CHAPTER XI.
Norman de Vere did not dream of the depths of duplicity hidden in his wife’s nature. He believed that she was honest in the repentance she professed, and accordingly he had Little Sweetheart brought back the next day to the home from which she had been so rudely torn by the wily French maid, whom Mrs. de Vere had now sent into brief exile to carry out the plot by which she had saved her guilty mistress.
A great change had been wrought in the pretty child by her week with the wretched, heartless old rag-picker. Beaten and starved, her pretty clothes taken from her and replaced with filthy rags, she was a pitiable object when she returned to Verelands, and the big blue eyes staring out of the wan little face were bright with fever. She was given a warm bath, clothed in new and pretty garments, and laid in a little bed beside that of Norman’s mother. There she lay for weary weeks, consumed by scarlet fever. Norman’s wife fled in terror to a fashionable hotel, leaving her mother-in-law to nurse the little invalid, quite ignoring all the protestations she had made so recently.
“I have never had the fever; I should die if I contracted it!” she cried, wildly; and although Norman tried to explain to her that grown people rarely contracted the disease, she paid no attention.
“I am going; you must come with me,” she said, imperiously.
“And desert my mother and the child?”he asked, reproachfully.
“Your first duty is to me,” she exclaimed, throwing her superb arms about his neck and kissing him with pleading fondness.
She conquered, and carried him off in her train, although he said:
“I shall come back to Verelands every day to help mymother. I had scarlet fever when I was a child, so I am not afraid of it.”
She insisted that he would carry the contagion in his clothes.
“I will always change them before entering your presence,” he said; and then she saw that he was obstinately bent upon his purpose. No words of hers, no blandishments, although he loved her dearly, could turn him from what he conceived to be his duty.
She had to acquiesce with smiles, although she was furious with secret rage. She dared not push him to the wall.
“But I will punish him for this in my own fashion,” she raved, wildly, when alone, clinching her jeweled hands in impotent rage, hating and loving Norman de Vere in one and the same moment, so wild was her jealousy, so fierce her love.
“Itishis child! Who could doubt it after this?” she muttered. “For naught else would he run so great a risk—for naught else would he defy my wishes. He loves the little beggar—loved her mother, perhaps—and out of some foolish remorse is trying to atone for his sin by devotion to the child. Oh! how I hate the little wretch! I hope it may die of the fever! If only I had the courage to stay and pretend to nurse it, I should give it such careless attention it could not possibly live!”
But she was too great a coward to remain and take the risk of contracting the fever. She thought of recalling Finette to take the place of nurse to Sweetheart, but the fear of opposition to her plan deterred her from carrying it into execution.
“Norman would not approve—might refuse my request. I must give that up, and only wish the brat dead,” she muttered, shrinking sensitively from the thought of committing a crime, and little dreaming how soon those jeweled white hands would be stained crimson with human blood.