Bertha had promised to keep Guy Kenmore informed of the progress of
Elaine's illness, and she was glad to keep her word, as it afforded her
a pretext for writing to the young man, and thus keeping her memory
alive in his heart.
Since the supposed death of poor Irene, the artful Bertha was again
laying plans for the capture of Mr. Kenmore. She hoped in time to allay
the unfavorable impression she had created in his mind the night of the
ball, and to establish an empire over his heart. Mr. Kenmore belonged to
one of the wealthiest and most aristocratic families in Baltimore, and
it was the hight of her ambition to become his wife.
Though the young man's interest in Elaine afforded her a pretext for
corresponding with him, Bertha was vaguely displeased at his anxiety
over her sister. It filled her with secret jealousy. Elaine was still
young and beautiful enough to win the heart of the man who had married
her daughter. Bertha was determined not to tolerate her as a rival.
"There is no accounting for men's tastes," she said, angrily, to her
mother. "I supposed that his knowledge of Elaine's shameful secret would
utterly disgust him with her. But he is almost as anxious over her as if
he were her lover."
"Men regard these things somewhat differently from women," replied Mrs.
Brooke. "It is possible he may regard Elaine with pity, rather than
disgust. And pity is akin to love, you know."
In her heart Mrs. Brooke was rather elated at Guy's interest in Elaine.
If she could not secure him for Bertha, she would be very pleased to
have him for her elder daughter.
Bertha saw the bent of her mother's mind, and inwardly raged at it. Day
and night her mind was filled with projects for diverting Guy's mind
from the charms of her elder sister. On this particular state of her
mind Elaine's announcement of leaving Bay View fell like healing balm.
Several days elapsed after her departure before Bertha communicated the
fact to Mr. Kenmore in a brief, ambiguous note.
It was no part of her plan that he should become acquainted with their
poverty, or with the reason of Elaine going.
So she wrote simply:
"Elaine convalesced more rapidly than was expected, and has left us in
anger, declining to live with us longer, and making a mystery of her
destination. Come down to Bay View and I will give you the particulars."
The note had the effect she anticipated of bringing Mr. Kenmore down to
Bay View without delay.
Then Bertha told her story with well-acted grief and penitence.
"It was all my wretched fault," she sighed. "Elaine would not forgive me
for giving way to my jealous passion that dreadful night, and betraying
her shameful story. It was all in vain that I declared my penitence on
my knees and implored her forgiveness. She would not hear me. She
declared that she should hate me so long as she lived, and that the
same roof could not shelter us both. So she went away from mamma and me,
declaring that it was forever."
The arch deceiver here shed some quiet, natural-looking tears into her
perfumed, black-bordered handkerchief.
"It was very hard, losing papa and Elaine, and poor little Irene, all,
as it were, at one fatal stroke," she declared, sobbingly.
Mr. Kenmore was gravely, sadly silent. He did not think of doubting
Bertha's clever tale. It seemed very natural that poor Elaine should
resent her sister's cruel betrayal of the long-guarded secret of Irene's
birth. He scarcely wondered that she had gone away desperately wounded
and unforgiving, in the smart of her bitter pain.
"Oh, if you could know how bitterly I have repented all that I said that
dreadful night," sighed Bertha, giving him a sidewise glance under her
long, black lashes. "I must have been mad, I think. You know the great
poet says, 'There's madness in the moon,' and that night Irene had
fairly driven me wild. Oh, if I could only think you had forgotten the
unkind things I said to you in my foolish passion!" she pursued,
remorsefully.
Her pretty shame and penitence touched him.
"I wish that you could forget it as freely as I forgive it, Miss
Brooke," he answered, kindly.
"Oh, thank you, thank you," she cried. "I have repented my folly in
bitterness and tears. I let my own heart deceive me. I know now that a
woman should not give her heart unasked, still less betray its tender
throbbings to the cold and careless."
She hid her face in her hands as if she could not bear his kindly gaze.
Guy, touched by her tears and sorrow, did not know what to say or do. He
was intensely sorry for her, forgetting how much he had disliked her
that night when she had shown herself in her true colors.
"Let us forget it all, Miss Brooke," he said, uneasily, anxious to dry
up her springing tears.
The beautiful brunette gave him a swift, shy look of gratitude.
"Oh, how gladly I will do so!" she exclaimed, putting out her delicate,
white hand to him. "Shall we be friends as we were before---- that fatal
night?"
"Yes," he replied, pressing her hand kindly, but lightly, for he had no
mind to be drawn into the _role_ of a lover again.
"And you will come down to Bay View sometimes? Mamma and I will be so
lonely and sad now, after losing so many dear links from our family
circle," said the dark-eyed beauty, following up her advantage.
"Sometimes--when I can find leisure," he replied ambiguously.
And with that Bertha was obliged to be content. She hoped great things
from the concessions he had already made. Now that Irene was dead, and
Elaine gone, she would have no rivals, and surely, surely her beauty,
her fascination, her tenderness for him must win him even against his
will.
She brought the whole battery of her charms and graces to bear upon
him, but was obliged to confess to herself that she had never seen him
so sad, so grave, so pale and so _distrait_.
"It cannot be that he is sorry over that child's death. He ought to be
glad," she thought to herself. "It must be that he assumes this gravity
in deference to my affliction."
Yet she was troubled and chagrined when he left her so indifferently and
went down to the shore. She watched him from her window, standing
quietly, with folded arms, a tall, dark shape, outlined against the
brightness of the summer eve.
"Of what is he thinking?" she asked her heart, uneasily.
It would have seemed strange to her if she had known. It even seemed
strange to himself.
He was standing there gazing with dark, heavy eyes at the rolling waves,
much as if he had been gazing on a grave.
He was recalling to mind the winsome, changeful, perfect beauty, the
fire, the soul, the passion of the girl he had so strangely wedded, the
girl who had recklessly flung herself into the deep, relentless waves,
leaving him only the memory of the few, brief hours in which she had
flashed before him in the extremes of joy and despair---- one moment a
beautiful, spirited, happy child, the next a passionate, despairing,
crushed and broken-hearted woman!
"Poor little Irene," he said to himself. "If she had lived, who
knows"--then a sigh, deeper than he knew, finished the regretful words.