CHAPTER V.
EDITH WEST.
The London clocks were just striking midday as a gentleman drove up to the door of No. 6, Roehampton Terrace, Bayswater. It was Lionel Dering. He had reached London two days previously, but he would not venture to call on Edith West without first writing to her aunt and obtaining the requisite sanction. Mr. Garside had been dead nearly a year, but Edith and her aunt still continued to live together. In his note to Mrs. Garside, Lionel simply said that by a sudden change of fortune he was again in a position to pay his addresses to Miss West, and he solicited her permission to allow him to do so. Mrs. Garside was only too happy to bid him welcome to Roehampton Terrace. Indeed, it is by no means improbable that she would have welcomed him had he gone to her on the same errand without a shilling in the world. She had discovered long ago that Edith was too faithful to the memory of her first love for there to be much hope that a second one would ever find a place in her heart. As Mrs. Garside had said to herself a score of times since her husband's death, "It would be far better for Edith to marry Mr. Dering without a penny than for her never to marry at all. Edith's fortune, if managed with economy, would suffice to keep them in tolerable comfort--not in London, perhaps, but in some quiet country place, or in some cheap corner of the Continent; and Edith is one of those girls who can make themselves happy anywhere."
Under these circumstances, it is hardly to be wondered at that Mrs. Garside was very glad to see Lionel Dering under her roof again, more especially as he did not come to her in the disagreeable guise of a poor man. Tears came into her eyes as she held out her hand to him--genuine tears, for Mrs. Garside was one of those women who can weep on the slightest provocation. "It will be like new life to our darling Edith to have news of you once more," she said.
"Then she has not quite forgotten me?" said Lionel, eagerly.
"Forgotten you, Mr. Dering! How little you know of our sex if you think it possible for us so soon to forget those to whom our young affections have once been given."
"Is she--is Edith here in the house?" asked Lionel.
"She was in her own room only five minutes ago. I can understand your impatience, Mr. Dering, and will not keep you from her. I have refrained from saying a word to her about either your note or your visit. You shall yourself be the bearer of your own good tidings."
Three minutes later Lionel found himself in the presence of Edith. Mrs. Garside opened the door and ushered him in. The room was a very pleasant one, furnished with books, pictures, and curiosities of various kinds. At the farther end it opened into a small conservatory, which looked one dazzling mass of bloom as you entered the room. And there, sweetest flower of all, sat Edith, her face and figure clearly defined against a background of delicate ferns.
"Edith, dear, I have brought a long-lost friend to see you," said Mrs. Garside, as she and Lionel entered.
Edith dropped her book, and started up in surprise. Lionel was half hidden behind Mrs. Garside, and for the moment Edith mistook him for a stranger. But he had not advanced three paces before she saw who he was, and in a moment she was as one transformed. Her mouth dimpled into smiles, tears came nestling into her eyes--tears of happiness--her heart beat fast, her cheeks flushed to the tint of the wild rose when its petals first open to the sun, and with a little inarticulate cry of joy she sprang forward to greet her lover. She sprang forward, and then she halted suddenly, while a look of sadness clouded her face for a moment. With a sigh that ended in a half sob she held out her hand. Lionel grasped it in both his.
"How long you have been away!" she said, as her eyes met his. Mrs. Garside slipped discreetly out of the room, and shut the door softly behind her.
Lionel lifted Edith's hand to his lips and kissed it. Then he looked at her with the same eager, anxious gaze that she had bent on him--he looked and was satisfied. His heart told him that he was still loved as fondly as ever he had been. Edith, too, after that first hungry look, veiled her eyes modestly, but there was a wild whirl of happiness at her heart. Lionel drew her face up to his, and kissed her twice very tenderly. Then he led her to the sofa, and sat down beside her.
"Yes; I have been a very long time away," he said at last. "But I am come to-day, Edith, to ask you to keep me by your side through life--never more to let me wander from you."
Edith, in the first shock of her surprise, was too happy to speak. But her fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on his hand, and her face, resting on his shoulder, where he had placed it, nestled still closer; her silent answer was more eloquent than any words.
"Edith, I left you--my letter told you why," went on Lionel. "But all through the long dreary time when I was separated from you, my love for you never faltered, never wavered for one single moment. If I had never seen you again in this world, my heart's last breath would still have been yours. Yesterday I was poor--to-day I am rich. Once more I can ask you, as I asked you three years ago, to be my wife. Do not tell me that I am asking for more than you can give."
Edith's faith in Lionel was so full and complete, her love for him so deep-rooted, that she never paused--as many young ladies would have done--before giving him back the affection which had all along been his, to demand from him the reason for his apparent desertion of her three years before. In that first flush of new-born happiness it was enough to know that her lover had come back to her: the why and the wherefore of his leaving could be explained afterwards.
"You know, Lionel, that my love is yours always--that it has been yours for a long long time," said Edith, in accents that trembled a little in spite of herself. "But I never received any letter from you after that last one dated from some far-away town in America."
"No letter!" exclaimed Lionel. "Not one explaining my reasons for releasing you from your engagement?"
"Never a single line, Lionel."
"But I gave the letter into your uncle's hands," returned Lionel. "He promised faithfully that he would give it you."
"He did not give it me," answered Edith.
"Perhaps he kept it back because he thought it better that I should not see it."
"He had no right to do anything of the kind," said Lionel, sternly. "The letter was sacredly entrusted to him, and ought as sacredly to have been delivered to you.
"Lionel, my uncle is no longer with us," said Edith, gently. "You and I are together again. That redeems all. Let us never say another word about the letter."
"What a villain, what a mean wretch, you must have thought me," cried Lionel impulsively, "to break off my engagement without assigning you any reason! Without even a single word of explanation!"
"I thought you nothing of the kind," said Edith, with decision. "I knew you too well not to feel sure that you must have good and sufficient reasons for acting as you did. Although you did not tell me what those reasons were--whatever may have been my disappointment at your silence--my faith in you never wavered."
"But when weeks and months passed away, and you never heard from me----"
"I felt then that all was over between us; felt it in a despairing, hopeless kind of way. But I cherished no resentment against you--none."
"But surely