The Baronet's Bride Part 23

"Is there anything you wish? anything you want done? any person you would like to see?"

"Yes," the dying man answered, "yes, Sir Everard Kingsland."

"Sir Everard Kingsland is here."

He motioned the baronet to approach.

Sir Everard bent over him.

"Send them away," said the sick man. "Both. I want to speak to you alone."

Ho delivered the message, and the rector and doctor went into the pa.s.sage to wait.

"Come closer," the captain said, and the young baronet knelt by the bedside, opposite Harrie, "and tell the truth to a dying man. Harrie, my darling, are you listening?"

"Yes, papa."

She lifted her pale young face, rigid in tearless despair.

"My own dear girl, I am going to leave a little sooner than I thought.

I knew my death would be soon and sudden, but I did not expect it so soon, so awfully sudden as this!" His lips twitched spasmodically, and there was a brief pause. "I had hoped not to leave you alone and friendless in the world, penniless and unprotected. I hoped to live to see you the wife of some good man, but it is not to be. G.o.d wills for the best, my darling, and to Him I leave you."

A dry, choking sob was the girl's answer. Her eyes were burning and bright. The captain turned to the impatient, expectant young baronet.

"Sir Everard Kingsland," he said, with a painful effort, "you are the son of my old and much-valued friend; therefore I speak. My near approach to eternity lifts me above the minor considerations of time.

Yesterday morning, from yonder window, I saw you on the terrace with my daughter."

The baronet grasped his hand, his face flushed, his eyes aglow. Oh, surely, the hour of his reward had come!

"You made her an offer of your hand and heart?"

"Which she refused," the young man said, with a glance of unutterable reproach. "Yes, sir; and I love her with my whole heart!"

"I thought so," very faintly. "Why did you refuse, Harrie?"

"Oh, papa! Why are we talking of this now?"

"Because I am going to leave you, my daughter. Because I would not leave you alone. Why did you refuse Sir Everard?"

"Papa, I--I only knew him such a little while."

"And that is all? You don't dislike him, do you?"

"No-o, papa."

"And you don't like any one else better?"

"Papa, you know I don't."

"My own spotless darling! And you will let Sir Everard love you, and be your true and tender husband?"

"Oh, papa, don't!"

She flung herself down with a vehement cry. But Sir Everard turned his radiant, hopeful, impa.s.sioned face upon the Indian officer.

"For G.o.d's sake, plead my cause, sir! She will listen to you. I love her with all my heart and soul. I will be miserable for life without her."

"You hear, Harrie? This vehement young wooer--make him happy. Make me happy by saying 'Yes.'"

She looked up with the wild glance of a stag at bay. For one moment her frantic idea was flight.

"My love--my life!" Sir Everard caught both her hands across the bed, and his voice was hoa.r.s.e with its concentrated emotion. "You don't know how I love you. If you refuse I shall go mad. I will be the truest, the tenderest husband ever man was to woman."

"I am dying, Harrie," her father said, sadly, "and you will be all alone in this big, bad world. But if your heart says 'No,' my own best beloved, to my old friend's son, then never hesitate to refuse. In all my life I never thwarted you. On my death-bed I will not begin."

"What shall I do?" she cried. "What shall I do?"

"_Consent_!" her lover whispered.

"Consent!" Her father's anxious eyes spoke the word eloquently.

She looked from one to the other--the dying father, the handsome, hopeful, impetuous young lover. Some faint thrill in her heart answered his. Girls like daring lovers.

She drew her hands out of his clasp, hesitated a moment, while that lovely, sensitive blush came and went, then gave them suddenly back of her own accord.

He grasped them tight, with an inarticulate cry of ecstasy. For worlds he could not have spoken. The dying face looked unutterably relieved.

"That means 'Yes,' Harrie?"

"Yes, papa."

"Thank G.o.d!"

He joined their hands, looking earnestly at the young man.

"She is yours, Kingsland. May G.o.d deal with you, as you deal with my orphan child!"

"Amen!"

Solemnly Sir Everard Kingsland p.r.o.nounced his own condemnation with the word. Awfully came back the memory of that adjuration in the terrible days to come.

"She is very young," said Captain Hunsden, after a pause--"too young to marry. You must wait a year."

"A year!"

Sir Everard repeated the word in consternation, as if it had been a century.

"Yes," said the captain, firmly. "A year is not too long, and she will only be eighteen then. Let her return to her old _pension_ in Paris.