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THE MASTER OF BERYL HEIGHTS
E COULD not have chosen better
words to have won her and wheth
er he knew it or not, or whether
love only made him wise, it is
plain that he esteemed it no slight
thing to have succeeded. He car
ried her hand to his lips but he
let her reclaim it from his clasp
an instant afterwards—the rever-
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ent quality of his love betrayed its sincerity.
But if Lynne had known even herself, that
June day might have vanished into the dark,
unmarked by any stone of remembrance. And
yet, perhaps, it was better as it was, for Gar
net Earl needed the refining control of just
such a character. An inferior girl would only
have done him harm, and if Lynne soared so
far away from him in her exalted ideality,
that while he was not mentally her inferior,
he still had to look up to her in a spiritual and
significant way, it would do him good. His
position in society, together with the impe
rious bent of his nature, inclined him to be
selfish and worldly. He was an aristocrat and
he had the narrow sympathies of one; for
while he could talk about the elevation of the
masses he was content to stand high and dry
on the brink of theories with white idle hands
as the majority of men are of his class, for
Garnet Earl was no unique monster. He
would not have sold his honor for money, or
have trailed the ermine of his name in any
kind of devil’s dirt willingly.
“Lynne, how do you think you will like our
future home?” Garnet asked as they sat
down on the old sofa by the window together
and looked over the broad smiling acres
which constituted such a noble part of his
inheritance.
“I think,” she answered with charming hes
itation, “that Valombrosa is very beautiful.”
“Confess! you like it already better than
Millwood?”
“I!” he had struck a chord that thrilled
under his touch at last; “prefer it to Mill
wood ! never! If I could forget that the dear
old walls had listened to my father’s voice or
echoed my mother’s laughter; if I never re
membered again that it sheltered my deso
late childhood, I should still love it better than
any place on earth. In the shadow of the
old cedars, under the hoary dimness of their
delicate foliage, I have learned lessons which
I will never outgrow.” Then she continued
very softly, “and in the wildest haunts of its
wild, neglected grounds, kneeling among the
fragrant grass billows, I have dreamed
dreams so sublime in their self-abnegation,
that I believe now—and it is pathetically fool
ish, no doubt, to you—that if I had died
dreaming them, I should have awakened in
heaven.”
“Ah! a beautiful supposition; but was it
orthodox ?”
She grew instantly grave. If he did not
understand in such moods he never would
understand her at all. She felt the chill of
the fear, but she did not stop to analyze it.
“It was because of my love for Him,” she
explained with a sorrowful dignity which re
buked him, “from whom all good comes to
us, whether of aspiration or act.”
“Lynne,” he said, after a time, with caress
ing gentleness, “do you feel like you belong
ed to me?”
“No, sir.”
“Wait a moment,” he answered, laughing
softly over the frankness of her reply, “and
I will help you to a realization.”
Then he took from an inner pocket of his
coat a small box; in it there was a ring of
enameled gold whose set caught the light, a
large solitaire diamond. This glittering in
signia of their betrothal he placed upon the
ring finger of her left hand, and cruelly an
ticipated, if he did not enjoy, the blush which
mounted to her brow.
By Odessa Strickland Payne, Author of the “Mission Girl”, “Esther Ferr all’s Experiment”, Etc.
The Golden Age for June 15,1911.
“My darling,” he said, “will you grant me
a request?”
“Yes, Mr. Earl.”
“Then go to the piano and sing me a song,
and leave me here to imagine, while I listen
to you, that the time has already past which
is to part us, and that my home is not a
dream.”
“It was, decidedly, a romantic proposition,
but Lynne being what she was, could only be
more pleased with it on that account. For all
reply she leaned out of the window and pulled
a crimson rose that had been tempting her
for some time from out a nook of leaves. She
left her hat on the quaintly-designed center
table, and placed the rose by some blind ar
tistic instinct becomingly in her hair. She
paused a moment in breathless anxiety, after
she had struck a few preliminary chords, to
see if he had read her thoughts. He had.
“That rose,” he said, almost sadly, “gives
you a home-like look and makes the picture
perfect. Play Annie Laurie, Lynne.”
Garnet bowed his head on his hand while
the clear young voice rose and fell in obedi
ence to his will, and his heart responded fer
vently, if silently, to the quaint and passion
ate declaration with which the song closed.
Later, as they stood outside on the steps,
Garnet stooped dow T n, and with a light but
careful touch, detached the rose from her
hair.
“You must grant me this as a souvenir of
this most perfect hour. And when you come
to Valombrosa as my wife I will give it back
to you, and you shall sing Annie Laurie for
me again.”
And then, with the tears in his eyes, he
bent his head and kissed her. And at that
moment he would have given up every dol
lar of his fortune and every acre of his inher
itance before he would have resigned the
thought of her being his wife.
A little later they rode home through the
lengthening shadows, subdued into happy si
lence. The June day had ended.
CHAPTER XIII.
One, two, five years had slipped away, qui
etly as ships upon a moonlit sea, leaving Beryl
Heights and its inmates apparently little
changed, with one exception. Lynne Hey
wood was a tall young woman now, with the
same wonderful, scintillating eyes and wide,
exquisite mouth, and yet you would scarcely
have recognized her. Her features were clear
cut, with a certain finish and transparency
that suggested carved cameo; indeed all the
sensitive charm of the face seemed to have
settled into high-bred sedateness. One could
not read Miss Heywood’s expression now so
easily; the poet soul so readily electrified in
the old days, that came so quickly to the sur
face in eye and lip, was better disciplined
now. She had grown into a rare and lovely
woman, but by a miracle, for it was the Laza
rus lily of a dead girlhood, buried silently
and bitterly like the first dreams of love and
truth of many of her sex. The remembrance
of the past was a scourge to her for years,
leaden weighted and terrible. But she was
now beyond the reach or power of it forever.
She was sweeter and truer for the suffering
endured, and stronger besides in her self-re
nunciative wisdom, and she knew it. But
she did not know that she looked very lovely
this April afternoon as she sat reading on
the terrace steps at Beryl Heights, and there
was nobody near to tell her. The sun went
down behind the great hill and the mansion
stood defined in ail its old-time beauty against
the soft horizon, when the girl at last re
membered herself and arose. She looked at
the picture with its terraced green and mar
ble foundations for a moment, then laid her
book down on one of the ivy-hung vases near
the walk, and stepped out of the gate.
Straight ahead the road wound away invit-
ingly through the lengthening shadows, on
an on to an evergreen depression between the
hills, where a rustic bridge spanned a small
creek, overhung with water oaks, slender
young maples and broad-branching dogwood.
It was spring, and as Lynne leant on the post
at the end of the bridge and looked down the
creek, the very silence seemed to bud with
leaves and break into blossoms before her,
while the afterglow transfigured the waters
and the heavens. Why or wherefore she
could not tell, but as she leaned there she be
gan to think over her life. How full it had
been of discipline and suffering; how much
she had dreamed and how little realized; and
yet the proud consciousness was hers that
through it all she had tried to be true and
good; always had she clung to the best ideals
and the holiest hopes of her youth.
As she stood thus reflecting, by the broken
railing of the bridge, a picture of slender
grace, with her black dress trailing behind
her, her picturesque hat shading her face,
and the gilded waters at her feet, a horse
man descending the hill saw her. His horse’s
hoof rung upon the planks before she turned
her head, and then the stranger lifted his
hat and courteously said “Good evening.”
She bowed, but as her glance followed the
handsome, well knit figure and lingered on
the profile of his face, she leaned more heav
ily on the frail support which snapped and
gave way—then the water closed above her.
She did not scream, but the gentleman turn
ed at the noise and was surprised to see the
place vacant which but a moment before had
been occupied by a dreaming girl. He saw
her hat floating on the water, then, without
a moment’s hesitation, he pulled off his coat
and plunged into the water. Once, twice,
thrice he dived in vain. The creek was mud
dy, full of sink holes and swollen by recent
rains. As he came up the third time he
glanced under the bridge and was rewarded
by a gleam of a white face, which appeared
only to vanish. He swam under the arch and
dived again. This time he rose heavily bur
dened with the dripping form of the insen
sible girl. He grasped a willow bough, and
landed, after much effort, exhausted. He
looked at the fair unknown, then his face
clouded while he knelt down and wiped the
water off her face with the handkerchief
which he had taken dry from his coat pocket.
“Well,” he said, “this is unfortunate. I
shall never bring her to life without assist
ance. I wonder if I could make them hear
at Beryl Heights.”
He had just opened his mouth to try the
experiment, when a pretty, one-horse phae
ton appeared around the curve of the hill.
It was driven by a man who wore a straw
hat, and a gold-mounted crutch lay on the
unoccupied seat by him. A moment later he
reached the place, and getting out, said, with
great concern:
“I hope, sir, the lady is not drowned. My
house is not half a mile away; I shall be
pleased to offer—oh, Lynne! is it you?” he
cried hoarsely, as he recognized the figure.
He knelt beside her and began to rub her
hands.
The stranger picked up his hat and pulled
it low over his eyes, then said:
“My dear sir, the lady is in no danger; she
breathed as you hailed me; she has merely
received a cold bath of vexatious duration.
Come; we can do nothing more for her here
and grave consequences might follow by
keeping her in this condition too long.”
Schiller did not seem to hear, and the
stranger put him gently aside, took the girl
in his arms and stepped into the low carriage.
The cripple seated himself beside him, and
took up the lines with an imperious interro
gation in his eyes.
(Continued on page 16.)
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