IN THE CONSERVATORY.
Senator Van Alstyne’s splendid mansion was ablaze with light. It looked
like a fairy palace, glittering with its brilliant illumination.
Within, the great rooms were thrown open, and wreathed and decorated
with flowers, with banks of roses and jasmine, and a flower-wreathed
nook from behind which a band of musicians sent forth strains of music
maddening, intoxicating. A grand reception was taking place, and
Senator Van Alstyne, in all the ugliness of conventional evening-dress,
was prominent among his aristocratic guests, his red face fairly
shining with gratified pride and flattered vanity. In the center of the
great drawing-room stood a queenly figure in a sweeping robe of white
velvet, with diamonds sparkling all over her white lace overdress like
fairy frost-work glittering with dew-drops. She was pale and cold and
proud, and in the depths of the beautiful dark eyes there was a weary
look--a look of self-scorn.
“I am pitiably weak,” she was saying to herself, with bitter
self-contempt, “for I ought to have asserted my dignity as a woman;
and when that blow was struck me--that cowardly, unmanly blow--it
would have been better, and I would have more self-respect now, if I
had gone away. Gone to toil and hardship--to work, to starve and die,
and be out of all this gilded misery. For, oh! if it be true, and if
he is living, what am I? I dared not read the entire letter, for Van
Alstyne would have taken forcible possession of it; so I do not know
his address, or where he is, or where to write. Heaven help me!” she
murmured, feebly. “What shall I do?”
Yet all the time these bitter thoughts were running riot through her
brain she was standing, the cynosure of all eyes, in the sumptuous
drawing-room, in her white velvet and point lace and sparkling
diamonds, the most admired, even as she was the most beautiful, woman
present. And like a huge watch-dog Senator Van Alstyne moved about
near her, his keen, ferret-like eyes keeping vigilant watch upon her
movements.
“I will find out what is tormenting her so!” he declared, resolutely.
“There is something wrong--some secret--and it is connected with that
letter. The next letter that arrives for her shall be opened by my
hands before ever she sees it. It is no more than right that I should
know the contents of her letters. By Jove! she is my wife, and I am her
lord and master!”
Just then his eyes fell upon a stylish, graceful little figure in
trailing yellow silk and blood-red rubies. A pair of big, black,
velvety eyes were uplifted with an admiring expression to his
face--with a look which drew him to her side--and the great Senator
Van Alstyne was soon engrossed with Mrs. Vernon, a notorious flirt and
belle, who looked upon all men as lawful prey, and lost no opportunity
of subjugation. There was a Mr. Vernon, too; but then nobody ever
troubled themselves in regard to him, save only as Mrs. Vernon’s
husband. She monopolized all masculine attention, and in her sweet,
innocent, childish way had been guilty of more cruelty, responsible for
more family feuds and conjugal infelicities than any other woman in
the city. Yet she had always contrived to escape blame or censure, and
if any one ventured to blame her she posed as a martyr, and was looked
upon as the victim of envious foes.
“My dear senator,” she cooed sweetly, as she laid her white-gloved
finger-tips upon his black coat-sleeve, and prepared for an agreeable
promenade, “I really must congratulate you upon the success of your
entertainment. It is _recherché_; it is the most perfect that I have
ever witnessed. And how superbly beautiful Mrs. Van Alstyne looks
to-night! No wonder everybody falls in love with her. That reminds
me to ask you the name of her new admirer--the stranger who haunts
her like a shadow. He is so handsome--perfectly splendid. With such
an interesting pallor, and large, dark, melancholy eyes, silky black
mustache and wavy dark hair. I declare he is just for all the world
like the Giaour and all of dear, delightful, awfully wicked Lord
Byron’s heroes! And he looks at Lenore--Mrs. Van Alstyne--with such a
look! What is his name, did you say, senator?”
And she knew full well that the jealous old senator had not said, and
did not know, and it was for that very reason that she had broached the
subject. For Lenore had been so coldly proud in her reception of Mrs.
Vernon that that lady could not find it in her heart to forgive her,
and instead had vowed to pay her back.
She watched Van Alstyne’s face change from smiling red to angry purple,
and his small eyes snap with displeasure. She noticed, too, the
clinched hand and hard, labored breathing. Nothing escaped her eager,
malicious eyes.
“I have not the pleasure of knowing all Mrs. Van Alstyne’s friends,” he
returned, stiffly. “Be good enough to point him out to me, Mrs. Vernon.
Perhaps I can tell you his name if I have the pleasure of seeing the
gentleman.”
“Ah, yes, to be sure! I am always doing foolish, childish things,” in
a tone of mock sorrow. “Forgive me, senator--please; and I’ll promise,
like the naughty boy, never to do it again. There! I see my fascinating
hero--the mysterious unknown. He is standing not far from Mrs. Van
Alstyne. She does not appear to see him at all; but some magnetism
draws him thither--sort of needle and the pole attraction, you know,”
with a silly laugh.
Van Van Alstyne’s greenish eyes followed the direction in which
Mrs. Vernon was gazing. He saw a tall, graceful figure in faultless
evening-dress standing near Lenore. A wondrously handsome man with a
decidedly foreign aspect, dark Oriental eyes, and pale, statuesque
face. Lenore evidently did not observe him. She was engaged in
conversation with a group of ladies and their attendant cavaliers, but
the stranger stood still as a statue, his eyes fastened upon her like
one who is biding his time, waiting patiently for his hour to come.
And still without observing him she turned aside and wandered away to
the conservatory. Van Alstyne’s eyes shone with a lurid light, and
he set his yellow teeth close together, hissing forth a naughty word
from between them. He arose to his feet; Mrs. Vernon arose also and
laid her hand upon his arm. He could not shake her off, and he knew
it; it was best also to keep in Mrs. Vernon’s good graces, so the wily
senator was compelled to stifle his yearnings in the direction of
the conservatory--the conservatory which Lenore entered and went on
straight to her doom.
She wandered down the flower-scented aisles with a tinkling fountain
splashing dreamily and tropical birds singing overhead in their gilded
cages--birds that, like herself, had been taken in their wild beauty
and imprisoned in a glittering prison against which they might beat
their wings in vain, for they could never escape--nothing would free
them but death. Lenore caught her breath with a weary little sigh.
“Nothing but death,” she murmured, softly; “and I have the means of
escape always with me.”
She gazed upon one white finger on which a large solitaire diamond
glittered in the gas-lighted conservatory like living fire.
“No one would ever dream,” she went on, drearily, “that under this
shining stone there lies a drop of poison--such subtle, deadly poison,
and so swift in its effect, that I have only to press the hidden spring
in this ring to find death and eternal quiet.”
“Lenore!”
A voice at her side--a rich, sweet voice, speaking in a cautious
tone. She started, and her face grew white as marble. She pressed one
hand against her heart, with a low cry. One swift glance around the
place, and then both white hands were laid in his, and a voice full of
suppressed delight murmured, faintly:
“Cyril! Good God! can it be you? I could not believe it--I could not
believe it even when I saw your letter! Oh, Cyril! Cyril!”
She threw herself into his arms, her proud head pillowed upon his
breast, her white arms wound about his neck, and lay there in a very
trance of delight.
“Oh! my love--my love!” she murmured, softly. “After all these years,
to hold you thus once more! But, Cyril,” starting up with wide-open,
wild, dilated eyes and a face of ashen pallor, “stop--and think!
You--you know all; and in your letter you said that if I would see you,
you would be able to explain away all the awful mistake of the past.
Tell me, Cyril--tell me, oh! my beloved, you were not all to blame!”
“So help me Heaven, I was not to blame!” he said, fervently. “We were
duped, betrayed, deceived--you and I. It was not my fault--it was
not our sin; and for seventeen years--seventeen long, dark, bitter
years--we have walked apart upon this earth--you and I. But no human
power shall part us now, my darling--no one can come between us ever
any more.”
Her eyes met his with wild terror.
“Cyril--I am Van Van Alstyne’s wife,” she faltered.
His eyes flashed. He stooped and whispered a few words in her
ear--words which made the blood leap madly in her veins.
“Cyril! Can you--prove it?” she cried.
“I can and will, my beloved!” He held her close to his heart once more,
and showered kisses upon the sweet red lips. “You are mine, Lenore!”
he whispered, tenderly. “All this mystery shall be cleared up, and the
world shall know the martyr you have been.”
Footsteps! She sprung to an upright position and hastened away, while
her companion turned to encounter the scowling face of the master of
the house--and upon his arm, smiling, giggling, the irrepressible Mrs.
Vernon, her black eyes twinkling with gratified malice and spite.