CHAPTER X

The night fell on three of the most unhappy people in the world; yet to each had been vouchsafed a partial realization of a cherished hope. Coventry should have been luxuriating in the thought of his approaching marriage to the girl he loved; Elizabeth should have been overwhelmed with joy at the reappearance of O'Neill, after his long absence; and O'Neill during that time had asked for nothing but an opportunity to stand once more in the presence of his divinity. The desire of each had been granted, and yet all three were completely miserable.

Coventry, because he more than suspected that Elizabeth loved O'Neill; Elizabeth, because she felt that honor compelled her to marry Coventry, to whom she was deeply attached, but toward whom her feelings, she now found, were vastly different from those which had flooded her being with new life at the sight of the young Irishman. Her period of waiting and dreaming had unconsciously developed a passion for him which had broken all barriers at the mere sound of his voice, the sight of his face. As for O'Neill, he found her fairer than he had ever thought even in his most extravagant dreams, and it was in an agony of despair that he contemplated her as the bride of another. There was this saving grace in his position, however: he would probably be condemned to death forthwith, and he was in no mood to balk the executioner; if ever death be welcome, it would be so to him.

The only one who was completely at his ease, and who, in fact, extracted a certain satisfaction from the situation, was the admiral. Naturally he did not enter very deeply into the matrimonial schemes of the young, and with the indifference of the aged and the present, he doubted that it would be a matter of any great difficulty either to make Elizabeth forget, if necessary, the Irishman in whom even his obtuse vision had detected that she was greatly interested; or, in case it suited his purpose better, to make his son forget Elizabeth in the presence of some other charmer whom he might select. His purpose was, as ever, the paramount consideration with the admiral.

He had conceived a brilliant idea, which he fondly hoped would result, were it to be realized, in the capture of the notorious Paul Jones, who was the object of consuming desire on the part of every military and naval man in the three kingdoms. So enchanted was the old man with his own idea, and so desirous was he of bagging the game, that he would not have hesitated to sacrifice the affections of his son, the happiness of his ward, or to brush aside almost anything, save his honor, which might stand in his way.

The young Irishman had clearly forfeited his life by his action; nay, more, now that he recalled his name he remembered that he had been found guilty of high treason, and, like his father, was under sentence of death for that as well; he had a double hold upon him, therefore. The powers of the admiral, who was one of the leading men of the realm, were unusually large, and as a state of martial law had been proclaimed on the coast, he was supreme as to life and death, in matters where any military exigency could be urged.

He chuckled to himself at the thought that he held in his hand two of the master cards,--love of life and love of woman; the third, love of honor, which O'Neill was possessed of, was a high one, to be sure, but he trusted by clever play to win the game, since the odds were with him. Elizabeth had become a State paper--a pledge in pawn--to him; O'Neill another piece, or player. He had not yet formulated any plan for carrying out his great idea, but one was already germinating in his mind, so that in the end, under the stimulus of the splendid opportunity he saw before him for rounding out an already brilliant career in the service of his country, by effecting the capture of the famous Paul Jones, his hours were as sleepless as were those of the others.

The poor Irish lieutenant had caused a great deal of trouble to every one with whom he had come in contact. Even Paul Jones himself, who loved and cherished the young man with all his generous heart, was filled with deep anxiety as to his probable fate, when he heard the report of old Price the next day, especially as the hours fled away and his lieutenant did not rejoin the ship. In spite of the absence of the rest of his squadron, the commodore at once hastened to the rendezvous with the Richard alone, and there determined to take a small hand in the game himself while waiting for the Pallas, the Alliance, and the others to assemble. Cautious inquiries which he caused to be made on shore had informed him that, as he expected, O'Neill had been apprehended. A less kindly man than Paul Jones would have left him to his fate--but that was not his way.

Early the next morning, being Wednesday, September the twenty-second, O'Neill had arisen and gone down on the terrace of the castle overlooking the ocean and the ships in the harbor, where he met Lady Elizabeth. She was gazing listlessly over the causeway at a horseman galloping along the road.

"Do I interrupt reminiscences of a tête-à-tête, madam?" said he, saluting her with a profound bow.

"Reminiscences such as mine are better interrupted," she replied.

"You were--"

"Saying good-bye to my--my--cousin."

"Has your ladyship no dearer title than that by which to designate him?"

"Not yet," she answered wearily.

"Ah, I perceive," he continued jealously, "the natural regret at the absence of your betrothed, for--"

"No, no, not that! How can you trifle so with me at this moment? He reproached me because I--why do I tell you these things? You constrain me, sir; I--"

"Forgive me; you need not finish, Lady Elizabeth," he said with a sudden gravity. "As for me, I must needs trifle, or die. Life in the freshness of the morning, the white-capped ocean stretching before us in the sunlight, the gentle breeze playing across our faces, is sweet to think on; with youth and rank and station, it would be heavenly spent with you. Without you I welcome the death your guardian will undoubtedly inflict upon me."

"Yet you waited so long--a year and a half--why did you not come? I--" She stopped. She had spoken in a low, tender whisper, looking down at the sea beneath them, and plucking nervously at the loose plaster of the old walk. Death so imminent for love and lover--nay, not for love; that were eternal--broke down petty convention. Where were death and love, there, too, should truth and honesty be--and honor.

He laid his strong hand gently down on the small white one outlined upon the gray weather-beaten rock of the parapet; with upturned palm she met his grasp. Her eyes were lifted now; she drew strength from his strength; a dawning hope flickered into being in her torn heart. He was so strong and true, he surely could do something--there must be some other way. It was the tribute woman pays to man.

He read aright, with eyes keen from affection, the mute, piteous appeal in her sweetly lifted face. But he could only smile sadly in answer, with a silent shake of the head. There was no other way, then, in the marked path she must walk. Have mercy, Lord!

"Was it long to you, dearest?" he queried, his dark face aflame. "To me--I have been a fool. Nothing should have kept me from you. To trust to messengers, letters--a fool--too late!" Silence. The hands unclasped; ties were broken. "Too late!" He turned bitterly away.

"Would that we had met in happier days!" she murmured sadly, making a brave effort at self-control.

"No reproaches, Lady Elizabeth," he answered, the touch of formality in the address showing his own equal strife. "What must be, must be! At least I have met you before I die, and for a year and a half I have thought of you, and dreamed of you, and held you the lady of my heart. E'en death itself cannot rob me of that sweet joy--for it is past."

They looked apart, and heard above the voice of the great deep, the unfathomable sound of the moaning surge far beneath them, chafing against the pebbles in the still morning, the wild beating of their hearts; after a little pause he continued more softly,--

"And you--you will forget the young Irishman, the soldier of fortune, whom untoward fate threw across your pathway; and in your own English home, and in the love of your noble husband, may you be happy."

"Nay, not so," she said softly, taking his hand again, her eyes filling with tears; this time she was the stronger. "My heart is not made of such fickle stuff. I shall do my duty, keep my plighted word--even you would have me do no less than that--but not more steadfastly than I shall keep you within my recollection. But do not talk of death, you must not; I know the admiral--he has a kindly heart--"

"I would not live," replied the young man, quietly, "for life is death when the heart is dead."

"Tell me," asked the girl, nervously breaking the almost insupportable silence, "were you there when my mother's picture fell last night?"

"Yes, so near to it that it almost fell into my arms," he answered, smiling.

"A bad omen!" she murmured, shaking her head.

"What, that it should fall into my arms?"

"No, that it should fall at all."

"Well, I do not believe in omens, and 'tis in the arms of another that you fall, at any rate. He gets the substance, I the shadow, the illusion--and even that is broken!"

"And so even the shadow is lost," said Elizabeth.

"Not yet. Open my heart, you will find it there," he answered quickly. "But how like you the portrait was!"

"Yes, I am said to look like my mother," she answered, striving, as we all do in tragic moments, to reach the height of the commonplace. "In the dress I now wear, under the changing fashions, the likeness is not so striking; but when I am gowned as she was, in the identical costume, which is still in existence, by the way, and sit as she did, in the dim light in that old chair, the resemblance is even more striking."

"Would that I might see you thus--in that dress of the olden time! Nothing except your actual presence in the hall has ever startled me so much as that image of the past did last night. You are so like the picture, but more beautiful, I think."

"Ah, yes, youth and the present are always the more beautiful. The admiral says I am not to be mentioned beside her--he loved her, I think--she was his cousin; they tell me she married very young, unhappily, too, and died when I was born, many years after. My father, too, died; I can scarcely remember him at all; I am alone."

"There should be a warning in this, should there not?" he asked softly; an idle question, fate had determined.

"I suppose so," replied the girl, wearily; "but what was I to do? The arrangement was made when I was a child. I have grown up with Edward Coventry, he loves me, he is a noble fellow, I respect--esteem him highly. It is a long-cherished wish of the admiral's; it was my mother's wish as well. I put him off, in spite of the engagement, for a year--for six months again," she said, with a glance the fond reproach of which cut him to the heart. "I promised him, on my word of honor, if he would only wait that time I would make no further objections. I cannot break that word now."

"Not even for me?"

"No, not even for you."

"But you do not love him?" he asked eagerly.

"Yes," she answered slowly; "I do--in a way, that is."

"But not like--"

"Enough, Lieutenant O'Neill!" she answered proudly, resuming, perforce, her erstwhile haughty air, which was belied by a deep flush on her cheeks. "'Tis not generous of you to press me further. I--we have decided. I can stand no more. Forgive me-- Have mercy!"

"I respect your decision; nay, more, I honor you for it, Lady Elizabeth," he answered gravely. "I kiss your hand and go to my death smiling. Forget me."

"Your death!" she cried in alarm. "What mean you?"

"The admiral, sir, would speak with you in the office at once," interrupted the sergeant, who had approached with a file of soldiers.

"You see--the summons," replied O'Neill, calmly, to Elizabeth. "Friend, I attend you--good-bye."