IN THE CONSERVATORY.
Several days have passed since the visit of Mamma Francoise to the
Warburton mansion, with all its attendant circumstances; since the
flight from the Francoise tenement, and Van Vernet's rescue from a fiery
death.
The Warburton Mansion is closed and gloomy. The splendid drawing-rooms
are darkened and tenantless. The music-room is silent and shut from any
ray of light. The library, where a dull fire glows in the grate, looks
stately and somber. Only in the conservatory--where the flowers bloom
and send out breaths of fragrance, and where the birds chirp and carol
as if there were no sorrow nor death in the world--is there any light
and look of cheer.
Yesterday, the stately doors opened for the last exit of the master of
all that splendor. He went out in state, and was followed by an
imposing cortege. There was all the solemn pomp, all the grandeur of an
aristocratic funeral. But when it was over, what was Archibald Warburton
more than the poorest pauper who dies in a hospital and is buried by the
coroner?
To-day the doors are closed, the house is silent. The servants go about
with solemn faces and hushed voices. Alan Warburton has kept his own
room since early morning, and Leslie has been visible only to her maid
and to Winnie French.
She is alone in her dressing-room, at this moment, standing erect before
the daintily-tiled fire-place, a look of hopeless despair upon her
countenance.
A moment since, she was sitting before the fire, so sad, so weary, that
it seemed to her that death had left the taint of his presence over
everything. Now, that which she held in her hand had brought her back to
life, and face to face with her future, with fearful suddenness.
It was a note coarsely written and odorous of tobacco, and it contained
these words:
We have waited for you five days. If you do not come to us before
two more, they shall know at police headquarters that you can
tell them who killed Josef Siebel. You see we have changed our
residence.
Then followed the street and number of the Francoises' new abode. There
was no date, no address, no signature. But Leslie knew too well all that
it did not say; comprehended to the full its hidden meaning.
She had not anticipated this blow; had never dreamed that they would
dare so much. Standing there, with her lips compressed and her fingers
clutching the dirty bit of paper, she looked the future full in the
face.
Stanhope had bidden her ignore their commands and fear nothing. But then
he never could have anticipated _this_. If she could see him; could
consult him once again. But that was impossible; he had told her so.
For many moments she stood moveless and silent, her brow contracted, the
desperate look in her eyes growing deeper, her lips compressing
themselves into fixed firm lines.
Then she thrust the note into her pocket, and turned from the grate.
"It is the last straw!" she muttered, in a low monotone. "But there
shall be no more hesitation; we have had enough of that. They may do
their worst now, and--" she shut her teeth with a sharp sound--"and I
will frustrate them, at the cost of my honor or my life!"
There was no timidity, no tremor of hesitation in her movements, as she
crossed the room and opened the door. Her hand was firm, her step
steady, her face as fixed as marble; but it looked, in its white
immobility, like a face that was dead.
She crossed the hall and entered the chamber occupied by her friend. A
maid was there, engaged in sewing.
Miss French had just left the room, she said. Miss French felt oppressed
by the loneliness and gloom. She had gone below, probably to the
conservatory.
Winnie was in the conservatory, holding a book in one listless hand,
idly fingering a trailing vine with the other. Her eyes, usually so
merry and sparkling, were tear-dimmed and fixed on vacancy. Her pretty
face was unnaturally woeful; her piquant mouth, sad and drooping.
She sprang up, however, with a quick exclamation, when Leslie's hand
parted the clustering vines, and Leslie's self glided in among the
exotics.
"Sit where you are, Winnie," said Leslie, in a voice which struck her
listener as strangely chill and monotonous. "Let me sit beside you. It's
not quite so dreary here, and I've something to say to you."
Casting a look of startled inquiry upon her, Winnie resumed her seat
among the flowery vines, and Leslie sank down beside her, resuming, as
she did so, and in the same even, icy tone:
"Dear, I want you to promise me, first of all, to keep what I am about
to say a secret."
Winnie lifted two inquiring eyes to the face of her friend, but said no
word.
"I know, Winnie, that you have ever been my truest, dearest friend,"
pursued Leslie. "But now--ah! I must put your friendship to a new,
strange test. I feel as if my secret would be less a burden if shared by
a true friend, and you are that friend. Winnie, I have a sad, sad
secret."
The young girl turned her face slowly away from Leslie's gaze, and when
it was completely hidden among the leaves and blossoms, she breathed, in
a scarcely audible whisper:
"I know it, Leslie; I guessed."
"What!" queried Leslie, a look of sad surprise crossing her face, "you,
too, have guessed it? And I thought it so closely hidden! Oh," with a
sudden burst of passion, "did my husband suspect it, too, then?"
"No, dear," replied Winnie, turning her face toward Leslie but keeping
her eyes averted; "no, I do not believe that Archibald guessed. He was
too true and frank himself to suspect any form of falsity in another."
"_Falsity!_" Leslie rose slowly to her feet, her face fairly livid.
Winnie also arose, and seizing one of Leslie's hands began, in a broken
voice:
"Leslie, forgive the word! Oh, from the very first, I have known your
secret, and pitied you. I knew it because--because I, too, am a woman,
and can read a woman's heart. But Archibald never guessed it, and
Alan--"
She broke off abruptly, wringing her hands as if tortured by her own
words.
But Leslie coldly completed the sentence. "Alan! He knows it?"
"Oh, yes. It began by his doubting your love for his brother, and
then--the knowledge--that you cared--for him--"
Across Leslie's pallid face the red blood came surging, and a bitter cry
broke from her lips; a cry that bore with it all her constrained
calmness.
"_That I cared!_" she repeated wildly. "Winnifred French, what are you
saying! God of Heaven! is _that_ madness known, too?"
She flung herself upon the divan, her form shaken by a passion of
voiceless sobs.
"Oh, Leslie, don't!" cried Winnie, flinging herself down beside her
friend. "We cannot always control our hearts; and indeed, dear, _I_ do
not blame you for loving him. Leslie," lowering her voice softly, "it is
no sin for you to love him, now."
"No sin!" Leslie's voice was regaining its calmness, but not its icy
tone. "Winnie, _you_ can say that? Ah! a woman _can_ read a woman's
heart, and I have read yours: you love Alan Warburton."
"I? no, no!"
"I say yes; and but for your Quixotic notions of loyalty and friendship,
you would be his promised wife to-day. Winnie, listen; having begun
another confession I will make my confidence entire. I never dreamed
that you or--or Alan, guessed my horrible folly. I did not come to
intrust to your keeping that dead secret. You tell me that it is no sin
to love Alan now. Winnie, the greatest sin of my life has been that I
promised to marry Archibald Warburton without loving him. But, at least,
I was heart-free then; I cared for no other. We were betrothed three
months before Alan came home, and I--. But let that pass; it is the
crowning-point of my humiliation. I did love Alan Warburton. If I loved
him still, I could not say this so calmly. Winnie, believe me; that
madness is over. To-day Alan Warburton is to me--my husband's brother,
nothing more; just as I am nothing, in his eyes, save a woman who wears
with ill grace the proud name of Warburton. This may seem strange to
you. It will not appear so strange when you hear what I am about to
tell. Alan Warburton's egotism has cured me effectually. I am free from
that folly, thank Heaven, but I shall never cease to hate myself for it.
And my humiliation is now complete, since you tell me that Alan knew of
my madness. But, Winnie, this is not what I came to tell you. I have
another secret, dear, but this one is not like the other, a sin of my
own making. It is a story of the craftiness of others, and of my
weakness--yes, wickedness."
"Hush, Leslie," said Winnie impetuously, "I won't hear you talk of
wickedness. I am glad you no longer care for Alan; and as for me, I just
hate him; the detestable, stiff-necked--pshaw, don't talk as if you had
wronged _him_!"
There is a movement of the heavy curtains that separate this bower from
the library. Some one is approaching, but Leslie, unaware of this near
presence, answers sadly:
"Ah, Winnie, you don't know all. I have dared to unite myself to the
haughty house of Warburton; to take upon myself a name old, honored and
unsullied, and to drag that name--"
A sound close at hand causes them both to start. They lift their eyes to
see, pale and erect among the roses and lilies and trailing vines,
wearing upon his handsome face a look of mingled sadness and scorn--Alan
Warburton.