Some three or four weeks after Mrs. St. John's visit to the country, Howard Templeton was sitting in his club one day, smoking and reading, after a most luxurious lunch.
The young fellow looked very comfortable as he leaned back in his cushioned chair, the blue smoke curling in airy rings over his curly, blonde head, a look of lazy contentment in his handsome blue eyes.
He was somewhat of a Sybarite in his tastes, this handsomeyoung fellow, over whose head twenty-five happy years had rolled serenely, without a shadow to mar their brightness save that unfortunate love affair two years before.
Howard was, emphatically, one of the "gilded youth" of his day. He "toiled not, neither did he spin." He had been cradled in luxury's silken lap all his life long.
Sorrow had passed him tenderly by as one exempt from the common ills of life.
He was so accustomed to his good luck that he seldom gave a thought to it. It simply seemed to him that he would go on that way forever.
Yet, to-day, for a wonder, he had been a little thoughtfully reviewing the events of the past six months.
"It was very kind in Uncle John to leave things so comfortable for me," he said to himself. "I thought his wife would influence him against me so much that he wouldn't have left me a penny. If he hadn't, what the deuce should I have done?"
He paused a moment, in comical amusement, to survey the situation; but the idea was too stupendous.
He could not even fancy himself the victim of adversity, much less tell what he would have done in that case. He laughed at it after a moment.
"I cannot even imagine it," he thought. "Poor little Xenie, how hard it went with her to be foiled in her revenge, as she called it. How she must have loved me to have turned against me so when I gave her up! Who would have believed that we two should ever hate each other with such a deadly hate?"
Something like a smothered sigh went upward with the blue cigar smoke, and just then a footstep crossed the threshold, and a man's voice said, lightly:
"Halloo, Doctor Templeton; enjoying yourself, as usual."
"Halloo, Doctor Shirley," returned Templeton, with a lazy nod at the new-comer. "Have a smoke?"
"I don't care if I do," said the doctor, throwing himself down in an easy-chair opposite the speaker, and lighting a weed. "How deuced comfortable you look, my boy!"
"Feel that way," lisped Templeton, in a lazy tone.
"Ah! I don't think you would feel so devil-may-care if you knew all that I know, old boy," laughed the doctor, significantly.
The old doctor was very well known at the club as a gossip, so Templeton only laughed carelessly as he said:
"What's the matter, doctor? Any of my sweethearts sick or dead?"
"Not that I know of," said Doctor Shirley. "However, Templeton, if any of your sweethearts has money, take myadvice, young fellow, and make up to her without delay."
Howard Templeton laughed at the doctor's sage advice.
"Thanks," he said, "but I do very well as I am, doctor. I don't care to become a subject for petticoat government, yet."
"Yet things looked that way two years ago," said Doctor Shirley, maliciously, for Templeton's ardent devotion to Mrs. Egerton's lovelydebutanteat that time had been no secret in society.
Templeton's blonde face flushed a dark red all over, yet he laughed carelessly.
"Oh, yes, I had the fever," he said. "However, its severity then precludes the danger of ever having a second attack. How little I dreamed that she would be my aunt."
"Or yourbete noire," said the doctor.
"Hardly that," said Templeton, composedly, as he knocked the ashes from the end of his cigar. "True, she has taken a slice of my fortune away, but then there's yet enough to butter my bread."
"There may not be much longer," said Doctor Shirley, meaningly.
"What do you mean?" asked Templeton, looking at him as if he had serious doubts of his sanity. "Who's going to take it away from me? Has Mrs. St. John found the will she talked of so much?"
"No," said Doctor Shirley, "but she has found something that will serve her as well."
"Confound it, doctor, I don't understand you at all," said the young fellow, a little testily. "What are you driving at, anyway?"
"Templeton, honestly, I hate to tell you," said the physician, sobering down, "but I've bad news for you. You know that Mrs. St. John has been ill lately, I suppose?"
"Yes, I heard it—thought, perhaps, she meant to shuffle off this mortal coil and leave me the balance of my uncle's property," said the young man, imperturbably.
"Nothing further from her thoughts, I assure you," was the laughing reply. "She has been quite ill, but she is well enough to come down into the drawing-room to-day. Come, now, Templeton, guess what I have to tell you?"
"'Pon honor, doctor, I haven't the faintest idea. Does it refer to my fair and respected aunt? Is it a new freak of hers?"
"Yes, decidedly a new freak," said the doctor, laughing heartily, and enjoying his joke very much.
"Well, then, out with it," said Howard, growing impatient. "Does she accuse me of stealing and secreting that fabulous missing will?"
"Not that I am aware of," and Doctor Shirley rose andthrew away his half-smoked cigar, saying, carelessly: "I must be going. We poor devils of doctors never have time to smoke a whole cigar. Say, Templeton, Mrs. St. John has her mother and sister staying with her. Deuced handsome girl, that Lora Carroll! Very like her sister! And—don't go off in a fit, now, Templeton—in a very few months there will be a little heir to your deceased uncle's name and fortune!"
"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Howard Templeton, springing to his feet, while his handsome face grew white and red by turns.
"You don't believe it? That's because you don't want to believe it. But I give you my word and honor as a professional man and her medical attendant, that it is a self-evident fact," and laughing at his, little joke, the gossiping old doctor hurried away from the club-room.
"I don't believe it!" Howard Templeton repeated angrily, as he stood still where Doctor Shirley had left him, those unexpected words ringing through his brain.
"What is it you don't believe, Templeton?" inquired one of the "gilded youth," dawdling in and overhearing the remark.
"I don't believe anything—that's my creed," answered Templeton, snatching his hat, and hurrying out. He wanted to be out in the cold, fresh air. Somehow it seemed to him as if a hand grasped his throat, choking his life out.
He walked aimlessly up and down the crowded thoroughfare, seemingly blind and deaf to all that went on around him.
Men's eyes remarked the tall, well-proportioned form and handsome, blonde face with envy.
Women looked after him admiringly, thinking how splendid it would be to have such a man for a lover. Howard heeded nothing of it. He was accustomed to it. He simply took it for his due, and he had other things to engross his mind now.
"It can't be true, it can't be true," he said to himself, again and again in his restless walk. "It is the most undreamed of thing. Who could believe it?"
And yet it troubled him despite his incredulity. It troubled him so much that he went to see a lawyer about it.
He stated the case, and asked him frankly what were his chances if such a thing really should happen.
"No chance at all," was the grim reply. "If you didnot resign your claim, Mrs. St. John would naturally sue you for the money on behalf of the legal heir."
"And then?" asked Howard.
"The case would certainly go against you."
Howard went out again and took another walk. He tried to fancy himself—Howard Templeton, the golden youth—face to face with the grim fiend, poverty.
He wondered how it would feel to earn his dinner before he ate it, to wear out his old coats, and have to count the cost of new ones, as he had vaguely heard that poor men had to do.
"I can't imagine it," he said to himself. "Time enough to bother my brain with such conundrums if the thing really comes to pass. And if it does, what a glorious triumph it will be for 'mine enemy!' I'd like to see her—by Jove, I believe I'll go there."
He stopped short, filled with the new idea, then hurried on, recalled to himself by a stare of surprise from a casual passer-by.
"Yes; why shouldn't I go there, by George?" he went on. "It was my home before she came there. The world doesn't know that we are 'at outs,' although we are sworn foes privately. I'll pretend to call on Lora Carroll. Lora was a pretty girl enough when I was down there that summer, young and unformed, though time has remedied that defect, doubtless. Doctor Shirley thought her handsome. Yes, I will call on little Lora. A daring thing to do, perhaps, but then I'm in the mood for daring a great deal."
The lamps were lighted and the glare of the gas flared down upon him as he thus made up his mind.
He went to his hotel, made an elaborate and elegant toilet, as if anxious to please, then sallied forth toward the brown-stone palace where his enemy reigned in triumph.
A soft and subdued light shone through the curtains of rose-colored silk and creamy lace that shaded the windows of the drawing-room. A fancy seized upon Howard to peep through them before he went up the marble steps and sent in his card.
"For who knows that they may decline to see me," he thought, "and I am determined to get one look at Xenie. I want to see if she looks very happy over her triumph."
He glanced around, saw that no one was passing, and cautiously went up to the window.
It was as much as he could do, tall as he was, to peer into the room by standing on tiptoe.
He looked into the beautiful and spacious room where he had spent many happy hours with his deceased uncle in years gone by, and a sigh to the memory of those old daysbreathed softly over his lips, and a dimness came into his bright blue eyes.
He brushed it away, and looked around for the beautiful woman who had come between him and the poor old man who had brought him up as his heir.
He saw two ladies in the room.
One of them was quite elderly, and had gray hair crimped beneath a pretty cap.
She wore black silk, and sat on a sofa trifling over a bit of fancy knitting.
"That is Mrs. Carroll," he said to himself. "She is a pretty old lady, though she looks so old and careworn. But she is poor, and that explains it. I dare say I shall grow gray and careworn too when Mrs. St. John takes my uncle's money from me, and I have to earn my bread before I eat it."
He saw another lady standing with her back to him by the piano.
She waspetiteand slender, with a crown of braided black hair, and her robe of rich, wine-colored silk and velvet trailed far behind her on the costly carpet.
She stood perfectly still for a few moments, then turned slowly around, and he saw her face.
"Why, it is Xenie herself!" he exclaimed. "Doctor Shirley lied to me, and I was fool enough to believe his silly joke. Heaven! what I have suffered through my foolish credulity! I've a mind to call Shirley out and shoot him for his atrocity!"
He remained silent a little while studying the lady's dark, beautiful, smiling face, when suddenly he saw the door unclose, and a lady, dressed in the deepest sables of mourning, entered and walked across the floor and sat down by Mrs. Carroll's side upon the sofa.
Howard Templeton started, and a hollow groan broke from his lips.
"My God!" he breathed to himself, "I was mistaken. It is Lora, of course, in that bright-hued dress. How like she is to Xenie! I ought to have remembered that my uncle's wife would be in mourning. Yes, that is Xenie by her mother's side, and Doctor Shirley told me the fatal truth!"
He walked away from the window, and made several hurried turns up and down before the house.
"Shall I go in?" he asked himself. "I know all I came for, now. Yes, I will be fool enough to go in anyhow."
He went up the steps and rang the bell, waiting nervously for the great, carved door to open.
The door swung slowly open, and the gray-haired old servitor whom Howard could remember from childhood, took his card and disappeared down the hallway.
Presently he returned, and informed the young man that the ladies would receive him; and Howard, half regretting, when too late, the hasty impulse that had prompted him enter, was ushered into the drawing-room.
The next moment he found himself returning a stiff, icy bow from his uncle's widow, a half-embarrassed greeting from Mrs. Carroll, and shaking hands with the beautiful Lora, who gave him a shy yet perfectly self-possessed welcome and referred to his visit to the country two years before in a pretty,naiveway, showing that she remembered him perfectly; although, as she averred, she was little more than a child at the time.
They sat down, and he and Miss Carroll had the talk mostly to themselves, though now and then his glance strayed from her bright, vivacious countenance to the sad, white face of the young widow sitting beside her mother on the sofa, the dark lashes shading her colorless cheeks, a sorrowful droop about her beautiful lips as if her thoughts dwelt on some mournful theme.
Howard had heard people say that she looked ill and pale since Mr. St. John's death, and that after all she must have cared for him a little.
He knew better than that, of course, yet he could not but acknowledge that she played the part of a bereaved wife to perfection.
"It looks like real grief," he said to himself; "but, of course, I know that it is the loss of the money and not the man that weighs her spirits down so heavily."
"You resemble your sister very much, Miss Carroll," he said to Lora, after a little while. "If I were an Irishman, I should say that you look more like your sister than you do like yourself."
The careless, yet odd little speech seemed to have an inexplicable effect upon Lora Carroll. She started violently, her cheeks lost their soft, pink color, the bright smile faded from her lips, and she gave the speaker a keen, half-furtive glance from under her dark-fringed eyelashes.
She tried to laugh, but it sounded forced and unnatural.
Mrs. Carroll, who had been silently listening, broke in carelessly before Lora could speak:
"Yes, indeed, Lora and Xenie are exceedingly like each other, Mr. Templeton. Their aunt, Mrs. Egerton, says that Lora is now the living image of Xenie, when she first came to the city, two years ago."
"I quite agree with her," Mr. Templeton answered, in a light tone, and with a bow to Mrs. Carroll. "The resemblance is very striking."
As he spoke, he moved his chair forward, carelessly yet deliberately, so that he might look into Mrs. St. John's beautiful, pale face.
The young widow did not seem to relish his furtive contemplation. She flushed slightly, and her white hands clasped and unclasped themselves nervously, as they lay folded together in her lap.
She turned her head to one side that she might not encounter the full gaze of his eyes. He smiled to himself at her embarrassment and, turning from her, allowed his gaze to rest upon the bright fire burning behind the polished steel bars of the grate.
A momentary unpleasant silence fell upon them all. Lora broke it after a moment's thought by saying, carelessly, as she opened the piano:
"I remember that you used to sing very well, Mr. Templeton. Won't you favor us now?"
"Lora, my dear," Mrs. Carroll said, in a gently-shocked voice, "you forget that music may not be agreeable to your sister so recently bereaved."
"Oh, Xenie, dear, I beg your pardon," began Lora, turning around, but Mrs. St. John interrupted her by saying, wearily:
"Never mind, mamma, never mind, Lora. I—I—my head aches—I will retire if you will excuse me, and then you may have all the music you wish."
She arose from her seat, gave Mr. Templeton a chill, little bow which he returned as coldly, then went slowly from the room, trailing her sable robes behind her like a pall.
"As cold as ice, by Jove," was Howard's mental comment; "yet she did not appear particularly elated over her prospective triumph. Strange!"
He crossed over to the piano where Lora was restlessly turning over some sheets of music.
"Won't you sing to me, Miss Carroll?" he asked, in a soft, alluring voice.
Lora sat down on the music-stool and laughed as she ran her white fingers over the pearl keys.
"Excuse me—I do not sing," she said, carelessly. "But I will play your accompaniment if you will select a song."
"You do not sing," he said, as he began to turn over the music. "Ah! there is one point at least in which you do not resemble your sister. Mrs. St. John has a very fine voice."
"Yes. Xenie's voice has been well trained," she answered, carelessly; "but I do not care to sing, I would rather hear others."
"How will this please you?" he inquired, selecting a song and laying it up before her.
She glanced at it and answered composedly:
"As well as any. I remember this song. I heard you sing it with Xenie that summer."
"Yes, our voices went well together," he answered, as carelessly. "I wish you would sing it with me now?"
"I cannot, but I will play it for you. Shall we begin now?"
He was silent a moment, looking down at her as she sat there with down-drooped eyes, the gleam of the firelight and gaslight shining on the black braids of her hair and the rich, warm-hued dress that was so very becoming to her dark, bright beauty.
Suddenly he saw something on the white hand that was softly touching the piano keys. He took the slim fingers in his before she was aware.
"Let me see your ring," he said. "It looks familiar. Ah, it is the one I gave you that winter when we——"
She threw back her head and looked at him with wide, angry, black eyes.
"What do you mean?" she said imperiously. "Are you crazy, Mr. Templeton? It is the ring you gave Xenie, certainly, but not me!"
"Lora, love," said her mother's voice from the sofa, in mild reproval. "Do not be rude to Mr. Templeton."
"Mamma, I don't mean to," said Lora, without turning her head; "but he—he spoke as if I were Xenie."
"I beg your pardon, Miss Carroll," said the offender, with a teasing look in his blue eyes, which she did not see; "I did not mean to offend, but do you know that in talking with you, I constantly find myself under the impression that I am talking to your sister. It is one effect of the wonderful resemblance, I presume."
"Yes, I suppose so," admitted Lora; "but," she continued, in a tone of pretty, girlish pique, "I wish you would try and recollect the difference. I am two years younger than my sister, remember, and so it is not a compliment to be taken for a person older than myself!"
"Of course not," said Mr. Templeton, soothingly; "but it was the ring, please remember, that led me into error this time. You see, I gave it to——"
"Yes, you gave it to Xenie," broke in Lora, promptly and coolly; "yes, I know that, but you see she was tired of it, or rather she did not care for it any more—so she gave it to me."
His face whitened angrily, but he said, with assumed carelessness:
"And you—do you care for it, Miss Carroll?"
She lifted her hand and looked at the flashing ruby with a smile.
"Yes, I like it. It is very handsome, and must have cost a large sum of money—more than I ever saw, probably, at one time in my life, I suppose, for I am poor, as you know."
"I thought we were going to have some music, Lora," exclaimed Mrs. Carroll, gasping audibly over her knitting. "You weary Mr. Templeton with your idle talk."
"He began it, mamma," said Lora, carelessly. "Well, Mr. Templeton, I'm going to begin the accompaniment. Get ready."
She touched the keys with skillful fingers, waking a soft, melancholy prelude, and Howard sang in his full, rich, tenor voice:
"'Hapless doom of woman happy in betrothing!Beauty passes like a breath, and love is lost in loathing;Low, my lute; speak low, my lute, but say the world is nothing—Low, lute, low!"'Love will hover round the flowers when they first awaken;Love will fly the fallen leaf, and not be overtaken;Low, my lute! oh, low, my lute! we fade and are forsaken—Low, dear lute, low!'"
"'Hapless doom of woman happy in betrothing!Beauty passes like a breath, and love is lost in loathing;Low, my lute; speak low, my lute, but say the world is nothing—Low, lute, low!
"'Love will hover round the flowers when they first awaken;Love will fly the fallen leaf, and not be overtaken;Low, my lute! oh, low, my lute! we fade and are forsaken—Low, dear lute, low!'"
"The poet has very happily blended truth and poesy in that very pathetic song," remarked Lora, with a touch of careless scorn in her voice, as the rich notes ceased. "Well, Mr. Templeton, will you try another song?"
"No, thank you, Miss Carroll—I must be going. I have already trespassed upon your time and patience."
Lora did not gainsay the assertion.
She rose with an almost audible sigh of relief, and stood waiting for him to say good-night.
"May I come and see you again?" he asked, as he bowed over the delicate hand that wore his ruby ring.
"I—we—that is, mamma and I—are going away soon. It may not—perhaps—be convenient for us to receive you again," stammered Lora, hesitating and blushing like the veriest school-girl.
"Ah! I am sorry," he said; "well, then, good-night, and good-bye."
He shook hands with both, holding Lora's hand a trifle longer than necessary, then courteously turned away.
When he was gone, the beautiful girl knelt down by her mother and lifted her flushed and brilliant face with a look of inquiry upon it.
"Well, mamma?" she questioned, gravely.
Mrs. Carroll smiled encouragingly.
"My dear, you acted splendidly," she said, "and so did your sister. I was afraid at first. I thought you were wrong to admit him. It was a terrible test, for the eyes of hatred are even keener than those of love. I trembled for you at first, but you stood the trial nobly. He was completely hoodwinked. No fear now. If you could blind Howard Templeton to the truth, there can be no trouble with the rest of the world."
"And yet once or twice I was terribly frightened," said the girl musingly. "The looks he gave me, the tones of his voice, sometimes his very words, made me tremble with fear. It was, as you say, a terrible test, but I am glad now that I risked it, for I believe that I have succeeded in blinding him. All goes well with us, mamma. Doctor Shirley and Howard Templeton have been completely deceived. The rest will be very easy of accomplishment."
Thanks to the gossiping tongue of old Doctor Shirley, the interesting news regarding Mrs. St. John speedily became a widespread and accepted fact in society.
It was quite a nine days' wonder at first, and in connection with its discussion a vast deal of speculation was indulged in regarding the possible future of Mr. Howard Templeton, the fair and gilded youth whose heritage might soon be wrested from him, leaving him to battle single-handed with the world.
Before people had stopped wondering over it, Mrs. Egerton added her quota to the excitement by the information that her niece, Mrs. St. John, had gone abroad, taking her mother and sister with her.
Shehad wanted Lora withherthat season—she had long ago promised Mrs. Carroll to give Lora a season in the city—but the girl was so wild over the idea of travel that Xenie had taken her with her for company, acting on the advice of Doctor Shirley, who declared that change of scene and cheerful company were actually essential to the preservation of the young invalid's life.
The old doctor, when people interrogated him, confirmed Mrs. Egerton's assertion.
He said that Mrs. St. John had fallen into a state of depression and melancholy so deep as to threaten her health and even her life.
He had advocated an European tour as the most likely means of rousing her from her grief and restoring hercheerful spirits, and she had taken him at his word and gone.
So when Howard Templeton, who had gone down into the country on a little mysterious mission of his own the day after his visit to Lora Carroll, returned to the city, he was electrified by the announcement that Mrs. St. John, with her mother and sister, had sailed for Europe two days previous.
Howard was unfeignedly surprised and confounded at the news.
His face was a study for a physiognomist as he revolved it in his mind.
He went to his private room, ensconced himself in the easiest chair, elevated his feet several degrees higher than his head, and with his fair, clustering locks and bright, blue eyes half obscured in a cloud of cigar smoke, tried to digest the astonishing fact which he had just learned.
It did not take him long to do so.
The brain beneath the white brow and fair, clustering curls was a very clear and lucid one.
He sprang to his feet at last, and said aloud:
"How clever she is, to be sure! It is the most natural thing in the world and the easiest way of carrying out her daring scheme. How perfectly it will smooth over everything."
He walked up and down the richly carpeted room in his blue Turkish silk dressing-gown, his dark brows drawn together in a thoughtful frown, the lights and shades of conflicting feelings faithfully mirrored on his fair and handsome face.
"Why not?" he said, aloud, presently, as if discussing some vexed problem with his inner consciousness. "Why not? I have as good a right to follow as she had to go. I need have no compunctions about spending Uncle John's money. The stroke of fate has not fallen yet. The fabled sword of Damocles hangs suspended over my head, still it may never fall. And in the meantime, why shouldn't I enjoy an European tour? I will, by Jove, I'll follow my Lady Lora by the next steamer. And then—ah, then—checkmate my lady."
He laughed grimly, and nodded at his full length reflection in the long pier-glass at the end of the room.
Then after that moment of exultation a different mood seemed to come over him. His handsome face became grave and even sad.
Throwing himself down carelessly upon a luxurious divan, he took up a volume of poetry lying near and tried to lose himself in its pages.
"Alas! how easily things go wrong,A sigh too much or a kiss too long—And there follows a mist and a blushing rain,And life is never the same again."
"Alas! how easily things go wrong,A sigh too much or a kiss too long—And there follows a mist and a blushing rain,And life is never the same again."
He read the words out moodily, then threw the book down impatiently upon the floor.
"These foolish poets!" he said, half-angrily. "They seem always to be aiming at the sore spots in a fellow's heart. How they rake over the ashes of a dead love and strew them along one's path. Love! how strange the word sounds now, when I hateherso bitterly!"
"Darling, how beautiful the sea is. Look how the sun sparkles on the emerald waves, like millions and millions of the brightest diamonds."
Poor little Lora, sitting in the easy-chair on the wide veranda of the little ornate cottage, a forlorn little figure in the deepest of sables, looked up in her sister's face an instant, then burst into a passion of bitter tears.
"The sea, the sea," she moaned despairingly. "Oh! why did you bring me here? I hate the sight and the sound of it! Oh! my poor Jack! my poor Jack!"
Mrs. St. John and Mrs. Carroll exchanged compassionate yet troubled glances, and the latter said gently, yet remonstratingly:
"My dear, my dear, indeed you must not give up to your feelings on every occasion like this. In your weak state of health it is positively dangerous to allow such excitement."
"I don't care, I don't care," wept Lora wildly, hiding her convulsed face against Xenie's compassionate breast. "My heart is broken! I have nothing left to live for, and I wish that I were dead!"
"Darling, let me lead you in. Perhaps if you will lie down and rest you will feel better in both body and mind," said Mrs. St. John, in the gentle, pitying accents used to a sick child.
Lora arose obediently, and leaning on Xenie's arm, was led into her little, airy, white-hung chamber. There her sister persuaded her to lie down upon a lounge while she hovered about her, rendering numberless gentle little attentions, and talking to her in soft, soothing tones.
"Xenie, you are so kind to me," said the invalid, looking at her sister, with a beam of gratitude shining in her large, tearful, dark eyes.
"It is a selfish kindness after all, though, my darling," said Mrs. St. John, gently, "for you know I expect a great reward for what I have done for you. My sisterly dutyand my own selfish interest have gone hand-in-hand in this case."
A bright, triumphant smile flashed over her beautiful features as she spoke, and the invalid, looking at her, sighed wearily.
"Xenie," she said, half-hesitatingly, "do not be angry, dear, but I wish you would give up this wild passion of revenge that possesses you. I lie awake nights thinking of it and of my troubles, and I feel more and more that it will be a dreadful deception. Are you not afraid?"
"Afraid of what?" inquired her sister, with a little, impatient ring in the clear, musical tones of her voice.
"Afraid of—of being found out," said Lora, sinking her voice to the faintest whisper.
"There is not the least danger," returned her sister, confidently. "We have managed everything so cleverly there will never be the faintest clew even if the ruse were ever suspected, which it will never be, for who would dream of such a thing? Lora, my dear little sister, I would do much for you, but don't ask me to give up my revenge upon Howard Templeton. I hate him so for his despicable cowardice that nothing on earth would tempt me to forego the sweetness of my glorious vengeance."
"Yet once you loved him," said Lora, with a grave wonder in her sad, white face.
She stared and flushed at Lora's gently reproachful words.
She remembered suddenly that someone else had said those words to her in just the same tone of wonder and reproach.
The night of her short-lived triumph came back into her mind—that brilliant bridal-night when she and Howard Templeton had declared war against each other—war to the knife.
"Yes, once I loved him," she said, with a tone of bitter self-scorn. "But listen to me, Lora. Suppose Jack had treated you as Howard Templeton did me?"
"Jack could not have done it; he loved me too truly," said Lora, lifting her head in unconscious pride.
"You are right, Lora, Jack Mainwaring could not have done it. Few men could have been so base," said Xenie, bitterly. "But, Lora, dear, suppose hehadtreated you so cruelly—mind, I only say suppose—should you not have hated him for it, and wanted to make his heart ache in return?"
Lora was silent a moment. The beautiful young face, so like Xenie's in outline and coloring, so different in its expression of mournful despair, took on an expression of deep tenderness and gentleness as she said, at length:
"No Xenie, I could not have hated Jack even if he had acted like Mr. Templeton. I am very poor-spirited perhaps; but I believe if Jack had treated me so I might have hated the sin, but I could not have helped loving the sinner."
"Ah, Lora, you do not know how you would have felt in such a case. You have been mercifully spared the trial. Let us drop the subject," answered Xenie, a little shortly.
Lora sighed wearily and turned her head away, throwing her black-bordered handkerchief over her face.
Her sister stood still a moment, watching the quiet, recumbent figure, then went to the window, and, drawing the lace curtains aside, stood silently looking out at the beautiful sea, with the sunset glories reflected in the opalescent waves, the soft, spring breeze fluttering the silken rings of dark hair that shaded her broad, white brow.
As she stood there in the soft sunset light in her bright young beauty and rich attire, a smile of proud triumph curved her scarlet lips.
"Ah, Howard Templeton," she mused, "the hour of my triumph is close at hand."
And then, in a gentler tone, while a shade of anxiety clouded her face, she added:
"But poor little Lora! Pray God all may go well with her!"
The roseate hues of sunset faded slowly out, and the purple twilight began to obscure everything.
One by one the little stars sparkled out and took their wonted places in the bright constellations of Heaven.
Still Xenie remained motionless at the window, and still Lora lay quietly on her couch, her pale, anguished young face hidden beneath the mourning handkerchief.
Her sister turned around once and looked at her, thinking she was asleep.
But suddenly in the darkness that began to pervade the room, Xenie caught a faint and smothered moan of pain.
Instantly she hurried to Lora's side.
"My dear, are you in pain?" she said.
Lora raised herself and looked at Xenie's anxious face.
"I—oh, yes, dear," she said, in a frightened tone; "I am ill. Pray go and send mother to me."
Mrs. St. John pressed a tender kiss on the pain-drawn lips and hurried out to seek her mother.
She found her in the little dining-room of the cottage laying the cloth and making the tea. She looked up with a gentle, motherly smile.
"My dear, you are hungry for your tea—you and Lora, I expect," she said. "I let the maid go home to stay with her ailing mother to-night, and promised to make the teamyself. It will be ready now in a minute. Is Lora asleep?"
"Lora is ill, mamma. I will finish the tea, and you must go to her," said Xenie, with a quiver in her low voice, as she took the cloth from her mother's hand.
"Lora sick?" said Mrs. Carroll. "Well, Xenie, I rather expected it. I will go to her. Never mind about the tea, dear, unless you want some yourself."
She bustled out, and Xenie went on mechanically setting the tea-things on the little round table, scarcely conscious of what she was doing, so heavy was her heart.
She loved her sister with as fond a love as ever throbbed in a sister's breast and Lora's peril roused her sympathies to their highest pitch.
Finishing her simple task at last, she filled a little china cup with fragrant tea and carried it to the patient's room.
Mrs. Carroll had enveloped Lora in her snowy embroidered night-robe, and she lay upon the bed looking very pale and preternaturally calm to Xenie's excited fancy.
She drank a little of the tea, then sent Xenie away with it, telling her that she felt quite easy then.
"Go and sit on the veranda as usual, my dear," Mrs. Carroll said, kindly. "I will sit with Lora myself."
"You will call me if I am needed?" asked Mrs. St. John, hesitating on the threshold.
"Yes, dear."
So Xenie went away very sad and heavy-hearted, as if the burden of some intangible sorrow rested painfully upon her oppressed and aching heart.
Xenie sat down in the easy-chair on the veranda and looked out at the mystical sea spread out before her gaze, with the moon and stars mirrored in its restless bosom.
Everything was very still. No sound came to her ears save the restless beat of the waves upon the shore. She leaned forward with her arms folded on the veranda rail, and her chin in the hollow of one pink palm, gazing directly forward with dark eyes full of heavy sadness and pain.
She was tired and depressed. Lora had been ill and restless for many nights past, and Xenie and Mrs. Carroll had kept alternate vigils by her sleepless couch.
The last night had been Xenie's turn, and now the strange, narcotic influence of her grief for Lora combined with physical weariness to weigh her eyelids down.
After an interval of anxious listening for sounds from the sick-room, her heavy head dropped wearily on her folded arms, and she fell asleep.
Sleeping, she dreamed. It seemed to her that Howard Templeton, whom once she loved so madly, whom now she bitterly hated, came to her side, and looking down upon her in the sweet spring moonlight, laid his hand upon her and said, gravely, and almost imploringly:
"Xenie, this is the turning-point in your life. Two paths lay before you. Choose the right one and all will go well with you. Peace and happiness will be yours. But choose the evil path and the finger of scorn will one day be pointed at you so that you will not dare to lift your eyes for shame."
In her dream Xenie thought that she threw off her enemy's hand with scorn and loathing.
Then it seemed to her that he gathered her up in his arms and was about to cast her into the deep, terrible sea, when she awoke with a great start, and found herself struggling in the arms of her mother, who had lifted her out of the chair, and was saying, impatiently:
"Xenie, Xenie! child, wake up. You will get your death of cold sleeping out here in the damp night air, and the wind and moisture from the sea blowing over you."
Xenie shook herself free from her mother's grasp, and looked around her for her deadly foe, so real had seemed her dream.
But she saw no tall, proud, manly form, no handsome, blonde face gazing down upon her as she looked.
There was only the cold, white moonlight lying in silvery bars on the floor, and her mother still shaking her by the arm.
"Xenie, Xenie, wake up," she reiterated. "Here I have been shaking and shaking you, and all in vain. You slept like the dead."
"Mamma, I was dreaming," said Mrs. St. John, coming back to herself with a start. "What is the matter? What is the matter? Is my sister worse?"
Mrs. Carroll took her daughter's hand and drew her inside the hallway, then shut and locked the door.
"No, Xenie," she said, abruptly, "Lora is not worse—she is better. Are you awake? Do you know what I am saying? Lora has a beautiful son."
"Oh, mamma, it was but a minute ago that I went out on the veranda."
Mrs. Carroll laughed softly.
"Oh, no, my dear. It was several hours ago. You have been asleep a long time. It is nearly midnight."
"And Lora really has a son, mamma?"
"Yes, Xenie: the finest little fellow I ever saw."
"You promised to call me if she became worse and you needed me," said Mrs. St. John, reproachfully.
"I did not need you, dear. I did everything for Lora my own self," said Mrs. Carroll, with a sort of tender pride in her voice.
"And she is doing well? I may see her—and the baby—my little son!" exclaimed Xenie, with a sudden ring of triumph in her voice.
"Yes, she is doing well; a little flighty now and then, and very weak; she could not bear the least excitement. But you shall go to her in a minute. She wished it."
They went into the dimly-lighted, quiet room, and Xenie kissed her sister and cried over her very softly. Then she took the bundle of warm flannel out of Lora's arms and uncovered a red and wrinkled little face.
"Why, mamma, you said it was beautiful," she said, disappointedly; "and I am bound to confess that, to me, it looks like a very old and wrinkled little man."
Mrs. Carroll laughed very softly.
"I don't believe you ever met with a very young baby before, my dear," she said. "I assure you he is quite handsome for his age, and he will improve marvelously in a week's time."
Xenie stood still, holding the babe very close and tight in her arms, while a dazzling smile of triumph parted her beautiful scarlet lips. She hated to lay it down, for while she held it warm and living against her breast she seemed to taste the full sweetness of the wild revenge she had planned against her enemy.
"Oh, mamma, Lora," she cried, "how impatiently I have waited for this hour! And now I am so glad, so glad! We will go home soon, now—as soon as our darling is well enough to travel—and then I shall triumph to the uttermost over Howard Templeton."
She kissed the little pink face tenderly and exultantly two or three times, then laid him back half-reluctantly on his mother's impatient arm.
"He is my little son," she whispered, gently; "for you are going to give him to me, aren't you, Lora?"
A weary sigh drifted over the white lips of the beautiful young mother.
"I will lend him to you, Xenie, for I have promised," she murmured; "but, oh, my sister, does it not seem cruel and wrong to take such an innocent little angel as that for the instrument of revenge?"
Xenie drew back, silent and offended.
"Xenie, darling, don't be angry," pleaded Lora's weak and faltering tones; "I will keep my promise. You shall call him yours, and the world shall believe it. He shall even call you mother, but you must let me be near him always—youmust let him love me a little, dear, because I am his own dear mother."
She paused a moment, then added, in faint accents:
"And, Xenie, you will call him Jack—for his father's sake, you know."
"Yes, darling," Xenie answered, tenderly, melted out of her momentary resentment by the pathos of Lora's looks and words, "it shall all be as you wish. I only wish to call him mine before the world, you know. I would not take him wholly from you, my little sister."
"A thousand thanks," murmured Lora, feebly, then she put up her white arm and drew Xenie's face down to hers.
"I have been dreaming, dear," she said. "It seemed to me in my dream as if my poor Jack were not dead after all. It seemed to me he escaped from the terrible fire and shipwreck, and came back to me brave and handsome, and loving, as of old. It seems so real to me even now that I feel as though I could go out and almost lay my hand upon my poor boy's head. Ah, Xenie, if it only could be so!"
Mrs. St. John looked across at her mother, and Mrs. Carroll shook her head warningly. Then she said aloud, in a soothing tone:
"These are but sick fancies, dear. You must not think of Jack any more to-night, but of your pretty babe."
"Grandmamma is quite proud of her little grandson already," said Xenie, with tender archness.
"Mamma, shall you really love the little lad? You were so angry at first," Lora said, falteringly.
"That is all over with now, my daughter. I shall love my little grandson as dearly as I love his mother, soon," replied Mrs. Carroll; "but now, love, I cannot allow you to talk any longer. Excitement is not good for you. Run away to bed, Xenie. We do not need you to-night."
"Let me stay and share your vigil," pleaded Xenie.
"No, it is my turn to-night. Last night you sat up, you know. I will steal a little rest upon the lounge when Lora gets composed to sleep again."
Xenie went away to her room and threw herself across the bed, dressed as she was, believing that she was too excited to go to sleep again.
But a gradual drowsiness stole over her tumultuous thoughts, and she was soon wrapped in a troubled, dreamful slumber.
Daylight was glimmering faintly into the room, when Mrs. Carroll rushed in, pale and terrified, and shook her daughter wildly.
"Oh, Xenie, wake, wake, for God's sake!" she cried, in the wildest accents of despair and terror. "Such a terrible, terrible thing has happened to Lora!"
Xenie sprang to her feet, broad awake at those fearful words.
"Oh, mamma!" she gasped, in terror-stricken accents, "what is it? My sister—is she worse? Is she——"
She thought of death, but she paused, and could not bring her lips to frame that terrible word, and stood waiting speechlessly, with parted lips and frightened, dark eyes, for her mother to speak.
But Mrs. Carroll, as if that one anguished sentence had exhausted all her powers, fell forward across the bed, her face growing purple, her lips apart in a frantic struggle for breath.
Xenie hurriedly caught up a pitcher of water standing near at hand, and dashed it into her convulsed face, with the quick result of seeing her shiver, gasp, and spring up again.
"Mamma, speak!" she cried, shaking her wildly by the arm; "what has happened to you? What has happened to Lora?"
Mrs. Carroll's eyes, full of a dumb, agonizing terror, turned upon Xenie's wild, white face.
She tried to speak, but the words died chokingly in her throat, and she lifted her hand and pointed toward the door.
Instantly Xenie turned, and rushed from the room.
As she crossed the narrow hallway a breath of the fresh, chilly morning air blew across her face. The door that Mrs. Carroll had securely locked the night before was standing wide open, and the wind from the sea was blowing coolly in.
With a terrible foreboding of some impending calamity, Xenie sprang through the open doorway of Lora's room, and ran to the bed.
Oh! horrors, the bed was empty!
The beautiful young mother and the little babe, the day-star of Xenie's bright hopes, were gone!
Xenie looked around her wildly, but the pretty little chamber was silent and tenantless.
With a cry of fear and dread commingled, she rushed toward the door, and encountered her mother creeping slowly in, like a pallid ghost, in the chilly, glimmering dawn of the new day.
"Oh, mamma, where is Lora?" she cried, in a faint voice, while her limbs seemed to totter beneath her.
Mrs. Carroll shook her head, and put her hands to her throat, while her pallid features seemed to work with convulsive emotion. The terrible shock she had sustained seemed to have stricken her dumb.
"Oh, mamma, mamma, cannot you speak? Cannot you tell me?" implored her daughter.
But by signs and gestures Mrs. Carroll made her understand that the terrible constriction in her throat made it impossible for her to utter a word.
For a moment Mrs. St. John stood still, like a silent statue of despair, but with a sudden inspiration she brought writing materials, placed them on a small table, and said to her mother:
"Sit down, mamma, and write what you know."
Mrs. Carroll's anguished face brightened at the suggestion. She sat down quickly at the little table, and drawing a sheet of paper toward her, dipped the pen into the ink, and began to write.
Xenie leaned over her shoulder, and watched eagerly for the words that were forming beneath her hand.
But, alas, the nervous shock her mother had sustained made her hand tremble like an aspen leaf.
Great, sprawling, blotted, inky characters soon covered the fair sheet thickly, but among them all there was not one legible word.
Xenie groaned aloud in her terrible impatience and pain.
"Oh, mamma, try again!" she wailed. "Write slowly and carefully. Rest your arm upon the table, and let your hand move slowly—very slowly."
And with an impotent moan, Mrs. Carroll took another sheet of paper and tried to subdue her trembling hands to the task for whose fulfillment her daughter was waiting so anxiously.
But again the blotted characters were wholly illegible. No effort of the mother's will could still the nervous, trembling hands, and render legible the anguished words she laboriously traced upon the paper.
She sighed hopelessly as her daughter shook her head.
"Never mind, mamma," she said, "let it go, you are too nervous to form a single letter legibly. I will ask you some questions instead, and you will bow when your answer should be affirmation, and shake your head to indicate the negative."
Mrs. Carroll gave the required token of assent to this proposition.
"Very well. Now I will ask you the first question," said Xenie, trying to subdue her quivering voice into calm accents. "Mamma, did Lora go to sleep after I left you together?"
A shake of the head negatived the question.
"She was restless and flighty, then, perhaps, still dwelling on her dream about her husband?"
This question received an affirmative answer.
"But after awhile she became composed and fell asleep—did she not?" continued Mrs. St. John.
Mrs. Carroll bowed, her lips moving continually in a vain and yearning effort after words.
"And then you lay down upon the lounge to snatch a few minutes of repose?" asserted Xenie.
Again she received an affirmative reply.
"Mamma, did you sleep long?" was the next question.
Mrs. Carroll shook her head with great energy.
"Oh! no, of course you did not!" exclaimed Xenie, quickly, "for it was midnight when I left you, and if Lora was wakeful and restless it must have been several hours before either one fell asleep. And it is not daylight yet, so you must have slept a very little while. Were you awakened by any noise, mamma?"
The question was instantly negatived.
"You were nervous and ill at ease, then, and simply awoke of yourself?" continued Mrs. St. John, anxiously.
Mrs. Carroll's earnest, dark eyes said yes almost as plainly as her bowed head.
"And when you woke, Lora and the babe were gone, mamma, and the front door stood wide open—is that the way of it, mamma?" continued Xenie, anxiously watching her mother's face for the confirmation of her question.
Mrs. Carroll gave assent to it while a hoarse wail of anguish issued from her drawn, white lips.
Xenie echoed the wail, and for a moment her white face was hidden in her hands while the most terrible apprehension stabbed her to the heart.
Then she looked up and said quickly:
"She must have wandered away in a momentary fit of flightiness—don't you think so?"
And again Mrs. Carroll gave a quick motion of assent.
"Then I must find her, mamma," said Xenie, quickly. "She cannot have gone very far. She was too weak to get away from us unless—— Oh! my God! she cannot have gone to the water!" moaned Xenie, clasping her hands in horror.
Mrs. Carroll looked as if she were going into a fit at the bare suggestion.
Her face turned purple again, her eyes stared wildly, she clutched at her throat like one choking.
Xenie forced her back upon the lounge, applied restoratives, then exclaimed wildly:
"Mamma, I cannot bear to leave you thus, but I must go and seek for my sister. Even now she may be perishing in reach of our hands. Ninon, the maid, will be here in a little while. She will care for you, and I will bring back my poor little Lora."
She kissed her mother's face as she spoke, then hurried out, shawlless and bare-headed, into the chill morning air.
It was a dark and gloomy dawn, with a drizzle of rain falling steadily through the murky atmosphere.
A fine, white mist was drawn over the sea like a winding sheet. The sun had not tried to rise over the dismal prospect.
Xenie ran heedlessly down the veranda steps, and bent her steps to the seashore, looking about her carefully as she went, and calling frantically all the time:
"Lora, Lora, Lora! Where are you, my darling? Where are you?"
But no answer came to her wild appeal.
The soft, low patter of the steady rain, and the solemn sound of the waves as they madly surged upon the shore, seemed like a funeral requiem in her ears.
She could not bear the awful voice of the sea, for she remembered that Lora had hated it because her husband was buried in its illimitable waves.
But suddenly a faint and startling sound came to her ears.
She thought it was the moan of the wind rising at first, then it sounded again almost at her feet—the shrill, sharp wail of an infant.
Xenie turned around and saw, not twenty paces from her, a little bundle of soft, white flannel lying upon the wet sand.
She ran forward with a scream of joy, and picked it up in her arms, and drew aside one corner of the little embroidered blanket.
Joy, joy! it was Lora's baby—Lora's baby, lying forlorn and deserted on the wet sand with the hungry waves rolling ever nearer and nearer toward it, as though eager to draw it down in their cold and fatal embrace.
With a low murmur of joy, Xenie kissed the cold little face and folded it closely in her arms.
"Lora cannot be very far now," she thought, her heart beating wildly with joy. "She was so weak the babe has slipped from her arms, and she did not know it. She will come back directly to find it."
She ran along the shore, looking through the gray dawn light everywhere for her sister, and calling aloud in tender accents:
"Lora, Lora, my darling!"
But suddenly, as she looked, she saw a strangely familiar form coming toward her along the sand.
It was a man clothed in a gray tweed traveling suit, such as tourists wear abroad.
He stopped with a cry of surprise as they met, and thereon the wild shores of France, with the rain beating down on her bare head and thin dress, with Lora's baby tightly clasped in her bare arms, Xenie St. John found herself face to face with her enemy.
Like one stricken motionless by terror, she stood still and looked up into the proud face and scornful blue eyes of the man she had thought far, far away beneath the skies of his native land.
The ground seemed slipping from beneath her feet, the wild elements seemed whirling aimlessly over her head; she forgot Lora, she forgot the child that nestled against her breast; she remembered nothing else but her enemy's presence and the deadly peril to which her secret was exposed.
"Howard Templeton," she panted forth wildly, "why are you here?"
"Mrs. St. John," he returned, with a bitter smile, "I might rather ask you that question. What areyoudoing here in this stormy dawn, with your bare head and your thin slippers and evening dress? Permit me to offer you my cloak. Do you forget that it is cold and rainy, that you court certain death for yourself and the—the——"
He paused without ending the sentence and looked at the little white bundle lying helpless in her arms, and a steely gleam of hatred flared into his eyes.
"The child," she said, finishing the sentence for him with a passionate quiver of joy in her voice, "mychild—Howard Templeton—the little one that has come to me to avenge his mother's wrongs. Look at him. This is your uncle's heir, this tiny little babe! He will strip you of every dollar you now hold so unjustly, and his mother's revenge will then be complete."
She turned back a corner of the blanket, and gave him a glimpse of the little pink face, and the babe set up a feeble and pitiful little wail.
It was as though the unconscious little creature repeated its mother's plaintive remonstrance against making such an innocent little angel the instrument for consummating a cruel revenge.
But Xenie was deaf to the voice of conscience, or she might have fancied that its accusing voice spoke loudly in the wail of the little babe.
She looked at Howard Templeton with a glow of triumph in her face, her black eyes shining like stars.
The wind and the rain tossed her dark, loosened ringletsabout her, making her look like some mad creature with that wicked glow of anger and revenge in her beautiful, spirited face.
"Say, is it not a glorious revenge?" she cried. "You scorned me because I was poor. I was young, I was fair, I was loving and true, but all that counted for nothing in your eyes. For lack of gold you left me. Did you think my heart would break in silence? Ah, no, I swore to give you back pang for pang, and I have taken from you all that your base heart ever held dear—gold, shining gold. Through me you will be stripped of all. Is it not a brilliant victory? Ha! ha!"
His blue eyes flashed down into her vivid, black ones, giving her hate for hate and scorn for scorn. In a low, concentrated voice, he said:
"Are you not afraid to taunt me thus? Look there at that seething ocean beneath its shroud of mist. Do you see that no one is near? Do you know that there is no one in hearing? Suppose I should take you up with your revenge in your arms and cast you into yonder sea? The opportunity is mine, the temptation is great."
"Yet you will not do it," she answered, giving him a glance of superb scorn.
"Why do you say I will not do it?" he asked; "why should I spare you? You have not spared me! You are trying to wrest my inheritance from me. We are sworn and deadly foes. I have nothing to lose by your death, everything to gain. Why should I not take the present opportunity and sweep you from my path forever?"
He paused and looked down at her in passionate wrath while he wondered what she would say to all this; but she was silent.
"Again I ask you why should I spare you?" he repeated; "are you not afraid of my vengeance, Xenie St. John?"
"No, I am not afraid," she repeated, defiantly, yet even as she spoke he saw that a shudder that was not of the morning's cold shook her graceful form. A sudden consciousness of the truth that lurked in his words had rushed over her.
"Yes, wearedeadly foes," she repeated to herself, with a deeper consciousness of the meaning of those words than she had ever had before. "Why should he spare me, since I am wholly in his power?"
His voice broke in suddenly on her swift, tumultuous thoughts, making her start with its cold abruptness.
"Ah, I see that you begin to realize your position," he said, icily. "What is your revenge worth now in this moment of your deadly peril? Is it dearer to you than your life?"
"Yes, it is dearer to me than my life," she answered, steadily. "If nothing but my life would buy revenge for me I would give it freely!"
He regarded her a moment with a proud, silent scorn. She returned the gaze with interest, but even in her passionate anger and hatred she could not help owning to her secret heart that she had never seen him looking so handsome as he did just then in the rough but well-fitting tweed suit, with the glow of the morning on his fair face, and that light of scorn in his dark-blue eyes.
Suddenly he spoke:
"Well, go your way, Xenie St. John. You are in my way, but it is not by this means I will remove you from it. I am not a murderer—your life is safe from my vengeance. Yet I warn you not to go further in your wild scheme of vengeance against me. It can only result in disaster to yourself. I am forewarned of your intentions and your wicked plot. You can never wrest from me the inheritance that Uncle John intended for me!"
"We shall see!" she answered, with bold defiance, undaunted by his threatening words.
Then, as the little babe in her arms began to moan pitifully again, she remembered the dreadful trouble that had sent her out into the rain, and turning from him with a sudden wail of grief, she began to run along the shore, looking wildly around for some trace of the lost one.
She heard Howard's footsteps behind her, and redoubled her speed, but in a minute his hand fell on her shoulder, arresting her flight. He spoke hastily:
"I heard you calling for Lora before I met you—speak, tell me if she also is wandering out here like a madwoman, and why?"
She turned on him fiercely.
"What does it matter to you, Howard Templeton?"
"If she is lost I can help you to find her," he retorted. "What can you do? A frail woman wandering in the rain with a helpless babe in your arms!"
Bitterly as she hated him, an overpowering sense of the truth of his words rushed over her.
She hated that he should help her and yet she could not let her own angry scruples stand in the way of finding Lora.
She looked up at him and the hot tears brimmed over in her black eyes and splashed upon her white cheeks.
"Lora is missing," she answered, in a broken voice. "She has been ill, and last night she wandered in her mind. This morning while mamma and I slept she must have stolen away in her delirium. Mamma was prostrated by the shock, and I came out alone to find her."
"You should have left the child at home. It will perish in the rain and cold," he said, looking at her keenly.
She shivered and grew white as death, but pressed the babe closer to her breast that the warmth of her own heart might protect its tender life.
"Why did you bring the child?" he persisted, still watching her keenly.
"I will not tell you," she answered, defiantly, but with a little shiver of dread. What if he had seen her when she found it on the sands?
"Very well; you shall not stay out longer with it, at least. Granted that we are deadly foes—still I have a man's heart in my breast. I would not willingly see a woman perish. Go home, Xenie, and care for your mother. I will undertake the search for Lora. If I find her you shall know it immediately. I promise you."
He took the heavy cloak from his own shoulders and fastened it around her shivering form.
She did not seem to notice the action, but stood still mechanically, her dark, tearful eyes fixed on the mist-crowned sea. He followed her gaze, and said in a quick tone of horror: