The soft echo of his footstep in the grass startled her. She looked up quickly with a low cry. He saw tears upon her face, and her rosy lips were quivering like a child's.
"Leonora!" he cried, and knelt down impulsively by her side.
She was so taken by surprise for a moment that she forgot to draw away the hands he caught daringly in his. She looked up at him, and said, with a catch in her breath:
"I thought you were in London."
"So I was until to-day; but I came down to bid you good-bye," he answered, feasting his hungry sight unrestrainedly on the pale beauty of her lifted face.
"Then you knew that I was going away?" she asked.
"Yes; I saw De Vere in town. He told me," he answered; and a pretty blush crept into her cheeks, and her lashes fell. "And so," he went on, half smiling, "you refused my friend, in spite of all my advice to the contrary?"
She pulled her hands suddenly away.
"Yes, I refused him. Was it worth my while," with a stinging scorn her voice, "to sell my body and soul for paltry gold?"
"No; you were right not to give the hand while your heart was another's," he said, bending down to look into her face that suddenly grew burning crimson as she cried out, sharply:
"Why do you say that? How dare you? Has Lieutenant De Vere told you—"
"Yes, he has told me that you would not marry him because you loved another. He is a thrice better man whoever he may be, Leonora. How much I envy him I need not say," he said, earnestly, carried away by the passion that filled him.
She looked at him with her gray-blue eyes full of wonder.
"You! Lady Adela's intended husband!" she said, bitterly.
"I am not her intended husband," he answered. "Do you think I am less noble than you, Leonora? that I could wrong any one by giving my hand without my heart? No, I do not love Lady Adela, and I can never be her husband. Do you know what I was doing up in London, child?"
"How should I know?" she answered.
"Well, I was trying to exchange into a regiment that is en route for India. I am going to throw over the twenty thousand a year and run away from England and my pain."
"You are?" she said, drawing a long breath and gazing at him with dilated, wondering eyes. "But why, Lord Lancaster?"
"Can you ask me why?" he asked, bitterly.
"Yes, because I can not understand at all why you are going to India. What pain is it you are running away from?"
He started and looked at her keenly. Was it possible that she did not guess? Had she misunderstood him all along? His heart beat with a sudden hope.
"I am fleeing from that misery that the poet has put into immortal doggerel," he said. "Have you never heard of it, Leonora? That pain which is
She looked at him with a new, strange light in her soft eyes that made his heart beat tumultuously.
"Yes, I have heard of it," she said; "but I did not know that you were a victim to its pangs. Who is it that you love, Lord Lancaster?"
"Is it possible you do not know?" he asked; and then he saw that her eyes were shining with hope, and her whole graceful form trembling.
He took the small hands again into his, and she did not offer to take them away.
"I will make a compact with you, Leonora," he said. "If I will tell you whom I love, will you then tell me to whom you have given your heart?"
"Yes, I will tell you," she replied, with a soft, sweet laugh.
"Listen, then," he said. "I have been in love with you, Leonora, ever since that first day I saw you in New York."
"And I with you," she answered, glowing with happy blushes.
"My darling!" he cried, and caught her in his arms and pressed her to his beating heart. "Then why have you been so cruel to me all the time?"
"Because I thought you were going to marry Lady Adela, and I was so jealous and unhappy that I misunderstood you all the while," Leonora confessed, with shy frankness.
CHAPTER XL
"Lady Lancaster will be very angry with us, will she not?" asked Leonora, lifting her head from his breast, where it had been resting a few silent, happy moments.
"I have no doubt she will," he replied, with supreme indifference to his aunt's wrath.
"She will not give you any of her money, I suppose?" pursued the girl.
"No, not a penny, I am sure. But we can do without it, can we not, love?" he asked, fondly.
"But will you never regret that you chose me instead of Lady Adela and your aunt's fortune? Can you bear poverty for my sake?"
"I shall never regret anything, and for the rest I shall never know that I am poor. Having you, my darling, I shall always deem myself rich," he answered, fondly caressing her.
"And you will never be ashamed of me?" anxiously.
"Never, my darling."
"Nor of poor Aunt West, who is only the housekeeper at Lancaster Park?"
Then indeed he winced, but only for a moment, and he answered bravely:
"She belongs to you, Leonora, and she is, besides, a good and worthy woman. I shall not be ashamed of her, but she must not serve at the Park any more; she shall be raised to a position befitting the aunt of the future Lady Lancaster."
"She will leave the Park to-morrow. We are going to London for a week, then we sail for New York," said Leonora.
"Is my bride going to leave me so soon?" he whispered, fondly.
"Yes; but she will come back when you come to New York for her," answered Leonora, with a blush and a smile.
"That will be in a very short while, then. But why go at all, darling? Couldn't we be married right away?"
"Without my trousseau? No, sir, thank you. Besides, my aunt and I have some business to attend to in New York, and I want her to see my native land and appreciate it."
"When may I come after you, then, my darling? In September?"
"Oh, dear, no!"
"October?"
"No, indeed—that is, I will ask Aunt West," demurely.
"I shall not wait a day longer than October, miss. Do you hear that?" he says, laughing, but in earnest, for he says to himself, thoughtfully, "The darling has no one but Mrs. West to take care of her, and the sooner she is married and settled, the better for her."
"You begin to play the tyrant soon," laughs the happy betrothed.
"In revenge for the way you have treated me all this while," he replies.
And then he adds, with a sterner light in his handsome blue eyes:
"I am going to take you home now, Leonora, and present you to Lady Lancaster as my promised wife. Are you willing, my darling?"
"I have no objection," she answered, for Leonora, being but human, thought she would rather enjoy this triumph over her enemy.
So they went back to the house, and Lancaster led his love to the library, where one of the servants had told him Lady Lancaster was sitting with Mrs. West, going over the housekeeping books of the latter.
They opened the door and entered. My lady stared at the pair in horror for a moment, then she rose majestically to her feet and struck her gold-headed cane upon the floor with a resounding thump.
"So you are come home at last!" she cried. "But what does this mean? Why have you brought this impertinent minx into my presence?"
"Perhaps you will speak more respectfully of Miss West when I tell you that she is my promised wife, and the future Lady of Lancaster," her nephew answered sternly.
"The Lady of Lancaster! What! do you mean that you have sacrificed all your future prospects for this low-born and penniless girl?" cried my lady, growing purple in the face and actually foaming at the lips with fury.
"I have sacrificed nothing, and I have secured my future happiness by my betrothal," Lord Lancaster answered, proudly.
The old lady stared at him speechless with rage for a few seconds, then she struck her cane violently upon the floor again, and burst out with concentrated wrath: