As Ellen did not resist, the Earl pressed his lips to the fair girl's brow, and ere she could at all recover from the giddy state of joy he left her in, was gone; and the first thing that aroused her from her loving reverie was the sound of his horse's hoofs clattering along the dry road to the Towers, and with a fluttering heart she sat down to re-enact the whole scene, with memory's aid. He had called her his dearest Ellen; had pledged his love with a sacred kiss; had invited her to his home,--what more did she want? The last shadow of doubt was dispelled,--she was his love, he was her choice, her own! From this delightful occupation she was disturbed, as once on a former occasion, by another visitor, who now stood before her. He had entered the apartment, and advanced almost to where she was sitting, ere she perceived him. She started up with a faint exclamation, when she recognised his features, and the words, "Miss Ravensworth!"--"Captain L'Estrange!" broke from the two old allies who met thus in so singular and unseasonable a way. It was the meeting of two cold waves,--it was the chafing of two chill rivers! Ellen blushed crimson as she beheld her old admirer, and thought how often he had stood in that selfsame room in how different a guise. L'Estrange turned ashy pale as he thought how often and how differently that young girl had received him in this identical place. For some moments they both seemed fixed to the spot, and not a word could either speak. They both felt the constraint of the situation, and for a while were unable to overcome the _gene_ that existed between them. At last Ellen broke the ice of ceremony, and said--

"I suppose, Captain L'Estrange, I must be the first to break silence, and ask you to be seated."

As she spoke, she herself resumed her former place on the sofa.

L'Estrange drew a chair opposite her, and sat down too. He thought to speak, but the words choked in his throat, and again silence reigned.

Each seemed to avoid the other's eye; and when, by chance, their eyes did meet,--

"The point of foeman's lance Had given a milder pang."

"May I ask the reason of this interview, which seems so painful to you, Captain L'Estrange?"

"And can you ask, can you not guess, Ellen,--I mean Miss Ravensworth, for such is the name I suppose by which I should now address you? But you will pardon me if the old familiar name occasionally escapes me. Can you not guess the reason? It is as a peacemaker I come then. Oh, Miss Ravensworth, you cannot think how long it took me to summon resolution for this meeting! Oh! I pray Heaven it may not be in vain. I cannot bear to live at enmity with any one, least of all with one I once loved--still love--so well; and who once avowed her love to me; let us be friends; let us once more love each other."

"I have no quarrel with you, Captain L'Estrange. I hope I have always behaved in a friendly manner. I hope always to be your friend," said Ellen, in a cold voice.

"My friend! and nothing more? Can our relationship extend no further?"

For some moments Ellen was silent, and hesitated as to her reply, then in a calm collected voice she said:

"I am deeply grieved if I vex you, Captain L'Estrange. I will be your friend, but ask no more; my acquaintance with you ends with friendship."

"Oh, Ellen, this from you!" exclaimed the unhappy young man. "Have you then forgotten all? Have you forgotten what you once were to me? are all your promises forgotten? have you no more than this to say to him who was once your lover, who is so still? Oh, my lost heart!" And unable to control his feelings he hid his face in his hands.

"I have not forgotten," replied Ellen, in a voice tremulous with emotion, for she deeply felt for the disappointed lover. "I have not forgotten anything, nor have I forgotten how Edward L'Estrange was the first to quarrel, and when Ellen Ravensworth withdraws her love, she does so never to give it back again."

"Have pity on me. Oh! be as you have been in happier, better days. I acknowledge my fault--deeply I repent it. Oh, Ellen, Ellen! forgive, and forget."

"I forgive you, and from my heart. I cannot so soon forget. Besides, you ask an impossibility; my heart is no longer mine to give, even if I wished. I am no longer free even though I desired. I will be explicit, I will hide nothing. Edward L'Estrange, I love another. I love you not. I will be your friend, more I cannot, I will not be."

"Ellen, may you never feel the pangs that now wring my heart; may you never know what it is to be deserted as I am now: yet methinks you know not him with whom you have trusted your heart; you may repent your choice yet."

"I understand you not, Captain L'Estrange."

"Then I will be more concise. Perhaps you are not aware it is said you are not the only lady who holds a place in Lord Wentworth's heart?

Perhaps you do not know it is whispered a fairer lady engrosses a larger share of the Earl's love than you do?"

"Captain L'Estrange, I believe it not: I deem the Earl too n.o.ble. I think too highly of his love to entertain such base thoughts of him."

"You believe it not? What would you then say did I tell you, proud maiden, I have seen this lady? I know her, have heard her speak of him; I trust you may never have cause to feel bitterly the truth of what I tell you."

"And what proof have I of the ingenuous nature of your story? May I not think it a lure to work on my jealousy, and gain you back the love of which I judged you unworthy?"

"Miss Ravensworth, you are severe: to prove this is not an idle fiction, but stern truth--sad reality, I will show you the young lady's portrait, the acknowledged mistress of the Earl; and it is said she only became so on a promise of marriage, should there be any liability of its becoming known."

As he spoke Captain L'Estrange handed an exquisitely painted miniature likeness of Juana to Ellen's hands. She glanced on it with an apathetic look, as if doubtful whether to believe it, or no.

"And what proof have I this lady is Lord Wentworth's choice beyond your prejudiced word? Do not think me rude, or uncourteous in questioning your veracity; but I am a lawyer's daughter, and have been accustomed to require proofs for everything."

"And there then they lie," said L'Estrange, handing her a number of letters. "Behold my proofs: I am a better lawyer than you took me for: these are letters from the Earl to Juana Ferraras; read them and then judge for yourself."

"I forbear to ask you how you gained possession of these letters," said Ellen, as she took them--"certainly never meant for your eye, nor for mine either, and I should ill deserve Lord Wentworth's trust could I demean myself to play the part of a base spy, and peruse them in order to gain an insight into his private life. To his G.o.d he alone stands, or falls; if he has failings he is but mortal, and fallible as you and I; and with all his errors I love him too well to play the traitor in the camp. So perish all calumnies on his name!" With these words she threw them behind the small fire, seldom found too warm in Scotland's early summer, and watched them consume away. When they were all reduced to ashes, turning round to Captain L'Estrange, who stood in stupid astonishment at another miscarriage in his plans, she said: "If you think to shake my trust thus you are sadly mistaken: it only proves how little you know Ellen Ravensworth; nay, how little you know woman's heart at all. When she loves, it is not the immaculate being of the poet's fancy she loves, but man--with all his failings, with all his faults. Not an unfallen angel, but man, fallen as he is; and thus, instead of lessening my pa.s.sion you have but fed it, and fanned the flame. I love him seven-fold more. I do not love the error, but the erring; and perhaps it remains for me to wean his mind from such sordid affections to the pure fire of hallowed love, to point the way to better things; and by G.o.d's help I may have the opportunity of so doing, whatever may be our future relations in life."

"Then I am lost; there remains no hope for me," cried L'Estrange, in a bitter voice. "Oh, Ellen, Ellen, suffer me so to call you; here on my bended knee behold me; by all our former love, by all that is most pure and holy, return to me again! Restore me to your favour. Let me prove myself still worthy of your esteem, of your love. On this point turns the whole course of my future life; on one word hangs my eternal weal or woe. If you say 'Yes;' if you will restore me to your love--take me, faulty, worthless though I be--you may lead _me_ to better things; guide _me_ to purer founts, and I am happy. But if you say, 'No,' you drive me to desperation; you shut the door of hope in this world and the next; you drive me to drown in the pleasures of sin the bitter remembrances of parted bliss; you seal my speechless doom, for time and for eternity.

Which is it? I wait your answer."

With his hands clasped together in an earnestness of despairing hope beyond the power almost of fancy to conceive, the unhappy lover knelt at Ellen's feet. Calm as the young girl's outward expression was, it needed no practised eye to detect the deep emotions that worked within her bosom, as she faltered, in a voice scarcely audible, to her suffering suppliant--

"I am deeply moved for you; I feel for you with all my heart, but I cannot, cannot go beyond what I have already spoken. Seek G.o.d's mercy--He will bind your broken heart; you are worthy of better things than you predict for yourself. Edward L'Estrange, it gives me the most unfeigned pain to be obliged to answer _NO!_"

The last fatal word was uttered with a distinctness awful to the unfortunate listener. For a burning moment he still knelt as though he heard not; he scarce seemed to draw his breath; an air of speechless anguish clouded his dark eye; and then, as if all at once he realized his wayward fate, he smote his hands together, and while the veins swelled almost to bursting on his brow, exclaimed, in a voice of agony Ellen could never forget:

"Oh G.o.d, help me!--I am truly most miserable."

Then, springing up, he rushed from the room without one farewell word.

When he was gone, Ellen seemed first to breathe; she buried her face in her hands, and sobs of woe, wrung from a full heart, showed how deeply she felt her old lover's misery, and how keenly another's woe touched her tender spirit.

CHAPTER XV.

"The stately homes of England How beautiful they stand, Amidst their tall ancestral trees, O'er all the pleasant land!

The deer across the greensward bound Through shade and sunny gleam, And the swan glides past them with the sound Of some rejoicing stream."--_Hemans._

"Look, Nelly, see the deer!" cried little Maude Ravensworth, as their carriage slowly climbed the gentle ascent leading from the foot of the park to the Towers; "see them--one, two, three--bounding across the road."

"Yes, love; the park is full of them; look, Maude, there are five stags beneath that oak-tree," said her sister Ellen.

"What a shot that fellow with the tall antlers is!" said Johnny, leaning back from the box on which he sat, beside the coachman.

"I marvel how any one has the heart to shoot a stag," said his father.

"To me it seems little short of murder. I can understand hunting the fox, the wolf, or baiting the badger; but to kill deer, so innocent, so harmless, seems quite cruel."

"The Captain doesn't think so," said Johnny. "I heard him say he would have a stag-hunt this autumn, and he promised I should go. How I wish this place was mine!" he continued, as a bend in the road divulged the baronial-looking old castle, with its four lofty towers,[F] standing on the green eminence in front.

The whole scene was one of surpa.s.sing loveliness; the hard white road, so beautifully kept--it was level as a bowling-green--was overhung on the right by beech and oak trees, through which were gained glimpses of the park, dotted with patriarchal trees under which strayed herds of timid deer; on the left tall fir-trees clothed the steep descent to the rivulet beneath. At the foot of the park, in a large hollow, a sheet of water glistened in the sun; sedgy banks surrounded it, whilst on the surface proudly floated several swans: the majestic look of these birds as they sailed amid the numerous wild fowl was graceful in the extreme.

The piping of snipes and other waders was heard among the rushes, and now and then a coot or waterhen flew along the surface, beating the still waters with its flapping wings. The castle shone white and distinct from the dark green foliage that surrounded it, and above the woods rose the blue Lammermoor hills, a fitting boundary for so fair a landscape.

It was quite a pet day in the beginning of July; if there was a fault it was its sultriness, an uncommon one in Scotland, where the hottest days are generally tempered by a cool breeze. The arch of the heaven above was blue and cloudless, and the sun, still high, shone with a dazzling brilliancy. Rising above the Lammermoors, however, were piled some splendid c.u.mulus clouds, white as carded wool; and across them one or two dark streaks cut their snowy wreaths, and seemed to betoken the presence of thunder in those white pavilions. It was about three in the afternoon, and still the hottest part of the day; not a breath relieved the dead heat, not a leaf was swayed, and all nature seemed as though she slumbered beneath the hot beam, and took her siesta. A blue, misty haze rose above the silent woods, whose every leaf basked in the sunshine; the deer had fled to cool retreats, or the umbrageous oaks in the park; the songsters had hushed their notes in brake and tangled dell, and no bird tempted the glare save one solitary hawk, which with outspread wings poised himself on the thin air, and ever and anon quivered as he beheld his prey, possibly some tiny harvest mouse which little dreamed of its airy foe. The birds were silent;--not so the thousand gra.s.shoppers, whose harsh whirr resounded from the gra.s.s--not so the myriad insect forms that flitted to and fro beneath the dark-green beeches,--not so the bees that hummed over their feast among the sweet lime-blossoms. The only other sounds were the rippling, musical purlings of the rivulet in the dell beneath: the stream was now reduced to its smallest dimensions by the long-continued drought, and the melodious sound now rose clear, and now dwindled to almost imperceptible thinness, as a fuller or lesser flow of water shook the pebbles, and gurgled among the moss-covered rocks.

As the carriage drew nearer the castle, other rustic sounds were heard--the mower whetting his scythe, or the merry laugh of the haymakers, whilst the sweet smell of the new-made hay was delicious. The trees now ceased to fringe the road, which ran through the park towards the west tower of the castle; a neat wattling on either side kept out the cattle; and our friends had an uninterrupted view of the park, dotted over with hayc.o.c.ks, round which strolled many busy figures, some engaged in tossing the hay, some heaping it into hayc.o.c.ks, and others raking the ground.

"How jolly!" exclaimed Johnny; "I shall soon be there helping--lots of time before dinner."

"You must remember, Johnny, you are a guest, and only do what you are asked," said his father.

"Oh, I am quite at home here, papa; every one may do as they please at the Towers--it is Liberty Hall. Besides I see Lord Wentworth among them. I am sure no one would stick at home on a day like this."