Leslie's Loyalty. Charles Garvice
is it, dear," she said, soothingly, as she saw his agitation. Had the crippled stranger told him what the sketch was really like?
"That—that gentleman has bought the picture, Leslie!" he exclaimed, in a tone of nervous excitement and triumph. "You see! I told you the day would come, and it has come. At last! Luck has taken a turn, Leslie! I see a great future before me. I only wanted some one with an appreciative, artistic eye, and this Mr.—Mr. Temple is evidently possessed of one. He saw the value of this at once. I noticed his face change directly he looked at it."
Leslie's face gradually grew red.
"What—what has he given you for it, dear?" she asked.
"Fifty pounds!" exclaimed Lisle, exultingly. "Fifty pounds! It may not be as much as it is worth; but it is a large sum to us, and I am satisfied, more than satisfied! I wonder what he will do with it? Do you think he will let me exhibit it? I will ask him—not just now, but when it is finished. I must finish it at once! Where is my olive green? I have left it at home. Bring it for me, Leslie; it is on the side table."
She went without a word. At the corner of the street she overtook the invalid chair, hesitated a moment, walked on, and then came back.
The duke peered up at her from under his brows.
"I want to speak to you," she said, her breath coming and going quickly.
He motioned to Grey to withdraw out of hearing, and struggling to keep her voice steady, Leslie went on:
"I want to thank you—but, oh, why did you do it? I know—you know that it—it is not worth it—why?"
The duke smiled.
"Do not distress yourself, Miss Lisle," he said, gently. "You refer to my purchase of your father's picture?"
"Yes!" she said, in a troubled voice. "It was kind of you, and it has given him, oh! you cannot tell what pleasure."
"Yes, I think I can. It is not the money."
"No."
"Just so. I understand. And don't you understand that I have bought something more than the sketch? Miss Lisle, I'm not the richest man in England,"—he was just within the truth—"but I can afford the luxury of bestowing pleasure on my fellow creatures now and again. Please don't begrudge or deny me that! I have not too many pleasures," and he glanced downward at his stunted figure. "Of the two, I fancy I am more pleased than your father. Don't say any more, and please don't look so heartbroken, or you will rob me of more than half my satisfaction. Miss Lisle, forgive me, but I think you love your father?"
"Yes; oh, yes!" she breathed.
"Very well, then," he said. "Be careful you do not let him see that you think he has got too good a price for his picture. Let him be happy; happiness comes too seldom for us to turn it aside with a cold welcome."
Leslie looked down at the worn and lined face with eyes that glowed with gratitude.
"I—I can't thank you, Mr. Temple!" she said, in a low voice, that thrilled like some exquisite music. "You have made me happy, and—ah, I can't tell you what I feel!" and she trembled and turned up the street.
The duke looked after her with a wistful expression on his pale face.
"She is an angel!" he murmured.
Then his face changed, grew harder and cynical.
"Yes, an angel at present," he said. "But tell her that I am the Duke of Rothbury, and she will become transformed into a harpy, and want to marry me, like the rest. Grey, where are you! Have you gone to sleep? Are you going to keep me here all day?"
CHAPTER VI.
TAKING A SAIL.
The moon rose early that evening and flooded Portmaris with a light that transformed it, already picturesque enough, into a fairy village beside an enchanted ocean. Leslie sat at the open window of her room, her head resting on her hand, her eyes fixed on the sea, now calmly rippling as if it were rocking itself to sleep in the moonbeams.
Her father had gone to bed, early as it was, worn out with his long day's work and the excitement produced by the sale of his picture, and Leslie was free to recall the events of the day.
Her life hitherto had been so gray and sober, so uneventful, that the incidents which had been crowded into this day had almost bewildered her.
She ought, in common fairness to that individual, have thought first and most of Ralph Duncombe; but it was upon that other young man who had plunged into the waves to reach Dick that her mind was fixed.
Beauty, man's beauty, doesn't count much with women; indeed, it has been remarked by the observant that some of the ugliest men have married the prettiest girls, and it was not Yorke's handsome face which had impressed Leslie. It would be hard to say exactly what it was in him that had done so; perhaps it was the frank smile, the free and musical laugh, that devil-may-care air of his, or the pleasant voice which seemed to float in through the window upon the moonbeams, and find an echo in Leslie's heart. Once or twice she tried to cast him out of her mind. There seemed to her something almost approaching unmaidenliness in dwelling so much upon this stranger; the young man whom she had seen for only a few minutes, and whom she might never see again. Why, she did not even know his name, or at any rate only a part of it. "Yorke," Mr. Temple had called him, and she murmured it absently. "Yorke." It seemed to her to fit him exactly. It had a brave, alert sound in it. She could fancy him ready for any danger, any emergency. He had plunged into the waves after Dick, as if it were quite a matter of course that he should do so, had done it as naturally as if there were no other course open to him. She could see him now, as he came out, with Dick in his arms, his hair plastered on his face, his eyes bright and laughing.
And how anxious he had been to avoid any thanks or fuss! It was wicked of him, of course, to tell a story and account for his besoaked condition by stating that he had fallen off the breakwater—Leslie smiled as she thought of the thinness of the excuse—but she understood why he had fibbed, and—forgave him.
"Don't you like this Mr. Yorke, Dick?" she said to Dick, who lay in a contented coil on her lap. "You ought to do so, for if it had not been for him you would be at the bottom of the sea, little doggie, by this time."
Probably Dick would have liked to have retorted, "And if it hadn't been for him I shouldn't have gone in at all."
Then her thoughts wandered to the crippled hunchback, and her heart thrilled with gratitude as she thought of his kindness; Mrs. Whiting had said that he was a nobleman, but there had evidently been a mistake; very likely the simple-minded landlady had concluded that no one traveling with a man-servant could be less than a man of title.
Leslie thought of the two men—but most of "Yorke"—and all they had said and done for some time before Ralph Duncombe insisted upon his share in her reflections, and as she thought of him she sighed. She pitied him, and was sorry for him, but she did not want to see him again. He had frightened as well as touched her by the passionate avowal which had accompanied the ring.
The ring! She had utterly forgotten it! She put her hand to her pocket, turned it out, but the ring was not there. What had she done with it? It was fast closed in her hand, she remembered, when she heard Dick's piteous yap; and then she had sprung up, and run down the beach. She must have dropped it among the pebbles.
Her heart smote her reproachfully. The least she could do in return for the passionate love Ralph Duncombe had lavished so uselessly upon her was to keep his ring! She rose, troubled and remorseful. The tide had been going out when she dropped it; it was not likely that it would