“I ask no pledge to make me blest
In gazing when alone,
Nor one memorial for a breast
Whose thoughts are all thine own.
“By day or night, in weal or woe,
That heart no longer free
Must bear the love it can not show
And silent ache for thee.”
But whatever cruel pain this unexpected meeting produced on Arthur and
Cinthia, its effect on Frederick Foster was wholly joyful.
He could scarcely believe his own joyful sight when he saw Cinthia
again.
For weary months, ever since their abrupt parting on the New York pier,
she had been lost to him as wholly as if she were already in her grave.
The most eager and anxious inquiry on his part had failed to disclose
her whereabouts.
With genuine grief--for he was most passionately in love with
Cinthia--he had given up the hopeless quest, realizing that nothing but
blind chance would ever bring them together again.
His pride was cruelly wounded, too, for he felt that if Cinthia
had cared for him, she must surely have sent him an answer to the
interrupted proposal he had made while they were leaving the steamer
arm in arm.
“I spoke too soon and just frightened the shy darling, big, blundering
fool that I was!” he thought, with keen humiliation, though he knew
perfectly well that many a girl would have simply jumped at such a
chance.
But he had realized that Cinthia was not one of them, and made up his
mind, if he ever met her again, to besiege her heart with the most
chivalrous wooing that ever won a maiden.
“Learn to win a lady’s faith
Nobly, as the thing is high,
Bravely, as for life or death
With a loyal gravity.
“Lead her from the festive boards,
Point her to the starry skies,
Guard her, by your truthful words,
Free from courtship’s flatteries.
“By your truth she shall be true.
Ever true, as wives of yore;
And her ‘Yes’ once said to you
Shall be ‘Yes’ for evermore.”
When the hope of his heart was suddenly realized by the appearance of
Cinthia at the door of the summer-house, he fairly gasped with joy and
surprise as he sprung to meet her, exclaiming:
“Do my anxious eyes deceive me, or is it Miss Dawn?”
“You are not mistaken,” she answered, coldly, turning her eyes from
Arthur, whose presence she had acknowledged by a slight and formal bow,
and giving Frederick Foster her hand.
He clasped it eagerly, almost forgetting Madame Ray, who in her turn
was greeting Arthur more cordially than Cinthia had done.
For something in the woman’s deep nature was touched to sympathy by the
secret suffering evinced by his deathly pale face and troubled eyes.
She said, gently:
“This is a surprise, Mr. Varian, meeting you here among the picturesque
ruins of your old home.”
“Yes,” he answered, huskily; and she saw that he also had received a
great shock and was struggling for calmness.
She continued, trying to place him at his ease by saying:
“When our driver told us this morning to whom these picturesque ruins
belonged, we were quite surprised, and took a fancy to explore them. I
hope we are not intruding. Of course we were not aware that any member
of the family was in the neighborhood.”
“There is no intrusion. I will take pleasure in showing you around,
Madame Ray,” he answered, in that deep musical voice that so charmed
every hearer; adding: “My cousin and I only arrived last evening, and
our stay will be short, only long enough to make arrangements for
rebuilding Love’s Retreat.”
“Ah!” she said, and the thought came to her that perhaps he was about
to marry.
Perhaps he read the thought, for he flushed slightly as he added:
“My mother wishes it, as she is very fond of Lake Weir, and anxious to
return to her old home. Fred and I are stopping at Weir Park Hotel.
Have you been long in this neighborhood?”
“Yes, for several months. You see, it is my home now. I inherited a
little estate--Lodge Delight--from a deceased great-aunt.”
“I knew your aunt well in my boyhood. She was a friend of my mother’s,
and Lodge Delight is little short of fairy-land. You have Miss Dawn as
a guest?”
“Yes, for a long time, I hope. Her father is in California.”
Fred Foster came up, beaming with joy and pride.
“Madame Ray, the gods have surely favored me. Have you been hiding at
Weir Park all this time while I have roamed up and down the world in
weary search for you?”
She answered with careless badinage, and Arthur moved away from them
to Cinthia, who stood apart outside the door with a cloud on her bonny
face.
In hoarse, indistinct accents, he murmured:
“Miss Dawn, will you permit me the favor of a few words with you? We
can walk along this rose-alley, and the others will follow presently.”
She bowed silently, and moved on by his side between the rows of
blossoming rose-trees that, neglected and untrimmed, threw out long
briery arms across the weed-grown path, obliging Arthur now and then to
stoop and hold them aside from contact with her rustling silken gown.
For a few moments they were quite silent--dangerously silent for two
who had not quite unlearned “the sweet, sweet lesson of loving;” for
in this charmed spot, that held the echo of lovers’ vows, beneath that
blue and sunny sky, with the zephyrs wooing the flowers, were a hundred
temptations to go back to the old days and the old love, whose summer
had been so brief, whose winter so dark and endless.
They both felt it subtly, painfully. Their beautiful faces were pale
with secret anguish, their lips trembled with emotion, tears hid
beneath the drooping lids of the eyes they dared not raise to each
other.
But Arthur knew that he must not linger in idle dalliance, that he must
break away from the spell of her beauty, that because he was a man, and
the stronger one of the two, that for her own sake his hand must break
the bonds of loving.
He said tremulously, though he tried to make his voice firm:
“You must not be angry with me, Cinthia, if I may call you so, for what
I am going to say.”
She answered not a word, she only trembled like a reed in the wind.
Not all her pride, nor all her scorn of his weakness, could make her
indifferent to Arthur Varian.
He continued, in that low, sad voice:
“We have put the past away forever, have we not Cinthia?”
What a strange question that was. It made her heart leap with a
strangled hope. Did he wish to go back to that past, regretting his
folly, craving her pardon and her love again?
She flashed him such a swift, startled glance that, misinterpreting it,
he cried out, quickly:
“Ah, I knew that you could never forgive me. I could never dare to ask
it. It is not for myself I wish to plead, but for another.”
“Another?” she echoed, faintly.
“My cousin Fred loves you madly,” Arthur went on hoarsely. “He is a
noble fellow, with but few faults, and has a most lovable nature. Oh,
Cinthia, it would make me almost happy if he could win your heart and
make you--my cousin.”
He paused, and Cinthia uttered one strangling gasp of surprise and
pain, and was silent.
But in that moment the whole bright, sunny world seemed to go under a
pall of inky blackness. The birds seemed to cease their singing, the
flowers faded and turned to ashes, the last hope, for now she knew that
she had always cherished a faint, piteous hope, seemed to die in her
heart.
She would have liked to shriek aloud in her pain and shame, like one
who felt herself falling down, down, down into a bottomless gulf.
Now she knew indeed that Arthur’s love had been of little worth. It was
dead, dead--or he could never plead with her the cause of another.
She felt as if she must faint in the extremity of her agony, but she
made a terrible effort to rally her strength and courage, and the next
moment she heard her own voice laughing hollowly, like a thing apart
from herself.
“I have amused you,” Arthur cried.
“Yes, very much,” she replied, laughing more and more, as if at some
great joke.
In fact, she could not stop herself. She was on the border of an
hysterical outbreak.
But Arthur was deceived by her seeming levity, and suffered a pang of
outraged dignity.
“I see that you do not take me seriously, though I am very much in
earnest,” he exclaimed, stiffly.
“So am I,” she answered, trying to subdue herself, and wiping her eyes
on a tiny square of lace. With another ripple of laughter, she added,
lightly: “I have often heard of match-making mammas, but a match-making
cousin is something new, ha! ha! and I am surprised at Fred Foster
getting another man to do his courting for him.”
“Oh, Cinthia, you have quite misunderstood me!” he cried, in alarm.
“Fred has no thought of what I have said to you. He is indeed capable
of wooing for himself, and I think he has already told you of his love.
Do not, I pray you, be angry at him for my blundering. When I spoke to
you I had but one thought in my mind--my great desire to see you happy.”
His voice was humble, imploring, but she checked her wild laughter with
a strong effort of will, and turned on him the fire of dark, resentful
eyes.
“How dare you imply that I am unhappy? Can you dream I cling to the
dead past still, that I remember it with aught but relief that I
escaped you?” imperiously.
“Is it so indeed, Cinthia? Then I am rejoiced to hear it, unselfishly
glad that I have not spoiled your life. The day may come when you and
I, each married to another, may yet become dear friends,” he cried,
earnestly, pleadingly.
Cinthia felt that indeed she hated him now, but pride rose in arms to
mask every emotion.
She laughed again and actually held out her hand to him, saying
carelessly:
“A pleasant prophecy! Let us begin our friendship now.”
He took the hand and bent his head over it. She felt a hot, burning
tear fall on it as he murmured:
“Thank you and bless you Cinthia. We will soon get used to the new role
of friendship, and no woman ever found truer friend than I will prove
to you.”
Then they heard the other two coming, and stopped to wait for them,
relieved at the interruption.