“HAVE YOU NO PITY FOR ME?”
Had her heart turned back to him in the moment of her loss or was
it only acting? Kingwood asked himself, with a slight sneer as he
concluded with the words:
“I have not found this a pleasant task, but I thought it right to let
you know the truth. It is very likely that Miss Violet Summers will try
to keep up her masquerade, but she will not dare deny the truth to me!”
Byrd Barrington regarded him with a kindling glance of scorn, and was
about to make a hot rejoinder when the door opened gently and Mrs.
French looked in, saying gravely:
“Miss Summers has revived, and is asking for you, Byrd.”
He followed her quickly from the room, going into his darling’s
presence with a wildly beating heart, wondering if she would indeed, as
Kingwood asserted, try to carry on her daring masquerade.
She was sitting upright in Mrs. French’s easy chair, and as he glanced
at her the resemblance was so striking that he wondered how he had
ever let himself doubt for an instant her identity with Maisie.
He half-moved toward her with extended arms, then suddenly dropped them
at his sides again, remembering with despair the barrier between them.
In spite of Josephine, she was Delmar’s wife.
She looked at him with despair in her beautiful eyes, and faltered:
“I--I--sent for you, Byrd, to say farewell to you. I cannot keep my
promise to you. I am going away from here immediately with the Warrens.
We must never meet again.”
“Your reasons, dear,” he said, with gentle insistence.
“I--I--can give you none. Perhaps I have changed my mind.”
He could not help answering, in a burst of jealous pain:
“Your love has turned from me since you learned that Delmar lives!”
“What have I to do with your brother?” she cried hastily, with a
choking voice.
“Maisie!”
She started violently as the old familiar name fell from his lips.
“Why do you call me by that strange name? I--I--am Violet,” she
answered hoarsely, with frightened eyes.
He went to her side and took both her trembling little hands kindly in
his and fixed his eyes impressively on hers, saying sadly, but firmly:
“Say no more, poor little Maisie. Struggle as you will, you cannot get
free from the snare in which you are caught. My brief dream of love and
joy is over. You are known to us all as Delmar’s wife!”
“No! no!” she panted, in alarm.
“Denial is useless, dear.”
“Indeed you are mistaken. Your brother’s wife is Josephine.”
“We thought so while we believed that you were dead, poor, injured
child; but now we have all the proof of your identity.”
“From whom?” wildly.
“Burton Kingwood!”
“Oh, impossible!” she panted, in passionate excitement, and he could
see how desperately she was fighting to get away without owning to the
bitter truth.
It went to his heart to pain her, but he knew that she must not follow
the wild impulse of her heart to get free, as he said, from the cruel
snare in which she was caught.
So he tried to calm her as best he could, and then he told her
briefly all that had passed since she left Castellane, and how she
had inherited from her father a magnificent fortune that Delmar and
Josephine were now enjoying, believing it legally their own.
“While you, poor, injured girl, have been earning your daily bread upon
the stage and as a companion. How dreadful!” he said.
But even the story of her wealth could not tempt the frightened girl to
accept her fate.
“Let them have it all, and welcome, so that I but get away without
confessing the truth,” she said, but she saw no consenting in his
clear, grave eyes, and in desperation she tried another argument.
“Have you no pity for Josephine, whom your brother loves? Think of the
odium of her position if Delmar’s wife indeed rose from her grave.”
“I am afraid I have no pity for Josephine. She has been cruelly
neglectful of her husband, and it would seem like retribution,” he
replied, releasing her little trembling hands with the thought that he
had no right now to clasp them with his own.
“Then have you no pity for me?” she demanded frantically, as she pushed
her cold, trembling hands deliberately back into his clasp. “Have you
no pity for me? Have you no pity for Delmar, that you would drive us
into each other’s arms when we loathe the thought and our hearts are
given to others--his to Josephine, mine to you?”
She was in passionate earnest. She did not care in her desperation
how bold her words sounded in the battle for self that she was wildly
waging against his scruples.
His heart shook with love and pain at her wild appeal. He could barely
refrain from clasping her in his arms and pressing her passionately to
his breast, but he held himself in with iron resolution, dumb with the
great misery he would not let her see.
She leaned closer to him and looked him straight in the eyes, crying:
“Byrd, do you remember that day in the library when I begged you to get
me free of Delmar, and you said there was no way. Can you say so still;
can you doom me again to despair? Oh, I pray to you again, as I did
then, help me to get free of my cruel chains, though I can offer you
but the same bribe, my poor love, in return.”
She was so terribly in earnest. She looked at him so prayerfully that
it shook him out of the great calm he was trying to pretend, and he
cried passionately, incredulously:
“Maisie, is it true that you love me more than Delmar, or is it only
your pride that asserts it?”