Every one in the room was listening with suppressed excitement to Mrs.
Varian’s story, every eye was fixed on her mortally pale face, so
deathlike in its pallor save for the great Oriental dark eyes burning
like coals of fire.
Cinthia had grown ghastly, too, as she rested in the clasp of Madame
Ray’s arm, taking no heed of her handsome betrothed on the other side,
hovering near to console her in the terrible revelation soon coming.
The lady paused, drew her breath in sharply, like one in pain, and
resumed:
“I could not bring my husband to believe in the sincerity of my
objections to his ward. He first laughed at my jealousy, then upbraided
me with my injustice to a homeless orphan girl. He could not send her
away penniless into the world, for he had been under obligations to her
father, in whose office he had gained his first law practice. He begged
me to have patience and charity toward Miss Lowe until her superior
attractions should win her a husband. Heaven knows I was never lacking
in Christian charity toward any unfortunate person, but Gladys Lowe
was not a good girl. A flirt to her fingertips, and totally without
principle or conscience, she discovered my jealousy and played on
it cleverly, augmenting it by cunning schemes that my husband never
suspected, and that I, in my bitter pride and jealousy, never betrayed
to him. So matters went on for a year, and in that interval of time I
several times surprised my husband in compromising situations with his
ward. By my father’s advice, I ordered her to leave my house, and there
was a stormy scene.
“Miss Lowe threw shame to the winds. She refused to go, and taunted
me with having won my husband from me. I threatened to sue him for
divorce, naming her as co-respondent. She retorted that it was what
they both wished, in order that he might obtain his freedom to marry
her. Without a word to my husband--for we had long been estranged
through our differences over her--I left my home, taking my little
son, and accompanied by my father, who fully sympathized with my
grievances and despised the authors of my unhappiness. I then carried
out my threat of suing my husband for divorce, implicating Miss Lowe.
To cut the story short, my husband fought against the divorce; but his
shameless ward helped it on by every art in her power, never denying
the charges against her; and it was soon granted, giving me the custody
of our son and the liberty to resume my maiden name. Mr. Dawn removed
from Florida to Georgia, where Miss Lowe followed him, and within a
few months he married her, thus proving his falsity to me.”
Her story was ended, and she leaned her head back against Arthur’s
shoulder, closing her eyes to shut out the sight of the surprised and
pitying faces to whom she had just confessed the story of her life’s
humiliation.
“Bravely done, dear mother!” whispered Arthur, with a gentle kiss on
her cold cheek.
“It is my turn now,” said Everard Dawn, with a heavy sigh, and Doctor
Deane rejoined:
“I can not permit you to talk very long, my dear patient.”
“It will not be necessary, sir, for Mrs. Varian has saved me the
trouble of a long explanation. What she has related is perfectly true
on the face of it, but behind the tragedy of our divorce lie the actual
facts of the terrible mistakes of a jealous woman and a heedless man
too secure of his great happiness to guard it close enough.”
A great thrill ran through the listeners, as he continued:
“I hold myself to blame that I was impatient of my wife’s jealousy,
and laughed at her fears that Miss Lowe was trying to win my heart. I
pitied my ward for her orphanage and poverty, and I was too generous
to believe that she was aught but a joyous-hearted girl whose little
kittenish coquetries amounted to nothing. I was simply blind, besides
being inordinately proud and passionately resentful of my wife’s unjust
suspicions. I loved her to idolatry, and her lack of faith angered me.
I carried everything with too high a hand, perhaps, but I did not dream
to what lengths the affair was going.”
Doctor Deane interposed gently:
“You are exhausting your strength by too long a discourse.”
“Doctor, what difference can it make to a dying man whether his little
stock of strength is exhausted sooner or later?” wearily.
“Go on then; but be brief.”
“I found out too late,” continued Everard Dawn, “that Miss Lowe was
different from what I thought. She had indeed conceived a mad love
for me that had driven her to desperate lengths to win me. It is true
that she followed me to Georgia, true that I married her, but only
because of her passionate pleadings and assertions that through my
wife’s jealousy her character had been ruined. I gave her the shelter
of my name, but, God forgive me, I hated her as long as she lived, and
could not help rejoicing when she was dead. I obtained a position as a
commercial traveler, so that I could spend most of my time away from
her side, so her victory was a poor one after all, for she had wrecked
two lives without gaining any happiness for herself. As for the rest, I
affirm now on my death-bed and on my hopes of heaven, that Gladys Lowe
and I were as innocent of wrong-doing before my divorce as the purest
angel. She was wicked enough to make my wife believe it, through her
jealousy so easily imposed on, but she was not guilty, so help me
Heaven!”
He paused, and there rose a stifled cry of bitter anguish. It came
from Cinthia’s ghastly lips as the cruel truth began to dawn on her
bewildered brain.
Everard Dawn looked at her pityingly, and said:
“Ah, Cinthia, you understand it all now. She was your mother. Perhaps
you will not blame me now that I failed in love to you, that I forgot
my duty to you in resentment at what you represented--the wicked love
of a woman who wrecked my life in parting me from all that made it
dear.”
A low moan came from her blanched lips and Arthur Varian left his
mother’s side and approached her with leaden-weighted feet and a look
as of death’s agony in his fixed blue eyes. He took her hand, and said,
hollowly:
“Cinthia, you understand it all now, but you will not mind it, I know,
because Fred is going to make you very happy, my dear little _sister_.”
No one in that room ever forgot the white agony of Cinthia Dawn’s face
as she sprung to her feet, with outstretched arms, quivering all over
as if a bullet had pierced her heart, pushing Arthur away as if his
hand had given the mortal wound.
“Oh, God, let me die!” she shrieked, in her despair, and sunk senseless
in Madame Ray’s arms.