Lady Rose's Daughter Part 56

"What--what could you know of the circ.u.mstances?" cried her choked, laboring voice. "It is unpardonable--an outrage! You know nothing either of him or of me."

She clasped her hands to her breast in a piteous, magnificent gesture, as though she were defending her lover and her love.

"I know that you have suffered much," he said, dropping his eyes before her, "but you would suffer infinitely more if--"

"If you had not interfered." Her veil had fallen over her face again.

She flung it back in impatient despair. "Mr. Delafield, I can do without your anxieties."

"But not"--he spoke slowly--"without your own self-respect."

Julie's face trembled. She hid it in her hands.

"Go!" she said. "Go!"

He went to the farther end of the ship and stood there motionless, looking towards the land but seeing nothing. On all sides the darkness was lifting, and in the distance there gleamed already the whiteness that was Dover. His whole being was shaken with that experience which comes so rarely to c.u.mbered and superficial men--the intimate wrestle of one personality with another. It seemed to him he was not worthy of it.

After some little time, when only a quarter of an hour lay between the ship and Dover pier, he went back to Julie.

She was sitting perfectly still, her hands clasped in front of her, her veil drawn down.

"May I say one word to you?" he said, gently.

She did not speak.

"It is this. What I have confessed to you to-night is, of course, buried between us. It is as though it had never been said. I have given you pain. I ask your pardon from the bottom of my heart, and, at the same time"--his voice trembled--"I thank G.o.d that I had the courage to do it!"

She threw him a glance that showed her a quivering lip and the pallor of intense emotion.

"I know you think you were right," she said, in a voice dull and strained, "but henceforth we can only be enemies. You have tyrannized over me in the name of standards that you revere and I reject. I can only beg you to let my life alone for the future."

He said nothing. She rose, dizzily, to her feet. They were rapidly approaching the pier.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HER HANDS CLASPED IN FRONT OF HER"]

With the cold aloofness of one who feels it more dignified to submit than to struggle, she allowed him to a.s.sist her in landing. He put her into the Victoria train, travelling himself in another carriage.

As he walked beside her down the platform of Victoria Station, she said to him:

"I shall be obliged if you will tell Evelyn that I have returned."

"I go to her at once."

She suddenly paused, and he saw that she was looking helplessly at one of the newspaper placards of the night before. First among its items appeared: "Critical state of Lord Lackington."

He hardly knew how far she would allow him to have any further communication with her, but her pale exhaustion made it impossible not to offer to serve her.

"It would be early to go for news now," he said, gently. "It would disturb the house. But in a couple of hours from now"--the station clock pointed to 6.15--"if you will allow me, I will leave the morning bulletin at your door."

She hesitated.

"You must rest, or you will have no strength for nursing," he continued, in the same studiously guarded tone. "But if you would prefer another messenger--"

"I have none," and she raised her hand to her brow in mute, unconscious confession of an utter weakness and bewilderment.

"Then let me go," he said, softly.

It seemed to him that she was so physically weary as to be incapable either of a.s.sent or resistance. He put her into her cab, and gave the driver his directions. She looked at him uncertainly. But he did not offer his hand. From those blue eyes of his there shot out upon her one piercing glance--manly, entreating, sad. He lifted his hat and was gone.

XX

"Jacob, what brings you back so soon?" The d.u.c.h.ess ran into the room, a trim little figure in her morning dress of blue-and-white cloth, with her small spitz leaping beside her.

Delafield advanced.

"I came to tell you that I got your telegram yesterday, and that in the evening, by an extraordinary and fortunate chance, I met Miss Le Breton in Paris--"

"You met Julie in Paris?" echoed the d.u.c.h.ess, in astonishment.

"She had come to spend a couple of days with some friends there before going on to Bruges. I gave her the news of Lord Lackington's illness, and she at once turned back. She was much fatigued and distressed, and the night was stormy. I put her into the sleeping-car, and came back myself to see if I could be any a.s.sistance to her. And at Calais I was of some use. The crossing was very rough."

"Julie was in Paris?" repeated the d.u.c.h.ess, as though she had heard nothing else of what he had been saying.

Her eyes, so blue and large in her small, irregular face, sought those of her cousin and endeavored to read them.

"It seems to have been a rapid change of plan. And it was a great stroke of luck my meeting her."

"But how--and where?"

"Oh, there is no time for going into that," said Delafield, impatiently.

"But I knew you would like to know that she was here--after your message yesterday. We arrived a little after six this morning. About nine I went for news to St. James's Square. There is a slight rally."

"Did you see Lord Uredale? Did you say anything about Julie?" asked the d.u.c.h.ess, eagerly.

"I merely asked at the door, and took the bulletin to Miss Le Breton.

Will you see Uredale and arrange it? I gather you saw him yesterday."

"By all means," said the d.u.c.h.ess, musing. "Oh, it was so curious yesterday. Lord Lackington had just told them. You should have seen those two men."

"The sons?"

The d.u.c.h.ess nodded.

"They don't like it. They were as stiff as pokers. But they will do absolutely the right thing. They see at once that she must be provided for. And when he asked for her they told me to telegraph, if I could find out where she was. Well, of all the extraordinary chances."

She looked at him again, oddly, a spot of red on either small cheek.

Delafield took no notice. He was pacing up and down, apparently in thought.