WHERE JEALOUSY CAN LURK, LOVE IS NOT DEAD.
Of course they say a woman has a perfect right to change her mind, and
that we lords of creation must submit with a good grace; but occasions
may arise when such a face-about seems too exasperating to endure.
Such a sensation overwhelmed me when I heard Hildegarde positively
declare that, much as she desired to escape from the old alcalde’s
roof, she preferred remaining there, face to face with some evil that
had heretofore frightened her, to owing her freedom to me.
It was not at all flattering, and cut me like a two-edged dagger;
but, all the same, I was more than ever determined she should escape
from her prison, even though I were compelled to use force in the
transaction.
Really, it was a situation that seemed fast bordering on the ridiculous
rather than the tragic.
“A woman convinced against her will is of the same opinion still,” and
who could say that, should we insist on rescuing her, Hildegarde, who
could be perverse when she wished, might not come back again to the
miserable old alcalde’s, just to spite me? But my mind was made up.
“Really, we can’t allow you to change your intentions. We have come
here for a purpose, and don’t mean to give it up,” I said, as firmly
yet as gently as I could.
She looked at me queerly.
“You mean that you intend to rescue me, whether I wish it or not?” she
breathed.
“I mean that I wish you for the time being to forget you ever knew me,
to forget that you hate me, and only consider that I am a gentleman
desirous of assisting you. When you are safe from this peril, which I
can’t for the life of me understand, then I will quickly sink once more
into oblivion and trouble you no longer.”
“I--did not know the world was so small,” she said, musingly.
“Nor I. Until I saw you here I thought you in the gay whirl of Paris or
at least in New York.”
“And I thought you--but it doesn’t matter; nothing matters any longer.
Do you really mean to say you won’t let me change my mind?”
“Pardon me, not in this case, because I am sure you don’t mean it, and
only do so through pique.”
“Oh, this is very romantic,” she laughed in a sarcastic way; “a pretty
woman rescued even against her will. How finely it would read.”
“I am done with romance, madam.”
“Indeed? That is news to me. But what if I choose to call out and bring
the alcalde and his people to prevent your carrying me off?”
She only said it to tantalize me--the very idea of such a thing was
monstrous; but it gave me an opportunity for some little heroics.
“Then it would be a bad thing for our friend the alcalde and his
friends,” I returned.
“Would you fight--you?” she cried, her eyes sparkling with new
animation, as though the situation appealed to her irresistibly.
“It was agreed between Robbins and myself that we would never be taken
alive. Perhaps your hatred of me would be satisfied and the past fully
avenged if you saw me lying here at your feet covered with wounds and
dying,” I said, solemnly, for a touch of the old witchery was upon
me--the sheen of her golden hair, the glow of her bonnie blue eyes, the
very scent of her garments, united to create a riot in my treacherous
heart that I only subdued with an iron grip.
She shivered at my foreboding words and I fancied turned pale.
Then she smiled to conceal her perturbation.
When I look back upon this scene I feel sad to think what cheap
theatrical business I bordered upon when I so graphically pictured my
forlorn fate; but to the best of my belief I spoke just what I felt
as I stood there and found my grand resolutions to hate and scorn
trembling in the balance in the presence of the lady who was now,
alas! no longer--my Hildegarde.
“Oh, your argument overwhelms me. It would be too sad a fate for one to
whom the gods have given the face and figure of an Apollo together with
the fortune of a Crœsus. I see I must surrender against my will.”
In her words and manner there was an air of scorn, which I could not
but feel.
What would I give to prove my manhood in the eyes of this woman, who
persisted in believing me a weakling, when God knows that if any such
spirit animated me in the old days, it had been completely annihilated
during my two years of lonely wanderings.
Nevertheless, I was really delighted to hear her give in to my
authority for once; perhaps had I been more steadfast in the past----
But what was the use of lamenting what was beyond recall?
“Then we are to be permitted the pleasure of saving you from this
strange peril that hangs over you?” I asked, trying to appear quite
calm.
“I will leave this house with you,” she replied.
It would have pleased me better had she shown fuller confidence in my
willingness and ability to protect her, but the old spirit appeared to
be still strong within her heart, the long-harbored doubt concerning my
strength of purpose.
With that I had to be content.
It would be folly for me to deny that I had a strange tremor in the
region of my heart when I took an outer garment from her hands and
folded it about her.
She looked up in one of her old coquettish ways that stirred the
sluggish depths in my heart, and then coldly thanked me as she might
her maid.
I knew too well how useless it would be for me to make glowing
promises; another might hear me with satisfaction, but this woman
believed she knew me too well to dream there was the least drop of
heroic blood in my veins.
Well, my appearance on the scene in answer to her appeal for help must
have been the first blow at this barrier.
Please Heaven, there might yet be others.
Yes, I longed for an opportunity to show, by silent deeds, what she
would never believe in words.
After such a wonderful meeting between estranged souls, anything was
possible, and who could say that I might not yet be given the chance
for which I prayed?
You may be sure that Robbins had stood there listening to what passed,
and looking the next thing to being paralyzed.
He found it hard to understand what a wild freak of fortune had been
played, and that this charming woman of the alcalde’s mansion had once
been very near and dear to me.
Still, the good mariner was far from being a fool, and once his
benumbed faculties got into working order, he reasoned the thing out
pretty well, though still aghast at the strange chance that drew us
together in old Bolivar.
Having entertained some vague hope that the quest of little Carmencita
might not be in vain, she had arranged things for a hasty departure.
All she seemed desirous of taking with her was contained in a very
small handbag.
I saw that she was dressed for walking and could not but admire her
good taste. But, then, she had always been sensible in all things save
one, and that, alas! the most vital, concerning her estimation of her
husband’s qualities as a man.
As I watched her gather up a few trinkets and put them in the bag, I
suddenly received a tremendous shock.
My eyes, in glancing toward the quaint dresser, had fallen upon a
diminutive silver frame that inclosed the photograph of a man’s head.
Perhaps it is a very ordinary occurrence for a lady to thus decorate
her dressing table, but, all the same, it gave me a dreadful shock.
Involuntarily I clinched my teeth and took a step forward, with
flashing eyes; but just then she snatched up the miserable silver thing
and thrust it into the handbag, at the same time looking over her
shoulder at me with suddenly flaming cheeks.
I said nothing, but a demon had sprung up in my heart. Whose picture
was this which she was so eager to keep where she could look upon it
the last thing before retiring and the first thing upon arising?
Well, what did it matter to me? What reason had I to be jealous--I who
had fled from the sight of her after settling half of my fortune on
her, and who had written that henceforth, since I was unable to make
her happy, we would be as dead to each other?
I was a fool to care.
Of course I summoned those forces which I had been so carefully
marshaling these two years back, and whipped my traitor heart into
line, but it was a close shave, for I would have given much for a sight
of that picture, in order to discover what my successor looked like.
“I am ready,” she said, quietly.
The color had left her cheeks as suddenly as it flamed there, and I
could easily see she was annoyed at something--perhaps because I dared
presume to be impertinently curious regarding her private affairs.
Well, I deserved it all, for had I not given her to understand she
could never more be other than a stranger to me?
What a fool I had been.
Perhaps there might have been some way in which I could have
convinced her of my worthiness without desertion; but what wonders we
might perform if our foresight only equaled the result of our bitter
experience.
I turned to Robbins, who, feeling that after all he was to be
recognized in the adventure, assumed an air of importance, though he
could hardly keep his eyes from Hildegarde’s face until she drew the
hood of her cloak so as to almost conceal its rounded contour.
“After you, old friend. I think you’re in a clearer state of mind than
myself, and better able to lead. We must trust to the child.”
“You can trust our lives with her,” came from under the hood.
I nerved myself for the ordeal.
“Will you let me assist you?” I said to Hildegarde.
“Thank you, I do not need any help,” she replied.
Well, I had done my duty as a gentleman, and she could not complain
that I was a boor.
“At least allow me to carry the bag.”
She hesitated, I know not why, and then gave it over.
I recognized it as one I had picked up in London when we were doing
the sights of Europe; it had had my name on a silver plate. Almost
unconsciously I raised it to see if that tag remained intact--yes,
there were the distinct letters, “Morgan Kenneth, Esq.”
She must have forgotten to have it taken off, for of course with the
man, she hated the name, and had undoubtedly resumed her maiden one
after procuring her divorce, to which she was entitled by my desertion.
How strange it was to be gripping that little bag again; how different
the conditions now from the time when I purchased it; then my cup of
bliss seemed full and running over, with a charming wife and a grand
fortune all in one year; now it was filled, but, alas! with gall and
wormwood, my hopes lying cold in ashes, my feeling toward the world one
of suspicion and disgust.
There was at least a singular satisfaction in the fact that while we
fled to the uttermost parts of the earth to avoid each other fate had
brought us face to face in this old city that I had never heard of two
months before.
What did it all mean?
I dared not allow myself to hope there could be the faintest chance of
a reconciliation. She hated me--had she not just said so?--even as I
now loathed myself forever giving up such a charming being.
Perhaps it was intended that our dead romance was to be finally buried
with a fanfare of trumpets and some tragedy; perhaps ere the end came
she was to discover how terribly she had misjudged me in the past, when
she was wont to taunt me upon my lack of heroic qualities.
Robbins had some few words with the girl, and then Carmencita, giving
one earnest look at the lady whom she adored, led the way.
After Robbins came Hildegarde, while I, like a dutiful follower,
brought up the rear, grasping in my hand the little bag that held her
trinkets, her jewelry, and the picture which she had seriously objected
to my seeing--the picture of a man who had perhaps crept into the heart
I had basely deserted, and was now enshrined there as her hero, a
position I had never been able to obtain in those days of old when, as
I have said, she deigned to allow me to call her “my Hildegarde.”