"But my child has told the truth to her old father at last."

"Had I told you any untruth?"

"No, indeed, Marion."

"I said that I am not fit to be his wife, and I am not. Nothing is changed in all that. But when I heard that he was--. But, father, we will not talk of it now. How good you have been to me, I shall never forget,--and how tender!"

"Who should be soft-hearted if not a father?"

"They are not all like you. But you have been always good and gentle to your girl. How good and how gentle we cannot always see;--can we?

But I have seen it now, father."

As he went into the City, about an hour after his proper time, he allowed his heart to rejoice at the future prospects of his girl. He did now believe that there would be a marriage between her and her n.o.ble lover. She had declared her love to him,--to him, her father, and after that she would surely do as they would have her. Something had reached even his ears of the coyness of girls, and it was not displeasing to him that his girl had not been at once ready to give herself with her easy promise to her lover. How strong she had looked, even in the midst of her sufferings, on the previous evening!

That she should be weaker this morning, less able to restrain her tears, more p.r.o.ne to tremble as he spoke to her, was but natural. The shock of the grief will often come after the sorrow is over. He knew that, and told himself that there need be nothing,--need not at least be much,--to fear.

But it was not so with Marion as she lay all the morning convulsed almost with the violence of her emotions. Her own weakness was palpable to herself, as she struggled to regain her breath, struggled to repress her sobs, struggled to move about the house, and be as might be any other girl. "Better just lie thee down till thy father return, and leave me to bustle through the work," said the old Quaker woman who had lived with them through all their troubles. Then Marion yielded, and laid herself on the bed till the hour had come in which her father might be expected.

CHAPTER XX.

NEVER, NEVER, TO COME AGAIN.

The trouble to Hampstead occasioned by the accident was considerable, as was also for the first twenty-four hours his anxiety and that of his sister as to the young man's fate. He got back to Gorse Hall early in the day, as there was no more hunting after the killing of that first fox. There had been a consultation as to the young man, and it had been held to be best to have him taken to the inn at which he had been living, as there would be room there for any of his friends who might come to look after him. But during the whole of that day inquiries were made at Gorse Hall after Lord Hampstead himself, so general had been the belief that he was the victim.

From all the towns around, from Peterborough, Oundle, Stilton, and Thrapstone, there came mounted messengers, with expressions of hope and condolence as to the young lord's broken bones.

And then the condition of their poor neighbour was so critical that they found it to be impossible to leave Gorse Hall on the next day, as they had intended. He had become intimate with them, and had breakfasted at Gorse Hall on that very morning. In one way Hampstead felt that he was responsible, as, had he not been in the way, poor Walker's horse would have been next to the gate, and would not have attempted the impossible jump. They were compelled to put off the journey till the Monday. "Will go by the 9.30 train," said Hampstead in his telegram, who, in spite of poor Walker's mangled body, was still determined to see Marion on that day. On the Sat.u.r.day morning it became known to him and his sister that the false report had been in the London newspapers, and then they had found themselves compelled to send telegrams to every one who knew them, to the Marquis, and to the lawyer in London, to Mr. Roberts, and to the housekeeper at Hendon Hall. Telegrams were also sent by Lady Amaldina to Lady Persiflage, and especially to Lord Llwddythlw. Vivian sent others to the Civil Service generally. Hautboy was very eager to let everybody know the truth at the Pandemonium. Never before had so many telegrams been sent from the little office at Gimberley. But there was one for which Hampstead demanded priority, writing it himself, and himself giving it into the hands of the despatching young lady, the daughter of the Gimberley grocer, who no doubt understood the occasion perfectly.

To Marion Fay, 17, Paradise Row, Holloway.

It was not I who was hurt. Shall be at No. 17 by three on Monday.

"I wonder whether they heard it down at Trafford," said Lady Amaldina to Lady Frances. On this subject they were informed before the day was over, as a long message came from Mr. Roberts in compliance with the instructions from the Marquis. "Because if they did what a terrible disappointment my aunt will have to bear."

"Do not say anything so horrible," said Lady Frances.

"I always look upon Aunt Clara as though she were not quite in her right senses about her own children. She thinks a great injury is done her because her son is not the heir. Now for a moment she will have believed that it was so." This, however, was a view of the matter which Lady Frances found herself unable to discuss.

"He's going to get well after all," said Hautboy that evening, just before dinner. He had been running over to the inn every hour to ask after the condition of poor Walker. At first the tidings had been gloomy enough. The doctor had only been able to say that he needn't die because of his broken bones. Then late in the afternoon there arrived a surgeon from London who gave something of a stronger hope.

The young man's consciousness had come back to him, and he had expressed an appreciation for brandy and water. It was this fact which had seemed so promising to young Lord Hautboy. On the Sat.u.r.day there came Mrs. Walker and Miss Walker, and before the Sunday evening it was told how the patient had signified his intention of hunting again on the first possible opportunity. "I always knew he was a brick," said Hautboy, as he repeated the story, "because he always would ride at everything."

"I don't think he'll ever ride again at the fence just out of Gimberley Wood," said Lord Hampstead. They were all able to start on the Monday morning without serious concern, as the accounts from the injured man's bed-room were still satisfactory. That he had broken three ribs, a collar-bone, and an arm seemed to be accounted as nothing. Nor was there much made of the scalp wound on his head, which had come from a kick the horse gave him in the struggle. As his brains were still there, that did not much matter. His cheek had been cut open by a stake on which he fell, but the scar, it was thought, would only add to his glories. It was the pressure of the horse which had fallen across his body which the doctors feared. But Hautboy very rightly argued that there couldn't be much danger, seeing that he had recovered his taste for brandy and water. "If it wasn't for that,"

said Hautboy, "I don't think I'd have gone away and left him."

Lord Hampstead found, when he reached home on the Monday morning, that his troubles were not yet over. The housekeeper came out and wept, almost with her arms round his neck. The groom, and the footman, and the gardener, even the cowboy himself, flocked about him, telling stories of the terrible condition in which they had been left after the coming of the Quaker on the Friday evening. "I didn't never think I'd ever see my lord again," said the cook solemnly. "I didn't a'most hope it," said the housemaid, "after hearing the Quaker gentleman read it all out of the newspaper." Lord Hampstead shook hands with them all, and laughed at the misfortune of the false telegram, and endeavoured to be well pleased with everything, but it occurred to him to think what must have been the condition of Mr.

Fay's house that night, when he had come across from Holloway through the darkness and rain to find out for his girl what might be the truth or falsehood of the report which had reached him.

At 3.0 punctually he was in Paradise Row. Perhaps it was not unnatural that even then his advent should create emotion. As he turned down from the main road the very potboy from "The d.u.c.h.ess"

rushed up to him, and congratulated him on his escape. "I have had nothing to escape," said Lord Hampstead trying to pa.s.s on. But Mrs. Grimley saw him, and came out to him. "Oh, my lord, we are so thankful;--indeed, we are."

"You are very good, ma'am," said the lord.

"And now, Lord 'Ampstead, mind and be true to that dear young lady who was well-nigh heart-broke when she heard as it were you who was smashed up."

He was hurrying on finding it impossible to make any reply to this, when Miss Demijohn, seeing that Mrs. Grimley had been bold enough to address the n.o.ble visitor to their humble street, remembering how much she had personally done in the matter, having her mind full of the important fact that she had been the first to give information on the subject to the Row generally, thinking that no such appropriate occasion as this would ever again occur for making personal acquaintance with the lord, rushed out from her own house, and seized the young man's hand before he was able to defend himself. "My lord,"

she said, "my lord, we were all so depressed when we heard of it."

"Were you, indeed?"

"All the Row was depressed, my lord. But I was the first who knew it. It was I who communicated the sad tidings to Miss Fay. It was, indeed, my lord. I saw it in the _Evening Tell-Tale_, and went across with the paper at once."

"That was very good of you."

"Thank'ee, my lord. And, therefore, seeing you and knowing you,--for we all know you now in Paradise Row--"

"Do you now?"

"Every one of us, my lord. Therefore I thought I'd just make bold to come out and introduce myself. Here's Mrs. Duffer. I hope you'll let me introduce you to Mrs. Duffer of No. 15. Mrs. Duffer, Lord Hampstead. And oh, my lord, it will be such an honour to the Row if anything of that kind should happen."

Lord Hampstead, having with his best grace gone through the ceremony of shaking hands with Mrs. Duffer, who had come up to him and Clara just at the step of the Quaker's house, was at last allowed to knock at the door. Miss Fay would be with him in a minute, said the old woman as she showed him into the sitting-room up-stairs.

Marion, as soon as she heard the knock, ran for a moment to her own bed-room. Was it not much to her that he was with her again, not only alive, but uninjured, that she should again hear his voice, and see the light of his countenance, and become aware once more of a certain almost heavenly glory which seemed to surround her when she was in his presence? She was aware that on such occasions she felt herself to be lifted out of her ordinary prosaic life, and to be for a time floating, as it were, in some upper air; among the clouds, indeed;--alas, yes; but among clouds which were silver-lined; in a heaven which could never be her own, but in which she could dwell, though it were but for an hour or two, in ecstasy,--if only he would allow her to do so without troubling her with further prayer. Then there came across her a thought that if only she could so begin this interview with him that it might seem to be an occasion of special joy,--as though it were a thanksgiving because he had come back to her safe,--she might, at any rate for this day, avoid words from him which might drive her again to refuse his great request. He already knew that she loved him, must know of what value to her must be his life, must understand how this had come at first a terrible, crushing, killing sorrow, and then a relief which by the excess of its joy must have been almost too much for her. Could she not let all that be a thing acknowledged between them, which might be spoken of as between dearest friends, without any allusion for the present to that request which could never be granted?

But he, as he waited there a minute or two, was minded to make quite another use of the interview. He was burning to take her in his arms as his own, to press his lips to hers and know that she returned his caress, to have the one word spoken which would alone suffice to satisfy the dominating spirit of the man within him. Had she acceded to his request, then his demand would have been that she should at once become his wife, and he would not have rested at peace till he had reduced her months to weeks. He desired to have it all his own way. He had drawn her into his presence as soon almost as he had seen her. He had forced upon her his love. He had driven her to give him her heart, and to acknowledge that it was so. Of course he must go on with his triumph over her. She must be his altogether, from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet,--and that without delay. His hunting and his yacht, his politics and his friendships, were nothing to him without Marion Fay. When she came into the room, his heart was in sympathy with her, but by no means his mind.

"My lord," she said, letting her hand lie willingly between the pressure of his two, "you may guess what we suffered when we heard the report, and how we felt when we learnt the truth."

"You got my telegram? I sent it as soon as I began to understand how foolish the people had been."

"Oh yes, my lord. It was so good of you!"

"Marion, will you do something for me?"

"What shall I do, my lord?"

"Don't call me, 'my lord.'"

"But it is proper."

"It is most improper, and abominable, and unnatural."

"Lord Hampstead!"

"I hate it. You and I can understand each other, at any rate."