Miss Barry’s voice recalled him to the present. She was persuading his
mother to share their opera-box that night.
“I should not like to leave Cecil. He will like for me to be at home
with him perhaps,” Mrs. Laurens replied.
“Oh, he will come, too--will you not, Mr. Laurens?” turning the radiant
eyes persuasively on his face.
“Do, Cecil, you will enjoy the music,” said his mother.
“And I want you to come, Cecil, very much,” added old Mrs. Barry.
“Very well, I will,” he replied, carelessly, thinking that it mattered
little where he went since the door of love and happiness was shut upon
him forever by his wife’s treachery.
Doctor Charley came in presently and found them all discussing the
opera with great animation. He was disgusted when he heard that Cecil
was going and refused Louise’s invitation to himself point-blank.
“I am obliged to return to Paris tonight,” he said, curtly, “and if I
were not I am too tired. Besides, I should not think it in good taste
to go.”
Cecil colored and looked at him keenly.
“Why not?” he asked, brusquely, and Doctor Charley answered,
reproachfully:
“I should not forget as you and my mother seem to do, that your young
wife is ill and lonely. I should stay here if I had time and amuse the
unhappy little creature.”
Cecil’s eyes flashed angrily, and Mrs. Laurens tossed her head in
displeasure.
“She is well enough, only sulky,” she exclaimed.
Miss Barry laughed, easily.
“Ah, I see that you understand Molly thoroughly,” she said. “Her sulky
fits used to be the bane of her mother as long as she lived, and of
Aunt Lucy and myself after my step-mother’s death. She will do worse
if you notice them, but if left to herself will become sensible after
awhile.”
Doctor Charley gave her a keen look of displeasure which she pretended
not to observe.
“I do not like you, Miss Cat-eyes,” he said to himself. “For all poor
Molly’s treachery she is more lovable than you, and perhaps you have
made the case worse than it really is. Some day when Molly gets well
she shall tell me the whole story, but not now, for it would agitate
her too much and that would be dangerous in her condition.”
He rose impatiently and left the room. Cecil looked after him angrily,
knowing well that he was going straight to Molly.
“Confound the fellow! What has come over him to meddle like this in my
affairs?” he thought.
Phebe opened the door gladly enough at his knock. She was getting
worried over Molly, who had refused to speak one word since she had
read that letter written in the height of Cecil’s resentful passion.
She was sitting, or rather, crouched, in a forlorn attitude upon the
bed, her arms clasped around her knees, her curly hair falling in
disheveled masses round her face and neck, her eyes staring gloomily
into vacancy, her face pale and drawn with despair.
Doctor Charley went up and spoke to her, but she did not answer nor
look at him any more than if she had been a statue.
“What is it, Phebe?” he asked, distressedly, and the maid answered:
“Mr. Cecil handed me a letter to give her, and she’s been like that
ever since she read it.”
He saw then that her hands were shut tight over a crushed letter, and
tried gently to take it away, but she clung to it with convulsive
strength.
Charley did not relish deceit and duplicity any better than Cecil did,
and in his heart he knew that the girl had done wrong; but her trouble,
her grief, her sad situation had aroused all the chivalry in his
nature, and, profoundly moved, he exclaimed:
“Do not look so wretched, little sister. You are not quite friendless
while Phebe and I are left to you. Come turn your eyes on mine, dear,
and tell me what they have done to grieve you so.”
As if touched to the heart by his loving tone, Molly flashed her eyes
upon his with a world of passion in them, and, opening wide her little
hand, flung the letter at his feet.
“There, take it--your brother’s wedding gift to me;” she cried in
concentrated scorn, bitterness, and anguish.
He knew that she meant him to read it, and after he had done so he
stood silent before her dumbly questioning eyes knowing not what to say.
“Well,” she said, at last, and laughed low and strangely--so strangely
that it chilled his blood, “well, Doctor Charley, what do you say
about winning him back now?”
The words roused him into action. He shook himself free from the
indignant silence in which he had been contemplating his brother’s
cruelty, and coming close to her took both her hands in his.
He knew that he must put some hope into that agonized young heart or
she would die or go mad of this awful shock. In that low, strange laugh
had sounded the echo of incipient madness.
“My brother was cruel, very cruel, I can not deny that, dear Molly,” he
said, sadly, feeling ashamed of Cecil for his hardness when the girl
was so low and ill.
She clung to him like a child, and said, in a strained whisper:
“You see I sent Phebe to bring him to me. I wanted to explain--all. He
would not listen--he went away--and sent me _that_!” her eye indicating
the letter with a glance of infinite loathing.
“I shall burn this, and you must forget it,” he said, decisively; but
she answered:
“Burn it if you will. The words are engraven on my heart!”
Very gravely and tenderly he said:
“Try to forget it, Molly, for Cecil will be ashamed soon that he wrote
such cruel words to you. Do as I told you, dear. Try to win him back
in spite of coldness, in spite of neglect. These will not last, for
Cecil can not succeed in putting you from his heart, and in a few short
months you will have a claim on him that he can not deny and that
_must_ break down every barrier of his pride.”
She hid her face against his sleeve, and whispered:
“I shall pray Heaven to let me die when my hour of trial comes, for if
I lived he would hate my child for its mother’s sake.”
Wisely and gravely he tried to dissuade her from such wild prayers,
preached love and patience to the sore heart until he won her promise
that she would still try in spite of scorn and rebuffs to win Cecil
back. Then he left her calmed and quieted, and went out to make
preparations for his return that night to Paris.