Slowly, wonderingly, Lady Arleigh took the Duchess of Hazlewood's letter
from her husband's hands and opened it.
"Is it from the duchess?" she asked.
"Yes, it is from the duchess," replied her husband.
He saw her sink slowly down upon a lounge. Above her, in the upper panes
of the window beneath which they were sitting, were the armorial
bearings of the family in richest hues of stained glass. The colors and
shadows fell with strange effects on her white dress, great bars of
purple and crimson crossing each other, and opposite to her hung the
superb Titian, with the blood-red rubies on the white throat.
Lord Arleigh watched Madaline as she read. Whatever might be the agony
in his own heart, it was exceeded by hers. He saw the brightness die out
of her face, the light fade from her eyes, the lips grow pale. But a few
minutes before that young face had been bright with fairest beauty,
eloquent with truest love, lit with passion and with poetry--now it was
like a white mask.
Slowly, and as though it was with difficulty that she understood Lady
Arleigh read the letter through, and then--she did not scream or cry
out--she raised her eyes to his face. He saw in them a depth of human
sorrow and human woe which words are powerless to express.
So they looked at each other in passionate anguish. No words passed--of
what avail were they? Each read the heart of the other. They knew that
they must part. Then the closely-written pages fell to the ground, and
Madaline's hands clasped each other in helpless anguish. The golden head
fell forward on her breast. He noticed that in her agitation and sorrow
she did not cling to him as she had clung before--that she did not even
touch him. She seemed by instinct to understand that she was his wife
now in name only.
So for some minutes they sat, while the sunset glowed in the west. He
was the first to speak.
"My dear Madaline," he said, "my poor wife"--his voice seemed to startle
her into new life and new pain--"I would rather have died than have
given you this pain."
"I know it--I am sure of it," she said, "but, oh, Norman, how can I
release you?"
"There is happily no question about that," he answered.
He saw her rise from her seat and stretch out her arms.
"What have I done," she cried, "that I must suffer so cruelly? What have
I done?"
"Madaline," said Lord Arleigh, "I do not think that so cruel a fate has
ever befallen any one as has befallen us. I do not believe that any one
has ever suffered so cruelly, my darling. If death had parted us, the
trial would have been easier to bear."
She turned her sad eyes to him.
"It is very cruel," she said, with a shudder. "I did not think the
duchess would be so cruel."
"It is more than that--it is infamous!" he cried. "It is vengeance
worthier of a fiend than of a woman."
"And I loved her so!" said the young girl, mournfully. "Husband, I will
not reproach you--your love was chivalrous and noble; but why did you
not let me speak freely to you? I declared to you that no doubt ever
crossed my mind. I thought you knew all, though I considered it strange
that you, so proud of your noble birth, should wish to marry me. I never
imagined that you had been deceived. The duchess told me that you knew
the whole history of my father's crime, that you were familiar with
every detail of it, but that you wished me never to mention it--never
even ever so remotely to allude to it. I thought it strange, Norman,
that one in your position should be willing to overlook so terrible a
blot; but she told me your love for me was so great that you could not
live without me. She told me even more--that I must try to make my own
life so perfect that the truest nobility of all, the nobility of virtue,
might be mine."
"Did she really tell you that?" asked Lord Arleigh wonderingly.
"Yes; and, Norman, she said that you would discuss the question with me
once, and once only--that would be on my wedding-day. On that day you
would ask for and I should tell the whole history of my father's crime;
and after that it was to be a dead-letter, never to be named between
us."
"And you believed her?" he said.
"Yes, as I believe you. Why should I have doubted her? My faith in her
was implicit. Why should I have even thought you would repent? More than
once I was on the point of running away. But she would not let me go.
She said that I must not be cruel to you--that you loved me so dearly
that to lose me would prove a death-blow. So I believed her, and,
against my will, staid on."
"I wish you had told me this," he said, slowly.
She raised her eyes to his.
"You would not let me speak, Norman. I tried so often, dear, but you
would not let me."
"I remember," he acknowledged; "but, oh, my darling, how little I knew
what you had to say! I never thought that anything stood between us
except your poverty."
They remained silent for a few minutes--such sorrow as theirs needed no
words. Lord Arleigh was again the first to speak.
"Madaline," he said, "will you tell me all you remember of your life."
"Yes; it is not much. It has been such a simple life, Norman, half made
up of shadows. First, I can remember being a child in some far off
woodland house. I am sure it was in the woods; for I remember the nuts
growing on the trees, the squirrels, and the brown hares. I remember
great masses of green foliage, a running brook, and the music of wild
birds. I remember small latticed windows against which the ivy tapped.
My father used to come in with his gun slung across his shoulders--he
was a very handsome man, Norman, but not kind to either my mother or me.
My mother was then, as she is now, patient, kind, gentle,
long-suffering. I have never heard her complain. She loved me with an
absorbing love. I was her only comfort. I did my best to deserve her
affection. I loved her too. I cannot remember that she ever spoke one
unkind word to me, and I can call to mind a thousand instances of
indulgence and kindness. I knew that she deprived herself of almost
everything to give it to me. I have seen her eat dry bread patiently,
while for me and my father there was always some little dainty. The
remembrance of the happiness of my early life begins and ends with my
mother. My memories of her are all pleasant." She continued as though
recalling her thoughts with difficulty. "I can remember some one else. I
do not know who or what he was, except that he was, I think, a doctor.
He used to see me, and used to amuse me. Then there came a dark day. I
cannot tell what happened, but after that day I never saw my friend
again."
He was looking at her with wondering eyes.
"And you remember no more than that about him, Madaline?"
"No," she replied. "Then came a time," she went on, "when it seemed to
me that my mother spent all her days and nights in weeping. There fell a
terrible shadow over us, and we removed. I have no recollection of the
journey--not the faintest; but I can remember my sorrow at leaving the
bright green woods for a dull, gloomy city lodging. My mother was still
my hope and comfort. After we came to London she insisted that, no
matter what else went wrong I should have a good education; she toiled,
saved, suffered for me. 'My darling must be a lady,' she used to say.
She would not let me work, though I entreated her with tears in my eyes.
I used to try to deceive her even, but I never could succeed. She loved
me so, my poor mother. She would take my hands in hers and kiss them.
'Such dainty hands, dear,' she would say, 'must not be spoiled.' After a
great deal of trouble and expense, she contrived to get me an engagement
as governess-pupil in a lady's school; there I did receive a good
education. One failing of my mother always filled me with wonder--she
used to fancy that people watched me. 'Has any one spoken to you,
darling?' she would ask. 'Has any stranger seen you?' I used to laugh,
thinking it was parental anxiety; but it has struck me since as strange.
While I was at the ladies' school my father committed the crime for
which I--alas!--am suffering now."
"Will you tell me what the crime was?" requested Lord Arleigh.
A dreary hopelessness, inexpressibly painful to see, came over her face,
and a deep-drawn sigh broke from her lips.
"I will tell you all about it," she said--"would to Heaven that I had
done so before! My mother, many years ago, was in the service of Lady
L'Estrange; she was her maid then. Miss L'Estrange married the Duke of
Hazlewood, and, when my mother was in great difficulties, she went to
the duchess to ask for employment. The duchess was always kind,"
continued Madaline, "and she grew interested in my mother. She came to
see her, and I was at home. She told me afterward that when she first
saw me she conceived a liking for me. I know now that I was but the
victim of her plot."
She stopped abruptly, but Lord Arleigh encouraged her.
"Tell me all, Madaline," he said, gently; "none of this is your fault,
my poor wife. Tell me all."
"The duchess was very kind to my mother, and befriended her in many
ways. She interested the duke in her case, and he promised to find
employment for my unfortunate father, who went to his house to see him.
Whether my father had ever done wrong before, I cannot tell. Sometimes I
fear that he had done so, for no man falls suddenly into crime. In few
words--oh, Norman, how hard they are to say!--what he saw in the duke's
mansion tempted him. He joined some burglars, and they robbed the house.
My unfortunate father was found with his pockets filled with valuable
jewelry. My mother would not let me read the history of the trial, but I
learned the result--he was sentenced to ten years' penal servitude."
She paused again; the dreary hopelessness of her face, the pain in her
voice, touched him inexpressibly.
"None of this is your fault, my darling," he said. "Go on."
"Then," she continued "the duchess was kinder than ever to my mother.
She furnished her with the means of gaining her livelihood; she offered
to finish my education and adopt me. My mother was at first unwilling;
she did not wish me to leave her. But the duchess said that her love was
selfish--that it was cruel to stand in my light when such an offer was
made. She consented and I, wondering much what my ultimate fate was to
be, was sent to school in Paris. When I had been there for some time,
the duke and duchess came to see me. I must not forget to tell you,
Norman, that she saw me herself first privately. She said he was so
forgetful that he would never remember having heard the name of Dornham.
She added that the keeping of the secret was very important, for, if it
became known, all her kind efforts in our favor must cease at once. I
promised to be most careful. The duke and duchess arranged that I was to
go home with them and live as the duchess' companion. Again she warned
me never upon any account to mention who I was, or anything about me.
She called me the daughter of an old friend--and so I was, although that
friend was a very humble one. From the first, Norman, she talked so much
about you; you were the model of everything chivalrous and noble, the
hero of a hundred pleasant stories. I had learned to love you long even
before I saw you--to love you after a fashion, Norman, as a hero. I can
see it all now. She laid the plot--we were the victims. I remember that
the very morning on which you saw me first the duchess sent me into the
trellised arbor; I was to wait there until she summoned me. Rely upon
it, Norman, she also gave orders that you were to be shown into the
morning-room, although she pretended to be annoyed at it. I can see all
the plot now plainly. I can only say---- Oh, Norman, you and I were both
blind! We ought to have seen through her scheme. Why should she have
brought us together if she had not meant that we should love each other?
What have we in common--I, the daughter of a felon; you, a nobleman,
proud of your ancestry, proud of your name? Oh, Norman, if I could but
die here at your feet, and save you from myself!"
Even as she spoke she sank sobbing, no longer on to his breast, no
longer with her arms clasped round his neck, but at his feet.
He raised her in his arms--for he loved her with passionate love.
"Madaline," he said, in a low voice, "do not make my task harder for me.
That which I have to do is indeed bitter to me--do not make it harder."
His appeal touched her. For his sake she must try to be strong.
Slowly he looked up at the long line of noblemen and women whose faces
shone down upon him; slowly he looked at her graceful figure and bowed
head of his wife, the daughter of a felon--the first woman who had ever
entered those walls with even the semblance of a stain upon her name. As
he looked at her the thought came to him that, if his housekeeper had
told him that she had inadvertently placed such a person--the daughter
of a felon--in his kitchen, he would never have rested until she had
been sent away.
He must part from her--this lovely girl-wife whom he loved with such
passionate love. The daughter of a criminal could not reign at
Beechgrove. If the parting cost his life and hers it must take place. It
was cruel. The strong man trembled with agitation; his lips quivered,
his face was pale as death. He bent over his weeping wife.
"Madaline," he said, gently, "I do not understand the ways of destiny.
Why you and I have to suffer this torture I cannot say. I can see
nothing in our lives that deserves such punishment. Heaven knows best.
Why we have met and loved, only to undergo such anguish, is a puzzle I
cannot solve. There is only one thing plain to me, and that is that we
must part."
He never forgot how she sprang away from him, her colorless face raised
to his.
"Part, Norman!" she cried. "We cannot part now; I am your wife!"
"I know it; but we must part."
"Part!" repeated the girl. "We cannot; the tie that binds us cannot be
sundered so easily."
"My poor Madaline, it must be."
She caught his hand in hers.
"You are jesting, Norman. We cannot be separated--we are one. Do you
forget the words--'for better for worse,' 'till death us do part?'--You
frighten me!" And she shrank from him with a terrible shudder.
"It must be as I have said," declared the unhappy man. "I have been
deceived--so have you. We have to suffer for another's sin."
"We may suffer," she said, dully, "but we cannot part. You cannot send
me away from you."
"I must," he persisted. "Darling, I speak with deepest love and pity,
yet with unwavering firmness. You cannot think that, with that terrible
stain resting on you, you can take your place here."
"But I am your wife!" she cried, in wild terror.
"You are my wife," he returned, with quivering lips; "but you must
remain so in name only." He paused abruptly, for it seemed to him that
the words burned his lips as they passed them. "My wife," he muttered,
"in name only."
With a deep sob she stretched out her arms. "But I love you,
Norman--you must not send me away! I love you--I shall die if I have to
leave you!"
The words seemed to linger on her lips.
"My darling," he said, gently, "it is even harder for me than for you."
"No, no," she cried, "for I love you so dearly, Norman--better than my
life! Darling, my whole heart went out to you long ago--you cannot give
it back to me."
"If it kills you and myself too," he declared, hoarsely, "I must send
you away."
"Send me away? Oh, no, Norman, not away! Let me stay with you, husband,
darling. We were married only this morning My place is here by your
side--I cannot go."
Looking away from her, with those passionate accents still ringing in
his ears, his only answer was:
"Family honor demands it."
"Norman," she implored, "listen to me, dear! Do not send me away from
you. I will be so good, so devoted. I will fulfill my duties so well, I
will bear myself so worthily that no one shall remember anything against
me; they shall forget my unhappy birth, and think only that you have
chosen well. Oh, Norman, be merciful to me! Leaving you would be a
living death!"
"You cannot suffer more than I do," he said--"and I would give my life
to save you pain; but, my darling, I cannot be so false to the
traditions of my race, so false to the honor of my house, so untrue to
my ancestors and to myself, as to ask you to stay here. There has never
been a blot on our name. The annals of our family are pure and
stainless. I could not ask you to remain here and treat you as my wife,
even to save my life!"
"I have done no wrong, Norman; why should you punish me so cruelly?"
"No, my darling, you have done no wrong--and the punishment is more mine
than yours. I lose the wife whom I love most dearly--I lose my all."
"And what do I lose?" she moaned.
"Not so much as I do, because you are the fairest and sweetest of women.
You shall live in all honor, Madaline. You shall never suffer social
degradation, darling--the whole world shall know that I hold you
blameless; but you can be my wife in name only."
She was silent for a few minutes, and then she held out her arms to him
again.
"Oh, my love, relent!" she cried. "Do not be so hard on me--indeed, I
have done no wrong. Be merciful! I am your wife; your name is so mighty,
so noble, it will overshadow me. Who notices the weed that grows under
the shadow of the kingly oak? Oh, my husband, let me stay! I love you
so dearly--let me stay!"
The trial was so hard and cruel that great drops fell from his brow and
his lips trembled.
"My darling, it is utterly impossible. We have been deceived. The
consequences of that deceit must be met. I owe duties to the dead as
well as to the living. I cannot transgress the rules of my race. Within
these time-honored walls no woman can remain who is not of stainless
lineage and stainless repute. Do not urge me further."
"Norman," she said, in a trembling voice, "you are doing wrong in
sending me away. You cannot outrage Heaven's laws with impunity. It is
Heaven's law that husband and wife should cleave together. You cannot
break it."
"I have no wish to break it. I say simply that I shall love you until I
die, but that you must be my wife in name only."
"It is bitterly hard," she observed; and then she looked up at him
suddenly. "Norman," she said, "let me make one last appeal to you. I
know the stigma is terrible--I know that the love-story must be hateful
to you--I know that the vague sense of disgrace which clings to you even
now is almost more than you can bear; but, my darling, since you say you
love me so dearly, can you not bear this trial for my sake, if in
everything else I please you--if I prove myself a loving, trustful,
truthful wife, if I fulfill all my duties so as to reflect honor on you;
if I prove a worthy mistress of your household?"
"I cannot," he replied, hoarsely; but there must have been something in
his face from which she gathered hope, for she went on, with a ring of
passionate love in her voice.
"If, after we had been married, I had found out that you had concealed
something from me, do you think that I should have loved you less?"
"I do not think you would, Madaline; but the present case is
different--entirely different; it is not for my own sake, but for the
honor of my race. Better a thousand times that my name should die out
than that upon it there should be the stain of crime!"
"But, Norman--this is a weak argument, I know--a woman's
argument--still, listen to it, love--who would know my secret if it were
well kept?"
"None; but I should know it," he replied, "and that would be more than
sufficient. Better for all the world to know than for me. I would not
keep such a secret. I could not. It would hang over my head like a drawn
sword, and some day the sword would fall. My children, should Heaven
send any to me, might grow up, and then, in the height of some social or
political struggle, when man often repeats against his fellow man all
that he knows of the vilest and the worst, there might be thrown into
their faces the fact that they were descended from a felon. It must not
be; a broken heart is hard to bear--injured honor is perhaps harder."
She drew up her slender figure to its full height, her lovely face
glowed with a light he did not understand.
"You may be quite right," she said. "I cannot dispute what you say. Your
honor may be a sufficient reason for throwing aside the wife of less
than twelve hours, but I cannot see it. I cannot refute what you have
said, but my heart tells me you are wrong."
"Would to Heaven that I thought the same!" he rejoined, quickly. "But I
understand the difficulties of the case, my poor Madaline, and you do
not."
She turned away with a low, dreary sigh, and the light died from her
face.
"Madaline," said Lord Arleigh, quietly, "do not think, my darling, that
you suffer most--indeed, it is not so. Think how I love you--think how
precious you are to me--and then ask yourself if it is no pain to give
you up."
"I know it is painful," she continued, sadly, "but, Norman, if the
decision and choice rested with me as they do with you, I should act
differently."
"I would, Heaven knows, if I could," he said, slowly.
"Such conduct is not just to me," she continued, her face flushing with
the eagerness of her words. "I have done no wrong, no harm, yet I am to
be driven from your house and home--I am to be sent away from you,
divorced in all but name. I say it is not fair, Norman--not just. All my
womanhood rises in rebellion against such a decree. What will the world
say of me? That I was weighed in the balance and found wanting--that I
was found to be false or light, due doubtless to my being lowly born. Do
you think I have no sense of honor--no wish to keep my name and fame
stainless? Could you do me a greater wrong, do you think, than to put me
away, not twelve hours after our marriage, like one utterly unworthy?"
He made no answer. She went on in her low, passionate, musical voice.
"When I read in history the story of Anne of Cleves, I thought it cruel
to be sought in marriage, brought over from another land, looked at,
sneered at, and dismissed; but, Norman, it seems to me her fate was not
so cruel as mine."
"You are wrong," he cried. "I hold you in all reverence, all honor, in
deepest respect. You are untouched by the disgrace attached to those
nearest to you. It is not that. You know that, even while I say we must
part, I love you from the very depths of my heart."
"I can say no more," she moaned, wringing her hands. "My own heart, my
woman's instinct, tells me you are wrong. I cannot argue with you, nor
can I urge anything more."
She turned from him. He would have given much to take her into his arms,
and kissing her, bid her stay.
"You remember the old song, Madaline?
"'I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more.'
If I could be false to the dead, Madaline, I should be untrue to the
living. That I am not so is your security for my faith. If I could be
false to the traditions of my race, I could be false to my vows of
love."
"I can say no more--I can urge no more. You are a man--wise, strong,
brave. I submit."
It was a cruel fate. He looked round on his pictured ancestors Would
they have suffered, have sacrificed as much for the honor of their house
as he was about to sacrifice now? Yes, he knew they would, for love of
race and pride of name had always been unspeakably dear to them.