Of High Descent Part 104

Liza had not been gone a quarter of an hour before Madelaine was well on her way, after stealing silently out of the house.

The effort to be calm was unavailing, for a wild fit of excitement was growing upon her, and instead of walking up the steep cliff-path, she nearly ran.

Would Uncle Luke be at home? He was eccentric and strange in his habits, and perhaps by that time out and away fis.h.i.+ng off some rocky point.

She scanned the rough pier by the harbour, and shuddered as the scene of that horrible night came back. But there was no sign of the old man there, neither could she see him farther away, and feeling hopeful that perhaps she would be in time to catch him, she hurried on, panting. As she turned a corner of the devious way, and came in sight of the cottage, with Leslie's house and mine chimney far up at the back, she stopped short, breathless and wondering, and with a strange reaction at work, suggesting that, after all, this was some mythical invention on the part of the servant, for there stood Duncan Leslie outside Uncle Luke's cottage awaiting her coming.

Volume 3, Chapter XI.

HER DEFENDER.

"Miss Van Heldre!"

"Mr Leslie! That woman came to our house this morning to say--Oh, then, it is not true?"

"Yes," he said slowly; "it is all true."

"True that--that you were hurt--that--that--Oh, pray speak! Louise-- Louise!"

"Gone!" said Leslie hoa.r.s.ely, and, sick at heart and suffering, he leaned back against the wall.

"Gone? Louise gone? Gone where?" Leslie shook his head mournfully, and gazed out to sea.

"Why do you not speak?" cried Madelaine. "Can you not see how your silence troubles me? Mr Leslie, what is the matter? You were found hurt--and Louise--gone! What does it mean?"

He shook his head again.

"Where is Mr Luke Vine?" cried Madelaine, turning from him quickly.

"At the house."

"Then I have come here for nothing," she cried agitatedly. "Mr Leslie, pray, pray speak."

He looked at her wistfully for a few moments.

"What am I to say?" he said at last.

"Tell me--everything."

He still remained retentive; but there was a grim smile full of pity and contempt for himself upon his lips as he said coldly--

"Monsieur De Ligny has been."

"Monsieur De Ligny?"

"The French gentleman, the member of the _haute n.o.blesse_ who was to marry Miss Vine."

Madelaine looked at him wonderingly.

"Mr Leslie," she said, laying her hand upon his arm and believing that she saw delirium in his eyes, consequent upon his injury, her late experience having made her p.r.o.ne to antic.i.p.ate such a sequel. "Mr Leslie, do you know what you are saying?"

"Yes, perfectly," he said slowly. "Monsieur De Ligny, the French gentleman of whom Miss Marguerite so often talked to me, came last night, while Mr Vine was at your father's, and he was persuading Louise to go with him, when I interfered and said she should not go till her father returned."

"Yes?--well?" said Madelaine, watching him keenly.

"Well, there was a struggle, and I got the worst of it. That's all."

"That is not all!" cried Madelaine angrily. "Louise, what did she say?"

"Begged him--not to press her to go," he said slowly and unwillingly, as if the words were being dragged out of him.

"Yes?"

"That is all," he said, still in the same slow, half-dreamy way. "I heard no more. When I came to the Vines were helping me, and--"

"Louise?"

"Louise was gone."

"Mr Leslie," said Madelaine gently, as in a gentle, sympathetic way she laid her hand upon his arm, "you seem to have been a good deal hurt. I will not press you to speak. I'm afraid you hardly know what you say.

This cannot be true."

"Would to Heaven it were not!" he cried pa.s.sionately. "You think I am wandering. No, no, no; I wish I could convince myself that it was. She is gone--gone!"

"Gone? Louise gone? It cannot be."

"Yes," he said bitterly; "it is true. I suppose when a man once gets a strong hold upon a woman's heart she is ready to be his slave, and obey him to the end. I don't know. I never won a woman's love."

"His slave--obey--but who--who is this man?"

"Monsieur De Ligny, I suppose. The French n.o.bleman."

Madelaine made a gesticulation with her hands, as if throwing the idea aside.

"No, no, no," he said impatiently. "It is impossible. De Ligny--De Ligny? You mean that Louise Vine, my dear friend, my sister, was under the influence of some French gentleman unknown to me?"

"Unknown to her father too," said Leslie bitterly, "for he reviled me when I told him."

"I cannot do that," said Madelaine firmly; "but I tell you it is not true."

"As you will," he said coldly; "but I saw her at his knees last night."

"De Ligny--a French gentleman?"

"Yes."

"I tell you it is impossible."

"But she has gone," said Leslie coldly.