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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43911 ***
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER I
+  CHAPTER II
+  CHAPTER III
+  CHAPTER IV
+  CHAPTER V
+  CHAPTER VI
+  CHAPTER VII
+  CHAPTER VIII
+  CHAPTER IX
+  CHAPTER X
+  CHAPTER XI
+  CHAPTER XII
+  CHAPTER XIII
+  CHAPTER XIV
+  CHAPTER XV
+  CHAPTER XVI
+  CHAPTER XVII
+  CHAPTER XVIII
+  CHAPTER XIX
+  CHAPTER XX
+  CHAPTER XXI
+  CHAPTER XXII
+  CHAPTER XXIII
+  CHAPTER XXIV
+  CHAPTER XXV
+  CHAPTER XXVI
+  CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+
+
+  A DREADFUL TEMPTATION
+
+
+  BY
+  MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER
+  AUTHOR OF "QUEENIE'S TERRIBLE SECRET," "JAQUELINA," ETC.
+
+
+  NEW YORK
+  INTERNATIONAL BOOK COMPANY
+  3, 4, 5 AND 6-MISSION PLACE
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1883,
+  BY
+  NORMAN L. MUNRO
+
+  [_All rights reserved._]
+
+
+
+
+A DREADFUL TEMPTATION;
+
+OR,
+
+_A Young Wife's Ambition_.
+
+By MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+    "Hear the mellow wedding-bells--
+           Golden bells!
+       What a world of happiness
+     Their melody foretells!"
+
+
+"Hark! there's the wedding-march."
+
+"Here they come!"
+
+"Looks as white as a corpse, doesn't she?"
+
+"Oh, no; as beautiful as a dream, to my notion. Pallor is becoming in
+brides, you know."
+
+"He's a silly old dotard, though, not to know that she's taking him for
+his money."
+
+"Of course he knows it. I dare say the old gray-beard is glad he had
+money enough to buy so much youth and loveliness."
+
+"What a splendid veil and dress! They say her rich aunt furnished the
+_trousseau_."
+
+"Her jewels are magnificent."
+
+"The bridegroom's gift, of course. Well, he is able to cover her with
+diamonds."
+
+These were but few of the remarks that were whispered in the fashionable
+throng gathered at Trinity to witness a marriage in high life--a
+marriage that was all the more interesting from the fact that the
+contracting parties were so totally dissimilar to each other that the
+whole affair in the eyes of the outsiders resolved itself into a simple
+matter of bargain and sale--so much youth and beauty for an old man's
+gold.
+
+The bridegroom was John St. John, a millionaire of high birth and
+standing in the city where he lived, but so old and infirm that people
+said of him that "he had one foot in the grave and the other on the
+brink of it," and the bride was the young daughter of some obscure
+country people.
+
+An aunt in the city had given her some advantages, and kept her in town
+two seasons, hoping to bring about a good match for her, since she had
+no dowry of her own, save youth, talent and peerless beauty.
+
+    "And what is your fortune, my pretty maid?"
+    "My face is my fortune, sir," she said.
+
+And Xenie Carroll was fulfilling her aunt's ambitious hopes and desires
+to their uttermost limit as she walked up the broad aisle of Trinity
+that night, clothed in her bridal white, and leaning on the arm of the
+decrepit old millionaire, John St. John.
+
+His form was bent with age, his hair and beard were white, his eyes were
+dim and bleared; and she was in the bloom of youth and beauty. It was
+the union of winter and summer.
+
+They passed slowly up the aisle to the grand music of the wedding-march,
+and after them came fair maidens, robed in white and adorned with
+flowers and jewels.
+
+These stood round about the pair at the altar who were taking upon their
+lips the sacred vow of marriage.
+
+It was over.
+
+The holy man of God lifted reverent hands and invoked God's blessing
+upon this sordid bargain that desecrated the holy rite of marriage, the
+ring was slipped over the bride's white finger, and Xenie Carroll turned
+away from the altar Mrs. John St. John, mistress of the handsomest house
+in the city and the most princely private fortune.
+
+There was a flash of triumph in her dark eyes as she received the
+congratulations of her friends, yet her cheeks and lips were cold and
+white as marble.
+
+But the light and color came back to her beautiful face when, in the
+same carriage that had taken her from her aunt's roof a poor, dependent
+girl, she was whirled back to the millionaire's splendid home to take
+her place as its queen.
+
+The aged bridegroom scarcely felt equal to an extended bridal tour, so
+he had wisely eschewed a trip, and determined to inaugurate the reign of
+the new social star by a brilliant reception at his splendid residence.
+
+All the beauties of art and nature were called in to further his design.
+
+The elegant drawing-rooms were almost transformed into bowers of
+tropical bloom.
+
+Beautiful birds fluttered their tropical plumage and caroled their sweet
+songs in the gilded cages that swung in the flowery arches and niches.
+
+Music filled the air with entrancing strains, wooing light feet to the
+giddy dance.
+
+In the spacious supper-room the tables shone with silver and gold and
+crystal, and every delicacy that could tempt the appetite from home or
+foreign shores was daintily served for the wedding-guests, with wines of
+the purest vintage and greatest age.
+
+There was no lack of wealth, there was no lack of beauty in the
+brilliant assemblage that graced the millionaire's proud house that
+night; and she, his bride, was now the wealthiest, as she had ever been
+the loveliest, of them all, yet she stole away at length from her aged
+bridegroom's flatteries, and sought the solitude of the conservatory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The beautiful fragrance-breathing bower was deserted. The soft light of
+the wax-lights, half-hidden in flowers, streamed down upon her as she
+trod the leafy walks alone in her beautiful white satin robe, frosted
+with delicate lace, and her shining jewels that encircled a throat as
+white and round and queenly as if she had been a princess royal.
+
+Yet none were here to praise the soft light of her dark eyes, the
+dazzling beauty of her smiles, the tender, tinted oval of her face.
+
+Why was she here alone to "waste her sweetness on the desert air?"
+
+Ah! in a moment she spoke in a stifled voice, her white hands twisted in
+the band of jewels that encircled her throat as if the beautiful
+flashing things burned her by their mere contact.
+
+"I had to come here for a free breath away from that old man whose very
+presence stifles and smothers me. And yet--and yet, I am his wife! Oh,
+Heaven, what a terrible price I must pay for my revenge!"
+
+She paused, and a strange look came into her eyes. It was a look of
+terrible dread and despair, inexplicably blended with passionate
+triumph.
+
+"And yet," she began again, after a moment's silence, looking around at
+the evidences of wealth and taste so lavishly scattered about her, "what
+a glorious revenge it is! It was for this he scorned and deserted me!
+Yet I have stripped him of his heritage. I have stolen from him the
+empire he held so long. I have revenged myself tenfold for what I
+suffered at his hands. Ah! weak fool that I am, why regret the price of
+such a splendid triumph?"
+
+Her face grew hard and cold, a cruel smile curled her scarlet lips, her
+eyes flashed with scorn.
+
+Pride and passion spoke in every curve of her mobile, spirited face.
+
+The lace hangings at the entrance parted noiselessly, and a man stepped
+lightly across the threshold.
+
+Not a sound announced his presence, yet she looked up instantly, as if
+by some subtle inner sense she divined that he was there.
+
+"Ah!" she breathed, in a hissing tone of hate and scorn.
+
+A mocking smile curled the man's lip as he bowed before her.
+
+"Ah! _ma tante_," he said, in a cool tone of scorn, "permit me to offer
+my congratulations."
+
+Some emotion too great for utterance seemed to overpower her, so that
+she struggled vainly for speech a moment, while he stood silent, with
+folded arms, looking down at her from his haughty height with a look of
+veiled hatred in his dark-blue eyes.
+
+They were deadly foes, this man and woman, yet nature had formed them as
+if for the perfect complement of each other.
+
+He was tall, strong and fair, with the proud beauty and commanding air
+we fancy in the Grecian gods of old.
+
+She was _petite_, dark, brilliant as a rose, and passionate as the
+tropical blood of the south could make her.
+
+Breaking down the bars of her great emotion at last, she laughed
+aloud--a cool, insolent, incredulous laugh that made the hot blood bound
+faster through his veins, and a flush creep over his face.
+
+"You call me aunt," she said; "ha! ha!"
+
+"Yes, madam, you bear that relationship to me since your marriage with
+my uncle," he answered, with a formal bow.
+
+"You expect to find me a most loving relative, no doubt?" she said, with
+exasperating coolness.
+
+"I hope to do so, at least," he said, with calm frankness, "I cannot
+afford to quarrel with my uncle. I shall hope to keep on good terms with
+his wife."
+
+"Ah! you don't wish to quarrel with your bread and butter," she said in
+a tone of cool contempt. "Well, _mon ami_, what do you suppose I married
+your uncle for?"
+
+"The world says that you married him for his money," said the handsome
+young man, coolly.
+
+"Yes, that is what the world says," she answered, with flashing eyes,
+and cresting her graceful head as haughtily as a young stag. "But you,
+Howard Templeton, you know better than that."
+
+"Pardon me, how should I know better?" he rejoined, watching her keenly,
+as if it gave him a certain pleasure to irritate her. "The money seems
+to me the only reasonable excuse you had for taking him. My uncle,
+kindly be it spoken, for he has been my kindest friend, is neither young
+nor handsome. I credited you with better taste than to love such a
+homely old man!"
+
+"You are right," she said, writhing under the keen sting of his words;
+"I did not marry him for love! Neither did I marry him for his money. I
+have never craved wealth for its own sake, though I have always known
+that a costly setting would befit beauty such as mine. I sold myself to
+that old man in yonder for revenge!"
+
+"Revenge?" he repeated, inquiringly.
+
+"Yes, upon _you_!" she repeated, with bitter frankness; "you sacrificed
+me that you might inherit your uncle's wealth. Love, hope, gladness,
+were stricken from my life at one fell blow. There was nothing left me
+but revenge upon my base deceiver. So I sold myself for the heritage you
+prized so highly that you might be left penniless."
+
+"Yet once you loved me!" he muttered, half to himself.
+
+"Yes, once I loved you," she answered, looking at him in proud scorn.
+"When my aunt brought me to the city two years ago a simple,
+unsophisticated country girl, you saw me and set yourself to win me by
+every art of which you were master. She encouraged you in your designs,
+for she knew that you were the reputed heir of your uncle, John St.
+John, and she thought it would be a fine match for the pretty little
+country girl. In the spring I went home with your ring upon my finger,
+the proudest girl in the world, and told mamma that you had promised to
+marry me. Then you came down to my country home and found out that the
+rich Mrs. Egerton's pretty niece was as poor as a church mouse. So you
+went back and told John St. John that you wanted to marry a girl who was
+beautiful but poor, and he--the old dotard, who had forgotten his youth,
+and transmuted his heart into gold--he bade you give me up on pain of
+disinheritance."
+
+"And I obeyed him," said Howard Templeton, as she paused for breath.
+
+"Yes, you obeyed him," she repeated; "you broke your plighted faith and
+word, you ruined my life, you broke my heart, you sold your truth and
+your honor to that cruel old man for his sordid gold, and now, to-night,
+you stand stripped of everything--and all because you turned a woman's
+love to hate."
+
+She paused breathlessly and stood looking at him with blazing eyes and
+crimson cheeks, and lips parted in a smile of bitter triumph.
+
+She had never looked more beautiful, yet it was a dangerous beauty,
+scathing to the man who looked upon her and knew that his sin had
+roused the terrible passions of revenge and hatred in her young heart.
+
+"But Xenie, think a moment," he said. "I had been brought up by Uncle
+John as his heir. I did not know how to work. I never earned a cent in
+my whole life! When he swore he would disinherit me if I married you,
+what could I do? I had to give you up. You must have starved if I had
+married you against his will!"
+
+"I would have starved with you, I loved you so!" she exclaimed
+passionately.
+
+"Would you, really?" he asked, with a slight air of wonder; "well, they
+say that women love like that. For myself, I have never reached a stage
+as idiotic, though I own that I loved you to the verge of distraction,
+Xenie."
+
+"Well, and what will you do now?" she asked, sneeringly. "You will have
+to starve at last without the pleasure of my company, for my husband
+shall never leave you one dollar of his money; I will poison his mind
+against you, I will make him hate you even as I hate you! I have sworn
+to have the bitterest revenge for my wrongs, and I will surely keep my
+vow!"
+
+"I defy you," he answered, looking down at her from his superb height,
+his proud Saxon beauty ablaze with wrath and scorn. "I defy you to rob
+me of my uncle's heart or even of his fortune. He shall know what a
+traitress he has taken to his heart. I will dispute your empire with you
+and you shall find me a foeman worthy of your steel. You will find that
+it is a terrible thing to make a man who has loved you hate and defy
+you!"
+
+    "'The sweetest thing upon this earth is love.
+      And next to love, the sweetest thing is hate.'"
+
+She quoted with a wild, defiant laugh. "Well, Howard Templeton, I take
+up the gage of defiance that you have thrown down. We will wage the
+deadliest feud the world ever knew between man and woman! From this
+moment it shall be war to the knife!"
+
+"So be it," he answered with a scowl of hatred as he turned upon his
+heel and passed through the lace hangings to mingle with the gay and
+thoughtless throng outside, while curious glances followed him on every
+side, for all knew that the foolish old bridegroom had promised to make
+Howard Templeton his heir.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+The beautiful bride remained motionless where Howard Templeton had left
+her until the rich lace curtains parted noiselessly again and her
+lawful lord and master looked in upon her.
+
+He did not speak for a moment, so beautiful she looked standing still
+and pale as a statue beneath a tall rose-tree that showered its scented
+petals down upon her night-black hair with its crown of orange blossoms.
+
+No subtle instinct warned her of his presence as it had when that other
+came.
+
+She stood silent and pale, the dark lashes shading her rounded cheek,
+her white hands loosely clasped before her until he spoke:
+
+"Xenie, my darling!"
+
+She started and shivered as she looked up.
+
+Mr. St. John came slowly to her side and drew her hand through his arm.
+
+"My dear, I have been seeking you everywhere. Supper is announced," he
+said.
+
+"I only came here just a little while ago for a quiet minute to myself,"
+she said, apologetically.
+
+"Ah! then, you like quiet and repose sometimes," he said; "I am glad of
+that, for I am not fond of gayety myself, at least not too much of it. I
+suppose I am getting too far into the sere and yellow leaf to enjoy it,
+eh, my dear?"
+
+"I hope not; sir," she said, making an effort to throw off her
+preoccupation and enter into the conversation with interest.
+
+After the splendid banquet had been served, he led her to a quiet seat
+and begged her not to dance again that evening.
+
+"I am too old to dance myself," he said, "but I am so selfish I want to
+keep you by my side that I may feast my eyes upon your peerless beauty.
+Can you be contented with my society, love?" he inquired, giving her a
+curious look.
+
+"I will do whatever pleases you best, sir," she said, with an inward
+shudder of disgust.
+
+"Very well; we will sit here hand in hand like a veritable Darby and
+Joan, and enjoy each other's company," he said, giving her an
+affectionate smile.
+
+The bride looked at her lord in surprise. She had not known him long,
+for their marriage had followed upon a brief acquaintance and hurried
+courtship.
+
+Xenie had never thought him very brilliant, and, indeed, she had heard
+people say maliciously that the old man was getting weak-minded, but
+after all, the proposition to hold her hand before all that brilliant
+array of wedding-guests nearly staggered her.
+
+She made some plausible excuse for keeping her hands in her own
+possession, and sat quietly by his side, watching the black coats of
+the men and the bright robes of the women as they fluttered through the
+joyous mazes of the dance.
+
+"Do you see the lovely girl dancing with my nephew, Howard Templeton?"
+he said, to her after a short silence.
+
+She looked up and saw Edith Wayland, one of her bridesmaids, whirling
+through the waltz in the arms of her deadly foe.
+
+"Yes," she said, with a kind of stifled gasp.
+
+"She's in love with my nephew," said the old man, with a low chuckle of
+pleasure.
+
+"Indeed? Did she tell you so?" asked Mrs. St. John, half scornfully.
+
+"Never mind how I found out. It's true, anyhow. And she is a great
+heiress, my dear, almost as rich as I am. I mean to make a match between
+her and my nephew."
+
+"Do you?" she asked, but her voice was very low and faint, and the room
+swam around her so that the dancers seemed mingled in inextricable
+mazes.
+
+"Yes, I do; but what is the matter with you, my darling?" he said,
+looking anxiously at her. "You have grown so pale!"
+
+"It is nothing--a headache from the heat of the rooms," she murmured,
+confusedly, "but go on. You were saying----"
+
+"That I am going to marry my nephew to Miss Wayland--yes. She is very
+rich, and he, well, the poor fellow, you know, Xenie, always expected to
+be my heir. And now, since my marriage, of course his prospects are
+entirely altered. He cannot expect much from me now. But I'm going to
+set him up with a few thousands, and marry him to the heiress. That's
+almost as well as leaving him my money--isn't it?" he laughed. "I've
+spoken to Howard about it, and he is pleased with the idea. There will
+be no difficulty with her, I am sure. Howard was always a lucky dog
+among the girls."
+
+He laughed, and rubbed his withered palms softly together, and Xenie sat
+perfectly silent, her brain in a whirl, her pulse beating at fever heat.
+
+Was this old man, whom she hated because his despotic will had blasted
+her brief dream of happiness, to despoil her of her revenge for which
+she had dared and risked so much?
+
+And Howard Templeton--was her oath of vengeance of no avail, that
+fortune should make him her spoiled darling still?
+
+The waltz music ceased with a great, passionate crash of melody, and the
+gentlemen led their partners to their seats.
+
+Mr. St. John resigned his seat to Edith Wayland, and moved away on the
+arm of his nephew.
+
+"What a handsome man Mr. Templeton is," said the lovely girl shyly to
+Mrs. St. John.
+
+The bride looked after his retreating figure with a curl of her scarlet
+lip.
+
+"Yes, he is as handsome as a Greek god," she said, "but then, he is
+utterly heartless--a mere fortune-hunter."
+
+"Oh! Mrs. St. John, surely not," said Miss Wayland, in an anxious tone.
+"Why should you think so?"
+
+"Perhaps it would suit you as well not to hear," said Mrs. St. John,
+with an arch insinuation in her look and tone.
+
+"By no means. Pray tell me your reasons for what you said, Mrs. St.
+John," said the sweet, blue-eyed girl, blushing very much, and nervously
+fluttering her white satin fan.
+
+"Well, since you are not particularly interested in him, I will tell
+you," was the careless reply. "I was engaged to Mr. Templeton myself,
+two winters ago--when I first came out, you know, dear! I suppose he
+thought I was wealthy, for Aunt Egerton dressed me elegantly, and lent
+me her diamonds. The summer after our engagement he came to the country
+to see me, and then he found out my poverty--for I will tell you
+candidly, Edith, my people are as poor as church mice--and, would you
+believe it? he went back and wrote me a letter, and told me he could not
+afford to marry for love--he must have an heiress or none. So our little
+affair was all over with then, you know."
+
+She paused and looked away, for she knew that she had stabbed the girl's
+heart deeply, and she did not wish to witness the pain she had
+inflicted.
+
+In a moment, however, Miss Wayland exclaimed, indignantly:
+
+"Oh! Mrs. St. John, is it possible that Mr. Templeton could have treated
+you so cruelly and heartlessly?"
+
+"It is quite true, Miss Wayland. If you doubt my word I give you _carte
+blanche_ to ask my aunt, Mrs. Egerton, or even Mr. Templeton himself.
+You see I have the best reason in the world for accusing him of being a
+fortune-hunter."
+
+The beautiful young girl did not think of doubting Mrs. St. John's
+assertion, although it caused her the bitterest pain.
+
+There was an earnestness in the words and tones of the bride that
+carried conviction with them.
+
+Miss Wayland sat musing quietly a moment, then she said, hesitatingly:
+
+"May I ask if you are friends with Mr. Templeton now, Mrs. St. John?"
+
+Xenie lifted her dark eyes and looked at the gentle girl.
+
+"Should you love a man that won your heart and threw it away like a
+broken toy?" she asked, slowly.
+
+"I do not believe that I could ever forgive him," said Edith, frankly.
+
+"Nor can I," answered Xenie, in a low voice of repressed passion. "No, I
+am not friends with him, Edith, and never shall be; I am not the kind of
+woman who could forgive such a cruel slight."
+
+Neither of them said another word on the subject, but Edith knew quite
+well from that moment why Xenie had married Mr. St. John.
+
+"It was not for the sake of the money, but simply to revenge herself on
+Howard Templeton," she said to herself, with a woman's ready wit.
+
+And when Mr. Templeton, according to his uncle's desire, offered her his
+hand and heart, a few days later, expecting to have her for the asking,
+he was surprised to receive a cold, almost contemptuous refusal.
+
+But she dropped a few words before they parted by which he knew plainly
+that his deadly foe had been working against him, and that her
+revengeful hand had struck a fortune from his grasp for the second time
+in the space of a week.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Several months of irksome quiet to Mrs. St. John succeeded the
+festivities that followed upon her marriage.
+
+Her elderly bridegroom found that protracted gayeties did not agree with
+his age and health, and with the obstinacy common to a selfish old age,
+he prohibited his wife from participation in those scenes of pleasure in
+which, by reason of her youth and beauty, she was so pre-eminently
+fitted to shine.
+
+He could not stand such excitement himself, he said, and he wanted his
+wife at home to cheer and solace his declining years.
+
+So the beautiful bridal dresses hung in the wardrobe unworn, and the
+costly jewels hid their brightness locked away in their caskets.
+
+Xenie had small need for these things in the lonely life to which she
+found herself condemned by her foolish, doting old husband.
+
+Loving pleasure and excitement with all the ardor of a passionate,
+impulsive temperament like hers, it is quite possible that Mrs. St. John
+might have rebelled against her liege lord's selfishness, but for one
+strong purpose to which she bent every energy, subordinating everything
+else to its accomplishment.
+
+So she bore his selfish exactions with a patient, yielding sweetness,
+and ministered to his caprices with the beautiful devotion of a fireside
+angel.
+
+She was using every sweet persuasion in her power to induce Mr. St. John
+to execute a will in her favor.
+
+She had learned that in the event of his death, without a will, his
+widow would legally inherit only one-third of his great wealth, while
+the remaining two-thirds would descend to his next of kin--the next of
+kin in this case being her enemy, Howard Templeton.
+
+Xenie knew that her revenge would not be secure until her husband had
+made his will and cut off his nephew without a dollar.
+
+She had believed that Mr. St. John's infatuation for her would make her
+task easy, but she had not counted upon the uneasy sense in the old
+man's mind of a certain injustice done to the nephew he had reared, by
+his unexpected marriage.
+
+"No, no, Xenie," he said, when she openly pleaded with him to make such
+a will. "It would be unjust to leave poor Howard without a dollar to
+support himself."
+
+"He is a man," said Xenie, scornfully. "He has his head and hands to
+earn his living."
+
+"Yes; but Howard does not know how to work, my darling, and it is all my
+fault. I brought him up as my heir and refused to let him have a
+profession or to learn anything useful. You see we are the last of our
+race, and I expected to leave him everything when I died. I did not know
+I should meet and marry you, my darling," he said, kissing her fondly,
+without noticing her uncontrollable shiver of disgust.
+
+"Yes, but your marriage alters everything," she said, eagerly, lifting
+her melting, dark eyes to his face with a siren smile on the curve of
+her scarlet lips. "You would not wish to leave your money away from me,
+your poor, helpless little wife?"
+
+"There is enough for you both, my dear," he said, persuasively. "Howard
+might have his share--the smaller share, of course--and you would still
+be a wealthy woman!"
+
+"I hate Howard Templeton!" exclaimed Xenie, with sudden, passionate
+vehemence.
+
+The old man looked at her half angrily.
+
+"You hate my nephew?" he said. "Why do you hate him, Xenie, when next to
+you I love him, best of anyone in the world?"
+
+Xenie's sober senses, that had almost deserted her in her sudden gust of
+passion, returned to her with a gasp.
+
+"I--oh, forgive me," she said, with ready penitence, "I spoke foolishly.
+I do not like you to love him so. I am jealous of you, my darling!"
+
+She leaned toward him and laid her white arm around his shoulder
+caressingly.
+
+But suddenly, and even as she lifted her beautiful face for his caress,
+he drew back his hand, and without a word of warning, struck her a heavy
+blow across the face.
+
+She reeled backward and fell upon the floor, the red blood spurting from
+her nostrils and from her lips that the terrible blow had driven against
+the points of her white teeth and terribly lacerated.
+
+"You Jezebel," he shouted, hoarsely, rising and standing over her with
+his brandished fist. "How dare you hate him--my own nephew, my handsome
+Howard!"
+
+With a moan of fear and pain Xenie sprang up and fled to the furthest
+corner of the room.
+
+"Oh! you coward!" she cried, passionately. "To strike a woman--a
+helpless woman!"
+
+She was trying to staunch the fast flowing blood with her lace
+handkerchief, but she stopped and stared at him in dumb terror as he
+approached her.
+
+For the glare of madness shone in his dim eyes as they turned upon
+her--his foam-flecked lips were drawn away from his glistening set of
+false teeth, and his face presented a terrible appearance.
+
+"Oh! my God, he is going to kill me!" she moaned to herself, crouching
+down in the corner with her arms raised wildly above her shrinking head.
+
+He towered above her with his clenched fist raised threateningly and his
+eyes glaring ferociously upon her.
+
+Xenie believed that a sudden frenzy of madness had come upon her husband
+and that he was going to take her life.
+
+She was about to shriek aloud in the hope of rescue, when he suddenly
+clapped a strong hand over her lips.
+
+"Hush!" he said, fearfully, "hush, Xenie, don't let anyone know I struck
+you! Does it hurt you much?--the blood, I mean--I'm sorry if it does."
+
+The tone was that of a wheedling, penitent child that is sorry for its
+fault. In sheer surprise the frightened creature looked up at him.
+
+The ferocious look of bloodthirsty madness had marvelously faded from
+his face, and left a pale, fearful, childish expression instead.
+
+He dropped his hand and wiped the blood from it, shivering all over.
+
+"Oh! the blood, how red it is!" he whined. "Did I hurt you, my love?
+I'm sorry--very sorry. Don't tell anyone I struck you."
+
+"I'll tell the whole world," she flashed forth, speaking with
+difficulty, for her lips were bruised and swollen. "I'll tell them that
+you are mad, and I'll have you put into an asylum for dangerous
+lunatics, you base coward!"
+
+Mr. St. John's face grew livid at her angry threat. He trembled with
+fear.
+
+"No, no, Xenie, you won't, you mustn't do it," he gasped forth. "I will
+never do so again. I'll be your slave if you won't tell!"
+
+"I will tell it everywhere!" cried his young wife, rushing to the door,
+her whole passionate spirit aglow with the keenest resentment.
+
+But with unlooked-for strength in one of his age, he ran forward, and
+stood with his back against the door.
+
+"You shall not go till you promise to keep silent," he said, firmly; "I
+will do anything you ask me, Xenie, if you will only not tell on me!"
+
+"Anything?" she exclaimed, turning quickly.
+
+"Yes, anything," he reiterated, with a weak, imploring look, full of
+craven fear.
+
+"Very well," she answered firmly; "make your will to-day, and cut Howard
+Templeton off with a shilling, and I'll keep your secret--otherwise the
+city shall ring with the story of your cruelty!"
+
+"Won't you let me leave him ten thousand dollars, dear?" he asked,
+pitifully.
+
+"Not a dollar!" she answered coldly.
+
+"Five thousand dollars?"
+
+"Not a dollar!" she reiterated firmly.
+
+"Very well," he answered, weakly. "I have said you shall name your own
+price. Shall I go to my lawyer now, Xenie?"
+
+"Yes, now," she answered, with a flash of triumph in her eyes.
+
+He stood still a moment looking at her with a half-insane look of
+cunning on the wrinkled features that but a moment ago had been
+transformed by maniacal rage.
+
+"Poor boy!" he said, "you hate him very much, Xenie; I wonder what he
+has done to make you his enemy!"
+
+She did not answer, and the old millionaire went out of the room, after
+turning upon her a strange look of blended cunning and triumph which she
+could not understand.
+
+"Pshaw! he meant nothing by it," she said to herself to dispel the
+uneasy impression that glance had left. "The old man is getting weak and
+silly. One is scarcely safe alone with him."
+
+She shuddered at the recollection of what she had passed through, and
+going to her private room, locked the door and bathed her swollen,
+discolored face with a healing lotion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Xenie remained alone in her chamber until darkness gathered like a pall
+over every luxurious object about her. Her maid came and tapped at the
+door once, but she sent her away, saying that her head ached and she did
+not wish to be disturbed.
+
+It was quite true, for her heavy fall upon the floor had hurt her
+severely; so she remained quietly lying on a sofa until black darkness
+hid everything from her confused sight.
+
+Then there came a light tap upon the door again. She thought it was the
+maid to light the gas.
+
+"You may go away, Finette, I do not need you yet," she said, feeling
+that the darkness suited her mood the best.
+
+"It is I, Xenie. Open the door. I wish to speak to you," said her
+husband's voice.
+
+She went to the door, unlocked and threw it wide open. The light from
+the hall streamed in upon her pale and haggard face, her dress in
+disorder, her dark hair loose and dishevelled.
+
+"It is dark in there, I cannot see you, my darling," he said; "come
+across into my smoking-room in the light. I want to tell you something."
+
+He took her hand and drew her across the hall into a luxurious apartment
+he called his smoking-room.
+
+It was elegantly furnished with cushioned easy-chairs and lounges, while
+the floor was covered with a soft, Persian carpet and beautiful rugs.
+
+The marble mantel was decorated with costly meerschaums, and chibouques
+of various patterns and materials, and a richly gilded box stood in the
+center, containing cigars and perfumed smoking tobacco.
+
+On a marble-topped table in the center of the room stood two bottles of
+wine, and two richly-chased drinking glasses.
+
+"Well?" she inquired, half-fearfully, as he drew her in and carefully
+closed the door.
+
+"I have made my will, dear," he said, looking at her with a curious
+smile.
+
+"And you have cut Howard Templeton off without a shilling?" she said,
+anxiously.
+
+"Yes, darling, I have made you the sole heir to all my wealth," answered
+the old man, drawing his arm around her shrinking form. "But perhaps you
+will wish the old man dead, now, that you may enjoy his money without
+any incumbrance."
+
+"Oh! no," she exclaimed quickly, for something in his words touched her
+heart, and made her forget for a moment that cruel blow from his hand.
+"Oh! no, I shall never wish you dead, and I thank you a thousand times
+for your generosity."
+
+"Then you forgive me for my--for that--to-day?" he inquired in a
+flighty, half-frightened way, fixing his dim eyes on her beautiful face
+with an anxious expression.
+
+"Yes, I forgive you freely," she said, touched again, as she scarcely
+thought she could be, by his looks and tones, and yet longing to get
+away, for she was half-frightened by a certain inexplicable wildness
+about him. "And now I must go and dress for dinner."
+
+"Wait, I have not done with you yet," he said, catching her tightly
+around the wrist, his restlessness increasing. "I saw my nephew on the
+street, and brought him home with me to dinner. Do you care, Xenie?"
+
+"No, I do not care," she answered, steadily, yet her heart gave a great
+passionate throb of bitter anger.
+
+Still holding her tightly by the hand he pulled open the door and sent
+his voice ringing loudly down the hall.
+
+"Howard, Howard, come here!"
+
+Xenie heard the distant door of the library unclose, then shut again,
+and a man's footsteps ringing along the marble hall.
+
+She tried to wrench her hand away and flee, but it was useless. He held
+her as in a vise.
+
+"Let me go," she panted, "my hair is down, my dress is disarranged, my
+face is disfigured, I do not wish to meet him."
+
+But he held her tightly, gnashing his teeth in sudden rage at her
+efforts to escape.
+
+At that moment Howard Templeton entered the room.
+
+He started back as his gaze encountered Mrs. St. John's, then with a
+cold bow stood still, turning an inquiring glance upon his uncle's
+excited face.
+
+"I want you to take a glass of wine with me, Howard," said his uncle in
+a cordial tone. "Xenie, my love, you will pour the wine for us."
+
+He led her forward, to the little marble-topped table where stood the
+wine and glasses.
+
+She saw that the corks were both drawn from the bottles, and taking up
+one she poured some of its contents into the richly-chased glass beside
+it.
+
+"Now pour from the second bottle into the second glass," commanded her
+husband.
+
+Xenie silently obeyed him, without a thought as to the strangeness of
+the request, for her heart was beating almost to suffocation with the
+bitter consciousness of her enemy's presence.
+
+Mr. St. John watched her every motion with a strange, repressed
+excitement.
+
+His eyes glittered, his lips worked as if he were talking to himself. He
+nodded to his nephew as she stepped back.
+
+"Let us drink long life and happiness to Mrs. St. John," he said.
+
+Howard Templeton took one glass, and his uncle took the remaining one.
+
+Both bowed to the shrinking woman who stood watching them, drained their
+glasses, and set them back with a simultaneous clink upon the marble
+table.
+
+Then a wild, maniacal laugh filled the room--so shrill, so exultant, so
+blood-curdling, it froze the blood in the veins of the man and woman who
+stood there listening.
+
+"Ha, ha," cried Mr. St. John, "you thought I did not know your secret,
+you two! But I did. I heard your talk on my wedding-night. I knew then
+that I had taken the woman you loved. Howard, I knew that she had sought
+me, and won me, and married me, to revenge her wrongs at your hands. I
+said to myself her beautiful body is mine--I have bought it with my
+gold--but her heart is Howard Templeton's!"
+
+"No, no," cried Xenie, stamping her foot passionately; "I hate him! I
+hate him!"
+
+"Hush!" thundered the old man, turning on her with the wild glare of
+madness in his eyes, "hush, woman! I have thought it over for months--at
+last I have reached a conclusion. The world is not wide enough for us
+two men to live in. So I said to myself--one of us must die!"
+
+"Must die!" repeated Howard Templeton, with a sudden strong shudder.
+
+"Yes, _die_!" cried the maniac, with another horrible laugh. "So I put
+deadly poison into one of the bottles that chance might decide our
+fates. Xenie poured out death for one of us just now. In ten minutes
+either you or I will be dead, Howard Templeton!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+For one terrible moment Xenie St. John and Howard Templeton remained
+silently gazing at the excited old man, as if petrified with horror,
+then:
+
+"My God, my uncle is a madman!" broke hoarsely from the young man's
+ashen lips, in tones of unutterable horror and grief.
+
+Mrs. St. John rushed to the door, threw it wide open, and shrieked aloud
+in frenzied accents for help.
+
+The servants came rushing in and found their old master crouching in a
+corner of the room, gibbering and mouthing like some terrible wild
+beast, his bloodshot eyes rolling in their sockets, his lips all flecked
+with foam, while Howard Templeton remained silent in the center of the
+room, like a statue of horror.
+
+"A doctor--bring a doctor!" shrieked Xenie, wildly.
+
+It was not five minutes before a physician, living close by, was brought
+in, but even as he crossed the threshold, the insane creature rolled
+over upon the floor in the agonies of death.
+
+One or two desperate struggles, a gasp, a quiver from head to foot and
+the old millionaire lay dead before them.
+
+The physician knelt down and felt his heart and his pulse.
+
+"He is dead," he said, shaking his head slowly and sadly. "I apprehended
+a fit the last time he consulted me, some three weeks ago. His mind and
+body were both weakening fast. This mournful end was not unexpected by
+me."
+
+Mrs. St. John made a quick step forward.
+
+She was about to say, "He did not die in a fit, doctor, he died of
+poison," when a hand like steel gripped her wrist.
+
+She looked up and met the stern, awful gaze of Howard Templeton.
+
+"Hush!" he whispered, hurriedly and sternly. "Let the world accept the
+physician's verdict. Say nothing of what you know. Do not brand his
+memory with the terrible obloquy of insanity and self-murder!"
+
+As he spoke he turned away, and crossed the room, and as he passed the
+marble-topped table, it fell over, no one could have told how, and the
+bottles and glasses were shivered upon the floor.
+
+One of the servants removed the _debris_, and mopped up the spilled wine
+from the floor, and no one thought anything more of it.
+
+Yet, by that simple act, Howard Templeton saved his uncle's name and his
+own from the shafts of malice and calumny that must have assailed them
+if the terrible truth had come to light.
+
+So the physician's hasty verdict of apoplexy was universally accepted by
+the world, and the old millionaire was laid away in his costly tomb a
+few days later, regretted by all his friends, and the secret of his
+tragic death was locked in the breasts of two who kept that hideous
+story sacred, although they were deadly foes.
+
+Yes, deadly foes, and destined to hate each other more and more, for
+when the old millionaire's papers were examined, the beautiful widow
+found that she was foiled of her dearly-bought revenge at last.
+
+For no will was found, although Xenie protested passionately that her
+husband had made a will the very last day of his life.
+
+The most careful and assiduous search failed to reveal the existence of
+any legal document like a will, and the lawyers gravely assured Mrs. St.
+John that she could claim only a third of her deceased husband's wealth,
+the remainder falling to the next of kin, Howard Templeton.
+
+"You see, madam," said the old lawyer, whom she was anxiously
+questioning, "if Mr. St. John had left a child, you could claim the
+whole estate as its lawful guardian, even without the existence of a
+will. But there being no nearer kin than Mr. Templeton, it legally falls
+to him, after you receive your widow's portion."
+
+The young widow brooded over those words night and day.
+
+She hated Howard Templeton more than ever.
+
+She would have given the whole world, had it been hers, to wrest that
+fortune from her enemy's grasp, and leave him poor and friendless to
+fight his way through the hard world.
+
+"Oh! if I only could find that will," she thought wildly. "Is it true
+that Mr. St. John made it, or was he deceiving me? He was utterly
+insane. Could one expect truth from a madman?"
+
+Gradually, as weary weeks flew by, she began to believe that Mr. St.
+John had deceived her.
+
+She felt quite sure in her own mind, after a little while, that he had
+never made the will.
+
+He had fully meant for Howard Templeton to inherit his wealth.
+
+Yet bitterly as she regretted its loss she could not bring herself to
+hate the memory of the old man she had married, and who had loved her
+for a little while with so fond and foolish a passion.
+
+The memory of his dreadful death was too strong upon her.
+
+She woke at night from dreadful dreams that recalled that last awful day
+of her husband's life, and lay shuddering and weeping, and praying to
+forget that fearful face, and blood-curdling, maniacal laugh that still
+rung in her shocked hearing.
+
+"You are growing thin and pale, Xenie," Mrs. Egerton said, when she came
+to condole with her, more for the loss of the fortune than the loss of
+her husband. "People are talking of your ill looks, and they say you
+take Mr. St. John's death so hard, you must have cared for him more than
+anyone believed. I let them talk, for, of course, it is very much to
+your credit to have them think so, but as I know better myself, I cannot
+help wondering at your paleness and trouble."
+
+"It was all so sudden and terrible," murmured the young widow, as she
+lay back in her easy-chair, looking very fragile and beautiful in her
+deep mourning dress.
+
+"Yes it was very bad his going off in a fit that way," said her aunt.
+"Still, it was to be expected, Xenie. He was very old, and really
+growing childish, I thought. His going off without a will was the worst
+part of it. Of course it hurt you terribly for Templeton to have the
+money!"
+
+The sudden flash in Mrs. St. John's dark eyes told plainer than words
+how much it had hurt her.
+
+"However, Xenie, I would give over worrying about it," continued her
+aunt, soothingly.
+
+"But my revenge, Aunt Egerton. Think how much I sacrificed for it. I
+married that foolish old man, and endured his caprices so long without a
+murmur, allowed myself to be shut up in solitude like a bird in a cage,
+and never murmured at his tiresome exactions. And all for what? Because
+I expected to get his whole fortune, and be revenged on the coward who
+broke my heart for the sake of it. And to be despoiled of my revenge
+like this is too hard for endurance," she exclaimed, walking up and down
+the room, and wringing her white hands in a perfect passion of despair
+and regret.
+
+"Oh! let the wretch go," said Mrs. Egerton, complacently rustling in her
+silks and laces. "You have secured a large portion of the estate,
+anyhow. And you are so young and beautiful still, Xenie, you may even
+marry a greater fortune than that, when your year of mourning is
+expired."
+
+Xenie stopped still in her excited walk, and looked at her aunt.
+
+"I shall never marry again--never," she said earnestly. "I have as much
+money as I want, only--only I want to take that from Howard Templeton
+because I want to humble him and wring his heart. And there is but one
+way to do it, and that is to reduce him to poverty. Money is the only
+god he worships!" she added bitterly.
+
+"He treated you villainously and deserves to be punished," said Mrs.
+Egerton, "but still I would try to forget it, Xenie. You will lose your
+youth and prettiness brooding over this idea of revenge."
+
+"I will never forget it," cried Mrs. St. John, wrathfully. "I will wait
+and watch, and if ever I see a chance to punish Howard Templeton, I
+shall strike swiftly and surely."
+
+Her aunt arose, gathering her silken wrappings about her tall, elegant
+form.
+
+"Well, I must go now," she said. "I see it is of no use talking to you.
+Come and see me when you feel better, Xenie."
+
+"I am going to the country next week," said her niece, abruptly.
+
+"Indeed? Has not your mother been up to see you in your trouble?"
+inquired Mrs. Egerton, pausing in her graceful exit.
+
+"No. I wrote to her, but she has neither come nor written. I fear
+something has happened. She is usually very punctual. Anyway, I shall go
+down next week and stay with them a week or two."
+
+"I hope the change may improve your spirits, love," said her aunt,
+kissing her and going out with an airy "_Au revoir_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+"Mamma, how pale and troubled you look. What ails you?"
+
+Mrs. St. John was crossing the threshold of the little cottage home that
+looked, oh, so poor and cheap after the stately brown-stone palace she
+had left that morning, and after one quick glance into her mother's
+careworn face she saw that new lines of grief and trouble had come upon
+it since last they had met.
+
+"Come up into my room, Xenie. I have much to say to you," said her
+mother, leading the way up the narrow stairway into her bedroom, a neat
+and scrupulously clean little room, but plainly and almost poorly
+furnished.
+
+Mrs. Carroll was a widow with only a few barren acres of land, which she
+hired a man to till. Her husband was long since dead, and the burden of
+rearing her two children had been a heavy one to the lonely widow, who
+came of a good family and naturally desired to do well by her two
+daughters, both of them being gifted with uncommon beauty.
+
+But poverty had hampered and crushed her desires, and made her an old
+woman while yet she was in the prime of life.
+
+Xenie removed her traveling wraps and sat down before the little toilet
+glass to arrange her disordered hair.
+
+"My dear, how pale and sad you look in your widow's weeds," said Mrs.
+Carroll, regarding her attentively. "I was very sorry to hear of your
+husband's death. It is very sad to be left a widow so young--barely
+twenty."
+
+"Yes," answered Xenie, abstractedly; then she turned around and said
+abruptly: "Mamma, where is my sister?"
+
+Mrs. Carroll looked at her daughter a moment without replying.
+
+"I have brought her some beautiful presents," continued Mrs. St. John,
+"and you, too, dear mamma--things that you will like--both beautiful and
+useful."
+
+Mrs. Carroll looked at her daughter a moment in utter silence, and her
+lips quivered strangely.
+
+Then she caught up a corner of her homely check apron, and hiding her
+convulsed face in its folds, she burst into bitter weeping.
+
+Xenie sprang up and threw her arms around the neck of the agitated
+woman.
+
+"Oh, mamma," she cried, anxiously, "speak to me. Tell me what ails you?
+Where is Lora?"
+
+As if that name had power to open the flood gates of emotion wider, Mrs.
+Carroll wept more bitterly than ever.
+
+"Mamma, you frighten me," cried Xenie, terrified. "Oh, tell me where is
+Lora? Is she dead?"
+
+"No, no--oh, better that she were!" sobbed her mother, wildly.
+
+Mrs. St. John grew as pale as death. She shook her mother almost rudely
+by the arm.
+
+"What has Lora done?" she cried. "Where is she? I will go and seek her."
+
+She was rushing wildly to the door, but Mrs. Carroll sprang forward, and
+catching the skirt of her dress, pulled her back.
+
+"Not now!" she gasped; "wait a little. That wretched girl has ruined her
+good name and disgraced us all."
+
+Mrs. St. John dropped into a chair like one bereft of life, and her
+great, black eyes, dilated with terror, stared up into her mother's
+face.
+
+"Yes, it is too true," said her mother, sitting down and rocking herself
+back and forth, while low and heart-broken moans escaped her white lips.
+
+"But, mamma, poor, good, little Lora! it cannot be! She was truth and
+innocence itself," panted the young widow, in a voice of anguish.
+
+"She deceived us all--she was a sly little piece. You will see for
+yourself, Xenie. She lies ill in her chamber, and--and in a few months
+there will be a"--she lowered her voice and gave a fearful glance around
+her--"_a child_!"
+
+"Oh! mamma, then she was married? Of course Lora was married! Doesn't
+she say so?" exclaimed Xenie, confidently.
+
+"Oh, yes, she swears to a marriage--a secret one--but look you,
+Xenie--not a ring, not a witness, not a scrap of paper to prove it! And
+the man dead--lost at sea!" said Mrs. Carroll, despairingly.
+
+"Oh! mamma, then it was----"
+
+"Jack Mainwaring--yes. He was courting her this long time, you know. He
+asked for her, and I wouldn't give my consent. I thought he wasn't good
+enough for her--a sailor, and only second mate, you know. And Aunt
+Egerton had promised to give her a season in town this winter, and she
+might have made a better match than a sailor."
+
+Mrs. Carroll broke down again and wept bitterly.
+
+"Try to control yourself, mamma," said the young widow, stroking the
+bowed head tenderly. "And so Jack married her in spite of you?"
+
+"Yes," sobbed her mother, "he married her secretly, she says. It was
+about the same time, or nearly, that you were married. He found out that
+Lora was going to town to be one of the bridesmaids, and was jealous, I
+suppose, thinking she might see someone she could like better. So he
+persuaded her into it, and they were to keep it secret until he came
+back from this voyage."
+
+"And he is lost at sea, you say?" asked Xenie, thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes; he went away in a few weeks after the marriage, to be gone six
+months; but the news came last week of the loss of his ship by fire, and
+his name was on the list of the dead. You see, Xenie, what a terrible
+position Lora was placed in. She fainted when she heard the news, and
+then I found out everything."
+
+"Does anyone else know, mamma?" inquired Xenie, anxiously.
+
+"Not yet. She has been ill, but I have cared for her myself, and did not
+call in the doctor. But we cannot keep it a secret always. Of course
+malicious people will not believe in the marriage, and Lora's fair fame
+will be ruined forever! Oh! if she had only never been born!" cried the
+proud and unhappy mother.
+
+Mrs. St. John sat silent, her lily-white hands clasped in her lap, her
+dark eyes staring into vacancy with a strangely intent expression. She
+roused herself at last and looked at her mother.
+
+"Mamma, we must devise ways and means of keeping this a secret! It would
+ruin the family to have it known," she said, decidedly.
+
+"Yes, I know that," said Mrs. Carroll, gloomily. "I would do anything in
+the world to save Lora's fair fame if I only knew what to do!"
+
+"I have a plan," said Xenie, rising quietly. "I will tell it you
+by-and-by, mamma. Everything shall come right if you will be guided by
+me. Now take me to my sister, if you please."
+
+Mrs. Carroll rose silently and opened the door. Xenie followed her down
+a narrow passage to a door at the further end, and they entered a pretty
+and neat little room.
+
+A low wood fire burned on the cleanly swept hearth, and on the white
+bed, with her dark hair trailing loosely over the pillows, lay a
+beautiful, white-faced girl, enough like Xenie to be her twin.
+
+She started up with a cry of mingled joy and pain as the new-comer came
+toward her.
+
+"My poor darling!" Mrs. St. John murmured, in a tone of infinite love
+and compassion, as she twined her arms around the trembling form.
+
+Lora clung to her sister, sobbing and weeping convulsively. At length
+she whispered against her shoulder:
+
+"Mamma has told you all, Xenie?"
+
+"Yes, dear," was the gentle answer.
+
+"And you--you believe that I was married?" questioned the invalid.
+
+"Yes, darling," whispered her sister, tenderly. "How could I believe
+evil of you, my innocent, little Lora?"
+
+"Thank God!" cried the invalid, gratefully. "Oh! Xenie, mamma has been
+so angry it nearly broke my heart."
+
+"She will forgive you, darling," murmured Mrs. St. John, fondly, as she
+stroked the dark head nestling on her breast.
+
+"And, oh, Xenie, poor Jack--my Jack--he is dead!" sobbed Lora, bursting
+into a fit of wild, hysterical weeping.
+
+"There, darling, hush--you must not excite yourself," said Mrs. St.
+John, laying her sister back upon the pillows, and trying to soothe her
+frenzied excitement.
+
+"And no one will believe that I was Jack's wife--I am disgraced forever!
+Mamma says so. The finger of scorn will be pointed at me everywhere. But
+what do I care, since my heart is broken? I only want to die!" moaned
+the unhappy young creature, as she tossed to and fro upon the bed.
+
+"Be quiet, Lora; listen to me," said Mrs. St. John, taking the restless,
+white hands in her own, and sitting down upon the bed. "I wish to talk
+to you as soon as you become reasonable."
+
+Thus adjured, Lora hushed her sobs by a great effort, and lay perfectly
+still but for the uncontrollable heaving of her troubled breast, her
+large, hollow, dark eyes fixed earnestly on Xenie's pale and lovely
+face.
+
+Mrs. Carroll crouched down in a chair by the side of the bed, the image
+of hopeless woe.
+
+"Lora, dear," said her sister, in low, earnest tones, "of course you
+know that, if this dreadful thing becomes known, the disgrace will be
+reflected upon us all."
+
+Mrs. Carroll groaned, and Lora murmured a pitiful yes.
+
+"I have thought of a plan to save you," continued Mrs. St. John. "A
+clever plan that would shield your fair fame forever. But it will
+require some co-operation on your part, and it may be that you and mamma
+may refuse for you to undertake it."
+
+"You may count on my consent beforehand!" groaned Mrs. Carroll,
+desperately.
+
+"I will do whatever mamma says," murmured Lora, weakly.
+
+Mrs. St. John looked away from them a moment in silent thought; then she
+said, slowly:
+
+"Of course, you know, mamma, that my husband died without a will, and
+that Howard Templeton inherited the greater part of his wealth?"
+
+"Yes; you wrote me. I was very sorry that you were disappointed, dear,"
+said her mother, gently, yet wondering what this had to do with Lora's
+forlorn case.
+
+"Mamma," said Xenie, slowly, "if my husband had left me as Lora's left
+her, I could have kept that fortune out of Howard Templeton's hands."
+
+"My dear, I hardly understand you," said her mother, blankly.
+
+"Mamma, I mean that if I could hope for an heir to my husband, the child
+would inherit all that wealth, and Howard Templeton be left penniless."
+
+"Oh, yes, I understand you now," was the quick reply, "but you have no
+prospect, no hope of such a thing--have you, dear?"
+
+There was a moment's silence, and Mrs. St. John's fair face grew
+scarlet, then deadly white again. She looked away from her mother, and
+said, slowly:
+
+"Yes, mamma, I have such a hope. Listen to me, you and Lora, and I will
+help you in your trouble, and you shall help me to complete my revenge."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+Some three or four weeks after Mrs. St. John's visit to the country,
+Howard Templeton was sitting in his club one day, smoking and reading,
+after a most luxurious lunch.
+
+The young fellow looked very comfortable as he leaned back in his
+cushioned chair, the blue smoke curling in airy rings over his curly,
+blonde head, a look of lazy contentment in his handsome blue eyes.
+
+He was somewhat of a Sybarite in his tastes, this handsome young
+fellow, over whose head twenty-five happy years had rolled serenely,
+without a shadow to mar their brightness save that unfortunate love
+affair two years before.
+
+Howard was, emphatically, one of the "gilded youth" of his day. He
+"toiled not, neither did he spin." He had been cradled in luxury's
+silken lap all his life long.
+
+Sorrow had passed him tenderly by as one exempt from the common ills of
+life.
+
+He was so accustomed to his good luck that he seldom gave a thought to
+it. It simply seemed to him that he would go on that way forever.
+
+Yet, to-day, for a wonder, he had been a little thoughtfully reviewing
+the events of the past six months.
+
+"It was very kind in Uncle John to leave things so comfortable for me,"
+he said to himself. "I thought his wife would influence him against me
+so much that he wouldn't have left me a penny. If he hadn't, what the
+deuce should I have done?"
+
+He paused a moment, in comical amusement, to survey the situation; but
+the idea was too stupendous.
+
+He could not even fancy himself the victim of adversity, much less tell
+what he would have done in that case. He laughed at it after a moment.
+
+"I cannot even imagine it," he thought. "Poor little Xenie, how hard it
+went with her to be foiled in her revenge, as she called it. How she
+must have loved me to have turned against me so when I gave her up! Who
+would have believed that we two should ever hate each other with such a
+deadly hate?"
+
+Something like a smothered sigh went upward with the blue cigar smoke,
+and just then a footstep crossed the threshold, and a man's voice said,
+lightly:
+
+"Halloo, Doctor Templeton; enjoying yourself, as usual."
+
+"Halloo, Doctor Shirley," returned Templeton, with a lazy nod at the
+new-comer. "Have a smoke?"
+
+"I don't care if I do," said the doctor, throwing himself down in an
+easy-chair opposite the speaker, and lighting a weed. "How deuced
+comfortable you look, my boy!"
+
+"Feel that way," lisped Templeton, in a lazy tone.
+
+"Ah! I don't think you would feel so devil-may-care if you knew all that
+I know, old boy," laughed the doctor, significantly.
+
+The old doctor was very well known at the club as a gossip, so Templeton
+only laughed carelessly as he said:
+
+"What's the matter, doctor? Any of my sweethearts sick or dead?"
+
+"Not that I know of," said Doctor Shirley. "However, Templeton, if any
+of your sweethearts has money, take my advice, young fellow, and make
+up to her without delay."
+
+Howard Templeton laughed at the doctor's sage advice.
+
+"Thanks," he said, "but I do very well as I am, doctor. I don't care to
+become a subject for petticoat government, yet."
+
+"Yet things looked that way two years ago," said Doctor Shirley,
+maliciously, for Templeton's ardent devotion to Mrs. Egerton's lovely
+_debutante_ at that time had been no secret in society.
+
+Templeton's blonde face flushed a dark red all over, yet he laughed
+carelessly.
+
+"Oh, yes, I had the fever," he said. "However, its severity then
+precludes the danger of ever having a second attack. How little I
+dreamed that she would be my aunt."
+
+"Or your _bete noire_," said the doctor.
+
+"Hardly that," said Templeton, composedly, as he knocked the ashes from
+the end of his cigar. "True, she has taken a slice of my fortune away,
+but then there's yet enough to butter my bread."
+
+"There may not be much longer," said Doctor Shirley, meaningly.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Templeton, looking at him as if he had serious
+doubts of his sanity. "Who's going to take it away from me? Has Mrs. St.
+John found the will she talked of so much?"
+
+"No," said Doctor Shirley, "but she has found something that will serve
+her as well."
+
+"Confound it, doctor, I don't understand you at all," said the young
+fellow, a little testily. "What are you driving at, anyway?"
+
+"Templeton, honestly, I hate to tell you," said the physician, sobering
+down, "but I've bad news for you. You know that Mrs. St. John has been
+ill lately, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, I heard it--thought, perhaps, she meant to shuffle off this mortal
+coil and leave me the balance of my uncle's property," said the young
+man, imperturbably.
+
+"Nothing further from her thoughts, I assure you," was the laughing
+reply. "She has been quite ill, but she is well enough to come down into
+the drawing-room to-day. Come, now, Templeton, guess what I have to tell
+you?"
+
+"'Pon honor, doctor, I haven't the faintest idea. Does it refer to my
+fair and respected aunt? Is it a new freak of hers?"
+
+"Yes, decidedly a new freak," said the doctor, laughing heartily, and
+enjoying his joke very much.
+
+"Well, then, out with it," said Howard, growing impatient. "Does she
+accuse me of stealing and secreting that fabulous missing will?"
+
+"Not that I am aware of," and Doctor Shirley rose and threw away his
+half-smoked cigar, saying, carelessly: "I must be going. We poor devils
+of doctors never have time to smoke a whole cigar. Say, Templeton, Mrs.
+St. John has her mother and sister staying with her. Deuced handsome
+girl, that Lora Carroll! Very like her sister! And--don't go off in a
+fit, now, Templeton--in a very few months there will be a little heir to
+your deceased uncle's name and fortune!"
+
+"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Howard Templeton, springing to his feet,
+while his handsome face grew white and red by turns.
+
+"You don't believe it? That's because you don't want to believe it. But
+I give you my word and honor as a professional man and her medical
+attendant, that it is a self-evident fact," and laughing at his, little
+joke, the gossiping old doctor hurried away from the club-room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+"I don't believe it!" Howard Templeton repeated angrily, as he stood
+still where Doctor Shirley had left him, those unexpected words ringing
+through his brain.
+
+"What is it you don't believe, Templeton?" inquired one of the "gilded
+youth," dawdling in and overhearing the remark.
+
+"I don't believe anything--that's my creed," answered Templeton,
+snatching his hat, and hurrying out. He wanted to be out in the cold,
+fresh air. Somehow it seemed to him as if a hand grasped his throat,
+choking his life out.
+
+He walked aimlessly up and down the crowded thoroughfare, seemingly
+blind and deaf to all that went on around him.
+
+Men's eyes remarked the tall, well-proportioned form and handsome,
+blonde face with envy.
+
+Women looked after him admiringly, thinking how splendid it would be to
+have such a man for a lover. Howard heeded nothing of it. He was
+accustomed to it. He simply took it for his due, and he had other things
+to engross his mind now.
+
+"It can't be true, it can't be true," he said to himself, again and
+again in his restless walk. "It is the most undreamed of thing. Who
+could believe it?"
+
+And yet it troubled him despite his incredulity. It troubled him so much
+that he went to see a lawyer about it.
+
+He stated the case, and asked him frankly what were his chances if such
+a thing really should happen.
+
+"No chance at all," was the grim reply. "If you did not resign your
+claim, Mrs. St. John would naturally sue you for the money on behalf of
+the legal heir."
+
+"And then?" asked Howard.
+
+"The case would certainly go against you."
+
+Howard went out again and took another walk. He tried to fancy
+himself--Howard Templeton, the golden youth--face to face with the grim
+fiend, poverty.
+
+He wondered how it would feel to earn his dinner before he ate it, to
+wear out his old coats, and have to count the cost of new ones, as he
+had vaguely heard that poor men had to do.
+
+"I can't imagine it," he said to himself. "Time enough to bother my
+brain with such conundrums if the thing really comes to pass. And if it
+does, what a glorious triumph it will be for 'mine enemy!' I'd like to
+see her--by Jove, I believe I'll go there."
+
+He stopped short, filled with the new idea, then hurried on, recalled to
+himself by a stare of surprise from a casual passer-by.
+
+"Yes; why shouldn't I go there, by George?" he went on. "It was my home
+before she came there. The world doesn't know that we are 'at outs,'
+although we are sworn foes privately. I'll pretend to call on Lora
+Carroll. Lora was a pretty girl enough when I was down there that
+summer, young and unformed, though time has remedied that defect,
+doubtless. Doctor Shirley thought her handsome. Yes, I will call on
+little Lora. A daring thing to do, perhaps, but then I'm in the mood for
+daring a great deal."
+
+The lamps were lighted and the glare of the gas flared down upon him as
+he thus made up his mind.
+
+He went to his hotel, made an elaborate and elegant toilet, as if
+anxious to please, then sallied forth toward the brown-stone palace
+where his enemy reigned in triumph.
+
+A soft and subdued light shone through the curtains of rose-colored silk
+and creamy lace that shaded the windows of the drawing-room. A fancy
+seized upon Howard to peep through them before he went up the marble
+steps and sent in his card.
+
+"For who knows that they may decline to see me," he thought, "and I am
+determined to get one look at Xenie. I want to see if she looks very
+happy over her triumph."
+
+He glanced around, saw that no one was passing, and cautiously went up
+to the window.
+
+It was as much as he could do, tall as he was, to peer into the room by
+standing on tiptoe.
+
+He looked into the beautiful and spacious room where he had spent many
+happy hours with his deceased uncle in years gone by, and a sigh to the
+memory of those old days breathed softly over his lips, and a dimness
+came into his bright blue eyes.
+
+He brushed it away, and looked around for the beautiful woman who had
+come between him and the poor old man who had brought him up as his
+heir.
+
+He saw two ladies in the room.
+
+One of them was quite elderly, and had gray hair crimped beneath a
+pretty cap.
+
+She wore black silk, and sat on a sofa trifling over a bit of fancy
+knitting.
+
+"That is Mrs. Carroll," he said to himself. "She is a pretty old lady,
+though she looks so old and careworn. But she is poor, and that explains
+it. I dare say I shall grow gray and careworn too when Mrs. St. John
+takes my uncle's money from me, and I have to earn my bread before I eat
+it."
+
+He saw another lady standing with her back to him by the piano.
+
+She was _petite_ and slender, with a crown of braided black hair, and
+her robe of rich, wine-colored silk and velvet trailed far behind her on
+the costly carpet.
+
+She stood perfectly still for a few moments, then turned slowly around,
+and he saw her face.
+
+"Why, it is Xenie herself!" he exclaimed. "Doctor Shirley lied to me,
+and I was fool enough to believe his silly joke. Heaven! what I have
+suffered through my foolish credulity! I've a mind to call Shirley out
+and shoot him for his atrocity!"
+
+He remained silent a little while studying the lady's dark, beautiful,
+smiling face, when suddenly he saw the door unclose, and a lady, dressed
+in the deepest sables of mourning, entered and walked across the floor
+and sat down by Mrs. Carroll's side upon the sofa.
+
+Howard Templeton started, and a hollow groan broke from his lips.
+
+"My God!" he breathed to himself, "I was mistaken. It is Lora, of
+course, in that bright-hued dress. How like she is to Xenie! I ought to
+have remembered that my uncle's wife would be in mourning. Yes, that is
+Xenie by her mother's side, and Doctor Shirley told me the fatal truth!"
+
+He walked away from the window, and made several hurried turns up and
+down before the house.
+
+"Shall I go in?" he asked himself. "I know all I came for, now. Yes, I
+will be fool enough to go in anyhow."
+
+He went up the steps and rang the bell, waiting nervously for the great,
+carved door to open.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+The door swung slowly open, and the gray-haired old servitor whom Howard
+could remember from childhood, took his card and disappeared down the
+hallway.
+
+Presently he returned, and informed the young man that the ladies would
+receive him; and Howard, half regretting, when too late, the hasty
+impulse that had prompted him enter, was ushered into the drawing-room.
+
+The next moment he found himself returning a stiff, icy bow from his
+uncle's widow, a half-embarrassed greeting from Mrs. Carroll, and
+shaking hands with the beautiful Lora, who gave him a shy yet perfectly
+self-possessed welcome and referred to his visit to the country two
+years before in a pretty, _naive_ way, showing that she remembered him
+perfectly; although, as she averred, she was little more than a child at
+the time.
+
+They sat down, and he and Miss Carroll had the talk mostly to
+themselves, though now and then his glance strayed from her bright,
+vivacious countenance to the sad, white face of the young widow sitting
+beside her mother on the sofa, the dark lashes shading her colorless
+cheeks, a sorrowful droop about her beautiful lips as if her thoughts
+dwelt on some mournful theme.
+
+Howard had heard people say that she looked ill and pale since Mr. St.
+John's death, and that after all she must have cared for him a little.
+
+He knew better than that, of course, yet he could not but acknowledge
+that she played the part of a bereaved wife to perfection.
+
+"It looks like real grief," he said to himself; "but, of course, I know
+that it is the loss of the money and not the man that weighs her spirits
+down so heavily."
+
+"You resemble your sister very much, Miss Carroll," he said to Lora,
+after a little while. "If I were an Irishman, I should say that you look
+more like your sister than you do like yourself."
+
+The careless, yet odd little speech seemed to have an inexplicable
+effect upon Lora Carroll. She started violently, her cheeks lost their
+soft, pink color, the bright smile faded from her lips, and she gave the
+speaker a keen, half-furtive glance from under her dark-fringed
+eyelashes.
+
+She tried to laugh, but it sounded forced and unnatural.
+
+Mrs. Carroll, who had been silently listening, broke in carelessly
+before Lora could speak:
+
+"Yes, indeed, Lora and Xenie are exceedingly like each other, Mr.
+Templeton. Their aunt, Mrs. Egerton, says that Lora is now the living
+image of Xenie, when she first came to the city, two years ago."
+
+"I quite agree with her," Mr. Templeton answered, in a light tone, and
+with a bow to Mrs. Carroll. "The resemblance is very striking."
+
+As he spoke, he moved his chair forward, carelessly yet deliberately, so
+that he might look into Mrs. St. John's beautiful, pale face.
+
+The young widow did not seem to relish his furtive contemplation. She
+flushed slightly, and her white hands clasped and unclasped themselves
+nervously, as they lay folded together in her lap.
+
+She turned her head to one side that she might not encounter the full
+gaze of his eyes. He smiled to himself at her embarrassment and, turning
+from her, allowed his gaze to rest upon the bright fire burning behind
+the polished steel bars of the grate.
+
+A momentary unpleasant silence fell upon them all. Lora broke it after a
+moment's thought by saying, carelessly, as she opened the piano:
+
+"I remember that you used to sing very well, Mr. Templeton. Won't you
+favor us now?"
+
+"Lora, my dear," Mrs. Carroll said, in a gently-shocked voice, "you
+forget that music may not be agreeable to your sister so recently
+bereaved."
+
+"Oh, Xenie, dear, I beg your pardon," began Lora, turning around, but
+Mrs. St. John interrupted her by saying, wearily:
+
+"Never mind, mamma, never mind, Lora. I--I--my head aches--I will retire
+if you will excuse me, and then you may have all the music you wish."
+
+She arose from her seat, gave Mr. Templeton a chill, little bow which he
+returned as coldly, then went slowly from the room, trailing her sable
+robes behind her like a pall.
+
+"As cold as ice, by Jove," was Howard's mental comment; "yet she did not
+appear particularly elated over her prospective triumph. Strange!"
+
+He crossed over to the piano where Lora was restlessly turning over some
+sheets of music.
+
+"Won't you sing to me, Miss Carroll?" he asked, in a soft, alluring
+voice.
+
+Lora sat down on the music-stool and laughed as she ran her white
+fingers over the pearl keys.
+
+"Excuse me--I do not sing," she said, carelessly. "But I will play your
+accompaniment if you will select a song."
+
+"You do not sing," he said, as he began to turn over the music. "Ah!
+there is one point at least in which you do not resemble your sister.
+Mrs. St. John has a very fine voice."
+
+"Yes. Xenie's voice has been well trained," she answered, carelessly;
+"but I do not care to sing, I would rather hear others."
+
+"How will this please you?" he inquired, selecting a song and laying it
+up before her.
+
+She glanced at it and answered composedly:
+
+"As well as any. I remember this song. I heard you sing it with Xenie
+that summer."
+
+"Yes, our voices went well together," he answered, as carelessly. "I
+wish you would sing it with me now?"
+
+"I cannot, but I will play it for you. Shall we begin now?"
+
+He was silent a moment, looking down at her as she sat there with
+down-drooped eyes, the gleam of the firelight and gaslight shining on
+the black braids of her hair and the rich, warm-hued dress that was so
+very becoming to her dark, bright beauty.
+
+Suddenly he saw something on the white hand that was softly touching the
+piano keys. He took the slim fingers in his before she was aware.
+
+"Let me see your ring," he said. "It looks familiar. Ah, it is the one I
+gave you that winter when we----"
+
+She threw back her head and looked at him with wide, angry, black eyes.
+
+"What do you mean?" she said imperiously. "Are you crazy, Mr. Templeton?
+It is the ring you gave Xenie, certainly, but not me!"
+
+"Lora, love," said her mother's voice from the sofa, in mild reproval.
+"Do not be rude to Mr. Templeton."
+
+"Mamma, I don't mean to," said Lora, without turning her head; "but
+he--he spoke as if I were Xenie."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Miss Carroll," said the offender, with a teasing
+look in his blue eyes, which she did not see; "I did not mean to offend,
+but do you know that in talking with you, I constantly find myself under
+the impression that I am talking to your sister. It is one effect of the
+wonderful resemblance, I presume."
+
+"Yes, I suppose so," admitted Lora; "but," she continued, in a tone of
+pretty, girlish pique, "I wish you would try and recollect the
+difference. I am two years younger than my sister, remember, and so it
+is not a compliment to be taken for a person older than myself!"
+
+"Of course not," said Mr. Templeton, soothingly; "but it was the ring,
+please remember, that led me into error this time. You see, I gave it
+to----"
+
+"Yes, you gave it to Xenie," broke in Lora, promptly and coolly; "yes, I
+know that, but you see she was tired of it, or rather she did not care
+for it any more--so she gave it to me."
+
+His face whitened angrily, but he said, with assumed carelessness:
+
+"And you--do you care for it, Miss Carroll?"
+
+She lifted her hand and looked at the flashing ruby with a smile.
+
+"Yes, I like it. It is very handsome, and must have cost a large sum of
+money--more than I ever saw, probably, at one time in my life, I
+suppose, for I am poor, as you know."
+
+"I thought we were going to have some music, Lora," exclaimed Mrs.
+Carroll, gasping audibly over her knitting. "You weary Mr. Templeton
+with your idle talk."
+
+"He began it, mamma," said Lora, carelessly. "Well, Mr. Templeton, I'm
+going to begin the accompaniment. Get ready."
+
+She touched the keys with skillful fingers, waking a soft, melancholy
+prelude, and Howard sang in his full, rich, tenor voice:
+
+    "'Hapless doom of woman happy in betrothing!
+      Beauty passes like a breath, and love is lost in loathing;
+      Low, my lute; speak low, my lute, but say the world is nothing--
+                          Low, lute, low!
+
+    "'Love will hover round the flowers when they first awaken;
+      Love will fly the fallen leaf, and not be overtaken;
+      Low, my lute! oh, low, my lute! we fade and are forsaken--
+                          Low, dear lute, low!'"
+
+"The poet has very happily blended truth and poesy in that very pathetic
+song," remarked Lora, with a touch of careless scorn in her voice, as
+the rich notes ceased. "Well, Mr. Templeton, will you try another song?"
+
+"No, thank you, Miss Carroll--I must be going. I have already trespassed
+upon your time and patience."
+
+Lora did not gainsay the assertion.
+
+She rose with an almost audible sigh of relief, and stood waiting for
+him to say good-night.
+
+"May I come and see you again?" he asked, as he bowed over the delicate
+hand that wore his ruby ring.
+
+"I--we--that is, mamma and I--are going away soon. It may
+not--perhaps--be convenient for us to receive you again," stammered
+Lora, hesitating and blushing like the veriest school-girl.
+
+"Ah! I am sorry," he said; "well, then, good-night, and good-bye."
+
+He shook hands with both, holding Lora's hand a trifle longer than
+necessary, then courteously turned away.
+
+When he was gone, the beautiful girl knelt down by her mother and lifted
+her flushed and brilliant face with a look of inquiry upon it.
+
+"Well, mamma?" she questioned, gravely.
+
+Mrs. Carroll smiled encouragingly.
+
+"My dear, you acted splendidly," she said, "and so did your sister. I
+was afraid at first. I thought you were wrong to admit him. It was a
+terrible test, for the eyes of hatred are even keener than those of
+love. I trembled for you at first, but you stood the trial nobly. He was
+completely hoodwinked. No fear now. If you could blind Howard Templeton
+to the truth, there can be no trouble with the rest of the world."
+
+"And yet once or twice I was terribly frightened," said the girl
+musingly. "The looks he gave me, the tones of his voice, sometimes his
+very words, made me tremble with fear. It was, as you say, a terrible
+test, but I am glad now that I risked it, for I believe that I have
+succeeded in blinding him. All goes well with us, mamma. Doctor Shirley
+and Howard Templeton have been completely deceived. The rest will be
+very easy of accomplishment."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+Thanks to the gossiping tongue of old Doctor Shirley, the interesting
+news regarding Mrs. St. John speedily became a widespread and accepted
+fact in society.
+
+It was quite a nine days' wonder at first, and in connection with its
+discussion a vast deal of speculation was indulged in regarding the
+possible future of Mr. Howard Templeton, the fair and gilded youth whose
+heritage might soon be wrested from him, leaving him to battle
+single-handed with the world.
+
+Before people had stopped wondering over it, Mrs. Egerton added her
+quota to the excitement by the information that her niece, Mrs. St.
+John, had gone abroad, taking her mother and sister with her.
+
+_She_ had wanted Lora with _her_ that season--she had long ago promised
+Mrs. Carroll to give Lora a season in the city--but the girl was so wild
+over the idea of travel that Xenie had taken her with her for company,
+acting on the advice of Doctor Shirley, who declared that change of
+scene and cheerful company were actually essential to the preservation
+of the young invalid's life.
+
+The old doctor, when people interrogated him, confirmed Mrs. Egerton's
+assertion.
+
+He said that Mrs. St. John had fallen into a state of depression and
+melancholy so deep as to threaten her health and even her life.
+
+He had advocated an European tour as the most likely means of rousing
+her from her grief and restoring her cheerful spirits, and she had
+taken him at his word and gone.
+
+So when Howard Templeton, who had gone down into the country on a little
+mysterious mission of his own the day after his visit to Lora Carroll,
+returned to the city, he was electrified by the announcement that Mrs.
+St. John, with her mother and sister, had sailed for Europe two days
+previous.
+
+Howard was unfeignedly surprised and confounded at the news.
+
+His face was a study for a physiognomist as he revolved it in his mind.
+
+He went to his private room, ensconced himself in the easiest chair,
+elevated his feet several degrees higher than his head, and with his
+fair, clustering locks and bright, blue eyes half obscured in a cloud of
+cigar smoke, tried to digest the astonishing fact which he had just
+learned.
+
+It did not take him long to do so.
+
+The brain beneath the white brow and fair, clustering curls was a very
+clear and lucid one.
+
+He sprang to his feet at last, and said aloud:
+
+"How clever she is, to be sure! It is the most natural thing in the
+world and the easiest way of carrying out her daring scheme. How
+perfectly it will smooth over everything."
+
+He walked up and down the richly carpeted room in his blue Turkish silk
+dressing-gown, his dark brows drawn together in a thoughtful frown, the
+lights and shades of conflicting feelings faithfully mirrored on his
+fair and handsome face.
+
+"Why not?" he said, aloud, presently, as if discussing some vexed
+problem with his inner consciousness. "Why not? I have as good a right
+to follow as she had to go. I need have no compunctions about spending
+Uncle John's money. The stroke of fate has not fallen yet. The fabled
+sword of Damocles hangs suspended over my head, still it may never fall.
+And in the meantime, why shouldn't I enjoy an European tour? I will, by
+Jove, I'll follow my Lady Lora by the next steamer. And then--ah,
+then--checkmate my lady."
+
+He laughed grimly, and nodded at his full length reflection in the long
+pier-glass at the end of the room.
+
+Then after that moment of exultation a different mood seemed to come
+over him. His handsome face became grave and even sad.
+
+Throwing himself down carelessly upon a luxurious divan, he took up a
+volume of poetry lying near and tried to lose himself in its pages.
+
+    "Alas! how easily things go wrong,
+     A sigh too much or a kiss too long--
+     And there follows a mist and a blushing rain,
+     And life is never the same again."
+
+He read the words out moodily, then threw the book down impatiently upon
+the floor.
+
+"These foolish poets!" he said, half-angrily. "They seem always to be
+aiming at the sore spots in a fellow's heart. How they rake over the
+ashes of a dead love and strew them along one's path. Love! how strange
+the word sounds now, when I hate _her_ so bitterly!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+"Darling, how beautiful the sea is. Look how the sun sparkles on the
+emerald waves, like millions and millions of the brightest diamonds."
+
+Poor little Lora, sitting in the easy-chair on the wide veranda of the
+little ornate cottage, a forlorn little figure in the deepest of sables,
+looked up in her sister's face an instant, then burst into a passion of
+bitter tears.
+
+"The sea, the sea," she moaned despairingly. "Oh! why did you bring me
+here? I hate the sight and the sound of it! Oh! my poor Jack! my poor
+Jack!"
+
+Mrs. St. John and Mrs. Carroll exchanged compassionate yet troubled
+glances, and the latter said gently, yet remonstratingly:
+
+"My dear, my dear, indeed you must not give up to your feelings on every
+occasion like this. In your weak state of health it is positively
+dangerous to allow such excitement."
+
+"I don't care, I don't care," wept Lora wildly, hiding her convulsed
+face against Xenie's compassionate breast. "My heart is broken! I have
+nothing left to live for, and I wish that I were dead!"
+
+"Darling, let me lead you in. Perhaps if you will lie down and rest you
+will feel better in both body and mind," said Mrs. St. John, in the
+gentle, pitying accents used to a sick child.
+
+Lora arose obediently, and leaning on Xenie's arm, was led into her
+little, airy, white-hung chamber. There her sister persuaded her to lie
+down upon a lounge while she hovered about her, rendering numberless
+gentle little attentions, and talking to her in soft, soothing tones.
+
+"Xenie, you are so kind to me," said the invalid, looking at her sister,
+with a beam of gratitude shining in her large, tearful, dark eyes.
+
+"It is a selfish kindness after all, though, my darling," said Mrs. St.
+John, gently, "for you know I expect a great reward for what I have done
+for you. My sisterly duty and my own selfish interest have gone
+hand-in-hand in this case."
+
+A bright, triumphant smile flashed over her beautiful features as she
+spoke, and the invalid, looking at her, sighed wearily.
+
+"Xenie," she said, half-hesitatingly, "do not be angry, dear, but I wish
+you would give up this wild passion of revenge that possesses you. I lie
+awake nights thinking of it and of my troubles, and I feel more and more
+that it will be a dreadful deception. Are you not afraid?"
+
+"Afraid of what?" inquired her sister, with a little, impatient ring in
+the clear, musical tones of her voice.
+
+"Afraid of--of being found out," said Lora, sinking her voice to the
+faintest whisper.
+
+"There is not the least danger," returned her sister, confidently. "We
+have managed everything so cleverly there will never be the faintest
+clew even if the ruse were ever suspected, which it will never be, for
+who would dream of such a thing? Lora, my dear little sister, I would do
+much for you, but don't ask me to give up my revenge upon Howard
+Templeton. I hate him so for his despicable cowardice that nothing on
+earth would tempt me to forego the sweetness of my glorious vengeance."
+
+"Yet once you loved him," said Lora, with a grave wonder in her sad,
+white face.
+
+She stared and flushed at Lora's gently reproachful words.
+
+She remembered suddenly that someone else had said those words to her in
+just the same tone of wonder and reproach.
+
+The night of her short-lived triumph came back into her mind--that
+brilliant bridal-night when she and Howard Templeton had declared war
+against each other--war to the knife.
+
+"Yes, once I loved him," she said, with a tone of bitter self-scorn.
+"But listen to me, Lora. Suppose Jack had treated you as Howard
+Templeton did me?"
+
+"Jack could not have done it; he loved me too truly," said Lora, lifting
+her head in unconscious pride.
+
+"You are right, Lora, Jack Mainwaring could not have done it. Few men
+could have been so base," said Xenie, bitterly. "But, Lora, dear,
+suppose he _had_ treated you so cruelly--mind, I only say
+suppose--should you not have hated him for it, and wanted to make his
+heart ache in return?"
+
+Lora was silent a moment. The beautiful young face, so like Xenie's in
+outline and coloring, so different in its expression of mournful
+despair, took on an expression of deep tenderness and gentleness as she
+said, at length:
+
+"No Xenie, I could not have hated Jack even if he had acted like Mr.
+Templeton. I am very poor-spirited perhaps; but I believe if Jack had
+treated me so I might have hated the sin, but I could not have helped
+loving the sinner."
+
+"Ah, Lora, you do not know how you would have felt in such a case. You
+have been mercifully spared the trial. Let us drop the subject,"
+answered Xenie, a little shortly.
+
+Lora sighed wearily and turned her head away, throwing her
+black-bordered handkerchief over her face.
+
+Her sister stood still a moment, watching the quiet, recumbent figure,
+then went to the window, and, drawing the lace curtains aside, stood
+silently looking out at the beautiful sea, with the sunset glories
+reflected in the opalescent waves, the soft, spring breeze fluttering
+the silken rings of dark hair that shaded her broad, white brow.
+
+As she stood there in the soft sunset light in her bright young beauty
+and rich attire, a smile of proud triumph curved her scarlet lips.
+
+"Ah, Howard Templeton," she mused, "the hour of my triumph is close at
+hand."
+
+And then, in a gentler tone, while a shade of anxiety clouded her face,
+she added:
+
+"But poor little Lora! Pray God all may go well with her!"
+
+The roseate hues of sunset faded slowly out, and the purple twilight
+began to obscure everything.
+
+One by one the little stars sparkled out and took their wonted places in
+the bright constellations of Heaven.
+
+Still Xenie remained motionless at the window, and still Lora lay
+quietly on her couch, her pale, anguished young face hidden beneath the
+mourning handkerchief.
+
+Her sister turned around once and looked at her, thinking she was
+asleep.
+
+But suddenly in the darkness that began to pervade the room, Xenie
+caught a faint and smothered moan of pain.
+
+Instantly she hurried to Lora's side.
+
+"My dear, are you in pain?" she said.
+
+Lora raised herself and looked at Xenie's anxious face.
+
+"I--oh, yes, dear," she said, in a frightened tone; "I am ill. Pray go
+and send mother to me."
+
+Mrs. St. John pressed a tender kiss on the pain-drawn lips and hurried
+out to seek her mother.
+
+She found her in the little dining-room of the cottage laying the cloth
+and making the tea. She looked up with a gentle, motherly smile.
+
+"My dear, you are hungry for your tea--you and Lora, I expect," she
+said. "I let the maid go home to stay with her ailing mother to-night,
+and promised to make the tea myself. It will be ready now in a minute.
+Is Lora asleep?"
+
+"Lora is ill, mamma. I will finish the tea, and you must go to her,"
+said Xenie, with a quiver in her low voice, as she took the cloth from
+her mother's hand.
+
+"Lora sick?" said Mrs. Carroll. "Well, Xenie, I rather expected it. I
+will go to her. Never mind about the tea, dear, unless you want some
+yourself."
+
+She bustled out, and Xenie went on mechanically setting the tea-things
+on the little round table, scarcely conscious of what she was doing, so
+heavy was her heart.
+
+She loved her sister with as fond a love as ever throbbed in a sister's
+breast and Lora's peril roused her sympathies to their highest pitch.
+
+Finishing her simple task at last, she filled a little china cup with
+fragrant tea and carried it to the patient's room.
+
+Mrs. Carroll had enveloped Lora in her snowy embroidered night-robe, and
+she lay upon the bed looking very pale and preternaturally calm to
+Xenie's excited fancy.
+
+She drank a little of the tea, then sent Xenie away with it, telling her
+that she felt quite easy then.
+
+"Go and sit on the veranda as usual, my dear," Mrs. Carroll said,
+kindly. "I will sit with Lora myself."
+
+"You will call me if I am needed?" asked Mrs. St. John, hesitating on
+the threshold.
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+So Xenie went away very sad and heavy-hearted, as if the burden of some
+intangible sorrow rested painfully upon her oppressed and aching heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+Xenie sat down in the easy-chair on the veranda and looked out at the
+mystical sea spread out before her gaze, with the moon and stars
+mirrored in its restless bosom.
+
+Everything was very still. No sound came to her ears save the restless
+beat of the waves upon the shore. She leaned forward with her arms
+folded on the veranda rail, and her chin in the hollow of one pink palm,
+gazing directly forward with dark eyes full of heavy sadness and pain.
+
+She was tired and depressed. Lora had been ill and restless for many
+nights past, and Xenie and Mrs. Carroll had kept alternate vigils by her
+sleepless couch.
+
+The last night had been Xenie's turn, and now the strange, narcotic
+influence of her grief for Lora combined with physical weariness to
+weigh her eyelids down.
+
+After an interval of anxious listening for sounds from the sick-room,
+her heavy head dropped wearily on her folded arms, and she fell asleep.
+
+Sleeping, she dreamed. It seemed to her that Howard Templeton, whom once
+she loved so madly, whom now she bitterly hated, came to her side, and
+looking down upon her in the sweet spring moonlight, laid his hand upon
+her and said, gravely, and almost imploringly:
+
+"Xenie, this is the turning-point in your life. Two paths lay before
+you. Choose the right one and all will go well with you. Peace and
+happiness will be yours. But choose the evil path and the finger of
+scorn will one day be pointed at you so that you will not dare to lift
+your eyes for shame."
+
+In her dream Xenie thought that she threw off her enemy's hand with
+scorn and loathing.
+
+Then it seemed to her that he gathered her up in his arms and was about
+to cast her into the deep, terrible sea, when she awoke with a great
+start, and found herself struggling in the arms of her mother, who had
+lifted her out of the chair, and was saying, impatiently:
+
+"Xenie, Xenie! child, wake up. You will get your death of cold sleeping
+out here in the damp night air, and the wind and moisture from the sea
+blowing over you."
+
+Xenie shook herself free from her mother's grasp, and looked around her
+for her deadly foe, so real had seemed her dream.
+
+But she saw no tall, proud, manly form, no handsome, blonde face gazing
+down upon her as she looked.
+
+There was only the cold, white moonlight lying in silvery bars on the
+floor, and her mother still shaking her by the arm.
+
+"Xenie, Xenie, wake up," she reiterated. "Here I have been shaking and
+shaking you, and all in vain. You slept like the dead."
+
+"Mamma, I was dreaming," said Mrs. St. John, coming back to herself with
+a start. "What is the matter? What is the matter? Is my sister worse?"
+
+Mrs. Carroll took her daughter's hand and drew her inside the hallway,
+then shut and locked the door.
+
+"No, Xenie," she said, abruptly, "Lora is not worse--she is better. Are
+you awake? Do you know what I am saying? Lora has a beautiful son."
+
+"Oh, mamma, it was but a minute ago that I went out on the veranda."
+
+Mrs. Carroll laughed softly.
+
+"Oh, no, my dear. It was several hours ago. You have been asleep a long
+time. It is nearly midnight."
+
+"And Lora really has a son, mamma?"
+
+"Yes, Xenie: the finest little fellow I ever saw."
+
+"You promised to call me if she became worse and you needed me," said
+Mrs. St. John, reproachfully.
+
+"I did not need you, dear. I did everything for Lora my own self," said
+Mrs. Carroll, with a sort of tender pride in her voice.
+
+"And she is doing well? I may see her--and the baby--my little son!"
+exclaimed Xenie, with a sudden ring of triumph in her voice.
+
+"Yes, she is doing well; a little flighty now and then, and very weak;
+she could not bear the least excitement. But you shall go to her in a
+minute. She wished it."
+
+They went into the dimly-lighted, quiet room, and Xenie kissed her
+sister and cried over her very softly. Then she took the bundle of warm
+flannel out of Lora's arms and uncovered a red and wrinkled little face.
+
+"Why, mamma, you said it was beautiful," she said, disappointedly; "and
+I am bound to confess that, to me, it looks like a very old and wrinkled
+little man."
+
+Mrs. Carroll laughed very softly.
+
+"I don't believe you ever met with a very young baby before, my dear,"
+she said. "I assure you he is quite handsome for his age, and he will
+improve marvelously in a week's time."
+
+Xenie stood still, holding the babe very close and tight in her arms,
+while a dazzling smile of triumph parted her beautiful scarlet lips. She
+hated to lay it down, for while she held it warm and living against her
+breast she seemed to taste the full sweetness of the wild revenge she
+had planned against her enemy.
+
+"Oh, mamma, Lora," she cried, "how impatiently I have waited for this
+hour! And now I am so glad, so glad! We will go home soon, now--as soon
+as our darling is well enough to travel--and then I shall triumph to the
+uttermost over Howard Templeton."
+
+She kissed the little pink face tenderly and exultantly two or three
+times, then laid him back half-reluctantly on his mother's impatient
+arm.
+
+"He is my little son," she whispered, gently; "for you are going to give
+him to me, aren't you, Lora?"
+
+A weary sigh drifted over the white lips of the beautiful young mother.
+
+"I will lend him to you, Xenie, for I have promised," she murmured;
+"but, oh, my sister, does it not seem cruel and wrong to take such an
+innocent little angel as that for the instrument of revenge?"
+
+Xenie drew back, silent and offended.
+
+"Xenie, darling, don't be angry," pleaded Lora's weak and faltering
+tones; "I will keep my promise. You shall call him yours, and the world
+shall believe it. He shall even call you mother, but you must let me be
+near him always--you must let him love me a little, dear, because I am
+his own dear mother."
+
+She paused a moment, then added, in faint accents:
+
+"And, Xenie, you will call him Jack--for his father's sake, you know."
+
+"Yes, darling," Xenie answered, tenderly, melted out of her momentary
+resentment by the pathos of Lora's looks and words, "it shall all be as
+you wish. I only wish to call him mine before the world, you know. I
+would not take him wholly from you, my little sister."
+
+"A thousand thanks," murmured Lora, feebly, then she put up her white
+arm and drew Xenie's face down to hers.
+
+"I have been dreaming, dear," she said. "It seemed to me in my dream as
+if my poor Jack were not dead after all. It seemed to me he escaped from
+the terrible fire and shipwreck, and came back to me brave and handsome,
+and loving, as of old. It seems so real to me even now that I feel as
+though I could go out and almost lay my hand upon my poor boy's head.
+Ah, Xenie, if it only could be so!"
+
+Mrs. St. John looked across at her mother, and Mrs. Carroll shook her
+head warningly. Then she said aloud, in a soothing tone:
+
+"These are but sick fancies, dear. You must not think of Jack any more
+to-night, but of your pretty babe."
+
+"Grandmamma is quite proud of her little grandson already," said Xenie,
+with tender archness.
+
+"Mamma, shall you really love the little lad? You were so angry at
+first," Lora said, falteringly.
+
+"That is all over with now, my daughter. I shall love my little grandson
+as dearly as I love his mother, soon," replied Mrs. Carroll; "but now,
+love, I cannot allow you to talk any longer. Excitement is not good for
+you. Run away to bed, Xenie. We do not need you to-night."
+
+"Let me stay and share your vigil," pleaded Xenie.
+
+"No, it is my turn to-night. Last night you sat up, you know. I will
+steal a little rest upon the lounge when Lora gets composed to sleep
+again."
+
+Xenie went away to her room and threw herself across the bed, dressed as
+she was, believing that she was too excited to go to sleep again.
+
+But a gradual drowsiness stole over her tumultuous thoughts, and she was
+soon wrapped in a troubled, dreamful slumber.
+
+Daylight was glimmering faintly into the room, when Mrs. Carroll rushed
+in, pale and terrified, and shook her daughter wildly.
+
+"Oh, Xenie, wake, wake, for God's sake!" she cried, in the wildest
+accents of despair and terror. "Such a terrible, terrible thing has
+happened to Lora!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+Xenie sprang to her feet, broad awake at those fearful words.
+
+"Oh, mamma!" she gasped, in terror-stricken accents, "what is it? My
+sister--is she worse? Is she----"
+
+She thought of death, but she paused, and could not bring her lips to
+frame that terrible word, and stood waiting speechlessly, with parted
+lips and frightened, dark eyes, for her mother to speak.
+
+But Mrs. Carroll, as if that one anguished sentence had exhausted all
+her powers, fell forward across the bed, her face growing purple, her
+lips apart in a frantic struggle for breath.
+
+Xenie hurriedly caught up a pitcher of water standing near at hand, and
+dashed it into her convulsed face, with the quick result of seeing her
+shiver, gasp, and spring up again.
+
+"Mamma, speak!" she cried, shaking her wildly by the arm; "what has
+happened to you? What has happened to Lora?"
+
+Mrs. Carroll's eyes, full of a dumb, agonizing terror, turned upon
+Xenie's wild, white face.
+
+She tried to speak, but the words died chokingly in her throat, and she
+lifted her hand and pointed toward the door.
+
+Instantly Xenie turned, and rushed from the room.
+
+As she crossed the narrow hallway a breath of the fresh, chilly morning
+air blew across her face. The door that Mrs. Carroll had securely locked
+the night before was standing wide open, and the wind from the sea was
+blowing coolly in.
+
+With a terrible foreboding of some impending calamity, Xenie sprang
+through the open doorway of Lora's room, and ran to the bed.
+
+Oh! horrors, the bed was empty!
+
+The beautiful young mother and the little babe, the day-star of Xenie's
+bright hopes, were gone!
+
+Xenie looked around her wildly, but the pretty little chamber was silent
+and tenantless.
+
+With a cry of fear and dread commingled, she rushed toward the door, and
+encountered her mother creeping slowly in, like a pallid ghost, in the
+chilly, glimmering dawn of the new day.
+
+"Oh, mamma, where is Lora?" she cried, in a faint voice, while her limbs
+seemed to totter beneath her.
+
+Mrs. Carroll shook her head, and put her hands to her throat, while her
+pallid features seemed to work with convulsive emotion. The terrible
+shock she had sustained seemed to have stricken her dumb.
+
+"Oh, mamma, mamma, cannot you speak? Cannot you tell me?" implored her
+daughter.
+
+But by signs and gestures Mrs. Carroll made her understand that the
+terrible constriction in her throat made it impossible for her to utter
+a word.
+
+For a moment Mrs. St. John stood still, like a silent statue of despair,
+but with a sudden inspiration she brought writing materials, placed them
+on a small table, and said to her mother:
+
+"Sit down, mamma, and write what you know."
+
+Mrs. Carroll's anguished face brightened at the suggestion. She sat down
+quickly at the little table, and drawing a sheet of paper toward her,
+dipped the pen into the ink, and began to write.
+
+Xenie leaned over her shoulder, and watched eagerly for the words that
+were forming beneath her hand.
+
+But, alas, the nervous shock her mother had sustained made her hand
+tremble like an aspen leaf.
+
+Great, sprawling, blotted, inky characters soon covered the fair sheet
+thickly, but among them all there was not one legible word.
+
+Xenie groaned aloud in her terrible impatience and pain.
+
+"Oh, mamma, try again!" she wailed. "Write slowly and carefully. Rest
+your arm upon the table, and let your hand move slowly--very slowly."
+
+And with an impotent moan, Mrs. Carroll took another sheet of paper and
+tried to subdue her trembling hands to the task for whose fulfillment
+her daughter was waiting so anxiously.
+
+But again the blotted characters were wholly illegible. No effort of the
+mother's will could still the nervous, trembling hands, and render
+legible the anguished words she laboriously traced upon the paper.
+
+She sighed hopelessly as her daughter shook her head.
+
+"Never mind, mamma," she said, "let it go, you are too nervous to form a
+single letter legibly. I will ask you some questions instead, and you
+will bow when your answer should be affirmation, and shake your head to
+indicate the negative."
+
+Mrs. Carroll gave the required token of assent to this proposition.
+
+"Very well. Now I will ask you the first question," said Xenie, trying
+to subdue her quivering voice into calm accents. "Mamma, did Lora go to
+sleep after I left you together?"
+
+A shake of the head negatived the question.
+
+"She was restless and flighty, then, perhaps, still dwelling on her
+dream about her husband?"
+
+This question received an affirmative answer.
+
+"But after awhile she became composed and fell asleep--did she not?"
+continued Mrs. St. John.
+
+Mrs. Carroll bowed, her lips moving continually in a vain and yearning
+effort after words.
+
+"And then you lay down upon the lounge to snatch a few minutes of
+repose?" asserted Xenie.
+
+Again she received an affirmative reply.
+
+"Mamma, did you sleep long?" was the next question.
+
+Mrs. Carroll shook her head with great energy.
+
+"Oh! no, of course you did not!" exclaimed Xenie, quickly, "for it was
+midnight when I left you, and if Lora was wakeful and restless it must
+have been several hours before either one fell asleep. And it is not
+daylight yet, so you must have slept a very little while. Were you
+awakened by any noise, mamma?"
+
+The question was instantly negatived.
+
+"You were nervous and ill at ease, then, and simply awoke of yourself?"
+continued Mrs. St. John, anxiously.
+
+Mrs. Carroll's earnest, dark eyes said yes almost as plainly as her
+bowed head.
+
+"And when you woke, Lora and the babe were gone, mamma, and the front
+door stood wide open--is that the way of it, mamma?" continued Xenie,
+anxiously watching her mother's face for the confirmation of her
+question.
+
+Mrs. Carroll gave assent to it while a hoarse wail of anguish issued
+from her drawn, white lips.
+
+Xenie echoed the wail, and for a moment her white face was hidden in her
+hands while the most terrible apprehension stabbed her to the heart.
+
+Then she looked up and said quickly:
+
+"She must have wandered away in a momentary fit of flightiness--don't
+you think so?"
+
+And again Mrs. Carroll gave a quick motion of assent.
+
+"Then I must find her, mamma," said Xenie, quickly. "She cannot have
+gone very far. She was too weak to get away from us unless---- Oh! my
+God! she cannot have gone to the water!" moaned Xenie, clasping her
+hands in horror.
+
+Mrs. Carroll looked as if she were going into a fit at the bare
+suggestion.
+
+Her face turned purple again, her eyes stared wildly, she clutched at
+her throat like one choking.
+
+Xenie forced her back upon the lounge, applied restoratives, then
+exclaimed wildly:
+
+"Mamma, I cannot bear to leave you thus, but I must go and seek for my
+sister. Even now she may be perishing in reach of our hands. Ninon, the
+maid, will be here in a little while. She will care for you, and I will
+bring back my poor little Lora."
+
+She kissed her mother's face as she spoke, then hurried out, shawlless
+and bare-headed, into the chill morning air.
+
+It was a dark and gloomy dawn, with a drizzle of rain falling steadily
+through the murky atmosphere.
+
+A fine, white mist was drawn over the sea like a winding sheet. The sun
+had not tried to rise over the dismal prospect.
+
+Xenie ran heedlessly down the veranda steps, and bent her steps to the
+seashore, looking about her carefully as she went, and calling
+frantically all the time:
+
+"Lora, Lora, Lora! Where are you, my darling? Where are you?"
+
+But no answer came to her wild appeal.
+
+The soft, low patter of the steady rain, and the solemn sound of the
+waves as they madly surged upon the shore, seemed like a funeral requiem
+in her ears.
+
+She could not bear the awful voice of the sea, for she remembered that
+Lora had hated it because her husband was buried in its illimitable
+waves.
+
+But suddenly a faint and startling sound came to her ears.
+
+She thought it was the moan of the wind rising at first, then it sounded
+again almost at her feet--the shrill, sharp wail of an infant.
+
+Xenie turned around and saw, not twenty paces from her, a little bundle
+of soft, white flannel lying upon the wet sand.
+
+She ran forward with a scream of joy, and picked it up in her arms, and
+drew aside one corner of the little embroidered blanket.
+
+Joy, joy! it was Lora's baby--Lora's baby, lying forlorn and deserted on
+the wet sand with the hungry waves rolling ever nearer and nearer toward
+it, as though eager to draw it down in their cold and fatal embrace.
+
+With a low murmur of joy, Xenie kissed the cold little face and folded
+it closely in her arms.
+
+"Lora cannot be very far now," she thought, her heart beating wildly
+with joy. "She was so weak the babe has slipped from her arms, and she
+did not know it. She will come back directly to find it."
+
+She ran along the shore, looking through the gray dawn light everywhere
+for her sister, and calling aloud in tender accents:
+
+"Lora, Lora, my darling!"
+
+But suddenly, as she looked, she saw a strangely familiar form coming
+toward her along the sand.
+
+It was a man clothed in a gray tweed traveling suit, such as tourists
+wear abroad.
+
+He stopped with a cry of surprise as they met, and there on the wild
+shores of France, with the rain beating down on her bare head and thin
+dress, with Lora's baby tightly clasped in her bare arms, Xenie St. John
+found herself face to face with her enemy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+Like one stricken motionless by terror, she stood still and looked up
+into the proud face and scornful blue eyes of the man she had thought
+far, far away beneath the skies of his native land.
+
+The ground seemed slipping from beneath her feet, the wild elements
+seemed whirling aimlessly over her head; she forgot Lora, she forgot the
+child that nestled against her breast; she remembered nothing else but
+her enemy's presence and the deadly peril to which her secret was
+exposed.
+
+"Howard Templeton," she panted forth wildly, "why are you here?"
+
+"Mrs. St. John," he returned, with a bitter smile, "I might rather ask
+you that question. What are _you_ doing here in this stormy dawn, with
+your bare head and your thin slippers and evening dress? Permit me to
+offer you my cloak. Do you forget that it is cold and rainy, that you
+court certain death for yourself and the--the----"
+
+He paused without ending the sentence and looked at the little white
+bundle lying helpless in her arms, and a steely gleam of hatred flared
+into his eyes.
+
+"The child," she said, finishing the sentence for him with a passionate
+quiver of joy in her voice, "_my_ child--Howard Templeton--the little
+one that has come to me to avenge his mother's wrongs. Look at him. This
+is your uncle's heir, this tiny little babe! He will strip you of every
+dollar you now hold so unjustly, and his mother's revenge will then be
+complete."
+
+She turned back a corner of the blanket, and gave him a glimpse of the
+little pink face, and the babe set up a feeble and pitiful little wail.
+
+It was as though the unconscious little creature repeated its mother's
+plaintive remonstrance against making such an innocent little angel the
+instrument for consummating a cruel revenge.
+
+But Xenie was deaf to the voice of conscience, or she might have fancied
+that its accusing voice spoke loudly in the wail of the little babe.
+
+She looked at Howard Templeton with a glow of triumph in her face, her
+black eyes shining like stars.
+
+The wind and the rain tossed her dark, loosened ringlets about her,
+making her look like some mad creature with that wicked glow of anger
+and revenge in her beautiful, spirited face.
+
+"Say, is it not a glorious revenge?" she cried. "You scorned me because
+I was poor. I was young, I was fair, I was loving and true, but all that
+counted for nothing in your eyes. For lack of gold you left me. Did you
+think my heart would break in silence? Ah, no, I swore to give you back
+pang for pang, and I have taken from you all that your base heart ever
+held dear--gold, shining gold. Through me you will be stripped of all.
+Is it not a brilliant victory? Ha! ha!"
+
+His blue eyes flashed down into her vivid, black ones, giving her hate
+for hate and scorn for scorn. In a low, concentrated voice, he said:
+
+"Are you not afraid to taunt me thus? Look there at that seething ocean
+beneath its shroud of mist. Do you see that no one is near? Do you know
+that there is no one in hearing? Suppose I should take you up with your
+revenge in your arms and cast you into yonder sea? The opportunity is
+mine, the temptation is great."
+
+"Yet you will not do it," she answered, giving him a glance of superb
+scorn.
+
+"Why do you say I will not do it?" he asked; "why should I spare you?
+You have not spared me! You are trying to wrest my inheritance from me.
+We are sworn and deadly foes. I have nothing to lose by your death,
+everything to gain. Why should I not take the present opportunity and
+sweep you from my path forever?"
+
+He paused and looked down at her in passionate wrath while he wondered
+what she would say to all this; but she was silent.
+
+"Again I ask you why should I spare you?" he repeated; "are you not
+afraid of my vengeance, Xenie St. John?"
+
+"No, I am not afraid," she repeated, defiantly, yet even as she spoke he
+saw that a shudder that was not of the morning's cold shook her graceful
+form. A sudden consciousness of the truth that lurked in his words had
+rushed over her.
+
+"Yes, we _are_ deadly foes," she repeated to herself, with a deeper
+consciousness of the meaning of those words than she had ever had
+before. "Why should he spare me, since I am wholly in his power?"
+
+His voice broke in suddenly on her swift, tumultuous thoughts, making
+her start with its cold abruptness.
+
+"Ah, I see that you begin to realize your position," he said, icily.
+"What is your revenge worth now in this moment of your deadly peril? Is
+it dearer to you than your life?"
+
+"Yes, it is dearer to me than my life," she answered, steadily. "If
+nothing but my life would buy revenge for me I would give it freely!"
+
+He regarded her a moment with a proud, silent scorn. She returned the
+gaze with interest, but even in her passionate anger and hatred she
+could not help owning to her secret heart that she had never seen him
+looking so handsome as he did just then in the rough but well-fitting
+tweed suit, with the glow of the morning on his fair face, and that
+light of scorn in his dark-blue eyes.
+
+Suddenly he spoke:
+
+"Well, go your way, Xenie St. John. You are in my way, but it is not by
+this means I will remove you from it. I am not a murderer--your life is
+safe from my vengeance. Yet I warn you not to go further in your wild
+scheme of vengeance against me. It can only result in disaster to
+yourself. I am forewarned of your intentions and your wicked plot. You
+can never wrest from me the inheritance that Uncle John intended for
+me!"
+
+"We shall see!" she answered, with bold defiance, undaunted by his
+threatening words.
+
+Then, as the little babe in her arms began to moan pitifully again, she
+remembered the dreadful trouble that had sent her out into the rain, and
+turning from him with a sudden wail of grief, she began to run along the
+shore, looking wildly around for some trace of the lost one.
+
+She heard Howard's footsteps behind her, and redoubled her speed, but in
+a minute his hand fell on her shoulder, arresting her flight. He spoke
+hastily:
+
+"I heard you calling for Lora before I met you--speak, tell me if she
+also is wandering out here like a madwoman, and why?"
+
+She turned on him fiercely.
+
+"What does it matter to you, Howard Templeton?"
+
+"If she is lost I can help you to find her," he retorted. "What can you
+do? A frail woman wandering in the rain with a helpless babe in your
+arms!"
+
+Bitterly as she hated him, an overpowering sense of the truth of his
+words rushed over her.
+
+She hated that he should help her and yet she could not let her own
+angry scruples stand in the way of finding Lora.
+
+She looked up at him and the hot tears brimmed over in her black eyes
+and splashed upon her white cheeks.
+
+"Lora is missing," she answered, in a broken voice. "She has been ill,
+and last night she wandered in her mind. This morning while mamma and I
+slept she must have stolen away in her delirium. Mamma was prostrated by
+the shock, and I came out alone to find her."
+
+"You should have left the child at home. It will perish in the rain and
+cold," he said, looking at her keenly.
+
+She shivered and grew white as death, but pressed the babe closer to her
+breast that the warmth of her own heart might protect its tender life.
+
+"Why did you bring the child?" he persisted, still watching her keenly.
+
+"I will not tell you," she answered, defiantly, but with a little shiver
+of dread. What if he had seen her when she found it on the sands?
+
+"Very well; you shall not stay out longer with it, at least. Granted
+that we are deadly foes--still I have a man's heart in my breast. I
+would not willingly see a woman perish. Go home, Xenie, and care for
+your mother. I will undertake the search for Lora. If I find her you
+shall know it immediately. I promise you."
+
+He took the heavy cloak from his own shoulders and fastened it around
+her shivering form.
+
+She did not seem to notice the action, but stood still mechanically, her
+dark, tearful eyes fixed on the mist-crowned sea. He followed her gaze,
+and said in a quick tone of horror:
+
+"You do not believe she is in there? It would be too horrible!"
+
+"Oh, my God!" Mrs. St. John groaned, with a quiver of awful dread in her
+voice.
+
+He shivered through all his strong, lithe young frame. The thought of
+such a death was terrible to him.
+
+"You said she was ill and delirious?" he said, abruptly.
+
+"Yes," she wailed.
+
+"Poor Lora--poor little Lora!" he exclaimed, with a sudden tone of pity.
+"Alas! is it not too probable that she has met her death in those fatal
+waves?"
+
+"Oh, she could not, she could not," Xenie moaned, wildly. "She hated the
+sea. Her lover was drowned in it. She could not bear the sight or the
+sound of it."
+
+He did not answer for a moment. He was looking away from her with a
+great, solemn dread and pity in his beautiful, blue eyes. Suddenly he
+said, abruptly:
+
+"Go home, Mrs. St. John, and stay there until you hear news. I will go
+and arouse the village. I will have help in the search, and if she is
+found we will bring her home. If she is not, God help you, for I fear
+she has drowned herself in the sea."
+
+With a long, moaning cry of anguish, Xenie turned from him and sped
+along the wet sand back to her mother. Howard Templeton watched the
+flying figure on its way with a grave trouble in his handsome face, and
+when she was out of sight, he turned in an opposite direction and
+walked briskly along the sand, looking carefully in every direction.
+
+"They talk of judgment," he muttered. "Has God sent this dreadful thing
+upon Xenie St. John for her sinful plans? If it is so, surely it will
+bring her to repentance. In the face of such a terrible affliction, she
+must surely be afraid to persist in attempting such a stupendous fraud."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Half dead with weariness and sorrow, Mrs. St. John staggered into her
+mother's presence with the wailing infant in her arms.
+
+She sank down upon the floor by the side of the couch and laid the child
+on her mother's breast, moaning out:
+
+"I found him down there, lying on the wet sand all alone, mamma--all
+alone! Oh! Lora, Lora!"
+
+A heart-rending moan broke from Mrs. Carroll's lips. Her face was gray
+and death-like in the chill morning light.
+
+She closed her arms around the babe and strained it fondly to her
+breast.
+
+"Mamma, are you better? Can you speak yet? I have much to tell you,"
+said Xenie, anxiously.
+
+Mrs. Carroll made a violent effort at articulation, then shook her head,
+despairingly.
+
+"I will send for the doctor as soon as the maid returns. She cannot be
+long now--it is almost broad daylight," said Xenie, with a heavy sigh.
+"And in the meantime I will feed the babe. It is cold and hungry. Mamma,
+shall I give it a little milk and water, warmed and sweetened?"
+
+Mrs. Carroll assented, and Xenie went out into the little kitchen,
+lighted a fire and prepared the infant's simple nourishment.
+
+Returning to Lora's room, she sat down in a low rocker, took the child
+in her arms, and carefully fed it from a teaspoon, first removing the
+cold blanket from around it, and wrapping it in warm, dry flannels.
+
+Its fretful wails soon ceased under her tender care, and it fell into a
+gentle slumber on her breast.
+
+"Now, mamma," she said, as she rocked the little sleeper gently to and
+fro, "I will tell you what happened to me while I was searching for my
+sister."
+
+In as few words as possible, she narrated her meeting with Howard
+Templeton.
+
+Mrs. Carroll greeted the information with a groan. She was both
+astonished and frightened at his appearance in France, when they had
+supposed him safe in America.
+
+She struggled for speech so violently that the dreadful hysteric
+constriction in her throat gave way before her mental anguish, and
+incoherent words burst from her lips.
+
+"Oh, Xenie, he will know all now, and Lora's good name and your own
+scheme of revenge will be equally and forever blasted! All is lost!"
+
+"No, no, mamma, that shall never be! He shall not find us out. I swear
+it!" exclaimed her daughter passionately. "Let him peep and pry as he
+will, he shall not learn anything that he could prove. We have managed
+too cleverly for that."
+
+And then the next moment she cried out:
+
+"But, oh, mamma, you are better--you can speak again!"
+
+"Yes, thank Heaven!" breathed Mrs. Carroll, though she articulated with
+difficulty, and her voice was hoarse and indistinct. "But, Xenie, what
+could have brought Howard Templeton here? Can he suspect anything? Did
+he know that we were here?"
+
+Xenie was silent for a moment, then she said, thoughtfully:
+
+"It may be that he vaguely suspects something wrong. Indeed, from some
+words he used to me, I believe he did. But what then? It is perfectly
+impossible that he could prove any charge he might make, so it matters
+little what he suspects. Oh, mamma, you should have seen how black, how
+stormy he looked when I showed him the child, and told him it was mine.
+I should have felt so happy then had it not been for my fear and dread
+over Lora."
+
+"My poor girl--my poor Lora!" wailed the stricken mother. "Oh, Xenie, I
+am afraid she has cast herself into the sea."
+
+"Oh, no, do not believe it. She did not, she could not! You know how she
+hated the sea. She has but wandered away, following her wild fancy of
+finding her husband. She was too weak to go far. They will soon find her
+and bring her back," said Xenie, trying to whisper comfort to the
+bereaved heart of the mother, though her own lay heavy as lead in her
+breast.
+
+She rose after a moment and went to the window.
+
+"It is strange that Ninon does not return to get the breakfast," she
+said, looking out. "Can her mother be worse, do you think, mamma?"
+
+"She may be, but I hardly think it likely. She was better of the fever
+the last time Ninon went to see her. It is likely that the foggy, rainy
+morning has deceived her as to the lateness of the hour. She will be
+along presently, no doubt," said Mrs. Carroll, carelessly; for her
+trouble rendered her quite indifferent to her bodily comfort.
+
+Xenie sat down again, and rocked the babe silently for a little while.
+
+"Oh, mamma, how impatient I grow!" she said, at length. "It seems to me
+I cannot wait longer. I must put the child down and go out again. I
+cannot bear this dreadful suspense."
+
+"No, no; I will go myself," said Mrs. Carroll, struggling up feebly from
+the lounge. "You are cold and wet now, my darling. You will get your
+death out there in the rain. I must not lose both my darlings at once."
+
+But Xenie pushed her back again with gentle force.
+
+"No, mamma, you shall not go--you are already ill," she said. "Let the
+child lie in your arms, and I will go to the door and see if anyone is
+coming."
+
+Filled with alternate dread and hope, she went to the door and looked
+out.
+
+No, there was naught to be seen but the rain and the mist--nothing to be
+heard but the hollow moan of the ocean, or the shrill, piping voice of
+the sea birds skimming across the waves.
+
+"It is strange that the maid does not come," she said again, oppressed
+with the loneliness and brooding terror around her.
+
+She sat down again, and waited impatiently for what seemed a
+considerable time; then she sprang up restlessly.
+
+"Mamma, I will just walk out a very little way," she said. "I must see
+if anyone is coming yet."
+
+"You must not go far, then, Xenie." Mrs. Carroll remonstrated.
+
+Xenie dashed out into the rain again, and ran recklessly along the path,
+looking far ahead of her as if to pierce the mystery that lay beyond
+her.
+
+Presently she saw a young French girl plodding along toward her.
+
+It was Ninon, the belated maid. Over her arm she carried a dripping-wet
+shawl.
+
+It was a pretty shawl, of warm woolen, finely woven, and striped with
+broad bars of white and red.
+
+Xenie knew it instantly, and a cry of terror broke from her lips. It
+belonged to Lora.
+
+She had seen it lying around her sister's shoulders when she kissed her
+good-night; yet here it hung on Ninon's arms, wet and dripping, the
+thick, rich fringes all matted with seaweed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+Xenie's heart beat so fast at the sight of what Ninon was carrying that
+she could not move another step.
+
+She had to stand still with her hands clasped over her throbbing side
+and wait till the girl came up to her. Then:
+
+"Oh, Heaven, Ninon, where did you get that?" she gasped, looking at the
+shawl with eyes full of horror, yet afraid to touch it, for it seemed
+like some dead thing.
+
+"Oh, ma'amselle," faltered the girl stopping short and looking at
+Xenie's anguished face. "Oh, ma'amselle," she faltered again, and her
+pretty, piquant face grew white and her black eyes sought the ground,
+for Ninon, although poor and lowly, had a very tender heart, and she
+could not bear to see the anguish in the eyes of her young mistress.
+
+"I asked you where did you get that shawl?" Xenie repeated. "It was my
+sister's shawl. She wore it last night, and now, to-day, she is missing.
+Did you know that, Ninon?"
+
+"Yes," the girl answered, in her pretty, broken English. She had heard
+it. A gentleman, a tourist, had brought the news to the village, and the
+men were all out looking for her.
+
+Would her mistress come to the house? She had something to tell her, but
+not out there in the cold and wet. She looked fit to drop, indeed she
+did, declared the voluble, young French girl.
+
+So she half-led, half-dragged Mrs. St. John back to the cottage and into
+the room where the stricken mother was waiting for tidings of her lost
+one.
+
+The maid had a sorrowful story to tell.
+
+The waves had cast a dead body up on the beach an hour ago--the corpse
+of a woman, thinly dressed in white, with long, beautiful black hair
+flowing loosely and tangled with seaweed.
+
+They could not tell who she was, for--and here Ninon shuddered
+visibly--the rough waves had battered and swollen her features utterly
+beyond recognition.
+
+But they thought that she was young, for her limbs were white and round,
+and beautifully moulded, and this shawl which Ninon carried had been
+tightly fastened about her shoulders.
+
+The maid had recognized it and brought it with her to show the bereaved
+mother and sister, and to ask if they wished to go and view the body and
+try to identify it.
+
+All this the maid told sorrowfully and hesitatingly, while the two women
+sat like statues and listened to her, every vestige of hope dying out of
+their hearts at the pitiful story, and at length Xenie cast herself down
+upon the wet shawl and wept and wailed over it as though it had been
+the dead body of poor Lora herself lying there all wet and dripping with
+the ocean spray before her anguished sight.
+
+Then Ninon begged her to listen to what she had to say further.
+
+"The gentleman is going to send a vehicle for you that you may go and
+see the body, if you wish--I can hear the roll of the wheels now! Shall
+I help you to get ready?"
+
+Xenie looked at her mother with a dumb inquiry on her beautiful, pallid
+features.
+
+"Yes, go, dear, if you can bear it. Perhaps, after all, it may not be
+our darling," said Mrs. Carroll, with a heavy sigh, even while she tried
+to cheat her heart by the doubt which she felt to be a vain one.
+
+So, with Ninon's aid, Xenie changed her wet and drabbled garments for a
+plain, black silk dress, and a black hat and thick veil.
+
+Then, leaving the maid to take care of her mother, Mrs. St. John entered
+the vehicle and was driven to the place where a group of excited
+villagers kept watch over a ghastly something upon the sand--the
+mutilated semblance of a human being that the cruel sea had beaten and
+buffeted beyond recognition.
+
+It was a terrible ordeal for that young, beautiful, and loving sister to
+pass alone.
+
+As she stepped from the vehicle with a wildly-beating heart before the
+curious scrutiny of the strangers around her, she involuntarily cast a
+glance around her in the vague, scarce-defined belief that Howard
+Templeton would be upon the scene. But, no, there was no sign of his
+presence.
+
+Strangers advanced to lead her forward; strangers questioned her;
+strangers drew back the sheet that had been reverently folded over the
+dead, and showed her that ghastly form that all believed must have been
+her sister.
+
+She knelt down, trying to keep back her sobs, and looked at the form
+lying there in the awful majesty of death, with the cold, drizzling rain
+beating down on its swollen, discolored features.
+
+How could that awful thing be Lora--her own, beautiful, tender Lora?
+
+And yet, and yet, that beautiful, long, black hair--that fine,
+embroidered night-robe, hanging in tattered remnants now where the sea
+had rent it--did they not belong to her sister? Sickening with an awful
+dread, she touched one of the cold, white hands.
+
+It was a ghastly object now, swollen and livid, yet you could see that
+once it had been a beautiful hand, delicate, dimpled, tapering.
+
+And on the slender, third finger, deeply imbedded in the swollen flesh,
+were two rings--plain, broad, gold bands. Xenie's eyes fell upon them,
+and with a wild, despairing cry, "Oh, Lora, my sister!" she fell upon
+the wet sand, in a deep and death-like swoon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+After leaving Xenie on the seashore, Howard Templeton walked away
+hurriedly to the little fishing village, a mile distant, and gave the
+alarm of Lora's disappearance.
+
+By a promise of large rewards, he speedily induced a party of men to set
+out in separate directions to scour the adjacent country for the
+wanderer.
+
+But scarcely had they set out on their mission when someone brought to
+Howard the news of the corpse that old ocean had cast upon the sands.
+
+Dreading, yet fully expecting to behold the dead body of Lora Carroll,
+Howard Templeton turned back and accompanied the man to the scene.
+
+They found a group of excited men and women gathered, on the shore,
+drawn thither by that nameless fascination which the dreadful and
+mysterious always possesses for every class of minds whether high or
+low.
+
+Conspicuous in the group was Ninon, the pretty young maid-servant, and,
+as Howard came upon the scene, she was volubly explaining to the
+bystanders that the shawl which was tightly pinned about the shoulders
+of the dead woman belonged to the missing girl for whom the men had gone
+out to search.
+
+Was she quite sure of it, they asked her. Yes, she was quite sure.
+
+She had seen it night after night lying across the bed in the young
+lady's sleeping-apartment.
+
+When she was ill and restless, as often happened, she would put it
+around her shoulders and walk up and down the room for hours, weeping
+and wringing her hands like one in sore distress.
+
+"Yes," Ninon said, she could swear to the shawl. She would take it home
+with her and show it to her mistress, and they would see that she was
+right.
+
+No one interfered to prevent her.
+
+With an irrepressible shudder at touching the dead, the girl drew out
+the pins and took the wet shawl.
+
+Then, as she started on her homeward way, Howard Templeton, who had
+stood still like one in a dream of horror, started forward and told her
+that he himself would send a vehicle for the ladies, that they might
+come if they wished to identify the body.
+
+For himself, he had no idea whether or not that the poor, bruised and
+battered corpse could be Lora Carroll.
+
+He could see nothing that reminded him of her except the beautiful,
+black hair lying about her head in heavy, clinging masses, sodden with
+water and tangled with seaweed.
+
+He longed, yet dreaded, for Mrs. Carroll and her daughter to arrive and
+confirm or dissipate his fears and end the dreadful suspense.
+
+And yet, with the rumble of the departing wheels of the conveyance he
+had sent for them, a sudden cowardice stole over the young man's heart.
+
+He could not bear the thought of the anguish of which he might soon be
+the witness.
+
+Obeying a sudden, inexplicable impulse, he turned from the little
+company of watchers by the dead and walked off from them, taking the
+course along the shore that led away from the little village.
+
+Oftentimes those simple little impulses that seem to us mere accidental
+happenings, would appear in reality to be the actual fulfillment of some
+divine design.
+
+Howard little dreamed, as he turned away with a kind of sick horror,
+that was no shame to his manhood, from the sight of so much misery, that
+"a spirit in his feet" was guiding him straight to the living Lora, even
+while his heart foreboded that it was she who lay cold and lifeless on
+the ocean shore.
+
+Yet so it was. True it is, as the great bard expresses it, that "there's
+a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will."
+
+Howard hurried along aimlessly, his thoughts so busy on one painful
+theme that he took no note of where he was going, or how fast he went.
+
+He was a rapid walker usually, and when he at length brought himself to
+a sudden abrupt stop he realized with a start that he had come several
+miles at least.
+
+The rain had ceased, the sun had come out in all its majestic glory, and
+beneath its fervid kisses the mist that hid the ocean was melting into
+thin air.
+
+It bade fair to be a beautiful day, after all.
+
+The pearly rain-drops sparkled like diamonds on the leaves and flowers,
+the sky was blue and beautiful, with here and there a little white cloud
+sailing softly past.
+
+The day had began like many a life, in clouds and tears, but it promised
+to close in as fair and sweet a serenity as many an early-shadowed life
+has done.
+
+Howard involuntarily thought of the poet's beautiful lines:
+
+    "Be still, sad heart, and cease repining,
+     Behind the clouds is the sun still shining!
+     Days of sunshine are given to all,
+     Though into each life some rain must fall."
+
+He paused and looked around him. He found that he had come into the
+outskirts of another rude, little fishing village.
+
+A little ahead of him he could see the fishers bustling about on the
+shore.
+
+"I have come four miles, at least," he said to himself. "What a great,
+hulking, cowardly fellow I am to run that far from a woman's tears. Far
+better have stayed and tried to dry them. Um! She wouldn't have let me,"
+he added, with a rueful second thought.
+
+Then, after a moment's idle gazing out at sea, aimlessly noting the
+flash of a sea-gull's wing as it wheeled in the blue air above him, he
+said, resolutely:
+
+"I'll go back, anyhow. Perhaps I can do something to help them. They are
+but women--my countrywomen, too, and I'll not desert them in their
+trouble, even though _she_ does hate me."
+
+He turned around suddenly to return, and the fate that was watching him
+to prevent such a thing, placed a simple stone in the way. He stepped
+upon it heedlessly, his ankle turned, and, with a sharp cry of pain,
+Howard fell to the ground.
+
+He made an effort to rise, but the acute pains that suddenly darted
+through his ankle caused him to fall back upon the wet sand in a hurry.
+
+"Umph! my ankle is evidently master of the situation," he thought, with
+an expression of comical distress.
+
+Raising himself on his elbow, he shouted aloud to the men in the
+distance, and presently two of them came running to his assistance.
+
+"I have sprained my ankle," he explained to them in their native tongue.
+"Please assist me to rise, and I will try to walk."
+
+But when they took him by the arms and raised him up, they found that it
+was impossible for him to walk.
+
+"This is a deuced bore at the present time, certainly," complained the
+sufferer. "Can you get me any kind of a trap to drive me back to the
+village yonder?"
+
+The peasants looked at him stupidly, and informed him carelessly that
+there was nothing of the kind available. Only one man in the vicinity
+owned a horse, and it had sickened and died a week before.
+
+Howard felt a great and exceeding temptation to swear a very small oath
+at this crisis, but being too much of a gentleman to yield to this
+wicked whisper of the evil one, groaned very loudly instead.
+
+"Then what the deuce am I to do?" he inquired, as much of himself as of
+the two fishermen. "How am I to get away from this spot of wet sand?
+Where am I to go?"
+
+The peasants scrutinized him as stupidly as before, and to all of these
+questions answered flatly that they did not know, indeed.
+
+Howard thought within himself that the proverbial politeness of the
+French was greatly tempered by stupidity in this case.
+
+"Well, then," he inquired next, "is there any kind of a hotel around
+here?"
+
+"Yes, there was such a place," they informed him, readily; and Howard at
+once begged them to summon aid and construct a litter for him, promising
+to reward them liberally if they would carry him to the hotel.
+
+Gold--that magic "open sesame" to every heart--procured him ready and
+willing attention.
+
+It was but a short while before he found himself in tolerably
+comfortable quarters at the rude hotel of the fishing village, and
+obsequiously waited upon by the single Esculapius the place afforded.
+
+Howard's sprain was pronounced very severe indeed. It was so painful
+that he could not walk upon it at all, and was ordered to strict
+confinement to his couch for three days.
+
+"A fine prospect, by Jove!" Howard commented, discontentedly. "What am I
+to do shut up here three days in solitary confinement? and what will
+those poor women do over yonder with not a single masculine soul to turn
+to in their helplessness? Not that they wish my help, of course, but I
+had meant to offer it to them all the same if there was anything I could
+have done," he added, grimly, to his own self.
+
+The three days dragged away very drearily. On the fourth day Howard
+availed himself of the aid of a crutch and got into the little public
+room of the hotel.
+
+Among the few idlers that were gathered about in little friendly groups,
+he saw a rather intelligent-looking fisherman going from one to another
+with a small slip of paper in his hand.
+
+As they read it some shook their heads, and some dived into their
+pockets and brought forth a few pence, which they dropped into the
+fisherman's extended palm.
+
+Howard was quite curious by the time his turn came. He took the paper in
+his hand and found it to be an humble petition for charity, which duly
+set forth:
+
+"WHEREAS, an unknown woman lies ill of a fever at a house of one
+Fanchette Videlet, a poor widow, almost without the necessaries of life,
+it is here begged by the said widow that all Christian souls will
+contribute a mite to the end of securing medical attendance and comforts
+for the poor unknown wayfarer."
+
+This petition, which was written in excellent French, and duly signed
+Fanchette Videlet, had a strange effect upon Howard Templeton. His face
+grew pale as death; his eyes stared at the poor fisherman in perplexed
+thought, while he absently plunged his hand into his pocket and drew it
+out full of gold pieces.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+"Here, my man, take this," he said, putting the coins into the man's
+hand.
+
+"Why, this is too much, sir," said the honest fisherman, holding his
+hand out and looking at the gold in surprise. "You will rob yourself,
+sir."
+
+"No, no; keep it. It is but a trifle," said Howard, pushing his hand
+back. "But, pray, will you answer a few questions for me?"
+
+"As many as you like, sir--and thank you for your generosity," answered
+the fisherman, politely.
+
+"I am very much interested in the sad story written here," said Howard,
+glancing at the paper which he still held in his hand.
+
+"Yes, sir, it is very sad," assented the fisherman.
+
+"How came this unknown sick woman at the Widow Videlet's house?"
+inquired Howard.
+
+"The poor soul came there a few days ago, sir. She was ill and quite out
+of her head--could give no account of herself."
+
+"Can you tell me what day she came there?"
+
+"This makes the fourth day since she came, sir. I remember it was the
+same day you were brought to the hotel."
+
+The young man started. It was the same day that Lora Carroll had
+disappeared.
+
+Could it be Lora? Had it been some other waif the great sea had cast up
+from its deep?
+
+"Did you see this woman? Could you describe her to me?" asked Howard,
+eagerly.
+
+"I saw her the day she came wandering into Dame Videlet's cottage," was
+the answer.
+
+"You can tell me how she looked then," said Howard, restraining his
+impatience by a great effort.
+
+"Yes, sir. She was a mere girl in appearance--very young and very
+beautiful, with black eyes and long, black hair. She was thinly clad in
+a fine night-dress," answered the fisherman.
+
+"Did you say she was out of her mind?" asked Howard.
+
+"Yes, sir; she raved continually."
+
+"What form did her delirium take?"
+
+"Oh, sir," cried the fisherman, in a tone of pity and sympathy for the
+wretched unknown, "it seemed like she had lost her baby. She was going
+around from one to the other in the place asking, asking everyone, for
+her baby. She said she was so tired and she had lost it out of her arms
+in the rain and the darkness, and could not find it again."
+
+Howard's heart gave a great, tumultuous bound of surprise, then almost
+stopped beating with the suddenness of the shock.
+
+It all rushed over him with the suddenness of a revelation.
+
+It had seemed so strange to him that Mrs. St. John should have taken the
+tender little babe with her in the rain and wind when she went to search
+for Lora.
+
+The truth flashed over him like lightning now.
+
+Xenie had found the babe upon the sand where Lora had dropped it in her
+fevered flight.
+
+No wonder she had been so angry and defiant when he had questioned her
+about it.
+
+He felt sure now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the unknown sick
+woman in the poor widow's cottage could be none other than Lora herself.
+
+"Poor, unhappy creature," he thought, with a thrill of commiseration.
+"It must be that God himself has sent me here to succor and befriend
+her."
+
+He rose hurriedly and took up his crutch.
+
+"How far is Dame Videlet's cottage from here?" he inquired.
+
+"But a few rods, sir--a little further on toward the beach," said the
+fisherman, regarding him in some surprise.
+
+"I will go down there and see that unfortunate woman, if you will guide
+me," said Howard. "I believe that she is a friend of mine. You may
+return their pence to those poor fishermen, who can ill spare it,
+perhaps. I will charge myself with her expenses even if she should not
+prove to be the person I think she is."
+
+The fisherman looked at him admiringly and hastened to do his bidding.
+
+Then they walked along to the widow's cottage very slowly, for Howard
+found himself exceedingly awkward in the use of his crutch.
+
+But after all it seemed but a very few minutes before they stood in the
+one poor little room of Dame Videlet's dilapidated cot bowing to the
+kind old soul who had taken the poor wayfarer in beneath the shelter of
+her lowly roof, shared her simple crust with her, and tended her with
+kindly, Christian hands.
+
+"How is your patient to-day, my kind woman?" inquired the young man.
+
+"Ah, sir, ah, sir, you may even see for yourself," she answered sadly,
+as she turned toward the bed.
+
+Howard went forward with a quickened heart-beat, and stood by her side
+looking down at the sufferer.
+
+Yes there she lay--poor little Lora--with wide, unrecognizing, black
+eyes, with cheeks crimson with fever and parted lips through which the
+breath came pantingly. A heavy sigh broke unconsciously from Howard's
+lips.
+
+"Good sir, do you know her?" asked the woman, regarding him anxiously.
+
+"Yes, I know her," he answered; "she is a friend of mine and has
+wandered away from her home in the delirium of fever. You shall be
+richly rewarded for your noble care of her."
+
+"I ask no reward but the blessing of Heaven, sir," said the good old
+woman, piously; "I have done the best I could for her ever since she
+staggered into the door and asked me for her lost baby."
+
+As if the word struck some sensitive chord in her consciousness, Lora
+turned her wild, bright eyes upon Howard's face, and murmured in a
+pathetic whisper:
+
+"Have you found my baby--Jack's baby and mine?"
+
+Alas for Xenie's secret, guarded with such patient care and sleepless
+vigilance.
+
+Howard looked down upon her with a mist of tears before his sight--she
+looked so fair, and young, and sorrowful, lying there calling for her
+lost little child.
+
+"I have lost my baby, I have lost my baby!" she wailed aloud, throwing
+her arms wildly over her head and tangling her fingers in the long, dark
+tresses floating over the pillow in their beautiful luxuriance. "It is
+lost, lost, lost, my darling little one! It will perish in the rain and
+the cold!"
+
+Involuntarily Howard reached out and took one of the restless white
+hands in his, and held it in a firm and tender clasp.
+
+"Lora, Lora," he said, in a gentle, persuasive voice, "listen to me. The
+baby is _found_. Xenie found it on the shore where you lost it out of
+your arms. It is safe--it is well, with Xenie."
+
+Lora turned her hollow glance upon his face, and though no gleam of
+recognition shone in her eyes, his impressive words penetrated her soul.
+She threw out her arms yearningly.
+
+"It is found, it is found! Oh, thank God!" she murmured, happily. "Bring
+him to me, for the love of Heaven! Lay him here upon my breast, my
+precious little son!"
+
+"Oh, sir, then it is true she had a child; and it is living. I thought
+perhaps it was dead," said the poor widow.
+
+"She has a child, indeed, and she lost it in her delirious flight; but
+her sister found it soon afterward. It is at this moment not more than
+four miles from here," answered the young man, without reflecting that
+many things might have happened during his long imprisonment of four
+days in the lonely little fishing village.
+
+"Then, if you will take my advice, sir, as she is a friend of yours, you
+will try to get that child here as soon as possible. I will do the best
+I can for her, and the doctor has promised to do all in his power; but I
+believe that the child is the only thing that will save her life," said
+Dame Videlet, gravely shaking her head in its homely white cap.
+
+"It shall be brought," said Howard, earnestly, and without a doubt but
+that he could keep the promise thus made.
+
+Dame Videlet thanked God aloud, then added that the sooner it were
+brought the better it would be for the mother.
+
+All the while poor Lora lay tossing in restless pain, and begging
+piteously for her little child to be laid upon her breast.
+
+Howard bent over her as tenderly and gently as a brother.
+
+"Lora, my poor child, try to be patient," he said. "I will bring the
+child to you; only be patient a little while."
+
+But it was all in vain to preach patience to that racked heart and
+weary, fevered brain.
+
+He stole away, followed by despairing cries for the little child--cries
+that echoed in his heart and brain many days afterward, when his warm
+heart was half-broken because he could not keep the promise he had made
+in such perfect confidence and hope.
+
+"How shall I get back to the village four miles away from here?" he
+asked of the man who had accompanied him and was still waiting for him.
+
+"I can take you in my fishing-boat and row you there, and welcome, sir,"
+was the hearty response. "It's a wee bit leaky, but as good as any other
+craft about, and there's no conveyance to be had by land."
+
+"What a great simpleton I have been, by George, never to have thought of
+a boat before," said Howard, looking vexed at himself. "Here I have been
+four days, and wanting to get back to the village badly, and never
+thought of all the little boats and the great, wide ocean."
+
+"Mayhap it's all for the best, sir," said the fisherman. "If you had
+gone back sooner, you might never have found the sick lady, your friend.
+You should see the hand of the Lord in it, my young sir."
+
+"It looks like it," admitted Howard, "though, truth to tell, _mon ami_,
+I do not usually look for such intervention in my affairs. His Satanic
+Majesty is at present controlling my mundane affairs."
+
+"The Lord rules, sir," answered the man, launching his little boat, and
+trying to make a comfortable and dry seat for his crippled young
+passenger.
+
+The little boat shot out into the blue and sparkling waves, and danced
+along like a thing of life in the beautiful spring sunshine.
+
+"We must go a mile below the village to the home of my friend's mother,"
+Howard explained, as they went along.
+
+Then he fell to wondering how Xenie would receive him when he came to
+her with the glad tidings of Lora's discovery.
+
+"How strange that I should carry _her glad_ tidings," he thought. "I am
+afraid I do not keep to the letter of my vow of hatred as firmly as she
+does. Would _she_ bring me good news as willingly?"
+
+His heart answered no.
+
+The keel grated on the shore, and springing out, they went up to the
+pretty cottage were Mrs. Carroll had lived in strict retirement for
+several months with her two daughters.
+
+But there a terrible disappointment awaited Howard.
+
+The cottage was untenanted.
+
+They knocked several times, eliciting no response, and finally opening
+the doors, they found that the occupants had moved out.
+
+All was still and silent, and Howard's heart sank heavily as he thought
+of poor Lora lying in the widow's cot and moaning for the child he had
+promised to bring her.
+
+"They are gone away," said Howard in a more hopeless voice than he knew
+himself. "We must return to the village. We may hear news from them
+there."
+
+And in his heart he was fervently praying that he would, for how could
+he return to Lora without the child?
+
+They went to the little village where the dead body had been washed upon
+the sands, and he asked everyone he met if they knew where the occupants
+of the little cottage had gone.
+
+No one could tell him anything of their whereabouts. They had identified
+the drowned woman as their relative, had buried her, and then quietly
+left the place, taking Ninon, the little maid, with them.
+
+He could not obtain the least clew by which he might follow them and
+bring them back to the sick girl whom they mourned as dead.
+
+Howard did not know what to do now, for he remembered that Dame Videlet
+had said that the child was the only thing that could save Lora's life.
+
+He went into the churchyard and looked at the new-made grave with the
+cross of white marble, and the simple inscription "Lora, _ætat_ 18."
+
+"Perhaps the inscription might come true after all in a few--a very few
+days," he thought, sadly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Howard did not know what to do: it seemed such a terrible thing to go
+back to Lora with bad tidings. Perhaps the shock would kill her.
+
+Oh, if Mrs. St. John had but waited a little longer! Why need she have
+hurried away so precipitately?
+
+Well, there was no help for it.
+
+He must go back and tell her how inopportunely things had turned out,
+and how sorry he was that he could not keep his promise.
+
+He would get Dame Videlet to break it to her very gently.
+
+She would not bungle over it like a great, awkward fellow like himself.
+
+The good old woman was waiting for him outside the door.
+
+Her face was radiant, but it changed and grew very anxious as he came up
+to her, and she saw that his arms were empty.
+
+"Where is the child?" she whispered.
+
+Briefly and sadly he told the story of his disappointment, and the widow
+wiped the tears of sorrow from her eyes as he concluded.
+
+"How is she now?" he inquired, anxiously.
+
+"She has been better, much better, since you told her the child was
+found. Her reason has returned to her, and she has wept tears of joy.
+She is impatiently waiting for you now, for I told her just now that you
+were returning. Alas, alas!" groaned Dame Videlet, her tender heart
+quite melted by the thought of Lora's disappointment.
+
+Howard groaned in unison with her.
+
+"Will it go hard with her?" he asked, sorrowfully.
+
+The dame shook her head mournfully.
+
+"Alas, alas!" she groaned again.
+
+"You will break the news to her--will you not?" asked Howard. "It would
+be better for you to do it; I am a great, awkward fellow, and could not
+tell her tenderly and gently like a woman. Tell her we will try to find
+her mother and sister as soon as possible. Do not let her despair."
+
+"I will tell her," said the good woman, turning toward the door, "but I
+am afraid the disappointment will nearly kill her. She is very ill. She
+cannot bear much. Do you remain outside while I go in."
+
+Howard sat down on a rough bench outside the door and waited, his heart
+heavy with grief for the poor, unfortunate girl within.
+
+"Far better that I had not seen her at all, than have given her such
+hope only to be followed by disappointment," he thought sadly to
+himself.
+
+Suddenly a wild, piercing, delirious shriek issued from the widow's cot,
+causing him to spring up in alarm, and rush into the room.
+
+He met the bereaved mother in the center of the floor, trying to make
+her escape from the feeble arms of Dame Videlet who was drawing her back
+to the bed.
+
+She looked like a mad creature struggling with the weak, old woman, her
+dark hair flying loose in wild confusion, her arms flung upward over her
+head, while shriek after shriek burst from her foam-flecked lips.
+
+"Take her," cried the old woman, excitedly. "Hold her tightly in your
+arms a minute."
+
+Howard obeyed her quickly, and in his strong, yet gentle clasp, the mad
+girl was held securely while Dame Videlet poured something from a bottle
+upon a sponge and held it to the girl's dilated nostrils.
+
+Directly her wild cries grew fainter, her eyelids fell, her head dropped
+heavily upon Howard's breast.
+
+"Lay her down upon the bed, now, sir," said the dame, "and fetch the
+doctor as quickly as you can. This delirium will soon return upon her.
+The effect of the drug will not last very long."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"She cannot live the night out," said the doctor, sadly.
+
+Three weary days and nights had Lora been tossing restlessly in the
+delirium of fever. Everything that money or skill could do had been done
+for her, but all to no avail.
+
+Now, as they stood around the bed and listened to her wild, delirious
+ravings, the kind old doctor shook his head and sighed at the sight of
+so much youth and beauty going down to the grave.
+
+"She cannot live the night out," he said again, in a voice of deep
+feeling.
+
+"Can nothing more be done?" asked Howard Templeton, his blue eyes
+resting sadly on the wreck of the beautiful Lora.
+
+"I have done all that the medical art can do," declared the physician,
+"but all to no avail. She has sustained a terrible shock. Her dreadful
+tramp through the wind and rain the day she came here was enough to have
+killed her. But her constitution was a superb one, and I believed that I
+might have saved her after all, if the child could have been restored to
+her."
+
+"Why did we not think of procuring a substitute for the child?"
+exclaimed Howard, suddenly. "If we could have put another child in its
+place might not the innocent deception have saved her life?"
+
+"Such a plan might have been tried," said the doctor, thoughtfully. "But
+it must have been a terrible risk to tell her the truth even after her
+recovery. She is very nervous, and her organization is high-strung."
+
+Even as he spoke, the grayness and pallor of death settled over Lora's
+beautiful, wasted features.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+"My love, you are simply perfect. You look like a bride."
+
+Mrs. Carroll spoke enthusiastically, and her daughter flushed brightly
+with gratified pride and pleasure.
+
+She was standing before the long cheval-glass in her dressing-room. She
+was about to attend a ball at Mrs. Egerton's, and her maid had just put
+the finishing touches to her toilet.
+
+It was no wonder that Mrs. Carroll's admiration had broken out into
+enthusiastic words. Xenie's loveliness was dazzling, her toilet
+perfection.
+
+She wore a dress of the rarest and costliest cream-white lace over a
+robe of cream-colored satin. The frosty network of the over-dress was
+looped here and there with diamond stars.
+
+A necklace of diamonds was clasped around her white throat, a diamond
+star twinkled in the dark waves of her luxuriant hair, and the same rich
+jewels shone on her breast and at her tiny, shell-like ears.
+
+Her dark and brilliant beauty shone forth regally from the costly
+setting.
+
+Her eyes outrivaled the diamonds, her satin skin was as creamily fair as
+her satin robe, her scarlet lips were like rosebuds touched with dew.
+
+No wonder that Mrs. Carroll caught her breath in a kind of ecstacy at
+the resplendent vision.
+
+More than a year had passed since that dark and rainy morn on the
+shores of France, when Xenie had wandered up and down on the "sea-beat
+shore" seeking her lost sister--a year that had brought its inevitable
+changes, and dulled the first sharp edge of grief--so that to-night she
+was to throw off her mourning robes and reappear in society for the
+first time at a ball given by her aunt, Mrs. Egerton.
+
+Yet, after that first moment of exultant triumph at her mother's praise,
+a faint, intangible shadow settled over Mrs. St. John's brilliant face.
+
+The scarlet lips took a graver curve upon their honeyed sweetness, the
+dark, curling lashes drooped low, until they shaded the peachy cheek.
+
+The white-gloved hand that held the rare bouquet drooped wearily at her
+side.
+
+"Mamma," she said, abruptly, "I wish I had not promised to go."
+
+"What has come over you, Xenie? I thought you had looked forward to this
+night with real pleasure."
+
+"I did--I do, mamma, and yet for the moment my heart grew sad. I was
+thinking of poor little Lora."
+
+A hot tear splashed down upon her cheek, and Mrs. Carroll sighed
+heavily, while her grave, sad face grew sadder and graver still. She put
+her hand upon her heart.
+
+"Oh, that we might have her back!" she breathed, in a voice that was
+almost a moan of pain.
+
+"The carriage is waiting, madam," said Finette, appearing at the door.
+
+"Well, I am ready," said Mrs. St. John, listlessly. "My cloak, Finette."
+
+The maid came forward and threw the elegant wrap about her shoulders,
+and leaving a light kiss on her mother's lips, Mrs. St. John swept out
+of the dressing-room and down to the carriage that waited to take her to
+the brilliant _fete_ that Mrs. Egerton had planned in her especial
+honor.
+
+Mrs. Carroll bent her steps to the nursery.
+
+Ninon, the little French nurse, sat beside the hearth sewing on a bit of
+fancy work, and the soft glow of firelight and gaslight shining upon her
+made her look like a quaint, pretty picture in her neat costume and dark
+prettiness.
+
+The nursery was a dainty, airy, white-hung chamber. It had been a
+smoking-room in Mr. St. John's time. His widow had converted it into a
+nursery.
+
+In a beautiful rosewood, lace-draped crib lay the spurious heir to the
+millionaire's wealth--a beautiful, rosy healthy boy, sleeping softly and
+sweetly in innocent unconsciousness of the terrible fraud that had been
+perpetrated in his name.
+
+For Mrs. St. John's daring scheme had succeeded. Lora's child had been
+foisted upon the law and the world as the millionaire's legal heir, and
+Howard Templeton's heritage had passed into the hands of the child's
+guardian, Mrs. St. John, his pretended mother.
+
+But, alas! in the hour of her triumph, when the golden fruit of her wild
+revenge was within her grasp, its sweetness had palled upon her, its
+taste had been bitter to her lips. It was but Dead Sea fruit, after all.
+
+For the struggle with Howard Templeton for the possession of the
+millionaire's fortune which Xenie had anticipated with such passionate
+zest had been no struggle after all.
+
+In a few weeks after the burial of the poor drowned woman whom she had
+identified as her sister, Xenie and her mother had returned to the
+United States, taking with them Lora's child, and as nurse, Ninon, the
+little maid-servant.
+
+A costly bribe had sealed the lips of the little French maid, and the
+truth of the little boy's parentage was a dead secret with her.
+
+Immediately after her arrival at home, Xenie had placed her case in the
+hand of a noted lawyer.
+
+He undertook it in perfect faith. He did not dream that he had been
+employed as the necessary aid to carry out a wicked scheme of revenge
+and perpetrate a gigantic fraud.
+
+He took immediate steps to regain the possession of the deceased
+millionaire's property in the interest of his posthumous child.
+
+The case immediately attracted public attention and interest, both from
+the high position of the parties to the suit and the great wealth
+involved.
+
+But for several months nothing could be heard from the defendant, who
+was still absent in Europe, although the lawyer who managed his property
+in his native city wrote him frantic and repeated appeals to return and
+defend his case.
+
+At length, when patience had ceased to be a virtue with the plaintiff,
+and the opposition was about to push the suit for judgments without him,
+a brief letter was received from Howard Templeton, instructing the
+lawyers to postpone everything until after his arrival.
+
+He would sail on a certain day and upon a certain steamer, and be with
+them four weeks from date.
+
+Mrs. St. John was quite content to wait after she heard of that letter.
+
+She felt so sure that she would win that she was willing to wait until
+her enemy came. She wanted to triumph over him face to face.
+
+So the weeks dragged by, and Howard's steamer was due in port.
+
+It did not come. Soon it was a week over-due.
+
+Then came one of those dreadful reports of marine disasters that now and
+then thrill the great heart of humanity with horror.
+
+There had been a terrible storm at sea, and the ship had gone to pieces
+upon a hidden rock. Only seven persons had been saved.
+
+Howard Templeton's name appeared in the list of passengers who had
+perished.
+
+So there could be no further delay now. The case went before the courts
+and was very speedily decided.
+
+Mrs. St. John gained the case and had her revenge.
+
+But it was no revenge, after all, since Howard Templeton was not alive
+to pay the bitter cost of her vengeance.
+
+So the golden fruit, bought at the price of her soul's peace, turned to
+bitter ashes on her loathing lips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+"Mrs. St. John, allow me to present to you Lord Dudley."
+
+Xenie turned with a languid smile and bowed to the tall, elegant
+gentleman who bent admiringly before her.
+
+Only ten minutes before Mrs. Egerton had whispered to her eagerly:
+
+"My dear, Lord Dudley, the great English peer, is present. There's a
+catch for you."
+
+"I am not looking for a catch," Xenie said, almost bruskly.
+
+"No," said her aunt, who was an indefatigable matchmaker; "but then you
+are too young and beautiful to remain always single. You are sure to
+marry some day again, and why not Lord Dudley?"
+
+"He has not asked me, aunt," said Xenie, half-smiling, half-provoked. "I
+am not even acquainted with him."
+
+"No, but you will be," said Mrs. Egerton. "I heard him asking just now
+about you. He said you were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen--a
+compliment worth having from such a man as Lord Dudley, so elegant and
+distinguished, with such an air of culture and travel. Besides, he is so
+wealthy, owning several castles in England, I'm told, and a fabulous
+bank account."
+
+"A distinguished _parti_, certainly," said Xenie, indifferently, and
+then, as her aunt moved away, she completely forgot Lord Dudley's
+existence.
+
+She stood leaning carelessly against a tall flower-stand, looking at
+the dancers, a little later, when Mrs. Egerton approached, leaning on
+the arm of a handsome gentleman, and then she found herself bowing and
+smiling in acknowledgement of an introduction to Lord Dudley.
+
+"I have been watching you a long time, Mrs. St. John," he said, taking
+his place by her side. "Your face puzzled me."
+
+"Indeed?" she said, raising her dark eyes to him with a kind of languid
+wonder.
+
+"Yes, it is true," he said. Then suddenly, as the intoxicating strains
+of a waltz began to pulsate on the perfumed air, he exclaimed, in a
+different tone: "Will you give me this waltz, Mrs. St. John?"
+
+She assented indifferently, and a moment later she was whirling down the
+long room, the envy of every woman at the ball, for every feminine
+present had set her cap at the distinguished traveler.
+
+His tall, proud form in the black evening dress showed to the most
+perfect advantage, as clasping her _petite_ and graceful form closely in
+his arm, they whirled round and round to the enchanting strains,
+looking, in the perfect accord and gracefulness with which they moved,
+like the spirit of harmony embodied.
+
+"That will be a match," predicted some of the wiseacres around, and
+those that did not say that much thought it to themselves.
+
+Among the latter class was a gentleman who had entered a moment before
+and now stood talking courteously to the hostess.
+
+It was she who had directed his attention to the handsome pair.
+
+"Look at Xenie," she said with a spice of malicious triumph in her tone.
+"That is Lord Dudley with whom she is waltzing. She has quite captivated
+him. Doubtless it will be a match."
+
+His eyes followed the flying form a moment steadily, then he answered
+calmly:
+
+"They are a handsome pair, certainly, Mrs. Egerton. I am acquainted with
+Lord Dudley."
+
+"You met him abroad, I suppose?"
+
+"No, we came over from England in the same----"
+
+But at that moment someone came hastily up and claimed his attention.
+
+Then a little excited group formed around him, and even the waltzers
+began to see that an unusual interest was agitating the wall-flowers.
+
+Xenie looked carelessly at first, then more closely as she saw that her
+aunt stood in the center of the group.
+
+"Aunt Egerton has suddenly become the center of attraction," she said,
+laughingly, to her companion.
+
+Then she started and the room seemed to swim around her, the lights, the
+flowers, the black suits of the men, the gay, butterfly robes of the
+women seemed to be blending in an inextricable maze.
+
+Her heart seemed beating in her ears, so loudly it sounded.
+
+She had caught a flitting glimpse of a man's form standing just beyond
+her aunt. It was he around whom the excited little throng buzzed and
+eddied.
+
+He was tall, straight, graceful as a young palm tree, handsome as
+Apollo, in his elegant evening dress.
+
+His head, crowned with fair, curling locks, was held aloft with
+half-haughty grace; his Grecian profile, clearly-cut as a cameo head,
+was turned toward Xenie, and she saw the smile that curved the fair,
+mustached lips, the flash in the proud, blue eyes.
+
+For a moment she lost the step, and hung droopingly on her partner's
+arm.
+
+"You are tired," he said, stopping and looking down into her
+deathly-white face. "Pardon me, I kept you on the floor too long; but
+your step was so perfect, the music so entrancing, I forgot myself."
+
+He was leading her to a seat as he spoke. She came back to herself with
+a quick start.
+
+"No, do not blame yourself," she answered. "The fact is I am not
+accustomed to waltzing of late. This is the first time for almost two
+years, and it is so easy to--to grow dizzy--to lose one's head."
+
+"Yes, indeed, it is," he answered. "Shall I get you a glass of water?"
+
+"If you please," she murmured, faintly.
+
+He went away, and she tried to rally from her sudden shock.
+
+By the time he returned she was calm, nonchalantly fanning herself with
+a languid, indolent grace. No one but herself knew how hard and fast her
+heart was beating yet.
+
+"Thank you," she murmured; then, as she lifted her head, she saw her
+aunt coming to her, leaning on the arm of a gentleman.
+
+Lord Dudley stared and exclaimed:
+
+"Heaven! it is Howard Templeton! The sea has given up its dead!"
+
+"Do you know him?" asked Xenie.
+
+"Yes, we crossed together. That is--until the terrible storm that
+wrecked us--I was one of the seven that were saved. It was supposed that
+Templeton was lost."
+
+"Xenie," said Mrs. Egerton, vivaciously, and yet with a note of warning
+in her tones that was distinguishable only to her ears for whom it was
+intended, "here is an old friend whom we all thought dead. Bid him
+welcome."
+
+Xenie arose, languid, careless, pale as a ghost, yet wearing a gracious
+smile for the eyes of the little social world that watched her keenly.
+
+He took the half-extended hand in his a moment, and bowed low over it,
+touching it an instant to his mustached lips.
+
+"I kiss the hand that smites me," he murmured in her ear, sarcastically;
+then turned aside to greet Lord Dudley.
+
+Fervent congratulations were exchanged between these two, who had been
+ocean voyagers together, and who had parted on the deck of the broken
+vessel, expecting to meet again only upon the other shore of eternity.
+
+"I am dying of impatience to hear how you were rescued from the horrors
+of that terrible shipwreck," said Lord Dudley. "Is the story too long to
+tell us to-night?"
+
+"It is a long story, but it may be told in a few words," said Howard. "I
+was tossed about for some time, clinging desperately to a slender spar,
+then picked up by a blockade runner bound for Cuba.
+
+"This, in turn, was captured by a Spanish war vessel. I remained a
+prisoner of Spain until such time as the vessel put into port, and I
+reported to our American consul in that country.
+
+"He immediately wrote to America for the necessary papers to prove my
+identity as a citizen of America. These being obtained and examined, I
+was released, after a tedious delay, and came home as fast as wind and
+tide could carry me. There, my lord, you have the whole story in a
+nutshell."
+
+"And a very interesting one, too, I doubt not, had it been related in
+detail. I heartily rejoice that you were saved to tell it," said Lord
+Dudley, with interest.
+
+Then he added, as if some afterthought had suddenly struck him:
+
+"And, Templeton, the lady--who came over in your care--was she also
+saved?"
+
+Templeton started, and flashed a hurried glance at Xenie.
+
+She was toying with her jeweled fan, and looking away as carelessly as
+if she had forgotten his existence.
+
+He did not know that she was listening intently to every word.
+
+He looked back carelessly at the nobleman.
+
+"Yes, she was rescued with me. We clung to the spar together. I would
+have lost my own life rather than that frail and helpless girl should
+have perished!"
+
+"She returned with you, then?" said Lord Dudley.
+
+"Yes, she returned in my care. She was a helpless young widow," said
+Howard, evasively. "She lost all her friends in Europe."
+
+Then other friends claimed him, and he turned away.
+
+"So Mr. Templeton is an old acquaintance of yours, Mrs. St. John?"
+
+"Yes; he was my late husband's nephew," she answered, with languid
+indifference.
+
+He saw that she did not care to pursue the subject.
+
+"It puzzled me when I first saw you to-night that I could not account
+for the strange familiarity of your face," he said; "but since I have so
+unexpectedly met with my fellow-voyager, Howard Templeton, I distinctly
+recall the reason. You are singularly like a lady who traveled in his
+care--your very height, your very features; though, as I remember now,
+very different in expression. She appeared almost heart-broken; yet she
+was very beautiful. I need not tell you that, though, since I have
+already said she looks like you," he added, with an admiring bow.
+
+"What was her name?" asked Mrs. St. John, eagerly, quite oblivious of
+the delicate compliment.
+
+"I have forgotten it," said Lord Dudley. "Forgetting names is a weakness
+of mine. Yet I remember that Templeton called her by her Christian
+name--a very soft and sweet one. Let me see--_Laura_, perhaps."
+
+Xenie sat silent and thoughtful. There was a strange pain at her heart.
+She could not understand it.
+
+"It cannot be that I am sorry he is living," she said to herself. "My
+triumph is greater than if he were dead. He knows that I have my sweet
+revenge. It was never sweet until I knew him living to feel its pangs!
+For all his haughty bearing it must be that he feels it in all its
+bitterness."
+
+Then a sudden irrelevant thought flashed across these
+self-congratulations.
+
+"I wonder who that Laura can be? Is he in love with her?"
+
+It was the most natural thought in the world for a woman; yet she put it
+away from her with a sort of angry impatience.
+
+"What if he does love her?" she thought, scornfully, "He cannot marry
+her. He is a beggar. I have stripped him of everything. She will leave
+him for lack of gold, as he left me. Then he may feel something of what
+I suffered through his sin!"
+
+And she felt gladder than ever before at the thought of Howard
+Templeton's poverty. She knew that he could not marry the girl for whom
+he said he would have lost his own life--that beautiful, mysterious
+_Laura_.
+
+Mrs. Egerton was passing and she called her.
+
+"I am going home," she said. "I have danced too much. I am tired, and
+the rooms are suffocating."
+
+"A multiplicity of excuses," laughed Lord Dudley. "Ossa upon Pelion
+piled. Mrs. St. John, you will not be so cruel?"
+
+"I must; my head aches," she replied; and though he pleaded and Mrs.
+Egerton protested, she was obstinate.
+
+Mrs. Egerton saw her depart, feeling sorely vexed with her.
+
+Howard Templeton saw her leaving, and crossed the room to her.
+
+"I shall do myself the pleasure of calling upon you to-morrow," he said,
+quietly, as he lightly touched her hand.
+
+They had to wear a mask, these two deadly foes, before the curious eyes
+of the world.
+
+She flashed a sudden, haughty look of inquiry into his steadfast eyes.
+
+He stooped over her quickly.
+
+"Yes," he whispered, hurriedly and lowly; "it is _vendetta_ still. War
+to the knife!"
+
+Then Lord Dudley, full of regrets, attended her to her carriage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+"Xenie, is that you? Are you just home from the ball?"
+
+Mrs. Carroll turned sleepily on her pillow and looked at the little
+figure that came gliding in, looking ghost-like in the pale glimmer of
+the night-lamp in its trailing white robes and unbound hair.
+
+"Yes, mamma, it is I. But I have been home several hours from the ball."
+
+"And not asleep yet, dear?" said Mrs. Carroll, in mild surprise.
+
+"No; I am so restless I cannot sleep. I am sorry I had to disturb you,
+mamma, but I came to ask you to give me some simple sleeping potion."
+
+"Certainly, love; but wouldn't it be wiser to try and sleep without it?
+Did you try counting backward?"
+
+She rose as she spoke and turned up the gas. Mrs. St. John laughed--a
+short, mirthless laugh.
+
+"Oh, yes, mamma, I tried all the usual old-woman remedies, but to no
+avail. My brain is too excited to yield to trifling measures. Give me
+something strong that will induce sleep directly."
+
+Her mother, looking at her keenly, saw that she was very pale, and her
+wide-open, dark eyes looked heavy with some speechless pain.
+
+"Dear, you are not ill, are you?" she inquired, going to a little
+medicine-case and taking out a small vial and wineglass.
+
+"No, mamma, only nervous and restless. Give me the opiate. It is all I
+need."
+
+"Did you enjoy the ball?" asked her mother, pouring out the drops with a
+steady hand. "Who was there?"
+
+"Oh, a number of people. Lord Dudley, for instance. You remember we
+visited his castle while we were abroad--that great show-place down in
+Cornwall. I did not tell him about it, though. He is very handsome and
+elegant. Aunt Egerton recommended him to me as a most desireable catch."
+
+She wanted to tell her mother that the sea had given up its dead--that
+she had seen Howard Templeton alive and in the flesh, but somehow she
+could not bring herself to utter his name; so she had rattled on at
+random.
+
+"Humph! I should think Mrs. Egerton had had enough of making matches for
+you," her mother muttered. "After the way Howard Templeton treated you
+she----"
+
+"Oh, mamma," said Xenie, interrupting her suddenly.
+
+"What?" said Mrs. Carroll.
+
+"He--he is here," said Xenie, with a gasp.
+
+"He--who, child?" asked her mother.
+
+"The man you named," said Xenie, in a low voice, as she took the
+wineglass into her shaking hand.
+
+"Not Howard Templeton?" said Mrs. Carroll, with such an air of blank
+astonishment that she looked almost ludicrous in her wide-frilled, white
+night-cap, and Xenie must have laughed if it had not been for that
+strange and heavy aching at her heart. As it was, she simply said:
+
+"Yes, mamma."
+
+"Then he wasn't shipwrecked, after all--I mean he wasn't drowned, after
+all. Somebody saved him, didn't they?" said Mrs. Carroll, in a good deal
+of astonishment.
+
+And again Xenie said, quietly:
+
+"Yes, mamma."
+
+"But how did it all happen? Or did you ask him?" inquired her mother,
+curiously.
+
+"He is coming here to-morrow. I dare say he will tell you all about it.
+I am going now. Good-night," said Xenie, draining the contents of the
+wineglass and setting it down.
+
+"Good-night, my darling," said Mrs. Carroll, looking after her a little
+disappointedly as she went slowly from the room.
+
+But Xenie did not look back, though she knew that her mother was burning
+with curiosity to know more of her meeting with Howard Templeton.
+
+She went to her luxurious room, crept shiveringly beneath the satin
+counterpane, and was soon lost to all mundane interest in the deep sleep
+induced by the drug she had taken.
+
+She slept long and uninterruptedly, and it was far into the day when she
+awoke and found her maid, Finette, waiting patiently to dress her.
+
+"You must arrange my hair very carefully, Finette," she said, as the
+maid brushed out the dark luxuriance of her tresses, "and put on my
+handsomest morning-dress. I expect a caller this morning."
+
+It always pleased her to appear at her very fairest in Howard
+Templeton's presence.
+
+She liked for him to realize all he had lost when he gave her back her
+troth because she was poor, and because he was not manly enough to dare
+the ills of poverty for her sake.
+
+So Finette arranged the silky, shining, dark hair in a soft mass of
+waves and puffs that did not look too elaborate for a morning toilet,
+and yet was exquisitely becoming, while it gave a certain proud
+stateliness to the _petite_ figure.
+
+Then she added a little comb of frosted silver, and laid out several
+morning-dresses of various hues and styles for the inspection of her
+mistress.
+
+Mrs. St. John looked them over very critically.
+
+It was a spring morning, but the genial airs of that balmy season had
+not yet made their appearance sufficiently for an indulgence in the
+crisp muslin robes that suited the month, so Xenie selected a
+morning-robe of pale-pink cashmere, richly trimmed in quilted satin and
+yellowish Languedoc lace.
+
+The soft, rich color atoned for the unusual absence of tinting in the
+oval fairness of her face, and when she descended to the drawing-room
+she had never looked lovelier.
+
+The slight air of restless expectancy about her was not enough to
+detract from her beauty, though it robbed her of repose.
+
+"Mamma, has little Jack come in yet from his morning airing?" she
+inquired of Mrs. Carroll, who was sorting some bright-colored wools on a
+sofa.
+
+"Yes, half an hour ago. You slept late," said Mrs. Carroll.
+
+"Let us have him in to amuse us," said Mrs. St. John, restlessly.
+
+Mrs. Carroll rang a bell and a servant appeared.
+
+"Tell Ninon to bring my son here," said Mrs. St. John.
+
+Presently the little French maid appeared, leading the beautiful,
+richly-dressed child by the hand.
+
+Little Jack rushed forward tumultuously and climbed into Xenie's lap.
+She kissed him fondly but carefully, taking care that he did not
+disarrange her hair or dress.
+
+"Pretty mamma," whispered the dark-eyed child, patting her pale cheeks
+with his dimpled, white hand.
+
+Mrs. St. John smiled proudly, and just then her mother said, with the
+air of one who vaguely recalls something:
+
+"Did I dream it last night, Xenie, or did you tell me that Mr. Templeton
+is alive, and that he is coming here to-day?"
+
+There came a sudden hurried peal at the door-bell. Xenie started,
+growing white and red by turns.
+
+"I told you so," she answered. "And there he is now, I suppose."
+
+She sat very still and waited, clasping the beautiful boy to her wildly
+beating heart.
+
+There was a bustle in the hall, then the door was thrown open and a
+gentleman was ushered in.
+
+He was a large, handsome young man, in the uniform of a sea captain. He
+wore a large, dark beard, and his brown eyes flashed their eagle gaze
+around the room, half-anxiously, half-defiantly, until they rested on
+Mrs. St. John's face where she sat clasping the child in her arms.
+
+As she met his gaze she put the child down upon the floor and started up
+with a low cry.
+
+"_Jack Mainwaring!_" she gasped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+Jack Mainwaring--for it was indeed himself--looked at his sister-in-law
+with a half-sarcastic smile.
+
+He had no love for Lora's relations. He considered that they had treated
+him badly. He was as well-born as they were, and had been better off
+until Xenie had married the old millionaire.
+
+Yet they had flouted his love for Lora and refused to sanction an
+engagement between them, hoping to send her to the city and find a
+richer market for her beauty. So it was with a smile of scorn he
+contemplated the agitation of the beautiful young widow.
+
+"Yes, Mrs. St. John, it is Jack Mainwaring," he said, grimly. "Don't be
+alarmed, I won't eat you."
+
+Xenie regarded him with a stare of haughty amazement.
+
+"I do not apprehend such a calamity," she said, icily. "But--I thought
+you dead."
+
+"Yes," he said. "I have passed through some terrible disasters, but
+luckily I escaped with my life. You will not care to hear about that,
+though, so I will not digress. I will say that I came up from the
+country this morning. I went down there yesterday to look for Lora. You
+will wonder, perhaps, why I am here this morning."
+
+Mrs. Carroll had sent the nurse away as soon as he entered. They were
+alone, she and Xenie and the child, with the handsome, desperate young
+man, looking as if he hovered on the verge of madness.
+
+He had not even spoken to his mother-in-law, who regarded him with a
+species of terror.
+
+Xenie fell back into her seat at the mention of Lora's name. Her lip
+quivered and her eyes filled.
+
+"You--you surely have not come for Lora," she said, and her voice was
+almost a moan of pain. "You surely must have heard----"
+
+"That _my wife_ is dead," he said, and his voice shook so that it was
+scarcely audible. "Yes, they told me she was drowned. Is it true?"
+
+"She--she drowned herself," answered Xenie, in a low tone of passionate
+despair.
+
+She had not asked him to sit down, but Captain Mainwaring dropped down
+heavily into a chair with a groan of mortal agony, and hid his convulsed
+face in his hands.
+
+"Oh, my God, _no_!" he cried out, wildly. "They did not tell me that. It
+is not true. It cannot be true. She would not have done that, my little
+Lora!"
+
+"It is all your fault," cried out Mrs. Carroll, confronting him with a
+pale face and flashing eyes. "You drove her to it, Jack Mainwaring, you
+broke her heart. You killed her as surely as if your hand had pushed her
+into that great, cruel sea where she found her death!"
+
+"She was my wife--I loved her," said the sailor in a voice of anguish,
+as he lifted his wet eyes to the face of the angry mother of his lost
+one. "_You_ were the cruel one. You denied her my love, and perhaps when
+you found out that she belonged to me in spite of you, you tormented her
+to death."
+
+Mrs. Carroll did not answer him. She was afraid to speak. A moment ago,
+in her rage and excitement, words had hovered on her lips that would
+have betrayed the fact that a child had been born to Lora.
+
+But a quick telegraphic signal from her daughter arrested the truth on
+her lips. So she remained silent, fearful that some angry, unguarded
+word might betray Xenie's perilous secret.
+
+Meanwhile little Jack clung to Mrs. St. John's dress, and regarded the
+big, handsome, bearded seaman with fearless, fascinated eyes.
+
+The door opened suddenly and Howard Templeton stepped into the room, but
+no one saw him or heard him, so intense was the excitement that pervaded
+their hearts.
+
+He was about to advance toward Mrs. Carroll when he saw Jack Mainwaring
+sitting in a position that screened the new-comer from the ladies, while
+it exposed to full view his own anguished and tear-wet face.
+
+Howard paused instantly and stared at the handsome sailor with
+increasing surprise each moment, until that expression was succeeded by
+one of fervent pleasure.
+
+He had known Jack Mainwaring quite well several years before, and had
+been sincerely sorry when he had heard of his loss at sea.
+
+Now, after one puzzled moment, resulting from Jack's long, glossy beard,
+he recognized him, and his heart leaped with joy to think that Lora's
+husband was still numbered among the living.
+
+"But I did not come here to bandy words," continued poor Jack, lifting
+his bowed head dejectedly. "Mrs. St. John, will you tell me how long my
+wife has been dead?"
+
+Xenie named the date in a half-choked voice. It was fourteen months
+before.
+
+Captain Mainwaring took a well-worn letter from his pocket and ran over
+it again, while his manly face worked convulsively with emotion; then he
+said, in a voice that quivered with deep feeling:
+
+"My poor Lora, my unfortunate wife, left me a child, then. Where is that
+child, Mrs. St. John?"
+
+A blank, terrified silence overwhelmed the two women. Instinctively
+Xenie's arm crept around the child at her knee and drew him closer to
+her side.
+
+Captain Mainwaring had scarcely noticed little Jack before, but Xenie's
+peculiar action attracted his attention. He rose and took a step toward
+her.
+
+"You do not answer me," he said. "Can it be, then, that this is Lora's
+child and mine?"
+
+Xenie caught the child up and held him tightly to her breast, while she
+faced the speaker with wild, angry eyes, like a lioness at bay.
+
+"Back, back!" she cried, "do not touch him! This is _my_ child--mine, do
+you hear? How dare you claim him?"
+
+"Yours, yours," cried the sailor, retreating before the passionate
+vehemence of her voice and gestures; "I--I did not know you had a child,
+madam."
+
+"You did not," cried Xenie with breathless defiance. "No matter. Ask
+mamma, there. Ask Doctor Shirley! Ask anyone you choose. They will all
+tell you that this is my child--_my_ child, do you understand?"
+
+"Madam, I am not disputing your word," cried poor Jack, in amaze at her
+angry vehemence. "Of course you know best whose child it is. But will
+you tell me what became of Lora's baby?"
+
+Mrs. St. John stared at him silently a moment, then she answered,
+coldly:
+
+"Lora's baby? Are you mad, Jack Mainwaring? Who told you that she had a
+baby?"
+
+His answer was a startling one:
+
+"Lora told me so herself, Mrs. St. John."
+
+Xenie St. John reeled backward a few steps, and stared at the speaker
+with parted lips from which every vestige of color had retreated,
+leaving them pallid and bloodless as a ghost's.
+
+"What, under Heaven, do you mean?" she inquired, in a hollow voice.
+
+Captain Mainwaring held up the letter in his hand.
+
+"Do you see this letter?" he said. "It is the last one Lora wrote me. I
+received it at the last port we touched before our ship was burned. She
+begged me to come back to her at once if I could, and save her name from
+the shadow of disgrace. She told me that a child was coming to us in the
+spring. I--oh, God, I was frantic! I meant to return on the first
+homeward bound vessel! Then came the terrible fire and loss of the
+vessel. Days and days we floated on a raft--myself and three
+others--then we were rescued by a merchant vessel bound for China. We
+had to go there before we could come home. For months and months I
+endured inconceivable tortures thinking of my poor young wife's terrible
+strait. And after all--when I thought I should so soon be at home and
+kiss her tears away--I find her _dead_!"
+
+His voice broke, he buried his face in his hands, and, strong man though
+he was, sobbed aloud like a child.
+
+They watched him, those four--Templeton, himself unseen--the frightened
+mother and daughter, and the little child with its sweet lips puckered
+grievingly at the man's loud sobs.
+
+But in a minute the man mastered himself, and went on sadly:
+
+"I was half frantic when I heard that my wife was dead. But, after
+awhile, I remembered the little child. I said to myself, I will go and
+seek it. If it be a little girl I will call it Lora. It may comfort me a
+little for its mother's loss."
+
+He paused a moment, and looked at the pale, statue-like woman before
+him.
+
+"Where is the child?" he asked, almost plaintively.
+
+Her eyes fell before his earnest gaze, her cheeks blanched to the pallor
+of marble.
+
+"She must have been mistaken," she faltered. "There was no child."
+
+The young sailor regarded her keenly.
+
+"Madam, I do not believe you," he answered, bluntly. "You are trying to
+deceive me. I ask you again, where is my child? Is it dead? Was it
+drowned with its hapless young mother?"'
+
+"I tell you there was no child," she answered, defiantly, stung to
+bitterest anger by his words.
+
+"But there _was_ a child," persisted Captain Mainwaring. "Lora would not
+have deceived me."
+
+"Not willfully, I know, but she was mistaken, I tell you," was the
+passionate response.
+
+"I do not believe you, Mrs. St. John. You are trying to deceive me for
+some purpose of your own. You kept my wife from me, and you would fain
+keep my child, also. You have hidden it away from me! Nay, I believe on
+my soul that it is my child you hold in your arms and claim as your own.
+Give it to me," he cried, advancing upon her.
+
+But she retreated from him in terror.
+
+"Never! never!" she cried out, in a passionate voice.
+
+"Xenie, Xenie!" cried Howard Templeton, advancing sternly, "do not stain
+your soul longer with such a horrible falsehood. Give Jack Mainwaring
+the child! You well know that it is his and Lora's own!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+Xenie St. John turned with a half-stifled shriek and looked at the
+daring intruder.
+
+She saw her enemy standing in the center of the room looking down at her
+from his princely hight with a lightning flash of scorn in his bright
+blue eyes, his lips set sternly under his curling blonde mustache.
+
+He was elegantly attired in the most fashionable morning costume, and
+his fair, proud Saxon beauty had never appeared more striking. Xenie's
+dark eyes flashed their gaze into his blue ones with a blaze of
+passionate defiance.
+
+"How dare you say so?" she cried, stamping her small, slippered foot
+upon the rich carpet with angry vehemence. "Are you mad, Howard
+Templeton?"
+
+He stood still, folding his arms across his broad breast, regarding her
+with a steady calmness strangely at variance with her passionate
+vehemence.
+
+"No, I am not mad," he answered, in low, even tones, while his blue eyes
+gazed strangely into her own--"I am not mad, and I dare assert nothing
+but what I know to be the truth. So I repeat what I said to you just
+now. Give Captain Mainwaring the innocent little child in whose name you
+have perpetrated such a monstrous fraud. It is his child and your
+sister's. I will prove it, and swear to it if necessary, before any
+court in the land."
+
+The calm and steady assurance of his words and looks and tones struck
+Xenie with inward terror. Yet it seemed to her impossible that Howard
+Templeton could really know the truth. Her heart quaked with terror, yet
+she tried to brave it out in very desperation.
+
+"How dare you say so?" she repeated, but her voice faltered, and she
+trembled so that she could scarcely hold the little child in her arms.
+
+Mrs. Carroll crept to her side and stood there dumbly, filled with a
+yearning desire to help Xenie and shield her from the consequences of
+her sin, but so horror-stricken that she could not even speak.
+
+Howard Templeton regarded Xenie with a look of scornful amazement.
+
+"Madam," he said, in clear, ringing, vibrant tones, "I can scarce
+believe that you will try to persist in this terrible deception in the
+face of all that I have said. Listen, then, and you shall know why I
+dare confront you with your sin."
+
+"Speak on," she answered, cresting her beautiful head so defiantly, and
+looking at him so proudly that no one, not even her mother, dreamed of
+the terrible pain that ached at her heart.
+
+"I have known of this deception from the first," he said. "Ever since
+the evening I called upon your sister, before you went to Europe. You
+personated Lora very cleverly. I will give you that much credit; but you
+did not deceive me five minutes. I saw through the mask directly, and
+understood the daring game you were playing in furtherance of your
+revenge against me. Your clever acting did not blind me. I had loved you
+once, remember, and the eyes of love are very keen."
+
+Alternately flushing and paling, Xenie stared at him, still clasping the
+little child to her wildly beating heart.
+
+"Bah!" she cried out, contemptuously, as he paused; "who would believe
+this wild tale that you are telling? If you suspected me, why did you
+not speak out?"
+
+"I had a fancy to see the farce played out," he answered, coldly. "I was
+curious to know how far you would willfully wander in the path of sin to
+gratify your thirst for revenge. I followed you to Europe, although you
+did not dream of such a thing until that wild and rainy dawn when you
+met me on the shore near your cottage."
+
+A groan forced itself though her pallid lips as she recalled that
+dreadful day.
+
+"But, Xenie," he continued, slowly, "I never meant to let matters go as
+far as they have gone. It amused me for a little while to watch your
+desperate game, but I always intended to check you before you
+consummated your clever plan. But that strange power that some call
+fate, and others Providence, has come between me and my first
+intention. You have tasted the full sweetness of the cup of revenge, and
+now you are doomed to drink the bitter dregs. The disgraceful truth will
+all be known. The wealth you have cheated me of by a terrible fraud will
+have to be restored. The time has come when I cannot spare you if I
+would."
+
+She shivered as if an icy wind had blown against her, so impressive were
+his looks and words; but she saw that Captain Mainwaring was looking at
+her with mingled wrath and scorn on his handsome, honest face; and the
+spirit of defiance only grew stronger within her.
+
+"I defy you," she began, imperiously, but the words died half-uttered on
+her lips, and a shriek of fear and terror burst forth instead.
+
+For the closed door had opened silently and suddenly, and a beautiful,
+fragile-looking woman had glided into the room.
+
+Xenie thought it was the ghost of her who lay in that green grave under
+the skies of France, with the white cross marked: "Lora, ætat 18."
+
+The beautiful intruder paused a moment and gazed questioningly around
+her.
+
+As if by magic, her gaze encountered that of the young sea captain who
+was staring at her with wild, half-frightened eyes, like one who sees a
+vision.
+
+Lora--for it was indeed herself--gazed at the handsome young sailor a
+moment in bewilderment; then a wild and piercing shriek of joy burst
+from her lips. She rushed forward and threw herself upon his broad
+breast in a transport of happiness.
+
+"Oh, Jack, Jack!" she cried, twining her white arms tightly around his
+neck, "you are alive! What happiness for your poor Lora!"
+
+Captain Mainwaring clasped and kissed her with passionate joy,
+understanding nothing very clearly except the one ecstatic fact that
+Lora was indeed alive, and having through his deep joy a vague
+consciousness that Mrs. St. John had somehow terribly wronged and
+deceived him.
+
+"You see," said Howard Templeton, coldly to Xenie as she stared
+speechlessly. "Lora has returned to claim her own. Your reign is over."
+
+Lora heard the words, and breaking from the fond clasp of her husband's
+arms, turned to her sister.
+
+"Oh, Xenie!" she cried, then she stopped short, and her lovely face
+flushed and her dark eyes beamed.
+
+She had caught sight of the beautiful boy that nestled in the clasp of
+her sister's arms.
+
+Lora watched him a moment with parted lips and eager eyes.
+
+"Oh!" she breathed, in tones of ineffable tenderness, "how beautiful he
+is!" then, in low and almost humble accents, she murmured: "Xenie, you
+will let me kiss him once."
+
+"It is Lora's voice and face," cried Mrs. St. John, half-retreating
+before her as she advanced, "and yet I saw Lora lying dead--drowned in
+the cruel sea!"
+
+"No, no," cried Lora, eagerly, "that poor creature you saw drowned was
+not your sister, Xenie."
+
+"She wore your shawl, your rings," exclaimed Mrs. St. John,
+incoherently.
+
+"Yes, that is true," said Lora, patiently, "but I can easily explain
+that, Xenie. She was a poor, mad creature that I met in my
+wandering--even madder than myself, perhaps, for I remember it all
+distinctly. She stripped me of my shawl and my jewels--to make herself
+fine as she said. I let her have them and she went away and left me.
+Then it must have been that she cast herself into the sea. It was she
+whom they found and whom you buried under the marble cross with my name
+upon it. She was some poor, unknown unfortunate whom you mourned as your
+sister."
+
+She came closer to her sister's side as she spoke, and looked up
+pleadingly into her face.
+
+"Xenie, you will not disown me, will you? I am indeed your sister, Lora,
+although you thought me dead. I owe my life to Howard Templeton. He
+found me ill and dying in a poor woman's cot, and cared for me and saved
+me. Yes, at the very last hour, when they said I was dying, he would not
+give me up. He brought a little baby and laid it in my arms, and life
+came back to me at the touch of the little lips and hands. He deceived
+me, but it was for my own good. It saved my life, and when I grew
+stronger I could bear to be told of the innocent deception he had
+practiced, and I gave back the child to the kind peasant mother who had
+lent it to me to save my life. But, oh, Xenie, if I talked all day I
+could never tell you how much I owe to Howard Templeton. He has been all
+that the best and noblest brother on earth could be! You must not hate
+him any longer. Xenie, you must forgive him and be kind to him for my
+sake, since but for his tender care I must surely have died."
+
+As she ceased to speak, Jack Mainwaring strode forward and caught Howard
+Templeton's hands in a grasp of steel. Words failed him, but the tearful
+gaze of the honest eyes was far more expressive of his gratitude than
+the most eloquent speech.
+
+But Xenie remained still and speechless. She suffered Lora to kiss and
+caress her, but she remained still and pale, seemingly incapable of a
+return of her sister's tenderness. Her dark eyes stared straight before
+her, filled with a dumb terror, as if some dread anticipation was
+painted on the walls of her mind.
+
+Slowly, like one fascinated, Lora crept nearer, and twining her arms
+about her little child, kissed his sweet brow and lips. Xenie turned
+mechanically and their eyes met.
+
+They regarded each other silently a moment, but in Lora's eyes there was
+a yearning tenderness, a plaintive prayer that said plainer than words:
+
+"Oh! my sister, give me my child. Let me lay him in his father's arms,
+and say: 'My husband, this is my child and yours.'"
+
+The ice around Xenie's frozen heart melted at that wordless prayer.
+Slowly she laid the beautiful, dark-eyed boy in the yearning arms of the
+young mother.
+
+"Take him, Lora," she said, "I absolve you from your vow of silence. I
+cannot withhold this crowning joy that will complete your happiness,
+although it wrecks my own. Upon my head fall all the bitter consequences
+of my sin."
+
+With the words she turned to leave the room, but that bitter
+renunciation before her deadly foe had been too hard for her.
+
+She staggered blindly a moment, then fell to the floor like one bereft
+of life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+On the deck of a noble steamer outward bound, Lora Mainwaring leaned
+upon her husband's arm and waved a fond farewell to her mother and
+sister who watched her tearfully from the shore.
+
+Captain Mainwaring was about to make his first voyage as the commander
+of the vessel, and his wife chose to go with him, declaring that she
+feared the dangers of the sea far less than the anguish of a second
+separation from her husband.
+
+Yet the tears stood thickly in her eyes as she clasped the dimpled hand
+of her little son and watched those two sad figures on the shore--the
+beloved mother and sister whom she was leaving for long and weary
+months--and it might be, for who could tell--perhaps forever!
+
+Two months had passed since the eventful day when Lora had returned to
+the dear ones who mourned her as dead--two months of passionate
+happiness to her, yet crowded with bitterness and humiliation to her
+beautiful and high-spirited sister.
+
+For yet again had the fabulous fortune of the old millionaire changed
+hands, and Howard Templeton was victor now.
+
+Her passionate revenge, her perilous secret belonged to the world now.
+It was as Howard had said. He could not have spared her if he would, for
+Jack Mainwaring was filled with rage and scorn at the knowledge that
+Xenie had made his innocent child the instrument of a wicked revenge.
+
+Passionate and impulsive, and hating his wife's relations with cordial
+good will, Jack lost no time in spreading the story to the winds.
+
+The day came when a bitter impulse moved him to repentance, but it was
+too late to undo his work.
+
+"You were very wrong, Jack," little Lora said to him, tearfully; "you
+should have remembered that it was not for her sake alone my sister
+planned and carried out the deception. She gained her revenge, but she
+also saved my name from obloquy. When you rail so bitterly against her,
+do not forget that I also lent myself to the deception in my cowardly
+fear of the world's censure."
+
+So Captain Mainwaring was slowly brought to take a more reasonable view
+of the case. He apologized bluntly but heartily to Xenie, and she
+forgave with him an almost apathetic indifference.
+
+For the beautiful and passionate woman was changed now almost beyond
+belief. Even as she had hastened to be revenged on Howard Templeton for
+her wrongs, she now made haste to offer restitution. He had no need to
+contend for his rights. Every dollar of which she had defrauded him was
+now legally restored to him again.
+
+And when that act of restitution was accomplished, Xenie fell into
+strange and dangerous apathy. The idle tongues of the world wagged
+busily, but she of whom they gabbled remained secluded in her beautiful
+home, silent, thoughtful, sufficient unto herself, heedless alike, it
+seemed, of their praise or blame.
+
+But the sorrowing mother who daily condemned herself for her share in
+the trouble, as she anxiously watched her daughter, saw that her
+delicate cheek was growing thin and white, the brilliant lustre was
+fading from the mournful black eyes, the musical voice had a subtle tone
+of weariness. How could it be otherwise when she had lost so much at one
+fell stroke of fate?
+
+Fortune, revenge, the world's applause, even the little child whom she
+had loved almost as her own, had slipped from her clasp in an hour, and
+left her empty-handed on the bleak shores of fate.
+
+She did not know what to do with her blank and ruined life, and her
+empty heart whose idols all lay shattered in the dust.
+
+So she went her way in silence, not caring to look back, not daring to
+look forward. For what was left to her now? Nothing but life in a world
+that seemed to have ended for her forever--life "more pathetic than
+death."
+
+So, as she turned her dim eyes away from the gallant ship that was
+bearing Lora so swiftly away from her native land, she said in a voice
+that was sadder than tears:
+
+"Let us go home, mother."
+
+And while Lora went sailing away over the blue summer sea, beneath the
+smiling sky of June, they turned their faces homeward.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Aunt Egerton!"
+
+"Yes, dear," said the elegant woman of fashion, rising with a rustling
+of silk and lace to greet her niece. "It is I. I came early on purpose
+to go with you and see little Lora off, but you were already gone. I
+would have followed you, but they told me I should be too late. So I
+waited for you here."
+
+Then she rustled back to her seat again and there ensued an embarrassed
+silence.
+
+For this was the first time that Mrs. Egerton had crossed the threshold
+since the story of Xenie's revenge and its ultimate failure had become
+known to the carping world.
+
+She, in common with the world, had been terribly shocked by the
+disclosure, and had been in full accord with society when it turned its
+back upon its whilom beautiful favorite.
+
+Now, as she sat there in the rich arm-chair of violet velvet, with all
+the prestige of her rank and wealth about her, she shrank uneasily
+before the half-veiled scorn in the beautiful, dusky eyes of the woman
+who sat opposite regarding her with a cold, inquiring glance.
+
+Turning to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Carroll, she engaged her in a little
+desultory chat while she recovered her self-possession.
+
+"So Lora has gone on a voyage with her husband?"
+
+"Yes," Mrs. Carroll said, briefly.
+
+She was silently wondering to herself what had brought her proud
+sister-in-law to Xenie's house after she had, in the world's parlance,
+so completely "cut" her.
+
+"Is she quite happy?" continued Mrs. Egerton, patronizingly.
+
+She had a private opinion that no one could be happy in such a
+misalliance as Lora had made, but she forbore to air her secret views
+for the benefit of her auditors.
+
+"Lora is perfectly happy, I believe," was the confident answer.
+
+"Ah, I am very glad. Her story has been as romantic as a novel. I am
+pleased to hear that it has ended in the same happy fashion."
+
+Then she turned to Mrs. St. John.
+
+"Xenie, I expect you were surprised to find me here this morning. You
+must have thought----"
+
+She paused here, a little disconcerted by the steady fire of the proud,
+dark eyes that gravely regarded her.
+
+"Ah, well," she resumed in a moment, with a little laugh, "I have been
+sadly vexed with you, Xenie. Who could help it? I had been so proud of
+you, and hoped such great things for you, I could hardly bear it when I
+learned to what length your passion had carried you."
+
+She paused in sheer pity as she saw the blush of shame flashing suddenly
+into those white cheeks.
+
+"Well, never mind," she continued, with a significant smile. "All is not
+lost yet. We will not recall the past. But I wish to talk to your
+mother. Won't you gather a bunch of your beautiful roses for me, dear,
+while we have our little chat?"
+
+Glad of an excuse for leaving the room, Xenie turned away, followed by a
+smile of blended triumph and cunning from her maneuvering aunt.
+
+She ran down the marble steps at one side of the house that led into the
+beautiful rose-garden that lay glowing and blushing under the balmy sky
+of June.
+
+Running down the graveled path, she stopped short very suddenly, and a
+low cry escaped her lips:
+
+"Howard Templeton!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+A gentleman, standing alone beside a marble fountain, turns with a start
+and looks at her. His face is handsome, eager, agitated.
+
+"Mrs. St. John," he says; then a strange constraint seems to fall upon
+both. They remain standing still and regarding each other in painful
+silence.
+
+It is the first time they have met since the day of her terrible
+humiliation, more than two months ago. In the passionate war they waged
+he had been the victor. One would think that he would meet her now with
+words of exultation.
+
+Yet he is silent, and a dark-red flush creeps slowly up his temples,
+while his handsome blue eyes regard her with a strange intentness.
+
+To the day of his death he remembers her as she looks now. Not the
+expression of a feature, not a fold of her robe escapes his memory.
+
+She looks like some beautiful, pale statue.
+
+    "Gown'd in pure white that fitted to the shape--
+     A single stream of all her soft, dark curls
+     Pour'd on one side."
+
+The sunshine beams upon her lovingly. A creeping rose-tree throws out
+its briery arms as though it would fain draw her into its thorny
+embrace. The light breeze scatters the scented rose-petals in a shower
+of sweetness under her feet. A happy bird warbles its lay of love above
+her drooping head.
+
+Suddenly she turns to go, thrilled with a bitter pang of remembrance.
+
+The movement breaks the spell that binds him. He springs after her.
+
+"Do not go," he exclaims, in a voice of unconscious pleading.
+
+"Why should I stay?" she asks, turning her proud, dark eyes upon him.
+"Why have you intruded your unwelcome presence upon me?"
+
+The flush on his fair, handsome face deepens.
+
+"Xenie, pardon the _ruse_ by which I have gained admittance to your
+presence," he exclaims. "I wished to see you and I went to Mrs. Egerton,
+and stating my reasons, begged her to arrange this meeting."
+
+"Did you not know that the very sight of you is hateful in my eyes?" she
+demands, spiritedly.
+
+"I feared so," he answers, with an unconscious tone of sadness in his
+voice. "Yet I wished to see you. There is something I have to tell you."
+
+"You can tell me nothing that I wish to hear," she retorts, haughtily.
+"Let me pass, sir. I refuse to listen!"
+
+But the tall, handsome form blocks her way, and shows no signs of
+yielding.
+
+"Stay, one moment, Xenie," he exclaims. "Suppose I tell you that your
+vengeance is secure after all--that Uncle John's missing will is found
+at last?"
+
+She whirls toward him, her dark eyes blazing with incredulous surprise.
+
+"At last!" she says, with a stifled gasp. "At last! And who--who----"
+
+"I found it," he answers, not waiting for her to finish the incoherent
+question. "He had hidden it, I cannot imagine why, in the most unlikely
+place in the world. By the merest accident I came upon it yesterday.
+Take it, Xenie. It secures your revenge to you now, beyond the shadow of
+a doubt."
+
+He drew an official-looking document from his breast and placed it in
+her shaking hand. She holds it in a mechanical grasp, her dark,
+wondering eyes lifted to his proud, agitated face.
+
+"Yes," he repeats, slowly, "your vengeance is now secure. Every penny of
+my Uncle John's vast wealth is bequeathed to you in the legal document
+you hold in your hand. I am left utterly penniless!"
+
+But instead of the triumphant joy he expects to see in her mobile face,
+her look of wonder deepens.
+
+"_You_ found the will--_you_ brought it to me," she says, with slow
+gravity. "Who knows of it besides yourself?"
+
+"No one except your aunt, Mrs. Egerton," he answers, calmly; "I have
+told her, and she is very anxious to congratulate you."
+
+Her red lips curl with faint scorn. But she does not speak. This sudden
+turn of fortune's wheel seems to have dazed her. She stands quite still
+holding the precious paper in her tightly-clasped hand, while her dark
+eyes fix themselves upon it in a strange, intent fashion.
+
+She has lost her revenge, she has lost the world's applause, but this
+little bit of yellow paper is able to buy it all back for her. It seems
+too stupendous to believe.
+
+"Why have you done this thing?" she asks, rousing herself, and lifting a
+curious glance to the silent man before her.
+
+"I do not understand you," he begins, half-haughtily.
+
+"Oh! yes, you do," she interrupts him quickly. "When you found this
+will, which leaves you penniless, and me, your enemy, triumphant, you
+must have been tempted to destroy it. You knew that I had resorted to a
+fraud in order to gain my revenge. How did you conquer the temptation to
+repay me likewise? Were you nobler than I that you did not burn this
+paper and keep your uncle's wealth?"
+
+"Xenie, if you will answer me one simple question, I will tell you why I
+beat down the temptation to keep the wealth which has caused us both so
+many a bitter heart-ache," he said to her, in a grave, sad voice.
+
+"I will answer you," she repeated, slowly.
+
+"Tell me this, then, Xenie. In the hour when the result of your hopes
+and plans became known to you--when you thought you had fully secured
+the revenge for which you had toiled--did your success make you happy?"
+
+"No," she answered, in low but steady tones, while her whole frame
+quivered with suppressed emotion.
+
+"No," he re-echoed; "revenge has not in it the elements of happiness. It
+is but a consuming fire that destroys everything sweet and lovely. We
+both have proved it; therefore, Xenie, I will have no more to do with
+it. I have repented in bitterness of spirit the deadly feud we waged so
+long against each other. The only atonement that was left to me you hold
+in your hand."
+
+"It was a brave atonement when you remember all that it involves for
+you," she cried, with a sudden remorseful pity in her voice. "You have
+been nobler than I have."
+
+"Perhaps it was only selfish after all," he answered, impulsively; "for,
+Xenie, I have been very unhappy in your unhappiness. Every arrow that
+was pointed at your heart has pierced mine. I have long ago realized
+that, no matter how terrible the loss to myself, I could never be happy
+save in the ultimate triumph of the woman I love."
+
+"Love!" she echoed, looking at him with a wondering, startled gaze.
+
+The blue eyes met hers, full of mad, hopeless passion, so long repressed
+and beaten down that now it seemed a consuming flame.
+
+"Yes, love," he answered, recklessly. "Forgive me, Xenie, but let me
+speak one moment. Do you think I have forgotten those brief, bright days
+when we loved each other? Do you think I can ever forget them? I have
+never ceased to love you; I never shall until this beating heart is dust
+and ashes! I count that one bright memory of our mutual love worth all
+its bitter cost!"
+
+The burning crimson flashed into her cheeks. Did he mean it--all that
+those impetuous words implied?
+
+"You cannot fool me with empty words," she cried. "Do I not know better?
+Could my love be so much to you when you threw it away for--for this
+that I hold in my hand?" and she threw a glance of scorn upon the paper
+in her grasp that represented all the vast wealth of the old
+millionaire.
+
+There was a moment's silence; then the pent-up heart of the man broke
+out into passionate words; the bird in the bough overhead hushed its
+song and seemed to listen.
+
+"Xenie, Xenie, my love and lost darling, why will you wrong me so? Oh,
+my God! how little I weighed that filthy lucre against your love! I
+swear to you here, under this blue heaven, and in this hour when I never
+expect to behold your beautiful face again, that I broke our troth alone
+because I loved with too dear a passion to doom you to the ills of
+poverty for my sake. I love you, Xenie, deeply, fondly, devotedly, and I
+gloried in the thought of lavishing wealth upon you; and when my uncle
+bade me resign you I gave up my hope--not because I was afraid to brave
+poverty _for_ you, but because I dared not face it _with_ you. Darling,
+how could I bear to doom you, my tender flower, to the ills of poverty
+and want? But, there, I have told you all this before, and you would not
+believe it. Why should I weary you again? It is only because I am
+leaving you forever that I have yielded to the weakness. Farewell,
+Xenie, and may God bless you!"
+
+He ceased, and in the solitude and stillness of the odorous rose garden
+it seemed to him as if she must hear his heart beating, so loud and fast
+were its throbs of anguish. But she was silent, and he turned to go.
+
+"Howard, stay," she murmured, faintly.
+
+He retraced his steps to her side.
+
+"Xenie, what are you doing?" he cried in horror; for she had taken the
+millionaire's will between her white and jeweled fingers and was tearing
+it swiftly into the smallest fragments.
+
+The tiny white bits were flying from her hands like a miniature
+snow-storm.
+
+She laughed lightly at his look of horror.
+
+"John St. John never meant me to have all his money," she answered. "I
+coerced him into making this will, and he hid it then, hoping, no doubt,
+that it would never be found. There is an end of it. Let all remain as
+it was before. You have your share and I mine."
+
+"And your revenge?" he asked, looking at her as if he doubted his own
+sanity.
+
+"Never speak of it again," she answered, turning from him, while the
+crimson blush of shame overspread her face.
+
+A wild hope, undreamed of before, darted into his mind. He caught her
+hand in his.
+
+"Xenie, why have you done this thing?" he asked.
+
+Her dark eyes lifted to his, full of a noble repentance.
+
+"Because I love you," she answered, "and I cannot war against you any
+longer. Forgive me, Howard; it was never hatred that wrought my sin; it
+was the cruel madness of love."
+
+He caught her in his arms with a low cry of passionate thanksgiving, and
+the little birds, listening in the nests above their heads, heard the
+sound of kisses and passionate words, mixed with a woman's happy sobs.
+
+"Xenie," he said, presently, when her sobs grew calmer, "they told me
+that Lord Dudley had sued for your hand, and that you had promised to
+return to England with him as his bride. You cannot imagine what I
+suffered when I heard it. Even while I thought you hated me I could
+never feel indifferent to you, though I tried hard to put you out of my
+heart."
+
+"Lord Dudley asked me," she whispered back. "He was very noble. He knew
+all my story, but he judged me very gently, and he would have given me
+his name and love, but I told him it might never be--that I had loved
+but one in my life, and that I could never love another."
+
+He pressed a dozen kisses on the sweet red lips that whispered the fond
+confession.
+
+"And you forgive me everything, do you, Howard?" she questioned,
+gravely. "You know that I have sinned very grievously. I have almost
+periled my soul in my mad rage for an unholy revenge."
+
+"May God forgive you as freely as I do, my darling," he answered,
+fondly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When they strolled into the drawing-room arm-in-arm, a little later,
+Mrs. Egerton rose from her arm-chair, rustling more than ever in her
+happy self-importance.
+
+"My dear Xenie," she simpered, "let me be the first to congratulate you
+that your husband's missing will is found at last."
+
+For answer, Xenie drew her to the window.
+
+"Aunt Egerton, I forgot your bunch of roses," she said, "but I want you
+to look down there in that graveled walk."
+
+She pointed to the tiny fragments of paper, and Mrs. Egerton's face grew
+pale.
+
+"What is it?" she asked, uneasily.
+
+"It is St. John's will," Xenie answered steadily, yet crimsoning
+painfully beneath her aunt's curious glance.
+
+"And you have destroyed it," Mrs. Egerton exclaimed. "Were you mad,
+child?"
+
+Xenie looked at her aunt with a gesture of proud humility.
+
+"No," she answered, "I have been mad, but, thank God I have come to my
+senses at last. I destroyed the will because I had wronged Howard enough
+already without taking his inheritance from him. I have confessed my
+faults to him and he has forgiven everything."
+
+"And the long vendetta is over," said Mrs. Egerton. "Henceforth you will
+be----" she paused for a suitable word.
+
+"Xenie will be my wife," said Howard Templeton, drawing near.
+
+Mrs. Carroll, who had been silent all this while, drew near and took her
+daughter for one moment into the tender clasp of her maternal arms.
+
+"God bless you, my daughter," she murmured. "You have known deep
+sorrow--may your future years be very happy ones."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My readers, we close our story as we began it--with a wedding. But this
+time the wedding bells indeed are "golden bells," ringing out the mellow
+chimes of true happiness.
+
+For this is not the union of winter and summer, this is not the sordid
+barter of youth and beauty for an old man's gold. It is that one true
+and beautiful union upon earth where the solemn vow of marriage welds
+eternally together
+
+    "Two souls with but a single thought,
+     Two hearts that beat as one."
+
+
+[THE END.]
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+
+This novel was originally serialized in the _New York Family Story
+Paper_; this electronic edition is derived from the later hardcover
+reprint in the _Columbus Series_, in which it shared a volume with _Wild
+Margaret_ by "Geraldine Fleming" (actually Charles Garvice).
+
+Added table of contents.
+
+Retained some obsolete spellings (e.g. hight).
+
+Italics are represented with _underscores_.
+
+Page 5, changed "marry him for him for money" to "marry him for his
+money."
+
+Page 10, moved comma from before to after "now" in "May I ask if you are
+friends with Mr. Templeton now, Mrs. St. John?"
+
+Page 13, added missing open quote before "I'll tell them that you are
+mad."
+
+Page 15, changed "you generosity" to "your generosity" and "where both
+drawn" to "were both drawn."
+
+Page 16, changed "brought it with my gold" to "bought it with my gold."
+
+Page 17, changed "desparate" to "desperate."
+
+Page 21, changed ? to ! in "No, no--oh, better that she were!"
+
+Page 22, changed "by-and-bye" to "by-and-by."
+
+Page 26, capitalized d in "Doctor Shirley" and added missing close quote
+after "serve her as well."
+
+Page 30, changed Carrol to Carroll.
+
+Page 31, changed "Mr. Carroll" to "Mrs. Carroll."
+
+Page 33, changed "gaping audibly" to "gasping audibly."
+
+Page 36, changed "sound's" to "sounds."
+
+Page 37, changed "Howord Templeton" to "Howard Templeton."
+
+Page 38, changed "prevade" to "pervade."
+
+Page 48, changed . to ? in "Is it not a brilliant victory?"
+
+Page 50, changed ? to ! after "too horrible."
+
+Page 51, changed "Mr. Carroll" to "Mrs. Carroll."
+
+Page 56, removed erroneous quotes from text following "Ninon said."
+
+Page 59, changed "unknow" to "unknown."
+
+Page 61, changed "unknow" to "unknown."
+
+Page 64, changed . to ? in "how could he return to Lora without the
+child?"
+
+Page 67, changed "about to attended" to "about to attend."
+
+Page 72, changed "nonchalantly" to "nonchalant."
+
+Page 79, added missing second hyphen to "mother-in-law."
+
+Page 82, added missing period after "persisted Captain Mainwaring."
+
+Page 86, added missing inner close quote after "my child and yours" and
+changed "Uupon" to "Upon."
+
+Page 87, added missing close quote after "world's censure."
+
+Page 88, changed "foward" to "forward" and "grset" to "greet."
+
+Page 90, changed "exclaimed" to "exclaims."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Dreadful Temptation, by Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43911 ***