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What is the trouble that has taken away the roses and put lilies in their place?" "I have no trouble, Lord Arleigh," she replied. "I came here only to think." "To think of what, sweet?" Her face flushed. "I cannot tell you," she answered. "You cannot expect that I should tell you everything." "You tell me nothing, Madaline.
The earl looked with great interest at Lady Arleigh's dwelling-place. "It is very pretty," he said "pretty and quiet; but it must be dull for a young girl. You said she was young, did you not?" "Yes, she is years younger than I am," replied Lord Arleigh. "Poor girl!" said the earl, pityingly; "it must be rather a sad fate so young and beautiful, yet condemned all her life to live alone.
She must be young, fair, gentle, pure, tender of heart, noble in soul, with a kind of shy, sweet grace; frank, yet not outspoken; free from all affectation, yet with nothing unwomanly; a mixture of child and woman. If I love an ideal, it is something like that." "And she must be fair, like all the ladies Arleigh, with eyes like the hyacinth, and hair tinged with gold, I suppose, Norman?"
What could he have left her for? It could not have been because of her poverty or her father's crime he knew of both beforehand. What was it? In vain did she recall all that Madaline had ever said about her husband she could see no light in the darkness, find no solution to the mystery; therefore the only course open to her was to go to Lord Arleigh, and to tell him that his wife was dying.
"Tell me, dear," continued Margaret, earnestly; "you do not know how important it is for me to understand." "My dear mother," said Lady Arleigh, gently clasping her arms round her mother's neck; "do not let that idea make you uneasy. All minor lights cease to shine, you know, in the presence of greater ones. The world bows down to Lord Arleigh; very few, I think, know what his wife's name was.
She had said once before of herself that she was not strong enough to be thoroughly wicked and she was right. A year had elapsed, and Lord Arleigh and his wife were in town for the season, and were, as a matter of course, the objects of much curiosity. He was sitting one evening in the drawing-room of his town-house, when one of the servants told him that a lady wished to see him.
Others said that she had a fierce temper, and that he was unaware of it until they were traveling homeward. These were the most innocent rumors; others were more scandalous. It was said that he had discovered some great crime that she had committed. Few such stories; Lord Arleigh, they declared, was not the man to make so terrible a mistake.
He saw her rise from her seat and stretch out her arms. "What have I done," she cried, "that I must suffer so cruelly? What have I done?" "Madaline," said Lord Arleigh, "I do not think that so cruel a fate has ever befallen any one as has befallen us. I do not believe that any one has ever suffered so cruelly, my darling. If death had parted us, the trial would have been easier to bear."
To be read alone on his wedding-day." Lord Arleigh stared at the packet which his wife had given him, and again and again read the words that were inscribed on it: "A wedding present from Philippa, Duchess of Hazlewood to Lord Arleigh. To be read alone on his wedding-day." What could it mean? Philippa at times took strange caprices into her head. This seemed to be one of the strangest.
He is terribly in earnest, Philippa." "He is terribly in love," said the duchess, carelessly, and then Lady Peters decided that she would accede to Lord Arleigh's request. More than once during the week that ensued after his proposal of marriage to Madaline, Lord Arleigh looked in wonder at the duchess. She seemed so unlike herself absent, brooding, almost sullen.
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