The Golden Silence | Page 5

her father had died, because it seemed the
only thing to do, when suddenly the thought of Stephen had flashed
into her mind, as if sent there by her guardian angel. She had heard that
he was good and charitable to everybody, and once she had seen him
looking at her kindly, in court, as if he were sorry for her, and could
read something of what was in her heart. She had imagined it perhaps.
But would he forgive her for writing to him? Would he help her, and
save her life?
Any one who knew Stephen could have prophesied what his answer
would be. He had hated it when she snatched his hand to kiss at the end
of their interview; but he would scarcely have been a human young

man if he had not felt a sudden tingle of the blood at the touch of such
lips as Margot Lorenzi's. Never had she seemed so beautiful to him
since that first day; but he had called again and again, against his
brother's urgent advice (when he had confessed the first visit); and the
story that the Duchess of Amidon was telling her friends, though
founded entirely on her own imagination of the scene which had
brought about Stephen's undoing, was not very far from the truth.
Now, he saw a picture of Margot as he had seen her in the lodgings she
hated; and he wished to heaven that he might think of her as he had
thought of her then.
"I've got something important to say to you," the girl went on, when she
realized that Stephen intended to dismiss the subject of the hotel, as he
had dismissed the subject of the interview. "That's the reason I wired.
But I won't speak a word till you've told me what your brother and the
Duchess of Amidon think about you and me."
"There's nothing to tell," Stephen answered almost sullenly. And indeed
there was no news of his Cumberland visit which it would be pleasant
or wise to retail.
Margot Lorenzi's complexion was not one of her greatest beauties. It
was slightly sallow, so she made artistic use of a white cosmetic, which
gave her skin the clearness of a camellia petal. But she had been putting
on rather more than usual since her father's death, because it was
suitable as well as becoming to be pale when one was in deep
mourning. Consequently Margot could not turn perceptibly whiter, but
she felt the blood go ebbing away from her face back upon her heart.
"Stephen! Don't they mean to receive me, when we're married?" she
stammered.
"I don't think they've much use for either of us," Stephen hedged, to
save her feelings. "Northmorland and I have never been great pals, you
know. He's twenty years older than I am; and since he married the
Duchess of Amidon----"

"And her money! Oh, it's no use beating about the bush. I hate them
both. Lord Northmorland has a fiendish, vindictive nature."
"Come, you mustn't say that, Margot. He has nothing of the sort. He's a
curious mixture. A man of the world, and a bit of a Puritan----"
"So are you a Puritan, at heart," she broke in.
Stephen laughed. "No one ever accused me of Puritanism before."
"Maybe you've never shown any one else that side of you, as you show
it to me. You're always being shocked at what I do and say."
For that, it was hardly necessary to be a Puritan. But Stephen shrugged
his shoulders instead of answering.
"Your brother is a cold-hearted tyrant, and his wife is a snob. If she
weren't, she wouldn't hang on to her duchess-hood after marrying again.
It would be good enough for me to call myself Lady Northmorland, and
I hope I shall some day."
Stephen's sensitive nostrils quivered. He understood in that moment
how a man might actually wish to strike a nagging virago of a woman,
no matter how beautiful. And he wondered with a sickening heaviness
of heart how he was to go on with the wretched business of his
engagement. But he pushed the question out of his mind, fiercely. He
was in for this thing now. He must go on.
"Let all that alone, won't you?" he said, in a well-controlled tone.
"I can't," Margot exclaimed. "I hate your brother. He killed my father."
"Because he defended the honour of our grandfather, and upheld his
own rights, when Mr. Lorenzi came to England to dispute them?"
"Who knows if they were his rights, or my father's? My father believed
they were his, or he wouldn't have crossed the ocean and spent all his
money in the hope of stepping into your brother's shoes."

There were those--and Lord Northmorland and the Duchess of Amidon