“I HAVE NEVER BEEN FALSE TO YOU, EVEN IN THE MOST SECRET THOUGHT.”
It was the most thrilling moment of Cecil Grant’s life.
In one anguished instant he comprehended that it was no spirit he gazed
upon, but Violet Mead herself, crazed by her illness, escaped from her
watchers and about to end her sorrows in the deep and rushing river.
With a lightning bound, he flew to the rescue, a cry of terror on his
blanched lips, his arms outstretched toward the flying figure, already
making the fatal spring, hovering in mid-air, her white garments and
golden curls fluttering in the chilly breeze that swayed the willows on
the bank.
The silvery moon never shone on a face more deadly pale and anguished
than Cecil Grant’s as he realized that a plunge in the cold waters of
the river would be fatal to the life of the feverish girl. Already she
was at the point of death, and the shock of the immersion would surely
extinguish the last feeble flickering spark of her young life.
All in an instant these thoughts rushed over him, blent with a silent
prayer to God for help in this hour of deadly peril to his darling.
It seemed to him afterward that surely Heaven, in its divine pity,
had lent him wings, or he never could have cleared so quickly the
intervening space between him and Violet.
But joy! joy! his outstretched hands clutched the hem of her white
robes, and he made a fierce spring, drawing her with him back from the
arms of death. In the rapidity of the recoil both fell upon the soft
grass.
“Saved! saved!” the young man almost shouted in his delirious joy,
and he sprang quickly erect, stripping off his coat to wrap it about
Violet’s thinly clad and shivering form.
He raised the golden head upon his arm, cuddling the bare little feet
tenderly against his body to protect them from the chilly air, and
murmured, tenderly, anxiously:
“Violet! Sweet Violet!”
The large, blue eyes of the poor girl flared wide open, and looked up
at him in wild reproach.
“Ah, Cecil! cruel Cecil! you should have let me die!” she moaned,
piteously. “You are false to me, and I cannot bear my life!”
Cecil believed that the complaint arose from her fevered mind, and,
bending down, he kissed her pale lips with adoring love, then whispered:
“That is only a fancy of your sickness, my own little darling! I love
you better than life itself, and I have never been false to you, even
in the most secret thought. Why, I have been almost crazed over your
sickness! Has not Amber told you how I waited here each night with fond
impatience for her to come, and tell me how you were getting on?”
Sweet Violet turned herself feebly on his arm and scanned his earnest
face with eager, questioning blue eyes, and his heart ached to feel
how light and frail her form had grown with the cruel sickness. With a
choking sob in her throat, she cried:
“Amber told me to-night that you loved me no longer--that your heart
had turned to her again! Oh, Cecil, it almost killed me to hear that
you were false and fickle. When Amber left me alone in the room, I
stole away to end my sorrows in the river, here by the bending willows,
where you first said you loved me.”
He wondered if Amber had indeed been so false and deceitful as Violet
declared, and, holding her tightly in his arms, as though to defend her
from death itself, he told her that she had been wickedly deceived,
that Amber was false and perjured.
“She knows well how fondly I love you,” he cried, indignantly. “I told
her of my love and anxiety every evening when she came to bring me news
of you, pretending to be my sincere friend. But I will never trust
her again. As for you, my own sweet love, I must take you back to the
house again; but before we go, you must tell me that you doubt me no
longer--that you will never lose faith in your own true love again. Let
me put this little ring on your finger, precious. It is an opal, and is
gifted with the power to show whether plighted lovers keep their faith.
If false, the gem will grow dull and lifeless, its brightness all gone;
but, if true, it will glow with the fiery hues of the furnace. Wear it
always, my darling, and let it be the test of my love till the happy
day that unites us forever.”
“Alas,” she sighed, “do you not know, dear Cecil, that my grandfather
has sworn I shall wed another?”
He kissed the little hand on which he had placed the ring, and
answered, fondly:
“Yes; Amber Laurens told me that, Violet; but I was not discouraged,
for they cannot force you into a marriage against your will. Only get
well and be true to me, my pet, and we will defy the old tyrant, will
we not, my bonny bride?”
She clung to him with a murmur of such infinite love and content that
he longed to take her in his arms and fly away with her to some great
stronghold, where he could defy the grim old judge’s authority, even
now; but he knew that it could not be, that every moment out here in
the chilly night air made it more certain that she would have a relapse
of her illness. He must carry her back to her sick-bed, to those who
had cared for her so carelessly as to make this dreadful escapade
possible.
But he resolved to rebuke them in scathing terms for their neglect of
duty.
With an aching heart he took Violet up in his arms, holding her easily,
as if she had been a child, and so carried her back to Golden Willows
and the stern old judge, who was raising a terrible storm outdoors,
seeking for Violet, whom Mrs. Shirley had but just now missed from her
bed.
The hue and cry of search had just begun, and Amber was the center of
a group who listened eagerly as she vehemently reiterated that she had
left Violet only a moment to get her a fresh drink, and, on returning,
found the invalid gone and Mrs. Shirley alone in the room.
Her tale was so plausible that no one doubted it, for who could believe
that Amber cherished a secret hatred for her sick cousin and had
tortured her almost to madness, then left her to suffer alone?
So the mystery of Violet’s strange disappearance began to deepen, and
Judge Camden was sending servants in all directions to search for her,
when Cecil Grant came slowly up the moonlighted path across the lawn,
with the missing girl in his arms.
They ran to meet him with cries of joy; even the stern old judge was
excited; only Amber held back, filled with terrible dismay at this
unlooked-for _contretemps_.
She had believed that Cecil Grant was many miles away from Golden
Willows. Why had he returned, and what was he doing here, with Violet
clasped in his arms so fondly that it made her heart throb with a
cruel, jealous pain.
The young man paused before Judge Camden, and said, coldly:
“Sir, I have the pleasure of restoring to you your granddaughter, whom
I have just saved from throwing herself into the river.”
A confused murmur of surprise from all made him raise his voice, as he
continued, with indignant emphasis:
“No sick person should be left alone as Violet was, for there is no
telling what a fever-distraught brain may rashly prompt an invalid to
do; and, sir, if you loved this dear girl as entirely as I do, you
would guard her more carefully.”
Judge Camden was so dazed that he made no move to take Violet from
Cecil’s arms; he could only stare at him in boundless amazement.
Amber was almost choking with rage.
“So the girl was about to drown herself? I wish she had succeeded, I
do, from my heart,” she thought, bitterly.
But assuming a charming smile, she advanced into the group and said,
gently:
“Dear Cecil, do not blame poor grandpapa, for, really, I am the only
one in fault. I was staying with Violet while Mrs. Shirley went to take
a nap, and the poor feverish girl asked me for a drink of ice-water. I
went down the hall to get it, and while I was out she stole away. That
is all.”
She told the tale complacently, not dreaming that the sick girl had
betrayed her; but the next moment she shrank and trembled, for Cecil
turned on her with scathing reproaches.
“No, that is not all, Miss Laurens; for, before you left poor Violet,
you told her some cruel falsehoods--that I was false to my love for
her, and had offered my heart to you. It was that which drove my poor
girl frantic, and sent her to end her sweet life in the river. But,
thank Heaven, I was at hand and snatched her back, even as she made
the fatal leap. I will never forgive you, Miss Laurens, for your
wickedness.”
She cowered beneath his lightning glance of scorn, and Judge Camden,
beginning to recover his wits, advanced and took Violet, saying, with
cool courtesy:
“I am deeply grateful to you for saving Violet’s life, and trust I may
be able to repay the debt some future day.”
To his wrath and amazement, Cecil replied, with a manly, respectful air:
“Violet and I are deeply in love with each other, Judge Camden, and I
ask you to give her to me as my cherished wife!”
“Never!” thundered the stern old man, striding angrily away with
Violet.