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Updated: June 5, 2025
Was it a just and fitting reward for the watchful love and care of those lonely years? He would fain have pardoned her, but he could not; and he said to himself again: "In the hour of death! I will forgive her then." The glowing August, so hot and dusty in London, was like a dream of beauty at Earlescourt.
This was their fourth visit to England, and, when the princess heard from Lady Charteris that Ronald's two daughters, whom she remembered as little babes, were at Earlescourt, nothing would satisfy her but a visit there. The young girls looked in admiring wonder at the lady. They had never seen any one so dazzling or so bright.
"I was too late," he said; "the man had been dead some hours." His name was not mentioned between them again. Lord Earle never inquired where he was buried he never knew. The gloom had deepened at the Hall. Lillian Earle lay nigh unto death. Many believed that the master of Earlescourt would soon be a childless man. He could not realize it.
Lord Airlie, debating within himself whether he should risk, during the whirl and turmoil of the London season, the question upon which the happiness of his life depended, decided that he would wait until Lord Earle returned to Earlescourt, and follow him there.
"Earlescourt must be yours some day. You can borrow money if you like." Ronald steadily refused to entertain the idea. He wondered at modern ideas of honor that men saw no shame in borrowing upon the lives of their nearest and dearest, yet thought it a disgrace to be a follower of one of the grandest of arts. He made one compromise that was for his father's sake.
He debated within himself for some time whether he should return to the house and order them, or walk down to the fruit garden and gather them for himself. What impulse was it that sent him on that fair June morning, when all Nature sung of love and happiness, to the spot where he met his fate? The strawberry gardens at Earlescourt were very extensive.
"I should laugh, papa," she replied, "if you did not look so very grave. We must see people in order to love them. Beatrice, how many do we know in the world? Farmer Leigh, the doctor at Seabay, Doctor Goode, who came to the Elms when mamma was ill, two farm laborers, and the shepherd that was the extent of our acquaintance until we came to Earlescourt.
It was that he would never seek another home that he and Lillian would consent to live at Earlescourt. Her father could not endure the thought of parting with her. "It will be your home, Lionel," he said, "in the course of after-years. Make it so now. We shall be one family, and I think a happy one." So it was arranged, much to everybody's delight.
Time passed on, and the heir of Earlescourt went to Oxford, as his father had done before him. Then came the second bitter disappointment of Lord Earle's life. He himself was a Tory of the old school. Liberal principles were an abomination to him; he hated and detested everything connected with Liberalism. It was a great shock when Ronald returned from college a "full-fledged Liberal."
"Yes, the marriage is legal enough," said the master of Earlescourt. "You had to choose between duty, honor, home, position and Dora Thorne. You preferred Dora; you must leave the rest." "Father, you will forgive me," cried Ronald. "I am your only son." "Yes," said Lord Earle, drearily, "you are my only son. Heaven grant no other child may pierce his father's heart as you have done mine!
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