"I shall never marry," she repeated.

"You do not mean that you regard yourself as bound by that mad promise to Leicester?"

She was silent, but she nodded her head in a.s.sent.

"But, Olive, this would be madness. The man is dead--a suicide. Even although the promise were valid had he lived, it has no meaning now he is dead."

"Yes, it has," she said.

An angry look shot from John Castlemaine's eyes. The girl's determination was so absurd that he had difficulty in keeping himself from speaking impatiently. He kept silence, however. He reflected that the tragic death of Leicester was so recent, that Olive's mind was in a morbid condition.

"Anyhow, I'll think over what you say, Olive," he said kindly. "I imagine, moreover, that I shall do what you say. Even if the scheme fails, it will be a splendid failure, and I do not think it will land us either in the workhouse or the bankruptcy court."

A few weeks later Olive was busy examining architects' plans, listening to professional golfers' ideas concerning the best way of laying out golf links, and hearing protests from certain in the parish concerning her wild, utopian, and unpractical scheme. Difficulties, however, did not turn her aside from her purpose, and in her arduous labours she was led to brood less over the tragic cloud which had fallen upon her life.

A year later a great change came over Vale Linden. The little wayside station some three miles away, which had been seldom used, became quite busy. The hills and vales, which had been well-nigh forsaken, echoed to the laughter of many voices. Tired, over-worked men and women found health and recreation amongst the wild moors, and roaming amidst wooded dells, while many who, amidst the crowded thoroughfares of London, found little to rejoice in, felt that their youth was renewed as they filled their lungs with the balmy air of Devon.

The great house at Vale Linden, which during the late ownership never received a guest, save those of a select cla.s.s, was now often filled with people they would have called plebeian; nevertheless, it had never since its erection been such a centre of hospitality and gladness as now.

The new homestead was filled almost as soon as it was opened, while in the new church, which John Castlemaine had built, people who had listened to no preacher but the prosy vicar, rejoiced in the thoughts of men who had a real message to deliver, while those who had lived their lives amidst turmoil and strife felt that their spiritual and intellectual needs were met, in this quaint Devonshire village, "far from the madding crowd."

And Olive Castlemaine was the presiding genius everywhere. It was she who arranged for compet.i.tions on the golf links, and matches in the tennis courts. No concert or lecture at the village hall seemed to be complete without her. The ministers who came to the little church declared that but for the organ which she played, and the choir she trained, they would find it far more difficult to preach, while the vicar of the parish sorrowed with a great sorrow that such a beautiful and accomplished girl should be a dissenter.

Nevertheless, he could not deny that a new life was lived by the people.

Books which the villagers had never heard of before were now read eagerly, while drunkenness was becoming more and more a thing of the past.

Thus Olive Castlemaine entered upon a new phase of her life. In the midst of her many new duties she tried to forget the one who crossed the pathway of her life, and then had suddenly left it. Not that she altogether succeeded. Often in her quiet hours the picture of this man as she had first seen him came back to her. Again she saw the pale face, and the straight, erect form, while the memory of his cynical and faithless words haunted her. Even yet she could not help admiring him.

No matter who might be in the room, his was the most striking figure; no one, in spite of his cynicism, had been listened to as eagerly as he.

Even while she grew angry at the thought of his wagering to win her as his wife, she wondered whether she had done right in driving him away.

She knew that he had been drunk when he had done it, knew, too, that within a few weeks of the wedding he had confessed that he was marrying her to win his wager, and to partic.i.p.ate in her father's wealth. No, she could not have done otherwise. Her self-respect, her woman's pride would not have allowed her; moreover, his professions of reformation were only a part of his plan for deceiving her. Within three days of the time when he should have married her, he had, while drunk, allowed her picture to be exhibited before a crowd of gaping rustics; he had uttered maudlin words about her, and then fallen on the platform in a condition of drunken imbecility. No, she had done right, and yet she felt sure that he must have loved her. Besides, in spite of his vices, he was a noteworthy man. There was something fine even in his cynicism, something almost n.o.ble in his scorn for conventional morality.

Still, it was all over. He had paid for his vices and his deceit with his own life. He had preferred to die in the turbid waters of the Thames to living a life of uselessness and regret. She ought to forget him; but she could not. Sometimes she upbraided herself for being the cause of his death; but not often. She was too healthy-minded, too sane for that.

The man who could throw away his life because of what she had done, could never have been one whom she could respect.

Her solace was in work, in living for the benefit of others, and to this she gave her life. Little by little, as the leading families of the county came to know her, they paid her many attentions. Instinctively they realised that she was no ordinary woman, while her father's great wealth added charm to her accomplishments. Before two years had pa.s.sed away more than one county magnate had sought her hand in marriage, while many wondered at her evident determination to remain single.

But as the years pa.s.sed away her father thought he saw a change in her.

She no longer grew impatient when he spoke to her of marriage, and he hoped with a great hope that his old age might be cheered by the shouts of children's voices, and by the thought that his only child had buried a dead past.

CHAPTER XIX

THE MAN WITH THE FEZ

Olive Castlemaine sat on the lawn of her Devonshire home, looking away across the valley towards the moorlands which lay beyond. By her side stood a young fellow of from thirty to thirty-five years of age.

"You don't say you are sorry for me, Miss Castlemaine," he said.

"You are not on my side, you see," she replied, with a smile.

"Would that make a difference? Would you have congratulated me if I were on your side, and won the seat?"

"And if you had lost it--if you had made a good fight."

"You believe in fighting?"

"To the very end."

"Still, I can't turn my coat--even for you," he said apologetically.

"I would not like you to."

"And, after all, the battle's not lost, because of one defeat."

"You are going to stand again?"

"Yes, I am going to stand again. We must have a General Election in a year or two; meanwhile I shall keep on pegging away. The majority was not insurmountable. The Government is bound to make a fool of itself, the General Election will come, and I shall win the seat."

"You seem very certain."

"The man who keeps pegging away, and never gives up, has always reason to be certain. And I never give up."

Olive was silent.

"Don't you believe in that att.i.tude?" he asked.

"Yes--in a way. Still, I should make sure I was not striving after an impossibility."

"Everything that has ever been done worth the doing,--I mean every really great thing--has been done by attempting the impossible."

Olive turned towards him with a glance that did not lack admiration. He was a fine-looking young fellow; tall, well formed, and well favoured.

He belonged to that cla.s.s which maintains the best traditions of the old county families. He was the owner of an estate which lay contiguous to that of John Castlemaine, and he was a healthy-minded, clear-brained young Englishman. In many things the two were opposed. His sympathies were, in the main, with the cla.s.ses; hers with the people; he had but little belief in the democracy, she had. He believed in the aristocracy of birth; she in the aristocracy of intellect and personal worth. Not that he was not interested in the well-being of the people--he was; but their ideas as to the way in which that well-being would be realised were different. His mind had been shaped and coloured by the cla.s.s among which he had been reared, by the atmosphere in which he had lived, and the atmosphere of this Devonshire squire's home was different from that which had surrounded Olive Castlemaine's life.

"No," he went on presently, "I never believe in giving up. That is a characteristic of my race. The Briarfields have always been noted for their--obstinacy."

"It is not always a pleasant characteristic," she said with a laugh.

"But a useful one," he said. "It has saved me from defeat more than once. When I first went to a public school I fought a boy bigger than myself. He whipped me badly; but I mastered him in the end."

There was no boastfulness in the way he spoke; moreover, he evidently had a reason for leading the conversation into this channel.

"That is one reason why I refuse to take 'No' from you," he continued.

"I never loved any other woman; I never shall; and I shall never give up hope of winning you."

"Really, I am very sorry for this, Mr. Briarfield."