Captain Ernscliffe sat alone in the spacious library of his elegant
mansion.
The windows were raised, and the rich curtains of silk and lace were
drawn back, admitting the bracing October air.
The playful breeze lifted the dark, clustering locks from his high,
white brow, and wafted to his senses the delicate perfume of roses and
lilies that filled the vases on the marble mantel.
The evening sunshine lay in great, golden bars on the emerald-velvet
carpet.
But none of these beautiful things attracted the attention of the master
of this luxurious mansion.
He sat at his desk with an open book before him, and a half-smoked cigar
between his white, aristocratic fingers; but the fire had died out on
the tip of his prime Havana, and the idle breeze turned the leaves of
his book at its wanton will.
He sat there, perfectly still and silent, in his great arm-chair,
staring drearily before him, a stern, sad look on his handsome face, the
fire of a jealous, all-consuming passion smouldering gloomily in the
beautiful dark eyes, half veiled by their sweeping lashes.
He had been trying to read, but the strange unrest that possessed him
was too great to admit of fixing his attention on the author, yet now he
slowly repeated some lines that caught his eye as the light breeze
fluttered the book leaves:
"Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung."
"Ah! she is all that, and more," he exclaimed, bitterly, showing by
those quick words where his thoughts were.
A slight cough interrupted him. He looked up quickly and saw Robert Lyle
standing within the half-open door. The old man moved forward
deprecatingly.
"Pardon my abrupt entrance, Captain Ernscliffe," he said; "I knocked
several times without eliciting a reply, so I ventured to enter through
the half-open door."
Captain Ernscliffe arose and shook his visitor's hand with a cordiality
tempered by an indefinable restraint.
"Pray make no apologies, sir," he said. "They are quite unnecessary."
He placed a chair for the visitor, then resumed his own seat, gazing
rather curiously at the pleasant-looking, kindly old gentleman, who
reminded him so much of his wife's father.
What had brought him there, he wondered, with some slight nervousness at
the thought.
Mr. Lyle looked a little nervous, too. He wiped the dew from his fine
old forehead, and remarked that it was a warm day.
"I suppose so," assented the host in a tone that seemed to say he had
not thought about it before.
"I have come on a thankless mission, Lawrence," Mr. Lyle said, with
some slight embarrassment. "At least on an unsolicited one. I wish to
speak to you of--of Queenie."
Captain Ernscliffe flushed crimson to the roots of his hair, and then
grew deathly pale.
"I must refer you to my counsel, then," he answered, after a pause. "I
have nothing to say about her myself."
"Lawrence!"
The gently rebuking tone in which the one word was uttered made the
hearer start. He looked up quickly.
"Well, sir?"
"Do you know that you are treating my niece very unfairly in this
matter. It is cruel to condemn her with her defense unheard."
"She condemned herself, Mr. Lyle, without a word from anyone else. Her
guilt and shame were written all too legibly on her face the moment she
looked upon Leon Vinton."
"Let us grant that she had reason to be ashamed of his acquaintance,
Lawrence. Still may there not be some extenuation for her fault?"
"None, none! The more I think of it the blacker her dreadful sins
appear. Oh, my God, to think of her with her face as lovely as an
angel's, and her heart all black with sin! To think how I trusted and
loved her, and how basely she repaid my confidence! How cruelly she
deceived and betrayed me!" exclaimed the outraged husband, rising from
his seat and pacing the floor excitedly.
"I cannot effect any compromise, then?" said Mr. Lyle, irresolutely.
"You are bent on a divorce, I suppose. A separation would not content
you?"
"Did _she_ send you to ask this?" angrily exclaimed Captain Ernscliffe,
pausing in his restless tramp to glare furiously at the would-be
peacemaker.
"No, Lawrence, I told you I came on an unsolicited mission. Queenie
knows nothing of my coming, and would not thank me for having asked that
useless question. She asks no favors from you, but she means to defend
her honor, and fight the divorce which would brand her with shame."
"My counsel and hers will settle that affair. In the meantime, why this
useless dallying for long months on the pretence of illness? Why does
she shirk appearing at court in answer to the summons? If not guilty,
why does she not hasten to protest her innocence?"
"Queenie is ill, Captain Ernscliffe--has been ill for months. But we
hope now that she may soon be able to appear at court and confront her
accusers."
"Why does she not instruct her lawyer to manage the case without her if
she is unable to be present herself? This suspense is unendurable. If
this delay is continued much longer, I shall endeavor to push the matter
without her. I am tired of this dilly-dallying!"
They looked at each other a moment in silence. Then the elder man said,
with a repressed sigh:
"That is one thing I came to ask you, Lawrence. Grant us this much
grace, my poor, unfortunate Queenie, and her fond, old uncle. Do not
push the matter for a little while. Wait until she can come into court
and tell her own story before her fiendish accusers."
"But, Mr. Lyle, I am growing too impatient to wait longer. I chafe at
the bonds that bind me to that beautiful deceiver."
"They will not bind you much longer," Mr. Lyle answered, sadly. "Either
death or the law will soon sever your hated fetters."
Captain Ernscliffe started and looked at the speaker wildly.
"Death," he said, with an uncontrollable shudder. "Why do you talk of
death? What is this mysterious illness that has held her in its chains
so long? She used to be strong and well. She never talked of weakness."
"I cannot tell what ails her, Lawrence," said Mr. Lyle, rising as if the
conference were ended, "but I have the word of her physician to tell you
that within a month she will either be able to appear in court, and do
what is necessary to defend her rights, or she will be in her grave. In
either case you will be free."
The words fell coldly on Lawrence Ernscliffe's hearing, chilling the hot
and passionate tide of resentment that hurried through his heart.
He thought with an uncontrollable pang of all that bright, fair beauty
he had loved so long and so fondly lying cold in the grave--those lips
that had kissed him so tenderly sealed in death, the white lids shut
forever over the heaven of love in those soft blue eyes.
"Will that content you, Lawrence?" asked the old man, wistfully, pausing
with his hat in his hand. "A month is not so very long."
"That depends on the mood one is in," was the unsatisfactory reply.
"But you will wait?" Mr. Lyle said, almost pleadingly.
There was a minute's pause, and then the answer came, coldly:
"I will wait."
"Thanks--and farewell," said Mr. Lyle, passing silently out of the room.
The outraged husband was alone once more, the red glow of the sunset
shining into the room and touching with its tender warmth his pallid,
marble-like features.
He could not rest. Mr. Lyle's words re-echoed in his ears, turning his
warm blood to an icy current that flowed sluggishly through his benumbed
veins.
"In a month she may be in her grave--oh! the horror of that thought," he
said, aloud.
Yes, it was horror. He thought he hated her--she had deceived him so
bitterly--he thought he was anxious to sever the tie that bound them
together; he thought he never wished to look upon her beautiful, false
face again.
And yet, and yet those words of Mr. Lyle's staggered him. He reeled
beneath the suddenness of the blow. He asked himself again as he had
asked Mr. Lyle:
"What is this mysterious illness that holds her in its chains?"
He did not know, he did not dream of the truth. If he had known it, he
must surely have forgiven her and taken her back. He could not have
hated her longer, even though she had sinned and deceived him. For he
had loved her very dearly, and she was his wife.
But he said to himself:
"Why should I care if she dies? She deceived me shamefully. She can
never be anything to me again. In either case, as that old man said, I
shall be free. What will it matter to me, then, if she be dead or alive;
I shall never see her again!"
And then when he began to understand that she might die before her
testimony was given before the court in her own defense, he became
conscious of a vague feeling of disappointment. He knew now that he had
been very anxious all along to hear what his wife would say when she
stood face to face with her accuser. Perhaps, after all, she could
vindicate herself. If not, why was she so anxious to make the attempt?
"Have I wronged her?" he asked himself, suddenly. "Should I have
condemned her without hearing her version of that villain's story? Ah!
he would not have dared deceive me!"