CHAPTER XXXIX.A MORTAL WOUND.
Every one in the room was listening with suppressed excitement to Mrs. Varian’s story, every eye was fixed on her mortally pale face, so deathlike in its pallor save for the great Oriental dark eyes burning like coals of fire.
Cinthia had grown ghastly, too, as she rested in the clasp of Madame Ray’s arm, taking no heed of her handsome betrothed on the other side, hovering near to console her in the terrible revelation soon coming.
The lady paused, drew her breath in sharply, like one in pain, and resumed:
“I could not bring my husband to believe in the sincerity of my objections to his ward. He first laughed at my jealousy, then upbraided me with my injustice to a homeless orphan girl. He could not send her away penniless into the world, for he had been under obligations to her father, in whose office he had gained his first law practice. He begged me to have patience and charity toward Miss Lowe until her superior attractions should win her a husband. Heaven knows I was never lacking in Christian charity toward any unfortunate person, butGladys Lowe was not a good girl. A flirt to her fingertips, and totally without principle or conscience, she discovered my jealousy and played on it cleverly, augmenting it by cunning schemes that my husband never suspected, and that I, in my bitter pride and jealousy, never betrayed to him. So matters went on for a year, and in that interval of time I several times surprised my husband in compromising situations with his ward. By my father’s advice, I ordered her to leave my house, and there was a stormy scene.
“Miss Lowe threw shame to the winds. She refused to go, and taunted me with having won my husband from me. I threatened to sue him for divorce, naming her as co-respondent. She retorted that it was what they both wished, in order that he might obtain his freedom to marry her. Without a word to my husband—for we had long been estranged through our differences over her—I left my home, taking my little son, and accompanied by my father, who fully sympathized with my grievances and despised the authors of my unhappiness. I then carried out my threat of suing my husband for divorce, implicating Miss Lowe. To cut the story short, my husband fought against the divorce; but his shameless ward helped it on by every art in her power, never denying the charges against her; and it was soon granted, giving me the custody of our son and the liberty to resume my maiden name. Mr. Dawn removed from Florida to Georgia, where Miss Lowe followed him, andwithin a few months he married her, thus proving his falsity to me.”
Her story was ended, and she leaned her head back against Arthur’s shoulder, closing her eyes to shut out the sight of the surprised and pitying faces to whom she had just confessed the story of her life’s humiliation.
“Bravely done, dear mother!” whispered Arthur, with a gentle kiss on her cold cheek.
“It is my turn now,” said Everard Dawn, with a heavy sigh, and Doctor Deane rejoined:
“I can not permit you to talk very long, my dear patient.”
“It will not be necessary, sir, for Mrs. Varian has saved me the trouble of a long explanation. What she has related is perfectly true on the face of it, but behind the tragedy of our divorce lie the actual facts of the terrible mistakes of a jealous woman and a heedless man too secure of his great happiness to guard it close enough.”
A great thrill ran through the listeners, as he continued:
“I hold myself to blame that I was impatient of my wife’s jealousy, and laughed at her fears that Miss Lowe was trying to win my heart. I pitied my ward for her orphanage and poverty, and I was too generous to believe that she was aught but a joyous-hearted girl whose little kittenish coquetries amounted to nothing. I was simply blind, besides being inordinately proud and passionately resentful of my wife’s unjust suspicions. I lovedher to idolatry, and her lack of faith angered me. I carried everything with too high a hand, perhaps, but I did not dream to what lengths the affair was going.”
Doctor Deane interposed gently:
“You are exhausting your strength by too long a discourse.”
“Doctor, what difference can it make to a dying man whether his little stock of strength is exhausted sooner or later?” wearily.
“Go on then; but be brief.”
“I found out too late,” continued Everard Dawn, “that Miss Lowe was different from what I thought. She had indeed conceived a mad love for me that had driven her to desperate lengths to win me. It is true that she followed me to Georgia, true that I married her, but only because of her passionate pleadings and assertions that through my wife’s jealousy her character had been ruined. I gave her the shelter of my name, but, God forgive me, I hated her as long as she lived, and could not help rejoicing when she was dead. I obtained a position as a commercial traveler, so that I could spend most of my time away from her side, so her victory was a poor one after all, for she had wrecked two lives without gaining any happiness for herself. As for the rest, I affirm now on my death-bed and on my hopes of heaven, that Gladys Lowe and I were as innocent of wrong-doing before my divorce as the purest angel. She was wicked enough tomake my wife believe it, through her jealousy so easily imposed on, but she was not guilty, so help me Heaven!”
He paused, and there rose a stifled cry of bitter anguish. It came from Cinthia’s ghastly lips as the cruel truth began to dawn on her bewildered brain.
Everard Dawn looked at her pityingly, and said:
“Ah, Cinthia, you understand it all now. She was your mother. Perhaps you will not blame me now that I failed in love to you, that I forgot my duty to you in resentment at what you represented—the wicked love of a woman who wrecked my life in parting me from all that made it dear.”
A low moan came from her blanched lips and Arthur Varian left his mother’s side and approached her with leaden-weighted feet and a look as of death’s agony in his fixed blue eyes. He took her hand, and said, hollowly:
“Cinthia, you understand it all now, but you will not mind it, I know, because Fred is going to make you very happy, my dear littlesister.”
No one in that room ever forgot the white agony of Cinthia Dawn’s face as she sprung to her feet, with outstretched arms, quivering all over as if a bullet had pierced her heart, pushing Arthur away as if his hand had given the mortal wound.
“Oh, God, let me die!” she shrieked, in her despair, and sunk senseless in Madame Ray’s arms.