Doubly false

Cora remained in the room some time after Seymour left it, walking up and down, sometimes slowly, sometimes with the quick, impetuous tread of an empress whose power was threatened. Her heart was in a tumult of passionate feeling. The wild rush of joy that had overwhelmed her when she first saw Seymour still beat in her bosom and crimsoned her cheeks. So far as love is a passion, she felt it deeply toward that man—felt it with that blind impulse which would have overmastered any obstacle and rendered her capable almost of goodness, if that alone could have united them. She would not have married him penniless because self-sacrifice was not in her nature, but she possessed force of character to surmount any difficulty which lay between them, and all her love and ambition craved.

“He is young, accomplished, ambitious, splendidly handsome,” she said to herself. “What more can I ask. One thing, and that I will procure. It requires courage, audacity, an iron fixedness of will, almost impossible self-possession; but I have all these things. This thought has been in my mind too long for failure. Once it was a dream, now a fixed purpose—a purpose that cannot fail unless she has grown generous or cowardly—no, she is not old enough for that. I know all her weak points—a love of display, luxurious habits, a hatred of the class from which she sprung. No, I cannot fail with her. Well, the others? This man, for instance, he is easily managed; but then Aunt Eunice, that sharp, hard old Yankee woman, who never forgets. Well, I have courage even to defy her.”

Here Cora took out her watch, started on finding how late it was, and hurried up to her room. Without a moment’s delay she changed her dress, enveloped herself in a water-proof cloak, tied a thick veil over her bonnet, and, locking the door after her, went down to the street, passing unobserved as some sewing woman going about her ordinary business. She beckoned a carriage which stood near the entrance, ordered it to be driven to the Hudson River depot, and in half an hour was seated in the remote seat of a car, ready to start up the river.

The train started slowly from the depot, and went with some caution through the streets, seeming to scatter back stars along its path as it passed lamp-post after lamp-post, linking them as it were in a swift chain of fire. At last the engine plunged into the country, lighting up the track and the shadowy trees in its swift progress. Cora sat still, muffled close in her cloak of dull gray, and with her brown barege veil drawn close over her face. She had no luggage, not even a travelling basket or satchel, and sat motionless, looking out of the window as if something enthralling lay in the dark rush of the river and the broken shore along which she was whirled.

At the nearest station to the Lander’s dwelling she arose, softly gathered the cloak around her, and, without speaking to the conductor, stepped out upon the platform. She was not the only person set down at that point, but a few moments found her standing there, as she supposed, quite alone, while the train rushed up the river bank panting under every impulse of its fiery heart.

When the train had disappeared like a huge black serpent scaled sparsely with spots of fire, this young girl turned and walked hastily toward a flight of steps which led up the terrace and would conduct her at once to the lawn in front of the late Mr. Lander’s dwelling. Even in the darkness, she could detect the gleam of white marble pillars and a lofty façade breaking through the night, contrasted with the huge trees that encompassed them with a world of black shadows.

It was a weird picture of home to which the young girl came, like a thief and with the thoughts of a robber in her heart. If the darkness had permitted it, her face would have shone out white and hard almost as the marble on which her eyes turned with such burning greed. She stood a moment on the verge of the terrace regarding the building, which soon outlined itself in the sable cloud which surrounded it with vast spectral indistinctness. Even thus, it was a noble pile, appealing grandly to the imagination, and her heart swelled with rapacious satisfaction as she gathered its value into her mind.

After a little, she began to regard the house with other thoughts. Her eyes wandered over the building in search of a light, which she hoped to find shining through some of the windows. But none appeared, and she walked on, burying her footsteps in the crisp grass of the lawn, for it was too dark for any hope of finding a path. There was no wavering or hesitation about her. Swiftly as a human being could walk, she passed through the shadows and turned an angle of the house. In the window of a second story room, which overlooked a portion of the lawn most thickly planted with flowers, a faint light was burning behind curtains of white lace, which softened it as clouds envelop a star.

“That is her room, I know,” muttered the girl; “she never slept without a light. But she has changed apartments with her new fortunes. That used to be a guest chamber.”

As she spoke the light seemed to waver as if some one held it unsteadily. It was only the curtain stirred by a gentle wind, for the sash was open that pleasant summer night, and Mrs. Lander, being an epicure, loved to have perfume from the dewy flowers wafted to her as she slept.

“Thank Heaven for that coward habit of a night lamp,” thought the girl, stealing softly around the house in search of some unbolted door through which she might let herself in. She tried the back doors first, but to no avail. Then searched for an open window, but Eunice had taken care that no means of entrance should be left exposed. On the ground floor every point was locked and guarded.

After satisfying herself of this fact, Cora went round to the flower garden again, resolved, by some means, to reach the window which had at first occupied so much of her attention. Sharp and vigilant as a fox, she searched the wall for some means of ascent, but the white marble was smooth as snow-crust and nothing but a vast rose-bush broke its polished surface. This hush, however, hung loosely on the wall, and its branches swayed to and fro in the flickering light. Cora was seized with a wild impulse to climb up this uncertain support, and thus, if possible, reach the window. She seized the rose-bush by the stem and brought it down violently, with all its blossoming branches trailing on the grass. In starting back, Cora trod upon something hard, which almost threw her down. She groped in the grass at her feet and found that she had stumbled against a ladder, which lay half-buried in the grass where it had been thrown by the gardener; who had been busy about the climbing roses the day before and had left his work unfinished. Cora lifted the ladder, with some difficulty, and planting it against the white wall found that it reached the open window. Light as a bird, she climbed from round to round, till half her form and her entire side face was framed, like a picture, against the faintly illuminated sash.

The stillness within the room fell upon her with a sudden check. She leaned forward, holding her breath, and looked in. A bed stood in a corner of the room clouded with volumes of white lace, through which the outline of a female figure could be seen slumbering in the soft radiance which stole like moonlight from a lamp that seemed shaded with transparent snow. All the while Cora Lander remained as it were framed in by the window, a stout man stood beneath that great willow, which drooped over him like the curving waters of a fountain, and watched her movements curiously. But when she disappeared through the window he moved towards the stables a muttering,

“Well, it aint none of my business as I know on, but that is a mighty queer way for any gal to come home. I wonder which on ’em it is!”

Cora Lander, all unconscious of this scrutiny, paused a moment to listen before she crossed the room and drew the lace curtains back from the bed. Mrs. Lander lay sleeping upon her pillow, frilled, laced, and embroidered with that excess of ornament which those who come suddenly into the possession of riches are apt to indulge in. A quantity of Valenciennes lace lay softly around her forehead and temples. The plump white hands crept out from double frills edged with the same rich material, and the bosom of her night dress presented one mass of insertion and embroidery. She was a tolerably handsome woman and these things became her well, though a close observer would have understood something of the suddenness of her late good fortune by those elaborate appointments.

Cora Lander’s proud lip curved, and a gleam of malicious humor shot into her eyes.

“Upon my word, she dashes into the thing with a will,” was her first thought, “No fool like an old fool! All her toilet bottles mounted with gold. Both hands loaded with diamonds even in her sleep! How self-satisfied she looks. No wonder—no wonder! A property like this might make any one rest sweetly. The more she prizes it, why the easier my task.”