A Woman Martyr
CHAPTER I
A sharp shower pattering on the foliage of the sycamores and elms was scattering the equestrians in the Row. Fair girls urged their hacks into a canter and trotted swiftly homewards. Other riders, glancing upwards, and deciding that the clouds had done their worst, drew up under the trees. Among these was a slight, graceful girl in a well-fitting habit with a pale, classic face, and the somewhat Venetian combination of dark brown eyes and red-gold hair. With a slight wave of her whip to her groom-who halted obediently under a neighbouring tree-she reined in her slender-limbed bay mare under a horse-chestnut tree whose shelter was still undemanded.
There she sat still in her saddle, with a slight frown-biting her lip-as she asked herself again and again, "Did he see me? Has he ridden out of the park?"
When she cantered along just as the shower began, she fancied she recognised an admirer she had believed to be far away, walking his horse in the same direction as herself. This was Lord Vansittart-a man who had several times repeated his offer of marriage-an offer she did not refuse because he had not stirred her heart-for she loved him, and passionately-but for other reasons. Although it had caused her bitter pain, she had at least been determined enough in her "No" to send him off, in dudgeon, to seek forgetfulness in other climes.
And now he had appeared again!
Her first feeling had been dismay, mingled with involuntary ecstacy which startled her. Then came a wild, almost uncontrollable impulse just to speak to him-to touch his hand, to look into those love laden eyes once more-only once more!
She gazed furtively here and there, divided between the hope and fear that her longing would be sated-she would meet him. Riders passed and repassed. The little crowds gathered, thickened, dispersed. She was disappointedly telling herself that as the shower had temporarily subsided she ought to be returning home, when her heart gave a leap. A rider who was trotting towards her was the man-the man strongly if slightly built, handsome, fair, if stern-who alone among men had conquered that heart, who, although despair had driven her to hold her own against him, was her master.
It was all over-fate had decided-they two must once more meet! There was no escape.
He rode up. She blanched, but looked him steadily in the face. He gazed sadly, beseechingly, yet with that imperious compelling glance which had so often made her quail-into those beautiful brown eyes.
"We meet again, you see," he said, in a harsh, strained voice. He felt on the rack-to him, wildly panting, yearning to take her in his arms after weary, maddening months of longing, that gulf between them seemed a very hell.
"So it seems," she said, with a pitiful attempt at a laugh. "I thought you were in Kamschatka, or Bombay-or anywhere!"
"I have come back," he returned, lamely, mechanically accompanying her as she rode out of shelter-she would not, could not, stay there and bandy words with him! "I felt-I must know-the worst!"
Involuntarily she reined in, and so suddenly that she startled her steed, and it was some moments before the mare's nerves were calmed. Then she turned a white, set face upon her self-elected escort.
"What do you mean, Lord Vansittart?" she asked scornfully, and her eyes flashed.
"You-know," he hoarsely said. "I am not so utterly vain as to think that where I have failed, other and-and-more attractive fellows may not succeed!"
"You know, or ought to know, that what you are saying is absurd!" she faltered. What had she thought, feared? She hardly knew, she only felt a tremendous relief. Thank Heaven, even had she been secretly vowed to the cloister, her conduct since their parting could not have borne closer scrutiny! "You must remember-what I said-I never, never, intend to marry-anyone. I shall never, never, change my mind-about that!"
He said nothing; but glanced at her-a curious glance. A puzzle to him since he first had felt encouraged to believe from symptoms which only a watchful, anxious lover would perceive, that she involuntarily, perhaps even unconsciously, loved him-she had remained an insoluble problem during the long days of their separation when he pondered on the subject the slow, lagging hours through-and, now again, she bid fair to be as great a problem as ever. For he felt, he knew, that her reception of him-her pallor, the strange look in her eyes and the curious pitch of her voice-why, the veriest fool alive would not have mistaken her demeanour or one of its details for indifference!
"I-I think you mistake yourself," he began slowly, revolving certain ideas which he had jotted down at intervals for his future guidance, in his mind. "I suppose you do not believe in marriage. You have seen its failure! Is that it?"
"Perhaps," she said. "I really can't tell, myself. All I know is, that I am firmly resolved not to marry-any one!" She spoke doggedly, with almost a childish obstinacy.
"But-you do not bar friendship?" he said, earnestly, appealingly. "Supposing some one of the unfortunate men you determine to have nothing to do with were to wish to devote his whole life and energies to you, secretly, but entirely-with the absolute devotion of a would-be anchorite or martyr-what then? You would not refuse to give the poor devil a chance? I mean, to give him something in return; if friendship were too much to expect, tolerance, pity, a look now and then, or a word, you would allow him to play your faithful knight, of course in strict secrecy, from afar, unsuspected by the world?"
A faint colour suffused her lovely face. She looked at him, furtively. "Some people may care for that sort of thing-I don't!" she bluntly said. "Oh, Lord Vansittart! why will you not, can you not, see and understand that all I want of-of-everyone is to be let alone? I have my own ideas of what my life should be; surely any one professing interest in me ought to respect them!"
"I respect your every thought," he eagerly, if somewhat perplexedly returned. "Only-I should like thoroughly to understand the kind of life you wish to lead. Because-well, I will not beat about the bush. Joan! you know I love you! You are my very life! And if I cannot be nearer than I am now, my only happiness and motive for living must be to serve you in some way, to see you, speak to you, help you, be your very slave-"
Just as his voice was most impassioned his appeal was interrupted. An elderly gentleman rode swiftly up and tapped him on the arm.
"Why, Vansittart! can I believe my eyes?" he exclaimed, somewhat breathlessly. "Joan, where has he dropped from?"
It was Sir Thomas Thorne, the wealthy uncle who had adopted Joan, his late brother's only child, at her mother's death a few years previously. The admired beauty, whose only flaw seemed to be her adamantine pose in regard to her many suitors, was known to be sole heiress of the wealthy baronet and his wife, who were not only childless, but curiously devoid of near relations.
"From Paris, Sir Thomas," he replied, as easily as he could. Then he gave a brief account of his wanderings. He seemed to have roamed and ranged over the earth, prowling about for some interest, which evaded him from Dan to Beersheba. Sir Thomas listened with a peculiar twist of his thin, fine lips and a curious twinkle in his shrewd, handsome old eyes.
"Come in to lunch," he genially, if abruptly, proposed, as they left the park. "My lady will be delighted to see you-you are one of her particular favourites."
What could Vansittart do but accept? With many deprecatory glances at Joan-which, as she rode on looking straight before her, she either did not, or would not see, – he accompanied uncle and niece through the pale sunshine which now bathed the wet streets and shone upon the dripping bushes and bright green foliage of the trees, to the door of Sir Thomas' tastefully beflowered mansion in one of the largest West-end squares.
Here, before the groom had had time to wait upon his mistress, he was off his horse, and at her stirrup.
"Forgive me," he pleaded, as she eluded his help and sprang lightly down. "I could not resist the temptation!"
Had she heard him? She had marched on into the house. "She will not appear at luncheon," he told himself bitterly, as he accompanied the very evidently friendly Sir Thomas up the steps and through the hall. "She will make some plausible excuse to avoid me, as she has always done, worse luck!"
CHAPTER II
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