Then she seized a pen and wrote falteringly:
“Leon, she has never come home to me, so I read your letter, hoping to
find some clew to my lost Darling.
“I have been seeking her vainly for days, but she is lost to me in
this great, wicked city!
“There is much to tell, but I am weak and ill, I cannot write more.
Will you come and hear the story from my lips?
“VERNA.”
Calling a messenger, she dispatched the note to the Hotel Supremacy,
and waited his reply in the wildest impatience.
Then she bade Suzanne dress her in a becoming negligee.
“Make me look as young and as well as possible, for I expect a visit
from an old friend who has not seen me for years--he will be shocked at
the change in me, I know.”
“Madame is more beautiful still than any young girl--only just a little
too frail looking now from recent illness, but judicious dressing will
disguise much of that,” cried the affectionate maid, applying herself
with ardor to her task.
And a little later the result fairly justified her prediction.
The exquisite boudoir in white and gold harmonized well with the
delicately beautiful woman whose pallor was softened by the faint rose
hues of her gown overlaid with rich, creamy laces. Reclining on a
pale-hued divan, with that fitful color coming and going in her cheek,
with a streaming light of expectant joy in her wide, dark eyes, she
was, indeed, a charming picture--one to thrill a man’s heart to the
core.
“Will he come?” she asked herself in painful uncertainty, as her mind
reverted rapidly over eighteen years to the bleak November day whereon
they had quarreled and parted.
Oh, how they had loved and hated in a breath, both so young, so hasty,
so inexperienced, that they scarcely knew what a harvest of woe they
were sowing when they turned their backs on each other.
They had sown, and, alas, they had reaped--and the harvest was a
plenteous crop of tears that tasted bitter on their lips.
I am tired to-night, and I miss you,
And long for you, love, through tears;
And it seems but to-day that I saw you go--
You, who have been gone for years.
And I feel as I sit here thinking
That the hand of a dead old June
Has reached out hold of my loose heartstrings,
And is drawing them up in tune.
I am tired, and that old sorrow
Sweeps down on the bed of my soul,
As a turbulent river might suddenly break
Away from a dam’s control.
It beareth a wreck on its bosom,
A wreck with a snow-white sail,
And the hand on my heartstrings thrums away,
But they only respond with a wail.
She had taken a daring step--she had called him back whom in anger she
had forsaken years ago.
Now, she began to be frightened at her own boldness.
“He will not come, he will laugh me to scorn!” she sighed, and dropped
her pallid face down on her arms.
She had given her orders that if a gentleman named Dalrymple called he
should be shown to her boudoir at once.
With her face bowed on her arms, she did not hear footsteps falling on
the thick velvet carpet, obeying the low directions of the servant who
said respectfully, as he drew back the portières:
“You will find Mrs. Dalrymple there.”
Leon Dalrymple, tall, pale, handsome still, in spite of years and
sorrow, advanced softly across the room, his heart beating with loud,
suffocating throbs.
He had been thinking of their parting in the shabby room amid pinching
poverty that she despised, more than eighteen years ago.
Now they were meeting again, surrounded by all the luxury wealth can
bestow, but how valueless it had been in exchange for what it had cost.
He saw before him a beautiful form with the dark head bowed on the
folded arms as if in grief, and he stood waiting, hesitating, but she
did not look up at him.
He coughed, timidly, to arouse her, and exclaimed hoarsely:
“Ver--Mrs. Dalrymple!”
A start of surprise, and she lifted her pale, excited face, and saw
him standing before her--her old love, her discarded husband--older,
graver, sadder by eighteen long years.
Yet her heart leaped to meet him in a great, strangling sob of joy.
Without rising from her recumbent position she held out her hand,
saying faintly:
“You will pardon my not rising. I have been ill--am yet weak.”
He advanced, and touched the cold hand with his own that was quite as
cold--dropped it quickly, and took the seat she indicated close by her
divan.
Controlling his emotions as well as he could, he began:
“Your letter filled me with alarm. What can have happened to my
daughter?”
“Our daughter,” she said, gently correcting him, with a sad smile,
adding: “It was very bold in me to send for you, Leon, but I thought
that in this matter we might act together.”
“Leon”--she called him Leon as of old--and it made the blood rush to
his face, and his whole frame tremble with agitation, the old love
rising in him like a flood.
He answered gravely:
“This is very kind in you.”
And for a moment they were very silent, the novelty of the position
bearing painfully on both their hearts--“so near and yet so far.”
Little by little they gained self-possession and talked seriously on
the subject so near to their hearts--the mysterious disappearance of
their daughter from the hour when she had been turned away from her
mother’s house by Cora.
She told him all she knew, and he could not conceal his alarm.
“It is the strangest thing in the world that she did not return to Mrs.
Doyle, the only friend she had in New York!” he exclaimed.
The tortured mother bowed her head and wept.
Then Leon Dalrymple’s heart was melted with sympathy, and he cried:
“Do not weep so bitterly, Verna, I will find her for you if it is in
the power of man to do it. And--and--I will never try to take her from
you again. Let my heart bear all the pangs of loss and loneliness!”
“You have not told me yet how you brought Darling to life!” she
suggested, with a grateful glance.
Then he had to go over the whole story, and she listened with the
closest attention.
Their interview had now lasted more than an hour, and the ice between
them was gradually thawing. The dark and the blue eyes looked very
kindly at each other, and they were Leon and Verna again in their
speech.
She opened the letter, and said daringly, encouraged by his kindness:
“I am very curious over some things you said in this letter to Darling.
It seems you sent me some messages of remorse, forgiveness, and love
when you thought you were about to perish. Will you tell me what they
were?”
His face flushed with emotion, but he faltered nervously:
“They would not be welcome to you, Verna.”
To his delight she replied, with swimming eyes.
“My heart has been hungry for such words these eighteen years,
Leon--hungry for the love that I threw away in my blindness--hungry for
forgiveness that I dared not ask because I feared denial!”
“My darling!” and he was on his knees by her side, his arms opening to
draw her back to her old shelter against his heart.
Gladly the dark head nestled there and in an hour all was explained and
forgiven between them while hope came back to nestle in their hearts.
“We can be married again on the same day as Frank and Cora,” Mrs.
Dalrymple exclaimed happily.