It was of all these stirring events that Azalia Brooks was thinking as she sat in Raynold Clinton's library, crushing in her jeweled hands the paper that held those two names with their magic power to evoke the past, her sad eyes full of retrospection, her heart heavy with pain.
Since that May day, more than two years ago, when William Kelso had so opportunely found her beside her mother's grave, she had been a most fortunate girl, for Lord Ivon and his wife, in their loneliness and their desire for an heir to reign after them, welcomed her with open arms, overlooked the dark stain upon her birth, and only stipulated that it should be kept from the knowledge of the world. In order to further this end, and to destroy her identity with Daisy Forrest's illegitimate daughter, they changed her name to Azalia Brooke, and as no one in England knew any better, except William Kelso, who kept the secret inviolate, her right to the name remained undisputed. She remained for a year secluded at Lord Ivon's magnificent country house in Cornwall, under the care of accomplished governesses and masters, and when she was presented in society created the greatestfurorebyher grace and beauty. The lovely American, as she was called, was all the rage, and scores of suitors bowed before her, but all in vain, for no one ever awakened her heart, they said, and Lord and Lady Ivon began to feel sorely disappointed. They had hoped she would fall in love with some of her noble suitors and marry.
"Perhaps you have left a lover in America, dear?" Lady Ivon said, anxiously, one day; and she never forgot the look of pain that shadowed the beautiful face as Azalia replied:
"No, grandmamma, I did not. I never had but one lover, and he died in a few months after we became acquainted."
"But you must have been so very young at the time that you could not have cared for him so very much," said Lady Ivon, anxiously.
"Yes, I was very young," Azalia answered, dreamily; but she added to herself that she cared so much that she should never forget her dead husband, and sighed:
"Forget thee? Yes, when life shall ceaseTo thrill this heart of mine;But not till then can I forgetOne look or tone of thine!"
"Forget thee? Yes, when life shall ceaseTo thrill this heart of mine;But not till then can I forgetOne look or tone of thine!"
There was a burden on her heart—the burden of the secret she had not dared to confess either to Mr. Kelso or to her great-grandparents.
She feared that they would not receive her if she confessed that she had been married in secret to a man who had deserted her so strangely, and that she had borne a little child that was dead and had been buried in a secret grave.
"If I told them they might say, like Jewel, that it was all a sham, that the man had deceived me," she thought, with burning cheeks. "They might drive me out into the cold, hard world, of which I am so terribly afraid. No, no, I dare not speak!"
So she kept her sorrowful secret hidden in her own heart; and when Lady Ivon sometimes caught that look of sad retrospection on the fair face, she thought that she was thinking of a dead lover—not a dead husband and child.
"I fear that she must have cared more than I suspected," the old lady would say to herself, uneasily; and, could she have gazed upon Azalia now, she would have felt more anxious than ever.
She said to herself that she must find out the truth as to this Laurie Meredith. But how to accomplish it was the question that occurred to her, since she dare not ask any questions.
No answer presented itself to her mind, and she could only hope that she might meet this Laurie Meredith in society.
"But what if I should meet Jewel, too? Would she recognize me? Would she tax me with my identity? If she did, I should not acknowledge the truth."
It was perhaps a week after that snowy day when Azalia Brooke sat, looking back with dim, wet eyes into her shadowy past, that Jewel Fielding reclined at ease in a beautiful boudoir hung in white and gold, and listened to the roar of the winter wind as it whistled in the eaves of the handsome but ancient old mansion that she called home.
The house had been built by an Englishman almost a century ago, and outside it looked like a small-sized castle, while within it was of peculiar construction, having some very large and beautiful rooms, with others so small and ill-ventilated that Jewel turned up her pretty nose at them, declaring that they were stuffy holes, fit for nothingthat she could see but lumber-closets. There was a great, big, noisome cellar under the house, too, that in winter often stood feet deep in water, and was therefore never used for any purpose, but given over to the use and occupancy of immense rats.
But there were plenty of elegant, comfortable rooms in the grand house, and the beautiful boudoir where Jewel lay was fine enough for a queen, and Jewel herself was not unlike a queen in her purple velvet robe, with its border of silvery fur that was so becoming to the dusky beauty of her dark, sparkling face, with its crown of jetty braided hair.
It was a gloomy, overcast afternoon, with a keen, north-east wind blowing, and heavy patches of last week's deep snow still cumbering the ground. But the curtains were drawn and the gas ablaze in Jewel's room, while the leaping flames inside the grate added tropical warmth to the large room with its beautiful furniture and tall stands of blooming flowers.
Jewel's eyes were shining with pleasure, for her maid had just brought in for her inspection a new dress that she was to wear that night—a marvel of richness, a stately purple brocade and plush, in which, with her costly diamonds, Jewel knew that she would look imperially lovely.
"Leave it there, Marie," she said to the pert French maid with her dainty, beribboned cap; "I wish to study the fall of the drapery at my leisure. I will ring when I desire you."
Marie bowed and withdrew, and the vain beauty lay idly at full length, her arms thrown over her head, her dainty slipper tapping the carpet, and feasted her dark eyes on the shining robe.
"I shall look like a queen—there will be no one to rival me!" she declared, triumphantly. "Let me see, what flowers shall I wear?—crimson roses, or creamy-white ones? Or the delicate gold of the Maréchal Niel? I declare,I can not make up my mind. I shall have to let Marie decide. She has exquisite taste."
Suddenly a slight frown wrinkled the beautiful forehead, and the dark eyes flashed.
"Ah, I forgot," she muttered. "They say that that English beauty will be there! Pshaw! What does it matter? I shall eclipse my Lord Ivon's great-granddaughter, in spite of the prestige of her position, for they say she is a blonde, and her pink-and-white charms will stand no chance against my brunette beauty. All blondes look insipid. I never saw but one that could hold her own against me, and that was my twin sister—ah, I forgot—I mean Flower."
She shivered a little, and the slow opening of the door gave her a violent start.
It was Marie, who had been flirting with the postman at the door.
She carried a letter on a salver.
Jewel snatched it up eagerly, and dismissed her maid.
In a moment she had drawn the letter from the envelope and was quickly perusing it.
Her face darkened with anger, and she gnawed her crimson lower lip sharply with her pearly teeth, muttering vindictively:
"I will not do it—never, never! She shall stay there till she dies!"
Again the door opened, and Jewel thrust the letter into the envelope and slipped her hand down among the folds of her rich gown.
"Marie, what do you mean by interrupting me like this?" she broke out, petulantly.
Marie courtesied, apologized, and explained that a lady, a woman, had called to see Miss Fielding, and would not be denied.
"What do you mean by a lady, a woman?" Jewel mimicked, impatiently; and the maid explained, in broken French, that the caller had a high-bred voice and air, but was dressed very shabbily, and had come on foot.
"Her name?" Jewel demanded.
But the shabby caller had given the maid no card.
"Why did you not send her to Mrs. Wellings since she would not go away?"
Mrs. Wellings had gone to her room with a headache, and desired no one to disturb her in the little nap with which she proposed to while away the dull afternoon.
"Headache! too much wine at luncheon!" Jewel muttered, scornfully; and then, having nothing else to do, and being of a curious disposition, she said, lightly: "Go, and show your impertinent shabby lady up here, Marie, and I will find out what she wishes. A beggar, perhaps—insolent creature!"
Marie withdrew, and Jewel threw herself into an attitude of studied grace, the better to impress the caller, whom she opined was some poor creature, a needle-woman desiring work, most probably.
The door opened, and a slight, dark figure, very poorly dressed, indeed, followed Marie over the threshold and stood there hesitating. Jewel looked at her curiously, but a dark veil was drawn over the features of the unknown.
"Well?" she interrogated, curtly and haughtily.
"Send your maid away, please, Miss Fielding," said a low, imploring voice that made Jewel start in spite of her haughty self-command. She immediately motioned Marie away, and, rising quickly, turned the key in the lock after her exit.
Then, with a swift tremor shaking her whole frame, she confronted the veiled figure.
"Now," she said, sharply, and the veil was flung asideby an agitated hand, and Jewel and Flower, the long-parted half-sisters, the beautiful rivals, stood face to face!
Something like a groan of despair came from Jewel's blanched lips, and Flower said, bitterly:
"You know me!"
Jewel was not taken wholly by surprise. She had been looking for something like this for two years, never having quite believed her own story of Flower's suicide. She remained silent a moment, collecting her thoughts, then said, coldly:
"I have believed you dead for two years, but the moment you spoke I knew your voice. I never heard a voice quite like yours. But where have you been so long, and what has brought you here to-night?"
Flower, whose beautiful face was wan and ghastly white, answered, with sudden passion:
"It matters not where I have been, since it is evident you were glad to believe me dead. But I will tell you why I am here, Jewel!" and she drew from beneath her long, black water-proof a worn newspaper, and held it out to Jewel. "You have read this paragraph, of course?" she said. "Tell me what it means, or I shall go mad!"
The dark eyes glanced at the short paragraph, the red lips parted in a malicious smile, and Jewel said, airily:
"It means what it says, of course."
She saw the slight, graceful form shiver with emotion, the blue eyes dilate widely.
"Oh, Jewel!" gasped the girl, pleadingly. "This Laurie Meredith—who is he?"
Jewel gave utterance to a low, mocking laugh, and answered:
"Not the dead alive, certainly; for although you have come back from your supposed grave, your old lover has not. I could keep you in suspense awhile, but I see youare not able to bear it, so I will tell you at once that this man whom I am so soon to marry is a cousin of your Laurie Meredith."
"A cousin!" Flower faltered, disappointedly, plainly betraying the wild hope that had lurked in her heart, and causing Jewel to exclaim sharply:
"Why, of course! You could not suppose it was the same man after you read his death in the paper."
"I—I—thought—hoped, it might be a mistake—that it was some one else who was dead—not my husband! Oh, I can not tell what I hoped when I saw that dear name in the paper again!" wailed Flower; and unable to stand longer, she sunk upon the velvet couch, and sobbed heart-brokenly.
Jewel watched the bowed, golden head with a terrible hatred, a panther-like fury in her large, black eyes, and clinching her white teeth fiercely, she said to herself:
"Ah, I did not know what a hell of hate was in my heart until this weak girl came between me and my heart's beloved! I can understand now how my mother hated her mother! I can feel the same murderous jealousy that made her life wretched! Ah, what am I to do? She is alive, she is in the same city with Laurie Meredith, and they will surely find each other out despite all my lies and all my schemes."
Dark, terrible thoughts came into her mind. She wished that she could see her sister fall down dead at her feet, so bitter was her hate.
Suddenly Flower lifted her beautiful, pathetic face, and a gleam of her old spirit shone in her eyes. She exclaimed, warningly:
"Jewel, I warn you not to deceive me! If it be really Laurie Meredith, if it was not he who died, tell me the truth! What could it profit you to keep us apart now? I remember that you used to love him, that you were angry because he preferred me, but even if he had learned tolove you, believing me dead, you could not be his wife now—now, while I am alive!"
A cruel, mocking laugh came from Jewel's writhing lips. She bent forward, and hissed, vindictively:
"You were always a fool, Flower! You never would listen to me when I told you that Laurie Meredith fooled you into an illegal marriage. Now, as you demand the truth, you shall have it. Laurie Meredith was a married man when he first came to our sea-side home, had a young wife in Boston when he betrayed you. She found out his treachery somehow, and that was why he left Virginia so suddenly. She was so imbittered by his wickedness that they say she did not shed a tear when he died, and in a short time she sold all her property here and went abroad, never to return."
"No, no; I will not believe he could be so wicked," came in a whisper of agony from Flower's white lips. "Oh, Jewel, how did you learn all this?"
"From my betrothed, the cousin of your heartless betrayer," Jewel replied, coolly; and a short silence fell between the two.
Then Flower exclaimed:
"Jewel, I should like to see this man! I should like to hear from his own lips—"
Jewel recoiled in horror.
"You are mad!" she cried. "Do you think I would permit it, that I would own you, the half-sister whose kinship to me is her disgrace and a brand on the memory of my dead father?"
She turned her back on the poor girl with a disdainful gesture, and swept toward the fire, and stood there with her pretty pointed slipper on the fender, murderous thoughts rising in her heart.
"I could kill her, I hate and fear her so much!" she thought, hotly.
Flower's tear-wet eyes had fallen to the floor. Theyfastened on an envelope lying close to her feet half under the folds of her dress. She saw the name of her sister on the upper side.
She did not feel much interest in the letter. She could not understand afterward, when she came to think of it soberly, why she had picked it up and hid it in her breast.
Jewel moved from her position in front of the fire, and trailed the beautiful folds of her purple velvet dress across the floor to the window.
She drew back a fold of the lace curtain and peered through the window-pane and the closed shutters into the street.
The short, wintery afternoon was darkening into twilight, and the sky was obscured by dark, heavy clouds. The proud, imperious beauty leaned her brow against the cold pane, trying to solve the problem that tormented her mind.
"I must get rid of her somehow. She dimly suspects treachery on my part. If she goes out of the house again she will prosecute her search and learn all," she thought. "Ah, I have a plan! If I could only detain her here long enough to have that doctor come and take her to themaison de santéwhere mamma is, she would never get out again!"
She turned swiftly, crossed the room to Flower, and sat down by her side on the sofa, placing her white arm around her sister's neck.
"My poor little sister, forgive me my harshness," she whispered, penitently.
The drooping, despondent girl started and looked up. That Judas face was wreathed in a loving smile that bewildered her. Never had she caught such a look on herhalf-sister's face since their early happy days ere Laurie Meredith's love had come between their hearts.
"Jewel!" she exclaimed, incredulously.
"Darling Flower!" answered the other, and clasped her victim in a loving embrace, whispering, fondly:
"You see how the old love comes back, dear, in spite of all my efforts to be your enemy. After all, we are half-sisters. Nothing can alter that, just as nothing can wholly change our love that was so sweet and strong when we believed ourselves twins. I forgive you all, for—listen"—and she pressed her lips to Flower's cold cheek—"I loved him, too, you know, and if he had fancied me I might have been his victim instead of you."
Flower clung to her, weeping, all her resentment and suspicion melted before this specious show of solicitude and affection.
"And," continued Jewel, "I want you to stay with me always, Flower, and share my home and my wealth. You must take off these shabby clothes that," playfully, "looks as if they belonged to somebody's servant. Marie shall bring you one of my prettiest tea-gowns, and when we have had some tea you shall tell me where you have been all this while, the reason you ran away that night, and what became of your little child."
As if those words touched a subtle cord of memory, Flower flung off the arm that clasped her with sinuous softness, like a serpent's fold, and cried out, in a terrified voice:
"Not now, Jewel, for I have stayed too long already. I shall be missed; my—they will be alarmed at my long absence. I must go now, dear sister, but I—I will come again, or—I will write."
She rushed toward the door, but Jewel clung to her tightly, entreating her to stay.
"This is your home, your rightful home," she cried,desperately. "It is too dark and cold for you to go out now! At least stay to-night, and in the morning—"
She never finished the sentence, for Flower interrupted her, protesting that she could not, would not, must not stay. She would come again, but her mistress expected her now.
Jewel's arms began to tighten obstinately about Flower, and then, frightened and panting, the girl began to struggle frantically to get away.
It all passed in a minute. Jewel saw that her victim would escape her, for her frantic struggles began to tell, and she was dragging her foe with her toward the door. There was a marble-topped stand in their way, littered with costly trifles of bric-à-brac. Jewel flung out one hand, caught up something, she knew not what, and brought it down heavily on the golden head from which the close bonnet had fallen in the struggle.
There was one low, stifled moan, one only, then the struggling form relaxed its rigidity, the outstretched arms fell heavily, and in a minute more Jewel was standing still, looking at something lying very white and still upon the floor.
Jewel stood like one rooted to the floor gazing at her terrible work, for to all appearance life had fled from her hapless victim.
Flower lay like one dead upon the velvet carpet, her eyes half closed, her face ashen, and the missile with which Jewel had struck her, a small bronze toy, had glanced aside after doing its deadly work and fallen several feet away.
Jewel's dark face grew pale, too, and she shuddered with horror of the deed she had done.
In a minute she flung herself down upon her knees andfelt for her sister's heart, but no pulse stirred the white breast of the prostrate girl.
"Before Heaven, I did not mean to do this!" Jewel muttered. "I only meant to stun her that she might not get away. I did not mean to kill her, but she is dead, and I am a terrible sinner in the sight of God!"
For a minute she felt shocked and remorseful, and longed to bring Flower back to life; but then that momentary mood was succeeded by the bitter jealous one of a little while ago, and a half-ashamed exultation crept into her heart.
"After all," whispered her evil genius, "it is better that it happened thus. She is out of your way now, and you can marry Laurie Meredith without fearing that she may turn up at any minute to take him from you. Rejoice, heart, that your rival is no more!"
After that she thought of nothing but the relief she would feel hereafter in knowing that Flower was really dead, and of hiding her dead body where no one could ever find it.
After a few minutes' reflection she thought of the old cellar under the house. Doubtless it was several feet under water now, owing to the snow of last week and the subsequent thaw.
"If I could throw her in there I should be safe!" she muttered.
She hardly knew how she accomplished it, but she dragged Flower's body down to the cellar and pushed it inside the door. It fell with a loud splash into the water, and Jewel banged the door to wildly, and rushed from the scene of her awful crime.
She did not know whether it was minutes or hours that she lay shuddering upon the sofa before Marie entered and looked around with a disappointed expression.
"I beg your pardon; I did not like to disturb you andthe la—woman, mademoiselle, but it is quite time that you decided on what flowers you will wear this evening."
Jewel lifted her blanched face from the sofa, and said, carelessly:
"The flowers? use your own taste, Marie. It is always perfect. As for disturbing me—why, the woman went long ago, poor beggar. She had seen better days, she said, but she was a widow now with two children freezing in a garret. I gave her five dollars to buy food and coal, then I rang the bell for you to show her out. But you did not answer, so, as she was in a hurry to get back to her little ones, I showed her out myself."
Marie murmured some glib phrases of admiration for her young lady's condescension, then begged pardon for being in the conservatory and out of sound of the bell.
"I just ran down to see about the flowers for your corsage, but everything was so sweet and fragrant I couldn't tear myself away," she explained, with many nods and shrugs of head and shoulders.
"You are very excusable," Jewel replied, drawing a long breath of relief at hearing that Marie had been in the conservatory, out of reach of what had happened awhile ago.
She had feared at first that she would have to take the clever maid into her confidence and secure her aid in removing the body, but now she was very glad she had not done so.
"I accomplished it all by myself, although I ran a terrible risk in doing so. Ugh! what if Mrs. Wellings, or any of the servants, had come upon me when I was dragging her through the halls and down the stairs!" she shuddered to herself, with a passing wonder at her own hardihood.
No one who saw Jewel Fielding at Mrs. Devere's splendid reception that night would have guessed the dark secret she had in her breast.
The purple plush and brocade, with the diamond ornaments and creamy-hued corsage flowers, made her beauty seem queenly. Her dark eyes radiated light enough to atone for the slight pallor of her cheeks, whereon the rose was wont to bloom, and her lips were wreathed in deceptive smiles that hid the horror lurking in her heart.
Laurie Meredith thought that he had never seen her more beautiful than to-night, and he did not wonder that she had so many admirers. The only thing that surprised him was that she could prefer himself above all those others who worshiped her, while he had been one of the most indifferent suitors that ever bowed at woman's shrine.
But her beauty and her devotion had touched his heart at last. He must have been a marble man if it had not, for her devotion was so plain, and yet so pathetic, seeming to ask for nothing in return save the privilege of loving.
"Only to love him—nothing more,Never a thought of his loving me!Proud of him, glad of him, though he boreMy heart to shipwreck on this smooth sea.Love's faith sees only grief, not wrong,And life is daring when 'tis young."
"Only to love him—nothing more,Never a thought of his loving me!Proud of him, glad of him, though he boreMy heart to shipwreck on this smooth sea.Love's faith sees only grief, not wrong,And life is daring when 'tis young."
If anything could have excused her folly and sin it would have been the madness of her passion for him. She worshiped him and made no secret of it. She could not keep her dark eyes from turning to his face, even in the greatest crowds; she could not keep from speaking to himif he came near her. By degrees the little world of society realized this. People would smile when they saw them together. They would take care not to intrude on theirtête-à-têtes, not knowing that the love was all on one side.
The Merediths could not help but see how things were going. Indeed, they had seen long ago that she was in love with Laurie, and had been ever since that summer when she had nursed him through the brain fever. They talked to him delicately about it, wondering how he could remain so indifferent to one so beautiful and loving.
With so many influences brought to bear upon him, he began to wonder at himself. Why could he not care for this beautiful girl who was so unhappy about him? for he remembered that she had loved him long ago—when, in her girlish anger and jealousy, she had said:
"You have made love to my sister, and you have made love to me; you have won both our hearts. Now choose between us!"
She was older and more cultured now—perhaps ashamed of her early madness—yet the love was there still. Had he indeed encouraged it only to nip the fair flower in the bud?
He remembered that he certainly had admired her very much—had even cherished some romantic thoughts about making her his bride, until sweet Flower put it all out of his head. The thought came to him for the first time, that perhaps there had been some justice in her charge. She had been so young, so unversed in the ways of the world, that a few gallant words and admiring glances had wiled her heart from her forever.
Flower was dead and gone—why could he not tear his heart from his perished love and give it to her unhappy sister? It seemed to him that Flower—dear, gentle girl—herself would have wished it.
"Pity is akin to love," it is said. He began to feel very sorry for Jewel, who, with all her gifts of youth,beauty, and wealth, was so unutterably lonely, and so unhappy through her hopeless love. The moment came when this sympathy, combined with admiration for her beauty, led him into the belief that he loved her at last.
He proposed for her hand, and was accepted with a rapture that almost startled him with its intensity. To-night, as he lingered by her side, he felt proud of his fiancée, so beautiful and so loving. He smiled into her eyes, and thought within himself that the day would come when he would be almost as fond of her as he had been of Flower.
They were sittingtête-à-têteon a velvet couch in the long drawing-room, when their hostess approached, and asked, eagerly:
"Have either of you seen Lord Ivon's heiress, the great English beauty? She is here to-night, and people are raving over her loveliness. But you need not be afraid of a rival, Miss Fielding, as her type is the opposite of your own. I do not praise one of my own sex often," laughingly; "but I will own that she is, as the poet laureate of her own land aptly says, 'Perfectly beautiful, faultily faultless.'"
"Indeed? I am very anxious to see her!" exclaimed Jewel, with a half sneer; but Laurie Meredith only laughed. He thought he had seen so many English beauties while abroad; and, after all, none could compare, in his own mind, with the lovely women of his native land. "Where is she, Mrs. Devere?" continued Jewel, angrily, eager to look upon one of whom she was furiously jealous, only because report said that she was wondrously lovely.
"If you will come with me I will present you. I am curious to see the meeting between the loveliest girl in America and the greatest beauty in England!" exclaimed Mrs. Devere, who doted on beauty because she was irredeemably homely herself.
Jewel was mollified by the compliment, and smiledbrightly on her hostess and her lover as she rose from her seat.
"Will you come, too, Laurie?" she asked; but he shook his handsome head.
"Excuse me for the present," he replied; and Jewel went away with Mrs. Devere, secretly glad that her lover showed so little interest in the beauty over whom every one was raving.
"And I have been so afraid of her—so foolishly jealous!" she thought, gladly, all her fears set at rest.
Laurie Meredith leaned his handsome head carelessly back, and the smile that he had worn for Jewel's sake faded away and left his face grave and sober, as it had grown to be since that summer when he had gone away from the sea-shore, leaving his little love behind him because she had changed her mind almost at the last moment and declined to go with her lover-husband.
His tender thoughts of the dead girl were always mixed with pain and remorse, for he believed that Flower's love for him had been less strong than he had believed it at first. Her refusal to go away with him, and her subsequent short and strange letters, led him to this belief.
"She was little more than a child, and it was a girlish fancy that she took for love," he thought now. "It was cruel in me to take advantage of her, and bind her by a tie that afterward made her miserable. Jewel may say what she pleases, but I am not sure that Flower drowned herself wholly on account of the unhappy circumstances of her birth. I fear that her sorrow over her hasty marriage, and despair at her situation, helped to drive her to that mad deed."
At times he could not help contrasting the fickleness of Flower's love with the constancy and devotion of Jewel's.He had said to himself more than once, with a pang of wounded pride:
"Flower cared but little for my love, but Jewel valued it above all else on earth. It is right that I should reward her devotion. I will try to love the faithful, dark-eyed girl as she deserves."
But such is the strangeness of the human heart that he prized the memory of the lost girl far more than he did the living love of beautiful, passionate Jewel. He could not have helped it if he would, and he did not struggle much against the feeling, for it seemed to him that he owed his greatest allegiance to the memory of her who had loved him, for a time at least, tenderly and truly, and who had died so young; and to his heart there came sometimes, with a shuddering pain, the strangely fitting words of Poe, the passionate poet, who sounded the heights and depths of love's emotion:
"Would to God I could awaken!For I dream I know not how,And my soul is sorely shakenLest an evil step be taken—Lest the dead who is forsakenMay not be happy now!"
"Would to God I could awaken!For I dream I know not how,And my soul is sorely shakenLest an evil step be taken—Lest the dead who is forsakenMay not be happy now!"
Almost without his own volition, and perhaps partly inspired by the strain of half-sad music that floated out from the ball-room, these often-recurring thoughts came to him again, and, wrapped in their pain and pathos, he forgot the flight of time until he saw Jewel coming back to him alone, with such a pale, drawn face that he started in wonder.
"My dear, what is it? You look as if you had seen a ghost!" he exclaimed.
She fell wearily into the seat by his side, and answered, in a low, strained voice:
"Oh, Laurie, I have had a great shock!"
He could well believe her, for she was trembling violently;her face, and even her lips were ghastly pale, and her eyes had a startled expression in their dark, liquid depths.
No one was near, and he took her hand and pressed it gently, murmuring something suitable to the occasion in his tender solicitude.
He was rewarded by a faint, sweet smile and look of adoration from her dark eyes.
"Perhaps you will think me foolish," she said—"perhaps you will not see any resemblance at all. It was only that both had the same eyes and hair; but I was so startled! I—I feared you would be shocked, too, so I hurried back to tell you—to warn you!"
"Jewel, whom are you talking about? I do not understand you," her lover said, with a gleam of wonder in his grave, brown eyes.
She answered with a palpable reluctance, yet as if compelled to the confession:
"Of Miss Brooke, the English beauty. She is very beautiful—a blonde, with the brightest golden hair, and eyes with the purple-blue of wet violets. And, oh, Laurie, she looked so much like—like Flower, that I was frightened. But," growing braver, "of course, there was nothing in it to frighten me, only I was taken by surprise. There are plenty of striking resemblances in the world."
Her jealous eyes saw his handsome face whiten with emotion.
He said, in a strange, agitated voice:
"Why do you say there could be nothing in it? No one could be quite sure that Flower drowned herself. It was only suspicion. No one saw her commit suicide. And her body was never recovered."
"Oh, Laurie, what nonsense! I told you she had vowed to drown herself, that I watched her all the time to prevent her from carrying out her threat; but that night when she got away, I went immediately to the shore, and there I found her shawl. What further proof could oneneed after what she had threatened so often? Besides, she was never seen nor heard of afterward. Some one must have heard of her if she had not been dead!"
"There was that strange dream of the mulatto, Sam, you know," he answered.
"Sam—a drunken fool!" said Jewel, with compressed lips and flashing eyes. "His wife denied every word of it. She was a clever, truthful woman."
He sighed and relapsed into silence while she continued, with feverish eagerness:
"Of course, I know that Flower is dead! I have never doubted it with the evidence that I had. But, in spite of all, it gave me a shock to see Azalia Brooke. I feared you might be startled, too, and betray some agitation on meeting her, so I hurried back to warn you."
"You are very kind, dear Jewel," he said, affecting indifference. "I dare say the resemblance is not very striking. I promise you to meet the English beauty with due calmness."
"Dear Laurie," she whispered, fondly, and twined her jeweled fingers softly about his. "Do you know," she went on, smilingly, "I was actually feeling jealous of Azalia Brooke? I thought—since she looked so much like Flower—that she might win you from me!"
"Nonsense!" he replied, with a smile, that lightened her heart of much of its fear, and gave her courage to say, tenderly:
"Promise me, dear Laurie, not to fall in love with Azalia Brooke, for you know that would break my heart. Once before, when I fondly dreamed that you were mine alone, I lost you to another, and I could not bear that cruel pain again and live!"
His heart was deeply touched by her devotion.
"Jewel, I am not worthy of such passionate love," he said, feeling that his lukewarm passion compared most unfavorably with her fond affection. Then seeing howanxious she looked, he added, "I will promise you most willingly not to fall in love with Miss Brooke."
"Very well, then, I will not take you away at once, as I was on the point of doing in my terror of a rival," she rejoined, laughingly, yet hoping that he would offer to go.
But he did not do so. A secret longing to see Azalia Brooke took possession of him—a longing that he was wise enough not to confess to jealous Jewel.
"Let us go into the conservatory," she said, longing to rest awhile in its leafy, odorous coolness, that she might settle her disordered nerves, and he gave her his arm and led her toward that favorite resort of lovers.
"Young flowers were whispering in melodyTo happy flowers that night—and tree to tree;Fountains were gushing music as they fell."
"Young flowers were whispering in melodyTo happy flowers that night—and tree to tree;Fountains were gushing music as they fell."
In that enchanted spot Jewel thought she should have him all to herself, for she had left Azalia Brooke in the ball-room surrounded by eager admirers, but what was her surprise to see, just ahead of her, with a handsome young man, the beautiful English girl talking so earnestly that she did not hear nor see the new-comers at all.
If Azalia Brooke could have been permitted to decide under what circumstances she should be seen first by Laurie Meredith, she could not have chosen a more striking moment than the present.
She had paused with her attendant cavalier beside a perfect thicket of her namesake flowers—red and white azalias. A fountain and some lofty palm-trees were in the background, and made a lovely setting for her face and dress.
The former we have described before in all its wondrous beauty; the latter was an exquisite robe of silvery white moiré antique, draped in billows of white tulle, looped crystallized sea-grasses and water-lilies. The perfect throat and arms were clasped with large pearls, and thegolden waves of hair were banded back with a Grecian fillet of the same pure jewels. It was a trying costume; but the blue of her eyes was so deep, the sheen of her hair so goldenly bright, and the rose-hue so warm on her delicate cheek, that the unbroken white and green were perfectly relieved, and set off her charms to the greatest advantage.
Her companion was talking to her earnestly, and she was listening to him with an absent smile, when Laurie Meredith first caught sight of her face.
He stopped short. Jewel felt him start and tremble. She glanced into his face and saw it pale, startled, eager. A low whisper came from his lips, and her keen ear caught the burden. It was the one word:
"Flower!"
They were only a few yards away from the couple. Jewel pinched his arm, warningly.
"Laurie!"
He withdrew his eyes with difficulty from Azalia's face, and he looked down at his betrothed.
"Do not stare so," she whispered, uneasily. "I warned you of the likeness, you know."
With a heavy sigh he came back to himself.
"Pardon me," he said, confusedly, and moved on.
A meeting was inevitable now. Laurie Meredith and Azalia Brooke were face to face.
Jewel's voice was uttering, not overcordially, the words of introduction.
Both bowed and murmured something almost inaudible, then Jewel drew her lover on with her to a quiet spot, leaving the couple alone.
That was but the beginning. They met night after night in the saloons of fashion, although Jewel contrived to keep them apart, they studied each other closely, and both were startled by the other's likeness to a dead love.
Jewel was puzzled, too, by the terrible resemblance of Azalia Brooke to her dead half-sister.
"If I did not know that she was dead, if I did not know what was lying in that old cellar under the noisome water, ay, if I did not know whose ghost it was that haunted the corridors of that old house, I could almost swear that this was Flower masquerading under a grand seeming," she told herself over and over, with a shudder; for Jewel's life had the stain of a dark sin on it now, and she had seen more than once or twice the vision of a light, shadowy figure all in luminous white, with floating golden hair, flitting at twilight through the corridors of her stately home.
"It is Flower's spirit!" she decided, fearfully, and wondered if the murdered girl were going to haunt her all her life.
"Oh, how much I have done for the sake of my love for Laurie Meredith!" she thought. "And yet, I half believe that but for dread of me he would woo this hateful English girl only for the sake of that fatal resemblance. He is attracted toward her. I can see that in spite of the indifference he pretends. Let him beware! Let both beware, for if they played me false both should answer with their lives!"
Azalia Brooke went home that night from the grand ball, puzzled, tormented, almost convinced that her lover-husband was not dead, but that he lived in the person of Jewel Fielding's lover.
His striking likeness to him she had so long believed dead was so wonderful and startling that it had almost unnerved her that night, and it was only by a strong exercise of will-power that she resisted the impulse to cryout, to claim him, and charge him with his falsity, to say, bitterly:
"It was not you that died, Laurie Meredith. That was a clever sham, like your marriage with me. You were false to the core of your heart, and perhaps combined with my cruel sister to get rid of me."
Wounded pride, bitter resentment, and a terror of being thrown helpless on the world, held her back from betraying herself to him who would have welcomed her so gladly.
It was pitiful for those two who had loved so well, who had been all the world to each other, whose hearts still held each other's image, to meet as mere strangers, to speak coldly to each other, yet a cruel fate, in the person of Jewel Fielding, had willed it so, and they moved and acted like mere puppets under her merciless hands.
"He did not even remember me. He betrayed not the slightest emotion on meeting me, while I—I was trembling with excitement. If indeed it be the Laurie of old he soon tired of me, and then forgot me utterly, so that after a few years he can meet me with a glance of a stranger," she thought, bitterly; and pride came to her aid to uphold her in the task of meeting indifference with indifference.
"Yet I would give the world to find out if it is really Laurie, or only a relative with a startling resemblance," she thought many times.
As they met so often in society, this longing grew upon her, but she could find no means of gratifying it, for she could not ask any one else about it, and Jewel was so jealous over her lover that she kept him chained like a slave to her triumphal car.
But one afternoon they met at a kettle-drum—a species of informal entertainments then raging in society. The gentlemen came in their ordinary dress, the ladies in calling or simple walking costume. Chance threw LaurieMeredith and Azalia Brooke together in a cozy corner, with their cups of tea.
Jewel? She wastête-à-têtewith a distinguished gentleman, from whom she could not escape just now with strict courtesy. She listened with a forced smile to his fluent periods, and furtively watched the pair over yonder, coquetting, as she said angrily to herself, over their fragrant cups of tea and thin cakes.
Miss Brooke's exquisite beauty appeared to advantage in a close-fitting tailor suit of broadcloth. A plumed turban of the same becoming hue set off her rippling golden hair.
She said to her companion, with a fast-beating heart:
"Miss Fielding has told me, Mr. Meredith, that you were abroad two years. Of course you visited England. Did you see Cornwall? My home is there. It is quite a show-place, being very ancient, and having a magnificent picture-gallery."
He said audaciously that he had been in England, and should have gone down to Cornwall to see Lord Ivon's pictures if he could have believed that there was anything on canvas there half as lovely as herself.
Miss Brooke shook her spoon at him in playful reproof, and he continued:
"I spent most of my time, however, at a German university."
Azalia gave an uncontrollable start that jarred the cup in her hand and made the tea splash over a little on her lap.
"How awkward I am!" she said, laughing. "Ah! and so you were a German student, Mr. Meredith?"
"Yes, for a time," he replied. "Not that I cared much for it, but my father was so anxious for it before his death that I went afterward, just because he had wished it—not that I benefited much by it, I fear. My thoughts were full of other things."
Azalia swallowed her tea at a draught in order not to spill any more on her dress. She looked at him then, and said:
"So your father is dead? That is sad. Mine died when I was a very tiny baby. I have often wished that he had lived that I might have known the pleasure of a father's love and care."
Her voice was low with regret and pain. His soul stirred with sympathy.
"You have much to regret in losing your father so soon," he said. "I can not tell you what mine was to me, what a mentor, what a friend, until his death nearly three years ago."
"Three years!" she echoed, faintly, and the pretty eggshell china tea-cup fell from her hands to the carpet, crashing into a dozen fragments.
"Oh, dear, how very careless I am!" she exclaimed, dismayed at the attention she attracted by her accident. She saw Jewel looking at her with jealous suspicion, but took no notice, and as a servant appeared to remove thedébris, she turned smilingly back to her companion and said, lightly:
"Everything slips through my fingers," and added, miserably, to herself, "Love and happiness with the rest!"
He was about to reply with some admiring sentence, when he saw Jewel coming over to them with a bright smile that was assumed to veil her jealous spite.
"Laurie, what did you say to Miss Brooke to shock her into breaking her tea-cup?" playfully.
He answered, as he rose to place a chair for her:
"Nothing."
Azalia Brooke looked up at her with artless cordiality.
"Was it not dreadful, spoiling Mrs. Stanley's beautiful set that way? Won't you go with me to-morrow, Miss Fielding, and try to match it?" she asked. "Do youknow, I was so interested in what Mr. Meredith was telling, I forgot I had it in my hand, and it fell. It seems he has been a student at one of those delightful German universities. He was telling me how much his father wished it before his death, nearly three years ago."
Was there a strange, hidden meaning in the blue eyes that met Jewel's? Was there a menace in the distinct voice? Jewel quailed for a moment, fancying these things, and her rival saw her turn pale and tremble.
But it was Jewel's turn now.
"Laurie, will you take me home now? I have another engagement," she said.
They bowed and went away from the presence of the young beauty.
On the way home Jewel betrayed her petulant jealousy plainly.
"You promised me not to fall in love with that girl, Laurie."
"Did your 'other engagement' mean that you wanted to bring me away to scold me?" he asked, frowning.
"You are in love with her, Laurie!" angrily.
"You are jealous," he retorted; and Jewel took refuge in tears, while her betrothed relapsed into offended silence.
Seeing this, Jewel realized that she was going too far, begged his pardon for her folly, and riveted her chains more firmly than ever.
They parted affectionately, and when he had gone, she muttered:
"Could she have escaped? I must satisfy myself, much as I dread it, for to-night I could have sworn that Flower's voice spoke to me with a hidden threat in its tone. Oh, I wish I were safely married and away on my bridal-tour!"
She crept to the door of the deserted cellar, unclosed it, peered into the darkness with dilated eyes. She heard great rats plunging about, saw the noisome waterstanding, green and stagnant, several feet deep, and a large blank water-proof cloak floating on the top.
"She is there still. It was my guilty fancy that made me clothe Azalia Brooke with Flower's soul!" she shuddered, as she fled back to her room.
Meanwhile, Azalia Brooke had pleaded another engagement, too, and returned home.
She flung herself upon the floor, sobbing miserably:
"It is he, my own darling; but Jewel has taken him from me. It was his father's death she showed me in the paper. Perhaps they planned it together, thinking that the shock would kill me."
Then she lay for some time, still and unconscious.
Laurie Meredith found himself in a terrible dilemma. He had thought that he was quite safe in pledging himself to Jewel Fielding, being perfectly sure that he could never love again as he had loved his lost Flower.
But suddenly, and almost hopelessly, it seemed, he found himself most passionately in love with Lord Ivon's great-granddaughter, the proud English beauty.
And it was her wonderful resemblance to Flower that had wiled his heart from his breast.
At times, when looking at her or listening to her musical voice, he could scarcely persuade himself that she was a stranger; she seemed so much like Flower, his lost bride, that he longed to clasp her in his arms, and say:
"You must be Flower, who loved me so dearly once, and who was my adored little bride! Confess the truth, and own that you are only masquerading as the heiress of this proud nobleman!"
If he had followed this wild impulse of his heart all would have been well. She would have been only toohappy to find him again, and would gladly have resigned the proudest destiny for his dear sake.
But his reason fought sternly against such folly and madness. He would say to himself, in bitter chiding:
"I am a traitor to Jewel in thus cherishing a mad passion for one whom she instinctively dreaded from the first as a rival. Flower is dead, dead; and this girl, with her face and voice, is but a stranger. Oh, my little love, my blue-eyed Flower, if only I could call you back to my heart!"
His passionate regret for her revived with tenfold force; she seemed to be always in his mind, mixed up strangely with the idea of Azalia Brooke, and people began to say that he had forgotten all the songs he ever knew but one, for when pressed to sing of late he always gave the same song—one that particularly irritated Jewel: