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There were moments when she felt half angry that she was unable to forget him. He was out of her circle, and it seemed madness to let his image remain in her heart for a single moment, and yet the fascination of his personality haunted her. He was like no other man she had ever met. His very masterfulness touched her fancy as nothing had ever done before. If only he had been of her own set she would have made a hero of him.
When she left him in the Park after that passionate outburst of his, she made up her mind that she must forget him – utterly and absolutely. The situation had become dangerous; her heart was throbbing so wildly that she could scarcely bear it; the tense glow and passion of his words rang through her brain like the clashing of bells; her nerves were tingling to her finger-tips.
"Oh, what madness all this is," she said to herself – "what utter madness!" And yet all the while her heart seemed to be leaping exultantly. This clever, daring, handsome democrat loved her – loved her. She lingered over the words unconsciously.
Lord Probus had said he loved her, and had tempted her with a thousand brilliant toys; Archie Temple – with whom she had walked in the Park more than once – had professed unbounded and undying devotion; but her heart had never leaped for a moment in response to their words. The only man who moved her against her will, and sent the blood rushing through her veins like nectar, was this son of the people, this man who hated her class and tried his best to hate her.
Nevertheless, her resolve was fixed and definite. She must forget him. Unless she put him out of her thoughts he would spoil her whole life. Socially, they belonged to different hemispheres. The fact that her father was hard pressed for money, and was living abroad in order to economise, did not alter their relative positions. A Hamblyn was still a Hamblyn, though he lived in an almshouse.
It was easier, however, to make good resolves than to carry them into effect. Events would not allow her to forget. As the companion and private secretary of the Dowager Duchess of Flint, she had to read the papers every day, and not only the political articles, but the commercial and financial. The success of the Great St. Goram Mine was talked of far and wide, and the new discoveries of Ralph Penlogan, the brilliant young chemist and mineralogist, were the theme of numberless newspaper articles. Dorothy found herself searching all the papers that came her way for some mention of his name, and her heart seemed to leap into her mouth every time she saw it in print.
The dowager often dabbled in stocks and shares for want of something better to do. She liked to have what she called a "flutter" now and then, and she managed to pick up a few Great St. Goram shares at eighty per cent. premium.
It came out one day in conversation that Dorothy knew the exact locality of Great St. Goram Mine, knew the young man who had made the discovery, knew all about the place and all about the people, in fact. The dowager's interest grew. She began to make inquiries, and finally decided to rent Hamblyn Manor for a year. Dorothy was in a transport of excitement. To go back again to the dear old home would be like heaven, even though her father and Geoffrey were not there.
But that was not all. She would see Ralph Penlogan again – that would be inevitable. It seemed as though the Fates had determined to throw them together. The battle was not ended yet, it was only beginning.
The second day after their arrival at Hamblyn Manor she went for a long walk through the plantation. It was a lovely afternoon. The summer glory lay upon land and sea. She stood still for several moments when she came to the spot where she had found Ralph Penlogan lying senseless. How vividly every circumstance came up before her, how well she remembered his half-conscious talk. She did not see Ralph leaning against the stile when she pushed open the gate, and yet she half expected he would be there. It was the place where they first met, and Fate, or Destiny, or Providence, had a curious way of bringing them together, and she would have to face the inevitable, whatever it might be.
She was not in the least surprised when she caught sight of him, nor did she feel any inclination to turn back. Life was being shaped for her. She was in the grasp of a power stronger than her own will.
She looked at him steadily, and her face paled a little. He had altered considerably. He looked older by several years. He was no longer a youth, he was a man with the burden of life pressing upon him. Time had sobered him, softened him, mellowed him, greatened him.
Ought she to recognise him? For recognition would mean condoning his daring, and if she condoned him once, he might dare again, and he looked strong enough and resolute enough to dare anything.
She never quite decided in her mind what she ought to do. She remembered distinctly enough what she did. She smiled at him in her most gracious and winning manner and passed on. She half expected to hear footsteps behind her, but he did not follow. He watched her till she had turned the brow of the hill toward St. Goram, then he retraced his steps in the direction of his home.
He too had a feeling that it was of no use fighting against Fate. Events would have to take their course. She was not lost to him yet, and her smile gave him fresh hope.
He found the house empty when he got home, save for the housemaid. Ruth was out with William somewhere.
Ralph threw himself into an easy-chair and closed his eyes. His heart was beating strangely fast, his hands shook in spite of himself. The sight of Dorothy was like a match to stubble. He wondered if her beauty appealed to other people as it did to him.
Then a new question suggested itself to him, or an old question came up in a new form. To tell Dorothy Hamblyn that he loved her was one thing, to make love to her was another. Should he dare the second? He had dared the first, not with any hope of winning her, but rather to demonstrate to himself the folly of any such suggestion. But circumstances alter cases, and circumstances had changed with him. He was no longer poor. He could give her all the comforts she had ever known. As for the rest, her name, her family pride, her patrician blood, her aristocratic connections, they did not count with him. To ask a woman reared in comfort and luxury to share poverty and hardship and want was what he would never do. But the question of ways and means being disposed of, nothing else mattered. He was a man and an Englishman. He had lived honestly, and had kept his conscience clean.
He believed in an aristocracy, as most people do, but the aristocracy he believed in was the aristocracy of character and brains. He did not despise money, but he despised the people who made it their god, and who were prepared to sell their souls for its possession. To have a noble ancestry was a great thing; there was something in blood, but a man was not necessarily great because his father was a lord. The lower orders did not all live in hovels, some of them lived in mansions. All fools did not wear fustian, some of them wore fur-lined coats and drove motor-cars; the things that mattered were heart and intellect. A man might drop his "h's" and be a gentleman. The test of worth and manhood was not the size of a man's bank balance, but the manner of his life. Sir John Hamblyn boasted of his pedigree and was proud of his title, and yet, to put it in its mildest form, he had played the fool for twenty years.
Ralph got up from his seat at length and walked out into the garden. He had not felt so restless and excited for a year. The affairs of Great St. Goram Mine passed completely out of his mind. He could think only of one thing at a time, and just then Dorothy Hamblyn seemed of more importance than anything else on earth.
Up and down the garden paths he walked with bare head and his hands in his pockets. Now and then his brows contracted, and now and then his lips broke into a smile. The situation had its humorous as well as its serious side.
"If she had been the daughter of anybody else!" he said to himself again and again.
But outweighing everything else was the fact that he loved her. He could not help it that she was the daughter of the man who had been his greatest enemy. He could not help it that she belonged to a social circle that had little or no dealings with his own. Love laughs at bolts and bars. He was a man with the rights of a man and the hopes of a man.
Before Ruth returned he had made up his mind what to do.
Meanwhile, Dorothy was sauntering slowly homeward in a brown study. She felt anything but sure of herself. She hoped she had done the right thing in recognising Ralph Penlogan, but her heart and her head were not in exact agreement. The conventions of society were very strict. The Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans.
"If only Ralph Penlogan had been in her circle," and her heart leaped suddenly at the thought. How handsome he was, how resolute, how clever! Unconsciously she compared him with her brother Geoffrey, with Archie Temple, and with a number of other young men she had met in the drawing-rooms of London society.
The duchess had urged her to be friendly with Archie Temple. He was such a nice young man. He was well connected, was, in fact, the nephew of an earl, and was in receipt of a handsome salary which a generous Government paid him for doing nothing. He was a type of a great many others, impecunious descendants, many of them, of younger sons – drawling, effeminate, shallow-pated nobodies. Socially, of course, they belonged to what is called society printed with a capital S, but that was the highest testimonial that could be given them.
Dorothy found herself unconsciously revolting against the conventional view of life and the ethics of the social Ten Commandments. Were the mere accidents of birth the only things to be considered? Was a man less noble because he was born in a stable and cradled in a manger? Did greatness consist in possessing an estate and a title? Was worth to be measured by the depth of a man's pocket?
Measured by any true standard, she felt instinctively that Ralph Penlogan overtopped every other man she had met. How bravely he had fought, how patiently he had endured, how gloriously he had triumphed. If achievement counted for anything, if to live purely and do something worthy were the hall-marks of a gentleman, then he belonged to the world's true aristocracy, he was worth all the Archie Temples of London rolled into one.
Before she reached Hamblyn Manor another question was hammering at her brain —
"Did Ralph Penlogan still love her?"
She looked apprehensively right and left, and was half afraid lest her thoughts should take shape and reveal themselves to other people.
What would people think if they knew she had put such a question to herself? Had she forgotten that she was the daughter of Sir John Hamblyn?
No, she had not forgotten; but she was learning the truth that true worth is not in title, or name, or fortune; that neither coronet nor crown can make men; that fools clad in sables are fools still, and rogues in mansions are still rogues.
The love of a man like Ralph Penlogan was not a thing to resent. It was something to be proud of and to be grateful for.
She retired to rest that night with a strange feeling of wonder in her heart. She was still uncertain of herself.
"Suppose Ralph Penlogan still loved her, and suppose – " She hid her face in the bedclothes and blushed in spite of herself.
He was fearless, she knew, and unconventional, and had no respect for names, or titles, or pedigrees as such. Moreover, he was not the man to be discouraged by small obstacles or turned aside by feeble excuses, and if he chose to cross her path she could not very well avoid him. The place was comparatively small, the walks were few, and during this glorious weather she could not dream of remaining indoors.
She had encouraged him that afternoon by recognising him. She had smiled at him in her most gracious way; and so, of course, he would know that she had forgiven him for speaking to her as he had done when last they met. And if he should seek her out; if, in his impetuous way, he should tell her he loved her still; if he should ask for an answer, and for an immediate answer. If – if —
She was still wondering when she fell asleep.
CHAPTER XL
LOVE OR FAREWELL
With Ralph Penlogan, resolution usually meant action. Having made up his mind to do a thing, he did not loiter long on the way. In any case, he could only be rebuffed, and he preferred to know the truth at once to waiting in doubt and uncertainty. A less impetuous nature would have seen many more lions in the way than he did. For a son of the masses to woo a daughter of the classes was an unheard-of thing, and had he taken anyone into his confidence he would have been dissuaded from the enterprise.
In this matter, however, he did not wear his heart upon his sleeve. So carefully had he guarded his secret, that even Ruth was under the impression that if he had ever been in love with Dorothy Hamblyn, he had outgrown the infatuation. Her name had not been mentioned for months, and she had been so long absent from St. Goram that it scarcely seemed probable that a youthful fancy would survive the long separation.
Ralph did not tell her that the squire's "little maid" had once more appeared on the scene. She would hear soon enough from other sources. He intended to keep his own counsel. If he failed, no one would ever know; but in any case, failure should not be due to any lack on his part either of courage or perseverance.
He was very silent and self-absorbed that evening, and had not Ruth been so much taken up with her own love affair, she would not have failed to notice it. But Ruth was living for the moment in a little heaven of her own – a heaven so beautiful, so full of unspeakable delights, that she was half afraid sometimes that she would wake up and find it was all a dream.
William was growing stronger every day, and expected soon to be as well as ever. Moreover, he seemed determined to make up for all the years he had lost. Ruth to him was a daily miracle of grace and beauty, and her love for him was a perpetual wonder. He did not understand it. He did not suppose he ever would. He accepted the fact with reverent gratitude, and gave up attempting to fathom the mystery.
He was very shy at first, and almost dubious. He felt so unworthy of so great a gift, but comprehension grew with returning strength, and with comprehension, courage. He believed himself to be the luckiest man on earth, and the happiest. The most difficult thing of all to believe was that Ruth could possibly be as happy as he.
Conviction on that point came through sight. It was not what Ruth said; it was the light that glowed in her soft brown eyes. A single glance meant volumes. A shy glance darted across the room stirred his heart like music.
Ralph watched their growing intimacy and their deepening joy with a sense of keen satisfaction. William was the one man in the world he would have chosen for his sister if he had been called upon to decide, and he was thankful beyond measure that Ruth had recognised his sterling qualities, and, without persuasion from anyone, had made her choice.
As the days passed away, Ralph had great difficulty in hiding his restlessness from his sister. It seemed to him that Dorothy purposely avoided him. He sought her out in all directions; lay in wait for her in the most likely places; but, for some reason or other, she failed to come his way. He spent hours leaning against the stile near Treliskey Plantation, and on three separate occasions defied the notices that trespassers would be prosecuted, and boldly marched through the plantation till he came in sight of the gables of the Manor; but neither patience nor perseverance was rewarded. He had to return disconsolate the way he had come.
Had he been of a less sanguine temperament, he would have drawn anything but hopeful conclusions. Her avoidance of him could surely have but one meaning, particularly as she knew the state of his feelings towards her.
But presumptions and deductions did not satisfy Ralph. He would be content with nothing short of actual facts. He was not sure yet that she purposely avoided him, and he was sure that she had smiled when they met, and that one fact was his sheet anchor just now.
He went to St. Goram Church on the following Sunday morning, much to the surprise of the vicar, for both he and Ruth were unswervingly loyal to the little community at Veryan, to which their father and mother belonged. Deep down in his heart he felt a little ashamed of himself. He knew it was not to worship that he went to church, but in the hope of catching a glimpse of Dorothy Hamblyn's face.
The Hamblyn pew, however, remained empty during the whole of the service. If he had gone to church from a wrong motive, he had been deservedly punished.
He began to think after awhile that Dorothy had paid a flying visit just for a day, and had gone away again, and that consequently any hope he ever had of winning her was more remote than ever. This view received confirmation from the fact that he never heard her name mentioned. Ruth had evidently not heard that she had been in St. Goram. Apparently she had come and gone without anyone seeing her but himself – come and gone like a gleam of sunshine on a stormy day – come and gone leaving him more disconsolate than he had ever been before.
For two days he kept close to his work, and never went beyond the bounds of Great St. Goram Mine. For the moment he had been checkmated, but he was not in despair. London was only a few hours away, and he had frequently to go there on business. He should meet her again some time, and if God meant him to win her he should win.
It was in this hopeful spirit that he returned late from the mine. Ruth brewed a fresh pot of tea for him, and put several dainties on the table to tempt his appetite, for it had recently occurred to her that he was not looking his best.
"What do you think, Ralph?" she said at length.
He looked up at her with a questioning light in his eyes, but did not reply.
"Dorothy Hamblyn is at the Manor."
"Indeed," he said, in a tone of apparent indifference. "Who told you that?"
"She has been there a fortnight!"
"A fortnight?"
"Dr. Barrow told William. He has been attending her."
"She is ill, then?"
"She has been. Caught a chill or something of the kind, and was a good deal run down to start with, but she is nearly all right again now. I wonder if she will come to see me here as she used to do at the cottage?"
"Possibly."
"I hope she will. It would be so nice to see her again. Her father may be a tyrant, but she is an angel."
Ralph gave a short, dry laugh.
"You do not seem very much interested," Ruth continued.
"Why should I be?" he questioned, looking up with a smile.
"I thought you used to like her very much."
"Oh, well, I did for that matter. But – but that's scarcely to the point, is it?"
"Well, no, perhaps it isn't. Only – only – "
"Yes?"
"Well, I sometimes wonder if you will ever do what William has done."
"Oh, I fell in love with my sister long before he did."
"Your own sister doesn't count."
"She does with William – counts too much, I'm afraid. He's no eyes for anything else."
"Oh, go along!"
"Not till I've had my tea. Remember, I'm hungry."
Then a knock came to the door, and William entered. He was still thin and pale, but there was a light in his eyes and a glow on his cheeks such as no one ever saw in the old days.
On the following afternoon Ralph made his way up the slant again in the direction of Treliskey Plantation. It was a glorious afternoon. The hot sunshine was tempered by a cool, Atlantic breeze. The hills and dales were looking their best, the hedges were full of flowers, the woods and plantations were great banks of delicious green. At the stile he paused for several minutes and surveyed the landscape, but his thoughts all the time were somewhere else. Hope had sprung up afresh in his heart, and a determined purpose was throbbing through all his veins.
After awhile he left the stile and passed through the plantation gate. He was a trespasser, he knew, but that was a matter of little account. No one would molest him now. He was a man of too much importance in the neighbourhood. He hardly realised yet what a power he had become, and how anxious people were to be on good terms with him. In himself he was conscious of no change. So far, at any rate, money had not spoiled him. Every Sunday as he passed through the little graveyard at Veryan he was reminded of the fact that his mother had died in the workhouse. If he was ever tempted to put on airs – which he was not – that fact would have kept him humble.
The true secret of his influence, however, was not that he was prosperous, but that he was just. There was not a toiler in Great St. Goram Mine who did not know that. In the past strength had been the synonym for tyranny. Those who possessed a giant's strength had used it like a giant. But Ralph had changed the tradition. The strong man was a just man and a generous, and it was for that reason his influence had grown with every passing day.
Yet he was quite unconscious of the measure of his influence. In his own eyes he was only David Penlogan's son, though that fact meant a great deal to him. David Penlogan was an honest man – a man who, in a very real sense, walked with God – and it was Ralph's supreme desire to prove worthy of his father.
But it was of none of these things he thought as he walked slowly along between high banks of trees. The road was grass-grown from end to end, and was so constructed that the pedestrian appeared to be constantly turning corners.
"I think she will walk out to-day," he kept saying to himself. "This beautiful weather will surely tempt her out."
He had made up his mind what to do and say in case they did meet. For good or ill, he was determined to know his fate. It might be an act of presumption, or a simple act of folly – that was an aspect of the question that scarcely occurred to him.
The supreme factor in the case, as far as he was concerned, was, he loved her. On that point there was no room for doubt. The mere social aspect of the question he was constitutionally incapable of seeing. A man was a man, and if he were of good character, and able to maintain the woman he loved, what mattered anything else?
He came face to face with Dorothy at a bend in the road. She was walking slowly, with her eyes on the ground. She did not hear his footsteps on the grass-grown road, and when she looked up he was close upon her. There was no time to debate the situation even with herself, so she followed the impulse of her heart and held out her hand to him.
"I thought I should meet you to-day," he said. "I am sorry you have been ill."
"I was rather run down when I came," she answered, glancing at him with a questioning look, "and I think I caught cold on the journey."
"But you are better now?"
"Oh yes, I am quite well again."
"I feared you had returned to London. I have been on the look-out for you for weeks."
She looked shyly up into his face, but did not reply.
"I wanted to know my fate," he went on. "You know that I love you. You must have guessed it long before I told you."
"But – but – " she began, with averted eyes.
"Please hear me out first," he interrupted. "I would not have spoken again had not circumstances changed. When I saw you in London I was poor and without hope. I believed that I should have to leave the country in order to earn a living. To have offered marriage to anyone would have been an insult. And yet if I had never seen you again I should have loved you to the end."
"But have you considered – " she began again, with eyes still turned from his face.
"I have considered everything," he interrupted eagerly, almost passionately. "But there is only one thing that matters, and that is love. If you do not love me – cannot love me – my dream is at an end, and I will endure as best I am able. But if your heart responds to my appeal, then the thing is settled. You are mine."
"But you are forgetting my – my – position," she stammered.
"I am forgetting nothing of importance," he went on resolutely. "There are only two people in the world really concerned in this matter, you and I, and the decision rests with you. It is not my fault that I love you. I cannot help it. You did not mean to steal my heart, perhaps, but you did it. It seems a curious irony of fate, for I detested your father; but Providence threw me across your path. In strange and inexplicable ways your life has become linked with mine. You are all the world to me. Cannot you give me some hope?"