Having thus spoken, she turned from her noble suitor, and began to retrace her steps rapidly towards the house.
"Stay, Miss Ashwoode—remain here for a moment—you must hear me!" exclaimed Lord Aspenly, in a tone so altered, that she involuntarily paused, while his lordship, with some difficulty, raised himself again to his feet, and with a flushed and haggard face, in which still lingered the ghastly phantom of his habitual smile, he hobbled to her side. "Miss Ashwoode," he exclaimed, in a tone tremulous with emotions very different from love, "I—I—I am not used to be treated cavalierly—I—I will not brook it: I am not to be trifled with—jilted—madam, jilted, and taken in. You have accepted and encouraged my attentions—attentions which you cannot have mistaken; and now, madam, when I make you an offer—such as your ambition, your most presumptuous ambition, dared not have anticipated—the offer of my hand—and—and a coronet, you coolly tell me you never cared for me. Why, what on earth do you look for or expect?—a foreign prince or potentate, an emperor, ha—ha—he—he—ugh—ugh—ugh! I tell you plainly, Miss Ashwoode, that my feelings must be considered. I have long made my passion known to you; it has been encouraged; and I have obtained Sir Richard's—your father's—sanction and approval. You had better reconsider what you have said. I shall give you an hour; at the end of that time, unless you see the propriety of avowing feelings which, you must pardon me when I say it, your encouragement of my advances has long virtually acknowledged, I must lay the whole case, including all the painful details of my own ill-usage, before Sir Richard Ashwoode, and trust to his powers of persuasion to induce you to act reasonably, and, I will add, honourably."
Here his lordship took several extraordinarily copious pinches of snuff, after which he bowed very low, conjured up an unusually hideous smile, in which spite, fury, and triumph were eagerly mingled, and hobbled away before the astonished girl had time to muster her spirits sufficiently to answer him.
CHAPTER XXI.
WHO APPEARED TO MARY ASHWOODE AS SHE SATE UNDER THE TREES—THE CHAMPION.
With flashing eyes and a swelling heart, struck dumb with unutterable indignation, the beautiful girl stood fixed in the attitude in which his last words had reached her, while the enraged and unmanly old fop hobbled away, with the ease and grace with which a crippled ape might move over a hot griddle. He had disappeared for some minutes before she had recovered herself sufficiently to think or speak.
"If he were by my side," she said, "this noble lord dared not have used me thus. Edmond would have died a thousand deaths first. But oh! God look upon me, for his love is gone from me, and I am now a poor, grieved, desolate creature, with none to help me."
Thus saying, she sate herself down upon the grass bank, beneath the tall and antique trees, and wept with all the bitter and devoted abandonment of hopeless sorrow. From this unrestrained transport of grief she was at length aroused by the pressure of a hand, gently and kindly laid upon her shoulder.
"What vexes you, Mary, my little girl?" inquired Major O'Leary, for he it was that stood by her. "Come, darling, don't fret, but tell your old uncle the whole business, and twenty to one, he has wit enough in his old noddle yet to set matters to rights. So, so, my darling, dry your pretty eyes—wipe the tears away; why should they wet your young cheeks, my poor little doat, that you always were. It is too early yet for sorrow to come on you. Wouldn't I throw myself between my little pet and all grief and danger? Then trust to me, darling; wipe away the tears, or by —— I'll begin to cry myself. Dry your eyes, and see if I can't help you one way or another."