CHAPTER XXVII.DECISIONS.
“Down deep in my heart, in its last calm sleep,A dear, dead love lies buried deep;I clasped it once in a long embrace,And closed the eyes that veiled the faceI never again might see.I breathed no word, and I shed no tear,But the onward years looked dark and drear,And I knew, by the throbs of mortal pain,That a sweetness had fled which never againWould in life come back to me.”
“Down deep in my heart, in its last calm sleep,A dear, dead love lies buried deep;I clasped it once in a long embrace,And closed the eyes that veiled the faceI never again might see.I breathed no word, and I shed no tear,But the onward years looked dark and drear,And I knew, by the throbs of mortal pain,That a sweetness had fled which never againWould in life come back to me.”
“Down deep in my heart, in its last calm sleep,A dear, dead love lies buried deep;I clasped it once in a long embrace,And closed the eyes that veiled the faceI never again might see.I breathed no word, and I shed no tear,But the onward years looked dark and drear,And I knew, by the throbs of mortal pain,That a sweetness had fled which never againWould in life come back to me.”
“Down deep in my heart, in its last calm sleep,
A dear, dead love lies buried deep;
I clasped it once in a long embrace,
And closed the eyes that veiled the face
I never again might see.
I breathed no word, and I shed no tear,
But the onward years looked dark and drear,
And I knew, by the throbs of mortal pain,
That a sweetness had fled which never again
Would in life come back to me.”
Looking up into the face of her companion, Jess saw that it was ghastly white with horror, his lips trembled with unconcealed emotion. Anxiety and sorrow, mingled with impatience, darkened his brow. She gazed at him wonderingly, and like one fascinated.
“Tell me,” he repeated, “is this thing true, that you have thrown over another, a good and true man, who is at this moment making preparations to marry you, to wed me?”
She tried to answer him, but his sternness terrified her; she had never dreamed that that handsome face could look so rigid and fierce, nor those dark eyes hold so much fire and scorn.
Her trembling lips moved, and all he could hear were the words:
“Hard and cruel.”
“Hard and cruel!” repeated her husband, looking down upon her with bitter contempt; “it is you who have proven yourself to be that by doing such a cruel, unwomanly act. I could never have thought you capable of inflicting such acruel wrong upon one who loved and trusted you—to his bitter cost!”
“Have I acted so very wrong?” cried Jess, clutching her two little hands together tightly and looking up into his eyes with a face as white as his own.
“Wrong!” he exclaimed, contemptuously, “we will waive that, Jess. You have done that which I will never pardon. Now tell me why you did it—what actuated your course?”
Still the girl was silent, fairly bewildered by his words.
“I think I can see through it all,” he went on, bitterly; “but let me hear the truth from your own lips, dispelling my mad delusion that you were young and guileless as an angel, and not a fortune hunter, like others of your sex. You say you were about to wed another. When did you meet him, and where, and who is he? I repeat,” he questioned, sternly.
“He is a handsome young man whom I met at Blackheath Hall,” murmured the girl, as though the words were fairly wrung from her lips, and she would tell no more than was actually forced from her. “He saved my life, and—and when he asked me to marry him, and told me to think it over while he was away at New Orleans, I wrote him that I—I consented, and that the marriage should take place, as he so desired, as soon as I could get ready. While they were making my trousseau I was to spend a few weeks with a New York family, ‘to get my manners polished up,’ to use Mrs. Bryson’s words, and—you know the rest—Fate led me here.”
While she had been speaking her companion’s face had grown whiter still, if that could be. He realized that he had made a fatal mistake in supposing this girl had been waiting for him—John Dinsmore, the joint heir with her to Blackheath Hall—to come down there to ask her to marry him.
In that moment of excitement it did not occur to him to press the question as to his name, since she did not seem inclined to inform him concerning it. Indeed, what did his name matter to him, he ruminated, moodily.
She loved that other fellow or she would never have consented to marry him, was the thought that passed withlightning-like rapidity through his brain. She had also believed Lucy Caldwell’s report that he himself was fabulously rich, and, as that other love of his had done, thrown over the poorer suitor for the richer one.
He had been intending to tell Jess on their way back to the farmhouse that he was John Dinsmore, who had also been expected to come to her and lay his heart and fortune at her feet; now his lips were dumb. He decided to keep that fact a secret from her for the present, until he could see a path out of the dilemma in which he found himself; determining that for the present she should know him only as Mr. Moore, the man whom she had married on the impulse of the moment.
There was another decision he reached then and there, and that was, that he would lose no time in untying the knot between them which had been so hastily tied; and then, with the fortune which would be hers because the will of the elder Dinsmore had thus been complied with, she would be free to wed this lover who would be so heartbroken over her loss. For, of course, he must have been wedding her for love alone, it being well known all about where she lived that she would be penniless if she did not marry the heir of Blackheath Hall.
Yes, he would divorce Jess as soon as the law could accomplish it; that would be a shade better than to shuffle off the mortal coil to set her free, after giving her the right to the Dinsmore fortune.
In his calculations the bare possibility of another lover had never for an instant occurred to him.
All this changed his plans of the immediate future very materially.
He had been intending to announce their marriage as soon as they returned to the farmhouse, but under the present turn of affairs, he concluded that secrecy for the present was best.
“You are very angry with me!” sobbed the girl, wretchedly, and these words aroused him from the deep reverie into which he had fallen.
“You have stabbed me at my weakest point, little one,” he answered, very huskily, “reopened a wound which I have been endeavoring valiantly to heal. Of all things, Icannot endure a girl who throws off one lover coolly for another. I despise of all things, of all women, I mean, a jilt!”
Ah! if Jess had but told him the exact truth at that moment what a lifetime of pain would have been spared her; had but explained to him that she was fairly forced into the betrothal with that other one by Mrs. Bryson, the old housekeeper, because that other lover represented himself to be John Dinsmore, the heir of Blackheath Hall. Ah! what investigations would have been instigated at once, and what cruel wrong averted!
But fate’s thread was strangely tangled, and they were intended to play the bitter tragedy out to the end, and suffer all the sorrows that fell to their lot.
“Owing to the existence of these difficulties which have just arisen we must keep our marriage for the present a most profound secret,” he said, slowly; “say that you will do this, little Jess?”
“I will do whatever you think wisest and best,” murmured the girl, vainly struggling to keep the tears back from her dark, wistful eyes.
“That is right,” he replied, hurriedly. “See, they are looking for you, as usual. Enter the house as though nothing unusual had transpired. You must go with Lawyer Abbot when he comes to take you away with him to—to the Trevalyns of New York; and I will communicate to you after you have reached there, in, say, a week or a fortnight at most, the course our future is to take. Until that time, adieu, little Jess.”
She had no time to answer him; indeed, she could not, for her poor little heart was almost bursting with grief at the thought of parting from him.
It seemed to Jess that in leaving him she would leave all the brightness and joy of her young life behind her and go forth into rayless darkness and woe.
“Where have you two been?” cried Lucy, looking anxiously from the one to the other; “my uncle, Lawyer Abbot, is here, and he is very much afraid you will cause him to miss his train.”
“I am sure the rich and elegant Mr. Moore has not been making love to her, or her face would never wear thatwoe-begone expression,” thought the clever Lucy, and her spirits arose high at the anticipation of Jess’ departure, which was now only a few moments distant, which would give her Mr. Moore all to herself, and she mentally resolved that no other pretty young girl should come visiting her while he was beneath that roof.
To the girl who had just been made a bride, and was bound by a solemn promise that the marriage should be kept secret, the parting from her handsome husband who was bidding her good-by so calmly was like tearing her living, beating heart in twain.
It was not until the carriage rolled away and the tall sycamore trees screened him from her sight as he waved an indifferent adieu to her from the porch that Jess broke down utterly, weeping as though her young heart was broken.
“Are you indeed so sorry to leave Lucy Caldwell?” asked the old lawyer, in wonderment, adding, “dear me, in what a short time young girls learn to care for each other, it would appear. Three weeks ago you did not know that there was such a girl as Lucy on the face of the globe, now you are crying your eyes out at leaving her. Brace up, little Jess, Lucy shall pay a visit to the Trevalyns along with you, if I can arrange matters. So be comforted, child, that promise will make you happy, I know.”
But, despite this assurance, little Jess still continued to weep on, refusing to be comforted.
It was well for her that he did not divine the cause of her tears.
The parting to the newly wedded husband was of little consequence; he felt that he had accomplished the duty his dead uncle had imposed upon him, of marrying the girl that she might inherit the Dinsmore millions—that was all there was of it.
He would have been amazed had any one even hinted at the possibility that the girl he had just wedded cared for him, loved him with all the passionate strength of her young heart, and that it would take two to sever the bonds which bound them together.