Pluma Hurlhurst never quailed beneath the cold, mocking glance bent
upon her.
There was no hope for her; disgrace and ruin stared her in the face;
she would defy even Fate itself to the bitter end with a heroism
worthy of a better cause. In that hour and that mood she was capable
of anything.
She leaned against a tall palm-tree, looking at him with a strange
expression on her face, as she made answer, slowly:
"You may depend upon it, I shall never marry you, Lester Stanwick. If
I do not marry Rex I shall go unmarried to the grave. Ah, no!" she
cried desperately; "Heaven will have more mercy, more pity than to
take him from me."
"What mercy or pity did you feel in thrusting poor little Daisy Brooks
from his path?" asked Stanwick, sarcastically. "Your love has led you
through dangerous paths. I should call it certainly a most perilous
love."
She recoiled from him with a low cry, those words again still ringing
in her ears, "A perilous love."
She laughed with a laugh that made even Stanwick's blood run cold--a
horrible laugh.
"I do not grieve that she is dead," she said. "You ought to understand
by this time I shall allow nothing to come between Rex and me."
"You forget the fine notions of honor your handsome lover entertains;
it may not have occurred to you that he might object at the eleventh
hour."
"He will not," she cried, fiercely, her bosom rising and falling
convulsively under its covering of filmy lace and the diamond brooch
which clasped it. "You do not know the indomitable will of a desperate
woman," she gasped. "I will see him myself and confess all to him, if
you attempt to reveal the contents of those letters. He will marry me
and take me abroad at once. If I have Rex's love, what matters it what
the whole world knows or says?"
She spoke rapidly, vehemently, with flushed face and glowing eyes; and
even in her terrible anger Stanwick could not help but notice how
gloriously beautiful she was in her tragic emotion.
"I have asked you to choose between us," he said, calmly, "and you
have chosen Rex regardless of all the promises of the past. The
consequences rest upon your own head."
"So be it," she answered, haughtily.
With a low bow Stanwick turned and left her.
"_Au revoir_, my dear Pluma," he said, turning again toward her on the
threshold. "Not farewell--I shall not give up hope of winning the
heiress of Whitestone Hall."
For several moments she stood quite still among the dark-green shrubs,
and no sound told of the deadly strife and despair. Would he see Rex
and divulge the crime she had planned? Ah! who would believe she, the
proud, petted heiress had plotted so cruelly against the life of an
innocent young girl because she found favor in the eyes of the lover
she had sworn to win? Ah! who could believe she had planned to confine
that sweet young life within the walls of a mad-house until death
should release her?
What if the plan had failed? The intention still remained the same.
She was thankful, after all, the young girl was dead.
"I could never endure the thought of Rex's intense anger if he once
imagined the truth; he would never forgive duplicity," she cried,
wildly.
The proud, beautiful girl, radiant with love and happiness a short
time since, with a great cry flung herself down among the ferns, the
sunlight gleaming on the jewels, the sumptuous morning dress, the
crushed roses, and the white, despairing face.
Any one who saw Pluma Hurlhurst when she entered the drawing-room
among her merry-hearted guests, would have said that she had never
shed a tear or known a sigh. Could that be the same creature upon
whose prostrate figure and raining tears the sunshine had so lately
fallen? No one could have told that the brightness, the smiles, and
the gay words were all forced. No one could have guessed that beneath
the brilliant manner there was a torrent of dark, angry passions and
an agony of fear.
It was pitiful to see how her eyes wandered toward the door. Hour
after hour passed, and still Rex had not returned.
The hum of girlish voices around her almost made her brain reel. Grace
Alden and Miss Raynor were singing a duet at the piano. The song they
were singing fell like a death-knell upon her ears; it was "'He Cometh
Not,' She Said."
Eve Glenn, with Birdie upon her lap, sat on an adjoining sofa flirting
desperately with the two or three devoted beaus; every one was
discussing the prospect of the coming morrow.
Her father had returned from Baltimore some time since. She was too
much engrossed with her thoughts of Rex to notice the great change in
him--the strange light in his eyes, or the wistful, expectant
expression of his face, as he kissed her more fondly than he had ever
done in his life before.
She gave appropriate answers to her guests grouped around her, but
their voices seemed afar off. Her heart and her thoughts were with
Rex. Why had he not returned? What was detaining him? Suppose anything
should happen--it would kill her now--yet nothing could go wrong on
the eve of her wedding-day. She would not believe it. Stanwick would
not dare go to Rex with such a story--he would write it--and all
those things took time. With care and caution and constant watching
she would prevent Rex from receiving any communications whatever until
after the ceremony; then she could breathe freely, for the battle so
bravely fought would be won.
"If to-morrow is as bright as to-day, Pluma will have a glorious
wedding-day," said Bessie Glenn, smiling up into the face of a
handsome young fellow who was fastening a rosebud she had just given
him in the lapel of his coat with one hand, and with the other tightly
clasping the white fingers that had held the rose.
He did not notice that Pluma stood in the curtained recesses of an
adjoining window as he answered, carelessly enough:
"Of course, I hope it will be a fine, sunshiny day, but the
indications of the weather don't look exactly that way, if I am any
judge."
"Why, you don't think it is going to rain, do you? Why, it will spoil
the rose-bower she is to be married in and all the beautiful
decoration. Oh, please don't predict anything so awfully horrible; you
make me feel nervous; besides, you know what everybody says about
weddings on which the rain falls."
"Would you be afraid to experiment on the idea?" asked the impulsive
young fellow, who always acted on the spur of the moment. "If
to-morrow were a rainy day, and I should say to you, 'Bess, will you
marry me to-day or never?' what would your answer be?"
"I should say, just now, I do not like 'ifs and ands.' Supposing a
case, and standing face to face with it, are two different things. I
like people who say what they mean, and mean what they say."
Pluma saw the dazzling light flame into the bashful young lover's eyes
as he bent his head lower over the blushing girl who had shown him the
right way to capture a hesitating heart.
"_That_ is love," sighed Pluma. "Ah, if Rex would only look at me like
that I would think this earth a heaven." She looked up at the bright,
dazzling clouds overhead; then she remembered the words she had
heard--"It looked like rain on the morrow."
Could those white, fleecy clouds darken on the morrow that was to give
her the only treasure she had ever coveted in her life?
She was not superstitious. Even if it did rain, surely a few
rain-drops could not make or mar the happiness of a lifetime. She
would not believe it.
"Courage until to-morrow," she said, "and my triumph will be complete.
I will have won Rex." The little ormolu clock on the mantel chimed the
hour of five. "Heavens!" she cried to herself, "Rex has been gone over
two hours. I feel my heart must be bursting."
No one noticed Pluma's anxiety. One moment hushed and laughing, the
queen of mirth and revelry, then pale and silent, with shadowed eyes,
furtively glancing down the broad, pebbled path that led to the
entrance gate.
Yet, despite her bravery, Pluma's face and lips turned white when she
heard the confusion of her lover's arrival.
Perhaps Pluma had never suffered more suspense in all her life than
was crowded into those few moments.
Had he seen Lester Stanwick? Had he come to denounce her for her
treachery, in his proud, clear voice, and declare the marriage broken
off?
She dared not step forward to greet him, lest the piercing glance of
his eyes would cause her to fall fainting at his feet.
"A guilty conscience needs no accuser." Most truly the words were
exemplified in her case. Yet not one pang of remorse swept across her
proud heart when she thought of the young girl whose life she had so
skillfully blighted.
What was the love of Daisy Brooks, an unsophisticated child of nature,
only the overseer's niece, compared to her own mighty, absorbing
passion?
The proud, haughty heiress could not understand how Rex, polished,
courteous and refined, could have stooped to such a reckless folly. He
would thank her in years to come for sparing him from such a fate.
These were the thoughts she sought to console herself with.
She stood near the door when he entered, but he did not see her; a
death-like pallor swept over her face, her dark eyes had a wild,
perplexing look.
She was waiting in terrible suspense for Rex to call upon her name;
ask where she was, or speak some word in which she could read her
sentence of happiness or despair in the tone of his voice.
She could not even catch the expression of his face; it was turned
from her. She watched him so eagerly she hardly dared draw her
breath.
Rex walked quickly through the room, stopping to chat with this one or
that one a moment; still, his face was not turned for a single instant
toward the spot where she stood.
Was he looking for her? She could not tell. Presently he walked toward
the conservatory, and a moment later Eve Glenn came tripping toward
her.
"Oh, here you are!" she cried, flinging her arms about her in regular
school-girl _abandon_, and kissing the cold, proud mouth, that deigned
no answering caress. "Rex has been looking for you everywhere, and at
last commissioned me to find you and say he wants to speak to you. He
is out on the terrace."
How she longed to ask if Rex's face was smiling or stern, but she
dared not.
"Where did you say Rex was, Miss Glenn?"
"I said he was out on the terrace; but don't call me Miss Glenn, for
pity's sake--it sounds so freezingly cold. Won't you please call me
Eve," cried the impetuous girl--"simply plain Eve? That has a more
friendly sound, you know."
Another girl less proud than the haughty heiress would have kissed
Eve's pretty, piquant, upturned, roguish face.
"What did Rex have to say to her?" she asked herself, in growing
dread.
The last hope seemed withering in her proud, passionate heart. She
rose haughtily, and walked with the dignity of a queen through the
long drawing-room toward the terrace. Her heart almost stopped beating
as she caught sight of Rex leaning so gracefully against the trunk of
an old gnarled oak tree, smoking a cigar. That certainly did not look
as if he meant to greet her with a kiss.
She went forward hesitatingly--a world of anxiety and suspense on her
face--to know her fate. The color surged over her face, then receded
from it again, as she looked at him with a smile--a smile that was
more pitiful than a sigh.
"Rex," she cried, holding out her hands to him with a fluttering,
uncertain movement that stirred the perfumed laces of the exquisite
robe she wore, and the jewels on her white, nervous hands--"Rex, I am
here!"