CHAPTER XLI.
HAPPINESS SUPREME.
Cora’s eyes flashed, her lips and face went ashen white, her form trembled with passion, as, catching the boys by their shoulders, she shook both violently, screaming:
“You little meddlesome wretches, how dare you sneak around this way, poking your noses into things that are none of your business! Go away, and if I ever find either one of you up in this hall again, I will kill you both!”
The elder boy shook himself loose from her angry grasp and tried to rescue Willie, saying tearfully:
“We didn’t mean no harm, ma’am.”
“Well, keep away from the servants’ hall, hereafter. Go downstairs now, and never come up here any more, and mind you never tell any one I slapped you and shook you just now. If you do I will shut you up in jail to stay forever!” menaced Cora, with flashing eyes.
The boys started to go down obediently, Willie hushing his low sobs in sheer terror, then Cora flew back to the locked door, opened it with a key that she took from a little concealed recess, beneath a small rug that lay before the door.
She did not dream that the curious Mark had darted back to the head of the stairway, and was closely watching her movements.
He put his arm around Willie, whispering excitedly:
“She has unlocked that room and gone and shut herself up in it, the mean, spiteful thing! Do you know I believe she has got something shut up in there.”
“I hate her, and I’m going to tell aunt on her!” came the sobbed reply.
“No, don’t say nothin’, but let’s watch our chance to get even with the mean thing by seeing into that locked door. I seen where she got the key!” consoled Mark, whose curiosity was a predominating trait.
“Yes,” muttered Willie, hopes of vengeance rising in his mind. “We’ll get in that room and see what ’tis she’s hiding.”
Then they pattered downstairs again and no one was the wiser for the little scene that had passed upstairs in the corridor.
Cora remained in the locked room only a few minutes, and on leaving it she again turned the key and slipped it in its place, then sped along the corridor and down the stairs again to her own rooms with an evil light in her dark, down-cast eyes that boded no good to any one who crossed the path of her desires.
The two boys waited and watched for an opportunity to get up into the servants’ hall again, but such a close vigil did Cora keep that they were unable to do so.
At last the wedding day arrived when Cora and Frank, and Mrs. Dalrymple and her divorced husband, were to be made one.
On the morning of this day the two brides were very busy, each in her own apartments were being robed by their respective maids for the noon ceremony—Cora in a handsome traveling gown and hat to go away immediately, and her aunt in a dainty confection of blue brocade and rich lace for an informal luncheon with the few wedding guests.
Love and hope beat high in the breasts of both—the girl who had played such high stakes to gain a man’s heart, the woman who had never known the value of love till it was lost and found again.
The drawing-room and corridors were gracefully but not too lavishly decorated for the ceremony with stately palms and rich roses, whose fragrance filled the air with sweetness.
Little Mark and Willie were not watched so closely, and roved hither and thither about the great house, whispering to each other, and, truth to tell, feeling almost too grand in the fine suits of velvet with rich lace collars that had been put upon them to grace the occasion. Being left somewhat to their own devices in the prevailing excitement, they naturally turned at once to the locked room on the upper floor.
“We must do it now or never, because she is going off with that Mr. Laurier as soon as she is married, to stay a long while,” said Mark.
“Yes, we must. Let’s go now.” And they stole unseen upstairs and Mark soon found the key beneath the rug. But it was so large, and the lock so strong that when they got it in they could not turn it.
“Put your ear to the keyhole and listen. Don’t you hear something?” said Mark.
“Yes—sounds like a little kitty cryin’; pore li’l sing!” whimpered Willie.
It lacked only fifteen minutes to the ceremony now. The two bridegrooms with the guests and the bishop had arrived and were waiting downstairs. Everything was in readiness for the hour.
The few wedding guests whispered to each other when Cora entered that she was the palest, most frightened-looking bride they had ever seen. What was it that could be preying upon her mind upon such an occasion as this?
But, they added kindly enough, that it was no wonder, for after her two former fateful wedding days who could blame her for being nervous and apprehensive of disaster.
She came in quietly enough, with downcast eyes, with her aunt, for the wedding was to be quite informal, the ceremony being performed first for the elder couple.
Frank Laurier was there looking quite as pale and troubled as his bride, but again the guests excused his perturbation, whispering:
“He is afraid something is going to happen.”
A sort of undefined dread of evil pervaded the air.
The bishop arose and opened his book as the elder couple moved in front of him, and the happiness on those two fine faces, the chastened happiness of reunion after long grief and pain—almost dissipated the lowering cloud of presentiment over every spirit.
Brief questions were asked, clear responses made, and the ring slipped over the bride’s slender finger, token of a union never to be broken “until death do us part.”
Kisses, congratulations, tears, and smiles, for the happy pair, then they moved aside for the others with a prayer in their hearts that these two might not sail forth upon such stormy seas of matrimonial disaster as they had done in ignorant youth.
None had noticed in the excitement of the congratulations that three more guests had arrived—three men who had bribed the servants to let them look on at the scene from behind the tall palms at the open door of the drawing-room.
Pale, grave, silent, these three men watched the scene with eager eyes, as Frank and Cora stood side by side breathing the words that bound their lives in one forever.
Suddenly one gasped and started wildly forward as the minister repeated mechanically the customary warning, for any one who knew any impediment to the marriage to speak now or forever after hold his peace.
This man, tall, pale, with a sinister scar on his brow, and a painful limp, crossed the room as swiftly as his infirmity would permit, and thundered:
“I forbid the marriage. She is my wife!”
The bishop dropped his prayer book in amazement, and with startled cries, all faced around upon the newcomer.
Cries of doubtful recognition shrilled over every lip:
“Ernest Noel!”
Cora clung with frantic hands to Frank’s arm, gazing with horrified eyes at the daring intruder.
There stood Ernest Noel in the flesh, though his good looks were marred by a scar on his cheek and a decided limp received in some accident. Over one of his shoulders peered the grave, noble face of the minister who had married them in the mock marriage that had turned out a real one, and over the other she saw, like a grinning fiend’s, Carey Doyle’s with an ugly sneer on the mustached lips.
She was dizzy and her brain reeled. She felt like a weak swimmer in a strong sea swept away by the relentless and treacherous undertow.
In the momentary silence that followed their cries of recognition, Ernest Noel continued earnestly:
“This lady is my wife, but I do not charge her with attempted bigamy. She believed me dead.”
“Explain!” thundered Frank Laurier, thrilled with chivalrous pity for the drooping figure that clutched his arm with frantic hands.
Ernest Noel bowed gravely, and said:
“Two years ago I was frantic with love for Miss Ellyson and tried to win her from you, Frank Laurier. We two were the principals in a mock marriage at some charitable affair, and in my desperation I made the ceremony a real one, taking out the necessary license and securing a young minister, Mr. Kincaid, to officiate. Some time afterward I ventured to confess to my bride the imposition I had practiced on her and was met by such indignant reproaches that I was driven to—suicide!
“Disappointed in my love, I sprang into a deep pit to end my life, but the fall did not kill me. I lingered on in agony till the next day, when this man with me, Carey Doyle, discovered and rescued me from my perilous situation, taking me to the home of some country friends of his, where I was cared for many months ere fully restored to myself.
“It was rumored that I had mysteriously disappeared, and the report of my suicide was accepted as correct. Carey Doyle, for the sake of a whim, kept the secret of my identity, and so for many months I remained as one dead to the world that formerly knew me; while regaining my consciousness at last I learned that Cora had been almost fatally burned and would be the inmate of a hospital perhaps for years. In despair I forswore all former associations, and no one but the executors of my property were informed of my continued existence, while I brooded miserably over my faults and the wreck I had made of my own life, my selfish passion and reckless folly. I determined never to return to the world, but this morning Carey Doyle came to tell me that I must save Cora from bigamy by forbidding her contemplated marriage with another.”
Cora and Doyle at that moment exchanged malevolent glances, and she understood all.
In the beginning the wretch had concealed the fact of Noel’s continued existence that he might more effectually pursue his scheme of blackmail.
But again she looked from his taunting face back to the grave, sad face of Noel, who now added:
“I am here to say to Cora and you all, that my marriage to her was perfectly legal as far as church and State could make it. I love her still in spite of everything, and if she will forgive me the wrong I did in making her my wife against her will, and wishes to go with me, I on my part will forgive any harm she ever did me and gladly take her to my heart. On the other hand, if she prefers to secure a divorce and marry Laurier, I will make no fight against it. Her will shall be my law!”
It was a most noble rôle the man was playing in concealing Cora’s sins and taking them all on his own broad shoulders.
He had bought Carey Doyle’s silence, and was prepared to keep Cora’s secret forever from the world in atonement for the one great wrong he had done her—the wrong to which she had tempted him by her heartless coquetry.
Forgiving all her sins by the strength of his love he hoped to win her yet from Laurier, and awaited her answer with burning impatience.
But she clung all the closer to Frank, though she could read by his face that he thought she ought to turn to Noel.
She was opening her lips to cry out passionately that she loved only Laurier and would sue for a divorce, when Mark and Willie Lyndon rushed upon the scene, panting and excited, crying breathlessly:
“Oh, Uncle Leon, Aunt Verna, come with us! We have found our dear Cousin Jessie at last, but she is dead!”
Like a flash in the confusion of that startling announcement, Cora dropped Frank’s arm and flew to Noel’s side:
Her face was ghastly as she breathed in his ear:
“Come, Ernest, the machine is waiting! Let us fly! Fly to the other end of the world!”
Half dazed with the suddenness of the turn things were taking, he followed her lead, and while the others rushed upstairs, he and Cora sprang into the limousine and were driven to the railway station.
The secret of the locked room was no longer a secret.
A score of people followed the eager footsteps of the little lads upstairs to the sad sight they had encountered on opening the door.
There lay sweet Jessie, wan, pale, terribly emaciated, and still as death on the low couch—a sight that brought cries of grief and horror from women’s lips, and tears to the eyes of men.
Fortunately the old family physician was in the company.
It looked like death, but he would not pronounce it so. He remembered what a terrible mistake he had made over Jessie before.
He knelt by her side, doing all he could to restore life, and all the while he was inwardly praying:
“God help me! Give back her beautiful life to us!”
And all the time the anguished mother and father, the distracted lover, the interested friends, were echoing the prayer in their hearts.
Oh, what joy thrilled their hearts when the doctor found a faint little sign of life, but what long and skillful nursing it took before Jessie was well again, or even strong enough to tell the story of Cora’s satanic cruelty!
But they were happy days when she was convalescing with so many dear ones by her side—her reunited parents, her precious little cousins, and last but not least, her devoted lover, Frank Laurier.
They did not hide their love from each other now, they could talk of the past without embarrassment, and once when Darling Jessie, as they called her now, scolded him for that first stolen kiss, he retorted by telling her of that second kiss upon the sea that had seemingly brought her back to life.
They had many things to tell her, but the story that interested her most of all was of her own apparent death and her interment in the old family vault.
She knew now that it was no dream, the memories she had cherished of her mother’s sorrow over her coffin, and Frank Laurier’s words of passionate love and grief. She would cherish them deep in her heart forever.
As for Mark and Willie, they received the most idolatrous love from all.
“It was so noble in you, Verna, to take them to our own home so generously that I was always thinking what I could do to reward you for your goodness, but, lo! God paid the debt of gratitude by making the little lads the saviors of our own daughter,” the fond husband cried, with deep emotion.
In the following spring Ernest Noel wrote to Mrs. Dalrymple telling her of Cora’s death at his villa in Italy.
Shortly after the announcement of this sad news Frank Laurier and the girl he loved were united in the holy bands of matrimony.