CHAPTER XLVI.

"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,'Tis woman's whole existence."

She did not know this—no one had ever told her so, and she was fated to learn it in the hardest fashion by cruel experience. She was learning, too, in all their subtle pathos the truth of those mournful lines:

"Alas! the love of women, it is knownTo be a lovely and a fearful thing,For all of theirs upon the die is thrown,And if 'tis lost life has no more to bring."

Those were sad and heavy days that followed on her flitting to New York. She was almost crazed with the bitterness of her despair. There were weeks that were afterward almost a blank to her because she spent them in tears that were like drops of blood wrung from her aching, bleeding heart. She lay all day on her little bed vainly dwelling on the irrevocable past, looking back on all that she had lost with incurable longing and bitter regret. When this season of lamenting had worn itself out, Laurel grew hard and proud and tried to forget—a hard task that many, stronger than our little heroine, have essayed in vain.

After awhile she found out that she would have to draw again on the contents of her already diminished purse. There were garments to be provided for the little stranger that was coming to brighten her darkened life. She would not choose coarse, cheap garments now, such as she had bought for herself. She selected the finest, whitest linen, the softest, warmest flannel, the daintiest muslin, and was even a little extravagant in the matter of dainty laces and Hamburg trimmings. Then, when the complete and pretty outfit was laid away, with lavender and rose-leaves between the snowy folds, Laurel counted the few dollars that were left from her expenditures, and became frightened.

"When it is all gone, what shall I do?" she asked herself, blankly. "Where is the next to come from?"

And her startled reason harshly answered her: "You will have to work for it. You will have to earn it."

Laurel did not know how to earn money. She had never been taught any available thing, and her delicate condition of health precluded the idea of going out into the busy world to toil. Besides, her morbid sensibilities shrunk from the thought of encountering strangers who would look upon her with coldness, perhaps suspicion.

She was in despair at first, but she suddenly remembered how easily and quickly her reckless, pleasure-loving father had earned the wherewithal for their support.

"The publishers were always eager for papa's MSS.," she said to herself hopefully; "and, being his daughter, I must have inherited his genius. I will write."

She was not egotistical. She was simply ignorant of the world's ways. She did not know how many failed in the world of letters, where one succeeded. The idea took hold of her fancy, and without a dream of failure, she armed herself with a ream of foolscap, plenty of ink and pens, and went enthusiastically to work.

Ill news flies apace. It was not long before Beatrix Wentworth, leisurely reading her New York paper in London, came upon the story of that tragedy on the beautiful Hudson—read the ending of the strange story of love and temptation, for which she felt herself in some degree responsible, since she herself had sent Laurel Vane to Eden.

She threw down the paper and wept bitterly. It was true that she had been angry with Laurel because she had deceived St. Leon Le Roy. She had known that she would find it harder to be forgiven for her elopement with Cyril since Laurel's willful marriage, but in this moment she forgot her pique, her annoyance, her resentment at Laurel's fault, and her heart was full of grief and pity over the girl's sad fate. She remembered how young and fair and loving the erring girl had been, and she said to herself that St. Leon Le Roy had been too hard and cold when he found her out. He might have forgiven her, he should have been kind and pitiful to her, at least, for the sake of that mad love that had tempted her to sin.

Cyril agreed with her that the proud, rich man might have forgiven the lovely, hapless girl for the sake of her great love. He had felt so grateful to Laurel Vane for the service she had done him and Beatrix, that he wished her the greatest good and the greatest happiness that is possible to mortals. It came upon him with a great shock, that the beautiful, dark-eyed girl, with the crimson lips, like a pomegranate flower, and the shining, golden hair was dead—worse than all, dead because she could not bear her life, driven into the dark, cold river by the intensity of her despair. He wondered what Mr. Le Roy's feelings could be.

"I should feel like a murderer," he said, to Beatrix. "It would seem to me that with my own hand I had pushed the poor child into the cruel river."

"He was so proud! All my life I have heard of the Le Roy pride," said Beatrix. "I have felt frightened for Laurel, ever since I found out what she had done. I never doubted that he would put her away from him when he found her out; but I never dreamed she would be driven to suicide. I thought that after awhile he would forgive her and take her back."

She could not bear to think of the gentle, beautiful, golden-haired girl, lying dead. She wept when she recalled her first meeting withher, and the temptation that had entered her mind. How sadly their girlish conspiracy had ended for the dead author's daughter.

"I was her evil genius, but I only meant to be kind to her," she repeated, remorsefully, many times.

Even Clarice, who had been very angry with Laurel, and who had judged her hardly at first, had nothing but tears and regrets for the dead girl. Her passionate love that had ended in so sad a tragedy set her apart in solemn sacredness. She had atoned for her fault with her life.

"We must write to Mr. Le Roy," said Cyril Wentworth. "We must confess all our fault in sending Laurel to Eden. We must tell him how kind and true and sweet she was until her mad love led her astray. We must beg him to forgive her now that she is dead."

Beatrix wrote. It was a brave though most pathetic letter. She owned her fault in sending Laurel to Eden, she dwelt pathetically on her temptation to do so. She begged his pardon for her fault, and then she pleaded for Laurel dead as warmly and earnestly as if she had been living to profit by the prayers of her friend. The page was blistered by her tears, but no answer ever came to her earnest appeal. It seemed that Mr. Le Roy was indeed hard and unforgiving. He could not accord his pardon to any of the actors in the strange drama that had shadowed his life.

Then Beatrix wrote to her parents, humbly acknowledging her fault and praying their pardon. She loved them dearly although she had deserted them for her handsome, adoring young lover. She had a faint hope that they would forgive her and Cyril and bid them come home. She longed for her father's kiss of welcome, her mother's clasping arms.

Oh, how impatiently she waited for the answer to that letter! How eagerly she longed to be pardoned for the girlish conspiracy that had ended so disastrously to Laurel Vane! She began to see her fault in a darker light now since the tragedy at Eden. The shadow of Laurel's grave seemed to fall long and dark across her wedded happiness!

An answer came at last from her outraged father—such an answer as withered all the springing-hopes in her breast. They would never forgive her for her fault. They had no longer a daughter. Their Beatrix was the same as dead to them, and they wished never to hear from Cyril Wentworth's wife.

"I want that rose so much,I would take the world back there to the nightWhen I saw it blush in the grass, to touchIt once in that fair fall light;And only once if I might."Never any rose beforeWas like that rose very well I knowNever another rose any moreWill blow as that rose did blow."

"I want that rose so much,I would take the world back there to the nightWhen I saw it blush in the grass, to touchIt once in that fair fall light;And only once if I might.

"Never any rose beforeWas like that rose very well I knowNever another rose any moreWill blow as that rose did blow."

St. Leon Le Roy sat alone in his handsome, spacious library. He had been reading, but the book of poems had fallen from hishand, and he was dreamily repeating some lines that had touched an aching chord in his heart:

"I want that rose so much,I would take the world back there to the nightWhen I saw it blush in the grass, to touchIt once in that fair fall light;And only once if I might."

Memory was busy at his heart, for time had not healed, it had only seared the wound of years ago.

Eight years had come and gone since that terrible night when his bitter anger and hard judgment had driven his erring childish wife out into the darkness of death. Scarcely an hour ago he had stood by the broken marble shaft that marked her grave and seen the gray moss creeping over the sweet, simple name—

"LAUREL,Beloved wife of St. Leon Le Roy."

Beloved!Yes, he had carved it on her tombstone when all too late to save the broken heart that had loved him with a madness that proved its own destruction. Beloved! ah, he never knew how well until the slow years coming and going, "barren of all joy," had shown him how empty and hollow was all the world measured with what he had lost. All his life was a long regret, an echo of the poet's plaint:

"Oh, to call back the days that are not!"

The years had marked his face with the story of their sadness. Handsome as Apollo still, there were lines of pain about the cold, proud lids, there were silver threads clustering in the raven locks tossed carelessly back from the white brow, there were shadows always lyingperduin the splendid dark eyes. For years he had been a lonely wanderer by land and sea, but now that he had come home again to Eden and to his mother, and to Laurel's grave, he found that he had not forgotten—that he never could forget.

He had been standing by her grave where she had rested for eight long years, he had read her name carved on the cold, white marble, but back here in the room where he had wooed her for his wife, where she had promised to be his, it seemed to him that he could not make her dead. She haunted him—not in

"The garmentsDripping like cerement,"

in which she had been drawn from her watery grave; but bright, blushing, beautiful, as in those days forever past when she had come to Eden first and made herself his fate.

His fate! Yes, it had come to that. The one woman who had stirred his heart to its deepest depths, who had loved him so blindly, and deceived him so terribly, had made herself his fate. He had not forgotten her, he never would forget. He remembered the dark, wistful eyes, the trembling smile of the crimson lips, the curling golden hair, the warm, dimpled, white hands. Ah! only to claspthem again, only to kiss the lovely responsive lips, what would he not have given!

"But that rose is notAnywhere just now—God knowsWhere all the old sweetness goes."

"If only I had forgiven her," he said to himself as he had said it over and over in the long, weary years. "She was only a child and the temptation was so great. I was hard and cold. I thought only of myself, my own injuries. Poor little loving Laurel, driven to her death by my hard judgment. Ah, that my sorrow, my love, my repentance could bring her back!"

He bent his head wearily down upon his folded hands heedless of the light, gliding step that came to his side, the soft touch that fell upon his hair, the voice that breathed in loving sympathy, "My son."

It was his mother. She knew where he had been, and her heart was full of grief and sorrow for his hopeless pain. Yet she knew that words were powerless to soothe the agony of remorse and pain that filled his heart. She only came with her silent sympathy to be near him because she loved him and shared in his grief.

He looked up at last, trying to seem cheerful for her sake, for she, too, was sadly changed by the progress of the years. The soft waves of hair that clustered on her brow had grown snowy white, the high-bred patrician face was pale and sad, her voice had always a tone of unconscious pathos in its low, clear modulations.

"I am sorry you have found me thus, mother," he said, seeing the sorrowful tears shining in her gentle eyes. "Years should have taught me to be brave and strong. But you know where I have been. It brought the past all back, and temporarily unnerved me."

"Yes, I know. But you will feel better by and by," she said simply, feeling that silence was better than words before such grief as his. It was a subject on which they never conversed. She had felt it was a cruel and unkind act when she first learned of the interview that St. Leon had refused to allow between her and Laurel that tragic night. She had reproached him most bitterly for it once, but ever since she had held her peace. There was that in his face, when she looked at him, that told of a conscience never at rest, of a heart whose self-reproaches were harder to bear than words of hers could have been. She grew to be sorry for him, and never, by word or sign, added to his pain; for the proud, lonely, disappointed old woman idolized her stately son even yet, although by his hard, unforgiving course toward Laurel Vane he had shattered the dearest hope of her life.

That hope, that longing for an heir to Eden—for another Le Roy to rule and reign at the grand old home on the Hudson, when she and St. Leon should have passed away—was long since dead. She had ceased even to hope that her son would ever marry again. She saw how coldly and carelessly he turned from the fair faces that smiled upon him, how restless and impatient he was under the requirements of society. When he died, their fine estates, their vast wealth, would have to pass to distant relations, mere strangers bearing another name. It was hard, it hurt her pride cruelly, but she said nothing to St. Leon. She kept her tears and her bitter lamentationsfor that quiet grave, where the unfulfilled hope of her life lay buried in darkness forever. For the sake of that hope she had been willing to forgive Laurel's deceit and duplicity. She would have forgiven even more for the sake of holding her grandchild in her arms.

It was too late now. St. Leon would never marry, would never forget. With a smothered sigh, she tried to put the vexing thought out of her mind, and with the same laudable intent toward St. Leon, she roused herself and said, quietly:

"I do not believe I have told you yet, St. Leon, that we have new neighbors at Belle Vue?"

Belle Vue was the country house next to them, and one almost as beautiful as Eden. It was scarcely a mile away, and St. Leon looked up with some little interest, as he inquired:

"What? Have the Armisteads sold out or gone away?"

"Both. Robert Armistead failed in his banking business, and it involved the loss of his whole private fortune. He sold out everything, and went West with his family to seek his fortune again."

"I am sorry for Armistead," said St. Leon Le Roy, in that vague, conventional tone, in which one is usually sorry for the misfortunes that do not touch himself. "And so there are new people at Belle Vue?"

"Yes, they have been down about a month."

"Are they new rich people?" St. Leon asked, with some little disdain.

"Indeed, I do not know. I should say not, however," said his mother. "People have taken them up very sociably. There is an old gentleman, a Mr. Ford, quite a traveled man, I am told. His niece lives with him, and her son. She is a widow, and literary."

"What has she written?" he inquires, with faint interest.

"Several novels—'Ermengarde,' 'The Curse of Gold,' 'Sacrificed,' and some others. Mr. Gordon is her New York publisher, but I think she has been in Europe lately with Mr. Ford."

Some little excitement gleams in his eyes.

"The author of 'Sacrificed' our nearest neighbor!" he exclaims. "Why, mother, did you know that her books have made quite a stir abroad as well as at home? They are quite the fashion."

"I am sure I liked them myself—the style is very fresh and pure. Do you think we ought to call at Belle Vue, St. Leon? I have been thinking that it is my duty to do so."

"Perhaps it is. I will go with you, if you wish, some day. I am just a little curious over the blue-stocking, but I dare say she is old, and wears caps and spectacles," he answers, carelessly enough.

"Laurie! Laurie! come and carry my flowers for me!" called a voice.

It was sweet and clear as a chime of silver bells, but it pierced St. Leon Le Roy's heart like a sword-point. It thrilled and quivered through him, stirring him with a blended joy and pain. He listened, and again the sweet voice cried:

"Come, my son! Mamma is waiting for you."

They were calling at Belle Vue—St. Leon and his mother. Mr. Ford had entertained them graciously in the splendid blue and gold drawing-room, but Mrs. Lynn could not be found. "She must be out walking," said her uncle, disappointedly, and after awhile he invited them to come out into the rose-garden. She might be there, he said. It was a favorite haunt of hers.

So, in the freshness and beauty of the July morning, they went out into the graveled paths lying whitely in the sunshine, forming such an exquisite contrast to the green grass and the beds of glorious ever-blooming roses, with the morning dew still shining on their bright petals; and while they walked that voice came to St. Leon like an echo from the buried past—dead and buried for eight long years.

"She is here. I will bring her to you," Mr. Ford says, nervously, starting away from them; and they pause by a little crystal fountain throwing up diamond spray into the clear, bright air, and wait—St. Leon with his heart beating strangely, thrilled to blended ecstasy and despair by a voice.

"Her voice is like—" Mrs. Le Roy begins; then shuts her lips over the unspoken name, vexed with herself that she was about to sadden the tenor of her idol's thoughts. "Let us walk on a little further," she amends, abruptly, and a few more steps bring them upon a picture.

Mr. Ford has found his niece. He is standing talking to her earnestly, making no move to return to his guests. Perhaps he is explaining to her the fact of their presence.

"Am I going mad?" St. Leon asks himself, with stern, set lips and wildly staring eyes.

"She is not of us, as I divine;She comes from another, stiller world of the dead."

The tide of years rolls backward. He has forgotten Mrs. Lynn the authoress as if she had never been. This slender, stately woman with her white hand resting lightly on Mr. Ford's arm is a ghost from the past; the dark, uplifted eyes, the tender crimson mouth, the waving, golden hair, are like hers whom, for a little while he believed to be an angel, but finding her only a faulty mortal, he had sternly put away from him. So like, so like, that he cannot take his eyes from the white-robed form with the wide sun-hat tilted carelessly back from the low white brow with its clustering waves of sunny hair, and the white hands full of roses, most of them dewy crimson, as if she loved that color best.

While he gazes like one stupefied, they turn and walk toward him. St. Leon is conscious of a little admonitory pinch administered by his mother's slim fingers, and tries to rouse himself to the occasion. In a minute he is conscious of a lamentable failure as he meets Mrs. Lynn's dark eyes upturned to his in calm surprise. She is by far the cooler and calmer of the two, and directly he finds himself walking by her side along the graveled path, the elder couple pacing sedately after them.

He is aware that he has not distinguished himself in this meeting with the gifted authoress. His words have been few and incoherent—notworthy of St. Leon Le Roy. He rallies himself with a desperate effort and makes the first remark that comes into his head:

"You like flowers, Mrs. Lynn?" is the hackneyed observation.

"I love them," she answers, quickly, and he is instantly reminded of another who "loved," not "liked," the fragrant, dewy darlings.

"You see, I have gathered almost more than I can carry," she goes on, looking lovingly at the great bunch in her hands. "I called my son Laurie to help me, but he is chasing a butterfly, I dare say, and out of sound of my voice."

"Permit me," he says, taking them courteously from her, and at the unavoidable touch of their hands a hot crimson flush mounts to his brow, his heart beats painfully.

"I must go away from here, presently," he says to himself, impatiently. "I have no self-possession at all. What a ninny Mrs. Lynn must believe me. And yet—and yet, she is so like a ghost from my dead past that I lose my senses looking on her perfect face!"

"We have some very rare flowers at Eden," he says, "I hope you will come and see them since you are so fond of them. You shall carry away all you like."

"Thank you. I shall be sure to come," she answers. "I know—I have heard, I mean—that the flowers at Eden are wonderful."

"I hope they will justify your expectations," he says. "Shall we sit down here and rest, Mrs. Lynn? You must be tired."

They sit down on a rustic bench side by side, and the elderly couple follow suit at some little distance. It is a lovely morning and a lovely scene.

The golden sunshine sifts down through leafy boughs all about them, the air is sweet with the song of birds and the breath of flowers, the blue waves of the Hudson are visible at some little distance, lending additional beauty to the charming scene. Mrs. Lynn looks away at the river and St. Leon looks at her, trying to convince himself that her likeness to the dead is not so great as he had fancied.

"Laurel was a girl—this is a woman," he tells himself.

He is right. Mrs. Lynn is very young, but the sweet gravity, the exquisite majesty of womanhood are stamped on her pure, white brow. Thought, intellect, experience, are blended with her still youthful beauty, in charming combination. Laurel had been a beautiful rosebud, Mrs. Lynn was a perfect rose. And yet—he said to himself—Laurel at twenty-five would have been Mrs. Lynn's counterpart.

While she looked dreamily off at the river with those dark, heavily fringed eyes and he looked at her, a silence fell between them. It was broken by the laughter of a child. A beautiful boy came running down the path toward them and stopped at his mother's knee.

"Oh, mamma, I am so tired," he panted, breathlessly, his rosy lips parted with happy laughter, "and I did not catch my beautiful butterfly after all!"

The lovely young mother turned toward her child. Her cheek was very pale, there was a strange light in her dark eyes.

"Laurie, do you not see the gentleman?" she said. "Go and speak to him. Mr. Le Roy, this is my son, Laurence."

He did not blame her for the sweet ring of triumph in her voice. The boy was as handsome and spirited as a little prince. He had great, flashing dark eyes and clustering dark hair combined with perfect features at once proud and gentle. His beautiful rosy lips seemed made for smiles and kisses. His dark blue velvet suit set off his fine spirited little figure to the greatest perfection.

Mr. Le Roy drew the manly little fellow to his side.

"I am very glad to make the acquaintance of so important a person as Mrs. Lynn's son," he said. "How old are you, Master Laurence?"

"Almost eight," said the little lad, and his mother amended in a low voice, that had somehow a strange quiver in its sweetness, "Seven and a half, Mr. Le Roy." Then in a sadder cadence, "The only son of his mother, and she is a widow."

"I have no papa, Mr. Le Roy," said the manly little fellow, in a tone of regret. "Other boys have fine times with their papas, they tell me, but I do not even remember mine. He died before I was born."

"Do not weary the gentleman with a recital of your family history, my dear," interposed his mother, gently. "Go now and speak to the lady who is sitting with Uncle Carlyle."

The child went away, followed by Mr. Le Roy's glance. He could not understand the strange yearning that drew him to the princely little lad.

"I have fancied you must be very proud of the books you have written, Mrs. Lynn," he said, impulsively. "I can fancy that you are prouder still of your son."

"I am," she answered, in a voice full of love and pride. "I cannot tell you how I love my boy, Mr. Le Roy. It seems to me that he is the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most loving lad in the world. Do you blame me?" suddenly lifting her dark, grave eyes to his face. "Should not you be proud of such a son, Mr. Le Roy?"

"No, I do not blame you," he answered. "I am quite sure I should be proud of such a fine little son," and a thrill of sorrow and self-reproach went through him as he recalled the words his mother had spoken to him eight long years ago. "In a little while there would have been an heir to Eden."

A buried hope! Ah! if only he had been a little less hard and cold! If only Laurel had told him her precious secret! He must have forgiven her then. He could not have withheld his pardon.

There was something in Mrs. Lynn's tone he could not understand. Was it a taunt at his childlessness? Or was it only a mother's triumph in her treasure? He looked at the beautiful face. It was faintly flushed, the drooping lashes were dewy with unfallen tears. Some deep emotion stirred her heart and made roses on her breast rise and fall with its intensity. While he puzzled over it, there came a startled cry from Mr. Ford. Mrs. Le Roy had fallen from her seat in a dead faint.

St. Leon hastened to her. They raised her up, but it was some little time before she recovered. None could understand what had caused her swoon.

"She was sitting with Laurie on her knee talking very brightlyand pleasantly, and quite suddenly—all at once, as it were—her arms dropped from around the child and she fell like one dead," said Mr. Ford. "I cannot understand it. Has your mother any heart disease, Mr. Le Roy?"

"None, but she is not very strong," St. Leon answered. "She very seldom goes out."

Then she opened her eyes and looked at him.

"Take me home, St. Leon," she said, "I am very tired."

Mrs. Lynn pressed her cordially to remain at Belle Vue until she was better.

"No, I cannot stay now," Mrs. Le Roy answered gravely. "But you will pardon my display of weakness, Mrs. Lynn, and you will come to see me soon—will you not?"

Mrs. Lynn promised with a smile that she would certainly accept the invitation.

"And the child—you will be sure to bring him?" said Mrs. Le Roy, kissing the wondering little face.

"If you wish it," assented the beautiful young authoress, and her face grew paler still when Mrs. Le Roy impulsively kissed her cheek. St. Leon wondered why her small hand was so cold as he pressed it lightly at parting. He would have wondered yet more could he have seen the white, agonized face she turned upon Mr. Ford when they had gone away.

Carlyle Ford went up to the beautiful woman and took her cold trembling hands gently in his. She was as pale as death, and she shivered as if an icy wave had broken over her.

"My dear, this has been too much for you," he said. "I see now that we should never have come here."

Mrs. Lynn did not answer. She only drew her white hands from his, and, sinking down, covered her face with them. She remained thus some minutes, and her uncle saw that the bright tears were raining through her fingers, and her graceful figure heaving with deep emotion.

The child had returned to his sport with the butterflies and flowers as soon as the visitors departed. They were alone, and in a little while Mrs. Lynn looked up and brushed the tears from her beautiful face.

"Perhaps you are right," she said. "It may be that I was wrong to meet him at all. But, I had the greatest longing to see him after all these years. And, after all, I was no coward, Uncle Carlyle. I did not break down beforehim. I was calm and proud. He did not dream that I was other than I seemed."

"No; you played your part well," he said. "I was delighted with your dignity and grace. Mr. Le Roy was the more agitated of the two. He was struck by the resemblance. He showed deep, though repressed emotion."

"I think you give him credit for too much feeling," cried Mrs. Lynn, with a scornful flash in her dark eyes. "He has forgotten long ago."

"Perhaps so," said Mr. Ford, "yet I am inclined to think otherwise. And the lady—she could not keep her eyes off you and the child. She could not help seeing the likeness between her son and your son, I am sure. It was startling. The boy is much more like Mr. Le Roy than he is like you. The same hair and eyes, the same proud features, only he has your beautiful, tender mouth. Why did the lady faint?"

"I cannot tell," Mrs. Lynn answered, drearily.

"I think she was unnerved by the resemblance. It brought back the past too vividly. My darling, they have not forgotten, as you think. I foresee a reconciliation," he said.

"Never!" cried Mrs. Lynn, with curling lips and flashing eyes. "I may be weak enough to care for him still, but I can never forget, and I will never return to him. I am a child no longer. I am a woman, and my pride is equal to his own!"

The handsome, kindly face of old Mr. Ford looked grave and puzzled.

"My dear, is it right to cherish such pride?" he asked, slowly. "Were it not better to condone the past—to forgive and forget? Are you right to keep the heir of Eden from his own?"

"Uncle Carlyle, are you anxious to get rid of me?" asked the lovely, gifted woman, wistfully.

"No, no, dear! What should I do without you and the boy?" he cried. "But I do not want to be selfish; I do not want to keep St. Leon Le Roy's happiness from him."

The warm color flashed into her cheeks; she laughed bitterly.

"His happiness!" she cried. "His happiness! In his pride and cruelty he threw it away. He is as proud and cold now as he was then. He would take me back no sooner now than he would then. But why do we talk of these things? He will never have the chance. He will never know the truth. They have raised a costly monument to St. Leon Le Roy'sbeloved wife—for them that is the end."

"Eight years," he said, musingly. "At least he has been faithful to her memory. It is strange that he has not married again—if not for love, at least for the sake of an heir."

She caught her breath sharply; her lovely face grew deathly white.

"Married! married!" she cried, sharply. "Why do you talk of such things, Uncle Carlyle?"

"I did not mean to pain you, Laurel," he answered. "But, my dear, it seems so strange. Le Roy has a princely estate and fine old name. It would be only natural if he should wish to leave it to his own descendants."

"So he shall," she said. "When I am dead, he shall have Laurie. I have everything arranged in the clearest fashion. There will be no difficulty in proving his identity. But, Uncle Carlyle, do not let us talk of these things. They hurt me."

"You want to be alone," he said. "Very well, dear; I will go and play with my boy. Forgive me for saying those things that hurt you; I did not mean to do so."

He went away, and Laurel sunk down wearily, her hands clinched tightly together, a look of woe and dread on her lovely face.

"Married again!" she uttered, hoarsely. "Well, and if heshould, what is there to prevent him? Could I speak? would I speak? No! And yet—ah, Heaven! the fatal glamour is on me still. It is a mad love—nothing less!"

The wind sighed in the trees, the murmur of the river came to her softly, the sweet, calm day seemed to woo her to forgetfulness, but the beautiful woman who had won fame and wealth and honor in those long years since she had been put away from her husband's heart, sat silent, with a look of mute despair on her fair young face. That mad love, that terrible temptation of her girlhood, had spoiled her life.

"It is a mad love," she repeated to herself. "How my face burned, and my heart beat, when I met him. All the old madness surged up within me, the love, the sorrow, the shame at my deceit. It is a wonder I did not fall down dead at his feet! No one ever loved more deeply than I loved St. Leon Le Roy," she went on, after a pause. "If he had forgiven me my fault that night when he had found me out, I should have been the happiest woman in the world, instead of being the most wretched, as I am! Ah! why did I ever come back here? It was a blind mistake. It has reopened the old wound, and it is bleeding, bleeding. Ah, Heaven, shall I never learn indifference? Shall I never sear my cureless wound? I must go away soon. I was weak and wild ever to have come here with Uncle Carlyle."

St. Leon Le Roy and his mother had a very quiet drive homeward. Both were busy with their own thoughts. The lady leaned back against the cushions of the phaeton with closed eyes, and a look of grave thought on her pale, wan features. St. Leon, with his calm, dark eyes, and sternly set lips, was as much absorbed as she was in grave and earnest thought. He sat very quietly holding the reins, and neither spoke until they had reached home. Then, when they were sitting together, St. Leon, with an open book before him, her keen eyes noted that he had not turned a page for half an hour, and she spoke abruptly:

"St. Leon, what do you think of the famous authoress?"

His head drooped still lower over his book, as he answered, quietly:

"She is very beautiful and brilliant. I had not expected to find her so young and fair."

"She is the loveliest woman I ever saw," said Mrs. Le Roy.

"Yes," he answered, simply, in his gravely quiet tone.

He did not care to talk. He was like one in a strange, trance-like dream. His soul had been shaken and stirred to its depths by the beautiful woman who had flashed before him with his dead wife's face and voice and the crimson roses in her hands, such as Laurel had loved to gather. The tide of time rolled backward, and in place of the proud, calm woman, the gifted genius before whom he had bowed to-day, came a vision of a simple, dark-eyed girl, wandering through the grounds at Eden, flitting among the fragrant flowers, herself the fairest rose of all. Did she love him, that beautiful impostor, St. Leon Le Roy asked himself, as he had done many timesbefore in the eight years, while that marble cross had towered above the dead heart, whose secret now would never be told? Did she love him, indeed? Had she sinned through her love, not for wealth and position as he had believed that terrible night? And there came back to him through the mist of years the memory of that beautiful, tearful face, and the pleading voice.

"Ah, if only I had forgiven her!" he said to himself, in an agony of remorse and regret. "She loved me. I was mad to doubt it. Save for her one fault, her one deception, Laurel Vane was pure and true and innocent. I was hard and cold. Few men but would have forgiven her such a transgression for love's sake."

His face fell forward on the open pages of the book where he had been reading drearily enough some mournful lines that seemed to fit his mood:

"Glitters the dew and shines the river,Up comes the lily and dries her bell,But two are walking apart forever,And wave their hands for a mute farewell."

A light touch fell on the bowed head whose raven locks were threaded with silver that grief, not time, had blanched. He glanced up, startled, into his mother's wistful face.

"Well?" he said, with a slight contraction of his straight, dark brows.

There was a strange, repressed emotion in her face as she answered:

"It is notwell, St. Leon. You are unnerved, troubled, thoughtful even beyond your wont. Will you forgive me for asking why?"

The dark, inscrutable eyes looked at her gravely.

"I might turn your deeds upon yourself," he said. "Why did you faint in the garden at Belle Vue to-day?"

She flushed, and then grew very pale again.

"I will tell you the truth," she said, "or a part of it at least. I was unnerved and startled by the terrible resemblance of the beautiful Mrs. Lynn to—"

"My lost wife," he said, slowly, filling up her painful pause.

"So you noticed it?" she said.

"Could one help it?" he asked in his slow, repressed voice. "Why do you call it a terrible resemblance, mother?"

"She is so like, so like—she is the living image of what Laurel must have been now if she lived! And the child, St. Leon, the child—" she broke down suddenly, and burst into wild, hysterical sobbing.

Shocked by the passionate grief so unusual in his stately lady-mother, he drew his arm tenderly around her and led her to a seat, kneeling down humbly before her.

"Mother, does the old wound still ache so bitterly?" he said, in blended pity and remorse. "I had thought the pain of it was past. Ah, I can never forgive myself for the madness, the cruelty, that robbed you of the daughter you loved!"

"And the grandchild I expected," she sobbed bitterly. "Ah, St. Leon, I can never forget how my hopes were blasted! Forgive me for those weak tears, my son. All the old regret and sorrow were stirred anew in my heart to-day by the sight of Mrs. Lynn and her beautiful child."

He had no answer for her. He was too proud and reserved to tell his mother the truth—that he, too, had been shaken by a ghost from the past that day. He knelt by her silently, letting her sob out all her grief and sorrow against his shoulder, and when she had grown calmer he said, gently:

"Mother, dear, you must not see this Mrs. Lynn again. It agitates you too much. After all, it is only a resemblance. She might not feel flattered if she knew that we compared her with my simple, little girl-wife, dead so long ago. Let me take you away to the seashore or the mountains while Mrs. Lynn remains at Belle Vue."

But she negatived the proposition in extreme alarm.

"It could only afford me pleasure to see Mrs. Lynn again," she declared. "I love her for her likeness to the dead. I am unwilling to lose a single chance of seeing her. And I promise you, St. Leon, that I will not lose my self-control again as I did to-day in the first shock of meeting her. I will be as calm and cold as she is."

A few days later Mr. Ford brought his niece and her son to call at Eden.

The brilliant writer looked very elegant and distinguished in her dress of soft, rich black silk and lace. A dainty bonnet of black lace and gleaming jet rested on the dark golden waves of her hair, and set off to the greatest advantage her blonde loveliness, lighted by such dark and star-like eyes. A soft color glowed on her rounded cheeks, and her eyes were bright with repressed excitement, but no trace of her heart's emotion showed in her calm, gracious manner as she bowed to her handsome host and greeted his stately mother. She had schooled herself to calmness, and no heartless queen of society ever bore herself with morenonchalantease and outward coldness than did Laurel in the hour when she re-entered the home she had left long years before, a wretched, despairing child, for whom life seemed over and done. Now, as she stepped across the threshold, a beautiful, proud, successful woman, whom the world delighted to honor, she remembered that broken-hearted child with a pang of bitterness that steeled her heart to the softness that had melted it for a moment. Shewouldbe cold and calm for the sake of the girl so cruelly put away from her husband's heart, so cruelly misjudged and scorned. Yet, as it all rushed over her again, she wondered, as she had wondered over and over in the past, how she had lived through her sorrow—that sorrow which she had said so many times would kill her when it came.

"The day drags through, though storms keep out the sun,And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on."

She said the pathetic lines over to herself, wearily, even as she touched St. Leon's hand with her own and looked at him with a smile—a smile bright but cold like moonlight on snow. He had no answering smile in return. His face was almost stern in its marble pallor and intensity of repressed emotion. His firm white hand was cold as ice as it touched the rosy palm so graciously extended;his voice had a strange tone, even to himself, as he welcomed her to his home.

"You have the most beautiful home on the Hudson. Eden is far more beautiful than Belle Vue," she said to him, with her bright, cold smile.

"I am glad you like my home. It will always have an added charm in my eyes since Mrs. Lynn has deigned to praise it," St. Leon answered, gallantly.

She thanked him almost mockingly, and then their conversation turned upon the safe ground of generalities—upon art, and books, and foreign travel, where both were at home. He found Mrs. Lynn his equal in every sense. Her mind was rarely cultured and stored with knowledge, her thoughts were beautiful and crystal clear. She held her own with the ease and grace of one who knew the world, yet retained the native innocence and frankness of a child. St. Leon's hauteur and reserve melted before the charm of her manner, and he became his natural self again, meeting her on her own ground with polished words and brilliant thoughts. Their glances met each other's calmly, telling no tales of that "auld lang syne" when "eyes looked love to eyes that spake again."

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