The stars shone on, the wind sighed, the sea moaned, but Jessie’s heart
almost stopped still.
The moment she had dreaded had come at last.
He was asking her about that other Jessie Lyndon.
And she would have to answer so that he would not suspect her identity.
Her heart beat suffocatingly and almost choked her voice as she tried
to speak. “I have startled you, venturing so abruptly on this subject,”
he said. “I would have waited longer, only that we shall be parting
to-morrow, and I feared lest I should never see you again. Ah, Jessie,
that is such a horrible thought to me. I could not bear it! I cannot
bear to think that I shall never see you again! I love you--love you
with a passion undreamed of till now! Are you willing for me to love
you, to let me try to win your heart in return?”
A sudden flash of pride shone in her eyes, and she tried to answer him
with scornful words, but they died on her lips.
She loved him so dearly, oh, Heaven, in spite of all her resolves
against it, that she could not bring herself to say one cruel word
to him, no matter how much she knew he was to blame. If she could
have known that he was speaking truly, that he actually loved her, as
he said, and had he but been free she would have fallen against his
breast, and sobbed out all her love in his arms, the happiest girl in
the whole world.
But once he had deceived her, and in fancy his kiss burned on her lips
again--sweetest and falsest kiss the world ever knew.
She nerved herself to lift her head and drew back from him in sad
surprise while he exclaimed ardently:
“You do not answer me, Jessie--may I hope, then, or----” The words died
on his lips, for she interrupted reproachfully:
“Mr. Laurier, you have no right to speak such words to me--you who are
going to New York to marry another girl!”
He gave a cry as if stunned, and his face drooped against his breast.
He had been forgetting Cora for many a day. This lovely girl had driven
her from his memory.
Thus suddenly recalled to memory by her gently reproachful words, he
groaned in agony, not daring to meet her dark, soft eyes.
“Is it not true?” she asked gently, but, looking up, he groaned angrily:
“It is Mrs. de Vries who has told you this! She was always a noted
gossip!”
“Yes, she told me, but why should she not, if it is true, and you do
not deny it,” she faltered, almost hoping that he could.
But Frank Laurier could not be untruthful. A bursting sigh heaved his
breast as she watched him with pathetic, dark eyes.
He turned on her almost fiercely, crying:
“You think me a vile wretch, do you not?”
“No--but--a flirt--perhaps!” pensively, and he gathered himself
together to do battle for his happiness.
“I am not a flirt, Jessie, but I may be a vile wretch, for since the
first night I saw you I have entirely forgotten the poor girl I am
engaged to marry. Instead of loving her I almost hate her because she
stands between your heart and mine!”
He paused, looking at her, and found her expression doubtful and
wondering.
“That sounds very fickle and cruel to you, does it not?” he cried, “but
let me explain, and you will see that I am not quite so bad as I seem.
I was engaged to Cora two years ago, but just before our wedding day
I met a girl--the Jessie Lyndon I spoke of to you just now--and there
was a bitter rivalry between the two young girls, for I admired Jessie
Lyndon very much. But I was bound to Cora and must keep my promise. The
girl Jessie died very suddenly, and then I found out strangely that
she was dearer to my heart than the living Cora. But I kept my secret
locked in my heart, and would have married her the same only that our
marriage has been twice postponed by a strange fatality. Now it is
announced for the third time, and I am going home to marry her, but in
the interval of my absence my heart has turned from her as utterly as
if it had never known one throb of love for her in the past.”
She did not answer. She was dazed and full of wonder.
He had said such astonishing words that she could not forget them. Why
did he think she was dead? How had he made so strange a mistake?
He added feverishly:
“All this while I have been loving Jessie Lyndon dead better than
Cora Ellyson living, and when I saw you that night on the steamer my
heart went out to you passionately as if you had risen from the dead
in answer to my yearning prayer. It would be wrong to wed Cora with my
heart full of you! I will go to her and confess the truth, and ask her
to release me so that I may lay my life at your feet!”
Oh, what a moment of triumph for Jessie Lyndon!
When she remembered that awful night at Mrs. Dalrymple’s it seemed too
strange to be true that she had won from proud, scornful Cora the lover
whom she worshiped, thus paying back scorn for scorn.
And she could not doubt he loved her now. It quivered in his voice, and
flushed his cheek, thrilling her with a secret happiness too deep for
words.
Her heart cried wildly:
“Oh, if he were but free, my handsome lover, I would confess my love
and make him happy!”
But the thought of Cora came over her with an icy chill.
He had belonged to her first, and, after all her suffering, Jessie was
too noble a rival to break that proud girl’s heart.
She turned her face from him to the shining stars so that he could not
read the despairing love written on it, and answered, firmly though
gently:
“I forbid you to tell her the truth, for I can never accept happiness
based on the wreck of another devoted heart. You must marry Cora as you
promised to do, and, perhaps, you will learn to love her again!”