She shook her head, and did not return the rea.s.suring pressure of his hand. "Listen!" she said. "This misery comes through the person whom he who has seen the vision shall next meet; and I thought I knew who I should meet on my way home--one from whom"--she sank her voice to a whisper--"I already expected misery."

"You mean--" began Richard, eagerly.

"No matter whom I mean. It was not he who met me; that was _you_."

The hand which he held in his was cold as ice; her face was pale; and her limbs trembled under her.

"This is folly, Harry dear. Am I likely to do you harm, to make you miserable?"

"I do not know," said she. "I sometimes think you are."

He put the long hair back from her forehead, and gazed into her eyes, which were now fast filling with tears. "I love you, Harry, with all my heart," sighed he--"you know I do. And, though you are sometimes cold, and at others seem as though you purposely avoided me, I think you love _me_--just a little--too. Better, at all events, than the man with whom you yourself have just confessed you expect nothing but misery."

"Hush, hush!" moaned she. "If I said that, it was very wrong."

"It was the truth, Harry. How could it be otherwise? He is not a lover meet for such as you; he is twice your age, and rough and rude of speech even as a suitor. Do you think he will be more tender when he is a husband? He is no mate for you, Harry, nor you for him."

Again she shook her head, with a slow mournful movement, as though less in dissent from his statement than in despair of remedy.

"What!" cried he, "because his father was your father's friend, does that give him the right to be your husband?"

The young girl answered only with her sobs.

"Now tell me, darling--did you ever promise to be this man's wife in words?"

"Yes--no--I am not sure. Oh yes, I must be his; my father has set his mind upon it. Nay, do not smile at that; you don't know what my father is. He is not one to cross;" and, as if at the very thought of her stern parent's wrath, she lifted up her head from Richard's breast, and looked around in fear.

"But suppose I win him to my side, sweet Harry?"

"That you could never do," sighed she. "I tell you you don't know him."

"Nay; but I think I do, dear; and, if I could show him that it was to his own advantage to have me for his son-in-law, in place of--"

"You would not persuade him," interrupted the young girl, firmly--"not even if you were Carew of Crompton's heir."

The words she had used were meant to express exhaustless wealth--for with such was the owner of Gethin still credited in that far-away corner of his possession--but they startled and offended Richard. "I may not be Carew's heir," said he, haughtily; "but I have some power at Crompton, and I can exert it in your father's favor."

Harry shook her head. "He wants for nothing," she said, "that you can give him. He is wealthier than you imagine. He has two thousand pounds in notes, for which he has no use; they lie in the strong-box in my room. But there, I promised not to speak of that."

"I am not a burglar in disguise," said Richard, smiling, "and would make your father richer rather than rob him. But why should he keep so large a sum by him?"

"I do not know; but there it is, locked with a letter padlock which he made himself. No human being can open it, he says, who does not know the secret."

Richard was silent. Something else than love was occupying his thoughts, though his fingers were making marriage rings for themselves of Harry's golden hair. It is like entertaining angels unawares to find after one has fallen in love that it is with an heiress.

"Dear Harry," said he at last, "I think I shall take you from your father's willing hands; I have good hope of it, and better since I have heard you so despairing; but, at all events, you will be mine. Let me hear those sweet lips say so. Promise me, promise me, my darling, that you will be my wife."

He caught and clasped her close, and she did not repulse him.

"I dare not, Richard--I dare not promise you," she murmured.

"But if your father gives me leave?" whispered he, his lips to her warm cheek.

She uttered a soft cry of pa.s.sionate joy that told him more than a hundred phrases of a.s.sent how dear he was to her, and hid her face upon his breast.

Oh happy hour, so bright, and yet so brief! Oh golden noon, already on the verge of eve and blackest night!

How often in the after-time did that fair and sunny scene recur to them, a bitter memory; how often was that first kiss of love renewed by cruel fancy and in mocking dreams, its sweetness changed to gall!

Better for one--better, perhaps, for both--if, clasped in one another's arms, they had fallen from that tall tower's top, and then and there had ended life and love together!

CHAPTER XVII.

WORKING ON A PIVOT.

Never had Richard been in such high spirits as on the evening of that day on which Harry had made confession to him of her love, and had promised to be his wife should her father's consent be gained. It was true that she had been far from sanguine upon the latter point; but Richard had his reasons for being of a different opinion. It would be better, every way, if he could obtain Trevethick's good-will; not that he at all shared in the girl's dread of his anger, but because it really seemed that if he married her from her father's roof he should be fulfilling his mother's injunctions in making alliance with an heiress.

What with his two thousand pounds in gold, and his inn, and his lucky mine, it was plain that the old man would have no despicable sum to leave behind him; and yet, to do Richard justice, this only formed an additional incentive to a project upon which, at all events, he had long set his heart. He had resolved at all hazards to make the girl his wife.

His love for her was as deep as it was pa.s.sionate; and now that he was a.s.sured from her own lips of its being returned, his heart was filled with joy, and spoke out of its abundance. It had been hitherto his habit in that family circle round the bar-parlor fire to play the part of listener rather than of talker. He had mainly confined himself to the exhibition of an attentive interest in Solomon's stories, or in his host's sagacious observations with respect to the investment of capital, such as: "One couldn't be too cautious where one put one's money;" and, "Where the interest was high the risk was great, and where it was low it was not worth while to let it leave one's hand." Next to the subject of local superst.i.tion, "investment" was the favorite subject of debate between Trevethick and "Sol;" and Richard, whose ignorance insured his impartiality, had been the judicious scale-holder between them. But upon the present occasion it was the young artist who led the talk and chose the matter. He told them of the splendors of Crompton and of the marvelous prodigality of its owner, and they listened with greedy ears.

To vulgar natures, the topic of mere wealth is ever an attractive one, and in the present instance there was an additional whet to appet.i.te in the connection of Carew with Gethin. He was naturally an object of curiosity to his tenant Trevethick, and never before had the old man had the opportunity of hearing at first hand of the eccentricities of the Squire. In relating them Richard took good care to show by implication on what intimate terms he stood with him, and hinted at the obligation under which he had put him by throwing his park gate open so opportunely. The impression which he left upon his audience, and desired to leave, was, that Carew was indebted to him for having saved his life.

"Then it is likely the Squire would do any thing for you that you chose to ask him?" observed Trevethick, with the thought of his own debt to Solomon's father doubtless in his mind.

"Well, he certainly ought to do so," answered Richard, carelessly; "but, on the other hand, it is not very probable that I shall put him to the test."

"Just so," returned Trevethick, sucking at his pipe; "you're independent of the likes of him."

"Altogether," was Richard's reply.

The old man spoke no more, but sat in a cloud of smoke and thought for the rest of the evening. Even when "Sol" rose up to go--Harry having retired long since, for they kept very early hours at the Gethin Castle--the landlord did not, as usual, accompany him, but mixed himself another gla.s.s of his favorite liquor. As for Richard, it was not his custom to seek his bed until after midnight; so Trevethick and he were left to one another's company. It was an opportunity to which the latter had been looking forward for many a day, but which he had never desired so keenly as at that moment.

"Are you likely to be at Crompton soon again?" inquired the landlord, pursuing the subject of the evening's talk.

"I have no intention of going there at present," returned Richard. "The fact is, Mr. Trevethick, between ourselves, I am but a poor man in comparison with many of those I meet there, and their ways and habits are too expensive for me."

"Ay! gambling and such like, I suppose?" observed the landlord, cunningly. "It is 'Light come light go' with the money of that sort of folk, I reckon."

"Just so; and though my money comes light enough--that is, I have not to earn it, since my mother makes me an allowance--I don't choose to risk it at the card-table."

"Quite right, quite right, young gentleman," answered the other, approvingly. "But there are some prudent gentry even at Crompton, I suppose. Parson Whymper, for instance, he don't gamble, do he?"

"Certainly not; he is much too sagacious a man, even if he were rich enough, to play; but for him, indeed, some say the Squire would have come to the end of his tether before this. He manages every thing at Crompton, as you know."

"And yet Carew don't want money?" said the landlord, musing.

"Well, I have been his guest," returned Richard, smiling; "and it is scarcely fair of me to speak of his embarra.s.sments. He does not certainly want it so much but that he can still afford to indulge his whims, Mr. Trevethick, if that's what you mean."