CHAPTER IX.
By-and-by, when Jessie removed the dust of travel, and freshened herself up with a dainty blue gown that just matched her sky-blue eyes, the two girls strolled out upon the lawn, and presently found seats in the favorite rose-arbor, where the robins, nesting overhead, made a mighty twittering in vain protest against their unwelcome intrusion.
“It is because you are a stranger, Jessie,” laughed Leola. “It is quite different when Ray and I come here together—they treat us quite as if we belonged to the Robin family.”
“Who is Ray?” asked Jessie, curiously.
Leola could not help blushing furiously, but she said, as carelessly as she could:
“Oh, only one of our neighbors!”
She was inwardly furious with herself at this slip of the tongue that was destined to lead her into self-betrayal. Ah, how true it is that a name that is close to the heart must often rise to the lips.
To distract Jessie’s attention she asked, all in a breath:
“When are you going to marry your grand, rich lover, Jessie?”
“My wedding will be in October,” fibbed Miss Stirling, who had no mind to confess that she had lost the prize, and she continued:
“Mr. Olyphant has gone on a yachting tour with some friends now, and I do not know exactly when they will return. It was expected they would only be gone two weeks, but they extended the trip. I miss him very much, and I shall be quite frantic if he stays much longer!”
“Then you love him very much?” queried Leola, with shining eyes.
“Love him! I should say so!” cried Jessie, eagerly. “Why, Leola, he is as handsome as a picture, tall, with an elegant figure, fine features, brown, curly hair, and beautiful, laughing blue eyes!”
“So has Ray!” cried Leola, then bit her lips in confusion, sighing to herself:
“What a lovesick little goose I am, giving away my dangerous secret in spite of myself!”
“Ray again!” cried Jessie, suspiciously. “Come, now, tell me all about him, Leola. A neighbor, you said, but I knew no one of that name about here last summer. You say he has laughing blue eyes like Chester Olyphant, so you must be fond of him, this neighbor! Confess now, is he your lover?”
“Oh, nonsense, Jessie, we were talking of your lover!” cried Leola. “Go on, please, tell me more of him, and of your love for each other.”
“We are perfectly devoted to each other,” declared Jessie, unblushingly. “How could I help loving him—with all that money!”
“But, Jessie, if Mr. Olyphant were poor, would you not love him just the same?”
Jessie had a red rose in her hand, and she tore it to pieces with absent-minded fingers as she replied, bluntly:
“Bah. I wouldn’t permit myself to love a poor man if he were a perfect Adonis!”
But artless Leola, with rosy cheeks and glowing eyes, retorted:
“Then you do not know how to love, Jessie—not even the meaning of that sacred word, for I would adore Ray Chester if he had not a second coat to his back!”
“Ray Chester! There you go again!” cried Miss Stirling, with a violent start. “Oh, come now, you are madly in love with some man, Leola, and you have got to tell me all about it this minute!”
“Oh, you are mistaken!” cried poor Leola, trying to flounder out of her difficulty.
“I am not mistaken! Oh, no! I know all the signs of love, and you cannot even keep his name off your lips!” cried Miss Stirling, triumphantly:
It was true: Leola realized it, and felt how impossible it was to keep hidden the happy secret of her love. Indeed, she fairly ached to tell it to some sweet, sympathetic girl friend, and why not Jessie, whom she had known from childhood, and who had always been fairly friendly? True; the young lady was twenty-three, four years older than herself, but as each wasmadly in love with a splendid young man, there was a bond of sympathy between their hearts that might bring good results if they fairly understood each other.
She suddenly made up her artless mind to confide in beautiful, blue-eyed Jessie, and beg her to intercede with her guardian to consent to her happiness, but because tears were very close to her own dark eyes, she put Ray aside for a moment to recover herself, saying, laughingly:
“Only think, Jessie, I have a rich lover, too. Our neighbor, Giles Bennett, who has gotten rich by coal since his wife died, wants to marry me, the little girl he used to dandle on his knee! Now, what do you think of that?”
“A splendid match for you, Leola, and I hope you will accept him,” declared Jessie, frankly.
“Oh, no, no, no!” Leola cried out, quickly, and Jessie retorted:
“More fool you, then, to let such a chance slip through your fingers! If I weren’t going to marry Chester Olyphant I’d take old Fatty off your hands myself. But it seems, from what you let slip just now, that there’s a poor young man in the case—Ray Chester, you said, and if you do not tell me the whole story instantly I shall die of curiosity!”
Leola, with her beautiful face glowing like a rose, exclaimed:
“I don’t want you to die, Jessie, so I am going to ‘’fess,’ as the children say, and, after all, I think I ought to confide in you, for it is through you all this happiness has come to me.”
“Through me,” gasped Jessie, and her lips went white, while a cold hand seemed to press all the life from her heart with a swift, horrible suspicion that centered around that name “Chester,” breathed so sweetly just now from Leola’s lovely lips.
But Leola did not observe these signs of emotion. She was looking down, bashfully, and playing with a bunch of red roses in the belt of her simple white gown. Her beauty was glorified by the love that thrilled at her heart.
“I will begin at the beginning first of all, and tell you how I saved Ray Chester’s life,” she said, softly, and, as before, her voice seemed to linger over that name like a caress.
Miss Stirling did not answer a word. She sat still and pale, listening, with a horrible presentiment of what was coming, and a hatred for innocent Leola, a jealous hatred that was more bitter than death.
Leola, still playing with her roses, in bashful confusion, looked down with the curly lashes sweeping her rosy cheeks, and told her story briefly, sweetly, and with the simplicity of strong emotion, dwelling but lightly on her own heroism in saving Ray Chester’s life, and touching, reservedly, on their love-story, but bringing into prominence his confession that he had fallen so desperately in love with her pictures that he had come to seek her and offer his love.
She concluded, gently:
“And although Ray has never once mentioned your name, he did not deny it when I said that I was sure it was you from whom he got the pictures; and, Jessie, dear, I am so glad you took those little snap-shots of me, for through them has come the happiness of my life, and I shall always be glad Ray saw them and loved me!”
The musical voice ceased speaking, but as Jessie made no answer, Leola added, ardently:
“He is only a poor artist, my darling Ray, but I am glad, after all, that he is poor, for he knows I love him for himself alone, for ‘his own true worth,’ as the poem says, you know, Jessie.”
She gave a violent start when Miss Stirling answered, in a hoarse, concentrated voice of hatred and bitterness:
“You are a silly little fool, Leola Mead!”
“Oh, Jessie!” and Leola’s voice trembled with wounded feeling.
She looked up and saw that her companion was deadly pale and trembling.
“Oh, what is the matter? Are you ill, Jessie? Have I wearied you with my story?”
Miss Stirling was very cunning, or very brave. She had got a heart wound, but she would not cry out against the hand that struck the blow; after that one passionate outburst she struggled for calmness.
With a hollow laugh, she answered:
“I am very, very tired, after my long journey from New York, and the sun is very hot, but—I shall be better presently.”
“Shall I go and bring you a little sip of wine?” urged Leola, and Jessie assented.
She was glad to be alone for one moment, to cry out aloud at the fate that had parted her from the man she loved.
“Mamma was right, and I was wrong. He was in love with her, after all, and he came here, instead of going yachting, as he intended—came here to woo this simple rustic, won by her wondrous beauty, that was more dangerous than I dreamed! But he shall never marry Leola Mead—never! Why, I think I would murder her first! And what will he say when he finds me here? Above all, why is he masquerading under a false name, and pretending to be a poor artist? Ah, I have it! He means to deceive the silly girl; his intentions are dishonorable, but I will unmask him, I will break up the affair, I swear it!” clenching her white hands desperately.
Leola came back with the wine and a biscuit, and Jessie accepted, eagerly.
“Wine always clears my brain, somehow, and I have got a lot of scheming and planning to do,” she thought, as she drained the last drop and munched the sweet biscuit.
“Ah, you look better now. I am afraid it quite unnerved you, hearing all about that accident to Ray,” exclaimed Leola, tenderly.
“Yes, yes, it was dreadful; it made my flesh creep. Besides, I was very tired, you know, and that made it worse; but I am ever so much better now, thanks to the wine! Really, Leola, you were quite a heroine, and I cannot wonder that my artist friend fell in love with you, though I cannot, for the life of me, remember any man by that name, Ray Chester. I know I loaned your pictures to my lover, Chester Olyphant, but it cannot be that he came here to deceive a poor innocent country girl because of her pretty face—oh no! I cannot believe that of my lover. It is a good thing I came in time to thwart his evil designs, if he really is my Chester, but—ah!” She looked up, wildly, for a man’s step crunched on the ground, and the next moment he stepped into the arbor—Ray Chester, or Ray Olyphant, cool,handsome, smiling, like the villain in the play.
Miss Stirling sprang to her feet with a thrilling cry. The next moment she flung herself on his broad breast, her arms about his neck, crying joyously:
“Chester Olyphant, my own darling, naughty, runaway boy!”