LITMIR.BIZ

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"I came back. I did not like to think that you should come alone."

      Stella was silent.

      "Are you angry?" he asked, in a low voice.

      Stella was silent for a moment, then she looked at him frankly.

      "No," she said.

      If she had but said "yes," and turned back! But the path, all beautiful with the bright coloring of Spring stretched before her, and she had no thought of turning back, no thought or suspicion of the dark and perilous land toward which she was traveling by his side.

      Already the glamour of love was falling upon her like the soft mist of a Summer evening; blindly, passively she was moving toward the fate which the gods had prepared for her.

      CHAPTER VII

      Side by side they walked across the meadows; the larks rising before them and soaring up to the heavens with a burst of song; the river running in silvery silence to the sea; the green trees waving gently in the Summer breeze; and above them the long stretching gray masonry of Wyndward Hall.

      Lord Leycester was strangely silent for some minutes since that "Are you angry?" and Stella, as she walked by his side, stooping now and again to gather a cowslip, glanced up at his face and wondered whether her uncle could be mistaken, whether they were not all deceived in thinking the quiet, graceful creature with the beautiful face and dreamy, almost womanly, soft eyes, wild and reckless, and desperate and altogether bad. She almost forgot how she had seen him on that first night of their meeting, with his whip upraised and the sudden fire of anger in his eyes.

      Presently he spoke, so suddenly that Stella, who had been lost in her speculations respecting him, started guiltily:

      "I have been wondering," he said, "how Mr. Etheridge takes the change which your presence must make in the cottage."

      Stella looked up with surprise, then she smiled.

      "He bears it with admirable resignation," she said, with that air of meek archness which her uncle found so amusing.

      Lord Leycester looked down at her.

      "That is a rebuke for the presumption of my remark?" he said.

      "No," said Stella.

      "I did not mean to be presumptuous. Think. Your uncle has lived the whole of his life alone, the life of a solitary, a hermit; suddenly there enters into that life a young and beau – a young girl, full of the spirit of youth and its aspirations. It must make a great change."

      "As I said," says Stella, "he bears it with pious fortitude." Then she added, in a lower voice, "He is very good to me."

      "He could not be otherwise," was the quiet response. "I mean that he could not be anything but good, gentle, and loving with any living thing. I have known him since I was a boy," he added. "He was always the same, always living a life of dreams. I wonder whether he takes you as a dream?"

      "A very substantial and responsible one, then," said Stella, with her little laugh. "One that lasts through the daytime."

      He looked at her with that strange intent look which she had learned that she could not meet.

      "And you?" he said.

      "I?" said Stella, though she knew what he meant.

      He nodded.

      "How do you like the change? – this still, quiet life in the Thames valley. Are you tired of it already? Will you pine for all the gayeties you have left?"

      Stella looked up at him – his eyes were still fixed on hers.

      "I have left no gayeties," she said. "I left a bare and horrid school that was as unlike home as the desert of Sahara is like this lovely meadow. How do I feel? As if I had been translated to Paradise – as if I, who was beginning to think that I was alone in the world I had no business to be in, had found some one friend to love – "

      She paused, and he, glancing at the black waistband to her white dress, said, with the tenderest, most humble voice:

      "I beg your pardon. Will you forgive me? – I did not know – "

      And his voice broke.

      Stella looked up at him with a smile shining through the unshed tears.

      "How – why should you know? Yes, I was quite alone in the world. My father died a year ago."

      "Forgive me," he murmured; and he laid his hand with a feather's weight on her arm. "I implore you to forgive me. It was cruel and thoughtless."

      "No," said Stella. "How should you know?"

      "If I had been anything better than an unthinking brute, I might have guessed."

      There was a moment's pause, then Stella spoke.

      "Yes, it is Paradise. I had no idea England was like this, they called it the land of fogs."

      "You have not seen London on a November evening," he said, with a laugh. "Most foreigners come over to England and put up at some hotel at the west-end, and judge the whole land by the London sample – very few come even so far as this. You have not been to London?"

      "I passed through it," said Stella, "that is all. But I heard a great deal about it last night," she added, with a smile.

      "Yes!" he said, with great interest – "last night?"

      "Yes, at Mrs. Hamilton's. She was kind enough to ask me to an evening party, and one of the guests took great pains to impress me with the importance and magnificence of London."

      He looked at her.

      "May I ask who she was?" he said.

      "It was not a she, but a gentleman. It was Mr. Adelstone."

      Lord Leycester thought a moment.

      "Adelstone. Adelstone. I don't know him."

      Before she was quite aware of it the retort slipped from her lips.

      "He knows you."

      He looked at her with a thoughtful smile.

      "Does he? I don't remember him. Stay, yes, isn't he a relation of Mr. Fielding's?"

      "His nephew," said Stella, and feeling the dark, penetrating eyes on her she blushed faintly. It annoyed her, and she struggled to suppress it, but the blush came and he saw it.

      "I remember him now," he said; "a tall, thin dark man. A lawyer, I believe. Yes, I remember him. And he told you about London?"

      "Yes," said Stella, and as she remembered the conversation of a few hours ago, her color deepened. "He is very amusing and well-informed, and he took pity on my ignorance in the kindest way. I was very grateful."

      There was something in her tone that made him look at her questioningly.

      "I think," he said, "your gratitude is easily earned."

      "Oh, no," she retorted; "I am the most ungrateful of beings. Isn't that uncle sitting there?" she added, quickly, to change the subject.

      He looked up.

      "Yes, he is hard at work. I did not think I should have won him. It was my sister's name that worked the magic charm."

      "He is fond of your sister," said Stella, thoughtfully.

      His eyes were on her in an instant.

      "He has spoken of her?" he said.

      Stella could have bitten her tongue out for the slip.

      "Yes," she said. "He – he told me about her – I asked him whose house it was upon the hills."

      "Meaning the Hall?" he said, pointing with his whip.

      "Yes, and he told me. I knew by the way he spoke of your sister that he was fond of her. Her name is Lilian, is it not?"

      "Yes," he said, "Lilian," and the name left his lips with soft tenderness. "I think every one who knows her loves her. This picture is for her."

      Stella glanced up at his face; anything less imperious at that moment it would be impossible to imagine.

      "Lady Lilian is fond

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