“I can not bear this any longer! I shall die if I do not see my husband
soon! I am going back to America!” Camille cried, passionately, at last.
Finette encouraged her in the resolve. She began to feel alarmed for
her mistress. She could not understand how Norman held out so long.
“He loved her so well. I can not make it out why he is so stubborn,”
she thought, wonderingly. “Perhaps dere is some oder woman in the case.
Boys are feeckle always, and what is it dat the American poet say:
“‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will.’”
Decidedly it was the best to go back, thought the maid--that was, if
her mistress still had her heart set on that silly boy. For herself,
she thought it all folly; she would not have given a snap of her
fingers for Norman de Vere.
“A penniless, smooth-faced boy!” she thought, contemptuously. “Pah!
why did not madame make him turn out a mustache? How could she bear to
kiss him? There could be no more flavor to it than a girl’s or a baby’s
kiss!”
But madame was going to make her rich when by her help she became
reconciled to her angry husband, so Finette swallowed her disgust and
set her crafty brain to work.
“To leave Paree and go back to dat hateful America--it is hard, but
‘needs must when the devil drives,’” she sighed; so they set their
faces homeward.
They went to New York and settled down quietly in a flat, taking
care to keep their presence a secret from Norman de Vere; but his
mother was duly informed, and by collusion with her, Camille had many
opportunities of seeing her beloved, herself unseen, and every furtive
glance at the pale, stern, yet darkly handsome face only deepened
Camille’s passion for her husband. She would have given all her wealth
now--all the world, if it had been hers to bestow--for the love she had
prized so lightly when it was all her own.
“For just one kiss that your lips have given
In the lost and beautiful past to me,
I would gladly barter my hopes of heaven
And all the bliss of eternity.”
Poor, guilty soul! It seemed to her that she could have forgiven her
husband a sin as terrible as her own had been. She could not understand
the absolute horror with which he shrunk from her, the abhorrence of
her guilt that filled his soul. She could not believe that his love was
dead.
“I will throw myself in his way--I will make him remember me. Perhaps
the embers of the old love will leap into flame again,” she thought
with a passionate yearning; and she resolved to throw off all disguise
and let him know that she was near him.
He was living with his mother in a small flat where they played at
keeping house in a sort of doll fashion. He came home one winter
afternoon tired and cold from one of the great newspaper offices to
his tea, and found her there in the tiny parlor, a great basket of
hot-house flowers on the cozy tea-table, and behind it her face.
Camille’s face--colorless, yet dazzling as ever, with the feverish
fire of hope shining in the wine-dark eyes, the red mouth trembling
with a smile of hope and love, about her the sheen of silk and velvet
and lace, the glitter of diamonds, the seductive breath of some rare
perfume. She was all alone, and when he entered, she flung herself
wildly at his feet.
“Oh, my beloved! my beloved! I could not stay away from you any longer.
Forgive me, take me back!” she pleaded, wildly.
The young man grew pale as death, but he drew back from her; he pushed
away the white, jeweled hands that would have clung to him.
“Do not touch me! There is blood on your hands!” he said.
Camille started and looked down at her hands.
“Oh, Norman, how you frightened me. I--I--thought--” she wailed, then
paused abruptly.
“What madness is this? Why have you come here?” he demanded, bitterly.
“I could not stay away, Norman. Oh, I shall die if you do not take me
back! I am your wife--your wife!” she cried, passionately.
He stood with his hand upon the door-knob, looking at her. She knew
that if she came a step nearer to him he would go out.
“Oh, Norman, do not be so cruelly hard. Do you remember how you used
to love me? Is it all dead now? Have you found a new love?” she asked,
pathetically; and he shook his head.
“I have found no other love. I have no faith in women. I shun them with
the single exception of my mother,” he said, sternly. “But the old love
is dead, Camille. You murdered it that day by the river. You can never
resurrect it from its bloody grave.”
She shuddered.
“Oh, Norman, you were mistaken. I had lost my ring. It was that I was
talking of--only that,” she cried, beseechingly.
“Does my mother know you are here, Camille?”
“Yes. I am here by her consent. She pities me, she sympathizes with me.
She longs for you to forgive me, Norman.”
He stood in silence a moment, but there was no relenting on his stern,
white face, only trouble and disgust.
“I am sorry this has happened,” he said, slowly and sadly at last. “I
have tried to forget you, Camille, as the greatest kindness I could
show to you, for my thoughts of you are always mixed with shuddering
horror and disgust. Remember, I know you as my mother does not know
you, as the world does not know you. How can you think to move my heart
toward you again? I pity you, I pray often that Heaven will make you
repent and grant you pardon for your terrible crime, but to love you,
to trust you again you must be mad to dream of it!”
She stood looking at him despairingly, rebelling passionately against
her fate.
“You will at least let me live under the same roof with you, Norman? I
will not trouble you; I will not even speak to you unless you wish me!
But do not drive me to despair. Let me stay where I can at least see
you daily,” she implored.
He comprehended the hope that buoyed her up. She would not accept her
fate.
“It is useless,” he said, sternly. “The same roof can never shelter us
both, Camille. You can never be anything to me again, and you must go
away and leave me in peace.”
“I will not go!” she exclaimed, shrilly, flying into one of the old
gusts of passion he remembered so well. “I am your wife, and I have a
right to stay here. I will not leave you!”
“It is I then who must go,” he answered, gravely and firmly.
“I will follow you,” she retorted, furiously, stung by his
indifference, and he answered:
“Then I must still flee.”
“I will haunt you!” she shrieked, throwing her arms above her head in
a tempest of fury. “You shall not escape me! Wherever you go I shall
pursue you. You shall learn that there is no escape from love like
mine!”
An expression of intense pity, mixed with disgust, crossed the young
man’s face; but he made no attempt to reply to the beautiful fury. With
a long, deep sigh he turned from her, left the room and left the house,
without seeing his mother, to whom, an hour later, there came a brief,
stern note:
“By your conspiracy with Camille you have driven me from you.
Within an hour I leave New York. I will write you through my
employers, and they will forward to me your letters.
“NORMAN.”