"Will says the law will protect me. But if it did not, if you took me by force to your house or yacht, you would not have me. You could not touch me. Aspatria Anneys is beyond your reach."

"You are Aspatria Fenwick."

"I have never taken your name. Will told me not to do so. Anneys is a good name. No Anneys ever wronged me."

"You refused my home, you refused my money, and now you refuse my name. You are treating me as badly as possible. The day before our marriage I sent to your brother a signed settlement for your support, the use of Fenwick Castle as a residence, and two thousand pounds a year. Your brother Will, the day after our marriage, took it to my agent and tore it to pieces in his presence."

"Will did right. He knew his sister would not have your home and money without your love."

She spoke calmly, with a dignity that became well her youth and beauty. Ulfar thought her exceedingly lovely. He attempted to woo her again with the tender glances and soft tones and caressing touch of their early acquaintance. Aspatria sorrowfully withdrew herself; she held only repelling palms toward his bending face. She was not coy, he could have overcome coyness; she was cold, and calm, and watchful of him and of herself. Her face and throat paled and blushed, and blushed and paled; her eyes were dilated with feeling; her pretty bow-shaped mouth trembled; she radiated a personality sweet, strong, womanly,--a piquant, woodland, pastoral delicacy, all her own.

But after many useless efforts to influence her, he began to despair.

He perceived that she still loved him, perhaps better than she had ever done, but that her determination to consider their marriage void had its source in a oneness of mind having no second thoughts and no doubt behind it. The only hope she gave him was in another marriage ceremony which in its splendour and publicity should atone in some measure for the first. He could not contemplate such a confession of his own fault. He could not give Will and Brune Anneys such a triumph.

If Aspatria loved him, how could she ask such a humiliating atonement?

Aspatria saw the shadow of these reflections on his face. Though he said nothing, she understood it was this struggle that gave the momentary indecision to his pleading.

For herself, she did not desire a present reconciliation. She had nursed too long the idea of the Aspatria that was to be, the wise, clever, brilliant woman who was to win over again her husband. She did not like to relinquish this hope for a present gratification, a gratification so much lower in its aim that she now understood that it never could long satisfy a nature so complex and so changeable as Ulfar's. She therefore refused him his present hope, believing that fate had a far better meeting in store for them.

While these thoughts flashed through her mind, she kept her eyes upon the horizon. In that wide-open fixed gaze her loving, troubled soul revealed itself. Ulfar was wondering whether it was worth while to begin his argument all over again, when she said softly: "We must now say farewell. I see the vicar's maid coming. In a few hours the fell-side will know of our meeting. I must tell Will, myself. I entreat you to leave the dales as soon as possible."

"I will not leave them without you."

"Go to-night. I shall not change what I have said. There is nothing to be done but to part. We are no longer alone. Good-by, Ulfar!--dear Ulfar!"

"I care not who is present. You are my wife." And he clasped her in his arms and kissed her.

Perhaps she was not sorry. Perhaps her own glance of love and longing had commanded the embrace; for when she released herself she was weeping, and Ulfar's tears were on her cheeks. But she called the vicar's maid imperatively, and so put an end to the interview.

"That was my husband, Lottie," she said. It was the only explanation offered. Aspatria knew it was useless to expect any reticence on the subject. In that isolated valley such a piece of news could not be kept; the very birds would talk about it in their nests. She must herself tell Will, and although she had done nothing wrong, she was afraid to tell him.

When she reached home she was glad to hear that Will had been sent for to Squire Frostham's. "It was something about a fox," said Brune.

"They wanted me too, but Alice Frostham is a girl I cannot abide. I would not go near her."

"Brune, will you take a long ride for my sake?"

"I will do anything for you I can."

"I met Ulfar Fenwick this morning."

"Then you did a bad thing. I would not have believed it of you. Good Lord! there is as much two-facedness in a woman as there is meat in an egg."

"Brune, you are thinking wrong. I did not know he was in the country till he stood before me; and he did not move me a hair's-breadth any way. But Lottie from the vicarage saw us together; and she was going to Dalton. You know what she will say; and by and by the Frosthams will hear; and then they will feel it to be 'only kind' to talk to Will about me and my affairs; and the end of it will be some foolish deed or other. If you love me, Brune, go to Redware to-night, and see Lady Redware, and tell her there is danger for her brother if he stays around here."

"I can say that truly. There is danger for the scoundrel, a good deal of it."

"Brune, it would be such a sorrow to me if every one were talking of me again. Do what I ask you, Brune. You promised to stand by me through thick and thin."

"I did; and I will go to Redware as soon as I have eaten my dinner. If Lottie saw him, it will be known all over. And if no one came up here on purpose to tell Will, he would hear it at Dalton next week, when that lot of bothering old squires sit down to their market dinner. It would be a grand bit for them to chew with their victuals."

"I thought they talked about politics."

"They are like other men. If you get more than one man in a place, they are talking bad about some woman. They call it politics, but it is mostly slander."

"I am going to tell Will myself."

"That is a deal the best plan."

"Be sure to frighten Lady Redware; make her think Ulfar's life is in danger,--anything to get him out of the dales."

"She will feel as if the heavens were going to fall, when I get done with her. My word! who would have thought of him coming back? Life is full of surprises."

"But only think, if there was never anything accidental happened!

Surprises are just what make life worth having,--eh, Brune?"

"Maybe so, and maybe not. When Will comes home, tell him everything at once. I can manage Lady Redware, I'll be bound."

With the promise he went away to perform it, and Aspatria carried her trembling heart into solitude. But the lonely place was full of Ulfar.

A thousand hopes were budding in her heart, growing slowly, strongly, sweetly, in that earth which she had made for them out of her love, her desires, her hopes, and her faithful aspirations.

CHAPTER V.

BUT THEY WERE YOUNG.

Brune arrived at Redware Hall while it was still afternoon, and he found no difficulty in obtaining an interview with its mistress. She was sitting at a table in a large bay-window, painting the view from it. For in those days ladies were not familiar with high art and all its nomenclature and accessories; Lady Redware had never thought of an easel, or a blouse, or indeed of any of the trappings now considered necessary to the making of pictures. She was prettily dressed in silk; and a square of bristol-board, a box of Newman's water-colours, and a few camel's-hair pencils were neatly arranged before her.

She rose when Brune entered, and met him with a suave courtesy; and the unsophisticated young man took it for a genuine pleasure. He felt sorry to trouble such a nice-looking gentlewoman, and he said so with a sincerity that made her suddenly serious. "Have you brought me bad news, Mr. Anneys?" she asked.

"I am afraid you will be put about a bit. Sir Ulfar Fenwick met my sister this morning; and they were seen by ill-natured eyes, and I came, quiet-like, to let you know that he must leave the dales to-night."

"Cannot Sir Ulfar meet his own wife?"

"Lady Redware, that is not the question. Put it, 'Cannot Sir Ulfar meet your sister?' and I will answer you quick enough, 'Not while there are two honest men in Allerdale to prevent him.'"

"You cannot frighten Sir Ulfar from Allerdale. To threaten him is to make him stay."

"Dalesmen are not ones to threaten. I tell you that the vicar's maid saw Sir Ulfar and my sister together; and when William Anneys hears of it, Sir Ulfar will get such a notice to leave these parts as will give him no choice. I came to warn him away before he could not help himself. I say freely, I did so to please Aspatria, and out of no good-will going his way."

"But if he will not leave Allerdale?"

"But if William Anneys, and the sixty gentlemen who will ride with William Anneys, say he must go? What then?"

"Of course Sir Ulfar cannot fight a mob."

"Not one of that mob of gentlemen would fight him; but they all carry stout riding-whips." And Brune looked at the lady with a sombre intentness which made further speech unnecessary. She had been alarmed from the first; she now made no further attempt to disguise her terror.