Chapter Twenty Three. Contains a Disclosure.
When the old lady had at last retired and I stood alone with my love, I moved across to draw the blind.
“Oh! do let us have some air,” she urged with a sigh. “It was so hot downstairs to-night. I feel stifled.”
This could not be, for the night air in Scotland is chilly in September. Therefore I felt convinced that she wished the bowl of flowers to remain in view of some one outside, a suspicion confirmed by her quick glance at the clock upon the mantelshelf.
For whom could that signal be intended? That it was to warn some one against calling upon her was apparent, and in an instant a great uncontrollable jealousy sprang up within me. The goddess of my admiration stood there before me calmly, her eyes fixed upon my woe-worn countenance in silence. Her lips moved at last.
“Well?” she asked. “And why have you come here, to me?”
“Because I am seeking to serve you, Lolita,” was my answer. “At Sibberton matters have assumed a very grave aspect. Richard Keene is staying there as George’s guest.”
“What?” she gasped, her face white in an instant. “Impossible! Keene as George’s friend!—never?”
“He is guest at Sibberton under the name of Smeeton. George apparently met him when hunting in Africa,” I said.
She stood regarding me, utterly bewildered, as I explained to her further the cunning manner in which the stranger Keene had introduced himself into the house.
“Then for me the future is utterly hopeless,” she exclaimed blankly, her beautiful face pale as death. “It is just as I have feared. My enemies have triumphed—and I am their victim.”
“How?”
“Richard Keene will not spare me—that I know,” she cried in desperation. “Ah! Willoughby! I cannot bear it longer. I have either to endure and be accursed here, or seek my fate and still exist the creature of the wrath hereafter. Cowardice some will call my death! But can it be coward-like to spurn the certainty I have and fly to regions unexplored? Where hope exists, life would become a stake too dear to hazard, but all with me is dreariness; and if I live existence pictures to my mind one cheerless blank; a life of condemnation and despair.” And she stood staring straight before her.
“But, Lolita!” I cried, taking her hand tenderly and gazing into her beautiful face, “you surely don’t know what you are saying. You are my love—my all in all.”
“Ah! yes,” she responded bitterly, glancing quickly at me. “Until—until they tell you the truth—only until then!”
How could I determine her meaning? How could I explore the labyrinth that surrounded her?
My brain still conjured up excuse upon excuse and warred against my better reason.
“But I don’t understand?” I said. “Why not speak more plainly—tell me everything?”
“Ah!” she sighed, her eyes fixed before her. “As I look back upon life’s stormy sea my resolution stands appalled, and I more wonder that I am than that I should be thus. Were ever woman’s trials such as mine?—or if they were, then show me that creature. Soon the busy tongue of scandal will be unfettered, and the ears of greedy calumny opened wide to swallow every breath of defamation and still add falsehood upon falsehood to blacken and condemn a helpless woman! Ah! I know,” she added. “I know what the future holds for me.”
“Then if so, why not allow me to assist you in arming against these enemies of yours and against Marigold especially?” I urged after those desperate words of hers had fallen upon me.
“Marigold! Why against her? She is my friend.”
“No, Lolita,” I responded in a low earnest tone. “She is your bitterest enemy. She knows the truth of this strange allegation against you, and she can clear you if she wishes—only she refuses.”
“Refuses! Whom has she refused?”
“Richard Keene.”
“How do you know?”
“I was present when he begged of her to tell the truth. But she only laughed, declaring her disinclination to implicate herself by so doing. That woman will let you sacrifice your life rather than tell the truth.”
“Are you certain of this? Are you positive there is no mistake, Willoughby?”
“None. I heard her with my own ears. She is awaiting eagerly your downfall.”
Lolita’s hands clenched themselves, her pale lips moved but no sound came from them. The small clock chimed ten, and as it did so she crossed the room and drew down the blind. There was, I supposed, no further necessity for the signal of the bowl of dahlias.
Ah! how crooked are the paths of life; how few the sweets; how bitter the gall! the wretched, like the daisy of the field, neglected live, nor feel the withering blast of wavering fortune. The great alone are noted, and though they weather long the pitiless storm, are struck at length and down hurled to destruction. Greatness is a dream! This world’s a dream—we wander and we know not whither.
“Are you sure that Marigold’s friendship is only assumed?” she inquired at length.
“Quite. You told me that Keene was your enemy, yet from what I have seen I believe him to be rather your friend.”
“Friend! No,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s impossible. He cannot be my friend. You do not know all the past.”
“How long ago did you know him?” I inquired. “In the days before George’s marriage. We were acquainted then,” was her faint answer.
“And the woman Lejeune? Tell me, is there any reason why he should be antagonistic towards her?” I asked, recollecting that strange incident at the farmhouse.
“Not that I’m aware of. He would be her friend, most probably. Ah! if that woman would only tell me the truth. But she will not. I know that she fears to speak lest by the truth she may herself be condemned.”
A silence fell between us. A heavy gloom had fallen over my heart; the world to me was darkness, and the contemplation of futurity a dream. And yet it was resolved; Kings reigned on earth, but I owned no other sway but love’s, no other hope but Lolita.
“And the truth,” I said very slowly and in deep earnestness. “The truth you refer to concerns Hugh Wingfield?”
The effect upon her of that name was electrical. She started, her blue eyes fixed themselves upon me with a hard, terrified look, and her lips half parted in fear were white and trembling.
“You know his name?” she gasped.
“Yes, I know the name of the dead man, the poor fellow who was so foully done to death.”
“No, no, Willoughby!” she shrieked aloud, covering her face with her hands. “Spare me, spare me that!” she sobbed.
And I saw that I had acted wrongly in recalling that fatal night. Yet if she were not guilty, why did the mere mention of the dead man’s name produce such an effect upon her?
I hastened to apologise, but her reply was—
“Ah! Willoughby! I am so doubly cursed that I can laugh to scorn all other ills of life. My cup of misery is full; one drop more and it must overflow, and life will ebb with it.”
“But can I do nothing to help you—absolutely nothing?” I demanded, looking earnestly into her eyes.
She shook her beautiful head despondently, and her breast heaved and fell in a long deep-drawn sigh.
“You saw the Frenchwoman, and you failed,” was her despairing reply. “It was the last chance afforded to me, and it is lost—lost. I know, now Richard Keene has returned, that I must suffer.”
“But if Marigold can save you from this terrible fate that threatens you, why does she refuse?”
“She has, I suppose, some motive known to her in secret,” was my love’s reply. “You know her character just as well as I do. Before her marriage there was—well, an incident. And I presume it is this which she fears that George may know.”
“But if you are aware of it, will you still conceal it though this woman is your enemy? Recollect,” I said, “that she has no love for her husband. Hers was a mere marriage of convenience.”
“Ah, yes, I know,” she said. “But would you have me condemn a woman even though she be my enemy? No, Willoughby, that is not like you. I know that revenge is never within your heart, you are always too generous.”
I regretted that I had made such a suggestion, and bowed beneath her reproachful words. Yet it somehow seemed that if she possessed the knowledge of this “incident,” whatever it was, she might hold it over her enemy as a threat, and use it as a lever to obtain the information she desired from the Countess’s lips.
“Poor George!” I exclaimed. “What, I wonder, can be the end of his life with such a woman? And yet he is so utterly infatuated by her. I threatened to speak to him regarding certain of her actions but she has openly defied me, saying that he is too deeply in love with her to hear any word of condemnation. And she’s absolutely right, I believe,” I added, sighing.
“She is right. He is more deeply in love with her than before their marriage, while on her part her open flirtations and love of admiration are little short of scandalous!” she declared.
“And yet you would protect such a woman—even though she seek your downfall?”
“The divine lesson taught us, Willoughby, is to forgive our enemies, and to allow them an opportunity for reform,” she answered calmly. “Were I to hound her down by an exposure of the past, I should myself merit neither pity nor compassion.”
“But she remains silent in order that you shall go to your ruin,” I remarked.
“Her silence may be the result of ignorance,” she suggested. “She may not really know the truth, but for some secret reason has made Keene believe she is aware of everything.”
There was something in that argument which caused me to ponder, for I recollected that her whole object had been to deceive the man who was her husband’s guest.
“But had you no suspicion that she knew the truth?” I asked.
“None whatever.”
“It seems, however, that Marigold is also in possession of some secret concerning this man Keene, for she threatened that if he revealed his real name to her husband, or sought to expose her, that she would inform the police of his whereabouts. Does that threat of hers convey anything to you?”
“Did she really say that?” ejaculated my love in blank surprise. “If she did, then it throws a new light upon the affair. She must have met the woman Lejeune, and the latter has told her certain very important facts in order to place Keene in her power. And yet,” she added, pausing, “I doubt very much if Marigold dare denounce Keene for her own sake.”
“Then she is implicated in this ugly affair as well as him?” I exclaimed quickly.
She saw that she had unintentionally revealed to me one very important fact, but having made such an assertion there was no withdrawing it, therefore she was forced to respond in the affirmative.
“Ah!” she cried desperately, gripping my hand in both hers. “You do not know, Willoughby, what conflicts wring my soul. I would barter worlds to tell you the truth, yet dare not. Because if I did so I would lose all your esteem and all your fond affection. I—I cannot live in this uncertainty,” she cried bursting into a torrent of tears. “I wander now a melancholy woman, and seem unthankful where most I should be grateful. Religion stays my hand from the self infliction of that blow which I have vainly sought within the jaws of death. Where can I go? Where can I hide my miserable self? A trackless desert would be paradise to all I suffer here. But it cannot be. I shall—I must—relieve my woes in everlasting sleep.”
“No, no,” I cried, kissing the trembling hands of my white-faced desperate love. “You must not talk like that, Lolita. You are marked down as the victim of these intriguers, but you shall not be. There is still life and love for us. Be patient, be brave—tell me the truth of the allegation against you and trust in me.”
“Tell you the truth,” she cried in a hoarse strained voice. “No, no, not to you—never. You would loathe and hate me then—you the man who now loves me.”
“Say also the man you love,” I urged tenderly, her hands still in mine.
Her lips compressed as her tearful eyes turned themselves upon me. She sighed convulsively, and then with a slight catch in her tremulous voice confessed with a sad sweet smile—
“Yes, Willoughby—the man I love.”
I clasped her in my arms. I felt the heaving of her breast, my throbbing heart kept pace with that within her bosom. My lips met hers—oh!—what a melting kiss. Love held my heart, entangling every thought.
And yet what changes in our fates must here be registered; what an accumulated scene of bliss and wretchedness must stain the pages that are to follow.
Ah! if I could at that moment have read what was written upon my love’s heart—if I could but have torn aside that veil of mystery enveloping her—if I could but have known the truth concerning that man I had found cold, stark and dead beneath the stars! How differently I would have acted.
I had thought that her love for me would induce her to tell me something of the past, yet as she stood in my embrace she was still persistent in her silence, until it seemed that she really feared lest, knowing the true facts, my affection might turn to hatred. I implored, I argued, I expressed profound regret to no avail. She would tell me nothing—absolutely nothing.
“I must suffer,” was her hard reply. “I am a woman who is the sport of circumstance. Yes,” she added, “I love you, Willoughby, but in a few hours will end my brief life of ecstasy. When I am dead—then will you know the reason why to-night my lips are sealed.”
At that instant a rap at the door caused me to release her quickly and spring aside.
A waiter who stood upon the threshold announced—
“Mr Logan, m’lady.”
