A gentle breeze, like the soft current wafted from a fan in the hands
of Heaven, played through the room in which Leonie lay sweetly sleeping.
Silently the door of her room opened, and with noiseless step the old
man entered. He looked cautiously around, then thrust forward a candle
that he had held outside the door until he found that she was soundly
sleeping. With cat-like tread, he advanced and stood beside her,
looking down with a countenance that was convulsed with anguish.
"Oh, my darling! what have I done?" he gasped. "If I had not been so
blind I might have spared you all this. You love Lynde Pyne! Great God!
what a hideous thing life is after all. I might have known that she
would meet them all sooner or later. It is the law of the living. But
what was I to do? My poor little one! where is the justice or the mercy
in the curse that rests upon your life? To know the truth, with your
sensitive nature, would kill you; yet how am I to keep you from finding
out? Oh, God! the peace that time had brought is ended, and the bitter
agony of her life has begun! If I could but bear it for her!"
He left her side after one more long look, and taking a key that he
had brought with him he unlocked an old desk that the room contained.
Inside the drawer that opened he pressed a spring, and took from the
inner drawer a small portrait.
He looked at the pictured face, then bowed his head upon it, and the
bitterest tears of his life fell from his eyes.
"Oh, Lena, Lena!" he sobbed. "Can you look down upon us now and see
what your sin is to cost her? I don't want to blame you, my girl, now
that you are dead, but what am I to say to her? I wonder if you can
see what terrible danger threatens her, and I wonder if you know that
it would kill her to know the sin that you committed, and that forever
ruins and blasts her life? God forgive me! You are dead now, and
perhaps in heaven, but--Lena, Lena, Lena!"
He sat for some time so, then was aroused by feeling a hand laid upon
his shoulder. He glanced up, and to his dismay, saw Leonie standing
there, her face white as death.
"Who is that woman?" she asked in a voice utterly unlike her own.
Godfrey Cuyler hesitated, his hands shaking until it was almost
impossible for him to hold the portrait. He thrust it into the drawer,
and locked it before she knew what he was about.
"It is no one that you know!" he cried, brokenly. "If you love me, you
will not ask."
She laid her hands upon his shoulders, and held him firmly.
"Dad," she said, slowly, "you are keeping something from me that you
have no right to keep. What is it? What has Miss Chandler to do with
me? And who is that woman whose picture you have, who looks so much
like the portrait in Lynde Pyne's drawer?"
The old man fell into a chair, his limbs refusing to support him.
She fell upon her knees beside him, clasping his hands with both her
own.
"Dad," she whispered hoarsely, "there is some secret that connects my
life with that of Miss Chandler and Lynde Pyne. Tell me what it is. If
you do not, I shall find out for myself, and it would be so much better
for me to hear it from you than from a stranger, if it is the dreadful
thing that your manner leads me to fear. Dad, tell me."
"I cannot," he gasped. "You must believe me when I tell you that there
is nothing! Nothing! Nothing! Oh, Leonie, Leonie, my darling, put this
nonsense out of your head. If you must know the story, that is an aunt
of Miss Chandler's whom I once loved."
He was pointing toward the drawer where the picture was concealed,
but the girl knew as well that he was lying to her as though the full
knowledge of the humiliating story had been laid bare to her.
"Dad," she exclaimed, "oh, dad, it must be worse even than I thought,
when you will descend to a lie! Think again, dad. What is this hidden
misery that the mere mention of Miss Chandler's name causes you such
bitter suffering?"
"It is not Miss Chandler. You must not think it!" he cried, his voice
indistinct from the chattering of his teeth. "I once swore an oath
that concerned her--that is all. I cannot tell you, because my word is
pledged. Little one, little one, you must believe me. You must trust
dad always--always!"
He was trembling as though with a terrible chill, and feeling as though
her heart had suddenly turned to ice, Leonie arose from her knees.
"You are exciting yourself, dad," she said gently, "and will be ill
to-morrow. Go to bed, will you not?"
"Not until you have promised me that you will not go again to Lynde
Pyne's office! I could never rest until you had promised that. Tell me
that you will not!"
"I can't do that!" she cried, her voice sounding hollow in the
stillness of the night.
"We can't starve, and there is no other prospect--none!"
"Is that the only reason?"
She turned away wearily to avoid his penetrating gaze.
"No," she answered huskily, "perhaps it is not, but even if it were, I
should still say the same. Oh, dad, what is it? There can be nothing so
bad as this torturing suspense! Surely you can trust me?"
"Leonie," he said, in a choking voice, "the secret I know concerns
Evelyn Chandler, not yourself. You must believe me, for I speak the
truth!"
"Will you pledge me your honor to that, dad?"
He had never told a deliberate lie in his life before, and the effort
cost him a greater struggle than almost any one would believe, but he
controlled his countenance, and answered slowly:
"I do!"
She allowed her hand to fall from his shoulder, where it had rested,
and sighed wearily. He had not deceived her!
"Will you promise now?" he asked, almost unable to control his
eagerness.
"No," she replied, with a dejected shake of the head. "If the secret
does not concern me, it would be a foolish thing for me to resign a
position that I so sorely need. Don't ask it, dad, for there is nothing
that you can say that would induce me to do it!"
"Leonie----"
"You are keeping me up, dad, and I need rest. Won't you say good-night?"
The voice was quiet, but the expression on the lovely face belied it.
He saw what he had done, but was powerless to alter it.
"Oh, child----" he began, but she interrupted him again.
"To-morrow, dad! I am tired now and---- Go, dear, won't you? And, dad,
don't worry your dear old head about me! If there is trouble to be
borne, we can bear it together, as we always have, but we will leave
it until it comes. You know how foolish it is to endeavor to cross a
bridge before you come to it! Dad, dear old dad! good-night and God
bless you. Whatever may come in the future, you have been the most
faithful--- There you are making a baby of me."
She placed her arms about his neck, and hid her face upon his shoulder
in a vain endeavor to conceal her tears. She kissed him again, then
gently pushed him into his own room, and closed the door.
For hours after he had gone she sat there by the window trying to solve
the mystery that surrounded her. Her brows were knit, her fingers
tightly laced, her face pale as marble.
She arose suddenly, her hands clasped above her heart, her eyes wildly
bright.
"I have it!" she cried hoarsely. "My mother lives! She has committed
some sin that dad fears to tell me, for which he will never see her
again, and this Evelyn Chandler knows! Oh, mother, is it true? Is that
why he never speaks your name? If it is true, dear, I know that you are
innocent, and perhaps I can prove it! I will try, oh, I will try!"
There was no possibility of sleep that night, and when morning broke it
found her still sitting there, forming her plans to accomplish a thing
the full knowledge of which was to cause her the bitterest sorrow she
had ever known.
And in the next room, separated only by a thin partition, Godfrey
Cuyler was planning how he could save her.