LIKE A STAR IN THE NIGHT OF HER DESPAIR.
At the luncheon, which was served in their private dining-room, Leola
could scarcely touch a morsel, she was so eager to tell her father all
that she had heard that morning, barring, of course, the facts about
Chester Olyphant, whose name she vowed should never pass her lips.
But she had scarcely begun her story when he smiled and interrupted:
“It seems quite a coincidence that we have both met people from the
United States this morning--ghosts, as it were, out of your past life.”
“Why, papa?”
“Yes, people from West Virginia, dear--old neighbors of yours--and from
them I have heard already all you were going to tell me.”
“Neighbors of mine! Why, papa, dear, you cannot mean--the Bennetts?”
“Why not, my dear?”
“Why not, indeed? They are rich enough to travel, and I remember now
that my governess used to hanker after foreign travel. So she is here?
You have seen her? Dear soul, I must call at once.”
“She will be here herself by-and-by, so you have only to wait and rest
till she comes.”
“I shall be very impatient,” declared Leola, and then she laughed:
“I suppose Giles Bennett has forgiven me the trick I played him by now?”
“Oh, yes, he said so with very hearty emphasis, and I believed him.
Indeed, the man appeared proud of his wife, who seems to dote on him.
They have been touring the continent for several months, and I met them
in an art gallery this morning. I confess I should hardly have known
them again, they were both so improved since that night, but Mrs.
Bennett recognized my face, and ran joyfully to me to ask about you.
So we talked for an hour, and I invited them to call at our hotel this
afternoon.”
“I can hardly wait for them to come, I am so anxious,” declared the
girl, joyfully. “Are you sure that you have told me everything, papa?”
“Did I mention that Wizard Hermann was dead?”
“No, papa.”
“Well, that is one of the things they told me. It happened quite
suddenly, the cause being heart failure, so after that they decided on
this tour. They have with them also some one else that you know--a Mrs.
Gray, who had a present made her of this tour by a gentleman whom she
had nursed through an illness. How strange you look, Leola! You have
grown pale, and you tremble. Are you ill?”
“Oh, no, papa--perhaps just a little nervous. Go on, papa, have you
anything more to tell?”
“Not just now, my dear daughter--not till you take your luncheon. No? A
drop of this wine, perhaps, to set you up. There, the color is coming
back to your cheeks. Shall I ring to have the things taken away?”
She nodded, and they adjourned to their private parlor.
Then Alston Mead said, gently:
“My dear daughter, I have been hearing surprising things about you
to-day. While I have been wondering at your indifference to men, it
seems you already had a lover.”
Her cheeks paled, then flamed.
“Who has dared betray that unhappy episode of my past? Who has called
his despicable name?” she half-sobbed.
Alston Mead put his arm about her tenderly, like a woman, with a
soothing caress.
“Gently, dear; perhaps he does not deserve your scorn,” he said.
“Then you do not know all the story, papa.”
“Perhaps I know it better than you do, my darling girl, and, strange
to say, Chester Olyphant has been known to me for years. His father
and mother were dear friends of mine, and I knew their boy when he was
a little curly-headed chap in kilts. Naturally, I lost sight of him
afterward in my exile.”
Leola cried, bitterly:
“You lost sight of him, so you did not know he grew up to be an
unworthy scion of a good family--a heartless trifler with women’s
hearts.”
“Grave charges, my daughter!”
“You said that you knew all, dear papa.”
“Yes, I have heard both sides of the story, and you know only one,
Leola.”
“Papa!”
“You know only one,” he repeated.
Leola cried, passionately:
“That was all there was to know! And I am sorry, I am indignant, that
my friends, in mistaken kindness, have betrayed this to you. I--I--was
forgetting it in this new life with you--only it came back bitterly
this morning when Jessie told me--that--she--will be married to him--in
July!”
“And you, Leola, did you hear that news without a pang? Has your heart
grown callous?”
“Spare me, papa!” and the golden head was buried on his breast, while
heaving sobs shook his daughter’s form from head to feet--sobs that
seemed to burst her very heart in twain.
Had her heart grown callous? Oh, no, the pity of it, that she could not
deny she had given her love, irrevocably, to another woman’s lover--to
one unworthy her lightest thought.
“A honeyed heart for the honeycomb,
And the humming bee flies home.
“A heavy heart in the honey-flower,
And the bee has had his hour.”
Alston Mead let her head rest in his arms until the storm of tears
spent itself naturally; then, as she began to grow calmer, he
exclaimed, angrily:
“Curses on the woman whose malice has culminated in this past year of
sorrow; whose memory must always darken your life, even when the shadow
shall be removed.”
“Removed, papa? Alas, alas!” moaned the girl, who could see in the
future no surcease of sorrow.
She started when her father laughed aloud:
“My dearest, how little faith you had in your lover, to believe all
that little cat told you out of spite!”
“Oh, papa, you do not understand. Indeed, he was her lover. Jessie
spoke the truth. He--only--sought--to amuse himself with me. I--I--know
that it is true, for--I--saw--her--in--his arms!”
He could hardly bear the anguish in the great, dark eyes, the shame,
the self-pity in the quivering voice: he must tell her the truth; he
could not see her suffer any more, poor, proud Leola!
So he answered, quickly:
“You saw her spring to his arms, my dear; and if you had not fainted at
the sight, you would have seen her the next moment repulsed with scorn
by the man who despised the shallow little deceiver.”
A wild cry of incredulous hope shrilled over her lips, and his words
came like a star in the night of her despair.
He continued, tenderly:
“You were tricked and deceived, my poor Leola, by two designing women.
Granted that Chester Olyphant had once been engaged to marry Jessie
Stirling, he had found her out and broken with her before he came to
the mountains to seek you. The girl lied to you, deceived you wickedly,
scheming to separate you and win him back herself. You fainted, and
then Fate stepped in and aided Miss Stirling to keep you deceived for
a whole year, but that was all, for he continued to repulse all her
efforts to get him back. His only fault toward you, darling, was his
hiding his name and position, in the natural, romantic desire to be
loved for himself alone!”