To and fro, like a wild creature in its cage, paced that handsome woman,
with bent head, locked hands, and restless steps. Some mental storm,
swift and sudden as a tempest of the tropics, had swept over her and
left its marks behind. As if in anger at the beauty now proved
powerless, all ornaments had been flung away, yet still it shone
undimmed, and filled her with a passionate regret. A jewel glittered at
her feet, leaving the lace rent to shreds on the indignant bosom that
had worn it; the wreaths of hair that had crowned her with a woman's
most womanly adornment fell disordered upon shoulders that gleamed the
fairer for the scarlet of the pomegranate flowers clinging to the bright
meshes that had imprisoned them an hour ago; and over the face, once so
affluent in youthful bloom, a stern pallor had fallen like a blight, for
pride was slowly conquering passion, and despair had murdered hope.
Pausing in her troubled march, she swept away the curtain swaying in the
wind and looked out, as if imploring help from Nature, the great mother
of us all. A summer moon rode high in a cloudless heaven, and far as eye
could reach stretched the green wilderness of a Cuban _cafetal_. No
forest, but a tropical orchard, rich in lime, banana, plantain, palm,
and orange trees, under whose protective shade grew the evergreen coffee
plant, whose dark-red berries are the fortune of their possessor, and
the luxury of one-half the world. Wide avenues diverging from the
mansion, with its belt of brilliant shrubs and flowers, formed shadowy
vistas, along which, on the wings of the wind, came a breath of far-off
music, like a wooing voice; for the magic of night and distance lulled
the cadence of a Spanish _contradanza_ to a trance of sound, soft,
subdued, and infinitely sweet. It was a southern scene, but not a
southern face that looked out upon it with such unerring glance; there
was no southern languor in the figure, stately and erect; no southern
swarthiness on fairest cheek and arm; no southern darkness in the
shadowy gold of the neglected hair; the light frost of northern snows
lurked in the features, delicately cut, yet vividly alive, betraying a
temperament ardent, dominant, and subtle. For passion burned in the deep
eyes, changing their violet to black. Pride sat on the forehead, with
its dark brows; all a woman's sweetest spells touched the lips, whose
shape was a smile; and in the spirited carriage of the head appeared the
freedom of an intellect ripened under colder skies, the energy of a
nature that could wring strength from suffering, and dare to act where
feebler souls would only dare desire.
Standing thus, conscious only of the wound that bled in that high heart
of hers, and the longing that gradually took shape and deepened to a
purpose, an alien presence changed the tragic atmosphere of that still
room and woke her from her dangerous mood. A wonderfully winning guise
this apparition wore, for youth, hope, and love endowed it with the
charm that gives beauty to the plainest, while their reign endures. A
boy in any other climate, in this his nineteen years had given him the
stature of a man; and Spain, the land of romance, seemed embodied in
this figure, full of the lithe slenderness of the whispering palms
overhead, the warm coloring of the deep-toned flowers sleeping in the
room, the native grace of the tame antelope lifting its human eyes to
his as he lingered on the threshold in an attitude eager yet timid,
watching that other figure as it looked into the night and found no
solace there.
“Pauline!”
She turned as if her thought had taken voice and answered her, regarded
him a moment, as if hesitating to receive the granted wish, then
beckoned with the one word.
“Come!”
Instantly the fear vanished, the ardor deepened, and with an imperious
“Lie down!” to his docile attendant, the young man obeyed with equal
docility, looking as wistfully toward his mistress as the brute toward
her master, while he waited proudly humble for her commands.
“Manuel, why are you here?”
“Forgive me! I saw Dolores bring a letter; you vanished, an hour passed,
I could wait no longer, and I came.”
“I am glad, I needed my one friend. Read that.”
She offered a letter, and with her steady eyes upon him, her purpose
strengthening as she looked, stood watching the changes of that
expressive countenance. This was the letter:
Pauline--
Six months ago I left you, promising to return and take you home my
wife; I loved you, but I deceived you; for though my heart was wholly
yours, my hand was not mine to give. This it was that haunted me through
all that blissful summer, this that marred my happiness when you owned
you loved me, and this drove me from you, hoping I could break the tie
with which I had rashly bound myself. I could not, I am married, and
there all ends. Hate me, forget me, solace your pride with the memory
that none knew your wrong, assure your peace with the knowledge that
mine is destroyed forever, and leave my punishment to remorse and time.
Gilbert
With a gesture of wrathful contempt, Manuel flung the paper from him as
he flashed a look at his companion, muttering through his teeth,
“Traitor! Shall I kill him?”
Pauline laughed low to herself, a dreary sound, but answered with a slow
darkening of the face that gave her words an ominous significance. “Why
should you? Such revenge is brief and paltry, fit only for mock
tragedies or poor souls who have neither the will to devise nor the will
to execute a better. There are fates more terrible than death; weapons
more keen than poniards, more noiseless than pistols. Women use such,
and work out a subtler vengeance than men can conceive. Leave Gilbert to
remorse--and me.”
She paused an instant, and by some strong effort banished the black
frown from her brow, quenched the baleful fire of her eyes, and left
nothing visible but the pale determination that made her beautiful face
more eloquent than her words.
“Manuel, in a week I leave the island.”
“Alone, Pauline?”
“No, not alone.”
A moment they looked into each other's eyes, each endeavoring to read
the other. Manuel saw some indomitable purpose, bent on conquering all
obstacles. Pauline saw doubt, desire, and hope; knew that a word would
bring the ally she needed; and, with a courage as native to her as her
pride, resolved to utter it.
Seating herself, she beckoned her companion to assume the place beside
her, but for the first time he hesitated. Something in the unnatural
calmness of her manner troubled him, for his southern temperament was
alive to influences whose presence would have been unfelt by one less
sensitive. He took the cushion at her feet, saying, half tenderly, half
reproachfully, “Let me keep my old place till I know in what character I
am to fill the new. The man you trusted has deserted you; the boy you
pitied will prove loyal. Try him, Pauline.”
“I will.”
And with the bitter smile unchanged upon her lips, the low voice
unshaken in its tones, the deep eyes unwavering in their gaze, Pauline
went on:
“You know my past, happy as a dream till eighteen. Then all was swept
away, home, fortune, friends, and I was left, like an unfledged bird,
without even the shelter of a cage. For five years I have made my life
what I could, humble, honest, but never happy, till I came here, for
here I saw Gilbert. In the poor companion of your guardian's daughter he
seemed to see the heiress I had been, and treated me as such. This
flattered my pride and touched my heart. He was kind, I grateful; then
he loved me, and God knows how utterly I loved him! A few months of
happiness the purest, then he went to make home ready for me, and I
believed him; for where I wholly love I wholly trust. While my own peace
was undisturbed, I learned to read the language of your eyes, Manuel, to
find the boy grown into the man, the friend warmed into a lover. Your
youth had kept me blind too long. Your society had grown dear to me, and
I loved you like a sister for your unvarying kindness to the solitary
woman who earned her bread and found it bitter. I told you my secret to
prevent the utterance of your own. You remember the promise you made me
then, keep it still, and bury the knowledge of my lost happiness deep in
your pitying heart, as I shall in my proud one. Now the storm is over,
and I am ready for my work again, but it must be a new task in a new
scene. I hate this house, this room, the faces I must meet, the duties I
must perform, for the memory of that traitor haunts them all. I see a
future full of interest, a stage whereon I could play a stirring part. I
long for it intensely, yet cannot make it mine alone. Manuel, do you
love me still?”
Bending suddenly, she brushed back the dark hair that streaked his
forehead and searched the face that in an instant answered her. Like a
swift rising light, the eloquent blood rushed over swarthy cheek and
brow, the slumberous softness of the eyes kindled with a flash, and the
lips, sensitive as any woman's, trembled yet broke into a rapturous
smile as he cried, with fervent brevity, “I would die for you!”
A look of triumph swept across her face, for with this boy, as
chivalrous as ardent, she knew that words were not mere breath. Still,
with her stern purpose uppermost, she changed the bitter smile into one
half-timid, half-tender, as she bent still nearer, “Manuel, in a week I
leave the island. Shall I go alone?”
“No, Pauline.”
He understood her now. She saw it in the sudden paleness that fell on
him, heard it in the rapid beating of his heart, felt it in the strong
grasp that fastened on her hand, and knew that the first step was won. A
regretful pang smote her, but the dark mood which had taken possession
of her stifled the generous warnings of her better self and drove her
on.
“Listen, Manuel. A strange spirit rules me tonight, but I will have no
reserves from you, all shall be told; then, if you will come, be it so;
if not, I shall go my way as solitary as I came. If you think that this
loss has broken my heart, undeceive yourself, for such as I live years
in an hour and show no sign. I have shed no tears, uttered no cry, asked
no comfort; yet, since I read that letter, I have suffered more than
many suffer in a lifetime. I am not one to lament long over any hopeless
sorrow. A single paroxysm, sharp and short, and it is over. Contempt has
killed my love, I have buried it, and no power can make it live again,
except as a pale ghost that will not rest till Gilbert shall pass
through an hour as bitter as the last.”
“Is that the task you give yourself, Pauline?”
The savage element that lurks in southern blood leaped up in the boy's
heart as he listened, glittered in his eye, and involuntarily found
expression in the nervous grip of the hands that folded a fairer one
between them. Alas for Pauline that she had roused the sleeping devil,
and was glad to see it!
“Yes, it is weak, wicked, and unwomanly; yet I persist as relentlessly
as any Indian on a war trail. See me as I am, not the gay girl you have
known, but a revengeful woman with but one tender spot now left in her
heart, the place you fill. I have been wronged, and I long to right
myself at once. Time is too slow; I cannot wait, for that man must be
taught that two can play at the game of hearts, taught soon and sharply.
I can do this, can wound as I have been wounded, can sting him with
contempt, and prove that I too can forget.”
“Go on, Pauline. Show me how I am to help you.”
“Manuel, I want fortune, rank, splendor, and power; you can give me all
these, and a faithful friend beside. I desire to show Gilbert the
creature he deserted no longer poor, unknown, unloved, but lifted higher
than himself, cherished, honored, applauded, her life one of royal
pleasure, herself a happy queen. Beauty, grace, and talent you tell me I
possess; wealth gives them luster, rank exalts them, power makes them
irresistible. Place these worldly gifts in my hand and that hand is
yours. See, I offer it.”
She did so, but it was not taken. Manuel had left his seat and now stood
before her, awed by the undertone of strong emotion in her calmly spoken
words, bewildered by the proposal so abruptly made, longing to ask the
natural question hovering on his lips, yet too generous to utter it.
Pauline read his thought, and answered it with no touch of pain or pride
in the magical voice that seldom spoke in vain.
“I know your wish; it is as just as your silence is generous, and I
reply to it in all sincerity. You would ask, 'When I have given all that
I possess, what do I receive in return?' This--a wife whose friendship
is as warm as many a woman's love; a wife who will give you all the
heart still left her, and cherish the hope that time may bring a harvest
of real affection to repay you for the faithfulness of years; who,
though she takes the retribution of a wrong into her hands and executes
it in the face of heaven, never will forget the honorable name you give
into her keeping or blemish it by any act of hers. I can promise no
more. Will this content you, Manuel?”
Before she ended his face was hidden in his hands, and tears streamed
through them as he listened, for like a true child of the south each
emotion found free vent and spent itself as swiftly as it rose. The
reaction was more than he could bear, for in a moment his life was
changed, months of hopeless longing were banished with a word, a
blissful yes canceled the hard no that had been accepted as inexorable,
and Happiness, lifting her full cup to his lips, bade him drink. A
moment he yielded to the natural relief, then dashed his tears away and
threw himself at Pauline's feet in that attitude fit only for a race as
graceful as impassioned.
“Forgive me! Take all I have--fortune, name, and my poor self; use us as
you will, we are proud and happy to be spent for you! No service will be
too hard, no trial too long if in the end you learn to love me with one
tithe of the affection I have made my life. Do you mean it? Am I to go
with you? To be near you always, to call you wife, and know we are each
other's until death? What have I ever done to earn a fate like this?”
Fast and fervently he spoke, and very winsome was the glad abandonment
of this young lover, half boy, half man, possessing the simplicity of
the one, the fervor of the other. Pauline looked and listened with a
soothing sense of consolation in the knowledge that this loyal heart was
all her own, a sweet foretaste of the devotion which henceforth was to
shelter her from poverty, neglect, and wrong, and turn life's sunniest
side to one who had so long seen only its most bleak and barren. Still
at her feet, his arms about her waist, his face flushed and proud,
lifted to hers, Manuel saw the cold mask soften, the stern eyes melt
with a sudden dew as Pauline watched him, saying, “Dear Manuel, love me
less; I am not worth such ardent and entire faith. Pause and reflect
before you take this step. I will not bind you to my fate too soon lest
you repent too late. We both stand alone in the world, free to make or
mar our future as we will. I have chosen my lot. Recall all it may cost
you to share it and be sure the price is not too high a one. Remember I
am poor, you the possessor of one princely fortune, the sole heir to
another.”
“The knowledge of this burdened me before; now I glory in it because I
have the more for you.”
“Remember, I am older than yourself, and may early lose the beauty you
love so well, leaving an old wife to burden your youth.”
“What are a few years to me? Women like you grow lovelier with age, and
you shall have a strong young husband to lean on all your life.”
“Remember, I am not of your faith, and the priests will shut me out from
your heaven.”
“Let them prate as they will. Where you go I will go; Santa Paula shall
be my madonna!”
“Remember, I am a deserted woman, and in the world we are going to my
name may become the sport of that man's cruel tongue. Could you bear
that patiently; and curb your fiery pride if I desired it?”
“Anything for you, Pauline!”
“One thing more. I give you my liberty; for a time give me forbearance
in return, and though wed in haste woo me slowly, lest this sore heart
of mine find even your light yoke heavy. Can you promise this, and wait
till time has healed my wound, and taught me to be meek?”
“I swear to obey you in all things; make me what you will, for soul and
body I am wholly yours henceforth.”
“Faithful and true! I knew you would not fail me. Now go, Manuel.
Tomorrow do your part resolutely as I shall do mine, and in a week we
will begin the new life together. Ours is a strange betrothal, but it
shall not lack some touch of tenderness from me. Love, good night.”
Pauline bent till her bright hair mingled with the dark, kissed the boy
on lips and forehead as a fond sister might have done, then put him
gently from her; and like one in a blessed dream he went away to pace
all night beneath her window, longing for the day.
As the echo of his steps died along the corridor, Pauline's eye fell on
the paper lying where her lover flung it. At this sight all the softness
vanished, the stern woman reappeared, and, crushing it in her hand with
slow significance, she said low to herself, “This is an old, old story,
but it shall have a new ending.”