With these thoughts weaving in and out of his brain, Storms left the house, for he had no hesitation in leaving that poor girl to recover from her dead insensibility alone. It was perhaps the only mercy he could have awarded her.
CHAPTER LXII.
STORMS AND LADY ROSE.
STORMS returned home, triumphing in his success over that helpless girl, and confident that Sir Noel would accept his terms at last, haughtily as he had been dismissed from the house. All the next day he remained at home, expecting some message from the baronet, but none came. On the second day anxiety overcame his patience, and he set out for "The Rest," determined to push his object to the utmost, and, instead of vague insinuations, lay his whole proof before the baronet.
With all his audacity and low cunning, this man—a dastard at heart—was thinking how he might evade this interview, and yet obtain its anticipated results, as he came slowly through the wilderness. All at once he stopped, and a sudden flash shot across his face.
"The Lady Rose, the woman Sir Noel has chosen for his son's wife, she has access to him always. Her entreaties will touch his heart, and break down his pride. There she is among the great standard roses. Proud and dainty lady as she is, I will set her to work for me. By heavens, she comes this way!"
The young man was right. That young lady came out from among her sister roses, and turned toward the wilderness, in whose shadows Storms was lurking. She wanted some tender young ferns to complete a bouquet intended for the little sitting-room that Walton was sure to visit during the morning.
As Lady Rose was moving down the shaded path with that slow, graceful motion which was but the inheritance of her birth, she seemed to be whispering something to the flowers in her hand. Once she paused and kissed them, smiling softly, as their perfume floated across her face like an answering caress. She was stooping to rob a delicate species of fern of its tenderest shoots, when Storms flung his shadow across her path.
The lady arose, with a faint start, and gazed at the man quietly as one waits for an inferior to speak. With all his audacity, the young man hesitated under that look of gentle pride.