rehearsing to join some play actors she had seen performing on the common. Neither locks nor bars will hold her, for I have tried both. I would not dare to coerce her in any smallest degree, for I know not what might happen. So I hope you will see, my dear Cecil, that it would be indeed wise if you could take her advice and put her out of your mind. I fear that, as she says, she has given me all the love of which she is capable.
From this point the letter ran on in the same hand, but in another vein.
So far, dear coz, I’ve written according to my revered father’s words. You know I’m the only scholar in the family. The pen fits his hand but sadly, while every implement of love and war rests easily in mine. With the foils I – But, alas and alack, you care not for tales of that sort. I hear you say: “Fie, fie, Ju! Why play with a man’s toys?” To return to the subject in hand. Will you put me quite out of your mind and thoughts? Can you? If so, I pray you do so. For I love you not at all. ’Tis so absurd of you to want to marry the little red-haired termagant you used to play with. And believe me, I’m naught now save a big red-haired termagant. And I love you not one whit more than I did in the old days when I used to hate you. Perhaps ’twould be folly to say that I never will love you. I might meet you somewhere, at some odd chance, and find that you were the man for my inmost heart. And at that same meeting you might find that you loved me not at all. You think, doubtless, that I know nothing of love, and yet I do know that it lies all in the chance of meeting. If I might meet you in my mood of to-day I’d hate you, whereas to-morrow I might love you. To defend myself against my father’s charges I’ll not try. Yet why should I not ride alone? And am I alone with my beloved Star? Ay, even though it is only a black star between two starry eyes blacker than night? Why should I not have stripped my father’s name and rank from my horse’s trappings when I go abroad? Suppose I should join the play actors – and they do tempt me sorely – why should my father’s name and rank be known and defamed? And, truly, I grant you, I’m as likely to join the play actors as to enter a nunnery, the one as the other and the other as the one. Both draw me strangely, and I’m likelier to do either than to marry you. Here’s my hand and seal on that, or, rather, here’s my hand and a kiss, for a kiss is more binding than a seal. And now for the last word – will you put me out of your mind? Or will you wait for that chance meeting?
Lindley’s lips had touched the paper more than once, and half a dozen sighs had crossed them, when suddenly he sprang to his feet.
A black star! Judith’s horse, then, had a black star on its forehead! And the horse with the black star that had but now strayed into the stable yard! Could that be Judith’s horse? Was Judith in danger or distress? In another instant Lindley was out through the door, calling aloud for the white horse with the black star between its eyes.
“But, my master,” gasped a stable lad, “a squire from Master Ogilvie’s led the beast away not ten minutes ago. ’Twas Mistress Ogilvie’s horse, he said, strayed from the woods where the lady had been gathering wild flowers.”
And it was then at that moment that the Lady Barbara’s mud-bespattered outriders dashed into the courtyard, crying out that their lady’s coach was but a short distance behind them.
V
The Lady Barbara’s coach was wobbling slowly along the moonlit road that led to The Jolly Grig. Fast enough it traveled, however, according to Lady Barbara’s way of thinking, in spite of the fact that, at the tavern, she would find a lover and love awaiting her; the lover, Lord Percy Farquhart, to whom she was betrothed, to whom she would, indeed, be married in a fortnight’s time, and love in the person of Harry Ashley, who had loved her long, and whom she thought she loved. Under her gauntlet Lord Percy’s betrothal ring chafed her finger. On her breast lay the red rose she wore always, for no other reason than that Ashley had asked her so to do.
Querulous to the ancient dame who traveled with her she had been from the start, and more than querulous to the two black-eyed maids whose sole apparent duties were to divine my lady’s wishes before they could be expressed in words.
“Absurd; I say it is absurd that I should be dragged up to London in all this mire,” Lady Barbara cried, in a petulant, plaintive voice. “What do I want with the latest fallals and fripperies to catch my Lord Farquhart’s fancy when he never so much as looks at me? I know full as well as he that his Mistress Sylvia in rags would be more to him than I would be if I were decked in the gayest gauds the town could offer.”
“Sylvia!” gasped her attendant dame.
“Ay, Sylvia, I said,” answered the Lady Barbara. “Don’t think that I’m deaf to London gossip, and don’t imagine that I’m the unsophisticated child my father thinks me, merely because I acquiesce in this brutal plan to marry me to a man I hate. I know how my Lord Farquhart entertains himself. Not that I’d have his love, either. I’d hate him offering love more than I hate him denying it.”
The petulant voice ran on and on, its only vehemence induced by the muddy ruts in the road. Mistress Benton, using every force to keep awake, interjected monosyllabic exclamations and questions. The two maids, exerting all their powers to fall asleep, gave little heed to their mistress’ railings.
The outriders, lured onward by an imagined maltiness in the air, had permitted an ever-increasing distance between themselves and their lady’s coach. It was certainly some several moments after they had passed a moon-shadowed corner that the lumbering coach horses stumbled, wavered and stopped short. Sleepy Drennins recovered his seat with difficulty, the sleepy coach boys sprang to the horses’ heads, Mistress Benton squawked, and the young maids squeaked with terror. Only the Lady Barbara was quite calm. But it must be remembered that the Lady Barbara would welcome delay in any form. But even she drew back in some alarm from the masked face that appeared at the coach door.
“Aaaaay! God help us!” screamed Mistress Benton. “’Tis the Black Devil himself.”
The two maids clung to each other and scurried into an anguished unconsciousness.
The mask had opened the coach door, and his face was close to the Lady Barbara’s.
“A word in your ear, sweet cousin Babs,” he whispered. “But first order your men, on pain of death, to stand each where they are.”
The Lady Barbara recognized dimly a familiar tone in the voice. She saw Lord Farquhart’s coat.
“Lord Farquhart! Percy!” The cry was faint enough in itself, but it was muffled, too, by the gauntleted hand of the highwayman.
“Only for your eyes, my cousin,” he answered. “Only for your ears.”
“What prank is this?” she demanded, haughtily, and yet she had, indeed, given her orders to her men to stand each in his place on pain of death.
“A lover’s prank, perhaps, my sweetheart,” the mask answered. “A prank to have a word alone with you. Come, step down upon my cloak and walk with me out into the moonlight. I would see by it your daffodil hair, your violet eyes, your poppy lips, your lily cheeks.”
A mocking, rippling laugh crossed the Lady Barbara’s lips. At once she gave her hand to her strange cavalier.
“I thought my eyes and ears were not mistaken,” she said. “Now I know in very truth that you are my cousin Percy, for that is the only lover-like speech that ever came from his lips to me. You believe in repetition, it seems.”
In spite of old Mistress Benton’s commands and prayers, the Lady Barbara had stepped from the coach and the stranger had slammed the door upon the gibbering dame.
“Ripening
