CHAPTER XXXII.
THE HEART OF A LOVER.
The stars shone on, the wind sighed, the sea moaned, but Jessie’s heart almost stopped still.
The moment she had dreaded had come at last.
He was asking her about that other Jessie Lyndon.
And she would have to answer so that he would not suspect her identity.
Her heart beat suffocatingly and almost choked her voice as she tried to speak. “I have startled you, venturing so abruptly on this subject,” he said. “I would have waited longer, only that we shall be parting to-morrow, and I feared lest I should never see you again. Ah, Jessie, that is such a horrible thought to me. I could not bear it! I cannot bear to think that I shall never see you again! I love you—love you with a passion undreamed of till now! Are you willing for me to love you, to let me try to win your heart in return?”
A sudden flash of pride shone in her eyes, and she tried to answer him with scornful words, but they died on her lips.
She loved him so dearly, oh, Heaven, in spite of all her resolves against it, that she could not bring herself to say one cruel word to him, no matter how much she knew he was to blame. If she could have known that he was speaking truly, that he actually loved her, as he said, and had he but been free she would have fallen against his breast, and sobbed out all her love in his arms, the happiest girl in the whole world.
But once he had deceived her, and in fancy his kiss burned on her lips again—sweetest and falsest kiss the world ever knew.
She nerved herself to lift her head and drew back from him in sad surprise while he exclaimed ardently:
“You do not answer me, Jessie—may I hope, then, or——” The words died on his lips, for she interrupted reproachfully:
“Mr. Laurier, you have no right to speak such words to me—you who are going to New York to marry another girl!”
He gave a cry as if stunned, and his face drooped against his breast.
He had been forgetting Cora for many a day. This lovely girl had driven her from his memory.
Thus suddenly recalled to memory by her gently reproachful words, he groaned in agony, not daring to meet her dark, soft eyes.
“Is it not true?” she asked gently, but, looking up, he groaned angrily:
“It is Mrs. de Vries who has told you this! She was always a noted gossip!”
“Yes, she told me, but why should she not, if it is true, and you do not deny it,” she faltered, almost hoping that he could.
But Frank Laurier could not be untruthful. A bursting sigh heaved his breast as she watched him with pathetic, dark eyes.
He turned on her almost fiercely, crying:
“You think me a vile wretch, do you not?”
“No—but—a flirt—perhaps!” pensively, and he gathered himself together to do battle for his happiness.
“I am not a flirt, Jessie, but I may be a vile wretch, for since the first night I saw you I have entirely forgotten the poor girl I am engaged to marry. Instead of loving her I almost hate her because she stands between your heart and mine!”
He paused, looking at her, and found her expression doubtful and wondering.
“That sounds very fickle and cruel to you, does it not?” he cried, “but let me explain, and you will see that I am not quite so bad as I seem. I was engaged to Cora two years ago, but just before our wedding day I met a girl—the Jessie Lyndon I spoke of to you just now—and there was a bitter rivalry between the two young girls, for I admired Jessie Lyndon very much. But I was bound to Cora and must keep my promise. The girl Jessie died very suddenly, and then I found out strangely that she was dearer to my heart than the living Cora. But I kept my secret locked in my heart, and would have married her the same only that our marriage has been twice postponed by a strange fatality. Now it is announced for the third time, and I am going home to marry her, but in the interval of my absence my heart has turned from her as utterly as if it had never known one throb of love for her in the past.”
She did not answer. She was dazed and full of wonder.
He had said such astonishing words that she could not forget them. Why did he think she was dead? How had he made so strange a mistake?
He added feverishly:
“All this while I have been loving Jessie Lyndon dead better than Cora Ellyson living, and when I saw you that night on the steamer my heart went out to you passionately as if you had risen from the dead in answer to my yearning prayer. It would be wrong to wed Cora with my heart full of you! I will go to her and confess the truth, and ask her to release me so that I may lay my life at your feet!”
Oh, what a moment of triumph for Jessie Lyndon!
When she remembered that awful night at Mrs. Dalrymple’s it seemed too strange to be true that she had won from proud, scornful Cora the lover whom she worshiped, thus paying back scorn for scorn.
And she could not doubt he loved her now. It quivered in his voice, and flushed his cheek, thrilling her with a secret happiness too deep for words.
Her heart cried wildly:
“Oh, if he were but free, my handsome lover, I would confess my love and make him happy!”
But the thought of Cora came over her with an icy chill.
He had belonged to her first, and, after all her suffering, Jessie was too noble a rival to break that proud girl’s heart.
She turned her face from him to the shining stars so that he could not read the despairing love written on it, and answered, firmly though gently:
“I forbid you to tell her the truth, for I can never accept happiness based on the wreck of another devoted heart. You must marry Cora as you promised to do, and, perhaps, you will learn to love her again!”