Guy Kenmore's Wife, and The Rose and the Lily

So the years went and came, and Elaine answered no to all her suitors, though her mother frowned and her father sighed, while deep down in her heart she echoed the "Lily Maid's" song:

But none of this pain was visible on Elaine's face as she looked up at Guy Kenmore with that calm, sweet smile, softly bright, like the moonlight that shone on the outer world.

"Mr. Kenmore, I know you will excuse Irene from her dances," she said sweetly. "She wants to go and play games with the other children in the parlor."

"The other children," Irene muttered ominously, and before Mr. Kenmore could murmur his ready assent, she exclaimed, in a tone of witching diablerie:

"Yes, but I'm not going to desert my partner! Come along, Mr. Kenmore, and you shall be my play-fellow with the children."

With a gay little laugh and a triumphant glance at her sister, Irene slipped her hand in his arm, and led her captive away, leaving Elaine gazing after them in silent dismay and despair. Irene had outwitted her after all, and her artful scheme for keeping her apart from Bertha's lover was an ignominious failure.

With a sinking heart and a face as pale as death, she turned away to convey the tidings of her failure to her mother.

Mrs. Brooke, a still handsome woman of the brunette type, received the news with an ominous flash of her large black eyes.

"Little minx! she shall pay for it, dearly," she muttered, between her teeth.

"Oh, mamma, it is only thoughtlessness I think. She doesn't really mean to be disobedient," faltered Elaine, tremulously.

Her mother gave her a swift, displeased glance that silenced the excusing words on her lips.

Bertha came up, flushed from the dance, a dark, haughty beauty, three years younger than Elaine, but never owning to more than twenty years.

"Where is Mr. Kenmore? I left him with you, mamma," she said.

"He left me to seek his partner for the next dance," Mrs. Brooke answered, in a tone of repressed fury.

Bertha turned her large, flashing dark eyes on her elder sister.

"I thought mamma sent you to get Irene out of the way," she said, imperiously.

"I did my best, Bertha," Elaine answered, gently. "I persuaded her to go and play games in the parlor. Unfortunately Mr. Kenmore came up as she was going, and she playfully carried him off with her. I am sure he will return to us directly. He regards Irene as the merest child."

"She is as old as you were when she was——" Bertha sneered in her sister's ear, making the last word so low it was inaudible.

Beautiful Elaine's cool, white cheeks crimsoned, then grew paler than before. She answered not a word.

"Hush, Bertha. Are you crazy, making such remarks in this crowded room?" whispered her mother, in angry haste.

"I shall not be answerable for what I say or do unless you get my lover away from that wretched girl," the dark-eyed beauty retorted furiously in her ear.

"Come, then, let us go and see their games," Mrs. Brooke answered, soothingly, to allay the young lady's violent rage. "He will leave Irene and come to you as soon as he sees you."

The three moved away to the crowded parlor where the girls from twelve to sixteen, and the lads from sixteen to twenty, were enjoying themselves, to the top of their bent. Having exhausted everything else, they had determined on having a wedding. Mr. Kenmore being the most grown-up of the gentlemen, was selected for the groom, and Irene Brooke for the bride.

CHAPTER IV.

Mr. Kenmore, having vainly protested at first against making a show of himself, has now resigned himself to his fate, and stands awaiting his martyrdom with a rather bored look on his handsome face. Irene, on the point of a vehement refusal to enact the bride's part, suddenly catches a glimpse of Bertha's face glowering on her from the door, and on the instant her mood changes.

Never so willing a bride as she.

After that one glance she does not seem to see Bertha. She stands with lowered eyelids waiting while the gay young girls fasten a square of tulle on her hair with a spray of real orange blossoms from the pet orange tree that is the pride of the hostess. No one sees the mischief dancing under the demurely drooping lashes.

"Poor old Bert—how mad she is," the girl is saying to herself. "I think I've almost paid her out now for her meanness. As soon as the wedding is over she shall have her fine beau back. I believe I have almost teased her enough."

"Who will be the preacher?" she inquires, glancing around at the lads.

"Mr. Clavering, Mr. Clavering!" cried half a dozen voices. "He looks the parson to the life, with his black coat and little white tie. There he is on the balcony. Go and ask him, Mr. Kenmore."

Guy Kenmore steps lazily through the low window and addresses the little, clerical-looking figure standing meditatively in the moonlight.

"Excuse me," he says, in his bored tone. "We are going to have a marriage, by way of a diversion for the young people. Will you come in and perform the ceremony for us?"

Mr. Clavering turns a pale, dreamy, rather delicate face, toward the speaker.

"Isn't it rather sudden?" he inquires.

"Rather," Mr. Kenmore asserts, with a careless laugh, and without more words they step through the window into the parlor, where the babel of shrill young voices goes on without cessation.

The bride, and a giggling string of attendants, are already on the floor awaiting them. Guy Kenmore laughingly steps to his place. Somebody puts a prayer-book into Mr. Clavering's hand and merrily introduces him to the bride and groom. He bows, and, with quite an assumption of gravity, opens the book and begins to read the beautiful marriage service.

To Bertha Brooke, glaring with scarce repressed rage at the mock marriage, it all seems horribly real. Irene has put on a shy, frightened look, supposed to be natural to brides, and no one takes note of the suppressed merriment dancing in her blue eyes, as she pictures to herself Bertha's silent rage. Mr. Kenmore, impressed beyond his will by the solemn marriage words, looks a little graver than his wont. The babel of voices is momentarily still, while bright eyes gaze entranced on the beautiful scene. It seems to Bertha as if she can no longer bear it; as if she must scream out aloud as she hears Guy Kenmore's deep, full voice repeating after Mr. Clavering:

"I, Guy, take thee, Irene, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth."

"Mamma, for God's sake, stop it," Bertha utters, in a fierce whisper, clutching her mother's arm.

"Don't be a fool, Bertha! It is nothing but child's play," Mrs. Brooke replies, impatiently, and, in a minute more the ring is slipped over Irene's finger, and the minister utters, in tones that sound too solemn for this pretty mockery:

Gay congratulations followed, and Irene, a little paler than her wont, slipped over to Elaine, who was white as death, with the dew of unshed tears glittering on her long, thick lashes.

"You dear old owl, how solemn you look," she said. "But I didn't like it myself. It sounded too horribly real. Once I had half a mind to break loose, and run away!"

Mrs. Brooke glared at her youngest pride in silent rage. The vials of her wrath were reserved till to-morrow.

Irene darted to Mr. Kenmore's side and looked at him with laughing eyes:

"You may go and stay with Bert now," she said, carelessly, "I believe I have teased her quite enough, and I mean to be good the remainder of the night."

He looked at the bright, arch face curiously a minute, then moved away to join Bertha.

She received him with a curling lip, and an irrepressible flash of her proud, dark eyes.

"I did not know you were so fond of juvenile society, Mr. Kenmore," she said, in a tone of pique.

"I am not; I was rather forced into this affair, Miss Bertha," he replied, languidly, and with a rather bored expression. "But come, let us promenade the balcony in the moonlight. Or would you prefer to dance?"

"The balcony by all means," answered Bertha, remembering what an opportunity it would afford for a sentimental tete-a-tete, and also that a pretty woman never looks more lovely than by moonlight.

"When did you leave Baltimore?" she inquired, as they stepped through the low French window, and walked arm-in-arm along the moonlighted balcony.

"Only to-day," he answered. "I remembered my promise to visit you at Bay View, and thought it a good time to keep my word, not dreaming that you would be absent. I half-feared you would have forgotten me, it has been so long since your visit to the city," he added, half-quizzically, for Irene's innocent prattle that evening had let in some light upon his mind. He understood that Bertha claimed him openly as her lover, and fully calculated on marrying him, while the truth was that though he had a lazy admiration for the beautiful brunette, he had never dreamed of aspiring for her hand. His intimate friends did not consider him "a marrying man."

"As if I could ever forget my visit to Baltimore," said Bertha, sentimentally, with an effective upward glance into his face from her dark, long-lashed eyes.

Mr. Kenmore returned the coquettish glance with interest. He was an adept at flirting himself when he could conquer his natural indolence enough to exercise the art.

"I hope it will not be long before you visit the city again," he said. "Your friend, Miss Leigh, sent you as much love as I could conveniently transport, and an urgent message to come again."

"I shall be delighted," exclaimed Bertha, who was fast forgetting Irene's naughtiness, and recovering her spirits in the charm of her admirer's presence. Now that she had him all to herself, her horrible fears of her younger sister's rivalry grew less, and she resolved to make the very most of this glorious tete-a-tete under the beautiful moonlight with the soft notes of the entrancing dance-music blending with the murmuring of the melancholy sea.

She was succeeding almost beyond her expectations. Mr. Kenmore was lending himself to her efforts to charm with unqualified approval.

He had dropped his indolent air of being bored by everything, and his dark eyes sparkled with interest, when suddenly the scene was changed, and Bertha's sentimentalisms interrupted by a little flying white figure that came through the window with a rush, and clutched Mr. Kenmore's arm frantically, with two desperate young hands, and looked up at him with eyes that were wide and dark with horror.

"Mr. Kenmore, oh, Mr. Kenmore," panted the sharp, shrill, frightened young voice, "do you know what they are saying in yonder?—what Mr. Clavering is saying? That—that—he is a real minister, and that it was a real marriage! It isn't true! Oh, my God, it can't be! Go, and make them say it is all a wretched joke to frighten me!"

There was a moment's stunned silence broken only by a scream of dismay from Bertha. Irene was gazing with a blanched face, and wild, beseeching eyes, up into the handsome, startled face of the man. Suddenly he pushed the white hands from his arm, broke loose from Bertha's clasp, and strode hastily through the window.

Irene fell upon the floor, all her childishness stricken from her by this terrible blow, and grovelled in abject terror.

Haughty Bertha spurned the little white figure with her dainty slippered foot.

"Get up," she said, harshly. "Get up, Irene, and tell me the truth! Is it true what you were saying, or only one of your miserable jokes?"

Irene dragged herself up miserably from the floor, and clung to the balcony rail around which clambered a white rose vine. The snowy, scented roses were not whiter than her haggard young face.

"Oh, Bertha—Bertha, it is true," she said, despairingly. "That stupid Clavering didn't know we were joking. He is a minister—really a minister—but no one in the room knew it, because he is a stranger about here, you know, and staying at the hotel for his health. Oh, Bertha—Bertha, what shall I do? I don't like Mr. Kenmore! I don't want to be his wife!"

Bertha shook from head to foot with jealous rage.

"Listen to me, Irene Brooke," she said, in a hoarse, low voice of concentrated fury. "If this is true, if you really are Guy Kenmore's wife, I am your bitterest foe as long as you live! I'll make you repent this night's work in dust and ashes to your dying day!"

As the cruel words left her writhing lips, Mr. Kenmore came out, followed by Mrs. Brooke and her eldest daughter.

Irene's wild eyes searched the man's face imploringly,

"Yes, it is true," he said to her abruptly, almost harshly. "The man is an ordained minister, licensed to marry. You are really my wife!"

A piercing shriek, full of the sharpest anguish, followed on the last cold word. Irene threw up her white arms wildly in the air and fell like one dead at the bridegroom's feet.

CHAPTER V.

When Irene Brooke recovered her senses she was lying on a sofa in the old familiar home-parlor which she had quitted such a little while ago a careless, happy, willful child. The soft locks that hung about her forehead were all wet and dabbled with eau de cologne, and Elaine bent over her with the face of a pitying angel, bathing her cheeks and temples with the refreshing perfume. The clock in the hall chimed the midnight hour, and lifting her head, that felt strangely dull and heavy, she gazed wonderingly around her.

In the subdued light that flooded the spacious parlor, Mr. Kenmore was walking slowly up and down with his hands behind his back. He came and knelt down by her side.

"You are better," he said, gently.

All her troubles rushed overwhelmingly over Irene, and she turned from him with a shudder.

"Ellie, where is papa? I want papa," she said, longing to lean in her trouble on the grand strength of the father who was dearer to her than all the world.

"He has never come home yet," Elaine answered in a troubled tone.

"Not yet, and he promised to return within the hour!" Irene exclaimed in vague alarm.

"He has been detained, doubtless," Mr. Kenmore said, soothingly. "You know you said to-night, Irene, that when men went out on business they never came back for hours and hours."

Irene looked at him in wonder, his tone was so kind and gentle. A great, deep pity shone in his speaking eyes. He laid his strong white hand lightly on hers. She could not understand why his touch thrilled her through and through, and pulled her hand quickly away.

"Irene, do not turn from me so coldly," he said, in the same gentle tone at which she had wondered so much, "I have something to say to you. Will you listen to me?"

She lifted her dark blue eyes to his face, inquiringly.

"Since we brought you home, and while you lay unconscious, my child, I have been talking to your sister," he said. "I think—we both think—that you and I will have to accept the situation."

Elaine rose delicately and went to the window. Irene answered not a word. He went on, holding her gaze within his steady, grave, brown eyes:

"Through our carelessness and love of fun, we have fettered ourselves so effectually that we cannot break our bonds without exposing ourselves to a notoriety that would be galling alike to the pride of the Brookes and the Kenmores. Do you understand me, my child?" he inquired, pausing, and waiting for her reply.

"I understand—you mean——," she said, then paused, sensitively, while her cheeks grew very white, and her dry lips refused to go on.

"That it is doubtful if the law will free us from the marriage vows we so unthinkingly uttered," he said. "If it did, it would only be at the expense of a newspaper notoriety that would be galling to our pride and a death-blow to sensitiveness. I own that I am proud," a deep flush coloring his face for a moment. "I cannot bear the thought of making the subject of numberless inane witticisms and newspaper paragraphs. I had rather accept the consequences of my folly."

"You are taking all the blame upon yourself," she said, in a low, strange voice that sounded very womanly for Irene, "when you know that it was all my fault."

"Do you think so? No, I was too careless, I should not have been led into their child's play," he said. "Well, no matter, let us make the best of it. I will be your faithful husband if you will be my true little wife, Irene."

The tone was very kind, but it was not that of a lover. Irene, though she had never been wooed, instinctively felt the subtle difference.

"You do not care for me—that way," she said, "and I—do not like you!"

"I have heard it said that it is best to begin with a little aversion," he answered, in a tone of patient good-humor.

"You belong to Bertha," she said.

"I belong to you," he retorted.

Elaine came slowly back from the window, looking like some tall, fair goddess in her shimmering pearl-gray silk. The tears were shining in her azure eyes.

"Irene, Mr. Kenmore is very kind," she said. "Believe me, he has made the wisest decision, if only you will acquiesce in it."

"Ellie, I don't wish to be married," cried the child.

"You are married already," Elaine answered, with a sigh, quickly repressed.

The beautiful child, who, by her own willfulness, had brought this doom upon her head, struggled up to a sitting posture. The sweet blue eyes had a dazed look. Grief had strangely changed her already.

"Let me alone, Ellie, and you, Mr. Kenmore, for a little while," she said, pitifully. "Wait until papa comes. He shall tell me what is best. Oh, it cannot be right that two lives should be spoiled by such a little mistake! Three lives, I mean," she added, wildly, "for Bertha loves him, and he belongs to her."

"Yes, he belongs to me," said a low, menacing voice in the door-way. "He belongs to me, Irene Brooke. Do not dare to take him from me!"

CHAPTER VI.

It was Bertha's voice. She had been to her room, to indulge in a fit of mad passion and jealousy, but had returned and stood listening at the door for some moments—long enough indeed to hear all that had been spoken since Irene had recovered consciousness. Mad with passion she stood before them.

"He is mine," she said again, hoarsely. "Woe be to you, Irene Brooke, if you take him from me!"

She looked like some mad creature with the loosened coils of her shining hair falling down like long black serpents over the corsage of her ruby satin robe, and her black eyes flashing forth jealousy and defiance. The jeweled serpents that wreathed her white arms seemed to dart menace from their gleaming emerald eyes as she shook her hand.

Slowly Guy Kenmore turned and looked at her, honest amazement stamped on his handsome features.

"Miss Brooke, your assertion is a most strange one," he said. "I cannot understand why you should wish to complicate this unhappy affair still further by such a palpable injustice. On what grounds do you base your claim?"

Her flashing eyes fell a moment before the proud wonder in his. Then she asked, with a heaving breast and in deep agitation:

"Do you deny that you have made love to me? That you came to Bay View to woo me?"

A deep, warm color drifted over his face.

"Is it possible, Miss Bertha, that you have taken our idle flirtation in earnest?" he exclaimed, shame, surprise and self-reproach struggling together in his voice. "If you have, I beg your forgiveness a thousand times, for I thought you were simply amusing yourself, as I was. I admired you, certainly, but I never dreamed of love, I never thought of marriage."

If love changed to hatred could have slain, Guy Kenmore would have fallen dead before the vengeful lightnings of the brunette's eyes. Strong man though he was he shivered under their baleful glare. Her very voice was changed when she spoke again. It seemed to cut the air like a keen-bladed knife.

"So you were only amusing yourself," she said. "You made a plaything of a woman's heart! Did you ever hear of playing with edged tools? Ah, beware, Guy Kenmore, beware! My love would have been a thousand times better than my hate! And do you pretend to love that creature?" pointing a scornful finger at the drooping form of Irene.

Instinctively he moved a step nearer to his girl-bride, as if to shield her from some threatening danger.

"I make no idle pretences," he answered. "Irene is my wife. Love will come."

"Love," she sneered. "Love! Your cold, selfish heart is incapable of that divine passion! I understand why you would hold that willful child to the fetters so unwittingly forged! It is the Kenmore pride, that is afraid of being dragged through the mire of the divorce court! You will never love her, never make her happy! You only take her to save your overweening pride."

"Oh, Bertha, hush! It is the best way out of our trouble," pleaded Elaine, gently.

"Best—ah, yes, you never dreamed of such a marriage for your fatherless child? A Kenmore—rich, honorable, high-born—to mate with the child of shame, the nameless creature whom we have shielded with our own honest name to save our family honor! Ha, ha, Guy Kenmore, are you not proud of your high-born bride—Elaine's base-born child, who never had a father?" screamed Bertha, wild with jealousy and anger, and flashing the lurid lightning of her great black eyes upon their blanched faces.

Like some beautiful enraged tigress, Irene sprang from the sofa, and ran to Bertha. She clutched her small white fingers in the brunette's round white arm, and their frantic clasp sunk deep into the flesh.

"You wicked, cruel woman, how dare you utter such a fiendish lie?" she panted, hoarsely. "How dare you malign the honor of my beautiful, pure-hearted Ellie? How dare you name us—Ellie and me—the honest daughters of old Ronald Brooke—in the same breath with dishonor!"

"I dare because it is true," hissed Bertha, breaking loose from the child's frantic grasp, and laughing like a beautiful demon. "Don't take my word for it! Ask that woman there whom my very words have crushed down to the earth! Ask her if she is not your mother! Ask her the name of your father! Ha, ha, Guy Kenmore, accept my congratulations on your brilliant marriage," she sneered, as she rushed from the room.

Elaine Brooke had indeed sunk wretchedly to the floor at her sister's terrible charge. She crouched there forlornly, her face hidden in her trembling hands, her golden hair falling loose, and streaming in sad beauty over her quivering, prostrate form. Guy Kenmore, with blanched face and starting eyes, recalled Arthur's words to his faithless Guinevere. They seemed to fit this crushed woman:

With a single bound Irene reached the prostrate form. Her small hand fell heavily on Elaine's white, quivering shoulder.

"Ellie, Ellie, look at me," she said; "I want to see your face! I want to see the truth in your eyes!"

With a groan Elaine obeyed the imperious mandate of the sharp, young voice. She raised her head and looked into Irene's clear, searching eyes with a woful, white, white, face, on which the very agonies of death could not have written such despair.

"Irene, my love, my darling, do not curse me," she moaned. "It is true! I am your wretched mother!"

The beautiful, kneeling figure reeled backward with one hand pressed on her heart as if it had been pierced by a sword-point.

"My mother—Elaine Brooke my mother," she groaned. "Oh, God, was ever sin and shame hidden beneath such true, sweet eyes and the face of an angel before? Do not ask me not to curse you! God may forgive you, but I never can! Now I know why they hate me, your mother and your sister. I have no right in the world, I have no name, no place, I am the living badge of my mother's dishonor! Great God, pity me! Strike me dead this moment at the feet of my guilty, shameless mother," she prayed, wildly lifting her wild, white face and anguished eyes to Heaven.

Guy Kenmore gazed like one paralyzed at the unhappy mother and daughter. He could not speak one word to either. The shocking disclosure of the maddened Bertha had almost stunned him. He was a proud man, as he had said. It was horrible to think of the stain on the girl he had wedded—the willful, naughty, yet beautiful girl whom with all her faults he had been proud to think was nobly born as the Kenmores.

CHAPTER VII.

Elaine dragged herself up from the floor, and held out her arms imploringly to the lovely, imperious young creature, who regarded her with angry, scornful eyes.

"Irene, hear me," she said, humbly.

But Irene pushed off the clinging hands, cruelly.

"Do not touch me," she said, bitterly. "I am bad enough myself. The brand of shame is on me, and I have no name and no right in the world; but it is no sin of mine. You—you are the guilty one! The touch of your hand would burn me! Oh, God! oh, God! how came she by that angel's face and devil's heart?"

She had forgotten Guy Kenmore's presence as she hurled her denunciations at the lovely, despairing, sinful woman before her. Elaine did indeed have the face of an angel. Even in this moment, when her long-hidden and shameful secret became revealed to her child, her exquisite face had on it no remorseful shame. The rather it was touched with the despairing resignation of some pure, high heart which has found itself cast down and destroyed in its struggle against the wicked world. She lifted her sweet, sad, violet eyes, and cast a look of pathetic reproach upon Irene.

"My child, do you indeed believe me so vile and wicked?" she asked, mournfully.

"I am forced to judge you by your confession," Irene answered, with passionate shame.

"I have made no confession yet, I wish to do so now, if you will listen to me, Irene," said the beautiful woman in a tone of sad patience. "I am not guilty as you think me, oh, no, no, no!" she cried, shudderingly.

"You are my mother, and you are ashamed to claim me! You are a wretched sinner, and instead of hiding your disgraced head in seclusion, and trying to win the pardon and mercy of offended Heaven, you flaunt your beautiful face before the world, unforgiven and unrepentant!" cried out Irene, with all the hard severity of a young mentor.

Elaine wrung her beautiful, jeweled hands together, and tears fell one after another in a rapid stream down her cheeks upon the corsage of her dress, spotting and staining the rich silk.

"Irene, will you indeed be so hard and unforgiving?" she cried. "Will you judge and condemn me without hearing? Are you the sweet, loving child, whom I could always lead and persuade with a kind word?"

"I am no longer a child!" the girl cried out, bitterly. "I am a woman now. The events of to-night have laid years on my head and a burden on my heart! You might have led me by one thread of your golden hair while I believed you to be my pure, true-hearted sister who bore your mother's and sister's tyranny like an angel because you were too gentle to resent it. I understand it all now. You were afraid of them. Conscience made a coward of you, and they held your shameful secret like a whip-lash over your head and drove you hither and yon at the bent of their own wills! Oh, shame, shame!" cried Irene, withering her mother by her sharp scorn.

"Yes, I have been a slave, a coward," Elaine murmured, mournfully. "But, oh, Irene, my poor child, I bore it all for my father's sake. He, at least, was kind and forgiving!"

The words recalled to Irene's mind the fond, indulgent old man whom she adored with all the strength of her ardent young heart. Mrs. Brooke and Bertha had been too harsh and cold to command her love, Elaine had vexed her impetuous spirit by her shrinking cowardice. But her father—the loving old man who has ever taken her part bravely against them all—it rushed over her with a chill like that of death that he belonged to her no longer, by that dear filial tie that had been the one unalloyed joy of her willful life, and a cry of exceeding bitter pain fell from her white lips.

"Papa, oh, my dear, my darling, I must lose you with the rest," she cried out in a voice sharp and shrill with despair. "Nothing of all I thought mine belongs to me! I must lose you, too, whom I loved with all my soul—lose you through the sin of her who brought me into a world where I have no place, no name! Oh, God, I cannot bear it! I wish that I were dead!" wailed Irene, in the bitterness of her despair.

Elaine gazed at her daughter like one dazed. All the youth, the joy, the childishness seemed stricken from her forever by the terrible revelation of to-night. The slender young figure stood apart from her in desperate grief, seeking no friendly arm to lean on in its terrible isolation; the beautiful young face was cold and rigid with despair; the blue eyes, black now with her soul's emotion, flashed scorn through proud tears that would not fall. A woman's outraged soul, forlorn yet proud, shone through the tense young form.

Suddenly a firm touch fell on Irene's arm.

"Irene," said Guy Kenmore, low and sternly, "no more of these wild reproaches to your mother! You shall hear her offered confession first."

CHAPTER VIII.

There was a moment's perfect silence in the room. The sound of the sea came to them soft and low, the wind stirred the flowers in the garden, and sent a gust of exquisite perfume through the windows. In the stillness Elaine moved a little nearer to her daughter, looking at the stern young face with unutterable love and longing in her eyes.

Irene turned coldly from that yearning glance and looked at Mr. Kenmore with a rebellious flash in her eyes.

He was very pale, the sparkle of mirth had died out from his dark eyes, his lips were compressed sternly.

"Hear your mother's story first," he repeated, gravely. "Do not condemn her before you know her whole sad secret. See how she suffers."

The calm, grave, masterful tone influenced Irene against her will. She glanced reluctantly at Elaine's face, and saw how terribly she suffered beneath the fiery lash of her daughter's scorn, but she spoke no word of comfort, only lowered her white-lidded eyes to shut out that harrowing sight.

"Why should I listen to her?" she said, almost sullenly. "What can she say to excuse her sin?"

"Hear me, and judge, Irene," said Elaine, creeping a little nearer, with a wistful gaze at the obstinate girl. "You, too, Mr. Kenmore. You have heard me taunted with my sin. Stay and hear my exculpation."

He bowed silently and placed a chair for her; then he drew Irene down to a seat upon the sofa beside himself. She yielded with strange passiveness, unconscious that while she sat there his arm lay lightly but firmly around her waist, gently detaining her. She was conscious of nothing but a sharp, tearing pain at her heart, and that she was waiting with a sort of numb indifference to hear Elaine's palliation of her sin.

Elaine sat silently a minute, with her white hands locked convulsively in her lap. When she spoke she seemed to be communing with herself.

"Dear God," she whispered, "I had hoped that the child need never know her mother's secret! Ah, I might have known how hard and cruel Bertha would be some day!"

She lifted her eyes and fixed them in a sort of unwilling fascination on Irene's beautiful, mutinous face.

"I have lived years and years of sorrow and despair," she said, "but when I look back it seems only yesterday that I was a pretty, willful, loving child, such as Irene was until to-night. Ah, so like, so like, that I have sometimes shuddered and wept, fearing her fate would be like mine."

Irene made a passionate gesture of loathing and dissent.

"Ah, my child, you do not know," Elaine said, sadly. "The greatest temptation of woman has never come to you. You have never loved."

The fresh, young lips curled in utter scorn of that master-passion whose fire had never breathed over her young heart.

"You have never loved," Elaine repeated, with a gesture of despair. "When that master passion first came to me I was a younger girl than you, Irene, and just as willful and headstrong and passionate. Bertha and I were away at boarding-school when I first met my fate."

She paused, trembling like a leaf in the wind, and resumed, mournfully:

"He was a cousin of one of the pupils, and came to a musical festival given by us at the first of the mid-winter term. I sang one or two solos, and it was then and there that this handsome scion of a proud and wealthy house fell in love with me."

"I have never loved as you say," interrupted Irene in her clear, bell-like voice, "but I should hesitate to call that feeling which only aims at the ruin of its object by the pure name of love."

Elaine bowed her golden head wearily.

"Let us say that he pretended to love me, then," she amended, sadly. "But, ah, Irene, if you had seen and heard him you would have believed his vows, too—you would have trusted in him as I did. No girl ever had a handsomer, more adoring lover."

"I was young, romantic, willful," she continued. "It seemed to be a case of true love at first sight. We met several times, and some foolish love-letters passed between us. There are more opportunities for such things than you would guess at the average boarding-school, Mr. Kenmore," she said, turning her blushing face upon him for a moment. "At this one, love-letters, stolen walks, secret meetings were carried on to an alarming extent, one third of the pupils at least being as foolish and romantic as I was."

"I can understand," Mr. Kenmore answered, gently.

"Mamma was a stern and proud woman," Elaine resumed, with a sigh. "She was exceedingly proud of my beauty and my fine voice. A brilliant future was mapped out for me. But first I was to become a perfect prodigy of learning and accomplishments. At sixteen, when I was to finish the course at the Institute where I then was, I was to be sent to the Vassar College for a few years. 'Ossa on Pelion piled,'" she quoted, with a mournful smile.

"I knew that a love affair on my part would not be tolerated for years," she resumed. "My lover, as regards his family, was placed in the same position comparatively. A marriage of convenience was arranged for him, and he was forbidden to think of another. Madly in love with each other, and rebelling against our fetters, we planned an elopement. In three months after I met him we ran away to another State and were married."

"Married?" Irene echoed, with a hopeful start.

"We were married—as I believed," said Elaine, with a shudder. "There was a ceremony, a ring, a certificate. I was a child, not sixteen yet, remember, Irene. All appeared satisfactory to me. We went to a luxurious boarding-house where six months passed in a dream of perfect happiness. My husband remained the same fond, faithful lover he had been from the first day we met until the fateful hour when we parted—never to meet again," sobbed Elaine, yielding to a momentary burst of despairing grief that showed how well and faithfully she had loved the traitor who had ruined her life.

But feeling her daughter's cold, young eyes upon her, she soon stemmed the bitter tide of her hopeless grief.

"Our funds ran low," she continued, after a moment, "and he was compelled to leave me to go to his father and ask pardon and help. We were both young, and having been reared in the enervating atmosphere of luxury, knew not how to earn a penny. He went and—never came again."

"Villain!" Guy Kenmore uttered, indignantly.

"After waiting vainly a week I wrote to him," said Elaine, bowing her lovely head upon her hands. "His father came, full of pity and surprise. My God! I had been deceived by a mock marriage. He whom I loved so dearly, whom I believed my husband, had gone home, wedded the woman of his father's choice, and taken her abroad on a wedding trip. I had been ruthlessly forsaken.

"Then I remembered papa, whom I had loved truly and tenderly as you did, Irene. In my extremity and despair I wrote to him. He came, the dear father I had deserted and forgotten in the flush of my wifely happiness. He pitied and forgave me.

"Mamma and Bertha would not forgive, but they plotted to save the family honor. The affair had never been publicly known. We went abroad, and among strangers, where in a few months you were born, my poor wronged Irene. When we came home mamma claimed my child for her own, and by her stern command I took my place in society and played my part as calmly as if my heart were not broken. Now, Irene, you know the full extent of your mother's sin. I have been wronged as well as you, my darling. You are nameless, but not through sin of mine."

Her faltering voice died into silence. Irene made no answer. She had dropped her face in her small white hands. Guy Kenmore felt the slight form trembling against his arm.

"I was mistaken in my first estimate of her," he thought. "She has more depth, more character than I thought."

Then he turned to Elaine.

"You have indeed been wronged bitterly," he said. "The fault is not yours, save through your disobedience to your parents."

"Yes, I was willful and thoughtless, and I have been most terribly punished for my fault," she replied, sorrowfully.

"Is there no possibility that you have been deceived by your husband's father? Such things have been," said Mr. Kenmore, thoughtfully.

"There was no deception. He was armed with every proof, even the newspaper, with the marriage of his son to the wealthy heiress whom his family had chosen for him," answered Elaine, blushing crimson for her unmerited shame and disgrace.

"Then your lover was a villain unworthy the name of man. He deserved death," exclaimed Guy Kenmore.

Elaine's angelic face grew pale as death. She sighed heavily, but made no answer.

Suddenly Irene sprang to her feet, with blazing eyes.

"His name!" she cried, wildly, "his name!"

"My poor child, why would you know it?" faltered Elaine.

"That I may hunt him down!" Irene blazed out. "That I may punish him for your wrongs and mine!"

"Alas, my darling, vengeance belongs to Heaven," sighed the martyred Elaine.

"It belongs to you and to me," cried Irene. "His name, his name!"

"I cannot tell you, dear," wept the wronged woman.

"Then I will go to Bertha," flashed the maddened girl.

"Bertha is bound by an oath never to reveal that fatal name," Elaine answered.

The door opened, Mrs. Brooke entered, stern and pale. She glanced scornfully at Irene, then turned to her daughter:

"Elaine, I am sorry this has happened," she said. "I could not keep Bertha from betraying you. The poor girl was driven mad by her wrongs. If Irene had remained away from the ball to-night, as I bade her do, you would have been spared all this. Her disobedience has caused it all."

Old Faith put her head, with its flaring cap-ruffles, inside the door before Elaine could speak.

"Oh, Mrs. Brooke, Mrs. Brooke!" she cried, and wrung her plump old hands disconsolately.

"Well, what is it? Speak!" cried her mistress, sharply.

"Oh, ma'am, some men have come—with news—they found master down on the shore—oh, oh, they told me to break it to you gently," cried the old housekeeper, incoherently.

A flying white figure darted past old Faith and ran wildly down the broad, moon-lighted hall, to the old-fashioned porch, bathed in the glorious beams of the moonlight.

Mrs. Brooke went up to the woman and shook her roughly by the arm.

"What are you trying to tell me, Faith? What of your master?" she exclaimed. "Speak this instant!"

Elaine came up to her other side, and looked at her with wide, startled eyes.

"Oh, Faith, what is it?" she cried.

"They told me to break it gently," whimpered the fat old woman.

At this moment a shrill young voice, sharpened by keenest agony, wild with futile despair, came floating loudly back through the echoing halls:

"Papa, oh, darling papa! Oh, my God, dead, dead, dead!"

CHAPTER IX.

They bore him into the parlor and laid him down. He was dead—the handsome, genial, kind old father, who had been Elaine's truest friend in her trouble and disgrace. It was strange and terrible to see the women, each of whom had loved the dead man in her own fashion, weeping around him.

Their gala robes looked strangely out of place in this scene of death. There was Bertha in her ruby satin and shining jewels, Elaine in her shimmering silk and blue forget-me-nots, Mrs. Brooke in crimson and black lace, lighted by the fire of priceless diamonds. Saddest of all, little Irene, crouched in a white heap on the floor at his feet, adorned in the modest bravery he had brought her for a birthday gift. Poor little Irene who has lost in this one fatal day all that her heart held dear.

A physician was called to satisfy the family. He only said what was plainly potent before. Mr. Brooke was dead—of heart disease, it appeared, for there were no marks of violence on his person. He was an old man, and death had found him out gently, laying its icy finger upon him as he walked along the shining sand of the bay, in the beautiful moonlight. His limbs were already growing rigid, and he must have been dead several hours.

"Dead! while we laughed and danced, and made merry over yonder in their gay saloons," Elaine wailed out, in impatient despair. "Oh, my God, how horrible to remember!"

Only Guy Kenmore saw that the right hand of the dead man was rigidly clenched.

"What treasure does he clasp in that grasp of death?" he asked himself, and when no one was looking he tried to unclasp the rigid fist. He only succeeded in opening it a little way—just enough to draw from the stiffened fingers a fragment of what had once been a letter—now only one line remained—a line and a name.

Guy Kenmore went to the light, spread the little scrap open on his hand and looked at it. The writing was in a man's hand and the few words were these:

"That the truth may be revealed and my death-bed repentance accepted of Heaven, I pray, humbly.

"Clarence Stuart, Senior."

Suddenly a cold little hand touched his own.

"I saw you," said Irene, in a low, strange voice. "What does it mean?"

"A great deal, or—— nothing," he answered, in a voice as strange as her own.

She read it slowly over. The fragmentary words and the proud name seemed to burn themselves in on her memory.

"Who is Clarence Stuart?" she asked, wonderingly.

"I intend to find out," he answered. "When I do, I shall tell you, little Irene."

In his heart there was a deadly suspicion of foul play. Who had torn from old Ronald Brooke's hand the letter whose fragmentary ending he grasped within that clenched and stiffened hand? Had there been murder most foul?

He went back and looked attentively at the corpse. It was true there was no sign of violence, but was that the face of one who had died from one instant's terrible heart pang, who must have died before he had realized his pain? No, the face was drawn as if in deadly pain, the open eyes stared wide with horror.

"I shall say nothing yet," he said to himself, gravely. "Let them think that death came in the quiet course of nature. But if old Ronald Brooke was murdered I shall bring his murderer to justice."

And on the man's handsome face, usually so gay and debonair, was registered a grim, firm purpose.

Mrs. Brooke and Bertha had been led away to their rooms now. No one remained for the moment but Elaine. She came slowly to her daughter's side.

"Irene, you must come with me now, she said, pleadingly, but the girl broke from her clasp and ran to throw herself on the dead man's breast.

"I cannot leave him yet," she sobbed. "He was my all!"

Elaine shivered, as if some one had struck her a blow. She followed her daughter, and solemnly took the dead man's hand in her feverish, throbbing clasp.

"Irene, my daughter, this, my own father whom I deceived and deserted, whose loving heart I broke by my folly—he pitied and forgave me," she said, mournfully. "My sin against you was far less, for it was not premeditated. Here by papa's cold dead body I ask you, darling, to pity and forgive me. Will you refuse my prayer?"

Irene lifted her head from its chill resting-place and looked at her suppliant mother with a strange, grave gaze.

"We forgive every one when we are dying—do we not?" she asked, slowly.

"Yes, my darling, but you are young and strong. You have many years to live perhaps. I cannot wait till your dying hour for your love and pity. I need it now," sighed poor Elaine.

There was a moment's silence. Irene looked down at the dead man's face as if asking him to counsel her in this sad hour. As the wide, horror-haunted eyes met hers she recoiled in terror.

"He forgave you," she said, solemnly. "He cannot counsel me, but I will follow his example. Mother," she reached across that still form and touched Elaine's hand, "I forgive you, too. Always remember that I pitied and forgave you."

There was a strange, wild light in her eyes. It startled Elaine.

"My darling," she cried, half-fearfully.

"I must leave you now, poor mother," continued Irene, with that strange look. "I must go down to the shore where death waited for papa to-night. He is waiting there for me!"

She turned with the words and ran swiftly from the room. Frightened by her strange looks and words Elaine followed behind her, but her trembling limbs could scarcely carry her body.

Young, light, swift as a wild gazelle, Irene flew down the steps and across the garden. The moon was going down now, and only the flutter of her white dress guided the frantic mother in her wild pursuit. The garden gate unclosed, there was a patter of flying feet along the sands outside, there was a wild, smothered, wailing cry of despair, then—then Elaine heard the horrible splash of the waves as they opened and closed again over her maddened, desperate child.

CHAPTER X.

The sound of Irene's pliant young body as it struck the cold waters of the bay, fell on the wretched mother's heart like a death-blow. The horrors of this fatal night culminated in this.

One long, terrible shriek as of some wounded, dying creature, startled the midnight hour with its despairing echoes, then she sprang wildly forward with the desperate intent to share her daughter's watery grave.

The weakness of her overwrought body saved her from the crime of self-destruction. Her head reeled, her limbs failed her. As she pushed the gate open with faltering hands she staggered dizzily and fell like a log on the hard ground. Merciful unconsciousness had stolen upon her.

That prolonged, despairing shriek reached Guy Kenmore's ears in the library, where he was gravely conferring with the men who had found Mr. Brooke dead upon the shore.

His first thought was of Irene. A dreadful foreboding filled his mind. He rushed from the room and followed the sound, the two men behind, all terrified alike by the anguish that rang in that mysterious shriek.

Outside the garden gate they found Elaine, lying like one dead on the hard earth. With tender compassion they lifted the beautiful, rigid form and bore it into the house.

That long, deep, deathly swoon was the beginning of a severe illness for Elaine Brooke. It culminated in an attack of brain fever.

On recovering from her long spell of unconsciousness, Elaine revealed the cause of her illness. Two hours, perhaps, had passed since Irene's maddened plunge into the water. It was too late to save her then. The cold waves kept their treasure, refusing to yield it up to the efforts of those who, headed by Mr. Kenmore, made an ineffectual trial to find even the cold, dead body of the desperate girl. Dawn broke with all the roseate beauty of summer, and the golden light glimmered far over land and sea, but neither the wide waste of waters nor the sandy reaches of shore gave back sign or token of her who had found life too hard to bear, and so had sought Nepenthe from its ills and pains.

Guy Kenmore remained to Mr. Brooke's funeral, then returned to Baltimore a softened, saddened man—a man with a purpose. Two things had confirmed him in his purpose to trace the writer of the fragment found in the dead man's hand.

On the night of Mr. Brooke's death no sign of violence had been discovered on his person. On the day following a purplish mark was discoverable on the old man's temple—a strange, discolored mark. Careless lookers believed it to be the effects of decomposition.

Guy Kenmore, studying it with suspicious eyes, believed that it was caused by a blow—a blow that had caused Ronald Brooke's death.

Another thing was, that when Elaine Brooke went into a delirious fever, that terrible dawn that broke on the tragic night, he had stood by her side a few moments, gazing at her in pain and sorrow. While he stood there she had startled him by calling wildly on one name. It was "Clarence, Clarence, Clarence!"

He sought Bertha.

"Will you tell me," he asked, gravely, and without preamble, "the name of the villain who deceived your sister?"

Bertha colored and trembled in shame and agitation.

"I cannot," she answered. "I am under a sacred promise not to reveal it."

"Was it Clarence Stuart?" he asked, coolly, and Bertha gave a terrible start.

"She has revealed it in her delirium," she exclaimed.

"Yes," he answered, calmly, knowing that he had surprised the truth from her reluctant lips.

Walking slowly along the shore, listening to the murmur of the waves, in which his bride of an hour had sought oblivion from the ills of life, Guy Kenmore thought it all out to his own satisfaction. That fragmentary line of a letter had told the whole sad story.

Elaine Brooke had been truly a wife. Her husband's father had deceived her by a trumped up story, and divided her from her young husband. Dying, he had repented his sin, and written a letter of confession to her father.

And here he fitted the second link of the story.

Some person unknown had found it to be against his or her interests that the truth should be revealed. That person had followed the bearer of Clarence Stuart's letter, and had torn it from old Ronald Brooke's grasp, with a blow that meant death to the gentle, kindly old man.

Guy Kenmore honestly believed in the truth and accuracy of these deductions.

"If I can only find out where these Stuarts live, I will discover the guilty party," he said to himself. "I will not ask Mrs. Brooke nor Bertha. They would only believe me impertinent. I must depend on the gentle Elaine for information."

He concluded to return to his home in Baltimore, and await the issue of Elaine's illness.

CHAPTER XI.

The time came weeks after when Elaine, pale, wan, shadowy, the sad ghost of her former beautiful self, came down to the parlor again and joined her mother and sister in the broken family circle whose severed links could never be re-united again.

Mrs. Brooke and Bertha were subtly changed, too. Their black dresses made them look older and graver. Bertha's grief at the loss of a kind, indulgent father, and her chagrin at Guy Kenmore's defection, had combined to plant some fine lines on her hither unruffled brow, and a peevish expression curled her red lips, while her large brilliant black eyes flashed with discontent and scorn. Over Irene's tragic death she had shed not a tear. She had always disliked the girl for her youth and winsome beauty and looked down on her for the stain upon her birth, always deploring that she had not died in infancy. The poor girl's willfulness the night of the ball had changed Bertha's dislike to hate. She was secretly glad Irene was dead. Better that than to have lived to be Guy Kenmore's wife.

Mrs. Brooke shared Bertha's feelings, only in a less exaggerated degree.

So Elaine found no sympathy in the loss of the beautiful daughter whom she had secretly worshiped, and over whose pretty defiant willfulness she had oftentimes shed bitter, burning tears of grief and dread.

The old gray hall which her sweet songs and musical laughter had once made gay and joyous was now hushed and silent as the tomb. The few servants glided about as if afraid of awaking the lonely echoes that slept in the wide, dark halls, and quiet chambers. No song nor laugh disturbed the silence. The mistress sat in the parlor pale and grave in her sweeping sables. Her daughters were no less grave and still, sitting in their chairs like dark, still shadows, with averted faces and silent lips, for Elaine had not forgotten Bertha's treacherous betrayal of her shameful secret; and Bertha, while she felt no remorse for her cruel work still felt shame enough to cause her to turn in confusion from the clear, sad light of her sister's eyes.

In the meantime that sad truth that oftentimes makes the pang of bereavement harder to bear, was coming home to them.

Mr. Brooke had died almost insolvent.

Once a man of almost unlimited wealth and position, the old tobacco planter had been almost ruined by the war which had freed his slaves, and left him only his broad-spreading, fertile acres, with no one to till them. His great income was almost gone, for with his losses through the war, he could not afford to replace with hired workmen the skilled labor he had lost.

In order to keep up the dignity of appearances which his proud wife considered necessary to herself and her beautiful young daughters, Mr. Brooke had been forced to sacrifice his land from time to time, until now, at the end, only a few acres remained of his once princely estate. The fine old gray-stone mansion, Bay View, remained as a shelter for their heads, indeed; but the sacrifice of the remaining land would barely support them a year or two. Mrs. Brooke and Bertha were aghast at the prospect. They had expected that the latter would have been married off to some wealthy personage before the dire catastrophe of poverty overtook them. They quailed and trembled now beneath the subdued mutterings of the storm of adversity.

When Elaine came down and mingled with them again, they broke the bad tidings to her rudely enough.

"No more playing fine lady for us," Mrs. Brooke said, bitterly. "We can live on the land a little while, then we must sell our jewels, then our home, and when all is done, we shall have to work for our living like common people."

The aristocratic southern lady, who had never soiled her white, jeweled fingers in useful toil, broke down and sobbed dismally at the grievous prospect.

"Oh, I have had more than enough of trouble and sorrow in my life," she complained. "First, there was Elaine's disobedience and disgrace; then, losing our negroes by the war; then my poor husband dying so suddenly, without a farewell word, and now this horrible nightmare, poverty! Oh! I have never deserved these visitations of Providence," asseverated the handsome, selfish widow, energetically.

Bertha joined in these lamentations loudly. She would not know how to work when it came to that, not she. They should have to starve.

Elaine regarded them with troubled eyes.

"Mamma, do not grieve so bitterly," she said. "We are not come to absolute want yet."

"You take it very coolly," Bertha sneered. "When the last few acres of land are sold, how long will the proceeds keep three helpless women, pray?"

Elaine did not answer Bertha—did not even look at her. She went up to her mother's side.

"Mamma, I have foreseen this trouble coming," she said. "We have been living beyond our means for years, and even if poor papa had lived this crash must have come some day; I am very sorry," she repeated, gently.

"Sorrows will not put money into our empty purses," Mrs. Brooke answered, spitefully.

"I know that," Elaine answered, patiently. "But I have a plan by which your money may be made to last a little longer. I am going to leave you, mamma."

"Leave me," Mrs. Brooke echoed, feebly.

"Rats always desert a sinking ship," flung in Bertha with coarse irony.

Again her elder sister had no answer for her.

"I am going away," she repeated. "Even if papa had left us a fortune it would be the same, I could not stay here after—all that has happened."

"You mean,"—said Mrs. Brooke, then paused.

"I mean since I have lost papa and Irene," her daughter answered, sadly. "You know, mamma, you and Bertha have never been kind to me since my great—trouble. You only tolerated me because my father wished it. I have long been in your way. It is all over now. To-morrow I shall leave you forever."

"Forever," Mrs. Brooke repeated, blandly, while Bertha exclaimed with a coarse, spiteful sneer:

"You will return to the life of shame from which papa rescued you perhaps."

"I am going to New York to earn my living by honest work," Elaine said, speaking pointedly to her mother. "You know I have a good voice, and talent for music. I shall give music lessons, probably."

"My daughter giving music lessons! Oh, what a disgrace to the family!" cried the aristocratic lady. "Are you not ashamed to put yourself so low, Elaine?"

"Don't be silly, mamma," flashed Bertha, sharply. "It is a very good plan, I think. Besides, it is only right for Elaine to give up the remainder of her property to us. If we had not been burdened with the support of her daughter for sixteen years there would have been more money for me."

"It is quite settled, mamma, I shall go," said poor Elaine, and the selfish mother weakly acquiesced.

The next day she went, glad of her freedom, glad to fling off the slavery of sixteen years.

"I could not have stayed even if poor papa had left me a fortune," she said to herself. "The sound of the waves sighing over Irene's watery grave in the lonesome nights breaks my heart!"