go, for pity's sake," he added entreatingly, for he thought that she meant to turn away from him; "surely you will not begrudge me a few words of kindness. I have gone through a great deal since I saw you. . . ."
She descended a few steps, her delicate hand still resting on the banisters, her silken kirtle making a soft swishing noise against the polished oak of the stairs. It was a solace to him, even to watch her now. The sight of his adored mistress was balm to his aching eyes. Yet he was quick to note — with that sharp intuition peculiar to Love — that her dear face had lost much of its brightness, of its youth, of its joy of living. She was as exquisite to look on as ever, but she seemed older, more gentle, and, alas! a trifle sad.
"I heard you had been ill," she said softly, "I was very sorry, believe me, but . . . Oh! do you not think," she added with sudden inexplicable pathos, whilst she felt hot tears rising to her eyes and causing her voice to quiver, "do you not think that an interview between us now can only be painful to us both?"
He mistook the intention of her words, as was only natural, and whilst she mistrusted her own feelings for him, fearing to betray that yearning for his friendship and his consolation, which had so suddenly overwhelmed her at sight of him, he thought that she feared the interview because of her condemnation of him.
"Then you believed me guilty?" he said sadly. "They told you this hideous tale of me, and you believed them, without giving the absent one, who alas! could not speak in his own defense, the benefit of the doubt."
For one of those subtle reasons of which women alone possess the secret, and which will forever remain inexplicable to the more logical sex, she steeled her heart against him, even when her entire sensibilities went out to him in passionate sympathy.
"I could not help but believe, good master," she said a little coldly. "Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse, who, with all his faults of temper, is a man of honor, confirmed that horrible story which appeared in the newspaper and of which everyone in Thanet hath been talking these weeks past."
"And am I not a man of honor?" he retorted hotly. "Because I am poor and must work in order to live, am I to be condemned unheard? Is a whole life's record of self-education and honest labor to be thus obliterated by the word of my most bitter enemy?"
"Your bitter enemy? . . ." she asked. "Sir Marmaduke? . . ."
"Aye! Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse. It seems passing strange, does it not?" he rejoined bitterly. "Yet somehow in my heart, I feel that Sir Marmaduke hates me, with a violent and passionate hatred. Nay! I know it, though I can explain neither its cause nor its ultimate aim. . . ."
He drew nearer to the stairs whereon she still stood, her graceful figure slightly leaning towards him; he now stood close to her, his head just below the level of her own; his hand had he dared to raise it, could have rested on hers.
"Sue! my beautiful and worshiped lady," he cried impassionedly, "I entreat you to look into my eyes! . . . Can you see in them the reflex of those shameful deeds which have been imputed to me? Do I look like a liar and a cheat? In the name of pity and of justice, for the sweet sake of our first days of friendship, I beg of you not to condemn me unheard."
He lowered his head, and rested his aching brow against her cool, white hand. She did not withdraw it, for a great joy had suddenly filled her heart, mingling with its sadness, a sense of security and of bitter, yet real, happiness pervaded her whole being: a happiness which she could not — wished not — to explain, but which prompted her to stoop yet further towards him, and to touch his hair with her lips.
Hot tears which he tried vainly to repress fell upon her fingers. He had felt the kiss descending on him almost like a benediction. The exquisite fragrance of her person filled his soul with a great delight which was almost pain. Never had he loved her so ardently, so passionately, as at this moment, when he felt that she too loved him, and yet was lost to him irrevocably.
"Nay! but I will hear you, good master," she murmured with infinite gentleness, "for the sake of that friendship, and because now that I have seen you again I no longer believe any evil of you."
"God bless my dear lady," he replied fervently. "Heaven is my witness that I am innocent of those abominable crimes imputed to me. Sir Marmaduke took me to that house of evil, and a cruel plot was there concocted to make me appear before all men as a liar and a cheat, and to disgrace me before the world and before you. That the object of this plot was to part me from you," added Richard Lambert more calmly and firmly, "I am absolutely confident; what its deeper motive was I dare not even think. It was known that I . . . loved you, Sue . . . that I would give my life to save you from trouble . . . I was your slave, your watch-dog. . . . I was forcibly removed, torn from you, my name disgraced, my health broken down. . . . But my life was not for them . . . it belongs to my lady alone. . . . Heaven would not allow it to be sacrificed to their villainous schemes. I fought against sickness and death with all the energy of despair. . . . It was a hand-to-hand fight, for discouragement, and anon despair, ranged themselves among my foes. . . . And now I have come back," he said with proud energy, "broken mayhap, yet still standing . . . a snapped oak yet full of vigor, yet . . . I have come back, and with God's help will be even with them yet."
He had straightened his young figure, and his strong, somewhat harsh voice echoed through the oak-paneled hall. He cared not if all the world heard him, if his enemies lurked about striving to spy upon him. His profession of love and of service to his lady was the sole remaining pride of his life, and now that he knew that she believed and trusted him, he longed for every man to hear what he had to say.
"Nay! what you say, kind Richard, fills me with dread," said Sue after a little pause. "I am glad . . . glad that you have come back. . . . For some weeks, nay, months past, I have had the presentiment of some coming evil. . . . I have . . . I have felt lonely and. . . ."
"Not unhappy?" he asked with his usual earnestness. "I would not have my lady unhappy for all the treasures of this world."
"No!" she replied meditatively, striving to be conscious of her own feelings, "I do not think that I am unhappy . . . only anxious . . . and . . . a little lonely: that is all. . . . Sir Marmaduke is oft away: when he is at home, I scarce ever see him, and he but rarely speaks to me . . . and methinks there is but scant sympathy 'twixt Mistress de Chavasse and me, though she is kind at times in her way."
Then she turned her eyes, bright with unshed tears, down again to him.
"But all seems right again!" she said with a sweet, sad smile, "now that you have come back, my dear . . . dear friend!"
"God bless you for these words!"
"I grieved terribly when I heard . . . about you . . . at first . . ." she said almost gaily now, "yet somehow I could not believe it all . . . and now. . . ."
"Yes? . . . and now?" he asked.
"Now I believe in you," she replied simply. "I believe that you care for me, and that you are my friend."
"Your friend, indeed, for I would give my life for you."
Once more he stooped, but now he kissed her hand. He was her friend, and had the right to do this. He had gradually mastered his emotion, his sense of wrong, and with that exquisite selflessness which real love alone can kindle in a human heart, he had succeeded in putting aside all thought of his own great misery, his helplessness and the hopelessness of his position, and remembered only that she looked fragile, a little older, sadder, and had need of his help.
"And now, sweet lady," he said, forcing himself to speak calmly of that which always set his heart and senses into a turmoil of passionate jealousy,
