He stood there a long, long time, listening to the beat of the waves,
and thinking of Irene and her mother. Bertha grew tired of watching him
and stole away to try the effect of a new mourning bonnet that had just
been sent home from the milliner. Guy had forgotten her. He was wrapped
in other thoughts. New feelings had come to him since that night, when,
indolent, _blase_, careless, he had come face to face with his fate. He
was haunted by a voice, a face. Some sad words came to his mind:
"How could I tell I should love thee to-day,
Whom that day I held not dear?
How could I know I should love thee away
When I loved thee not anear?"
"Oh, that word Regret!
There have been nights and morns when we have sighed:
'Let us alone, Regret!'"
He turned away at last warned by the darkening twilight that fell like a
pall over his lost bride's "vast and wandering grave."
"I must bid adieu to Mrs. Brooke and Bertha and return home to-night,"
was the thought in his mind.
Mrs. Brooke was in the parlor alone, Bertha being still absorbed in the
new bonnet. A sudden impulse came to Guy Kenmore.
He sat down by the matron's side and gazed sympathetically into her
still youthful-looking and handsome face.
"Miss Brooke left you no address when she went away, I presume?" he
inquired in a tone of respectful anxiety.
Mrs. Brooke had received her cue from Bertha and answered accordingly:
"No. She has deserted us most heartlessly, and I fear, I fear"---- she
broke down and buried her face in her handkerchief.
"You do not suppose that she can have made away with herself?" he cried
in low, awe-struck tones.
"No, no; worse, far worse," groaned the apparently deeply agitated
woman. "Oh, Mr. Kenmore, pity the grief and shame of a heart-broken
mother--I fear that Elaine has returned to her wicked deceiver."
"Impossible!" he exclaimed, in stern and startled tones.
"Would that I could think so," sighed the unjust mother. "But my heart
is torn by cruel suspicions. Elaine has never ceased to love that wicked
wretch, and to whom else can she have gone?"
To herself she said, self-excusingly: "Poor Elaine, I would not blacken
her name still more, only to help Bertha. If she marries him I shall
manage to let him find out the real truth about Elaine directly
afterward. She shall not lie under that base imposition any longer than
is necessary for Bertha's welfare."
She was startled when she saw how reproachfully and sternly his brown
eyes gleamed upon her.
"A mother is the last person to impute sin to her child," he said.
Mrs. Brooke only sobbed into her handkerchief by way of answer to this
reproach.
"I have become deeply interested in your daughter's sad story, Mrs.
Brooke," he went on. "Pray do not think me inquisitive if I ask you one
question."
She looked it him in startled surprise.
"It is only this, Mrs. Brooke," he said. "Will you tell me in what city
lived the man who so cruelly wronged beautiful Elaine?"
"It can do no good to rake up these old things," she said,
half-fretfully.
"It was only a single question. It cannot hurt you to answer," he said,
almost pleadingly.
She said to herself that it could not matter indeed, and she did not
wish to offend the young man whom she hoped to capture for her
son-in-law.
"It is very painful re-opening these old wounds," she sighed; "but since
you insist upon it I will answer your question. The young villain lived
at Richmond."
He bowed his thanks.
"I already know his name," he said, "and since you have no son to send
upon this delicate mission, Mrs. Brooke, I will make it my business to
inquire if your elder daughter has indeed deserted you for her base
betrayer."
She was about to protest against his doing so on the first pretext she
could think of, when Bertha's entrance suddenly closed the conversation.
He made his adieux and departed, giving an evasive reply to the young
lady's wishes for his swift return.
One week later Mrs. Brooke received a letter from him dated at Richmond.
"You wronged your daughter by your unkind suspicions," he wrote; "she is
not with the man you thought. Clarence Stuart left Richmond on the very
day of your husband's death, in his own yacht, with his wife and
daughter, and a party of friends. They were on a pleasure-trip to Italy.
You will no doubt be glad to hear that Elaine is not so wicked as you
believed her."
Thus the letter closed abruptly. Mrs. Brooke, in a curt note, thanked
Mr. Kenmore for his information. She did not dare give way to her
indignation at his interference, dreading that it would injure the
success of Bertha's husband-hunting.