He told himself things would simply be as they had been. If he would win his ward from the unfortunate love, he would not do it by beginning now to make her miserable and unhappy. He would wait. Who should say what of good the future might bring? He kissed her and blessed her, and the conference ended.
While this scene had been transpiring in the breakfast-room of the castle, another, of a somewhat different character, had been taking place in the wood by the river, not a great way off.
Lord Oakleigh had left his grandfather feeling about as angry—as thoroughly mad with rage and passion—as a naturally perverse and passionate man could be.
He went first to the butler’s room and got a bottle of brandy, which he took with him to his own apartment, where he drank freely.
Then he buckled on his sword and took his hat and went out. He had no particular aim in view, though his thoughts, which he muttered aloud as he gained the open park, were of the smuggler’s son. He could not believe that his grandfather would allow Cordelia to marry with the outlaw’s offspring; but there was no telling what the girl herself might do. So far as true love—or real love of any kind—was concerned, he felt not a particle of it in his heart for his grandfather’s fair ward. But he had never seen a girl he had liked better; and, surely, he had never seen one more beautiful.
In truth, he did not believe there was a more beautiful woman in the kingdom. At some time he would be earl of Allerdale; and he would want a mistress to preside over his household; and Cordelia Chester was the one woman of all the world upon whom his choice had been fixed.
So it would not answer to suffer this young smuggler to bewitch her. He was forced to acknowledge to himself that young Maitland was about the handsomest young fellow he had ever met—just the man, he told himself, for an impressionable young girl like Cordelia to go crazy about. “Upon my soul,” he muttered on, “I believe she would run away with him in a moment, if she were crossed. And just so long as the fellow is in the neighborhood, just so long will the old earl allow her to associate with him. Poor old fool! He don’t know what he is doing. But I think I’ve put a flea in his ear. Yet, for all that, the girl can befool him. She can coax and wheedle him into anything, I don’t care how monstrous it is.
“By —! There’s one thing I can do! Aye, and if the need shall come, I will do it. Ha! I was talking of him; and here he is.”
Brandon had entered the wood at the edge of the park, and was now in the path that ran along upon the shore of the river.
He had been muttering to himself, as we have heard, when, on raising his eyes, he beheld not far away the very man of whom he had been thinking and speaking, coming toward him.