Carlyle Ford went up to the beautiful woman and took her cold trembling
hands gently in his. She was as pale as death, and she shivered as if
an icy wave had broken over her.
"My dear, this has been too much for you," he said. "I see now that we
should never have come here."
Mrs. Lynn did not answer. She only drew her white hands from his,
and, sinking down, covered her face with them. She remained thus some
minutes, and her uncle saw that the bright tears were raining through
her fingers, and her graceful figure heaving with deep emotion.
The child had returned to his sport with the butterflies and flowers as
soon as the visitors departed. They were alone, and in a little while
Mrs. Lynn looked up and brushed the tears from her beautiful face.
"Perhaps you are right," she said. "It may be that I was wrong to meet
him at all. But, I had the greatest longing to see him after all these
years. And, after all, I was no coward, Uncle Carlyle. I did not break
down before _him_. I was calm and proud. He did not dream that I was
other than I seemed."
"No; you played your part well," he said. "I was delighted with your
dignity and grace. Mr. Le Roy was the more agitated of the two. He was
struck by the resemblance. He showed deep, though repressed emotion."
"I think you give him credit for too much feeling," cried Mrs. Lynn,
with a scornful flash in her dark eyes. "He has forgotten long ago."
"Perhaps so," said Mr. Ford, "yet I am inclined to think otherwise. And
the lady--she could not keep her eyes off you and the child. She could
not help seeing the likeness between her son and your son, I am sure.
It was startling. The boy is much more like Mr. Le Roy than he is like
you. The same hair and eyes, the same proud features, only he has your
beautiful, tender mouth. Why did the lady faint?"
"I cannot tell," Mrs. Lynn answered, drearily.
"I think she was unnerved by the resemblance. It brought back the past
too vividly. My darling, they have not forgotten, as you think. I
foresee a reconciliation," he said.
"Never!" cried Mrs. Lynn, with curling lips and flashing eyes. "I may
be weak enough to care for him still, but I can never forget, and I
will never return to him. I am a child no longer. I am a woman, and my
pride is equal to his own!"
The handsome, kindly face of old Mr. Ford looked grave and puzzled.
"My dear, is it right to cherish such pride?" he asked, slowly. "Were
it not better to condone the past--to forgive and forget? Are you right
to keep the heir of Eden from his own?"
"Uncle Carlyle, are you anxious to get rid of me?" asked the lovely,
gifted woman, wistfully.
"No, no, dear! What should I do without you and the boy?" he cried.
"But I do not want to be selfish; I do not want to keep St. Leon Le
Roy's happiness from him."
The warm color flashed into her cheeks; she laughed bitterly.
"His happiness!" she cried. "His happiness! In his pride and cruelty
he threw it away. He is as proud and cold now as he was then. He would
take me back no sooner now than he would then. But why do we talk of
these things? He will never have the chance. He will never know the
truth. They have raised a costly monument to St. Leon Le Roy's _beloved
wife_--for them that is the end."
"Eight years," he said, musingly. "At least he has been faithful to her
memory. It is strange that he has not married again--if not for love,
at least for the sake of an heir."
She caught her breath sharply; her lovely face grew deathly white.
"Married! married!" she cried, sharply. "Why do you talk of such
things, Uncle Carlyle?"
"I did not mean to pain you, Laurel," he answered. "But, my dear, it
seems so strange. Le Roy has a princely estate and fine old name.
It would be only natural if he should wish to leave it to his own
descendants."
"So he shall," she said. "When I am dead, he shall have Laurie. I
have everything arranged in the clearest fashion. There will be no
difficulty in proving his identity. But, Uncle Carlyle, do not let us
talk of these things. They hurt me."
"You want to be alone," he said. "Very well, dear; I will go and play
with my boy. Forgive me for saying those things that hurt you; I did
not mean to do so."
He went away, and Laurel sunk down wearily, her hands clinched tightly
together, a look of woe and dread on her lovely face.
"Married again!" she uttered, hoarsely. "Well, and if he should, what
is there to prevent him? Could I speak? would I speak? No! And yet--ah,
Heaven! the fatal glamour is on me still. It is a mad love--nothing
less!"
The wind sighed in the trees, the murmur of the river came to her
softly, the sweet, calm day seemed to woo her to forgetfulness, but the
beautiful woman who had won fame and wealth and honor in those long
years since she had been put away from her husband's heart, sat silent,
with a look of mute despair on her fair young face. That mad love, that
terrible temptation of her girlhood, had spoiled her life.
"It is a mad love," she repeated to herself. "How my face burned, and
my heart beat, when I met him. All the old madness surged up within me,
the love, the sorrow, the shame at my deceit. It is a wonder I did not
fall down dead at his feet! No one ever loved more deeply than I loved
St. Leon Le Roy," she went on, after a pause. "If he had forgiven me
my fault that night when he had found me out, I should have been the
happiest woman in the world, instead of being the most wretched, as
I am! Ah! why did I ever come back here? It was a blind mistake. It
has reopened the old wound, and it is bleeding, bleeding. Ah, Heaven,
shall I never learn indifference? Shall I never sear my cureless wound?
I must go away soon. I was weak and wild ever to have come here with
Uncle Carlyle."