Part 18 (1/2)

Must she leave her giddy darling, Lady Julie?

”I cannot believe it--I will not!” she exclaimed, with momentary fire.

”His grace is not so foolish as to intend this thing. You exaggerate his emotions in regard to me.”

The fairy-like form of my lady floated past the draperied door on the arm of Piermont, and as she pa.s.sed, her eyes sought the pair in the cloister with visible triumph; then she turned to his grace again.

”You see,” said Margaret, eagerly clinging to the first straw of hope, ”they perfectly understand each other, and your warning is superfluous.”

Falconcourt smiled, but dropped the subject, and applied himself with considerable relish to the task of entertaining my lady's companion.

As long as she could see his grace, the duke, and Lady Juliana amicably promenading, or revolving in each other's arms, she spoke well and admirably, but the instant that they parted, she became quite _distrait_, and nervously dreaded the appearance of the duke.

So agitated did she become with this threatened return before her eyes, that her face became white as chalk and her tones husky and indistinct.

”Excuse me if I leave you,” she said, at last, desperately.

”I may return, if I overcome this faintness.”

She had just sufficient strength to slip through the outer door, of the cloister into the cool hall, and to make her way to a balcony, where night breezes swept crisply over her, and the upper edge of the round, red moon smote her face with the glow of one of Raphael's angels.

There she stood, gazing down upon the dark trees, her heart a chaos of troubled reverie.

”On the first of September, at the battle of Chantilly, it is feared.”

Voices of men in eager colloquy; two figures lounging on the terrace steps beneath.

”Where did you see it?”

”In the last _War Gazette_--Colonel Brand's company almost cut to pieces, and the colonel killed.

”Poor fellow! Do they know it here?”

Margaret turned and walked with a steady step to her own room, stabbed through the heart with this sudden dagger.

On the first of September!

The tidal swell of memory broke over her reeling senses with a dull admonition of something more dreadful than death.

It was not a gallant death in the midst of battle she had to mourn; it was not a brave end to a brilliant day of heroism. No--by the murk of that ghastly vision, by the shadow of the skulker among the dead, it was murder!

Late at night she was disturbed in her chamber by a visit from her Lady Julie.

”I want to say a few words to you, Miss Walsingham.”

Margaret looked at the flushed face, the unsmiling lips, with wonder.

”I have been listening to an extraordinary list of your perfections from the Duke of Piermont,” she commenced, trembling, ”and I find from the intimate terms in which he mentions you, that you are no strangers to each other. As I never antic.i.p.ated the possibility of being rivaled by my companion, I wish you distinctly to understand that I intend to brook no intermeddling of any one of that cla.s.s. You came between me and my betrothed before, and drove him to his death; you shall not mar my prospects again for want of a distinct understanding on the subject. If I had known that Miss Blair was the woman who had come into possession of St. Udo Brand's property, no inducement would have betrayed me into taking her as my companion, and thus laying myself open to her machinations a second time.”