CHAPTER X

"I AM BUT A SLAVE, AND YET I BID THEE COME"

"Were there any letters for me this morning, mother?" Paul asked.

"Only one for you, I think," Mrs. de Vaux answered from across the tea-tray. "I believe you will find it in the library. Shall I send for it?"

Paul shook his head. "It will keep," he answered lightly. "I can get it on my way upstairs. Have we anything left to tell, Lady May?"

"I think not," Lady May replied, from the depths of an easy chair drawn up to the fire. "Altogether it has been a glorious day, and such a scent! I don't know when I have enjoyed anything so much."

"Nor I!" Paul answered heartily. "The going was superb, and that second fox took us over a grand stretch of country. Really, if it hadn't been for the walls here and there, we might have been in Leicestershire! May I have some more tea, mother?"

Mrs. de Vaux stretched out her hand for his cup, and smiled gently at their enthusiasm. She had been a hunting woman all her life; and, though she seldom even drove to a meet now, she liked to have her son come in to afternoon tea with her, and talk over the run. Of late, too, he had seemed so pale and listless that she had been getting a little anxious. She had begun to fear that he must be out of health, or that the monotony of Vaux Abbey was wearying him, and that he would be leaving her again soon. But to-day she had watched him ride up the avenue, with Lady May, and it seemed to her that there was a change in his bearing—a change for the better; and, looking at him now, she was sure of it. A faint glow was in his cheeks, and his eyes were brighter. His manner, too, to Lady May pleased her more. He had ridden home with her; from their conversation, they seemed to have been together almost all day; and there seemed to be a spirit of bon comeradie between the two, as they talked over their doings, which certainly pointed to a good understanding. Altogether Mrs. de Vaux was pleased and hopeful.

And, indeed, she had reason to be, for his long day in the open country with Lady May had been like a strong, sweet tonic to Paul. For the first time since his return to Vaux Abbey he had felt that a time might come when he would be able to escape altogether from those lingering, bitter-sweet memories which were all that remained to him now of Adrea. On the bare, windy moor, with the glow of physical exercise and excitement coursing through his veins, and Lady May's pleasant voice in his ears, that little scene in the rose-lit chamber seemed for a moment very far away. Adrea, with her soft, passion-lit eyes, and dusky, oriental face, her lithe, voluptuous figure and the faint perfumes of her rustling draperies, seemed less to him then than a short while ago he could have believed possible. He could not think of that scene without a shudder,—it had left its mark in a certain way for ever,—but it was not so constantly present to him. He knew that, for the first time, a woman had tempted him sorely. He knew, too, and he alone, how nearly he had yielded. His sudden passion, her strange Eastern beauty, and the fascination which it had exercised over him, together with the soft sensuousness of her surroundings, had formed a strong coalition, and to-day he recognised, for the first time, how much he owed his victory to the girl who was riding by his side. Even in those breathless moments of hesitation he had found time to consider that if he yielded to Adrea's pleading, he could never again take Lady May's hand, or meet her frank, open gaze. The pure healthfulness of life which had been so dear to him would be tainted for ever. The moorland breezes of his northern home would never strike the same chords in his nature again. All these recollections had flashed across his mind at that critical moment, lending strength to resist and crush his passion. And to-day he had commenced to reap his reward. To-day he had tasted once more the sweets of these things, and found how dear they still were to him. He could still look into Lady May's fair, pure face unshamed, and find all the old pleasure in listening to her frank, girlish talk; and he could still bare his head to the sweeping winds, and lift his face to the sun and gaze with silent admiration at the faint, deepening colours in the western sky, as Lady May and he rode homeward across the moor in the late afternoon. All these joys would have been lost to him for ever,—these and many others. Adrea could never have repaid him for their loss.

So Paul, who had come home from London pale and silent, with the marks of a great struggle upon him, lay back in an arm chair and watched the firelight play upon Lady May's fair face with more than a passive interest. Mrs. de Vaux's cherished scheme had never been so near its accomplishment; for if she could have read Paul's thoughts she would have known that he was thinking of Lady May more tenderly than he had ever done before. Meeting his steadfast, almost wistful, gaze, she became almost confused, and suddenly rising, she shook out the skirts of her riding habit, and took up her hat and whip.

"It has been such a delightful rest," she said, looking away from Paul and speaking to his mother. "I shall never forget how good that tea tasted! But I really must go, Mrs. de Vaux! My poor animal is quite done up, and I shall have to walk all the way home."

"I don't know whether I did right," Paul said, rising, "but I sent your groom straight on home with the mare, and ordered a brougham for you. She has had a long day, and I thought it would be more comfortable for you."

She flashed a grateful glance at him. "How thoughtful and how kind you are! Of course it will be nicer! I was beginning to feel a little selfish, too, for keeping Betty out of her stable so long."

"As a reward we will keep you a little longer," he remarked. "It is only six o'clock!"

She shook her head. "No I won't stop, thanks! There are some tiresome people coming to dine to-night, and I must go home. Good-bye, Lady de Vaux!"

Paul strolled down the hall with her and handed her into the carriage. For the first time in his life he held her hand a little tighter and a little longer than was necessary.

"Shall you be at home to-morrow afternoon, Lady May?" he asked quietly.

She looked up at him for a moment, and then her eyes drooped, and her heart beat a little faster. She understood him.

"Yes!" she answered softly.

"I shall ride over then! Good-bye!"

"Good-bye!"

He lingered on the doorstep for a minute, watching the carriage roll down the avenue. When it had disappeared, he turned back into the hall, and after a moment's hesitation, entered the library.

It was a large, sombre-looking apartment, scarcely ever entered by anyone save Paul. The bookcases reached only half-way up the walls, the upper portion of which was hung with oil portraits, selected from the picture gallery. At the lower end of the room the shelves had been built out at right angles to the wall, lined with books, and in one of the recesses so-formed—almost as large as an ordinary-sized chamber—Paul had his writing-table surrounded by his favourite volumes. It was a delightful little miniature library. Facing him, six rows of black oak shelves held a fine collection of classical literature; on his left, the lower shelves contained rare editions of the early English dramatists, and the upper ones were given up to poetry, from Chaucer to Swinburne. The right-hand shelves were wholly French, from quaint volumes of troubadours' poetry to Alfred de Musset and De Maupassant. It was here Paul spent most of his time when at the Abbey.

The meet had been rather a long way off that morning, and he had left before the arrival of the post-bag from the neighbouring town. Mrs. de Vaux had distributed the letters, and the one she had spoken of lay at the edge of the table. He stretched out his hand to take it up—without any presentiments, without any thought as to whom it might be from. An invitation, doubtless, or a begging letter he imagined, as he caught sight of the large square envelope. But suddenly, before his fingers had closed upon it, he started and stood quite still, leaning over the back of his chair. His heart was beating fast, and there was a mist before his eyes—a mist through which he saw, as though in a dream, the walls of his library melt away, to be replaced by the dainty interior of that little room in Grey Street, with all the dim luxury of its soft colouring and adornment. He saw her too, the centre of the picture—saw her as she seemed to him before that final scene—saw her half-kneeling, half-crouching, before him, with her beautiful dark eyes, yearning and passionate, fixed upon his in mute, but wonderfully eloquent, pleading. Oh! it was folly, but it was sweet, marvellously sweet. Every nerve seemed thrilled with the exquisite pleasure of the memory so suddenly called up to him, and his lips quivered with the thought of what he might have said to her. The strange, voluptuous perfume which crept upwards from that letter seemed in a measure to have paralysed him. He stood there like a man entranced, with the dim firelight on one side and the low horned moon through the high window on his left, casting a strange, vivid light on his pale face—paler even than usual against the scarlet of his hunting-coat. That letter! What could it contain? Was it a recall, or a fresh torrent of anger? He stood there quite still, leaning over the back of the high-backed oak chair emblazoned with the De Vaux arms, and making no motion towards taking it up.

A sound from outside—the low rumbling of a gong—roused him at last, and he pushed the chair hastily away from him. His first impulse was one of anger, of shame, that he, a strong man, as he had deemed himself, should have been so moved by a simple flood of memories. It seemed ignoble to him and a frown gathered on his forehead as he reached forward and picked up the letter. Yet his fingers trembled as they tore it open, and his eyes ran over the contents rapidly.

"18 GREY STREET, LONDON, W., Thursday.

"Monsieur Paul, my hand trembles a little when I sit down to write to you, and think of our last parting. But write to you I must! I am very humble now, and very, very much ashamed! Shall I go on and say that I am very sad and lonely,—for it is so! I am miserable! I have been miserable every moment since that day! Forgive me, Monsieur Paul, forgive me! my guardian. I behaved quite dreadfully, and I deserved to be punished. Believe me! I am punished. I have had scarcely any sleep, and my eyes are swollen with weeping. I have cancelled all my engagements this week, and I have closed my doors to everybody. Oh! be generous, Monsieur Paul! be generous and forgive me! I have suffered so much,—it is right that I should, for I was much to blame. Will you not let fall some kindly veil of memory over that afternoon. I was mad. Let what I said be unsaid! Let me be again just what you called me,—your ward. I ask for nothing more! Be cold, if you will, and stern! Scold me! and I will but say that I have deserved it! Only come to me! Come and let me hear your own lips tell me that I am forgiven. I will do everything that you ask! I will not see Arthur if he calls,—you shall tell me yourself how to answer his letters,—I have a little pile of them here. Monsieur Paul, you must come! You must come, or I shall be driven to—but no! I will not threaten. You would not care whatever happened to me, would you? I am very, very lonely. I wish that I could have telegraphed all this, and had you here to-night! But you would not have come! Yet, perhaps you would, out of kindness to a solitary girl. I like to think that you would have!

"Monsieur Paul, you have been good to the 'little brown girl,' as you used to call her, all your life! Do not forsake her now. She has been very mad and wicked, but she is very, very penitent. Celeste tells me that I am looking thin and ill, and my looking-glass says the same. It is because I am unhappy; it is because my guardian is angry with me, and he is so far away. Oh! Monsieur Paul, come, come, come to me! It shall be all as you wish! I will obey you in everything. Only forgive!

"Yours,

"ADREA."