Anonymous

It was May now, and the evenings were long and sweet. Eight o'clock rang from the clock-tower at Glengall, and Pamela Graydon stood by the Wishing Well in the woods and looked down into the little cup of clear water. Memory was very keen in her this delicious, scented evening.

No word had come from Anthony Trevithick, and Pamela had ceased to expect any long ago. On her father's account as much as on her own she was filled with dull anger against him—an anger that hurt.

She had had no communication with the house in Brook Street, except her hastily scribbled line to Lady Kitty when Mr. Graydon began to creep back out of the shadow of death, and the answering letter, full of a sympathy which would have surprised some in Lady Kitty's world, if they could but have read it.

"Anthony thinks of getting his Uncle Wilton moved home as soon as possible," was one of Lady Kitty's bits of news. "He will never be very strong again, but he is out of danger. Of course, they will have to go warily, so Anthony will hardly be here before full summer."

"He, may stay away for ever, so far as I am concerned," had been Pamela's comment as she thrust the letter into her little old desk. Indeed, at the time, in the extremity of her relief at her father's illness having taken a turn for the better, her love affair seemed a paltry thing and not worth thinking upon.

But now that the strain was over her loneliness returned. She looked with sad eyes upon the summer landscape, and the moan of May wood-doves from near and far seemed to be the voice of her pain.

She often wondered if she could be the Pamela of a year ago—so gay and careless. Her sadness of late had passed unnoticed—they had all been sad—but whereas Sylvia's spirits had gone up with a bound, and Mary's mood was one of quiet and thankful joy, the great fear being removed, Pamela, after the first relief, felt only a flatness and dulness of the spirit which seemed never likely to lift; for Pam looked to her future with all the hopelessness of very young girlhood.

She sat down on a mossy tree trunk and listened with her chin in her hand to the last song of the thrush.

"Pamela," said a voice close by her, "the dews are falling, child, and you will take cold."

"Oh, Lord Glengall!" Pamela looked up startled, and then stretched a friendly hand to him.

"No; it is not a bit damp," she said. "Just feel it. I am going home presently. Sit down here. There is room for you."

But he stood watching her seriously and made no response to her invitation.

"You have been to Carrickmoyle?" she said.

"Yes, I saw him for a few minutes." There was no necessity to specify who the "him" was. He had been so much in all their minds.

"He was very comfortable," Lord Glengall continued. "Sylvia was reading to him, and his little fire was bright. He grows every day more like himself."

"Yes," said Pamela simply. "It is good to see him growing stronger. One can rest in it, and be glad, without looking forward too much."

"You mean to the winter?"

"Yes; twenty things may happen before then to help us. We have nearly five months before the doctor says he must go abroad. I am not going to think about it."

"Lord Downside may even yet find a human heart in him," said Glengall, watching her seriously.

"Lord Downside—who turned him into the street, wet and hungry, to meet almost his death!" cried Pain, with an angry sob. 'The tender mercies of the wicked.' I shall always think of Lord Downside when I hear that."

"You look as if you needed a change yourself, Pam."

The deep-sunk eyes looked at her with an anxious tenderness, but Pamela did not notice.

"I shall pull up now," she said. "Carrickmoyle in summer is good enough for anyone."

"But the winter, Pam—the winter?"

"Let us forget the winter for a little while," answered Pamela, surprised at his insistence.

"I am very rich, Pam," he said, and then stopped.

"Ah! that is what you are aiming at," said Pam, looking up at him with repentant affection; "and I was feeling cross with you because you wouldn't let the winter be."

"He won't mind taking—a loan—from his old friend? At interest, if he likes. Eh, Pam?"

"Oh! a thousand per cent., if you like," cried Pam airily, but her eyes were dewy. "You may as well charge a big interest, for you know it would be a loan that would hardly have the faintest chance of ever being repaid."

"Oh! I don't know about that," said Lord Glengall, digging a hole in the ground with the toe of his boot.

"You are an optimist," laughed Pam, and her tone was tender.

"He will take it, you think?"

"He never will."

"I have neither chick nor child. Is my gold to lie rotting while the friend I love—wants for it?"

He substituted "wants" at the last moment for another word, and Pamela understood.

"I daresay it is foolish," she said, "but I am afraid we shall not be able to persuade him."

"If not, Pam, there is one other way."

"Ah! no," she cried, putting out both hands as if to push him off; "not that way, Lord Glengall."

She closed her eyes at the moment, and like a sudden stab there came the thought of the young lover who had kissed her in this place, deadly sweet and deadly cruel as well.

"I beg your pardon, Pam," said Glengall's quiet and patient voice. "Of course, I am too old."

"Oh! no, but I am not the right person—that is all. You must marry someone who loves you. I—I am the wrong person."

"We won't talk about it, then," said Glengall, turning away his head. "We must find some other way, Pam."

Pamela jumped up and ran to him, and, as she had often done, thrust her arm into his.

"You are a thousand times too good for a stupid, ungrateful girl like me." She hugged his arm to her unconsciously. "I should be a thousand times a happier girl if I did love you and married you. Indeed, it oughtn't to be hard to love you."

Lord Glengall patted her head.

"Thank you, Pam," he said, "for being sorry for me. I don't deserve your goodness; I am a selfish old fellow for wanting a lovely young creature like you. Ah! Pam, we should form those ties when we are young. Then we should not feel useless and lonely old blocks when we have left our youth behind."

"You're not going to be unhappy?" cried Pam, still hugging his arm.

Lord Glengall laughed.

Pamela looked up startled.

"No, Pam," he said. "I don't pretend to be like a young fellow, all fire and despair. I should have liked to take care of you, little girl, and to have the right to take care of you all. But we must find another way."

They walked back together to Carrickmoyle in the old friendly fashion, and no one seeing them could have guessed that Glengall was a rejected lover; but that night Pam was thoughtful.

The next morning she was alone with her father. Mr. Graydon lay on a couch, from which he could see the mountains through the open window, and Pamela, on the rug by his side, was trying to teach Mark Antony to balance a straw on his nose.

"Let him alone, Pam," said her father. "He's too old and fat to learn tricks."

"Then he shan't have his bone; Pat deserves it better. Pat has learned three new tricks since you've been getting well."

"It is good to be getting well again. I don't think I realised before how beautiful the world is."

"Our bit of it," said Pam.

"And yet I am no coward. When my time comes, I shall not be afraid to go. If only I could feel that you children were provided for!"

"Did that trouble you—then?" said Pam, in a low voice.

"It did," answered her father, "though I tried hard for faith and trust."

"Dear, darling dad!" cried Pamela suddenly. "Would it make you happier if I were to marry Lord Glengall?"

"I thought we had settled all that, Pam."

"Oh, yes, in that old life," said Pamela dreamily, "before you were ill. But things are altered now. It is just as well we don't know what's before us."

"But I am getting well, my little Pam."

"Ah, yes, thank God! You are getting well," said Pam. "But you haven't told me if it would make you happier for me to marry Lord Glengall."

"You would be safe," said Mr. Graydon wistfully, "and he would take care of the others. But—but—it is not a question of making me happy, or of anyone but yourself, little Pam. Could you be happy?"

"Sometimes I think I could," said Pamela. "It would be an end of trouble; it would be peace."

"Poor Pam! you talk as if you had been through storms."

Pam shook her head.

"Never mind, darling dad. I think I shall say 'Yes' then, after all."

"He has asked you, Pam?"

"Yes, he has asked me. You don't think, dad, that he would like Sylvia just as well?"

"He seems to prefer you, Pam."

"I should love him for a brother-in-law."

"If you feel like that, don't think of him for a husband."

"He would never deceive nor betray me," said Pamela, with a sigh.

"Poor little girl!" said her father, and then said no more.

A day or two later, as Lord Glengall was leaving Carrickmoyle, he was overtaken by Pamela.

"I'm coming with you a bit," she said. "I want to give the dogs a run."

"I'll be proud of your company. Shall we take the wood-path?"

"No," said Pamela, with a little shudder. "I hate the wood. Let us cross the bog."

"Why, what has come to you, child? I thought you were a perfect wood-nymph."

"I'm tired of the wood," said Pam, shortly.

They walked on till they were out in the road through the bog. Then Pamela suddenly spoke what was in her mind.

"Lord Glengall," she said, "do you still want me to marry you?"

"Why, it was only on Wednesday I asked you. You don't suppose I've had time to change my mind?"

"Because—I've changed mine. I want to say 'Yes.'"

"'Yes,' Pam? Is it 'Yes'?" said Lord Glengall, turning and facing her. "Are you quite sure you mean 'Yes'?"

"Quite, quite sure," said Pam.

"What's come over you to make you say it, when you said 'No' the other day? You're doing it of your own free will, Pam?"

"Quite of my own free will."

Lord Glengall stooped and kissed the cool cheek, almost as her father might.

"And you won't want to unsay it later on, Pam?"

Pam shook her head.

"I'll be very good to you, little Pam—God helping me."

"I know you will," said Pain. "But why did you like me instead of Sylvia?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. Pam. I never thought of that." He laughed out. "It's lucky I didn't. Pam. What chance should I have had with Sylvia, and all those boys about her?"

"What, indeed?" said Pamela, but she looked mysterious.

A moment later she pulled up again sharply.

"Now that we're engaged," she said, "I've something to tell you. Lord Glengall."

A wave of the loveliest rose flowed over her face, but her eyes were down.

"What is it, Pam?" he said quietly, but he felt a sharp pang as he watched her. She would never flush like that for him, he felt sure. Ah, his lost youth! What would he not have given to recall it?

"I think I ought to tell you," she said, looking on the ground at her feet, "that I have cared for someone else."

"Very much, Pam?"

"Very much."

"Is it all over, Pam?"

"It is all over."

"Was it—a matter of money, Pam? Could nothing be done? I don't want you to marry me at the cost of your own happiness."

Pamela was pulling a wild yellow iris to pieces. He put his hand under her chin, and lifted her face till he could look into her eyes.

"Tell me, tell me, Pam. Be brave and truthful with me. It is my happiness as well as yours. Is there nothing that can be done?"

"There is nothing."

He let her go, and stood away again, and his face was full of trouble. Pamela looked at him for a moment. Then she made a step forward, and drew his arms about her.

"I told you because I thought I must," she said. "But it is all over and done with. I am going to be so happy with you, so happy!" He looked down at her and his face was transformed.

"Don't make me too happy, Pam," he said. "It is too much for an old hulk like me."

And so they went home through the summer evening, Pamela saying to herself over and over again that she was really happy. Now she need not dread the autumn for her father, for had not Glengall said that together they would take him to the Riviera, or farther afield to Algiers, and so would make him strong again? And had he not thought, even in his first content, of poor Mary and her hopeless love affair? Mick was to exchange into a home regiment, and a little money would smooth the way for their marriage, so that the two need not wait till some day far distant, when they should look in each other's faded faces and feel that this was not the love of long ago. Sylvia, too, was to have fine frocks and gaiety as befitted her beauty and her youth. And to think that she, Pamela, was the wonder-worker, the magician, to give her beloved ones the things that lay nearest their hearts—she, Pamela, who had always desired to give!

Only Sylvia, of them all, did not congratulate Pamela with approval.

"I don't believe you'll make him half as happy as I should have done," she said. "But never mind—it is your score, and I accept it."

And then she went off with a frown to refuse young St. Quentin for the fifth time, as she had already refused his superior officer.

"I'll do my best to make him happy," Pamela said, remembering before she slept. "Help me to make him happy," she cried, lifting her heart and her eyes.

And so she fell asleep placidly, quite unlike a girl who had been asked in marriage and had accepted only a few hours ago. Just for that one night she was troubled with no thought of Anthony Trevithick.

[END OF CHAPTER TWELVE.]