The Mad Love Part 5

"They say you are a great lord's son," he said; "but if you are, you have no pride about you."

Lord Chandos laughed; and the farmer called Leone. There was a pause, during which the young lord's heart beat and his face flushed.

"Leone," cried the farmer again.

He turned to his visitor.

"You will wonder what 'Leone' means, it is such a strange name; it is my niece. Here she comes."

The loveliest picture in all the world, trying hard to preserve her usual stately grace, yet with a blushing, dimpling smile that made her lovely beyond words.

"Leone," said the farmer, "will you bring a jug of cider?"

"Pray," cried the lord, "do not trouble yourself, Miss Noel. I cannot think----"

She interrupted him by a gesture of her white hand.

"I will send it, uncle," she said, and disappeared.

The farmer turned with a smile to the young lord.

"She is very proud," he said; "but she is a fine girl."

The cider came; the visitor duly drank his gla.s.s and went; his only reward for all that trouble was the one glance at her face.

That same evening a little note was given to her, in which he begged her so humbly to forgive him, and to meet him again, that she relented.

He had learned his lesson; he wooed her with the deference due to a young princess; no word or action of his displeased her after that, while he loved her with a love that was akin to madness.

So through the long, bright, beautiful summer days, in the early morning, while the sweet, fragrant air seemed to sweep the earth, and in the evening when the dew lay upon flower and tree, they met and learned to love each other.

One evening, as they sat by their favorite spot--the mill-stream--Lord Chandos told her how he had learned to love her, how he had ceased to think of anything in the world but herself.

"I knew you were my fate, Leone," he said, "when I saw you sitting here by the mill-stream. I am quite sure that I have loved you ever since. I do not remember that there has been one moment in which I have not thought of you. I shall always thank Heaven that I came to Rashleigh--I found my darling here."

For once all the pride had died from her face; all the hauteur was gone from her eyes; a lovely gleam of tenderness took its place; a love-light in the shy, sweet eyes that dropped from his.

"My darling Leone," he said, "if I lived a hundred years I could only say over and over again--'I love you.' Those three words say everything.

Do you love me?"

She looked up at him. Then she raised her dark eyes to his and a little quiver pa.s.sed over her beautiful mouth.

"Yes, I love you," she said. "Whether it be for weal or for woe, for good or ill, I know not; but I love you."

There was unutterable pathos, unutterable music in those three words; they seemed to rhyme with the chime of the falling waters. She held out her white hands, he clasped them in his.

"Why do you say it so sadly, my darling? Love will bring nothing but happiness for you and for me," he said.

She laid her white arms on his neck, and looked earnestly in his face.

"There can be no comparison," she said. "Love to you is only a small part of your life, to me it is everything--everything. Do you understand? If you forget me or anything of that kind, I could not bear it. I could not school myself into patience as model women do. I should come and throw myself into the mill-stream."

"But, my darling, I shall never forget you--never; you are life of my life. I might live without the air and the sunlight; I might live without sleep or food, but never without you. I must forget my own soul before I forget you."

Still the white hands clasped his shoulders and the dark eyes were fixed on his face.

"You and your love are more than that to me," she said. "I throw all my life on this one die; I have nothing else--no other hope. Ah, think well, Lance, before you pledge your faith to me; it means so much. I should exact it whole, unbroken and forever."

"And I would give it so," he replied.

"Think well of it," she said again, with those dark, earnest eyes fixed on his face. "Let there be no mistake, Lance. I am not one of the meek Griselda type; I should not suffer in silence and resignation, let my heart break, and then in silence sink into an early grave. Ah, no, I am no patient Griselda. I should look for revenge and many other things.

Think well before you pledge yourself to me. I should never forgive--never forget. There is time now--think before you seal your fate and mine."

"I need not think, Leone," he answered, quietly. "I have thought, and the result is that I pledge you my faith forever and ever."

The earnest, eager gaze died from her eyes, and the beautiful face was hidden on his breast.

"Forever and ever, sweet," he whispered; "do you hear? in all time and for all eternity, I pledge you my love and my faith."

The water seemed to laugh as it rippled on, the wind laughed as it bent the tall branches, the nightingale singing in the wood stopped suddenly, and its next burst of song was like ringing laughter; the mountains quivered over the mill-stream, the stars seemed to tremble as they shone.

"Forever and ever," he repeated. The wind seemed to catch up the words and repeat them, the leaves seemed to murmur them, the fall of the water to rhyme with them. "Forever and ever, sweet, I pledge you my love and my faith; our hearts will be one, and our souls one, and you will give me the same love in return, my sweet?"

"I give you even more than that," she replied, so earnestly that the words had a ring of tragedy in them; and then bending forward, he kissed the sweet lips that were for evermore to be his own.

"You are mine now forever," he said, "my wife, who is to be."

She was quite silent for some minutes; then, looking up at him, she said:

"I wish you had never sung that pretty ballad of the mill-wheel to me; do you know what the water always says when I listen?

"'Those vows are all forgotten, The ring asunder broken.'"

"My darling," he said, clasping her to his heart, "no words that have any ring of doubt in them will ever apply to us, let the mill-stream say what it will."

CHAPTER VI.

AN IMPATIENT LOVER'S PLANS.

There had been no mistake about the wooing of Lord Chandos. He had not thought of loving and riding away; the proud, beautiful, gifted girl whom he loved had been wooed and pursued with the ardor and respect that he would have shown to a princess.

There came another day, when something had prevented him from seeing her; and unable to control his impatience, he had ridden over to the farm, this time ostensibly to see the farmer, and ask for another gla.s.s of his famous cider; this time, under the farmer's eyes even, he stopped and spoke to Leone.

"You will be at the mill-stream this evening?" he whispered, and her answer was: