There was a very good hotel in the vicinity of Bay View House, and Guy
Kenmore and his little bride went there to await the coming of the
midnight train by which they proposed returning to Baltimore.
He secured a comfortable private parlor, and sitting by the cheerful
fire never hours of waiting passed more rapidly than these.
With her lover-husband's arm drawn close and fondly round her graceful
form, Irene listened to the story of that momentous night when she had
so unwisely fled. She learned that the man she had both feared and
despised was dead, that Mr. Stuart was her father, and that Lilia and
her mother were both dead.
"And it was my own precious mamma whom I refused to go and hear that
night," she said. "Oh, if I had only known! But I was driven wild by my
fears. In my trouble it seemed to me that there was no refuge on earth
for me but in my mother's arms, and so I came back to America as fast as
wind and tide could bring me!"
"If you had known then that I loved you, Irene, would you have gone?" he
asked her softly, while he gazed deep in the lovely sapphire blue eyes.
The warm color surged into her cheeks at his earnest gaze, and she
hesitated.
"Tell me," he pleaded, and then she answered frankly:
"No, I should not have gone. If you had claimed me then I should have
come straight to your arms and told you all my doubts and fears. I could
not have left you."
"My proud little darling," he murmured, "we were both mistaken in
holding aloof from each other; but, please God, we will make up the loss
of those months of separation by long years of happiness spent together.
Do you remember those sweet lines of Jean Ingelow, my darling?
"It's we two, it's we two, it's we two for aye,
All the world and we two, and Heaven be our stay.
Like a laverock in the lift, sing, oh, bonny bride!
All the world was Adam once, with Eve by his side.
"What's the world, my love! what can it do?
I am thine, and thou art mine, life is sweet and new;
If the world have missed the mark let it stand by,
For we two have gotten leave and once more we'll try."
In his deep, sweet tones and the fond glances of his eyes, Irene read
that she was beloved even as she had longed to be in those days in
Italy, when she had believed him cold, careless, indifferent, and
determined not to acknowledge the tie between them. Tears of happiness
sparkled in her eyes, and with a low sob she hid her face on his breast.
He held her close, and kissed her tears away, silently, thanking Heaven
for the priceless gift of her innocent young heart.
He told her the gay yachting party had returned to Richmond, sobered and
saddened by the loss of Mrs. Stuart and Lilia.
"The child--your half-sister, Irene--have you thought of that?--sent you
some kind messages by Mrs. Leslie before she died," he said.
Irene was sorry to know that the spoiled, pretty Lilia was dead; but it
pleased her to know that her mother had been kind to her--that she had
soothed her dying hours with her soft, sweet songs.
"Dear, dear mamma--when shall I see her, Mr. Kenmore?" she asked,
wistfully.
"I meant to surprise you," he said; "but I cannot keep you in suspense.
You have already borne too much. You will see her to-morrow. She is the
guest of my sister in Baltimore. When I found out in Florence that you
had started to come back to America, I crossed in the next steamer, and
your mother came with me. We landed in a few hours after you did, and I
had no difficulty in tracing you. I learned that you had started for
Bay View by the water route, and followed you on a fast train, by which
means I was enabled to reach your old home in time to learn the
wickedness and heartlessness of Bertha."
"In time to save me from perishing in the cold, for I had exhausted my
last cent in the purchase of that ticket to Bay View," she said, with a
shudder.
"I am most happy that I came, but in any case, you would not have
suffered," he replied; "for old Faith assured me that, had they turned
you out of the house, she would have gone with you and taken care of
you."
"Dear old Faith, she was always kind to me," said Irene. "But Bertha
always hated me, and I am sure that she will never forgive me for taking
you away from her."
"Do not say that," he answered, "for I never belonged to Bertha. I
admired her stately beauty, but the thought of taking a wife had never
occurred to me until that night when," laughing, "you married me,
willy-nilly."
Irene blushed very much, but ended by laughing, too. In a minute she
grew very serious again, and, slipping her soft little hand into his,
said, gently:
"Do you know, dear Guy, that since--since we love each other--that
marriage in play seems very light and flippant to me? Shall we
not--shall we not"---- pausing, bashfully.
"Plight our marriage vows over again," he finished for her. "Yes, love,
we will do so again, and this time our hearts shall go with our hands."
And the very next day they were married over again in the quiet little
church in Baltimore, with their nearest relatives for witnesses, and
although Irene wore the plainest pearl-gray silk, and the demurest
little bonnet, Mr. Kenmore's handsome, fashionable sisters declared that
she was the loveliest bride they had ever beheld.
They went away on a little southern tour to see Mrs. Leslie, who
received her favorite with the gladdest of embraces and some incoherent
reproaches, calling her a "naughty little runaway."
"I can never quite forgive you for not confiding your secret to me," she
said. "I could have helped you so much, dear, if only you had let me."
Mr. Stuart came to see her and they sent her in alone to meet him. All
felt that their meeting as father and child would be too sacred a scene
for other eyes to gaze upon. She came from his presence weeping, but
they were the placid tears of joy that her father was proven good and
noble, and that his heart was full of love for her and her
long-suffering mother.
"He is waiting in sorrowful patience for mamma to relent," she confided
to her husband, when they were alone. "I hope she will go back to him
soon. Only think! They have been cruelly separated for almost seventeen
years!"
And looking into the beautiful, loving young face, Guy Kenmore realized
something of Mr. Stuart's pain in the sudden pang with which he wondered
how he could bear to be separated from his beautiful Irene for such an
eternity of years.
He kissed the sorrowful young face into brightened smiles again.
"When we go home we will talk to mamma," he said. "We will tell her that
life is too short to spend away from those we love and who love us. We
will persuade her to shorten the span of his probation."
"He deserves it I know, for he tells me that he has suffered deeply,"
said Clarence Stuart's daughter. "Oh, Guy, I love him dearly already. He
saved my life, you know, and I believe I have loved him ever since,
although I could not understand the subtle nearness of the bond that
drew me to him."