The next morning Carlita was feeling far from well. Her head ached, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She awoke with a sense of utter weariness of living, of the absolute desolation of life. There was a choking sob in her throat with returning consciousness with taking up the thread again and continuing in the old way that fate had marked out for her.
She felt a pity for herself that was not in keeping with her understanding of the situation, but she was too utterly miserable to think of analyzing sensations or emotions. She could fully appreciate the mental condition of the man who seeks oblivion at any cost to himself.
Before she had an opportunity to arise, Jessica entered, and, in her sweet, insidious way, persuaded Carlita that she was in reality ill, a thing which Carlita was by no means loath to believe, and with the tenderest solicitude soothed her into quiet, promising that she herself would attend to the affidavit which was necessary to forward to Stolliker, and that no point should be missing and no time lost.
And poor Carlita allowed herself to be made to believe that she was quite satisfied with the arrangement, and kissed Jessica gratefully that she was willing to undertake so much for her.
She even turned her face from the light and tried to go to sleep again when Jessica had gone upon her mission, but the sleep of the last few hours had been induced only through physical exhaustion. A pair of dark-gray eyes were looking reproachfullyinto her own, and a deep, tender, wistful voice kept repeating:
"I will tell you when I am sure that you love me even as I love you."
And then she heard again all the tones of his voice, all the sweet, pathetic music of that duet from Aïda in the tomb, and gasping, half-hysterical sobs arose in her throat again, and she hid her face in the pillows for very shame as she had shut herself in the darkness the night before.
It was two days after that before she left her room.
Jessica brought her the affidavit before it was sent upon its mission to Stolliker, and she read it with a renewed sinking of the heart, but there was not a word uttered to prevent its going. On the contrary, she was feverishly anxious until it was on its way, even asking Jessica's advice about sending some one with it as messenger instead of intrusting it to the mails.
And then, after those two days, Leith's card was brought to her.
She shrank away from it, and a little cry of torture arose to her lips, but she repressed it bravely and arose, compressing her lips firmly.
"Can I be false to the dead as well as to the oath I have sworn?" she muttered to herself. "It is necessary that I should play this part through, and I will do it! You may trust me to avenge you, Olney, even if I die of self-loathing and contempt!"
"You are not well again!" Leith exclaimed, placing a chair for her as she entered the room. "You have been suffering."
"Only from neuralgia and sleeplessness," she replied, forcing herself to smile. "Insomnia is an old enemy of mine."
"And a most bitter foe," added Leith earnestly. "You need change of air. You ought to take alittle trip abroad. Why don't you ask Mrs. Chalmers to take you? They talked of going a short while ago."
"Perhaps I shall, later on, but not now. I am really not ill; you must not think it."
"You have never been yourself since—since Olney died. Do you know, I have been half afraid sometimes that—that I remind you of him, because—well, you know, because we were such good friends, and because of—of some things I was traitor enough to say to you. I can't keep silent when I am near you, when I see you, and I have no right to speak when you are in this distress—when I know that you do not care for me, and for that reason I have thought it better that I should not see you for awhile. I have come to say good-bye, Carlita."
He had not dared to look at her during the speech lest his courage should fail him, but he had stammered through it like a blind man groping through an unknown world. He had not seen her growing pallor, the expression of dismay, fear, misery—what was it?—that darkened her eyes. He only heard the quiver of her voice, that dear voice whose every intonation was like a throb in his own heart, when she repeated:
"Good-bye!"
Even then he would not look at her; dared not, because of that weak courage, but answered swiftly:
"Yes. It will only be for a time, until I can see you and not blurt out the story of my love at every breath, a story which could not but be hateful to you. But you will let me come back then, will you not? You will still let me be your friend?"
She did not reply, she could not. Stolliker's words were dancing before her excited vision in letters of fire:
"If you lose sight of him, everything will fail."
Was she to keep her oath to her dead lover, or was she to let this man escape? She knew but too well that everything depended upon her.
For one moment her heart cried out madly:
"Why should you sacrifice everything that is womanly and honest in your nature because of your revenge?" And then she understood that she was lying to herself, deceiving her own soul in order to save herself from her own loathing.
And all that time he was standing there staring through the window, thinking of what he was giving up, of the loneliness of life when he should be able to see her no longer, and of the necessity that demanded it. He did not even hear her rise, did not see the awful, strained pallor of her countenance as she approached him, step by step, as if each one were attached with the most ghastly pain, but he did feel the touch of her fingers upon his arm, did hear the sweet tones of her lovely voice, hoarse and dulled as it was:
"It is necessary that you should go—until I—send you?"
He turned and caught her in his arms, pressing kiss after kiss upon her lips; but she beat him back from her, crying out her awful torture wildly:
"Don't! Don't! For the love of God, don't touch me! Can't you see what I am? Don't you understand all the treachery of it? Doesn't something tell you that I am taking advantage of your love to lure you to ruin and death?"
"Carlita! Carlita, what are you saying?"
He had dropped his arms from about her and staggered back, white to the lips.
The sound of her voice seemed to recall her as suddenly as his kisses had driven her mad. She pressed her icy hands over her mouth and groaned.
"I don't know," she moaned. "It is treachery to Olney, I think. It is—"
But he did not allow her to complete the self-accusation.
"Oh, it is only that!" he exclaimed, "he would desire you to be happy. I know him so well, none better. He was so generous, so noble; neither living nor dead would he stand between you and happiness. Listen to me, Carlita, and then if you tell me to go, I will go, and if you tell me to stay, I will stay, God knows how gladly. You are alone in this world, pitifully alone. More alone than if you were in the heart of the forest; for even those by whom you are surrounded are not your friends and are striving to ruin you. I could not remain and witness it. I love you! Love you with the whole strength of my heart and soul! There is nothing I would not do to win you! I know that only a short time has elapsed since the death of your fiancé, but if he could speak, he would tell me to do what I have done, to protect you with my love, to save you from the ruin of both soul and body that threatens you. Carlita is it go, or stay?"
She hesitated only a moment, wondering in her heart which she hated most, herself or him, and then the word came in a gasping whisper:
"Stay!"
He caught her hand, but she shrank back in but too evident torture.
"Not yet!" she cried, breathlessly. "Not yet! It is too soon after—after his death. You would not wish it—yet. Whatever I may feel—oh, surely you understand! And yet—I can not—can not let you—go!"
He actually smiled soothingly.
"And I shall not ask it until you yield it of your own will. Heaven knows I never expected so much, that I am the most undeserving yet the most grateful wretch alive. You have made me the happiest man under the sun, and though youhave forbidden excess of expression, you will not deny me the right of an accepted lover beyond that. Carlita darling, look in my face and read, if you can, the pure and holy joy you have given me."
She glanced at him for only a moment, then passionately covered her eyes with her hands.
"It is almost as—he looked," she groaned.
He smiled again indulgently.
"Poor little hysterical girl," he murmured, tenderly, without touching her, "you will overcome all this in time, but it is enough for me now to know that you love me. Heaven knows it is possession enough for the best of men. You will let me tell Mrs. Chalmers?"
"Oh, no, no, no!" she cried, huskily. "No one at all—yet!"
"As you will about that," he returned, gently, "but at least you must allow me to guide you in some things. You must yield especially in one. No more poker for my affianced wife. And you are that, my darling; let the story be told or remain a secret between us as you will, you are my affianced wife."
Carlita was trembling so that neither affirmation nor protest was possible.
She would have run away, perhaps, and have hidden herself for very shame, but that the ability was denied her. She stared at him helplessly, hopelessly, a wild insane longing to tell him everything taking possession of her; but she shrank from the desire even more than from the lie she was enacting. She hated herself for wishing to be false to her oath, more than for the despicable treachery of her conduct.
It was a curious sensation, and intensified as she found herself thinking how handsome he was, how magnificent in his princely bearing, his grave face lighted with a smile, so tender, so wistful, as to transform his masculine beauty almost to pleading.
She suddenly forgot that he was a murderer, after having that thought uppermost in her mind for weeks, forgot that his hands had taken a life in the most cowardly way that life ever had been taken, and of her own accord she put out her icy fingers and allowed him to clasp them in his warm throbbing palm.
Jessica, through the door-way of the conservatory, saw her, and an expression of fiendish malice left her lips, so illy suppressed as to almost betray her presence there; but both Carlita and Pierrepont were too absorbed to hear.
Leith did not draw her to him—he was too much a gentleman to offer an unwelcome caress—but pressed the little cold hand tenderly.
"You promise, my darling?" he whispered, so gently that Jessica ground her teeth in rage.
"Whatever happens," gasped Carlita, hoarsely, "I will promise you that I will not play again, and I will keep my word as sacredly as if the pledge were made to God!"
The impassioned speech, filled with fierce suffering, reached Jessica, and a cruel smile shot across her mouth.
"Ah, surely, it is a complete revenge!" she muttered, triumphantly. "What more can there be to be desired? Fool—fool! even she does not realize it all—yet!"
"I wish I could tell you how happy you have made me," returned Leith; the quiet joy in his beautiful voice thrilling through Carlita like some sweet strain of exquisite music. "It is not exactly the kind of betrothal which I had hoped for, whichI had prayed for, but I understand how you feel so well, and I am so grateful. The absence from you would have been harder to bear even than death itself, but I would have borne it, rather than have distressed you with my presence. You have saved me that, love, and I think I appreciate the trust you have shown in me a thousand times more even than if you had opened your dear arms to receive me. Would you prefer that I should keep silent for the present, darling, and go on just as we were before, apparently, save that I shall have the precious knowledge of your love in my heart?"
"Yes, oh, yes," she moaned, covering her face with her hands.
"Your will shall be my law," he answered. "But you will not punish me if I forget occasionally and say some word that you had rather would have remained unspoken, will you, sweetheart?"
He could not hear the words that came in stifled whispers through her fingers, but going closer to her side, he passed his hand across her hair caressingly.
"There. You are distressed and upset," he murmured, with infinite tenderness. "I will go now. Tomorrow you will be more yourself, and we will talk the matter over quite calmly together. I can scarcely realize that the dream of my life is to be a reality. I can scarcely credit the fact that this great happiness is mine at last."
He paused and hesitated like a bashful boy, the debonair man of the world grown timid in the presence of this mastering passion, then said in a tone so low that it scarcely reached her:
"Will you not say 'God keep you, Leith,' before I go?"
She could scarcely control the cry that was wrung from her heart. She could not lie with the name of God upon her lips. She was doing evilthat good might come, but she could not go so far as that.
She looked up at him with an anguish which he could not comprehend. Her white lips trembled piteously. Her hands were twisted about each other in a manner which he had never seen before, and for a moment he was frightened. And then he found himself listening intently to her mumbled words, almost inaudible, incoherent:
"Ask nothing of me today, Leith. I can not—say—Oh, my God, have pity upon me, and go!"
She flung out her hands passionately, and he caught them in his tenderly, and pressed his lips upon them.
"Remember," he said, softly, "that my love is as steadfast as the grave. There is no demand you can make which it would not yield. Rest, my love, and have a little pity upon yourself. Your sensitiveness, your conscientiousness is too great, if such God-given gifts can come in superabundance. Little one, go pray to the Blessed Mother to help you and to show you the right way in this trouble, from which I am shut out."
He had been holding her hands in a close, warm clasp, and as his voice ceased he lifted them again and kissed them, without passion, but with the tenderness of incalculable love, and then he passed out, leaving her standing there like some crushed autumn rose.
The accepted lover, the betrothed husband, worshiping at the shrine that had apparently blessed him with the greatest favor that he had ever prayed for, went down the stoop with a sigh upon his lips, instead of the smile of exultant joy, and the girl who had promised herself in marriage sank down upon the floor in the place where he had stood, sobbing in that tearless way that echoes through a broken heart.
It was a long time before Jessica could sufficientlycontrol herself to venture to her side, but when she did she put her arms about the shrinking girl and lifted her as gently as a sister might have done.
"What is it?" she questioned, as if she had not been a witness of that scene. "What has happened to upset you like this, dear one? Has—he been here?"
"Oh, don't touch me!" gasped Carlita, struggling to her feet. "I am the greatest sneak on all God's earth, a greater criminal even than he! I have prostituted the noblest of Heaven's sentiments. I promised to be the wife of a murderer, allowed him to kiss my hands—and all to lure him to ruin and death—to ruin and death! Will not God Himself turn from me in loathing for my treachery? Have I the right to sin that punishment may come to another? Has not He said, 'Vengeance is mine! I will repay?'"
It was with the greatest difficulty that Jessica concealed her hatred and disgust. She stepped back slightly and folded her arms curiously across her breast.
"You should have thought of all that before you began this—investigation," she said, calmly, "before you swore the oath that bound you soul and body to the dead. The laws of your country tell you that murder is punishable with death."
"And yet Christ Himself repealed the old Mosaic law of 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.'"
"I am not going to argue with you on the religious side of your position; I did not even know you considered that at all when you bound yourself to your vengeance of the dead. At all events, you have gone too far now to withdraw from the stand you have taken. The affidavit of an eye-witness of his crime has gone on its mission to your own detective. In a fortnight at most, he will be herewith the papers of extradition which you yourself have ordered"—watching her victim shiver with a delight that was fiendish. "You have even notified him that no expense was to be spared in the punishment of the criminal, and I don't see how it will be possible for you to withdraw from the position now."
"And you think it is right?" she groaned. "You do not think that I have sinned beyond pardon?"
"I think you would sin beyond pardon if you were to allow the murderer of your betrothed husband to escape!" exclaimed Jessica, speaking the words in a curious, sibilant way that gave them a horribly discordant sound. "Do you know what you would force the world to believe—for matters have gone too far now for concealment from the world?"
"No; what?"
"Remember, you compel me to do this. I would spare you if I could."
"Go on!"
"You would force the world to believe that you allowed the murderer of your affianced husband to escape—because of a guilty passion—because you had fallen in love with him."
Not a sound escaped Carlita. She drew herself up, and a fierce pang like death shot through her heart and eyes. Even then she did not realize the full force of the awful truth that had been so cruelly thrust before her.
She looked Jessica straight in the eye for one moment, then said, stonily:
"It is enough! The world shall not say that, for Olney's sake! I will see the ghastly play through to the bitter end!"
Then she turned and walked out of the room as steadily as if she had not been bent and broken with grief less than ten minutes before.
Jessica watched her go, allowing her scornful smile full play as she realized that she was alone.
"That shot told in more ways than one," she said, sneeringly. "I think her suffering will be all that even I could desire. Was ever vengeance so perfect and complete as mine?"
Carlita was sleeping fitfully.
The morning had broken brilliant and balmly, as an indolent day in idle spring, with the usual inaccuracy of our unstable climate. Through the neglected slats of her shutters the sun crept in delicious defiance, and after a time awakened her. She arose and opened the shutters wide, then lay back upon the bed, her arms stretched out like those of an infant in his idle longing to clasp the golden beam. She had forgotten the old ache in her heart for the time, but life was suddenly recalled to her by the gentle opening of her door and the entrance of her maid.
"Good-morning, Ahbel," she exclaimed, lazily. "Is the morning as glorious as it looks, or is poor humanity deceived by the brilliancy of the sun?"
"It is like a perfect day in summer," answered the maid; "it is even more beautiful than it looks. Here is a letter for you. It is so early that I feared to bring it lest I should disturb you; but the messenger is waiting, and insisted that you should receive it at once. There is also one for Miss Chalmers."
Carlita raised herself upon her pillow and took it, an expression of interest in her dark eyes. She broke the seal, and as the first words met her eye, would have flung it from her but for the presenceof her maid. As it was, she compressed her lips angrily, and read it calmly:
"Darling Carlita: I arose with the lark this morning, my breast too small a space for the confinement of my great joy, and find the day so superb that I have planned a little excursion in which I know you will be interested. You have never seen my yacht, the 'Eolus.' I have her now at the yacht club pier at the foot of Twenty-sixth Street—ordered out of winter quarters for the trip I expected to take, but will not, thank Heaven!—where she is rocking in the gentlest breeze of the year, longing to welcome the presence of her sweet mistress. Won't you come out for a little cruise? It will be indescribably beautiful today. I have written to Jessica, asking her and Mrs. Chalmers, and shall find Redfield Ash or Dudley Maltby, and perhaps Colonel Washburn for Mrs. Chalmers, if you will only consent. Of course you can come back any time that you may get tired of it, if you are not a good sailor; but I assure you that the day is too fine for danger frommal de mer, even if you are the worst on record. Don't disappoint me, darling. If you consent, I will send up for you at ten-thirty, so that you can be at the pier at eleven, sharp. It will be impossible for me to come myself, as there will be considerable that will require my attention. The bay is magnificent. Anticipating a day of elysium,"Yours faithfully unto death,"Leith."
"Darling Carlita: I arose with the lark this morning, my breast too small a space for the confinement of my great joy, and find the day so superb that I have planned a little excursion in which I know you will be interested. You have never seen my yacht, the 'Eolus.' I have her now at the yacht club pier at the foot of Twenty-sixth Street—ordered out of winter quarters for the trip I expected to take, but will not, thank Heaven!—where she is rocking in the gentlest breeze of the year, longing to welcome the presence of her sweet mistress. Won't you come out for a little cruise? It will be indescribably beautiful today. I have written to Jessica, asking her and Mrs. Chalmers, and shall find Redfield Ash or Dudley Maltby, and perhaps Colonel Washburn for Mrs. Chalmers, if you will only consent. Of course you can come back any time that you may get tired of it, if you are not a good sailor; but I assure you that the day is too fine for danger frommal de mer, even if you are the worst on record. Don't disappoint me, darling. If you consent, I will send up for you at ten-thirty, so that you can be at the pier at eleven, sharp. It will be impossible for me to come myself, as there will be considerable that will require my attention. The bay is magnificent. Anticipating a day of elysium,
"Yours faithfully unto death,
"Leith."
The very sight of the name distressed her, bringing back all the horror and suffering, the very mental exhaustion of the evening before. She hated him still more that he had intruded upon her forgetfulness, her happy oblivion of the moment,and sprang from the bed, intending to pen a hasty refusal.
Her escritoire stood in the corner by the window, and as she sat down, the sun streamed through, touching her shoulder with a warmth that was caressing.
She paused, with the pen poised in air, and looked out.
How smilingly beautiful nature was!
She saw the bay, in imagination, smooth as a mirror, scarcely a ripple marring its surface. There were white sails dotted here and there fluttering in the soft breeze. Further off was the brown, beaten shore, in happy contrast with the indolent life upon the water, and over all the golden sun streaming down in unforbidden splendor.
The imaginative picture was too attractive to be resisted.
As she sat there, still hesitating, Jessica came in with her note open in her hand. She had flung a negligee over her night-dress, and while her hair was disheveled, the dancing light in her eyes made her almost beautiful.
"Of course you'll go!" she exclaimed, breathlessly. "Leith says that he has written to you. I have already awakened mamma, and she is getting dressed now. Won't it be delicious? I never saw a finer day in March, and it would be simply sinful not to take advantage of it."
"You think I ought to accept?" asked Carlita, wistfully.
"Think? Great heavens! you hadn't thought of declining?"
"Certainly."
"Then put such madness out of your head at once. Leith Pierrepont has one of the nicest yachts afloat. It isn't the largest, and it isn't the fleetest, but I'll venture to say that none of them can surpassher in luxuriousness. Write your note and accept for all of us."
Carlita hesitated again.
"Oh, I can't!" she exclaimed. "I can't write it. You do it, won't you, dear?"
"Of course, I shan't!" cried Jessica. "You must do it yourself!"
Once more Carlita's eyes wandered out to the sunlight, she who had lived under its scorching rays for the greater part of her life, and loved it, then she turned wearily to her desk and again dipped the pen in ink.
What should she say to him? How begin a note of acceptance to this man? She shivered, and then became conscious that the ink had dried upon her pen again. She thrust it back into the well, realizing that thought would accomplish nothing, in this instance; she must trust to inspiration.
"So charming an invitation could not be refused on a day like this," she wrote, hastily. "I love the sea. Expect us promptly at eleven. I accept for Mrs. Chalmers and Jessica as well as myself. With gratitude for the thought that suggested so delightful an excursion,Carlita."
"So charming an invitation could not be refused on a day like this," she wrote, hastily. "I love the sea. Expect us promptly at eleven. I accept for Mrs. Chalmers and Jessica as well as myself. With gratitude for the thought that suggested so delightful an excursion,
Carlita."
She dispatched it to the messenger, and then the details of costuming was begun, Jessica almost like a child in the delight of anticipation.
And verychicthey looked in their pretty gowns as they stood upon the old pier below the Bellevue Morgue, the breeze almost too light to even wave the skirts of their dresses.
Dudley Maltby, Colonel Washburn and Leith were waiting for them, with the pretty bright dory at the foot of the stairs swaying gently on the water, manned by two sailors in fresh, artistic costume.
"How good of you to come!" exclaimed Leith in a low tone, as he pressed Carlita's hand. "I was soafraid you wouldn't, that it seemed to me the messenger was gone a week. Come, let me put you in the dory. Take care. That step is wet and may be slippery. There is the 'Eolus' lying over there. Doesn't she look proud of the trust I am putting in her today by allowing her to carry so precious a life?"
"She is very—handsome," stammered Carlita.
In spite of the brilliancy of the day, she was wishing with all her heart that she had not come; but as her eye caught sight of the yacht she sighed with a pleasure which she would have been more than human not to feel.
As Jessica had said, she was not so large as some, but to a practiced eye would have appeared about one hundred and seventy-five feet over all, a length that precludes the possibility of cramped quarters for a small party, so trimly built, so dainty and tasteful a little craft, that the most unappreciative could have regarded her with nothing but pleasure.
As Carlita ascended the lowered steps, carpeted gayly in brilliant red Axminster, attended by her careful knight, she saw the fittings of the luxurious deck, great deep chairs, huge broad couches, upholstered with a richness of material that seemed extravagance even in a man of great wealth, with pillows strewn about that were artistic enough to have occupied a place in the most costlyboudoir.
Nor were the saloon, sleeping apartments, drawing-room and library behind in point of attraction, and Carlita clasped her hands in delight as one suite, of unusual beauty, was shown her.
"I am going to have this refitted for you," Leith said, as he bent above her dark head caressingly. "I have in my mind now just what the draperies shall be, worthy of the goddess they will surround."
"It is already fit for a princess!" exclaimed Carlita, forgetting all about the past and the future in her present pleasure.
"But not comparable to what it will be. I am so glad you like it."
"The greatest of Sybarites must necessarily do so."
"Let us go on a long cruise in her for our wedding-trip, will you? Or should you grow tired of so close a companionship with me?"
The question broke the spell again.
Suddenly the atmosphere seemed to grow hot and stifling to her. The smile upon her lips drew to a worn line of suffering and care. She pressed her hand upon her heart and answered faintly:
"Let us get into the air. It is close and—and oppressive. Where are the others?"
He looked at her curiously, wistfully, just a trifle reproachfully, then exclaimed contritely:
"What a selfish brute I am! Always forgetting my promises in the light of my own desire. Forgive me, won't you? I promise not to offend again today. Come. The others have all seen the yacht and are on deck. We will join them. You are quite sure that you have forgiven me?"
She looked up at him with a little smile, but it was very pitiful, so filled with misery that it cut him to the heart. His fingers had wandered toward hers, that rested lightly upon his arm, but they dropped at his side, unable to touch her.
In silence they went up the companion-way and on to the deck.
With as much majestic grandeur as a small craft can exhibit, the "Eolus" steamed down the river and out into the bay.
The water was not quite so smooth as Carlita had pictured it, but rippled and danced in the sunlight, reflecting the opal tints in blinding splendor. Whitesails were dotted here and there over the inviting surface, while along the gray, winter-worn shore the golden rifts were piled up, lending a fictitious beauty that was entrancing.
It would have been sufficient to fill an artist's soul with rapture just to lie idly at full length on one of those superb couches, living in the exquisite loveliness of Dame Nature, and Carlita stood gazing about her in a sort of rapt wonder, her eyes wandering slowly from the superbly appointed deck—with Mrs. Chalmers sitting over next the starboard rail, with old Colonel Washburn bending over her in a cavalier devotion, and Jessica to the port, with Dudley Maltby sitting facing her—to the water, and on down the bay out to where a white line of sand stretched alluringly, sparkling like myriads of scintillating diamonds.
An absolute silence seemed to infold the scene, broken only by the gentle caress of the water upon the sides of the tiny ship—a silence that made it all appear like that mythical experience of Ulysses when he listened to the seductive voices of the sirens. Carlita clasped her hands in breathless delight.
"I will be happy today," she murmured, a trifle hysterically. "I will put all past and future away, and be happy for this one little day as if there had been no yesterday and would be no tomorrow. This day shall encompass time, and I will feel the full joy of living once!"
As if in answer to her, a voice spoke in her ear:
"Come and let me make you comfortable. See, I have placed a couch for you where the sun will shine upon you, but will not be in your eyes, and I have brought some books to read to you. Will you come?"
She turned at once and obeyed, half defying her own sensitiveness in her efforts to yield to that determination to be happy.
It was a broad, long couch, upholstered luxuriouslyin a magnificent dark green that contrasted perfectly with the tones of the sea. She threw herself upon it, allowing her delight almost passionate play in her features, and permitted Leith to pile pillows under and about her in gorgeous profusion; then, when she looked as comfortable as even he could desire, he drew up to her side a very low chair and took a volume out of his pocket.
"Are you fond of Tennyson?" he asked. "If you have a favorite, name it. I believe most of them are in the library."
"Is it Tennyson you have there?"
"Yes."
"I know my favorite so well, let me hear yours. Read me what you like."
She said it so sweetly, so tenderly that he flushed with pleasure. It was so different from her manner of late that it touched him. He might have been still more impressed if he had been able to read that passionate cry in her heart that kept repeating itself over and over again:
"I will be happy for this one little day—I will be happy."
At first she could scarcely hear the sound of his voice for the cry in her own heart, but gradually it ceased under the soothing influence of his tone, and as if in answer to a prayer for mercy, the awful future was shut out completely, pitifully hidden in the idly passing present.
He turned the leaves of the book for a moment, then came to that sweet old poem that has stirred the heart of every lover of Tennyson with sympathy, "Locksley Hall," and read it as only a man with a voice like his can read. When he came to the last line, he thought she was sleeping, she had grown so quiet, so motionless; but after a moment of silence she stirred slightly and said in a low, dreamy tone:
"Do you believe that—that which you read:
"'Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?No; she never loved me truly. Love is love for evermore?'"
"'Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?No; she never loved me truly. Love is love for evermore?'"
He thought he saw the trend of her thoughts, and answered, softly:
"Who can say? We are so often mistaken in the language of our hearts. How should we know, when we listen to it for the first time, whether the love is that of admiration, of sympathy, of the loneliness of our own souls, of the desire to be loved, or of such love as that to which Tennyson refers? When that love comes, Carlita, the 'love that is love for evermore,' the least comprehensive of us will know, will understand, though we may have erred on former occasions."
She did not reply, but lay there silent, motionless, her eyes almost closed, but looking out from under the lids dreamily at the gently changing world, her beautiful hand lying palm upward on one of the sofa pillows like a rose-leaf that has turned toward the sun.
If he had not loved her before, his artistic soul would have loved her then for the very unconscious grace, the poetical charm of her lovely person.
He feared that he had saddened her, and so turned to something in lighter vein, his well-modulated voice making music with the waves.
"What a poem life would be if all the days were like to this," she said when he had finished.
"It would lose its charm through lack of contrast," he returned, smiling. "How glaring the sun would grow if there were no shadow. How dull the water would appear if there were no land beyond. How oppressive the silence would become if the hum of wider, broader, busier life were stilled forever. And, over all, how palsied and colorless would the whole world be if there were nothing beyond, nothing butthe limited stretch of a few brief years, with no hope of the marvelous universe to come, governed by the supreme power of Perfect Love. We have learned something beyond lotus-eating in this kindergarten in which God has placed us, and we love the languid hour of absolute repose, because we have been so long in the schoolroom, learning the lessons which He has set for us, lessons of bitterness and strife, as well as those of contentment and love. Life without contrast would be as dull, as inartistic, as cloying as a picture of sunshine without a shadow, as a poem without a strain of sadness."
Her eyes wandered toward him, seeing all the earnestness of his countenance, all the absolute belief in the future that his words implied. She turned them away again, out over the water, but even there she saw him reflected in her imagination, his yachting cap pushed back, his face flushed, his eyes gravely earnest, as handsome a picture of perfect manhood as the hand of Divinity had ever painted.
Not long afterward they were summoned down to luncheon, a merry meal enjoyed by all; but it was with a sense of relief and rest that Carlita wandered back to her couch again as soon as she could leave the others.
The afternoon was waning. Already a hazy red was beginning to glow in the western sky, that had changed from gold to pink in opalescent splendor. The wind was freshening with the dying sun, and the caress of the waves licked higher upon the dainty craft.
Leith went below and had wraps brought in profusion; but about Carlita he placed them himself, tucking them in carefully that she might not feel the influence of the breeze.
"You will not care to get home too early?" he asked, caressingly. "The moon will be superb, and there will be no roughness to speak of. You will remain a while?"
"I wish it would never end," she returned, dreamily.
He smiled with the delight of a lover, that slow, sweet smile for which she had begun to watch with pleasure.
"You don't know what happiness your words give me when I remember that I have been your only companion," he said softly. "How beautiful you are as you lie there with that crimson glow just touching you! You are a tropical plant, Carlita, and should be grown in a tropical country. Warmth suits you. The bewildering delight of flaming colors make you like some superb bird of plumage. You will love Italy with a sort of savage delight, I fancy. You have never traveled?"
"No."
"What a world of pleasure there is in store for you, what almost rapture! Our own country, while beautiful, has none of the mythological and historical memories that make other countries a constant poem. One gets so weary of the newness and glitter of it all, just as we should have grown of that gorgeous old sun but for this Heaven-sent gloom. There is a greater element of romance in most of us than practical, particularly we who are removed from the sordid compulsion of living-getting. We want to fancy ourselves once in awhile as knights of the olden time, performing deeds of valor for our Helens of Troy. See! The sun is going out. He has illuminated the old brown shore to positive glory with his good-night kiss. Do you remember the sweet old poem of Percy Shelley?"
He leaned forward, with that beautiful smile in his eyes, and repeated it in his musical voice:
"'The fountains mingle with the river,And the rivers with the ocean;The winds of heaven mix forever,With a sweet emotion.Nothing in the world is single;All things, by a law divine,In one another's being mingle—Why not I with thine?"'See! the mountains kiss high heaven,And the waves clasp one another;No sister-flower would be forgivenIf it disdained its brother;And the sunlight clasps the earth,And the moonbeams kiss the sea—What are all these kisses worth,If thou kiss not me?"
"'The fountains mingle with the river,And the rivers with the ocean;The winds of heaven mix forever,With a sweet emotion.Nothing in the world is single;All things, by a law divine,In one another's being mingle—Why not I with thine?
"'See! the mountains kiss high heaven,And the waves clasp one another;No sister-flower would be forgivenIf it disdained its brother;And the sunlight clasps the earth,And the moonbeams kiss the sea—What are all these kisses worth,If thou kiss not me?"
He was looking down at her still with the smile in his eyes, the light of incalculable love, and she was looking up at him, totally unconscious of the expression upon her tremulous lips and in the depths of her beautiful eyes, totally unconscious of the wistful permission that expression contained.
And then suddenly—how, neither he nor she could tell—as the laughter of the others below reached them, he leaned forward and his lips were pressed upon hers, gently, yet lingeringly, lovingly, and then he lifted his head—unrepulsed!
And still Carlita did not move. She lay there staring up at him, as if some intoxicant had got into her veins, paralyzing motion and emotion. She was not conscious of sensation, and yet she saw the light of unutterable happiness in his eyes, and understood it perfectly.
He put out his hand and clasped hers with reverent devotion. His lips moved, and she heard him whisper:
"Thank God! my darling, I know that you are mine at last!"
His lips touched the pink palm as it lay upturned in his, then, with a shiver of returning consciousness she realized that the others were coming upon deck.
She rose swiftly, nervously.
"Let us go back at once—at once!" she exclaimed, hoarsely. "I—I think I am—ill!"
But, for all the assurance of illness, she went hastily toward the others and greeted them with almost hysterical lightness.
Leith looked after her in some surprise, then an indulgent smile flitted over his handsome mouth.
"Poor little girl!" he murmured. "She is trying to be so loyal to Olney, and Heaven knows I admire her for it! Perhaps I should be less generous if I were not so sure that she never loved him. God bless her, my beautiful one!"
He went below and gave the order to the captain, then returned to his guests on deck.
The wind had grown very fresh, with the usual variableness of late March, and they soon found it necessary to go below; but, even there the greater part of their pleasure was over, for the yacht was pitching considerably as the force of the wind and waves increased.
Leith observed that Carlita was nervous almost to the border of hysteria; and to cover her condition from the others, he sat down to the piano and tried to play; but the effort met with no great degree of success, and he turned upon the stool and monopolized the conversation for a time.
He observed, too, that a sort of constrained silence had fallen upon Dudley Maltby, and that he looked toward Jessica with a curious expression, which faltered and fell as her eyes were cast in his direction.
"Halloo!" muttered Leith, below his breath. "Has that poor little devil been getting his wings singed?I wonder what the little Chalmers is up to now? Poor Dud! He is really too good a fellow to get under that domination. I wish to the Lord I had not asked him."
And then before his soliloquy was ended, he heard young Maltby say to her softly:
"Come into the library. There is a book I want to show you."
The look she cast upon him was not lost upon Leith.
"Good heavens!" he muttered. "What has the poor chap done? She's not in love with him, that's certain, but that she has got it in for him for some reason is equally certain."
But he could not follow, even if he had so desired, as Mrs. Chalmers was addressing some questions to him; but he saw Jessica stagger against her young cavalier as the yacht lurched, saw him place his arm about her, and then—they disappeared.
Had he been able to penetrate behind that portière, he might have seen the wretched boy holding her hands in an impassioned clasp, his eyes strained and blood-shot as he gazed into her smiling ones.
"It is utter folly, utter madness," he was saying. "I can't give you up. I tell you I love you. Pouf! How empty the word sounds. I feel like a man drunk with opium in your presence. Jessica, you must be my wife!"
She smiled daintily, charmingly.
"Your wife!" she exclaimed, lightly. "You can't mean that, when you once said that it was as much as a man's reputation was worth to be seen in my box at the opera."
He dropped her hands and flushed crimson.
"How do you know that I did?" he inquired doggedly; then, as he realized that he had practically acknowledged the truth of her statement, he cried passionately: "I was the greatest cad under heaven, and I am willing to give the lie to my words by makingyou my wife in face of all the world. Jessica, I love you! Will you not listen to me?"
"Even if I were willing to forgive you, think of the folly of it all," she said, laughing at his earnestness. "You know the terms of your father's will. You would have less than ten thousand a year if I became your wife."
The poor imbecile did not pause to inquire how she had found that out but cried eagerly:
"But surely that would be enough. It would not be what we have been accustomed to, but with love at the helm, surely we could steer our little craft!"
She laughed aloud lightly, but still not without a certain fascination.
"Oh, Dudley!" she exclaimed, "you are not a nineteenth-century boy at all. You belong to mediæval times, and have been born at least a hundred years too late. Come and let us go back to the others. This yacht is pitching dreadfully. We have quite a sea on, and I am not the best sailor that ever lived, by any means. Oh, I say, come off! You are a magnificent Knight of the Doleful Countenance. Do you want to give away to all those people the nonsense you have been saying to me? Now smile and look happy, like a good boy. Just try to imagine that I have made you every promise you can possibly desire. Who knows but that I may, some day?"
He took heart from her chaff and returned with her to the others, because he felt that he could persuade her to remain no longer.
Leith, Colonel Washburn and Mrs. Chalmers were carrying on a heated discussion, while Carlita sat apart at a table looking listlessly through a book of engravings, not a subject of which could she have told a moment later.
"Do you think we are going down?" asked Jessica, lightly, as she joined them. "It would be too disastrous a termination to our charming day."
"Not much danger, I fancy," replied Leith; "though it has grown too rough to be pleasant. It is rather tempting the fates to venture out at this season."
"Oh, but how perfect the day has been!"
"But for the wind, the evening would have been more so. We shall not be late getting in, however. The captain assures me we shall be at the pier by nine o'clock."
"It will be rather dangerous landing in the dory, won't it?" asked Colonel Washburn, who was old enough to think of his personal comfort above all else.
"The tide will be high enough for us to go up to the pier," replied Leith. "We are due there just about the change."
"That's luck," somebody murmured.
But it seemed to Carlita that the time would never pass. The day had been so short, so piteously short, and those hours of the evening so endless! It seemed to her that she would have given all the world for five minutes alone, and yet she dared not leave them, knowing that Leith would follow her.
Even yet she had not confessed to herself the awful secret that was harrowing her soul, and there before them all she dared not think.
It seemed to her that the happiest moment of her life was when some one announced the fact that they had arrived at the pier, and Leith came to conduct her on shore.
But for the wind, the night would have been magnificent. The moon was full, the cold, white rays glinting over the waves in soft, almost phantom beauty.
Out in the stream were numbers of vessels buffeting the wind and tide, which was at rapid ebb, and on either side the twin cities lay, their lights twinkling like millions of brilliant stars.
Leith stepped upon the pier and lifted Carlita besidehim. Then, as the others would have followed, the shrill scream of a childish voice reached them, swept by the wind from the end of the pier, a cry that sounded like the death-call of some wild bird of the forest:
"Papa! papa! I've waited almost an hour, and mamma is dying! They sent—"
But the end of the sentence was never reached. There was a splash, and then:
"Good God!" exclaimed a man upon the end of the pier. "He's fallen over."
Quicker than thought both Leith and Carlita had dashed forward just in time to see the tiny dark form swept out by the cruel tide, his little head just visible above the crest of the wave.
Singularly enough, none of the men upon the yacht seemed to have heard the scream, and not a hand was extended toward the boats.
And yet there was not an instant to lose.
"The boat; quick, captain!" Leith shouted hoarsely. "A child overboard!"
But the wind seemed to sweep the voice away down the stream instead of toward the lurching craft.
The small head was nothing but a speck now in the moonlight, and then it disappeared altogether.
Before any one could realize it, there was another splash, and Carlita knew the next moment that Leith's coat and vest were lying at her feet, that Leith himself had already gone in pursuit of that drowning child; and then a woman's shriek rose wild and clear upon the night air.
She bent forward eagerly, and distinctly heard the man next her exclaim:
"Take care, lady, or you'll be over next!"
But what cared she?
She was watching the dark head in the moonlight, watching the progress he was making, saw the small speck beyond as it arose again to the surface,and then—who can compute time in instants like that—she knew that Leith had seized the child!
Already he had turned again, and was coming toward the pier, but wind and tide were too strong against him.
An agony of wild, intolerable fear arose in her heart. She knew nothing of what was going on around her, further than the knowledge that centered in the danger of those two, and that, she realized with a horrible anguish that was past all understanding.
She saw him struggling, struggling, saw the white face lifted in the moonlight as if beseeching assistance; and once more her voice rang out clear as a liquid bell under her ghastly fear:
"A thousand dollars—five thousand dollars to the man that saves his life!"
But already the boat was launched, and, as her last words fell upon their ears, it shot out from under the end of the pier and made straight toward the hapless pair.
It was the work of moments after that.
There were strong, willing hands at the oars, and the tiny boat leaped the waves like a bird on its errand of mercy.
But even when Carlita had seen them drag Pierrepont, with his tiny burden, into the boat safely, even when she saw it approaching her again, valiantly struggling against the swiftly ebbing tide, she could not remove her strained, haggard eyes from it, could not loosen the clutch of her rigid fingers from the bosom of her gown just above her heart.
She did not seem to realize that he was safe untilhe stood upon the pier beside her in the moonlight, dripping wet, yet smiling happily while he deposited the half drowned child into the arms of his father, who had grown as hysterical as a woman, and turned to her.
She was looking up into his face, her own cold and gray as if frost had touched her very soul, and there was something in it that frightened him.
He forgot how wet he was, and before all those people he threw his arm around her and drew her to him.
"Carlita, darling!" he exclaimed, anxiously. "Are you frightened? See! We will neither of us be the worse for a little wetting."
"Thank God, you are safe!" she cried, and then—her face was hidden against something wet, and her tears flowed.
When she recovered her composure sufficiently to know what was going on about her, she heard something of how it all had happened.
The child was the crippled son of the chef on board the "Eolus." His mother had been ill for days, and was taken rapidly worse toward nightfall; so bad, in fact, that when the doctor was summoned he gave no hope beyond the hour.
Knowing where the anxious husband was, a neighbor had sent the boy to the pier to await the return of the "Eolus," in order that there might be no delay in his arrival; but the minutes passed, and as the boy grew more anxious and tearful, his hysterical unrest increased, so that when the "Eolus" really did arrive, he could control himself no longer, and the accident resulted through his too anxious desire to reach his father quickly.
"You should have told me your wife was ill," Leith said to the man, kindly. "Pleasure is not so essential that we can purchase it at such a cost to others."
"I feared to lose my place, sir," the chef answeredsadly. "And they are not so easy to obtain. I could not afford it."
"Have I been so stern a master?"
"The best and kindest, sir. What gentleman but you would have risked his life, as you have done, to save a servant's crippled boy? I owe you his life, and I shall not forget it!"
"Nonsense! Some one else would have saved him if I had not. You'd better get the poor little fellow home as quickly as you can. I fancy he has a very uncomfortable load of salt water."
"He's got rid of most of it, I think, sir."
"But there is cold to avoid. Take one of the rugs and wrap him up well. I hope you'll find it better with your wife than you anticipate."
"Thank you, sir."
And then Leith remembered himself, and slipped into his coat and overcoat, wrapping it about him snugly.
"Ugh! This wind doesn't make the water warmer," he exclaimed, lightly. "Ladies, I regret that my condition won't allow me to drive you home; but I'm sure Maltby will take my place. Old fellow, I'm trusting you with a very precious burden. Miss de Barryos has promised to be my wife."
"I congratulate you with all my heart!" exclaimed Maltby, shaking his hand heartily. "I thought I had discovered a secret when I heard her offer five thousand dollars to the man who would save your life."
"You did that, Carlita?"
But her choking reply, if there was one, was drowned in the sound of congratulations that followed.
"It was absolutely necessary that I should tell him that," Leith explained to her as they walked down the pier together, he still leaving a trail of water behind him. "I kissed you before them all, and heldyou in my arms, you know. You are not angry, darling?"
She did not reply, only looked at him, but he seemed to be satisfied with the look, for he smiled with that ecstatic sort of grin that comes only to the happy lover's countenance.
It was a silent drive homeward. Even Jessica leaned in her own corner of the carriage, oblivious of Maltby's remarks, until he, too, ceased to make an effort at conversation. Mrs. Chalmers' face was so white and drawn that it reminded him of the return home from a funeral, and he was glad when the carriage stopped before their door and he had said good-night.
The day had ended disastrously for all except poor Leith, who was living in the Fool's Paradise, and the three women entered the house, going at once upstairs without exchanging a word.
At Carlita's door Jessica paused, but the unhappy girl exclaimed pleadingly:
"Not tonight, dear. I feel as if I should go mad to face any one tonight, even my own conscience."
"As you will," Jessica murmured calmly.
She stood there until the door had closed, shutting Carlita in, and then a cold, scornful, half-triumphant laugh escaped her.
Her mother caught her arm in a grasp like iron.
"For God's sake, come away!" she gasped. "What is this thing that you have done? What is this vengeance that you are planning?"
"That I have almost accomplished," corrected Jessica, looking into her face with a fiendish sort of chuckle. "Never mind. I shall not tell you. With your white-livered cowardice you might ruin it at the last moment, and it shall not fail. Oh, go away, with your eternal whining! Do you think that I will forgive her for winning his heart away from me? Do you think I will forgive him for playing fast and loose? I hate them both as fiercely as youknow I can hate, and they shall feel the fang of it to the last day of both their lives!"
Carlita's maid followed her to her apartment almost at once, and placed in her hand one of those little yellow envelopes that turned her faint and sick even before she had broken the seal.
"You may go, Ahbel," she exclaimed, wearily. "I shall not need you this evening."
"But the back of your jacket is quite wet, Miss de Barryos. At least you will let me remove that."
Carlita allowed herself to be divested of it rather than speak, then watched her maid with wistful longing as she left the room. When she was alone she looked at the telegram in her hand, hesitated, even put her fingers to the seal, then flung it upon the table, far from her.
"I can't—tonight," she gasped. "I am so tired—so tired that I can not look out the numbers. They would make me dizzy and—and—"
She ceased her excuses suddenly and flung herself in a chair beside the window, then seeing the moon, she arose and turned down the gas, opening the shutters that it might flood the room. She sat still feeling strangely warmed by the cold rays. She was looking backward through a little time, at that dark head upon the crest of the waves, risking life to save a crippled child whom he had never seen before. She was living through her own torture again with a curious, gentle thrill of ecstatic pleasure, and then her heart gave a great, wild throb as she saw him beside her upon the old pier, and—felt his wet, cold, but still impassioned, kiss upon her lips.
She hid her face as she remembered that—the face that had suddenly flushed there under the silent, never-betraying presence of the old moon, but, strangely enough, it was not with shame but thrilling, unacknowledged joy. There was a smile upon her mouth as she removed her hands, and puttingout her hands swiftly, she caught the damp jacket from the back of the chair where Ahbel had hung it to dry, and pressed her lips again and again upon the place where his arm had touched.
And then an expression of wild dismay sprang to her eyes. The smile fled from her lips. A hoarse cry arose in her throat.
"It can't be—it can't be!" she moaned; "that what she said is true. My God! it can't be that a curse like that has been sent upon me!"
She paused breathlessly and suddenly, with the jacket still clasped in her hands, her eyes raised to the face of the moon; she went back further in memory, and saw herself lying upon the couch on the deck of the yacht, heard his softly murmured words as he repeated Percy Shelley's poem, felt the touch of his lips, warm and sweet upon her own again—and then, for the first time, understood it all.
All the desire for happiness that one day, all the wild longing to forget the past, all the breathless sweetness of those moments alone with him, the heavenly joy of that unrepulsed caress, the agony of terror when his life was threatened, the exquisite happiness that was almost pain when he was safe once more beside her, with his arms, wet and dripping about her—Dudley Maltby said she had offered five thousand dollars for his life. God! she would have given her whole fortune and have gone through life a beggar for every one of the after years, if they had numbered a thousand, to know that he was safe.
She laughed aloud, such a strange, unfathomable laugh, and staggered to her feet.
"Five thousand!" she cried, still laughing, though there were glistening tears in her eyes that seemed to blind her. "Five thousand! Let it go at once—at once! I will draw the check and send it to the captain of the 'Eolus,' to be filled in with the nameof the man who did it. Five thousand! I wish it were every cent that I possess! I wish—"
She turned swiftly, excitedly, and turned up the gas, then as she would have approached her escritoire, her eye fell again upon the yellow telegram lying there like a sentinel.
She took it up recklessly and tore off the envelope, defying the figures to harm her; but it was not in cipher. The cold, plain, torturing words flashed before her eyes:
"Everything ready to leave the moment papers arrive. No fear of failure now."Stolliker."
"Everything ready to leave the moment papers arrive. No fear of failure now.
"Stolliker."