Mr. Le Roy led his beautiful guest to the library, and placed a chair
beside the table where he usually sat to read. Laurel sat silently a
moment with averted face. She was fighting down her heart, thrusting
back the memories that would arise like pallid ghosts from the dead
past. Here in this room, nay, in this very chair where she was sitting,
St. Leon had wooed her for his wife. She could be cold and proud in
the grand drawing-room. It was there that he had put her away from
him, there that he had spoken the cruel, angry words that sundered
their hearts and lives forever. The memory of that night and that scene
hardened her heart to her unforgiving husband, and helped her to be
cold and careless. Here it was all different. This quiet retreat was
hallowed by some of the sweetest moments of her life.
That hour which had lifted her from dumb, jealous misery and despair to
the heights of bliss had come to her here.
The memory of her year of wedded happiness rushed over her with all the
love and joy that had been crowded into it.
She trembled, she recalled all the horror and despair that had followed
after, and for a moment it seemed to her that all was a hideous dream
from which she would awaken presently. She longed to cry out aloud,
to rush from this haunted room, to do anything that would free her
from the gaze of those sad, dark eyes, whose burning glances as they
sought her face seemed to read her secret and to plead with her for
love and reconciliation. A smothered gasp, and she shook off the
dangerous, luring spell, and became herself again, calm, indifferent,
yet gracious, the woman that slighted and scorned love had made "icily
splendid," fatally fair, as many a man had owned to his cost.
She looked about for something to divert her attention, and saw just
at her hand lying on the table a volume elegantly bound in crimson and
gold. She took it in her hand and read aloud the gold-lettered title on
the back: "Laurel Blossoms."
"Laurel Blossoms," she repeated, and turned to the title-page. With
widening eyes and a swift color that went and came from white to red
and from red to white she read: "By Louis Vane."
St. Leon had drawn a chair near her. He spoke to her now in a calm,
carefully modulated voice that went far toward restoring her shattered
equanimity.
"That is a collection of tales and essays, Mrs. Lynn, arranged by
myself for publication. The author is long since dead. He was my wife's
father."
"Yes," she murmured, turning the precious pages slowly with her
trembling hands, her eyes downcast, and bravely keeping back their
threatening tears.
"Perhaps some one has told you the romantic story of my marriage, Mrs.
Lynn?" he said, watching the fair, drooping face with earnest eyes.
She shook her head. She would not trust herself to speak.
"No?" he said. "Then perhaps I will tell you some day myself. You love
romance and tragedy, I infer, from your books. My marriage had the
elements of both in it."
She bowed again silently. It was quite impossible for her to utter a
word just then; but she said to herself, with a sort of passionate
disdain, that he was very daring, indeed, to speak to her of his
marriage--to her, of all women in the world.
He went on in his quiet, musical tones:
"Louis Vane was a genius, but, like many another gifted spirit, he
smirched the glorious talents given him in the degradation of strong
drink. He loved pleasure better than fame. But for his weakness and his
madness he would have made a name that must have gone ringing down the
ages."
She was silent, steeling her heart to the sweetness of those words of
praise. She remembered that strong, sweet voice that praised Louis Vane
for his genius now, denouncing and scorning her that night, long years
ago, as a "drunken journalist's daughter."
"When my wife died, seven years ago," went on St. Leon, "I made it my
duty and my pleasure to gather her father's miscellaneous writings from
the journals and magazines where they were scattered, and publish them
in one volume, that they might be rescued from oblivion and preserved
for the pleasure of his admirers. The book had a great sale. It was
very popular. Have you never seen it before, Mrs. Lynn?"
Again she shook her head in silence.
"Then let me beg your acceptance of this copy. I should like you to
read it. I assure you it will repay perusal. You may wonder at its
fanciful name. My dead young wife was called Laurel. Is it not a sweet
name? In memory of her I called it 'Laurel Blossoms'!"
Would he never have done speaking? A strange softness was stealing
over her heart that frightened her. No other atonement on earth could
have touched and moved her like this one. It was what she could have
wished most upon earth--to have her father's brilliant essays collected
into this beautiful volume, and yet she had never thought of doing it
herself. A pang of self-reproach pierced her heart.
"Forgive me, father," she whispered, inly, as if the dead were present
in spirit, and could know and feel her mute repentance. "I have been so
absorbed in my own selfish sorrows and triumphs I forgot to rescue your
genius from the oblivion that must have ingulfed it but for this man's
effort."
All this while he was waiting for an answer. What must he think of her
strange silence? With a great effort she lifted her eyes to his face,
and said, in tones ringing with latent sarcasm and incredulity:
"You must have loved your wife very dearly, Mr. Le Roy?"
"More than I knew," he answered, simply, and the tone even more than
the words betrayed the burden of remorse and sorrow his heart had borne
for years.
She rose abruptly with the precious volume of her father's writings
clasped tightly in her hands. She was afraid to stay longer--afraid of
that sweet and subtle pity that thrilled her woman's heart.
"I have made too long a call for a first visit," she said. "Another
time will do for the books of which we spoke. The 'Laurel Blossoms'
made me forget."
"You have forgotten the flowers I promised to show you, too," he said.
"Let me take you to the garden now."
"Some other time. I must really go now," she said, feeling that for
this one day she had already borne all that she could bear.
He did not urge the point. Perhaps the trial was as hard for him as for
her.
"Will you drive with me to-morrow?" he asked, as he touched her hand at
parting. "There are some beautiful views in this vicinity that I should
like to have the pleasure of showing you."
"Yes, I will go," she answered, hastily, unable to deny herself the
blended bliss and pain of his companionship even while she despised
herself for what she disdainfully termed to herself her woman's
weakness.