"BEHOLD MY REVENGE!"
Even as she spoke the words Lady Lanswell's heart sunk within her. No
softening came to the beautiful face, no tenderness, no kindliness; it
seemed rather as though her last words had turned Leone to stone. She
grew pale even to her lips, she folded her hands with a hard clasp, her
beautiful figure grew more erect and dignified--the words dropped
slowly, each one seeming to cut the air as it fell.
"You call me noble, Lady Lanswell! you, who did your best to sully my
fair name; you call me your son's best friend, when you flung me aside
from him as though I had been of no more worth than the dust underneath
his feet!"
Lady Lanswell bent forward.
"Will you not forget that?" she said. "Let the past die. I will own now
that I was harsh, unjust, even cruel to you; but I repent it--I have
never said as much before--I repent it, and I _apologize_ to you! Will
you accept my apology?"
The effort was so great for a proud woman to make, that the countess
seemed almost to struggle for breath as she said the words. Leone looked
on in proud, angry scorn.
"You apologize, Lady Lanswell! You think that a few words can wash away
the most cruel wrong one woman did to another? Do you know what you
did?--you robbed me of my husband, of a man I loved as I shall love no
other; you blighted my fair name. What was I when that marriage was set
aside? You--you tortured me--you broke my heart, you slew all that was
best in me, and now all these years afterward you come to me, and think
to overwhelm me with faint, feeble words of apology. Why, if you gave me
your heart's blood, your very soul, even, it would not atone me! I had
but one life, and you have spoiled it! I had but one love, you trampled
on it with wicked, relentless feet! Ah, why do I speak? Words are but
sound. No, Lady Lanswell, I refuse your apology now or at any time! We
are enemies, and shall remain so until we die!"
The countess shrunk from the passion of her indignant words.
"You are right in some measure," she said, sadly. "I was very hard, but
it was for my son's sake! Ah, believe me, all for him."
"Your son," retorted Leone; "you make your son the excuse for your own
vanity, pride, and ambition. What you did, Lady Lanswell, proved how
little you loved your son; you parted us knowing that he loved me,
knowing that his whole heart was bound up in me, knowing that he had but
one wish, and it was to spend his whole life with me; you parted us
knowing that he could never love another woman as he loved me, knowing
that you were destroying his life, even as you have destroyed mine. Did
love for your son actuate you then?"
"What I believed to be my love for my son and care for his interests
alone guided me," said Lady Lanswell.
"Love for your son!" laughed Leone. "Have you ever read the story of the
mother of the Maccabees, who held her twin sons to die rather than they
live to deny the Christian faith? Have you read of the English mother
who, when her fair-haired son grew pale at the sound of the first
cannon, cried, 'Be brave, my son, death does not last one minute--glory
is immortal.' I call such love as that the love of a mother for her
son--the love that teaches a man to be true, if it cost his life; to be
brave, if courage brings him death; to be loyal and noble. True motherly
love shows itself in that fashion, Lady Lanswell."
The proud head of Lucia, Countess of Lanswell, drooped before this girl
as it had never done before any power on earth.
"What has your love done for your son, Lady Lanswell?" she asked. "Shall
I tell you? You made him a traitor, a coward, a liar--through your
intrigues, he perjured himself. You made him disloyal and ignoble--you
made him _false_. And yet you call that love! I would rather have the
love of a pagan mother than such as yours.
"What have you done for him?" she continued, the fire of her passion
rising--"what have you done for him? He is young and has a long life
before him. Is he happy? Look at his face--look at his restless, weary
eyes--listen to the forced bitter laugh! Is he happy, after all your
false love has done for him? You have taken from him the woman he loves,
and you have given him one for whom he cares so little he would leave
her to-morrow! Have you done so well, Lady Lanswell for your son?"
"No, indeed I have not!" came with a great sigh from Lady Lanswell's
lips. "Perhaps, if it were to be--but no, I will not say that. You have
noble thoughts and noble ideas--tell me, Leone, will you help me?"
"Help you in what?" she asked, proudly.
The countess flung aside the laces and ribbons that seemed to stifle
her.
"Help me over my son!" she cried; "be generous to me. Many people in my
place would look on you as an enemy--I do not. If you have ever really
loved my son you cannot be an enemy of mine. I appeal to the higher and
nobler part of you. Some people would be afraid that you should triumph
over them--I am not. I hold you for a generous foe."
"What appeal do you wish to make to me?" asked Leone, quite ignoring all
the compliments which the countess paid her.
Lady Lanswell looked as she felt--embarrassed; it was one thing to carry
this interview through in fancy, but still another when face to face
with the foe, and that foe a beautiful, haughty woman, with right on her
side. My lady was less at ease than she had ever been in her life
before, her eyes fell, her lips trembled, her gemmed fingers played
nervously with her laces and ribbons.
"That I should come to you at all, Leone, proves that I think you a
noble woman," she said; "my trouble is great--the happiness of many
lives lies in your hands."
"I do not understand how," said Leone.
"I will tell you," continued the countess. "You are going to Berlin, are
you not?"
She saw a quiver of pain pass over the beautiful face as she asked the
question.
"Yes," replied Leone; "I have an engagement there."
"And Lord Chandos, my son, has said something about going there, too?"
"Yes," replied Leone; "and I hope he will; he knows the city well, and I
shall be glad to see a familiar face."
There was a minute's silence, during which Lady Lanswell brought all her
wit and courage to bear on the situation. She continued:
"Lady Chandos does not wish my son to go to Berlin. I suppose it is no
secret from you that she entirely disapproves of her husband's
friendship with you?"
Leone bowed her proud, beautiful head.
"That is a matter of little moment to me," she said.
My lady's face flushed at the words.
"I may tell you," she went on, "that since Lady Chandos heard of this
friendship, she has been very unhappy."
"No one cared when I was unhappy," said Leone; "no one pleaded for me."
"I do plead for Lady Marion," said the countess, "whatever you may think
of me. She has done you no harm; why should you make mischief between
her and her husband?"
"Why did you make mischief between me and mine?" retorted Leone; and my
lady shrunk as she spoke.
"Listen to me, Leone," she said; "you must help me, you must be my
friend. If my son goes to Berlin against his wife's prayers and wishes,
she has declared that she will never speak to him or see him again."
"That cannot concern me," said Leone.
"For Heaven's sake listen, and do not speak to me so heartlessly. If he
goes to Berlin, Lady Chandos will appeal to the Duke of Lester, who has
just obtained for my son the greatest honor that can be conferred on an
English gentleman--the Order of the Garter. In plain words, Leone, if my
son follows you to Berlin, he will lose his wife, he will lose his good
name, he will lose caste, his social position, his chance of courtly
honors, the respect of his own class. He will be laughed at as a dupe,
as a man who has given up all the honors of life to dance attendance on
an actress; in short, if he goes either with you, or after you, to
Berlin, he is, in every sense of the word, a ruined man!" and my lady's
voice faltered as she said the words.
"Why not tell Lord Chandos all this himself, and see what he says?"
asked Leone.
Perfect desperation brings about perfect frankness--my lady knew that it
was quite useless to conceal anything.
"I have said all this and more to my son, but he will not even listen to
me."
A scornful smile curved those lovely lips.
"He persists in going to Berlin, then?" said Leone, quietly.
"Yes," replied my lady, "he persists in it."
"Then why come to me? If your son persists in a certain course of
action, why come to me?"
"Because you can influence him. I ask you to be noble beyond the
nobility of women, I ask you to be generous beyond the generosity of
women, I ask you to forget the past and forbid my son to follow you to
Berlin. You know the end must be a bad one--forbid it. I ask you with
the warmest of prayers and of tears!"
It was then that Leone rose in righteous wrath, in not indignation, in
angry passion; rose and stood erect before the woman who had been her
enemy.
"I refuse," she said. "Years ago I went to you a simple-hearted, loving
girl, and I prayed you for Heaven's sake to have mercy on me. You
received me with scorn and contumely; you insulted, outraged, tortured
me; you laughed at my tears, you enjoyed my humiliation. I told you then
that I would have my revenge, even should I lose everything on earth to
obtain that revenge. Now it lays in my hands, and I grasp it--I glory in
it. Your son shall follow me, shall lose wife, home, friends, position,
fair name, as I lost all years ago at your bidding. Oh, cruel and wicked
woman, behold my revenge! I repay you now. Oh, God," she continued, with
a passionate cry, "I thank Thee that I hold my vengeance in my hand; I
will slay and spare not!"
Then she stood silent for some minutes, exhausted by the passion of her
own words.