NEW BERTHA CLAY LIBRARY No. 50

A Woman’s Trust

BY

Bertha M. Clay

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

A FAVORITE OF MILLIONS

New Bertha Clay Library

LOVE STORIES WITH PLENTY OF ACTION

PRICE, FIFTEEN CENTS

The Author Needs No Introduction

Countless millions of women have enjoyed the works of this author. They are in great demand everywhere. The following list contains her best work, and is the only authorized edition.

These stories teem with action, and what is more desirable, they are clean from start to finish. They are love stories, but are of a type that is wholesome and totally different from the cheap, sordid fiction that is being published by unscrupulous publishers.

There is a surprising variety about Miss Clay’s work. Each book in this list is sure to give satisfaction.

ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT

A WOMAN’S TRUST;

OR,

Lady Elaine’s Martyrdom

A NOVEL

BY

BERTHA M. CLAY

Whose complete works will be published in this, the New
Bertha Clay Library.

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION

PUBLISHERS

79-89 SEVENTH AVENUE

NEW YORK CITY

Copyright, 1900 and 1902

By STREET & SMITH

A Woman’s Trust

(Printed in the United States of America)

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian.

CONTENTS

[CHAPTER I. “AT LAST I HAVE MET MY FATE.”]
[CHAPTER II. A RIFT IN THE LUTE.]
[CHAPTER III. “MY GOD! ALL IS AT AN END.”]
[CHAPTER IV. COLONEL GREYSON’S MISSION.]
[CHAPTER V. “IF HE HAD ONLY COME HIMSELF.”]
[CHAPTER VI. THE LETTERS TIED WITH BLUE RIBBON.]
[CHAPTER VII. SIR HAROLD’S DEPARTURE.]
[CHAPTER VIII. “THE PAST IS ALL A BLANK.”]
[CHAPTER IX. “I SHALL WAIT, IF NEED BE, FOREVER.”]
[CHAPTER X. AT LADY GAYNOR’S BALL.]
[CHAPTER XI. MY PLACE IS HERE TO PROTECT THERESA.]
[CHAPTER XII. COLONEL GREYSON’S VISIT.]
[CHAPTER XIII. A STRANGE WILL.]
[CHAPTER XIV. AN EVIL GENIUS.]
[CHAPTER XV. LADY GAYNOR SHOWS HER HAND.]
[CHAPTER XVI. THE VISCOUNT’S SCHEME.]
[CHAPTER XVII. THERESA’S LOVE.]
[CHAPTER XVIII. SIR HAROLD’S WALK TO FARNWELL.]
[CHAPTER XIX. A FUNERAL AND A WEDDING.]
[CHAPTER XX. THE AWAKENING BEGINS.]
[CHAPTER XXI. THE VILLA IN HYDE PARK.]
[CHAPTER XXII. “TO-MORROW SHALL DECIDE.”]
[CHAPTER XXIII. THERESA’S WARNING.]
[CHAPTER XXIV. POOR THERESA.]
[CHAPTER XXV. A STARTLING DISCOVERY.]
[CHAPTER XXVI. THE DUKE’S ULTIMATUM.]
[CHAPTER XXVII. “WE SHALL NEVER MEET AGAIN.”]
[CHAPTER XXVIII. MARGARET’S ATONEMENT.]
[CHAPTER XXIX. PEACE AT LAST.]

A WOMAN’S TRUST.

CHAPTER I.

“AT LAST I HAVE MET MY FATE.”

“How ridiculously provoking you can be, Harold!”

“I do not think my remarks are ridiculous, Elaine.”

“Your society is decidedly unpleasant when your conversation takes this morbid strain,” replied Lady Elaine Seabright.

“I only asked you a natural question, darling,” said Sir Harold Annesley, an anxious light in his blue eyes. “I am your accepted lover—your future husband.”

“And in consequence my life is to be made a burden to me!” the beautiful Elaine exclaimed, pettishly.

“Heaven forbid. Every moment of my waking thoughts shall be devoted to the happiness of my peerless darling!” He pressed her to him in sudden rapture.

“Harold, you foolish fellow, I wish that you were less demonstrative. The people on the lawn will see us. I am sure that papa is looking this way!”

“No, no! We are safe in this bower of beauty,” laughed Sir Harold.

He pressed another kiss upon her ripe lips, and thanked Heaven in his heart for the great gift of this girl’s love.

Two short months before, neither dreamt of the other’s existence. Sir Harold had just returned from an exploring expedition, and his name was mentioned in the papers. He was eulogized for his bravery in forcing a passage to some outlandish place in Africa, and at the risk of his life rescuing a well-meaning but foolish missionary. He had been away from home for five long years, and it was hoped that he would now stay in England for good. He represented a grand old line; he was young, handsome, and wealthy. With all these advantages, it is easy for a man to become popular anywhere.

Lady Elaine Seabright had read this item of news with languid interest, and immediately forgot it. A week later it again recurred to her, for at the county ball she found herself being introduced to Sir Harold Annesley.

She thought that she had never before seen so perfect a man, and he remarked to his companion, Colonel Greyson, an hour later, that she was the most beautiful woman in the whole world.

“Did I not tell you so, Mr. Skeptic?” laughed the colonel. “Lady Elaine has carried all hearts by storm from the hour she was launched upon society. She has had a score of lovers.”

Sir Harold sighed and echoed: “A score of lovers!”

“Yes; all hearts that beat in manly bosoms pay homage to the most beautiful girl in England. But she has come scathless out of the ordeal, and is free as air after two seasons.”

“I am glad of it,” replied Sir Harold; and Colonel Greyson smiled, meaningly.

“Why should you be glad?” he said. “Why should you be glad? A confirmed woman-hater! Beware, Sir Harold!”

The young baronet blushed.

“I am not ashamed to tell you, old friend, that with me it is love at first sight. I have never loved before; I have never breathed words of love into any woman’s ear. At last I have met my fate.”

“Go in and win, my boy. You are worthy of any woman,” the colonel said; then he looked away, adding, “this pleasure is only tempered with one regret.”

“One regret, colonel? I do not understand you. Be frank with me, as you have ever been, my more than father.”

“Boy, are you not aware that your cousin Margaret loves you? I believe that she has worshiped you from her very childhood.”

A shade of annoyance passed over Sir Harold’s face, but it immediately brightened again.

“Of course, Margaret loves me in a cousinly—a sisterly way, but it is nothing more, colonel, I assure you. Besides, I could not marry Margaret Nugent if she were the only choice left to me. I believe that it is wrong for cousins to marry.”

Just then he caught sight of Lady Elaine, and he had eyes for none else.

“Come,” said Greyson, “we must not hide in this recess like a pair of conspirators. You are the lion of the evening, Sir Harold, and people will be inquiring for you.”

They left the conservatory, and a deep sigh, that was almost a sob, fluttered in the scented air. From behind a mass of sub-tropical plants emerged the figure of a woman—young and exquisitely beautiful—a woman with a face that would have sent Titian into ecstasies of delight. She was of medium height, and her form was outlined in graceful, rounded curves. There was not an angle or a movement to offend the eye of an artist. Her face was oval, her lips red and full, her eyes dark and luminous, her hair as black as the raven’s wing. Among the coils of these matchless tresses was a red rosebud; about her snowy throat a necklet of rubies, and her dress was of amber silk.

“He could not marry Margaret Nugent if she were the only choice left to him!” she murmured, her white hands tightly clinching themselves. “And is it for this I have loved and waited all these weary years? Oh, Harold! how can you be so cruel? You have been my ideal—my king! More precious than my hopes of heaven! And now—oh, God, I cannot stand it!”

She sank into the lounge that the gentlemen had just left, and covered her eyes with her hands, while her lovely bosom rose and fell with the bitter pangs of her emotion.

The merry strains of the waltz were maddening, and the laughter of the happy people in the brilliantly illuminated ballroom made only more apparent her own misery.

“He has met his fate in Lady Elaine Seabright, and I had thought him all my own!” she continued, inaudibly. “I have never liked my proud and haughty friend, and I now hate her with an undying hatred! She shall not take from me the man I love! If she does, I swear to fill her life with bitterness equal to that which I suffer now!”

Her eyes had grown black, and flashed gleams of fire; her tiny hands were clinched, and her beautiful form swelled with fury. In that brief space Margaret Nugent had changed from a warm-tempered, imperious girl to a determined and revengeful woman.

Just then some one touched the keys of the piano, and sang the words of a song that haunted her forever:

“Alone in crowds to wander on

And feel that all the charm is gone,

While voices dear, and eyes beloved,

Shed round us once, where’er we roved—

This, this, the doom must be

Of all who’ve loved, and loved to see

The few bright things they thought would stay

For ever near them, die away.

Though fairer forms around us throng,

Their smiles to others all belong,

And want that charm that dwells alone

Round those the fond heart calls its own.

Where, where the sunny brow?

The long-known voice—where are they now?

Thus ask I still, nor ask in vain—

The silence answers all too plain!

Oh! what is fancy’s magic worth,

If all her art cannot call forth

One bliss like those we felt of old

From lips now mute and eyes now cold?

No, no—her spell is vain—

As soon could she bring back again

Those eyes themselves from out the grave,

As ask again one bliss they gave.”

Margaret Nugent clutched at her heart, gasping: “I will not lose him—I will never give up my hero-king!”

Again the voice of the singer rose:

“Alone in crowds to wander on,

And feel that all the charm is gone.”

“I shall go mad!” murmured Margaret. “Can I get out into the moonlight unobserved? The cool air will soothe my throbbing brain.”

She looked back into the ballroom, and saw Sir Harold Annesley talking to Lady Elaine Seabright. Lady Elaine’s flower-like face was turned up to him laughingly, and Margaret Nugent shivered.

She turned, and gliding from the conservatory, almost reeled into the vine-wreathed piazza beyond, clutching at the wall for support.

Even here she could not be alone, for a recumbent figure started up from a low seat, saying, in anxious tones:

“Dear Miss Margaret, are you faint? I have just come out myself to escape the heat. Can I get you a glass of water?”

“No, thank you, viscount,” replied Margaret. “I am already better—much better. The heat is stifling.”

“Would you prefer to be alone, Miss Margaret?” went on Viscount Rivington, “or will you stroll with me in the moonlight for a few minutes? It is lovely out here, and we shall not be missed now.”

He spoke with a tinge of bitterness in his tones. Margaret looked at him sharply.

“I understand——” she said, gently, yet with a thrill of satisfaction in her heart, “I understand. Lady Elaine is as capricious as usual; Lady Elaine seeks new worlds to conquer!”

He laughed bitterly.

“Sir Harold is the social lion to-night. Every one bows to him,” he said, “but I will not have him come between me and the woman I worship, Miss Nugent!”

He turned suddenly upon her.

“You love your cousin—you love Sir Harold. Nay, how could I help but read your secret when my own heart is torn with jealous fears? I could curse the fate that brought him here to-night. Lady Elaine had promised to consider my suit; her father, the earl, was pleased to welcome me as a favored lover; but now I am extinguished!”

He glanced vengefully toward the gleaming windows just as two people in the room beyond paused to drink in the beauty of the moonlight. The brilliant lights behind them made every movement distinct.

“See!” Viscount Rivington whispered. “There they are, Miss Nugent—the woman I love and the man whom you covet. Are we to stand idly by while all that life holds dear drifts away?”

“No!” she said, and their eyes met. They understood each other.

CHAPTER II.

A RIFT IN THE LUTE.

“She is the loveliest girl in all England,” the papers said, when the engagement of Sir Harold Annesley and Lady Elaine Seabright was announced. “And Sir Harold is the lion of the season. Both are extremely wealthy, and it is in every way a most suitable match.”

The wooing and winning had been short and decisive. It was love at first sight on both sides, and the Earl of Seabright was gratified that his beautiful but capricious daughter was at last conquered.

He was an easy-going nobleman of the old school, intensely proud of his ancient line, but indolent to a selfish degree where the best interests of his only child were concerned.

He wished to see her well married, but did not care whom to so long as there was no blemish on his prospective son-in-law’s name. The man’s private character was nothing to him if he could boast of wealth and an ancient pedigree.

“I congratulate you, my boy,” he said, genially, to Sir Harold. “My willful beauty has been endless trouble to me. All the men at her feet, you know, and if you had not come upon the scene so opportunely, she would have struck her colors to Viscount Rivington, I verily believe. Poor fellow! It will be no end of an upset for him.”

Sir Harold frowned.

“I do not think that Elaine ever dreamed of such a thing,” he said.

“Well, well,” laughed the earl; “if you are satisfied, what does it matter? One word, my boy; deal gently with her. She is very young, and has never yet been thwarted. ‘Happy’s the wooing that’s not long a-doing,’ you know, but these sudden engagements are apt to be as quickly broken.”

Sir Harold could not forget the words of the earl for some days. The impression left from them was far from pleasant. He was giving all to the woman he loved—the past, the present, and the future—and he expected an undivided return.

So rapid had been the wooing that the plans of Margaret Nugent and Viscount Rivington had not been permitted formation. It was as impossible to keep these two apart as to keep the needle from the magnet.

An early marriage had been suggested by the impatient lover, and Elaine was not averse to anything which would please Sir Harold. She worshiped him as a being far above her, though at times his jealous fears pained her bitterly.

This takes the reader back to the opening words of our story.

Sir Harold was an almost daily visitor at Seabright Hall. His own estate was but ten miles distant, and, mounted upon his favorite horse, his had become a familiar figure to the rustics of Seabright.

It was a warm July day, and the few visitors at the Hall were sunning themselves on the lawn, and listening to my lord’s sporting reminiscences, while the lovers had wandered to a bower festooned with roses and fragrant clematis.

“But you have not answered my question, Elaine,” Sir Harold went on, and there was an earnestness in his tones that surprised her.

She turned her eyes toward him—lustrous eyes, like pansies wet with dew, saying, “Harold, I believe that you are jealous, and I dislike jealous people.”

“Then I am to understand that you dislike me?” he smiled; but there was an undercurrent of sadness in his voice.

“Oh, my darling! how foolish you are! Why will you tease me so?”

Lady Elaine clung to him in a passion of love, and yet he was far from being satisfied.

“I believe that I am of a jealous nature,” he said. “It is one of the misfortunes of my race.”

“I am glad that you call it a misfortune,” the girl observed, her lips trembling, “and I sincerely trust that you will never be jealous of me, Harold. Where there is jealousy there cannot be true love. You must trust me all in all, or not at all!”

He was silent for a few minutes, and gnawed his mustache impatiently.

“My darling,” he said, at last, “I have laid bare my life to you. My notions of love and marriage may seem peculiar, but the thought that the woman I love had ever willingly accepted the attentions of another man would be torture to me. I have never had a sweetheart before, I have never pressed my lips to those of a girl, or written one line of nonsense to any woman living. I give you all—unreservedly—my first and my last love.”

She waited for him to continue, her heart burning resentfully.

“I know that I am accounted the luckiest and most enviable mortal on earth because I have stepped in and taken the prize that so many sighed for in vain; but, Elaine, my darling, now that we are engaged, it maddens me to see such men as Viscount Rivington forever dancing attendance upon you.”

“Harold,” she said, calmly, “what am I to do?”

“You must show by your manners that—that——”

“I cannot be rude to my father’s friend,” she replied, decidedly. “You are asking too much, Sir Harold. You insult me.”

He had seized her hand in a moment, and was showering kisses upon it.

“No, no, Elaine, a thousand times no! It is only my great love for you that makes me so exacting. You will forgive me, darling, when I tell you that I have heard from several people that you were all but engaged to Viscount Rivington, when I arrived in England, but two short months since. I want you to deny this, and I shall be eternally satisfied.”

Lady Elaine had turned as pale as death.

“I do deny it, Sir Harold, unequivocally.”

She looked at him fearlessly, and his heart smote him.

“My dear love,” he whispered, remorsefully, “I am satisfied. I will never doubt you again. This has been a bitter torture to me. Your father hinted at it long ago, and—and——”

“Well?”

Her tones were cold and hard.

“You told me that it was not true.”

“And you have listened to other falsehoods—to other childish tittle-tattle. Oh, Harold! what will my future life be if I wed a jealous man?”

“It shall never occur again, my darling. Do not punish me more, I beseech you!” cried Sir Harold.

“Why do you not question the viscount?” she demanded, scornfully.

Then she bowed her head and sobbed bitterly.

Sir Harold returned home that evening with a heavy heart. For the first time since their engagement he and Elaine had not exchanged a kiss at parting.

She had persistently remained in her own apartments, and at a late hour he had ridden away to Annesley Park, his heart torn with conflicting doubts and fears.

And Viscount Henry Rivington saw through it all and smiled.

CHAPTER III.

“MY GOD! ALL IS AT AN END.”

Sir Harold Annesley was the most envied of men among his kind. He was young, wealthy and famous; possessed of a splendid physique, and the representative of an old and honorable line. There was no blot on the escutcheon of the Annesleys; the men had ever been noble and brave, and the women good and virtuous.

In addition to these splendid attributes and honors, Sir Harold had won the fairest and loveliest woman in all England. Dukes and princes had sighed vainly at her feet. She had been the beauty of two seasons, and had nearly turned the brains of a score of men, but to one and all was Lady Elaine the same. Kindly and gracious, but as cold as an icicle when there was the danger of an avowal.

Some of these disappointed lovers declared that she was a coquette; others that she had no human passions—no heart.

At last her father, my lord of Seabright, spoke to her seriously upon the subject of marriage.

“It must come some day, Elaine. Surely among all your acquaintances you must have some preference?”

“No,” the girl replied. “All men are alike. It is dreadful that they must all pretend to fall in love with me.” Her lips curled with scorn. “I do not think,” she added, “that one man in a hundred knows anything of the professions he makes use of so glibly.”

The earl stared at her in surprise. “Why should you think so, Elaine?”

“They are passionately in love to-day, and speaking unkindly of me to-morrow. Is that love?”

The earl did not feel competent to argue the point, so he wisely evaded the question by saying:

“Well, let us hope that you will be able to return the affection of some one before many months are past—Viscount Rivington, for instance. He is young, handsome, and comes of a great family. He will be a duke some day, and is very much in love with you.”

“So that these men are of ancient lineage, papa, it does not seem to concern you whether it is possible for me to love them or not,” Lady Elaine replied.

“My dear, I sincerely hope that you could not bring yourself to care for what is termed a man of the people,” the earl exclaimed, in alarm.

“And why not, if he were a gentleman?” laughed Elaine. “There, papa, why should we talk of these things? I like Viscount Rivington better than any one else, because he does not rave about broken hearts and suicide; but as for the love that poets sing about, I fear that I am incapable of experiencing it. In my early girlhood it was a beautiful dream that lay before me like an enchanted garden. Now I am becoming worldly and skeptical. I have not met my prince, and fear that my ideal lives only in my dreams.”

“What nonsense these poets put into the heads of girls!” my lord remarked. “Their trash does an incalculable amount of harm, and ought to be made a bonfire of. However, I am glad that you are beginning to see the value of it, my child. Try and think well of Rivington. He is a capital fellow.”

After that Lady Elaine treated the viscount kindly, and he at once fancied that he was her favored suitor. Then Sir Harold Annesley appeared, and the beautiful Elaine knew that her prince had come at last! With one glance Sir Harold won this peerless creature, and to all his other honors was added this victory. And yet he was not happy!

No sooner was the prize assured than he began to make himself and Elaine miserable by his quixotic notions of the love of twin souls. The words of the Earl of Seabright haunted him when he spoke of Viscount Rivington in connection with Lady Elaine, and while congratulating him, his cousin Margaret had expressed astonishment that the earl’s daughter could so quickly transfer her affections from one to the other.

“But it is not true,” Sir Harold had said; “she never cared for the viscount.”

“Everybody thought that there was a tacit engagement at least,” Margaret said, “and, of course,” she added, brightly, “everybody may have been mistaken! People are always ready to take an interest in other people’s love affairs. Hundreds of engagements are made in this way, which really have no foundation in fact.”

“It is a great pity that such busybodies have nothing better with which to employ themselves.”

“It will always be the same,” his cousin replied, indifferently, “so long as unscrupulous society papers are permitted to print the items sent in to them by vicious-minded people who make money out of their news. Still, there is rarely smoke without fire, Harold, and I was certainly under the impression that Lady Elaine favored the viscount.”

Sir Harold felt vexed and irritable, and after this he was never weary of hearing Elaine declare that she had given him her first enduring love.

“Suppose that you had never seen me?” he would say; “what then?”

The bare possibility, even in imagination, of the woman he loved ever caring for another troubled him.

His persistence became painful to Lady Elaine. It seemed that he had not implicit trust in her. She who had been so cold and haughty to others—the spoiled child of an indulgent father, the pet of society—became almost a slave to the caprices of her lover.

But my lady became indignant at last, and after their interview in the summer arbor she sent for Margaret Nugent—she sent for the cousin who knew Sir Harold’s moods, and would perhaps be able to advise her.

Miss Nugent listened, and there was a well-assumed sympathy in her eyes, in her voice—while her heart was throbbing with triumph.

“You must not let him have his way in all things, Lady Elaine,” she said. “Time enough for that after marriage. You will lose your self-respect, and he will not value you any the more for that!”

“I think that you are right, Margaret, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. He shall not find me so childish in the future. In my great love for him I may have acted weakly. I am the daughter of an earl,” she added, proudly.

There was a resolute ring in her tones, and her head resumed its haughty pose.

So when Sir Harold came to the Hall next day, an expectant smile upon his lips, a resolve in his heart to beg Elaine’s pardon, and to promise never to offend her again, he was informed by a servant that my lady had gone for a ride, and that she was accompanied by Viscount Rivington.

His face turned so white that the man noticed it, and asked:

“Are you ill, Sir Harold?”

“No,” he returned, shortly. “Which way did her ladyship go?”

“In the direction of Ashbourne, Sir Harold.”

The baronet rode away, and as he galloped through the park, he saw Viscount Rivington and Lady Elaine crossing a distant hill on their return home.

His brain was on fire. He dared not meet them now, and continued on his way—anywhere.

For three days he nursed his jealous wrath, and heard no word of Elaine. Then news came to him of a garden party at Seabright Hall, to be followed by a ball.

He could bear it no longer. He was consumed with love and wounded pride.

“I have given her all,” he told himself; “and get but half a heart in return. She must be everything to me, or nothing!”

He rode over to the Hall, but it was not the happy lover; it was a man with a stern, white face.

He left his horse in charge of a groom, and asked for Lady Elaine.

“I will wait in the west drawing-room,” he told the footman. “Let her ladyship know that I am here as soon as possible.”

He paced the floor impatiently, until he saw a vision of loveliness crossing the lawn toward the house. It was Lady Elaine, attired in a diaphanous dress of snowy white. She wore a broad-brimmed straw hat, and in her hands were bunches of wild flowers.

“My darling!” he murmured. “Oh, what a brute I am. If she is weak and frail, then Heaven itself is false!”

In a little while she came into the room, and his words of welcome died on his lips, for in the eyes of Elaine there was no answering smile.

“Sweetheart,” he whispered, hoarsely, “is this the best greeting you have for me?”

“Why have you absented yourself, Sir Harold, without one word of explanation?” she asked, with studied coldness.

He instantly resented this by saying: “Absented myself? The last time I called you appeared to be enjoying more congenial society.”

“It is a relief to be beyond range of your unreasonable temper sometimes,” Lady Elaine said.

“Oh, my love, this is terrible for me to bear!”

“You think only of yourself, Sir Harold.” Her lips quivered. “You think only of yourself. I have been too childish and yielding.”

“It is the duty of woman to yield,” he retorted.

“I beg to differ with you. I do not propose to be your slave,” Lady Elaine responded, bitterly.

There was silence for a little while—a silence that neither ever forgot.

“We must have an understanding, Elaine,” Sir Harold said, at last. “Do not let false pride stand between us, my darling. I was angry when I heard that you were out with Rivington. I saw you together, and it maddened me. I do not think it right for an engaged woman to listen to the flattery of any man.”

She laughed musically.

“No? I suppose that you consider me your slave? I object to being any man’s slave, Sir Harold.”

“Listen to me, my dear love,” he pleaded. “Who speaks of slavery! Oh, why will you misunderstand me? Have I not lavished upon you the whole wealth of my affection? Are you not my ideal of all that is good and beautiful in woman?”

“And yet you do not trust me. I cannot understand such love as that,” Elaine said.

He held out his arms, and she was not proof against this, but her determination to maintain her independence remained unshaken. Had she not already scored a victory?

For a few minutes he caressed her fondly, his face rapturously happy.

“There is only one thing now,” he told her, “that stands between us and heaven itself. Can you guess what it is, darling?”

“No,” she replied. “How should I know?”

“Then I will tell you, dear.” He held her away from him at arm’s length. “I want you to promise me that you will not ride out with Viscount Rivington again?”

She drew away from him, her head erect.

“It is impossible, Sir Harold; I am not your wife yet, remember!”

“Impossible!” he echoed. “Why, may I ask?”

“I decline to answer. If the Viscount desires my society I cannot very well refuse it. He is an old friend and neighbor. As your wife you may command me, but again I repeat I am not yet your wife.”

“And never will be,” Sir Harold replied, with terrible calmness, “unless you respect my wishes now.”

She endeavored to slip his ring from her finger, but was seized with an awful faintness.

“I believe that it will kill me if I lose you, Elaine,” he went on, “but I cannot marry a woman who accepts the attentions of other men. I will leave you to think it over, and to decide between me and Rivington. Bah! how I loathe his name! If you love me as I love you my happiness is safe. If you will not give me your promise, I swear that I will never willingly look upon your face again.”

He sprang toward her and pressed her passionately to his heart; he showered a hundred kisses on her face mingled with tears that seemed scalding hot.

“Good-by, Elaine! I can stand this no longer,” he groaned.

He rushed from the room, and for a long time Lady Elaine Seabright was like one in a dark dream.

Her first impulse when she recovered her numbed senses was to cry:

“Oh, my darling, my darling, come back to me!”

Then Margaret Nugent was announced, and Lady Elaine told her all.

“You have nearly conquered him,” smiled Margaret. “He is merely trying to frighten you. How well I know him of old! He was always a wayward, headstrong, loving boy. As children we had our little quarrels through his overbearing temper, but he always acknowledged at last that he was in the wrong; I will say that for him, and it will be the same with you, Lady Elaine. He will come back to you and confess his faults; he will be so humble when he realizes that you refuse to encourage his caprices, and let us hope that the lesson will be a wholesome one.”

“But there was a strange look in his eyes that I have never seen there before,” Lady Elaine said, piteously. “Oh, Margaret, are you sure that your counsel is good? Are you sure that you understand this strange jealousy that has come between me and my lover?”

Miss Nugent replied confidently, and for a time her words carried consolation to the suffering heart.

“I know Sir Harold far better than I know myself,” she said. “I know the mood he is in exactly. Long, long ago, when we were children, he left one of his pet birds for me to feed and care for. Let me confess that I neglected it, and it died—poor, little thing. When my cousin came home his rage was terrible. I thought then that I should never be forgiven. He declared that he would never look upon me again—that he hated me. His passions are violent always. But he apologized a few days later, Lady Elaine, and he will come back to you in the same way. I am sure of it.”

Miss Nugent went away thinking, “I shall win Harold yet—I, who have loved him for years, and have the greatest right to him!”

The next morning’s post brought a letter to Sir Harold—a letter bearing the Seabright crest.

At sight of it his haggard face lighted up with sudden hope, and he kissed the dear writing tenderly; then he broke the seal and read:

Dear Harold—Much as I love you, I cannot sacrifice my self-respect by making the foolish promise you requested.

Elaine.

“My God!” he gasped, a stony glare in his eyes. “And so it has come to this! All is at an end!”

He retired to his study, and his valet kept watch at the door. He feared that Sir Harold meant to end his life.

CHAPTER IV.

COLONEL GREYSON’S MISSION.

“She is heartless, soulless!” groaned Sir Harold. “Oh, Elaine, why should you be so fair and fickle?”

He paced the floor like a man distraught. His eyes were bloodshot, his face ashy pale. This misery was more bitter than death.

He had given the one great love of his life; he had tasted the most ecstatic bliss that had ever fallen to mortal man. But, after all, he had only been reveling in a fool’s paradise. He had believed that the earl’s daughter loved him beyond all earthly things; that this was no idyllic dream, but the meeting of two sympathetic twin souls—a beautiful reality.

When the first storm of his misery had nearly subsided, he sank into a chair, and buried his face in his hands.

The Earl of Seabright had warned him to deal gently with Lady Elaine. She was so young, so willful, so utterly spoiled.

“These sudden engagements are apt to be as quickly broken,” my lord had said, and now his words rang like the knell of doom in Sir Harold’s ears. Was all at an end between them? Was their quarrel to be the subject of a nine days’ wonder? The society papers would enlarge upon it. Innumerable five-o’clock teas would be enlivened by it, and then it would be forgotten by everybody but Sir Harold.

Thus he reasoned, and he felt that his heart would be broken, that it would be forever dead.

“Perhaps it will be better so. She does not love me—she does not love as I love. I do not want half a heart. I will go away, and the sooner I am dead the better it will be for me. My life has ever been a bitter mistake. I am a visionary, and my last delusion will kill me!”

It was a relief to John Stimson, Sir Harold’s valet, that he had a legitimate cause for knocking at the door of his master’s study. A footman had appeared bearing the card of Colonel Greyson on a salver.

“He told me to see that he was not disturbed on any account,” he muttered; “but I shall risk it. I didn’t like the look in his face when he went into the study, and the awful silence within makes me uneasy.”

He took the salver from the footman, saying:

“All right. I will attend to this. Sir Harold is engaged. Where is Colonel Greyson?”

“In the blue drawing-room,” the footman replied.

“Thank you; that will do,” said the valet, as he tapped gently on the door.

To his surprise it was opened at once, and his master took the card with an exclamation of impatience.

“I told you not to disturb me, Stimson,” he said, harshly.

“But you never refuse to see the colonel, Sir Harold, and I felt anxious about you.”

Stimson was a privileged servant. He had traveled over half the globe with his young master, and had nursed him through the yellow fever in an African swamp.

“You are ill, master, I am sure.”

“Ill?” echoed Sir Harold. “No, I am not ill. I wish to heaven that I were sick unto death!”

It was a strange speech, but Stimson pretended not to notice it. He merely said:

“You will see Colonel Greyson, Sir Harold?”

“Yes, I will see him here, in my study,” was the gloomy reply, and when Stimson had gone he added:

“He it was who introduced us, and who more fitting to be the first to hear that we are parted forever?”

Then the colonel’s bluff tones fell upon his ears; and he felt his hand being shaken warmly.

“I have not seen much of you for weeks, my boy,” he was saying; “but suddenly determined to make an assault upon you. In your bower of bliss, presided over by I don’t know how many Cupids, you seem to forget that you are necessary, to a small extent at least, to your neighbors.”

Every word was like the stab of a knife, and Sir Harold, his heart too full for words, made a deprecatory gesture.

However, the colonel went on without noticing the agony of his young friend. The study was a dark room at any time, when no artificial light was used, and Colonel Greyson was notoriously short-sighted.

“Yes, my boy, we are organizing a steeplechase. Now, don’t tell me that you cannot ride, or that you have other engagements. You must have a little consideration for the county. I want you to become even more popular than you are already, and we may yet run you for a seat in the House.”

“Colonel,” broke in Sir Harold, “why will you torture me in this way?”

His voice was so harsh that the old soldier promptly pulled himself up, and began to search for his eyeglasses.

“Torture you, eh? Egad, what is wrong with the boy? Confound it, sir, what is the trouble? You, whom I account one of the most fortunate men of the century, talking of torture!

“Is it torture to be a rich man? Is it torture to be young, handsome, famous and engaged to the loveliest woman under the sun? I tell you what it is, my boy, you are one of Fortune’s spoiled darlings, and have been so much surfeited with good things that you do not know what is best for you! Now, as you have hitherto professed to have implicit confidence in my common sense, I intend prescribing for you. My dear fellow, the county cannot possibly get on without you, and I am sure that you cannot get along without the county! It is my ambition to see you at the very top of the political tree, and if you take the thing in hand I am pretty certain as to the result, for your abilities are far beyond the average, and only want bringing out. Now, about this little scheme of mine—this steeplechase——”

“Sit down, colonel,” Sir Harold interrupted, closing the door. “I have something to tell you that will drive steeplechasing out of your head, so far as I am concerned. I did not intend speaking of my misery to any living soul, but my confidence is due to you, old friend, though I do not solicit advice. I know my own case only too well!”

Colonel Greyson listened like a man in a stupor, but he had no suspicion of the nature of Sir Harold’s trouble until it was revealed to him in words that seemed to quiver with agony.

“Only a lovers’ quarrel,” he interjected.

“No, colonel, it is no ordinary affair. Mine is no ordinary love; it is life or death to me. I have not shaped my life in any stereotyped pattern. I have always been afraid of linking my fate with another, because I am so intense in all that I profess. It is my misfortune. I believed that Lady Elaine was capable of loving after my fashion of loving, but I was wrong, and I wish you to understand that I do not blame her, though my disappointment will embitter my whole life.”

“You must see her again,” said the colonel, “and I’ll wager that it is nothing but a storm in a teacup.”

“No, I could not bear the agony of another interview. I have appealed to her in vain. The reply she has sent to me is final. The engagement is at an end, and the world may judge as it pleases. I do not suppose that Lady Elaine will care one jot.”

“You wrong her,” Colonel Greyson retorted, a little angrily. “I have known Lady Elaine from childhood. She is as good as she is beautiful.”

“I admit that. But, oh, the agony of knowing that she is soulless!”

“I will not listen to such nonsense!” fumed the colonel. “I will see her myself. It is a duty I owe to both of you, for, in a measure, I brought you together. Curse Viscount Rivington! I say—though I have no doubt that your own insane jealousy is at the root of all the trouble. No young woman of spirit would put up with it. I am determined to hear both sides of the story.”

Sir Harold shook his head gloomily.

“I will not be content to have the matter patched up,” he said. “My wife must be all in all to me. My ideal is in my dreams, and to that alone will I be wedded.”

“Stuff!” interrupted the colonel, inelegantly. “All stuff, sir, depend upon it! Lady Elaine Seabright will be your wife, and a more perfect woman never breathed!”

To accentuate this Colonel Greyson brought his fist down upon the table with a bang.

“Heaven help me!” went on Sir Harold. “I loved her as I believed her to be, not as she is, and shall do so for evermore!”