"I must see her," cried Lionel, "and ask her to pardon me if she can.

What am I to do for you, Lord Earle? Command me as though I were your own son."

"I want you to go to the cottage," said Ronald, "and see if the man is living or dead. You will know how to act. I need not ask a kinsman and a gentleman to keep my secret."

In a few minutes Lionel Dacre was on his way to the cottage, riding as though it were for dear life. Death had been still more swift. Hugh Fernely lay dead.

The cottager's wife told Lionel how the children out at play had found a man lying in the dank gra.s.s near the pond, and how her husband, in his own strong arms, had brought him to their abode. He lay still for many hours, and then asked for pen and ink. He was writing, she said, nearly all night, and afterward prayed her husband to take the letter to Lord Earle. The man refused any nourishment. Two hours later they went in to persuade him to take some food, and found him lying dead, his face turned to the morning sky.

Lionel Dacre entered the room. The hot anger died out of his heart as he saw the anguish death had marked upon the white countenance. What torture must the man have suffered, what hours of untold agony, to have destroyed him in so short a time! The dark, handsome face appeared to indicate that the man had been dying for years.

Lionel turned reverently away. Man is weak and powerless before death.

In a few words he told the woman that she should be amply rewarded for her kindness, and that he himself would defray all expenses.

"He was perhaps an old servant of my lord's?" she said.

"No," was the reply; "Lord Earle did not know him--had never seen him; but the poor man was well known to one of Lord Earle's friends."

Thanks to Lionel's words, the faintest shadow of suspicion was never raised. Of the two deaths, that of Miss Earle excited all attention and aroused all sympathy. No one spoke of Hugh Fernely, or connected him with the occurrence at the Hall.

There was an inquest, and men decided that he had "died by the visitation of G.o.d." No one knew the agony that had cast him prostrate in the thick, dank gra.s.s, no one knew the unendurable anguish that had shortened his life.

When Lionel returned to the Hall, he went straight to Lord Earle.

"I was too late," he said; "the man had been dead some hours."

His name was not mentioned between them again. Lord Earle never inquired where he was buried--he never knew.

The gloom had deepened at the Hall. Lillian Earle lay nigh unto death.

Many believed that the master of Earlescourt would soon be a childless man. He could not realize it. They told him how she lay with the cruel raging fever sapping her life, but he seemed to forget the living child in mourning for the one that lay dead.

In compliance with Lionel's prayer, Lady Helena took him into the sick room where Lillian lay. She did not know him; the gentle, tender eyes were full of dread and fear; the fair, pure face was burning with the flush of fever; the hot, dry lips were never still. She talked incessantly--at times of Knutsford and Beatrice--then prayed in her sweet, sad voice that Lionel would trust her--only trust her; when Beatrice was married she would tell him all.

He turned away; her eyes had lingered on his face, but no gleam of recognition came into them.

"You do not think she will die?" he asked of Lady Helena; and she never forgot his voice or his manner.

"We hope not," she said; "life and death are in higher hands than ours.

If you wish to help her, pray for her."

In after years Lionel Dacre like to remember that the best and most fervent prayers of his life had been offered for gentle, innocent Lillian Earle.

As he turned to quit the chamber he heard her crying for her mother.

She wanted her mother--why was she not there? He looked at Lady Helena; she understood him.

"I have written," she said. "I sent for Dora yesterday; she will be here soon."

Chapter XLIII

On the second day succeeding that on which Dora had been sent for, Beatrice Earle was to be laid in her grave. The servants of the household, who had dearly loved their beautiful young mistress, had taken their last look at her face. Lady Helena had shed her last tears over it. Lord Airlie had asked to be alone for a time with his dead love. They had humored him, and for three long hours he had knelt by her, bidding her a sorrowful farewell, taking his last look at the face that would never again smile on earth for him.

They respected the bitterness of his uncontrollable sorrow; no idle words of sympathy were offered to him; men pa.s.sed him by with an averted face--women with tearful eyes.

Lord Earle was alone with his dead child. In a little while nothing would remain of his beautiful, brilliant daughter but a memory and a name. He did not weep; his sorrow lay too deep for tears. In his heart he was asking pardon for the sins and follies of his youth; his face was buried in his hands, his head bowed over the silent form of his loved child; and when the door opened gently, he never raised his eyes--he was only conscious that some one entered the room, and walked swiftly up the gloomy, darkened chamber to the bedside. Then a pa.s.sionate wailing that chilled his very blood filled the rooms.

"My Beatrice, my darling! Why could I not have died for you?"

Some one bent over the quiet figure, clasping it in tender arms, calling with a thousand loving words upon the dear one who lay there--some one whose voice fell like a strain of long-forgotten music upon his ears. Who but a mother could weep as she did? Who but a mother forget everything else in the abandonment of her sorrow, and remember only the dead?

Before he looked up, he knew it was Dora--the mother bereft of her child--the mother clasping in her loving arms the child she had nursed, watched, and loved for so many years. She gazed at him, and he never forgot the woeful, weeping face.

"Ronald," she cried, "I trusted my darling to you; what has happened to her?"

The first words for many long years--the first since he had turned round upon her in his contempt, hoping he might be forgiven for having made her his wife.

She seemed to forget him then, and laid her head down upon the quiet heart; but Ronald went round to her. He raised her in his arms, he laid the weeping face on his breast, he kissed away the blinding tears, and she cried to him:

"Forgive me, Ronald--forgive me! You can not refuse in the hour of death."

How the words smote him. They were his own recoiling upon him. How often he had refused his mother's pleading--hardened his own heart, saying to himself and to her that he could not pardon her yet--he would forgive her in the hour of death, when either he or she stood on the threshold of eternity!

Heaven had not willed it so. The pardon he had refused was wrung from him now; and, looking at his child, he felt that she was sacrificed to his blind, willful pride.

"You will forgive me, Ronald," pleaded the gentle voice, "for the love of my dead child? Do not send me from you again. I have been very unhappy all these long years; let me stay with you now. Dear, I was beside myself with jealousy when I acted as I did."

"I forgive you," he said, gently, "can you pardon me as easily, Dora?

I have spoiled your life--I have done you cruel wrong; can you forget all, and love me as you did years ago?"

All pride, restraint, and anger were dead. He whispered loving words to his weeping wife, such as she had not heard for years; and he could have fancied, as he did so, that a happy smile lingered on the fair face of the dead.

No, it was but the light of a wax taper flickering over it; the strange, solemn beauty of that serene brow and those quiet lips were unstirred.

Half an hour afterward Lady Helena, trembling from the result of her experiment, entered the room. She saw Ronald's arms clasped round Dora, while they knelt side by side.

"Mother," said Lord Earle, "my wife has pardoned me. She is my own again--my comfort in sorrow."

Lady Earle touched Dora's face with her lips, and told what her errand was. They must leave the room now--the beautiful face of Beatrice Earle was to be hidden forever from the sight of men.

That evening was long remembered at Earlescourt; for Lady Dora thenceforward took her rightful position. She fell at once into the spirit of the place, attending to every one and thinking of every one's comfort.

Lillian was fighting hard for her young life. She seemed in some vague way to understand that her mother was near. Lady Dora's hand soothed and calmed her, her gentle motherly ways brought comfort and rest; but many long days pa.s.sed before Lillian knew those around her, or woke from her troubled, feverish dream. When she did so, her sister had been laid to rest in her long, last home.