Nell, of Shorne Mills Part 90

he said, almost solemnly. "I want you too badly to be able to wait.

Besides, do you forget that we have been engaged two years? Two years! A lifetime!"

At this moment a "Coo-ee!" sounded through the wood--an impatient and half indignant "Coo-ee!"

It was d.i.c.k, and he approached them, yelling:

"Nell! Nell! Where on earth are you, Nell?"

They had barely time to move before he was upon them.

"I say, Nell, where on earth have you been? I'm starving----Hallo!" he broke off, staring first at Nell's red and downcast face, and then at Drake's smiling and quite obviously joyous one. "What----"

Drake took Nell's hand.

"We quite forgot you, d.i.c.k, and everybody and everything else. But you'll forgive us when you hear that Nell and I have--have----"

"Made it up again!" finished d.i.c.k, with a grin that ran from ear to ear.

"By George, you don't say so! Well, I said it was only a tiff; now, didn't I, Nell? But it was a pretty long one. Eighteen months or thereabouts, isn't it?"

For a moment the two lovers looked sad, then Drake smiled.

"Just eighteen months too long, d.i.c.k," he said. "But you might wish us joy."

"I do, I do--or I would, if I wasn't starving!" retorted d.i.c.k. "While you have been spooning under the spreading chestnut tree, I've been wrestling with the electric dynamos; and the sight of even bread and cheese would melt me to tears. But I am glad, old man," he said, in a grave tone--"glad for both your sakes; for any one could see with three-quarters of an eye, to be exact, that you were both miserable without each other. Oh, save me from the madness of love!"

"There was a very pretty girl by the name of Angel at the Maltbys'

dance," put in Drake musingly; "a very pretty girl, indeed, who sat out most of the dances, if I remember rightly, with a young friend of mine."

d.i.c.k's face grew a healthy, brick-dust red, and he glanced shyly from one to the other.

"Well hit, Drake, old man!" he said. "Yes; there was one, and I've seen her in London once or twice----"

"Oh, d.i.c.k, and you never told me!" said Nell reproachfully.

"I don't tell you everything, little girl," he remarked severely; "and I won't tell you any more now unless you come on and give me something to eat. See here, now; I'll walk in front, and promise not to look round----"

Nell, blushing painfully, looked at Drake appealingly, and he seized d.i.c.k by the arm and marched him off in the direction of the lodge, Nell following more slowly.

As they entered, the nurse came down from Falconer's room, and Nell inquired after him anxiously.

"He is much better, miss," said the nurse; "and he asked me to say that he should be glad if you and his lordship would go up to him."

Drake nodded, and he followed Nell up the stairs.

Falconer was sitting up, leaning back against a pile of pillows; and he greeted them with a smile--the half-sad, half-patiently cynical smile of the old days in Beaumont Buildings--the smile which served as a mask to hide the tenderness of a n.o.ble nature.

Nell came into the room shyly, with the sadness of the self-reproach which was born of the knowledge that her happiness had been gained at the cost of this man who loved her with a love as great as Drake's; but Drake came up to the bed boldly, and held out his hand.

"We have come--to thank you, Falconer," he said, in the tone with which one man acknowledges his debt to another. "No, not to thank you, for that's impossible. Some things are beyond thanks, and this that you have done is one of them. You have brought happiness where there was nothing but misery and despair. Some day I will tell you the story of our separation; but that must wait. Now I can only try and express my grat.i.tude----"

He stammered and broke down; for with Falconer's eloquent eyes upon him, he realized the extent of the man's self-sacrifice, and it seemed to him that any attempt to express his own grat.i.tude was worse than absolute silence. Can you thank a man for the gift of your life?

Falconer looked from one to the other, the half-sad smile lighting up his wan face.

"I know," he said simply. And indeed he knew how he should feel if he were in the place of this lucky man, this favored of the G.o.ds. "I know.

There is no need to say anything. You are happy?"

His eyes rested on Nell. She slipped to her knees beside the bed and took his hand; but she could not speak; the tears filled her eyes, and she gazed up at him through a mist.

"Ah! what can I say?" she murmured.

He smiled down at her with infinite tenderness.

"You have said enough," he said simply, "and I am answered. Do you think it is nothing to me, your happiness? It is everything--life itself!"

His dark eyes glowed. "There is no moment since I knew you that I would not have laid down this wretched life of mine, if by so doing I could have made you happy at a much less cost."

He turned his eyes to Drake with sudden energy.

"Don't pity me, Lord Angleford. There is no need."

Drake took his other hand and pressed it.

"You must get well soon, or her--our--happiness will be marred, Falconer," he said warmly.

Falconer nodded.

"I shall get well," he said. "I am better already. We artists are never beyond consolation. Art is a jealous mistress, and will brook no rival."

"And you worship a mistress who will make you famous," said Drake.

Falconer smiled.

"We are content, though she should deny us so much as that," he said.

"Art is its own reward."

Nell rose from her knees and stole from the room. When she had gone, Falconer raised his head and looked long and seriously at Drake.

"Be good to her, my lord," he said, very gravely. "You have won a great prize, a ruby without a blemish; value it, cherish it."

Drake nodded.

"I know," he said simply.

Nell stole into the room again. She was carrying Falconer's violin carefully, tenderly. She put it in his hands, held out eagerly to receive it, and he placed it in position, turned it swiftly, and began to play, his eyes fixed on hers gratefully.

Nell and Drake withdrew to the window, their heads reverently bent.

He played slowly, softly at first, a sad and yet exquisitely sweet melody; then the strain grew louder, though not the less sweet, and the tiny room was throbbing with music which expressed a joy which only music could voice.