Part 12 (1/2)
The tears come into her eyes as she thinks of him. It grows more bitter to her every moment, the thought of this meeting that is so close at hand now.
”Honor,” Brian says gently, ”will you not let me help you? You are in some trouble, I know.” He has crossed the room and is standing beside her. ”You can trust me, surely?”
”I could trust you with my life; but this secret is not my own.”
”I know it is not; nevertheless you might trust it to me.”
She raises her head and looks at him, and something in his face brings the color into her own. He is very brave and true, a safe shelter in trouble--she has proved that--and her heart yearns for the help he could give her. But it may not be. His sympathies are all on the side of law and order, and she has ranged herself, for this one night at least, among the opposite ranks.
”Don't think me curious, Honor,” he says earnestly; ”but I am sure you are in need of a friend's help, and I would like you to let me give it.”
”No one can help me--not even you,” she answers gently, getting up and looking at him with those troubled eyes that move him so strangely.
”And yet you are so good to me always that I should like to tell you my trouble if I might. But it is better not, perhaps.”
”Let me say one thing, Honor. If this trouble of yours is connected with Power Magill--and I believe it is--you will not forget that he is a dangerous man, a man not to be trusted.”
”I will not forget,” she answers with a s.h.i.+ver, as she thinks of the meeting that is drawing nigh so rapidly.
The sun has set, and a cold mist is rising. It is very peaceful but rather dreary outside; and inside, in the familiar pretty room, the shadows are gathering.
Brian Beresford draws a step nearer. He had not meant to say one word of love to her--this willful girl who makes so light of him and his devotion; but, standing so close beside her in this tender gray twilight, impulse masters his judgment.
”Honor, has my love no power to touch you? Must this man forever stand between us even in his----” He is going to say disgrace, but the piteous look on the girl's face stays him.
”Oh, Brian, don't talk to me of love now--I cannot bear it!”
It is the first time she has ever called him Brian, and in her face, as she turns it from him, crimson from brow to chin, in her very att.i.tude, as she stands with clasped hands before him, there is some subtle change that chills him.
”Then promise me that when times are brighter and you are happier you will listen to me, Honor.”
”Perhaps,” she stammers; and then, with tears in her eyes: ”Oh, how cruel I am! I'm not worth loving!” And she is gone before he can say another word.
For so stoical a man, Brian Beresford is strangely excited to-night.
Long after Honor has left him he walks up and down the darkening room, and, when the old butler comes in to light the lamps, he goes out on to the terrace and continues his measured tramp to and fro, smoking and thinking, and watching he scarcely knows for what.
Ever since he saw Honor hide away that sc.r.a.p of paper in her dress he has been tormented with jealous fears.
”If the fellow were once out of the country I should feel all right,”
he tells himself. But the fellow is not out of the country--nay, may be in the immediate neighborhood for all he can tell, and in consequence he is racked with anxiety.
From the terrace he can see the ruins clearly at first; then the mist partly blots them out, and presently he can only guess at their position. But he has no interest in the ruins. He is not in the least superst.i.tious; and certainly he does not believe in the old abbot.
He has reached the end of the walk and turned to go back, when the sight of a tall slight figure, coming rapidly down the steps not many yards away, brings him to a sudden halt.
”Ah!” he says, as he recognizes Honor. ”Then it was not without cause that I've been so uneasy! A warning, these people would call it, I suppose.”
It is a terrible blow to him, striking to the very root of his love. He hates mystery; and to find this girl, whom he had thought perfect in her maidenly pride and purity, stealing out in the dark from her father's house fills him with dismay.