"H'm!" Master Mervale cleared his throat, twirled his mustachios, and smiled at some unspoken thought. "We pay for our follies in this world, my lord, but I sometimes think that we pay even more dearly for our wisdom."
"Ah, lad, lad!" the marquis cried, in a gust of anger; "I dare say, as your smirking hints, it was a coward's act not to snap fingers at fate and fathers and dare all! Well! I did not dare. We parted--in what lamentable fashion is now of little import--and I set forth to seek my fortune. Ho, it was a brave world then, Master Mervale, for all the tears that were scarce dried on my cheeks! A world wherein the heavens were as blue as a certain woman's eyes,--a world wherein a likely lad might see far countries, waggle a good sword in Babylon and Tripolis and other ultimate kingdoms, beard the Mussulman in his mosque, and at last fetch home--though he might never love her, you understand--a soldan's daughter for his wife,-With more gay gold about her middle Than would buy half Northumberlee."
His voice died away. He sighed and shrugged. "Eh, well!" said the marquis; "I fought in Flanders somewhat--in Spain--what matter where? Then, at last, sickened in Amsterdam, three years ago, where a messenger comes to haul me out of bed as future Marquis of Falmouth. One brother slain in a duel, Master Mervale; one killed in Wyatt's Rebellion; my father dying, and--Heaven rest his soul!--not over-eager to meet his Maker. There you have it, Master Mervale,--a right pleasant jest of Fortune's perpetration,--I a marquis, my own master, fit mate for any woman in the kingdom, and Kate--my Kate who was past human praising!--vanished."
"Vanished?" The lad echoed the word, with wide eyes.
"Vanished in the night, and no sign nor rumor of her since! Gone to seek me abroad, no doubt, poor wench! Dead, dead, beyond question, Master Mervale!" The marquis swallowed, and rubbed his lips with the back of his hand. "Ah, well!" said he; "it is an old sorrow!"
The male animal shaken by strong emotion is to his brothers an embarrassing rather than a pathetic sight. Master Mervale, lowering his eyes discreetly, rooted up several tufts of grass before he spoke. Then, "My lord, you have known of love," said he, very slowly; "does there survive no kindliness for aspiring lovers in you who have been one of us? My lord of Pevensey, I think, loves the Lady Ursula, at least, as much as you ever loved this Mistress Katherine; of my own adoration I do not speak, save to say that I have sworn never to marry any other woman. Her father favors you, for you are a match in a thousand; but you do not love her. It matters little to you, my lord, whom she may wed; to us it signifies a life's happiness. Will not the memory of that Cornish lass--the memory of moonlit nights, and of those sweet, vain aspirations and foiled day-dreams that in boyhood waked your blood even to such brave folly as now possesses us,--will not the memory of these things soften you, my lord?"