* * * * *

Edith Darrell left Charley Stuart, and returned to the brilliantly-lit drawing room, where her lover and Lady Helena and their friends sat waiting the announcement of dinner. Sir Victor's watchful eyes saw her enter. Sir Victor's loving glance saw the pallor, like the pallor of death, upon her face. She walked steadily over to a chair in the curtained recess of a window. He was held captive by Lady Portia Hampton, and could not join her. A second after there was a sort of sobbing gasp—a heavy fall. Everybody started, and arose in consternation. Miss Darrell had fallen from her chair, and lay on the floor in a dead faint.

Her lover, as pale almost as herself, lifted her in his arms, the cold, beautiful face lying, like death on his shoulder. But it was not death.

They carried her up to her room—restoratives were applied, and presently the great dark eyes opened, and looked up into her lover's face.

She covered her own with her hands, and turned away from him, as though the sight was distasteful to her. He bent above her, almost agonized that anything should ail his idol.

"My darling," he said tremulously. "What was it? What can I do for you? Tell me."

"Go away," was the dull answer; "only that—go away everybody, and leave me alone."

They strove to reason with her—some one sought to stay with her. Lady Helena, Sir Victor—either would give up their place at dinner and remain at the bedside.

"No, no, no!" was her answering cry, "they must not. She was better again—she needed no one, she wanted nothing, only to be left alone."

They left her alone—she was trembling with nervous excitement, a little more and hysterics would set in—they dared not disobey. They left her alone, with a watchful attendant on the alert in the dressing-room.

She lay upon the dainty French bed, her dark hair, from which the flowers had been taken, tossed over the white pillows, her hands clasped above her head, her dark, large eyes fixed on the opposite wall. So she lay motionless, neither, speaking nor stirring for hours, with a sort of dull, numb aching at her heart. They stole in softly to her bedside many times through the night, always to find her like that, lying with blank, wide-open eyes, never noticing nor speaking to them. When morning broke she awoke from a dull sort of sleep, her head burning, her lips parched, her eyes glittering with fever.

They sent for the doctor. He felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, asked questions, and shook his head. Overwrought nerves the whole of it. Her mind must have been over-excited for some time, and this was the result. No danger was to be apprehended; careful nursing would restore her in a week or two, combined with perfect quiet. Then a change of air and scene would be beneficial—say a trip to Scarborough or Torquay now. They would give her this saline draught just at present and not worry about her. The young lady would be all right, on his word and honor, my dear Sir Victor, in a week or two.

Sir Victor listened very gloomily. He had heard from the hall porter of Mr. Stuart's flying visit, and of his brief interview with Miss Darrell. It was very strange—his hasty coming, his hasty going, without seeing any of them, his interview with Edith, and her fainting-fit immediately after. Why had he come? What had transpired at that interview? The green-eyed monster took the baronet's heart between his finger and thumb, and gave it a most terrible twinge.

He watched over her when they let him into that darkened chamber, as a mother may over an only and darling child. If he lost her!

"O Heaven!" he cried passionately, rebelliously, "rather let me die than that!"

He asked her no questions—he was afraid. His heart sank within him, she lay so cold, so white, so utterly indifferent whether he came or went. He was nothing to her—nothing. Would he ever be?

Lady Helena, less in love, and consequently less a coward, asked the question her nephew dared not ask: "What had brought Mr. Charles Stuart to Powyss Place? What had made her, Edith, faint?"

The dark sombre eyes turned from the twilight prospect, seen through the open window, and met her ladyship's suspicious eyes steadily. "Mr. Stuart had come down to tell her some very bad news. His father had failed—they were ruined. They had to leave England in two days for home—he had only come to bid her a last farewell."

Then the sombre brown eyes went back to the blue-gray sky, the crystal July moon, the velvet, green grass, the dark murmuring trees, the birds twittering in the leafy branches, and she was still again.

Lady Helena was shocked, surprised, grieved. But—why had Edith fainted?

"I don't know," Edith answered. "I never fainted before in my life. I think I have not been very strong lately. I felt well enough when I returned to the drawing-room—a minute after I grew giddy and fell. I remember no more."

"We will take you away, my dear," her ladyship said cheerfully. "We will take you to Torquay. Changes of air and scene, as the doctor says, are the tonics you need to brace your nerves. Ah! old or young, all we poor women are martyrs to nerves."

They took her to Torquay in the second week of July. A pretty little villa near Hesketh Crescent had been hired; four servants from Powyss Place preceded them; Sir Victor escorted them, and saw them duly installed. He returned again—partly because the work going on at Catheron Royals needed his presence, partly because Lady Helena gravely and earnestly urged it.

"My dear Victor," she said, "don't force too much of your society upon Edith. I know girls. Even if she were in love with you"—the young man winced—"she would grow tired of a lover who never left her sight. All women do. If you want her to grow fond of you, go away, write to her every day—not too lover-like love-letters; one may have a surfeit of sweets; just cheerful, pleasant, sensible letters—as a young man in love can write. Come down this day three weeks, and, if we are ready, take us home."

The young man made a wry face—much as he used to do when his good aunt urged him to swallow a dose of nauseous medicine.

"In three weeks! My dear Lady Helena, what are you thinking of? We are to be married the first week of September."

"October, Victor—October—not a day sooner. You must wait until Edith is completely restored. There is no such desperate haste. You are not likely to lose her."

"I am not so sure of that," he said, half sullenly under his breath; "and a postponed marriage is the most unlucky thing in the world."

"I don't believe in luck; I do in common-sense," his aunt retorted, rather sharply. "You are like a spoiled child, Victor, crying for the moon. It is Edith's own request, if you will have it—this postponement. And Edith is right. You don't want a limp, pallid, half-dying bride, I suppose. Give her time to get strong—give her time to learn to like you—your patient waiting will go far towards it. Take my word, it will be the wiser course."

There was nothing for it but obedience. He took his leave and went back to Cheshire. It was his first parting from Edith. How he felt it, no words can tell. But the fact remained—he went.

She drew a long, deep breath as she said good-by, and watched him away. Ah! what a different farewell to that other only two short weeks ago. She tried not to think of that—honestly and earnestly; she tried to forget the face that haunted her, the voice that rang in her ears, the warm hand-clasp, the kisses that sealed their parting. Her love, her duty, her allegiance, her thoughts—all were due to Sir Victor now. In the quiet days that were to be there, she would try to forget the love of her life—try to remember that of all men on earth Sir Victor Catheron was the only man she had any right to think of.

And she succeeded partly. Wandering along the tawny sands, with the blue bright sea spreading away before her, drinking in the soft salt air, Edith grew strong in body and mind once more. Charley Stuart had passed forever out of her life—driven hence by her own acts; she would be the most drivelling of idiots, the basest of traitors, to pine for him now. Her step grew elastic, her eye grew bright, her beauty and bloom returned. She met hosts of pleasant people, and her laugh came sweetly to Lady Helena's ears. Since her nephew must marry—since his heart was set on this girl—Lady Helena wished to see her a healthy and happy wife.

Sir Victor's letters came daily; the girl smiled as she glanced carelessly over them, tore them up, and answered—about half. Love him she did not; but she was learning to think very kindly of him. It is quite in the scope of a woman's complex nature to love one man passionately, and like another very much. It was Edith's case—she liked Sir Victor; and when, at the end of three weeks, he came to join them, she could approach and give him her hand with a frank, glad smile of welcome. The three weeks had been as three centuries to this ardent young lover. His delight to see his darling blooming, and well, and wholly restored, almost repaid him. And three days after the triad returned together to Powyss Place, to part, as he whispered, no more.

It was the middle of August now. In spite of Edith's protest, grand preparations were being made for the wedding—a magnificent trousseau having been ordered.

"Simplicity is all very well," Lady Helena answered Miss Darrell, "but Sir Victor Catheron's bride must dress as becomes Sir Victor Catheron's station. In three years from now, if you prefer white muslin and simplicity, prefer it by all means. About the wedding-dress, you will kindly let me have my own way."

Edith desisted; she appealed no more; passive to all changes, she let herself drift along. The third of October was to be the wedding-day; my ladies Gwendoline and Laura Drexel, the two chief bridesmaids—then three others, all daughters of old friends of Lady Helena. The pretty, picturesque town of Carnarvon, in North Wales, was to be the nest of the turtledoves during the honeymoon—then away to the Continent, then back for the Christmas festivities at Catheron Royals.

Catheron Royals was fast becoming a palace for a princess—its grounds a sort of enchanted fairy-land. Edith walked through its lofty, echoing halls, its long suites of sumptuous drawing-rooms, libraries, billiard and ball rooms. The suite fitted up for herself was gorgeous in purple and gold-velvet and bullion fringe—in pictures that were wonders of loveliness—in mirror-lined walls, in all that boundless wealth and love could lavish on its idol. Leaning on her proud and happy bridegroom's arm, she walked through them all, half dazed with all the wealth of color and splendor, and wondering if "I be I." Was it a fairy tale, or was all this for Edith Darrell?—Edith Darrell, who such a brief while gone, used to sweep and dust, sew and darn, in dull, unlovely Sandypoint, and get a new merino dress twice a year? No, it could not be—such transformation scenes never look place out of a Christmas pantomime or a burlesque Arabian Night—it was all a dream—a fairy fortune that, like fairy gold, would change to dull slate stones at light of day. She would never be Lady Catheron, never be mistress of this glittering Aladdin's Palace. It grew upon her day after day, this feeling of vagueness, of unreality. She was just adrift upon a shining river, and one of these days she would go stranded ashore on hidden quicksands and foul ground. Something would happen. The days went by like dreams—it was the middle of September. In little more than a fortnight would come the third of October and the wedding-day. But something would happen. As surely as she lived and saw it all, she felt that something would happen.

Something did. On the eighteenth of September there came from London, late in the evening, a telegram for Lady Helena. Sir Victor was with Edith at the piano in the drawing-room. In hot haste his aunt sent for him; he went at once. He found her pale, terrified, excited; she held out the telegram to him without a word. He read it slowly: "Come at once. Fetch Victor. He is dying.—INEZ."



CHAPTER XIX.

AT POPLAR LODGE.

Half an hour had passed and Sir Victor did not return. Edith still remained at the piano, the gleam of the candles falling upon her thoughtful face, playing the weird "Moonlight Sonata." She played so softly that the shrill whistling of the wind around the gables, the heavy soughing of the trees, was plainly audible above it. Ten minutes more, and her lover did not return. Wondering a little what the telegram could contain, she arose and walked to the window, drew the curtains and looked out. There was no moon, but the stars were numberless, and lit dimly the park. As she stood watching the trees, writhing in the autumnal gale, she heard a step behind her. She glanced over her shoulder with a half smile—a smile that died on her lips as she saw the grave pallor of Sir Victor's face.

"What has happened?" she asked quickly. "Lady Helena's dispatch contained bad news? It is nothing"—she caught her breath—"nothing concerning the Stuarts?"

"Nothing concerning the Stuarts. It is from London—from Inez Catheron. It is—that my father is dying."

She said nothing. She stood looking at him, and waiting for more.

"It seems a strange thing to say," he went on, "that one does not know whether to call one's father's death ill news or not. But considering the living death he has led for twenty-three years, one can hardly call death and release a misfortune. The strange thing, the alarming thing about it, is the way Lady Helena takes it. One would think she might be prepared, that considering his life and sufferings, she would rather rejoice than grieve: but, I give you my word, the way in which she takes it honestly frightens me."

Still Edith made no reply—still her thoughtful eyes were fixed upon his face.

"She seems stunned, paralyzed—actually paralyzed with a sort of terror. And that terror seems to be, not for him or herself, but for me. She will explain nothing; she seems unable; all presence of mind seems to have left her. No time is to be lost; there is a train in two hours: we go by that. By daylight we will be in London; how long before we return I cannot say. I hate the thought of a death casting its gloom over our marriage. I dread horribly the thought of a second postponement—I hate the idea of leaving you here alone."

Something will happen. All along her heart had whispered it, and here it was. And yet the long tense breath she drew was very like a breath of relief.

"You are not to think of me," she said quietly, after a pause. "Your duty is to the dying. Nothing will befall me in your absence—don't let the thought of me in any way trouble you. I shall do very well with my books and music; and Lady Gwendoline, I dare say, will drive over occasionally and see me. Of course why you go to London is for the present a secret?"

"Of course. What horrible explanations and gossip the fact of his death at this late date will involve. Every one has thought him dead for over twenty years. I can't understand this secrecy, this mystery—the world should have been told the truth from the first. If there was any motive I suppose they will tell me to-night, and I confess I shrink from hearing any more than I have already heard."

His face was very dark, very gloomy, as he gazed out at the starlit night. A presentiment that something evil was in store for him weighed upon him, engendered, perhaps, by the incomprehensible alarm of Lady Helena.

The preparations for the journey were hurried and few. Lady Helena descended to the carriage, leaning on her maid's arm. She seemed to have forgotten Edith completely, until Edith advanced to say good-by. Then in a constrained, mechanical sort of way she gave her her hand, spoke a few brief words of farewell, and drew back into a corner of the carriage, a darker shadow in the gloom.

In the drawing-room, in travelling-cap and overcoat, Sir Victor held Edith's hand, lingering strangely over the parting—strangely reluctant to say farewell.

"Do you believe in presentiments, Edith?" he asked. "I have a presentiment that we will never meet again like this—that something will have come between us before we meet again. I cannot define it. I cannot explain it. I only know it is there."

"I don't believe in presentiments," Edith answered cheerfully. "I never had one in my life. I believe they are only another name for dyspepsia; and telegrams and hurried night journeys are mostly conductive to gloom. When the sun shines to-morrow morning, and you have had a strong cup of coffee, you will be ready to laugh at your presentiments. Nothing is likely to come between us."

"Nothing shall—nothing, I swear it!" He caught her in his arms with a straining clasp, and kissed her passionately for the first time. "Nothing in this lower world shall ever separate us. I have no life now apart from you. And nothing, not death itself, shall postpone our marriage. It was postponed once; I wish it never had been. It shall never be postponed again."

"Go, go!" Edith cried; "some one is coming—you will be late."

There was not a minute to spare. He dashed down the stairs, down the portico steps, and sprang into the carriage beside his aunt. The driver cracked his whip, the horses started, the carriage rolled away into the gloom and the night. Edith Darrell stood at the window until the last sound of the wheels died away, and for long after. A strange silence seemed to have fallen upon the great house with the going of its mistress. In the embrasure of the window, in the dim blue starlight, the girl sat down to think. There was some mystery, involving the murder of the late Lady Catheron, at work here, she felt. Grief for the loss of his wife might have driven Sir Victor Catheron mad, but why make such a profound secret of it? Why give out that he was dead? Why allow his son to step into the title before his time? If Juan Catheron were the murderer, Juan Catheron the outlaw and Pariah of his family, why screen him as though he had been the idol and treasure of all, and let the dead go unavenged? Why this strange terror of Lady Helena's? why her insufferable aversion to her nephew marrying at all?

Yes, there was something hidden, something on the cards not yet brought to light; and to the death-bed of Sir Victor Catheron the elder, Sir Victor Catheron the younger had been summoned to hear the whole truth.

Would he tell it to her upon his return, she wondered. Well, if he did not, she had no right to complain—she had her secret from him. There was madness in the family—she shrank a little at the thought for the first time. Who knew, whether latent and unsuspected, the taint might not be in the blood and brains of the man to whom she was about to bind herself for life? Who was to tell when it might break forth, in what horrible shape it might show itself? To be the widowed wife of a madman—what wealth and title on earth could compensate for that? She shivered as she sat, partly with the chill night air, partly with the horror of the thought. In her youth, and health, and beauty, her predecessor had been struck down, the bride of another Sir Victor. So long she sat there that a clock up in the lofty turret struck, heavily and solemnly, twelve. The house was still as the grave—all shut up except this room where she sat, all retired except her maid and the butler. They yawned sleepily, and waited for her to retire. Chilled and white, the girl arose at last, took her night-light, and went slowly up to bed.

"Is the game worth the candle after all?" she thought. "Ah me! what a miserable, vacillating creature I am. Whatever comes—the worst or the best—there is nothing for it now but to go on to the end."

Meantime, through the warm, starry night, the train was speeding on to London, bearing Sir Victor Catheron to the turning point of his life. He and his aunt had their carriage all to themselves. Still in dead silence, still with that pale, terrified look on her face, Lady Helena lay back in a corner among the cushions. Once or twice her nephew spoke to her—the voice in which she answered him hardly sounded like her own. He gave it up at last; there was nothing for it but to wait and let the end come. He drew his cap over his eyes, lay back in the opposite seat, and dozed and dreamed of Edith.

In the chill, gray light of an overcast morning they reached Easton station. A sky like brown paper lay over the million roofs of the great Babylon; a dull, dim fog, that stifled you, filled the air. The fog and raw cold were more like November than the last month of summer. Blue and shivering in the chill light, Sir Victor buttoned up his light overcoat, assisted his aunt into a cab, and gave the order—"St. John's Wood. Drive for your life!"

Lady Helena knew Poplar Lodge, of course; once in the vicinity there would be no trouble in finding it. Was he still alive, the young man wondered. How strange seemed the thought that he was about to see his father at last. It was like seeing the dead return. Was he sane, and would he know him when they met?

The overcast morning threatened rain; it began to fall slowly and dismally as they drove along. The London streets looked unutterably draggled and dreary, seen at this early hour of the wet morning. The cab driver urged his horse to its utmost speed, and presently the broad green expanse and tall trees of Regent's Park came in view. Lady Helena gave the man his direction, and in ten minutes they stopped before the tall, closed iron gates of a solitary villa. It was Poplar Lodge.

The baronet paid the man's fare and dismissed him. He seized the gate-bell and rang a peal that seemed to tinkle half a mile away. While he waited, holding an umbrella over his aunt, he surveyed the premises.

It was a greusome, prison-like place enough at this forlorn hour. The stone walls were as high as his head, the view between the lofty iron gates was completely obstructed by trees. Of the house itself, except the chimney-pots and the curling smoke, not a glimpse was to be had. And for three-and-twenty years Inez Catheron had buried herself alive here with a madman and two old servants! He shuddered internally as he thought of it—surely, never devotion or atonement equalled hers.

They waited nearly ten minutes in the rain; then a shambling footstep shambled down the path, and an old face peered out between the trellised iron work. "Who is it?" an old voice asked.

"It is I, Hooper. Sir Victor and I. For pity's sake don't keep us standing here in the rain."

"My lady! Praise be!" A key turned in the lock, the gate swung wide, and an aged, white-haired man stood bowing before Lady Helena.

"Are we in time?" was her first breathless question. "Is your master still—"

"Still alive, my lady—praise and thanks be! Just in time, and no more."

The dim old eyes of Hooper were fixed upon the young man's face.

"Like his father," the old lips said, and the old head shook ominously; "more's the pity—like his father."

Lady Helena took her nephew's arm and hurried him, under the dripping trees, up the avenue to the house. Five minutes brought them to it—a red brick villa, its shutters all closed. The house-door stood ajar; without ceremony her ladyship entered. As she did so, another, door suddenly opened, and Inez Catheron came out.

The fixedly pale face, could by no possibility grow paler—could by no possibility change its marble calm. But the deep, dusk eyes looked at the young man, it seemed to him, with an infinite compassion.

"We are in time?" his aunt spoke.

"You are in time. In one moment you will see him. There is not a second to lose, and he knows it. He has begged you to be brought to him the moment you arrive."

"He knows then. Oh, thank God! Reason has returned at last."

"Reason has returned. Since yesterday he has been perfectly sane. His first words were that his son should be sent for, that the truth should be told."

There was a half-suppressed sob. Lady Helena covered her face with both hands. Her nephew looked at her, then back to Miss Catheron. The white face kept its calm, the pitying eyes looked at him with a gentle compassion no words can tell.

"Wait one moment," she said; "I must tell him you are here."

She hurried upstairs and disappeared. Neither of the two spoke. Lady Helena's face was still hidden. He knew that she was crying—silent, miserable tears—tears that were for him. He stood pale, composed, expectant—waiting for the end.

"Come up," Miss Catheron's soft voice at the head of the stairs called. Once more he gave his aunt his arm, once more in silence they went in together.

A breathless hush seemed to lie upon the house and all within it. Not a sound was to be heard except the soft rustle of the trees, the soft, ceaseless patter of the summer rain. In that silence they entered the chamber where the dying man lay. To the hour of his own death, that moment and all he saw was photographed indelibly upon Victor Catheron's mind. The dim gray light of the room, the great white bed in the centre, and the awfully corpse-like face of the man lying among the pillows, and gazing at him, with hollow, spectral eyes. His father—at last!

He advanced to the bedside as though under a spell. The spectral blue eyes were fixed upon him steadfastly, the pallid lips slowly opened and spoke.

"Like me—as I was—like me. Ethel's son."

"My father!"

He was on his knees—a great awe upon him. It was the first time in his young life he had ever been in the presence of death. And the dying was his father, and his father whom he had never seen before.

"Like me," the faint lips related; "my face, my height, my name, my age. Like me. O God! will his end be like mine?"

A thrill of horror ran through all his hearers. His son strove to take his hand; it was withdrawn. A frown wrinkled, the pallid brow.

"Wait," he said painfully; "don't touch me; don't speak to me. Wait. Sit down; don't kneel there. You don't know what you are about to hear. Inez, tell him now."

She closed the door—still with that changeless face—and locked it. It seemed as though, having suffered so much, nothing had power to move her outwardly now. She placed a chair for Lady Helena away from the bed—Lady Helena, who had stood aloof and not spoken to the dying man yet. She placed a chair for Sir Victor, and motioned him to seat himself, then drew another close to the bedside, stooped, and kissed the dying man. Then in a voice that never faltered, never failed, she began the story she had to tell.

* * * * *

Half an hour had passed. The story was told, and silence reigned in the darkened room. Lady Helena still sat, with averted face, in her distant seat, not moving, not looking up. The dying man still lay gazing weirdly upon his son, death every second drawing nearer and more near. Inez sat holding his hand, her pale, sad face, her dark, pitying eyes turned also upon his son.

That son had risen. He stood up in the centre of the room, with a white, stunned face. What was this he had heard? Was he asleep and dreaming?—was it all a horrible, ghastly delusion?—were they mocking him? or—O gracious God! was it true?

"Let me out!" They were his first words. "I can't breathe—I am choking in this room! I shall go mad if you keep me here!"

He staggered forward, as a drunken man or a blind man might stagger, to the door. He unlocked it, opened it, passed out into the passage, and down the stairs. His aunt followed him, her eyes streaming, her hands outstretched.

"Victor—my boy—my son—my darling! Victor—for the love of Heaven, speak to me!"

But he only made a gesture for her to stand back, and went on.

"Keep away from me!" he said, in a stifled voice; "let me think! Leave me alone!—I can't speak to you yet!"

He went forward out into the wet daylight. His head was bare; his overcoat was off; the rain beat unheeded upon him. What was this—what was this he had heard?

He paced up and down under the trees. The moments passed. An hour went; he neither knew nor cared. He was stunned—stunned body and soul—too stunned even to think. His mind was in chaos, an awful horror had fallen upon him; he must wait before thought would come. Whilst he still paced there, as a stricken animal might, a great cry reached him. Then a woman's flying figure came down the path. It was his aunt.

"Come—come—come!" she cried; "he is dying!"

She drew him with her by main force into the house—up the stairs—into the chamber of death. But Death had been there before them. A dead man lay upon the bed now, rigid and white. A second cry arose—a cry of almost more than woman's woe. And with it Inez Catheron clasped the dead man in her arms, and covered his face with her raining tears.

The son stood beside her like a figure of stone, gazing down at that marble face. For the first time in his life he was Sir Victor Catheron.



CHAPTER XX.

HOW THE WEDDING-DAY BEGAN.

Six days later, Sir Victor Catheron and his aunt came home. These six days had passed very quietly, very pleasantly, to Edith. She was not in the least lonely; the same sense of relief in her lover's absence was upon her as she had felt at Torquay. It seemed to her she breathed freer when a few score miles lay between them. She had her pet books and music, and she read and played a great deal; she had her long, solitary rambles through the leafy lanes and quiet roads, her long drives in the little pony phaeton her future husband had given her. Sometimes Lady Gwendoline was her companion; oftener she was quite alone. She was not at all unhappy now; she was just drifting passively on to the end. She had chosen, and was quietly abiding by her choice; that was all. She caught herself thinking, sometimes, that since she felt so much happier and freer in Sir Victor's brief absences, how was she going to endure all the years that must be passed at his side? No doubt she would grow used to him after a while, as we grow used and reconciled to everything earthly.

One circumstance rather surprised her: during those six days of absence she had received but one note from her lover. She had counted at least upon the post fetching her one or two per day, as when at Torquay, but this time he wrote her but once. An odd, incoherent, hurried sort of note, too—very brief and unsatisfactory, if she had had much curiosity on the subject of what was going on at St. John's Wood. But she had not. Whether his father lived or died, so that he never interfered with her claim to the title of Lady Catheron in the future, Miss Darrell cared very little. This hurried note briefly told her his father had died on the day of their arrival; that by his own request the burial place was to be Kensal Green, not the Catheron vaults; that the secret of his life and death was still to be kept inviolate; and that (in this part of the note he grew impassionedly earnest) their marriage was not to be postponed. On the third of October, as all had been arranged, it was still to take place. No other note followed. If Miss Darrell had been in love with her future husband, this profound silence must have wounded, surprised, grieved her. But she was not in love. He must be very much occupied, she carelessly thought, since he could not find time to drop her a daily bulletin—then dismissed the matter indifferently from her mind.

Late in the evening of the sixth day Sir Victor and Lady Helena returned home.

Edith stood alone awaiting them, dressed in black silk, and with soft white lace and ruby ornaments, and looking very handsome.

Her lover rushed in and caught her in his arms with a sort of rapturous, breathless delight.

"My love! my life!" he cried, "every hour has been an age since I said good-by!"

She drew herself from him. Sir Victor, in the calm, courteous character of a perfectly undemonstrative suitor she tolerated. Sir Victor in the role of Romeo was excessively distasteful to her. She drew herself out of his arms coldly and decisively.

"I am glad to see you back, Sir Victor." But the stereotyped words of welcome fell chill on his ear. "You are not looking well. I am afraid you have been very much harassed since you left."

Surely he was not looking well. In those six days he had grown more than six years older. He had lost flesh and color; there was an indescribable something in his face and expression she had never seen before. More had happened than the death of the father he had never known, to alter him like this. She looked at him curiously. Would he tell her?

He did not. Not looking at her, with his eyes fixed moodily on the wood-fire smoldering on the hearth, he repeated what his letter had already said. His father had died the morning of their arrival in London; they had buried him quietly and unobtrusively, by his own request, in Kensal Green Cemetery; no one was to be told, and the wedding was not to be postponed. All this he said as a man repeats a lesson learned by rote—his eyes never once meeting hers.

She stood silently by, looking at him, listening to him.

Something lay behind, then, that she was not to know. Well, it made them quits—she didn't care for the Catheron family secrets; if it were something unpleasant, as well not know. If Sir Victor told her, very well; if not, very well also. She cared little either way.

"Miss Catheron remains at St John's Wood, I suppose?" she inquired indifferently, feeling in the pause that ensued she must say something.

"She remains—yes—with her two old servants for the present. I believe her ultimate intention is to go abroad."

"She will not return to Cheshire?"

A spasm of pain crossed his face; there was a momentary contraction of the muscles of his mouth.

"She will not return to Cheshire. All her life she will lie under the ban of murder."

"And she is innocent?"

He looked up at her—a strange, hunted, tortured sort of look.

"She is innocent."

As he made the answer he turned abruptly away. Edith asked no more questions. The secret of his mother's murder was a secret she was not to hear.

Lady Helena did not make her appearance at all in the lower rooms, that night. Next day at luncheon she came down, and Edith was honestly shocked at the change in her. From a hale, handsome, stately, upright, elderly lady, she had become a feeble old woman in the past week. Her step had grown uncertain; her hands trembled; deep lines of trouble were scored on her pale face; her eyes rarely wandered long from her nephew's face. Her voice took a softer, tenderer tone when she addressed him—she had always loved him dearly, but never so dearly, it would seem, as now.

The change in Sir Victor was more in manner than in look. A feverish impatience and restlessness appeared to have taken possession of him; he wandered about the house and in and out like some restless ghost. From Powyss Place to Catheron Royals, from Catheron Royals to Powyss Place, he vibrated like a human pendulum. It set Edith's nerves on edge only to watch him. At other periods a moody gloom would fall upon him, then for hours he sat brooding, brooding, with knitted brows and downcast eyes, lost in his own dark, secret thoughts. Anon his spirits would rise to fever height, and he would laugh and talk in a wild, excited way that fixed Edith's dark, wondering eyes solemnly on his flushed face.

With it all, in whatever mood, he could not bear her out of his sight. He haunted her like her shadow, until it grew almost intolerable. He sat for hours, while she worked, or played, or read, not speaking, not stirring—his eyes fixed upon her, and she, who had never been nervous, grew horribly nervous under this ordeal. Was Sir Victor losing his wits? Now that his insane father was dead and buried, did he feel it incumbent upon him to keep up the family reputation and follow in that father's footsteps?

And the days wore on, and the first of October came.

The change in the young baronet grew more marked with each day. He lost the power to eat or sleep; far into the night he walked his room, as though some horrible Nemesis were pursuing him. He failed to the very shadow of himself, yet when Lady Helena, in fear and trembling, laid her hand upon his arm, and falteringly begged him to see a physician, he shook her off with an angry irritability quite foreign to his usual gentle temper, and bade her, imperiously, to leave him alone.

The second of October came; to-morrow would be the wedding-day.

The old feeling of vagueness and unreality had come back to Edith. Something would happen—that was the burden of her thoughts. To-morrow was the wedding-day, but the wedding would never take place. She walked through the glowing, beautiful rooms of Catheron Royals, through the grounds and gardens, bright with gay autumnal flowers—a home luxurious enough for a young duchess—and still that feeling of unreality was there. A grand place, a noble home, but she would never reign its mistress. The cottage at Carnarvon had been weeks ago engaged, Sir Victor's confidential servant already established there, awaiting the coming of the bridal pair; but she felt she would never see it. Upstairs, in all their snowy, shining splendor, the bridal robe and veil lay; when to-morrow came would she ever put them on, she vaguely wondered. And still she was not unhappy. A sort of apathy had taken possession of her; she drifted on calmly to the end. What was written, was written; what would be, would be. Time enough to wake from her dream when the time of waking came.

The hour fixed for the ceremony was eleven o'clock; the place, Chesholm church. The bridemaids would arrive at ten—the Earl of Wroatmore, the father of the Ladies Gwendoline and Laura Drexel, was to give the bride away. They would return to Powyss Place and eat the sumptuous breakfast—then off and away to the pretty town in North Wales. That was the programme. "When to-morrow comes," Edith thinks, as she wanders about the house, "will it be carried out?"

It chanced that on the bridal eve Miss Darrell was attacked with headache and sore throat. She had lingered heedlessly out in the rain the day before (one of her old bad habits to escape from Sir Victor, if the truth must be told), and paid the natural penalty next day. It would never do to be hoarse as a raven on one's wedding-day, so Lady Helena insisted on a wet napkin round the throat, a warm bath, gruel, and early bed. Willingly enough the girl obeyed—too glad to have this last evening alone. Immediately after dinner she bade her adieux to her bridegroom-elect, and went away to her own rooms.

The short October day had long ago darkened down, the curtains were drawn, a fire burned, the candles were lit. She took the bath, the gruel, the wet napkin, and let herself be tucked up in bed.

"Romantic," she thought, with a laugh at herself, "for a bride."

Lady Helena—was it a presentiment of what was so near?—lingered by her side long that evening, and, at parting, for the first time took her in her arms and kissed her.

"Good-night, my child," the tender, tremulous tones said. "I pray you make him happy—I pray that he may make you."

She lingered yet a little longer—her heart seemed full, her eyes were shining through tears. Words seemed trembling on her lips—words she had not courage to say. For Edith, surprised and moved, she put her arms round the kind old neck, and laid her face for a moment on the genial old bosom.

"I will try," she whispered, "dear, kind Lady Helena—indeed I will try to be a good and faithful wife."

One last kiss, then they parted; the door closed behind her, and Edith was alone.

She lay as usual, high up among the billowy pillows, her hands clasped above her head, her dark, dreaming eyes fixed on the fire. She looked as though she were thinking, but she was not. Her mind was simply a blank. She was vaguely and idly watching the flickering shadows cast by the firelight on the wall, the gleam of yellow moonlight shimmering through the curtains; listening to the faint sighing of the night wind, the ticking of the little fanciful clock, to the pretty plaintive tunes it played before it struck the hours. Nine, ten, eleven—she heard them all, as she lay there, broad awake, neither thinking nor stirring.

Her maid came in for her last orders; she bade the girl good-night, and told her to go to bed—she wanted nothing more. Then again she was alone. But now a restlessness, as little to be understood as her former listless apathy, took hold of her. She could not lie there and sleep; she could not lie there awake. As the clock chimed twelve, she started up in bed in a sudden panic. Twelve! A new day—her wedding day!

Impossible to lie there quiet any longer. She sprang up, locked her door, and began, in her long, white night-robe, pacing up and down. So another hour passed. One! One from the little Swiss musical clock; one, solemn and sombre, from the big clock up in the tower. Then she stopped—stopped in thought; then she walked to one of her boxes, and took out a writing-case, always kept locked. With a key attached to her neck she opened it, seated herself before a table, and drew forth a package of letters and a picture. The picture was the handsome photographed face of Charley Stuart, the letters the letters he had written her to Sandypoint.

She began with the first, and read it slowly through—then the next, and so on to the end. There were over a dozen in all, and tolerably lengthy. As she finished and folded up the last, she took up the picture and gazed at it long and earnestly, with a strangely dark, intent look. How handsome he was! how well he photographed! that was her thought. She had seen him so often, with just this expression, looking at her. His pleasant, lazy, half-sarcastic voice was in her ear, saying something coolly impertinent—his gray, half-smiling, half-cynical eyes were looking life-like up at her. What was he doing now? Sleeping calmly, no doubt—she forgotten as she deserved to be. When to-morrow came, would he by any chance remember it was her wedding-day, and would the remembrance cost him a pang? She laughed at herself for the sentimental question—Charley Stuart feel a pang for her, or any other earthly woman? No, he was immersed in business, no doubt, head and ears, soul and body; absorbed in dollars and cents, and retrieving in some way his fallen fortunes—Edith Darrell dismissed contemptuously, as a cold-blooded jilt, from his memory. Well, so she had willed it—she had no right to complain. With a steady hand she tied up the letters and replaced them in the desk. The picture followed. "Good-by, Charley," she said, with a sort of smile. She could no more have destroyed those souvenirs of the past than she could have cut off her right hand. Wrong, you say, and shake your head. Wrong, of course; but when has Edith Darrell done right—when have I pictured her to you in any very favorable light? As long as she lived, and was Sir Victor's wife, she would never look at them again, but destroy them—no, she could not do that.

Six! As she closed and locked the writing-case the hour struck; a broad, bright sunburst flashed in and filled the room with yellow glory. The sun had risen cloudless and brilliant at last on her wedding-day.



CHAPTER XXI.

HOW THE WEDDING-DAY ENDED.

She replaced the desk in the trunk, and, walking to the window, drew back the curtain and looked out. Over emerald lawn and coppice, tall trees and brilliant flowers, the October sun shone gloriously. No fairer day ever smiled upon old earth. She stood for an instant—then turned slowly away and walked over to a mirror—had her night's vigil made her look wan and sallow? she wondered. No—she looked much as usual—a thought paler, perhaps, but it is appropriate for brides to look pale. No use thinking of a morning nap under the circumstances—she would sit down by the window and wait for them to come. She could hear the household astir already—she could even see Sir Victor, away in the distance, taking his morning walk. How singularly haggard and wan he looked, like anything you please except a happy bridegroom about to marry the lady he loves above all on earth. She watched him with a gravely thoughtful face, until at last he disappeared from view among the trees.

Seven o'clock! Eight o'clock! Edith's respite was ended, her solitude invaded at last. There was a tap at the door, and Lady Helena, followed by Miss Darrell's maid, entered.

Had they all kept vigil? Her ladyship, in the pitiless, searching glare of the morning sun, certainly looked much more like it than the quiet bride. She was pale, nervous, agitated beyond anything the girl had ever seen.

"How had Edith slept? How was her cold? How did she feel?"

"Never better," Miss Darrell responded smilingly. "The sore throat and headache are quite gone, and I am ready to do justice to the nice breakfast which I see Emily has brought."

She sat down to it—chocolate, rolls, an omelette, and a savory little bird, with excellent and unromantic appetite. Then the service was cleared away, and the real business of the day began. She was under the hands of her maid, deep in the mysteries of the wedding-toilette.

At ten came the bridemaids, a brilliant bevy, in sweeping trains, walking visions of silk, tulle, laces, perfume, and flowers. At half-past ten Miss Darrell, "queen rose of the rose-bud garden of girls," stood in their midst, ready for the altar.

She looked beautiful. It is an understood thing that all brides, whatever their appearance on the ordinary occasions of life, look beautiful on this day of days. Edith Darrell had never looked so stately, so queenly, so handsome in her life. Just a thought pale, but not unbecomingly so—the rich, glistening white silk sweeping far behind her, set off well the fine figure, which it fitted without flaw. The dark, proud face shone like a star from the misty folds of the bridal veil; the legendary orange blossoms crowned the rich, dark hair; on neck, ears, and arms glimmered a priceless parure of pearls, the gift, like the dress and veil, of Lady Helena. A fragrant bouquet of spotless white had been sent up by the bridegroom. At a quarter of eleven she entered the carriage and was driven away to the church.

As she lay back, and looked dreamily out, the mellow October sunshine lighting the scene, the joy-bells clashing, the listless apathy of the past few days took her again. She took note of the trifles about her—her mind rejected all else. How yellow were the fields of stubble, how picturesque, gilded in the sunshine, the village of Chesholm looked. How glowing and rosy the faces of the people who flocked out in their holiday best to gaze at the bridal pageant. Was it health and happiness, or soap and water only? wondered the bride. These were her wandering thoughts—these alone.

They reached the little church. All the way from the carriage to the stone porch the charity children strewed her path with flowers, and sang (out of tune) a bridal anthem. She smiled down upon their vulgar, admiring little faces as she went by on the Earl of Wroatmore's arm. The church was filled. Was seeing her married worth all this trouble to these good people, she wondered, as she walked up the aisle, still on the arm of the Right Honorable the Earl of Wroatmore.

There was, of course, a large throng of invited guests. Lady Helena was there in pale, flowing silks, the bridemaids, a billowy crowd of white-plumaged birds, and the bridegroom, with a face whiter than the white waistcoat, standing waiting for his bride. And there, in surplice, book in hand, stood the rector of Chesholm and his curate, ready to tie the untieable knot.

A low, hushed murmur ran through the church at sight of the silver-shining figure of the bride. How handsome, how stately, how perfectly self-possessed and calm. Truly, if beauty and high-bred repose of manner be any palliation of low birth and obscurity, this American young lady had it.

An instant passes—she is kneeling by Sir Victor Catheron's side. "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" say the urbane tones of the rector of Chesholm, and the Right Honorable the Earl of Wroatmore comes forward on two rickety old legs and gives her. "If any one here present knows any just cause or impediment why this man should not be married to this woman, I charge him," etc., but no one knows. The solemn words go on. "Wilt thou take Edith Darrell to be thy wedded wife?" "I will," Sir Victor Catheron responds, but in broken, inarticulate tones. It is the bride's turn. "I will!" the clear, firm voice is perfectly audible in the almost painfully intense stillness. The ring slips over her finger; she watches it curiously. "I pronounce ye man and wife," says the rector. "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder."

It is all over; she is Lady Catheron, and nothing has happened.

They enter the vestry, they sign their names in the register, their friends flock round to shake hands, and kiss, and congratulate. And Edith smiles through it all, and Sir Victor keeps that white, haggard, unsmiling face. It is a curious fancy, but, if it were not so utterly absurd, Edith would think he looked at her as though he were afraid of her.

On her husband's arm—her husband's!—she walks down the aisle and out of the church. They enter the carriages, and are driven back to Powyss Place. They sit down to breakfast—every face looks happy and bright, except the face that should look happiest and brightest of all—the bridegroom's. He seems to make a great effort to be, cheerful and at ease; it is a failure. He tries to return thanks in a speech; it is a greater failure still. An awkward silence and constraint creep over the party. What is the matter with Sir Victor? All eyes are fixed curiously upon him. Surely not repenting his mesalliance so speedily. It is a relief to everybody when the breakfast ends, and the bride goes upstairs to change her dress.

The young baronet has engaged a special train to take them into Wales. The new-made Lady Catheron changes her shining bridal robes for a charming travelling costume of palest gray, with a gossamer veil of the same shade. She looks as handsome in it as in the other, and her cool calm is a marvel to all beholders. She shakes hands gayly with their friends and guests; a smile is on her face as she takes her bridegroom's arm and enters the waiting carriage. Old shoes in a shower are flung after them; ladies wave their handkerchiefs, gentlemen call good-by. She leans forward and waves her gray-gloved hand in return—the cloudless smile on the beautiful face to the last. So they see her—as not one of all who stand there will ever see her on earth again.

The house, the wedding-guests are out of sight—the carriage rolls through the gates of Powyss Place. She falls back and looks out. They are flying along Chesholm high street; the tenantry shout lustily; the joy-bells still clash forth. Now they are at the station—ten minutes more, and, as fast as steam can convey them, they are whirling into Wales. And all this time bride and bridegroom have not exchanged a word!

That curious fancy of Edith's has come back—surely Sir Victor is afraid of her. How strangely he looks—how strangely he keeps aloof—how strangely he is silent—how fixedly he gazes out of the railway carriage window—anywhere but at her! Has his brain turned? she wonders; is Sir Victor going mad?

She makes no attempt to arouse him; let him be silent if he will; she rather prefers it, indeed. She sits and looks sociably out of the opposite window at the bright, flying landscape, steeped in the amber glitter of the October afternoon sun.

She looks across at the man she has married—did ever mortal man before on his wedding-day wear such a stony face as that? And yet he has married her for love—for love alone. Was ever another bridal journey performed like this—in profound gravity and silence on both sides? she wonders, half-inclined to laugh. She looks down at her shining wedding-ring—is it a circlet that means nothing? How is her life to go on after this grewsome wedding-day?

They reach Wales. The sun is setting redly over mountains and sea. The carriage is awaiting them; she enters, and lies back wearily with closed eyes. She is dead tired and depressed; she is beginning to feel the want of last night's sleep, and in a weary way is glad when the Carnarvon cottage is reached. Sir Victor's man, my lady's maid, and two Welch servants came forth to meet them; and on Sir Victor's arm she enters the house.

She goes at once to her dressing-room, to rest, to bathe her face, and remove her wraps, performing those duties herself, and dismissing her maid. As she and Sir Victor separate, he mutters some half-incoherent words—he will take a walk and smoke a cigar before dinner, while she is resting. He is gone even while he says it, and she is alone.

She removes her gloves, hat, and jacket, bathes her face, and descends to the little cottage drawing-room. It is quite deserted—sleepy silence everywhere reigns. She throws herself into an easy-chair beside the open window, and looks listlessly out. Ruby, and purple, and golden, the sun is setting in a radiant sky—the yellow sea creeps up on silver sands—old Carnarvon Castle gleams and glows in the rainbow light like a fairy palace. It is unutterably beautiful, unutterably drowsy and dull. And, while she thinks it; her heavy eyelids sway and fall, her head sinks back, and Edith falls fast asleep.

Fast asleep; and a mile away, Sir Victor Catheron paces up and down a strip of tawny sand, the sea lapping softly at his feet, the birds singing in the branches, not a human soul far or near. He is not smoking that before-dinner cigar—he is striding up and down more like an escaped Bedlamite than anything else. His hat is drawn over his eyes, his brows are knit, his lips set tight, his hands are clenched. Presently he pauses, leans against a tree, and looks, with eyes full of some haggard, horrible despair, out over the red light on sea and sky. And, as he looks, he falls down suddenly, as though some inspiration had seized him, upon his knees, and lifts his clasped hands to that radiant sky. A prayer, that seems frenzied in its agonized intensity, bursts from his lips—the sleeping sea, the twittering birds, the rustling leaves, and He who has made them, alone are to hear. Then he falls forward on his face, and lies like a stone.

Is he mad? Surely no sane man ever acted, or looked, or spoke like this. He lies so—prostrate, motionless—for upward of an hour, then slowly and heavily he rises. His face is calmer now; it is the face of a man who has fought some desperate fight, and gained some desperate victory—one of those victories more cruel than death.

He turns and goes hence. He crashes through the tall, dewy grass, his white face set in a look of iron resolution. He is ghastly beyond all telling; dead and in his coffin he will hardly look more death like. He reaches the cottage, and the first sight upon which his eyes rest is his bride, peacefully asleep in the chair by the still open window. She looks lovely in her slumber, and peaceful as a little child—no very terrible sight surely. But as his eyes fall upon her, he recoils in some great horror, as a man may who has received a blinding blow.

"Asleep!" his pale lips whisper; "asleep—as she was!"

He stands spell-bound for a moment—then he breaks away headlong. He makes his way to the dining-room. The table, all bright with damask, silver, crystal, and cut flowers, stands spread for dinner. He takes from his pocket a note-book and pencil, and, still standing, writes rapidly down one page. Without reading, he folds and seals the sheet, and slowly and with dragging steps returns to the room where Edith sleeps. On the threshold he lingers—he seems afraid—afraid to approach. But he does approach at last. He places the note he has written on a table, he draws near his sleeping bride, he kneels down and kisses her hands, her dress, her hair. His haggard eyes burn on her face, their mesmeric light disturbs her. She murmurs and moves restlessly in her sleep. In an instant he is on his feet; in another, he is out of the room and the house; in another, the deepening twilight takes him, and he is gone.

A train an hour later passes through Carnarvon on its way to London. One passenger alone awaits it at the station—one passenger who enters an empty first-class compartment and disappears. Then it goes shrieking on its way, bearing with it to London the bridegroom, Sir Victor Catheron.



CHAPTER XXII.

THE DAY AFTER.

The last red ray of the sunset had faded, the silver stars were out, the yellow moon shone serenely over land and sea, before Edith awoke—awoke with a smile on her lips from a dream of Charley.

"Do go away—don't tease," she was murmuring half smilingly, half petulantly—the words she had spoken to him a hundred times. She was back in Sandypoint, he beside her, living over the old days, gone forever. She awoke to see the tawny moonshine streaming in, to hear the soft whispers of the night wind, the soft, sleepy lap of the sea on the sands, and to realize, with a thrill and a shock, she was Sir Victor Catheron's wife.

His wife! This was her wedding-day. Even in dreams Charley must come to her no more.

She rose up, slightly chilled from sleeping in the evening air, and shivering, partly with that chill, partly with a feeling she did not care to define. The dream of her life's ambition was realized in its fullest; she, Edith Darrell, was "my lady—a baronet's bride;" the vista of her life spread before her in glittering splendor; and yet her heart lay like lead in her bosom. In this hour she was afraid of herself, afraid of him.

But where was he?

She looked round the room, half in shadow, half in brilliant moonlight. No, he was not there. Had he returned from his stroll? She took out her watch. A quarter of seven—of course he had. He was awaiting her, no doubt, impatient for his dinner, in the dining-room. She would make some change in her dress and join him there. She went up to her dressing room and lit the candles herself. She smoothed her ruffled hair, added a ribbon and a jewel or two, and then went back to the drawing-room. All unnoticed, in the shadows, the letter for her lay on the table. She sat down and rang the bell. Jamison, the confidential servant, appeared.

"Has Sir Victor returned from his walk, Jamison? Is he in the dining-room?"

Mr. Jamison's well-bred eyes looked in astonishment at the speaker, then around the room. Mr. Jamison's wooden countenance looked stolid surprise.

"Sir Victor, my lady—I—thought Sir Victor was here, my lady."

"Sir Victor has not been here since half an hour after our arrival. He went out for a walk, as you very well know. I ask you if he has returned."

"Sir Victor returned more than an hour ago, my lady. I saw him myself. You were asleep, my lady, by the window as he came up. He went into the dining-room and wrote a letter; I saw it in his hand. And then, my lady, he came in here."

The man paused, and again peered around the room. Edith listened in growing surprise.

"I thought he was here still, my lady, so did Hemily, or we would have taken the liberty of hentering and closing the window. We was sure he was here. He suttingly hentered with the letter in his 'and. It's very hodd."

Again there was a pause. Again Mr. Jamison—

"If your ladyship will hallow, I will light the candles here, and then go and hascertain whether Sir Victor is in hany of the hother rooms."

She made an affirmative gesture, and returned to the window. The man lit the candles; a second after an exclamation startled her.

"The note, my lady! Here it is."

It lay upon the table; she walked over and took it up. In Sir Victor's hand, and addressed to herself! What did this mean? She stood looking at it a moment—then she turned to Jamison.

"That will do," she said briefly; "if I want you I will ring."

The man bowed and left the room. She stood still, holding the unopened note, strangely reluctant to break the seal. What did Sir Victor mean by absenting himself and writing her a note? With an effort she aroused herself at last, and tore it open. It was strangely scrawled, the writing half illegible; slowly and with difficulty she made it out This was what she read:

* * * * *

"For Heaven's sake, pity me—for Heaven's sake, pardon me. We shall never meet more! O beloved! believe that I love you, believe that I never loved you half so well as now, when I leave you forever. If I loved you less I might dare to stay. But I dare not. I can tell you no more—a promise to the living and the dead binds me. A dreadful secret of sin, and shame, and guilt, is involved. Go to Lady Helena. My love—my bride—my heart is breaking as I write the word—the cruel word that must be written—farewell. I have but one prayer in my heart—but one wish in my soul—that my life may be a short one. "VICTOR."

* * * * *

No more. So, in short, incoherent, disconnected sentences, this incomprehensible letter began and ended. She stood stunned, bewildered, dazed, holding it, gazing at it blankly. Was she asleep? Was this a dream? Was Sir Victor playing some ghastly kind of practical joke, or—had Sir Victor all of a sudden gone wholly and entirely mad?

She shrank from the last thought—but the dim possibility that it might be true calmed her. She sat down, hardly knowing what she was doing, and read the letter again. Yes, surely, surely she was right. Sir Victor had gone mad! Madness was hereditary in his family—had it come to him on his wedding-day of all days? On his wedding-day the last remnant of reason had deserted him, and he had deserted her. She sat quite still,—the light of the candles falling upon her, upon the fatal letter,—trying to steady herself, trying to think. She read it again and again; surely no sane man ever wrote such a letter as this. "A dreadful secret of sin, and shame, and guilt, is involved." Did that dreadful secret mean the secret of his mother's death? But why should that cause him to leave her? She knew all about it already. What frightful revelation had been made to him on his father's dying bed? He had never been the same man since. An idea flashed across her brain—dreadful and unnatural enough in all conscience—but why should even that, supposing her suspicions to be true, cause him to leave her? "If I loved you less, I might dare to stay with you." What rhodomontade was this? Men prove their love by living with the women they marry, not by deserting them. Oh, he was mad, mad, mad—not a doubt of that could remain.

Her thoughts went back over the past two weeks—to the change in him ever since his father's death. There had been times when he had visibly shrunk from her, when he had seemed absolutely afraid of her. She had doubted it then—she knew it now. It was the dawning of his insanity—the family taint breaking forth. His father's delusion had been to shut himself up, to give out that he was dead—the son's was to desert his bride on their bridal day forever. Forever! the letter said so. Again, and still again, she read it. Very strangely she looked, the waxlights flickering on her pale, rigid young face, her compressed lips set in one tight line—on her soft pearl gray silk, with its point lace collar and diamond star. A bride, alone, forsaken, on her wedding-day!

How strange it all was! The thought came to her: was it retributive justice pursuing her for having bartered herself for rank? And yet girls as good and better than she, did it every day. She rose and began pacing up and down the floor. What should she do? "Go back to Lady Helena," said the letter. Go back! cast off, deserted—she, who only at noon to-day had left them a radiant bride! As she thought it, a feeling of absolute hatred for the man she had married came into her heart. Sane or mad she would hate him now, all the rest of her life.

The hours were creeping on—two had passed since she had sent Jamison out of her room. What were they thinking of her, these keen-sighted, gossiping servants? what would they think and say when she told them Sir Victor would return no more?—that she was going back to Cheshire alone to-morrow morning? There was no help for it. There was resolute blood in the girl's veins; she walked over to the bell, rang it, her head erect, her eyes bright, only her lips still set in that tight, unpleasant line.

Mr. Jamison, grave and respectful, his burning curiosity diplomatically hidden, answered.

"Jamison," the young lady said, her tones clear and calm, looking the man straight in the eyes, "your master has been obliged to leave Wales suddenly, and will not return. You may spend the night in packing up. To-morrow, by the earliest train, I return to Cheshire."

"Yes, me lady."

Not a muscle of Jamison's face moved—not a vestige of surprise or any other earthly emotion was visible in his smooth-shaven face. If she had said, "To-morrow by the earliest train I shall take a trip to the moon," Mr. Jamison would have bowed and said, "Yes, me lady," in precisely the same tone.

"Is dinner served?" his young mistress asked, looking at her watch. "If not, serve immediately. I shall be there in two minutes."

She kept her word. With that light in her eyes, that pale composure on her face, she swept into the dining-room, and took her place at the glittering table. Jamison waited upon her—watching her, of course, as a cat a mouse.

"She took her soup and fish, her slice of pheasant and her jelly, I do assure you, just the same as hever, Hemily," he related afterward to the lady's maid; "but her face was whiter than the tablecloth, and her eyes had a look in them I'd rather master would face than me. She's one of the 'igh-stepping sort, depend upon it, and quiet as she takes it now, there'll be the deuce and all to pay one of these days."

She rose at last and went back to the drawing-room. How brilliantly the moon shone on the sleeping sea; how fantastic the town and castle looked in the romantic light. She stood by the window long, looking out. No thought of sympathy for him—of trying to find him out on the morrow—entered her mind. He had deserted her; sane or mad, that was enough for the present to know.

She took out a purse, that fairies and gold dollars alone might have entered, and looked at its contents. By sheer good luck and chance, it contained three or four sovereigns—more than sufficient for the return journey. To-morrow morning she would go back to Powyss Place and tell Lady Helena; after that—

Her thoughts broke—to-night she could not look beyond. The misery, the shame, the horrible scandal, the loneliness, the whole wreck of life that was to come, she could not feel as yet. She knew what she would do to-morrow—after that all was a blank.

What a lovely night it was! What were they doing at home? What was Trixy about just now? What was—Charley? She had made up her mind never to think of Charley more. His face rose vividly before her now in the moonrays, pale, stern, contemptuous. "Oh!" she passionately thought, "how he must scorn, how he must despise me!" "Whatever comes," he had said to her that rainy morning at Sandypoint; "whatever the new life brings, you are never to blame me!" How long ago that rainy morning seemed now. What an eternity since that other night in the snow. If she had only died beside him that night—the clear, white, painless death—unspotted from the world! If she had only died that night!

Her arms were on the window-sill—her face fell upon them. One hour, two, three passed; she never moved. She was not crying, she was suffering, but dully, with a numb, torpid, miserable sense of pain. All her life since that rainy spring day, when Charley Stuart had come to Sandypoint with his mother's letter, returned to her. She had striven and coquetted to bring about the result she wanted—it had seemed such a dazzling thing to be a baronet's wife, with an income that would flow in to her like a ceaseless golden river. She had jilted the man she loved in cold bloody and accepted the man to whom her heart was as stone. In the hour when fortune was deserting her best friends, she had deserted them too. And the end was—this.

It was close upon twelve when Emily, the maid, sleepy and cross, tapped at the door. She had to tap many times before her mistress heard her. When she did hear and open, and the girl came in, she recoiled from the ghastly pallor of her lady's face.

"I shall not want you to-night," Edith said briefly. "You may go to bed."

"But you are ill, my lady. If you only saw yourself! Can't I fetch you something? A glass of wine from the dining-room?"

"Nothing, Emily, thank you. I have sat up too long in the night air—that is all. Go to bed; I shall do very well."

The girl went, full of pity and worries, shaking her head. "Only this morning I thought what a fine thing it was to be the bride of so fine a gentleman, and look at her now."

Left alone, she closed and fastened the window herself. An unsupportable sense of pain and weariness oppressed her. She did not undress. She loosened her clothes, wrapped a heavy, soft railway rug about her, and lay down upon the bed. In five minutes the tired eyes had closed. There is no surer narcotic than trouble sometimes; hers was forgotten—deeply, dreamlessly, she slept until morning.

The sun was high in the sky when she awoke. She raised herself upon her elbow and looked around, bewildered. In a second yesterday flashed upon her, and her journey of to-day. She arose, made her morning toilet, and rang for her maid. Breakfast was waiting—it was past nine o'clock, and she could leave Carnarvon in three quarters of an hour. She made an effort to eat and drink; but it was little better than an effort. She gave Jamison his parting instructions—he was to remain here until to-morrow; by that time orders would come from Powyss Place. Then, in the dress she had travelled in yesterday, she entered the railway carriage and started upon her return journey.

How speedily her honeymoon had ended! A curious sort of smile passed over her face as she thought it. She had not anticipated Elysium—quite—but she certainly had anticipated something very different from this.

She kept back thought resolutely—she would not think—she sat and looked at the genial October landscape flitting by. Sooner or later the floodgates would open, but not yet.

It was about three in the afternoon when the fly from the railway drove up to the stately portico entrance of Powyss Place. She paid and dismissed the man, and knocked unthinkingly. The servant who opened the door fell back, staring at her, as though she had been a ghost.

"Is Lady Helena at home?"

Lady Helena was at home—and still the man stared blankly as he made the reply. She swept past him, and made her way, unannounced, to her ladyship's private rooms. She tapped at the door.

"Come in," said the familiar voice, and she obeyed. Then a startled cry rang out. Lady Helena arose and stood spellbound, gazing in mute consternation at the pale girl before her.

"Edith!" she could but just gasp. "What is this? Where is Victor?"

Edith came in, closed the door, and quietly faced her ladyship.

"I have not the faintest idea where Sir Victor Catheron may be at this present moment. Wherever he is, it is to be hoped he is able to take care of himself. I know I have not seen him since four o'clock yesterday afternoon."

The lips of Lady Helena moved, but no sound came from them. Some great and nameless terror seemed to have fallen upon her.

"It was rather an unusual thing to do," the clear, steady tones of the bride went on, "but being very tired after the journey, I fell asleep in the cottage parlor at Carnarvon, half an hour after our arrival. Sir Victor had left me to take a walk and a smoke, he said. It was nearly seven when I awoke. I was still alone. Your nephew had come and gone."

"Gone!"

"Gone—and left this for me. Read it, Lady Helena, and you will see that in returning here, I am only obeying my lord and master's command."

She took the note from her pocket, and presented it. Her ladyship took it, read it, her face growing a dreadful ashen gray.

"So soon!" she said, in a sort of whisper; "that it should have fallen upon him so soon! Oh! I feared it! I feared it! I feared it!"

"You feared it!" Edith repeated, watching her intently. "Does that mean your ladyship understands this letter?"

"Heaven help me! I am afraid I do."

"It means, then, what I have thought it meant: that when I married Sir Victor yesterday I married a madman!"

There was a sort of moan from Lady Helena—no other reply.

"Insanity is in the Catheron blood—I knew that from the first. His father lived and died a maniac. The father's fate is the son's. It has lain dormant for three-and-twenty years, to break out on his wedding-day. Lady Helena, am I right?"

But Lady Helena was sobbing convulsively now. Her sobs were her only reply.

"It is hard on you," Edith said, with a dreary sort of pity. "You loved him."

"And you did not," the elder woman retorted, looking up. "You loved your cousin, and you married my poor, unhappy boy for his title and his wealth. It would have been better for him he had died than ever set eyes on your face."

"Much better," Edith answered steadily. "Better for him—better for me. You are right, Lady Helena Powyss, I loved my cousin, and I married your nephew for his title and his wealth. I deserve all you can say of me. The worst will not be half bad enough."

Her ladyship's face drooped again; her suppressed sobbing was the only sound to be heard.

"I have come to you," Edith went on, "to tell you the truth. I don't ask what his secret is he speaks of; I don't wish to know. I think he should be looked after. If he is insane he should not be allowed to go at large."

"If he is insane!" Lady Helena cried, looking up again angrily. "You do well to say if. He is no more insane than you are!"

Edith stood still looking at her. The last trace of color faded from her face.

"Not insane," she whispered, as if to herself; "not insane, and—he deserts me!"

"Oh, what have I said!" Lady Helena cried; "forgive me, Edith—I don't know what I am saying—I don't know what to think. Leave me alone, and let me try to understand it, if I can. Your old rooms are ready for you. You have come to remain with me, of course."

"For the present—yes. Of the future I have not yet thought. I will leave you alone, Lady Helena, as you desire. I will not trouble you again until to-morrow."

She was quitting the room. Lady Helena arose and took her in her arms, her face all blotted with a rain of tears.

"My child! my child!" she said, "it is hard on you—so young, so pretty, and only married yesterday! Edith, you frighten me! What are you made of? You look like a stone!"

The girl sighed—a long, weary, heart-sick sigh.

"I feel like a stone. I can't cry. I think I have no heart, no soul, no feeling, no conscience—that I am scarcely a human being. I am a hardened, callous wretch, for whom any fate is too good. Don't pity me, dear Lady Helena; don't waste one tear on me. I am not worth it."

She touched her lips to the wet cheek, and went slowly on her way. No heart—no soul! if she had, both felt benumbed, dead. She seemed to herself a century old, as she toiled on to her familiar rooms. They met no more that day—each kept to her own apartments.

The afternoon set in wet and wild; the rain fell ceaselessly and dismally; an evening to depress the happiest closed down.

It was long after dark when there came a ring at the bell, and the footman, opening the door, saw the figure of a man muffled and disguised in slouch hat and great-coat. He held an umbrella over his head, and a scarf was twisted about the lower part of his face. In a husky voice, stifled in his scarf, he asked for Lady Helena.

"Her ladyship's at home," the footman answered, rather superciliously, "but she don't see strangers at this hour."

"Give her this," the stranger said; "she will see me."

In spite of hat, scarf, and umbrella, there was something familiar in the air of the visitor, something familiar in his tone. The man took the note suspiciously and passed it to another, who passed it to her ladyship's maid. The maid passed it to her ladyship, and her ladyship read it with a suppressed cry.

"Show him into the library at once. I will go down."

The muffled man was shown in, still wearing hat and scarf. The library was but dimly lit. He stood like a dark shadow amid the other shadows. An instant later the door opened and Lady Helena, pale and wild, appeared on the threshold.

"It is," she faltered. "It is—you!"

She approached slowly, her terrified eyes riveted on the hidden face.

"It is I. Lock the door."

She obeyed, she came nearer. He drew away the scarf, lifted the hat, and showed her the face of Sir Victor Catheron.



CHAPTER XXIII.

THE SECOND ENDING OF THE TRAGEDY.

The morning dawned over Powyss Place—dawned in wild wind and driving rain still—dawned upon Edith, deserted more strangely than surely bride was ever deserted before.

She had darkened her chamber; she had forced herself resolutely to sleep. But the small hours had come before she had succeeded, and it was close upon ten when the dark eyes opened from dreamland to life. Strange mockery! it was ever of Charley and the days that were forever gone she dreamed now.

For hours and hours she had paced her room the evening and night before, all the desolation, all the emptiness and loss of her life spread out before her. She had sold herself deliberately and with her eyes open, and this was her reward. Deserted in the hour of her triumph—humiliated as never bride was humiliated before—the talk, the ridicule of the country, an object of contemptuous pity to the whole world. And Charley and Trixy, what would they say when they heard of her downfall? She was very proud—no young princess had ever haughtier blood coursing through her royal veins than this portionless American girl. For wealth and rank she had bartered life and love, and verily she had her reward.

She suffered horribly. As she paced up and down, her whole face was distorted with the torture within. She flung herself into a seat and tried to still the ceaseless, gnawing, maddening pain. In vain! She could neither sit still, nor think, nor deaden her torment. And when at last she threw herself face downward on her bed it was only to sleep the spent sleep of utter exhaustion. But she was "pluck" to the backbone. Next day, when she had bathed and made her toilet, and descended to the breakfast-room, the closest observer could have read nothing of last night in the fixed calm of her face. The worst that could ever happen had happened; she was ready now to live and die game.

Lady Helena, very pale, very tremulous, very frightened and helpless-looking, awaited her. A large, red fire burned on the hearth. Her ladyship was wrapped in a fluffy white shawl, but she shivered in spite of both. The lips that touched Edith's cheek were almost as cold as that cold cheek itself. Tears started to her eyes as she spoke to her.

"My child," she said, "how white you are; how cold and ill you look. I am afraid you did not sleep at all."

"Yes, I slept," answered Edith; "for a few hours, at least. The weather has something to do with it, perhaps; I always fall a prey to horrors in wet and windy weather."

Then they sat down to the fragrant and tempting breakfast, and ate with what appetite they might. For Edith, she hardly made a pretence of eating—she drank a large cup of strong coffee, and arose.

"Lady Helena," she began abruptly, "as I came out of my room, two of the servants were whispering in the corridor. I merely caught a word or two in passing. They stopped immediately upon seeing me. But from that word or two, I infer this—Sir Victor Catheron was here to see you last night."

Lady Helena was trifling nervously with her spoon—it fell with a clash now into her cup, and her terrified eyes looked piteously at her companion.

"If you desire to keep this a secret too," Edith said, her lips curling scornfully, "of course you are at liberty to do so—of course I presume to ask no questions. But if not, I would like to know—it may in some measure influence my own movements."

"What do you intend to do?" her ladyship brokenly asked.

"That you shall hear presently. Just now the question is: Was your nephew here last night or not?"

"He was."

She said it with a sort of sob, hiding her face in her hands. "May Heaven help me," she cried; "it is growing more than I can bear. O my child, what can I say to you? how can I comfort you in this great trouble that has come upon you?"

"You are very good, but I would rather not be comforted. I have been utterly base and mercenary from first to last—a wretch who has richly earned her fate. Whatever has befallen me I deserve. I married your nephew without one spark of affection for him; he was no more to me than any laborer on his estate—I doubt whether he ever could have been. I meant to try—who knows how it would have ended? I married Sir Victor Catheron for his rank and riches, his title and rent-roll—I married the baronet, not the man. And it has ended thus. I am widowed on my wedding-day, cast off, forsaken. Have I not earned my fate?"

She laughed drearily—a short, mirthless, bitter laugh.

"I don't venture to ask too many questions—I don't battle with my fate; I throw up my arms and yield at once. But this I would like to know. Madness is hereditary in his family. Unworthy of all love as I am, I think—I think Sir Victor loved me, and, unless he be mad, I can't understand why he deserted me. Lady Helena, answer me this, as you will one day answer to your Maker—Is Sir Victor Catheron sane or mad?"

There was a pause as she asked the dreadful question—a pause in which the beating of the autumnal rain upon the glass, the soughing of the autumnal gale sounded preternaturally loud. Then, brokenly, in trembling tones, and not looking up, came Lady Helena's answer:

"God pity him and you—he is not mad."

Then there was silence again. The elder woman, her face buried in her hands and resting on the table, was crying silently and miserably. At the window, the tall, slim figure of the girl stood motionless, her hands clasped loosely before her, her deep bright eyes looking out at the slanting rain, the low-lying, lead colored sky, the black trees blown aslant in the high October gale.

"Not mad?" she repeated, after that long pause; "you are quite certain of this, my lady? Not mad—and he has left me?"

"He has left you. O my child! if I dared only tell you all—if I dared only tell you how it is because of his great and passionate love for you, he leaves you. If ever there was a martyr on this earth, it is my poor boy. If you had seen him as I saw him last night—worn to a shadow in one day, suffering for the loss of you until death would be a relief—even you would have pitied him."

"Would I? Well, perhaps so, though my heart is rather a hard one. Of course I don't understand a word of all this—of course, as he said in his letter, some secret of guilt and shame lies behind it all. And yet, perhaps, I could come nearer to the 'Secret' than either you or he think."

Lady Helena looked suddenly up, that terrified, hunted look in her eyes.

"What do you mean?" she gasped.

"This," the firm, cold voice of Edith said, as Edith's bright, dark eyes fixed themselves pitilessly upon her, "this, Lady Helena Powyss: That the secret which takes him from me is the secret of his mother's murder—the secret which he learned at his father's deathbed. Shall I tell you who committed that murder?"

Her ladyship's lips moved, but no sound came; she sat spellbound, watching that pale, fixed face before her.

"Not Inez Catheron, who was imprisoned for it; not Juan Catheron, who was suspected of it. I am a Yankee, Lady Helena, and consequently clever at guessing. I believe that Sir Victor Catheron, in cold blood, murdered his own wife!"

There was a sobbing cry—whether at the shock of the terrible words, or at their truth, who was to tell?

"I believe the late Sir Victor Catheron to have been a deliberate and cowardly murderer," Edith went on; "so cowardly that his weak brain turned when he saw what he had done and thought of the consequences; and that he paid the penalty of his crime in a life of insanity. The motive I don't pretend to fathom—jealousy of Juan Catheron perhaps; and on his dying bed he confessed all to his son."

With face blanched and eyes still full of terror, her ladyship looked at the dark, contemptuous, resolute speaker.

"And if this be true—your horrible surmise; mind, I don't admit that it is—would that be any excuse for Victor's conduct in leaving you?"

"No!" Edith answered, her eyes flashing, "none! Having married me, not ten thousand family secrets should be strong enough to make him desert me. If he had come to me, if he had told me, as he was bound to do before our wedding-day, I would have pitied him with all my soul; if anything could ever have made me care for him as a wife should care for a husband, it would have been that pity. But if he came to me now, and knelt before me, imploring me to return, I would not. I would die sooner!"

She was walking up and down now, gleams of passionate scorn and rage in her dark eyes.

"It is all folly and balderdash, this talk of his love for me making him leave me. Don't let us have any more of it. No secret on earth should make a bridegroom quit his bride—no power on earth could ever convince me of it!"

"And yet," the sad, patient voice of poor Lady Helena sighed, "it is true."

Edith stopped in her walk, and looked at her incredulously.

"Lady Helena," she said, "you are my kind friend—you know the world—you are a woman of sense, not likely to have your brain turned with vapors. Answer me this—Do you think that, acting as he has done, Sir Victor Catheron has done right?"

Lady Helena's sad eyes met hers full. Lady Helena's voice was full of pathos and earnestness, as she replied:

"Edith, I am your friend; I am in my sober senses, and, I believe in my soul Victor has done right."

"Well," Edith said after a long pause, during which she resumed her walk, "I give it up! I don't understand, and I never shall. I am hopelessly in the dark. I can conceive no motive—none strong enough to make his conduct right. I thought him mad; you say he is sane. I thought he did me a shameful, irreparable wrong; you say he has done right. I will think no more about it, since, if I thought to my dying day, I could come no nearer the truth."

"You will know one day," answered Lady Helena; "on his death-bed; and, poor fellow, the sooner that day comes the better for him."

Edith made an impatient gesture.

"Let us talk about it no more. What is done is done. Whether Sir Victor Catheron lives or dies can in no way concern me now. I think, with your permission, I will go back to my room and try to sleep away this dismal day."

"Wait one moment, Edith. It was on your account Victor came here last night to talk over the arrangements he was making for your future."

A curious smile came over Edith's lips. She was once more back at the window, looking out at the rain-beaten day.

"My future!" she slowly repeated; "in what possible way can my future concern Sir Victor Catheron?"

"My child, what a question! In every way. You are honest enough to confess that you married him—poor boy, poor boy—for his rank and rent-roll. There, at least, you need not be disappointed. The settlements made upon you before your marriage were, as you know, liberal in the extreme. In addition to that, every farthing that it is in his power to dispose of he intends settling upon you besides. His grandmother's fortune, which descends to him, is to be yours. You may spend money like water if it pleases you—the title and the wealth for which you wedded are still yours. For himself, he intends to go abroad—to the East, I believe. He retains nothing but what will supply his travelling expenses. He cannot meet you—if he did, he might never be able to leave you. O Edith, you blame him, you hate him; but if you had only seen him, only heard him last night, only knew how inevitable it is, how he suffered, how bitterer than death this parting is to him, you would pity, you would forgive him."

"You think so," the girl said, with a wistful, weary sigh. "Ah, well, perhaps so. I don't know. Just now I can realize nothing except that I am a lost, forsaken wretch; that I do hate him; that if I were dying, or that if he were dying, I could not say 'I forgive you.' As to his liberality, I never doubted that; I have owned that I married him for his wealth and station. I own it still; but there are some things not the wealth of a king could compensate for. To desert a bride on her wedding-day is one of them. I repeat, Lady Helena, with your permission, I will go to my room; we won't talk of my future plans and prospects just now. To-morrow you shall know my decision."