Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir Part 6

"Tell me all you can think of," she said, calmly; "about your father and mother."

"Haven't got any," he said; "they're both dead."

"I am sorry," she said.

"Yes, they're dead," he said; "they died long ago."

"And have you any brothers and sisters?"

"No; I have a cousin, though," and he groaned.

"I am so glad," she said, in a low voice.

"Don't be. I'm not. He's a--I don't like him; we don't get on together, you know."

"You quarrel, do you mean?"

"Like Kilkenny cats," a.s.sented the Savage.

"Then he must be a bad man," she said, simply.

"No," he said, quietly; "everybody says that I am the bad one. I'm a regular bad lot, you know."

"I don't think that you are bad," she said.

"You don't; really not! By George! I like to hear you say that; but,"

with a slow shake of the head, "I'm afraid it's true. Yes, I am a regular bad lot."

"Tell me what you have done that is so wrong," she said.

"Oh--I've--I've spent all my money."

"That's not so very wrong; you have hurt only yourself."

"Jove, that's a new way of looking at it," he muttered.

"And"--aloud--"and I've run into debt, and I've--oh, I can't tell you any more; I don't want you to hate me!"

"Hate you? I could not do that."

He sprang to his feet, paced up and down, and then dropped at her side again.

"Well, that's all about myself," he said; "now tell me about yourself."

"No," she said; "not yet. Tell me why you are going to Arkdale?"

"I'm going to Arkdale to take a train to Hurst Leigh to see my uncle, cousin, or whatever he is--Squire Davenant."

"Is he an old man?"

"Yes, a very old man, and a bad one, too. All our family are a bad lot, excepting my cousin, Stephen Davenant."

"The one you do not like?"

"The same. He is quite an angel."

"An angel?"

"One of those men too good to live. He's the only steady one we've got, and we make the most of him. He is Squire Davenant's heir--at least he will come into his money. The old man is very rich, you know."

"I see," she said, musingly; then she looked down at him and added, suddenly: "You were to have been the heir?"

"Yes, that's right! How did you guess that? Yes, I was the old man's favorite, but we quarreled. He wanted it all his own way, and, oh--we couldn't get on. Then Cousin Stephen stepped in, and I am out in the cold now."

"Then why are you going there now?" she asked.

"Because the squire sent for me," he replied.

"And you have been all this time going?"

"You see, I thought I'd walk through the forest," he said, apologetically.

"You should be there now--you should not have waited on the road! Is your Cousin Stephen--is that his name?--there?"

"I don't know," he said, carelessly.

"Ah, you should be there," she said. "Squire Davenant would be friendly with you again."

"I'm afraid you haven't hit the right nail on the head there," he said.

"I rather think he wants to give me a good rowing about a sc.r.a.pe I've got into."

"Tell me about that."

"Oh, it's about money--the usual thing. I got into a mess, and had to borrow some money of a Jew, and he got me to sign a paper, promising to pay after Squire Davenant's death; he called it a _post obit_--I didn't know what it was then, but I do now; for the squire got to hear of it, but how, hanged if I can make out; and he wrote to me and to the Jew, saying that he shouldn't leave me a bra.s.s farthing. Of course the Jew was wild; but I gave him another sort of bill, and it's all right."

"Excepting that you will lose your fortune," said Una, with a little sigh. "What will you do?"

"That's a conundrum which I've long ago given up. By Jove! I'll come and be a woodman in the forest!"

"Will you?" she said. "Do you really mean it?--no, you were not in earnest!"

"I--why shouldn't I be in earnest?" he says, almost to himself. "Would you like me to? I mean shall I come here to--what do you call it--Warden?" and he threw himself down again.

"Yes," she said; "I should like you to. Yes, that would be very nice. We could sit and talk when your work was done, and I could show you all the prettiest spots, and the places where the starlings make their nests, and the fairy rings in the glades, and you could tell me all that you have seen and done. Yes," wistfully, "that would be very nice. It is so lonely sometimes!"

"Lonely, is it?" he said. "Lonely! By George, I should think it must be!

I can't realize it! Books, it reads like a book. If I were to tell some of my friends that there was a young lady shut up in a forest, outside of which she had never been, they wouldn't believe me. By the way--where did you go to school?"

"School? I never went to school."