Norman de Vere had two surprises when he arrived at New York.
The first one was that he found out that there was an unexplainable
mystery about the telegram he had received summoning him to a
conference with his publisher over his new book. None had been sent,
and the book was going on all right.
The second was that he met at his hotel Lord Stuart and his sister, who
had arrived only the day before from England.
“We were on our way to Jacksonville to surprise you,” they said; and
when he explained what had brought him to New York, they agreed with
him that it was very strange.
“It does not appear to have been simply a mistake--it is too pointed.
It seems like a practical joke, and a most cruel one,” Norman said,
with bitter anger, thinking how hard it had been for him to part with
his beautiful young wife.
A fierce resentment arose within him against the author of the cruel
joke, and he resolved that the guilty party should be well punished if
ever found out.
“It is all the more annoying to me that Sweetheart was so unwilling
that I should come,” he said; and lovely Lady Edith gave a violent
start, and echoed, with paling lips:
“Sweetheart!”
“It is my pet name for my wife,” Norman explained, flushing slightly,
and she answered, more calmly:
“Ah, yes!”
But the fair face had grown paler than usual, and there was a shadow of
pain in the sweet blue eyes. To herself she murmured, sorrowfully:
“Sweetheart! How the word carried me back to the past. Oh, my little
one, my baby angel, how my heart yearns for you still.”
Norman resumed, hastily:
“Within an hour I shall start on my return South. I am most restless
and uneasy. A foreboding of evil haunts me, and I shall not feel
satisfied until I am at Verelands and find my dear ones safe and well.
May I hope that you will bear me company on my journey?”
Lady Edith looked very eager, but her brother was compelled to own that
he was too weary from the tempestuous ocean voyage they had had to
start for the South yet. He had been severely ill some months ago, and
had never quite recovered his strength since. He thought it was best
for him to remain in New York to rest a few days.
“If Edith’s impatience to see Mrs. de Vere will brook the delay,” he
said, with an affectionate glance at the young widow.
“I will wait for you, of course, dear brother,” she said with sweet
patience; and after Norman had reiterated many times the pleasure with
which they would be received at Verelands, he was compelled to say
good-bye and leave them.
“Be sure to keep our coming a profound secret from your sweet Thea.
I want to surprise the darling,” Lady Edith cried, gayly; and Norman
promised not to tell.
After he had gone, Lord Stuart and his sister talked of him some time.
Lady Edith thought him one of the grandest men she had ever met, and
her brother agreed with her fully. They talked over the story of his
early life which Lord Stuart had confided to her in the most of its
details, and both rejoiced that success and happiness had come to him
at last.
“No one has deserved it more,” said Lord Stuart, doing justice at last
to the man whom he had once despised and underrated, and sincerely glad
that Norman had found so lovely and loving a bride to make up to him
for the sorrows the capricious and guilty Camille had brought upon his
life.
Lady Edith felt that three days would be long to linger in New York,
when she was so eager to meet again the winning girl who had stolen
into her inmost heart, and whose little child bore the name of the dead
husband she had loved so dearly; but she did not utter her impatience
aloud.
She had a sweet and docile nature that clung most tenderly to her elder
brother in his weakness, and not for worlds would she have hinted to
him that she was impatient at their enforced delay on account of his
weariness.
It seemed strange to her at times that her heart dwelt so devotedly on
the lovely girl-wife, but when she questioned herself for the reason,
she said to herself that it was partly because of the girl’s wonderful
grace and charm, and half because of the strange chance likeness to the
baronet, her dead husband. He had been a blonde, with hair almost as
golden as Thea de Vere’s, and eyes of deepest violet. His early death
and the long, long illness of Lady Edith that followed it had left
ineffaceable traces on heart and brain. Her tender eyes had grown used
to tears, and her heart to the echo of the poet’s plaint:
“So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
It was not thus in that old time
When he sat with me ’neath the lime,
To watch the sunset from the sky.
‘Dear love, you’re looking tired,’ he said;
I, smiling at him, shook my head--
’Tis now we’re tired, my heart and I!
“So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
Though now none takes me in his arm
To fold me close and kiss me warm,
Till each quick breath end in a sigh
Of happy languor. Now, alone,
We lean upon this grave-yard stone,
Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I!”
“I can wait yet a little longer,” Lady Edith sighed to herself; but the
time seemed long in spite of her resolve at patience. She spent the
next three days in seeing the sights of the city, but Thea was always
in her thoughts--Thea, and the blue-eyed, golden-haired baby, Arthur’s
namesake. How she longed to take them both in her arms and lavish on
them the pent-up love of her hungry heart!
“It almost seems as if they belonged to me,” she thought, smilingly.