between two vases that overflowed with scarlet geraniums, the worn stone steps of the inn-yard descended directly upon a gravel path in the old garden. the path—flanked on either side by tall hedges—wound completely around the garden and through the centre, in a kind of true lovers’ knot, in the loops of which were all old-fashioned flowers; pale tea roses—the last of september’s bloom—and mignonette; pansies and rosemary grew there, and the blue of larkspur. only a few windows looked out upon it, and it was a secluded spot where the sun shone and the pigeons flocked. so still was it, in the farther corners, that there was scarcely a sound but the soft “kourre, kourre!” of the feathered visitors.
here lady betty walked slowly, her hands behind her, her head a little on one side, as she talked to clancarty, whom she still knew only[pg 130] as richard trevor. she was dressed in white, a bunch of red flowers at her belt and red plumes in her hat, and either its broad brim or her mood cast a shadow in her eyes. they were softer, more pensive, and less sparkling than usual.
“i was only eleven years old, sir,” she said, “a mere baby, and i have never seen lord clancarty since. how should i know how he looks? is not my curiosity pardonable? pray, mr. trevor, describe him.”
her companion had been watching her keenly and now he smiled.
“i’m poor at descriptions, my lady,” he said calmly, “but take my word for it, clancarty’s a handsome man.”
“about your height, sir?” asked lady betty, casting a quizzical, sidelong glance at him.
he took time to consider. “very nearly, i should think, lady clancarty,” he said, “and straight as an arrow—with a good head and keen eyes, a fine nose, a firm chin—oh, a very handsome rascal, madam, and quite unworthy of you.”
“indeed,” said betty, amused; “you take the side, then, of my family; they too believe him unworthy.”
[pg 131]“he is unworthy, madam,” said the disguised nobleman gravely, “he is unworthy; but, in spite of that, i can’t advise you to cast him off. but for his skill as a swordsman i should have lost my life; i am therefore, of necessity, his true vassal, lady clancarty, and i must plead his cause.”
lady betty’s face changed and she made a petulant gesture.
“no one can plead it, sir,” she said sharply, “he should plead it himself.”
“he should indeed, madam,” he said earnestly, “but how? many things keep back a proscribed exile and a beggar. how can he plead his cause with the heiress of an earl, a beautiful and gifted and wealthy woman? what can he offer her? a life of exile, poverty, and obscurity? my lady clancarty, any proud man might well pause.”
but betty’s chin was elevated, her eyes scornful.
“the pride is, of course, all on his side, sir,” she said coolly; “there is naught to be said for her. how, think you, does a woman feel who is deserted by her husband? ay, more, who is unacknowledged by him—unclaimed!”
he started and looked at her earnestly.
[pg 132]“you are right, madam,” he said, “it is a grievous fault. i despise my lord clancarty for it, but i know that the day will come when he will sue for your forgiveness with all his heart. and he has never known you. he has been in battles, in sieges, in exile, in poverty, in illness, and he was but a lad when you were wedded. my lady, i can say no more, even for him; i would fain say it for myself—but for him.”
she flashed a startled, wondering look at him; her heart stood still—after all, was he? was he not? she did not know, but his eyes held her; she blushed, palpitated, shrank like a mere child. from the first, she had thought this man her husband, but now—? an awful doubt shook her soul. could it be that he was not? she put out her hands with a strange gesture as though she would hold him off.
“’tis fourteen years, sir,” she said, “and he has never written me one word—or to my family for me.”
“that is not true,” he replied gravely; “i know, from lord clancarty’s own lips, that he has written to your father within a short time, ay, madam, twice since the peace of ryswick.”
“ah,” said lady betty, for a light broke in upon her, and she thought of the tall old[pg 133] man walking in the gallery at althorpe, “i never knew it,” she added quietly, “my whole family opposes any mention of—of my husband.”
she pronounced the word with a soft adorable hesitation, blushing rosily up to her very ears, and his eyes glowed as he looked at her. they turned a loop of the gravel walk and passed melissa, who huddled against the hedge, courtesying low. betty scarcely glanced at her.
“then there is no one to plead my friend’s cause but your own heart, lady clancarty,” he said quietly, “your own heart and the tie that must plead for itself a little. i have no eloquence to match the occasion, willingly as i serve my benefactor.”
“i tell you plainly, sir,” she retorted, “that i will hear only one suit, and that is from him; nor will i, mark you, promise to hear that favorably. love, sir, is not cold and a laggard and full of excuses. if i am worth having i am worth winning.”
“madam, i am constrained to tell the truth,” he said in a tone of deep emotion; “i believe that lord clancarty would die to win you.”
“die, sir,” she said archly, “rather live. dead he could not win me.”
[pg 134]“ay, and ’twould be the bitterness of death to lose you,” he said; “’tis so—even to think of it!”
the break in his words made her heart beat fast, but she was mistress of herself now.
“especially after fourteen years of absence,” she mocked wickedly.
“fourteen years in purgatory, madam,” he replied, his tone full of pathos, of powerful emotion under restraint; “and when the poor exile sees at last the gates of paradise!—ah, my lady, you will not close them in his face?”
she bowed her head a little, looking pensively at the ground. a thousand emotions swept across her charming face. then she looked up, her eyes dancing with mischief,—arch, naughty, daring.
“a singular paradise for my lord clancarty,” she said, “a paradise with a whiggish protestant wife in it, and a whiggish protestant mother-in-law, and the greatest whig in england for a brother-in-law. sir, i need enumerate no more.”
the irishman laughed a little bitterly.
“madam,” he said, with daring tenderness in his tone, “you know not what love is! who would count the cost—who loved? by all the saints, my lady, love burns away both[pg 135] politics and creeds; death itself is beaten by it—and hell! ah, to teach you how to love. ’twould be worth purgatory!” his gray eyes flashed, his strong face set itself sternly.
lady betty looking at him drew her breath hard; she was almost frightened. here was a nature she could not conquer and she could not scorn. she bit her lip and looked steadily away, her heart beating in her throat.
“if lord clancarty came here,” he said after a moment, in a constrained voice, “would you see him? would you listen to him?”
she hesitated; she no longer believed that this man might be her husband; he had succeeded in misleading her, and her whole soul was tossing and burning in the fire of a new and passionate emotion, but she tried to think.
“i would see him, yes,” she said with white lips, glancing defiantly at him, “he is my husband.”
his eyes darkened and his face changed; she could not read it. they had come back to the old stone steps. at the top appeared lady sunderland and lady dacres, too far off as yet to be heard.
“he shall come, then, my lady,” he said very low, looking straight into her eyes, “he shall come—if he dies for it.”
[pg 136]lady betty’s face was as white as her gown, and her fingers trembled as she swept her skirts aside on either hand and courtesied gracefully.
“i bid you adieu, sir,” she said, and walked up the steps just as lady sunderland called out sharply,—
“betty, betty, come and take tea with us, my love, and teach lady dacres that old game of ‘angel beast’; she hath forgotten it. la, how white you are, my dear; a touch of rouge and a patch—you look like a ghost.”
“i am, madam,” said lady betty.
and the two dames stared.
that night the ruthless lady betty awakened her attendant.
“alice,” she said, “hast ever heard the legend of king arthur?”
the poor handmaid yawned.
“nay, madam,” she replied sleepily, “who was he?”
“a king of long ago, alice,” lady betty explained, “i have heard the legend from my old welsh nurse, and part of it relates to his wife, his queen. she was very beautiful, and she had never seen the king when the marriage was arranged.”
“oh, mercy on us, madam!” exclaimed[pg 137] alice, “and she didn’t know what he looked like?”
“not at all,” declared her mistress, “and she set out with all her maidens to go to his kingdom to be married—”
“indeed, my lady, couldn’t he come for her—like a decent civil gentleman?” asked alice rousing up.
“no, no, he couldn’t come,” said lady clancarty, “but he sent his best friend, a brave and noble knight, to meet her, and she—she thought he was the king in disguise and—and she fell in love with him, and when she found out her mistake, and that the king was wholly unlike this knight, she couldn’t love her husband—she loved instead his friend.”
“my goodness, lady betty, how improper!” said alice horrified, “his friend was a false man—and no true knight!”
lady betty had been sitting on the edge of alice’s bed but she rose now and stood quite still, her white figure showing in the darkness.
“but, alice, she was so beautiful, so fascinating—he couldn’t help it, he loved her!”
“he could help it,” said alice stoutly, “he stole her love from her husband! he could help it, just as a man can help stealing a horse.”
[pg 138]betty gave a little gasp.
“and the queen?” she said faintly.
“she was a very wicked woman, madam,” declared the moralist, shaking up her pillows vigorously. “they do say that king charles had an awful court; perhaps it was the fashion.”
“perhaps it was,” admitted lady betty, and crept softly back to bed and wept salt tears in solitude.
