CHAPTER XIX

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MASTER VERE'S CONFESSION.

"Thank God for love, though love may hurt and wound, Though set with sharpest thorn its rose may be." --SUSAN COOLIDGE.

"This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower, when next we meet." --SHAKESPEARE.

"Percival," said Lady Bryn Afon on the last night of their stay at Glyn Melen, as he sat with her in the copse reading aloud, while Primrose was busy within doors directing the waiting-maids as to the packing of their mistresses' possessions previous to their departure on the morrow--"Percival, pardon me for asking so bold a question, but have I done well in suffering you thus to share with me the companionship of my sweet young friend during these happy weeks? I have watched you both not without some secret misgivings; yet, knowing I could trust you, have forborne to interfere with your happiness, content to leave all in the hands of a good Providence, yet reproaching myself at times for having perchance unwisely permitted you both at once to be my companions in this solitary dwelling, where you have of necessity been thrown much together. Forgive me, dear friend, for thus venturing to address you, but Primrose is to me as a dear daughter; and you--for the love and devotion you bestow upon our unhappy family, I can but regard you also with somewhat of a mother's affection!" "I am grateful for the confidence you have placed in me," said the young chaplain earnestly, "and I can but assure you that no word of the love I feel for your most sweet and fair companion has yet passed my lips, or shall pass until she is under her own mother's care, which she tells me will probably not be until a year from now. It is true that in her my soul has seemed verily to find its ideal, and that I can but feel there is betwixt us some sweet unspoken tie, which in myself I know to be the truest love man can offer woman, yet which I dare not yet presume to think upon as an assured treasure. I have wrestled many an hour with myself alone on the mountain-top, that I might by no word or act betray your confidence, or, above all, suffer this earthly love to take away aught from that supreme love and devotion I have but lately sworn to my Master in Heaven. Against His will I dare not seek for myself a bliss for which my soul yearns with deeper longing than I can tell; but can I only keep this earthly love in due subjection, regarding it as a priceless gift to help me the better to serve Him, I can but feel He will perchance look with favour upon us both, and in His good time suffer me to become the unworthy possessor of so fair and lowly-minded a helpmeet."

Lady Bryn Afon's eyes filled with tears. "I have no right to betray a maiden's secrets," she said, "nor have I sought to win them from her; but I have been young even as Primrose, and methinks can read in her transparent countenance and clear truthful eyes more than she wots of. But Percival, be that as it may, you are both wise and right in your decision to keep strict silence for the present, for the history of fair Shanno is a passing strange one, and neither you nor she must surely fetter yourselves by any ties but those of friendship, while her future with her as yet unknown mother remains hid in obscurity." "For me, I should feel no fetters," interposed the young man eagerly. "I would fain be at her side when that dreaded moment of meeting comes, to shield her from all possible ill, and take her away from any sorrow it may chance to bring her into the shelter of such a home as I could offer. It is for her sake alone that I cannot yet feel it right to seek to bind her by any promises, nor even seek the confession of a love which I scarcely dare yet hope for, and which might bring trouble upon her. Nay, I promise you that I will keep silence, nor attempt to seek her out during the coming years of separation, darkly though they lower before me." "That is well," said Lady Bryn Afon. "And as to her, poor child, she will again be happy by her riverside in her loving guardian's care, even though a new-felt loneliness will, I fear me, be her portion for awhile after these happy weeks. Percival, have you verily no fear in thus giving your heart away to one of whose birth and parentage you are wholly ignorant? Have you no fear of what the future may chance to reveal? And will the proud descendant of Ap Gryffyth and the Veres not hesitate to seek in marriage one whose mother has confessed herself to be of kin to such an one as honest Jack the boatman--of long descent indeed, and of a good old family, but withal a humble one?" "I fear me my love hath so fully eaten up my pride," answered Percival with a smile, "that I would fain win this fair woodland flower and wear her next my heart, be she whom she may. Let even shame and disgrace o'ershadow her unknown parents' history, I would but the more gladly shelter her beneath my own great love from every lingering breath of evil, and even so feel myself the more worthy of the name I bear. Dear madam, trust me that my honour shall be as great as my love, and all shall go well. Hush, she comes!" And tripping lightly over the greensward came Primrose, surely more fair than ever, her white summer gown falling in soft folds around her, and her wealth of golden hair, still floating childlike over her shoulders, glittering like streams of gold in the evening sunlight. And as Percival Vere looked at her a great trembling seized him, and he buried his face in his hands. "You are weary, Master Vere," she said, throwing herself on the grass at Lady Bryn Afon's feet, and resting her head upon her knee. "You have read too long aloud, while I, who would fain have come and relieved you, have been making ready with much sorrow for our departure from this beautiful place on the morrow. I fear me the mountains have made me faithless to the valley and the river I love so well!" "Nay, I am not weary," answered Percival. "I did but close my eyes because I saw a vision. Methought as you crossed the grass I was again by the pool at midnight, beholding the mystic maiden, and the illusion is not yet dispelled!" He looked at her with a smile, and yet with so perplexed an expression that Primrose laughed merrily in spite of her sad heart. "As we shall part on the morrow," she said, and her voice trembled a little as she spoke, "and as I would not have you ever wondering and perplexed in mind until we meet again, I will e'en make my confession. I was myself the immortal maiden!" "I have suspected it!" said the chaplain triumphantly, "yet I have not been able to account for your so deceiving me. Was it so indeed? Then now I can understand." "Indeed I did not then know you were there!" cried Primrose eagerly. "Until I saw yon watching me from your dark corner under the rock, I thought in truth that no one saw my folly but Lady Rosamond and Sir Ivor, and you, dear Lady Bryn Afon! It was at Lady Rosamond's bidding I played the maiden's part, since she declared she had no patience to wait for the true vision, and I would do just as well, moreover saving her from having had her climb for nought! And lest any one should perchance be near besides ourselves, she cleverly threw a large stone into the centre of the pool at the moment when I should by right have plunged therein to my watery abode, in order, as she said, that the illusion should be complete, trusting that the sudden sound might make a chance spectator close his eyes for a moment in horror, and so let me slip into my hiding-place behind the rock unobserved." "She truly devised well," said the chaplain with a laugh, "for it was even so with me, whom she had persuaded into proving with mine own eyes the truth of her wondrous tale! As you stood by the lake, I heard the sudden splashing, and clasped my hands before my eyes in horror at the thought that I must needs see you plunge into that black abyss; and when I withdrew them I saw but the ripples on the surface of the water--and you----" "Were laughing in glee not many yards away," said Lady Bryn Afon with a smile. "In truth it was a naughty trick of Lady Rosamond's, but Primrose did it right well." "But indeed I had no thought that you were there!" said Primrose, looking at the chaplain earnestly. "I truly thought it but a jest among ourselves. Now I know why my Lady Rosamond bade me beware of you, for that you looked upon me as a child of the Evil One!" "I am over cruelly maligned," said Percival, swallowing with difficulty the eager words with which he was on the point of repudiating an idea so wholly contrary to his mind. "But Lady Rosamond ever loves a jest, and I will confess that she practised her deception right well. I thank you, fair Mistress Primrose, for enlightening my credulity, and now I must bid you good-night, for I have much study to complete before midnight."

Primrose lay motionless upon the grass for some moments after he had left them, and Lady Bryn Afon stroked tenderly the fair head upon her knee, but said nothing; only when they parted for the night she folded her in a close embrace, and bade God bless her with an unwonted fondness, which went to the young girl's heart. Sleep closed that night unwilling eyelids. Lady Bryn Afon and Primrose lay long awake, each occupied with thoughts of their own, and Percival Vere stole forth from a restless couch at midnight into the mountains, to wrestle and pray in solitude and silence, till the first rose of dawn flushed the heavens.

At Caer Caradoc, on the following forenoon, Primrose was met by her old friend the vicar of Cwmfelin, and with a loving embrace from Lady Bryn Afon and a last long look and pressure of the hand from Master Vere, that brief dream of bliss came to its close.

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