Laurel Vane; or, The Girls' Conspiracy

St. Leon looked down into the beautiful face that was so maddeningly fair in the soft light, and his heart swelled with a great despair. To think that she had once been his, that that peerless form had rested in his arms, that sweet face slept upon his breast! And now—divided by a woman's pride, they were as widely severed as if Jean Ingelow's "vast, calm river, so dread to see," rolled its rushing waves between their hearts.

Standing thus, arm in arm, each heart busy with its deep emotions, neither heard the furtive steps creeping slowly up behind them, neither saw the cruel, jealous face with its wild eyes glaring upon them, neither saw the gleam of the slender dagger clutched in the murderous hand, neither dreamed of the man who lurked behind them, nor of the woman who followed at a safe distance, eager to sate her vengeance in the sight of her rival's heart's blood.

"Mrs. Lynn, you are angry with me because I am here," said St. Leon, half-questioningly.

"No," she answered, without removing her eyes from the moon-gilded waves that broke at her feet in snowy surf. She felt too weak to meet the mute pleading of those eyes she loved so madly.

"You think that I have followed you here," he went on, sadly. "But you are wrong. Much as I might have wished to do so, dear as your presence is to me, I could never—"

The deprecating words were never finished. A terrible form flashed suddenly before them, a terrible face gleamed in the light dagger flashed upward in the air, and a voice, hoarse with misery and madness, rang out fiercely:

"Die, Laurel Vane—die!"

The dagger glittered against her snowy breast, the hand of the frenzied madman would have driven it swiftly home but all in an instant she was caught away, and the descending blade was sheathed in another breast—the broad breast of St. Leon Le Roy. The arms that had closed wildly around Laurel for a moment fell away from her, and he dropped on the sands at her feet, the hot blood spurting from his heart, and deepening the rosy hem of her satin robe to a horrible crimson, while her agonized cry rent the summer night: "Oh, St. Leon, you have died for me!"

CHAPTER LXIV.

"You have died for me!" the stricken wife repeated, and then, overcome with horror, she knelt down beside the dead man, and with her arms about him, and her head upon his breast, she relapsed into unconsciousness almost as deep as death.

Ross Powell stood still a moment, like one frozen with horror. That maddened cry from the lips of the woman he would have slain rang fearfully in his ears, he realized in a moment to what fearful lengths he had been driven by his own jealous passion and the specious temptations of Mrs. Merivale. He had slain his hated rival, but he had brought down retribution on his own head, for Laurel's wild shriek of despair had echoed loudly back to the hotel, and already a score of people were rushing to the scene. Startled, terrified, the murderer made a wild rush forward, still clutching in his hand the bloody dagger, but before he had run a dozen paces he was brought to a stop by the sudden apparition of a white-faced woman who flung herself wildly before him, hissing out, in tones of blended wrath and horror, a terrible malediction upon his head:

"Murderer! you have slain him! How dared you, how dared you? May Heaven's curses light upon your head! May you swing from the hangman's rope! May perdition seize your soul!"

She must have been mad, for she flung herself before him, she barred his way, she clung to him with her desperate white arms, heedless of his curses and remonstrances, terribly intent on delivering him up to justice, and so punishing him for the mad mistake he had made in slaying the husband and sparing the wife!

She must have been mad, or she would have known that he would not tamely submit to detention with the feet of the avengers gaining swiftly on his track, and his soul writhing in horror of the hangman's ghastly rope. He tried to thrust her from him, to tear away from the arms that held him in desperate bondage; he shouted hoarsely for her to let him go.

"Devil in woman's shape, it was you that tempted me!" he cried out, with a fierce, blood-curling oath. "Now let me go, or I swear I will kill you as I did him!"

She must have been mad, for she did not heed the threat—she only clung the tighter in spite of his frantic struggles to release himself from the arms that twined around him venomously, like living serpents in the deadly embrace of hate.

"I will never let you go—never!" she hissed out, madly, and in his frantic fear, hearing the steps of his pursuers coming nearer and nearer on his trail, he lifted the cruel dagger, still reeking with Le Roy's life-blood, and plunged it fiercely in her breast as it gleamed bare and white in the beautiful moonlight.

"Ah!" she gasped, and the white arms relaxed their hold, her body wavered and fell limply forward. He thrust it desperately from him, and sprung forward—free!

Free! but at what terrible cost to his soul. The woman whose low, soft whisperings had tempted him to murder, the woman who in her madness would fain have delivered him up to the law's vengeance, lay dead upon the shore, the cold, white moonlight shining down into her ghastly, staring eyes and pallid face. Retribution had overtaken her, and the fate she had plotted for another recoiled upon her own head. The serpent she had loosed to destroy another struck its deadly fangs into her own heart.

They lifted her up tenderly and pitifully, and bore her back to the hotel. They spoke of her with the gentlest pity and regret as the victim of a cruel murder, for no one ever knew the truth—no one guessed that she was to blame for the tragedy that had ended her life in so disastrous a fashion. The shadow of her sin never rested on her grave, for there was no one to betray her—Ross Powell was never apprehended. His deadly fear lent wings to his feet, and he escaped from his pursuers and made good his flight to a far-off land. He never returned to his native shore, he was never brought to justice. All his punishment came to him through his own coward conscience. The cruel whip-lash of remorse followed him through the world. The double murder he had committed lay like a mountain's weight upon his soul. He had been bad and wicked, but of his own self he would never have committed murder. He had been goaded into its commission by a temporary madness, and in time he repented most sincerely of his sin, and died in the humble hope of forgiveness by a merciful Redeemer.

CHAPTER LXV.

And Laurel?

Full of wonder and pity and sympathy, they lifted the golden head from Le Roy's breast, and bore her away. No one dreamed that he had given his life to save hers. No one dreamed that she belonged to him by the dearest tie possible to mortals: no one knew that her rightful place was by his side, and the sealed lips did not open to claim her right, for they were pale and rigid as if the finger of eternal silence had been laid upon them.

Strangers' hands carried her back to the hotel, and the news of the dreadful tragedy spread far and wide. It excited the greatest wonder. It was so sudden, so strange, so mysterious. No one knew the murderer, and no one guessed the motive for his double crime—no one except, perhaps, Mr. Gordon, and he was wisely silent. He deemed it for the best.

But it created a great sensation. Mr. Le Roy was so well known as a gentleman of birth, culture, and wealth, and Mrs. Merivale as a woman of fashion, that the wonder and excitement were most intense. Popular indignation ran high against Ross Powell. If they had caught him, it is most probable that Judge Lynch would have been his executioner.

The sensation had its element of romance. It was whispered far and near that the beautiful belle, Mrs. Lynn, had fainted with her head upon Mr. Le Roy's breast. They told how her delicate laces had been crimsoned by his life blood, how she had looked like a dead woman when they lifted her up. When it became known, next day, that her excitement had culminated in an attack of brain fever, the interest and sympathy and curiosity ran higher and higher. People agreed that there must have been something between Mr. Le Roy and Mrs. Lynn. They deemed that they had been lovers.

Mrs. Wentworth did not return to New York the next day. She remained to nurse her ill and unconscious friend. Cyril Wentworth stayed also. Mr. Gordon went back, and brought his wife down to see her daughter. She was very willing to forgive her now. Years had softened her anger and resentment, and when she heard that Cyril Wentworth had proved himself worthy of her beautiful daughter she threw pride to the winds and forgave him, too. They had a very tender reconciliation—the mother and daughter—in the quiet room where Laurel lay ill unto death with brain fever, her beautiful golden hair cut close to her head, and cold, sparkling ice laid against the fevered brain to cool the subtle fire that burned in her veins.

Beatrix told her mother all that she suspected—that Mrs. Lynn was Laurel Le Roy—and Mrs. Gordon quite agreed with her. She had never forgotten the beautiful face of the girl who had deceived St. Leon Le Roy so bitterly. She recalled it again now, and she was sure that her daughter was right. There could not have been two such lovely faces in the world. She did not doubt that this was St. Leon's wife.

She forgave Laurel now for all that she had done. It was easy to forgive her now, when she lay so ill—perhaps dying. She and Beatrix vied with each other in the care of the invalid. They would not trust her wholly to the care of a hired nurse. Her life was too precious. Laurence and Trixy were left to the care of the nurses, and Beatrix gave all her care and thought to the invalid.

"I cannot do too much for her," said gentle Beatrix. "She was like an angel to me."

The day came at last when her patience and fidelity were rewarded. Laurel opened her eyes and looked up with the light of reason shining in her face. The crisis of her terrible delirium was past. She would recover.

She looked at Beatrix, and a faint flush stole into her pale face.

"Have I told all in my delirium?" she asked.

"You have told nothing. All your ravings have been of your books and of your child," Beatrix answered, gently.

A look of anxiety stole into the hollow, dark eyes.

"My little Laurie?" she said, wistfully.

"He is well and happy. He has been well cared for," answered Beatrix. "But I must not bring him to you yet; you are not strong enough. Can you wait?"

"Yes, I can wait," Laurel answered, patiently. Then she laid her thin, white hand on Beatrix's arm. "Can you forgive me?" she said. "I have been hard and proud and wicked. I have willfully deceived you; I am really Laurel Vane."

Beatrix bent and kissed the poor, pale lips that faltered over this humble confession.

"My dear, I have known it all the while," she said, simply.

"And you forgive me for my duplicity?" asked Laurel, in wonder.

"My dear, if you can forgive me all the sorrow my willful plot brought down upon your head, there is nothing I cannot forgive you," cried impulsive Beatrix.

"You were not to blame," Laurel answered, and the warm color drifted over her face as she went on, sadly: "It was all the fault of my mad love, Beatrix. I blame no one for my folly and sin. If I had gone away from Eden with Clarice Wells, nothing would have happened. I stayed, and brought down fate upon my own head—and his."

"A happy fate, my dear, if only you will be reconciled to him," said Beatrix, gently.

The dark eyes looked up at her, full of the pathos of regret and despair.

"Ah! now I understand all the pathos that lies in those words, too late," she said. "I was mad, I think—mad with my wounded love and pride. I denied my identity to him, I refused to listen to his repentance, I was cruelly hard and cold; and now my punishment has come. I repent, but he cannot hear me. My love cannot reach him, for he is dead."

"Dead! ah, no, my dear! Is it possible that you have been thinking so? He lives, he will soon be well and strong again if only you will forgive him."

Then she stopped suddenly, for Laurel's head had fallen back, her eyes were closed. The shock of joy had been too much. Laurel had quietly fainted.

When she came to herself again there was a strange resolute look in the dark eyes. She took Beatrix's hand and held it tightly in both her own as if she needed strength and support.

"He lives," she said, wildly. "Oh, how glad I am! Now I will make atonement to him! He would have given his life to save mine. I will give him more than my life."

"I do not understand you," said Beatrix, wonderingly.

"You shall know soon," said Laurel. "Dear Beatrix, do let me have Laurie a little while. I am sure it will not hurt me. I am stronger than you think!"

CHAPTER LXVI.

Beatrix did not know how to refuse the mother's prayer. She knew that Laurel's heart was yearning for the child, and she did not really think that it would do her any injury to see him. She made her promise that she would not excite herself, and then she went after the little lad who was as usual at play with Trixy upon the shore.

She made Laurence promise that he would be very gentle and quiet in his mamma's room, and he very readily agreed to do so. She knew that he was a little gentleman who would keep his word of honor, and so she sent him in and waited outside patiently until that momentous interview was over.

Laurel kept the child almost an hour. No one knew just what she said to him or how much of the past she revealed to him, but the boy came out with a face all glowing with joy and sought little Trixy.

To her he confided his joyous news:

"I have a real, live papa, Trixy. He is not dead as we thought. He is good and handsome—as handsome as your papa, Trixy, dear, and when mamma gets well she is going to take me to him."

Trixy was delighted at the good fortune that had befallen her boy lover. It formed an inexhaustible theme with them. They discussed it daily and compared notes on their papas in the most earnest fashion. Laurence was very impatient to have his mamma get well. The vague longing that had haunted him all his lifetime would be realized when he went home to that splendid papa whom already he loved in anticipation.

Laurel convalesced very fast. Since she had heard that her husband still lived, there was a great change in her. She was very grave and thoughtful, even amounting to sadness. Beatrix could not understand her. She was fonder than ever of her child; but there seemed to be a sort of passionate sorrow mingled with her love. She would fondle and caress him, and then she would weep bitterly over him.

"Why do you weep over your child?" Beatrix asked her, in wonder.

"I love him so dearly," answered Laurel, evasively.

"I cannot understand why that should be a reason for weeping over him. You ought to be quite happy over such a beautiful boy," said impulsive Beatrix, sighing, as she thought of her own little lad sleeping far away beneath the skies of England.

"I am happy over him," said Laurel. "But, oh, Beatrix, you do not quite understand me. Hitherto my little Laurence has belonged only to me. He came to me in a dark and troublous time, when I was alone and friendless in the world. I worked for him, I made money for him, and I filled up the void in my heart with his baby-love. But for him I should have died. I could not have borne my life. And now we shall be parted, I and my little son. I shall give him to his father; but, oh, Beatrix, what shall I do without him?"

"I cannot understand you, indeed, Laurel," said simple Beatrix. "You are going home to your husband, are you not, dear? Surely you will not mind dividing the child's love with him. Think how selfishly you have kept it to yourself all these years, and you will not lose him or be parted from him. You know what the poet says: 'Half is his, and half is thine.' Depend upon it, Laurel, you will be happier in the child's love when his father shares it. It is only natural that you should be."

"You will understand my meaning better in a little while, dear Beatrix," Laurel answered, gently, and then she abruptly changed the subject.

"I have always wanted to ask you about Clarice Wells," she said. "What has become of her?"

Beatrix laughed, sweetly and gayly.

"I am glad you have not forgotten Clarice," she said. "She was a good girl, and she admired you very much. I was sorry to lose her when I left England, but I could not forbid the bans."

"She is married, then?" asked Laurel.

"Yes, and her marriage was quite romantic. Should you like to hear about it?"

"Very much," Laurel replied.

"You would scarcely believe it of one so devoted to the laws of Caste, and who lectured you so roundly for aspiring above your station, but Clarice is actually the wife of an English baronet," laughed Beatrix, "and it all happened in the most romantic fashion. I always thought that Clarice had a spice of romance in her nature. She betrayed it when she lent herself so readily to the furtherance of our girlish conspiracy."

"Yes," sighed Laurel.

"She met him—her baronet—in the Alps, where we were taking our little summer holidays," continued Beatrix. "He was summering there, too, and 'they met by chance—the usual way,' you know, Laurel. She saved his life—he was rolling down a precipice and she adroitly caught him back—she was always a quick-witted little thing. Well, he was grateful, she was interested, and, next thing, they fell in love. Clarice was very sensible at first. She refused to have anything to say to him, and I applauded her. But, really, Laurel, it was not so bad. He was not, 'to the manner born.' Until a year before he had been plain John Bull, a briefless barrister. He had succeeded to the baronetage by a series of accidental and unexpected deaths of heirs-presumptive, and he was plain and sensible, and forty years old at least."

"I do not think his age was any objection," cried Laurel, hastily, and blushing very much.

"No, indeed, and it did not prove so in this case," smiled Beatrix. "He would not take her No for an answer. He never rested until he made pretty Clarice 'my lady.'"

"It is very romantic. I shall make it a plot for a novel," declared Laurel. "I dare say Clarice would not scold me now for aspiring above my station," she added, with a pretty, pensive smile.

"I dare say not," said Beatrix, greatly amused. "Exceptions alter cases."

CHAPTER LXVII.

In five weeks after that tragedy at the seashore Laurel announced her intention of returning to Belle Vue. She had convalesced very rapidly, and the bloom and beauty of health were fast returning to her lovely face. Nothing was left to remind one of her almost fatal illness save the short, soft rings of sunny hair that clustered all over the beautiful, graceful head. Beatrix grieved sorely over the loss of that wealth of golden tresses from her friend's head, but after all it scarcely detracted from Laurel's beauty. The pretty, babyish ringlets lent a spirituelle charm to the fair face and made a halo about the brow that made her "half of earth and half divine."

"Let us go home to Belle Vue," she said, pleadingly, to her uncle and he eager to gratify her slightest wish, consented. They wished to have Beatrix and her mother go with them, but they excused themselves and promised to come later on.

"When Laurel has left you and you feel lonely," said Mrs. Gordon, with a smile.

The beautiful authoress blushed vividly and then grew very pale. She made no answer to the half question. No one quite knew what she intended to do. No one could understand her, she was so shy, so reticent, she blushed so at the slightest mention of Mr. Le Roy's name.

But Beatrix, as she held her in her arms at parting, whispered, pleadingly, against her cheek:

"You will not be hard and unforgiving any longer, dear. You will go home to him?"

"You shall hear from me in a few days," Laurel answered; and Beatrix was obliged to be content with that ambiguous reply.

They went back to Belle Vue. The autumn days had set in now, and the trees were clothed in all the glory of their autumn coloring. From hill to hill, from shore to shore glowed with scarlet and brown and gold. The sun shone still with all the brightness of summer, the flowers were in their glory yet. There was no cloud in all the summer sky that morning when Laurel went shyly up to her uncle's side.

"Uncle Carlyle, I want you to take me over to Eden this morning," she said, with the beautiful blushes mantling on her cheeks.

He drew the back of his hand hastily across his eyes. The hour for which he had longed and dreaded had come. He was going to lose Laurel and his darling little Laurie.

"My dear, are you strong enough?" he asked her, wistfully. "Remember, we only came to Belle Vue yesterday."

"I am so restless—it seems as if I cannot wait," she said, and he saw that the dark eyes were full of unrest and pain.

"We will go at once, dear," he said; and though he did not say another word, Laurel understood why he took her so tenderly in his arms and kissed her. She did not speak. Her heart was too full for words.

They took little Laurence and drove over to Eden. Mr. Ford sent in his card alone to Mrs. Le Roy, and they waited silently in the grand drawing-room for her. But when he heard her coming he withdrew into the shadow of the curtained bay-window. He did not wish to embarrass her meeting with Laurel by his presence.

The door opened and she entered slowly with a step that had grown unconsciously feeble and halting. The fine old face looked pale and sad, there was a sorrowful droop about the delicate lips. The years that had brought Laurel to the perfection of her womanly beauty had sadly aged St. Leon's mother.

She came in sadly enough, but when she saw who her visitors were the light of a sudden, tremulous hope flashed over her proud, sad face. Her dim eyes brightened.

"Mrs. Lynn!" she exclaimed, wonderingly.

The beautiful woman in the white dress with the crimson roses fastened against her round white throat rose and went hastily forward. There was a look of pain and shame on the fair face.

"Do not call me by that name. It never was mine. It has only been the mask beneath which I hoped to hide my identity," cried Laurel. "I am ashamed and penitent now. Call me, Laurel, mother, and say that you forgive me."

"Laurel, I am so glad!" cried Mrs. Le Roy, throwing her arms about her neck, and then with the charming inconsistency of woman she wept.

She had forgotten the child in her joy at the restoration of Laurel, but suddenly a little hand stole into hers, and a half-expostulating voice said:

"Grandmamma!"

She turned and caught the beautiful boy to her heart, half-smothering him in her fond caresses.

"My precious little grandchild," she cried; and Laurence asked her naïvely:

"If you are glad that we have come home, mamma and me, why do you cry?"

"You must not ask questions, my little lad," said Mr. Ford, coming forward and greeting his hostess, and thinking to himself that she had suddenly grown beautiful in the radiance of the joy-light that beamed upon her face.

He asked the question that Laurel was too timid to syllable upon her lips.

"How is Mr. Le Roy?"

"He has had a relapse—he is quite unwell to-day," Mrs. Le Roy said, tremulously. "He has been very ill since we brought him from the seashore. He makes no effort to recover. He does not seem to care to live."

She looked at Laurel as she spoke.

"It is all your fault, dear!" she said, gently. "Life has never been the same since you were lost to him. Only this morning the physician told me that without some object in life, something more to live for than he has now, my son would never get well."

Laurel's face was very pale. She drew her arm tightly around her son as he stood by her side. "May I—see him?" she asked, in a faint, trembling voice, without lifting her eyes.

"He is in his own room, dear. Go to him as soon as you please," Mrs. Le Roy answered, gladly.

Laurel did not wait for another word. They saw that she was very pale, that she trembled very much, and their hearts went out to her in silent sympathy for her suffering. She rose, took her little son by the hand, and silently left the room.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

St. Leon Le Roy lay among the lace-fringed pillows of his luxurious bed that morning alone and lonely.

It was a beautiful room where he lay, but the invalid took no pleasure in it. It was large and lofty, with a lovely painted ceiling, and the walls were hung in beautiful draperies of rose-hued silk and snowy lace. The furniture and carpet were upholstered in pink velvet, the carpet had a pattern of roses upon it, the vases on the marble mantel were filled with exquisite flowers. St. Leon had been surrounded by beautiful things all his life. They did not add to his pleasures nor detract from his pain.

He lay there wearily among the downy pillows, with his wasted white hand over his heavy eyes, and his thoughts fixed on the beautiful wife, so fatally lost to him. Only that morning the physician had warned him.

"You must rouse yourself, Le Roy, or you will die from the effects of your terrible wound. The strain upon your system has been most severe. I have exhausted my art in bringing you to the point of convalescence. Now, you must help yourself. If you give way to this fit of despondency, this ennui that I see creeping upon you, I will not answer for the consequences. You must rally from this spell of dejection. Make yourself an object in life, and live for it."

Then he went away. He had done all he could for the suffering body; he did not know how to minister to a mind diseased. He had detected the symptoms, but St. Leon alone could apply the remedy.

He lay silently thinking.

There was only one object for which he could have cared to live, and that was unattainable. Why should he exert himself to hold on to a life that was scarce worth living? Why not let go the anchor and drift idly with the tide that dashed him hither and thither on its restless waves? Who would greatly care to live when all of life had grown into a long regret?

His door unclosed softly, but he did not turn his head. He knew that his mother had had visitors, and he supposed that she was now returning. He did not look at her—he knew that she could not bear to see the heavy sadness in his eyes.

A light step stole across the floor, and saying to himself, "She thinks me asleep," he gently closed his eyes. It was a harmless deception he often practiced upon her. Thinking him asleep, she would feel more content.

"Papa!" said a proud, happy little voice, and a soft hand fluttered down upon his own.

He opened his eyes with a start.

A child was standing beside him—a beautiful boy, with hair and eyes like his own, and his mother's wistful smile—Laurence Lynn!

"Laurie!" he cried.

"Yes, papa, I have come home to you. I am your son—really and truly. Are you not glad?" cried the child, who had been so loved and petted all his life that it was no vanity in him to imagine that any one must be proud and glad in possession of him.

Glad! St. Leon could not speak for a moment. He was dazed with the suddenness of the surprise.

He threw his arm about his son, and strained him to his heart; but his thoughts were with the mother more than the child.

"Did you come alone, dear?" he asked, as soon as he could command his voice.

"Oh, no; mamma and Uncle Carlyle came with me. Mamma!"—he suddenly looked around, then broke from St. Leon's clasp and ran to the door—"mamma, come back!" he called. "Why did you run away?"

St. Leon leaned on his elbow and watched the door impatiently, his breath coming and going in great strangling gasps—his heart full of trembling anticipation.

"What does it mean? Will she forgive me? Will she come back to me?" he asked himself, in a bewildering maze of hope and anxiety.

Laurie opened the door and ran out into the hall. He came back in a moment, and before he entered St. Leon heard the echo of a loved, familiar footstep beside that of the child. The color rushed into his face. His heart beat tumultuously.

"Why did you run away, mamma?" the child was still repeating as they came across the threshold hand in hand.

St. Leon had heard that she had been very ill after the shock of his supposed death that dreadful night. He had drawn some hopeful auguries from the news at first. Perhaps she loved him still, perhaps she would relent and come back to him. But he had waited so long for a sign from her that he had fallen into despair again. The sight of her now, as she came into the room, revived the dying embers of hope within his breast.

To his fond, adoring eyes she had never looked more lovely despite the closely cut curls and the extreme pallor of her face. She came across the floor holding the child by the hand, and as she met the imploring gaze of his eyes her own seemed to swim in a fine glittering mist of unshed tears. She stood there silently a moment, and he waited humbly to hear her speak—to pronounce his doom, as it were, for it seemed to him that fate itself hung on those tender, wistful lips. In that moment of passionate suspense and longing it seemed to him that he experienced something of the feelings that must have thrilled her that terrible night when she had prayed him for forgiveness and he had coldly put her away.

"It is retribution," he said to himself, while the cold dew of agony beaded his brow.

She was holding Laurie's hand tightly clasped within her own. Once, twice, she raised it to her lips, then suddenly she laid it quickly in St. Leon's palm and withdrew her own. Her voice had a strange, almost dying sound as she said:

"You saved my life, St. Leon. Ay, you did more—you would have given your life for mine! Do not think me ungrateful. Do not believe that I could forget what I owe you. I am come to make reparation. You would have given me your life. See! I give you what is dearer than my life to me—the heir to Eden!"

Then she stepped back into the shadow. She did not wish him to see the white agony that was written on her face. She would make the sacrifice bravely, not showing him all that it cost her bleeding heart.

He drew one arm around the child and held him to his breast. He kept the other free. His eyes turned wistfully to that fair, sad face, half veiled by the falling curtain.

"Laurel," he breathed.

There was a world of tenderness, passion, and entreaty in his tone. Her heart beat wildly. She turned toward him, trying to look calm and brave.

He held out his other arm to her, but she would not understand. She gazed at him in silent distress.

"Laurel," he said again, "the gift would not be complete without you. Are you not coming to me, too, dear?"

The swift color rushed into her face, her great dark eyes brimmed over with tears, but she stood quite still, she would not stir.

CHAPTER LXIX.

She did not stir, she did not speak. The tears brimmed over and rolled down her cheeks, but she kept her place in silence.

"Will you not come to me?" he pleaded, and she answered then, drearily:

"I cannot."

"You cannot! Oh, Laurel, do not say so!" he cried. "What is to hinder you from coming back to my heart? What can stand between us?"

"Your own words," she answered, brushing the tears away, and gazing at him with eyes full of somber misery and pain.

He was full of wonder and perplexity.

"I cannot understand you," he said. "I would give the world to have you back again, Laurel. I love you with the most faithful love the world ever knew. I shall never cease to love you!"

"Yet once you said—surely you remember it, St. Leon?—that you could never again love a woman who had deceived you. Once fallen from its pedestal, the broken idol could never be restored again."

The words came back to his memory—the words he had spoken before he knew—the words that were all that stood between them now.

He looked at her in anguish. He would have given anything if only he had never made that vain boast—how vain he had never known till now.

"I was foolish and mad and blind," he cried. "It was the most empty boast the world ever knew. Oh, Laurel, will you not forgive me for my hardness and cruelty?"

She stood still, with her small hands folded before her, her fair head drooping low, as she answered:

"I do forgive you."

"Then you will come back to me! You will not be hard upon me, Laurel, I have repented so bitterly. I repented within twenty-four hours after I had put you away from me so hardly. All my life since we parted, has been one long repentance, my darling."

"I did not come back for this, St. Leon," she said, tremulously; "I meant only to give you the child. I thought I should go away then."

Little Laurence uttered a startled cry. He wrenched himself loose from his father's clasp, and ran to her to hide his face in the soft white folds of her dress.

"No, no," he said, vehemently, "I cannot stay with papa unless you will stay, too, mamma. I love you the best!"

St. Leon looked at his wife. She shrunk a little before that look. It was sadly reproachful.

"You see how it is," he said. "You have kept him from me all his life, and now he has no love to give me!"

But the child interposed, vehemently:

"I love you both, and I will stay with you both. Only mamma must not go away from Eden."

He drew her forward impulsively as he spoke. He placed her hand in her husband's, and closed his own little dimpled fingers around them, so that Laurel could not draw hers away.

"Mamma, I love you first and best," he said. "But I love papa and grandmamma, too. If he has been naughty, let us forgive him and stay with him."

"Stay with me, Laurel," echoed St. Leon.

She felt the warm, persuasive clasp of his fingers on hers. All the ice about her heart melted beneath that touch. She could not hold out against him. She knew that she must yield if she did not fly from his presence.

"Oh, let me go!" she cried. "It is not best that I should come back to you. It is the child you want. There is so much in the past that would haunt us! There is so much to rouse reproach and regret. We are best apart. Oh, let me go!"

But somehow he had drawn her down to the clasp of his arms now. His warm lips were pressed against her cheek.

"Only one word, dear," he whispered. "Do you love me still, my Laurel?"

"I have loved you always," she murmured, and she knew that with this confession love had conquered pride.

"Then let us forget all else but our love," he pleaded. "You will stay with me, Laurel?"

"I will stay," she answered.

THE END.

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