"But you make a distinct allegation!"

"And one that I can substantiate when the time is ripe," was the woman's firm fearless answer.

"But you can clear her character if it suits you!" I exclaimed quickly.

"You have admitted that."

"You think fit to take the part of my enemies against me, therefore you will find me merciless," was her vague ominous reply. "Go to Scotland and see Lolita. Tell her that I have sent you--and," she added, "tell her from me to keep her mouth closed, or else the story of Hugh Wingfield shall be known, You will recollect the name, won't you?--Hugh Wingfield."

I stood silent, unable to respond, for that was the name of the young man who was so foully done to death in that hollow behind the beech avenue.

"Moreover," she went on, noticing the effect of her words upon me, "moreover, you are at liberty to tell George what you like concerning me. He loves me--and when a man's in love he believes no evil of the woman. So go!" she laughed. "And afterwards tell me what he says. I shall be so very interested to know."

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

THE SIGN TO THE UNKNOWN.

Love knows not want--he has no such intimate as poverty; if he smiles, he has but one dread foe; if he frowns, he has but one true friend; and those both concentrate in the oblivion of death.

I loved--yes, I loved Lolita. While she lived, the soul-invigorating fire of her eyes kept alive my pa.s.sion-torn frame. And yet who was I that I dared thus ally myself with heavenly beauty and terrestrial greatness? She was the daughter of an Earl and I a mere secretary, dependent upon her brother's favours. No t.i.tle, no transcendent qualities were mine. And yet, was I not enn.o.bled? Did I not wear within my heart the never-fading insignia of love, the qualifications of which were fervency and immutable truth?

The proud Countess had sneered at me. She sneered because the pa.s.sion of true love had never known a place in her fickle heart. As next day I sat alone in the express travelling up to Scotland, memory of the hour came back to me when I had first gazed upon those charms I since had learned to reverence with all the fervour of matchless truth. I recollected how long, long ago, whenever I saw Lolita, my pulse beat with an unwonted motion, and the throbbing of my heart spoke to my soul in a language it had never known before--my brain became on fire, and ere I knew the term, I knew what const.i.tuted love. Yes, love--love that had not yet taught me what presumption was, but I rather stood the awe-struck victim of his all-puissant will.

And now I was tearing with all speed to seek her, to hear the truth from her own sweet lips. Never once had she told me that my love was reciprocated, yet in her clear bright eyes I had long ago seen that mixture of tender pity, n.o.ble generosity, candour and pure refined womanly feeling open as the face of day, that told me that she was not averse to my attentions even though I was neither wealthy nor of n.o.ble birth.

Day had succeeded day since her departure for the north, and every coming dawn had proved what gave bitter anguish to my soul. A strange suspicion that seemed to envelop her like a cloud--a suspicion which somehow I could not determine--had caused the struggle of conflicting thoughts. And now I was rushing towards her, hoping fervently that her words to me might reveal the truth, and infuse into my chaotic soul one bright spark of heavenly comfort whence might blaze the inextinguishable flame of requited love.

Alone, gazing aimlessly at the fleeting panorama of hill and dale as the express rushed on from Crewe to Carlisle, my busy fancy seemed to reconcile impossibilities, and as the mariner who feebly grasps the plank surrounded by a sea of deadly horrors, so I, amid the gloom of black despair, illumined the fallacious touch of hope and wandered into the maze of gilded fallacy.

Ah! Hope, thou flitting phantom, thou gaudy illusion, thou fond misleader of the wrecked senses, that framest a paradise of airy nothingness, how strange that thou canst in pleasing dreams bring to the tortured mind a brief respite.

And yet when I recollected the dark suspicions that rested upon my love, I held my breath. When I calmly reviewed all the circ.u.mstances, life seemed all a blank to me; my reason bade me cease to hope. Yet better be warmed by madness than chilled by coward fear; better burn with jealousy than die the silent fool of black despair.

In such a mood I sat thinking and pondering until we glided into the great echoing station of Carlisle. Then I descended, bought a paper, and tried to read as the portion of the train in which I sat continued its way eastward towards Edinburgh. To concentrate my mind upon a printed page was, however, impossible. I recollected those strange, ominous words of the Countess when we had parted in the Saints' Garden, and somehow felt convinced that her position was impregnable.

Keene had distinctly declared that if Marigold failed to tell the truth, then my love must fall a victim. Why--and how? All was so mysterious, so utterly inscrutable, so bewildering that the enigma admitted of no solution.

I could not disguise the fact from myself that Lolita had gone north purposely to avoid the unwelcome stranger who had so mysteriously returned, and I now intended at all hazards to obtain from her some fact concerning the conspiracy into which he seemed to have entered.

The strange incident in that lonely farmhouse and the attack upon Marie Lejeune were again facts which combined to show what a wide-spread plot was in progress--a plot the motive of which was still enshrouded in mystery, but of which the victim was undoubtedly to be none other than my well-beloved.

Lolita, who was staying with her aunt, the Dowager Lady Casterton, at the _Royal Hotel_, in Princes Street, sprang quickly to her feet when, shortly before dinner, the waiter ushered me into their private sitting-room. Fortunately her aunt was still in her room, and we were therefore alone.

"Willoughby!" she gasped springing forward to me breathlessly. "You!

Whatever brings you here--what has happened at Sibberton?"

"Nothing," I replied in order to set her at ease. "Or rather nothing in particular. Every one is very well, and the house-party has a.s.sumed its usual gaiety."

"Marigold is still at home?" she inquired, as though her first thought was of her brother's wife. I answered in the affirmative, and then slowly and with reverence raised her slim white hand to my lips. She allowed me to kiss her fingers in homage, smiling sweetly upon me the while.

She was in a magnificent dinner-dress of black net shimmering with sequins--a gown the very simplicity of which rendered it graceful, charming, and the essence of good taste. At her throat was a single row of large pearls, but she wore no other ornament. She always dressed artistically and in the latest mode, and surely her gown was exactly suited to the hotel _table d'hote_.

I had only just had time to go to my room, change, and seek her, for I had not notified her of my coming in order that she should have no chance of avoiding me. Yet her manner of greeting was as though my presence gave her the utmost pleasure. Her cheeks flushed as I pressed her fingers to my lips, and I knew that her heart, like mine, beat quickly with the pa.s.sion of affection.

In a few brief words I told her that I had taken quarters in the hotel, that I should explain to her aunt that my presence in Edinburgh was connected with the Earl's affairs, and that I desired to have a private chat with her after dinner.

"Something has happened, Willoughby," she said apprehensively. "I see it in your face! What is it? Tell me?"

"Nothing very serious," was my evasive reply, for I heard Lady Casterton's high-pitched voice outside, and wished to conceal from the snappy old dowager that the real object of my visit was to see Lolita.

Next instant the old lady entered, dressed in black and wearing a smart cap of fine old lace. Much surprised at my presence, she greeted me and commenced inquiring after the Earl and the Countess, remarking that she intended to join the house-party in November as she had to make a visit to Lord Penarth in Wales before coming to us.

"We've had a most delightful time at Strathpeffer--Lolita and I," she remarked. "And as I wanted to pay a few visits about Edinburgh, we're just here for a few days. Of course you knew from George that we were here?"

"Yes," I replied. "I have some business to do for him in Edinburgh, so I thought I would put up here."

And then, in obedience to the gong, we all three descended into the large dining-room of the hotel. A good many people were present, but no woman so beautiful or brilliant as Lady Lolita Lloyd.

I noticed how the guests turned to look at her, and then to whisper among themselves, for her beauty was remarkable and her photographs often appeared in the ladies' papers, just as did those of Mangold. A pretty woman with a t.i.tle is always remarked in a hotel.

We sat at our small table chatting affably through the meal, yet I saw how intense was her desire to know the true reason of my presence. That I had some distinct object in coming north she could not doubt, and was therefore anxious for the long meal to end and for opportunity to speak with me alone.

Old Lady Casterton was a typical dowager of the days of cla.s.s distinction--a stout, well-preserved, white-haired person who regarded the world through her _lorgnon_ with an air of wonder, as though she were examining some interesting species. She stared at all common people, who felt themselves uncomfortable 'neath her gaze, and generally spoke in a tone loud enough to be heard by all in the vicinity. She was youngest sister of the old Earl of Stanchester, and had married the Earl of Casterton, who afterwards became one of England's most famous generals, and had been left a widow of very large and wealthy estate.

With me she was always perfectly affable, knowing the strong personal friendship existing between the Stanchesters and my own family. Hence she treated me on an equality with herself and during the meal laughed and chatted merrily about the people she and her niece had recently met.

At last, however, dinner was over, and we all three retired to the private sitting-room, where Lolita at my desire played t.i.to Mattei's "White Moon" serenade and the "Cavatine" from _Faust_.

"Won't you sing us something?" I urged presently when she was about to turn from the piano. At first she tried to excuse herself, but seeing that I was anxious to hear her voice she turned again, and in her clear contralto sang an old French serenade:--

"Une reine est maitresse de mon coeur; Elle reigne part tout.

Car ses beaux yeux.

Sont les deux sceptres de l'amour; Et quand vers moi ils tournent leurs brillantes flammes.

Le feu d'amour s'empare de tout mon ame.

"Heureux si j'etois souverain.

De tout le ciel Peut etre elle, Ne voudras pas que j'aime en vain; Mais comme je suis en silence je soupire; J'ose bien aimer, mais je n'ose pas le dire."

Her gaze fell upon me as she sang, and surely she addressed those final words to me--

"But as I am, in silence I must feel Love's sacred flame, and yet that flame conceal."

I sat gazing upon her beauty entranced. In that sweet clear voice was a touch of pathos such as I have never before heard, and I knew that she was suffering, like myself. In those moments I had wandered in the mazes of ecstatic bliss. All the world save her was lost to me. By the look in her beautiful eyes I was again launched on the wide sea of bliss; love was the pilot of my soul and the bright beam of her love-look illuminated my track, as the soft zephyrs of love filled my warm fancy, leading me to the sh.o.r.es of matchless beauty.

The song had ended, and with it my vision vanished. She closed the piano, rose and crossed the room to look out of the window upon the long line of lights in Princes Street with the castle frowning opposite in the starless gloom.

Her action was a natural one, yet it was succeeded by one which caused me some surprise. She had been standing for a moment at the open window, as though enjoying the cool air, then suddenly she removed a great bowl of bright dahlias that gave a welcome touch of colour to the room from a sideboard, and placed them upon the small table in the window.

Afterwards she returned to us without, however, drawing down the blind.