Lancaster's Choice

Go where he would, do what he might, the face he loved was ever before his fancy. As the time drew near for her departure to America a strange longing took possession of him. He yearned to see the living face of the girl once more, before the wild waves of the blue Atlantic divided them forever as widely as if she were in her grave and he in his. He had no longer any bitterness or anger toward her in his heart since he had learned of that sweet sorrow hidden in her young breast—a sorrow akin to his own.

"I should like to see the man who was so cold and hard that he could not love her," he said to himself. "He must be a stock or a stone indeed. Poor little Leonora! I will go down to Lancaster and bid her good-bye and god-speed on her homeward way. There can be no harm in that. I must see her once more, or I shall go mad with longing for her sweet, fair face and her soft voice."

So in the first heat of sweltering July he went down to Lancaster Park, intent on sating his restless pain with one last look at the beloved face.

CHAPTER XXXIX

He thought himself very fortunate that when he crossed the grounds of Lancaster and entered the house, no one saw him. It was just what he wished.

He went straight to the housekeeper's room, and he found Mrs. West sitting alone in the little sitting-room, going over her account-book with a pen and ink. She rose in some perturbation at the unexpected sight of the master of Lancaster Park.

"I did not know you were in the house, my lord," she said.

"I have just entered it," he replied. "Do not let me disturb you, Mrs. West. I came to see your niece."

"Leonora?" she said, with some surprise. "Oh, dear! I am very sorry, but she is not here;" and she wondered at the sudden paleness that overspread his face.

"Not here?" he stammered. "Is she gone, then? I thought—I understood that you would go with her to America."

"Oh, yes, so I shall," she answered; "but she is not gone there yet. I did not mean that. She will be here this evening."

"Where is she now?" he asked, eagerly, and Mrs. West replied:

"She has gone over to the Abbey ruins to make a sketch this morning."

"Thank you," he said, and hurried out of the room with such precipitancy that the good soul stared after him in amazement and consternation.

"Dear me! what has that poor child done now?" she thought, nervously. "It is a pity she ever came to Lancaster Park. She has but a sorry time of it here. I almost wish she had accepted Lieutenant De Vere. It would have been such a grand match for her, and she is too bright and pretty to remain in my station of life. I wonder what Lord Lancaster can want with her. Is he going to scold her for anything she has done?"

But while she propounded these uneasy questions to herself, our hero was striding across the park and lanes and fields toward the Abbey ruins, every other thought swallowed up in the intense longing to see Leonora again. His heart beat heavily as he came in sight of her, at last, sitting among the green graves, as he had seen her before, but not sketching busily now, for her drawing materials lay beside her on the grass, and her head was bowed on her arm, her face hidden from sight on her black sleeve.

"Poor child!" he thought, compassionately, "she has a sorrow to grieve over as well as I;" and he stepped softly, almost fearing to intrude upon the sacredness of her grief, yet loath to turn back again, for something drew him irresistibly to her side.

The soft echo of his footstep in the grass startled her. She looked up quickly with a low cry. He saw tears upon her face, and her rosy lips were quivering like a child's.

"Leonora!" he cried, and knelt down impulsively by her side.

She was so taken by surprise for a moment that she forgot to draw away the hands he caught daringly in his. She looked up at him, and said, with a catch in her breath:

"I thought you were in London."

"So I was until to-day; but I came down to bid you good-bye," he answered, feasting his hungry sight unrestrainedly on the pale beauty of her lifted face.

"Then you knew that I was going away?" she asked.

"Yes; I saw De Vere in town. He told me," he answered; and a pretty blush crept into her cheeks, and her lashes fell. "And so," he went on, half smiling, "you refused my friend, in spite of all my advice to the contrary?"

She pulled her hands suddenly away.

"Yes, I refused him. Was it worth my while," with a stinging scorn her voice, "to sell my body and soul for paltry gold?"

"No; you were right not to give the hand while your heart was another's," he said, bending down to look into her face that suddenly grew burning crimson as she cried out, sharply:

"Why do you say that? How dare you? Has Lieutenant De Vere told you—"

"Yes, he has told me that you would not marry him because you loved another. He is a thrice better man whoever he may be, Leonora. How much I envy him I need not say," he said, earnestly, carried away by the passion that filled him.

She looked at him with her gray-blue eyes full of wonder.

"You! Lady Adela's intended husband!" she said, bitterly.

"I am not her intended husband," he answered. "Do you think I am less noble than you, Leonora? that I could wrong any one by giving my hand without my heart? No, I do not love Lady Adela, and I can never be her husband. Do you know what I was doing up in London, child?"

"How should I know?" she answered.

"Well, I was trying to exchange into a regiment that is en route for India. I am going to throw over the twenty thousand a year and run away from England and my pain."

"You are?" she said, drawing a long breath and gazing at him with dilated, wondering eyes. "But why, Lord Lancaster?"

"Can you ask me why?" he asked, bitterly.

"Yes, because I can not understand at all why you are going to India. What pain is it you are running away from?"

He started and looked at her keenly. Was it possible that she did not guess? Had she misunderstood him all along? His heart beat with a sudden hope.

"I am fleeing from that misery that the poet has put into immortal doggerel," he said. "Have you never heard of it, Leonora? That pain which is

"'Of all pains the greatest pain,
To love and not be loved again?'"

She looked at him with a new, strange light in her soft eyes that made his heart beat tumultuously.

"Yes, I have heard of it," she said; "but I did not know that you were a victim to its pangs. Who is it that you love, Lord Lancaster?"

"Is it possible you do not know?" he asked; and then he saw that her eyes were shining with hope, and her whole graceful form trembling.

He took the small hands again into his, and she did not offer to take them away.

"I will make a compact with you, Leonora," he said. "If I will tell you whom I love, will you then tell me to whom you have given your heart?"

"Yes, I will tell you," she replied, with a soft, sweet laugh.

"Listen, then," he said. "I have been in love with you, Leonora, ever since that first day I saw you in New York."

"And I with you," she answered, glowing with happy blushes.

"My darling!" he cried, and caught her in his arms and pressed her to his beating heart. "Then why have you been so cruel to me all the time?"

"Because I thought you were going to marry Lady Adela, and I was so jealous and unhappy that I misunderstood you all the while," Leonora confessed, with shy frankness.