My Lady Clancarty

Mary Imlay Taylor’s Novels

On the Red Staircase.

An Imperial Lover.

A Yankee Volunteer.

The House of the Wizard.

The Cardinal’s Musketeer.

The Cobbler of Nîmes.

Anne Scarlett.

Little Mistress Good Hope and other Fairy Stories.

The Rebellion of the Princess.

My Lady Clancarty.

ALICE BARBER STEPHENS 1905

My Lady Clancarty

BEING THE
TRUE STORY OF THE EARL OF CLANCARTY
AND LADY ELIZABETH SPENCER

BY

MARY IMLAY TAYLOR

Author of “On the Red Staircase,” “The Cobbler of Nîmes,”
“The Rebellion of the Princess,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY
ALICE BARBER STEPHENS

BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

Copyright, 1905,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved
Printers
S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, U. S. A.

TO MY MOST CONSTANT READER,
MY MOTHER

CONTENTS

My LADY CLANCARTY

Being the True Story of the Earl of Clancarty
and Lady Elizabeth Spencer

CHAPTER I

“ROSEEN DHU”

LADY BETTY shaded her eyes with her hand and looked out on the rose garden of Althorpe.

At her feet the lawn was close clipped and green; beyond was a garland of many colors, roses by hundreds and tens of hundreds, the warmth and glow of the sun upon them; behind them, the long avenue of limes and beeches, and between the trees vistas of level land with the deer moving to and fro.

The butterflies—a little host of them—whirled under the window, and her ladyship smiled.

“Come, Alice,” she said, “’tis too fair a day to linger indoors. Bring your lute, girl, and we’ll sing one of those dear Irish ballads where none may hear it, to carp and scold,—none, indeed, but the rooks and butterflies, or perchance the roses. What sayst thou, Alice, may not a rose hear sweet sounds when it exhales such sweet perfume?”

“I know not, madam,” replied her handmaid soberly, as she laid aside her needlework and reached for her lute; “but sometimes, truly, I think ’twould be well if ears were fewer in this world.”

“Ay, or tongues more gentle,” assented Lady Betty laughing, as she stepped out of the window to the lawn, followed by her attendant.

Both were young girls, but youth and the rosy comeliness of youth sat more lightly on the handmaid Alice, whose simple face and figure suggested nothing more subtle than the virtue and homely wisdom of a country girl. It was quite different with Lady Betty Clancarty, the daughter of the Earl of Sunderland and the maiden wife of an Irish peer. There was a slight pensiveness to her beauty, for beautiful she was; yet there were times when the gayety of a vivacious spirit broke through all restraints, and she was the light-hearted, witty girl that nature had intended her to be. Her eyes—beautiful eyes they were, too,—were large, clear and sparkling with spirit, and the soft tints of her complexion and the glossy waves of her dark hair combined to make a charming picture, far more human and bewitching, indeed, than her own portrait from the brush of Lely, hanging in the great gallery at Althorpe. The pensiveness of her expression showed only when her face was in repose; when she smiled the sun shone through the cloud. Her figure was gracefully tall in its gown of white dimity flowered with pink, the neck dressed open with falls of lace, and the full sleeves loose and flowing at the elbow.

She moved lightly and swiftly across the lawn, one white hand resting on the shoulder of her handmaid, who was shorter and fuller in outline than her mistress. Though their stations were thus widely sundered, a frank girlish friendship existed between them, and Lady Betty had few secrets that were not shared by Alice Lynn. They had grown up in the same household; the one child waiting on the other on all state occasions, but usually her playmate, after the fashion of those days when the feudal tie of lord and vassal still bound old servants and their descendants to their masters. The ancestors of Alice Lynn had borne the banner of the Despencers in many a bloody field; she came of good yeoman stock, worthy of honor and trust, and she was single-hearted in her devotion to Lady Clancarty. They made a charming picture, walking through winding paths and talking freely, with little reference to their respective stations in the great world beyond Althorpe.

“Ah, the roses,” Lady Betty said, “I know not whether I love them best in their first budding or in their prime, or when the last few pale blossoms struggle to unfold under wintry skies, like our poor hearts, Alice, that need to be warmed by the sunshine of prosperous love. Mine should have shrivelled up long ago—like an old dried leaf. But it has not,” she added, smiling and laying her hand on her bosom; “I feel it—it throbs—it is warm and strong and whole, Alice, and yet—I am a wife and, for aught I know, a widow too!”

“There be many wives who would fain be widows, I trow,” retorted Alice, bluntly, and Lady Betty laughed gayly and lightly, the sun shining in her lustrous eyes.

“Perchance I am happy, then, in not knowing my husband’s face,” she said; and added musingly, “a strange fate is mine, Alice, married at eleven and then separated forever from my husband by a gulf as wide as—as the infinite space; I know no stronger simile. Here am I, the daughter of a Whig peer, who is a counsellor of King William’s, and the sister of a burning Whig—for Spencer is on fire, I am sure—and yet I am the wife, the wedded wife, of an Irish rebel and Jacobite; an outlaw from his country and a stranger even to me. What a fate!” and she shook her head with a pensive air, though a smile lurked about her lips for, after all, she could not mourn the absence of an unknown spouse.

“’Twas wrong to marry a child of such tender years, my lady,” the handmaid said indignantly; “to tie you up—one of the loveliest women in England—to a—a—” she broke off confused, catching Lady Betty’s eye.

“A what, Alice?” the countess asked dryly; “ay, I know by your blushes and confusion that you have caught the contagion, that you believe with Lord Spencer that my husband is a consummate villain. But look you, my girl, if there is one thing above another that would make me love a man and take up his cause, it is to find him the object of senseless and bitter abuse. What of it if Clancarty has not sought me? how could he? Is he not banished from the kingdom, stripped of his estates, and denied even his most natural and sacred rights?” Lady Clancarty’s eyes sparkled with indignation. “What of it, if he is a Jacobite and a Papist? Is he the only man who has changed his faith? I trow not!—though I should be the last one to say it,” and she broke off, blushing crimson.

The thought of her own father’s apostasy, of his frequent political somersaults, overwhelmed her, and she recollected her own dignity in time to bridle her impulsive tongue.

Alice was too discreet to take up the argument; she stooped, instead, to gather some violets, and arranged them slowly and in silence. Lady Betty walked ahead of her to a little rustic seat, and sitting down held out her hand with an impatient gesture.

“Give hither the violets, Alice,” she said imperiously, “and sing me a song. I am in as black a mood as ever Saul was, and may do you a mischief if you do not soothe me.”

Alice smiled. “I fear you not, dear Lady Betty,” she said, tuning her lute; “your anger passes over as quickly as a storm-cloud in April weather. What shall I sing you, madam?”

A roguish smile twinkled in Lady Clancarty’s eyes.

“You shall do penance, lass, and sing me either a Papist hymn or an Irish ballad.”

“Nay, I am no Papist, but a good Protestant,” said Alice, stiffly, “therefore it must be an Irish ballad, which is what you really want, my lady!”

Lady Betty laughed softly.

“’Tis true, my girl,” she said, clasping her hands about her knees, the full sleeves falling away from arms as white as milk. “I love the ballads; whether for his sake or their own, I know not,” and she bent her head listening as the handmaid played the first plaintive notes on her lute.

Alice was no contemptible musician, and she touched the instrument softly with loving fingers, playing the first sweet sad chords of that old Irish air and Jacobite ballad, “Roseen Dhu,” or “Dark Rosaleen.”

The garden and the great park beyond and around it were quiet save for the cawing of the hundreds of rooks that haunted those stately avenues of trees. The warmth and the soft murmuring of the late summer were there; here was the deep shadow of stately groves, yonder the wide sunshine on level lawns, but the place was deserted save for the two young women and the deer that were so tame that they pressed close about them, looking through the trees with soft brown eyes, and seeming to listen to the wild, plaintive notes of the ballad, as Alice sang in a full, mellow voice:

“All day long in unrest

To and fro do I move,

The very soul within my breast

Is wasted for you, love!

The heart in my bosom faints,

To think of you, my queen,

My life of life, my saint of saints,

My dark Rosaleen!

My own Rosaleen!

To hear your sweet and sad complaints,

My life, my love, my saint of saints,

My dark Rosaleen!”

Midway in the song the girl paused, still playing the air softly.

“My lady,” she said, in an undertone, “there is some one yonder in the shrubbery.”

“’Tis Melissa,” replied Lady Clancarty; “I have seen her. She loves to lurk behind a bush, and to slip along softly as a cat upon nut-shells; ’tis her nature. Faith, I must buy her some bells for her toes. Go on, my girl; I care not,” she added, laughing, “and I do love the tune. Ah, ‘Rosaleen, my own Rosaleen!’” she hummed, keeping time with her slender hand.

Alice sang again:

“Over dews, over sands,

Will I fly for your weal:

Your holy white hands

Shall gird me with steel.

At home—in your emerald bowers,

From morning’s dawn till e’en,

You’ll pray for me, my flower of flowers,

My dark Rosaleen!

My fond Rosaleen!

You’ll think of me, through daylight’s hours,

My virgin flower, my flower of flowers,

My dark Rosaleen!”

Suddenly Lady Clancarty started and half rose, interrupting the singer; but as Alice looked up in alarm, she sat down again, rosy and defiant.

“Pshaw!” she said; “go on, Alice, there comes Spencer himself, and, forsooth, I would not be frightened out of my pleasure.”

“But, my lady,” protested Alice, in confusion, “he will be dreadfully angry, he always is!”

“To be sure he will,” retorted Lady Betty, with a ripple of laughter, “therefore sing, lass, and I will sing, too.”

Alice still hesitated, her eyes on the figure of a young man who was coming swiftly across the lawn, but her mistress stamped her foot.

“Sing!” she commanded so sharply that Alice obeyed hastily, and in a moment the countess’ rich contralto joined her voice in singing the last passionate verse of “Roseen Dhu.”

“O! the Erne shall run red

With redundance of blood,

The earth shall rock beneath our tread,

And flames wrap hill and wood,

And gun peal and slogan cry

Wake many a glen serene,

Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die,

My dark Rosaleen!

My own Rosaleen!

The judgment hour must be nigh

Ere you can fade, ere you can die,

My dark Rosaleen!”

CHAPTER II

BROTHER AND SISTER

LORD CHARLES SPENCER paused in the centre of the triangle.

“A very pretty performance,” he said with a sneer, “a very proper performance—to sing Jacobite ballads here!”

“I trow they are not the first that have been sung here, brother,” retorted Lady Betty pertly.

“You have a saucy tongue, Elizabeth,” replied her brother rudely, turning white rather than red, for in this young man’s disposition anger went white, not red. “’Twould go hard with you if my father heard that.”

“’Twould go hard with you if my father heard that!” mocked Lady Betty incorrigible. “Come, come, Charles, talk of something agreeable. What is the volume under your arm? Noah’s observations on droughts? or Adam’s reflections on mothers-in-law? or Cain’s on brotherly love? Faith, I always expect something profound from the most erudite ornament of the Whig party.”

“I wish I might look as certainly for discretion in Elizabeth Spencer,” he replied with acrimony.

“In Elizabeth Clancarty,” corrected the countess, flashing an indignant glance at him.

“You are marvellously proud of that beggar’s name,” retorted her brother, with cutting irony.

Lady Clancarty’s face crimsoned with anger.

“You are a hypocrite, Spencer!” she said, stamping her foot.

“Family insults in public are always becoming,” said Lord Spencer, controlling himself with an effort, but white to the lips.

“Forsooth, who began it?” recriminated his high-spirited sister; “you might better indeed talk of other things. Of your fine clothes, for instance; you are truly ‘the glass of fashion,’ my lord, pink satin waistcoat and breeches, gray plush coat, point of Venice ruffles, white silk stockings, clocked, too, with pink, French shoes and buckles,—mercy on us, sir! what splendor for beggarly Lady Clancarty and quiet Althorpe!”

Lord Spencer, who was indeed dressed in the extreme of fashion, bit his lip, scowling darkly at Lady Betty and Alice, who remained discreetly in the background.

“You do well to boast of your dishonored name, madam,” he said coldly, “but my Lord Sunderland intends that you shall be divorced from that disreputable Irish rebel.”

“And what if I will not, my lord?” asked the countess, her face blazing with defiance.

“You are a fool,” said Spencer sharply; “happy you would be—dragged into exile by a rake and a scapegrace—but, pshaw! what nonsense I talk—”

“You do, sir!” interrupted his sister defiantly.

“Nonsense because Clancarty does not want you.” He continued, with a provoking drawl, “Where is your husband, my lady? Forsooth you do not know—but I do! At Saint Germain and at Paris; a gambler, a rake, a cutpurse, with half a dozen lady-loves to—”

“Silence!” cried Lady Betty furiously, rising in her indignation. “Shame on you, sir, to insult a woman and she your sister, and to blacken a gallant gentleman behind his back. Is that your virtue? Faith, I believe a witty rogue would be a happier companion than a virtuous bore!”

“Your tongue will cut your throat yet, madam,” said Spencer harshly; “you have worked yourself into this passion; you have never seen your husband since childhood, and you do not know him. It is my duty as your brother, a painful duty, I admit,” he said pompously, “to tell you the truth. Lord Clancarty is a notorious scamp, a dissolute fellow, a murderer and oppressor; and, as for you, what does he care for you? You little fool, he has never sought you—and never will!” and with this taunt my lord turned on his heel and walked decorously but swiftly away, wise enough to fly before his sister could retaliate.

Lady Betty stood as he had left her for a moment, her little hands clenched and her face crimson.

“The mean hypocrite!” she cried, “to fling it in my teeth. I vow I sometimes almost hate Spencer—and yet he is my brother. I’m a beast, Alice, a wretch! but oh!” and suddenly her mood changed; she threw herself on the garden-seat, trembling with emotion, tears on her dark lashes. “Oh, why must I be so cruelly insulted? ’Tis true, Alice, ’tis true; Clancarty has never even cared to claim his wife! Think of it, I—I—Betty Spencer, scorned by an Irish Jacobite!” and she burst into tears.

“My lady,” purred a smooth voice, as the other attendant suddenly and softly stepped into view, from the friendly shadow of an elm; “be consoled, ’tis even as Lord Spencer—”

“Go!” cried the countess furiously, dashing away her tears and stamping her foot at Melissa. “Go! What do I want of your consolation, you eavesdropper!”

“My lady, I beg pardon,” stammered the confused waiting-woman, “I—”

“Go!” repeated the countess imperiously, with a gesture of disdain. “When I want you, I will summon you.”

With a look of ill-disguised anger on her smooth face, but with an attempted air of humility, the attendant withdrew as softly as she had approached, and Lady Betty recalled her dignity.

“Pshaw!” she said, “what a creature I am, Alice, so to betray myself, and to stoop to quarrel with that worm, Melissa! I did not think, I never think; but, oh, my girl, my lot has many thorns! Alas, and alas!

‘Once I bloomed a maiden young

A widow’s woe now moves my tongue;’

and a widow by desertion. Ah, how I hate the taunt!” and she stamped her foot.

“Heed it not, dear Lady Betty,” murmured Alice, “’tis not true.”

“Ah, but it is, girl, it is,” cried Lady Clancarty, with an impatient gesture, “and I despise myself for caring.”

“Are you sure, madam, that Lord Clancarty has made no effort to claim his bride, or to see you?” Alice asked soberly, standing alone in the triangle opposite Lady Betty, the sun shining in a friendly fashion on her comely, honest face.

“Am I sure?” repeated the countess in surprise, and her expression changed swiftly; “do you think he may have tried to communicate with me and failed?”

“Why not, my lady?” replied the handmaid simply; “we know how my Lord Spencer feels; and your father, the earl, madam, is, perhaps, as little inclined toward your husband.”

Lady Betty sat looking down reflectively, tapping her foot on the gravel path.

“It may be so,” she said thoughtfully; “your brain is growing keen, Alice, from crossing swords with mine!” and she laughed, for she was an April creature with swift-changing moods. She rose, throwing out her hands with a pretty gesture, as though she threw care to the winds.

“O Donough Macarthy, Earl of Clancarty, art worthy all these heart beats of mine?” she cried, and laughed as gayly as a child. “I tell thee, Alice, he has not seen me for years, not since I was eleven, and he pictures me with a turned-up nose and freckles and red hair, and is half frightened to death at the thought of his English bride.”

“Your hair was never red, my lady,” said Alice soberly.

“Pshaw, child, he has forgotten, poor lad!” laughed Lady Betty, herself again; “he may think my nose red, too!”

CHAPTER III

LADY BETTY AND HER FATHER

IT was after sundown and the light was dim in the great gallery of Althorpe. Candles were set in silver sconces at intervals down its whole length of over a hundred feet, but between lay soft shadows, and the pictured faces of many famous men and women, of sovereigns of England, statesmen, soldiers, and court beauties, looked down from the walls on either hand. Holbein and Van Dyke and Lely had wrought upon these canvases. Here was the famous Duchess of Cleveland, painted by Lely, and the Countess of Grammont, and yonder was Lady Portsmouth and Nell Gwynne herself; and in this strange company, the fair, sweet, coquettish face of Betty Clancarty, lovely as any of the court beauties and far more lovable and true.

The floor was polished and strewn with splendid rugs; far-off India, Turkey, Italy, France, and Holland had contributed rugs and tapestries, paintings, beautiful bric-a-brac and statuary to decorate the famous gallery of the Spencers, where Anne of Denmark, Queen of James the First, and the young Prince Charles, the future royal martyr, saw the Masque of Ben Jonson. Here, too, came doubtless King Charles the First, he who created Henry Spencer Earl of Sunderland; here, also, reigned the daughter of the Sidneys, Dorothy, Countess of Sunderland, the heroine of Waller’s verses and the grandmother of Lady Betty. A gallery full of memories, where royalty and beauty smiled dimly from the great canvases, and every footstep woke an echo of the past.

At that sunset hour the place was quiet save for the cawing of the rooks under the eaves, for they haunted every corner of the house and congregated in the long avenues that enfiladed the park; yet even the sound of bird consultations did not disturb the revery of the man who slowly paced up and down the gallery—a man past middle age with an inscrutable face, his head a little bowed as he walked, his hands behind his back, his dress a long gown of black velvet, ruffles of lace at the throat and over the slender white hands—a strange man, self-possessed, complacent, smooth, infinitely winning of address, and one of the most unscrupulous politicians and time-servers of that time-serving age when William the Third knew not where to look among his English counsellors for steady faith, when it was no uncommon thing for a man to swear allegiance both at Westminster and Saint Germain, and to be an apostate besides. Even in that age of falsehood and double dealing, Robert, second Earl of Sunderland, excelled his fellows; but if he excelled them in falsehood, so did he also in discernment, in the power to read men, and to win them by his polished and smooth address, the charm of a personality that had won even upon the cold astuteness of the king himself.

Whatever his thoughts were now, Lord Sunderland’s face was placid, his perfect mask of serenity immutable, as he walked to and fro, now and then pausing to look critically at a fine picture, or to take counsel with himself, and he looked up with a calm smile when the door at the farther end of the gallery opened and the graceful figure of Lady Betty came swiftly toward him. He admired his daughter deeply, but subtle as he was he did not understand her. His standard of womanhood was different, and he had no ennobling example in his wife; she had been false to him and he had known it, and had used the services of her lover to smooth his own way with William of Orange, while he himself was vowing fealty to James the Second and walking barefoot, taper in hand, to the chapel royal to be admitted into the Roman communion—a communion he renounced as easily at a convenient season. This daughter who had grown up unlike either parent in simplicity and retirement, this beautiful, spirited, pure-souled creature he did not understand, but he admired her, and after his own fashion he loved her. On the other hand, Lady Betty understood him in many ways more thoroughly than he dreamed; she had a woman’s intuitions, and she did not reverence him; his subtlety, his falsehood, his smooth affability did not deceive her; she looked at him with clear eyes, and knew him better than the wise and watchful sovereign whom he served. But she was his daughter and she inherited all his charm of manner, his smooth tongue, his easy address, and he saw it and always smiled upon her.

She came up to him now with a sparkle in her eyes which portended more than he imagined.

“Are you better, sir?” she asked, with solicitude; “your absence from table disturbed me. Was it illness or politics?”

“Both, Betty,” replied the earl smiling; “but you missed me not, you had a younger and a better man in Spencer.”

“Faith, sir, I would rather have a worse one,” retorted Lady Betty, with a shrug, “such piety and virtue are too much, they overwhelm me. ’Tis a pity that good men are so often bores!”

Sunderland smiled, amusement twinkling in his deep-set eyes.

“I have often found them so, Betty,” he admitted; “but Charles is a worthy youth, my dear, and his advice, though often somewhat tedious and long winded, is weighty and merits consideration.”

“It may be so,” replied the countess, with an arch smile; “but upon my soul, sir, he was so long and loud in braying it at me that I fell to looking at his ears, expecting to see them start up on either side of his head and grow long and pointed. He is tedious!” and her ladyship yawned.

“Brothers often are, Betty,” remarked the earl smiling; “you must have other and gayer company. In fact, I was but now planning to send you to Newmarket for the races; Lady Sunderland is there, Spencer is going, and I go presently. You have lived too much in retirement here; you must go to Newmarket and hear gayer talk than the discourses of our young sage.”

“I shall be glad to escape the oracle,” said the countess; but she glanced searchingly at her father and added quietly, “My retirement becomes me, sir; I am practically a widow.”

The earl’s expression changed a trifle, but such a trifle that his daughter made little of it.

“We will not refer to that unhappy contract,” he said smoothly; “it was an error on my part, Elizabeth, and I assure you I repent it.”

“Has Lord Clancarty written to you, father?” she asked, so abruptly that Sunderland started, and for an instant his eye faltered under hers, and he hesitated before he was himself again.

“Never,” he said calmly, closing his silver snuff-box and giving the lid a friendly little tap.

His momentary confusion, though, was nearly his undoing; his daughter laid a white hand on his arm.

“He has written you,” she said imperiously, “and lately, too!”

“Upon my word, Elizabeth,” said the earl frowning, “you go too far.”

“I cannot help it,” she cried impetuously. “Have I no rights? Ought it to be concealed from me and confided to my brother, who only taunts me? My husband has written you!”

Sunderland had recovered himself now, however, and smiled calmly at her.

“You are too headstrong, my love,” he said smoothly, “too easily suspicious. If Clancarty wrote, why should I conceal it? As you remark, he is your husband in the eyes of the law, but your husband in fact he is not, and trust me, Betty, he is too great a Jacobite to risk himself in England.”

“But, father, the Peace of Ryswick has brought many back,” she said, “and we all know—it is notorious how easy King William is—and you, you could get Clancarty’s pardon a thousand times over, if you would!”

“Hear the child!” said Sunderland, with a gesture of mock despair. “Why, Betty, ’twas marvellous hard to get my own, and the politicians hate me so that not even Spencer’s devotion to the Whigs appeases that party. Clancarty’s pardon!—’twould cost me my liberty and, perhaps, my head.”

“Nonsense!” pouted Lady Betty; “you are the king’s friend; I will not believe you. And you might, at least, take thought of me; I am his wife.”

“O child, child!” laughed Lord Sunderland, “as little his wife as my Lady Devonshire or the Princess Anne. Married to him, through your father’s folly, when you were eleven and parted from him on the instant. What virtue is there in such a contract? Be sure, my love, he has in no wise respected it—nor will he while I have my daughter safe with me. Think not of him, Betty! ’Twas my folly, but then he possessed large estates in Munster and it promised to be a great match; for, believe me, I had no thought of tying you to a proscribed and penniless scapegrace.”

“Ay,” said Lady Betty, with spirit, “he was rich and now he is poor; therefore, my lord, I will not desert him!”

Lord Sunderland laughed, but his eyes did not laugh with him.

“There is no question of desertion, my child,” he said smoothly, “you are not his wife, and you never shall be.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” retorted the incorrigible countess, “I am his wife, and I will be no other man’s.”

“Tush!” replied the earl impatiently, “you know not what you say. Go to your apartment, Elizabeth, and reflect upon the matter until you recollect your duty to me. Here comes Spencer now with some visitors, and I have no more leisure for your childish folly.”

But Lady Betty would not be silenced; as she retired toward the door opposite the one that was opening to admit the earl’s visitors, she murmured low but distinctly,—

“I am his wife, my lord, and I will be no less,” and she swept out with her face aflame and her head high.

She came to the head of the great staircase and stood looking down, gracefully poised, her finger on her lips; a charming figure, musing upon destiny, with the soft candle-light shining down upon her stately young head and her flowing white robes. She began to hum softly to herself the air of “Roseen Dhu.”

“And one beaming smile from you

Would float like light between

My toils and me, my own, my true,

My dark Rosaleen!

My fond Rosaleen!

Would give me life and soul anew,

A second life, a soul anew!

My dark Rosaleen!”

CHAPTER IV

IN THE WOODS OF ALTHORPE

ALTHORPE, called in Domesday Books “Ollethorp,”—and held before the Conquest, as the freehold of Tosti and Snorterman,—had been the home of the Spencers since the days of Henry the Seventh, when one John Catesby, second son of John Catesby of Legus Ashby, sold it to John Spencer, Esquire, son of William Spencer of Wormleighton, in Warwickshire, descended from the younger branch of the Despencers, anciently Earls of Gloucester and Winchester, and still more remotely from Ivo, Viscount Constantine, who married Emma, daughter of Alan of Brittany, before the Conquest—coming, therefore, by blood from one of the great feudal lords of France.

Althorpe House was built of freestone, in the form of the letter H, the two long wings joined by a central building in which was the main entrance facing south. It stood in a beautiful spot, level and well wooded. The old gatehouse, remnant of the feudal strength of Althorpe, had once been surrounded by a moat, but that had long since run dry and was overgrown with turf as smooth as velvet. The long avenues of elms and beeches and limes ran from it to the very doors of the earl’s house, and about it lay the park, enfiladed by those avenues of stately trees, while beyond were the meadows—in the old time it was said that there were eight acres of meadowland and two of thornwood in one small portion of the freehold of Ollethorp—and now the great domain stretched out on every hand, beautified by nature and by art.

It was in the woods of the park that Lady Betty and her attendant, Alice Lynn, walked on the morning after her interview with her father. It was too threatening to set out upon the journey to Newmarket, so they strolled on the outskirts of the earl’s domain. Both girls were cloaked and hooded and prepared for rain and, indeed, more than once there was the sharp pattering of drops on the thick foliage overhead. They did not hasten their steps, for neither of them feared the elements, and Lady Betty really feared nothing greatly, being a high-spirited and daring young creature who loved adventure well. A fresh breeze began to blow, rustling the leaves, and the branches swayed and creaked above them, a trellis-work of wavering green through which the gray sky blinked occasionally. To the left was a coppice, black with shadows; before them, here and there, a wide vista of open fields showed the grass rippling in a thousand waves; and again the tree-tops that seemed to touch the long, ragged clouds scudding so low, heavy with moisture and torn by wind. And the same wind—grown caressing—tossed the soft locks of Lady Betty’s hair into little curls about her face under the yellow bird’s-eye hood.

“What have you there, Alice?” she asked, as the girl stooped and peeped into a patch of grass growing in an opening between the trees.

“’Tis but a four-leafed clover, madam,” Alice replied, pulling it.

Lady Clancarty took it and looked at it with a quizzical eye.

“There is a saying in Devonshire,” she said, “that if you find a four-leafed clover and an even-leafed ash on the same day you will surely see your love ere sundown.”

“I have none, my lady,” replied Alice demurely.

Lady Betty laughed with a delicious ripple of merriment.

“You have none, girl?” she said archly. “What a prompt confession! I grow suspicious, Alice, and see, there is the tell-tale blood creeping up to your hair. Fie, girl, fie! Where is thy true love, thine own love now?”

“Indeed, I know not, madam,” replied Alice meekly; “no one ever wooed me but the parson, and his mouth was so large that it frightened me; it did open his head like a lid.”

“Mercy on us, girl, ’twas an opening in life for you,” laughed Lady Betty; “and ’tis said that a large mouth is generous.”

“He was a great eater, madam,” replied the handmaid bluntly.

“Then were you surely meant for him, lass, for you are a famous maker of pastries, as I know. But tell me, Alice, did ever you have your fortune told?”

“Nay, ’twas not thought seemly by my aunt,” replied Alice; “I was reared as strict as any Calvinist.”

“And yet live with a sinner,” said Lady Clancarty with a smile. “I would inquire my fate, if there be any fortune-teller or sooth-sayer near. I grow more curious every day, Alice, to know what the end may be.”

“Ignorance is ofttimes best, my lady,” quietly replied her attendant.

“It may be,” Lady Clancarty said; “but sooth, Alice, ’tis very trying. I would fain know—I would fathom that dark cloud that hangs upon my destiny.”

“Dear Lady Betty,” Alice said, “is there indeed a dark cloud upon it? It seems to my humble vision fair as summer sunshine, and high and noble.”

The mistress sighed. “Ah, simple maid,” she said, “look not enviously upon high estate. Light hearted I was born, gay and full of recklessness, I believe, but happy—ah, Alice, once I was! But now, my mind keeps turning ever to the thought of one less happy; I have a home and he—he has none; I have friends—belike, he is friendless. I have money, a dower cut from his estates in Munster; he is a beggar! O Alice, it grieves me; I would fain help him; I would fain give him back my dower; I would—oh, do you not see what I must seem to him? Heartless, cold, without sense of my duty, a robber and an enemy? I who am true, I who have only too kind a heart, I who would give my all to help him—what is the song?

‘Oh, I could kneel all night in prayer,

To heal your many ills!’

Alice, I must know how my husband fares, I—mercy on us, girl, what ails you?” she cried, for Alice had given a scream of alarm, starting back from the coppice near at hand.

“There’s some one there!” cried the handmaid, in agitation, “I saw a man’s boot and spur yonder.”

“Where?” demanded Lady Betty impatiently, “where is your scare-crow, you little simpleton?”

But before Alice could reply a large man emerged from the beeches and advanced toward them. He was clad in a long riding coat of dark blue with deep capes, and his high boots were splashed with mud. As he approached he lifted his wide-brimmed, beplumed hat, uncovering a head which was striking in contour. His face was of a bold and handsome type and his dark gray eyes were keen; he wore the full, long periwig of the prevailing fashion and a flowing cravat of Flemish lace.

“A likely bugbear, my girl,” whispered Lady Betty roguishly, pinching Alice’s arm, but turning an innocent face upon the stranger.

“I crave pardon,” he said, with an easy salutation, “I have lost my way; will you direct me to Northampton?”

“The town lies five miles from us, sir,” replied Lady Betty, “and the tavern of the King’s Arms is upon the high street.”

“I thank you,” he replied courteously, but with no apparent desire to depart, and gazed at Lady Clancarty with an open admiration that offended Alice, who plucked at her mistress’ sleeve.

“Will you tell me what place this is?” he added, pointing at Althorpe House.

“It belongs to our master, the Earl of Sunderland,” replied Lady Betty, affecting the pert air of a waiting-maid; “’tis a fine place, sir, with a gallery full of pictures and another full of books and books and books! Dear me, sir, a sight of ’em! Your worship should go and look at ’em; ’tis a very hospitable house, too, and strangers are made welcome.”

“Indeed,” he said, with a smile, “I would be glad to avail myself of the opportunity—at another season. And you, my pretty maids, are the keeper’s daughters?”

“Faith, yes, sir,” said Lady Clancarty, dropping a courtesy, “we’re twins.”

“By Saint Patrick, you are strangely untwinlike!” remarked the stranger frankly; “never saw I two birds from one nest with less resemblance; one a pigeon and the other—”

“What, your honor?” demanded Lady Betty roguishly, while Alice plucked at her skirts in genuine confusion and fear.

“A bird of Paradise,” said he gallantly, kissing the tips of his fingers to her.

Lady Betty hung her head, simpering like the veriest country girl.

“Faith, sir,” she said, fingering her kerchief, “I don’t know what that is. Is it poultry?”

“It has wings, my dear,” he replied smiling, “but, in this case, they are only figurative.”

“La, sir!” cried Lady Betty, “what’s that? It sounds like something strange.”

“It’s a figure of speech, my girl,” he replied, a daring smile in his gray eyes as he drew a step nearer and Betty retreated a step, partly drawn by Alice; “but eyes like stars and cheeks like roses do not belong to the barnyard.”

Her ladyship, suspecting that she had betrayed herself, bridled a little, but her love of mischief kept her from flight.

“Faith!” she said, looking down, “you fine gentlemen talk so finely that a poor maid cannot follow you. Go to the tavern, sir, and there your worship will find a listener after your own heart, for they do say that saucy Polly can talk up to Lord Spencer himself, and he’s the most learned man in England, sir; and, indeed, I do believe that all the others that ever knew half as much died of it immediately and were buried! Go to the tavern, sir, and good cheer to you and good by,” and her ladyship dropped another awkward courtesy.

“Here, lass, a kiss and a crown for your pains,” said the stranger, making a sudden attempt to catch her by the arm.

But Lady Betty danced off as light as a feather, laughing roguishly under her hood.

“Nay, sir,” she said wickedly, “girls do not kiss strangers in this country if they do—in France!”

“Confound the witch!” ejaculated the traveller, with a start of surprise. “Pshaw! ’twas my French coin she saw,” he added, and smiled as he watched the two girlish figures flying through the trees.

Meanwhile Lady Betty was laughing and Alice remonstrating.

“Oh, my lady, how could you?” she said; “he might recognize you, he might have kissed you!”

“So he might!” admitted Lady Clancarty gleefully, “and how handsome he is! Did you mark him, Alice, is he not handsome?”

“Nay, madam,” said the discreet handmaid, still shocked and frightened, “that I know not, but he was overbold in staring at your ladyship.”

“Did he so?” asked Lady Betty pensively, blushing in a tell-tale fashion; “I noted it not; but was he not tall and strong and finely framed, Alice, with a bonny gray eye?”

“Oh, comely enough in appearance, my lady, but bold and with a reckless air; I trembled lest he should insult you.”

“Pooh, pooh, girl, you would love a milksop!” said Lady Betty petulantly; “he has the very eye and front of a soldier. I’ll wager he is some gallant who can strike a good blow for his sweetheart. What fun would there be in life without a harmless jest? He took me for a waiting-woman.”

“That he did not!” cried Alice, “he knew you, take my word for it, and he would have kissed you, the daring wretch!”

The handmaid shuddered at the thought and the mistress laughed at her perturbation, laughed with sweet gayety, her mirth rippling in low, joyous notes.

“You have no eye for a fine man, Alice,” she said blithely; “you little prude, do you think I would have let him? Nay, then do you not know me; but ’twas rare fun to see the dare-devil in those gray eyes of his. He has French gold, too, and mercy, how startled he was at my haphazard shot. ’Tis some Jacobite, and there are fierce Whigs at Northampton! Lackaday, the poor gentleman may come into trouble, I must warn him.”

“My lady, my lady,” protested Alice, and then stood aghast. “The saints help us,” she murmured, “there she runs after that bold gallant, like a village lass, and if the earl should see her!”

But generous-hearted Lady Clancarty thought of neither Alice nor the earl. Light of foot as any fawn, she flew over the green after the stranger’s retreating figure, for he had turned in another direction and was leading a black horse by the bridle. The swift run and the excitement of the moment brought the blood to Betty’s cheeks, and she panted for breath when she overtook him.

He turned with a smile. “What, lass,” he said gayly, “hast come for your kiss?”

Lady Clancarty gasped and grew crimson with shame; then drawing herself up to her full height, she flashed at him a look of withering scorn.

“You mistake, sir,” she said haughtily, “you are addressing Lady Clancarty.”

He took off his hat and the long plumes swept the ground at her feet as he made her a profound obeisance.

“I beseech your ladyship’s pardon,” he said, graceful and gracious—but not one whit abashed, “my eyes were dazzled—else they would have made no such mistake.”

But Betty would not be appeased; like a child who has been naughty and repented, she tried to appear as if it had not been. She was cold and haughty.

“Sir, I would merely warn you to be less careless of your French gold at Northampton,” she said; “we do not love St. Germain here,” and with a courtesy as low as his bow she left him.

Left him staring after her with a glow in his gray eyes.

Alice Lynn usually slept in a little anteroom of Lady Betty’s bedchamber, and that night as she lay abed she was awakened suddenly. The room was full of moonlight, and in it stood Lady Betty in her night-rail,—a charming figure, with softly dishevelled hair about her shoulders, and eyes that seemed to sparkle in the pale duskiness of her face. The tirewoman started up in alarm.

“My lady, oh, my lady!” she cried, “are you ill? Has aught happened?”

“Hush, no, no!” whispered Lady Betty, with a soft little laugh; “but, Alice, didn’t you notice that he said ‘by Saint Patrick’?”

“He! Who?” groaned poor Alice sleepily.

“The stranger, little goose!”

“Nay, madam,” said the poor handmaid; “I noticed naught but his bold eyes; I was afraid of him.”

“Nonsense!” Lady Betty exclaimed with a gesture of impatience; and she tripped lightly to the window and stood looking out over the moonlit park.

Alice yawned, drawing herself together on the edge of her bed in a crumpled attitude, one pink foot swinging near the floor; she was fairly nodding with sleep. Not so her mistress. Lady Betty brushed the soft hair from her face and stood in the moonlight a lovely figure, half revealed and half concealed by thin white draperies.

“I wonder,” she said musingly, “if—if Clancarty looks at all like this man?”

“I cannot tell, madam,” replied Alice demurely; “but it may be so.”

“You rogue!” laughed her mistress, “you would insinuate that two rakes may well resemble each other! Ah, Alice, he is my husband, mind you that, and a woman’s husband is not as other men.”

“You know him not at all, my lady,” yawned Alice, rubbing her eyes, “and if he’s like some—”

“Fudge, my girl, what do you know of husbands?” said Betty gayly; “I believe you have never even glanced out of the tail of that blue eye of yours at any bold gallant yet.”

The handmaid sighed sleepily.

“’Tis better so, my lady,” she said meekly.

“The parson not excepted!” laughed Lady Betty, dancing back lightly over the floor and pinching the girl’s cheek as she passed.

“Oh! that my hero had his throne,

That Erin’s cloud of war were flown,

That proudest prince would own his sway

Over the hills and far away!”

sang my lady, taking dancing steps as she tripped toward her own door; she was full of gayety, incorrigible and delightful as ever, though the great clock on the stairs was striking twelve. But Alice sighed drearily, and her mistress heard her.

“Poor lass!” she laughed, “go to sleep; I am a heartless wretch,” and she ran off laughing to her room, and Alice sank on her pillows again with a sigh of despair.

CHAPTER V

LADY SUNDERLAND

IT was at night too, a week later, that Lady Betty’s coach rumbled up the long street at Newmarket. But no moon shone; instead, the rain came down in torrents and the wind dashed it against the glass windows and rattled and shook the heavy doors, while the horses slipped and floundered, knee deep in mud; the great coach itself lurched heavily out of one huge rut into another, and the postilions, dripping and profane, cracked their whips and shouted. Lady Clancarty and her attendants, Alice Lynn and the woman, Melissa Thurle, bounced about within the vehicle, coming now and then into collision with endless boxes and bundles, a part only of the countess’ impedimenta, the most perishable, and therefore gathered within the carriage to save it from the deluge, instead of being strapped on top with the heavier luggage.

Through the moist darkness lights began to twinkle. As they neared the inn these lanterns increased in numbers, their yellow radiance dimmed and blurred by the rain but showing in a broad circle of warmth before the tavern door. There, too, the water flooding the kennels had poured out, making a small lake in the courtyard. The coach went splashing into it and halted with muddy water rising to the hubs. The inn door was open, and the hall overflowed with noise and good cheer; lackeys and grooms came bustling at the sound of an arrival; and at the sight of a private carriage, with an earl’s crest emblazoned upon the door, mine host himself came hurrying forward but stood aghast at the puddle.

“Here, you varlets,” he shouted, clapping his hands, “a plank from the door to the carriage steps, or her ladyship cannot descend.”

Her ladyship’s roguish face was at the window as he spoke and she watched the men placing a board for her. As they opened the coach door the innkeeper bowed low, his broad back in the air, but stepping carefully on the plank and tottering uneasily, for he was a stout man and in terror of falling headlong into the flood.

“Who have I the honor to serve, my lady?” he inquired, all smiles in spite of his perilous position.

“Venus rising from the waves, sir,” replied Lady Betty flippantly, as she sprang lightly across the improvised bridge, scarcely touching his shoulder with her fingers and quite regardless of his open-mouthed astonishment.

“Look to it that my women are not drowned!” she added imperiously, as he retreated after her, leaving her attendants to climb out unassisted.

But the man was sorely perplexed by her ladyship’s announcement of herself, and he only stared at her, trying to place her in the gallery of a fertile brain well stored with great ladies; but this face—albeit one of the most charming he had ever seen—was not among them, and he stared, perhaps a trifle rudely, for Lady Betty’s eye, suddenly alighting on him, her chin went up.

“You will show me to my Lady Sunderland’s apartments,” she said in an icy tone, as she waved her hand toward the stair.

In a moment the innkeeper’s supple back bent double again; he threw out his fat hands and stammered a hundred apologies.

“Lady Sunderland did not look for your ladyship until to-morrow,” he sputtered, hurrying on ahead, while Lady Clancarty followed, with her chin still scornfully elevated, her two weary and dishevelled women behind her. “The countess will be rejoiced—we are all rejoiced, your ladyship; the storm was so heavy, the roads so fearful, we scarcely dared to hope that your carriage would reach Newmarket to-night,” continued the host, all smiles again, rubbing his hands and flourishing before her ladyship.

But Lady Betty walked on in silence, scarce glancing at him as he opened a door and, with many flourishes and bows, announced her at the threshold and stood aside, still bowing, to let her pass into a large, well-lighted room, where a bright fire burned upon the hearth, great logs ablaze upon the high, polished brass andirons. The dark wood floor was polished too, reflecting the blaze, and in a great chair by the fire sat a woman past middle age, yet showing little of her years, and dressed in the extreme affectation of a youthful fashion, a petticoat of white brocade, which was short in front to show her feet in white and gold pantoffles, and a bodice and overdress of peachblow satin; a face that had been handsome and was now much rouged, the eyes brightened by dark rings beneath them, while her hair—or her periwig—was frizzed full at the sides after a fashion much in vogue in the time of Charles the Second. Her throat was covered with jewels, and her hands and arms; on either side of her stood two young men of fashion, beaux of Newmarket, in gay velvet coats and ruffles of lace, and long curled and scented French periwigs, white satin breeches and silk stockings, and slippers with high red heels, then much in favor at Versailles.

It was a group that amused Lady Clancarty,—the great lady and her two youthful admirers, for Betty knew her mother well. They in their turn stared a little at the traveller’s unexpected advent, and for a moment no one spoke. There was a strange contrast between the painted and bejewelled countess and her daughter: Lady Clancarty wore a long, dark riding-coat with capes, her full skirts trailing below the coat, and her hat—a large one with plumes—set over her brows. The cool damp night air had brought the freshness of a rose to her cheeks and her eyes sparkled as she viewed the party by the fire, and made her mother a courtesy.

“I have been in the deluge, madam,” she said gayly. “Faith! I had expected to be drowned, but lo! our ark landed here, and here am I—a dove with an olive branch, in fact—for I come with kind messages from Althorpe for your ladyship.”

“My dear Betty,” said Lady Sunderland, recovering from her amazement, “I am delighted; come and kiss me, my love, and here—my Lord Savile and Mr. Benham, this is my daughter, Lady Elizabeth Spencer.”

The young men bowed profoundly, Lord Savile’s bold eyes on Lady Betty’s face, for he saw it flush with sudden indignation.

“My mother’s memory plays her false,” she said coldly, scarcely acknowledging their greetings; “I am the Countess of Clancarty.”

Lady Sunderland laughed angrily but pretended to be merry.

“The child is foolish about a trifle,” she said, winking behind her fan at young Savile. “We can afford to humor her whims, my lord; we will call her Lady Clancarty.”

“We shall call her ladyship divine, if she wills it,” replied Lord Savile, with a smile at Betty; “it is all one to us as long as she is pleased.”

Lady Clancarty’s foot tapped the floor impatiently and there was a dangerous sparkle in her eyes. Lady Sunderland observed her uneasily.

“My love, you are tired,” she said, mildly solicitous, “sit down and let me send for a cup of tea; Mr. Benham—ah, my lord, thank you, yes, the bell—a dish of tea for Lady Spen—Lady Clancarty. There—there, my dear, don’t frown at me; it is all quite ridiculous! Mr. Benham will arrange the cushions in that chair for you; I don’t know what I should do without him! We were playing gleek, Betty, when you were announced.”

Betty was now ensconced in an armchair by the fire, her little feet on the cushion that Mr. Benham had placed for her; and she viewed the situation with an expression more composed.

“Yes, I take tea,” she said to Lord Savile, who was handing her a smoking cup, “and what is this?” she added, for he had managed to drop a flower from his buttonhole into her lap with an air of gallantry.

“A poor blossom,” he said gracefully, “to compare with such a rose as blooms here to-night.”

Lady Betty looked at him and then at the flower curiously.

“Ah,” she said calmly sipping her tea, “it is a rose—I thought ’twas a thistle!”

Lady Sunderland coughed and dropped her fan and frowned at her daughter; but the incorrigible countess did not glance in her direction. She was smiling blandly at the fire and warming first one foot and then the other.

“You are from Althorpe?” Mr. Benham asked, smiling at the beauty, for he was not displeased at Lord Savile’s discomfiture; “and my friend, Spencer, is there now.”

“He is indeed,” replied Betty, with a sigh, “and may he stay there!” she added mentally; but to Mr. Benham, “Has the king come?”

“He came yesterday, and with him, Lord Albemarle; the Princess Anne is here too, and my Lady Marlborough.”

“Dear me,” said Lady Betty, with an unconcealed yawn, “the world is here, it seems, and I am so weary that I must crave your ladyship’s license to retire.”

“Nay,” said Mr. Benham gallantly, “it is my lord and I who should retire and permit your ladyship to rest.”

“I protest!” cried Lady Sunderland; “the gleek was but half played.”

But she made no great effort to detain them; indeed, she wanted an opportunity to speak plainly to her daughter, so the beaux were allowed to bow themselves out, with more than one lingering glance at the beautiful, haughty face by the fireside. No sooner was the door closed, however, than Lady Sunderland turned on her daughter.

“Your folly passes belief, Elizabeth,” she said tartly, quite oblivious of the two attendants quietly waiting in the background; “I am tired of the name of Clancarty; your father and I intend to divorce the rascal. To parade the matter as you do is simply childish, my love, quite childish.”

Lady Betty sipped her tea and looked into the fire.

“I am not divorced,” she remarked placidly, “and Lord Clancarty, being a Romanist, may object to divorces.”

Lady Sunderland laughed unpleasantly, tapping her fan on the arm of her chair.

“Lord Clancarty has probably never respected his marriage,” she remarked, in a biting tone, though she smiled; “you are very childish, Elizabeth, for your years.”

“I am quite advanced,” her daughter replied, rising and setting her cup on the table where the cards were scattered, “and perhaps I am too old to think of divorces.”

“Nonsense,” Lady Sunderland said frowning, “your father and I mean to see you well married when we are rid of this Irish nuisance.”

“Indeed,” said Lady Betty coldly, elevating her brows, “to whom? My Lord Savile, for instance, or Mr. Benham?”

“You might do worse,” retorted Lady Sunderland stiffly; “they are both fine young men and in favor at court.”

“Precisely,” said Lady Betty, “and ’tis strange that my taste is so perverted. Dear madam, I bid you good-night. We will discuss their excellencies later; now I am perishing with sleep,” and she dropped her mother a courtesy and slipped out of the room, leaving the older countess frowning and biting her lips, the rouge showing red on her cheeks.

But once alone with Alice Lynn, Betty laughed, with tears shining in her eyes.

“Ah, the trap is set, Alice, dear,” she said, “the trap is set, if only this poor little mouse will nibble at the cheese!”

CHAPTER VI

LADY BETTY’S TOILET

NIGHT and the rain departed together. The wind had swept the sky clear, not even a white feather curled there; it was blue—blue as English skies seldom are. Lady Betty, opening her own window shutter, looked up and smiled, and then looked down into the courtyard of the inn. The waters were subsiding, and the uneven flagging showed muddy, wet and glistening in the sunlight. To the left lay the stables, where she could occasionally hear a horse neigh or stamp an impatient foot. To the right the court was railed off by an old balustrade of gray stone, mossy and green with age and opening in the centre with two vases on either side filled with geraniums and mignonette. Between these, steps descended into an old garden, laid out in quaint flower-beds, surrounded with rows of box that hedged in the winding gravel paths and grew high as a man’s head. It was September, but many flowers bloomed there besides the roses; though it was but poorly tended at this late season, it was still a spot of beauty for the guests of the tavern to look upon, and there was a restful air about it, a fragrance and quaintness, with the early sunshine on it. It was so early, indeed, that the garden was deserted, and only the stable-boys were stirring and the servants running to and fro across the court engaged in preparations for breakfast. Here and there was a red-coated hostler, and one of these was leading a black horse up and down. The horse had just been unsaddled and was heated from hard riding. There was mud on his flanks, too, which was natural enough after the storm, and there were flecks of foam upon his breast. Lady Betty looked at him long and pensively, noting that the bridle was not of English make; the man, too, who had him, was a stranger, for the other hostlers did not speak to him, and his broad, humorous face and twinkling black eyes were quite un-English. He was a short man, with bowed legs and a bulky frame, plainly dressed as the plainest groom of a gentleman could be, and yet these two, the horse and man, held Lady Betty’s attention long—so long, indeed, that she did not notice the soft opening of a door, or the soft tread on the floor behind her, and started to find Melissa Thurle at her elbow.

The woman had a smooth face and pale eyes that squinted like those of a near-sighted person, though she was not short-sighted. She moved, too, as softly as a cat, and her manners were always apologetic, humbly ingratiating; she cringed a little now under Lady Betty’s eye.

“Where is Alice?” Lady Clancarty demanded sharply.

“Her ladyship, your mother, sent for her,” Melissa said gently; “her tirewoman is ill to-day, and Lady Sunderland sent to your rooms for one.”

“Why did Alice go?” asked Lady Betty imperiously. “You know you cannot do my hair; besides, you would suit my mother exactly. Why did you stay here?”

Melissa looked down meekly. “My lady, the countess sent for Alice Lynn,” she replied.

Lady Betty’s brows went up. “Strange,” she remarked; “we all know that she will not be up until eleven,—why Alice now? I cannot do without Alice.”

“I will do my best, my lady,” Melissa said, with a deprecating purr; “if you will but choose your costume for the races I can surely arrange everything for you quite as well as Alice, and indeed your ladyship needs no very skilful tirewoman; where there is so much beauty there is no need for much skill.”

Betty eyed the woman with a distinct feeling of repugnance and yet thought herself unjust.

“Go fetch me a dish of tea,” she said languidly, “and I will think about to-day. Dear me, what a bore it is to wear clothes; if only one had feathers!”

Melissa stared but went to fetch the tea, a luxury much affected by the rich, for tea-drinking came into fashion at the East India houses in the time of Charles the Second.

Lady Betty did not wish the tea; however, she wanted to be rid of Melissa, and she went back to the window and looked out eagerly. The black horse and groom were both gone, and she turned away disappointed.

Two hours later, Alice being still with Lady Sunderland, Melissa Thurle dressed Lady Clancarty for the gala day at the Newmarket races. And a wonderful work it was to dress a belle in those days of brocaded farthingales and long, narrow-waisted bodices, and heads covered with many waves and puffs and ringlets. It was not then the fashion to powder the hair, and Lady Betty’s beautiful glossy black tresses curled naturally, so that Melissa’s task was not the most difficult. The mass of soft, wavy hair was knotted low on the back of the head and escaped in curls about the brow and cheeks and fell upon the neck, while one or two black patches on brow and cheek were supposed to enhance the whiteness of the complexion. Melissa was skilful enough, in spite of her mistress’ prejudices, and her deft fingers arranged the curls, letting some escape in coquettish waves and ringlets and binding others back into the loose knot, which still allowed them to ripple in a lovely confusion.

Lady Betty sat, meanwhile, before a dressing-table, furnished with a small oval glass in which she could not only watch Melissa, but could observe, also, every curve and dimple of her own charming face. Whether its reflection really satisfied her, or she had other and more fruitful sources of content, can only be conjectured, but certain it is that she smiled a little and bore the tirewoman’s deft touches with apparent complacence. Melissa, encouraged by her expression, began to talk to her in a soft purring fashion as she worked.

“The house is full, my lady,” she said, “’tis all agog below stairs now, and ’tis said there are two dukes, an earl, and five baronets under this roof, besides the countess and your ladyship.”

“Dear me,” said Lady Betty, “who are all these great people, and when did they come?”

“The Duke of Bedford has been here two days, my lady,” replied the newscarrier, “and the Duke of Ormond came yesterday; Mr. Godolphin, too, and Lord Wharton,—the others?—I know not when they came.”

“Who came this morning?” asked her mistress carelessly, at the same moment turning her head to admire a new knot that Melissa had made of her hair.

The tirewoman stopped, comb in hand, and admired too, her narrow eyes more narrow than usual.

“This morning?” she repeated thoughtfully, “I cannot think,—oh, yes, one of the housemaids told me that a stranger came late, on a black horse that he had ridden hard.”

Lady Clancarty listened attentively, forgetting to appear indifferent, and unconscious of the peculiar vigilance of Melissa’s pale eyes.

“The horse was in the yard this morning and showed hard riding,” she said thoughtfully. “Who was the stranger, Melissa?”

“’Tis said he is a horse jockey from London,” purred the tirewoman.

Her mistress darted a searching look at her but read nothing in that smooth face that was by nature as placid as a platter.

“Bring me my pale blue paduasoy petticoat, Thurle,” Lady Betty said, sharply imperious, “and my white and silver brocaded gown, and the mantle of silver lace, and my hat with the white plumes. Do you not know how to fasten a petticoat?—there—so!—and, stupid, my white silk stockings with the blue clocks, and the French slippers with blue enamel buckles,” and she made the woman fetch garment after garment with alacrity, and the glow in her cheeks would have warned even a less observant person than Melissa that Lady Clancarty was out of temper.

But the woman’s smooth manner remained unruffled, and not even angry words made her fingers quiver. She arrayed Lady Clancarty from head to foot, deftly and swiftly, and when the task was completed, and the beauty looked at her own reflection, a smile was forced to play about her lips, for never had a mirror reflected a vision more charming. Lady Betty, with her rich coloring, her full white throat, her perfect form, clad in a marvellous gown of white and silver, ruffled and ruffled with lace, and looped up at one side a little to show the blue petticoat; open, too, to show a neck as white as snow,—and arms to match were half revealed by the elbow sleeves, while her hat cast a shadow on those sparkling eyes. She gave the vision a look and then turned and motioned Melissa away.

“You have done very well, Thurle,” she said calmly, “and now you may go—ah, here is Alice!” and she relented at the sight of her favorite attendant.

Melissa, meanwhile, humble as usual, courtesied and withdrew, but not without casting a lingering look behind her.

When the door closed, Lady Betty gave her gown a few touches, turning around before the mirror again.

“Will I do, Alice?” she asked.

“Supremely well, madam,” Alice replied soberly, standing off to view her with a critical eye.

Lady Betty turned suddenly and laid her hand on the girl’s shoulder.

“Hast said thy catechism, Alice?” she asked.

The handmaid looked up at her blankly, her slower mind struggling to understand.

“What, my lady?”

“Your catechism, goosie,” repeated Lady Clancarty laughing; “did not my mother question you close of me?”

“She did, madam,” retorted Alice bluntly, with an ingenuous blush, “she asked me many questions.”

“And what answer did you give?” asked her mistress smiling.

“Truthful answers, dear Lady Betty,” Alice replied earnestly, apparently much troubled, “save when I answered not at all.”

“You did not answer!” exclaimed her mistress, in surprise, “and wherefore?”

“Because she asked me what you said to me of—of my Lord Clancarty,” stammered Alice, “and, madam, that I will not tell!”

Betty laughed and blushed, and suddenly she kissed the girl.

CHAPTER VII

AT THE RACES

THERE was no finer race-course in the country in those days than the long heath at Newmarket, and there for years the court of England kept festival. Charles the Second came there, with a train of gay and dissolute courtiers and fair, frail women; there too came the more solemn James with much the same following, if a more decorous manner prevailed, and there came that silent, collected, small man, whose body so little expressed his soul,—one of the greatest men of his time,—William the Third.

The king came to his summer palace, and the great lords kept up their state about him. Euston was famed for the balls of my Lord Arlington in the days of Charles the Second, and times were little changed in that respect. In contrast to the courtly splendor, the heath was fringed with an encampment as gay and varied as any gypsy gathering. Here were people of all conditions: gypsies, in fact, in their gay raiment, telling fortunes on the edge of the throng, strolling players, dancing bears and merry Andrews, and the farmers’ families come as to a festival to see the stream of fashion. For here were all the great; even the cockpit at noon was surrounded by stars and ribbons, and there were hunting and hawking and riding. There too were the long gowns and black caps of the University dons, so well received by William, mingling with the motley throng. The world, melted down into this little space, throbbed and bubbled like a cauldron filled and boiling over, and never paused except for the sermon on a Sunday.

At midday when the king went to the race-course all Newmarket streamed out at his heels, from the highest peers and greatest courtiers to the pickpockets of London; from my Lord of Devonshire to Captain Dick the horse jockey; from an orange girl of Drury Lane to the Princess of Denmark; the high and the low, the rich man and the cutpurse, all were there, and in that mass of many-colored costumes, like a bed of King William’s tulips at Loo, there were a thousand emotions,—hopes, fears, hatreds, and ambitions. Money flowed like water, and wagers ran high; fortunes were made and unmade, and the faces of men and women had often the tense expression of the gambler. But whatever evil was there—and much there was—was hidden under an air of jollity, and the setting of the scene was as variegated as a rainbow.

The long course was cleared for the horses, and on either side, and especially about the pavilion of the king, the crowd was packed close, palpitating and murmuring in the sunshine, white and pink, blue and crimson, green and gold, ribbon upon ribbon of color, men and women vying with each other in the brilliant beauty and richness of apparel; and behind, the great emblazoned coaches—drawn usually by Flanders horses—stood tier upon tier, sometimes empty, when their owners were promenading, sometimes brimful of lovely smiling faces and fluttering fans; and beyond these, the farmers and teamsters, gypsies and tipsters, honest men and thieves. Meanwhile the jockeys rode their horses out upon the turf for exercise and inspection; no people loved a fine horse better than the English, and it put the throng in an excellent humor.

In the midst of the satins and velvets, gold lace and jewels, one small man was plainly dressed in dark colors with a star upon his breast,—a man with a pale, dark face and sparkling dark eyes. Every head was bared before him, and every great dame there courtesied almost to the ground, and the trumpets sounded as King William took his place. The warm September air was filled with the hum of many voices, the trampling of horses, the blare of military music, and the great races began when the king quietly waved his hand.

Lady Sunderland kept her seat in her own carriage, and all the old beaux of the court came there to pay their compliments and exchange rare morsels of gossip with her ladyship, whose wit was keen as her tongue was merciless. But Lady Clancarty was not of this party. She had left her seat in the gorgeously emblazoned coach, and escorted by my Lord of Devonshire himself, she made her way nearer to the scene of action. Though she had lived much at Althorpe, Lady Clancarty was not unknown, and she was greeted on every hand as she passed. Her beauty, her winning address, the place her father occupied in the king’s favor, made her at once the cynosure of all eyes. Old beaux and young ones crowded forward for an introduction. Devonshire stood near her, Ormond and Bedford joined her coterie; in fact, in two hours Lady Betty was the belle of Newmarket. She looked about her smiling, roguish, keenly amused, and everywhere she read approbation and admiration, not only in the faces that she knew, but in the strange ones. Everywhere men paid her homage; over there the courtiers of the Princess Anne were thinning out; the circle of my Lady Marlborough grew narrower, but Lady Betty’s extended like a whirlpool. In the midst of her little triumph, she saw a tall man coming toward her, singling her out amidst all the others; his dress was plain and his periwig was of a different fashion, but she could not mistake that eye or that bearing; she had seen both in the woods of Althorpe. In a moment more he was bowing before her, and Ormond introduced him.

“My dear Lady Betty, let me present another admirer, Mr. Richard Trevor; an Irishman as I would have your ladyship know,” the duke added in her ear, with a laugh.

Lady Clancarty courtesied, casting a roguish look at the stranger.

“Faith, we have met before, my lord,” she said, and laughed softly.

“Twice before, my lady,” corrected Mr. Trevor, smiling into her eyes.

Betty stared. “Once, sir,” she said.

“As you will, Lady Clancarty,” he replied, and smiled again, the dare-devil leaping up in his gray eyes—and Betty blushed.

At the moment Lord Savile came up with Mr. Benham.

“Are you betting, Savile?” asked the Duke of Devonshire, with a smiling glance at the young man.

Savile made a wry face.

“Confound it, my lord, I’ve lost fifty pounds on my mare, Lady Clara,” he said, “and Benham here has made a hundred on that little black mare of Godolphin’s,—the devil’s in it.”

“Ah, look at them!” cried Betty, pointing at the track, “they come flying like birds. Is that your black mare in the lead, Mr. Benham?”

“I’ll hang for it, if he hasn’t won again,” ejaculated Lord Savile, as they leaned forward to watch the squad of horses coming in on the home stretch.

There could scarcely be a finer sight: the smooth turf, the shimmer of sunshine, the beautiful animals running fleetly, for the joy of it, heads out, eyes flashing fire, foam on the lips, and manes flying, while the jockeys, like knots of color, hung low over their necks. The sharp clip of steel-shod feet, a stream of color, sparks flying, and they were past, going on to the stakes, while silence fell on the great throng of people; men scarcely breathed, every eye strained after them. Then suddenly a shout of exultation and despair, strangely mingled, and the whole crowd blossoming out into a mass of waving handkerchiefs and tossing hats.

“Ah, was there ever anything so pretty!” cried Lady Betty; “there is nothing finer than a beautiful horse.”

“Except a beautiful woman,” said my Lord of Ormond gallantly.

“Pray, my lord, do not put us in the same category,” said Lady Betty laughing; “’tis said that some men rate their horses dearer than their wives.”

“That is because there are so few Lady Clancartys,” replied Ormond smiling, and Betty swept him a courtesy.

“Benham’s won again,” remarked Savile, too chagrined to notice anything else.

“And so have I,” said Mr. Trevor, with a little smile; “’tis an ill wind that blows nobody good.”

Savile eyed him from head to foot; his quick ear had detected a peculiarity of voice and accent.

“Are you from Ireland, sir?” he asked insolently.

“Where gentlemen are bred,—yes, my lord,” replied Trevor, his gray eyes gleaming like steel.

Lady Betty stirred uneasily. “Whose horse was that which came in last?” she asked.

“Savile’s,” laughed Benham, “don’t you see his brow of thunder?”

“Hard luck, my boy,” remarked Lord Devonshire, smiling, “but there are many here who will have worse to-day.”

“Ay, and the king’s cough is worse,” remarked Ormond significantly.

“Dr. Radcliffe told him that he would not have his two legs for his three kingdoms,” said Lord Savile, with a sullen laugh.

Devonshire smiled a little and so did Ormond, but Lady Betty looked straight before her over the sunny turf.

“My Lord Savile,” she said, “the king has the wisest head in Europe.”

“A king is richest in the hearts that love him,” said Richard Trevor smoothly, “and the King of England is rich in these.”

Lady Betty darted a quick glance at him, and so did my Lord of Ormond, but they read nothing. It was a handsome, daring face, with gray eyes and thin lips,—a face to fear in anger.

“There are riddles and innuendoes everywhere,” remarked Lord Savile with a shrug; “one knows not how to read them.”

“What I say, I am quite ready to explain, my lord,” Trevor replied smiling, his eyes hard as flint.

As he spoke my Lady Sunderland came up from her carriage, and with her two other dames of fashion. In the stir and flutter of their entrance, Lady Betty and the two young men, Trevor and Lord Savile, were, to all intents and purposes, alone, and she was perforce a listener to their talk, which was by no means friendly.

Lord Savile thrust his hands into his pockets.

“What flowers bloom at Saint Germain, sir?” he asked, with a drawl.

“The poppies of Neerwinden, I am told,” replied the Irishman.

Lord Savile’s face turned scarlet. “A very vile joke, sir,” he said, in a low voice, “and one you may repent of—here!”

“When I am in the society of informers—it may be so,” replied Trevor haughtily and very low, intending it only for my lord’s ear, but Lady Betty heard it.

“I would fain walk a little way,” she said suddenly, turning on them, “they will not race again for half an hour, and I feel the heat here. My Lord Savile, will you make way for me through the crowd?”

“I will, my lady,” Trevor said, offering his arm.

“Nay, sir,” retorted Savile, “I am the lady’s friend, not you.”

Trevor noticed him as little as a poodle; he still smiled and offered his hand to Lady Betty.

“Lady Clancarty will choose, sir, not you,” he said contemptuously.

“Lady Clancarty will go with me,” cried Savile, hotly and authoritatively.

“Faith, she will not, sir,” said Betty laughing; “Lady Clancarty will be commanded by none, my lord, and Mr. Trevor will do her this small service. But there are my thanks for your kindness.”

And she courtesied prettily before she laid her hand lightly on the stranger’s arm and moved at his side through the throng toward the open heath beyond. Their progress was necessarily slow, and followed by many admiring glances, for the roses had deepened in Lady Betty’s cheeks. The tall Irishman beside her was no less a striking figure; his height and proportions, the clean-cut face, steel-gray eyes, and close-shut thin lips had a history of their own; no one could doubt it.

As for Lord Savile, he stood fuming and vowing vengeance on the cursed Irish Jacobite, as he was pleased to name his rival; if a stanch Whig hated any man, by instinct, he must needs be a Papist and a Jacobite.

CHAPTER VIII

LADY BETTY AND AN IRISH JACOBITE

LADY BETTY and her companion walked on. The crowd, still huzzaing and noisy about the victors, was dropped behind them, all its gorgeous colors knotted into one huge rosette upon the track; beyond were green meadows and the blue shadows of a grove of limes. The two walked slowly, Lady Betty a little in advance, her long skirts gathered in one hand, the other holding her fan, the sun and the breeze kissing the soft curves of her cheeks. Beside her, holding his hat behind his back, was Richard Trevor, his eyes on her, while hers were on the landscape; the long, level stretch of turf, the grove of limes, and farther off—veiled in golden mist—the wavy outlines of forest and hills. Above, the sky was blue—blue as larkspur; the air was sweet too, as if the fragrance of flowers floated on the soft September breeze. A flock of pigeons, with the whir of many wings, rose from the ground as Betty approached, and she looked up after them and sighed.

“Is it true that the French king wears red heels to his shoes?” she asked suddenly and quite irrelevantly.

Mr. Trevor started perceptibly, giving her a quizzical glance.

“They are frequently purple,” he replied, with perfect gravity.

“Because, I suppose, it is a royal color,” she remarked absently; “you are a Jacobite, Mr. Trevor.”

“Either my disguise is a flimsy one, or your penetration is great, Lady Clancarty,” he replied, with a whimsical smile; “but I’ll swear I’m not alone at Newmarket.”

Lady Betty elevated her brows a little.

“It has been frequently hinted that King William was one,” she remarked tranquilly.

“By the Whigs out of office,” he said, with a short, hard laugh; “he is not counted one on the Continent.”

“Or in Ireland,” she said; “you were at Londonderry, of course.”

“There were two sides to the wall at Londonderry, my lady,” he replied; “I was on one—I’ll admit that.”

“It is safe not to be explicit,” she said smiling; “you are an Irishman, a Papist, and a Jacobite,” she told off each point on her fingers, “and you are from Munster.”

“Precisely,” said Mr. Trevor, with great composure; “you have nailed me to the wall, madam; I am a sinner of the blackest dye, a subject for the gallows.”

“So I supposed,” she said cheerfully, nodding her head at him, “and being all these things, and from the Continent, can you tell me—” for the first time she hesitated, stopped short, looking at the turf under her daintily shod feet, her face crimson.

He waited, smiling, composed, watchful; not helping her by a word or sign, and she could not read his eyes when she looked into them.

“Do you know Lord Clancarty?” she asked bluntly.

He took time to consider, studying, meanwhile, every detail of her charming, ingenuous face and perfect figure.

“I have met him,” he said deliberately, “in Dublin and in Paris.” Betty’s agitation was quite apparent, but she commanded herself and looked up bravely.

“He is my husband,” she said simply.

Mr. Trevor smiled involuntarily.

“He is a happy man,” he said gallantly.

She made an impatient gesture, laughing and blushing.

“Tell me how he looks?” she asked; “I have never seen him since he was fifteen and I eleven. Is he a bugbear? They would have me believe so.”

“On the contrary, I have always thought him handsome, my lady,” Mr. Trevor said, smiling imperturbably, “and altogether the most companionable man I know.”

“Indeed!” she exclaimed; “yet you told me you had only met him—twice.”

“In two places,” corrected Mr. Trevor quite unmoved, “but frequently. He’s a fine man, madam, take my word for it; I love him like a brother; he has only one fault, madam, one sin, and that, I’ll admit, is unpardonable.”

“And that?” she queried, with uplifted brows, a little haughtily.

“And that,” replied Mr. Trevor calmly, “is the fact that he has been able to live for fourteen years without his wife.”

Lady Clancarty flushed angrily, and then she laughed that delicious, mirthful laugh of hers.

“He has existed, sir,” she corrected him, “because he never knew how delightful Lady Clancarty is.”

“Exactly,” replied Trevor, “a mere existence; life uncrowned by love—such love as he ought to have won, confound him—is not life. He might as well be a turnip.”

“So I have always thought,” she replied, with a charming smile; “but then, you know, Mr. Trevor, he might not have been able to win it.”

“Not win it!” he exclaimed, “not win it, when he is a husband to begin with. By Saint Patrick, madam, I’d cut his acquaintance for life! Not win it? What cannot a man do under the inspiration of a beautiful and noble woman? Kingdoms have been won and lost for them. If Troy fell for Helen, an empire might well fall for a woman as beautiful and far more womanly. I’d run Clancarty through, my lady, if he were not willing to die for his true love. Irishmen are not made of such poor stuff. No, no, he would win it, never fear.”

Lady Betty’s chin was up and her eyes travelling over the green turf again.

“An idle boast, sir,” she said carelessly; “no woman would be lightly won after years of neglect.”

“Nor should be,” he replied, in a deep tone of emotion, “nor should be! By the Virgin, Clancarty ought to go on his knees from Munster to Althorpe in penitence.”

“Faith, what would he do about the Channel, Mr. Trevor?” she asked wickedly.

“Swim it, madam,” he replied promptly; “a true man and a lover would not drown—with such a saint enshrined before him.”

“A Protestant saint for a Papist penitent,” remarked Lady Betty smiling; “what a poor consolation.”

“Love laughs at obstacles, my Lady Clancarty,” said Mr. Trevor, “and it forgets creed.”

“Oh!” she said and her brows went up.

“There is one excuse, though,” he went on, “one—or I would never speak to Donough Macarthy again.”

“Oh, there is one, then?” she asked doubtfully.

“One—yes,” he replied gravely; “he is a proscribed exile, madam, this king of yours has excepted him from the Act of Grace; he cannot return except, indeed, to the Tower and the block. But, after all, to lose a head is less than to lose a heart.”

Lady Betty laughed.

“Only one can recover a heart,” she said wickedly, “but a head—I never heard of one that was put on after the headsman.”

“Nor I,” he admitted, “but, after all, one can die but once.”

“And one can love many times,” suggested Betty; “I have heard that my Lord Clancarty’s heart is tender.”

“Mere fables, madam,” he replied, with cool mendacity; “his heart is made for one image only and would keep that—to eternity.”

“His must be a valuable and rare heart,” Lady Clancarty remarked demurely, “too good, sir, to exchange for a human one.”

“Verily too good to give without a fair exchange, madam,” he replied, smiling audaciously; “nor will Clancarty cast it by the wayside. I know him for a man who will love and be loved again. He’s no moonstruck youth, my lady; when he gives he will demand a return.”

She carried her head proudly. “He should have to win it,” she said.

“He would win it,” Trevor retorted boldly, “and he would hold it. Pshaw, madam, I despise a milksop, and so do you!”

“You are overbold in your assertions, sir,” Betty said, stopping short and looking back over the heath, shading her eyes with her fan.

“Bold for a friend, my lady,” he said gracefully, “bold for the absent who has none to plead his cause.”

Lady Betty laughed.

“Do you see that whirling, frantic thing yonder?” she asked, pointing; “’tis my Lady Sunderland’s India shawl; she is waving to me. We must go back, sir; she thinks I venture too near the lions.”

“We must go back, it seems, since you command it,” he replied regretfully, “but I may see Lady Clancarty again? I may speak to her of—her husband?”

Betty hesitated for the twentieth part of a second and then she smiled.

“We are at the Lion’s Head,” she said, “and I shall receive my friends after supper—but do not talk of Lord Clancarty.”

He bowed profoundly, and she moved on, for the India shawl was waving frantically now and Savile and the others were coming toward them.

“I thank you for the privilege,” said Richard Trevor with his daring smile; “we will talk of Lady Clancarty.”

But Betty answered not a word; she walked back across the heath, proudly silent, nor did she cast a single relenting glance behind her—and thus failed to see the quizzical expression in his eyes.

CHAPTER IX

THE WEARING OF THE GREEN

THAT night was the night of Devonshire’s great ball and all Newmarket was agog, streets were blocked with fours and sixes—the great coaches jammed in rows, with fighting, swearing coachmen and postilions. As for the chairs, they were blocked in so closely that half the chairmen had black eyes or bloody noses in the morning; and the link-boys, let loose in this carnival, ran hither and yon, with their lanthorns flaring in the wind like ministering imps in an inferno, while the country people and the tavern tipsters and the market women filled up the last crevices, to see beauty and fashion pass in and out the flaring doorway, whence came strains of music and the sounds of laughter. The king, it was true, would not be there; his cough—or despatches from France, it was whispered—would keep him in bed that festive night, but Lady Marlborough was there and in her train the Princess Anne. People had begun already to put the pair in this sequence, and laughed, in their sleeves, at it and at William’s tolerance, for no one despised my Lord Marlborough more than that astute, cool-headed monarch, who knew him to be as false as he was brilliant.

Excepting only the king himself, the whole world of fashion was at the ball, and the house was dressed with green boughs and flowers, rushes and sweet seg, and a wassail bowl stood in the hall wreathed with blossoms. The band was stationed on the staircase landing, the musicians clad for the occasion in scarlet waistcoats and shorts, deep clocked scarlet stockings, and coats of yellow velvet stamped on the back with red roses and on the left breast with the Devonshire arms. There were female attendants, too, attired quaintly in gay flowered silks and wearing vizards, who served the fyne of pocras, sobyll bere and mum below stairs, while above the rooms were lighted by flambeaux and the floors polished like mirrors for the dancers. There were to be dances of every sort, from the country romp, “cuckolds all awry,” with “hoite come toite,” and the more stately galliard, to “Trenchemore” and the cushion dance and “tolly polly.”

Her Grace of Marlborough, in towering headdress and a gown of red velvet over a petticoat of cloth of gold, led the first dance with his Grace of Devonshire, the Princess Anne and the duke being vis-à-vis, but only a poor spectacle by comparison.

The whole house overflowed with the throng. The greatest of the court were there, Bedford and Ormond and Hartington,—and there, too, were Godolphin and Somers and a bevy of beauty; ruffles of lace and gleams of jewels, and here and there the rosy cheeks of the daughters of the country squires. Old dames looked on from the wall, smiling and delighted when a daughter danced and frowning at a more favored neighbor, and the young beaux had no rest, but danced in their tight French shoes and bowed until their backs were doubled.

But the greatest stir was when Lady Clancarty led the galliard with her noble host, my lady all in white and gold, with one pink rose in her hair, her eyes shining, and her cheeks fresher than the rose. Down the long room they came and her feet scarcely seemed to touch the floor, and she held her head so high that it almost overlooked his grace, who bowed smilingly toward her, a stately figure himself as he moved in his splendid dress down the space left by the dancers, the music scarcely drowning the murmur of applause. Her Grace of Marlborough was outshone and she bit her lip and tossed her head.

It was after this, when my Lady Clancarty, flushed and lovely, stood surrounded by a throng that the Irishman, Mr. Trevor, pushed through them all to her side. A handsome figure, too, and one which had won more than one admiring glance that night; a graceful figure clad in white satin, self-possessed, accomplished. French in manner; he had caught the trick at Versailles, and his gray eyes looked straight into hers. The strains of the dance floated up the stairs; my Lord Savile pressed forward.

“Our dance, my lady,” he said, almost imperatively thrusting between.

For an instant she hesitated and then she smiled and laid her hand in Mr. Trevor’s, so near that it brushed Savile’s sleeve.

“This dance is promised, my lord,” she said sweetly, and passed out on the floor with her partner.

The young lord swore in a subdued voice, happily unheard by any one. All eyes were on my lady and her partner.

“What a pair!” they murmured.

“Mars and Venus!” cried a courtier.

“Venus and Apollo!” said another, and every eye was on them.

Yet the two thought not of it, they danced superbly, it is true, and with a joy in it, being adepts in the art, but Betty could think of no one but the man who held her hand, whose eyes held hers, too, by a spell. Perhaps, she feared a little the mastery of his ways, yet she had never danced before with such a partner.

“You have learned to dance in France, sir, I think,” she said lightly, laughing a little.

“Perhaps,” he replied, smiling too, “but I think I learned on the mossy fields of old Ireland, that I was born a dancer.”

Afterwards they went out on the balcony together, the night air cooling their faces. Below was the garden, for this was the rear of the house. It was dark and silent without, but the strains of music floated through the open windows and the light from within fell on her.

He took something from his breast and pressing it to his lips, held it out to her.

“Will you wear it, my lady,” he said softly, “the symbol of an unfortunate country and—of a loyal heart?”

She looked at it strangely, it was a piece of shamrock. Perhaps she meant to refuse it, but she saw Savile coming and a malicious imp leaped into her eyes. She took it and tried to fasten it in her hair but her fingers faltered, and Savile drew nearer; the music, too, heralded another dance.

“Permit me,” said Richard Trevor, and deftly fastened the shamrock where the rose had been, that slipped and fell between them on the floor.

Lady Clancarty’s face was crimson. Trevor knelt on one knee and taking up the rose kissed it.

“A fair exchange,” he said.

She bit her lip and stretched out her hand to snatch the flower.

“You will dance with me now, my lady?” said Lord Savile.

“You were long in coming,” replied her ladyship wickedly, with mock eagerness, but not without a backward glance to see the effect of it; but the coquette was disappointed.

At her words, the Irishman let her flower lie where it had fallen, and in a few minutes she saw him dancing with the pretty daughter of a country squire. Lady Clancarty liked it so little that she set her teeth on her lip and gave my Lord Savile a bit of her temper. Yet she wore the shamrock, though half the room began to comment upon it.

It was morning when the great rout broke up and the stream of coaches began to move again. The crowd had stayed; they knew my lord duke’s generosity and that the broken meats from that fête would keep them for a sevennight, and they waited to pour at last into the kitchenway and come out heavy-laden; they were there when the great people went away in their coaches and chairs.

Lady Sunderland was already in her chair and her daughter was coming down the stair with a throng of followers, but it was Richard Trevor who walked beside her.

“The rose I would not take from the ground,” he whispered, “I am no beggar of crumbs—but the shamrock—”

She smiled and her bright eyes looked beyond him at the throng below.

“The shamrock!” he murmured.

It was not in her hair; had she thrown it away? A step lower down and she held out her hand and dropped the sprig into his.

“A poor thing, sir, but ’tis yours,” she said, “and you were long in claiming it,” she added, laughing softly.

At the moment a wreath of flowers, cast from the balcony above, fell lightly on her shoulders, and she stood laughing, the petals showering her and falling all about her feet.

He kissed her finger tips gallantly.

“The Queen of the Rout is crowned!” he said.

CHAPTER X

AN IRISH DEFIANCE

MELISSA stood meekly before her mistress.

“My Lady Sunderland’s compliments, madam,” she said, with her usual purr; “will you play basset to-night?”

“No,” replied Lady Clancarty; “many thanks; but tell my mother that I am to have guests, and my purse is too thin for basset.”

As the door closed on Melissa, Lady Clancarty rose from her dressing-table.

“I will wear the pink flowered brocade, Alice,” she said.

Alice opened her eyes. “Oh, my lady,” she remonstrated, “it is too lovely; I thought you meant it only for the king’s levees.”

Her mistress smiled. “May not the king come here—if he chooses?” she said mischievously. “The brocade, Alice.”

Unconvinced, Alice brought the garment, a beautiful and costly thing frosted with rare lace, and as she helped Lady Betty put it on she was more and more impressed with its charms.

“Oh, my lady,” she murmured, “you do look lovely in it—’tis too fine by half.”

Betty craned her neck backward, looking over her shoulder into the glass; the folds of the sheeny satin fell about her, the bodice fitted like a glove, displaying every curve of her well-rounded form, and it was low cut, revealing a neck and shoulders like snow. The beauty smiled.

“Bring me my string of pearls,” she said.

Alice brought them without a word and helped her fasten them about her throat. Betty looked into the mirror again and then fell to fingering the bracelet on one round arm.

“Alice,” she said, half laughing, “he is here.”

The handmaid started, looking at her in wonder.

“Who, my lady?—not Lord Clancarty?”

“The stranger we met in the woods at Althorpe,” her mistress replied, “who would have kissed me for a milkmaid.”

“Indeed, madam, I think he would as lief kiss you as a queen,” Alice said blushing, “the bold gallant! He is here—and who is he?”

Lady Clancarty clasped and unclasped her bracelet while the roses deepened in her cheeks.

“He is called Richard Trevor,” she said softly; “a pretty name, Alice, Richard—rich-hearted, lion-hearted—like our great Plantagenet.”

Alice looked at her in bewilderment. Lady Betty had as many moods as April: did she mean to fall in love, at last, after all her loyalty to that unknown and terrible exile? Alice wondered. But saying nothing she stooped down, instead, to smooth the shining folds of the beautiful gown.

“Go fix the candles, Alice,” Lady Clancarty said, with a soft little sigh, “and place a table for cards—and the lute and guitar—place them there also. Presently my guests will be here.”

The handmaid obeyed, too perplexed by this new mood of my lady’s to venture on the smallest observation. She had arranged the room with simple taste when Lady Betty entered it a few moments later. It was not as large a room as her mother’s, but it was furnished, too, with an open fireplace where a single log burned, for the nights were chilly. Candles were set on the mantel and the table, while through the open door came the buzz of conversation, for Lady Sunderland was deep in a game of basset with Lady Dacres and his Grace of Bedford. Betty did not disturb them but observed them from a distance, noticing her mother’s rouged face and nodding headdress, and Lady Dacres’s pinched and eager features. The old dame was as keen as any gamester. The mother and daughter had so little in common that they seemed like strangers, and the younger countess stood looking at the log in deep thought when Richard Trevor was announced. As she courtesied, she gave him a quick, keen glance, but made nothing of that bold handsome face of his, though quick to note the distinction of his appearance and bearing, those of a man used to courts as well as camps. She saw it all at a glance, as she had seen it at first, but she chose to receive him with cool politeness.

“You play basset, of course, sir?” she said demurely.

But he saw the pitfall.

“I’m too poor, madam,” he replied smiling. “I can remember hearing an old courtier tell how he lost his fortune to King Charles at basset.”

“I trust the king gave it back to him,” she said quickly.

“He made him a lottery cavalier,” rejoined Mr. Trevor calmly.

Betty smiled scornfully. “And for such a king men have died!” she said significantly.

“Ingratitude is only human at the worst,” he replied, laughing softly, “and you know, ‘the king can do no wrong!’”

Lady Betty put her finger on her lip, with a glance toward the card-players.

“You are right,” he said, regardless of her caution, “’tis quite useless to die for any king. There is only one thing worth dying for, and that—is supremely worth living for, too.”

“And it is not a king?” she commented thoughtfully, “or a queen?”

“A queen, yes,” he admitted, “but the queen of hearts. The only thing worth living for,” he said, and his voice grew deep and tender, “and dying for, my Lady Clancarty, is—Love.”

She blushed and her eyes fell. He had the most compelling glance she had ever encountered. Those eyes of his would enthrall hers, and she looked away.

“I never heard of any man dying of it,” she remarked, with a bitter little laugh.

“That’s because a wise man would rather live for it,” he said; “what exquisite torment for a man to die and leave it behind him—in the shape of a lovely widow.”

“Ah,” said Lady Betty, with a roguish smile, “therein lies the sting!”

“Precisely,” admitted the Irishman; “if there’s one thing that could bring me back to this vale of tears it is my successor!”

“I have heard that in India the widows are burnt on the funeral pyres,” she remarked, a glow of amusement in her eyes; “you might arrange it so for the future Mrs. Trevor.”

He shook his head disconsolate. “She’s sure to be a woman of spirit,” he said; “I couldn’t get her consent.”

Betty shrugged her shoulders. “After all you have said of love you can’t find a woman to die for it?”

“I would rather she lived for it,” he said, with his daring smile, “and for me!”

“Men are purely selfish,” she retorted with fine indifference, “it’s always ‘for me’; hadn’t you better dream of living for her?”

“I do!” he replied promptly; “faith, if I didn’t dream of her I should immediately expire—she’s the star of my life.”

“Oh!” said Lady Betty, in a strange voice, “it has gone as far as that?—she is French, I suppose?” she added with polite interest and elevated brows.

“I never inquire into the nationality of divinities,” he said coolly; “she’s an angel, and that’s enough for her humble adorer.”

“You Papists are fond of saints,” remarked my lady, tapping the floor with her foot.

“And sinners,” he admitted.

Betty turned her shoulder toward him.

“What color are her eyes?” she asked, playing with her fan.

“I can’t look into them at this moment,” he replied with audacity, “but I hope to tell you later.”

She flashed a withering glance at him.

“They are brown,” he announced coolly.

Anger and amusement struggled for a moment on Lady Betty’s face, and then she laughed and dropped her fan.

He stooped to pick it up and something green and shrivelled fell before her. Lady Betty put her foot on it. He handed her the fan with a bow. The voices in the other room rose a little in a dispute.

“What are they saying?” she asked, swaying her fan before her face.

He listened and smiled. “They are talking of Lady Horne’s divorce,” he said; “what is your ladyship’s view of it?”

She hesitated—and there is a proverb!

“You are a Papist,” she said, “do you believe that a marriage—even a foolish one—is indissoluble?”

“Certainly I do,” he replied piously; “perish the thought of severing the tie!”

She reddened.

“So, ’tis ‘for better or for worse’!” she said bitterly, “and usually for worse.”

“‘Until death us do part,’” he quoted piously again.

Lady Betty started and turned from red to white.

“’Tis a horrible idea,” she said, with a shudder,—Lord Sunderland would have heard her with amazement,—“no escape for a poor woman who has been ensnared into a wretched union!”

“A wretched union,” he repeated slowly, a change coming over his face, “a wretched union; are all marriages so wretched, my lady?”

“A great many of them,” she retorted tartly, and he could only see the curve of her white shoulder and the back of her head.

He knelt on one knee and began to look around on the floor with an anxious face. After a moment she looked at him over her shoulder.

“What is it?” she asked, blushing and biting her lip.

“My shamrock,” he said, peeping under the table with an air of perplexity.

“Do you always carry vegetables with you?” she asked witheringly.

“I have—since last night,” he retorted, still searching.

“And you dropped it here?” she asked innocently.

He passed his sword under a chair and drew it back slowly over the floor.

“Yes,” he replied, in a tone of deep anxiety, “’twas here.”

She moved to the other side of the fireplace.

“Is that it?” she asked, coolly pointing.

He pounced upon the withered sprig and kissed it, and rising stood looking at her.

“But,” he said, and a daring smile played about his mouth; he took a step nearer, “but some marriages are made—in heaven.”

“And others—” Lady Clancarty pointed downward with a wicked smile.

“Ah,” he answered, “those are of earth, earthy; but when love steps in, then, my lady, then—”

“There comes my Lord Savile,” she said, and smiled sweetly.

“Damn him!” he muttered beneath his breath.

The door opened to admit Lord Savile and Mr. Benham, and her greeting was cordiality itself.

“Here’s a gentleman who has staked all his fortune on his gray mare and lost it!” Mr. Benham said, his hand on Savile’s shoulder, “and he has done nothing but weep for it.”

“Saint Thomas!” exclaimed that nobleman, “I’m not the first to stake all on a woman and lose.”

“Leave the saint out of it, my lord, when you put the sinner in,” said Lady Betty.

“Oh, Saint Mary, there goes my last crown!” came from the other room in the shrill lament of Lady Dacres.

Both Savile and Trevor laughed.

“Change the sex of your saint and you have an honorable example,” remarked Trevor, as he picked up the countess’ guitar and began to finger it lightly.

“I’m a ruined man,” said Savile recklessly, “unless that fickle dame—Fortune—smiles on me to-morrow.”

“You ought to call her a fickle mare, my lord,” suggested Lady Betty artlessly; “when Fortune runs upon four legs it must needs be more fleet than upon two.”

Lord Savile looked into her eyes with a smile.

“If love were kind, fortune might fly, my lady,” he said daringly, but very low.

Lady Clancarty flushed hotly as she turned to greet a newcomer, Sir Edward Mackie, one of Devonshire’s gentlemen; a young fellow with a round, boyish face, who had worn his heart upon his sleeve until he lost it to Lady Betty. But so ingenuous was he, so frankly generous and devoted, that she gave him now her sweetest smile.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trevor still tuned the guitar, but he had heard Savile’s whisper to my lady and had watched her face with keen and searching eyes. Young Mackie brought news for Lady Clancarty.

“Your brother has come,” he said eagerly, “my Lord Spencer; I have just had the honor to wait upon him. Very proud I am too, my lady, for is he not one of the new lights of the party, and one of the most learned young men in Britain?”

She shrugged her white shoulders laughing.

“He is all that, Sir Edward,” she said, “and more—much more,” she added with a droll expression of despair.

“Much learning doth make him mad,” said Mr. Trevor smiling. “I have known such cases on the Continent.”

“’Tis instructive,” Betty admitted, smiling at Sir Edward’s boyish face, “but ’tis dry.”

“Give me a fine horse, a fine woman, and fine music, and all the books in England might burn,” said Benham.

“Oh!” said Lady Betty, and she lifted her brows with a contemptuous glance.

“In sequence, according to your valuation of them, sir,” remarked Mr. Trevor, with a cool smile, “a poor compliment to the sex. But music expresses something—something only—of the beauty and charm of a fair woman.”

“Sing to us, do!” interposed the countess, “I despise comparisons.”

“To hear is to obey, my lady,” he replied, beginning at once to play the sad wild air that made her start and change color.

Would he dare to sing that here? she thought, her heart beating hard; would he dare? How little she knew him! In a moment his rich tenor voice, a voice of peculiar charm and timbre, filled the room and even startled the card-players.

“’Tis you shall reign alone,

My dark Rosaleen!

My own Rosaleen!

’Tis you shall have the golden throne,

’Tis you shall reign, and reign alone,

My dark Rosaleen!”

He sang the wild ballad through to the end, and as he ceased, Lady Betty turned to him and smiled, applauding softly. But she said nothing, although young Mackie was openly delighted, and Lady Sunderland exclaimed that it was a marvellous fine performance of a poor song.

“’Tis an old ballad, madam,” Mr. Trevor replied courteously, “and perhaps a poor one, but dear to the Irish heart.”

“Sing an English one next time, sir, or a Dutch—la—yes, your Grace of Bedford, we grow to love everything Dutch.”

Lord Savile meanwhile, with his hands thrust into his pockets and his face flushed, lounged nearer to the singer.

“A very pretty performance,” he said, with an insolent drawl, “worthy a tavern musician. By Jove, sir, the tune is pestiferous here; an Irishman and a cow-stealer are synonymous.”

Richard Trevor smiled, his gray eyes flashing dangerously.

“And English noblemen are often cowards, and liars to boot, sir,” he said in an undertone, his hand still on the guitar.

“I am at your service,” said Savile, in a passionate voice.

Trevor glanced warningly at Lady Clancarty.

“Elsewhere, my lord, with pleasure,” he said, still smiling, “I might add with joy.”

Lady Sunderland came in now with her guests; she had won at basset and was in high good humor.

“A song,” she cried, “another song.”

Her eyes sought Trevor and he bowed gravely.

“At another time, my lady,” he said; “now I must wait on a friend, who has the first claim upon me. My ladies all, good-night,” and he bowed gracefully, a certain merry defiance in his glance.

Lady Betty held out her hand involuntarily.

“I thank you for the ballad,” she said and smiled.

He carried her hand to his lips and, it may be, kissed it with more fervor than courtesy required, for the rosy tide swept over her white neck and her cheeks and brow.

As he went out, Lady Sunderland tapped her fan upon her lips. “Don’t tell it,” she said, with the coquetry of a girl of sixteen, “don’t tell it, but la!—he has the finest figure I ever saw, and the legs of an Apollo.”

“’Pon my soul, madam, that’s a compliment that’s worth dying for,” Mr. Benham said, with a peculiar smile at Savile.

Betty seeing it, went over and stood staring into the embers on the hearth, though she pretended to be talking to young Mackie.

CHAPTER XI

A NIGHT OF PORTENTS

ALICE was combing Lady Betty’s hair late that night.

The two girls were in Betty’s bedroom, a solitary taper burning on the table. In this rosy twilight both faces showed indistinctly. Betty’s finery lay upon a chair near by; she wore only a flowing white robe over her night-rail, and one rosy foot, out of the slipper, rested on the rug. Her luxuriant hair falling about her almost hid her face, and her eyes were fixed pensively upon the fire. Meanwhile, Alice stood behind her combing and brushing her hair with hands that actually trembled, while her face was very white. If Lady Clancarty had looked at her, she would have divined some trouble, but as it was she was only aroused from her revery by the girl’s unwonted awkwardness.

“Dear me, Alice!” she exclaimed, “that is the third time you have pulled my hair. I shall be as bald soon as Lady Dacres without her perukes. What ails you, girl?”

“I’m nervous,” Alice said, her voice breaking suspiciously, “I can’t help it.”

Lady Betty tossed back her hair, snatched up a taper and looked at her sharply.

“Nervous?” she exclaimed, “why, you are naturally as tame as any barnyard fowl. Nervous! Why, your eyes are sticking out of your head. What is it, girl? Hast met your friend the parson again?”

“No, no,” faltered Alice, with a little sob. “I—I overheard some talk between two gentlemen to-night in the hall—and it scared me.”

Betty laughed merrily.

“Fie, Alice, fie!” she cried, “an eavesdropper! What horrible thing was it they said? Mercy on us, girl, you look as if they plotted bloody murder!”

“So they did, madam,” Alice said soberly.

Lady Betty stared.

“The child’s demented,” she remarked, shaking her head.

“That I’m not,” Alice replied bluntly, wiping a tear from her pale cheek, “but I hate to think of one of them dead—for some folly, too.”

“Oh, ho!” said her mistress, setting down the taper, “now I understand—there is to be a duel;” then suddenly her mood changed.

“Who were they?” she demanded sharply.

Alice began to show reluctance and her eyes avoided Betty’s.

“Two guests of the inn, madam,” she said, averting her face.

But Lady Clancarty caught her arm and turned her to the light.

“Out with it, Alice,” she said imperiously, “I will know.”

“It was Lord Savile,” the girl said slowly, “and—and another—a stranger.”

“Our stranger of Althorpe, Alice?” Lady Betty said, a sudden indefinable change in her whole aspect.

Alice nodded sullenly.

Her mistress stood quite still for a moment, pressing her hands together. She had shaken her hair about her face again, so that it was concealed. There was something in her attitude so unusual, in the silence, too, of the room, where only the fire crackled, and in the girl’s own nervousness, that quite overcame Alice. She began to cry.

“They fight to-morrow,” she sobbed, “in the meadow beyond the grove of limes—at sunrise.”

“Who are their seconds?” Lady Betty asked, in a strangely quiet tone.

“Mr. Benham, so I heard them say, and a young fellow with a face like a boy. He was to act for the stranger because he had no friends.”

“Young Mackie!” said Lady Clancarty. “You heard this and did not tell me, Alice? I find it hard to forgive you.”

“But why should I?” cried Alice trembling, “what could your ladyship do?”

Betty gave a strange little laugh. “You shall see what I will do to-morrow,” she said quietly, “for you shall go with me.”

“Go where, my lady?” Alice asked in surprise.

“To the meadow behind the limes,” replied her mistress calmly; “there I shall go to-morrow, at sunrise, and stop this folly. It began in my rooms, Alice, over a ballad, and I have no mind that it shall end in bloodshed.”

“Indeed, madam, I think you are in the right,” said Alice simply, “but what can we do? They will never listen to a woman!”

Lady Clancarty shut her lips firmly, and held her little bare foot out to the fire, warming it.

“I fear you cannot stop them,” Alice went on; “Lord Savile was very fierce, but the other gentleman—oh, madam, I feared him more! he was so cool; and those eyes of his—they are like steel.”

“So they are,” said Betty absently, “and hath he not a handsome face?” and she looked pensively into the fire. “To-morrow we shall go, Alice, to-morrow at sunrise, and I shall stop this duel—I will stop it, if I have to go to the king!”

But the little handmaid did not reply; she was watching her mistress with an anxious face. She did not know the meaning of this new Lady Betty, and some hint of impending trouble weighed upon her. She was country bred, too, and timid, and the thought of the gray dawn with the shadowy trees looming through the mist and only the flash of steel to illumine the scene, made her tremble. But Betty, usually so observant and sympathetic and light hearted, did not heed her; she was suddenly self-absorbed, pensive, quietly determined. She went to the window and peeped out into the night.

“How many hours until sunrise, Alice?” she asked.

“Six, my lady,” the girl replied with a sigh, “and I wish it might be sixteen!”

Betty laughed, a strange little embarrassed laugh, coming back and sinking on her knees before the hearth, the firelight playing on her lovely face, and the shadowy masses of her hair, and the gleaming white of her draperies.

“I cannot sleep,” she said softly; “I cannot sleep—I am not fit for a soldier’s wife!”

Alice shuddered. “Indeed, my lady, I’d as lief marry a butcher!” she cried, with such genuine horror and disgust that she moved her mistress to merriment.

“There, my girl, I told you so,” cried Lady Betty, “you were meant for that same parson.”

CHAPTER XII

MASTER AND MAN

MEANWHILE, under the same roof, but in far different quarters, the young Irishman called Richard Trevor was talking to his servant, the same who had led his horse up and down in the inn-yard under Lady Betty’s window. The room—an attic one—was scarcely ten feet square, and almost devoid of furniture; there was a pallet, a table, and two chairs; and a mat of braided straw at the foot of the master’s bed served for the man’s. A single candle burned low in its socket on the table, and here Richard Trevor sat with some writing materials before him, but he was not writing; he leaned back in his chair and listened, with his amused smile, to the glib talk of his attendant.

“Faix, sir, they be afther charging more here for a bite of mate or a dhrap of liquor thin in anny ither place in th’ kingdom,” said the man dolefully; “I’ve bin afther minding yer lordship’s insthructions about the money, an’ by the Powers, me stomach is loike to clave to me backbone.”

“We can starve respectably, however, Denis,” said his master smiling, and turning the contents of his purse out on the table; “a small sum for our needs, but it must serve,” he added, counting the money with a reckless air; “besides, one of us may die before we come to the end of it.”

“We’ll be afther doin’ it here, yer honor,” said Denis gloomily, “from an impty stomach. Betwane th’ landlord an’ the ranting, tearing Whig gintry in th’ stable-yard, sir, I’m clane daft.”

“So they’re all for the king in possession, are they?” said Trevor, in an amused tone; “I hope you’ve heeded my instructions to keep your tongue quiet in your head and mind your own business.”

“Faix, me lord, I’ve bin afther minding mine, but they’re afther minding it too, th’ ill-favored thribe!”

“That is because you are an Irishman, Denis; they know that at once.”

“Indade, yer lordship’s mistaken intirely; they’ve no idee at all that I’m a Munster man,” said his servant, with an air of satisfaction, “divil a bit of it! Sometimes I’m a Frenchy an’ sometimes I’m a Dutchy—but an Irishman niver! Lady Clancarty’s woman—a sly divil with a pair of eyes that be winking etarnally—she’s bin swate to me. By the Virgin, sir, she’s bin afther thryin’ to sound me about yer lordship. She looks at me and purrs, for all th’ wurruld, loike a big white tabby, an’ says she, ‘You’re an Irishman, sir!’ ‘Divil a bit, me darlint,’ says I, ‘I’m a Dutchman, born at th’ Hague and me mither was forty-first cousin, wanst removed, to th’ king’s grandmither,’ says I. ‘Ye don’t tell me!’ says she, and her little pale eyes blinked loike a candle in th’ wind. ‘An’ what’ll be yer name, sir?’ she asks, as swate as honey. ‘Mynheer Tulipius,’ says I, for I couldn’t think of anither name for th’ life of me. ‘La, sir,’ says she with a simper, ‘you look loike a tulip, to be shure.’ ‘So I do, me darlint,’ I replied, and I thried to make up me mind to kiss her, but, bedad, sir, I couldn’t do it; there’s something about her that sinds the cowld creeps up me spine.”

“You’re a great coward, Denis,” said his master smiling, “afraid of a woman! It’s a new fault in you, and one that I did not expect. As for this creature, what were her questions about me?”

“‘Yer master’s an Irishman, Mynheer Tulipius,’ says she, ‘that we all know fer a fact.’ ‘Is he, indade?’ says I, with the greatest amazement; ‘’tis the first time I iver heard it,’ says I; ‘he was born in London and his fayther was one of Gineral Cromwell’s Ironsides.’ ‘Ye don’t say so,’ says she, ‘how iver did he get on so well at Saint Germain thin?’ and she blinked a hundred times in a second. ‘Saint Germain!’ says I, opening my eyes wide; ‘indade, they were so cowld to him there that he was afther laving before he got there,’ says I, ‘it’s quite well known,’ I wint on, as slick as silk, ‘that whin the man Jimmy Stuart, rayalized that my masther was in France he put on a shirt of mail an’ niver took it off at all, even av he was aslape in his ruffled silk night-rail, for fear he’d be kilt on th’ field of honor.’ ‘Is that so?’ says she; ‘an’ thin p’r’aps ye’ve met me Lord Clancarty out there?’ ‘Clancarty?’ says I, squinting hard with wan eye, ‘there was a gintleman of that same name hung jist as I was afther laving Holland—mebbe he’s yer friend?’ By Saint Patrick, me lord, you ought to have sane her stare! She sthopped winking thin, an’ looked loike a cat that’s sane a bird; on me sowl, sir, I looked to see av there wasn’t a furry tail swinging behind, to wurk th’ charm on me. ‘Clancarty hung?’ says she, clapping her hand to her heart, ‘what for?’ ‘Faix, I don’t know, me darlint,’ says I, ‘unless it was for being too much of a Whig.’ ‘Pshaw!’ cries she, stamping her foot, ‘ye’re a paddy fool!’ ‘Niver a bit,’ says I, ‘I’m a Dutch wizard, me darlint; just let me be afther telling yer fortune.’ But away she wint in a towering rage, an’ left me with me heart broken intirely at the siparation.”

“I fear you did not deceive her,” said Clancarty, with a laugh, and he unsheathed his sword, running his finger along the blade. “My old friend needs polishing, Denis,” he added, with his careless air of good humor, “I’ve a duel on my hands for the morning.”

The Irishman’s face sobered in an instant, and he cast a look of concern at his master.

“I’m sorra for it, me lord,” he said, with an honest ring in his voice, “ye’ve no friends here.”

“Except you, Denis,” said his master kindly, “and if I fall, all my effects are yours—and—” he paused an instant and then laughed recklessly, “and you can tell the widow.”

“She’s a foine lady, me lord,” said Denis artfully, “’tis a pity to throw away yer life now.”

“She’s a woman to die for, Denis,” exclaimed his lord, a sudden glow passing over his face; “but I shall not die—faith, I’ve fought too many duels to die in one.”

“There’s always loike to be wan too many, yer honor,” said Denis gravely, “and wan thrust of th’ sword and th’ house of Macarthy loses its head.”

The young man laughed recklessly.

“And a beggarly exile dies,” he said bitterly. “I fear you are not a man of courage, Denis; I think I’ve heard of you in the retreat from Boyne,” he added, with a laughing glance at the dark-faced, sturdy Irishman.

“Ah, sir, that was the fault of me shoes, an’ I blush for it,” Denis replied.

“Your shoes,” repeated his master, “and wherefore your shoes?”

“’Twas afther this fashion, me lord,” said Denis gravely; “there was a scamp of a shoemaker in Dublin that was accused, an’ rightly as I b’lave, of being allied with the Powers of Darkness, and he was afther making me shoes. About that time money was scarce, sir, as ye know, in spite of King James’s brass pieces, and it was glad I was to get the shoes at all, without bein’ over an’ above particular about the maker. So whin Danny O’Toole says to me that he’ll make me a blooming pair of boots an’ thrust me fer the money, niver a thought had I av the divilish plot he was afther laying aginst me honor. ‘Make ’em aisy,’ says I, ‘for me feet are sore with the chasing of the English an’ the Dutch.’ ‘Don’t ye worry,’ says he with a wink, ‘I’ll make ’em so aisy they’ll walk off without ye,’—and faith, so he did! They were the beautifullest shoes, me lord, and they fitted me loike the skin on a potaty, and as fer walking in ’em, they niver touched the ground unless they stuck fast in a bog, and that wasn’t often. I niver had such a pair of shoes, nor such comfort, and all wint along as smooth as lying—until that cursed day of the battle of Boyne.”

“A day when a good many Irishmen had no shoes, Denis,” remarked his master, “or lost them in running—to our eternal shame!”

“That wasn’t what happened to me, my lord,” said Denis regretfully; “’twas a black day fer Ireland; yer lordship niver spake a thruer word! But, as fer me, my shoes had bin running away from me so—the very divil seemed to be in ’em—that I cut some stout thongs of hide and bound those boots to me legs before I wint into the battle, fer, thought I, av I don’t I’ll be afther losing them, the jewels! I was right in the thick of it, an’ a hot day it was, as yer honor knows, and but for that divil of a Dutchman that they call king, we moight have won, but he drove his men through the river loike a demon! Well, sir, I was right in the thick of the carnage; I’d jist cut a clane swathe through the Dutch Blues, and I was daling death and desthruction on ivery side, following in th’ thrack of Sarsfield, whin, all of a suddent, me shoes turned me around and comminced to run. I was beside meself with the shame of it, me lord. I cut at those thongs with my sword an’ I swore an’ called on the saints and the divils, but niver a bit could I get those boots off, and away they ran, loike the wind, splash through the mud and the mire, and they niver sthopped until we reached Dublin; but, my lord,” Denis lowered his voice and winked one eye, “even my shoes didn’t get there—before King James!”

“Alas, no,” said his master sternly, “it was a king we lacked,” and he rose and walked twice across the room, his face darkly clouded.

His man watched him keenly, with an expression of deep concern and simple affection,—the humble devotion of a faithful dog.

“You will clean my sword and call me an hour before sunrise, Denis,” he said; “I will snatch some hours’ rest, even if it happens to be my turn to-morrow,” and he laughed as he began to cast off his garments with his servant’s help.

Denis shook his head sadly. “Ah, me Lord Clancarty,” he said with a break in his voice, “’twould be a sad day fer me, and you are so ready to die with a smile on your lips. Ye were iver so, but ye’ll break a heart some day, me lord, jist as recklessly—an’ ye’ll forgive me fer saying it.”

“There is not much that I would not forgive you, old Denis,” said the young nobleman kindly, “we’re old friends and tried. But what have I to live for at best, unless it be the headsman’s block? I am a proscribed and penniless outlaw, Denis; if, by any chance, I am recognized, I go to the Tower. I have no friends here; not even my wife knows who I am—and why should she? It seems but folly to think of her, when I have only an exile’s life to offer her—I am a fool, a wretched fool!”

“Indade, me lord, ye greatly misjudge a woman av you think she’ll be afther counting yer money—or the costs ayther,” said Denis quietly; “a woman niver thinks of it, bless her heart, she jist falls in love, and thin to the divil with prudence or wisdom ayther. And, by the Virgin, me Lady Clancarty is none of yer cowards. I’ve sane the spark in her eye, me lord, and if it plazes her, she’ll fight yer battles, sir, to the ind of time.”

Lord Clancarty smiled. “Exactly, Denis,” said he, “but if I do not please her?”

Denis was on his knees, drawing off his master’s shoes.

“She’d be a blind woman, thin, sir,” he said, “and faix, I’ll wager me lady knows a foine man whin she sees wan. But, pshaw, sir, by to-morrow night ye may be stark and stiff and ready for the churchyard,” and Denis shook his head dolefully.

The earl laughed, throwing himself upon his hard bed.

“Put out the taper, Denis,” he said, “we’ll hope for the best. If I can’t live for my lady, at least I can die for her—with a light heart,” and he turned his face to the wall with a laugh.

Denis wiped his eyes on his sleeve and wagged his head again and again, his mind on the morrow.

CHAPTER XIII

LADY BETTY TAKES THE FIELD

THE sun had not yet risen: earth and sky were softly gray and brown, with green where the meadows lay, and purple in the shadows. Morning, like a white flower with a heart of gold, opened in the east. Shafts of light—the sun’s gold-tipped arrows—quivered on the distant hills, while the vapors, smokelike and fantastic, floated along the level lands and the trees loomed spectre-like.

It was chilly, too, with the chill of dawn in the early autumn, and Lord Clancarty and young Mackie were muffled in their cloaks as they walked across the fields together. The Irishman was smiling, in his usual daring fashion, but the younger man was sober and even nervous as he listened to him.

“I have to thank you, Sir Edward,” Clancarty said, “for standing by a stranger, but I should look for no less at your hands.”

“I am very glad to serve you, Mr. Trevor,” the young man replied, blushing like a girl, “I thought Lord Savile’s attitude toward you quite unwarranted.”

“We Irishmen do not look for courtesy at the hands of our conquerors, except in a few rare instances,” Clancarty said; “but it is due to you, Sir Edward, to tell you that my name is not Trevor; I assumed it for convenience only; I am the proscribed exile, Donough Macarthy of Clancarty.”

Young Mackie stopped short with a gasp.

“Lady Clancarty’s husband!” he cried, turning deadly pale.

Lord Clancarty bowed. “The same,” he said smiling, “and in telling you, I confide in your honor not to reveal my identity—even to Lady Clancarty, unless I fall, and then—I would have her ladyship know that she was free.”

But young Mackie had not yet recovered his composure; he stared at the earl strangely.

“Does she not divine your identity?” he asked, and the pain in his face was so easy to read that Lady Clancarty’s husband smiled again.

“I think not,” he responded; “but we must go on unless we would be tardy at keeping the tryst.” Then he glanced sharply at the boy, “I take it for granted that you are willing to stand by me; if not—I fully pardon you, Sir Edward, and I can go alone.”

Young Mackie’s face crimsoned.

“Nay, my lord,” he said bluntly, “I did not offer to stand by you for love, but for honor’s sake, and now—I will—for her sake,” and he raised his hat reverently.

Lord Clancarty bared his own head and kissed the hilt of his sword.

“For her dear sake, sir,” he said; “so let it be, I love you for it,” and they walked on in silence.

They passed through the grove of limes and entered the field. As they did so, the sunbeams, sloping from the hills, fell on the tree tops, but the long meadow was in the shadow. The sweetness of new-mown hay was in the air; there was a glint of white blossoming still upon the hedgerow, and beyond, the red brown of new turned earth and green, the green of the turf and the hawthorn.

Across the meadow from the farther side came Lord Savile and Mr. Benham, and as the two parties approached they saluted courteously. Clancarty was smiling, gracious, perfectly at ease, but his opponent scowled sullenly; some instinct—a brute one doubtless—made him hate this daring Irishman. Sir Edward, full of boyish importance, beckoned Mr. Benham aside.

“Can’t we adjust this difference, sir?” he asked; “there is a serious reason why they should not fight.”

Benham stared at him coolly. “To be sure, so I supposed,” he drawled indifferently; “but Savile will give you twenty reasons why they should.”

“For all that, we might adjust it honorably,” urged Mackie, with feverish anxiety.

“Pshaw, man, we can’t!” said Benham, with contempt; “they’re both in love with the same woman. You are inexperienced, sir,” he added aloud, smiling scornfully. “Measure the paces, Sir Edward; the sun is rising, and the advantage will lie then with the man whose back is toward it. We will draw lots, sir, so—ah, Lord Savile has drawn the best position,” and he laughed complacently.

Young Mackie, crimsoned with confusion and annoyance, made no further effort at a compromise; instead he busied himself with the weapons and in helping Lord Clancarty strip off coat and waistcoat. Then the two men confronted each other, sword in hand, and as they did so the sun looked over the horizon and the meadow suddenly lay in a golden mist as the sparks flew from the steel.

This was the picture that Betty saw floating in a golden haze, two strong, lithe figures swaying lightly from side to side and the flash of their naked swords at play.

“For shame!” she cried, thrusting their weapons aside with her own white hands, “for shame! So, there is no better cause for a fight than a song?”

At the sight of her the two men stepped back in sheer amazement, sinking their sword points in the ground at her feet.

“Ay, shame on you both!” she cried with sparkling eyes; “’tis but a pretty fashion of murder—and I’ll none of it! Put up your weapons, gentlemen, for he who draws his here is my friend no more!”

Lord Savile’s sword leaped into its sheath, but Clancarty kissed the hilt of his and handed it to Lady Betty.

“Madam, my honor is involved,” he said, “and I place it in your hands.”

The color rose in her cheeks and she turned on Savile.

“My lord,” she said wilfully, “I heard it all, and ’tis you who should ask pardon.”

Savile flushed darkly and folded his arms.

“My lady,” he said, “my sword is at your service, but you ask too much now.”

“Ah, you will not trust me with your honor, my lord,” she retorted, with a little laugh.

“Nay,” he replied testily, “a man may not grovel to his foe.”

“Oh,” said Lady Betty, and she glanced at him archly, “is your reasoning quite sound, my lord?”

Savile bit his lip; he saw Lord Clancarty smile and brush a fallen leaf from his sleeve with elaborate care.

“Come, come,” interposed Mr. Benham, “let there be peace, since my lady wills it; and here, too, is young Mackie pining to mediate. My lord, we cannot quarrel before a lady,” and he spoke a few words very low in Savile’s ear.

Betty, meanwhile, stood between them, holding Clancarty’s sword in her hand; her tall young figure outlined in the heavenly morning sunshine, and the glory of the day in her eyes.

“To put up your sword is naught, my lord, unless there be peace,” she said, smiling ingenuously, “pshaw, what a petty quarrel! ’Tis like two women over a cup of tea or a new gown,” and she shrugged her shoulders prettily.

Lord Savile crossed over to Clancarty.

“Your hand, sir,” he said, and then, as he clasped it, very low, “another time and another place.”

“I am always at your service,” replied Clancarty with a scornful smile, and he took out his handkerchief and wiped the palm of his right hand.

The gesture made Lady Betty smile and bite her lip, though she had not heard the undertone.

“Faith, the morning is so lovely that it augurs a peaceful day,” she said, with her sweetest manner. “Gentlemen, you are all bidden to join my Lady Sunderland and me at eleven for a cup of chocolate before we go to the races.”

“Who could refuse?” Mr. Benham said gallantly; “when men make peace for your sake, my lady, what would they not do?”

But Lady Betty’s quick eye caught the gloom on the boyish face of young Mackie. She held out her hand.

“Sir Edward, you will take me home to the inn?” she said.

He colored like a girl and involuntarily glanced at Lord Clancarty; then catching his lordship’s falcon eye, he bowed in deep confusion.

“I’m only too happy, my lady,” he said.

She stood quite still, her bright eyes on Lord Savile and Mr. Benham. Then she pointed with her finger toward the farther end of the field.

“Yonder,” she said, “one combatant and his friend retire, and,” she turned quickly, pointing in the opposite direction, “yonder, the others go!”

Clancarty laughed. “A safe device, my lady,” he said, “but I could not fight without my sword.”

She blushed prettily and held it out to him.

“I forgot, sir,” she said.

He took it gracefully, kissing the hand that gave it in spite of her quick frown of displeasure.

Lord Savile bowed profoundly, his hand on his heart.

“Madam, I obey,” he said gallantly, and retreated with Mr. Benham in the direction she had chosen, and at the same time Lord Clancarty went in the other, leaving Lady Betty alone in the field with young Mackie.

Hovering in the distance was the muffled figure of Alice, who had accompanied her mistress to the grove of limes and halted there, with her fingers in her ears, lest she should hear the clash of swords.

But Lady Betty saw her not, nor the glory of the day, nor the green of hedgerows and fields, nor the blooming daisy at her feet. Her eyes followed the figure of Clancarty, and there was a shadow on her face. She shivered and drew her cloak about her.

“Come, Sir Edward,” she said, “we must run for it; I am a truant, and Lord Spencer will put me upon bread and water if he finds me upon such errands, and faith, sir, I deserve it!”

CHAPTER XIV

THE INN GARDEN

BETWEEN two vases that overflowed with scarlet geraniums, the worn stone steps of the inn-yard descended directly upon a gravel path in the old garden. The path—flanked on either side by tall hedges—wound completely around the garden and through the centre, in a kind of true lovers’ knot, in the loops of which were all old-fashioned flowers; pale tea roses—the last of September’s bloom—and mignonette; pansies and rosemary grew there, and the blue of larkspur. Only a few windows looked out upon it, and it was a secluded spot where the sun shone and the pigeons flocked. So still was it, in the farther corners, that there was scarcely a sound but the soft “kourre, kourre!” of the feathered visitors.

Here Lady Betty walked slowly, her hands behind her, her head a little on one side, as she talked to Clancarty, whom she still knew only as Richard Trevor. She was dressed in white, a bunch of red flowers at her belt and red plumes in her hat, and either its broad brim or her mood cast a shadow in her eyes. They were softer, more pensive, and less sparkling than usual.

“I was only eleven years old, sir,” she said, “a mere baby, and I have never seen Lord Clancarty since. How should I know how he looks? Is not my curiosity pardonable? Pray, Mr. Trevor, describe him.”

Her companion had been watching her keenly and now he smiled.

“I’m poor at descriptions, my lady,” he said calmly, “but take my word for it, Clancarty’s a handsome man.”

“About your height, sir?” asked Lady Betty, casting a quizzical, sidelong glance at him.

He took time to consider. “Very nearly, I should think, Lady Clancarty,” he said, “and straight as an arrow—with a good head and keen eyes, a fine nose, a firm chin—oh, a very handsome rascal, madam, and quite unworthy of you.”

“Indeed,” said Betty, amused; “you take the side, then, of my family; they too believe him unworthy.”

“He is unworthy, madam,” said the disguised nobleman gravely, “he is unworthy; but, in spite of that, I can’t advise you to cast him off. But for his skill as a swordsman I should have lost my life; I am therefore, of necessity, his true vassal, Lady Clancarty, and I must plead his cause.”

Lady Betty’s face changed and she made a petulant gesture.

“No one can plead it, sir,” she said sharply, “he should plead it himself.”

“He should indeed, madam,” he said earnestly, “but how? Many things keep back a proscribed exile and a beggar. How can he plead his cause with the heiress of an earl, a beautiful and gifted and wealthy woman? What can he offer her? A life of exile, poverty, and obscurity? My Lady Clancarty, any proud man might well pause.”

But Betty’s chin was elevated, her eyes scornful.

“The pride is, of course, all on his side, sir,” she said coolly; “there is naught to be said for her. How, think you, does a woman feel who is deserted by her husband? Ay, more, who is unacknowledged by him—unclaimed!”

He started and looked at her earnestly.

“You are right, madam,” he said, “it is a grievous fault. I despise my Lord Clancarty for it, but I know that the day will come when he will sue for your forgiveness with all his heart. And he has never known you. He has been in battles, in sieges, in exile, in poverty, in illness, and he was but a lad when you were wedded. My lady, I can say no more, even for him; I would fain say it for myself—but for him.”

She flashed a startled, wondering look at him; her heart stood still—after all, was he? was he not? She did not know, but his eyes held her; she blushed, palpitated, shrank like a mere child. From the first, she had thought this man her husband, but now—? An awful doubt shook her soul. Could it be that he was not? She put out her hands with a strange gesture as though she would hold him off.

“’Tis fourteen years, sir,” she said, “and he has never written me one word—or to my family for me.”

“That is not true,” he replied gravely; “I know, from Lord Clancarty’s own lips, that he has written to your father within a short time, ay, madam, twice since the Peace of Ryswick.”

“Ah,” said Lady Betty, for a light broke in upon her, and she thought of the tall old man walking in the gallery at Althorpe, “I never knew it,” she added quietly, “my whole family opposes any mention of—of my husband.”

She pronounced the word with a soft adorable hesitation, blushing rosily up to her very ears, and his eyes glowed as he looked at her. They turned a loop of the gravel walk and passed Melissa, who huddled against the hedge, courtesying low. Betty scarcely glanced at her.

“Then there is no one to plead my friend’s cause but your own heart, Lady Clancarty,” he said quietly, “your own heart and the tie that must plead for itself a little. I have no eloquence to match the occasion, willingly as I serve my benefactor.”

“I tell you plainly, sir,” she retorted, “that I will hear only one suit, and that is from him; nor will I, mark you, promise to hear that favorably. Love, sir, is not cold and a laggard and full of excuses. If I am worth having I am worth winning.”

“Madam, I am constrained to tell the truth,” he said in a tone of deep emotion; “I believe that Lord Clancarty would die to win you.”

“Die, sir,” she said archly, “rather live. Dead he could not win me.”

“Ay, and ’twould be the bitterness of death to lose you,” he said; “’tis so—even to think of it!”

The break in his words made her heart beat fast, but she was mistress of herself now.

“Especially after fourteen years of absence,” she mocked wickedly.

“Fourteen years in purgatory, madam,” he replied, his tone full of pathos, of powerful emotion under restraint; “and when the poor exile sees at last the gates of paradise!—ah, my lady, you will not close them in his face?”

She bowed her head a little, looking pensively at the ground. A thousand emotions swept across her charming face. Then she looked up, her eyes dancing with mischief,—arch, naughty, daring.

“A singular paradise for my Lord Clancarty,” she said, “a paradise with a Whiggish Protestant wife in it, and a Whiggish Protestant mother-in-law, and the greatest Whig in England for a brother-in-law. Sir, I need enumerate no more.”

The Irishman laughed a little bitterly.

“Madam,” he said, with daring tenderness in his tone, “you know not what love is! Who would count the cost—who loved? By all the saints, my lady, love burns away both politics and creeds; death itself is beaten by it—and hell! Ah, to teach you how to love. ’Twould be worth purgatory!” his gray eyes flashed, his strong face set itself sternly.

Lady Betty looking at him drew her breath hard; she was almost frightened. Here was a nature she could not conquer and she could not scorn. She bit her lip and looked steadily away, her heart beating in her throat.

“If Lord Clancarty came here,” he said after a moment, in a constrained voice, “would you see him? would you listen to him?”

She hesitated; she no longer believed that this man might be her husband; he had succeeded in misleading her, and her whole soul was tossing and burning in the fire of a new and passionate emotion, but she tried to think.

“I would see him, yes,” she said with white lips, glancing defiantly at him, “he is my husband.”

His eyes darkened and his face changed; she could not read it. They had come back to the old stone steps. At the top appeared Lady Sunderland and Lady Dacres, too far off as yet to be heard.

“He shall come, then, my lady,” he said very low, looking straight into her eyes, “he shall come—if he dies for it.”

Lady Betty’s face was as white as her gown, and her fingers trembled as she swept her skirts aside on either hand and courtesied gracefully.

“I bid you adieu, sir,” she said, and walked up the steps just as Lady Sunderland called out sharply,—

“Betty, Betty, come and take tea with us, my love, and teach Lady Dacres that old game of ‘Angel Beast’; she hath forgotten it. La, how white you are, my dear; a touch of rouge and a patch—you look like a ghost.”

“I am, madam,” said Lady Betty.

And the two dames stared.

That night the ruthless Lady Betty awakened her attendant.

“Alice,” she said, “hast ever heard the legend of King Arthur?”

The poor handmaid yawned.

“Nay, madam,” she replied sleepily, “who was he?”

“A king of long ago, Alice,” Lady Betty explained, “I have heard the legend from my old Welsh nurse, and part of it relates to his wife, his queen. She was very beautiful, and she had never seen the king when the marriage was arranged.”

“Oh, mercy on us, madam!” exclaimed Alice, “and she didn’t know what he looked like?”

“Not at all,” declared her mistress, “and she set out with all her maidens to go to his kingdom to be married—”

“Indeed, my lady, couldn’t he come for her—like a decent civil gentleman?” asked Alice rousing up.

“No, no, he couldn’t come,” said Lady Clancarty, “but he sent his best friend, a brave and noble knight, to meet her, and she—she thought he was the king in disguise and—and she fell in love with him, and when she found out her mistake, and that the king was wholly unlike this knight, she couldn’t love her husband—she loved instead his friend.”

“My goodness, Lady Betty, how improper!” said Alice horrified, “his friend was a false man—and no true knight!”

Lady Betty had been sitting on the edge of Alice’s bed but she rose now and stood quite still, her white figure showing in the darkness.

“But, Alice, she was so beautiful, so fascinating—he couldn’t help it, he loved her!”

“He could help it,” said Alice stoutly, “he stole her love from her husband! He could help it, just as a man can help stealing a horse.”

Betty gave a little gasp.

“And the queen?” she said faintly.

“She was a very wicked woman, madam,” declared the moralist, shaking up her pillows vigorously. “They do say that King Charles had an awful court; perhaps it was the fashion.”

“Perhaps it was,” admitted Lady Betty, and crept softly back to bed and wept salt tears in solitude.

CHAPTER XV

MY LADY SUNDERLAND TAKES TEA

A SMOKING teapot and some cups of India ware adorned a table of polished mahogany, the very best tea service in the possession of the landlord of the Lion’s Head. And before it sat Lady Sunderland and her intimate, Lady Dacres. Opposite, Lady Betty was stirring a cup of chocolate. There was a little black patch on her white forehead and another on the tip of her rosy chin, and her gown of gold-colored paduasoy became her well.

A servant brought in a tray with some glasses and a bottle of usquebaugh, and served the elder dames, who had been pretending to sip tea. The two worthies were just from the cockpit and had won forty pounds between them. Lady Sunderland, in a flowered brocade, with a painted and patched face, could do nothing but simper, and even old Lady Dacres grinned placidly, while the younger countess watched them from under her dark lashes and made no comments.

“La, Betty, there never was such an obliging man as young Savile,” said Lady Sunderland, sipping her usquebaugh; “he ran about at the cockpit to wait upon us, and his wit—take my word for it, we’d have lost fifty pounds but for his judgment of the birds.”

“Oh, he knows whose mamma to wait upon!” said Lady Dacres, with a sly wink at her friend; “how sweet the young fellows are to the mother of such a daughter.”

Lady Sunderland tittered. “There was a time when I thought it was the mamma and not the daughter,” she said, with a simper; “but now it’s, ‘How’s Lady Clancarty?’ and ‘Where’s your ladyship’s daughter?’ and ‘My compliments to the fair Lady Elizabeth.’ La, how the beaux smirk and bow!”

“Now’s your chance, Betty, dear,” said Lady Dacres; “don’t make ’em dance too long, my girl, we can’t be young but once.”

Betty gave her a cold stare. “I’m already married, madam,” she said, and pushed the bottle nearer to the elbow of the old peeress; “take another drop, my lady, ’twill sustain you under the blow.”

Lady Sunderland set down her glass and fixed her daughter with an irate eye, but before she could give voice to her wrath they were interrupted by the entrance of Lord Spencer. He came in with an air of cool elegance, faultlessly attired, and bowing gracefully to the three women, kissed his mother’s hand, and took his place with his back to the window, overlooking them with an air of superiority that was peculiarly exasperating to his high-spirited sister.

“La, my dear, what a happy woman you are,” Lady Dacres said, in an audible aside to Lady Sunderland, “to be the mother of two such beautiful children. ’Pon my soul, Spencer would have broken my heart at eighteen!”

“Nay, you would have broken mine, madam,” Lord Spencer replied gracefully.

She giggled and took another draught of usquebaugh, following Lady Clancarty’s suggestion.

“Tell us the news, Spencer,” said Lady Betty impatiently, with a contemptuous glance at the old woman.

“The king is better,” said her brother, with a drawl, “and the Princess of Denmark did not go out to-day because of a quarrel with Lady Marlborough.”

“Poor soul, she’s little better than a slave,” remarked Betty scornfully; “is that all?”

“No; the news of the day is the duel. It has just come out that Sir Thomas Compton shot and killed his brother-in-law last Tuesday.”

Lady Sunderland gave a little scream of surprise. “What? Shot Lord Fraunces?”

Spencer nodded gloomily.

“And wherefore?” demanded his sister.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Because he was a traitor,” he said coolly; “he kept his horse saddled in his stable ready for flight, and two grooms at his beck; this made Compton suspect him. So he went down to Deptford, on pretence of seeing his sister, and he found the fellow was in league with the French party and—There was a quarrel and he shot him. There’s an article about it in the Post-Boy.”

“The cold-hearted brute!” cried Betty; “his poor sister loved her husband dearly. Where is she?”

“Mad as Bedlam,” replied her brother coolly; “a man must do his duty, even if it kills his sister.”

“Oh, I suppose so,” said Lady Betty, rising, “he must stab her to the heart and glory in it—for his party,” she added mockingly; “a fine spirit, sir, I admire it!”

“So do I,” he replied pompously, staring at her with hard eyes; “a man must do his duty, like a Spartan, to his king, his conscience, and his party. There are examples enough in the history of Greece and of Rome, lofty—”

“Nonsense!” cried Lady Betty vigorously, “to the wind with your examples. Give me a noble heart, a Christian life, a brotherly love, a willingness to live and die for high purposes. Poor Lady Fraunces!”

“Oh, never you mind, my dear,” put in old Lady Dacres, with a titter, “she’ll get over it. Grief doesn’t kill; her mother had three husbands and—” she whispered a scandal behind her fan to Lady Sunderland, who was so overcome with her wit that she rocked with laughter, wiping the tears from her eyes.

“Your sympathy is quite absurd,” said Spencer, looking straight into Betty’s eyes. “Sir Thomas did his duty. I would have sent a traitor brother-in-law to the block, madam, quite as cheerfully.”

“And your sister also, I presume,” she replied, courtesying profoundly; “from my heart I thank you, my lord.”

“Oh, la, Betty, drink your chocolate and don’t be a fool,” said her mother petulantly.

Betty smiled sweetly.

“I thank you,” she said, “I have quite finished it. I will send some more to my Lord Spencer,” and she walked out of the room with her head in the air.

Half way across the hall she met a servant, the Irishman Denis. He stopped her with a bow, one hand on his heart and an air of great secrecy and gallantry, and he handed her a letter. She took it as silently, and when she reached her own door she hid it in her bosom for she knew that Alice Lynn was there. The girl had been folding up her ladyship’s finery and looked up at her entrance.

“Everything is ready now, my lady,” she said, “and if it pleases you, I will go into town a little way to buy that ribbon for you.”

“Certainly, Alice,” Betty assented with alacrity, “and here is the money; and stop, too, at the haberdasher’s and buy some more of that silk; and here, my girl, get some pink ribbon for that Sunday frock of yours, I will have you look your best.”

Alice courtesied and thanked her, blushing with pleasure.

“You are so dear a mistress to me, madam,” she said tenderly, “I am not half worthy of it.”

Lady Clancarty patted her cheek.

“Do you love me, Alice?” she asked pensively.

“Dearly, madam,” said the girl, simply, “and I would serve you—as my family served yours—faithfully forever.”

Lady Betty sighed.

“I may need it,” she said, and busied herself examining some lace and ribbons that Alice had just laid aside.

“I trust you may need nothing but my love and service, madam,” Alice said; “may happiness and love and honor ever attend my dear, dear lady,” and she went on talking cheerfully of the fair day, the sunshine, and the gay scene without, for she saw a shadow on the countess’ face and it troubled her loyal heart.

But Lady Clancarty said not a word. Instead, her eyes avoided the girl’s honest glance; she blushed and paled like a guilty thing, but an adorable smile trembled on her lips. Not until Alice went out, closing the door behind her, did Betty move. Then she shot the bolts and drew forth the paper from her bosom; she looked over her shoulder, smiled, carried it half way to her face, started, and held it off again, opening it, at last, under the window. The sheet was closely covered with writing and she read it eagerly, and her hands quivered so that the paper shook, and she fell on her knees beside the window and leaning her arms upon the sill, buried her face upon them. She knelt there a long time, the sunlight touching her hair and the beautiful curves of her shoulders. After a while she rose, and going slowly to the mirror stood looking at herself, the crumpled paper in her hand. Her face was white as snow but beautiful, with quite a new and tender beauty. She scarcely knew herself, even when she smiled, nodding at her own reflection.

“’Tis he!” Lady Betty murmured to the mirror, laughing softly, “’tis he! Oh, my prophetic heart—I knew it!”

CHAPTER XVI

MY LORD CLANCARTY

THERE was a ball that night at Newmarket, but Lady Clancarty did not go, in spite of the commands and entreaties of Lady Sunderland. The elder countess was particularly anxious to display her handsome daughter at the assembly, and nothing could exceed her anger and chagrin at the younger woman’s obstinacy. By afternoon the quarrel waxed so hot that Betty pleaded illness and went to bed, as a last resort, and stayed there, too, in spite of her mother’s rage. Lady Sunderland, who in a passion could forget herself and use such language as only a fish-wife or a woman of fashion could command, heaped recriminations on her daughter, and screamed and chattered and swore a little, too, for my lady was a pupil—and an apt one—of the court of Charles the Second. But Lady Betty was more than her match in wit and strength of will, and she won the victory. When the hour for the ball arrived, her mother had to go with Lord Spencer and leave her daughter calmly ensconced in bed, defiant and triumphant. The Countess of Sunderland’s chair was brought to the inn door, preceded by the link-boys with their lanthorns, and the lady was helped into it by her son, her very headdress quivering with rage and the color of the paint upon her cheeks enhanced by the flush of anger.

“The minx!” she exclaimed to Spencer, “I don’t believe she’s ill at all; it’s nothing but her obstinacy and some fancy she has about that scapegrace, Clancarty. The saucy little baggage defied me, and looked as lovely as any nymph all the time! Your father must see to it—there must be a divorce from that creature, or next thing, she’ll run away to France with him; she’s equal to it, the little wretch!”

“Never, madam,” said Spencer solemnly, “I’d see her dead first—before she disgraced the family!”

If the truth be told, this was too much for the countess; she gasped and stared uneasily at this self-righteous young man, who certainly resembled her as little as he did the versatile and unprincipled Sunderland.

Meanwhile, the invalid at the Lion’s Head had miraculously recovered and dressed herself with the assistance of Alice, who viewed the whole proceeding with amazement and distinct disapproval. She knew that Lady Clancarty had not been ill and she looked upon the stratagem as an unworthy deceit. Her mistress, reading her as easily as an open book, understood the girl’s mood and said nothing to her. Instead, she set her the task of lighting the candles in the room where she received her guests, and seeing that the servant replenished the wood fire and drew the curtains. Finally she came in herself, a charming figure in pink, with a single rose in her hair. Finding everything arranged to her satisfaction, she dismissed her attendant and waited quite alone, standing before the hearth and gazing pensively at the fire. Though she was outwardly calm, a storm was raging in her bosom. He had asked for this interview and he was coming, and now she shrank from the thought of this meeting with sudden trepidation. She bit her lip and stared into the fire, but her hands quivered and her heart beat almost to suffocation. She had thought of this moment many, many times—girlish day-dreams of her lover and husband coming to claim her—but she had never pictured anything like this. A proscribed rebel, who was forced to see her secretly, and the man himself—ah, that was it! Here was a powerful personality that she had never imagined; there was something in his eyes, his voice that drew her to him with so strange a fascination that it frightened her. She knew just how he would look, just the flash in his gray eyes, the deep tones of his voice, before she saw him enter. She struggled with herself when she heard his tread in the hall and knew it—and she was listening with strained ears, when the door was opened for him. But Lady Betty was not one to show the white feather; she drew her breath hard and straightened herself, and then she opened that fan of hers—a beautiful affair from one of the India houses in London—and she swayed it to and fro shading her face.

Lord Clancarty came into the room with a springing step, his face flushed and his eyes shining; he wore, indeed, the air of a conquering hero. But, almost at the threshold, he halted and stood gazing at Betty in amazement. She was still standing before the fire, slowly wielding the fan, her face averted, pale, cold, her chin up. Nothing could have been more frozen than her attitude; it chilled even his ardor, and he stood, with his hat in his hand, and for a few moments there was silence. Then Lady Betty broke it.

“I received your note, my lord,” she said, in an icy tone.

“The devil you did, madam,” he said, “I should think that I had sent you a cartel—from your manner of receiving me! Faith, my lady, you seem marvellous glad to see your husband.”

A shadow of a smile flickered in Betty’s eyes.

“A welcome kept too long grows cold, sir,” she replied.

He took a step toward her, tossing his hat upon the table, and something in his face made her back closer to the fire; he saw it and stopped, smiling.

“You do not believe in me,” he said reproachfully; “I would have wooed you and won you, dear, but for the cruelty of fate. I am your husband,” he added softly; “does not that plead a little?”

“A childish contract, a mere formal mockery,” replied Lady Betty, cool as ice, looking at him across the candles, “I should not dream of being bound by it—no generous man would base any claim upon it, sir;” she told this falsehood glibly, though her very soul shook under his glance.

The blood rushed up to his forehead.

“Have I based any claim upon it, madam?” he asked proudly.

This blow went home; her ladyship turned crimson and bit her lips in silence.

“Nay, you do not know me,” he said, and his rich Irish voice deepened and softened with restrained emotion; “I would scorn to base any claim upon a tie not freely made—for you were a child—but I thought,” he paused, searching her face keenly, “I thought your husband might win your heart, my lady.”

She gave him a quick look, and then her eyes avoided his and she struggled hard for self-mastery. If he had known it then—one word more, one step farther—but he waited for her reply, and the wayward mood came back upon her.

“Fourteen years, my lord,” she said, shrugging her shoulders, “and then, you plead your title to my—my affections!”

“Fourteen years,” he repeated slowly, “fourteen years less of paradise, Betty, is not that enough punishment for me?”

She averted her face and did not reply. He came a step nearer and she felt his hand closing over hers.

“Would you have come but for the Peace of Ryswick?” she asked, looking up into his eyes.

He smiled. “If we had won before,” he replied, “if we had only won—I would have come, a victor, to claim you. Betty, I did not know you, I had never pictured you as you are! I went to Althorpe like a thief in disguise, to see you, and from that moment in the greenwood, I loved you—I love you madly now!” he whispered, and she felt his breath warm on her cheek.

She did not dare to look at him now.

“I love you,” he said softly, “and—does my wife care nothing for me?”

Before she realized it he had his arm around her, his lips almost touched hers. Then she broke away from him, her eyes flashing, her face on fire.

“You go too far, sir,” she cried angrily, “you say you base no claim upon our relation, and then—and then—” she stopped, her breast heaving, tears in her eyes.

He smiled. “And then? I would have kissed you,” he said, “by Saint Patrick, I would give a kingdom—if it were mine—to kiss you, but I will not force you to it, Lady Clancarty!”

“You dare not!” she flashed at him angrily.

His eyes blazed. “I dare not?” he repeated, “forsooth, madam, that is an ill word to use to Donough Macarthy; I dare—anything! But I want no woman against her will. I wouldn’t give that, madam,” he snapped his fingers, “not that—for you without your heart!”

She was silent for a moment, but the expression of his face, his masterful manner, stung her pride and angered her.

“You are a proscribed traitor, my lord,” she said angrily, “how can you ask me to share your life?”

His look withered her.

“Madam,” he said, “I ask for your love. No loving woman ever thought of valuing her husband by his misfortunes. I am a beggar and an exile, my lady, and I have done wrong to sue for your heart. I see that—like your father—you value men by their positions in the world!”

Her face was crimson. “You insult me, my lord!” she cried passionately.