The girl gave a little cry, and, taking the man’s arm, clung closely to him.
‘Yes, Bess; the old man’s as hard as iron. I flung myself on his mercy. I told him all. He heard what I had to say, and then turned me out like a dog. Swore I wanted to ruin him. The old miser!’
‘Hush, George—he is your father.’
‘He was, you mean. We’ve parted for ever. He says I’m no son of his. So be it. He’s no father of mine. A paltry thousand would have put me straight.’
‘Can nothing be done, George?’
‘Nothing, my girl. I’m what they call dead broke. I must get up to town, and trust to luck. I’m young and strong, and if I can’t pay my debts, at any rate I can earn bread-and-cheese.’
The girl let him run on, but his flippant manner distressed her. You could see that in her face. The dark eyes were filled with tears, and the red lips trembled. She was a village beauty—a handsome brunette—this lodge-keeper’s daughter, and many a village swain had laid his heart at her feet, but she had laughed their love away, and kept her heart for one who was far above her. The man by her side was her master’s son, young George Heritage, heir to the house and lands—‘the young squire’ they called him in the village, but Bess only called him ‘George.’
Bess Marks was no ordinary rustic beauty, or I question very much if she would have won George Heritage’s heart. She was a strong-minded, pure-hearted, clever girl—a girl who exercised a strange fascination over the young squire.
Their sweethearting was a profound secret from every one. There was enough romance in it to redeem it from vulgarity, and it was a perfectly serious affair.
No thought of harm had ever entered the young man’s breast. He had accepted the fact that he had fallen in love with a lodge-keeper’s daughter as he accepted the fact that he had got heavily into debt. He couldn’t help it. That was his answer to himself when he and his conscience had a quiet quarter of an hour together.