Only a Girl's Love. Garvice Charles
laid the bunch on the costly sables which wrapped the frail figure.
Lady Lilian put them to her face with a caressing gesture. "You are, like me, fond of flowers?" she said.
Stella nodded. "Yes."
Then there was a pause. Above them, unseen by Lilian, forgotten by Stella, stood Lord Leycester.
He was watching and waiting with a strange smile. He could read the meaning in his sister's eyes; she was longing to know more of the beautiful girl who had sprang like a fairy to her side.
With a faint flush, Lady Lilian said:
"You—you are a stranger, are you not? I mean you do not live here?"
"Yes," said Stella; "I live"—and she smiled and pointed to the cottage across the meadow—"there."
Lady Lilian started, and Lord Leycester seized the moment, and coming down, quietly stood by Stella's side.
"Leycester!" exclaimed Lilian, with a start of surprise.
He smiled into her eyes, his strange, masterful, irresistible smile. It was as if he had said, "Did I not tell you? Can you withstand her?"
But aloud he said:
"Let me make the introduction in due form. This is Miss Etheridge, Lilian. Miss Etheridge, this is my sister. As the French philosopher said, 'Know each other.'"
Lady Lilian held out her hand.
"I am very glad," she said.
Stella took the thin, white hand, and held it for a moment; then Lady Lilian looked from one to the other.
Lord Leycester interpreted the glance at once.
"Miss Etheridge has intrusted herself on the watery deep with me," he said. "We came across to gather flowers, leaving Mr. Etheridge to paint there."
And he waved his hand across the river.
Lady Lilian looked.
"I see," she said—"I see. And he is painting. Is he not clever? How proud you must be of him!"
Stella's eyes grew dark. It was the one word wanting to draw them together. She said not a word.
"Your uncle and I are old friends," Lady Lilian continued. "Sometime when—when I am stronger, I am coming to see him—when the weather gets warmer—" Stella glanced at the frail form clad in sables, with a moistened eye—"I am going to spend a long afternoon among the pictures. He is always so kind and patient, and explains them all to me. But, as I am not able to come to you, you will come and see me, will you not?"
There was a moment's silence. Lord Leycester stood looking over the river as if waiting for Stella's reply.
Stella looked up.
"I shall be very glad," she said, and Lord Leycester drew a breath, almost of relief.
"You will, will you not?" said Lady Lilian, with a sweet smile.
"Yes, I will come," said Stella, almost solemnly.
"You will find me poor company," said the daughter of the great earl, with meek humility. "I see so little of the world that I grow dull and ignorant; but I shall be so glad to see you," and she held out her hand.
Stella took it in her warm, soft fingers.
"I will come," she said.
Lady Lilian looked at the coachman, who, though his eyes were fixed in quite another direction, seemed to see the glance, for he touched the horses with the whip.
"Good-bye," she said, "good-bye."
Then, as the phæton moved on, she called out, in her low, musical voice, that was a low echo of her brother's:
"Oh, Leycester, Lenore has come!"
Leycester raised his hat.
"Very well," he said. "Good-bye."
Stella stood a moment looking after her. Strangely enough the last words rang in her ears with a senseless kind of insistence and emphasis. "Lenore has come!" She found herself repeating them mentally.
Recalling herself she turned swiftly to Lord Leycester.
"How beautiful she is!" she said, almost in a whisper.
He looked at her with gratitude in his eloquent eyes.
"Yes."
"So beautiful and so kind!" Stella murmured, and the tears sprang to her eyes. "I can see her face now. I can hear her voice. I do not wonder that you love her as you do."
"How do you know that I love her?" he said. "Brothers, generally——"
Stella stopped him with a gesture.
"No man with a heart warmer than a stone could help loving her."
"And so you agree that my heart is warmer than a stone. Thank you for that, at least," he said, with a smile that was not at all unselfish.
Stella looked at him.
"Let us go now," she said. "See, uncle is getting his things together."
"Not without the primroses," he said; "Lilian will break her heart if you go without any. Let me get some," and he went up the slope.
Stella stood in thought. The sudden meeting with the fairy-like creatures, had filled her with strange thoughts. She understood now that rank and money are not all that is wanted for earthly happiness.
So lost in thought was she that she did not hear the sound of a horse coming along the mossy road, though the animal was coming at a great pace.
Lord Leycester's ears were freer or quicker however, for he caught the sound and turned round.
Turned round in time to see a huge bay horse ridden by a tall, thin, dark young man, almost upon the slim form, standing with its back to it.
With something like an oath on his lips, he dropped the flowers and with one spring stood between her and the horse, and seizing the bridle with both hands threw the beast, with sheer force, on to its haunches.
The rider had been staring at the river, and was taken by surprise so complete, that, as the horse rose on its legs, he was thrown from the saddle.
Stella, alarmed by the noise, turned and swerved out of the path. And so they were grouped. Lord Leycester, pale with furious passion, still holding the reins and forcing the horse in an iron grip, and the erstwhile rider lying huddled up on the mossy road.
He lay still, only for a moment, however; the next he was on his feet and advancing toward Lord Leycester. It was Jasper Adelstone.
His face was deadly pale, making, by contrast, his small eyes black as coals.
"What do you mean?" he exclaimed, furiously, and half-unconsciously he raised his whip.
It was an unlucky gesture, for it was all that was needed to rouse the devil in Lord Leycester's breast.
With one little irresistible gesture he seized the whip arm and the whip, and flinging the owner to the ground again with one movement, broke the whip, and flung it on the top of him with the other.
It was all done in a second. With all the will in the world, Stella had no time to interpose before the rash act was accomplished; but now she sprang between them.
"Lord Leycester," she cried, pale and horror-stricken, as she gazed into his face, white and working with passion; all its beauty gone, and with the mask of a fury in its place. "Lord Leycester!"
At the sound of her voice—pleading, expostulating, rebuking—a shiver ran through him, his hand fell to his side, and still holding the now plunging and furious horse with a grip of steel, he stood humbly before her.
Not so Jasper Adelstone. With a slow,