Gerald Goddard arose from his chair, and stared at the woman in unfeigned astonishment.
"Really, Mrs. Weld! this is an unexpected meeting—I had no thought of seeing you here, or even that you were acquainted with Mrs. Stewart," he remarked, while he searched his recent housekeeper's face with curious eyes.
"I have known Isabel Haven all her life," the woman replied, without appearing in the least disconcerted by the gentleman's scrutiny.
"Can that be possible?" exclaimed her companion, but losing some of his color at the information.
"Yes."
"Then I presume you are familiar with her history."
"I am; with every item of it, from her cradle to the present hour."
"And were you aware of her presence in Boston when you applied for your position at Wyoming?"
"I was."
"Perchance it was at her instigation that you sought the place," Mr. Goddard remarked, a sudden suspicion making him feel sick at heart.
"Mrs. Stewart certainly knew that I was to have charge of your house," calmly responded Mrs. Weld.
"Then there was a plot between you—you had some deep-laid scheme in seeking the situation."
"I do not deny the charge, sir."
"What! do you boldly affirm it? What was your object?" demanded the man, in a towering rage, but growing deathly white at the explanation that suggested itself to his mind.
"I perceive that you have your suspicions, Mr. Goddard," coolly remarked the woman, without losing an atom of her self-possession in view of his anger.
"I have. Great Heavens! I understand it all now," cried her companion, hoarsely. "It was you who stole that certificate from my wife's room!"
"Yes, sir; I was fortunate enough to find it, two days previous to the ball."
"You confess it!—you dare own it to me, madam! You are worse than a professional thief, and I will have you arrested for your crime!" and Gerald Goddard was almost beside himself with passion at her cool effrontery.
"I hardly think you will, Mr. Goddard," was the quiet response. "I imagine that you would hesitate to bring such a charge against me, since such a course would necessitate explanations that might be to you somewhat distasteful, if not mortifying. You would hardly like to reveal the character of the document, which, however, you have made a mistake in asserting that I stole—"
"But you have admitted the charge," he excitedly interposed.
"I beg your pardon, I have not acknowledged the crime of theft—I simply stated that I was fortunate enough to find the document in question."
"It seems to me that that is a distinction without a difference," he sneered.
"One can hardly be accused of stealing what rightly belongs to one's self," Mrs. Weld composedly said.
"What—what on earth can you mean? Explain yourself."
"Certainly; that is exactly what I came here to do," she answered, as, with a dexterous movement, she tore the glasses from her eyes, and swept the moles from her face, after which she snatched the cap and wig from her head, and stood before her companion revealed as Isabel Stewart herself.
"Good Heaven!" he gasped, then sank back upon his chair, staring in blank amazement at her.
Mrs. Stewart seized this opportunity to again slipfrom the room, and when she returned, a few minutes later, her superabundance of cellular tissue (?) had disappeared and she was her own peerless self once more.
She quietly resumed her seat, gravely remarking, as she did so:
"A woman who has been wronged as you have wronged me, Gerald Goddard, will risk a great deal to re-establish her good name. When I first learned of your whereabouts I thought I would go and boldly demand that certificate of you. I tried to meet you in society here, but, strange to say, I failed in this attempt, for, as it happened, neither you nor your—Anna Correlli frequented the places where I was entertained, although I did meet Monsieur Correlli two or three times. Then I saw that advertisement for a housekeeper to go out to Wyoming, to take charge of your house during a mid-winter frolic; and, prompted by a feeling of curiosity to learn something of your private life with the woman who had supplanted me, I conceived the idea of applying for the situation and thus trying to obtain that certificate by strategy. How did I know that it was you who advertised?" she interposed, as Mr. Goddard looked up inquiringly. "Because I chanced to overhear some one say that the Goddards were going out of town for the same purpose as that which your notice mentioned. So I disguised myself, as you have seen, went to your office, found I was right, and secured the position."
"Now I know why I was so startled that day, when you dropped your glasses in the dining-room," groaned the wretched man.
"Yes; I saw that you had never forgotten the eyes which you used to call your 'windows of paradise,'" responded his companion, with quiet irony, and Gerald Goddard shrank under the familiar smile as under a blow.
"Gerald," she went on, after a moment of painful silence, but with a note of pity pervading her musical tones, "a man can never escape the galling consciousness of wrong that he has done until he repents ofit; even then the consequences of his sin must follow him through life. Yours was a nature of splendid possibilities; there was scarcely any height to which you might not have attained, had you lived up to your opportunities. You had wealth and position, and a physique such as few men possess; you were finely educated, and you were a superior artist. What have you to show for all this? what have you done with your God-given talents? how will you answer to Him, when He calls you to account for the gifts intrusted to your care? What excuse, also, will you give for the wreck you have made of two women's lives? You began all wrong; in the first place, you weakly yielded to the selfish gratification of your own pleasure; you lived upon the principle that you must have a good time, no matter who suffered in consequence—you must be amused, regardless of who or what was sacrificed to subserve that end—"
"You are very hard upon me, Isabel; I have been no worse than hundreds of other men in those respects," interposed Gerald Goddard, who smarted under her searching questions and scathing charges as under a lash.
"Granted that you 'are no worse than hundreds of other men,'" she retorted, with scornful emphasis, "and more's the pity. But how does that lessen the measure of your responsibility, pray tell me? There will come a time when each and every man must answer for himself. I have nothing to do with any one else, but I have the right to call you to account for the selfishness and sins which have had such a baneful influence upon my life; I have the right, by reason of all that I have suffered at your hands—by the broken heart of my youth—the loss of my self-respect—the despair which so nearly drove me to crime—and, more than all else, by that terrible renunciation that deprived me of my child, that innocent baby whom I loved with no ordinary affection—I say I have the right to arraign you in the sight of Heaven and of your own conscience, and to make one last attempt to save you, if you will be saved."
"What do you care—what does it matter to you now whether I am saved or lost?" the man huskily demanded, and in a tone of intense bitterness, for her solemn words had pierced his heart like a double-edged dagger.
"I care because you are a human being, with a soul that must live eternally—because I am striving to serve One who has commanded us to follow Him in seeking to save that which is lost," the fair woman gravely replied. "Look at yourself, Gerald—your inner self, I mean. Outwardly you are a specimen of God's noblest handiwork. How does your spiritual self compare with your physical frame?—has it attained the same perfection? No; it has become so dwarfed and misshapen by your indulgence in sin and vice—so hardened by yielding to so-called 'pleasure,' your intellect so warped, your talents so misapplied that even your Maker would scarcely recognize the being that He Himself had brought into existence. You are forty-nine years old, Gerald—you may have ten, twenty, even thirty more to live. How will you spend them? Will you go on as you have been living for almost half a century, or is there still a germ of good within you that you will have strength and resolution to develop, as far as may be, toward that perfect symmetry which God desires every human soul to attain? Think!—choose! Make this hour the turning point in your career; go back to your painting, retrieve your skill, and work to some purpose and for some worthy object. If you do not need the money such work will bring, for your own support, use it for the good of others—of those unfortunate ones, perchance, whose lives have been blighted, as mine was blighted, by those 'hundreds of other men' like you."
As the beautiful woman concluded her earnest appeal, the conscience-smitten man dropped his head upon the table beside which he sat, and groaned aloud.
For the first time in his life he saw himself as he was, and loathed himself, his past life, and all the alluring influences that had conspired to decoy him into the downward path which he had trodden.
"I will! I will! Oh, Isabel, forgive and help me," he pleaded, in a voice thrilling with despair.
"I help you?" she repeated, in an inquiring tone, in which there was a note of surprise.
"Yes, with your sweet counsel, your pure example and influence."
"I do not understand you, quite," she responded, her lovely color waning as a suspicion of his meaning began to dawn upon her.
He raised his face, which was drawn and haggard from the remorse he was suffering, and looked appealingly into hers. But, as he met the gaze of her pure, grave eyes, a flush of shame mounted to his brow as he realized how despicable he must appear to her in now suing so humbly for what he had once trampled under foot as worthless.
Yet an unspeakable yearning to regain her love had taken possession of him, and every other emotion was, for the moment, surmounted by that.
"I mean, come back to me! try to love me again! and let me, under the influence of your sweet presence, your precepts and noble example, strive to become the man you have described, and that, at last, my own heart yearns to be."
His plea was like the cry of a despairing soul, who realized, all too late, the fatal depths of the pit into which he had voluntarily plunged.
Isabel Stewart saw this, and pitied him, as she would have pitied any other human being who had become so lost to all honor and virtue; but his suggestion, his appeal that she would go back to him, live with him, associate with him from day to day, was so repulsive to her that she could not quite repress her aversion, and a slight shiver ran over her frame, so chilling that all her color faded, even from her lips; and Gerald Goddard, seeing it, realized the hopelessness of his desire even before she could command herself sufficiently to answer him.
"That would not be possible, Gerald," she finally replied. "Truth compels me to tell you plainly that whatever affection I may once have entertained foryou has become an emotion of the past; it was killed outright when I believed myself a deserted outcast in Rome. I should do sinful violence to my own heart and nature if I should heed your request, and also become but a galling reproach to you, rather than a help."
"Then you repudiate me utterly, in spite of the fact that the law yet binds us to each other? I am no more to you than any other human being?" groaned the humbled man.
"Only in the sense that through you I have keenly suffered," she gravely returned.
"Then there is no hope for me," he whispered, hoarsely, as his head sank heavily upon his breast.
"You are mistaken, Gerald," his companion responded, with sweet solemnity; "there is every hope for you—the same hope and promise that our Master held out to the woman whom the Pharisees were about to stone to death when he interfered to save her. I presume to cast no revengeful 'stone' at you. I do not arrogantly condemn you. I simply say as he said, 'Go and sin no more.'"
"Oh, Isabel, have mercy! With you to aid me, I could climb to almost any height," cried the broken-spirited man, throwing out his hands in despairing appeal.
"I am more merciful in my rejection of your proposal than I could possibly be in acceding to it," she answered. "You broke every moral tie and obligation that bound me to you when you left me and my child to amuse yourself with another. Legally, I suppose, I am still your wife, but I can never recognize the bond; henceforth, I can be nothing but a stranger to you, though I wish you no ill, and would not lift my hand against you in any way—"
"Do you mean by that that you would not even bring mortification or scandal upon me by seeking to publicly prove the legality of our marriage?" Mr. Goddard interposed, in a tone of surprise.
"Yes, I mean just that. Since the certificate is in my possession, and I have the power to vindicate myself, in case any question regarding the matter arises in the future, I am content."
"But I thought—I supposed—Will you not even use it to obtain a divorce from me?" stammered the man, who suddenly remembered a certain rumor regarding a distinguished gentleman's devotion to the beautiful Mrs. Stewart.
"No; death alone can break the tie that binds me to you," she returned, her lovely lips contracting slightly with pain.
"What! Have you no wish to be free?" he questioned, regarding her with astonishment.
"Yes, I would be very glad to feel that no fetters bound me," she answered, with clouded eyes; "but I vowed to be true as long as life should last, and I will never break my word."
"True!" repeated her companion, bitterly.
A flush of indignation mounted to the beautiful woman's brow at the reproach implied in his word and tone.
But she controlled the impulse to make an equally scathing retort, and remarked, with a quiet irony that was tenfold more effective.
"Well, if that word offends you, I will qualify it so far as to say that, at least, I have never dishonored my marriage vows; I never will dishonor them."
Gerald Goddard threw out his hands with a gesture of torture, and for a moment he became deathly white, showing how keenly his companion's arrow had pierced his conscience.
There was a painful silence of several moments, and then he inquired, in constrained tones:
"What, then, is my duty? What relations must I henceforth sustain toward—Anna?"
"I cannot be conscience for you, Gerald," said Isabel Stewart, coldly; "at least, I could offer no suggestion regarding such a matter as that. I can only live out my own life as my heart and judgment of what is right and wrong approve; but if you have no scruples on that score—if you desire to institute proceedings for a divorce, in order to repair, as far as may be, thewrong you have also done Anna Correlli—I shall lay no obstacle in your way."
She arose as she ceased speaking, thus intimating that she desired the interview to terminate.
"And that is all you have to say to me? Oh, Isabel!" Gerald Goddard gasped, and realizing how regally beautiful she had become, how infinitely superior, physically and morally, spiritually and intellectually, she was to the woman for whose sake he had trampled her in the dust. And the fact was forced upon him that she was one to be worshiped for her sweet graciousness and purity of character—to be reverenced for her innate nobility and stanch adherence to principle, and to be exultantly proud of, could he have had the right to be—as a queen among women.
"That is all," she replied, with slow thoughtfulness, "unless, as a woman who is deeply interested in the moral advancement of humanity in general, I urge you once more to make your future better than your past has been, that thus the world may be benefited, in ever so slight a measure, because you have lived. As for you and me, our ways part here, never to cross again, I trust; for, while I have ceased to grieve over the blighted hopes of my youth, it would be painful to be reminded of my early mistakes."
"Part—forever? I do not feel that I can have it so," said Gerald Goddard, with white lips, "for—I love you at this moment a thousand times more than I ever—"
"Stop!" Isabel Stewart firmly commanded. "Such an avowal from you at this time is but an added insult to me, as well as a cowardly wrong against her who, in the eyes of the world, at least, has sustained the relationship of wife to you for many years."
The head of the proud man dropped before her with an air of humility entirely foreign to the "distinguished" Gerald Goddard whom the world knew; but, though crushed by a sense of shame and grief, he could but own to himself that her condemnation was just, and the faint hope that had sprung up in his heart died, then and there, its tragic death.
Isabel Stewart felt that she could not bear the painful interview any longer, and was about to touch the electric button to summon her servant to show her visitor out, when he stayed her with a gesture of appeal.
"One moment more, Isabel, I implore," he exclaimed; "then I will go, never to trouble you again."
Her beautiful hand dropped by her side, and she turned again to him with a patient, inquiring glance.
"You have spoken of our—child," the man went on, eagerly, though a flush of shame dyed his face as he gave utterance to the pronoun denoting mutual possession. "Do you intend to continue your search for her?"
"Certainly; that will now be the one aim of my life. I could never take another moment of comfort knowing that my old friend and my child were destitute, as I have been led to believe they are."
"And if—you find her—shall—you tell her—your history?" faltered Gerald Goddard, as he nervously moistened his dry lips.
His companion bent her head in thought for a moment. At length she remarked:
"I shall, of course, be governed somewhat by circumstances in such a matter; if I find Edith still in ignorance of the fact that she is an adopted daughter, I think I shall never undeceive her, but strive to be content with such love as she can give me, as her mother's friend. If, on the other hand, I find that she has learned the truth—especially if she should happen to be alone in the world—I shall take her into my arms and tell her the whole story of my life, beg her to share my future, and let me try to win as much as possible of her love."
"If you should find her, pray, pray do not teach her to regard me as a monster of all that is evil," pleaded her companion, in a tone of agony that was pitiful. "Ah, Isabel, I believe I should have been a better man if I could have had the love of little children thrown about me as a safeguard."
Isabel Stewart's red lips curled with momentary scorn at this attempt to shift the responsibility of his wasted and misguided life upon any one or anything rather than himself.
"What a pity, then, that you did not realize the fact before you discarded the unhappy young mother and her innocent babe, so many years ago," she remarked, in a tone that pierced his heart like a knife.
"I did go back to Rome for the child—I did try to find her after—I had heard that—that you were gone," he faltered. "I was told that the infant had doubtless perished with you, though its body was never found; but I have mourned her—I have yearned for her all my life."
"And do you imagine, even if you should meet her some time in the future, that she would reciprocate this affection which, strangely enough, you manifest at this late day?"
"Perhaps not, if you should meet her first and tell her your story," the man returned, with a heavy sigh.
"Which I shall assuredly do," said Mrs. Stewart, resolutely; "that is, if, as I said before, I find her alone in the world; that much justification is my due—my child shall know the truth; then she shall be allowed to act according to the dictates of her own heart and judgment, regarding her future relationship toward both of us. I feel sure that she has been most carefully reared—that my old friend Edith would instill only precepts of truth and purity in her mind, and my heart tells me that she would be likely to shrink from one who had wronged her mother as you have wronged me."
"I see; you will keep her from me if you can," said Mr. Goddard, with intense bitterness.
"I am free to confess that I should prefer younever to meet," said Mrs. Stewart, a look of pain sweeping over her beautiful face; "but Edith is twenty years of age, if she is living; and if, after learning my history, she desires to recognize the relationship between herself and you, I can, of course, but submit to her wish."
"It is very evident to me that you will teach her to hate her father," was the sullen retort.
"Her father?" the term was repeated with infinite scorn. "Pray in what respect have you shown yourself worthy to be so regarded?—you who even denied her legitimate birth, and turned your back upon her, totally indifferent to whether she starved or not."
"How hard you are upon me, Isabel!"
"I have told you only facts."
"I know—I know; but have some pity for me now, since, at last, I have come to my senses; for in my heart I have an insatiable longing for this daughter who, if she is living, must embody some of the virtues of her mother, who—God help me!—is lost, lost to me forever!"
The man's voice died away in a hoarse whisper, while a heart-broken sob burst from his lips.
"Go, Gerald," said Mrs. Stewart, in a low, but not unkindly imperative tone; "it is better that this interview should terminate. The past is past—nothing can change it; but the future will be what we make it. Go, and if I ever hear from you again, let me know that your present contrition has culminated in a better life."
She turned abruptly from him and disappeared within her chamber, quietly shutting the door after her, while Gerald Goddard arose to "go" as he had been bidden.
As, with tottering gait and a pale, despairing face, he crossed the room and parted the draperies between the two pretty parlors, he found himself suddenly confronted by a woman so wan and haggard that, for an instant, he failed to recognize her.
"Idiot!" hissed Anna Correlli, through her pallid, tightly-drawn lips; "traitor! coward! viper!"
She was forced to pause simply because she was exhausted from the venom which she had expended in the utterance of those four expletives.
Then she sank, weak and faint, upon a chair, but with her eyes glittering like points of flame, fastened in a look of malignant hatred upon the astonished man.
"Anna! how came you here?—how long have you been here?" he finally found voice to say.
"Long enough to learn of the contemptible perfidy and meanness of the man whom, for twenty years, I have trusted," she panted, but the tone was so hollow he never would have known who was speaking had he not seen her.
He opened his dry lips to make some reply; but no sound came from them.
He put out his hand to support himself by the back of her chair, for all his strength and sense seemed on the point of failing him; while for the moment he felt as if he could almost have been grateful to any one who would slay him where he stood, and thus put him out of his misery—benumb his sense of degradation and the remorse which he experienced for his wasted life, and the wrongs of which he had been guilty.
But, by a powerful effort, he soon mastered himself, for he was anxious to escape from the house before the presence of his wife should be discovered.
"Come, Anna," he said; "let us go home, where we can talk over this matter by ourselves, without the fear of being overheard."
He attempted to assist her to rise, but she shrank away from him with a gesture of aversion, at the same time flashing a look up at him that almost seemed to curdle his blood, and sent a shudder of dread over him.
"Do not dare to touch me!" she cried, hoarsely. "Go—call a carriage; I am not able to walk. Go; I will follow you."
Without a word, he turned to obey her, and passed quickly out of the suite without encountering any one, she following, but with a gait so unsteady that anyone watching her would have been tempted to believe her under the influence of some intoxicant.
Mr. Goddard found a carriage standing near the entrance to the hotel, and they were soon on their way home.
Not a word was spoken by either during the ride, and it would have been impossible to have found two more utterly wretched people in all that great city.
Upon entering their house, they found Emil Correlli in a state bordering on frenzy, occasioned by the escape of Edith, and this circumstance served for a few moments to distract their thoughts from their own troubles.
Mr. Goddard was intensely relieved by the intelligence, and plainly betrayed it in his manner.
When angrily called to account for it by his brother-in-law, he at once replied, with an air of reckless defiance:
"Yes, I am glad of it—I would even have helped the girl to get away; indeed, I was planning to do so, for such a dastardly fraud as you perpetrated upon her should never be allowed to prosper."
He was rewarded for this speech, so loyal to Edith, only by an angry oath, to which, however, he paid no attention.
Strangely enough, Anna Correlli, after the first emotion of surprise and dismay had passed, paid no heed to the exciting conversation; she had sunk into a chair by the window, where she sat pale and silent, and absolutely motionless, save for the wild restlessness of her fiery black eyes.
Mr. Goddard, finding the atmosphere so disagreeable, finally left the room, and, mounting the stairs, shut himself in his own chamber, while the enraged lover dashed out of the house to the nearest telegraph office to send the message that caused the policeman to intercept Edith upon her arrival in New York.
A few moments later, Mrs. Goddard—as we will, from courtesy, still call her—crept wearily up to her room, where, tottering to a couch, she threw herselfprone upon her face, moaning and shivering with the agony she could no longer control.
The blow, which for twenty years she had been dreading, had fallen at last; but it was far more crushing and bitter than she had ever dreamed it could be.
She had come at last to the dregs of the cup which once had seemed so sweet and alluring to her senses, and they had poisoned her soul unto death.
She knew that never again while she lived would she be able to face the world and hide her misery beneath a mask of smiles; and the bitterest drop of all, the sharpest thorn in her lacerated heart, was the fact that the little insignificant girl who had once been her hated rival in Rome, should have developed into the peerlessly beautiful woman, whom all men admired and reverenced, and whom Gerald Goddard now idolized.
An hour passed, during which she lay where she had fallen and almost benumbed by her misery.
Then there came a knock upon her door, which was immediately opened, and Mr. Goddard entered the room.
He was still very pale, but grave and self-contained.
The woman started to a sitting posture, exclaiming, in an unnatural voice:
"What do you want here?"
"I have come, Anna, to talk over with you the events of the morning—to ask you to try to control yourself, and look at our peculiar situation with calmness and practical common sense," he calmly replied.
"Well?" was all the response vouchsafed, as he paused an instant.
"I have not come to offer any excuses for myself, or for what you overheard this morning," he thoughtfully resumed; "indeed, I have none to offer—my whole life, I own, has, as Isabel rightly said, been a failure thus far, and no one save myself is to blame for the fact. Do not sneer, Anna," he interposed, as her lips curled back from her dazzling teeth, which he saw were tightly locked with the effort she was making at self-control. "I have been thoroughly humiliatedfor the first time in my life—I have been made to see myself as I am, and I have reached a point where I am willing to make an effort to atone, as far as may be, for some of the wrongs of which I have been guilty. Will you help me, Anna?"
Again he paused, but this time his companion did not deign to avail herself of the opportunity to reply, if, indeed, she was able to do so.
She had not once removed her glittering eyes from his face, and her steady, inscrutable look gave him an uncanny sensation that was anything but agreeable.
"I have come to propose that we avail ourselves of the only remedy that seems practicable to relieve our peculiar situation," he continued, seeing she was waiting for him to go on. "I will apply to have the tie which binds me to Isabel annulled, with all possible secrecy—it can be done in the West without any notoriety; then I will make you my legal wife, as you have so often asked me to do, and we will go abroad again, where we will try to live out the remainder of our lives to some better purpose than we have done heretofore. I ask you again, will you try to help me? It is not going to be an easy thing at first; but if each will try, for the sake of the other, I believe we can yet attain comparative content, if not positive happiness."
"Content! happiness!"
The words were hissed out with a fierceness of passion that startled him, and caused him to regard her anxiously.
"Happiness!" she repeated. "Ha! ha! What mockery in the sound of that word from your lips, after what has occurred to-day!"
"I know that you have cause to be both grieved and angry, Anna," said Gerald Goddard, humbly; "but let us both put the past behind us—let us wipe out all old scores, and from this day begin a new life."
"'Begin a new life' upon a heap of ashes, without one spark among them to ignite the smallest flame!" was the mocking rejoinder. Then, with a burst of agony, she continued: "Oh, God! if you had takena dagger and stabbed me to death in that room to-day, you could not have slain me more effectually than by the words you have uttered. Begin a new life with you, after your confessions, your pleadings and protestations to Isabel Stewart? Heaven! Never! I hate you! hate you; hate you! with all the strength of my Italian blood, and warn you—beware! And now, begone!"
The woman looked like a maniac as she poured this wild torrent upon him, and the man saw that she was in no mood to be reasoned with or to consider any subject; that it would be wiser to wait until the fierceness of her anger had spent itself.
He had broached the matter of their future relations, thus giving her something to think of, and now he would leave her to meditate upon it by herself; perhaps, in a few days, she would be in a more reasonable frame of mind, and look at the subject from a different point of view.
"Very well, Anna," he said, as he arose, "I will obey you. I do not pretend to claim that I have not given you cause to feel aggrieved in many respects; but, as I have already said, that is past. I simply ask you to do what I also will do—put all the old life behind us, and begin over again. I realize that we cannot discuss the question to any purpose now—we are both too wrought up to think or talk calmly, so I will leave you to rest, and we will speak of this at another time. Can I do anything for you before I go?—or perhaps you would like your maid sent to you?"
"No," she said, briefly, and not once having removed her wild eyes from his face while he was speaking.
He bowed, and passed out of the room, softly shutting the door after him, then walked slowly down the hall to his own apartment.
The moment he was gone Anna Goddard sprang like a cat to her feet.
Going to her writing-desk, she dashed off a few lines, which she hastily folded and slipped into an envelope, which she sealed and addressed.
She then touched the electric button above her desk to summon her maid, after which she sat motionless with the missive clasped in her hands until the girl appeared.
"Dress yourself for the street, Mary, and take this note to Mr. Clayton's office. Be quick about it, for it is a matter of importance," she commanded, while she forced herself to speak with outward calmness.
But Mary regarded her mistress with wonder, for, in all her "tantrums," as she termed them, she had never seen the awful look upon her face which was stamped upon it at that moment.
But she took the note without comment, and hastened away upon her errand, while Mrs. Goddard, throwing herself back in her chair, sat there waiting with an air of expectation that betrayed she was looking for the appearance of some one.
Half an hour later a gentleman was admitted to the house, and was shown directly up to my lady's boudoir.
The gentleman caller referred to in the last chapter was closeted with Mrs. Goddard for fully two hours, when he quietly left the house.
A few moments later, however, he returned, accompanied by two other men—clerks from a neighboring drug store—whom he admitted with a latch-key, and then conducted them up to Mrs. Goddard's boudoir.
The strangers did not remain long; whatever their errand, it was soon finished, and they departed as silently as they had come.
Mr. Clayton remained some time longer, conversing with the mistress of the house, but their business being finally concluded, he also went away, bearing a package of papers with him.
Emil Correlli returned just in season for dinner,which, however, he was obliged to partake of alone, as Mr. and Mrs. Goddard did not make their appearance at the table.
The young man paid slight heed to ceremony, but after eating a hasty meal, sought his sister and informed her that he was going to start for New York on the late evening train.
The woman gave him one wild, startled glance, and seemed strangely agitated for a moment over his announcement.
He could not fail to notice her emotion, and that she was excessively pale.
"You look like a ghost, Anna," he remarked, as he searched her face with some anxiety. "What is the matter with you? I fear you are going to be ill."
"I am ill," she said, in a hoarse, unnatural tone.
"Then let me call your physician," said her brother, eagerly. "I am going out immediately, and will leave a message for him."
"No, no," she nervously replied; then with a hollow laugh that smote heavily upon her companion's heart, she added: "My case is beyond the reach of Dr. Hunt or any other physician."
"Anna, have you been quarreling with Gerald again?"
"Yes," was the brief response.
"Well, of course I can understand that such matters are beyond the skill of any physician," said the young man, with a half-impatient shrug of his shoulders; "neither have I any business to interfere between you," he added; "but my advice would be to make it up as soon as possible, and then try to live peaceably in the future. I do not like to leave you looking so white and miserable, but I must go. Take good care of yourself, and I shall hope to find you better and happier when I return."
He bent down to give her a farewell caress, and was amazed by the passion she manifested in returning it.
She threw her arms around his neck and held him in a convulsive embrace, while she quivered from head to foot with repressed emotion.
She did not utter one word of farewell, but a wild sob burst from her; then, as if she could bear no more, she pushed him from her and rushed into her chamber, shutting and locking the door behind her.
Emil Correlli left the boudoir, a puzzled expression on his handsome face; for, although his sister was subject to strange attacks, he had never seen her like this before.
"Anna will come to grief some day with that cursed temper of hers," he muttered, as he went to his room to pack his portmanteau, but he was too intent upon his own affairs to dwell long upon even the trouble of his sister, and a couple of hours later was on his way to New York to begin his search for his runaway bride.
The next morning Mrs. Goddard was "too ill to rise," she told her maid, when she came at the usual hour to her door. She would not admit her, but sent word to her husband that she could not join him at breakfast.
He went up later to see if she would allow him to call a physician for her, but she would not see him, simply telling him she "would do well enough without advice—all she needed was rest, and she did not wish to be disturbed by any one until she rang."
Feeling deeply disappointed and depressed by her unusual obstinacy, the wretched man went downstairs and shut himself into the library, where he remained all day, while there was such an atmosphere of loneliness and desolation about the house that even the servants appeared to feel it, and went about with solemn faces and almost stealthy steps.
Could any one have looked behind those closed doors he could not have failed to have experienced a feeling of pity for the man; for if ever a human being went down into the valley of humiliation, Gerald Goddard sounded its uttermost depths, while he battled alone with all the powers of evil that beset his soul.
When night came he was utterly exhausted, and sought his couch, looking at least ten years older than he had appeared forty-eight hours previous.
He slept heavily and dreamlessly, and did not awaketill late, when an imperative knock upon the door and a voice, calling in distress, caused him to spring suddenly from his bed, and impressed him with a sense of impending evil.
"What is it, Mary?" he inquired, upon recognizing the voice of his wife's maid.
"Oh, sir! come—come to madam; she is very ill!" cried the girl, in a frightened tone.
"I will be there immediately. Send James for the doctor, and then go back to her," commanded her master, as he hurriedly began to dress.
Five minutes later he was in his wife's room, to find her lying upon the lounge, just as he had seen her thirty-six hours previous.
It was evident that she had not been in bed at all for two nights, for she still had on the same dress that she had worn at the Copley Square Hotel.
But the shadow of death was on her white face; her eyes were glazed, and though only partially closed, it was evident that she saw nothing.
She was still breathing, but faintly and irregularly. Her hands were icy cold, and at the base of the nails there was the unmistakable purple tint that indicated approaching dissolution.
Gerald Goddard was shocked beyond measure to find her thus, but he arose to the occasion.
With his own hands and the assistance of the maid, he removed her clothing, then wrapped her in blankets and put her in bed, when he called for hot water bottles to place around her, hoping thus by artificial heat to quicken the sluggish circulation and her failing pulses.
But apparently there was no change in her, and when the physician came and made his examination, he told them plainly that "no effort could avail; it was a case of sudden heart failure, and the end was but a question of moments."
Mr. Goddard was horrified and stricken with remorse at the hopeless verdict, for it seemed to him that he was in a measure accountable for the untimelyshock which was fast depriving of life this woman who had loved him so passionately, though unwisely.
He put his lips to her ear and called her by name.
"Anna! Anna! You must try to arouse yourself," he cried, in a voice of agony.
At first the appeal seemed to produce no effect, but after several attempts he thought he detected a gleam of intelligence in the almost sightless eyes, while the cold fingers resting on his hand made an effort to close over his.
These slight signs convinced him that though she was past the power of speech, she yet knew him and clung to him, in spite of the clutch which the relentless enemy of all mankind had laid upon her.
"Doctor, she knows me!" he exclaimed. "Pray give her some stimulant to arouse her dormant faculties, if only for a moment."
"I fear it will be of no use," the physician replied, "but I will try."
He hurriedly prepared and administered a powerful restorative; then they waited with breathless interest for several moments for some sign of improvement.
It came at last; she began to breathe a trifle more regularly; the set features became a little less rigid, and the pulse a shade stronger, until finally the white lids were lifted and the dying woman turned her eyes with a pitiful expression of appeal upon the man whom, even in death, she still adored.
"Leave us alone!" commanded Gerald Goddard, in a hoarse whisper, and physician and servants stole noiselessly from the room.
"Anna, you know me—you understand what I am saying?" the wretched man then questioned.
A slight pressure from the cold fingers was the only reply.
"You know that you are dying?" he pursued.
Again that faint sign of assent.
"Then, dear, let us be at peace before you go," he pleaded, gently. "My soul bows in humiliation and remorse before you; for years I have wronged you. I wronged you in those first days in Rome. I have noexcuse to offer. I simply tell you that my spirit is crushed within me as I look back and realize all that I am accountable for. I would have been glad to atone, as far as was in my power, could you have lived to share my future. Give me some sign of forgiveness to tell me that you retract those last bitter words of hate—to let me feel that in this final moment we part in peace."
At his pleading a look of agony dawned in the woman's failing eyes—a look so pitiful in its yearning and despair that the strong man broke down and sobbed from sorrow and contrition; but the sign he had begged for was not given.
"Oh, Anna! pray show me, in some way, that you will not die hating me," he pleaded. "Forgive—oh, forgive!"
At those last words those almost palsied fingers closed convulsively over his; the look of agony in those dusky orbs was superseded by one of adoration and tenderness; a faint expression of something like peace crept into the tense lines about the drawn mouth, and the repentant watcher knew that she would not go out into the great unknown bearing in her heart a relentless hatred against him.
That effort was the last flicker of the expiring flame, for the white lids drooped over the dark eyes; the cold fingers relaxed their hold, and Gerald Goddard knew the end had almost come.
He touched the bell, and the physician instantly re-entered the room.
"It is almost over," he remarked, as he went to the bedside, and his practiced fingers sought her pulse.
Even as he spoke her breast heaved once—then again, and all was still.
Who shall describe the misery that surged over Gerald Goddard's soul as he looked upon the still form and realized that the grandly beautiful woman, who for twenty years had reigned over his home, was no more—that never again would he hear her voice, either in words of fond adoration or in passionate anger; never see her again, arrayed in the costly apparel and gleaming jewels which she so loved, mingling with the gay people of the world, or graciously entertaining guests in her own house?
He felt almost like a murderer; for, in spite of Dr. Hunt's verdict that she had died of "sudden heart failure," he feared that the proud woman had been so crushed by what she had overheard in Isabel Stewart's apartments that she had voluntarily ended her life.
It was only a dim suspicion—a vague impression, for there was not the slightest evidence of anything of the kind, and he would never dare to give voice to it to any human being; nevertheless, it pressed heavily upon his soul with a sense of guilt that was almost intolerable.
A message was immediately sent flying over the wires to New York to inform Emil Correlli of the sad news, and eight hours later he was back in Boston crushed for the time by the loss of the sister for whom he entertained perhaps the purest love of which his selfish heart was capable of experiencing.
We will not dwell upon the harrowing events of the next few days.
Suffice it to say that society, or that portion of it that had known the brilliant Mrs. Goddard, was greatly shocked by the sudden death of one of its "brightest ornaments," and gracefully mourned her by covering her costly casket with choicest flowers; then closed up its ranks and went its way, trying to forget the pale charger which they knew would come again and again upon his grim errand.
The day following Anna Correlli's interment in Forest Hill Cemetery, Mr. Goddard and his brother-in-law were waited upon by the well-known lawyer, Arthur Clayton, who informed them that he had an important communication to make to them.
"Two days previous to her death I received this note from Mrs. Goddard," he remarked, at the same time handing a daintily perfumed missive to the elder gentleman. "In it you will observe that she asks me to come to her immediately. I obeyed her, and foundher looking very ill, and seemingly greatly distressed in body and mind. She told me she was impressed that she had not long to live—that she had an affection of the heart that warned her to put her affairs in order. She desired me to draw up a will at once, according to her instructions, and have it signed and witnessed before I left the house. I did so, calling in at her request two witnesses from a neighboring drug store, after which she gave the will into my keeping, to be retained until her death. This is the document, gentlemen," he remarked, in conclusion, "and here, also, is another communication, which she wrote herself and directed me to hand to you, sir."
He arose and passed both the will and the letter to Mr. Goddard, who had seemed greatly agitated while he was speaking.
He simply took the letter, remarking:
"Since you are already acquainted with the contents of the will, sir, will you kindly read it aloud in our presence?"
Mr. Clayton flushed slightly as he bowed acquiescence.
The document proved to be very short and to the point, and bequeathed everything that the woman had possessed—"excepting what the law would allow as Gerald Goddard's right"—to her beloved brother, Emil Correlli, who was requested to pay the servants certain amounts which she named.
That was all, and Mr. Goddard knew that in the heat of her anger against him she had made this rash disposition of her property—as she had the right to do, since it had all been settled upon her—to be revenged upon him by leaving him entirely dependent upon his own resources.
At first he experienced a severe shock at her act, for the thought of poverty was anything but agreeable to him.
He had lived a life of idleness and pleasure for so many years that it would not be an easy matter for him to give up the many luxuries to which he had beenaccustomed without a thought or care concerning their cost.
But after the first feeling of dismay had passed, a sense of relief took possession of him; for, with his suspicions regarding the cause of Anna's death, he knew that he could never have known one moment of comfort in living upon her fortune, even had she left it unreservedly to him rather than to her brother.
Emil Correlli was made sole executor of the estate; and, as there was nothing further for Mr. Clayton to do after reading the will, he quietly took his departure leaving the two men to discuss it at their leisure.
"Well, Gerald, I must confess this is rather tough on you!" Monsieur Correlli remarked, in a voice of undisguised astonishment, as soon as the lawyer disappeared. "I call it downright shabby of Anna to have left you so in the lurch."
"It does not matter," returned the elder man, but somewhat coldly; for, despite his feeling of relief over the disposition of her property, he experienced a twinge of jealousy toward the more fortunate heir, whose pity was excessively galling to him under the circumstances.
Although the two men had quarreled just before Monsieur Correlli's departure for New York, all ill-feeling had been ignored in view of their common loss and sorrow, and each had conducted himself with a courteous bearing toward the other during the last few days.
"What in the world do you suppose possessed her to make such a will?" the young man inquired, while he searched his companion's face with keen scrutiny. "And how strange that she should have imagined allof a sudden that she was going to die, and so put her affairs in order!"
Mr. Goddard saw that he had no suspicion of the real state of things, and he had no intention of betraying any secrets if he could avoid doing so.
No one—not even her own brother—should ever know that Anna had not been his wife. He would do what he could to shield her memory from every reproach, and no one should ever dream that—he could not divest himself of the suspicion—she had died willfully.
Therefore, he replied with apparent frankness:
"I think I can explain why she did so. On the day of our return from Wyoming, Anna and I had a more serious quarrel than usual; I never saw her so angry as she was at that time; she even went so far as to tell me that she hated me; and so, I presume, in the heat of her anger, she resolved to cut me off with the proverbial shilling to be revenged upon me."
"Well, she has done so with a vengeance," muttered his brother-in-law.
"I went to her afterward and tried to make it up," his companion resumed, "but she would have nothing to say to me. She was looking very ill, also; and when the next morning she sent me word that she was not able to join me at breakfast, I went again to her door and begged her to allow me to send for Dr. Hunt, but she would not even admit me."
"What was this quarrel about?"
"Oh, almost all our quarrels have been about a certain document which has long been a bone of contention between us, and this one was an outgrowth from the same subject."
"Was that document a certificate of marriage?" craftily inquired Emil Correlli.
"Yes."
"Gerald, were you ever really married to Anna?" demanded the young man, bending toward him with an eager look.
His companion flushed hotly at the question, and yet it assured him that he did not really know justwhat relations his sister had sustained toward him.
"Isn't that a very singular question, Emil?" he inquired, with a cool dignity that was very effective. "What led you to ask it?"
"Something that Anna herself once said to me suggested the thought," Emil replied. "I know, of course, the circumstances of your early attachment—that for her you left another woman whom you had taken to Rome. I once asked Anna the same question, but she would not answer me directly—she evaded it in a way to confirm my suspicions rather than to allay them. And now this will—it seems very strange that she should have made it if—"
"Pray, Emil, do not distress yourself over anything so absurd," coldly interposed Gerald Goddard, but with almost hueless lips. "However, if you continue to entertain doubts upon the subject, you have but to go to the Church of the —— the next time you visit Rome, ask to see the records for the year 18—, and you will find the marriage of your sister duly recorded there."
"I beg your pardon," apologized the doubter, now fully reassured by the above shrewdly fashioned answer, "but Anna was always so infernally jealous of you, and made herself so wretched over the fear of losing your affection, that I could think of no other reason for her foolishness. Now, about this will," he added, hastily changing the subject and referring to the document. "I don't feel quite right to have all Anna's fortune, in addition to my own, and no doubt the poor girl would have repented of her rash act if she could have lived long enough to get over her anger and realize what she was doing. I don't need the money, and, Gerald, I am willing to make over something to you, especially as I happen to know that you have sunk the most of your money in unfortunate speculations," the young man concluded, Mr. Goddard's sad, white face appealing to his generosity in spite of their recent difference.
"Thank you, Emil," he quietly replied; "but I cannot accept your very kind offer. Since it was Anna'swish that you should have her property, I prefer that the will should stand exactly as she made it. I cannot take a dollar of the money—not even what 'the law would allow' in view of our relations to each other."
Those last words were uttered in a tone of peculiar bitterness that caused Monsieur Correlli to regard him curiously.
"Pray do not take it to heart like that, old boy," he said, kindly, after a moment, "and let me persuade you to accept at least a few thousands."
"Thank you, but I cannot. Please do not press the matter, for my decision is unalterable."
"But how the deuce are you going to get along?" questioned the young man.
"I shall manage very well," was the grave rejoinder. "I have a few hundreds which will suffice for my present needs, and, if my hands have not lost their cunning, I can abundantly provide for my future by means of my profession. By the way, what are your own plans?—if I may inquire," he concluded, to change the subject.
The young man paled at the question, and an angry frown settled upon his brow.
"I am going to return immediately to New York—I am bound to find that girl," he said, with an air of sullen resolution.
"Then you were not successful in your search?" Mr. Goddard remarked, dropping his lids to hide the flash of satisfaction that leaped into his eyes at the words.
"No, and yes. I found out that she arrived safely in New York, where she was met by a young lawyer—Royal Bryant by name—who immediately spirited her away to some place after dodging the policeman I had set on her track. I surmise that he has put her in the care of some of his own friends. I went to him and demanded that he tell me where she was, but I might just as well have tried to extract information from a stone as from that astute disciple of the law—blast him! He finally intimated that my room wouldbe better than my company, and that I might hear from him later on."
"Ah! he has doubtless taken her case in hand—she has chosen him as her attorney," said Mr. Goddard.
"It looks like it," snapped the young man; "but he will not find it an easy matter to free her from me; the marriage was too public and too shrewdly managed to be successfully contested."
"It was the most shameful and dastardly piece of villainy that I ever heard of," exclaimed Gerald Goddard, indignantly, "and—"
"And you evidently intend to take the girl's part against me," sneered his companion, his anger blazing forth hotly. "If I remember rightly, you rather admired her yourself."
"I certainly did; she was one of the purest and sweetest girls I ever met," was the dignified reply. "Emil, you have not a ghost of a chance of supporting your claim if the matter comes to trial, and I beg that you will quietly relinquish it without litigation," he concluded, appealingly.
"Not if I know myself," was the defiant retort.
"But that farce was no marriage."
"All the requirements of the law were fulfilled, and I fancy that any one who attempts to prove to the contrary will find himself in deeper water than will be comfortable, in spite of your assertion that I 'have not a ghost of a chance.'"
"Possibly, but I doubt it. All the same, I warn you, here and now, Correlli, that I shall use what influence I have toward freeing that beautiful girl from your power," Mr. Goddard affirmed, with an air of determination not to be mistaken.
"Do you mean it—you will publicly appear against me if the matter goes into court?"
"I do."
The young man appeared to be in a white rage for a moment; then, snapping his fingers defiantly in his companion's face, he cried:
"Do your worst! I do not fear you; you can prove nothing."
"No, I have no absolute proof, but I can at least give the court the benefit of my suspicions and opinion."
"What! and compromise your dead wife before a scandal-loving public?"
"Emil, if Anna could speak at this moment, I believe she would tell the truth herself, and save that innocent and lovely child from a fate which to her must seem worse than death," Mr. Goddard solemnly asserted.
"Thank you—you are, to say the least, not very flattering to me in your comparisons," angrily retorted Monsieur Correlli, as he sprang from his chair and moved toward the door.
He stopped as he laid his hand upon the silver knob and turned a white, vindictive face upon the other.
"Well, then," he said, between his white, set teeth, "since you have determined to take this stand against me, it will not be agreeable for us to meet as heretofore, and I feel compelled to ask you to vacate these premises at your earliest convenience."
"Very well! I shall, of course, immediately comply with your request. A few hours will suffice me to make the move you suggest," frigidly responded Gerald Goddard; but he had grown ghastly white with wounded pride and anger at being thus ignominiously turned out of the house where for so many years he had reigned supreme.
Emil Correlli bowed as he concluded, and left the room without a word in reply.
As the door closed after him Mr. Goddard sank back in his chair with a heavy sigh, as he realized fully, for the first time, how entirely alone in the world he was, and what a desolate future lay before him, shorn, as he was, of home and friends and all the wealth which for so long had paved a shining way for him through the world.
His head sank heavily upon his breast, and he sat thus for several minutes absorbed in painful reflections.
He was finally aroused by the shutting of the street door, when, looking up, he saw the new master of the house pass the window, and he knew that henceforth he would be his bitter enemy.
He glanced wistfully around the beautiful room—the dearest in the house to him; at the elegant cases of valuable books, every one of which he himself had chosen and caused to be uniformly bound; at the choice paintings in their costly frames upon the walls, and many of which had been painted by his own hands; at the numerous pieces of statuary and rare curios which he knew would never assume their familiar aspect in any other place.
How could he ever make up his mind to dismantle that home-like spot and bury his treasures in a close and gloomy storage warehouse?
"Homeless, penniless, and alone?" he murmured, crushing back into his breast a sob that arose to his throat.
Then suddenly his glance fell upon the table beside him and rested upon the letter that Mr. Clayton had given to him, and which, in the exciting occurrences of the last hour, he had entirely forgotten.
He took it up and sighed heavily again as the faint odor of Anna's favorite perfume was wafted to his nostrils.
"How changed is everything since she wrote this!—what a complete revolution in one's life a few hours can make!" he mused.
He broke the seal with some curiosity, but with something of awe as well, for it seemed to him almost like a message from the other world, and drew forth two sheets of closely-written paper.
The missive was not addressed to any one; the writer had simply begun what she had to say and told her story through to the end, and then signed her name in full in a clear, bold hand.
The man had not read half the first page before his manner betrayed that its contents were of the most vital importance.
On and on he read, his face expressing various emotions until by the time he reached the end there was an eagerness in his manner, a gleam of animation in his eyes which told that the communication had been of a nature to entirely change the current of his thoughts and distract them from everything of an unpleasant character regarding himself.
He folded and returned the letter to its envelope with trembling hands.
"Oh, Anna! Anna!" he murmured, "why could you not have been always governed by your better impulses, instead of yielding so weakly to the evil in your nature? This makes my way plain at least—now I am ready to bid farewell to this home and all that is behind me, and try to fathom what the future holds for me."
He carefully put the letter away into an inner pocket, then sat down to his desk and began to look over his private papers.
When that task was completed he ordered the butler to have some boxes and packing cases, that were stored in the cellar, brought up to the library, when he carefully packed away such books, pictures and other things as he wished to take away with him.
It was not an easy task, and he could almost as readily have committed them to the flames as to have despoiled that beautiful home of what, for so long, had made it so dear and attractive to him.
When his work was completed he went out, slipped over into Boylston street, where he knew there were plenty of rooms to be rented, and where he soon engaged asuitethat would answer his purpose for the present.
This done, he secured a man and team to move his possessions, and before the shades of night had fallen he had stored everything he owned away in his new quarters and bidden farewell forever to the aristocratic dwelling on Commonwealth avenue, where he had lived so luxuriously and entertained so elaborately thecrême de la crêmeof Boston society.
Three days later he had disappeared from the city—"gone abroad" the papers said, "for a change ofscene and to recuperate from the effects of the shock caused by his wife's sudden death."