PLANS FOR THE FUTURE.
Fair hid her sweet face against her lover’s shoulder, that he might
not see and wonder at the mingled joy and sorrow in her expressive
eyes--joy that he had loved her, sorrow that through her haste in
wedding a miserable impostor she had missed the opportunity of her life.
“Oh, if only I had been true to myself, if I had sent that wretch away
and waited, I might have been the happiest of the happy now,” she
thought, forgetting, in her keen self-reproach, that her mother had
been even more to blame than herself, and that the misguided woman
would not have permitted her to throw away what she deemed a golden
opportunity.
For a moment, in the sudden courage imparted to her by Bayard
Lorraine’s frank confession of the interest he had taken in the poor
little working girl, she was half tempted to throw off her mask and
confess all.
It were better for her had she done so, but she hesitated, faltered,
and lost that golden opportunity for winning his pity and forgiveness.
“I will tell him to-morrow. In this happy hour I cannot do it,” she
decided, for she could not bear to throw a shadow on his happy, loving
mood.
For as yet Bayard Lorraine did not even know that she was the adopted
child of Mrs. Howard. Although the Howards and Lorraines were distantly
related, there had been no intimacy between them. Bayard had been
abroad when Azalia Howard died, and no murmur of her death had reached
him. He did not remember ever having seen his young relative, or
hearing her name, until he met her with her mother abroad.
But Fair knew quite well that when Bayard Lorraine came to ask her hand
from her adopted mother, Mrs. Howard would tell him the truth. She was
a noble, conscientious woman. She would not deceive Fair’s suitor, but
would say frankly:
“Bayard, I would not tell you this before, because it was not strictly
any affair of yours; but all is changed now. It is right, since you
are Fair’s accepted lover, that I should tell you that she is not
my own daughter, but a penniless orphan girl, whom I adopted out of
pity when my own daughter died. Fair is good and noble, and I love her
very dearly, but I cannot give her any fortune. All that I own came
to me through my husband, and by some irrevocable clause in his will
everything was to go, in the event of Azalia dying unmarried, at my
death to a very distant relative.”
This is what Mrs. Howard would say to Bayard Lorraine. Fair knew it,
for Mrs. Howard had told her so when first the beauty of the girl began
to attract lovers to her side like bees about a flower.
“I should not wish you to marry for money without love in your heart,
my dear, but if you could love one of these rich men who come courting
you, it would be to your interest to do so, for when I die all my money
will go to a distant relative of my husband, and I shall have nothing
to leave you but my love,” she had said tenderly, and she was pleased
when Fair answered, with passionate impulsiveness:
“All the money in the world could not tempt me to marry without love.
Sooner than do it, I would go back to the factory where I worked
before I knew you, and toil again for my bread.”
Mrs. Howard sighed and answered:
“I trust it may never come to that again, dear girl; but sometimes
I have sad misgivings, for my health is not good, and I am troubled
so often with that teasing cough. Much as I love you and prize your
companionship, I should be glad to see you married to some good man,
for then I should feel easy over your future.”
“But I do not wish to marry!” cried the girl hastily, and the lady
answered:
“That is because you have seen no one you love yet. When you fall in
love it will be different. I trust when you do it would be with some
good man who will not mind your lack of fortune, for, of course, when
he proposes for your hand I shall have to tell him that you are only my
daughter by adoption.”
The time had come now, for Fair knew quite well that in a day or two at
furthest Bayard would speak to her mother.
“He will hear then that I am not her daughter, and he will be surprised
and perhaps displeased, but then I will tell him all the rest--all,
even that I have kept from dear mother--and I will throw myself on his
pity and his mercy. He cannot blame me so much when he hears the whole
truth. Indeed, I think he will be sorry for me,” she said to herself,
with vague relief at the putting off for even one day the confession
that she was the girl on whom her lover had passed his judgment as
being even worse than Carl Bernicci. “But he did not know all. He could
not judge me aright,” she said to her frightened, throbbing heart, that
kept foreboding ill for the future.