Lancaster's Choice

"He is neither," says Leonora, with the pretty pensive smile she has worn throughout their interview. "But let us speak no more of it. I should not have confessed to you only to show you how futile it would be for you to go on loving me. I thought it but justice to you. It may make it easier for you to forget me."

"I shall never do that," he answers, with conviction.

"You think so now, but time will console you," smiling. "I shall be gone out of your life forever in a few weeks."

"Gone?" he echoes, blankly.

"Yes; I am going away in three weeks' time. Aunt West goes with me to America."

He starts.

"Is it possible?"

"Yes, we are going to seek a home in my own land. Bid me bon voyage, Lieutenant De Vere. You are the only friend I have made in England, that is, if I may call you my friend," wistfully.

He gulps down a great sigh of disappointment, regret, and pain, and holds out his hand.

"Yes, I am your friend, if I can not be your lover," he said, manfully.

CHAPTER XXXVII

Something like a week later Lieutenant De Vere, strolling down a street in London, comes suddenly face to face with Clive, Lord Lancaster.

"What! not gone home yet?" says the former, in surprise, and Lancaster flushes guiltily.

"No; but when did you come to London?" he inquires.

"Several days ago," De Vere replies, carelessly, and scanning his friend curiously. Lancaster does not bear the scrutiny well. He is wan and haggard looking. There is no color in his usually florid face, and his eyes are heavy and restless.

"You have not finished your visit so soon, I trust," he observes, eying his friend in turn with a close scrutiny. De Vere has a worn air, too, as if dull and ennuyé.

"Yes, I have finished my visit; I did not care to remain after my host took such a cavalier flight."

"Ah, indeed!" sarcastically. "But I did not know that I was the object of your visit."

"You were not, particularly; but I came away because I had no longer any excuse for staying."

The tone was so peculiar that Lancaster looked at him more closely. He caught De Vere by the arm a little nervously.

"De Vere, you don't mean to tell me that she has refused you?"

"She is so indefinite. Whom do you mean?" airily.

"I thought there was but one she in the case. Miss West, of course."

"Oh!"

"Has she refused you, I say, De Vere?" imploringly.

"Yes."

"Really?" with something like incredulous joy in his voice, though he tries hard to keep it out of it. He has been so jealously sure all the while that Leonora would accept "the goods the gods provided," that he can scarcely take in the truth now.

"Yes, Miss West has refused me, really. You seem glad of my ill-luck, Lancaster," in a tone of subdued bitterness.

Lancaster is suddenly shocked at himself.

"Oh, no, no! I beg your pardon a hundred times I did not mean it at all. I am sorry for you, old fellow, but I can not understand it, really."

"Perhaps you are dull of comprehension. Take a cigar to brighten up your understanding."

They light their cigars and walk on together, and then De Vere continues:

"What is it about the affair that you can not understand?"

"That she should refuse you. I thought she would be sure to accept."

"Ah!" said Lieutenant De Vere, dryly, and then he took several moody puffs at his cigar.

"Yes, I honestly thought so. Did she give you any reason for refusing you?"

"Two reasons," De Vere replied, laconically.

"One ought to have been enough," said his friend.

"Yes, it ought to have been, I know," said De Vere, reddening warmly. "But, you see, I did not want to take no for an answer, so when she said she couldn't marry me because she didn't love me I wanted her to take time. You see, I thought she might learn to love me. So, then, to escape my importunities, she had to put in another reason."

"And that?" asked Lancaster.

"I am not sure that I ought to tell. I think she told it me as a secret," he answered, thoughtfully.

And then when he saw Lancaster's grave, disappointed face, he said, suddenly:

"Tell me your secret, Lancaster, and I will tell you hers. Why did you run away from Lancaster Park?"

"Because I was a coward, De Vere—that is all," bitterly.

"But why? Were you afraid that your aunt would marry you off willy-nilly to the earl's daughter?"

"Not exactly, although there was some danger of it," said Lancaster, smiling.

"There was some other reason, then? Come, old fellow, are you ashamed to confess the truth?"

"I should have been a week ago, I think I might own it now with the bribe you offered in view."

"What was it, then?" curiously.

"This: I was madly in love with Leonora West, and too selfish, or too jealous, or too great a coward, to stay and witness your happiness as her accepted lover."