"It is yourself I want," said Austin Ambrose.
Violet looked at him for a moment as if she had not understood the
purport of his words, then she raised herself on her elbow, and laughed.
"_What_ do you say? Is this a jest? If so, it is in rather bad taste,
don't you think?"
He looked at her steadily.
"Have I the appearance of a man who jests?" he breathed.
Her face paled.
"If it isn't a jest, what is it?" she demanded, querulously. "Why do
you come at this time of night and say absurd things like--like that?"
"Is it so absurd, do you think? Consider. Violet, have you been
dreaming all these months? You should know me well enough to feel that
I am not a mere straw to be idly blown hither and thither, not a man
likely to waste his life doing service for no requital. Let me take
you back to the past. Do you remember the days and months and years I
waited on you like a slave? Do you think it was done for nothing, with
no hope of reward?"
His eyes shone with fierce determination, his whole manner proclaimed
eloquently the dominant idea which had actuated him through the past,
which was now so near its fulfillment.
"I never deceived you. Think! remember! Is it so hard to go back? I
suppose it must be so! You are now the Countess of Ferrers, Blair's
wife; you have obtained all you craved for, and, like all those who
rise upon the shoulders or the hearts of some faithful friend and
slave, you forget the aid by which alone you rose!"
He drew a little nearer, and stood upright before her, his face made
almost handsome by the intensity of its expression.
"Violet, do you remember the day I knelt at your feet and poured out
the love with which my heart was burning? I was no schoolboy, nor mere
fortune-hunter. I loved you with an all-absorbing passion; I should
have loved you if you had been a poor girl selling flowers in the
streets, and I would have knelt to you if you had been such an one as
humbly as I knelt to Violet Graham, the wealthy heiress, with all the
world at her beck and nod! And you!--how did you treat me? Look back!
You scarcely deigned to listen, and when at last you consented to waste
a few minutes in listening to my prayer--ah! and what a prayer it was;
the cry of a man begging for his life!--you answered me with a few
half-contemptuous words, a smile wholly scornful, and a haughty request
that I would never again so far forget myself. Forget myself! Violet,
as I left you that day, I swore that if I lived I would win you; that
every gift nature had given me, every talent I could acquire, should be
pressed into the service of my oath, and that sooner or later I would
come to you--not kneeling, as the humble suppliant, the slave craving
for a boon at the hand of a tyrant, but as one having the power to
command and exact that which he wanted."
"You--you must be mad, Austin!" she murmured, struggling with the
terror his words produced on her.
"Wait!" he said, with the same deadly intentness. "Wait, as I waited! I
knew that you had set your heart upon marrying Blair. Blair was in my
hands. He trusted me implicitly; through him I thought that I might,
perchance, gain a hold upon you. For days, through sleepless nights,
I set myself to find some way of trapping you, some net which should
catch and hold you fast. I knew that I could bring Blair to your feet
sooner or later, but that was not enough, for, by doing so, I should
lose you altogether. Violet, they talk of fate. If there be such a
thing, then Fate took pity on me and worked on my side. It was Fate
more than I, myself, which weaved the plot whereby I stand to-night
before you as a victor, not kneeling, as I once knelt, your slave!"
He paused and smiled down at her, with the air of a man confident of
his victim.
"You are tired, and it is time you got some rest. We start from here
by five o'clock this morning. I will have a carriage waiting by the
cathedral--but I need not trouble you with the arrangements. All that
you have to do is to be ready; and I have no fear that you will disobey
me."
She rose and looked at him with a flushed face and scornful eyes.
"Austin, you have been drinking," she said.
He started, but instantly recovered himself and shook his head slowly.
"It is the most charitable conjecture I can form," she said. "You have
either taken too much wine, or you have lost your reason. I admit that
I am indebted to you, but I will find some means of discharging that
debt. I am rich--don't be offended--and an ambitious man like yourself
needs money. You shall have what you require; more, Blair shall exert
all his influence and send you to Parliament--you will shine there, and
may rise to any height you like. But, mind, I will do nothing if you do
not go at once, and promise me never to come near me again. If you will
not promise--why, then I will place the matter in my husband's hands."
She paused.
"Have you finished?" he asked calmly, almost gently.
"Yes," she said, "only I may add that I think you know my threat is no
idle one. Blair will know how to avenge an insult paid to his wife!"
His face grew hard, and his eyes dark with a flash of hate and anger.
"An insult paid to his wife! Yes! But one paid to Miss Violet Graham is
another matter!"
"What do you mean?" she demanded, scornfully. "I am not Violet Graham,
I am his wife."
"You are Violet Graham, but you are not Blair's wife; you are not the
Countess of Ferrers, my dear!"
She looked at him, the blood rushing to her face at the contemptuous
familiarity of the last two words.
"Leave the room, sir!" she exclaimed, raising her hand and pointing
to the door. "You have abused my patience; go, or you will indeed
compel me to forget your 'services,' and make it necessary that my paid
servants should use force!"
He laughed softly, and his eyes glowed with admiration.
"Violet, I swear that every instant you make me love you more
passionately! I see you think I lied when I said you were not Blair's
wife, is it not so?"
"I know that you lied!" she retorted, as calmly as she could.
"How little you know me," he said, gravely. "Do you think I am so great
a fool as to make such an assertion for the mere sake of making it?"
"If I am not Blair's wife, who is?" she demanded, as if humoring him.
"Come," he said, with a smile; "that is better, because it is more
practical and business-like. Continue this tone, my dear Violet, and
we shall speedily arrive at an understanding. You want to know who is
Blair's wife? Certainly. It is a young lady who was Margaret Hale, but
who became the Viscountess of Leyton and Countess of Ferrers."
She started, but it was only at the sound of Margaret's name.
"Margaret Hale! The girl----"
"Exactly. The girl he fell in love with at Leyton Court. What an
excellent memory you find when you need it."
"And you say he married her? Oh, spare your breath!" she broke off,
with a contemptuous gesture.
"Thanks; I will," he said. "Permit me to give you ocular proof. Here is
the certificate of the ceremony; not a copy, please to observe: not a
mere copy, but the original itself. The ceremony, as you will see, was
performed at a charming old church, in a rural and secluded spot called
Sefton. The date is set forth in plain figures, together with all the
particulars even the most exacting lawyer could require."
She took the certificate, very much as poor Margaret had taken the
false one from Lottie Belvoir, and looked at it with dazed eyes, then
she crushed it in her hand, and looked up at him as a dumb animal looks
up at the man who has struck it.
"Married to her!--married to her!" she murmured; "and he did not tell
me!" A spasm of jealousy shot through her. "Then she was his wife?"
"She was, most certainly," he assented, watching her.
"But what has that to do with you and your plot?" she demanded, raising
herself after a moment and facing him contemptuously. "This--this
marriage is a matter between me and Blair. This certificate is not a
forgery--I believe that."
He looked at her steadily.
"Thanks. You do me that credit, and safely. Of one thing you may be
convinced, Violet, and that is, that I will not speak one false word to
you to-night. By truth, and truth alone, I will win you. Do not doubt
any one thing I tell you, for I swear that it is true!"
"I--I believe you," she said, almost involuntarily. "I believe this
marriage took place, but what of it? The girl is dead. I am Blair's
wife, and the offer"--she shuddered again--"the vile offer you made he
will protect me from."
"Blair is not your husband, for Margaret Hale, the Countess of Ferrers,
is alive!" he said.
He did not thunder it at her, nor hiss it as the serpent he resembled
might have done; but he spoke the words almost gently and with a serene
and complacent calmness.
She sprung to her feet and confronted him.
"What? Stop----" and her hands went out toward him as if to shut from
her senses any further words of his.
"I must go on," he said. "It is true. Margaret Hale is alive. Do you
doubt me? Look in my face," and he drew a step nearer.
She looked at him with all her anguished soul in her eyes, then she
shrank back.
"She is here, here in Naples. An hour hence, any moment, they may meet,
Blair and she, and he will recognize her. Do you think that, after
that, you have much chance of remaining as the wife of the Earl of
Ferrers? You know best whether his heart has forgotten his allegiance
to his first wife, his real wife, his present wife; for you are nothing
whatever to him, remember. You are not the Countess of Ferrers, but
simply--Miss Violet Graham!"
She sat staring at him, her hand clinched on the certificate.
"Why--why did she leave him? Does he know that she is alive?" she said
hoarsely.
He laughed, and drawing a chair nearer, sat astride it and facing her.
"No, he thinks her dead," he said. "I see, you will not be satisfied
until I tell you the whole of my little plot! Listen, then," and with
his eyes fixed upon her watchingly, he told the story of the elaborate
scheme which, helped by Fate, he had built up; of Lottie Belvoir's
deception, and of Margaret's supposed death.
"And you did all this? You--you must be more devil than man!"
He smiled.
"I can claim to be a man who has devoted all his talents, and all his
energies, to the attainment of one object. You call me names! Bah! my
dear Violet, have you forgotten that evening in Park Lane, when I told
you she was dead, and you thought I had murdered her? You did not call
me rude names then, I think!"
She shuddered, and hid her face in her hands. When she lifted it, it
was as drawn as if she had risen from a long and wasting illness.
"It is true! It is true!" she moaned, hoarsely; "and now you want me
to----" She could not go on, but her lips moved.
"I want you to keep your promise, that is all, my dear Violet," he
said, coolly.
"And if I refuse?"
"You will not refuse," he said, quietly. "You dare not! If you are not
ready to accompany me at five o'clock I shall go to Blair, and tell him
all that I have told you.
"Come, Violet; you must know that it is of little avail to oppose me,
much less to argue. Face the inevitable. You used to be a brave woman
once, summon up some courage now. Consider, after all, what can you
do better than fly with me? In an hour or two, at any moment, as I
say, Blair and the countess will meet, the truth will be known, and
you--what will you be? Nothing--worse than nothing! The law cannot give
you redress, for Blair believed her dead; but none the less you will
be--an outcast!"
She writhed and tore at the pillows in a frenzy of despair.
"Oh, please!" he murmured, reproachfully. "Is this the same woman who
bade me separate Blair and Margaret Hale at any cost?--_at any cost_?
Come, pluck up a little spirit. What must be, must be; and it is
certain that you will have to yield to me."
"He can but kill me!" she moaned, desperately.
Austin Ambrose laughed.
"Nonsense! Blair will do nothing of the kind. He will simply repudiate
you, and with many apologies, show you the door. But really it would be
more merciful to kill you outright, than to leave you the butt of the
whole of London! The great heiress, Violet Graham, wrongfully married
to Blair Leyton, and discarded for his first and lawful wife!" and he
laughed.
She put up her hand to silence him; and, his mood changing, he caught
the hand and fell on his knees at her side.
"Forgive me, Violet! Do you not see that I am only seeming hard and
cruel? Do you think that my heart does not bleed for you? But what can
I do? You force me to tell you the truth in all its nakedness; for I
know that if I do not convince you that you have no other alternative,
you will not yield! Do not force me to say any more; accept the
inevitable. Say the word; give me your promise to be ready at the time
I have named, and I will take you with me----"
"Never! never!" she said, hoarsely, and endeavoring to draw her hand
from his grasp.
"What do you fear? Why do you shrink from me? Do you think that I do
not love you? What stronger proof do you want than that I have given
you? Have I not done more to win you than one man in a million does
for the woman he wants? If it had been murder itself I would not have
hesitated, I would not hesitate now! Ah, Violet! think of me a little.
I, too, have suffered, suffered the tortures of the damned, for it was
my hand that gave you--for a time--to him! I have stood by and seen you
the wife of another, the man I hate----"
"Hate!--you hate him?" she re-echoed.
"Yes," he said, a lurid light shining in his eyes. "I always hated him
because you loved him! Many and many a time I have longed to see him
dead at my feet--but no more of that! What does it matter? It is only
of my love for you that I wish to think or speak. Trust yourself to my
love, the deepest and truest man ever felt. I will marry you when and
where you please; I will spend the remainder of my life in devotion
to you; I will----" he stopped breathless, and carried away by his
passion, he threw his arms about her.
She struggled from his embrace, and even struck at him.
"Go with _you_!" she gasped. "Leave him for _you_?" and she laughed
wildly. "I would rather die!"
"Very good. I may take that as your decision? In half an hour I take
Blair to his wife; in half an hour I will tell him how he came to lose
her, and that it was you--Violet Graham--who tempted and prompted me to
carry out the plot which has nearly wrecked his life. And then I leave
you to face him."
He took one step from her, but she sprung up and throwing herself at
his feet clutched at his arm.
"No, no! Give me time! Wait, Austin! Only wait! I--I did not mean to be
hard. I--I--oh, have pity on me!" and she turned her white face up to
him. "Have pity on me! I was only a woman, and I--I did love him so!
Yes, I know it was I who tempted you, but I did not know that you cared
for me as--as you say you do, and--oh, Austin, look at me kneeling to
you for more than life--ah, for life itself! Do not betray me! I will
do anything----"
"Anything but the one thing I want," he said, coldly. "You would offer
me money, anything. Money! If you had all the wealth of the Rothschilds
and offered it to me to forego the reward I have worked for, I would
say 'no!' No, if I cannot have you, for whom I have plotted and
planned, I will at least have revenge. You cannot rob me of that. Let
go my hand and leave me free to join the early parted husband and wife."
"No!" she wailed, clinging to him. "Stay, Austin, I will--I will
consent!"
He stooped down and looked at her face.
"Say that again," he said, eagerly. "You will consent? You will go with
me?"
She rose, and with both hands pushed her disordered hair from her white
face. Then, looking at him steadily:
"Yes, I will go with you."
"You--you will? Oh, my darling!" and he made to take her in his arms,
but she put out her hands and kept him off.
"Yes," she said in a low, dull voice, "I will go with you. I see it is
useless to fight against you."
"It is, it is!" he assented, intently. "And you will come to the
cathedral----"
"No," she said, like one repeating a lesson; "come to me here at five
o'clock. I--I am not strong enough to go out. Come at five o'clock,
and--I will be ready."
He knelt on one knee, and taking her hand, pressed it to his lips.
"Violet, you know that I can keep an oath. I have proved it, have I
not? Then hear me swear that you shall never regret your resolution.
I will wipe out the past, I will surround you with a love that shall
cause you to forget all that has happened, and that, that--must make
you happy! At five! Go now and lie down, dearest! You will need all
your strength, for the journey must be a long and a swift one. A few
hours and we shall be beyond the reach of pursuit! And then--ah, then,
your new life will commence! A life which my love shall make one dream
of happiness! Go, dearest! At five! Remember!"
He led her to the door; she drew her hand from his hot, burning
fingers, and pressed it on her forehead, then as she opened the door
she turned and looked at him--a steady, resolute look.
"I will remember," she said. "I will be ready when you come!"