CHAPTER XLVI.

A THUNDERBOLT IN A DUCAL PALACE.

The Earl of Linleigh seemed to be indifferent as to the terms on which he obtained his pardon, provided only that he did obtain it. His thanks and gratitude were pleasing to hear. Her pale face relaxed as she listened. After all she had suffered, the long, silent agony of years--there was something very delightful in being loved.

"And you will be good to me, my darling?" whispered the earl. "You will not do what you might do--take vengeance on me for my many sins?"

"No," said Lady Estelle, "I will not do that."

"And you will come with me to my home, Linleigh Towers, and reign there as its mistress and queen?"

"I will do whatever makes you happiest," she said, with that sweet gentleness that seemed to sit so strangely upon her.

"Estelle," said the earl, "of course the duke and duchess have not an inkling of our secret?"

"No, they have not the faintest idea of it."

"How foolish we were, my darling. It seems like a dream now that we ever did that wild, foolish deed. It is far more like a dream than a reality."

"Yes," she sighed, "it was a sad thing for both of us."

"I will tell them. You have had quite enough to bear. I will take the onus on myself. Give me--let me see--ten kisses; they will make me strong enough to fight any battle in your cause."

He bent over her, and was busily engaged in taking the accurate number of kisses, when the door suddenly opened, and the duke and duchess entered the room, having returned from their drive together.

The scene is better imagined than described. They were all well-bred people; but just at that moment the circumstances seemed to bewilder them.

Lady Estelle sank pale and trembling into a chair--the moment she had dreaded for years had come at last. The earl was the first to recover himself.

Coolly, as though nothing particular had occurred, the earl went up to the duke and duchess with outstretched hands. They greeted him kindly, but he was quick enough to detect something of restraint in their voices. They spoke of indifferent matters for some few moments, and then the duke asked if his guest had partaken of any refreshment.

"We do not dine till eight," he said; "take some wine, at least."

"No," said the earl; "the truth is, before I can accept your hospitality, I have something to tell you--something that will cause you just and righteous anger--to that I submit; but I pray you, as the fault was all mine, so let the blame be all mine. Spare every one else."

He looked so handsome, so earnest, so agitated, that the duke felt touched. What could he have done to offend him? Nothing but love his daughter; and that was surely no such terrible crime. He merely smiled as he heard the words; the duchess, with a sudden nervous movement of the hands, drew nearer to her daughter.

"I have no excuse," said the earl, "to offer for this story which I have to tell--no excuse. It was the passionate, mad folly of a boy--the trusting simplicity and innocence of a young girl."

Then, for the first time, an expression of fear came into the duke's face, and the duchess looked as though she were turned to stone.

"Listen to me, your grace. Twenty years ago, when I was Ulric Studleigh, a captain in the army, without even the prospect of advancement, I fell in love with Lady Estelle."

He was still looking in the duke's grave face, and his words seemed to fail him, his lips grew dry and hot, his hands trembled.

"I am ashamed of my folly," he said, in a low, agitated voice, "and I find it hard to tell."

"You will remember, Lord Linleigh, that you are keeping us in suspense, and Lady Estelle is our only child. Be brief, for her mother's sake, if not for my own."

The earl continued:

"Do not think me a coward, your grace; I have faced the enemy in open fight as often as any soldier. I never fled from a foe, but I would sooner face a regiment of foes, each with a drawn sword in his hand, than stand before you to tell what I have to tell."

"Be brief, my lord," was the impatient comment. "Be brief."

"In a few words, then, your grace, I loved your daughter. I won her love, and privately, unknown to any person, save one, we were married twenty years ago."

The duchess uttered a low cry of sorrow and dismay. The duke suddenly dropped into his chair like a man who had been shot. A painful silence fell over the room, broken only by the sobs of Lady Estelle.

"Married!" said the duke, at last. "Oh, Heaven! has my daughter so cruelly deceived me?"

"The fault was all mine, your grace; shooting would be far too good for me. I persuaded her, I followed her, I made her wretched, I gave her no peace until she consented."

"Oh! Estelle, my daughter, is it true?" cried the duke. "Is it--can it be true?"

Estelle's only answer was a series of heartbreaking sobs.

"It is true, your grace," said the earl. "If any suffering could undo it, I would suffer the extremity of torture. I repent with my whole heart; let me pray your grace not to turn a deaf ear to my repentance."

The duke made no answer, but laid his head on his clasped hands.

"I had better tell you all," continued the earl, in a low voice. "We were married. I call Heaven to witness that the fault was all mine, and that I intended to act loyally, honorably, and truthfully to my dear wife; but we were unfortunate. I was proud and jealous, she was proud and impatient; she taunted me always by saying the Studleighs were all faithless. We quarreled at last, and both of us were too proud to be the first to seek forgiveness. Then, in a fit of desperate rage, I exchanged into a regiment ordered to India, and, with the exception of one letter, no word has been exchanged between us since."

The duke did not raise his head.

The duchess gave a long, shuddering moan.

"There is one thing more--oh, Heaven! how could I be so cruel?--when I had been gone some five months, my poor wife, my unhappy wife, became a mother."

"I do not believe it!" cried the duke. "I will not believe it! It is an infamous lie."

"It is the solemn truth, your grace."

"Stephanie, my wife," cried the duke, despairingly, "do you believe this? Do you believe the child we have loved and cherished has deceived us so cruelly?"

The duchess left her daughter's side and went over to him. She laid her hand on his.

"We must bear it together," she said. "It is the first great trial of our lives--we must make the best of it."

"To be deceived--to smile on us, to kiss us, to sit by us, to share the same roof, to kneel at the same altar, and yet to keep such a secret from us! Why, Stephanie, it cannot be true."

The duchess was not one of the demonstrative kind, but she was so deeply touched by the pain in his voice, that she clasped her arms round his neck.

"I can only say one thing to comfort you, my husband. We have spent the greater part of our lives together, and in no single thing have I deceived you yet. Let the remembrance of your wife's loyalty soften the thought of your daughter's treachery."

The next moment the daughter whom he had loved as the very pride and joy of his life, was kneeling and sobbing at his feet.

"It was not treachery, papa; do not give it so bad a name. I was very young, and I loved him very much; except you and mamma, I loved no one else. Ah! papa, do not turn from me; I have suffered so terribly--I have never been happy for one moment since. I loved you so dearly I never could bear to look at your face and remember how I had deceived you. I have been so unhappy, so wretched, so miserable, I cannot tell you. Pity me--do not be angry with me. I loved you both, and my heart was torn in two. Kiss me, dear, and forgive me."

But he turned away from the pitiful, pleading voice and beseeching face.

"I cannot forgive you, Estelle," he said; "the pain is too great."

"Then I will kneel here until I die," she cried, passionately; "I will never leave you until you say that you pardon me!"

The duke raised his face, and when the Earl of Linleigh saw it he started back. It was as though a blight had fallen over it--it was changed, haggard, gray--twenty years older than when he had entered the room. The earl felt more remorse when he caught sight of that pale face than he had ever before known.

"Lord Linleigh," said the duke, "I want you to give me details--the details of your marriage; how and where it took place; who were the witnesses. I shall want to see the copy of the register; I shall want the certificate of the child's birth and death."

"It is not dead!" cried Lord Linleigh, in astonishment.

"Not dead!" repeated the duke. "Do you mean to tell me, my lord, I have had a grandchild living all these years, and have known nothing about it. Do you mean to tell me that a descendant of the Herefords has been born, and I have never even seen it? Great Heaven! what have I done, that I should have this to endure?"

"I was ashamed of the story of my marriage," said the earl, "but, if possible, I am still more ashamed of the history of my child. My poor wife was ill-advised when she acted as she did."

A certain nervous tremor came over the duchess. She remembered many things that the duke had forgotten, and a presentiment of the truth came over her.

"Estelle," she said, "tell us where your child was born, and who helped you to deceive us?"

Obediently enough, she told the whole story.

"We must not blame poor Lady Delapain," said the duke, kindly; "of the dead no ill should be spoken. Rely upon it, she did it for the kindest and best. Now, tell us, Estelle, what you did with this unhappy child."

But Lady Estelle hid her face.

"Ulric," she said to her husband, "will you tell for me?"

They listened with a shock of horror and surprise. So this little foundling, over whose story they had wondered and pondered, of whose future the duchess had prophesied such evil, was of their own race, a Hereford. It seemed to the duke and duchess that they could never forget that humiliation, never recover from it.

The duke rose from his chair; he held out one trembling hand to his wife.

"Come away, Stephanie," he said; "this has been too much for me. I thought I was stronger. Come away! We can talk it over better alone--we shall get over it better alone. We have no daughter now, dear--we are quite alone. Our daughter has been some one else's wife for twenty years. Come away!"

The duchess, since Lord Linleigh had told Doris' story, had never once looked at her daughter. She seemed the stronger of the two as they turned to quit the room together. The duke, never speaking to his daughter, said to his guest:

"I will talk this over with my wife, and we will tell you after dinner what is our decision."

"Oh, Ulric!" cried Lady Estelle, "they will never forgive me. What shall I do?"

But he kissed her face and consoled her.

"It will all come right," he said. "Of course it was a terrible shock to them both, that Brackenside business especially. I am very sorry over that; but they will forgive you. By this time to-morrow we shall all be laughing over it, trust me, darling."

But Lord Linleigh, before this time to-morrow, had to hear something which startled even him, and he could boast of tolerably strong nerves.