But Mrs. Berrien was not the only person who felt concern about the
very unjust suspicion that might be cast upon Aimée. Lennox Kyrle,
as he went out, with Percy Joscelyn’s angry question ringing in his
ears, said to himself, indignantly, that it was shameful that such
a misconception should be allowed for a moment to exist, and that,
if Fanny had neither the courage nor sense of justice sufficient
to induce her to speak, it was his plain duty to do so. Only one
consideration deterred him, and this was the consideration Aimée
had so artfully brought to bear, that to reveal the truth would on
his part appear to be the revenge of a jilted man.
“My lips are sealed,” he thought, wrathfully, “and Fanny Berrien
knows it, so she allows this child, who is too young and ignorant
to understand what she is doing, to bear the consequences and the
odium of her conduct. It is infamous, and I will not submit to it!
Something must be done.”
But to declare in the warmth of righteous indignation that
something must be done, and to decide what that something should
be, were unfortunately very different things. Mr. Kyrle felt
himself impotent in the face of the double force of feminine
resolution arrayed against him, and yet he was determined that
matters should not be left as they were. The more he thought of
it, the more he was revolted by Fanny Berrien’s selfishness and
duplicity, and the more eager he became that she should be made
to bear the burden of her own misdoing. But how was this to be
accomplished? He walked away from Mrs. Shreve’s door after asking
himself the question, and finding no answer short of that method
which would be open to the suspicion of being dictated by revenge.
One thing, however, he determined--that he would not leave St.
Augustine at once, as he had declared his intention of doing. That
Fanny Berrien very much desired his departure, was in his present
mood an incentive to remain. Yes, he would stay for a day at least,
and see if circumstances might not make it possible for him to set
matters in their true light.
At the hotel where he had taken up his quarters--for this was
before the era of palatial hostelries in the quaint old Spanish
town--he saw Mr. Meredith and Percy Joscelyn, and might have been
amused by the glances, not of love, which both men cast upon him,
but for the fact that he clearly understood the misconception in
the mind of each; and to be held guilty of tempting a girl hardly
out of childhood to elopement, was as outraging to his pride as
to his sense of integrity. It is to be regretted that he did
not encounter Miss Berrien at this period, for that lively and
easy-going young lady would assuredly have heard some truths,
clothed in caustic language, which might have proved of benefit to
her. But instead of Miss Berrien, it was Aimée whom he encountered
again, in a manner most unexpected to both. One of the girl’s
greatest pleasures during her stay in St. Augustine had been to
spend much of her time in an orange grove on the outskirts of
the town, to which she had a right of entrance, as it belonged
to Mrs. Shreve’s son. Other people also went there occasionally
to walk under the picturesque trees and pluck the golden fruit
that gleamed out of the glossy foliage; but Aimée would take books
or work with her, and spend hours alone in what seemed to her an
enchanted world of soft sunshine, balmy air, and sweet odors.
It was therefore a place that she felt she could not leave St.
Augustine without seeing again--the more especially that, after
the events of the morning and the tremendous change that seemed
impending over her, she needed a little time for quiet reflection.
And quiet reflection in the house with her aunt and Fanny was an
impossible thing.
So it came to pass that, in the last hour of a perfect afternoon,
Lennox Kyrle, who had been taking a walk while chewing the cud
of unpleasant reflections, was attracted by the appearance of a
figure coming along the road on which he was tramping. His sight
was remarkably keen, and after an instant, although the person was
still distant, he had no doubt who it was.
“It is that little girl!” he said to himself. “I call this good
luck, for really the only thing I can do, as far as I perceive, is
to make another appeal to her to tell the truth. Yet to go back to
that house to see her was impossible. So it is surely a fortunate
chance that brings her here--and alone, too!”
The next moment he feared that he had congratulated himself too
soon. The figure paused an instant and then disappeared. Had she
also recognized him, and desired to avoid meeting him? He thought
it likely, but determined grimly that she should not succeed. Since
to reach Fanny and scorch her with reproaches was impossible,
his next best chance was to work upon Aimée, and this he vowed
to himself that he would not be prevented from doing. If she had
gone into some house, he would remain on the road until nightfall
in order to waylay her on her return home; but if she had perhaps
taken another road--The suspicion of this made him quicken his
steps, so that a few minutes after Aimée’s disappearance he reached
the spot where he had seen her last. No house was in sight, but it
was evident that she had entered a gate which led into an orange
grove, the beautiful alleys of which he had admired as he passed
it on his way out an hour before. Indeed, as he gazed eagerly and
quickly down the green vistas filled with sunset light he perceived
what he sought--the graceful form pacing slowly along one of the
overarched ways.
To decide and to act was more a synonymous thing with Lennox Kyrle
than with most men. He did not give a thought to any question of
intrusion or trespass. He opened the gate and went in, striding
quickly down the path in which he perceived the slender, girlish
figure. He was not conscious at the moment of bestowing much
attention upon the scene around him, but its aspect came back to
him so vividly afterward, that the sensitive plate which we call
memory must have retained it with unusual fidelity. Long afterward
he could see distinctly the floods of level sunlight slanting
through the tree-trunks and turning the very air to amber, the
wealth of glistening evergreen foliage, the boughs laden with what
seemed the golden apples of classic fable, the indefinable charm
of the Southern atmosphere, and above all the delicate, childlike
presence like a vision of youth flitting down the sunlit vista.
But if there was a satisfaction to him in thus finding an
opportunity to deliver the thoughts which had turned so hotly
within him all day, there was not the least satisfaction for poor
Aimée, when, hearing a quick tread advancing behind her, she turned
to confront the last person in the world whom she had the least
desire to see. She stood still, clasping her hands instinctively
together as she uttered a low cry of dismay.
“O Mr. Kyrle!” she gasped. “I hoped--I thought you had gone away.”
Little as Kyrle was in a mood for smiling, he could not but smile
at this ingenuous address. “I am sorry to disappoint you,” he said,
“and to break my word--for I promised to go, didn’t I? But there
are reasons that seemed to make it imperative for me to remain a
little longer. And, as it chanced just now, while I was taking a
walk, I saw you enter this place, and I hoped you would pardon me
if I followed you.”
“But why?” inquired Aimée, far too disturbed to be polite. “Why
should you want to see me, and why--oh, _why_ haven’t you gone
away? Fanny would be dreadfully worried if she knew you were still
here.”
“What Miss Berrien might think does not trouble me in the least,”
he replied, quietly; “but I am sorry to annoy you. I really did not
think, however, that merely seeing me would annoy you so much. Why
should it? I have no intention of harming any one.”
“Without intention you may do great harm,” she replied, quickly.
“And I can not understand why you should stay, when you promised--”
“I will tell you why,” he said as she paused. “But is there no
place where we can sit down for a few minutes? I will not detain
you long.”
She pointed to a bench not far off, a favorite seat of her own, and
one to which she had been on her way when he overtook her. “We can
sit down there,” she said, with manifest reluctance, “but I do not
see the necessity--”
“Never mind seeing it,” he said. “Simply oblige me--if I must put
the matter on that basis. I am sure you will admit that I have been
badly enough treated to merit a little consideration.”
“You have certainly been _very_ badly treated,” said Aimée, her
eyes softening with sympathy at the memory of his wrongs. “I hope
you don’t think I forget it, or that I can ever cease to blame
Fanny; but--but making things worse can not make them better. And
it seems to me that you can only make them worse by staying here.”
“As far as Miss Berrien is concerned,” he said, as they walked
toward the bench and seated themselves, “I assure you that I have
not the least desire to make them either worse or better. It seems
strange--does it not?”--he broke off abruptly, “that this time
yesterday I was looking at the setting sun filled with thoughts
of her, and longings for the moment that would bring us together,
and that now there is not a woman whom I know in the world that I
would not sooner entertain the thought of marrying. It is a great
change to be wrought in twenty-four hours. And do you know what
has chiefly wrought it?”
“Her conduct, I suppose,” answered Aimée. “It was bad enough to
have wrought anything; and yet,” she added, reflectively, “I don’t
really believe that Fanny herself thinks it was very bad. She
is--light, you know.”
“Yes,” assented Kyrle, dryly, “very light. However, what she thinks
is a matter of no importance. And it is not her conduct to me that
has chiefly wrought the change of which I speak, but her conduct to
_you_.”
“To me?” said Aimée, looking up at him with a startled expression.
“Oh, pray, don’t think of that. You don’t understand--Fanny never
meant to do me any harm. I was perfectly willing to go last night,
and it was not her fault that Mr. Meredith, instead of going home,
as he should have done, stayed on the sea wall and saw me.”
“Pardon me,” said Kyrle, “but I think it was distinctly her fault.
To have sent you on such an errand was in itself absolutely
inexcusable; but afterward to let it be supposed that you went of
your own accord--that you were the person about to elope--there is
no language strong enough to characterize such cowardly duplicity.
You wonder why I am still here? It is because I determined to see
you, and say to you that if you do not tell the truth, I will. This
shameful deception, this trading on the generosity of a child,
shall not continue.”
Aimée looked up at him. When had she seen any one so moved with
indignation and generous wrath? She thought again that this man was
far from the ductile wax Fanny Berrien imagined him to be; but,
righteous as his resentment and anger were, it would not do to
allow him to act upon them. Yet how could she hope to influence or
bend the fiery resolution that breathed in his look and words?
“It is too late,” she said at last. “I have promised, and I have
made others promise, that things shall be left as they are, and
nothing would induce me to speak. Fanny is selfish and thoughtless,
but she never intended deception. It all--came about because Mr.
Meredith frightened her, and she was afraid to tell the truth.
Fanny is a little of a coward, you know. She is very sorry--really
sorry, I assure you; but if she told Mr. Meredith now, he would
never forgive her.”
“And so you advise her to continue to deceive a man whose affection
for her should entitle him at least to fair dealing?” said Kyrle,
bitterly. “Is a man, then, never certain of truth from a woman?
In Fanny Berrien I am not surprised. But your eyes look as if you
ought to know what honor and honesty are.”
The eyes of which he spoke filled with tears. No other reproach
could have cut Aimée so deeply. Twenty-four hours earlier she would
have said that honor and honesty were the forces that would always
rule her life; and now--she could not deny that from this high
standard she had ignominiously fallen. And how was it possible to
explain what compelling impulse of gratitude had made it seem a
duty to violate the strongest instincts implanted in her nature?
She looked at Kyrle with the overbrimming crystal drops almost
ready to fall, and he, meeting the pained humility of that look,
felt as if he had struck a helpless child.
“I suppose it was wrong to have helped Fanny when it came to a
question of deception,” she said, “but you do not know how unkind
and ungrateful it would have seemed of me to refuse. It looked
such a little thing--just to say that it was I whom Mr. Meredith
saw last night. And _that_ was true. Oh, yes” (quickly), “I know
that it is as bad to imply a falsehood as to tell it. But--but what
could I do? I owe so much to my aunt!”
“I have no right to hold you to account,” said Kyrle. “Only let me
ask if you think it possible to owe any debt of gratitude great
enough to demand a sacrifice of integrity in payment?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, simply. “I am sorry if I have done
anything very wrong, but I will tell you why I felt compelled to
make almost any sacrifice to shield Fanny.” She hesitated a moment.
It seemed a difficult subject to approach, and Kyrle was about to
beg her not to distress herself in order to give him an explanation
to which he had no claim, when she went on hastily: “You see, I
am only partly an orphan. My father is dead, but my mother is
living and has married again. She is very much under the influence
of Major Joscelyn--that is my stepfather--and I have always felt,
though perhaps I was wrong, that she does not care much about me.
The Joscelyns have never liked me; so I was very unhappy at home,
when Aunt Alice came and took me away. I can not tell you how
different life was to me when I went to live with her and Fanny.
They have both been so kind and affectionate, they have done so
much for me, of whom no one else ever thought at all, that there is
not anything--not _anything_,” repeated the passionate young voice,
“that I would not do for them. And I can not regret what I have
done, though I am sorry it seems to you so wrong.”
“It is chiefly wrong to yourself,” said Kyrle. “I wish I could make
you see this as I do. It is not less than a crime against your
future to allow people to suppose--for what one person knows, many
people are pretty certain to know--that you were not only engaged
in a love affair, but on the point of eloping with me last night.”
A deep blush, beautiful in its tint but painful in its intensity,
spread over her face. She looked away from him and her lip
trembled. He saw that some instinct which had been dormant before
was waking in her, and making her understand the outrage which such
a misconception would do her childlike youth, and he pressed his
advantage remorselessly.
“You can not possibly comprehend what injury the story might do
your life at some of its most critical moments,” he said; “but your
aunt, Mrs. Berrien, will comprehend, and to her I shall go. I am
deeply enough concerned in the matter to have a right to demand
that the truth shall be told.”
“If you go to my aunt,” said Aimée, turning upon him quickly, “you
can distress her very much, but you can not tell her anything which
she does not know. All that you have said about possible injury to
me _she_ has said and I had much trouble in persuading her to let
things be as they are. You must not think any wrong of her. She
knew nothing until Percy Joscelyn, my stepbrother--who came in, you
remember, this morning--charged her with not having taken proper
care of me, because he found you in Mrs. Shreve’s sitting-room with
me. It was like his effrontery to dare to speak so to her!” the
girl interpolated, with flashing eyes. “Yesterday no Joscelyn of
them all would have cared what became of me; only Aunt Alice cared.
But to-day, because it seems they have learned that I am rich,
Percy ventures to insult her!”
Nothing could have surprised Kyrle more than this sudden flash
of indignant anger in one who had seemed to him gentle to a
fault. But he was a man of quick perceptions, and all the intense
affectionateness, the passionate gratitude and loyalty of the
girl’s nature, were revealed to him in that moment of emotion.
He was deeply touched and interested, for in this instant he
understood that it was no vulgar love of intrigue, no lack of
rectitude, no obtuseness toward the finest things of life, that had
made Aimée play her part in Fanny Berrien’s commonplace comedy of
flirtation. Instead of comedy it had become tragedy to the girl,
with her keen sense of honor, her high standard of loyalty, and her
delicate instinct of the claim which love and trust given create
in a generous mind. But there were motives, deep-rooted in her
nature, strong enough to make her do violence to all these things
and stand firm as Fanny’s shield. Kyrle almost forgot the point he
was himself intent upon in his interest in the springs of feeling
and action thus laid bare before him.
“And so,” Aimée went on, “when Aunt Alice heard that you had been
there she knew, of course, what it meant, and she insisted on
hearing everything. Then she said the truth must be told; that
Mr. Meredith must know why I went out last night; that now I am
rich--why are things so much more important when people happen
to be rich?--it would not do for any one to imagine that I had
been going to elope. But Fanny said that Mr. Meredith would never
forgive her if he heard the truth now, and I begged Aunt Alice on
my knees to let me do this little thing in return for all she has
done for me. So at last she yielded, and I was very glad, and--and
it can not be that you will go to her and make more trouble. Why
should you concern yourself about me?” she demanded, turning to
him with another but somewhat lesser flash in her eyes. “What is it
to you if I do this?”
“Well, for one thing,” replied Kyrle, “I am myself somewhat
concerned in it, for I assure you that I am not the kind of man to
endeavor to persuade a girl of your age to elope, and naturally the
imputation of having done so is not very agreeable to me.”
“Oh!” said Aimée, with a look of contrition, “I never thought
of that. I forgot that it could not be pleasant for you to be
suspected of such a thing. You must forgive me for being so
selfish; and yet”--she paused an instant and gazed at him with a
passion of entreaty in her eyes, which at that moment he thought
were at once the most expressive and the most beautiful he had ever
seen--“and yet,” she went on in a low, thrilling tone, “if you
could only be generous and kind enough to allow it to be believed
of you by the only person who knows anything about it, I, for one,
should be grateful to you as long as I live!”
But for the gravity of her appeal Kyrle could have laughed at the
absurdity of the situation; and yet her simplicity, her utter lack
of thought for herself, touched him again beyond measure. “My dear
child,” he said--for in truth he did not recall her name--“I feel
as if I might do almost anything, simply because you wished it;
but you do not know what you ask in this matter. You tell me that
you have become rich, which means important in the world, and yet
you desire to darken the fair promise of your youth with such a
story as this would speedily become in the mouth of gossip. It is
impossible--it would be a shame! I can not consent to it.”
“But what can you do?” she asked, dropping appeal and regarding him
now with nothing less than defiance in her dark eyes. “Is it not
true that a gentleman is bound never to betray a woman’s secret?
How, then, can you betray Fanny’s? As for me, I will never speak.”
There was no doubt of that. A hundred oaths could not have
expressed resolution more firmly, more immovably, than those simple
words. And what could Kyrle reply? He knew well that he could not
betray Miss Berrien’s secret, and it was the consciousness of this
that had made him so determined to influence Aimée. But now he was
forced to own himself completely baffled. Aimée’s strength of will
was greater than any force he could bring to bear against it, and
there was nothing left but to accept the situation created for him
as best he might.
“You are right,” he said at last. “A gentleman is bound in honor
to keep a woman’s secret; so Miss Berrien is safe from me. If she
chooses to shelter herself behind you, and you choose to allow her
to do so, I have no power to prevent it. But I am sorry that I have
failed completely to make you understand what a great mistake you
are committing. To save an unprincipled flirt from the consequences
of her double-dealing, you are laying a cloud on your own life at
its beginning.”
“I care nothing about that,” said the girl, with honest
indifference. “I am only sorry that Mr. Meredith should be
deceived, and that you have to bear (though only in his opinion)
that imputation of which you spoke a few minutes ago. But I am
going away to-morrow; and since it seems I am of some importance
now” (a sigh), “I suppose the Joscelyns will keep me always; so he
and everybody else will soon forget all about this.”
“I assure you that I shall never forget it,” said Kyrle. “It is
an episode calculated to remain in a man’s memory. The heartless,
selfish woman who has made a fool of me, I shall indeed have no
trouble in forgetting; but the part you have played, mistaken as
it is, I shall long remember. I only wish you had displayed such
qualities as you have proved yourself to possess, in a better
cause. Given a good cause, you would be a heroine. And now”--he
rose as he spoke--“this time it is good-by. Since I have failed
completely in the end for which I remained here, I shall return at
once to the yacht. Will you shake hands with me and tell me your
name? One should surely know as much as that of a young lady with
whom he is supposed to have nearly eloped.”
But Aimée could not jest on such a subject. She gravely told
him her name and put out her hand. For long he carried with him
a picture of the slender presence, the delicate face looking
wistfully into his, as if to make sure that this time he could be
relied upon to depart, and the golden sunset glory seen through the
orange boughs behind her.
“Good-by,” he said, gently. “I am sorry I have not moved you. Some
day you will see that I am right, and I only hope you will not then
too much regret that you did not follow my advice.”
He pressed her hand warmly, released it, and walked away, down the
green vista of the grove.