"I did, dearest Kate! The intensity of my love is alone my apology for intruding upon the sacredness of an earlier pa.s.sion! Yet I thought thou hadst forgotten this--"

"I had--I but speak of it now. It is forgotten."

She now seemed to struggle with some powerful emotion, and then said quickly,

"The Kyd--is--is Lester!"

"By Heaven! your words have solved a strange feeling that governed me when I was in his presence to call him by a familiar name! But--"

"He is Lester--and Lester is 'the Kyd.'"

"He fled to sea I have learned, strangely leaving his t.i.tle, wealth, and home. A pirate?"

"A pirate."

"How learned you this?"

"Through the sorceress Elpsy, and, more recently, through himself."

"You have met him, then?"

"I have, Rupert."

"He pressed upon thee his former pa.s.sion?"

"He did."

"And you--"

"Fitzroy, enough; I will not be interrogated. If you doubt me, I am unworthy your love; you to suspect my truth, unworthy mine."

"Forgive me, Lady Catharine! Yet you met?"

"For a moment. I told him I was betrothed to thee, and he left me, as I believe, to pursue thee."

"This accounts for his vindictiveness. Pardon me if I have wronged thee.

You do not hear."

"I was thinking of Lester," she said, with unsuspecting frankness.

He gazed upon her absent countenance a few seconds, struck his temples with vehemence, and groaned with anguish. Suddenly he turned towards her and said, with the sternness of grief mingled with reluctant jealousy,

"Lady Catharine of Bellamont, answer me in pity, by the love I bear you, by the troth you have plighted me! With all his insatiate avarice and thirst for blood, his moral baseness and his numerous crimes, does there not linger in the embers of your earlier pa.s.sion one single spark a proper wind may kindle into flame?"

"There is deeper meaning beneath your words than floats upon the surface," she replied, with dignity; "my woman's pride should rise in my defence, and meet with scorn the foul suspicion that lurks beneath them!

But I will excuse you. I will think you soured by the recent loss of your brig, and so forgive you."

"This is no answer, lady! This Lester or Kyd, I well know, loves you!

Thinking me dead, he soon will press his suit. By soft words, vows, and deep protestations of innocence and promises of reform, will he seek to reinstate himself in your affections--if perchance they are forfeited!

He is rich, n.o.ble, and smooth-tongued. I am, as now you see me, a shipwrecked mariner, with only my commission and my sword! Nay, you have even cast the loss of my vessel in my teeth!"

The handsome young man, with clouded brow, grieved and goaded spirit, turned away as he spoke, and, folding his arms, gazed moodily on the waves as they unrolled at his feet, tossing liquid diamonds upon the sand. Each word he uttered only served as weapons against him. Suspicion and jealousy will never turn back the current of woman's love if it has once flowed a contrary way. Gentleness will govern it and guide it; but violence opposed to it will, like a dam, convert it into an ungovernable cataract. The attachment between Kate Bellamont and Fitzroy was properly, so far as impa.s.sioned love was concerned, only on one side.

Fitzroy, or Mark Meredith, had held her from youth in his eye as the star both of his ambition and his love; and when, by a fortuitous circ.u.mstance, five years after his departure as an humble lad from the fisherman's hut at Castle Cor, he found himself commander of the vessel destined to convey her to the New World, he, unrecognised by her, and under the name he had a.s.sumed, wooed her with diffidence, yet with the perseverance of a love that had strengthened with his strength and grown with his growth. She, in the mean while, was pleased by his attentions, flattered by his devotion, and not insensible to his love. She knew him only as Captain Fitzroy, who had been knighted for his gallantry on the sea, and whose youth only prevented him from attaining the highest rank in the navy. The earl (for the lovely Countess of Bellamont had deceased the year before) seconded the young hero's addresses, antic.i.p.ating for the youthful knight the highest name and rank.

At length, on the day they arrived in New-York Bay she gave him the promise of her hand, though her heart went not with it. It was her father's wish that she should marry, and she herself believed Lester no longer lived. Fitzroy was therefore accepted; and though she did not regard him with the devotion of love, she esteemed him as a friend; while the grat.i.tude she felt for his attachment he mistook for love.

Although such second attachments are not altogether consistent with the character of a true heroine, yet they are not inconsistent with the character of a true woman!

The betrothed lady looked upon her lover with surprise as he concluded, and said mildly,

"This is strange! You are not wont to yield to moods of jealousy, Fitzroy!"

"Jaundiced and jealous I confess I am, until you answer me!" he said, with nervous impatience.

"Thou art ill, I fear," she said, laying her hand upon his shoulder tenderly; "and what at other times I might take deep offence at, having given no cause, I'll now regard as the workings of disease tinging your speech, which else were fair and worthy of you."

"I am not sick unless at heart," he said, burying his face in his hands. "She loves me not," he uttered to himself; "she loves me not! I have been blinded by my own deep pa.s.sion! She loves me not! The hopes, the dreams of years are dissipated! She loves me not!"

All at once he turned to her and said,

"Once more forgive me, dearest lady! I was not myself just now; I knew not--I knew not what I said! 'Tis over now; forget it!"

"I knew thou wert not thyself, and felt not thy words," she said, with sweet dignity. "Nay, shrink not from my embrace, Rupert."

"I am unworthy!"

"Nay, Rupert, I know your thoughts! You do yourself injustice. So far as my love can be bestowed on any one, it is bestowed on thee. That I think of Lester as he once was with tenderness, I do not deny; that I now pity and fear him, you need not be told. Still I do confess to you, that, were he Lester now, and worthy of his name, my love would be his did he claim it. But we can never be aught to each other more. Be jealous no longer! 'Tis unworthy thee; and I will henceforth give thee no cause."

"Nay, lady," he said, with seriousness, kneeling and taking her hand, "though I love thee truly and tenderly; though I have loved thee since my heart was first awakened to pa.s.sion; and although this hand has been the goal of my ambition, and is at length surrendered to me, and is thus clasped in mine, yet I resign it, and here tender back to thee thy reluctantly given troth, and leave thee free!"

"Thou wilt not, then," she said, playfully, after hesitating in what vein to reply, "deign to accept my heart, while one little corner is reserved for the memory of a youthful pa.s.sion?"

"Nay, if that little corner alone were wholly mine, and the rest were sacred to that youthful love, I should feel myself most happy--most blessed. But not that I may be free, but that thou mayest be, do I make this sacrifice."

"Then it need not be made, Rupert. For it would be also a sacrifice to me."

"Do you say that truly?" he asked, with warmth.

"Truly."

"I am then happy."

"You will not be jealous again?"

"No. But it was my love."

"I confess you had cause. But it exists no longer. Let us return to the Hall."

"I will escort thee there, and then, as I should have done ere this, aid the earl in preparing to defend the town, for it doubtless will be attacked ere morning by Kyd. Lester--Lester, said you? How strange, how very strange! An earldom thrown away; the haughty, highborn n.o.ble! Nay, I can scarce believe it. Yet, now I call him to mind, I do recognise the n.o.ble in 'the Kyd.' At another time, fair Catharine, you must explain this mystery to me!"