When Lady Vera has told all her story to these kind and sympathizing
friends with all the fire and eloquence of passion, their indignation
bursts forth unrestrainedly. Lady Clive weeps from pure sympathy.
"Now at last I understand Fairvale's strange reticence and melancholy,"
Sir Harry Clive exclaims. "He was indeed most cruelly wronged, and
Marcia Cleveland must have been a fiend incarnate."
Colonel Lockhart alone says nothing. He sits a little apart, his arms
folded over his broad breast, his blue eyes cast to the floor, a look
of gloom and settled despair on his handsome, high-bred face. The
bitter pain at his heart no tongue can tell.
"And all this while you were Leslie Noble's wife," Lady Clive says,
with a heavy sigh for her brother's sake.
"But I believed him dead, you know," Lady Vera answers, with one swift
glance at the lover she has lost.
"I wish he had been, for your sake and Phil's," pronounces Sir Harry,
fervently, and a moan of pain surges over the pale lips of the
beautiful girl.
"Ah, you cannot guess with what feelings of despair I learned of him
living," she answers. "It seemed to me for one awful moment that a hand
of ice clutched my heart, and that I should surely die. It came over
me like a death-warrant, at what fearful cost to myself I should keep
my oath to my father. But I had sworn to do his bidding. There was no
turning back for me when the fatal moment came."
She pauses a moment, then resumes, with a mournful glance at Lady Clive:
"You will never forgive me, I know, for making myself a sensation and
a town talk, Lady Clive. By to-morrow all London will ring with my
secret. Oh, the pity and shame! But I will not disgrace you further. I
shall not remain your guest any longer. To-morrow I am going away."
Then Colonel Lockhart speaks for the first time.
"You must not let her go, Nella," he says, firmly.
"Why?" cries out Lady Vera, startled.
He hesitates a moment. Why should he imbue her mind with the doubts and
fears that fill his own? And she asks again:
"Why should I not go away, Colonel Lockhart?"
"Because you will need the protection of your friends," he answers,
gravely.
"Do you think I am afraid of my enemies?" she asks, drawing her slight
form proudly erect, and looking very brave and beautiful. "They may
hate me as they will, but I defy them to harm me!"
"It is not their hatred but their love you have to fear," he answers,
significantly.
"Love," she echoes, regarding him blankly.
"Leslie Noble's love, I mean," he answers, with an effort.
A low and mirthless laugh ripples over her lips.
"I think you have mistaken me," she answers, bitterly. "He had no love
for me. Ivy Cleveland held his heart. He only married me for pity's
sake."
"It may have been pity, then, but it is something deeper now," Colonel
Lockhart answers, gravely. "That man means to claim you, Lady Vera. I
read it in the glances he cast upon you."
"Claim me!" she repeats, bewildered.
"For his wife," he answers, bitterly, out of the pain of his heart.
She starts to her feet with a little frightened cry, and flies to Lady
Clive as if for protection.
"No, no, he would not dare!" she pants, wildly. "I hate and despise him
too much to speak to him, even! I defy him to claim me for his wife! I
would sooner die than belong to him! And he--oh, he would not wish it!
He loved Ivy, you know."
"Do not pin your faith to that fact, Lady Vera," the baronet interposes
gravely. "The lady, whom he claims for his wife now is many years older
than you; she is faded, simpering, ridiculous. If he ever loved her,
she must have made him rue that folly long since. Besides, she is not
his real wife, and you are. Do not forget your great attractions, Lady
Vera. You are young, beautiful, wealthy and titled. What more natural
than that Leslie Noble should be dazzled by your manifold charms, and
desire to claim you?"
She regards him with absolute horror in her lovely, white face.
"I would die before I would suffer him to even touch me!" she cries,
indignantly.
"Then you must not leave us, Lady Vera," Sir Harry answers, earnestly.
"With all the prestige of your rank and wealth you are so utterly alone
in the world that my heart yearns for you as if you were my sister or
my daughter. Stay with us and let us guard you from the traps your
enemies may set for you."
"Stay with us," re-echoes Lady Clive, warmly, and her brother's
speaking eyes reiterate the wish.
But Lady Vera's gaze turns from those eyes, too dearly loved for her
peace of mind, and her heart sinks heavily.
"I should not trouble your peace, Lady Vera," he says, hastily, as if
divining the thought in her mind. "I am going away."
"I cannot drive you from your sister's house," she answers, sadly.
He comes to her side and takes her hand gently in his strong, warm
clasp.
"Be reasonable, Vera," he says, like one speaking to a willful child.
"I am a man, young and strong, and capable of facing the world. You are
scarcely more than a child, and you need protection from the ills that
threaten your tender life. You will stay with Sir Harry and Nella while
I will go away. Of course we understand that we cannot go on meeting
each other daily as we have done. It would be too hard for both. It is
best that we part. That is what you wish yourself--is it not?"
"Yes, yes," she murmurs, faintly.
"That is best," he says, bravely. "I shall go, then; Nella will have my
address, and if you ever need a friend you will send for me--will you
not, Vera?"
She bows silently, and with sudden, irrepressible passion, he presses
her hand.
"Oh, Vera, I have lost you forever, I know," he says, brokenly,
"but--you will never allow Leslie Noble's claim, will you? You will
never belong to him, never love him?"
"_Never_!" she answers, with all the pride of the Campbells flushing
her face and ringing in her voice.
"Thank you a thousand times," he exclaims. "Leslie Noble is not fit to
claim the treasure of your love, Vera. And now, tell me--you will stay
with Nella, will you not?"
She glances doubtfully at Lady Clive.
"I could not go into society, you know," she says. "I could not face
the world after--after that," and the burning crimson rushes into her
face.
"It shall be just as you please about that," her friend answers. "Only
say that you will remain with us, dear."
And Lady Vera answers:
"I will stay."
And then the first beams of the early summer dawn peep into the room in
wonder at their sad, white faces.
It has been hours since Lady Vera began the telling of the sad story
of her early life and her parents' bitter wrongs, and now, as she bids
them all a sad good-night, and goes to her room to rest, her heart is
breaking with the bitterness of her pain.
"Father," she murmurs, lifting her heavy eyes from her sleepless
pillow, "father, I have punished them for their sins, I have shamed
them in the eyes of all the world, but my own heart is broken."