Kitabı oku: «A Dreadful Temptation; or, A Young Wife's Ambition», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XXV

Xenie St. John turned with a half-stifled shriek and looked at the daring intruder.

She saw her enemy standing in the center of the room looking down at her from his princely hight with a lightning flash of scorn in his bright blue eyes, his lips set sternly under his curling blonde mustache.

He was elegantly attired in the most fashionable morning costume, and his fair, proud Saxon beauty had never appeared more striking. Xenie's dark eyes flashed their gaze into his blue ones with a blaze of passionate defiance.

"How dare you say so?" she cried, stamping her small, slippered foot upon the rich carpet with angry vehemence. "Are you mad, Howard Templeton?"

He stood still, folding his arms across his broad breast, regarding her with a steady calmness strangely at variance with her passionate vehemence.

"No, I am not mad," he answered, in low, even tones, while his blue eyes gazed strangely into her own—"I am not mad, and I dare assert nothing but what I know to be the truth. So I repeat what I said to you just now. Give Captain Mainwaring the innocent little child in whose name you have perpetrated such a monstrous fraud. It is his child and your sister's. I will prove it, and swear to it if necessary, before any court in the land."

The calm and steady assurance of his words and looks and tones struck Xenie with inward terror. Yet it seemed to her impossible that Howard Templeton could really know the truth. Her heart quaked with terror, yet she tried to brave it out in very desperation.

"How dare you say so?" she repeated, but her voice faltered, and she trembled so that she could scarcely hold the little child in her arms.

Mrs. Carroll crept to her side and stood there dumbly, filled with a yearning desire to help Xenie and shield her from the consequences of her sin, but so horror-stricken that she could not even speak.

Howard Templeton regarded Xenie with a look of scornful amazement.

"Madam," he said, in clear, ringing, vibrant tones, "I can scarce believe that you will try to persist in this terrible deception in the face of all that I have said. Listen, then, and you shall know why I dare confront you with your sin."

"Speak on," she answered, cresting her beautiful head so defiantly, and looking at him so proudly that no one, not even her mother, dreamed of the terrible pain that ached at her heart.

"I have known of this deception from the first," he said. "Ever since the evening I called upon your sister, before you went to Europe. You personated Lora very cleverly. I will give you that much credit; but you did not deceive me five minutes. I saw through the mask directly, and understood the daring game you were playing in furtherance of your revenge against me. Your clever acting did not blind me. I had loved you once, remember, and the eyes of love are very keen."

Alternately flushing and paling, Xenie stared at him, still clasping the little child to her wildly beating heart.

"Bah!" she cried out, contemptuously, as he paused; "who would believe this wild tale that you are telling? If you suspected me, why did you not speak out?"

"I had a fancy to see the farce played out," he answered, coldly. "I was curious to know how far you would willfully wander in the path of sin to gratify your thirst for revenge. I followed you to Europe, although you did not dream of such a thing until that wild and rainy dawn when you met me on the shore near your cottage."

A groan forced itself though her pallid lips as she recalled that dreadful day.

"But, Xenie," he continued, slowly, "I never meant to let matters go as far as they have gone. It amused me for a little while to watch your desperate game, but I always intended to check you before you consummated your clever plan. But that strange power that some call fate, and others Providence, has come between me and my first intention. You have tasted the full sweetness of the cup of revenge, and now you are doomed to drink the bitter dregs. The disgraceful truth will all be known. The wealth you have cheated me of by a terrible fraud will have to be restored. The time has come when I cannot spare you if I would."

She shivered as if an icy wind had blown against her, so impressive were his looks and words; but she saw that Captain Mainwaring was looking at her with mingled wrath and scorn on his handsome, honest face; and the spirit of defiance only grew stronger within her.

"I defy you," she began, imperiously, but the words died half-uttered on her lips, and a shriek of fear and terror burst forth instead.

For the closed door had opened silently and suddenly, and a beautiful, fragile-looking woman had glided into the room.

Xenie thought it was the ghost of her who lay in that green grave under the skies of France, with the white cross marked: "Lora, ætat 18."

The beautiful intruder paused a moment and gazed questioningly around her.

As if by magic, her gaze encountered that of the young sea captain who was staring at her with wild, half-frightened eyes, like one who sees a vision.

Lora—for it was indeed herself—gazed at the handsome young sailor a moment in bewilderment; then a wild and piercing shriek of joy burst from her lips. She rushed forward and threw herself upon his broad breast in a transport of happiness.

"Oh, Jack, Jack!" she cried, twining her white arms tightly around his neck, "you are alive! What happiness for your poor Lora!"

Captain Mainwaring clasped and kissed her with passionate joy, understanding nothing very clearly except the one ecstatic fact that Lora was indeed alive, and having through his deep joy a vague consciousness that Mrs. St. John had somehow terribly wronged and deceived him.

"You see," said Howard Templeton, coldly to Xenie as she stared speechlessly. "Lora has returned to claim her own. Your reign is over."

Lora heard the words, and breaking from the fond clasp of her husband's arms, turned to her sister.

"Oh, Xenie!" she cried, then she stopped short, and her lovely face flushed and her dark eyes beamed.

She had caught sight of the beautiful boy that nestled in the clasp of her sister's arms.

Lora watched him a moment with parted lips and eager eyes.

"Oh!" she breathed, in tones of ineffable tenderness, "how beautiful he is!" then, in low and almost humble accents, she murmured: "Xenie, you will let me kiss him once."

"It is Lora's voice and face," cried Mrs. St. John, half-retreating before her as she advanced, "and yet I saw Lora lying dead—drowned in the cruel sea!"

"No, no," cried Lora, eagerly, "that poor creature you saw drowned was not your sister, Xenie."

"She wore your shawl, your rings," exclaimed Mrs. St. John, incoherently.

"Yes, that is true," said Lora, patiently, "but I can easily explain that, Xenie. She was a poor, mad creature that I met in my wandering—even madder than myself, perhaps, for I remember it all distinctly. She stripped me of my shawl and my jewels—to make herself fine as she said. I let her have them and she went away and left me. Then it must have been that she cast herself into the sea. It was she whom they found and whom you buried under the marble cross with my name upon it. She was some poor, unknown unfortunate whom you mourned as your sister."

She came closer to her sister's side as she spoke, and looked up pleadingly into her face.

"Xenie, you will not disown me, will you? I am indeed your sister, Lora, although you thought me dead. I owe my life to Howard Templeton. He found me ill and dying in a poor woman's cot, and cared for me and saved me. Yes, at the very last hour, when they said I was dying, he would not give me up. He brought a little baby and laid it in my arms, and life came back to me at the touch of the little lips and hands. He deceived me, but it was for my own good. It saved my life, and when I grew stronger I could bear to be told of the innocent deception he had practiced, and I gave back the child to the kind peasant mother who had lent it to me to save my life. But, oh, Xenie, if I talked all day I could never tell you how much I owe to Howard Templeton. He has been all that the best and noblest brother on earth could be! You must not hate him any longer. Xenie, you must forgive him and be kind to him for my sake, since but for his tender care I must surely have died."

As she ceased to speak, Jack Mainwaring strode forward and caught Howard Templeton's hands in a grasp of steel. Words failed him, but the tearful gaze of the honest eyes was far more expressive of his gratitude than the most eloquent speech.

But Xenie remained still and speechless. She suffered Lora to kiss and caress her, but she remained still and pale, seemingly incapable of a return of her sister's tenderness. Her dark eyes stared straight before her, filled with a dumb terror, as if some dread anticipation was painted on the walls of her mind.

Slowly, like one fascinated, Lora crept nearer, and twining her arms about her little child, kissed his sweet brow and lips. Xenie turned mechanically and their eyes met.

They regarded each other silently a moment, but in Lora's eyes there was a yearning tenderness, a plaintive prayer that said plainer than words:

"Oh! my sister, give me my child. Let me lay him in his father's arms, and say: 'My husband, this is my child and yours.'"

The ice around Xenie's frozen heart melted at that wordless prayer. Slowly she laid the beautiful, dark-eyed boy in the yearning arms of the young mother.

"Take him, Lora," she said, "I absolve you from your vow of silence. I cannot withhold this crowning joy that will complete your happiness, although it wrecks my own. Upon my head fall all the bitter consequences of my sin."

With the words she turned to leave the room, but that bitter renunciation before her deadly foe had been too hard for her.

She staggered blindly a moment, then fell to the floor like one bereft of life.

CHAPTER XXVI

On the deck of a noble steamer outward bound, Lora Mainwaring leaned upon her husband's arm and waved a fond farewell to her mother and sister who watched her tearfully from the shore.

Captain Mainwaring was about to make his first voyage as the commander of the vessel, and his wife chose to go with him, declaring that she feared the dangers of the sea far less than the anguish of a second separation from her husband.

Yet the tears stood thickly in her eyes as she clasped the dimpled hand of her little son and watched those two sad figures on the shore—the beloved mother and sister whom she was leaving for long and weary months—and it might be, for who could tell—perhaps forever!

Two months had passed since the eventful day when Lora had returned to the dear ones who mourned her as dead—two months of passionate happiness to her, yet crowded with bitterness and humiliation to her beautiful and high-spirited sister.

For yet again had the fabulous fortune of the old millionaire changed hands, and Howard Templeton was victor now.

Her passionate revenge, her perilous secret belonged to the world now. It was as Howard had said. He could not have spared her if he would, for Jack Mainwaring was filled with rage and scorn at the knowledge that Xenie had made his innocent child the instrument of a wicked revenge.

Passionate and impulsive, and hating his wife's relations with cordial good will, Jack lost no time in spreading the story to the winds.

The day came when a bitter impulse moved him to repentance, but it was too late to undo his work.

"You were very wrong, Jack," little Lora said to him, tearfully; "you should have remembered that it was not for her sake alone my sister planned and carried out the deception. She gained her revenge, but she also saved my name from obloquy. When you rail so bitterly against her, do not forget that I also lent myself to the deception in my cowardly fear of the world's censure."

So Captain Mainwaring was slowly brought to take a more reasonable view of the case. He apologized bluntly but heartily to Xenie, and she forgave with him an almost apathetic indifference.

For the beautiful and passionate woman was changed now almost beyond belief. Even as she had hastened to be revenged on Howard Templeton for her wrongs, she now made haste to offer restitution. He had no need to contend for his rights. Every dollar of which she had defrauded him was now legally restored to him again.

And when that act of restitution was accomplished, Xenie fell into strange and dangerous apathy. The idle tongues of the world wagged busily, but she of whom they gabbled remained secluded in her beautiful home, silent, thoughtful, sufficient unto herself, heedless alike, it seemed, of their praise or blame.

But the sorrowing mother who daily condemned herself for her share in the trouble, as she anxiously watched her daughter, saw that her delicate cheek was growing thin and white, the brilliant lustre was fading from the mournful black eyes, the musical voice had a subtle tone of weariness. How could it be otherwise when she had lost so much at one fell stroke of fate?

Fortune, revenge, the world's applause, even the little child whom she had loved almost as her own, had slipped from her clasp in an hour, and left her empty-handed on the bleak shores of fate.

She did not know what to do with her blank and ruined life, and her empty heart whose idols all lay shattered in the dust.

So she went her way in silence, not caring to look back, not daring to look forward. For what was left to her now? Nothing but life in a world that seemed to have ended for her forever—life "more pathetic than death."

So, as she turned her dim eyes away from the gallant ship that was bearing Lora so swiftly away from her native land, she said in a voice that was sadder than tears:

"Let us go home, mother."

And while Lora went sailing away over the blue summer sea, beneath the smiling sky of June, they turned their faces homeward.

"Aunt Egerton!"

"Yes, dear," said the elegant woman of fashion, rising with a rustling of silk and lace to greet her niece. "It is I. I came early on purpose to go with you and see little Lora off, but you were already gone. I would have followed you, but they told me I should be too late. So I waited for you here."

Then she rustled back to her seat again and there ensued an embarrassed silence.

For this was the first time that Mrs. Egerton had crossed the threshold since the story of Xenie's revenge and its ultimate failure had become known to the carping world.

She, in common with the world, had been terribly shocked by the disclosure, and had been in full accord with society when it turned its back upon its whilom beautiful favorite.

Now, as she sat there in the rich arm-chair of violet velvet, with all the prestige of her rank and wealth about her, she shrank uneasily before the half-veiled scorn in the beautiful, dusky eyes of the woman who sat opposite regarding her with a cold, inquiring glance.

Turning to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Carroll, she engaged her in a little desultory chat while she recovered her self-possession.

"So Lora has gone on a voyage with her husband?"

"Yes," Mrs. Carroll said, briefly.

She was silently wondering to herself what had brought her proud sister-in-law to Xenie's house after she had, in the world's parlance, so completely "cut" her.

"Is she quite happy?" continued Mrs. Egerton, patronizingly.

She had a private opinion that no one could be happy in such a misalliance as Lora had made, but she forbore to air her secret views for the benefit of her auditors.

"Lora is perfectly happy, I believe," was the confident answer.

"Ah, I am very glad. Her story has been as romantic as a novel. I am pleased to hear that it has ended in the same happy fashion."

Then she turned to Mrs. St. John.

"Xenie, I expect you were surprised to find me here this morning. You must have thought–"

She paused here, a little disconcerted by the steady fire of the proud, dark eyes that gravely regarded her.

"Ah, well," she resumed in a moment, with a little laugh, "I have been sadly vexed with you, Xenie. Who could help it? I had been so proud of you, and hoped such great things for you, I could hardly bear it when I learned to what length your passion had carried you."

She paused in sheer pity as she saw the blush of shame flashing suddenly into those white cheeks.

"Well, never mind," she continued, with a significant smile. "All is not lost yet. We will not recall the past. But I wish to talk to your mother. Won't you gather a bunch of your beautiful roses for me, dear, while we have our little chat?"

Glad of an excuse for leaving the room, Xenie turned away, followed by a smile of blended triumph and cunning from her maneuvering aunt.

She ran down the marble steps at one side of the house that led into the beautiful rose-garden that lay glowing and blushing under the balmy sky of June.

Running down the graveled path, she stopped short very suddenly, and a low cry escaped her lips:

"Howard Templeton!"

CHAPTER XXVII

A gentleman, standing alone beside a marble fountain, turns with a start and looks at her. His face is handsome, eager, agitated.

"Mrs. St. John," he says; then a strange constraint seems to fall upon both. They remain standing still and regarding each other in painful silence.

It is the first time they have met since the day of her terrible humiliation, more than two months ago. In the passionate war they waged he had been the victor. One would think that he would meet her now with words of exultation.

Yet he is silent, and a dark-red flush creeps slowly up his temples, while his handsome blue eyes regard her with a strange intentness.

To the day of his death he remembers her as she looks now. Not the expression of a feature, not a fold of her robe escapes his memory.

She looks like some beautiful, pale statue.

 
"Gown'd in pure white that fitted to the shape—
A single stream of all her soft, dark curls
Pour'd on one side."
 

The sunshine beams upon her lovingly. A creeping rose-tree throws out its briery arms as though it would fain draw her into its thorny embrace. The light breeze scatters the scented rose-petals in a shower of sweetness under her feet. A happy bird warbles its lay of love above her drooping head.

Suddenly she turns to go, thrilled with a bitter pang of remembrance.

The movement breaks the spell that binds him. He springs after her.

"Do not go," he exclaims, in a voice of unconscious pleading.

"Why should I stay?" she asks, turning her proud, dark eyes upon him. "Why have you intruded your unwelcome presence upon me?"

The flush on his fair, handsome face deepens.

"Xenie, pardon the ruse by which I have gained admittance to your presence," he exclaims. "I wished to see you and I went to Mrs. Egerton, and stating my reasons, begged her to arrange this meeting."

"Did you not know that the very sight of you is hateful in my eyes?" she demands, spiritedly.

"I feared so," he answers, with an unconscious tone of sadness in his voice. "Yet I wished to see you. There is something I have to tell you."

"You can tell me nothing that I wish to hear," she retorts, haughtily. "Let me pass, sir. I refuse to listen!"

But the tall, handsome form blocks her way, and shows no signs of yielding.

"Stay, one moment, Xenie," he exclaims. "Suppose I tell you that your vengeance is secure after all—that Uncle John's missing will is found at last?"

She whirls toward him, her dark eyes blazing with incredulous surprise.

"At last!" she says, with a stifled gasp. "At last! And who—who–"

"I found it," he answers, not waiting for her to finish the incoherent question. "He had hidden it, I cannot imagine why, in the most unlikely place in the world. By the merest accident I came upon it yesterday. Take it, Xenie. It secures your revenge to you now, beyond the shadow of a doubt."

He drew an official-looking document from his breast and placed it in her shaking hand. She holds it in a mechanical grasp, her dark, wondering eyes lifted to his proud, agitated face.

"Yes," he repeats, slowly, "your vengeance is now secure. Every penny of my Uncle John's vast wealth is bequeathed to you in the legal document you hold in your hand. I am left utterly penniless!"

But instead of the triumphant joy he expects to see in her mobile face, her look of wonder deepens.

"You found the will—you brought it to me," she says, with slow gravity. "Who knows of it besides yourself?"

"No one except your aunt, Mrs. Egerton," he answers, calmly; "I have told her, and she is very anxious to congratulate you."

Her red lips curl with faint scorn. But she does not speak. This sudden turn of fortune's wheel seems to have dazed her. She stands quite still holding the precious paper in her tightly-clasped hand, while her dark eyes fix themselves upon it in a strange, intent fashion.

She has lost her revenge, she has lost the world's applause, but this little bit of yellow paper is able to buy it all back for her. It seems too stupendous to believe.

"Why have you done this thing?" she asks, rousing herself, and lifting a curious glance to the silent man before her.

"I do not understand you," he begins, half-haughtily.

"Oh! yes, you do," she interrupts him quickly. "When you found this will, which leaves you penniless, and me, your enemy, triumphant, you must have been tempted to destroy it. You knew that I had resorted to a fraud in order to gain my revenge. How did you conquer the temptation to repay me likewise? Were you nobler than I that you did not burn this paper and keep your uncle's wealth?"

"Xenie, if you will answer me one simple question, I will tell you why I beat down the temptation to keep the wealth which has caused us both so many a bitter heart-ache," he said to her, in a grave, sad voice.

"I will answer you," she repeated, slowly.

"Tell me this, then, Xenie. In the hour when the result of your hopes and plans became known to you—when you thought you had fully secured the revenge for which you had toiled—did your success make you happy?"

"No," she answered, in low but steady tones, while her whole frame quivered with suppressed emotion.

"No," he re-echoed; "revenge has not in it the elements of happiness. It is but a consuming fire that destroys everything sweet and lovely. We both have proved it; therefore, Xenie, I will have no more to do with it. I have repented in bitterness of spirit the deadly feud we waged so long against each other. The only atonement that was left to me you hold in your hand."

"It was a brave atonement when you remember all that it involves for you," she cried, with a sudden remorseful pity in her voice. "You have been nobler than I have."

"Perhaps it was only selfish after all," he answered, impulsively; "for, Xenie, I have been very unhappy in your unhappiness. Every arrow that was pointed at your heart has pierced mine. I have long ago realized that, no matter how terrible the loss to myself, I could never be happy save in the ultimate triumph of the woman I love."

"Love!" she echoed, looking at him with a wondering, startled gaze.

The blue eyes met hers, full of mad, hopeless passion, so long repressed and beaten down that now it seemed a consuming flame.

"Yes, love," he answered, recklessly. "Forgive me, Xenie, but let me speak one moment. Do you think I have forgotten those brief, bright days when we loved each other? Do you think I can ever forget them? I have never ceased to love you; I never shall until this beating heart is dust and ashes! I count that one bright memory of our mutual love worth all its bitter cost!"

The burning crimson flashed into her cheeks. Did he mean it—all that those impetuous words implied?

"You cannot fool me with empty words," she cried. "Do I not know better? Could my love be so much to you when you threw it away for—for this that I hold in my hand?" and she threw a glance of scorn upon the paper in her grasp that represented all the vast wealth of the old millionaire.

There was a moment's silence; then the pent-up heart of the man broke out into passionate words; the bird in the bough overhead hushed its song and seemed to listen.

"Xenie, Xenie, my love and lost darling, why will you wrong me so? Oh, my God! how little I weighed that filthy lucre against your love! I swear to you here, under this blue heaven, and in this hour when I never expect to behold your beautiful face again, that I broke our troth alone because I loved with too dear a passion to doom you to the ills of poverty for my sake. I love you, Xenie, deeply, fondly, devotedly, and I gloried in the thought of lavishing wealth upon you; and when my uncle bade me resign you I gave up my hope—not because I was afraid to brave poverty for you, but because I dared not face it with you. Darling, how could I bear to doom you, my tender flower, to the ills of poverty and want? But, there, I have told you all this before, and you would not believe it. Why should I weary you again? It is only because I am leaving you forever that I have yielded to the weakness. Farewell, Xenie, and may God bless you!"

He ceased, and in the solitude and stillness of the odorous rose garden it seemed to him as if she must hear his heart beating, so loud and fast were its throbs of anguish. But she was silent, and he turned to go.

"Howard, stay," she murmured, faintly.

He retraced his steps to her side.

"Xenie, what are you doing?" he cried in horror; for she had taken the millionaire's will between her white and jeweled fingers and was tearing it swiftly into the smallest fragments.

The tiny white bits were flying from her hands like a miniature snow-storm.

She laughed lightly at his look of horror.

"John St. John never meant me to have all his money," she answered. "I coerced him into making this will, and he hid it then, hoping, no doubt, that it would never be found. There is an end of it. Let all remain as it was before. You have your share and I mine."

"And your revenge?" he asked, looking at her as if he doubted his own sanity.

"Never speak of it again," she answered, turning from him, while the crimson blush of shame overspread her face.

A wild hope, undreamed of before, darted into his mind. He caught her hand in his.

"Xenie, why have you done this thing?" he asked.

Her dark eyes lifted to his, full of a noble repentance.

"Because I love you," she answered, "and I cannot war against you any longer. Forgive me, Howard; it was never hatred that wrought my sin; it was the cruel madness of love."

He caught her in his arms with a low cry of passionate thanksgiving, and the little birds, listening in the nests above their heads, heard the sound of kisses and passionate words, mixed with a woman's happy sobs.

"Xenie," he said, presently, when her sobs grew calmer, "they told me that Lord Dudley had sued for your hand, and that you had promised to return to England with him as his bride. You cannot imagine what I suffered when I heard it. Even while I thought you hated me I could never feel indifferent to you, though I tried hard to put you out of my heart."

"Lord Dudley asked me," she whispered back. "He was very noble. He knew all my story, but he judged me very gently, and he would have given me his name and love, but I told him it might never be—that I had loved but one in my life, and that I could never love another."

He pressed a dozen kisses on the sweet red lips that whispered the fond confession.

"And you forgive me everything, do you, Howard?" she questioned, gravely. "You know that I have sinned very grievously. I have almost periled my soul in my mad rage for an unholy revenge."

"May God forgive you as freely as I do, my darling," he answered, fondly.

When they strolled into the drawing-room arm-in-arm, a little later, Mrs. Egerton rose from her arm-chair, rustling more than ever in her happy self-importance.

"My dear Xenie," she simpered, "let me be the first to congratulate you that your husband's missing will is found at last."

For answer, Xenie drew her to the window.

"Aunt Egerton, I forgot your bunch of roses," she said, "but I want you to look down there in that graveled walk."

She pointed to the tiny fragments of paper, and Mrs. Egerton's face grew pale.

"What is it?" she asked, uneasily.

"It is St. John's will," Xenie answered steadily, yet crimsoning painfully beneath her aunt's curious glance.

"And you have destroyed it," Mrs. Egerton exclaimed. "Were you mad, child?"

Xenie looked at her aunt with a gesture of proud humility.

"No," she answered, "I have been mad, but, thank God I have come to my senses at last. I destroyed the will because I had wronged Howard enough already without taking his inheritance from him. I have confessed my faults to him and he has forgiven everything."

"And the long vendetta is over," said Mrs. Egerton. "Henceforth you will be–" she paused for a suitable word.

"Xenie will be my wife," said Howard Templeton, drawing near.

Mrs. Carroll, who had been silent all this while, drew near and took her daughter for one moment into the tender clasp of her maternal arms.

"God bless you, my daughter," she murmured. "You have known deep sorrow—may your future years be very happy ones."

My readers, we close our story as we began it—with a wedding. But this time the wedding bells indeed are "golden bells," ringing out the mellow chimes of true happiness.

For this is not the union of winter and summer, this is not the sordid barter of youth and beauty for an old man's gold. It is that one true and beautiful union upon earth where the solemn vow of marriage welds eternally together

 
"Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one."
 

[THE END.]