Peggy watched him without speaking. Her childish wild-rose prettiness was sadly blurred and dimmed; her face looked very white and pitifully small, overshadowed by the heavy mass of brown hair. She was wearing a black velvet gown with no relief except a little tucker of old lace at the throat.
It struck Stephen that he had never seen her wearing black before. With a sharp throb of anger, he asked himself whether it could be put on for the sake of a man—the scoundrel—who died in prison.
Peggy had got up from the hearthrug. She was sitting in an uncomfortable attitude on the extreme edge of a low chair now.
"Yes, I have decided not to let the Wards have Talgarth," Stephen said slowly. "But the old place wants a mistress, not only a master. Will you marry me, Peggy?"
The tone was oddly matter-of-fact.
For a moment Peggy was too taken aback to grasp the sense of the words. She gazed up at him uncomprehendingly.
But unemotional though his voice—his words—might be, there was that in his eyes that would have revealed his secret to Peggy if she had met their gaze fully—that would have told a keen observer that all this big, stern-looking man's heart had gone out to the pretty pale girl, that his whole being was absorbed in waiting for her answer.
"Will you marry me, Peggy?" he repeated quietly, after a minute's waiting.
The girl flushed up, then she twisted her small cold hands nervously together.
"No thank you, Stephen!"
A shade darkened Crasster's face, but his voice was as controlled as ever when he spoke again.
"Why not, Peggy?"
Peggy was not looking at him now. She was gazing past him, at the cheerful little flames that were darting up the chimney.
"I—I do not want to be married at all, I shall not marry anyone, but it is good of you to ask me, Stephen."
"Good of me," Stephen repeated. "I don't understand you. What do you mean?"
"It is good of you," Peggy said again. "I know it is only because you are sorry for me of course, because you would like to help me to make people forget—this last year. But I would not let you make the sacrifice; I would not let you link your fate with mine."
"Would you not?" Stephen questioned in his low kind tones. Then he laughed as he looked at her bent head. "Sacrifice!" he repeated. "Because I'm sorry for you! Why, don't you know me better than that, Peggy?"
"Know you?" Peggy lifted her startled eyes. "I know that you are all that is good and kind," she faltered, "but—"
Stephen laughed again.
"Good, kind!" he repeated scornfully. "Don't you know that I love, you, Peggy, that I have loved you always? Have you been blind all this time?"
A little of Peggy's wild-rose colour was stealing back to her cheeks again now.
"I—I think I must have been," she said beneath her breath. "Yes! I was blind, Stephen."
Looking at her, Stephen was conscious of a great desire to take her in his arms and comfort her. He dropped into the chair near her and put his strong brown hand over the two small white ones lying forlornly in her lap.
"And is it quite hopeless, Peggy?" he questioned gently. "Are you going to tell me that you cannot care for me? That I am an old fool for dreaming that you ever could?"
"No, no! I'm not. How could I?" Peggy cried incoherently. "Oh, Stephen, why didn't I—why didn't you—"
"Why didn't I what?" Stephen said gently. He was holding her cold hands in his firm warm clasp now, gathering courage from the fact that they were not withdrawn—nay, he fancied that the small fingers were clinging to his. "What is it that you wish I had done sooner?"
"Told me—this," said Peggy with a sob. "Why didn't you, Stephen? Why did you let me—"
Stephen's face was very grave as his eyes rested on the drooping head, on the soft lips that were quivering childishly.
"It seemed to me that I had no right to speak to you sooner, Peggy; no right to bind your bright youth to me, until you had seen something of the world, until you could make your choice with your eyes open. I cannot see, even now, how I could have done otherwise."
"Don't you? No! Perhaps you couldn't!" Peggy said weakly. "But oh, Stephen, if you had—"
"Would it have made any difference, Peggy?" Stephen asked her softly.
"Why, of course it would," she cried, catching her breath, big tears standing in her eyes. "Of course it would, I should have known then—"
"You would have known then that I loved you," Stephen finished. "Ah, yes, but don't you understand, if your choice fell on any other man, I didn't want you to know it, Peggy. I wanted to keep your friendship."
"That wasn't what I meant at all," Peggy said in a very shaky voice. Her face was averted now, and Stephen could not see how her lips were trembling, nor the tears that were rolling down her cheeks. "I meant that I should have known, when he came—Lord Chesterham—that it was no use—that no one could ever take my old friend's place with me."
"Peggy!" Stephen came a little nearer, he stooped till his dark head was very near her brown hair. "Does this mean that—that you cared—that you can care—for me?"
"Oh, I believe I have cared all my life," Peggy cried, the tears bursting forth in real earnest now. "Oh, if I had only known, Stephen; if I had only known. It is too late now!"
"Why is it too late?" Stephen asked softly, his right hand still holding both of hers, his left arm crept round her waist and encircled it. "Why is it too late, Peggy?"
"Because—because—oh, I couldn't," the girl sobbed incoherently. "Do you know that they point at me everywhere, Stephen? In London, quite a little crowd collected once to see me come out of the house. Abroad it is just the same. As soon as any English people hear my name, they tell one another that I am the girl who was engaged to the false Lord Chesterham—the man who would have been—hanged—if he had lived. And even here, in Carew, where the people have known me all my life, they stare at me. They wonder how I take things; they let me see that they never forget!"
"Brutes!" Stephen ejaculated beneath his breath. "All the more reason you should let me take care of you, Peggy. When you are Mrs. Crasster of Talgarth they will forget all about it, and so will you."
"Never, never!" the girl said passionately. "I couldn't, Stephen!"
"Not if I tried to make you?" Stephen said quietly. He drew her nearer, gathering comfort from the fact that she did not repulse him. "I will try very, very hard, Peggy. Tell me you will let me."
"I don't know why you should want to," Peggy said quaintly, "but—"
"But you will," Stephen said triumphantly. "Oh, Peggy, my little wilful rosebud. How often I have dreamt of this day! Tell me it is really true, that you care for me a little."
Peggy's small face was hidden against his coat sleeve.
"Not a little," she said shyly. "A—a great deal, Stephen."
That all happened quite a long time ago now. For Peggy has been mistress of Talgarth for more than four years, and people have almost forgotten that she was once engaged to the false Lord Chesterham. The impostor himself is seldom spoken of either; old Betty Lee is dead, her son Hiram has left the neighbourhood, and the new Lord Chesterham, a distant cousin of the last peer, is a middle-aged man with a large growing up family of sons and daughters, who keep the neighbourhood lively with their doings, and leave little time for the delving into past history.
There are children too at Talgarth, as well as at Heron's Carew. Peggy has two boys—big sturdy fellows with their father's length of limb and broad brows and their mother's fair complexion. Love for them, and for their father, has driven the shadows from Peggy's eyes, has brought back the smiles to her lips. She leads a very busy life too—little Mrs.