CHAPTER XL A HORRIBLE MISTAKE

What led me there I cannot imagine, save it was a wild desire to escape for a brief while from the thoughts that were tormenting me, but an hour or two later I was on the Marina, mixing with gay throngs of merry pleasure-seekers, stalking amongst them like a Banquo at a feast. And whom should I meet there but Lady Olive! Lady Olive alone, for her brother and sister had left her for a moment to buy bonbons.

She greeted me with some laughing speech, but her face grew grave as she looked into my face.

"Something has happened, Mr. Arbuthnot?" she said quickly; and then, as I made no answer, she placed her hand in my arm, and led me away from the people down towards the seat on which we had sat the first evening of our meeting there.

It was a night which mocks description. The sweet, subtle perfumes with which the soft night breeze was laden, the dark boughs of the cypress-trees over our heads, the glittering, sparkling sea stretching away before us to the horizon, the picturesque town with its white villas and rows of houses standing out clear and distinct in the brilliant moonlight—all these had a softening effect upon me. I looked into Lady Olive's dark expressive eyes, and I felt as though I must weep.

I do not believe that there lives a man who has not, at some time or other of his existence, felt a longing for a woman's sympathy. There is an art and a tact in its bestowal which only a woman properly understands. A man may speak words of comfort in a rough, hearty sort of way; but the chances are that he will strike the wrong vein and leave unsaid the words which would have been most efficient. He has not the keen, fine perceptions which a woman has in such matters, and which have made it her peculiar province to play the part of comforter.

I was not then, or at any other time, in love with Lady Olive. But as I looked into her dark, eager eyes as we sat side by side on the seat under the cypress-trees, I could not help thinking that it would be very pleasant to win from her a few kind words and the sympathy which I knew was there waiting to be kindled, and so, when she asked me again what was the matter, I hesitated only for a moment and then told her.

She knew most of my history; why should she not know all? And so I told her, and she listened with all the gaiety gone from her face, and her eyes growing sadder and sadder. When I had finished there were great tears in them.

"What can I say to comfort you?" she whispered, softly. "Tell me, and I will say it—anything!"

My sorrow had blunted my senses, or I must have seen whither we were drifting; but I was blind, blind with the selfishness of a great grief, and I caught at her sympathy like a drowning man at a straw.

"I am alone in the world, Lady Olive, or I shall be in a week or two's time," I said. "Tell me what to do with myself."

"How can I tell you?" she answered with streaming eyes. "But you must not say that you are alone in the world. My father would be your friend if you would let him—and so would I."

I took her hand, which yielded itself readily to mine, and raised it to my lips. I felt just then as though I dare not speak, lest my voice should be unsteady. I looked instead into her face gratefully, and it seemed to me that a change had come over it, a change which puzzled me. The lips were quivering, and out of her soft, tender eyes the laughing sparkle seemed to have gone. It was another Lady Olive, surely, this grave, sweet-faced, tremulous woman, with her eyes cast down, and a faint pink glow in her cheeks! Nothing of the gay, light-hearted, chattering little flirt, with her arch looks and piquant attitude, seemed left. I was puzzled. Was she indeed so tender-hearted?

"And do you really mean," she whispered, stealing a glance up at me, "that if your father goes away, there is nothing left in the world which could give you any pleasure? Nothing you would wish for?"

I thought of Maud—when was I not thinking of her?—and sighed bitterly.

"Only one thing," I said, "and that I cannot have."

"Won't you tell me what it is?" she asked, hesitatingly, with her eyes fixed upon the ground.

I shook my head. "I think not. No, it would be better not."

There was a short silence. Then she lifted her beautiful eyes to mine for a moment, and dropped them again, instantly, with a deep blush: I was puzzled. There was something in them which I could not read, something inviting, beseeching, tender. Knowing what I know now, it seems to me that I must have been a blind, senseless fool. But it is easy to be wise afterwards, and my own sorrows were absorbing every sense.

"Will you tell me this?" she asked. "Does this one thing include somebody else?"

She had read my secret, then; she knew that I loved Maud. Well, it was not very strange that she should have guessed it after all!

"Yes, you have guessed it, Lady Olive," I said quietly, with my eyes fixed upon the line of the horizon where a star-bespangled sky seemed to touch the glistening, dancing sea. "You have guessed it; but remember, I never told you."

I felt a soft breath on my cheek, and before I could move a pair of white arms were thrown around my neck, and a tear-stained, half-blushing, half-smiling face, with a mass of ruffled hair, was lying on my shoulder.

"Wh—why have you made me guess, Hugh? Why could you not tell me? You know that—that I—I love you."

*****

"Father, I have decided."

I stood before him dishevelled and weary, for I had been out all night, seeking to ease my heart of its pain by physical fatigue.

He turned and looked at me in surprise—a surprise which changed into a look of grave sorrow as his eyes dwelt upon me.

"Hugh, you have been up all night," he said, reprovingly; "you will be ill!"

I laughed recklessly.

"What matters? Do men die of a broken heart, I wonder? I would that they did."

He came to me and laid his hands upon my shoulders.

"Hugh, my boy, do you want to break mine?"

I turned away, and buried my face in my hands. This last sorrow, which had come to me filling me with shame, with self-reproach, with pity, had been the filling of my cup.

Lady Olive's white, horror-struck face, as my blundering words had told her the truth, had been before me all the night, and like a haunting, reproachful shadow, seemed as though it would never leave me. I was unnerved and weak, and before I well knew what was going to happen, the hot tears were streaming from my eyes.

I was the better for them. When I stood before my father again I felt more like myself.

"I have decided," I said calmly. "I have prayed you to let me go with you, and you have refused. God knows I would rather go with you; but, if you will not have me, I must stay behind. I will take the name of Devereux, since you wish it, and since you say that my taking it will make you happier. But into Devereux Court I will not go. I have sworn it before heaven, and I will not break my oath!"

"But you will see your grandfather?"

"I will see him anywhere else but at Devereux. I shall write him and tell him so. And as to my future, I have but one desire—to enter the army."

A look almost of peace came into my father's face.

"You have made me very glad, Hugh," he said simply. "But about our home? Supposing your grandfather and I both die, and you became Sir Hugh Devereux?"

"Then my oath ceases, and I shall go there. But whilst he holds out his hand to me, and not to you, I will not take it. That will I not depart from."

My father said never another word; but I knew that he was satisfied.