“Can I behold thee, and not speak my love?
E’en now, thus sadly, as thou standst before me,
Thus desolate, dejected, and forlorn,
Thy softness steals upon my yielding senses,
Until my soul is faint from grief and pain.”
--ROWE.
When the servant took Mr. John Dinsmore’s card to his mistress, he
found that lady sitting moodily alone before the sea-coal fire which
burned brightly in the grate.
“A caller, on such a day, and at such an hour,” she muttered quite
below her breath, as she took the card from the silver tray.
One glance at the superscription which the bit of pasteboard bore, and
she fell back in her chair, almost fainting from sheer terror.
The question of the servant, who was regarding her critically, aroused
her to her senses. He was saying:
“Are you out, or in, my lady?”
The color rushed back to her face, and the lifeblood to her heart.
“What a fool I am,” she told herself, a frown gathering upon her face.
“It is Raymond Challoner, of course, as he is now masquerading under
the name. Of course I might have expected this, but, nevertheless, it
shocked me.’ But aloud she said:
“I will see the gentleman.”
When the man had departed she arose slowly to her feet, ruminating: “As
he is impatient, I will not keep him waiting; but he will not relish
the message which I bring him from the obstinate little Jess, that
she positively refuses to see him, despite all my pleading with her.
Raymond Challoner is not quite the lady-killer that he imagines himself
to be.”
Despite the fact that she prided herself upon her beauty, and always
looking her best on every occasion, she did not even glance at the long
French mirror as she swept past it.
She walked slowly down the stairway and along the broad corridor,
pausing before the door of the drawing-room, which was ajar.
She swept back the heavy velvet portières with her white, jeweled hand,
pausing on the threshold for an instant.
One glance at the tall, commanding figure of the gentleman who had
arisen hastily from his seat, and a low cry, half terror, and half joy,
broke from her lips.
Great God! Was her brain turning? Was she mad? Or did her eyes deceive
her? Instead of the slender, dapper form of Raymond Challoner, she
beheld the tall form that she had mourned over as having long since
mingled with the dust. John Dinsmore it was, standing, alive and well,
before her, in the flesh, surely--not a ghost, a phantom, a delusion.
John Dinsmore reeled back as though some one had struck him a heavy
blow, and one word fell from his white lips--“Queenie!”
With an impetuous cry she sprang forward, holding out both of her
hands, sobbing:
“John, have you found it in your heart to forgive me? Surely it must
be so, or--or you would not be here, you, whom I mourned as dead,
believing the newspaper accounts which described the terrible wreck of
the train on which you were a passenger.”
She advanced to his side and touched his hand, murmuring in the old,
sweet voice which had haunted him both night and day for long, weary
months:
“John, speak to me. Surely you are here to tell me that you forgive
me.” And before he could divine her intention, she had flung herself on
her knees before him.
For half an instant he almost believed that he was the victim of a mad,
wild nightmare. The woman he loved so madly, the woman who so cruelly
deceived him, the woman whom he had tried in his heart to scorn, to
hate, kneeling before him, asking his forgiveness! He almost fancied
that he did not hear, or see aright.
His first impulse is to gather her in his arms and rain all the
passionate love that has been locked up in his almost broken heart
upon her, but, just in the nick of time, he remembers that they are no
longer lovers--that a barrier is between them. His face flushes, and
his arms, that had stretched forth involuntarily to clasp her, fall
heavily to his side.
His teeth shut tightly together. He is angry with himself for showing
his weakness.
A hot flush mantles his brow. He folds his arms tightly over his chest
and looks down at the beautiful girl kneeling before him, wondering
vaguely where Raymond Challoner, her husband, is.
At that moment he catches sight of her dress, which he had not noticed
before--black crape, the emblem of widowhood--and his heart gives a
spasmodic twitch.
“Rise, madam,” he says, hoarsely. “Why should you kneel to me?”
“Here I shall remain until you tell me that you forgive me,” she
answers, beginning to weep bitterly, and going on through her sobs:
“Listen to me, John. I will die if I cannot speak and tell you all.
Do not look at me with those eyes of scorn. If you knew all you would
pity instead of scorn me. They made me marry him--my parents, I
mean--because of his wealth.”
John Dinsmore’s lips twitch. He essays to speak, but the words he would
utter refuse to come from his lips. He is like one suddenly stricken
dumb.
“John,” she goes on in that same sweet, piteous voice that reaches
down through his heart to the farthest depths of his soul, “you loved
me with all the strength of your nature once, but that you had the
power to cast me so utterly from your thoughts, from the moment you
discovered my unworthiness, I never for a moment doubted. Oh, Heaven!
it was the thought that you had utterly forgotten me, while I, bound to
another, loved you more than ever, that caused me so much misery. Bound
to a man I hated, and loving you, alas, too late! with all the strength
of my heart! Think of it, John Dinsmore, and if a heart still beats
in your bosom, you cannot withhold your forgiveness. When my husband
died I--I felt as though I had begun a new life, with the fetters thus
removed from me.”
“Your husband is dead, Queenie?” gasps John Dinsmore.
She flushes deeply, and answers with deep agitation:
“You might have known my--my--husband was dead, or I would never have
made the confession to you which I have just now made.”
“I had not heard of Raymond Challoner’s death,” he answered, trying in
vain to steady his voice.
“You are in grave error if you think I married Raymond Challoner,”
answered Queenie, quietly. “I--I married his uncle--an old man of three
score years and ten--at the urgent request of my parents, who would
give me no peace day or night. I--I married him to save my father from
financial ruin, believing him to be a millionaire. When he died, a few
days ago, I learned that he was on the verge of bankruptcy. It is a
just punishment to me--a just punishment. But I have gained more than
the wealth of the world could purchase--my freedom. Oh, my love of
other days, do you understand that I am free now to be wooed and wed?
Surely you still care for me, John Dinsmore. You are only trying my
love not to tell me this and set my heart at rest.”
As she utters the words she clasps both of her hands tightly about his
arm and looks up into his face, which has grown strangely pale.
“Hush! hush!” he whispers, tearing himself free from the light hold
of those lovely white hands. “I cannot suffer you to utter another
word, madam. I will forget what you have said, for I ought not to have
listened to it. It is my turn to ask you now to listen, and what I
would say is this: There is an impassable barrier between you and me,
Queenie.”
“A barrier!” she gasped. “Surely there is nothing in this world that
can separate us two a second time.”
“It is you who are mistaken,” he said in a very unsteady voice. “There
is an impassable barrier between us, I repeat, in the shape of--my
wife. I am now married.”
Queenie’s eyes almost start from their sockets, the shock and the
horror of his words affect her so terribly. He is married! She wonders
that those words did not strike her dead. She stands for a moment
looking at him like one bidding a last farewell to life, hope, and the
world.
“You are married?” she gasps again. “Oh, my God! my punishment is more
than I can bear!” and she sinks on the floor at his feet with a piteous
moan, burying her face in her hands and weeping as women seldom weep in
a lifetime.
It was not in human nature to see the woman whom he still loved so
madly lying there weeping for love of him, without his heart being
stirred to its utmost, and John Dinsmore was human enough to feel the
warm blood dashing madly through his veins and his heart, beating
violently with all the old love reawakening.
He turns and walks excitedly up and down the length of the long
drawing-room, his arms folded tightly over his heaving chest.
“Then, if you did not come here to see me, and did not know I was now a
widow, why are you here?” cried Queenie, at length, standing before him
with a death-white face, a strange suspicion dawning in her breast.
“I am here to see my wife, who is beneath this roof,” he answered,
huskily. “My wife is little Jess, but as she was bound to secrecy
concerning it, I can see that she has not told you.”