CHAPTER II.
“There is the smoke, Estcourt; Ravensdale must be in sight,” exclaims Flora Desmond, as she leans on her empty rifle and scans the peaceful scene far away below.
“So soon?” inquires the young man looking up. “We must have strangely miscalculated the time.”
“Well, there’s the smoke right enough, Estcourt; and Léonie is far too smart to make a mistake. However, no need to hurry; it is such a glorious evening, and the last for me on these dear old hills, perhaps for ever.”
She says the last words sadly, and there is a yearning look in her fine eyes as they rove the familiar glens and corries, rugged crags and purple stretches which she and Archie Douglasdale learnt to know by heart in childhood, in their happy hunting excursions together long ago. Far away below, Loch Eilort and Glenuig Bay shimmer in the setting sun, whose light is gleaming across the grey waters of the open sea.
These two have been away all day after deer, and Archie Douglasdale is still absent on the same quest. They have not seen him since they parted with him on the Black Crags some seven hours ago.
Lord Estcourt rises and comes to her side. He is a tall, well-made man, with expressive features, and a pair of grey eyes which Society has declared to be magnificent. Plenty of women therein have been willing to fall in love with Nigel Estcourt; no end of scheming and would-be mothers-in-law have instructed their daughters in the virtues, wealth, and charming characteristics of that very nice young fellow, and charged the poor things to exert their utmost to win him. But Nigel Estcourt has never yet been seen to pay court to any woman, and Fashion marvels thereat. But since he was a boy of seventeen he has held love’s secret next his heart. It was at Ruglen Manor, long ago, when, as a mere lad, he first saw Flora Ruglen, that Nigel Estcourt first opened the book of love. It was to him that she, his first girl friend, had opened her heart, and it was to her that his boyish soul had responded. Born with a golden spoon in his mouth, with all that the world most covets, it was but natural that Fashion should court him. But Nigel Estcourt was not responsive to its adulation, and snubbed it most unmercifully.
When Flora Ruglen had married Sir Reginald Desmond, young Nigel had sorely grieved; but his friendship for her had not abated, for he loved her just the same. He was still only a boy, of course, and no one would have seriously predicted that this, his first love, would be his last.
Other men had loved Flora Desmond, and love her still. She has had no lack of offers since poor Reggie Desmond died. Over and over again has smart Jack Delamere pressed his suit. He has never loved any woman like he does her, but he presses his suit in vain; for gently, kindly but firmly, Flora Desmond has told him that she will never marry again. She had told Estcourt the same thing when for the first time, now three years ago, he had confessed his love and asked her to marry him. She had told him then that he must put that love from him for ever, for the reply which she then gave him would remain unchanged. Yet, with tears in her lovely eyes, Flora had told him also how deeply she valued his friendship, how grateful and honoured she felt by his love, and how she prayed that the strong, firm bond which had held them together so long, since as boy and girl they had first made friends, would endure through life. Perhaps if one thing had not happened, Flora Desmond might have returned young Estcourt’s love. Perhaps if the wand of fate had not decreed otherwise, her heart might have gone out to him. It seemed almost natural that she should love him, he who had received her earliest confidences and been her first friend. But one thing had intervened to make this impossible. Flora Desmond loved another.
Some women can love much and often, some can almost adore, and then forget. To Flora this was impossible. Hers was a heart which could not lightly love, which, slow to appreciate, would nevertheless, when once unlocked, love truly, faithfully, and well. And thus it had been with this woman so seemingly love free. For years ago that feeling had flooded her heart, had taken possession of her, never to pass away, when as Lady Flora Desmond, but a year after her marriage, she had seen Evie Ravensdale for the first time.
Who shall describe or fathom the depth of a true and pure love? None have been able to do so yet, none ever will. Flora’s love was such as asked for no return, content only to be allowed to love.
And yet, who knows that there may not have shot, now and again, through Flora’s heart when, after the death of Reginald Desmond, she and Evie Ravensdale were thrown often into each other’s company, a gleam of hope that her love might in time come to be returned? It may have been so; but if so, it vanished finally and for ever when the personality of Hector D’Estrange was revealed in Gloria de Lara. Unmistakably on that evening when she had rescued this latter from the prison-van and had handed her into Evie Ravensdale’s safe keeping at Montragee House, Flora Desmond had read in the dark and beautiful eyes of the young duke the secret of his heart.
It never entered her mind to cavil at his choice or to resent it. No pang of jealousy had shot through her heart against the woman to whom his love had been clearly given. Only, when she had read his secret, had the feeling rushed over her that the love which she had nursed and cherished for so long, was imperishable and impossible of recall.
Not that she wished or sought to recall it. Flora would have sooner died than part with the first true love of her life; it was to her a treasure that she prized beyond expression, priceless to her in value. He lays his right hand on her shoulder for a moment as he stands by her side, and she feels it tremble.
“It is a day I shall never forget, Flora,” he says gently; “I have been very happy. It will be something for your old friend to look back upon, when you are far away.”
“What do you mean Estcourt?” she inquires hastily. “But you are coming with us?”
“No,” he answers decisively. “I have other work to do. I shall never rest till I have obtained for you the pardon that will extricate you from this outlawed life. I can be of use to you by remaining, I have some influence still in high quarters, and I could do you no good by going to America. Of course I should like to go; you know, Flora, I am never so happy as when I am with you, but I don’t mean to think of Ego on this occasion.”
The tears rise to her eyes.
“I shall miss you, Estcourt, dear old Estcourt,” she says softly; and then her hand steals into his, and he feels the grateful pressure in its firm touch.
The blood rushes to the young man’s face, for that touch thrills him through and through, though the ring in her voice tells him that affection, and affection only, not love, is there.
“You’ll never miss me as I shall you,” he answers passionately. “Ah, Flora! you don’t know the dull, blank void that comes over me when you are not by; you don’t understand the lonely feeling that masters me, the yearning to see your dear face again. Of course, Flora, you cannot understand what I suffer, for I don’t believe you know what love means. I have often heard you called ‘the cold Lady Flora.’ I begin to believe you are rightly named.”
It is her turn to flush now, but she turns her head away that he may not see the hot blood in her cheeks. Evie Ravensdale’s face is before her in imagination. She sees the dear, dark, dreamy eyes, the clear-cut features, the beautiful forehead around which the raven curls are clustering; she sees him as plainly as though he stood before her, for is not his presence burnt into her mind with the exactitude of reality? She loves him with all her heart, and power, and soul, and mind. No sacrifice for his sake would seem hard. To die that he might live would be a joy. If Flora Desmond does not know what love means, then who does?
But Estcourt can only judge by what he sees. He knows she has rejected the love of many men. There is no one, save himself, to whom she appears to give a preference, and has she not told him that she can never marry him? Is he not justified in his conclusions, therefore? Perhaps so. Few men have ever been able to read a woman right.
She pulls herself together, however, and turns his remark off with a jest.
“Cold am I, Estcourt? An iceberg, probably! I almost think so, too, for it’s actually beginning to feel chilly up here. How blood-red the sun has turned. Mark my words; we are in for a storm this evening, and I doubt any embarkation being possible to-morrow. I know these old shores well.”
“If you are chilly, Flora,” he says almost bitterly, “we had better make haste down the Crag Vale. It would not do for you to catch cold.” Her evident desire to turn the conversation has not escaped him. It hurts him, and he shows it.
She marks the bitter tone of his voice. Flora knows Estcourt so well. A woman can generally read a man pretty correctly if she chooses to; of a certainty if the man loves her.
She faces him suddenly with the glow of the blood-red sun lighting up her handsome face. She is earnest in what she is going to say, and she looks it.
“Estcourt, dear old Estcourt, let there be no misunderstanding between us two, and on the eve of parting. This may be the last opportunity of telling you what I wish to. Don’t gibe me as cold and heartless, for it is not true, not true. Do I not know how chivalrously and devotedly you have loved me, and am I not grateful to you for your noble and generous love? Why should I ask the question, because you know it? You know I would not speak untruly, and I tell you that your love is very precious to me, and I value your great friendship more than anybody else’s in this world. Were you not my first friend? Am I likely to forget that? But, Estcourt, dear old man, you must not throw your love away on me, for I shall never marry again. I shall always look on you as my first, best, and truest friend, and love you dearly, very dearly as such, but I can never marry again—no, Estcourt, never!”
“Nor I,” he answers quietly, with a sad smile. “You are hardly the woman to bid a man marry where he does not love. Flora, I have loved you ever since I first saw you; I shall never love any one else but you. At least you will do me the justice to believe that I am as unalterable as you are. Let us never bring this subject up again. Let it bide by the Crag Vale Cairn.”
He kisses her hand tenderly and respectfully, and then he lets it fall.
“Let’s go down now, Flora dear,” he says gently. “I wonder why Ravensdale’s smack has not turned the point yet. It ought to be round by now if Léonie were right.”
“I’ll back her to be right,” answers Flora, with a slight laugh. “She’s not likely to mislead Gloria, who, by-the-bye, I saw turning the point in her coracle quite ten minutes ago. They’ll be round in a second, I daresay.”
The two scramble down the rough face of the mountain side in silence. The thoughts of both are busy. Suddenly, however, Estcourt brings himself to a halt and calls out to Flora, who is a little ahead of him,
“Flora! who can that be?”
Her eyes follow the direction in which his hand points, and she sees a four-oared boat coming out of Loch Eilort into the Sound of Arisaig at a rapid pace, and heading for Glenuig Bay.
“It must be Archie,” she calls back. “I suppose he got to the far end of the lake, and has come back by water. The boat is Bruce Ruglen’s, and the oarsmen are his four sons. I know it and them well.”
He comes running down to where she is standing.
“Flora dear,” he says quickly, “use your eyes. The man in the stern is not Douglasdale. It’s Evie, as I live! What can Léonie have meant, and why does not Gloria come back? Surely there cannot have been treachery? My God! surely not?”
But Flora never stops to surmise. Her face is deadly pale, and she has turned at his words, and is hurrying with fleet steps down the mountain side, with Estcourt following quickly in the rear. Fast, faster she goes. Flora Desmond is as nimble as a deer. No monstrous, tied-back petticoats encumber her. She is habited in the neat, graceful kilt in the tartan of her brother’s clan and her own, which suits to perfection her supple, well-made form. In it she is free to use the physical powers which Nature has given her, and which she has never sought to stunt or to curtail.
She makes straight for the shore, and as she moves along she loads her rifle. Then as she reaches the water’s edge she fires it off.
This attracts the inmates of the boat. They look her way, and perceive that she is signalling to them to come in shore. In a moment Evie Ravensdale has turned the boat’s nose in her direction, and she sees that he is urging the oarsmen to exert their utmost.
The men endeavour to obey; they bend their backs, and send the boat hissing through the still waters. Foam flakelets fly before the racing keel propelled by irresistible force, and yet to Flora Desmond it appears to come but slowly.
“Back water, men!” she shouts, as the boat nears the shore. “Don’t beach her. I want to push her off and jump in.”
Estcourt is beside her now, and they are both up to their knees in the water. The men are resting on their oars as the boat glides slowly forward.
But Flora and Estcourt have it by the prow.
“Now, Estcourt, push off!” exclaims the former, as bending chest downwards she arrests its course. The edge of her kilt in front sinks into the water, in another moment her knee is on the boat’s edge, and she is standing in the bow with her companion by her side.
“Evie!” she exclaims, in a low excited voice, “how is it you have come this way? Is anything wrong? We expected you in a smack, and Gloria has gone to meet you.”
“A smack!” gasps the young duke. “What do you mean?”
But she does not answer him. She has turned, and is addressing the four clansmen.
“Ruglens,” she says quickly, “pull to the point for your lives! Pull men, pull; pull with the strength God gave you. God in heaven, pull!”
They answer to her appeal, do these young giants. Do they not know her well? Is she not a Ruglen? Are they not Ruglens too? Have they not as children played with their young chief and his sister, joined in their rambles, mingled with their sports? Well do these Highland laddies understand her quick command, understand it and obey. She has crossed to the stern, where the duke sits staring mutely at her.
“Give me the helm, Evie,” she says quietly. “I can steer the shortest cut. Don’t look like that, Evie; it may be all a mistake.”
But her voice tells him she does not think so.
The boat tears through the water; the clansmen are doing their best. There is not a word spoken. Only the splash of the oars, the dull thud of the twisting rowlocks, the hiss of the boat’s keel, break the stillness of Glenuig’s Bay.
They have reached the point now. Four more gallant strokes from the men whose brows are thickly studded with the bead drops of extraordinary toil, and the boat rises on the first rolling swell of the open sea.
The smack is there; it catches the straining eyes of Evie Ravensdale, as he springs up and gazes across the great grey ocean waste. To her dying day Flora will never forget the terrible groan of agony which bursts from him.
Ay, the smack is there, but they come too late. The brown sail is spread, it is already far away, vanishing into the creeping, dull, dark veil of the advancing night and rising storm.
