"Lancaster, I'm sorry for you, upon my soul, but I don't think there's any chance for you at all. Miss West told me quite frankly that she was in love with another man."
Lancaster gives a great start. He says, hurriedly:
"Who is the happy man?"
"She would not tell, but of course it can not be you, because she says it is quite a hopeless passion. He does not love her; she admitted that with the reddest blushes."
"No, of course, it can not be me, for I am quite sure she knows my heart. I have shown her my love unwittingly more than once, and been laughed at for my pains," Lancaster admits, with bitter chagrin and despair struggling in his voice.
"Poor little girl! It is strange that she should love in vain. It is a cold-hearted man indeed that could be insensible to so much beauty and sweetness," De Vere muses aloud. "I think it is some one she has left in New York, for she and Miss West are going to sail for America next week, to make their home there."
"Then that ends all," Lancaster says, moodily.
"Yes," De Vere answers, rather gravely. "And there will be one page folded down forever in both our lives, eh, old fellow? We are in the same boat, you see. But take my advice, Lancaster, don't let this episode spoil your prospects. Throw up the India scheme, and go home and marry the earl's daughter."
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Lady Lancaster was surprised and angry and frightened all in one when she heard that Leonora West had refused Lieutenant De Vere. She made him own the truth when he came to make his hasty adieus, and she roundly abused the "pert minx," as she called her, for her "impertinence and presumption."
"Whom does she think she will get? Does she think she will capture an earl or a duke?" she sneered, and De Vere answered, coldly:
"I do not believe that she has any matrimonial designs on any one, Lady Lancaster. She returns to America in a very few days."
Lady Lancaster was so surprised that she gave vent to her relief in a hasty exclamation:
"Thank Heaven! And I devoutly wish that she had remained there."
"There are more persons than one who will agree with your ladyship there," he said, betrayed into a laugh at her naïveté.
"Whom?" she exclaimed, with a start.
"Myself for one," he answered. "I am not at liberty to implicate any one else."
She gave him a savage glance.
"Do you mean my nephew?" she inquired.
"I said I was not at liberty to name any one else," he replied.
Then he went away, and Lady Lancaster straightway confided the fact of his rejection to all the ladies in the house. They all agreed with her that Leonora West was an impertinent minx to have refused such a splendid offer, but that it was a narrow escape for Lieutenant De Vere and that he had need to be very thankful over it.
In the meantime, Lady Lancaster's guests grew very curious over her nephew's absence. The earl and his daughter talked of going away. They felt secretly aggrieved and resentful over Lord Lancaster's continued absence. It was a palpable slight to them. They did not believe the story of important business in London.
What business could he have?
Lady Lancaster wrote her nephew a sharp, imperative letter of recall. She was on thorns lest her long-cherished scheme should fail. She intimated quite plainly that her patience was exhausted, and that if he did not come to terms soon she would never forgive him, and worse still, she would cut him out of her will.
Lancaster threw that letter angrily into the fire, and swore to himself that he would not go near Lancaster. He would go off to India, and she might buy another husband for her favorite with the money she prized so much. He would have none of it.
In short, our hero was in a most sullen and intractable mood. His heart was sorely wounded, for he had loved Leonora with all the strength and passion of a noble nature. His sorrow for a time completely mastered him. He said to himself that he could not bear to go back now. He must wait a little longer.
Then came De Vere with his strange story. Now indeed all was ended, thought the hopeless lover. She was going away, and he would never even see her again, this bright-eyed, soft-voiced girl who had stolen into his heart almost unawares, who had been so cruel to him, who had so lightly scorned him, and yet whom he loved with all the strong passion of his young manhood.
Once or twice De Vere reiterated his advice that he should go home and marry Lady Adela, but Lancaster only laughed miserably in his face.
"What, with my heart and soul full of another woman?" he said, bitterly. "No, I can not do that much injustice to beautiful Lady Adela. I respect her too much."
Go where he would, do what he might, the face he loved was ever before his fancy. As the time drew near for her departure to America a strange longing took possession of him. He yearned to see the living face of the girl once more, before the wild waves of the blue Atlantic divided them forever as widely as if she were in her grave and he in his. He had no longer any bitterness or anger toward her in his heart since he had learned of that sweet sorrow hidden in her young breast—a sorrow akin to his own.
"I should like to see the man who was so cold and hard that he could not love her," he said to himself. "He must be a stock or a stone indeed. Poor little Leonora! I will go down to Lancaster and bid her good-bye and god-speed on her homeward way. There can be no harm in that. I must see her once more, or I shall go mad with longing for her sweet, fair face and her soft voice."
So in the first heat of sweltering July he went down to Lancaster Park, intent on sating his restless pain with one last look at the beloved face.
CHAPTER XXXIX
He thought himself very fortunate that when he crossed the grounds of Lancaster and entered the house, no one saw him. It was just what he wished.
He went straight to the housekeeper's room, and he found Mrs. West sitting alone in the little sitting-room, going over her account-book with a pen and ink. She rose in some perturbation at the unexpected sight of the master of Lancaster Park.
"I did not know you were in the house, my lord," she said.
"I have just entered it," he replied. "Do not let me disturb you, Mrs. West. I came to see your niece."
"Leonora?" she said, with some surprise. "Oh, dear! I am very sorry, but she is not here;" and she wondered at the sudden paleness that overspread his face.
"Not here?" he stammered. "Is she gone, then? I thought—I understood that you would go with her to America."
"Oh, yes, so I shall," she answered; "but she is not gone there yet. I did not mean that. She will be here this evening."
"Where is she now?" he asked, eagerly, and Mrs. West replied:
"She has gone over to the Abbey ruins to make a sketch this morning."
"Thank you," he said, and hurried out of the room with such precipitancy that the good soul stared after him in amazement and consternation.
"Dear me! what has that poor child done now?" she thought, nervously. "It is a pity she ever came to Lancaster Park. She has but a sorry time of it here. I almost wish she had accepted Lieutenant De Vere. It would have been such a grand match for her, and she is too bright and pretty to remain in my station of life. I wonder what Lord Lancaster can want with her. Is he going to scold her for anything she has done?"
But while she propounded these uneasy questions to herself, our hero was striding across the park and lanes and fields toward the Abbey ruins, every other thought swallowed up in the intense longing to see Leonora again. His heart beat heavily as he came in sight of her, at last, sitting among the green graves, as he had seen her before, but not sketching busily now, for her drawing materials lay beside her on the grass, and her head was bowed on her arm, her face hidden from sight on her black sleeve.
"Poor child!" he thought, compassionately, "she has a sorrow to grieve over as well as I;" and he stepped softly, almost fearing to intrude upon the sacredness of her grief, yet loath to turn back again, for something drew him irresistibly to her side.