HER FLIGHT.
How still it was! Nothing to break the strange, uncanny silence of the
scene and the hour only the wind moaning feebly in the tree-tops. The
moon came forth from behind a mass of fleecy white clouds, and gazed
down upon the group crouching in ambush--the three who had hunted this
woman down to gloat over her ruin.
Cyril Fayne’s arms were about Lenore; her head rested upon his breast.
One brief pause of blissful silence, then they flitted away through the
shrubbery, in the pale radiance of the moonlight, straight to a side
gate which led from the grounds.
Not a word was spoken; not a sound betrayed the excitement which
quivered through the waiting group. Bessie Vernon flashed about at last
and clutched Rosamond’s arm in a nervous grip.
“Look at Van Alstyne!” she whispered. “He looks like a galvanized
corpse. Van Alstyne!” she called, softly, “are you dumb or dead? Don’t
you see that they are going--gone? Why don’t you make your way around
to the front and intercept them? No doubt there is a carriage in
waiting to take them away, and I happen to know that Harvey Thornton’s
yacht, ‘White Wings,’ is in the bay. I suppose he has an object in
anchoring there. Van Alstyne! in the name of Heaven, why don’t you do
something? They will be gone; and if nothing is done it will be too
late to spoil their game and put an end to their flight.”
And it never once occurred to this volatile butterfly that this man had
planned deeper, more terrible revenge than the mere circumvention of
the plan of escape together could ever have visited upon the two.
Slowly Van Van Alstyne turned, and his eyes met the gaze of the woman
who had plotted so well and successfully. Bessie shivered.
“Don’t look at me like that!” she cried. “Go! You have your revolver; I
saw it in your hand a moment ago. Why not use it? Not to--to kill--of
course not; that would be so dreadfully low and common--but it would
frighten them and make a scene. Then she will be disgraced forever.”
He turned slowly and faced her once more. He lifted his right hand
toward heaven--upon his face a look that was bad to see. He had gnawed
his under lip until the blood was beginning to trickle down upon his
stubbly beard.
“Curse her! Curse them both!” he hissed, bleakly. “My curse follow them
wherever they go! I curse them living--I curse them dead! No, I shall
not follow them, Bessie Vernon; I shall remain where I am and let them
take their departure undisturbed. Their punishment will be greater than
my disgrace. Let us return to the house. My plan of vengeance will soon
be revealed to you. I think it will satisfy even you.”
The _dénouement_ was so unexpected, this turn in affairs something
of which Bessie had not even dreamed, and for which she was totally
unprepared, she could only stand and stare blankly into Van Alstyne’s
pale, resolute face.
“I do not understand you,” she faltered. “How can you punish her if
you allow her to go on and elope with the man of her choice? You might
prevent the elopement, and then you could have held the threat of
public exposure and disgrace over her head in future--for the rest of
her natural life. My word for it, she would rather be dead than in your
power in that way. She would have been your slave henceforth; for in
case of any insubordination, a gentle reminder of her secret--in your
power--would bring my lady to her senses. Van Van Alstyne, I don’t
understand you. If Arnold were in your place now, how he would rant and
rave! He would be like a madman!”
“But I am not Arnold Vernon, and if I were, I am afraid I should do as
I am doing now!” he returned, still with that same ominous quiet in
tone and manner. “You will understand me later,” he added, with a grim
smile. “Believe me, Mrs. Vernon, I am quite competent to manage this
affair for myself. I advise you and Miss Raleigh to return to the house
now; I will follow directly. Ah, I see young Stuart coming; he will
escort you.”
A tall, fair-haired young fellow, with great gray eyes and an air of
nonchalance, made his way through the shrubbery and halted.
“Hope I don’t intrude; eh, Mrs. Vernon? Regular Paul Pry, am I not? Do
let me take you back to the house,” adding in a low tone, as Bessie
promptly laid her hand upon his arm: “We will go around by the longest
way.”
Rosamond was taken in charge by a bewhiskered foreign officer, and
they all moved away together, leaving the senator alone. His face was
as white as the face of a dead man; his hands were clinched fiercely
together; he was trembling in every limb.
“Deserted!” he said, aloud, the word cutting in upon the silence like
a knife; “deserted, abandoned, defied, made a mock of; I, senator and
millionaire, one of the richest men in the city, one whose word is law,
and who controls millions! Deserted by a pale-faced, trembling woman
because she does not, and never did, love me, but loves another man!
Ah--h!”
He gnashed his teeth in impotent rage. His pride was hurt, his
self-love wounded, his vanity immolated, and he stood like a skeleton
stripped of its flesh, alone in a howling wilderness, with only the
vultures of social scorn to prey upon him. Otherwise he was alone.
“Alone!” he muttered, harshly, after a time. “Well, I am no more alone
now than when she was with me. For we have always been apart. How I
hate her for the contumely, the shame, the humiliation that she has
brought upon my name! But I shall have revenge. If she were here now,
if she had returned to me a moment ago, or should even yet come back,
I would drag her into the house which she has disgraced, into the
presence of my guests, and tell the shameful story before them all. I
would have no pity, no mercy, nothing but revenge. That letter!” he
panted, as he strode hastily back to the house. “I will find the letter
which that villain said had been placed in my room for my perusal--yes,
I will read it, and then I shall know if the course which I have marked
out for myself be a wise one.”
He shut his lips resolutely together, and hastened around to a side
entrance to the brilliantly lighted mansion.
Once within the house, he hurried upstairs to his own room, and closed
its door behind him.
Upon the elegant dressing-table, with full-length mirror and with all
its costly toilet accessories, the gleam of a white envelope attracted
his attention. He snatched it up and tore it open with all the haste
and passion of a madman.
Several sheets of paper met his view, all covered with writing.
He recognized the chirography which he had seen upon the envelope
addressed to Lenore, and an imprecation passed his lips. Then, still
clutching the letter in one trembling hand, he sunk into the nearest
seat and began to read.
Down-stairs, Rosamond Raleigh and Mrs. Vernon had taken upon themselves
the task of entertaining the guests--assuming control of the
festivities.
Mrs. Van Alstyne had been taken suddenly ill, and had gone to her room.
She would be down directly. Senator Van Alstyne had been summoned away
for a short time upon imperative business.
Lame excuses, but all that could be invented upon short notice.
The evening wore away, and the guests seemed to have accepted the
strange absence of both host and hostess with unprecedented good nature.
Bessie Vernon was in her element, for Charlie Stuart never left her
side. And Arnold Vernon, watching the pair from the corner where he sat
conversing with some ladies, frowned severely and looked as black as a
thunder-cloud; but all of no avail. He could no more prevent his wife’s
mad flirtations than he could turn the waves of the ocean from their
course. He could only sit and glower moodily upon the scene, and, as
Bessie definitely declared, hate himself to death.
She flitted past him leaning upon Charlie’s arm, her piquant face
uplifted to his, while saucy retort and witty repartee flashed from one
to the other. And gradually the elements of a tragedy were evolved from
the giddy foolishness--the overweening vanity of this pleasure-loving
wife.
In the meantime Cyril Fayne was hastening on with Lenore toward where,
in a secluded corner, a closed carriage stood in waiting. A little
later they were safe inside, and the carriage drove away like mad in
the direction of the harbor, a half mile distant. Pale as marble and
trembling like a leaf, Lenore crouched upon the seat at his side, one
hand pressed over her heart throbbing madly, the other grasping his arm
with a despairing clutch, as though she feared that he might be taken
from her.
“Cyril,” she cried, fearfully, “what if he discovers our flight and
follows us? Oh, he is fearful in his anger and brute violence. It makes
my heart quail to even think of him and the day that he struck me--”
She stopped short, the words dying upon her lips, as Cyril Fayne caught
her in his arms, muttering a mad imprecation.
“Struck you? Oh, Lenore, Lenore, you never told me that. Struck you?
How dared he, the villain, the base, vile wretch! Ah, Senator Van
Alstyne, ours will be a terrible reckoning when the day comes in which
we shall stand face to face. Hear me, Lenore: If the day ever comes
when I shall stand in that man’s presence, I shall shoot him down as I
would shoot a mad dog!”
“Cyril!”
“I shall kill him!” he repeated, grimly. “The same world can not hold
Van Van Alstyne and me. For your sake I submit now and will do no
violence, but Heaven help him if we chance to meet. It drives me mad to
think of it. To dare raise his cowardly hand against a woman, and that
woman--you--my own wife!”
He kissed the sweet red lips again and again as the carriage rolled
onward. It came to a halt at last and Cyril hastily alighted. Lenore
peered cautiously forth into the night. The moon had gone down and all
was in darkness--a heavy gloom which hung over the earth like a pall.
But a short distance away she caught the gleam of waves rising and
falling with a low musical murmur, while off upon the water, a faint
light twinkled like a star. The light is Harvey Thornton’s yacht,
“White Wings.” Cyril lifted Lenore to the ground. She clung to him
with a frightened gesture.
“Oh, Cyril, has any one followed us? Has he--found out--do you think?”
Cyril shook his head.
“I see no one--nothing,” he made answer. “And now, my darling, we must
make haste to the boat, and in a short time we will be safe upon the
‘White Wings.’”
One long, eager, searching glance up and down the beach, and down the
long, winding country road by which they had come, then Lenore slipped
her hand through his arm, and he led her away to where a tiny skiff
rocked idly to and fro at the end of its long chain. A little delay and
they were safe within the boat, flying over the water like a bird, in
the direction of the anchored yacht.
“Love,” he bent his head and looked into her eyes, “it is you and I
will move upon life’s tempestuous sea. Do you regret the past? Are you
glad that I came back to you?”
“Cyril!”
One swift glance into his handsome dark face, but it told plainer far
than words her heart’s content. He bent with fresh energy to the oars,
and so at last the yacht was reached and they were safe on board. Half
an hour later the yacht was pushing on, making rapid headway far out at
sea.
* * * * *
Van Van Alstyne read the letter that Cyril Fayne had written--read
it in ominous silence--his lips sternly compressed, his face ghastly
white, his eyes blood-shot and fierce with rage. It was finished at
last. He crushed the letter up into a ball, and tossed it into a drawer
in his escritoire, locking it securely. For a few moments he stood
as still as death, an awful look upon his white, drawn face. Then he
wheeled about sullenly and entered his dressing-room. Having bathed
his face and restored his disordered attire, he was quite himself
once more. Forcing a smile to his bloodless lips, he went down to the
drawing-room from which he had so long absented himself. He advanced
into the center of the room and the sight of him somehow checked the
merry badinage of the gay crowd, and laughter died a speedy death.
Pale and stern he faced them. Ah! he was going to taste the sweets of
revenge now.
“My friends,” he began in a clear, distinct voice, “I must apologize
for my unwarrantable neglect of my guests to-night. I have a revelation
to make. Mrs. Lenore Van Alstyne has left her home forever. She has
gone away in the night and darkness. She has disgraced herself and me,
and heaped humiliation upon the name of Van Alstyne. She has fled with
her lover, Cyril Fayne.”