Following that desperate declaration from Leslie Noble, there is a
scream of rage and anguish commingled. Ivy has fallen back on the sofa
in violent hysterics. Mrs. Cleveland glares at him reproachfully.
"You have killed her, my poor Ivy!" she cries. "She loved you, and you
had given her reason to think that--you meant to marry _her_."
"I _did_ so intend," he answers, on the spur of the moment. "I was only
waiting to be sure of my feelings before I declared myself. But now,
this dreadful marriage has blighted my life and hers. Poor little Ivy."
"I could almost curse my sister in her grave!" Mrs. Cleveland wails,
wringing her hands.
"Curse me rather," Leslie answers, bitterly, "that I was weak enough to
be deluded into such a mesalliance. She was ill and dying, she barely
knew what she did; but I was in full possession of my senses. Why did
I let my weak pity overcome me, and make me false to the real desire of
my heart?"
"Falsest, most deceitful of men!" sobs Ivy from her sofa, and Leslie
takes her white hand a moment in his own, pressing it despairingly to
his lips as he cries:
"You must forgive me, Ivy, I did not know how well I loved you until I
had lost you."
Mrs. Cleveland interposes sternly.
"Come, come, I cannot allow any tender passages between you two. If
Leslie intends for this nefarious marriage to stand, it will be best
that he shall remain a stranger henceforth to us both."
"To stand?" Leslie repeats, looking at her like one dazed.
"Yes," she answers, meaningly. "I ask you, Leslie, if such a marriage
as this can be legal and binding?"
"Oh, yes, it is perfectly so," he answers.
"Do you love her? Oh, Leslie, do you love that dreadful girl?" wails
Ivy, from her sofa.
He shakes his head, Mrs. Cleveland having interdicted other intercourse.
"Do you intend to live with her?" Mrs. Cleveland queries, significantly.
"Pray, what else can I do?" Mr. Noble queries, bewildered, and Ivy
groans, lugubriously.
"Oh, nothing, nothing," the lady answers, with a scornful laugh. "But
if it were me who had been deluded into such a marriage with a low and
mercenary girl, I am sure that nothing could induce me to live with
her. I would either divorce her, or pension her off."
Mr. Noble walks up and down the floor with folded arms, in deep
agitation.
"It would be quite impossible to procure a divorce," he answers, after
a moment's thought. "I could assign no earthly cause for demanding
one. I married her of my own free will, though I admit I was unduly
persuaded."
"All she cares for is your money," snaps Ivy, quite ignoring the fact
that this was her own motive for winning him. "It will kill me if you
take her home with you, Leslie. I shall die of a broken heart."
"Poor, deceived dear," sighs her mother, while Leslie breaks out,
ruefully:
"What else can I possibly do, Ivy?"
Mrs. Cleveland, who had been silently cogitating, answers with sudden
blandness:
"If you want my advice, Leslie, you shall have it, unfairly as you have
treated us. I say the girl is ignorant and uneducated, and quite unfit
to become the mistress of your elegant home in Philadelphia. If you are
compelled to stick to your unlucky bargain, you must try and make the
best of it. You will have to put her into a strict convent school where
her ill-nature will be tamed down, and her manners educated up to the
proper standard for your wife. How do you like that plan?"
Her magnetic gaze is fixed on Ivy as she speaks, compelling her to be
silent, though she was raising her shrill voice in protest.
"Would they be harsh with her?" Leslie asks anxiously, some instinct of
pity for the orphan girl struggling blindly in his heart.
"Not at all. I was educated at a convent school myself. I liked it
very much. But you will have to be very positive about Vera, to induce
her to go. She will wheedle you out of the notion if possible. Raw,
untrained girl as she is, she thinks she is quite capable of doing
anything, or filling any position. But if you listen to _her_, you will
find yourself mortified and disgraced directly," blandly insinuates the
wily woman.
Leslie Noble winces as she had meant he should. He is very proud and
sensitive, this rich, handsome man who finds himself placed, through
his weakness, in such a sore strait.
"I think your plan is a very good one," he says, hastily. "Do you know
where there is a school, such as you named just now?"
"I can give you the address of one in Maryland," Mrs. Cleveland
answers, readily.
"I will go there to-morrow and make arrangements for her reception as a
pupil," he replies. "Would it be better to apprise her of my intention
beforehand?" he inquires with some embarrassment.
"No, decidedly not. She might find means to circumvent you. She is
a very sharp witted girl. Merely tell her that you are called away
unexpectedly, on business, and that you will leave her in my charge
until you return."
"Would it be agreeable to you to have her stay that long?" he queries.
Mrs. Cleveland smiles a little grimly.
"Of course, as your wife, Vera may expect every courtesy from me," she
answers in a strange kind of voice, and there the conference ends.
From her hiding-place in the adjoining room Vera creeps out with a
white face, and takes her way up-stairs to her mother's room. Her step
is slow and heavy, her eyes are dull and black, there is no single
gleam of brightness in them. The last drop has been added to the
already overflowing cup of misery and despair.
With an unfaltering hand she goes to a small medicine chest kept for
her mother's use, and unlocking it, takes out two small vials filled
with a dark-colored liquid. Each vial has a label pasted on, containing
written directions for use, but without the name of the drug.
Vera knits her straight, black brows thoughtfully together as she
puzzles over them. "I remember," she says, aloud, "that mamma said one
would produce a long, deep sleep, the other--death! Now which is which?"
After a minute she decides to her satisfaction, and placing one vial
back, goes away with the other in her bosom. In her own little room
she sits down to pen a few words to Leslie, then slowly kneels by the
bedside.
"I do not think anyone can blame me," she murmurs, "not even God. The
world is so cold and hard I cannot live in it any longer. I am going to
my mother."
Some broken, pleading words falter over the quivering, white lips, then
a low amen.
She rises, puts the treasured vial to her lips, and drains the last
bitter drop, throwing the empty vessel on the hearth where it cracks
into a hundred fragments. Then she lies down upon the bed with her
letter to Leslie clenched tightly in her slim white hand. And when they
come to awake her in the morning, she is lying mute and pale, with the
marble mask of death over all her beauty.