Jewel had not meant to break the truth so suddenly to Laurie Meredith,
but his cruel indifference to herself, and his anxiety over Flower,
piqued her into retorting upon him so suddenly. She had her revenge,
for, after gazing at her blankly for one agonized moment, the young man
threw up his arms, staggered wildly, then fell like a log at her feet.
The terrible revulsion of feeling from love, hope, and expectancy to
despair had almost slain him, and he lay for several minutes quite
unconscious, while Jewel knelt beside him in an agony of fear.
"He is dead, and all my schemes have been in vain," she thought,
wildly; and in her despair she kissed the cold, white face, and laid
her dark head on the pulseless breast of the man she loved so wildly,
and wished that she too were dead and cold.
Presently she lifted her head and laid her cheek against his,
whispering, reproachfully:
"Oh, my love, if you had given your heart to me instead of her, all
this would not have happened. We should have been as happy as the day
is long."
A step in the hall startled her, and she sprung up just as the door
opened, and her companion, an elderly widow lady, entered the parlor.
"Oh, Mrs. Wellings!" exclaimed Jewel, wildly, and the lady screamed as
she saw the apparently dead man on the floor.
As soon as she could speak she began to question Jewel volubly, and the
girl explained that he was a friend of hers, and had dropped like that
on entering the room.
A physician was hastily summoned, and it was found that Laurie Meredith
was not dead. He soon revived, but he had received such a shock that
weeks of illness followed, and Jewel declared that he must not be moved
from the house.
There was plenty of room. The doctor could send an experienced nurse,
she said, and she and Mrs. Wellings would do all they could.
So it followed, that when Laurie Meredith first opened his eyes, after
weeks of delirium, with a conscious gaze they fell on Jewel sitting by
his bed, looking exquisitely charming in a long white tea-gown with
crimson silk facings, and some crimson rosebuds in her braided hair.
He looked at her bewilderedly at first, then a memory of the past began
to dawn on him, and he asked her if he had been sick.
"Yes, with brain-fever, for nearly three weeks, but you are better
now," Jewel replied, in a sweet, gentle voice that thrilled him in
spite of himself, for it sounded something like Flower's as it had
whispered to him of her love last summer. He closed his eyes a few
moments, and when he opened them again he remembered all.
"Oh, Heaven! I remember all now," he moaned, "You told me that my
darling was dead."
"Yes," she said, in a soft, sweet tone, "Flower is dead--poor,
unfortunate girl--but I would not have broken it to you so abruptly if
I had known that you would take it so hard."
"You knew I loved her, Jewel," he said, looking keenly into the
beautiful, sparkling face.
"Yes, once," she replied; "but I thought it had all blown over long
ago. Mamma refused her consent, and then you went away. I thought you
had forgotten it, as Flower did very soon."
"No, no, she did not forget, Jewel!" he groaned; then paused,
remembering that Jewel could not be expected to know anything of that
secret marriage and their correspondence. Presently he said, mournfully:
"She is dead--beautiful Flower is dead! How long ago was it, Jewel?"
She named the day when Flower had run away, and added:
"She committed suicide. She drowned herself in the sea."
She feared he would faint again, so awful was the pallor that
overspread his face, so she cried out, hastily:
"But it was not her love for you that drove her to despair, but her
shame and grief at finding out the secret of her parentage."
And she went on to tell him of the secret old Maria had revealed on
her death-bed, and which had driven her mother mad at last, and caused
Flower to drown herself.
"Mamma did not tell her for a long time, and when Flower heard it at
last she went almost as mad as poor mamma, and vowed she would drown
herself. Oh, Mr. Meredith, you can not think how dreadful it all was!"
sobbed Jewel, desolately.
He made no comment. He could not speak after the dreadful story she had
been telling him. He only lay and listened in dumb horror.
Jewel recovered herself, and continued:
"There was mamma, raving mad, and at last they had to take her to the
asylum. As for Flower, she fell ill, and tried again and again to take
her own life. I had to watch her always to prevent her going to the sea
and throwing herself in. You see, Mr. Meredith, she was my half-sister,
and I could not help but love her in spite of her birth and of our
father's sin. So I did not tell any one our dreadful secret, I only
loved poor Flower the more, and in her sickness I tended her carefully
until that awful night when I thought her dead, and rushed down-stairs
to call for help. Then she revived, got out of the house, and drowned
herself."
"Her body--was it ever recovered?" he asked, and Jewel replied:
"No; but we are certain she drowned herself, because some of her
garments were found on the sea-shore."
"It is terrible!" he groaned, and looking keenly at her pale face, he
asked: "Did Flower leave any papers, any letters, Jewel, that told you
anything strange?"
"No," she answered, unblushingly; and he reflected that it would be
no use to tell her that Flower had been his wife. She was dead, poor
little darling; but he thanked Heaven that the misery that had driven
her to suicide was at least none of his making.
"But, ah, if she had only come with me she would probably never have
heard the shameful secret of her birth," he thought; and it seemed to
him now that he understood Mrs. Fielding's object in refusing to let
her daughters marry any one.
"She was very honorable. She was not willing that Flower's story should
be known, yet she could not give her to any one who was ignorant of
it," he thought, feeling an accession of pity and respect for the woman
who had been so deeply wronged, yet who had remained so honest and
conscientious.
Presently Jewel murmured something about nourishment, and glided
lightly from the room. He closed his eyes and lay thinking of the
strange story she had told him, and of his poor, blighted little
Flower, who had gone to her death rather than endure the bitter shame
that had come to her with the knowledge of her birth. The deep regret
that she had not gone away with him last summer pierced his heart so
bitterly that fever set in again, and he had a relapse that came near
costing him his life.