"Cheek of rose and brow of pearl,Shadowed by many a golden curl,"
"Cheek of rose and brow of pearl,Shadowed by many a golden curl,"
with dark eyes radiating light beneath the drooping, ebon lashes, with neck and arms moulded like the gleaming white marble of a sculptor's masterpiece, and guiltless of all adornment; with that silvery robe sweeping about the stately form as if the mist of the sea had enveloped her, Lady Vera looks and moves "a queen," gracious, lovely, smiling, as if the shadow of a great despair were not brooding over that golden head.
"Not a jewel, scarcely a flower, and yet more perfect than an artist's dream," Mrs. Cleveland whispers maliciously to her overbearing daughter.
But Ivy forgets to be angry at the little thrust. She stares at the beautiful vision, pale to the very lips.
"Leslie was right," she murmurs, like one dazed. "She frightens me, she is so like—so like that dead girl, Vera. Do you not see it, mamma?"
"Yes, but why should a mere chance likeness frighten you?" Mrs. Cleveland retorts, with subdued scorn.
Lady Vera has not seen her enemies yet. A group of admirers has closed around her, and for a little while she forgets that she will meet here the heartless and vindictive woman who destroyed the happiness of her parents. Her lover claims her hand for the dance, and she passes from their sight a little space.
Colonel Lockhart is radiant with joy and pride. The hum of admiration that follows his darling everywhere is music in his ears.
"My darling, do you see how every eye follows you?" he whispers, fondly.
But Lady Vera laughs archly in the happiness of her heart.
"You are mistaken. They are only admiring your uniform,"she retorts, gayly, and the soldier thinks to himself that surely the smile upon the crimson lips is the gladdest and sweetest that ever rejoiced a lover's heart.
But it fades suddenly, the glad, sweet smile, and the blush upon the rounded cheek.
The dance is over, and they are lingering together by a stand of rare and fragrant flowers.
Suddenly the blush and smile fade together. A strange, stern look comes into the dark eyes, she drops the rose that her lover has just placed in her hand.
"Vera," he asks, looking anxiously at her, "what ails you, dear? You have grown so grave."
She looks up at him with strange eyes, from which the light and joy of a moment ago have faded as if they had never been.
"Philip, who is that woman over there, in the crimson brocade and rubies?" she asks, indicating the person by a slight inclination of her head.
His glance follows hers.
"That woman—yes, someone told me awhile ago that she was a countrywoman of mine, a Mrs. Cleveland. The one next her, in the diamonds, is her daughter."
Lady Vera is silent a moment, gazing steadily at the unconscious two.
She has recognized them instantly, and only asked the question to "make assurance doubly sure." Some of the bitterness in the heart rises up to her face. Her lips curl in scorn.
Colonel Lockhart regards her anxiously, puzzled by the inexplicable change in her face.
"What is it, Vera? Do you know these people?" he asks.
"How should I know them?" she asks, trying to throw off the weight that has fallen on her heart.
"Are you ill, then? These flowers are too heavy and sweet, perhaps. Shall I take you away?" he inquires.
"Not yet," she answers.
She continues gazing steadily at Mrs. Cleveland and her daughter. To her heart she is saying over and over:
"I am face to face with my enemies at last. What form will my vengeance take?"
In a moment that question that she has asked herself so many times is terribly answered.
Watching Ivy with her strange, intent gaze, she sees a gentleman come up to her side.
"Am I mad," she asks herself, with terrible calm despair, "or is it really Leslie Noble?"
Her lover unconsciously answers the silent question.
"You see that dark, handsome man, Vera?" he says. "His name is Leslie Noble. He is the husband of the lady in the diamonds."
She makes him no answer at first. Her eyes are wide and dark with horror. All in a moment she sees plainly the awful answer to the question so often asked of her shuddering heart.
"Vera, indeed you are ill. Let me take you away from the heavy scent of these flowers," her lover pleads.
She starts like one waking from a dreadful dream, and clings to his arm.
"Yes, take me away," she echoes, in a far-off voice. "There are too many flowers here, and the light hurts my eyes, and the music my heart."
"My darling, I do not know what to think," Colonel Lockhart exclaims, anxiously. "A moment ago you were so bright and happy—now you look pale and startled, and your words are strange and wild. Has anything frightened you, my darling?"
She lifts her heavy, dark eyes almost beseechingly to his own.
"Philip, please do not talk to me, now," she says. "Do not ask me any questions. Only find me a quiet place away from the crowd, where I may rest awhile. I am ill."
"I do not know where to find such a place, unless I take you into the conservatory. I expect it is quite deserted now," he answers.
"We will go there, then," she replies.
Troubled at heart, and very anxious over his darling, Colonel Lockhart leads her down through the long vistas of fragrant bloom to a quiet seat under a slender young palm tree. There are very few flowers here—only cool, green thickets of lovely, lace-like ferns, watered by the sparkling fountain poured from the lifted urn of a marble Naiad.
"Will this spot suit you, Vera?" he inquires, anxiously.
She bows, and looks at him with her grave, sad gaze.
"Philip, you must leave me here alone for half an hour," she says, "I wish to rest awhile. Then you may come to me."
"You look so ill and pale I am almost afraid to leave you alone," he answers. "May I not remain near you, Vera? I will not talk to you, nor weary you in any way. I will sit silently and wait your pleasure."
"I would rather be alone," she answers, wearily.
"Then I will go, my darling, but I shall be very anxious over you. It will be the longest half hour of my life."
He stoops over her, and taking the sweet white face in his hands, kisses the pale, drawn lips. A stifled sob breaks from her at the thought that in a little while these kisses will be hers no longer.
"You are nervous, dear. Let me send my sister to you," he urges.
"I had rather be alone," she answers.
"Forgive me, dear. I will go, then," he answers, turning away.
The tall form disappears in the green, flowery shrubbery. The echo of the firm, elastic footstep dies away. Lady Vera is alone at last, sitting with folded hands and dark, terrified eyes, face to face with the awful reality of her life's despair.
"Leslie Noble, my unloved and unloving husband, is alive and married to his old love, Ivy Cleveland—how passing strange," she murmurs, hollowly, to herself. "What strange mystery ishere? Did he believe me dead, as I did him? Or has he, in the madness of his love for Ivy, recklessly plunged into sin? But if so, why did he bring her here where they must meet me? There is some strange, unfathomable mystery here which I cannot penetrate."
Alas, poor Vera! the gloom of a subtle mystery wraps thee round, indeed, and the hand that held the key to the secret is cold in death.
Low moans gurgle over her lips, and blend with the murmur of the fountain as it splashes musically into the marble basin. She is thinking of her handsome, noble lover between whose heart and hers a barrier has risen, wide and deep as the eternal Heaven.
"I must part from him, my Philip, my love!" she moans, "for in the sight of God I am Leslie Noble's wife, even though before men he is Ivy Cleveland's husband."
She bows her face in her hands, and bitter, burning tears stream through her fingers. In all the hours when she has brooded over that oath of vengeance made by her father's death-bed, no slightest thought has come to her in what terrible way she must keep her vow, and at what fearful cost to her life's happiness.
"What strange prescience came to my father in dying?" she asks herself, in wonder. "How strangely his words were shaped to fit the awful reality. I must punish Marcia Cleveland through her dearest affections, he said. All her heart is centered on Ivy, and when I claim Leslie Noble from her and cover her head with that awful shame, my father's wishes will be fulfilled. And lest I should falter in my dreadful task, he added that last clause, no matter at what cost to myself. Oh, God! what will Philip say when he learns the truth? The way is plain before me how to keep my vow. I, who loathe and despise Leslie Noble, must claim him before God and man as my husband, and humiliate Ivy Cleveland to the dust. In no other way can I punish Marcia Cleveland and avenge my mother's wrongs."
"In no other way," the fountain seems to echo, as it splashes musically down, and Lady Vera, turning coward now in the face of the terrible future, prays in bitterest agony: "Oh, God! if I could die—die here and now, with Philip's last fond kiss still warm upon my lips, before I have to speak the dreadful words that will doom us to a living death in life."
With an effort she shakes off, presently, the horror and dread and shrinking repugnance with which she looks forward to the fulfillment of her oath.
"Mother, forgive me," she weeps. "Do I not remember all your bitter wrongs and mine, and how often my young heart burned to avenge them? And shall I shrink back now when the flaming sword is in my hand, and I am able to crush your enemy into the dust? No, no! What matter if it breaks my heart? My gentle mother, yours was broken, too. And though I tread on burning plow-shares, I will keep my oath of vengeance."
No faltering; no looking back now. Something of her father's haughty spirit is infused into Lady Vera's soul. Her dark eyes light with the strange fire that burns on the altar ofher heart, and when her lover comes anxiously to seek her, she has recovered all her usual calmness, and greets him with a smile.
"You are better, dear?" he exclaims.
"Yes, and we will return to the ball-room now," she answers, resting her icy fingers lightly against his arm.
Passing from the subdued light of the conservatory into the glare of the ball-room, they come face to face with Leslie, with Ivy hanging on his arm, flushed and heated from the dance. Lady Vera lifts her head with stag-like grace, and looks steadily into their eyes, but beyond an insolent stare from Ivy, and a glance of warm admiration from the man, they give no sign of recognition. Lady Vera passes on, and Lady Clive comes up to her, laughing.
"My dear, you have seen our country people—the rich Americans," she says. "How do you like them?"
"I will tell you some day," she answers, in a strange tone, yet with a careless smile.
Still later in the evening Lady Spencer seeks out the countess.
"Dear Lady Fairvale, will you allow me to introduce to you our American guests?" she asks. "They are most anxious to know the beauty of the season."
Lady Vera, growing pale as her white robe, draws her slight form proudly erect.
"Pray, pardon my rudeness, Lady Spencer," she answers, coldly. "But I must decline. I do not wish to know them."
Society, which likes nothing better than a bit of gossip, commented considerably on the Countess of Fairvale's refusal to know the rich Americans. There were some who blamed her and thought she was over-nice and proud. The American Consul vouched for their respectability, and their style of living attested to their wealth. What more could she desire? Everyone else received them on equal terms. Why did Lady Vera hold out so obstinately against speaking to them? It could only be a girl's foolish whim—nothing more, for she assigned no reason for her refusal.
But it created some little embarrassment at first. People did not like to invite the countess and the Americans together for fear of an unpleasant collision. They could not slight Lady Vera, and they did not wish to offend the Americans. The affair was quite unpleasant, and created some little notoriety.
"And after all, Lady Vera's mother was an American, and she was born in the United States herself. Why should she hold herself above one of her own country people?" said one of the knowing ones.
No one could answer the question, and least of all the Americans themselves, who were secretly galled and humiliated almost beyond endurance by the scorn and indifference of the proud and beautiful young girl.
Mr. Noble was sorely chafed by Lady Vera's course. He hadconceived a great admiration for her, and desired to hear her talk, that he might learn if her voice as well as her face resembled his dead wife, Vera, the girl who had committed suicide rather than be an unloving wife. Mrs. Cleveland, who had desired to know her because she was the fashion just then, was very angry, too, but Ivy took it the hardest of all. She considered it a deliberate and malicious affront to herself.
"The proud minx!" she said, angrily. "In what is she better than I am that she should refuse to know me? I shall ask her what she means by it."
"You will do no such thing," Mrs. Cleveland cries out, startled by the threat. "You would make yourself perfectly ridiculous! We will pass it over in utter silence, and show her that we cannot be hurt by such foolish airs as she gives herself."
"I am as good as she. I will not be trampled upon!" Ivy retorts, venomously. "What! is she made of more than common clay because she has gold hair and black eyes, and a pink and white face like a doll? It is all false after all, I have no doubt. Her hair is bleached by the golden fluid, and her red and white bought at Madame Blanche's shop!"
"People who live in glass houses should never throw stones," interpolates her lord and master, thus diverting her wrath a moment from Lady Vera and drawing it down upon his own devoted head.
But no one is more surprised at Vera's course than her lover, Colonel Lockhart.
It is when they have gone home from Lady Spencer's ball, and he detains her one moment in the drawing-room to say good-night, that he asks her anxiously:
"Vera, my darling, what story lies behind your refusal to know these people to-night?"
He feels the start and shiver that runs over the graceful form as he holds her hand in his own. She looks up at him with such a white and despairing face that he is almost frightened.
"Oh, Philip," she cries, in a voice of the bitterest pain, "I wish you had not asked me that question yet. Believe me, you will know too soon."
"Then there is a story!" he exclaims.
"Yes," she answers, wearily. "But, Philip, let me go now. I am very tired. You do not know all that I have borne to-night."
He folds the beautiful figure closely in his arms, and kisses the white eyelids that droop so wearily over the sad, dark eyes.
"Forgive me for troubling you, darling," he says, tenderly. "I do not wish to force your confidence, Vera. Only believe me, my own one, every sorrow that rends your heart causes me unhappiness, too."
She lies still against that loyal heart one moment—oh, happy haven of rest, never to be hers! then struggles from him with one last, lingering kiss, and goes to her room and her sleepless couch to brood alone in that dark, dark hour that comes before the dawn, over the terrible discovery she has made.
For Colonel Lockhart the hours pass sleeplessly, too. The shadow of Vera's unknown sorrow lies heavily upon his heart.
He rises early, and long before the late breakfast hour Lady Vera's maid brings him a sealed note. He tears it hastily open, and her betrothal ring falls sparkling into his hand.
"Dear Philip," she writes, "I return your ring. A terrible barrier has risen between us that all our love can never bridge over. So we must part. And, oh! believe me, dearest, it breaks my heart to write it. One thing I would ask you, Philip—will you go away from here and save me the sorrow of meeting you again? I can bear my misery and my impending shame far better if I cannot see you whom I have so fondly loved, and must so fatefully resign."Your Wretched Vera."
"Dear Philip," she writes, "I return your ring. A terrible barrier has risen between us that all our love can never bridge over. So we must part. And, oh! believe me, dearest, it breaks my heart to write it. One thing I would ask you, Philip—will you go away from here and save me the sorrow of meeting you again? I can bear my misery and my impending shame far better if I cannot see you whom I have so fondly loved, and must so fatefully resign.
"Your Wretched Vera."
"Has my darling grown mad?" the handsome soldier asks himself, staring almost stupidly at the note and the ring in his hand. "What shame can touch her, my beautiful, pure-hearted one? She is going to be ill, perhaps, and this is but the vagary of a mind diseased."
So he writes back impulsively:
"Vera, let me see you for even ten minutes. Surely, my darling, you do not mean what you say. What shame can touch you, my innocent love? And why should you wish to send me away? Is it not my right and duty and desire to stand by your side through all the trials of life?"'Oh! what was love made for if 'tis not the same,Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame?'"Do not ask me to leave you, darling. If indeed sorrow and trouble are near you, my place is by your side. I will wait for you half an hour in the library. Do not fail me, dear. I want to put your ring back upon your finger."Your Own Philip."
"Vera, let me see you for even ten minutes. Surely, my darling, you do not mean what you say. What shame can touch you, my innocent love? And why should you wish to send me away? Is it not my right and duty and desire to stand by your side through all the trials of life?
"'Oh! what was love made for if 'tis not the same,Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame?'
"'Oh! what was love made for if 'tis not the same,Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame?'
"Do not ask me to leave you, darling. If indeed sorrow and trouble are near you, my place is by your side. I will wait for you half an hour in the library. Do not fail me, dear. I want to put your ring back upon your finger.
"Your Own Philip."
Lady Vera weeps bitterly over her lover's note.
"Ah, he does not know, he does not dream of the fatal truth," she moans, wildly. "And what can I say to him? I cannot, I will not tell him. I could not do it. I should die of the shame. He will know too soon as it is. And yet I must go to him. He will not be denied. Oh! what shall I say to him, my poor boy?"
Weeping and lingering, dreading to go, the half-hour is almost up before she drags herself to the library where Philip is pacing up and down the floor in a fever of doubt and suspense.
"Vera, my darling," he cries. "Oh, how could you treat me so cruelly?"
She pauses with her arms folded over the back of a chair, and regards him sorrowfully. Colonel Lockhart can see that she has been weeping bitterly. Her tremulous lips part to answer him, then close without a sound.
He goes up to her and takes one white, jeweled hand fondly into his own.
"Tell me what troubles you, Vera," he whispers gently.
"Can you not guess, Philip? It is because I must part from you," she answers sadly.
"But why must you do so, Vera?" he asks, gravely, touched to the heart by her drooping and despondent attitude.
"I cannot tell you," she answers sadly, with a heavy sigh.
"Perhaps you have ceased to love me," her lover exclaims, almost sternly.
She starts and fixes her dark eyes reproachfully on his face.
"Oh, would that I had!" she exclaims. "This parting would then be easier to bear!"
They regard each other a moment with painful intentness. The marks of misery on her face are too plain to be mistaken, and the wonder deepens on his own.
"Vera, why are you so mysterious?" he asks, anxiously. "If you throw me over like this, I have at least a right to know the reason why."
"You shall know—soon," she answers, almost bitterly.
Then she lifts her eyes to his face pleadingly.
"Oh, Philip, do not torture me," she cries wildly. "We must part! There is no help nor hope for us! A terrible barrier has risen between us! I have a terrible duty to perform, and there is no turning back for me. But, oh, Philip, if I could persuade you to go away now—at once—where you might never hear or know the fatal secret that has come between us! Darling, let me beg you," she falls suddenly on her knees before him, "to take me at my word and put the whole width of the world between us!"
He lifts her up and wipes the streaming tears from her beautiful eyes.
"My darling, you make it hard for me to refuse you," he answers, in sorrow and perplexity, "but do you think I could be coward enough to desert you when trouble and sorrow hung over your head? I am a soldier, Vera. I cannot show the white feather. If sorrow comes I will be by your side and help you to bear it."
"You, of all others, could help me the least," she answers, brokenly.
And again his noble, handsome face clouds over with wonder and sorrow.
"I will try, at least," he answers, with sad firmness. "Do not ask me to leave you, Vera, I cannot do it. Oh, darling, are you sure, quite sure, that we need really part? That you cannot be my wife?"
"I am as sure of it as if one or the other of us lay at this moment in the coffin," she answers, drearily.
"And that barrier, Vera, will it always stand?" he asks.
"Always, unless death should remove it," she answers, with a shudder; and with a moan, she continues: "Once I believed that death had already stricken it from my path, and I was so happy, Philip—happy in your love and mine. But the grim specter of the past has risen to haunt me. I can never be your wife. I can never know one moment's happiness in life again."
"She is ill and desperate," Colonel Lockhart tells himself, uneasily. "Surely things cannot be so bad as she represents. She exaggerates her trouble. When I come to know the truth Ishall find that it is some simple thing that her girlish fears have magnified a hundredfold. I must not let her drive me away from her. I may be of service to her in her trouble."
Aloud he says, gently:
"Since I may no longer be your lover, Vera, you will let me be your friend?"
"Since you wish it, but you will change your mind soon," she answers, hopelessly.
"I think not," he answers, lifting her hand gently to his lips, and then she turns away, meeting Lady Clive upon the threshold coming in.
"Vera, my dear, how ill you look," she exclaims. "Has anything happened? Ah, Phil, are you there? What have you said to Vera? You are not having a lover's quarrel, I hope?"
He makes her no answer, but Vera, turning back, throws her arms around her friend's neck, and lifts her pale, beseeching face.
"I will tell you what has happened, Lady Clive," she answers. "I have broken my engagement with Philip."
"Broken your engagement with Philip? Why, what has he done?" Lady Clive exclaims.
"Nothing," Lady Vera answers, meekly as a child.
"Nothing?" the lady repeats, half-angrily. "Nothing? Then why have you thrown him over, Lady Vera? Did you tire of him so soon? I did not know that you were a flirt."
"Hush, Nella, you shall not blame her," her brother exclaims, sternly.
"You see Philip is not angry with me, Lady Clive," Vera says, entreatingly. "Indeed I am not a flirt. I love him dearly, but I cannot be his wife. There are reasons," she almost chokes over the word, "that—that you will know soon. You will see I was not to blame. Oh, Lady Clive, do not be angry with me."
"I will not, dear," answers the gentle-hearted lady, kissing the sweet, quivering lips of the wretched girl. "I do not understand you, but if Philip is not angry with you, neither can I be. Yet I am very sorry that I shall not have you for my sister."
With a stifled sob Lady Vera breaks from her clasp and flies up to her own room. She does not appear at breakfast.
At luncheon she is so pale and sad and wretched-looking that it makes one's heart ache to see her.
At night they attend a ball, from which Colonel Lockhart excuses himself on the plea of indisposition, and at which the rich Americans also fail to put in an appearance.
The invitations for Mrs. Vernon's lawn-party had been issued at least a fortnight, and but few people had declined them.
It was well known that she gave charming entertainments, and people were always eager to attend. A lawn-party, too, was so romantic, "too sweet for anything," declared the young women who adored those out-of-door entertainments where the mostflagrant flirtations were possible, and where the plainest faces acquired a certain beauty from the blended light of lamp-light and moonlight, and the flickering leaf-shadows cast by the over-arching trees.
Older people dreaded the night-air and the dew, but to these the drawing-rooms were always open, so that no one dreamed of declining Mrs. Vernon's elegant cards.
Lady Clive was present that evening, her fair and stately beauty, so like her brother's, thrown into perfect relief by a robe of blue and silver, with pale, gleaming pearls around her graceful throat and white arms.
Lady Vera wore white satin and tulle, with water-lilies here and there, a beautiful dress that was most becoming to her, and made her look regal as a young princess.
A flush of excitement glowed upon her cheeks, and her eyes were bright and restless with a strange look of expectancy and almost dread in their beautiful depths.
The constant thought in her mind was:
"I shall see my enemies to-night. What will be the result? They pretend to regard me as a perfect stranger. What shameless audacity. I cannot understand how they can carry it out so boldly. And yet God knows that but for my oath of vengeance I would never speak. Ivy might have my husband and welcome. Yet I would give much to know whose death it was I read in that American paper. Leslie Noble's father, perhaps, though I had some vague idea that he was dead long ago."
Colonel Lockhart is present too, this evening, ever watchful, ever near his darling, though without the least appearance of intrusiveness.
Other lovers take his place by her side, but as usual she is calm and cold to all.
She is done with love and lovers, she tells herself with sad self-pity.
All her future life will lie in the dun, gray twilight of sorrow.
"As the blade wears the scabbard,The billow the shore;So sorrow doth fret meForevermore!"
"As the blade wears the scabbard,The billow the shore;So sorrow doth fret meForevermore!"
It is late in the evening before Colonel Lockhart ventures to address her.
Then something in her glance has drawn him to her side, in spite of his determination not to intrude upon her.
Lady Eva Clarendon and Miss Montgomery are present, and both have laid some claims to his attention. In spite of herself, Lady Vera cannot keep the pain out of her eyes, and Philip, watching her with the keenness of love, is quick to see it. In a moment he is by her side.
"Will you promenade with me?" he asks, deferentially.
A sudden smile of irrepressible pleasure lights the beautiful face. She loves him dearly, and it is so hard to give him up.
Rising, she lays her white hand on his arm, and they move away together down a quiet path under the shade of the leafytrees hung with gayly-colored lamps, whose checkered light throws their faces now in brightness, now in shadow.
The scene, the hour, is full of romance. Tall marble vases here and there are crowded with fragrant flowers, whose sweetness makes breathing a perfect delight. The moon is at its full, pouring down a flood of pure white radiance that makes the glimmering light of the lamps seem garish and unnecessary. Soft music rises, blent with the sound of happy voices, and a nightingale has perched itself on a rose tree near by, and is
"Pouring his full heartIn profuse strains of unpremeditated art."
"Pouring his full heartIn profuse strains of unpremeditated art."
They walk slowly on, speaking little, but with hearts that tremble with mingled pain and pleasure. The presence of each to the other is perilously sweet. In his mind runs the refrain of a song she had sung that evening:
"Beloved eye! beloved star,Thou art so near and yet so far."
"Beloved eye! beloved star,Thou art so near and yet so far."
Suddenly, in turning a curve in the path, they come face to face with a couple walking from the opposite direction—Leslie Noble and his wife.
The small blonde is attired in an elaborate costume of white and green, and the snaky fire of emeralds blaze round her throat and wrists. Her pale eyes glare with a snaky anger, too, as they light upon the beautiful young countess, looking bride-like in her rich, white dress, and the white lace scarf that she has carelessly thrown over her golden hair.
With an impulsive movement Ivy disengages her hand from her husband's arm, and places herself directly in Vera's way, her pale eyes flashing with rage, her head held high, her slight figure drawn erect, making the most of her insignificant stature.
"Lady Fairvale," she exclaims, insolently, "they tell me you refuse to know me or my husband, or my mother. Will you tell me the reason why?"
There is a dead pause, and Leslie Noble tries to drag his wife away, but she defies him.
"I shall not go!" she answers, sharply. "I told you I would do it. I have asked this proud lady the reason of her scorn, and I am waiting for an answer."
Lady Vera faces her a moment in scornful silence, but her pallid cheeks, her intense gaze, and her curling lips, all betray the tumult in her breast. She turns to Captain Lockhart, with a soul's despair in her lovely eyes.
"Philip, will you go away, and leave me alone with this woman?" she asks, pleadingly.
It seems to him that Vera does not know what is best for herself. How can he go away, and leave her to bear the brunt of this coarse woman's fury alone?
"Forgive me for refusing you, dear," he whispers back, "but it is better that I should stay. I cannot leave you without a friend by your side."
A look of futile despair flashes over the lovely face, but sheurges him no more. Her eyes turn from his handsome, tender face to meet Ivy's angry, insolent gaze.
"I ask you again, Lady Fairvale," exclaims the small fury, "why do you refuse to speak to us?"
"Oh, God, give me strength," Lady Vera prays, silently, "to keep the oath of vengeance made to my dying father!"
The memory of her parent's cruel wrongs flashes into her mind and steels her heart. She remembers her mother's broken heart, her father's ruined life, her own joyless, slavish girlhood, driven by these two women who now stand glaring stonily upon her, for Mrs. Cleveland, coming in search of her daughter, has become a sudden and amazed spectator of the curious scene.
"I will tell why I hold myself above you," Lady Vera answers, in a voice that quivers with scornful indignation. "It is because you are false and vile—a guilty woman, and a shameless sinner!"
"How dare you traduce me thus?" Mrs. Noble shrieks, in anger and amazement.
"I dare, because I speak the truth before God," her enemy answers, fearlessly. "How dare you claim to be Leslie Noble's wife, when you know that I, his first wife, Vera Campbell, am living?"
It was a strikingtableau, there beneath the over-arching trees that fair, calm, summer night. Lady Vera's beautiful face was all pale with passionate scorn and indignation as she leaned upon her lover's arm. Her enemies had started back as her scathing accusation fell upon them, and they now regarded her with looks of wrath, blent with honest astonishment. Colonel Lockhart's face had turned to a dull, ashen gray, like the pallor of death, but he stood his ground bravely, like the soldier that he was. Lady Vera did not dare to look at him, but beyond one swift, convulsive start, as though a sword had pierced his heart, the arm that supported her did not even tremble. He had steeled himself to bear his pain and make no sign.
"Colonel Lockhart," Mrs. Cleveland exclaims, starting boldly to the front, "I would advise you to take Lady Fairvale home to her friends. She must surely be raving mad. I know not how she came into possession of any facts concerning us, but I swear to you, and can prove my assertion, that Vera Campbell, the first wife of my son-in-law, Leslie Noble, has been dead and buried three years. Is it not so, Leslie?"
"It is perfectly true," he answers, gazing curiously at the beautiful girl who has claimed him as her husband. "If Lady Fairvale be Vera Campbell Noble, then she has risen from the grave itself to claim me, for I saw her buried three years ago, and I erected a costly marble monument to her memory."
"She committed suicide!" Ivy screams out, spitefully. "She died in my mother's house. I saw her lying dead, and I saw her buried."
"Oh, shameless falsehood!" Vera breaks out, warmly. "I didnot die, and you know it. The bitter drug with which I thought to end my wretched life, turned out to be only a sleeping potion after all. Will you deny, Marcia Cleveland, that Lawrence Campbell came to you that night to denounce you for the falsehood with which you had betrayed him, and to ask, at your hands, his wronged wife and child?"
Livid with rage and fear, the wicked woman stares at her fearless accuser. How has this beautiful countess, with Vera Campbell's face, learned the secret of her past life?
"Lady Fairvale," she answers, "I do not know how you, a stranger, have learned the secrets of my past life, but I will answer your questions fairly and truthfully. Lawrence Campbell did indeed come to me as you assert, but his daughter had been buried that very day in Glenwood. I bade him seek his wife and child in the grave, and he fell down like one dead at my feet. I caused my servants to throw him into the street like a dog, and I know not, to this day, if he be living or dead."
"He is dead," Lady Vera answers, with blazing eyes. "He has been dead almost a year. He lived but for vengeance on you, Marcia Cleveland, and when he died, he bade me swear an oath of vengeance on you. He bade me avenge my martyred mother's bitter wrongs. It is for this I have spoken. Do you think I did not shrink from claiming that craven coward there," pointing a scornful finger, "as my husband?"
Flushing scarlet under her lightning scorn, Leslie Noble advances.
"Lady Fairvale, if indeed you are my wife," he says, "and," insolently, "no man could have a wife more beautiful, will you tell me by what strange chance you were rescued from the grave where I, myself, saw you laid?"
"I deny that I was ever buried," Vera flashes out angrily. "My father told me nothing of that. He declared that he had me carried away from Mrs. Cleveland's in a deep narcotic sleep."
"Is it true that Lawrence Campbell was the Earl of Fairvale?" Mrs. Cleveland demands, looking at Colonel Lockhart.
"It is perfectly true, madam," he answered, coldly.
"And it is true that I am his daughter, whom you and your daughter so shamefully abused and maltreated?" Vera cries. "Do you remember, Ivy Cleveland, how you abused and insulted me? How you struck me in the face that night when my mother lay dead in the house? Do you recall your anger because she had died before the embroidery was finished on your Surah polonaise? Do you remember, Leslie Noble, how you stood by the bedside of that dying saint, and swore to protect and love the unconscious child you married! Ah, well you kept your vow when you plotted with that wicked woman yonder to send me from you to a convent school where I should be tortured to death, so that you should go free. That was her wicked scheme, I know, for she had planned to marry you to Ivy. Now you know why I tried to escape from you into the merciful land of death. But Heaven spared me the commission of that sin. It was not poison I took. I made a mistake in the drug. I lived to drag you down to the dust, Marcia Cleveland; to punish you throughyour daughter's shame for my parents' wrongs and mine! You understand now why I would not speak to you, Ivy Cleveland! That man there whom I utterly loathe and despise, is my husband, although I would not bear his name for wealth untold.Youare a false and sinful woman unfit to mate with the pure and true, knowing yourself to be only the reputed wife of a bigamist!"
The torrent of passionate accusation comes to a sudden end, and Lady Vera, with heaving breast and dilated eyes, looks contempt upon her foes. They stand before her awed and silent for a moment. Her scathing words have carried conviction to their hearts. They know her in truth to be that Vera whom for three long years they have believed to be sleeping under the costly marble that bears her name in Glenwood Cemetery. But they will never admit it. To do that would be to throw up the game and own themselves beaten and vanquished.
A curious crowd of ladies and gentlemen have gathered around attracted by the sound of excited voices. With wonder and dismay they listen to the scathing denunciations that fall from the lips of the beautiful countess. Mrs. Cleveland, fully conscious of the curious eyes, turns around and makes reply to them—not Lady Vera.
"My friends," she cries, with uplifted hands and a face of horror, "surely this beautiful lady has lost her mind. She is stark, staring mad, and for this I can forgive her the insults she has heaped upon my daughter. I believe she is a clever adventuress whom Lawrence Campbell has foisted on the world as his heiress. Vera, the real daughter of the Earl of Fairvale, died three years ago in Washington. She is buried at Glenwood beneath a marble monument that bears her name and age. I swear before God that this is true. This girl here, this pretended Countess of Fairvale, is, without doubt, a clever impostor, who is keeping the Earl's true heir out of his own. Let her disprove this charge if she can. If she be truly Vera Campbell, let her prove that she was resurrected from the grave in Glenwood where my own eyes saw her laid."
A moment of perfect silence follows Mrs. Cleveland's venomous words. Her daughter, who is a coward at heart in spite of all her bravado, has fallen back a pace, allowing her mother to be spokesman, well knowing that not even herself could so valiantly defend her cause.
There is a look of fear and dread on Ivy's face that gives her a ghastly look in spite of her paint and powder.
Lady Vera's words have carried conviction to her heart, and in fancy she sees herself deserted and abandoned by the man whom she believed her husband, and whom she has relentlessly tyrannized over, recklessly dissipating his fortune, and trampling on his heart.
She well knows that every spark of love he ever entertained for her had died long ago, murdered by her own heartless, unloving course toward him. What more natural than that he should rejoice if his bonds fell from him and left him free fromher mother and herself, who had been fastened upon him like human vampires, draining his very heart's blood.
She glances at him, and that glance does not reassure her. There is a strange expression on his face, and he is not looking at her, but at the beautiful, high-born girl who has just claimed him as her husband, albeit with words of scorn.
Even while she gazes at him in fear and terror he steps forward with a certain craftiness in his eyes, and answers Mrs. Cleveland's angry words.
"You speak too harshly, perhaps, Mrs. Cleveland. I have been impressed, even against my will, by Lady Fairvale's words. She is certainly possessed of knowledge that no one but Vera Campbell could have known. Then, too, she is startlingly like my dead wife, both in voice and person. Although I certainly buried my first wife and raised a costly monument over her grave, I am still willing to investigate the strange charges of Lady Fairvale. Strange things have happened sometimes. The dead have come to life, the lost have been found. 'Let justice be done though the heavens fall.'"
"Wretch! Would you turn traitor to me?" screams Ivy, clutching him violently by the arm, forgetful of all but her fear of losing him.
He gazes down at her in a feigned sympathy and sorrow.
"My poor Ivy. Could you think so meanly of me?" he exclaims. "But think, dear. How could we rest secure with this terrible charge hanging over us? Were it not better that I should take steps to prove the truth or falsity of this fair lady's bold accusation?"
"Take steps—how?" the bejeweled little woman falters confusedly.
"Nothing easier," he answers. "I shall cable to Washington to have my first wife's grave opened. If her remains are found undisturbed, then you are still my wife, Ivy, and this lady's story is an imposture. But if Vera's grave be found empty, I shall be forced to believe that Lady Fairvale is in sober reality the Vera whom, for three years, we believed dead and buried."
He speaks to Ivy, but he looks at Vera. Something in that glance makes her turn pale and flash a glance of silent scorn upon him.
"She is not Vera. She is an impostor whom Lawrence Campbell put into the place of his dead daughter," Ivy screams, impetuously, clinging to him with both hands. "Come away from her, Leslie. She is a false and wicked woman, and we will yet prove her so—will we not, mamma?"
"Yes, it shall be war to the knife between us," Mrs. Cleveland mutters, menacingly, flinging a glance of deadly hatred upon Lady Vera's pale and lovely face. "Come away now, Leslie, and bring Ivy home. She is too slight and frail to bear all this excitement."
Silently obeying the imperious will that has ruled him for almost three years, Leslie Noble moves away with Ivy on his arm, after a courteous bow to Vera, which she returns with a cold stare of contempt.
"Lady Vera, shall I take you away also? You look weary and exhausted," says Colonel Lockhart, in a low voice that shows intense self-repression and emotion.
She starts and shivers at the sound of his voice.
"If you will be so kind," she answers, sadly, and moving away on his supporting arm she meets Lady Clive and Mrs. Vernon coming toward her. Their grave faces show instantly that they know all. Lady Vera pauses, with a strange, cold smile.
"Mrs. Vernon, I am sure you will never forgive me for my undignified act in creating an excitement and a sensation at your party. I was compelled to keep my oath to the dead. Yetsheforced it on me. I did not mean to speak—just yet," she falters, incoherently, and Mrs. Vernon, who is the kindest woman alive, presses her hand, and murmurs gently, "Poor darling," while Lady Clive murmurs tenderest words of sympathy and love.
It is too much for Lady Vera—this gentleness and love after the exciting scene through which she has passed. Her forced calmness and self-control give way beneath its softening spell.
She reels dizzily, and only Colonel Lockhart's support prevents her from falling. In a moment he says to his sister, anxiously:
"She has fainted, Nella. What shall we do?"
"Bring her up-stairs into myboudoir," replies Mrs. Vernon, promptly and kindly. "We will revive her directly."
But Lady Clive negatives the proposal, decidedly.
"No, we will put her into the carriage and take her home," she says. "She will come to herself, directly. It is a blessed unconsciousness for her, poor girl. Why should we call her back to remembrance too soon?"
So the soldier lifts her in his strong and tender arms, and bears her to the carriage. Lady Clive receives the drooping head upon her lap, and they roll homeward, Lady Vera lying pale and mute between them like some pure, white lily, broken and beaten down by the force of the pitiless storm.
"This is hard lines upon you, Phil," Sir Harry Clive says, from his corner.
"Yes," his brother-in-law answers, in a low voice, and they speak no more until low sighs, rippling over Lady Vera's lips, presage her return to consciousness.
She lifts her head and looks at them, then drops her face in her hands, and bursts into passionate sobs and tears.
Lady Clive folds her white arms fondly around the heaving form.
"Do not weep so wildly, darling Vera," she whispers, gently.
But the heavy sobs only break forth more tumultuously.
"Do not check me," she whispers, "let me weep. Perhaps these tears may save my heart from breaking. There is such a terrible weight on heart and brain, and has been for weary, weary days. Let me weep until I can weep no more, and then I may be calm enough to tell you all my wretched story. Then you may know how to pardon my act of to-night."
So Lady Clive expostulates no more, only holds the slight form closer in her tender arms, reckless of the raining tears that spotand stain her azure satin robe as the burning drops fall on it from Vera's eyes.
When Lady Vera has told all her story to these kind and sympathizing friends with all the fire and eloquence of passion, their indignation bursts forth unrestrainedly. Lady Clive weeps from pure sympathy.
"Now at last I understand Fairvale's strange reticence and melancholy," Sir Harry Clive exclaims. "He was indeed most cruelly wronged, and Marcia Cleveland must have been a fiend incarnate."
Colonel Lockhart alone says nothing. He sits a little apart, his arms folded over his broad breast, his blue eyes cast to the floor, a look of gloom and settled despair on his handsome, high-bred face. The bitter pain at his heart no tongue can tell.
"And all this while you were Leslie Noble's wife," Lady Clive says, with a heavy sigh for her brother's sake.
"But I believed him dead, you know," Lady Vera answers, with one swift glance at the lover she has lost.
"I wish he had been, for your sake and Phil's," pronounces Sir Harry, fervently, and a moan of pain surges over the pale lips of the beautiful girl.
"Ah, you cannot guess with what feelings of despair I learned of him living," she answers. "It seemed to me for one awful moment that a hand of ice clutched my heart, and that I should surely die. It came over me like a death-warrant, at what fearful cost to myself I should keep my oath to my father. But I had sworn to do his bidding. There was no turning back for me when the fatal moment came."
She pauses a moment, then resumes, with a mournful glance at Lady Clive:
"You will never forgive me, I know, for making myself a sensation and a town talk, Lady Clive. By to-morrow all London will ring with my secret. Oh, the pity and shame! But I will not disgrace you further. I shall not remain your guest any longer. To-morrow I am going away."
Then Colonel Lockhart speaks for the first time.
"You must not let her go, Nella," he says, firmly.
"Why?" cries out Lady Vera, startled.
He hesitates a moment. Why should he imbue her mind with the doubts and fears that fill his own? And she asks again:
"Why should I not go away, Colonel Lockhart?"
"Because you will need the protection of your friends," he answers, gravely.
"Do you think I am afraid of my enemies?" she asks, drawing her slight form proudly erect, and looking very brave and beautiful. "They may hate me as they will, but I defy them to harm me!"
"It is not their hatred but their love you have to fear," he answers, significantly.
"Love," she echoes, regarding him blankly.
"Leslie Noble's love, I mean," he answers, with an effort.
A low and mirthless laugh ripples over her lips.
"I think you have mistaken me," she answers, bitterly. "He had no love for me. Ivy Cleveland held his heart. He only married me for pity's sake."
"It may have been pity, then, but it is something deeper now," Colonel Lockhart answers, gravely. "That man means to claim you, Lady Vera. I read it in the glances he cast upon you."
"Claim me!" she repeats, bewildered.
"For his wife," he answers, bitterly, out of the pain of his heart.
She starts to her feet with a little frightened cry, and flies to Lady Clive as if for protection.
"No, no, he would not dare!" she pants, wildly. "I hate and despise him too much to speak to him, even! I defy him to claim me for his wife! I would sooner die than belong to him! And he—oh, he would not wish it! He loved Ivy, you know."
"Do not pin your faith to that fact, Lady Vera," the baronet interposes gravely. "The lady, whom he claims for his wife now is many years older than you; she is faded, simpering, ridiculous. If he ever loved her, she must have made him rue that folly long since. Besides, she is not his real wife, and you are. Do not forget your great attractions, Lady Vera. You are young, beautiful, wealthy and titled. What more natural than that Leslie Noble should be dazzled by your manifold charms, and desire to claim you?"
She regards him with absolute horror in her lovely, white face.
"I would die before I would suffer him to even touch me!" she cries, indignantly.
"Then you must not leave us, Lady Vera," Sir Harry answers, earnestly. "With all the prestige of your rank and wealth you are so utterly alone in the world that my heart yearns for you as if you were my sister or my daughter. Stay with us and let us guard you from the traps your enemies may set for you."
"Stay with us," re-echoes Lady Clive, warmly, and her brother's speaking eyes reiterate the wish.
But Lady Vera's gaze turns from those eyes, too dearly loved for her peace of mind, and her heart sinks heavily.
"I should not trouble your peace, Lady Vera," he says, hastily, as if divining the thought in her mind. "I am going away."
"I cannot drive you from your sister's house," she answers, sadly.
He comes to her side and takes her hand gently in his strong, warm clasp.
"Be reasonable, Vera," he says, like one speaking to a willful child. "I am a man, young and strong, and capable of facing the world. You are scarcely more than a child, and you need protection from the ills that threaten your tender life. You will stay with Sir Harry and Nella while I will go away. Of course we understand that we cannot go on meeting each other daily aswe have done. It would be too hard for both. It is best that we part. That is what you wish yourself—is it not?"
"Yes, yes," she murmurs, faintly.
"That is best," he says, bravely. "I shall go, then; Nella will have my address, and if you ever need a friend you will send for me—will you not, Vera?"
She bows silently, and with sudden, irrepressible passion, he presses her hand.
"Oh, Vera, I have lost you forever, I know," he says, brokenly, "but—you will never allow Leslie Noble's claim, will you? You will never belong to him, never love him?"
"Never!" she answers, with all the pride of the Campbells flushing her face and ringing in her voice.
"Thank you a thousand times," he exclaims. "Leslie Noble is not fit to claim the treasure of your love, Vera. And now, tell me—you will stay with Nella, will you not?"
She glances doubtfully at Lady Clive.
"I could not go into society, you know," she says. "I could not face the world after—after that," and the burning crimson rushes into her face.
"It shall be just as you please about that," her friend answers. "Only say that you will remain with us, dear."
And Lady Vera answers:
"I will stay."
And then the first beams of the early summer dawn peep into the room in wonder at their sad, white faces.
It has been hours since Lady Vera began the telling of the sad story of her early life and her parents' bitter wrongs, and now, as she bids them all a sad good-night, and goes to her room to rest, her heart is breaking with the bitterness of her pain.
"Father," she murmurs, lifting her heavy eyes from her sleepless pillow, "father, I have punished them for their sins, I have shamed them in the eyes of all the world, but my own heart is broken."
"Vera, darling, Mr. Noble is in the library, and desires a private interview with you. Here is his card. Shall I say that you will receive him?"
It is several days after Mrs. Vernon's party, and Lady Clive comes suddenly into the pink-hungboudoirwhere the young countess is listlessly reclining on a satin sofa with her white arms thrown up carelessly above her head.
She looks like some beautiful picture, though her cheek is pale, her lips sad, and slight, dark shadows are visible beneath her melancholy eyes. All her beautiful dark-golden hair is arranged in a rich, picturesque fashion on top of her head, and a few loose, curling tendrils wander lovingly over the broad, white, polished forehead, on which the slender, straight, black brows are so delicately outlined.
She wears an exquisite morning-dress of white muslin, profuselytrimmed with rich lace, and a rose-colored ribbon binds her slender waist.
She starts up with a frightened cry at the words of Lady Clive.
"I will not see him! I will not exchange even one poor word with him! How dare he have the audacity to come here?" she pants, growing paler still with anger, and stamping her slippered foot on the bit of pasteboard which she has cast indignantly upon the floor.
Lady Clive waits until her wrath has somewhat spent itself on the innocent card, then argues, gently:
"I know it will be painful to you, Vera, but might it not be better, just once, to receive him, and find out his business? You will then know what course he means to adopt, and can govern yourself accordingly."
Lady Vera pauses, irresolute. Her bosom heaves with quick, indignant sighs, her dark eyes flash.
"You advise me to receive him—this man whom I hate and despise, Lady Clive?" she says, wonderingly.
"For just once, Vera. And onlynowthat you may learn his intentions and be on your guard against his machinations. After this time my doors shall be closed against him as against a pestilence. But you need not take my advice against your will, dear; use your own pleasure."
"You do not know how I dread to enter his presence," the girl cries, with a shudder.
"Decline to see him, then," Lady Clive advises.
"No, I will bear it this once. I will receive him this time, but after this,never!" Lady Vera answers, after a moment of painful thought.
"You decide well," Lady Clive comments, approvingly.
"He is in the library, you say," Lady Vera asks, with her hand upon the door.
"Yes. Shall I accompany you, my dear, if you dread to go alone?"
"I am not afraid of Leslie Noble," the fair young countess answers, dauntlessly. "I will face him alone."
She moves along the corridor with a free, proud step, glides down the stairs, and flings open the library door with an unfaltering hand, and her beautiful head held proudly, like a queen's, with defiance in her dark and flashing eyes.
He is waiting for her there in the soft, semi-twilight of the luxurious room, tall, and dark, and handsome, with eager admiration in his eyes as they fall upon the lovely, queenly girl crowned with the dusky gold of her luxuriant tresses.
She comes into the room, and he bows low and courteously before the fair girl, who, but a few nights ago claimed him as her husband, but she does not even bend that haughty head.
"Why are you here?" she asks, with scant courtesy and freezing contempt.
"To claim my wife," is the answer that rises impetuously to his lips, but he restrains himself, feeling that so abrupt an avowal would be poor policy in the face of her raging scorn.
"Lady Fairvale, surely you expected me to call after all thatpassedthatnight," he answers, in a low, smooth, deprecating voice, fixing his soft, dark eyes pleadingly on her proud face.
"No, I didnotexpect you to call," she flashes back scornfully. "What can you possibly want of me? Did you not hear me say that night that I scorned and hated you? Why, then, do you presume to intrude yourself upon me?"
"I bring you news, my fair lady," he answers, still calmly and gently, as if not resenting her scorn. "I have cabled to Washington, and yesterday I received a reply."
"A reply," she echoes, faintly, and for a moment there is silence, while he regards her with eager admiration, noting every graceful, womanly charm so becomingly enhanced by the beautiful, white morning-dress. After that interval he speaks.
"Yes, I have received my reply," he answers; "you were right, Lady Fairvale, though God knows what strange mystery lies around your supposed death and your rescue from the grave. But they have opened the coffin in which I swear I beheld Vera Campbell Noble buried, and—it is empty. I can no longer doubt that you are, indeed, my wife."
She stares at him with whitened lips, and a shudder of horror chills her heart. Such truth is stamped upon his face that it seems impossible to doubt. Yet she asks herself, with little, awsome chills creeping over all her frame, is it possible that she, Vera, has actually lain in the gloom and darkness of the grave? Has that warm, throbbing flesh, instinct with life and vitality, been closed around with the blackness of the coffin? Has the black earth been heaped upon her living form? What fearful mystery is this?
"Tell me," she says, almost piteously, "is it true that Vera Campbell died and was buried? Will you answer it?"
His face expresses the most honest surprise.
"Are you Vera Campbell, and pretend to doubt it?" he answers. "This is a mystery I cannot fathom. The girl, Vera, whom I made my wife by her mother's wish, committed suicide, and was buried in Glenwood. This I swear by this holy book," lifting a Bible lying on the table beside him, and pressing his lips upon it. "If you would go to America, Lady Fairvale, you would see the monument I erected in Glenwood to the memory of my wife!"
And again there is silence while Lady Vera, standing silently with little thrills of icy coldness creeping over her frame, shudders to herself. So they had buried her while she lay in that trance-like slumber. How had her father resurrected her, and why had he held it a secret?
Wondering at her silence, he speaks again.
"I have answered your question truly and fairly, Lady Vera. Let me ask you one in turn. Are you really ignorant of the fact that you have undoubtedly been buried alive?"
She shivers, palpably. All the warmth of the summer sunshine cannot keep back the icy winds that seem to blow over her like arctic waves.
"I never even imagined anything so horrible," she answers. "I distinctly remember my maddened attempt at suicide. Therewere two small vials in my mother's medicine chest. One meant death, the other sleep. I chose the poison, as I thought; drank it, and lay down to die. But I had made a mistake. I fell into a deep, narcotic sleep. I awakened in the dawn of another day and found myself in a small, humble room, watched over by a man who declared himself to be my father. I know no more than this."
"Yet he, undoubtedly, rescued you from the grave and concealed the fact from some motive of his own," Leslie Noble answers. "It was a mistaken kindness on his part. There are those who are ready to doubt your identity on the score of your ignorance of that strange event in your life, Lady Vera—some who would insinuate that you are an impostor and have no right to the title you bear. But I am not one of those carping disbelievers. I am quite convinced that you are really the Vera we believed to be dead so long, and I am ready to acknowledge you and to make reparation and atonement for the unconscious wrong I have done you."
"To make atonement—how?" Lady Vera asks him, with a curling lip and scornful eye.
Her scorn disconcerts him for a moment. His face flushes and his eyes fall, then he rallies, facing her with assumed calmness and humility that but poorly hide the eagerness of his heart.
"In the only way possible, of course," he answers. "By repudiating and putting aside the lady whom I married after your supposed death, and by installing you in your rightful place. Will you come home to me, Vera, my beautiful wife? Darnley House shall open wide its door to receive you, and there is no more beautiful home in London. It is elegant enough for you, even, my haughty princess."
She stares at him speechless with anger and amazement.
"Will you come to me, Vera?" he repeats, half opening his arms and speaking very tenderly.
She retreats before him as he advances. Her face flames with anger.
"How dare you—how dare you?" she pants, brokenly. "I scorn you, Leslie Noble! Surely you know that. Why, you are less to me than the dust beneath my feet."
"I am your husband by your own confession," he answers, sullenly, and with the fire of baffled purpose blazing in his eyes.
"Yes, you are my husband," she answers, with a scorn intense enough to blight him where he stands. "You are my husband, but you have no rights over me that I shall acknowledge, be sure of that. You forfeited all claim on my respect in that hour when you stood tamely by and suffered my enemies to insult and revile me, while you, my husband, uttered no word to defend me from their wicked abuse."
"I was a fool, and blind then," he answers. "I was weakly dominated and ruled by a passion for Ivy Cleveland, which, God knows, I have rued and repented long ago. I know her now for what she is, a selfish, heartless woman, and her mother, a devil incarnate. I have told them that there is no bond between us,and that they must go. If you will forgive me and come home to me, Vera, I will devote my life to your happiness."
"If that is all you came for, you may go," she answers, icily. "I shall never be nearer to you than I am at this moment. I should never have confessed my secret, I should never have claimed you, whom I hate and scorn, for my husband, but that it was the only way to keep my oath of vengeance to my dying father. But I have done with you now. The greatest kindness you can show me, Leslie Noble, is never to let me see your hated face again on earth."
Leslie Noble's face grows dark with passion and shame. To be defied and scorned by this beautiful girl is something that would make most men cower and feel humiliated, and though this man has had the most of his finer feelings dulled and blunted by his life with the Clevelands, still some faint instinct of shame stirs in him at her words and looks. But rage overpowers it.
"In your supreme scorn for me, Lady Fairvale, you seem to lose sight of one stubborn fact," he answers, in low, menacing tones. "I have been humbly pleading with you for what I may lawfully claim as my right."
"Your right!" she echoes, retreating toward the door as if she could not bear another word.
"Yes, my right," he answers, following and placing himself between her and the door. "Do not go, Lady Fairvale; stay and hear me out. You are my wife; your place is in my home and by my side. What is there to hinder me from taking possession of you?"
There is a dull menace in his look and tone, but Lady Vera's high courage does not falter.
"Would you attempt such a thing against my will?" she inquires, fixing on him the scornful gaze of her proud, dark eyes.
"I have fallen in love with you, Vera, I would dare much before I would give up the hope of winning your heart in return," he answers, doggedly.
The angry color flames into her cheeks.
"Then you are simply mad," she answers. "Have I not told you that I hate and despise you, and that I hope never to see your face again after this hour? Were you the last man on earth, I should never give you even one kind thought."
"Perhaps you have given your love elsewhere," he sneers. "Rumor assigns Colonel Lockhart the highest place in your favor."
"Rumor is right," Lady Vera answers, with calm defiance. "I love Colonel Lockhart, and I should have been his wife had not you reappeared upon the scene. I believed you dead. Tell me who was it that died last year in your native city, having the same name as your own?"
"It was my uncle, Leslie Noble, for whom I was named," he answers, sullenly, and then, quite suddenly, he falls down on his knees before her, and tries to take her hand, but she draws it haughtily away.