"What name, sir?"

I gave the man a card, and he disappeared through another door.

Three minutes later I heard a bright voice calling me:--

"G.o.dfrey! Is it actually you!" And looking up, I saw my well-beloved standing upon the oak minstrels' gallery, fresh and sweet in a white serge gown, and little changed from those old well-remembered days when we had met and wandered together beside the sea. Ah! how my heart leapt at sight of her.

She ran swiftly down the stairs, and next moment I held both her soft hands in mine and was looking into those beautiful blue eyes that for years had been ever before me in my day-dreams. a.s.suredly no woman on earth was fairer than she! Love does not come at will; and of goodness it is not born, nor of grat.i.tude, nor of any right or reason on the earth.

"Fancy!" she cried. "Fancy your coming here. But why have you come?"

she asked anxiously. "You don't know in what peril your presence here places me."

"Have you seen Lucie?" I asked.

"Not since she went to Italy. Has she returned?"

"Yes. I am here in order to tell you something."

"Then let's go into the garden. My father has gone in the car to Bewdley." And she led me through the old stone-paved corridor and across the quiet ancient courtyard and out into a beautiful rose-garden where the high box-hedges were clipped into fantastic shapes, and the roses climbed everywhere upon their arches.

"What a delightful place!" I exclaimed. "I had no idea that Wichenford was like this."

"Hadn't you?" she laughed. Then sighing, she added: "Yes. I love it just as much as dear old dad does. Let us sit here." And she sank upon an old seat of carved stone, grey and lichen-covered. It was in a spot where we were hidden by the foliage, yet before us spread the beautiful gardens with the long terrace, and beyond the broad undulating park with the great old oaks in all their autumn glory.

There in the quiet tranquillity, the silence only broken by the song of the birds, I briefly told my love of the attempt made upon my life and of the death of Lucie's father--a story which held her speechless in amazement.

We sat there hand in hand.

"I had no idea that you were ill, otherwise I should have, of course, gone at once to see you," she said, with the old love-looking in her dear eyes as she looked at me.

"Ah! I knew you would, my darling!" I cried, raising her hand to my lips. "I dare not write for fear that my letter might fall into that man's hands. I called upon your aunt, and she told me that you are to be married shortly. Is that really so?" I asked huskily.

"Alas! G.o.dfrey, it is," she murmured. "I have tried and struggled and schemed, but I cannot escape. Ah! if my father only knew the truth concerning him! But I am compelled to wear a mask always--always. It is horrible!" And she covered her face with her hands.

"Yes, horrible!" I echoed. "Why don't you let me stand before that thief and accuse him?"

"And reveal my secret to my father. Never--never! I would die rather than he should know." And her face grew pale and hard, and her small hand trembling in mine.

"Ella!" I cried, kissing her pa.s.sionately on her cold white lips. "How can I save you? How can I gain you for my own? This awful suspense is killing me."

"G.o.dfrey," she answered, in a low, distinct voice, "we can never be man and wife--impossible, why therefore let us discuss it further? We love each other with a fond true love, it is true, fonder than man and woman ever loved before, yet both of us are longing for the unattainable," she sighed. "My future, alas! is not in my own hands."

"Ah! yes!" I cried in despair. "I see it all! Your fear prevents you from allowing me to unmask this man--you fear that your father should learn your secret!"

"I fear that you, too, should learn it--that instead of loving me," she said, with a wild look in her splendid eyes, "you would hate me!"

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

TELLS THE TRUTH.

In the rich glow of the autumn evening we sat together for some time, our hearts too full of grief for words. The future of both of us was filled with blank despair. My presence there brought back to her all the sweet recollections of those long-past days when she was free, and when to save her father from ruin she had so n.o.bly sacrificed her love.

Presently the whirr of the motor-car announced Mr Murray's return, and rising we went into the house to greet him. He welcomed me, but none too warmly I noticed. Probably he did not approve of my calling upon Ella now that she was engaged to marry the man who had so firmly established himself in his confidence.

Nevertheless, he asked me to remain to dinner, which I did gladly. He was a slow-speaking gentlemanly man, dark-eyed and dark-bearded, whom I had always liked.

From him I learned that Ella's marriage was to take place in the village church of Wichenford in the first week in October, and that the honeymoon was to be spent in St Petersburg. His words cut me like a knife.

"Gordon-Wright is down at his country place just now," he remarked an hour later, as we all three sat at table in the great old panelled dining-room with the wax candles burning in the antique Sheffield candelabra. "We go to town next week, and he meets us there. He's a good fellow. Do you know him?"

"I met him quite casually once," I replied, glancing across at my well-beloved who had now exchanged her white dress for a black lace dinner gown, in the corsage of which was a single red rose--her favourite flower.

Ah! as I looked at her my heart was aflame. I loved her better than my life. Alas! She could never now be mine--never.

I left early and drove back to Worcester through the pelting rain--with her rose that she had slipped into my hand at parting, a silent pledge that spoke volumes to me.

"Good-bye, dear heart!" she whispered. "We shall perhaps meet again in London."

"Yes," I said earnestly. "We must meet once again before your marriage.

Promise me you will--promise?"

"I'll try. But you know how very difficult it is to see you when I'm at Porchester Terrace. Aunt Henrietta is such an impossible person."

"You must," I whispered. And I would have clasped her to my heart and kissed her in adieu had not the statuesque man-servant stood by to hand me the mackintosh which Murray had lent me.

"Adieu!" she said again, and then touching her hand I mounted into the cart and went forth into the rain and darkness--into the night that was so like my own life.

After my return to Shepherd's Bush ten weary days pa.s.sed--each day bringing my love nearer that odious union. One morning I received an unexpected note from Lucie Miller, saying that she and her aunt were in London again, at the Hotel Russell, in order to see her late father's lawyers.

I called and left a card, for they were out.

Next day, just as I rose from Mrs Gilbert's luncheon table and was about to enjoy a pipe in Sammy's den--he being away at the club-- visitors were announced.

It was Lucie, flushed and agitated, and with her was Ella, who, the instant the door of the little sitting-room was closed, fell upon my neck, and without a word burst into a pa.s.sion of tears.

"What does this mean?" I asked of Lucie, utterly taken aback.

"This will explain it." And she drew out a green evening newspaper, one of those editions published at eleven o'clock in the morning. "Read for yourself," she added, pointing to a bold headline.

I swiftly scanned the lines, and stood staring at them both.

What was printed there was utterly bewildering. I held my breath.

Could it actually be true?

I cried aloud for joy, and pressing my love to my breast covered her pale sweet face with pa.s.sionate kisses.

"Is this a fact?" I cried. "Is it really true?"