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Title: Little sweetheart
        or, Norman De Vere's protegee

Author: Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

Release date: July 10, 2024 [eBook #74006]

Language: English

Original publication: Cleveland: The Arthur Westbrook Company

Credits: Demian Katz, Krista Zaleski, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Images courtesy of the Digital Library@Villanova University.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE SWEETHEART ***






(Printed in the United States of America)




    LITTLE SWEETHEART

    OR,

    NORMAN DE VERE’S PROTEGEE.

    BY

    MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER.


    HART SERIES No. 49


    COPYRIGHT 1889 BY GEORGE MUNRO.


    PUBLISHED BY
    THE ARTHUR WESTBROOK COMPANY
    CLEVELAND, O., U. S. A.




LITTLE SWEETHEART.




CHAPTER I.


The smoking-car was draughty and ill-smelling; the three commercial
travelers, with their cards and whisky, noisy to the point of rudeness,
and the view from the windows of the slowly moving train was not
interesting to one who had gone over the route to Jacksonville a dozen
times before. The rocking motion of the train hindered reading with any
comfort, and Norman de Vere flung down his newspaper impatiently and
went into the ladies’ car.

“There may be some pretty women in there to look at,” he thought,
idly, having an artistic taste that could interest itself for hours
in traveling in watching the delicate profile of some beautiful face
with a ravishing turn to chin and throat, or round cheek shaded by the
curled fringe of a long, dark eyelash.

For the matter of that, any woman might have looked twice at him, too,
if she had any feminine penchant for manly beauty.

Tall, broad-shouldered, symmetrically formed, with olive skin, large,
flashing, dark eyes, wavy dark hair, clear-cut, handsome features, and
a mouth so beautifully shaped that the absence of the conventional
mustache from the short, curled upper lip seemed almost an affectation
to display its beauty. Norman de Vere at two-and-twenty was a
magnificent specimen of young manhood, combining in his fine person all
the best elements of strength and beauty. You saw, too, from the cut
and quality of his well-chosen traveling garments, and from his very
air of easy indifference, that he was Fortune’s favorite--beloved of
Plutus as well as Apollo.

He dropped languidly down into a seat some little distance back of the
woman and child who were the sole occupants of the ladies’ car.

“Wonder where they got on? They were not in here two hours ago when
I went forward to the smoking-car,” he thought, with idle curiosity,
having nothing better to attract his attention.

The slight, black-robed figure sitting in front of him had its head
and face hidden in a little black poke bonnet and black lace veil. The
face, turned steadfastly from him, as if gazing through the window, was
propped against a small hand in a trim, black kid glove. Before her,
on a seat which the accommodating conductor had turned over to face
her, slumbered a lovely child of about four years. By contrast with
the somber black garments of the lady and the rich crimson velvet of
the cushions on which it was lying, the little creature, in its white
dress, its tangle of rich golden curls, its round cheeks warmly flushed
with happy slumber, its half-parted, dewy red lips giving glimpses of
pearly baby-teeth, looked like a beautiful human flower.

But Norman de Vere’s handsome face had assumed a rather rueful
expression when he looked over and saw the pretty sleeper.

“Presently it will wake up and squall. Then I shall beat a retreat into
the smoking-car. The drummers could be no worse,” thought he, testily.

But pending the meditated retreat he fell to speculating over these
chance companions of his railway ride.

“Some poor little widow who has buried her husband among strangers and
is going home to her people with her little child,” he decided from her
garb of somber black.

And as men always take a peculiar interest in young and pretty widows,
our hero began to wish that she would turn her head and let him see her
face. That she was young he felt quite sure from her erect shoulders
and slight and delicate shape.

But the young widow remained motionless, with her cheek in her hand and
her head turned toward the window, seemingly intent on the flitting
landscape, with its dreary dead-level clothed with forests of pine,
cedar, and cypress, while here and there the glittering leaves and
magnificent white flowers of the magnolia-tree divided admiration with
the long, swaying wreaths of funereal-looking moss somberly draping
the great live-oaks. Perhaps the tropical growth lying under the soft,
velvety drizzle of a steady October rain pleased her fancy or held her
interest, or perhaps hot, silent tears were falling under the little
black veil, for she never stirred from her statue-like quiet even when
the door opened noisily presently, admitting the jolly commercial
travelers whose loud talk and laughter immediately startled the
smiling baby sleeper from her dreams.

There was a low, startled whimper of fear, and the little darling sat
erect, first digging dimpled, chubby fists into her eyes, then staring
at the heartless disturbers of her dreams with the brightest, bluest,
most reproachful orbs they had ever seen.

“She is going to squall! The widow will have to move at last!” Norman
de Vere muttered, with triumphant curiosity.

He was right, and wrong. The baby did not squall, but the lady moved.
She leaned forward, patted the child with her little gloved hand,
murmured some low, soothing words, and immediately returned to her
musing position at the window without any one ever having seen her face.

The travelers were staring with all their might. Every heart went out
to the little angel in the white dress.

One of them--rough fellow and hard drinker as his red face showed him
to be--had pretty little children of his own at home. He uttered a
caressing sound and held out eager arms.

The baby shook her golden head archly and made him a little grimace of
disdain that set the other two laughing. She climbed down from her seat
and up again upon the lady’s, where she stood erect, the sweetest thing
alive, already full of innate, unconscious coquetry. The big, cloudless
blue eyes wandered guilelessly over their faces as she clung with her
tiny dimpled fists to the back of the seat, scanning each face in turn
with pretty, fearless curiosity.

By this time every man in the car was in love with the beautiful,
bright little thing, and the drummers began to rummage their pockets
for something pretty wherewith to tempt her to come to their arms.
Their boisterous mirth had already softened to something more
respectful, and when one actually found a paper of peppermint lozenges
about him, his eyes gleamed with triumph.

“Come, sit on my knee and you shall have candy,” he called out,
persuasively.

The little beauty did not notice him. She was watching the face of
Norman de Vere and making eyes at him with the sweetest baby coquetry,
so “innocent arch, so cunning simple,” that the gazers were transported
with delight. The young man, on his part, was regarding her with a
gentle gravity of expression that puzzled her guileless mind. The three
drummers she recognized instinctively as being already her slaves. What
of this silent man who made no effort to attract her, who returned
her inviting, wistful gaze without a smile, unless that sparkle in his
large dark eyes could be called one?

Was it his seeming indifference that attracted her, or his wonderful,
god-like beauty? There awoke in the young mind something of that pain
which we of older growth term the yearning for the unattainable.

She sprung down into the aisle unheeded by her silent female companion,
and the drummers each reached out for her. She stopped a minute to
look at the unique watch-charm that one dangled before her eyes,
laughed gleefully as she eluded the outstretched arm of the second, and
promptly accepted the lozenges from the third, turning from him with a
polite “Ta-ta,” and going straight to Norman de Vere.

“Wretched little flirt!” ejaculated the giver of the candy, with mock
indignation, as he saw her climbing upon Norman de Vere’s lap with the
most engaging confidence.

Then:

“Don’t oo want some of my tandy?” she inquired, cooingly, as she
offered him the paper.

Norman de Vere’s thoughtful gravity relaxed into a laugh, and he
promptly put an arm about the plump form that had enthroned itself on
his knee.

“I don’t want any candy, please,” he said, shutting his lips tight
against the small thumb and finger that were conveying a pink lozenge
to his lips; “but I’ll take a kiss.”

No sooner said than the rosebud mouth was pressed eagerly, softly upon
his, sending an odd thrill through his whole frame, then she half
whispered:

“I ’ove oo.”

“A case of love at first sight,” haw-hawed one of the irrepressibles
across the aisle, and the baby shook her tiny pink-and-white fist at
him and cried out, disdainfully:

“Go way! I don’t ’ove oo! Oo ain’t pritty!”

Everybody laughed except that slight, silent form like a statue of
black marble in the front seat, and Norman de Vere asked with a smile:

“Won’t you tell me your name, little one?”

She beamed upon him with her sunny blue eyes, and answered:

“Sweet’art.”

There was more laughter from across the aisle. The young man reddened
in spite of himself, but persisted:

“Yes, I know you are _my_ sweetheart, but what is your other name? What
does your mamma call you?”

“Nuffin, only des Sweet’art,” she replied, amiably, reaching up and
patting his cheek with a warm, sticky little palm, with a lozenge glued
to it by its own sweetness.

“That is her name for you when you are very good, I suppose, but when
you are bad--when you cry and scold your doll, what name does she call
you then?” he queried, and she replied, intelligently:

“‘Naughty yittle Sweet’art.’”

“I give it up,” he said, carelessly; and then she asked, in her
innocent, confiding manner:

“Don’t oo want me to sing mamma’s yittle song all ’bout me myse’f?”

“Yes, please.”

She threw back her curly golden head, swelled her soft, white throat,
opened her rosebud mouth, and sung, with bird-like sweetness, these
words:

    “Yittle sweet’art, tum an’ tiss me,
      Des once mo’ before I go;
    Tell me truly, will you miss me
      As I wander to and fro?
    Yet me feel ’e tender p’essing
      Of oor wosy lips to mine,
    Wif oor dimple’ hands cawessing,
      An’ oor snowy arms intwine.

    “Yittle sweet’art, tum an’ tiss me,
      We may ne’er meet adain;
    We may ne’er woam togedder
      Down ’e dear ole shady lane.
    Uvver years may bwing us sowow
      Yat our ’arts but yittle know;
    But if tare we s’ould not bo’wow,
      Tum an’ tiss me ’fore I go.

    “Ah! yittle sweet’art, tum an’ tiss me,
      Tum an’ whisper sweet an’ low;
    Tell me yat oor ’art will miss me
      As I wander to an’ fro.”

No words could describe fitly the wonderful, wooing sweetness, the
bird-like melody of the little one’s voice as it rose soft and clear
above the clatter of the moving train--every word, though uttered in
broken baby dialect, distinctly audible to the listeners.

The innocent little child, absorbed in the delight of her own
performance, appeared as unconscious of them all as some wild-wood bird
caroling alone upon its leafy nest, and produced as pure an effect upon
her hearers.

When she stopped no one moved or spoke for a minute, then the red-faced
drummer chuckled:

“Sweetheart, you’re an out-and-out prima-donna!”

The others were touched and silent.




CHAPTER II.


Sweetheart herself remained quite silent and pensive for a moment after
her little song, as if it had touched some chord of sadness in her
heart. Then she nestled her curly head softly against Norman de Vere’s
broad breast.

“Sweet’art tired, Sweet’art s’eepy,” she lisped in a plaintive tone,
and shut her eyes.

He held her closely in a tender clasp, looking down admiringly at
the lovely baby face, fair as carven pearl, and tinted warmly yet
delicately as a Mme. de Watteville rose. How richly fringed with thick
gold were the full white lids; how lovely the curve of the scarlet
lips; how deep the dimple--a perfect Cupid’s nest--in the exquisite
chin! His eyes dwelt long and lingeringly on every perfect outline, and
he said to himself, with a half smile:

“If she grows up like this, she will give many a man the heartache.”

A sigh chased away the smile, and a cold, cynical look came into the
dark eyes, as if some unpleasant memory stirred within him.

The train rushed on through the rainy afternoon, past the swamps and
forests, past the unfrequent little towns where they seemed to make
the most unconscionably long stops, considering the small additions
received to the stock of passengers, and presently it seemed to Norman
de Vere that every one was asleep but himself.

The drummers had each taken a double seat to himself, and with silk
handkerchiefs over their faces, snored sedately. Even the “little
widow,” as Norman called her in his thoughts, had let her arm and head
slip down to the back of her seat, and seemed to be quietly sleeping.
Sweetheart still lay close in the fold of his strong arm, and though
presently the plump little thing began to feel warm and heavy, he would
not rouse her, lest he should call her back from her wandering in the
beautiful Land of Nod.

“But what a careless little mother!” he thought. “She takes small
concern over her baby, leaving her to be nursed and cuddled by utter
strangers. Still,” with an excusing thought, “she must be fond of the
little one, she has trained her to sing with such wondrous sweetness
and accuracy. It is only that she is tired or ill--broken down with
grief most likely--and she knows that even rough men are only too proud
to play the nurse to her little pet.”

He wondered vaguely if the face hidden under the little poke bonnet and
veil were one half as lovely as the one slumbering so peacefully on his
breast, and gazing down at little Sweetheart, tried to fancy the cherub
face grown older, and the innocent soul grown wise with woman’s lore;
but again a heavy sigh heaved his breast and a frown of deep cynicism
drew ungracious lines on his high, white brow.

“Heaven forbid! Heaven forbid!” he muttered, with something like
impatient wrath. “It seems a pity for this dear little one to grow up
so. Yet,” bitterly, “how else could it be, and a woman?”

The early autumn twilight, hastened by the steady rain, began to darken
in the car, and the brakeman came in and lighted the lamps.

“A bad spell o’ weather, sir,” he said, loquaciously, to the occupant
of the car who had his eyes open. “Uncommon rainy for Florida; been
fallin’ stiddy for two days and nights. ’Counts for the few passengers,
I ’spose. Well, ’tis er ill wind blows nobody good. Better sleepin’
’commodations for the passengers,” glancing around humorously; for this
was twenty years ago, reader, and before the luxurious era of Pullman
sleepers and parlor cars and fast-flying vestibule trains.

Norman de Vere was about to make some brief, courteous answer to the
man’s remarks, but he was prevented by a sudden terrible rumble and
rocking of the car--the swift precursor of one of those dreadful
railway accidents due to heavy rains and weakened bridge foundations
that desolate so many hearts and homes. With a swift instinct he
clasped his sleeping burden tightly to his breast just as the doomed
car reared upward a moment, like a maddened, living creature, only
to collapse the next instant with its freight of human souls and go
crashing down through a broken bridge into a mad hell of seething,
foaming water.

       *       *       *       *       *

A little river ordinarily insignificant enough, but swollen now to a
torrent by incessant rains for several days, had washed all the mortar
from the stone foundations of the railroad bridge and weakened it so
that the weight of the locomotive had carried it down crashing to the
bed of the river and telescoped the train.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Norman de Vere realized that, but for a sharp blow on the head
from a heavy timber, he was unhurt, and that he held the struggling
child safe in his arms, it seemed to him that he must have been saved
by a miracle, nothing less.

The whole train was a wreck, and but for the fact that the ladies’ car
was on top of the _débris_, he could never have escaped alive. He was
wedged between two seats of the car, which lay on its side, the windows
uppermost, and over and around surged the raging water, churned into
foam by the rapid descent of the train, and by the explosion of the
locomotive’s boiler as soon as it touched the river. To add to the
horror of the position, the lamps just lighted by the brakeman had
exploded and caught fire, affording a lurid light within the interior
of the wrecked car.

The child in his arms waked and screamed with sudden terror. He hushed
her with a tender word, and listened appalled for another human sound
in that terrible tumult of crashing timbers and raging waters.

But no sound came.

He saw the brakeman’s legs sticking out from under a pile of timbers
that had instantaneously crushed the life from his body. Turning about
in his cramped position, he looked for Sweetheart’s mother and the
drummers.

There was no sign of the slender little black-draped figure, but a
pair of masculine arms protruded from under an overturned seat. He put
Sweetheart down and went to work manfully to extricate the owner.

To his joy, he dragged the man out, stunned, but alive--one of the
jolly drummers. Rapidly as he could, he resuscitated him and made him
understand their position.

“We will either be burned or drowned if we do not speedily escape,” he
said. “But before we think of ourselves we must see if there are any
more alive in the car.”

“I’m with you to the death!” the other cried, heartily; then he
shuddered. “But this is horrible! How the water seethes over the
settling wreck! And it will be on fire inside presently.”

“Be good, little darling!” Norman cried to the whimpering, frightened
baby, who sat very still where he had placed her, with a dazed look in
her big blue eyes.

Obeying a pitying impulse, he kissed her lightly, then turned to his
grewsome task.

The two other drummers were soon discovered, both stone dead, and one
horribly mutilated.

“God rest their souls!” cried the drummer, who was a devout Catholic.

He crossed himself, his face pale with grief and horror, then went on
with his task. The mysterious woman had not been found yet.

A few steps further on and they began to pull away great fragments
of the roof where it had crashed in over the seat where she had been
reclining. They were obliged to work very carefully lest she should be
pinioned under them yet alive, and they must not crush out the faintest
spark of life.

And above them and around them the fierce and swollen river roared like
a tiger eager for its prey, while within the narrow compass of the
wrecked car the air began to grow hot and dense with smoke from the
burning lamp that had sent its blazing oil running about like tongues
of flame, devouring all it touched.

A minute more and they found her, dead. Norman de Vere was never to
know whether the face over which he had wondered was beautiful or
homely. The heavy timbers had mutilated it beyond all semblance of
humanity, and he reeled and sickened at sight of the bloody corpse.

“Oh, my God, how terrible!” he cried, and the Catholic crossed himself
again. “God rest her soul!” he muttered, then eagerly: “We can do
no more. They are all dead. Let us try to save ourselves. We shall
suffocate if we remain in here five minutes longer. See the child!”

Little Sweetheart had suddenly succumbed to the heat and smoke, and
fallen senseless.

Norman de Vere caught her up in his arms with a cry very like despair.

“Now don’t give way!” cried George Hinton, the drummer, eagerly. “What
do you propose to do?”

“Can you swim?”

“Like a fish.”

“So can I. We must knock out that window there. The water will pour
into the car, but we must climb through the opening and commit
ourselves to the mercy of the river.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The hour of deadly peril under the gloomy night sky on the wild,
swirling river, battling fiercely with the elements in the effort
to reach the lights that glimmered on shore, would the two nearly
exhausted men ever forget it?

Norman de Vere’s efforts were greatly hampered by the little
unconscious burden in his arms, but he would not listen to the shouts
of the other.

“She is dead, poor little one! She was suffocated in the burning car.
Better let her go and save yourself.”

“Never! We sink together rather than so cowardly a deed!” Norman de
Vere replied above the roar of the water; and by the most heroic
struggles he neared the land, where a rope was thrown by friendly hands
of excited watchers along the shore. A moment more and safety was
assured to them, and a loud, solemn shout of thanksgiving went up from
fifty throats for the three solitary survivors of the wrecked train.




CHAPTER III.


Twenty-four hours later it was night in Jacksonville--night, all lovely
with countless stars and a full October moon.

            “The light of many stars
    Quivered in tremulous softness on the air,
    And the night breeze was singing here and there.”

Before the gates of a palatial home, whose white walls glimmered like
a fairy palace through the dark-green shrubberies of the extensive
grounds, stood a line of carriages. The mistress of that Eden-like
home had been holding her weekly reception--not a garish ball or a
weary crush of uncongenial people, but an assemblage of choice spirits,
her most intimate friends, only fifty people all told; and now on the
stroke of midnight, after two hours most charmingly spent, they were
decorously taking their departure.

The echo of their gay voices came floating out on the orange-perfumed
air as they lingered on the pillared portico.

“Oh, Mrs. de Vere, you must be proud of your husband. Such a hero! They
say he saved two lives!”

“I am proud of him!” the musical voice of the fair hostess replied,
with a note of tenderness breaking through its proud ring; then
she bowed good-night to her friends and went back to the deserted
drawing-room, around whose door hovered sleepy servants anxious to put
out the lights, shut up the house and retire.

Their proud mistress paid no attention to them. She pushed to the door,
and began to walk slowly up and down the floor, the rich Turkish carpet
giving back no echo to the fall of her silken slippers.

A woman in the early prime of her rich beauty, thirty-three years old,
but looking barely twenty-five--beauty is always young--tall, with a
magnificent figure draped in black lace that set off with its somber
elegance her peculiar type of beauty.

Red hair--rich, dusky auburn red, with soft natural waves in it from
where it was drawn simply back from its parting on the low white
brow to the loose coil at the back of the shapely head; the clear,
colorless, dazzling skin that goes with such fiery locks; eyes of
sparkling reddish hazel with full, white lids and long, curled lashes;
a Grecian nose long enough to indicate decided characteristics; a
rather large mouth, with thin red lips that could express cruelty when
they chose, but whose smile could dazzle and betray--such she stood
in her somber garb, with diamonds flashing on her bare white arms and
throat, looking the siren that she was by right of beauty, passion
and power, yet all inconsistency, capable of heights and depths, and
predominated by something subtle and tigerish in her animal nature.

“Will he come to-night?” she muttered, half bitterly, as she paced from
one end to the other of the splendid room. “It is more than two weeks
since I came to our winter home in Jacksonville. Why did he wish to
linger, unless it was to be rid of me, to be from his chains, as no
doubt he calls them in his secret heart? What has he been doing all
this time? I will not believe it was business, as he writes. Had he
loved me as he pretends, he would have come with me; he--”

The door opened quickly, arresting the querulous complaint. She turned
and saw her husband coming toward her with an eager face, and his name
fell from her lips in a tone of mingled reproach and rapture:

“Norman!”

“Camille!” he answered, in a deep voice; and as he paused by her
side his dark eyes swept the dazzling face searchingly, and somewhat
plaintively, as if doubtful of a welcome.

But she flung herself upon his breast, and her round, white arms
clasped his neck with passionate _abandon_.

His momentary doubt dispelled, he embraced her with an ardor equaling
her own, and pressed kiss after kiss on her upturned face.

“You are glad to see me again, Camille,” he murmured, happily. “Ah!
this pays for the dreary days of absence from your side.”

Mrs. de Vere half withdrew herself at those words from her husband’s
arms, and looking up at him, cried out, reproachfully.

“If you had loved me you would not have stayed so long!”

“Did you miss me, darling?”

She pouted mutinously as a school-girl for an instant, then, as if
impelled to the truth in spite of herself, hung her graceful head and
murmured, bashfully:

“Yes--bitterly.”

Norman de Vere’s dark eyes beamed with a sort of loving triumph as he
answered:

“It was to win this sweet confession that I stayed behind. I know that
in your heart you love me well, but when I am with you constantly you
madden me with your caprices and humors, your unfounded jealousies
and wounding suspicions. Why, you never give me a loving word or an
involuntary caress, and you degrade yourself and me with such cruel
charges as I can scarcely endure. But when I am away from you, you
judge me more kindly, perhaps, and so I find an intoxicating welcome
awaiting me. It was no business that detained me, my darling. Maddened
by your coldness and distain, I remained away from you, hoping you
would think more kindly of me and meet me with just this charming
welcome,” drawing her again into his arms and kissing the curved red
lips with eager passion.

She returned his kisses ardently, murmuring the while:

“You were cruel--I love you so--I can not bear you out of my sight! I
will not bear it--your taming me by so cruel an absence--as if I were a
real shrew!”

“I will never do so again--that is--if you will always be like this,”
he answered, feasting his eager eyes on the rare beauty of the
face that lay against his breast, his tone almost pleading in its
earnestness.

She lifted her head and looked into his eyes with a shadowed gaze.

“How can I promise you?” she asked, half resentfully, half sadly.
“You do not make due allowance for me, Norman; yet you know well the
miserable doubt of your love that turns me sometimes into a fury. How
can I be quite, quite sure of your heart, remembering, as I do every
hour of my life, that I am quite thirteen years older than you, and
that the royal dower my father gave me might have tempted many a man to
forget that disparity.”

There was sudden, swift anguish in his face and voice, bitter pain and
humiliation in the tone with which he cried:

“Oh, my love, that old complaint again--and so soon, so cruelly soon!
You do injustice to yourself and your own charms. It was yourself that
won me, not your splendid dowry. For those few years between us, bah! I
never remember them unless you remind me. If I had been Cophetua and
you the beggar maid, I should have implored you to share my throne.”

“But you were only a boy when you married me--barely twenty. By and by
your fancy will change--you will repent.”

“Hush! you will be in hysterics presently,” he said, warningly. “Come
with me, darling. You will forget these morbid fancies when you see the
sweet little pet I have brought you.”

He drew her into a small anteroom adjoining, and she saw on a velvet
sofa, fast asleep, a golden-haired little fairy.

“It is a little child I rescued from the wrecked train,” he said. “I
brought her home with me until I could find her friends.”

To his amazement, her thin red lips began to curl into the cruelest
sneer.

“Are you displeased, Camille?” he asked, anxiously. “Why, I thought any
woman would be delighted with so lovely a pet. I assure you she will
win your heart as soon as you look into her sunny blue eyes.”

She flung off his caressing hand as if it were a serpent, and with
blazing eyes, hissed out:

“A likely tale! Rescued from the wreck--ha! ha!”

“My God, Camille, what do you mean by your scorn?” he cried, aghast.

She turned on him like a beautiful tigress.

“I mean, Norman de Vere, that you can not deceive me with such a
trumped-up tale! How dare you, dare you, think to bring home your
base-born brat, issue of some shameless clandestine affair, to the
shelter of this honest roof?”




CHAPTER IV.


Norman de Vere was by no means unacquainted with the passionate and
jealous temper of his wife, having experienced its evil effects many
times during the two years in which he had been her husband.

But her present outburst was so unexpected and so reasonless that he
almost recoiled in terror from the fierce and angry glitter of the
hazel eyes and the bitter sneer that distorted her lovely mouth.

He could not speak. Sheer indignation and amazement held him silent,
and pointing a disdainful finger at him, the angry woman continued:

“No, I am not so easily duped as you expected! I know too much of the
world and its wickedness! Your pretense is a very clever one, but I can
see through it!”

“Good heavens!” the young man exclaimed, in a shocked voice. His dark
eyes blazed with indignation.

She went on, sharply:

“I wish you to understand that that brat can not remain under this roof
to-night! You will send it away at once!”

Norman de Vere, by humoring the caprices of a selfish woman, had made
himself almost a slave to her despotic will. With her to speak had
always been to be obeyed, and she expected no less now.

“But, Camille, think,” he said, remonstratingly. “The child has no
friends that I know of. Her mother perished in the wreck. I saved
the child’s life, and I must take care of her until I hear from her
friends. The charge you bring against me is utterly without foundation.
Look at the little one. She is at least four years old. Remember, I was
but a boy when I married you, two years ago.”

“I have heard that you were very wild when you were at college,” she
replied, tauntingly. “This, no doubt, is the outcome of your youthful
folly. The wretched mother has no doubt deserted the child, and you,
with a foolish sentimentality, dared bring it under this roof to rear.
Or perhaps,” her voice rising almost to a shriek of rage, “you had
a double purpose in bringing it here! You wished--wished,” with a
hysterical sob, “to taunt me with my childlessness!”

He stood staring at the beautiful fury, asking himself in wonder if
this could be the same woman who such a little while ago had lain in
his arms, clasping his neck, and giving him kiss for kiss. It scarcely
seemed possible; such a fury she looked now with her blazing eyes and
distorted features quivering with jealous rage. Yet he had seen her
before in fits of jealous anger that usually culminated in hysterics.

Dreading this effect, he endeavored to soothe her; but all in vain, and
only his remonstrance that she would be overheard by the servants had
any effect in moderating her loud, shrewish tones. But she reiterated,
though in a lower voice, her resolve that the child should be sent
immediately away.

Her furious tones had already awakened little Sweetheart. She sat up on
the sofa without a word, staring drowsily from one to the other with
her sleepy blue eyes under her tangle of golden curls.

Mrs. de Vere, in her fury of wrath, shook her jeweled fist
threateningly in the child’s face, and the baby shrunk back with a
startled cry.

“Camille!” cried her husband, sternly. He caught back her menacing
hand. “Would you be cruel enough to strike that innocent baby?”

She laughed insanely.

“Yes, unless you take her away, and at once!” she answered, struggling
to free herself.

But he held her firmly.

“You are mad!” he cried, hotly. “You exhaust my patience by your words
and manners, which are alike disgraceful. I will no longer bear your
exactions. The child shall remain here until her friends can be found.
You force me to remind you that this house at least is mine--all that
was left me when the war deprived me of my father, the brave soldier,
who died for the South, and all our wealth. Here, at least, I am
master, and here my poor little protégée shall find shelter!”

She was so dazed with his defiance that for a moment she could not
speak, only writhe impotently under the firm but gentle grasp in which
he held her wrist, while a low, hissing sound issued from her lips.

Little Sweetheart, who had been watching them in doubt and terror, now
slipped down from the sofa, and running to her friend, clasped his leg
tightly with her little arms, crying out through frightened tears:

“Oh, p’ease, p’ease, don’t hurt the yady! don’t make her ky!”

“Little angel!” he cried, and released the wrist he was holding.

Instantly Mrs. de Vere flung herself full length upon the floor,
screaming and kicking in hysteria.

Norman de Vere picked up Sweetheart in his arms and strode to the door.
He expected to find several frightened servants listening, and he was
not mistaken.

“Your mistress is ill. Go in and attend to her at once,” he said to the
French maid, whom he detected among them.

“_Oui, monsieur_,” answered Finette, with a courtesy of her capped head.

Then she ran in to her mistress, and Norman de Vere went up the broad,
shallow stairs toward the sleeping apartments, still carrying the child.

A dim light burned in the upper hall. He knocked several times at a
door near the head of the staircase, and presently a drowsy voice,
sounding as if muffled among pillows, inquired:

“Who is that? What do you want?”

“It is Norman, mother. Can I see you, please?”

“Of course, my son;” and in a few moments the door opened and an
elderly lady in a dressing-gown invited him in.




CHAPTER V.


“I hope you are well, mother?” the young man said, kissing her
tenderly, and as the light fell on her face one saw features still
handsome in spite of the silver hair that set off the blackness of her
large eyes.

“Yes, I am well. And you, my dear son?” fondly; then she started in
amaze: “Good gracious, Norman! where did you get that child?”

He would have laughed at her amazement if he had not been so perturbed
by the exciting scene through which he had just passed. As it was, he
sighed as he put Sweetheart gently down on a low ottoman.

“It is a child I saved from the wreck and brought home with me until I
could find her friends, mother.”

“Oh, poor little one!” said the lady, tenderly. She sat down and held
out her arms. “Come here, you little beauty, and let me kiss you.”

Sweetheart ran eagerly to her new friend and held up her rosebud mouth;
then she climbed into the lady’s lap with childish confidence.

“Sweet’art so tired an’ s’eepy!” she sighed, dropping the curly head on
that motherly breast.

“Poor little thing! she must be put to bed,” said Mrs. de Vere.

She undressed the weary, drowsy child and laid her gently down in her
own bed. In a minute she was fast asleep.

“God bless you, dear little mother! Oh, what a relief this is to me!”
exclaimed the young man.

“Was she so very troublesome?”

“No; I did not mean that. I--I--But, mother, perhaps you are too tired
for me to talk to you to-night?”

“No, indeed: I could sit up for hours. But have you seen Camille yet?”

“Yes, I have seen her. I will describe to you, mother, the charming
interview I have just held with my wife,” he replied, in tones of
bitter mockery.

She listened while he went over the painful scene, and her eyes
reflected the indignation that flashed from his.

“How could she be so unjust, so cruel? Oh, I never dreamed that the
daughter of my old friend could be so jealous and so suspicious,” she
cried, in real distress, for the mother knew that she was in some
degree responsible for her son’s misery.

She had fostered and encouraged the boy’s passion for the mature siren.

The close of the war had left her an impoverished widow with an only
son, and it had taxed her shallow resources to provide means for him
to have an education such as befitted a De Vere who had some of the
best blood of France as well as of the South in his veins. But she
sent him to college, and it was on a visit home at Christmas that she
took him to call on a lady who was wintering in Jacksonville--a Miss
Acton--the daughter of an old friend of hers. Miss Acton was an orphan,
and had inherited a million of dollars from her California father and
a beautiful face from her mother. She was alone in Florida, except for
her fashionable friends and her French maid. She told Mrs. de Vere, who
had sought her out for her mother’s sake, that she was unmarried still,
because she could put no faith in the disinterested love of any man.

Mrs. de Vere took her son with her when he came home at Christmas to
call on the distrustful heiress. He was young and impressionable, and
Camille Acton did not look twenty-five. Her beauty, her style, her
Parisian costume, all combined made so strong an impression that he
fell ardently in love, and as he had the beauty of an Adonis, it was
no wonder that her fiery heart was thrilled in return. The ambitious
mother saw all with astonishment and delight. She invited Miss Acton to
winter at Castle Rackrent, as she often bitterly termed it, and between
the two maneuvering women the fatal match was made.

A European tour followed upon the brilliant wedding that took place
in a few months, and they remained abroad for a year, during which
time the Jacksonville home was put into perfect repair and elegantly
refurnished with the bride’s money for a winter residence. In due time
they came back, but not before the boy had discovered that he had
wedded a beautiful Xanthippe.

Camille de Vere had a jealous passion for the boy she had married that
drove her into excesses of rage without reason. Added to this was a
distrust of his love, a horror lest he had wedded her from a mercenary
purpose alone, for with all her faults she was quite free from vanity.
She hated her peculiar type of beauty, and she would not permit
flattery. She believed it was addressed to the heiress, not the woman.
Proud, jealous, despotic, she yet underrated her own attractions, and
made herself wretched in consequence.

The bitterest taunt, the one that cut most deeply into the sensitive
spirit of Norman de Vere, was one that she only ventured upon in the
most towering flights of rage.

“You never loved me! You could not have cared for a woman thirteen
years older than yourself, and with red hair. You married me for my
money, and now you are trying to break my heart so that you may enjoy
it without incumbrance!” she would cry out, coarsely; and all his
protestations would be useless until she relented of herself, touched
by his white face of misery. Then she would atone after her fashion by
intervals of almost slavish devotion, and by costly gifts, trying to
buy the forgiveness she was ashamed to beg.

Norman’s mother knew in her heart that by her ambition and her adroit
management she had brought about this misery, but she dared not utter
her repentance aloud. She knew that she had to remain perfectly
neutral, or her rich daughter-in-law would find means to separate her
from the son she idolized.

When she had heard Norman’s story, her motherly heart thrilled with
indignation at the false and unjust charge brought against her idolized
son.

Angry words rushed to her lips, but she crowded them back. She must not
foment strife between husband and wife. The least she could do to atone
for her share in their misery was to act the part of peace-maker.

She waited a few moments to quell the indignant words that swelled in
her throat, then began to talk to her son in kind and soothing terms,
making every excuse that she could for the erring wife.

“She was an only daughter. She has been spoiled all her life, and she
can not know how her tempers appear to us. We must try to soften her by
repeated kindnesses and by continual forgiveness,” she ended.

Her son’s eyes flashed darkly under the straight, black brows.

“I have already given up to her to the extent of debasing my manhood by
almost dog-like humility,” he replied. “‘Forbearance has ceased to be a
virtue,’ and the issue now raised between us may become a battle-ground
on which her insolent pride of power must be humbled, for I shall
never yield.”

“The issue?” she repeated.

“The child,” he replied.

“I do not quite understand,” she said.

“I mean that she has vowed that my protégée shall not pass the night
beneath this roof. I am determined that Sweetheart shall remain until I
restore her to her friends.”

The pale determination of his handsome face was so marked that she
trembled with dread.

“But what if her friends should never be found? What then, Norman?”

“She would have to remain my protégée,” he replied, firmly.

She trembled at the firmness of his tone. Her prophetic mind saw
endless vistas of perplexity and trouble looming dimly in the future.
The thought came:

“Better, perhaps, if the child had perished with her mother!”

Then her heart smote her as a low, grieving sob broke from the little
cherub in its sleep.

“Heaven forgive me!” Mrs. de Vere muttered to herself humbly.

Norman looked at her wistfully, and continued:

“I suppose you can not quite enter into my feelings, mother. I saved
the little thing’s life, and somehow she almost seems to belong to me.
You can not think how sweet and winning she is, too. What a sunshine
she would make in this quiet old house!”

“You can not dream of adopting her!” she cried, appalled.

“Certainly not--under the circumstances,” he replied, grimly. He paused
a moment, then added: “Otherwise, nothing would give me more pleasure
than to claim my protégée as an adopted daughter.”

“You are mad!” she cried, in dismay.

“I do not think so,” he replied, gently. A slight flush crept up to his
temples as he added: “I do not believe that my wife will ever give me a
child of my own to love, yet it is but natural I should desire one.”

The same pang, the same regret had touched her own heart, but she had
borne it in silence. The tears started to her eyes as she said:

“We must keep on hoping, keep on waiting. In any case, Norman, think no
more of this wild fancy. It is impossible you should defy Camille in
this affair. Take my advice and carry Sweetheart away early to-morrow
to some friend who will take care of her until her friends are found.
She will be safe with me to-night.”

“Safe!” he cried, in a startled tone. “Mother, you do not mean--”

“I mean nothing only that I will keep Sweetheart with me to-night, but
that you must take her away to-morrow,” she replied, firmly, adding as
he moved to the door: “Remember your first duty is to your wife. Go now
and try to make your peace with her, dear boy.”

The dark eyes flashed.

“Good-night, mother,” he said, with sudden coldness, and went out.

The shrill screams that had gone with him up the stairway a little
while before were silent now. He had heard a bustle in the hall shortly
before, and he knew that the servants had carried their hysterical
mistress upstairs. He went softly along the hall and tapped at the door.

It opened quietly. Mlle. Finette showed her sallow face, beady black
eyes and smart cap in the crevice of the door.

“How is your mistress?” he asked.

“Vair mooch bettaire, and asleep, m’sieur.”

“Did she leave me any message?”

“_Non, m’sieur_; but she ordered me to stay by her bed all the night,”
her eyes snapping maliciously.

“Very well,” he said, calmly, turning away and going down the hall
toward the stairway.

He was eager to get into the open air. The house seemed stifling.

The night breeze struck coolly on his heated brow as he let himself
out at the back door and walked wearily toward a beautiful grove of
orange-trees now in the full glory of blossom and fruit. Their tropical
fragrance blended deliciously with the odor of Maréchal Neil roses that
clambered over a picturesque summer-house near at hand.

He went inside and sunk heavily into a rustic chair.

“My God, and this is the home-coming to which I have looked forward so
longingly for two long weeks!” he muttered, with a laugh that was half
self-mockery, half despair. Then a moment later: “Why did I battle so
eagerly for life that night? Was it worth it?”




CHAPTER VI.


When Norman de Vere turned away from his wife’s door the maid locked it
quickly, and crossed the room to the bedside of her mistress.

Mrs. de Vere had half risen from the luxurious nest of linen and lace,
and with her wavy red locks falling backward like a veil, was leaning
on her white elbow listening eagerly.

“He did not ask to see me, Finette?” she whispered, half longingly.

“_Non, miladi_--only about your health.”

“You told him I was asleep--that you were ordered to remain by me all
night?”

“_Oui, madame._”

“Finette, I wish you would quit your bad habit of falling into French.
It is annoying, after the pains I took to have you taught good English
years ago!” Mrs. de Vere cried out petulantly.

“Pardon, madame. _C’est_--that is, ’twas slip of the tongue,” Finette
replied, meekly.

“Very well. Try to command your tongue. Now, tell me, what of the brat?”

“He left it with the old lady, madame, as I told you.”

“You heard nothing of what they said when you listened at the door?”

Finette’s beady black eyes glistened malevolently.

“Not vair mooch--they spoke too low,” she said. “As well as I could
understand English--which I speak but imperfectly, madame--my master he
complained bitterly of you. His mother she said it was one vair great
shame you was so jealous and so cruel to him.”

The hazel eyes shot forth red lights of fury.

“Very well; I will pay her out for her interference!” she cried, in a
hissing tone of rage; then she lay back on her pillow, gasping with
anger.

“Oh, madame! these moder-in-laws they be marplots between the young
married ones,” cried Finette, lugubriously.

Having cast this lighted match into the gunpowder of her lady’s wrath,
the artful and malicious French maid became discreetly silent.

Her mistress too was very quiet. She was divided between bitter wrath
and inconsistent pique. She had forbidden her husband’s presence, yet
she fiercely resented the fact that he had not insisted on coming into
the room--that he had taken her dismissal so calmly and gone away.

“If he had really loved me, he would have insisted on seeing me,” she
burst out, bitterly, and the wily French maid answered:

“Madame, he loves you--be sure of that. But he is too young; that is my
master’s great fault. He is just from his books; he understands not,
like a man of the world, the caprice of the woman. He knows not that
her no means yes, and that her stay out means come in.”

Mrs. de Vere flushed at hearing herself so correctly analysed by the
crafty French maid, but she did not contradict her. She remained silent
for a few minutes, and Finette waited patiently. At last:

“He defies me; his mother defies me; the ungrateful beggars that I
raised from penury to wealth and luxury!” Mrs. de Vere burst forth,
wrathful, unheeding the presence of the attendant. “They keep the
little wretch here, despite the fact that I ordered him to take it
away! Strange! Strange! But I will show them what stuff Camille de Vere
is made of! Finette!”

“Madame!”

“Do you not believe with me that this mysterious child is Norman de
Vere’s own?”

Finette shrugged her narrow shoulders expressively.

“Dear madame, if I agree to any of the hard things you uttaire against
your husband now, you will be indignant with poor Finette when you make
up your love quarrel with him.”

Finette had not attained the age of forty years without becoming a
clever student of feminine nature. She was too astute to abuse her
master. She knew well that the capricious woman before her would like
her better for defending him.

Mrs. de Vere bit her lip and answered sharply:

“You are too pert, Finette; but it matters not what you believe--I have
my own opinion, and it is unchangeable.”

“Pardon, dear madame,” replied the polite and indefatigable maid.

Mrs. de Vere scowled at her, but smiled a minute after, and asked
eagerly:

“Finette, would you like to earn a hundred dollars to-night?”

“Only tell me how, madame!” cried the woman, her small black eyes
glittering avariciously.

“Very well. Steal that child from my mother-in-law’s room, take it
away from here and place it with some one who will keep it forever
away from Norman de Vere, and I will pay you a hundred dollars in the
morning.”

“But, madame, it is so late! It is now long past the midnight hour.
There is scarce time.”

“‘Where there is a will there is a way,’” Mrs. de Vere replied, sagely.

“Let me think,” said Mlle. Finette.

She stood so long with down-dropped eyes that Mrs. de Vere cried
impatiently:

“I will make it two hundred if you will consent, Finette, and I will
always be grateful to you for helping me to outwit these tyrants who
have tried to impose upon me with their infamous plot.”

Finette smiled.

“I will try,” she said.

Mrs. de Vere showered praises upon her confederate, and then Finette
bent down, whispering a question that made her mistress recoil with
blanched cheeks.

“Ah, no, no! not that!” she cried, with a horrified gesture of her
white hand. “Only let me be rid of her--that is all I ask.”

“Very well, madame--as you wish it, of course. I think I know the woman
that will do what you want--a wretched old miser of a rag-picker. But
she lives a long way from here. If I might have your saddle-horse--”

“You are welcome to it.”

“Oh, many thanks, madame! The little one will be asleep, you see. I
shall have to chloroform both her and the old lady to get her, you
know.”

“Do not annoy me with the details. Only do your task as silently and
efficiently as possible, and look to me for your reward as soon as you
return!” Mrs. de Vere exclaimed, with haughty impatience.

“I go then at once,” Finette answered, in a cringing tone.

“My blessings and my thanks go with you!” exclaimed her wayward
mistress.

“I don’t know about that,” the clever maid muttered, when she found
herself alone in the darkness of the hall. “You’re a capricious one as
ever I see. Maybe by to-morrow you’ll make up your quarrel with your
boy-husband and want to undo all I’ve done to please you to-night.”

She crept softly along the hall, and knelt down and applied her ear to
the key-hole at the old lady’s door. There came to her distinctly the
deep breathing of one asleep.

“Deep in the arms of Morpheus!” she muttered, grimly. “And she never
locks her door at night. Come, I do not think I’m going to have vair
mooch trouble getting the brat away.”

She slid along the floor and went softly down-stairs to prepare for
her evil errand. To do so she had to go out to the stables to saddle a
horse.

As she was going softly past the summer-house, she started on coming
face to face with a female figure in white with a shawl thrown over its
head.

“Oh, Miss Finette, don’t holler, please! ’Tain’t nobuddy but Nance!
I’se been to an ebenin’ party, an’ gwine to slip inter de back do’
easy,” half whispered the voice of one of the negro house-maids.

“I don’t know but I ought to report you to the housekeeper, Nance, for
keeping such late hours,” Finette answered, jokingly.

“Per’aps I’ll ’port you to your young missus fer de same t’ing!” cried
Nance.

“‘Sh! I was fooling, Nance. I had to come out for some fresh air before
I went to bed. I’ve been up all night with my lady.”

“In ’nuther tantrum?” inquired Nance, intelligently.

“Yes.”

“Whut’s up now?”

“Master came to-night, and they quarreled as usual.”

“I wonder he don’t leave her for good and all, she’s so aggervating,
and he’s the most patientest soul alive,” cried the house-maid,
indignantly.

“Well, she is a high one,” giggled Finette, some secret memory seeming
to amuse her. Presently she said, confidentially: “Well, she’s been in
an outrageous temper since yesterday morning.”

“Fer why?” queried Nance.

“Well, she was looking in the glass at herself, and whatever do you
think she found?”

“Oh, whut?” gasped Nance, breathless with eagerness.

Finette, whose coarse, unscrupulous nature always took revenge in
private for the snubs her mistress often gave her, giggled softly again
and answered:

“The first gray hair in that red hair of hers.”

“Oh, my! she is a-gitten old.”

“Yes; and she cut a caper, I tell you! Actually threw herself down and
cried like somebody was dead. Then she got up, glared at herself, and
made me pull the gray hair out and burn it in a hurry. She was as
cross as could be after that.”

“Lordy!” giggled Nance, who had no love for her young mistress.

“Yes, indeed,” said Finette. “Oh, it cuts her to be so much older than
the boy she married. She hates it. She’s as jealous as--a--a--tigress!”
said Finette. “But it’s cool, ain’t it? Let’s go in,” and she turned
back, saying to herself: “I’ll have to slip out after she’s abed, drat
her!”

They both vanished, and the next moment Norman de Vere appeared in the
door-way of the summer-house, from whose shelter he had heard every
word that had passed outside.

His eyes blazed with indignation, and it was with difficulty that
he had restrained himself from confronting the treacherous maid and
sternly rebuking her for her flippancy.

“The coarse, ungrateful, shameless creature! It is thus that she repays
the confidence her mistress has reposed in her for years!” he thought,
and he resolved that to-morrow Camille should hear the story, when he
did not doubt that she would rid herself of the woman.

Although smarting with resentment at the false and cruel charge Camille
had brought against him, Norman de Vere was touched to the heart by the
fact that Finette had betrayed. The story of her grief at finding in
her rich, abundant tresses the first gray hair had a deep pathos for
the man who loved Camille still, in spite of her caprices and cruelties.

As he thought of her weeping over her misfortune before the hard,
unsympathetic eyes of the secretly amused French maid, he forgot for a
moment his own grievances; his manly heart grew warm with pitying love.

“Poor Camille! Poor darling!” he murmured, “how cruelly sensitive she
is over the slight disparity between our years! It is because she loves
me well, in spite of her morbid fancies, and I wish I had been with
her yesterday, instead of Finette, when she found that little silver
thread. I would have taken her in my arms and kissed that hair so many
times she would not have had the heart to remove it from her shining
tresses. Perhaps she is grieving over it now, and I might comfort her.
I will go to her now; I will risk another rebuff in the endeavor to
make peace with that proud heart,” turning hurriedly toward the house.




CHAPTER VII.


Clever Finette found out long before she was summoned to dress her
mistress next morning that a reconciliation had most probably taken
place between the young husband and his jealous wife, and she was
surprised to find her when she entered in one of her most captious
moods. She made herself as disagreeable as possible, and when Finette
was brushing out the splendid lengths of her waving hair, burst out
suddenly:

“If you find another gray hair, Finette, you need not gossip with Nance
over it, taking ungrateful pleasure in ridiculing the mistress to whom
you owe everything.”

“Madame!”

For once the wicked, imperturbable maid was taken by surprise. The
ivory-backed brush fell from her nervous hand, and she recoiled in
fear, realizing that her mistress had found her out for once.

“Madame!” she exclaimed, shrilly, and Mrs. de Vere answered, angrily:

“You understand me. I know all your malicious gossip to the negro
house-maid last night.”

“So Nance has been telling lies on me, madame? I thought you trusted
your faithful Finette better than to listen to those miserable negroes,
my lady,” reproachfully.

“Go on with my hair,” Mrs. de Vere answered, shutting her red lips with
an angry click. She spoke no more until the last hairpin was pushed
into the wavy coil of shining hair.

“Well, did you succeed?” she inquired, in a low, significant voice.

“Yes, madame. The leetle one is far away--far away and safe. Monsieur
will nevaire find her again.”

“That is well. You shall have your reward,” Mrs. de Vere said, coldly.
She waited until Finette, with a rather sulky face, had finished
dressing her in an exquisite morning-dress of soft white mull and lace,
with a quantity of fluttering pale-green ribbons; then she unlocked
a drawer in her dressing-case, and took out a purse from which she
counted out two hundred dollars into the eager hands of the avaricious
maid.

“You are paid now for what you did last night; and remember you are to
hold your tongue about that forever,” she said.

Finette protested that the secret should never pass her lips.

All this time Mrs. de Vere had been trembling with suppressed anger,
which now she could hold in no longer. She turned angrily toward
Finette, and cried:

“Now I am going to pay you a month’s wages in advance and discharge
you!”

“Discharge me, madame? Oh!” cried Finette, in amazement.

“Yes--for your odious tattling last night. You ridiculed me--held
me up to the derision of my own servants--and I shall punish you by
discharging you without a character!” Mrs. de Vere retorted, violently.

“And all for the lies of that black hussy, Nance! Oh, madame! I nevaire
could have believed this, after all my years of faithful service. But
I shall punish the false negress--I will pull the black wool from her
head!” stormed Finette, in a towering rage, and in a mixture of French
and English impossible to transcribe.

“Be silent! How dare you behave so rudely in my presence?” cried Mrs.
de Vere, with a stamp of her slippered foot, her hazel eyes flashing
indignantly.

“But such lies! How can I bear it? Not a word of truth in it! That
Nance envies me--lies to get me out of my place and turned away
homeless. But I will tear her eyes out!” hissed Finette, viciously.

Mrs. de Vere smiled scornfully at the theatrical gestures of the
excited French woman.

“You can spare yourself all these denunciations of the poor
house-maid,” she said, impatiently. “It was not she who betrayed you;
it was my husband, who was sitting in the rose arbor and overheard you
and Nance.”

Finette stared--then leered.

“In the rose arbor! Ah, but that is strange!” she cried. “Why, it was
just outside the rose arbor I met Nance. The hussy! she told me she had
just come from a party. She led me on to talk about you, and all the
time laughing in her sleeve, knowing he was there!”

The wicked significance of her looks and tones were most insulting to
her mistress. Mrs. de Vere flushed burning red up to her temples.

“Be silent, you miserable wretch! How dare you traduce my husband?” she
exclaimed.

“You traduced him yourself last night,” muttered Finette, sulkily.

Mrs. de Vere chose not to hear the retort, and continued:

“Nance did not know my husband was in the arbor.”

“Oh, certainly not, madame,” Finette replied, with a sneer; but her
mistress took no notice and went on:

“Mr. de Vere was so indignant at your treachery that he came at once to
tell me, and he desired me to send you away this morning.”

“Monsieur is very kind,” said Finette, with a ghastly smile. “I will
try to forgive him. I will repay good for evil.”

Mrs. de Vere gave a slight start--the tone was so significant.

“When does monsieur wish me to go?” added Finette, plaintively.

“To-day,” curtly.

“And you, madame?” more plaintively still.

“I agree with my husband,” Mrs. de Vere replied, still smarting under
the pangs of wounded pride, and quite ignoring the gratitude she had
professed for Finette last night.

She could remember nothing but the fierce shame and anger that had
thrilled her when she heard how Finette had held her up to the coarse
ridicule of her negro servant.

“Very well,” said Finette, courtesying with pretended meekness; then
she whimpered: “Oh, madame! let me stay. I will never tattle again.”

“I wish you to go. No pleading will move me to retain you in my service
after your treachery of last night,” was the cold reply.

A malicious light crept into the beady black eyes beneath the downcast
lids, and Finette crept servilely toward the door.

“I am very sorry,” she murmured, audibly; then, as if struck by a
sudden thought: “Oh, I think I can undo some of my bad work of last
night. I will go to monsieur; I will confess--”

“What?” quavered a frightened voice close beside her, and Mrs. de Vere
clutched her arm. “What is it you are going to confess to my husband?”
she demanded.

Finette turned upon her boldly.

“The abduction of his child at your instigation, miladi,” she replied,
with insolent triumph, and she felt herself well revenged for Mrs. de
Vere’s contempt when she saw how she had frightened the proud beauty.

The haughty woman recoiled in horror, her cheek grew ashen pale, her
hazel eyes darkened and dilated with fear.

Finette smiled maliciously when she saw that she had reduced her
domineering mistress to a condition of speechless fear and indignation.
She waited a moment, and then continued, coolly:

“You see you are in my power, madame. Turn me away, and you make me
desperate. I have always pitied monsieur for the match he made, and I
will do him one good turn before I go by telling him what you made me
do last night.”

“I paid you well--you promised to keep it a secret forever!” Mrs. de
Vere uttered, reproachfully.

“‘A bad promise is better broken than kept,’” quoted Finette, with airy
unconcern and audacity.

“What is it that you wish me to do then? Give you a good character when
you leave, that you may deceive some other woman?” inquired Mrs. de
Vere, angrily.

“You will keep me in your service, please,” was the unblushing reply.

“As the price of your silence?”

“As you please, madame,” with a mocking courtesy; and Mrs. de Vere now
realized fully that from henceforth Finette was the mistress, herself
the slave. Her secret had placed her entirely at the unscrupulous
woman’s mercy.

With a sinking heart she cried:

“What am I to tell my husband?”

“Say that Finette begged a thousand pardons, wept, tore her hair,
refused to be comforted until you promised to forgive her and try her
again.”

Mrs. de Vere could not repress a slight smile at the cool impudence of
the creature.

“Stay, then, and try to hold your tongue in future,” she said,
ungraciously, and Finette pretended the most abject gratitude, ending
with:

“After all, dear madame, what could you do without your poor Finette?
Who could dress you so as to set off to the best advantage your
exquisite face?”

Mrs. de Vere knew that Finette spoke the truth. If she had sent her
away she would have sorely missed her, but she was too angry and too
humiliated to own her dependence. She waved her hand without reply, and
swept down-stairs in search of her husband.

He was waiting for her in the breakfast-room. She went up to him and
said:

“I find it impossible to get rid of that treacherous Finette. She has
begged a thousand pardons, and entreated me to try her again. After
all, Norman, I could not do any better if I sent her away. Another
servant would be just as deceitful, and would not have the advantage
that Finette has of knowing all my ways.”

“Please yourself,” he answered, a little coldly.




CHAPTER VIII.


The entrance of a servant with breakfast hindered further conversation.
They took their places, and Mrs. de Vere poured her husband’s coffee.
She saw him glance inquiringly at his mother’s vacant chair, and said,
carelessly:

“Mrs. de Vere sleeps late this morning.”

A thought of little Sweetheart came to both, but neither uttered it
aloud. Last night they had patched up a weak fabric of peace, and both
shrunk from the mention of the child’s name.

But Norman de Vere remembered that he had kept his mother awake so late
last night that she was tired and weary this morning; so, without any
uneasiness over her absence, he finished his breakfast and followed his
wife out into the beautiful grounds. She, with the guilty consciousness
upon her that as soon as he returned to the house he must find out the
absence of his protégée, detained him as long as she could, winding
about him anew the siren fetters in which she had bound him two years
ago.

“Oh, Camille! how charming you are to-day!” he cried. “You make me
almost forget last night. Oh, if only--”

He paused and sighed.

“If only what?” she asked, with a slight frown.

“If only you would be reasonable--if you would repent your absurd
suspicions of me last night, and show a woman’s pity for that poor,
motherless child,” he said, gently, pleadingly.

She hung down her head, and a slight smile parted her scarlet lips.
He thought it was one of tender yielding; he did not dream it was of
diabolical triumph.

“Camille!” he cried, eagerly.

Her smiling hazel eyes lifted to his, and she held out her slender,
beautiful white hand all glittering with costly rings. He took it and
pressed it fondly to his warm lips.

“You relent, my darling?” he exclaimed; and she answered, with a
coquettish glance:

“How can I refuse you anything, Norman? You always conquer my will in
the end.”

He caught her to his breast, showering thanks and kisses upon her,
thankful that the disagreement of last night had not brought about a
lasting breach between himself and Camille.

As for her, she despised herself for her double-dealing; yet she would
have done the same thing over again, and deep down in her heart there
remained the same jealous resentment for the stand he had taken against
her last night. She glossed it over with smiles and caresses, but the
anger was there still--“the little rift within the lute.”

All unsuspecting, the young lover-husband accepted her pretended
relenting for the truth, and entreated her to go with him at once to
his mother’s room.

“It is so lovely out here that I hate to go in,” she said, with a
sweet, languid smile, for her breath began to come in faint, panting
gasps. “Suppose you go, Norman, and bring your little pet out here?”

He agreed to do so, and with a parting caress turned away. Beautiful,
guilty Camille sunk into a seat, panting with fear.

“Oh, what will he say? Will he be very angry? Will he suspect me?” she
asked of her wildly beating heart.

She knew that she had done wrong, but not for worlds would she have
restored the child to her husband, and not for worlds would she have
had him cognizant of her sin. All her anxiety was for herself, and she
cared nothing for the fate of the lovely child that she had consigned
to the hard mercies of Finette.

“I do not care what becomes of it so that it never crosses my path
again!” she thought, vindictively, and just then she lifted her eyes
and saw her husband before her.

“Why didn’t you bring the little one with you?” she asked, with
pretended anxiety.

“Camille, I do not know what to think. Little Sweetheart is gone. She
disappeared in some mysterious fashion last right,” he answered, with a
groan.

“Norman!” amazedly.

“It is true,” he said. “I found my mother in the greatest distress. She
had slept later than usual this morning, and when she awoke the child
was gone.”

“Gone!” she echoed, faintly.

“Yes. She thought at first that the little one had slipped out and gone
down-stairs, but on making inquiries she could find no trace of her
anywhere.”

“I would have the grounds searched. She may be a somnambulist. Perhaps
she has wandered off somewhere in her sleep,” suggested his wife.

“Perhaps so,” he said, then he looked at her keenly. “Camille, I am
tormented with a dreadful suspicion!” he exclaimed.

“A sus--picion!” she faltered, growing deathly pale.

“Yes.”

“Of--of--whom?” she asked, in feeble, halting accents.

“Of--alas! that I must speak it--of my mother!”

She started and drew a long breath of relief.

“Last night,” he continued, “I told my mother frankly of your
opposition to my keeping the child. I could see that she took your
part against me. She advised me to take the child away, but allowed
me to persuade her to keep it till this morning. What if my mother,
out of a mistaken sense of loyalty to you, Camille, has spirited away
Sweetheart, lest she should stir up strife between us?”

Her heart leaped with joy as she realized that it was his mother, not
herself or Finette, whom he suspected. No pity stirred her heart for
the kind mother-in-law of whose loyalty to herself she had just been
assured by Norman. She caught eagerly at the loop-hole of escape opened
to her by Norman’s suspicions.

“Your theory looks plausible,” she said. “It was very kind of her to
take my part, but perhaps she will restore the child when she learns
that I have changed my mind about it.”




CHAPTER IX.


A week passed away, and again it was the night of Mrs. de Vere’s weekly
reception.

The magnificent house was ablaze with light, and a band of music in the
broad hall filled the air with strains of sweetest music.

In the drawing-room the friends of the hostess--fair women and gallant
men--were dispersed in social groups, having just returned from the
supper-room.

Mrs. de Vere was looking stately and beautiful as usual in a costume of
trailing dead-white silk, with a necklace of pearls. The trying costume
was relieved by the warm hue of her eyes and hair, and her admirers
declared that she was looking her loveliest.

The mother-in-law, too, stately old lady that she was, came in for her
share of admiration. Her handsome, high-bred face, with its large, dark
eyes and frame of wavy, white hair, gave her a very distinguished air,
and her black silk dress with point-lace fichu and diamond pin were
very becoming.

But the handsome old face was clouded with pain and grief this evening,
for in some way she had become aware of her son’s suspicions, and her
loving heart was almost broken by his coldness. Her eyes followed him
wistfully as he stood apart from her, trying to do his part in the gay
scene, but with a brooding trouble in his deep, dark eyes, for the fate
of little Sweetheart rested heavily on his mind.

In the week that had elapsed since the child’s disappearance, no clew
to her whereabouts had been discovered. Unknown to any one, he had
placed a clever detective on her track, but as yet he had received no
tidings, and the suspense began to grow unbearable.

The lovely, winning child had wound herself around his heart in the two
days when she had been his sole care. He who had saved her life felt
himself responsible to her friends for her safe guardianship.

Already he had had inserted in several newspapers the story of the
finding of the child and her mother’s tragic death. He hoped by this
means to find Sweetheart’s friends.

But as days went by bringing no news from those to whom the child
belonged, he began to feel a sort of relief at the silence, for if any
one came to claim her, what was he to do, how answer for her loss?

To-night he was restless and ill at ease in spite of the fact that his
capricious wife had been all sunshine for a week. Somehow her smiles
and gayety seemed heartless, for she showed no anxiety, no sympathy
over the loss that weighed so heavily on his conscience.

He glanced at her as she stood, the center of an admiring group, tall,
stately, queen-like in her rich dress and jewels, and turning away
with a heavy sigh, sought the seclusion of the grounds, eager for a
few moments of solitude that he might drop the conventional smile that
social courtesy demanded.

How sweet and cool and silent it was out there in the beautiful
moonlight among the flowers! He drew a long breath and murmured:

“Ah, Little Sweetheart, where are you to-night? Are you living or dead?
What would I not give to feel your soft little arms about my neck
again, and see your sunny blue eyes looking into mine!”

Suddenly he saw the tall figure of a man advancing up the path toward
the house. He thought he recognized him, and went hastily forward. It
was, as he had thought, the detective he had employed to trace the
missing child.

The man lifted his hat with a cry of pleasure.

“Ah, Mr. de Vere, I should not have ventured in so late, but I saw
that you were entertaining company, so I thought I would wait about the
grounds in the hope of seeing you.”

“You have news?” the young man exclaimed, eagerly.

“Yes. I have found the little girl.”




CHAPTER X.


The guests were beginning to take leave. Already their gay farewells
floated out upon the air of the night where Norman de Vere had been
walking alone since the detective had left him.

He went back to the house, deathly pale, but calm.

When the last good-night had been uttered, when the echo of the
carriage wheels had died away in the distance, the young man turned
back into the house.

His mother and his wife were going up the broad stairway to their
rooms. He called them back.

“I wish to speak with you in the library,” he said.

His face was so white, his eyes so stern that they followed him in
awe-struck silence. He locked the door and placed chairs for both.

Beautiful Camille began to grow a little frightened. She cried out,
half defiantly:

“I wish you would wait till morning, Norman. I am tired and sleepy.”

She flung herself indolently back in her chair, with her white arms
upraised over her head, yawning lazily.

Her husband paid no attention to her complaint. He had fallen on one
knee before his mother. He lifted her soft, white hand to his lips.

“Mother, I have deeply wronged you. Forgive me!” he exclaimed.

“My son,” she faltered.

“I am ashamed to confess it; but perhaps you have suspected--I
feared--nay, believed--that you, out of sympathy with Camille, had
hidden Little Sweetheart away from me.”

Yes, she had suspected--had guessed his thought--had grieved in silence
over his proud coldness to her, his mother. She could not answer now
save by a low, pained sob.

Still on his knees before the gentle mother he had wronged, he turned
his face toward Camille.

“I was base enough to confide my suspicions to you,” he said, bitterly.
“You, Camille, fostered and encouraged them. To save yourself you
turned traitor to her who was your mother’s dearest friend, and who for
that at least should have been sacred from your treachery. What have
you to say for yourself?”

“That I am no worse than you. You first suggested it to me. It--it
seemed plausible!” Camille replied, with a defiant face.

A low groan broke from him, and he gazed at her for a moment in steady
scorn; then he turned back to the agitated elderly woman.

“Mother, I wronged you,” he said again, in a voice of deep contrition.
“Can you forgive me?”

“Freely, Norman,” she replied, tenderly.

“If this was all you wanted, it might have waited until to-morrow.
Unlock that door; I am going,” Camille said, sharply, eager to escape,
for she began to fear that his suspicions were now directed against
herself.

He did not obey her haughty command, but rising, stood looking at her,
his arms folded over his breast, a gleam of fierce anger in his eyes.

“You will wait a moment,” he said. “I have news for you. The missing
child is found.”

“Really!” she sneered; but an icy shudder shook her from head to foot,
and a silent malediction against Finette’s bungling trembled on her
lips.

“Yes, she is found, Camille,” he said. “And, oh, Camille, Camille,
imagine my feelings when I found that you had deceived me--that you
were the guilty party!”

“How dare you accuse me?” she stormed, springing to her feet,
wrathfully beautiful, determined to brave it out to the end; but he
answered her with that smile that was half sorrow, half scorn:

“Denials are useless. You worked through Finette, your diabolical
French maid. She took the child from my mother’s arms while she slept.
She went on horseback with her captive to one of the worst quarters of
Jacksonville, where she gave her to a miserable, brutal old rag-picker,
who has half starved that innocent little angel, beaten her till she
is covered with stripes, and forced her to stand in the streets and
beg for her food! Oh, my wife! how little I dreamed that you could be
capable of such cruelty!”

While he spoke the guilty woman stood her ground, facing him defiantly,
her white face twitching with sneers, her jeweled hands clinching and
unclinching themselves in impotent wrath, as the young man went on,
scathingly:

“It is no wonder you will not part with your clever maid. She is too
useful to you. But her time has come now. She shall go!”

“Norman!” cried his mother, beseechingly; but neither of them heeded
her. Camille was crying passionately:

“Who is my accuser?”

“The detective whom I employed to unravel the mysterious affair. He
dragged it out of the miserable old rag picker with whom Finette made
her bargain.”

She stood still a moment, looking at the white set face of the man she
loved with such jealous passion, and a feeling like death stole over
her at the thought of losing him.

Despite all her caprices, all her taunts, all her jealous madness,
she knew that Norman de Vere had loved her well and truly in their
two stormy years of wedded life, and she, ah! she--she adored him in
her wild, strange fashion. To lose his love were to lose heaven, she
thought, impiously.

Yet in the dark, burning eyes that he fixed on her face, in the curl of
his beautiful lips she read something that she feared and dreaded--the
dawning of that hour when, goaded by her injustice, her jealousy, her
cruelty, he should throw off the fetters of love that bound him, and
regret the fatal hour that made their two lives one.

As white as death she stood facing him, wondering how she should
extricate herself from her terrible strait, how escape from the web of
fate her own reckless hands had spun, for escape she must, or bear his
stinging contempt to her life’s end.

The passionate, undisciplined creature flung her jeweled hands up to
her face, and her slender, graceful figure shook for a moment like
a leaf in a storm, then as suddenly she withdrew them, and, with a
gesture of infinite pathos, fixed her blazing eyes upon the face of the
angry man.

“This from you, Norman--this from you? Oh, Heaven, it is too cruel!”
she cried out in accents of reproach and pain.

He did not answer; he stood staring at her dumbly, while she continued:

“Poor indeed must be the quality of your love for me if you can credit
such a charge against my honor!”

“There is proof,” he answered, icily.

“There is no proof! There can not be, for I am not guilty of this
thing!” she cried out, wildly. “Oh, send for Finette! Surely there is
some horrible mistake.”

He crossed to the door and said something to a servant in the hall.

In a few moments Finette made her appearance among them, and the door
was again shut and locked.

“Oh, miladi, are you ill again?” cried the deceitful French woman,
pretending the liveliest anxiety.

She went eagerly forward to Mrs. de Vere, and a swift, telegraphic
glance passed between the two unnoticed by the others.

“No, Finette, I am not ill. It is worse--far worse! My honor is
assailed! We are charged--you and I--with being the parties who
abducted that child from Verelands a week ago!”

“Oh, miladi!” recoiling in amazement.

“Do you not understand, Finette? My husband employed a detective to
find the child. He succeeded in doing so, and now declares that you
were the abductor, and that you were doing my bidding. Speak, Finette;
tell our accusers that we are innocent.”

Her burning hazel eyes seemed to shoot red lights of indignation and
fury, and clever Finette caught the clew at once.

“Oh, my mistress! who has dared accuse you?” she exclaimed, calculating
rapidly that if she cleared her mistress from this charge, unlimited
opportunities of blackmail lay before her in the future. She assumed
an appearance of virtuous indignation, and went on: “I will confess
all, miladi! I took the child away, indeed, but I swear it was not done
at your bidding. You suspected nothing; but Finette, in her devotion
to her mistress, took on herself the responsibility of the abduction.
Alas! it has failed, and I am _désolé_. You will never forgive me--you
will drive me from you!”

“Yes, Finette, I will send you away to-morrow. Your sin is too great
for me to pardon. Oh! how could you think to please me by so vile a
deed?” Camille exclaimed, angrily.

“Miladi, I beg ten thousand pardons! It was a mistake. I thought to
serve you, but I erred. I will go to-night. But, sir”--turning to her
master--“Mrs. de Vere had nothing to do with that--I swear it. Punish
me, but not her; she is innocent.”

He turned to Camille, and saw tears standing thick in her lovely eyes.

“You wronged me,” she said, sadly, reproachfully. He stood undecided,
doubting, and she went on, in the same sad voice: “I am innocent,
Norman. To prove it, I bid you bring the child back here to Verelands,
and no mother could be kinder to her child than I will be to your
pretty little protégée. I was mad with jealousy that night, and scarce
knew what I said. Whatever wild words I uttered, I take them all back
and crave your pardon.”

Her sweet humility, her tender yielding, did what all her defiance had
failed in--they melted the ice about his heart. One moment he gazed
in silence, then, springing to her side, clasped her closely to his
breast, exclaiming, gladly:

“Forgive me, darling, for my unjust suspicions! I will atone for them
by deeper devotion than in the past.”




CHAPTER XI.


Norman de Vere did not dream of the depths of duplicity hidden in his
wife’s nature. He believed that she was honest in the repentance she
professed, and accordingly he had Little Sweetheart brought back the
next day to the home from which she had been so rudely torn by the wily
French maid, whom Mrs. de Vere had now sent into brief exile to carry
out the plot by which she had saved her guilty mistress.

A great change had been wrought in the pretty child by her week with
the wretched, heartless old rag-picker. Beaten and starved, her
pretty clothes taken from her and replaced with filthy rags, she was
a pitiable object when she returned to Verelands, and the big blue
eyes staring out of the wan little face were bright with fever. She
was given a warm bath, clothed in new and pretty garments, and laid
in a little bed beside that of Norman’s mother. There she lay for
weary weeks, consumed by scarlet fever. Norman’s wife fled in terror
to a fashionable hotel, leaving her mother-in-law to nurse the little
invalid, quite ignoring all the protestations she had made so recently.

“I have never had the fever; I should die if I contracted it!” she
cried, wildly; and although Norman tried to explain to her that grown
people rarely contracted the disease, she paid no attention.

“I am going; you must come with me,” she said, imperiously.

“And desert my mother and the child?” he asked, reproachfully.

“Your first duty is to me,” she exclaimed, throwing her superb arms
about his neck and kissing him with pleading fondness.

She conquered, and carried him off in her train, although he said:

“I shall come back to Verelands every day to help my mother. I had
scarlet fever when I was a child, so I am not afraid of it.”

She insisted that he would carry the contagion in his clothes.

“I will always change them before entering your presence,” he said; and
then she saw that he was obstinately bent upon his purpose. No words of
hers, no blandishments, although he loved her dearly, could turn him
from what he conceived to be his duty.

She had to acquiesce with smiles, although she was furious with secret
rage. She dared not push him to the wall.

“But I will punish him for this in my own fashion,” she raved, wildly,
when alone, clinching her jeweled hands in impotent rage, hating and
loving Norman de Vere in one and the same moment, so wild was her
jealousy, so fierce her love.

“It _is_ his child! Who could doubt it after this?” she muttered. “For
naught else would he run so great a risk--for naught else would he defy
my wishes. He loves the little beggar--loved her mother, perhaps--and
out of some foolish remorse is trying to atone for his sin by devotion
to the child. Oh! how I hate the little wretch! I hope it may die of
the fever! If only I had the courage to stay and pretend to nurse it, I
should give it such careless attention it could not possibly live!”

But she was too great a coward to remain and take the risk of
contracting the fever. She thought of recalling Finette to take the
place of nurse to Sweetheart, but the fear of opposition to her plan
deterred her from carrying it into execution.

“Norman would not approve--might refuse my request. I must give that
up, and only wish the brat dead,” she muttered, shrinking sensitively
from the thought of committing a crime, and little dreaming how soon
those jeweled white hands would be stained crimson with human blood.




CHAPTER XII.


The gay season was just beginning at the fashionable hotel where the
De Veres had taken rooms, and Norman’s wife proved a great acquisition
to the social circle. Scores of Northerners were arriving every day,
fleeing from wintery blasts to the blue skies and warm airs of the
Southland, and in the brilliant coterie of fashion and intellect
combined she became at once a leader by right of her royal dower of
wealth, beauty, and fascination.

And her husband?

He veered back and forth between Verelands and his capricious wife.
All the time that he could snatch from the exacting Camille was spent
with his mother and the little child whose disease had assumed such a
malignant form, and whose life was wavering in a balance so evenly cast
that at any moment it might drop her into the yawning grave.

“Is it not sad, poor little one! to have been saved from the wrecked
train and the perils of the river, only to die like this?” Norman’s
mother said to him, with tears in her eyes, one day as they hovered
over the little couch where Sweetheart lay muttering in delirium, her
skin covered with patches of the scarlet eruption, her pretty golden
curls cropped short by the doctor’s orders, her heavy blue eyes half
shut and recognizing no one--strange contrast to the lovely, coquettish
little fairy whose baby wiles had won their way to the young man’s
heart.

“Mother!” he cried out, in a pained, incredulous tone, and she
answered, sadly:

“She is very ill, Norman. It is the malignant type of fever, and it
is but very seldom any one recovers from it. Doctor Hall is doing his
best, I know, but from his face to-day I do not believe he has much
hope.”

His handsome face grew pale, and by the pang that pierced his heart he
realized how dear the child had grown to him--dear as a little sister.
From his stricken heart there arose a silent prayer:

“Dear Lord, spare this sweet little life. Amen!”

“You have heard nothing of her friends yet, Norman?”

“Nothing,” he answered, huskily; then stood silent, looking down at
the poor little creature, who in her delirium was trying to sing her
favorite song, but the sweet loving words rose hoarse and tuneless from
the sore and swollen throat.

“It is very strange that we can hear nothing of her friends,” Mrs. de
Vere said, thoughtfully. “Poor little darling! she will have to lie in
an unnamed grave.”

“Don’t, mother--you hurt me,” the young man said, pleadingly.

He was scarcely more than a boy, and could not control his emotion.
With a long, deep sigh he added:

“I have so longed that she should live to be a dear little sister to
me. You know, mother, how I always wished for a sister’s love.”

“I thought you had got over that--since you married,” she said, with
some uneasiness.

Somehow the thought of his fondness for Sweetheart was not pleasant to
his mother. There hung over her always the dread of Camille’s jealous
anger. She said to herself:

“Foolish boy! He does not understand his wife, else he would not
display such fondness for the child she hates.”

But she dared not breathe her thoughts aloud, lest he should reproach
her for her share in his marriage. Her cue was silence.

He did not answer her half-questioning words save by a long, deep sigh,
and presently he went away from the darkened room and the suffering
child back to his beautiful wife, who was so deep in a flirtation
with a new-comer at the hotel that she barely nodded to Norman, and
did not think it worth her while to ask after the welfare of the sick
child. The only news she would have cared to hear would have been that
Sweetheart was dead.

The proud, passionate, undisciplined nature was bent now on punishing
Norman for every jealous pang she had suffered over innocent Little
Sweetheart. To wound him with her indifference, to torture him by the
smiles she gave to others, in this she found a bitter balm for the
indignity she felt she had suffered at his hands when he had taken
Sweetheart’s part against her--his wife.

He sat apart with sad eyes and watched the beautiful, vivid creature
as she coquetted with the flattered Englishman whose admiration was
plainly written on his face, and wondered if it could be true that she
really loved him, her boy-husband, or had she wearied of him long ago?
Did she chafe at the fetters that bound their two lives in one?

“I believe that in her heart she despises me; that she believes me a
miserable fortune-hunter, who loves her gold more than her charms,”
he said to himself, miserably, with a pang of shame so great that it
seemed to him he could almost have died to assure her of his innocence
of all mercenary designs upon her fortune.

She stole furtive glances at him, and she knew by his pale, stern face
that he was suffering intensely. Her beautiful lips curled into a smile
of triumph. Had she not vowed to pay him back?

“Let him suffer,” she said to herself, with cruel firmness; but by and
by, when a beautiful young girl sat down near Norman and began to talk
to him, she grew restless and ill at ease. She did not want him to be
consoled, so she soon found a pretext for dismissing her companion and
joining her husband and the fair girl who seemed to find such pleasure
in his company.

The young girl--an heiress from New York--smiled mischievously as Mrs.
de Vere came near. Her jealousy of her young husband was an open secret.

“Mrs. de Vere, I was just telling your husband that we are going to
have a real live lord here to-night,” she said, vivaciously.

“Indeed, Miss Spaulding? Why, how delightful! What is his name?”
exclaimed the lady, pretending great interest in the subject.

“He is Lord Stuart, and is said to possess vast estates in England.
He has engaged a suite of rooms here for a month, the landlord says.
All the girls are in ecstasies! There will be great fun seeing them
pullings caps for him, won’t there? But of course I shall be as bad as
any!” said Miss Spaulding, candidly.

Mrs. de Vere made up her mind that she would be before any of those
silly girls in winning the admiration of the titled Englishman. She
would show Norman de Vere how she could be adored by others. It would
teach him a needed lesson. When he began to realize that she could be
happy in the society of other men, his jealousy would be aroused--he
would be more careful how he offended her, lest he should lose her love.

She made her toilet with the greatest care for the ball-room that
night. Her dress was of dead-white silk; her ornaments were of emeralds
set in pearls. It was very effective, as she meant it should be. Every
one gazed at her admiringly as she swept gracefully into the ball-room,
leaning on the arm of her handsome husband, and carrying in her hand
the superb bouquet of white camellias he had brought her from Verelands
that day. There was a glow on her smooth cheek and a fire in her hazel
eyes, brought there by the praises he had just been whispering in her
ear.

Lord Stuart was there, looking on with the rest--a rather
common-looking man after all, and fifty if he was a day old. But he was
dressed in the extreme of English dude fashion, and was attracting his
full share of attention from title-hunters, Miss Spaulding foremost
among them, as she had declared she would be.

His lordship started with surprise and admiration when he saw Camille
de Vere in all her stately beauty.

“What a magnificent beauty!” he exclaimed, in some excitement; and it
was not long before he managed to secure an introduction to Mrs. de
Vere.

“Will you dance with me?” he asked; and she lifted her eyes and looked
at him with a puzzled gaze.

His voice sounded strangely familiar.

“But I certainly can not have met him before,” she decided; and she
acceded to his request with a winning smile.

“You have been abroad, Mrs. de Vere?” he asked, in a pause of the dance.

“Several times,” she replied; and she wondered to herself if she had
ever met him before.

Certainly there was something strangely familiar to her in his voice
and eyes.

But she did not intimate to him that such was the fact. Something
deterred her, for Camille de Vere shrunk from the memory of one past
episode in her life. If Lord Stuart belonged to that time, she would
not dare recall it to his mind.

“But I need not be afraid. It is so long ago, and all is so different
now. No one would know me for the same,” she said to herself, with a
sensation of keen relief, though her hands turned icy cold with the
bare memory of that never-to-be-forgotten time.




CHAPTER XIII.


Days passed, and no matter how angry it made the young girls at the
hotel, no one could deny that Lord Stuart admired the married coquette
more than any of the others. He was always to be found in Camille’s
train. He danced with her at the balls; he was only too proud to carry
her fan and her bouquet. If she had been free, she might have become
Lady Stuart at any time, said the gossips.

It was no wonder that every one was indignant with the red-haired
siren, for every single woman at the hotel had had hopes of his
lordship. It was a shame for them to be disappointed for the sake of a
married woman who had made a conquest of him simply to gratify her own
vanity. Her dear five hundred friends said hard things about her behind
her back--spiteful things that when they came to the ears of Norman de
Vere made him grind his white teeth in fury.

He had watched Camille’s course with bitter disapproval all these
weeks, but when he remonstrated with her, she flung her white arms
about him, vowing that she loved him only, that she was but amusing
herself with my lord to show those spiteful women her power.

“They are only angry because I have rivaled them, that is all,”
she said, caressing him fondly, for she began to think that she had
punished him enough.

He had suffered, and she knew it. Her wayward heart had been touched by
the look she had sometimes seen in his eyes. She began to relent--to
feel ashamed of herself.

“Camille, will you not come home now? The child is almost over the
fever. I do not think there can be any fear of infection now,” he said,
pleadingly.

She started and frowned. Her white arms fell from his neck.

“I thought you told me the child would die!” she cried, sharply.

“We feared so. The doctor had but little hope during those days when
Sweetheart lay in that deep stupor without taking food for so long.
But thanks to my mother’s excellent nursing, she survived the terrible
disease, and is now on the way to recovery.”

The frown on the beautiful face, half turned away from him, grew dark
and deep. There was murder in Camille’s heart.

“Oh, God! how I hate the little wretch!” she thought, feverishly;
and turning to him, she asked: “Have you never had any answer to the
advertisements you sent to the papers?”

“None,” he replied.

“And so it is quite settled that I am to be taxed with the little
foundling’s support!” she exclaimed, malevolently.

A deep-red flush came to the young man’s handsome face.

“No, Camille; the expense of the child’s maintenance will fall upon my
mother, who has a small income of her own, you know. It is her wish.”

“She is very foolish,” Camille said, bitterly.

Then she paused abruptly. She remembered that she had to keep up some
pretense of kindness toward the child, else Norman would discredit
Finette’s clever story by which she had saved her mistress.

She put on her sweetest smile, and promised that she would go back to
Verelands as soon as he wished.

“Of course I will keep away from the child’s apartments until she is
quite well, for I am horribly afraid of that fever,” she said. “But I
am heartily tired of the life here, and long to be at home, where I can
have more of your society, Norman. Indeed, you ought not to blame me
for amusing myself with other men, when you have been spending half of
your time at Verelands with your mother and Little Sweetheart.”

“Come back with me, and you shall not have to complain of any lack of
my society,” he replied, gayly; and she agreed to go that very day.

The ladies at the hotel were heartily glad to hear of her going, but
Lord Stuart declared that he was _désolé_.

“I shall haunt Verelands,” he declared.

“Oh, pray do not threaten anything so ghostly. I give you leave to call
in the orthodox fashion,” she replied, carelessly.

In truth, she did not care in the least whether she ever saw the
infatuated nobleman again. He had served her purpose--helped her to
punish Norman--and now she was ready to fling him aside like a worn-out
glove.

But her grace and beauty, her coquettish wiles, had thrown a glamour
over the mature man’s heart. He believed that she was weary of her
boy-husband; he pitied her and despised Norman de Vere. What right had
that boy to appropriate this peerless creature?

So strong was his passion that he began to indulge dreams of winning
her for his own--honorably, of course. Lord Stuart was the soul of
honor. But what was there to hinder a divorce? She no longer loved that
smooth-faced boy, and he fancied that she had shown signs that she
cared for himself.

Carried away by an irresistible spell, the nobleman thought of no
rights but his own. The withdrawal of Camille’s constant presence from
the hotel almost made him frantic. He began to make daily calls at
Verelands, but these brief glimpses of her did not satisfy his craving.
It occurred to him one day that it would be romantic to send her
flowers daily--flowers whose delicate petals should hide dainty notes
with love verses written within them.

Camille had great gardens full of flowers, but that did not matter to
Lord Stuart. Perhaps one flower from his hand would be dearer than all
the rest. He was mad enough to think so.

He spent a whole afternoon with the poets choosing an appropriate
verse to accompany the bouquet of deep-red roses he had selected. At
the witching hour of twilight he dispatched his valet, a handsome,
saturnine-looking fellow, with the fragrant offering.

Camille was walking that twilight hour by the river which skirted the
lawn at Verelands. She had left the house in a rage because her husband
had excused himself for an hour that he might spend some time with the
little invalid in his mother’s room.

Lord Stuart’s valet had never yet seen the lady his master adored.
Indeed, the valet was a reserved, unsociable fellow, and did not have
much to do with the other servants at the hotel. He spent the greater
part of his time in his master’s rooms attending to his wardrobe,
and he did not seem to take any interest in anything else, said the
aggrieved maids at the hotel. If he had not been so good-looking they
would not have minded it so much, but the fellow, with his black hair
and eyes and silky black beard, was handsome in an evil, morose sort of
way, and not one of them but would have been charmed if Robert Lacy had
noticed her. But he did not seem to care for any one. He was gloomy and
morose always, as if brooding over some secret trouble.

But when Robert Lacy heard it whispered at the hotel that his master
was in love, he woke up to a feeble sort of curiosity, coupled with
vexation. He had a good place as valet to a bachelor, and he felt that
he would be sorry indeed if the condition of affairs was changed. Life
could not be half so pleasant for him should Lord Stuart marry. When he
found out later on that his master was enamored of a married lady he
did not feel much easier in his mind. There was no telling what would
happen. They might take it into their heads to elope. That would be
quite as bad as a marriage.

He became possessed of an ardent curiosity to see the lady who
threatened to spoil the ease and comfort of his life with indulgent,
easy-going Lord Stuart.

But Mrs. de Vere had returned to Verelands. There was small chance for
Robert Lacy to see her now, so he hailed the errand to Verelands with
secret delight.

When he made his appearance at Verelands he refused to surrender the
magnificent bouquet to the servants. He told them, with unblushing
audacity, that his orders were to give the flowers to no one but the
lady herself.

Mrs. de Vere was walking in the park, they told him, and Robert Lacy
replied that he would find her himself. He turned from the curious
negro servants and went into the grounds that now, in the latter part
of November, were a wealth of tropical growth and flowers, with here
and there a statue gleaming whitely through the twilight gloom and the
luxuriant shrubbery.

Camille was walking by the river-bank. It looked weird and gloomy there
in the fast-fading light. Tall cypress-trees grew along its banks, and
the water, swollen by recent rains, rushed along with a sullen sound.
The proud, jealous woman stood leaning against the trunk of a tall
cypress-tree, thinking perhaps that the angry, brawling river typified
her feelings, when a step near by sent the quick blood to her face
with the thought that her husband had followed her there. She turned
with a swift smile of eager welcome, but recoiled in terror when she
saw beside her a tall, dark, saturnine-looking man with a bunch of red
roses in his hand. One swift glance into his face, and a cry of wild
alarm and horror issued from her lips.

The dark face of Robert Lacy had arisen like a ghost from her dead
past--that past from which she shrank with loathing indescribable.

As for the man, his recognition of her had been swift and
instantaneous, too. The red roses dropped from his hands as he flung
them up, and her name fell from his lips in accents of wolfish menace,
strangely blended with a sort of fierce, angry joy: “Camille!”

Mrs. de Vere fell upon her knees, and crouching, with uplifted hands,
wailed, tremulously: “Vanish, in the name of God!”

“Ha! ha! so you take me for a ghost, do you?” jeered Robert Lacy. He
bent down and looked into her frightened face and staring eyes with an
evil smile, continuing: “Well, it isn’t strange that you do, seeing
that the last time we met I was hanging on a gallows-tree, betrayed
into the hands of Judge Lynch by you, madame--by you, you false jade!
You went away with the rest and left me there for the buzzards to pick
my bones, while you fled so fast from the scene that perhaps you never
heard how one spectator--one man with a heart--cut me down and saved me
from my awful fate. My neck was not broken, and he brought me back to
life again. Then I fled from California with him, and have been in his
service ever since, with but one thought in my heart, and that was to
find my heartless wife and punish her for her perfidy!”

She crouched on the ground, muttering fearfully, with chattering teeth:

“You--you--are mistaken--in the person! I--I--never saw you before,
sir!”

Robert Lacy laughed most bitterly.

“That is a lie, madame!” he retorted, scornfully. “You recognized me
the moment you saw me, in spite of the twelve years that have passed
since those days in California when you loved me at first with a fierce
love that turned to a fierce hate--a hate that compassed my death, as
you thought. But I am alive, no thanks to you, Camille. And I have
found you at last. Should I not know that red head and those hazel eyes
in a thousand, madly as I once loved them--cruelly as I have hated them
all these years? Do not dare deny your identity to me! Get up and tell
me what you have done, and where you have been all those long years
when you believed that my bleached skeleton was swinging still in the
wind on the Californian hills!”

He bent threateningly toward her with so fierce an expression that she
dragged herself fearfully up to her feet, clinging with both hands to
the tree, while she muttered defiantly:

“I will tell you nothing, you miserable horse-thief, only that I am
sorry you are not dead as I believed! Go away and leave me. I have
naught to do with such as you!”

“We shall see,” he said. “Come, tell me, what you are doing here;
why are you so richly dressed? Did you go back to your father in
San Francisco and tell him that the handsome book-agent with whom
you eloped turned out to be a horse-thief and a desperado, that you
betrayed him to the vigilantes, and had him hanged? Did he forgive your
disobedience, commend your treachery, and take you back?”

“Hush!” she whispered, fearfully, glancing about her in the purple
twilight. “You will be overheard. Nor--Some one will be coming to look
for me.”

“You belong here, then?” hissed Robert Lacy, excitedly. “Perhaps you
mean to tell me that you are mistress of Verelands--that you are Mrs.
de Vere?”

“Oh! no--no! I do not belong here!” she cried out, wildly; but the
valet lifted a heavy hand and struck her in the face.

“Quit your lies, Camille Lacy!” he said, brutally. “You’ve known the
weight of that hand in the past, and you’ll feel it again if you don’t
shut up! Oh, yes, I know you, Mrs. de Vere,” mockingly, “and I’ll tell
you what I mean to do to punish you--you false, heartless wife! I
always meant to kill you on sight. I’ve carried a knife for your heart
for years, but I won’t use it just yet. I will take you to my heart
again. Ha! ha! I’ll show you to Lord Stuart, who sent me here to bring
you flowers, as the false wife who brought me to the gallows from which
he saved me. And this gentleman--this Mr. de Vere that you’ve married,
thinking yourself a widow--I’ll show you to him as a traitoress--a
woman who hounded her husband to death!” fiercely.

She lifted her bruised face from her hands and moaned:

“Spare me, for God’s sake! I am rich; I will divide the whole of my
fortune with you if you will only go away and leave me in peace.”

“I hate you! I would not forego my sweet revenge for the wealth of a
Rothschild or a Vanderbilt,” was the sullen, evilly triumphant reply,
and suddenly she flung herself upon him, whether in love or wrath it
was so swift he could not determine for a moment. In that fatal moment
of indecision Camille’s stealthy hand found the knife in his belt--the
knife he meant for her heart. She drew back her hand and struck
furiously once--twice--at his breast. The hot blood spurted into her
face as she recoiled and flung him from her--flung him so skillfully
that his limp form fell into the swollen river and went hurrying away
with the blood-stained tide.




CHAPTER XIV.


While that terrible scene was transpiring by the river, Norman de Vere
was sitting quietly in his mother’s room with pretty Little Sweetheart
on his knee, talking to her of the nice ride that the doctor said she
was to have to-morrow in the pretty pony-phaeton with his mother. The
wan, pathetic little face brightened into smiles at the prospect, for
the poor little one was very weary of her close confinement to the
house.

Norman was very glad to see a smile in the little invalid’s face again.
She had been so ill and weak that with the first return of health she
had become petulant and fretful, sobbing bitterly sometimes when Norman
had to tear himself away to rejoin his exacting wife, who begrudged
every moment spent with his little protégée.

“Why don’t the pritty yady tum to see me?” she had asked, wistfully,
more than once, and Mrs. de Vere had been obliged to explain to her
that Camille feared infection from the fever. The child was quite
intelligent, and comprehended so clearly that she asked no more for
the proud woman, only looked with wistful longing for Norman’s daily
visits, and the pretty gifts of toys that he always brought to amuse
her in her loneliness. She had one formula always for thanking him,
and that was the simple one, “I ’ove oo,” with which she had charmed
him on their first acquaintance. That she truly meant it was quite
evident from the confiding way in which it was said as she leaned her
dear little head against him and looked up at him with the beautiful
deep-blue eyes that looked so large now in the little pearl-fair face.
She loved Mrs. de Vere, her faithful, tender nurse, too, but not in
the absorbing way that she did Norman. When he was with her she seemed
to care for no one else, and his mother sighed even while the little
one’s devotion amused her, for she felt that this strange bond of
tenderness between her son and the child whose life he had saved only
lent color to Camille’s degrading suspicions of her husband. The mother
knew her son too well to share in these suspicions, and the knowledge
of them in her daughter-in-law’s breast was hard to bear.

“The child will live. What will be her future if her friends are never
found?” she said to herself after the crisis of the fever had passed,
and Sweetheart had lived instead of dying, as every one expected.

She prayed daily that Sweetheart’s friends might be found, for she did
not trust Camille’s protestations of regard for the child. She had not
been deceived like Norman by Finette’s clever lie. She comprehended all
Camille’s jealous hatred and deceit, yet not for worlds would she have
whispered her suspicions to Norman. No, let him go on living in his
Fool’s Paradise as long as it would last, she thought, sadly.

“And it will come to an end the sooner if this beautiful little one
remains here. His penchant for the child will drive Camille desperate,”
thought the clear-headed woman, and she prayed all the more earnestly
that Sweetheart’s people might be found.

All unconscious of the trouble she had brought into Verelands, Little
Sweetheart lavished a full heart’s affection on these two who were so
kind to her, never seeming to think of the past until this twilight
hour when she sat on Norman de Vere’s knee, with her golden head
against his breast.

There was a thoughtful expression on the sweet little face, And all at
once she murmured, pathetically:

“I want Mattie.”

Mother and son bent eagerly to hear, hoping to gain some clew to the
mystery that seemed to surround the little one.

“Do you mean the lady that was on the train with you?” asked the young
man.

“Yes--Mattie,” eagerly.

“Was she your mamma, dear?” Mrs. de Vere inquired.

“No, no!” said Sweetheart, quickly. “Not mamma; only Mattie!”

“Your nurse, perhaps?”

“Only des Mattie, dat’s all,” was the uncompromising reply; and
although they questioned her closely, they could get nothing definite
from her. She had only some vague ideas of a beautiful mamma, who
called her Sweetheart, and who taught her to sing some pretty little
song. The shock of all she had gone through had somehow blunted the
keenness of her memory, and after that one flash of recollection when
she had called for Mattie so eagerly, she said no more of the past, and
presently the tired head drooped to Norman’s arm and she slept heavily.

The young man laid her softly on the bed, kissed the sweet little
sleeping face, and turned to go.

“Mother, won’t you join us in the drawing-room this evening? I should
think Nance might sit awhile with Sweetheart,” he said.

“Perhaps,” she answered, evasively; and then he went away, wondering
uneasily whether Camille would be angry because he had stayed longer
than he had intended, for the simple reason that he had feared to put
the sleeping child out of his arms, lest she should be awakened.

To his relief, Camille was not yet in the drawing-room.

“She has not yet finished dressing for dinner,” he thought, and rushed
upstairs to make his own toilet for the eight-o’clock dinner. He
hurried some, but he looked wondrously handsome when he came down again.

“No Camille yet!” he exclaimed, in wonder; and it was several minutes
more before the queenly woman entered the room, elegantly attired
as usual, her eyes glittering with excitement, her cheeks even more
colorless than their usual wont.




CHAPTER XV.


“You are rather late,” the young man said, smilingly, as Camille came
up to him for a caress.

“I had a new novel, and I was so interested in it that I could scarcely
put it down to dress,” she replied, and just then the dinner-bell rang.

Norman gave his arm to his beautiful wife, and she went with him to the
elegant dining-room, where they dined _tête-à-tête_, for the elder Mrs.
de Vere had had her own meals served upstairs ever since she had been
nursing the little invalid.

Never had Norman’s proud, beautiful wife been more charming than
to-night. She was restless, brilliant, and more fond of her husband
than she had ever seemed before. Her hazel eyes shot gleams of passion
as they rested on the handsome face opposite her, and she seemed to
realize more fully than ever the strength of her love for the husband
who adored her, although he had had to bear so much at her capricious
hands.

Despite her jealousy, despite her caprice, Camille adored her young
husband; and as the thought of what had happened awhile ago rushed
over her mind, and she realized how nearly she had lost him, she did
not regret the terrible deed she had done. She rejoiced rather in the
cleverness with which she had rid herself of her terrible foe.

Now and then, in the pauses of their talk, there came to her a thought
of Robert Lacy, and she wondered if his dead body would ever be found.
Would Lord Stuart ever know what had become of his servant? for such
she had gathered from his words he was. She shuddered violently at
thought of the danger she had been in at the hotel. Well, it was all
over now. She was free--safe! The swirling river was swiftly bearing
away all evidence of her ghastly crime. Oh, God! how cruelly she had
hated the man whom she had sent to his death; yet she would not have
had his death on her hands could she have helped it.

“But there was no other way.” She shuddered over and over as she lay
sleepless by her beloved’s side through the long hours of the night,
for the horror of bloodshed was upon her. She would never sleep sweetly
again. She would wake trembling many a time with the sound of the river
soughing in her ears, to live over in memory that scene beneath the
cypress-trees; to see the dark, fiendish face of Robert Lacy; to feel
him struggle in her arms as she struck the knife into his breast; to
sicken as the hot blood spurted into her face and deluged her dress.
She would remember always how much water it had taken to wash the
stains away, and how guiltily she had stolen home in the twilight
gloom, thankful for once that Finette was gone, and that she had no
prying maid to take notice when she crept into her own room of the wet
and draggled clothes she wore, and of the shivering fit that seized her
as she fell on the floor, moaning faintly:

“Oh, God, I did not think I would ever be a murderess! I betrayed him
to the vigilantes, I know, but their hands drew the fatal rope, not
mine. I believed him dead so long that even his memory had grown dim
in my mind till I saw and knew him again. But I would not have killed
him if I could have bought him off. It was his own fault--brutal and
relentless ever, he brought his fate on himself. I--I--did not let
Finette murder that child, much as I hated her. It seemed too horrible.
But sin has fallen on me, anyway. Ah! now I know why Lord Stuart’s
face was so strangely familiar. He was in the crowd around the
gallows-tree. I wonder if he saw my face there? But, thank Heaven! no,
for I remember that I fled from the scene as if pursued by fiends, and
soon made good my escape to my father.”

From those wild mutterings she had to drag herself up to dress and meet
her husband, who was coming straight from the presence of innocent
Little Sweetheart, to meet the wife who had rushed wildly from that
terrible scene by the river, with blood-stained hands, to his embrace.

She spared no pains to make herself beautiful--she placed a strong
guard upon her feelings. Never had she been more charming, but she was
glad when the strain of the evening was over and she could put her head
down on her pillow in the friendly darkness and let the lying smile
fade from her lips.

The slow hours of the night wore on, bringing the morrow--the morrow,
and what?

Would the river give up its dead? Perhaps--but surely there could be no
clew connecting her with the secret of the murder. Why should she keep
on thinking of that? It was impossible.

Ah, if only she could sleep! If only to-morrow did not haunt her so! At
last, just before the faint dawn-light crept into the eastern sky, the
tired lids dropped and she slept heavily--so heavily that hours went by
unheeded and the sun was high when she awoke again. To-morrow was here,
and with it sensational tidings. A dead man had been found in the river
a mile below Verelands--a murdered man, and he had been identified as
Robert Lacy, the valet of Lord Stuart.

Norman himself told her this when she came down to a late breakfast,
and she asked eagerly, with an appearance of interest:

“Murdered? Who could have done it?”

“That is the strangest part of it. There is not the slightest clew to
the murderer. The man was a stranger here. He had made no friends nor
enemies in the place so far as known. An inquest will be held to-day,
and if any one knows anything it will probably come out there,” he said.

“What does Lord Stuart think? What does he say?” she inquired, eagerly.

“He thinks it may be a case of suicide. He says the man was morose and
unhappy. It would have been quite natural for him to tire of his life
and throw it away.”

“Of course,” she said.

Her heart throbbed with relief. She blessed Lord Stuart for his clever
thought.

“I am going now to attend the inquest,” Norman continued.

“Oh, pray do not! How can men have the heart to care for such horrible
things?” cried Camille.

But all her blandishments could not keep him away.

“I will come back as soon as possible and tell you all about it,” he
said, as he kissed her and went away.

Camille flung herself upon a sofa and waited in wild suspense for his
return. Presently some callers came in. They could talk of nothing but
the murder of Lord Stuart’s handsome valet. She was glad when they went
away. It was so hard to keep up an appearance of careless interest when
her head was burning and her feet and hands were like ice.

Oh! when would Norman come back? She longed yet dreaded for him to
return with the verdict of the coroner’s jury.

Suddenly he appeared before her, pale and with a troubled light in his
dark eyes.

“Camille, they have sent me for you. You are wanted as a witness at
the inquest,” he said, abruptly, and a low cry of alarm burst from her
ashen lips.

“But I know nothing about it--I have never even seen the man!” she
exclaimed, hoarsely.




CHAPTER XVI.


Norman de Vere looked eagerly into the beautiful, startled face before
him. It was ashen pale, and the hazel eyes were dilated with terror.

“Camille, try to be calm. No one accuses you of knowing anything about
it, but the coroner wishes to ask you a few questions--that is all,” he
said, reassuringly.

She tried to subdue her traitor nerves--to appear calm and disdainful.

“I--I refuse to appear before a vulgar crowd like that. How dare they
summon me?” she panted.

“Sit down, Camille, and I will tell you the truth. Your name has most
unfortunately been connected with this affair, because Lord Stuart
swears that the last time he saw his poor devil of a valet alive was
yesterday at twilight, when he sent him to Verelands to bring you some
flowers.”

“Flowers--to me! Oh, there is some mistake! I never received them. The
man did not come to Verelands.”

“Yes, the man came to Verelands, Camille. Two of our servants, to my
great surprise, were present at the inquest. They identified the corpse
as a man who came to Verelands yesterday at twilight with flowers for
you. He refused to give them into any hands but yours, and when they
told him you were walking in the grounds, he went in search of you. No
one ever saw him alive afterward unless you did.”

“Good heavens, Norman! I never saw the man in my life, either alive or
dead. Do they think I murdered him?”

“Certainly not, Camille. Pray do not get so excited. Then you did not
meet Robert Lacy anywhere in the grounds?”

“No, I did not. I only stayed out a few minutes. I came in and went to
reading. You know I told you, Norman, how interested I was in my book
last night.”

“Yes, I remember,” he said, in a strained voice.

She noticed it with a throb of fear at her heart. Why did he look at
her so strangely?

“I suppose I need not really go. You can tell them that I never saw the
man, can’t you, dear?” she pleaded, laying an entreating hand on his
coat-sleeve; but he answered almost impatiently:

“I’m afraid you must come with me, Camille, or they will send an
officer of the law for you. I promised I would bring you. You need not
feel so nervous over it. They will only ask you a few questions. Of
course, no one has any thought that you harmed the man. They are only
trying to find out who saw him last in life.”

With bitter reluctance she went with him, trying to steel her nerves to
the cruel ordeal.

Were they going to make her look upon the face of the dead man and
swear that he was unknown to her--that she had never seen him before?
Must she add perjury to the list of her sins?

When it was all over she wondered at the calmness with which she had
gone through it all. How had she ever done it. How had she borne so
unflinchingly the keen questions, the suspicious looks, and beaten down
all with that air of complete innocence? If for a moment her heart had
trembled within her on looking at the dead and ghastly face of the man
she had slain, there was no one to know. She took credit to herself
afterward for the hardihood with which she had denied everything,
making so strong an impression on the coroner’s jury that, after a very
brief deliberation, they brought in a verdict that Robert Lacy had
compassed his own death, first by stabbing with a knife, which Lord
Stuart affirmed he habitually carried on his person, and had made sure
of his work by casting himself into the river. Suicide, not a doubt of
it.




CHAPTER XVII.


Camille could not get home fast enough, she was so eager to go down
to the river and search for the fatal bouquet that Lord Stuart had
sent her. It had rushed over her suddenly that when Robert Lacy had
come upon her he had carried something in his hand--the flowers, of
course--and in his astonishment at seeing her they had fallen from his
grasp. They must be lying there now, and she must hasten to destroy
them before they were found.

She sprung hastily from the carriage, and went into the house with
eager footsteps.

“Norman, I am going upstairs to rest,” she said. “This affair has
completely unnerved me. To think that that poor man should have
destroyed himself when upon an errand to me. It is simply horrible. I
shall take some valerian and lie down for an hour. And you, I suppose,
will go and sit awhile with your mother and the little invalid?”

“Yes,” he replied, mechanically, and they went upstairs arm in arm.
Then they paused, for Camille had put up her face to be kissed.

He stooped and pressed his lips gently to hers.

“I am sorry you are so unnerved. Do not forget to take the valerian,
dear,” he said, and held her in his arms tenderly for a moment.

If she had known that this was the last, last time they would hold her,
would she have been so impatient to be gone?

But she could think of nothing but the tell-tale flowers lying on the
river-bank ready to betray her at any moment. She felt as if she could
fly to the spot.

She turned quickly from him and sought her own apartments, but she only
remained long enough to make sure that he had entered his mother’s room
ere she fled from the house, as if driven by pursuing fiends, to the
river-bank.

Then ensued a frenzied search for Lord Stuart’s flowers--a hopeless
search--under the shade of the dark cypress-trees, for the tokens of
Robert Lacy’s presence here that might betray her crime.

Camille flung herself at last upon her knees, crawling about in the
long grass, peering here and there with pitiful intentness for the
missing flowers. She did not hear a light, quick step coming toward
her. The murmur of the river drowned every sound. She did not feel the
glance of the dark eyes fastened upon her in a kind of horror. She
believed herself utterly alone in this secluded spot. The Verelands
grounds were private.

“Good heavens! what if some one has found it!” she muttered, fearfully.
“But, no, it must be here; or if any one had found it, I should have
heard of it from Norman. It is here somewhere.” She continued groping
about on her hands and knees until all at once she came upon a little
pool of blood in the damp grass. “Blood!” she cried, in a startled tone
of horror, and fell to work dipping water from the river in her jeweled
hands and flinging it on the crimson spot till the clear water mingled
with the gory stains and flowed away in a tiny stream through the
grass. Then Camille began to collect handfuls of dead leaves which she
flung hurriedly on the fatal spot. All the while her face and actions
were so full of guilty consciousness that the unseen watcher behind a
neighboring tree gazed and listened appalled.

She paused at last in her frenzied search, and muttered:

“What am I to do? I can not find it, yet it must be here. Oh, God, how
wicked I feel! Why do I keep thinking of Lady Macbeth washing her hands
and crying: ‘Out, out, damned spot!’ He might have been alive now, if
he would have let me make terms with him, the brutal wretch! for the
keeping of that hideous secret. Oh, God! his dead face will always
haunt me; but there was no other way--no other way!”

She sprung to her feet, wringing her hands despairingly.

“I can not find it. Pray Heaven no one else will; for I can stay no
longer--I must go. My husband will be seeking me. He must find me at
home--he must not suspect this!”

She caught up her pretty beaded wrap, that had fallen in a glittering
heap on the grass, flung it about her shoulders, turned to go, then
recoiled with a piercing cry.

“Norman!”

For it was her husband who had come upon her in the solitude where she
groped wildly for the missing flowers--her husband who had been gazing
in horror at the pale, distorted features of the guilty woman--who
had listened in shocked silence to the utterances by which she had
convicted herself of her terrible sin. It came upon her with a shock
like that of doom that Norman knew all her guilty secret--that he had
been a witness of her frenzied search and her bitter disappointment.

So terrible was the shock that Camille thought she was going to fall
down dead at her husband’s feet, slain by shame and despair at her own
ignominy.

But her heart kept beating on, though wildly and tumultuously. Her
trembling limbs still upheld her, and by degrees, as he forbore to
speak, some of her native audacity returned to her. She determined to
make one bold effort to regain lost ground.

She lifted her drooping lids, gazed at him appealingly, and cried:

“Oh, Norman, how you startled me! I--I--did not know you were here! I
have lost one of my diamond rings--the prettiest one I had--and I’ve
been searching for it everywhere. You haven’t seen it, have you, dear?”




CHAPTER XVIII.


Camille waited breathlessly for her husband’s answer. After a moment’s
silence it came, sternly, yet with infinite sadness:

“Camille, have pity on your immortal soul, and do not blacken it
further by such terrible perjuries! You have lost no ring. You were
searching for the bouquet that Robert Lacy brought to you at this spot
yesterday--the bouquet that I found when I came back this morning to
escort you to the inquest.”

“You--you!” she almost shrieked.

“Be quiet, unless you wish to draw listeners to the spot,” he said,
sharply. “Yes, I found the flowers, Camille. When I heard the evidence
at the inquest I wondered what had become of the flowers Lord Stuart
had sent you. I thought they would form an important link in the chain
of evidence. Some instinct drove me to search for them on my way home.
I found them. There were clots of blood on the green leaves redder than
the fading red roses, and the note among the flowers was dyed crimson,
too. In this cool and shady spot the stains were scarcely dry. I was
frightened, Camille. I took the bouquet home and hid it, and at the
inquest I dared not say one word about it. Yet I hoped that the man had
committed suicide--”

“Oh, he did--I swear he--” Camille interrupted, eagerly; but he frowned
her coldly down.

“Hush! denials are vain! By your own lips you stand convicted of your
guilt. Almost as soon as I entered my mother’s room there came to me
a fear that some clew might have been left at this spot by which the
world might find out that Robert Lacy met his death at Verelands. With
a shrinking from the notoriety such knowledge would entail on the De
Veres, I hurriedly left the room and hastened here. You know the rest.”

“You spyed upon me! You did not make your presence known!” she
muttered, hoarsely.

“I was dazed with wonder and with horror. My feet refused to move, and
my tongue grew stiff as I realized the awful truth. I seemed at first
to be turned to stone by the horror of my discovery,” he answered, in a
slow, troubled voice, and in a minute he added: “Some one may come upon
us here. We will go back to the house, Camille. I must speak to you in
private.”

She pulled the small lace veil down over her face and followed him in
dead silence to the beautiful mansion among the trees.

He went to the library: she followed in dumb misery and despair. The
door was locked, and he pushed forward an easy-chair for her to sit
down. She sunk into it, glad to rest, for her limbs were trembling and
weak.

“Now tell me, Camille,” he said, sternly, “what was Robert Lacy to you
that you should take his life?”

She attempted to deny the accusation, but he would not permit her to do
so.

“I heard you confess your guilt when you thought yourself alone,” he
said. “You said that if he would have made terms for the keeping a
secret, you would have spared him, but that there was no other way.”

She sat silent and sullen, feeling her doom sealed.

“Shall I tell you what my suspicions are, Camille?” he asked, after a
moment’s pause.

She nodded without looking up at his white, awfully stern face, and he
continued:

“You had been carrying on with Lord Stuart a flirtation more shameless
than I suspected, and this valet became cognizant of the truth and
threatened you with exposure. To save your good name you murdered him.
Hush! do not perjure yourself with useless denials. I shall not betray
you. I will keep your hideous secret for the sake of the love I had for
you in the past.”

“Oh, my God, do not desert me, Norman! I am innocent! Lord Stuart will
tell you that it was the most harmless flirtation,” she cried, in
terror and entreaty.

He unlocked a drawer and took out a bouquet of faded red roses with
their awful stains, shuddering as he touched them. From among them he
took out a sheet of blood-dyed paper on which was the crest of a noble
house. Unfolding the paper, he said:

“I can not believe, Camille, that any man would dare write such lines
as these to a married woman unless there was some secret guilty
consciousness between them.”

He read aloud, in tones vibrant with scorn:

    “‘Ah! one thing worth beginning,
    One thread in life worth spinning;
    Ah, sweet, one sin worth sinning
        With all the whole soul’s will.
    To lull you till one stilled you,
    To kiss you till one killed you,
    To feed you till one filled you,
        Sweet lips, if love could fill!’”

He paused, and she cried out, passionately:

“How dared he? I gave him no cause for this insult.”

A smile of bitter scorn and anger crossed his deathly pale face as he
said:

“Untrue wife and guilty woman, we must part! You have slain all love
between us by your sins. The murder of Robert Lacy I will never betray,
but in order that the world may have an excuse for the divorce I shall
procure from you, I shall publicly chastise Lord Stuart to-night. In a
few hours I shall leave Verelands. I presume my mother will accompany
me. Our divorce I will manage with as little scandal as possible for
both our sakes.” He bowed, and, without giving her a chance to reply,
abruptly quitted the room.




CHAPTER XIX.


Left alone by her angry, outraged husband, Camille flung out of her
chair and dragged herself upstairs to her own room. There she locked
the door and threw herself down upon the bed in tearless despair.

Hours passed over her head, and still she lay there mute and still as
though stunned by the awful shock she had received. The dainty bonnet,
now crushed and spoiled where it was pressed upon the pillow, still
adorned her head, the jetted wrap clung about her regal shoulders. She
had removed nothing; she had thought of nothing save the awful fact
that the husband she loved in her jealous, tigress fashion had found
her out in her sin, and was going to put her away from him forever.
She lay there a long, long time so dazed and wretched that she was
conscious of but one thought--a sick longing to die at once and be out
of her horrible trouble.

At last her cramped and uncomfortable position began to make itself
felt in tired and aching limbs, recalling her to bodily consciousness.
Rising slowly to a sitting posture, she flung off the bonnet and wrap,
and drew out the pins from her tawny tresses, letting them fall loosely
on her shoulders.

A strange sense of desolation, of friendlessness, stole over her,
as her heavy eyes roved about the room. Out of all her fashionable
acquaintances she had no bosom friend, no one to turn to in this
terrible hour. She thought for an instant of her mother-in-law, then
a shamed consciousness stole over her that she had taken no pains to
retain the love of that good woman since she had married her son. She
could not look to her for consolation.

Suddenly a new idea presented itself to her mind.

“Finette!”

The French maid had, in many respects, been to her a trusted friend
as well as a servant. She was clever and crafty, and Camille had
bitterly missed her since she had gone into a temporary exile with the
understanding that she should be recalled as soon as her mistress could
cajole Norman de Vere into willingness for her return.

“Oh! if Finette were only here, she would advise me what to do--she
might suggest something,” the unhappy woman muttered; and with the
thought a tiny little ray of hope began to flicker into life within her
breast. She continued: “I will send for my maid. I need not ask his
permission now. I have a right to claim the presence of my best friend
in this dark hour.”

She crossed to a small writing-table, and, sitting down, hastily
scrawled a note in French to Finette. Sealing and addressing the
envelope to an address in Jacksonville, she touched a bell, and in a
few minutes it was answered by Nancy, the house-maid.

“Take this letter down to Sam and tell him to deliver it immediately,”
she said, curtly; then, as Nancy stared in surprise at her heavy eyes
and colorless cheeks, she slammed the door quickly in her face.

The house-maid went down to the errand-boy, and dispatched him on his
mission with the remark:

“You better make dem black legs fly, too, ’cause madame’s in a towerin’
rage, her face as white as snow, her eyes a-blazin’, and her hair
hangin’ down her back all tangled up like she been a-tearin’ of it out
by de han’fuls. ’Spect dat’s why she done sent for Mamzellie Frenchy
to come and fix it up in style like she useter.”




CHAPTER XX.


It seemed to Camille that she would go frantic with suspense, it was so
long before Finette came.

Never had the thin, sallow face and beady black eyes of the French maid
looked so welcome.

“Finette, I am in bitter trouble. I sent for you to come back in
defiance of my husband’s wishes, for I shall need your help--if,
indeed, there is any help for me,” she said, quickly.

Finette protested that she was ready to go to the ends of the earth to
serve her generous mistress.

“I will tell you all my trouble,” said Camille. “I stayed at the Hotel
Française while my husband’s protégée was ill with scarlet fever. There
was a nobleman there, Lord Stuart. He seemed to admire me very much,
and paid me more attention than any other lady there. We became great
friends. I own I flirted with Lord Stuart, but it was an innocent
affair--nothing culpable, I vow.”

“I understand. But m’sieur became jealous,” Finette said,
intelligently, as her mistress paused.

“Exactly, Finette. We had a stormy interview to-day. My husband accused
me of the worst. He swore that he would chastise Lord Stuart to-night
in order to publish my alleged disgrace, and that afterward he would
take steps to procure a divorce from me.”

“And miladi--she is against the divorce?” asked the maid.

“How can you ask such a question, Finette? Surely you know I love him
more than life itself. If I lose him I shall die.”

Finette looked with polite cynicism at the burning dark eyes in the
marble-white face. She did not believe that any one was likely to die
for love. She had read Shakespeare:

    “Men have died and worms have eaten them,
    But not for love.”

“But, then, what can you do with that silly boy?” she said, curtly.

“That is for you to tell me. I depend upon you, Finette, to help me,
you are so worldly wise, so clever. Oh, try to keep him from getting a
divorce, and I will make you rich, Finette!”

“If madame would take my advice she would jump at the divorce from that
proud and silly boy--she would marry the nobleman,” insinuatingly.

“Finette, you are stupid, you are ridiculous! Do I not tell you I adore
Norman de Vere? I want you to help me regain his love and ward off
a divorce, not to advise me to marry some one else!” Camille cried,
stamping her dainty foot in sudden fury.

Finette smiled a little contemptuously, but with a few well-chosen
words she smoothed the beauty’s ruffled feathers, and inspired her with
some degree of hope.

“Now, let me do up your hair, and I will try to think how I can help
you,” she said.

She brushed and arranged the long, wavy red hair with deft fingers, her
fertile French brain busy.

“You are sure, miladi, you have told me all the cause of disagreement?”

“Yes,” unblushingly.

“Monsieur will not believe you are innocent?”

“No; he is so furious with anger, so blinded with jealousy, he will not
listen to one word.”

“And he will sue for a divorce on grounds of a guilty flirtation with
milord?”

“Yes.”

“You will plead not guilty?”

“Of course.”

“Then you will file one counter-charge against _votre
mari_--infidelity, of course, and cruel outrage, bringing dat
child--dat illegitimate--under your roof, refusal to take it away,
brutal disregard of your tender feelings,” Finette mused, softly; and
there was silence for a few moments.

Then Camille said, petulantly:

“But I do not see how that is to prevent the divorce. I--I--do not want
to villify my husband publicly. I would rather make up our quarrel
quietly. I have been hard upon him always. I can see that now, and I
can hardly blame him for resenting it at last. Oh, God! I will humble
myself in the dust at his feet--I will hear anything rather than to be
put away from him forever.”

“Even to a temporary separation?” Finette hazarded.

“Even that--so it should be temporary alone,” agreed Camille.

“Then, miladi, I think we can manage it.”

“How?”

“You must write m’sieur a letter. Plead all your love and innocence.
Tell him you will consent to a separation, but not a divorce. Threaten
to make a scandal about the child, and blacken his name unless he
agrees to your terms. You know his family pride. He will shrink from
exposure--he will agree to your terms.”

“Clever Finette! Oh, what a brain you have! But after--what then?”

“We will go abroad, you and I. We will let your boy-husband severely
alone for a little while. He adored you once--he will not forget you.
The scandal will die out, and you will lead a nun’s life. He will be
touched, sorry; he will hear of you at last breaking your heart in
seclusion for him, and, _voilà!_ there will be a reconciliation.”

Finette had poured out those sentences excitedly, with a mixture of
French gestures and phrases impossible to translate. Camille listened
breathlessly, her eyes on fire, her cheeks aglow.

“Oh, you give me new hope, you clever creature! Only help me to bring
it about as you say, and I will make you rich!” she repeated, appealing
to the maid’s ruling passion.




CHAPTER XXI.


“But, Norman, you will forgive her. Surely it can not be so bad as you
think. These flirtations of married women are so distressingly common
in high society, and Camille is too proud to run any risk of her good
name. Besides, she loves you.”

Mrs. de Vere looked distressfully into the white, drawn face of her
handsome son as she pleaded eagerly for Camille, but by the way in
which he shook his head she knew it was all in vain.

He had confided to her the story of the flirtation with Lord Stuart and
his resolution to have a divorce, and the gentle woman had been shocked
and incredulous. She knew all Camille’s faults and follies, but she did
not think the wife had done sufficient wrong to be put away from her
husband.

“Think better of it, Norman. You were not wont to be so stern and
unforgiving. Camille has been imprudent perhaps, but not criminal,
I am sure,” she kept on; and her son was compelled to see that she
disapproved of his resolve. He sighed and resigned himself to bear it.
He could not betray Camille’s hideous secret--not even to his mother.

He sat there some time pale, silent, and abstracted, without noticing
the pretty gambols of Sweetheart, who was rapidly regaining strength
and spirits. As he sat there, the child’s sweet, familiar little song
fell unheeded on his ears:

    “Yittle Sweet’art, tum and tiss me,
      Whisper to me sweet an’ low,
    Tell me yat oor ’art will miss me,
      As I wander to and fro.”

“Be quiet, dear. Norman does not feel well,” the mother said, gently.

Sweetheart ran to his knee, and stood very quietly, peering up into his
face with her large, wondering blue eyes.

“Sweet’art sorry oo sick,” she said, cooingly, wistfully; and with a
sigh he lifted her up in his arms.

“Poor little angel! I wonder if you will ever grow up to be cruel,
false, and wicked as some of your sex?” he muttered.

“No,” she replied, shaking her bright little head intelligently, as if
she understood every word. Then she slid down from his lap, and ran to
chase her little spotted kitten around the room.

Norman forgot her in an instant, and returned to his wretched thoughts.

Presently there was a light but decided tap upon the door.

Mrs. de Vere colored with surprise and displeasure when she met the
impudent, leering gaze of the discharged French maid.

“Nance told me I sall find m’sieur with you,” she said, her keen,
serpent-like eyes peering past Mrs. de Vere into the room. She scowled
at Sweetheart and the kitten, then pushed past Mrs. de Vere and went up
to her son.

“My mistress sends you dis lettaire,” she said; and as Norman took the
scented envelope into his hand she flounced out of the room.

Norman tore off the covering of the letter and began to read.

His mother sat waiting anxiously. She guessed that Camille had sent
some passionate petition for pity and pardon to the husband she loved.
She prayed silently that it would melt his heart.

Mrs. de Vere was a proud woman. She could not endure to think of the
notoriety that must inevitably attend upon her son’s divorce. She
pitied Camille, whose caprices had brought her to this shameful pass.

She saw a tempest of emotion sweep over Norman’s darkly handsome face.
It grew alternately pale and crimson, the lips worked with passion, the
dark eyes shot gleams of fire.

He finished at last, and flung the letter into his mother’s lap.




CHAPTER XXII.


Camille had written from the dictation of the infamous French maid. She
had alternately implored and threatened, vowing that Norman’s little
protégée should serve her turn to point an infamous charge against him
if he persevered in his resolve to procure a divorce.

The delicate cheek of the matron flushed indignantly as her dark eyes
traveled over the paper. Meanwhile, the observant child had secured the
envelope, which had fluttered to the floor, and sitting down, she cut
it into bits with her tiny scissors. She waited silently but patiently
for the letter, turning her blue eyes with bird-like eagerness toward
the reader. When at last Mrs. de Vere finished and handed it back to
her son, and he crumpled it in his hand and flung it disdainfully from
him, Sweetheart pounced upon it unnoticed and sat down to destroy it
with the aid of her little scissors.

She spread out the pretty pink sheet, but the delicate fragrance
exhaling from it arrested her olfactories, and after holding it
pensively to her nose a moment, she concluded not to immolate it yet;
so, quite unobserved by her elders, she crossed the room to her box of
toys, and hid Camille’s letter among the leaves of a picture-book.

Mother and son stood looking at each other in wordless dismay,
unmindful of the child at her play. Neither could bear to speak.

At last the mother said, sadly:

“You see now that you must give it up, Norman. You can not drag our
proud old name through the mire. She will consent to a separation, she
says. Will not that content you?”

“No,” he replied, bitterly.

“But, Norman, this is horrible! Will you not think of me? How can I
bear it that this shame should fall on you and on the proud name that
was your father’s pride? Have pity on my gray hairs,” she faltered.

“Mother, you torture me,” he cried, for it seemed most cruel that she
should misjudge him--should deem him careless of her happiness. But he
could not tell her the truth. He must bear his pain in silence.

She went on, pleadingly:

“I am old. I should not live long to bear the burden of shame; but,
Norman, think of that sweet and lovely little child. The mystery that
surrounds her may never be penetrated, and this horrible scandal, if
promulgated, may cast an ineffaceable blight upon her future. Think of
all these things, Norman, before you proceed further.”

He was thinking of them. The white agony of his face showed it. In the
face of his despair he silently wished himself dead and at rest from
the war of emotions raging within him.

That he must break with Camille he knew. Her sin had placed an
insurmountable barrier between their lives.

He would gladly have parted with her without giving cause for scandal,
but it was impossible. The curious world must have reasons or it would
make them. Better they should say he was jealous--unreasonably jealous,
of Lord Stuart than that there was some guilty secret hidden behind the
death of Robert Lacy, who had carried flowers to Camille the last hour
of his life. Her safety hung in the balance. Between her two sins he
must choose the lesser for her own sake, for part they must. The mad,
feverish love he had borne Camille was dead and cold. It had fallen
down in ruins in the moment when his appalled ears had heard her own
lips admit her guilt.

He owed it to his mother’s gray hairs to save her from shame, and no
less to Sweetheart yonder in her innocent youth and helplessness. What
under heaven was he to do?

The sad, anxious voice of the mother broke in again:

“Norman, if you feel that you can not live longer with your wife,
why not consent to a separation, as she wishes? Put off the thought
of divorce. Who knows but that in the future you may learn she was
innocent? Then there may be a reconciliation.”

“Mother, you madden me!” he cried, hoarsely. He knew how vain was that
hope.

But he began to think seriously of her words. Might it not be best to
cut loose quietly as possible from his guilty wife for the sake of his
mother and Sweetheart?

His heavy eyes wandered to the child who was playing with her kitten
in sweet unconsciousness. A deep sense of his responsibility suddenly
overwhelmed him. He had saved her life, and it had been thrown on his
hands in all its sweet helplessness. He would be answerable for her
future.

He sat thinking, miserably, intently, his mother watching with anxious
eyes. Suddenly he spoke:

“Mother, you comprehend the cruel malignancy with which Camille means
to stain the name and future of this innocent child?”

“She will relent if you accede to her request, Norman.”

“I have come to a sudden but wise conclusion, mother. I know that the
child can expect no mercy from Camille’s cruel heart. I must send her
from me for her own good.”

“But where, Norman?”

“I will tell you, mother. In the wreck with me--indeed, the only person
saved with Sweetheart and myself--was a man, a commercial traveler,
named George Hinton. He took a strange fancy to my little protégée, and
begged to have her if her friends were not discovered. He was a married
man with a small family--two boys, and a girl of seven who longed for a
sister.”

“A good man, Norman?” anxiously.

“Rough, perhaps, but with a good heart, I am sure. He gave me his
address. His home is in a little Virginia town on the line of the
Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. Mother, what if you were to take Sweetheart
to him? Then you could satisfy yourself as to whether the Hintons would
be proper people with whom to leave the child. I would make them an
allowance for her support and education, of course. I should like it if
you could go very soon.”

“To-morrow?”

“Yes, if possible. We must go away from here for awhile, you know, dear
mother. You remember it was Camille’s money with which we improved
Verelands. Unless she decides to live here, the place must be rented
out until sufficient money is realized to repay the debt. Dearest
little mother, you know we are poor again, now. I shall have to work
for us both.”

“There is my little income. It is more than enough for me. All I can
spare shall go to help the Hintons if they take Sweetheart,” she said,
but her voice was hoarse with tears. How could she leave the dear old
home, and how could her son sit there and talk of it with that calm,
white face? It was cruel! He might have borne with Camille, if only for
his mother’s sake.

Hard thoughts of her son came to her for the first time in her life,
but she did not utter a single reproach. Perhaps it would all come
right soon, and she could come back to Verelands.

“You will want to answer your wife’s letter,” she said, looking around
for it; then she saw the fragments of the pink envelope strewing the
floor. “Naughty Little Sweetheart, you have cut it up with your toy
scissors!” she cried.

Sweetheart looked solemn and rueful over the detection of the mischief
she had wrought.




CHAPTER XXIII.


“It does not matter in the least, mother. I am glad Sweetheart
destroyed the infamous thing. I only wish she could blot it out from my
mind, too,” Norman said, impatiently.

He rose, shook himself--for he had been sitting still until he was
cramped and weary--and continued:

“I will not write to her, mother. I will ask you to deliver a message
to her. Say that I accept her terms--separation instead of divorce. It
will amount to the same thing in the end,” curtly. “For the rest, she
has her choice--to live at Verelands or rent it out. You and I will be
gone away--that is”--bitterly--“if you elect to follow the fortunes of
your erring son.”

“I shall go with you, dear. You are all I have, and I can not part with
you. I will carry your message to Camille; yet, poor soul, I pity her,
and I fear you are making a great mistake, my son,” she ventured.

But he went without a word.

When she saw Camille’s tears--when she heard her passionate
protestations of innocence, her wild prayers for her husband’s
pardon--Mrs. de Vere could not help but pity the passionate,
undisciplined creature. She spoke only the kindest words to her; she
promised her that in time she would win her husband’s heart back to
her, if it had not turned to ice.

“Only be prudent and good, Camille. Shun all other men and live only
for your husband, and all will come right,” she advised, in her
ignorance of Norman’s true reasons.

Camille clung to her, protesting passionate gratitude. Indeed, she was
eager to enlist her mother-in-law’s influence on her side.

“You will let me settle some money on you? I will be so glad to do
something to show my gratitude!” she pleaded; but Mrs. de Vere gently
declined the offer, and went back presently with the news that Camille
would leave Verelands in a few hours.

Norman received the news with icy calmness--calmness that filled his
mother with wonder. She knew how deeply he had loved his beautiful
bride, how patiently he had borne with her caprices and reproaches. Had
love failed at last under her ceaseless exactions, or was this the
calm of a terrible despair--

    “Despair that spurns atonement’s power?”

He made no comment on the news she brought.

“I shall stay at the Hotel Française to-night,” he said. “In the
morning I will come back to Verelands, and if you can get ready to go
with me we will go to Virginia and leave Sweetheart with the Hintons.
Then,” half bitterly, “the world will be all before us where to choose.
But I think I shall go to New York, for I must find work now. I shall
no longer be that ignoble thing--a man dependent on a rich wife.”

The bitterness of the closing words gave her a passing glimpse into the
pangs his pride had suffered in his marriage. She sighed, but did not
reply. She had the bitter memory always with her that she had helped
to forge his chains. Ah, if she only had it all to go over again, how
changed all would be! But the glitter of gold had blinded her to all
she should have known.

She went about her duties in a dazed, miserable fashion, unable to
see any light fringing the dark cloud that hung over Verelands. When
Camille, deathly pale and wretched-looking, came to bid her farewell,
she could not restrain her tears at the breaking up of their domestic
life.

“I am going abroad,” said Camille. “Finette goes with me. I had to take
her back because she is devoted to my interests, and is the truest
friend I have now. I will write to you, dear Mrs. de Vere, and you
shall always know where I am, so that if Norman relents, he will always
know where to find me.”

Mrs. de Vere was sorry for the desolate creature, in spite of her
glaring faults. She tried to impart some consolation to her, and if
Camille knew how vain her hopes were, she made no sign. She kept up a
faint pretense of clinging to hope.

“And as for the child, my dear, I believe you were all wrong about
that. Norman is going to send her away. There was another man saved
from the wreck who wanted Sweetheart very much, and she will be sent
to him,” said the elder lady, believing that this news would comfort
Camille very much.

It did, for she saw in it a concession to her prejudices, made by
Norman even while he pretended to defy her. She had rendered it
impossible for him to keep the child. She listened with silent
exultation.

“I have triumphed although driven away in disgrace, and I will yet
return to his heart and home. He has no real proof of my guilt, and
time will make his impressions fainter until they seem mere illusions,”
she muttered, as she turned away from the beautiful home in which she
had made such cruel havoc of Norman de Vere’s happiness.

Night fell darkly over the fairy-like home, and a strange, heavy
silence seemed to settle down about it. Toward ten o’clock the silence
was broken by a startling ring at the door-bell. When the door was
opened a group of men came in, bearing among them the unconscious form
of the master of the house.

Shrinking sensitively from scandal as he did, Norman de Vere could not
forego the chastisement of Lord Stuart. It must be done to lend color
to the cause of his parting from his wife.

Armed with a small whip, he had proceeded to the Hotel Française and
publicly lashed Lord Stuart, alleging his flirtation with Mrs. de Vere
as the cause. Lord Stuart drew a pistol and deliberately shot his
assailant.

Then he fled.

Norman de Vere’s wound was in his breast, narrowly missing the heart.
He was borne home to his anguished mother, and long weeks elapsed ere
he was well again. Meanwhile, Lord Stuart had never been apprehended.
Popular rumor declared that he had gone abroad and joined the false
wife of the man he had wronged.

It was spring before Norman’s physician agreed that he should quit
Jacksonville for the colder climate of New York, so much had his wound
and the long fever it caused enfeebled his frame. Heaven only knew what
the young man had suffered physically and mentally in that time. His
pain could only be measured by the depth of the love he had felt for
the woman who had proved so unworthy.

    “I lived, if that may be called life
      From which each charm of life has fled,
    Happiness gone, with hope and love--
      In all but breath already dead.”

While he lay suffering, an odd little letter had come to him from
Paris, from Lord Stuart:

    “My dear fellow, I hope you will forgive me for the suffering I
    caused you. My aim was bad. I only meant to give you a slight
    flesh wound in the shoulder, but I learn from American papers
    that you came near losing your life. I hope you will live.
    Camille was not worth the sacrifice of your strong young life.
    She is not with me, as I see it rumored in the papers. I have
    got over my fancy for her. I hear she is in London, but I do not
    know. I hope you will never make up your quarrel with her, for
    you are too good for such a woman.”

Camille had written, too, from London, begging to be allowed to return
and nurse her husband. Mrs. de Vere was compelled to write that her son
refused the offer.




CHAPTER XXIV.


“Sweetheart, will you go with me to the dance this evening?”

“I’ve promised to go with Frank--so there! And I wish, Tom Hinton, you
wouldn’t call me that babyish name, Sweetheart. I can’t bear it!”

“What then?” asked Tom Hinton, a dapper young man, with dry-goods clerk
written all over him too plainly to be mistaken.

“Why, Thea, of course,” said the beautiful golden-haired girl. “You
knew when I went away to school we made that name up out of Sweetheart.
I was called so by every one at school, and I want to be called so by
my home-folks, too.”

“Sweetheart is so--much sweeter. I like to call you that,” said the
young man, giving her a tender look.

“No matter, I won’t have it! Mind that, please,” the girl answered,
saucily tossing her long golden curls and pouting her ripe red lips in
a sort of disdain.

“What made you promise Frank? Didn’t you know perfectly well that I was
going to ask you?”

“Maybe I did, and maybe that’s the reason I asked Frank to ask me
first. Ha! ha!”

No words could describe the exquisite unconscious coquetry of the
girl’s looks and manner--coquetry blended with airy contempt of the
tenderness that shone in the man’s blue eyes--maidenhood is so cruel.

Tom Hinton’s face flushed deeply, and he chewed the ends of his small,
fair mustache uneasily.

“Do you mean that you prefer my brother to me?” he asked, angrily;
and Thea laughed again, and answered, with inexcusable slang for a
boarding-school miss:

“That’s about the size of it, Mr. Hinton.”

The young man regarded her wrathfully a moment, then answered with an
irrepressible sneer:

“Maybe you don’t know that Frank’s got a sweetheart already when you’re
throwing yourself at his head so boldly?”

The exquisite creature laughed again. She seemed fairly bubbling over
with mirth and gayety. Her blue and brilliant eyes sparkled with
mischief.

“Oh, yes, I know it, thank you,” she said, nodding her bright head with
a bird-like motion. “That’s the very reason I like him,” she continued.
“His heart is set on some one else, and he isn’t always making me sick
by talking love to me, as you have done, Tom Hinton, the whole three
weeks since I came back from school.”

“Oh, come, you needn’t pretend you don’t like to be made love to. All
girls do,” the young man answered, a little sulkily; but Thea fired up
in a minute, and answered with childish petulance:

“That’s a story. I don’t, for one. I like to go with young men and
have a good time, just as well as any other girl does, but if a fellow
begins to talk love to me--faugh! it makes me sick!” disdainfully.

Tom Hinton was watching her doubtfully. He did not half believe in
the indifference she professed. He believed it was more than half
coquetry--girlish coquetry--that invited pursuit.

“See here, Thea,” he said, half wistfully, half with a man’s masterful
air, “I don’t believe you mean half you say. If I did I should feel
mighty bad, I tell you, for I’ve got my heart set on you, and I made up
my mind as long as three years ago that I’d have you for my wife if I
could get you.”

Thea stared. Her short upper lip curled in scorn.

“Tom Hinton, you must be crazy! The idea of picking me out, when I was
only fourteen years old, for your wife! Well, I like your impudence!”
she ejaculated.

“I am glad you like it. I thought you would,” he answered, falling into
her mood of wicked banter. “Well, what do you say, my darling? Will you
marry me?” tenderly.

“Not to save your life, Tom Hinton!” answered she, heartlessly, darting
away.




CHAPTER XXV.


Thea West, for such was the pretty name the young girl had made out of
her pet name Sweetheart, bounced into the house and flung herself down
at the piano, leaving her discomfited lover alone on the porch of his
cottage home. In a minute a flood of music poured out through the open
windows, and the girl sung sweetly, saucily, cruelly:

    “The Laird of Cockpen, he’s proud an’ his great.
    His mind is ta’en up wi’ the things o’ the state;
    He wanted a wife his braw house to keep,
    But favor wi’ wooin’ was fashions to seek.

           *       *       *       *       *

    “He took the gray mare and rode cannilie--
    And rapped at the door o’ Clarverse-ha’ Lee,
    ’Gae tell Mistress Jean to come speedily ben;
    She’s wanted to speak wi’ the Laird o’ Cockpen.’

    “Mistress Jean, she was making the elder-flower wine;
    ‘An’ what brings the laird at sic a like time?’
    She put aff her apron and on her silk gown,
    Her mutch wi’ red ribbons, and gaed awa’ down.

    “And when she cam’ ben he bowed full low;
    And what was his errand he soon let her know.
    Amazed was the laird when the lady said ‘Na,’
    And wi’ a light curtsey she turned awa’.

    “Dumfoundered he was, but nae sigh did he gi’e;
    He mounted his mare and rode cannilie;
    And after he thought, as he gaed through the glen:
    ‘She’s daft to refuse the Laird of Cockpen!’”

The pert song was followed by a brilliant waltz, a march, a sonata,
then some sentimental songs. Evidently, Thea West was in the highest
spirits. No sympathy did the rejected suitor get from his heartless
lady-love. She had forgotten him long before he turned away from the
sound of her maddening melody and went back from his suburban home to
the chief dry-goods store in the village, where he was employed as
clerk, and where so many pretty faces smiled daily on the good-looking,
well-dressed young man that he could not help knowing that he was a
favorite beau--a knowledge that made Thea West’s _insouciant_ scorn
sting even more bitterly.

His proposal had had an undreamed-of listener--his sister Emmie, a
tall, rather pretty brunette of twenty years. The young lady had been
sitting at a vine-wreathed window, close to the porch, unnoticed
by anyone, and every word had plainly reached her ears. Her cheeks
crimsoned with mortification as she realized that Thea West had
rejected the hand of her elder brother, whom Emmie loved so dearly,
and of whom she was so proud, knowing well that there were a score of
girls in the village who would have gladly said yes to his offer. Beaus
were scarce and young girls plentiful in the town of Louisa.

“The pert thing! Refusing Tom, just as if he wasn’t ever so much too
good for her, and making fun of him into the bargain! I suppose it’s
because she’s dead in love with Frank, and he as good as engaged to
Maude Fitz, although it’s true he has hardly been near her since Thea
came home from Staunton. I suppose he’ll marry Thea and give Maude
the go-by now. I declare, I never will like Thea as well as I used
to, after this, and I’ll give her a piece of my mind, too, about her
boldness in asking Frank to take her to the party, and I think I’ll
give Charley McVey a hint about her carryings-on, as I fancy he was
beginning to get sweet on her, too,” Emmie muttered, irately, for
Charley McVey had been her favorite beau for some time, and it was here
that she suffered most deeply in her pride.

For thirteen years Thea West, as she was called by her own desire, had
been a well-beloved inmate of George Hinton’s home, petted by all,
and happy in their kindness. Mrs. de Vere had sent regularly a sum
sufficient for her maintenance, and when she was eleven years old had
directed that she should be sent to boarding-school at Staunton, a city
about twenty-five miles from where the Hintons lived.

Emmie had also attended the same school, but had graduated two years
before. Thea had spent all her vacations at the home of Uncle George,
as she called Mr. Hinton, and upon her graduation this summer had come
back there to stay.

She was seventeen years old now, and the cherubic beauty of her
childhood had fulfilled its rare promise. She was lovely in a bright,
bewitching fashion that carried all hearts by storm. Piquant features;
large sapphire-blue eyes with long, curling lashes of chestnut brown,
and slender, arched brows of the same lovely color; dimples; a skin
like the velvet petals of a tea-rose; an arch, red mouth; a wealth
of golden hair; a form divinely molded; feet and hands of the most
aristocratic beauty and delicacy--no wonder that the dazzled youth of
Louisa could look at no one else when she was by. Yet in no sense was
Thea a flirt, although her high spirits, her charming cordiality and
engaging frankness of manner, coupled with her striking beauty, had
begun to earn for her that unenviable reputation.

She was only a lovely, high-spirited, noble young girl, with strong
capabilities for enjoying life, and eager to do so--a fair type of
bright, happy maidenhood--

          “Young, innocent, gay,
    With the wild-rose of childhood yet warm on her cheek,
          And a spirit scarce calmed from its infantine play
    Into woman’s deep feeling.”

In the three weeks since Thea had been home from school, time had
passed very pleasantly. Parties and picnics had rapidly succeeded each
other in this charming Virginia town, and not one had Thea missed.
Withal, she had turned the heads of half the marriageable men in
town--a fact which afforded the careless child nothing but amusement.

She knew nothing of love, save from poetry and novels, and she had a
fearlessly open opinion that love was tiresome in real life. She did
not scruple to tell Tom Hinton that he was not half so nice as he had
been when she was only a little girl.

“And you brought me candy and nuts and raisins, and all the things that
Aunt Hester said were not good for little girls. You bring them still,
and I enjoy them, but not as much as if you didn’t talk nonsense to
me,” she said, candidly.

Emmie Hinton had always been fond of the girl, but she was in danger of
forgetting it now in her resentment over Tom’s rejection.

“As if it wasn’t really better than she had any right to expect, for
who knows who she is, anyhow?” ran on the tenor of her angry thoughts.
“She was found in a railway wreck, and she hasn’t even a name but the
one she made up herself out of a silly pet name. She can not have any
people that amount to much, or they would have answered some of the
advertisements papa says Mr. de Vere put into the papers. I wish he
would come and take her away. I--I--wish she had never come here!”
finally boo-hooed Emmie, spitefully, for she was growing miserably
uncertain over the tenure she had upon Charley McVey’s heart.

That night, when the girls were dressing to go to the dancing-party,
Emmie’s wrath broke out.

“Thea West, you ought to be ashamed of youself, asking a young man to
escort you to the dance. If no one asked you for your company, you
ought to stay at home.”

Thea was dodging behind Emmie’s shoulder, trying to see if she had tied
her blue sash properly over her airy white mull dress. She gave a gasp
of surprise.

“Oh, you needn’t pretend you didn’t!” Emmie continued, angrily, her
cheeks as red as the roses she was pinning on her corsage.

“Who says I did?” Thea asked, quickly.

“No matter; I happen to know that you asked Frank,” snapped Emmie. “I
should think you’d know Maude Fitz wouldn’t like it, and he as good as
engaged to her. Why, before you came from school they went everywhere
together. Now you keep him running after you all the time, the same as
if he were your beau.”

“Frank is the same as my brother. Maude knows that I didn’t think she’d
care,” Thea said, flushing, and keeping back two started tears that
wanted to fall.

Emmie had never scolded her before.

“I suppose Tom is the same as your brother, too, but he didn’t think so
this afternoon when he was asking you to marry him,” snapped Emmie.

She moved aside from the mirror, but Thea did not want it now. She had
forgotten about the sash.

“Did Tom tell you that?” she asked, in a low voice.

“No; I heard it. I was in the sitting-room window.”

“Well, what of it? Are you mad about that, Emmie?” in astonishment.

“No, I’m glad,” Emmie burst out, longing to punish the pretty, careless
thing. “You don’t think I’d want my brother Tom to marry a girl so poor
that she hadn’t any name nor any relations, but just seems to have
‘growed’ sort of like Topsy! No, indeed! I hope and pray my brothers
may marry their equals in life.”

Thea stood like a statue. Never before in her bright, careless life
had any reproach been flung at her for her misfortunes. She had held
herself as high as these Hintons with whom she had been raised. She had
never dreamed that she was not the equal of any one. Emmie’s barbed
thrust pierced deep.

She stood still, facing angry, jealous Emmie, the sweet, gay smile
fading like magic from the rosy lips, the rose-leaf bloom from the
dimpled cheeks, the sparkle from the deep-blue eyes. Not a word came
from her. She was catching her breath hard as if some one had struck
her a blow.

Suddenly, while Emmie stared at her, angry still, yet half ashamed of
her ignoble outburst, the girl turned swiftly and rushed from the room.
She flew down-stairs to the parlor, and Emmie followed her as far as
the hall.




CHAPTER XXVI.


Frank Hinton was walking up and down the pretty cottage parlor, all
ready for the dancing-party. He was a handsome young fellow, not small
and fair like his older brother, but tall and broad-shouldered, with
brown eyes and hair like Emmie, and a pretty silky mustache outlining
his upper lip. Frank was studying medicine, and expected soon to add M.
D. to his name.

As he walked up and down the small parlor’s length with his hands under
his coat-tails, Frank was indulging, like Hamlet, in a soliloquy:

“Deuce take it! I wonder if Maude feels cut up over this? I’m afraid I
certainly gave her cause to think I was serious in that quarter. Well,
I was, too, or thought I was. But Thea wasn’t grown then. The minute
I saw her when she got back from school, I knew it was all up with
Maude. Dear Little Sweetheart! I almost think it was mutual, too. How
plainly she shows her preference for me. And how furious it makes Tom.
He’s dead gone on her, I know, but it’s no use. He can have Maude if
he likes. Sweetheart’s mine, and I haven’t made myself a calf over her
like Tom and some other fellows either. I-- What’s that?”

There was a rush of feet down the slippery oil-cloth of the stairway,
the door was pushed violently open, and Thea West bounced into the room.

When she saw Frank standing there alone in the room, so handsome and
smiling, in his black evening-dress, with a rose in his button-hole,
her blue eyes flashed with returning fire. She ran up and laid
her slim, ringless white hand impetuously on his arm, demanding,
breathlessly:

“Frank Hinton, have you gone crazy like the rest, or can you listen to
what I’ve come to say?”

He saw at once that something had gone wrong, but he answered, lightly:

“Say on, Sweetheart.”

“It is only this,” said Thea. “I release you from your promise to take
me to the dance. You can go with Maude Fitz.”

“Up--on--my--word!” ejaculated the astonished young man.

“I--I--was only joking, Frank, when I asked you to go with me,”
pursued Thea. “You--you--didn’t think I was in earnest, did you,
Frank?” eagerly.

“Of course I thought so. You were, too. You don’t think you can throw
me over at this late hour, do you?” Frank laughed, and clasped his hand
over the slim one on his arm with quite an air of possession.

Thea flushed slightly. She made a feint of drawing the hand away.

“I’m not going with you. I--I--didn’t mean to go at first. It was only
fun. You know Maude wouldn’t like it. She mightn’t think I was just
like a sister to you, Frank.”

Frank Hinton flushed and held tight to her hand.

“What are you driving at, my dear?” he asked, a little roughly. “Of
course Maude won’t think you’re like my sister. She knows better. What
has she got to do with you and me, anyhow?”

“You’re as good as engaged to her, aren’t you, Frank?” a little
wistfully.

“Good heavens, no! I never thought of such a thing.”

“But Emmie says you are. And so maybe Maude might get jealous of me;
that’s all, Frank, only I’m in earnest; you can’t take me to the
dance,” nodding her bright head decidedly, and trying in earnest now to
pull away the hand he held so tightly.

But Frank tried to draw her closer to him, while he said, indignantly:

“I wish Emmie’d mind her own business, and look after Charley McVey
instead of me. I think he needs watching. I’m not engaged to Maude
Fitz, and never will be engaged to anybody unless it’s you, Little
Sweetheart.”

“Quit your joking; I don’t admire it,” Thea answered, a little shortly;
“and let go my hand, Frank Hinton. It don’t belong to you.”

“But mayn’t I have it, darling--say, mayn’t I have it?” whispered the
young man, eagerly, his eyes gleaming with sudden passion, his voice
vibrant with emotion that made her draw back further with a sort of
dawning terror, and exclaim in a scared voice:

“Let me go at once, I tell you. I’m not in the mood for fun. I can’t
bear it.”

Her face was deathly white, her blue eyes flashing, but he would not
let her go.

“This is no fun, but earnest,” he said, with sudden gravity. “Listen,
darling--I love you. Of course you know that already, but will you
love me in return--will you promise to be Frank’s little wife?”

The honest, manly tone left no room for doubt. Thea stared at him in
angry disgust.

“You are crazy, too--as crazy as Tom!” she cried, indignantly. “And
to think how I fooled myself! I loved you like a brother, and all the
while you had this foolishness in your mind. Why, Frank Hinton, I
wouldn’t marry a king--there now!”

“I know; but maybe you will marry me,” said the young fellow,
pleadingly. “I love you so dearly, Sweetheart, and I certainly thought
you encouraged me. You made so much of me--you seemed to enjoy being
with me so much, and--”

“Oh, hush!” she interrupted, eagerly. “I am sorry, Frank; indeed, I
am sorry, for now I see that you have deceived yourself. I am fond
of you--just as Emmie is, you know--that kind of a love; but if I
loved you that other way,” trippingly, “I--I--don’t think I should
make so much of you. I mean, I--I--don’t think I’d want you to guess
my--my--feelings,” blushing as if with some subtle perception of the
master-passion her innocent heart had never known.

“Go away, you miserable little flirt! I feel like I hated you!” Frank
cried, flinging the white hand roughly from him, and turning away in
bitter anger.




CHAPTER XXVII.


Thea did not wait for a second bidding from her indignant lover. She
ran hurriedly out of the open door, and in her haste almost fell over
Emmie, who had been listening outside. They both paused, and Thea cried
out, scornfully:

“So you’ve been listening again!”

“Anybody could hear that chose. You left the door open so that every
one could hear you triumph in rejecting another one of my brothers,”
Emmie answered, sulkily.

Frank came hastily to the door.

“Emmie, were you listening?” he asked, in surprise.

“The door was open; I couldn’t help hearing.”

“You might have coughed.”

“Yes; but she didn’t want to!” Thea cried, furiously. “She doesn’t
think it any disgrace to eavesdrop. She listened to-day when Tom asked
me--asked me--the same thing. Boo-hoo! oh, boo-hoo!” breaking into a
sudden storm of sobs.

“Don’t cry, dear; you’ll spoil your eyes for the dance,” Frank said,
kindly.

“You needn’t care if she cries them out!” snapped his sister.

“But I do,” said the young man. “And so Tom asked you, too, Thea?” he
said, with a short, mirthless laugh. “Well, did you tell him ‘No’?”

“Of course--the ungrateful little flirt! After all the Hintons had done
for her, too! Not that I think she’s half good enough for either of my
brothers, but--”

“Hush, Emmie! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” Frank said,
severely; and Thea, who was drying her eyes on a tiny lace
handkerchief, chimed in, reproachfully:

“I don’t think you ought to be mad, Emmie. I can’t see that I’ve done
anything wrong. Why, I thought Tom and Frank were my brothers--or just
as good--and I’d as soon thought of marrying my grandmother!”

“You never had any grandmother that anybody knows of, and it was an
honor to you for either of my brothers to offer to give you a name, as
you never had one of your own!” stormed resentful Emmie; but Frank put
his hand sternly over her mouth.

“Oh, for shame, Emmie! I would not have believed this of you!” he said,
sharply. “But I can see through it, and so can Thea, no doubt. It’s
not for Tom and me you’re taking up so angrily, it’s because you’re
jealous over Charley McVey! You think maybe she’ll cut you out with him
to-night.”

“I don’t--I--” Emmie began to splutter furiously, but a slight tinkle
at the door-bell made her start, then rush wildly upstairs.

She knew that Charley had come, according to his promise, to accompany
her to the dance.

Frank opened the door, holding a fold of Thea’s dress so that she
should not follow Emmie, lest the quarrel be renewed.

“Come in, Charley; walk into the parlor; Emmie’ll be down in a minute,”
he said; and as the young man disappeared he whispered, hurriedly:

“Go and bathe your face, Thea, and come along with me to the dance.
There’s no one else to go with you now. Emmie,” laughing a little,
“would tear your eyes out before she’d let you go with her and Charley.”

The bright face dimpled into a faint smile.

“I don’t want to. You needn’t tell her that he asked me first; but he
did,” she whispered, roguishly; then turning to the stairway, “I’m
going alone. It’s moonlight, and I’m not the least afraid.”

“You sha’n’t!”

“I will!”

“I’ll walk behind you!”

“You won’t!”

“Wait and see, that’s all,” said Frank Hinton, resolutely; and this,
after all, was the manner of their going.

After the first couple had got a square ahead, Thea darted out alone,
and after walking a few rods with her head high, glanced furtively
behind her; Frank was coming out of the gate.

Thea began to run. Then Frank ran a little, too. She slackened her pace
for fear of overtaking Emmie, and he slackened his too. At no time did
he approach her, but he kept her all the time within sight, and when
they reached the illuminated building where the party was to come off,
he chose to enter by her side. Afterward he left her severely alone, as
he saw that she desired him to do.

Tom was already there, looking “killing,” so some of the girls said, in
his elegant evening attire, with a tuberose in his button-hole. He was
a consummate little dandy, and a favorite with most of the girls, who
spent many a dollar that might have been saved, for the sake of leaning
over the counter of Brocade & Bromley and chatting with the agreeable
head clerk.

Tom frowned when beautiful Thea came in looking so charming in her
white mull and blue sash, with a string of white wax beads around
her bare, white neck, her exquisitely molded arms guiltless of all
adornment, save the narrow lace that edged the short sleeves. He
devoted himself assiduously to the other girls, and did not speak to
Thea the whole evening, a spiteful procedure which was copied by his
sister, so that by and by it began to be whispered among the guests
that “all the Hintons seemed to be mad with Thea West.”

Thea did not seem to mind it in the least. She was as gay as usual,
perhaps more so. She danced all the time and she talked incessantly.
Her blue eyes sparkled, her pink cheek glowed with excitement. She
flirted this time if never before, and she had a little group of
admirers about her all the time. Her one thought was to spite Emmie
Hinton for her unkindness, and when Charley McVey joined the group
about her she threw him some of her sweetest smiles and glances.

“Just to punish Emmie,” she said to herself. “Not the equal of the
Hintons, indeed! I’ll show her whether Charley thinks so or not.”

She knew very well that Charley had been longing to desert Emmie’s
standard and come over to hers for a week past, but for Emmie’s sake
she had held him at arm’s-length.

But now Thea was struggling with a hot and bitter resentment against
the girl she had heretofore loved so dearly. Emmie had wounded her
cruelly, and the impetuous girl vowed to herself that she would pay her
back.

So it was that Emmie saw with alarmed eyes her beloved join the train
of Thea’s admirers. She saw him dance with Thea three times, and when
they went into supper Thea was hanging on his arm.

In a perfect fury of secret anger and jealousy, Emmie managed to get
quite near them at the table. She was wild to hear what they were
talking about.

“Thea will be making up some dreadful story about me, of course,” she
thought, for, having entertained the young man on the way to the dance
with a recital of Thea’s shortcomings, she supposed the girl would
retaliate on the first opportunity.

But she was mistaken. Thea was only looking pretty and interested,
and stuffing her rosy mouth with goodies, which she seemed to enjoy
like a child. It was fickle, faithless Charley who was doing the
talking--telling Thea all about the base-ball game, and even offering
to take her to the next one.

Naughty Thea! She knew quite well that Emmie was very close, and that
she was eagerly “swallowing every word,” as she said to herself, and
there was no need of raising her voice ever so slightly; but she did,
so that several others beside Emmie heard the sweet girlish voice reply:

“Oh, thank you, Mr. McVey! I always enjoy seeing the game so much,
and I would be glad to go with you, but the truth is, I have another
engagement. Besides, I’m quite sure that Emmie expects you to take her
to see it. She has as good as told me so.”

       *       *       *       *       *

“And, mamma, it was all I could do to keep from catching hold of her
then and there and giving her a shaking!” cried Emmie, pouring her
sorrows into her mother’s ear a few hours later, when she had come home
with Tom from the dance, having had high words with faithless Charley
before she left.

“I told him at the door when he followed me out to see me home that I
did not desire the company of one who had taken me to the party and
then neglected me all the evening for the most outrageous flirt in the
world! So I pushed away his arm and called Tom to come with me home,”
she said, angrily, between her bitter sobs, for rankling jealousy had
stirred poor Emmie’s nature to its deepest depths of pain.

Mrs. Hinton had been confined to her bed several days with a sprained
ankle, and her husband being away from home, Emmie shared her mother’s
room at night, so she took advantage of her opportunity to relate the
whole story of Thea West’s transgressions.

“And there is this thing about it, mamma,” she added, as she undid the
rich masses of her thick brown hair and let it fall loosely about her
plump white shoulders, “either Thea West has got to leave this house or
I will leave it!”

“Oh, dear, oh, dear, I only wish your father was here to advise me!”
cried her mother, weakly.

“I told Tom the same thing as we were coming home, and he declared I
was quite right. He did not blame me for being so determined about it,”
pursued Emmie, who always domineered over her weak little mother.

“But, my dear, where is Thea to go, I should like for you to tell me?”
she said, with feeble remonstrance.

“To the De Veres, of course; the people papa got her from,” answered
Emmie, recklessly. “I’ll bet that man knows all about her, anyway, for
papa says, you remember, that Thea took to him the minute she opened
her eyes on the train that day, and of course if she had not known
him already she would have been timid and huffish as she was with the
others.”




CHAPTER XXVIII.


Verelands was looking its fairest that October morning when George
Hinton’s letter to Norman de Vere came into it like a thunder-clap
falling from a seemingly clear sky.

It was almost thirteen years ago that the De Veres had quitted their
beautiful home, with something almost akin to the sorrow of Adam and
Eve in leaving Eden, so dear was the old ancestral home to their
hearts. Leaving Sweetheart with the Hintons, they had journeyed
northward, the young man seeking a career in life, and the mother only
wishing to be near her son.

A wealthy tenant was soon found for Verelands, and the rent was
forwarded yearly to Camille’s lawyer to liquidate the amount she had
spent in improving the estate immediately following her marriage with
Norman.

At first there had come letters of protest from the banished wife, but
Norman had returned them to her without comment, and the rent continued
to be forwarded to her lawyer.

Now and then, too, as he began to prosper in the profession of
journalism, which he had chosen, he found means to add to the amount
sent to Camille, for the weight of his indebtedness to her weighed
sorely on his proud spirit.

“I shall never return to my old home until it is freed from that
hateful debt,” he had said many times to his mother, and she, with a
sigh, acquiesced. She had almost given up the hope now that Norman
would ever be reconciled to his wife, he turned so impatiently from all
her entreaties that he would pardon Camille, and more than once he had
mystified her with the strange answer:

“Mother, you see only upon the surface. It is most unfortunate for
both you and me. I see that you do not understand, and yet I can never
explain.”

Mrs. de Vere brooded half her time over those strange words, but she
could never see any reason in them.

“It is very true that I do not understand his hardness of heart toward
Camille. No one could,” she often said to herself, impatiently, for
it seemed to her that Camille had been sufficiently punished for her
thoughtless flirtation. “No one could ever make me believe that there
was any guilt in it. Camille was a pure woman,” she had said more than
once to her son, but he always answered firmly:

“I will not argue the point with you, mother.” If she persisted he
always left the room.

He did not know how often she was spurred on to fresh effort
by the frequent letters she received from her banished
daughter-in-law--letters whose passionate, piteous appeals brought
tears into her kind eyes. She forgot Camille’s faults, her caprices,
her jealousies, her arrogance of wealth, her thirst for admiration, in
pity for her genuine despair at the separation from her husband. At
first she begged Norman to read these letters. She thought they must
surely soften his heart.

He refused her request. He expressed a stern displeasure at the
correspondence.

“If you persist in keeping up communication with that wicked woman, be
good enough not to force the fact upon my notice, mother,” he said,
bitterly.

Camille stayed abroad three years with Finette, but to the amazement of
the wily maid, her plot did not succeed. The indignant boy-husband did
not relent, Camille remained unforgiven.

“There must be more than she confessed to me, or that foolish boy
would have made it up with her long ago. I will watch closely. She has
deceived me; she has not told me the whole truth,” she decided; but
her keenest scrutiny, her most artful speeches, failed to make her
acquainted with more than she knew already. Camille faithfully kept up
the rôle of the true wife and wronged woman.




CHAPTER XXIX.


“I can not bear this any longer! I shall die if I do not see my husband
soon! I am going back to America!” Camille cried, passionately, at last.

Finette encouraged her in the resolve. She began to feel alarmed for
her mistress. She could not understand how Norman held out so long.

“He loved her so well. I can not make it out why he is so stubborn,”
she thought, wonderingly. “Perhaps dere is some oder woman in the case.
Boys are feeckle always, and what is it dat the American poet say:

    “‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will.’”

Decidedly it was the best to go back, thought the maid--that was, if
her mistress still had her heart set on that silly boy. For herself,
she thought it all folly; she would not have given a snap of her
fingers for Norman de Vere.

“A penniless, smooth-faced boy!” she thought, contemptuously. “Pah!
why did not madame make him turn out a mustache? How could she bear to
kiss him? There could be no more flavor to it than a girl’s or a baby’s
kiss!”

But madame was going to make her rich when by her help she became
reconciled to her angry husband, so Finette swallowed her disgust and
set her crafty brain to work.

“To leave Paree and go back to dat hateful America--it is hard, but
‘needs must when the devil drives,’” she sighed; so they set their
faces homeward.

They went to New York and settled down quietly in a flat, taking
care to keep their presence a secret from Norman de Vere; but his
mother was duly informed, and by collusion with her, Camille had many
opportunities of seeing her beloved, herself unseen, and every furtive
glance at the pale, stern, yet darkly handsome face only deepened
Camille’s passion for her husband. She would have given all her wealth
now--all the world, if it had been hers to bestow--for the love she had
prized so lightly when it was all her own.

    “For just one kiss that your lips have given
      In the lost and beautiful past to me,
    I would gladly barter my hopes of heaven
      And all the bliss of eternity.”

Poor, guilty soul! It seemed to her that she could have forgiven her
husband a sin as terrible as her own had been. She could not understand
the absolute horror with which he shrunk from her, the abhorrence of
her guilt that filled his soul. She could not believe that his love was
dead.

“I will throw myself in his way--I will make him remember me. Perhaps
the embers of the old love will leap into flame again,” she thought
with a passionate yearning; and she resolved to throw off all disguise
and let him know that she was near him.

He was living with his mother in a small flat where they played at
keeping house in a sort of doll fashion. He came home one winter
afternoon tired and cold from one of the great newspaper offices to
his tea, and found her there in the tiny parlor, a great basket of
hot-house flowers on the cozy tea-table, and behind it her face.

Camille’s face--colorless, yet dazzling as ever, with the feverish
fire of hope shining in the wine-dark eyes, the red mouth trembling
with a smile of hope and love, about her the sheen of silk and velvet
and lace, the glitter of diamonds, the seductive breath of some rare
perfume. She was all alone, and when he entered, she flung herself
wildly at his feet.

“Oh, my beloved! my beloved! I could not stay away from you any longer.
Forgive me, take me back!” she pleaded, wildly.

The young man grew pale as death, but he drew back from her; he pushed
away the white, jeweled hands that would have clung to him.

“Do not touch me! There is blood on your hands!” he said.

Camille started and looked down at her hands.

“Oh, Norman, how you frightened me. I--I--thought--” she wailed, then
paused abruptly.

“What madness is this? Why have you come here?” he demanded, bitterly.

“I could not stay away, Norman. Oh, I shall die if you do not take me
back! I am your wife--your wife!” she cried, passionately.

He stood with his hand upon the door-knob, looking at her. She knew
that if she came a step nearer to him he would go out.

“Oh, Norman, do not be so cruelly hard. Do you remember how you used
to love me? Is it all dead now? Have you found a new love?” she asked,
pathetically; and he shook his head.

“I have found no other love. I have no faith in women. I shun them with
the single exception of my mother,” he said, sternly. “But the old love
is dead, Camille. You murdered it that day by the river. You can never
resurrect it from its bloody grave.”

She shuddered.

“Oh, Norman, you were mistaken. I had lost my ring. It was that I was
talking of--only that,” she cried, beseechingly.

“Does my mother know you are here, Camille?”

“Yes. I am here by her consent. She pities me, she sympathizes with me.
She longs for you to forgive me, Norman.”

He stood in silence a moment, but there was no relenting on his stern,
white face, only trouble and disgust.

“I am sorry this has happened,” he said, slowly and sadly at last. “I
have tried to forget you, Camille, as the greatest kindness I could
show to you, for my thoughts of you are always mixed with shuddering
horror and disgust. Remember, I know you as my mother does not know
you, as the world does not know you. How can you think to move my heart
toward you again? I pity you, I pray often that Heaven will make you
repent and grant you pardon for your terrible crime, but to love you,
to trust you again you must be mad to dream of it!”

She stood looking at him despairingly, rebelling passionately against
her fate.

“You will at least let me live under the same roof with you, Norman? I
will not trouble you; I will not even speak to you unless you wish me!
But do not drive me to despair. Let me stay where I can at least see
you daily,” she implored.

He comprehended the hope that buoyed her up. She would not accept her
fate.

“It is useless,” he said, sternly. “The same roof can never shelter us
both, Camille. You can never be anything to me again, and you must go
away and leave me in peace.”

“I will not go!” she exclaimed, shrilly, flying into one of the old
gusts of passion he remembered so well. “I am your wife, and I have a
right to stay here. I will not leave you!”

“It is I then who must go,” he answered, gravely and firmly.

“I will follow you,” she retorted, furiously, stung by his
indifference, and he answered:

“Then I must still flee.”

“I will haunt you!” she shrieked, throwing her arms above her head in
a tempest of fury. “You shall not escape me! Wherever you go I shall
pursue you. You shall learn that there is no escape from love like
mine!”

An expression of intense pity, mixed with disgust, crossed the young
man’s face; but he made no attempt to reply to the beautiful fury. With
a long, deep sigh he turned from her, left the room and left the house,
without seeing his mother, to whom, an hour later, there came a brief,
stern note:

    “By your conspiracy with Camille you have driven me from you.
    Within an hour I leave New York. I will write you through my
    employers, and they will forward to me your letters.

                                                             “NORMAN.”




CHAPTER XXX.


It was no empty boast that Camille uttered when she threatened to haunt
her husband. She meant it, and in the years that followed she made him
realize her vindictive purpose many times.

It was with bitter regret that the young man had deserted his mother,
but he knew that only this determined move on his part could break up
the intimacy that Camille kept up with her for the selfish purpose of
having her husband always under surveillance.

But, although the unhappy mother herself had no clew to her son’s
whereabouts, and could only communicate with him through the medium of
his employers--a great newspaper firm--Camille was more successful.
Perhaps she employed a detective. Certain it was that she pursued
Norman from city to city, as she had vowed she would. Whenever he
believed that he had finally escaped her she turned up brilliantly
beautiful as ever, defiant or humble by turns, as seemed to serve her
purpose best. She found him wherever he chose to hide himself. She took
possession of his apartments very often by coming in his absence and
proclaiming herself his wife. She created lively scandals sometimes by
her inveterate habit of falling into hysterics when Norman left her, as
he invariably did, in the first moment of their meeting.

The young man was driven to despair.

He was not rich like Camille, and his small stock of money began to
give out under the stress of these untoward circumstances. He could not
keep his position on the New York paper which had kindly made him one
of its traveling correspondents.

Camille’s persecutions began to make him a marked man. She did not
suffer him to remain long enough in one place to cull satisfactory
material for his journalistic letters. Disappointed love, and the
fierce longing to punish Norman for his scorn, had turned beautiful
Camille into a restless fiend.

    “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

It was this struggle for existence under adverse circumstances that
first turned the thoughts of the young man to authorship.

“I shall have to give up my position on the paper; I shall have to find
work that I can do on the wing, as it were,” he thought, drearily; and
his first clever sketch was penned _en route_ to a distant western
city, Camille being left behind until such time as her well-paid
detective should hunt him down.

This time his escape and his disguise were so cleverly planned that
his fair foe was baffled several years. In the meantime, a publisher
was found in the editor of a first-class magazine. The public was
pleased with the firstling of his eager pen. He achieved success and a
flattering offer--all under a _nom de plume_. At last he had found his
vocation.

The unhappy mother, parted now for three long years from her exiled
son, heard with delight the news of her idol’s success. She had broken
with Camille long ago. Indeed, the heartless woman had coolly dropped
her when there was no more comfort to be had out of her. So Norman
wrote:

    “Mother you must forgive me for deserting you so long. Indeed,
    there was no other way. I shall try now to make a little home
    where you can come to me and we can be peaceful, if not happy,
    after our old fashion. You and I have both had so bitter a lesson
    that I do not believe you will ever betray me again to Camille.”

Mrs. de Vere was quite sure of that. However much she might pity
Camille and feel sorry for her, she resolved that she would not
interfere again between the unhappy pair. Within a short time she
journeyed West to a simple little home where her son was essaying his
first ambitious work--a serial for the magazine which had published his
sketches for a year past.

       *       *       *       *       *

Meanwhile, Camille’s detective had been thrown off the track by a
clever little ruse of Norman, and he reported to his employer that her
husband had sailed for Europe. Thither went Camille and her maid by the
next steamer. She remained several years, and strangely enough on her
return to America the man she sought had only very recently gone abroad
with his mother. Fate seemed to be playing at cross-purposes with the
imperious beauty. For five years she had not looked on the face of the
man she now loved and hated almost equally in her resentful wrath, for
Norman did not return for two years, and eleven years had now passed
since the dark days of her terrible sin, when sentence of doom had been
passed upon her by her outraged husband.

“Eleven years! My God! only to think of it, Finette! Kept at bay,
scorned, despised for eleven years by the man I once had at my feet!
And I am an old woman now. Old in spite of the fire that burns in my
veins--old in spite of this passionate heart!”

“_Non, non_, miladi--you look as young as you did ten years ago. Dat
artiste in Paree she is one clever mistress of her art. Your skin is
smooth and fine as a baby’s; the gray is gone out of your hair--”

“And it is as red as ever!” her mistress interrupted, impatiently.
“Don’t try to flatter me, Finette. I am not vain, whatever other faults
I may possess. I know my hair is red, my mouth too wide, my skin
too pale. I know, too, that I always had some fascinations for men,
despite my lack of beauty. But what matter! I am despised by the only
man I wish to charm. As for you, Finette, you are a wicked fraud! You
promised I should have him back. You lied. It is eleven years, and I am
no nearer him than when he cast me off,” she raved, passionately.

Finette raised sullen, defiant eyes to the angry face.

“It is your own fault that I deceived you. You did not tell me all--you
kept back things far worse than you confessed, else he could not have
held out against all your devotion and--persecution,” she said, boldly.

“How dare you!” her mistress cried; but she quailed as with terror. “I
told you everything,” she said, after a minute, defiantly.

“I do not believe you,” Finette muttered, sulkily; and for some minutes
the war of words raged fiercely between them, for in their long years
together their respective positions were often forgotten or ignored.

The day came when to her joy Camille found out her husband’s
hiding-place. It was in New York where he had settled again with
his mother on their return from abroad. She knew that he must be
prospering, because only a few weeks ago her lawyer had made to her the
last payment due to her on the improvements at Verelands.

“Why, it was ten thousand dollars! He must be rich,” Camille cried.

She and Finette consulted again, and the result was a plan more daring
than any that had gone before.

There came a night when Norman de Vere awakened from a kind of
nightmare dream and struggled for breath in the clasp of warm, round
arms with passionate lips clinging tight to his.

At first he thought it was a dream, for once such dreams had visited
his pillow, but soon he realized that it was fact. Struggling from the
clasp that would have held him, but was too weak, he lighted the gas
and saw with a shudder, the Nemesis of his life.

“My God, again!” he cried, hoarsely.

“My place is here. You shall not drive me from you again,” the
beautiful creature cried, half pleadingly, half stormily; but she
shrunk and cowered at last before his lightning glance of scorn.

“Have you no shame?” he cried. “Can you force your presence thus on
a man who loathes you? Listen, then: I will bear this persecution no
longer. I threatened you with divorce once, but you begged to be spared
this disgrace; you preferred, you said, to go quietly away and fade out
of my life. You have broken your promise. That absolves me from mine.
To-morrow I shall institute proceedings for a divorce. I will obtain
it, even if to gain the suit I have to betray my full knowledge of your
wickedness--your foul murder of the man who held some guilty secret in
your past life!”

“Hush, for Heaven’s sake! You may be overheard!” she faltered, cowering
down beside the bed in her white robes, with a look of guilty terror in
her burning eyes; but he gazed at her unmoved.

“What does it matter?” he said, hoarsely. “Every one must know it when
the case goes to court, for I swear I will dally no longer. I will free
my life from your claim, despite the bitter cost.”

“It will be a bitter contest, then, for I will fight you to the last
gasp! You have earned my hate and you shall know its power!” she cried
malevolently; but he stayed to hear no more. Bowing coldly, he quitted
the room, and a little later two disguised women glided stealthily down
the stairway, and emerging into the street, lost themselves in the
lights and windows of the great city. They were Finette and her baffled
mistress.

“He has threatened me again with divorce, Finette. I can not bear it.
Think of some plan to stave it off. My God! I can not live under such
humiliation!” Camille breathed hoarsely, and Finette saw that she was
on the verge of hysteria. She began to reassure her at once, promising
that she would think of some plan by to-morrow by which to thwart
Norman de Vere’s purpose.

Three days later Finette Du Val made her appearance in Norman de Vere’s
study with a pale, grief-stricken countenance, and announced that her
mistress had committed suicide.

“She threatened yesterday that she would do it rather than bear the
shame and grief of a divorce, but I did not believe her. Poor thing,
she had said it so often before I thought it was nothing but talk. But
when I went to call her this morning, she lay dead, with the bottle of
poison by her side,” was the plausible story she told.

Norman de Vere was shocked at the awful closing of Camille’s guilty
life. He went with Finette to look at the corpse, and spent some solemn
moments gazing into the cold white face of the woman he had loved so
well before he found her out in her terrible sin. She was changed and
altered very much from the effects of the poison, but the beautiful,
wavy red hair was the same, and no suspicion came to Norman that he had
been made the victim of a clever trick by the crafty maid. The corpse
was buried quietly in Greenwood, but with all due attention. Norman and
his mother going as chief mourners; and very soon a tasteful monument
marked the last resting-place of the dead woman.

“She promised to leave me all her money, I hope you will see her lawyer
for me, sir, as soon as possible,” Finette said; and Norman, touched
by the grief she had displayed, went at once to the lawyer. He was
told that Mrs. de Vere had withdrawn all her property from his hands.
She had told him that she meant to convert everything into money,
with which she would purchase unset diamonds, thinking them a safe
investment.

Finette protested that she did not know where her mistress had
deposited the gems for safe-keeping. She wept because she did not have
money enough to carry her home to her beloved Paris, and Norman handed
her the requisite amount, and gave her possession of all the dead
woman’s effects.

He went away then with a heavy heart, hoping he had seen the last of
the French woman, whom he had always despised in secret.

Mrs. de Vere grieved very sincerely for poor Camille, as she called
her in her thoughts. She thought that Norman had been unnecessarily
hard with his wife, and that he must of necessity suffer the pangs
of remorse over her tragic death. But she was too wise to utter such
thoughts aloud. Camille’s name was never uttered between them any more
after the rainy day when they stood side by side and saw the clods
falling on the new-made grave in Greenwood, where the dead woman had
been laid to rest. That her memory saddened them for many days after
was evident by the pale, grave faces they wore so long, but to either
heart had come an unowned sense of relief that the restless, unhappy
creature was dead.




CHAPTER XXXI.


Camille had been dead more than two years now, and the shock of her
death had worn off some from the minds of Norman de Vere and his
devoted mother. They had gone back to Verelands and settled down to a
quiet, passively contented life, he with his books and writing, she
with her birds and flowers and the old associations that were so dear
to her tender heart.

In their troubles they had almost forgotten Little Sweetheart, the
child they had given into George Hinton’s care. Mrs. de Vere sent
annually out of her slender income the requisite sum for the girl’s
maintenance and education, and there always came back a letter of
thanks from him, giving an account of his stewardship. They knew that
the girl was well and happy, and in the last letter they received they
learned that she had graduated with the honors of her class, and was
at home now for good. Mrs. de Vere said timidly then that it would be
pleasant to have a daughter to brighten up the quiet old house, but her
son had answered, gravely:

“We do quite well as we are, mother.”

She knew then that she must strangle the faint yearning she felt for
the child she had been so fond of long ago. Norman had forgotten,
perhaps, how he had coveted her for a little sister. He had changed
so much in these thirteen years that he was not much like the ardent,
impulsive boy who had married the mature woman, and then repented his
folly at such bitter cost. Kind and gentle as ever to his adoring
mother, he seemed to have hardened to the rest of the world.

He shut himself up long hours each day in the library, evolving from
his busy brain the clever novels that brought in such solid returns in
the shape of useless gold--useless because it brought no happiness to
the stern, grave man, who found in ceaseless labor the only antidote
for wearying retrospections.

He cared nothing for the world--nothing for society. It chafed him
to know, as he did, that people judged him severely; that it was
whispered that he had wronged his beautiful wife by jealous, causeless
suspicions; that he had driven her to madness and to suicide by his
cruelty. He knew it was the world’s verdict; he read it even in
the faces of those who looked most kindly upon him. He could not
explain--he could not betray Camille, even in her grave, where no
harm could reach her, save the scorn of men. He had punished her as
lightly as lay in his power; he had been merciful to her to the verge
of wronging others, but, though he was suffering a most bitter penalty
for his clemency, and though Robert Lacy’s blood seemed to cry aloud
from the ground for vengeance, he would not speak. But it hardened the
man, this unjust verdict of a world against which he would not defend
himself, and he held himself coldly aloof from it.

Yet his heart had sometimes throbbed a little faster at thought of
the child whose life he had saved, and whose future, in all its
helplessness and beauty, had been thrown upon his hands. He had done
his best, he knew, yet he had always been haunted by a secret regret
that a cruel scandal had obliged him to put away from his heart the
coveted pleasure and comfort of a sweet little azure-eyed sister.

On this fair October morning, as he dallied over his coffee and
inspected his mail, he had come upon a letter from George Hinton--an
unexpected letter, for they only heard once a year from Virginia.

“That is George Hinton’s writing. I hope poor little Thea West is not
ill,” said his mother, curiously; but he did not answer. His eyes were
traveling eagerly down the closely written pages.

She waited most impatiently till he had finished, and then he looked
across the table with a troubled light in his grave, dark eyes.

“Mother, this is most distressing news,” he said.

“Oh, dear! I hope dear Little Sweetheart isn’t dead, Norman?” she
uttered, nervously.

“Oh, no, no!” he said, and smiled; then the smile gave place to
vexation. “Thea has dreadfully disappointed the Hintons--ungrateful,
and all that. Really, it is too bad.”

“But, Norman, what has she done--eloped?” anxiously.

“She has grown up into a beautiful, heartless little flirt, who
delights in breaking hearts for pastime. She has jilted both George
Hinton’s sons, taken away his daughter’s lover, and played universal
havoc with the youths of Louisa, and now she has run away from
her guardian’s and sought work in a milliner’s shop,” he replied,
displeasedly.




CHAPTER XXXII.


“Let me see George Hinton’s letter, Norman?” said Mrs. de Vere; and he
passed it to her across the table, then sat musing with a far-off light
in his grave, dark eyes.

He sat thinking of the past--of that day long years ago when going into
the ladies’ car he had first seen the lovely child whose life he had
afterward saved. He remembered, as if it had been yesterday, the moment
when Sweetheart had first awakened and turned upon him and the others
in the car the sweet light of her drowsy, azure eyes. What a little
beauty she looked with her dazzling coloring, her rosebud mouth and
dimples, her fluffy golden hair! If she had grown up like that, was it
any wonder men went down like chaff before her smiles?

A light came into his eyes. Something had dawned upon him suddenly but
convincingly.

“Why should I be surprised?” he thought. “The child was a coquette even
then to the tips of her rosy fingers. The drummers all saw it, and
smiled at it. She made a victim of me, even in innocent babyhood. Is it
any wonder that she has fulfilled the promise of early years?”

He frowned, then sighed. It was not pleasant to think of that pretty
child, scarce more than seventeen, amusing herself in this wicked
fashion. Norman de Vere had old-fashioned ideas in many things. He
called it wicked to trifle with the human heart.

Mrs. de Vere looked perplexed.

“Norman, what are you going to do?” she said. “Mr. Hinton seems to
think we ought to take her back here.”

“There is not the least doubt about that. We will have to do so,” he
replied, decisively.

“If she is so pretty and so wild she may prove troublesome,” Mrs. de
Vere observed, anxiously.

“Doubtless,” her son replied, grimly; then he sighed. “But our duty
remains the same. I wish she had been content to marry Frank Hinton,
whom I believe to be a manly young fellow. I saw him once on a trip
with his father, and it was some such idea that made me offer his
father the means to educate the boy for a profession.”

“Norman, to think of your turning match-maker!” his mother exclaimed,
in amused surprise.

He flushed, then laughed.

“It seems ridiculous, I know, mother,” he owned. “But the child’s
future was on my mind, and it seemed natural that, growing up in the
house with those young men, she might grow to fancy one of them.”

“As a brother, yes, but not as a husband. Girls are much more likely to
fancy strangers as lovers. They are capricious,” Mrs. de Vere said; and
she quoted Longfellow to her son:

    “‘Thus it is our daughters leave us,
    Those we love and those who love us!
    Just when they have learned to help us,
    When we are old and lean upon them,
    Comes a youth with flaunting feathers;
    With his flute of reeds, a stranger,
    Wanders piping through the village,
    Beckons to the fairest maiden,
    And she follows where he leads her,
    Leaving all things for the stranger!’”

“How strange is human nature!” he mused, aloud; then, decisively,
again: “There is no other way but to bring her to Verelands. Young,
beautiful, willful, she needs a guiding and restraining hand. Yet,
mother, it will be hard upon you to have our sweet home life broken up
by this.”

“Do not think of me. I am ready to do my duty,” she said, hurriedly,
and there was a minute’s silence.

Norman looked grave, even reluctant; yet finally he said:

“I will write to Mr. Hinton and ask him to bring Thea West to Verelands
immediately. I will write Thea, too, and lay my commands upon her
to accompany him, for I can fancy that she might rebel against his
authority.”

The letters were promptly written and dispatched, and a beautiful suite
of rooms was prepared for the coming guest.

“After all, Norman, she may prove a pleasure and a comfort to us,” Mrs.
de Vere said.

She liked to look on the bright side.

“Let us hope so for your sake, dear little mother,” he answered, dryly.
Then he looked at her with something like compassion. “After all, life
must be lonely for her, poor thing!” he mused. “She has no absorbing
work like mine to fill up the measure of her time. I believe that at
the bottom of her heart she is glad that Thea West is coming, only she
will not confess it for fear of offending me.”

Mrs. de Vere was certainly in a flutter of pleasant anticipation.
She spared no pains to have Thea’s rooms bright and attractive. She
had dazzling visions of a lovely girl fluttering about the house and
grounds; of the long-closed piano being opened; of music trilling
through the long-silent rooms. She had almost given up society,
because Norman cared so little for it, but now she would accept more
invitations for the sake of the bright young girl, who would love music
and dancing and everything that was gay and happy, and whose lovers
would quite besiege Verelands.

“It will be almost like having a daughter of my own--and I always
wanted a daughter so much,” she sighed.

But to her dismay the postman brought one morning a little letter in
a pretty, school-girlish hand to Norman de Vere--a letter breathing
defiance and independence.

    “I refuse to recognize your alleged authority over me, Mr. Norman
    de Vere. I have been told that you found me in a wreck, and
    that the only interest you have in me is that of charity for a
    friendless child. I thank you and your mother for the charity
    bestowed on me, and, God helping me, I will repay in time the
    obligations I owe you--at least, as far as they can be repaid
    in money. I am a woman now, and no longer need eat the bitter
    bread of charity. I left my home at Mr. Hinton’s because my
    presence was unwelcome there, and am earning my bread and butter
    with my own hands. In the full intention of continuing to do so,
    and firmly declining the home at Verelands, which it must be
    as irksome for you to offer as it would be for me to accept, I
    remain,

                                             “Gratefully yours,
                                                          “THEA WEST.”

Mrs. de Vere sat gazing at the letter like a statue. She could not
realize it, this proud, defiant spirit of the girl she remembered so
kindly. A vision of the child stole over her--the sunny curls, the
frank blue eyes, the loving heart. How could this be Little Sweetheart?

“Well, mother?” Norman said at last, impatient of her blank silence.

“I do not know what to say! I can not realize that Little Sweetheart
could defy us like this,” she answered.

“She has not been well trained, I fear,” he said. “I have a letter,
too, from George Hinton. She has refused to come with him. She is
determined to earn her own living, he says, but it may be that her old
associates have wounded her pride by unkind allusions to her dependent
condition, and fairly driven her into asserting her independence,”
thoughtfully.

She caught eagerly at the idea.

“It may be true. Perhaps she has been misjudged. If she is so pretty,
men may have fallen in love with her without much effort on her part.”

He smiled, and said:

“Dear little mother, always looking on the bright side of human nature!”

“Is it not best?” she asked, pleadingly; and Norman smiled again as he
answered:

“Yes.”

“But what are you going to do, Norman? Must we give it up like
this--after all my trouble, too? Those pretty rooms!” she sighed.

“Mother, I believe you are actually disappointed.”

“I am,” she said; and the great tears started into her eyes.

The handsome old face was drawn into lines of disappointment.

He stooped down and kissed her with something of the old boyish love so
long repressed under the bitter consciousness that she blamed him for
Camille’s sorrow.

“Dear mother, you must not be disappointed,” he said, tenderly. “You
have set your heart on this girl, I see. Then why not undertake a
mission to Virginia? I flatter myself that no one could resist my
mother.”

“Do you mean it, Norman? Would you like for me to go?” she cried, in
real excitement; and he saw how much her heart was set on having the
girl at Verelands.

“Yes, I mean it, mother. I would go myself, but I am not sure I would
succeed. With you it would be different. She would fall in love with
you.”

“And why not with you?” she said, brightly. Then the color flew to her
cheek. “Oh, Norman, I didn’t mean _that_ way!” she said, vaguely. “But
she couldn’t help liking you on sight--as a dear older brother, of
course.”

“‘Of course,’” he echoed, smiling at her confusion. “Let me see,
mother--how old am I? Thirty-five? I feel fifty; and Thea West is
about seventeen--almost young enough for my daughter.” He flushed as
a certain bitter memory rose in his mind, but added, lightly: “I hope
the inveterate little coquette will have more respect for my gray
hairs than to try her arts on me.”

“There is not a gray hair in your head!” Mrs. de Vere cried,
indignantly, as she ran her fingers through the clustering dark curls.
“But I dare say the child is not half the coquette they pretend,”
she added, for her kind heart went out more and more to the absent,
friendless girl.

She paid no attention to Norman’s careless banter. He was too old and
saddened and busy, and Thea West too young and giddy for the two to
have anything in common with each other.

“So you will go?” he asked.

“Yes, to-morrow,” she replied, with eager interest.




CHAPTER XXXIII.


“After all, it is very lonely without my mother. I am glad she is
coming home to-night,” Norman de Vere said to himself, when quite two
weeks of time had elapsed since his mother’s departure for Virginia.

He had not had the least idea that she would remain away more than
a week, for he had great faith in her powers of persuasion. She, if
any one, would be able to overcome Thea West’s sturdy notions of
independence.

She had succeeded, as he had thought she would. Thea capitulated to the
sweet and gentle woman’s arguments and persuasions, although she would
have stood firm as a rock against Norman de Vere’s commands. The first
letter had told Norman she had succeeded.

“She will come with me to Verelands, but we are going to Richmond
first. I want to buy Thea some new things,” she wrote, indefinitely, so
it was two weeks now, and to-day there was another letter saying that
to-night they would be home. Mrs. de Vere wrote:

    “Thea remembers you, although she was so young when she saw you
    last. She is a sweet child.”

“Rather a big child now,” Norman de Vere thought, with some amusement.
“I wonder if she will take to me now as she did when she first saw me?
But, no; I was a handsome young fellow then. I am old and altered now;”
and he glanced disparagingly into a mirror that reflected a man whose
claims to good looks far exceeded even those of thirteen years ago,
while he certainly did not look more than thirty. Time had only touched
him to improve, although he had added a touch of sad gravity to the
beautiful beardless lips and a thoughtful light to the splendid dark
eyes.

“I hope the little coquette will not turn the house topsy-turvy with
her whims. Why could she not have married Frank Hinton and settled
herself for life?” he had thought many times since his mother had gone
away, with an inward chafing against the change the girl’s coming would
make at Verelands. Then he would take himself severely to task: “I am
growing selfish, bearish. I ought to be glad for my mother’s sake.”

And for her sake more than Thea’s he directed the gardener to fill
the house with flowers the day of their coming. The halls, the
drawing-room, the dining-room, the bedrooms, all blushed with beauty,
and gave out a fragrant welcome to Sweetheart when she again crossed
the threshold of the grand old home and stood in all her fresh, girlish
beauty before the handsome, stately man who smiled a little as she
impulsively held out both little hands, but certainly pressed them
warmly enough in his as he uttered some cordial phrases of welcome.

Thea West gave him a bright, arch look.

“You do not mean it, I know,” she said, saucily. “You believe all the
bad things the Hintons say about me, and you’re afraid I shall run you
crazy with my flirtations. But I sha’n’t. I’ll be good.”

He gave her a look in return before which her white lids drooped shyly
to her cheeks, then turned to welcome his mother, who thought that
Norman certainly seemed younger than when she went away. How kindly,
almost fondly, he had welcomed Thea, too.

“I hope we shall have time to dress before dinner, Norman, we are so
dusty,” she said.

“Plenty of time. But do not be long. I shall be impatient,” he
answered; and as they went upstairs he turned into the drawing-room to
wait.

There was an unwonted glow on his smooth, dark cheek, an eager light in
the dark eyes.

“I have never quite realized that my protégée was a young lady till
now,” he mused, dreamily. “But she is as sweet and winning as when a
baby. I wonder if she remembers how she used to kiss me?”




CHAPTER XXXIV.


Norman waited something over half an hour, and found himself growing
oddly impatient for his mother’s return. A servant came in and lighted
the gas, and then to pass the time away he sat down at the grand piano
and began to play some dreamy chords that sounded strange in his own
ears, it was so long since he had played before. But he was a little
excited over his mother’s home-coming, it seemed.

“Oh, Mr. de Vere, you play the piano? I’m so glad!” cried a clear
voice, with that indescribable ring of hope and youth in it that is so
sweet to world-weary ears.

He turned his head. A white figure was coming toward him over the
soundless Turkish carpet--Thea, in all the glow of her young beauty,
smiling, eager.

She came close to his side. She laid her beautiful white hand, dimpled
and ringless, on his arm, and said, frankly:

“Before I came I was angry with you. I did not care what you thought of
me, but I--I have changed my mind. I’m going to tell you the truth in
the beginning, for--somehow--I don’t want you to think as badly of me
as you seemed to in that letter.”

He sat silent, looking into the flushed, eager face, not helping her by
a word or even a smile.

But Thea went bravely on:

“Tom and Frank, you know? The Hintons said I used them outrageously.
I didn’t mean to, and I think they misunderstood. We were brought up
together, and they seemed just as much my brothers as Emmie did my
sister. I loved them both, but not--that way,” vaguely.

“What way?” Norman de Vere asked in a puzzled tone. He looked keenly
into the eager face, and Thea’s blush deepened to scarlet.

“Oh, you know,” she said, rather helplessly. “I didn’t like it when Tom
tried to make love to me. It actually disgusted me. So I snubbed him
every time, and--thinking Frank wasn’t so foolish--I treated him like
a brother. The great goose thought I was in love with him, and wanted
to marry him--the idea! So they both--Frank and Tom--proposed the same
day. Of course, I said no. Emmie eavesdropped--the mean thing--and made
a row about it.”

“But wasn’t there some one else--Emmie’s lover?” he suggested, quietly.

“So they wrote you that, too?” angrily. “But it wasn’t my fault! He was
fickle, I think. He tired of Emmie, and wanted to pay me attention. I
said no every time, but she wouldn’t believe me, so just once--to tease
her because she had scolded me so--I danced with him as often as he
asked me, and I--I was real spiteful toward Emmie that time, I own it,
but she provoked me! I never thought of flirting with anybody. The boys
all seemed to like me. I suppose it was because I was fond of dancing,
and could sing--”

She paused for breath, and the dark eyes watching her face seemed to
say, mutely:

“Isn’t there more yet?”

Blushing deeper than ever, she added:

“Well, some of them made a great fuss over my curls! I can’t see why! I
don’t like the color. I would have changed with Emmie any day for her
beautiful brown braids!”

Norman de Vere smiled as his eyes wandered to the beautiful ripples
of gold falling to the small, round waist. He thought there was some
excuse for “the boys,” as she called them.

Thea drew a long, half-sobbing breath, and the small hand on his
coat-sleeve unconsciously tightened its pressure.

“Do you believe me?” she asked, eagerly, anxiously. “I--I--can’t bear
that you should believe their stories. It was just as I have told you.
I never thought of flirting with anybody.”

She looked at him eagerly, fondly, almost as if she were going to fall
into his arms, as in that long past time of babyhood that recurred to
him vividly now. But he said to himself, amusedly:

“No doubt she looks on me as a brother, too. No wonder poor Frank
Hinton lost his heart if she played sister in this sweet, confiding
fashion. Little witch, she is very charming, and perhaps she does not
really know her power.”

“Do you believe me?” Thea repeated, alarmed at his silence; and the
frank innocence of her face compelled him to answer:

“Yes, I believe you. I think they wronged you.”

“Oh, thank you!” she cried, radiantly. “If you had not believed me I
don’t think I could have borne to stay at Verelands. How good you are!
But I remember that you were just as kind to me when I was a little
child. You saved my life. I feel so grateful to you for that!”

He did not understand why he should feel that odd pique because she was
talking to him so freely, so gratefully, so unrestrainedly, as if he
were a hundred years old. Something made him say, daringly:

“Do you remember how you crept into my arms and kissed me the first day
we met? You said you loved me, and fed me peppermint drops. Mr. Hinton
said then that you were a little flirt.”

Her cheeks were pink as roses, and she removed the little hand from his
arm in a furtive way.

“I remember that I was very fond of you,” she said, with a smile; but
she did not meet his questioning glance. “How forward I must have
seemed to you!” she added, constrainedly.

“No, indeed,” he began; but Thea was glad not to hear any more of
his reminiscences, for Mrs. de Vere entered very opportunely at that
moment, and the girl went to a seat where she sat in silence, furtively
studying that darkly handsome face, and wishing he had not remembered
she had made love to him when she was a mere baby.




CHAPTER XXXV.


After that first night, Norman de Vere found no occasion for
unconscious pique at Thea’s sisterly frankness toward him. By the next
morning her manner had changed indefinably. It had developed into a
pretty dignity that just escaped shyness, and was almost reserve. She
tacitly avoided her handsome guardian and clung to his mother with all
the tenderness of a daughter.

But he knew that for the first week or two she was engaged about half
her time in reading his own works, for his mother had come herself to
the library for them.

“Sweetheart is so anxious to read them, but she would not come herself
lest she should disturb you,” she said.

“Good little girl!” her son muttered, dryly, and went on with his
scribbling; but more than once that day he wondered if Thea was reading
his books, and how she liked them.

“But I shall not ask her, since she is so silly as to pretend to be
afraid of me,” he thought, severely; and tried to dismiss her from his
mind, chafing to himself at the persistency with which her image came
between him and his work.

Why should the blue eyes haunt him so when they scarcely saw each other
save at the table, for he spent half of his time in his library, the
other half walking or riding unsociably by himself, with now and then
an evening at the Author’s Club or theater. Thea and his mother rode
a great deal, too, but it was always in the elder lady’s two-seated
pony-phaeton, which she drove herself. There was only room for two, and
in any case Mrs. de Vere would not have asked him to make one of the
party. She vaguely felt that Norman was not to be annoyed for the sake
of a simple school-girl who seemed to him a mere child.

Norman saw it all--his mother’s care that he should not be bothered by
Thea, and the girl’s entire acquiescence. Before she came he would have
been pleased to know that it would be this way. It piqued him now.

“I do not want her to fear me now--she confided in me so sweetly when
she was a child,” was the excuse he made to himself for his pique.

But Thea firmly determined on being “good,” as she phrased it--gave him
not the least trouble. She subdued her joyous spirits when he was by;
she did her daily practicing on the piano when he was out for his walk;
when the neighbors began to call, and the young people found her out,
she was demurely social; she held firmly in check the gayety that in
Virginia had earned her the title of coquette.

“He said he believed in me, and he shall have no cause to change his
mind,” the girl said to herself, when the temptation to be recklessly
gay assailed her.

She had grown morbidly anxious to appear at her best in those dark
eyes, whose grave glances haunted her dreams by night and her thoughts
by day.

The same strange attraction that had drawn the two together so long ago
was at work now--had been magnetizing both ever since that night when
they had met again; but both were struggling against it, both called it
by a colder name. To her it was gratitude, to him it was anxiety lest
she should be repelled by one she had once trusted in so tenderly.

Across the gulf of reserve and apparent indifference each heart
clamored eagerly for the other. Thea knew that he was always in her
thoughts--that he was the handsomest man she had ever seen, the most
famous, the most cultured. She lay awake at nights to think of him, and
sometimes the snowy pillow was wet with tears.

“Oh, what is the matter with me? Surely, I am not pining for any one of
those who treated me so harshly!” she would sigh, in plaintive wonder.
Then, pityingly: “I wonder if Emmie has caught Charley back. I hope
so. It must be sad to love in vain. I am sorry now for Frank and Tom.
Perhaps I did not refuse them kindly enough. It seemed so ridiculous,
because I was so young then” (she was about four months older now).

And one day Norman saw in the mail that was about to be sent out two
letters addressed respectively to Frank and Tom Hinton. He called Thea
into the library.

“Are you renewing your flirtation with your jilted lovers?” he asked,
severely.

She blushed as she saw the letters in his hand.

“Oh, no, indeed! How can you think it? Please let me explain,” she
cried, eagerly, and he waited curiously. The big, lustrous blue eyes
lifted to his face, and somehow the glance they met in return held them
fixed, though Thea trembled with strange pleasure at her own boldness;
so she said: “I will look you straight in the eyes, Mr. de Vere, then
you will see I am telling you the truth. I have been thinking lately
that I was cruel to those poor boys--”

“And that you love them, after all?” he interrupted, harshly.

“Oh, no, no--never! I am sorry I laughed at them, that is all. I think
now I ought to have refused them more sweetly--more kindly--so I am
writing just to ask them to forgive me for laughing at them.”

Her eyes withdrew themselves reluctantly from his, and the long-fringed
lashes swept her cheeks. She looked adorable.

“I never heard of such nonsense!” he exclaimed, but not sternly. “If
you will take my advice, Sweetheart, you will put the letters into the
fire. Your cruelty helps them to forget you. Send them, and you will
only have Tom and Frank at your feet again.”

“Do you really think so?” she cried, snatching the letters and tearing
them to fragments in a hurry.

Her cheeks were glowing and her heart beat fast. How strange, yet
sweet, it seemed to be here alone in the library with him--sitting in
that chair before him like a little culprit, yet a happy one withal,
for only to be near him was an exquisite delight to the girl! Her
heart throbbed faster and the blood ran quicker through her veins with
painful pleasure, at his mere presence.

Norman in his arm-chair, with his pen waiting for him on the desk,
was in no hurry to begin writing. He was wishing he could think of
something that would detain her yet longer. How the fair face and
golden head seemed to light up the somber library!

She, on her part, was thinking that she must go now--that he had
nothing more to say to her. But she--she had something else to say to
him, if only she could muster up courage.

She glanced bashfully at him under the long lashes. Yes, he was
regarding her attentively. The color flew warmly to her cheek in the
dread lest he was remembering again with amusement that she had adored
him when she was a very, very little girl.

But she kept her seat despite a sudden impulse to fly. She must tell
him now.

“Oh, I am very sorry, Mr. de Vere, that--that--about Frank--you know. I
couldn’t--couldn’t--” she stopped helplessly, her face like a rose.

“I am sure I do not understand what you are trying to tell me. Why are
you so afraid of me? I’m not an ogre, child. Go on. I shall not scold
you, what ever you confess.”

The sudden, kind, reassuring smile was a wonderful help. She could look
at him again--she could say without blundering:

“I’m sorry you were disappointed in me--about Frank, you know.
I’ve heard all about it--how you educated him for a profession,
thinking--thinking to provide a nice husband for me. It was so kind in
you. Were you very angry with me? I hope you can forgive me,” anxiously.

He bit his lip with vexation. So his mother had betrayed him.

“You don’t say a word, Mr. de Vere. I suppose you are vexed still.
Perhaps you did not want me here, breaking up the peace and quiet
you had with your mother before I came. This is what I wanted to
say. It isn’t likely I will ever marry anybody, so you can’t get rid
of me that way. But, please, can’t I go away and support myself? I
could teach music. I have a talent for that, and for millinery, too.
I--would--rather go, please, because I’m afraid I’m in your way here.”

The big blue eyes shone pathetically through starting tears.

Norman held out his hand to her as if she had been a child, and said,
huskily:

“Sweetheart!”

She arose and went to him with the docility of a child, and put her
dimpled white hand in his. When he pressed it tightly he felt how she
was trembling.

“Dear Little Sweetheart, I have wounded you,” he murmured, tenderly.
“Forgive me, child. That was a foolish fancy of mine to provide for
your future. But it was different then. I did not know it would ever be
so that you could come back to live at Verelands. I am glad you did not
marry Frank Hinton. I hope you will never marry any one. I want you to
stay always at Verelands to make the sunshine brighter and the flowers
sweeter, as they have been ever since you came.”

His arm slipped around the slender, throbbing waist and pressed it
gently.

“Never think yourself unwelcome again,” he whispered. “You must never
be afraid of me again. Stay at Verelands and be my mother’s daughter,
Sweetheart, and my own dear little sister.”

He turned and pressed his lips to the tear-wet cheek, and it seemed to
him that it suddenly grew cold, the fair head drooped against him, the
form grew limp in his arms. For a moment he held her quite unconscious,
then she revived and struggled from his clasp.

“Let me go,” she said, with sudden coldness; and the next moment, alone
in her room, she fell sobbing on the bed.

“His sister!” she moaned. “His sister, dear Heaven! just in the moment
when I realized I loved him and hoped--hoped--he was going to ask me to
be his wife!”




CHAPTER XXXVI.


Poor little Thea! she knew now why she had suffered with that late
remorse for her scorn of her rejected lovers. It was because she had
realized in her own heart all the sweetness and the pain of real love,
and out of this knowledge could sympathize with the emotion which had
once been the butt of her scornful ridicule.

All in a moment, as it were, while she had stood in the warm clasp of
Norman de Vere’s arm, there had come to her a realization of the truth.
She loved her guardian, not with the grateful affection of a ward, but
with a woman’s devotion. It seemed to her now that she had loved him
thus since that first night when he had smiled into her eyes and bid
her welcome to his home; but the knowledge might have lain dormant in
her mind much longer had not Norman’s sudden tenderness awakened her
to the truth. All in one dizzy moment she knew that she loved him and
believed that he loved her, that he was going to tell her so, and ask
her to be his wife.

As swift and sudden as was her hope followed the cruel downfall. She
was dazed, breathless, with its terrible suddenness. Crouching on her
bed, she wept with passionate _abandon_.

“Why did I ever come here?” she moaned, despairingly, “and why was it
that I learned to love him, this selfish, cold-hearted man? I can not
understand it. He did not try to win me,” her pride rising in arms at
the thought that she had given her heart unsought.

The love and admiration that had always surrounded Thea had naturally
given her a good opinion of her own self. She had heard so often that
she was beautiful, that it would have been an affectation to pretend
not to know it. But until now she had not cared about it--she had taken
it as a matter of course.

“Beauty is not all,” she sighed now, with bitter chagrin. “Perhaps he
has never even noticed that I am passably pretty. He has seen very
beautiful women, of course--proud, cultured, wealthy women--his equals
in everything, not dependent little nobodies like me.”

She sat up presently, dashing the tears from her violet eyes, her sweet
lips curling in fierce self-scorn.

“Thea West, you are a little simpleton. How could you have such a fancy
for one moment? You know perfectly well how far he ranks above you in
everything--even age. He was a man--a married man--when you were a
baby. He thinks you are a baby still.”

Some more fierce sobs came at that. Oh, how young, how silly, she must
appear in his eyes! If she could only add ten years to her age!

“He would not dare hug me then and call me his little sister. I should
seem too grown up and dignified.”

But Thea West was a very sensible girl in spite of her gay spirits.
When her first passion of disappointment had worn off, she began
to argue the case with herself. She saw that her little tempest of
resentment against Norman de Vere was all wrong. He had been very, very
kind to her. She owed him a world of gratitude.

“It is no wonder I fell in love with him, he is so handsome, so noble,
so gifted! One could love him just from reading his books,” she said,
sadly, yet with a thrilling consciousness of Norman’s dark, magnetic
eyes. “But with him it is different. He could never think of loving me.
Besides, he can have no faith in women. The Hintons have told me that
he was separated from his wife because she was false to him. Is that
why he looks so grave and sad, I wonder? Perhaps he loved her so well
that he can never love another, now that she is dead.”

A sudden pity filled her heart for the man whose life had been so
cruelly wrecked by a woman’s falsity.

“I wish I could comfort him. I wish I were really his little sister.”

She resolved suddenly that she would not disappoint Norman de Vere, who
had been so kind to her, who had asked her not to be afraid of him, but
to give him the confidence of a sister.

“I will fight down this too warm love of mine. It will soon die with
no hope to feed on,” she decided. “I will be a sister to him in truth.
It is possible I might be a comfort to him in that way.”

Drooping her face into her white hands, Thea prayed dumbly for strength
and patience--strength to hide her secret of love from Norman de Vere,
and patience to fall into her place as his sister--only his sister,
without daring to hope for anything sweeter or better.

“If I can repay him for his goodness to me by any sacrifice of self,
that happy consciousness shall be sufficient for me,” she vowed; and a
sort of pride came to her that she was conquering so nobly this fatal
passion that had stolen upon her unawares.

But she needed all her strength to meet Norman’s questioning gaze when
she met him again. He had been puzzled by her sudden faintness and
her abrupt departure from the library. Had she been offended by the
interest he had displayed in her? Had she fancied he was falling in
love with her like the rest, and so taken this means to express her
disapprobation? He turned hot and cold at the thought.

“It was most imprudent in me offering her that caress,” he thought. “I
had no right. I can not tell what came over me. I could not resist the
impulse, she was so sweet, so charming, and only a child as compared
with me. Yes, she is only a child to me. If she were more nearly my
equal in age, I should be frightened, fearing it was love I felt for
the beautiful little coquette.”

And when he again met Thea he looked at her with some anxiety.

It was in the drawing-room, just before dinner. Thea never dallied over
her toilet. She came in, as usual, before Mrs. de Vere, and she found
Norman waiting and pretending to be engrossed with a new book.

He looked up eagerly at the entrance of the blue-robed figure, and
their eyes met.

Thea smiled as she accepted the chair he placed for her, and said:

“I hope you will excuse me for leaving you so abruptly this morning. I
had a sudden faintness, and was obliged to seek the fresh air.”

“Are you quite well again?” anxiously.

“Oh, yes, I am quite cured.”

There was a faint emphasis on the last word, and Thea sighed so faintly
that he did not perceive it.

“I feared I had offended you by my unsought advice about your lovers,”
he said, questioningly.

“Oh, no, no; everything you said was kind. I thank you for what you
said to me,” with a frank glance quickly withdrawn.

Thea knew that she must not let her eyes linger on the noble face and
form. It would make her rebel heart beat too quickly.

But Norman came closer. He was not afraid yet to look his fill on the
lovely face set off so sweetly by the pale-blue dress with white lace
trimmings. He did not quite realize as yet the danger he was risking.
He thought:

“How that little pearl locket becomes the half-bare white neck, and how
perfectly molded are her dimpled arms! She has all the signs of good
blood and ancestry. I wonder if we shall ever find out her parents, or
will she always belong to me?” Then a most unwelcome thought came: “In
a few years at best some triumphant lover will bear her off to a new
home, and Verelands will know her charming presence no more.”

There was positive pain in the thought, but he tried to put it away
from him, as he said, gently:

“You did not tell me, Sweetheart, whether you would give over being
afraid of your elderly guardian, and be like a sister to him.”

“I shall be only too grateful,” Thea answered, softly; but she looked
down at her slim, white hands instead of into the dark eyes regarding
her so eagerly. In a minute she added, shyly: “I’ve never felt afraid
of you--only anxious not to disturb you at your work.”

“You can never disturb me, child. I shall be pleased to have you about
me. I suppose you sometimes want books from the library. You must come
and get them when you wish. It will not annoy me in the least.”

“Oh, thank you; but I don’t read very much, I’m afraid. I love to walk
and ride and row,” Thea said, hastily.

She did not dare to be alone in the library again with Norman de Vere.

He felt her reluctance. His face flushed deeply.

“It was that most unlucky kiss. Indeed, I had no right,” he thought,
but he could not regret it. The memory was too thrilling.

He immediately began to lay plans to join her in the outdoor life of
which she pretended to be so fond.

“Can you row?” he asked.

“Like a sailor,” she replied, gayly.

“And ride horseback?”

“I have never had an opportunity to learn.”

“Should you like to, Sweetheart?”

He had never adopted the new name by which others called her. Like
Tom Hinton, he found it pleasant to say Sweetheart, and his tone in
pronouncing it was very tender.

She was obliged to own the truth. She was most anxious to ride
horseback.

“Then I shall teach you,” said her guardian. “We will begin to-morrow.
You shall accompany me in my morning canter.”




CHAPTER XXXVII.


The next morning a box was sent to Thea’s room, and on opening it
she found a beautiful riding-habit of dark-blue cloth and a cap to
match. To her surprise, it fitted exactly, and in the pretty little
watch-pocket she found a card:

    “TO MY LITTLE SISTER.”

A momentary cloud came over the radiant face, and Thea sighed as she
murmured:

“Sister!”

Evidently she had not become reconciled to bearing that relation toward
Norman de Vere.

She stood a moment looking intently at her lovely reflection in the
long mirror, and she could not help but see that she was surpassingly
lovely. The dark, rich blue of the habit set off at their best the
dazzling tints of her complexion and the living gold of her long curls.
The close jacket showed every exquisite curve of the lissom, girlish
figure. But the blue eyes flashed and the red lips curled into a pout
as Thea gazed, and she sighed:

“If he were younger, he could not be so cold.”

She went down and found a beautiful, cream-white pony awaiting her
pleasure. Norman, on a magnificent bay horse, looked his best, and his
dark eyes kindled with admiration as he beheld Thea.

How carefully he assisted her into the saddle, how particular he was
that the dear little foot should be properly placed in the stirrup. He
knew quite well that he held it in his hand something longer than was
necessary. It was a temptation like the kiss of yesterday, impossible
to resist.

As they rode slowly away, side by side, he said:

“Thea, I always longed for a sister. I think I should have had a
happier lot in life if my wish had not been denied.”

She gave him a frank, grateful smile, but could think of no words with
which to answer. She did not want to be his sister, and to have him
come to her some day to confide to her his love for some more fortunate
woman whom he was going to make his wife. This thought rankled, and she
sighed to herself:

“If only I knew that he would never marry--that life could go on always
like this, I should not mind so much. I would try to be content. But I
am afraid, afraid!”

She determined to turn the conversation from its sentimental turn at
once, and by a little clever maneuvering soon had him engaged in a
conversation descriptive of his foreign tour. Thea pretended so much
interest that he presently promised to take her abroad next year if his
mother would consent to go with them.

“I am quite sure you would enjoy it,” he said.

“But it would be tiresome to you. You have been through it all, and I
would not like for you to make such a sacrifice to me.”

The blue eyes looked wistfully at him a moment, but the fond,
reassuring glance they met in return made the lashes fall hastily to
her cheeks.

“Do not call it a sacrifice, Sweetheart. It would be a pleasure
to travel with you for a companion. I fancy that your interest in
everything would make it doubly charming to me.”

Thea’s heart thrilled at the words. She thought, half bitterly, half
with amusement:

“Really, I did not know that brothers ever made such charming speeches
to their sisters. I know Emmie’s brothers were never very gallant to
her. Come, I think I shall have a very agreeable brother, after all.”

But aloud she only said, gratefully:

“How kind you are to me! I wish I knew how to repay you, Mr. de Vere.”

Then after a moment, looking up at him eagerly, though shyly, she
abruptly said:

“Will you tell me which you admire the more in woman--beauty or
intellect?”

“What a strange question from a little girl like you!” he said, looking
at her in surprise.

“Do you think so?” she flushed warmly. “Why, we used to discuss that
question in Virginia--the boys and girls I knew.”

“And what did Frank and Tom say?”

“They preferred beauty,” she replied, in a low voice.

“As for me,” Norman said, riding close to her side, “I should prefer a
combination of both.”

He was eagerly watching the lovely face where the beautiful flickering
color came and went so rapidly under the trying sunlight of the clear,
bright day. He fancied that a shade of disappointment came into the
clear, blue eyes.

“I thought you would think so,” she said, timidly.

“Naturally,” he replied. “Why, Sweetheart, what would beauty be without
mind? A lamp without a flame, a rose without fragrance.”

She turned to him a grave, almost sad face.

“But the boys used to say that brains and beauty were but seldom
united,” she ventured.

“You should not have listened,” he replied, warmly. “It was a libel
upon beauty. Where could one find a fairer face than yours, Sweetheart?
Yet you are most fairly gifted in mind. You have talent. Your musical
abilities are of a high order, and you told me, if you remember,”
mischievously, “that you had a talent for millinery.”

“Miss Barnes, the lady I worked for at Louisa, said so,” eagerly. “But
of course that is not exactly intellect. It was intellect we were
talking of, you know.”

“Yes,” smilingly.

She rode on silently awhile, giving all her attention to the
cream-white pony which was as sweetly docile as could be desired
for a new beginner. They were outside the city now, going along a
country-road luxuriant with the tropic vegetation of the South. Norman
de Vere, watching the thoughtful face eagerly, fancied that some
struggle was going on in her mind between timidity and doubt.

“What is it you wish to ask me, Sweetheart?” kindly.

“Oh! how did you know? Does my face tell secrets like that?” She looked
surprised, rueful, then burst out: “Well, it was only this: Do you
think verse-writing a sign of intellect?”

“Do you write verse, little sister?” laughingly.

“Answer me first,” she returned, saucily.

“Well, then, I can not say positively. I have read verse that was not
poetry--nothing but laboriously constructed rhyme, with not a pretty
conceit or fancy to pay one for reading it.”

“I dare say that is my kind of verse,” despondently.

“So you do write poetry?” eagerly, amusedly.

“No--rhymes--although they come to me very fast. At school I wrote lots
of them.”

“You will show them to me, Sweetheart? I will tell you then whether you
are a true poet or simply a rhymester.”

“I will show them to you on one condition, Mr. de Vere.”

“Well?”

“That you answer the question I asked you just now.”

“What was it?”

“Which do you prefer--beauty or intellect?”

“But I answered it.”

“No; you expressed a preference for a combination. I desire that you
express a choice.”

Norman laughed at her anxiety, with a little inward wonder over it.

“I hardly know how to reply,” he said. “I own I am a beauty-worshiper;
but then I admire intellect too, and I do not believe I could see any
permanent charm in beauty unadorned by the graces of a superior mind.”

“Then you declare in favor of mind?”

“I suppose so, if you compel me to make a choice.”

“I thought you would,” she said, and a soft little sigh ended the words.

His keen ear caught it.

“Why did you sigh, Sweetheart?”

“Did I? Oh, I suppose I was wishing that I was very clever. But I am
always wishing that, only I know I never can be. I am too fond of
dancing and theaters, and all those giddy things that clever people
scorn.”

“The cleverest people like those things just as well as you do,
child, only they can find pleasure in other things, too, and so, I
suppose, can you. You have not had many dissipations since you came to
Jacksonville, yet you have seemed to be happy.”

“I have been. It is such a lovely place. I enjoy it so much. But I
should have been content even if it had not been so charming. I try
always to make my own sunshine,” she said, smiling.

“And while you are making your own you shed some on the paths of
others. You have made my life brighter since you came, Sweetheart.”

“I am so glad,” she said, simply, and a brighter light came to the
lustrous blue eyes, a warmer glow to the dimpled cheek. Unconsciously
to himself, Norman de Vere’s words and glances were far warmer than
those of a brother to a sister. Thea felt it, and thrilled at the
consciousness. Perhaps he loved her better than he knew.

“Ah, if I were only clever!” she thought, eagerly. “I will study--I
will learn more things than they taught at school. My teachers said I
could become very clever if I chose.”




CHAPTER XXXVIII.


The next day Thea had another delightful canter with her guardian, and
when they returned, he told her to bring her verses down to him as she
had promised yesterday.

“I hoped you had forgotten,” Thea exclaimed, ruefully. Having spent
hours over her portfolio last night, she had decided that the dozen or
so poems she had picked out for his inspection were nothing but trash,
and she regretted the promise she had made.

But Norman de Vere would not release her until she promised to bring
him the portfolio at once.

“I am anticipating quite a treat,” he said, with a _soupçon_ of sarcasm
that brought the color rushing to her cheeks.

“Then you will be disappointed,” she answered, tartly, but she went
obediently for the verses.

“But I can not stay to see you read them. There is company only just
arrived, and your mother wants me in the drawing-room,” she said,
glad of so good an excuse for getting away, for her fair cheeks
tingled with bashfulness. Why, oh, why had she been so silly as to
own to verse-making? She could fancy him laughing quietly to himself
at her crudities. But the die was cast. She had blundered into this
humiliation of her own accord in her eagerness to climb nearer to the
height of his genius. She flung the portfolio down upon the table, and
made a very undignified retreat in her haste to be gone.

The visitors waiting for her in the drawing-room were some
acquaintances she had made on first coming to Verelands several months
ago--two gay young girls, and their brother, an unexceptionable young
man. They were wealthy, and of good family--old friends of Mrs. de
Vere, who warmly seconded the invitation they extended to Thea to
return with them for a week’s visit to their country home, something
more than three miles away.

“There will be quite a party of us. Some of our schoolmates will arrive
from the North this evening, and we shall have a gay week,” said Miss
Diana Bentley, the elder of the two girls, a tall, handsome brunette.

“Say that you will come, Thea!” cried the younger, Nell, a girl of
about the same age as Thea, and her good-looking young brother added,
eagerly:

“We will not take ‘no’ for an answer.”

Thea looked at Mrs. de Vere, who said, kindly:

“Go, if you wish, dear. The old woman will try to do without you for a
few days.”

“But my riding-lessons? You know I have just commenced learning,” Thea
said, doubtfully.

“I will take pleasure in riding with you every day,” said Cameron
Bentley, quickly.

He admired Thea very much, and was eager to have her at Orange Grove,
his beautiful home. She flushed slightly under the thrilling glance of
his dark eyes, then gave her consent to go.

It had occurred to her that here was a fortunate escape from the
intolerable bashfulness that had overwhelmed her since she had
thoughtlessly given her promise to let Norman de Vere read her verses.

“A whole week--he will have read and forgotten the trash by then,” she
thought, with swift relief, and made ready gladly to return with the
Bentleys to Orange Grove--Mrs. de Vere promising to pack her trunk and
send it later in the day.

Norman de Vere, eagerly conning the papers she had left with him, was
startled presently by a soft little tap at the door.

“Come in,” he said, and the door opened, admitting a lovely
vision--Thea in a dress and hat of dark-blue velvet with pale-blue
plumes sweeping her shoulders and mingling with the spun silk of her
golden curls, her beautiful face bright, eager, smiling.

Norman’s heart leaped with a thrill that no sophistry could pronounce
brotherly--a thrill that startled him with its keen pleasure.

“What, going out again--so soon? You said there was company!” he cried.

She came nearer and stood at the furthest corner of his writing-desk,
her small, gray-gloved hand resting on the corner.

“Yes--the Bentleys,” she said. “They have come to take me to Orange
Grove for a week. There is to be quite a gay party there. I expect I
shall enjoy it very much.”

“No doubt,” he said with sudden stiffness. He had risen, and stood
with one hand on the back of his chair, looking keenly into her face,
which had gone crimson as she recognized her papers scattered about on
his desk. “But,” he continued, reproachfully, “are you going to give up
your riding-lessons so soon?”

“Oh, no! I spoke of that, and Cameron Bentley promised to take me every
day.”

“Ah!” he laughed; but it was mirthless, and the tone was unconsciously
bitter with which he added: “A most agreeable substitute for your
elderly guardian, Sweetheart.”

“Oh, no; I do not think so,” Thea answered, sweetly. The frank, blue
eyes looked at him a moment--almost tenderly, it seemed to him--then
the long-fringed lashes fell, as she added: “I hope you will come to
Orange Grove sometimes while I am there--if not, I must say good-bye
for a week.”

“Good-bye, then,” he replied, coldly, it seemed to her.

With a rapid step he crossed the space that intervened between them and
caught both her hands in his, and stooping down, would have pressed his
lips to hers; but Thea swiftly drew back from him, exclaiming, saucily:

“No, no; you are not really my brother, you know. It is only
make-believe.”

“I beg your pardon,” he said, flushing hotly, and instantly releasing
the little hands.

“I forgive you,” she answered, laughing lightly, and turning to go; but
Norman followed her out into the hall.

“I will pay my respects to your friends,” he said, longing for a look
at young Bentley, whom he remembered such a short while back as a
boy. Now, doubtless, he was sprouting a young mustache, and aspiring
to Thea West’s favor. There was Miss Bentley, too, a handsome girl of
twenty-five, who was always so cordial when they met. Decidedly he
ought to go in and speak to her a moment, and he was gratified at her
eager pleasure when he entered.

“It is an honor we did not expect--to have you lay aside your pen to
welcome us giddy girls,” she cried, brightly. “But perhaps you have
come to scold us for taking Miss West away from her riding-lessons.”

“Not at all, since she has found a better teacher,” he replied, bowing
to Cameron Bentley, and adding: “We shall miss her, of course, but old
folks, like my mother and myself, must not stand in the way of her
enjoyment.”

“Old folks? The idea!” Nell Bentley cried, boisterously, “Why, Diana
has been dying to ask you to join our party, but was afraid, knowing
you would decline.”

Miss Bentley colored slightly, but stood her ground, and turning to
him, said:

“Will you join us? Since Nell has betrayed me, I will not deny that she
has spoken the truth.”

“I shall be glad to look in now and then at Orange Grove,” he replied,
courteously, without a sign of his exultation at receiving the
invitation that would enable him to comply with Thea’s timid request.

The young ladies protested they would be delighted, but Mr. Cameron
Bentley remained silent. He did not care to have Thea’s grave,
attractive guardian at Orange Grove, lest he should spoil sport.

But in blissful unconsciousness of the young sprig’s disapprobation,
Norman went out to hand them to their carriage, and to give Thea one
last grave glance that somehow set her heart beating madly, so that
she scarcely heard the gallantries of the young man at her side, for
Thea knew quite well that there was more than the love of brother or
guardian in Norman de Vere’s lingering look.

As for him, he went back to the library with the thought:

“Little coquette, she has Cameron Bentley in her toils now. Well, I
shall see for myself how far she goes in her flirtations, in spite of
her denials of them.”

With a frown he went back to his desk and resumed the perusal of Thea’s
verses. The first one he took up had the suggestive heading:


“IN AUTUMN DAYS.

       “My heart, ah! why regret
        Sweet spring’s first violet
    Dead underneath these drifts of red and gold,
        Where golden-rod doth wave
        O’er summer’s new-made grave
    Deep down within the dark and frosty mold?

        “Alas, alas! one knows
        That with the fading rose
    And with the rustling of the dead leaves down,
        The splendor soon will fade
        From mountain height and glade,
    And all the earth lie withered, bare, and brown.

        “So one would fain go back
        Along the spring-time’s track
    And bid the tender flowerets bloom again--
        Recall the faded rose
        From under wintery snows
    To greet the patter of the summer rain.

        “Poor heart, how vain thy dream!
        As easy would it seem
    In winter time dead summer to recall,
        As in life’s autumn days
        Retracing youthful ways
    For him on whom the length’ning shadows fall!”

“A thoughtful rhyme!” Norman de Vere muttered, throwing it from him
with an impatient sigh.




CHAPTER XXXIX.


It was one of the hardest tasks that Norman de Vere set himself to
stay away two days from Orange Grove and the blue-eyed beauty who had
beguiled the heart from his breast in such artless fashion.

He knew now, he owned it frankly to himself, that it was no brotherly
love with which Thea West had inspired him. He who had thought his
heart dead within his breast was in love now, ardently, romantically,
as any boy of twenty, and the worst of it all was that he held his love
as hopeless, deeming the disparity between them too great for him ever
to win the girl’s heart.

Perhaps it was her absence that forced upon him a realization of the
truth, perhaps the simple verses that somehow lingered in his mind,
repeating themselves over and over in the solitude of the night:

          “Poor heart, how vain thy dream!
          As easy would it seem
    In winter time dead summer to recall,
          As in life’s autumn days
          Retracing youthful ways
    For him on whom life’s length’ning shadows fall!”

“Too true,” he murmured, sadly. “It would almost seem as if the girl
wrote with a subtle prescience of this day. How strange the charm she
has always had for me, even in her sweet childhood. She loved me then,
too, but now I am too old. Sweetheart can not be more than eighteen,
while I am thirty-five! Why should I dream of rivaling Cameron Bentley,
who has youth, wealth, and good looks to recommend him to her favor?”

It was the first time that he had ever regretted the swift passage of
the years that had changed him from an ardent, impetuous boy into a
dreamy, thoughtful man. Now he realized in all its intensity the poet’s
plaint:

    “There are gains for all our losses,
    There are balms for all our pains;
    But when youth, the dream, departs,
    It takes something from our hearts,
    And it never comes again.”

“Ah, to be a boy again--to be a boy that I might dare to woo her for my
own!” he sighed; and at length his passion drove him to Orange Grove,
that he might see for himself how Cameron Bentley’s wooing sped.

He found Cameron, metaphorically, at her feet. She had other lovers,
too, this dainty young ward of his. Half a score of young men staying
at the house were ready to murder one another for her fair sake; but
with wonderful cleverness she distributed her smiles impartially among
them all, causing one jealous damsel to quote:

    “Sister she’ll be to them all, and
      Loving and faithful and true;
    Rather inclined round her fingers to wind
      About--say, a dozen or two.”

“I don’t think she means to flirt with anybody. See how she tries to
be the same with all,” Nell Bentley replied, valiantly taking her
favorite’s part; but she only got a shrug of the shoulders from the
malicious New York belle.

Into this coterie of beauties and gallants Norman de Vere now intruded,
and his fame, no less than his darkly handsome, melancholy face,
secured for him the most flattering attention. But Miss Bentley at
once took possession of him, and during his call--which was as long as
conventionality would permit--he was not allowed so much as a minute’s
quiet conversation with Thea. He spoke to her formally across the
room, and had the pleasure of hearing that she was having a delightful
time, and that the riding-lessons went on daily. Miss Bentley, who had
long adored the handsome widower in secret, monopolized him entirely,
and Cameron Bentley tried to do the same by Thea. So Norman went away
disappointed, his chagrin hardly soothed by the fact that in spite of
being “so old,” as he phrased it to himself, he had been lionized by
the Bentleys and their guests and invited to come the next day. He
could remember nothing very clearly, except that Thea had looked almost
unpardonably young and happy, and that her dress of rich dark-green
cashmere with plush trimmings was quite the most becoming he had ever
seen her wear, setting off the gold of her hair till it seemed like
living sunshine, and bringing out all the rose-leaf tints of her
dazzling complexion at their best. She had not looked at him much, not
daring to meet his eyes with the memory fresh in her mind of the verses
she had been rash enough to permit him to read.

“No doubt he is laughing in his sleeve at me now. Of course they seemed
wishy-washy trash to him,” she thought, ruefully; then a little later,
jealously: “But he is not thinking of me. He is quite absorbed in Miss
Bentley. She is handsome, and she likes him, I know. It was easy to
find that out. What if it is a mutual affair?”

Her heart sunk, and the flushed cheeks grew a shade paler with fear.

When he was gone and Thea was alone in her room that night, she gave
way to hysteric tears.

“He shall never call me his sister again. I will not bear it,” she
vowed. “I will be all or nothing. What if he is ever so much older and
richer and smarter than I am? Old men have married pretty, penniless
girls before now. And I am pretty, they say. Other men admire me. Why
not Norman de Vere, the man on whom I have set my heart?”

She flung herself impetuously down upon her knees, and lifting wet
eyes, like violets drowned in summer rain, prayed passionately:

“Dear Heaven, only give me his love, I ask no other boon under the sun!”

The next morning Thea was more careful with her toilet than she had
ever been before. Jealousy of the handsome Miss Bentley had suddenly
forced her to place herself on the defensive. She felt that she could
not give up her hope without an effort to win him, although she sighed:

“She has everything in her favor--wealth, family, culture, even
age--for she is twenty-five, Nell says--while I, nameless, penniless,
scarcely more than a child, have nothing but beauty and innocence on
my side. Yet I love him with the true heart of a woman, and I can not
content myself with that farce of sisterhood. Let it be all or nothing!”

If she chose to be wandering through the grounds that morning, no one
could blame her, for she knew perfectly well that Miss Bentley would
monopolize him when he entered the house.

But when she saw him dismount from the beautiful bay horse, fling the
reins to a servant, and enter, a sudden shyness seized upon Thea, and
she fled from the path down a secluded rose alley to a seat, with a
wildly beating heart.

“It looked too much as if I were waiting for him. He would deem me
forward,” she thought.

But Norman de Vere had caught the flutter of a white wool dress and
golden curls. He followed where they led.

There was Thea palpitating on a garden-seat, looking adorable in a
white cashmere dress trimmed in black velvet, a big black hat with
nodding white plumes on her head, a bunch of roses at her waist.

She rose to her feet with a guilty blush. Oh, would he suspect that she
had come here to waylay him? would he think her bold and unmaidenly?

“Why did you run out of the path when you saw me coming?” he cried.
“Didn’t you care to see me, little sister?”

He had caught both her hands in his after his usual fashion, looking
eagerly into the charming face. She tossed her head with a petulant
motion.

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that!” she cried.

“That--what?”

“Sister. It isn’t true, you know, and I--I--would not care to have it
so. I never cared about brothers, anyway. Emmie’s brothers were not so
nice to her, I’m sure. They liked other boys’ sisters best. Please, I
don’t want to offend you, Mr. de Vere, but I’d rather be your little
friend.”

He dropped the little hands and frowned.

“Very well, Thea,” he said, stiffly, displeasedly, not at all
comprehending her eagerness to remove the least hint of a fraternal
relation in her yearning to be more.

“Thea! You never called me that before. I--I like the old name
best--from you,” she pleaded, with a swift, upward glance that made his
heart beat madly.

“Little coquette! She will not even spare her elderly guardian,”
he thought, half bitterly, then aloud: “Sweetheart, you seem in a
capricious mood to-day. Why are you here alone? Where are all your
lovers?”

“I was tired of everybody. I stole out to be alone.”

“And I am intruding on you. I beg your pardon. I will go,” turning from
her hastily.

“Oh, please don’t!” She put an entreating little hand on his
coat-sleeve, and he turned back.

“If you are not in a hurry, please stay awhile and tell me how dear
Mrs. de Vere is. Miss Bentley would not give me a chance to ask you
yesterday,” she said, sweetly.

He sat down by her on the low garden-seat, and there was silence for a
minute between them. The southern air was soft and balmy, although it
was January, and some long-stemmed roses nodded on tall bushes behind
them, making a fitting background for her delicate, spirited beauty.

Finding that he did not speak, she said:

“Your mother is well, I hope?”

“Quite well. She sent her love.”

“You must give her mine in return. Does she miss me?”

“She did not say.”




CHAPTER XL.


Thea glanced anxiously at her guardian. He did not seem inclined to
talk. Had she offended him by her boldness in asking him to stay longer
with her when he was doubtless anxious to go to Miss Bentley? The color
flamed hotly into her cheeks. “I--I--perhaps I am detaining you. Do not
stay unless you wish,” she said, timidly.

“I am not in any hurry,” he answered, smiling down at her a grave,
sweet smile that made her heart go pit-a-pat with pleasure. “Perhaps
you wanted to ask me how I liked your poetry?” he said.

“Oh, no, no; I--I don’t want to hear. I knew it was nothing but trash.
I’m sorry I let you see it!” the girl cried, depreciatingly.

“You should not say that. I found it very readable,” he answered.

“Thank you; but of course you say that out of kindness,” dimpling
pensively.

“No; I mean it. I enjoyed reading some of the pretty trifles. You have
decided poetical talent, still I was glad to find that you were not a
genius.”

“Glad? Why?” reproachfully, with downcast eyes and a quivering lip.

“I should not like to see you aspiring to a literary career, with its
heartaches and disappointments alternating with feverish triumphs.
Woman should belong to the sweet fire-side of home, not to the critical
public.”

The blue eyes dilated widely.

“You embraced a literary career,” she said.

“Yes, but it was for bread, not for fame.”

“But you are rich.”

“I have earned it all by my pen,” he answered; and again the violet
eyes dilated widely.

“I did not know that--I thought you were always rich--that is, the
Hintons said your wife was wealthy.”

It was the first time her pure young lips had ever referred to the
wicked woman who had wrecked his life. She saw a burning flush creep up
to his forehead, then fade into pallor.

“Oh, forgive me, I--I--spoke thoughtlessly,” faltered the girl.

“It does not matter. They told you the truth. I married a rich woman,
but when we parted, her money went with her. I had to work for my
mother.”

“And for me,” she said, very softly.

“No--not but that I should have been glad to do it, but my mother had a
small income of her own. She insisted on dividing it with you.”

“I must love her more for her generosity,” Thea cried.

“And me less since you know that you owe me no obligation,” he said,
coldly.

“You saved my life,” she answered, in a whisper so freighted with
feeling that he could not reply to her.

It was not gratitude he wanted, it was love. Yet he could not tell her
so. He was only her elderly guardian.

He glanced around at her and saw tears hanging on the thick fringe of
her gold-brown lashes.

“Are you grieved, Sweetheart, because I expressed myself so plainly
about your verses?” he asked.

“I thank you for your frankness, but I am grieved that I am not
clever,” she said.

“Poor little one! Yet you can not expect to have the earth. When God
made you so beautiful that it is a pleasure simply to look at you, He
gave you your share of earthly favors.”

She brushed away the pearly tears with a tiny cobweb lace handkerchief
and said, wistfully:

“I remember that you compared beauty without intellect to a lamp
without a flame, a rose without fragrance.”

“I did not intend the comparison for you, Sweetheart, as, unfortunately
for the peace of mankind, you have intellect enough to brighten the
lamp and perfume the rose. I did not know you so yearned for the
dignity of intellect, else I should have owned that I might find a
publisher for your verses.”

“A publisher? But it might be more difficult to find readers and a
niche in the temple of fame. I do not thirst for mediocrity,” she said,
with a sidelong glance at his smiling face.

“You are right. And so many people arrive at nothing else, that I
advise you not to attempt rivaling them. Keep your pretty verses for
your friends’ reading. See, I carry some of them in my vest-pocket
with which to refresh the dull prose of my thoughts.”

“Pray don’t!” she cried, as he began to unfold the paper.

“True genius is always modest,” Norman de Vere answered, laughingly;
and he read aloud in tones so musical that they lent a new charm to
Thea’s simple rhyme:


“BEHIND THE CURTAIN.

    “Little school-girl at her books
    From the window chilly looks
    Out upon the sunny world,
    Bends her head so richly curled,
    Blushing with a thrill of bliss--
    Daring youth has thrown a kiss!

    “‘Ah,’ the maiden sighed, ‘how sweet
    To be strolling down the street,
    With a lover by my side,
    Pledged to be his happy bride!’
    Watchful teacher with a frown
    Sternly draws the curtain down,

    “Shuts the girl into the gloom
    Of the quiet, studious room;
    Rows of desks and dimpled faces,
    Smiling in accustomed places,
    Through the school the whisper ran:
    ‘Nellie flirted with a man!’

    “Oh, what visions of romance
    Through their giddy fancies dance!
    And the world beyond the curtain
    Glimmered dazzling, vague, uncertain.
    Dreams of love and lovers blent
    With each roguish glance they sent.

    “‘Nellie, child, you know the rule;
    Own before the listening school
    Who’s that very rude young man?
    I’ll reprove him if I can!’
    Nellie tittered: ‘Please forgive him, miss,
    ’Twas--I--that--that--threw--the--first--kiss.’”

Both were laughing when he paused, but Thea was crimson, too.

“That silly thing!” she said, bashfully. “It was an impromptu at
school. It really happened, you know. Nell Olney was the torment of the
teachers, and the darling of the girls--the most arrant little flirt in
Staunton. The girls said I should put it into rhyme, and I did on the
moment. You know I told you they came easy.”

“It was very amusing,” Norman said, as he folded the paper again.

Then he sighed, he scarce knew why, unless it was at the vision he had
conjured up of Thea with the rest in

                “The gloom
    Of the quiet, studious room,”

her golden head filled with

    “Dreams of love and lovers blent.”

The school-girlish verses and the artless enjoyment with which she
explained them made her seem younger and further away than ever. How
beautiful, how charming she was. Did she realize her power, did she
guess how madly his heart was beating, how he longed to take her in his
arms and crush her against his breast in a passion of love? He must go,
else presently she might be laughing at him as she had laughed at her
other lovers.

He rose abruptly.

“I think I must be going.”

Thea rose, too, her smile growing less bright.

“I will go with you to the house,” she said.

“Is it necessary? I believe all I came for was to look after you,
Sweetheart. Of course,” hurriedly, “my mother was anxious. I suppose I
can go away now?”

“Certainly not”--the frank eyes dilated widely. “You promised
Miss Bentley, you know, and she--all of us--put on our prettiest
morning-dresses. You must go to her at once,” with pretty imperiousness.

But she stopped, plucked a rosebud from her belt, and put it in his
button-hole.

“Wear my colors this once,” she said, with a daring that yet did not
seem like boldness, only pretty child’s play.

“If I could believe she meant anything!” he thought, vaguely, as he
walked by her side along the beautiful avenue shaded by orange-trees,
whose globes of golden fruit hung pendant from the trees.

She walked on demurely, thinking daintily in verse:

                “Ah, happy rose,
    Blest that you rise and fall upon his breast,
                Whisper him soft of love,
                All earthly joys above,
    Within my heart that glows
                With such unrest!”

Suddenly he turned to her, saying:

“Have you had your fill of dancing, Sweetheart?”

“We dance every evening, but I am always ready for more,” she answered,
smiling.

“I am thinking of giving a ball at Verelands when you come home.”

“Oh, how sweet!” Thea gave a little jump of delight. “May I tell the
girls?”

“If you wish.”

Nell Bentley came out on the long piazza of the picturesque white house.

“Oh, there you are at last!” she exclaimed, vivaciously. “We thought
you were never coming.”

“I stopped to talk with Sweetheart about a little plan of ours, Miss
Nellie,” he said, taking her hand a moment and pressing it warmly.

“He is going to give us a ball at Verelands when I go home,” said Thea,
joyously.

“Oh, glory!” cried Nell, impetuously. “Let us hurry in and tell them
all!” and they entered the house, where Miss Bentley was waiting
impatiently. She took possession of Norman de Vere for the remainder of
his visit.




CHAPTER XLI.


Norman called at Orange Grove every day after that; but it was always
the same. The handsome Miss Bentley persisted in appropriating his
visit entirely to herself, and gave him no chance for any tender
passages with Thea.

They even persuaded him to come sometimes in the evening when they had
impromptu dancing, the girls taking turns at playing the piano. He was
even beguiled into taking the floor himself now and then, and it was
wonderful how much younger and blither it made him feel. Thea said, too:

“It pleases me to see you dance. I feel then that you do not look on
amusements of that kind as being altogether frivolous and silly.”

After that she might have beguiled him into almost any boyish folly, so
far was he carried away by her girlish spirits. It seemed to him that
he retained just enough reason to prevent him from making open love to
the little beauty.

“She has grown so frank and confiding that I must not drive her from me
by showing her what is in my heart,” he thought, blindly, for Thea’s
assertion that she did not desire to be called his sister had made him
shy of asserting any unusual interest in one so capricious.

“I must keep my place as elderly guardian, and she will reward me with
unlimited confidences and frankness,” he thought, bitterly.

Mrs. de Vere in the meanwhile was superintending arrangements for the
grand ball that was to come off at Verelands. She thought she saw in
this an augury that Norman was waking up to a better frame of mind from
the torpor and world-weariness that had possessed him so long.

“Can there be a woman in the case?” thought the shrewd old lady.

Her thoughts flew to the woman who had been sleeping the last long
sleep in Greenwood for two years.

“Poor Camille!” she murmured, pityingly. “If he ever marries again I
trust his judgment of his second wife will be kinder than it was of his
first.”

She was pleased at the thought that Norman contemplated a second
marriage. She fell to wondering whether it was Thea West or Miss
Bentley.

“Miss Bentley would be the most suitable certainly in point of age,”
she mused. “But no one can tell. These old widowers are usually most
anxious to secure a sixteen-year-old girl.”

A slight frown wrinkled her brow. She feared that happiness in marriage
could not exist with so great disparity in age. When she thought of
Norman marrying Thea West there came to her some suggestive lines:

    “Thy life is spring, but autumn mine,
    Thy hope all flowers, mine bitter fruit.”

But she did not speak to Norman of her hopes and fears, as she would
have done in earlier days. He had always maintained something like
reserve toward her since the long-past-time when she had blamed him for
harshness toward his wife.

So she went on with alacrity superintending the arrangements at
Verelands for the ball. In old times many splendid entertainments had
been held within its walls, and she made up her mind that this should
be second to none.

Thea must have a new dress, too, for the occasion, as it would be a
sort of coming-out affair for her. Mrs. de Vere ordered for her a
simple but effective costume--a white tulle bordered with narrow white
satin ribbons, worn over a white silk slip, and plenty of lilies of the
valley as garnitures.

“She will be the sweetest thing in the house,” she thought, proudly. “I
never saw any one so perfectly lovely as this nameless girl. I suppose
it is sure to be a match between her and Cameron Bentley.”




CHAPTER XLII.


But after the ball-tickets went out, and Thea had come home, and
the entertainment was but three days off, a heavy shadow fell upon
Verelands, and it dated from a call made by Mrs. Bentley upon Mrs. de
Vere.

The portly, well-dressed lady had sent in her card to Mrs. de Vere
without asking for Thea at all. They were together about an hour, and
when the visitor went away, Mrs. de Vere went straight to the library,
where her son was at work, with a gravity on her face that startled him.

She never intruded upon his study hours unless there was something very
serious the matter. He knew now that something must be gravely wrong.

He threw down his pen, and hurried to place a chair.

“Mother!”

“Norman, I have had a great shock,” she said, sinking into a seat.

“What was it?”

“That old scandal has cropped up again--the slander I thought buried
forever.”

“I do not understand you, mother;” but his handsome face grew pale.

“Mrs. Bentley has just been here, Norman. You know her son is madly in
love with Thea West. He wishes to propose for her hand in marriage.”

“And asks for our consent first, good boy,” Norman said, with a ghastly
smile.

“Why, it is not exactly that. He can not get his father’s consent
until--until--” she faltered, and paused.

“What?” he asked, sharply.

“Until certain scandals have been cleared up--old scandals we thought
dead, Norman. So Mrs. Bentley came herself to me. She is anxious
Cameron should have Thea if everything is all right.”

“Well, what is wrong about it?” he asked, with bitter impatience.

“You remember poor Camille’s jealous charge, Norman--her ridiculous
suspicion that Thea West was your own child? The malicious story
has been revived with cruel additions. Anonymous letters have been
circulated in Jacksonville, asserting the same story. Thea is declared
to be your own illegitimate daughter, her mother a circus performer--a
bareback rider--in a low hippodrome.”

Norman de Vere grew ghastly; a stifled imprecation escaped his lips.

“Mrs. Bentley thought,” continued his mother, “that perhaps you had
some clew to Thea’s parentage which you could follow up so as to remove
the stain upon her and satisfy the world. Unless this could be done,
she and her husband would withhold their consent to Cameron speaking to
Thea as he had planned to do at our ball.”

“Are they so sure of her consent?” he asked, scornfully.

“I suppose so. It would be a great match for Thea, you know, and if she
has a spark of ambition she could not but accept him. Even outside of
his gifts of good birth and wealth, the young man is personally very
attractive. It would seem quite natural for Thea to love him.”

“Yes,” her son said, in a strange voice. He paused a minute, then
added: “Does Sweetheart, poor child, know this miserable thing?”

“No.”

“Of course you told Mrs. Bentley that I knew nothing, absolutely
nothing, of Sweetheart’s past--not even her name?”

“Yes.”

“And her answer?”

“She said it was most unfortunate, because the scandal was being
circulated to so great an extent that it was beyond doubt the work
of a most malicious enemy--one who hated you or Thea, or both.
They were some women, she said, who had decided to drop Thea’s
acquaintance--among them the young beauty from New York now visiting
Orange Grove. She sent this morning a regret for the ball.”

“Miss Faris? Pshaw! that is the merest spite. She is in love with
Cameron Bentley herself,” he said, contemptuously.

“I fancied so,” said his mother. “She is one of the most industrious in
fanning the flame of scandal. She asserts that her mother knew Camille
in New York, and that Camille told her that she left you forever
because of your bringing your illegitimate child to Verelands.”

His face grew livid. He began to stride impatiently up and down the
long apartment.

“A curse on their false tongues!” he muttered, hoarsely. “It is this
Faris girl, then, most probably, who has revived that wicked falsehood
out of jealous determination to oust a rival. But Cameron Bentley is
less a man than I deemed him if he can turn to her even though he loses
Thea.”

She sat wringing her hands in silent distress, while he continued his
slow, thoughtful march up and down the floor, speaking no more until he
heard her mutter half to herself:

“Poor little Sweetheart! It is hard to lose her happiness like this for
a cruel lie.”

He turned upon her abruptly.

“Are you so sure she loves him?”

“No, I am not sure; but I was thinking how this bitter story will
follow the poor child, until she is some day confronted with it. It
will kill her, she is so proud, so high-spirited--without a suspicion
of any shameful mystery attached to her origin only in the minds of the
evil and malicious.”

He did not answer for many minutes, but, pausing at last in his weary
tramp, turned on her his pale face and strangely gleaming dark eyes.

“Mother, I swear to you, upon my honor, that I see but one way to
silence forever this foul slander upon my name, and to save Sweetheart
from the agony of shame and grief you forebode.”

“Oh, Norman, if there is any sacrifice I can make to save her--”

“To make Sweetheart my wife, if she will have me,” he ended, in a voice
shaken with emotion.




CHAPTER XLIII.


Two days of the most cruel unrest followed to Norman de Vere after that
painful interview with his mother, for although he had fully resolved
to ask Thea West to marry him, he could not bring himself to the point
of a proposal. What if she should refuse, as it seemed almost certain
she would do? He would be confronted again with the problem of her
future.

And the girl was so young, so lovely, so utterly adorable, it seemed
cruel that her life should be clouded by the shameful story that
Camille’s relentless malice had sent ringing down the years to torture
him when he had thought himself free of her forever. Dead and buried
as she was, she was yet taking on him a most bitter vengeance for her
slighted love.

But if Thea could only love him, the ban of Camille’s malice would be
removed. He would devote his life to making her happy if she would
consent to bind her fresh young life with his saddened, world-weary
one. Perhaps the advantages he could give her--an unsullied name,
riches, and a heart’s devotion, might be some compensation for the
disparity in years that made him think Cameron Bentley or even Frank
Hinton a more desirable _parti_ than himself.

Meanwhile, the hours flew by, bringing the day of the ball, and he had
not yet spoken to Thea, although he felt himself a coward for delaying.

    “He either fears his fate too much
      Or his desert is small
    Who dares not put it to the touch
      To win or lose it all.”

Thea, all unconscious of the fate that hung over her, was all
excitement in the prospect of the ball. She did not see much of her
guardian, for the house was topsy-turvy with the preparations, and he
remained closely shut up in the library, except when he met her at
meals. He had not asked Thea to resume her rides with him, and the
brief spirit of hope and courage that had inspired her at Orange Grove
died out again under what seemed the careless friendliness of his
manner.

“I must give up the struggle,” she said, hopelessly. “I do not believe
he will ever care for any one again. I need not regard Miss Bentley as
a rival, either. He is too self absorbed to think tenderly of her or
me. I fooled myself thinking there was anything in his manner to me to
inspire hope. It was only a way he had of showing me just a little more
than friendliness because--because--he saved my life. But as for love,
it is like that pretty poem of Ella Wheeler Wilcox;” and with a sigh
she repeated:

    “‘You said good-night, and the spell was over--
    Too warm for a friend and too cold for a lover--
    There was nothing else to say.’”

It was still early in the afternoon when Thea laid out upon the bed
all her pretty things to be ready for dressing early that evening. She
lingered some time over the airy white robe, the snowy, embroidered
hose and slippers, admiring the silken lilies of the valley that were
to match the garniture of the dress. She practiced airily before the
mirror some moments with the exquisite white fan, then it occurred to
her that perhaps there was something she could do for Mrs. de Vere, her
heart bubbling over with gratitude to the woman who was so generous and
kind.

“No, there is nothing you can do,” said the good lady. “I advise you,
though, my dear, to take your hat and go out for a stroll through the
grounds that you may get up a perfect complexion for to-night.”

Thea laughed and obeyed, and Mrs. de Vere, looking after her, sighed.

“I wonder if she is going to be my daughter or not? I suppose Norman
can not be so anxious over it as he pretended to me, or he would have
spoken to her before now.”




CHAPTER XLIV.


Thea caught up a big black sun-hat trimmed with a long wreath of
trailing grasses, and took her way to her favorite resort--the river
that flowed through the grounds at Verelands.

It was an ideal day, she thought, as she skipped gayly along. The air
was sweet and warm, the sun shone brightly on the flowers that seemed
to nod a fragrant greeting to the lovely girl as she passed. Something
of the sunshine and warmth of the day seemed to shine into her heart
and dispel the hovering shadows of unrest and hopeless love.

“Oh, why should I be sad?” she cried. “One can not have everything one
wants, and this beautiful old world is bright enough of itself to fill
one’s heart with gladness!”

Then she started back in bashful surprise, for just before her she
saw her tall, handsome guardian. He was standing on the bank of the
river, where some cypress-trees grew thickly, forming a deep shade. His
hat lay on the ground, and his well-shaped head, with its cluster of
wavy black hair, leaned back against a tree-trunk, his downcast eyes,
infinitely grave and sad, fixed upon the now shallow river that went
whispering and sighing along.

Some bitter retrospection had driven him forth to the fatal spot where
so many years ago his love and faith in his beautiful wife had died so
ghastly a death. Only a moment ago it had seemed to him he could see
her there at his feet groveling, seeking for the fatal red roses, the
witnesses of her terrible crime.

He had turned sick and faint again with the hideous memory; he had
leaned his head back against the tree and half shut his eyes, and then
he had heard a girl’s soft voice murmuring some indistinct words to
herself. He turned his head and saw Thea close to him, and it rushed
over him as a happy augury that she should come to him here, bringing
the sunlight of her presence into the gloom that hung forever over this
fatal spot.

“Oh!” she cried, starting back as their eyes met.

“Oh!” he echoed, smiling, and, stooping, recovered his hat. “If you are
out for a walk, may I join you?” he asked.

She nodded assent, and he walked on by her side out of the shadow of
the cypresses into the sunlight of the narrow by-path.

“Mrs. de Vere sent me out into the air to get up a fine complexion
for the ball,” she said, smiling up into his grave, dark face, with a
secret wonder over the shadow that lay in his eyes.

But he smiled back at her even though it cost him an effort, and
replied:

“My mother was cruel to the young men who will be at the ball to try to
add another charm to your perfection. Does she think

    “‘To gild refined gold?
    To paint the lily?’”

There came to her again the suggestive lines:

    “Too warm for a friend and too cold for a lover;”

and she sighed even while she said, demurely:

“Thank you.”

“You were talking to yourself as you came up to me,” he said. “Is that
a habit of yours?”

“Yes, but I am heartily ashamed of it,” blushing.

“I wish I could hear you sometimes when alone. I should like to know
some of your secret thoughts, Little Sweetheart.”

“For instance?” she asked, encouragingly.

“How do you like Verelands?”

“It is the most charming home in the world.”

“And its master?”

The swift color rushed to her cheek, but she answered, simply and
gravely:

“My best friend!”

“And something else that perhaps you have never guessed, Sweetheart.”

She started and looked up at him, wondering at the strong emotion in
his voice. Their eyes met, and he said, huskily:

“Your lover.”

He stopped then, carried away by a swift rush of emotion. Catching her
hands in his, as he had done several times before under the stress of
strong feeling, he asked:

“Do you comprehend me, Sweetheart? I love you, not as _I_
pretended--with a brother’s love--but with the truest and deepest
passion my heart has ever known. Can you love me in return? Will you be
my wife?”

He felt the trembling of the graceful form as he held tight to the
little hands. Her face drooped, and a wave of roseate color swept from
chin to brow. Thea could scarcely look at him, but it was impossible
for her to speak, so she lifted her downcast lids, and gave him a
swift, quickly withdrawn glance so full of exquisite joy and love that
he could not doubt the story told him by those deep violet eyes.

With a thrill of rapture he drew his little love close to his breast,
and pressed a lover’s passionate kiss on her yielding and responsive
lips.

Faint with excess of joy, she lay still in his passionate clasp. Oh,
the sweetness of that moment! Could she ever forget it? There rushed
over her all the love songs, all the poetry she had ever read; but it
seemed to the girl that all were tame in their descriptions of happy
love. Perhaps it was beyond description. She felt quite sure that she
herself could never have found words strong enough in which to describe
the indescribable rapture of that moment when she leaned, blushing and
palpitating, upon her lover’s breast, with his lips on hers, and his
arms clasping her so close, so tight, while between passionate kisses
he called her, “Love, darling, wife!”




CHAPTER XLV.


Thea was dressing for the ball. It took her a long, long time, she
stopped so often to dream of her new-found happiness, and to thrill
anew at the memory of the looks of love and the passionate caresses
Norman had given to her, his girlish little love.

“Oh, how good he is to me! I will try to make him very, very happy,”
she thought; and in her delirium of love and rapture would have made
slow work with her toilet if thoughtful Mrs. de Vere had not sent her
maid to help her and come herself at the last to see how it progressed.

She sent the maid out, saying that there was no more to do, and then
she took the beautiful creature in her arms and kissed her tenderly.

“So you are going to be my daughter,” she said, fondly. “Norman has
told me. I hope you will be very happy, dear. My son has but one fault;
he has a jealous temperament, and that caused all his trouble with poor
Camille. You must guard against coquetry, Sweetheart; he will never be
able to bear it,” she said, with a sigh; and she honestly believed what
she said.

In her mind Camille had been a martyr.

“I have never flirted, dear Mrs. de Vere, and I shall be most careful
not to do anything to vex him,” cried happy Thea, in eager earnest.

“That is right,” approvingly. “You will be on your guard to-night,
love. Of course you will have many admirers. You can not help it, you
are so lovely in tulle and lilies of the valley. It will be white satin
and orange-blossoms soon, for I know Norman will insist on an early
marriage. But, as I was saying, be careful to treat all alike. If any
one proposes to you, tell him frankly you are engaged to my son. It is
better to have that understood at once. You need not say it is a new
thing; if they understand the engagement has existed some time, it does
not matter, my dear,” anxiously.

“But no one is going to propose to me to-night. I am not vain enough to
fancy two men proposing to me in one day,” laughed the happy girl; but
the event justified Mrs. de Vere’s hint.

When the ball was at its height, Cameron Bentley managed to catch Thea
alone for a few moments in a flowery alcove, and declared his love on
the spot in an incoherent fashion that went very well with a certain
dogged, harassed expression he had worn all the evening.

“I’m going to be quite frank with you, my darling,” he hurried on, not
waiting for her to reply. “I’ve had a little tiff with the governor
over this. He wanted me to wait till something definite could be
learned about you--your origin, you know, Thea. And he is so deuced
proud, he threw out hints of disinheritance if I disobeyed him and
spoke to you before he found out. You won’t mind, will you? I know you
won’t if you love me, and the governor will be sure to come round soon.
Even if he didn’t, I believe my mother would help us; she’s so fond
of me she couldn’t hold out long. I’ve my law practice, anyway, you
know--enough for love in a cottage.”

“Is it your father you’re talking about, Mr. Bentley, please?” Thea
faltered, miserably.

Oh, what had she done to bring this down upon her head?

“Yes, the governor. You don’t mind him, do you, Thea? He will come
round all right, I know. You do like me, don’t you? You will have me? I
love you so madly--have loved you ever since the first time I saw you.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” cried Thea.

She pulled away her hands when he tried to clasp them, and tears came
into her blue eyes.

“Sorry about the governor? Oh, that doesn’t matter, Thea. He will
certainly come round, I tell you!” the young man cried, feverishly,
eagerly.

“Oh, I don’t mean him--it’s you!” she cried, tearfully. “I’m so sorry
you love me. Like that, too, to run such risks for my sake--poverty
and--everything. And I can’t have you, you know. I’m engaged to Mr. de
Vere.”

He recoiled as if she had struck him; his dark eyes caught a haggard,
hunted look.

“You are jesting!” he cried.

“I am not. I am going to marry Mr. de Vere,” she said, proudly.

“That old man! Old enough to be your father! And broke his first wife’s
heart, too! You can’t pretend you love him!” in impatient anger.

“I worship him!” she answered, defiantly. “I do not thank you for
calling him old, either. He is only eighteen years older than I am, and
I don’t want him a day younger. I think him grand, magnificent!”

“Thea, for God’s sake, throw him over and take me! For all his fame he
will not make you happy. He married his first wife for money, and then
broke her heart.”

“But I have no money. He is going to marry me for love,” she replied,
with pretty triumph; then, indignantly, “Mr. Bentley, is it gentlemanly
to censure your host under his own roof?”

“I am not accountable. You have driven me mad!” he answered, hoarsely.
“Good heavens, Thea West, you must be the cruelest coquette in the
world. Every one thought you would be only too glad to marry me. You
certainly seemed fond of me. You know it.”

“It is false. I treated you as I did all the rest. I hope I am kind to
every one; but I was in love with my guardian all the time, and--and--I
won’t stay to hear another word!” Thea panted, turning quickly to leave
him.

“You shall repent your cruelty, by Heaven!” the young man cried,
madly. He detained her a moment, catching her hand and pressing his
burning lips upon it, then rushed from the room and the house, mad with
disappointment and despair.

Even Thea’s own great happiness could not make her enjoy the ball after
that. She was no longer the careless child who had laughed at the
devotion of her earlier lovers. She knew what love was like now--all
its rapture, all its pain, and she could sympathize with Cameron
Bentley in his bitter disappointment. She forgave him the unjust
reproaches he had uttered because she knew that he was suffering,
and she paid no heed to his parting threat. But the memory of his
haggard, despairing looks did not leave her until her blue eyes closed
wearily in slumber after the ball was over--the ball that, in spite
of Cameron Bentley, had been the very happiest of her young life, for
her betrothed husband had been near her constantly, and his pride in
her was so unmistakable that no one could doubt his happiness in the
betrothal which was duly announced by his mother, and which certainly
created a great sensation. It was the theme of the evening, and
effectively refuted the malicious slander which had been circulating
the past week in social circles, and of which almost every one was
cognizant except Thea herself, who, in her airy tulle robe and lilies
of the valley, looked angelically fair and peaceful.

The Bentleys had been present with all of their guests except the
obdurate Miss Faris, but they left rather early because they learned
that Cameron had already gone, and, they feared, in despair over the
announcement of Thea’s engagement to her guardian. Now, when too late,
they regretted their harshness in forbidding Cameron’s proposal to
Thea, for the betrothal to Norman put an effectual damper on malicious
reports, and they reflected that if Cameron had spoken first he might
have won the coveted prize.

Mad with reckless despair at his disappointment, the young man had
hurried home, and to drown thought, indulged heavily in drink.

Locking himself into his room, he spent the night hours in a wild
bacchanalia of drink and despair, until the early hours of the morning,
when a loud pistol-shot startled every one from slumber and brought
them rushing to the scene. The door was burst open, and Cameron was
found senseless in a pool of blood on the floor, his right hand
grasping a smoking pistol. He had aimed for his heart, but his unsteady
hand had slipped aside, and he had only succeeded in giving himself a
serious but not fatal wound.

When the news of the attempted suicide came to Verelands, Thea was
dismayed.

“I believe I will make a vow never to speak to a young man again!” she
exclaimed, tearfully.

“You might do something more sensible than that--marry me soon, and you
will no longer be a temptation to young men who go crazy over a pair of
blue eyes,” said Norman de Vere.

She blushed, and trilled saucily:

    “‘I’m ow’re young to marry yet.’”

“If you put off the wedding-day long, I shall be getting gray. You
would not like that,” he answered, getting in return the sweetest,
shyest look of love that seemed to bid defiance to the frosty
encroachments of age.

But by and by she found that he was quite in earnest in pleading for
an early marriage. He did not want to seem selfish, but he knew in his
heart that it would be better to marry Thea as soon as possible, and
take her away from Verelands, lest some echo of the vile rumors that
had been circulating should reach her ears and sully her pure spirit
with their venom.

“Mother, what is to hinder your taking Sweetheart to New York at once
and ordering the wedding things for a month hence?” he asked; and Mrs.
de Vere replied that it would please her very much to do so.

“The wedding and traveling-dress after all will be the most we
will have to buy there, for if you go abroad on your wedding-tour,
Sweetheart can get lots of pretty things in Paris,” she said.

“Paris? Oh!” cried the girl, in a rapture of pleasure.

“Then you will like to go abroad?” her lover asked, smiling; and she
clapped her pretty hands in childish delight, and offered no objections
to being married in a month. She said, naïvely, no one would think of
falling in love with her for her eyes and curls when she was a married
woman, and though Norman smiled at that, he did not contradict her
assertion.

Then Mrs. de Vere decided that she would call upon the Bentleys at
once to express her sympathy in their trouble. Thea need not go, she
thought, as the girl had owned frankly to all that had passed between
herself and Cameron last night.

“They would rather not see you, I know, for it is natural they should
feel some little resentment against you,” she said.

“But, dear Mrs. de Vere, I am not to blame. I never gave him any
encouragement,” opening her blue eyes reproachfully.

“The Bentleys will believe the reverse for awhile, of course, but when
Cameron gets well they will get over their nonsense, especially as you
will be married and gone.”

So Mrs. de Vere went alone to Orange Grove, where she had the
satisfaction of learning that Cameron’s wound was by no means as
serious as supposed, and that if all went well he would be out again in
a few weeks.

“Miss Faris is playing her part very skillfully, and if Cameron is as
fickle as he is reckless, it is likely that she will catch his heart
in the rebound. So do not worry yourself, dear, over the fate of this
desperate youth,” she said, consolingly, to Thea.




CHAPTER XLVI.


Thea could not help writing a surreptitious little note of farewell to
her dear friend Nellie Bentley:

    “DEAR NELLIE,--I hope you are not mad with me about Cameron.
    They say he shot himself on my account. Oh, Nellie, please
    don’t think I led him on, for I never thought of such a thing.
    You know we were all just sociable together, but I didn’t try
    to make him love me. I liked him ever so much as a friend, but
    I was desperately in love with my dear guardian all the time.
    And now I am to marry him, you know, and I am so happy I can
    not describe my feelings. I hope dear Cameron will soon be well
    again, and that he will forget his fancy for me, and marry some
    lovely girl like that Miss Faris, who likes him that way, I feel
    certain--only don’t tell her I said so, for she might get mad.
    To-morrow I am going to New York with Mrs. de Vere to order my
    wedding-dress. Only think of it--and I not eighteen, probably!
    But I am to be married in a month, and we will go to Paris on
    our wedding-tour. I shall bring you a souvenir, Nellie. And, oh!
    I hope that everything will blow over in a month, and that your
    mamma will let you be my bride-maid. I will write to you again
    from New York, and I will never forget the lovely week I spent at
    Orange Grove. I would send my love to everybody, only I am afraid
    they are a little vexed with me. A dozen kisses. Your loving

                                                               “THEA.”

It was arranged at first that Norman was to remain at Verelands; but
he suddenly discovered that he would like to go to New York, too, on
alleged business with his publisher. It was a most flimsy excuse, but
it served his purpose, and the next day Verelands was shut up and
Norman accompanied Thea, his mother, and her maid northward for the
all-important purpose of choosing the bridal robe for his beautiful
young love.

“There is one thing you must let me do--that is, invite the Hintons to
my wedding. I want to make friends with everybody, now that I am so
happy,” coaxed Thea, on her journey.

“They would only accuse you of more inveterate flirting than ever
since you have captured such an old fellow as I am,” Norman de Vere
returned, laughingly.

“You shall not call yourself old. You seem no older to me than other
men--only wiser and handsomer,” answered his frank Sweetheart, and his
face glowed with pleasure.

It did indeed seem to him that he had grown younger since Thea West
had come back to Verelands in all the charm of her young beauty. Could
any boy love her more ardently, or with more keen appreciation of her
charms than he did? His heart answered no, and he began to realize that
the feeling he had had for queenly, capricious, tormenting Camille had
not borne comparison with this later, deeper love.

“She is all the world to me. Pray Heaven her love may make up to me
in sunshine for all the shadows of my past,” he thought many times in
that happy month, when he laid aside his pen and gave himself up to the
pleasure of escorting Thea daily about the modern Babylon, that charmed
and frightened the country-bred girl all in one breath, it was so
stupendous, and its rush and roar so dreadful to her unaccustomed ears.

“I should feel frightened at even finding myself alone in those busy
streets. I believe I should wail aloud like a lost child in mere
terror,” she said to him once, with a shiver; and the day came when,
all alone in his cruel despair, he thought of her words with a sort
of terror, wondering if she had found the reality grievous as the
anticipation.




CHAPTER XLVII.


But that happy month came to an end at last, to be followed by still
happier ones, for now it was sweet Thea’s bridal-eve, and she was going
across the sea with the husband of her choice.

Mrs. de Vere had wished for the wedding to be on as grand a scale as
the ball had been, but out of delicacy to Cameron Bentley, who was not
yet out of his room, it was arranged more quietly. There was a marriage
at church, with cards for the most intimate friends of the family, and
a wedding-breakfast for the same. There were many floral decorations,
as became the wedding of so fair and youthful a bride, and, to crown
the happiness of the generous-hearted girl, all the Hintons had been
bidden to the wedding, and two had come--Tom, all curiosity and
eagerness over the grand marriage of his former friend, and Emmie,
ashamed and repentant over her cruel treatment of Thea, and eager to
be forgiven for her folly. Frank had gone to the far West to practice
medicine in a rising town, and Mrs. de Vere, who was going to stay at
Verelands, made the brother and sister promise to spend a month with
her before returning to their Virginia home.

       *       *       *       *       *

Reader, if we could say farewell here and leave our lovely heroine
to her happiness, her heart beating high with hope and love, and the
orange-blossoms wreathing her innocent brow, how sweet the task.

But the pen that has tried to trace the story of her sweet young life
to her marriage-day must falter not yet until the dark shadows that
fell from a sky that was seemingly all sunshine have been recorded too
on the page of romance.

       *       *       *       *       *

When the steamer “City of New York” left her moorings, there leaned
against the rail among the excited passengers two figures noticeable
for manly grace and feminine beauty. Norman de Vere and his beautiful
bride Thea in a lovely steamer costume of Russia blue, her gold curls
streaming on the breeze like sunshine, her blue eyes beaming with shy
happiness. No wonder that every eye rested on her with wonder and
admiration, and that even the listless, haughty old Englishman, past
sixty years old, started and moved nearer to the handsome pair, putting
up his eyeglass to scan them the better.

“Jove! what an out-and-out beauty! A real English face, too--pink and
white, with the loveliest shadings. Who can she be? Heavens!”

His eyes had wandered to her male companion.

Lord Stuart, for it was no other, had recognized in the darkly
handsome, beardless face of Thea’s companion an old acquaintance,
Norman de Vere.

With a grim smile the old nobleman watched the pair, drawing very
correct conclusions.

“A wedding-tour! He has married again? Camille, then, that creature of
ice and fire, of jealousy and treachery, of love and hate, must be dead
at last. Peace to her wicked soul!”

He watched the wedded pair with musing, thoughtful eyes, while his mind
went back over the long years to the time when he had been Camille
de Vere’s adoring slave, and plotted treachery against the princely
looking man yonder, whose face in repose showed in its gravity faint
traces yet of the storm through which his soul had passed.

“There was more in him than I thought, dupe of Camille that I was!” he
muttered. “She was only playing me off to make her value greater in his
eyes, for she loved him, as I soon proved to my chagrin. Well, she
was not worthy of either--certainly not of this man who has risen like
a phenix from his ashes, and made himself a name that rings from one
continent to another! I wonder if I dare resume the old acquaintance?”




CHAPTER XLVIII.


Lord Stuart was most anxious to approach Norman de Vere when he found
out for certain that the beautiful young girl was his bride. If Camille
was indeed dead, he wanted to pay her memory the only tribute he could
under the circumstances--the assurance that her husband’s suspicions of
her virtue were unfounded.

But they had been several days out before he had the slightest
opportunity to carry out his desire, for Norman and his young bride
were inseparable, and so entirely absorbed in each other that they
seemed to have neither eyes nor ears for any one else. At length Thea
was attacked by the fell demon of seasickness, and was forced to keep
her state-room for twenty-four hours, and the first time that Norman
came on deck alone the nobleman hastened to speak to him.

It was a most embarrassing moment. Lord Stuart, though he had plenty of
nerve and _sang-froid_, never could recall to himself in exactly what
words he had made his peace with the man he had sought to wrong in the
long ago. He remembered that it had been uphill work at first, and that
it was only when he had frankly told his story and sworn to Camille’s
purity that the younger man had taken his hand and forgiven him.

“Camille has been dead two years,” he said. “She had many faults. I
thank you for proving her innocent of one;” and he sighed as he thought
of the beautiful, erring woman who had loved him so madly, and whose
mysterious sin he had punished by putting her away from him forever.

He was half tempted for a moment to confess the truth to Lord Stuart,
to tell him of Camille’s terrible sin, and to ask him if he knew what
she had in common with Robert Lacy, his dead valet, that she should
have murdered him; but a strange reluctance deterred him. Once he
had loved Camille, and despite the persecution he had suffered at
her hands, he could not bear to utter a harsh word against her now.
Believing himself the only person alive who knew of her guilt, he could
not betray her now, so he shut his lips over the unspoken words, and so
passed the opportunity for a confidence between the two men that might
have warded off the bitter sorrow that came to Norman later.

Lord Stuart gazed curiously at him, and the impulse to betray all that
he knew of the dead woman passed from his mind.

“He does not suspect her. Why should I speak, now that she is dead and
can do no more harm? Let him think as kindly of her as he can,” was his
thought; and dismissing Camille from the conversation, he congratulated
Norman on the wondrously beautiful bride he had won.

“It is the loveliest face I ever saw, and the complexion is quite
English. That pleases me, of course, for, although I admire your
American beauties exceedingly, I am quite partial to English red and
white,” he added, smiling.

“I am glad that Thea compares favorably with your English beauties,”
Norman said, carelessly. “But she is pure American. Her whole life has
been spent in Virginia and Florida.”

Then a sudden flush stained his cheek. He remembered suddenly that Thea
was at least four years old when he found her, and that those four
years of her life were a complete blank to him. From whence she came he
had no idea.

But he could not explain this to Lord Stuart. Their slight acquaintance
did not warrant such confidence and familiarity. He remained silent a
moment, then said, as though in dismissal of the subject:

“My wife has been my ward from her childhood. When I was abroad with my
mother she was at school in Virginia.”




CHAPTER XLIX.


Lord Stuart could hardly understand the strange interest he took in
Norman de Vere’s lovely young wife. She was beautiful, but he had seen
many beautiful women without feeling much interest in them. He was past
sixty now, and the interest he took in women was cynical rather than
romantic. Since the time when Camille de Vere’s charms had made him a
captive for a brief space of time, he had felt no touch of the tender
passion.

But the lovely face and dark-blue eyes of Norman de Vere’s girl-bride
haunted him with strange persistency, and he caught himself longing
to know her, wondering if Norman would present him when Thea came on
deck again. He did not dare to ask the favor, remembering that he had
not been quite guiltless in the affair with Camille, but had actually
wished to part her from her boy-husband, and marry her himself.

It was no such impulse that stirred him now in thinking of the fair
young girl who had taken the place of fair but faulty Camille in
Norman’s heart. If he had had a daughter, Lord Stuart would have felt
much the same toward her as he did toward Thea.

When she came on deck again, her beautiful face a little pale from her
experience of seasickness, he was standing near her steamer-chair, and
Norman, after a moment’s hesitation, presented him to his wife.

Lord Stuart felt an odd thrill of pleasure when Thea allowed him to
touch her dimpled white hand. He pressed it gently, and murmured his
pride and pleasure at knowing her, while she responded in shy yet
gracious terms.

In truth, the young girl was somehow as much attracted by the old
nobleman as he had been by her. There was something so kind and
friendly in his glance and smile, and his manners were so genial, that
she liked him at once. The two immediately became friends, and whether
Norman liked it or not, he gave no sign of displeasure, and resolved
not to dampen his darling’s pleasure by telling her of that long-past
time when he and Lord Stuart had been the most bitter foes. He murmured
to himself:

    “The past is in the eternal past,
    Our heads will soon lie low, Lorena,
    Life’s tide is ebbing out so fast.”

Lord Stuart had been too wise to confess all his folly. Not even Norman
would ever know that for a brief while he had adored Camille and hated
her boy-husband. Enough to own that they had amused themselves by a
flirtation that, while harmless in the eyes of the _blasé_ world,
had seemed culpable in the eyes of the hot-headed boy. It was all so
long ago that Norman could not refuse to look at it more leniently
now--could not throw the shadow of that past across the sunshine of
Thea’s present.

Ah, how happy the young bride was in those golden honeymoon days when
the blue of the sky was mirrored in the blue of the sea by day, and
by night the stars. Although it was February the weather was balmy as
May. Nature seemed to smile on Thea. People said afterward that it
was a charming voyage, there were so many pleasant people on board,
and such a fair young bride, whose handsome husband, the celebrated
author, seemed to worship her. Nothing unpleasant occurred during the
whole week. The young people were sociable, the elders complaisant.
They enlivened the trip by amateur theatricals and Mrs. Jarley’s
wax-works. On Sunday they had a sermon in the cabin from an eminent
preacher who was bound for the Holy Land, and every day the kindly
friendship between the De Veres and Lord Stuart grew more genial. He
was determined that they should like him--determined to drive away the
bitter memories of the past by more agreeable impressions, and he knew
that it was all for the sake of the charming girl in whose voice and
smile lurked such a spell of subtle fascination.

“Mrs. de Vere, I want you to know my sister, Lady Moreland,” he said
to her on the last day of the voyage. “I think you will like her very
much. She is a widow, and she lives with me at my home in Devonshire.
When the season in London begins she comes up and occupies my town
house and entertains for me.”

“So you have no wife?” Thea said, almost pityingly.

“No; and Edith has no husband. She has been a widow eighteen years.”

“Has she any children?”

“None. We have only each other. We are the last of our family, and,
poor girl! she is often lonely, for I am somewhat of a wanderer, and I
have been away from her now six months. I wish she would marry again.”

“Do you think she will?” Thea asked him.

“No,” he answered, and a faint sigh escaped him. “Her heart is buried
in her husband’s grave.”

Norman came up at that moment, and Lord Stuart said:

“I have been telling Mrs. de Vere about my sister, trying to awaken
such an interest in my relative that she will accept an invitation to
visit her in May, when she comes up to our London house for the season.”

Norman smiled, and glanced at Thea, whose blue eyes were full of tender
interest.

“She is a widow, and her heart is buried in her husband’s grave. Is it
not sad?” she said, sweetly.

“You would think so if you knew her,” said Lord Stuart. “She is not
forty yet, though she has been a widow eighteen years, and she is
lovely still. It is her own fault that she has never married a second
time, for she has had many suitors. But she is romantic enough to suit
even you, Mrs. de Vere, and I want you to promise me you will visit us
in London.”

“I shall be glad,” she answered.




CHAPTER L.


It was in Italy, two months later, that a letter came to the happy
bride, reminding her of her promise to go to Lord Stuart’s London house
in May.

“My sister has fallen in love with my description of you, Mrs. de
Vere, and as she already knows your gifted husband through his clever
books, she is most anxious to meet you both, and prides herself on the
opportunity of presenting in society this year an author and a beauty.
You will not have the heart to disappoint her, I know, so promise us
that you will come by the middle of May,” he wrote; and Thea looked
questioningly at her husband.

“Shall we go?”

“I thought, my darling, that you had already promised Lord Stuart?”

“So I did--but”--with a swift, passionate glance under the long fringe
of her thick lashes--“we have been so happy alone together. Will it be
so when we go to London? Will society be as pleasant as this?”

She glanced about her at their pretty private parlor, where they had
spent so many happy evenings together, “the world forgetting, by the
world forgot,” then she flung her white arms about his neck and gave
him an impulsive kiss.

Norman caught her to his breast in a passionate embrace.

“Oh, my little love, how happy you make me!” he whispered in the deep
tones of strong emotion; and for a little while Lord Stuart’s letter
was quite forgotten in the love-making that ensued.

When the subject came up again, they decided to accept the invitation.

“I dare say you will enjoy it very much. Beautiful young women always
do,” Norman said, smiling. “You will have a chance to air your new
Paris dresses that have never been worn yet; and, _chère petite_, you
will need a maid.”

“Oh, dear, no; that will be quite unnecessary,” she protested; but
her husband gently but firmly overruled the objections she had always
raised to a maid.

“We will set about securing one at once,” he said; and Thea gave way
gracefully. Of course he knew best.

A clever, elderly woman was secured, English instead of French, for
Norman had always detested French maids since the days of Finette Du
Val. With something like a sigh for the past happy days, Thea turned
her face to the future, and in a few more days found herself clinging
bashfully to her husband’s arm and receiving the cordial greetings of
Lord Stuart and his widowed sister in their beautiful home.

She had looked forward with eager interest to the meeting with Lord
Stuart’s sister, who had been romantic enough to mourn her dead husband
for eighteen years. To the young bride who loved her husband with
passionate devotion such constancy appeared most charming. She was
quite sure that she should do the same if she were to lose her dear
Norman, if indeed she did not die outright of grief.

Poor Thea, poor, happy, loving child! it seemed to her so easy to die
if bereft of that which made life worth living. She did not realize the
bitter contrasts of life:

    “We pray for death,
    But death comes not at will.”

She had been so much interested in Lord Stuart’s description of his
sister that it did not seem strange to her that she thrilled and
trembled when she stood at last in Lady Edith’s presence, and felt the
touch of her soft, white hand, and heard her low, sweet voice speaking
to her in the kindest accents, as if she quite understood the pretty
girlish shyness of her guest.

Thea gained courage from those gentle tones and looked up at Lady Edith.

She saw a woman of medium height and size, exquisitely formed, and
with such a lovely, pensive face that it seemed to beguile the young
girl’s heart from her breast. Dark-blue eyes, shining chestnut braids,
and delicate, high-bred features combined to make the young widow
rarely lovely still, though past the prime of youth. Her dress was some
soft shining arrangement of black and white, showing that she still
wore mourning in a slight degree for her loved and lost. This lovely,
winning woman welcomed Thea with a sweet cordiality that made them
friends at once.

When the husband and wife had gone to their rooms to dress for dinner,
Lady Edith turned to her brother with tears in her lovely eyes.

“How beautiful she is!” she cried. “I am in love with her already. Do
you know, brother, that she reminds me strongly of my poor dead Arthur?”

“Is it that?” he exclaimed. “Why, now I know what it is that drew me to
Thea de Vere from the first. She has a look of poor Arthur.”

“The same bright smile, and an indefinable something about her whole
face and manner,” sighed Lady Edith. She remained quite silent a few
moments, then murmured, in a musing tone: “My little darling, if she
had lived, would have looked like this young girl--the same blue eyes
and dazzling golden curls.”

Meanwhile, Norman de Vere was saying to his fair young bride:

“It will not be necessary, my darling, to confide to these English
people the story of your past--that is, of the strange way in which you
came into my guardianship.”

“Oh, Norman, are you ashamed of the mystery that surrounds my birth?”
she cried, startled.

“Not in the least, my darling wife; but English people of rank lay so
much stress upon birth and position, and it would seem strange to them
that I could never trace your family. I have told our host that you
were my ward from early childhood, and that is enough for any one to
know,” said Norman, who had a pride equal to any one’s, only he did not
realize it.

Thea had just come in to him from the hands of her maid. She looked
lovely in a dinner-dress of blue and white, with ornaments of pearl.

“Sweetheart, how lovely you are, and how young and childish you appear
by my side! I hope people will not begin to call you an old man’s
darling,” Norman said, drawing her within the circle of his arm before
the tall mirror and gazing critically upon the reflection therein--the
handsome man in manhood’s early prime, and the lovely golden-haired
girl whose head just reached his broad shoulder.

“You shall not call yourself old,” she cried, caressing him in
her pretty, tender fashion. “How do you like my Worth dress?” she
continued, gayly.

“It is adorable!” he replied; but he was looking at her face, not the
dainty creation of blue and white.

“Adorable is not exactly the term to apply to a dress, but I will
excuse you, as I know it is becoming, and perhaps that makes me
adorable.” Thea laughed saucily; then she pushed her white hand through
his arm and drew him to the door.

“Let us go down to the drawing-room,” she said. “I am anxious to meet
that sweet lady again. I have fallen in love with her at sight.”

“She is very charming, certainly,” he agreed. Then he laughed. “But I
suppose I must not fall in love with her, too, or my little wife will
be jealous.”

“Jealous of sweet Lady Edith--no, never!” the girl cried, impulsively,
her young heart thrilling with affection for the sweet, pensive-faced
woman who but a few hours before had been a stranger to her save in
name. But to Thea it almost seemed as if she had known Lady Edith years
and years.




CHAPTER LI.


“I am tired, Norman, and my head aches. I will not go to the opera
to-night,” Thea said, languidly, laying her flushed face down on her
husband’s shoulder.

Three weeks had passed since their coming to London, and Thea had
tasted all the sweetness and triumph of a triumphal entrance upon
society, which had crowned her in her first week with the laurels of
belleship. Her husband’s name was already known in London through his
popular books, and the brilliant social world immediately made a pet
of his lovely girl-bride. Her sparkling beauty, her naïveté, her frank
enjoyment of everything created a decided sensation, and Lady Edith’s
daily mail was crowded with invitations for herself and guests.

“I have not gone so much in society for years,” she said, in her sweet,
gentle fashion. “But it is a pleasure to chaperon you, my dear, you
enjoy it so much, and I receive so many compliments on introducing
you.” Then she sighed. “Ah, Thea, I might have been chaperoning a
daughter of my own now if she had lived.”

“You had a daughter?” Thea cried, in surprise.

“Yes, a little angel. But she died when she was four years old. Oh,
Thea, I can not talk to you of her; it is too painful,” the beautiful
woman cried, bursting into tears.

Thea’s heart thrilled with passionate pity and tenderness. She put
her arms about the drooping figure, and kissed the tear-wet face,
whispering of her love and sympathy, until at last Lady Edith ceased
her sobbing and murmured:

“If she had lived, she would have been like you, darling Thea. She had
the same blue eyes and curling golden hair. I hope you will come to us
some time in Devonshire, and I will show you her portrait.”

That night Thea told her husband of Lady Edith’s sorrow.

“I love her more and more,” she said. “This sorrow draws me nearer to
her, because it makes me think of my own dear mother who lost me in my
childhood by a fate more sad than death.”

It was not often that Thea referred to the mystery of her past, but
of late her thoughts had dwelt more frequently upon it. She wondered
if her parents were yet alive--if they missed and mourned the child so
strangely lost.

“If I could find my mother, I would like for her to resemble sweet
Lady Edith,” she thought sometimes when she found a minute’s quiet in
the whirl of gayety in which she was plunged--ball, opera, reception
succeeding one another in bewildering rapidity.

But suddenly it all came to an end. In her tulle gowns and bare throat
and arms the beautiful girl caught cold in damp, foggy London, and
that evening when she laid her fair head on Norman’s shoulder, with
the plaintive words, “I am tired--my head aches,” was the beginning of
weeks of illness and pain when Thea lay, hot and feverish and sometimes
delirious, on her bed, while Lady Edith, giving up society entirely,
nursed her with all a mother’s devotion.

When the young wife began to get better the clever physician ordered
her husband to take her back to Italy to recuperate.

“She has had quite enough of dancing and flirting and damp, muggy air
for the present; now she must have some months of rest and quiet,” he
said, in his autocratic way that nobody dreamed of disputing--least of
all Norman de Vere, to whom he had revealed a fact that made the strong
man’s pulses beat high with joy, while it increased, if possible, his
love and devotion for his beautiful bride. The hope that Camille had
disappointed long ago was to be realized at last. There would be a
child to perpetuate the name of De Vere.

Lady Edith wept quietly at the news.

“It recalls old days to me,” she said, pathetically.




CHAPTER LII.


Norman de Vere lost no time writing his mother the joyful news about
Thea. He knew that it would make her very happy.

He was not disappointed, for soon there came a letter from her
breathing all her pleasure at the good news, and expressing her hope
that they would come home soon, so that she could give her darling Thea
a mother’s care.

“I should like to go,” Thea said, thinking longingly of beautiful
Verelands. Since she had left London and Lady Edith she had grown
homesick.

“Are you tired of Italy?” Norman asked, in some surprise.

“No, I am not tired; only when one is sick one misses home,” she said.
“And your dear mother, she must be lonely without us.”

“That is true,” he said, grateful for her thought of his mother. “Well,
when you get stronger, darling, we will go home.”

So in six months after their marriage they turned their faces homeward.
They stayed two days more in London, for the purpose of bidding Lord
Stuart and his sister farewell, and Thea made them promise to visit
her the next year. Lady Edith wept at parting, the girl had intwined
herself so fondly around her heart.

“But we shall meet again, although I have to cross the seas to find
you, my dearest,” she cried, tenderly; and Thea answered, earnestly:

“But for that hope I could not bear to be parted from you.”

She meant every word, for her heart clung with strange tenderness to
the gentle, lovely woman, and it was with a bitter pang that she drew
herself at last from the tender clasping arms and prepared to go with
her husband.

Lord Stuart, too, parted from her with genuine regret.

“It almost seems as if you belonged to us by ties of blood, you have
grown so dear,” he said; and he begged Norman to let her accept a
parting gift from him--a diamond necklace of great value that had once
belonged to his mother.

Norman was touched by the kindness and affection of these new friends,
but he did not wonder at it. Thea was so beautiful and winning it would
have seemed more strange if they had not loved her, he thought.

But at last they had parted, and the homeward journey was accomplished.
Mrs. de Vere had come to New York to meet their steamer. She was too
impatient to remain at home.

She showered Thea with caresses and praises.

“You are more lovely than ever,” she said, “and you have made me so
happy I have nothing left to wish for in the world.”

They remained in New York several days, and the old lady, in spite of
her happiness, did not forget her dead daughter-in-law. She ordered a
beautiful bouquet, and drove alone to Greenwood to lay it on Camille’s
grave.

“I would have gone with you if I had known,” Thea said, when she told
her where she had been.

“I would have asked you, dear, only I knew Norman would not like it.”

“Not like it? But will he not go there himself?” Thea asked, a slight
flush rising to her fair brow.

“No; I do not believe that he will. He was most unreasonably harsh
toward poor Camille. They were separated through his jealousy, you
know, dear, and no harm was ever really proved against her, but he
never forgave her--does not even forgive her in her grave, I fear. But
there, I ought not to be talking with you, child, about Norman’s first
wife. He would not like it, I am sure, so do not tell him I went to
Camille’s grave. Poor soul! I could not slight her memory.”

“You were fond of her?” Thea asked, timidly.

“Yes; but not so much as I am of you, Sweetheart. She was a little
strange at times, and so fond of Norman that I fancy she was jealous
even of his love for his mother. But naturally I forgave her that. I
think if Heaven had blessed her as it has you, dear, that no trouble
would have come between them. But it chafed her that no child came,
and she threw herself into the whirl of society. She was too fond of
admiration. My dear, never forget that your husband is a passionately
jealous man. Never trifle with his heart.”

“I will not,” Thea promised; and after the old lady went out she sat a
long time thinking compassionately of the woman who had been Norman’s
wife long years ago, and who now lay dead, so bitterly hated still that
he would not visit her grave.

Norman had gone to see his publisher about a book he was just bringing
out, so Thea had several hours of solitude in which to brood over
what her mother-in-law had most unwisely told her. She could not help
feeling sad over it.

“I can not bear to think that my darling husband was hard and unjust to
that dead woman. He seems to me so good and noble and tender that I can
not realize him otherwise. But it must have been that jealousy drove
him mad,” she sighed; and into her young heart came the most intense
pity for Camille, whom he had put away so cruelly out of his heart and
life.

“And she lived under that heavy cross for years. How did she bear it?
If it had been me, I should have died, I think, in the very hour of our
parting,” sighed Thea, who fancied that any great grief had power to
kill.

She did not tell her husband that his mother had carried flowers to his
wife’s grave, but she never forgot it. It kept Camille’s memory alive
in her thoughts; it invested it with a certain tender and sacred air.
She grew to look at the subject as her mother-in-law had represented
it to her, deeming Camille little less than a martyr.

They went home the next day, and Thea was so weary from her long
journey that she was ill for several days. The old doctor shook his
wise head, and declared that she must be kept very quiet this fall--she
would not be able to bear any great bustle or excitement.

So several months passed away quietly but happily at Verelands. Norman
was utterly devoted to his young wife--utterly happy in her love, that
was so true and steadfast, not stormy and capricious as Camille’s had
been. He felt that he had never known happiness before in its truest
sense.

One of the things that consoled Thea most when she returned home was to
hear that Cameron Bentley had engaged himself to Miss Faris, the New
York beauty. She did not know that it had been done through pique, not
love, to make the world think he had got over the past.

When Nellie, who had been faithful to Thea through everything, came to
see her, she told her that Cameron was spending the winter in New York
to be near his lady-love.

“He is quite ashamed now of his attempt at suicide, and will stay away
from Jacksonville until people begin to forget it,” his sister said,
frankly.

But when Diana came she was more reserved, and did not mention her
brother. She held a secret resentment against Thea, not only because,
as she phrased it, she had “made a fool of Cam,” but because she had
married Norman de Vere, the man on whom she had set her heart.

But beautiful Sweetheart, unconscious of the ill-will of any one on
earth, was the happiest wife in the world--and very soon the happiest
mother, for when the church-bells rang on Christmas morning Norman held
in his arms his Christmas gift--a beautiful baby--his blue-eyed son.




CHAPTER LIII.


“Baby darling, you are one year old to-day, and only see what Santa
Claus has brought you--gifts splendid enough for a little prince!”
cried Thea, kneeling down on the nursery floor in her white cashmere
morning-dress, to clasp the little toddling boy in her eager arms.

He sprung eagerly to her breast, and when Norman de Vere entered a
minute later, he found them thus--Thea on a rug upon the floor, her
little son in her arms, their faces so close together that the rich
gold of her curls blended with the fairer gold of the baby’s lying
in silken curls all over his shapely head. The child’s beauty was
cherubic, and while he had hair and eyes like his mother, he had the
proud De Vere features, making him strangely like his father in spite
of the fact that his eyes were blue, his hair golden, and his skin the
loveliest white and red. Alan Arthur they had named him--the Alan for
Norman’s father, the brave soldier who had died in battle, and the
Arthur was for Lady Edith’s dead husband. She had written and asked
that his second name should be Arthur, and promised to come to the
christening of the child, but the sudden illness of her brother had
prevented the journey, and she had not come yet, although her husband’s
namesake was a year old. But she had not forgotten, and many rich gifts
had come across the sea to her husband’s namesake from both her and
Lord Stuart.

Thea was right in thinking that her boy had gifts splendid enough for
a prince, for the Christmas-tree standing over against the window was
laden with costly things enough to gladden the heart of a little king.
Many had come from friends in the city and many from across the sea. It
made the girlish mother very proud and happy to know that her boy was
held in so much esteem, and as she clasped and kissed him she whispered
to him in the most approved baby-talk, that it was no wonder people
fell in love with him--he was so sweet and lovely they simply could not
help it.

Norman laughed gayly at her maternal vanity, as he knelt down and took
mother and child into his strong, loving embrace, and so his mother
found them when she, too, came in to see how Master Alan liked his
Christmas-tree.

Baby did not know how to appreciate anything yet. When they put
anything into his dimpled little hands, he poked it into his mouth like
a little pig. Thea vowed in despair that he would have to be quite five
years old before she could allow him to have half of his beautiful
playthings, lest he should choke himself to death.

“How strange, dear, it seems to see your child sitting there with
its toys at play,” cried grandmamma, smilingly. “Why, it seems but
yesterday that you were a child at play yourself, and Norman bringing
you new toys every day. On a shelf in my closet now there is a great
box of your broken dolls and playthings.”

“Oh, I must look at them some time,” Thea cried, with almost childish
delight at the thought; and the very next day she had her maid lug in
the big box to her room and leave it on the floor. Alan was out in the
grounds with his nurse, Norman was at his desk in the library, Mrs.
de Vere was directing the maids about some housework. Thea thought it
would be a good time to look over the store of toys Norman had given
her. Norman--yes, that was the charm--had loved her in her innocent
childhood--had selected these toys for her with his own hands. There
was a thought of him in every headless doll, every piece of battered
doll furniture, every dog’s-eared book with gayly painted pictures, and
the fond heart thrilled with tender thoughts of him.

“My own, own love, my darling who loves me so!” murmured the beautiful
red lips; and pausing for a moment in a happy dream, she absently
turned the leaves of a torn picture-book.

Ah, what was that that fell out from between the leaves?--a crumpled
letter, a little pair of stub-pointed scissors.

Thea started, and a strange light came into her eyes.

As though she had held the book of her life in her hands and the warm
leaves had fluttered apart at the opening pages, the past had rushed
over her mind, so slight are the tokens needed to revive a sleeping
memory.

Thea felt herself again a child, so vivid was her recollection of the
moment when she had picked up from the floor the crumpled letter Norman
had cast aside, and hidden it with the scissors in the book for future
clipping. Then, child-like, she had forgotten all about it.

“What is it, anyway?” she thought, idly straightening the sheet out on
her knee and regarding the delicate feminine letters with curious eyes.

No thought came to the happy young wife that it could be wrong to read
the letter tossed aside so carelessly and forgotten so long. She saw
that the heading was simply “My husband,” but for the moment no thought
came to her of Norman’s first wife. She had read more than half,
before, with a startled cry, she glanced at the end of the letter and
read there the name Camille.

But she could not pause now. She read on with dilated eyes until she
had mastered the whole of Camille’s cruel defiance. Her jealous, angry
spirit had not spared her husband the bitterest taunts. Let him but
dare, she wrote, institute proceedings for a divorce, and she would
tell the whole world what a monster he was, bringing under her roof his
illegitimate child and trying to deceive her and the world with the
story that it was a stranger whom he had saved in a railway wreck.




CHAPTER LIV.


Thea sat staring at that cruel letter like one dazed. Her cheeks went
pale, then crimson, with an overpowering sense of shame.

Hitherto she had cherished a profound pity for the unhappy woman who,
having been fortunate enough to win Norman de Vere’s heart, had been
too weak to hold it; now, a burning indignation against the dead woman
heaved in her breast. How had she dared wound him with that false and
hateful accusation--he, her hero, her king?

“Oh, my love, my darling, you bore this for my sake! I understand now
why there was no divorce,” she murmured; and her beautiful eyes filled
with tears--the hot tears of a woman’s love and sorrow--although she
looked scarcely more than a child sitting there with the box of toys,
her long curls, still worn child-fashion, falling about her shoulders
like a veil of sunshine.

“How could she wound him so?” the young wife sobbed, in bitterest
indignation. “She did not love him; hers was a selfish passion--not
true, self-sacrificing love. Ah! now I no longer pity her. She was not
worthy of my Norman. Oh, Heaven help us--my child and me--to make him
so happy that he will wholly forget her and the cruel stabs she dealt
his generous nature.”

There came a light tap upon the door. It was her mother-in-law’s light
step outside.

Thea pushed the old letter under the full draperies of her dress, and
called out:

“Come in.”

Mrs. de Vere’s sweet old face, framed in waves of snowy hair, took on
an expression of solicitude as she saw Thea’s tear-wet face.

“Oh, my dear! what is it?” Then, as she saw the scattered toys: “What,
you have been weeping over the old playthings? Would you like to be a
child again, my daughter?”

“No, no; it is not that, dear mother!” Thea cried, hastily. She stood a
moment irresolute, with her little hand under the folds of her dress;
then, going closer to Mrs. de Vere, she said, faintly: “I will tell you
the truth. While looking through my old picture-books I came across a
letter that I found on the floor and put away in my childish days--to
destroy, I suppose, as my little scissors were with it. Then I must
have forgotten it, and it remained there until now, when I read it,
and--and--it gave me the--heartache,” sighing.

“A letter?” Mrs. de Vere said, uncomprehendingly.

“Here it is; but I suppose you read it long ago, mother;” and Thea put
the letter in her mother-in-law’s hand, and turning away began to walk
nervously up and down the floor.

Mrs. de Vere read it, and the past rushed over her mind.

“I remember this,” she said. “Norman was so angry he threw it down upon
the floor. When we looked for it we thought you had cut it up, there
were so many bits of paper on the floor.”

“I think I cut the envelope into paper dolls,” said Thea.

“I wish it had been the letter,” sighed the old lady.

“It was true, then? My husband’s first wife was wicked enough to doubt
her husband’s honor,” Thea cried, vehemently.

“She was unreasonably jealous, dear. Judge her as lightly as you can.
She is not here to defend herself,” the old lady said, solemnly; then
added: “Let me destroy the letter, Sweetheart. I should not like for my
son to see it again, or even to know of your reading it.”

Thea paused in her restless walk, and dashing the tears from her eyes,
cried, pleadingly:

“Only tell me this: was that the reason why I was sent away from
Verelands in my childhood to be reared by strangers?”

“Yes, that was the reason,” reluctantly. “Norman feared that his wife’s
malice might cast a blot on your future if we kept you. You are not
angry with him, dear?”

“It is the only grudge I ever had against my husband, and now that I
understand, I love him more devotedly than ever.”

“That is right. He is worthy of it all, dear. He worships you and your
child, Thea.”

“I know--Heaven bless him and make us always worthy of his devotion,”
she answered, with a sort of solemnity; then, clasping her jeweled
hands together, she cried, feverishly: “Oh, I would give the world to
find out my origin, just for my dear husband’s sake!”

“Try to be content. He could not love you more if you were a king’s
daughter, my child, nor less if you belonged to the most lowly family.”

Thea sighed, for she knew that her husband was keenly sensitive to
the mystery of her origin. She remembered that he did not care for
strangers to know her story.

“And now,” she thought, sadly, “he will be more sensitive than ever
for the sake of our little child. It was noble in him to marry me and
lift me to his own proud position in life, and I wish he could be
rewarded by finding out that I belong to a family equal to his own.”

“Now dry your eyes, my dear, and do not suffer yourself to brood over
this discovery that you have made,” Mrs. de Vere cried, soothingly.
“After all, it is so far back in the past that it can trouble Norman no
more. He has doubtless forgotten all about it; and though he was very
unhappy for a time, that is all over now, and you have made up for it
all by your love.”

“If I did not believe that, I should almost die of despair!” Thea
cried, with a sort of hysterical excitement; and she mentally resolved
that she would try to make Norman forget all the sadness of his past in
the sunshine of her love.

“He may have loved her well, but he loves me, too, and I have one more
claim upon his heart--I have borne him a beautiful child,” she thought,
triumphantly; and so she washed away the bitter stains of tears from
her cheeks and made herself as lovely as possible in her eager desire
to make up to Norman for the sadness of his past.




CHAPTER LV.


“There is something wrong about the publication of my new book, dear,
and my publisher has telegraphed me to come immediately to New York,”
Norman said the next day to his wife, handing her the telegram to read.

“Must you go?”

“I suppose so. Can you come with me?”

“Yes.”

“Why, Thea, my love!” remonstrated Mrs. de Vere, who was at the window
in an easy-chair knitting silken hose for Master Alan.

Thea looked at her in some surprise.

“Why not, mother?” she asked.

“You forget how cold it is at the North now. How could you take your
nursing baby there?” said grandmamma.

“That is true. I did not think,” Thea cried, penitently, then her smile
faded. “But how could I let Norman go without me?”

“And how could I leave you?” cried the lover-husband, fondly; and the
dark eyes dwelt on the blue ones with passionate tenderness.

“Alan takes precedence of everybody else,” grandmamma announced,
peremptorily.

“Leave him at home with a wet-nurse,” said Norman.

“Oh, I couldn’t! What, be parted from my darling! It would break his
little heart,” cried the young mother; and after an excited discussion
and floods of tears Master Alan’s interests won the day against his
loving parents. Thea, frightened by the idea of croup, dared not take
her darling from his Southern home to the wintery North, and could not
bear to leave him behind. So Norman must go alone--the first parting
from his wife since their marriage.

“It will break my heart!” Thea cried, forlornly. “I hate that
publishing. Why should he drag you away from your home just now, and
Christmas barely over. You will not get home before New Year’s.”

“I am afraid I can not, but I will not stay a week if I can help it.
Try to be as happy as you can, my darling, without me,” he said,
folding her closely to his heart, with bitter reluctance to leave her
even for an hour, so dear had she grown.

But the summons was imperative. A few hours more and he was on his way,
leaving behind him a weeping little wife who felt indeed as if she
were heart-broken. But for Baby Alan she must have been inconsolable.
A heavy cloud had settled on her spirits, and for the remainder of the
day she moped miserably about the house. As evening fell the gloom
became almost insupportable.

“How sad and dreary everything seems without him!” sighed the devoted
young wife; and she took refuge in the nursery with her child, giving
leave to the nurse to attend a negro dance in the neighborhood with the
other servants.

“My little darling, you may be just as cross and naughty as you please.
The more trouble I have with you, the less time I shall have to think
of your dear absent papa,” she cried, as she hung over the lace-draped
crib where he lay, so bright, so beautiful, that she covered his sweet,
laughing face with eager kisses.

But just because she wanted something to distract her thoughts,
Alan was on his good behavior. He responded sleepily to her fond
blandishments, and shut his white lids fast in happy slumber just
before his fond grandmamma came tiptoeing in for a good-night kiss.

“Little darling, how sweet and lovely he is!” she cried, kissing his
dimpled white fists. “Are you going to sit up for the nurse, Thea?”

“Perhaps--I don’t know. But there--of course not; it will be too
late. I shall just take baby to bed with me,” Thea answered, with an
irrepressible sigh.

“I wish now that you had kept nurse home. I have been sent for to see
a dying woman to-night. But of course I shall not go till the servants
come back; I could not leave you all alone.”

“A dying woman?”

“Yes; a poor negro girl who was chamber-maid at Verelands for many
years. She sent a boy here just now to ask me to come--said she had a
dying confession to make to me, although I can’t guess what Nance can
have to say to me. She never had any secrets that I know of--certainly
none that could interest me.”

“But she will be looking for you. It is dreadful to disappoint a dying
person--even a poor negro,” Thea said, with a sort of awe, and added:
“I--I--wish now we had not let our maids go to that concert to-night.
We should not then have been so utterly alone, but”--with a slight
shudder--“go, dear mother. I will stay alone. I will have Alan, my
little man, for company.”

“Leave you alone here? No, indeed, although of course you would be safe
enough. I have been at Verelands alone many a time at night. But it
would be too lonely for you, my dear, and Norman would not like it if
I left you here,” cried the kind old lady whose standard of right was
almost wholly what Norman liked or disliked. Yet she was most anxious
to go to Nance, having a keen, womanly curiosity over what the woman
had to confess.

But she was too loyal to Thea to even desire to gratify her curiosity
at the expense of the girl’s comfort. She turned toward the door,
saying, mildly:

“I will go and tell the boy he must go and bring Nurse Mary from the
dance to stay with you, then I will go to Nance just for a few minutes,
if you do not mind, dear.”

But Thea was marshaling all her courage to the rescue.

“There would be so much time wasted waiting here for Mary to come,
and if the woman is dying, there is not a minute to lose,” she said.
“Mother, put on your bonnet and go with the boy, and you can send Mary
to me as you go along. It is not quite a mile, I think. I can stay
alone that little while.”

“You would really not be afraid, my dear?”

“Certainly not. But if I should feel lonely, I can wake baby and play
with him.”

“That would spoil him, and he would expect it to-morrow night,” said
oracular grandmamma.

“I will read, then,” said Thea.

She recommenced her persuasions, and as a result she presently had
the old lady going docilely away with the messenger to poor Nance’s
bedside, leaving her locked securely into the large, lonely house, its
only occupant save the tiny sleeping babe.

Thea quickly came back along the silent hall and shut herself into the
nursery.

“I hope nurse will not be long,” she murmured, beginning to walk
restlessly up and down the floor. “Of course, I am not exactly afraid,
but it seems so very still and lonely, and--I miss Norman so very much.
I wonder how far he is on his way by now? It is just seven hours and a
half since he went. Baby, baby, I wish you would wake up and talk to
me! Of course, you couldn’t say anything but papa and mamma and gee-gee
and boo, but even that would be cheering now.”

She leaned over the foot of the crib and pinched one of Alan’s soft,
rosy toes, eager for him to wake, and even scream if he chose.

“I certainly am not afraid, but I feel foolishly nervous and blue. I
wish nurse would hurry. What can that dying woman want with mother?
Ugh! it makes one shiver to think of death in this great, lonely house;
but there is nothing to harm one here--nothing.” Yet she grew pale as
a mouse nibbled behind the wainscot, and cried out: “Oh, how can Alan
sleep so when I pull his toes so hard? Can it be that Mary dosed him
with paregoric to make him rest while she was gone? Oh, I almost wish
he would wake and scream with the colic! It would be better than this.”

But Alan only kicked when she pinched his toes, and slept on more
soundly than ever, confirming her in her theory of the paregoric.

“I’ll discharge her to-morrow,” Thea thought, indignantly, throwing
herself into a chair. “Oh, I won’t be so nervous and silly,” she went
on, vexedly. “I know there’s nothing to make cold chills run down my
back this way. I’ll think about something pleasant--about Norman. I’ll
compose some poetry on his absence.”

She flung herself into a chair at a little table where there was a
pencil and a pad of writing-paper, and putting her golden head on one
side with a pretty, bird-like motion, began to think in rhyme:

    “’Tis midnight, my darling--the house is so lonely.”

“If it is not midnight, it might almost be, it is so dismal,”
soliloquized Thea, with a sigh, as she jotted down the first line and
proceeded:

    “All, all are asleep but me.
      I waken to weep--”

“That is not very accurate, as I have not been asleep yet, but it is
poetical license,” murmured Thea, as she scribbled some more words:

    --“Ah, beloved, if only,
       If only I were with thee!”

The tears rushed to the blue eyes, and a smothered sob came from her
throat, so passionately real was her aspiration. A moment’s pause, and
the little pencil went on:

    “But the swift hours are bearing thee further away,
    The swift hours whose flight my poor heart can not stay!
    Come back to me, my darling, my eager heart cries,
    And the bitter tears rush from my heart to my eyes.”

“The last four lines are true, anyhow,” sobbed Thea, forlornly. She
laid her fair head down on the table a moment in silence, thinking
surely it must be time for the nurse now, although barely fifteen
minutes have elapsed since she had been left alone.

But no sound broke the stillness, save the torturing gnawing of a
miserable mouse in the wainscot, and Thea’s mind wandered a minute from
her own poor attempt at poetry to the glorious laureate:

    “All day within the dreary house
    The doors upon their hinges creaked;
    The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
    Behind the moldering wainscot shrieked,
    Or from the crevice peered about.
    Old faces glimmered through the doors,
    Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
    Old voices called her from without,
    She only said: ‘My life is dreary,’
    ‘He cometh not,’ she said.”

Thea lifted her head, shook the golden curls back from her face, and
sighed.

“I wish those terribly real lines had not come to my mind just now.
‘Old faces!’ What if they were to glimmer through that door now? That
dying woman, Nance, she used to be here. What if her departing spirit
chose to haunt the scene of its former life by ghostly rappings such
as I have heard the old Virginia darkies whisper about in twilight
hours? Ugh!” shuddering, “that dead woman, too--Norman’s first wife,
who hated me so bitterly in my childhood--I hope her phantom footsteps
will never tread these ‘upper floors.’ I am afraid of ‘old voices’ and
‘old footsteps’ to-night. I never was so nervous in all my life before.
I can’t finish my verses with those cold chills running down my spine
and my curls rising on end with terror that has no reason for it.”

She thrust the scribbled lines carelessly into a drawer of the table,
and running to the crib, laid her pale, cold cheek down by the warm,
rosy baby one, shutting her eyes and whimpering, distressfully:

“Alan, Alan, wake, dear, and protect your poor silly little mamma. I
am frightened, but I do not know why. Surely there is nothing near to
harm me, and nurse must surely be coming in a minute--Ah!” with sudden
gladness, “I hear her now.”




CHAPTER LVI.


It was quite true that a footstep had paused outside the nursery-door.
Thea’s quick ear had detected it, and she waited eagerly for the
entrance of the nurse, as she supposed it to be, but a hand turned
the knob, and as the door swung lightly ajar two women crossed the
threshold and advanced into the room.

Thea turned her face listlessly a moment on the pillow and stared at
the intruders, then sprung to her feet with a startled cry.

The nurse had not returned. Two strange white faces were there instead
of Mary’s familiar black one. Their eyes swept Thea’s face and the room
with a sort of insolent contempt.

A thrill of indescribable terror went through the girl’s supple frame,
and just then the foremost woman spoke. She pointed a slender gloved
hand at the crib, and asked, sharply, angrily:

“Whose child is that?”

“It is mine,” Thea answered, with such pride in her tone and cresting
her golden head with so queenly an air that the woman lifted her hand
with a gesture of threatening, as if to strike her down at her feet.

Thea saw it, but she did not falter. A sudden courage had come to her
in this moment which she subtly felt to be full of some unexplained
peril to herself.

She gazed fixedly at the foremost woman, a tall, graceful creature,
clothed in soft, lusterless silk, with a bonnet of shining jet set
lightly on a head of beautiful wavy red hair. The handsome face beneath
was no longer young, but Thea thought it looked like the faces of women
she had seen in Paris, enameled and made up to be beautiful forever by
the artistes in that profession. But the great reddish-hazel eyes had a
fire all their own, and they glared upon the beautiful young wife as if
they would destroy her with their baleful light.

“The child is yours?” she uttered, in a low and hissing voice. “And
you?”

“I am Mrs. de Vere,” was the proud reply.

“Norman de Vere’s wife?”

“Yes.”

The handsome, stately woman threw back her haughty head with an
insolent movement that made the jets in her bonnet glitter.

“Ha! ha!” she laughed, scornfully; and the creature behind her,
yellow-faced and with beady black eyes, evidently her maid, echoed her
insolent mirth: “Ha! ha!”

Thea’s lovely face crimsoned with anger, and she asked, haughtily:

“Who are you, madame, and why have you entered my house in this bold
manner?”

The woman came a step nearer, and held out to her a slip of cardboard.

“Read!” she said, imperatively; and, without touching it, Thea obeyed.
On the white card was written, in the same small, feminine characters
as the letter she had found among her toys but yesterday, a name:

    “CAMILLE DE VERE.”

One moment Thea gazed in awful, statue-like quiet at the fatal card,
then, with a cry of fear, she fled toward Alan’s crib for protection.
She believed that she was gazing upon a ghost.

But how horribly real it all seemed--the two women, their faces, their
voices. A shuddering horror overpowered her, and with the echo of her
startled cry in their ears they saw her slip down senseless at their
feet.

But baby Alan slept on peacefully in the soft, downy nest, his round
cheeks softly flushed, the gold rings lying in shining disorder on the
noble white brow, heedless of the hapless mother lying there upon the
floor a crumpled heap of pale-blue cashmere and golden curls while her
enemies bent gloatingly above her, noting with fierce loathing every
young and tender charm.

“I could kill her, Finette,” Camille breathed fiercely, her fingers
working with convulsive eagerness, her throat swelling.

“Hush, miladi! Life will be more cruel to her than death. And how young
she is! Think how long she will have to live to bear her deep disgrace!”

She unstoppered the silver vinaigrette that swung from her belt, and
held it to Thea’s nostrils. A minute more and the girl sighed faintly,
then the blue eyes flared wide open upon Finette’s curious face.

“You are better, miss?” she cried, pertly. “Oh, no; don’t faint again.
You took us for ghosts, I know, but that was a mistake. There’s been
several mistakes, you see, and one of them was made by Mr. Norman de
Vere when he thought his first wife was dead and took a second.”

Thea lay there, too dazed and weak to lift a finger, her blue eyes
fixed intently on the woman’s malicious face. Over her shoulder she
could see the face of the scornful woman who claimed to be Camille de
Vere.

“Hush, Finette; you forestall my triumph!” cried that derisive voice.
Her hazel eyes blazed. “Listen, you nameless foundling!” she went on,
sharply, her very voice a sword. “I am Camille de Vere, Norman de
Vere’s legal wife. I was never dead, as he believed. It was a plot to
deceive him that I might punish him for all I suffered at his hands.
Well, I am avenged! You, girl, have never been his wife for an hour,
and that child there--ha! ha! ha!--is illegitimate!”

Those words--those bitter, taunting words--seemed to sting Thea into
new life. She sprung unsteadily to her feet, and leaning over the crib,
flung one arm protectingly about her son, and lifted her face, deathly
white, but all alive and quivering with the blue fire of her eyes, to
the face of her foe.

“You speak falsely!” she cried, with passionate indignation. “You are
an impostor, and I command you to leave the house at once!”

Camilla laughed in cool derision.

“It is you who will have to go. I have come to stay,” she said.
“Finette, go prepare my old rooms for me, while I talk to this
creature who has usurped my place almost two years. When I have
finished explaining matters to her, I think she will be glad to take
her illegitimate child in her arms and go and hide their shame in the
river.”




CHAPTER LVII.


Finette Du Val did not take kindly to the command of her mistress that
she should leave the room. She had counted on the rare treat to her
malicious mind of seeing Norman de Vere’s two wives pitted against each
other in deadly warfare.

So when Camille bid her go and prepare her rooms, she stood silently
and pretended not to hear.

Camille waited a moment, then turned on her furiously and repeated the
command, adding, stormily:

“How dare you pretend not to hear? Go this instant!”

Finette frowned, but she went--went outside the door at least, and
leaving it just the least bit ajar, knelt down and peeped through the
crevice she had thus made.

Then Camille turned back to the girl she hated, crying, with blazing
eyes:

“Perhaps you think my husband married you for love, girl?”

Thea had sunk helplessly into a low chair beside the baby. She did
not know whether the woman before her was Norman’s first wife or
not, and she did not know how to get rid of her, but she hoped that
the nurse would come in at any minute and then she could send for
her mother-in-law. She determined not to bandy words with the angry
creature.

Lifting her golden head with a proud air that belied the terrible
sinking at her heart, she said, defiantly:

“Madame, you have forced yourself into Verelands without an invitation,
and you persist in remaining against my command that you go. Therefore
you can not expect to be treated with the courtesy due to a welcome
guest. I decline, therefore, to reply to any questions you may
impertinently ask, and from this moment ignore your undesired presence.”

“_Ma foi!_ but that was queenly,” muttered the eavesdropper at the
door, forced into unwilling recognition of the young wife’s dignity.

Camille drew her breath hard. She realized, too, that Thea had the
advantage of her; but after a moment she gave vent to a forced laugh.

“Oh, very well; sit there dumb, if you choose,” she said, airily. “Your
silence will in nowise alter the unpleasant facts I am here to tell
you.”

Thea did not answer--did not deign to look at her. She sat silent and
pale, her blue eyes resting on Alan’s lovely, sleeping face, one
slender hand--the one that wore the wedding-ring--wandering softly
through the golden rings of baby’s hair. She was saying to herself
over and over that it was all a lie--the woman was an impostor, bent
most probably on blackmail. She had read of such things in sensational
newspapers.

Camille resumed, angrily:

“As I was saying, you imagine that my husband married you for love. You
never made a worse mistake in your life. He gave you the shelter of his
name to save you from disgrace, because that old scandal of long ago
had cropped up and was in everybody’s mouth. If he had not married you
when he did, and so given the lie to that report, the people who had
been kind enough to notice you at first would have given you the cold
shoulder very soon, because it had come to be believed that you were
Norman de Vere’s illegitimate child.”

She saw Thea start as if she had stabbed her to the heart; but the
pale, tightly shut lips did not open to utter a word. The girl was
proud enough, if need be, to die of her inward wound in silence.

Camille laughed mockingly as she saw what a wound she had given her
foe, and resumed:

“He did not tell you the truth, of course; he pitied you too much; but
it was hard for him to give up his attitude of brother and guardian to
you and make you his wife to satisfy a carping world. It would have
pleased him better if you had married Cameron Bentley. But the Bentleys
were too proud; they informed him frankly that their son could never
address you on that subject until he brought proof of your parentage
and refuted the slander against you. Already it was working in people’s
minds. Miss Faris and many others sent regrets for your coming-out
ball, because they did not choose to associate with you. The suspicion
that had caused Norman de Vere’s wife to leave him had taken root in
the minds of others, too. To save himself he would not have made the
sacrifice he did; but to save you, feeling that you had a claim on his
pity, he married you. But he never loved you--never--save as one loves
a pretty child or a favorite sister. All the love he was capable of he
lavished on me. When I left him, I believe his heart died.”

She stopped with a sort of hysteric gasp; but the silent, statue-like
form before her made no sign, although every bitter word had sunk into
her heart.

Camille could not tell how deeply she had hurt her victim, so quiet
was Thea under the rain of bitter words, but she went on angrily,
scathingly:

“Perhaps you do not believe me. Very well, ask others. Ask Mrs. Bentley
if she ever heard a word of Norman’s marrying you until immediately
after the embarrassing affair of her son. Ask your mother-in-law the
same. Ask Norman himself. Why, if he ever had a thought of courting any
one after my supposed death, it was Diana Bentley, who is much more
suitable to him than a girl like you, young enough to be his daughter.”

“While you, madame,” muttered the unsuspected listener at the door,
“are almost old enough to be his mother.”

Camille remembered it but too well, and the sting of her deadly hate
went all the deeper for that.

How dared the girl yonder be so young, so happy, filling her old place
in Norman’s heart, the mother of his beautiful child, while she,
growing old ungracefully, painted, made up by art, was remembered only
with scorn and loathing.

“Well, I have come to take my revenge at last,” she went on. “I knew
when he married you, but I also knew he did not love you. I waited
my time to strike. I thought he might learn to love you a little,
especially if you bore him a child. Perhaps he did, men are such fools.
So now I can wound him worse by the child’s illegitimacy than by your
dishonor.”

How gloatingly the words rolled off the painted lips, how exultantly
the hazel eyes flashed! But Thea did not look at her, although her
heart quailed before the horror of what she had heard.

“My God, can this horrible thing be true?” she asked herself, in dumb
agony; and the heavy eyes fixed on the child’s sleeping face seemed
to see in fancy on the smooth white brow the dark brand of a terrible
dishonor.

It was too much. She could not maintain the icy front of scorn and
incredulity she was trying to wear before her bitter foe. She knew
that her lips were writhing with pain, and suddenly dropped her face
down upon the arm that was outstretched toward the child. The quick
movement sent all her beautiful veil of golden hair like a mantle over
the graceful, slender form, as if trying to hide her from the angry,
burning gaze of Camille, who laughed in insolent triumph when she
realized her victory.

“You begin to realize the truth--ha! ha!” she cried. “Ah! now I am
repaid for all my scheming and plotting. You are in my power at last.
Do you know what pains I took to get you there? I sent a fraudulent
telegram to Norman de Vere, and got him out of the way. I sent that
message to Mrs. de Vere from Nance, who is no more dying than you are,
but your credulous mother-in-law is locked up tight and fast in a negro
cabin, from which she will not escape while you remain at Verelands. Of
course that will not be long. Your pride will not permit you to remain
here to meet my husband when he returns to find that I am alive. Were I
in your place, I would take my child in my arms and seek refuge from my
deep disgrace in the river.”

She hoped that Thea would take her at her word. It would be a glorious
revenge upon the man who had put her away from him with such scathing
scorn, but Thea did not answer her. She remained silent, with her
convulsed face hidden on her arm.

“You have no right in this house--neither you nor the child--and I
command you to go away at once--at once! You hear? I have come to
stay, and it would not be pleasant to my husband to return and find
his two wives under the same roof. I am going to my rooms now. When
I come down-stairs in the morning, I hope that I shall find you gone
peaceably away. If you are still here, I shall thrust you forth with my
own hands!” stormed the heartless woman; but as she elicited no answer
from Thea she turned away after one scathing look of unquenchable hate,
and left the room, stumbling over Finette in the hall, and immediately
flying into a gust of passion at her disobedience.

“Miladi, I think you ought to try to keep the one friend you have
left,” the woman answered, sullenly. “You need not think you will
conquer that young girl easily. She has ten times the dignity that you
have. She heard all those cruel things with the silence and dignity
of a dethroned queen. It is no wonder Mr. de Vere loves her. I think
if her parentage could be traced it would be found she had descended
from noble blood. I dare say she is kinder to her servants than you to
yours. Oh, you don’t like for me to praise her? Well, then, don’t be so
ready with your ill words if you don’t want me to turn traitor.”




CHAPTER LVIII.


Norman de Vere had two surprises when he arrived at New York.

The first one was that he found out that there was an unexplainable
mystery about the telegram he had received summoning him to a
conference with his publisher over his new book. None had been sent,
and the book was going on all right.

The second was that he met at his hotel Lord Stuart and his sister, who
had arrived only the day before from England.

“We were on our way to Jacksonville to surprise you,” they said; and
when he explained what had brought him to New York, they agreed with
him that it was very strange.

“It does not appear to have been simply a mistake--it is too pointed.
It seems like a practical joke, and a most cruel one,” Norman said,
with bitter anger, thinking how hard it had been for him to part with
his beautiful young wife.

A fierce resentment arose within him against the author of the cruel
joke, and he resolved that the guilty party should be well punished if
ever found out.

“It is all the more annoying to me that Sweetheart was so unwilling
that I should come,” he said; and lovely Lady Edith gave a violent
start, and echoed, with paling lips:

“Sweetheart!”

“It is my pet name for my wife,” Norman explained, flushing slightly,
and she answered, more calmly:

“Ah, yes!”

But the fair face had grown paler than usual, and there was a shadow of
pain in the sweet blue eyes. To herself she murmured, sorrowfully:

“Sweetheart! How the word carried me back to the past. Oh, my little
one, my baby angel, how my heart yearns for you still.”

Norman resumed, hastily:

“Within an hour I shall start on my return South. I am most restless
and uneasy. A foreboding of evil haunts me, and I shall not feel
satisfied until I am at Verelands and find my dear ones safe and well.
May I hope that you will bear me company on my journey?”

Lady Edith looked very eager, but her brother was compelled to own that
he was too weary from the tempestuous ocean voyage they had had to
start for the South yet. He had been severely ill some months ago, and
had never quite recovered his strength since. He thought it was best
for him to remain in New York to rest a few days.

“If Edith’s impatience to see Mrs. de Vere will brook the delay,” he
said, with an affectionate glance at the young widow.

“I will wait for you, of course, dear brother,” she said with sweet
patience; and after Norman had reiterated many times the pleasure with
which they would be received at Verelands, he was compelled to say
good-bye and leave them.

“Be sure to keep our coming a profound secret from your sweet Thea.
I want to surprise the darling,” Lady Edith cried, gayly; and Norman
promised not to tell.

After he had gone, Lord Stuart and his sister talked of him some time.
Lady Edith thought him one of the grandest men she had ever met, and
her brother agreed with her fully. They talked over the story of his
early life which Lord Stuart had confided to her in the most of its
details, and both rejoiced that success and happiness had come to him
at last.

“No one has deserved it more,” said Lord Stuart, doing justice at last
to the man whom he had once despised and underrated, and sincerely glad
that Norman had found so lovely and loving a bride to make up to him
for the sorrows the capricious and guilty Camille had brought upon his
life.

Lady Edith felt that three days would be long to linger in New York,
when she was so eager to meet again the winning girl who had stolen
into her inmost heart, and whose little child bore the name of the dead
husband she had loved so dearly; but she did not utter her impatience
aloud.

She had a sweet and docile nature that clung most tenderly to her elder
brother in his weakness, and not for worlds would she have hinted to
him that she was impatient at their enforced delay on account of his
weariness.

It seemed strange to her at times that her heart dwelt so devotedly on
the lovely girl-wife, but when she questioned herself for the reason,
she said to herself that it was partly because of the girl’s wonderful
grace and charm, and half because of the strange chance likeness to the
baronet, her dead husband. He had been a blonde, with hair almost as
golden as Thea de Vere’s, and eyes of deepest violet. His early death
and the long, long illness of Lady Edith that followed it had left
ineffaceable traces on heart and brain. Her tender eyes had grown used
to tears, and her heart to the echo of the poet’s plaint:

    “So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
    It was not thus in that old time
    When he sat with me ’neath the lime,
    To watch the sunset from the sky.
    ‘Dear love, you’re looking tired,’ he said;
    I, smiling at him, shook my head--
    ’Tis now we’re tired, my heart and I!

    “So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
    Though now none takes me in his arm
    To fold me close and kiss me warm,
    Till each quick breath end in a sigh
    Of happy languor. Now, alone,
    We lean upon this grave-yard stone,
    Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I!”

“I can wait yet a little longer,” Lady Edith sighed to herself; but the
time seemed long in spite of her resolve at patience. She spent the
next three days in seeing the sights of the city, but Thea was always
in her thoughts--Thea, and the blue-eyed, golden-haired baby, Arthur’s
namesake. How she longed to take them both in her arms and lavish on
them the pent-up love of her hungry heart!

“It almost seems as if they belonged to me,” she thought, smilingly.




CHAPTER LIX.


Despite his stay of but a few hours in New York and his hasty journey
there and back, it was almost a week between the going and coming of
Norman de Vere, and his heart was full of anxiety as he dismissed the
hack he had hired at the station and walked up the broad steps of
his home just as the soft shadows of twilight were settling over the
beautiful Southland where his lot was cast.

    “On breezy pinion mournful eve came singing
      Over the silent hills, and to the glades
    And violet beds a stream of odors bringing,
      And waking music in the forest shades.

           *       *       *       *       *

    “A lovely length of moonlit waters lightly
      Broke into sudden brightness on the strand,
    While through the sky’s soft fleecy fretwork brightly
      The stars looked out upon the stilly land.”

Although he had been tormented all the way by a foreboding of
indefinable evil, a moment of calm, of almost relief came to him as
he paused on the long piazza and ran his hurried gaze over the front
of the house. He saw that lights glimmered through all the windows as
usual, and it somehow reassured his mind.

“There can be nothing wrong. It was only my foolish fancy,” he
muttered; and opened the door with his night-key, anxious to surprise
his darling. “She will not be expecting me until to-morrow,” he
murmured, and thrilled at the thought of clasping her in another moment
to his wildly throbbing heart. “Oh, my love, my darling, how happy she
will be! how she will spring to my arms and clasp her warm white arms
about my neck!” he thought, with the rapture of a lover, as he mounted
the steps, and meeting no one, sought the nursery. She would be there
at this moment before she went to dress for dinner--there in some
pretty, charming _déshabille_--with their child whom she worshiped with
such fond maternal love.

With an eager smile upon his proud, handsome lips, Norman de Vere
turned the door-knob and entered the room.

Then he started back in surprise.

Blank silence and darkness greeted him, and a deadly chill struck to
his heart.

“Oh, Heaven! not dead--my little Alan dead!” he groaned, in sudden
anguish; but it lasted only a moment, for another thought came to him.

“Sweetheart, dear baby that she is, has converted her own room into a
nursery in my absence, that she may have her little idol always with
her. I shall find them there.”

And turning from the dreary darkened room, he went along the hall with
rapid steps to the suite of rooms that had once been occupied by the
beautiful Camille, and later on had been refitted and refurnished for
Sweetheart when she became his happy bride.

In the subdued light that filtered softly through frosted gas-globes
in the hall, he paused, and bending down, listened at her door for the
sound of voices.

A low, smothered murmur greeted his ears, and he could no longer
restrain his impatience. He opened the door, and stepped quickly over
the threshold.

And to the day of his death he always wondered why the sight that met
his eyes did not strike him dead as swiftly as if it had been a bolt of
the most terrible lightning.

There in Sweetheart’s sacred boudoir, from among the dainty furnishings
of blue and gold framed to shrine her fair and youthful beauty,
there glared upon him two darker faces, both distorted by fiendish
triumph--the face of Camille, beautiful still in an artificial way,
breathing, living, and behind her Finette--the artful maid.




CHAPTER LX.


Camille began to tremble with nervous excitement when she beheld the
man she had wronged so cruelly, but she rose immediately and made a
step toward him, crying out in a tone that was half pleading, half
defiant:

“Norman, I have come back, you see. I could not bear my life away from
you any longer.”

He clutched the back of a chair for support, and stood like a statue
gazing at her with dark, despairing eyes, dazed by the suddenness of
the blow that had fallen upon him. This was Camille, he knew, although
more than four years ago he had gazed on her dead face, as he thought,
and looked down upon a new-made grave where he believed she slept in
peace after her stormy life.

He realized now that he had been fooled, duped--that a clever plot
had been devised to ward off the divorce with which he had threatened
Camille. She was here again, intent on dashing from his lips the cup of
happiness--eager to make of his life a hell equal to that of her own.

For a moment he could not speak. A strong despair seized upon him; he
could only stand and stare in abhorrence and disgust at the two women
before him.

Camille waited a moment, then moved a little nearer to him. Her hazel
eyes began to glow with passion, and her old alluring beauty seemed to
return in the tender smile that parted the rich red lips. Her white
plush dress, falling in long, straight lines about her and trailing far
behind upon the floor, lent her a statuesque grace as she extended her
round, white arms with a yearning cry:

“Oh, Norman, say that you are glad to have me back! You loved me once,
and the old love can not all be gone. You must have felt a pang when
you thought me dead, knowing how madly I had loved you in the old days
when you loved me, too. Oh, forgive the past! I have suffered so much I
have surely atoned for everything. Oh, pity me--love me--take me back
to your heart!”

When she advanced toward him, he recoiled in disgust, when she flung
herself on her knees and clasped his feet in her mad longing to regain
her old power over him, he spurned her firmly though not rudely, and
made a gesture to Finette.

“Take her away!”

“Monsieur, you are cruel!” the maid cried, malevolently.

“Obey me!” he repeated, sternly; and the fire in his eyes cowed her so
that she dared not refuse. She bent over Camille, who was taking refuge
in hysterics as usual, and putting her arms about her, drew her gently
to a sofa, begging her to be calm.

Camille lay still for a moment, her hand over her eyes, breathing
heavily, and Norman turned to Finette.

“Fiend!” he said, hoarsely, “you have been the prime mover in this
hellish plot, by which I was made to believe yonder woman dead. But
you shall no longer escape punishment for your wickedness. I will
denounce you both to the authorities, and you will find that Nemesis
has overtaken your wrong-doing at last!”

Finette looked at him, a little startled by the threat, but answered,
recklessly:

“I have done no more than my mistress bid me. Her will has always been
my law.”

“Do not think to place her between us as a shield for your wickedness,
cowardly wretch! I shall spare neither of you now, and my vengeance
will recoil in most terrible fashion upon your heads!”

A stifled shriek came from the sofa. Camille glared in fury at him.

“You can not divorce me!” she cried, exultantly. “You have no cause. I
can prove by Finette that I have been willing and anxious to return to
you ever since you sent me away, but you would not permit it. I will
fight the application for divorce every step. I will hold you apart
forever from the doll-faced girl that stole your heart from me!”

She laughed aloud at the spasm of bitter agony that convulsed his
features at the thought of Sweetheart and of all the woe this fiendish
woman had brought on her and little Alan, her darling. At the echo of
her fiendish merriment the last vestige of pity faded from his heart
and left in its place only a keen thirst for revenge upon the demoniac
creature who had so cruelly desolated his life even while with the most
noble forbearance he had kept his lips sealed upon the hideous secret
of her crime.

He glanced at Finette, who stood apart, angry, yet alarmed in spite of
herself at his strange threats; then he answered Camille in low, hoarse
accents of determination:

“I shall make no application for a divorce. The dark secret of your
past, which I have mercifully kept so long, shall now be given to the
world, and to the verdict of a jury I look for final release from the
fetters that cursed my boyhood and manhood--the fetters of a mature
siren whose smiles hid a shameful past. But the veil shall be torn
away at last, and the world shall know you as you are, murderess! The
vengeance I scorned to take for myself, I take for my outraged wife and
child!”

Camille cowered under the flash of his eyes, but she did not yet
believe he would betray her crime to the world.

“Wife and child!” she uttered, scornfully; and some epithets fell from
her lips that made him turn deathly white with fury.

“Were you a man, you should not live to repeat those words!” he warned
her, bitterly; and then he turned to Finette, who, ever since the
utterance of that word murderess by his lips, had stood quaking with
fear and astonishment. “Where are they--my wife and child?” he asked,
sternly.

“They went away the morning after we came,” sullenly.

“After you two had poured your poisonous story into her ears?”

“After my mistress had told her the plain truth--that you never loved
her, and only married her to quiet the scandalous story that she was
your illegitimate child!” defiantly.

“My God!” he groaned, and for a minute she feared he would murder her,
so terrible was his aspect.

But he controlled himself with an effort, and asked:

“Where did they go?”

“I do not know.”

“But my mother accompanied them?” he went on.

“They went alone. Mrs. de Vere was not here when we came. She has never
returned.”

“And the fraudulent telegram that summoned me to New York?” he said,
beginning now to understand the whole diabolical plan.

“I sent it,” Camille answered, lifting her head with a gesture of
triumph. “I planned everything. I got you out of the way so that I
would have no trouble in getting the girl’s ear. After she heard all I
had to tell, she was glad to go. I told her I had come to stay, as I
mean to do. I shall never allow you to drive me from Verelands again.”

“I shall leave you in full possession for a short time,” he replied,
with so strange and meaning a smile that she trembled in spite of her
bravado.

“But he would not dare,” she thought, uneasily.

“If you will tell me now what device you used to lure my mother away
from her home that night, I will go in search of her at once and leave
you to the enjoyment of your triumph,” he said, icily.

“I got Nance to send for her to come to her death-bed. With all an
old woman’s curiosity, she went, and once there she fell sick and had
to remain a few days to recuperate,” Camille answered, with heartless
mirth.

Her last _coup_ had failed. He despised her as heartily as ever; he
would never be lured by her siren wiles again. Her love turned at last
to hate. She became reckless.

“I have triumphed over you completely!” she cried out, wildly. “You
have forever lost the girl for whose love you deserted me. You will
never see her face again. Doubtless she and her nameless brat are at
this moment lying at the bottom of the river!”

He did not look back at her, for he was already crossing the threshold;
but with that awful taunt ringing in his ears he staggered from her
presence, leaving her to the mingled sweet and bitter of her triumph
and defeat.

Camille flung her arms over her head with a piercing shriek of rage
that died into silence a minute later, for she had grown rigid and
unconscious. It required all Finette’s art to bring her out of that
long, death-like swoon.

She was lying, white and exhausted, when Finette bent over her with
menacing eyes.

“He called you murderess. What did he mean?” she asked, sharply.

Camille cowered, and protested that the maid had not understood Norman;
he had uttered no such word.

“I do not believe you. I heard him distinctly. Come, I thought I knew
the worst of you, but I did not believe you were as bad as that. I
understand much now that used to puzzle me. I have a mind to leave you
forever.”

“‘Rats always desert a sinking ship!’” Camille quoted, scornfully.

“And very sensible in them, too,” Finette muttered. She rose suddenly
to her feet. “I’ll follow their example, and let you go to the gallows
by yourself, miladi,” she said, heartlessly.

But Camille clutched her skirts with a shriek, as she turned to go.

“Stay with me, Finette, and I will make you rich,” she cried,
pleadingly. “You shall have another one of those uncut gems--that great
emerald that cost me many thousands. Only stay with me! You are the
only friend I have in the wide world!” hysterically.

“You may thank your own folly for that,” the maid said, bluntly. “You
are a she-devil, if ever I saw one, and I don’t know as even that
emerald will tempt me to stay long with you unless you try to be more
agreeable,” insolently.




CHAPTER LXI.


Yes, Sweetheart had gone away from Verelands, where she had been so
unutterably happy, and where such blighting sorrow and disgrace had
fallen upon her life.

She had not waited to be thrust out-of-doors by the hands of her
vindictive foe; she had gone herself, creeping forth with bowed
head and unsteady steps at the earliest dawn of day. In her arms
she carried her sleeping child; but she did not go to the river, as
Camille ardently hoped she would; and the fear of such a tragedy
was soon dissipated in Norman’s mind by the reception of a letter
which Sweetheart had left for him with one of the servants--a letter
scrawled in a trembling hand, barely like her own, so terrible was her
agitation. Sweetheart had written it upon her knees, being so weak that
she could not sit upright to pen the incoherent lines to the man of
whom she was taking so bitter a farewell. In it she had inclosed her
unfinished verses, and Norman read them through a mist of tears, the
bitterest he had ever shed in his shadowed life.

    “This is what I was writing, when she--your wife, whom we thought
    dead--came back and set the seal of shame and despair on the
    short story of my life:

    “’Tis midnight, my darling, the house is so lonely--
      All, all are asleep but me;
    I waken to weep, ah, beloved, if only--
      If only I were with thee!
    But the swift hours are bearing thee further away,
    The swift hours whose flight my poor heart can not stay;
    Come back to me, darling, my eager heart cries,
    And the bitter tears rush from my heart to my eyes.”

    “You see, Norman, I was feeling very, very unhappy over your
    absence. It must have been a presentiment of evil. When she first
    said that she was your wife, I could not believe it. But when
    Nurse Mary came home from the party, I told her all. She had seen
    your wife when she lived at Verelands long ago. She went upstairs
    and looked at the two women, and she came back to me weeping.
    She had recognized them both. There was no longer any doubt, no
    longer any hope for me.

    “So I am going away, Norman, but do not add to your troubles
    the fear lest I shall drown myself, as your wife advised me
    to do. I am quite wretched enough to do it, but you will have
    sorrow enough to bear without that. And I can not throw away my
    life, because you saved it, and I hold it sacred to you. But you
    will never see me again. I shall go far away with my child, and
    live out my unhappy life in silence and obscurity. I have given
    trouble enough to that poor creature upstairs. Be kind to her,
    Norman, for the loss of your love seems to have driven her mad.

    “Oh, how good you have been to me, Norman! She told me all. Even
    in my babyhood it was my fate to come between your heart and
    hers. How could she believe that cruel story, and you so noble
    and so good? But it was her jealous nature. For me, I could not
    see a fault in you if the whole world bore witness. I have loved
    you and believed in you always. My heart went to you the first
    time I saw you on that mysterious journey when you saved my life.
    It never left you. It remains with you now, while I go out of
    your life forever. May it be a talisman to guard you from all
    evil.

    “I have no fault to find with you, Norman, although you did not
    marry me for love, but to shield me from a hideous slander. It
    was very noble in you, and you carried out the farce of love so
    well I never knew the difference. I shall try to cheat my heart
    with the fancy that you did learn to love me a little--at least,
    after Baby Alan came, of whom you were so proud, and now, alas!
    poor little one.

    “Farewell, Norman. Perhaps you may learn to forgive her and love
    her again. I shall pray always for your happiness, but you must
    forget poor

                                                         “SWEETHEART.”

“My God, I must find her! She can not go out of my life like this,
my love--my wife in the sight of Heaven, whatever man’s laws may say
to the contrary! Our child, our darling, puts a holier seal on our
marriage--makes it more binding than the irksome time that bound me
to that fiend Camille,” the stricken man raved aloud in his agony of
despair.




CHAPTER LXII.


If Norman believes that the spell of his love is strong enough to trace
Sweetheart in her flight, he is mistaken. Days elapse, and he has not
found the first clew. If she has left the city, he can not ascertain
by what route, and if she is still in Jacksonville, she is hidden so
cleverly that a private detective can not find her out. She is quite
gone out of her husband’s life--gone as mysteriously as she had come
into it first sixteen years ago a little golden-haired fairy.

A chill runs over him as the fact strikes him. There had always been a
mystery about Sweetheart’s origin. Would the same mystery follow her
disappearance? Beautiful and gifted beyond most mortals, was she some
fairy changeling lent him awhile to brighten his life, then snatched
away forever to her immortal sphere? He had never been accounted
superstitious, but a thrill of fear ran over him as he recalled a
pretty Shetland fairy-tale he had often read, wherein the fairy bride,
won at first from the sea, had deserted her husband and returned to her
home among the coral caves:

          “Days of delight
    Among my gorgeous coral halls,
    Where never a child’s footstep falls,
    Never is heard one loving voice,
    But all is mirth and mad rejoice.”

He swept his white hand wearily across his brow as if to clear away
these mists of fancy.

“Sweetheart, you never would have deserted me!” he cried, in his
anguish. “Oh, my love, my love, come back to me!”

But, although the search for Sweetheart baffled every one who undertook
it, Norman was more fortunate as regarded his mother. He found her
where Camille had declared she was--at the cabin of Nance, the whilom
chamber-maid at Verelands. The negro girl had degenerated into a
thriftless, lazy sloven, much addicted to drink, and sprung eagerly at
any chance that offered money without work, so she accepted Camille’s
golden bribe, even though it was offered for the injury of the old
mistress who had in past days been most generous and kind to her
servant. But Nance had all the proverbial ingratitude of the negro
race, and did not hesitate to bind the aristocratic lady tightly down
upon a low cot-bed, where, after placing a sufficient quantity of water
and coarse food within easy reach, she left her to her fate, locking
the doors of the cabin and beating a hasty retreat to another city--for
she well knew that, when this outrage was discovered, her punishment
would be little short of lynching.

Here, after she had been imprisoned for a week, Norman de Vere found
his beloved and revered mother ill unto death with fever and raving
in delirium. Too low to be removed, he had to fit the cabin up as
comfortably as possible for transient occupancy. Here he remained with
some trusty servants in the squalid negro cabin, nursing his mother,
while up at Verelands, his beautiful home, the fiendish Camille held
complete sway, and the city rang with the story of the wicked revenge
she had taken on her husband for his obstinacy in refusing to forgive
her for a harmless flirtation. There were many who condemned her, but a
few people sympathized with her, saying that Norman had been too hard
upon her and deserved his punishment. A few people even called out
of curiosity, but Finette sent them curtly away with the excuse that
her mistress was ill and could see no one. This was not a falsehood,
for Camille really lay upon Sweetheart’s pretty bed from day to day,
raging, raving in alternate hatred and despair, realizing, after her
long plotting for vengeance, that her triumph had left her ruined
life waste and empty as before of the one blessing she had craved so
madly--the love of the man whom she had turned against her by her
terrible crime. Finette was changing daily, too. Her once cringing
manner had turned to insolence, and she affected to tremble every time
the door-bell rang, vowing that she listened daily for the officers
to come and arrest her mistress for the murder with which Norman de
Vere had charged her. In vain Camille protested her innocence, for
her scared eyes betrayed her guilt. She had seen the murdered Robert
Lacy so often in her dreams that she began to fancy he haunted her,
and could not bear for the maid to leave her alone for a minute in the
beautiful room where she had once been so wildly happy, but which now
seemed peopled with fiends from Hades, grinning at her from over one
another’s shoulders.

Lying there, watched by the sullen, insolent creature who had aided
and abetted her in all of her cruel, wicked schemes for the sake of
the golden bribe she offered, what visions came to Camille, the proud
beauty whose unbridled passions had made shipwreck of her life! Visions
of the past and of the glorious opportunities for happiness she had
wasted and flung into the yawning pit of sin. Beautiful, rich, madly
beloved--she had been all these, yet now she lay shivering, terrified,
friendless, waiting, fearing, dreading the--prison cell.

Yes, she could think of nothing else but Norman’s mad threat that now
he would betray the dark secret kept so long, and so free himself from
the incubus she had made of herself, and punish her for the sorrow she
had brought upon those dearer to him than his own life.

“Will he do it? Can he doom me to the gallows-tree?” the half-mad
creature asked herself hourly; and as each day rolled away she began
to feel more secure. “He can not do it, much as he hates me. I know he
could not harm me, even for her sake. The past makes me sacred in his
eyes still,” she began to think with keen triumph in her power.




CHAPTER LXIII.


In the trouble that had fallen upon him, Norman de Vere quite forgot
Lord Stuart and his sister, the guests whom he was soon to receive at
Verelands, or he would have written to them of all that had happened
during his trip to New York and since his return to Jacksonville.

But, half crazed with trouble and anxiety, the young man could
remember nothing except that his dear mother lay upon a sick, perhaps
death-bed, and that his darling wife and child had gone into a most
impenetrable exile, hounded from home and love by the most fiendish
plot the brain of a wicked woman ever devised. While duty held him
chained to his mother’s side, he had committed to a clever detective
the task of tracing Sweetheart, and every moment a prayer went up from
his heart that she might soon be found. That she could no longer be
his--that Camille’s life had thrust their lives apart--he realized,
but that a home must be provided for Sweetheart and the child, he felt
imperatively necessary. If Heaven spared his mother’s life, she would
go and live with them, he knew, and for himself nothing remained but
to denounce Camille for the murder of Robert Lacy--to denounce her
and doom her to the solitude of the prison cell. The murder had been
committed so long ago that she would not be hung for it, he knew. Time,
and the fact that she was a woman, would both be in her favor. Southern
juries were chivalrous, too. He recalled all this with satisfaction,
for bitterly as Camille had wronged him and his, the man’s heart shrunk
at thought of the vengeance he must take on the fair, faulty creature
who had once been his wife, for whom he had felt a boy’s delirious
passion.

“But I can not spare her if I would, for she has rushed madly,
recklessly upon her fate. For Sweetheart’s sake, for our child’s sake,
this guilty woman must be placed behind prison bars. Then the law will
free me forever from her hated claim, and the marriage ceremony shall
make Sweetheart once more my own,” he thought. But while his mother lay
ill he made no effort to molest Camille in her triumphant occupation of
Verelands. His anxiety over his loved ones tortured him too cruelly.

Meantime, the days rolled by, and Lord Stuart and Lady Edith Moreland
left New York for Jacksonville. They did not think it necessary to
write or telegraph to their friends, still carrying out their fancy for
surprising Sweetheart.

Lady Edith was as eager and joyous as a child when they took a carriage
at the station to drive to Verelands.

“Dear child, I know she will be so happy to see me again!” she
exclaimed, excitedly; and her brother looked in surprise and delight
at her charming, animated face, which was flushed to a soft, roseate
color, while her dark-blue eyes sparkled with feeling.

“You look like a girl again, Edith,” he said, admiringly.

“Nonsense!” she laughed. Then she added, with a pensive glance: “Why, I
am old enough to be Thea’s mother and her child’s grandmother. I wish I
were!” and tears sprung to her gentle eyes.

“You will have to adopt them as such,” Lord Stuart said, lightly; but
he put his arm around her, and soothed her tenderly as though she were
a child, and presently their carriage was stopping at the white gates
of beautiful Verelands.

“Just a few more minutes, and I shall see her. Oh, what happiness!”
Lady Edith cried, with the eagerness of a child.

“If she should be out calling or driving, I do not see how you
could bear the shock of disappointment, Edith,” her brother said,
good-humoredly.

“Alan Arthur would be at home anyhow, so I should amuse myself with him
till his pretty mamma returned,” she replied, gayly, as he handed her
out of the carriage; and they entered the white gates, within which
they were destined to meet such a terrible disappointment.




CHAPTER LXIV.


“There is nobody at home, sir, but Mrs. de Vere. She is ill, and will
see no one,” said the tidy negro girl who answered the bell.

“She will see us, for we have come from England to see her,” Lady Edith
exclaimed, impetuously; while she wondered why every one had gone away
and left her dear Thea ill and alone.

“Yes, she will see us when she knows our names,” said Lord Stuart,
putting two cards into her hand with a silver coin that made her show
all her fine white teeth in a grin of delight.

“I’ll ask Mrs. de Vere’s maid. She is the mistress here, it seems,”
said the girl, in a tone of discontent. Then she ushered them into a
pretty reception-room. “You can wait here till I find out,” she said.

When they were alone, Lady Edith looked at her brother with questioning
eyes.

“Is it not strange for Mr. de Vere and his mother to leave Thea alone
and sick?” she asked.

“I do not understand it,” he replied; and a cloud of anxiety came over
his face.

He thought of the false telegram that had summoned Norman de Vere to
New York. What if he had never returned? What if there were foul play
somewhere?

He waited most impatiently a few minutes, then the door unclosed, and a
woman appeared on the threshold.

Lord Stuart gave a violent start, for time had scarcely touched
Finette, and in the creature before him he at once recognized Camille’s
maid. He could not repress a slight shudder of disgust when her snaky
black eyes, after sweeping curiously over his sister, fixed themselves
upon him.

“My lord,” she began, with a cringing movement of her supple frame,
“my mistress is sick. She sees no one, but”--with a courtesy to Lady
Edith--“she will see you in her boudoir a few moments if the lady will
excuse her.”

Lady Edith rose quickly, but Finette made her a gesture to sit down
again.

“My lady, it is not you she consents to receive, it is Lord Stuart,”
she said, flippantly; and Lady Edith sunk back in her chair with a low
cry of wounded pride.

Lord Stuart went to her, and with a rare impulse of tenderness kissed
the lovely, disappointed face.

“There is some mistake,” he whispered, soothingly. “It will be
explained, I am sure, as soon as I see Thea. Will you wait here for me
a little while?”

“Yes,” she replied; but as soon as she was left alone she burst into
the bitterest sobs.

Her loving nature was cruelly wounded by this cold and strange
reception, after all her affectionate anticipations of the joyful
welcome she would have from Thea.

Meanwhile, Lord Stuart was following Finette to the boudoir, thinking
how unseemly it appeared that the first wife’s maid should be here in
attendance on Thea.

“I should not like it myself,” he thought; and just then Finette flung
open the boudoir door.

He entered, and found himself in an exquisite apartment, whose
prevailing color was a rich azure. The rich hue and fragrance of
flowers greeted him on every side, but the apartment was untenanted,
and Finette said, apologetically:

“My mistress will be with you in a few moments.”

Then she disappeared into an inner room, and he waited most impatiently
for Thea to enter, wondering why she had declined to see his sister
with himself.

“It is perplexing--nay, more, it is positively discourteous to treat
Edith like this, after the devotion with which my sister nursed
her through her long illness in London,” he thought, with rising
indignation that grew stronger every moment he waited, for Camille was
tardy. Her maid had to make some changes in her toilet before Camille
would consent to enter the presence of her old lover.

But at last the rich silken négligée was adjusted to her fancy, and
with a throbbing heart and nervous step Camille entered and bowed to
her guest.




CHAPTER LXV.


Lord Stuart grasped the back of a chair to steady himself, and stared
aghast.

“My lord, I am very happy to meet you. You see I have come back to my
own,” said Camille, with her old dazzling smile and radiant glance that
he so well remembered.

She had advanced to the center of the beautiful apartment, and was
holding out her white, ringed hand to him, but he did not appear to
notice it. He only gasped as if she had thrown ice-water over him.

“Are you ill, my lord?” she continued, in her most gracious manner.
“Pray be seated. I will ring for wine.”

But he put up his hand with a gesture of dissent, and his pale lips
gasped a feeble negative.

Camille’s smile began to fade.

“I do not understand. Has the mere sight of an old friend so overcome
you?” she asked, with a little of her old coquetry; and, going nearer,
she laid her white hand on his arm, but he shrunk in horror from her
light touch.

“I--I--thought--you--dead!” he managed to mutter, in disconnected
words; and she removed her hand from his arm and fell back a pace from
him.

“You thought me dead? Ah, then, you did not come here to see me?”
bitterly.

“Certainly not,” he answered, regaining himself in a measure, though he
was still ghastly white and trembling.

“I thought you dead four years ago. Norman de Vere had married again.
It was to see his second wife that I came to Verelands.”

“His second wife? What was she to you or your sister?” Camille asked,
with a sneer.

“A dear and valued friend,” he replied, gazing at her with eyes of
steady scorn that made her burst out angrily:

“The poor foundling creature, basely born, no doubt, was fortunate in
finding nobly born friends like Lady Moreland and Lord Stuart?”

“I do not understand your allusions,” Lord Stuart said, icily.

“Do you not?” she asked, in wonder. She gazed steadily at him, then
said, eagerly: “Lord Stuart, possibly you do not know the whole story
of my bitter wrongs at the hands of my faithless husband. Will you not
sit down and let me tell you all?”

He was about to refuse, but with her eager white hands she pushed him
gently into a chair.

“Do not refuse,” she pleaded. “Once you were a very good friend of
mine. Why not now? God knows I have suffered enough at my husband’s
hands through your admiration for you to make me the small atonement of
pitying me, of sympathizing with me in this hour.”

She flung herself into a chair opposite to him, and hurried into what
she called the relation of her wrongs, and the first complaint began
with the bringing of Little Sweetheart to Verelands.

“Of course I was wrong in believing the child his own, as he proved my
suspicions false by marrying the girl afterward,” she admitted. “But do
you not think with me, Lord Stuart, that he should have taken the child
away when I requested, nay, commanded it?”

“You must excuse me for not passing judgment upon the master of
Verelands under his own roof. That would be discourteous,” he said;
but she noticed that he was very curious over the things she told him.
He did not disdain to ask questions, and he extracted from her all the
information she could impart regarding the origin of Sweetheart.

“Norman believed that the woman on the train with the child was her
mother,” said Camille. “But the child, when asked, denied it. She said
the woman’s name was Mattie. My own theory, Lord Stuart, was that the
woman was some circus creature, and that the child had been trained to
act upon the stage. She was pert and precocious for one of her age.”

When the subject of Sweetheart had been exhausted, she took up her
innocent flirtation with himself.

“For these simple faults I was driven like a criminal from his heart
and home,” she cried, bitterly. “Can you wonder, Lord Stuart, that,
driven to madness by his scorn, I planned and carried out such a bitter
revenge upon my cruel husband?”

He looked at her inquiringly; and with fiendish joy that made her
appear most revolting to him, she told him all that she had done--how
a pauper’s dead body had been palmed off on Norman de Vere as her own,
and how in the hour of his most exquisite happiness she had struck the
full cup of happiness from his lips, and driven the girl he loved away
with her child into exile and misery.

He listened without one word of reply. Bad as he knew her to be, he
could scarcely credit this crowning act of fiendishness.

As soon as she paused he arose.

“Can you tell me where to find Mr. de Vere?” he asked.

“I can not,” she answered, stiffly, although she knew perfectly well
through her spy, Finette, where he was. But she saw, with bitter
mortification, that Lord Stuart’s sympathies were not with her, but
had gone out silently to the noble man of whose life she had made such
a foot-ball of fate. “You take his part against me!” she said, with
flashing eyes and her most regal air.

He was going to the door; but he turned back, very pale and moved, and
gazed steadfastly into her excited face.

“I take your part against yourself,” he answered, gravely. “I
would save you from the fate you are bringing down upon yourself,
because--well, because I loved you once, although I am ashamed of it
now. But, Camille, if you stay on here at Verelands, this horrible
vengeance of which you boast is going to recoil in terrible disaster
on your own head. Be warned in time. Tell the truth, and crave Norman
de Vere’s pardon for your wickedness. If you will not do that, go away
far from here and hide yourself as far as possible from the storm of
disgrace that is going to break on your head.”

A tremor ran over her at the earnestness with which he spoke, but she
laughed aloud with the recklessness of a desperate woman.

“I shall never leave Verelands again, and I defy the disasters you
predict, Lord Stuart,” she replied, daringly.

He did not reply. He simply bowed and hastened from her presence,
drawing a breath of relief at his escape.

“Oh, brother, how strange you look! What is it?” Lady Edith cried,
starting up anxiously to meet him.

“It is nothing,” he said, drawing his arm about the trembling figure.
“I told you,” he added, “that there was some mistake. Mr. de Vere and
his wife are both away from home, Edith.”

“But the girl said that Thea was sick.”

“She said that Mrs. de Vere was sick. It was the elder lady.”

“Norman’s mother?”

“Yes. Heaven forgive me, but she must not know yet,” he added to
himself.

“But where are they gone? It is rather strange; for he knew we were
coming!” cried poor Lady Edith, in disappointment and distress.

“It was a compulsory trip, Edith--something connected with that
fraudulent telegram, you know,” evasively. “But, my dear, as Mrs. de
Vere is so ill, I think I will take you to a hotel for the present.”

“Yes, yes, that will be better,” she assented, with a sigh of the most
bitter disappointment.

She rose obediently and went away with him to the carriage, which was
still waiting for them at the gate, with the prim English maid in it
wondering if her mistress was ever going to summon her into the house,
or if she were making a ceremonious call only at the handsome Southern
mansion.

Lord Stuart put his sister into the carriage, gave the driver his order
for a hotel, and then they drove away from Verelands, Lord Stuart,
pale and excited, his sister pensive and tearful over the bitter
disappointment of finding her beloved Thea away from her home.




CHAPTER LXVI.


Lord Stuart saw his sister comfortably settled in the best suite of
rooms at the Hôtel Français, then he set himself to work to find out
the whereabouts of Norman de Vere.

It was an easy task, for the city was ringing with the story of the
scandalous happenings at Verelands, and in a short time Lord Stuart was
driving out to the negro cabin on the suburbs, where the ill, perhaps
dying mother lay amid her humble surroundings, attended by her faithful
maid and her half-distracted son.

The meeting between Lord Stuart and the author took place in the tidy
but bare little kitchen, the only other room being the one where the
invalid lay. It was a sad and sympathetic meeting, for Lord Stuart
was awed by Norman’s changed and haggard looks. His face was pale and
wan, his beautiful dark eyes heavy with watching and unshed tears, his
sensitive lips trembled with grief, and silver threads shone in the
wavy locks that a month ago were dark as the raven’s wing.

Lord Stuart pressed his cold, nervous hand with the warmth of a brother.

“Be of good cheer, my friend. ‘Every cloud has a silver lining,’” he
said, hopefully.

“You do not know all,” Norman answered, despairingly.

“Yes; I have been to Verelands. I have seen Camille, and heard the
whole story from her lips.”

They sat down together and talked as old friends, sadly, earnestly.
Norman told him that his mother was so ill that her death might be
expected at any time.

“Doctor Hall has told me that the crisis of her disease will come
to-night,” he said. “A few hours now will decide her fate. Oh, my God!
if my poor mother dies of the treatment received at the hands of that
remorseless fiend, I believe that I shall go mad with the horror of it.”

“We will hope and pray for the best,” Lord Stuart said, deeply moved,
and added: “I will come and watch with you to-night.”

By degrees Lord Stuart brought the conversation around to the story
Camille had told him of Sweetheart’s origin. He induced Norman to
repeat the whole story to him.

“Have you kept the clothing the child wore when you saved her life?” he
asked, eagerly.

“Yes; every little garment is in a trunk at Verelands, together with
a water-colored photograph I had taken of her a few days after I took
charge of her. I kept the things in the hope that they might some day
assist in establishing her identity.”

“I hope you will not believe me idly curious if I ask you to show me
those garments and that picture at some future day,” Lord Stuart said,
in a strange voice.

Norman promised to gratify his curiosity without thinking that there
was anything significant in it, so fully was his mind absorbed in his
trouble; and presently Lord Stuart took leave, promising to return that
night and watch with Norman through the crisis that the physician had
predicted as imminent.

Then he returned to the hotel to his sister, having decided that it
would be better to confide to her some of the facts he had learned,
smoothing them over as best he could, lest her grief over poor Thea’s
trouble should prostrate her upon a sick-bed, and so hinder him from
assisting Norman in his troubles.

Lady Edith was cruelly shocked, but she bore it more bravely than he
had expected.

“Dear brother, there is something in your face that tells me you are
hopeful,” she cried, eagerly, through her starting tears.

“Yes, I am hopeful,” he answered, firmly. “All is not so dark as it
appears, Edith, and if Norman’s mother only gets well, and we can find
our precious runaways, I shall do all I can to help our noble friend
unravel the web of fate that wicked Camille has woven around him. There
are some precious threads in my grasp, but I must not tell you more
just now. Only be brave and patient, my sister, and keep in your mind
the old adage: ‘The darkest hour is just before the dawn.’”




CHAPTER LXVII.


Lord Stuart went back to the cabin that night to share Norman’s vigil,
and when he stood by the bedside of Mrs. de Vere, and saw what an awful
change had come over the once handsome, noble-looking woman, his heart
sunk with dread. The gray shadow of death seemed already settling
upon her terribly wasted features. He did not believe that she could
possibly live through the impending crisis.

“She will die to-night, and another crime will lie at the door of
that beautiful fiend,” he thought, with burning indignation against
heartless Camille.

They had been sitting quietly for more than an hour, watching the
invalid, who lay in a stupor almost as deep as death, when Lord
Stuart’s ear caught the sound of a light tapping at the kitchen
door. He rose softly and went out, anxious that Norman should not be
disturbed, and found a messenger boy with a telegram for Norman de Vere.

Lord Stuart took the telegram and turned into the quiet kitchen. A
thought had come to him of the fraudulent one that had summoned Norman
de Vere to New York in order that his relentless foe might desolate his
home.

“Perhaps this is some more of her cruel work. She would drag the son by
a deep-laid scheme from the bedside of his dying mother,” he thought,
angrily. “But I will foil her plan. For my friend’s sake, I will read
the telegram and decide whether he shall see it to-night or not.”

He tore off the yellow envelope and read the telegram, which was dated
from a distant Western town. His eyes dilated at these startling words:

    “I have found your wife and child here by a strange chance. Thea
    is dangerously ill and unable to explain. For God’s sake, what
    does it mean? Come instantly.

                                                       “FRANK HINTON.”

“Great Heaven! is there any truth in this, or is it a device of Camille
to lure Norman away?” Lord Stuart muttered, in an agony of indecision
as he thrust the telegram in his vest-pocket, and stood thinking,
wondering whether he ought to tell Norman or not. “He would be wild to
go, but he could not forsake his dying mother, and his mind must not be
tortured by this miserable uncertainty. It is I who must go upon this
wild-goose chase, as the Americans say of an uncertainty. Then if it
turns out another scheme of Camille, she will have been baffled in her
malice,” he decided; and, going back into the sick-room where Norman
sat with heavy, miserable eyes fixed on his mother’s pallid, wasted
features, he touched him on the arm.

“Can you forgive me for deserting you in this terrible hour? I have
been suddenly summoned away on a matter of the most urgent importance
to me,” he whispered, with an agitated face.

“Go, my friend,” Norman answered, huskily; “I shall not be alone. The
nurse will be here, and Doctor Hall has promised to return before
midnight.”

Then Lord Stuart spent a few solemn minutes by Mrs. de Vere’s bedside,
taking, as he believed, a silent last farewell of a noble woman soon
to be removed from earth, and whispering a few hopeful words to his
stricken friend, he hurried away, hoping that he would be able to catch
a midnight train for the West.

He went back to his hotel and explained to his sister what had
happened, and he was not much surprised when she begged that he would
take her with him on the quest for Thea.

“But, Edith, it may prove a fruitless journey--it may be one of that
false woman’s schemes,” he said.

“I will go with you on the bare chance that it is true, for if Thea is
sick she will need my care,” she replied.

“It is noble of you, Edith, to cling to that poor girl still, even
when the most blighting disgrace and misery have fallen to her lot,”
her brother said, watching her keenly.

“I love her all the more dearly for her unmerited misfortunes,” Lady
Edith cried, impetuously. “Oh, brother, do you not think we might take
her back to England with us until Norman is free to marry her again? We
might comfort the poor, unhappy child.”

“We will see,” said Lord Stuart, kindly. “But if you mean to go with
me, hurry and get ready, my dear. You need only take one trunk and your
maid.”




CHAPTER LXVIII.


Poor Thea! Her one thought and desire, after learning the bitter truth
that her husband’s first wife lived to triumph over her, was to get
away as far as possible from the husband with whom she had been so
wildly happy, but whom to meet again would be the bitterest misery.

She made the nurse pack a hand-satchel with some changes of clothing
for herself and the baby, and at day-dawn, after a night of the
bitterest despair, she made her way to a railroad station, where she
bought a ticket for the West, determined to hide herself forever from
all who had ever known her until death put an end to her pain.

She had several hundred dollars in her little purse--for Norman kept
her always generously supplied with money--and she thought that she
could find work before that was gone.

So the train rushed on and on for three weary days and nights, and when
she came at last to the busy, bustling town which she had chosen at
hap-hazard as her destination, the girl was so ill that she staggered
as she walked to the carriage with the heavy child in her arms,
and could barely falter out her desire to be taken to a quiet and
respectable hotel.

Thea did not know what had put the name of that town in her mind.
She thought she had chosen it at hap-hazard; but in reality it was
the place where Frank Hinton had settled to practice medicine, and a
beneficent fate had suggested it to her mind in that dark hour when
everything had seemed dazed and gloomy before her vision. If she had
dreamed of Frank being there, she would never have ventured near; but
it was her good angel that led her to that spot, for within a few hours
after her arrival at the hotel she grew so much worse that fever and
delirium set in, and the alarmed landlady sent off in haste for the
nearest physician, who proved to be Frank Hinton.

When Frank saw his old love--sweet Thea, whom he had never been able
to banish from his heart--he was almost overcome with surprise and
agitation. He stood for a few moments almost dazed as he watched the
lovely, fever-flushed face and violet eyes glittering in delirium as
she tossed her white arms in the air, raving wildly of her love and
sorrow. Then he turned to the observant landlady, who had taken the
fretful child in her arms, and said, huskily:

“This lady is an old friend of mine. I knew her in Virginia years ago.
Her husband is rich and of high standing, and I can not understand why
his wife is here like this. I will telegraph to him, and we must have
two good nurses--one for the child and one for her, for she has brain
fever.”

“A nurse for the lady, if you like, sir; but, good land! there’s a
dozen idle women in this house that will like nothing better than to
nurse the little darling till his pretty mamma gets well,” cried the
fat, bustling landlady. She laid one of her plump hands compassionately
on the shower of golden tresses floating over the pillow. “Brain fever!
Oh, you don’t mean to say that you’ll cut off these pretty curls?”

“Not if I can help it,” was the answer; and poor Frank vowed to himself
that he would save all that golden glory for Norman de Vere, if he
could, and that he would give all his time and care to saving the life
of the sweet young girl who had once been like a little sister to him.

And this is how the telegram was sent by him to Norman de Vere, and so
skillfully did he attend upon Thea that in a few days she began to show
a marked change for the better, regained her senses, and recognized
Dr. Hinton as he lingered beside her. Then Lord Stuart and his sister
arrived, and Thea was so glad at seeing all these dear friends about
her again that she wept for joy, and although she declared that she
wanted to die, her strong constitution triumphed over her, and she
began to convalesce very fast.




CHAPTER LXIX.


Lord Stuart was overjoyed at the success of his journey. He lost no
time in writing to Norman de Vere.

But he did not tell Norman that he had found Thea and her baby. He had
a little plan of his own, and wanted to carry it out in his own fashion.

He wrote simply to Norman that he had a clew to Thea’s whereabouts,
and that he was following it up closely, accompanied by his sister. He
felt almost certain that he should find the missing ones, and he begged
Norman to reply to him immediately, letting him hear from his mother,
over whom, Lord Stuart added, he felt a strong anxiety.

“Yet I am almost certain that she is dead ere this,” he decided,
thinking of the awfully corpse-like face upon which he had looked just
before starting West.

To his astonishment and delight, the letter that came in due course of
time conveyed the joyful information that the sick woman had rallied,
and was in a fair way to recover.

“With Heaven’s blessing, she will be restored to us; but she is very
weak yet. I dare not leave her to less loving care than mine, or I
would hasten to join you in the search for my darlings. God bless you
and your noble sister, and give success to your mission. I can not
describe to you the eagerness I feel to join you, but my duty will hold
me here until my mother is stronger,” Norman wrote; and Lord Stuart’s
heart thrilled with pleasure at the thought of the happiness soon
coming to the man now crushed with grief and despair.

“He little dreams of the charming surprise I have in store for him,”
he murmured, with dim eyes, for pure tears of joy had arisen at the
thought of the good he was going to accomplish and the happiness he
would bring to the crushed and bleeding hearts of those he loved.

No purer pleasure ever comes to the human heart than by the
accomplishment of a good deed, and Lord Stuart was tasting this in
eager anticipation.

Thea was now convalescing rapidly, and he gave her the letter to read.
She kissed it and shed bitter tears over it.

“You should not have written that about me. We can never be anything to
each other again,” she said, piteously.

“Nonsense! there is a way to get rid of that wicked woman, and you and
Norman will soon be all in all to each other again,” he said, cheerily;
but Thea shook her golden head despondently.

“So you do not believe my prophecies?” he laughed, going down upon his
knees before her as she sat among the pillows of the invalid-chair.
He put his hands gently on either side of her head and made her look
at him. “I want to tell you,” he exclaimed, “that the day you made my
acquaintance on the steamer bound for Europe was one of the brightest,
most fortunate days of your life. I am going to turn into a fairy
godfather, and transmute all your sorrows into joys by a touch of my
magic wand. So you will please get strong as soon as you can, for I am
anxious to take you back to Jacksonville as soon as you can travel.”

“You are jesting,” faltered the beautiful girl.

“Not so; I mean every word. You must put perfect faith in me, Thea, and
all will come out right,” he replied, reassuringly; and the confidence
of his tone made her heart bound with new hope.

Dr. Hinton came in at that moment, and Lord Stuart immediately asked
him how soon Thea would be able to travel.

“In a week,” was the confident answer; and then Lord Stuart fell to
laying his plans for their return.

He had taken Dr. Hinton partly into his confidence, and in the days
that followed he hinted so strongly at a dramatic _dénouement_ of
Thea’s sorrows that he finally persuaded the young man to return with
them for a brief visit South.

“Oh, I am so glad you will go with us!” cried Thea, joyfully. “I want
you to fall in love with my dear friend, Nellie Bentley. She would make
you a charming wife, Frank.”

Poor Frank thought within himself that if he could find any woman fair
enough to drive Thea’s image from his sore heart, he would be only too
glad to find her, so he made up his mind to return South with them and
to woo Thea’s friend for his bride, if she was as charming as she was
represented.

Lady Edith was quietly happy in the companionship of her dear Thea and
the beautiful boy, her dead husband’s namesake. She spent hours amusing
him and petting him, never seeming so happy as when she had him in her
arms.

One day, when they were all sitting quietly in Thea’s room, and Lady
Edith had Alan in her arms, caressing him tenderly, her brother
exclaimed:

“Edith, the sight of you with Thea’s child in your arms brings vividly
back to me the days of long ago, before your little girl died, when you
used to hold her that way and sing to her so sweetly in the twilight.”

Lady Edith started, and a long, deep sigh broke from her as she clasped
the blue-eyed boy more tightly to her breast.

“Do you remember the pretty songs you used to sing then? I wish you
would sing one now for little Alan,” continued Lord Stuart.

“I will try,” Lady Edith answered; but her sweet voice trembled and she
sighed deeply. At last she began to sing falteringly, and Thea, who had
been half sunk in painful reverie, gave a violent start as the words
fell on her ear:

    “‘Little Sweetheart, come and kiss me,
      Just once more before I go;
    Tell me that your heart will miss me
      As I wander to and fro.
    Let me feel the tender pressing
      Of your ruby lips to mine,
    With your dimpled hands caressing,
      And your snowy arms intwine.

    “‘Ah, Little Sweetheart, come and kiss me,
      Come and whisper sweet and low;
    Tell me that your heart will miss me
      As I wander to and fro.

    “‘Little Sweetheart, come and kiss me,
      We may never meet again;
    We may never roam together
      Down the dear old shady lane.
    Future years may bring us sorrow
      That our hearts but little know;
    Still of care we should not borrow--
      Come and kiss me ere I go.

    “‘Ah, Little Sweetheart, come and kiss me,
      Whisper to me sweet and low;
    Tell me that your heart will miss me
      As I wander to and fro.’”

Lord Stuart’s eyes had never left Thea’s pale, startled face although
he pretended to be looking over an evening paper. He saw that the
lovely girl was struggling with some deep, overmastering agitation. Her
lips were parted eagerly, her cheeks pale, her dilated blue eyes were
fixed on Lady Edith with an expression of wistful yearning, and the
small white hands clasped each other tightly upon her knee.

Lady Edith did not see the uncontrollable emotion of her young friend.
She was singing with her eyes closed, but tears were stealing down her
pale cheeks. She held little Alan tightly clasped to her breast, and
perhaps in fancy she was back in the long ago, clasping to her heart
the child long dead. Her brother, watching her with deep emotion, felt
that it was so.

Once Thea started from her chair with outstretched arms and a yearning
gesture, as if she would throw herself at the singer’s feet; but she
caught Lord Stuart’s glance and shrunk back.

“What is it, dear child?” he whispered, drawing near.

She clung to him with both hands, and her face seemed irradiated with
supernal light, it grew so tender.

“Her face, her voice, her song--they are like my lost mother’s. They go
to my heart!” she murmured.

Then the half smile faded, and she sunk back into her chair, weeping
silently. She had suddenly remembered Norman’s sensitive shrinking from
the thought of strangers knowing her sad story. She must not confide to
Lord Stuart her bitter cause for tears.




CHAPTER LXX.


It was February now, and a month had passed since Camille had returned
to Verelands, bringing trouble and sorrow in her train. She was
there still, and she began to believe that she was quite safe in her
wickedness, as Norman de Vere had not yet betrayed her to the law for
the murder of Robert Lacy.

“He will not do it, because the old love makes me sacred in his eyes,”
she thought, triumphantly, little dreaming that it was for his mother’s
sake Norman kept silence. He was only waiting until she should be
strong enough to bear the news that Camille, in whom she had always
believed, whose part she had always taken, was a cruel murderess.

“I would have spared her still, as I have spared her all these years,
if she had let me--but she has been merciless!” he thought, remembering
all that his darlings had suffered at her vindictive hands; and he knew
that the time of her betrayal must come soon, for to-day his mother was
strong enough to be removed from the cabin to Verelands.

Norman had not intended to take his mother back to Verelands until his
enemy had left it; but a letter from Lord Stuart had changed his mind
about the matter.

Lord Stuart had begged in a most impressive manner that Norman and his
mother would be at Verelands on a certain day, when he also, with his
sister, would arrive to make their anticipated visit.

    “I have found Thea and little Alan,” he wrote. “They are both
    well, and longing for the day when they will be restored to
    your heart. I have met Doctor Frank Hinton, an old friend of
    yours, here, too, and I took the liberty of inviting him to
    Jacksonville. Poor fellow, he is very sad. His mother died
    lately, and his father is in ill-health. His brother and sister
    are married, and he feels almost forsaken in spite of his fine
    practice here; so I thought it would cheer him a bit to bring him
    with us. I shall bring other guests, too, that I hope may not be
    unwelcome. I hope you will receive us in your drawing-room, and
    if your enemy insists on receiving us also, permit her to have
    her way. I will soon find a way to make Verelands uncomfortable
    for her, and she will be glad to depart. As a last request,
    will you kindly have ready the little garments worn by Little
    Sweetheart when you found her? Perhaps I may throw some light on
    the mystery of her origin.”

Norman had read that letter over and over, each time with a wildly
throbbing heart, for it seemed to him as if Lord Stuart must hold in
his hands the threads of some mystery that only he could unravel. Hope
began to sing her sweet pæans of joy again in his soul, and he grew
eagerly impatient as the time drew near for the coming of the party
from the West.

Camille and her maid were in a flurry of nervous excitement after
the arrival of Norman and his mother. They scarcely knew what to
think--whether the arrival was a portent of good or ill to themselves.

Camille was rather inclined to believe that Norman, weary of the
conflict in which she always came off triumphant, had at last
capitulated to the force of circumstances.

“He gives up the contest. Fate and a woman’s cunning have been too
strong for him,” she declared, maliciously; and she sent Finette to her
mother-in-law’s room to inquire if she might come in and congratulate
her on her recovery.

“Her son was with her, and he said his mother begged leave to decline
the honor,” reported Finette, on returning.

“_N’importe!_ They can not stay under the same roof with me long
and carry such stiff necks. Their very return to Verelands, under
the circumstances of the case, shows that they have found out that
conciliation is their best policy,” declared Camille, undaunted.
“Pour me out some wine to brace my nerves, Finette, and then dress
me handsomely in velvet and diamonds. I am going down to sit in the
drawing-room, as it is very probable that my humbled husband will seek
an interview with me soon,” she declared, as she tossed off the glass
of wine with the air of one habituated to its use.




CHAPTER LXXI.


Camille had been in the drawing-room but a few minutes, when the
door-bell rang loudly, and sent a nervous tremor through her whole
frame.

“Some callers,” she thought, wondering why that strange presentiment
of evil trembled along her nerves. She shook it off, congratulating
herself that the drawing-room was well lighted and her costume elegant.

“I may as well receive them, for I must soon take my old place in
society,” she decided, as she heard a bustle in the hall, and knew that
the visitors were being admitted.

Norman de Vere and his mother had come down into the hall a few moments
before, and had been waiting most impatiently the signal to enter the
grand drawing-room. At the ringing of the door-bell he gave his mother
his arm, and with a stately step led her into the presence of Camille;
but ere the astonished woman could utter a word, the door opened again,
admitting visitors, at sight of whom Norman uttered a cry of joy and
sprung forward. He had caught sight of Thea on Lord Stuart’s arm, and
no power on earth but death could have hindered him from catching her
in his arms and straining her to his heart in a passionate embrace.

“Oh, my love, my darling, my wife!” he cried, wildly--but Lord Stuart
gently but firmly put them apart.

“Here is little Alan, my friend; give him your caresses just now,” he
said, as he placed the half-fainting Thea in a seat, and taking Baby
Alan from his sister, placed him in Norman’s arms. Then he greeted
Norman’s mother, and presented his sister and Dr. Hinton.

Camille stood like a statue, with dilated eyes gazing at the scene
before her. There was no greeting for her. No one seemed to see her as
she stood a little apart in her dark trailing velvet and glittering
diamonds, tall and elegant, with an angry sneer upon her thin lips.

Suddenly a hand touched her shoulder. She glanced around and saw
Finette close by her side.

“Miladi, I slipped in behind them. I thought you might need me,”
whispered the curious maid.

Camille did not reply. Lord Stuart had begun to speak, and she inclined
her head to listen.

“Mr. de Vere, will you show me now the clothes worn by Little
Sweetheart when you saved her life in the railway wreck many years
ago?” he asked.

Then every one saw that Mrs. de Vere, the elder, had been carrying
all the time a small bundle which she now began to unroll, while Lord
Stuart, taking his sister’s hand, led her forward.

“Look at these things, my dear, and see if you recognize any of them,”
he said, in a voice of tender emotion.

Lady Edith uttered a startled cry and slipped down upon her knees
before the gentle, white-haired lady, beginning to touch the pretty
embroidered robes with shaking fingers.

“Oh, brother, brother! these are the garments I embroidered for my
darling little daughter!” she faltered, “and--oh, Heaven! here is her
picture!” kissing it with despairing love. “Brother, brother! what does
it mean? Oh, my lost Little Sweetheart! my angel!” she wept, wildly.

He stooped and lifted her up so that he could hold the half-fainting
form in his arms.

“My darling, forgive me for deceiving you all these years,” he cried.
“It was done to save your life and your reason, for when you lay ill
so long and your little child was stolen from you, all efforts at its
recovery proving vain, we were afraid to tell you the dreadful truth.
We believed it better to pretend that the child had died and gone to
join its father in a better world than for you to know that it was in
the power of a wicked woman who stole it for purposes of revenge. I
have tried to trace the child for years, and at last, by a fortunate
accident, I found that our sweet Thea here was your missing child. Go
to her, my darling.” But Thea, with a rapturous cry, bounded forward,
and mother and child wept wildly in each other’s arms.




CHAPTER LXXII.


Camille made a step forward, and was about to make an angry speech, but
Finette restrained her.

“Wait--listen!” muttered the curious French woman.

Lord Stuart, after a minute’s silence, because of the lump that seemed
to be swelling in his throat, turned again to his friends, and said,
proudly:

“Yes, Thea is my sister’s only child, my own dear niece, and her
beautiful little boy yonder will, as next of kin to me, inherit my
title and estates at my death. I am very proud of it, for if we had
not found Thea and her child, I should have been succeeded by a very
distant relative, a soldier in India, whom I have never seen.”

Camille was again about to interrupt him with an angry taunt concerning
the stain upon little Alan’s birth, but the curious Finette again
restrained her.

“Let us hear it all, then storm at them as much as you please,” she
said; and Lord Stuart continued:

“I will briefly explain, my friends, the circumstances of Thea’s loss,
or perhaps I should call her Edith, as she was named for her mother,
and Sweetheart was the pet name she bore all the time. Sir Harry
Moreland, my sister’s young husband, died of a fever when they had
been married but a few years. It was a love-match, for Arthur, though
well born, was poor, and his death almost broke his young wife’s
heart. Long months of illness followed, and our physician ordered her
to Italy. It was thought best to leave Sweetheart at our country home
in Devonshire to insure perfect quiet and rest to her nervous mother.
But, unfortunately, my sister had employed as a nursery governess a
young girl called Mattie Steyne, who, unknown to us, had once loved
Sir Arthur Moreland, and fancied herself bound to punish Lady Edith
for winning the heart she had coveted. I think long brooding over her
loss had turned the girl’s brain, for she stole Sweetheart in Edith’s
absence, and left behind her a most cruel letter, avowing her hatred
for her rival, and stating that she would keep her dead love’s child
away from her forever. She almost succeeded in doing so, for we never
learned that she had left Europe with the child, although I have had a
detective on the case for years. If this lady”--he bowed for the first
time toward angry Camille--“had not told me, a few weeks ago, the story
of little Sweetheart, it is probable that I never should have suspected
her identity with my stolen niece.”

How angry Camille grew as she listened to those words, and realized
that her vindictive spite had recoiled upon herself! Finette could
restrain her no longer; she cried out, malevolently:

“Boast as you will, Lord Stuart, her relationship to you can not alter
the fact of the deep disgrace that lies upon her and her child--a
disgrace that will prevent his inheriting your title and estates, since
he is illegitimate. Ha! ha!” with a sneering laugh.

He turned to her with a strange smile.

“‘Those laugh best who laugh last,’” he answered. “I have another
little story to tell here to-night, madame. Pray be seated, and listen.”

A storm of angry, defiant words burst from her writhing lips, and he
turned from her to the maid.

“If you can induce your mistress to sit down and listen to me, it will
be to her interest and yours,” he said; and Finette drew forward a
chair and resolutely pushed her mistress into it.

“Sit still and listen, or he will think you are afraid to hear him,”
she whispered, menacingly; and Camille, who was more than half afraid
of her clever maid, whimpered rebelliously a moment, then sat still,
sweeping the company over with mad, defiant eyes, and longing to tear
from Norman’s arms the beautiful child he was holding so tenderly.

“Once upon a time,” began Lord Stuart, “a beautiful young heiress in
San Francisco ran away with a handsome book-agent and married him.
He took her to his home in California, a lonely mountain retreat
frequented by cut-throats and desperadoes of the worst class, and
she very soon discovered that she had linked her fate with that of
a handsome villain whose trade was stealing horses. She upbraided
him, and he struck her, arousing the worst passions of her vindictive
nature. She sought out the Vigilantes, an organization then existing
in California--it was more than twenty-five years ago, my friends--and
they swung Robert Lacy up to a tree without giving him time to utter
a prayer. I was in at the death, as they called it, and when they all
slunk away from the scene of the murder--the heartless wife among the
rest--I cut the man down and had the happiness of restoring him to
life. He swore eternal gratitude, and I brought him away with me. For
years he was my faithful, devoted valet; but he swore to me many a time
that he carried a knife for his false wife’s heart, and that he would
murder her on sight. But I did not think it was likely that he would
ever meet her, for I supposed she had returned to her rich father and
resumed her maiden name of Acton.”

“I will hear no more!” Camille shrieked, hysterically; but Finette put
her hand rudely over her lips.

“You shall hear it all!” she said, resolutely.

“There is little more to tell,” said Lord Stuart. “Robert Lacy did
find his wife again, and in the struggle that ensued between them, she
murdered him and flung his body into the river that skirts the lawn at
Verelands.”

“It is false!” Camille groaned, hoarsely; but he paid no attention to
her denials--he went on with his story:

“I was a witness to Camille Lacy’s terrible crime, for I had sent
Robert to carry her some flowers, and I hung about the grounds like
a foolish, romantic lover, so I saw it all; and because I had, in my
madness, loved that woman, not knowing her wicked nature, I stole
silently away from the scene, and did not betray her sin, leaving
vengeance to Heaven.”




CHAPTER LXXIII.


Lord Stuart went up to Norman de Vere, and said gravely:

“Do you understand what I have been saying?”

“I have heard every word,” Norman answered; but he had a dazed look, as
if his joy was too sudden and too great for comprehension.

Lord Stuart gravely said:

“When you married the woman who called herself Miss Acton, she had a
husband already living, so her marriage to you was void in law, and
your marriage with my niece was, therefore, lawful. Sweetheart is your
wife still, and your boy has no stain on his name to prevent him from
inheriting honors from an ancestry that was noble on both sides.”

“My God, it is true; I thank Thee!” Norman cried, fervently.

He was hastening toward Sweetheart, but when he saw her resting with
her golden head on her mother’s breast, he drew back, feeling that
the scene was too holy and sacred to be disturbed even by a husband’s
yearning love.

“You understand now, Norman, that I was moved by interest for yourself
when I let you think you had cause to be jealous of me. I did not want
to betray her sin if I could avoid it, but I did not mean that you
should ever live with her again,” Lord Stuart added.

Norman stood perfectly silent. He said to himself that now he need
never betray what he knew of Camille’s sin. He was glad of it. The
man’s noble heart was fain to shield her for the old love’s sake.
Retribution had overtaken her in her guilty, shameless career. Needless
for him to lift his hand to cast a single stone. She was crouching in
her chair, terrified and shame-stricken for once, forgetting all her
passionate defiance, livid with the thought that Lord Stuart knew all
her sin, all her shame. Oh, why had she not taken his kind advice long
ago? Why had she brazened it out like this?

“What are they going to do with me, Finette?” she asked, in a hollow,
frightened tone.

“Put you in prison, I suppose. I am sure you deserve it,” was the
sullen reply.

Lord Stuart heard the faltering question and the insolent reply. He
turned to Camille.

“I think you will go quietly away, so that the law will not touch you.
Am I right?” he said.

“Yes, I will go,” she said, with a shudder. “Come, Finette, you must
pack my things.”

She dragged herself up from her chair and made an unsteady movement
toward the door, cowed at last by the fate that lowered above her
head. To be shut up alone in prison, away from Finette, the only
friend she had left on earth; to see night and day the mocking face of
her murdered husband grinning in the awful solitude--why, it was too
horrible to contemplate. She was ready to crawl in the dust at Lord
Stuart’s feet to avoid her threatening fate.

“I will go,” she muttered, abjectly again, as she strove to move; but
just then she caught sight of something that still had power to turn
the blood in her veins to liquid fire.

Thea had lifted her golden head at last from her mother’s breast, and
Norman, who had watched most eagerly for that moment, had hastened to
infold his darling in his yearning arms.

Camille’s abject submission gave way at that torturing sight. She
forgot everything but her rage at the reunion of those two she had
tried most eagerly and wickedly to put asunder. She threw up her arms,
and, with maddening shrieks, fell writhing upon the floor.

Dr. Hinton hastened to her assistance, and said, a minute later:

“It is an attack of hysteria. I think, if you will all adjourn to the
library, I can assist her maid to bring her around quicker.”

They went gladly enough, and presently Camille was far enough recovered
to go upstairs to dress for her final departure from Verelands.




CHAPTER LXXIV.


Upstairs, as Finette hurriedly flung the rich robes of her mistress
into the trunks, bitter recriminations passed between mistress and
servant.

“Do you think I’m going to follow the likes of you, bad as I am?”
snarled the maid.

“You are no better than I am. Remember that you ran away from Paris
because you poisoned your husband!” Camille sneered, and the woman grew
livid.

“How do you know?” she questioned, with a start of fear.

“I know many things more with which to refresh your memory, if you
persist in your insolence,” Camille retorted, angrily; and a sullen
silence ensued, at which the proud mistress began to be frightened.

What if Finette were to desert her now, when, by her wicked madness,
she had alienated every living soul from her? when she was alone in the
world but for this creature who had aided and abetted her in all of her
wicked schemes, helping her to make shipwreck of her soul for the sake
of the gold with which she could reward her confederate?

In abject terms she begged her servant not to forsake her, promising
that they should sail at once for France, or anywhere that the woman
wished, living together on equal terms, sharing alike in her wealth.

“No longer my servant, but my companion, my only friend!” she wailed,
abjectly, and Finette sullenly assented to her proposal.

Presently the trunks of finery were all packed and corded, ready to be
sent for, and the two women in their traveling-dresses moved cringingly
down the stairway, Camille carrying on her arm the hand-satchel in
which were deposited the wealth of splendid unset jewels that now
represented her fortune.

At the threshold of the door over which she had passed as a serpent,
leaving a trail of venom on all it touched, she paused and looked back
with a muttered curse toward the library whence came the murmur of
happy voices.

“Curse them! I hope I may find a chance to pay them back yet!” she
hissed, malevolently, as she followed Finette down the steps to the
broad, white-graveled path between the orange-trees. The rising moon
threw a broad white light over everything, and for a minute the maid
stopped short.

“How happy they are at getting rid of us!” she ejaculated. “Listen to
their happy laughter, miladi. You will never hear it again.”

Camille paused and turned her head toward the sound of the happy voices
that floated through the open library window, and then a most horrible
thing happened.

Finette Du Val, the treacherous maid, as if moved by some irresistible
impulse or meditated villainy, suddenly snatched a shining dagger from
her belt and plunged it to the hilt in Camille’s back. As she shrieked
and fell, the murderess tore the satchel of jewels from her grasp, and
fled wildly from the scene of her hideous crime.

The sound of Camille’s agonized shrieks floated into the window, where
they were all talking so happily after their deliverance from danger
and sorrow. Dr. Hinton ran out hastily, but the rest waited. They
thought Camille was only in hysterics again.

Dr. Hinton bent over her, and saw the great pool of blood on the white
gravel.

“My God!” he cried, in horror; and a weak voice moaned:

“Finette Du Val, the evil genius of my life, has robbed and murdered
me. She has taken my satchel of unset jewels, my whole fortune, and
fled!”

“Horrible!” cried the young man; and his shrill cry brought all the
others rushing out.

At his hasty explanation some ran in search of the murderess, some
remained to help him carry Camille into the house, but after a brief
examination Dr. Hinton decided that it could not be done.

“She has but a few minutes to live,” he said; and Thea, who was gazing,
half fainting, on the dreadful sight, suddenly fell down upon her
knees. It seemed to her too dreadful for Camille to die thus with her
proud head low in the dust which her dainty feet had spurned in happier
days. She slipped her fair arm gently under the fallen head, and while
she was trying to whisper a prayer for the dying, Camille’s soul went
away in one long, sighing groan to its judgment.

Her cruel murderess succeeded in getting away safely with her booty,
and for a few years led a life of dissolute splendor in her beloved
Paris, but at length she was seen and recognized by one who had known
her in former days, and she was immediately arrested for poisoning her
husband just before she had entered the service of Camille Acton, or
Lacy, as her real name was. The woman’s guilt was so clearly proven
that she suffered capital punishment for the murder of her husband, and
so Camille’s dreadful death was well avenged.

When Norman de Vere, at Verelands, read the story of her punishment,
his feet strayed to a nameless grave in the churchyard which his dear
old mother, in the kindness of her heart, often adorned with flowers,
and with his eyes on the low, green mound, he whispered:

“Poor Camille! your death is at least avenged. May Heaven rest your
soul!”

Verelands was never a very happy place to them after the white gravel
before the door had soaked up Camille’s life-blood. Even Norman’s
mother was glad to forsake it for some years after Camille was buried,
and to go abroad with the rest to Lord Stuart’s beautiful English
estate, where it seemed only right and proper that the De Veres should
spend half their time at least, since their eldest son, the noble
little Alan Arthur, must some day reign there in his uncle’s stead,
a noble lord, who inherited a noble soul from his father, as well as
beauty and high estate from his sweet mother our Little Sweetheart.


THE END.




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      1--Kidnapped at the Altar, Laura Jean Libbey.
      2--Gladiola’s Two Lovers, Laura Jean Libbey.
      3--Lil, the Dancing Girl, Caroline Hart.
      5--The Woman Who Came Between, Caroline Hart.
      6--Aleta’s Terrible Secret, Laura Jean Libbey.
      7--For Love or Honor, Caroline Hart.
      8--The Romance of Enola, Laura Jean Libbey.
      9--A Handsome Engineer’s Flirtation, Laura J. Libbey.
     10--A Little Princess, Caroline Hart.
     11--Was She Sweetheart or Wife, Laura Jean Libbey.
     12--Nameless Bess, Caroline Hart.
     13--Della’s Handsome Lover, Laura Jean Libbey.
     14--That Awful Scar, Caroline Hart.
     15--Flora Garland’s Courtship, Laura Jean Libbey.
     16--Love’s Rugged Path, Caroline Hart.
     17--My Sweetheart Idabell, Laura Jean Libbey.
     18--Married at Sight, Caroline Hart.
     19--Pretty Madcap Dorothy, Laura Jean Libbey.
     20--Her Right to Love, Caroline Hart.
     21--The Loan of a Lover, Laura Jean Libbey.
     22--The Game of Love, Caroline Hart.
     23--A Fatal Elopement, Laura Jean Libbey.
     24--Vendetta, Marie Corelli.
     25--The Girl He Forsook, Laura Jean Libbey.
     26--Redeemed by Love, Caroline Hart.
     28--A Wasted Love, Caroline Hart.
     29--A Dangerous Flirtation, Laura Jean Libbey.
     30--A Haunted Life, Caroline Hart.
     31--Garnetta, the Silver King’s Daughter, L. J. Libbey.
     32--A Romance of Two Worlds, Marie Corelli.
     34--Her Ransom, Charles Garvice.
     36--A Hidden Terror, Caroline Hart.
     37--Flora Temple, Laura Jean Libbey.
     38--Claribel’s Love Story, Charlotte M. Braeme.
     39--Pretty Rose Hall, Laura Jean Libbey.
     40--The Mystery of Suicide Place, Mrs. Alex. Miller.
     41--Cora, the Pet of the Regiment, Laura Jean Libbey.
     42--The Vengeance of Love, Caroline Hart.
     43--Jolly Sally Pendleton, Laura Jean Libbey.
     44--A Bitter Reckoning, Mrs. E. Burke Collins.
     45--Kathleen’s Diamonds, Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller.
     46--Angela’s Lover, Caroline Hart.
     47--Lancaster’s Choice, Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller.
     48--The Madness of Love, Caroline Hart.
     49--Little Sweetheart, Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller.
     50--A Working Girl’s Honor, Caroline Hart.
     51--The Mystery of Colde Fell, Charlotte M. Braeme.
     52--The Rival Heiresses, Caroline Hart.
     53--Little Nobody, Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller.
     54--Her Husband’s Ghost, Mary E. Bryan.
     55--Sold for Gold, Mrs. E. Burke Collins.
     56--Her Husband’s Secret, Lucy Randall Comfort.
     57--A Passionate Love, Barbara Howard.
     58--From Want to Wealth, Caroline Hart.
     59--Loved You Better Than You Knew, Mrs. A. Miller.
     60--Irene’s Vow, Charlotte M. Braeme.
     61--She Loved Not Wisely, Caroline Hart.
     62--Molly’s Treachery, Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller.
     63--Was It Wrong? Barbara Howard.
     64--The Midnight Marriage, Mrs. Sumner Hayden.
     65--Ailsa, Wenona Gilman.
     66--Her Dark Inheritance, Mrs. E. Burke Collins.
     67--Viola’s Vanity, Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller.
     68--The Ghost of the Hurricane Hills, Mary E. Bryan.
     69--A Woman Wronged, Caroline Hart.
     70--Was She His Lawful Wife? Barbara Howard.
     71--Val, the Tomboy, Wenona Gilman.
     72--The Richmond Secret, Mrs. E. Burke Collins.
     73--Edna’s Vow, Charlotte M. Stanley.
     74--Hearts of Fire, Caroline Hart.
     75--St. Elmo, Augusta J. Evans.
     76--Nobody’s Wife, Caroline Hart.
     77--Ishmael, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth.
     78--Self-Raised, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth.
     79--Pretty Little Rosebud, Barbara Howard.
     80--Inez, Augusta J. Evans.
     81--The Girl Wife, Mrs. Sumner Hayden.
     82--Dora Thorne, Charlotte M. Braeme.
     83--Followed by Fate, Lucy Randall Comfort.
     84--India, or the Pearl of Pearl River, Southworth.
     85--Mad Kingsley’s Heir, Mrs. E. Burke Collins.
     86--The Missing Bride, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth.
     87--Wicked Sir Dare, Charles Garvice.
     88--Daintie’s Cruel Rivals, Mrs. Alex. McV. Miller.
     89--Lillian’s Vow, Caroline Hart.
     90--Miss Estcourt, Charles Garvice.
     91--Beulah, Augusta J. Evans.
     92--Daphane’s Fate, Mrs. E. Burke Collins.
     93--Wormwood, Marie Corelli.
     94--Nellie, Charles Garvice.
     95--His Legal Wife, Mary E. Bryan.
     96--Macaria, Augusta J. Evans.
     97--Lost and Found, Charlotte M. Stanley.
     98--The Curse of Clifton, Mrs. Southworth.
     99--That Strange Girl, Charles Garvice.
    100--The Lovers at Storm Castle, Mrs. M. A. Collins.
    101--Margerie’s Mistake, Lucy Randall Comfort.
    102--The Curse of Pocahontas, Wenona Gilman.
    103--My Love Kitty, Charles Garvice.
    104--His Fairy Queen, Elizabeth Stiles.
    105--From Worse than Death, Caroline Hart.
    106--Audrey Fane’s Love, Mrs. E. Burke Collins.
    107--Thorns and Orange Blossoms, Charlotte Braeme.
    108--Ethel Dreeme, Frank Corey.
    109--Three Girls, Mary E. Bryan.
    110--A Strange Marriage, Caroline Hart.
    111--Violet, Charles Garvice.
    112--The Ghost of the Power, Mrs. Sumner Hayden.
    113--Baptised with a Curse, Edith Stewart Drewry.
    114--A Tragic Blunder, Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron.
    115--The Secret of Her Life, Edward Jenkins.
    116--My Guardian, Ada Cambridge.
    117--A Last Love, Georges Ohnet.
    118--His Angel, Henry Herman.
    119--Pretty Miss Bellew, Theo. Gift.
    120--Blind Love, Wilkie Collins.
    121--A Life’s Mistake, Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron.
    122--Won By Waiting, Edna Lyall.
    123--Passion’s Slave, King.
    124--Under Currents, Duchess.
    125--False Vow, Braeme.
    126--The Belle of Lynne, Braeme.
    127--Lord Lynne’s Choice, Braeme.
    128--Blossom and Fruit, Braeme.
    129--Weaker Than a Woman, Braeme.
    130--Tempest and Sunshine, Mary J. Holmes.
    131--Lady Muriel’s Secret, Braeme.
    132--A Mad Love, Braeme.


The Hart Series books are for sale everywhere, or they will be sent by
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Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other
spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

The following corrections have been made:

    page  18 - corrected “wickeness” to “wickedness”
    page  42 - corrected “she” to “he”  (he asked, reproachfully)
    page  48 - corrected "fondling" to "foundling"
    page  58 - corrected “ressuringly” to “reassuringly”
    page  98 - corrected “coverted” to “coveted”
    page 156 - corrected “CHAPTER LIII” to “CHAPTER LII”

Italics are represented thus _italic_.





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