CHAPTER XII.

FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE.

“I have to see Dr. Netherbridge on business,” said Stella, while the doctor’s wife peered out with disapproval at her matutinal visitor’s fresh young face.

“Oh!” said Mrs. Netherbridge, dryly. “Are you ill?”

“No.”

“My husband, Dr. Netherbridge, is not accustomed to receive visitors who do not come about illness at seven o’clock in the morning. He isn’t down yet. If you want to see him, you had better call again.”

And with that, Dr. Netherbridge’s helpmeet was shutting the door in Stella’s face, when a man’s voice from the floor above was heard inquiring who the visitor was.

“I am Miss Cranstoun, from the Chase, Dr. Netherbridge, and I shall be grateful if you can spare me a few minutes’ conversation.”

“Certainly--certainly. I will be down immediately. Letitia, show Miss Cranstoun into the drawing-room.”

The top-spinning boy, finding time hanging heavily on his hands, had followed Stella to the doctor’s house, and remained near, staring, while the young lady, holding Black Bess’ bridle, stood parleying with Mrs. Netherbridge by the open door. Stella caught sight of him now, and addressed him, with one of her charming smiles.

“Are you clever enough to hold this horse for me while I go inside the house for a few minutes?” she inquired. “You shall have sixpence for your trouble.”

The boy nodded, and Stella followed Mrs. Netherbridge, who, with frosty civility, showed her into a prim and old-maidish drawing-room, where she was soon joined by Dr. Netherbridge.

“Forgive me for disturbing you so early,” Stella began. The little doctor’s face inspired in her exactly the same feeling of confidence and friendliness which her mother had felt toward him years ago.

“I have come,” she continued, “because I think you are the only person who can and will tell me the truth on a most important point. Yesterday, when you saw me for the first time, you said you recognized me by my likeness to my mother. The present Lady Cranstoun and I are totally dissimilar; you cannot, therefore, have meant _her_.”

Her brilliant dark-blue eyes were fixed searchingly, imploringly upon his face. Dr. Netherbridge was too sincere not to change color and show some slight sign of embarrassment.

“Family likenesses are unaccountable things,” he was beginning, when she cut him short.

“There is no longer any need for concealment,” she said, eagerly. “Last night Sir Philip Cranstoun told me I was born in a hovel, and daughter of a gypsy. Are those things true?”

“You were certainly born in a small cottage on your father’s property in this neighborhood,” the doctor answered; “and your mother was of gypsy extraction.”

“Tell me all you can about her.”

“She must have been extremely beautiful when in good health. At the time when I first met her, she was very little older than you are now, but she was deliberately starving herself to death, and her beauty was necessarily impaired.”

“How did you come to know her?” she asked, hanging upon his words in deep anxiety. “Was she--was she allowed to come to the Chase?”

“Allowed to come? Surely. Lady Cranstoun lived there until a few weeks before your birth, when, presumably after a quarrel with your father, she fled from her home at night, and went back to her own people.”

Stella sank into a chair, her hands tightly clasped together. Dr. Netherbridge saw the unmistakable relief in her face, and hastened to remove any doubt which might still trouble her as to her position.

“Your mother’s maiden name was Clare Carewe. She herself told me her history. As a very little girl, she ran away from the caravan in which she was brought up, and her beauty having attracted the attention of a very rich lady, who was Sir Philip Cranstoun’s sister, she was educated and adopted by her; and from her house at Torquay, Sir Philip secretly married her. Their first child died, and, so far as I could judge, it was a most unhappy marriage. Finally, one night, when some of your mother’s relations made their way into the plantation to speak to her, they were savagely attacked by gamekeepers as poachers; one of the gypsies, who was unhappily Lady Cranstoun’s father, was accidentally shot, and her brother was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, in spite of Sir Philip’s efforts to save him.”

“How terrible!” burst from Stella’s lips. “How she must have suffered!”

“She did indeed. Very soon after your birth, I was sent for by a gypsy lad, and on the following day I accompanied two nursewomen to your father’s house. Your mother, meanwhile, had died, and the gypsies had removed her body. I broke the news to Sir Philip, but as soon as he heard that the child was a girl, he flew into a furious passion, and ordered the women to take you away; nor could I do more than insist that he should know the address in London to which you were taken and provide some money for your maintenance. From that day I never met you until yesterday. But I shall never forget your mother’s face, and at first sight of you the likeness impressed me so strongly that I spoke without thinking.”

“Thank you,” she said, after a pause, rising and giving him her hand. “Thank you for your kindness to my mother, and to me also. I must be getting back now.”

She paused a minute. Then she asked curiously:

“What were they like, these gypsy people, my mother’s relations?”

“Very big, handsome men, from what I remember, and evidently of very strong family affections. There was an old woman, too, reputed to be a witch. I believe she is still alive, and that the peasants about here actually go to her to have illnesses or scars and moles charmed away. I hope I have told you nothing to distress you,” he added, kindly.

“No; I am grateful to you,” she answered, rewarding him with a smile as she passed from the room, almost colliding with Mrs. Netherbridge, who was fluttering about in the passage outside suspiciously near the keyhole.

Stella threw a shilling to the boy who held Black Bess, and with very slight assistance from him, vaulted into the saddle and turned the mare’s head in the direction where her master lay. Black Bess flew like an arrow from a bow, and the journey occupied even less time than in coming. The blood rushed over Stella’s face and neck as she saw, standing in the courtyard of the inn, watching her ride up, the tall, massive figure of Hilary Pritchard, with one arm in a sling, the sun shining on his yellow curls.

Without a word, he helped her to dismount, and entered the coffee-room with her. It was but a little after eight o’clock, and no one was there except a servant, bustling in and out, laying the breakfast things. To her Hilary turned, and begged her not to trouble, as he should not want the meal for a long while yet, and the girl, with a demure nod that was almost a wink, left the room, and contented herself with peeping through the glass upper portion of the door.

Hilary led Stella to a seat and sat beside her, looking down into her lowered face. Until now she had been self-possessed and buoyed up by a determination to carry her mission through. Now she faltered and trembled, hardly daring to look into her lover’s face.

“You will forgive me for borrowing Black Bess?” she said at last.

“Forgive you! What a request! She has never carried a lady before, and never will again any other than you. But won’t your parents be angry with you for coming off here like this? It was my friend the hostler who woke me up to tell me that Miss Cranstoun had borrowed my mare to go into Grayling, and that at the pace she was going she would soon be back. I got up at once--there is nothing the matter with me to-day.”

“You look certainly better than you did yesterday night,” she said, and then stopped short, blushing deeply.

“I know about your goodness in coming to see how I was,” he said, lifting her hand to his lips. “Our good genius the hostler told me of it this morning. But, my dear girl, are you wise in coming this morning? It is all so hopeless. Look at the difference between us. It was the height of presumption on my part to dare to fall in love with you; and, indeed, nothing was farther from my intention.”

“I loved you the moment you laid your hand on Zephyr’s bridle and looked up into my face,” she murmured, nestling closer to him, and letting her hand steal into his. “I really wanted to obey you as soon as you spoke to me, but I suppose a spirit of perversity urged me the other way. When you were wounded, I was in an agony of anxiety and remorse; otherwise, I should never have dared to bring you to the house. But all that about our not being equals is done away with now. It is true that I am Sir Philip Cranstoun’s daughter, but my mother was his first wife, and she was nothing more than a beautiful gypsy, brought up on charity by a rich lady. So you see,” she added, triumphantly, “it is all the other way round, and _I_ am not good enough for _you_!”

He was silent for a few moments.

“Have you told Lord Carthew what you have told me?” he asked at length.

“No. But I mean to. He will soon take back his offer, then.”

“His offer?” he repeated, in surprise. “Has he made you an offer, then?”

“Yes. Didn’t you know? Oh, of course, I have never had an opportunity of telling you. Lord Carthew asked me to marry him while we were out riding yesterday morning.”

“What did you say?”

“I--oh--I said I would think about it, or something of that sort.”

“You did not say ‘No’ outright?”--in a disappointed tone. “Stella, was all that before, or _after_, I woke up and saw you?”

“Oh, how can you ask me? It was _before_, of course?”

“And you were ready to marry Carthew at the time?”

“Don’t--don’t--be hard on me, and don’t look so stern and cold. How can I make you understand? You had said things against me that I had overheard. I believed, I really and truly believed, that you couldn’t bear me. And it made me mad with myself to find that I couldn’t keep you out of my thoughts for one minute. It seemed so dreadful--so forward and unwomanly--to be always thinking of a man who cared nothing for me. Then, too, you must remember that I longed with all my heart to escape from the Chase. You don’t know what our lives have been, poor mamma’s and mine, ever since I can remember. Lord Carthew knows----”

“Oh, Lord Carthew knows?” interrupting her, jealously. “You could confide in _him_, but not in me.”

She looked at him very sweetly for a moment, and then burst out laughing.

“Dear Hilary,” she said, “remember that it is only two days since we first met, and that this is the first chance of a real talk we have had together. Whereas Lord Carthew and I----”

“You have had many interesting talks, I have no doubt,” he said, morosely, his handsome face clouding. “He is far cleverer than I, and can talk well on any subject. The wonder is that you don’t prefer him to me.”

“Isn’t it?” she assented, demurely, rubbing her cheeks softly against his coat-sleeve. “But there is no accounting for tastes, and--it may be my mad gypsy origin--but I decidedly prefer _you_.”

He raised one of her little hands to his lips and covered the finger-tips with kisses, smiling in spite of himself at the coquetry which had come so naturally to her in so short a time.

“Go on with what you were saying about the sadness of your life,” he said. “I want to know everything that you told Carthew.”

Stella had had hardly any experience of men; but she was a true woman, and her keen feminine instinct taught her that this man she loved was of a totally different temperament from the man who loved her. Hilary’s mind was of a direct, practical, common-sense order. In all his life he had thought but little of love for women, and now that the feeling overmastered him, he was inclined to question its authority, as well as to fly into paroxysms of jealousy without sufficient reason. He was not in the least conceited, and rather overrated Lord Carthew’s higher mental endowments, together with his eloquent tongue, high rank and wealth, when pitted against his own dower from nature of bone, and muscle, and manly beauty. He knew that Carthew loved Stella, and it would have seemed very natural to him that his passion should be returned. Above all, he did not wish to act toward his friend in a dishonorable and disloyal manner. Against his will, his blood leaped in his veins, as the young girl leaned toward him, lifting her beautiful, innocent eyes, with the light of love shining in them, to his face. Against his will, he clasped his arm about her waist, and felt that the world before him, with all its hopes, was well lost for the sake of a kiss from her soft, red lips.

“I can’t talk to you if you stop me like that,” Stella remonstrated, with a happy little laugh; “and do, pray, remember that that door is partly of glass, and people can see through it. Another moment and they will be having breakfast at the Chase. If my father finds out where I have been, he will half kill me.”

“Is he so bad as that?” he asked, wonderingly.

“He is, indeed. You haven’t even seen him, and you cannot, therefore, understand. Hilary, he _hates_ me, and until this morning I have never been able to understand why, or why, try as I might to like him, and to feel dutifully toward him, a cold shudder of dislike creeps over me when he comes near. Last night he grew furiously angry with me because I refused to marry Lord Carthew, and he told me then for the first time, with the idea, I suppose, of humiliating me, that my dear mamma was not my mother at all, but that I was really the daughter of an ignorant gypsy woman. It seemed too strange to be believed, but it was all true. This morning at six o’clock I climbed out of my bedroom window, as he had locked me into my room, and came here to borrow a horse with which to find out Dr. Netherbridge at Grayling. He confirmed Sir Philip’s words. The first Lady Cranstoun was a lovely gypsy girl, brought up on charity by Sir Philip’s sister, with whom he fell in love, and made a most wretched marriage. Not many days before I was born, my mother, heart-broken at the treatment she received, ran back to her own people, and among them, in a tumble-down little cottage not far from here, I was born, eighteen and a half years ago. So now you understand,” she concluded, triumphantly, “that so far from being a great lady, I come from the class of people who are driven from town to town by the police, branded as thieves and poachers, with the band of every respectable man and woman against them.”

She spoke bitterly, and something in her words and tone shocked Hilary a little. He had none of the love for the original and the unexpected in woman which had probably come to Lord Carthew from his brilliant little American mother. Hilary’s mother was the pretty and graceful daughter of a country clergyman, who had in her youth revelled in lawn-tennis and crewel-work, and whose ideas on all subjects were equally orthodox and limited. Hilary was fond of his mother, and she had heretofore supplied his ideal of femininity; he had not yet had time to adjust his aspirations toward a different standard.

“Do you quite realize what you are doing, I wonder?” he asked her suddenly, turning and taking her face into his hand while he scrutinized it closely, with a half-angry, half-hungry look. “What you are doing, I mean, in throwing over a man like Carthew for the sake of a man like me? He is heir to an earldom; his father is well off, and in a very brilliant position; his mother is extremely wealthy; he distinguished himself so greatly at college that people expect great things of him. While, as for me, the higher education was wasted on me; I was never good for anything but athletics. I am leaving England to rough it in Canada, trying to make a farm pay. I can keep a wife, certainly, upon what I have, but not such a wife as you.”

“Don’t you want me?” she asked, simply, looking him straight in the eyes.

“Want you? Good heavens! I would give my soul for you! But I won’t be played with. By some magic of your own you have made me love you, and you must take the consequences. Stella, I love you, and if you plight me your troth now, I _must_ marry you. If you now, in the face of what I have put before you and what you know, still choose to cling to me, I swear to you that I will marry no woman but you, and that you shall marry no man but me!”

She looked into his face, flushed and excited as it was, his brown eyes shining like her own.

“On my honor, I swear,” she said, solemnly, “that whatever pressure is brought to bear upon me, I will marry no one but you, Hilary Pritchard.”

Their lips met in that interminably long kiss of first love, given and returned, the kiss which comes once in a lifetime to a chosen few, and to many comes never at all--a kiss in which time and space are obliterated, and in which two spirits seem to meet in regions far beyond this work-a-day world of ours.

Moved out of herself, in an ecstasy of emotion, perhaps at the happiest, certainly at the first perfectly happy moment of her life, Stella felt rather than heard a harsh, low-pitched voice, asking for Miss Cranstoun in the hall immediately outside the coffee-room.

She turned instinctively toward Hilary for protection as she whispered:

“It is my father!”

He flung his arm round her and held her to him a moment. The next, the door was burst open, and Sir Philip Cranstoun stood before them, white and quivering with rage. For a moment he stared at the pair before him, taking in every detail of Hilary’s appearance. Then he addressed his daughter in tones of withering scorn.

“May I ask who is this person with whom you appear to be on such extremely familiar terms?”

Stella slipped her hand within Hilary’s and gained strength from the contact.

“It is Mr. Hilary Pritchard,” she said, “the gentleman I have promised to marry.”