"You do not believe she is in there? It would be too horrible!"
"Oh, my God!" Mrs. St. John groaned, with a quiver of awful dread in her voice.
He shivered through all his strong, lithe young frame. The thought of such a death was terrible to him.
"You said she was ill and delirious?" he said, abruptly.
"Yes," she wailed.
"Poor Lora—poor little Lora!" he exclaimed, with a sudden tone of pity. "Alas! is it not too probable that she has met her death in those fatal waves?"
"Oh, she could not, she could not," Xenie moaned, wildly. "She hated the sea. Her lover was drowned in it. She could not bear the sight or the sound of it."
He did not answer for a moment. He was looking away from her with a great, solemn dread and pity in his beautiful, blue eyes. Suddenly he said, abruptly:
"Go home, Mrs. St. John, and stay there until you hear news. I will go and arouse the village. I will have help in the search, and if she is found we will bring her home. If she is not, God help you, for I fear she has drowned herself in the sea."
With a long, moaning cry of anguish, Xenie turned from him and sped along the wet sand back to her mother. Howard Templeton watched the flying figure on its way with a grave trouble in his handsome face, and when she was out of sight, he turned in an opposite direction andwalked briskly along the sand, looking carefully in every direction.
"They talk of judgment," he muttered. "Has God sent this dreadful thing upon Xenie St. John for her sinful plans? If it is so, surely it will bring her to repentance. In the face of such a terrible affliction, she must surely be afraid to persist in attempting such a stupendous fraud."
Half dead with weariness and sorrow, Mrs. St. John staggered into her mother's presence with the wailing infant in her arms.
She sank down upon the floor by the side of the couch and laid the child on her mother's breast, moaning out:
"I found him down there, lying on the wet sand all alone, mamma—all alone! Oh! Lora, Lora!"
A heart-rending moan broke from Mrs. Carroll's lips. Her face was gray and death-like in the chill morning light.
She closed her arms around the babe and strained it fondly to her breast.
"Mamma, are you better? Can you speak yet? I have much to tell you," said Xenie, anxiously.
Mrs. Carroll made a violent effort at articulation, then shook her head, despairingly.
"I will send for the doctor as soon as the maid returns. She cannot be long now—it is almost broad daylight," said Xenie, with a heavy sigh. "And in the meantime I will feed the babe. It is cold and hungry. Mamma, shall I give it a little milk and water, warmed and sweetened?"
Mrs. Carroll assented, and Xenie went out into the little kitchen, lighted a fire and prepared the infant's simple nourishment.
Returning to Lora's room, she sat down in a low rocker, took the child in her arms, and carefully fed it from a teaspoon, first removing the cold blanket from around it, and wrapping it in warm, dry flannels.
Its fretful wails soon ceased under her tender care, and it fell into a gentle slumber on her breast.
"Now, mamma," she said, as she rocked the little sleeper gently to and fro, "I will tell you what happened to me while I was searching for my sister."
In as few words as possible, she narrated her meeting with Howard Templeton.
Mrs. Carroll greeted the information with a groan. Shewas both astonished and frightened at his appearance in France, when they had supposed him safe in America.
She struggled for speech so violently that the dreadful hysteric constriction in her throat gave way before her mental anguish, and incoherent words burst from her lips.
"Oh, Xenie, he will know all now, and Lora's good name and your own scheme of revenge will be equally and forever blasted! All is lost!"
"No, no, mamma, that shall never be! He shall not find us out. I swear it!" exclaimed her daughter passionately. "Let him peep and pry as he will, he shall not learn anything that he could prove. We have managed too cleverly for that."
And then the next moment she cried out:
"But, oh, mamma, you are better—you can speak again!"
"Yes, thank Heaven!" breathed Mrs. Carroll, though she articulated with difficulty, and her voice was hoarse and indistinct. "But, Xenie, what could have brought Howard Templeton here? Can he suspect anything? Did he know that we were here?"
Xenie was silent for a moment, then she said, thoughtfully:
"It may be that he vaguely suspects something wrong. Indeed, from some words he used to me, I believe he did. But what then? It is perfectly impossible that he could prove any charge he might make, so it matters little what he suspects. Oh, mamma, you should have seen how black, how stormy he looked when I showed him the child, and told him it was mine. I should have felt so happy then had it not been for my fear and dread over Lora."
"My poor girl—my poor Lora!" wailed the stricken mother. "Oh, Xenie, I am afraid she has cast herself into the sea."
"Oh, no, do not believe it. She did not, she could not! You know how she hated the sea. She has but wandered away, following her wild fancy of finding her husband. She was too weak to go far. They will soon find her and bring her back," said Xenie, trying to whisper comfort to the bereaved heart of the mother, though her own lay heavy as lead in her breast.
She rose after a moment and went to the window.
"It is strange that Ninon does not return to get the breakfast," she said, looking out. "Can her mother be worse, do you think, mamma?"
"She may be, but I hardly think it likely. She was betterof the fever the last time Ninon went to see her. It is likely that the foggy, rainy morning has deceived her as to the lateness of the hour. She will be along presently, no doubt," said Mrs. Carroll, carelessly; for her trouble rendered her quite indifferent to her bodily comfort.
Xenie sat down again, and rocked the babe silently for a little while.
"Oh, mamma, how impatient I grow!" she said, at length. "It seems to me I cannot wait longer. I must put the child down and go out again. I cannot bear this dreadful suspense."
"No, no; I will go myself," said Mrs. Carroll, struggling up feebly from the lounge. "You are cold and wet now, my darling. You will get your death out there in the rain. I must not lose both my darlings at once."
But Xenie pushed her back again with gentle force.
"No, mamma, you shall not go—you are already ill," she said. "Let the child lie in your arms, and I will go to the door and see if anyone is coming."
Filled with alternate dread and hope, she went to the door and looked out.
No, there was naught to be seen but the rain and the mist—nothing to be heard but the hollow moan of the ocean, or the shrill, piping voice of the sea birds skimming across the waves.
"It is strange that the maid does not come," she said again, oppressed with the loneliness and brooding terror around her.
She sat down again, and waited impatiently for what seemed a considerable time; then she sprang up restlessly.
"Mamma, I will just walk out a very little way," she said. "I must see if anyone is coming yet."
"You must not go far, then, Xenie." Mrs. Carroll remonstrated.
Xenie dashed out into the rain again, and ran recklessly along the path, looking far ahead of her as if to pierce the mystery that lay beyond her.
Presently she saw a young French girl plodding along toward her.
It was Ninon, the belated maid. Over her arm she carried a dripping-wet shawl.
It was a pretty shawl, of warm woolen, finely woven, and striped with broad bars of white and red.
Xenie knew it instantly, and a cry of terror broke from her lips. It belonged to Lora.
She had seen it lying around her sister's shoulders when she kissed her good-night; yet here it hung on Ninon's arms, wet and dripping, the thick, rich fringes all matted with seaweed.
Xenie's heart beat so fast at the sight of what Ninon was carrying that she could not move another step.
She had to stand still with her hands clasped over her throbbing side and wait till the girl came up to her. Then:
"Oh, Heaven, Ninon, where did you get that?" she gasped, looking at the shawl with eyes full of horror, yet afraid to touch it, for it seemed like some dead thing.
"Oh, ma'amselle," faltered the girl stopping short and looking at Xenie's anguished face. "Oh, ma'amselle," she faltered again, and her pretty, piquant face grew white and her black eyes sought the ground, for Ninon, although poor and lowly, had a very tender heart, and she could not bear to see the anguish in the eyes of her young mistress.
"I asked you where did you get that shawl?" Xenie repeated. "It was my sister's shawl. She wore it last night, and now, to-day, she is missing. Did you know that, Ninon?"
"Yes," the girl answered, in her pretty, broken English. She had heard it. A gentleman, a tourist, had brought the news to the village, and the men were all out looking for her.
Would her mistress come to the house? She had something to tell her, but not out there in the cold and wet. She looked fit to drop, indeed she did, declared the voluble, young French girl.
So she half-led, half-dragged Mrs. St. John back to the cottage and into the room where the stricken mother was waiting for tidings of her lost one.
The maid had a sorrowful story to tell.
The waves had cast a dead body up on the beach an hour ago—the corpse of a woman, thinly dressed in white, with long, beautiful black hair flowing loosely and tangled with seaweed.
They could not tell who she was, for—and here Ninon shuddered visibly—the rough waves had battered and swollen her features utterly beyond recognition.
But they thought that she was young, for her limbs were white and round, and beautifully moulded, and this shawl which Ninon carried had been tightly fastened about her shoulders.
The maid had recognized it and brought it with her to show the bereaved mother and sister, and to ask if they wished to go and view the body and try to identify it.
All this the maid told sorrowfully and hesitatingly, while the two women sat like statues and listened to her, every vestige of hope dying out of their hearts at the pitiful story, and at length Xenie cast herself down upon the wet shawland wept and wailed over it as though it had been the dead body of poor Lora herself lying there all wet and dripping with the ocean spray before her anguished sight.
Then Ninon begged her to listen to what she had to say further.
"The gentleman is going to send a vehicle for you that you may go and see the body, if you wish—I can hear the roll of the wheels now! Shall I help you to get ready?"
Xenie looked at her mother with a dumb inquiry on her beautiful, pallid features.
"Yes, go, dear, if you can bear it. Perhaps, after all, it may not be our darling," said Mrs. Carroll, with a heavy sigh, even while she tried to cheat her heart by the doubt which she felt to be a vain one.
So, with Ninon's aid, Xenie changed her wet and drabbled garments for a plain, black silk dress, and a black hat and thick veil.
Then, leaving the maid to take care of her mother, Mrs. St. John entered the vehicle and was driven to the place where a group of excited villagers kept watch over a ghastly something upon the sand—the mutilated semblance of a human being that the cruel sea had beaten and buffeted beyond recognition.
It was a terrible ordeal for that young, beautiful, and loving sister to pass alone.
As she stepped from the vehicle with a wildly-beating heart before the curious scrutiny of the strangers around her, she involuntarily cast a glance around her in the vague, scarce-defined belief that Howard Templeton would be upon the scene. But, no, there was no sign of his presence.
Strangers advanced to lead her forward; strangers questioned her; strangers drew back the sheet that had been reverently folded over the dead, and showed her that ghastly form that all believed must have been her sister.
She knelt down, trying to keep back her sobs, and looked at the form lying there in the awful majesty of death, with the cold, drizzling rain beating down on its swollen, discolored features.
How could that awful thing be Lora—her own, beautiful, tender Lora?
And yet, and yet, that beautiful, long, black hair—that fine, embroidered night-robe, hanging in tattered remnants now where the sea had rent it—did they not belong to her sister? Sickening with an awful dread, she touched one of the cold, white hands.
It was a ghastly object now, swollen and livid, yet you could see that once it had been a beautiful hand, delicate, dimpled, tapering.
And on the slender, third finger, deeply imbedded in theswollen flesh, were two rings—plain, broad, gold bands. Xenie's eyes fell upon them, and with a wild, despairing cry, "Oh, Lora, my sister!" she fell upon the wet sand, in a deep and death-like swoon.
After leaving Xenie on the seashore, Howard Templeton walked away hurriedly to the little fishing village, a mile distant, and gave the alarm of Lora's disappearance.
By a promise of large rewards, he speedily induced a party of men to set out in separate directions to scour the adjacent country for the wanderer.
But scarcely had they set out on their mission when someone brought to Howard the news of the corpse that old ocean had cast upon the sands.
Dreading, yet fully expecting to behold the dead body of Lora Carroll, Howard Templeton turned back and accompanied the man to the scene.
They found a group of excited men and women gathered, on the shore, drawn thither by that nameless fascination which the dreadful and mysterious always possesses for every class of minds whether high or low.
Conspicuous in the group was Ninon, the pretty young maid-servant, and, as Howard came upon the scene, she was volubly explaining to the bystanders that the shawl which was tightly pinned about the shoulders of the dead woman belonged to the missing girl for whom the men had gone out to search.
Was she quite sure of it, they asked her. Yes, she was quite sure.
She had seen it night after night lying across the bed in the young lady's sleeping-apartment.
When she was ill and restless, as often happened, she would put it around her shoulders and walk up and down the room for hours, weeping and wringing her hands like one in sore distress.
"Yes," Ninon said, she could swear to the shawl. She would take it home with her and show it to her mistress, and they would see that she was right.
No one interfered to prevent her.
With an irrepressible shudder at touching the dead, the girl drew out the pins and took the wet shawl.
Then, as she started on her homeward way, Howard Templeton, who had stood still like one in a dream of horror, started forward and told her that he himself would send a vehicle for the ladies, that they might come if they wished to identify the body.
For himself, he had no idea whether or not that the poor, bruised and battered corpse could be Lora Carroll.
He could see nothing that reminded him of her except the beautiful, black hair lying about her head in heavy, clinging masses, sodden with water and tangled with seaweed.
He longed, yet dreaded, for Mrs. Carroll and her daughter to arrive and confirm or dissipate his fears and end the dreadful suspense.
And yet, with the rumble of the departing wheels of the conveyance he had sent for them, a sudden cowardice stole over the young man's heart.
He could not bear the thought of the anguish of which he might soon be the witness.
Obeying a sudden, inexplicable impulse, he turned from the little company of watchers by the dead and walked off from them, taking the course along the shore that led away from the little village.
Oftentimes those simple little impulses that seem to us mere accidental happenings, would appear in reality to be the actual fulfillment of some divine design.
Howard little dreamed, as he turned away with a kind of sick horror, that was no shame to his manhood, from the sight of so much misery, that "a spirit in his feet" was guiding him straight to the living Lora, even while his heart foreboded that it was she who lay cold and lifeless on the ocean shore.
Yet so it was. True it is, as the great bard expresses it, that "there's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will."
Howard hurried along aimlessly, his thoughts so busy on one painful theme that he took no note of where he was going, or how fast he went.
He was a rapid walker usually, and when he at length brought himself to a sudden abrupt stop he realized with a start that he had come several miles at least.
The rain had ceased, the sun had come out in all its majestic glory, and beneath its fervid kisses the mist that hid the ocean was melting into thin air.
It bade fair to be a beautiful day, after all.
The pearly rain-drops sparkled like diamonds on the leaves and flowers, the sky was blue and beautiful, with here and there a little white cloud sailing softly past.
The day had began like many a life, in clouds and tears, but it promised to close in as fair and sweet a serenity as many an early-shadowed life has done.
Howard involuntarily thought of the poet's beautiful lines:
"Be still, sad heart, and cease repining,Behind the clouds is the sun still shining!Days of sunshine are given to all,Though into each life some rain must fall."
"Be still, sad heart, and cease repining,Behind the clouds is the sun still shining!Days of sunshine are given to all,Though into each life some rain must fall."
He paused and looked around him. He found that he had come into the outskirts of another rude, little fishing village.
A little ahead of him he could see the fishers bustling about on the shore.
"I have come four miles, at least," he said to himself. "What a great, hulking, cowardly fellow I am to run that far from a woman's tears. Far better have stayed and tried to dry them. Um! She wouldn't have let me," he added, with a rueful second thought.
Then, after a moment's idle gazing out at sea, aimlessly noting the flash of a sea-gull's wing as it wheeled in the blue air above him, he said, resolutely:
"I'll go back, anyhow. Perhaps I can do something to help them. They are but women—my countrywomen, too, and I'll not desert them in their trouble, even thoughshedoes hate me."
He turned around suddenly to return, and the fate that was watching him to prevent such a thing, placed a simple stone in the way. He stepped upon it heedlessly, his ankle turned, and, with a sharp cry of pain, Howard fell to the ground.
He made an effort to rise, but the acute pains that suddenly darted through his ankle caused him to fall back upon the wet sand in a hurry.
"Umph! my ankle is evidently master of the situation," he thought, with an expression of comical distress.
Raising himself on his elbow, he shouted aloud to the men in the distance, and presently two of them came running to his assistance.
"I have sprained my ankle," he explained to them in their native tongue. "Please assist me to rise, and I will try to walk."
But when they took him by the arms and raised him up, they found that it was impossible for him to walk.
"This is a deuced bore at the present time, certainly," complained the sufferer. "Can you get me any kind of a trap to drive me back to the village yonder?"
The peasants looked at him stupidly, and informed him carelessly that there was nothing of the kind available. Only one man in the vicinity owned a horse, and it had sickened and died a week before.
Howard felt a great and exceeding temptation to swear a very small oath at this crisis, but being too much of agentleman to yield to this wicked whisper of the evil one, groaned very loudly instead.
"Then what the deuce am I to do?" he inquired, as much of himself as of the two fishermen. "How am I to get away from this spot of wet sand? Where am I to go?"
The peasants scrutinized him as stupidly as before, and to all of these questions answered flatly that they did not know, indeed.
Howard thought within himself that the proverbial politeness of the French was greatly tempered by stupidity in this case.
"Well, then," he inquired next, "is there any kind of a hotel around here?"
"Yes, there was such a place," they informed him, readily; and Howard at once begged them to summon aid and construct a litter for him, promising to reward them liberally if they would carry him to the hotel.
Gold—that magic "open sesame" to every heart—procured him ready and willing attention.
It was but a short while before he found himself in tolerably comfortable quarters at the rude hotel of the fishing village, and obsequiously waited upon by the single Esculapius the place afforded.
Howard's sprain was pronounced very severe indeed. It was so painful that he could not walk upon it at all, and was ordered to strict confinement to his couch for three days.
"A fine prospect, by Jove!" Howard commented, discontentedly. "What am I to do shut up here three days in solitary confinement? and what will those poor women do over yonder with not a single masculine soul to turn to in their helplessness? Not that they wish my help, of course, but I had meant to offer it to them all the same if there was anything I could have done," he added, grimly, to his own self.
The three days dragged away very drearily. On the fourth day Howard availed himself of the aid of a crutch and got into the little public room of the hotel.
Among the few idlers that were gathered about in little friendly groups, he saw a rather intelligent-looking fisherman going from one to another with a small slip of paper in his hand.
As they read it some shook their heads, and some dived into their pockets and brought forth a few pence, which they dropped into the fisherman's extended palm.
Howard was quite curious by the time his turn came. He took the paper in his hand and found it to be an humble petition for charity, which duly set forth:
"Whereas, an unknown woman lies ill of a fever at ahouse of one Fanchette Videlet, a poor widow, almost without the necessaries of life, it is here begged by the said widow that all Christian souls will contribute a mite to the end of securing medical attendance and comforts for the poor unknown wayfarer."
This petition, which was written in excellent French, and duly signed Fanchette Videlet, had a strange effect upon Howard Templeton. His face grew pale as death; his eyes stared at the poor fisherman in perplexed thought, while he absently plunged his hand into his pocket and drew it out full of gold pieces.
"Here, my man, take this," he said, putting the coins into the man's hand.
"Why, this is too much, sir," said the honest fisherman, holding his hand out and looking at the gold in surprise. "You will rob yourself, sir."
"No, no; keep it. It is but a trifle," said Howard, pushing his hand back. "But, pray, will you answer a few questions for me?"
"As many as you like, sir—and thank you for your generosity," answered the fisherman, politely.
"I am very much interested in the sad story written here," said Howard, glancing at the paper which he still held in his hand.
"Yes, sir, it is very sad," assented the fisherman.
"How came this unknown sick woman at the Widow Videlet's house?" inquired Howard.
"The poor soul came there a few days ago, sir. She was ill and quite out of her head—could give no account of herself."
"Can you tell me what day she came there?"
"This makes the fourth day since she came, sir. I remember it was the same day you were brought to the hotel."
The young man started. It was the same day that Lora Carroll had disappeared.
Could it be Lora? Had it been some other waif the great sea had cast up from its deep?
"Did you see this woman? Could you describe her to me?" asked Howard, eagerly.
"I saw her the day she came wandering into Dame Videlet's cottage," was the answer.
"You can tell me how she looked then," said Howard, restraining his impatience by a great effort.
"Yes, sir. She was a mere girl in appearance—very young and very beautiful, with black eyes and long, blackhair. She was thinly clad in a fine night-dress," answered the fisherman.
"Did you say she was out of her mind?" asked Howard.
"Yes, sir; she raved continually."
"What form did her delirium take?"
"Oh, sir," cried the fisherman, in a tone of pity and sympathy for the wretched unknown, "it seemed like she had lost her baby. She was going around from one to the other in the place asking, asking everyone, for her baby. She said she was so tired and she had lost it out of her arms in the rain and the darkness, and could not find it again."
Howard's heart gave a great, tumultuous bound of surprise, then almost stopped beating with the suddenness of the shock.
It all rushed over him with the suddenness of a revelation.
It had seemed so strange to him that Mrs. St. John should have taken the tender little babe with her in the rain and wind when she went to search for Lora.
The truth flashed over him like lightning now.
Xenie had found the babe upon the sand where Lora had dropped it in her fevered flight.
No wonder she had been so angry and defiant when he had questioned her about it.
He felt sure now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the unknown sick woman in the poor widow's cottage could be none other than Lora herself.
"Poor, unhappy creature," he thought, with a thrill of commiseration. "It must be that God himself has sent me here to succor and befriend her."
He rose hurriedly and took up his crutch.
"How far is Dame Videlet's cottage from here?" he inquired.
"But a few rods, sir—a little further on toward the beach," said the fisherman, regarding him in some surprise.
"I will go down there and see that unfortunate woman, if you will guide me," said Howard. "I believe that she is a friend of mine. You may return their pence to those poor fishermen, who can ill spare it, perhaps. I will charge myself with her expenses even if she should not prove to be the person I think she is."
The fisherman looked at him admiringly and hastened to do his bidding.
Then they walked along to the widow's cottage very slowly, for Howard found himself exceedingly awkward in the use of his crutch.
But after all it seemed but a very few minutes before they stood in the one poor little room of Dame Videlet's dilapidatedcot bowing to the kind old soul who had taken the poor wayfarer in beneath the shelter of her lowly roof, shared her simple crust with her, and tended her with kindly, Christian hands.
"How is your patient to-day, my kind woman?" inquired the young man.
"Ah, sir, ah, sir, you may even see for yourself," she answered sadly, as she turned toward the bed.
Howard went forward with a quickened heart-beat, and stood by her side looking down at the sufferer.
Yes there she lay—poor little Lora—with wide, unrecognizing, black eyes, with cheeks crimson with fever and parted lips through which the breath came pantingly. A heavy sigh broke unconsciously from Howard's lips.
"Good sir, do you know her?" asked the woman, regarding him anxiously.
"Yes, I know her," he answered; "she is a friend of mine and has wandered away from her home in the delirium of fever. You shall be richly rewarded for your noble care of her."
"I ask no reward but the blessing of Heaven, sir," said the good old woman, piously; "I have done the best I could for her ever since she staggered into the door and asked me for her lost baby."
As if the word struck some sensitive chord in her consciousness, Lora turned her wild, bright eyes upon Howard's face, and murmured in a pathetic whisper:
"Have you found my baby—Jack's baby and mine?"
Alas for Xenie's secret, guarded with such patient care and sleepless vigilance.
Howard looked down upon her with a mist of tears before his sight—she looked so fair, and young, and sorrowful, lying there calling for her lost little child.
"I have lost my baby, I have lost my baby!" she wailed aloud, throwing her arms wildly over her head and tangling her fingers in the long, dark tresses floating over the pillow in their beautiful luxuriance. "It is lost, lost, lost, my darling little one! It will perish in the rain and the cold!"
Involuntarily Howard reached out and took one of the restless white hands in his, and held it in a firm and tender clasp.
"Lora, Lora," he said, in a gentle, persuasive voice, "listen to me. The baby isfound. Xenie found it on the shore where you lost it out of your arms. It is safe—it is well, with Xenie."
Lora turned her hollow glance upon his face, and though no gleam of recognition shone in her eyes, his impressive words penetrated her soul. She threw out her arms yearningly.
"It is found, it is found! Oh, thank God!" she murmured, happily. "Bring him to me, for the love of Heaven! Lay him here upon my breast, my precious little son!"
"Oh, sir, then it is true she had a child; and it is living. I thought perhaps it was dead," said the poor widow.
"She has a child, indeed, and she lost it in her delirious flight; but her sister found it soon afterward. It is at this moment not more than four miles from here," answered the young man, without reflecting that many things might have happened during his long imprisonment of four days in the lonely little fishing village.
"Then, if you will take my advice, sir, as she is a friend of yours, you will try to get that child here as soon as possible. I will do the best I can for her, and the doctor has promised to do all in his power; but I believe that the child is the only thing that will save her life," said Dame Videlet, gravely shaking her head in its homely white cap.
"It shall be brought," said Howard, earnestly, and without a doubt but that he could keep the promise thus made.
Dame Videlet thanked God aloud, then added that the sooner it were brought the better it would be for the mother.
All the while poor Lora lay tossing in restless pain, and begging piteously for her little child to be laid upon her breast.
Howard bent over her as tenderly and gently as a brother.
"Lora, my poor child, try to be patient," he said. "I will bring the child to you; only be patient a little while."
But it was all in vain to preach patience to that racked heart and weary, fevered brain.
He stole away, followed by despairing cries for the little child—cries that echoed in his heart and brain many days afterward, when his warm heart was half-broken because he could not keep the promise he had made in such perfect confidence and hope.
"How shall I get back to the village four miles away from here?" he asked of the man who had accompanied him and was still waiting for him.
"I can take you in my fishing-boat and row you there, and welcome, sir," was the hearty response. "It's a wee bit leaky, but as good as any other craft about, and there's no conveyance to be had by land."
"What a great simpleton I have been, by George, never to have thought of a boat before," said Howard, looking vexed at himself. "Here I have been four days, and wanting to get back to the village badly, and never thought of all the little boats and the great, wide ocean."
"Mayhap it's all for the best, sir," said the fisherman. "If you had gone back sooner, you might never have found the sick lady, your friend. You should see the hand of the Lord in it, my young sir."
"It looks like it," admitted Howard, "though, truth to tell,mon ami, I do not usually look for such intervention in my affairs. His Satanic Majesty is at present controlling my mundane affairs."
"The Lord rules, sir," answered the man, launching his little boat, and trying to make a comfortable and dry seat for his crippled young passenger.
The little boat shot out into the blue and sparkling waves, and danced along like a thing of life in the beautiful spring sunshine.
"We must go a mile below the village to the home of my friend's mother," Howard explained, as they went along.
Then he fell to wondering how Xenie would receive him when he came to her with the glad tidings of Lora's discovery.
"How strange that I should carryher gladtidings," he thought. "I am afraid I do not keep to the letter of my vow of hatred as firmly as she does. Wouldshebring me good news as willingly?"
His heart answered no.
The keel grated on the shore, and springing out, they went up to the pretty cottage were Mrs. Carroll had lived in strict retirement for several months with her two daughters.
But there a terrible disappointment awaited Howard.
The cottage was untenanted.
They knocked several times, eliciting no response, and finally opening the doors, they found that the occupants had moved out.
All was still and silent, and Howard's heart sank heavily as he thought of poor Lora lying in the widow's cot and moaning for the child he had promised to bring her.
"They are gone away," said Howard in a more hopeless voice than he knew himself. "We must return to the village. We may hear news from them there."
And in his heart he was fervently praying that he would, for how could he return to Lora without the child?
They went to the little village where the dead body had been washed upon the sands, and he asked everyone he met if they knew where the occupants of the little cottage had gone.
No one could tell him anything of their whereabouts. They had identified the drowned woman as their relative, had buried her, and then quietly left the place, taking Ninon, the little maid, with them.
He could not obtain the least clew by which he might follow them and bring them back to the sick girl whom they mourned as dead.
Howard did not know what to do now, for he remembered that Dame Videlet had said that the child was the only thing that could save Lora's life.
He went into the churchyard and looked at the new-made grave with the cross of white marble, and the simple inscription "Lora,ætat18."
"Perhaps the inscription might come true after all in a few—a very few days," he thought, sadly.
Howard did not know what to do: it seemed such a terrible thing to go back to Lora with bad tidings. Perhaps the shock would kill her.
Oh, if Mrs. St. John had but waited a little longer! Why need she have hurried away so precipitately?
Well, there was no help for it.
He must go back and tell her how inopportunely things had turned out, and how sorry he was that he could not keep his promise.
He would get Dame Videlet to break it to her very gently.
She would not bungle over it like a great, awkward fellow like himself.
The good old woman was waiting for him outside the door.
Her face was radiant, but it changed and grew very anxious as he came up to her, and she saw that his arms were empty.
"Where is the child?" she whispered.
Briefly and sadly he told the story of his disappointment, and the widow wiped the tears of sorrow from her eyes as he concluded.
"How is she now?" he inquired, anxiously.
"She has been better, much better, since you told her the child was found. Her reason has returned to her, and she has wept tears of joy. She is impatiently waiting for you now, for I told her just now that you were returning. Alas, alas!" groaned Dame Videlet, her tender heart quite melted by the thought of Lora's disappointment.
Howard groaned in unison with her.
"Will it go hard with her?" he asked, sorrowfully.
The dame shook her head mournfully.
"Alas, alas!" she groaned again.
"You will break the news to her—will you not?" asked Howard. "It would be better for you to do it; I am agreat, awkward fellow, and could not tell her tenderly and gently like a woman. Tell her we will try to find her mother and sister as soon as possible. Do not let her despair."
"I will tell her," said the good woman, turning toward the door, "but I am afraid the disappointment will nearly kill her. She is very ill. She cannot bear much. Do you remain outside while I go in."
Howard sat down on a rough bench outside the door and waited, his heart heavy with grief for the poor, unfortunate girl within.
"Far better that I had not seen her at all, than have given her such hope only to be followed by disappointment," he thought sadly to himself.
Suddenly a wild, piercing, delirious shriek issued from the widow's cot, causing him to spring up in alarm, and rush into the room.
He met the bereaved mother in the center of the floor, trying to make her escape from the feeble arms of Dame Videlet who was drawing her back to the bed.
She looked like a mad creature struggling with the weak, old woman, her dark hair flying loose in wild confusion, her arms flung upward over her head, while shriek after shriek burst from her foam-flecked lips.
"Take her," cried the old woman, excitedly. "Hold her tightly in your arms a minute."
Howard obeyed her quickly, and in his strong, yet gentle clasp, the mad girl was held securely while Dame Videlet poured something from a bottle upon a sponge and held it to the girl's dilated nostrils.
Directly her wild cries grew fainter, her eyelids fell, her head dropped heavily upon Howard's breast.
"Lay her down upon the bed, now, sir," said the dame, "and fetch the doctor as quickly as you can. This delirium will soon return upon her. The effect of the drug will not last very long."
"She cannot live the night out," said the doctor, sadly.
Three weary days and nights had Lora been tossing restlessly in the delirium of fever. Everything that money or skill could do had been done for her, but all to no avail.
Now, as they stood around the bed and listened to her wild, delirious ravings, the kind old doctor shook his head and sighed at the sight of so much youth and beauty going down to the grave.
"She cannot live the night out," he said again, in a voice of deep feeling.
"Can nothing more be done?" asked Howard Templeton,his blue eyes resting sadly on the wreck of the beautiful Lora.
"I have done all that the medical art can do," declared the physician, "but all to no avail. She has sustained a terrible shock. Her dreadful tramp through the wind and rain the day she came here was enough to have killed her. But her constitution was a superb one, and I believed that I might have saved her after all, if the child could have been restored to her."
"Why did we not think of procuring a substitute for the child?" exclaimed Howard, suddenly. "If we could have put another child in its place might not the innocent deception have saved her life?"
"Such a plan might have been tried," said the doctor, thoughtfully. "But it must have been a terrible risk to tell her the truth even after her recovery. She is very nervous, and her organization is high-strung."
Even as he spoke, the grayness and pallor of death settled over Lora's beautiful, wasted features.
"My love, you are simply perfect. You look like a bride."
Mrs. Carroll spoke enthusiastically, and her daughter flushed brightly with gratified pride and pleasure.
She was standing before the long cheval-glass in her dressing-room. She was about to attend a ball at Mrs. Egerton's, and her maid had just put the finishing touches to her toilet.
It was no wonder that Mrs. Carroll's admiration had broken out into enthusiastic words. Xenie's loveliness was dazzling, her toilet perfection.
She wore a dress of the rarest and costliest cream-white lace over a robe of cream-colored satin. The frosty network of the over-dress was looped here and there with diamond stars.
A necklace of diamonds was clasped around her white throat, a diamond star twinkled in the dark waves of her luxuriant hair, and the same rich jewels shone on her breast and at her tiny, shell-like ears.
Her dark and brilliant beauty shone forth regally from the costly setting.
Her eyes outrivaled the diamonds, her satin skin was as creamily fair as her satin robe, her scarlet lips were like rosebuds touched with dew.
No wonder that Mrs. Carroll caught her breath in a kind of ecstacy at the resplendent vision.
More than a year had passed since that dark and rainymorn on the shores of France, when Xenie had wandered up and down on the "sea-beat shore" seeking her lost sister—a year that had brought its inevitable changes, and dulled the first sharp edge of grief—so that to-night she was to throw off her mourning robes and reappear in society for the first time at a ball given by her aunt, Mrs. Egerton.
Yet, after that first moment of exultant triumph at her mother's praise, a faint, intangible shadow settled over Mrs. St. John's brilliant face.
The scarlet lips took a graver curve upon their honeyed sweetness, the dark, curling lashes drooped low, until they shaded the peachy cheek.
The white-gloved hand that held the rare bouquet drooped wearily at her side.
"Mamma," she said, abruptly, "I wish I had not promised to go."
"What has come over you, Xenie? I thought you had looked forward to this night with real pleasure."
"I did—I do, mamma, and yet for the moment my heart grew sad. I was thinking of poor little Lora."
A hot tear splashed down upon her cheek, and Mrs. Carroll sighed heavily, while her grave, sad face grew sadder and graver still. She put her hand upon her heart.
"Oh, that we might have her back!" she breathed, in a voice that was almost a moan of pain.
"The carriage is waiting, madam," said Finette, appearing at the door.
"Well, I am ready," said Mrs. St. John, listlessly. "My cloak, Finette."
The maid came forward and threw the elegant wrap about her shoulders, and leaving a light kiss on her mother's lips, Mrs. St. John swept out of the dressing-room and down to the carriage that waited to take her to the brilliantfetethat Mrs. Egerton had planned in her especial honor.
Mrs. Carroll bent her steps to the nursery.
Ninon, the little French nurse, sat beside the hearth sewing on a bit of fancy work, and the soft glow of firelight and gaslight shining upon her made her look like a quaint, pretty picture in her neat costume and dark prettiness.
The nursery was a dainty, airy, white-hung chamber. It had been a smoking-room in Mr. St. John's time. His widow had converted it into a nursery.
In a beautiful rosewood, lace-draped crib lay the spurious heir to the millionaire's wealth—a beautiful, rosy healthy boy, sleeping softly and sweetly in innocent unconsciousness of the terrible fraud that had been perpetrated in his name.
For Mrs. St. John's daring scheme had succeeded. Lora'schild had been foisted upon the law and the world as the millionaire's legal heir, and Howard Templeton's heritage had passed into the hands of the child's guardian, Mrs. St. John, his pretended mother.
But, alas! in the hour of her triumph, when the golden fruit of her wild revenge was within her grasp, its sweetness had palled upon her, its taste had been bitter to her lips. It was but Dead Sea fruit, after all.
For the struggle with Howard Templeton for the possession of the millionaire's fortune which Xenie had anticipated with such passionate zest had been no struggle after all.
In a few weeks after the burial of the poor drowned woman whom she had identified as her sister, Xenie and her mother had returned to the United States, taking with them Lora's child, and as nurse, Ninon, the little maid-servant.
A costly bribe had sealed the lips of the little French maid, and the truth of the little boy's parentage was a dead secret with her.
Immediately after her arrival at home, Xenie had placed her case in the hand of a noted lawyer.
He undertook it in perfect faith. He did not dream that he had been employed as the necessary aid to carry out a wicked scheme of revenge and perpetrate a gigantic fraud.
He took immediate steps to regain the possession of the deceased millionaire's property in the interest of his posthumous child.
The case immediately attracted public attention and interest, both from the high position of the parties to the suit and the great wealth involved.
But for several months nothing could be heard from the defendant, who was still absent in Europe, although the lawyer who managed his property in his native city wrote him frantic and repeated appeals to return and defend his case.
At length, when patience had ceased to be a virtue with the plaintiff, and the opposition was about to push the suit for judgments without him, a brief letter was received from Howard Templeton, instructing the lawyers to postpone everything until after his arrival.
He would sail on a certain day and upon a certain steamer, and be with them four weeks from date.
Mrs. St. John was quite content to wait after she heard of that letter.
She felt so sure that she would win that she was willing to wait until her enemy came. She wanted to triumph over him face to face.
So the weeks dragged by, and Howard's steamer was due in port.
It did not come. Soon it was a week over-due.
Then came one of those dreadful reports of marine disasters that now and then thrill the great heart of humanity with horror.
There had been a terrible storm at sea, and the ship had gone to pieces upon a hidden rock. Only seven persons had been saved.
Howard Templeton's name appeared in the list of passengers who had perished.
So there could be no further delay now. The case went before the courts and was very speedily decided.
Mrs. St. John gained the case and had her revenge.
But it was no revenge, after all, since Howard Templeton was not alive to pay the bitter cost of her vengeance.
So the golden fruit, bought at the price of her soul's peace, turned to bitter ashes on her loathing lips.
"Mrs. St. John, allow me to present to you Lord Dudley."
Xenie turned with a languid smile and bowed to the tall, elegant gentleman who bent admiringly before her.
Only ten minutes before Mrs. Egerton had whispered to her eagerly:
"My dear, Lord Dudley, the great English peer, is present. There's a catch for you."
"I am not looking for a catch," Xenie said, almost bruskly.
"No," said her aunt, who was an indefatigable matchmaker; "but then you are too young and beautiful to remain always single. You are sure to marry some day again, and why not Lord Dudley?"
"He has not asked me, aunt," said Xenie, half-smiling, half-provoked. "I am not even acquainted with him."
"No, but you will be," said Mrs. Egerton. "I heard him asking just now about you. He said you were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen—a compliment worth having from such a man as Lord Dudley, so elegant and distinguished, with such an air of culture and travel. Besides, he is so wealthy, owning several castles in England, I'm told, and a fabulous bank account."
"A distinguishedparti, certainly," said Xenie, indifferently, and then, as her aunt moved away, she completely forgot Lord Dudley's existence.
She stood leaning carelessly against a tall flower-stand,looking at the dancers, a little later, when Mrs. Egerton approached, leaning on the arm of a handsome gentleman, and then she found herself bowing and smiling in acknowledgement of an introduction to Lord Dudley.
"I have been watching you a long time, Mrs. St. John," he said, taking his place by her side. "Your face puzzled me."
"Indeed?" she said, raising her dark eyes to him with a kind of languid wonder.
"Yes, it is true," he said. Then suddenly, as the intoxicating strains of a waltz began to pulsate on the perfumed air, he exclaimed, in a different tone: "Will you give me this waltz, Mrs. St. John?"
She assented indifferently, and a moment later she was whirling down the long room, the envy of every woman at the ball, for every feminine present had set her cap at the distinguished traveler.
His tall, proud form in the black evening dress showed to the most perfect advantage, as clasping herpetiteand graceful form closely in his arm, they whirled round and round to the enchanting strains, looking, in the perfect accord and gracefulness with which they moved, like the spirit of harmony embodied.
"That will be a match," predicted some of the wiseacres around, and those that did not say that much thought it to themselves.
Among the latter class was a gentleman who had entered a moment before and now stood talking courteously to the hostess.
It was she who had directed his attention to the handsome pair.
"Look at Xenie," she said with a spice of malicious triumph in her tone. "That is Lord Dudley with whom she is waltzing. She has quite captivated him. Doubtless it will be a match."
His eyes followed the flying form a moment steadily, then he answered calmly:
"They are a handsome pair, certainly, Mrs. Egerton. I am acquainted with Lord Dudley."
"You met him abroad, I suppose?"
"No, we came over from England in the same——"
But at that moment someone came hastily up and claimed his attention.
Then a little excited group formed around him, and even the waltzers began to see that an unusual interest was agitating the wall-flowers.
Xenie looked carelessly at first, then more closely as she saw that her aunt stood in the center of the group.
"Aunt Egerton has suddenly become the center of attraction," she said, laughingly, to her companion.
Then she started and the room seemed to swim around her, the lights, the flowers, the black suits of the men, the gay, butterfly robes of the women seemed to be blending in an inextricable maze.
Her heart seemed beating in her ears, so loudly it sounded.
She had caught a flitting glimpse of a man's form standing just beyond her aunt. It was he around whom the excited little throng buzzed and eddied.
He was tall, straight, graceful as a young palm tree, handsome as Apollo, in his elegant evening dress.
His head, crowned with fair, curling locks, was held aloft with half-haughty grace; his Grecian profile, clearly-cut as a cameo head, was turned toward Xenie, and she saw the smile that curved the fair, mustached lips, the flash in the proud, blue eyes.
For a moment she lost the step, and hung droopingly on her partner's arm.
"You are tired," he said, stopping and looking down into her deathly-white face. "Pardon me, I kept you on the floor too long; but your step was so perfect, the music so entrancing, I forgot myself."
He was leading her to a seat as he spoke. She came back to herself with a quick start.
"No, do not blame yourself," she answered. "The fact is I am not accustomed to waltzing of late. This is the first time for almost two years, and it is so easy to—to grow dizzy—to lose one's head."
"Yes, indeed, it is," he answered. "Shall I get you a glass of water?"
"If you please," she murmured, faintly.
He went away, and she tried to rally from her sudden shock.
By the time he returned she was calm, nonchalantly fanning herself with a languid, indolent grace. No one but herself knew how hard and fast her heart was beating yet.
"Thank you," she murmured; then, as she lifted her head, she saw her aunt coming to her, leaning on the arm of a gentleman.
Lord Dudley stared and exclaimed:
"Heaven! it is Howard Templeton! The sea has given up its dead!"
"Do you know him?" asked Xenie.
"Yes, we crossed together. That is—until the terrible storm that wrecked us—I was one of the seven that were saved. It was supposed that Templeton was lost."
"Xenie," said Mrs. Egerton, vivaciously, and yet with anote of warning in her tones that was distinguishable only to her ears for whom it was intended, "here is an old friend whom we all thought dead. Bid him welcome."
Xenie arose, languid, careless, pale as a ghost, yet wearing a gracious smile for the eyes of the little social world that watched her keenly.
He took the half-extended hand in his a moment, and bowed low over it, touching it an instant to his mustached lips.
"I kiss the hand that smites me," he murmured in her ear, sarcastically; then turned aside to greet Lord Dudley.
Fervent congratulations were exchanged between these two, who had been ocean voyagers together, and who had parted on the deck of the broken vessel, expecting to meet again only upon the other shore of eternity.
"I am dying of impatience to hear how you were rescued from the horrors of that terrible shipwreck," said Lord Dudley. "Is the story too long to tell us to-night?"
"It is a long story, but it may be told in a few words," said Howard. "I was tossed about for some time, clinging desperately to a slender spar, then picked up by a blockade runner bound for Cuba.
"This, in turn, was captured by a Spanish war vessel. I remained a prisoner of Spain until such time as the vessel put into port, and I reported to our American consul in that country.
"He immediately wrote to America for the necessary papers to prove my identity as a citizen of America. These being obtained and examined, I was released, after a tedious delay, and came home as fast as wind and tide could carry me. There, my lord, you have the whole story in a nutshell."
"And a very interesting one, too, I doubt not, had it been related in detail. I heartily rejoice that you were saved to tell it," said Lord Dudley, with interest.
Then he added, as if some afterthought had suddenly struck him:
"And, Templeton, the lady—who came over in your care—was she also saved?"
Templeton started, and flashed a hurried glance at Xenie.
She was toying with her jeweled fan, and looking away as carelessly as if she had forgotten his existence.
He did not know that she was listening intently to every word.
He looked back carelessly at the nobleman.
"Yes, she was rescued with me. We clung to the spar together. I would have lost my own life rather than that frail and helpless girl should have perished!"
"She returned with you, then?" said Lord Dudley.
"Yes, she returned in my care. She was a helpless young widow," said Howard, evasively. "She lost all her friends in Europe."
Then other friends claimed him, and he turned away.
"So Mr. Templeton is an old acquaintance of yours, Mrs. St. John?"
"Yes; he was my late husband's nephew," she answered, with languid indifference.
He saw that she did not care to pursue the subject.
"It puzzled me when I first saw you to-night that I could not account for the strange familiarity of your face," he said; "but since I have so unexpectedly met with my fellow-voyager, Howard Templeton, I distinctly recall the reason. You are singularly like a lady who traveled in his care—your very height, your very features; though, as I remember now, very different in expression. She appeared almost heart-broken; yet she was very beautiful. I need not tell you that, though, since I have already said she looks like you," he added, with an admiring bow.
"What was her name?" asked Mrs. St. John, eagerly, quite oblivious of the delicate compliment.
"I have forgotten it," said Lord Dudley. "Forgetting names is a weakness of mine. Yet I remember that Templeton called her by her Christian name—a very soft and sweet one. Let me see—Laura, perhaps."
Xenie sat silent and thoughtful. There was a strange pain at her heart. She could not understand it.
"It cannot be that I am sorry he is living," she said to herself. "My triumph is greater than if he were dead. He knows that I have my sweet revenge. It was never sweet until I knew him living to feel its pangs! For all his haughty bearing it must be that he feels it in all its bitterness."
Then a sudden irrelevant thought flashed across these self-congratulations.
"I wonder who that Laura can be? Is he in love with her?"
It was the most natural thought in the world for a woman; yet she put it away from her with a sort of angry impatience.
"What if he does love her?" she thought, scornfully, "He cannot marry her. He is a beggar. I have stripped him of everything. She will leave him for lack of gold, as he left me. Then he may feel something of what I suffered through his sin!"
And she felt gladder than ever before at the thought of Howard Templeton's poverty. She knew that he could not marry the girl for whom he said he would have lost his own life—that beautiful, mysteriousLaura.
Mrs. Egerton was passing and she called her.
"I am going home," she said. "I have danced too much. I am tired, and the rooms are suffocating."
"A multiplicity of excuses," laughed Lord Dudley. "Ossa upon Pelion piled. Mrs. St. John, you will not be so cruel?"
"I must; my head aches," she replied; and though he pleaded and Mrs. Egerton protested, she was obstinate.
Mrs. Egerton saw her depart, feeling sorely vexed with her.
Howard Templeton saw her leaving, and crossed the room to her.
"I shall do myself the pleasure of calling upon you to-morrow," he said, quietly, as he lightly touched her hand.
They had to wear a mask, these two deadly foes, before the curious eyes of the world.
She flashed a sudden, haughty look of inquiry into his steadfast eyes.
He stooped over her quickly.
"Yes," he whispered, hurriedly and lowly; "it isvendettastill. War to the knife!"
Then Lord Dudley, full of regrets, attended her to her carriage.