"Have no fear," she said, "I can protect myself. I shall be back ere Lady Belrose takes part in the next dance," saying which she turned and went down the walk that led between the grassy lawn and the arbours, in each of which now twinkled the many-coloured oil lamps. And, as she so turned, that portion of the maskers in which was the man dressed as the headsman passed by the chair she had just vacated, and she knew that he must have seen her rise and move away.
A few moments later she was aware that such was the case. A heavy tread sounded behind her-she had now advanced considerably down the path and had almost reached a rustic copse, in which were two or three small arbours-another instant, and the voice she longed yet feared to hear, the voice that she thought trembled a little as it spoke, addressed her:
"Is Lady Fordingbridge not afraid to separate herself from her party thus?" she heard Bertie Elphinston say-surely his voice quivered as he spoke. "Or does pity prompt her to do so; pity for another?"
"Lady Fordingbridge," she replied, knowing that her own voice was not well under control, "has no fear of anyone, unless it be of those whom, all unwittingly, she has injured." Then, scarcely knowing what she said, or whether her words were intelligible, and feeling at a loss what else to say, she gazed up at him and exclaimed, "You come to these festivities in a strange garb, sir. Surely the executioner's is scarcely a suitable one for a night of rejoicing."
"Yet suitable to him who wears it. Perhaps 'tis best that I who may apprehend-"
"Oh, Mr. Elphinston!" she exclaimed suddenly, interrupting him, "it was not to hear such words as these that I came here to-night. You know why I have sought this meeting; have you nought to say to me but this?"
"Yes," he replied, "yes. But let us not stand here upon the path exposed to the gaze of all the crowd. Come, let us enter this arbour. We shall be unobserved there."
She followed him into the one by which they were standing, and-for she felt her limbs were trembling beneath her-sank on to a rustic bench. And he, standing above her, went on:
"The letter that you sent to me asked that I should pity and forgive you. Kate, we meet again, perhaps for the last time on earth; let me say at once, there is nothing for me to forgive. If fault there was, then it was mine. Let mine, too, be the blame. I should have told you that Elphinston of Glenbervy was about to marry Mademoiselle Baufremont. Yet, he had sworn me to silence, had bidden me, upon our distant kinsmanship, to hold my peace, had sought my assistance to enable him to wed the woman whom he loved. How could I disclose his secret even to you? How could I foresee that a scheming devil would turn so small a thing to so great an account?"
"But," she said, gazing up at him and noticing-for both had instinctively unmasked at the same time-how worn his face was, how, alas! in his brown hair there ran grey threads though he was still so young; "but why, to all those letters I sent, was no answer vouchsafed? I thought from one or from the other some reply must surely come. Have you forgotten how, for many years now, we four-Douglas and Archibald, you and I-had all been as brothers and sister-until-until," she broke off, and then continued: "how we had vowed that between us all there should be a link and bond of friendship that should be incessable?"
"I have forgotten nothing," he replied, "nothing. No word that was ever spoken between us, no vow, nor promise ever made."
Again the soft blue eyes were turned to him, imploringly it seemed; begging by their glance that he should spare her. And, ceasing to speak of his remembrance of the past, he continued: "Circumstances, strange though they were, prevented any one of us from receiving your letters-or from answering them in time. I was lying ill of Roman fever at the English College; Archibald Sholto was in Tuscany in the train of Charles Edward, Cardinal Aquaviva having provided their passports; Douglas was with De Roquefeuille, and received your letter only on his return to Paris, where it had been sent back to him. Kate, in that stirring time, when the prince was passing from Rome to Picardy, was it strange no answer should come?"
"No, no," she replied. "No," and as she spoke she clasped both of her hands in her lap, and bent her head to hide her tears. Then she muttered, yet not so low but that he could hear her: "Had I but waited! but trusted!"
"It would have been best," he said very gently. And as he spoke, as though in mockery of their sad hearts, many of the maskers went by laughing and jesting, and the quadrille being finished the band was playing the merry old tune of "The Bird that danced the Rigadoon."
"You hear the air?" she said, looking up suddenly again. "You hear? Oh! my heart will break."
"Yes," he answered, "I hear."
CHAPTER VIII
"FORTUNE! AN UNRELENTING FOE TO LOVE."
That song in the old days in the Rue Trousse-Vache had been the air which Bertie Elphinston had whistled many a time to Kate to let her know that he was about to enter the "salle d'escrime," or to make her look out of the window and see the flowers he had brought her from his mother's garden in the suburbs. Also, on a Sunday morning early, he had often stood beneath the window of her room and had piped the "Rigadoon" to remind her that it was time for them to be away for their day's outing. For in those happy times-alas! but a year ago-these two fond, happy lovers had spent every Sabbath together and alone. Arm in arm the whole day; or, when the soft summer nights fell over the Bois de Boulogne, or the woods of St. Germain or the Forest of Fontainebleau, his arm round her waist and her soft fair head upon his shoulder, they had wandered together, taking a light meal here and there at any roadside auberge they happened on, and then both going back to supper, at her father's little house, where, as they had done all day, they talked of the future that was before them.
And now the future had come and they were parted for ever! No wonder that the old French song which had found its way to England grated harshly on their ears.
"Thank God, 'tis finished," he said, as the orchestra struck up a dance tune next. "For us, to our hearts, it awakens memories best left to slumber for ever." Then sitting down by her side on the rustic bench, he continued: "Kate, you wrote in your letter to me," and he touched his breast involuntarily as he spoke, so that she knew he bore it about him, "that there was private treachery to be feared. Is it to be feared from him?"
"Alas!" she whispered, "I almost dread 'tis so. He is not satisfied yet; he-"
"He should be! He has all I wanted."
"To injure you," she continued, "would be, as he knows, the best way to strike at me."
"To strike at you?"
"Yes, to repay me for my scorn and contempt-my hate of him."
"You hate him!" he exclaimed.
"From the depths of my heart. How can it be otherwise? His treachery-when I learnt it-made me despise him; his conduct since has turned my contempt to hatred. Oh," she exclaimed, "it is awful, terrible for a woman to hate her husband! Yet what cause have I to do aught else? When he speaks-though I have long since ceased to reply to anything he says-his words are nothing but sneers and scorn; sometimes of you, sometimes of me. And he gloats over having separated us, of having taken your place, while at the same time he is so bitter against me that, if he dared, I believe he would kill me. Moreover, he fears your vengeance. That is another reason why, if he could betray you to the Government, he would."
"'Tis by betrayal alone that we can be injured," Bertie said, thoughtfully. "None of our names are known, nor in the proscribed list. Yet how can he do it? He it was who planned the attack upon the Fubbs2 to be made when the Elector crossed from Holland; he who disseminated the tracts, nay, had them printed, counselling his taking off. He was worse than any-no honest Jacobite ever stooped to assassination! – and many of us know it."
"Be sure," she replied, "that what he could do would be done in secret; Bert-Mr. Elphinston, who is that man who has passed the arbour twice or more, and looks always so fixedly at you?"
"I know not," he replied, "yet he has been ever near Douglas and me-he and another man-since we entered the gardens.