CHAPTER VII.

THE REJECTION.

Hawkshaw had been rambling in Acton Chase alone, when he met Ethel, or overtook her, near the great old shamble oak, which we have before mentioned.

He had been pondering on the state of his affairs and finances, which were far from flourishing. His pocket-money was almost gone, and for a time he had been reduced to clay pipes and cheap cubas. He was without the means, in fact, of travelling so far as the Mauritius; and as Mr. Basset--good-natured, easy-tempered Mr. Basset--whose character had no particular point save perfect amiability, though half intending or adopting the idea that Cramply, the son of his "old friend Tom Hawkshaw, of Lincoln's Inn," should accompany him abroad, had never made an offer of means to enable him to do so; thus our Texan Ranger was somewhat at his wit's end on the evening in question--an evening of which, at that moment, he little foresaw the end; and he rambled under the stately oaks of the ancient chase with a cloudy expression of eye, though still wearing the melodramatic scarlet cap and Spanish sash, which had excited considerable speculation among the rustic hobnails of Acton-Rennel.

Hawkshaw had imbibed rather too much of Mr. Basset's Amontillado after dinner; this, with some champagne, of which he had partaken freely during that meal, and a glass of brandy, imbibed as a corrective after it, rendered him somewhat blind alike to consequences, and to foregone conclusions. Thus, on suddenly meeting Ethel in such a secluded place, he resolved on speaking more openly of his love to her.

Had Mrs. Basset survived at this period of our story, there can be little doubt that she would speedily have relieved Ethel from the presence and advances of such a lover, despite her husband's reverence for the memory of "old Tom Hawkshaw, of Lincoln's Inn." As the matter stood now, the village gossips, at the tap of the "Royal Oak," the blacksmith's forge, and other rustic resorts, had long since settled the whole affair. Ethel was the affianced of Morley Ashton, and poor little Rose was assigned to "the captain with the red thingumbob cap."

"'Fortune favours the brave;' 'nothing venture, nothing have.' They are two old saws; but I must keep them in view, nevertheless," thought Hawkshaw, as he threw away his cigar and joined Ethel Basset, on whose cheek there was a charming flush, for the May evening was warm. She had been walking fast, to learn what tidings the electric wire had for her and Morley; and the last farewell of an old cottager, who dwelt by the skirts of the chase, had agitated her.

The captain opened the trenches by some of the remarks usually made about the weather, and the beauty of the evening; then he adverted to his good fortune in meeting her, especially in such a place; how much he had longed for an opportunity of speaking with her alone, as his future happiness or misery would be the result--an opportunity that had not occurred for some time (since Morley Ashton's arrival he might have said), and so, after sundry awkward pauses, he proceeded to declare his regard, his esteem, his passion for Ethel.

She listened to him with considerable annoyance and concern, but barely slackened her pace as he spoke.

The extreme self-possession, the quiet manner, the cool and gentle aspect of Ethel, baffled Hawkshaw, and irritated him so much, that there were times, when in his self-communings he actually felt a doubt whether he loved or--hated her!

And now, while he spoke of love, volubly, but yet with agitation, she continued to fit on a lemon-coloured kid glove, with provoking care and accuracy, on her small, pretty hand, and seemed to be fully more occupied with it than with him.

The very movements of her hands, the white parting of her smooth, dark hair--all betokened a placidity which, as he said, mentally, "served to worry him." Yet Ethel was greatly agitated, though Hawkshaw's eye had not the acuteness, nor had he the refinement, to be aware of it.

"I am deeply grieved to hear all this, Captain Hawkshaw," said she; "for already you must be assured," she added, in a tremulous voice--"assured that I cannot love you in return."

"Now, Ethel, call me Hawkshaw, Cramply, which you will, or anything you please that is not formal, but do not, for Heaven's sake, speak so coldly. And so--and so it is quite impossible?"

"Quite," she said in a low voice.

"Wherefore? Am I so hideous?"

"Far from it."

Hawkshaw was aware of her undisguised preference for Morley Ashton; and though he knew, or feared what her reply would be, the wine he had imbibed, or some strange emotion that stirred within his breast, made him urge the hopeless matter still.

"Ethel," said he, softly, but through his clenched teeth, and while his cheek grew pale with suppressed passion; "you will, perhaps, have the kindness to explain?"

Trembling with excitement and annoyance, and while tears started to her eyes, she replied:

"Explain, sir! Why should I be called upon to explain? You know well that since I was seventeen I have been engaged--have loved another."

"At seventeen, interesting age, a girl is in the first flush of womanhood," began Hawkshaw, in his sneering tone; "fresh in feeling and tender in sensibility; the consequence is that, of a necessity, she falls in love with the first fellow, be he good, bad, or indifferent, who presents himself."

"But I did not fall in love, as you phrase it, with the first who presented himself, any more than I am likely to do with the _last_," replied Ethel, with an air that now was one of unconcealed annoyance. "My sister Rose is a girl whom all allow to be charming, and is as much admired as any in the county, and she has passed seventeen, your rubicon, your girlish equator, your ideal line, without 'falling in love' with anyone----"

"That you know of, Miss Basset," said Hawkshaw, sharply.

"Rose has no secrets from me, sir!"

"Do not let us quarrel, for Heaven's sake. I apologise."

"How tiresome--how impertinent! and yet I dare not tell Morley," sighed Ethel, in her heart, as she continued to walk very fast; but Laurel Lodge was a long way off, and the sunlit waste of the chase stretched for, at least, a mile before them yet.

Bitterly did she now repent having entrusted Morley with the ring, as it might lead to some unseemly quarrel between him and Hawkshaw; on this occasion she had an admirable opportunity for returning it personally. After a pause:

"With all this fancied attachment to your first love, I do not think you very romantic, Ethel," said Hawkshaw.

"You are right, sir; indeed, I am quite matter-of-fact."

"_Caramba!_ it is too bad for a charming girl of two-and-twenty to be so."

"What right have you to deem me charming, or to assume my age?" asked Ethel, angrily, and with her eyes now full of tears, which the short veil of her little hat concealed.

"I can no more help deeming you so than help admiring the sunshine. But, ah, Ethel, if I had you where I have been--where the volcanic mountains of the Sierra Nevada look down on the valley of the Colorado, I could teach you, or perhaps infuse into your impulsive nature something of the fire, the romance--the glorious romance--of Spanish South America."

"Thank you," replied Ethel, relieved and laughing, when she found Hawkshaw was indulging in one of his platitudes; "but I would rather learn it here, amid a sweet English landscape, like this old wooded chase, than among flaming volcanoes, tawny savages, stinging mosquitoes, and your old friends, the Barradas."

"The Barradas!" repeated Hawkshaw, starting, as his eyes flashed with a gleam of malevolence and alarm; his brows knit, his hands twitched spasmodically, and he gave Ethel a keen glance of inquiry; for she had unwittingly touched some hidden spring, some secret sore--or it might be sorrow. For a moment he looked as if he could have sprang upon her; but he laughed, and said, with an evident effort at being jocular: "To return to the subject--to this love of thrilling, blushing, and susceptible seventeen, which deprives me of you, occurred five years ago?"

"And since then I have found no reason to change my mind. Here is the gate of Miss Page's house, where I wish to call. Good evening, captain. Her brother Jack will see me home."

Ethel bowed, left him, and closed the iron gate.

She was, in reality, full of intense anxiety to learn what tidings Morley had received by the telegraph from London; but being bored and worried by Hawkshaw's cool and impudent love-making, she took this opportunity of quitting him, which, in her nervous haste, she did, perhaps, rather too abruptly.

A shower of tears relieved her; but Hawkshaw, as he watched her figure flitting up the Pages' avenue of lilacs, balsam, poplars, and giant hollyhocks, bit his nether lip till the blood nearly came, and his sinister eyes emitted one of their most malevolent gleams.

"Curse her!" he muttered, hoarsely and deeply, "curse her! She spoke of the Barradas, too! But I shall crush her proud heart yet--crush it like a rotten _castano_!"

Then he turned away towards the seashore, with vengeance burning in his heart, and had not proceeded a quarter of a mile before he encountered Morley Ashton, perhaps the last person in the world he could have wished to meet at such a time, and when in such a bitter mood.