When they went to England, Laurel wondered a little tearfully if they
should meet the Wentworths. She knew that they were in London, and the
thought of coming upon them was not pleasant. She did not think that
Beatrix Wentworth would approve of what she had done, and she recalled
Clarice Wells' threat with an uncontrollable shudder. It had been so
vivid.
"I would betray you even in front of the altar!" had said the maid.
Decidedly the thought of stumbling upon the Wentworths was not pleasant.
"But then," said the trembling young bride to herself, "there was no
likelihood that they would do so. London was a great wide city. They
might stay there for years, and never stumble upon these people of whom
her guilty conscience made her feel so horribly afraid."
Again, she remembered that Cyril Wentworth was here on business,
she and her husband in quest of pleasure. Their ways lay far apart.
There were no mutual aims and pursuits to bring them together. It was
decidedly unlikely that they should meet.
But some one has cleverly said that "The most unlikely things always
happen."
They had been in London several weeks, patiently "doing" all the
wonders of that wonderful city, when one day Mr. Le Roy took his wife
to a famous art gallery. She had developed a perfect passion for fine
pictures and statues, and he knew that she would be charmed with the
works of the old masters that were gathered in this famous gallery--the
Titians, Murillos, Guidos, Raphaels--all the glorious men who, by brush
or chisel, had handed down their names to an immortal fame.
It was a bright day in December. The sun was shining, for a wonder,
in murky, foggy London, irradiating its usual "pea-soup" atmosphere.
St. Leon was delighted that the sun shone so brightly. He knew that it
would show the pictures to still greater advantage, and he liked for
his darling to have all her pleasures at their best.
Looking at Laurel you would never have guessed that until a few months
ago she had lived in cheap lodgings with her erratic father, and tended
their poor rooms with her own little white hands. She looked as dainty
and lovely as a little princess now, as she tripped along by the side
of her handsome, stately husband. The day was cold, although the sun
shone so brightly, and Laurel was wrapped in a long cloak of shining
seal-skin, with a pretty cap of the same perched jauntily on her head,
its long brown ostrich plume drooping against her long golden curls,
contrasting with their lovely tinge, which must have been a favorite
shade with the old masters, for St. Leon observed that they had painted
it on the heads of their most beautiful women.
"There is not a picture on the walls half so lovely as her living
face," he said to himself, exultantly, looking at the fair flower-face
with its full crimson lips, its oval outline, its wine dark eyes with
such wealth of jetty lashes softly fringing them, and the soft, bright
fringe of love-locks, shading the low, white brow. The splendid diamond
solitaires in her rosy ears flashed and sparkled with every turn of the
restless little head, and were wondrously becoming to her style. It was
no wonder that St. Leon's eyes turned often from the changeless canvas
to dwell in fondest admiration on the living face full of the glow and
flash and sparkle of youthful beauty and happiness.
He told her that she was more beautiful than the pictured faces on the
walls, and her eyes flashed with joy, and her face flushed rosily.
She was so glad of the fairness God had given her, she never wearied
of hearing about it. It was the link by which she hoped to hold her
husband when he found out the truth about her.
She often asked herself anxiously which would be the stronger in that
terrible hour--his love or his pride--but she could never answer her
own question. She loved St. Leon, but she did not yet understand him.
They were standing in front of a seraphic-looking Madonna, when
suddenly he touched her arm, and whispered in her ear:
"Some others are waiting to look at this, dear. Let us move on."
She turned her beautiful, happy face from the picture toward the group
who had just come up to them--a young lady and gentleman with a trim
maid following after, some rich, warm wraps over her arm. They were
Cyril Wentworth, his wife, and her maid Clarice.
The beautiful smile froze on Laurel's lips as she met their startled,
wondering gaze. She uttered a moan like one dying, and all in a moment
fell senseless on the floor.