The beautiful fragrance-breathing bower was deserted. The soft light of
the wax-lights, half-hidden in flowers, streamed down upon her as she
trod the leafy walks alone in her beautiful white satin robe, frosted
with delicate lace, and her shining jewels that encircled a throat as
white and round and queenly as if she had been a princess royal.
Yet none were here to praise the soft light of her dark eyes, the
dazzling beauty of her smiles, the tender, tinted oval of her face.
Why was she here alone to "waste her sweetness on the desert air?"
Ah! in a moment she spoke in a stifled voice, her white hands twisted in
the band of jewels that encircled her throat as if the beautiful
flashing things burned her by their mere contact.
"I had to come here for a free breath away from that old man whose very
presence stifles and smothers me. And yet--and yet, I am his wife! Oh,
Heaven, what a terrible price I must pay for my revenge!"
She paused, and a strange look came into her eyes. It was a look of
terrible dread and despair, inexplicably blended with passionate
triumph.
"And yet," she began again, after a moment's silence, looking around at
the evidences of wealth and taste so lavishly scattered about her, "what
a glorious revenge it is! It was for this he scorned and deserted me!
Yet I have stripped him of his heritage. I have stolen from him the
empire he held so long. I have revenged myself tenfold for what I
suffered at his hands. Ah! weak fool that I am, why regret the price of
such a splendid triumph?"
Her face grew hard and cold, a cruel smile curled her scarlet lips, her
eyes flashed with scorn.
Pride and passion spoke in every curve of her mobile, spirited face.
The lace hangings at the entrance parted noiselessly, and a man stepped
lightly across the threshold.
Not a sound announced his presence, yet she looked up instantly, as if
by some subtle inner sense she divined that he was there.
"Ah!" she breathed, in a hissing tone of hate and scorn.
A mocking smile curled the man's lip as he bowed before her.
"Ah! _ma tante_," he said, in a cool tone of scorn, "permit me to offer
my congratulations."
Some emotion too great for utterance seemed to overpower her, so that
she struggled vainly for speech a moment, while he stood silent, with
folded arms, looking down at her from his haughty height with a look of
veiled hatred in his dark-blue eyes.
They were deadly foes, this man and woman, yet nature had formed them as
if for the perfect complement of each other.
He was tall, strong and fair, with the proud beauty and commanding air
we fancy in the Grecian gods of old.
She was _petite_, dark, brilliant as a rose, and passionate as the
tropical blood of the south could make her.
Breaking down the bars of her great emotion at last, she laughed
aloud--a cool, insolent, incredulous laugh that made the hot blood bound
faster through his veins, and a flush creep over his face.
"You call me aunt," she said; "ha! ha!"
"Yes, madam, you bear that relationship to me since your marriage with
my uncle," he answered, with a formal bow.
"You expect to find me a most loving relative, no doubt?" she said, with
exasperating coolness.
"I hope to do so, at least," he said, with calm frankness, "I cannot
afford to quarrel with my uncle. I shall hope to keep on good terms with
his wife."
"Ah! you don't wish to quarrel with your bread and butter," she said in
a tone of cool contempt. "Well, _mon ami_, what do you suppose I married
your uncle for?"
"The world says that you married him for his money," said the handsome
young man, coolly.
"Yes, that is what the world says," she answered, with flashing eyes,
and cresting her graceful head as haughtily as a young stag. "But you,
Howard Templeton, you know better than that."
"Pardon me, how should I know better?" he rejoined, watching her keenly,
as if it gave him a certain pleasure to irritate her. "The money seems
to me the only reasonable excuse you had for taking him. My uncle,
kindly be it spoken, for he has been my kindest friend, is neither young
nor handsome. I credited you with better taste than to love such a
homely old man!"
"You are right," she said, writhing under the keen sting of his words;
"I did not marry him for love! Neither did I marry him for his money. I
have never craved wealth for its own sake, though I have always known
that a costly setting would befit beauty such as mine. I sold myself to
that old man in yonder for revenge!"
"Revenge?" he repeated, inquiringly.
"Yes, upon _you_!" she repeated, with bitter frankness; "you sacrificed
me that you might inherit your uncle's wealth. Love, hope, gladness,
were stricken from my life at one fell blow. There was nothing left me
but revenge upon my base deceiver. So I sold myself for the heritage you
prized so highly that you might be left penniless."
"Yet once you loved me!" he muttered, half to himself.
"Yes, once I loved you," she answered, looking at him in proud scorn.
"When my aunt brought me to the city two years ago a simple,
unsophisticated country girl, you saw me and set yourself to win me by
every art of which you were master. She encouraged you in your designs,
for she knew that you were the reputed heir of your uncle, John St.
John, and she thought it would be a fine match for the pretty little
country girl. In the spring I went home with your ring upon my finger,
the proudest girl in the world, and told mamma that you had promised to
marry me. Then you came down to my country home and found out that the
rich Mrs. Egerton's pretty niece was as poor as a church mouse. So you
went back and told John St. John that you wanted to marry a girl who was
beautiful but poor, and he--the old dotard, who had forgotten his youth,
and transmuted his heart into gold--he bade you give me up on pain of
disinheritance."
"And I obeyed him," said Howard Templeton, as she paused for breath.
"Yes, you obeyed him," she repeated; "you broke your plighted faith and
word, you ruined my life, you broke my heart, you sold your truth and
your honor to that cruel old man for his sordid gold, and now, to-night,
you stand stripped of everything--and all because you turned a woman's
love to hate."
She paused breathlessly and stood looking at him with blazing eyes and
crimson cheeks, and lips parted in a smile of bitter triumph.
She had never looked more beautiful, yet it was a dangerous beauty,
scathing to the man who looked upon her and knew that his sin had
roused the terrible passions of revenge and hatred in her young heart.
"But Xenie, think a moment," he said. "I had been brought up by Uncle
John as his heir. I did not know how to work. I never earned a cent in
my whole life! When he swore he would disinherit me if I married you,
what could I do? I had to give you up. You must have starved if I had
married you against his will!"
"I would have starved with you, I loved you so!" she exclaimed
passionately.
"Would you, really?" he asked, with a slight air of wonder; "well, they
say that women love like that. For myself, I have never reached a stage
as idiotic, though I own that I loved you to the verge of distraction,
Xenie."
"Well, and what will you do now?" she asked, sneeringly. "You will have
to starve at last without the pleasure of my company, for my husband
shall never leave you one dollar of his money; I will poison his mind
against you, I will make him hate you even as I hate you! I have sworn
to have the bitterest revenge for my wrongs, and I will surely keep my
vow!"
"I defy you," he answered, looking down at her from his superb height,
his proud Saxon beauty ablaze with wrath and scorn. "I defy you to rob
me of my uncle's heart or even of his fortune. He shall know what a
traitress he has taken to his heart. I will dispute your empire with you
and you shall find me a foeman worthy of your steel. You will find that
it is a terrible thing to make a man who has loved you hate and defy
you!"
"'The sweetest thing upon this earth is love.
And next to love, the sweetest thing is hate.'"
She quoted with a wild, defiant laugh. "Well, Howard Templeton, I take
up the gage of defiance that you have thrown down. We will wage the
deadliest feud the world ever knew between man and woman! From this
moment it shall be war to the knife!"
"So be it," he answered with a scowl of hatred as he turned upon his
heel and passed through the lace hangings to mingle with the gay and
thoughtless throng outside, while curious glances followed him on every
side, for all knew that the foolish old bridegroom had promised to make
Howard Templeton his heir.