His obvious happiness reflected itself on her mood, and it was a merry trio which sat down to the simple dinner, that, simple as it was, seemed luxurious to the fare which he had left behind at Beaumont Buildings.

After dinner he got out his violin and played for them.

d.i.c.k sprawled on the sofa, and Nell leaned back in her cozy chair with some useful and necessary darning, and--with unconscious cruelty--thought of Drake and Shorne Mills, as the exquisite strains filled the tiny room.

Some of the workmen, as they tramped by from their overtime, paused to listen, and nodded to each other approvingly, and carried the news to the village that "a swell musician fellow" was on a visit at the lodge; and the next day, when Nell walked through the village, with Falconer by her side, carrying her basket, the good folk eyed his pale face and long hair with awed curiosity and interest, and then, when the couple had pa.s.sed, exchanged winks and significant smiles, none of which Nell saw, or, if she had seen, would, in her unconsciousness, have understood. For it never occurs to the woman whose whole being is absorbed in love for one man, that any other man may be in love with her. So Nell was placidly happy in the musician's happiness, and never guessed that the music he played for her delight was but the expression of the longing of his heart, and that when she was not looking, his dark eyes dwelt upon her with a sad and wistful tenderness, which was all the more tender because of its hopelessness.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Now, while all Anglemere talked of its lord and master, it had no suspicion that he was near at hand.

Two days before Nell and d.i.c.k had arrived at the lodge, the _Seagull_ sailed, with all the grace and ease of its namesake, into Southampton water, with my Lord of Angleford on board.

Drake leaned against the rail and looked with grave face and preoccupied air at his native land. Two years had pa.s.sed since he had last seen it, and they had scored their log upon his face. It was handsome still, but the temples were flecked with gray, and there were certain lines on the forehead and about the mouth which are graven by other hands than Time's.

It was the face of one who lived in the past, and could find no pleasure in the present; and the expression in his eyes was that of the man to whom the G.o.ds have given everything but the one thing his heart desired.

As he leaned against the side, with his hands in his pockets, his yacht cap tilted over his eyes, he pondered on the vanity of human wishes.

Here he was, the Earl of Anglemere, owner of an historic t.i.tle, the master of all the Angleford estates and wealth. Almost every man who heard his name envied him--some doubtless hated him--because of his wealth and rank. And yet he would have given it all if by so doing he could have been the "Drake Vernon" who had been loved by a certain Nell Lorton; and as he looked at the blue water, rippling in the sunlight round the stately yacht, his thoughts went back sadly to the _Annie Laurie_ and its girl owner, and he sighed heavily.

He had intended to be absent from England for some years--perhaps forever, and even when the cable informing him of his uncle's death and his own succession to the t.i.tle had reached him, he had clung to his resolution of remaining abroad, for when the news got to him his uncle had been long buried, and there seemed to him no need of his return. It was easier to forget, or to persuade himself that he forgot, Nell, while he was sailing from port to port, or shooting big game in the wild and desolate places of the earth, than it would be in England. If Nell had still been pledged to him, how differently he would have received this gift which the G.o.ds had bestowed on him! To have been able to go to her and say: "Nell, you will be the Countess of Angleford; take my hand, and let me show you the inheritance you will share with me!" That would have been a happiness which would have doubled and trebled the value of his t.i.tle and estates. But now! Nell was no longer his; he had lost her, and, having lost her, all the good things which had fallen to him were of as little value as a Rubens to the blind, or a nocturne of Chopin to the deaf.

When the lawyers worried him he sent curt and evasive replies, telling them in so many words to do the best they could without him, and when Lady Angleford wrote, begging him to return and take up his duties, he answered with condolences on her loss, and vague a.s.surances that he would be back--some time. Then she wrote again; the kind of letter a clever woman can write; the letter which, for all its gentleness, stings and irritates:

"Much as you may dislike it, much as it may interfere with your love of wandering, the fact remains that you are the Earl of Angleford, my dear Drake. And the Earl of Angleford has higher duties than ordinary men.

The lawyers want you, the estate want you, the people--do you think they do not want you? And, most of all, I think, I want you. Do you remember our first meeting? It was thought that I had come between you and yours; but the fact that I have not done so, the consolation I find in the thought, is made of no avail by your absence. You are too good a fellow to inflict pain upon a lonely and sorrow-stricken woman, Drake. Come back and take your place among your peers and your people. Sometimes I think there must be some reason, some mysterious cause, for your prolonged absence, your reluctance to take up the duties and responsibilities of the position which has fallen to you; but if there should be, I beg of you to forget it, to set it aside. You are, you cannot help being, the Earl of Angleford. Come and play your part like a man."

It was the kind of letter which few men, certainly not Drake, could resist. Wondering bitterly whether she guessed at the reason, the cause of his reluctance to return to England, to take up the purple and ermine which had fallen from her husband's shoulders, he wrote a short note saying that he would "come back." In a second letter he asked her to get Angleford ready for him, not dreaming that she would take his request as a carte blanche, and turn the old place inside out and make it fit, as she considered fitness, for its new lord and master.

As the _Seagull_ glided to her moorings, his expression grew harder and sterner. He was a man of the world, and he knew what would be expected of him. An earl, the owner of an historic t.i.tle and vast estates, has a paramount duty--that of providing an heir to his t.i.tle and lands.

Now that he had come back, he would be expected, would be hustled and goaded into marrying. Marrying! He swore under his breath, and began to pace up and down restlessly, so that Mr. Murphy, the yacht's master, thinking that his lordship was in a hurry to land, bustled the crew a bit. But when the dingy was lowered and the man-o'-warlike sailors were in their places, their lord and master lingered, for he was loath to leave the _Seagull_. How many nights had he paced her deck, thinking of Nell, calling up the vision of the clear, oval face, the soft, dark hair, the eyes that had grown violet-hued as they turned lovingly to him. That vision had sailed with him through many a stormy and sunlit sea, and he was loath to part with it. On sh.o.r.e, there he would have to plunge into his "duties," would have to sign leases, and read deeds, and listen to stewards and agents. There would be little time to think, to dream of Nell.

The dinghy took him ash.o.r.e, and he put up at the large and crowded hotel, and spent the evening wishing that he was on the _Seagull_. The next day it occurred to him that he was within a ride of Anglemere, and he procured a horse and rode out to it. He had very little desire to see the chief of his "places," and when he had ridden up to the terrace he turned his horse down a side road and regained his hotel, little thinking that he had pa.s.sed the window of Nell's room, that her eyes had rested upon him.

The sight of the old place had awakened memories which saddened him. He had played on that terrace, on the lawn beneath, when a boy. Even as a boy he had learned to regard Anglemere as his future home; and he had been, in a childish way, proud of the fact. It was his now--and what little pride and pleasure could be found in its possession! If Nell----With something like an oath he dragged himself up the grandiose stairs of the hotel, and went to bed.

In the morning the mate of the yacht brought him a letter from Lady Angleford. It said that she had heard that he had arrived at Southampton, and that she hoped he would go on to Anglemere and see and approve of the alterations and improvements she was attempting, and that he would "go into residence" in three weeks' time, as she had asked a housewarming party to welcome him.

Drake stared at the letter moodily, and wished himself among the big game in Africa, or salmon fishing in Norway; but he felt that Lady Angleford was trying to do her duty by him, and knew that he ought to follow suit.

He gravitated between the hotel and his yacht for a few days, his face growing sterner and more moody each day, then he rode out to Anglemere again.

It was a lovely afternoon, and, if he had not been haunted by the vision of Nell, Drake would have reveled in the blue sky, the soft breeze, the singing of the birds, and the scent of the flowers; but all these recalled Nell and Shorne Mills, and only made the aching of his heart more acute.

He wondered, as he rode along the well-kept roads, whether she was still at Shorne Mills; whether she had forgotten him, whether she was married.

At the last thought, the blood rushed to his head, and he jerked the reins so that the good horse broke into a gallop which carried Drake to the southern lodge, where--if he could but have known it!--dwelt Nell herself!

The gates were open, and he rode through; but as he pa.s.sed the lodge, the sound of a violin played by a master hand smote upon his ear. He pulled the horse into a walk, and approached the house in a dream.

Workmen were all over the place, and he stared about him like a stranger; and they eyed him with half-indifferent, half-curious scrutiny. He got off his horse and walked up the stone steps of the terrace into the hall. Here the foreman of the firm of decorators approached him.

"Do you want to see any one, sir?" he asked.

"No," said Drake diplomatically. He was reluctant to announce himself.

"You are making some alterations?" he said.

"Rather, sir," a.s.sented the foreman, with a self-satisfied smile. "We're just turning the old place inside out. For the new lord, you know."

"I see," said Drake.

He knew that he ought to have said: "I am the new lord--I am Lord Angleford." But he shrank from it. The whole thing, the transformation of the old place, though he knew it was necessary, was distasteful to him.

"What is that?" and he nodded toward a cl.u.s.ter of small globes in the center of the hall.

"Oh, that! That's the electric light," said the man. "There's going to be electric lights all over the house. Wait a minute, and I'll turn some of it on; though perhaps I'd better not, for the gentleman who manages it is away to-day. He's gone to Southampton to see after some things which ought to have come this morning."

"Don't trouble," said Drake absently.

"Well, perhaps I'd better not," said the man. "He mightn't like it. He's the gent that lives in the lodge."

"In the lodge!" said Drake. "The south lodge?"

The man nodded.

"He plays the violin?" said Drake.

The man grinned.

"No, no! That's his friend. He's a musician--the gentleman his sister is engaged to."

Drake got on his horse and rode away, leaving the park by the east lodge.

The three weeks slipped away, and the day for the great gathering at Anglemere was near at hand. By dint of working day and night, the contractors had succeeded in getting the house finished in time; and Lady Angleford, who had come down, with an army of servants, at the week's end, expressed her approval and her astonishment that so much should have been effected in so short a time.

The lord and master was not to arrive until the evening of the twenty-first, the date of the ball, and most of the house party had reached Anglemere before him. He had pleaded urgent business as an excuse for not putting in an appearance earlier; but, beyond seeing his lawyers and listening to their complaints at his absence, he had done very little business, and had been cruising in the Solent to while away the interval.

The villagers wanted to "receive" him at the station, and talked of a "welcome" arch; but no one could find out at what hour to expect him; and Lady Angleford, who, with native quickness, had learned a great deal of his character in her short acquaintance with him, and was quite aware that he disliked fuss of any kind, had discouraged the idea.

The dogcart was sent to the station to meet the six-o'clock train, on chance, and he arrived by it, and was driven home, cheered by a few groups of the villagers who had hung about in the hope of seeing him.