Arthur Varian was roused at midnight by the reception of a startling
telegram from his mother:
“Everard Dawn fatally injured in a railway accident here. Come at once,
and bring Cinthia.”
He staggered to a chair, groaning aloud!
“So this is the sorrowful end!”
Conquering an onrushing flood of painful emotion, he sought Frederick
Foster, and imparted the sad news.
“Heavens, how shocking! And I had only a few hours ago written to ask
him for his daughter’s hand!” exclaimed the young man.
“Then Cinthia has accepted you!” Arthur cried, with emotion.
“Yes, only yesterday, and I intended to tell you to-morrow. Can you
wish me joy, old fellow?” inquired Fred Foster, anxiously, for his
cousin had made him acquainted with all his sad past story, and he felt
the keenest sympathy with his unhappiness.
Arthur held out a cordial hand.
“It is good news to me--under the circumstances. May you both be very
happy!” he exclaimed, generously.
“Thank you, Arthur. I will do my part toward it,” returned the young
man, in a hopeful tone, adding: “We had better go at once to Lodge
Delight for Cinthia. I will go with you to Virginia, and no doubt
Madame Ray will give us the comfort of her company.”
“I shall beg her to do so,” said Arthur. “I am sure she will not
refuse, for my mother would be perhaps but a poor consoler in the
hour of grief. Indeed, I am puzzled to know how she and Mr. Dawn ever
happened to be together at Charlottesville, for they have always
avoided each other. But the mystery can not be solved until we reach
her side.”
Making the most hasty preparations possible for leaving, they set out
for Lodge Delight, having first sent a telegram to Mrs. Varian at
Charlottesville, assuring her that they would start at once.
So expeditious were their movements, that before daylight the four were
on the train speeding to Virginia, Madame Ray having gladly acceded to
their request for her company.
“Of course I would not permit Cinthia to go alone to so sad a scene as
her father’s death-bed, poor dear!” she said, with warm sympathy.
Cinthia was shocked and grieved at the news of Everard Dawn’s accident
and impending death, but her grief lacked the depth of a filial
bereavement. Owing to her strong resentment at his own coldness, the
girl had never felt the sentiment of love for him. If Madame Ray had
died she would have been inconsolable, but in the case of her father
she felt quite differently.
She was shocked and pained, but she would have felt almost as deeply
over any well-known friend who had met with such an accident. His death
would not mean any serious affliction to her. Indeed, when the first
shock was over, she remembered that perhaps now she would never have to
leave dear Madame Ray for another home. True, in a moment of madness
and resentment at Arthur’s coldness, she had rashly consented to marry
his cousin, but she was not at all certain that she would keep her
promise.
She had told him frankly that she admired and esteemed him, but had no
love to give. If he was willing to wait, to give her time to cultivate
a warmer feeling, she would try her best to learn, and on these terms
he based their betrothal. To Cinthia herself it seemed as if she must
surely grow fond of him in time, he was so handsome, so splendid, so
devoted. She argued to herself that in time her love for Arthur must
surely be overcome by her contempt for his weakness and cowardice that
had brought sorrow into both their lives.
Yet, as she watched his pale and sorrowful face while the train sped
on its way, she felt a rush of painful tenderness flooding her heart,
while she wondered why he was taking so much to heart the trouble that
had fallen on herself. Everard Dawn was nothing to him--nothing except
a man he had cause to dislike, because he had prevented his marriage
to his daughter--yet his pallor, his sadness, his preoccupation were
effects that might have been produced by the death of a near relative.
Cinthia, drooping in her seat, with a thick veil drawn over her pallid
face, could not keep her eyes from her old lover, could not repress the
rush of tenderness that made her heart ache.
She would have liked--she, the promised bride of Frederick Foster--to
have thrown her arms about Arthur Varian’s neck, pressed her pale cheek
to his, and whispered in the passion of her womanly love:
“Why are you so pale, so sad, my best beloved? Is it for me? Has
Frederick told you that I have promised to marry him, and are you
grieved? Perhaps the old love is not dead yet in your heart, perhaps it
cries for me in the dead of night as my heart for you. Oh, is it too
late to go back, to thrust aside everything but the imperious demands
of our love, and be happy yet?”
A sudden wild thought yet came to her and made her heart leap:
“Only let me find my father yet alive, and he shall explain the mystery
of his opposition to my marriage with Arthur. She, too, is there,
Arthur’s mother, who for the sake of her hatred of my father and mother
was willing to wreck our happiness forever. Who knows but that when
both are dead, both my mother and father, her cruel revenge may be
satiated so that she may be willing to let love have its way.”
It would have startled Frederick Foster, who hovered near her with
eager attentions, to find how little part he had in her thoughts and
dreams, for a faint trembling hope had come to her heart that perhaps
the death of her father might have some effect on her relations with
Arthur, might possibly restore them to happiness.
Arthur, meanwhile, knowing the futility of all hope in Cinthia’s
direction, gave himself up to unrestrained melancholy, in which blended
considerable curiosity as to how it happened that his mother and Mr.
Dawn had been together at Charlottesville.
Everard Dawn, who had an aversion to letter-writing, corresponded but
infrequently with his daughter, hence had left her in ignorance of the
date of his return from California.
Mrs. Varian, on the other hand, had not apprised her son of her
suddenly decided upon journey to Florida.
So he could only nurse his wonder and melancholy together while looking
back in a painful retrospection over the tangled web of what had been
and what might have been, those “saddest of all sad words.”
There was a silent prayer in his heart, too, that Everard Dawn might
survive till he reached his bedside, so that some last words might
be said between them, some news be told, and perhaps some death-bed
revelations be made to Cinthia.