Chapter 20 - Page 2

happiness but his own, and by his act
could wrong none other than himself, he would not have waited to see
what time wrought but have staked his future life upon this die. He had
denied himself and waited, and here he stood in the Long Gallery, and
'twas thrown open and adorned for the coming of my Lady Dunstanwolde.

"I meant an honest thing," he said, gazing out over his fair domain
through a dark mist, it seemed to him. "All my life I have meant
honestly. Why should a man's life go wrong because he himself would act
right?"

The flag fluttered and floated from the battlements of the tower, the
house was beautiful in its air of decorated order and stateliness,
glowing masses of flowers lighted every corner, and tall exotic plants
stood guard about; the faces of lord and lady, dame and knight, in the
pictures seemed to look downward with a waiting gaze. Outside, terraces
and parterres were wonders of late summer brilliancy of bloom, and the
sunshine glowed over all. On the high road from town at this hour the
cavalcades of approaching guests must ride in coach or chariot or on
horseback. When the equipage of the Earl and his Countess passed
through Camylott village, old Rowe would ring a welcoming peal. But my
lord Duke stood still at the window of the Long Gallery where he had
said his tender farewell to his beloved mother before she had left her
home. He was thinking of a grave thing and feeling that the violet eyes
rested upon him again in a soft passion of pity. The thing he thought
of was that which, when his eyes met my Lady Dunstanwolde's, made the
blood pulse through his veins; 'twas that he had known he should some
day see in some woman's eyes, and had told himself would be answer to
the question his being asked; 'twas that he had prayed God he might
see, ay, and had believed and sworn to himself he should see--in this
woman's when he came back to stand face to face with her as lover, if
she would. Well, he had come and seen it, and 'twas in the eyes and
soul of her who was to be his kinsman's wife. And never since he had
been man born had he beheld the faintest glimmering of its glow in any
woman's eyes, though they had been like pools of love or stars of
Heaven, never yet! Moreover, he knew well that he never should again
behold it in any hour to come. Before its fire his soul shook and his
body trembled; 'twas a thing which drew him with a power no human being
could explain the strength of or describe; had he been weak or evil,
and she evil, too, it would have dragged him to her side through crime
and hell; he could not have withstood it.

He saw again the sudden pallor of his mother's sweet face, the sudden
foreboding in her eyes.

"If you loved her