The Grey Monk. T. W. Speight

The Grey Monk - T. W. Speight


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of the windows could they be overlooked.

      Everard, reading in her face some portion of that which was passing through her mind, gave her a few moments in which to recover herself; before saying more. Then, not without misgivings, he resumed:

      "It was more, far more, than merely to congratulate you on your birthday and offer you a few flowers that brought me here to-day. It was to tell you that I love you--that I have loved you in secret for years--it was to ask you to be my wife."

      A faintly-breathed "Oh!" fluttered from Ethel's lips. She withdrew her fingers from his clasp gently but firmly. Everard's heart sank still lower, but he went bravely on:

      "Many a time before to-day," he continued, "have I been tempted to speak to you, to tell you what I am telling you now, but it was a temptation to which I would not yield. I was a poor man with no prospects worth speaking of; and I would not seek to entangle you in an engagement which might have to last for years. But, after long waiting, Fortune's wheel has turned for me, and now----"

      He ceased abruptly at the touch of her hand on his sleeve. Her large dark eyes--and at that moment they looked to him larger and darker than they had ever looked before--were gazing into his beseechingly.

      "Not a word more--not one, please, Mr. Lisle," she entreated. "Oh, I am so sorry that you have told me this!"

      "Is my telling it you, then, of no avail?" he demanded, a little hoarsely.

      "Of none whatever," she replied with a slow shake of her head.

      His eyes scanned her face searchingly and read there but too surely that his sentence was irrevocable. His chest rose and fell a few times. Not all at once could he command himself.

      "So be it," he said at length. "We must all bow to the inevitable. Mine has been the mistake, and mine must be the penalty. I will not urge you by a word more, because I feel how useless it would be to do so. Nor will I longer intrude upon your time. We shall always, I trust, meet as friends in time to come."

      "It would grieve me to think otherwise." Then, as she held out her hand: "Always as friends, Mr. Lisle, come what may."

      With one hand he lifted his hat and with the other he raised her fingers to his lips.

      "I am so sorry," again broke involuntarily from Ethel.

      "The sorrow and the regret are for me," answered Everard with a dim smile as, after touching her fingers with his lips, he released them with a sort of gentle reluctance. "For you I trust there are in store many, many returns of to-day, each and all of them crowned with happiness."

      Half-a-minute later she was alone.

      "Everard Lisle loves me!" she murmured to herself as he disappeared round a bend of the drive. "How strange it seems! And yet, now that he has told me, I can call to mind a dozen little things, any one of which would have revealed his secret to me had I not been so blind. How cruel he must have thought me! how abrupt! And yet what other answer was it possible for me to give him? None whatever."

      It may seem strange, nay, perhaps, almost incredible, to that class of young women who are in the habit of regarding three-fourths of the eligible bachelors whom they encounter here and there in society in the light of potential lovers, that Ethel Thursby had never so regarded Everard Lisle. But so it was. She had liked him, she now told herself, far better than she had liked any other of the young men whom she was in the habit of occasionally meeting; but liking is not love, and besides, Launce Keymer had already whispered certain words in her ear.

      Perhaps--perhaps, if Everard Lisle had been the first to speak, who could have told what might have happened? Was there some faint premonition in her heart, as this question put itself to her, that he to whom she had given her love might, peradventure, prove less worthy of the gift than Everard would have done?

      "No--no!" she told herself almost passionately. "Dear Launce is everything--yes, everything--that any girl could wish for in the man she loves."

      Then she began to cry a little, being all the while indignant with herself because her tears would come in her own despite. Then with a start she bethought herself that she had to meet her aunts in the drawing-room at noon, and eleven had struck long ago. She dried her eyes and took up her flowers. More than once, as she walked towards the house, her face was hidden in the bouquet Everard had brought her. What would have been his thoughts had he been there to see?

       CHAPTER VIII.

      THE EBONY CASKET.

      AT five minutes to twelve the two Miss Thursbys, who prided themselves on their punctuality, entered the drawing-room together, or rather, to speak more correctly Miss Matilda entered first, with Miss Jane close on her footsteps, this happening to be the former's month for enacting the part of elder sister, as a consequence of which she wore what might be termed the "chain of office" with its pendant locket. That something out of the common was on foot could not be doubted, seeing that at that early hour of the day the sisters were already attired in their puce-coloured lutestring gowns, and were wearing their "company caps" and best lace mittens--a conjunction rarely, if ever, witnessed except when some special visitors were expected at Vale View.

      Earlier in the day--before breakfast, indeed--they had told each other sadly and for the last time, as if their courage needed stimulating by reiterated assurances, that a certain revelation must no longer be delayed. It had been Matthew's--their dead brother's--wish that Ethel should be told on her nineteenth birthday, and with them his wishes had always been law. And yet it was a grievous thing to have to do. It seemed to them that after to-day "the child," as they still continued to call Ethel between themselves, could never regard them with quite the same eyes as heretofore. Very downcast they looked as they sat there on the ottoman, side by side, waiting for the timepiece to chime the hour of noon.

      They were tall fair women, thin without being in the least degree angular; with blue eyes, rather long straight noses, and a slight droop at the corners of the mouth, which, when they were not engaged in conversation, lent them an habitually pensive air, although, in reality, they could be sprightly enough on occasion. When younger they had been noted for their lovely pink-and-white complexions, and their cheeks still retained the delicate ivory clearness of an arum lily. If one had been asked to sum up in the fewest possible words the predominant expression of the twin sisters--so strangely alike and yet not without discernible points of difference--one would have said that it was a mixture in equal parts of sweetness and goodness, and, in so saying, one would not have been far wrong. How it had come to pass that two such women--or neither of them--had never married, was one of those delicate problems which no mere bystander is justified in trying to solve. That they themselves could have told the reason why, had they chosen to do so, is scarcely to be doubted.

      On the centre table stood a quaintly carved ebony casket, clamped with silver and having a silver plate let into the lid, on which, in Old English characters, was engraved the monogram, "M. T." Tamsin had brought it in and placed it there a few minutes before the entrance of the sisters.

      Scarcely had the timepiece chimed the last stroke of twelve when the door opened and Ethel entered the room. Miss Matilda rose and, crossing to her, embraced her tenderly, an example which was at once followed by Miss Jane. This ceremonious greeting, taken in conjunction with her aunts' "robes of state," and the presence of the ebony casket, which she had never seen opened, but which, as long as she could remember, had been known to her as the depository of Uncle Matthew's papers, all sufficed to convince the girl that some momentous occasion was at hand. Her cheeks paled perceptibly and her limbs began to tremble. Then she drew in her breath, called herself a coward, and asked herself what she had to fear. A moment or two she stood, and then she seated herself in the pretty fancy-chair which she called her own. It had been her Aunt Jane's gift on her sixteenth birthday.

      "My dear child," began Miss Matilda--and then she was compelled to pause for a few seconds before she could continue--"My dear child," she repeated, "your Aunt Jane and I have asked you to meet us in order that we may reveal to you certain circumstances connected with your early history of which


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