CHAPTER XXIX.
“I can not bear this any longer! I shall die if I do not see my husband soon! I am going back to America!” Camille cried, passionately, at last.
Finette encouraged her in the resolve. She began to feel alarmed for her mistress. She could not understand how Norman held out so long.
“He loved her so well. I can not make it out why he is so stubborn,” she thought, wonderingly. “Perhaps dere is some oder woman in the case. Boys are feeckle always, and what is it dat the American poet say:
“‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will.’”
“‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will.’”
“‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will.’”
“‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will.’”
Decidedly it was the best to go back, thought the maid—that was, if her mistress still had her heart set on that silly boy. For herself, she thought it all folly; she would not have given a snap of her fingers for Norman de Vere.
“A penniless, smooth-faced boy!” she thought, contemptuously. “Pah! why did not madame make him turn out a mustache? How could she bear to kiss him? There could be no more flavor to it than a girl’s or a baby’s kiss!”
But madame was going to make her rich when by her help she became reconciled to her angry husband, so Finette swallowed her disgust and set her crafty brain to work.
“To leave Paree and go back to dat hateful America—it is hard, but ‘needs must when the devil drives,’” she sighed; so they set their faces homeward.
They went to New York and settled down quietly in a flat, taking care to keep their presence a secret from Norman de Vere; but his mother was duly informed, and by collusion with her, Camille had many opportunities of seeing her beloved, herself unseen, and every furtive glance at the pale, stern, yet darkly handsome face only deepened Camille’s passion for her husband. She would have given all her wealth now—all the world, if it had been hers to bestow—for the love she had prized so lightly when it was all her own.
“For just one kiss that your lips have givenIn the lost and beautiful past to me,I would gladly barter my hopes of heavenAnd all the bliss of eternity.”
“For just one kiss that your lips have givenIn the lost and beautiful past to me,I would gladly barter my hopes of heavenAnd all the bliss of eternity.”
“For just one kiss that your lips have givenIn the lost and beautiful past to me,I would gladly barter my hopes of heavenAnd all the bliss of eternity.”
“For just one kiss that your lips have given
In the lost and beautiful past to me,
I would gladly barter my hopes of heaven
And all the bliss of eternity.”
Poor, guilty soul! It seemed to her that she could have forgiven her husband a sin as terrible as her own had been. She could not understand the absolute horror with which he shrunk from her, the abhorrence of her guilt that filled his soul. She could not believe that his love was dead.
“I will throw myself in his way—I will make him remember me. Perhaps the embers of the old love will leap into flame again,” she thought with a passionate yearning; and she resolved to throw off all disguise and let him know that she was near him.
He was living with his mother in a small flat where they played at keeping house in a sort of doll fashion. He came home one winter afternoon tired and cold from one of the great newspaper offices to his tea, and found her there in the tiny parlor, a great basket of hot-house flowers on the cozy tea-table, and behind it her face.
Camille’s face—colorless, yet dazzling as ever, with the feverish fire of hope shining in the wine-dark eyes, the red mouth trembling with a smile of hope and love, about her the sheen of silk and velvet and lace, the glitter of diamonds, the seductive breath of some rare perfume. She was all alone, and when he entered, she flung herself wildly at his feet.
“Oh, my beloved! my beloved! I could not stay away from you any longer. Forgive me, take me back!” she pleaded, wildly.
The young man grew pale as death, but he drew back from her; he pushed away the white, jeweled hands that would have clung to him.
“Do not touch me! There is blood on your hands!” he said.
Camille started and looked down at her hands.
“Oh, Norman, how you frightened me. I—I—thought—” she wailed, then paused abruptly.
“What madness is this? Why have you come here?” he demanded, bitterly.
“I could not stay away, Norman. Oh, I shall die if you do not take me back! I am your wife—your wife!” she cried, passionately.
He stood with his hand upon the door-knob, looking at her. She knew that if she came a step nearer to him he would go out.
“Oh, Norman, do not be so cruelly hard. Do you remember how you used to love me? Is it all dead now? Have you found a new love?” she asked, pathetically; and he shook his head.
“I have found no other love. I have no faith in women. I shun them with the single exception of my mother,” he said, sternly. “But the old love is dead, Camille. You murdered it that day by the river. You can never resurrect it from its bloody grave.”
She shuddered.
“Oh, Norman, you were mistaken. I had lost my ring. It was that I was talking of—only that,” she cried, beseechingly.
“Does my mother know you are here, Camille?”
“Yes. I am here by her consent. She pities me, she sympathizes with me. She longs for you to forgive me, Norman.”
He stood in silence a moment, but there was no relenting on his stern, white face, only trouble and disgust.
“I am sorry this has happened,” he said, slowly and sadly at last. “I have tried to forget you, Camille, as the greatest kindness I could show to you, for my thoughts of you are always mixed with shuddering horror and disgust. Remember, I know you as my mother does not know you, as the world does not know you. How can you think to move my heart toward you again? I pity you, I pray often that Heaven will make you repent and grant you pardon for your terrible crime, but to love you, to trust you again you must be mad to dream of it!”
She stood looking at him despairingly, rebelling passionately against her fate.
“You will at least let me live under the same roof with you, Norman? I will not trouble you; I will not even speak to you unless you wish me! But do not drive me to despair. Let me stay where I can at least see you daily,” she implored.
He comprehended the hope that buoyed her up. She would not accept her fate.
“It is useless,” he said, sternly. “The same roof can never shelter us both, Camille. You can never be anything to me again, and you must go away and leave me in peace.”
“I will not go!” she exclaimed, shrilly, flying into one of the old gusts of passion he remembered so well. “I am your wife, and I have a right to stay here. I will not leave you!”
“It is I then who must go,” he answered, gravely and firmly.
“I will follow you,” she retorted, furiously, stung by his indifference, and he answered:
“Then I must still flee.”
“I will haunt you!” she shrieked, throwing her arms above her head in a tempest of fury. “You shall not escape me! Wherever you go I shall pursue you. You shall learn that there is no escape from love like mine!”
An expression of intense pity, mixed with disgust, crossed the young man’s face; but he made no attempt to reply to the beautiful fury. With a long, deep sigh he turned from her, left the room and left the house, without seeing his mother, to whom, an hour later, there came a brief, stern note:
“By your conspiracy with Camille you have driven me from you. Within an hour I leave New York. I will write you through my employers, and they will forward to me your letters.“Norman.”
“By your conspiracy with Camille you have driven me from you. Within an hour I leave New York. I will write you through my employers, and they will forward to me your letters.
“Norman.”