"One thing is fixed as fate," he said to himself as he left the room, "I won't give up Edith, for ten thousand family secrets--for all the mysterious ladies on earth! Whatever others may have done, I at least have done nothing to forfeit my darling's hand. The doctrine that would make us suffer for the sins of others, is a mistaken doctrine.

Let to-morrow bring forth what it may, Edith Darrell shall be my wife."

CHAPTER XII.

ON ST. PARTRIDGE DAY.

As he descended the stairs he encountered Nixon and a veiled lady in black ascending. He looked at her keenly--she was tall and slender; beyond that, through the heavy c.r.a.pe veil, he could make out nothing.

"Mysterious, certainly!" he thought. "I wonder who she is?" He bowed as he pa.s.sed her; she bent her head in return; then he hastened to seek out Edith, and tell her an important visitor had arrived for Lady Helena, and that the excursion to Eastlake Abbey would be postponed.

He was but a poor dissembler, and the girl's bright brown eyes were sharp. She smiled as she looked and listened.

"Did you know I could tell fortunes, Sir Victor? Hold out your hand and let me tell you the past. You have been upstairs with Lady Helena; you have told her that Edith Darrell has consented to be your wife.

You have asked her sanction to the union, and have been naturally, indignantly, and peremptorily refused."

He smiled, but the conscious color rose.

"I always suspected you of being an enchantress--now I know it. Can you tell me the future as truthfully as the past?"

"In this instance I think so. 'You shall never marry a penniless n.o.body, sir.' (And it is exactly Lady Helena's voice that speaks.) 'Your family is not to be disgraced by a low marriage. This girl, who is but a sort of upper servant, hired and paid, in the family of these common rich American people, is no mate for a Catheron of Catheron. I refuse to listen to a word, sir--I insist upon this preposterous affair being given up.' You expostulate--in vain. And as constant dropping wears the most obstinate stone, so at last will her ladyship conquer. You will come to me one day and say: 'Look here, Miss Darrell, I'm awfully sorry, you know, but we've made a mistake--_I've_ made a mistake. I return you your freedom--will you kindly give me back mine? And Miss Darrell will make Sir Victor Catheron her best curtsey and retire into the outer darkness from whence she came."

He laughed. Her imitation of his own slow, accented manner of speaking was so perfect. Only for an instant; then he was grave, almost reproachful.

"And you know me no better than this!" he said. "I take back my words; you are no seeress. I love my aunt very dearly, but not all the aunts on earth could part me from you. I would indeed be a dastard if a few words of objection would make me resign the girl I love."

"I don't know," Miss Darrell answered coolly; "it might be better for both of us. Oh, don't get angry, please--you know what I mean. I _am_ a n.o.body, as your somebodies go on this side. My Grandfather Stuart was a peddler once, I believe; my Grandfather Darrell, a schoolmaster.

Not a very distinguished descent. My father by education and refinement is a gentleman, but he keeps a boarding-house. And I am Miss Stuart's paid companion and poor relation. Be wise, Sir Victor, while there is time; be warned before it is too late. I promise not to be angry--to even admire your common-sense. Lady Helena has been as a mother to you; it isn't worth while offending her for me--I'm not worth it. There are dozens of girls in England, high-born, high-bred, and twice as handsome as I am, who will love you and marry you to-morrow. Sir Victor Catheron, let us shake hands and part."

She held it out to him with a smile, supremely careless and uplifted.

He caught it pa.s.sionately, his blue eyes afire, and covered it with kisses.

"Not for ten thousand worlds! O Edith, how lightly you talk of parting, of giving me up. Am I then so utterly indifferent to you? No; I will never resign you; to call you wife is the one hope of my life. My darling, if you knew how I love you, how empty and worthless the whole world seems without you! But one day you will, you must--one day you will be able no more to live without me than I without you. Don't talk like this any more, Edith; if you knew how it hurts me you would be more merciful, I am sure. Life can hold nothing half so bitter for me as the loss of you."

She listened in a sort of wonder at his impa.s.sioned earnestness, looking at him shyly, wistfully.

"You love me like this?" she said.

"A hundred times more than this. I would die for you, Edith. How empty and theatrical it sounds, but, Heaven knows, I would."

She pa.s.sed her hand through his arm and clasped the other round it, her bright smile back.

"Don't die," she said, with that smile, and her own rare, lovely blush; "do better--live for me. Ah, Sir Victor, I don't think it will be such a _very_ hard thing to learn to like you!"

"My darling! And you will talk no more of parting--no more of giving me up? You don't really wish it, Edith, do you?"

"Most certainly not. Would I have accepted you, if I did? I'll never give you up while you care for me like this. If we ever part, the parting shall be your doing, not mine."

"_My_ doing--_mine_?" he laughed aloud in his incredulity and happiness. "The days of miracles are over, _belle amie_, but a summer breeze could more easily uproot these oaks than that. And lest you should think yourself fetterless and free, I will bind you at once."

He drew from his pocket a tiny morocco box. "See this ring, Edith: it has been worn by women of our house for the past two centuries--the betrothal ring of the Catherons. Let me place it on your finger, never to be taken off until I bind you with a golden circlet stronger still."

Her dark eyes sparkled as she looked at it. It was a solitaire diamond of wonderful size and brilliance, like a great drop of limpid water, set in dull red gold.

"There is some queer old tradition extant about it," he said, "to the effect that the bride of a Catheron who does not wear it will lead a most unhappy life and die a most unhappy death. So, my dearest, you see how inc.u.mbent upon you it is for your own sake to wear it religiously."

He laughed, but she lifted to his, two deep, thoughtful, dark eyes.

"Did your mother wear it, Sir Victor?"

He started, the smile died from his face, his color faded.

"My mother?" he answered; "_no_. My father married her secretly and hastily after six weeks' courtship, and of course never thought of the ring. 'Lead an unhappy life, die an unhappy death,'" he said, repeating his own words; "she did both, and, to the best of my belief, she never wore it."

"An odd coincidence, at least," said Edith, her eyes fixed on the diamond blazing in the sunshine on her hand.

A priceless diamond on the hand of Edith Darrell, the brown hand that two months ago had swept, and dusted, and worked unwillingly in the shabby old house at home.

"Don't let us talk about my mother," Sir Victor said; "there is always something so terrible to me in the memory of her death. Your life will be very different from hers--my poor mother."

"I hope so," was the grave reply; "and in my case there will be no jealous rival, will there? Sir Victor, do you know I should like to visit Catheron Royals. If we have had love-making enough for one day, suppose we walk over?"

"I shall never have love-making enough," he laughed. "I shall bore you awfully sometimes, I have no doubt; but when the heart is full the lips must speak. And as to walking--it is a long walk--do you think you can?"

"As I am to become a naturalized Englishwoman, the sooner I take to English habits the better. I shall at least make the attempt."

"And we can drive back in time for dinner. I shall be delighted to show you the old place--your future home, where we are to spend together so many happy years."

They set off. It was a delightful walk, that sunny day, across fields, down fragrant green lanes, where the hedges in bloom made the air odorous, and the birds sang in the arching branches overhead. A long, lovely walk over that quiet high-road, where three-and-twenty years ago, another Sir Victor Catheron had ridden away forever from the wife he loved.

With the yellow splendor of the afternoon sunlight gilding it, its tall trees waving, its gray turrets and towers piercing the amber air, its ivied walls, and tall stacks of chimneys, Catheron Royals came in view at last. The fallow deer browsed undisturbed, gaudy peac.o.c.ks strutted in the sun, a fawn lifted its shy wild eyes and fled away at their approach. Over all, solemn Sabbath stillness.

"Welcome to Catheron Royals--welcome as its mistress, my bride, my love," Sir Victor Catheron said.

She lifted her eyes--they were full of tears. How good he was--how tenderly he loved her, and what a happy, grateful girl she had reason to be. They entered the house, admitted by a very old woman, who bobbed a curtsey and looked at them with curious eyes. Two or three old retainers took care of the place and showed it to strangers.

Leaning on her lover's arm, Edith Darrell walked through scores of stately rooms, immense, chill halls, picture-galleries, drawing-rooms, and chambers. What a stupendous place it was--bigger and more imposing by far than Powyss Place, and over twice as old. She looked at the polished suits of armor, at battle-axes, antlers, pikes, halberds, until her eyes ached. She paced in awe and wonder down the vast portrait-gallery, where half a hundred dead and gone Catherons looked at her sombrely out of their heavy frames. And one day her picture--hers--would hang in solemn state here. The women who looked at her from these walls lay stark and stiff in the vaults beneath Chesholm Church, and sooner or later they would lay _her_ stark and stiff with them, and put up a marble tablet recording her age and virtues. She shivered a little and drew a long breath of relief as they emerged into the bright outer day and fresh air once more.

"It's a wonderful place," she said; "a place to dream, of--a place such as I have only met before in English books. But there is one room among all these rooms which you have not shown me, and which I have a morbid craving to see. You will not be angry if I ask?"

"Angry with you?" Sir Victor lifted his eyebrows in laughing surprise.

"Speak, Edith, though it were half my kingdom."

"It is--" a pause--"to see the room where your mother--Ah!" as he shrank a little, "I beg your pardon. I should not have asked."

"Yes, yes, you should. You shall visit at once. I am a coward about some things, I confess--this among others. Come."

They went. He took from a huge bunch he carried the key of that long-locked room. He flung it wide, and they stood together on the threshold.