to India!”
“You seemed to be very happy last winter—in the hunting season,” said Hilda, trying to speak lightly, though her heart was beating as furiously as if she had been climbing a mountain.
“Yes, I was happy then. I allowed myself to forget. I did not know just then that the trouble I had taken upon my shoulders was a lifelong trouble. Yes, it was a happy time, Hilda, last winter. How many a glorious day we had together across country! You and I were always in the first flight, and generally near each other. Our horses were always such good friends, were they not? They loved to gallop neck-and-neck. O my darling, I was indeed happy in those days—unspeakably happy.”
He had forgotten all prudence, all self-restraint, in a moment. He had taken Hilda’s hand and lifted it to his lips.
“O my dear one, let me tell you how I love you,” he said. “I may never dare say more than that, perhaps, but it is true, and you shall hear it, if only once. Yes, Hilda, I love you. I have loved you ever since last winter, when you and I used to ride after the hounds together. O, those happy winter days, those long waits at the corners of lanes, or in dusky thickets, or on the bleak bare common! I shall never forget them. Do you think I cared what became of the fox in those days, or whether we were after the right or the wrong one? Not a jot, dear. The veriest tailor that ever hung on to a horse could have cared no less for the sport than I. It was your sweet face I loved, and your friendly voice, and the light touch of your little hand. I was full of hope in those days, Hilda; and then a cloud came over my horizon and I dared hope no more. I never meant to tell you—I knew I had no right to tell you this; but my feelings were too strong for me just now. Will you forgive me, Hilda, that I, who dare not ask you to be my wife, have dared to tell you of my love? Can you forgive me?”
“There is nothing to forgive,” she answered gently, looking at him with tear-dimmed eyes.
She was very pale, and her lips trembled faintly as she spoke. In her inmost heart she was exulting at the knowledge of his love. It was as if she had drunk a deep draught of the strong wine of life. In the rapture of knowing herself beloved she had no room for any other consideration. His love might be foolish, vain, unprofitable, fatal even. For the moment she could not measure the consequences, or look into the future. She cared only for the fact that Bothwell Grahame loved her. That love which she had given to him in secret, in all maiden modesty, purest, most ethereal sentiment of which woman’s heart is capable, had not been lavished upon a blind and dumb idol, upon a god of wood and stone.
They walked on for a few minutes in silence, Bothwell still holding Hilda’s hand, but saying never a word. He had said too much already, since he dared say no more. He had told his secret, and had entreated to be forgiven. And now he came to a dead stop. Fate had walled him round with difficulties, had set a barrier before his steps: Fate or his only folly, that easy yielding to temptation which a man prefers to think of afterwards as fatality.
The thud of a horse’s hoofs upon the grass on the other side of the hedge startled Bothwell from his reverie, and Hilda from her beatitude. They looked up, and saw Edward Heathcote cantering towards them on his powerful black. Mr. Heathcote was renowned for his hunters. He never counted the cost of a good horse; and he never had been known to buy a bad one. He was a man who could pick out a horse in a field a quarter of a mile off, ragged and rough and unshorn, altogether out of condition, long mane and neglected tail, and could distinguish the quality of the animal to a shade. He had made many of the hunters he rode, and was not afraid to tackle the most difficult subject. He loved horses, and they loved him. This was a subject upon which he and Bothwell sympathised; and it had been a link between them hitherto. Nothing had been more friendly than their intercourse until the last few weeks, during which time Mr. Heathcote had carefully avoided Penmorval and Bothwell Grahame.
He rode through a gap in the hedge, acknowledged Bothwell’s presence with a nod that was barely courteous, and then turned to his sister.
“You had better hurry home, Hilda, if you mean to be in time for dinner,” he said.
Bothwell was not slow to take the hint.
“Good-bye, Hilda,” he said, offering her his hand.
He called her by her Christian name boldly in her brother’s hearing. There was even a touch of defiance in his manner as he shook hands with her, and lingered with her hand in his, looking at her fondly, sadly, hopelessly, before he turned and walked slowly away across the bright newly-cut stubble, which glittered golden in the evening light.
Mr. Heathcote dismounted and walked beside his sister, with the black’s bridle over his arm, the well-broken horse following as quietly as a dog.
“You and Grahame were in very close confabulation as I rode up, Hilda,” said Heathcote gravely, with scrutinising eyes upon Hilda’s blushing face. “Pray what was he saying to you?”
Hilda hung her head, and hesitated before she replied.
“Please do not ask me, Edward,” she said falteringly, after that embarrassed silence. “I cannot tell you.”
“You cannot tell me, your brother, and natural guardian?” said Heathcote. “Am I to understand that there is some secret compact between you and Bothwell Grahame which cannot be told to your brother?”
“There is no secret compact. How unkind you are, Edward!” cried Hilda, bursting into tears. “There is nothing between us; there is nothing to tell.”
“Then what are you crying about, and why was that man bending over you, holding your hand just now when I rode up? A man does not talk in that fashion about nothing. He was making love to you, Hilda.”
“He told me that he loved me.”
“And you call that nothing!” said Heathcote severely.
“It can never come to anything. It was a secret told unawares, on the impulse of the moment. I have no right to tell you, only you have wrung the secret from me. Nothing can ever come of it, Edward. Pray forget that this thing has ever been spoken of between us.”
“I begin to understand,” said Heathcote. “He asked you to marry him, and you refused him. I am very glad of that.”
“You have no reason to be glad,” replied Hilda, with a flash of anger. She was ready to take her lover’s part at the slightest provocation. “You have no right to make guesses about Mr. Grahame and me. It is surely enough for you to know that I shall never be his wife.”
They had left the stubble-field, and were in a lane leading to The Spaniards, a lane sunk between high banks and wooded hedgerows, such as abound in that western world.
“That is enough for me to know,” answered Heathcote gravely, “but nothing less than that assurance would be enough. I hope it is given in good faith?”
There was a severity in his manner which was new to Hilda. He had been the most indulgent of brothers hitherto.
“Why should you speak so unkindly about Mr. Grahame?” she said. “What objection have you to make against him, except that he is not rich?”
“His want of money would make no difference to me, Hilda. If it were for your happiness to marry a man of small means, I could easily reconcile myself to the idea, and would do my best to make things easy for you. I have a much graver objection against Bothwell Grahame than the fact that he is without a profession and without income. There is a horrible suspicion in men’s minds about him which makes him a man set apart, like Cain; and my sister must have no
