"My love, you are simply perfect. You look like a bride."
Mrs. Carroll spoke enthusiastically, and her daughter flushed brightly
with gratified pride and pleasure.
She was standing before the long cheval-glass in her dressing-room. She
was about to attend a ball at Mrs. Egerton's, and her maid had just put
the finishing touches to her toilet.
It was no wonder that Mrs. Carroll's admiration had broken out into
enthusiastic words. Xenie's loveliness was dazzling, her toilet
perfection.
She wore a dress of the rarest and costliest cream-white lace over a
robe of cream-colored satin. The frosty network of the over-dress was
looped here and there with diamond stars.
A necklace of diamonds was clasped around her white throat, a diamond
star twinkled in the dark waves of her luxuriant hair, and the same rich
jewels shone on her breast and at her tiny, shell-like ears.
Her dark and brilliant beauty shone forth regally from the costly
setting.
Her eyes outrivaled the diamonds, her satin skin was as creamily fair as
her satin robe, her scarlet lips were like rosebuds touched with dew.
No wonder that Mrs. Carroll caught her breath in a kind of ecstacy at
the resplendent vision.
More than a year had passed since that dark and rainy morn on the
shores of France, when Xenie had wandered up and down on the "sea-beat
shore" seeking her lost sister--a year that had brought its inevitable
changes, and dulled the first sharp edge of grief--so that to-night she
was to throw off her mourning robes and reappear in society for the
first time at a ball given by her aunt, Mrs. Egerton.
Yet, after that first moment of exultant triumph at her mother's praise,
a faint, intangible shadow settled over Mrs. St. John's brilliant face.
The scarlet lips took a graver curve upon their honeyed sweetness, the
dark, curling lashes drooped low, until they shaded the peachy cheek.
The white-gloved hand that held the rare bouquet drooped wearily at her
side.
"Mamma," she said, abruptly, "I wish I had not promised to go."
"What has come over you, Xenie? I thought you had looked forward to this
night with real pleasure."
"I did--I do, mamma, and yet for the moment my heart grew sad. I was
thinking of poor little Lora."
A hot tear splashed down upon her cheek, and Mrs. Carroll sighed
heavily, while her grave, sad face grew sadder and graver still. She put
her hand upon her heart.
"Oh, that we might have her back!" she breathed, in a voice that was
almost a moan of pain.
"The carriage is waiting, madam," said Finette, appearing at the door.
"Well, I am ready," said Mrs. St. John, listlessly. "My cloak, Finette."
The maid came forward and threw the elegant wrap about her shoulders,
and leaving a light kiss on her mother's lips, Mrs. St. John swept out
of the dressing-room and down to the carriage that waited to take her to
the brilliant _fete_ that Mrs. Egerton had planned in her especial
honor.
Mrs. Carroll bent her steps to the nursery.
Ninon, the little French nurse, sat beside the hearth sewing on a bit of
fancy work, and the soft glow of firelight and gaslight shining upon her
made her look like a quaint, pretty picture in her neat costume and dark
prettiness.
The nursery was a dainty, airy, white-hung chamber. It had been a
smoking-room in Mr. St. John's time. His widow had converted it into a
nursery.
In a beautiful rosewood, lace-draped crib lay the spurious heir to the
millionaire's wealth--a beautiful, rosy healthy boy, sleeping softly and
sweetly in innocent unconsciousness of the terrible fraud that had been
perpetrated in his name.
For Mrs. St. John's daring scheme had succeeded. Lora's child had been
foisted upon the law and the world as the millionaire's legal heir, and
Howard Templeton's heritage had passed into the hands of the child's
guardian, Mrs. St. John, his pretended mother.
But, alas! in the hour of her triumph, when the golden fruit of her wild
revenge was within her grasp, its sweetness had palled upon her, its
taste had been bitter to her lips. It was but Dead Sea fruit, after all.
For the struggle with Howard Templeton for the possession of the
millionaire's fortune which Xenie had anticipated with such passionate
zest had been no struggle after all.
In a few weeks after the burial of the poor drowned woman whom she had
identified as her sister, Xenie and her mother had returned to the
United States, taking with them Lora's child, and as nurse, Ninon, the
little maid-servant.
A costly bribe had sealed the lips of the little French maid, and the
truth of the little boy's parentage was a dead secret with her.
Immediately after her arrival at home, Xenie had placed her case in the
hand of a noted lawyer.
He undertook it in perfect faith. He did not dream that he had been
employed as the necessary aid to carry out a wicked scheme of revenge
and perpetrate a gigantic fraud.
He took immediate steps to regain the possession of the deceased
millionaire's property in the interest of his posthumous child.
The case immediately attracted public attention and interest, both from
the high position of the parties to the suit and the great wealth
involved.
But for several months nothing could be heard from the defendant, who
was still absent in Europe, although the lawyer who managed his property
in his native city wrote him frantic and repeated appeals to return and
defend his case.
At length, when patience had ceased to be a virtue with the plaintiff,
and the opposition was about to push the suit for judgments without him,
a brief letter was received from Howard Templeton, instructing the
lawyers to postpone everything until after his arrival.
He would sail on a certain day and upon a certain steamer, and be with
them four weeks from date.
Mrs. St. John was quite content to wait after she heard of that letter.
She felt so sure that she would win that she was willing to wait until
her enemy came. She wanted to triumph over him face to face.
So the weeks dragged by, and Howard's steamer was due in port.
It did not come. Soon it was a week over-due.
Then came one of those dreadful reports of marine disasters that now and
then thrill the great heart of humanity with horror.
There had been a terrible storm at sea, and the ship had gone to pieces
upon a hidden rock. Only seven persons had been saved.
Howard Templeton's name appeared in the list of passengers who had
perished.
So there could be no further delay now. The case went before the courts
and was very speedily decided.
Mrs. St. John gained the case and had her revenge.
But it was no revenge, after all, since Howard Templeton was not alive
to pay the bitter cost of her vengeance.
So the golden fruit, bought at the price of her soul's peace, turned to
bitter ashes on her loathing lips.