Olivia

Faradeane rode home slowly through the wood. It was well for him that his horse was sure-footed, and picked its way safely through the undergrowth, for its master rode like a man who has suddenly lost his sense of sight and hearing. Unguided, the animal bore him to the gate, and then Faradeane, with an effort, raised his head and threw off the kind of lethargy which had held him.

He threw the bridle to his man and entered the cottage. As he did so, Bertie sprang out of a chair to meet him, with an eager, anxious expression; then he stopped short and uttered an exclamation of dismay.

“Great Heavens! are you ill?”

Faradeane closed the door carefully, and dropped his hat on the table.

“No—that is, yes; it’s of no consequence.” He went to the sideboard and drank some wine. “I—I beg your pardon; help yourself. You’ll want it,” he added, not unfeelingly, but with a sad, decisive air.

“Then—then you’ve seen her?” faltered Bertie. “I thought you would go to her this morning. You have seen her——”

“Yes, I have seen her,” assented Faradeane, dryly.

“And—but there is no need to ask you the result,” breathed Bertie, like a man resolved not to show the agony that is devouring him.

“My face is that of an unsuccessful ambassador, is it? Yes, my mission has failed, Cherub. I am sorry.”

Bertie turned his back to him and was silent for a moment; then he said, hoarsely:

“What did she say? Tell me.”

“What did she say?” repeated Faradeane, dropping into a chair and passing his hand over his brow with a weary gesture, as a smile of bitter self-mockery shone for a moment in his eyes. “I don’t know. What does it matter?”

“You don’t know?” echoed Bertie, turning to him. “For Heaven’s sake, try and remember! I—I can bear it, whatever it was. Did she laugh?” and his lips quivered.

“Laugh! No, she didn’t laugh much,” replied Faradeane, grimly, as the vision of the slim, graceful form lying full length in its abandon of misery rose before him.

“Then she took it seriously? What did you say to her, Faradeane?”

“I said all I could. I did my best. Believe that, Bertie. I can’t tell you what I said, but I pleaded as if”—he paused, and his lips came together tightly—“as if I were pleading for myself. I could do no more. Would to Heaven I had not done so much!” bitterly.

“And what did she reply? Did she say ‘No’ straight out?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“Then there is—there may be some hope! You took her by surprise; she was frightened, perhaps. She’ll think it over,” said Bertie, excitedly.

Faradeane rose and laid his hand on his shoulder, firmly, yet, pityingly.

“Cherub, there is no hope,” he said, in a low, grave voice. “I should be your bitterest enemy, instead of your best friend, if I allowed you to think that there was. There is none. Accept it, Bertie, once and for all. Be a man; there is no hope—there never has been. If you had pleaded for yourself, if an angel had pleaded for you, instead of me, it would have been the same.”

“She—she never cared for me?”

“Yes, she cares for you as a sister cares for a brother. Be content with that——”

“Content!” Bertie burst out. “Content! You are mad, Faradeane!”

“I dare say,” was the calm, sad assent. “We are all more or less mad, Cherub; but I would rather be loved as a brother by Olivia—Miss Vanley—than as a husband by any other woman——”

He stopped abruptly, and Bertie stared at him.

“You can’t know what love—such love as mine—is!” he said.

Faradeane smiled.

“Perhaps not,” he said, grimly.

“I tell you—but what is the use of talking? Faradeane, my life is ruined. I don’t care what becomes of me. I staked everything upon her; I loved her as no man ever loved a woman before. I—oh, old fellow, tell me the truth! Is there no hope for me?”

Faradeane shook his head.

“Not a fragment,” he said, solemnly.

“If I—if I went to her myself——”

“As you should have done at first,” said Faradeane, grimly. “Would to Heaven you had. No, Bertie, none. Don’t go to her. Accept my report. Why should you harass her? I tell you that there is no more chance of her marrying you than there is of her marrying—the Sultan of Mocha. Be a man, Cherub. There are other women——”

Bertie put up his hand.

“Don’t,” he said, wincing. “I can’t bear that anyhow. I’m—I’m very grateful to you, old fellow. You did what few men would have done, what I would have asked no other man to do, and—and I’m grateful. Even now, crushed and knocked out of time as I am, I can scarcely realize it. I thought she might not consent right away, that she might say she’d think it over——”

“There was no occasion for her to do that,” said Faradeane, grimly.

Bertie looked up sharply.

“You mean that there was—some one else?” he said, with the acuteness of a man whose nerves are on the rack.

Faradeane nodded.

“There is! Who—who is it?”

“Mr. Bartley Bradstone.”

Bertie groaned.

“That fellow! Merciful Heaven! Bradstone! Oh, Faradeane!”

“You are surprised?”

“Yes; surprised is not the word. Why—why, I never thought that she would accept him. I knew he was pursuing her, but I never thought—if I had any fear at all, and it only came to me while I was waiting here, it was that it was you she might care for.”

Faradeane’s face went white.

“It is you who are mad,” he said, sternly.

“Forgive me,” pleaded Bertie, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. “But I’ve seen her with both you and him; and I’ve heard her speak to him, seen her look at him as if she disliked him, while to you she was all smiles.”

Faradeane sprang to his feet.

“That will do!” he said, in a low, harsh voice. “You are scarcely accountable for your words to-day, Bertie; but don’t you see, great heavens, man, how you are giving her away? Is Miss Vanley the kind of woman to engage herself to one man while she is in love——Bah! pull yourself together, and face the inevitable like a man,” and he paced to and fro impatiently.

Bertie hid his face in his hands, then he looked up.

“Faradeane, I’m sorry I should have said what I did, and yet I could have borne it better if—if it had been you, instead of him. You are—well, you are yourself, and are worthy of her.”

Faradeane stopped and put up his hand with a bitter laugh.

“Worthy! I!” he said, in an undertone.

“Yes,” said Bertie, stubbornly. “In all this—this mystery that hangs about you, I know how worthy you are; I could have borne it, I could have looked forward to the time when I could have cared for her as a sister, and—but this man! Why, Faradeane, has she ever looked at him or spoken to him at all pleasantly? Hasn’t she snubbed him and treated him in such a way as would have made you and me go and cut our throats?”

“That’s a woman’s way,” said Faradeane, grimly; “to treat a man like a dog and then—marry him.”

“But not hers!” responded Bertie, with earnest conviction. “You don’t know Olivia as well as I do.” Faradeane smiled sadly. “She has none of the unwomanly meannesses. No, there is some other reason.”

Faradeane stopped short and looked at him.

“Do you mean to say that it is because the man is rich?”

Bertie shook his head.

“Heaven knows that can’t be the reason. The squire is a rich man; the estate——”

“Besides,” said Faradeane, more to himself than Bertie, “that would be a reason for accepting you!”

Bertie colored and shook his head.

“No it wouldn’t. Everybody knows how poor we Carfields are. My father has been retrenching for years.”

Faradeane shrugged his shoulders.

“We might talk till the moon turned black,” he said, “and still be far enough away from her motives. The question is, what will you do?”

“What can I do?” replied Bertie. “There is only one thing left for me to do; to get away from here as soon as possible, and to fight out the battle as best I can. I shall start at once.”

“Where to?”

“To—to the devil!” responded Bertie, desperately.

Faradeane laid a strong hand on each of his shoulders, and looked him full in the face with a steadfast gaze.

“No, not in that direction, Cherub,” he said. “There is no forgetfulness to be found in that gentleman’s company. That way, indeed, madness lies. Be a man, dear boy. Other men have suffered——” He paused. “Well, yes, some of us have suffered worse pangs than are torturing you just this minute, and we have gone whither you said. Some of us have come back with much difficulty; others have remained, and gone down to the unfathomable pit. Take the word of a man who was lucky enough to draw back in time; there is no comfort to be found in that direction. If you must go, take my advice and go out into the wilds. There is nothing like Nature. She is the one universal mother of consolation. Go and seek her in her wildest aspect; go and have a shot at some big game—Africa—the Rockies—anywhere you can find room to fight your battle in. And then—when you have won—come back and learn that there is no sorrow that time cannot teach you to forget, no wound it cannot heal.”

“My life is over,” said Bertie. “The best thing I can do is to try and get rid of it.”

“Well, yes, so it is,” said Faradeane, with a sad smile. “And you’ll find that the very first moment that is likely to occur you will cling to that same life pretty tightly. Ah, Cherub, don’t think I am unfeeling. I know—I tell you I know, how you feel!” and his hands pressed his shoulders soothingly. “Good-by, dear lad. You’ve one thing on your side—youth. You’ll still be young when you come back and tell me that you have found your heart again, and—lost it to some one else.”

Bertie bit his lip, and forced the tears back from his eyes, for there was something inexpressively touching in Faradeane’s words and tone.

“Good-by, old fellow,” he said, taking his hat, “I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you. When I look back and remember how constantly you have been my friend; how, many and many a time, you have lifted me out of a scrape, it seems hard to part from you. But I’ll go as you advise me. Africa’s the best place, I think,” ruefully. “And you’ll stop here?”

Faradeane nodded.

“For the present, yes.”

Bertie sighed.

“I envy you. You will be near to her, at any rate. Faradeane,” suddenly, “will you do one thing for me?”

“I don’t know; my last promise got me into a scrape that makes me cautious. What is it?”

“It isn’t much. It’s only to—to remember how—how dearly I loved her, and to promise, if anything should happen to her, any trouble, anything wrong, that you will stand her friend, as you have stood mine. You see, I’ve learned to rely on you so much——”

“What is likely to happen to the wife of the wealthy Mr. Bradstone?” said Faradeane, pacing to and fro again, with knit brows. “Well, well, I promise. Is that all?”

“That’s enough!” said Bertie, simply. “Now, good-by.”

“Good-by; be a man, Cherub!”

His white hand closed round the lad’s soft, girlish ones and wrung them; then the two men parted, without another word.