Part 17 (1/2)

”But all help has been given to you,” poor tender Anne said, kissing her hand again; ”and I will pray, I will pray-”

”Ay, pray, Anne, pray with all thy soul,” Clorinda answered; ”I need thy praying-and thou didst believe always, and have asked so little that has been given thee.”

”Thou wast given me, sister,” said Anne. ”Thou hast given me a home and kindness such as I never dared to hope; thou hast been like a great star to me-I have had none other, and I thank Heaven on my knees each night for the brightness my star has shed on me.”

”Poor Anne, dear Anne!” Clorinda said, laying her arms about her and kissing her. ”Pray for thy star, good, tender Anne, that its light may not be quenched.” Then with a sudden movement her hand was pressed upon her bosom again. ”Ah, Anne,” she cried, and in the music of her voice, agony itself was ringing-”Anne, there is but one thing on this earth G.o.d rules over-but one thing that belongs-belongs to me; and 'tis Gerald Mertoun-and he is mine and shall not be taken from me, for he is a part of me, and I a part of him!”

”He will not be,” said Anne-”he will not.”

”He cannot,” Clorinda answered-”he shall not! 'Twould not be human.”

She drew a long breath and was calm again.

”Did it reach your ears,” she said, reclasping a band of jewels on her arm, ”that John Oxon had been offered a place in a foreign Court, and that 'twas said he would soon leave England?”

”I heard some rumour of it,” Anne answered, her emotion getting the better of her usual discreet speech. ”G.o.d grant it may be true!”

”Ay!” said Clorinda, ”would G.o.d that he were gone!”

But that he was not, for when she entered the a.s.sembly that night he was standing near the door as though he lay in waiting for her, and his eyes met hers with a leaping gleam, which was a thing of such exultation that to encounter it was like having a knife thrust deep into her side and through and through it, for she knew full well that he could not wear such a look unless he had some strength of which she knew not.

This gleam was in his eyes each time she found herself drawn to them, and it seemed as though she could look nowhere without encountering his gaze. He followed her from room to room, placing himself where she could not lift her eyes without beholding him; when she walked a minuet with a royal duke, he stood and watched her with such a look in his face as drew all eyes towards him.

”'Tis as if he threatens her,” one said. ”He has gone mad with disappointed love.”

But 'twas not love that was in his look, but the madness of long-thwarted pa.s.sion mixed with hate and mockery; and this she saw, and girded her soul with all its strength, knowing that she had a fiercer beast to deal with, and a more vicious and dangerous one, than her horse Devil. That he kept at first at a distance from her, and but looked on with this secret exultant glow in his bad, beauteous eyes, told her that at last he felt he held some power in his hands, against which all her defiance would be as naught. Till this hour, though she had suffered, and when alone had writhed in agony of grief and bitter shame, in his presence she had never flinched. Her strength she knew was greater than his; but his baseness was his weapon, and the depths of that baseness she knew she had never reached.

At midnight, having just made obeisance before Royalty retiring, she felt that at length he had drawn near and was standing at her side.

”To-night,” he said, in the low undertone it was his way to keep for such occasions, knowing how he could pierce her ear-”to-night you are Juno's self-a very Queen of Heaven!”

She made no answer.

”And I have stood and watched you moving among all lesser G.o.ddesses as the moon sails among the stars, and I have smiled in thinking of what these lesser deities would say if they had known what I bear in my breast to-night.”

She did not even make a movement-in truth, she felt that at his next words she might change to stone.

”I have found it,” he said-”I have it here-the lost treasure-the tress of hair like a raven's wing and six feet long. Is there another woman in England who could give a man a lock like it?”

She felt then that she had, in sooth, changed to stone; her heart hung without moving in her breast; her eyes felt great and hollow and staring as she lifted them to him.

”I knew not,” she said slowly, and with bated breath, for the awfulness of the moment had even made her body weak as she had never known it feel before-”I knew not truly that h.e.l.l made things like you.”

Whereupon he made a movement forward, and the crowd about surged nearer with hasty exclamations, for the strange weakness of her body had overpowered her in a way mysterious to her, and she had changed to marble, growing too heavy of weight for her sinking limbs. And those in the surrounding groups saw a marvellous thing-the same being that my Lady Dunstanwolde swayed as she turned, and falling, lay stretched, as if dead, in her white and silver and flas.h.i.+ng jewels at the startled beholders' feet.

She wore no radiant look when she went home that night. She would go home alone and unescorted, excepting by her lacqueys, refusing all offers of companions.h.i.+p when once placed in her equipage. There were, of course, gentlemen who would not be denied leading her to her coach; John Oxon was among them, and at the last pressed close, with a manner of great ceremony, speaking a final word.

”'Tis useless, your ladys.h.i.+p,” he murmured, as he made his obeisance gallantly, and though the words were uttered in his lowest tone and with great softness, they reached her ear as he intended that they should. ”To-morrow morning I shall wait upon you.”