A MAN AND HIS WIFE.
I was like a man who saw death before him when I heard his words.
Lucille his wife, when but a few short months ago she had promised to be
mine. She had let me woo and win her, knowing that she had no
right--that I had no right!
“Oh God!” I cried; and then I stopped, for I did not know what I might
pray for; her death, or his or my own. Yet with it all I loved her; more
than ever.
A great grief or a great joy stuns for the moment. So it was with me. My
heart’s dearest idol was shattered; crumbled into dust, and, instead of
pain, there was a numbness and a feeling that I had never known before.
I raised my hand to my head as if I would brush away cobwebs from my
eyes.
“Lucille,” I began, in so strange a tone that I started at the word, and
the silence seemed broken by my tone as by a thunder clap.
“Lady Keith,” corrected Sir George, smiling.
There came to me a faint hope like a star dimly seen amid a storm sky.
Perchance he had forfeited the right to call her wife. What else could
mean her shrinking from him, her fear when they had met, and I had been
near to see? Oh, if it could but be true! My eyes saw clearer, and my
hand became firmer.
“I have no privilege to ask,” I began, yet I hoped for an answer, “but I
had been led to believe otherwise of--of--Lu--of Lady Keith.”
“Aye, I suppose so,” was his answer, in a biting tone. “I am in little
mood for the telling, yet I will relate how it came to pass; for there
have been strange goings on since Mistress Lucille became Lady Keith.”
Then as we two stood there, each with deadly hatred of the other in his
heart, he began:
“I met Lucille and fell in love with her some five years ago. I first
saw her in Paris, where I had gone in quest of you. There I lingered
unable, because of the witchery of her eyes, to leave. We met often, for
I contrived to prevail on her father to let me give her lessons in
English. And you may guess I lost no opportunity of giving her lessons
in love at the same time. Well, my suit prospered, and in a year we were
wed, both as happy as lovers proverbially are.
“Then one day, ’twas a small matter, to be sure, but there was a story
that some court lady had been found in my bed chamber. Only a trifle,
for she had been there to gain my friendship in a matter concerning some
titled personage, and called rather early, that was all. But Lucille
heard of it, and, as I could not deny that the lady was there, why, my
wife assumed that I had tired of her charms. She flew into a great
passion, and when I had imagined she would pout a bit, and seem
offended, she was most grievously angered. Hast ever seen her in a
temper?” he asked suddenly.
“No,” I said sharply. “Go on.”
“Oh, but she has one, for all her fair face,” he sneered.
It was all I could do to keep the point of my sword from his throat.
“Proceed,” I choked out.
“Well, this small matter to me proved a large one for Lady Keith. And
her father, it seems, took it to heart also. They were of noble blood,
the de Guilforts, almost as good as the Keiths,” and he stroked his
moustache with an air of pride.
“Where was I? Oh, yes. Well, Mistress Keith was in a great temper. She
defied me to my face; told me I had dishonored her. You know how women
are. To be brief, M. de Guilfort, with my wife and her cousin, suddenly
left Paris, when I had been called to London on a false report that you
had come back. When I returned to Paris, expecting to find all the
affair blown over, and a pair of loving arms and ruby lips to welcome
me, I found a vacant house; a cold hearth.
“I did my best to trace them but failed. Then, like a man without hope,
hating yet loving, loving yet hating, I went to the wars, and finally
came to America. And here, thanks to the fates I have found both my
enemy and my love.”
“Is that all?” I asked, for I wished to hear the end before I killed
him.
“No,” he said bitterly, “not all. When I became attached to the army of
the Massachusetts Colony, the first act of Governor Phips was to send me
with a message to you here. I little guessed who I should find Captain
Edward Amherst to be, much less did I hope to meet with Lucille in Salem
town.
“When I galloped to her house that night, not finding you at the inn, I
saw, in the dim light, she whom I had been seeking so long. I had no
eyes for you then beyond a glance. But when I had ridden away, not
desiring to press matters at once, your face came before me, and I knew
I had found one other I had been in search of. I shouted aloud for joy.
“I hastened to Boston, where I had left the royal warrant, and I
returned with all speed. You had already sailed with the two sloops,
though I tried to hail you from the shore to which I galloped. However,
I thought that you would return, and, when I looked and saw Lucille, I
hardly cared whether you came back or not.”
“Is that all?” I asked again, softly. For I saw, of a truth now, that
one of us was like to die; and I did not think it would be me.
“Not quite all,” he said.
He paused to cast a hasty look at me, then he went on.
“While waiting for you I had time to renew my acquaintance with my dear
wife,” he said mockingly.
“And--and have you persuaded her that you are a true and loyal husband?”
I asked, hesitating bitterly over the words.
“Nay, curses on it,” he cried. “Why, man, ’twould be laughable, but that
I am more in love with her than ever. Fancy a man in love with his wife
a second time, yet not allowed to greet her, to call upon her, save in
the presence of a serving maid, not to take her hand, to kiss----”
I started forward, with what intent I know not, for the memory of those
kisses I had pressed on Lucille’s lips came back to me. I felt that one
of us, for the sake of the honor of Lucille, must die.
“Then your second suit is not favored, as was the first?” I inquired.
“Nay,” he replied bitterly. “Why, ’tis town gossip now that she loves
you, for no one is aware that she is my wife yet. A pretty tale, is it
not? How the French maid fell in love with the Captain that casts great
rocks as though they were but pebbles.”
“You lie, damn you!” I cried. “She did love me, perhaps. But it was
before she knew she had no right.”
“No right?”
“My life upon it, she did not know, Sir George. She either believed you
dead, or knew that she was no more bound to you than to the veriest
beggar.”
Yet, though I spoke the words boldly, there was both pain and fear in my
heart. When a man begins to doubt a woman there is no middle way. But I
could not, with honor, do less than defend the name of one I had
loved--nay, of one I loved still.
“Oh, a truce to fine words,” was the reply. “All women are alike; off
with the old, on with the new. Since she has found you she has no use
for me. I might as well talk of my love to the trees or to the rocks as
to Lucille, my own wife, since you have kissed her.”
I started.
“Ha! That was but a chance shot, yet it struck,” he cried; and he
laughed, though it echoed more like a wail than a sound of merriment.
“But I love her,” he went on. “Oh, God, how I love her! I love her so
much that I will, for the sake of it, be cheated of my revenge. With you
away I could have hope. But now----”
Outside the wind blew in mournful gusts, for a storm was brewing.
“Hark you, Sir Francis Dane,” he continued. “I will not call you by that
name, though, for you have forfeited it. Listen, Captain Amherst; if you
will but consent to leave the Colony, leave Lucille, and go away, I, in
turn, will forget my brother’s death, my vengeance, and you. The royal
warrant shall be destroyed, and you may walk the earth a free man,
fearing not any one. Only go. Leave Lucille to me. I can win back her
love. See, I will write now a full and free pardon for you, and will
transmit it to the King. Will you go?”
It was dark by this time, and the flickering flames, dying amid the
ashes, like a hopeless love, faintly illuminated the apartment, as we
stood facing each other.
It was strange, when, for the moment I stopped to think of it. Here was
a man pleading with another for what was his right. Pleading to be
allowed to woo his own wife. Begging that I would give up my love and go
away so that his suit might be unhampered. Verily I had never heard of
such a thing before, though I knew that love was a strange master. Sir
George was asking of me with words what I might expect to be required by
the sword. Yet, though I had no right to the love of Lucille, his wife,
he did not draw, even as I moved back, and stood on guard.
Whereat I marveled, for he was not a man to accept lightly the dishonor
I had put upon him.