A Crooked Path Part 56

The unwonted sound of approaching feet startled her. She turned, to see De Burgh within speaking distance. "I am like Robinson Crusoe in my solitude here," she said, smiling. "I turn pale at the sound of an unexpected step, as he did at the print of Friday's foot."

"And to continue the smile," he returned, leaning against a rock near her, "the footprint or step, as in Crusoe's case, only announces the advent of a devoted slave." He spoke lightly, and Katherine scarce noticed what seemed to her an idle compliment.

"I fancied you had gone to town," she said.

"No; I am not going to town; I don't know or care where I am going. Some kind friends might say I am on my way to the dogs."

"I hope not," said Katherine, gravely. "I imagine, Mr. De Burgh, that if you had some object of ambition--"

"I should become an Admirable Crichton? I don't think so. There are such dreary pauses in the current of all careers!"

"Of course. You would not live in a tornado!"

"I am not so sure"--laughing. "At all events I shall never be satisfied with still life like our friend Errington."

"Do you know anything of him? Mrs. Ormonde never mentions his name."

"Of course not; when a fellow can't keep pace with his peers, away with him, crucify him."

"As long as a few special friends are true----"

"If they are," interrupted De Burgh; and Katherine did not resume, hoping he would continue the theme, which he did, saying: "He has left his big house, gone into chambers somewhere, and has I believe, taken up literature, politics, and social subjects. So Lady Mary Vincent says. I fancy he is a clever fellow in a cast-iron style."

"What a change for him!"

"I believe there was something coming to him out of the wreck, and I think he is a sort of man who will float. I never liked him myself, chiefly, I fancy, because I know he doesn't like me. Indeed, I don't care for people in general." There was a pause, during which Katherine glanced at her companion, and was struck by his sombre expression, the stern compression of his lips.

"Did you call at the cottage?" she asked.

"No; you were out this morning, and I did not like to intrude again," he laughed. "Growing modest in my sere and yellow days, you see; so I thought I should perhaps find you here, as I saw your numerous party drive past the hotel."

"I like this corner, and often come here. But, Mr. De Burgh, you look as if the times were out of joint."

"So they are"--suddenly seating himself on a flat stone nearly at Katherine's feet, leaning his elbow on another, and resting his head on his hand, so as to look up easily in her face.

"What gloomy dark eyes he has!" she thought.

"I should like to tell you why," he went on.

"Very well," returned Katherine, who felt a little uneasy.

"I am pretty considerably in debt, to begin with. If I paid up I should have about three half-pence a year to live on. Besides my debts I have an unconscionably ancient relative whose t.i.tle and a beggarly five thousand a year must come to me when he dies, if he ever dies. This venerable impediment has some hundred or more thousands which he can bequeath to whom he likes. Hitherto he has not considered me a credit to the family. Well, I went to him the other day, on his own invitation, and to my amazement he offered to pay my debts--on one condition."

"I do hope he will," cried Katherine, as De Burgh paused. She was quite interested and relieved by the tone of his narrative.

"Ay, but there's the rub. I can't fulfil the condition, I fear. It is that I should marry a woman rich enough to replace the money my debts will absorb; a particular woman who doesn't care for me, and whom, knowing the hideous tangle of motives that hangs round the central idea of winning her, I am almost ashamed to ask; but a woman that any man might court; a woman I have loved from the first moment my eyes met hers, who has haunted and distracted me ever since, and who is, I dare say, a great deal too good for me; but a creature I will strive to win, no matter what the cost of success. This girl or rather (for there is a richness and ripeness of nature about her which deserves the term) this fair, sweet woman--I need not name her to you." He stopped, and his pa.s.sionate pleading eyes held hers. Katherine grew white, half with fear, half with sincere compa.s.sion. She tried to speak. At last the words came.

"You make me terribly sad, Mr. De Burgh," she said, with trembling lips.

"You make me _so_ sorry that I cannot marry you; but I cannot--indeed I cannot. Will Lord De Burgh not pay your debts if he knows you have done your best to persuade me to marry you?"

De Burgh laughed a cynical laugh. "You are infinitely practical, Katherine. (I am going to call you Katherine for the next few minutes.

Because I think of you as Katherine, I love to speak your name to yourself; it seems to bring me a little nearer to you.) Listen to me.

Don't you think you could endure me as a husband? I am a better fellow than I seem, and mine is no foolish boy's fancy. I am a better man when I am near you. Then this old cousin of mine will leave me all he possesses if you are my wife, and the Baroness de Burgh, with money enough to keep her place among her peers, would have no mean position; nor is a husband pa.s.sionately devoted to you unworthy of consideration."

"It is not indeed. But, Mr. De Burgh, do you honestly think that devotion would last? These violent feelings often work their own destruction."

"Ay: G.o.d knows they do, amazingly fast," he returned, with a sigh and a far-away look. "But what you say applies to all men. If you ever marry you must run the risk of inconstancy in the man you accept. I am at least old enough and experienced enough to value a good woman when I have found one, especially when she does not make her goodness a bore.

And you--you have inspired me with something different from anything I have ever felt before. Yes, yes," he went on, angrily, as he noticed a slight smile on her lips. "I see you try to treat this as only the stereotype talk of a lover who wants your money more than yourself; but if you listen to the judgment of your own heart, it is true and honest enough to recognize truth in another, and it will tell you that, whatever my faults (and they are legion), sneaking and duplicity are not among them. It is quite true that when first I heard of you I thought your fortune would be just the thing to put me right, as I have no doubt my dear friend Mrs. Ormonde has impressed upon you, but from the moment I first spoke to you I felt, I knew, there was something about you different from other women. I also knew that in the effort to win the heiress I was heavily handicapped by the sudden strong pa.s.sion for the woman which seized me."

"That surely ought to have been a means of success?" said Katherine, a good deal interested in his account of himself.

"No: it made me, for the first time in my life, hesitating, self-distrustful, and awfully disgusted at having to take your money into consideration. Had you been an ordinary woman, ready to exchange your fortune for the social position I could give my wife, and perhaps with a certain degree of liking for the kind of free-lance reputation I am told I possess, I should have carried my point, and presented the future Baroness de Burgh to my venerable kinsman months ago."

"And suppose the unfortunate heiress had been a soft-hearted, simple girl?" said Katherine, with a slight faltering in her tones. "Suppose she were credulous, loving, attracted by you--you are probably attractive to some women--and married you believing in your disinterested affection?"

De Burgh, who had risen from half-rec.u.mbent position, and stood leaning against a larger fragment of rock, paused before he replied: "I think that I am a gentleman enough not to be a brute, but I rather believe a woman of the type you describe would not have a blissful existence with me."

"I am sure of it. You are quite capable of making the life of such a woman too dreadful to think of." She shuddered slightly.

De Burgh looked curiously at her. "If you will have the goodness to undertake my punishment," he said, "by marrying me without love, and letting me prove how earnestly I could serve you and strive to win it, I'll strike the bargain this moment. I have been reckless and unfortunate. Now give me a chance; for I _do_ love you, Katherine. I'd love you if you were the humblest of undowered women."

The tears stood in her eyes, for the pa.s.sion and feeling in his voice struck home to her.

"I believe it," she said, softly, "and I am almost sorry I cannot love you. But I do not, nor do I think I ever could. You will find others quite as likely to draw forth your affection as I am. But there are some natural barriers of disposition, and--oh, I cannot define what--which hold us apart. Yet I am interested in you, and would like to know you were happy. Yet, Mr. De Burgh, I must not sacrifice my life to you. If I did, the result might not be satisfactory even to yourself."

"Sacrifice your life! What an unflattering expression!" cried De Burgh, with a hard laugh. "So there is no hope for me?"

Katherine shook her head.

"I felt there was but little when I began," he said, as if to himself.

"Tell me, are you free? Has some more fortunate fellow than myself touched that impregnable heart of yours? I know I have no right to ask such a question."

"You have not indeed, Mr. De Burgh. And if I could not with truth say 'no,' I should be vexed with you for asking it. Weighted as I am with money enough to excite the greed of ordinary struggling men, I shall not be in a hurry to renounce my comfortable independence."

De Burgh's eyes again held hers with a look of entreaty. "That independence will last just as long as your heart escapes the influence of the man whom you will love one day; for though love lies sleeping, it is in you, and will spring to life some time, all the stronger and more irresistible because his birth has not come early. _Then_ you will feel more for _me_ than you do now."

"I do feel for you, Mr. De Burgh"--raising her moist eyes to his.

"Thank you"--taking her hand and kissing it. "Will you, then be my friend, and promise not to banish me? I'll be sensible, and give you no trouble."

"Oh yes, certainly," said Katherine, glad to be able to comfort him in any way; and she withdrew her hand.

"I am not going to worry you with my presence now," he continued. "I shall say good-by for the present. I am going away north. I have entered a horse for a big steeple-chase at Barton Towers, and will ride him myself. If I win I can hold out awhile longer. You must wish me success."

"I am sure I do, heartily. After this, _do_ give up racing."

"Very well. But"--pressing her hand hard--"I'll tell you what I will _not_ give up, my hope of winning _you_, until you are married to some one else and out of my reach."

He kissed her hand again, and then, without any further adieu, turned away, walking with long swift steps toward the town, not once looking back.