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"Yes thanks," he said, to spare her the embarrassment of explaining
that sudden frightened cry of hers. "I could feel that. But I have to
thank Dick for an enjoyable bath, all the same. I suppose he will
never forgive me; the person whose life you save never does."
He sat down on the breakwater and began to empty his pockets.
There were several papers—bills—reduced to semi-pulp; Yorke did
not sorrow over them. His watch had stopped; his cigars and cigar
case were irretrievably ruined. He held them up with a laugh, and
laid them on top of the breakwater in the sun; then suddenly his
happy-go-lucky expression grew rather grave as he took up an
envelope and looked at it.
"By George!" he said. "All the rest doesn't matter, but this doesn't
belong to me."
Leslie stood and looked down at him anxiously. She was thinking of
colds and rheumatism, while the young fellow sat so perfectly
contented in his wet clothes.
"Don't you think—had you not better go home and change your
things as quickly as possible?" she said, forgetting her shyness in her
anxiety.
He looked up from the envelope.
"Why, I shall be dry in ten minutes," he said, carelessly, "and I
sha'n't take any harm if I'm not. I never caught cold in my life;
besides, salt water never hurts."
Leslie shook her head gravely.
"I don't believe that; it's a fallacy," she said. "Some of the old
fishermen here suffer terribly from rheumatism."
"That's because they're old, you see," he said, smiling up at her.
"And if you think it's so dangerous hadn't you better put Master Dick
down? He is making you awfully wet."
She shook her head, and held Dick all the more tightly.
"I am so glad to get him back," she said, half to herself, "that I don't
mind his making me a little damp; but I do wish you would go."
He did not seem to hear her, but after another glance at the letter,
said:
"I picked this up just over there," and he nodded in the direction of
the cliffs, "and I should like to find its owner; though I expect she
won't thank me much when she sees its condition. Have you been
here long? Do you know the people here pretty well?"
"We have been here some months," said Leslie, "and—yes, I think I
know them all."
"Now, who does she mean by 'we?' Her husband?" Yorke asked
himself, and an uncomfortable little pain shot through him. "No!" he
assured himself; "she can't be married; too young and—too happy
looking! Well, then, perhaps you know a young lady by the name of
Lisle—Leslie Lisle," he said.
Leslie smiled.
"That is my name; it is I," she replied.
"By George!" he exclaimed. "Then this is your property!" and he held
out the letter.
Leslie took it, and as she looked at the address flushed hotly. It was
Ralph Duncombe's missing letter.
Yorke noticed the flush, and he looked aside.
"My father dropped it," she said, with an embarrassment which,
slight as it was, did not escape him. "Thank you."
"I'm sorry that I didn't put it in my coat pocket instead of my
waistcoat," he said. "But I knew if I did that I should forget it
perhaps for weeks. I always forget letters that fellows ask me to
post. So I put it in with my watch, that I might come across it when
I looked at the time, and so it's got wet; but as it was opened you
have read it, so that I hope it doesn't matter so much."
"No, I haven't read it. Papa always opens my letters—he doesn't
notice the difference. It does not matter in the least; I know what
was in it, thank you," she said, hurriedly.
"I wish some one would always open and read my letters, and
answer them, too," said Yorke, devoutly, as he thought of the great
pile of bills which awaited him every morning at breakfast. "Are you
staying—I mean lodging, visiting here, Miss Lisle?" he asked, for the
sake of saying something that would keep her by his side for at least
a few minutes longer.
"Yes," said Leslie. "We are staying in 'The Street,' as it is called at
Sea View."
Yorke was just about to remark, "I know," but checked himself, and
said instead:
"It is a very pretty place, isn't it?"
"Very," assented Leslie; "and quiet. There is no prettier place on the
coast than Portmaris."
"So I should think," he said, looking round, then returning to the
beautiful face. "I am a stranger, and only arrived an hour or two
ago." He looked down, trying to think of something else to say,
anything that would keep her; but could think of nothing.
Leslie stood for a moment, silent, too, then she said:
"Will you not go and change your things now? Dick would be very
sorry if you were to catch cold on his account."
It was on the tip of Yorke's tongue to ask, "Only Dick?" but once
more he checked himself. The retort would have come naturally
enough if he had been addressing a London belle; but there was
something in the beautiful gray eyes, an indescribable expression of
maidenly dignity and reserve, which, sweet as it was, warned him
that such conversational small change would not be acceptable to
Miss Lisle, so instead he said, with a smile:
"Oh, Dick won't mind. Besides, he knows I am almost as dry as he is
by this time."
Leslie shook her head as if in contradiction of his assertion, and with
Dick still pressed to her bosom, said:
"Good-morning, and—and thank you very much," she added, with a
faint color coming into her face.
Yorke arose, raised his hat, and watched her graceful figure as it
lightly stepped up the beach to the quay; then he collected his
various soaked articles from the breakwater, and followed at a
respectful distance.
"Leslie Lisle," he murmured to himself. "The name's music, and she
——."
Apparently he could not hit upon any set of terms which would
describe her even to his own mind, and, pressing the water from his
trousers, he climbed the beach, still looking at her.
As he did so he saw a tall, thin gentleman coming toward her. He
held a canvas in his hands, gingerly, as if it were wet, and was
followed by a small boy carrying a portable easel and other artistic
impedimenta, and, as Leslie spoke to the artist and took the easel
from the boy, Yorke muttered:
"Her father! Now, if I go up to them she'll feel it incumbent upon her
to tell him of my 'heroic act,' and he'll be bored to death trying to
find something suitable to say; and she'll be embarrassed and upset,
and hate the sight of me. She looks like a girl who can't endure a
fuss. No, I'll go round the other way—if there is another way, as the
cookery books say."
He looked round, and was on the point of diving into a narrow street
opposite him when an invalid chair came round the corner, driven by
Grey, and the occupant, whose eyes were as sharp as his body was
frail and crooked, caught sight of the stalwart figure, and held up a
hand beckoningly.
Yorke looked very much as if he meant making a run for it; then,
with a muttered, "Oh, confound it!" he stuck his hands in his
pockets, tried to look as if nothing had happened, and sauntered
with a careless, leisurely air up the quay.
By this time Francis Lisle had stuck up his easel right in the center of
the narrow pavement, and arranged his canvas, and Grey was in the
act of dragging the invalid chair round it, when Leslie, bending
down, said, in a whisper:
"Papa, I must move the easel; they cannot pass."
"Eh?" said Francis Lisle, looking round nervously. "I beg your pardon,
I will move; yes, I will move."
"Do not, please," said the duke, his thin voice softening as it always
did in the presence of a lady. "There is plenty of room. You can go
round, Grey?"
"Yes, your—yes, sir," said Grey.
His master shot a warning glance at him.
"There is not room," said Leslie, in a low voice, but the duke held up
his hand.
"Please do not trouble," he said; "I am not going any further. I only
want to speak to this gentleman coming along. I beg you will not
trouble to move the easel. Artists must not be disturbed, or the
inspiration may desert them," he added to Francis Lisle, with a
pleasant smile.
"Thank you, thank you," said Lisle, still clutching the easel; but Grey
had turned the chair with its front to the sea, and the duke called to
Yorke, who had come upon them at this juncture.
"What a pretty place, Yorke!" he said. "Have you had your stroll?
Shall we go back?"
Yorke had discreetly kept behind the chair, and out of sight of his
cousin's sharp eyes.
"All right," he assented.
"Will you give me a cigar?" said the duke.
Yorke came up to the chair and put his hand in his pocket, and
thoughtlessly extended the cigar case.
"Thanks. Good gracious! Why, it is soaking wet! Hallo, Yorke," and
the duke screwed his head round. "Why, where have you been?
What have you been doing?"
Yorke flushed, and cast an appealing glance at Leslie's downcast
face. To be made the center of an astonished and absurdly admiring
group, to be made a cheap twopenny-halfpenny hero of, was more
than he could stand.
"Oh it's nothing," he growled. "Had an accident—tumbled into the
sea."
"An accident!" exclaimed the duke, staring at him. "Tumbled in the
sea! How did you manage that, in the name of goodness?"
Yorke got red, and looked very much like an impatient schoolboy
caught playing truant or breaking windows.
"What's it matter!" he said. "Fell off breakwater. Go and get the
cigars, Grey; I'll look after his——."
The duke cut in quickly before the word "grace."
"Nothing of the sort," he said. "You get home and change your
things. Fell off the breakwater!" He stared at him incredulously.
Mr. Lisle, too, gazed at him with blank astonishment, as if he were
surprised to find that it was a man and not a little boy in
knickerbockers, who might not unnaturally be expected to tumble off
the breakwater.
Leslie meanwhile stood with downcast eyes, then suddenly she said,
addressing her father and carefully avoiding the other two:
"This gentleman swam in to save Dick, papa; that is why he is wet."
The duke scanned her face keenly, and smiled curiously.
"That sounds more probable than your account, Yorke. It is a
strange thing," he turned his head to Lisle, "that a man is more
often ashamed of committing a good or generous action than a bad
one. How do you account for it?"
Mr. Lisle looked at him helplessly, as if he had been asked a
conundrum which no one could be expected to answer.
"Because there is always such a thundering fuss about it," said
Yorke, stalking off.
The duke looked after him for a minute or two, apparently lost in
thought, then he turned to Lisle again.
"You are an artist, sir?" he said.
Mr. Lisle flushed.
"I am, at least, an humble worshiper at the throne," he replied, in
the low, nervous voice with which he always addressed strangers,
and he resumed his painting.
The duke signed to Grey to help him to get out of the chair, which
was so placed that he could not see the canvas.
Grey came round, and in opening the apron let the duke's stick fall.
Leslie hesitated a moment, then stepped forward and picked it up.
The duke took it from her with a faint flush on his pale, hollow
cheeks.
"Thank you," he said. "I am afraid I could not get on without it. At
one time I could not walk even with its aid. Please don't say you are
sorry or pity me," he added, with an air of levity that barely
concealed his sensitive dread of any expression of sympathy.
"Everybody says that, you know."
"I was not going to say so," said Leslie, looking him full in the face,
and with a sweet, gentle smile.
He looked at her with his unnaturally keen eyes.
"No," he said, quietly. "I don't think you were. And this is the picture
——." He stopped as he looked at the awful monstrosity, then
caught Leslie's eyes gazing at him with anxious, pleading
deprecation, and went on, "Singular effect. You have taken great
pains with your subject, Mr. ——."
"Lisle—my name is Lisle," he said, hurriedly. "Yes, yes, I have not
spared pains! I have put my heart into my work."
"That is quite evident," said the duke, with perfect gravity, and still
regarding the picture. "And that which a man puts his heart in will
reward him some day; does, indeed, reward him even while he
works."
"True, true!" assented the dreamer, with a gratified glance at the
speaker and at Leslie, who stood with downcast eyes, to which the
brows were dangerously near. "It is with that hope, that heart, that
we artists continue to labor in face of difficulties which to the
careless and irreverent seem insurmountable. You think the picture a
—a good one, sir; that it is promising?"
The duke was floored for a moment, then he said:
"I think it evidences the painter's love for his art, and his complete
devotion to it, Mr. Lisle."
The poor dreamer's face had fallen during the pause, but it
brightened at the diplomatic response when it did come, and Leslie,
casting a grateful glance at the pale face of the cripple, murmured in
his ear:
"Thank you!"
The duke looked at her with a glow of sympathy in his eyes.
"This is your daughter, I presume, Mr. Lisle?" he said.
Lisle nodded.
"Yes," he said. "My only child. All that is left me in the world—
excepting my art. You are not an artist also, sir? Pardon me, but
your criticism showed such discrimination and appreciation that I
was led to conclude you might be a fellow-student."
The duke hesitated a moment.
"No," he said, quietly. "I am not an artist, though I am fond of a
good picture——," poor Lisle gazed at the daub, and nodded with a
gratified smile. "I am what is called—I was going to say a gentleman
at ease, but I am very seldom at ease. My name is Temple, and I am
traveling for the benefit of my health."
Lisle nodded again.
"You will find this an extremely salubrious spot," he said. "My
daughter and I are very well here."
The duke glanced at Leslie's tall, graceful figure, and smiled grimly.
"But then she is not a cripple," he said.
"A cripple!" Mr. Lisle looked startled and bewildered. "Oh, no; oh,
no."
The duke smiled, and leaning upon his stick, seemed to be watching
the painter at his work, but his eyes wandered now and again
covertly to the beautiful girl beside him. He noticed that her dress,
though admirably fitting, was by no means new or of costly material,
that her gloves were well worn and carefully mended in places, that
her father, if not shabby, had that peculiar look about his clothes
which tells so plainly of narrow means; and when Leslie, becoming
conscious of his wandering glance, moved away and stood at a little
distance on the edge of the quay, the duke said:
"Have you disposed of your picture, Mr. Lisle?"
Francis Lisle started and flushed.
"N-o," he replied. "That is, not yet."
"I am glad of that," said the duke. "I should like to become its
purchaser, if you are disposed to sell it."
Lisle's breath came fast. He had never sold a "picture" in his life, had
long and ardently looked forward to doing so, and—and, oh! had the
time arrived?
"Certainly, certainly," he said, nervously, and his brush shook. "You
like it so much? But perhaps you would like some others of mine
better. I—I have several at the cottage. Will you come and look at
them?"
"With pleasure," said the duke. "Meanwhile, what shall I give you for
this?"
Lisle gazed at the picture with pitiable agitation; he was in mortal
terror lest he should scare his customer away by asking too much.
"Really," he faltered, "I—I don't know its value, I have never——," he
laughed. "What should you think it was worth?"
The duke ought, if he had answered truthfully, to have replied,
"Rather less than nothing," but he feigned to meditate severely, then
said:
"If fifty pounds——."
Poor Lisle gasped.
"You—you think—I was going to say twenty."
"We will say fifty," said the duke, as if he were making an excellent
bargain. "You have not finished it yet."
"No, no," assented Lisle, eagerly. "I will do so carefully, most
carefully. It—it shall be the most finished picture I have ever
painted."
"I am sure you will do your best," said the duke. "I will accept your
kind invitation to see your other pictures, and now I must be getting
back. Good-morning."
"Yes, yes! Good-morning! What did you say your name was?"
"Temple," said the duke.
He glanced at Leslie, raised his hat, was helped into his chair by
Grey, who had stood immovable and impassive just out of hearing,
and was wheeled away.
Lisle stood all of a quiver for a moment, then beckoned to Leslie.
"What is it, dear," she said, soothingly, as she saw his agitation. Had
the crippled stranger told him what the sketch was really like?
"That—that gentleman has bought the picture, Leslie!" he exclaimed,
in a tone of nervous excitement and triumph. "You see! I told you
the day would come, and it has come. At last! Luck has taken a turn,
Leslie! I see a great future before me. I only wanted some one with
an appreciative, artistic eye, and this Mr.—Mr. Temple is evidently
possessed of one. He saw the value of this at once. I noticed his
face change directly he looked at it."
Leslie's face gradually grew red.
"What—what has he given you for it, dear?" she asked.
"Fifty pounds!" exclaimed Lisle, exultingly. "Fifty pounds! It may not
be as much as it is worth; but it is a large sum to us, and I am
satisfied, more than satisfied! I wonder what he will do with it? Do
you think he will let me exhibit it? I will ask him—not just now, but
when it is finished. I must finish it at once! Where is my olive green?
I have left it at home. Bring it for me, Leslie; it is on the side table."
She went without a word. At the corner of the street she overtook
the invalid chair, hesitated a moment, walked on, and then came
back.
The duke peered up at her from under his brows.
"I want to speak to you," she said, her breath coming and going
quickly.
He motioned to Grey to withdraw out of hearing, and struggling to
keep her voice steady, Leslie went on:
"I want to thank you—but, oh, why did you do it? I know—you know
that it—it is not worth it—why?"
The duke smiled.
"Do not distress yourself, Miss Lisle," he said, gently. "You refer to
my purchase of your father's picture?"
"Yes!" she said, in a troubled voice. "It was kind of you, and it has
given him, oh! you cannot tell what pleasure."
"Yes, I think I can. It is not the money."
"No."
"Just so. I understand. And don't you understand that I have bought
something more than the sketch? Miss Lisle, I'm not the richest man
in England,"—he was just within the truth—"but I can afford the
luxury of bestowing pleasure on my fellow creatures now and again.
Please don't begrudge or deny me that! I have not too many
pleasures," and he glanced downward at his stunted figure. "Of the
two, I fancy I am more pleased than your father. Don't say any
more, and please don't look so heartbroken, or you will rob me of
more than half my satisfaction. Miss Lisle, forgive me, but I think
you love your father?"
"Yes; oh, yes!" she breathed.
"Very well, then," he said. "Be careful you do not let him see that
you think he has got too good a price for his picture. Let him be
happy; happiness comes too seldom for us to turn it aside with a
cold welcome."
Leslie looked down at the worn and lined face with eyes that glowed
with gratitude.
"I—I can't thank you, Mr. Temple!" she said, in a low voice, that
thrilled like some exquisite music. "You have made me happy, and—
ah, I can't tell you what I feel!" and she trembled and turned up the
street.
The duke looked after her with a wistful expression on his pale face.
"She is an angel!" he murmured.
Then his face changed, grew harder and cynical.
"Yes, an angel at present," he said. "But tell her that I am the Duke
of Rothbury, and she will become transformed into a harpy, and
want to marry me, like the rest. Grey, where are you! Have you gone
to sleep? Are you going to keep me here all day?"
 CHAPTER VI.
TAKING A SAIL.
The moon rose early that evening and flooded Portmaris with a light
that transformed it, already picturesque enough, into a fairy village
beside an enchanted ocean. Leslie sat at the open window of her
room, her head resting on her hand, her eyes fixed on the sea, now
calmly rippling as if it were rocking itself to sleep in the moonbeams.
Her father had gone to bed, early as it was, worn out with his long
day's work and the excitement produced by the sale of his picture,
and Leslie was free to recall the events of the day.
Her life hitherto had been so gray and sober, so uneventful, that the
incidents which had been crowded into this day had almost
bewildered her.
She ought, in common fairness to that individual, have thought first
and most of Ralph Duncombe; but it was upon that other young
man who had plunged into the waves to reach Dick that her mind
was fixed.
Beauty, man's beauty, doesn't count much with women; indeed, it
has been remarked by the observant that some of the ugliest men
have married the prettiest girls, and it was not Yorke's handsome
face which had impressed Leslie. It would be hard to say exactly
what it was in him that had done so; perhaps it was the frank smile,
the free and musical laugh, that devil-may-care air of his, or the
pleasant voice which seemed to float in through the window upon
the moonbeams, and find an echo in Leslie's heart. Once or twice
she tried to cast him out of her mind. There seemed to her
something almost approaching unmaidenliness in dwelling so much
upon this stranger; the young man whom she had seen for only a
few minutes, and whom she might never see again. Why, she did
not even know his name, or at any rate only a part of it. "Yorke," Mr.
Temple had called him, and she murmured it absently. "Yorke." It
seemed to her to fit him exactly. It had a brave, alert sound in it.
She could fancy him ready for any danger, any emergency. He had
plunged into the waves after Dick, as if it were quite a matter of
course that he should do so, had done it as naturally as if there were
no other course open to him. She could see him now, as he came
out, with Dick in his arms, his hair plastered on his face, his eyes
bright and laughing.
And how anxious he had been to avoid any thanks or fuss! It was
wicked of him, of course, to tell a story and account for his besoaked
condition by stating that he had fallen off the breakwater—Leslie
smiled as she thought of the thinness of the excuse—but she
understood why he had fibbed, and—forgave him.
"Don't you like this Mr. Yorke, Dick?" she said to Dick, who lay in a
contented coil on her lap. "You ought to do so, for if it had not been
for him you would be at the bottom of the sea, little doggie, by this
time."
Probably Dick would have liked to have retorted, "And if it hadn't
been for him I shouldn't have gone in at all."
Then her thoughts wandered to the crippled hunchback, and her
heart thrilled with gratitude as she thought of his kindness; Mrs.
Whiting had said that he was a nobleman, but there had evidently
been a mistake; very likely the simple-minded landlady had
concluded that no one traveling with a man-servant could be less
than a man of title.
Leslie thought of the two men—but most of "Yorke"—and all they
had said and done for some time before Ralph Duncombe insisted
upon his share in her reflections, and as she thought of him she
sighed. She pitied him, and was sorry for him, but she did not want
to see him again. He had frightened as well as touched her by the
passionate avowal which had accompanied the ring.
The ring! She had utterly forgotten it! She put her hand to her
pocket, turned it out, but the ring was not there. What had she done
with it? It was fast closed in her hand, she remembered, when she
heard Dick's piteous yap; and then she had sprung up, and run
down the beach. She must have dropped it among the pebbles.
Her heart smote her reproachfully. The least she could do in return
for the passionate love Ralph Duncombe had lavished so uselessly
upon her was to keep his ring! She rose, troubled and remorseful.
The tide had been going out when she dropped it; it was not likely
that it would be seen by any one, and it was probably lying where it
had fallen. She seemed to see the plain gold circlet lying there in the
silent night, neglected and despised.
Her hat and jacket lay on the bed; she snatched them up, put them
on hastily, and left the house.
A light burned behind the windows of Marine Villa opposite, and she
glanced up at it, trying to picture to herself the two men in the
sitting-room; the one so strong and stalwart, the other so weak and
crippled.
As she went quickly down the street she was conscious of a new and
strange feeling; it was half pleasant, half painful. It seemed to her as
if some spirit of change had entered her quiet, peaceful, uneventful
life, as if she were on the verge of some novel experience. The
feeling disquieted her. She looked up at the stars almost hidden by
the haze of the glorious light thrown broadcast by the moon, and
there came into her mind some verses—they were from the Persian,
though she did not know it—which she had seen under a picture in
one of the Academy exhibitions—

"Love is abroad to-night; his wings

Beat softly at Heaven's gate!"

Murmuring the musical lines, she passed to the quay, and leaping
lightly onto the beach, made her way to the breakwater.
At nine o'clock Portmaris, as a rule, goes to bed.
No one was stirring; the street, the quay, were empty. The tide was
far out now, and the sands lay a golden beat between sea and
beach, unbroken save where at the very margin of the lapping
wavelets a boat lay at anchor.
Not even a greater enthusiast than Francis Lisle could have desired a
more delicious picture than she made flitting slowly yet lightly over
the beach, her graceful figure casting a long shadow behind her.
"Night is youth's season," says the poet, and Leslie's heart was
beating to-night with a strange pulsation.
She reached the spot where she had sat with Ralph Duncombe's ring
in her hand, and going down on one knee searched carefully. The
bright light revealed every pebble, and, convinced at last that it was
not there, but that she must have held it until she had run some way
down the sands, before she dropped it, she rose from her knees
with a sigh, and was going back when she saw a man's form lying
full length on the top of the breakwater.
It was a young fisherman apparently, for he was clad in the tight-
fitting blue jersey and long sea boots, and wore the red woolen cap
common to men and boys in Portmaris. He was stretched out full
length with his head resting on his arms, his face upturned, perfectly
still and motionless.
It occurred to Leslie that he might have picked up the ring, and, well
aware that his class was as honest as the day she went up to him,
saying:
"Have you found a ring on the beach, just here?"
The man did not answer nor move, and when she got quite up to
him she saw that he was asleep.
She saw, too, something else; that it was not a Portmaris fisherman,
but the young man whom Mr. Temple had called "Yorke."
With a sudden rush of crimson to her face she was about to beat a
retreat when Yorke started slightly, opened his eyes, and stared up
at her.
The next instant he was off the breakwater and on his feet.
"By George!" he exclaimed, with a bated breath. "It is you, Miss
Lisle!"
"Yes, it is I," said Leslie as calmly and composedly as she could, and
from the effort for composure her voice sounded rather cold.
"I beg your pardon. Of course it is. But——," he hesitated a
moment. "Well, the fact is, I was dreaming about you——." He
stopped, as if he were afraid he had given offense.
But Leslie smiled.
"It must have been an uncomfortable dream," she said, glancing at
the breakwater.
"No," he said. "I was never more comfortable in my life. I'm more
used to roughing it than you'd think. I suppose it was the beauty of
the night that tempted you as it tempted me?" he went on, with his
frank eyes on her face.
Leslie looked down. She could not ask him the question she had put
to the supposed fisherman—if he had found her ring, of course, he
would give it to her.
"Yes," she said.
"I told Dolph it was too good to sit indoors," he went on. "That's my
cousin, the man you saw to-day, you know."
"Mr. Temple?" said Leslie.
"Mr.—yes, Mr. Temple," he assented, after a moment's hesitation.
"And I tried to lure him out; but he doesn't care about stirring after
dinner, poor old chap——," he broke off with a laugh. "You are
looking at my get-up?" he said.
Leslie smiled.
"I suppose you took me for one of the marine monsters who abound
here. Fact is, I found my things wetter than I supposed——."
"I knew you would!" said Leslie, with an air of gentle triumph.
"Yes, and as I hadn't a change with me I borrowed a suit from the
landlady's boy; a 'boy' about six feet high. I fancy I rather upset my
cousin's man sitting down to dinner in 'em; but they're astonishingly
comfortable. I'm half inclined to take to them as a regular thing.
After all, one might be worse than a fisherman, Miss Lisle."
"Very much," said Leslie, with a smile.
"Oh, you're surely not going!" he said, as she half turned toward the
quay. "It's far better out here than indoors; and it's early, too. Won't
you walk across the sand to the edge of the sea? It's quite dry."
He moved in that direction as he spoke, and Leslie, with a twinge of
conscience, moved also.
"It's a pity all life can't be a moonlight night," he said, after a pause,
and with a faint sigh. "By George, it would be grand on the water to-
night. There's just enough wind to keep a boat going—and there's a
boat!" he exclaimed, pointing to the boat lying at anchor at the edge
of the water as if he had made a discovery which was to render this
weary world happy for evermore. "What do you say to going for a
little sail, Miss Lisle?"
He put the question very much as one truant from school might put
it to another, only a little more timorously.
"It would be splendid, a thing to be remembered. Oh, don't say no!
I've set my heart upon it——."
"Why should you not go?" said Leslie, trying to smile, and to keep
from her eyes the wistful longing which his audacious suggestion
had aroused.
"By myself!" he said, reproachfully, and with a kind of high-minded
wonder. "I wouldn't be so selfish. Come, Miss Lisle—I—I mean we—
may never have another chance like this. You don't get such nights
as this in England often. And you need not be nervous. I can
manage a boat in half a gale. But never mind if you think you
wouldn't be safe."
This may have been a stroke of artfulness or pure ingenuousness; it
settled the matter.
"I have never been afraid in my life—that I remember," said Leslie,
conscientiously.
"Then that settles it!" he said, in that tone of free joyousness which
appeals to a woman more than any tone a man can use. "Here we
are—and by Jove, here's a real sea-monster asleep in the boat.
Hallo, there!" he called out to an old man who lay curled up in the
bottom of the boat.
Leslie laughed softly.
"It is of no use calling to him," she said. "He is stone deaf. It is old
Will, and he is waiting for the turn of the tide."
"Like a good many more of us," said Yorke, cheerfully, and he was
about to shake the man, but Leslie put her hand on his arm and
stayed him.
"I—I think I had better wake him," she said. "He is old, and not very
good-tempered, and——."
"I see. All right," said Yorke. "I'll keep here in the background. If he
refuses to go tell him we'll take his boat and do without him."
Leslie bent over the gunwale, and touched the old man gently. He
stirred after a moment or two, and got up on his elbow, frowning at
her.
Leslie indicated by expressive pantomime that they wanted to go for
a sail, and, after glancing at the sky and at Yorke, the old fellow
nodded surlily, and got out of the boat.
Yorke helped him to push the boat into the water.
"And now how are you going to get in?" he said to Leslie, but before
she could answer the question old Will took her in his arms and
carried her bodily into the boat.
Leslie smiled.
"He is a very self-willed old man, and no one in Portmaris interferes
with or contradicts him, perhaps because he is deaf."
"I see," said Yorke. "I never realized until to-night the great
advantages of that affliction."
He went forward as he spoke to assist with the sail, but the old man
surlily waved him back into the stern.
"All right, William, I'll steer then," he said; but he had no sooner got
hold of the tiller than Will angrily signed to him to release it, and
pointed to Leslie.
"I think he wants me to steer," she said, with a faint blush. "I am
often out sailing with him."
"He evidently regards me as a land lubber, whatever that is," said
Yorke. "But, right! the password for to-night is, 'Don't cross old
William!'"
He dropped down at her feet and leaned his head upon his hand,
and sighed with supreme, unbounded content, and there was silence
for a few minutes as the boat glided out to sea; then he said:
"Do you think old William would fly into a paroxysm of rage if I
offered him a pipe of tobacco, Miss Lisle?"
"You might try," said Leslie, and the tone of her voice was like an
echo of his. The two truants were enjoying themselves, and had no
thought of the schoolmaster—just then.
Yorke took out his pouch, and flung it with dextrous aim into the old
man's lap. He took it up, glowered at the donor for a moment, then
nodded surlily, and, filling his pipe, pitched the pouch back.
"We still live!" said Yorke, and he was about to fill his own pipe, but
remembered himself and stopped.
"Please smoke if you wish to," said Leslie, "I do not mind. We must
not go far," she added.
"Not farther than Quebec or, say, Boulogne," said Yorke. "All right,
Miss Lisle, we'll turn directly you say so. How delightful this is! I may
have been happier in the course of an ill-spent life, but I don't
remember it. Are you sorry you came? Please answer truthfully, and
don't mind my feelings."
But Leslie did not answer. The strange feeling which had haunted
her as she left the house was growing more distinct and defiant,
stronger and more aggressive. Was it really she, Leslie Lisle, who
was sailing over the moonlit sea with this careless and light-hearted
young man, or should she wake presently in her tiny room in Sea
View and find it all a dream?
Happy? Was this novel sensation, as of some vague undefined joy,
happiness or what?
She was wise to leave the question unanswered!
Yorke smoked in silence for a minute or two, then he turned on his
elbow so that he could look up at her.
"Miss Lisle," he said, "were you looking for something when you
came down the beach just now? I ask because I thought you looked
rather troubled——."
"But you were asleep!" said Leslie.
He colored, and his eyes dropped.
"I've given myself away," he said, penitently. "No, Miss Lisle, I wasn't
asleep. But I thought it better to pretend, as the children say, lest
you should take fright and run away."
Leslie looked away from him.
"You are angry? Well, it serves me right. But don't think of it. Try
and forgive me if you can, for I was half asleep, and I was dreaming
of you—there, I've offended you again! But don't you know how you
can dream though you are wide awake? I was wondering whether I
should see you again—there was no harm in that, was there?—
wondering whether I should have seen you or spoken to you at all if
it hadn't been for Dick——. By the way, how is Dick?"
"He is all right," she said, the tension caused by his former words
suddenly relieved, "but I do not think he will ever forgive you for
saving his life."
"I'm afraid not," he said. "But you have not answered my question
yet."
"Which one?" asked Leslie, with a smile.
"Whether you had lost anything," he said.
"Yes, I had," she replied, in a low voice.
He put his hand in his waistcoat-pocket, and took out the ring and
held it up.
"Is this it?" he said, and his voice was suddenly grave and serious.
Leslie took it from his fingers.
"Thank you. Yes," she said. "Where did you find it?"
He was silent a moment as if lost in thought, then he said, as if with
an effort:
"On the beach; just where you had been sitting this afternoon. You
dropped it, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Leslie.
There was a pause.
"You are glad to get it back?"
"Yes," she said, looking straight in front of her.
"An old favorite, Miss Lisle?" his eyes fixed on the beautiful face over
which the moonbeams fell lovingly.
"N-o," she said, the faint color creeping into her cheeks.
"No! But you were glad to get it back. You didn't seem so very glad,
you know."
"No, I was not so very glad," she said, almost inaudibly.
He seemed relieved, and yet rather doubtful still.
"It's singular," he said. "But this is the second thing of yours I have
found to-day."
"Yes."
"And they say that if you find two things in one day you are sure to
lose something yourself," he murmured, a serious, intent look
coming into his dark eyes.
"But the day has gone, and you have not lost anything!" said Leslie,
with a smile.
His eyes dropped from his intense regard of her face.
"I am not so sure!" he said.
Did she hear him?
 CHAPTER VII.
THE DUKE'S SNEERS.
The boat sails on. Leslie has no mother to watch over her and warn
her of sinning against the great goddess Propriety; and as there is
no harm to him who thinks none, Leslie is not troubled by
conscience because she is out sailing on this Heaven sent evening
with a young man and only deaf William for chaperon.
Perhaps this is because of the peculiar nature of the young man.
There is no shyness about Yorke, and his manner is just of that kind
to inspire confidence; he treats Leslie with a mixture of frankness
and respect which could not be greater if he had known her for
years instead of a few hours only; and it is but fair to add that his
manner toward a duchess would be just the same.
He is happy, is enjoying himself to the utmost, and he assuredly
does not trouble his head about the proprieties. But all the same, he
is silent after that last remark of his, which Leslie may or may not
have heard.
He is lying across the boat, so that without much effort he can see
her face. What a lovely face it is, he thinks, and how thoughtful. Is
she thinking of that letter he gave her, or of the ring? And who gave
her that? It ought not to matter to him, and yet the question worries
him not a little. He dismisses it with a half audible "Heigh-ho!"
"I suppose these are what are called dancing waves?" he says at
last. "Are you fond of dancing, Miss Leslie? But of course you are."
Leslie lets her dark gray eyes fall on his handsome upturned face as
if she had been recalled to earth.
"Oh, yes," she says. "All women are, are they not? But I do not get
much dancing. It is years since I was at a party. My father is not
strong, and dislikes going out, and—well, there is no one else to go
with me; besides, I should not leave him."
He nods thoughtfully, and some idea of what her life must be dawns
upon him.
"You must lead a very quiet life," he says.
Leslie smiles.
"Yes, very, very quiet," she assents.
"What do you do to amuse yourself?" he asks.
Leslie thinks a moment.
"Oh," she says, cheerfully, and without a shadow of discontent in her
voice or in her face, "I take walks, when my father does not want
me, but he usually likes me to stay with him while he is painting;
and sometimes William takes me for a sail, and there is the piano.
My father likes me to play while he is at work; but when he does not
I read."
"And is that all?" he says, raising himself on his elbow that he may
better see her face.
"All?" she repeats. "What else is there? It seems a great deal."
He does not answer, but he thinks of the women he knows, the idle
women who are always restless and discontented unless they are
deep in some excitement, riding, driving, ball and theater going; and
as he thinks of the difference between their lives and this girl's,
there rises in his breast a longing to brighten her life if only for a few
hours a day.
"Well," he says, "it sounds rather slow. And—and have you led this
kind of life long?"
"As long as I can remember," replies Leslie. "Papa and I have been
alone together ever since I was a little mite, and—yes, it has always
been the same."
"And you never go to a theater, a dance, a concert?"
Leslie laughs softly.
"Never is a big word," she says. "Oh, yes, when we are in London
my father sometimes but very seldom takes me to a theater, and
now and again there are dances at the boarding houses we stay at."
Yorke almost groans. How delightful it would be to take this beautiful
young creature for a whole round of theaters, to see her dressed in
full war paint, to watch those dark gray eyes light up with pleasant
and girlish joy.
"And which are you most fond of?" he asks. "Walking, sailing,
playing, reading?"
She thinks again.
"I don't know. I'm very fond of the country, and enjoy my walks, but
then I am also fond of sailing, and music, and reading. Do you know
the country round here?"
He shakes his head.
"No, I only came to-day, you know."
"Ah, yes," she says, and she says it with a faint feeling of surprise; it
seems to her as if he had been here at Portmaris for a week at least.
"There is a very lovely place called St. Martin; it is about twelve
miles out. There is an old castle, or the remains of one, and from
the top of it you can see—well, nearly all the world, it seems."
"That must be worth going to," he says, and an idea strikes him.
"My cousin—I mean Mr. Temple, you know—would like to see that."
"Yes," says Leslie. "But he could not walk so far."
"No. Do you mean to say you can?"
Leslie laughs softly.
"Oh, yes; I have walked there and back several times."
"You must be very strong!"
"Yes, I think I am. I am always well; yes, I suppose I am strong."
He still sighs at her; the graceful figure is so slight that he finds it
difficult to realize her doing twenty-four miles. The women he knows
would have a fit at the mere thought of such an undertaking.
"I think to-morrow is going to be a fine day," he says, looking up at
the cloudless sky with a business-like air.
"Yes," says Leslie, as if she were first cousin to the clerk of the
weather. "It's going to be fine to-morrow."
"Well, then," he says, "I'll try and get something and drive my cousin
over to—what's the name of the place with the castle?"
"St. Martin."
"Yes. The worst of it is that he—I mean my cousin, and not St.
Martin—so soon gets bored if he hasn't some one more amusing
than I am to keep him company; you see, he's an invalid, and
crotchety."
"Poor fellow!" murmurs Leslie. "And yet he is so kind and generous,"
she adds as she thinks of the fifty pounds he has given for the
"picture."
"Yes, indeed!" he assents. "The best fellow that ever drew breath,
for all his whims and fancies; and he can't help having those, you
know. He would like to go to St. Martin to-morrow, especially if you
—do you think we could persuade you and Mr. Lisle to accompany
us?"
Leslie looks at him almost startled, then the color comes into her
face, and her eyes brighten.
"It would be awfully good-natured of you if you would," he goes on,
quickly, and as if he knew he was demanding a great sacrifice of her
"awfully good nature."
"My father——." Leslie shakes her head. "I am afraid he would not
go; he will want to paint if the day is fine."
"He can paint at St. Martin," he breaks in, eagerly. "There must be
no end of sketches, studies, whatever you call it, there, you know. I
wish you'd ask him! It would do my cousin so much good, and—
and," the arch hypocrite falters as he meets the innocent, eagerly
wistful eyes, "though I dare say you won't care for the dusty drive,
and have seen quite enough of the place, still, you'd be doing a
good action, don't you know, and—all that. It will cheer my cousin
up sooner than anything."
"Very well," says Leslie. "I will ask my father. But it will not matter if
we do not go. You must persuade Mr. Temple."
"Mr. ——. Oh, my cousin, yes," he says, with sudden
embarrassment. "Yes, of course. Thank you! It is awfully good of
you."
Leslie looks at him, her color deepening; then she laughs softly.
"Why, I want to go, too!" she says. "There is no goodness in it."
Yorke Auchester's glance falls before her guileless eyes.
"Then that settles it," he says, confidently. "What point is that out
there, Miss Lisle?"
Leslie starts.
"That is Ragged Points!" she replies. "I had no idea we had come so
far; please tell him I am going to put the boat round; it must be very
late!"
"No, it isn't," he says. "I can tell by the moon. Can't we go a little
farther?"
But she ports the helm, and old William, without a word, swings the
sail over, and the boat's nose is pointing to land.
Yorke looks at Portmaris, asleep in the moonlight, regretfully.
"That's the worst of being thoroughly happy and comfortable," he
says. "It always comes to an end and you have to come back. What
a pace we are going, too!" he adds, almost in a tone of complaint.
"The wind is with us," says Leslie.
"I should like to stay at Portmaris and buy a boat," he says, after a
moment or two. "It would be very jolly."
Leslie smiles.
"It is not always fine even at Portmaris," she says. "Sometimes the
waves are mountain high, and the sea runs up over the quay as if it
meant to wash the village away."
"Well, I shouldn't mind that," he remarks. "I wonder why one lives in
London? One is always grunting at and slanging it, and yet one
hangs on there." He sighs inaudibly as he thinks of what it must be
to-night, with its feverish crowd, its glaring lights, its yelling cabmen
and struggling horses; thinks of the folly, and, alas! the wickedness,
and glances at the lovely, peaceful face above him with a great
yearning—and regret.
"I like London," says Leslie. "But then I go there so seldom, that it is
a holiday place to me."
"I know," he responds. "Yes, I can understand that. And I like
Portmaris because it is a holiday place to me, I suppose."
Leslie smiles.
"I hope you will not catch cold and be all the worse for this holiday,"
she says.
He laughs.
"There is no fear of that. I never felt better in my life."
"You must sit firm now," she warns him. "I am going to drive the
boat on to the sand."
"Here already!" he remarks, as the keel of the boat touches bottom,
and the sails run down with a musical thud; and he steps over the
side, and so suddenly that the boat lurches over after him.
He puts out his strong arm to stay her from falling, while old William
curses the "land lubber" in accents low but deep.
"I'm about as awkward in a small boat as a hippopotamus," he says,
remorsefully. "Will you let me help you ashore?"
He means "carry you," and he holds out his arms, but Leslie shrinks
back ever so slightly, and old William comes to the side of the boat
and picks her up as a matter of course.
Yorke slips a sovereign into the old man's horny palm, and William,
who is not dumb as well as deaf, would probably open his lips now,
but for astonishment and amazed delight. He does, however, grin.
As the two walk up the beach Yorke looks behind him at the moonlit
sea and the boats, and shakes his head.
"It was a shame to come in," he says, "but never mind, perhaps
——." He stops, not daring to finish the sentence, but he feels as if
he would cheerfully give half the amount of the check in his pocket
for such another sail in the same company.
The quay is empty, the street silent, but as they go up it they see
the crippled "Mr. Temple" leaning against the door of Marine Villa.
His keen eyes rest upon them both good-naturedly.
"Where have you been?" he asks.
"Where you ought to have been, Dolph," replies Yorke. "On the
water. You can't imagine what it is like."
"Oh, yes, I can," says the duke. "But I am—too old for moonlight
sails. I am a day-bird. Have you enjoyed it, Miss Lisle?"
Leslie smiles for answer.
"Look here, Dolph," says Yorke, with affected carelessness. "What do
you say to driving out to a place called St. Martin to-morrow? I'm
going to try and persuade Miss Lisle and her father to show us the
way."
The duke looks at her.
"I shall be very glad," he says. "Will you come, Miss Lisle?"
"If my father——," begins Leslie, and the duke interrupts her.
"We ought to send a formal invitation," he says, with a smile. "Will
you give Mr. Lisle our compliments, Miss Lisle, and tell him how
much the Duke of Rothbury and Mr. Temple will be indebted to him if
you and he will accompany them on a drive to-morrow."
Leslie looks from one to the other for a moment as if she did not
understand. The Duke of Rothbury! Can he be jesting?
The duke struggles with a smile as he sees her astonishment, then
he says, casually:
"I hope you found the duke a good sailor, Miss Lisle."
Leslie glances at Yorke, who stands staring at his fishermen's boots,
with a moody and not well pleased expression on his face.
"I nearly upset the boat," he says, as if to account for his change of
countenance.
"It did not matter," she says. "We were on the sands. Yes, I will tell
my father, and—thank you very much."
If the duke expected her to be overwhelmed by the announcement
of the title he is doomed to disappointment. The first sensation of
surprise over, Leslie is as calm and self-possessed as before.
"Good-night," she says, in her sweet, low voice, and a moment
afterward the door of Sea View is closed upon her.
The duke looked at his cousin's downcast face with a whimsical
smile.
"How well she took it!" he said. "A London girl of the most
accomplished type could not have concealed her flutters with greater
ease."
"She had nothing to conceal," said Yorke, with averted eyes. "It
didn't matter to her that—that you called me a duke. Why should it?"
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