Azalia Brooke went home that night from the grand ball, puzzled,
tormented, almost convinced that her lover-husband was not dead, but
that he lived in the person of Jewel Fielding's lover.
His striking likeness to him she had so long believed dead was so
wonderful and startling that it had almost unnerved her that night, and
it was only by a strong exercise of will-power that she resisted the
impulse to cry out, to claim him, and charge him with his falsity, to
say, bitterly:
"It was not you that died, Laurie Meredith. That was a clever sham,
like your marriage with me. You were false to the core of your heart,
and perhaps combined with my cruel sister to get rid of me."
Wounded pride, bitter resentment, and a terror of being thrown helpless
on the world, held her back from betraying herself to him who would
have welcomed her so gladly.
It was pitiful for those two who had loved so well, who had been all
the world to each other, whose hearts still held each other's image,
to meet as mere strangers, to speak coldly to each other, yet a cruel
fate, in the person of Jewel Fielding, had willed it so, and they moved
and acted like mere puppets under her merciless hands.
"He did not even remember me. He betrayed not the slightest emotion on
meeting me, while I--I was trembling with excitement. If indeed it be
the Laurie of old he soon tired of me, and then forgot me utterly, so
that after a few years he can meet me with a glance of a stranger," she
thought, bitterly; and pride came to her aid to uphold her in the task
of meeting indifference with indifference.
"Yet I would give the world to find out if it is really Laurie, or only
a relative with a startling resemblance," she thought many times.
As they met so often in society, this longing grew upon her, but she
could find no means of gratifying it, for she could not ask any one
else about it, and Jewel was so jealous over her lover that she kept
him chained like a slave to her triumphal car.
But one afternoon they met at a kettle-drum--a species of informal
entertainments then raging in society. The gentlemen came in their
ordinary dress, the ladies in calling or simple walking costume. Chance
threw Laurie Meredith and Azalia Brooke together in a cozy corner,
with their cups of tea.
Jewel? She was _tête-à-tête_ with a distinguished gentleman, from whom
she could not escape just now with strict courtesy. She listened with a
forced smile to his fluent periods, and furtively watched the pair over
yonder, coquetting, as she said angrily to herself, over their fragrant
cups of tea and thin cakes.
Miss Brooke's exquisite beauty appeared to advantage in a close-fitting
tailor suit of broadcloth. A plumed turban of the same becoming hue set
off her rippling golden hair.
She said to her companion, with a fast-beating heart:
"Miss Fielding has told me, Mr. Meredith, that you were abroad two
years. Of course you visited England. Did you see Cornwall? My home
is there. It is quite a show-place, being very ancient, and having a
magnificent picture-gallery."
He said audaciously that he had been in England, and should have gone
down to Cornwall to see Lord Ivon's pictures if he could have believed
that there was anything on canvas there half as lovely as herself.
Miss Brooke shook her spoon at him in playful reproof, and he continued:
"I spent most of my time, however, at a German university."
Azalia gave an uncontrollable start that jarred the cup in her hand and
made the tea splash over a little on her lap.
"How awkward I am!" she said, laughing. "Ah! and so you were a German
student, Mr. Meredith?"
"Yes, for a time," he replied. "Not that I cared much for it, but my
father was so anxious for it before his death that I went afterward,
just because he had wished it--not that I benefited much by it, I fear.
My thoughts were full of other things."
Azalia swallowed her tea at a draught in order not to spill any more on
her dress. She looked at him then, and said:
"So your father is dead? That is sad. Mine died when I was a very tiny
baby. I have often wished that he had lived that I might have known the
pleasure of a father's love and care."
Her voice was low with regret and pain. His soul stirred with sympathy.
"You have much to regret in losing your father so soon," he said. "I
can not tell you what mine was to me, what a mentor, what a friend,
until his death nearly three years ago."
"Three years!" she echoed, faintly, and the pretty eggshell china
tea-cup fell from her hands to the carpet, crashing into a dozen
fragments.
"Oh, dear, how very careless I am!" she exclaimed, dismayed at the
attention she attracted by her accident. She saw Jewel looking at her
with jealous suspicion, but took no notice, and as a servant appeared
to remove the _débris_, she turned smilingly back to her companion and
said, lightly:
"Everything slips through my fingers," and added, miserably, to
herself, "Love and happiness with the rest!"
He was about to reply with some admiring sentence, when he saw Jewel
coming over to them with a bright smile that was assumed to veil her
jealous spite.
"Laurie, what did you say to Miss Brooke to shock her into breaking her
tea-cup?" playfully.
He answered, as he rose to place a chair for her:
"Nothing."
Azalia Brooke looked up at her with artless cordiality.
"Was it not dreadful, spoiling Mrs. Stanley's beautiful set that way?
Won't you go with me to-morrow, Miss Fielding, and try to match it?"
she asked. "Do you know, I was so interested in what Mr. Meredith was
telling, I forgot I had it in my hand, and it fell. It seems he has
been a student at one of those delightful German universities. He was
telling me how much his father wished it before his death, nearly three
years ago."
Was there a strange, hidden meaning in the blue eyes that met Jewel's?
Was there a menace in the distinct voice? Jewel quailed for a moment,
fancying these things, and her rival saw her turn pale and tremble.
But it was Jewel's turn now.
"Laurie, will you take me home now? I have another engagement," she
said.
They bowed and went away from the presence of the young beauty.
On the way home Jewel betrayed her petulant jealousy plainly.
"You promised me not to fall in love with that girl, Laurie."
"Did your 'other engagement' mean that you wanted to bring me away to
scold me?" he asked, frowning.
"You are in love with her, Laurie!" angrily.
"You are jealous," he retorted; and Jewel took refuge in tears, while
her betrothed relapsed into offended silence.
Seeing this, Jewel realized that she was going too far, begged his
pardon for her folly, and riveted her chains more firmly than ever.
They parted affectionately, and when he had gone, she muttered:
"Could she have escaped? I must satisfy myself, much as I dread it,
for to-night I could have sworn that Flower's voice spoke to me with a
hidden threat in its tone. Oh, I wish I were safely married and away on
my bridal-tour!"
She crept to the door of the deserted cellar, unclosed it, peered into
the darkness with dilated eyes. She heard great rats plunging about,
saw the noisome water standing, green and stagnant, several feet deep,
and a large blank water-proof cloak floating on the top.
"She is there still. It was my guilty fancy that made me clothe Azalia
Brooke with Flower's soul!" she shuddered, as she fled back to her room.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, Azalia Brooke had pleaded another engagement, too, and
returned home.
She flung herself upon the floor, sobbing miserably:
"It is he, my own darling; but Jewel has taken him from me. It was his
father's death she showed me in the paper. Perhaps they planned it
together, thinking that the shock would kill me."
Then she lay for some time, still and unconscious.