The beautiful California night, sweet and balmy, although it was
March--how like a dream of beauty lay the grounds about Bonair, with
their thick shrubberies and fragrant flowers!
Yet Berry, unused to nocturnal wanderings alone, would have been
frightened only for the wild excitement that dominated every other
emotion.
The full moon rode queenly in the cloudless sky, and shone like
silver on the lovely scene--on tall groups of statuary, gleaming
whitely against clumps of tropical shrubbery, on arbors twined with
roses, on tinkling fountains, on tall, white clumps of lilies and
beds of hyacinths, scenting the air with sweetness. All that wealth
and taste could devise in this land so favored by nature, was here in
lavish measure adorning the many acres of ground that surrounded the
picturesque pile of magnificent buildings called Bonair.
And simple Berenice Vining, to whom all this was so new and amazing,
caught her breath with a gasp, remembering that Charley Bonair was heir
to it all--the only son of the proud multimillionaire.
She felt for the first time the vast difference between her and the
man who had made careless love to her for twenty-four hours--love that
was not great enough to bridge the gulf between the lowly cottage and
the lofty castle, so that she might walk across it to his arms.
Her thoughts flew to the old home, to the humble cottage, with the
morning glories climbing all over it in blue and white and roseate
glory, and a yearning came to her for her little room again, with its
cheap white ruffled curtains at the window, and the simple adornings so
dear to a young girl’s heart.
Her heart rose in her throat, and she had to pause and lean her head
against a tree, while she sobbed in hysterical distress:
“Oh, mamma, mamma!”
Remorse throbbed at her bosom’s core. She had done wrong to forsake the
dear old mother whose heart had been broken by her desertion.
“Alas, why was I not there to pray for her forgiveness? She was all I
had to love me on earth! Those older brothers and sisters, they never
cared for Berry. They always scolded and berated me because I was
mamma’s pet; they said I was a spoiled child. None of them will ever
care to see me again!”
She sobbed on brokenly, without noticing that the clock in the high
tower had solemnly tolled out the midnight hour, when she was to meet
the fortune teller and receive the charm that was to ward off her
impending cruel doom.
She did not even notice, in her perturbation, the delicate odor of
a fine cigar blending with the scent of the flowers close by, and
she would have darted away in alarm had she dreamed that a young man
was sitting on a rustic seat in a clump of shrubbery just back of
her--so close indeed that she might have caught the sound of his quick
breathing only that it was drowned by the tinkle of the fountain that,
throwing its spray high in the air, fell back again like the low patter
of rain upon the broad leaves of the lily-bordered pool.
But as for him, he had caught every word she uttered, and he knew every
tone of the sweet voice, too, though he could not see her face as she
clung there with her cheek against the rough bark of the tree.
It was Charley Bonair, sick at heart and troubled, who had hidden
himself there in the solitude of the beautiful night to puzzle over the
problem of his destiny.
He thought he had worked it all out before in the moonlight nights on
the yacht, before he had landed from it at San Francisco. But that was
when he had believed that Berenice Vining was surely dead, and that
nothing remained but his duty to Rosalind.
Now it all rose again like a ghost that would not down--the struggle
between his heart and his duty, for they did not agree.
His troth plight held him to Rosalind, his love belonged to Berry.
But the pure little cottage maiden would not accept the heart without
the hand.
Now that he knew she still lived, his heart was in a tumult between
love and pride and duty.
He did not wish to make a mésalliance. His pride clung to Rosalind, the
heiress, and he felt he owed her all respect and duty.
But his code of morals was so lax that if he could have possessed Berry
without a wedding ring, he would have been loyal to her, even while
wedding her rival, and found a measure of happiness in the double life.
But so certain was he of the little maiden’s stainless purity, that he
knew it would be useless to reveal himself to her, although sobbing
there in touch of his hand.
At the first sign of his presence he knew that she would fly from him
in alarm and consternation.
He had come home determined to be good, and delight all his relatives
by asking Rosalind to name the wedding day. He had decided that since
Berry must surely be dead he could jog along quite comfortably with
the blond beauty. Since neither one professed to be greatly in love,
there would be plenty of ways for such rich people to keep out of each
other’s way.
All at once now he went back to his old resolve.
“I must marry Rosalind and be done with it. There would be no end of a
bother with my folks, and probably disinheritance, if I cut the whole
thing and married little Berry. Besides, Rose is a good girl, after
all, and it would be a shame to break her heart.”
Just as he came to this eminently virtuous resolution, and was softly
rising to sneak away from the temptation of folding the sobbing Berry
to his heart, there came an unlooked-for incident.
The sound of muffled footsteps suddenly paused by the tree, and a
hoarse voice muttered impatiently:
“Why did you fail to keep the tryst, girl? It is long since the
midnight bell tolled, and I grew weary of waiting.”
Berry gave such a convulsive start backward that the blossoming shrubs
behind her were shaken, and dropped a shower of sweet flower petals to
the ground.
“I--I--oh, I was so wretched thinking of my dear mother dead and my
lost home, and the sorrows of my life, that I forgot everything else,”
faltered the poor girl, with a dazed air. “What was it, please, you
wanted of me?”
Charley Bonair was not going to leave just now, oh, no! He would stay
and see what lark the girl was up to, anyway. Perhaps time had changed
her, and she was not the good little angel of the past! Somehow he felt
himself grow jealous at the thought, even while the quick thought came
she might now be more to him.
Why did he feel all at once that he hated little Berry? Was it that she
had destroyed his faith?
I deemed her the one thing undefiled
By the air we breathe, in a world of sin;
The truest, the tenderest, purest child,
A man ever trusted in.
What was this reproach for a tryst she had failed to keep? He would
listen, he would learn her sin.
He leaned forward on his tiptoes, and got a good peep through the
rose branches at Berry and her interlocutor. The latter looked like
an old Indian squaw, picturesque draped in an old red blanket, with a
feathered headdress over her seamy, swarthy face.
“Ah, a woman!” the young fellow thought to himself in keen relief, that
made his heart throb tumultuously.
He heard the coarse, guttural voice replying cajolingly:
“Have you forgot so soon, girl, the charm I promised when I told your
fortune, that was to avert a threatening doom, and bring to you wealth
and happiness?”
Berry gave a little cry of remembrance and pleading:
“Oh, I remember it all now. Forgive me that I forgot. Oh, I was so sad,
so sorrowful, I could think of nothing but the tale you told me of the
death of my old mother. Oh, is it really, really true?”
The agony of those upraised eyes was enough to pierce a heart of stone,
but the old crone answered malevolently:
“It is true as that the moon and stars shine in the heavens to-night.
She thought that you had fled with a rich young man, who meant to ruin
you, and she cursed you for your sin and her disgrace.”
“Oh, but I am innocent and pure as the day I was born! I pray Heaven
that in death she knows the truth!” moaned the poor girl wildly.
“We have no time for all this rant! It is time for honest folks to
be in their beds!” rejoined the Indian impatiently. Charley Bonair
started, asking himself:
“Now, where have I heard that voice before, and that old saw in the
same tone? It is strangely familiar, somehow, with a difference that
baffles one!”
He heard Berry murmur again sobbingly:
“Forgive me, I did not mean any harm. Have you brought the charm with
you?”
Then indeed Charley Bonair could scarcely keep from betraying himself
by laughing outright.
“I left it around the path there in my bundle. Come with me and you
shall have it.”
“I thank you,” Berry answered, simply and sweetly, and moved away by
her side, a slim, white, girlish figure by the tall, grotesque figure
of the other.
Bonair started to follow, then drew quickly back.
“It is none of my business to go spying on the dear, silly little
girl,” he decided. “She must be in love with some other fellow now,
by her anxiety over the old fortune teller, who knows no more of her
future than the man in the moon. I’d better go back to the house and
announce myself, and done with it! Hello, I’ll finish my cigar and drop
around to my zoo, and see Zilla first. They wrote me she had two cubs
and was savage as a lioness!”
He sauntered along in the moonlight when the cigar was lighted; but
suddenly his repose was shaken by a terrible sound--loud, piercing
shrieks coming from the direction of the zoo.