CHAPTER LXXII.

THE EARL RELUCTANTLY ASSENTS.

Three days later they were once more at Linleigh Court. The earl would hear of no opposition; he ruthlessly broke all engagements, sacrificed all interest and pleasure; his daughter's health, he said, must be paramount with him, and so it was. The only drawback was that Earle could not go; he might run down for two or three days, but until Parliament broke up he could not be away for very long. The earl and countess were amused to see how both lovers felt the separation.

"Thank Heaven!" said Lady Estelle. "Ah! Ulric, you do not know how I thank Heaven that our child loves Earle."

"Did you ever doubt it, my lovely, sentimental darling?" said Lord Linleigh.

"I was not sure; I was always more or less afraid," said the countess. "She spoke so lightly of love; but now she seems very fond of Earle."

"I do not think the woman is born who could help loving Earle," said Lord Linleigh; "he is the finest, noblest man I know. She shows her good taste in loving him."

"She will be very happy," said Lady Estelle, with tears in her eyes. "She will be one of the happiest women in the world, and I am so grateful for it, Ulric; it might have been all so different for the poor child."

Lord Linleigh looked thoughtfully at her.

"Do you know, Estelle, I have an idea that Doris is very much changed? Have you noticed it?"

"She seemed to me much fonder of Earle, and not so strong as she was; I have not noticed any other difference."

"Then it must be my fancy. She has seemed to me more thoughtful, at times even sad, then strangely reckless. A strange idea has come to me--do you think she has any secret connected with that former lonely life of hers?"

"I do not think so," replied Lady Estelle, growing very pale.

"That was a strange notion of yours, my dear, sending her there. Still, those good people seem to have done their best for her."

"I believe," said Lady Estelle, hastily, "that she was quite as safe as she would have been under my own roof. I think I have noticed what you mean--a nervous kind of uncertainty and dread: but I am quite sure it is not because of any secret. Ulric; it is rather because she has been overtaxed. I remember speaking to her about it some time since. She will soon be well now."

Lady Estelle was right. Away from that terrible incubus, the dread of meeting the man she feared and detested; away from his baneful influence, she speedily recovered health and spirits; the dainty color flushed back in her lovely face, her eyes grew radiant, sweet snatches of song came from her lips; she was once more the bright, gay Doris, whose winsome smiles and charms had won all hearts. Lady Linleigh laughed at her fears, and for a short time all was happiness at Linleigh Court.

Earle came down for a few days, and then the wedding-day was fixed. It was to be on the tenth of August, and when the wedding was over they were to go right away until Lady Doris had recovered her usual strength.

It was not until afterward that Earle remembered how strange it was that she should have hurried on the wedding; when he came to think it over, he found that it was so. It was Doris who planned and arranged everything; he had but acquiesced, he had not been the prime mover in it. So it was settled--the tenth of August; not many more weeks of suspense and anxiety, not much more dread. Her revenge and her love would be gratified alike. She should be Earle's wife on the tenth; on the twentieth, when Lord Vivianne came, she should be far away with Earle to protect her; Earle to shield her. It would be useless to pursue her then; even if he did his worst, and betrayed her, she did not care, her position would be secure. Oh, it would be such glorious revenge, to find her married, after all his solemn oaths that she should be his wife, and belong to no other--either to him or to death!

"I will deceive him to the very last," she thought. "I will delude him until the very hour which sees me Earle's wife."

She bent all her energies to this. It was easy enough to win from Earle a promise of total silence; it was not quite so easy to win that same promise from the earl and countess. She did win it, though.

On that same evening that Earle left, a superb night in June, when the stars were gleaming in the skies, and the night air was heavy with sweet odors, Lord and Lady Linleigh had gone out into the grounds. The evening was far too beautiful to be spent indoors, and she followed them. They were sitting under the great drooping beeches, watching the loveliness of that fair summer night.

The same thought struck both of them as Doris came to them, that neither starlight nor moonlight had ever fallen on so fair a figure as this. Her long dress of white sweeping silk trailed over the long grass, she wore fragrant white lilies on her breast and in her golden hair; she might have been the very spirit of starlight, from her fair, picturesque loveliness. She went up to them, and bending down to kiss Lady Linleigh's hand, she knelt on the grass at their feet.

"You are alone," she said, "the two arbiters of my destiny. I am so glad, for I have a favor--a grace to ask."

"It is granted before it is asked," said the countess.

But Lord Linleigh laughed.

"No," he said, "that would hardly be wise; we cannot allow that."

She raised her face to his, and he saw how earnest it was in its expression of pleading and prayer.

"Dear papa," she said, gently, "you must not refuse me this."

"I will not, my darling, if it be in reason," he replied.

"Earle told me that you and he had arranged our wedding-day for the tenth of August," she continued. "Dear papa, dear Lady Linleigh, I want you to promise that it shall be kept a profound secret from the whole world."

"My dear Doris!" cried the countess.

"It is quite impossible," said the earl. "Besides, I see no reason for such a thing. Why should you want it so?"

"It _is_ possible," she said. "I have been with you long enough to know that with you everything is possible. _Why_ I wish it done, is my whim, my folly--my secret, if you will."

"I really do not see----" began the earl; but she laid one soft, white hand on his lips.

"Let me show you, papa. Let me hear your objections, and vanquish them one by one."

"To begin with--your train of bridesmaids, they must be invited."

"Papa," she interrupted, "I want none, I will have none, only Mattie, my foster-sister--let her come, no one else."

"Then the marriage settlements?" said the perplexed earl.

"They can be arranged with all possible secrecy, if you only say one word to your lawyers."

"But the bishop, and the marriage. My dear Doris, it is impossible, impracticable, ridiculous!"

"I am sure that you will be sorry, papa, if you refuse me."

And something in her voice struck the earl with keen anxiety.

"Have you any secret, sensible reason for what you ask, Doris?" he said, gravely, the old suspicion that there had been something strange in his daughter's life coming back to him with double force.

"I have my own fancy, papa; do not thwart it, do not oppose me now that I am so soon to leave you. You will always be pleased to think how much of my own way you have given me in this instance."

"Let her do as she will, Ulric," said Lady Linleigh; "it would be cruel to refuse her."

"Listen to my idea first, papa. This is the sort of wedding I should like--you, of course, can please yourself whether you let me have it or not. I should like no one except Mattie to know anything about it in advance of the day. I should like my wedding _trousseau_ to be as magnificent and grand as you please, all ordered, arranged, and prepared, to be kept in London ready for me, so that I may select what I want to take abroad with me, then I should like Earle to come on the eighth, as though he were coming for an ordinary visit; on the ninth, I should be quite willing for you to tell the servants in the house, so that wedding favors, flowers, and a wedding breakfast can be prepared; then, early on the morning of the tenth, I should like to drive over to the old church at Anderley with Earle, Mattie, and you--Lady Linleigh, if she will come--no one else; then to be married in that pretty church, where the morning sun always shines so brightly, and then go away with Earle. No pealing of bells, no jewels, no showers of wedding presents, no pomp, no bishop, with assistant ministers, no ceremony, no grandeur. That is just what I should like, papa."

"I never heard such an extraordinary idea in all my life," said the earl. "I do not know what to answer. I should like you to have your own way; but such a wedding for an earl's daughter is unheard of."

"Yes; it is different to Hanover Square, miles of white satin and lace, bishops, bells, jewels, carriages, friends, and all that kind of thing. I know it is quite different; but let me have my own way, papa, please. Pray intercede for me, Lady Linleigh."

The countess turned to her husband.

"Let it be so, Ulric," she said.

He was silent. He would have refused altogether, but for the uncomfortable suspicion haunting him that she had some painful though hidden motive, and that it was connected with that past life of hers, of which he knew so little; but for that, he would have laughed the whole idea to scorn.

"My dear Doris, I cannot understand. Most ladies look upon their wedding as the crowning ceremony of their lives, the grandest event that can possibly happen to them--the very opportunity for a display of splendor and magnificence."

"I know they do," she replied, gently. Then, as her hands clasped his, he felt her shudder, as though cold. She raised her face, and kissed him; she clasped her white arms round his neck. "Papa," she cried, "although I am your own child, I have never been much to you; the best part of my life has been spent away from you; I have never seen my mother's face; she is not here to plead to you for me. I shall have gone away from you, and altogether, you will have known but little of me. I hope Heaven will send you other children to love and bless you; but, papa, do not refuse my prayer. In the after years, when I am far away, and perhaps a fair-haired son stands pleading where I stand pleading now, you will like to remember that you yielded to my prayer--that you granted me the greatest favor it was in your power to grant."

The earl looked down. Lady Linleigh was weeping bitterly.

"You hear, Ulric!" she said, in a low, passionate voice; "you hear! She says she has no mother to plead for her! Let me plead in the mother's place! Do what she asks!"

"I never did anything so unwillingly in all my life," said the earl; "it is unheard of, inconsistent, ridiculous in the highest degree; but I cannot refuse the prayer of my wife and child; it must be as you wish."

He saw, even in the starlight, the expression of relief that came over the beautiful, restless face.

"You promise, then," said Doris, "and you too, Lady Linleigh, that you will not tell to any creature living, except Mattie Brace, when I am to marry, whom I am to marry, or anything about it?"

"I promise," said Lady Estelle.

"And I too," repeated the earl, "although it is sorely against my better judgment, my will, my common sense, and everything else."

"Never mind, papa," said Lady Doris, "you have made me happy."

But even then, as she spoke, the tragedy was looming darkly over her.