Jaquelina

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Those who attended the opera that night thought that Madam Dolores sang more exquisitely than ever before. She poured her whole heart into the passionate strains of the music. She held every heart chained by the power of her beauty and genius.

The impressible throng was swayed tumultuously. Men's hearts beat fast with love for her beauty and admiration for her genius, yet, although their hearts lay at her feet, no one dreamed that it was possible to win her.

There was a look on the fair face beneath the diamond tiara that bound the dark hair that forbade the thought. There was a story written on that face—a story of poetry, and passion, and sorrow.

The dark eyes did not dwell on men's faces. They looked down as if in mournful retrospection. The scarlet lips but seldom smiled. The cheeks were always pale.

One pair of eyes followed every movement of the prima donna with a passionate pain and repressed yearning in their grave, sad depths.

She did not turn to meet their glances, yet she knew instinctively that he was there. Through all the scenes in which she took her brilliant part there remained with her an aching consciousness of that note which Ronald Valchester held tightly clenched in his hand as he followed her every movement with hungry, despairing eyes—the note she had sent him that evening at twilight.

It was brief and calm, but Ronald had read it over and over. He had held the thick, satiny sheet in his hand, and looked at the delicate, flowing chirography with a blank, staring gaze, trying to picture to himself the white, jeweled hand that had traced those lines that seemed so cold and cruel to his eager, passionate, though wretched heart.

Yet Jaquelina had not meant to be so cruel. She had only written out of the tenderness of her pity for Violet, and the sadness of her own despair, these plaintive words:

"Dear Ronald:—For the sake of all that I might have been to you once, I beg you to listen to me and grant my prayer. I have learned to-day that you are deeply beloved by one whose unconscious rival I have been for years. Perhaps you may guess her name—it is Violet Earle. It will make her very happy if you will make her your wife. One more request, Ronald. I am compelled to remain in New York two weeks longer. I think I could bear it better, Ronald, if you would leave New York and return to the South until I am gone, you understand. The Earles return to-morrow. Go with them, Ronald; marry Violet, and try to be happy. For me, I will leave America as soon as my engagement is ended, and henceforth the whole width of the world shall remain between us."

That was what Lina had written to the lover from whom she had been so tragically parted before the very altar—the poet lover of whom she had been so proud and fond. He read and re-read the note with dazed eyes full of grief and pain.

There was another man in that vast theater, too, who clenched a folded note in his strong, white hand, while he gazed at the beautiful singer with burning, black eyes, and eager, repressed passion in every line of his haughty, superbly handsome face.

He had no eyes for anyone else but Madam Dolores, save that now and then his gaze strayed to the box where Ronald Valchester sat in the shadow of the heavily-fringed curtains, and a gleam of satanic rage and hatred transfigured the dusky beauty of his proud face. Once or twice he opened the note he held and read it over with a grim and deadly smile upon his lips. It was a challenge to a duel; and as Gerald Huntington sat there feasting his eyes on the beauty of the prima donna, and filling his heart with the magic sweetness of her voice, he knew that it was quite probable that this was the last time he might ever behold her charming face.

The play was over at last. The storm of hot-house bouquets had rained upon the stage at the feet of Madame Dolores. The curtain had fallen, the lights were dim. She had passed to her carriage with downcast eyes that did not see the two men who waited outside the door, taking no note of each other's presence in their eager desire that one glance from those dark eyes might fall upon them. But they lingered in vain. The long lashes did not lift from the white cheeks. The closing door shut her in from their sight. The two men who loved her, each in his own fashion, left the scene disappointed and sad, while Jaquelina rode home to spend the long hours of the night in a weary, sleepless vigil. She was wondering over and over in a weary, dazed way if Ronald Valchester would take her at her word and marry Violet.

"If he marries her—poor Violet," she said to herself, sadly and tearfully, "I wish to be quite out of the country before it takes place."

Then it came to her mind that perhaps she was selfish in the wish.

"Not that I wish it not to be," she said. "I pity poor Violet, and I pity Ronald. He will learn to love her in time. She is fair and sweet. They may be happy yet."

She walked up and down the floor in her long, white dressing-gown, her dark hair trailing loosely over her shoulders, a pathetic despair in the dark eyes and in the droop of the red lips.

"They may be happy," she repeated, "happy—while I—oh, God!" with a sudden gesture of wild despair; "oh, God! how much longer must I live to bear my burden of sorrow?"

She fell upon the floor, and lay there moaning and weeping for long hours. It was not often that tears came to those dark eyes, but to-night the sealed fountains of sorrow were unclosed, and the quick, refreshing tear-drops came quick and fast. They relieved her. They seemed to cool the fever of her blood, and lift the burden that weighed so heavily on her heart.

No sleep came to the dark eyes that night. When her maid came to call her the next morning, she found her sitting wearily in a great cushioned arm-chair, her dark hair flowing about her in waving masses, her dark eyes fixed on vacancy with a grief, more pathetic than tears, in their shadowy depths.

"Oh, my dear lady, you have not been in bed all night," she cried in dismay.

Jaquelina looked at her in kind of vacant surprise.

"Why, Fanchette, is it morning?" she asked, looking around at the drawn curtains and the flaring gas-light.

"Oh, yes, madam, and here's a note which has just come for you, so I thought I had better bring it in, and not wait for your bell to ring, as it is getting late."

Jaquelina took the delicately scented note and opened it almost mechanically. It was an incoherent scrawl from Violet Earle.

"Oh, Lina, Lina!" it ran. "I told you you had ruined all our lives by coming back. That terrible Gerald Huntington has murdered our poor Walter this morning. He has spoken but once, and then only to ask for you. Come at once."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

The Earles were not staying at a hotel. They were at the residence of a distant relative in a fashionable quarter of the city. Violet had inclosed her address, and the prima donna drove there immediately, full of grief and horror over Walter's dreadful fate.

Violet met her in the elegant drawing-room. The beautiful blonde looking pale, wan and distracted in the dim morning light. Her blue morning robe was all in disorder, her golden hair was disarranged, there were dark circles beneath her eyes, and the soft, blue orbs were drowned in tears.

"Oh, Lina, Lina! I told you so!" she cried, breaking into wild, hysterical weeping. "You have made us all wretched! You have caused poor Walter's death! Oh my brother, my brother!"

Jaquelina stood irresolute in the center of the room, her lips quivering at Violet's passionate charge.

"Oh, Violet, don't!" she cried, lifting her white hands as if to ward off a blow. "I have done nothing! I love you all. I would give my life to make you and Ronald and Walter happy. Tell me of Walter. He is not dead—he will not die! Oh, Violet, do not tell me so! I could not bear it!"

"There has been a duel," Violet cried. "They met outside of the city this morning, and fought. That dreadful man—your husband—shot Walter, and got away himself. We did not know one thing, Lina, till they brought our poor boy home."

"Dead?" Jaquelina asked, with pitiful anguish in face and voice.

"Not dead—but—dying—we fear," wept Violet, wildly.

The beautiful singer knelt by the side of the agitated girl, who had thrown herself down on a silken couch, sobbing and weeping in utter hysterical abandonment. She put her arms around her, and drew the golden head to a resting-place upon her breast.

"Oh, Violet," she murmured, smoothing back the disheveled tresses with gentle fingers, "do not give way so utterly. Try to be calm. It may not be so bad as you think. I cannot believe that Walter will die. He is young and strong. Let us pray that God will spare his life."

There was some moments of utter silence. Violet's grief had spent itself for awhile. She lay passive on Jaquelina's tender breast, her golden eyelids resting on her pallid cheeks.

The delicate lips of the prima donna moved silently for a little while, as if in prayer—perhaps for the wounded man who lay up stairs breathing painfully and shortly. Then she spoke:

"Violet, you will tell me how it all came about? Why did they fight?"

"It was for your sake, Lina," Violet replied, moving uneasily from the clasp of her arm and opening her eyes a moment.

"For my sake?" Lina cried, with white lips. "Oh, Violet, I do not understand."

"Read this," and Violet put a note into her hand. "Walter left it on his dressing-table this morning for me. I found it a little while ago."

Walter had written as follows:

"Dear Sister:—I have challenged Gerald Huntington, and am gone to fight him this morning. I saw him at the opera night before last, and yesterday I sent him a challenge. I have taken Ronald's quarrel on myself. It would not have been right for Ronald to fight him, because if he had killed Lina's husband it would have been wrong for him to marry Lina. So, without Ronald's knowledge, I have taken up Ronald's quarrel. I hope I shall kill the villain, and then Lina will be free to marry Valchester. I love Lina so dearly I cannot bear to see her unhappy. If I kill Huntington I shall fly to a foreign land. If he kills me I shall have done all I could to help my darling to happiness. In either case, Violet, you must tell her that I did it for her sake."

Lina's tears fell quick and fast on those brave, pathetic words.

"Oh, poor—poor Walter!" she exclaimed. "And he has asked for me, Violet?"

"Yes," Violet replied. "Will you go to him now, Lina?"

"Yes," with a slight shudder of dread at what she was about to see.

Violet led her up a richly-carpeted stairway into a darkened, luxurious chamber, where the wounded man lay among the snowy pillows, watched by a skillful surgeon and careful nurses.

Jaquelina went up to the bed. She did not see Ronald Valchester draw back quickly into the shadow of the bed-curtains in fear that it might pain her to see him there.

Walter lay white and still upon the bed, his fair, curling locks brushed back, the long lashes lying on his pale cheeks like one asleep; but at the soft swish of Jaquelina's silken robe he opened his eyes and looked at her.

"Oh, Walter, I am so sorry!" she cried. "Oh, why—why did you do it?"

"Lina, it was for your sake," he replied.

"You should not have done it; it was all wrong," she cried out, quickly.

"Lina, do not blame me," he said, weakly; "I could not help it. I am so sorry for you, dear."

Jaquelina pressed the hand she held impulsively to her lips.

"I remembered what you said," Walter continued, in feeble accents—"that life had given you all save happiness—and I would so gladly have given you that, too, Lina."

"Oh, Walter, you have a noble heart!" she cried, and a faint smile curved his lips.

"But I have failed," he said, so sadly. "I have utterly failed, and the only pleasant thought I have in dying is that I have given my life in the attempt to make you and Ronald happy."

"You will not die, Walter—you must not!" she cried. "I should feel as if I had murdered you! You must try to get well again!"

Walter shook his head in silence, and Lina looked around at the surgeon.

"Oh, sir, he will get well—will he not?" she exclaimed, pleadingly.

"I hope so," he answered, gravely; but her quick ear detected the tone of doubt in his voice.

She looked down at the handsome, white face on the pillow. He was so young, and life held so much for him; yet he was dying—dying for her.

"Walter, you must not go away from us like this! Live—for me!"

Walter's dim eyes flashed wide open, full of eager joy.

"Lina!" he exclaimed, incredulously.

"I mean it!" she whispered, gently. "Try to live, Walter, and as soon as I can be relieved of those galling fetters that bind me I will be your own. I will be as generous as you are. You were willing to give me your life—now I will give you mine."

"Lina, I must not accept such a sacrifice from you," he whispered, almost too weak to refuse the promise she gave so unselfishly.

But Lina murmured with a sad, pretty attempt at archness:

"You must not refuse a lady's hand when she offers it to you herself, Mr. Earle."

Walter's face was radiant with joy and hope as he pressed her hand and whispered:

"If I accept it, Lina, it is not through selfishness, but because if I live I believe that my great love cannot fail in time to make you happy."

"May God spare your life, Walter," she whispered from the depths of her grateful, generous heart.

Then, as she turned her head aside quickly to hide the pain that came into her face at the thought of that other dearer love that might have made her life so fair, she suddenly encountered Ronald Valchester's eyes looking straight into her own.

There was in that straining gaze a look of dumb and hopeless agony that Jaquelina never forgot to her dying day. The beautiful, blue-gray eyes that expressed, as eyes of another color never can, the lights and shades of feeling, were fixed on hers with a yearning pathos that went straight to her heart.

Then Ronald turned quickly and went from the room. It was all in a moment. Walter had taken no notice. With his glad eyes fixed on Jaquelina's face he was praying silently that his life might be spared to him.

When Jaquelina was leaving, almost an hour later, she found Ronald Valchester waiting on the pavement to hand her to her carriage.

When she was seated, he held her hand a moment in his own and bent forward to speak to her.

"Lina," he said, hurriedly, "I meant to go south to-day as you wish me, but that will be impossible now. I cannot desert Walter. He is my dearest friend, and when I was wounded three years ago he nursed me like a brother. Can you endure my presence a little longer?"

"I must bear it—as I have done many things," she said, with her white hand on her heart. "You must not forsake your friend."

Then she lifted her haunting, dark eyes to his face.

"Ronald, you are not angry with me," she said, wistfully. "Walter has loved me through long years. And I could never be yours, you know."

He shook his head with white, pain-drawn lips.

"And Violet?" she said to him, questioningly.

"I spoke to her—a little while ago," he said. "It was only because you wished it, Lina. She will be my wife."

He felt, rather than saw the shiver that ran over the slender form of the prima donna.

"When I marry her," he added, after a moment, "I shall take her far away, Lina. I think it best—as you said—to put the whole width of the world between you and me forever."

She bowed speechlessly. The blue-gray-eyes—black now with a yearning love and fathomless despair—looked into hers gloomily a moment, then the carriage-door clanged heavily between them, the carriage-wheels echoed "low on the sand and loud on the stone."

CHAPTER XXXV.

"Ronald, there is something I should like to tell you," Walter Earle said to his friend, with a hesitating air, when they found themselves alone a little while that evening.

Ronald Valchester looked at the handsome face lying on the lace-trimmed pillow. Despite its pallor it wore a look of triumphant happiness.

"Walter, you need not tell me," he said, with outward calmness. "I have heard. Allow me to congratulate you."

"Thank you," Walter replied; then he looked at the calm, inscrutable face.

"Ronald, I hope you do not blame me," the wounded man went on, anxiously; "I have always loved her, but I would not have taken her from you, only you know you never could have married her with your views of divorce. But as I think differently from you I cannot believe I am wrong to marry her when I am better, and she is free."

"I do not blame you in the least," answered Ronald Valchester. "If I had known all the time how well you loved her, Walter, I must have marveled at your persistent efforts to convert me to your own belief that a legal divorce makes men and women free to marry again."

"If I could convert you even now," said Walter, earnestly, "I would resign her to you the very moment in which she is free."

"You cannot convert me, Walter," Ronald answered with a sad smile. "God only knows what I have suffered through this belief of mine, but I cannot change it, nor act inconsistently with it. Yet I could not ask Lina to remain alone all her life because my own views are at variance with the rest of the world, or a majority of it, at least. I hope that you may make her very happy."

"I shall try, certainly," Walter said, earnestly. "If I recover, and I feel as if I cannot die now, with this prospect of happiness in the future, I shall marry Lina as soon as Professor Larue has secured a divorce for her. I shall take her back to Laurel Hill, and spend my life in trying to win her heart and make her happy."

"And I," said Ronald, with brave composure, "shall marry Violet as soon as you are well enough to go to church with us. Then we shall make our home across the sea in sunny Italy."

Walter Earle rose feebly on his elbow and stared at his friend.

"Marry Violet—marry Violet," he cried, incredulously.

"Yes—I asked her to-day, and she said she would be my wife."

"You do not love her?" Walter exclaimed, bewildered.

"Not yet," the poet confessed, flushing slightly, at Walter's surprised gaze.

"Why marry her then?"

"Lina wished me to do so," Ronald replied, with gentle frankness.

"Lina wished it—I do not understand—explain yourself."

They looked at each other in silence a moment, then Ronald answered gravely and gently:

"I will tell you, Walter. Lina had found out a fact which I—foolish dreamer that I am—had never suspected. Pretty Violet cared for me a little, and could only be happy as my wife."

"Dear little Lina; and she asked you to sacrifice yourself for Violet's happiness," said Walter, deeply moved.

"She wished me to marry Violet; perhaps she thought in making another's happiness I might find my own," Ronald answered, in the same gentle tone.

Walter's face brightened.

"Who knows but that you will," he exclaimed. "My sister has loved you deeply for years, Ronald. God grant that she may win your heart and make you happy in spite of yourself. How strange! You are to marry Violet, I am to marry Lina. And yet in this way the tangled web of our destinies may be straightened out at last."

After the first day or two of terrible suspense and anxiety, no one doubted in the least that Walter would recover from his wound. Happiness had a magical effect upon him. He mended rapidly.

The weeks waned, and the prima donna's engagement with Manager Verne was drawing to its close. She refused to renew it, although he offered her a prince's ransom for another month. Walter had begged her to give up a public life, and she had assented wearily and listlessly. Professor Larue had been shocked and disconcerted at her resolve, but she had told him for the first time all her sad story, and begged him to forgive her for disappointing his hopes. The end of it all was that Professor Larue espoused her cause, heart and soul. In the heat of his indignation he vowed that he would shoot Gerald Huntington, if he could find the villain.

It was not easy to find Gerald Huntington, however. Professor Larue speedily found that out for himself. As the next best thing, he set himself to work to secure a divorce for his beloved ward. He found it even easier than he had expected. That bond forged by fraud and violence, was held of little account in the eyes of the law. The day came speedily when Professor Larue and his lawyer came smiling into the prima donna's presence to congratulate her and tell her that she was free.

She was free! Walter Earle had convalesced so fast that he was well enough to go to church now, and he pressed for an early marriage. Jaquelina yielded hesitatingly, and the happy day was named for one week after. Wednesday was to behold her last triumphant appearance upon the stage. Thursday she was to breathe the solemn vows that would make her the wife of Walter Earle. Ronald Valchester and his mother had returned to Richmond. The date of his return to New York and the time for his marriage were unfixed as yet, though Mrs. Valchester and Violet secretly hoped it would not be long delayed.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

It was Wednesday night. Madame Dolores stood bowing before the eager, admiring throng that greeted her farewell appearance. Some of her romantic story had been noised abroad. It was rumored that the morrow would behold her a bride, and there were not a few who envied the fortunate bride-groom.

Walter Earle and his sister occupied a private box as usual. He looked pale and thin still, but very handsome and happy, and his blue eyes dwelt adoringly on the brilliant beauty of his promised bride. Violet, sitting beside him in rich and costly attire, had never looked more lovely.

"How perfectly beautiful Lina looks to-night," she whispered to her brother. "To look at her now, she does not seem like the Lina Meredith of five years ago. Do you remember how tanned and bashful and shabby she was then? To-night she is the most beautiful woman I ever saw, and her jewels are worth a fortune. I never saw such magnificent diamonds."

Then the curtain rose and the glorious voice of Madame Dolores filled the vast theater with entrancing melody. They turned their attention to the stage again.

It seemed to the prima donna's admirers that she sang and acted more splendidly than ever that night. They looked and listened in rapt, spell-bound admiration, dreading for the moment to arrive when that heavy curtain should fall between her and the public forever.

There was one scene, perhaps the most interesting and thrilling of the whole opera, where the heroine knelt weeping and praying at the feet of a cruel and relentless husband. Madame Dolores was always grand in this scene. The whole audience leaned forward now, breathless and eager, as the curtain rose upon this favorite part of the opera.

The scene was laid in a dim, Moorish garden in the shadow of a ruined temple, bathed in the mystic beams of moonlight. Before the broken archway a tall, dark, haughty man stood with folded arms looking down at the suppliant kneeling on the ground, her loose, white robe dishevelled, her dark hair broken from its fillets of gold, and flowing in careless tresses around her, half hiding her slender form in its luxuriant veil. At a little distance stood a lovely little siren who had lured the fickle man from his rightful love and duty. His eyes were fixed on her, not on his sorrowful, pleading wife.

At that moment, when the attention of the whole vast throng was concentrated in intense silence upon the scene, there suddenly broke through the back of the stage a vast and terrible sheet of flame that lighted the whole scene with a crimson, deadly glare. A tumultuous shriek of horror and despair rose from the throng, and the actors rushed wildly forward toward the footlights in a frenzied effort at escape. The prima donna's foot became entangled in her flowing robe, she swayed and fell forward across the footlights that instantly licked the soft folds of her dress into a winding sheet of flame.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

There ensued a panic that baffled description. One impulse moved the whole excited, shrieking throng—they surged forward madly toward the doors and windows, bent on escape.

They were like maniacs for the time. The weak fell down beneath the feet of the strong, and were heedlessly trampled, while groans and cries, sometimes mixed with curses, divided the shuddering air.

Violet Earle had shrieked and fainted in the arms of her half-maddened brother. There was not one to avert the awful fate of her who a single moment before had held every heart enchained by the power of her beauty and genius.

Yes, there was one—one only, it seemed. In an instant after the terrible flames had wrapped their fiery tongues around the slender form of the prima donna a man sprang over the footlights upon the stage at one rapid bound from the parquette floor.

He had caught up a heavy camel's-hair shawl, dropped by a lady in her hurried flight. Rushing forward, utterly heedless of the advancing flames that scorched his face and his hair, he threw the heavy shawl over the blazing form and smothered out the fire. Then, lifting the senseless girl in his arms, he made his way with the greatest difficulty to a door and forced his way through the striving mass of human beings out upon the thronged pavement.

The prima donna's carriage was waiting on the pavement, and Professor Larue, who had come with it a minute before, was darting frantically up and down ceaselessly around the doors of the doomed building.

Afterward Professor Larue told how a tall man with a face so blackened with fire and soot as to be quite unrecognizable, had put Jaquelina into his arms and fallen fainting on the pavement.

Someone had attended to him—he could not tell who—for he had been so distracted with grief and horror over the tragic fate of his ward he had not waited to see, but all inquiry afterward failed to discover the rescuer of the prima donna. No one had recognized him, no one knew where he went, or whence he came.

Professor Larue in the gratitude of his heart wished to discover him and reward him generously, but his persistent inquiries through the personal column of the Herald elicited no reply. The man was modest as well as brave. He did not wish to be known.

Walter Earle had had a most terrible time getting his unconscious sister out of the building; his heart was distracted with grief over the tragic fate which had overtaken his darling. But for the encumbrance of his sister he would have rushed out in an attempt to reach Jaquelina through that struggling mass of maddened humanity. But Violet lay like an inert, helpless burden on his hands. It was only by superhuman efforts that he ever reached the outer world with her. Then when he had put her in a carriage, taken her home, and had seen her revive, he drove rapidly back to the theater.

They told him there that a stranger had leaped upon the burning stage and smothered the flames that enveloped the prima donna.

"She was saved from that terrible holocaust of flame, then," Walter cried out, almost wild with the joy of the tidings.

But no one could tell him whether Madame Dolores was living or not. Her rescuer had carried her out of the burning building and placed her in the arms of Professor Larue. He had carried her away, and no one knew anything further as yet. Walter drove to the hotel where the professor and his wife were staying with their ward. He sent up his card and the professor came down to him.

They looked at each other silently a moment, then Walter breathed "Lina?" through white lips that could scarcely utter that simple name.

Professor Larue shook his head sadly.

"Do not tell me she is dead!" Walter exclaimed, in an agony of fear and dread.

"She lives," the professor answered, "if a mere wavering breath may be called living. But she is horribly, horribly burned, and her sufferings are fearful. Half a dozen doctors are with her this moment. They will save her life if it is possible to accomplish it."

"Thank God, she lives," Walter exclaimed, and hurried away to carry the welcome news to Violet, while the almost heart-broken old professor hurried back to that quiet chamber where the angels of life and death were striving together over Jaquelina Meredith's scorched and writhing frame.

So the prima donna's bridal day dawned dark and gloomy, and overcast, and Jaquelina lay upon her couch of pain, swathed from head to foot in bandages of linen, while the breath of life wavered unevenly between the pallid, parted lips, and every gasp was one of almost unendurable anguish.

And the morning papers which chronicled the particulars of the great fire, told the public that Madam Dolores would live, but she had been so horribly burned, even to her face and hands, that her beauty would be marred and ruined forever. The physicians were of the opinion that her exquisite voice would be destroyed also. She would be a perfect physical wreck.

"I do not believe it!" Walter Earle cried out in passionate unbelief, and he went to the physicians and asked them for the truth. They were very sorry for him, but they confirmed the newspaper reports. They believed that Madame Dolores would carry those terrible scars on her face to the grave, and they did not think it possible that she would ever sing again.

"I would rather she had died than lose all her charms!" Walter cried to his own heart, in a perfect fever of regret and despair, and he went to the hotel and begged Mrs. Larue to let him see Jaquelina if but for a moment.

The professor's wife refused flatly. She said that Lina was far too ill to see anyone, and that the lightest footstep in the room set her wild with nervous pain. He must wait. It would be some time—three weeks, perhaps—before he could be admitted to the room.

Almost distracted with his trouble, the young man returned to Violet who was still suffering from the effects of her last night's shock and excitement. He was surprised to find Ronald Valchester in the drawing-room with his sister—Ronald, looking pale and ill, with his right arm carried in a sling.

"Ronald—you here!" he cried. "How glad I am to see you! When did you arrive?"

"Last night," said Ronald briefly.

"You changed your mind about coming to my marriage, did you not?"

Ronald smiled and did not reply.

"Oh, Ronald, is it not terrible?" cried Walter. "My poor little Lina. Her beautiful voice and her beautiful face ruined forever!"

"Her life is spared, at least," Ronald answered, in a low, grateful voice.

"If I had been Lina I would rather have died than have lost my voice and my beauty," cried Violet. "She will have nothing left to live for now."

"She will have Walter's love," said Ronald Valchester gravely, and Violet saw that he was regarding her with a slight air of surprise.

"Oh, yes, I had forgotten that," she said quickly. "But it is dreadful for Walter. He is such a beauty-worshiper, and he thought Lina the most beautiful girl he ever saw."

Walter changed the conversation quickly by asking Ronald what was wrong with his arm that he wore it in a sling, and his friend replied briefly that he had been hurt by a slight accident. That was all the explanation he volunteered.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

The day came when Jaquelina was well enough to sit up in her darkened chamber again.

Then they sent word to Violet Earle that she might come to see her one day and Walter the next.

Ronald Valchester had gone back to Richmond on the same day that he had heard that Jaquelina would live.

Violet had fretted about him continually. She had never been quite well since the night of the fire. The terrible shock had wakened her nerves, and her heart. She was anxious to go back to Laurel Hill, but Walter would not hear of such a thing yet.

"Not until Lina is better," he urged. "When she is well enough to travel we will be quietly married, and then we will take her back to Laurel Hill with us."

Violet grew very impatient in the weary weeks of waiting. She fancied she would see Ronald oftener if she were only back in Virginia. He wrote to her sometimes—simple, friendly notes such as he had written her from abroad two years before, but he had never asked her to name the wedding-day yet. She was very glad when they sent her word that Jaquelina was well enough to receive a visit from her.

"They should have given me the first chance of paying her a visit," complained Walter.

He did not know that Jaquelina had purposely planned it so.

She wished that Violet would break to him the news of her changed appearance before he saw her himself.

Violet went away from that visit to the darkened, invalid chamber awed and saddened, and a little self-reproachful. She remembered how bitterly she had used to hate Jaquelina for that dazzling beauty that had won Ronald Valchester's heart. Of all that wondrous charm there remained only a memory now.

"She is an object to pity and sympathize with, but never to admire again," she told her brother in the first shock of his disappointment.

Walter's handsome face grew pale with dread and sorrow.

"You must prepare yourself for a great alteration, Walter," Violet continued. "Her face is red and scarred, her hair is all burned off short, even her long lashes are scorched and spoiled. It will be some time before anyone can look at her without a shudder. You may love your wife, Walter, but you can never be proud of her."

Walter shuddered at her emphatic words.

"Do not tell me any more, Violet," he groaned. "I cannot bear it. You only torture me. Let me find it out for myself."

"If you cannot bear to hear of it I do not know how you will bear the terrible reality," retorted Violet.

Walter could not answer her. He longed yet dreaded for the morrow.

The first thing he saw when he was ushered into Jaquelina's presence was her portrait hanging against the wall. It had been painted by the first artist in Italy. A few pale beams of winter sunshine stole in through the closed curtains and shone on the beautiful pictured face, touching it with a life-like glow. Then Walter looked away from it and saw a little figure in a quilted morning-wrapper of dark, gray satin, huddled into an easy-chair before the fire.

Walter went up to his betrothed. He saw that some uncontrollable impulse had caused her to bury her poor scarred face in her small, gloved hands. The short, soft, dark hair was hidden beneath a little cap of fine muslin and lace.

"Lina, my darling," he cried out in a voice of yearning pain, and she looked up reluctantly at her lover.

Then Walter saw that even Violet's words had not prepared him for the sorrowful reality.

To have saved his life he could not have repressed the groan of anguish that sight wrung from his lips. He had so loved that bright, fascinating beauty, he had been so proud of it when she had promised to be his own. Now at this moment it seemed to him that the girl he had loved was dead and buried, and this an utter stranger who looked up at him with that poor scarred face, and those dim and sad, dark eyes.

"Sit down, Mr. Earle," she said, gently. "It is even worse than you imagined, is it not?"

"Yes," he answered, like one dazed, then started, ashamed of his candor.

"Oh! forgive me, Lina," he cried, "I am talking like a brute."

He sat down then and tried not to look at the poor face that reminded him of a blighted flower. But some irresistible fascination drew his own gaze to meet the wistful eyes that had lost all their brightness now and were dim and misty with pain and weakness.

"Do I look at all like my old self?" she asked him, and he answered almost bluntly:

"No."

In the next breath he went on in a kind of passionate despair:

"Oh, Lina, you were so beautiful, and I loved your beauty so well. It almost kills me to see how utterly you have lost it."

"Did you prize my poor beauty so much?" she inquired, with a faint sigh.

She read his answer in the anguished eyes he turned upon her face. She saw that in losing her peerless beauty she had lost her charm for him.

After a moment she said, gently and gravely:

"The physicians believe that my face is spoiled forever, Walter. They are not sure but the shock and the illness have ruined my voice, also. How could you bear to have a wife whom you must always pity for her misfortunes, but could never worship for her fairness?"

He did not answer, but Jaquelina saw that the words had touched a tender spot in his heart. He bit his lips beneath his fair mustache, and an anxious gleam came into his blue eyes.

"I have been looking at my poor marred face in the glass," she went on, in her low, sad voice, "and I came to the conclusion that no one could ever love me any more. It is not fair to hold you to your promise now. I will give you back your freedom, Walter, if you will accept it from me."

"Lina!"

She scarcely understood whether it was relief or reproach that quivered in his quick exclamation.

"It shall be just as you wish," she said, quickly. "If you claim my promise, I am yours. If I have lost your love in losing my beauty, you are free."

"Lina, would it pain you if I take you at your word?" he asked in a low, abashed voice.

"No," she answered, with gentle frankness.

"You would not despise me?" he asked, anxiously, without looking at her.

"No," she said again.

He looked at her a moment, half irresolute.

"Do not fear to express your preference," she said, gently. "Either way I stand willing to abide by the consequences."

"Then, Lina, since you are so generous, I will take my freedom," he blurted out, looking away from her, very red and ashamed. "I am unworthy of you, my dear. I see now that it was only your beauty that held me in thrall. Can you forgive me for being so weak and shallow?"

"I am not angry with you, Mr. Earle," she replied, gently. "Most men would have felt the same—would they not?" but in her heart she felt that there was one, at least, whose fealty would not have faltered.

"Yes, most men would, I think," he replied, and when he had made Lina promise that she would still remain his friend, he went away to tell Violet what had occurred.

"It was a weak and shallow love after all," she mused, when she was thus left alone by her recreant lover. "I am glad he has found it out in time, and I am—oh, so glad that I need not marry Walter Earle."

And with clasped hands Jaquelina thanked God for the accident which had deprived her of all her charms and set her free from her engagement, for she had realized from the first that there could be nothing more galling in life than the bonds she had forged in her gratitude for Walter's brave quarrel with Gerald Huntington.

Yet life looked very long and lonely to the tearful, dark eyes as she sat there musing. She began to realise that love—beautiful love—had gone out of her life forever.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Violet Earle was not surprised at her brother's action. She was rather relieved by it. The first shock over, she was rather glad that Jaquelina had lost all her charms. Ronald Valchester had nothing to regret now. The beauty he had loved was lost forever.

The day before she returned home, she went to see Jaquelina. She was curious to know what her generous rival proposed to do with her blank and ruined life.

"Do you really intend to return to Europe as you said you would?" she asked her.

"Yes, I am going back after awhile," Jaquelina answered, "but first, I am going to pay a visit to Virginia. I have had a letter from my Uncle Meredith, and he has invited me to pay him a visit."

"I do not believe you would enjoy a visit to Meredith Farm," said Violet, quickly. "Mr. Meredith has become involved in debt, somehow, and there is a mortgage on the whole estate. His wife is crosser than ever, and she has two more children."

"Yes, I know, Uncle Charlie wrote me about all his troubles," Jaquelina answered, simply, "and I will tell you what I mean to do, Violet. I shall pay off the mortgage on the farm, and settle twenty-five thousand dollars on Uncle Meredith, so that he may get a new start in life."

Pretty Violet, rustling in her silks and furs, looked at her with incredulous surprise.

"Lina, you are not in earnest?" she said.

"Yes, I am quite in earnest. I have more money than I know what to do with, and I am going to help Uncle Charlie out of his difficulty."

"They have not been so kind to you, Lina, that you need trouble yourself over them," said Violet, her mind going back to the old days when Jaquelina had been the patient nurse and drudge, neglected and uncared for.

"I know," said Lina. "I have not forgotten the past, but I am sorry for them all the same. And then, too, Violet, you must remember," her voice sank slightly lower, "I can never have any more happiness in life except what I can make for others."

Violet and her brother returned south the next day. Violet had promised Mrs. Valchester to spend a few days with her in Richmond before she went to Laurel Hill. She felt quite sure of having Ronald all to herself then. What was her dismay to find him preparing to leave for New York again the very day she arrived in Richmond?

"Were you growing impatient at my lengthened stay?" she asked him, fondly. "It was Walter that kept me. I was very anxious to get back to you."

"I thought Walter intended to have brought back a bride with him," ignoring her first question.

"Oh! did not Walter tell you?" she cried out, carelessly. "The engagement is off."

"I do not think I understand you," Ronald replied.

"The engagement is broken—they are not to be married," she explained.

"Why not?" gravely.

"Oh, Mr. Valchester, she is so changed, you know," said Violet, a little disconcerted by his grave eyes. "She has lost her voice and her beauty. She offered Walter his freedom, and he was glad enough to accept it."

"I could not have believed it of Walter!" said Ronald Valchester, sturdily.

"Oh, Mr. Valchester, she is a perfect fright! You would not blame Walter if you could see how she looks!" cried Violet, warmly defending Walter's course.

Ronald said no more. He had turned to go.

"You are not going to New York now! What is the use, when I am already here?" she cried, in dismay.

Then Ronald answered, with a slight flush:

"Excuse me, Violet. At the risk of seeming rude, I must tell you I was not going after you exactly. I am publishing another volume of poetry, and I was going to New York on urgent business."

"You were going to see Jaquelina!" Violet broke out, in a sudden passion of anger and jealousy. And then she threw herself on a sofa and burst into bitter weeping.

Ronald stood looking at her in amazement. He did not kneel down by her and kiss away the tears, as she expected him to do. He said, sadly and gravely:

"Violet, this is quite unworthy of you. You must remember that Lina herself gave me to you."

"I have small pleasure in the gift," she retorted. "I but seldom see you."

The passionate complaint opened Ronald's eyes. He bent down and touched his affianced's cheek with his lips while he said, quietly:

"Violet, when I return from New York I shall ask you to name our wedding day. You must think about it while I am gone."

"When—when will you return?" sobbed Violet, with a smile struggling through her tears.

"In about two weeks, I think," said Ronald.

"Two weeks longer; I shall be gone to Laurel Hill before that time," she said, disappointed.

"I do not think I can get back any sooner than that," he answered, "but I will come to Laurel Hill as soon as I return."

"You promise," she said, "faithfully?"

"I promise faithfully," he replied, with a slight smile at her anxiety.

He went away and Violet was obliged to content herself with the thought of seeing him again in two weeks. She returned to her mountain home where she found her father very glad to see her again. In a week's time she heard that Jaquelina Meredith had returned to the farm on a visit to her uncle.

CHAPTER XL.

"May I see you for a little while, Lina? I have important news for you."

It was two weeks after Jaquelina had come to the farm-house that she stood holding Ronald Valchester's card in her trembling hand and reading the few lines scribbled upon it. Her uncle Charlie had brought it to her. He told her that Mr. Valchester was waiting outside.

She started up nervously when Mr. Meredith gave her Ronald's card, and told her that he was waiting to see her. An impulse came over her to decline to grant him the interview he asked.

"He has come to tell me when he will be married to Violet," she said to her wildly beating heart. "I—I am not so strong as I thought I was—I do not believe I could bear it. It was cruel to come. I should not have thought it of Ronald. He must have known how it would hurt me. Oh! I should not have come here—so near to the sight of Violet's happiness."

Then it crossed her mind that she was weak and selfish. She had begged him to marry Violet. She must be brave enough to bear what she had caused.

"Uncle Charlie, you may tell him to come in," she said, with lips that trembled strangely.

Then when he had gone out and closed the door she drooped into a chair and hid her poor, marred face in her hands. She could not bear for Ronald Valchester to behold it in its changed and altered guise.

She heard the door open softly, then Ronald's unforgotten step as he crossed the floor. She could not look up. He knelt down beside her and took one of the hands that hid her face and held it tightly in his own.

"Lina, look at me," he said, in a voice that was as tender as a caress. "Do not be afraid to show me your sad affliction."

Jaquelina looked up with something like a sob into the handsome, thoughtful face of her lost lover. It was beaming with an eager joy and tenderness that was like the expression she remembered on it in the brief, happy summer of their betrothal. Even when he saw the face that had frightened Walter Earle's love away, no change came into the blue-gray eyes fixed on her with such adoring love blent with such sweet seriousness.

"Lina, do not grieve for the beauty you have lost," he said. "I am so thankful that your life is spared that all else is of little account."

The sad dark eyes regarded him in wonder.

"Yes, darling," he said, with a smile into the wondering eyes; "all that you have suffered only makes you dearer to my heart."

She pulled her small hand from his clasp and tried to rise.

"Mr. Valchester, you must not speak to me so," she cried. "You forget Violet—you forget everything."

"I forget nothing," he returned. "Listen, Lina, I did not come here simply to pain you. I have news for you. Gerald Huntington is dead."

CHAPTER XLI.

At those words from her lover's lips Jaquelina gasped for breath like one dying. Her head fell heavily back against her chair, and her eyelids closed. Ronald bent over her in surprise and alarm.

"Lina, did I tell you too suddenly?" he exclaimed, chafing the limp and nerveless hands. "Forgive me, I forgot how weak and nervous you must be yet."

It was a shock to her, there could be no doubt of that. She lay silent several minutes, her heart throbbing quick and fast. It was some little while before she could speak. When she did, she uttered only one word through pale lips:

"When?"

"Almost a week ago now," he replied. "Are you strong enough for me to tell you about it, Lina?"

"Yes," she replied, and he drew a chair to her side.

"Will you suffer me to hold your hand while I am telling you, Lina?" he inquired, fondly.

She seemed to be lost in thought for a moment, then she answered, with a slight flush:

"No; I would rather you should not do so."

A troubled look came into the blue-gray eyes a moment as they rested on the leaping flames of the fire; then he said, with apparent composure:

"You knew I had been in New York for two weeks, Lina?"

"No, I did not know it," she replied, surprised.

"True, how should you know it?" he said, half to himself. "Well, I was, and last week Professor Larue called on me at my hotel."

"The dear old soul! I hope he was well," exclaimed Jaquelina, warmly.

"Yes, he was well," said Ronald Valchester, "and very impatient for your return to New York. A dying man had sent for you, and when he found that you were out of reach he called for me."

"You went?" said Lina, looking at him with wide, dark eyes.

"Yes, Lina. Judge of my surprise when, in an obscure and comfortless abode in the suburbs of Brooklyn, I found the handsome outlaw, Gerald Huntington, stretched upon his dying bed."

"Dying!" Jaquelina repeated after him, with something like awe in her low voice.

"Yes, dying, but dying ashamed and repentant. There was a priest with him. He passed away peacefully."

"And he sent for me?" the girl said, wonderingly.

"Yes, he sent for you, and he was very much disappointed and grieved that you were too far away to come in time. He wished to ask your forgiveness for the cowardly revenge he took upon you for the ill-turn you did him once."

"I have been so sorry for it," she said, weakly, and blushing crimson. "I was so young and untutored I did not think. It was all because I needed the money so much. If I could have seen him on his dying bed I would have asked him to forgive me my sin of ingratitude, and I must have forgiven him for the revenge he took. I could not have refused to forgive him when he was dying."

"Yes, I told him that," said Ronald. "I understood you so well, Lina, I knew just what you would say and feel. I told him to rest quite easy about that."

Lina thanked him with a grateful glance, quickly withdrawn.

"He had sinned against you, too," she said, tremulously. "That dreadful wound! You forgave him, Ronald?"

"Freely," he replied; and then they were silent a moment, and Lina looked at the softly falling snow through the windows, and Ronald looked at her steadily and gravely.

He did not flinch as his eyes marked the scarred, discolored skin that covered the once delicately lovely face.

After a pause Ronald said, gravely:

"Huntington had a confession to make to you, Lina."

"A confession?" she repeated, turning her dark eyes from the window to look at him with grave surprise.

"Yes," he said. "You must have wondered, Lina, often and often, what mysterious discovery caused him to give you up in the very moment when, by violence he had made you his bride."

"I have wondered over it often. It was the happy cause that delivered me from a life more bitter than death," she replied, with a shudder.

"He explained it to me, Lina, and perhaps I should leave the story untold to you. Are you willing for me to do so?" he inquired.

Lina meditated a moment, then replied:

"I would prefer to hear it."

"Spoken like a true daughter of Eve," said her companion, with a slight smile. "Very well, Lina, I will do as you say, but I fear it will pain you to hear my story. And there is one thing you must promise me. You will tell no one else?"

"Yes, I will promise that," she replied.

"Listen to a bit of the outlaw's history, then," he said. "In the first place, his true name was not Gerald Huntington at all."

"Then what——" said Lina, and paused abruptly.

"It was an alias he adopted when he fell into evil and wicked courses. He belonged to a well-born family in France. He was not an American, Lina—he was French."

Lina's eyes were a little startled as she looked up at him; a sight pallor crept about her lips.

"He was the younger son of a man who was so severely just, Lina, and so proud and passionate, withal, that his children feared him instead of loving him. His eldest daughter ran away with a young American artist, and died under Virginian skies in only a few brief months. His younger son, maddened by the sternness and harshness of his only parent, also ran away to America. He fell into temptation, yielded blindly to evil, and cast aside forever, the noble name he had disgraced."

He paused, and Jaquelina regarded him with wild, wondering eyes.

"Lina, I need not tell you more," he said. "You can guess."

She lifted her small hands dizzily to her brow.

"Tell me yourself," she said. "I am so dazed it seems to me I cannot understand unless I hear the very words."

He said them over, reluctantly enough:

"Gerald Huntington's true name is Ardelle. Your mother, little Lina, was his elder sister. He was your own uncle. Your mother's jewelry revealed your true identity to him that night."

A moan of pain came from the girl's white lips as she pressed her hand to her brow.

"My own uncle!" she cried. "Oh, the shame and disgrace of it!"

"It is a buried secret," he replied. "No one will ever know! I promised him that myself, Lina. He died repentant. I believe that a noble nature was marred when Gerald Ardelle, with his princely beauty and glorious intellect, fell into evil ways."

"But he died repentant," she murmured, hopefully.

"Yes, he was very sorry for his sins," replied Ronald. "He regretted his sin against you the most of all."

After a moment he added, gently:

"His dearest wish, Lina, was that you and I might be re-united."

She put up her hands as if she could not bear the words.

"He was full of life and strength," she said. "Why did he die? What killed him, Ronald?"

"You will not be shocked if I tell you?" he said, hesitatingly.

"I wish to know," she answered.

"He was in the theater the night you were burned," he answered in a low voice. "He tried to save your life, dear. He leaped from the upper tier into the parquette—fell, and was almost trampled to death beneath the feet of the maddened multitude. He died a slow and painful death from internal injuries."

"He died for me," Jaquelina cried in a voice of pain, and the tears fell from her eyes for the man who had wrecked her life and given his own so freely at last for her sake.

Ronald wiped those tears away, and when she could speak she said, looking gravely at him:

"Ronald, who was it that saved my life? Tell me."

"No one knows," he replied, uneasily.

"Yes, Ronald, I know—I have always known," she replied. "Ah, do not blush. I have never breathed it to anyone, but I know that it was you that saved me from death that night."

"I thought you insensible," he exclaimed, unconsciously admitting the truth of her words.

"Ah, Ronald!" she cried, with sudden uncontrollable pain and passion. "I was almost dead, but I knew whose arms held me, and whose lips kissed me. It seems to me if I were dead and you touched me, even, I should surely know it."

"Ah, Lina, my darling," he cried, "there are no barriers between us now. All are broken. You will be my own at last!"

She looked at her lover with dark, despairing eyes and a death-white face.

"You forget—Violet," she said, in a desolate whisper.

She saw a dark shadow come over the handsome, love-lighted face.

"Lina, I have not told you all that Gerald Huntington told me yet," he said. "Do you remember that it was a disguised woman who liberated him from prison?"

"Yes," she replied, wonderingly.

"It was Violet who connived at his escape, and furnished him the means to get away safely. The price of her aid was that he should kidnap you and prevent our marriage."

"I can scarcely believe it," cried the girl.

"It is quite true," he answered. "Gerald swore to it. Violet does not deny it."

"You did not charge her with it?" the girl cried, in breathless dismay.

"Yes," he replied, firmly. "She was very angry at first, but when I had talked to her awhile, she owned the truth. She had visited the prisoner, and they had concocted their diabolical plan of revenge together. She hated you, dear, because—she loved me."

"And she gave you back your freedom?" Lina said, with unconscious hopefulness.

"Yes, when I had asked her," he answered, with a slight flush. "Her offense had been too great for me to marry her. Do you blame me, Lina?"

She would not say, only asked him, anxiously:

"Was Violet repentant?"

"She was sorry she had been found out, and very angry with Gerald Huntington for betraying the secret. I do not believe she has reached the verge of repentance just yet."

"Poor Violet!" the girl said, with infinite compassion. "You will not tell anyone about it, Ronald?"

"No, darling, I promised her I would not. Many people have secrets hidden in their lives. This will be one in Violet's, and Gerald Huntington's near kinship to you, will be one in yours. I did not even tell Walter her story. I gave her the privilege of saying she had jilted me. You will not mind taking a man who has been jilted, will you, Lina?"

She looked at the handsome, happy face, with the eager light of hope shining in the blue-gray eyes, and her lips quivered. Years had passed since she had seen the light of happiness shining on Ronald Valchester's face.

"Ronald, I must not take you now," she said, "I am not the Lina you loved years ago. I have lost my beauty."

"You will always be beautiful to me," he answered, loyally. "Lina, my love was no weak, shallow passion for a fair face such as Walter Earle cherished for you. It was not altogether your beauty that won me first. There was about you a singular unconscious fascination—a luring charm—sweet and subtle as the fragrance of a flower, that won me even against my will. That nameless charm lingers about you still, though your wondrous fairness has faded like a flower. You remember—