Leslie's Loyalty. Garvice Charles

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      "She's not likely to love me for anything else."

      "All the better. Oh, Heaven! What would I not give for such a love as that?" broke out the duke.

      As the passionate exclamation left his lips the door opened, and Mrs. Whiting, the landlady, came in. Her face was flushed; she was in a state of nervous excitement, caused by a mixture of curiosity and fear.

      "I beg your pardon, your grace," she faltered, puffing timorously; "but did you ring?"

      The duke looked straight at the woman, and then up at Yorke Auchester.

      "No," said Yorke.

      "I beg your grace's pardon," the curious woman began, stammeringly; but Grey coming behind her seized her by the arm, and, none too gently, swung her into the passage and closed the door.

      The duke looked down frowningly.

      "They've found you out, Dolph," said Yorke.

      The duke was silent for a moment, then he sighed.

      "Yes, I suppose so; I do not know how. I am sorry. I had hoped to stay here in peace for a few weeks, at any rate. But I must go now. Better to be in London where everybody knows me, and has, to an extent, grown accustomed to me."

      He stopped short, and his face reddened.

      "Yorke," he said, "do you think she knew which of us was the duke?"

      "I don't know," replied Yorke; "I don't think she did."

      "She would naturally think it was you if she didn't know," said the duke, thoughtfully, his eyes resting on the tall form of his cousin, who had gone to the window and was looking at the cottage opposite. "She would never imagine me, the cripple. Don't some of these simple folk think that a king is always at least six feet and a half, and that he lives and sleeps in a crown? Yes, you look more like a duke than I do, Yorke; and I wish to Heaven you were!"

      "Thanks," said Yorke Auchester, not too attentively. "What a pretty little scrap of a place this is, Dolph, and – ah – ." He stopped short. "By Jove! Dolph, what a lovely girl! Is that the one of whom you were speaking just now?"

      The duke put the plain muslin curtain aside and looked.

      Leslie had come to the window, and stood, all unconscious of being watched, with her arms raised above her head, in the act of putting a lump of sugar between the bars of the parrot's cage.

      The duke gazed at her, at first with an expression of reverent admiration.

      "Ah, yes, beautiful!" he murmured; then his face hardened and darkened. "How good, how sweet, how innocent she looks! And yet I'll wager all I own that she is no better than the rest. That with all her angelic eyes and sweet childlike lips, she will be ready to barter her beauty, her youth, her soul, for rank and wealth." He groaned, and clutched his chair with his long, thin, and, alas! claw-like hands. "I cannot bear it. Yorke, I meant to conceal my title, and while I staid down here pretend to be just a poor man, an ordinary commoner, one who would not tempt any girl to play fast and loose with her soul. I should have liked to have made a friend of that girl; to have seen her, talked with her every day, without the perpetual, ever-present dread that she would try and make me marry her. But it is too late, it seems. This woman here knows, everybody in the place knows, or will know. It is too late, unless – ."

      He stopped and looked up.

      "Yorke!"

      "Hallo!" said that young fellow, scarcely turning his head.

      "Will you – do you mind – you say you owe me something?" faltered the duke, eagerly.

      "Why, of course," assented Yorke Auchester, and he came and bent over him. "What's the matter, Dolph? What is it you want me to do?"

      "Just this," said the duke, laying his hand – it trembled – on the strong arm; "be the Duke of Rothbury for a time, and let this miserable cripple sink into the background. You will not refuse? Say it is a whim; a mere fad. Sick people," he smiled, bitterly, "are entitled to these whims and fads, you know, and I've not had many. Humor this one; be the duke, and save me for once from the humiliation which every young girl inflicts upon me."

      Yorke Auchester's brow darkened, and he bit his lip.

      "Rather a rum idea, old chap, isn't it?" he said, with an uneasy laugh.

      "Call it so if you like," responded the duke, with, if possible, increased eagerness. "Are you going to refuse me, Yorke? By Heaven!" – his thin face flushed – "it is the first, the only thing I have ever asked of you – ."

      "Hold on!" interrupted Yorke Auchester, almost sternly. "I did not say I would refuse; you know that I cannot. You have been the best friend – ."

      The duke raised his hand.

      "I knew you would not. Ring the bell, will you?" His voice, his hand, as he pointed to the bell, trembled.

      Yorke Auchester strode across the room and rang the bell.

      Grey entered.

      "Grey," said the duke, in a low voice, "how came this woman to know my name?"

      "It was a mistake, your grace," said Grey, troubled and remorseful. "I let it slip when I was wiring, and the idiot at the telegraph station in London must have wired it down to the people on his own account. But – but, your grace, she doesn't know much after all, for she didn't know which is the dook, as she calls it, beggin' your pardon, your grace."

      The duke nodded, clasping his hands impatiently and eagerly.

      "Ring the bell. Stand aside, and say nothing," he said, in a tone of stern command which he seldom used.

      The landlady, who, like Hamlet, was fat and scant of breath, was heard panting up the stairs, knocked timidly, and, in response to the duke's "Come in," entered, and looked from one to the other, in a fearsome, curious fashion.

      "Did you ring?"

      She would not venture to say "Your grace" this time.

      The duke smiled at her.

      "Yes," he said, gravely but pleasantly. "His Grace the Duke of Rothbury will stay with me for a few days if you can give him a room, Mrs. – Mrs. – ."

      "Whiting, sir, if you please. Oh, certainly, sir," and she dropped a courtesy to Yorke Auchester. "Certainly your grace. It's humble and homely like, but – ."

      Grey edged her gently and persuasively out of the room, and when he had followed her the duke leaned back his chair, and looking up at the handsome face of his cousin, laughed.

      "It's like a scene in one of the new farces, isn't it, Yorke – I beg your pardon, Godolphin, Duke of Rothbury?"

      Farce? Yes. But at that moment began the tragedy of Leslie Lisle's life.

      CHAPTER III.

      RALPH DUNCOMBE

      The "great artist" went on painting, making the sketch more hideously and idiotically unnatural every minute, and was so absorbed in it that Leslie could not persuade him to leave it even for his lunch, and he maundered from the table to the easel with a slice of bread and butter in his СКАЧАТЬ