CHAPTER XXXVIII.

It had come so suddenly as to almost overwhelm her; the great gift of

the gods that she had been waiting, aye, and plotting for, had fallen

to her at last, and her cup of triumph was full to overbrimming, but at

the same time she, as Lord Charles would have put it, "kept her head."

She thoroughly understood how and why she had gained her will. She

could read Leycester as if he were a book, and she knew that, although

he had asked her to be his wife, he had not forgotten that other girl

with the brown hair and dark eyes--that "Stella," the painter's niece.

This was a bitter pang to her, a drop of gall to her cup, but she

accepted it.

Just as Jasper said of Stella, so she said of Leycester.

"I will make him love me!" she thought. "The time shall come when he

will wonder how he came to think of that other, and be filled with

self-contempt for having so thought of her." And she set about her work

well. Some women in the hour of their triumph, would have shown their

delight, and so worried, or perhaps disgusted, their lover; but not so

did Lady Lenore.

She took matters with an ineffable calm and serenity, and never for

one moment allowed it to be seen how much she had gained on that

eventful evening.

To Leycester her manner was simply charming. She exerted herself to win

him without permitting the effort to be even guessed at.

Her very beauty seemed to grow more brilliant and bewitching. She moved

about the place "like a poem," as Lord Charles declared. Her voice,

always soft and musical, with unexpected harmonies, that charmed by

their very surprises, was like music; and, more important still, it was

seldom heard. She exacted none of the privileges of an engaged woman;

she did not expect Leycester to sit with her by the hour, or walk about

with her all day, or to whisper tender speeches, and lavish secret

caresses. Indeed, she almost seemed to avoid being alone with him; in

fact she humored him to the top of his bent, so that he did not even

feel the chain with which he had bound himself.

And he was grateful to her; gradually the charm of her presence, the

music of her voice, the feeling that she belonged to him told upon him,

and he found himself at times sitting, watching, and listening to her

with a strange feeling of pleasure. He was only mortal and she was not

only supremely beautiful, but supremely clever. She had set herself to

charm him, and he would have been less, or more than man, if he had

been able to resist her.

So it happened that he was left much to himself, for Charlie, thinking

himself rather _de trop_ and in the way, had taken himself off to join

his shooting party, and Leycester spent most of his time wandering

about the coast or riding over the hills, generally returning at

dinner-time tired and thoughtful, and very often expecting some word or

look of complaint from his beautiful betrothed.

But they never came. Exquisitely dressed, she always met him with the

same serene smile, in which there was just a suggestion of tenderness

she could not express, and never a question as to where he had been.

After dinner he would come and sit beside her, leaning back and

watching her, too often absently, and listening to her as she talked

to the others. To him she very seldom said much, but if he chanced to

ask her for anything--to play or to sing--she obeyed instantly, as if

he were already her lord and master. It touched him, her simple-minded

devotion and thorough comprehension of him--touched him as no display

of affection on her part would have done.

"Heaven help her, she loves me!" he thought, often and often. "And I!"

One evening they chanced to be alone together--he had come in after

dinner, having eaten some sort of meal at a shooting lodge on the

adjoining estate--and found her seated by the window, her white hands

in her lap, a rapt look on her face.

She looked so supremely lovely, so rapt and solitary that his heart

smote him, and he went up to her, his step making no sound on the thick

carpet, and kissed her.

She started and looked up with a burning blush which transfigured her

for a moment, then she said, quietly:

"Is that you, Leycester? Have you dined?"

"Yes," he said, with a pang of self-reproach. "Why should you think of

that? I do not deserve that you should care whether I dine or not."

She smiled up at him; her eyebrows arched themselves.

"Should it not? But I do care, very much. Have you?"

He nodded impatiently.

"Yes. You do not even ask me where I have been?"

"No," she murmured, softly. "I can wait until you tell me; it is for

you to tell me, and for me to wait."

Such submission, such meekness from her who was pride and hauteur

personified to others, amazed him.

"By Heaven, Lenore!" he exclaimed, in a low voice, "there never was a

woman like you."

"No?" she said. "I am glad you will have something that is unique then."

"Yes," he said, "I shall." Then he said, suddenly, "When am I to

possess my gem, Lenore?"

She started, and turned her face from him.

He looked down at her, and put his hand on her shoulder, white and warm

and responsive to his touch.

"Lenore, let it be soon. We will not wait. Why should we? Let us make

ourselves and all the rest of them happy."

"Will it make you happy?" she asked.

It was a dangerous question, but the impulse was too strong.

"Yes," he said, and indeed he thought so. "Can you say the same,

Lenore?"

She did not answer, but she took his hand and laid it against

her cheek. It was the action of a slave--a beautiful and

exquisitely-graceful woman, but a slave.

He drew his hand away and winced with remorse.

"Come," he said, bending over her, "let me tell them that it shall be

next month."

"So soon?" she murmured.

"Yes," he said, almost impatiently. "Why should we wait? They are all

impatient. I am impatient, naturally, but they all wish it. Let it be

next month, Lenore."

She looked up at him.

"Very well," she said, in a low voice.

He bent over her, and put his arm round her, and there was something

almost desperate in his face as he looked up at her.

"Lenore," he said, in a low voice, "I wish, to Heaven I wish I were

worthy of you!"

"Hush!" she whispered, "you are too good to me. I am quite content,

Leycester--quite content."

Then, as her head rested on his shoulder, she whispered, "There is only

one thing, Leycester, I should like----"

She paused.

"What is it, Lenore?"

"It is about the place," she said. "You will not mind where it takes

place, will you? I do not want to be married at Wyndward."

This was so exactly in accordance with his own wishes that he started.

"Not at Wyndward!" he said, hesitating. "Why?"

She was silent a moment.

"Fancy," she said, with a little rippling laugh. "Fancies are permitted

one at such times, you know."

"Yes, yes," he said. "I know my mother and father would wish it to be

there--or in London."

"Nor in London," she said, almost quickly. "Leycester, why should it

not be here?"

He was silent. This again would be in accordance with his own desire.

"I should like a quiet wedding," she said. "Oh! very quiet."

"You!" he exclaimed, incredulously. "You, whose marriage would at

any time have so much interest for the world in which you have

moved--reigned, rather!"

She laughed again.

"It has always been one of my day-dreams to steal away to church with

the man I loved, and be married without the usual fuss and formality."

He looked at her with a gleam of pleasure and relief in his eyes,

little dreaming that it was for his sake she had made the proposal.

"How strange!" he muttered. "It--well, it is unlike what one fancies of

you, Lenore."

"Perhaps," she said, with a smile, "but it is true, nevertheless. If I

may choose, I would like to go down to the little church there, and be

married like a farmer's daughter, or, if not that exactly, as quietly

as possible."

He rose and stood looking out of the window, thoughtfully.

"I shall never understand you, Lenore." he said; "but this pleases me

very much indeed. It has always been my day-dream, as you call it,"--he

smothered a sigh. "Certainly it shall be as you wish! Why should it not

be?"

"Very well," she said; "then that is agreed. No announcements, no fuss,

no St. George's, Hanover Square, and no bishop!" and she rose and

laughed softly.

He looked at her, and smiled.

"You appear in a new light every day, Lenore," he said. "If you had

expressed my own thoughts and desires, you could not have hit them off

more exactly; what will the mother say?"

The countess had a great deal to say about the matter. She declared

that it was absurd, that it was worse than absurd; it was preposterous.

"It is all very well to talk of a farmer's daughter, my dear, but you

are not a farmer's daughter; you are Lady Lenore Beauchamp, and he is

the next earl. The world will say you have both taken leave of your

senses."

Lenore looked at her with a sudden gleam in her violet eyes.

"Do you think I care?" she said, in a low voice--Leycester was not

present. "I would not care whether we were married in Westminster

Abbey, by the archbishop himself, with all the Court in attendance, or

in a village chapel. It is not I, though I say so. It is for him. Say

no more about it, dear Lady Wyndward; his lightest wish is law to me."

And the countess obeyed. The passionate devotion of the haughty beauty

astonished even her, who knew something of what a woman's love can be

capable of.

"My dear," she murmured, "do not give way too much."

The beauty smiled a strange smile.

"It is not a question of giving way," she retorted, with suppressed

emotion. "It is simply that his wish is my law; I have but to obey--it

will always be so, always." Then she slipped down beside the countess,

and looked up with a sudden pallor.

"Do you not understand yet how I love him?" she said, with a smile.

"No, I do not think anyone can understand but myself--but myself!"

The earl offered no remonstrance or objection.

"What does it matter!" he said. "The place is of no consequence. The

marriage is the thing. The day Leycester is married, a heavy load of

care and apprehension and I shall be divorced. Let them be married

where they like, in Heaven's name."

So Harbor and Harbor were set to work, and the principal of that

old-established and aristocratic firm came all the way down to

Devonshire, and was closeted with the earl for a couple of hours, and

the settlement deeds were put in hand.

Lady Lenore's fortune, which was a large one, was to be settled upon

herself, supplemented by another large fortune from the hand of the

earl. So large, that the lawyer ventured on a word of remonstrance, but

the earl put it aside with a wave of the hand.

"It is the same amount as that which was settled upon the countess," he

said. "Why should my son's wife have less?"

Quiet as the betrothal had been, and quietly as the nuptials were to

be, rumors had spread, and presents were arriving daily. If Lenore

could have found any particular pleasure in precious gems, and

gold-fitted dressing-bags, and ivory prayer-books, there they were in

endless variety for her delight, but they afforded her none beyond the

fact of their being evidence of her coming happiness.

One present alone brought her joy, and that was Leycester's, and that

not because the diamonds of which the necklet was composed were large

and almost priceless, but for the fact that he fastened the jewels

round her neck with his own hands.

"These are my necklets," she murmured, taking his hands as they touched

her neck and pressing them.

How could he resist her?

And yet as the time moved on with that dogged obstinacy which it

assumes for us while we would rather have it pause awhile, something

of the old moodiness seemed to take possession of him. The long walks

and rides grew longer, and often he would not return until late in the

night, and then weary and listless. At such times it was Lenore who

made excuses for him, if by chance the countess uttered a word of

comment or complaint.

"Why should he not do as he likes?" she said, with a smile. "It is I

who am the slave, not he."

But alone in her chamber, where already the signs of the approaching

wedding were showing themselves in the shape of new dresses and wedding

_trousseau_, the anguish of unrequited love overmastered her. Pacing

to and fro, with clasped hands and pale face, she would utter the old

moan, the old prayer, which the gods have heard since the world was

young:

"Give me his love--give me his love! Take all else but let his heart

turn to me, and to me only!"

If Stella could have known it, she was justly avenged already. Not even

the anguish she had endured surpassed that of the proud beauty who had

helped to rob her, and who had given her own heart to the man who had

none to give her in return.