"_Cara mia_," he said, taking both her hands and trying to draw her close to him, "I care not how it is if you shall say you love me. Do not hide the truth from yourself. Your father is in great danger. You can save him from the penalties of wrong. Will you refuse to do so because I love you--love you as I have never believed a man could love; love you as my father loved your mother so many years ago--with the love of a race that has fought for women and died for them; a race which is deaf when a women says no, which follows her, _cara mia_, to the end of the earth and has eyes for nothing else but the house which shelters her? Will you do this when your heart can command me as you will--saying, speak or be silent, forget or remember? I know you better; you love me, Evelyn; you are afraid to tell me, but you love me. That is why I remain a prisoner of this house--because you love me, and I shall make you my wife. Ah, _cara mia_, say it but once--I love you, Georges, the son of my father's friend--I love you and will not forbid your words."

A strange thrill ran through Evelyn's veins as she listened to this pa.s.sionate declaration. The frenzied words of love did not deceive her. This man, she thought, would so speak to many a woman in the years to come. A better wit would have concealed his purpose and rendered him less frank. "He would sell his father's liberty at my bidding," she said, and the thought set her struggling in his arms, flushed with anger and with shame.

"I will not hear you, Count," she cried again and again. "I cannot love you--you are not of my people. If my father has done wrong, he shall repay. He is not so helpless that he cannot save me from this.

Oh, please let me go; your hands hurt me. I can never be your wife, never, never!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Oh please let me go; your hands hurt me. I can never be your wife, never, never!"]

He released her reluctantly, for his quick ear had caught the sound of a horse galloping upon the open gra.s.s beyond the thicket.

"You will answer me differently another day," he said smilingly; "meanwhile, _cara mia_, there are two secrets to keep--yours and mine.

If the charming Lady Evelyn will not hear me, I must remember Etta Romney, a young lady of my acquaintance--ah, you know her too; and that is well for her. Let us return to the house. My lord will have much to say to me and I to him."

They went up to the Hall together in silence. Evelyn knew how much she was in his power and how idle her veiled threats had been.

She could save her father from this man--truly. But at what a price!

"Etta Romney would marry him," she said bitterly; "but I--Evelyn--G.o.d help me to be true to myself!"

CHAPTER XVI

A GAME OF GOLF

Golf at Moretown is "by favor of the Lord of the Manor" played across a corner of the home park, so remote from Melbourne Hall that you have a vista of that fine old house but rarely from the trees, and nowhere at all if you be an ardent player.

Such a description could in all sincerity have been applied to either of our old friends Dr. Philips and the Rev. Harry Fillimore, the vicar of the parish. They played the game as though all their worldly hope depended upon it. The best of friends at common times, difficulty could provoke them to such violent hostilities that they did not speak a word to each other until the after-luncheon gla.s.s of port had been slowly sipped. Intimate in their knowledge each of the other, the Vicar knew exactly when to cough that the Doctor's forcible exclamations might not be overheard by the caddies. The Doctor, upon his part, sympathized very cordially with the Vicar when that worthy found himself in a bunker. "Harry, my dear boy, pray remember where you are," he would say, and to give him his due, the Vicar rarely forgot the number of strokes necessary to extract himself from one of these many vales of tears which abounded at Moretown.

Other moments, it should be observed, were those of mutual admiration.

"If you could only putt as well as you can drive, you might play Vardon," the Vicar would tell the Doctor.

To which the reply would be:

"My dear Harry, Taylor could not play a better approach than that.

You'll be down to scratch if you go on improving in this way."

Needless to say, such enthusiasm demanded complete absorption in the game and tolerated no liberties. If anyone had told the Doctor of the fall of Port Arthur at the moment of his playing an approach, that man a.s.suredly would have deserved any fate that overtook him. When the stove in the vestry set fire to the chancel roof and did five hundred pounds worth of damage to Moretown Church, no one had the courage to tell the Vicar until he had holed out on the eighteenth, green. "Words won't put the roof on again," the s.e.xton wisely said, "and a precious lot of words you'll get from 'ee while 'ee's playin' with his ball."

So the doleful news was reserved for the Club House. "I really fear I ought not to play a second round," the Vicar exclaimed when he heard it; "most vexing, I must say."

These being the circ.u.mstances of the weekly duel _a outrance_, it certainly was astonishing to discover the Vicar and the Doctor talking of any other subject but golf on a day of July some three weeks after Count Odin's arrival at Melbourne Hall. Strange to say, however, they discussed neither the merits of the cut nor the doubtful wisdom of running up approach; but playing their strokes with some indifference as to the attending consequences, they spoke of my lord of Melbourne and of the turn affairs at the Hall were taking. To be entirely candid, the Vicar left the main part of the talk to the Doctor; for the secret which he carried he had as yet no courage to tell to anyone.

"Most extraordinary--not the same man, sir, by twenty years. If he were a woman, I would call it neurasthenia and back my opinion for a Haskell. What do you think of a sane human being letting a lot of dirty gypsies have the free run of the Hall; in and out like rabbits in a warren--drinking his best wines and riding his horses, and lots more besides that the servants hint at but won't talk about? Why, they tell me that he's up half the night with the sc.u.m sometimes, as wild as the rest of them when they fiddle and caper in the Long Gallery. What's common sense to make of it? What do you make of it, leaving common sense out of the matter?"

The Vicar looked somewhat askance at the dubious compliment; nor did it encourage him to tell of the strange sights he had seen in Melbourne Park some twelve hours before this epoch-making encounter.

"I hear the men are Roumanians," he said, taking a brussie from his bag and making an atrocious shot with it. "Of course the Earl--this is miserable--the Earl was in Roumania as a young man. Perhaps he is returning some courtesy these wild fellows showed to him. You play the odd, I think."

"Odd or the like, I don't care a--that is to say, it is most extraordinary. Why, they're bandits, Harry--bandits, I tell you, and, unless Mrs. Fillimore looks out, they'll carry her off to Matlock Tor and hold her out to ransom--perhaps while we're on the links. A pretty advertis.e.m.e.nt you'd get if that came off. A Vicar's wife stolen by brigands. The Reverend Gentleman on the Q. Tee. Think of it in the evening papers! How some of them would chaff you!"

The Vicar played an approach shot and said, "This is really deplorable." He would have preferred to talk golf; but the Doctor gave him no rest, and so he said presently:

"I wonder what Lady Evelyn thinks of it all? She went by me in the car yesterday and Bates was driving her. Now, I've never seen that before.... G.o.d bless me, what a shocking stroke!"

He shook his head as the ball went skimming over the ground into the deepest and most terrible bunker on Moretown Links--the Doctor following it with that sympathetic if hypocritical gaze we turn upon an enemy's misfortunes. Impossible not to better such a miserable exhibition, he thought. Unhappy man, game of delight, the two were playing from the bunker together before a minute had pa.s.sed!

"You and I would certainly do better at the mangle if this goes on,"

the Doctor exclaimed with honest conviction; "the third bunker I've found to-day. A man cannot be well who does that."

"Rheumatism, undoubtedly," the Vicar said slyly.

A boyish laugh greeted the thrust.

"Shall we call it curiosity? Hang the game! What does it matter? You put a bit of india-rubber into a flower-pot and think you are a better man than I am. But you're not. I'd play you any day for the poor-box.

Let's talk of something else--Lady Evelyn, for instance."

"Will she marry him, Frederick?"

"Him--the sandy-haired foreigner with the gypsy friends?"

"Is there any other concerned?"

"Oh, don't ask me. Do I keep her pocket-book?"

"I wish you did, my dear fellow. From every point of view, this marriage would be deplorable."

"From every point of view but that of the two people concerned, perhaps. She is a girl with a will of her own--do you think she would marry him if she didn't like him?"

"She might, from spite. There are better reasons, perhaps worse. You told me at their first meeting that you believed her to be in love with him."

"I was an idiot. Let's finish the round. The man will probably live to be hanged--what does it matter?"

"Well, if it doesn't matter to you, it matters to n.o.body. I'll tell you something queer--a thing I saw last night. It's been in my head all day. I'll tell you as we go to the next green."

They drove a couple of good b.a.l.l.s and set out from the tee with lighter hearts. As they went, the Vicar unburdened himself of that secret which golf alone could have prevented him disclosing an hour ago.

"I told you that I dined with Sir John Hall last night," he said in a low voice; "well, young John drove me home, and, of course, he went through the Park. Poor boy, his case is quite hopeless. He drives his horse to death round and round the house on the off chance of seeing the flash of her gown between the trees. Well, he drove me home and just as we entered the Park, what do you think--why, three or four men pa.s.sed us at the gallop--soldiers, I say, in white uniforms with gold sashes and gold sword-hilts. I saw them as plainly as I see you now--the Earl was one of them--the young Count another. Now, what do you think of it? Are they mad, or is some great jest being played? I give it up. This sort of thing is beyond my experience--it should be a case for you, Frederick, though if you can make anything of it, I'm a Dutchman."

The Doctor shook his head. He did not doubt the truth of the Vicar's story, but he made believe to doubt it.

"You dined with John Hall, Harry?"

"I have told you so."

"Sixty-three port, I suppose, on the top of champagne?"