"I don't believe it!" Howard Templeton repeated angrily, as he stood
still where Doctor Shirley had left him, those unexpected words ringing
through his brain.
"What is it you don't believe, Templeton?" inquired one of the "gilded
youth," dawdling in and overhearing the remark.
"I don't believe anything--that's my creed," answered Templeton,
snatching his hat, and hurrying out. He wanted to be out in the cold,
fresh air. Somehow it seemed to him as if a hand grasped his throat,
choking his life out.
He walked aimlessly up and down the crowded thoroughfare, seemingly
blind and deaf to all that went on around him.
Men's eyes remarked the tall, well-proportioned form and handsome,
blonde face with envy.
Women looked after him admiringly, thinking how splendid it would be to
have such a man for a lover. Howard heeded nothing of it. He was
accustomed to it. He simply took it for his due, and he had other things
to engross his mind now.
"It can't be true, it can't be true," he said to himself, again and
again in his restless walk. "It is the most undreamed of thing. Who
could believe it?"
And yet it troubled him despite his incredulity. It troubled him so much
that he went to see a lawyer about it.
He stated the case, and asked him frankly what were his chances if such
a thing really should happen.
"No chance at all," was the grim reply. "If you did not resign your
claim, Mrs. St. John would naturally sue you for the money on behalf of
the legal heir."
"And then?" asked Howard.
"The case would certainly go against you."
Howard went out again and took another walk. He tried to fancy
himself--Howard Templeton, the golden youth--face to face with the grim
fiend, poverty.
He wondered how it would feel to earn his dinner before he ate it, to
wear out his old coats, and have to count the cost of new ones, as he
had vaguely heard that poor men had to do.
"I can't imagine it," he said to himself. "Time enough to bother my
brain with such conundrums if the thing really comes to pass. And if it
does, what a glorious triumph it will be for 'mine enemy!' I'd like to
see her--by Jove, I believe I'll go there."
He stopped short, filled with the new idea, then hurried on, recalled to
himself by a stare of surprise from a casual passer-by.
"Yes; why shouldn't I go there, by George?" he went on. "It was my home
before she came there. The world doesn't know that we are 'at outs,'
although we are sworn foes privately. I'll pretend to call on Lora
Carroll. Lora was a pretty girl enough when I was down there that
summer, young and unformed, though time has remedied that defect,
doubtless. Doctor Shirley thought her handsome. Yes, I will call on
little Lora. A daring thing to do, perhaps, but then I'm in the mood for
daring a great deal."
The lamps were lighted and the glare of the gas flared down upon him as
he thus made up his mind.
He went to his hotel, made an elaborate and elegant toilet, as if
anxious to please, then sallied forth toward the brown-stone palace
where his enemy reigned in triumph.
A soft and subdued light shone through the curtains of rose-colored silk
and creamy lace that shaded the windows of the drawing-room. A fancy
seized upon Howard to peep through them before he went up the marble
steps and sent in his card.
"For who knows that they may decline to see me," he thought, "and I am
determined to get one look at Xenie. I want to see if she looks very
happy over her triumph."
He glanced around, saw that no one was passing, and cautiously went up
to the window.
It was as much as he could do, tall as he was, to peer into the room by
standing on tiptoe.
He looked into the beautiful and spacious room where he had spent many
happy hours with his deceased uncle in years gone by, and a sigh to the
memory of those old days breathed softly over his lips, and a dimness
came into his bright blue eyes.
He brushed it away, and looked around for the beautiful woman who had
come between him and the poor old man who had brought him up as his
heir.
He saw two ladies in the room.
One of them was quite elderly, and had gray hair crimped beneath a
pretty cap.
She wore black silk, and sat on a sofa trifling over a bit of fancy
knitting.
"That is Mrs. Carroll," he said to himself. "She is a pretty old lady,
though she looks so old and careworn. But she is poor, and that explains
it. I dare say I shall grow gray and careworn too when Mrs. St. John
takes my uncle's money from me, and I have to earn my bread before I eat
it."
He saw another lady standing with her back to him by the piano.
She was _petite_ and slender, with a crown of braided black hair, and
her robe of rich, wine-colored silk and velvet trailed far behind her on
the costly carpet.
She stood perfectly still for a few moments, then turned slowly around,
and he saw her face.
"Why, it is Xenie herself!" he exclaimed. "Doctor Shirley lied to me,
and I was fool enough to believe his silly joke. Heaven! what I have
suffered through my foolish credulity! I've a mind to call Shirley out
and shoot him for his atrocity!"
He remained silent a little while studying the lady's dark, beautiful,
smiling face, when suddenly he saw the door unclose, and a lady, dressed
in the deepest sables of mourning, entered and walked across the floor
and sat down by Mrs. Carroll's side upon the sofa.
Howard Templeton started, and a hollow groan broke from his lips.
"My God!" he breathed to himself, "I was mistaken. It is Lora, of
course, in that bright-hued dress. How like she is to Xenie! I ought to
have remembered that my uncle's wife would be in mourning. Yes, that is
Xenie by her mother's side, and Doctor Shirley told me the fatal truth!"
He walked away from the window, and made several hurried turns up and
down before the house.
"Shall I go in?" he asked himself. "I know all I came for, now. Yes, I
will be fool enough to go in anyhow."
He went up the steps and rang the bell, waiting nervously for the great,
carved door to open.