"I shall have to leave London," Lady Vera says, desperately, when rumor
has wafted to her ears the story of Leslie Noble's cavalier treatment
of Mrs. Cleveland and her daughter. "I am afraid--horribly afraid of
that man. His parting threat still rings in my ears."
"You need not be afraid while you are with us," Lady Clive exclaims,
vivaciously. "Do you think we would ever let the mean wretch come near
you again?"
But Lady Vera, coloring deeply, explains:
"He has other methods of annoying me besides his presence. Already I
have received several letters from him, some of a wheedling, persuasive
nature, others filled with offensive threats."
Sir Harry looks up from his paper.
"Shall I horsewhip the scoundrel for you, Lady Vera?" he asks,
indignantly. "It would give me the greatest pleasure."
She shrinks, sensitively, from this offered championship.
"No, no, for it would only make the affair more notorious. And I am
afraid it has been talked about already--has it not, Sir Harry?" she
asks, with a painful blush on her shamed face.
"Yes, rather," he admits, reluctantly.
"And I have been afraid even to look into the papers," she pursues. "I
thought it might have gotten into them. Has it, Sir Harry?"
He answers "yes" again with sincere reluctance, and Lady Vera hides
her face in her hands a moment, while crimson blushes of shame burn
her fair cheeks. She thinks to herself that she would gladly have died
rather than have encountered all this.
"But they do not say any harm of you, dear--you mustn't think _that_,"
said Lady Clive, kindly. "And they all sympathize with you. Your
friends call on you every day, only you decline to see them, you know.
But every one is so sorry for you, and has cut those people--your
enemies, I mean, Vera--quite dead."
"Noble has turned them out of Darnley House, bag and baggage. Had to
sell the place over their heads to oust them," says Sir Harry.
"Is it not strange that I should have taken such an antipathy to them
when I first met them abroad? Experience has so fully justified me that
I shall plume myself hereafter on being a person of great discernment,"
laughs Lady Clive.
Lady Vera sighs and is silent. Her heart is very sore over the parting
with her lover, and the notoriety that the keeping of her oath has
brought down upon her. Fain would she bow her fair head in some lone,
deserted spot, and die of the shame and misery that weighs upon her so
heavily.
"After all I believe I should be safer and happier at Fairvale Park,"
she says, after a moment. "I have a feeling of dread upon me here. I
am growing nervous, perhaps, but I am actually afraid of Leslie Noble.
I seem to be haunted by his baleful presence. Yesterday evening when
I went for a short walk, I fancied my footsteps were dogged by a man,
though I could not make out his identity through my thick veil. But I
was frightened homeward very fast by an apprehension that it was Mr.
Noble. I should breathe more easily out of London. Could I persuade
you, Lady Clive and Sir Harry, to forego the delights of the season,
and come down to the country with me?"
Sir Harry gives his wife a quick telegraphic signal of affirmation, and
she assents smilingly.
"I am sure I shall be delighted," she declares. "And Sir Harry is
usually of the same mind as I am. It must be perfectly lovely now down
at Fairvale. And the children would be delighted, I know."
"I am all the more willing to accept Lady Vera's invitation to
Fairvale, because I think it necessary that she should examine her
father's letters and papers if he has left any," declares Sir Harry,
diffidently. "If he has left any confession bearing on the subject of
her supposed death and burial, it is most important that she should be
in possession of it."
"Why?" asks the young countess, looking at him with a slightly startled
air.
"For this reason," he answers. "In the face of your enemies' confident
assertion of Vera Noble's death and burial, and your own denial of it,
matters have assumed a strange aspect! Mrs. Cleveland and her daughter
declare you to be an impostor whom the Earl of Fairvale has palmed
off as his child. There are some who could very easily be brought to
believe that story."
"Whom?" Lady Vera asks, wonderingly.
"The person who would be most benefited if such a charge could be
proven true--the next heir to the title and estates of Fairvale," Sir
Harry answers, gravely.
"Oh, dear!" cries Lady Clive, anxiously, and Vera says, with paling
lips:
"You do not mean that--that----"
"I ought to tell you, Lady Vera, what I have heard," he answers,
interrupting her incoherent question. "Shall I do so?"
"Yes, pray do," she answers.
"Briefly, then, Raleigh Gilmore, the next heir, has come up to
London, summoned doubtless by the vindictive Clevelands, and has been
interviewing some eminent lawyers. Seeing that he has lived for ten
years or more on his small estate in the country without ever setting
foot in London, this present move on his part has a suspicious look.
You may apprehend a suit against you at any time, so it behooves you to
muster all the evidence you can on this weak point in your history."
Lady Vera sits silent before this new, impending calamity with folded
hands, her color coming and going fitfully, her dark eyes fixed
steadfastly on the floor. Perhaps she does not realize in all its
intensity this new horror. The pain she has already endured has numbed
her feelings, or rendered her impervious to future sufferings.
"You understand, do you not, Lady Vera," Sir Harry pursues, calling her
attention reluctantly, "that your denial of ever having been buried
makes a fearfully weak point in your case, should it ever be contested?
All the evidence adduced goes to prove that Vera Campbell Noble really
died to all appearance, and was buried. If you are compelled by law to
prove your identity with that Vera, you will have to admit that burial,
and prove your resurrection. Otherwise--I am telling you this in the
greatest kindness, remember, dear Lady Vera--you may be branded as an
adventuress and impostor, and ruthlessly bereft of the goodly heritage
of Fairvale."
She lifts her heavy eyes from the blank contemplation of the carpet,
and looks at him thoughtfully.
"You do not believe me an impostor, do you, Sir Harry?" she asks, sadly.
"Not for an instant," replies the baronet, warmly.
"Do you, Lady Clive?"
"No, indeed, my dearest girl," replies her friend, with an emphatic
caress.
"Did Colonel Lockhart, before he went away?" she asks, with blushing
hesitation.
"Not at all," Sir Harry answers, decidedly.
"Then surely no one will believe it," she says, thoughtfully. "You
remember Vera Campbell's grave has been found empty."
"Yes, but you remember you may be called on to prove your identity with
Vera Campbell," he answers, gravely.
"Leslie Noble unhesitatingly acknowledges me as his wife," she argues.
"I do not know whether that fact would weigh strongly with a jury,"
he answers, thoughtfully. "To claim you, Lady Vera, so young, so
lovely, above all, so wealthy, as his wife, cannot be without its
subtle temptation to such a man as Leslie Noble. Rumor says that
the Clevelands have almost beggared him by their lavish and ruinous
extravagance, and that he hated the woman who bore his name. What
more natural than that he should jump at the choice of exchanging his
crumbling fortunes and despised partner for rank and wealth, and beauty
and youth? Though I do not doubt your identity for one moment, Lady
Vera, I am convinced that it could scarcely be proved in a court of law
by the oath of Leslie Noble."
As he pauses, coloring, and deeply sorry that it has seemed necessary
to speak so plainly to her whom fate has already so rudely buffeted,
she looks up at him with forced calmness and self-restraint.
"What, then, do you deem it necessary that I should do in my own
defense, Sir Harry?" she inquires.
"In times of peace prepare for war," he quotes, sententiously. "Do not
understand me to mean that I apprehend immediate trouble, Lady Vera.
Perhaps in my friendliness and interest in you, I have magnified the
danger. But I would advise that you be ready in case an attack is
made. And the first step I would advise is to thoroughly examine the
papers left by your father, the late earl. I can only think that he
concealed the truth from you from fear of shocking your sensitive mind
too greatly. But I can scarcely credit that he would fail to leave on
record the narrative of so strange and important an event in your life.
I say, therefore, if such a document be in existence, it is judicious
that you should put yourself in immediate possession of it."
Lady Vera, rising impulsively, goes over to this true and noble friend,
and presses his hand warmly between both her own soft, white ones.
"Sir Harry, I do not know how to thank you for the friendship you are
proving so nobly," she murmurs, tearfully. "But I will pray God nightly
to bless you for standing by me so nobly in my hour of trial and
sorrow."
"Tut--tut, I need no thanks," the baronet answers, brushing a
suspicious moisture away from his eyes. "How can I help being kind to
Nella's best loved friend, and her brother's sweetheart? You need not
blush, my dear, for I hope Providence may soon translate Leslie Noble
to some higher sphere, and give you and Phil leave to be happy. And
until then I will do the best I can for your comfort. In furtherance of
that end I propose that Nella and the children shall be in readiness to
accompany you to Fairvale to-morrow."