The Shadow of a Sin Part 13

"I shall win you," his eyes seemed to say. "You may try to escape.

Flutter your bright wings, my pretty bird; it is all in vain."

Then he asked her if she would go into the grounds. She murmured some few words of apology that he could hardly hear. A sudden great love and sweetest pity for her youth and her timidity came over him. "I will be patient," he said to himself; "the shy bird shall not be startled. In time she will learn not to be so coy and timid."

So he turned away and asked Sir Arthur if he should read the leading article from the _Times_ to him, and Sir Arthur gratefully accepted the offer. Lady Vaughan, with serenely composed face, went to sleep.

Hyacinth stole gently to the window; she wanted no books, no music; a fairyland was unfolded before her, and she had not half explored it. She only wanted to be quite alone, to think over and over again how wonderful it was that she loved Adrian Darcy.

"Come out," the dewy, sleepy flowers seemed to say. "Come out," sung the birds. "Come out," whispered the wind, bending the tall magnolia trees and spreading abroad sweet perfume. She looked round the room; Lady Vaughan was fast asleep, Sir Arthur listening intently, and Adrian reading to him. "No one will miss me," she thought.

She took up a thin shawl that was lying near, opened the long window very gently, and stepped out. But she was mistaken: some one did miss her, and that some one was Adrian. No gesture, no movement of hers ever escaped him. She was gone out into the sweet, dewy, fragrant gloaming, and he longed to follow her.

He read on patiently until--oh, pleasant sight!--he saw Sir Arthur's eyes begin to close. He had purposely chosen the dryest articles, and had read slowly until the kind G.o.d Morpheus came to his aid, and Sir Arthur slept. Then Adrian rose and followed Hyacinth. The band was playing at the further end of the gardens, and Mozart's sweet music came floating through the trees.

It was such a dim pleasant light under the vines, and the music of the dripping water was so sweet. His instinct had not deceived him: something white was gleaming by the rock. He walked with quiet steps.

She was sitting watching the falling waters, looking so fair and lovely in that dim green light. He could contain himself no longer; he sprung forward and caught her in his arms.

"I have found you at last, Hyacinth," he said--"I have found you at last."

CHAPTER XIV.

Hyacinth Vaughan turned round in startled fear and wonder, and then she saw her lover's face, and knew by her womanly instinct what was coming.

She made no effort to escape; she had been like a frightened, half-scared bird, but now a great calm came over her, a solemn and beautiful gladness.

"Hyacinth, forgive me," he said--"I have been looking for you so long.

Oh, my darling, if ever the time should come that I should look for you and not find you, what should I do?"

In this, one of the happiest moments of his life, there came to him a presentiment of evil--one of those sharp, sudden, subtle instincts for which he could never account--a sense of darkness, as though the time were coming when he should look for that dear face and not find it, listen for the beloved voice and not hear it--when he should call in vain for his love and no response meet his ears. All this pa.s.sed through his mind in the few moments that he held her in his arms and looked in her pure, faultless face.

"Have I startled you?" he asked, seeing how strangely pale and calm it had grown. "Why have you been so cruel to me, Hyacinth? Did you not know that I have been seeking for you all day, longing for five minutes with you? For, Hyacinth, I want to ask you something. Now you are trembling--see how unsteady these sweet hands are. I do not want to frighten you, darling; sit down here and let us talk quietly."

They sat down, and for a few moments a deep silence fell over them, broken only by the ripple of the water and the sound of distant music.

"Hyacinth," said Adrian, gently, "I little thought, when I came here four short weeks since, thinking of nothing but reading three chapters of Goethe before breakfast, that I should find my fate--the fairest and sweetest fate that ever man found. I believe that I loved you then--at that first moment--as dearly as I love you now. You seemed to creep into my heart and nestle there. Until I die there will be no room in my heart for any other."

She sat very still, listening to his pa.s.sionate words, letting her hands lie within his. It seemed to her like a king coming to take possession of his own.

"I can offer you," he said, "the deepest, best, and purest, love. It has not been frittered away on half a dozen worthless objects. You are my only love. I shall know no other. Hyacinth, will you be my wife?"

It had fallen at last, this gleam of sunlight that had dazzled her so long by its brightness; it had fallen at her feet, and it blinded her.

"Will you be my wife, Hyacinth? Do not say 'Yes' unless you love me; nor because it is any one's wish; nor because Lady Vaughan may have said, 'It would be a suitable arrangement.' But say it if you love me--if you are happy with me."

He remembered in after-years how what she said puzzled him. She clasped her little white hands; she bent her head in sweetest humility.

"I am not worthy," she whispered.

He laughed aloud in the joy of his heart. "Not worthy? I know best about that, Hyacinth. I know that from the whole world I choose you for my wife, my queen, my love, because you are the fairest, the truest, the purest woman in it. I know that, if a king were kneeling here in my place, your love would crown him. It is I who am not worthy, sweet. What man is worthy of love so pure as yours? Tell me, Hyacinth, will you be my wife?"

The grave pallor left her face; a thousand little gleams and lights seemed to play over it.

"My wife--to love me, to help me while we both live."

"I--I cannot think that you love me," she said, gently. "You are so gifted, so n.o.ble, so clever--so brave and so strong."

"And what are you?" he asked, laughingly.

"I am nothing--nothing, that is, compared to you."

"A very sweet and fair nothing. Now that you have flattered me, listen while I tell you what you are. To begin, you are, without exception, the loveliest girl that ever smiled in the sunshine. You have a royal dowry of purity, truth, innocence and simplicity, than which no queen ever had greater. All the grace and music of the world, to my mind, are concentrated in you. I can say no more, sweet. I find that words do not express my meaning. All the unworthiness is on my side--not on yours."

"But," she remonstrated, "some day you will be a very rich, great man, will you not?"

"I am what the world calls rich, now," he replied, gravely. "And--yes, you are right, Hyacinth--it is most probable that I may be Baron Chandon of Chandon some day. But what has that to do with it, sweet?"

"You should have a wife who knows more than I do--some one who understands the great world."

"Heaven forbid!" he said, earnestly. "I would not marry a worldly woman, Cynthy, if she brought me Golconda for a fortune. There is no one else who could make such a fair and gentle Lady Chandon as you."

"I am afraid that you will be disappointed in me afterward," she remarked, falteringly.

"I am very willing to run the risk, my darling. Now you have been quite cruel enough, Cynthy. We will even go so far as to suppose you have faults; I know that, being human, you cannot be without them. But that does not make me love you less. Now, tell me, will you be my wife?"

She looked up at him with sweet, shy grace. "I am afraid you think too highly of me," she opposed, apologetically; "in many things I am but a child."

"Child, woman, fairy, spirit--no matter what you are--just as you are, I love you, and I would not have you changed; nothing can improve you, because, in my eyes, you are perfect. Will you be my wife, Hyacinth?"

"Yes," she replied; "and I pray that I may be worthy of my lot."

He bent down and kissed the fair flushed face, the sweet quivering lips, the white drooping eyelids.

"You are my own now," he said--"my very own. Nothing but death shall part us."

So they sat in silence more eloquent than words; the faint sound of the music came over the trees, the wind stirred the vine leaves--there never came such another hour in life for them. In the first rapture of her great happiness Hyacinth did not remember Claude, or perhaps she would have told her lover about him, but she did not even remember him. Over the smiling heaven of her content no cloud, however light, sailed--she remembered nothing in that hour but her love and her happiness.

Then he began to talk to her of the life that lay before them.

"We must live so that others may be the better for our living, Cynthy.

Should it happen that you become Lady Chandon, we will have a vast responsibility on our hands."

She looked pleased and happy.

"We will build schools," she said, "almshouses for the poor people; we will make every one glad and happy, Adrian."

"That will be a task beyond us, I fear," he rejoined, with a smile, "but we will do our best."