"How are you this morning, Haverleigh?"

Leo laughed. He did not wear his heart on his sleeve, and if he was worried, as Sybil averred, he did not show his vexation. "I am all right," he replied, with a smile. "Who could help being all right in this jolly weather? And how are you, Mr Pratt?"

"I am busy," responded the American, gravely. "I have been lunching with the vicar, and now I am going home to write out invitations for a dinner at my new house."

"Will you ask me, Mr Pratt?"

"I have asked Miss Tempest and I want you to come."

Leo laughed. Also he flushed a trifle. "It is very good of you," he said. "And who else will be at your house-warming?"

"Mrs Gabriel, Mr Raston, Miss Hale and her brother."

"Oh!" Leo looked annoyed at the mention of Miss Hale. "I am not sure if I shall be able to come," he said, after a pause.

"No?" Pratt's tone was quite easy. "Miss Tempest said something about your going away. But I hope you will put that off. My dear fellow"--Pratt smiled meaningly--"you can depend upon me. It is not the first time I have helped you!"

Haverleigh made no direct response, but sat on his saddle in deep thought. "I'll come," he said at length, and rode off abruptly.

"I thought you would," murmured Pratt, with a bland smile. He knew more about Leo Haverleigh than most people in Colester.

CHAPTER III

THE LADY OF THE MANOR

Haverleigh's face did not continue to wear its sunny expression after he left the American. He frowned and bit his moustache, and in the annoyance of the moment spurred his horse full speed up the castle road.

Only when he was within the avenue and nearing the porch did he slacken speed, for his mother--so he called her--might be looking out of some window. If so, she would a.s.suredly accuse him of ill-using his horse.

Mrs Gabriel rarely minced matters in her dealings with Leo. He was never perfectly sure whether she loved or hated him.

Mindful of this, he rode gently round to the stables, and, after throwing his reins to a groom, walked into the castle by a side door. As he had been absent all the morning, he was not very sure of his reception, and, moreover, he had eaten no luncheon. The butler informed him that Mrs Gabriel had asked that he should be sent to her the moment he returned. At once Leo sought her on the south terrace, where she was walking in the hot June sunshine. He augured ill from her anxiety to see him. A memory of his debts and other follies--pardonable enough--burdened his conscience.

"Here I am, mother," he said as he walked on to the terrace, looking a son of whom any woman would have been proud. Perhaps if he had really been her son, instead of her nephew, Mrs Gabriel might have been more lenient towards him. As it was she treated him almost as harshly as Roger Ascham did Lady Jane Grey of unhappy memory.

"It is about time you were here," she said in her strong, stern voice.

"As you are so much in London, I think you might give me a few hours of your time when you condescend to stay at the castle."

Leo threw himself wearily into a stone seat and played with his whip.

This was his usual greeting, and he knew that Mrs Gabriel would go on finding fault and blaming him until she felt inclined to stop. His only defence was to keep silent. He therefore stared gloomily on the pavement and listened stolidly to her stormy speech. "No reverence for women--after all I have done for you--clownish behaviour," etc.

Some wit had once compared Mrs Gabriel to Agnes de Montfort, that unpleasant heroine of the Middle Ages. The comparison was a happy one, for Mrs Gabriel was just such another tall, black-haired, iron-faced Amazon. She could well have played the _role_ of heroine in holding the castle against foes, and without doubt would have been delighted to sustain a siege. The present days were too tame for her. She yearned for the time when ladies were left in charge of the _donjon_ keep, while their husbands went out to war. More than once she fancied that if she had lived in those stirring times, she would have armed herself like Britomart, and have gone a disguised knight-errant for the pleasure and danger of the thing. As it was, she found a certain relief in the power she exercised in Colester. Her will was law in the town, and her rule quite feudal in its demand for absolute obedience.

Report said that the late John Gabriel had not been altogether sorry when he departed this life. Undoubtedly he was more at rest in the quiet graveyard near the chapel than he had ever been before. Mrs Gabriel mourned him just as much as she thought proper. She had never professed to love him, and had married him (as she calmly admitted) in order to become mistress of the grand old castle. Besides, Gabriel had always hampered her desire to rule, as he had sufficient of the old blood in him to dislike being a cypher in his ancestral home. Consequently, husband and wife quarrelled bitterly. Finally, he died, gladly enough, and the Amazon had it all her own way. It was about two years after his death that Leo came to live with her, and everyone was amazed that she should behave so kindly towards the child of her dead brother, whom, as it was well known, she hated thoroughly.

However, Leo came, and from the moment he entered the house she bullied him. Spirited as the boy was, he could not hold his own against her stern will and powers of wrathful speech. When he went to school and college he felt as though he had escaped from gaol, and always returned unwillingly to Colester. Mrs Gabriel called this ingrat.i.tude, and on every occasion brought it to his mind. She did so now; but even this could not induce Leo to speak. He declined to furnish fuel to her wrath by argument or contradiction. This also was a fault, and Mrs Gabriel mentioned it furiously.

"Can't you say something?" she cried, with a stamp. "Is it any use your sitting there like a fool? What explanation have you for me?"

"To what?" asked Leo, wearily; the question had been asked so often.

"You have accused me of so many things."

"Then why do you do wrong? I am talking of those debts you have incurred in London. You gave the list to me before you went out riding."

"I know, mother. I thought it best to avoid a scene. But it seems there is no escape. When you have quite done perhaps you will let me speak?"

"You shall speak when I choose," rejoined Mrs Gabriel, fiercely. "All I ask you now is, how comes it that your debts run up to three hundred pounds? I allow you that income. You should make it do."

"Perhaps I have been a little foolish," began Leo, but she cut him short.

"A little foolish, indeed! You have behaved like a fool, as you always do. What right have you to be extravagant? Are you in a position to be so? Have I not fed and clothed and educated you?"

"You have done everything that a charitable woman could have done."

"You mean that a _mother_ could have done. Had you been my own child--"

"You might have been kinder to me," finished the young man.

Mrs Gabriel stared aghast at this speech, and at last broke out furiously, "Had you been my own child you would have been a stronger man; not a weak fool squandering money, and defying your benefactress.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"I am," replied Leo, bitterly, "ashamed that I have endured this humiliating position for so long. I was only a child when you brought me here, and had no voice in the matter. Yet, out of grat.i.tude, I have borne with your injustice, and--"

"Injustice!" broke in Mrs Gabriel. "What do you mean?"

"My meaning is not hard to gather, mother. You have never been just to me, and the bread with which you have fed me has been bitter enough to swallow. Do you think that I can go on listening to your angry words without a protest? I cannot. My position is not of my own making, and since you find me a burden and an ungrateful creature, the best thing will be to put an end to the position."

"Indeed!" sneered the woman. "And how do you propose to do that? You are quite unable to earn your own living."

"Oh, there is one way of doing that," replied Leo, grimly. "It does not need much education to be a soldier."

"A soldier!" screamed Mrs Gabriel.

"Yes. I made inquiries while I was in London, as I knew very well what welcome you would give me. It is my intention to volunteer for the war."

"You'll do nothing of the sort."

"I beg your pardon. I have made up my mind."

"Then I shall have nothing more to do with you."

"That is as you please, Mrs Gabriel. You are my aunt, and I suppose you have the right to support me out of charity. At any rate, you have no right to keep me here and taunt me all the time with my inability to keep myself. Again I say that the position is none of my making.

However, I intend to relieve you of the burden of a useless man. Next week I shall enlist. Then you will be well rid of me."

Mrs Gabriel gasped. "I forbid you!" she cried, with a stamp.

"I am afraid I must decline to accept the command," said Haverleigh, with great coolness. "You have told me often enough that I am a beggar and a loafer. You shall do so no longer. As to my debts, I shall see to them myself. You need not pay them, nor need you continue my allowance.