CHAPTER XLIII.
She went with uncertain footsteps along the hall to the library, and left him alone. The little child, seeing him fall into a dejected attitude, slipped away and entered the back parlor, which was curtained from the front one by falling velvet curtains.
She found a picture-book and sat down upon the floor to turn the leaves, without noting the presence of an old lady in gray silk, sitting quietly with folded hands in a large arm-chair.
The old lady was Mrs. Barry, who was spending the day at Maple Shade. She had been sitting in the front parlor with Mrs. Laurens, and they had been talking of the subject that was nearest to both their hearts, the desired union between Cecil and Louise.
When Mrs. Laurens left her to go and sound Cecil on that important theme she slipped into the back parlor, and sat down to doze a little in the large arm-chair. The sound of voices in the next room roused her, and sitting there quietly, she heard every word that passed.
When the pretty child came in, Mrs. Barry stared at her in angry amaze. The little beauty, with her yellowish hazel eyes and falling yellow curls, was a miniature edition of Louise Barry.
“What does it mean?” the old lady asked herself, nervously.
She sat still, watching the little one with fascinated eyes, unheeding the lapse of time, until she was roused again by voices in the next room.
Mrs. Laurens had brought Cecil in, after first telling him all that John Keith had explained to her; and after the lapse of five years, the two men were face to face again.
Mutual explanations ensued, and the treachery of Louise Barry was fully unveiled at last.
“She and I were lovers before she had any expectations of a fortune from her aunt,” he said. “Mrs. Everett objected to me because I was a traveling salesman, and Louise and I were married secretly, taking no one but Molly into our confidence. Very soon afterward I lost my situation, and was away for months seeking work in vain. My wife found herself in a delicate situation, and became enraged because I was not in a position to declare our marriage and support her properly. Then came that fatal letter from Mrs. Barry that ruined all my life.”
Sighing heavily, he continued:
“That rich, heartless old woman wrote to Louise that she should be her heiress in case she were unmarried and would accept the man she had in view for her; but if she were a married woman, the matter ended there, and she should leave her property to build an orphan asylum.”
No one saw the heavy velvet curtains part and an old woman’s face peer cautiously through the aperture. All were too much absorbed in that story of duplicity and deceit on the part of a beautiful, ambitious woman.
John Keith went on, bitterly:
“That letter transformed Louise into a demon, it seemed. She was determined to secure the fortune she had forfeited by her secret marriage. She took her aunt into her confidence, and they formed a clever, dastardly scheme.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Cecil Laurens, with a start.
“You may well start in horror, since you, as well as myself, were a victim of that plot,” said John Keith. “But to return to my story: Louise was not in a condition to make the visit that Mrs. Barry demanded rather than requested. The pretty little madcap, Molly Trueheart, Louise’s step-sister, was tutored to act a part and sent to Ferndale as a substitute.”
“Poor child!” exclaimed Cecil Laurens, beginning to understand it all.
“It was a bold game, for Molly was expected to keep it up as long as the old lady lived; but there seemed no other way possible. Louise was determined that the will should be made in her favor, and sweet little Molly, who had something of the actress in her veins by inheritance, declared that it would be jolly fun to play the heiress,” John Keith said, sadly, adding, soberly: “There was no fault in Molly Trueheart, except that in one thing she disobeyed her instructions.”
“And that?” Cecil Laurens asked, breathlessly.
“Was in her marriage to you,” replied the other. “In the fact that Mrs. Barry had in view a possible husband for Louise lay the greatest danger of the whole scheme. Louise bade Molly repel the chosen man by every scheme in her power, so that he should of his own choice reject an alliance with her, thereby breaking off the match without offending Mrs. Barry.”
Cecil Laurens cried out, remorsefully:
“She did, poor girl, she did use every means to disenchant me. I remember it all now, her frowns, her pretty petulance, her terror at the thought of becoming my wife. But when I found she loved me, I wouldbrook no refusals. Between Mrs. Barry and myself she was almost forced into that marriage.”
“She was a pitiable victim of circumstances,” said John Keith. “She had promised Louise to act a part, and could not get released from her promise. If she had refused the marriage, Mrs. Barry would have disinherited her niece.”
“But she loved me,” Cecil Laurens said, quickly.
“She adored you,” answered John Keith; “she told me so. She revealed to me the whole plot, and begged me to keep the secret. I must beg your pardon for this, Mr. Laurens, but how could I betray my noble friend Molly, and my heartless but idolized wife?”
“She, your wife, deserved no kindness at your hands,” said Cecil, angrily.
“She did not, that is true; but I was weak enough to love her still, and I went from your marriage to Staunton to see her. I found only her aunt, who told me that Louise’s child had died, and that she had gone away as a traveling governess with a rich lady. You know all the rest, Mr. Laurens—how she divorced herself from me so heartlessly and broke my heart. I went South and engaged in the business of orange growing several years, until a restless yearning drove me back here, or rather to Staunton, where I found Mrs. Everett on her death-bed.”
“She confessed all, then?” said Cecil.
“Yes, and produced my little daughter whom she had falsely said was dead. She told me that everything was right between my former wife and Mrs. Barry, that she had found out and forgiven the deception about Molly, but that Louise dared not confess to her marriage and the child.”
“The wicked woman!” Mrs. Laurens exclaimed, finding voice at last.
Apparently John Keith’s heart still held some lingering tenderness for the woman who had deceived him, for his brow clouded, and he said quickly:
“I do not think she was altogether wicked, Mrs. Laurens. Her Aunt Lucy told me that she had a passionate love for our child, which she visited secretly several times every year, and that much of the income Mrs. Barry allowed her for pin-money was expended for the child, that it might be reared in luxury.”
They told him of all her falsehood and treachery by which poor Molly’s life had been wrecked and ruined, and the strong man shed tears of bitter sorrow and regret.
“I will search the world over that I may find your wife and bring her back to you, if you will say that you forgive her the one deceitful act of wedding you under a false identity!” he exclaimed.
“I would have forgiven her that at first. It was the thought of what she had been to you, and of her treachery to all that rankled most bitterly in my heart,” answered Cecil, agitatedly.
“Mrs. Barry is here. Shall we not tell her of her niece’s treachery?” exclaimed Mrs. Laurens, indignant at the fraud that had been practiced on them all, and remorseful and ashamed at the part she had taken in persecuting Cecil’s wife.
“Can we not spare poor, ambitious Louise?” exclaimed John Keith, almost pleadingly.
The velvet curtains parted, and Mrs. Barry, sterner and grimmer and uglier than ever, stepped inside the room.
“No, you can not spare your wicked wife, JohnKeith! Mrs. Barry has heard all!” she exclaimed, angrily.
At that moment the parlor door opened quickly, and Louise Barry, Dot, Doctor Laurens and his wife, Nina and her husband, Mr. Wentworth, came trooping gayly into the room from some out-door expedition that had flushed their faces, tossed their hair, and made them all very bright and happy.
Mrs. Barry raised her long, bony forefinger and pointed angrily at Louise.
“There, John Keith, is your false wife,” she said grimly. “But she is no longer niece or heiress of mine!”