Part 17 (1/2)

”Good Heavens, Sepia! what is the matter? I did not mean it,” said Hesper, remorsefully, thinking she had wounded her, and that she had broken down in the attempt to conceal the pain.

”It's not that, Hesper, dear. Nothing you could say would hurt me,”

replied Sepia, drawing breath sharply. ”It's a pain that comes sometimes--a sort of picture drawn in pains--something I saw once.”

”A picture?”

”Oh! well!--picture, or what you will!--Where's the difference, once it's gone and done with? Yet it will get the better of me now and then for a moment! Some day, when you are married, and a little more used to men and their ways, I will tell you. My little cousin is much too innocent now.”

”But you have not been married, Sepia! What should you know about disgraceful things?”

”I will tell you when you are married, and not until then, Hesper.

There's a bribe to make you a good child, and do as you must--that is, as your father and mother and Mr. Redmain would have you!”

While they talked, G.o.dfrey, now seen, now vanis.h.i.+ng, had become a speck in the distance. Crossing a wide field, he was now no longer to be distinguished from the grazing cattle, and so was lost to the eyes of the ladies.

By this time he had collected his thoughts a little, and it had grown plain to him that the last and only thing left for him to do for Letty was to compel Tom to marry her at once. ”My mother will then have half her own way!” he said to himself bitterly. But, instead of reproaching himself that he had not drawn the poor girl's heart to his own, and saved her by letting her know that he loved her, he tried to congratulate himself on the pride and self-important delay which had preserved him from yielding his love to one who counted herself of so little value. He did not reflect that, if the value a woman places upon herself be the true estimate of her worth, the world is tolerably provided with utterly inestimable treasures of womankind; yet is it the meek who shall inherit it; and they who make least of themselves are those who shall be led up to the dais at last.

”But the wretch shall marry her at once!” he swore. ”Her character is nothing now but a withered flower in the hands of that woman. Even were she capable of holding her tongue, by this time a score must have seen them together.”

G.o.dfrey hardly knew what he was to gain by riding to Warrender, for how could he expect to find Tom there? and what could any one do with the mother? Only, where else could he go first to learn anything about him?

Some hint he might there get, suggesting in what direction to seek them. And he must be doing something, however useless: inaction at such a moment would be h.e.l.l itself!

Arrived at the house--a well-appointed cottage, with out-houses larger than itself--he gave his horse to a boy to lead up and down, while he went through the gate and rang the bell in a porch covered with ivy.

The old woman who opened the door said Master Tom was not up yet, but she would take his message. Returning presently, she asked him to walk in. He declined the hospitality, and remained in front of the house.

Tom was no coward, in the ordinary sense of the word: there was in him a good deal of what goes to the making of a gentleman; but he confessed to being ”in a bit of a funk” when he heard who was below: there was but one thing it could mean, he thought--that Letty had been found out, and here was her cousin come to make a row. But what did it matter, so long as Letty was true to him? The world should know that Wardour nor Platt--his mother's maiden name!--nor any power on earth should keep from him the woman of his choice! As soon as he was of age, he would marry her, in spite of them all. But he could not help being a little afraid of G.o.dfrey Wardour, for he admired him.

For G.o.dfrey, he would have rather liked Tom Helmer, had he ever seen down into the best of him; but Tom's carelessness had so often misrepresented him, that G.o.dfrey had too huge a contempt for him. And now the miserable creature had not merely grown dangerous, but had of a sudden done him the greatest possible hurt! It was all G.o.dfrey could do to keep his contempt and hate within what he would have called the bounds of reason, as he waited for ”the miserable mongrel.” He kept walking up and down the little lawn, which a high shrubbery protected from the road, making a futile attempt, as often as he thought of the policy of it, to look unconcerned, and the next moment striking fierce, objectless blows with his whip. Catching sight of him from a window on the stair, Tom was so little rea.s.sured by his demeanor, that, crossing the hall, he chose from the stand a thick oak stick--poor odds against a hunting-whip in the hands of one like G.o.dfrey, with the steel of ten years of manhood in him.

Tom's long legs came doubling carelessly down the two steps from the door, as, with a gracious wave of the hand, and swinging his cudgel as if he were just going out for a stroll, he coolly greeted his visitor.

But the other, instead of returning the salutation, stepped quickly up to him.

”Mr. Helmer, where is Miss Lovel?” he said, in a low voice.

Tom turned pale, for a pang of undefined fear shot through him, and his voice betrayed genuine anxiety as he answered:

”I do not know. What has happened?”

Wardour's fingers gripped convulsively his whip-handle, and the word _liar_ had almost escaped his lips; but, through the darkness of the tempest raging in him, he yes read truth in Tom's scared face and trembling words.

”You were with her last night,” he said, grinding it out between his teeth.

”I was,” answered Tom, looking more scared still.

”Where is she now?” demanded G.o.dfrey again.

”I hope to G.o.d you know,” answered Tom, ”for I don't.”

”Where did you leave her?” asked Wardour, in the tone of an avenger rather than a judge.