"Darling, how beautiful the sea is. Look how the sun sparkles on the
emerald waves, like millions and millions of the brightest diamonds."
Poor little Lora, sitting in the easy-chair on the wide veranda of the
little ornate cottage, a forlorn little figure in the deepest of sables,
looked up in her sister's face an instant, then burst into a passion of
bitter tears.
"The sea, the sea," she moaned despairingly. "Oh! why did you bring me
here? I hate the sight and the sound of it! Oh! my poor Jack! my poor
Jack!"
Mrs. St. John and Mrs. Carroll exchanged compassionate yet troubled
glances, and the latter said gently, yet remonstratingly:
"My dear, my dear, indeed you must not give up to your feelings on every
occasion like this. In your weak state of health it is positively
dangerous to allow such excitement."
"I don't care, I don't care," wept Lora wildly, hiding her convulsed
face against Xenie's compassionate breast. "My heart is broken! I have
nothing left to live for, and I wish that I were dead!"
"Darling, let me lead you in. Perhaps if you will lie down and rest you
will feel better in both body and mind," said Mrs. St. John, in the
gentle, pitying accents used to a sick child.
Lora arose obediently, and leaning on Xenie's arm, was led into her
little, airy, white-hung chamber. There her sister persuaded her to lie
down upon a lounge while she hovered about her, rendering numberless
gentle little attentions, and talking to her in soft, soothing tones.
"Xenie, you are so kind to me," said the invalid, looking at her sister,
with a beam of gratitude shining in her large, tearful, dark eyes.
"It is a selfish kindness after all, though, my darling," said Mrs. St.
John, gently, "for you know I expect a great reward for what I have done
for you. My sisterly duty and my own selfish interest have gone
hand-in-hand in this case."
A bright, triumphant smile flashed over her beautiful features as she
spoke, and the invalid, looking at her, sighed wearily.
"Xenie," she said, half-hesitatingly, "do not be angry, dear, but I wish
you would give up this wild passion of revenge that possesses you. I lie
awake nights thinking of it and of my troubles, and I feel more and more
that it will be a dreadful deception. Are you not afraid?"
"Afraid of what?" inquired her sister, with a little, impatient ring in
the clear, musical tones of her voice.
"Afraid of--of being found out," said Lora, sinking her voice to the
faintest whisper.
"There is not the least danger," returned her sister, confidently. "We
have managed everything so cleverly there will never be the faintest
clew even if the ruse were ever suspected, which it will never be, for
who would dream of such a thing? Lora, my dear little sister, I would do
much for you, but don't ask me to give up my revenge upon Howard
Templeton. I hate him so for his despicable cowardice that nothing on
earth would tempt me to forego the sweetness of my glorious vengeance."
"Yet once you loved him," said Lora, with a grave wonder in her sad,
white face.
She stared and flushed at Lora's gently reproachful words.
She remembered suddenly that someone else had said those words to her in
just the same tone of wonder and reproach.
The night of her short-lived triumph came back into her mind--that
brilliant bridal-night when she and Howard Templeton had declared war
against each other--war to the knife.
"Yes, once I loved him," she said, with a tone of bitter self-scorn.
"But listen to me, Lora. Suppose Jack had treated you as Howard
Templeton did me?"
"Jack could not have done it; he loved me too truly," said Lora, lifting
her head in unconscious pride.
"You are right, Lora, Jack Mainwaring could not have done it. Few men
could have been so base," said Xenie, bitterly. "But, Lora, dear,
suppose he _had_ treated you so cruelly--mind, I only say
suppose--should you not have hated him for it, and wanted to make his
heart ache in return?"
Lora was silent a moment. The beautiful young face, so like Xenie's in
outline and coloring, so different in its expression of mournful
despair, took on an expression of deep tenderness and gentleness as she
said, at length:
"No Xenie, I could not have hated Jack even if he had acted like Mr.
Templeton. I am very poor-spirited perhaps; but I believe if Jack had
treated me so I might have hated the sin, but I could not have helped
loving the sinner."
"Ah, Lora, you do not know how you would have felt in such a case. You
have been mercifully spared the trial. Let us drop the subject,"
answered Xenie, a little shortly.
Lora sighed wearily and turned her head away, throwing her
black-bordered handkerchief over her face.
Her sister stood still a moment, watching the quiet, recumbent figure,
then went to the window, and, drawing the lace curtains aside, stood
silently looking out at the beautiful sea, with the sunset glories
reflected in the opalescent waves, the soft, spring breeze fluttering
the silken rings of dark hair that shaded her broad, white brow.
As she stood there in the soft sunset light in her bright young beauty
and rich attire, a smile of proud triumph curved her scarlet lips.
"Ah, Howard Templeton," she mused, "the hour of my triumph is close at
hand."
And then, in a gentler tone, while a shade of anxiety clouded her face,
she added:
"But poor little Lora! Pray God all may go well with her!"
The roseate hues of sunset faded slowly out, and the purple twilight
began to obscure everything.
One by one the little stars sparkled out and took their wonted places in
the bright constellations of Heaven.
Still Xenie remained motionless at the window, and still Lora lay
quietly on her couch, her pale, anguished young face hidden beneath the
mourning handkerchief.
Her sister turned around once and looked at her, thinking she was
asleep.
But suddenly in the darkness that began to pervade the room, Xenie
caught a faint and smothered moan of pain.
Instantly she hurried to Lora's side.
"My dear, are you in pain?" she said.
Lora raised herself and looked at Xenie's anxious face.
"I--oh, yes, dear," she said, in a frightened tone; "I am ill. Pray go
and send mother to me."
Mrs. St. John pressed a tender kiss on the pain-drawn lips and hurried
out to seek her mother.
She found her in the little dining-room of the cottage laying the cloth
and making the tea. She looked up with a gentle, motherly smile.
"My dear, you are hungry for your tea--you and Lora, I expect," she
said. "I let the maid go home to stay with her ailing mother to-night,
and promised to make the tea myself. It will be ready now in a minute.
Is Lora asleep?"
"Lora is ill, mamma. I will finish the tea, and you must go to her,"
said Xenie, with a quiver in her low voice, as she took the cloth from
her mother's hand.
"Lora sick?" said Mrs. Carroll. "Well, Xenie, I rather expected it. I
will go to her. Never mind about the tea, dear, unless you want some
yourself."
She bustled out, and Xenie went on mechanically setting the tea-things
on the little round table, scarcely conscious of what she was doing, so
heavy was her heart.
She loved her sister with as fond a love as ever throbbed in a sister's
breast and Lora's peril roused her sympathies to their highest pitch.
Finishing her simple task at last, she filled a little china cup with
fragrant tea and carried it to the patient's room.
Mrs. Carroll had enveloped Lora in her snowy embroidered night-robe, and
she lay upon the bed looking very pale and preternaturally calm to
Xenie's excited fancy.
She drank a little of the tea, then sent Xenie away with it, telling her
that she felt quite easy then.
"Go and sit on the veranda as usual, my dear," Mrs. Carroll said,
kindly. "I will sit with Lora myself."
"You will call me if I am needed?" asked Mrs. St. John, hesitating on
the threshold.
"Yes, dear."
So Xenie went away very sad and heavy-hearted, as if the burden of some
intangible sorrow rested painfully upon her oppressed and aching heart.