The Baronet's Bride Part 35

"I can not say. I only know I have forbidden him this place," he replied. "Harrie, Harrie, my little wife! You are very merciless!

You are torturing me, and I--I would die to save you an instant's pain!"

At that eloquent cry she slipped out of his arms and fell on her knees before him, her clasped hands hiding her face.

"May G.o.d grant me a short life!" was her frenzied cry, "for I never can tell you--never, Everard, not on my dying bed--the secret I have sworn to keep!"

"Sworn to keep!" It flashed upon him like a revelation. "Sworn to whom? to your father, Harrie?"

"Do not ask me! I can tell you nothing--I dare not! I am bound by an awful vow! And, oh, I think I am the most wretched creature in the wide world!"

He raised her up; he kissed the white, despairing face again and again--a rain of rapturous kisses. A ton weight seemed suddenly lifted off his heart.

"I see it all," he cried--"I see it all now! Fool that I was not to understand sooner. There was some mystery, some guilt, perhaps, in Captain Hunsden's life, and he revealed it to you on his death-bed, and made you swear to keep his secret. Am I not right?"

She did not look up. He could feel her s.h.i.+vering from head to foot.

"Yes, Everard."

"And this man has in some way found it out, and wishes to trade upon it, to extort money from you? I have often heard of such things. Am I right again?"

"Yes, Everard," very faint and sad.

"Then, my own dearest, leave me to deal with him; see him and fear him no more. I will seek him out. I will not ask to know it. I will pay him his price and send him about his business."

He rose as he spoke. But Harriet clung to him with a strange, white face.

"No, no, no!" she cried. "It would not do. You could not satisfy him.

You don't know--" She stopped distractedly. "Oh, Everard, I can't explain. You are all kindness, all generosity, all goodness; but I must settle with this man myself. Don't go near him--don't ask to see him. It could do no good."

"I am not right, then, after all. The secret is yours, not your father's?"

"Do not ask me! If the sin is not mine, the atonement--the bitter atonement--is, at least. Everard, look at me--see! I love you with all my heart. I would not tell you a lie. I never committed a deed, I never indulged a thought of my own, you are not free to know. I never saw this man until that day in the library. Oh, believe this and trust me, and don't ask me to break my oath!"

"I will not! I believe you; I trust you. I ask no more. Get rid of this man, and be happy once again. We will not even talk of it longer; and--will you come with me to my mother's, Harrie? I dine there, you know, to-day."

"My head aches. Not to-day, I think. What time will you return?"

"Before ten. And, as I have a little magisterial business to transact down in the village, it is time I was off. Adieu, my own love! Forget the harsh words, and be my own happy, radiant, beautiful bride once more."

She lifted her face and smiled--a smile as wan and fleeting as moonlight on snow.

Sir Everard hastened to his room to dress, striving with all his might to drive every suspicion out of his mind.

And she--she flung herself on the sofa, face downward, and lay there as if she never cared to rise again.

"Papa, papa!" she wailed, "what have you done--what have you done?"

All that day Lady Kingsland kept her room. Her maid brought her what she wanted. Sir Everard returned at the appointed hour, looking gloomy and downcast.

His evening at his mother's had not been a pleasant one--that was evident. Perhaps some vague hint of the darkening mystery had already reached The Grange.

"My mother feels rather hurt, Harrie," he said, somewhat coldly, "that you did not accompany me. She is unable to call on you, owing to a severe cold. Mildred is absorbed in waiting upon her, and desires to see you exceedingly. I promised them we would both dine there tomorrow and spend the evening."

"As you please, Everard," she said, wearily. "It is all the same to me."

She descended to breakfast next morning carefully dressed to meet the fastidious eye of her husband. But she ate nothing. A gloomy presentiment of impending evil weighed down her heart. Her husband made little effort to rouse her--the contagious gloom affected him, too.

"It is the weather, I dare say," he remarked, looking out at the bleak, wintery day, the leaden sky, the wailing wind. "This February gloom is enough to give a man the megrims. I must face it, too, for to-day I 'meet the captains at the citadel'--that is to say, I promised to ride over to Major Warden's about noon. You will be ready, Harrie, when I return to accompany me to The Grange?"

She promised, and he departed; and then Lady Kingsland ascended to her own apartment.

While she stood there, gazing at the gray desolation of the February morning, there was a soft tap at the door.

"Come in!" she said, thinking it her maid; and the door opened, and Sybilla Silver entered.

Lady Kingsland faced round and looked at her. How handsome she was!

That was her first involuntary thought. Her sweeping black robes fell around her tall, regal figure with queenly grace, the black eyes sparkled with living light, a more vivid scarlet than usual lighted up each dusky cheek. She looked gloriously beautiful standing there. Mr.

Parmalee would surely have been dazzled had he seen her.

There was a moment's pause. The two women eyed each other as accomplished swordsmen may on the eve of a duel. Very pale, very proud, looked my lady. She disliked and distrusted this brilliant, black-eyed Miss Silver, and Miss Silver knew it well.

"You wish to speak with me, Miss Silver?" my lady said, in her most superb manner.

"Yes, my lady--most particularly, and quite alone. I beg your pardon, but your maid is not within hearing, I trust?"

"We are quite alone," very coldly. "Speak out; no one can overhear you."

"I do not care for myself," Sybilla said, her glittering black eyes meeting the proud gray ones. "It is for your sake, my lady."

"For my sake!" in haughty amaze. "You can have nothing to say to me, Miss Silver, the whole world may not overhear. If you intend to be impertinent, I shall order you out of the room."

"One moment, my lady; you go too fast. The whole world may not overhear the message Mr. Parmalee sends you by me."

"Ah!" my lady recoiled as though an adder had stung her--"always that man! Speak out, then"--turning swiftly upon her husband's protegee--"what is the message this man sends me by you?"

"That if you do not meet him within two days, he will sell your secret to the highest bidder."

Sybilla delivered, word for word, the words of the American--cruelly, slowly, significantly--looking her still straight in the eyes. Those clear gray eyes flashed with a fierce, defiant light.

"You know all?" she cried.

Sybilla Silver bowed her head.

"I know all," she answered.

Dead silence fell. White as a dead woman, Lady Kingsland stood, her eyes ablaze with fierce, consuming fire. Sybilla made a step forward, sunk down before her, and lifted her hand to her lips.

"He told me all, my dear lady; but your secret is safe with me.

Sybilla will be your true and faithful, though humble, friend, if you will let her. Dear Lady Kingsland, don't look at me with that stony, angry face. I have no wish but to serve you."