LOVE’S OVATION
“You have the victory, my own!” he said at last, with a droll smile.
“You have triumphed!”
“How triumphed?” inquired Lilith.
“You have drawn me to your side, you have brought me to retract, and yet
you have not told me your secret!”
“No! I have not, indeed; but——”
“Nor has any one else told me, nor do I even surmise its nature; in a
word, Lilith, I know no more of that mystery now than I knew on that
dreadful day when it parted us! And yet I am here beside you,
repudiating all my own injurious doubts and suspicions, taking you in
perfect love and perfect trust.”
“Oh, thank Heaven that you can so take me!” exclaimed Lilith, fervently.
“And now I do not even ask you for your secret.”
“Oh, but I can tell you now! I am free to tell you now——”
“But I do not even care to hear it! I do not even ask you by
‘What conjuration and what mighty magic’
you, my little country girl, are here in Paris, arrayed and lodged in
royal magnificence, and gracing more than any other lady in it the salon
of Madame la Princesse Gherardini. I am so perfectly satisfied for the
present just to have you by my side.”
“I bless you for your faith and your forbearance, Tudor! But—I can tell
you the secret of Monsieur Ancillon’s correspondence with me in one
single word. He is my—father!”
“Your father, Lilith! Ancillon your father!”
“Yes, though I never knew it until after we were married.”
“Ancillon your father! Incredible! Are you sure of that?”
“Quite sure.”
“How did you discover the fact? Did he tell you?”
“I first discovered it by the packet of old letters and papers put away
in that trunk which was the sole legacy of my dear mother to me.”
“Ah! Ah! Ancillon himself, when he came to me once at Cloud Cliffs,
referred me to those documents; but when I had the trunk broken open and
searched, the papers were gone!”
“I had brought them away for safe keeping. They were too important to be
left.”
“I understand now! I understand. But, Lilith! We all thought your
parentage was so well known that there could be no mistake about it!
Your father and mother lived at Seawood. Your father was drowned in
saving my life. Your mother died of the shock the very day of your
birth. How, then, is it possible that this man can claim to be your
father?”
“Oh, Tudor, it is a long and sad story. There is no time to tell it to
you now; but this much I can tell: Joseph Wyvil and Elizabeth, who lived
such a secluded life at Seawood that their neighbors knew little or
nothing of them except that they belonged to the village church, and led
quiet, industrious and blameless lives—were not husband and wife as
people took them to be—but a devoted brother and a most unfortunate
young sister, who had lost her husband by a fate much worse than death.
More than this I cannot tell you now. Both died too suddenly to confide
the secret to any one. So I was registered as the child of Joseph and
Elizabeth Wyvil, when in fact I was the child of Alphonzo and Elizabeth
Zuniga!”
“Zuniga!”
“Yes.”
“Then Ancillon is a relative of that young Spaniard we met in Washington
who looked so much like him?”
“He was the same. Ancillon and Zuniga were one. Ancillon was his
professional name, Zuniga was his family name.”
“A very strange story, Lilith.”
“My father will give you every particular as soon as your convenience
permits him to do so. And I shall furnish the documents that shall prove
the truth of his story.”
“How is it, my child, that you could not at the very first have told me
that Ancillon was your father? That you are now at liberty to tell that
secret which cost you so much to keep a year ago?”
“Because I am now in possession of the sequel to the secret, without
which I could never have told the secret. But you shall know all from my
father. I think, also, I ought to tell you how I happen to be in Paris
with the Princess Gherardini. I can do so in a very few words. When I
left home I went to New York, found a home with a good Christian,
motherly woman, the widow of a clergyman. After waiting many weeks to
hear from you, without success, I answered a lady’s advertisement for a
traveling companion, and was so fortunate as to be accepted and to enter
the household of the Baroness Von Bruyin, now, since morning, the
Princess Gherardini. I did not know that she was your first love. In
telling me the story you had not told me any names. She grew to love me.
I know not why——”
“Why does every one love you, child?”
“Ah, I don’t know that every one does! I don’t even think that many do.
Madame Von Bruyin has always treated me with the distinction of an
honored guest and the affection of a beloved sister. You saw me in her
immediate circle to-day. That has always been my place.”
“She is a much nobler and more generous woman than I had ever supposed
her to be.”
“Oh, she is indeed! But, Tudor! Tell me how you came to be here at this
wedding reception, when I supposed you to be at the Court of ——?”
“My love, I received a pressing letter from the baroness, not only
inviting but commanding, exhorting and entreating me to come; going
through all the variations of the potential mood to compel me to come.
In short, darling, it was such a letter as could not be gainsayed. I
obeyed, thinking that the lady only wanted an opportunity to say—Hail!
and Farewell! to an old friend. I came and found my lost treasure! And
now I know her motive was to restore that treasure to my possession. And
I thank and bless her for it.”
“Amen and amen!” breathed Lilith.
“But, dearest dear! She introduced you as Mrs. Wyvil! How was that?”
“Oh, Tudor, I dreamed that some one in a high, delirious fever had told
me that I must never call myself by the name of Hereward again, and I
was so foolish as to take the sick man at his word.”
“I remember! I remember! Oh, Lilith! How much you have to forgive!”
“I have nothing to forgive! nothing! I am just as happy as a lark!”
“My darling, since you entered Madame Von Bruyin’s family under the name
of Wyvil, how could she have known or guessed that you were my wife?”
Lilith paused and reflected, and then she answered:
“I am not pledged to secrecy in this matter; yet, if you were not my
husband, and if I were not fully resolved never to have a secret, either
of my own or of any one else’s, from you, I should not tell you this;
for women should not betray women, especially to the common enemy; but I
know you are not vain, Tudor, and you are generous.”
“Now, if you object——”
“I do not object—I insist on telling you.”
“Go on, then.”
“You know she was your first love——”
“My first—and last—hallucination! You, Lilith, were my first and
enduring love,” amended Hereward.
“Oh! thank Heaven!” breathed the young wife, almost inaudibly; then she
said:
“You were not quite just to her, Tudor. The old baron whom she married
was more of a father than a husband to her; he doted on her from her
infancy. She was the only creature in the world that he loved—except her
father.”
“She told me that.”
“He engaged himself to her that he might give her a title and leave her
his fortune.”
“She did not need his fortune. She was the heiress of great wealth.”
“I know, but still he wished to leave his darling all he possessed.”
“He might have done that without marrying her.”
“Yes, but he wished also to give her his title; the title which—they
said—he meant to ask of the emperor, in lieu of the payment of many
millions loaned by him during the war. He wished to ennoble his pet.”
“Well, love? What has all this got to do with your telling the baroness
your story?” inquired Hereward, with a smile.
“Everything! You shall hear. This old man, who loved without self-love,
discovered that his fair betrothed was very unhappy, and pressed her for
the reason. That she should have a sorrow that he could not comfort,
with all his wealth and power, seemed as wonderful as it was
insupportable! He pressed her for her confidence, and she gave it to
him—told him—well, she told him, in effect, that she would rather marry
Mr. Tudor Hereward than Herr Bruyin. And he released her from her
engagement to himself, and promised to win over her father to consent to
her marriage with you. When you returned to Washington, she sought you
out and offered the hand that she had once refused. But you, being then
married, could not accept it. Tudor! were you sorry?”
“I am not sorry now, dearest, at all events,” he answered, drawing the
little figure closer to his side.
“Of course, sorrow, disappointment and humiliation preyed upon the
spoiled beauty. Your marriage with me was announced, and Herr Bruyin,
who was still watching over his darling, knew then the threefold cause
of her anguish. He went to her and reminded her that their marriage had
been announced some weeks before, and that the announcement had not been
contradicted, and he proposed to her to let their betrothal stand; to
marry at the appointed time; to go with him to Europe; and, in the grand
tour and at the great capitals, where she would be welcomed and fêted,
to forget the disappointments she had experienced here. She followed his
counsel, and they were married and went abroad. I tell you this, Tudor,
that you may be just to her; for now you see that she was not a
double-dealer; she was not deceitful; she was perfectly frank with you
and with her old betrothed, from first to last.”
“Then I have wronged her in my judgment. And it begins to seem to me
that I am rather given to wronging people, eh, Lilith?”
“No, you are not. You have been misled by false appearances, which were
nobody’s fault.”
“You, at least, are very charitable, Lilith. But go on, dear.”
“You know, I suppose, that Herr Bruyin received his title soon after his
arrival in his native city, and that he survived the event but a few
months, and that Herr Von Kirschberg died about the same time?”
“Yes, I heard that.”
“Madame Von Bruyin, bereft of husband and father, returned to New York
early in April. In May she advertised for a companion. I applied for the
situation, pleased madame, and was accepted, as I told you. She knew me
only as Mrs. Wyvil and believed me to be a widow. She grew very fond of
me——”
“Very naturally.”
“We were to sail by the Kron Prinz on the first of June.”
“Why, I sailed on the Kron Prinz, on the first of June!” Hereward
interrupted.
“Exactly. And that was the very reason why we did not. And now comes the
crisis of my story—the reason why I was compelled to discover my real
name and position to Madame the Baroness. She had seen the account of
your appointment as Secretary of Legation, coupled with the theory that
you had accepted the post mainly for the sake of serving the country in
a place far removed from the spot associated with the tragic death of
your wife——”
“‘Young and lovely wife,’ I think they put it, Lilith,” said Hereward,
with a droll smile. “Well, it was true, so far as I know. My health had
broken down under the heavy blow of your loss and your supposed death,
Lilith. And when I was convalescent I eagerly snatched at the
opportunity of leaving a home that had become hateful to me, and of
seeking distraction, not consolation, not forgetfulness, in new scenes
and new duties. And madame saw my name in the published list of
passengers, I suppose?”
“Yes; curiosity, a very natural curiosity, led her to read the list of
cabin passengers by the Kron Prinz, to see who were to be our
fellow-passengers, and she saw your name there. In another part of the
paper she had seen the account of your voyage and its causes, of which I
have just told you. But, Tudor, she did not tell me all this until we
were out at sea. On that day when she sent for me she gave me, as I
said, only an outline of her reasons. She told me that there was a party
going out by the Kron Prinz with whom she did not choose to travel.”
“A very proper decision, under the very peculiar circumstances. But what
has that got to do——”
“I am rapidly coming to that, Tudor. After we had sailed, when the pilot
left us and we were far out of sight of land, Madame Von Bruyin gave me
her whole confidence. She told me the story of her early betrothal with
an old millionaire; and of her first love—or fancied love—into which her
inexperienced heart had betrayed her. She told me everything just as I
have told it to you.”
“And as I had told you, months before,” put in Hereward.
“Yes; but you gave me the facts from your point of view, and she gave
them to me from her own. And hers was the true view, Tudor.”
“Yes, I acknowledge that.”
“She said that in her position and in yours—both so recently
bereaved—she could not possibly think of crossing the ocean in the same
ship with you. And then, Tudor, she added an explanation that made my
hair stand on end—so to speak.”
“Ah! what was that which could have straightened these pretty, rippling
locks and made them stand erect ‘like quills upon the fretful
porcupine?’” gayly inquired Hereward, as he passed his hand fondly over
her little curly black head.
“She told me that in a few months you (she and yourself) would probably
meet in ——. And, in short, that—both being free to form new ties—the old
interest in each other would be revived; that after the year of mourning
had been past, you two would, of course, marry, and that she should do
everything in her power to atone to you for all the disappointment she
had caused you, and to make your life happy! Was not that enough to make
my hair bristle up on end—to hear another woman tell me to my face that
she was going to marry my husband and live happy all the rest of their
lives?”
Hereward broke into a merry laugh.
“You know, I could not let her go on dreaming that dream. I told her she
must not think of such a thing. And when, being very much astonished at
my assurance, she asked me why she must not, I told her because it would
be a deadly sin, for that Mr. Hereward’s wife was still living. And when
she pressed to know why I thought so, I had to tell her, because I
myself was that wife, supposed to be dead. Well, then, of course, it was
necessary to tell her the cause of our parting—that it was a bitter
misunderstanding growing out of circumstances which placed me in a false
light. I spoke only in general terms; and because I could not go into
details I offered to cancel our contract and leave her as soon as we
should land at Havre.”
“And what would you have done, then, as ‘a stranger in a strange land,’
Lilith? Would you have come on to me?” inquired Hereward.
“Uncalled, and after all that had passed? Oh, no! I could not have done
that. I should have taken the first steamer back to New York and
returned to Aunt Sophie.”
“Aunt Sophie?”
“Mrs. Downie, the clergyman’s widow, with whom I had lived in New York.
But Madame Von Bruyin would not consent to cancel our contract. She
insisted that I should remain with her. She was very good about it all.
Indeed, she treated me with more than even her usual kindness, and from
that hour I became to her as a beloved and cherished sister. I think she
got over her sentimental fancy for you, for I think it was nothing more
than that.”
“Probably not,” said Hereward, with a smile.
“And when the ‘Fairy Prince’ appeared in the form of Gherardini, I think
the beauteous lady discovered that she had never really been in love in
all her life before,” added Lilith, archly.
“I am very glad to hear it. No heartier congratulations were ever
offered to any bride than were mine to the newly married princess
to-day,” said Hereward.
“And, by the way,” suggested Lilith, “the bridal pair are to leave for
Marseilles, en route for Rome, at five o’clock, and it must be near that
hour now. Will you return to the drawing-room or remain and await me
here?”
“I will go with you,” said Hereward, as he arose and offered Lilith his
arm.