the woman back into darkness.

But the light which he took from her slanted across his face, and softened it back to youth. Rachael reached forth her arms.

"Oh, Norton! have you come back again?"

Her voice vibrated between pa.s.sion and pathos. Her trembling limbs rustled the silken garments around her.

He stood looking at her, not sternly, but with grave sadness. It was nearly two months since they had met, but he did not advance, or even reach out his hand. Then she cried out, in a burst of bitter anguish:

"Oh, Norton, will you not speak to me?"

"Yes, Rachael," he said, very gently. "I came to speak with you."

Lord Hope advanced through the window. No lights were burning, for in her sadness Rachael had thought the moonbeams enough.

She moved upon the couch, looking in his face with pathetic entreaty.

He sat down after a moment's hesitation, and took her hand in his.

Awhile before that hand had been cold as ice, but now a glow of feverish joy warmed it, and her slender fingers clung around his with nervous force. She was afraid to loosen her clasp, lest he should leave her again.

"Ah, Norton! you have been away so long, so long!"

"Has that made you more unhappy, Rachael?"

"More unhappy? G.o.d help me! have I any happiness beyond your presence?"

"I sometimes think that we two might be less--"

Lord Hope paused. The hand in his seemed turning to marble.

"In mercy, do not say that, Norton! Surely you cannot return love like mine with hate so cruel!"

"We will not talk of hate, Rachael. It is an unseemly word."

"But you are angry with me?"

"No, the time has gone by when I can be angry with you, Rachael."

"Oh! have some mercy upon me, Norton, and tell me how I have lost your love--for you did love me."

"G.o.d only knows how well!" answered the man, with a throe of bitter pa.s.sion breaking up the calm he had maintained.

"Tell me, then--tell me again! It is so long since I have had a happy thought! I will not be put off so! Now that you are here, in this room, with my hand in yours, I will not let you go! Tell me, Norton--oh, tell me why it is that you have changed so completely? This question haunts me. I dream of it in the night; I think of it all day long. Answer me.

Though the truth cleave my heart, I would rather hear it! Why have you ceased to love me? Why is it that you can leave me so?"

"Rachael, I will answer you so far as this: I have not ceased to love you."