Part 6 (2/2)

”Your pardon, mistress,” stammered Michael Berrington, shame-faced as a girl. ”I almost--forget----”

She checked him, clapping her hands.

”Fie, sir, but that is what a man of honour should never do, though, certes, it is many a long year since you vowed to be my true knight for ever and ever.”

She blushed rosy-red over the last words, only afterwards realising their meaning.

But the blush became her, rendering her more enchanting than ever.

Michael, however, had paled, for he knew now that this was the little Brown Fairy of other days, grown into lovelier girlhood.

Yet was not her name Gabrielle Conyers, daughter to the man whom his father had betrayed?

Instinct and impulse ofttimes help a woman better than long training in worldly wisdom. Gabrielle had heard the story of Stephen Berrington.

But she held out friendly hands to his son.

”I am all alone,” she murmured plaintively, ”and very dull. Come and help me gather my primroses.”

Half-conquered by a flash from hazel eyes, the young man took a step forward.

”But----” he answered with an effort. ”Perhaps, madam, you do not know my name is Berrington.”

An adorable dimple completed the conquest.

”Michael, not Stephen,” she retorted boldly. ”Old stories and memories should have no place in the present, sir, so forget, pray, your name, if it displeases you, and remember only your ancient vow. I hold you to it.”

She would not have coquetted thus with any of the fops and lordlings whom Morry brought from town, but that same woman's instinct of hers told her that this stalwart young man with the lean face of many angles, and steadfast grey eyes, was to be trusted.

He yielded, tossing aside misgivings with one of those sudden changes of mood which characterized him, and knelt beside her on the mossy bank to gather the sweet-scented blossoms with which her hands were already half-filled.

Spring-time and youth, suns.h.i.+ne, bird-song, the seductive spell of a woodland glade, all helped to cast their glamour, and, before him, the slim, girlish figure in its simple gown of white, with a bunch of blue ribbons loosely knotted in the fichu at her breast, and a face which Greuze would have loved to paint, framed in a ma.s.s of tumbled curls.

No wonder that Michael Berrington's blood quickened in his veins and his grey eyes kindled.

Love is like the dawn which, slow of coming in northern skies, yet breaks through the trammels of night to swift and glorious radiance in the south.

So, in pa.s.sionate, impulsive natures, love sometimes dawns, with no warning murmurs, no slowly stirring desire, but swift and warm as the King of Day himself.

Thus surely came love to Michael Berrington, as he gathered primrose-posies in the suns.h.i.+ne of a spring day, and looked long into a young maid's laughing eyes. Yet he did not call this strange new sweetness, love, but was content to feel it thrilling and animating his whole being. So lonely he had been since old Sir Henry's death, haunted with ghosts as the old Manor seemed,--ghosts of living and dead, which remorselessly pursued him.

But winter blackness had rolled suddenly aside as a girl's rippling laugh broke on his ear.

”Dreaming, Sir Knight. Fie on you again! You should be minding your devoir. I asked you to gather me primroses.”

He was awake once more, and dreams put aside for a more profitable moment.

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