"Don't jest on such a grewsome topic," he said. "Joking apart, I will venture to prophesy that you will be happier at Naples than you have ever been in your life. It is so warm there."
"Even that will not be wonderful," she retorted; then suddenly her voice changed, and she looked up at him almost fiercely. "Do you think it will be warm enough to thaw Blair's heart? Austin, will heneverforget that girl? Oh, Heaven! how I hate her."
"Hush!" he said, in a low voice: "you forget—the dead!"
"No," she retorted, the two bright spots burning fiercely on her cheeks, her eyes glittering like dagger-points; "I hate her more now she is dead, for if she had lived he would have tired of her, but now she comes between us like a ghost; and you cannot get rid of that for me, even you, clever as you are, Austin!"
A month later, the sun, which in England was shining with a sickly affectation of geniality, was pouring a flood of warmth and light on every house and street in Naples. Color, warmth, brightness were all there, not in niggardly patches, but in lavish profusion, and in no spot of the enchanted city more profuse than in the palace in which resided the Earl and Countess of Ferrers; for to Naples they had come, and, needless to say, Mr. Austin with them.
But though he had prophesied that Violet should be happier there than she had ever been, his prophecy had not yet fulfilled itself, for even the Naples' sun could not thaw Blair's heart, and, as in England, there was stillthat weary, absent expression in his face which proclaims the man to whom life has become joyless and hopeless.
Of all the noble palaces which the Neapolitans so cheerfully let to the English visitors, the palace Austin Ambrose had chosen was the most sumptuous; and if rooms which emperors might have dwelt in, and surroundings which would have inspired a poet, could have made a woman happy, then Violet Countess of Ferrers should have been the most beatified of her sex. But on this glorious evening in spring, she was lying on her couch on the balcony overlooking the bay with the same restless fire in her eyes, the old red fever spots on her cheeks. Leaning over the balcony was Mr. Austin Ambrose attired in a spotless linen suit, with a cigar between his lips, and his eyes keenly noting the passers-by in the street beneath him.
"What are you staring at? Have you become suddenly dumb?" exclaimed Lady Violet, with irritability.
"I was looking at the beggars," he said, with a patience in a marked contrast to her impatience. "Naples is the paradise of the mendicant. Shall I wheel you nearer the balcony?—you would find them very amusing."
She looked over listlessly.
"They are not amusing," she complained, shrugging her shoulders.
"At any rate they are a study," he said. "There are beggars of every nationality under the sun, I should think. Strange how easy it is to distinguish them, even through their rags. There is the Neapolitan, for instance, that old man there with the boy; and there is a Spaniard, and there are two Frenchmen, and there is an English girl——" He stopped suddenly, and let his cigar fall to the ground.
"What is the matter?" she asked.
"The matter?" he said, turning with a smile, though his face wore a strange expression. "What do you mean?"
"Why you start as if you had seen a ghost?"
"Oh, come; youarefanciful this evening," he retorted laughing.
"But you did start!" she persisted, listlessly.
"I never contradict a lady," he said lightly. "But believe me, the movement was unconscious," and he took out his cigar-case and languidly chose a fresh cigar; but as he did so, he leaned over the balcony, and keenly scrutinized the crowd beneath; for that which had caused him to start, and drop his cigar, was the form of some one who bore a strange likeness to Lottie Belvoir.
Mr. Austin Ambrose looked in the direction the girl had taken, but she had disappeared, probably up one of the narrow streets, and smiling at the fancied resemblance,he smoked on comfortably and devoted his attention to the crowd. Presently a servant came from the room behind them, and handed a card on a salver.
The countess took it languidly.
"What a nuisance people are! Did you say that we were not at home?"
"Yes, my lady," said the footman; "but his highness wrote on the card, my lady."
"His highness!" exclaimed Violet contemptuously. "Every second man one meets in Italy is a count or a prince! What is it he has written, Austin? Your Italian is better, than mine."
Austin Ambrose took the card.
"This is not Italian, it is English," he said. "'Prince Rivani begs the honor of the Earl of Ferrers' presence at a conversazione. Palace Augustus, this evening at ten o'clock.'"
"I thought it was understood that we did not visit?" said Violet languidly. "Why do people bother us? Prince Rivani! This is the second time he has left his card."
"His highness is very attentive, at any rate," said Austin Ambrose. "Shall you go?"
"Seeing that I am not asked," said Violet, "it is not very probable."
"Oh, I expect it is one of those gatherings which these Italians delight in: a little music, a little weak lemonade, and mild tobacco. Blair might like to go."
"Here is Blair to answer for himself," said Violet, as Blair strode on to the balcony.
"What is it?" he said, looking from one to the other.
"Only an invitation," replied Austin Ambrose. "I don't suppose you would care for it. You will be bored to death."
"'Prince Rivani.' He called the other day," said Blair thoughtfully, as he leant over the balcony. "Would you care to go, Violet?"
"I am not invited," she said impatiently. "Don't you see it mentions you only?"
"Ah, yes, a bachelor's party," said Blair. "I may go; it is a lovely day. I have been on the hills, and—Ah!" he exclaimed, and he leant over the balcony with a sudden appearance of interest.
Austin Ambrose glided to his side.
"What is the matter? Is it anything wonderful?" said the countess, and she rose from the couch and looked over.
Blair bit his lip.
"It is nothing," he said, "I thought I saw someone I knew."
"You are like Austin," she said, coiling herself on the couch again; "he started and dropped his cigar just now."
Blair walked out of her hearing, and beckoned Austin Ambrose.
"Do you know whom it was I saw just now?" he said.
"Couldn't guess," replied Austin.
"It was Lottie Belvoir," said Blair.
"Oh, nonsense; it's impossible!" said Austin Ambrose, lightly. "I tell you she is on an English tour at this present moment. How on earth could she be here?"
"I do not know, but I am certain it was she," said Blair, gravely.
"I'll soon convince you," said Austin Ambrose, and he disappeared. He mingled with the crowd for five minutes; then he was back again. "As I thought," he said, with a smile. "She is a Neapolitan girl with a face rather like Lottie's."
"Rather like!" said Blair, with a sigh of relief. "It was an astonishing resemblance, but if you saw the girl closely it is all right."
But the resemblance to Lottie of the girl in rags in the streets of Naples haunted him several times that evening, and on his way to Prince Rivani's rooms, he found himself unconsciously scanning the faces of the women who passed, as if he feared to see the girl.
Of Prince Rivani he had of course heard, but he had not seen him yet, and it was with a languid kind of curiosity that he followed the footman into thesalon.
There were about fifteen or twenty gentlemen present, most of them smoking cigarettes, and from their midst a tall, patrician-looking figure came to meet him.
Blair, though he had heard of the prince's popularity and his good looks, was not prepared for so handsome a face; and he was looking at him with interest when he was struck by the expression of the prince's eye. It seemed as if he were regarding Blair with a scrutiny far and away beyond that usual on the part of a host greeting a guest for the first time. The prince's face, too, was pale, and his lips compressed as if by some suppressed emotion. But his courtesy was perfection.
"I am honored, Lord Ferrers," he said bowing, as he just touched Blair's hand. "Let me introduce you to some friends of mine," and he led Blair round the room, making him known to one and another. There were some Englishmen there—one meets them everywhere, from Kamtchatka to the plains of Loo!-and he got into conversation with one and another.
Presently, just as he was thinking of taking his leave, the prince came up to him.
"Are you fond of art, Lord Ferrers?" he inquired, in a grave voice.
Blair shook his head.
"I like a good picture, but I don't know anything about it," he said. "You have a very fine collection, have you not?"
The prince shrugged his shoulders.
"Not so fine as that at Leyton Court, Lord Ferrers," he said, with a bow. "But I possess one picture which I value above all the others. I am so attached to it that it travels about with me; it is here, in my writing room. Would you care to see it? I think it will repay you for your trouble."
Blair rose at once.
"I should like to very much," he said.
The prince led the way to a small room on the same floor, and stood before a picture, closely curtained.
"You will want plenty of light," he said, turning up the gas as he spoke, "and if you will sit just there, Lord Ferrers, you will be in the most favorable position."
At the same time he himself took up his stand by the curtain, with his eyes fixed piercingly upon Blair's face.
"Now," he said, "I want you to tell me exactly how this picture strikes you at first sight. You shall examine it closely and criticise it afterward. I ought to tell you that it has made the artist famous."
As he spoke, still keeping his eyes fixed upon Blair's face, he drew the curtain. Blair had not felt much interest in the proceedings, and expected to see some piece of artistic trickery, and so leant back to take it at his ease; when suddenly, as if the veil of the past had been rent asunder, there sprung upon his sight the picture of his Margaret lying on the rocks at Appleford; the exact representation of her death as he had pictured it, alas! how often!
Trembling and almost beside himself, he had forgotten the presence of the prince, who, mute as himself, stood with folded arras regarding him with a stern look.
"Does the picture please you, Lord Ferrers?" he said, and there was something ominous in his voice.
Blair started and turned to him.
"I—I beg your pardon. Yes, it is a marvelous picture. But there is something connected with it; I——" he sank into the chair and covered his face with his hands.
The prince stood regarding him in silence for a moment; then he drew the curtain over the picture and turned to Blair.
"My lord, you will understand why I showed you that picture. There need be not one word spoken between usin reference to it. Your face has told me all I want to know; my actions will explain my motives. Lord Ferrers will understand that if I treat him with discourtesy when we return to the company, that I do it to provide an excuse for our meeting to-morrow morning."
"Our meeting?" said Blair, who had scarcely listened to, and certainly had not understood, the prince's words.
Prince Rivani's face grew black.
"Lord Ferrers prefers to ruin women rather than fight with men! Ah, yes!"
Blair rose at once.
"I don't understand you," he said, quietly; "but if you wish to challenge me you need not be afraid that I shall decline. Why you should want to shoot me I scarcely know——"
"It is a lie!" hissed the prince, driven almost mad by what he considered Blair's prevarication.
"Thanks," said Blair, with a short nod. "At any rate, Prince Rivani, you have made it clear whyIshould shootyou!"
Prince Rivani opened the door with a low bow, and the two men went back to thesalon. The prince was pale but perfectly self possessed, and Blair very grave and quiet. The picture still floated before his eyes: the great black rock and the white, wan figure still stretched upon it, almost in the grasp of the cruel waves. His Margaret! Who could have painted it? And the prince had said that the picture had made the artist famous! He must find out that artist and get at the bottom of the mystery.
Thesalonwas fuller than when he had left it, and he went and sat down in a quiet part of the room to wait until the prince had made some excuse for openly giving a reason for the duel of the morrow.
So he sat in his corner, outwardly calm and self-possessed, but thinking a great deal more of Margaret than the duel.
Presently Blair saw a tall, patrician man, with long hair and a beard, and the unmistakable air of an artist, enter the room, and absently noticed that he was instantly surrounded. He caught the name—it was Signor Alfero, the great artist; and scraps of the conversation floated to Blair's corner.
Suddenly he started. They were talking of the picture; he leaned forward and listened intently.
"What have you done with the masterpiece, prince?" Blair heard him ask.
"It is in my writing-room," said Prince Rivani.
"Oh, that is a pity! You should not deprive the world of a sight of its great treasures,monprince."
"You still think as highly of Miss Leslie's picture, then, signor?" asked a gentleman.
"As highly?—more!" said the old man, turning promptly. "The more I see of it, the greater my astonishment grows that a woman so young could have painted a picture so old."
"So old?"
"Yes. We measure the age of a picture by the age of the thought it contains. There is a lifetime of suffering, and love, and despair in the face of the girl on that rock. Miss Leslie must have felt all that—ay, every heart-pang of it—before she could have painted it. It is—I repeat my verdict—a marvelous picture! She will, I trust, live to paint many other great ones; but never one that will go straighter to the heart than this."
"Where is Miss Leslie now?" asked another gentleman. "One sees and hears nothing of her."
"Because you do not go where she goes, signor. Miss Leslie is never seen in the promenade; you may drink your afternoon tea in all the palaces of Naples and not meet with her. But I venture to prophesy that if you will penetrate the slums of the city, the fever haunts, in which our poorest of the poor are awaiting the peace bringer, Death, you will find the great artist in their midst."
There was silence for a moment.
"Miss Leslie is a—philanthropist, then?" said the gentleman.
"She is a ministering angel," responded Signor Alfero, simply.
The prince stood by, white to the lips.
"What time she can spare from her work—and she works as hard as any seamstress in the city!—she spends amongst the poor. There is not a beggar in our streets who does not know her; not a blind man whose ears do not eagerly greet her footfall; not a sick child whose face does not 'lighten' at the sight of her smile. She is an artist—and an angel!" and the old man's lips quivered.
As if he could bear it no longer, the prince stood upright and approached Blair, his face white and set with the effort to suppress his thirst for vengeance.
"Referring to our discussion, Lord Ferrers," he said significantly, "are you still of opinion that we Italians have taken but a low place in the scale of nations?"
Blair started and looked up at him in surprise, then, understanding that the prince was going to make pretense of a quarrel, he replied:
"I cannot alter my opinion, even for so distinguished an Italian as Prince Rivani."
"That means that, as an Englishman, you regard us with contempt, my lord?"
Blair shrugged his shoulders.
"Your highness is at liberty to place any construction upon my words you please," he said.
"Thanks, my lord. Even if I assume that you charge us with cowardice?"
"Choose your own signification, prince," said Blair, beginning to grow warm, though it was only pretense.
"A nation of cowards!" said Prince Rivani, his eyes glittering at the success of the play. "That is a brave assertion; has the Earl of Ferrers courage to maintain it by the only consistent and appropriate argument?"
"I can maintain it at the sword's point, if necessary," said Blair, rising to his full height, and meeting the prince's deadly gaze with a steady, calm regard.
The prince bowed low, then turning slightly to the rest, said in a low, clear voice:
"Gentlemen, I call you to witness that the cause of quarrel is mine! Lord Ferrers has accused my country-men of a base and vile cowardice. I shall have the honor of defending them. As the Earl of Ferrers says, the argument is not one for words, but weapons! Is that so, my lord?"
"Your highness interprets me correctly," said Blair.
"Good! My friend, General Tralini, will have the honor of waiting upon your lordship at a later hour."
The prince drew him apart.
Blair got his crush hat and cloak, and approaching the prince, bowed low, then, with a general salutation, he left the room.
It was a lovely night, and the air blew upon his brow refreshingly, after the heat of thesalon.
He paused outside the great doorway, and stood looking up at the sky—it was probable that it was the last time he would have the opportunity of seeing the stars.
Then he drew his cloak round him, and was going onward, when a woman, who had been coming down the street with her head bent and her face almost hidden in the thin shawl she hugged round her, stopped, and seeing him, held out her hand, murmuring something in broken Italian.
Blair stopped and looked at her absently; then he started, and taking her arm, drew her near a lamp.
"Lottie!" he said.
She flung her hands before her face and bent her head, almost as if she expected him to strike her.
The gesture amazed Blair.
"Lottie, Lottie!" he said, encouragingly; "it is you, then? I saw you this evening in the streets, my poor girl. But why do you shrink from me? What is the matter? Don't you know me—Blair?"
"Yes, yes!" she gasped. "I know you. I—I——Oh, Blair, don't kill me!"
"Kill you!" he exclaimed, with astonishment. "Why, Lottie, what is the matter with you?"
He took her arm as he spoke and drew it through his.
"You look ill. Lean on me. Don't be afraid."
She tore her arm from his and, shrinking back, leaned against the lamp-post, the light flashing on her face and revealing it in all its haggardness.
"Don't!—don't!" she said, with a catch in her breath. "Don't speak a kind word to me; I don't deserve it! Oh, Blair, if you knew all I've done——"
He sighed.
"Never mind, Lottie," he said, gently; "I'm afraid we have all done rather badly. But I'm sorry to see you looking so ill. Where are you staying? What made you come here? Come, tell me all about it."
"I can't! I can't!" she said, with a shudder and a fearful glance at his grave face. "I came here with a theatrical company—I got ill, and left behind. I wrote tohimand asked for help, and he only threatened me——"
"Him! Who?" demanded Blair soothingly, for he began to think that illness and privation had turned poor Lottie's reason.
She shuddered and caught her breath.
"Austin Am——" she said, then stopped and looked up at him in sudden terror.
"Austin!" he exclaimed. "You wrote to Austin, and he——Oh, come, Lottie; that can't be true! But why didn't you write to me?"
"To you?" she breathed; "to you? Oh, Blair, Blair; if you only knew, you'd kill me where I stand!"
"Nonsense!" he said with gentle reproof. "Don't be silly, Lottie. Look here, you are weak and upset, and not in a fit state to tell me your story. Come to the palace, where I live, to-morrow, and let me hear all about it. Here is the address," and he tore a page from his pocketbook and wrote on it. "There it is. Now, mind you come; I shall be in all the morning—-" Then he stopped, for it suddenly flashed upon him that probably he should be where Lottie could not follow him. "Stay!"he said; "tell me where to find you, and I will come to-morrow—if possible."
"No!" she said with a shudder; "I will not! Go on and leave me, now."
"No, I won't," he said, and his voice sounded like the old Blair's in its hearty good-nature; "I shall stay here till you do tell me; and I warn you that we are keeping my wife up——"
She started and sprung back.
"Your wife!" she gasped. "Has she—has she come back?"
Blair turned pale, then forced a smile.
"My wife has not left me that I know of," he said. "I married Miss Violet Graham; you knew her, Lottie?"
"Violet Graham!" she panted. "Violet Graham! Oh!" and she put her hand before her eyes.
"Yes, and she is with me here at Naples, she and Austin Ambrose," he said. "He will be glad to see you and tell you that there is some mistake in your idea that he had refused to help you."
"She and he here!" she exclaimed hoarsely. "What does it mean? I can't think! I can't see what he wanted! It is all dark—all dark! Blair!" she exclaimed, seizing his arm. "That man—I tell you—I warn you! Oh, Blair, Blair! Take care! He means——" She broke off and almost groaned. "I don't know what he is working for, what he is plotting, but it is no good—no——" She stopped again and drew her shawl round her.
"Whom are you talking about Lottie?" he asked. "Not Austin! Why, he was a friend of yours, and is one of the best fellows alive! My poor girl, what 'bee have you got in your bonnet?' What do you mean?"
"Nothing, nothing!" she said, breathlessly. "I am half mad with cold and hunger——"
"Yes, yes," he said, gently. "See here, Lottie; here is some money—get food and a lodging for to-night. Go to the Hotel Nationale. I will come to you to-morrow and you shall tell me all about it," and he held out some English sovereigns.
She looked up at him with a kind of wild horror, then with a cry of remorse, a cry that rang in his ears for hours afterward, she sped away. He threw off his cloak, and started after her, but she had gained one of the entrances to a network of dark and narrow courts, and Blair lost her as completely as if the pavement had opened and swallowed her up.
Lottie was not far off. Hidden in one of the deep doorways, she had watched him relinquish the pursuit; then,as if compelled to follow him, she crept out, and gained the large street again.
As she passed the Palace Augustus, the guests of the conversazione were coming out, and she drew back into the shadow of the doorway to let them pass.
They were all talking in an excited fashion, and two Englishmen, pausing quite close to the trembling girl, were speaking loudly enough for her to hear.
"Rum kind of thing this affair to-night," said one.
"Isn't it? But it's just what one expects in Italy. Gives quite a foreign flavor to the evening," and he laughed cynically. "Fancy two men fighting a duel on such a paltry excuse as that! Why, I didn't hear anything particularly offensive, did you?"
"Not half so offensive as one hears fifty times over at a political meeting in England."
"But then these Italians are all fire, aren't they? And glad of the excuse for a shindy, eh?"
"Poor Blair!" rejoined the other, with a sigh. "Seems rather hard when you are an earl, with goodness knows how many thousands a year, and a charming wife, to be spitted by a fire-eating Italian. But, there, we all prophesied that Blair Leyton would come to a violent end; either a cropper in the field, or the racecourse."
"That's all right and consistent enough, and would appear to be the logical conclusion of such a man; but to be pierced through the heart with one of those confounded needles! Bah! And he is such a fine fellow, too! Never saw a better made man! Don't wonder all the women of his set were mad about him!"
"Yes, Blair is a good type of our best men," said the other. "But he may not fall: he used to fence awfully well in the old days, at Angelo's fencing-school, don't you know."
"I dare say, but fencing at Angelo's is a very different thing to crossing swords with a man like Rivani, especially when he means mischief, and if Rivani didn't mean mischief to-night, then I'm no judge of a man's looks."
They passed on, and left Lottie amazed in her ambush.
Blair and Prince Rivani to fight a duel! She had been in Naples long enough to have heard of Prince Rivani's reputation as a swordsman. Blair was as good as a dead man when he stood opposite the prince's gleaming steel.
What should she do? What could she do?
Half wild, she stood wringing her hands, her black eyes gleaming with terror and despair, then, suddenly, worn out and exhausted by privation and the excitement of hermeeting with Blair, and this subsequent discovery, she fell to the pavement in a deep faint.
Mr. Austin Ambrose was pacing up and down, in tiger fashion, the extremely luxurious sitting-room, waiting for Blair to return from the Rivanis'; and Austin Ambrose was anything but tranquil and at ease.
Hitherto fate had played into his hands so completely that he had run his career of villainy as smoothly as a well-oiled piston-rod works in its cylinder, but the sight of Lottie in Naples, close to his elbow, rather upset him.
The countess had gone to her boudoir some half an hour since; but she had languidly dropped a few words indicating that she intended remaining up for Blair, and Austin Ambrose listened intently now and again to hear if Blair went straight to his or her room.
Presently he heard a step upon the stairs; it was Blair's, but heavier and slower than usual, and it stopped at Austin's door, and Blair knocked.
Austin was almost guilty of an exclamation of surprise as Blair entered, for he handsome face looked so haggard and wearied that it might have been the face of a haunted man.
"You're late," he said, speaking lightly. "Had a pleasant evening, I hope?"
Blair sank into a chair, and his head drooped upon his breast; then he looked up and motioned to the table, on which stood a liqueur stand.
"Mix me something—anything, there's a good fellow," and his voice was dry and hoarse. "A pleasant evening," he laughed grimly, "you shall judge for yourself. Austin, I have seen Lottie Belvoir!"
Austin Ambrose started, and he set the glass down with a little thud. Then he smiled.
"Not really!"
"Yes. I was right, and you were wrong; it was she whom I saw. Poor girl! Lottie—who used to be the brightest and gayest of them—in Naples, starving and in rags."
"It is very strange! The last I heard of her," said Austin, his face pale with suppressed excitement and fear, "she was traveling with a dramatic company. Did she tell you——"
"She would tell me very little or nothing," said Blair with a sigh.
Austin Ambrose drew a long breath. Lottie had stood firm, then!
"Little or nothing. Austin," suddenly, "did she ever apply to you for help?"
"To me?" he exclaimed, raising his brows. "Certainly not! Why do you ask?"
"Because she said that she had, and you had refused to assist her. But she was dreadfully incoherent, and I'm afraid that privation and trouble have upset her reason. She, poor girl, seemed possessed by some wild idea that she had injured me. She even feared that I should—strike her! When I offered her some money, and begged her to tell me where I could find her, she turned and bolted, and I lost her."
Austin Ambrose drew a breath of relief and mixed himself some brandy and water.
"Poor Lottie, she must be half mad! Thought she had injured you! Why, how could she do that?"
Blair shook his head.
"By no way that I know of. She behaved very strangely all through. She must be found to-morrow."
"Of course; and there's nothing easier. Don't make yourself uncomfortable about it, my dear Blair. I will set the police on her track at once, and we'll soon find her. But the meeting with poor Lottie hasn't spoiled your evening, I hope?"
Blair was silent for a moment, then he said, in a low voice:
"No, no; it was not that, painful as it was. I wish to Heaven it was no more! But—but—Austin, I have seen poor Margaret!"
Austin Ambrose sprung to his feet, and his hand slid like a snake into the bosom of his coat.
"Seen—seen——!" he exclaimed, hoarsely.
"Yes," said Blair, whose back was turned toward him, and who did not see his white face and the movement of his hand; "yes, I have seen her in a picture."
Austin Ambrose dropped into the chair again, and lifting the glass to his lips took a good draught.
"In a picture, my dear Blair! You—you startled me! In a picture! A face that resembled hers. My dear old fellow, you are too sensitive. You must, really you must, fight against these feelings. They are ruining your life. In a picture——"
"Yes; not a face like hers, but her very own. I saw a picture"—and he stood and held out his hand as if he were pointing to it—"of Margaret, of my poor darling herself—lying on the Long Rock at Appleford!" his voice broke, and he turned away.
Austin Ambrose looked at him.
"He is going mad!" he thought.
"My dear Blair, impossible! This is the freak of a mind overwrought by sorrow and too much dwelling on the past. It is impossible. Where did you see this wonderful picture? I should like to see it."
"I saw it at Prince Rivani's. You can see it, no doubt. Do you think I am dreaming? That I have conjured the picture from my own imagination? Do you think I am going mad?"
Austin Ambrose certainly did think so, but he said:
"No, no; certainly not. But—but——"
"You do think so. Let me give you direct evidence that I know what I am about," said Blair. "The picture is Prince Rivani's; he took me to his private room to see it; it is the talk of all Italy, Europe, for what I know. It is a magnificent picture, terrible, moving, to any one; but judge what effect it must have had on me when I say that it was the place itself, the face and figure themselves of my poor lost darling."
Austin Ambrose stared at him.
"And Prince Rivani showed you this! What did he tell you about it, its history and so on?"
"Nothing," said Blair, gloomily. "I was so startled that I was almost beside myself, and I was about to ask him the history of the picture, and by whom it was painted, when he—you will think I am mad now, Austin!—refused to tell me anything excepting that the picture was a famous one. And he brought the interview to an abrupt conclusion by challenging me to fight him——"
Austin Ambrose's face worked.
"Which you refused?" he said.
"For which I asked his reasons. He declined to give me any one, calling me a liar, and so——" he laughed, grimly—"provided me with an excuse for shooting him!"
"Well, and—and the artist, who is he?"
"It was not a man, but a woman—a girl," said Blair quietly and wearily.
Austin Ambrose started, and his eyes flashed. He saw it all in a moment. The picture had been painted by Margaret herself! The prince had fallen in love with her, she had told him her story, and the prince meant to avenge her.
"And—and this girl—this wonderful artist—where is she?"
He asked the question lightly enough, but his soul quaked as as Blair replied:
"Here, in Naples!"
"Here, in Naples?"
There was a moment's silence. Margaret here in Naples!Blair challenged by the prince! Any moment and his astute plans might be shattered at his feet.
He was not altogether a coward, but at the thought of the two narrow chances Blair had had of learning his—Austin's—villainy, he quivered from head to foot.
"And now you have it all," said Blair quietly. "Why Prince Rivani should want to fight me I cannot conceive, can you?"
"Yes," was the prompt reply.
Blair turned to him with weary surprise.
"The prince was an old lover of Margaret's."
The blood rushed to Blair's face, and his eyes flashed.
"An old lover? It is you who are mad! Margaret had no lover but me."
Austin Ambrose met his fierce gaze steadily.
"My dear Blair, I meant no kind of reproach against her! But think, is it not possible that the prince may have seen her before she met you? that, though nothing tangible may have passed between them, he may have fallen in love with her?"
"And she not tell me! Ah, how little you knew her!"
"She may not have thought it worth the telling! May have feared that you might think she was boasting of her conquest over a prince. But if you won't entertain this idea, what other reason can you find for his wanting to fight you? You know what these Italians are: they will fight for an idea—half a one! He may have got some inkling that you were her favored lover, he cannot possibly know that you married her, but he may see in you a rival, and these Italians consider it their duty to dispose of a rival in the most complete and expeditious way."
Blair leaned his head upon his hands.
"It is all a mystery," he said, wearily. "But the fact remains. I have undertaken to meet him to-morrow morning. You will be my second, of course, Austin? A General Somebody or other will call and make the arrangements presently."
Austin Ambrose got up and went to the window and rapidly mastered the situation. After all, Fate was working for him to the end! If the Prince Rivani would kindly kill Blair how easily thedenouementwould work out!
"I don't like this!" he said gloomily. "I am not thinking of myself, nor so much of you—for you are good at sword or pistol—but I am thinking of Vio——of the countess."
"Ah, yes!" said Blair with a sigh. "Poor Violet! And yet, after all——" he stopped, but the pause was significant."I think I must go to the library, Austin," he said after a moment or two. "I have a few letters to write and papers to arrange. I may fall, you know."
"Oh, nonsense!" said Austin Ambrose. "Fall! You may be wounded in the arm, that's just possible——"
Blair laughed grimly.
"If the prince wounds me anywhere it will be through the heart," he said quietly. "He means business, and I shall not balk him. At any rate, I'll have a fight for my life," and with a laugh on his lips he went out of the room.
Austin Ambrose walked to the window and looked out at the night, letting the cold air blow upon his forehead. A fever seemed burning in all his veins. All this had fallen so suddenly that there seemed scarcely time to think: and he had toact, and at once.
He poured out some brandy and drank it slowly; then, after a glance at his face in the mirror, he forced it into its accustomed smooth serenity, and going along the corridor, knocked softly at the countess' boudoir.
She was seated in a low chair beside the fire, her head thrown back, her hands lying listlessly by her side; but she turned with an eager light in her eyes, that died out when she saw who it was.
"Oh, it is you; I thought it was Blair," she said. "Where is he?—not back yet?"
Austin Ambrose bit his lip, and a savage light shot into his eyes.
"Always Blair!" he said softly. "No; he is not in yet."
"And why do you come here at this unearthly hour?" she demanded, pettishly.
"Violet, I have come to answer a question you have often asked me, and I have often parried. I have come to demand of you the reward you have promised me for the services I have rendered you."
She looked up at him in silent astonishment
"Question—reward! What are you talking about? Why do you look so strange?"
"Do I look strange? Forgive me. It is the only time I have allowed my countenance to incommode you. Have you forgotten—is it necessary to remind you of your promise? Is it necessary to remind you for what that promise was given? Ah, yes, I suppose so. Men and women have short memories. Violet, have you forgotten the day I undertook that you should be Blair's wife?"
Her face paled, but she laughed.
"How melodramatic you are. Of course. I was a poor little woman who set her heart upon something, and youwere the clever man who offered to help me. Pray do not look so serious."
"I cannot help my looks to-night," he said, quietly, "for to-night you and I stand face to face, soul to soul. Violet, you had set your heart upon gaining Blair, and I have got him for you. You promised me at the time that you would give me whatsoever I should ask, and I told you that some day I should come to claim my reward at your hands. I have come. I will not tell you all I have done for you. You may have conjectured how dark and vile the work has been—no matter. I have succeeded; you have been Blair's wife through my agency. I come to claim my reward!"
She bit her lip and tried to smile.
"Well, well, what is it? It is awfully late, why not wait until to-morrow? Blair may come in at any moment, and though there is no impropriety in our chatting in my own room, still—what is it? Is it money? Are you in difficulties? How much is it?"
"It is not money," he said gravely.
"What, then?" she said, impatiently.
"It is yourself!" he said, his eyes flashing into hers, his pale cheeks suddenly glowing with fire.
"It is yourself I want," said Austin Ambrose.
Violet looked at him for a moment as if she had not understood the purport of his words, then she raised herself on her elbow, and laughed.
"Whatdo you say? Is this a jest? If so, it is in rather bad taste, don't you think?"
He looked at her steadily.
"Have I the appearance of a man who jests?" he breathed.
Her face paled.
"If it isn't a jest, what is it?" she demanded, querulously. "Why do you come at this time of night and say absurd things like—like that?"
"Is it so absurd, do you think? Consider. Violet, have you been dreaming all these months? You should know me well enough to feel that I am not a mere straw to be idly blown hither and thither, not a man likely to waste his life doing service for no requital. Let me take you back to the past. Do you remember the days and months and years I waited on you like a slave? Do you think it was done for nothing, with no hope of reward?"
His eyes shone with fierce determination, his wholemanner proclaimed eloquently the dominant idea which had actuated him through the past, which was now so near its fulfillment.
"I never deceived you. Think! remember! Is it so hard to go back? I suppose it must be so! You are now the Countess of Ferrers, Blair's wife; you have obtained all you craved for, and, like all those who rise upon the shoulders or the hearts of some faithful friend and slave, you forget the aid by which alone you rose!"
He drew a little nearer, and stood upright before her, his face made almost handsome by the intensity of its expression.
"Violet, do you remember the day I knelt at your feet and poured out the love with which my heart was burning? I was no schoolboy, nor mere fortune-hunter. I loved you with an all-absorbing passion; I should have loved you if you had been a poor girl selling flowers in the streets, and I would have knelt to you if you had been such an one as humbly as I knelt to Violet Graham, the wealthy heiress, with all the world at her beck and nod! And you!—how did you treat me? Look back! You scarcely deigned to listen, and when at last you consented to waste a few minutes in listening to my prayer—ah! and what a prayer it was; the cry of a man begging for his life!—you answered me with a few half-contemptuous words, a smile wholly scornful, and a haughty request that I would never again so far forget myself. Forget myself! Violet, as I left you that day, I swore that if I lived I would win you; that every gift nature had given me, every talent I could acquire, should be pressed into the service of my oath, and that sooner or later I would come to you—not kneeling, as the humble suppliant, the slave craving for a boon at the hand of a tyrant, but as one having the power to command and exact that which he wanted."
"You—you must be mad, Austin!" she murmured, struggling with the terror his words produced on her.
"Wait!" he said, with the same deadly intentness. "Wait, as I waited! I knew that you had set your heart upon marrying Blair. Blair was in my hands. He trusted me implicitly; through him I thought that I might, perchance, gain a hold upon you. For days, through sleepless nights, I set myself to find some way of trapping you, some net which should catch and hold you fast. I knew that I could bring Blair to your feet sooner or later, but that was not enough, for, by doing so, I should lose you altogether. Violet, they talk of fate. If there be such a thing, then Fate took pity on me and worked on my side.It was Fate more than I, myself, which weaved the plot whereby I stand to-night before you as a victor, not kneeling, as I once knelt, your slave!"
He paused and smiled down at her, with the air of a man confident of his victim.
"You are tired, and it is time you got some rest. We start from here by five o'clock this morning. I will have a carriage waiting by the cathedral—but I need not trouble you with the arrangements. All that you have to do is to be ready; and I have no fear that you will disobey me."
She rose and looked at him with a flushed face and scornful eyes.
"Austin, you have been drinking," she said.
He started, but instantly recovered himself and shook his head slowly.
"It is the most charitable conjecture I can form," she said. "You have either taken too much wine, or you have lost your reason. I admit that I am indebted to you, but I will find some means of discharging that debt. I am rich—don't be offended—and an ambitious man like yourself needs money. You shall have what you require; more, Blair shall exert all his influence and send you to Parliament—you will shine there, and may rise to any height you like. But, mind, I will do nothing if you do not go at once, and promise me never to come near me again. If you will not promise—why, then I will place the matter in my husband's hands." She paused.
"Have you finished?" he asked calmly, almost gently.
"Yes," she said, "only I may add that I think you know my threat is no idle one. Blair will know how to avenge an insult paid to his wife!"
His face grew hard, and his eyes dark with a flash of hate and anger.
"An insult paid to his wife! Yes! But one paid to Miss Violet Graham is another matter!"
"What do you mean?" she demanded, scornfully. "I am not Violet Graham, I am his wife."
"You are Violet Graham, but you are not Blair's wife; you are not the Countess of Ferrers, my dear!"
She looked at him, the blood rushing to her face at the contemptuous familiarity of the last two words.
"Leave the room, sir!" she exclaimed, raising her hand and pointing to the door. "You have abused my patience; go, or you will indeed compel me to forget your 'services,' and make it necessary that my paid servants should use force!"
He laughed softly, and his eyes glowed with admiration.
"Violet, I swear that every instant you make me love you more passionately! I see you think I lied when I said you were not Blair's wife, is it not so?"
"I know that you lied!" she retorted, as calmly as she could.
"How little you know me," he said, gravely. "Do you think I am so great a fool as to make such an assertion for the mere sake of making it?"
"If I am not Blair's wife, who is?" she demanded, as if humoring him.
"Come," he said, with a smile; "that is better, because it is more practical and business-like. Continue this tone, my dear Violet, and we shall speedily arrive at an understanding. You want to know who is Blair's wife? Certainly. It is a young lady who was Margaret Hale, but who became the Viscountess of Leyton and Countess of Ferrers."
She started, but it was only at the sound of Margaret's name.
"Margaret Hale! The girl——"
"Exactly. The girl he fell in love with at Leyton Court. What an excellent memory you find when you need it."
"And you say he married her? Oh, spare your breath!" she broke off, with a contemptuous gesture.
"Thanks; I will," he said. "Permit me to give you ocular proof. Here is the certificate of the ceremony; not a copy, please to observe: not a mere copy, but the original itself. The ceremony, as you will see, was performed at a charming old church, in a rural and secluded spot called Sefton. The date is set forth in plain figures, together with all the particulars even the most exacting lawyer could require."
She took the certificate, very much as poor Margaret had taken the false one from Lottie Belvoir, and looked at it with dazed eyes, then she crushed it in her hand, and looked up at him as a dumb animal looks up at the man who has struck it.
"Married to her!—married to her!" she murmured; "and he did not tell me!" A spasm of jealousy shot through her. "Then she was his wife?"
"She was, most certainly," he assented, watching her.
"But what has that to do with you and your plot?" she demanded, raising herself after a moment and facing him contemptuously. "This—this marriage is a matter between me and Blair. This certificate is not a forgery—I believe that."
He looked at her steadily.
"Thanks. You do me that credit, and safely. Of one thing you may be convinced, Violet, and that is, that I will not speak one false word to you to-night. By truth, and truth alone, I will win you. Do not doubt any one thing I tell you, for I swear that it is true!"
"I—I believe you," she said, almost involuntarily. "I believe this marriage took place, but what of it? The girl is dead. I am Blair's wife, and the offer"—she shuddered again—"the vile offer you made he will protect me from."
"Blair is not your husband, for Margaret Hale, the Countess of Ferrers, is alive!" he said.
He did not thunder it at her, nor hiss it as the serpent he resembled might have done; but he spoke the words almost gently and with a serene and complacent calmness.
She sprung to her feet and confronted him.
"What? Stop——" and her hands went out toward him as if to shut from her senses any further words of his.
"I must go on," he said. "It is true. Margaret Hale is alive. Do you doubt me? Look in my face," and he drew a step nearer.
She looked at him with all her anguished soul in her eyes, then she shrank back.
"She is here, here in Naples. An hour hence, any moment, they may meet, Blair and she, and he will recognize her. Do you think that, after that, you have much chance of remaining as the wife of the Earl of Ferrers? You know best whether his heart has forgotten his allegiance to his first wife, his real wife, his present wife; for you are nothing whatever to him, remember. You are not the Countess of Ferrers, but simply—Miss Violet Graham!"
She sat staring at him, her hand clinched on the certificate.
"Why—why did she leave him? Does he know that she is alive?" she said hoarsely.
He laughed, and drawing a chair nearer, sat astride it and facing her.
"No, he thinks her dead," he said. "I see, you will not be satisfied until I tell you the whole of my little plot! Listen, then," and with his eyes fixed upon her watchingly, he told the story of the elaborate scheme which, helped by Fate, he had built up; of Lottie Belvoir's deception, and of Margaret's supposed death.
"And you did all this? You—you must be more devil than man!"
He smiled.
"I can claim to be a man who has devoted all his talents, and all his energies, to the attainment of one object. You call me names! Bah! my dear Violet, have you forgotten that evening in Park Lane, when I told you she was dead, and you thought I had murdered her? You did not call me rude names then, I think!"
She shuddered, and hid her face in her hands. When she lifted it, it was as drawn as if she had risen from a long and wasting illness.
"It is true! It is true!" she moaned, hoarsely; "and now you want me to——" She could not go on, but her lips moved.
"I want you to keep your promise, that is all, my dear Violet," he said, coolly.
"And if I refuse?"
"You will not refuse," he said, quietly. "You dare not! If you are not ready to accompany me at five o'clock I shall go to Blair, and tell him all that I have told you.
"Come, Violet; you must know that it is of little avail to oppose me, much less to argue. Face the inevitable. You used to be a brave woman once, summon up some courage now. Consider, after all, what can you do better than fly with me? In an hour or two, at any moment, as I say, Blair and the countess will meet, the truth will be known, and you—what will you be? Nothing—worse than nothing! The law cannot give you redress, for Blair believed her dead; but none the less you will be—an outcast!"
She writhed and tore at the pillows in a frenzy of despair.
"Oh, please!" he murmured, reproachfully. "Is this the same woman who bade me separate Blair and Margaret Hale at any cost?—at any cost? Come, pluck up a little spirit. What must be, must be; and it is certain that you will have to yield to me."
"He can but kill me!" she moaned, desperately.
Austin Ambrose laughed.
"Nonsense! Blair will do nothing of the kind. He will simply repudiate you, and with many apologies, show you the door. But really it would be more merciful to kill you outright, than to leave you the butt of the whole of London! The great heiress, Violet Graham, wrongfully married to Blair Leyton, and discarded for his first and lawful wife!" and he laughed.
She put up her hand to silence him; and, his mood changing, he caught the hand and fell on his knees at her side.
"Forgive me, Violet! Do you not see that I am only seeming hard and cruel? Do you think that my heart does not bleed for you? But what can I do? You force me to tell you the truth in all its nakedness; for I know that if I do not convince you that you have no other alternative, you will not yield! Do not force me to say any more; accept the inevitable. Say the word; give me your promise to be ready at the time I have named, and I will take you with me——"
"Never! never!" she said, hoarsely, and endeavoring to draw her hand from his grasp.
"What do you fear? Why do you shrink from me? Do you think that I do not love you? What stronger proof do you want than that I have given you? Have I not done more to win you than one man in a million does for the woman he wants? If it had been murder itself I would not have hesitated, I would not hesitate now! Ah, Violet! think of me a little. I, too, have suffered, suffered the tortures of the damned, for it was my hand that gave you—for a time—to him! I have stood by and seen you the wife of another, the man I hate——"
"Hate!—you hate him?" she re-echoed.
"Yes," he said, a lurid light shining in his eyes. "I always hated him because you loved him! Many and many a time I have longed to see him dead at my feet—but no more of that! What does it matter? It is only of my love for you that I wish to think or speak. Trust yourself to my love, the deepest and truest man ever felt. I will marry you when and where you please; I will spend the remainder of my life in devotion to you; I will——" he stopped breathless, and carried away by his passion, he threw his arms about her.
She struggled from his embrace, and even struck at him.
"Go withyou!" she gasped. "Leave him foryou?" and she laughed wildly. "I would rather die!"
"Very good. I may take that as your decision? In half an hour I take Blair to his wife; in half an hour I will tell him how he came to lose her, and that it was you—Violet Graham—who tempted and prompted me to carry out the plot which has nearly wrecked his life. And then I leave you to face him."
He took one step from her, but she sprung up and throwing herself at his feet clutched at his arm.
"No, no! Give me time! Wait, Austin! Only wait! I—I did not mean to be hard. I—I—oh, have pity on me!" and she turned her white face up to him. "Have pity on me! I was only a woman, and I—I did love himso! Yes, I know it was I who tempted you, but I did not know that you cared for me as—as you say you do, and—oh, Austin, look at me kneeling to you for more than life—ah, for life itself! Do not betray me! I will do anything——"
"Anything but the one thing I want," he said, coldly. "You would offer me money, anything. Money! If you had all the wealth of the Rothschilds and offered it to me to forego the reward I have worked for, I would say 'no!' No, if I cannot have you, for whom I have plotted and planned, I will at least have revenge. You cannot rob me of that. Let go my hand and leave me free to join the early parted husband and wife."
"No!" she wailed, clinging to him. "Stay, Austin, I will—I will consent!"
He stooped down and looked at her face.
"Say that again," he said, eagerly. "You will consent? You will go with me?"
She rose, and with both hands pushed her disordered hair from her white face. Then, looking at him steadily:
"Yes, I will go with you."
"You—you will? Oh, my darling!" and he made to take her in his arms, but she put out her hands and kept him off.
"Yes," she said in a low, dull voice, "I will go with you. I see it is useless to fight against you."
"It is, it is!" he assented, intently. "And you will come to the cathedral——"
"No," she said, like one repeating a lesson; "come to me here at five o'clock. I—I am not strong enough to go out. Come at five o'clock, and—I will be ready."
He knelt on one knee, and taking her hand, pressed it to his lips.
"Violet, you know that I can keep an oath. I have proved it, have I not? Then hear me swear that you shall never regret your resolution. I will wipe out the past, I will surround you with a love that shall cause you to forget all that has happened, and that, that—must make you happy! At five! Go now and lie down, dearest! You will need all your strength, for the journey must be a long and a swift one. A few hours and we shall be beyond the reach of pursuit! And then—ah, then, your new life will commence! A life which my love shall make one dream of happiness! Go, dearest! At five! Remember!"
He led her to the door; she drew her hand from his hot, burning fingers, and pressed it on her forehead, then asshe opened the door she turned and looked at him—a steady, resolute look.
"I will remember," she said. "I will be ready when you come!"