Lord Stuart was most anxious to approach Norman de Vere when he found
out for certain that the beautiful young girl was his bride. If Camille
was indeed dead, he wanted to pay her memory the only tribute he could
under the circumstances--the assurance that her husband’s suspicions of
her virtue were unfounded.
But they had been several days out before he had the slightest
opportunity to carry out his desire, for Norman and his young bride
were inseparable, and so entirely absorbed in each other that they
seemed to have neither eyes nor ears for any one else. At length Thea
was attacked by the fell demon of seasickness, and was forced to keep
her state-room for twenty-four hours, and the first time that Norman
came on deck alone the nobleman hastened to speak to him.
It was a most embarrassing moment. Lord Stuart, though he had plenty of
nerve and _sang-froid_, never could recall to himself in exactly what
words he had made his peace with the man he had sought to wrong in the
long ago. He remembered that it had been uphill work at first, and that
it was only when he had frankly told his story and sworn to Camille’s
purity that the younger man had taken his hand and forgiven him.
“Camille has been dead two years,” he said. “She had many faults. I
thank you for proving her innocent of one;” and he sighed as he thought
of the beautiful, erring woman who had loved him so madly, and whose
mysterious sin he had punished by putting her away from him forever.
He was half tempted for a moment to confess the truth to Lord Stuart,
to tell him of Camille’s terrible sin, and to ask him if he knew what
she had in common with Robert Lacy, his dead valet, that she should
have murdered him; but a strange reluctance deterred him. Once he
had loved Camille, and despite the persecution he had suffered at
her hands, he could not bear to utter a harsh word against her now.
Believing himself the only person alive who knew of her guilt, he could
not betray her now, so he shut his lips over the unspoken words, and so
passed the opportunity for a confidence between the two men that might
have warded off the bitter sorrow that came to Norman later.
Lord Stuart gazed curiously at him, and the impulse to betray all that
he knew of the dead woman passed from his mind.
“He does not suspect her. Why should I speak, now that she is dead and
can do no more harm? Let him think as kindly of her as he can,” was his
thought; and dismissing Camille from the conversation, he congratulated
Norman on the wondrously beautiful bride he had won.
“It is the loveliest face I ever saw, and the complexion is quite
English. That pleases me, of course, for, although I admire your
American beauties exceedingly, I am quite partial to English red and
white,” he added, smiling.
“I am glad that Thea compares favorably with your English beauties,”
Norman said, carelessly. “But she is pure American. Her whole life has
been spent in Virginia and Florida.”
Then a sudden flush stained his cheek. He remembered suddenly that Thea
was at least four years old when he found her, and that those four
years of her life were a complete blank to him. From whence she came he
had no idea.
But he could not explain this to Lord Stuart. Their slight acquaintance
did not warrant such confidence and familiarity. He remained silent a
moment, then said, as though in dismissal of the subject:
“My wife has been my ward from her childhood. When I was abroad with my
mother she was at school in Virginia.”