Society, which likes nothing better than a bit of gossip, commented
considerably on the Countess of Fairvale's refusal to know the rich
Americans. There were some who blamed her and thought she was over-nice
and proud. The American Consul vouched for their respectability, and
their style of living attested to their wealth. What more could she
desire? Everyone else received them on equal terms. Why did Lady Vera
hold out so obstinately against speaking to them? It could only be a
girl's foolish whim--nothing more, for she assigned no reason for her
refusal.
But it created some little embarrassment at first. People did not
like to invite the countess and the Americans together for fear of an
unpleasant collision. They could not slight Lady Vera, and they did
not wish to offend the Americans. The affair was quite unpleasant, and
created some little notoriety.
"And after all, Lady Vera's mother was an American, and she was born in
the United States herself. Why should she hold herself above one of her
own country people?" said one of the knowing ones.
No one could answer the question, and least of all the Americans
themselves, who were secretly galled and humiliated almost beyond
endurance by the scorn and indifference of the proud and beautiful
young girl.
Mr. Noble was sorely chafed by Lady Vera's course. He had conceived a
great admiration for her, and desired to hear her talk, that he might
learn if her voice as well as her face resembled his dead wife, Vera,
the girl who had committed suicide rather than be an unloving wife.
Mrs. Cleveland, who had desired to know her because she was the fashion
just then, was very angry, too, but Ivy took it the hardest of all. She
considered it a deliberate and malicious affront to herself.
"The proud minx!" she said, angrily. "In what is she better than I am
that she should refuse to know me? I shall ask her what she means by
it."
"You will do no such thing," Mrs. Cleveland cries out, startled by the
threat. "You would make yourself perfectly ridiculous! We will pass
it over in utter silence, and show her that we cannot be hurt by such
foolish airs as she gives herself."
"I am as good as she. I will not be trampled upon!" Ivy retorts,
venomously. "What! is she made of more than common clay because she has
gold hair and black eyes, and a pink and white face like a doll? It
is all false after all, I have no doubt. Her hair is bleached by the
golden fluid, and her red and white bought at Madame Blanche's shop!"
"People who live in glass houses should never throw stones,"
interpolates her lord and master, thus diverting her wrath a moment
from Lady Vera and drawing it down upon his own devoted head.
* * * * *
But no one is more surprised at Vera's course than her lover, Colonel
Lockhart.
It is when they have gone home from Lady Spencer's ball, and he detains
her one moment in the drawing-room to say good-night, that he asks her
anxiously:
"Vera, my darling, what story lies behind your refusal to know these
people to-night?"
He feels the start and shiver that runs over the graceful form as he
holds her hand in his own. She looks up at him with such a white and
despairing face that he is almost frightened.
"Oh, Philip," she cries, in a voice of the bitterest pain, "I wish you
had not asked me that question yet. Believe me, you will know too soon."
"Then there is a story!" he exclaims.
"Yes," she answers, wearily. "But, Philip, let me go now. I am very
tired. You do not know all that I have borne to-night."
He folds the beautiful figure closely in his arms, and kisses the white
eyelids that droop so wearily over the sad, dark eyes.
"Forgive me for troubling you, darling," he says, tenderly. "I do not
wish to force your confidence, Vera. Only believe me, my own one, every
sorrow that rends your heart causes me unhappiness, too."
She lies still against that loyal heart one moment--oh, happy haven
of rest, never to be hers! then struggles from him with one last,
lingering kiss, and goes to her room and her sleepless couch to brood
alone in that dark, dark hour that comes before the dawn, over the
terrible discovery she has made.
For Colonel Lockhart the hours pass sleeplessly, too. The shadow of
Vera's unknown sorrow lies heavily upon his heart.
He rises early, and long before the late breakfast hour Lady Vera's
maid brings him a sealed note. He tears it hastily open, and her
betrothal ring falls sparkling into his hand.
"DEAR PHILIP," she writes, "I return your ring. A terrible barrier
has risen between us that all our love can never bridge over. So we
must part. And, oh! believe me, dearest, it breaks my heart to write
it. One thing I would ask you, Philip--will you go away from here and
save me the sorrow of meeting you again? I can bear my misery and my
impending shame far better if I cannot see you whom I have so fondly
loved, and must so fatefully resign.
"YOUR WRETCHED VERA."
"Has my darling grown mad?" the handsome soldier asks himself, staring
almost stupidly at the note and the ring in his hand. "What shame can
touch her, my beautiful, pure-hearted one? She is going to be ill,
perhaps, and this is but the vagary of a mind diseased."
So he writes back impulsively:
"VERA, let me see you for even ten minutes. Surely, my darling, you
do not mean what you say. What shame can touch you, my innocent love?
And why should you wish to send me away? Is it not my right and duty
and desire to stand by your side through all the trials of life?
"'Oh! what was love made for if 'tis not the same,
Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame?'
"Do not ask me to leave you, darling. If indeed sorrow and trouble
are near you, my place is by your side. I will wait for you half an
hour in the library. Do not fail me, dear. I want to put your ring
back upon your finger.
"YOUR OWN PHILIP."
Lady Vera weeps bitterly over her lover's note.
"Ah, he does not know, he does not dream of the fatal truth," she
moans, wildly. "And what can I say to him? I cannot, I will not tell
him. I could not do it. I should die of the shame. He will know too
soon as it is. And yet I must go to him. He will not be denied. Oh!
what shall I say to him, my poor boy?"
Weeping and lingering, dreading to go, the half-hour is almost up
before she drags herself to the library where Philip is pacing up and
down the floor in a fever of doubt and suspense.
"Vera, my darling," he cries. "Oh, how could you treat me so cruelly?"
She pauses with her arms folded over the back of a chair, and regards
him sorrowfully. Colonel Lockhart can see that she has been weeping
bitterly. Her tremulous lips part to answer him, then close without a
sound.
He goes up to her and takes one white, jeweled hand fondly into his own.
"Tell me what troubles you, Vera," he whispers gently.
"Can you not guess, Philip? It is because I must part from you," she
answers sadly.
"But why must you do so, Vera?" he asks, gravely, touched to the heart
by her drooping and despondent attitude.
"I cannot tell you," she answers sadly, with a heavy sigh.
"Perhaps you have ceased to love me," her lover exclaims, almost
sternly.
She starts and fixes her dark eyes reproachfully on his face.
"Oh, would that I had!" she exclaims. "This parting would then be
easier to bear!"
They regard each other a moment with painful intentness. The marks of
misery on her face are too plain to be mistaken, and the wonder deepens
on his own.
"Vera, why are you so mysterious?" he asks, anxiously. "If you throw me
over like this, I have at least a right to know the reason why."
"You shall know--soon," she answers, almost bitterly.
Then she lifts her eyes to his face pleadingly.
"Oh, Philip, do not torture me," she cries wildly. "We must part! There
is no help nor hope for us! A terrible barrier has risen between us! I
have a terrible duty to perform, and there is no turning back for me.
But, oh, Philip, if I could persuade you to go away now--at once--where
you might never hear or know the fatal secret that has come between us!
Darling, let me beg you," she falls suddenly on her knees before him,
"to take me at my word and put the whole width of the world between us!"
He lifts her up and wipes the streaming tears from her beautiful eyes.
"My darling, you make it hard for me to refuse you," he answers, in
sorrow and perplexity, "but do you think I could be coward enough to
desert you when trouble and sorrow hung over your head? I am a soldier,
Vera. I cannot show the white feather. If sorrow comes I will be by
your side and help you to bear it."
"_You_, of all others, could help me the least," she answers, brokenly.
And again his noble, handsome face clouds over with wonder and sorrow.
"I will try, at least," he answers, with sad firmness. "Do not ask me
to leave you, Vera, I cannot do it. Oh, darling, are you sure, quite
sure, that we need really part? That you cannot be my wife?"
"I am as sure of it as if one or the other of us lay at this moment in
the coffin," she answers, drearily.
"And that barrier, Vera, will it always stand?" he asks.
"Always, unless death should remove it," she answers, with a shudder;
and with a moan, she continues: "Once I believed that death had already
stricken it from my path, and I was so happy, Philip--happy in your
love and mine. But the grim specter of the past has risen to haunt me.
I can never be your wife. I can never know one moment's happiness in
life again."
"She is ill and desperate," Colonel Lockhart tells himself, uneasily.
"Surely things cannot be so bad as she represents. She exaggerates her
trouble. When I come to know the truth I shall find that it is some
simple thing that her girlish fears have magnified a hundredfold. I
must not let her drive me away from her. I may be of service to her in
her trouble."
Aloud he says, gently:
"Since I may no longer be your lover, Vera, you will let me be your
friend?"
"Since you wish it, but you will change your mind soon," she answers,
hopelessly.
"I think not," he answers, lifting her hand gently to his lips, and
then she turns away, meeting Lady Clive upon the threshold coming in.
"Vera, my dear, how ill you look," she exclaims. "Has anything
happened? Ah, Phil, are you there? What have you said to Vera? You are
not having a lover's quarrel, I hope?"
He makes her no answer, but Vera, turning back, throws her arms around
her friend's neck, and lifts her pale, beseeching face.
"I will tell you what has happened, Lady Clive," she answers. "I have
broken my engagement with Philip."
"Broken your engagement with Philip? Why, what has he done?" Lady Clive
exclaims.
"Nothing," Lady Vera answers, meekly as a child.
"Nothing?" the lady repeats, half-angrily. "Nothing? Then why have you
thrown him over, Lady Vera? Did you tire of him so soon? I did not know
that you were a flirt."
"Hush, Nella, you shall not blame her," her brother exclaims, sternly.
"You see Philip is not angry with me, Lady Clive," Vera says,
entreatingly. "Indeed I am not a flirt. I love him dearly, but I cannot
be his wife. There are reasons," she almost chokes over the word,
"that--that you will know soon. You will see I was not to blame. Oh,
Lady Clive, do not be angry with me."
"I will not, dear," answers the gentle-hearted lady, kissing the sweet,
quivering lips of the wretched girl. "I do not understand you, but if
Philip is not angry with you, neither can I be. Yet I am very sorry
that I shall not have you for my sister."
With a stifled sob Lady Vera breaks from her clasp and flies up to her
own room. She does not appear at breakfast.
At luncheon she is so pale and sad and wretched-looking that it makes
one's heart ache to see her.
At night they attend a ball, from which Colonel Lockhart excuses
himself on the plea of indisposition, and at which the rich Americans
also fail to put in an appearance.