Face to face with her half-sister at last, with all pretenses laid
aside, Jewel had never spent a more uncomfortable hour in her life.
She had sent a note requesting a private interview the day after the
meeting at the opera, and Azalia Brooke had granted it on the condition
that her maid should be present at the interview, stationed in an
anteroom with doors open between, so that she could see if not hear all
that passed.
Jewel had to consent to the humiliating condition; and when she made
her appearance was not surprised to find her runaway Maria seated
complacently in the anteroom with a malicious grin upon her pretty face.
"She knows so many of our secrets already that I thought it would not
matter having her here as a precautionary measure for my own safety,"
Miss Brooke proclaimed, frankly; and as Jewel frowned darkly upon her,
she added, coolly: "Yes, I am Flower, as you charged in your note; but
I would not own it to you, only that I know you are as anxious to keep
my secret as I could be myself."
"You do wish to keep it, then?" Jewel sneered, vindictively.
"Yes, I wish to keep it," the other answered, and a passionate despair
thrilled in her low, sweet voice. "Lord Ivon is very proud, and it is
hard for him to bear the stain upon my birth. I think it would kill him
if he knew that other dark story of man's deceit and betrayed love."
"Tell me how and where you met Lord Ivon, and why he adopted you," her
half-sister said, curiously; and in as few words as possible Azalia
Brooke related the story.
"So you really are related to that distinguished family?" her
half-sister exclaimed, in palpable chagrin.
"Yes; and I have a horror of their ever knowing the whole of my sad
story, so I have deceived them, but it is for their own good."
Jewel could not repress a sneer, as she said:
"I thought you too goody-goody to deceive them so, although I remember
now that you kept your intimacy with Laurie Meredith hid to the last
from your mother, as you then believed her to be. But do you really
intend to carry your brazenness so far as to marry Lord Clive without
confessing the truth?"
"Oh, Jewel, I can never marry Lord Clive! I never meant to do it, but
I promised it to pique Laurie, to force him to a self-betrayal, if
possible. He was sitting near by. Lord Clive did not know it, but I
did. I thought if Laurie loved me still, that if I were really his
wife, he would claim me at once. And so--Heaven forgive me--I toyed
with a man's heart just as mine had been treated. I promised to marry
Lord Clive, and when I found that Laurie did not care, I almost died
of chagrin and repentance. Of course, I can never marry Lord Clive--I,
with my soiled fame and broken heart, but day by day I put off the
telling--because--because--he loves me so, and it is so hard to wound
him--him, and those good people who have taken me to their heart,
forgiving the dark stain upon my birth."
"You are a fool, Flower Fielding, as I've often told you before. Why,
there's nothing to prevent your marrying the man. I will keep your
secret if you will go back to England and marry him."
"I can not do it," Flower answered, sorrowfully. "Even if there was
nothing else, it would be a sin to marry him, with my heart full of
love for another."
"Another man!"
"Yes, Jewel," and the girl suddenly fell down upon her knees before the
frowning, dark-faced beauty. "Oh, my sister," she wailed, "have you not
guessed my bitter secret? I love Laurie still, in spite of my wrongs,
in spite of my pride! Oh, tell me, is it really true that I was never
his wife, or have you deceived me? Have you both deceived me, because
he grew weary of me so soon? How did you win him from me after all his
vows?"
Jewel gazed into the tear-wet, suppliant face, with anger and
consternation. It was worse than she thought. Her sister actually
dared to love Laurie Meredith still! Why, she was courting her doom by
that candid avowal!
And, as if to incense her still further, the unhappy girl continued,
wildly:
"I know I ought to hate him, but I can not do it, no matter how hard I
try; and I think it is because I can never seem to comprehend him as he
really is. My love seems to glorify him and make him better than other
men, while in reality he is worse. But I have loved him so--and he
was the father of my child, you know, Jewel, and it was such a lovely
little baby! Oh, Jewel, could you but have seen my little Douglas, with
his own papa's lovely brown eyes, you must have loved him, and been
kinder to me. It was not my fault Laurie loved me first."
"Hush! Get up!" Jewel hissed, with such murderous fury in her face
and glance that her half-sister started up in terror of her life,
and retreated toward the anteroom. "Come back, you coward!" Jewel
exclaimed, harshly, "I am not going to kill you, unless you talk to
me in such a strain again. But if you did, and there were a hundred
present, I believe I should fly at you."
Flower shivered through all her slender frame at those cruel words, and
sunk down sobbing bitterly into a chair.
Jewel glared at her in fierce displeasure, a few moments, then said, in
low, cutting accents:
"You had as well go back to England and marry your grand lover, for
Laurie Meredith is as dead to you as if the grass was indeed growing on
his grave. Do you think he did not recognize you? He laughed with me
about it, and said that he had half a mind to give Lord Clive a hint of
your character. I persuaded him not to do so, telling him it was unfair
after the way he had treated you."
"He could say that? Oh, my God! he could menace me like that?" Flower
whispered, with a strange gleam in her dilated eyes.
"Yes, he could do so. That is nothing. It is the way of men," Jewel
replied, indifferently.