CHAPTER XXIII.
THERESA’S WARNING.
Theresa was much more cheerful the following morning. There might yet be happiness for her and the man she loved so much. He had declared his intention of quitting England that very day and devoting his life to her. Surely her all-absorbing passion for him would meet with some return!
“I know that the sight of his old love, and the memory of the old days have revived much that has lain dormant within him, but he is mine—mine—and I love him best! Why should she steal away my happiness? I who am so lonely and sad. If he were free to make his choice, which would he take? Ah, my love is no mere outward show. For his sake I would willingly lay down my life!”
She had forgotten the vendetta, but that very day she had a note thrust into her hand by an urchin who had found his way to her apartments unobserved.
In astonishment and horror she opened it and read the following:
Lady Theresa Annesley, daughter of Lambert Egerton and Theresa Ludovic, remember the death of Count Crispi cries still for vengeance. You and yours are forever under the ban until the hateful blood of your people is wiped from off the face of the earth. Think not to escape us. The executive awaits the signal to strike.
Lady Theresa Annesley, daughter of Lambert Egerton and Theresa Ludovic, remember the death of Count Crispi cries still for vengeance. You and yours are forever under the ban until the hateful blood of your people is wiped from off the face of the earth. Think not to escape us. The executive awaits the signal to strike.
In a moment all sunshine was blotted away, and she stood pale, trembling and hopeless.
In this way Sir Harold found her, and his heart smote him with remorseless pangs.
“If you don’t wish it, Theresa,” he said, “I will not go out at all to-day. Your pallor frightens me. Tell me, child. What is your trouble?”
He waited anxiously, fearfully. If Theresa asked him to stay with her, then he might never see Lady Elaine again. It was a terrible sacrifice, but he was prepared to make it.
For one brief space she hesitated, then burst into a storm of tears.
“No, darling, you must not forego every pleasure for my sake,” she sobbed. “Have I not surrounded you with a network of perplexities and dangers already? I am frightened—not for myself, but for my beloved husband! See! You ought to read this. A danger menaces you, my love—the danger of death!”
He took the paper, and his face flamed with fury.
“The cowards!” he hissed—“the pitiful, wretched cowards! Theresa, this is a mere, contemptible threat! Why was the boy not seized? I will get to the root of it if half my fortune is spent in so doing!”
He made inquiries from the hotel clerk, the burlycommissionairein the doorway, the servants about the hall. Then he was driven to Scotland Yard and placed the matter in competent hands. Money was no object. The wretches must be brought to justice, and his wife’s person properly guarded.
He returned and told her what he had done, and she said, in reply:
“I am glad for your sake, Harold, but I am very much afraid. My father ought not to have hidden this from me!”
Then she looked up at him, with a mournfulness in her eyes that he never forgot.
“My husband,” she said, “I am going to make a strangerequest of you—a request which I hope that you will grant, because I know that it is for your good.”
“Well, Theresa? Sweet one, don’t look at me in that way! Your eyes will haunt me forever. Now, what is it you want?”
“Sir Harold, I want you to divorce me! I was reading only recently in some paper that a marriage under any serious misapprehension was practically null and void—that the law would unhesitatingly set it aside. I ask you this with a breaking heart, because I love you as no other can love you—knowing that I am but a clog—a menace to your future happiness!”
“Theresa—Theresa! What has put this madness into your tender, loving heart?”
He took her in his arms and held her to him tightly. He showered upon her words of endearment.
“A little while, Theresa, and all these worries will have melted like mists in the sun. You are too sensitive—too imaginative. Oh, the thought to me is horrible!”
After lunch, one of the smartest detectives in London was sent to Sir Harold from Scotland Yard. The liberality of his reward for the apprehension of the letter-writer was a strong incentive. He was closeted with Annesley for half-an-hour, and finally pocketed unimportant letters and addressed envelopes which had been received at the hotel since his stay there.
“You must be perfectly frank with me in all things,” said the detective. “If I appear to be curious concerning your private affairs I shall only have one end in view, and that is the elucidation of this little mystery. My theory is already formed, and I do not think that I shall be far out when my deductions are complete.”
“You havecarte blancheso far as I and my household are concerned,” Sir Harold told him. “To-nightwe leave for Paris, and you may send me news of your progress there. I will telegraph my address to you.”
The detective went away, and, half-an-hour later, Annesley was in a hansom, being driven to Lady Elaine Seabright’s villa in Hyde Park. He had promised his wife that he would not be gone long, and left Stimson to prepare everything for their departure by the Dover express.
Lady Elaine’s address was Lyndhurst Villa, and Sir Harold told the cabman to stop within fifty yards of the house.
When the hansom pulled up he sprang out, and the man pointed with his whip to a little Queen Anne building half-embowered in trees, saying:
“That is Lyndhurst Villa, sir.”
“Thank you. I shall not be gone long. Wait here for me, please.”
For a minute his heart beat into his throat, and his eyes were blinded with mist; then he pushed resolutely onward into the presence of the one whom he would love as long as life lasted.
He was admitted by Nina, who conducted him into a prettily-furnished drawing-room.
“Her ladyship will not keep you waiting long, Sir Harold,” the maid said, quietly. She could not find it in her heart to forgive the man who had ruined her mistress’ life.
She withdrew, and in a state of great agitation he paced the floor. Why had he come? It was needless pain for both. It was unfair to his wife. He might have explained all to Lady Elaine by letter. It would have been much more simple—much easier.
At last there was the rustle of a woman’s dress, the door opened softly, and his lost love stood before him. How ethereal she looked. Had the vision appeared unexpectedlyhe would have believed that it was a visitant from the spirit world.
“Elaine!”
There was a great sob in his voice, and he held out his arms, but she did not respond.
“Sir Harold,” she replied, softly. “You must not forget the bar between us. You must not forget your wife! I was perhaps wrong to grant this interview, but I wish to look upon you for the last time—to hear your voice once more. My hero is not yet dethroned, and I desire to vindicate myself——”
“Stop!” he cried. “Oh, my God, this is too much for human hearts to bear! Elaine, come and sit beside me; let me place my arms about you—pillow your head upon my shoulder, while I tell you all that has happened to me since that day when you drove me forth! It may be the last time, Elaine; it may be the last time that we shall meet on earth, and I want to carry it through life and to the grave a pleasant memory. Do not forget what we have been to each other—what we are to each other still! When you know all you will not blame me, and then——”
He covered his eyes with his hands, and she was instantly beside him.
“If I am sinning, Heaven forgive me. Surely the sin will be expiated by the martyrdom that is mine!”
Bit by bit, he told his wonderful story—the story of his utter oblivion—the story of his awakening—of his brotherly love for the sweet girl whom he called wife—of his utter despair.
“But my duty is clear, Elaine; I could never shut my eyes to that, although I should be sorely tempted were Theresa other than she is.”
“I feel that I must love her,” Lady Elaine replied. “Love her because she loves you, Harold! You see what my pride—my silly pride—has done for us, but insome way all the evil that has ever befallen me is attributable to your cousin—to Margaret Nugent. She it was who professed to know your moods and to whom I listened blindly for advice. This is no palliation for the fault—for the folly I committed; but I cannot help thinking that she had some ulterior motive in parting us—that she perhaps cared for you herself.”
He was thoughtful for a little while, and then remarked, sternly: “You cannot both be wrong. Poor Theresa distrusts Margaret.”
“It is fatal to one’s happiness or even peace to permit some people to enter into the secrets of their lives,” continued Lady Elaine, “and I have thought lately that if I had obeyed the wishes of Colonel Greyson, and permitted him to carry my letter of recall—my complete surrender—to you, how different things might have been.”
“Why did you not send that letter, Elaine?” he said, sadly.
“Ah, you have forgotten, Harold. I sent it by Margaret Nugent, and she told me that you scoffed at it, and cast it to the winds.”
“I never received that letter, darling,” he replied, starting up, a bitter imprecation on his lips against his false cousin. “I never received that letter—I swear it! At last I believe that light is breaking upon me! The night that we first met, Colonel Greyson said that Margaret would be jealous, and I laughed at what I considered the absurdity of the idea. And the stories of your engagement to Rivington? Ah, what a blind fool I have been!”
He heard of the terms of the late earl’s will with wonderment and regret.
“I cannot understand it, if your father knew nothing of Rivington’s private character,” he said, “or he may have been blinded to everything in his obstinacy and determination to have his own way.”
A silver-tongued clock on the mantel-piece chimed the hour of five, and Sir Harold started up in dismay.
“I must go, Elaine. Kiss me, darling, for the last time! Oh, the misery of it.”
He embraced her fiercely, saying, hoarsely:
“If you are in trouble at any time call me to your side, Elaine; I shall never be more than two or three days’ journey away. Promise me, my lost love!”
“Yes, I will send to you if my trouble is serious—if our old lawyer cannot combat with it,” she said.
“And your fortune shall be restored to you. I will see Mr. Worboys within two months’ time. That will be soon enough. Between us Rivington can be brought to his knees. In the meantime I shall not be idle, and will drop the lawyer a few lines. You will understand later, Elaine.”
Another frantic, hopeless embrace, and, seizing his hat, he almost ran from the room—there was a bang of the outer door, and he was gone.
As the cab whirled away in obedience to his wild words, “Home again! Lose not a moment!” the figure of a man appeared from behind a mass of evergreens which grew in the shadow of a spreading and leafy maple. It was that of Viscount Rivington.
He took a final glance through the drawing-room window, where Lady Elaine was kneeling, her face buried in the cushions of a lounge, paused irresolute, then glided into the street, a savage imprecation upon his lips, hate in his flashing, black eyes.
“So this is why my love is spurned!” he muttered. “Why my life is to be utterly wrecked! He is her lover still. What unlucky fate has brought them together again? What of the story of his shattered memory? God! Has Margaret deceived me also, or is there a mine beneath her also which is soon to explode? How longhas he been visiting here? Had I chanced upon them unawares—but, bah! I saw her in his arms, he a married man! I heard her sobs, and I hate her for it! Now it is my turn to woo, aye, and to win! My Lady Elaine shall be my wife at any cost. I am upon the very brink of disaster, a disaster which will forever place me beyond the pale of decent society. I shall be an outcast—a pariah—a thing to be avoided! I have tried soft measures—tender appeals, declarations of a love which has now turned to gall and wormwood! My lady, you have only yourself to blame, and desperation is my master!”
He looked up and down the street, and continued at a rapid pace to Hyde Park Corner, from whence he took a cab to Charing Cross post office. A telegram was sent to Lady Gaynor, as follows:
Your presence is required in town. I am staying at the Metropole.
Your presence is required in town. I am staying at the Metropole.
After a hasty dinner, he decided to play his first card, and went to the Victoria Hotel in quest of Sir Harold Annesley.