CHAPTER XVIII.
LAURIER’S ATONEMENT.
When two people are of the same mind that certain subjects are painful, they are not apt to recall them to each other’s memory.
Leon Lyndon, as he chose to call himself, left New York within the week with his strangely recovered daughter, and in new pursuits and pleasures both sought oblivion of the painful past.
Lyndon had become rich while at the gold fields, and he spared no expense on Jessie.
Finding that in her restless mood she enjoyed travel more than anything else, they spent six months wandering over their native land, enjoying its beauties and grandeur, unsurpassed by any other country in the world.
Then they crossed the ocean and resumed their migratory habits.
Another six months were spent in this way, then a weariness fell on both and they longed for rest.
The father decided to settle in Germany for a year and cultivate his daughter’s mind.
He had already discovered to his delight that she had inherited his great talent for music, together with a voice of rare power and melody.
Securing the best teachers that money could procure, they spent eighteen quiet months in the polishing of Jessie’s mind, and father and daughter became passionately attached to each other, finding in this warm affection some balm for past sorrow.
Meanwhile, Lyndon had kept from his daughter one fact that she would doubtless have found very interesting—the story of the accident that had prevented the marriage of Frank Laurier at the appointed time.
He had read in the next day’s papers the story of the interrupted marriage—the bride’s long wait at the church, the mysterious failure of the bridegroom to arrive, the bride’s mortification and her return home—then the solution of the mystery in the accident that had befallen Laurier, nearly costing him his life, as it was stated that he was lingering between life and death with concussion of the brain.
Leon Lyndon immediately comprehended that he had been the cause of the trouble by running into Laurier with his wheel, and though it had been unavoidable, he felt a keen remorse and regret for his part in the tragedy, although he owed the victim no sympathy, seeing what grief he had brought upon his daughter.
These facts Lyndon thought it prudent to conceal from Jessie, supposing that the marriage would take place anyhow, as soon as the condition of the bridegroom improved, so the name was tacitly dropped between them, and after they left New York remained unspoken, if unforgotten.
Meanwhile, matters were quite different in New York from what either he or Jessie could have supposed.
Laurier, after his accident, had remained for several days in a serious condition, recovering consciousness so slightly as not to be able to recognize the friends who were permitted to visit him. Having no relatives in the city, his dearest friend, Ernest Noel, was often by his bedside, and it was quite a week before the latter dared answer the half-dazed questions put to him by the sick man.
Then full consciousness dawned, and all the cruel truth came upon him.
The funeral, the accident, the interrupted wedding, all dawned on his mind, and a hollow groan burst from him as he turned his eyes on Noel.
“Cora——”
Noel read the pained questioning in the one word. The stricken bridegroom was thinking of Cora and the cruel ordeal she had been called on to bear, the interrupted wedding, the gossip, the nine days’ wonder.
“She is well,” Noel said encouragingly.
“Tell me all about that day,” Laurier pleaded faintly, and his friend obeyed with some evasions.
Not for worlds would he have betrayed the whispers he had heard of the proud bride’s fury at her lover on that cruel wedding day when she had turned away from the altar, a bride without a bridegroom, a stricken creature who in her wrath hated the whole world, and felt revengeful enough to have plunged a knife into the heart of the man who had disappointed her and made her the sensation of an hour.
He glossed that fact over very lightly by saying:
“Miss Ellyson was naturally cruelly wounded, believing herself a jilted bride.”
“My proud, beautiful Cora, it was indeed a most cruel ordeal, and I would have died to spare her such pain. Are you quite sure she understands everything now, Noel?”
“Yes; I went and told her myself how everything fell out, and it was fully explained in the newspapers of the next day—so every one knows now that it was an untoward accident that prevented the wedding, and that it will take place as soon as you are recovered.”
“And Cora exonerates me from blame?”
“Ye-es,” hesitatingly.
“You are keeping back something, Noel? Speak out.”
“Well, then, she was rather vexed over your attending Miss Dalrymple’s funeral. You see, Laurier, it was that which really caused our deuced hurry, that upset everything.”
“I never intended Cora should know I went to that funeral.”
“You may be sure I did not tell her, for I thought strange of your doing it myself, but some dunce saw you there, blurted it out to Van Dorn, and he told Miss Ellyson. See?”
“Oh, yes,” and for a few moments Laurier remained silent, his thoughts divided between the dead girl and the living one—the one he had wounded unto death, the one who was to be his bride.
He gave a long, long sigh to Jessie’s memory, then a chivalrous thought to Cora.
“Poor girl, how cruelly she must have suffered in the terrible suspense of that hour. I must make it up to her, Noel, as soon as I can. Perhaps it would please her to be married now before I get well.”
“Now? Here?”—in surprise.
“Yes; why not? Loving each other so well, what does the time and place matter if it is a true union of hearts? It would stop silly gossip over the interrupted wedding, and such a proof of my tenderness would perhaps condone my offense in showing respect to Mrs. Dalrymple by attending her daughter’s obsequies.”
There was a slight touch of bitterness in the last words that Noel did not understand, and he said, in his brusque way:
“Not many girls would care to be married by a sick bed and sacrifice all the fol-lalas of a brilliant wedding.”
“But Cora would because she loves me very fondly. Will you go and see her for me, Noel, and ask her if she would be willing to marry me to-morrow, so that we can start on our wedding tour as soon as I am well enough?”
Noel went, and the patient, tired by his long talk, dozed again, and filled up the interval of time this way till his friend’s return.
He wakened at last with a start at a light touch on his arm.
“Ah, Noel, is that you? Where have you been so long? Ah, I remember now! You saw Cora? She will grant my wish?”
“You are mistaken, old boy. She—refuses!”