Alone in the dreary solitude of Falcon's Chase, Lauraine receives
that message from her enemy. It is early morning; the sun is
shining, the birds in the forest avenues are singing their gladdest
and loudest welcome to spring; she stands at the window of her
morning-room and reads those lines penned in the Rue Victoire, and a
great darkness seems to come over her.
All her energies seem paralysed; she cannot think, cannot decide.
Her husband dangerously ill, alone in a foreign land, deserted by the
woman for whom he has wronged his wife, and Keith--Keith dying.
The sunlight seems to blind her; the light of day is cruel. Her
heart feels numbed and dead, and in her brain a thousand hammers seem
to beat, and through all that numbness and discord one thought alone
shapes itself in stern and terrible distinctness. One thought; it is
Duty!
He has neglected her, he has outraged her, he has forfeited all
honour and respect. Yet none the less is he her husband, none the
less is he the father of her child.
Her child! who lay in her bosom, and smiled into her eyes and made
earth Paradise for just a little space!
But Keith? Keith, whom she loves; Keith, whom she has wronged; Keith
dying, and she cannot be near him, cannot meet once more the look of
the "bad blue eyes," cannot whisper peace or comfort to the young and
passion-wrecked soul!
Her heart feels breaking. The awfulness of this decision seems
beyond her strength to make; and yet she knows--she cannot but
know--which is the right course, because of its very hardness.
"I have sinned; I must suffer," she groans despairingly, and then
moves away with half-blind eyes, and feels as if her heart must break
at last. How can she live on and endure such misery?
In an hour her preparations are complete, and she starts for London.
A thought strikes her on her way. At the first available station she
gets out and sends a telegram to Lady Etwynde, bidding her meet her
at the London terminus. At the terminus her friend is waiting and
Colonel Carlisle also. In a few hurried, broken words Lauraine tells
them all.
"And you are actually going to _him_!" cried Lady Etwynde, amazed.
"I must; it is what I ought to do," falters Lauraine piteously. "I
cannot leave him to die there alone uncared for. After all, he is my
husband."
"You are right!" exclaims Lady Etwynde hurriedly. "But a thought
strikes me. I--will go to Paris and see Keith Athelstone. You will
let me, will you not, Cyril? Perhaps, after all, that fiend is
lying."
Lauraine looks at her with unspeakable gratitude.
"Oh, if you would--if only you would!" she cries passionately.
"Certainly we will!" exclaims Colonel Carlisle. "Etwynde is quite
right. And I do not see why we shouldn't all go as far as Paris
together. We have two hours to spare. Time enough to get what we
want--money and wraps. All the rest we can get in Paris."
So it is hurriedly arranged, and the night express sees them all _en
route_ for the French capital, the Colonel and his wife doing their
best to console and cheer Lauraine, whose utter prostration and
despair alarm them.
At Paris, Colonel Carlisle decides that she is really in no fit
condition to travel alone; and having seen his wife fairly started
for the address Lady Jean has given, he takes charge of Lauraine, and
goes on with her to the Riviera. When the long, fatiguing journey is
over, and they reach Monte Carlo, they find Sir Francis even worse
than the telegram had led them to imagine. Lauraine will not hear of
Colonel Carlisle staying with her any longer. The fever must take
its course; there is nothing but careful nursing and watchfulness to
be exercised, and so she sends him back to Paris, and takes up her
station by the bedside of the man who has wronged and outraged her so
often--whose fretful moans even now are all for that other woman.
The _Soeur de Charité_ watching beside him looks up in surprise as
the slight young figure and beautiful face bend over the unconscious
man.
"It is madame--for whom he has been always asking?" she asks
hesitatingly.
Lauraine looks gravely up.
"I am his wife," she says simply.
Day after day passes wearily, slowly by. Then comes a letter from
Lady Etwynde.
"It is all true," she writes; "Keith has been shot, and all for some
disgraceful scrape in which that woman is mixed up. But he is not at
her house; he is in his own, and Lady Jean has gone off with the man.
Every one is talking of it. Keith is in the utmost danger; but if
skill and care can do anything, I do not despair of him yet. The
shot was within a hair's-breadth of piercing his left lung. He knows
me, and I whispered to him I was here by your desire. You should
have seen the look in the boy's eyes: I feel so sorry for him; he is
so young, and he lies there in this awful state, and I know his heart
is aching for sight of you. Lauraine, I see that woman's scheme now.
She wanted you to make a false step, one that would have ruined you
for ever. Had you left your husband's house to come to Keith it
would have looked as if you had fled to your lover. Sir Francis
would have been justified in doing anything. But how you had the
courage, the self-denial, to act as you have done puzzles me. I
could not have believed it, though I thought I knew you so well.
But, as I have told you before, hard as duty is, it brings its own
reward, and God will surely bless you with peace at last."
Lauraine reads the letter with streaming eyes, sitting there beside
her husband's couch. Her heart is wrung with agony, her eyes are
full of anguish unutterable.
"Duty," she sighs. "Ah, what a poor cold thing duty looks," and she
falls on her knees and prays for the young life she loves, and for
that other life trembling now in the balance. As she rises from her
knees her husband turns wearily on his pillow. His eyes unclose, and
with a faint gleam of consciousness look at her.
"Lauraine!" he murmurs.
She leans over him, and touches his fevered hands. "Yes; it is I,"
she says.
"You--and here; where--where----"
He can say no more. She stays him with a hasty gesture. "You must
not talk, it is forbidden. It is enough that I heard you were
ill--that I came."
"And she--Jean?"
A flush comes to Lauraine's pale cheeks; her eyes grow dark and
indignant. "She! Did you actually suppose she would risk her
convenience or comfort for the sake of any human being? She has
found other consolation." He tries to spring up, but weakness
overpowers him. "The curse of hell be upon her--fiend, she-devil,
temptress!" and then once again the ravings of delirium crowd his
brain, and he knows nothing of her who is beside him.
It is a terrible time for Lauraine. She takes scarcely food or rest.
She tends and watches the sick man with untiring patience; all the
more stern is she in her task of self-denial because she knows it is
a task, because she will not spare herself one iota of the pain and
weariness that her labours demand. The physicians praise her
devotion, and in his lucid moments the sick man murmurs blessings on
her, and utters such vows of penitence and remorse as might gladden
the heart of any wife whose love and patience had reclaimed her
husband from his errors. But they do not gladden Lauraine.
The weary burden presses more heavily; the iron enters more deeply
into her soul. But she has resolved to go through with her task, and
she dares not count the cost.
"He is better," say the physicians. "He will live."
The news comes to her, and she is silent, then sinks on her knees and
hides her face from sight. They think she is overpowered with
emotion, and go softly away and leave her--leave her fighting out a
weary battle, sick at heart with shame that in her mind is no
gladness, only a duller, sadder despair.