never doubted that they were married) and by his son, "the Monsieur now before him," as he said innocently. They had lived very quietly, occupying the very rooms in which they were now sitting, he told the young men; roaming about the sands in the day, or driving over to the adjacent towns and villages, or sailing in a boat that Mr. Occleve hired by the month. They seemed contented and happy enough, he said, and stayed on and on until the autumn's damp and rain, peculiar to that part of the coast, drove them away. It was strange, he thought, that Milor did not remember anything about that period; but it was true, he was but a little child!
Then, he continued, in the following summer they returned again, and again spent some months there--and then, he never saw nor heard of them more. But, so well did he remember Mr. Occleve's face, even after all these years, that, ever since Lord Penlyn had been in the house, he had been puzzling his brains to think where he had seen him before. He certainly should not, he said, have remembered the child he had played with so often, but that his likeness to his father was more than striking. To Madame, his mother, he saw no resemblance at all.
"But I did not tell him," he said to himself afterwards, as he sat in his parlour below and sipped a little red wine meditatively, "I did not tell him that on the second summer a gloom had fallen over them, and that I often saw her in tears, and heard him speak harshly to her. Why should I? À quoi bon to disturb the poor young man's meditations on his dead father and mother!"
And the good landlord went out and served a chopine of petit bleu to one customer, and a tasse of absinthe gommée to another, and entertained them with an account of how there was, upstairs, an English Milor who had been there thirty years ago with his father; the Milor who was the owner of the yacht now in port.
On the next day the storm was over, there was almost a due south wind, and the Electra was skimming over the waves and leaving the dreary French coast far behind it.
"It hasn't been a pleasant visit," Lord Penlyn said to Philip, as they leant over the bows smoking their pipes and watching Le Vocq fade gradually into a speck. "I would give something never to have heard that story!"
"It is the story of thirty years ago," his friend answered. "And it is not you who did the wrong. Why let it worry you?"
"I cannot help it! And--I daresay you will think me a fool!--but I cannot also help wondering on which of my father's children--upon that other nameless and unknown one, or upon me--his sins will be visited!"
The Story
CHAPTER I.
Ida Raughton sat, on a bright June day of that year, in her pretty boudoir looking out on the well-kept gardens of a West End square, and thinking of an important event in her life that was now not very far off--her marriage. Within the last month she had become engaged, not without some earlier doubts on her part as to whether she was altogether certain of her feelings--though, afterwards, she told herself over and over again that the man to whom she was now promised was the only one she could ever love: and the wedding-day was fixed for the 1st of September. Her future husband was Gervase Occleve, Viscount Penlyn.
She was the only daughter of Sir Paul Raughton, a wealthy Surrey baronet, and had been to him, since her mother's death, as the apple of his eye--the only thing that to him seemed to make life worth living. It was true that he had distractions that are not uncommon to elderly gentlemen of means, and possessed of worldly tastes; perfectly true that Paris and Nice, and Ascot and Newmarket, as well as his clubs and his friends--not always male ones--had charms for him that were still very seductive; but, after all, they were nothing in comparison to his daughter's love and his love for her. Never during his long widowerhood, a widowerhood dating from her infancy, had he failed to make her life and happiness the central object of his existence; never had he allowed his pleasures to stand in the way of the study of her comfort. The best schools and masters when she was a child, the best friends and chaperons for her when womanhood was approaching, and when it had arrived, the greatest liberality as regards cheques for dressmakers, milliners, upholsterers, horses, etc., had been but a small part of his way of showing his devotion to her. And she had returned his affection, had been to him a daughter giving back love for love, and endeavouring in every way in her power to make him an ample return for all the thought and care he had showered on her. Of course he had foreseen that the inevitable day must come when--love him however much she might--she would still be willing to leave him, when she would be willing to resign being mistress of her father's house to be mistress of her husband's. His worldly knowledge, which was extensive enough for half-a-dozen ordinary men, told him clearly enough that the parent nest very soon palled on the bird that saw its way to building one for itself. Yet, when the blow fell, as he had known it must fall, he did not find that his philosophy enabled him to endure it very lightly. On the other hand, there was his love for her, and that bade him let her go, since it was for her happiness that she should do so.
"I promised her mother when she lay dying," he said to himself, "that my life should be devoted to her, and I have kept my vow to the best of my power. I am not going to break it now. Besides, it is part of a father's duty to see his daughter well married; and I suppose Penlyn is a good match. At any rate, there are plenty of other fathers and mothers who would like to have caught him for their girls."
That she should have made a sensation during her first season was not a thing to astonish Sir Paul, nor, indeed, any one else. Ida Raughton was as thoroughly beautiful a girl, when first she made her appearance in London society, as any who had ever taken their place in its ranks. Tall and graceful, and possessed of an exquisitely shaped head, round which her auburn hair curled in thick locks; with bright hazel eyes, whose expression varied in accordance with their owner's thoughts and feelings, sometimes sparkling with laughter and mirth, and sometimes saddened with tears as she listened to any tale of sorrow; with a nose the line of which was perfect, and a mouth, the smallness of which disguised, though it could not hide, the even, white teeth within, no one could look at Ida without acknowledging how lovely she was. Even other and rival débutantes granted her loveliness, and the woman who can obtain such a concession as this from her sisters has fairly established her right to homage.
As she sat at her boudoir window on this June day, thinking of her now definitely settled marriage, she was wondering if the life before her would be as bright and happy as the one she was leaving behind for ever. That--with the exception of the death of her mother, a sorrow that time had mercifully tempered to her--had been without alloy. Would the future be so? There was no reason to think otherwise, she reflected, no reason to doubt it. Lord Penlyn was young, handsome, and manly, the owner of an honoured name, and well endowed with the world's goods. Yet that would not have weighed with her had she not loved him.
She had asked herself if she did love him several times before she consented to give him the answer he desired, and then she acknowledged that he alone had won her heart. She recalled other men's attentions to her, their soft words, their desire to please; how they had haunted her footsteps at balls and at the Opera, and how no other man's homage had ever been so sweet to her as the homage of Gervase Occleve. At first--wishing still to be sure of herself--she would not agree to be his wife, telling him that she did not know her heart; but when he asked her a second time, after she had had ample opportunity for reflection, she told him he should have his wish.
"And you do love me, Ida?" he asked rapturously, perhaps boyishly, as they drove back from a large dinner-party to which they had gone at Richmond. "You are sure you do?"
"Yes," she said, "I am sure I do. I was not sure when first you asked me, but I am now."
"Then kiss me, darling, and tell me so. Otherwise I shall scarcely be able to believe it;" and he bent over her and kissed her, and she returned the kiss.
