CHAPTER VIII.
“What news, Evie?”
The speaker has risen from a low wooden stool just outside the verandahed porch of a pretty, straggling, rambling cottage, hidden amidst many and various creepers, whose parasitical arms interlace with each other in bewildering confusion. All around stretch dark pine woods far as the eye can reach, as it scans their broad expanse through the cuttings in the forest, fashioned by the hand of man.
Gloria de Lara it is, who thus questions the new-comer. A tall, powerful-looking man, with thick, bushy beard and whiskers, and a clean-shaven upper lip. He is dressed in the habiliments of a navvy, and carries on his back a bag of tools. These he throws down as he replies,
“News, Gloria? Much what I expected. You are to be hunted down by every means at the command of Scotland Yard. Warrants are out not only for your arrest but for Lady Flora’s as well, and the military are to be employed to assist the police in suppressing the ‘riotous crowds,’ as such are termed the people who are agitating in your favour. Pandulph Chertsey has resigned. Bernie was in the House last night to hear him give his reasons. He says Chertsey made a splendid speech, in which he advocated an appeal to the country to settle this question, and a fresh trial for you. His remarks were received in gloomy silence by both Progressists and Nationals, though loudly applauded by the D’Estrangeites. But the two former have no intention to appeal at present. They hate you and yours too much, Gloria. They want to crush you first before they do anything else. To accomplish this, dog and cat though they be, they will be amicable in order to attain their end.”
“I know that,” she answers, with a sad smile; “but I will do my best to baulk them until my work is done. Then, they may do as they please.”
“Hush, Gloria!” exclaims Evie Ravensdale, with a shudder. “Do not speak of harm befalling you. O God, forfend it! I could not survive it.”
She smiles again, still sadly, as she lays her hand on his arm, and looks at him with the dark sapphire eyes that have haunted him day and night for many a year with a strange, yearning love, which he often found hard to fathom. He understands it all now, however. There is no mystery about that love any longer. Its cause, Gloria de Lara.
“It is I who should say hush, Evie dear,” she says gently, “and it is you who must not speak thus. Remember the great cause we have both at heart, the glorious cause that must and shall win! On its behalf are we not ready to face trial and trouble, and many an anxious hour? Ah, Evie! remember our vows.”