CHAPTER II

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THE PERSON IN BLACK.

Behind a rock, not two yards from Captain Gordon’s flat young back, something stirred--stirring so faintly that even a thrush in its nest in the hawthorn bush did not hear it. Perhaps the sour-faced person in black who knelt on the grass, ostensibly digging dandelions for a complexion salad, had been there for a long time; or, perhaps, it had not been hard to evade the sentry on the hedge and bring up in good ear-shot of the two people who were blind and deaf to everything but themselves.

“Heaps of things can come between us,” Ravenel was retorting dolefully. “Lady Annesley can. And Tommy says the Umbrella--that beast of a maid of hers--tells her everything we do.”

The person in black bridled angrily behind her rock. She had come from curiosity; she would stay now for spite. The Umbrella, indeed!

Gordon laughed.

“Why do you call her that?”

“Oh, because she’s a framework of bones with limp black silk over them--just like an umbrella shut up! But she’s a vicious wretch, too, and I hate her.”

The unseen listener’s eyes narrowed in her flat face.

“Well, never mind her; she can’t worry us!” hastily. “This is the only thing that matters just now. My cousin wired to General Carmichael that I’d accept his offer, and--got an answer. Nel, I must go in a week!”

“Well?” she did not look at him.

“Well, I’m going!” his handsome face drawn and hard. “But I won’t leave you like this. I want you to marry me before I go.”

“But you couldn’t take me with you?” a wild hope made her voice shake.

“No! But I could send for you, or come when I could get leave and carry you off. Look here, my heart,” with gentle strength, “if I must go I want to leave my wife behind me. Then I shall know nothing can ever come between us.”

“Oh,” her cheek reddened, “I can’t marry you! How could I?” though the very thought of being Adrian’s wife made life heaven.

“There’s Tommy.”

Gordon smiled.

“Is that all? Only Tommy! When I come back for you we’ll take Tommy, too; will that do? Or, do you think you’ll find me an insufferable husband? Tell me. Why don’t you look at me, sweetheart?”

“Because I don’t want to,” returned Miss Annesley, with scarlet cheeks and a truthful tongue.

“Say you’ll marry me!” he demanded. “Say yes--unless you don’t love me.”

Very deliberately she looked at him, saw the love and truth in his eyes, the strength and beauty of his face, that was pale with earnestness.

“Yes,” she whispered, so that he could hardly hear; but he knew without hearing--and the silent woman behind the rock knew, too, and strained her ears.

“Then will you do this?” said Gordon. “The curate at Effingham went to school with me. He’ll marry us if I get a special license. All you’ll have to do is to walk over to Effingham--which is really your parish church, though you don’t go there--with me, and be married. No one will know, unless you like to tell Tommy. And I’ll bring you straight home from the church door. But you’ll belong to me, and I can defy her ladyship or any one else to make trouble between us. Will you do that?”

She nodded, her face like a crimson flower.

“Yes, Adrian,” he prompted; but she spoke with a sudden flash of her spirit.

“Your wife or no one else’s in the world!” she cried, “unless--you change your mind and throw me over.”

Gordon caught her up like a child.

“Oh, you silly, silly!” he cried. “I’ll not give you a chance to be any one else’s wife; don’t flatter yourself. But I’ve no right to so sweet a thing as you. What you ought to do is refuse me and marry my cousin.”

“I don’t even know his name.”

“That’s a trifle. He has money enough to buy this county and not know it.”

“He hasn’t money enough to buy me!” with a quick flash of her eyes. “Oh!” with sudden remembrance of the world about her, “I must go! Look how long the shadows are.”

“Wait--just one second! I’ve something for you,” he was feeling in his pocket. “I meant it to be diamonds, but they say these things--though, of course, it’s nonsense--lose their light if things go wrong with--any one you care for!”

He drew out a velvet case, and there shone into Ravenel Annesley’s eyes the green fire of a half-hoop of emeralds, curiously set in a kind of mosaic of small diamonds and opals. The thing was wonderful in a queer, barbaric way as it blazed in the sun. The girl who looked at it stood speechless.

“Don’t you like it?” his face falling, for he had searched London for a ring unlike any others.

“I--I love it! But----” she stopped with dismay.

Opals--every one knew what luck opals brought. And emeralds all the world over meant “forsaken.”

“Opals aren’t lucky,” she said hastily, and left the green stones out of the question; “but this is too beautiful to bring bad luck. And I suppose it’s all nonsense really! Adrian, do you know, I never had a ring in my life?” shaking from her the senseless dread she felt of this one.

“You’re going to have two now. This to-day and another next week,” he was slipping the fiery-green wonder on her third finger. “‘Till death do us part,’” he quoted softly. “That belongs to the next ring, but I can say it with this one.”

“Death, or Lady Annesley!” sharply, her eyes full of quick tears. “She hates me, Adrian, and she doesn’t like you.”

“It can’t hurt either of us, Nel!” with the little backward jerk of his head the girl loved.

“Why do you never call me Ravenel?” she said irrelevantly, for there was no sense in wasting good time talking about her ladyship.

“Not like you!” promptly. “Means some one quite different. Mind you, never let any one call you Nel till I come back again,” with a sudden curious jealousy.

“No one will want to,” dolefully. “Oh! Adrian; do you really mean to go next week?”

“I must,” his face grew dark, hard-bitten; for it was like dying to leave her. “And the worst of it is I’ll be so busy. I’ll have to go to London to get my kit, and say a decent word to my cousin, and sit through a farewell dinner at mess--that’ll be about as lively as a funeral!--the night before I leave, when I shall be mad to be with you. But we’ll have one day together if everything goes undone. And you’ll go with me to Effingham, Miss Annesley, and come back Nel Gordon!”

But she sat pale and quiet.

“It seems so mad, so impossible!” she said at last, as if it were wrung from her. “And I believe my stepmother would kill me if she found out.”

“That’s about the only thing she couldn’t do,” shortly. “Do you think I won’t take care of her claws for you? Look here, besides, the day we go to Effingham there’ll be the duchess’ garden-party. I’ll manage to get there. If I can’t, I’ll send you a note to say what day I am coming to take you to Effingham. After that, sweet, we can laugh at her ladyship.”

“You’ll be gone! We won’t be able to laugh at anything!” forlornly.

“You’ll be my wife,” something flashed into his eyes that boded no good to any one that dared lift a finger against Adrian Gordon’s dearest. “I’ll be able to write to you and you to me. Some day I’ll come and carry you off, no matter what Lady Annesley may be pleased to say. The only thing is,” a sudden pity in the masterful protecting hand on hers, “it’s a pretty poor match for you, my Nel. And a doleful wedding in an empty church to a man who can’t even keep you is a selfish bit of work--it makes me feel a beast! You ought, you know, to marry a lord--with a choral service, and two bishops, and a church full of fine people to make it all proper,” his voice was jesting, but his eyes were sad enough, and he held her hand as if he never could let it go.

“Don’t talk like that!” she cried sharply. “It makes me feel as if some one were walking over my grave. What have I got to do with lords and bishops at my wedding? I’d be miserable. I’d----” she could not go on. What made her see, as if in a vision, a strange church, filled with sweet people, whispering indifferently while the organ pealed, and the bride, all in white--with a heart of stone--came up the aisle on feet that would hardly carry her, since it was not Adrian Gordon who waited at the altar? There was a look on her face as she stared in front of her, wide-eyed, that made Gordon catch her to him. A prescient look, as of one who sees for a shuddering moment the curtain lifted from the future.

“What’s the matter? You’re not afraid?” he whispered. “I’ll take care of you, my sweet; you know that! May God treat me as I treat you, my wife.”

Lip to lip, soul to soul, they kissed each other. She was shaking when he let her go; afterward it was small comfort to him to remember it, nor the real terror in her voice when she spoke.

“Oh! I’ve stayed too late. And the ring, I daren’t wear it. You mustn’t come with me. She mustn’t know you were here.” She dragged up her neck-ribbon and put the ring on it, slipping it round her neck, inside her collar, pushing it out of sight with miserable care. And the watcher behind the rock--who was stiff and much fatigued--saw her do it.

“Rings!” she reflected, coming cautiously out as the pair vanished, and rubbing one foot that had gone to sleep, “and weddings at Effingham--we’ll see!” pins and needles adding vigor to her thoughts. “Old Umbrella, indeed!” and her ladyship’s confidential maid moved stiffly off in a devious direction that took her to Annesley Chase quite unobserved.

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