Carlita was trembling so that neither affirmation nor protest was
possible.
She would have run away, perhaps, and have hidden herself for very
shame, but that the ability was denied her. She stared at him
helplessly, hopelessly, a wild insane longing to tell him everything
taking possession of her; but she shrank from the desire even more
than from the lie she was enacting. She hated herself for wishing to
be false to her oath, more than for the despicable treachery of her
conduct.
It was a curious sensation, and intensified as she found herself
thinking how handsome he was, how magnificent in his princely bearing,
his grave face lighted with a smile, so tender, so wistful, as to
transform his masculine beauty almost to pleading.
She suddenly forgot that he was a murderer, after having that thought
uppermost in her mind for weeks, forgot that his hands had taken a life
in the most cowardly way that life ever had been taken, and of her own
accord she put out her icy fingers and allowed him to clasp them in his
warm throbbing palm.
Jessica, through the door-way of the conservatory, saw her, and an
expression of fiendish malice left her lips, so illy suppressed as to
almost betray her presence there; but both Carlita and Pierrepont were
too absorbed to hear.
Leith did not draw her to him--he was too much a gentleman to offer an
unwelcome caress--but pressed the little cold hand tenderly.
"You promise, my darling?" he whispered, so gently that Jessica ground
her teeth in rage.
"Whatever happens," gasped Carlita, hoarsely, "I will promise you that
I will not play again, and I will keep my word as sacredly as if the
pledge were made to God!"
The impassioned speech, filled with fierce suffering, reached Jessica,
and a cruel smile shot across her mouth.
"Ah, surely, it is a complete revenge!" she muttered, triumphantly.
"What more can there be to be desired? Fool--fool! even she does not
realize it all--yet!"
"I wish I could tell you how happy you have made me," returned Leith;
the quiet joy in his beautiful voice thrilling through Carlita like
some sweet strain of exquisite music. "It is not exactly the kind
of betrothal which I had hoped for, which I had prayed for, but I
understand how you feel so well, and I am so grateful. The absence from
you would have been harder to bear even than death itself, but I would
have borne it, rather than have distressed you with my presence. You
have saved me that, love, and I think I appreciate the trust you have
shown in me a thousand times more even than if you had opened your dear
arms to receive me. Would you prefer that I should keep silent for the
present, darling, and go on just as we were before, apparently, save
that I shall have the precious knowledge of your love in my heart?"
"Yes, oh, yes," she moaned, covering her face with her hands.
"Your will shall be my law," he answered. "But you will not punish me
if I forget occasionally and say some word that you had rather would
have remained unspoken, will you, sweetheart?"
He could not hear the words that came in stifled whispers through her
fingers, but going closer to her side, he passed his hand across her
hair caressingly.
"There. You are distressed and upset," he murmured, with infinite
tenderness. "I will go now. Tomorrow you will be more yourself, and we
will talk the matter over quite calmly together. I can scarcely realize
that the dream of my life is to be a reality. I can scarcely credit the
fact that this great happiness is mine at last."
He paused and hesitated like a bashful boy, the debonair man of the
world grown timid in the presence of this mastering passion, then said
in a tone so low that it scarcely reached her:
"Will you not say 'God keep you, Leith,' before I go?"
She could scarcely control the cry that was wrung from her heart. She
could not lie with the name of God upon her lips. She was doing evil
that good might come, but she could not go so far as that.
She looked up at him with an anguish which he could not comprehend. Her
white lips trembled piteously. Her hands were twisted about each other
in a manner which he had never seen before, and for a moment he was
frightened. And then he found himself listening intently to her mumbled
words, almost inaudible, incoherent:
"Ask nothing of me today, Leith. I can not--say--Oh, my God, have pity
upon me, and go!"
She flung out her hands passionately, and he caught them in his
tenderly, and pressed his lips upon them.
"Remember," he said, softly, "that my love is as steadfast as the
grave. There is no demand you can make which it would not yield. Rest,
my love, and have a little pity upon yourself. Your sensitiveness, your
conscientiousness is too great, if such God-given gifts can come in
superabundance. Little one, go pray to the Blessed Mother to help you
and to show you the right way in this trouble, from which I am shut
out."
He had been holding her hands in a close, warm clasp, and as his voice
ceased he lifted them again and kissed them, without passion, but with
the tenderness of incalculable love, and then he passed out, leaving
her standing there like some crushed autumn rose.
The accepted lover, the betrothed husband, worshiping at the shrine
that had apparently blessed him with the greatest favor that he had
ever prayed for, went down the stoop with a sigh upon his lips, instead
of the smile of exultant joy, and the girl who had promised herself
in marriage sank down upon the floor in the place where he had stood,
sobbing in that tearless way that echoes through a broken heart.
It was a long time before Jessica could sufficiently control herself
to venture to her side, but when she did she put her arms about the
shrinking girl and lifted her as gently as a sister might have done.
"What is it?" she questioned, as if she had not been a witness of that
scene. "What has happened to upset you like this, dear one? Has--he
been here?"
"Oh, don't touch me!" gasped Carlita, struggling to her feet. "I am the
greatest sneak on all God's earth, a greater criminal even than he! I
have prostituted the noblest of Heaven's sentiments. I promised to be
the wife of a murderer, allowed him to kiss my hands--and all to lure
him to ruin and death--to ruin and death! Will not God Himself turn
from me in loathing for my treachery? Have I the right to sin that
punishment may come to another? Has not He said, 'Vengeance is mine! I
will repay?'"
It was with the greatest difficulty that Jessica concealed her hatred
and disgust. She stepped back slightly and folded her arms curiously
across her breast.
"You should have thought of all that before you began
this--investigation," she said, calmly, "before you swore the oath that
bound you soul and body to the dead. The laws of your country tell you
that murder is punishable with death."
"And yet Christ Himself repealed the old Mosaic law of 'An eye for an
eye, and a tooth for a tooth.'"
"I am not going to argue with you on the religious side of your
position; I did not even know you considered that at all when you bound
yourself to your vengeance of the dead. At all events, you have gone
too far now to withdraw from the stand you have taken. The affidavit
of an eye-witness of his crime has gone on its mission to your own
detective. In a fortnight at most, he will be here with the papers
of extradition which you yourself have ordered"--watching her victim
shiver with a delight that was fiendish. "You have even notified him
that no expense was to be spared in the punishment of the criminal,
and I don't see how it will be possible for you to withdraw from the
position now."
"And you think it is right?" she groaned. "You do not think that I have
sinned beyond pardon?"
"I think you would sin beyond pardon if you were to allow the murderer
of your betrothed husband to escape!" exclaimed Jessica, speaking the
words in a curious, sibilant way that gave them a horribly discordant
sound. "Do you know what you would force the world to believe--for
matters have gone too far now for concealment from the world?"
"No; what?"
"Remember, you compel me to do this. I would spare you if I could."
"Go on!"
"You would force the world to believe that you allowed the murderer of
your affianced husband to escape--because of a guilty passion--because
you had fallen in love with him."
Not a sound escaped Carlita. She drew herself up, and a fierce pang
like death shot through her heart and eyes. Even then she did not
realize the full force of the awful truth that had been so cruelly
thrust before her.
She looked Jessica straight in the eye for one moment, then said,
stonily:
"It is enough! The world shall not say that, for Olney's sake! I will
see the ghastly play through to the bitter end!"
Then she turned and walked out of the room as steadily as if she had
not been bent and broken with grief less than ten minutes before.
Jessica watched her go, allowing her scornful smile full play as she
realized that she was alone.
"That shot told in more ways than one," she said, sneeringly. "I think
her suffering will be all that even I could desire. Was ever vengeance
so perfect and complete as mine?"