“Ah, yes, you do. Because she has slighted you, Ronald, it does not follow that her estimate of you must be right. Oh, my love, my king among men! I know how to honor you. I say among all living men, you have not your peer. Because she has been cold and false, I will love you doubly; because she has made you unhappy, I will spend my whole life in trying to make you happy; and if she came to us now, in all the fatal lure of her beauty, and tried to take you from me, she should not. I would keep you by the force of my own mighty love.”
It was very pleasant; even the sweet south wind seemed to listen to the pleading, passionate voice.
“Why, Ronald, when you found me here,” she continued, “I was weeping over you—weeping that my love was so unhappy—that the bright young years of my life were passing in bitterest gloom; for I came to the old tree last year, and watched the leaves fall, and, Ronald, it seemed to me that, even as they fell one by one and died so slowly, that thus my hopes faded, and every year saw you further from loving me. That was why I wept. I shall never shed such tears again.”
He could do nothing but bend down and kiss the beautiful face, praying God in his heart that he might love her as she deserved, and that he might make the life bright whose brightness depended so entirely on him.
CHAPTER XX.
A LAST LOOK.
Sir Ronald never knew how the news of his engagement was received by the “ladye he loved.” The Lorristons went away soon afterward to pay a long-promised round of visits. He did not know whether she were pleased, piqued, or surprised.
But he soon found out that, so far as the world was concerned, he had done an excellent thing for himself. Congratulations poured in on all sides; people laughed at the rumors they had been so ready to believe. After all, it was very improbable that a man like Sir Ronald should have been the dupe of any woman. It was Miss Severn he had cared for; and, now they were going to be married, Sir Ronald had urged a speedy marriage.
He began at once to make preparation; he ordered a magnificent suite of rooms to be prepared for his wife. Perhaps it was significant of his frame of mind that he never went once to see what progress was made, contenting himself by giving orders that neither expense nor trouble should be spared. He sent all the family jewels to London to be reset, but he did not linger over them with a lover’s fondness, choosing what would best suit her. He ordered the most lavish and magnificent presents, but he never heeded the beautiful, blushing smile with which they were received.
He never omitted any day going over to Mount Severn. He drilled himself, he trained his thoughts, and would not let them wander from her. When the memory of Lady Hermione and that evening among the flowers came to him he crushed it back remorselessly.
Yet no one looking at him could have called him a happy man. There were grave lines on his brow and round his lips that told of the long, bitter struggle; his laugh had no music in it, his smile no light. The ring of youth and happiness had died out of his voice. Even when he tried to be most happy, the heart within him was cold and heavy as lead.