FACE TO FACE.
Captain Langton looked up in surprise not altogether unfounded, the
sight that met his eyes was so unusual.
Before him stood Lady Darrell, her face white as death, her lips
quivering with excitement, her superb dress of pink brocade all
disarranged, her golden hair falling over her beautiful shoulders--a
sight not to be forgotten; she held Pauline by the hand, and in all her
life Lady Darrell had never looked so agitated as now.
"Captain Langton," said Lady Darrell, "will you come here? I want you
most particularly."
It was by pure chance that she opened the library door--it was the one
nearest to her.
"Will you follow me?" she said.
He looked from one to the other with somewhat of confusion in his face.
"Miss Darrell!" he cried. "Why, I thought you were at Omberleigh!"
Pauline made no reply.
Lady Darrell held the library door open while they entered, and then she
closed it, and turned the key.
Captain Langton looked at her in wonder.
"Elinor," he said, "what does this mean? Are you going to play a tragedy
or a farce?"
"That will depend upon you," she answered; "I am glad and thankful to
have brought you and Miss Darrell face to face. Now I shall know the
truth."
The surprise on his face deepened into an angry scowl.
"What do you mean?" he demanded, sharply. "I do not understand."
It was a scene never to be forgotten. The library was dim with the
shadows of the autumn evening, and in the gloom Lady Darrell's pale pink
dress, golden hair, and white arms bare to the shoulder, seemed to
attract all the light; her face was changed from its great
agitation--the calm, fair beauty, the gentle, caressing manner were
gone.
Near her stood Pauline, whose countenance was softened with compassion
and pity unutterable, the dark eyes shining as through a mist of tears.
Before them, as a criminal before his judges, stood Aubrey Langton, with
an angry scowl on his handsome face, and yet something like fear in his
eyes.
"What is it?" he cried, impatiently. "I cannot understand this at all."
Lady Darrell turned her pale face to him.
"Captain Langton," she said, gravely, "Miss Darrell brings a terrible
accusation against you. She tells me that you stole the roll of notes
that Sir Oswald missed, and that at the price of her life you extorted
an oath from her not to betray you; is it true?"
She looked at him bravely, fearlessly.
"It is a lie!" he said.
Lady Darrell continued:
"Here, in this room, where we are standing now, she tells me that the
scene took place, and that, finding she had discovered you in the very
act of theft, you held a loaded pistol to her head until she took the
oath you dictated. Is it true or false?"
"It is a lie!" he repeated; but his lips were growing white, and great
drops stood upon his brow.
"She tells me," resumed Lady Darrell, "that you loved her, and that you
care only for Darrell Court, not for me. Is it true?"
"It is all false," he said, hoarsely--"false from beginning to end! She
hates you, she hates me, and this foul slander has only been invented to
part us!"
Lady Darrell looked from one to the other.
"Now Heaven help me!" she cried. "Which am I to believe?"
Grave and composed, with a certain majesty of truth that could never be
mistaken, Pauline raised her right hand.
"Lady Darrell," she said, "I swear to you, in the presence of Heaven,
that I have spoken nothing but the truth."
"And I swear it is false!" cried Aubrey Langton.
But appearances were against him; Lady Darrell saw that he trembled,
that his lips worked almost convulsively, and that great drops stood
upon his brow.
Pauline looked at him; those dark eyes that had in them no shadow save
of infinite pity and sorrow seemed to penetrate his soul, and he shrank
from the glance.
"Elinor," he cried, "you believe me, surely? Miss Darrell has always
hated you, and this is her revenge."
"Lady Darrell," said the girl, "I am ashamed of my hatred and ashamed of
my desire for vengeance. There is no humiliation to which I would not
submit to atone for my faults, but every word I have said to you is
true."
Once more with troubled eyes Lady Darrell looked from one to the other;
once more she murmured:
"Heaven help me! Which am I to believe?"
Then Captain Langton, with a light laugh, said:
"Is the farce ended, Lady Darrell? You see it is no tragedy after all."
Pauline turned to him, and in the light of that noble face his own grew
mean and weak.
"Captain Langton," she said, "I appeal to whatever there is of good and
just in you. Own to the truth. You need not be afraid of it--Lady
Darrell will not injure you. She will think better of you if you confess
than if you deny. Tell her that you were led into error, and trust to
her kindness for pardon."
"She speaks well," observed Lady Darrell, slowly. "If you are guilty, it
is better to tell me so."
He laughed again, but the laugh was not pleasant to hear. Pauline
continued:
"Let the evil rest where it is, Captain Langton; do not make it any
greater. In your heart you know that you have no love for this lady--it
is her fortune that attracts you. If you marry her, it will only be to
make her unhappy for life. Admit your fault and leave her in peace."
"You are a remarkably free-spoken young lady, Miss Darrell--you have
quite an oratorical flow of words. It is fortunate that Lady Darrell
knows you, or she might be tempted to believe you. Elinor, I rest my
claim on this--since you have known Miss Darrell, have you ever received
one act of kindness from her, one kind word even?"
Lady Darrell was obliged to answer:
"No."
"Then I leave it," he said, "to your sense of justice which of us you
are to believe now--her who, to anger you, swears to my guilt, or me,
who swears to my innocence? Elinor, my love, you cannot doubt me."
Pauline saw her eyes soften with unutterable tenderness--he saw a faint
flush rise on the fair face. Almost involuntarily Lady Darrell drew near
to him.
"I cannot bear to doubt you, Aubrey," she said. "Oh, speak the truth to
me, for my love's sake!"
"I do speak the truth. Come with me; leave Miss Darrell for a while.
Walk with me across the lawn, and I will tell you what respect for Miss
Darrell prevents my saying here."
Lady Darrell turned to Pauline.
"I must hear what he has to say--it is only just."
"I will wait for you," she replied.
The captain was always attentive; he went out into the hall and returned
with a shawl that he found there.
"You cannot go out with those beautiful arms uncovered, Elinor," he
said, gently.
He placed the shawl around her, trying to hide the coward, trembling
fear.
"As though I did not love you," he said, reproachfully. "Show me another
woman only half so fair."
Pauline made one more effort.
"Lady Darrell," she cried, with outstretched hands, "you will not decide
hastily--you will take time to judge?"
But as they passed out together, something in the delicate face told her
that her love for Aubrey Langton was the strongest element in her
nature.
"Lady Darrell," she cried again, "do not listen to him! I swear I have
told you the truth--Heaven will judge between him and me if I have not!"
"You must have studied tragedy at the Porte St. Martin," said Aubrey
Langton, with a forced laugh; "Lady Darrell knows which to believe."
She watched them walk across the lawn, Captain Langton pleading
earnestly, Lady Darrell's face softening as she listened.
"I am too late!" cried the girl, in an agony of self-reproach. "All my
humiliation is in vain; she will believe him and not me. I cannot save
her now, but one word spoken in time might have done so."
Oh, the bitterness of the self-reproach that tortured her--the anguish
of knowing that she could have prevented Lady Darrell's wrecking her
whole life, yet had not done so! It was no wonder that she buried her
face in her hands, weeping and praying as she had never wept and prayed
in her life before.
* * * * *
"Elinor, look at me," said Captain Langton; "do I look like a thief and
a would-be murderer?"
Out of Pauline's presence the handsome face had regained its usual
careless, debonair expression.
She raised her eyes, and he saw in them the lingering doubt, the
lingering fear.
"If all the world had turned against me," he said, "and had refused to
believe in me, you, Elinor, my promised wife, ought to have had more
faith."
She made no reply. There had been something in the energy of Pauline's
manner that carried conviction with it; and the weak heart, the weak
nature that had always relied upon others, could form no decision
unaided.
"For argument sake, let us reverse the case. Say that some disappointed
lover of yours came to tell to me that you had been discovered stealing;
should I not have laughed? Why, Elinor, you must be blind not to see the
truth; a child might discern it. The fact is that long ago I was
foolish enough to believe myself in love with Miss Darrell; and
she--well, honestly speaking, she is jealous. A gentleman does not like
to refer to such things, but that is the simple truth. She is jealous,
and would part us if she could; but she shall not. My beautiful Elinor
is all my own, and no half-crazed, jealous girl shall come between us."
"Is it so, Aubrey?" asked Lady Darrell.
"My dearest Elinor, that is the whole secret of Miss Darrell's strange
conduct to me. She is jealous--and you know, I should imagine, what
jealous women are like."
She tried to believe him, but, when she recalled the noble face, with
its pure light of truth and pity, she doubted again. But Captain Langton
pleaded, prayed, invented such ridiculous stories of Pauline, made such
fervent protestations of love, lavished such tender words upon her, that
the weak heart turned to him again, and again its doubtings were cast
aside.
"How we shall laugh over this in the happy after years!" he said. "It is
really like a drama. Oh, Elinor, I am so thankful that I was here to
save you! And now, my darling, you are trembling with cold. My fair,
golden-haired Elinor, what must you think of that cruel girl? How could
she do it? No; I will not go in again to-night--I should not be able to
keep my temper. Your grand tragedy heroine will be gone to-morrow."
They stood together under the shadow of the balcony, and he drew her
nearer to him.
"Elinor," he said, "I shall never rest again until you are my wife.
This plot has failed; Miss Darrell will plot again to part us. I cannot
wait until the spring--you must be my wife before then. To-morrow
morning I shall ride over to talk to you about it."
She clasped her arms round his neck, and raised her sweet face to his.
"Aubrey," she said, wistfully, "you are not deceiving me?"
"No, my darling, I am not."
He bent down and kissed her lips. She looked at him again, pleadingly,
wistfully.
"Heaven will judge between us, Aubrey," she said, solemnly. "I have a
sure conviction that I shall know the truth."
"I hope Heaven will assist you," he returned, lightly; "I am quite sure
the decision will be in my favor."
And those words, so wickedly, so blasphemously false, were the last he
ever spoke to her.