She went with uncertain footsteps along the hall to the library, and
left him alone. The little child, seeing him fall into a dejected
attitude, slipped away and entered the back parlor, which was curtained
from the front one by falling velvet curtains.
She found a picture-book and sat down upon the floor to turn the
leaves, without noting the presence of an old lady in gray silk,
sitting quietly with folded hands in a large arm-chair.
The old lady was Mrs. Barry, who was spending the day at Maple Shade.
She had been sitting in the front parlor with Mrs. Laurens, and they
had been talking of the subject that was nearest to both their hearts,
the desired union between Cecil and Louise.
When Mrs. Laurens left her to go and sound Cecil on that important
theme she slipped into the back parlor, and sat down to doze a little
in the large arm-chair. The sound of voices in the next room roused
her, and sitting there quietly, she heard every word that passed.
When the pretty child came in, Mrs. Barry stared at her in angry amaze.
The little beauty, with her yellowish hazel eyes and falling yellow
curls, was a miniature edition of Louise Barry.
“What does it mean?” the old lady asked herself, nervously.
She sat still, watching the little one with fascinated eyes, unheeding
the lapse of time, until she was roused again by voices in the next
room.
Mrs. Laurens had brought Cecil in, after first telling him all that
John Keith had explained to her; and after the lapse of five years, the
two men were face to face again.
Mutual explanations ensued, and the treachery of Louise Barry was fully
unveiled at last.
“She and I were lovers before she had any expectations of a fortune
from her aunt,” he said. “Mrs. Everett objected to me because I was
a traveling salesman, and Louise and I were married secretly, taking
no one but Molly into our confidence. Very soon afterward I lost my
situation, and was away for months seeking work in vain. My wife found
herself in a delicate situation, and became enraged because I was not
in a position to declare our marriage and support her properly. Then
came that fatal letter from Mrs. Barry that ruined all my life.”
Sighing heavily, he continued:
“That rich, heartless old woman wrote to Louise that she should be her
heiress in case she were unmarried and would accept the man she had in
view for her; but if she were a married woman, the matter ended there,
and she should leave her property to build an orphan asylum.”
No one saw the heavy velvet curtains part and an old woman’s face peer
cautiously through the aperture. All were too much absorbed in that
story of duplicity and deceit on the part of a beautiful, ambitious
woman.
John Keith went on, bitterly:
“That letter transformed Louise into a demon, it seemed. She was
determined to secure the fortune she had forfeited by her secret
marriage. She took her aunt into her confidence, and they formed a
clever, dastardly scheme.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Cecil Laurens, with a start.
“You may well start in horror, since you, as well as myself, were a
victim of that plot,” said John Keith. “But to return to my story:
Louise was not in a condition to make the visit that Mrs. Barry
demanded rather than requested. The pretty little madcap, Molly
Trueheart, Louise’s step-sister, was tutored to act a part and sent to
Ferndale as a substitute.”
“Poor child!” exclaimed Cecil Laurens, beginning to understand it all.
“It was a bold game, for Molly was expected to keep it up as long as
the old lady lived; but there seemed no other way possible. Louise was
determined that the will should be made in her favor, and sweet little
Molly, who had something of the actress in her veins by inheritance,
declared that it would be jolly fun to play the heiress,” John Keith
said, sadly, adding, soberly: “There was no fault in Molly Trueheart,
except that in one thing she disobeyed her instructions.”
“And that?” Cecil Laurens asked, breathlessly.
“Was in her marriage to you,” replied the other. “In the fact that
Mrs. Barry had in view a possible husband for Louise lay the greatest
danger of the whole scheme. Louise bade Molly repel the chosen man by
every scheme in her power, so that he should of his own choice reject
an alliance with her, thereby breaking off the match without offending
Mrs. Barry.”
Cecil Laurens cried out, remorsefully:
“She did, poor girl, she did use every means to disenchant me. I
remember it all now, her frowns, her pretty petulance, her terror at
the thought of becoming my wife. But when I found she loved me, I
would brook no refusals. Between Mrs. Barry and myself she was almost
forced into that marriage.”
“She was a pitiable victim of circumstances,” said John Keith. “She
had promised Louise to act a part, and could not get released from
her promise. If she had refused the marriage, Mrs. Barry would have
disinherited her niece.”
“But she loved me,” Cecil Laurens said, quickly.
“She adored you,” answered John Keith; “she told me so. She revealed to
me the whole plot, and begged me to keep the secret. I must beg your
pardon for this, Mr. Laurens, but how could I betray my noble friend
Molly, and my heartless but idolized wife?”
“She, your wife, deserved no kindness at your hands,” said Cecil,
angrily.
“She did not, that is true; but I was weak enough to love her still,
and I went from your marriage to Staunton to see her. I found only her
aunt, who told me that Louise’s child had died, and that she had gone
away as a traveling governess with a rich lady. You know all the rest,
Mr. Laurens--how she divorced herself from me so heartlessly and broke
my heart. I went South and engaged in the business of orange growing
several years, until a restless yearning drove me back here, or rather
to Staunton, where I found Mrs. Everett on her death-bed.”
“She confessed all, then?” said Cecil.
“Yes, and produced my little daughter whom she had falsely said was
dead. She told me that everything was right between my former wife
and Mrs. Barry, that she had found out and forgiven the deception
about Molly, but that Louise dared not confess to her marriage and the
child.”
“The wicked woman!” Mrs. Laurens exclaimed, finding voice at last.
Apparently John Keith’s heart still held some lingering tenderness
for the woman who had deceived him, for his brow clouded, and he said
quickly:
“I do not think she was altogether wicked, Mrs. Laurens. Her Aunt Lucy
told me that she had a passionate love for our child, which she visited
secretly several times every year, and that much of the income Mrs.
Barry allowed her for pin-money was expended for the child, that it
might be reared in luxury.”
They told him of all her falsehood and treachery by which poor Molly’s
life had been wrecked and ruined, and the strong man shed tears of
bitter sorrow and regret.
“I will search the world over that I may find your wife and bring her
back to you, if you will say that you forgive her the one deceitful act
of wedding you under a false identity!” he exclaimed.
“I would have forgiven her that at first. It was the thought of what
she had been to you, and of her treachery to all that rankled most
bitterly in my heart,” answered Cecil, agitatedly.
“Mrs. Barry is here. Shall we not tell her of her niece’s treachery?”
exclaimed Mrs. Laurens, indignant at the fraud that had been practiced
on them all, and remorseful and ashamed at the part she had taken in
persecuting Cecil’s wife.
“Can we not spare poor, ambitious Louise?” exclaimed John Keith, almost
pleadingly.
The velvet curtains parted, and Mrs. Barry, sterner and grimmer and
uglier than ever, stepped inside the room.
“No, you can not spare your wicked wife, John Keith! Mrs. Barry has
heard all!” she exclaimed, angrily.
At that moment the parlor door opened quickly, and Louise Barry, Dot,
Doctor Laurens and his wife, Nina and her husband, Mr. Wentworth, came
trooping gayly into the room from some out-door expedition that had
flushed their faces, tossed their hair, and made them all very bright
and happy.
Mrs. Barry raised her long, bony forefinger and pointed angrily at
Louise.
“There, John Keith, is your false wife,” she said grimly. “But she is
no longer niece or heiress of mine!”