"'A perfect creature, nobly planned,To warn, to comfort, and command,And yet a spirit still and bright,With something of an angel's light.'"
"'A perfect creature, nobly planned,To warn, to comfort, and command,And yet a spirit still and bright,With something of an angel's light.'"
Wordsworth's ideal is mine, Beatrix. I could never again love a woman who had deceived me. Once fallen from her lofty pedestal, the broken idol could never be restored again!"
He was unconsciously warning her, but he only frightened her. She said to herself that he would never forgive her if she told him at this late day how she had deceived him. And she could not do it. She would not risk it. She loved him too dearly. She would have his love while she could, whether it lasted for a year or a day.
"Why did you deceive her this evening?" she asked, gaining courage as she made her wild resolve. "You were so devoted and attentive she thought she had won you back."
His scornful laugh was not good to hear.
"That was my revenge," he said. "I fooled her to the top of her bent, while I laughed in my sleeve at her credulity. She should have known me better, yet she came down here with the deliberate intention of winning me back. She did not find St. Leon the boy who was blinded by her beauty, she found Le Roy, the man who saw through her shallow arts and despised her." She had no answer ready and he went on more slowly after a moment: "Shall I confess that I had another motive too, Beatrix? I longed to pique you if possible. Since you came to Eden you have been cold, shy, frightened of me always. I confess that I gave you room at first, but I soon became interested in you and would have repaired my error if you had let me. But you did not. You treated me with a distant, respectful civility, as if I had been as old as my mother. When Mrs. Merivale came I determined to show you that I was not too antiquated to admire fair women and to be admired by them. But you held your own so bravely, you flirted so charmingly with Count Fitz John that I was completely blinded and half maddened by your indifference. Ah, my darling," he bent toward her with a flash of triumphant love in his splendid eyes, "if you had not come in here to night, I should never have dreamed, never have known—"
"You heard—you saw?" she broke in, hot and red with bitter shame. "Oh, I could sooner have died!" hiding her burning face in her small hands.
"Hush, Beatrix." He drew the trembling hands away, put his arms around her tenderly, and pillowed the flushed face on his breast. "It was a happy chance, my love. Do not regret it for my sake. Do not think I spied upon your actions, darling. I did not mean to disturb you, only I could not forbear peeping through the curtains and feasting my eyes on your sweetness. So it came to pass that I heard and saw—that which made me the happiest of men!"
"You take it for granted that I—that you—" she began to remonstrate, incoherently, with a mutinous, trembling pout upon her sweet red lips.
"That you belong to me—that I may ask you for your love—since you have broken with Wentworth—yes," he answered, full of happy faith. "Is it not true, Beatrix, my beautiful, dark-eyed love? Will you not be my cherished little wife?"
And paler than the marble statue that glimmered coldly white in the shadowy corner yonder, she murmured:
"I will."
Full of boundless trust and passion he bent down and pressed a lingering, passionate kiss on the lips of the beautiful impostor.
"God bless you, my little love," he said, huskily, and with deepempressement, "you shall never regret that sweet promise."
He meant to keep his word, but we mortals are so blind. The day came when she felt that all her life was one long regret!
"Oh, that word regret!There have been nights and morns when we have sighed'Let us alone, Regret! We are contentTo throw thee all our past, so thou wilt sleepFor aye.' But it is patient, and it wakes!It hath not learned to cry itself to sleep,But plaineth on the bed that it is hard."
"Oh, that word regret!There have been nights and morns when we have sighed'Let us alone, Regret! We are contentTo throw thee all our past, so thou wilt sleepFor aye.' But it is patient, and it wakes!It hath not learned to cry itself to sleep,But plaineth on the bed that it is hard."
Dizzy with passionate love and happiness, she rested in his arms a moment, then drew herself shyly away.
"It grows late. Indeed, I must leave you now," she whispered.
"It is late and you are weary," he said, tenderly. "I must send you to your rest, my precious one, but for me I shall sit here all night rejoicing over my sweet, new happiness."
They had heard no step in the hall, but at that moment the door swung open and Mrs. Merivale appeared on the threshold in an exquisite dressing-gown, her loosened golden hair flying over her shoulders. She gazed in dismay for an instant, then started backward with a quick smile of scorn.
"Pardon! I could not sleep, and came for a book. I did not dream of interrupting such an interesting midnighttête-à-tête," she said, sneeringly.
St. Leon drew his arm gently around the slight form of his betrothed, an ominous gleam in his eyes.
"Congratulate us, Mrs. Merivale," he said, "Miss Gordon has promised to be my wife."
The snaky fire of hate flashed in greenish sparkles from the eyes of the disappointed woman.
"With all my heart. May you be as happy as you deserve," she answered, scornfully.
Then, turning to go, she bent swiftly toward Laurel Vane and whispered in her ear with the hissing tone of hate:
"You have triumphed over me—you have come between us, but do not forget that 'Who breaks—pays!'"
"An omen," Laurel sighed to herself.
He was loath to let her go when the jealous, angry woman had disappeared. The pale, frightened face touched his heart. He made her tell him what Maud Merivale had hissed in her ear.
"A mere idle threat," he said. "She can do you no harm, Beatrix. You are too secure in your high position as Mr. Gordon's daughter and my promised wife for her hate to touch you. As the mistress of Eden you will be socially her superior, for old Midas Merivale made his millions in trade, and the Le Roys have inherited their wealth from several generations of blue-blooded ancestors. Indeed, we trace our origin from the French nobility."
Everything he told her only frightened her worse. She trembled at her presumption in entering this family which prided itself lesson its great wealth than on its noble pedigree. She silently recalled some verses she had read that evening:
"I knew that every victory,But lifted you away from me;That every step of high empriseBut left me lowlier in your eyes;I watched the distance as it grew,And loved you better than you knew!"
"I knew that every victory,But lifted you away from me;That every step of high empriseBut left me lowlier in your eyes;I watched the distance as it grew,And loved you better than you knew!"
"He counts his ancestors back to the French nobility, while I do not know what my grandfather's name was," said Louis Vane's daughter to herself.
"Before you go, my darling," said St. Leon, suddenly, "there is one thing I should like to hear you say."
"Tell me what it is," she answered.
He took both her trembling hands in his and looked deep into her eyes with a piercing gaze that seemed to read her soul.
"Lift up your head, Beatrix, look straight into my eyes, and say, 'St. Leon, I love you.'"
Blushing "celestial, rosy red," she obeyed his fond command, and there was a depth of pathos and passion in her voice of which she was herself unconscious.
"St. Leon, I love you," she repeated from the depths of her adoring heart.
"My darling!" he caught her in his arms and strained her eagerly to his breast. "Forgive me for calling out your blushes so, but they are more lovely than your roses. Now good-night, my little love, but do not speak another word. Let those last sweet words live in my memory to-night."
He kissed her and put her gently from him, then stood at the door to watch the little white figure going lightly along the hall and up the wide polished stairway.
"Mine, mine, my little love!" he murmured, gladly. "How pleased and happy my mother will be!"
He went back into the room, threw himself down into a chair, and, true to his word, spent the remaining hours of the night in a happy vigil, dreaming over the sweet, new happiness which had come to him so strangely when his heart had been weighed down by despair.
And Laurel Vane! She kept a wakeful vigil, too. Her eyes were not so bright as they should have been next morning, her cheeks and lips were not so rosy, but her beauty was as marked as ever, and Count Fitz John was very loath to follow the angry, disappointed widow back to New York that day.
"I not only found an Eden but an Eve!" he said to Maud, rather disconsolately.
"You need not vex your heart over her, for she has found her Adam in St. Leon Le Roy," she answered, bitterly.
When they were gone, St. Leon sought his mother.
"Congratulate me," he said. "The desire of your heart will be granted. I am about to marry."
Her handsome, proud old face did not look as bright as he had expected.
"You have chosen Maud Merivale again?" she said, and then heunderstood the shadow on her face and the tone of regret in her voice.
"You are still prejudiced against Maud!" he said, quietly.
"I have never forgiven her for the slight she put upon my son!" she answered, gravely.
Laurel's slim young figure went flitting past the open door at that moment. He called to her, drew the small hand through his arm, and led her up to his mother.
"Mother, here is your daughter," he said, with the brightest smile she had ever seen on his darkly handsome face.
"And Cyril Wentworth?" she asked, blissful, but bewildered.
"I have never loved him. It was only fancy. I have broken with him forever!" answered the girl.
"Thank God!" she cried, drawing her new daughter into her arms and kissing her fondly; while she added to St. Leon, gladly: "I am so glad it is our sweet little Beatrix, and not that odious Maud Merivale!"
And that day she wrote a letter to Mrs. Gordon, telling her how cleverly their plot had succeeded, and that St. Leon had taken Cyril Wentworth's place in her daughter's heart.
"Wooed and married and a'." How swiftly it all had followed upon Laurel Vane's coming to Eden!
In June she had come to the Le Roys, a trembling, frightened, innocent little impostor, lending herself to a fraud for Beatrix Gordon's sake. From a most unwelcome intruder, whom they had received with secret disfavor, she had come to be the light of their eyes and their hearts. To-day—a fair, ripe day in October, with the "flying gold of the ruined woodlands driving through the air"—she clung to St. Leon Le Roy's arm, his worshiped bride, happy, with a strange, delirious happiness, in spite of the sword that ever hung suspended by a hair above her head—the sword that must surely fall some day, and cause her destruction.
She was dizzy with the whirl of events that had brought about this dazzling consummation.
In the first place, Mr. Le Roy had written to Mr. Gordon, announcing his engagement to his daughter, and pleading for an early marriage.
The publisher had replied, on the part of himself and wife, delightedly sanctioning their darling's betrothal to Mr. Le Roy, and permitting Beatrix to consult her own wishes in naming the day. They wished only to make their darling happy, they said; and she should, therefore, choose the earliest day that pleased her. Mrs. Gordon wrote that she would soon come home to superintend the preparation of the bridaltrousseau.
Laurel was filled with dismay at the latter information. St. Leon, noting every change of the fair young face with a lover's eye, was quick to see the shadow.
"What is it, my darling?" he asked.
"We must postpone the wedding a long, long time," she said."Mamma must not curtail her Southern trip and lose the benefit she is deriving from it. We must wait."
She felt like a hypocrite as she said it, but she was rendered desperate by her fears. She knew that, with Mrs. Gordon's coming, all was at an end, and she longed desperately to ward off the evil hour. She was so wildly, deliriously happy now, she would stave off the hour of reckoning as long as she could. Just to remain at Eden as long as she could was all that she asked. It always seemed to her quite impossible that she should ever become St. Leon Le Roy's wife. The blow would fall before then. She felt that she was only taking her pleasure like a butterfly in the sun, and that the nipping blasts of winter would soon lop off her gilded wings and leave her, crushed and trampled, beneath the scorner's heel.
Those joys that we hold by a frail, slight tenure we always prize the most. This love that she was fated one day to lose had become a part of Laurel Vane's life. She said to herself that, when she lost it she would die.
It was a mad love that she gave her noble, princely looking lover. She would have made any sacrifice for him except to tell him that she had deceived him. She would have died for him if need be, but death would have been easier than confessing her strange sin to him.
St. Leon chafed sorely at the idea of waiting so long to claim his bonny bride. They had talked of a bridal tour to Europe, and Laurel had betrayed the most eager delight at the idea. The tour of Europe had not the attraction of novelty to him. He had made it several times, but he longed to gratify the girl's wish; he was so sure that he would make her happy he could not bear to wait. And yet he was not selfish enough to wish to hasten Mrs. Gordon's return at the hazard of her health.
His mother agreed with him that it was unfortunate his having to wait. She was very anxious to see him married to Beatrix Gordon, and she thought the autumn a pleasant time for crossing the ocean.
If they could only be married in October, how pleasant it would be, but then thetrousseau—it would take an endless time for that.
St. Leon displayed all a man's impatience under the circumstances.
"A fig for thetrousseau! What could be prettier than Beatrix's white dresses that she wore every day? But if she had to have no end of new things, why couldn't they get them when they went to Paris? Worth was the only man who could make them, anyhow. Given a traveling-dress to cross the 'herring pond' in, and she might have a hundred new dresses if she liked, once they landed in France. Must a man wait months and months for his happiness on account of some paltry dresses?"
Mrs. Le Roy, in her anxiety for the marriage, quite agreed with him in his tersely expressed views. If Mrs. Gordon came home she would order her daughter's dresses from Paris. How much easier for Beatrix to get them herself while abroad!
She wrote to Mrs. Gordon and suggested the idea. Moreover, she hinted broadly her fears that Beatrix, if let alone so long, might change her mind—might return to the old love—no one could saywhen Cyril Wentworth would return to America, nor what effect his return might have on his sweetheart. Mrs. Le Roy thought the wisest plan, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, would be for the Gordons to continue their Southern tour, and let St. Leon marry Beatrix quietly, without any fuss or ceremony, and take her abroad.
That clever hint about Cyril Wentworth had the intended effect on the nervous invalid. All her old fears of Cyril Wentworth were reawakened. A longing desire took possession of her to have her daughter married off safely out of the fortune-hunter's reach. In her sudden anxiety she would have had St. Leon and Beatrix married that moment by telegraph if possible. She infected her husband with all her own fears, and both concurred in the opinion of Mrs. Le Roy that delays were dangerous.
So a letter went hastily back to Eden full of good tidings to the dwellers there.
The Gordons approved and even advocated Mrs. Le Roy's plan. They wrote to their daughter, and recommended her to shorten the term of her lover's probation, regretting that the state of her mother's health made it desirable for her to remain where she was yet awhile longer. The letter was filled with such warm, parental love and advice that Laurel involuntarily wept over it. A generous check for her Parisiantrousseauwas inclosed. This the young girl put carefully away.
"I shall never use it," she said. "Gold could not tempt me to sin. It is love that has made me bad and wicked, but I cannot draw back now. I shall marry St. Leon Le Roy. It is fate."
So, following that fate, she went recklessly on in her strange career. Three weeks later she was no longer Laurel Vane, she was Laurel Le Roy, almost forgetting in her wild happiness her enemy's threat, "Who breaks—pays!"
Days came in which Laurel almost forgot the long, dark, threatening shadow that lay always just ahead of her.
They were crossing the wide Atlantic Ocean, and every one said that there never had been finer weather or a pleasanter trip. They had no rough winds the whole voyage. The calm, sunny blue sky hung over an ocean as beautifully blue and almost as calm. The foamy white caps of the waves were almost as fleecy and pure as the snowy little clouds that sailed through the sky. The beautiful shining-winged sea-birds were a source of beauty and delight to every one. Every day was warm and sunny, every night was moonlighted and balmy. No one had expected such perfect weather in October.
Forever after those two weeks remained in Laurel's memory like a beautiful dream, fadeless and ineffaceable.
For that little time she was perfectly secure. She knew no one on the steamer, no one knew her. Her husband was perfectly devoted to her as she was to him. They spent long, happy days together on deck, never weary of each other's society. They talkedto each other by moonlight, their talk often drifting into poetry, which is the most natural language of love. They made some acquaintances, but they did not seek other society. They were all in all to each other. The girl-wife could not find it in her heart to repent of what she had done. It appeared to her that she had been made for him, and he for her, judging by their mutual love.
Certainly a change for the better had been effected in St. Leon Le Roy. His dark eyes were no longer cold and cynical, but beamed with love and happiness. The mocking smile no longer curled his lips. They were sweet and gentle. His voice rang with tenderness instead of sarcasm. His hatred and distrust for all women because Maud Merivale had deceived him was gradually dying out. He believed that his bride was an angel. When the awakening came, it was all the more bitter because he had believed in her so truly.
Laurel was as lovely as a dream in those honeymoon days. Her face glowed with happiness, her dark eyes lost their somber, brooding shadow, and sparkled like stars.
The passengers said that Mr. Le Roy's young bride was a perfect beauty. When she walked on deck in her soft, fine, white cashmere dresses, with a crimson scarf about her shoulders, diamonds blazing in her small, shell-like ears, and her splendid burnished golden hair flying like a banner of light on the gentle breeze, no one could keep from looking at her, no one could keep from envying St. Leon Le Roy the possession of so much beauty, and sweetness, and love.
Laurel had never known that she was beautiful until St. Leon told her so. It was a new delight to her. Some faint hope came to her that by that beauty she might hold his heart, even when he found her out—even when he knew her at her worst—an impostor who had masqueraded under a false name, and so won him. She had read that "beauty is lord of love," and she prayed that it might prove so to her in her dark hour—that hour always just a little ahead of her, when she should moan:
"So tired, so tired, my heart and I!Though now none takes me on his armTo fold me close and kiss me warmTill each quick breath end in a sighOf happy languor. Now alone,We lean upon some graveyard stone,Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I."
"So tired, so tired, my heart and I!Though now none takes me on his armTo fold me close and kiss me warmTill each quick breath end in a sighOf happy languor. Now alone,We lean upon some graveyard stone,Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I."
She would not think of that nearing future much. She gave herself up to the delights of the present. She was the most fondly worshiped wife in the world. When they went to Paris, he loaded her with costly gifts, splendid dresses, priceless jewels.
"I do not know how I shall ever be able to wear all of these splendid things; they are too fine for me," she said to him, almost afraid of herself in the midst of this splendid paraphernalia.
"Nothing is too costly or too fine for you, my little love," he answered, taking her in his arms and kissing the beautiful face over and over. "You will need all these things when you go into society. When we go home, we will spend our winters in New York, and the women in society there dress like queens. I shall want you to be the finest of them all, as you are decidedly the most beautiful."
He wondered why the fair face grew so pale, why his young wife shivered in his arms, and drooped her eyes from his.
"I hope it will be a long time before we return to New York," she said, almost petulantly. "I like Europe better than America."
"You are a most disloyal subject of the United States," he laughed: "but you shall stay as long as you wish, my darling."
When they went to England, Laurel wondered a little tearfully if they should meet the Wentworths. She knew that they were in London, and the thought of coming upon them was not pleasant. She did not think that Beatrix Wentworth would approve of what she had done, and she recalled Clarice Wells' threat with an uncontrollable shudder. It had been so vivid.
"I would betray you even in front of the altar!" had said the maid.
Decidedly the thought of stumbling upon the Wentworths was not pleasant.
"But then," said the trembling young bride to herself, "there was no likelihood that they would do so. London was a great wide city. They might stay there for years, and never stumble upon these people of whom her guilty conscience made her feel so horribly afraid."
Again, she remembered that Cyril Wentworth was here on business, she and her husband in quest of pleasure. Their ways lay far apart. There were no mutual aims and pursuits to bring them together. It was decidedly unlikely that they should meet.
But some one has cleverly said that "The most unlikely things always happen."
They had been in London several weeks, patiently "doing" all the wonders of that wonderful city, when one day Mr. Le Roy took his wife to a famous art gallery. She had developed a perfect passion for fine pictures and statues, and he knew that she would be charmed with the works of the old masters that were gathered in this famous gallery—the Titians, Murillos, Guidos, Raphaels—all the glorious men who, by brush or chisel, had handed down their names to an immortal fame.
It was a bright day in December. The sun was shining, for a wonder, in murky, foggy London, irradiating its usual "pea-soup" atmosphere. St. Leon was delighted that the sun shone so brightly. He knew that it would show the pictures to still greater advantage, and he liked for his darling to have all her pleasures at their best.
Looking at Laurel you would never have guessed that until a few months ago she had lived in cheap lodgings with her erratic father, and tended their poor rooms with her own little white hands. She looked as dainty and lovely as a little princess now, as she tripped along by the side of her handsome, stately husband. The day was cold, although the sun shone so brightly, and Laurel was wrapped in a long cloak of shining seal-skin, with a pretty cap of the same perched jauntily on her head, its long brown ostrich plume drooping against her long golden curls, contrasting with their lovelytinge, which must have been a favorite shade with the old masters, for St. Leon observed that they had painted it on the heads of their most beautiful women.
"There is not a picture on the walls half so lovely as her living face," he said to himself, exultantly, looking at the fair flower-face with its full crimson lips, its oval outline, its wine dark eyes with such wealth of jetty lashes softly fringing them, and the soft, bright fringe of love-locks, shading the low, white brow. The splendid diamond solitaires in her rosy ears flashed and sparkled with every turn of the restless little head, and were wondrously becoming to her style. It was no wonder that St. Leon's eyes turned often from the changeless canvas to dwell in fondest admiration on the living face full of the glow and flash and sparkle of youthful beauty and happiness.
He told her that she was more beautiful than the pictured faces on the walls, and her eyes flashed with joy, and her face flushed rosily. She was so glad of the fairness God had given her, she never wearied of hearing about it. It was the link by which she hoped to hold her husband when he found out the truth about her.
She often asked herself anxiously which would be the stronger in that terrible hour—his love or his pride—but she could never answer her own question. She loved St. Leon, but she did not yet understand him.
They were standing in front of a seraphic-looking Madonna, when suddenly he touched her arm, and whispered in her ear:
"Some others are waiting to look at this, dear. Let us move on."
She turned her beautiful, happy face from the picture toward the group who had just come up to them—a young lady and gentleman with a trim maid following after, some rich, warm wraps over her arm. They were Cyril Wentworth, his wife, and her maid Clarice.
The beautiful smile froze on Laurel's lips as she met their startled, wondering gaze. She uttered a moan like one dying, and all in a moment fell senseless on the floor.
More than once, since they came to England, Clarice Wells said, anxiously, to her mistress:
"I am afraid Miss Vane has laid her plans to marry Mr. Le Roy. Why else should she have wished to remain at Eden?"
But Beatrix, who was very fond of the lovely girl who had made such a sacrifice for her sake, would not believe it.
"She was a dear, good, honest child," she said. "I had hard work to persuade her to personate me for a little while. Her exaggerated notion of gratitude was all that tipped the scale in my favor, allowing a little for her romantic pity for two despairing lovers. I am sure she would not attempt an intrigue at her own risk."
"One risks a great deal for love's sake," said Clarice Wells. "You would know that by your experience, Mrs. Wentworth."
"But Laurel was not in love with Mr. Le Roy. She was afraid of him. She wrote me to that effect," objected pretty Beatrix, fixing her large blue eyes surprisedly on Clarice's sober face.
"I beg your pardon. That might have been the case at first, but it was not likely to last," said the maid, pursuing her argument with the freedom of a favorite. "I do not believe Miss Vane's antipathy lasted long. He was very handsome and fascinating—just the man to win the love of an innocent young girl! And he admired her, I am sure of that, Mrs. Wentworth. And believing her to be his equal in wealth and station, what was there to prevent their marrying if they loved each other?"
"You are very clever, Clarice, but I am afraid you are making mountains of mole-hills," Beatrix Wentworth answered, lightly. "How could they marry without papa and mamma's consent? Beatrix Gordon would have to return to New York and be married from her father's house. And how could little Laurel Vane, with her big black eyes and innocent soul, personate me to my own parents? Do you not see that your theory wouldn't hold water, Clarice, as Cyril would say in his lively way."
Clarice was silenced, but not convinced.
"Anyway, I wish I had not left her there," she said. "My conscience would be all the clearer. But, Mrs. Wentworth, don't you think that you should write to your parents now and confess what you have done, and beg them to forgive you for your naughty conspiracy and runaway marriage?"
Two crystal drops brimmed over in Mrs. Wentworth's blue eyes and splashed down upon her pink cheeks.
"Dear papa, dear mamma, it was naughty and wicked to desert them so," she said; "but they were too hard upon Cyril and me. I loved him so dearly. I could not bear it. But I loved them too; and although Cyril makes me so happy, my heart aches for the dear ones at home."
"And you will write to them? The plunge has to be made some time. As well now as ever," urged the maid.
"No, not now. What do you take me for, Clarice? Do you think I would betray sweet little Laurel, to whom I owe all my happiness?" cried Beatrix, indignantly.
"I beg your pardon for naming it. Of course, you know best, Mrs. Wentworth," replied discreet Clarice, dropping the subject.
They had discussed the matter several times, each retaining her own opinion of the matter on the well-known principle that
"A woman convinced against her willIs of the same opinion still."
"A woman convinced against her willIs of the same opinion still."
Beatrix, like most adoring young wives, who confide all they know to their husbands, laid her grievance before Cyril.
The handsome, happy young Benedick humbly begged his wife's pardon for coinciding with Clarice's views rather than hers, but he could not be shaken from his first opinion that the romance of the conspiracy would culminate in the marriage of St. Leon Le Roy and Laurel Vane.
"It would be a delightful ending," he said, laughing at her horrified face.
"But I tell you it would not," she said, emphatically. "It would be just too dreadful for anything, and I will not believe it of sweet little Laurel Vane!"
"I hope she may justify your good opinion, my dear," said Cyril Wentworth, dryly, but kissing her fondly, and loving her all the more for her boundless faith in her fellow woman.
But they dropped the subject then, and if any one speculated further on Laurel Vane's hopes and plans it passed in silence. Beatrix was too generous to believe evil of the innocent girl who had served her in her clever counterplot against her parents. She loved Laurel for all she had done for her. When the shock of the truth came upon her it was all the harder to bear because of the loving faith she had persistently cherished.
That bright December day Cyril went home to their neat, pretty lodgings and announced that he had a holiday.
"It is such a lovely day, I should like to take you out somewhere, darling," he said, smoothing the bright waves of her golden hair with caressing fingers. "You know it is not often that I have the chance to escort you anywhere in the day."
They discussed duly the important subject of where to go, and decided on an art gallery. Both adored pictures.
Clarice dressed her mistress in her silks and furs and decided to follow the party with extra wraps for her mistress in case the day should prove colder than they thought, and in order to gratify her own penchant for sight-seeing.
No thought came to them of the great surprise that awaited them in the famous art gallery. They went forward to meet it all unconsciously, even as Laurel awaited their coming among the pictures and statues, all unconscious of what was hastening to her.
They were unusually gay. Beatrix had been pining a little of late under the depressing influence of the rainy, dismal weather. The bright sunshine revived her spirits and brought the warm pink roses to her cheeks. She laughed and chatted gayly to her delighted husband.
They loitered in the gallery and admired the beautiful paintings and statues, all the work of master hands long since dissolved to dust. They saw only two persons besides themselves—a lady and gentleman with their faces turned toward the beautiful painting of a Madonna. The lady had golden hair that was strangely familiar to Beatrix and Clarice, but then, many of the Englishwomen had golden hair. Each said to herself that it was only fancy that it reminded them of Laurel Vane.
So they went on slowly and unconsciously, and the handsome man and beautiful girl turned around and faced them.
They saw the young face whiten with fear, heard the frightened moan break from the trembling lips, saw her reel dizzily, and fall like a stone at their feet—and they knew that this was Laurel Vane, that St. Leon Le Roy was her husband, and that her wretched falsehood had found her out!
Mr. Le Roy, turning in the same moment with his wife, saw two faces that he recognized—Cyril Wentworth's that he had seen once in New York, and Clarice's, which he remembered perfectly well. Beatrix he did not know. He glanced at her carelessly, littlethinking what an influence the pretty blonde had exerted over his life.
A pang of jealousy, keen, swift, and terrible as the lightning's flash tore through his heart as he beheld his worshiped bride waver and fall, like one dead, to the floor.
He believed that the mere sight of Cyril Wentworth's face had produced that terrible emotion that had stricken her down like a broken flower at their feet.
For an instant he stood motionless, almost petrified by his agitation, then he bent down over the beautiful face that only a moment ago had been lifted to his sparkling and glowing with love and happiness. It was pale and rigid now, and the jetty fringe of the lashes lay heavily on the white cheeks as if they would never lift again from the sweet dark eyes.
Quick as he was, light-footed Clarice was before him. She was kneeling down loosening the furs and laces about the throat of the unconscious girl with deft, easy fingers. She looked up at him with a strange glance.
"It is only a faint," she said, "but she may be some time in recovering. You had better go out and bringeau de Cologne."
He obeyed her like one in a dream, and the moment he was gone quick-witted Clarice borrowed Mrs. Wentworth'svinaigrette.
"I only sent him out on a pretext," she said. "We must get her revived before he returns. Mr. Wentworth, will you please remove her gloves and chafe her hands? No, perhaps your wife might do it better," she added, with a quick afterthought.
Beatrix had been clinging to her husband's arm, staring like one dazed at the strange scene. She knelt down and drew off Laurel's dark kid gloves and chafed the delicate, dimpled, white hands. She saw a broad gold wedding-ring on the slender finger of one small hand, guarded by a keeper of magnificent diamonds and rubies. All three looked significantly at one another, and Clarice said, woman-like, to her mistress:
"Mrs. Wentworth, I told you so."
Cyril could not repress a slight laugh as he stood gazing down upon them. His keen perception told him the truth.
"It is Laurel Vane," he said, and Beatrix answered, "Yes," in a dazed tone, while the maid supplemented quickly, "Or rather Laurel Le Roy."
At that moment Laurel shivered and opened her eyes. She saw herself supported in Clarice's arms, while Beatrix, kneeling by her, chafed her small hands. They saw her glance wander past them yearningly, and a moan of pitiful despair came from her white lips as she missed the face she sought.
"You fainted, and Mr. Le Roy has gone out for someeau de Cologne," said the maid.
A touch of color came into the blanched face. She turned her dark, frightened eyes up to their cold faces.
"You have betrayed me!" she said, in a faint, almost dying, tone.
Beatrix seemed incapable of speech.
Clarice answered, coldly:
"We have said nothing yet!" Then she continued, gravely: "Miss Vane, are you Mr. Le Roy's wife?"
"Yes, I am his wife," Laurel answered, faintly. And she tore her hands from Beatrix, and covered her face with them.
No one spoke for a moment, then Clarice asked, slowly:
"Did you deceive him to the end?"
"To the bitter end!" shuddered Laurel, in a hollow tone.
Then suddenly she let the shielding hands fall from her burning face, and looked at Beatrix.
"Do not look at me so sternly and coldly, Mrs. Wentworth," she cried. "You sent me there. Are you not to blame?"
No one could have believed that Mrs. Wentworth's gentle face could grow so hard and cold.
Laurel Vane had so bitterly betrayed the trust she reposed in her that she did not know how to forgive her.
"Do not charge me with your folly, your madness!" she cried, indignantly. "My sin was bad enough—but yours is beyond pardon. How dared you,Laurel Vane, marry the proud, rich St. Leon Le Roy?"
"I loved him—he loved me!" moaned the wretched young bride.
"And what will become of his love now when he learns the truth?" queried Beatrix, with stinging scorn.
Cyril hastily interposed.
"Do not be hard on her, Beatrix. She was kind to us. Be kind to her. See, she is almost heart-broken by your scorn!"
Laurel looked at the handsome, kindly face. It was full of sympathy and pity, not hard and angry like the women's faces. Her despairing heart filled with new hope. She clasped her hands, and looked at him with dark, appealing eyes.
"Yes, I pitied you, I helped you to your love," she said, pleadingly. "Will you let them rob me of mine? Will you let them betray me?"
All the pity in his heart, all his manly compassion was stirred into life by her words and looks.
"We love each other," she went on, pathetically. "We love each other even as you and your wife love. Do not come between us yet! Let us be happy a little longer!"
"Beatrix, you hear," said Cyril, bending down to take his wife's hand in his own. "They love even as we love, dear. Can you bear to part them—to betray her? She is little more than a child. You will break her heart. The beginning of it all lies with us. Do we not owe her our pity at least—our pity and our silence?"
"Your silence—that is all I ask," cried the culprit, eagerly. "The end will come soon enough. Let me have a little respite. Tell me where to find you to-morrow. Mr. Le Roy has an engagement out then, and I will come to you. I will tell you how it all happened! I will beg for your pity on my bended knees!"
She began to weep passionately. Beatrix could not bear those bitter tears. She drew out her card-case hastily.
"Here is my address," she said. "Come to me to-morrow, and tell me the whole story. I can judge better then what is best for me to do."
She did not pity Laurel much. She felt angry with her for her presumption in marrying one so far above her as Mr. Le Roy. And then the folly, the madness of it. She could not understand themad love that had driven Laurel, step by step, into her terrible position.
"Mr. Le Roy is coming. Do not let him suspect anything wrong," said Cyril, hastily.
He turned with a smile to meet the handsome, stately gentleman.
"Mr. Le Roy, I am Cyril Wentworth," he said, genially. "Permit me to assure you that your wife is quite recovered, and to present you to my wife—Mrs. Wentworth."
"Married!" said St. Leon to himself, with a start, and a quick glance at Beatrix. He bowed to her gracefully, then hurried to his wife's side.
"You are better, Beatrix?" he said, anxiously, and they all saw his passionate heart looking out of the beautiful eyes he bent on her pale and tear-stained face.
She clung to him in a sort of nervous terror and fear.
"Yes, I am better, thanks to the goodness of Clarice and her mistress," she faltered. "You must thank them for their kindness to me, St. Leon, and take me away."
He obeyed her request in a few courteous words, bowed to the party, and led his wife away, outwardly cool and collected, but on fire with jealous pain.
"She loves him still! She fainted at the bare sight of him!" he muttered to himself.
"My God! why did she marry me, then? Was it for wealth and position?"
The bitter doubt tore his heart like a knife. An unconscious coldness grew up in his heart toward her.
He placed her silently in the carriage, and, springing in beside her, gave himself up to bitter reflections.
The carriage whirled them away to their hotel, and as it rattled over the streets Laurel watched her husband's cold, grave face with wonder.
"What is it, St. Leon?" she asked him, slipping her arm timidly in his. "Why do you look so grave?"
"I am puzzled," he answered.
"Over what, St. Leon?" asked the beautiful girl.
"Over your fainting spell," he answered, moodily. "You told me you had ceased to love Cyril Wentworth, but at the bare sight of him you fell like one dead. What am I to think, Beatrix?"
It came over her like a flash, that he was jealous of Cyril Wentworth—of Cyril Wentworth, whom she had never beheld until to-day.
How she longed for him to know the truth, to tell him that she had never loved mortal man save him whom she called her husband! But it was one of the pains and penalties of her position that she could not confess to St. Leon. He must go on believing that her first pure love had been lavished on another, must go on doubting her, for his looks and words assured her that the first seeds of jealousy had been sown in his heart.
Hot tears of pain and humiliation gathered in her eyes and splashed heavily down her pale cheeks.
"Oh, St. Leon, you do not, you cannot, believe that I love him still?" she sighed.
"Why, then, your agitation at that chance meeting?" he inquired.
"I was startled—only that," she answered. "It was like seeing a ghost. And you must remember there was Clarice, too. I assure you I was more startled at the sight of her than by Mr. Wentworth. It was a nervousness, agitation, fright, what you will, St. Leon, but not love. No, no, no, not love! I love you only, my husband. You are the life of my life!"
She clasped her hands around his arm, and looked up to him with dark, pathetic eyes.
"I am not perfect, St. Leon," she said, "and life is not all sunshine. Some day the heavy, lowering clouds of fate will pour out their blinding rain upon our heads. You may believe many hard things of me then, St. Leon, but you may be sure of one thing always, dear. I love you now and I shall love you forever, with the maddest, deepest passion a woman's heart can cherish!"
He had never heard her speak with such passion before. Her love had been like a timid bird brooding softly in her heart, too shy to soar into the sunlight, but the words burst from her now eloquent with her heart's emotion, and made sacred by the burning drops that fell from her eyes. He could not but believe her. The jealous misery fled from his heart as he clasped her in his arms and kissed the trembling rosebud mouth.
"Forgive me, darling, for doubting you," he said, repentantly. "It was because I love you so dearly, and I have always been so absurdly jealous of Cyril Wentworth. I would give anything upon earth to be able to say that you had never loved any one but me."
And she could not tell him that it was true. It was a part of her punishment that this dark shadow—the thought that her first love had been given another—should never be lifted from his life. She knew that it was a pain to his jealous nature, but her lips were sealed. Some day he would know the truth, she said to herself bitterly, but then it would come too late for his happiness.
"I loved him, Mrs. Wentworth. That is all my defense. Call me weak, cowardly, wicked, if you will; but I could not put the temptation from me. Think what all my life had been—how dull, how sad, how lonely! Was it easy to put away happiness when it came to me in so fair a guise?"
The white hands were clasped imploringly, the dark eyes were lifted pleadingly as the sad words fell from Laurel's lips. Beatrix Wentworth and Clarice Wells, her judges and accusers, looked gravely upon the tortured face of the culprit—the fairest culprit that was ever arraigned for her sin.
"Do you call it happiness?" said Beatrix Wentworth. "I should not think you would know one happy hour, living on theverge of a volcano that may destroy you at any moment. I should think that your sorrow and repentance would almost kill you."
"But I do not repent!" cried Laurel desperately. "I shall never repent while I remain with St. Leon. I am too happy, in spite of my fears, for sorrow or repentance. When I am torn away from him, when I have lost his love, then I shall repent, then I shall understand the depths of my dreadful sin; but never before!"
They looked at her in wonder. They could not understand her. Surely she was mad—the glamour of passion had obscured her reason!
"And when the end comes—when he has put you from him—what will you do then, poor child!" asked Beatrix, slowly.
"Then I shall die," the beautiful girl answered, despairingly.
And again they did not know what to say to her. She had no thoughts outside of this love that she held by so slight a thread. She could see nothing beyond it but death. Beatrix could not help feeling vexed with her. She loved her own young husband with a fond, romantic love, but she could not comprehend the madness of Laurel's devotion.
"It is not so easy to die, Laurel," she said, impatiently. "You are a woman now, and you must not answer me like a child. Your sin will find you out some day, and you will perhaps be cast adrift on the world. You should have some plans formed for that time."
There was a moment's silence; then Laurel murmured, tremblingly:
"St. Leon loves me—perhaps he will forgive me."
Clarice Wells gave an audible sigh from her corner. Beatrix murmured, "Poor child!"
And the mistress and maid looked at each other in silence a moment. They did not know how to deal with this nature. Both wondered in themselves if St. Leon Le Roy would indeed forgive her falsehood. They did not think so.
Beatrix toyed nervously with the tassels of her pale-blue morning dress.
"Laurel," she said, after a moment. "Clarice and I have formed a plan for you. We do not want to betray you to your husband. We think it would be better it you confessed the truth to him yourself."
They never forgot how deathly white she grew, nor how wild and frightened the dark eyes looked. She threw out her hands as if to ward off a blow.
"Confess to St. Leon? Why, I would sooner die!" she gasped.
"But, my dear child," remonstrated Beatrix, "he would be far more likely to forgive you if you confessed to him yourself than if I betrayed you."
"You will not do that, oh, you will not do that! You could not be so cruel!" gasped Laurel, throwing herself impulsively at Beatrix's feet. "Oh, Mrs. Wentworth, I helpedyouto happiness! Do not rob me of mine!"
Clarice raised her gently and replaced her in her seat.
"You have not heard all my plan out, Laurel," said Beatrix. "I do not forget my debt to you. I would sooner help you than betray you. I was going on to say that if you would be brave enough to confess to St. Leon how you have wronged him, I toowould confess to him. I would tell him how much I was to blame. I would beg him to forgive you because you were so innocent and ignorant, and because you loved him so. Then—if it came to the worst—if in his pride and his wrath he should put you away from him—you might come to us—to Cyril and me."
The hapless young creature did not answer a word. She stared at Beatrix mutely with wide, wild eyes like a hunted fawn's.
"Well, what do you say, Laurel?" inquired Beatrix. "Will you do as I wish you?"
"It is too terrible a risk. I do not dare," moaned Laurel, hiding her face in her hands.
Then for a time there was silence. Beatrix was hurt and chagrined that her plan had been discarded. She thought Laurel was a headstrong, willful child, rushing blindly upon her own destruction.
But she could not help pitying the girl, her fear and misery were so great. She desisted from advising her. It seemed too much like torturing some lovely, helpless creature. The hunted look in the dark eyes pained her.
"After all, is she any worse than I am?" said Beatrix to herself. "I deceived my parents. I risked everything for love's sake, and this poor child has done no more than that. I must not be angry with her. I must remember always that it was I who led her into temptation."
She went to her gently, she took the white hands from the pale, tear-stained face, and held them kindly in both of hers.
"Laurel, do not look so miserable and heart-broken," she said, gently. "You need not be afraid of me."
Laurel looked at her with a flash of hope in her humid eyes.
"Do you mean that you will not betray me?" she panted.
"I will not betray you," Beatrix answered. "I pity you too much, my poor child, and I know that the end will come soon enough. Far be it from me to hasten the evil hour."
She was glad she had spoken so kindly when she saw the lovely flush of joy that came into the sensitive face. Laurel thanked and blessed her passionately, then the dark eyes turned to Clarice.
"And will you have mercy on me, too?" she said. "I have always been afraid of you, Clarice. I have always remembered what you said. The words have haunted me."
"I meant what I said," replied the maid. "If I had seen you going to the altar with him, I should have betrayed you, and saved him. It would have been my duty."
"And now?" Laurel questioned faintly.
"It has gone too far," answered Clarice. "You are Mr. Le Roy's wedded wife. What God hath joined together, no man must put asunder."
She thanked them with such trembling passion and joy that they could have wept.
"I do not know whether I am doing right," said Beatrix. "But I am very happy, and I remember always that you helped me to my happiness, and that I thoughtlessly led you into temptation. I will keep your secret, Laurel, and may God help you when your hour ofreckoning comes, as it too surely will, my poor child, sooner or later."
Laurel was fortunate enough to get back to her hotel before Mr. Le Roy returned from his engagement with the friend whom he had unexpectedly encountered in London. She removed her street dress immediately, and he never suspected the momentous visit she had made that morning to Cyril Wentworth's wife. She was gay and loving, as usual, and he dreamed not what bitter tears had dimmed her eyes that morning in her fear that he would find her out in her sin.
But that night she said to him, with pretty impatience:
"When are we going to leave London, St. Leon? I am very tired of the rain and the cold."
"I thought you had not done sight-seeing yet," he said, a little surprised at her capriciousness. "There are many places of interest which you have not visited yet."
"I am tired of it all," she declared. "One wearies of the rain and the smoke and the fog. I should like to go to Italy, where the sun shines all day, and the air is balmy and warm. Will you take me, St. Leon?"
"We will go to-morrow, if you wish," he replied. "There is nothing to detain us in London."
"To-morrow it shall be!" cried Laurel.
He humored her caprice and took her to Italy. She did not breathe freely until she was out of London. She was horribly afraid of meeting the Wentworths again.
They hired a charming little villa in Southern Italy, and lived there several months, leading a beautiful, idyllic life that charmed Laurel. She called the pretty place Eden, in loving memory of her home.
Letters came often from Mrs. Le Roy, occasionally from the Gordons. Mrs. Gordon was not fond of letter-writing, and though she loved her daughter dearly, she wrote to her but seldom. These letters Laurel always posted to Beatrix Wentworth in London with her own hands. She felt sure that Beatrix would understand and be glad to receive them.
By dint of earnest application she had acquired a very fair imitation of Mrs. Wentworth's writing. But her conscience always reproached her when she answered those fond, parental letters. She always felt the burden of her guilt most deeply then. So her letters were brief and infrequent. But the Gordons thought nothing of it. Beatrix had never been a diffuse writer, and they supposed she was all absorbed in her happiness now. Laurel never expressed the least desire to return to America. Mr. Le Roy was rather amused at her persistent preference for the Old World.
One thing pleased Mr. Le Roy very much while they remained in Italy.
His wife developed a sudden taste for music. She regretted that she had never learned the piano. Masters were procured for her ather own desire, and for one who had professed not to care for music, her progress was exceedingly rapid.
When summer came they wearied of Italy, and went to Switzerland.
Ah, those happy days abroad—that long, sweet honeymoon! It was so heavenly sweet, it was no wonder that Laurel could not repent of the fraud by which she had won her splendid husband. Life was a dream of Elysium.