Stafford bit his lip.

"I will take you home now," he said. Something in his voice told her that she had made a wrong step, that she had failed. With a cry she clung to him more tightly, and drawing back her head, scanned his face.

"Stafford! You--you don't mean to leave me--to throw me off! Say it--promise me!" She laughed hysterically and would have slipped to her knees at his feet; but he held her firmly. "See, dearest, I would plead to you, pray to you! I am--so afraid. But you won't do that--you won't let anything separate us? Hush! there is my father. Stafford, you will listen, you will agree!"

As Falconer knocked at the door, she released Stafford, but stood near him, with her hand resting on his arm.

Falconer came in and regarded them from under his lowered lids.

"I might have expected to find you here," he said harshly to Maude.

"Yes; I came to him," she said, with a little gesture. "Why should I not? Why should I care--"

Falconer shrugged his shoulders, and turned from her to Stafford.

"I've come to take back what I said this morning," he said, in his dry voice. "I was hasty, and your--insensate folly in giving up the money upset me. I have been talking the matter over with Maude, and we have agreed to--to--continue the engagement."

Stafford lit a couple of candles and the scant light fell upon the faces of the three, the white one of the woman, the stern and set one of Stafford, and the hard and impa.s.sive one of Mr. Falconer.

"Of course a large sum of money will have to be found; and I must find it. It will be settled upon Maude--with, of course, a suitable allowance for a n.o.bleman of your rank--"

"One moment," said Stafford, very quietly. "Before you go any further, I have to correct a misapprehension, Mr. Falconer. I do not intend to use my t.i.tle."

"What!" exclaimed Falconer, his face growing darker.

"I intend dropping the earldom," said Stafford.

"But I don't intend you should," retorted Falconer, brutally. "If I consent to my daughter's marrying a pauper--"

"A pauper is one who begs," said poor Stafford, his face white as marble. "I have not yet begged--"

"Stafford!" cried Maude. Then she swung on her father. "Why do you speak to him--to _him_--like this?--Stafford, you will yield--"

"In everything, in every way, but this," he said, with the same ominous quietude. "If you are content to drop the t.i.tle, to share the life of a poor and an ordinary working-man--as I hope to be--"

He held out his hand, and she would have taken it, clung to it, but her father strode between them, and with a harsh laugh, exclaimed:

"You fool! Don't you see that he is wanting to get rid of you, that he is only too glad of the excuse? Great G.o.d! have you no touch of womanliness in you, no sense of shame--"

She swept him aside with a gesture, and advancing to Stafford, looked straight into his eyes.

"Is--is it true?" she asked hoa.r.s.ely. "Tell me! Is what he says true?

That--that rather than marry me you would go out into the world penniless, to earn your living--you? Answer! Do--do you love me?"

His eyes dropped, his teeth clenched, and the moment of silence hung heavy in the room. She turned from him, her hand going to her brow with a gesture of weariness and despair.

"Let us go," she said to her father. "He does not love me--he never did. I thought that perhaps in time--in time--"

The sight of her humiliation was more than Stafford could bear. He strode to her and laid his hand on hers.

"Wait--Maude," he said, hoa.r.s.ely. "I must lay the t.i.tle aside; I cannot accept your father's money. I must work, as other and better men have done, are doing. If you will wait until I have a home to offer you--"

She turned to him, her face glowing, her eyes flashing.

"I will go with you now, now--this moment, to poverty--to peril, anywhere. Oh, Stafford, can't you see, can't you value the love I offer you?"

When her father had led her away, Stafford sank into a chair and hid his face in his hands. He was no longer free, the shackles were upon him. And he was practically penniless. What should he do?

He got his pipe and felt in his pocket for his matches. As he did so he came upon Mr. "Henery" Joffler's envelope. He looked at it vacantly for a moment or two; then he laughed, a laugh that was not altogether one of derision or amus.e.m.e.nt.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

Ida had found her life at Laburnum Villa hard enough in all conscience before the night of the concert, but it became still harder after Mr.

Joseph's condescending avowal of love to her and her inevitably scornful refusal. She avoided him as much as possible, but she was forced to meet him at the family breakfast, a meal of a cold and dismal character, generally partaken of by the amiable family in a morose and gloomy silence or to an accompaniment of irritable and nagging personal criticism. Mr. Heron, who suffered from indigestion, was always at his worst at breakfast time; Mrs. Heron invariably appeared meaner and more lachrymose; Isabel more irritable and dissatisfied; and Joseph, whose bloodshot eyes and swollen lips testified to the arduous character of his "late work at the office," went through the pretence of a meal with a sullen doggedness which evinced itself by something like a snarl if any one addressed him.

Hitherto he had, of course, been particularly, not to say unpleasantly, civil to Ida, but after his repulse his manner became marked by a covert insolence which was intended to remind her of her dependent position, and the fact that her most direct means of escape from it was by accepting him as her lover. This manner of his, offensive as it was intended to be, Ida could have borne with more or less equanimity; for to her, alas! Joseph Heron seemed of very little more account then one of the tradesmen's boys she saw occasionally coming up to the house; but after treating her to it for a day or two in the hope of breaking her spirit, as he would have expressed it, his manner changed to one of insinuating familiarity. He addressed her in a low voice, almost a whisper, so that his sister and mother could not hear, and he smiled and nodded at her in a would-be mysterious manner, as if they were sharing some secret.

Though Ida did not know it, it was meant to rouse Mrs. Heron's suspicions; and it succeeded admirably. Her thin, narrow face would flush angrily and she would look across at Isabel significantly, and Isabel would sn.i.g.g.e.r and toss her head, as if she quite understood.

Ida often went to here own room before Mr. Joseph returned at night, but sometimes he came in before she had gone; and he made a practice of sitting near her, even venturing on occasions to lean over the back of her chair, his mother watching him out of the corners of her eyes, and with her thin lips drawn down; and although Ida invariably got up and went to another part of the room, her avoidance of Joseph did not lull his mother's suspicions. Ida's contempt for the young man was too profound to permit of such a sentiment as hatred--one can scarcely hate that which one scorns--but whenever he came near her with his tobacco and spirit-laden breath, she was conscious of an inward shudder which closely resembled that with which she pa.s.sed through the reptile house at the Zoological Gardens.

Mr. Joseph, the house, the whole life, began to get on her nerves; and in the solitude of her own room she spent many an anguished hour trying to discover some way of escape. She read all the advertis.e.m.e.nts of situations vacant in the newspaper; but all the employers seemed to require technical knowledge and accomplishments which she did not possess. She knew she could not teach even the youngest of children, she was unacquainted with the mysterious science of short-hand, and had never seen a typewriter. No one appeared to want a young lady who could break horses, tend cattle, or run a farm; and this was the only kind of work she could do.

So she was forced to the bitter conclusion that she would have to go on living the life, and eat the bread of the Herons, with as much patience as she could command, in the hope that some day "something would happen" to release her from her bondage, which was gradually robbing her eyes of their brightness and making her thin and listless. It seemed that nothing ever would happen, that the weeks would drag into months and the months into years; and one day as she toiled slowly home from a country walk, she almost felt inclined to turn to that last refuge of the dest.i.tute and answer one of the advertis.e.m.e.nts for a lady's help: anything would be better than to go on living the life in death which was her lot at Laburnum Villa.

As she approached the house, she saw that the gas was lit in the drawing-room, and the sound of voices, in which a strange one mingled, penetrated through the thin door as she pa.s.sed through the hall to her room. While she was taking off her hat, there came a hurried knock, and Isabel entered in her best dress. She was flushed and in a flatter of suppressed excitement.

"Oh, Ida, can you lend me a clean collar?" she asked, in a stage whisper, and with a giggle which was intended to invite question; but, as Ida had asked none, Isabel said, with another giggle: "You've heard me speak of George Powler?"

Ida looked doubtful: Isabel had mentioned so many men, generally by their Christian names, who were supposed to be smitten by her, that Ida, often listening absently enough to the foolish girl's confidences, not seldom "got mixed."

"The one who went to South Australia," Isabel went on, with an affectation of coy shyness. "We used to see a great deal of him--at least he used to call--before he went away; and though there really was nothing serious between us, of course--But one doesn't like to speak of these things, even to one's bosom friend. But he's down-stairs just now. I just had time to run up, and he actually almost saw me on the stairs! Yes, this one will do: you always have such good-shaped collars, and yet you have always lived in the country! I must be quick and hurry down: men do so hate to be kept waiting, don't they? You'll come down presently, won't you, Ida? I'm sure you'll like him: he's so steady: and it's a very good business. Of course, as I said, nothing definite has pa.s.sed between us, but--"

She giggled and simpered significantly; and Ida, trying to force herself to take some interest, fastened the collar for Isabel, and gently and with much tact persuaded that inartistic young lady to discard a huge crimson bow which she had stuck on her dress with disastrous results. When, some little time after, Ida went down to the drawing-room, she found that the visitor was like most of those who came to Laburnum Villa, very worthy people, no doubt, but uninteresting and commonplace. This Mr. George Powler was a heavy thick-set man, approaching middle age, with the air of a prosperous merchant, and with a somewhat shy and awkward manner; it seemed to Ida that he looked rather bored as he sat on one of the stiff, uncomfortable chairs, with the mother and daughter "engaging him in conversation," as they would have called it. His shyness and awkwardness were intensified by the entrance of the tall, graceful girl in her black dress, and he rose to receive the introduction with a startled kind of nervousness, which was reasonable enough; for the young women with whom he a.s.sociated were not dowered with Ida's very palpable grace and refinement.

Ida bowed to him, made some remark about the weather, and went over with a book to the sofa with the broken spring--and promptly forgot his existence. But her indifference was not reciprocated; the man was painfully aware of her presence, and after endeavouring to carry on the conversation with Isabel, grew absent-minded and incoherent, and presently, as if he could not help himself, got up and, edging to the sofa nervously, sat down and tried to talk.

Ida closed her book, and, as in duty bound, was civil to him, though not perhaps so civil as she would have been to a man of her own age and cla.s.s; but Mr. George Powler, no doubt encouraged by her gentleness, serenity, and perfect self-possession--qualities none too common in the cla.s.s to which he belonged--grew less nervous, and, to his own amazement, found himself talking presently quite fluently to this distinguished-looking young lady whose entrance of the drawing-room had struck him with awe. With instinctive courteousness and kindness, Ida had asked him some question about South Australia, and he was led to talk of his life there, and to describe the country.

Ida found her thoughts wandering after a few minutes, and grew absent-minded; but Mr. George Powler was launched, on his favourite subject, was delighted with the condescension of the beautiful and stately listener, and did not notice that she was scarcely listening; did not notice also that Mrs. Heron was looking discontented and sniffing peevishly, and that Isabel's face wore an expression of jealousy and resentment. The fact was, that the poor man had quite forgotten the other young woman--and the other young woman knew it.

Suddenly their silence bore down upon Ida's absent-mindedness, she felt rather than saw that something was the matter, and she got up, in the middle of one of Mr. George Powler's fluent but badly constructed sentences, and going over to Isabel asked her to play something.

Isabel flushed.