“I was little then,” said Lilias, with mournful, childish dignity. “I had not begun to know. I thought, perhaps, it was a fairy. Yes, you will laugh. I was only not much better than a child. And when children are in the woods, don’t you know, fairies often come? I was ignorant, that was what I thought. She was very kind. She kissed me, and asked if I would call her granny. Poor old woman! She was very very sorry for something. I think that must be the old woman. She knows everything, Miss Brown says. Mr. Geoff,” said Lilias turning round upon him, putting her two clasped hands suddenly upon his shoulder, and fixing her eyes upon his face, “I am going to her, will you not come with me? It is dreadful, dreadful, to go away far alone—everything looks so big and so high, and one only, one is so small; and everything is singing altogether, and it is all so still; and then your heart beats and thumps, and you have no breath, and it is so far, far away. Mr. Geoff, oh! I would love you so much, I would thank you for ever, I would do anything for you, if you would only come with me! I am not really tired; only frightened. If I could have brought Nello, it would have been nothing. I should have had him to take care of,—but Nello is such a little fellow. He does not understand anything; he could not know about papa as I do, and as you seem to do. Mr. Geoff, when was it you saw papa? Oh! will you come up, up yonder, and go to the old woman with me?”
“Dear little Lily,” said Geoff, holding her in his arms, “you are not able to walk so far; it is too much for you; you must come with me, home.”
“I am able to go to the end of the world,” cried Lilias, proudly. “I am not tired. Oh, if you had never come I should have gone on, straight on! I was thinking, perhaps, you would go with me, that made me so stupid. No, never mind, since you do not choose to come. Good-bye, Mr. Geoff. No, I am not angry. Perhaps you are tired yourself:—and then,” said Lilias, her voice quivering, “you are not papa’s child, and it is not your business. Oh! I am quite able to go on. I am not tired—not at all tired; it was only,” she said, vehemently, the tears overpowering her voice, “only because I caught sight of you so suddenly, and I thought ‘he will come with me,’ and it made my heart so easy—but never mind, never mind!”
By this time she was struggling to escape from him, to go on drying her tears with a hasty hand. Her lips were quivering, scarcely able to form the words. The disappointment, after that little burst of hope, was almost more than Lilias could bear.
“Lily,” he said, holding her fast, despite her struggles, “listen first. I have just been there. I have seen the old woman. There is nothing more for you to do, dear. Won’t you listen to me,—won’t you believe me? Dear little Lily, I have found out everything. I know everything. I cannot tell it you all, out here on the hill-side; but it was another who did it, and your father was so kind, so good, that he allowed it to be supposed it was he, to save the other man—— ”
“Ah!” cried Lilias, ceasing to struggle, “ah! yes, that is like him. I know my papa, there! yes, that is what he would do. Oh, Mr. Geoff, dear Mr. Geoff, tell me more, more!”
“As we go home,” said Geoff. He was so tired that it was all he could do to raise himself again from the soft cushions of the mossy grass. He held Lilias still by the hand. And in this way the two wearied young creatures went down the rest of the long road together—she, eager, with her face raised to him; he stooping towards her. They leaned against each other in their weariness, walking on irregularly, now slow, now faster, hand in hand. And oh! how much shorter the way seemed to Lilias as she went back. She vowed never, never to tell any one; never to talk of it except to Mr. Geoff: while Geoff, on his part, promised that everything should be set right, that everybody should know her father to be capable of nothing evil, but of everything good; that all should be well with him; that he should come and live at home for ever, and that all good people should be made happy, and all evil ones confounded. The one was scarcely more confident than the other that all this was possible and likely, as the boy and the girl came sweetly down the hill together, tired but happy, with traces of tears about their eyes, but infinite relief in their hearts. The morning, now warm with the full glory of the sun, was sweet beyond all thought—the sky, fathomless blue, above them—the lake a dazzling sheet of silver at their feet. Here and there sounds began to stir of awakening in the little farmhouses, and under the thatched cottage eaves; but still they had the earth all to themselves like a younger Adam and Eve—nothing but blue space and distance, sweet sunshine warming and rising, breathing of odours and soft baptism of dew upon the new-created pair.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE HENS AND THE DUCKLING.
It was still early, and Stanton, so easy-going and leisurely a house, was not yet astir when Geoff got home. Hours of sunshine and morning light are over even in August before seven o’clock, which was the earliest hour at which Lady Stanton’s servants, who were all “so kind” to her, began to stir. They kept earlier hours at Penninghame, where Geoff managed to get a dog-cart, with an inquisitive driver, who recognised, and would fain have discovered what brought him from home at that hour. The young man, however, first took leave of his little companion, whom he deposited safely at the door of the old hall, which was already open, and where they parted with mutual vows of reliance and faith in each other. These vows, however, were not exchanged by the hall-gate, but in a shady corner of the Chase, where the two young creatures paused for a moment.
“You will trust me that I will do everything for him, as if he had been my own father?” said Geoff.