"Dearest, the time is past for secret letters and stolen meetings. The hour has struck for boldness and liberty – for open, happy, unassailable love. Irene, you have told me more than once that you do not value wealth."
"And I tell you so again," she answered.
"And that you would freely renounce a great fortune to be my wife, the mistress of a modest unluxurious home, such as I am now able to support."
"I think you know that I would be happier with you in a hovel than with any other husband in a palace," she said, in a low sweet voice that thrilled him, and with drooping eyelids, as if she were half ashamed at the boldness of her confession.
"Then break your chains, Rena; fly with the lover who adores you; steal away in the early dawn to-morrow; steal across the park with foot as light and form as graceful as the young fawn's yonder. Meet me at the wicket that opens on the road. I will have a carriage-and-four ready to receive you. I'll whip you up in my arms and carry you off as Jove carried Europa, and we shall be well over the first stage to London before your gaolers discover their captive has escaped. I saw Parson Keith last night; he will be ready to marry us at ten o'clock to-morrow morning, and his ceremonial will be just as binding as if we were married by an archbishop."
"But can I disobey my father, prove myself an ungrateful daughter?" asked Irene, with a distressed air.
She had been woman enough to know that this crisis in her life must come sooner or later; that love would not wait for ever. She had pondered upon this crucial question in many an hour of solitude, and now it had come and must be answered.
"Dear love, you have to choose between that tyrannic father and me," pleaded Herrick, with impassioned earnestness; "the time has come for that choice to be made. I have hung back hitherto, fearful to trust the future; but I am now assured of a literary career and of Sir Robert Walpole's friendship and patronage. I can afford to tempt fortune so far as to take a wife. I am secure of keeping a roof over my darling's head, and that the pinch of poverty shall never be hers."
"I am not afraid of poverty – I only fear to offend my father."
"That is a hazard which must be run, Irene. We have tried to be dutiful, both of us. I addressed him honourably as a suitor for your hand; urged upon him that my prospects were not hopeless, that I was industrious, patient, and had begun to earn my living. He rejected my proposals with contempt, treated me as harshly as ever miserly hidalgo in a Spanish comedy treated his daughter's suitor. If you are ever to be mine, Rena, you must brave your father's anger. You will never be mine with his consent, and 'tis ill waiting for dead men's shoes, saying we will put off our happiness till the old man is in his coffin. Let us be happy in spite of him. When the deed is done, I have a way to win him to forgive us both."
"What way, Herrick?" she asked eagerly.
"That is my secret, which I will reveal only to my wife."
"Ah, that is playing on my curiosity to win me to rebellion."
"Not rebellion, Rena; only natural revolt against an unendurable tyranny."
"Do you think he will ever forgive?"
"He will, he must. He will have no right to be angry, from the moment he knows my secret."
"You torture me with your enigmas. Why will you not tell me?"
"To my wife, my wife only," he whispered, drawing her to his breast once again, and stifling her questions with kisses. "That secret is for none but my wife's ear: but, as I am a man of honour, Irene, you will stand free of all reproach for undutifulness. You can look Squire Bosworth in the face and say, 'I am no rebellious daughter;' and if he has a spark of generosity in him he shall take you to his heart as I do now, and give you love for love."
"He is not ungenerous," said Irene. "But I wish you would be less mysterious."
"There shall be no mysteries when I am your husband. And now, love, say that you will come. I have done my part towards your father as a man of honour. I have worked hard as journalist and politician for wife and home. Am I to be disappointed of my reward?"
"No, love," she answered, "you shall not be cheated. I will be your wife; even at the risk of never seeing my father's face again."
He thanked and blest her, in a rapture of love and gratitude; and then came a reiteration of his instructions. She was to creep out of the house before the servants were up; they rose at daybreak, but she must be before them. There was a glass door in the white parlour where they had all dined together – Lavendale, Herrick, the Squire, and his daughter – so often last year. This door opened into the garden, and was fastened with bolts which could be easily withdrawn; especially if Irene would but take the trouble to oil the fastenings over-night, to guard against any tell-tale scrooping of the iron. Then, cloaked and warmly clad, she was to skirt the shrubberies and cross the park to the wicket-gate. There Herrick and his coach would be in readiness; and all the rest was a question of fleet horses and quick relays, of which it was the lover's business to make sure over-night.
"I shall ride to Esher and on to Kingston, and make all preparations before ten o'clock," he said.
Irene was not like Lady Judith. She never thought of her gowns, or asked how she was to carry away her clothes. Not more than the lilies of the field did she consider her raiment in this solemn crisis of her life. She only knew that soon after daybreak to-morrow morning she would be in her lover's arms, speeding away along the London road to be wedded and made one with him for ever. That she was to leave a noble inheritance and all her frocks and furbelows behind her troubled her not the least. She had no lust for finery, or to shine and dazzle in some new sphere. Blindly, and with a childlike confidence, she threw herself into her lover's arms, believing him wisest and best among all mankind.
So in the gray cold October dawn those two met at the wicket-gate, the coach and four horses standing ready a little way along the road. There had been nothing to hinder Irene's flight, albeit her sharpest gaoler, Mrs. Layburne, lay wakeful and restless as the girl's light foot passed her chamber-door. Irene heard the short dry cough, and the quick impatient sigh that followed; and she knew that her father's mysterious housekeeper was lying there, sleepless and suffering.
"My glorious girl," cried Herrick, as he hurried her to the carriage, "I half feared your courage might fail you."
"There was no fear of that, Herrick," she answered quietly; "but I felt myself a rebel and an undutiful daughter as I crept past my father's room."
"You will not think that to-morrow."
"To-morrow! What do you mean by to-morrow?"
"Only that I intend to beard the lion in his den, Irene, or in other words to ask the Squire's pardon as soon as you are so fast my wife that no fury of his can part us. We will not behave as most runaway lovers do, go and hide themselves and wait for Providence to melt the paternal heart. We will go straight to the tyrant, and say, 'You see, love is stronger than self-interest. It is not your fortune we want, but your love;' and if he has a heart he will forgive us both, Irene."
"I hope he will," she murmured despondently.
"You hope, but you don't believe. Well, we shall see. And now tell me, sweet, how is the Squire's housekeeper, Mrs. Layburne?"
"Very ill. Indeed, Herrick, I fear the poor soul has not many weeks, or perhaps many days, to live. It is a sad and lonely ending. She shuns all sympathy, and waits for death in a proud silence which has an awful air. Alas, I fear she lacks all the consolations of piety. I have offered to read to her, to pray with her; but she refused with open scorn. She will have nothing to say to Mademoiselle, who is all kindness. Bridget detests her, and yet tries to nurse her and to do all she can to lessen her sufferings: but it is an unthankful office. My father looks miserable, and I think the presence of that dying woman in the house overshadows his life. He has not been to London for weeks. He sits alone in his study, reading or writing, as if he were waiting for Mrs. Layburne's death. Mademoiselle and I have hardly seen him from day to day, yet last year we were all three so happy together. He used always to dine and spend his evenings with us; but now he dines alone, and is shut up in his study till midnight."
The horses