"I will hold your hand but as long as all may, Or so very little longer."
—Browning.
After half an hour's continuous walking—for the roads out of London were over-bad after the heavy rains during the past week—the Huguenot clerk, closely followed by Master Legros, who had his daughter on his arm, turned into the new parish of Soho, where a number of fine houses had been recently erected, and a few more were even now in process of construction.
 
The clerk had at first seemed desirous of imparting various scraps of topographical information to his compatriots, but to his interesting conversation the tailor only responded in curt monosyllables. He still harboured a vague mistrust against his guide. The latter part of the walk through the ill-paved, muddy and evil-smelling streets of London was therefore accomplished in silence. Rose Marie's nerves were tingling with excitement, and she shivered beneath her cloak and hood, despite the warmth of this fine summer afternoon.
 
Soon the little party came to a halt before a newly-built house, fashioned of red brick with a fine portico of stone, richly carved and tall, arched windows set in flush with the outside walls and painted in creamy white.
 
"Here lives my lord of Stowmaries," said the clerk, as without waiting for further permission he plied the brass knocker vigorously. "Shall I ask if he hath come home?"
 
[328] The tailor nodded in assent. He, too, was now getting too excited to speak. The next moment a serving-man, dressed in clothes of sober grey, opened the front door, and to the clerk's query whether my lord was at home, he replied in the affirmative.
 
Master Legros and Rose Marie were far too troubled in their minds to notice the furnishings and appointments of the house. Rose Marie threw the hood back from her face, and asked whether they could speak with my lord forthwith.
 
"Will you tell him, I pray you," she added, "that Monsieur Legros from Paris desires speech with him."
 
Legros dismissed the clerk—who was eager enough to get away—by bestowing a shilling upon him, and after that he and his daughter followed the serving-man through the hall into a small withdrawing room where they were bidden to wait.
 
A few moments of suspense—terrible alike to the girl and to the father—then a firm tread on the flagged floor outside; a step that to Rose Marie's supersensitive ear sounded strangely, almost weirdly familiar.
 
The next moment Michael Kestyon had entered the room.
 
"You have come to speak with me, good M. Legros—" he said even as he entered. Then he caught sight of Rose Marie and the words died on his lips.
 
They looked at one another—these two who once had been all in all one to the other—parted now by the shadow of that unforgettable wrong.
 
Instinctively—with eye fixed to eye—each asked the other the mute question: "Didst suffer as I did?" and in the heart of each—of the defiant adventurer, and the unsophisticated girl—there rose the wild, mad thrill, the tri[329]umphant, exulting hosanna, at sight of the lines of sorrow, so unmistakable, so eloquent on the face so dearly loved.
 
Rose Marie saw at once how much Michael had altered—that tender, motherly instinct inseparable from perfect womanhood told her even more than that which the sunken eyes and the drawn look in the face so pathetically expressed.
 
Yet outwardly he had changed but little; the step—as he rapidly crossed the room—had been as firm, as elastic as of old; he still carried his head high, and his manner—as of yore—was easy and gracious. When he had first entered, there was even an eager, joyful expression in his face. He did not know, you see, that M. Legros' visit to him was the result of a mistake, the freak of a mischievous clerk. He really thought that the good tailor had come here to see him, Michael, and the news had brought almost joy to his heart and had accelerated his footsteps as he flew down to greet his visitor.
 
No, the change was in none of these outward signs. It was the spirit in him which had changed. The dark eyes once so full of tenderness had a cold, steely look in them now, which was apparent even through the first pleasurable greeting. The mouth, too, looked set in its lines; the lips, which ere this were ever wont to smile, were now tightly pressed as if for ever controlling a sigh or trying to suppress a cry of pain.
 
Michael—with the eyes of a man hungering for love—gazed on his snowdrop and saw the change which the past dark months had wrought on the former serenity of her face. And if he had suffered during that time the exquisite pangs of mad and hopeless longing, how much more acute did that pain seem now that he saw her, looking pale and fragile, almost frightened, too, in his presence, cold as she[330] had been ere that mad glad moment when he had held her—a living, loving woman—in his arms, with the hot blood rushing to her cheeks at his whispered words of passion, and the light of love kindled in her eyes.
 
Can brain of man or of torturing devils conceive aught so cruel as this living, breathing embodiment of the might-have-been; this tearing of every heart-string in the maddening desire for one more embrace, one last lingering kiss, one touch only of hand against hand, one final breath of life—after which, death and peace?
 
As in a dream, good Master Legros' diffident voice struck on Michael's ear:
 
"It was with my lord of Stowmaries that we wished to speak."
 
And directly after that, Rose Marie's trembling tones, half-choked with sobs resolutely suppressed:
 
"Let us go, Father—we—we must not stay here—let us go—"
 
She had drawn close to her father, and was twining her hands round his arm trying to drag him away.
 
The sad pathos of this appeal—this clinging to another as if for protection and help, whilst he—Michael—stood by—nothing to her, less than nothing, a thing to fear, to hate, mayhap, certainly to despise—struck him as with a whip-lash across his aching breast. But it woke him from his dream. It brought him back to earth, with senses bruised and temples throbbing, his pride of manhood brought down to the dust of a childish desire to keep her here in his presence if only for a moment, a second; to hear her speak, to look on her, to endure her scorn if need be, only to have her there.
 
Therefore, he turned to Papa Legros and almost humbly said:
 
[331]
 
"Will you at least tell me, good Master, if I cannot serve you in any way?"
 
"No, sir, you cannot," replied Papa Legros gruffly. "I would have you believe and know that we came here under a misapprehension. A miscreant interpreter brought us hither, though he was bidden to take us to the house of Lord Stowmaries. We did not know that this was your house, sir, or believe me, we had never entered it."
 
"This is not my house," rejoined Michael gravely. "It is that of my mother, who hath left her Kentish village in order to dwell with me. For the rest, the misapprehension is most easy of explanation; nor is your interpreter so very much to blame."
 
He paused for the space of a second or two, then fixing steady eyes on the face of Rose Marie and throwing his head back with an air that was almost defiant in its pride, he said:
 
"You asked to speak with my lord of Stowmaries—'tis I who am the lord of Stowmaries now."
 
Then, as Legros, somewhat bewildered, stared at him in blank surprise, he added more quietly:
 
"You did not know this, mayhap?"
 
"No—no—my lord," stammered the tailor, who of a truth felt strangely perturbed, "we—that is, I and my daughter did not know that—"
 
"His Majesty gave his decision late last night."
 
There was a moment's silence in the room. It seemed as if Michael was anticipating something, waiting for a word from Rose Marie. His very attitude was an expectant one; he was leaning forward, and his eyes had sought her lips, as if trying to guess what they would utter.
 
"Then the title which you borrowed from your cousin[332] awhile ago, and to some purpose, you have now succeeded in filching from him altogether?" said the girl coldly.
 
If she had the desire to hurt him, she certainly did succeed. Michael did not move, but his cheeks, already pale, turned to ashy grey; the eyes sank still deeper within their sockets, and in a moment the face looked worn and haggard as that of a man with one foot in the grave.
 
Then he said slowly:
 
"Your pardon, Mistress; I have filched naught which was not already mine, mine and my father's before me. That which I took was my right; it is also my mother's, who for years had been left to starve whilst another filched from her that which was hers. For her sake did I claim that which was mine, because during all those years of starvation, misery and degradation—her misery and mine own degradation—she kept up her faith in me. And also for mine own sake did I claim my right, and in order to mend a wrong which, it seems, I had committed. Good Master Legros," he added, turning to the vastly bewildered tailor, "as Lord of Stowmaries I entered your house and, methinks, your heart. Of this I am not ashamed; the wrong that I did you is past; the righting thereof will last my lifetime and yours. I was Lord Stowmaries then by the word of God—I am that now by the word of the King and Parliament. That which seemed a lie I have proved to be true. Will you give me back your daughter, whom the caprice of a wanton reprobate would have cast from him, and whom I have justly won, by my deeds, by my will, by my crime if you call it so, but whom I have won rightfully and whom I would wish to render happy even at the cost of my life."
 
Gradually, as he spoke, the tone of defiance died out of his voice and only pride remained expressed therein—pride[333] and an infinity of tenderness. There was no attempt at mitigating the fault that was past, no desire to excuse or to palliate. The man and his sin were inseparable; obviously had the sin to be again committed, Michael would have committed it again, with the same determination and the same defiance.
 
"I am a man, and what I do, I do. I won you by a trick. I fought for your love and won it. Mine enemy put a weapon in my hand. With it I conquered him; I conquered Fate and you. Had I been ashamed of the act, I had never committed it. I looked sin squarely in the face and took it by its grim hand and allowed it to lead me to your feet. To you I never lied; you I do not cheat."
 
These thoughts and more were fully expressed in his eyes as they rested on Rose Marie, and so subtle is the wave of sympathy that she understood every word which he did not utter; she understood them, even though she steeled her heart against the insidious whisperings of a drowsy conscience.
 
We may well imagine that on the other hand, good M. Legros, though he did not altogether grasp the proud sophistries of such a splendid blackguard, nevertheless quickly ranged himself against the whole array of all the grim virtues. Would you blame him very much if you knew that within the innermost recesses of his kindly and simple heart he no longer greatly desired to speak with the man whom he had come all the way from Paris to supplicate and to warn?
 
Was it very wrong, think you, very self-interested on the part of this amiable little tailor to be now cursing those very necessities engendered by an ultrasensitive sense of loyalty which imposed on him the task of cleaving to that[334] man who was now dispossessed, beggared, a most undesirable husband for his beautiful daughter?
 
Truly the situation, from the point of view of conscience and of decency, was a very difficult one. Is it a wonder that the doting father was quite unable to grapple with it?
 
Here was a man who was a terrible scoundrel, yet a mightily pleasing one for all t............