CHAPTER XXXVII.

"HE MADE ME BELIEVE THAT I WAS THE WHOLE WORLD TO HIM!"

"Do I weary you, Earle Moray, with these details?" Lady Estelle asked, looking with wistful eyes into his face. "Out of my thirty-eight years, that was my only gleam of light--does it weary you that I like to dwell upon it?"

"No," he replied, "every word interests me; you cannot tell one too much."

"I used to wonder," she continued, "when I heard people say that love made or marred a woman's life. In my own mind I thought such words an exaggeration. I found that they were most fatally true--my love marred my life.

"That night I left the palace, with my heart and mind full of Ulric Studleigh, and the idea possessed a double charm for me because I was, as it were, forbidden to entertain it. The duchess, my mother spoke to me once more on the subject. We were going to a _fete_ at Kensington Gardens. Before we started she called me to her.

"'Estelle,' she said, gravely, 'I hope you will not forget what is due to your position as daughter of the Duke of Downsbury. I hope you will not forget what is required and expected of you.'

"I told her that I hoped always to please her, and I intended then to do so.

"'If Captain Studleigh should have the bad taste to intrude his society on you,' she continued, 'without being the least unladylike, you must let him see that it is displeasing to you.'

"'But, mamma,' I remonstrated, 'it is _not_ displeasing; it is most amusing.'

"'The expression of my least wish ought to suffice, Estelle,' said my mother, haughtily. 'I tell you to avoid Captain Studleigh whenever you possibly can; and if you are compelled for a few minutes, by unavoidable circumstances, to talk to him, I insist upon it that you show no interest whatever--that you treat him with studied coolness and reserve.'

"'Will you tell me why, mamma?' I asked gently.

"'Yes, I will tell you. The love of a Studleigh never yet brought anything with it save sorrow. Secondly, were it even otherwise, Ulric Studleigh, a younger son, is no match for my daughter, Lady Estelle Hereford. You hear this?'

"I had heard, and at first my only emotion was one of sorrow that a pleasant intercourse must be ended. It was very evident that I must not look again at the laughing face and tender eyes. I hardly understood the cloud that came over me, or why the thought that he was so soon to be taken out of my life darkened it.

"He was at the _fete_, strange to say, with my only and dearest friend, Lady Agnes Delapain. We had been schoolmates, and the year previous she had married Lord Delapain. I felt pleased when I saw him with her. My mother did not see either of them. After a time Lady Agnes left her companion and came to me. My mother, who knew our great affection for each other, had no scruple in leaving us together while she joined some friends of her own.

"'Estelle,' said Lady Agnes, as we wandered through a beautiful grove of trees--'Estelle, you have accomplished a miracle.'

"'What have I done?' I asked.

"'You have written your name where no one ever inscribed a woman's name before,' she replied.

"I had not the least idea what she meant.

"'Where is that?' I asked.

"Lady Agnes laughed aloud.

"'On the hitherto invincible heart of Ulric Studleigh,' she said. 'I should imagine that he has admired more pretty girls than any one ever did before, but you are the first who has made a real impression on him.'

"'Who says I have done so, Agnes?'

"'I say so. He has been sitting by me for half an hour, and all his conversation has been of you. I assure you, Estelle, he is hopelessly in love.'

"'The love of the Studleighs always brings sorrow, my mother says.'

"Lady Agnes laughed again.

"'I am sure your mother will not like him--no mothers do. Mine used to torture me about him before I was married. You would not find a dowager in London who approves of him.'

"'But why?' I persisted.

"'A handsome, graceless, penniless younger son? What dowager in her senses would approve of such a man?'

"'He cannot help being a younger son and having no money,' I said.

"'No; he cannot help it. A man cannot help being born blind or lame, I suppose; but then he does not expect to fare the same as a man who can walk and see.'

"'It is not a just world,' I said gravely; and again Lady Agnes laughed.

"'Yes, Ulric ought at least to have been a prince,' she said; 'there is now only one resource for him.'

"'What is that?' I asked.

"'He has no money, and he cannot make money. Military fame is very empty; but he could, at least, marry some one who has money.'

"And Lady Agnes, who, I believe, had a decided liking for him, looked sharply at me.

"'Why can he never make money?' I asked.

"'It is not the habit of the Studleighs: they have a reckless fashion of spending, but I do not know that they are capable of making money. Captain Ulric is a soldier, and we all know how empty is fame.'

"At that very moment he joined us. Lady Agnes turned to me.

"'I leave you in safe hands,' she said. 'I promised to look after little Nellie Plumpton, and I have not seen her yet.'

"Then she went away. It was kind of her in one sense, but wrong in another. I was terribly frightened. What should I do if my mother found me here in this grove of trees with Captain Studleigh? I remembered, too, that I had promised to be very distant and reserved with him: yet there I was, looking at him, blushing and smiling, utterly unable either to look or feel anything save happy.

"He saw, and was quick enough to detect the anxiety on my face.

"'Ah! Lady Hereford,' he said. 'I was a true prophet--I see it.'

"Then, without waiting for any answer, he began to talk to me about the _fete_. I forgot everything else in the wide, world except that I was happy and was with him.

"Earle Moray, the sun will never shine for me again as it did that day; the sky will never be so blue, the flowers so sweet and fair.

"When he saw Lady Agnes returning to us in the distance, he said, quickly:

"'You will not be unjust to me, Lady Estelle--you will not visit the sins of my race on me?'

"'No,' I said, 'I will never do that.'

"'Sometimes you will let me forget graver anxieties, graver cares, the troubles of my life, in talking to you?'

"Then I saw my difficulty.

"'I will do all that I possibly can,' I said; 'but----'

"'But what?' he asked. 'Tell me the difficulty.'

"How could I? I could not look into his face, and tell him my mother disliked and disapproved of him.

"'I think I understand,' he said, with a low laugh. 'If I were a duke, with two or three fine estates, there would be no objection to me; as it is, perhaps her grace has told you the Studleighs are unfortunate?'

"'Yes, she has told me so, but I do not believe it,' I hastened to reply.

"'Thank you; you are generous. I shall trust in your generosity, Lady Hereford.'

"Then he went away, and the brightness of the sun, the sky, the flowers, went with him. Yet I was strangely happy, with a new, strange, shy happiness. When other people, whom I had neither liked nor cared for, talked to me, I found that I had a fresh stock of patience--that I had such a fountain of happiness in my own heart I had abundance to shower upon others. The whole world changed to me from that day. I lived only in the hope of seeing Captain Studleigh. I counted the hours when I was away from him. Unfortunately for me, I found an aider and abettor in Lady Agnes Delapain. My mother did not even know that she was acquainted with him, and I--alas!--never told her.

"Lady Agnes had a beautiful villa at Twickenham, and it was no unusual thing for me to spend two or three days with her. It was cruel to betray my mother's trust; there is no excuse for it, nor was there any for my friend. We never made any positive appointment. I never told him when I was going to Twickenham, yet he always seemed to know by instinct. Lord Delapain held some important office under the government, so that he was seldom at home. We three, Lady Delapain, Captain Studleigh, and myself, spent whole days together, sometimes in the grounds that surrounded her home, or on the river which ran close by.

"The end of it was--see, I offer no excuse--that we both believed it impossible to live any longer without each other. Oh! folly and blindness and madness of love! I, who had never disobeyed my parents, who had always been a docile, obedient child, whose highest ambition had been to please them. I suffered him, my lover, to talk to me about a private marriage! He said that if we were once married, my parents would be very angry for a short time, that was certain: but when they saw there was no help for it, they would forgive us and all would be well again. I asked, timidly enough, for I dreaded to displease him, if it would not be better for him to try to win my parents' consent.

"'I will try, if you like,' he said. 'I will do anything to please you: but I am quite sure it is useless. The moment they hear that I care for you they will take you away, and I shall see you no more.'

"'Do you really think so, Ulric?' I asked, sadly.

"'I am quite certain of it: still it shall be as you wish. I cannot live without you, Estelle. You are the whole world to me; and you love me, unless the story told by those sweet eyes is untrue.'

"Lady Agnes knew nothing of these longing entreaties of his for a secret marriage. If I had told her I might have been saved. She, with all her imprudence, would never have permitted that. I dared not tell her, lest she should disapprove.

"Looking back, I cannot tell what possessed me--what mad infatuation, what wild folly had taken hold of me. Is it the same, I wonder, with all those who love--with all girls who surrender heart and judgment as I did? Yet I did not reply all at once. The step was such a grave and serious one, even to my inexperienced eyes, that I hesitated long before taking it. I must do him justice; I think that in those days Ulric Studleigh did love me very dearly indeed, better, perhaps, than he loved any one else; and that, for a Studleigh, is certainly saying great deal. He told me, over and over again, in most passionate words, that he loved me. He made me believe that I was the whole world to him. Then, when he still found that I was unwilling--oh! so unwilling--for this private marriage, he pretended to be hurt, to think that I did not care for him; and for ten long days he never came near me--ten long, dreary, terrible days. I can remember even now the misery of each of them--the hours that seemed to have no end--the nights without sleep. If we met in public, he passed me with a cold bow, and devoted himself to some one else. I went through all the tortures of jealousy, my face grew pale and thin. Ah! what I suffered! Then one evening he came to me and said:

"'Estelle, have we had enough of this? I feel I can bear it no longer.'

"'It is your fault,' I replied; 'you have kept away from me.'

"'Is a man's heart made of wax, do you think? Kept away from you! If I had not done so I should have gone mad. Your love must be child's play, judging from the way in which you treat me. How could I bear to be near you, when you so coldly refused my prayer?'

"We were standing behind a great cluster of trees, and the next moment he had clasped me in his arms, crying that I must be his.

"'I shall be at Twickenham to-morrow,' he said; 'Estelle, I pray you to meet me there.'

"And I, weak and miserable, promised him."