The Greatest Historical Novels & Romances of D. K. Broster. D. K. Broster

just at present I am using this foot as little as possible.” It was with a wry smile that the Earl hobbled to the bell-pull.

      * * * * *

      A large portrait of Aveling as a ravishingly beautiful child, playing with a spaniel, hung over the fireplace in Lady Stowe’s boudoir; another of him as a young man was on the wall opposite to the door, while a miniature of a boy who could only have been he stood conspicuously on a table among various delicate trifles in porcelain or ivory. All these Ewen saw while looking eagerly round for some memento of his dead friend, of which he could detect no trace. Then a door at the other end of the warm, perfumed room opened, and the mistress of the place came in, regally tall, in dove-grey lutestring, the black ribbon, with its single dangling pearl, which clasped her slender throat, defining the still perfect contour of her little chin—a famous toast who could afford to dress simply, even when she had a mind to a fresh conquest.

      “Mr. Cameron, this is kind of you,” she said, as he bent over her hand. Save Alison’s he had heard no sweeter voice. “It is even generous, for I fear that your reception by my son last night was not what it should have been, considering the debt we all owe you.”

      Wondering not a little what explanation Lord Aveling had subsequently given his mother of his behaviour, Ewen replied that the difference which had unfortunately arisen between them in Scotland had quite justified Lord Aveling’s coldness, but that they had afterwards come to a complete understanding.

      “So my lord told me,” said the Countess, “and indeed my son also. But he was mysterious, as young men delight to be. I know not whether you disagreed over the weather, or politics, or over the usual subject—a woman.” Here she flashed a smiling glance at him. “But I see Mr. Cameron, that you are not going to tell me . . . therefore it was the last. I hope she was worth it?”

      “If it had been a woman,” replied her visitor, “surely your son’s choice, Lady Stowe, would have been such as you would have approved. However, our difference was over something quite other. You will remember that I do not share Lord Aveling’s political allegiances.”

      Lady Stowe smiled. “I suppose I must be content with that, and put away the suspicion that you fell out over . . . sharing an allegiance which was not political!”

      “As to that, my lady,” said Ewen, “I give you my word of honour.” Entirely wrong as she was in her diagnosis, the remembrance of that love-letter made him very wishful to leave the dangerous proximity of Miss Georgina Churchill, lest by any look or word he should betray the secret he had so discreditably learnt and so faithfully sworn to keep.

      “But you are standing all this while,” exclaimed Lady Stowe. “Be seated, I pray. Have you seen my lord, and is he able to do what you wish?”

      “His lordship has been most kind, and promised to use his influence,” said Ewen as he obeyed—extremely relieved at the change of subject. “And knowing that influence to be great, I have proportionate hopes.”

      “You must command me too, if there is anything that I can do,” said the Countess softly. “The Princess Amelia might be approached, for instance; no stone must be left unturned. But fortunately there is a good while yet. Do you know many people in London, Mr. Cameron?”

      Ewen replied that he did not, that he had never been there before, though he knew Paris well.

      “Ah, there you have the advantage of me, sir,” observed his hostess. “I have never been to Paris; it must by all accounts, be a prodigious fine city. Do you know the Ambassador, the Earl of Albemarle?”

      “No, my lady—not as an ambassador, at least. He was in command at Fort Augustus when I was a prisoner there in the summer of ’46. But I never saw him.”

      He wanted to talk about Keith Windham, not to exchange banalities about Paris and diplomats, and hoped that a reference to the Rising might bring about this consummation. In a measure, it did. Lady Stowe turned her powdered head away for a moment.

      “Yes, I remember,” she said in a low voice. “It was the Earl who gave my unfortunate elder son the commission which led to his death. Aveling has told me the story which he had from you—no, no need to repeat it, Mr. Cameron, for the recital must be painful to you also. And to a mother . . . you can guess . . . her first-born, murdered——” She was unable to continue; she put a frail handkerchief, with a scent like some dream of lilies, for an instant to her mouth, and Ewen could see that her beautiful eyes were full of tears.

      And he pictured Alison (or, for the matter of that, himself) bereaved by violent means of Donald. . . . He began to say, with deep feeling, how good of her it was to receive him, seeing that he had been, in a sense, the cause of Major Windham’s death, and once again the moonlit sands of Morar blotted out for a second what was before his eyes.

      “I was . . . wholly devoted to him,” went on Keith’s mother, in the same sweet, shaken voice; “so proud of his career . . . so—— But that must not make me unjust. It was to be, no doubt. . . . And I am very glad to have you here, Mr. Cameron, the last person who saw my dear son alive.”

      And she looked at him with a wonderfully soft and welcoming glance, considering what painful memories the sight of him might be supposed to call up. Who was Ewen, the least personally vain of men, and absorbed besides in far other reflections, to guess that Lady Stowe, like old Invernacree, had found him the finest piece of manhood she had ever seen, and that she was wondering whether the charm which had never yet failed her with the opposite sex would avail to bring to her feet this tall Highlander, already bound by a sentimental tie—though not exactly the tie which a lady desirous of forgetting her years would have chosen.

      She put away her handkerchief. “But it is wrong and selfish, do you not think, Mr. Cameron, to dwell too much on painful memories? I am sure my dear Keith would not wish to see us sad. He is happy in Heaven, and it is our duty to make the best of this sometimes uncheerful world.—I am holding a small rout here upon the Thursday in next week; will you give me the pleasure of your company at it?”

      Ewen was conscious of the kind of jolt caused when a hitherto decorously travelling chaise goes unexpectedly over a large stone.

      “I fear I shall be too much occupied, my lady,” he stammered. “I thank you, but I must devote all my time to——”

      “Now, do not say to conspiring,” she admonished him, smiling. “As a good Whig I shall have to denounce you if you do!”

      “If it be conspiracy to try to procure the commutation of Doctor Cameron’s sentence,” answered Ewen, “then his lordship is conspiring also.”

      “Very true,” admitted Lady Stowe. “We will not, then, call it by that name. But, Mr. Cameron, you cannot spend all your time writing or presenting petitions. What do you say to coming to a small card-party of my intimate friends, on Monday? You can hardly hope to be accomplishing anything so soon as that!”

      Ewen bowed. “I am deeply grateful to your ladyship, but I am in hopes of an order to visit Doctor Cameron in the Tower on that day, and since I do not know for what hour the permission will be granted——”

      “Mr. Cameron, you are as full of engagements as any London beaux! And an order for the Tower! How are you going to procure that—’twill not be easy. Ah, the Earl, I suppose?”

      “His lordship has been so good as to promise to try to obtain one.”

      Lady Stowe made a moue. “I vow I shall ask Lord Cornwallis not to grant it! Nay, I was but jesting. Yet you are vastly tiresome, sir. If you should not get the order will you promise me to come and take a hand at quadrille on Monday?”

      “I am a poor man, Lady Stowe, with a wife and children, and cannot afford to play quadrille,” replied Ewen bluntly.

      His hostess stared at him. “You are married . . . and have children!”

      “I have been married these seven years,” said Ewen in a tone of some annoyance. Lady Stowe was, he knew, old enough to be his mother,