CHAPTER VIII.

WINGED WORDS.

It was not in the nature of things that Sir Thomas Dudgeon should long keep to himself the news which had just been told him. He was bursting to tell somebody, and as Gerald was to a certain extent one of the family, it seemed only right that Gerald should know all. So into the sympathetic ear of his secretary the whole story was volubly poured, with many a comment, and many an expression of sympathy for poor unfortunate Eleanor. "I feel as if I loved her better now than ever I did before," the baronet finished up by saying. "She shall never want for a home as long as I'm master at Stammars."

"It has come at last, and I'm glad of it," said Gerald to himself, "and has thereby saved me the necessity of telling a very disagreeable story. I can't at all understand why Kelvin should have kept this knowledge to himself for so long a time. There seems to me something strangely underhand in his way of dealing with the affair. However, better late than never--better that she should hear it from him than from me. I must go and find her at once."

Fortunately, Sir Thomas did not detain him long. The old gentleman was anxious to have an hour or two with Cozzard, and to go round the farm on Grey Dapple once again. He sighed to think that it would be his last opportunity for doing so before his return to that hateful London. On Monday morning they were all to go up to town, and then farewell to the dear delights of the country for at least two months to come.

Gerald's puzzle was how to contrive an interview with Eleanor without the knowledge of Lady Dudgeon. As it happened, he was on pretty good terms with Tipper, the young person who, among her other duties, acted as maid to Miss Lloyd. Her he now contrived to capture, and putting half-a-crown into one of her hands, and a note into the other, he found no difficulty in inducing her to do his bidding. All he said in the note was--

"Pray do me the favour of meeting me for five minutes in the conservatory as soon as possible."

Ten minutes later Eleanor was there.

A faint blush suffused her face as she came towards Gerald, but it was easy to see that she had been crying. She took Gerald's extended hand frankly, and then, before she knew how it happened, he had possession of the other one also.

"I have heard everything," he said, "and I could not rest till I had seen you."

She did not answer for a moment, but her eyes flushed with tears, and Gerald felt her hands tremble within his like two frightened birds.

"It is a very strange story," she said, "and I feel at present that I cannot altogether realize it."

"It is indeed a strange story--far too strange for Kelvin to lend himself to unless he had satisfied himself that it was true."

"The hardest--the bitterest part is to discover that he whom I loved so dearly while he lived, and whose memory I have cherished so fondly since I lost him, was not my father--was nothing but my benefactor. It makes me feel as if there were no such thing as reality in the world, as if life itself were nothing more substantial than a dream." She sighed, and releasing her hands from Love's sweet custody, she went and sat down on a garden-chair, and Gerald seated himself close by her.

"Nothing can change my love for him, or cause it to diminish by one iota," she said. "If he was not my father in reality, he acted a father's part by me, and he was my father in the sight of Heaven. God bless him! God bless him for ever!" she said passionately, and then she burst into sobs.

Gerald thought it best to say nothing for a little while; but he took her hand and pressed it softly to his lips, and was not repulsed.

In four or five minutes Eleanor had recovered her calmness. "You asked me to meet you here, Mr. Pomeroy," she said, "having something, I presume, that you wish to say to me, and here am I monopolising your time with my own selfish troubles. But you must forgive me this once, and I will not offend again."

"You are right. I have something to say to you," said Gerald, earnestly. "Sir Thomas has told me everything. You are no longer the heiress people believed you to be. You are poor like myself. Pray pardon my frankness; but that very poverty it is that gives me courage to speak." He paused for a moment, and in the pause they both heard the plashing of a tiny fountain in the distance, and the crabbed voice of old Sanderson crooning some old-world ballad to himself as he bent over his work.

"Several weeks ago, in a moment of forgetfulness," resumed Gerald, "I said certain words to you which, bearing in mind the reason that first brought me to Stammars, ought never to have been said by me. I confessed my fault, and you forgave me. Since that time, whatever my feelings may have been, I have so far schooled myself as not to offend again. Now the case is different. No one can say now that I seek you for your money. The reason which has kept me silent so long exists no longer. To-day--here--now--I can tell you how dearly I love you--how dearly I have loved you from the moment I first saw you! Here, to-day, I ask you whether you can give me back love for love, heart for heart--whether you can learn to care for me sufficiently to share your poverty with my poverty and to become my wife?"

Again he stooped and kissed her hand, but she would not let him keep it. Her eyes were wet, her bosom heaving. Her colour came and went, then left her altogether. Twice she tried to speak, but could not.

"Oh, Mr. Pomeroy," she said at last, "your words have come upon me so suddenly that indeed I know not how to answer them! Your pride would not let you seek me when you believed me to be rich: my pride will not let me give myself to you now that I am poor."

"But supposing," said Gerald, "that I had come to you at eleven o'clock this morning--supposing I had come to you five minutes before Miss Deane delivered her message, and had asked you then to become my wife, what would your answer have been?"

This was a question that seemed to require consideration.

"When you asked me to meet you here, I thought you had something to tell me. I did not know that I was coming here to be catechised."

"What I had to tell you I have told. To you, perhaps, it seems hardly worth the hearing. To me it means everything."

She turned her eyes for a moment on his. Their glance seemed to say, "Pity my embarrassment, and don't say cruel things to me."

"I must repeat my question," said Gerald. "If you were as rich to-day as you believed yourself to be yesterday, and I were what I am, would you in that case reject my suit as positively as you are doing now?"

"I hardly know. Perhaps not," was the whispered answer.

"Those words are enough. They tell me everything--they tell me all that I want to know!" cried Gerald. "If you would not have rejected me yesterday, you shall not reject me to-day!" and before Eleanor knew what had happened, she was folded tightly in his arms, and a rain of sweet kisses was falling on her forehead, her eyes, and her lips.

It was fully half a minute before she could free herself. "You are the most impetuous person I ever met with," she said. "And see how you have crushed my collar, and disarranged my hair. It's--it's really disgraceful." And with that she turned of her own accord, and shyly hid her face on Gerald's shoulder.