Part 37 (2/2)

Three months? Years, long, long years ago!

Now it flashed across me that Lord Strathay loved me as I had loved Ned.

That gave me a measure of the gift he was to offer. I felt Ned's kisses on my hands, bidding me be honest.--I felt other kisses, too; I saw--good G.o.d, how long must I see?--a gray old face--the face of Darmstetter!

Happy! I closed my eyes to shut out the vision. I shuddered.

”You--really, I'm afraid you're very tired,” he said, after waiting a little.

”Yes; tired,” I gasped; ”that's all.”

But I knew I must marry him. I controlled myself. I smiled; I waited. I wished him to go on, but he was peering into my straining eyes with anxious sympathy.

”I'm afraid you're too tired to talk with me to-day,” he said; ”but--you will let me come again?”

”Yes.”

Such a relief! Though what was to be gained by waiting? What must be must be.

Indeed an older man might have seen the wisdom of speaking at once. But Strathay looked wistfully at me for a moment, then turned away with a big, honest schoolboy sigh; and something like a sob broke his voice as he whispered:--

”I--I would do anything to serve you.”

Then he went away.

Perverse! I _will_ marry him. Other women take husbands so. I like him; I should like him even if he were not an Earl--and his name a career.

I shall make Strathay as fine a Countess as any cold, blonde English girl, and he'll be proud of me, and every man will envy him. I shall wrong him less than I should have wronged John Burke. I should have hated John if I had married him, for he'd expect love, where Strathay will be content to give it. Why, the one honest thing I've done was to break with John.

I wish I could afford to keep on being honest!

CHAPTER V.

THE LOVE OF LORD STRATHAY.

May 5.

Lord deliver me from the well-meaning!

Because of one pestilential dun, I've done what the weary waiting for money, money, money would never have driven me to do. I've been to Uncle, unknown to his wife, to ask advice. I might have known better.

It was with a wildly beating pulse that I entered the familiar little private office, thinking that Ned might be on the other side of the part.i.tion--near enough, perhaps, to hear me; that he might at any moment rap upon the door and enter the room as he used to do, upon such flimsy errands! I wondered how he would look, and what he'd say if he came; but he never did come, though the talk was long enough, mercy knows; long and profitless.

It was hard, with that cold sinking at my heart, to talk to the Judge, as he sat with his keen eyes fixed upon me, leaning back in his chair, at times frowning absent-mindedly.

”I've come to tell you--I've written home for money,” I began breathlessly to explain. ”But they don't understand, of course--it isn't half what I need, now. I really don't quite know what to do. And so I came to--”

My words died away into unintelligibility.

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