He read it slowly, tears gathering fast in his eyes, his lips quivering, and his hands tightly clinched.
"My poor Beatrice!" he exclaimed; and then the strength of his young manhood gave way, and Lionel Dacre wept as he had never wept before. "The mean, pitiful scoundrel!" he cried, angry indignation rising as he thought of her cruel death. "The wretched villain--to stand by while she died!"
"Hush!" said Lord Earle. "He has gone to his account. What have you to say to me, Lionel? Because I had a miserable quarrel with my wife I abandoned my children. I never cared to see them from the time they were babes until they were women grown. How guilty am I? That man believed he was about to raise Beatrice in the social scale when he asked her to be his wife, or as he says, he would never have dreamed of proposing to marry my daughter. If he merits blame, what do I deserve?"
"It was a false position, certainly," replied Lionel Dacre.
"This secret must be kept inviolate," said Lord Earle. "Lord Airlie must never know it--it would kill Lady Helena, I believe.
One thing puzzles me, Lionel--Fernely says Lillian met him. I do not think that is true."
"It is!" cried Lionel, a sudden light breaking in upon him. "I saw her with him. Oh, Lord Earle, you may be proud of Lillian!
She is the noblest, truest girl that ever lived. Why, she sacrificed her own love, her own happiness, for her sister! She loved me; and when this wedding, which will never now take place, was over, I intended to ask you to give me Lillian. One night, quite accidentally, while I was wandering in the grounds with a cigar, I saw her speaking to a stranger, her fair sweet face full of pity and compassion, which I mistook for love. Shame to me that I was base enough to doubt her--that I spoke to her the words I uttered! I demanded to know who it was she had met, and why she had met him. She asked me to trust her, saying she could not tell me. I stabbed her with cruel words, and left her vowing that I would never see her again. Her sister must have trusted her with her secret, and she would not divulge it."
"We can not ask her now," said Lord Earle; "my mother tells me she is very ill."
"I must see her," cried Lionel, "and ask her to pardon me if she can. What am I to do for you, Lord Earle? Command me as though I were your own son."
"I want you to go to the cottage," said Ronald, "and see if the man is living or dead. You will know how to act. I need not ask a kinsman and a gentleman to keep my secret."
In a few minutes Lionel Dacre was on his way to the cottage, riding as though it were for dear life. Death had been still more swift. Hugh Fernely lay dead.
The cottager's wife told Lionel how the children out at play had found a man lying in the dank grass near the pond, and how her husband, in his own strong arms, had brought him to their abode.
He lay still for many hours, and then asked for pen and ink. He was writing, she said, nearly all night, and afterward prayed her husband to take the letter to Lord Earle. The man refused any nourishment. Two hours later they went in to persuade him to take some food, and found him lying dead, his face turned to the morning sky.
Lionel Dacre entered the room. The hot anger died out of his heart as he saw the anguish death had marked upon the white countenance. What torture must the man have suffered, what hours of untold agony, to have destroyed him in so short a time! The dark, handsome face appeared to indicate that the man had been dying for years.
Lionel turned reverently away. Man is weak and powerless before death. In a few words he told the woman that she should be amply rewarded for her kindness, and that he himself would defray all expenses.
"He was perhaps an old servant of my lord's?" she said.
"No," was the reply; "Lord Earle did not know him--had never seen him; but the poor man was well known to one of Lord Earle's friends."
Thanks to Lionel's words, the faintest shadow of suspicion was never raised. Of the two deaths, that of Miss Earle excited all attention and aroused all sympathy. No one spoke of Hugh Fernely, or connected him with the occurrence at the Hall.
There was an inquest, and men decided that he had "died by the visitation of God." No one knew the agony that had cast him prostrate in the thick, dank grass, no one knew the unendurable anguish that had shortened his life.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
When Lionel returned to the Hall, he went straight to Lord Earle.
"I was too late," he said; "the man had been dead some hours."
His name was not mentioned between them again. Lord Earle never inquired where he was buried--he never knew.
The gloom had deepened at the Hall. Lillian Earle lay nigh unto death. Many believed that the master of Earlescourt would soon be a childless man. He could not realize it. They told him how she lay with the cruel raging fever sapping her life, but he seemed to forget the living child in mourning for the one that lay dead.
In compliance with Lionel's prayer, Lady Helena took him into the sick room where Lillian lay. She did not know him; the gentle, tender eyes were full of dread and fear; the fair, pure face was burning with the flush of fever; the hot, dry lips were never still. She talked incessantly--at times of Knutsford and Beatrice--then prayed in her sweet, sad voice that Lionel would trust her--only trust her; when Beatrice was married she would tell him all.
He turned away; her eyes had lingered on his face, but no gleam of recognition came into them.
"You do not think she will die?" he asked of Lady Helena; and she never forgot his voice or his manner.
"We hope not," she said; "life and death are in higher hands than ours. If you wish to help her, pray for her."
In after years Lionel Dacre like to remember that the best and most fervent prayers of his life had been offered for gentle, innocent Lillian Earle.
As he turned to quit the chamber he heard her crying for her mother. She wanted her mother--why was she not there? He looked at Lady Helena; she understood him.
"I have written," she said. "I sent for Dora yesterday; she will be here soon."
