Xenie St. John turned with a half-stifled shriek and looked at the
daring intruder.
She saw her enemy standing in the center of the room looking down at her
from his princely hight with a lightning flash of scorn in his bright
blue eyes, his lips set sternly under his curling blonde mustache.
He was elegantly attired in the most fashionable morning costume, and
his fair, proud Saxon beauty had never appeared more striking. Xenie's
dark eyes flashed their gaze into his blue ones with a blaze of
passionate defiance.
"How dare you say so?" she cried, stamping her small, slippered foot
upon the rich carpet with angry vehemence. "Are you mad, Howard
Templeton?"
He stood still, folding his arms across his broad breast, regarding her
with a steady calmness strangely at variance with her passionate
vehemence.
"No, I am not mad," he answered, in low, even tones, while his blue eyes
gazed strangely into her own--"I am not mad, and I dare assert nothing
but what I know to be the truth. So I repeat what I said to you just
now. Give Captain Mainwaring the innocent little child in whose name you
have perpetrated such a monstrous fraud. It is his child and your
sister's. I will prove it, and swear to it if necessary, before any
court in the land."
The calm and steady assurance of his words and looks and tones struck
Xenie with inward terror. Yet it seemed to her impossible that Howard
Templeton could really know the truth. Her heart quaked with terror, yet
she tried to brave it out in very desperation.
"How dare you say so?" she repeated, but her voice faltered, and she
trembled so that she could scarcely hold the little child in her arms.
Mrs. Carroll crept to her side and stood there dumbly, filled with a
yearning desire to help Xenie and shield her from the consequences of
her sin, but so horror-stricken that she could not even speak.
Howard Templeton regarded Xenie with a look of scornful amazement.
"Madam," he said, in clear, ringing, vibrant tones, "I can scarce
believe that you will try to persist in this terrible deception in the
face of all that I have said. Listen, then, and you shall know why I
dare confront you with your sin."
"Speak on," she answered, cresting her beautiful head so defiantly, and
looking at him so proudly that no one, not even her mother, dreamed of
the terrible pain that ached at her heart.
"I have known of this deception from the first," he said. "Ever since
the evening I called upon your sister, before you went to Europe. You
personated Lora very cleverly. I will give you that much credit; but you
did not deceive me five minutes. I saw through the mask directly, and
understood the daring game you were playing in furtherance of your
revenge against me. Your clever acting did not blind me. I had loved you
once, remember, and the eyes of love are very keen."
Alternately flushing and paling, Xenie stared at him, still clasping the
little child to her wildly beating heart.
"Bah!" she cried out, contemptuously, as he paused; "who would believe
this wild tale that you are telling? If you suspected me, why did you
not speak out?"
"I had a fancy to see the farce played out," he answered, coldly. "I was
curious to know how far you would willfully wander in the path of sin to
gratify your thirst for revenge. I followed you to Europe, although you
did not dream of such a thing until that wild and rainy dawn when you
met me on the shore near your cottage."
A groan forced itself though her pallid lips as she recalled that
dreadful day.
"But, Xenie," he continued, slowly, "I never meant to let matters go as
far as they have gone. It amused me for a little while to watch your
desperate game, but I always intended to check you before you
consummated your clever plan. But that strange power that some call
fate, and others Providence, has come between me and my first
intention. You have tasted the full sweetness of the cup of revenge, and
now you are doomed to drink the bitter dregs. The disgraceful truth will
all be known. The wealth you have cheated me of by a terrible fraud will
have to be restored. The time has come when I cannot spare you if I
would."
She shivered as if an icy wind had blown against her, so impressive were
his looks and words; but she saw that Captain Mainwaring was looking at
her with mingled wrath and scorn on his handsome, honest face; and the
spirit of defiance only grew stronger within her.
"I defy you," she began, imperiously, but the words died half-uttered on
her lips, and a shriek of fear and terror burst forth instead.
For the closed door had opened silently and suddenly, and a beautiful,
fragile-looking woman had glided into the room.
Xenie thought it was the ghost of her who lay in that green grave under
the skies of France, with the white cross marked: "Lora, ætat 18."
The beautiful intruder paused a moment and gazed questioningly around
her.
As if by magic, her gaze encountered that of the young sea captain who
was staring at her with wild, half-frightened eyes, like one who sees a
vision.
Lora--for it was indeed herself--gazed at the handsome young sailor a
moment in bewilderment; then a wild and piercing shriek of joy burst
from her lips. She rushed forward and threw herself upon his broad
breast in a transport of happiness.
"Oh, Jack, Jack!" she cried, twining her white arms tightly around his
neck, "you are alive! What happiness for your poor Lora!"
Captain Mainwaring clasped and kissed her with passionate joy,
understanding nothing very clearly except the one ecstatic fact that
Lora was indeed alive, and having through his deep joy a vague
consciousness that Mrs. St. John had somehow terribly wronged and
deceived him.
"You see," said Howard Templeton, coldly to Xenie as she stared
speechlessly. "Lora has returned to claim her own. Your reign is over."
Lora heard the words, and breaking from the fond clasp of her husband's
arms, turned to her sister.
"Oh, Xenie!" she cried, then she stopped short, and her lovely face
flushed and her dark eyes beamed.
She had caught sight of the beautiful boy that nestled in the clasp of
her sister's arms.
Lora watched him a moment with parted lips and eager eyes.
"Oh!" she breathed, in tones of ineffable tenderness, "how beautiful he
is!" then, in low and almost humble accents, she murmured: "Xenie, you
will let me kiss him once."
"It is Lora's voice and face," cried Mrs. St. John, half-retreating
before her as she advanced, "and yet I saw Lora lying dead--drowned in
the cruel sea!"
"No, no," cried Lora, eagerly, "that poor creature you saw drowned was
not your sister, Xenie."
"She wore your shawl, your rings," exclaimed Mrs. St. John,
incoherently.
"Yes, that is true," said Lora, patiently, "but I can easily explain
that, Xenie. She was a poor, mad creature that I met in my
wandering--even madder than myself, perhaps, for I remember it all
distinctly. She stripped me of my shawl and my jewels--to make herself
fine as she said. I let her have them and she went away and left me.
Then it must have been that she cast herself into the sea. It was she
whom they found and whom you buried under the marble cross with my name
upon it. She was some poor, unknown unfortunate whom you mourned as your
sister."
She came closer to her sister's side as she spoke, and looked up
pleadingly into her face.
"Xenie, you will not disown me, will you? I am indeed your sister, Lora,
although you thought me dead. I owe my life to Howard Templeton. He
found me ill and dying in a poor woman's cot, and cared for me and saved
me. Yes, at the very last hour, when they said I was dying, he would not
give me up. He brought a little baby and laid it in my arms, and life
came back to me at the touch of the little lips and hands. He deceived
me, but it was for my own good. It saved my life, and when I grew
stronger I could bear to be told of the innocent deception he had
practiced, and I gave back the child to the kind peasant mother who had
lent it to me to save my life. But, oh, Xenie, if I talked all day I
could never tell you how much I owe to Howard Templeton. He has been all
that the best and noblest brother on earth could be! You must not hate
him any longer. Xenie, you must forgive him and be kind to him for my
sake, since but for his tender care I must surely have died."
As she ceased to speak, Jack Mainwaring strode forward and caught Howard
Templeton's hands in a grasp of steel. Words failed him, but the tearful
gaze of the honest eyes was far more expressive of his gratitude than
the most eloquent speech.
But Xenie remained still and speechless. She suffered Lora to kiss and
caress her, but she remained still and pale, seemingly incapable of a
return of her sister's tenderness. Her dark eyes stared straight before
her, filled with a dumb terror, as if some dread anticipation was
painted on the walls of her mind.
Slowly, like one fascinated, Lora crept nearer, and twining her arms
about her little child, kissed his sweet brow and lips. Xenie turned
mechanically and their eyes met.
They regarded each other silently a moment, but in Lora's eyes there was
a yearning tenderness, a plaintive prayer that said plainer than words:
"Oh! my sister, give me my child. Let me lay him in his father's arms,
and say: 'My husband, this is my child and yours.'"
The ice around Xenie's frozen heart melted at that wordless prayer.
Slowly she laid the beautiful, dark-eyed boy in the yearning arms of the
young mother.
"Take him, Lora," she said, "I absolve you from your vow of silence. I
cannot withhold this crowning joy that will complete your happiness,
although it wrecks my own. Upon my head fall all the bitter consequences
of my sin."
With the words she turned to leave the room, but that bitter
renunciation before her deadly foe had been too hard for her.
She staggered blindly a moment, then fell to the floor like one bereft
of life.