The Star-Gazers Part 39

"Then I tell you it was, sir. If you had waited it would have been different."

He did not speak, but she could see that he was still feasting upon her with his eyes, and the worship in his looks was pleasant after Rolph's cold rebuffs.

"Well," she cried, "why are you looking at me like that?"

He started and smiled.

"I can't help it," he said, "You are so different to every other girl I know."

"Except Judith Hayle," she said contemptuously.

"You're not like her a bit," he said thoughtfully. "She's very nice looking, and I used to think a deal of her."

"Oh, yes, she's lovely," said Madge with a spiteful laugh.

"Yes," said Caleb, thoughtfully, "so she is," and he stood looking at the girl without comprehending the sarcasm in her words. "But she hasn't got eyes like you have, and she isn't so white, and," he whispered, approaching her more closely, "if you'll only be kind to me, and smile at me like you did, and speak soft to me, I'll be like your dawg."

He looked as if he would, and Marjorie saw it. She had been on the watch, expecting that he would seize her again, but nothing seemed further from his thoughts. It was exactly as he said--he was ready to be like her dog, and had she told him then, he would have cast himself at her feet, and let her plant her foot upon his neck in token of his subjugation.

"Well," she said, "I think I will trust you."

"You will?" he cried.

"Yes, if you are obedient, and promise me that you will never dare to be so rude again."

"I'll promise anything," he cried huskily, "but--"

"But what, sir?"

"You'll keep your word and pay me?" he said with a laugh.

"Wait and see," she said indifferently. "I am going back now."

"But how am I to tell you?" he said.

"I shall be sure to know."

"And how shall I see you again?"

"You will not want to see me again," she said archly.

"Not want to see you," he whispered. "Why, I'd go round the world, across the seas, anywhere, to hear you talk to me, and look at your eyes. Tell me when I shall see you again."

"Oh, I don't know," she said carelessly, "perhaps some fine day you'll see me walking in the wood."

"Yes--yes," he said eagerly. "I'll always be about watching for you as I would for a hare."

"One of my cousin's," she said, with a contemptuous laugh.

"They're not his," cried Caleb, quietly, "they're wild beasts, and as much mine as anybody's."

"We will not discuss that," she said coldly. "Good-bye, and I hope you will keep your word."

"I've sweared it to myself," he said, "and I shall do it. Don't go yet."

"Why not?"

"Because I could stand and look at you, like, all day, and it will not seem the same when you are gone."

"Why, I thought you were a poacher."

"Well, I suppose I am. What o' that?"

"You talk quite like a courtier?"

"Do I?" he said eagerly. "Well, you did it; you made me like you."

"I?"

"Yes. I don't know how it was, but you've made me feel as if I'd do anything for you."

"Ah, well, we shall see," said Marjorie, as she fixed her eyes on his, glorying in her triumph, and feeling that every word spoken was the honest truth. Then, giving him a careless nod, she was turning away.

"Don't go like that," said Caleb, huskily.

"What do you mean?"

"Say one kind word to me first."

"Well," said Madge, showing her white teeth in a contemptuous smile, as his eyes were fixed upon hers, just as her cousin's Gordon setter's had been a score of times. "Poor fellow, then," she said mockingly, and she held out her little hand, as she would have stretched it forth to pat one of the dogs.

He took it in his brown, sinewy fingers, bent over it, and held it against his cheek. Then, quick as lightning, he had grasped it with a grip like steel, s.n.a.t.c.hed her from where she stood, and almost before she could notice it, he was holding her in a crouching position down behind the bushes, one arm tightly about her waist, and his right hand over her mouth.

She was too much taken by surprise for the moment to struggle or attempt to cry out. Then, as her eyes were fixed upon him fiercely, she felt his hot breath upon her cheek, and his lips pressed upon her ear.

"Don't move, don't speak," whispered the man, "he mustn't see you along o' me."

Madge strained her sense of hearing, but all was perfectly still, and, concluding that it was a trick, she gathered herself together for a strong effort to get free, when there was a sharp crack as of a broken twig. Then the low brushing sound of dead strands of gra.s.s against a man's leg; and, directly after Rolph came into view, plainly seen through the brambles, and as he came nearer Marjorie grew faint.

If he should see her--like that--clasped in this man's arms!

Rolph came nearer and nearer, his way leading him so close to where his cousin crouched that it seemed impossible that he could go by without seeing her, held there by a man whom he would look upon as the sc.u.m of the earth. The agony of shame and mortification she suffered was intense, the greater because her presence here was due to the fact that she had vowed that, in spite of all, she would yet be Rolph's wife, the mistress of The Warren.

As her cousin came on, and she felt Caleb's arm tightening about her, a strange giddiness made her brain swim, and the objects about her grew misty; but clearly seen in advance of this mist was her cousin's face, his eyes fixed upon the very spot where she was hiding, and plunging through the leaves to search her out, to drag her forth and upbraid her with being a disgrace to her s.e.x, a woman utterly lost to all sense of shame. And all the time, throb, throb, throb, with heavy beat, she could feel Caleb Kent's heart, and a twitching sensation in the muscle of his arm, as, influenced by the man's thoughts of flight or violence, he loosened his grip, or held her more tightly still.

"He must see us," thought Marjorie. "Oh, if I could only die!"

Close up now, and as he came nearer Rolph struck sharply with his stick at a loose strand which projected half across his path.