The next morning, Paul Zalenska rose early. He had not slept well. He was troubled with conflicting emotions, conflicting memories. The wonder and sorrow of it all had been too much even for his youth and health to endure. His mother had won so much from life, he thought—and he so little! He thought of Opal—indeed, when was she ever absent from his thoughts, waking or sleeping?—and the memory of his loss made him frantic. Opal—his darling! Andtheymight have been just as happy as his mother and father had been, but they had let their happiness slip from them! What fools! Oh, what fools they had been! Not to have risked anything—everything—for their happiness! And where was she now? In Paris, in her husband's arms, no doubt, where he could hold her to him, and caress her and kiss her at his own sweet will! God! It was intolerable, unthinkable! And he—Paul, her lover—lying there alone, who would have died a thousand deaths, if that were possible, to save her from such a fate!
At last he forced the thought of his own loss from him, and thought again of his mother. Ah, but her death had been opportune! How glorious to die when life and love had reached their zenith! in the fullness of joy to take one's farewell of the world!
And in the long watches of that wakeful night, he formed the resolution that he put into effect at the first hint of dawn. He would spend one entire day in solitude. He would traverse step by step the primrose paths of his mother's idyllic dream; he would visit every scene, every nook, she and her lover had immortalized in their memories; he would see it all, feel it all—yes,liveit all, and become so impregnated with its witchery that it would shed lustre and glory upon all the bleak years to come. So well had she told her story, so perfect had been its word-painting, he was sure that he would recognize every scene.
He explored the ivy-terrace leading to his mother's room, he walked up and down under the lime trees, and he sat on the bench still in position under the ivy hanging from the balustrade, and looked up wistfully at the windows of the rooms that had been hers. Then he engaged a launch and crossed the lake, and was not satisfied until he had found among the young beeches on the other side what he felt must have been the exact spot where his mother had peeped through the leaves upon her ardent lover, before she knew him. And he roamed about among the trees, feeling a subtle sense of satisfaction in being in the same places that they had been who gave him being, as though the spirits of their two natures must still haunt the spot and leave some trace of their presence even yet. He followed each of the three paths until he had decided to his own satisfaction by which one his mother had escaped from her pursuer, that day, and he laughed a buoyant, boyish laugh at the image it suggested of Verdayne, the misogynist—his stately, staid old Father Paul—actually "running after a woman!" Truly the Boy was putting aside his own sorrow and discontent to-day. He was living in the past, identifying himself with every phase of it, living in imagination the life of these two so dear to him, and rejoicing in their joy. Life had certainly been one sweet song to them, for a brief space, a duet in Paradise, broken up—alas for the Boy!—before it had become the trio it should have developed into, by every law of Nature.
He sought the little village that they had visited before him, and lunched at the same little hotel. He drove out to the little farmhouse where the lovers had had their first revelation of him—their baby—and he wept over the loss of the glorious mother she would have been to him. He even climbed the mountain and looked with her eyes out over the landscape. He was young and strong, and he determined to let nothing escape him—to let no sense of fatigue deter him—but to crowd the day full of memories of her.
The Boy, as his mother had been before him, was enraptured by all that he saw. The beauty of the snow-capped mountains against the blue of the sky and the golden glamour of the sunshine appealed to him keenly, and he watched the reflection of it all in the crystal lake in a trance of delight.
"Ah," he thought, "had they deliberately searched the world over for a fitting setting for their idyl, they could not have selected a retreat more perfect than this. It was made for lovers who love as they did."
And at last, under the witchery of the star-studded skies, wearied and hungry, but filled and thrilled with the fragrance and glory of the memories of the mother whom his young heart idealized, he left the launch at the landing by the terrace steps and started blithely for the little restaurant, dreaming, always dreaming, not of the future—but of the past.
For him, alas, the future held no promise!
During the Boy's absence that day a new guest had arrived at the little hotel. A capricious American lady, who had come to Lucerne, "for a day or two's rest," she said, before proceeding to Paris where an impatient Count awaited her and his wedding-day.
Yes, Opal was actually in Lucerne, and the suite of rooms once occupied by the mysterious Madame Zalenska were now given over to the little lady from over the seas, who, in spite of her diminutive stature, contrived to impress everybody with a sense of her own importance. She had just received a letter from her fiancé, an unusually impatient communication, even from him. He was anxious, he said, for her and his long-delayed honeymoon. Honeymoon! God help her! Her soul recoiled in horror from the hideous prospect. Only two days more, she thought, pressing her lips tightly together. Oh, the horror of it! She dared not think of it, or she would go mad! But she would not falter. She had told herself that she was now resigned. She was going to defeat Fate after all!
She had partaken of her dinner, and was standing behind the ivy that draped the little balcony, watching the moon in its setting of Swiss skies and mystic landscape. How white and calm and spotless it appeared! It was not a man's face she saw there—but that of a woman—the face of a nun in its saintly, virgin purity, suggesting only sweet inspiring thoughts of the glory of fidelity to duty, of the comfort and peace and rest that come of renunciation.
Opal clasped her hands together with a thrill of exultation at her own victory over the love and longings that were never to be fulfilled. A song of prayer and thanksgiving echoed in her heart over the thought that she had been strong enough to do her duty and bear the cross that life had so early laid upon her shoulders. She felt so good—so true—so pure—so strong tonight. She would make her life, she thought—her life that could know no personal love—abound in love for all the world, and be to all it touched a living, breathing benediction.
As she gazed she suddenly noticed a lighted launch on the little lake, and an inexplicable prescience disturbed the calm of her musings. She watched, with an intensity she could not have explained, the gradual approach of the little craft. What did that boat, or its passenger, matter to her that she should feel such an acute interest in its movements? Yet something told her it did matter much, and though she laughed at her superstition, nevertheless her heart listened to it, and dared not gainsay its insistent whisper.
A young man, straight and tall and lithe, bounded from the launch and mounted the terrace steps. She saw his clean-cut profile, his well-groomed appearance, which even in the moonlight was plainly evident. She noted the regal bearing of his well-knit figure, and she caught the delicious aroma of the particular brand of cigar Paul always smoked, as he passed beneath the balcony where she stood.
She turned in very terror and fled to her rooms, pulling the curtains closer. She shrank like a frightened child upon the couch, her face white and drawn with fear—of what, she did not know.
After a time—long, terrible hours, it seemed to her—she parted the curtains with tremulous fingers and looked out again at the sky, and shuddered. The virgin nun-face had mysteriously changed—the moon that had looked so pure and spotless was now blood-red with passion.
Opal crept back, pulling the curtains together again, and threw herself face downward upon the couch. God help her!
Paul Zalenska lingered long over his dinner that night. He was tired and thoughtful. And he enjoyed sitting at that little table where his father perhaps sat the night he had first seen her who became his love.
And Paul pictured to himself that first meeting. He tried to imagine that he was Paul Verdayne, and that shortly his lady would come in with her stately tread, and take her seat, and be waited upon by her elderly attendant. Perhaps she would look at him through those long dark lashes with eyes that seemed not to see. But there was no special table, to-night, and the Boy felt that the picture was woefully incomplete—that he had been left out of the scheme of things entirely.
After finishing his meal, he went out, as his father had done, out under the stars and sat on the little bench under the ivy, and smoked a cigar. He felt a curious thrill of excitement, quite out of keeping with his loneliness. Was it just the memory of that old love-story that had stirred his blood? Why did his pulse leap, his blood race through his veins like this, his heart rise to his throat and hammer there so fiercely, so strangely. Only one influence in all the world had ever done this to him—only one influence—one woman—and she was miles and miles away!
Suddenly, impelled by some force beyond his power of resistance—a sense of someone's gaze fixed upon him, he raised his eyes to the ivy above him. There, faint and indistinct in the shadow of the leaves, but quite unmistakable, he saw the white, frightened face of the girl he loved, her luminous eyes looking straight down into his.
He sprang to his feet, and pulled himself up by the ivy to the level of the terrace, but she had vanished and the watching stars danced mockingly overhead. Was he dreaming? Had that strange old love-story taken away from him the last remaining shred of sanity? Surely he hadn't seen Opal! She was in Paris—damn it!—and he clenched his teeth at the thought—certainly not at Lucerne!
He looked at the windows of that enchanted room. All was darkness and silence. Cursing himself for a madman, he strode into the hall and examined the Visitors' List. Suddenly the blood leaped to his face—his head reeled—his heart beat to suffocation. He was not dreaming, for there, as plainly as words could be written, was the entry:
Miss Ledoux and maid, New Orleans, U. S. A.
She was there—in Lucerne!—his Opal!
How Paul reached his room, he never knew. He was in an ecstasy—his young blood surging through his veins in response to the leap of the seething passions within.
Have you never felt it, Reader? If you have not, you had better lay aside this book, for you will never, never understand what followed—whatmustfollow, in the very nature of human hearts.
Fate once more had placed happiness in his grasp—should he fling it from him? Never! never again! He remembered his mother and her great love, as she had bade him.
This day, following as it did his mother's letter, had been a revelation to him of the possibilities of life, and of his own capacity for enjoying it. In one week, only one week more, he must take upon his shoulders the burdens of a kingdom. Should he let a mistaken sense of right and duty defraud him a second time? Was this barrier—which a stronger or a weaker man would have brushed aside without a second thought—to wreck his life, and Opal's? He laughed exultingly. His whole soul was on fire, his whole body aflame.
Beyond the formality of the betrothal, Opal had not yet been bound to the Count. She was not his—yet! She could not be Paul's wife—Fate had made that forever impossible—but she should behis, as he knew she already was at heart.
They loved, and was not love—everything!
He paced the floor in an excitement beyond his control. Opal should give him, out of her life, one day—one day in the little hotel on the Bürgenstock, where his mother and her lover had been so happy. They, too, should be happy—as happy as two mating birds in a new-built nest—for one day they would forget all yesterdays and all to-morrows. He would make that one day as glorious and shadowless for her as a day could possibly be made—one day in which to forget that the world was gray—- one day which should live in their memories throughout all the years to come as the one ray of sunshine in two bleak and dreary lives!
And tempted, as he admitted to himself, quite beyond all reason, he swore by all that he held sacred to risk everything—brave everything—for the sake of living one day in Paradise.
"We have a right to be happy," he said. "Everyone has a right to be happy, and we have done no wrong to the world. Why should we two, who have the capability of making so much of our lives and doing so much for the world, as we might have, together—why should we be sentenced to the misery of mere existence, while men and women far less worthy of happiness enjoy life in its utmost ecstasy?"
One thing he was firmly resolved upon. Opal should not know his real rank. She should give herself to Paul Zalenska, the man—not to Paul the Prince! His rank should gloss over nothing—nothing—and for all she knew now to the contrary, her future rank as Countess de Roannes was superior to his own.
And then as silence fell about the little hotel, unbroken save by some strolling musicians in the square near at hand who sent the most tender of Swiss love-melodies out upon the evening air, Paul walked out to the terrace, passed through the little gate, and reaching the balcony, knocked gently but imperatively upon the door of the room that was once his mother's.
The door was opened cautiously.
Paul stepped inside, and closed it softly behind him.
In the moonlit room, Paul and Opal faced each other in a silence heavy with emotion.
It had been months since they parted, yet for some moments neither spoke. Opal first found her voice.
"Paul! You-saw me!"
"I felt your eyes!"
"Oh, why did I come!"
Opal had begun to prepare for the night and had thrown about her shoulders a loose robe of crimson silk. Her lustrous hair, like waves of burnished copper, hung below her waist in beautiful confusion. With trembling fingers she attempted to secure it.
"Your hair is wonderful, Opal! Please leave it as it is," Paul said softly. And, curiously enough, she obeyed in silence.
"Paul," she said at last, with a little nervous laugh, as she recovered her self-possession and seated herself on the couch, "don't stand staring at me! I'm not a tragedy queen! You're too melodramatic. Sit down and tell me why you've come here at this hour."
Paul obeyed mechanically, his gaze still upon her. She shrank from the expression of his eyes—it was the old tiger-look again!
"I came because I had to, Opal. I could not have done otherwise. I have something to tell you."
"Something to tell me?" she repeated.
"Yes. The most interesting story in the world to me, Opal—a letter from my mother—a letter to me alone, which I can share with only one woman in the world—the woman I love!"
Her eyes fell. As she raised her hand abstractedly to adjust the curtain, Paul saw the flash of her betrothal ring. He caught her hand in his and quietly slipped the ring from her finger. She seized the jewel with her free hand and tried to thrust it into her bosom.
"No! no!—not there!" he remonstrated, and was not satisfied until she had crossed the room and hidden it from his sight.
"Does that please your majesty?" she asked, with a curious little tremble in her voice.
Paul started, and stared at her with a world of wonder in his eyes. Could she know?
"Your majesty—" he stammered.
"Why not?" she laughed. "You speak as though you had but to command to be obeyed."
"Forgive me, dear," he answered softly.
And Opal became her sympathetic self again.
"Tell me about your mother, Paul," she said.
And Paul, beginning at the very beginning, told her the whole story as it had been told to him, reading much of his mother's letter to her, reserving only such portions of it as would reveal the identity he was determined to keep secret until she was his. The girl was moved to the depths of her nature by the beauty and pathos of it all, and then the thought came to her, "This, then, is Paul's heritage—his birthright! He, like me, is doomed!"
And her heart ached for him—and for herself!
But Paul did not give her long to muse. Sitting down beside her for the first time, he told her the plan he had been turning over in his mind for their one day together.
"Surely," he said, "it is not too much to ask out of a lifetime of misery—one little day of bliss! Just one day in which there shall be no yesterday, and no to-morrow—one day of Elysium against years of Purgatory! Let us have our idyl, dear, as my mother and father had theirs—even though it must be as brief as a butterfly's existence, let us not deny ourselves that much. I ask only one day!
"You love me, Opal. I love you. You are, of all the world of women, my chosen one, as I—no, don't shake your head, for you can't honestly deny it—am yours! We know we must soon part forever. Won't it be easier for both of us—both, I say—if for but one day, we can give to each other all! Won't all our lives be better for the memory of one perfect day? Think, Opal—to take out of all eternity just a few hours—and yet out of those few hours may be born sufficient courage for all the life to come! Don't you see? Can't you? Oh, I can't argue—I can't reason! I only want you to be mine—all mine—yes, if only for a few hours—all mine!"
"Paul, you are mad," she began, but he would not listen.
"Just one day," he pleaded—"no yesterday, and no to-morrow!"
He looked at her tenderly.
"Opal, it simply has to be—it's Fate! If it wasn't meant to be, why have we met here like this? Do you think we two are mere toys in the grip of circumstances? Or do you believe the gods have crossed our paths again just to tantalize us? Is that why we are here, Opal, you and I—together?"
"Why, I came to rest—to see Lucerne! Most tourists come to Lucerne! It's a—pretty—place—very!" she responded, lamely.
"Well, then, account for the rest of it. Why didIcome?—and at the same time?—and find you here in my mother's room? Simply a coincidence? Answer me that! Chance plays strange freaks sometimes, I'll admit, but Fate is a little more than mere chance. Why did I hear your voice, that time? Why did I see you, and follow? Why did we find ourselves so near akin—so strangely, so irresistibly drawn to each other? Answer me, Opal! Why was it, if we weren't created to be—one?"
After a moment of waiting he said, "Listen to the music, Opal! Only listen! Doesn't it remind you of dreams and visions—of fairyland, of happiness, and—love?"
But she could not answer.
At last she said slowly, "Oh, it's too late, Paul—too late!"
"Too late?" he echoed. "It's never too late to take the good the gods send! Never, while love lasts!"
"But the Count, Paul—and your fiancée! Think, Paul, think!"
"I can't think! What does the Count matter, Opal! Nothing—nothing makes any difference when you are face to face with destiny and your soul-mate calls! It has to be—it has to be!—can't you—won't you—see it?"
"God help all poor souls lost in the dark!" She did see it. It stared her relentlessly in the face and tugged mercilessly at her heart with fingers of red-hot steel! She covered her face with her hands, but she could not shut out the terrible image of advancing Death that held for her all the charm of a serpent's eye. She struggled, as virgin woman has always struggled. But in her heart she knew that she would yield. What was her weak woman's nature after all, when pitted against the strength of the man she loved!
"Oh, I was feeling so pure—so good—so true—to-night! Are there not thousands of beautiful women in the world who might be yours for the asking? Could you not let the poor Count have his wife and his honeymoon in peace?"
Honeymoon! She shuddered at the thought.
"Sweetheart," he whispered, "by every God-made law of Nature you are mine—mine—mine! What care we for the foolish, man-made conventions of this or any other land? There is only one law in the universe—the divine right of the individual to choose for himself his mate!"
Then his whisper became softer—more enticing—more resistless in its passionate appeal.
He was pleading with his whole soul—this prince who with one word could command the unquestioning obedience of a kingdom! But the woman in his arms did not know that, and it would have made no difference if she had! In that supreme moment it was only man and woman.
Opal gazed in amazement at this revelation of a new Paul. How splendid he was! What a king among all the men she knew! What a god in his manhood's glory!—a god to make the hearts of better and wiser women than she ache—and break—with longing! Her hand stole to her heart to still the fury of its beating.
"Opal," he breathed, "I have wanted you ever since that mad moment in gray old London when I first caught the lure in your glorious eyes—do you remember, sweetheart? I know you are mine—and you know it—girl!
His voice sank lower and lower, growing more and more intense with suppressed passion. Opal was held spellbound by the subtle charm of his languorous eyes. She wanted to cry out, but she could not speak—she could not think—the spell of his fascination overpowered her.
She felt her eyes grow humid. Her heart seemed to struggle upward, till it caught in her throat like a huge lump of molten lead and threatened to choke her with its wild, hot pulsations.
"I love you, Opal! I love you! and I want you! God! how I want you!" Paul stammered on, with a catch in his boyish voice it made her heart leap to hear. "I want your eyes, Opal—your hair—your lips—your glorious self! I want you as man never wanted woman before!"
He paused, dazed by his own passion, maddened by her lack of response—blinded by a mist of fire that made his senses swim and his brain reel, and crazed by the throbbing of the pulse that cried out from every vein in his body with the world-old elemental call. Was she going to close the gates of Paradise in his very face and in the very hour of his triumph rob him of the one day—his little day?
It was too much.
More overwhelmed by her lack of response than by any words she could have uttered, Paul hesitated. Then, speech failing him, half-dazed, he stumbled toward the door.
"Paul!... Paul!"
He heard her call as one in dreamland catches the far-off summons of earth's realities. He turned. She stretched out her arms to him—those round, white arms.
"I understand you, Paul! I do understand." She threw her arms around his neck and drew his face down to hers. "Yes, I love you, Paul, I love you! Do you hear, I love you! I am yours—utterly—heart, mind, soul, and body! Don't you know that I am yours?"
She was in his arms now, weeping strange, hot tears of joy, her heart throbbing fiercely against his own.
"Paul—Paul—I am mad, I think!—we are both mad, you and I!"
And as their lips at last met in one long, soul-maddening kiss, and the intoxication of the senses stole over them, she murmured in the fullness of her surrender, "Take me! Crush me! Kiss me! My love—my love!"
The morning dawned. The morning of their one day.
Nature had done her best for them and made it all that a May day should be. There was not one tint, nor tone, nor bit of fragrance lacking. Silver-throated birds flooded the world with songs of love. The very air seemed full of beauty and passion and the glory and joy of life in the dawn of its fullness.
Their arrangements had been hasty, but complete. Paul had stolen away from Lucerne in the middle of the night, to be ready to welcome his darling at the-first break of the morning; and it was at a delightfully early hour that they met at the little hotel on the Bürgenstock where his mother's love-dream had waxed to its idyllic perfection, one-and-twenty years ago. They sat on the balcony and ate their simple breakfast, looking down to where the reflection of the snow-crowned mountains trembled in the limpid lake.
Opal had never before looked so lovely, he thought. She was gowned in the simplest fashion in purest white, as a bride should be, her glorious hair arranged in a loose, girlish knot, while her lustrous eyes were cast down, shyly, and her cheeks were flushed—flushed with the revelations and memories of the night just passed—flushed with the promise of the day just dawning—flushed with love, with slumbering, smouldering passion—with wifehood!
How completely she was his when she had once surrendered!
In their first kiss of greeting, they bridged over, in one ecstatic moment, the hours of their brief separation. When he finally withdrew his lips from hers, with a deep sigh of momentary satisfaction, she looked up into his eyes with something of the old, capricious mischief dancing in her own.
"Let us make the most of our day, darling, our one day!" she said. "We must not waste a single minute of it."
Opal had stolen away from Lucerne and had come up the mountain absolutely unattended. She would share her secret with no one, she said, and Paul had acquiesced. And now he took her up in his arms as one would carry a little child, and bore her off to the suite he had engaged for them. What a bit of a thing she was to wield such an influence over a man's whole life!
A pert little French maid waited upon them. She eyed with great favor thedistinguéyoung monsieur, and hischarmante épouse!There was a knowing twinkle in her eye—she had not been afemme de chambreeven a little while without learning to scent alune de miel!And this promised to be especiallypiquante. But Paul would have none of her, and she tripped away disappointed of her coveteddivertissement.
Paul was very jealous and exacting and even domineering this morning, and would permit no intrusion. He would take care of madame, he had informed the girl, and when she had taken herself away, he repeated it emphatically. Opal was his little girl, he said, and he was going to pet and coddle her himself.Femme de chambreindeed! Wasn't he worth a dozen of the impertinent French minxes! Wanted to coquette with him, most likely—thought he might be ready to yawn over madame's charms! She could keep her pretty ankles out of his sight—he wasn't interested in them!
How Paul thrilled at the touch of everything Opal wore! Soft delicious things they were, and he handled them with an awkward reverence that brought tears to her eyes. They spoke a strange, shy language of their own—these little, filmy bits of fine linen.
Oh, but it was good, thought Opal, to be taken care of like this!—to be on these familiar terms with the Boy she loved—to give him the right to love her and do these little things, so sacred in a woman's life. And to Paul it meant more than even she guessed. It was such a new world to him. He felt that he was treading on holy ground, and, for the moment, was half-afraid.
And thus began their one day—the one day that was to know no yesterday, and no tomorrow!
They found it hard to remember that part of it at all times. He would grow reminiscent for an instant, and begin, "Do you remember—" and she would catch him up quickly with a whispered, "No yesterday, Paul!" And again, it would be his turn, for a troubled look would cloud the joy of her eyes, and she would start to say, "What shall I do—" or "When I go to Paris—" and Paul would snatch her to his heart and remind her that there was "No tomorrow!"
All the forenoon she lay in his arms, crying out with little inarticulate gurgles of joy under his caresses, lavishing a whole lifetime's concentrated emotion upon him in a ferocity of passion that seemed quenchless.
And Paul was in the seventh heaven—mad with love! He was learning that there were tones in that glorious voice that he had never heard before, depths in those eyes that he had never fathomed—and those tones, those depths, were all for him, for him alone—aye, had been waiting there through all eternity for his awakening touch.
"Opal," he said, earnestly, "perhaps it was here—on this very spot, it may be, who knows—that my mother gave herself to my father!
But she could only smile at him through fast-gathering tears—strange tears of mingled joy and wonder and pain.
And he covered her face, her neck, her shoulders with burning kisses, and cried out in an ecstasy of bliss, "Oh, my love! My life!"
And thus the morning hours died away.
And behold, it was noon!
The day and their love stood still together. The glamour of the day, the resistless force of their masterful love that seemed to them so unlike all other loves of which they had ever heard or dreamed, held them in a transport of delight that could only manifest itself in strange, bitter-sweet caresses, in incoherent murmurings.
This, then, was love! Aye, this was Love!
The thoughts of the two returned with a tender, persistent recollection to the love-tale of the past—the delicious idyl of love that had given birth to this boy. Here, even here, had been spent those three maddest and gladdest of weeks—that dream of an ideal love realized in its fullness, as it is given to few to realize.
Yes, that was Love!
It was youth eternal—youth and fire, power and passion.
It was May! May!
It was mid-afternoon before they awakened, to look into each other's eyes with a new understanding. Surely never since the world began had two souls loved each other as did these!
And what should they do with the afternoon? Such a little while remained for them—such a little while!
Paul drew out his mother's letter, and together they read it, understanding now, as they had not been able to understand before, its whole wonderful significance.
When they read of the first dawn of the hope of parentage in the hearts of these long-ago lovers, their eyes met, heavy with the wistfulness of renunciation. That consolation, alas! was not for them. Only the joy of loving could ever be theirs.
And then, drawing out the other letters that had accompanied his mother's, Paul revealed to his darling the whole mystery of his identity.
At first she was startled—almost appalled—at the thought that she had given herself to a Prince of the Purple—a real king of a real kingdom—and for a moment felt a strange awe of him.
But Paul, reading her unspoken thought in her eyes, with that sweet clairvoyance that had always existed between them, soothed and petted and caressed her till the smiles returned to her face and she nestled in his arms, once more happy and content.
She was the queen of his soul, he told her, whoever might wear the crown and bear the title before the world. Then, very carefully, lest he should wound her, he told her the whole story of the Princess Elodie.
Opal moved across the room and stood drumming idly by the long, open window. He watched her anxiously.
"Paul, did you go to see her as you promised—and is she ...pretty?"
"She is a cow!"
"Paul!" Opal laughed at his tone.
"Oh, but she is! Fancy loving a cow!"
Opal's heart grew heavy with a great pity for this poor, unfortunate royal lady who was to be Paul's wife—the mother of his children—but never, never his Love!
"But, Paul, you'll be good to her, won't you? I know you will! You couldn't be unkind to any living thing."
And she ran into his arms, and clasped his neck tight! And the poor Princess Elodie was again forgotten!
"You—Opal—are my real wife," Paul assured her, "the one love of my soul, the mate the gods have formed for me—my own forever!"
Opal wept for pity of him, and for herself, but she faced the future bravely. She would always be his guiding star, to beckon him upward!
"And, Opal, my darling," Paul went on, "I promise you to live henceforth a life of which you shall be proud. I will be brave and true and noble and great and pure—to prove my gratitude to the gods for giving me this one day—for giving me you, dearest—and your love—your wonderful love! Iwillbe worthy, dear—I will! I'll be your knight—your Launcelot—and you shall be my Guenevere! I will always wear your colors in my heart, dear—the red-brown of your hair, the glorious hazel of your eyes, the flush of your soft cheek, the rose of your sweet lips, the virgin whiteness of your soul!"
Opal looked at him with eyes brimming with pride. Young as he was, he was indeed every inch a king.
And she had crowned him king of her heart and soul and life before she had known! Oh, the wonder of it!—the strange, sweet wonder of it!He, who might have loved and mated where he would, had chosen her to be his love! She could not realize it. It was almost beyond belief, she thought, that she—plain little Opal Ledoux—could stir such a nature as his to such a depth as she knew she had stirred it.
Ah, the gods had been good to her! They had sent her the Prince Charming, and he had wakened her with his kiss—that first kiss—how well she remembered it—and how utterly she belonged to him!
Then she remembered that, however much they tried to deceive themselves, there was a to-morrow—a to-morrow that would surely come—a to-morrow in which they would not belong to each other at all. He would belong to the world. She would belong to a—
She sprang up at the recollection, and drew the curtains of the window closer together.
"We will shut out the cold, inquisitive, prying old world," she said. "It shall not look, shall not listen! It is a hard, cruel world, my Paul. It would say that I must not put my arms around your neck—like this—must not lay my cheek against yours—so—must not let my heart feel the wild throbbing of yours—and why? Because I do not wear your ring, Paul—that's all!"
She held up her white hand for his inspection, and surveyed it critically.
"See, Paul—there is no glittering, golden fetter to hold me to you with the power of an iron band, and so I must not—let you hold me to you at all"
They both laughed merrily, and then Paul, pulling her down on his knee and holding her face against his own, whispered, "What care we for the old world? It is as sad and mad and bad as we are—if we only knew! And who knows how much worse? It has petty bickerings, damning lies of spite and malice, trickery and thievery and corruption on its conscience. Let the little people of the world prate of their little things! We are free, dearest—and we defy it, don't we? Our ideals are never lost. And ideals are the life of love. Is love—a love like ours—a murderer of life?"
"Sometimes, Paul—sometimes! I fear it—I do fear it!"
"Never fear, Opal, my beloved! You need not fear anything—anywhere! I will stand between you and the world, dear—between you and hell itself! My God, girl, how I love you! Opal! My Opal! My heart aches with the immensity of it! Come, my love, my queen, my treasure, come! We have not many more hours to—live! And I want you close, close—all mine! Ah, Opal, we are masters of life and death! All earth, all heaven, and—hell itself, cannot take you from me now!"
Oh, if scone moments in life could only be eternal!
And the day—died!
The sun sank beneath the western horizon; the moon cast her silvery sheen over the weary world; the twinkling stars appeared in the jewelled diadem of night; and the silence of evening settled over mountain and lake and swaying tree, while the two who had dared all things for the sake of this one day, looked into each other's eyes now with a sudden realization of the end.
They had not allowed themselves once to think of the hour of separation.
And now it was upon them! And they were not ready to part.
"How do people say good-by forever, Paul?—people who love as we love? How do they say it, dear? Tell me!"
"But it is not forever, Opal. Don't you know that you will always be part of my life—my soul-life, which is the only true one—its sanctifying inspiration? You must not forget that—never, never!"
"No, I won't forget it, my King!" She delighted in giving him his title now. "That satisfaction I will hold to as long as I live!"
"But, Opal, am I never to see you?—never? Surely we may meet sometimes—rarely, of course, at long intervals, when life grows gray and gloomy, and I am starving for one ray of the sunshine of your smile?"
"It would be dangerous, Paul, for both of us!"
"But the world is only a little place after all, beloved. We shall be thrown together again by Fate—as we have been this time."
Then she smiled at him archly. "Ah, Paul, I know you so well! Your eyes are saying that you will often manage to see me 'by chance'—but you must not, dear, you must not"
"Girl, I can never forget one word you have uttered, one caress you have given—one tone of your voice—one smile of your lips—one glance of your eye—never, never in God's world!"
"Hold me closer, Paul, and teach me to be brave!"
They clung together in an agony too poignant for words, too mighty for tears! And of the unutterable madness and anguish of those last bitter kisses of farewell, no mortal pen can write!
But theirs had been from the beginning a mad love—a mad, hopeless, fatal love—and it could bring neither of them happiness nor peace—nothing but the bitterness of eternal regret!
And thus the day—their one day of life—came to an end!
That evening, from the hotel at Lucerne, two telegrams flashed over the wires. One was addressed to the Count de Roannes, Paris, and read as follows:
"Shall reach Paris Monday afternoon.—Opal."
The other was addressed to Sir Paul Verdayne, at Venice, and was not signed at all, saying simply,
"A son awaits his father in Lucerne."
That night a sudden storm swept across Lucerne.
The thunder crashed like the boom of a thousand cannon; like menacing blades the lightning flashed its tongues of savage flame; the winds raved in relentless fury, rocking the giant trees like straws in the majesty of their wrath. Madness reigned in undisputed sovereignty, and the earth cowered and trembled beneath the anger of the threatening heavens.
Opal crouched in her bed, and buried her head in the pillows. She had never before known the meaning of fear, but now she was alone, and the consciousness of guilt was upon her—the acute agony of their separation mingled with the despairing prospect of a long, miserable loveless—yes,shameful,—life as the legal slave of a man she abhorred.
She did not regret the one day she had given to her lover. Whatever the cost, she would never, never regret, she said to herself, for it had been well worth any price that might be required of her. She gloried in it, even now, while the storm raged outside.
And the thunders crashed like the falling of mighty rocks upon the roof over her head. Should she summon Céleste, her maid?
Suddenly, as the tempest paused as if to catch its breath, she heard footsteps in the corridor outside. It was very late—who could be prowling about at this hour? She listened intently, every nerve and sense keenly alert. Nearer and nearer the steps came, and then she remembered with a start that in the excitement of her stealthy return to the hotel and the anguish and madness of their parting, she had forgotten to fasten her door.
There came a light tap on the panel. She did not speak or move—hardly breathed. Then the door opened, noiselessly, cautiously, and he—her lover, her king—entered, the dim light of her room making his form, as it approached, appear of even more than its usual majestic height and power.
"Paul!" she whispered.
He seemed in a strange daze. Had the storm gone to his head and driven him mad?
"Yes, it is I," he said hoarsely. "It is Paul. Don't cry out. See, I am calm!" and he laid his hand on hers. It was burning with fever. "I will not hurt you, Opal!"
Cry out? Hurt her? What did he mean? She had no thought of crying out. Of course he would not hurt her—her lover, her lord, her king! Did she not belong to him—now?
He sat down and took her hands in his.
"Opal," he muttered, "I've been thinking, thinking, thinking, till I feel half-mad—yes, mad! Dearest, I cannot give you up like this—I cannot! Let you go tohisarms—you who have been mine! Oh, Opal, I've pictured it all to myself—seen you in his arms—seen his lips on yours—seen—seen—Can't you imagine what it means to me? It's more than I can stand, dearest! I may be crazy—I believe I am—but wouldn't it be better for you and me to—to—cease forever this mockery of life, and—forget?"
She did not understand him.
"Forget?" she murmured, holding his hand against her cheek, while her free arm pulled his head down to hers. "Forget?"
He pressed his burning lips to her cool neck, and then, after a moment, went on, "Yes, beloved, to forget. Think, Opal, think! To forget all ambition, all restlessness, all disappointment, all longing for what can never be, all pain, all suffering, all thought of responsibility or growth or desire, all success or failure—all life, all death—to forget! to forget! Ah, dearest, one must have loved as we have loved, and lost as we have lost, to wish to—forget!"
"But there is no such respite for us, Paul. We are not the sort who can put memory aside. To live will be to remember!"
"Yes, that is it. To liveisto remember. But why should we live longer? We've lived a lifetime in one day, have we not, sweetheart? What more has life to give us?"
He was calmer now, but it was the calmness of determination.
"Let us die, dear—let us die! Virginius slew his daughter to save her honor. You are more to me than a thousand daughters. You are my wife, Opal!—Opal, my very own!"
His eyes softened again, as the storm outside lulled for a moment.
"My darling, don't be afraid! I will save you from him. I will keep you mine—mine!"
The thunder crashed again, and again the fury leaped to his eyes. He drew from his pocket a curious foreign dagger, engraved with quaint designs, and glittering with encrusted gold. Opal recognized it at once. She had toyed with it the day before, admiring the richness of its material and workmanship.
"She—has been—mine—my wife," he muttered to himself, wildly, disconnectedly, yet with startling distinctness. "She shall never, never lie in his arms!"
He passed his hand across his eyes, as if to brush away a veil.
"Oh, the red! the red! the red! It's blood and fire and hell! It glares in my eyes! It screams in my ears! Bidding me kill! kill!"
He clasped her to him fiercely.
"To see you, after all this—to see you go from me—and know you were going to him—him—while I went ... Oh, beloved! beloved! God never meant that! Surely He never meant that when He created us the creatures that we are!"
She kissed his hot, quivering lips. She had not loved him so much in all their one mad day as she loved him now.
"Paul," she whispered, "beloved!—what would you do?"
There was only a great wonder in her eyes, not the faintest sign of fear. Even in his anguish the Boy noticed that.
"What would I do? Listen, Opal, my darling. Don't you remember, you said it was not life but death—and I said it was both! And it is! it is! I thought I was strong enough to brave hell! Opal—though you are betrothed to the Count de Roannes you aremy wife! And our wedding-journey shall be eternal—through stars, Opal, and worlds—far-off, glimmering worlds—our freed spirits together, always together—together!"
She watched him, fascinated, spell-bound.
"Dear heart, Nature will not repulse us," Paul continued. "She will gather us to her great, warm, peaceful heart, beloved!"
Opal held him close to her breast, almost maternally, with a great longing to soothe and calm his troubled spirit.
"Think," he continued, "of what my poor, unhappy mother said was the cost of love—'Sorrow and death!' We have had the sorrow, God knows! And now for death! Kiss me, dearest, dearest! Kiss me for time and for eternity, Opal, for in life and in death we can never part more!"
She kissed him—obediently, solemnly—and then, holding her to him, drinking in all the love that still shone for him in those eyes that had driven him to desperation, he suddenly plunged the little dagger to its hilt through her heart.
She did not cry out. She did not even shudder. But looking at him with "the light that never was on sea or land" in her still brilliant eyes, she murmured, "In—life—and—in—death ... beloved! beloved!"
And while he whispered between his set lips, "Sleep, my beloved, sleep," her little head dropped back against his arm with a long, peaceful sigh.
He held her form tenderly to his heart, murmuring senseless, meaningless words of comfort and love, like a mother crooning her babe to sleep. And he still clasped her there till the new day peeped through the blinds. And the storm raged at intervals with all the ferocity of unspent passion. Buthispassion was over now, and he laughed a savage laugh of triumph.
No one could take her from him now—no one! His darling was his—his wife—in life and in death!
He laid her down upon the bed and arranged the blankets over her tenderly, hiding the hideous, gaping wound, with its unceasing flow; carefully from sight. He closed her eyes, kissing them as he did so, and folded her little white hands together, and then he pulled out the disarranged lace at her throat and smoothed it mechanically, till it lay quite to his satisfaction. Opal was so fastidious, he thought—so particular about these little niceties of dress. She would like to look well when they found her—dear Heaven!—to-morrow!
"No to-morrow!" he thought. They had spoken more wisely than they knew. There would be no to-morrow for her—nor for him!
There was a tiny spot of blood upon the frill of her sleeve, and he carefully turned it under, out of sight. He looked at the ugly stains upon his own garments with a thrill of satisfaction. She was his! Was it not quite right and proper that her blood should be upon him?
But even then, frenzied as he was, he had a singular care for appearances, a curious regard for detail, and busied himself in removing all signs of his presence from her chamber—all tell-tale traces of the storm of passion that swept away her life—and his! He felt himself already but the ghost of his former self, and laughed a weird, half-mad laugh at the thought as it came to him.
He bent over her again. He would have given much to have lain down beside her and slept his last sleep in her cold, lifeless arms. But no! Even this was denied him!
He wound a tress of her hair about his fingers, and it clung and twined there as her white fingers had been wont to twine. Oh, the pity of her stillness—her silence—who was never still nor silent—never indifferent to his presence! She looked so like a sleeping child in her whiteness and tranquillity, her red-brown hair in disordered waves about her head, her eyes closed in the last long sleep. And he wept as he pressed his burning lips to hers, so cold, so pitifully cold, and for the first time unresponsive. Oh, God, unresponsive forever!
"Poor little girl!" he moaned, between sobs of hopeless pain. "Poor little passionate girl!... Poor little tired Opal!"
And with a dry sob of unutterable anguish, he picked up the dagger—the cruel, kind little dagger—and crept to his own room.
The dagger was still wet with her blood. "Her blood!—Oh, God!-her blood!—hers! All mine in life, and yet never so much mine as now—mine in death!—all mine! mine! And she was not afraid—not the least afraid! Her eyes had room only for her overwhelming love—love—just love, no fear, even that hour when face to face with the Great Mystery. And this was her blood—hers!"
He believed that she had been glad to die. He believed—oh, he was sure, that death in his arms—and from his hand—had been sweeter than life could have been—with that wretch—and always without him—her lover! Yes, she had been glad to die. She had been grateful for her escape! And again the dagger drew his fascinated gaze and wrung from his lips the cry, "Her blood—hers! God in Heaven! Her blood!—hers!"
He put his hand to his head with an inarticulate cry of bewilderment. Then, with one supreme effort, he began to stagger hastily but noiselessly about the room. The servants of the house were already astir, and the day would soon be here. He put his sacred letters carefully away, and destroyed all worthless papers, mechanically, but still methodically.
Then he hastily scribbled a few lines, and laid them beside his letters, for Verdayne would be with him now in a few hours. His father—yes, his own father! How he would like to see him once more—just once more—with the knowledge of their relationship as a closer bond between them—to talk about his mother—his beautiful, queenly mother—and her wonderful, wonderful love! Yet—and he sighed as he thought of his deserted kingdom—after all, all in vain—in vain! It was not to be—all that glory—that triumph! Fate had willed differently. He was obeying the Law!
And his mother would not fail to understand. Verdayne must have loved his mother like this! O God, Love was a fearful thing, he thought, to wreck a life—a terrible thing, even a hideous thing—but in spite of everything it was all that was worth living for—and dying for!
The storm had spent its fury now, and only the steady drip, drip of the rain reminded him of the falling of tears.
"Opal!" he groaned, "Opal!" And he threw himself upon the bed, clasping his dagger in uncontrollable agony. "O life is cruel, hard, bitter! I'll none of it!—we'll none of it, you and I!" His voice grew triumphant in its raving. "It was worth all the cost—even the sorrow and death! But the end has come! Opal! Opal! I am coming, sweet!—coming!"
And the dagger, still red with the blood of his darling, found its unerring way to his own heart; and Paul Zalenska forgot his dreams, his ambitions, his love, his passion, and his despair in the darkness and quiet of eternal sleep.
"Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."