Chapter 3

"I see," he said. "Well, it appears simple enough. I believe I could be back by Thursday, and I could have my chaplain and a friend of mine, and we could get the affair over in the chapel--and then you can go back to the Inn with your certificate--and I can go to Paris--free!" And his thoughts added, "And even if poor Maurice does die soon, I need fear nothing!"

Now that their two fates seemed settled, Miss Delburg got out of the chair and stood up in a dignified way; her soft cheeks were the color of a glowing pink rose, and her violet eyes shone with fun and excitement, her little, irregular features and perfect teeth seemed to add to the infantine aspect of the picture she made in her unfashionable pink cotton frock. Dress had been strongly discouraged at the Convent, and was looked upon by Aunt Jemima, a strict New Englander, as a snare of the devil, but even the garment, in the selecting of which she had had no hand, seemed to hang with grace upon the child's slim figure.

Not a doubt as to the future clouded her thoughts; it was all a glorious piece of fun, and of all the daring tricks she had perpetrated at the Convent to get chocolates, or climb a tree, or have a midnight orgy of cake and sirop, none had been so exciting as this--to go through the ceremony of marriage and be free for life!

Her education had been of the most elementary, and the whole aim of those placed over her had been to keep her as innocent and ignorant as a child of ten. Not a single problem of life had ever presented itself to her naturally intelligent mind. She had read no books, conversed with no grown-up people, played with no one but her companions, three American girls and a few French ones, and the simple Nuns. And since her emancipation, she had but wandered in the English lakes with her uncle and aunt and Samuel Greenbank, and so had come to Arranstoun like any other tourist to see this famous castle still inhabited after eleven hundred years.

In these days of women giving daily proof of their capability for irritating mischief, if not of their ability to rule nations, Sabine Delburg was a very unique being, and could not have existed but for a combination of rare circumstances, as she was half American and half French and had inherited the quick understanding of both nations. But from the age of seven, she had never seen the outside world. It is not my place, in any case, to explain what she was or was not. The creature, with all her faults and charms, is there to speak for herself--and if you, my friend, who are reading this tale on a summer's day do not feel you want to hear any more of what happened to these two young things, by all means put down the book and go your way!

So let us get back to Mr. Arranstoun's sitting-room and the June afternoon, and we shall hear Miss Delburg saying, in her childish voice of joy:

"Nothing could be better--I always did like doing mad things. It will be the greatest fun! Think of their faces when I prance in and say I am married! Then I will snap my fingers at them and go off and see the world."

Michael knelt upon a low old _prie dieu_ which was near, and looked into her face--while he asked, whimsically:

"I do wonder where you will begin."

Miss Delburg now sat upon the edge of the table; this was a grave question and must be answered at leisure, though without indecision.

"Oh, I know," she announced. "There was my great friend, Moravia Cloudwater, at the Convent. She was older than me, and went to Paris with her father and married an Italian prince last year. I have heard from her since, and she has often wanted me to go and stay with her in Rome--and I shall now. Morri and I are the dearest friends--and her things did look lovely the day she came to see us at Tours--with the prince's coronet on them--" and then the first shadow came to her contentment. "That is the only pity about you--even with a castle, you haven't a coronet, I suppose?" regretfully. "I should have liked one on my handkerchiefs and note-paper."

Michael felt his shortcomings.

"The title was taken away when we followed Prince Charlie and we only got back the land by the skin of our teeth after an awful business so I am afraid I cannot do that for you--but perhaps," consolingly, "you will have better luck next time."

This brought some comfort.

"Why, of course! we can get a divorce--as soon as we want. Moravia had an aunt, who simply went to Sioux Falls and got one at once and married someone else, so it's not the least trouble. Oh, I am glad you have thought of this plan. It is clever of you!"

Mr. Arranstoun felt that he was becoming rather too interested in his--_fiancee_ and time was passing. Her family might discover where she was--or Henry might return; he must clinch matters finally.

"I think we must come to business details now," he said. "Had you not better write a letter to Mr. Parsons that I could take, stating your wishes; and will you also write down upon another piece of paper all the details of your name, age--and so forth----"

He now showed her his writing-table and gave her paper and pens to choose from.

She sat down gravely, and put her hands to her head as one thinking hard. Then she began rapidly to write--while Mr. Arranstoun watched her from the hearth-rug, to where he had retired.

She evidently wrote out the statistics required first, and then began her letter. And at last she turned a rogue's face with a perplexed frown on it, while she bit her pen.

"How do you spell indigenous, please?"

He started forward.

"'Indigenous'?--what a grand word!--i-n-d-i-g-e-n-o-u-s."

"One has to be grand when writing business letters," she told him, condescendingly, and then finished her missive.

"There--that will do! Now listen!"

She got up and stood with the sheet in her hand, and read off the remarkable document without worrying much about stops or commas.

"Dear Mr. Parsons:

"Papa said I could marry who I wanted to provided that he was decent, so please give your written consent to the _grand seigneur_ who brings this. His name is Arranstoun, and he is indigenous to this Castle, and really an aristocrat who papa and mamma would have approved of, although he unfortunately has no title----"

"I had to put in that, you see," and she looked up explainingly, "because it sounds so ordinary if he'd never heard of Arranstoun--we wouldn't have, only Uncle Mortimer was looking out for old ruins to visit--well," and she continued her recital, while Michael lowered his head to hide the smile in his eyes.

"We wish to get married on Thursday so please be quick about the consent, as Uncle Mortimer wants me to marry his nephew, Samuel Greenbank, who I hate. Agree, sir, the expression of my sentiments, the most distinguished

"Sabine Delburg."

"P.S. I will want all my money, 50,000 dollars a year I believe it is, on Friday morning."

Then she looked up with pride.

"Don't you think that will do?"

Michael was overcome--his voice shook with enchanted mirth.

"Admirably," he assured her, with what solemnity he could.

Sabine seemed thoroughly satisfied with herself.

"That's all right, then. Now I must be off, or they will be coming to look for me, and that would be a bore."

"But we have not made all the arrangements for our wedding." The prospective bridegroom thought it prudent to remind her. "When can you come on Thursday? My train gets in about six."

"Thursday," and she contracted her dark eyebrows. "Let me see--Yes, we are staying until Saturday to see the remains of Elbank Monastery--but I don't know how I can slip away, unless--only it would be so late. I could say I had a headache and go to bed early without dinner, and get here about eight while they were having theirs. It is still quite light--I often had to pretend things at the Convent to get a moment's peace."

Michael reflected.

"Better not chance eight--as you say it is quite light then and they might see you. Slip out of the hotel at nine. The park gate is, as you know, right across the road. I will wait for you inside, and we can walk here in a few minutes--and come up these balcony steps--and the chapel is down that passage--through this door. See."

He went and opened the door, and she followed him--talking as she walked.

"Nine! Oh! that is late--I have never been out so late before--but it can't matter--just this once--can it? And here in the north it is so funny; it is light at nine, too! Perhaps it would be safest." Then, peering down the vaulted passage and drawing back, "It is a gloomy hole to get married in!"

"You won't say so when you see the chapel itself," he reassured her. "It is rather a beautiful place. Whenever any of my ancestors committed a particularly atrocious raid, and wanted to be absolved for their sins, they put in a window or a painting or carving. The family was Catholic until my grandfather's time, and then High Church, so the glories have remained untouched."

Sabine kept close to him as they walked, as a child afraid of the dark would have done. It seemed to her too like her recent experience of the secret passage, and then she exclaimed in a voice of frank awe and admiration, when he opened the nail-studded, iron-bound door at the end:

"Oh! how divine!"

And it was indeed. A gem of the finest period of early Gothic architecture, adorned with all trophies which love, fear and contrition could compel from the art of the ages. Glorious colored lights swept down in shafts from matchless stained glass, and the high altar was a blaze of richness, while beautiful paintings and tapestries covered the walls.

It was gorgeous and sumptuous, and unlike anything else in England or Scotland. It might have been the private chapel of a proud, voluptuous Cardinal in Rome's great days.

"Why is that one little window plain?" Sabine asked.

Then Michael answered with a cynical note in his voice:

"It is left for me--I, who am the last of them, to put up some expiatory offering, I expect. Rapine and violence are in the blood," and then he laughed lightly, and led her back through the gloom to his sitting-room. There was a strange, fierce light in his bright blue eyes, which the child-woman did not see, and which, if she had perceived, she would not have understood any more than he understood it himself--for no concrete thought had yet come to him about the future. Only, there underneath was that mighty force, relentless, inexorable, of heredity, causing the instinct which had dominated the Arranstouns for eleven hundred years.

He did not seek to detain his guest and promised bride--but, with great courtesy, he showed her the way down the stairs of the lawn, and so through the postern into the park, and he watched her slender form trip off towards the gate which was opposite the Inn, her last words ringing in his ears in answer to his final question.

"No, I shall not fail--I will leave the Crown at nine o'clock exactly on Thursday."

Then turning, he retraced his steps to his sitting-room, and there found Henry Fordyce returned.