Did you ever observe the devilish glare in the eyes of a caged hyena, the fiendish, cat-like grin upon his repulsive mouth when he knows he is denied the prey he covets? There is no other animal in captivity or out that has the same expression of countenance, the same half-cringing, diabolical treachery both in face and the sidelong movement of his body.
Just such an expression Jessica wore when Leith threw open the door which separated him from her. There was no other egress from the room than through that door or he would not have found her there; but she came forward after a moment of profoundest silence throwing up her head defiantly, the hateful grin receiving sound in a discordant laughter.
"Well," she exclaimed, lightly, approaching the mantel-shelf carelessly and taking up the glovesshe had thrown there, "I have played—and lost. Others have done so before, better players than I, too, perhaps. You think you will escape the crime you have committed? Ha! ha! A forged telegram to a minion of the law is not a difficult thing, and I shall know how to discover the forgery. My hand is not quite played out, you see. Because Miss de Barryos loved the murderer of her former lover is no reason why he should escape the punishment of his crime. She has evidently been as anxious to pay out her money to have him escape as she once was to secure his conviction, but even forged telegrams are traceable, and I shall know where to find him when I want him."
"You will not have far to look," said Leith quietly.
"If it were to the ends of the earth, I should find you and your half-breed wife, your—"
"Silence!" exclaimed Leith, the first gleam of anger coming to his eyes. "Not a word of disrespect to her. As for myself, I do not care. You are so powerless as to be almost pitiable. I understand perfectly the detestable part you have played—the false friend, endeavoring to poison the mind of innocence, the serpent creeping through the grass at nightfall in your effort to work harm and ruin. I have known all along that you were striving to harm Miss de Barryos, from the very first day that I met her under your disreputable roof."
Jessica laughed aloud—a laugh that would have slain had the power been given her.
"You were not loath to visit it, in spite of its being disreputable!" she exclaimed, sneeringly. "You never neglected an invitation. Where was the first place you went upon your return from India? In whose box did you linger longest at the opera? At whose side were you content to sit from morning until night, until she came with her cursed Indian beauty? Your vaunted virtue is of very recentbirth! Do you forget that I know the story of Lena Moore?"
"How dare you mention that name—here!" thundered Leith, the passion of his tone frightening her. Then, remembering himself, he continued, more quietly: "As you said but now, my dear Jessica, you have played and lost. Why not retire gracefully from the table? You have done all the harm you can. Even the shameless story you would have repeated but now would not shake the faith of my promised wife—would not kill the love she bears me. But I do not propose that you shall pollute her pure ears with the story of a folly long since dead—the folly of a mere boy in the hands of a designing woman—but one which ended before harm was done. And now, go! Say to your mother that her ward is under the protection of her betrothed husband, and safe. I should be inclined to pity you but for the wrong done to this sweet and inoffensive child."
Jessica's lips curled scornfully.
"Pity me!" she repeated. "Why? Because you think I love you? Upon my word, your vanity blinds you, indeed! It was only your money that I craved—only the wealth with which you could surround me—only the position in which you could have placed me. After all, it is not so flattering to a man's vanity that it need incite his pity."
"And you would have married a murderer—gone into voluntary exile—for wealth and position?"
It was rather a mean thing for him to say, when he knew so well that it was only the excuse of a baffled woman; but it was very human, and he was only that. There was a half-amused, half-disgusted smile upon his lips that angered her more than a volume of words could have done. She bit her lips to prevent the flow of demoniacal fury that possessed her, then calmly drew on her gloves.
"Good-evening!" she exclaimed, carelessly. "Whenyou have convinced Carlita of the truth of your statement regarding Lena Moore, and have succeeded in convincing the world that the forged telegram from Mexico was genuine, then, perhaps, I may congratulate you; but until then I shall reserve my good wishes for your future. It will not strengthen the story you wish to palm upon the public that my mother's ward left her roof for the shelter of yours before she became your wife, and that privilege my mother will contest, as you may remember Carlita is not yet of age."
Without so much as a glance toward Carlita, but with a stately bow in Leith's direction, she opened the door from behind and stepped out closing it upon herself.
Then she went downstairs swiftly, not waiting for the elevator, and into the street, her eyes blinded, her brain in a seething whirl of torturing madness.
Her turn had come at last!
She hailed a carriage and gave the address to the coachman incoherently, then sprang in and closed the door upon herself, eager to shut out the very sight of the world.
"Balked!" she muttered, fiercely. "Baffled just when success seemed within my grasp! Curse them—curse them both! I have plotted and planned for nothing. I have betrayed my unhappy mother into the power of that wretch Meriaz, and what have I gained? Nothing! Nothing except that he loves her more than ever. I have proven to him the very depth and power of her love while striving to demonstrate mine. I have placed her upon the very pinnacle I would have given my soul to occupy. And what have I gained? His hatred—his contempt—his bitter loathing! I have shut myself out from his presence eternally! And I loved him so! My God! I loved him so!"
She covered her face with her hands, and a wild storm of weeping burst from her, so overpoweringthat she did not know when the carriage had stopped, did not know when the coachman climbed down from his box and spoke to her, did not hear until he touched her lightly upon the arm.
She scarcely remembered afterward how it was she got into the house; but she found her mother standing in the hall upon her entrance, looking like a wraith, in her white gown, with her still whiter face gleaming above it.
"Meriaz has come for his answer," she groaned, speaking the words almost before the door had been closed upon her daughter—"Meriaz has come for his answer! For the love of Heaven, tell me what I am to say?"
"Tell him," cried Jessica, bending forward, and curiously speaking the words through her set teeth—"tell him that he lied! That Leith Pierrepont is not guilty of murder! Tell him that news has come from the South, and Leith is free! Tell him that which he knows but too well, that it was his own daughter who was the murderess!"
No cry from the lips of woman ever equaled in mortal anguish that which fell from Mrs. Chalmers. She staggered back against the wall, her eyes wild in their insane rolling.
"His daughter!" she gasped. "Muriel Meriaz!"
"If that is her name," returned Jessica, sullenly. "You appear to know her better than I. Yes, she is the murderess. But what is that to you, or me, that you should turn the hue of death itself? What is that to you, or me, that you should gasp and moan as if you yourself were facing the gallows? We have lost our game; but I don't see why you should agonize over the daughter of a scoundrel like that—a creature whom you never saw; a—"
She was looking so intently at her mother that she did not see a man's form come into the hall, did not know of his presence there until his hard, iron fingers closed upon her arm; then she turnedand looked into the scowling face of Manuel Meriaz.
"Shut up!" he commanded, brutally. "You don't know what you are talking about, my fine lady. I'll teach you some day to call your own father a scoundrel. I'll teach you—"
"What are you saying?"
"That which is true. You never heard the story, did you? You thought only that I was familiar with a small slice of the past history of your family, but it never occurred to you that the Mexican whom you detested, in spite of all your expressions to the contrary, was in reality your own father. And this girl whom you have called a murderess is your sister! Do you hear that, my girl?"
"You are mad—mad!" panted Jessica.
Meriaz laughed aloud.
"Look in your mother's face and see if I am mad. Look in her face and ask her if I have lied. Look in her face and bid her tell you that I am not your father. Aha! you dare not, because you know I have spoken the truth. You are my daughter, and as such I propose that you shall be regarded in the future. You understand?"
But Jessica did not reply. She stood there for a moment, looking straight at him in a stunned, stupid silence; then, with never a word, she walked by him and up the stairs without a glance in her mother's direction, without a word of sympathy, without a thought for any one save herself, and up to her own room.
She closed the door behind her, and stood with her back against it for some time, then with a defiant gesture threw up her head and walked swiftly to her writing desk. She sat down and wrote hurriedly:
"My Dear Dudley,—A week ago you asked me to be your wife—swore you could not live without me. If it was the truth you spoke, if you meantthe vows you swore that day, answer this note in person. I must see you at once."Ever faithfully,"Jessica."
"My Dear Dudley,—A week ago you asked me to be your wife—swore you could not live without me. If it was the truth you spoke, if you meantthe vows you swore that day, answer this note in person. I must see you at once.
"Ever faithfully,
"Jessica."
She sealed it, the smile half triumphant, half defiant still lingering upon her lips, called a messenger, and dispatched it at once to Dudley Maltby.
"Tomorrow morning," she muttered, "the papers shall contain the announcement of my marriage to the scion of one of the noblest houses in all America. Leith Pierrepont shall see that his power to hurt me was not so great as he thought, and I shall be saved from that beast, Meriaz."
She did not consider what was to befall her mother, did not think of her future at all, never even remembered her, but consumed the time of the messenger's absence in planning what she should say to Dudley Maltby, her lips curling with scorn as she imagined his joy at receiving her message.
She smiled grimly as she saw the messenger returning with a note in his hand, and received it with the calmest indifference, dismissing the boy with a haughtily murmured:
"That will do!"
Then, when he had gone, she tore the envelope from the missive, pausing to light a cigarette nonchalantly before she read it. She looked at it quite calmly, but the expression of her face changed curiously as she read:
"My Dear Jessica,—You were wiser that day than I. I allowed my passion to carry me away, never pausing to think of the future, after the manner of all hot-headed lovers; but with your usual clear-sightedness and brilliancy of intellect you foresaw what the future would hold for us with barely ten thousand a year to drag us through a monotonous existence, and you laughed at my earnestness.You were quite right. Don't think for a moment that I am upbraiding you. On the contrary, I realize that you have done us both a great service, that the proposition I made would have been sheerest madness. Of course I understand that pity for me prompted your kind note, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart, but it is much better that I should not see you just at present. Thanking you for many happy hours in the past, believe me,"Very cordially yours,"Dudley Maltby."
"My Dear Jessica,—You were wiser that day than I. I allowed my passion to carry me away, never pausing to think of the future, after the manner of all hot-headed lovers; but with your usual clear-sightedness and brilliancy of intellect you foresaw what the future would hold for us with barely ten thousand a year to drag us through a monotonous existence, and you laughed at my earnestness.You were quite right. Don't think for a moment that I am upbraiding you. On the contrary, I realize that you have done us both a great service, that the proposition I made would have been sheerest madness. Of course I understand that pity for me prompted your kind note, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart, but it is much better that I should not see you just at present. Thanking you for many happy hours in the past, believe me,
"Very cordially yours,
"Dudley Maltby."
She tore it up without any show of indignation whatever, and threw it into the waste basket, then rang for her maid.
"Is Manuel Meriaz still here?" she asked.
"No, ma'am," her maid replied. "He left half an hour ago, and—and—"
"Well?"
"He was arrested as he went down the stoop."
"Umph! I am going to my mother. She is in her room?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"You may pack my clothing for a rather long absence, and tell Mathilde to do the same for my mother. We leave on Wednesday for Paris."
Her maid's exclamation of surprise was lost upon her. She was looking mechanically through the window.
"At least one fortunate thing has happened," she was musing. "But for the arrest of Meriaz we might have had difficulty in getting away. Now it will be quite easy. I shall require my mother's services, and so silence concerning the past is best, I suppose. I shall only tell her of the death of—of—this girl. If Dudley Maltby, my last hope, had not failed me, I need never have seen her again, but now—"
A shrug of the shoulders, intended to convince herself of her indifference, but failing signally, completed the sentence.
The transferment of the guardianship of Carlita from Mrs. Chalmers to Pierrepont was not a difficult thing, and he lost no time in making the application for it.
Nor was there loss of time in the matter of their marriage.
She had no friends whatever in that section of country, and so they were married quietly with only Dudley Maltby as best man and Ahbel and Stolliker as witnesses, and left, while April was yet in its infancy, for a long cruise upon the "Eolus," accompanied only by Ahbel and Leith's valet, besides the crew.
Carlita is a great favorite with the men, one reason being, perhaps, that she divided five thousand dollars between the two who brought Leith and his little half-dead burden safely back to her when death was threatening both.
The child did not die, nor yet did the mother in whose interests he had received his wetting, but there is a man upon the "Eolus" who would sacrifice his life at any time for its owner, who risked his own for a crippled boy.
They are very happy. So happy that a little anxious cloud gathered between Carlita's brows as she lay in her favorite nook upon the deck, her couch being the one she had used upon the day of that momentous little cruise that occupied less than one brief day, and yet seemed to have turned the current of all her life.
"What is it, sweetheart?" Leith asked, no shade of expression upon that lovely face lost to him.
"I was only thinking of the old days," she answered, looking up in his face with a devotion that would have banished the most unhappy memories. "Of some words my mother spoke to me before she died, of a curse—"
"A curse!" interrupted Leith, lightly. "How very romantic! Do let us hear all about it."
"You needn't laugh," returned Carlita, allowing him to draw her very closely in the shelter of his arms. "It was serious enough, Heaven knows! It was the curse of Pocahontas. Jessica told you once that I was half Indian. While the component parts weren't exactly correct, the essence of the statement was true. There is the blood of the Indian girl in my veins through the maternal side."
"And a very noble girl she was," exclaimed Leith. "I'm sure John Smith the first would bear me out if he were here to speak for himself."
"Her marriage to John Rolfe, you know, was most unhappy. The only issue of the marriage was a son, but on her death bed, Pocahontas pronounced a curse upon his female descendants who should bear the trace of the Indian in her appearance."
"How very thoughtless of her. When it was John Rolfe who made her so unhappy, why couldn't she have made it the male descendants?"
"History sayeth not," returned Carlita, her humor lightened in spite of herself. "But it is a matter of fact that every dark member of my mother's family has suffered through that curse."
"But I have not heard what it was yet?"
"And I can't tell you the words; but the meaning was that if she dared love she should suffer ruin and death, either she or the man whom she cursed with her devotion. I told that curse to—Olney, Leith, when he was leaving for Mexico."
"And you really believe that is what caused your suffering and his death?"
She did not reply, but looked out dreamily over the water.
"What nonsense, darling wife!" he said, gently. "You don't suppose that God would grant a mere foolish, wretched woman the power to curse the innocent of future generations, do you? You don't suppose that He would bring a helpless infant into the world for predestined misery because some half-crazed creature in her blind ignorance uttered a speech that was superinduced perhaps by a grief too great to be borne in silence? Where would be the justice, and mercy, and wisdom of that? And what is your idea of God if not inseparable from those qualities which form His divine attribute?"
"You make me ashamed."
"Not ashamed, love, because you never really believed in it. It was only that the foolish repetition made you anxious. There is no channel without its turning point, dear, no life without its sorrow, and when yours came, you saw in it the curse which that poor, wretched woman uttered, and which others were foolish enough to repeat, that was all. In our love and belief in the goodness of God, we can afford to laugh at such nonsense as that, my darling. Promise me that you will forget it."
She gave the promise with her lips upon his, belief and faith and perfect love casting out fear.
Nevertheless, when her own little one was born, less than two years after, and she was told that it was an exquisite girl, her first question was:
"What is her complexion?"
"As fair as a lily," the nurse replied. "Her eyes are porcelain blue, her hair is like the sun."
And the sweet face upon the pillow flushed with pleasure and relief as she gazed up into the eyes of her husband, and murmured faintly:
"Thank God, Leith, there is no trace of the Indian there!"
THE END.
Added table of contents.
Cover image may be clicked to view larger version.
The copy of the book used to produce this electronic edition was missing the back cover, which most likely would have contained an advertisement listing other titles from the Hart Series.
Normalized "Aïda," "fiancé" and "portière" to consistently include accent marks throughout the text.
Changed four instances of "to-night" to "tonight" for consistency.
Some questionable spellings (e.g. "balmly") have been retained from the original.
Page 8, changed "you" to "your" in "ruin your own life."
Page 15, changed "To-morrow" to "Tomorrow" for consistency with all other occurrences of the word in the text.
Page 23, changed "Leigh" to "Leith" in "Leith, old fellow."
Page 26, changed "under the son" to "under the sun."
Page 29, changed "rathed" to "rather" in "exclaimed rather suddenly." Changed "wth" to "with" in "with a sweetness."
Page 30, changed "which" to "with" in "earnest conversation with the language."
Page 50, changed "eles" to "else" in "else it will be of no avail."
Page 69, added missing quote before "the only one that I have."
Page 74, corrected typo "utterence" in "volumes in the mere utterance." Added missing comma after "I can't."
Page 85, changed "is is nine" to "it is nine."
Page 86, corrected typo "Barroys" in "do this for you, Miss de Barryos."
Page 89, corrected "patios" to "patois." Changed ? to . after "announced his death."
Page 96, changed "is" to "it" in "it was not necessary."
Page 108, changed "while" to "with" in "with the injunction."
Page 113, corrected "Adventure" to "Adventures" in second appearance of "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes."
Page 117, added missing end quote to "I have a white gown."
Page 118, changed "at" to "as" in "as if some grand ball."
Page 128, changed "through" to "though" in "though they were fewer."
Page 138, changed "that" to "than" in "more coldly than before."
Page 140, changed "fore" to "for" in "for some moments resembling."
Page 146, changed "chocking sob" to "choking sob."
Page 150, removed duplicate "let" from "can not let you."
Page 152, changed "musculine" to "masculine."
Page 153, added missing quote after "happiness is mine at last."
Page 157, changed "strethed" to "stretched" in "arms stretched out."
Page 187, removed unnecessary quote before "She looked up at him helplessly."
Page 193, changed "accomplised" to "accomplished" in "has been accomplished." Corrected typo "evere" in "he had ever done."
Page 197, added missing comma after "with her own hands."
Page 208, changed "stod" to "stood" in "stood there dumb."
Page 215, changed "It" to "If" in "If it were to the ends of the earth."