Mlle. Marie was very glad to get away from attendance on her mistress
for a few hours. There is nothing happens in the parlor, but is
immediately communicated to the kitchen, so the _dénouement_ in high
life had immediately become the sensation in low life below stairs. The
maid was eager to join the gossips.
So Laurel remained alone and undisturbed in the elegant rooms, where
she had spent such happy hours with the husband who now disowned and
abandoned her. She stared out into the beautiful summer night with
dark, inscrutable eyes, trying dimly to pierce the veil that hid the
future from her aching sight.
St. Leon Le Roy remained in attendance on his mother. The poor lady,
in her weak, enfeebled state, had sustained a terrible shock. She had
fallen from one fainting spell to another, and the nurse and her son
remained constantly by her side. At length she recovered her reason,
and was given a composing draught. She fell into a light slumber, and
St. Leon stole away and consummated that fatal interview with his wife,
then returned to watch by the invalid's couch.
He did not intend to deny his wife an interview with his mother, though
he did not think it would avail her anything, believing that she would
take sides with himself against the wife who had so bitterly deceived
him. He did not think it prudent to allow a meeting between them that
night, so when Marie came he returned the curt message that swept the
last hope from Laurel's heart, and, as it seemed, the last plank from
between her and despair.
Mrs. Le Roy slumbered fitfully until midnight. St. Leon sent the nurse
to the lounge in the dressing-room, and kept vigil himself by the
sick-bed, looking more like a statue than a man, as he sat there in the
shaded night-light, pale and moveless, as if carved in marble; his lips
compressed sternly, a smoldering fire burning in his veiled, dark eyes.
His mind was busy with thought and memory. He was going over, step by
step, his acquaintance with the false Beatrix Gordon from the day when
she had first stood, shy and frightened in the doorway of Eden, until
to-night. He held the key now to many a subtle enigma that had puzzled
him in those past days.
"So fair, so young, and seemingly so ignorant of the world, and yet so
false," he said to himself. "False to her lover, Ross Powell, first,
then doubly false in wedding me in borrowed plumes. There is no faith
nor truth in woman. They are bad and mercenary to the core--all of
them, except my honored mother. Yet my wife has the face of an angel.
Who would have believed that the greed of gold could have tempted her
to such a sin!"
Mrs. Le Roy stirred and opened her eyes. They rested wistfully on the
stern, impassive face of her son.
"Your wife, St. Leon," she said, faintly. "Have you forgiven her?"
"Could there be any forgiveness for such falsity as hers, mother?" he
asked, turning sternly toward her.
A sigh breathed over Mrs. Le Roy's lips.
"She was such a child," she said, plaintively, almost excusingly. "Have
you given her any chance to exculpate herself, my son?"
"Could any exculpation be acceptable?" he asked again, sternly.
"Where is she? What has been done to her?" she asked, anxiously.
He told her his decision, told her all that he had said to his wife
in his outraged pride and wrath. She was weeping bitterly when he had
finished.
"Mother, surely you do not blame me and excuse her," he said,
wonderingly. "I had no thought but that you would take my part against
her."
"I must see her first," she said, almost angrily in her deep
earnestness. "I cannot condemn her unheard. You will let me see the
child, St. Leon?"
"Of course," he answered, impatiently. "You do not suppose I would deny
any wish of that kind you choose to express, mother. But to-night you
are too ill and nervous. You will wait until to-morrow."
"Oh, my son, do not be angry with me--I cannot wait. Send her to me
now," she wept.
"I am quite sure you had better wait until to-morrow," he began, but at
that moment Mlle. Marie pushed open the door and looked in with a pale,
frightened face.
"Is Mrs. Le Roy here?" she asked. "Because she is not in her room, and
I cannot find her anywhere."
"St. Leon, you have driven her away," his mother cried out, wildly.
He sprung to his feet in dismay.
"No, no," he said, quickly. "Do not think such a thing, mother. Stay
here, Marie, I will go and find her if she can be found. She is not
far, of course."
But all the same a hand of ice seemed to grip his heart as he hurried
from the room.
She was gone--the dark-eyed bride whom he had loved so well, and who
had so fatally deceived him. While Marie gossiped with her familiars
she had quietly stolen away. A little, tear-blotted note lay on her
dressing-table.
"I have gone away, my husband," it said. "I shall never trouble your
peace again. Perhaps when I am dead you will forgive me for having
loved you, 'not wisely, but too well.'"
And to the pathetic note she had simply signed the despised name of
"Laurel Vane."
The white satin dress, the withered crimson roses, lay on the
dressing-room floor; the jewels she had worn, some costly sparkling
rubies, on her dressing-table, beside the little note. A simple
walking-dress and close hat and veil were gone from her wardrobe; but
the next morning the dark-blue veil and a pair of pretty dark kid
gloves, with the dimpled impress of her hand still in them, were found
upon the river bank close to the greedy gurgling waves. They suggested
a horrible possibility to every one.
And one week later a mutilated unrecognizable body was washed upon
the shore near Eden. The face was defaced beyond recognition; but the
golden hair, the dark dress, the dainty linen, were like Laurel's.
No one doubted that the despairing wife had sought oblivion from her
woes in the deep, swirling river. If St. Leon forgave her now for her
sin, he made no sign. He remained silent, grave, inscrutable. But the
waif from the river was buried quietly in the Le Roy vault, with all
the honors due to his wife. He shed no tears, he spoke no word of the
feelings that held sway within him. The separation of death was no
wider than he had meant should exist in life.
But Mrs. Le Roy was inconsolable. She wept bitterly for the
daughter-in-law who had so deceived her. She forgave her for her sin,
because she was so young and had loved St. Leon so dearly. And there
was another reason, which one day, through her bitter lamentations, she
revealed to St. Leon.
"You must have forgiven her if you had known it, St. Leon," she said.
"But she was so shy and she had only known it a little while herself.
She told me first, and I was so happy over the news! There was soon to
be a little heir to Eden."