INEBRIETY. DIPSOMANIA AND THE OPIUM HABIT If Drunkenness is a crime, are Inebriates and Dipsomaniacs Criminals? If Insane persons are held to be morally and legally irresponsible, are the victims of the Liquor and Morphine Habits, who have lost both mental and nervous control, to be held responsible for their acts? Are Inebriates, Dipsomaniacs and Morphine Habitudes, "steeped in sin and iniquity," or are they suffering from disease, which , if continued, ends in death ? These questions are viewed by jurists, theologians, moralists and physi- cians from their several standpoints. Happily, however, the broadest-minded of all classes hold that those Habits are the offspring of Nervous Disease, either inherited or brought on by the continued use of stimulants and narcotics, frequently prescribed and taken to ease pain, procure sleep, or promote health, and more frequently used as a token of friendship and sociability. The broad-minded view is fully sustained by abundant experience in practice. It is too painfully true that a great many wealthy and cultured people of both sexes, from no fault of their own, have beconre slaves to the Liquor and Morphine Habits. This terrible "Skeleton in the Closet" is often the only thing that mars the joys of many otherwise happy families. The poor victim desires to reform but cannot. Good resolutions are made only to be broken. Prayers are offered and aid invoked in vain. The terrible nervous desire over- comes all opposing forces and the baneful Habits are continued. The poor victims are literally slaves with no hope of release. To meet the wants of the people suffering from these Habits THE PACIFIC GOLD CURE CLINIC has been established in San Francisco. Its methods of treatment are entirely painless, harmless and beneficial to the general health. Attention is given simply and solely to the restoration of the nervous system. In less than a week all desire for stimulants and narcotics is gone and the patients give them up of their own accord. Within a month the Cure is Complete and Permanent. City residents may be treated at their homes, thereby avoiding the exposure and publicity which necessarily attaches to a Public Institution. People from a distance can be provided with superior accommodations commensurate with their tastes and habits of life. All cases confidential. Apply to E. J. FRASER, M. D. Nan Francisco, Cal. MKnic Ai, DIRECTOR LADIES ARE DAILY HAVING THEIR COMPLEXIONS MADE PERFECT BY USING MRS. NETTIK HARRISON'S FACE V7BLEACH Removes Freckles, Moth Patches, Pimples, Blackheads, Sunburn, and Sallowness. It does not take from the face the natural rosy color, but BREACHES out all BLEMISHES LODGED IN THE SKIN. Freckles and other discolorations are dissolved ; blackheads, fleshworms, etc., are brought to the surface, when they dry and fall off with the old cuticle, which flakes off like fine dandruff by rubbing the face gently with a towel. While the old skin is thus being disposed of, the new skin underneath is forming soft and smooth, pure and white and fine in texture. The complexion is then as perfect as it can be made, and nothing remains but to keep it so, by the nightlv use of CUCUMBER AND ELDER FLOWER CREAM, or LOLA MONTEZ CREME. From one to three bottles are required to make a perfect cure. Perfectly harmless. LOLA MONTEZ CREHE This wonderful Creme is a skin cerate; contains only such proportions as are beneficial in effectually obliterating all roughness and overcoming the dryness of the skin. For cleaning the skin, protecting it from sun and winds, and keeping it soft, smooth and velvety. Price 75c. Ladies out of town can use my remedies at home with perfect success. Send 4c in stamps and I'll send you my instructive book on the complexion FREE with price list, or 10c in stamps to get a sample of my new Creme and Face Powder FREE. MRS. NETTIE HARRISON AMERICA'S BEAUTY DOCTOR 26 Geary Street I v adies San Francisco, Cal. "Thou hast chimed twice for Thuyer, thrice for Alice, now toll one for the dying." The .Witlnight Hell. THE BRIDE OF INFELICE A NOVEL ADA L. HALSTEAD AUTHOR OF THE SERPENT BRACELET," "HAZEL VERNE," ETC. " Is there no pity sitting in the clouds That sees into the bottom of my grief ? O sweet my mother, cast me not away Delay this marriage for a month, a week; Or, if thou wilt not, make my bridal bed In that dim monument where Tybalt lies." JULIET COPYRIGHT BY AUTHOR 1892 (All rights reserved) SAN FRANCISCO THE BANCROFT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 1892 TO CLARA BELLE AND WILBUR E. HAYES WITH A SISTER'S MOST FAITHFUL LOVE TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE 1 THE ALIEN 1 2 A WELCOME GUEST 10 3 IN FRIENDSHIP'S BOND 15 4 LADY CAMDEN 23 5 A MORNING ENCOUNTER 34 6 CAUGHT IN THE STORM 41 7 A MODERN HERCULES , 52 8 THE HIDDEN HAND 60 9 IN PROSPECTIVE 69 10 VALOIS' SECRET 76 11 THE BUST OF "GLAUCUS" 84 12 A WATCHWORD * 94 13 BEWARE ! 100 14 AT FESTAL TIDE 109 15 THE BREAKERS THREATEN 116 16 DEAD SEA-FRUIT 130 17 LOVE'S BEHEST 136 CHAPTER PAGE IS THE CLAP-TRAP 148 19 THE TALISMAN , 159 20 BLANCHE 168 21 THE SPIDER AND THE FLY 176 22 A SUBTERFUGE 187 23 IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 196 24 HER STRATAGEM 201 25 THE PRISONER..... 20o 26 A REVELATION 214 27 ENGAGED 225 28 "THE BRIDE OF INFELICE " 237 29 THE DIAMOND BRACELET 248 30 THE DENOUEMENT 262 81 MIDNIGHT MASS 283 32 THE MIDNIGHT BELL '. 290 S3 THE GATE AJAR 306 THE BRIDE OF INFELICE CHAPTER I THE ALIEN THE mid-October afternoon was drawing to a close. The atmosphere, with its quivering transpar- ency of azure haze, was redolent of the subtile, honied odor of late-blooming meadow flowers ; and that languorous hush which often precedes the dissolution of a New England Indian summer day seemed to encompass all living things. The only sounds that came to break the still ness was the low, monotonous purling of a little stream that found its way through the pasture, and a confused bird-symphony issuing from the intricate vistas of birch and maple-wood which in every direction showed dazzling conflagrations of color, deviating from richest tints of vermilion to saffron, russet and gold. Gray rocks slept beneath softly clinging bur- dens of ivy and reddening brake ; group? of deer O) 2 THE BRIDE OF INFELICS posed recumbent on the new leaf-fall about the shallow ravines ; while at a little distance down the gently undulating strip of meadow-land a trio of velvet fawn grazed and gambolled at their sweet will. Close along the western horizon there lay a shattered golden bar over which the sun's red dic hung for a moment in imperial victory, then disappeared. Anon a radiant flood of amaranth, rose and tawny orange spread itself over the heavens and enclosed the even. " How glorious, how infinitely sublime ! " The words were spoken by a young man who for some moments had been standing with his head uncov- ered, as if in very reverence of the splendid aerial pageant, watching the colors of earth and sky blend and interchange until they finally became one grand ensemble of spectacular enchantment before his rapturous gaze. He was of splendid physique, being tall, slender and broad-should- ered ; and his face, at once noble and handsome, was lit up by a pair of blue-gray eyes whose clear fathoms harbored the soul of intellect and kind- ness ; they were eyes that held all who chanced to encounter them rapt by their wonderful mag- netic beauty, and that having once seen one could not easily forget. His dark brown hair was tumbled into a negli- gent mass of burnished ringlets above a brow upon which rested the stamp of truth and refine THE A LIES 3 ment, and his profile, clearly silhouetted against the radiantly illumined sky, his nostrils dilated, and his lips slightly parted to inhale the delight- ful perfume of flowers and freshly fallen leave*, looked like that of some Grecian god. Across his left shoulder was strapped a email portmanteau, and his flushed cheeks and quick respiration bore evidence of a long and wearisome walk. As he continued to dwell silently upon the ever- changing splendor of the sky, an antler with large, swimming eyes approached and kissed, with docile mien, the tips of his dust-covered gaiters. "Ah ! you superb creature ! " ejaculated the youth, letting his hand fall caressingly upon the animal's velvet head in appreciation of his volun- teered friendship. " You are a jolly fellow to bid me such an affectionate greeting to New England. What ! would you turn traitor ? " this as the deer retreated a few steps and lowered his antlers for a seeming hostile attack. But at the gently re- proachful words he again drew near and gazed up into the stranger's face with his soft, dark orbs full of curious wonder and approval. When the youth at length resumed his way through the pastures, all the triumphant colors of the sky had declined into a serene, uniform opal, and the shadows of twilight were being si- lently drawn over coppice of birch and maple, obliterating all the brilliance of their vestures, 4 THE BRIDE OF INFELICE while noislessly and unawares the deer had dis- persed from the scene. Following up a narrow trail he passed from tangled copse to open meadow, breathing in a? he went the faict odor of wild sweet brier, and mentally commenting that the shrub diffused its incenee the same as in his own dear England, and that the stars came out in their old familiar con- stellations in the darkening vault above, which observations, it may be said, engendered within him an involuntary sense of homesickness. Having arrived in Boston that afternoon he had learned that his relatives wem still at their sum- mer villa several miles out of Lynn ; and upon the servant's offer to telegraph for a conveyance to meet him at the station, he had said he would much prefer to walk the distance by way of exer- cise after his long and tiresome sea voyage ; so had immediately set out for " Ivendene," the Elwood's country seat. But already the distance had seemed twice that of his impulsive reckoning and as the darkness thickened and the narrow path he was following grew almost imperceptible before him, he regretted that he had not taken a conveyance at Lynn as the servant had advised. In the azure darkness above the stars fast gath- ered, yet the stranger trudged eagerly on, now whistling, softly to himself to dispel the brooding sense of homesickness, now silent with anxiety lest he had missed his way. - THE ALIEN O But at last through the obscurity ahead he dis- cried a faint glimmer of lights, and this he hailed with a shout which bore the intonation of his great relief. "Ivendene!" As the echo of his voice rebounded, he heard a sound over head like that made by the flight of some ponderous night bird; and presently there came an inquisitive "too woo?" to which he responded with a soft, trilling roulade, sweet as the note of a nightingale. A moment later he had unbarred the heavy outer gates and entered the premises of Ivendene. Up the terraced court he bounded with light, buoyant steps, despite his fatigue, and as he reached the top-most landing, he stood a moment in admiring contemplation of the gray stone structure whose turreted wings and broad facades uprose in architectural symmetry from the semi- darkness. Here and there amid the shrubberies white statuettes gleamed, while sphinxes posed, stoical sentries, upon either side of the wide, granite steps leading up to the vestibule. Here, under the bright rays of a crystal lantern, the young Englishman stood at length, but ere he rang the door-bell, he could not help pausing briefly to glance into the brightly lit drawing- room, the draperies of whose windows were looped aside, revealing a spacious apartment which, in 6 THE BRIDE OF INFELICE appointment, partook of the ancient style of the orient; whose antique cabinets, delicately inlaid with pearl and malachite, whose onyx lamps, suspended from the ceiling by wrought chains of silver, whose low, carved chairs and divans might, indeed, have once belonged to some prince of the sixteenth century; whose statuettes and paintings breathed the divine inspiration of sculptors and artists, whose names will live for- ever in the archives of classic Italy and Greece. As the young Englishman admiringly surveyed the rich interior of this room, suddenly his bronzed cheek flushed, while into his dark eyes there leapt a light of unmistakable rapture as they riveted themselves upon the face of a young girl, who reclined upon a low divan in one corner of the apartment with all the grace of a Cleopatra. She wore a gown of some simple white fabric, which clung in soft, unstudied folds about her slender form, bringing out in clear relief, against a background of crimson draperies, its every graceful outline. As the young stranger continued to regard her with suspended breath, she turned her eyes inad- vertently toward the very window through which he gazed, and he named them " Mirrors of a Chastened Soul." Beneath the bright lamp light they flashed out like purest sapphires, and reflected in their clear depths a world of love and tenderness, while THE ALIEy 7 something else which seemed like a shade of sadness, abided there. Her hair, now russet, now gold, now softest- mellowest auburn, just as the lights and shadows touched it, crowned a brow as delicately white as alabaster, while her features, strikingly like those of Titian's " Danae " in their fine, patrician caste, were animated by a glow of color which underlay the damask of her cheek like a blush rose, but burst in richest carmine from her full, half-parted lips. The eyes of her unseen watcher followed her, when presently, as if impelled by some sudden impulse, the young girl rose; and, crossing the room, seated herself at the open piano. She let her fingers stray deftly over the keys in a brief and happy prelude; then her white throat swelled, and her voice throbbed out full, clear and sweet as a silver bell, to search the gloaming and to vibrate through his soul until it seemed to leap from its dwelling place to soar deliriously in the bent of the heavenly strains: " My heart, my heart is like a singing bird, Whose nest is in a watered shoot. My heart, my heart is like an apple tree, Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit My heart, my heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea. My heart, my heart is gladder than all these, Because my love, my love has come to me." What had prompted Alice Meredith to sing "My Love Is Come" on that of all nights in her lifetime? 8 THE BRIDE OF INFELICE In after days she recalled the song with a thrill of ecstacy, subsequently she remembered it with a throb of anguish, bitter, unutterable. Had she been so far removed from her sur roundings that she started and uttered a low cry when, just as she ceased singing, the door-bell rang out in wild alarm? or was there a premoni- tion in the sound that made her turn again to the instrument and with her beautiful face, recently so happy, now pale and ineffably sad, move her lips to these doleful words of presentiment: " Now soul be very still and go apart, Fly to thy inmost citadel, and be thon still, Dost thou not know the trembling, sinking heart That feels the shadow of some coming ill? Ah! HO; 'tis not delusion; some kind care Touches thee, soul, and whispers thee 'Beware.' " A liveried footman opened the door and scowl- ingly surveyed the belated suppliant thereat, as if to say: "Did you want to raise the dead, that you rang so loud and long?" "I does are Mr. and Mrs. Elwood within?" questioned the young stranger with visible con- fusion. t "The Colonel hand the madam har within, sir. Wat name shall I say?" asked the man, with a broad cockney accent that caused the Englishman to smile involuntarily. " Hand your master this," he said, and as the servant took his card he stepped into the ante- chamber to wait. THE ALIEN 9 Promptly the footman returned to say that Colonel Elwood would receive his visitor in the library at once. With noble upright bearing the youth followed toward the apartment named, and directly he found himself in the presence of his aristocratic American kinsman, who stood in the centre of the room smoothing his iron-gray beard with fingers that trembled slightly as his etrange young guest crossed the threshold and slowly, deferentially approached him. "Colonel El- wood," he said, bowing low as he spoke, "I claim the honor of introducing myself to you : I am Thayer, son of Sir Douglas Volney, England." CHAPTER II. A WELCOME QUEST. pOLONEL ELWOOD stood for a moment with w his keen, black eyes fixed studiously upon the handsome face before him. Then he gravely reiterated : " Thayer, son of Sir Douglas Volney, England." Another brief pause, and he exclaimed : " This is extraordinary, young man extraor- dinary !" At his words a swift flood of color surmounted the young Englishman's face. "Oh, I perceive, I understand !" he spoke pres- ently, and passed his fingers through his tumbled locks as the truth of the situation instinctively dawned upon him. " My father's letter has failed to reach you you were not prepared for my advent ?" " We have received no message from Sir Doug- las," was the grave and laconic rejoinder. " Well," continued Thayer, and now his embar- rassment gave place to an expression of palpable amusement, "in that case, uncle Howard, I can- not wonder at your inclination to regard me with mistrust. One has to guard carefully against (10) A WELCOME GUEST H impostors now-a-days, as there is a vast amount of fraud practised. However, I have testimoni- als, which I trust " " Bosh I" Colonel Elwood interrupted him sud- denly, and now there was a warm clasp of hands, " who said anything about impostors or testimo- nials ? Why, bless your soul, young Briton, your face bears the very stamp of honor, sir ! I want no better testimonial, and I never thought for a moment of mistrusting you. I welcome you to America and to Ivendene." There was a suspicious moisture in his eyes as the colonel waived his hand toward a chair in a silent invitation for his guest to be seated. He drew another chair near for himself, and after sitting a 'moment with hands interlocked behind his head, and his features ctill working with sup- pressed emotion, he asked : " How did you find us ! Did you call at the town house ? You should have sent a message upon your arrival, and we would have met you at Lynn; but of course you found a conveyance ?" he ended interrogatively. "No," returned his nephew, " I walked from the station. Your house servant in Boston would have telegiaphed, but I preferred walking after being cramped up so long on ship-board. I found your copses and meadow-lands well worth my exertion." "You are ambitious," observed the colonel complaisantly, "but after such a wearisome voy- 12 THE BRIDE OF 1NFEL1CE age you should not have undertaken a'seven-mile tramp. There would have been ample time for copses and meadow lands after recruiting your- self. There's the dinner bell !" he broke off sud- denly, "and you have yet to be introduced to your aunt and cousin Valois. What a delightful surprise this will be for Rene ! You bear a strik- ing likeness, by the way, to your aunt. She had the same classic contour of features when I mar- ried her, which, my boy, is well nigh on to twen- ty-two years ago : yes, it is nearly twenty-two years now since your grandfather, Sir Richard Volney, came over to America with his beautiful young daughter. He little dreamed he would be compelled to return to his native soil without her. Poor old Sir Richard ! It was a hard blow for him to give her up. I remember the forlorn pic- ture he presented on the morning he sailed, as he stood on deck, with his red silk handkerchief waving in the breeze, and big tears, which he could not check, rolling down his cheeks, as he cried out to her in a last farewell but there, I am digressing ! Stay here, Thayer, while I bring your aunt Rene and Valois." And with this the excited colonel hastily pre- cipitated himself from the room. Left alone Thayer Volney sat encompassed with the happy expectation of meeting the an- gelic creature he had viewed through the drawing room window. A WELCOME GUEST 13 "Certainly," he told himself, u that could have been none other than my cousin Valois." With a strange agitation he glanced round upon the magnificent appointments of the room. There were tiers of book-shelves towering al- most to the ceiling and filled with handsomely bound volumes. There were Parian busts of Vir- gil, Homer, Milton, Shakespeare, Tennyson and Longfellow, all mounted upon costly pedestals ; upon a little opal stand there rested a statuette of the " Dead Pearl Diver," after the celebrated sculptor, B. Paul Akers, while upon another was presented a remarkable bust in ebony by a gifted American artist. There were paintings master- ful creations whose exquisite harmony of color- ing he would have studied at any other time with the keenest of delight. But he turned from them now after a casual glance, letting his eyes wander to a fierce-looking bronze warrior who stood in full armor just within the deep embrasure of a window between the heavy parted portieres. Then his glance strayed above the silken hangings to a silhouette of his great-grandfather, Sir Leopold Volcey, who had died chivalrously fighting for his country at Sebastopol. Upon this picture his gaze riveted itself as, with bated breath, he listened for footsteps. They sounded at length along the tessellated floor just outside the library, and above them he heard a mingling of glad, excited voices. The 14 THE BRIDE OF INFELICE next moment the door opened and Colonel Elwood re-entered the room accompanied by his wife and lovely daughter. Thayer rose and advanced toward the ladies, little able to repress the keen sense of disappoint- ment he felt as his eyes met those of his cousin, which, alas, were not those " mirrors of a chas- tened soul " he had been so joyously anticipating. Valois Elwood's beauty was like a summer's gloaming lit with stars ; while that of the un- known one was like a golden harvest dawn-glow. CHAPTER III IN FRIENDSHIP'S BOND As high as we have mounted in delight In our dejection do we sink so low.' 1 Wordsworth un^HAYER ! my brother's son ! " cried Mrs. 1 Elwood as she advanced toward her nephew with outstretched arms ; and there were happy tears in her eyes as she kissed the young Englishman upon both cheeks, which caresses Thayer warmly returned. After that lingering embrace, with a soft, moth- erly hand Mrs. .Elwood brushed back the cluster- ing curls from the youth's noble brow, and putting him from her at arm's distance, stood for some moments in silent contemplation of his magnifi- cent type of manhood. " My beloved Douglas' own son ! " she spoke at length, and her words still bore an intonation of incredulity. " I canjcarcely realize," she con- tinued, "that you are the same Thayer whom I left at Volney Wold nearly twenty-two years ago. You were then shaking a rattle over the ramparts of your cradle." At this mAnent a fairy figure glided up to the side of the young Englishman. (15) 16 THE BRIDE OF INFELICE It was Valois who, having waited so long for an introduction, had concluded to waive the for- mality, and now extended a little dimpled, white hand, saying : " I am Valois, Cousin Thayer. We have known each other from childhood, you know, through correspondence." He repeated her quaint name as he pressed the dainty tips of her fingers to his lips. Then he detained the member in a gentle clasp as the girl, still looking into his face, observed, her face suf- fused in dimples : "My aunt, Lady Marguerite, promised me, when I was a very little girl, that you should come to A merica when you were twenty-three. I have counted the years since then. You were twenty-three last August, were n't you ? " Thayer assented, smiling at her charming piquancy and the little lisp accompanying her accent. " I am sure," went on the young girl, " that we'll be great friends. Ivendene has been a trifle dull to me at times without a companion. It will be different now with you here. I know you are jolly by your letters ; they always amuse me they are so droll, and I love to read them over again and again." Thayer made her some laughing rejoinder, then he was peremptorily hurried away by his aunt to prepare for dinner, and Valois went back to the IN FRIENDSHIP'S BOND 17 drawing-room, which apartment Mrs. Elwood entered a few moments later, just in time to hear her daughter giving Alice Meredith and her mother, a delicate-faced and refined little lady in black silk, a description of her English cousin, just arrived. " Is he really so handsome as you have pictured him ? " asked Alice, half incredulously. " Handsome ! " cried Valois, with elaborate en- thusiasm, " he is like that bust of the Athenian Glaucus which Lady Camden has in her drawing- room. You remember, she brought it from Italy. His hair is dark brown and curly ; his eyes ah, Allie, such eyes ! a deep, lustrous gray, that seem to smile and talk as they look at you. Then he is tall and slender, and carries himself much like Lieutenant Carruthers of the navy. On the whole, he is divine, and you will fall in love with him the moment you see- him." "Valois." " Oh, really ! I am" At 'that moment the door opened to admit Colonel Elwood and his nephew. Introductions followed, and for a mo- ment Alice Meredith met those " deep, lustrous, gray eyes that seemed to smile and talk " as they looked at her. Thayer Volney dwelt upon her name as if he felt an insatiable charm in its utterance which he surely did ; for was not this the enchantress 18 THE BRIDE OF 1XFELICE who had sung those words : " My Love is Come ? " Ah, surely, surely ! * " Well, what do you think of my modern Glau- cus ? " asked Valois, after dinner, as the two young girls were sauntering in the moonlit garden while the gentlemen smoked their cigars in the library. "Mr. Volney is undeniably handsome and bears himself with a superior elegance that must win him the favor of all who know him," re- turned Miss Meredith earnestly. Yet Valois thought she perceived a tremor of constraint in her friend's voice, and she peered furtively in her face as they passed out of the shadows of a hemlock tree, but seeing nothing there save a pallor which she attributed to the moonlight, she went on with her lisping prattle. " He comes of a race whose lineage is remote and noble as any in Gre"at Britain. Sir Douglas Volney has three fine estates in different parts of England of which Volney Wold, situated some- where in the Valley of the Thames, is said to be the finest. Thayer is sole heir-prospective to all these, and will succeed to the baronetcy. Oh, Allie ! " the girl ended seriously, " wouldn't it be just too delightful if you two were to fall in love with one another ! What a charming Lady Vol- ney you would make ! We have the portraits of all the ladies of Volney House, and I am certain IK FRIENDSHIP'S BOND 19 there is none among them more gentle and dis- tinguished-looking than you." " HusB ! Oh, Valois, dear, you were always such an unconscionable dreamer ! " said her friend with gentle reproof in her words. "Well," went on the other in the same naive, lisping manner, yet in a serious tone, " ' Tis not impossible he Shall command thy heart and thee.' " before he has been here a week. I've heard of stranger things happening often ! " " It is growing chilly. Let us return within," said Alice, and again Valois noticed that intona- tion of sad constraint in her voice, and saw her shiver as she drew her light mantle closer about her shoulders. " First come with me to the conservatory," urged she, " I want to get a spray of those pink orchids for my belt ; they .are so delicately sweet." So they turned at once into the narrow path leading to the hot-house, and soon Valois was bending over her coveted blossoms intent on se- lecting by the dim light a perfect cluster. Meanwhile, stood her companion with her eyes full of mournful pathos fixed upon a white olean- der tree near by. Her attitude was one of deep abstraction and expressed something of despair as well. About her sweet sensitive lips there had settled a shade of seriousness strange to them, while her 20 THE BRIDE OF INFELICE cheeks were pale as the waxen flower upon which she gazed. She turned with a start as Valois touched her gently upon the arm and said : " Come, aren't you going to pick some flowers for yourself, Allie ? " "No, not to-night, love; we must not enter into rivalry to-night. I shall leave you sole light of the harem, sweet Valois." " Ah, if I did not know you so well I should want to rebuke you for being satyrical," laughed Valois, as she drew her friend's arm lovingly within her own. As they turned to quit the close fragrance-laden cloister, she heard the tremulous sigh which Alice strove vainly to suppress. " I do not think you are quite well to-night, love," she said, anxiously. " Surely, you are not grieving over your over that over your father's oh, Allie ! you know what I mean," she ended, desperately. " I have been too happy at Ivendene, my dear, kind friend, to reflect much upon our present affliction," returned Miss Meredith, quietly, " do not be concerned about me," she continued, " I have only a slight headache which will wear away after awhile." Her words were reassuring, and they hastened at once to the drawing-room, where the rest of the household were assembled. They made an attractive pair, these two rose- IN FRIENDSHIP'S BOND 21 bud girls, neither of whom had seen eighteen summers. Valois' face, with its dark, piquant beauty, made a striking contrast to that of the Titianesque Alice, with her changeful golden hair and sap- phire eyes. Thayer Volney had likened them unto the gloaming lit with stars, and the golden glow of a harvest dawn. He could not have chosen a more fitting comparison and contrast. Valois' black eyes scintillated with mirth and vivaciousness, while they reflected the soul of love and truth and kindness. She had the Elwood profile; her cheek bones were a trifle high for beauty, her nose was of the Roman type, and chin saucily protruding; but her mouth was her most captivating feature, and when she smiled, bringing a score of dimples into play, her face was like a bit of rare sunshine. She sat talking with her cousin Thayer that night, while Alice Meredith played one of those sonatas from Beethpven, which is full of the sub- limity, terror, pity and tenderness of that composer. " She plays extremely well, and with great depth of feeling," observed Thayer Volney, as with breathless fascination he watched the ever- changeful expression on the beautiful face of the performer. "Yes," answered Valois proudly, "as some admirer has 'written in her album after John 22 THE BRIDE OF INFELICS Keats, I believe, her fingers ' are music's golden tongue.' " " Admirers ! " Thayer repeated the word in- voluntarily and with a swift inward pang; but directly the shadow left his face, and he went on to say to himself, rather than to his cousin, that at the shrine of such beauty and talent as Alice Meredith possessed, many idolaters must fall. He roused himself presently to hear Valois saying that Alice had composed a number of pieces which she would some day publish. " And what do you think, cousin Thayer, she is going to dedicate the volume to me. We have known each other from childhood," went on Valois, "we graduated together last June, and we love each other as girls seldom love. I hope you, too, will love my friend." CHAPTER IV. LADY CAMDEN. Ah, well that pale woman a phantom might seem Who appeared to herself but the dream of a dream. Neath those features so calm, that forehead so hushed. That pale cheek forever by passion unflushed, There yawned an insatiate void, and there heaved A tumult of restless regrets unrelieved. Oven Meredith. A T the time of my narrative there stood upon the ii banks of the Merrimac river, several miles remote from a beautiful suburban town in Massa- chusetts, a castellated gray stone structure, which, with its several wings, its quoined turrets, its Gothic arches and columns, its vine-mantled walls and casements bore the appellation of " Maple- hurst." The owner of this magnificent country estate was an Englishman of unknown lineage, Sir Philip Camden, who upon his marriage to one of Boston's reigning society belles, established Maplehurst as a rendezvous for the select "four hundred " of his and Lady Camden's world. Hortense Ayer's alliance with Sir Philip Cam- den had been the outcome of that paternal ambition which almost inevitably leads to a dreaded denouement. (23) 24 THE BRIDE OF INFELTCE . Instinctively, even in her youth and inexperi- ence Hortense realized the unhappy future that awaited* her without love without hope of love, to exalt and brighten it; and it was with bitter rebellion in her heart that she had cried out in a last appeal to Mrs. Avers, as that aspiring lady was adjusting over her face the bridal veil with its coronet offleurs d' orangec. " Mother, mother ! I had rather you were arraying me for my burial ! Oh, let me not give my hand in such a holy bond as this, when my soul is eternally crying out against it ! You would not sacrifice my happiness on the altar of ambi- tion 1" And she had looked through the delicate frosty meshes of lace, with her lovely face pale as death; its every feature quivering, and her soft, brown eyes dim with a mist of reproachful tears. The sight of her daughter's emotion did not, however, appeal to that implacable mother- heart. Mrs. Ayers smiled derisively and repeated her favorite platitude. " Love, my dear child, is certain to follow after marriage. It is the natural logic of the situation ! Think of the titled position yours wiil be as Lady Camden. You will lead a little world ! Let this thought bring a tinge of color to your cheek. You are too pale by far too pale, my love, for a bride the most distinguished bride of the season !" " But, mother, I always feel instinctively when LADY C A if DEN 25 looking at Sir Philip, that behind his cool, suave exterior there is another an evil man. I have tried to overcome the feeling, but cannot by any effort!" "That feeling," repeated Mrs. Ayers, lifting her hand with a gesture of keen impatience, " entertwines itself with this very simple fact. You are ungrateful. You do not respect your filial obligation toward a parent who has sacri- ficed everything for your future welfare !" At these words the hot tears dried instantly in Hor- tense's eyes. She pressed her lips upon her mother's flushed-cheek. " I recognize my duty," she whispered, "I will fulfil it." Then she had floated, in all her bridal splendor down to where Sir Philip awaited her. She did not pause once to cast a backward glance toward the horizon where she knew the sun of happiness was sinking on her life forever : but hushing her heart and accusing conscience against their never-ceasing cries, " I do not love him ! I can never love him !" she took the word of the Gospel in her hand, and promised to "love honor and obey until death." And thus her vow was registered in heaven to serve to-morrow, and to-morrow, and forever ! Sir Philip Camden was proud of his lovely young bride proud of her in much the same way that he was proud of the costly statuettes that graced his drawing rooms, and the splendid for- 28 THE BRIDE OF INFEL1CE tune she had brought him. Few who knew him surmised the narrow and selfish nature that lay hidden beneath the complaisant exterior of this man : few guessed how insidious and full of secret cunning were his courtesies. Fashion patronized and believed in him as a man of title and undisputed wealth. By skillful intrigue and sophistry he had achieved a foremost position in Boston's fashionable and political cir- cles. At club dinners, before his marriage, he had entertained the wealth and affluence of the city. At the ball and opera he had been the coveted of scores of mothers with eligible daugh- ters. And many and bitter were the contretemps among the latter upon his marriage with the lovely heiress and reigning belle of the season, Hortense Ayers. Sir Philip was a man of medium height, but rather corpulent. His hair was of a dull red color, so was the somewhat spare mustache that drooped over his mouth, only partly concealing an ugly dark scar on the upper lip, which gave to his face a hard, sinister expression ; his black eyes were long, narrow, and lustrous, with a light that might have been bom of craftiness or ambi- tion; a forehead low, and protruding over heavy eyebrows, which met above an aquiline nose ; a swarthy complexion, and a short, fat neck, upon which hia head moved almost incessantly, like LADY CAXDEN 27 that of a lizard, finishes a sketch of one who is to figure prominently in this drama. It was early in March when Sir Philip and Lady Hortense Camden returned from their honeymoon, which had been spent abroad. The country was still barren and disconsolate look- ing, with the late winter snows but half thawed upon the ground, and birch and maple trees standing up in skeleton array against the cold blue sky. There was little enough indeed in the sodden prospect to inspire or cheer the heart of Lady Hortense, as she leaned from her deep window casement upon the evening of their arrival at Maplehurst. At her right a forest of birch and scrub ma- ple stretched in continuous dreary monotony, their slender limbs just beginning to hint vaguely of returning foliage ; while at her left hand rushed the dark torrent-waters of the Merrimac after a season of icy bondage, their loud roar making a fit accompaniment to the ceaseless res. tive sobbing of her heart " I do not love him I I can never love him !" Upon this wide, turbulent expanse gazed Sir Philip Camden's young wife in a sort of fasciaa- tion, as she repeated, unconsciously aloud, a line she had somewhere read : " Blood-dyed waters murmuring far blow." 28 THE BRIDE OF I f> FELICE The sun went down, and the chill of twilight fell upon her silent and unpitying, where she sat, forgetful, in her loneliness and isolation, of all things save the river and those words, which seemed to bring with them a prescience of coming doom : " Blood-dyed waters murmuring far below." The silent gray had deepened into the shadows of night, when Sir Philip entered her apartments, and brought more vividly back her life's misery by the kisses which had already become intoler- able to her, and to which her cold lips never res- ponded. Spring passed, and the first summer of her wedded life dawned dawned in gladness to all .living things, it seemed, save Lady Hortense. Only a little time since she had been so happy in eweet, untrammeled girlhood. Then she had been grateful for the slightest gift that Nature bestowed, and even the yellow daffodils in her old home garden border, and the flashing gold- fish in the fountain basin had filled her with gladness ; whereas now, the brightest and choic- est flower failed to charm her, and she visited her own little aquarium one moment only to tire of it the next, reflecting, as she left the grotto, that she would add some new species of fish to the water something that she had never had before. LADY CAJtQEN 29 " You are pale, my dear, I trust you are well ? ' Sir Philip was accustomed to observe when he chanced to be spending an evening alone with his wife, which was seldom, as social and polit- ical matters pressed close upon his time. " I am quite well, Sir Philip," Lady Camden would invariably rejoin. But one evening it came to pass that, noting the deep sigh that followed her reply, Sir Philip supplemented his question with another which was so abruptly put that it caused her to start as with a sudden acute pain. " Why do you sigh so habitually then ? You say you are well ; and are you not happy as Lady Camden ? " His long, narrow eyes sought and fixed them- selves steadily upon the beautiful half-averted face as he spoke, and they were doubly brilliant as he awaited a response. Full a moment passed, and Lady Camden's lips were mute as chiselled stone. He saw a ghastly pallor creep over them as he repeated, calmly, yet with a deep flush upon his face which belied his voice : "I asked, Hortense, if you were quite happy as Lady Camden as my wife ? " " Sir Philip, it grieves and humiliates me " here her blanched lips faltered refusing further utterance ; while in her eyes lived ail the pent- up anguish of her soul, as they sought his hope- lessly. " I see, I understand," at length muttered Sir 30 THE BRIDE OF 1NFELICE Philip, and his words were accompanied with a contemptuous eneer. "It grieves and humiliates you to acknowledge your marriage a contretemps." As he spoke he rose and measured the apart- ment with deliberate step and with his hands firmly clasped behind him ; then he came and stood before her where she sat with burning tear- less eyes fixed upon the carpet. " Am I not right, Hortense, Lady Camden ? " she heard him say presently, and there was some- thing in his voice that compelled her to look up and meet his cruel eyes. She answered him almost without breathing between the sentences : " Sir Philip, I shall make no attempt to un- deceive you. Though I'd rather have died with my heart's secret buried away from you and all the world, I admit it ; I do not love you, I have never loved you ! / am not happy ! " An age-long silence during which, stood Sir Philip still outwardly calm, and with his short, fat fingers playing indolently with the ends of his mustache. The little bisque clock upon the bracket re- minded them that the hour was nine. After the last musical stroke had declined into the silence, Sir Philip said in the same contemptuous tone and with a contortion of the scarred lip ^hich was frightful to see : " Then I am to understand that you* married LADY CAXDEN 31 me simply to gain a titled position ? Ha ! You are an exceptional artist ! Society, however, would little believe its idol had descended to so common a level. You have acted your role with such adroitness as to escape the criticism of the scandal-loving world in which we move. I con- gratulate you ! " At his words Lady Camden's face flushed a deep crimson. Yet she answered him with that quiet hauteur that characterized her : "It is not true. As Hortense Ayers I was happy beyond a desire or regret. I married you, Sir Philip, to please and gratify an ambitious mother. You are a strange man not to have con- ceived from the very first hour of our engagement my true feelings toward you." " Lady Hortense a the appellation suits you so admirably, my dear, don't you know ! " paren- thesized Sir Philip with ineffable mockery. He heeded not the swift, deprecating gesture with which Lady Camden raised her hand, but after a moment's pause he went on in the same jeering tone : " It suits your spirituelle beauty to be so sub- missive to that scriptural platitude 'Children obey your parents,' etc.; but that you are such a martyr to it had best not become known to the world. In perjuring yourself at the sacred altar of wedlock as you did, you have sunk to the low- est strata of moral degradation. Yours is a self- 62 THE BRIDE OF 1KFELICS imposed penance, and let it be however bitter, it could not suffice for the enormity of your crime. I am not one who would rave, tear his hair, and finally drown himself in the slums for the sake of a soulless ." " Sir Philip, cease, I implore you ! Leave me. I am ill !" Hereupon Lady Hor tense interrupted him with a poignant cry of misery. He stood for some moments after she had spoken, looking down on the proudly bent head of his wife, and contemplating with implacable calm the little diamond dagger ornament thrust through the thick coil of her jet-black hair, and the gems sparkling upon her hands, which were crossed listlessly and gleamed like ivory upon the folds of her rich mauve gown. He observed that her whole attitude was that of ineffable despair ; but this did not appeal to Sir Philip in the least. There was the same hard, metallic slur in his voice, when finally he said : " Yes, I will leave you. You shall not often be afflicted with my presence. But a as I have said, do not lose sight of the requirements of your position in this establishment. If you do not comprehend the duties of a titled lady, I am certain your mother does. Always have Mrs. Ayers here to direct them, and I am sure my entertainments will be successful and beyond reproach." ~ V ->W ... LADY CAMDEN A moment later when Lady Hortense heard the door close and knew that he had gone, she rose languidly, and crossed the room to the large window, whose view commanded the river. With a hasty impetuous movement she threw open the casement and, leaning her head against it, wearily gazed out taward the glittering waters with hot, yet tearless eyes. " Oh, would I had died when a happy, unsullied child," cried she aloud in her misery. "Would I had died when a child !" The subdued murmur of waters came to her as if in sympathetic response, and gradually the sound ministered to and soothed her somewhat. All night she lay awake listening to the river's sad monotone, and in the early morning when she slept and Anine, her devoted maid, bent anxiously over the lovely young face, with its underlying, yet unhidden grief, the pale lips parted and the girl heard them repeat slowly the mysterious words which ever since Lady Cam- den's advent to Maplehurst had seemed to haunt her dreams: " Blood-dyed waters, murmuring far below." CHAPTER V A MORNING ENCOUNTER Have I dreamed ? or was it real What I saw as in a vision Wben to marches hymeneal In the land of the Ideal Moved my thoughts o'er fields Elysian? QWEET warbler, good morning I" exclaimed vJThayer Volney, as his pretty cousin, chanting these words of Longfellow, came suddenly upon him the morning after his arrival at Ivendene, where he sat half concealed behind a tuft of rushes near the swan-float, enjoying the soft, languorous sunshine and the dreamy picture of the water with its procession of gleaming white fowl floating in the shadows of the foliage. As Valois had flaunted up the little path, under the canopy of low hemlocks, her thoughts had been full of this young man; but she started in amazement as his voice greeted her so abruptly. "Why! " cried she joyously. " I little dreamed of seeing you out at this early hour, cousin Thayer ; indeed mamma had just enjoined me not to allow you to be awakened, as she thought you required a good long rest after your tedious voyage. Did you sleep well ?" she asked. (34) A MORNING ENCOUNTER 35 " To make a candid avowal, my dearest cousin, I scarcely slept at all," Thayer answered. " The pleasure of meeting with my American kindred made slumber impossible, and I was so anxious for the morning to come when I would see more of them, that I rose almost at the first signal of its approach." As he spoke he bent his eyes half guiltily upon a willovy twig which he had been whittling. "What were you singing just now ?" he asked, as the young girl fluttered down beside him on the rustic seat. "Singing? Oh! I was not singing; I was simply crowing some words which, I think, were from Longfellow," returned Valois, flushing with embarrassment as she stripped the needles from a hemlock bough which overreached them. " I like Longfellow," added she, "and often adapt his lines to some favorite tune ; but I have no voice to sing, positively none 1 Mamma says she'd as soon hear my parrot croak as my funny attempts at singing." Thayer laughed outright at her drollery. "But," said he, encouragingly, "you are very young. A few years may work a surprising de- velopment in your vocal talent." " No, I shall never be able to sing never ! it isn't in me. Now Alice Alice Meredith I mean has warbled like a bird from babyhood. With her it is as natural to sing as it is to breathe : I 36 THE BRIDE OF 1NFELICE want you to hear her, and shall try and get her to sing for you this evening. Thayer's heart grew restless at the mention of her name. He hesitated with the words upon his lips. " I heard her singing last night, and already do I know the beauty and magic of her voice." He would not allude to that song, " My love has come ;" he would treasure the memory of it self- ishly within his own bosom, that its charm might not lose any of its sweetness. Little reading his thoughts Valois chattered on volubly. " How odd it was, your coming this morning to the very spot which I myself love better than all others, though there are many lovely nooks about Ivendene. I make regular morning visits here. I love to sit in the warm sunshine and watch the shining swans floating in precise file down the pond, and to listen to their queer, unintelligible babble. They always welcome me with a glad chorus, and the birds as well know when to look for me. See ! I have brought my handkerchief full of crumbs for them ;" so saying, she unfolded a bit of snowy cambric and revealed the swans' breakfast, which she began tossing towards them in dainty morsels. They both laughed like children at the manceu- vers of the graceful fowls, as they dove, fought and struggled for the white flecks, and after the feeding was over they rose to stroll about the grounds. ^ % A MORNING ENCOUNTER 37 They were approaching the deer park, which was hemmed in by a high rock wall, all en- wreathed in riotous ivy, and which lay beyond the garden hedge, when Thayer asked abruptly and in a voice that was not quite steady : "Your friend, Miss Meredith, where is she hid- ing herself this lovely morning ?- " "In the library. Alice is forced by present circumstances to sacrifice much in the way of recreation. She has been wont for the last two years to spend the greater part of her vacations with me here at Ivendene,when we always enjoyed our regular morning rambles together ; it is differ- ent now. She is studying ambitiously for musical examination. She hopes soon to secure a position in one of the Boston schools to teach." " Is your friend, then, dependent upon her own efforts for a livelihood ? " The question was put involuntarily, yet with an eager anxiety which prompted Valois to look up quickly ; but Thayer had stooped ostensibly to examine a peculiar plant growing by the side of the walk, thus she did not see the deep flush which dyed his cheeks and brow crimson. She, however, hesitated, in- wardly annoyed with herself for having so inad- vertently disclosed her friend's position. Surely it would humiliate Alice to have him know. " But then," she reflected the next moment, " the whole world knows of it ; besides, it is no disgrace, it is simply a misfortune to which any 38 THE BRIDE OF Iff FELICE man of blameless character is liable to fall heir. He could not by any possible chance think the less of my dearest friend for her adversity, and he had better hear it from my lips than from those of a prejudiced world." Upon this she said to her cousin, who had risen from his half-kneel- ing posture and was looking at her in anxious suspense : "Alice will be dependent upon herself from this time forward. Only two days ago the news of her father's insolvency was declared in all the papers. He was one of the wealthiest brokers in Boston and it was generally supposed that his business was one of the most substantial ; but it seems that he himself had been aware of the coming crisis for many months as far back as last May, when he made an enormous speculation in worthless mining shares ; since then he has frittered away all his fortune in striving to regain that first fatal loss, and even their magnificent house in the city, with all its equipages, has been seized and is to be sold for debt." She did not notice at this juncture the low out- cry from Thayer, but went on sadly : " Mrs. Meredith and her three daughters will be forced out upon the world to gain a living as best they can. Think, Cousin Thayer, how they must suffer ! think of all that ihey must inevi- tably be brought to endure in the yea~s to come ! Oh, it almost breaks my heart when I think of A MORX1XG ENCOUNTER 39 one so young, so gentle and lovely as Alice Mer- edith having to submit to so cruel a lot ! Look- ing toward the vista of coming years, I seem to gee her toiling, pale, prematurely aged and utterly weary of life, for the barest means to sustain it ; and I pity, oh ; I pity her so ! " With this the young girl covered her face with both hands, and Thayer heard her sobbing softly, and saw the tears drop from between her fingers down upon the dry leaves at her feet. He stood by, silent and pale, waiting for her to regain her composure. When she looked up at length, he asked, with enforced calm : "When does Miss Meredith return to Boston ?" " On the first of next month, about the time that we go. Ah ! here are my pets ! " exclaimed Valois, whose sunny temperament never suffered her to harbor a grief for many moments. They had come suddenly to the park gate. " You see that great antler deer yonder, the largest of them all ? " said Valois, as they en- tered, " he is my favorite. Come here, Dante ! " At this the deef approached, but instead of going up to his mistress, he approached her com- panion and rubbed his nose familiarly upon the tip of his gaiter. Thayer laughed, letting his hand fall upon the creature's head, just as we have seen him do once before. 40 THE BRIDE OF INFELICS 11 Dante and I have met before," he explained to his cousin, " as I came through the pastures last evening he approached and saluted me in the same manner you have just witnessed. His vol- unteered friendship won my heart on the spot. I shall buy him a handsome bell and collar." Valois flashed him a grateful smile, and a few moments later, in obedience to the breakfast bell, they left the park and walked slowly toward the house. Near the mammoth fountain, which was play- ing its crystalline sprays in the bright sunshine, they came suddenly upon Alice Meredith, who was just in the act of pinning in the belt of her simple white flannel gown a knot of daisies, fresh plucked from the dew-lit sward. She returned Valois' kiss, and then murmured a cheerful " Good morning, Mr. Volney," letting her eyes meet his earnest regard for an instant as she spoke, and then flushing to the roots of her bright hair, which the sunlight touched and glor- ified as the trio passed up the garden path and disappeared behind a trellis thickly covered with intermingled ivy and clematis vines. CHAPTER VI CAUGHT IN THE STORM Such is life a changing sky, eometimes shadow, sometimes bright; Morning dawns all gloriously And despair shuts in the night. Catherine Mitchell. r T^O one who has always been accustomed to 1 move in that serene social estate which only opens its precincts to people of great wealth and influence, it must be an inconceivably bitter experience to have, almost without a moment's warning, to surrender a position that had ever been supposed to be one that was perfectly secure and steadfast. But Mrs. Meredith sustained* the blow with great fortitude ; and by degrees during the brief fortnight passed at Ivendene, her sweet, aristo- cratic face assumed a look which told that she was learning to accept the harsh decree of Provi- dence with placid resignation ; that she had ceased to rebel against the derisive hand. But this look was not repeated in the face of her daughter. There was a mournfulness in the dark-blue of Alice Meredith's eyes which perpetually hinted (41) 43 TOE BRIDE Of lyfELIC* that her efforts to appear happy and interested were enforced. Sighing had become habitual with her, and the long, tremulous breaths seemed to whisper of the latent weight upon her heart, which every day grew heavier. She always gang when requested, but the voice that made her the legitimate child of music was never heard to vibrate with spontaneous melody, as it had upon that evening when Thayer Volney had stood in the gloaming without watching her through the window. She had always loved Ivendene with the sur- rounding intricate foliage and sloping, sunlit lea, over which one's gaze could wander far away to where the breakers dashed their white spray upon the rocky shore. She had always loved the simple gayeties indulged in at this peaceful sum- mer house, and was never wont to weary of them ; but now 'there seemed something lacking in the color of the landscape which but a season ago had impressed her so deeply with its beauty; and the gayetiea had all at once become monot- onous and tasteless to her. Some distinguished society people had been invited from the city for the formal house party which it was the custom of the Elwoods to give ere quitting Ivendene for the season. Mrs. Meredith and Alice declared their inten- tion of returning to Boston ere they should arrive, which idea, however, was .so rigidly CAUGHT IN THE STORX 43 opposed on the part of Mrs. Elwood and Valois, and also on the part of the kind- hearted old Colonel himself, that they were compelled to give it up and surrender themselves to thoughts of coming days, which they instinctively knew would be replete with bitter humiliations for them. So, indeed, they proved. In those few days of martyrdom, that proud mother and daughter learned how full of hypoc- risy a"nd artifice was the world in whichj only a fortnight since, they had been courted and worshipped as children of wealth. They per- ceived' the sneering contempt in all the rigid formalities offered them, and accepted the effronteries with smiling decorum, although inwardly, they writhed in bitter resentment and unutterable humiliation. Yet above this there was ever the prevailing sincerity which was lavished in the affection of their hostess and her fair young daughter, and which served them as a buoy serves a man who cannot swim. They anchored their wounded spirits upon this, and so kept themselves above water during those long, trial days which at last came to an end. Mrs. Elwood watched the brougham drive out of the gates of Ivendene, which was bearing her last guests away to the station, and then turned away with the incredulous words upon her lips : " Who would have dreamed there existed such 44 THE BRIDE OF ISFELICE hypocrisy in the world ! It is inconceivable ! " That night Mrs. Meredith fell asleep with her face pressed against a tear-wet pillow. Alice had stolen to her room after she had retired and, kneeling by the bedside, had whispered : " Mother, I am glad we have been shut out from that world of falsity and shallow-hearted- ness. I had rather be a fisherwoman like those we saw at Nahant the other day, picking up clams in the surf, than to become such a form of deception as those women whom we have always believed in until now. Adversity is a kind friend after all, for she leads us up to that mount of truth and light from which we can view life in all its uncovered reality." So the tears which Mrs. Meredith had shed were those of thankfulness to Him who had given her beloved child intuition to divine that which she herself had been blinded to when young, and a purity of soul that revolted against deception. Seldom had Thayer Volney been alone in the presence of Alice during the fortnight they had spent together at Ivendene, and he was certain that the young girl purposely avoided him ; for whenever they had been thrown in each other's society, Alice had found some pretext for a hurried withdrawal from his presence, and, unless Valois composed a third party she would not permit herself to remain for the briefest interval under the spell of his dark, magnetic eyes which CAUGHT IN THE STORM 45 she always felt were riveted upon her. It was late in the afternoon of the day previous to that which the Merediths had set for their leave-taking from Ivendene. The day had been clear and wind-still ; but close upon sunset, some scattering flecks marred the sky's fairness, and these collected into a dark and glowering mass after their gorgeous tints had faded, and soon they had spread until all of the blue was hidden, except a streak on the far horizon. Valois and her cousin had been standing on the veranda, looking toward the mist-wreathed coast, end enjoying in rapt and kindred silence the boundless beauty of the sunset. Neither of them heeded the keen southeasterly breeze which was rising. The girl's short, jetty curls were tossed in riotous abandonment about her Gypsy face, and her wide, scarlet sash-ribbons flapped and swished and finally wrapped themselves about the legs of her companion, the bright flash of color suddenly diverting his glance from the far horizon where it had BO long distraitly rested. " The wind is blowing up quite a gale, Valois," said he, "are you not chilly ? Had I not best bring a wrap for you ?" he asked solicitously. " I am not cold," returned his cousin ; then she turned, and with a sudden impetuosity, laid her hand upon his arm. " Where can Alice be ?" 40 TEX SRIDS OP INFSLICX cried the young girl, with a strange seriousness in her voice. " Where can Alice be ?" the vexed winds seemed to take up the startled question and drag it through the darkling elements. Thayer Volney looked at his cousin with mute pale lips. The winds grew louder and the sky grew darker, and all nature seemed to put on a livery of grief for the day's death. What was it shining out through his eyes ? " Such ineffable oh, I cannot find a word to ex- press that look ! It is something I have never seen in human eyes before," said Valois to her- self. " Don't you know really where your friend is, Valois ?" Thayer at length questioned. " No. I was up to her rooms just before com- ing to the veranda an hour or more since, but she was not there. I noticed that her cloak and hat were missing, and concluded that she had gone for one of her solitary strolls. She has not returned, I am almost certain ; and I fear she will be caught in the storm there is surely a storm coming on. See ! it already rains !" and she held out to him one chubby white hand, upon the back of which a solitary drop of water spar- kled. " I will get an umbrella and go in quest of her," said Thayer, calmly. CAUGHT Jit THE STOSlf 47 He was turning to go when suddenly Valois cried, pointing toward the mist-wreathed meadow, " Look yonder, cousin Thayer ! that dark figure moving over the ]ea is Alice. The storm has indeed caught her, and she is running." Thayer cast one swift glance in the direction signified, and the next instant he had disap- peared. Valois saw him a moment later, springing at a perilous speed down the terrace steps ; she watched him flying over the lowland in the direc- tion of the lea, until the gloaming, with its thick- ening vista of rain, blotted him from view, when with a shiver she turned from the solitary ver- anda and entered the drawing-room, where all was at delightful variance with the discomfort without. Here she seated herself at her embroid- ery frame, with the look which she had seen in her cousin's eyes still haunting her. " What was that look ?" she again asked herself; and gradu- ally, out of the light and fragrance of the room there seemed to grow the answer to her question. She heard it, and was glad. " Miss Meredith, pray do not be startled ; it is I ; come to meet to offer you the shelter of my umbrella. I trust you have escaped a severe wetting." " Oh no I am not wet ; which good fortune is due to my long waterproof," said Alice, with 48 THE BRIDE OF 1XFELICE visible confusion. "You are very kind. I am grateful," she added briefly, and her last words, very low-spoken, were calm, and measured with that quiet grace which he had noticed was one of her chief charms. Yet he believed he detected in the'm a restraint of tears. " Take my arm," said he, " the ground has already become wet and slippery." She accepted it in silence, and in silence they moved on to- gether, he feeling the cold frorn her little ungloved hand penetrate through his thick sleeve as he pressed the member warm against his heart. At length Alice said : " I did not realize the distance I had walked, and probably should not have stopped before reaching the beach road had not a drop of rain splashed in my face to remind me that I had gone far enough. The storm came on so sud- denly," she added. "Very;" answered her companion, "I was standing with Valois out on the veranda, when suddenly she remembered that you were out, and liable to be overtaken by it. The elements are very capricious. One would not have dreamed this afternoon that it would rain before night." "And yet," said Alice, "it is seasonable. Our rains usually set in early in October." " Of course, all the foliage will be ruined in the pastures ? " said, or rather interrogated her com- panion. * CAUGHT IX THE -SXORJf 49 "Very likely." "I am sorry. As I passed through them this morning I promised myself a collection of those superbly tinted maple leaves to treasure as a sou- venir of my visit to New England." " If I had thought " the young girl checked abruptly the sentence which had been upon her lips. " I noticed," she went on presently, hoping inwardly that he would not detect the incoher- ency of her words, "that VaJois had a small basket of maple leaves and fern sitting in her room. She will give you these." As she spoke the elements were lit up suddenly by a livid flash of lightning. His eyes were turned toward her, and the light revealed to him her sweet face all swollen and with tear-drops gleaming upon her down-bent lashes. The sight of her sorrow, stung and wounded him deeply, and he cried out, hardly conscious of what he said in that moment of passionate sympathy : . " Alice ! I cannot bear to see you so unhappy! Adversities must come to us ail sooner or later in life, but but the hurt of all sorrow, however keen at first, is swift in passing away. Yours can endure but for a little space of time it is but one of the transient shadows of human experience." " You know, then. You have been told ? " " Yes, for many days the one thought para- mount in my mind has been of you, my one ab- 50 THE BRIDE OF 1NFELICE sorbing prayer has been that the cloud may soon be lifted from your young life. I would make you happy at any self-sacrifice ; believe trust me, Alice ! " It was the second time that he had called her by her Christian name, and his voice, so low and appealing in its fervor, entered her soul like divine music, making a momentary golden glimmer flash upon her benighted world like a promise of something undefined but beautiful, still, in its shapelessness. It vanished, however, like that recent streak of lightning in the sky, leaving the confusion more confounded than ever, and mak- ing her heart to cease its action for very wonder whence the gleam had come and whither van- ished. " You are silent. You doubt me ! " her compan- ion breathed quickly ; and beneath the obvious grief in his voice there was a shade of rebuke. " No, no," she rejoined warmly, " do not think me so ungrateful, Mr. Volney, I beseech you ! I cannot acknowledge such words as you have just spoken to me by trite terms of gratitude ; but I shall treasure them always in deepest admiration and esteem." They had now gained the terrace wall and slowly ascended the steps, the lantern in the ves- tibule above sending down a golden shaft of light to them in which Thayer plainly saw the beauti- ful, sad face of the woman he had already come CA VGHT IN THE STOJRX 61 ,to love with his whole young and passionate soul. 'Yet he could not trust himself to speak again to her not even when, as they reached the vesti- bule, she suffered her eyes to meet his earnest wistful glance for an instant, and forced a smile to her lip as she observed : " Of course, you know this is to be our last night at Ivendene ?" CHAPTER VII A MODERN HERCULES AFTER breakfast the following morning as Colonel Elwood adjusted his overcoat in the hall, preparatory to driving to the station where he was to take the early train for Boston, his nephew joined him, himself well muffled for going out : " I am going to volunteer you my companion- ship to the city this morning, uncle Howard," said he, without looking up from the glove which he was in the act of buttoning. " I shall be gratified, my boy," the elder gen- tleman responded ; " but," added he, " I thought it likely you would accompany Mrs. Meredith and Miss Alice to town this afternoon. You knew they were leaving Ivendene to-day ? " " Yes," said Thayer, changing color, u I shall contrive to get back in time to attend them. The mail arrives this morning from England, and I am impatient for letters which I am expecting from home." " Aye, certainly, of course," his uncle conceded sympathetically. The downpour had endured all night, but had (52) ' A MODERN HERCULES 53 now subsided, leaving the air swathed in heavy vapors, with a cold, keen, wind blowing from the north and bearing the prophesy of winter in its breath. A new sun strove vainly to warm the earth back from the stolid state it had assumed during the night ; much less, so kindly an influence, the heavy weight of iron wheels scarce left an impres- sion, as they rolled along the solitary country road, where the dismantled birch and maple trees were grouped together in shuddering desolation over the dark and frozen residues of their once beauteous foliage. Thayer Volney marked with an acute inward pang the disappearance of all the russet and red and gold of yesterday's autumn glory, and him- self shivered at the coldness of the landscape. He thought, with a still deeper smart of pain as he looked away over the barren landscape toward the city, as the train sped thither, how many poor people there were in that mighty arena of life who were at that very monent without means to protect themselves against the cold that made him button his Russian sable overcoat closer about his throat how many there were without clothing, without fuel, without shelter, or even a wherewith to lay their heads at night ? " How many of them had once been the favored of wealth and affluence ? How many of them had sunk all at once from the gilded labyrinths 54 THE BRIDE OF INFELICE down through the shaft of adversity to grovel in the squalors of poverty, of degradation and nfi- nite shame ? " As thus he questioned himself, his soul rose up in hot rebellion, and took the form of a mighty opponent against that demon which is daily enrolling the names of hapless victims upon its list, and condemning the inmates of happy homes to such lives as this, and which would dare to lift a hand against the woman who had all at once become the incentive of noble purposes in his life. Arriving duly in Boston, uncle and nephew separated, the latter going at once in quest of the score of letters which were awaiting him, among which were two bearing the crest of Volney Wold. Over these he lingered longest. There were some words almost obliterated by tears which had fallen from the eyes of his mother, Lady Marguerite, as she wrote of the painful void engendered by his absence. " But I shall strive for better endurance, my boy, my heart's idol I " said Lady Marguerite, toward the^close of her letter. "I will try very hard to bide the time which must elapse before I will see your face again. You will come back to me with that face heavily mustached and bronzed with foreign suns. Oh, I often grieve to think of loeing my boy in manhood's full maturity ! but I know this is unreasonable ; it is inconsistent with Time, A tlODERX HERCULES 56 who surely marks each day of our lives with some change; then let that change be however great in you, my own, I know in my innermost heart that you will still remain my darling, noble boy, filial and constant to the end." His own eyes were not without tears as he folded this letter and placed it away in his vest pocket, after which he quickened his way down town. He alighted from a street-car in the vicinity of the State House, and had passed out through the Common to Fremont street, when, upon glancing down that busy, rattling thoroughfare, he saw suddenly, a cab and pair come tearing down the street at a horrifying gait. "A runaway I " he ejaculated aloud. There was a panic upon both sides of the busy, bustling way. The counter-marching mass of humanity were crushing their ways to places of safety ; women and children were screaming ; horses and vehicles were being precipitated out of their perilous course to make way for those madly plunging chestnuts as they dashed on and on. Many in that intricate mob saw the white face which was pressed despairingly against the cab window as it passed. Many heard the prayer which now and then rose above all that terrific dim and noise. " Save me ! save me, for the love of God !" Another moment and the foaming, plunging 56 THE BRIDE OF IXFEL1CE steeds would pass Thayer Volney only one golden moment between himself and the oppor- tunity to rescue a human life from a most horrifying death. Not once did the young Englishman reflect upon the dread hazard of that opportunity which involved his own life. Not once did the question of " self" rise up between him and chivalry. Like a young Hercules he stood with every muscle fixed for the fray ; and when the oppor- tune instant came, he hurled himself from the pavement and, with a hand of iron, grasped the silver trappings of the horses and gave them a sudden powerful jerk. They reared, they plunged in the air for an instant, then settled their tremb- ling fore-limbs upon the cobblestones, neighed and were still. Prom the mighty multitude, which had wit- nessed this startling deed of heroism there uprose a storm of applause. Men waved their hats, women their handkerchiefs, and the wave upon wave of " bravos " which ran along the throng were accompanied by the thunderous clapping of hands. He did not hear them. The swift action had cost him nearly all of his bodily strength, and his right arm had almost been wrenched from its socket. For a moment he reeled with faintness ,ind acute pain ; but by a great effort he mastered the spell, and when it had quite passed, he saw A-MODERX HERCULES 57 a white face through the cab-window looking out upon him with great startled eyes which wore, above their terror, an expression of dumb grati- tude. Her lips seemed to move, but if in spoken words these were not heard. The crowd was pressing upon them, and he wished not to make himself the object of their shallow congratulations. He wished not to be the center of such a cowardly throng as this. Hurriedly throwing open the carnage door he bowed low before the beautiful stranger and said : " Madame, you cannot risk yourself further with these animals ; they are not to be trusted. Can I assist you to alight ? There is an apothe- cary's shop close by ; if you will allow me to lead you there, I will procure for you a glass of wine." Without a word she placed her small foot upon the step, and the next moment they were making' their way together through the multitude, which fell asunder to make room for them to pass. " Who is he ? Who is he ? '.' passed from lip to lip, as the many pairs of eyes riveted them- selves admiringly upon the young Englishman's noble and handsome face. But none there could answer the question. After the rescued lady had swallowed a portion of the stimulant which was given her, she seemed greatly revived ; even a tinge of color came to her usually pale cheek as she turned her beautiful dark eyes upon Thayer and said : 58 THE BRIDE OP 1NFELICE 11 Oh, sir, how can I acknowledge my gratitude for your service ? Such valor as you have shown passes all expression of words ! " and now her brown eyes filled with tears of emotion. He bowed low in deference at her fervently spoken words. "Madame, my act was merely human," he replied, simply ; and then he seemed to grow be- fore her eyes, as they riveted themselves upon him involuntarily, into a fixed statue of Grecian ideality ; so high and straight and proud he tow- ered above her, with his soft, luminous eyes look- ing into vacancy, and his full, curved lips wearing a half disdainful expression, for he was still thinking of that cowardly mob which had not ventured the eighth of an inch to save her, but had cried out with vulgar and vehement applause when he succeeded in checking her horses. Presently he turned to her again and said : " There is a telephone here. I will ring for a cab and see you safely home." " No," said she, " pray do not let me detain you longer. I will send a message to my husband ; he can reach me directly. But " she hesitated, visibly embarrassed, " but you will honor me with your name that I may tell him ?" " It is so trivial a matter, madam. Humanity that is all. You have virtually nothing to feel grateful for. I would merely know whom I have had the honor of meeting so providentially ? " A MODERN HERCULES 59 " Is that fair quite ? " asked she, and her eyee, which seemed to speak of some latent sorrow, dwelt upon him in momentary appeal. Then, in silence, she handed him her card. He bowed before her with uncovered head as he accepted this, then as he turned away he repeated the name to himself which he read upon the dainty white tablet : " Hortense, Lady Camden, I have heard Va- lois speak of her," he mentally observed, as he left the apothecary's shop. CHAPTER VIII THE HIDDEN HAND When them dost alms, let not thy right hand know what thy left hand cloeth. New Testament. < t A LLIE, a carriage has stopped at our door JL\ and a lady is alighting. It is Hortense, Lady Camden ! " cried Blanche Meredith, who for some time had been standing at the library window looking out meditatively upon the blus- try avenue. Alice laid aside her pen and rose with a happy exclamation. The next moment the servant opened the door and announced her visitor. " You see, my dear, I have waived all formalities," cried a voice just behind him, and Lady Camden rushed in and was affectionately greeted by her old schoolfellow. " Hortense ! I knew you would be true. I knew you would not prove shallow-hearted like most of them !" Alice exclaimed, as tears of sheer hap- piness rushed to her eyes. "I did not hear of your misfortune before last Friday, " explained her friend. " You see," she went on, " Sir Philip and I have been in New York during the last fortnight and have been (60) ' THE HIDDEN HAND 61 careless about reading the papers. I took a cab last Saturday morning expressly to come to you, but the horses became unmanageable and ran away, causing me such a fright that I was laid up at mamma's for two whole days afterward. I thought you might have seen an account of the incident in the papers. You know they always get everything in these Boston papers. Isn't it awful to have one's name so dragged in the dirt ?" Alice assented. She had not seen the account, and so Lady Hortense minutely detailed it to her, and ended by saying : "So he re I am, my dear, left to go on to the end of the chapter without knowing to whom I am indebted for my deliverance from that horri- ble impending death. Oh, he was so courageous, so heroic, so handsome !" she added, with a smile upon her soft, half-parted lips, as of dreamy med- itation! "It sounds just like a romance, Lady Cam- den !" hereupon declared twelve-year-old Blanche, who had been listening from her post at the win- dow. "Who knows," she went on innocently, " but your daring hero may turn out to be some royal prince, who may fall desperately in love with, and in the end marry oh ! forgive me please forgive me, Lady Camden ! I spoke heed- lessly," she broke off. noting suddenly the deep flush which her words had called to Lady Hor- tense's face. 62 THE BRIDE OF JNFELICS This was very brief-lived, but was followed by an intense pallor, and there was an obvious con- straint in her voice as she turned to her friend and said : " Now, Alice, let me hear something of your- self and your plans; during these two weeks, of course you have been planning and thinking ?" " Yes, thinking much ; building far different castles, Hortense, from those which we used to build together at school. Please do not cry, dear ! We have already passed through the worst, be- sides it is not nearly so bad as it might have been. All our days cannot be wrought with sunshine, you know." And she repeated those familiar lines : Into all lives some rain must fall. Some days must be dark and dreary. "We are so apt to count too high our summer days ; so little used to adapting ourselves to the harder lessons of life that prepare us for the reverses which to every human experience are almost cer- tain to come, sooner or later. I know that I myself have been one of the most heedless of scholars in this respect ; but I have at last come to accept the lesson of adversity as one in which there is a golden text and a beautiful moral. I believe that for each sorrow there is added a rate of true merit to the soul that suffers, and suffers bravely. If ever that time should come when our former circumstances maybe re-estab- THE HIDDEN HAND 63 lished we will be better able to appreciate them," the girl added earnestly , and with one of her rare sweet smiles. " What are your plans for the future ?" asked Lady Camden, who had listened admiringly to the argument in which her brave friend had dealt so delicately, so leniently with the all-ruling hand which had been laid upon her and hers so ruthlessly. " Well, to begin with," said Alice, " I have been preparing myself for a musical review. I hope to secure a position in one of the conservatories to teach the primary classes." " Oh, Alice, such drudgery would kill you ! " cried Lady Camden, lifting her small, delicately- gloved hand in a gesture of deprecation. " But you know how I have always loved the art, Hortense. What would, indeed, seem drudg- ery to many will be to me only pleasant recreation," argued Alice. "Ah, my friend, when day after day you are compelled to repeat again and again the same tiresome exercises, with rebellious children, who hate practicing most children, you know, do hate it when you are compelled to do this, recreation will soon lose its charm and you will find yourself worn out and old before you have been teaching a year. Now, Alice dear, listen ; T have a great scheme," added she, and Miss Meredith folded her slender, blue-veined hands 64 THE BRIDE OF 1KFELICE over each other in her lap and leaned forward in a pretty attitude of attention. " It is this," went on her friend. " You are to give up all ideas of teaching for the present and come to Maplehurst instead to officiate as a kind of lady's companion to me. I find it exceedingly lonesome and dull at Camden, and and I love you. I want you with me ! " Her voice was very appealing, and her words had in them all the warmth and affection of gen- erous friendship ; but Alice, although she was deeply touched by the munificence of her offer, sat long with tear-brimmed eyes fixed upon the carpet ere she answered. She was thinking thus : "The position would involve so much of humiliation for me. I would be thrown in daily contact with people of the world ; would daily have to brook effronteries from them, as we did at Ivendene," and her proud, true nature made her revolt against the thought. "Yet, on the other hand," she meditated, "it would be a great triumph for me. I would exult in letting them see that we yet have left to us such friends as the Elwoods, and Lady Camden, whose influence is in itself sufficient to defend us against a whole army of enemies." The girl was not ambitious so far as social achievements were concerned, yet there was para- mount in her, a sense of arrogance, which made her resentful against a rebuff or slight, and this, THE HIDDEN HAND 65 with its blending of delicate defiance, outweighed that other pride, and decided her ; so it happened that when presently her sister Blanche looked round, wondering at the long silence which had fallen between the two, she saw a picture that brought a mist of tears to her eyes. Alice was kneeling at the feet of Lady Hor- tense, with her head pillowed upon that lady's sables, and that lady's hand laid with lingering tenderness upon the bright coronet of hair. " Will you come to Maplehurst ? " she heard Sir Philip's wife say, as she bent her face low over Alice. " I will be an indulgent friend, a very good trustee, a much less exacting princi- pal than you would find in the conservatory of music. I will be a true sympathizer and more. I will be a sister, Alice, to you." There was a sobbing effort at an expression of gratitude, a tender x lingering embrace, and Blanche waited to hear no more, but rushed out of the room to find her way through blinding tears, along the hall and up the wide flight of stairs to Mrs. Meredith's private sitting-room. Here she found her mother, and told her what had transpired between Lady Camden and Alice, and was astounded to see that Mrs. Meredith conceded willingly, nay, gladly, to the newly- conceived project. kl How can we live with her away from us all TO THE BRIDE OF 1NFEL1CE through the long days and nights," cried the child in passionate grief. She had always looked up to Alice with that worshipful attachment so often seen in younger sisters, and which sometimes amounts almost to idolatry ; and the first surprised thoughts of being separated from her were wrought with ineffable anguish, and all that day she hid her- self away in a little room up in the attic, and would not be comforted. " Of course I cannot ask you to come to me at once. You will want to see the family re-estab- lished," said Lady Camden, as she rose to take her departure. " We are not to give up our dear old home," said Alice, wondering how she could have for- gotten until now to convey the happy intelligence to her friend. " Last Saturday," she went on to explain, " upon our return from Ivendene, we found papa awaiting us at the depot, with a face so joyful that it looked almost saintly. As he kissed ma he pressed into her hand a sealed document which proved to be a new deed to our : homestead, made over in mamma's name by some munificent friend, who prefers to keep ihis identity in the background among that order of profound mysteries which defies all light of origin. His fairy name the one signed to the paper is Robin St. Cloud ; aside from which we know nothing of our good Samaii^an, except it THE HIDDEN HA ND 67 be that he is one of the limited few in this pedantic and parading world who does aims according to scriptural teaching ; but we cherish his name much as a child does that of Santa Glaus, and our nightly dreams are haunted by ideal fancies of Robin St. Cloud. Last night," continued the girl, " I had such a beautiful dream ; the face of my hero was indistinct to me. I saw him as through a cloud-mist ; but his eyes shone out upon me like the sun. I saw, also, his hand, which was shapely and white as marble In it he held a scroll, upon which I saw plainly written, in letters which seemed to be wrought of pure gold, the one word, ' Mizpah.' As I read the word, and interpreted its meaning to myself, the scroll and the hand seemed gradually to dis- appear. When I awakened, Blanche was stand- ing beside me ; she said that she had heard me speaking as she lay awake, and came near to hear what I was saying, It seemed that I had repeated the interpretation of that word aloud, for she asked me if mizpah did not mean, ' The Lord watch between 'you and me.' Don't you think, Hortense, that the dream-scroll is in some way associable with the deed ?" " Have you a suitor ? " asked her friend sud- denly. " No,'' returned Alice, then she added with a smile, half contemptuous, half amused, "you know the golden bait has fallen from my hand." THE BRIDE OF INFELICE Lady Camden took her departure from the brown-stone house strangely impressed with what she had heard about the mysterious deed and the dream-scroll with its significant motto, " Mizpah." CHAPTER IX IN PROSPECTIVE I/TIL ADI, did you ring ? " 1V1 " Yes. Go up stairs, Anine, to Miss Mere- dith's room, and if she is not engaged, say that I am awaiting her here." As the maid withdrew, Lady Hortense turned from the window, where for some time she had stood looking out upon the dull, cloud-massed sky, and slowly approached the grate, where a bright wood fire was crackling cheerfully and filling the room with its resinous warmth. She moved with an air of inertness ; and as she placed one exquisitely slippered foot upon the polished fender, a palpable yawn for an in- stant disfigured her lovely brunette face. She was thinking,as she let her languid dark eyes stray restlessly about the rich apartment with its paint- ings, its bronzes, its Venitian bowls of choice cut roses : "Of what use is all this grandeur and dis- play ? Position ! wherein lies the triumph of that for which thousands of women would to-day sacrifice themselves ? I'd rather be some rustic lass like Barbara Harmon, the ferryman's daugh- 70 THE BRIDE OF IS FELICE ter, and sit with her on the riverbank from morn till night angling for fish with worm bait, than such a slave to the conventionalities of the world as I have become." She was possessed with a sense of ennui a hovering spirit of weariness and dread which made her crave to flee from the. arena in which she was forced, like a rope-dancer, daily to re-act her part before an on-looking multitude. Each day seemed to increase her loathing for the fic- ticious role which she was compelled to play with a smiling face and a " fittingness " which the most critical eye could not censure. The mask was smothering her, and she craved to be free from it. " Hortense, how unpardonably selfish you must think me ! I had forgotten the flight of time in trying to solve that intricate lace pattern," said a voice of sweet contrition suddenly breaking in upon her silent reverie. Her friend had entered with a tread so noiseless that she had not heard her approach. 11 It is I who am the selfish one, not you, my dear," said Lady Hortense turning quickly. " I positively have come to grudge every moment that keeps you from my sight. In the fortnight that you have spent at Maplehurst you have spoiled me as a doting mother spoils her one un. conscionable child. I was just thinking what a martyrdom this place would be without you yes, IN PROSPECTIVE 71 dear, -martyrdom ! " she repeated as she saw the astonished look which came into Alice Meredith's eyes. " But, Hortense ! " exclaimed she, " martyr- dom means torment; how can you make Maple- hurst synonymous with that word ? In all my life," Alice added fervently, " I have never seen so beautiful a place as this. I wondered last night, as I stood at my window looking down upon the moonlit river, if God's serenity ever touched a scene of more surpassing loveliness than that which the golden-shining belt of the river presented, overshadowed by the castle walls. I thought what an inspiration it would have been to Whittier who so loved the Merrimac. Oh, I never should find Maplehurst dull or monotonous much less a martyrdom, 1 ' she ended, earnestly. "Oh, wait; you have been here as yet but a fortnight," said Lady Camden, derisively. " Your romanticism will crave a new subject after the Merrimac has grown a few months old to you. You would never care to circumscribe your whole life to it, as I must the greater part of mine," she added wearily. " I remember," said Alice, "one day when we were reading some novel together, out in the sem- inary grove, and you said you would be like the heroine of that story and some day live on a re- mote island alone with the man you loved. Hor- 72 THE BRIDE OF INFELICR tense, have you quite outgrown that spirit of romance ? " Lady Camden's face underwent a swift pallor. & flood of incoherent memories of her dreamy, felicitous maidenhood was surging through her brain. Her eyes had in them all the suppressed mis- ery of her soul as she fixed them upon her friend and faltered from tremulous lips a cry so full of anguish that to Alice Meredith's dying day she never quite forgot it. "Do not, oh do not refer to those past unsullied days ! Can a heart outgrow that which is instilled within it as the flavor of the wine is instilled within the grape ? No, no ! but the sweetest wine, under certain conditions, can be transformed into vinegar. The fairest flower, if put from the sun's rays, will soon become a fes- tered weed I" There ensued a brief silence, during which Alice sat with troubled eyes bent upon the fire- lit lilies of the carpet, and her hands restlessly clasping and unclasping themselves in her lap. Presently she looked up and said contritely : " I am sorry if I spoke unfeelingly, Hortense. Forgive me, dear; but I I never dreamed but that you were perfectly happy " " Hush, say no more," returned Lady Hortense, and she bent down and kissed her. " With you here," she went on, as she drew h^self, with a IN PROSPECTIVE 73 visible effort, out of her dejection, I am perfectly happy. Now let us speak ot the coming event our ball ! ! have an enormous afternoon's work before me, and shall need your assistance. There are between three and four hundred invitations to address for the ball, and others for the ensuing house party. Here is the list. I will read it over to you." She read to the bottom of the first page, and turned the leaf : " The Forresters, Mrs. Rossmore, the Morris- ons, the Dextrells, the Arundels, the Elwoods, Mr. Volney " She glanced up suddenly as she read the unfamiliar name. " By the way, Alice," said she, " you must have met this young Volney at Ivendene whilst you were there last month ?" She failed to note the girl's suddenly agitated manner, and the flush that dyed her face a violent crimson. " Yes. He arrived just the evening after mamma and I," Alice replied calmly. " I have been told he is very handsome. Is he ?" " Yes, quite so. Valois says he is like the bust of Glaucus, which you brought from Florence." " What is his first name ?" " Thayer." " T-h-a-y-e-r." Lady Camden pronounced each letter as she wrote the name. " Thayer 1 how very rarely one hears that name," said she, 74 THE BRIDE OF 1NFEL1CE " it has always been one of my favorites. Mr. Thayer Volney, Mr. Fred Bentwell, Captain Pometer " and she read on to the end of the list. It was almost night ere the two ladies concluded the task of sealing and addressing the envelopes ; but at last they were all stamped and ready for the mail bag, and Thayer Volney's name was lost among the hundreds there. That night, as Alice Meredith stood again at her window casement, encompassed in the moon's light, looking down upon the golden, shining belt of the river, she seemed to hear repeated, over and over again, in the subtile monitone of the flowing waters, that one sentence: "Thayer is coming ! Thayer is coming !" and her listening soul seemed to swell in deep and unspeakable ecstacy, as it took up the sound and answered back the echo, " Thayer is coming ! Thayer is coming !" When she had sought her pillow and all the moonlight had gone, leaving her room strangely dark and still, she could not hear that name repeated more. She could not find in those chaos- deeps the pair of dark magnetic eyes whose power it was to thrill her so : the voice and that pair of eyes seemed to have vanished with the charm of the moonlight, and in their place she saw a pale, sad face, and heard the voice of her friend crying out : IX PROSPECTIVE 75 " Do not, oh do not refer to those past, unsul- lied days ! Can a heart outgrow that which is instilled within it as the flavor of the wine is instilled within the grape ? No : but the sweet- est wine, under certain conditions, can be trans- formed into vinegar. The fairest flower, if put from the sun's rays, will soon become a festered weed." "Oh, can it be ?" she asked her troubled heart, " can it be she does not love Sir Philip Camden ? Can it be that her union with him has robbed her life of all its sun and embittered it ?" The thought dwelt with her all the night long. It would not let her sleep. CHAPTER X VALOIS' SECRET I wait for my story the birds cannot sing it. Not one as he sits on the tree: The bells cannot ring it, but long years, oh bring It 1 Such as 1 wish it to be. " SONG 07 SEVEN" Jean Ingelow. THE mid-November day, which since its birth had been swathed in heavy vaporous gloom, was prematurely nearing a close. Though it was yet scarce four o'clock, the pale, bluish glimmer of electric lights broke out here and there in the dense atmosphere, and the wary lamp-lighter had commenced his nightly round through the thoroughfares, murmuring to himself as he touched the jets into animation, that a storm was " brewin' aloft." True to his prophecy, the night fluttered in on wings of " eider-down," which, even in their lightness, swept away all the heavy vapors, making the air a precinct for their revelry alone. A young man, who for some moments had been standing in the door-way of a prominent jewelry store on Washington street, meditatively watch- ing the dizzily-whirling snow-flakes as they fast thickened in the gloaming, at length turned, and (76) VALOI& SECRET 77 approaching the center of the store, where a young lady stood with her pretty face bent intently over a jewelry tray, he said : " Valois, it has commenced to snow and the horses are getting restless. Have you about con- cluded as to which broach you will take ? " " No," said Valois, without lifting her face from the tray, " my taste is so capricious that I cannot decide. Isn't this a fond invention ?" she asked, signifying a miniature harp which was formed of diamonds and emeralds," and isn't this beetle unique ? Of the two, which would be your choice ? " " The harp," said the young Englishman, promptly, so the question was settled in his favor without further hesitation ; and a few moments later the young couple quitted the jewelers and, entering their carriage, were driven homeward through the storm. They were both unusually quiet during that half-hour's ride. Valois, fatigued after a tedious afternoon's shopping, reclined in her corner, luxuriously at ease among the velvet cushions, while her com- panion gazed abstractedly out of the window, inwardly rebuking himself for being so stupidly at loss for words to engross and entertain his fair cousin. "Surely," thought he, "during the last fort- 78 THE BRIDE OF 1NFEL1CB night Valois must have found me unbearably dull ! " Since coming to town the two cousins had been on a ceaseless round of pleasures. They had given liberal attention to the opera, the drama, the art-rooms, the historical building, the mar- kets, the manufactories ; yet all the while Thayer Volney had ielt himself a selfish ingrate in the hands of her hospitality. With pretty Valois Elwood at his side, any other young man would have been satisfied and happy, beyond a single desire or regret ; but he, Thayer, while proud and tenderly fond of his American cousin, attended her everywhere in a half-hearted fashion, with his mind always pre- occupied with memories of another face, and other days when it had been his ecstacy to know that Alice Meredith and himself were breathing under the self-same roof. Each day had brought to him its details of pleasure since he had last looked upon the face which lived paramount in his memory from morn till night, from night till morn, and would not be obliterated by any scene, however alluring, however beautiful, however strange to him. Yet it had seemed years to him since the morning when Valois had said : " Alice has left town gone to sojourn indefi- nitely at Maplehurst, some miles distant from VALOIS' SECRET 79 " Maplehurst ! oh, that is far ! " he had said while looking upward at the stars that night. But the heart they say is farther-reaching than the voice, and so, perhaps, she knew that his thoughts were of her then. " Ah, yes," said Thayer, " I think she will feel me near her. I do not think Maplehurst is further than love can reach, but I would I could annihilate that word 'indefinitely.' How many days and nights, nay, how many weary weeks and months will be measured in that term of cruel suspense?" Only two weeks had passed since Valois had told him this, and yet he would already circum- scribe years unto the time. "I had forgotten to tell you, Thayer," said Valois, starting abruptly from her semi-darkened corner into animation, "that I had a long letter from Alice Meredith, this morning, " Silence. Valois wondered if he had heard. Thayer wondered if his fierce heart-throbs were audible to other ears than his own. " She seems wonderfully happy and contented at Maplehurst." Silence. The friendly darkness kept the pallor of his face a secret unto itself. " I think it is so much nicer for her to be there than here in town, working her very life away in W THE BRIDE OF 1KFELICE a conservatory of music. You know she is acting as a kind of companion to Lady Camden." He essayed to speak, but realizing the common- placeness of his words ere they were framed, he repressed them and merely shifted his position to assure his cousin that he was not asleep, that he was listening. "I'd imagine, though, that the position would be a trifle embarrassing to her, for Sir 'Philip is always having people by the way, in behalf of Lady Camden, Alice importunes us not to make any engagements for the week after next, as they are to give a ball at Maplehurst, followed by a house-party. The invitations were all to be sent to-day, I believe. I want you to see Maple- hurst," added the young girl. " It is built on a kind of bluff overlooking the Merrimac, and is one of the finest estates we have, being built after the old English castellated style, and furnished something after the custom of your continent." "Then you will accept the invitations to Lady Camden's ball?" observed Thayer, as he feigned a yawn of indifference, and again shifted his posi- tion. " Yes, oh, yes, I hope so ! I should die of sheer disappointment if I had to miss such a social treat as this will be," cried Valois, with eager enthusiasm. " You know," she went on, " I have only been ' out ' a short time, Alice and I having made our debut together at Mrs. Carruthers' ball VALOIS' SECRET 81 last August. The event was in honor of her son, Lieutenant Gershon Carruthers, who had just re- turned with his ship from India after an absence of nearly three years. Oh, cousin Thayer ! " she added in an estatic undertone as she leaned for- ward until her face was on a level with his own, "he will be there!" Thayer took her face between his hands and gazed into it as well as the darkness would per- mit. "He will be there, eh ? and, oh, Valois, you will be glad ? " he asked, tenderly. She fain would have shrunk away from him back into her corner with her secret but half con- fessed, but he held her closely and whispered imperatively : " Tell me all about it. Tell me all about this naval officer whose brass buttons and epaulets have had such power to fascinate you, little coz ? " She felt her face burning hot and thought him aggressive beyond forgiveness. " Thayer, I will not " she commenced, rebel- liously. " Oh, yes, you shall, you must ! " he interrupted with exasperating authority. " Well he he is just the very nicest man I ever met there ! " " What else ? " " There is nothing else. Release me, tyrant ! 82 TEE BRIDE OF IXFELICX if you do not release me I shall never speak to you again." " Very well ; I shall not release you, however^ until you have made a full confession of your love affa Good heavens ! here we are, home!" Thayer broke off, as the carriage stopped abruptly. He sprang out and assisted Valois to the white ground and they ran together through the almost impen- etrable darkness and thickly whirling flakes up the steps to the vestibule. Here in the rays of the lantern their eyes met. Valois' shone out above her sables with shy mirth, yet she feigned a dignity ludicrously at variance with this as, for the second time she branded him a ' ' tyrant." "If you divulge my secret," said she, "or in any manner allude to it in the future, I shall abhor you, positively" but her laughter floated down to him as she reached the top of the stairs and sped along the hall toward her room ; and this told him, despite her words, that she trusted him with her secret implicitly. Half an hour later they met at dinner. During the meal the forthcoming ball and house-party were discussed, and it was decided that a note of acceptance should be sent to Maplehurst on the following-day. Later in the evening Valois said to her cousin : " Why, Thayer, what has come over you to make you look so happy to-night ? You have not looked so affable since we came to town. Are you V A LOIS' SECRET 83 glad we are to go to Maplehurst ? " She looked him steadily in the eyes as she spoke, and he read in her glance a look of intelligence that made him start ; he collected himself, however, at once and answered briefly. "Yes ; I am glad." There ensued an eloquent division of survey, after which they felt they understood and could henceforth sympathize with one another pro- foundly. CHAPTER XI THE BUST OP GLAUCUS. An image uncertain And va?ue, dimly shaped itself forth on the curtain Of the darkness around her. It came and it went: Through her senses a faint sense of peril it sent. " LUCILB." Owen Meredith. n^HE night's darkness was so intense that the 1 fast-driven snow fell undiscernable, and the course of the luckless country wayfarer was only defined by the fitful light shed abroad by car- riage lamp, or hand-swung lantern. Sir Philip Camden's horses made but sluggish progress on their way over the storm-swept high- way toward Maplehurst ; even though the driver made unremitting and merciless cuts at them with the lash, and urged and jerked their bits until the blood oozed from, and congealed upon their nostrils. Sir Philip, alternately dozing and imprecating the fates who thus deterred him from the com- forts of his fireside, at length flung open the carriage door and called out vehemently to the driver : " Wake up those devilish horses, will you ? " " I can't make 'em go no faster, yer honor. The snow be right in their faces." (84) V ' THE B UST OF OLA UCUS 85 " Snow, be d ! Wake up those brutes, I say ; wake tbem up, dolt ! dullard ! " "Swish ! crack ! swish ! crack ! " The exertion was a futile one. At the cruelly wielded and repeated blows only piteous neighs came from the struggling animals ; the vehicle jogged along at the same dilatory gait as before, and Sir Philip was forced to slam the door shut against the obtrusive wind and snowflakes, and subside again into sullen and impatient luxury among the rugs and cushions of his carriage. It was after nine o'clock when they reached Maplehurst and an hour later when Sir Philip, having made his toilet and dined alone, entered the drawing-room, whose only occupant was Lady Hortense. She was seated at a small stand a short dis- tance from the grate, engaged with a piece of antique embroidery. The bright light from the fire played upon her ruby velvet gown, giving each soft fold, as it fell about her, every separate, glowing shade of the gem from which it was named ; while the tinted Dresden lamp, which sat on the stand, shed a delicate glow over her profile, making it a perfect cameo in a frame of ebony. Sir Philip thought, as he stood for a moment on the threshold, looking at her, that she made a pic- ture which Gainsborough, or Titian, would have given pre-eminence in their studios, " and one," 86 THE BRIDE OF INFELICE he added, " which three months ago I myself could not have looked upon without being infatuated." Lady Hortense glanced up listlessly as he stood thus in contemplation of her. " You must have had a cheerless ride, Sir Philip," she said, letting her eyes return imme- diately to the bright threads of her embroidery. " I had dinner kept back for you till eight," she added, as she drew the golden stitch a trifle tighter. He watched the flash of diamonds upon her moving hand for a moment in sullen silence. " It might have been a deucedly more pleasant ride ; and a the dinner was not improved, I dare say, by being kept back so long," he said at length, with his characteristic drawl. As he spoke he drew an easy chair to the grate and seated himself. There ensued a protracted silence, during which she felt instinctively his keen, cold eyes upon her, as she always felt them when alone in his presence, and her hand grew a trifle unsteady as it guided the glinting thread back and forth, and those stitches made on the wing of the touraco a bird of the orient were less regular than former ones. The moments of her life which Lady Hortense had come to dread mostly, were those which com- pelled her to sit alone as she was now sitting, THE BUST OF OLAUCUS 87 under the fixed gaze of those cruel eyes. At such times she felt an almost overmastering de- sire to throw herself on her knees before him and cry out all her misery and despair, at not being capable of feeling any of that sentiment for him which a wife should feel for her husband, and which she had striven hard to learn but could not. If he had had that power of magnetism in his being which might have drawn her to him, with even a feeling of esteem or true deference that controlling fascination, which in some men is their very breath, and which has been known to engender love in the coldest of hearts, it might have triumphed over her in time. But Sir Philip had naught of this in his cold, egotistical temper- ament. Gradually had she come to find him callous and unresponsive as steel to all the finer instincts of nature, and since that night when she had laid bare to him her loveless heart even the touch of his hand had grown repellent to her ; in some vague way it seemed to contaminate her, and there were times when she shuddered inwardly at the sound of his voice, in which there was always such ineffable, though underlying contempt when speaking to her. She had come to interpret the true nature which lay disguised under that courteousness which he invariably adopted in society, and which made him popular. She alone surmised 88 THE BRIDE OF IXFEL1CE how narrow and mean that nature was, and how artificial were his manners. By her woman's wit she read him. She knew that he had not a single thought or impulse but what was deep- rooted with selfishness, and that his every ambi- tion was entirely self-centered. She perceived all this, and herself imbued with a nature which made her revolt against what she divined in him, she knew that each day of their lives must divide them farther apart, instead of reconciling them to each other. A servant came in to renew the fire and after sweeping up the hearth, withdrew noiselessly. Yet Sir Philip sat without unriveting his gaze from her profile ; still Lady Hortense sat nervously drawing the bullion threads of her embroidery ; still oppressive silence reigned throughout the luxurious apartment, broken only by the soft frou- frou of snowflakes as they fell against the closely shuttered windows without, or the low soughing of winds through the dismantled trees. Lady Hortense could bear the strain no longer. She let her bullion skeins fall into the frame, and rose. The action had been impulsive and with- out any forethought of what her next step would be. She stood there irresolutely with one jeweled hand pressing upon the onyx stand, the other toying with a spray of stephenotis which she wore low on her bodice. Should she make some pre- text to leave the room, or should she go to the THE B UST QV GLA L'CUS 89 piano and play something ? The first would look awkward and unconventional withal ; the latter would be simply in accordance with her almost nightly habit when there were no guests at Maple- hurst, as was the case to-night. She turned toward the instrument, but had scarcely taken a step when Sir Philip's voice ar- rested her. " Lady Hortense a pray, my dear, I do not feel in a mood for Wagner nor Beethoven to-night. I want to talk over the ball and house-party with you." Lady Camden turned and slowly approached the grate, where she stood towering above him in all her proud loveliness, like a young queen. She rested one arm upon the corner of the mantelpiece and directed her glance toward him expectantly. " Well ? " said she, simply, and while there was in the word a quiet submission to his wish there was also in it an intonation of austerity which made him glance swiftly up at her, and then laugh a low, noiseless, mirthless laugh which she never could hear without an involuntary shiver. "Well," said he, when the convulsion had passed, "pray sit." He motioned toward a low fauteuil, as he spoke, which was convenient to her, and she seated herself on this with an obedience which was humiliating to her, yet which her 90 THE BRIDE OF IX FELICE pride would not let her rebel against. Then he said, still keeping his eyes upon her, with some of their recent amusement still in them : " Don't you know, my dear, a you please me amazingly to-night; a you affect inanimate colors so much that one is apt to come to regard you almost as a statue, or a vestal virgin ; but to-night a you are as brilliant as you ever were inanimate before, and I a am amazingly pleased yes ! " At his words Lady Hortense's lips curled them- selves half-contemptuously . She very often heard him speak in this suave, courteous tone to other ladies, but he seldom, in fact, had never adopted it toward herself since the night when she had con- fessed her indifference of him, excepting at such times when conventionality required it in the all- hearing ears of the world. " I never knew," said she, u that you were so distinct as to preference in colors. I have always liked white, and as you say, I have worn it con- siderably of late months It harmonizes with my colorless life," she added to herself, "but," she went on, " I will endeavor to suit my toilet more in accordance with your taste in future, Sir Philip." " I hope," returned Sir Philip, " you will under- stand you are not to thwart your own pleasure with respect to such trivial matters. Wear what pleases you, only deport yourself properly as Lady Cam- THE BUST OF GLAUCUS 91 den. I don't want the world to say that I have made a marble image of you, or an ice-plant. Now, will you favor me with the names of those you have invited ? " With keen bitterness within her, Lady Hor- tense rose to go in quest of the list, but he stayed her as she reached the door, saying : " A never mind the paper. I suppose you have asked no one out of the usual set we meet everywhere ? " "I believe there are two exceptions," said Lady Camden, " Captain Pometer, a present guest of the Dextrells, and Mr. Thayer Volney of England, a nephew of Mrs. Elwood, and only recently ar- rived." " Pometer ! " repeated Sir Philip, musingly, "I know him, I believe ; but this Englishman ? a is he very young, say three or four and twenty ? " " I cannot say, as I have never seen him," re- sponded Hortense, Lady Camden. " If he is the fellow whom I saw on the street in Boston the other day with Valois Elwood, he has certainly a most striking appearance ; he is, in fact, a what you ladies would deify a Greek god." " A Greek god." Lady Hortense repeated al- most unconsciously to herself the words ; and as she did so she lifted her eyes to the mantel upon which stood a Parian bust of marvelous beauty, '92 THE BRIDE OF IN FELICE and they softened with a carious, tender light as they rested upon the faultlessly cast features, enveiled in their expression of kindness and in- tellectuality. Sir Philip, watching her under his drooping eyelids, saw the look which almost transfigured her face, and an ominous frown gathered above his thick, overhanging brows. "You are a devotS of the classic ? " he said, and his words were rather in the declarative than questioning tone, and were spoken with sneering contempt. Then without waiting for her to reply, he asked : " Where did you get that bust ? Who is the subject ? I have never taken special notice of it before." " I bought it in Florence when we were abroad last winter. It is of the Athenian Glaucus. The bust opposite is that of lone," said Lady Hor- tense. " I remember the subjects vaguely as those of Bulwer," observed Sir Philip. " I remember them as two of the loveliest and noblest characters in the annals of fiction," ex- claimed Lady Hortense fervently. " Of fiction, or of love ? " questioned Sir Philip, insidiously. " Well, if you will, of love, which is the truest application, indeed." Sir Philip pressed his lips firmly together, as THE BUST OF OLAUCUS 93 though to repress some words which might have risen to them. Then he rose and measured the room with deliberate step, with his hands clasped behind him and his head bent slightly forward. The attitude was that which he always assumed in moments of suppressed anger, and Lady Hor- tense watched him in some concern. At length he returned to the hearth. " I have some letters to write," he said shortly, and then without another word he left her. When he was gone Lady Camden once more turned her eyes upon the bust of the hero Glau cus, letting them rest upon the marbie image for some moments in a fixed gaze. Then these words came faintly from her lips : " Once in my life have I seen a face which re- sembled that, both in feature and expression. Valois Bays hor cousin is like my Glaucus. Sir Philip says he is like a Greek gcd . Could he by any possible chance be . Oh, how absurd ; how perfectly absurd ! That would be consistent with fiction only. Such a remarkable coinci- dence is rarely met with in real life "; and she put the thought from her entirely. But just be- fore she turned to quit the room she bent her regal head over the image of Glaucus and touched it with her lips. " How happy," she murmured, must lone have been with such a hero to love her 1" CHAPTER XII A WATCH-WORD Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still. Fletcher. several days the snow continued to fall, with short intermissions ; but with the full moon came a change in the weather, and the daz- zling white-mantled earth froze into a staid solidity which offered its season of exuberant sports to trie pleasure-loving world. Ere the abatement of the storm, Sir Philip had suggested to Lady Camden the postponement of their forthcoming festivities until a less inclemert season ; but as he saw the elements subsiding into peace, and watched the sovereign moon sail in victorious sublimity over the white-capped hills beyond Maplehurst, he rubbed his fat hands together with renewed ambition, declaring that his entertainments would prove doubly attractive with a seven-mile ride from the railway station, over a road as smooth and solid as ivory, and with an hundred silvern sleigh bells to make inspiring accompaniment for song and laughter. Thus, with his spirit set at ease on the throne of anticipation the night preceding that appointed for the ball arrived. (94) A WATCH- WORD 96 He had spent two hours after dinner in looking over the menu card, which the caterers had sub- mitted to him, and in an interview with those worthies which made the last of a series of seven, in every one of which he had forcibly ex- pressed his pedant desire that each and every dish was to be served strictly on the European, and not the American plan and now it was the half hour past ten, and he sat alone in his library absorbed in the day's newspapers. He had read the stock reports, he had scanned two columns of dialogue which had taken place that day in court apropos of a noted divorce case ; he had read the latest social slander, and now his eye wandered to the column of coming society events. Over most of the items he passed after a casual glance, but about half way down the line his eye became fixed with heightened interest. The paragraph he read was this : " Le beau monde is now at the threshold of the most important society event of the season : The Camden ball will take place at Maplehurst to-morrow night ; and it is expected that Sir Philip and the charming Lady Camden will en- tertain their guests in a manner that will be royally elaborate and splendid." As Sir Philip read this his usually cadaverous face flushed suddenly, and he passed his hand- kerchief across his brow in a gesture which further bespoke his agitation. He re-read the item, then, laying the paper aside, he folded his 96 THE BRIDE OF ISFELICE arms and leaned backward in his chair, with these words of Shakespeare on his lips : Men at sometimes are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves that we are underlings. " Underlings ! " he ground the word from be- tween his teeth with a sneer in which there was a "laughing devil," but his lips grew livid and seemed to writhe with some undercurrent of emotion as again he took up the newspaper to read, or, rather, to stare blankly at the type with eyes which seemed aflame with some nefarious fire. For some moments he remained sitting in this distrait attitude, then suddenly, and with an audible curse, he crushed the journal into a shapeless heap upon the table, and, rising, strode over to the bell and rang it vehemently. In a moment his summons was answered by a liveried footman. " Send the coachman to me immediately," said Sir Philip peremptorily, and in the brusque tone that he generally used when addressing his ser- vants. The man withdrew, and the master of Maple- hurst filled in the interval of waiting by pacing restlessly up and down the room. " Your honor sent for me ? " " Yes, a did you order those trappings and bells as I commanded you ? " A WATCH- WORD 97 " Yes, yer honor ; they came this afternoon." " Aside from the sleigh, which Barton will drive, I wish you to have runners put to the brougham, and drive to meet the 3: 40 and 5: 40 trains from Boston to-morrow afternoon." " Oh ! yer honor, there won't be trappings or robes enough." " Get trappings ; get robes, dolt ! Go the first thing in the morning to Boston and get what will be necessary to complete the turn-out." The man bowed, then stood awaiting further orders ; but Sir Philip turned and resumed his restless promenade, whereupon he took his dis- missal for granted, and started to go ; ere he reached the door, however, he was arrested by that peculiar drawl : " A you have not noticed a strange man lurking about the premises lately, have you ? " "No, yer honor.'' " You are certain ? " "Quite certain." " You may go." Left alone, again Sir Philip threw himself in the chair which he had previously occupied at the reading table, and with one elbow resting there- upon, and his forehead bowed to his palm, he remained long in motionless silence a silence so intensely profound that when at length there eaine a sharp little rattling sound against the W f THE BRIDE OF INFELICE window, he started like one abruptly awakened from sound sleep. "What was that ? What is here?" he mut- tered audibly ; and his voice sounded strained and unnatural ; while again his lips grew pale, and the muscles about them underwent a visible contortion. The next instant, however, his composure returned as reason answered him reassuringly, saying : " It was but an ice-clad tendril of ivy hanging pendant against the pane and made restive by the wind." , In that small sound had some grim phantom of the past come back to haunt and mock you, oh Sir Philip Camden ? As he looked toward the window he noticed for the first time that the shutters were slightly open, and once more he rose and crossed the room to shut them with the same sullen violence that he had used a few moments since in crushing the unoffending newspaper. Then for the second time he stepped to the bell and rang it. His servants were prompt in obeying any sum- mons from him, and the door opened the next moment to admit his valet. ''Tate, I wish to confer be seated I wish to confer with you, upon a matter of confidence of the utmost confidence ; you understand ? " The valet bowed attentively. A WATCH-rfoRD 99 " For three consecutive nights," continued Sir Philip, " I have been shadowed the whole distance from Boston to Maplehurst." " Shadowed ? Sir Philip ! " "Yes, shadowed; followed vigilantly and stealth- ily by some person whose design must be as evil as it is deep-hidden and insidious. Now, I want you to serve me." " If it lies within my power to serve you, Sir Philip, I can know no greater honor," said the man, elevated in his own estimation several de- grees at the thought of being taken into his master's trust ; for Sir Philip was a man of mag- isterial attitude toward his servants, and they all stood in awe of him. "To-morrow at nightfall," went on Sir Philip, "you will conceal yourself in the shrubberits near the carriage entrance, and watch there until ten o'clock to see if any strange person loiters about surreptitiously. After that hour come to me with any report, however trivial, you may have to make." " It will be" " Chut ! some one is coming. Go, now ; and remember that motto, ' on counait Vami au besoin,' a friend is known in the time of need." CHAPTER XIII BEWAKE 1 I cannot tell h.ow the truth may be ; I say the tale as 'twas said to me. ( ( Tl/TILADI, a messenger has just called and iVl left this parcel for you." Lady Hortense, who was standing at the win- dow of her private sitting-room looking out upon the snow-bright landscape, turned at her maid's words and glanced at the neatly wrapped and labelled package in her hands. "It is my ball dress," said she in a tone of relief. " I had feared that Madame would not be able to get it finished: I gave the order so late." As she spoke, Anine stood with a bewildered look on her pretty face. " Why, miladi I Your ball dress ? I do not understand. I have laid out the beautiful cream faille toilet which I thought you had ordered especially for to-night." "I forgot to tell you of my changed plan ; in- deed good Anine, I have been so occupied for the past few days with the numerous details of dec- oration, and so forth, that I have scarcely given myself a thought. Open the box. I am certain (100) BEWAREI 101 you will commend the new dress. I have worn vrhite so much you yourself have often suggested a change, and Sir Philip, I imagined, would be pleased." " Oh, miladi ! " the girl cried, in ardent admir- ation, as she shook out all those shining folds of amethist velvet, "it is splendid ! It is lovely ! Also, the color is well a lapted to your dark style of beauty ; yet, alas," she added, with a little moue, " I regret the cream faille. I prefer the iiaivetS of your former costumes." "Well," said Lady Hortense, with a little in- dulgent smile, (she was very fond of her devoted maid) "I will wear the other dress on some early occasion to please you. Has mamma's head grown any better ? " she questioned, anxiously, as Anine laid the gleaming robes carefully aside. " I have not been to madame's apartments since luncheon ; but as I came along the hall I thought I heard her talking with Miss Meredith in the back drawing-room." "Then she is better certainly. I will go Ah, mamma, dearest ! " she exclaimed, turning lovingly toward a lady of middle age and digni- fied bearing, who at that moment entered the room through the half open door. " My dear Hortense, I have to congratulate you upon the extraordinary taste which you have exercised in the decorations downstairs. Truly, every room is a separate dream-like conception 102 THE BRIDE OF IN FELICE of Elysium ! " said Mrs. Ayers, with quiet enthus- iasm, as she offered her cheek to be kissed. " You see," she added, " I have been trespassing on for- bidden ground." " I am so glad you are pleased," said her daugh- ter. " I had been intending to show you through the rooms before any of the guests should arrive. Do you feel quite rested ? Is your head better ? Can I make you a cup of tea ? " " My child, you quite overwhelm me with your pretty solicitudes," gasped Mrs. Ayers, as she sank languidly into a luxurious chair. "I do feel rested, and am certain to be quite myself after a cup of your delicious green tea," she re- plied ; whereupon Lady Hortense rang for the tray and things to be brought at once. "I wanted," continued Mrs. Ayers, "to come out by the late train last night, but my headache grew so violent that I was forced to forego the project, and really feared that I should be com- pelled to abandon it altogether." "Oh, mamma ! if you had, how then should I possibly have managed ? You know how I always depend on you at such trying times as this. And Sir Philip, I am sure, would have been in despair. His chief aspiration is to make his entertainments a success ; 'and he has always relied so upon you to manage them," cried Lady Hortense, with unpolitic candor, which, though it exalted, also annoyed the elder lady. BE WARS i 103 "You, Hortense, forgive me, child, if I say that you, as Sir Philip Camden's wife, should be gaming more self-reliance. You do not appreciate your exceptional advantages, I am afraid," she said, with subtle rebuke. "I am afraid not," conceded her daughter readily, and, with a queer smile upon her face. u To be worldly one must have that most neces- sary of all incentives." " What ? I do not quite follow you, my dear," said Mrs. Ayers. " I say, to be worldly in a truly scientific way, one must have that most necessary of all incent- ives ambition ! I am not ambitious, mamma." Mrs. Ayers raised her white, very much bejew- eled, hand deprecatingly. " Not ambitious !" she repeated, and as she spoke there was a visible expansion of the blue veins about her temples. " You tell me this ? which is equivalent to saying, * I am indifferent as to the position which I have achieved, and which might render any other woman's life an hourly triumph.' Your assertion is exorbitant ! It is extravagant almost to madness. Are you utterly without filial feeling ? Is your stoicism so intense that during the eleven months of your married life you have not roused yourself to any sense of filial gratitude to me for having managed your alliance with Sir Philip Camden so success- fully ? " 104 THE BRIDE OF INFELICE Her daughter, who had been deftly arranging the tea things, looked up quickly, and now hot tears gathered in her eyes, while her lips quivered uncontrolably, as she said : "Mamma, as Hortense Ayers was I always selfish, obdurate, stoical, unfilial ? Did you find me always a disappointing child one want- ing in every sense of love and gratitude to you ?" " No, no ; certainly not ! You were to me the embodiment of tenderness and love, and obedi- ence. Hortense, you were the one incentive of my life after your father died. My every ambi- tion was centered in you ; that was why I played so high to secure your future welfare. But now " " Oh !" cried Lady Hortense, suddenly inter- rupting her, " You will never know how very far you fell of your mark, mamma ! You planned a blessing and there has sprung from it a curse !" " Think," pursued Mrs. Ayers, pretending not to have heard her, and her voice sounded again with its former implacable austerity; " think how many mothers of our set were angling for the po- sition which I secured for you ; and they say that pretty Louise Gardener's decline was due chiefly to her disappointment in love yow remember Sir Philip did show her marked atten- tion at onetime." " He was engaged to her," said Lady Hortense. BEWARE I 105 " He has boastfully told me of the cruel way in which he jilted her." " Yes ? Ah, well, my dear, there are such ex- periences in almost every life romances which in the end amount to nothing." " Nothing ? And you say that in this in- stance a sweet, young, and innocent life was sacrificed ! Oh, mamma !" Lady Hortense's voice was full of unutterable pain, and her breath came quickly as she fixed great stricken eyes upon her mother's face. For a moment Mrs. Ayers went on sipping her tea in silence. She was a woman of diplomacy, and that she had for once forgotten to be dis- creet in her argument both embarrassed and vexed her. She looked up presently. " I did not say that Louise actually died of dis- appointment, Hortense. / do not think she could have loved him to such an extent. / think the .immediate cause of her death was consumption. But you know, my dear, that in all such affairs the world will have its separate and various con- ceptions. No," she added, " I am quite sure the affaire with Sir Philip had nothing to do, virtu- ally, with her death. She did not love him to that excess." " Love him ! No. I do not think that Louise could have loved Sir Philip Camden," her daugh- ter said, and there was visible revolt in her tone. 106 THE BRIDE OF 1XFELICE "No, no," echoed her experienced heart, "she could not by any possible chance have loved him." Mrs. Ayers noted the intonation of revolt, and again the veins on her temples expanded. She made no effort now to repress her vexation, but said derisively : " Why ! do you then find it imposeible to imagine any woman as being in love with the man whom you, through what is nothing more nor less than a narrow-minded prejudice, have sealed your heart against ? Your creed is malevolent in the extreme, and becomes at once an indignity to yourself and an effrontery to the man whose name you bear. Sir Philip Camden, knowing the exact attitude which you have assumed toward him, would hate you ! Beware, oh Hortense, Lady Camden, of that day when you find yourself an object of antipathy in his eyes ! When a man of his stamp hates, he hates with a vehemence which carries virulent poison in its fang." " I know. I for months I have felt a growing dread of the future ; but that I have ' sealed my heart against him,' as you say, is not true. Night and day have I battled against my heart's cold- ness. Night and day have I prayed to God to change me toward my husband to give me a sense of wifely interest, of duty, of respect, but no answer has been granted to my supplications. BEWARE! 107 Each day we are drifting further apart, and I am defenseless against whatever may come." There was little sympathy in the parent face opposite as Lady Hortense concluded thus hope- lessly. Instead of bestowing a word of condolence in behalf of her child's sorrow, Mrs. Aycrs merely said, after a few moments of silence which were filled up with the other's suppressed sobs : " Your face, my dear, will be swollen and dis- figured. I am sure you have pride sufficient to guard you against letting your contretemps become an open letter to the world. Hark ! " she said suddenly, " I hear the sound of sleigh- bells. Some of your guests are arriving even now." Lady Hortense rose quickly and looked at her watch. "Yes," she cried in dismay, " it is half past four. Mamma, you must go down and receive them, and see that they are all sHown proper apartments. But kiss me before you go, dearest, won't you ? " she asked suppliantly. What parent heart could refuse such a pathetic appeal as that of Lady Hortense ? Mrs. Ayers bent and kissed twice the upturned, almost childish face ; but her cheek coming in such close contact with that other tear-moist one, was distasteful to her sense of dignity, and as she turned away and descended the highly-polished stair-way, along which floated the mingled odor 108 THE BRIDE OF INFELICE of roses, lilies-of-the- valley, jessamine and vari- ous other kinds of redolent blossoms from below, she muttered to herself those words of Shakes- peare : How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankleM child I CHAPTER XIV AT FESTAL TIDE There is no armor against Fate. Shirely. A blaze of myriad- tinted lights ; a blending of many subtle perfumes into one ecstatic and har- monious odor, which seemed to "swing the soul on a golden thread to heaven"; a swaying of deli- cious music from unknown regions music which one moment throbbed out in wildest passion laden strains of melody, now trembled aloft in suppliant, soul-reaching pathos, now tranquilly declined into the fragrance from which it seemed to have had its origin, like a dying whisper of love. A vast canvas gleamed like an acre of polished Ceylon ivory on the floors of the two drawing- rooms, which had been thrown into one grand and spacious apartment to serve as a ball-room, and immediately beyond which the large banquet hall was partially revealed through swaying cur- tains of jessamine vine, starred with their own sweet, pale blossoms, before which there stood a statue of Flora, with one arm uplifted as if about to part the trailing draperies asunder. At the other extremity of the ball-room, through a length- ening vista of tropical plants and spraying (109) 110 THE BRIDE OP IN FELICE fountains, could be seen the dimly-fluctuating, star-like lights of the conservatories ; while from the wide hall at the right, a view of the parlors could be had through the high-arched doorway, which suite had also been thrown into one large room for the reception of Lady Camden's guests, and were, indeed, as Mrs. Ayers had declared, a "dream-like conception of Elysium," with their various miniature mounds of flowers, flanked with shining greenery, and bowls of roses resting at the feet of statuettes, or garnishing the silken draperies in loose and graceful clusters. Lady Camden and her mother stood within the arched doorway paying homage to the fast in- gathering throng of guests, who already filled the rooms to their comfortable capacity. Beautiful and stately as a young queen Lady Hortense appeared in her gleaming robes of ame- thist with diamonds encompassing her bare arms and throat, which was white and graceful as that of a swan. Her wealth of blue-black hair was arranged high, according to the fashion of the day, and pierced with a diamond poignard, a costly bauble which Sir Philip had given her dur- ing the first weeks of their marriage, when they were abroad. There was a faint tinge of color upon her usu- ally pale cheek, and just enough heightened brightness in the soft, dark fathoms of her eye to render her loveliness perfect. The cynosure of AT FESTAL TIDE 111 all eyes, the secret envy of many a selfish heart, she moved hither and thither among the assem- bled multitude, lavishing a smile here, a compli- ment there, and giving the world the impression that she was the most completely happy woman in all Christendom, when, in truth, all the mag- nificence, the pageantry, the dazzling display and glitter combined to make for her a splendid mar- tyrdom i.n which she was stifled to suffocation. " Of what use is it all ? " she asked herself, for the hundredth time, as she let her glance stray feverishly over that intricate mass of color and rest upon a large screen, which concealed the musicians from sight, and whose roses were al- ready drooping lifeless under the strong light which fell upon them from a chandelier. She did not dream that after a little time the same scene which she now secretly loathed in her heart would be transformed into one whose every detail she would view through eyes of ecstasy. She did not dream how near she was standing to the threshold of that realm which they say is woman's true estate, and that one glance into the enchanted kingdom would seem to her like one scarcely of earthly joy, and that As, in a kind of holy trance She'd hang above those fragrant treasures, Bending to drink their balmy airs As if she mixed her soul with theirs. 'Twould be, indeed, the perfume shed From flowers and scented flame, that fed Her charmed life. 112 THE BRIDE OF IN FELICE But one step taken into that strange kingdom would be to her perilous as though its walks were flanked with hissing reptiles. Yet she would enter there. Nearer and nearer each moment she was approaching to the arena of Doom, just as a bird flits through the sunshine into a rose bower, there to breathe the virulence from a deadly night-shade that has stealthily crept in among the blossoms there. " Are not the Elwoods to be among us to-night, Lady Camden?" questioned a tall, soldierly-look- ing fellow whom she had paused briefly to chat with, and whom I am now pleased to introduce as Gershon Carruthers, Lieutenant in the service of the United States Navy. He was a young man still on the sunny side of thirty years, whose frank blue eyes had a depth of tenderness in their light, and whose tawny hair was soft and crisp- curling as a girl's. While not strictly handsome there was a look of distinction about his face which, with its delightful candor, made it lovable, and he was at once a great favorite among the fair sex and popular with his own. There Was a little tremor of anxiety in his voice as he thus addressed his hostess, discerning which Lady Camden smiled to herself. " Yes," returned she, " I am expecting them with others at any moment. They were to come by the 7:40 train." Even as she spoke, there was a sound of sleigh AT FESTAL TIDE 113 bells without, and, after a short interval, the late arrivals made their way through the great hall, which was thronged with gentlemen, and passed upstairs to the dressing rooms. At the end of half an hour they began to pass in through the arched doorway and to mingle with the multitude. Colonel Elwood and his wife, Thayer Volney, and his lovely cousin, Valois, were among -the last to pass into the presence of their hostess. " Lady Camden, Mrs. Ayers, I have the honor to present to you my nephew, Mr. Thayer Volney of England," spoke the colonel, in his deep, clear tones. With a slight backward movement of her proudly-poised head, Lady Camden raised her eyes and met his glance. Had the Parian image of Glaucus, the Athenian, come to life, and stepped down from the mantel to confront her ? No, no, such a miracle had not been wrought, surely ! Then what was here ? Was she swoon- ing away from all the light and heavy fragrance, and was that face an apparition, shaped from out the lengthening depths of oblivion, to haunt her as it had so oft before haunted her in her dreams ? If not this, then had he, her hero, the brave man whose courage had savei her life, crossed her path again, to stand before her, a form of breath- ing flesh and not of dream-ideality ? Oh joy I oh ecstasy ! Oh Fate ! thou art so false, so deceptive, oft- 114 THE BRIDE OE INFELICE times in thy garb ! Thou comest now, with thy dread ordination concealed behind a mask of such heaven-like loveliness ! And the lights are jew- els scintillating in a million beauteous rays ; and the dew on the flowers is pearls ; and the fra- grance which floats from them is a breath that comes from Elysian fields ! Who would wish to shrink from a decree as sweet and intoxicating as this? "Mr. Volney, I am indebted to Colonel and Mrs. Elwood and to our dear Valois for the pleas- ure of knowing you," the words came at length, and they were low and composed ; but the little hand which Thayer took and pressed for a mo- ment in his own, was cold and trembled like a hurt bird. " I, " Lady Hortense added, as she turned with an enforced smile of apology toward the little circle, who, in some concern, had noted her brief agitation, " I fear there is scarcely enough venti- lation in these crowded rooms. I felt for an instant a slight sense of dizziness. It is gone now. Yes, Valois, dear," in answer to a hurriedly whispered question from the excited girl. " He is here. I see him making his way toward you now. Yes, Sir Philip, the dance may as well be- gin at once ; everybody is here." Sir Philip had been standing at a short space apart from his wife, and had not failed to note her every expression when she was introduced to the AT FESTAL TIDE 115 handsome young Englishman. Lady Hortense, however, was not aware of this. She did not glance upward into his face as she spoke ; had she done so she might have seen a threatening basilisk lurking there. She took his arm and they led the way to the ball room as the initia- tory measures of the march floated in to them. As they threaded their way through the laugh- ing, fluttering, expectant crowd, she caught a glimpse of Thayer Volney, as he bent over her lovely young friend Alice, in what seemed to her to be the devotion of a lover. What was there in the sight that made her lift her hand with a sudden spasmodic movement to her heart as though it had burst one of its fibres and were bleeding ? CHAPTER XV THE BREAKERS THREATEN And love ? . . . What was love then? .... not calm, scarcely kind But in one all intensest emotions combined : Life and death: pain and rapture. " Luclle "-Omen Meredith. TT 7HO is the pretty girl in white with whom VV your nephew has just danced, Mrs. El- wood ? " questioned a young brunette, resplend- < ent in maize crepe, a little later in the evening. The speaker was by birth a Creole who, seven years previous to the opening of our story, had been brought to America by one Mr Rossmore, an Englishman of vast wealth, who had claimed the beautiful Dorian de Joules as his adopted ward and two years later had married her. Although their advent to the New England metropolis had been unattended by testimonial bearings of any kind, by subtle ingenuite Mrs. Rossmore had succeeded in gaining for herself and husband a passport into the elite circles of the " Hub," and ere she had moved therein half a season she had attained to an acknowledged belleship, at which throne men worshipped and women bowed in smiling patronage. (116) THE BREA KERS THREA TEN 1 1 7 The fashionable world followed in the footsteps of Dorian Rossmore. Her rare elegance of per- son, combined with a perfect propriety of conduct, and the fact that she was fast anchored upon the sea of matrimony made her a considered model which mothers established before their daughters, and they accepted without fear of finding in her an object of rivalry in affaires d' 'amour. But her husband ! Every one marvelled how so peerless a creature as Dorian could have linked her fate with a maSi so distressingly ugly ! In stature Mr. Rossmore was low, almost to dwarfishness. He had little blue beads for eyes ; he had straw-colored hair, and beard and eye- brows ; he had a florid complexion shot with pit- marks, and two rows of little sharp teeth like those of a hyena, and large ears. Oh, Martin Rossmore was " distressingly ugly ! " But Dorian seemed to dote on him, and he fol- lowed her everywhere like a devoted spaniel, and was content to sit in a corner of the ball-room dozing, with his chin resting upon his be-dia- monded chest, and a letter A formed of his fore- fingers and thumbs, whilst she waltzed to her heart's satisfaction. Content to sit at dinner next to her bare and gleaming shoulders, sipping his champagne or claret, and admiringly listening to her brilliant repartee as she conversed with Major McCaulif, or Percy Delnorte, or young Fred Bent- well, who was just fresh from Yale and who lived 118 THE BRIDE OF INFELICK in a state of spiritual ecstasy if she smiled once upon him during an evening, or gave him a glance of approval from her gazelle-like Eastern eyes. But there came a time when no more the form of Martin Rossmore lingered near Dorian ; when no more she felt protection in the name of hus- band. Two years after their union the queer little man was stricken suddenly with paralysis and never rallied from the attack. Poor Dorian, beautiful, ' young, talented, wealthy Dorian was left stranded alone upon the isle of widowhood ! For some months she buried herself from the world entirely as though it had never known her. Then, at intervals, just a glimpse was to be had of her face, which shone like a languishing flower behind the sweeping drapery of sable which always enshrouded it. Thus a year of her bereave- ment passed, after which period Dorian reluctant- ly persuaded herself that grief was undermining her health and she must abandon the burden of the black veil and her cloistral apartments, which were filled with memories of her dear departed, and once more seek the sunshine of the world. So over the threshold of the great arena she again made her way, timidly at first, so timidly, indeed, that fathers of daughters, and sons, the chosen of ambitious mothers, came forward in sympathy to offer her protection and, courtesy. THE BREAKERS THREATEN 119 She was more splendidly beautiful than ever in her new advent ; and gradually it came to pass that women, seeing her in all the charms of eli- gibility, began to look upon her with eyes of jeal- ousy and secret malevolence. Her manner, at first half shy and reserved, soon became gay and vivacious, as of old. Her repartee flashed with the wit and spirit inherited from her native coun- try. Her hair was black as Erebus. Her eyes were limpid and dark as those of a gazelle and bright as African diamonds. Her skin was trans- parent and soft as damask. Men had always known this, but women had overlooked the full value of her charms, because of yore they gave no hint of rivalry; she was married. But this splendid creature who had stepped from widow's weeds and dull jet into maize crepe and diamonds, who revealed eburnean shoulders and arms so daringly, who flashed the dark brilliance of her eyes into men's faces so boldly, who sang so divinely, and threw open her mouth so wide when she laughed that the white soundness and even- ness of her teeth and contrasting pink of her gums might be fully appreciated oh, they hated her ! and Dorian, divining their jealous enmity, was sorely pleased and did cry out in very exultation: " Such joy ambition finds ! " But to return to the question with which this chapter opened : " Who is the pretty girl in white, with whom 120 THE BRIDE OF IX FELICE your nephew has just danced, Mrs. El wood ? " " It is Alice Meredith. How very happy she looks to-night, and how becomingly, yet simply dressed. You must remember her, Mrs. Ross- more ; she made her debut with Valois at Mrs. Carruthers' ball, last August. You were there." " You mean of course you mean Robert Mere- dith's daughter ? " Mrs. Elwood assented. " But he has recently gone into bankruptcy ! " whispered Dorian. " How is it," she asked, " that the young lady still has an entree to our circles ?" Her tone was incredulous and flavored with a hauteur which stung the other to reply : "It is a happy exception to the rule. Though adversity has dealt sternly with Mr. Meredith, his daughter has been spared that penalty to which the prejudiced world commonly consigns his luckless kind. A few who in the young lady's time of prosperity patronized and professed to admire her, have proven true to their creed ; and she herself is not ashamed to lift her head above the mire in which, ah me ! how many would love to see her grovelling." A faint tinge of red dyed for a moment the transparent beauty of Dorian Rossmore's face ; but above this the disdainful curve of her lip was still painfully apparent, as, with a feigned air of apology, she went on arguing in her own defense : " But yet, you know, my dear Mrs. Elwood, THE BREA KERS THREA TEN 121 that money is the vital principle of social law ! " " I admit the logic of your argument, but it is governed entirely by the individual." Again Dorian's colorless beauty was gently dis- turbed. She dexterously evaded the thrust, however, for, just at that moment, Thayer Volney passed them with the beautiful Lady Camden on his arm. " Ah ! " exclaimed Mrs. Rossmore in breath- less admiration, "don't they make a picture? What a truly exceptional couple, indeed! he light? like a Grecian god, and she so dark and queenly ! Mrs. Elwood, isn't it really such a pity that Sir Philip Camden is not himself better looking ? They seem ill-matched, don't you think so ? but then position ah ! is this our waltz, Mr. Bent' well?" Very glad to be relieved of the maize crepe, Mrs. Elwood, upon being left alone, began an eager survey of the ball-room to see if Valois was among the dancers ; look as she would, though, over that wide sea of kaleidoscopic color there was no shorn, curly-black head visible. " My dear Mrs; Elwood," said the voice of Mrs. Ayers beside her suddenly. " I have been search- ing for you everywhere. I want to show you the conservatories. My daughter has just received a collection of very rare plants from India, and, knowing you to be such a botanist, I have been anxious for you to see them. Come ! " 122 THE BRIDE OF IXFELICE Mrs. Elwood rose and the two sauntered toward the dim-lit cloisters. They were passing close to a fragrant spraying fountain when, chancing to glance beyond the crystalline columns, to where a noble camelia spread forth its starred branches, Mrs. Elwood espied, by the rays which fell from a pale light above, the glitter of a frost-white dress, and in very close proximity to this, the outline of a man's form. As she continued to gaze toward the spot, half doubting, half convinced, a subdued, love-like murmur of voices came to her ; when, with something very like a throb of pain, she whispered to herself : "It is my baby Valois and Lieutenant Car- ruthers ! " Meanwhile measure upon measure of the waltz rose and fell, and the dancers glided on light- winged feet to its inspiring strains strains which at length were destined to melt away, as all that is ecstacy must melt after an ephemeral season as Lady Hortense's rapture melted when she found herself abruptly, cruelly transported back to earth from that beautiful dream-land through which she had madly suffered herself to stray, forgetful of all living things save him, her partner, Thayer Volney. A few moments later, when the "current offered " for her to shrink away, unnoticed, from the crowd, and she stood alone within the deep THE BREAKERS THREATEN 123 recess of a window which had been ingeniously converted into a kind of lover's cloister by the aid of miniature palms and various flowering exotics, and in whose high blue ceiling one single star-light light fluctuated, giving a tone of life to the bower, she looked out upon the night's sanc- tified beauty with a happiness such as she had never dreamed of awake within her soul, filling its citadel with those strange sounds of which poets write and music breathes. " Oh I" cried she passionately, " if I could only die now, at this very moment, while this heavenly trance endures ! Oh, guiltily, I know, the medi- um through which this soul-consuming ecstasy has been wrought ! But oh God ! the sense which follows now and bids me die, not of living rapture, as I should love to die, but the slow- grinding death of despair !" She trembled from head to foot, and an icy dampness broke out upon her brow. She caught dizzily at the window 'casement to keep herself from falling, and gradually she succeeded in mas- tering the dread sensation. Then came a reac- tion, when hot, bitter tears fell from her eyes un- checked. There was no one to witness her emo- tion. Why should she not give full vent to them if tears could in any degree assuage that travail of woe ? When the paroxysm had spent itself she buried her face in her hands, and prayed the most fervent prayer of her lifetime : 124 THE BRIDE OF INFELICE " Dear God ! help, oh help me to be stronger : Oh look into my soul to-night and see what is there that is vile ! I have offended Thee, O God ! but why didst Thou send him into my ru- ined life ! Help me to be strong ! Help me to be loyal to myself and to Thee !" As she lifted her head there was a slight rustle of the portieres, and she heard a voice saying : " Lady Camden, I have brought you an ice. May I 'come in ? " She turned quickly, and herself parted the silken draperies, bidding him enter. "How did you divine my whereabouts, Mr. Volney ? " she asked, smiling calmly into the fair, perfect face before her. " Miss Meredith suggested your hiding place, after I had spent- some moments in a futile search for you. Really, this ice is half melted. Lady Camden ; let me bring you another." " No ; indeed no ;" she gently but firmly pro- tested, " I quite prefer this." " What a fairy-like bower is this I In truth, how beautiful are all your rooms, Lady Camden. I am told you were the chief artist in arranging the decorations," he said, as, in compliance with her invitation, he seated himself on the low otto- man opposite her. She acknowledged his compliment with a pleased smile. Then said : THE BREAKERS THREATEN 125 " This is your first American ball, I believe, Mr. Volney." "Yes, and aside from that, you have honored me by commemorating the date of my departure from England. I left my native shores just two months ago to-day." " If in that I have been the means of according to you a small degree of pleasure, I am gratified. I would in some little measure compensate you for that morning's perilous venture in my behalf." He was silent for a moment. "I was not certain that you had recognized me," he said at length, and with obvious confu- sion. " Recognized you !" she reiterated quickly. " Think you then I could so easily forget a face associated as yours was, with a moment dreadful as was thatf" He shuddered involuntarily. "It was a dreadful, a horrible moment, with so young and so beautiful a life as yours, Lady Carnden, at the mercy of those mad beasts. Let us not dwell upon it." "We will not recur to it," ehe said quickly. " I would not have your pleasure to-night marred in the slightest way ; and you must not let me detain you here a moment longer to the sacrifice of that waltz." He started guiltily. How could he have for- gotten his engagement to dance with Alice Mere- 126 THE BRIDE OF 1NFELICE dith ? What an unpardonable offense to have kept her waiting through one measure I Lady Hortense, noting his discomfiture, rose, and they left the alcove together. They had proceeded but a few steps when Sir Philip inter- cepted them. He said something in an undertone to his wife, who, with a conventional bow to the young Eng- lishman, accepted his arm, and they joined the circle of waltzers. " Why," panted Sir Philip, as they turned to walk, after one round [Sir Philip was a man who merely danced because it was fashionable to dance, and not because he enjoyed it,] " why did you not sit out the entire dance with Volney, in a what you are pleased to term your lovers' bower ? How very adroitly you managed your tete-a-tete ! " 11 There was no 'management ' of the tete a-tete, as you vulgarly put it. I simply sought in the alcove a moment of solitude which I felt in need of. Mr. Volney brought me an ice there, and we chatted briefly, as was only natural we should do." " Admit, however, in justice to him, that he is agreeable company ? " " He certainly is agreeable company." " And also that he is handsome forsooth handsome as your Athenian idol, Glaucus, eh ? " with a fiendish chuckle. She paled to the very lips ; but flaLhing him a THE BREAKERS THREATEN 127 look of haughty defiance from her splendid eyes, she said, with a composure which maddened him : " I concede ; he is, as I heard you gay the other night, like a Greek god ! " His low laugh, demon-like in its forced mirth- lessness, made a shiver of revulsion thrill through Lady Camden's veins. She made a movement as if to withdraw her hand from his arm ; but, divining her intention, he pressed the member tightly to his side and only laughed the more. "Ah," he mentally congratulated himself, "I am making her hate me ! I have sworn that I would. I will have no ' cool medium ' by heaven ! A Mrs. Rossmore, remember the next quad- rille is mine," he said with a sudden charming courteousness to that lady who at that moment passed them leaning upon the arm of Mr. Bent- well, whom she had kept alternately in heaven and torment ever since she had left off her widow's weeds. "To my taste, that is the most fascinating woman in the ball-room," observed Sir Philip to his wife, as Dorian, with a smile and nod of acquiescence, passed on. "That adventuress!" exclaimed Lady Cam- den with a contemptuousness which she could not suppress. " She is chic ; she is bubbling over with orig- inal wit and spirit ; she is the sort that men like and admire," said Sir Philip. 128 THE BRIDE OF IXFELICE " Some men yes," conceded his wife with an eloquent shrug of her bare, white shoulders. " Oh, there are exceptions, of course ; a Mr. Volney, for example ! he would prefer some one more en rapport with his own statue-like beauty. Alice Meredith's spirituelle face has palpable attraction for him." Lady Hortense felt a convulsion about the fibres of her heart, but hushing her pain with an inward voice, she managed to answer him calmly: "Alice Meredith is designed to attract the superior caste of men ; and to admire her, one must be ambitious." R Why do you so set her above the ordinary element ? " asked Sir Philip, derisively. " Why do I ? Because of er legitimate claim to all that is pure and beautiful in wonlanhood." " Pah ! The embodiment of virtue and beauty is well enough to wrap in a tunic and set upon a pedestal for artists to look at ; but publicity con- taminates the qualities. As a 'goddess of purity' Miss Meredith's legitimate position is not in the ball-room, allow me to suggest." There was a significant sneer in his last words which prompted Lady Hortense to again turn her flashing eyes upon him. Her lips were parted to frame some response, but they were passing the hall door, and some one called Sir Philip's name. THE BREAKERS THREATEN 129 He turned to see hia valet standing in the passage with a world of meaning in his eyes. " I will see you directly, Tate," he said in an undertone to the man, and leading his wife to a seat, he hurriedly quitted the ball-room. CHAPTER XVI DEAD SEA- FRUIT A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, And eat of the flsh that hath fed of that worm. Shakespeare. uTIfELL, what news, Tale," questioned the VV master of Maplehurst, when at a signal, his valet had followed him to a chamber remote from the festive rooms. " I have been watching at the outer gates as you bade me, Sir Philip, and have brought you some intelligence," replied the man significantly. "Speak quickly then," demanded Sir Philip, " I cannot remain long away from my guests." " Just as the moon rose, about half an hour ago, I saw a horseman gallop into a thicket of scrub pine about fifty yards from the river bank, and dismount. "After securing his horse well within the shadows of the trees, he commenced to creep slowly and cautiously toward the gates. I concealed myself in the shrubberies near by and allowed him to pass through them, then followed at a safe dis- tance as he made his way toward the castle walls. I saw him approach one of the windows of the back drawing-room, whose curtains were half (130) DEAD SEA-FRUIT 131 drawn, and gaze within ; as he did so I heard him mutter aloud these words : " 'Sir Philip Camden, right royally do you entertain ! right noble and grand-looking is the gentry gathered within your castle halh to-night! Such pomp, I imagine, is seldom seen in the gay world this side the Atlantic. But beware, oh Sir Philip Camden ' I noticed that he laid a pecu- liar emphasis on your name each time he pro- nounced it ' Your season of triumph is in its declining days. By heaven ! I will tear the mask from your face and reveal all those foul colors lying beneath it to the world, which you have so long swindled ! Either will I declare you, or you shalj henceforth pave my way as you have paved your own through the gilded labyrinths of so- ciety.' " "Well, is that all?" asked Sir Philip com. placently, as the man paused. " By the powers! it is an interesting legend! " he exclaimed, coolly lighting a cigar at the low candelabra. " Ha ! ha ! ' the gilded labyrinths of society ' is a pretty phrase ! (puff). Go on." "As he continued to look into the apartment, still muttering his maledictions," resumed Tate, " I stepped silently up behind him. ' Who are you,' said I, 'that you steal about like a cur to spy upon and menace my master ? ' He turned upon me a face of sneering defiance : ' If you are a servant of Sir Philip Camden,' said he, ' I warn 132 THE BRIDE OF INFELICE you, my friend, be not so bold ; for Philip, your master, is bought and sold.' " Sir Philip laughed again. " A ranter of Shakespeare," he observed. "Pur- sue, my good Tate, pursue," he then said, contin- uing to puff at his cigar. " I called him a madman, whereupon he again sneered at me. "' If I am mad, then,' said he, ' out of human- ity befriend me. Go to Sir Philip with a mad- man's appeal. Hand him this, and return to me with his answer.' " With this, Tate took from his inner vest pocket a closely folded piece of paper. He handed this to the master of Maplehurst, and stood by, watch- ing his face as he opened and read it ; but he saw no sign of disturbance there. Sir Philip's features were without a quiver as he traced the lines which ran : "M. Alphonse Favraud, late of Paris, presents his compliments to Sir Philip Camden, and prays his honor for an early interview, to-night." He even, after assuring himself that there was nothing compromising to himself in the three lines, read them aloud, omitting the name, sim ply. which headed them ; then igniting the paper at the candelabra, he stamped the burning par- ticle under his faultlessly slippered foot, with the deliberation that he would have used in stamping the life out of a ground spider or a caterpillar. DEAD SEA-FRUIT 133 " Go to this a fool," said he, " and, inasmuch as he simulates Shakespeare, say that I am ' not in the vein* for granting him an interview to- night, nor yet for several nights. Hasten now> and do you make the premises well rid of him at once." " But, Sir Philip, his threats ? He may make a scene. His face is full of evil purpose. I like it not." " Threats be ! A toothless cur can threat- en with its bark. Don't be a sop. Be gone and do my bidding yet, stay ! a you might add that if he chooses to come to me on some night during next week, say Thursday, at this hour, I will be at his service." " Ah ! that would imply some little fear of his bite, despite your indifference," observed the man to himself as the door closed him from his mas- ter's presence. No sooner was Sir Philip .left alone than he tossed aside his cigar and placed his hand to his throat, as if he might have felt there an uncom- fortable tightness. Then all his latent furies burst forth to defile the silence which brooded there. " Curse him ! Curse him !" hissed this, now, demon man, as he paced the floor, with breast convulsed, and eyes emitting venom's own lurid flame. " I would I could sear his soul with the brimstone of my curses ! He threatens. Oh des- 134 THE BRIDE OF INFELICS picable consequence that be should live to spy upon and threaten me ! Oh loathsome worm ! would that I had seen him in his grave-shroud ere turning my face from Europe ; then my fu- ture would have been secure, while now it stands on thin ice. Curse him ! he lives to bring back the dead and rotten sea fruit from those forgotten shores, to cast upon my proud estate for its con- tamination ! He shall not ! I will baffle him in his accursed purpose, by heaven, I swear it ! I " Here his frenzied soliloquy ceased suddenly as there came the sound of footsteps in the corridor without. The next instant his body-servant re- entered the room. " The man has gone, Sir Philip. He sent you this." His master read the one scrawled pencil line, which ran thus : " Look for me promptly at 11 on Thursday night." Then he burned the scrap of yellow paper as he had done the first, and with the same stoical countenance; after which he dismissed his serv- ant, saying briefly: " When I need you again, Tate, I shall not hes- itate to call upon you." Ten minutes later he returned to the ball room, where he at once sought out Mrs. Rossmore, and bent contritely over her with suave apologies for DEAD SEA-FRUIT 135 his absence, during which their quadrille had been danced. These she accepted with pouting hesitation, yet would retaliate the offense by studiously avoiding him for the rest of the evening. When all the lights of Maplehurst were out, and every sound of revelry was hushed within those halls, Sir Philip stole from his apartments out into the still grey of the early dawn, where for hours he walked with his grim tutor, Satan, along the snow-bound terrace walls above the Merrimac. CHAPTER XVII LOVE'S BEHEST In peace love tunes the shepherd's reed; In war he mounts the warrior's iteed ; In halls, in gay attire is seen ; In hamlet's dances on the green ; Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And man below, and saints above. Tor love is heaven, and heaven is love. Scott. MORNING dawned, crisp, cold and clear ; but ere the house party at Maplehurst began to assemble below stairs the sun had well nigh reached his zenith, and struggled vainly to shine through a rift of threatening clouds. Sir Philip and Mrs. Rossmore were the last to enter the breakfast room, when the question of a sleigh ride was on the tapis. The young widow wore a becoming morning toilet of changeable green, over which there fell, in charming contrast, great billows of creamy lace, like sea-foam, and her costume was still enhanced by a large cluster of nodding fleur de Us, which she wore low upon her corsage. " My dear Lady Camden," said she, as she noticed the quick glance of her hostess wander (136) LOVE'S BEHEST 137 first to her flowers and then questioningly to Sir Philip's face. " We have been touring the conservatories, and see ! I come back laden with sweet spoils. I, really," with a half-arch, half-guilty look, " thought it barbarous of your husband, but he would pick these for me." As she ended she touched caressingly the beautiful fleur de Us, and made a little defiant grimace at Sir Philip, who, smiling back at her, said, with his accustomed indolent drawl: " I have assured Mrs. Rossmore of Lady Cam- den's approval. She delights especially in her conservatories, and asks no higher compliment than that which her guests pay her by enjoying them. Is it not so, my dear ?" he asked insidi- ously, directing his glance towards his wife. " Certainly," replied Lady Hortense, but she did not lift her flushed face from the coffee urn as she spoke, and the one low-toned word flavored of her inward indignation at an offence which she knew was a malevolent and coolly directed one on the part of Sir Philip, who was well aware of her partiality for the young iris tree, and knew that she had always guarded vigilantly against its disturbance. " Do you take cream, Mrs. Rossmore ?" she asked, as her hand fluttered over the dainty ser- vice in arranging cups and saucers for the late comers. 138 THE BRIDE OF INFELICE "Please." " And sugar ? " " One. Oh, Mr. Bentwell, indeed, no ! " this in reply to her young admirer's eager question, " Will you make one of our sleighing party this afternoon, Mrs. Rossmore ? " "Although sleighing is one of my hobbies," added Dorian, "I don't quite relish the idea of being caught in a snow storm." Fred Bentwell sighed. "Then I assuredly will not go," she read in his adoring eyes, and with a coquettish smile she turned to her host. " Do not you think it will storm, Sir Philip ? " asked she, and, without waiting for his response, she continued : " If it should, and there could be no sleighing, why not arrange for those tab- leaux-vivants that we were discussing last night? " " Yes I by all means let us have some char- ades," exclaimed Fred Bentwell ; then flushed to the roots of his fair hair at the rebuking eyes which Dorian flashed upon him. . " Look ! it is snowing even now,"' cried Valois El wood at this juncture. They all glanced toward the windows and sure enough saw a few idly- falling flakes interspersing the somber gloom of the noontide. Sir Philip's eyes looked away from them back into Dorian Rossmore's face : " So we may at once veto the sleighing for to- LOVES BEHEST 139 day, and organize the tableaux," he said with a smile of indulgence upon his sinister face which brought a wave of color to Dorian's. " Do you not think it would be infinitely nicer, Lady Camden ? " she asked. Lady Hortense bowed with the listless conces- sion which she gave to all of her husband's wishes. " But," said she, " of course there are always some who do not care for theatricals. You do not, do you, Leonie ? " she asked, turning to a doll-faced, voluptuous girl of seventeen who sat next to Mrs. Ayers. " No," declared Miss Leonie Dextrell, with a simpering smile, " to me they are totally without charm. Gladys loves to act that is, recite but give me out-door fun ! Oh, Sir Philip ! " she supplemented. " I brought my skates ; isn't there a pond or something hereabouts to skate on ? " "Yes," returned Sir Philip, " tb.3 water is well frozen down in the lake, and I am told the skat- ing there is excellent." " Oh, how perfectly lovely ! " gushed Leonie, her limpid eyes melting in tears of real ecstasy. " Will you come skating with me, Valois ? You skate as swiftly as a lark flies, and so gracefully ! Do come ! I am sure you don't want to act; do you ? " she asked. Valois hesitated and directed a little shy, ques- tioning look toward Lieutenant Carruthers. It peemed to say, " Had you rather skate or act ? " 140 THE BRIDE OF 1NFELICE and his eyes answered back something that made her blush scarlet. Mrs. Rossmore herself, however, settled the debate. " Leonie," said she, " Captain Pometer will go with you to the lake. I am assured that he, like yourself, is devoted to his ekates ; but Valois and Lieutenant Carruthers are to assist in supporting our entertainment," she added peremptorily. Immediately after breakfast a meeting was called and the coming charades duly discussed and arranged. Miss Meredith and Fred Bentwell were elected for a sketch from " Lalla Rookh." Valois Elwood and Gershon Carruthers would present an inter- esting scene from the " Courtship of Miles Stan- dish." Thayer Volney was seized upon for a Pygmalion, and Lady Camden singled out by a unanimous vote to do the statuary part, as the Athenian artist's model, Galatea. Vain were her protestations against acting this role. Sir Philip saw her grow pale as death when it was assigned her ; and as her eyes inadvert- ently met his, she shuddered at the evil triumph she saw shining in them. With a last appeal she turned to Mrs. Ross- more : "I thank you for the compliment, but would prefer that Miss Dextrell take the part," said she, "I will do all in my power toward making the LOVE'S BEHEST 141 entertainment a success, but I do not wish to at- tempt a part for which I am utterly unfitted." " Unfitted ! " cried Dorian Rossmore, deprecat- ingly. " Why, my dear Lady Camden, one could not be more fitted to the role than you ! You are classical. You are repos/. You are all that would go toward making a perfect statue. Now, Gladys here" " Oh please Mrs. Rossmore, spare me ! " laughingly interrupted Miss Dextrell, who, like her sister Leonie, was tl doll-faced and voluptu- ous," yet not so simpering nor dull. " I am, I assure you, fully appreciative of my own short- comings ; the comparison would be 'odious'; there is nothing classical nor tranquil about my composition; I should giggle outright when the calcium lights were turned on. I shall, however, be pleased to recite something." So for a recitation she was accordingly billed on the part of Mrs, Rossmore, who graciously volunteered herself, as there was "order in variety," to contribute a Spanish solo in the cos- tume of her mother's country. When the programme was finished, it was voted that the afternoon be devoted to the preparation of proper costumes, and that a stage be impro- vised in the back drawing-room for rehearsal of the various parts on the following evening. Thus the interval was filled up with the rush and hurry of excitement that is generally attendant 142 THE BRIDE OF IN FELICE upon such events, and soon after dinner on Wed- nesday evening commenced the rehearsal with doors strictly closed to all excepting those who composed the programme. Alice Meredith, with her bright rippling hair and lovely face, and with her voice Sweet as the breath of angel sighs When angel sighs are most divine, promised a revelation in the character of Nour- mahal, the Arabian maid ; but, after the rehearsal of her part was over, she stole away to the darkest and remotest corner of the front drawing- room, filled with secret dislike of it. She had instinctively felt the eyes of Thayer Volney upon her all the while she had been einging ; and as Selim had clasped her, with all the assumed passion of a great love, to his breast, and her head had fallen, with seeming abandonment upon his arm, she revolted even as she had whispered the words : Remember, love, the feast of roses. Afterward she had glanced up to meet that pair of serious eyes, and in them she had read a rebuke which smote her to the inmost fibre of her being, like a sharp steel point. The wound still rankled within her as she sank down in the dim-lit corner ; and, as if in very self-defense, she cried in a low voice which only her own heart heard : " Oh if he could have read my soul's dear thought when I said those words : LOVE'S BEHEST 143 ' Remember, love, the feast of roses.' I was thinking of the night before last, when I sat with him in the dim conservatories amid the breath- ing fragrance, with his voice making sweeter music to my ear than the dreamy strains of the waltz or the fall of fountain waters?. Oh, it was of that elysian moment I was thinking, and his eyes wounded me so by their look of reproach 1 " How long she remained sitting there, lost in a reverie which was full of wavering shadow- pictures, in which the image of Thayer Volney was all that to her was distinct, she did not realize. She started at length at some uncertain sound; and looking up beheld the object of her medita- tions. He came silently forward out of the gloom and sat down beside her. " Why are you sitting here all alone?" he asked in a voice which his latent passion rendered slightly unsteady. She was silent. The dim-lit space before her for a moment seemed to be peopled with unreal shapes. She could not speak for the strange emotion which was stirring her being to its very depths and almost stifling her. Thayer sat gazing at her with his dark, serious eyes so full of his soul's love that they would have startled her, had she trusted herself to look up. Her silence made him deliriously happy j 144 THE BRIDE OF INFELICE and a flood of passionate words were upon his lips ready to burst forth. Should he utter them ? Would she think him officious for approaching her thus early in their acquaintance, and hate him for his presumptuous advances ? No ; his intuition had divined that this was no cold, incredulous and prejudiced nature that he was about to appeal to, but one whose every fibre was aglow with generous, womanly sentiment. He would find in that heart some spontaneous and harmonic echo to the love which it had engend- ered, which was its own true offspring. No sooner had the last thought shaped itself than he was upon his knees at her feet, and she heard his low voice saying, fervidly : " Alice, I have experienced to-night the first jealous pang of my life ! Oh, my love, I could not bear to see his arms about you ! The sight maddened me ! I might not have told you so soon in words how completely you have enshrined yourself in my heart, but this new germ which, guiltily, I feel invading the purity of my love has prompted me to cry out : I love you ! I love you ! Not with that fragile self-centered passion which men ofttimes confess ; but with one which com- bines the interest and holiest emotion of the soul and the mind ! I loved you ere I knew your name ; I will love you to the end of my life ! No other image can ever efface yours from my heart; it shall be an incentive to all the purest actions LOVE'S BEHEST 145 and noblest purposes that the future may ever know of me ! " His voice ceased, and in the interval of silence which followed, she heard his breath come quickly and felt him shivering as with a chill. He had possessed himself of one of her hands, which gently answered to the pressure of his own; but her lips refused to frame a single word in answer to his appeal, though her eyes he could not see them revealed the answer which her glad soul could not disguise. At length he looked up. *' Be kind," he whispered. " Say but one word ! I will understand, Alice." One word ! in what one word could she make him understand all that she saw in her heart ? In what one word could she combine the acknowl- edgment of her joy and the confession of her despair ? Oh that so felicitous a moment should be darkened by the grief of knowing that it could not last ! Already she could hear its funeral note sounding through the silence. A voice came faintly to them ; it was calling Mr. Volney for rehearsal. Then a shadow dark- ened the threshold of the folding doors, and Dorian Rossmore came toward the very corner where they sat. " Mr. Volney ! is this Mr. Vol- ner ? " she asked half dubiously. " Yes," he answered. " Are you ready for me, 146 THE BRIDE OF IN FELICE * Mrs. Rossmore ? I will be there immediately ! " He waited until the woman withdrew, then in a hurried whisper, he added to Alice : " I can better bear your silence than a hopeless word, or a rebuke that would pain me yet more deeply. But if you would merely say that you believe my avowal as sincere, and that I need not wholly despair." She lifted her eyes to his with a sad, wistful light in them, and said brokenly : " I believe in your words implicitly. I I believe in them religiously, and with all my heart and soul ! but oh Mr. Volney, do not do not hope for more than this ! " His only answer was to lift her hand to his lips and kiss it reverently, passionately. Then he went away. When he was quite gone, she pressed her lips to the spot where his own had rested, murmuring as she did so : " Oh, my love, my love I what grim decree of destiny is this ? To know that you are mine and I am thine by what seems to be the holy cove- nant of God, and still to know that at the hand of Providence ' like two cleft rocks, our lives are sundered wide.' Oh, is it just, dear Heaven, that such things should be ? " She went up to her room with hot tears blind- ing her way ; and there she knelt down in the alcove beside her bed, and prayed fervently for LOVE'S BEHEST 147 wisdom to see the right and for strength to offer up the sacrifice of Thayer's love if, as it seemed to her now, so bitter an obligation lay between herself and duty. Soon after she rose there came a little tap upon her door. " It is only me Valois. May I come in just for a moment ? " said the voice of her friend. "Certainly, come." She was glad there was no light to reveal her tear-stained face, and she strove to make her voice sound calm. " Where are you ? Why are you in the dark ? May I kneel by you ? " " Of course, darling," Alice answered. "Allie," throwing her arms about the slender waist and hiding her face upon the heaving bosom of her friend, " I am very, ve-ry happy, dear ! Guess what has happened." " Lieutenant Carruthers has proposed to you ?" suggested Alice, as she let her hand stray tenderly over the shorn rings of jet. " No ; guess again. " He has declared his love ? " The shorn head nestled closer, and Valois heaved a delicious sigh. " Yes," lisped the young girl, " but that is not all ; he he kissed me twice." And so, as far As the universe spreads its flaming wall, Take all the pleasures of all the spheres And multiply each through endless years, Dm: niiuute of heaven is worth them all. CHAPTER XVIII THE CLAP-TRAP The fountain in the odorous garden cast up its silver spray In the air, and kept a delicious coolness in the midst of the sultry 110011. The handmaids almost invariably attended on lone, who with her freedom of life preserved the most delicate modesty, sat at a little distance ; by the feet of Glaucus lay the lyre on which he had been playing to lone one of his Lesbian airs. The scene the group before Arbaces was stamped by that peculiar and refined ideality of poesy which we yet, not errone- ously, imagine to be the distinction of the ancients. i'he marble columns, the vases of flowe rs, the statue, white and tranquil, closing every vista ; and above all the two loving forms from which a sculptor might have caught either inspiration or despair ! Arbaces pausing for a moment, gazed on the pair. THE LAST DAYS OP POMPEII. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. T^HE curtain rose upon, the garden of " Shali- i. mar." Overhead stretched a canopy of starry blue, while an invisible light from behind the stage fell subtly over tropical plants, flowers and statues, swathing the scene in a tranquil radiance like that of a mid-summer night's moon. At a short distance from a miniature fountain, which had been ingeniously contrived to play forth a shining spray into the air, and whose basin was flanked with blossoming exotic plants, the Imperial Selim reclined ; while about him moved his festive guests, fair maids and radiant (148) THE CLAP-TRAP 149 lovers ; or loitered, some of them, at the spread board of fruit and wine. In the air floated soft dream-like strains of music song whose magic measures were accom- panied by the guitar j but suddenly above these another voice was So divinely breathed around That all stood hushed and wondering, And turned and looked into the air, As if they thought to sae the wing Of Israfel, the Angel there. Suddenly a thrill of delight ran through the audience, as through the foliage glided the Sultana Nourmahal with her beautiful features only half veiled, and her glorious hair falling like a cloak of spun gold, about her Oriental costume. As Selim and his guests gazed upon her, en- tranced, she rested her lute and to a subdued ac- companiment her nightingale-like voice rose, first low and soft, then gradually trilling to its high'est pitch of sweetness : There's a blis<8 beyond all that the minstrel hath told, When two that are linked in a heav'nly tie, With heart never changing, and brow never cold, Love on through all ills, and love on till they die I One hoar of a passion so sacred is worth Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliM: And oh 1 if there be an Elysium on earth. It is this, it is this 1 Never before in her life had Alice Meredith sung so well, and with such a depth of genuine feeling. When she ceased her listeners were wild in their applause of delight, while one among them felt as 150 THE BRIDE OF INFELICE the true Selim had, " too inly touched for utter- ance." Once while she sang, Alice had let her eyes wander to Thayer Volney, and there had been an expression in them which told him that her words were directed to himself alone. Oh why could he not have rushed forward and fallen upon his knees before her then and there, and told her that he had understood ? It was only by a supreme effort that he controled the mad impulse and calmed his joy to listen as again those enchanting tones rose above the hush : Fly to the desert, fly with me, Our Arab tents are rude for thee ; But, Oh ! the choice what heart can doubt, Of tenU with love, or throues withouc? Our rocks are rough, but smiling there Th' acacia waves her yellow hair, Lonely and sweet, nor loved the less For floweriug in the wilderness. Our sands are bare, but down their slope The silv'ry footed Antelope As gracefully and gaily springs As o'er the marble courts of kings. Then come thy Arab maid will be The loved and lone acacia tree, The Antelope whose feet shall bless With their light sound thy lonelineM. These stanzas the singer had directed to the rapturously listening Emperor ; but there was a slight change of position and another telegraphed glance toward Thayer as she pursued : Oh ! there are looks and tones that dart An instant sunshine through the heart, As if the soul that minute caught Some treasure it through life had sought; THE VLAP-TliAP 161 As If the very lips and eyes, Predestin'd to have all our sight And never be forgot again, Sparkled and spoke before us then I So came thy every glance and tone When first on me they breathed and shone New, as if brought from other spheres, Yet welcomed as if loved for years. To the Emperor, with the same sweetness of tone, yet with that breathing pathos absent from it which had marked the foregoing verses : Then fly with me, if thou hast known No other flame, nor falsely thrown A gem away, that tbou badst sworn Should never in thy heart be worn. But if for me thou dost forsake Some other maid, and rudely break Her worship'd image from its base To give to me the ruined place ; Then fare thee well, I'd rather make My bower upon some icy lake When thawing suns begin to shine, Than trust to love so false