Part 29 (1/2)
No one saw this more clearly than did she whose fate trembled upon the next words she should utter. With all her hardihood, she hesitated to reply. Luxury, wealth, and station were on one side; degradation and poverty on the other. The solitary hope of reinstatement in the affection, if not the esteem, of him she loved truly as it was in her to love anything beside herself, was arrayed against the certainty of alienation and the tearful odds of ignominious banishment.
Her answer, under the pressure of the warring emotions, was a semitone lower, and less distinctly enunciated than those that had gone before it.
”The denouement you propose for your romance is impracticable. Julius Lennox died before the date of the second marriage.”
Herbert drew himself to a sitting posture by clutching the back of the lounge. His red eyes and tumbled hair made him look more like a mad than a sick man.
”In the name of Heaven,” he demanded hoa.r.s.ely, ”have we not had enough lies, every one of which has been a blunder, and a fatal one? I told you, years ago, that the scene of this evening was a mere question of time; that, without a miracle, an edifice founded upon iniquity and cemented by falsehood must crush you before you could lay the top-stone.
You would not be warned--you held on your way without hesitation or compunction, and now you would add to sin fatuity. Do you suppose that after what your husband has learned of your untruthfulness he will accept your a.s.sertion on any subject without inquiry? And, how many in your own family and out of it--although these may not know you by the name you now bear--are cognizant of the fact that Julius Lennox was alive for almost fifteen months after you became Mrs. Aylett?”
Mabel's arm was about his neck, her hand upon his mouth.
”No more! no more! if you love me!” she whispered in an agony. ”Should he guess all, he would murder her!”
”You are prepared to certify that he is dead NOW, are you, Mr.
Dorrance?” queried Winston, suspicious of this by-play.
”I am!” sulkily.
”It is a pity!” was the ambiguous rejoinder.
Something clicked upon the hearth. It was the fragments of the toy stiletto, broken by an uncontrollable twitch of the small fingers that held it.
Then Mrs. Aylett arose, pale as a ghost, but unquailing in eye or mien.
”May I know your lords.h.i.+p's pleasure respecting your cast-off minion?”
”In the morning, yes!” glancing up disdainfully. ”Meantime, let me wish you 'good-night' and happy dreams.”
CHAPTER XX. -- INDIAN SUMMER.
”NO, no! my dear!” said Mrs. Sutton, earnestly. ”I am shocked and astonished that you should ever have labored under such a delusion.
Frederic told me the story, and a dreadful one it was, the day old Mrs.
Tazewell was buried. Wasn't it wonderful that he never knew whom Winston had married until he saw her leaning upon his arm in the graveyard? He recognized Mr. Dorrance in the house, but supposed him to be a visitor at Ridgeley and a relative of Mrs. Aylett, having heard that her maiden name was Dorrance. As to his being your husband, it did not at first occur to him, so bewildered was he by your meeting and the thoughts awakened by it. But at sight of HER the truth rushed over him, nearly depriving him of his wits. He soon got out of me all that I knew, and by putting this and that together, we made out the mystery. I was so grieved and indignant and horrified that I was for sending him forthwith to Winston, that he might clear himself of the shocking charges they had preferred against him, by exposing the motives of his accusers. But he was stubborn and independent. 'It can do no good now,' he said. 'Fifteen years ago this discovery would have been my temporal salvation. And Dorrance is Mabel's husband. I cannot touch him without wounding her.' I could not reconcile this mode of reasoning with my conscience. If wrong had been done, it ought to be righted. I did not sleep a wink all night.
I wept over my n.o.ble, generous, slandered boy, and over you, my darling! but my chief thought was anger at the shameless depravity, the cold-blooded cruelty of the brazen-faced adventuress who sat in your angel mother's place. For aught Frederic or I knew, her real husband was still alive. He had never heard of the divorce, you see, and the circ.u.mstance of her marrying Winston under her maiden name looked black.
”Well! I pondered upon the horrible affair until I could hold my peace no longer. Frederic and Florence went home with Mary Trent next morning, and knowing that Winston must pa.s.s the upper gate on his way to court, I put on my bonnet soon after breakfast, and strolled in that direction.
By and by he rode up, stopped his horse, and began to talk so sociably that before I quite knew what I was doing, I was in the middle of my story. I wonder now how I did it, but I was excited, and he listened so patiently, questioned so quietly, that I did not realize, for several hours afterward, what a blaze I must have kindled in his heart and home, whether he believed me or not. The next thing I heard was not, as I expected, that he and his wife had quarrelled, or that he was going to challenge Frederic for having belied him, but that poor Dorrance was very ill with some affection of the brain. It was not until a year later--just after his death--that people began to talk about the strange carryings-on at Ridgeley; how Mr. and Mrs. Aylett occupied separate apartments, and never sat, or walked, or rode together, or spoke to one another, even at table, unless there were visitors present. n.o.body could imagine what caused the estrangement, and for the sake of the family honor I guarded my tongue. She must be a wretched woman, if all of this be true. She is breaking fast under it, in spite of her pride and skill in concealment. I ought not to pity her when I remember how wicked she has been; but there is a look in her eye when she is not laughing or talking that gives me the heart-ache.”