"IT IS FALSE--I WILL NOT BELIEVE IT."
It was Yorke!
Leslie gazed down at the locket lying in the palm of her hand, for the
moment too benumbed by the sudden shock to feel anything.
Yes, it was his face, the handsome face whose every line, every
expression, were engraved on her heart. For a second or two the
portrait, as it smiled up at her with Yorke's characteristic
devil-may-care look in its eyes, gave her a kind of pleasure; then she
began to realize where she had found it, lying on the bosom of this
woman!
She dropped the locket as if it had suddenly burnt her, and shrank back
as far as she could without displacing the woman's head from her knee.
Yorke's portrait in a locket in the possession of another woman! How
could it be! There must be some mistake, some hideous mistake. It could
not be his face, but that of someone, some relation closely resembling
him.
She took the locket up again, and as she did so remembered that the
woman had murmured Yorke's name. Yes, it was Yorke. She laid the locket
down again--gently this time--and bent over the white face of the woman
with a strange confusing throbbing in her heart, a loud singing in her
ears. The earth seemed to rock beneath her, the sky to be falling.
She was faint with physical exhaustion, with the terrible struggle for
life, and this discovery coming so closely upon all she had endured
almost crushed her.
Was she really awake, or asleep and dreaming? Delirious, perhaps?
Yorke, her Yorke's face lying there on this woman's heart! It was
incredible.
All this had passed through her mind, her heart, in a few seconds; one
can crowd an awful amount of misery, anguish, joy, into a minute; and
by this time the woman had recovered.
"Where am I?" she breathed, staring up at Leslie.
Leslie did not answer, but continued to gaze at her with wide open
eyes, in which a horror was growing more intense each moment.
"Where am I? Have I been ill--ah----." She drew a deep breath. "I
remember. Are we safe? Why don't we go? What are we staying for?"
She raised herself on her elbow, and half sat up, pushing the black
hair from her face and passing her hand across her eyes. Then she
looked down and saw the locket, and her hand flew to it.
Leslie's eyes followed the hand.
"Whose--whose portrait is that?" she asked almost inaudibly.
The woman looked at her, and a dull red stole into her face.
"What's that to you?" she retorted, half defiantly. "You've looked at
it, haven't you?"
Leslie moistened her lips; they were so hot and dry that she could
scarcely speak.
"Yes, I have looked at it," she said. "I know----."
"You know who it is?" As she spoke she closed the locket hurriedly, and
buttoned her dress over it. "You know--. Who are you? What is your
name?" And the dark eyes scanned Leslie's pale face with suspicious
scrutiny.
"My name is Leslie, Leslie Lisle," said Leslie slowly.
"Leslie--," the woman sprang to her feet. "What! You are the girl he
left me for," she breathed.
Leslie shuddered and her lips quivered.
"Oh, there must be some mistake!" she almost wailed. "It cannot be he--
And yet you spoke his name--Yorke----."
"Yorke! Yes, that's his name! And this is his portrait," was the sharp
response. "And you are the girl he's fallen in love with! And I never
guessed it! I must have been a fool not to have thought of it, jumped
at it! It's lucky for you that I didn't," she added between her teeth.
"I'd have killed you down there!"
Leslie shrank back, and instinctively put out her hand as if to ward
off an attack.
"What--what is your name?" she asked.
"My name?" The full lips curled with bitter contempt. "You must have
been out of the world not to know it," she said. "My name's Finetta;
I'm Finetta of the Diadem."
"Finetta--Finetta of the Diadem," Leslie repeated mechanically.
Was it all a hideous dream? Who was Finetta of the Diadem? And how
could she talk of Yorke as if he belonged to her--how did it happen
that she wore his portrait on her heart?
"Yes, Finetta of the Diadem," said Finetta defiantly. "I should have
thought everybody knew me. But I suppose he hasn't told you about
me. No, that wasn't likely!" and she laughed hoarsely. "What are you
staring at me like that for, as if I was a--a wild animal?"
Leslie put her hand to her brow with a piteous little gesture.
"I--I----. It is all so sudden. Give me time. I do not wish to anger
you. I only want to ask you a--a question--one or two questions. Why do
you wear that portrait in that locket?"
Finetta looked at her a moment in silence, then with a flash of her
eyes and a discordant laugh she replied--
"That's a question to ask me, if you like. What do you think I wear it
for?" The red deepened on her face, then left it pale. "What does a
woman usually wear a man's portrait for? I'll be bound you've got one
of his, too?"
Leslie's hand went to her bosom, to the sparkling pendant, and she
shook her head with a strange feeling of injury; he had sent her
diamonds, but he had given this woman something far more precious!
"No!" she breathed almost unconsciously. "Did he give it to you? Oh,
answer me quickly, and--and truthfully! I will tell you why I ask. I
will tell you all. I--I am to be his wife--I was to be his wife----."
At the change from "Am to be" to "was to be" Finetta's eyes flashed,
and she lowered her lids.
"Sit down," she said, pointing to a piece of rock.
Leslie sank down upon it, and waited with averted face; she could not
bear to look upon the dark defiant face, beautiful with the beauty of a
fallen angel at this moment, a face distorted and lined by conflicting
passions.
"You were to be his wife, were you?" said Finetta slowly, with a breath
between each word. "So was I!"
"You!"
The word dropped from Leslie's white lips unconsciously; it seemed to
sting Finetta.
"Yes, me!" she flamed out. "Why not? You speak and you look at me as
if--as if I was some monster! I'm--I'm as young and as good looking as
you----."
Leslie put up her hand deprecatingly.
"Yes, yes," she murmured. "I did not mean to anger you. Go on! Oh, go
on!"
"Why shouldn't he marry me as much as you!" continued Finetta. "I've
known him longer than you have! I've been more to him than you have----."
Leslie shuddered.
"I'm as good as you are. Who are you? You're no more of a swell than
I am! And you're poor, too, ain't you? And I'm not poor. I can earn
thousands a year----." She stopped, panting.
Leslie glanced at her shrinkingly.
"And if it comes to caring for him, I reckon I care for him quite as
much as you do! You know that, for you heard me talk down there, when
I thought it was all over with us. And as for him--well, I'd wager
everything I've got that in his heart he likes me as well as he likes
you, or anyone else!"
She laughed bitterly, and with self scorn and contempt.
"No, no," broke from Leslie's quivering lips.
"But I say yes, yes," retorted Finetta. "He's just like the rest. None
of 'em could stick to one of us alone to save his life. You must have
lived with your head buried in the sand not to know that! What! You
think that you're the only one he has made love to; or that I'm the
only other one!" She laughed again. "Ask him whether he knows Lady
Eleanor Dallas! See how he looks when he hears her name, and hear what
he says!"
Leslie looked at her with half dazed eyes, and listened with ears in
which the wild sea seemed roaring.
"It is false, false!" she cried hoarsely. "I will not believe----." And
she put up her hands as if to cover her ears.
Finetta laughed.
"Well!" she said with a sneer. "He's deceived you easily enough, anyone
could see! And if I wasn't so sorry for myself I could find it in my
heart to be sorry for you!"
Leslie shuddered. To be pitied by this woman, this terrible woman!
"Look here," said Finetta after a pause. "Don't mind my hard words;
it's my way, when I'm put out. I can see you don't believe half I say,
and that's only natural; I shouldn't if I were in your place, and
didn't know him so well. If you doubt that we are both talking of the
same man, take this locket and look at it again." And she held it out.
Leslie turned her head from it.
"No, you don't want to look at it again. I daresay you knew his face
directly you saw it. Now, do you think he'd have given it to me if he
hadn't cared for me? Answer that!"
Leslie looked at her, a sudden wild hope springing into her bosom.
"It--it was a long while ago!" she breathed, "a long while ago----."
Finetta broke in with a discordant laugh.
"Not a bit of it! It was three days ago. He sent it after spending an
evening with me, as he's spent many a score----."
She saw a look of unbelief crossing Leslie's face, and, snatching a
letter from her pocket, thrust it under Leslie's face.
"Read that, and believe!" she said.
Leslie took the note and looked at it. The lines swam before her eyes,
but she saw a word here and there, and with a low cry, which broke from
her notwithstanding all the efforts to suppress it, she held out the
note from her.
Finetta took it and restored it to her pocket, then stood and looked
down at the motionless figure in silence for a moment or two.
"You believe now," she said in a low, harsh voice. "You see I am
telling you the truth, and not a pack of lies. And now, what are you
going to do? Wait a minute. Let's see how the land lies. Here am I
who've--who've cared for him for years, who would have been his wife
if--if he hadn't happened to have seen you; and, mind, I'm just as fit
to be his wife as you are. Why, come to that, he'll tire of you ever
so much sooner than he would of me, because you haven't any money and
I have, and can go on earning enough to keep him amused. Don't you
see? We've been fond of each other for ever so long. Why, there's been
scarcely a day for months past that we haven't been together! And even
when he's smitten by you he doesn't throw me over, you see. He sends me
his portrait and a sweetheart's note with it; yes, and just after he's
left you, too! Now, that's how I stand; and now, where are you? You've
only known him a few days; you can't care for him half--half? no, not
one-tenth as much as I do! That's only natural. And it's only natural
and right that you should give him up. Think it over. After all, Miss
Lisle," she went on, with a kind of sullen insinuation, "he's behaved
very badly to you; he has indeed. He never meant to throw me quite
over; he'd have come back to me sooner or later."
Leslie half rose from the rock and put out her hand as if to put the
words, the insinuation, from her, then sank back and covered her face
with her hands.
"He'd have come back to me, and then you'd have been a good deal worse
off than you are now."
Leslie did not move, and Finetta, watching her closely, allowed a
minute to pass in silence that her words might sink in.
"Come, now, Miss Lisle; there's no occasion for you and me to quarrel.
Why, when you think of it, you and me have saved each other's lives,
haven't we? And we ought, we really ought, to act square and straight
by one another. I'm the one that's been badly treated, because he loved
me first, and would have married me but for you. Just think of that!
From what I've seen of you, I should say that you were a kind-hearted
lady and one that wouldn't injure a fellow woman. I should say you were
too proud to rob a poor girl of the man she's loved."
Leslie sprang up panting, and for a moment breathless.
The horror, the humiliation, were driving her mad.
"Oh, be silent, be silent! Let me think!" she breathed. "Every word
you speak stabs me." She put her hand to her bosom with a passionate
gesture that awed Finetta. "It is all so sudden that--that I cannot
realize it; can scarcely believe--oh, do not speak! I believe all you
say. You have shown me the note, the portrait is his, and I cannot but
believe. And I trusted him! Ah, how I trusted him!" Her voice broke for
a moment and her eyes swam with tears; but she dashed them away with
her hand and hurried on, with every now and then a break between the
words. "But what you say is true. He--he belongs to you more than to
me! He has wronged us both; but he has wronged you the more cruelly.
And--" she stopped and put her hand to her throat as if she were
suffocating--"and I--I give him back to you. Yes, I give him back to
you!"
The blood rushed to Finetta's face, then left it pale to the lips.
"You--you throw him up?" she said, as if she could scarcely believe her
ears.
Leslie raised her head and looked at her steadily, with a look that
would have melted the heart of anyone but a rival.
"He belongs to you, not to me," she said in a low voice, as if every
word cost her a heart pang. "I--I will never see him again if I
can help it. Do not--" she paused, and a sigh broke from her white
lips--"do not let him know; do not tell him that I have seen you. I--I
have loved him, and would spare him the shame----."
There was silence for a second, Finetta gazing on the ground with set
face and hidden eyes.
"If--if he should ever know that we met, and that you told me what you
have told me, tell him that I--yes, that I forgive him. That I have
forgiven and forgotten him. That is all."
Her head sank for a moment, then she raised it again and looked at the
dark face with a shrinking kind of reluctance.
"You--you say that you care for him?"
Finetta's lips moved.
"Yes, and I know that you do. Be good to him. Do not let the thought
that he deceived himself into thinking he cared for me come between
you. He must love you very much to give you his portrait, to write you
that note; try--try and make him happy."
Her voice broke, and she turned her head away.
Finetta stood with clenched hands, her teeth gnawing at her under lip;
then she sprang to Leslie's side and took her hand.
"Miss Lisle----."
Leslie shook her hand off with a little cry, a shudder.
"Don't--don't touch me, please."
Finetta froze instantly.
"I--I beg your pardon," panted Leslie. "But I cannot bear any more. If
you would go now. That road leads to Portmaris."
She sank on the stone, and sat with her head erect and face set hard as
the stone itself.
Finetta drew her jacket round her and fumbled with her gloves.
"I understand," she said in a low voice. "You've done the right thing,
and you won't be sorry for it."
"It is nearly two miles to Portmaris," said Leslie in a dry,
expressionless voice. "There is an evening train; you can catch it if
you walk quickly."
"I'm going," said Finetta, biting her lips. "Good-by, Miss Leslie. I'm
sorry--well, good-by."
Leslie sat motionless and with averted face until the graceful figure
of the dancing girl of the Diadem had disappeared below the hill; then
with a cry she rose, her arms above her head, and fell full length upon
the turf.