A Minion of the Moon: A Romance of the King's Highway

by T. W. Speight

"And maybe he will go down to the grave without having known how sweet it is to forgive. Poor old gentleman, how I pity him!"

An hour later Nell despatched a note to Mrs. Mardin, telling her that she hoped to be at Lawn Cottage in the course of the afternoon of next day, and there the specified time found her.

Evan had by no means forgotten his "Aunt Nell," and she was made very glad thereby. But she had sent him so many presents of toys and other things from time to time that it would have been odd if he had not remembered her. To her he seemed to have grown more like his father than ever. If his grandfather would but once have admitted the lad to his presence, surely his hard heart would have softened at Evan's haunting likeness to the dead man! But, as the old tobacconist had said he would go down to the grave without having known how sweet it is to forgive.

Mrs. Mardin was nothing if not hospitable, and before long tea was served; nor were the toothsome buns for which Chelsea was famed forgotten. But scarcely had the first cup been poured out before Mrs. Mardin rose suddenly to her feet. Some one had just passed the window, and next moment there was a tug at the front-door bell.

"I declare if here isn't Mr. Dare!" exclaimed the widow. "What a strange thing that you and he should happen to come on the same day!" And with that she hurried out of the room.

Miss Baynard had often desired to make the acquaintance of this unknown benefactor of her dead kinsman's widow and child, and now her wish was about to be gratified. She stood up as the door opened, with a slightly heightened color, and with a heart that beat somewhat faster than common.

A second later every vestige of color fled her face, and it seemed to her as if her limbs were on the point of giving way under her. She drew one long, gasping breath, and unconsciously her hand gripped the back of her chair, as if to keep herself from falling. In the man who now entered the room she had recognized--or she felt nearly sure she had--the notorious Captain Nightshade, he who had come to her help that night when she was reeling in her saddle after having been fired at by the unknown traveller in the chaise, and who had afterwards acted as her guide as far as Rockmount!

It was true that she had only had a clear view of his face for a few brief seconds, while the old serving-man stood at the open door with his lighted candle, but the picture thus seen had burnt itself into her memory as few things had ever done, and many a time since then had she conjured it up in fancy till its every lineament seemed to have grown familiar to her.

And now, marvel of marvels, here before her, a living reality, was the face she had never thought to see again--long and brown, with its thin, high-ridged nose, its delicate nostrils, its black, brilliant eyes, its mobile mouth, and its massive, rounded chin, together with that air of almost defiant recklessness which of itself would have served to mark the man out from his more commonplace fellows, and which seemed to sit so easily upon him. And there, too, had further proof been needed, was the tiny brown mole on the lower half of the left side of his face, which had caught her attention at the time, as a "beauty-patch" might have done on the cheek of one of her own sex.

She tightened her grip on the back of the chair, and their eyes met. Into his there came no flicker of recognition, no slightest evidence which betrayed any consciousness on his part that they had ever met before. His glance encountered hers with the clear, unwinking steadfastness of one stranger regarding another. His features were grave and composed; there was no start of surprise; the sallow of his cheeks remained untinged by any faintest flush of color. Miss Baynard was bewildered. Could it be that he had known beforehand whom he was about to meet and had schooled himself accordingly? But this was a question Nell had no grounds for asking herself.