Doubly false

Cora arose the next morning with a delicious sense of home-life upon her. She entered her dressing-room in a pretty morning robe, looking fresh as a flower, and informed Alice that she wished to have her breakfast served there, if Mr. Seymour would take it with her.

“Monsieur had eaten his breakfast and gone out,” Alice said. “It was past ten o’clock, and he had been gone half an hour at least.”

Cora was vexed. Why should he have gone out before she was awake? Then, eating his breakfast alone, as if he were a business man, and had any excuse for neglecting his wife. She would take no breakfast; he had broken up all the happiness of her morning by these strange actions. Indeed, she would go back to the hotel and stay there till he knew how to appreciate her company.

These were the first thoughts that flashed into her mind. Her life with Seymour had been one of perpetual adoration. No man ever loved a woman more sincerely, but it must be wonderful genius which can perpetuate through all married life the devotion of the lover or the bridegroom. Having created her Paradise and chosen her husband, Cora expected the first passionate homage which he lavished on her to last forever. Without knowing it, she held him as a sort of splendid vassal conquered by her charms and bought by her munificence. This act of leaving her alone was his first offence, and she resented it as a great wrong. A little persuasion from Alice, however, induced her to taste some breakfast, which was placed temptingly before her on a sofa-table; but she was really too much annoyed for any relish of the meal. The tête-à-tête set of snowy Parian provoked her with its one empty cup. Lubin had done his best with the little breakfast, looking upon her visit as a sort of gala season in the house. Everything was perfect; the biscuit white as snow, the butter absolutely tasted of the sweet grasses upon which the cows were fed, coffee that filled the little room with its fragrance. But he was not there, and this very perfection stung her with fresh anger.

“I have a great fancy to go up the river,” she said, pushing the cup from her after taking one sip of the coffee.

“It would serve him right; I really seem to be in the way here in my own house.”

Her own house! She was beginning to remember that everything was hers. How much love can rest in a woman’s heart when such thoughts become familiar to it?

“Who is that? Go look, Alice; I heard the gate close.”

Alice went to one of the front windows and saw a tall, fine-looking man, with light brown hair and a pointed moustache, walking toward the house. She returned to the boudoir and told her mistress.

“Who can it be, Alice, we have no visitors?” said Cora, a little disturbed. “Some one to see Lubin, I suppose.”

“No, madame, his air was too gentlemanly for that.”

“It can be no one else, that is certain,” answered Cora. “Besides these French artists—Lubin is one, I am sure—sometimes look like gentlemen.”

The mistress and servant were so deeply engaged in this discussion that they did not hear the faint click of a latch-key or the footsteps of a man as he ascended the stairs and entered Seymour’s dressing-room.

The first thing that the young man did on entering the room was to lock himself in. Then he took the wig from his head and the moustache from his lip, and crushed them both into a drawer, which he locked with force. While doing this he panted for breath, and drops of perspiration stood thickly on his forehead. But now he took time to bathe his face and hands, change his coat and brush his hair with scrupulous nicety. After thus refreshing his toilet, he took a package from an inner pocket in his vest, opened it and counted fourteen bank-notes of five hundred dollars each. These notes he secured in a travelling-belt and laid upon the bureau, while he counted what might have been some thousands of dollars in gold in a hurried, breathless manner, as if the task was one which he longed to get over. Both the gold and the notes he crushed into the writing-desk we have seen him use for the same purpose before, which he locked with care.

“Now,” he said to himself, wiping the moisture away which would keep gathering on his forehead; “now I can go to her with a lighter heart. Great Heavens! that man’s eyes are on me yet! I wish there was brandy or wine up here. He has driven all my strength away.”

There was no brandy or wine, so he poured out some cologne water from a bottle on the dressing-table and drank it off eagerly. Even that did not give him strength to appear at his ease before his wife, but he heard her voice in the next room and entered.

This is what Seymour had been doing that morning. While his wife was asleep he had gone into his dressing-room and carefully put on that wig with its light, curling hair, and the moustache with its curved points turning upwards after a fashion that changed the entire expression of his mouth. Then the glasses were put carefully over his eyes, and a coat of pinkish drab cloth replaced the quiet color that he usually wore. This disguise he completed with a stove-pipe hat, so new that it shone like satin, and a little rattan cane.

Thus, entirely changed in his appearance, Seymour went softly down stairs, a little before ten, and let himself into the street. He hailed an omnibus at the next corner, and rode down Broadway, with some ten other persons, all going to the lower part of the city on business. One of these men was the person of whom he had bought those chestnut carriage horses. He resolved to court this man’s attention, and thus test his disguise.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but permit me to open the window, it seems a little close.”

The man of horses looked at him indifferently, moved, and allowed the window to be opened. Seymour drew a deep breath as he sat down. The man had not recognized him in the least.

He entered the bank where some of his money was still on deposit, and where his bills of exchange had been cashed; after a few moments’ delay he quietly presented a draft at the desk, and to the very clerk who had done business with him before, signed by Alfred N. Seymour, with Philip Ware’s name on the back. The clerk examined the signature, compared it with one in his books, took a quiet survey of the person who presented it, and counted out the money. There was still a balance left in the bank.

“Where is Mr. Seymour just now? I see this is dated at Quebec. On his way home, perhaps?”

This was exactly what Seymour wanted. He had been all the way fruitlessly studying how to open a conversation that should lead to the answer he was ready to give.

“More than probable. He was intending to sail from Halifax the week after I left Quebec.”

“Well, I suppose we shall hear from him when he wants the rest of his money,” observed the clerk.

Seymour smiled, lifted his hat and walked out of the bank. On the steps he almost ran against a man, who came up so suddenly that he sallied back with a sharp recoil, as if the stranger had struck him.

“I beg pardon,” said the stranger, lifting his hat. “Did I run against you, sir?”

“It is I who should beg pardon, I fear—pray excuse my awkwardness,” answered Seymour, in a voice so hoarse and changed that his best friend would not have recognized it.

The two men bowed politely to each other and Seymour passed on, hurrying to the nearest omnibus, which he entered, trembling from head to foot and pale as agitation could make him.

Thus it was that Seymour returned home. No wonder he wanted a few minutes rest before he entered the presence of his wife.

“Am I late, my angel?” he said, drawing a chair to the little table. “Is there not at least one cup for me?”

Seymour took up the little silver coffee-pot, and lifting the lid, looked in.

“Why it is almost full,” he said. “Waiting for me? How good you are. I had almost given up the pleasure of our breakfast in this pretty nest.”

“But why—why did you go out this morning, of all others?” said Cora, rather sharply.

“Why because my head ached fearfully, and I hoped to drive it off before you awoke to be annoyed with it; but, unhappily, I got into the wrong omnibus, and it took me out of the way.”

Smiles began to hover about Cora’s mouth again; she filled one of the Parian cups and gave it to him, resuming her own breakfast with fresh appetite.

“The air does not seem to have given you much color,” she said, looking at him earnestly.

“No, it must be change of air, I fear, Cora, before I am quite myself again. It enervates one to be idle so long, even with the sweetest and dearest woman that ever lived, coming to one like an angel now and then. You must let me take flight for a week or two, Cora; after that I will come back to my birdie the happiest fellow alive.”

“You are very anxious to leave me, Alfred.”

“Yes, dearest, since you have told me how unpleasant the presence of a sick man is to you, I dread being taken down. Really, love, I am no fit companion for you. An excursion West among the prairies will send me back to you healthy as a crusader.”

“If I could only go with you, Alfred.”

“But that is impossible. We must not be seen together until all the world knows of our marriage.”

“I have a great mind to proclaim it to-morrow,” answered Cora. “Only I do want all my affairs settled first and out of the executor’s hands. When he once renders up his charge we need not hide away in this stupid place. I am tired of it already.”

“And I like its solitude. It is a little romance we are living out here, Cora. The very secrecy is charming.”

“But you will leave it and me.”

“Only because I must, or you will cease to love me.”

“But not yet—a week from now, say.”

“Very well. Only you must nurse me, pet me, read to me, swear to love me forever and ever, let what will befall us. That will make this one week a heaven.”

“You are not content with that, but spend the whole morning no one knows where, and leave me to eat my breakfast alone,” she said, with a look of pleasant reproach.

“Ah! yes, I must atone for that. Not one step will I walk from this house till the week is up. Will that satisfy you, Mrs. Seymour?”

“Are you in earnest? Is this a promise?”

“A solemn promise.”

“Then I must forgive you; but it was a little hard.”

Seymour arose from the table laughing.

“Now let us begin our week,” he said. “That at least, we will snatch from fate itself.”

Cora took no heed of the significance of these words, though they came from a heart heavy with foreboding.

“Now what shall we begin this glorious week with? Let it be music—how you did love music in those old days.”

“And now as well as ever—better, if you are the musician. Come, the piano has not been opened yet—your hands shall consecrate it.”

Cora looked into the glass, pushed the hair back from her temples, shook out the lilac-tinted folds of her morning dress, and swept on before her husband into that gem of a drawing room. There stood a grand piano, and close by a music stand, for nothing had been omitted in that establishment. Seymour opened the instrument, drew an easy chair so close to the music stand that the flow of her dress fell over his knees, and, leaning back, prepared to listen or think such thoughts as make men grow old in their youth. Heaven help the man! Such was his strait that he was thankful to be silent and reflect a little—thankful to shield his agony of apprehension under the sweet storm of music that soon broke over him.

Thus the young couple spent the week, all alone, surrounded by splendor in every form, loving each other and putting that love into language sweeter than poetry, but which did grow just a little tiresome from eternal repetition. Cora brought forth all her accomplishments to charm him with. When she sat down to the piano, people in the street stopped to listen, and wondered who and what the family were that had surrounded itself so richly, and from which such music came floating like strains from Paradise.

Sometimes, in her more fanciful moods, Cora would take her guitar from its case and sing ballad after ballad with a sprightliness which would have brought any man to her feet. They played chess in her boudoir, arranged flowers in the vases, watched the fountain throw up its waters in the moonlight—in fact lived out the picture which Claude Melnotte placed before Pauline as his bright ideal of a love life. Yet something was wanting. Those young hearts, so close together, were far, far away from each other at times, each busy with its own hidden secret, and each tempted almost beyond endurance to own everything, and thus get rid of the one hindrance to a happiness which might have been so complete.

At times, during that week, Cora had almost wished for some change. She was not satisfied that Seymour had kept his promise so faithfully, but would have given anything to see him go in and out as if occupied like other men. Sometimes she would shut herself up for hours only that she might feel the pleasure of welcoming him when her door was opened. After all, I think this one week of unbroken happiness had more effect on the after fate of these two persons than any one reading this history will admit. Satiety is a worse evil to deal with than want itself. Love is sometimes smothered under too much luxury, as honeysuckles and roses strangle each other when they grow close together.

Seymour was saved from this by his own troubles. He had an inner life of apprehension and regrets which lifted him out of the enervating effects which fell upon his wife so imperceptibly, that she was all unconscious of the change as the bough from which a ripe pear has fallen. Cora told the truth, she began to feel a loathing for the home which her taste had made so beautiful. I think a week, at this time, in the log cabin, which Seymour could not keep out of his mind, with prairie chickens cooking by an out-door fire, and fresh water brought from some spring under the rocks, would have been far better for those two young hearts. Under the blue sky, with God’s grand old wilderness shading them, they might have found out the secret of making love immortal. As it was, they were about to part—he for the woods and the prairies, and the woman for her ill-gotten home and crime-stricken mother.

They stood together that morning in the little room of which both would have been weary but for the anticipation of this parting hour—stood together with arms interlaced, looking into each other’s faces till tears blinded them.

“We have been so happy here,” she sobbed, looking around with new interest on everything. “Oh! Seymour, Seymour, will this ever come to us again!”

The man commenced trembling, and could only answer her with passionate kisses. With that cloud over his head, how dare he reassure her?

“You will not forget me?” she pleaded, clinging to him. “Nothing shall drive me one moment from your heart?”

“Nothing but death can drive you from this heart, my wife—nothing but death.”

“What can I do for you? I would give the world to work for you, suffer something for you!”

“Rather be happy for me, sweet wife.”

“I cannot be that, and you gone.”

“It will not be for long—I pray to God that it may not be for long,” he said straining her to his heart. “Do you doubt it; is there a single fear in your heart that we shall meet again and that speedily?”

“No, darling, no. I talked at random. Now farewell! Kiss me once more, again—again! God bless you, Cora. Think kindly of me. Love me, let what will come. Nothing but death can really part us, remember that, for you are my wife—no human power can change that. Once more, farewell!”

“Seymour! Seymour!”

There was no answer. The door closed and he was gone.