They stood for some time in perfect silence; they had wandered down to the very edge of the lake. The water rippled in the moonlight, and while Hugh Fernely thought, Beatrice looked into the clear depths. How near she was to her triumph! A few minutes more and he would turn to her and tell her she was free.
His face was growing calm and gentle. She would dismiss him with grateful thanks; she would hasten home. How calm would be that night's sleep! When she saw Lord Airlie in the morning, all her sorrow and shame would have passed by. Her heart beat high as she thought of this.
"I think it must be so," said Hugh Fernely, at last; "I think I must give you up, Beatrice. I could not bear to make you miserable. Look up, my darling; let me see your face once more before I say goodbye."
She stood before him, and the thick dark shawl fell from her shoulders upon the grass; she did not miss it in the blinding joy that had fallen upon her. Hugh Fernely's gaze lingered upon the peerless features.
"I can give you up," he said, gently; "for your own happiness, but not to another, Beatrice. Tell me that you have not learned to love another since I left you."
She made no reply--not to have saved her life a thousand times would she have denied her love for Lord Airlie. His kiss was still warm on her lips--those same lips should never deny him.
"You do not speak," he added, gloomily. "By Heaven, Beatrice, if I thought you had learned to love another man--if I thought you wanted to be free from me to marry another--I should go mad mad with jealous rage! Is it so? Answer me."
She saw a lurid light in his eyes, and shrank from him. He tightened his grasp upon her arm.
"Answer me!" he cried, hoarsely. "I will know."
Not far from her slept the lover who would have shielded her with his strong arm--the lover to whom every hair upon her dear head was more precious than gold or jewels. Not far from her slept the kind, loving father, who was prouder and fonder of her than of any one on earth. Gaspar Laurence, who would have died for her, lay at that moment not far away, awake and thinking of her.
Yet in the hour of her deadly peril, when she stood on the shore of the deep lake, in the fierce grasp of a half-maddened man, there was no one near to help her or raise a hand in her defense.
But she was no coward, and all the high spirit of her race rose within her.
"Loosen your grasp, Hugh," she said, calmly; "you pain me."
"Answer me!" he cried. "Where is the ring I gave you?"
He seized both her hands and looked at them; they were firm and cool--they did not tremble. As his fierce, angry eyes glanced over them, not a feature of her beautiful face quivered.
"Where is my ring?" he asked. "Answer me, Beatrice."
"I have not worn it lately," she replied. "Hugh, you forget yourself. Gentlemen do not speak and act in this way."
"I believe I am going mad," he said, gloomily. "I could relinquish my claim to you, Beatrice for your own sake, but I will never give you up to be the wife of any other man. Tell me it is not so. Tell me you have not been so doubly false as to love another, and I will try to do all you wish."
"Am I to live all my life unloved and unmarried?" she answered, controlling her angry indignation by a strong effort, "because when I was a lonely and neglected girl, I fell into your power?
I do not ask such a sacrifice from you. I hope you will love and marry, and be happy."
"I shall not care," he said, "what happens after I am gone--it will not hurt my jealous, angry heart then, Beatrice; but I should not like to think that while you were my promised wife and I was giving you my every thought, you were loving some one else.
I should like to believe you were true to me while you were my own."
She made no answer, fearing to irritate him if she told the truth, and scorning to deny the love that was the crowning blessing of her life. His anger grew in her silence. Again the dark flush arose in his face, and his eyes flamed with fierce light.
Suddenly he caught sight of the gold locket she wore round her neck, fastened by the slender chain.
"What is this thing you wear?" he asked, quickly. "You threw aside my ring. What is this? Whose portrait have you there?
Let me see it."
"You forget yourself again," she said, drawing herself haughtily away. "I have no account to render to you of my friends."
