"I want you to stop and protect me, and take care of me and keep me for yours, Luke."

"Don't--don't talk like that," he cried, speaking hoa.r.s.ely, "or you will make me forget my promise to your uncle. Let us be firm and true, and look the matter seriously in the face. It is for our future, and I pray and believe that I am acting wisely here."

"But you will be away," she said, with a piteous look in her eyes.

"There will be no one to take care of me when you are gone."

"Nonsense, little one," he exclaimed. "There is your uncle. What have you to fear? Only be true to me."

"Oh, yes, yes," she sobbed; "but you do not know, Luke. I might be tempted, I might be led away from you--I might--"

"Might!" he said, with scorn in his voice. "My little Sage, whom I have known from the day when she gave me first her innocent sisterly love, could not be untrue to the man she has promised to wed. Sage, dear," he continued, holding her hands in his, and gazing in her agitated, tearful face, "look at me--look me fully in the eyes."

"Yes, Luke," she said, hesitatingly; and her pretty, troubled face looked so winning that it was all he could do to keep from clasping her in his arms tightly to his own trusting breast.

"Now," he said, smiling, "you see me. Can you doubt, dear, that I should ever be untrue to you?"

"No, no! oh, no, Luke," she cried.

"Neither could I, dearest," he said, softly. "I am a very plain, unimpulsive man, wanting, perhaps, in the soft speech and ways that are said to please women; but I think my heart is right, and that in spite of my quiet ways I love you very, very dearly."

"I know, I know you do," sobbed the girl.

"Yes, and I trust you, my dear," he said. "I know that you could never give look or word to another that would cause me pain."

"No, no, dear Luke, I could not," she sobbed; "but I want you with me.

I cannot bear for you to leave me helpless here."

"Nonsense, my little pet," he said, tenderly. "The years will soon slip by, and then all will be well. There, we understand each other, do we not?"

"Yes, yes, Luke, I think so," she sobbed.

"One kiss, then, darling, the last I shall take, perhaps, for years, and then--"

"Oh, no, not now--not now," she cried, hastily, as he sought to take her in his arms in the sheltered lane. "Uncle is coming with Mr Cyril Mallow;" and then she moaned pa.s.sionately to herself, "Him again! Oh, Luke, Luke, I wish that I was dead."

PART ONE, CHAPTER NINETEEN.

JULIA'S HORROR.

Two young men leaning over the park railings on a bright spring morning, when the soot-blackened, well-worn gra.s.s that had been suffering from a winter's chronic cold was beginning to put forth its tender green shoots and dress itself for the season.

The rather muddy drive was on one side, the Serpentine on the other, and indications that London was coming to town could be seen in the increasing string of carriages.

One of the young men was undoubtedly dressed by Poole--well dressed; and he looked worthy of his tailor's care. Frank, manly, handsome, there was a pleasant look in his grey eyes; and if his fair moustache had not been quite so heavy, a well-cut firm mouth would have been better seen.

Perhaps that very glossy hat was worn a trifle too much on one side, and with the well set up appearance it suggested military, but the gold horse-shoe pin with diamond nails directly after hinted equine: the result being a compromise, and the looker-on concluded cavalry.

The other was of a heavier build, and was decidedly not dressed by a good tailor. He was not shabby, but careless; and while his companion was carefully gloved, he carried his hand-shoes in his hands, and certainly his hat had not been touched by a brush that morning.

He was a good-looking, manly fellow, with very short hair and a very long beard, thick enough to hide three parts of his chest.

The judge of human nature who had tried to read him at a glance, would, if right, have said, "Good fellow, somewhat of a cynic, don't care a _sou_ for appearances."

Two of the characters in this comedy, to wit, Henry Lord Artingale, man of fashion with a good income; and James Magnus, artist of a manly school, who had cut deeply his mark upon the time.

Another character was seated upon a bench some twenty yards away, cutting his mark, not on the time, but upon the park seat, with an ugly, sharp-pointed clasp-knife, which he closed with a snap, and then threw one great leg over the newly-cut wood, as he seemed to feel more than see the appearance of a policeman, who ran his eye shrewdly over the fellow as if considering him a "party" likely to be "wanted."

Jock Morrison looked decidedly like the proverbial fish out of water as he stared sullenly about, but not as one might stare who finds himself in an incongruous position by accident. About the only ill-dressed person in his neighbourhood, Jock seemed in no wise abashed, nor yet the worse for his course of imprisonment, his dark beard having rapidly grown and got well over the blacking-brush stage so affected by the Parisian "swell." Far from seeming abashed, Jock Morrison was ready with a cool, defiant look for every one not in the law, and as a rule those who stared at the great swarthy fellow once were satisfied not to repeat the look.

Jock was evidently in the park for a purpose, and every now and then his eyes wandered over the lines of carriages, but without seeing that of which he was in quest, and as soon as the policeman was gone he once more opened his knife, and began to carve, handily enough, a new design--this time a couple of hearts locked together after the time-honoured fashion shown in a valentine.

"That's about as picturesque-looking a blackguard as I've seen for months," said Magnus, looking across the road at where the fellow lounged. "I wonder whether he'd come and stand for me."

"H'm, yes," said his companion; "nice-looking youth."

"He'd make a splendid bull-fighter in a Spanish scene."

"H'm, bull-dog fighter, I should have said, Mag. By the way, I'd have a certificate from the baths and wash-houses before I admitted him to the studio. He looks disgustingly dirty."

"Yah! horrible! Take me away, Harry. I feel as if I were going to be sick."

"Why, what's the matter now?"

"Talk about that great blackguard looking disgusting: here's my great horror!"

"What, Perry-Morton?"

"Yes. Look at his hideously fat, smooth face, and his long greasy hair tucked behind his ears. Look at his open throat, and--confound the animal, yes--a crimson satin tie. Harry, I shall be had up one of these days for an atrocious a.s.sault upon that creature. I shall lie in wait for him like a bravo, and armed with a pair of new scissors I shall cut his hair. Is it possible to prevail upon him to go about clothed, and in his right mind?"

"For shame, Jemmy! and you a brother artist."

"Brother artist be hanged! You don't call that thing an artist."

"Why, my dear boy, he's acknowledged in society as the apostle of the poet-painters' school."

"Good G.o.d!"

"My dear boy, do restrain yourself," laughed the other.

"I can't help it. I do like a man to be a man, and for goodness' sake look at that thing."

"That thing," as Magnus so contemptuously dubbed him, was certainly striking in appearance, as the open carriage in which he was riding came to a standstill, and he signed to the footman to let him out. For as he descended it was to stand upon a very thin pair of legs that in no sense corresponded with his plump, white, boyish face.

It was a handsome, well-appointed carriage from whose front seat he had alighted, the back being occupied by two ladies of between twenty and thirty, who looked as if their costume had been copied from a disinterred bas-relief; so cold and neutral were their lines that they might have been lady visitors to the Grosvenor Gallery, instead of maidens to whom the word "aesthetic" was hardly known. For the Graeco-Roman extended to their hair, which stood out from their foreheads, looking singed and frizzed as if scorched by the burning thoughts that were in their brains; for even in those days there were ladies who delighted to belong to the pre-Raphaelic _c.u.m_ fleshly school of painting and poetry, and took pains to show by their uniform that they were of the blessed.

As the footman folded the steps and closed the door, the gentleman--to wit, Mr Perry-Morton, of Saint Agnes', Park Road--posed himself in an artistic att.i.tude with one arm upon the carriage-door, crossed one leg over the other, and gazed in the faces of his sisters, one delicately-gloved hand in correct harmony of tint playing with a cambric handkerchief, specked with toy flowers of the same tone.

As he posed himself, so did the two ladies. The nearer curled herself gracefully, all but the legs, in a pantherine style in the corner of the carriage, and looked at her brother sweetly through the frizz of hair, as if she were asking him to see if there were a parting. The further drooped over florally in a manner that in another ordinary being would have suggested crick in the neck, but here, as with her brother and sister, everything was so deliriously unstudied--or well studied--that she only gave the idea of a bending flower--say, a bud--or a pallid virgin and martyr upon painted gla.s.s.