Part 12

In the shortest possible time he was at Hampstead, inquiring at Steele's Road for Miss Anderson's address. Mr. Sinclair happened to be out--which Bernard thought was just as well for him; but the servant being under the impression that his master was somewhere about the house, Bernard was shown up into the studio. There, as he waited, he perceived more than one painting in which Doris's fair sweet face was beautifully delineated. The sight of it there, however, only maddened her unhappy lover. What right had the fellow to make Doris's loveliness so common? What right had he to possess the presentment of it there? By the power of his strong will and helped by his riches he had prevailed upon the lonely girl to promise him her hand in marriage. In the absence of her own true lover he had stolen her from him. But a Nemesis had come, was coming indeed; and when Doris saw her Bernard and spoke with him, face to face, she would throw over the usurper, and matters would be readjusted as happily, nay, more happily, than if this engagement had not occurred.

"'For things can never go wholly wrong If the heart be true and the love be strong'"--

quoted Bernard to himself, "and there shall be no mere engagement, but a marriage shall take place forthwith. For, thank God! I am rich enough now," he said to himself, "to be able to marry my Doris. Yes, all will come right when I see her again."

A maidservant entered, bringing in an address on a slip of paper. "Mr. Sinclair is out," she said, "but this is where we have to send all letters that come, either for Miss Sinclair or Miss Anderson."

"Thank you," said Bernard, taking up the scrap of paper, and reading, "The Queen's Hotel, Hastings," upon it.

"I will go there immediately," he said to himself, as he left the house. "I will take the very first express train to Hastings." He hailed a cab. "Drive me to Charing Cross," he ordered, "and drive your fastest."

*CHAPTER XXII*

*TOO LATE! TOO LATE!*

There is no disguise which can long conceal love when it does, or feign it when it does not exist.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

"How strange it is to be rich!" cried Alice Sinclair, as she sat with Doris in a shelter by the sea at Hastings. "It _is_ delightful!"

Doris smiled, but her smile only seemed to enhance the sadness in the expression of her beautiful face, and she shivered slightly as she drew a fur-lined cloak more closely round her. "This is different from account-collecting," she said, looking at the fashionably dressed people sauntering by, and then allowing her eyes to rest upon the beauty of the sunlit waves before them.

"Yes, or making imitation oil-paintings either!" exclaimed Alice. "Who would have thought to see us, now, that we were two poor girls toiling in a London garret not long ago?"

"To feed a 'Lion' and pay a monstrous debt," said Doris, plaintively.

"And now our task is done," continued Alice, with cheerfulness. "The Lion is fed, and is roaring loudly in the Royal Academy: moreover, he has food enough for a lifetime. And as for you, your struggle with the hard cold world is ended, dear," and as she spoke she laid her hand on Doris's thin arm. "Are you not glad?" she asked a little wistfully, for the sadness of her friend was a great trouble to her.

"I try to be," answered Doris.

"Try to be?" Alice raised her eyebrows.

"Yes. I have to try, you know, for I don't feel able to rejoice about anything in these days." The tears came to Doris's eyes as she spoke, and her lips trembled.

"Poor dear! That is because you are out of health----"

"Sometimes I wish it was out of life," interrupted Doris wearily. For it was a dark hour with her, and, in her trouble in losing Bernard's love and having promised to marry a man for whom she had no affection, she had for the time being lost her usual happy faith in the golden thread of her Heavenly Father's love.

"Oh, Doris!" Alice was shocked. Things were even worse than she had feared.

"I cannot help it," returned Doris. "I am sad, and there is no denying it. Whichever way I look I see nothing but sadness--sadness in the past, in the present--and, God help me, in the future." Her tones were miserable.

"In the future with Norman? Oh, Doris, you cannot _love_ him!" Alice's tones were full of distress.

"At least, I am not deceiving him. He knows what my feelings are."

"Do you think he does--quite?" asked Alice, softly.

"Yes, quite. And he is content: he says the love will come in time--that he will win it."

"I don't think he will," said Alice--they were talking in low tones which others could not hear, as they had the shelter to themselves--"love cannot be compelled. I don't know much about it myself," she added candidly; "no man has ever wanted to marry me, and I have never cared for any one so much as I care for Norman, but I have read about love in books, and I know it cannot be forced. You do not love Norman."

"Alice," protested Doris, "you ought not to say that!"

"Listen, dear," said Alice, "in your innermost heart you know that I am right. I am only calling a spade a spade, and it isn't the least use to make a pretence of calling it anything else. You do not love Norman. Now, dear, hear me out, _you do not love him at all_. I was watching you this morning when you received that letter from him, and you looked infinitely bored. When he is over here you escape from his presence whenever you can, especially if I am not with you. You say that he is not being deceived, but does he realise what a wretched man he will be if he marries you when you are feeling like that? He is full of love and tenderness towards you, and you have not even the old liking for him and interest in his talk and doings which you had at first. You can, in fact, barely tolerate him now. Think, then, what it will be to have to live with him for years and years, until you are old and die----"

"Hush, dear! Perhaps I shall die soon." There was a peculiar sound in the poor girl's voice, and Alice, looking at her with searching eyes, could see that her heart was breaking, and that she would indeed die soon if she were not released from what was slowly killing her.

"The marriage must not take place," said Alice, firmly. "If not for your own sake, you must stop it for Norman's. If _your_ heart is breaking now, _his_ will break after marriage, when he finds that he has only bought an empty shell without its kernel, a lovely woman without a heart which can return his love, a wife without the wifely qualities he craves. Poor old Norman! He deserves a better fate," and there was indignation in her tones.

"Yes," said Doris, "it is true. He deserves a better fate."

They were silent for a few minutes after she had said that. The girls sat watching the sunlit sea dotted here and there with boats of various descriptions. They listened to the gentle lapping of the waves, the shouts and laughter of the children paddling on the beach, and the scraps of conversation from the passers-by. But mentally they were seeing very different scenes, and they were hearing, too, other more interesting words. Doris was thinking of Bernard, of the gradual growth of their love for each other, and his proposal upon the hill at Askern in Yorkshire, and, later on, his more mature declaration of love, in Mrs. Austin's house in North London. Alice, on the other hand, was thinking of her brother Norman, and of the pained expression of his face when Doris too manifestly avoided a _tete-a-tete_ with him. If it were so now, what would it be when they were married? What prospect of happiness could there be for either of them?

"Look! See who is coming towards us!" exclaimed Doris, suddenly. Her face had lighted up with a smile of singular beauty, and she was leaning forward the better to discern the features of a tall young man hurrying towards them through the promenaders on the front.

"Why, it is Mr. Cameron!" cried Alice, in great surprise. "What can he want here?"

It was soon evident what he wanted, for he came straight up to Doris, exclaiming, "Ah, you are here! How are you?" His eyes sought hers, eagerly and with great wistfulness. "And how are you, Miss Sinclair," he added, holding out his hand to Alice; but his eyes went back to Doris. "They told me at 'The Queen's,'" he went on hurriedly, "that I should find you here, so I came straight along, looking in at every shelter."

"We are very glad to see you," said Alice, rather gravely. Was it for the best, she wondered, for her brother and Doris, that the latter's first lover should return to claim her? She knew instinctively that it was for that purpose this very resolute young man had come. Perhaps, indeed, this would be the solution of the very unsatisfactory state of things she had been grieving over.

Doris said nothing. She dared not bid Bernard welcome, but she could not feign displeasure at his persistency in following her there: it was impossible for her to simulate unconcern and coldness. She was glad to see him, and to know, by his very presence and the way in which he came to her, that she still possessed his love: a great weight was lifted from her heart, and a glow as of returning happiness crept through her frame, bringing the pretty colour into her cheeks, reddening her pale lips, and brightening the eyes which had shed so many tears.

Alice, glancing at her, understood that Doris's happiness, perchance even her life itself, might depend upon her interview with Bernard at this fateful time. "He has her heart," thought Alice, "he may as well have her altogether: for Doris without a heart would make poor Norman as miserable as she would be herself." Therefore Alice said briskly:

"I am glad you have come up, Mr. Cameron, for I want to do some shopping, and you can sit here with Miss Anderson whilst I am away. I did not like leaving her alone, but now I can go. You will be all right with Mr. Cameron, Doris, and I will return presently," and before they could make any coherent reply, she had set off, walking briskly away from the sea-front.

Bernard gave one grateful look after her, then he quickly turned to Doris. "I may sit down," he said, "may I not? For I have much to say."

Doris bowed. She could not speak, for hope and happiness had come to her, which she was vainly endeavouring to resist. Bernard was there, she had him all to herself; might she not for one half-hour give herself up to the happy present before she was made miserable for life?

"Have you anything to say to me first?" asked Bernard, gently. She looked so frail that he determined to be very gentle with her, and he said to himself that he could not really believe that she was engaged to Norman Sinclair, unless she said it with her own lips.

Doris could not speak. She endeavoured to do so, but in vain. It did not seem to her to be right to say what she wanted to tell him, and yet she could not utter the words that duty demanded. Therefore she remained silent.

"I have given her a chance to speak of her engagement to Sinclair, and she has not availed herself of it; therefore I will not believe she is engaged to him," said Bernard to himself; and then one of his hands stole under Doris's fur cloak and clasped hers warmly, as he cried in low yet earnest tones, "My darling, I have brought good news. I have had a legacy left me in part payment of my lost money."

Doris uttered a cry of joy. "My father!" she exclaimed. "You have heard from him! He has sent you money! Oh, thank God! Where is father? Tell me quickly! And did he mention mother?" She spoke rapidly, in intense eagerness.

Bernard was grieved to disappoint her; still, the truth had to be told, so he said quickly, "The money was not from your father. Mr. Hamilton, his co-trustee, has died and left me five thousand pounds in his will, he said, as some compensation for my lost money. Immediately I knew it I came to claim you, my dearest!" He drew the shrinking girl a little nearer. "I always said," he continued--"I always said that you and no other woman in the world should be my wife."

"I cannot! Oh, I cannot!" The words were only just audible, but reached Bernard's ears at length.

"Cannot!" He looked at her with pained surprise. Being very sanguine and also very young, he had already, in the last few minutes, almost forgotten the unwelcome news of her having become engaged to Norman Sinclair, which he had heard in London, and which had hurried him to Hastings. "Cannot!" he repeated. "But you must, and you shall! I have been too poor and too ill to claim you for some time. Now, however, that that money has come to me, I have immediately hastened here, in order to claim the fulfilment of your promise made to me upon the hill at Askern Spa. Don't trifle with me, Doris," he added, with a little choke in his manly voice. "I have been through so very much that I cannot bear it."

"I have, too," she faltered. "God knows what I have been through."

"But that is ended," he said, quickly. "Thank God, that is all ended, and I have come now to _claim your promise_?

"I cannot marry you--I cannot," she repeated.

"Why cannot you?" he demanded.

"Oh, Bernard, do not try to question me. Dear Bernard," she looked up at him beseechingly, "be so very good as not to ask me that question. Take my answer, dear, and go away."

"Go away! Doris, do you know what you are saying? I come to you in order to claim you for my own, and you tell me to go away."

"Forgive me, dear," she said, weeping now and turning away her face so that he might not see her tears. "Forgive me, dear, and go."

"I shall not. I cannot--I will not unless you say that you have ceased to love me."

"I cannot say that, Bernard, for I love you," Doris answered, "and I know that I shall never love any other man as I love you." Then she tried to rise, as she ended miserably, "Nevertheless, _I cannot marry you_."

"Sit still." He placed her on the seat again. "You say that you love me, and yet persist in saying you cannot marry me. I must know how that is. You must tell me, dear. I have a right to know."

Slowly the words dropped from Doris's lips, "I cannot marry you, because I am engaged to Norman Sinclair."

"Engaged to Norman Sinclair?" Bernard repeated indignantly. "Then it is true, that tale they told me in London. You--my promised wife--have engaged yourself to marry that man!"

"Yes, it--is--true," again the words dropped falteringly from the poor girl's lips. "But I could not help it, Bernard," she added, quickly. "I could not help it--I was obliged. You see, you did not write. There was nothing before me except starvation; and then Norman came to me with his offer, and I was tempted. Oh, Bernard!" she exclaimed, "why did you not write? I waited and waited for a letter so anxiously, especially after I had told you about Mr. Sinclair's offer. Oh, you might have written just one line!" She looked at him with reproach in her blue eyes.

"My dear girl, I did not receive that letter, or any at all from you after the first week of my return to Moss, although I wrote repeatedly. Some one has suppressed our letters, Doris!"

"Cruel! Cruel!" cried the girl, instantly suspecting who it was. "But how was it that, not hearing, you did not come to me in order to ascertain the reason? It is such a long, long time since you returned to Yorkshire, almost a year--and it seems more."

"I have been so ill," replied Bernard sadly, "and when I recovered from my first illness, I caught chills and had bad relapses. I was not out of the doctor's hands during nine months, and my mother nursed me so devotedly. How could I suspect that at the same time she was grievously injuring you and me?"

"And then there was another thing," complained poor Doris. "I wrote to Susan, our old servant, you know, and asked her about you; whereupon she replied that I was to think no more about you, as she had heard on good authority that you were going to marry a young lady at Doncaster."

"Oh, but you couldn't believe that, Doris? Surely you had more faith in my love!" exclaimed Bernard, reproachfully.

"What else could I believe when you never wrote and she said that?"

"Doris, I should not have believed it of you!" exclaimed Bernard, stopping short, with a little frown, as he remembered that she had become engaged to Norman Sinclair.

Doris looked up miserably. "Circumstances were too much for me," she said, "and, forgive me--I thought that they had been too much for you."

"Did you think I was so weak?" cried Bernard--"so weak," he repeated, "as not to be true to the only girl I have ever loved?"

"How was it," asked Doris, gently--"how was it that Susan could hear on good authority that you were going to marry a Doncaster lady?"

"Well, if you must know," said Bernard, "my mother set her heart on the match, and she was always having the girl over and trying to leave us together, and taking her with us everywhere, and she must have spread it about that we were engaged; so I daresay she told Susan the same thing."

"Which would account for Susan's saying that she had the news on good authority," interposed Doris. "But tell me, was the girl rich? And did you like her?" and she looked searchingly at Bernard.

"Yes, she was very well off," he admitted, "and she was nice enough; but of course I did not love her, for I love you."

"It's very, _very_ sad," said Doris, the tears rising to her eyes as she spoke. "But, dear Bernard, there is nothing to be done. It is too late! Too late!"

"Oh, but it is not. You are not married yet. You will have to break with Sinclair."

"I cannot. He is a good and honourable man, and he loves me. I cannot break my promise and make him miserable."

"But your engagement was made upon false premises: you thought I was faithless, and I was not. Everything must be explained to Sinclair, and as a man of honour he will feel bound to release you."

Doris shook her head. "I cannot make him miserable," she said.

It was in vain Bernard argued and pleaded, he could get no concession at all from the poor distracted girl, who simply repeated in different words her one cry, "I cannot, dear, I cannot be your wife."

The young man became angry, at length, at her unreasonableness, as he called it, declaring that she could not love him as much as he loved her, or she would not see such great difficulties in the way of their union; and when, upon his adding that he would see Mr. Sinclair and thrash the matter out with him, she said that she could not consent to that, he got quite out of patience with her, and, saying goodbye rather coldly, went away towards the railway station, with the intention of taking the next train for London.

*CHAPTER XXIII.*

*ALICE SINCLAIR'S INTERVENTION.*

It never could be kind, dear, to give a needless pain: It never could be honest, dear, to sin for greed again, And there could not be a world, dear, while God is true above, When right and wrong are governed by any law but love. _Anon_.

Bernard Cameron was hurrying along towards the station when he met Alice Sinclair.

The girl looked immensely surprised to see him there, and immediately exclaimed:

"What? You here, Mr. Cameron? Why, I left you in charge of Miss Anderson until I returned. I was on my way back, now," she added.

"I am off by the next train to town," said Bernard, in very injured tones. "I was a fool," he added, bitterly, "to come down here at all."

Alice read the lines of distress and disappointment written upon his face, and was very patient with him.

"There isn't a train to London for at least an hour," she said, "and you must not think of going until you have had some tea. Let us return to Doris, and then we will go into the Creamery and have some tea."

"I must beg you to excuse me," said Bernard, stiffly. "I have taken leave of Miss Anderson, and must now bid you good-bye." He held out his hand as he spoke.

Alice perceived that he had been hard hit. "You must not leave me like this," she said, gently. "Mr. Cameron, I thought you and I were friends."

"So we are. You have always been good to me, but----" He stopped short, and his eyes wandered in the direction of the station.

"It is no use thinking of starting to London yet. As I said, there is no train for fully an hour. Tell me," she regarded him very sympathisingly, "what is the matter? Have you and Doris quarrelled?"

Bernard looked at her kind sympathising face and his resolution wavered. "Quarrelled is not the word," he said; adding, with an effort, "I should like to tell you all about it, Miss Sinclair, if I might."

"I wish you would," said Alice, earnestly--it was one cause of her influence with others that she was always in earnest. "Come and let us walk up and down in Cambridge Gardens, where it is quiet. Then we can have a long talk."

They turned into the less frequented street, and walked slowly along, whilst in low, rapid tones Bernard told Alice all his trouble, and especially the grievous fact that his and Doris's letters had been suppressed and kept from them for many months, finally ending by complaining bitterly of Doris's ultimatum.

"Doris must not marry your brother, Miss Sinclair." Bernard's tone was as decided and masterful as the artist's as he concluded with these words: "She must marry me. We loved each other long before your brother ever saw her, and we love each other still--and shall until death."

It seemed to Alice, walking by Bernard's side and listening to his low, earnest voice, that no power on earth would be able to separate him from the girl he loved, and certainly Norman would not endeavour to do so. Norman was a man of honour, and when he learnt how the two lovers had been kept apart and separated by the wickedness of Mrs. Cameron, and after everything was explained to him he would release Doris from her engagement, no matter at what cost to himself.

Alice tried to say something of this sort to Bernard, but he scarcely listened.

He was glad of her for a confidante, but did not want to hear her views or listen to her advice, because in his own mind he had already solved the problem. And first, his thoughts, as was natural, returned to Doris, from whom he had parted in anger.

"All this time," he said, hastily, as if only then realising it, "Doris, whom I left in anger, must be in distress. She must be suffering intensely, for you know she is so very sensitive. I must therefore return to her at once, and must encourage her to hope that all will yet be well. If she will not throw Sinclair over----"

"Allow me to remark that you are speaking of _my brother_," interposed Alice.

"I beg your pardon," said Bernard, in remorseful tones, as he looked at the kind girl, whose colour had risen. "It was an awful shame for me to speak like that, but----" He broke off, and began again, "I thought we were agreed that she would have to give him up."

"That is not the way to put it," said Alice. "My brother, who is really the soul of honour, will have to release Doris from her promise. He must do it--and will, when he knows everything."

"Yes, of course. As I was saying, if Doris will not--I beg your pardon, as she cannot in honour release herself, I shall go to Sinclair and tell him that it will be most dishonourable of him if he does not release her from her engagement----"

"That won't do!" exclaimed Alice; "that won't do at all. If you go to Norman in that spirit you will soon be outside his door again. My brother is a bit of a lion, you know, in more senses than one. He might listen to any one speaking very courteously, but if a bear comes in and tries to get his bone, oh! there _will_ be a pandemonium!"

"Well, he must be told----"