Wild Margaret. Garvice Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      "Yes, that's it; I'm a stranger, and you mean to keep me one!" he said, half bitterly, half sorrowfully. "Well, I can't complain; I'm not fit for you to know. Why, even my own flesh and blood are anxious to see the back of me! Yes, you are right, Miss Margaret."

      He dwelt on the name sadly, using it unconsciously.

      "Oh, no, no!" she said, wrung to the heart at the thought of wounding him so mercilessly. "It's not that! It's not of you I thought, but of myself."

      "Of yourself yes," he said. "Communication with me is a kind of pollution; you cannot touch tar, you know! Oh, I understand! Well" – he hung his head – "I'll do as you tell me; I can't do less. I'll take my poor rose – " He stopped short, and something seemed to strike him. "But if I do, I must return you this," and he gently unfastened the white one from his coat, and held it out to her.

      Margaret put out her hand irresolutely.

      "Oh, take it!" he said recklessly. "It is one out of the bowl you gave me."

      "I gave you?" she said.

      "Yes," he said; "you picked them yourself, the girl told me so. I asked her. And you put them in my room. If I take your rose back you must take mine."

      "Well," she said, and she took it slowly, and laid it on the table beside her.

      He drew a long breath, then the color came into his face and the wild, daring Ferrers' spirit shone in his eyes.

      "That's an exchange," he said. "It's a challenge and an acceptance. Don't you see what you have done in cutting me off and flinging me aside, Miss Margaret?"

      "What have I done?" said Margaret.

      "Yes! You have given me back my rose, but you forget that you have worn it, that it has been in your dress, that you have touched it, that it's like a part of yourself. And you have taken my rose, which has been in my room all night, while I dreamt of you – "

      "Lord Leyton!" she panted, half rising.

      "Yes!" he said, confronting her with the sudden passion which lay dormant in him and always, like a tiger, ready to spring to the surface. "You can throw my offer of friendship in my face, you can put me coldly aside, and – and wipe out last night as if it had never been, as if you had done some great wrong in talking to such a man as I am; but you can't rob me of the rose you have touched, ah! and worn."

      "Give – give it me back!" she exclaimed, with a trepidation which was not altogether anger or fear. "Give it me back, my lord. You have no right – "

      "To keep it! Haven't I?" he retorted. "What! when you forced it back on me! No, I will not give it you back! You may do what you like with the white one. You will fling it on the fire, I've no doubt. I can't help it. But this one, yours, I keep! It is mine. I will never part with it. And whenever I look at it I will remember how – until you discovered that I was not fit to associate with you, such a bad lot that you couldn't even keep a flower I gave you! – I'll remember that you have worn it near your heart."

      White as herself, with a passion which had carried him beyond all bounds, he raised the red rose to his lips and kissed it, not once only but thrice.

      Then, as he saw her face change, her lips tremble, his passion melted away, and all penitent and remorseful, he bent toward her.

      "Forgive me!" he said, as if half bewildered; "I – I didn't know what I was saying. I – I am a savage! Yes, that's the name for me! Forgive me, and – good-bye!"

      He lingered on the words till they seemed to fill the room with their music, low as they had been spoken. Then he turned.

      Margaret found her voice.

      "My lord – Lord Leyton. Stop!"

      He stopped and turned.

      "Give me back the rose, please," she said, firmly.

      "No!" he said, his eyes flashing again. "Nothing in this world would induce me to give it to you, or to any one else. I'll keep it till I die! I'll keep it to remind me of last night – and of you!"

      He stood for a moment looking at her steadily – if the passionate glance could be called steady; then the thick folds of the velvet curtain fell and hid him from her sight.

      Margaret stood for a moment motionless.

      Lord Leyton strode through the corridor into the hall. He scarcely knew where he was going, or saw the objects before him.

      "The dog-cart is ready, my lord," said a footman.

      Mr. Stibbings stood with respectful attention beside the door.

      "Good-morning, my lord; the portmanteau is in – " he glanced at the rose which Lord Blair still held in his hand. "If your lordship would like to take some flowers with you, I will get some: there is time – "

      "Flowers? Flowers?" said Lord Blair, confusedly; then, with an exclamation, he hid the rose in his breast and sprung into the cart.

      The horse bounded forward and dashed down the avenue, Lord Blair looking straight before him like a man only half awakened.

      Suddenly, seeing and yet scarcely seeing, he noticed a tall, wiry figure lounging against the sign-post in the center of the village green.

      "Stop!" he said to the groom.

      He pulled up and Lord Blair beckoned to the man.

      Pyke resisted the summons for a second or two, then he slouched up to the dog-cart with his hands in his pockets.

      "Good-morning, my man," said Lord Blair. "I hope you're none the worse for our little set-to?"

      "I'm not the worse, and I sha'n't be," retorted Pyke, lifting his evil eyes for a moment to the handsome face then fixing them on the last button of Lord Blair's waistcoat.

      "That's all right," said Lord Blair. "I see you've got a bruise or two still left," and he laughed. "And I dare say I have. Well, here is some ointment for yours," and he held out some silver.

      Pyke opened his hand, and his fingers closed over it.

      "That's all right," said Blair again, cheerfully. "We part friends, I hope?"

      "Yes, we part friends," said Pyke, but the expression of his face would have suited "We part enemies" equally well.

      "Well, we shall meet again, I dare say," said Blair. "Good-morning."

      "Yes, we shall meet again," said the man, and as he spoke he shot a vindictive glance at Blair's face. "Oh, yes, my lord, we shall meet again," he snarled as the dog-cart drove on. "And it will be my turn then. Ointment, eh! It will be a powerful ointment as 'ud do you any good when I've done with you!"

      CHAPTER VII

      About four o'clock the same evening a group of people was gathered round a young lady who sat on a magnificent and strong-looking horse, standing with well-bred patience near the rails of the Mile.

      The park was crammed, carriages, riders, and pedestrians all massed and hot, in the lovely June air, which seemed laden with the scent of the flowers, and heavy with the sound of wheels and voices.

      The СКАЧАТЬ