Molly crossed with her noble, handsome husband the beautiful ocean
of which she had dreamed, and the skies seemed to smile on the fair
young bride, for the weather was beautiful throughout, and the water
so smooth and calm that many of the passengers escaped even a touch of
seasickness. In ten days they were in London, where the bride met her
new relatives, Cecil’s parents, and two school-girl sisters. When she
went to Paris she met there Doctor Charlie Laurens, Cecil’s younger
brother, who was studying at the medical school in that gay city.
All of these new friends Molly found very agreeable people, who were
disposed to make a special pet of Cecil’s wife, and who were pleased
and happy as he knew they would be because he had married a Barry. They
dwelt on this latter fact so much that it was actual torture to Molly’s
guilty soul.
“Oh, what will they say if they ever find me out?” she sighed often to
herself, and her sin weighed upon her soul so heavily that even Cecil’s
devotion fell short of making her happy. There kept whispering in her
ear the still, small voice of conscience, and sometimes she would sob
bitterly when alone in blind terror of the future, when she should be
found out in her sin.
But life went on very brightly for many months in a whirl of gayety
and pleasure. Mrs. Laurens, who was fond of society, managed to
have her beautiful daughter-in-law presented at court, and after
that invitations rained upon the beautiful couple. London lavished
admiration on the lovely American bride, and Molly enjoyed it all with
a feverish, fearful pleasure, knowing that at any moment her house of
cards might tumble to pieces.
Mrs. Barry wrote her occasional letters from Ferndale, and in one
of them she said that she had written to Lucy Everett all about her
niece’s grand marriage and tour to Europe. She added that they had
never answered the letter, by which she guessed that she and that
Trueheart girl were too angry and envious to reply.
“They know it all now--oh, what will they do?” the little fraud gasped
in a fright, but months went on and there came no signs from the real
Louise Barry.
“They do not care about it, or they are afraid to speak as long as old
Mrs. Barry lives,” the girl concluded at last, gladly, and many were
the prayers she sent up to Heaven for the old lady’s long life.
“But will Heaven listen to such a sinner?” she would often gravely
exclaim at the close of these petitions.
In the spring following her marriage she met, during the London season,
Sir Edward Trueheart, with his wife and daughter, some country people
who had come up to the city to enjoy the pleasures of the gay season,
and were residing at their town house in Park Lane. It was their name
that attracted Molly at first, and then they began to win upon her by a
subtle charm that she could not explain.
The cross old baronet and his faded, sad old wife, with their handsome,
rather elderly daughter, all took to the young American bride with
pleased interest, as she did to them. It was a mutual attraction.
Miss Trueheart, the daughter, was a tall, handsome brunette, several
years past thirty; but she had many admirers, and among them one whom
it was believed she favored; but he knew, as did all the rest, that
Madelon Trueheart had declared she would never marry as long as her
mother lived.
Molly felt sorry for that pale, sad Lady Trueheart, but sorrier still
for Lord Westerly, Madelon’s faithful lover, who had loved her so long
and vainly. She wanted these two to be happy, as she was with her
adored Cecil.
“Only, she would be happier still with her husband, for no hidden
barrier would lie between them,” she sighed to herself.
It was odd what a close intimacy grew up between the bride of seventeen
and the woman of thirty-three. They managed to be together very often,
and Molly went several times a week to the house in Park Lane, and had
the _entrée_ of Miss Trueheart’s _boudoir_, and even her dressing-room;
so at last she felt bold enough to keep a promise she had made Lord
Westerly, to plead his cause with his obdurate fair one.
“We have been lovers for ten years, Mrs. Laurens, and my patience is
almost exhausted,” he said. “I have told Madelon that she might be with
her mother most of the time, but she seems to think nothing but the
sacrifice of her whole life will satisfy her parents.”
“It looks hard,” said cordial Molly, with misty eyes. “I’ll speak to
her for you, Lord Westerly.”
“Heaven bless you, you good little soul!” exclaimed his lordship, to
whose forty years Molly seemed nothing but a child.
So Cecil’s carriage rolled down Park Lane one day and a vision of
beauty stepped therefrom, and held up her rosy lips for Cecil’s parting
kiss, careless of the coachman’s stare and the footman’s grin.
“Bye-bye, Cecil; call for me in an hour,” she said, smiling, and after
waiting until she had entered the house, he went away.
The baronet was out, and Lady Trueheart was shut up with her maid and a
headache. Molly went at once to Miss Trueheart’s _boudoir_ and happily
found her alone.
“Now is my chance!” thought the lovely young matron.
She brought the conversation cleverly around to Lord Westerly, talked
of his manly worth, his good looks, his ample fortune: then she
startled her friend by crying out, abruptly:
“Oh, Miss Trueheart, why don’t you marry this good man and put him out
of his pain?”
No one had ever arraigned Madelon Trueheart like this before, and at
first she was a little constrained and stately in her answers.
“I have told Lord Westerly long ago that it was useless waiting for me,
and that he would do better to love some woman who was free to leave
her mother and marry.”
“But, dear Miss Trueheart, daughters do leave their mothers and marry,”
remonstrated Molly.
“I shall never leave mine!” said Miss Trueheart, firmly.
“She has her husband, even if you should leave her, and he ought to be
sufficient comfort if she lost all else!”
“But he is not, Mrs. Laurens, for he needs me almost as much as she
does. My father, although he seems so cold and cross and sarcastic is
in reality almost near being broken-hearted as my mother. But, dear
Mrs. Laurens, how much surprised you look. Has no one told you of our
trouble?”
“Trouble?” Molly stammered.
“I should have said bereavement,” said Madelon Trueheart, tears
softening the glitter of her cold, dark eyes, and Molly exclaimed,
tenderly:
“Forgive me, I have heard nothing.”
“Then I must tell you, for I do not like for you to think that my
parents are selfish, and that I am cruel to the man I love.”
“Forgive me for interfering. I did not know there was anything serious
behind your refusal to marry.”
“Listen,” said Madelon, gently, “I am not angry with you for
interfering. You did not know what others do. Dear Mrs. Laurens, my
parents had two children once, a son and daughter. Their son, my senior
by several years, died in the prime of youth, and it almost broke their
hearts.”
“Died in his youth--oh, how sad!”
Tears that had been gathering on Molly’s lashes rolled down her cheeks.
“That was not the saddest part of it,” said Madelon Trueheart. “My
dear, he was dead to us long before the coffin lid covered his handsome
face from the sight of men. He offended my father and was disinherited
and driven from home because he contracted a _mésalliance_.”
“A _mésalliance_,” Molly faltered, with a half sob that this time was
for herself, not Madelon Trueheart’s dead brother.
“Yes,” answered Madelon, sadly. “He was traveling in America and in New
York he fell in love with a pretty actress. He married her and sent
a letter to tell us what he had done. Father cursed his only son and
forbade him to ever return to the home he had disgraced.”
“An actress. It is always an actress that must break hearts. What
a cruel, wretched, proud world it is,” Molly cried, with startling
vehemence.
Madelon Trueheart looked at her in sad surprise.
“It is very kind of you to feel for us like that,” she said. “It
_was_ bitter, was it not! We are such an old family and so proud! But
we loved Ernest so--dear mother and I--that we would have forgiven
him, and made the best of his low-born bride. But, alas, father would
not have it so. He forbade us sternly ever to think of the erring
one again. Then in just a little while--two years, no more--came the
message that he was dead.”
Molly lay back among the silken cushions of her easy chair pale, but
with burning eyes. She moved her lips slightly in an almost inaudible
whisper:
“Ernest--Ernest Trueheart.”
“Was it not dreadful?” sighed Madelon. “I think father must have been
gradually growing more tender, for he almost went mad with remorse at
the news of Ernest’s early death. And mother, poor soul, you can easily
see that her heart is broken, and her health fading. She has never held
up her head since he died, though it is nearly fifteen years ago. Can
you blame me now, dear, that I feel it my first duty to stay with my
afflicted parents?”
Molly did not answer. She was sobbing softly in her handkerchief, and
Madelon went on:
“If Ernest’s wife would have come to us when he died we would have
received her, and loved her for the sake of the dead. But she was proud
as we had been, and refused our proffers with scorn. Mother wrote to
her that if she had a child we wanted her to give it to us. But she did
not even reply. None could blame her, could they since father had been
so hard at first?”
“What was her name?” asked Molly, almost in a whisper.
“It was Molly Glenn--so plain and common, father said, but Ernest wrote
that she was good and beautiful and a clever actress. I have no doubt
she was all three, for my brother was very fastidious. But my story has
been too sad for you, dear Mrs. Laurens. It has grieved your gentle
heart!”