Mr. Langton's favorite axiom: "Delays are dangerous," which he had
quoted so effectively to Reine, would seem to have made less impression
on his own mind. The new will, which was to have disinherited Maud
Langton and made Vane Charteris and his wife his sole heirs, had been
carelessly and fatally postponed. Beautiful Maud, but yesterday
penniless, imprisoned, suspected, goes back to-day, free, joyous,
triumphant, to her old home, the undisputed mistress of Langton Hall and
her uncle's great wealth. Vane Charteris, in nowise disconcerted, and
scarcely disappointed, returns to the musty little law office in
Washington, from whence his old friend's letter had summoned him a few
months before to marry his heiress.
It is a dull, prosaic life enough. Vane is young yet, and has not made
his mark. Very few clients come to seek his assistance out of their
difficulties. Some dreary days go by, and life does not look quite the
same through his office windows as it did in the golden spring before he
went to Langton Hall. It is autumn now. The leaves are turning red, and
brown, and yellow, the petals are falling from the flowers. Not that
Vane takes note of this. One flower that faded in the summer gone, is
worth all the world to him. For a time ambition, energy, hope, seem to
forsake him. Always before his eyes floats a vision of a fair, dead face
with waving tresses, tangled with seaweed; always against his breast he
feels the pressure of small hands pressing against him, pushing him from
her in the mad resolve to die in his stead. For in his heart Vane feels
that it was not alone for Maud's sake she died. She had meant to save
him, whom she loved far more than life.
So the autumn days go by. By-and-by the gay, brilliant, beautiful city
of Washington begins to fill up with its usual winter throng. Congress
assembles, and the brilliant crowds that follow in its train. And one
day there comes a delicate, perfumed note to Vane from one of the most
fashionable avenues of the fashionable city.
"Dear Vane," it says, "I have come to Washington for the winter,
but shall be very quiet, of course, being in deep mourning for my
dear uncle. I have invited the Widow Baird and her
daughter--unexceptionable people, you know--to stay with me. But I
am very lonely, very repentant, and very sad. Will you let by-gones
be by-gones, and come and see me?
"MAUD LANGTON."
A delicate, dainty, seductive note. With a start, Vane remembers the
elegant house on ---- avenue, which had been Mr. Langton's property.
Here it is that his heiress had pitched her tent, figuratively speaking,
and opened the campaign, for she is determined not to lose the delights
of the winter wholly, although in ostensible mourning.
Vane is roused to indignation at first. Why should she ask him to call?
Does she take him for a simpleton? He has forgiven her for Reine's sake.
That is enough.
He stays away, and in three days an elegant private carriage sets Maud
down in front of his office. She rustles across the threshold in a
costly costume, designed to represent slight second mourning--a black
silk with jetted trimmings, white _crepe lisse_ at throat and wrists, a
jetted bonnet with white _lisse_ strings, a dress that is marvelously
becoming to the pearl-fair beauty, framed in soft waves of golden hair.
"Perhaps you think I have come to scold you," she says, with infinite
tact, as he comes forward, visibly embarrassed; "but I have not. Of
course you had a right to decline my invitation, if it did not please
you to come. I shall not trouble you long now. I am here on a matter of
business."
Mr. Charteris bows and hands her a chair. She seats herself, making
_moonlight_, not "sunlight," "in a shady place," with her cold, white
beauty.
Then her large, light-blue eyes turn scrutinizingly on his worn,
handsome face.
"You are not looking well," she pronounces. "Business, perhaps, is
driving you too hard?"
Vane smiles rather grimly.
"I cannot make any complaint of that nature," he responds.
The blue eyes light, unmistakably, with pleasure.
"Then you are not busy," she says; "I am rather glad to hear it. Perhaps
you will have time to manage my property for me?"
He looks inquiringly at the beautiful, smiling face.
"I have quarreled with my lawyer," she explains. "I intended to take the
management of my affairs out of his hands. Will you take his place,
Vane?"
A dark, red flush creeps up to his temples at her air of condescending
patronage.
"Excuse me, I must decline," he answers.
"You decline--surely not!" says the proud beauty, with incredulous
surprise.
"Why should I not decline?" Vane Charteris asks, with a certain
haughtiness, before which Maud lowers her proud tone of patronage
visibly.
"I thought you could not afford to decline," she falters. "Are you
not--not poor?"
"Granted," he answers, with a slight, cold smile. "I am not yet poor
enough to barter my self-respect. For the rest, you know, Miss Langton--
"'Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.'"
Maud, who has come bustling with pretty patronage and self-importance,
is visibly disconcerted. She takes a new tone.
"You are harsh and cruel to me, Vane," she says, petulantly. "I came
with the best intentions. I only meant kindness."
"Thank you," stiffly.
"I thought you had forgiven my--my folly," she goes on further, with a
killing glance from the long-lashed, seraphic-blue eyes.
"I hope I have," he replies, still coldly.
"Then why--why will you refuse my request?" she asks.
Something like scorn flashes on her from the man's sapphire-blue eyes.
"Miss Langton, I have forgiven the indignity you put upon me last
summer," he answers, shortly, "but do you think I could stoop to serve
you--_you_?"
The heiress colors under his glance of haughty scorn.
"_You_ will never forget _that_," she sighs. "You will not believe how
eager I am to make atonement for my sin against you. I see you are
determined to be hard and cold with me. You will not make friends."
Vane turns round upon her a little fiercely.
"What are you driving at, Maud?" he asks, with positive rudeness. "Do
you wish to make a fool of me again? To win my heart from me again and
trample it under your feet?"
And then a sudden impulsive shame seizes upon him as she shrinks before
his quick wrath with something very like fear in her face.
"I beg your pardon--I was talking foolishly to you," he says. "You do
not at all understand me, I think, Miss Langton, or you would never
have----"
"Never have come here, you mean," she says, as he pauses. "Aren't you
just a little rude, Mr. Charteris? But I am determined not to be angry
with you. Forgive me for trespassing on your time. I am going now."
Swish! goes the rich silk against her chair with a waft of delicious
perfume.
The tips of her gloved fingers settle lightly against his coat-sleeve,
the great, blue eyes look straight into his own, persuasively.
"Vane, think better of your refusal, pray do," she says. "I did not come
here to insult you, neither to wheedle you back to your old allegiance.
I thought you would help me about this great, troublesome property. I am
so ignorant and helpless."
"Any lawyer in the city would be glad to manage your business for you,"
he returns, with cool courtesy.
"I shall not ask any of them till I hear from you again. Perhaps you may
change your mind, and let me know that you will take this trouble off my
hands," she answers, good humoredly, moving toward the door.
Vane attends her to her carriage, and with a formal bow returns to his
lonely office. How lonely he never quite realized till now, looking at
the empty chair where the brilliant heiress had sat just now, queenly
and graceful like the tall, white lily to which he had once likened her.
CHAPTER XXI.
We will return to Reine Charteris on that terrible night of fire and
flood, when, with all the deathless devotion of a true woman's heart she
sacrificed herself to save her husband and her friend.
In the minute before the life-boat came into sight Reine's mind had been
comparatively calm and contented.
Though she believed that certain death stared her in the face, it had no
special terrors for her. Her life had been good and pure, and she had no
dread of the hereafter.
The thought of dying with the husband she loved had a strange, romantic
sweetness for her heart.
In the bright and awful glare of light thrown upon the waters by the
burning ship, her pale and lovely face had upon it an expression of
rapt and Heavenly sweetness and content, untouched by dread or fear.
Vane's arm was drawn around her, and they were slowly swimming about and
looking for some drifting desperate hope of rescue.
A few minutes ago the black waves, weirdly illumined by the red glare of
the flames, had been filled with a writhing, despairing, shrieking mass
of anguished humanity, but now they had all disappeared. Some had
floated off to a distance, some had sunk beneath the waves and found a
watery grave--
"Unknelled, uncoffined, and unsung."
Vane and Reine were quite alone for a moment--alone, and drawn seemingly
nearer together than they had ever been in life by the deadly peril that
menaced them. They had made up their minds to death. Both were good
swimmers, but they were too far from land for their strength and skill
to avail. They clung together, each feeling instinctively that death
would be less hard if shared together.
At that moment one of the life-boats that had been seized upon in the
first moments of peril by a fortunate few, came in sight of them. It was
crowded, already, but one manly heart saw and pitied the terrible case
of the two victims. He shouted that they would make room for one
more--they would take the woman in.
"Come, Reine, they will save you, my darling," Vane Charteris cried out,
tenderly and joyfully, yet with the solemnity of a last farewell in his
eyes, as he drew his young wife forward.
But with a sudden cry of anguish, the girl resisted him.
The bare thought of forsaking her husband and leaving him to die alone,
was more bitter than death. With that thought came the remembrance of
the precious paper she had crossed the sea to win from Vane's vengeful
keeping.
"Let me save you--remember you have Maud's precious paper," she cried
out, hoarsely, and pushing him frantically from her with both extended
hands, she sank down--down into the depths of the sea. They waited a
moment, but she did not rise again, and seeing that Vane had lost
consciousness, they drew him into the life-boat, and in the efforts to
revive him, they soon drifted out of sight of the spot where the devoted
girl had disappeared beneath the fire-illumined waves.
In the meantime Reine, who was really a strong and expert swimmer, had
only dived beneath the waves, and had come up again in a few seconds
later at a different spot where, herself unseen, she could behold the
life-boat with its living freight drifting swiftly out of her yearning
sight. She had freely given her one chance of life to her husband, but
with the thought that he would live there was born in her own young
heart an agonizing desire for life. She loved Vane so dearly that she
could not bear to leave him in the bright, gay world, and go down to
death alone. Though not regretting that she had saved her husband by so
great a sacrifice, she breathed a silent, fervent, yet seemingly
hopeless prayer, that she might also be rescued and restored to him.
Yet who can tell how often God is near, listening to the wild appeals of
those who, despairing of human help, cry out to Heaven. Alone in the
wide waste of the ocean, with the midnight stars shining down upon her
like the pitying eyes of angels, a friendly plank drifted to her reach.
She clutched it eagerly with her hands, threw herself upon, and embraced
it with her bruised and weary arms. Now she felt, with a thrill of hope,
that there was at least one plank between her and eternity.
The night wore on. Wind and tide bore her far away from the terrible
burning ship that towered aloft like a ghastly funeral pyre, throwing
its awful glare far and wide upon the sea.
Tossed hither and yon, bruised and buffeted by the heavy waves, the
slender form of the fair young girl still held in its breast the faint
spark of life, though looking forward to death as inevitable, and
drawing nearer and nearer.
* * * * *
The blushing rose of dawn opened its petals at last. The morning light
glimmered palely in the east. It shone upon a deathly-white face with
pale lips, half apart, and eye-lids closed in unconsciousness, with the
long, thick lashes lying on the cheek like to "rays of darkness."
At that moment a small sailing-vessel hove in sight. The floating plank
with its precious burden was sighted by the pilot, and in a few minutes
more the unfortunate girl was safe on deck.
The crew gathered around her, filled with wonder and curiosity at the
sight of the beautiful ocean-waif.
"She is dead," said the mate, with a sorrowful shake of the head.
"I do not think so," said the captain, decidedly. "Look at her right
temple. You see it still bleeding from a slight wound that must have
been received from something that has struck her in the water. She has
been stunned by it, perhaps, and will revive presently. Call Doctor
Franks."
Doctor Franks came and agreed with the captain. The girl was not dead,
but there was no telling how soon she would be, from the bad effects of
her exposure in the water, and the jagged wound on her head.
"A bed must be prepared for her at once, and I will see what I can do
towards resuscitating her," said the kind-hearted Doctor Franks.
CHAPTER XXII.
"Go and tell the stewardess to prepare a bed quickly for this young
lady," said the captain, turning to the cabin-boy.
The boy disappeared in the lower regions of the vessel, returning
presently with a plump, good-natured-looking woman, who had a "full
blown comeliness, white and red."
"An' indade, Cap'en Dill, sorra a bit spare bed is there, saving the
little cuddy-hole where Mrs. Odell's maid slept afore she died."
"Prepare that, then, Mrs. McQueen. Don't you see what a deuce of a hurry
we are in?" returned Captain Dill.
"Faix, and it'll be by Mrs. Odell's leave, then," says Mrs. McQueen.
"Shall I ask her? It's a bit cross and ailing she is the day."
"Ask her then, and be in a hurry," he answers. "If she refuses, the
poor girl shall have my bed, and I'll bunk on deck with a blanket."
He is saved the necessity of the sacrifice, however, for Mrs. Odell,
whoever she may be, yields an ungracious consent to the appropriation of
the defunct maid's bed, and the still unconscious girl is removed
thereto.
Long days afterward she opens her eyes consciously for the first time
upon this world, after a long battle has been fought with fever, and
delirium, and greedy death; opens her eyes with a passionate heart-cry
on her poor, fever-parched lips:
"Vane, dear Vane!"
There is a soft swish of silk as of a lady rising from her chair, and
Reine's large, hollow, dark eyes follow the sound.
She lies on a small, white bed in a "cuddy-hole" indeed, herself, but a
small door is propped open, showing just beyond a very tiny, but elegant
saloon, furnished royally enough for a princess, with hangings of purple
velvet and gold, and softest couches and chairs, a carpet of velvet
pile, picturesque rugs strewn about the floor, small paintings, each
perfect gems of art, adorning the walls. Moving slowly through this
luxurious saloon comes a lady, on whom Reine's feeble gaze is instantly
riveted.
A form of medium hight, with narrow, stooping shoulders, and a
middle-aged face with a strange beauty all its own--the beauty of
brilliant eyes, waxen pallor, and hectic-flushed cheeks, that the deadly
disease, consumption, bestows upon its victims. Clothed with almost
barbaric splendor, with rustling silks and velvets, and sparkling jewels
that seemed to flash fire in the dim saloon, she was yet one upon whom
the heart ached to gaze, for by her terrible emaciation, and hollow,
fever-flushed cheeks, and pain-drawn lips, she was one that cruel death
had plainly marked for his own.
In wondering silence Reine's dark eyes lift to the strange woman's face
as she comes to her side, diffusing a delicate odor of _attar du rose_
as she moves. She speaks in a low, pleasantly-modulated voice,
interrupted by a slight, hacking cough:
"You spoke, did you not? Is there anything you wish?"
"Yes, I want Vane," Reine answers, in a weak, childish voice, forgetful,
or momentarily unconscious, of all that has passed since she was
sundered from her husband's side.
An expression of pity comes into the emaciated face regarding her.
"I hope you will see Vane after a while," she replies, evasively. "Do
you feel better, my dear?"
"Better?" the girl echoes, startled. "Have I been ill?"
"Yes, with fever. But you are convalescing now. Do you remember nothing
of your illness?"
"Nothing," Reine answers, dreamily. "And--and your face is strange to
me. Have I ever seen you before?"
"Not to your knowledge, I think," Mrs. Odell replies, with a slight
smile.
A puzzled look comes into the pale, thin face lying on the pillow, with
its great, hollow, black eyes. Reine is slowly gathering up the links of
memory.
"Are--are we not on the Atlantic Ocean?" she inquires, after a dreamy
pause.
Mrs. Odell, drawing her handkerchief across her lips after a slight
spell of coughing, answers: "Yes."
Another dreamy pause. The dark eyes that have half-closed, open slowly
again.
"Is this steamer the--the _Hesperus_?" she queries, half-doubtfully.
Mrs. Odell draws back with a slight expression of alarm on her face.
"I--I fear you are talking too much for an invalid," she says. "I will
call the doctor."
Retiring into the saloon, and touching a silver call-bell, the fat
stewardess appears.
"Send Doctor Franks in," Mrs. Odell commands. "His patient begins to
recover consciousness."
Doctor Franks comes, eager, and on the alert, smiling a little as
Reine's curious eyes seek his face.
"Another stranger," she complains, with almost childish petulance.
"Well, and what would you have?" he answers, cheerfully, as he touches
her pulse. "Though strangers, we are all friends."
"I want Vane," the girl answers, with a hungry yearning in her weak
voice.
"After awhile--after awhile," he answers, evasively, as the lady had
done. "Are you feeling better to-day?"
"Yes, if I have been ill--have I?" Reine inquires, with some of her old
sharpness of tone, for in her weak state she is easily irritated.
"Have you? Well, I should say so," he responds, smilingly. "At present
you are nothing but a pair of big black eyes and a lot of hair that I
should have cut off only that you were so pretty with it that I hadn't
the heart."
"Do not believe him," Mrs. Odell puts in, good-naturedly. "If I had not
scolded and begged, and almost gone down on my knees to him, he would
have shaved your pretty head bare."
"I should not have liked that," Reine says, putting her small fingers to
the thick, glossy plaits. "Vane liked my hair. He thought it pretty; he
said so that very night when----" But, with the effort of recalling the
long-past time, a great wave of memory suddenly breaks over Reine's
heart. Her wan face grows paler, her eyes dilate wildly and fill with
swift, passionate tears.
"I remember," she gasps, in a voice of pain, "oh, Heaven! I remember."
There is a moment of silence and they watch her closely. All along Dr.
Franks had dreaded this moment of re-awakened memory in the girl's
heart. But her agitation is not so great as he had anticipated, for
though she is sobbing softly behind her hands, it is not with the
bitterness of an utter despair.
"What is it you remember, Miss Langton?" he asks, touching her arm
gently.
She starts and looks at him with her great, tear-filled eyes.
"Who told you my name?" she asks, curiously.
"It was marked upon your clothing," Mrs. Odell gently explains, and
again Dr. Franks says, curiously:
"You were saying that you remembered----"
"The burning of the _Hesperus_ and the loss of life, and our deadly
peril, yes--yes," Reine answers, weakly. "But Vane was saved; oh, thank
God for that. And now my life, too, is spared," she exclaims, with the
glad tears of joy falling through her white fingers.
They regard her in sympathetic silence awhile, then Dr. Franks says,
kindly:
"I am very glad your friend was saved, Miss Langton, and very happy to
think that we had the pleasure of seeing you. Were you bound for
America?"
"Yes--returning home from a trip to England," she answers.
"I knew you were American instantly," says Mrs. Odell. "We are also of
that nationality."
"I am very glad," Reine answers, giving her a pensive smile. "Are you
also bound for your native shore?"
"Not just now," the consumptive returns, with a smothered sigh. "I am in
delicate health, and Doctor Franks here has recommended the climate of
Italy for my health, with the additional advantage of a leisurely
sea-trip in a sailing vessel. We are now making our way to Mentone,
Italy."
CHAPTER XXIII.
"You are bound for Mentone, Italy!" Reine repeats, with a quiver of
disappointment in her low voice. "Then I am going farther away from home
every hour!"
"Yes," replies Doctor Franks. "Lucky thing for you, too, in your weak
and debilitated condition. Mentone is a charming climate for invalids.
Will set you up in less than no time. Then, when your roses are blooming
again, we'll send you home to America."
"How long since you picked me up out of the water?" she asks.
"Three weeks," he replies.
Three weeks!--she shuts her eyes ever so tightly, but the traitor tears
creep through beneath the black fringe of her lashes.
Three weeks since she parted from Vane amid the horrors of that awful
night. Three weeks he has believed her dead. Has he mourned her much?
she wonders. Perhaps time has already dulled the sharp edge of grief.
Then graver thoughts chase these self-regrets from her mind.
A terrible doubt chills the life-blood around her heart.
After all, was Vane really saved?
She remembers that crowded little life-boat, already so full that it
seemed rash and perilous to take in even one more passenger.
Has the little bark survived the dangers of the sea, or gone down with
its precious freight of souls to swell the treasures of the "vasty
deep?"
Truly has the poet written that: "Love is sorrow with half-grown wings."
Reine lies silent, with quivering lips and closed eyelids, thinking with
grief unutterable of the beloved one's unknown fate. From first to last
this passionate love of hers has brought her nothing but bitter pain and
sharp humiliation.
Doctor Frank's genial voice rouses her from her bitter absorption.
"Come, come, mademoiselle, this will never do. No fretting and grieving
if you please. It will only retard your recovery and return to America.
Hold up your head now, and swallow this bit of refreshment our good
stewardess has brought you. Then you must go to sleep."
"Do, that's a dearie," admonishes Mrs. McQueen, rather vaguely,
proceeding to feed the patient with a spoon from the bowl of gruel that
she has brought in, but after a sip or two Reine declares that she
cannot swallow, and begs to be let alone.
To this the physician blandly consents after administering an
infinitesimal dose of a dark liquid. As a result Reine goes away on a
journey to the land of Nod in precisely fifteen minutes. Talking and
emotion have thoroughly wearied her exhausted frame.
She sleeps soundly and dreamlessly till the light of another day shines
broadly over the world.
Waking silently, and in her senses this time, the girl lies still with
wide dark eyes gazing around her. The door into the tiny saloon is open
as before.
She sees Mrs. Odell lying on a satin couch, wrapped in a crimson
dressing-gown, and covered with a costly India shawl. Her eyes are
closed, her face is ghastly in its deep pallor and emaciation.
Suddenly she starts broad awake, seized by a terrible fit of coughing
that convulses her slight frame. When she withdraws the snowy
handkerchief she has been holding to her lips, Reine sees that it is
streaked with blood.
"Oh, dear!" she exclaims, terrified, and Mrs. Odell looks around.
"So you are awake--what a sleep you have had. What made you cry out so?"
she inquires in a weak, exhausted voice.
"It was the sight of the blood," Reine stammers. "I was frightened. You
are very ill, are you not?"
Mrs. Odell, who has sunk wearily into a chair by her bedside, looks down
at her with a ghastly smile on her blood-stained lips.
"Oh, no," she answers, with the hopeful confidence peculiar to that
flattering disease, consumption, "my lungs are a little weak, that is
all my trouble. The sea air and the Italian climate will quite restore
my health, I think. The American climate is too harsh for me. I shall be
better at Mentone."
"You will make your home there?" Reine asks, and Mrs. Odell answers
readily:
"Yes, until my health is restored. Then I shall return to my native
land. There is no place like America to me. Besides, all my property is
there."
"Your friends and relatives, too?" Reine asks, and Mrs. Odell answers,
sighing:
"Relatives I have none. My husband and children have all gone before to
the better land. My friends are few. A woman as rich as I am does not
know how to trust in friendship. Only think, child, my husband has left
me two millions of dollars, and I have neither kith nor kin of my own to
leave it to. I am utterly alone in the world."
"As I was until I met--Vane," Reine murmurs silently to herself, while a
look of sympathy flashes from her beautiful eyes upon the lonely rich
woman.
"The friend I cared most for on earth," Mrs. Odell continues, sadly,
"was my maid, who died just a few days before you were rescued. She was
a girl of culture and refinement, rather above her position, and a
friend, rather than a servant. I have missed her sadly, as much for her
company as her services."
"Did she die suddenly?" Reine asks, with a sigh for the poor girl who
had found a watery grave far from her native land.
"Yes, very suddenly, from an unsuspected heart disease."
After a minute's silence Mrs. Odell resumes, pensively:
"Do you know what I have been wishing, Miss Langton?"
"I cannot even guess," Reine replies, wonderingly.
"I have been wishing that you could take that poor girl's place with me.
Not as my maid, of course, but as my friend and companion. I have grown
to like you so much since you have been lying here ill and suffering. I
have taken care of you as far as my own feeble state would allow. Do you
think you could be my friend, child?"
"I am sure I could; that is, if you would not suspect me of designs on
your property. I am an heiress, myself," Reine returns, with such naive,
innocent pride that Mrs. Odell's pain-drawn lips part in an amused
smile:
"You simple child. No one could suspect you of anything. There is no
guile in that charming face," she answers kindly.
"Thank you. I shall be very glad of your friendship, and hope I may be
of some account to you," Reine murmurs.
"It is settled then," Mrs. Odell says, with evident satisfaction. "You
are to be my friend and my guest, the same as a daughter to me, until
you leave me to return to America, which time, I hope, may be far off
yet, for I shall not like to lose my little friend."
"Do not say that," Reine cries out quickly. "I should hate to grieve
you, but I have two dear ones who would grieve to think that I was dead.
I must let them know the truth as soon as I can."
CHAPTER XXIV.
Poverty is a great persuader. Numberless times it has forced people to
put their pride in their pocket.
Vane Charteris, moping along in his law-office, finds such a dearth of
clients that it would seem the world is for once at peace.
Nothing happens to break up the dull monotony of his life, or put a fee
into his lank pockets. True, invitations pour in upon the "handsome
rising young lawyer," but these he declines on the score of his
mourning.
The city wakes up to the gayety of its winter season, but the ripple of
joyous life flows past him unheeded. The lethargy of a hopeless grief is
upon him. At last, with something of a shock, the vulgar and prosaic
question of: "What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and
wherewithal shall we be clothed?" forces itself upon his consideration.
For Vane, handsome, careless, ease-loving Vane, has suddenly and
thoughtlessly come to the end of his resources.
Bills, formidable, some of them, begin to pour in. Our hero, anxiously
debating the question of "ways and means of raising the wind," begins to
realize that business is strangely dull, and himself placed in a
dilemma.
You understand that Vane Charteris is no perfect hero, my friends, you
have seen that from the first. Self has in almost every instance ruled
his thoughts; he has yielded to temptation, he has shown himself daily
one of those petulant, faulty, yet daring types of men whom, after all,
women cannot help loving.
So in this instance, instead of loftily adhering to his stubborn
rejection of Maud Langton's offer, Vane Charteris suddenly remembers,
with a sensation of relief, that all this while, a long month, indeed,
the offer has lain in abeyance, waiting on his pleasure. Maud, like a
skillful general, having made one artful move, is now waiting to see
what the enemy will do.
Vane, like the thoughtless and innocent fly that he is, walks straight
into the trap she has set. He decides to call. After all he may be
forced to accept the management of her property. At this critical period
of his fate, he cannot afford to be proud.
Yet it is with strange reluctance he climbs the marble steps and rings
the bell. A memory of the dead seems to hold him back. The perfume of a
white rose he has purchased and placed in his coat in passing a little
flower shop, rises strong and sweet, thrilling him with the thought of
her who has been like a rose herself.
"A rosebud set with little, willful thorns."
"I am foolish," he says to himself, disobeying the impulse to turn and
descend the steps. "I must go through with it, I have to live."
He rings the bell again, and when the door is opened, sends in cards for
Miss Langton, and Mrs. and Miss Baird, with whom he has some slight
acquaintance.
The two latter are out. Miss Langton receives him in the elegant library
where she is alone among the books, basking in the ruddy glow of
firelight and gaslight. As his eyes light upon her, he recalls the
English laureate's Maud:
"Maud with her exquisite face,
Maud in the light of her youth and her grace."
She is like a rare picture in her black velvet dress, with its
picturesque trimmings of cream-white lace, and the pearls that clasp her
throat and wrists. She rises with that slow and languid grace that Vane
was wont to admire so much.
"At last," she says, in her well-trained, softly-toned voice. "Welcome,
Vane!"
He touches the white, extended hand very lightly, and takes the chair
she places.
"I was passing, and I thought I would look in upon you a few moments,"
he observes, with unblushing nonchalance.
"I am thankful for even that small grace," Maud answers, with her most
winning smile. "I know I have been a very bad girl to you, Vane, but I
think if you knew how sincere my repentance is you would not mind coming
now and then to cheer my lonely hours."
Then she drops her eyes and sighs. Vane looks at the fair, calm, languid
beauty in wondering silence. A little while ago this had been his idea
of perfect beauty. Since then he has learned to love the slumberous fire
that glows in dark eyes and the soul that dwells on scarlet lips and
dusky, brunette complexions. The sweetness of the rose has won his
heart, but the beauty of the lily unconsciously charms his eyes even now
when he knows how false she is at heart, and only fair in outward
seeming.
"I--I have no time for calling," he responds, with cool politeness. "I
am always busy."
"Always?" she arches her golden brows slightly. "That is unfortunate. I
suppose, then, that I may abandon the hope that I have been secretly
cherishing, that you would relent and take the management of my
property."
Vane regards her in apparent surprise.
"Is it possible you have found no one else?" he inquires, carelessly.
"I told you I should not try until I heard from you," she answers.
"True, I had forgotten that," he answers. "And so you have been waiting
all this time. I wish you would tell me why you wish me to do this for
you when there are others equally capable, and far more willing."
Of this pointed reminder Maud wisely takes no heed save a gentle,
quickly suppressed sigh.
"Perhaps you would be angry if I told you my reason," she says, gently,
removing her eyes a moment from the contemplation of her folded,
milk-white hands to glance into his fair, grave, handsome face.
"Oh, no, I am quite curious to hear," he replies.
"I think you know that Mr. Langton allowed his lawyer a very liberal
salary," she begins. "You know there is a great deal of work, really, a
number of tenements here, several farms in the country----"
"I know all that," he interrupts, with a slight air of brusqueness.
"I should like," she answers, with a very becoming blush, "that you
should have that salary, Vane. It would only be fair, seeing that the
whole property would have been yours but for my foolish, deeply repented
error.
"Thank you, you are very kind," Vane replies, with grim brevity.
"Do you think so?" she asks, simply, then with an anxious look into his
unmoved face, she continues: "Will you be kinder still, Vane, and permit
me to offer this salve to my accusing conscience?"
"If only I were not so busy," Vane says, with artful reluctance.
"Cannot you make the time? I should feel so much better over this
unfortunate thing," she says, lifting her blue, pleading eyes to his
face.
Vane pretends to meditate within himself.
"Well, yes, since you make a point of it, I will try to take the trouble
off your hands," he says, after that pause. "But as for losing Mr.
Langton's money, pray don't think that I consider it hard lines, your
inheriting it. I think you know that it wasn't for the sake of that I
was--" he cuts his speech off short there, finding himself getting
unwittingly on sentimental ground.
"I know," she says, quickly; "you mean you were going to marry me
because you loved me. How foolish I was to doubt it then! Oh, Vane, if
only we had it all to go over again, how different all would be!"
Vane turns on the beautiful, sighing coquette a look of steady contempt.
"If you had it all to do over again you would do precisely as you did
then," he replies, with quiet scorn. "Don't play the coquette with me,
Maud. I am in no mood for trifling."
"Nor I," she answers. "I am in earnest, Vane. It _would_ be different;
but I will not dwell on it since it annoys you. I fully understand that
I am at liberty only to regard you as my man of business, not my
friend."
There is just the right touch of sad and patient humility in the musical
voice, and a dewy moisture gathers on the golden lashes. Vane is
inwardly mollified by her repentance, but is careful not to show it.
"My friendship can be of no value to you," he says, coldly. "You are
rich, and can number your friends by the score. I will serve you
faithfully in my legal capacity. That is all I can promise."
"That is all I can ask, then," she answers, resignedly, and with such
sweet patience that Vane takes his leave with a vague feeling that he
has been unnecessarily cruel to the fair woman who had jilted him.
"Has she really repented? Does she indeed care for me now, as her words
would imply, or is she the most consummate actress upon earth?" he asks
himself.
And this is the beginning of the end.
* * * * *
Maud, left alone in the silent, stately library, throws off the mask of
meekness and patience that had set so becomingly on her beautiful face.
She walks up and down the floor impatiently, with blended triumph and
vexation in her soft, blue eyes.
"I have gained one point at least," she murmured to herself. "And I
will gain the rest, I swear it," clenching her jeweled hands tightly. "I
love him. How strange that I should grow to care for him when once I
fled from him in the hour that would have made me his own. I was mad and
blind. I was deluded by my romantic fancy for Clyde. Ugh! how the
remembrance of that man's face troubles and haunts me. I see it always
as I did that night, upturned in the moonbeams, dead and white. If I had
loved him really, the shock must have killed me. But I did not love
him--at least not half so well as I love Vane Charteris now. How proud
and independent he is. But I love him all the better for that. If he had
not come back and brought me that paper I might have been hung, or at
least imprisoned for life. I hate to think that I owe it to Reine
Langton, whom I never liked. How fortunate for me that she and Uncle
Langton died. I have the fortune now, and I am determined that I will
yet be the adored wife of Vane Charteris."
CHAPTER XXV.
"Is the English mail in yet, Mrs. Odell? I do so want my English
letter!"
Mrs. Odell turns a compassionate look on the pale, wistful face of the
girl, into whose white cheeks all the life-giving breezes of Mentone
have failed to restore the vanished rose.
Reine has been in Italy three weeks now. Thrice she has written to
England to her Uncle Langton relating the story of her escape, and
begging for news of himself and Vane.
No answer has come to these eager appeals, and she is half wild with
anxiety.
"There is no letter yet, my dear," Mrs. Odell answers, sorrowfully, for
she knows of Reine's strange story now. "I will tell you what to do now,
Reine. Write to the postmaster there, and ask him for news of your
uncle. Perhaps Mr. Langton has gone to another place."
"It is not probable," Reine answers, sighing, but she takes her friend's
advice, and writes the letter of inquiry.
This time the answer comes all too soon. Her own three letters are
returned unopened, with the information that Mr. Langton is long since
dead! The physician encloses a certificate of death.
"He is dead, my dear, kind uncle is dead, Mrs. Odell!" Reine cries,
lifting her dark eyes, heavy with grief, to the pale face of her friend.
"My poor darling, I feared as much," the lady answers, compassionately.
"Now, darling, you belong wholly to me."
"You forget my husband," Reine answers, through her tears.
And Mrs. Odell, clasping tighter the paper she holds in her hand, speaks
no word at first. How can she stab that tender heart yet deeper, already
bleeding with the sad news of her uncle's death?
"You will be your uncle's heiress, dear," she says to her presently,
thinking to check the flowing tide of grief.
The girl starts and looks up, bewildered.
"I said, you will be your uncle's heiress," Mrs. Odell repeats.
And Reine, growing a trifle paler, shakes her head
"Not if he has died so suddenly," she answers. "He intended to alter his
will, but he had not done so when I left him. The old will left
everything to my cousin, Maud Langton. It is more than probable that I
am penniless."
"It does not seem to distress you, losing the fortune, I mean," the pale
invalid remarks, with some surprise.
"It does not," the girl answers, calmly; "I never cared to have my
uncle's money; I know that Vane will take care of me," she adds, with
tender confidence.
And again Mrs. Odell's sad, white face grows sadder.
"Dear, you forget that you have no assurance that your husband is
living," she exclaims abruptly.
Reine presses the small white hand that loosely wears the wedding-ring
upon her poor aching heart, and lifts her dark, solemn eyes to the
lady's face.
"My own heart tells me he is living," she says, with passionate energy.
"He cannot be dead, my darling, just as I had almost won his heart. He
lives to bless me yet with his love. Ah, if I only knew where to find
him," she breathes, with despairing earnestness.
"My poor, poor child," Mrs. Odell says, with impulsive tenderness. "You
must not be too sure. We can be sure of nothing in this world."
"You have heard--something!" Reine says, with vague terror, looking
fixedly at the lady.
"Yes, dear. I have here some papers that I have been trying for sometime
to get, the English and American papers with the accounts of the burning
of the _Hesperus_ and the list of those lost."
"And--my husband?" Reine says, looking at the lady with burning eyes.
"Is reported among the lost," Mrs. Odell replies, the papers trembling
in her trembling hands.
A moment's silence, then Reine, trembling all over with emotion, rallies
bravely from the shock.
"Am not I, too, reported among the lost?" she inquires.
"Yes, here it is, dear," and Mrs. Odell reads, under the heading of
"Lost:" "'Vane Charteris and wife.'"
"So you see that does not really signify anything," Reine says,
momentarily radiant. "Here I am safe and sound on _terra firma_. And
Vane had so much better a chance than I had that he cannot be dead. Did
I not see him safe on board the life-boat myself?"
"But, listen, dear," Mrs. Odell answers, sorrowfully.
She folds down the paper and reads, in a weak voice, a short paragraph:
"The _Sea-Gull_ rescued one life-boat after it had drifted two days at
the mercy of the wind and waves. It was filled with thirsty, famishing
women and children. They reported that the boat had been on the point of
sinking from too great a load, when the four men who were in it had
leaped into the water, heroically resigning their only chance of life in
favor of the weaker sex. There is no ground for hoping that either of
these noble, manly hearts survived their self-sacrificing act, as none
have been heard from since."
"Well?" Reine says, in a hushed voice, with a strange, prescient dread
on her white face.
"Oh, my poor, bereaved girl, how can I tell you?" exclaims the frail
invalid, the dew of womanly sympathy starting into her eyes.
And Reine, with a horrible weight pressing on her heart, gasps faintly:
"My husband----"
"His name appears in the list of the four who leaped into the water,"
Mrs. Odell replies in an awe-struck voice.
One cry, whose terrible despair pierces to the blue heavens, then blank
silence. Reine has fallen forward, face downward, on the floor. For a
brief space, time, love, sorrow, all the things of life, are blotted
from her mind in a merciful semi-death.
* * * * *
The days go by--"time does not stop for tears"--and one day there comes
out of the room where Reine, the girl, was carried in senseless, a
beautiful, sad-eyed woman in sables. Sorrow has touched her with its
transfiguring finger. The beautiful dark eyes droop always beneath the
black-fringed lashes, the lips forget to smile, the white cheeks have
lost their dimples and roses. For the passionate, loving heart, life is
over and done--yet she lives on.
"Death does not always bring its balm
To every aching ill--
Life may outlast its dearest charm,
And heart-break does not kill."
After a time there comes to the crushed heart a thought crowded out at
first by the intensity of woe--the remembrance of Maud. Maud, whose
hopes, like her own, have hung trembling on the life of Vane Charteris.
"I must go home," she says, sadly, to her friend. "Maud will need me.
God only knows what has happened to her in these long months."
And Mrs. Odell, who has daily grown weaker and frailer, looking up from
the couch where she rests almost all day now, cries out, sorrowfully:
"Oh, Reine, you will not let this Maud come between us? She cannot love
you as well as I do."
The girl answers her a little sadly.
"I do not think she loves me at all."
"Then, why go to her?" Mrs. Odell exclaims.
"Because it seems my duty," Reine answers calmly.
"Write to her," suggests the invalid eagerly.
"There is no surety in the mail. It is safer to go," Reine objects.
But that evening, faithful Dr. Franks, who has come across the ocean to
watch over the invalid's health, requests a private interview with Mrs.
Charteris.
"I hear that you wish to return to America?" he says, fixing his kind,
smiling gray eyes on her quiet face, with its grave, sweet lips and
drooping eyes.
"Yes," she answers.
"Is it imperative?" asks Dr. Franks.
"I think so," Reine replies, with some little wonder at his curiosity.
"You are the best judge," he answers, gravely. "Were it otherwise I
would beg you not to go."
"Why?" Reine asks, surprised.
"For that poor lady's sake in yonder. Do you know that your going will
shorten her days upon earth?"
"Dr. Franks, how can you speak so? You know I would not harm one hair of
her dear, kind head," Reine says, with subdued indignation.
"I know," he says, gently for him, usually so brusque and careless. "But
she will grieve for you so. She has grown to love you as a daughter. She
has no one else to cling to--she is sensitive and loving, who has buried
all she loves, and is so ill and lonely."
"What would you have me do?" Reine asks, irresolute and pained.
"Stay with her till the last, if that were possible," he answers. "It
cannot be for long. Do you know that her days are numbered?"
She starts, and trembles.
"No, I thought that this genial climate was to restore her health," she
exclaims.
"We hoped it, but all has failed," he answers, sadly. "She fails daily
and rapidly. There is no power in medicine, no magic in these balmy airs
to lengthen her life. She is surely fading from us."
The dark eyes brim over with sorrow.
"How long?" she asks, faintly.
"I cannot tell," he answers, sadly. "Her disease is too insidious for
one to say with any certainty. It may be hours, days, weeks, months, for
who can prognosticate surely the coming of that dread enemy that
flatters only to destroy."
"Then I must not leave her," she answers, warmly, "and yet, I know that
I ought to go back to America."
"Can you not write?" he inquires.
"I must do so," she answers, "and trust to God that my letter may go
safely across the ocean. Mrs. Odell has been too kind and tender to me
for me to desert her now. Believe me, I did not know that the end was so
near. I thought, I hoped, she would get well, but now I will not leave
her while she lives."
"God bless you!" Doctor Franks exclaims, with strong but repressed
emotion. "Will you go in and tell her that? I left her in the bitterest
distress over the thought of your going."
"Yes," Reine answers, but when he has left her she lingers a little to
regain her composure before returning to the presence of the hapless
lady whom death had marked for his own.
The sun is shining on the soft, blue water, the flowers are blooming,
the birds are singing.
Surely, this clime is fair and balmy enough to woo expiring life back to
its tenement of clay. And yet, she, too, her last loved friend, thinks
Reine, must go from her out into the darkness and dreariness of death.
Crushing back one hopeless sigh, Reine goes back to the shaded, quiet
chamber, where the sick woman lies on her silken couch, with tearful
eyes veiled by the thin, emaciated fingers on which the shining wealth
of rings hang loosely.
She kneels down and presses her soft, loving lips on the thin,
fever-flushed cheek.
"You are crying for me," she says, with an earnest penitence and regret.
"I was cruel and ungrateful to talk of leaving you. Can you forgive me?"
"You are sorry; you will stay!" the sick woman murmurs, with piteous
eagerness.
"Yes, as long as you live, I will never leave you nor forsake you,"
Reine murmurs, with all the solemnity of a vow, thinking sadly to
herself that this is the only heart left on earth to which she is near
and dear.
"God bless you, you shall be like my own child, Reine. And it may not be
for long," Mrs. Odell sighs. "I am afraid--afraid, dear, that I shall
never see my native land again."
"We will hope for the best," the girl answers, gently, "and if--if it
should be as you fear, you will not forget that Heaven is as near to
Italy as to our native land."
Heaven! to these two who have lost the treasure of life, that word is
sweet and potent.
Drawn nearer together by the waves of sorrow that have gone over their
heads, they cling together in the falling twilight, and talk softly of
"A land whose light is never dimmed with shade,
Whose fields are ever vernal;
Where nothing beautiful can ever fade,
But blooms for aye eternal."
* * * * *
The soft Italian winter comes and goes. To Reine's young and
inexperienced eyes, as she ministers lovingly to her dying friend, it
seems as if a change for the better is taking place. But Doctor Franks
shakes his head.
"Impossible," he tells her, sadly. "It is a marvel she has lasted so
long. It almost seems as if your love and tenderness have held her
fluttering spirit back from the other world. The end is not far now."
But the spring days pass with such gentle touches on the wasting frame
that the spirit lingers still.
At last, in the golden sunset of a golden June, Mrs. Odell's summons
comes, gently, as if angels had borne it down the golden stairway of the
sky, closing her tired eyelids on the fair land of Italy, with her thin
hand nestled in Reine's warm clasp, she opens them again on the
"stiller, fairer world of the dead."
CHAPTER XXVI.
Standing alone and sadly by the marble cross that marks Mrs. Odell's
quiet grave, Reine's thoughts turn homeward. The longing for native land
inherent in humanity begins to stir in her heart.
"'Tis hame, hame, hame, hame I fain would be,
Hame, hame, hame, in my ain countree."
The slim, dark figure standing quietly with the pale face turned
seaward, has a pathetic grace and beauty all its own.
So thinks one who approaches so quietly along the grass-grown paths of
"the city of the dead," that she starts with a frightened little cry
when he stands before her.
"Oh! Dr. Franks, how you startled me," she says, with one slim, white
hand pressed against her heart to still its rapid beating.
"Did I? Pardon me," he answers, with an irrepressible glance of
admiration. "I forgot you might be nervous in this quiet, lonely spot.
Do I intrude upon you?"
"The place is free to all," she answers, somewhat confusedly.
"That would be no excuse for me if you did not desire my company," he
answers, quickly and humbly, then in a lower tone: "Oh! Mrs. Charteris,
you must pardon me that I have followed you here! I had something to say
to you. Can you not guess?"
"Do not say it, please. I would rather not hear," she answers, with
weary indifference in face and voice.
His handsome, eager face grows blank and dismayed.
"You will not listen?" he says. "Oh! Reine, think a minute. Is it best
to refuse such love as mine--so ardent, strong, and devoted? You are so
young and lovely, yet so lonely and unprotected. Let me throw the strong
shield of my love around you--let me make you my wife!"
Reine waves him away with a quiver of pain on the beautiful face, that
is even more lovely in its pallor and gravity than it used to be in its
blushes and dimples.
"I shall never love--never marry--again," she answers, in a choking
voice.
"Then you can give me no hope?" Doctor Franks asks sadly, and she shakes
her head.
"You do not know how long I have loved you," he says, pleadingly. "Ever
since I first saw you you have been the delight of my eyes and heart.
But I have tried to be patient. I have respected your widowhood and your
sorrow. But now, Reine, seeing you so utterly alone in the world, the
time seemed come for me to speak. Are you sure--quite sure, dear, that
you can never love me?"
The sound of the sea comes to them soft and sad; the wind sighs through
the long grass above the quiet sleepers, whom the things of this world
trouble no more. Tears rise into the dark eyes of the girl as she looks
into the man's troubled face. It is no slight thing to a true woman to
hold the great, throbbing pulse of a man's heart in the hollow of the
hand.
She lifts to his the great, dewy, pain-filled eyes.
"I am so sorry," she falters; "but you must have seen how little I cared
for you, for anyone, and that my heart was broken."
Before that grave and pathetic confession the man's passion is mute.
"And I have wounded you," he says, in self-condemnation. "Forgive me,
Mrs. Charteris, I have heard of women who were faithful unto death. I
did not know there were those who carried love beyond it."
She sighs wearily and rests her cheek against the cold marble cross.
"My heart is broken," she repeats sadly. "I shall never have any more
room in my life for love and lovers."
"Nor friends?" he asks, pleadingly, and Reine impulsively holds out her
hand.
"Yes, if you care to claim me," she answers, gently.
"Rather your friendship than any other woman's love," says the rejected
lover, loyally.
"You must not feel like that, it is so very hopeless," the girl answers.
"I am going home soon. You may never see me again. I hope that you may
love and marry some happier woman."
And when he has gone away and left her to the loneliness of her own
thought, she sinks down in the long, sweet grass, weeping long and
bitterly.
Until now she has never quite realized the truth of her widowhood. It
comes to her with a great pang of agony that Vane Charteris has no
longer any place among men.
His place in her poor life is vacant forever.
"And I loved him so dearly," she sighs, lifting her desolate, tear-wet
eyes to the fair, blue heavens. "I loved him, and if he had lived he
would have loved me. My patient love must have won him in the end."
And again her thoughts turn homeward as if drawn by some irresistible
power.
"I will return to my native land," she resolves. "I will seek out Maud,
if indeed she has escaped from the terrible web that encompassed her. I
am so lonely and sad perhaps she will be kinder to me than of old."
CHAPTER XXVII.
A year has passed since the ill-fated _Hesperus_ was burned in mid-ocean
with such terrible loss of human life.
In the sultry heat of August, Vane Charteris has forsaken the
breathless, dusty city for the coolness and verdure of that terrestrial
paradise among the hills, Langton Villa.
He is the guest of Miss Langton, who queens it right royally here over
the grand domain she had nearly lost by her folly of one year ago.
They walk up and down beneath the trees, Maud and her handsome lawyer,
in the glow of the evening sunset, with the lovely sights and sounds of
summer all around them.
The heiress, in a robe of palest blue, with creamy lace, looks her
fairest. Mr. Charteris, always handsome, is none the less so for the
shadow brooding darkly in the deep blue eyes, lending its touch of
earnestness to the grave, pale face.
"How dull and _distrait_ you are," she says at length, impatiently. "Let
us sit down here beneath this tree, and I will try to charm this dull
mood away."
But for once she finds her fascinations fail. Vane, always inclined to
be taciturn, is more than usually so to-night, even to the verge of
embarrassment.
She wonders why his eyes evade her own, why he makes no reply to some
tender epithets that falls cooingly from the beautiful lips.
"I thought you loved me, Vane," she breaks out at last, with some
indignation.
"Yes, I thought so too, for a little while, under the glamour of your
beauty and my own loneliness, but when you were gone, I found that I was
mistaken. I am here to tell you this. Can you forgive me, Maud?" he
blunders out, with all the shame of a man who feels himself placed in an
uncomfortable position.
"Mistaken!" she cries, transfixing him with the angry gleam of her blue
eyes. "Why, only the last time we met you said that you loved me."
Vane, rather red and ashamed, still holds his ground bravely.
"I was mistaken, as I told you just now," he says. "I do not, I cannot
love you."
"Cannot!" she repeats, a little blankly.
"I cannot," he answers. "I find in the light of my later experiences
that I never really loved you, not even when I was about to make you my
wife. I was under the spell of your beauty. I know now that my heart was
untouched."
"What do you mean by later experience?" the beautiful woman asks,
sneeringly.
"I mean that the love I feel now, when too late, for my lost wife,
Reine, is the only love my heart can ever know," he answers, speaking
low and reverentially, as if in the presence of the dead.
The cold blue eyes of the beautiful heiress kindle with pride and
resentment.
"You expect me to believe this?" she cries, hotly. "Do I not know how
you despised Reine Langton! How you called her vixen, spit-fire, scold!
How you longed to be out of her presence and rid of her?"
"For all of which I would beg her pardon on my knees if she were
living," he answers, still low and reverentially; "I did not understand
her then. I was a simpleton, an indolent, fastidious fool. I know now
that those bright, wild ways were but the ripple and effervescence on
the water that ran deep, and calm, and sweet beneath. She was like a
lovely rose that hid its sweetness behind 'little wilful thorns.' At
heart she was true, and sweet, and womanly. Too late I learned that I
loved her, and in honor to her memory I will make no other woman my
wife."
The angry color rises into Miss Langton's fair cheek.
"You forget that you are pledged to me," she says, in a low, fierce
whisper. "You forget that our marriage day is already set."
"I forget nothing," he returns, sadly. "Nothing except that I was
blinded for a moment by your subtle charm, and offered you what was not
mine to give, what belongs irrevocably to the dead--my whole heart. I
came to ask you for my freedom, Maud."
"What if I refuse?" she asks, with a subtle flash in the blue eyes.
"Then God help me and forgive you," he answers, solemnly, "for we can
never be happy together. There are two ghosts between us, Maud. The man
who murdered himself because of your falsity, and the fair, sweet girl
who gave her life to save yours. They would haunt us and reproach us
with their slighted and forgotten love. They would come between us
ever."
Her cheeks and lips are paling, her eyes stare before her, wild and
frightened; she shivers, and puts up her white hand as if to ward off
some threatening danger.
"I--am haunted already," she says, in a low and trembling voice. "Do you
think I do not see him in my dreams, with menace in his staring eyes and
reproaches on his lips? He was my dreaded companion in the lonely
prison-cell. He stalks before me grimly in the grand saloons of wealth
and pride, always with a look of terrible reproach and despair on his
dead, white face. I am a haunted woman. It is for this I have sought to
win back your heart. I would fain put your warm, living love and
tenderness between me and the pursuing ghost of the man whom I betrayed
to his death. I am afraid of the dark, the loneliness, the terror of my
own thoughts. Do not put me away from you, Vane. My only hope is in
you."
They gaze at each other silently a moment. The soft wind, odorous with
the breath of honeysuckles, pinks and roses, sighing through the garden,
whispers to them of a slight form bowed behind the tree, a white face
convulsed with passionate emotion. But they neither hear nor heed its
admonition. Maud speaks again, pleadingly:
"I cannot release you, Vane. I love you. Surely you can give me some
little tenderness and love when once I am your wife? I will make you
happy--I swear it."
"The only woman who could make me happy rests in her ocean grave," Vane
answers, with deep solemnity and truth.
Miss Langton regards him in wonder.
"Yet once you scorned her," she says slowly. "How did she win you at
last, Vane?"
He is silent a moment, as if the question has struck home to his own
heart, awakening thought and memory to life. His lips grow strangely
tender in their saddened curve.
"How can I tell?" he says slowly. "Perhaps it was the softened sweetness
that hung about her after that night when our lives became one. Perhaps
it was her proud, sweet patience under my unkindness. Perhaps, yes,
after all! I believe it was the charm of her love that won me. Can you
realize such a thing as this, Maud, that love should win love?"
"Yes," she answers, hopefully. "Did I not tell you just now that my love
would win you and make you happy?"
He shakes his head impatiently
"That could never be, Maud. You and I are better apart. I can never
forget Reine, my slighted girl-bride. She is ever in my thoughts. I
think of her as of one living, not dead. I recall her rose-leaf lips,
her dark, laughing eyes, the nameless charm that clung about her, and my
very heart aches with the intensity of its yearning to find my loved and
lost one again."
"Thank God!" exclaimed a low, rapturous, thrilling voice almost at his
very side.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
At that heart-thrilling cry of rapture, Vane Charteris and his companion
turn around simultaneously.
Within a few feet of them they behold Reine, the long-lost bride, Reine,
in the long, trailing sables of widowhood, yet with a face fairly
transfigured by happiness, love and triumph.
The effect of her sudden appearance upon Maud is most startling.
The beautiful blonde, after one terrified glance at her
strangely-restored cousin, shrieks out:
"A ghost, a ghost!" and flies in the wildest dismay toward the house.
Vane Charteris, half-bewildered, yet full of gladness, flies to clasp
the beautiful phantom to his heart.
As his arms close around the palpitating figure, and he realizes that
she is truly a creature of flesh and blood, a cry of thanksgiving
escapes his lips, the tears of not unmanly emotion burst from the eyes
and rain down on the dark head, nestled closely and lovingly against his
breast.
He holds her close and tight, raining passionate kisses on the sweet,
scarlet mouth, the blushing cheeks, the dark eye, tearful with this
sudden happiness.
"You love me, Vane," she murmurs, softly and half-incredulously, "and
yet I thought, I feared----"
"You feared what?" he asks, breaking in upon her shy pause.
"That you loved Maud best," she answers. "When I came up the path and
saw you two together, I crept behind the tree and listened. If I had
learned then that she was the desire of your heart, I should have crept
away quietly to die of my sorrow, I should not have come between you and
your love. You never should have known."
"But since you found me faithful to your memory, Reine, you will forgive
all the past, will you not, my darling?" he pleads.
"Freely," she answers, with a smile that is all the brighter because it
breaks through tears.
"And now," he says, drawing her down to a seat beside him on the bench
beneath the tree, "now, dear, you will tell me all your story. Where
have you been through all the long months in which I mourned you as
dead?"
Resting in his arms she tells him the story of those long months of
sorrow while she believed him dead, sobbing even now in the deep, sweet
gladness that has come to her so suddenly, over the remembrance of her
despair.
"I knew no better until I reached the village yonder, seeking Maud," she
concludes. "There I learned the whole truth, that you lived, and were
again the betrothed of my cousin. I came here to have one secret,
farewell look at you, my husband, to go away and leave you to your love
and your happiness. But I heard all you said, and I could not give you
up to Maud's selfish claim after that."
"I thank God that I have found you again, my precious wife. We shall
never be parted any more," he answers, earnestly.
"You have not told me how you were saved that night after you sprang
from the life-boat in which I last saw you," the young wife says after a
little, lifting to his her shy, yet radiant eyes.
"I floated on a plank a few hours, and was picked up by another
life-boat, that is the whole story, simply told," he replies.
"And you did not forget me when you thought me dead--you loved me after
I was gone from you?" she says, with a note of gladness in her deep,
sweet voice.
"I loved you before I had lost you, darling. Did you not guess the
truth, Reine?" he inquired, earnestly.
"No," she answers, with blended wonder and delight in her beautiful,
glowing face.
"It is true, dear," he answers. "I loved you before I became aware of it
myself. I was abominably jealous of the young lord who admired you in
England. Yet at the time I was scarcely conscious of the meaning of my
annoyance. My proposal to accompany you to America was an outgrowth of
the longing to have you all to myself. And Reine, my darling wife, you
remember that last night when the terrible trial of fire came to us,
that night I had resolved that our strange alienation should exist no
longer. I had determined to ask you, to pray you to come to your true
resting-place upon my heart. But, my bride, my wife, there will be no
more separation between us. You will share my home and my heart
henceforth."
"You used not to like me," she says, filled with a glad surprise. "Why
did you love me at last?"
The lover-husband looks down with a half-mischievous smile into the
dark, questioning eyes.
"Why did I love you," he says, lightly, yet tenderly. "Shall I tell you,
little one? Well, then, I believe it was because you loved me."
The sweet face, covered with blushes, droops from his gaze. He bends to
kiss it, then continues, less teasingly:
"You remember how you used to gibe and tease and ridicule me, Reine, and
how I retaliated in likewise? Well, when it came to me suddenly that you
really loved me, it filled me with a certain, indefinable triumph and
pride which grew and grew upon me until when you came to England the
feeling blossomed into passion. Every time I looked at you I said to
myself: 'She loves me, that beautiful, spirited girl loves me,' and
there was such strange, thrilling sweetness in the thought that it
seemed to compel my love in return. Now, Reine, my own adored one, I
feel and know that my love for you is the one great passion of my life.
That which I felt for Maud was a mere empty fancy, born of her lily-like
beauty, and fading when I saw that her soul was not fair and angelic
like her face. Henceforth, my wife, you will embody all the beauty of
earth to me. You are 'queen, lily and rose' in one."
She has no answer for him, her tears are falling so fast--the tender
tears of happiness, soft and cooling, like the rain of summer that falls
like a blessing. Vane kisses them away with tender solicitude. They are
the last that dim her eyes for many years. The sunshine of her future
happiness shines too bright on her life for clouds and tears to dim its
glory.
* * * * *
After awhile, Miss Langton, who has been silently reconnoitering from an
upper window, comes out to them.
"You see I was not a ghost after all," Reine exclaims, advancing to meet
her. "Will you not bid me welcome, Cousin Maud?"
"You are an imposter!" Miss Langton answers, angrily, recoiling from the
white, extended hand. "I will never acknowledge you as a cousin of
mine!"
"For shame, Maud!" Vane Charteris cries out, warmly, drawing his young
wife to his side. "This is my wife, and you know it!"
"I have your own assurance that your wife was drowned before your eyes
on the night of the burning of the _Hesperus_," Maud answers, icily.
"That was a mistake, Maud. I only dived beneath the water and came up
again out of his range of vision," Reine explains, eagerly.
But Vane checks her gently.
"Do not trouble yourself to explain to her, my darling," he says. "It
matters very little to us whether she recognizes you or not. We can be
happy without her favor."
"Happy! oh, I dare say," Maud laughs, hysterically. "No doubt you, Mr.
Charteris, will be exceedingly happy in a squalid cottage, with a
sharp-tongued little vixen for your companion. Permit me to remind you
of the o'er-true adage that 'When poverty comes in the door, love flies
out of the window.'"
Something in the blue fire of the eyes he bends upon her makes her quail
momentarily. He answers with chill brevity:
"Fortunately I may take my wife to a palace, not a cottage, so we need
run no such risks as you apprehend, Miss Langton. To convince you, will
you look at this?"
He draws a folded paper from his breast and holds it open before her
startled eyes.
"You see," he says, icily, "it is the will with which Mr. Langton
threatened you the night you jilted me. I am a lawyer, you remember. I
drew this up for him at his own request. It is signed by competent and
available witnesses. It is perfectly legal, and I can prove it so in any
court in the land. It bequeathes Mr. Langton's whole fortune equally
between my wife and myself, cutting you off without a shilling."
Maud stares at the terrible legal-looking document with frightened eyes
and a corpse-like pallor.
"You--you are deceiving me," she says, faintly. "If it is really true,
why have you kept the will so long and allowed me to usurp the
property?"
"Through pity and kindness for you," he answers, with cold contempt. "As
long as Reine was supposed dead, no one suffered from the fraud but
myself, and I was content to be poor that you might have the wealth your
soul coveted. But now my wife's claims must be considered above all
others."
"I would sooner die than be poor!" Maud weeps, wildly.
And Reine, taking the legal document between her white fingers, turns
her shining eyes on her husband.
"Could you be happy with me, Vane, if we had really to live in a cottage
and work hard for each other?" she asks, earnestly.
"Yes, Reine, I am quite sure I could," he answers, as earnestly.
"Then may I do as I like with this paper?" she inquires.
"You must not defraud yourself, dear," he says, startled.
She laughs--her old, ringing, joyous laugh, with a new tone of
tenderness in its musical cadence.
"I do not intend to," she answers. "_You_ are everything to me, Vane;
Maud may have all the rest."
With the words, the white paper flutters in her whiter fingers, there is
a sound of tearing paper, and the old millionaire's will flutters in a
heap of snowy fragments on the soft, green grass.
Then Reine laughs in pretty, childish exultation.
"You are the heiress still, Maud," she says, gayly. "I have only Vane.
From first to last, he is all I have cared for or wanted."
There is a moment's stunned silence, then the ice around Maud's selfish,
worldly heart melts in the sunshine of this warm and loving nature. She
is conquered by this heavenly forgiveness and love.
"Reine, Reine," she cries, in hoarse, half-choking accents, "forgive me
for my cruel and wicked denial of you. I know you now. No other woman
but Reine Charteris could be so forgiving, so generous, so
self-sacrificing."
"You have beggared yourself," Vane says to his wife, a little vexed.
"I have you," she answers, with a glance so radiant and loving that he
cannot but forgive her folly.
So there is peace between the three--a peace that is never more broken,
for Maud's heart has gone out to her cousin in a love never to be
recalled. She even offers to divide the fortune so generously bestowed
on her, but Vane and Reine decline the compromise. They have each other,
and as each laughingly declares, "that is the world and all." They try
"love in a cottage" for a year, and declare it a perfect success.
One of the world's great bards has written: "The secret of genius is
dogged persistence." Vane Charteris, toiling early and late in his dusty
office for his little wife, finds it true. The laurels he would never
have won in ease and indolence, begin to circle his brow with a chaplet
that is the pride of his young wife's heart.
Yet he goes home one evening with a sigh instead of a smile for the
dark-eyed wife who meets him in the homely little parlor, made
beautiful only by her beautiful presence.
"Reine, how lovely you are," he murmurs, bending to kiss the upturned
lips. "Ah!" with a discontented sigh, "if I only had jewels and laces,
satins and velvets to adorn that glorious beauty."
"What is it, dear?" she asks, trying to smooth the frown from his brow
with her dainty forefinger.
"It is only this, dear: Invitations are pouring in upon us which we
cannot accept because we are too poor to enter into that circle where we
rightfully belong by reason of my talent and your beauty. Darling, how I
hate to seclude you from the gaze of men because I am too poor to adorn
you like the rest. What shall we do?"
"Do? Why, we must go into the world and shine with the rest," she
answers, promptly and gayly.
"We are too poor," he replies, gloomily.
"We are worth a million of dollars," Mrs. Charteris answers, calmly,
with her dainty head perched sidewise like a bird's.
"Reine!"
"Vane!"
"Whatever do you mean?" he inquires.
"I mean," contritely, "that Mrs. Odell divided her fortune between Dr.
Franks and me, and I have kept the secret, like a naughty girl, just for
the pleasure of having you work for me. You see, Vane, you were
careless, indolent, ease-loving. You never would have made a name if you
had not an object to work for. Now, dear, will you forgive me for
keeping the secret a whole year?"
"I forgive you and thank you, too," he answers, earnestly. "You have
made a man of me, little wife."
"Yes, indeed," she says, with a pretty, happy triumph "And now, Vane, we
will share the fortune and all the pleasures it can give together. My
dear friend left me all her jewels, too. Only think," gayly, "how I
shall shine in them."
In society they meet Maud, and--actually--Doctor Franks, who has also
returned to America. Putting aside his own regret, he rejoices heartily
in Reine's happiness. Maud's blue eyes heal the wound that Reine's dark
eyes made, and a year later the pair are happily married, the selfish
woman having developed into a nobler creature under Reine's lovely
example.
The current of Reine's life glides on smoothly and brightly under the
blue and sunny sky of love. At times the old, gay, teasing nature
bubbles up to the surface; at times Mr. Charteris calls her "vixen and
scold," but never in spite or vexation, only in the gay and careless
_badinage_ in which it pleases them sometimes to indulge, as when under
the green trees of Langton Villa, where the separate streams of their
lives first met and mingled into one.
[THE END.]
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Transcriber's Notes:
Added table of contents.
Underscores are used to represent _italics_, equals signs for =bold=.
Some missing punctuation added in series lists.
Archaic spellings (e.g. hight, woful) retained from original.
Some inconsistent spacing retained (e.g. "a while" vs. "awhile").
Some inconsistent spelling retained (e.g. "glamor" vs. "glamour").
Some inconsistent hyphenation retained (e.g. "master-passion" vs.
"master passion").
_Guy Kenmore's Wife_
This story was originally serialized in the _New York Family Story
Paper_ under the title _Irene Brooke; or Her Mother's Secret_ in 1883.
Page 9, changed "gittering" to "glittering."
Page 12, changed "addressed" to "addresses" for tense consistency.
Page 28, changed "chagrim" to "chagrin."
Page 30, changed "verry" to "very."
Page 45, merged last paragraph of this page with first paragraph of
following page.
Page 46, italicized "protege" for consistency.
Page 47, added missing close quote after "we are about the same size."
Page 53, removed unnecessary close quote at end of Chapter XXI.
Page 55, added missing period after "the gateway of the sky."
Page 58, changed "mutinuous" to "mutinous."
Page 64, italicized "robe de nuit" and "eau de cologne" for consistency.
Page 68, added missing close quote after "extremely small."
Page 69, changed "fized" to "fixed" and "favarite" to "favorite."
Page 73, added missing close quote after "her worshiped face."
Page 79, changed "easy" to "ease" in "charming ease and grace."
Page 80, added missing period after "astonishment and delight."
Page 83, added missing quote before "I see you are not disposed" and
changed ? to ! in "They would not hear of such a thing!"
Page 84, changed "Mr Rivington" to "Mr. Revington" and "Julius
Rivington" to "Julius Revington."
Page 91, changed "surprice" to "surprise."
Page 92, changed "guaged" to "gauged."
Page 95, added missing comma in "...marry, Mr. Kenmore?"
Page 97, changed comma to period after "toilet table."
Page 99, changed "far" to "for" in "for your wrongs and mine."
Page 101, changed "repeat" to "repeated" in "Bozzaotra repeated Elaine's
invitation."
Page 107, changed "seperate" to "separate."
Page 108, changed "Beooke's" to "Brooke's."
Page 110, added missing close quote after "shield her memory."
_The Rose and the Lily_
This story was originally serialized in the _New York Family Story
Paper_ in 1882.
Some apparently erroneous tense changes have been retained from the
Eagle Library edition; it is possible that these errors did not exist in
the original story paper appearance. Errors have been corrected (and
noted below) where the original story paper issues were available for
consultation.
Page 2, changed "smiled" to "smiles."
Page 11, changed "Langdon" to "Langton."
Page 12, added close quote after "cheated Reine Langton of fortune."
Page 24, added missing close quote after "return from him."
Page 40, removed unnecessary quote after "alone!"
Page 51, changed "swifty" to "swiftly."
Page 53, changed "thaat" to "that."
Page 54, removed unnecessary quote before "Mr. Langton, taking one."
Page 61, changed "handerchief" to "handkerchief."
Page 63, changed "were present" to "are present." (Inconsistent tense
was not present in original story paper appearance).
Page 64, changed "prefer his request" to "proffer his request."
Page 67, added missing period in "Mr. Charteris."
Page 70, changed "Reinie" to "Reine."
Page 71, changed "Renie's" to "Reine's."
Page 74, added "to" to "If anything should happen to you."
Page 79, changed "atttentively" to "attentively."
Page 80, added missing quote after "keep it for me."
Page 86, changed "has been" to "had been" for proper tense (corrected to
match original story paper appearance).
Page 89, changed "beatiful" to "beautiful" and "stuned" to "stunned."
Page 90, changed "medieum" to "medium."
Page 91, changed "unconcious" to "unconscious."
Page 93, changed "CHAPTER XXII" to "CHAPTER XXIII."
Page 94, changed "the the" to "the" before "tiny saloon."
Page 95, removed stray quote before "Mrs. Odell, who has sunk wearily
into a chair."
Page 96, changed "a minutes' silence" to "a minute's silence."
Page 100, changed "begining" to "beginning."
Page 101, changed "Renie" to "Reine" and added missing close quote after
"my dear."
Page 106, changed ? to . in "I was cruel and ungrateful to talk of
leaving you."
Page 111, changed double quotes to single quotes around "little wilful
thorns."
Page 116, changed ? to ! in "For shame, Maud!"