"Here are a few of the unpleasant'st wordsThat ever blotted paper."—Shakespeare.
"Here are a few of the unpleasant'st wordsThat ever blotted paper."—Shakespeare.
"Farewell!—a word that hath been and must be,A sound that makes us linger—yet, farewell!"
"Farewell!—a word that hath been and must be,A sound that makes us linger—yet, farewell!"
—Byron's Childe Harold.
Grace Winans waked from her troubled sleep with a vague presentiment of impending evil. She heard the small clock on the mantel chiming seven, and looked about her half bewildered.
The shaded taper burned faintly in the room, and the gray morning light stole dimly through the closed shutters and lace curtains. Her baby lay on her arm, sleeping sweetly in his warm white nest. She raised her head a little, only to sink back wearily with a dull, fevered throbbing in her temples, and a sharp pang of remembrance that forced a low cry from her lips:
"Oh, Paul!"
Where was he? She thought of the study, and with a pang at fancy of his tiresome vigil, eased the baby lightly off her arm, and tucking him softly round, donned dressing-gown and slippers, and stole gently down stairs, rapped slightly at the door, then opened it and entered.
The light still burned in the room, looking garish and wan in the pale beams of morning; the easy-chair was drawn near the writing-table, but vacant. She glanced around her. He was not there, and no trace of him remained.
The young wife slowly retraced her steps.
"He will come presently," she whispered to herself, "but I wonder where he is;" and as she bent over little Paul, laying her round, white arm on the pillow, the sharp edge of the note grazed her velvet-like skin. She looked at it, shrinking, afraid,it seemed, to touch it for the moment; then, with a terrible effort over herself, her trembling hand took it up, her shady, violet eyes ran over the contents:
"Oh Grace!" it read, "you know that I adore you—too well, too well! for I cannot bear to live with you and know that your heart—the heart I thought so wholly and entirely mine—has ever held the image of another! You should have told me of this before we married. You wronged me bitterly, Gracie, but I will not upbraid you. Still, until I can learn to curb this jealous passion of mine, I will not, cannot remain where you are. I should only render you miserable. You and my boy will remain in my home—remember, I command this—and you will draw on my banker as usual for what sums you may need or want. I do not limit you in anything, my wife, my own idolized wife—please yourself in all things, do as you like, and try to be content and happy. If I can ever overcome this jealous madness—can ever reconcile myself to knowing that I wassecondinstead of first in your pure heart, I will come to you, but not till then. Try to be happy with our little boy, and forgive your own, erring, unhappy"Paul."
"Oh Grace!" it read, "you know that I adore you—too well, too well! for I cannot bear to live with you and know that your heart—the heart I thought so wholly and entirely mine—has ever held the image of another! You should have told me of this before we married. You wronged me bitterly, Gracie, but I will not upbraid you. Still, until I can learn to curb this jealous passion of mine, I will not, cannot remain where you are. I should only render you miserable. You and my boy will remain in my home—remember, I command this—and you will draw on my banker as usual for what sums you may need or want. I do not limit you in anything, my wife, my own idolized wife—please yourself in all things, do as you like, and try to be content and happy. If I can ever overcome this jealous madness—can ever reconcile myself to knowing that I wassecondinstead of first in your pure heart, I will come to you, but not till then. Try to be happy with our little boy, and forgive your own, erring, unhappy
"Paul."
White and still as marble, the deserted wife sat holding that mad note in her hand, looking before her into vacancy, moveless, speechless—yes, and pallid as she would ever be in her coffin.
A terrible, overwhelming sense of her desolation rushed upon her; but, strangely enough, her first thoughts were not of her husband in his jealous grief, but of herself—of the scandal, the disgrace, the nine-days' wonder that would follow all this. She knew her husband well enough to know that once his mad resolve was taken it would be adhered to.
He was no Bruce Conway, with wavering, doubting will, that could be blown aside by a passing breeze. Firm, proud, sensitive, but unbending as adamant, was Paul Winans when once his resolution was taken. No one knew it better than his wife, though he had ever been kind and loving to her.
A dumb horror settled on her soul as she realized the meaning of his letter. He blamed her as having willfully deceived him. She had not meant to do so; she had not thought it a matter of any moment to Paul Winans whether or not she had loved before she met him. Other men would not have cared—whyshould he? He had not questioned her, had taken her past for granted. How could she tell him of that unsought, scorned, neglected love that had darkly shadowed the joy of her young girlhood? He was unjust to her. She felt it keenly in the midst of her sufferings.
Were all men like these two whom she had loved, she questioned herself, mournfully. Not one of them was worthy of a true woman's love—no, not one.
It had come to this—a deserted wife—through no fault of hers was this tribulation brought on her. She felt that the world had used her hardly and cruelly. The passion and pride that underlie firm yet sweet natures like hers, surged up to the surface and buoyed her up above the raging billows of grief and sorrow. She felt too indignant to weep. She had almost wept her heart out long ago. She meant to sit still with folded hands and tranquil heart, and let the cold, harsh world go by heedless of its pangs, as it was of hers.
Her husband was using her cruelly in bringing this unmerited disgrace upon her and her child. She half resolved to flee far away with her boy where he could never find her in the hour when shame and repentance should drive him back to her side. It was but for a moment. Then she remembered the brief sentence in his note that commanded her to remain in his home, and then her resolution wavered; for when Grace Grey had taken that solemn oath before God to "love, honor, andobey," she had meant to keep her word.
Poor child! for hers was a strangely complex nature—a blending of the child and woman that we often meet in fine, proud feminine natures, and never wholly understand.
A hundred conflicting emotions surged madly through her as she sat there, motionless and pale, until moment after moment went by, and the overtaxed brain, the overwrought heart gave way, and blessed unconsciousness stole upon her. With her hands folded loosely in her lap over that cruel note, a sharp despair shadowed forth in that lovely face, the stately head fell forward and rested heavily on the pillow beside the child, whose rosy, unconscious slumber was unbroken, as though the hovering wings of angels brooded above him and his forsaken mother.
Norah found her thus when the cooing voice of the awakenedbabe reached her ears in the nursery. His pretty black eyes were sparkling with glee, his rosy lips prattled baby nothings, his dimpled, white fingers were twisted in the bright curls of his mother's hair as they swept luxuriantly over the pillow.
With all the art of his babyhood he was trying to win a response from his strangely silent mother.
She came back to life with a gasping sigh, as Norah dashed a shower of ice-water into her face, opened her eyes, said, "Don't, Norah, don't!" and drifted back to the realms of unconsciousness; and so deep was the swoon that this time all the restoratives of the frightened Norah failed for a long time of any effect.
"Looks like she's dead!" muttered the Irishwoman, divided between her care for the child's mother and the child itself, who began to grow fretful from inattention and hunger.
Better for her if she had been, perhaps. There are but few women who find the world so fair that the grave is not held as a refuge for their tired souls and bodies. But Grace came back, with a little gasping sigh, to the life that had never held much attraction for her, and with a trembling arm drew her baby to her breast.
"Poor little Paul!" she quavered, "he is hungry and fretful. Go and get his bath ready, Norah. I can't think how I came to faint. I feel well enough now, and it is quite unusual to me to lose consciousness so easily."
She was herself again. Pride sat regnant on her brow, on her curling lip, in her quiet eyes. It held her up when the poor heart felt like breaking. She had learned the lesson long ago—learned it too thoroughly to forget.
So the day passed quietly away. She had briefly explained to the curious servants that their master had been called off by an emergency that required his absence from home. She did not know at what time he would return—he did not know himself yet. In the meantime all would go on in the house as usual. And with this miserable subterfuge, for which she despised herself, the young wife tried to shield her husband's name from the sharp arrows of censure.
Two or three visitors were announced that evening, but she quietly declined seeing company; and so one of the longestdays of her life wore to its close, as even the longest, dreariest days will, if we only have patience to wait.
She was not patient, nor yet impatient. A dull, reckless endurance upheld her in that and succeeding days of waiting that passed the same. She heard nothing from her husband. In the excited, unnatural state of her mind, smarting under the sense of injustice and wrong, it seemed to her that she did not care to hear.
She spent her time altogether with her little son, never seeing company nor going out. When Norah took the child out for his daily airing and ride through the fresh air, she whiled away the time till his return by reckless playing on the grand piano or organ, in the elegant drawing-room. She could not settle herself to reading, sewing, or any other feminine employment. She filled up the great blank that had come into her life as best she might with the sublime creations of the old masters.
Sometimes the very spirit of mirth and gayety soared in music's melting strains from the grand piano; sometimes the soul of sadness and despair wailed along the organ chords, but the fair face kept its changeless, impassive calm through all, while the white fingers flew obedient to her will. Sometimes she tried to sing, but the spirit of song was wanting. She could not even sing to her child, could scarcely speak, and started sometimes at the hollow echo of her own sweet voice.
And thus a dreary week passed away. But even this semblance of calm and repose was destined to be rudely broken. Miss Lavinia Story effected an entrance one day, being determined not to be kept out any longer by the stereotyped "not at home;" and with her tenderest smile she took both hands of Mrs. Winans in hers, and looked with deep solicitude into her calmly beautiful face.
"Dear friend, you must forgive me for this intrusion, but I felt that I must see you, must condole with you in your trying situation. You are very pale, my dear, looking wretched I may say, but you bear up well, remarkably well, I think, considering everything."
Mrs. Winans invited her visitor to a seat with freezing politeness and hauteur. Then she went back to her place on the music-stool.
"I was playing when you came in," she remarked, coolly. "If you will tell me what music you like, Miss Lavinia, I will play for you."
"Not for the world would I lacerate your feelings so much," sighed the old maid, putting her lace handkerchief to her eyes to wipe away a tear that was not there. "What, when all Norfolk is sympathizing with you in your distress and mortification, and commiserating you, shall I be heartless enough to beg you to play for me, even though you are bearing up so sweetly and wonderfully. No, my love, don't exert yourself for me. I understand your feelings, and only wish to sympathize with you—not to be a source of annoyance."
"I beg your pardon, Miss Lavinia"—the soft eyes looked gravely at her, the fair face keeping its chilling calm, the musical voice its polite indifference—"I did not know myself so honored by the good people of Norfolk, and really, I must say their commiseration is wasted in a bad cause, and I do not know what has given them occasion for its exercise. When I need sympathizers and 'Job's comforters,' I will seek them. At present I do not feel their need."
"Dear me! how high and mighty Mrs. Conway's companion has got to be," thought Miss Lavinia, spitefully, but she only said: "My dear, I am glad to see you bear up so well. Your strength of mind is quite remarkable. Now, had such a thing happened to me I feel sure I should have been extremely ill from shame and terror. But," with a simper, "I am such a timid, nervous girl. With your beauty and notoriety you have no doubt grown accustomed to this kind of thing, and do not mind it. But my sympathy is truly great for your little boy."
"Miss Story!"—her hostess whirled around on the music-stool, an ominous fire blazing under her long dark lashes—"I pass over your contemptible innuendoes to myself as unworthy my notice, but will you kindly inform me what you are talking about—that is if you know yourself, for I assuredly do not."
What superb anger there was in her look and tone. It was scarcely like her to be so irritable, but she was not herself this evening. The tamed leopard, when goaded too hard, sometimes turns on its keeper, and the gentlest heart has a spark of fire smoldering in its depths that may be rudely stirred into adestructive flame. Miss Lavinia recoiled timorously from the fire that blazed in those wondrous dark eyes.
"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Winans," she answered, smoothly. "I did not know you were so angry about it, though, of course, you feel irritated about it, as every right-minded person must feel. I think myself Mr. Conway has acted unbecomingly. You had a right to change your mind in his absence if you liked, and itwassilly in him to make such ado about it all, when the best plan was to let it all blow over."
"Do you mean to insinuate that I was affianced to Mr. Conway during his absence, and threw him over for a wealthier rival, Miss Story?" demanded Grace, indignantly.
"That is what rumor assigns as the cause of the late 'unpleasantness,' to call it by a mild name," returned the persevering spinster, carefully taking down mental notes of the conversation to report to her gossips.
"Then rumor is, as usual, mistaken. Mr. Conway never has been, never can be, more than the merest acquaintance to me," answered Mrs. Winans, briefly and coldly.
"Indeed! Thank you, my dear friend, for reposing such implicit confidence in me. I am glad to know the truth of the matter, and to be able to tell people that you are not the heartless flirt they try to make you out. Mr. Conway's folly is indeed reprehensible, and he no doubt deserves all he suffers."
All he suffers! The pale listener wondered if he suffered half so much as she did. What was his selfish disappointment to the disgrace, the trouble, the sorrow he had brought on her and her innocent baby. Her heart hardened toward him as she listened.
"Let us drop the subject," she said, proudly. "Mr. Conway is hardly worth being the protracted subject of our conversation. It were better had he remained on the other side of the ocean."
"That's the truth," said Miss Lavinia, briskly. "The foolish fellow. To come all the way home to be shot down for a woman who never even cared for him, and a married woman at that."
"To be shot down did you say, Miss Story? I confess I do not understand you. Will you explain yourself? You have been talking in enigmas all this time."
Mrs. Winans rose from her seat, and taking a step forward,looked at the incorrigible old gossip, her red lips half apart, her dusk-blue orbs alight, her whole appearance indicative of eager, repressed excitement.
"Why, you seem surprised," said the spinster, maliciously. "Why Mrs. Winans, didn't you know of the almost fatal termination of the duel? Ah, that accounts for your calmness and composure. I thought you were not utterly heartless. I see it all. They have kept the papers from you."
"The duel! What duel?"
"Why, the duel between your husband and Bruce Conway, to be sure," answered Miss Lavinia, in surprise at Grace's apparent stupidity.
"Miss Story, do you mean to tell me that there has been a duel between these two—my husband and Mr. Conway?"
"Why, certainly there has. Haven't I been talking about it ever since I came in here? And is it possible that you knew nothing at all of the affair?"
"I did not." Very low and sad fell the words from her white lips, and she leaned one arm on the grand piano to steady her graceful figure. "Miss Story, my husband—he was unhurt, I trust?"
"He was not injured at all, and I hear has left the city, but that unfortunate Mr. Conway fell at the first fire, and is very seriously wounded, they say. Indeed, I believe the surgeon has small hopes of his recovery. It's very sad, very shocking. It ought to be a warning to all young men not to go falling in love with other men's wives."
LULU.
"There is many a maiden more lovely by far,With the step of a fawn and the glance of a star;But heart there was never more tender and trueThan beats in the bosom of darling Lulu."
"There is many a maiden more lovely by far,With the step of a fawn and the glance of a star;But heart there was never more tender and trueThan beats in the bosom of darling Lulu."
—Osgood.
Go with me, my reader, not many squares distant from that stately Winans' mansion, to an humbler home—a small brickedifice standing near to the street, and bearing over a side-door a small sign, with the name of Willard Clendenon, Attorney-at-law, inscribed thereon in very handsome gilt letters. But we have no business to transact with the gallant captain, so we will not even look into his dusty office, but pass on up the stairs, and without even knocking, enter the guest-chamber of the house.
It is a large, airy, prettily appointed chamber, but the shutters are closely akimboed, the lace curtains are drooped over the windows, and the quiet air of a sick-room pervades the apartment. On the low, white bed that occupies the center of the apartment is the recumbent figure of a man, in whose handsome features, even though his eyes are closed in a death-like sleep, we recognize Bruce Conway. He looks like marble as he lies there, his black hair flowing back from his broad, white brow, his closed eyes encircled with purplish rings, the dark mustache slightly shading his mouth, only revealing more plainly the deathly pallor and suffering of the lips.
Standing by the side of the bed, Captain Clendenon looks down at him with infinite pity and tenderness in his dark-gray orbs.
And standing by the captain's side is a little figure that looks fairy-like by contrast with his manly proportions. She clings to his arm as he stands there, and her brown head leans lightly against him, her fair girlish face wearing a look of sadness and pain as she gazes at the sufferer's sleeping face.
"Oh, Brother Willie," she whispers, "I am so sorry for him! Oh, it is so dreadful!"
And then her red lips quiver like a grieved child's, and two pearly tears start on her cheeks, and, rolling down, are lost in the ruffles on the breast of her blue morning-dress.
Captain Clendenon did not answer. He looked down at the quiet, handsome face that the surgeon thought might never wake from that death-like sleep, or if it did, it might only be to take on the deeper sleep of eternity. He had lain like that all day—it was noon now.
The duel had taken place a few days before, at a little distance out of Norfolk. The captain had done everything in his power to prevent the terrible affair, but in vain; had refusedthe application of Bruce that he should become his second, in the hope that he might be enabled to compromise the affair by prevailing on Bruce to offer Winans an apology for his untimely serenade.
Bruce had changed his mind about going away, and chose to feel offended at the view taken by the captain of the whole affair; so he left him out of his councils, and the duel came off without the captain's knowledge or consent. A mere accident had brought the matter to his knowledge at almost the hour appointed for it, and hurrying off to the scene of action, he had arrived only in time to see him fall at the first fire.
The appointed place was seven miles from Mrs. Conway's residence, and after the surgeon had dressed the wound and declared its serious nature, the captain took the right of an old friend to convey him to his own home in Norfolk, which was nearer, more especially as the surgeon thought the last lingering hope of recovery would be destroyed by jolting him over seven miles to his home at Ocean View.
That was how he came to be lying there in that pleasant chamber, with Captain Clendenon's pretty sister crying her brown eyes out over him.
"Poor boy! poor Bruce!" he murmured. "How the bitter consequences of his wrong-doing has followed him! And now, in all probability, he must die; yet, after all," thought this loyal heart, "it cannot be so very hard to die for her."
The noiseless entrance of his pleasant-faced mother made him look up. Taking a seat by the bed, she quietly dismissed them from the room.
"I will watch by him myself," she said, kindly, "and the fewer in the room the better, you know. Both of you go and rest yourselves."
They both withdrew with lingering steps, and eyes that seemed loth to quit that pale sleeper, but quietly obedient to their mother's wishes, and content in knowing that she would do for him all that lay in human power.
But down in the quiet little parlor the brother and sister sat down to talk it all over.
"Oh, brother! what did Mrs. Conway say when you told her?"
"Went off into strong hysterics. The maid had to put her to bed. I sent the doctor out there as I rode in town."
"How dreadful! all she had to love, poor, proud old lady; how I pity her!" and the little maiden's tears flowed afresh from her sympathizing soul.
"She may thank herself for the most of it," he answered, half bitterly. "Why did she tempt his weak mind with her wealth and pride? She knew better than any one else how wavering a will was his. Why did she continually thwart all his best impulses?"
"But, brother, he ought to have had more manliness. But it is too late to blame him now. I wonder if Mrs. Winans knows—how she feels about it? Do you know, brother Willie, I would give much to see this wonderful woman whose beauty has only been for bane. You have seen her. Is she so very beautiful? What is she like?"
"Like nothing you ever saw, little Lulu—like some fair saint, or angel."
The passion in his heart broke through his words. A faint red flushed his brown cheek, and his eyes drooped as his sister looked up with soft, astonished gaze.
"Why, brother, did you love her, too?
"That is the first time you have accused me of loving any one but yourself, little sister," he answered, lightly, parrying the question.
"Well, tell me this, brother. Did you ever go to see her at all? Did you like her—did she like you?"
"I went there sometimes—not often," his glance falling with unconscious pathos on the empty sleeve that lay between him and any aspiration toward woman's love. "I liked her very much indeed. She was very sweet and attractive, very obliging always. She liked me a little; I suppose, as a mere friend. I never presumed to ask for a deeper regard. I knew she loved Bruce. I felt, Lulu, it seemed to me then, in her dark days, every pang that struck home to that trusting and deceived young heart. I felt sorry for her, and admired her for the brave yet womanly strength that carried her through that bitter ordeal. I rejoiced with her when she married a better man than Bruce and seemed to have forgotten the past."
The tender brown eyes looked gravely at him as he spoke, reading his heart with a woman's quick intuition. She put both arms about his neck and touched her lips to the noble brow over which the brown curls fell so carelessly. The mute caress told him that she understood and sympathized in his unspoken grief. The man's heart in him could not bear it. He rose, putting her kindly and gently aside.
"Lulu, she has a noble husband; a handsome, generous fellow, a 'man among men,' but he is marred almost as much by his unreasoning jealousy as is Bruce by his unstable character. I pity her. She is worthy of confidence and all respect. It is an honor to any man to have loved her even though hopelessly."
"And Senator Winans has left her, they say, Brother Willie?"
"So rumor says," he answered, meditatively.
"Why don't you see him, brother, and talk with him, and try to make him look at things fairly? It seems a pity she should suffer so, through no fault of hers, too. My heart aches for her in her loneliness."
He did not answer. He was walking slowly up and down the floor, pausing now and then to look out of the window which overlooked the Elizabeth River and the wharves crowded with the shipping of all nationalities. His sister rose and paced the floor, also, her young heart full of sympathy for the four people whose life-paths crossed each other so strangely and sadly. She shuddered and hoped she would never love. Of the three men who each loved Grace Winans in his own fashion, she wondered which was the most unhappy; the husband who had stained his hands in human blood for his selfish passion; Bruce Conway who was dying for her, or her brother whose heart was silently breaking for her. The little maiden who was all unversed in the lore of life found herself bewildered in the maze of metaphysics into which she was drifting. She sat herself down with a sigh, and thought of the handsome face lying so deathly white up stairs, and half wishing her mother had not banished her from the room.
"Lulu!"
"Yes, Brother Willie."
He was looking at her as she looked up at him with a flittingblush on her round, dimpled face. She was wonderfully pretty, this Lulu Clendenon, with her arch brown eyes, and pink and white skin, the wavy brown hair that was gathered in a soft, loosely braided coil at the back of her small head, and her blue lawn dress, with its frillings, and flutings, and puffings, was very becoming, setting off the whiteness of her throat and wrists as no other color ever does for a pretty woman.
"Well," she said, as he did not answer her first reply.
"My little sister, I won't have you tangling your brain up with useless speculations over things that must happen as long as the world stands and men and women live, and breathe, and have their being. Don't let me see that pretty brow all puckered up again. What would mother and I do if our household fairy became dull, and dreamy, and philosophical."
"Brother Willie, am I always to be a child?"
"Always, my sweet? Why how old are you—sixteen?"
"I am nineteen, brother, and this Mrs. Winans of whom all Norfolk is raving, who is a wife and mother—she, it is said, is barely more than twenty."
"Yes, love; but the loss of parents and friends forced Grace Grey into premature womanhood and premature responsibilities; she took up the cross early, but you, dear little one——"
A low tinkle of the door-bell cut short whatever else he meant to say, and he answered the summons himself. It was a messenger from Mrs. Conway to inquire concerning her nephew. He sent back a message that he still lay sleeping quietly. For the rest of the day the house was besieged with callers and inquirers from all parts of the city, and Captain Clendenon found himself kept busy in replying.
In the midst of it all, in his deep grief and anxiety for his friend's life, in his pity and sympathy for the exiled duelist, a fair face brooded over all his thoughts, a pang for a woman's suffering struck coldly to his heart. To know that she was mourning alone, bowed to earth in her unmerited sorrow and shame, was the height and depth of bitterness to the man who loved her tenderly and purely as he did his own little sister.
And the spring day wore to its close, and the silence of the balmy spring night, with its wandering breeze of violets, its mysterious stare, fell over all things. The string of inquirersfrom among the friends of the wounded man thinned out, the surgeon came and went, and still Bruce Conway lay locked in that strange pallid sleep on whose waking so many hearts hung with anxiety and dread.
At ten o'clock the captain admitted John, who had come to seek fresh tidings for his mistress. His honest black face looked up in vague, awe-struck grief at the captain's mournful features.
"Oh, marse cap'en!" he pleaded, "lemme see him, if you please, sir, once more before he dies!"
"Be very quiet, then," said the captain, "and it will do no harm for you to go in."
The black boy went in with footfalls noiseless as the captain's own. Lulu and her mother were there, one on each side of the bed, watching the sleeper with anxious eyes. They looked up at the strange face of the boy as he paused and gazed at the still, white face on the pillow. His dark skin seemed to grow ashen white as he looked, his thick, ugly lip quivered convulsively, and two tears darted from his black eyes and rolled down upon his breast. He gazed long and mournfully, seeming to take in every lineament of that beloved face; then, as he turned reluctantly away, stooped carefully down, and touched his rough lips tenderly and lightly on the cold, white hand that lay outside of the coverlid.
"Twas a hand that never struck me, and was always kind to me," he murmured, mournfully, as he went out, followed by the injunction from Mrs. Clendenon to report that Mr. Conway was still in the same condition—sleeping quietly.
Lulu looked down at the hand lying so still and lifeless on the counterpane. A tear-drop that had fallen from the eyes of the poor black boy lay on it, shining purely as a pearl in the subdued light. Lulu would not wipe it away. It was a precious drop distilled from the fountain of unselfish love and sorrow; it seemed to plead mutely to the girl for the man who lay there so still and pale, unable to speak for himself.
"There must have been much good in the poor young man," she thought, impulsively, "or his servants would not have loved him like that."
By and by she stole down to her brother, who was still pacing,with muffled footfalls, the parlor floor. He turned to her, inquiringly.
"Well?" he queried.
"No change yet—not the slightest."
"Probably there will not be until midnight. I trust it will be favorable, though we have no grounds to expect it. The surgeon fears internal hemorrhage from that great bullet-wound in the side—it narrowly escaped the heart. He will be here again to-night before the crisis comes."
Once more comes a low, muffled door-bell. Lulu drops into an arm-chair, shivering, though the night is warm. Willard goes to the door.
Presently he comes back, ushering in a stranger. She rises up, thinking as a matter of course that this is the surgeon.
"My sister, Lulu, Senator Winans," said her brother's quiet tones.
Lulu nearly dropped to the floor in astonishment and terror. She was very nervous to-night—so nervous that she actually trembled when he lightly touched her hand, and she almost pushed his away, thinking, angrily, that that firm white hand had done Bruce Conway to death.
He was not so terrible to look at, though, she thought, as with woman's proverbial curiosity she furtively scanned the tall, fine figure.
He was very young to fill such a post of honor in his country—he certainly did not look thirty—and the fine white brow, crowned by curling, jet-black hair, might have worn a princely crown and honored it in the wearing. Beautiful, dusk-black eyes, gloomy now as a starless midnight, looked at her from under slender, arched, black brows. The nose was perfectly chiseled, of Grecian shape and profile; the mouth was flexible and expressive—one that might be sweet or stern at will; the slight, curling mustache did not hide it, though his firm chin was concealed by the dark beard that rippled luxuriantly over his breast.
It was a face that breathed power; whose beauty was thoroughly masculine; that was mobile always; that might be proud, or passionate, or jealous—never ignoble. Altogether he was a splendidly handsome man. Lulu could not help acknowledgingthis to herself—the very handsomest man she had ever seen in her life. But for all that, after she had politely offered him a chair, she retreated as far as possible from his vicinity. Why had he come there in his proud, strong manhood and beauty, and Bruce Conway lying up stairs likethat? He did not take the offered seat, but merely placing one hand on the back of it, looked from her to her brother.
"I feel that this is an unwelcome intrusion, Captain Clendenon," he said, slowly, and in soft, sad tones, that thrilled the girl's heart, in spite of the anger she felt for him, "but I cannot help it, though you may not believe me when I tell you that it was so impossible for me endure the suspense and horror of to-night that I have come here to beg you for news of the man whom I have almost murdered."
Black eyes and gray ones met each other without wavering. Soul met soul, and read each other by the fine touchstone of a fellow-feeling. Even in his anger for his friend, Willard Clendenon could not withhold a merited kindly answer.
"I do believe you," he answered, quietly, "and am glad you came, though I can tell you nothing satisfactory. The patient has slept all day—still sleeps—— he will awaken to life or death. We are only waiting."
"Waiting!" That word chilled the fiery, impulsive soul of Paul Winans into a dumb horror. Waiting!—for what! To see his work completed. What had he done? Taken in cold blood a human life that at this moment, in his swift remorse and self-accusation, he would have freely given his own to save; in the height of his jealous madness committed a deed from which his calmer retrospection revolted in horror. He looked from one to the other in pale, impotent despair. He had gone his length—the length of human power and passion—now God's hand held the balance.
"Then, at least, you will let me wait," he said. "If he dies, I shall surrender myself up to justice. If he lives, I shall all the sooner know that I am not a murderer."
"You shall stay, certainly, and welcome," Willard said, cordially, touched by the evident suffering of the other.
"Very well; I will sit here and wait, with thanks. I do not deserve this kindness."
Lulu stole from the room, leaving them alone together, and resumed her place up stairs. The patient slept calmly on, her mother placidly watching him. Once or twice her brother looked quietly in, and as quietly withdrew. There was something on his mind that must be spoken. He turned once and looked at his companion as he sat upright in his chair, still and pale almost as his victim lay up stairs.
"Winans," he said, slowly, "we have known each other for a long time, and I knew your wife long before you ever met her, and knew her but to reverence her as a pearl among women. Will you pardon me if I confess to an interest in her that lends me to inquire frankly if you think you are doing her justice?"
"Clendenon, I know that I am not. I know that I am unworthy of her—pure, injured angel that she is—but what can I do? I dare not remain near her. I should but make her miserable. It maddens me, in my jealous bitterness, when I remember that young, fair, and sweet as she was when I first met her, the pure page of her heart had already been inscribed with the burning legend of a first love. Her first love lost to me, her second only given to me, I cannot bear! When I can overcome this fiery passion, and if Bruce Conway lives, I will return to her—not till then."
"You are wrong, my friend—bitterly wrong. Think of what she suffers, of the scandal, the conjecture that your course will create. You should be her defender, not leave her defenseless to meet the barbed arrows of caviling society. Return to your injured wife, Winans. Take the candid advice of one who esteems you both. It is so hard on her. She suffers deeply, I feel."
"Clendenon, hush! You madden me, and cannot shake my firm resolve—would that I had never met her."
"Possibly she might have been happier," Clendenon says, with sudden scathing sarcasm, "but I will say no more. It is not my province to come between man and wife. May God have more mercy on her than you have!"
The words pierced that proud heart deeply. The erring, passionate man arose and looked at the other in his calm, truthful scorn, and burning words leaped to his lips.
"Clendenon, you don't know what you are talking of. You blame me for what I cannot overcome. Do you know where I was born? Under the burning skies of Louisiana. The hot blood of the fiery South leaps through my veins, the burning love of the Southern clime pours its flood-tide through my heart, the passionate jealousy of the far South fires my soul. I cannot help my nature. I cannot entirely control nor transform it into a colder, calmer one. Blame me if you will, think me unmanly if you will, but I have told you the truth. It shall be the study of my life to bring this madness into subjection. Till then I will not hold my wife in my arms, will not kiss her dear lips. It is for the best. I will not frighten her from me forever by showing her how like a madman I can be under the influence of my master-passion."
Slowly, slowly the hours wore on until midnight. Mrs. Clendenon fell into a light doze in the sick-room, but Lulu was still watching that still form. The shaded lamps burned dimly, the room was full of shadows, the strange silence and awe that fill a room at an hour like this brooded solemnly over all things.
Poor Lulu looked at her mother. The sweet old face, framed in its soft lace cap, was locked in such gentle repose the girl had not the heart to awaken her. It grew so lonely she wished her brother would return to the room.
Presently she bent forward and looked into Conway's face, and laid her hand tenderly on his brow; it felt warmer and more natural; he stirred slightly. Before she could move her hand his white lids unclosed, the dark eyes looked at her with the calm light of reason in their depths.
"Gracie, is it you?" he whispered, faintly.
"Not Gracie—Lulu," she answered.
"Not Gracie—Lulu?" he slowly murmured after her, and wearily closed his eyes.
"I think he will live," said a voice above her.
She looked up. Her brother and the surgeon had come in so quietly she had not heard them. She rose from her wearisome vigil and glided softly down stairs, moved by a divine impulse of pity for the pale watcher below.
"I think it is life," she said, simply.
He sprang up and looked at her, two stars dawning in the dusk eyes, a glory shining on his darkly handsome face.
"Thank God!" he cried, "I am not a murderer!"
And strangely as he had come he was gone.
"I HATE IT—I HATE HER!"
"When first I saw my favorite child,I thought my jealous heart would break,But when the unconscious infant smiled,I kissed it for its mother's sake."
"When first I saw my favorite child,I thought my jealous heart would break,But when the unconscious infant smiled,I kissed it for its mother's sake."
—Byron.
With the rosy dawn of the summer day consciousness returned to Bruce Conway—a dazed, half-consciousness, though, that only took in part of the scene, and a memory that only held Grace Winans. He muttered of her in his distracted slumbers; he waked and asked for her with a piteous anxiety that went to Lulu's tender heart.
"Had we better send for her?" she wistfully queried of her brother.
"No, indeed, little sister; it would only complicate matters. She would not come; he does not deserve it. Poor boy! I am sorry, but we can do nothing."
"Nothing, brother?"
"To bring her here, I mean. Try to reason with him, Lulu, and talk him out of this feverish fancy."
"Grace—Gracie!" came in a whisper from the bed.
Lulu was by him in an instant.
"Will not I do as well as Grace?"
"No." His pallid brow contracted in a vexed frown. "Go away; you are not Grace."
"No, but I am Willard's sister. Cannot you like me a little for his sake, and not worry yourself so much?" she asked, gently and persuasively.
"Cannot you get Grace to come—won't you try?" he whispered, in a faint voice.
A low tinkle of the door-bell seemed to echo his words. Half raising his handsome head, he looked at her eagerly.
"That may be Grace now," he said. "Won't you go and see?"
"Yes," she answered, gently, though she sighed as she went; "I will go and see."
She started in astonishment when she opened the door. Outside was a pleasant-faced Irishwoman, dressed plainly and neatly, with a pretty babe in her arms. It was Mrs. Winans' nurse and child.
Grace had learned from Miss Story where Bruce was, and when Norah went out to take the little boy for his morning airing, she had directed her to call and inquire of Captain Clendenon how Mr. Conway was getting on.
Norah introduced herself and her business briefly and clearly, and Lulu invited her in and gave her a seat.
"And this is Mrs. Winans' baby?" she said, taking the beautiful boy from the nurse's arms and kissing his rosy face. "How lovely he is!"
Little Paul smiled fearlessly back at her, and something in the dark flash of his eyes so vividly recalled his father that she thought suddenly of Bruce Conway waiting up stairs for her.
"I will bring my brother down to tell you exactly how Mr. Conway is," she said; and turning away with the little bundle of lace, and cambric, and laughing babyhood in her arms, she went back to Bruce Conway's room.
Her brother looked surprised at the strange little visitor. She smiled and went up to the bedside, holding triumphantly up the tiny baby that, quite unabashed by the strange scene, jumped, and crowed, and smiled brilliantly at Bruce.
"Mrs. Winans did not come, but she sent her representative, Mr. Conway," she said, thinking it would please him to see the pretty child. "This is her son."
"Her son!" Bruce Conway's eyes dwelt a moment on that picture of rosy health and beauty, and a shudder shook him from head to foot. "Her child! his child! Take it away from me, Miss Clendenon. I hate it! I hate her!"
Lulu recoiled in terror at the sharp, angry tones and the jealous pain and madness that gleamed in his eyes. She turnedaway surprised and frightened at the mischief she had done, and was about to leave the room.
"Lulu, let me see the baby," said her brother's voice, as she reached the door.
His tones wore strangely moved, and as he came across to her she noted the faint flush that colored his high forehead. He took it in his arms and looked long and earnestly at the little face, finding amid its darker beauty many infantile beauties borrowed from the fair lineaments of its mother.
"God bless you, little baby," he said, touching reverent lips to the innocent brow, with a prayer in his heart for her whose brow was so mirrored in that of her child that he flushed, then paled, as he kissed it, thinking of hers that his lips might never press.
He loved the child for its mother's sake.
Bruce hated it for its father's sake.
It was a fair exponent of the character of the two men.
He gave it quietly back to Lulu, but she, explaining her errand sent him to tell Norah, with the child in his arms, while she went back to soothe the irritated invalid.
"I am sorry," she began, penitently, "I would not have brought the babe, but I thought, I fancied, that you would like it for its mother's sake. Forgive me."
The moody anger in his eyes cleared at sound of her magical, silver-sweet tones.
"Forgiveme," he said, feebly. "I was a brute to speak to a lady so—but I was not myself. You don't understand a man's feelings in such a case, Miss Clendenon. Thank you for that forgiving smile."
He caught up the little hand gently straightening his tumbled pillows, and with feeble, pallid gallantry, touched it to his lips. A shiver of bitter-sweet emotion thrilled the young girl as she hastily drew it away.
"You must not talk any more," she said, gently, "or brother will scold, and the surgeon, too. Brother will be back in a minute, so be quiet. Don't let anything occupy your mind, and try, do, to go to sleep and rest."
She put her finger to her lip and nodded archly at him.
He smiled back, and half-closing his eyes, lay looking at heras she took a chair at the other end of the room, and busied herself with a bit of fancy work.
"How pretty she is," he thought, vaguely, and when he fell into a fitful slumber, her fair face blent with Grace's in his dreams, and bewildered him with its bright, enchanting beauty.
"BUT AS FOR HER, SHE STAID AT HOME."