CHAPTER LVII.
HOMELESS AND ALONE.
It never occurred to Iris to attempt an escape from Mrs. Neville’s boudoir, until such time as Broughton saw fit to release her.
At ten o’clock that night Broughton reëntered the room.
“Well, have you concluded to accept my offer?” he asked sternly, and the sound of his voice had the effect of rousing the girl as nothing else could have done.
“I shall never accept your offer. Let me go, sir; I had rather be thrown into prison for a theft of which I am innocent than buy my freedom at such a price.”
“It will be a noble revenge, my dear, to doom the child of my betrayer to the same fate I suffered at her hands. Go, now, it is after ten o’clock, and Madam Ward will be terribly alarmed, you know.”
He moved aside for Iris to pass out as he concluded, and the girl went out into the street alone, knowing it would be useless to appeal to him again or to demand the return of madam’s money.
“Oh, what shall I do! I dare not face Madam Ward, nor can I go to Jenny; it would kill me to see a look of distrust in the eyes of the girl who has loved and trusted me always, and who is now my only friend. Father in heaven, look down on Thy most wretched child to-night, and direct her what to do; guide her to some haven of refuge, or she will die in the streets.”
She finally determined to go home to her mother.
Her hand was on the bell knob of the door of her home when the most cruel memory that had yet dawned upon her made her pause in the act of ringing. Chester St. John was surely in those lighted parlors—an honored guest, and the betrothed husband of Isabel, while she, whom he once loved, was an outcast and homeless, alone in the darkness of the night and the storm.
This bitter memory was as the last straw that broke the camel’s back, and when Peter opened the door, her lips could frame no other word than that piteous cry for “mother” ere the tortured brain once more gave way.
She did not faint, or entirely lose consciousness, but a deadly sickness robbed her limbs of their strength, and Peter was obliged to lift her into a little room across the hallway, ere he went to acquaint Mr. Hilton with the fact of her presence.
Iris would have made her own way to her mother’s apartments when he had departed on this mission, but it seemed that her limbs were palsied, and refused to obey her will, or even to bear her slight weight when she made an attempt to stand on her feet.
“Was it death that was coming to her?”
A happy light sprang into her weary eyes as this sweet hope dawned upon her, and she murmured in a tone loud enough to reach the ears of Mr. Hilton, who had just entered the room:
“Mother, you will let me stay with you till it is over; you will not turn your child out into the streets to die?”
“Good heavens, girl! Why do you talk of dying? You are raving; what has happened to you, and why are you here?”
The last words, harshly and coldly spoken, showed the girl that she had little mercy to expect at the hands of her mother’s husband.
“Let me see my mother—I am ill—dying, I think—and I—I have no one else in all the world,” she said faintly, holding to the back of a chair for support as she arose from the couch on which Peter had laid her.
“I cannot grant your request, Iris,” he said coldly. “By your own conduct you have forfeited your right to hold any manner of intercourse with my wife. If you are ill I will give you some money, and send Peter to take you to your lodgings, but this is all I can promise—ah, Isabel, my daughter, why did you follow me here? Go back to your guests.”
The bright head of Iris had drooped lower and lower while Hilton spoke until it rested on the back of the chair, but as he addressed Isabel, she—Iris—raised her eyes, with the vague hope that the girl whom she had loved as a sister would say some word in her favor.
“Isabel, I have only asked to see my mother,” she faltered, but Isabel retorted coldly:
“I fully agree with papa that it is impossible. How could you come here to-night, Iris, when you know how the world is talking of your disgraceful conduct. You must go away quietly——”
“Isabel!”
The voice that had spoken the name proceeded from the doorway, where Chester St. John was standing, gazing into the room with eyes that were dark with scorn and anger, and a face white as that of Iris herself.
“Chester,” Isabel exclaimed, with an air of injured innocence and a reproachful glance toward the motionless figure in the doorway, “you think we are cruel and harsh to Iris; but you cannot understand that in denying her request to-night we were seeking to spare her the bitter knowledge that her own mother absolutely refuses to admit her, or to speak to her if she were dying. Is not this the truth, papa?”
“It is certainly true, St. John,” he answered. “I would have spared this unfortunate girl, had such a thing been at all possible; but my wife positively declines to have anything to do with her daughter now, or at any time in the future. Mrs. Hilton is even weaker to-night than usual, and—but,” with a sudden assumption of pride and offended dignity, “I do not really know why I am making these explanations to you, St. John; as my daughter’s accepted suitor, the affairs of this girl cannot concern you; and I think you will do me the justice to confess that I, who have fed and clothed and sheltered Iris Tresilian until she left my home of her own accord, and for what purpose you know—am fully capable of dealing justly with her now.”
“I understand your reproof, sir, and while I acknowledge that I have no right to dictate to you in this matter, I will still beg leave to say a word in the interests of common humanity. Had I never looked upon Iris Tresilian’s face I should still protest against a young creature like her being sent out on such a night, unprotected and alone. If she has sinned——”
At the last words of St. John, “If she has sinned,” spoken in a sorrowful tone that told how firmly he believed in her guilt, all her soul seemed to rise in passionate rebellion, and with the false strength despair sometimes lends, Iris advanced toward the group near the doorway, and stood before them, a little, solitary figure, with white, set features, whose immobility would have been actually startling but for the convulsive twitching of the muscles of the colorless lips, and the large, blue eyes dilated like those of a hunted stag.
“Of what sin am I accused, Mr. Hilton?” she asked. “For what crime does my mother condemn me so harshly?” Then turning suddenly to St. John, before Hilton could answer: “I left this gentleman’s home because he taught me that I had no claim upon him—that I, who had believed myself his daughter, was the child of an unworthy father whose name I should blush to bear. I went forth from this house to earn my own bread, and since that time I have done nothing of which I need be ashamed, nor——”
She came to a sudden stop here, while for a moment the color grew deeper and deeper in her face, and then faded utterly, leaving her again deadly pale.
She had thought of Gerald Dare’s words, and the suspicions her presence in the house of Charles Broughton had awakened.
Her sudden hesitation and confusion, and the ineradicable flush of shame that had dyed her cheeks at this cruel memory, seemed to contradict her previous assertion of innocence, and to shake the faith new-born in Chester St. John’s heart.
At Iris’ first words Oscar Hilton had trembled lest there should be something said concerning the forged letter, and he now seized this moment of the girl’s embarrassment to turn the drift of the conversation into a new channel.
“My poor child,” he ejaculated, in a tone of well-feigned sympathy, “do not seek to defend your conduct. Unhappily we have all been made acquainted with the manner in which you have passed your time since leaving my protection. If—as you say—you are innocent, will you be good enough to tell us what you are to the noted gambler and roué, Charles Broughton?”
At this coarse and rude question Iris started violently, and looked into the face of the speaker with an expression of actual terror, fearing for the moment that he had in some manner learned the secret of Broughton’s identity.
That one swift glance into his eyes reassured her. She knew that he shared, or pretended to share, the common belief that Broughton was her lover, and she dared say nothing to undeceive him.
“I can tell you nothing at present, but some time you will know all, and learn how deeply you have wronged me. My mother will forgive me then, and bitterly regret her cruelty.”
She took a step toward the door as she concluded, keeping her eyes turned resolutely away from the face of Chester St. John, lest the sight of it should rob her of the last remnant of strength she was struggling so hard to maintain.
Isabel had thrown herself into an easy-chair near the door, and was holding her handkerchief to her face as if deeply affected by the scene, while Oscar Hilton was perhaps the most excited of all the little group.
He feared to detain Iris lest something should be said to betray his plot, and he dared not let her go forth alone lest St. John should follow to protect her, and thus learn all the truth.
Mr. Hilton himself was puzzled to account for the mystery of Iris’ connection with Broughton, for, from his own experience of his wife’s beautiful daughter, he knew her to be pure as the untrodden snow, and utterly incapable of the sin of which she stood accused.
Whatever the cause of the singular emotion she had betrayed at his chance mention of Broughton’s name, he—Hilton—was satisfied with the effect upon St. John, seeing as he did that the latter’s newly awakened faith in the girl he had loved so devotedly was again shattered.
Mr. Hilton made haste to respond to Iris’ last words before St. John had time to speak, if such had been that gentleman’s intention.
“My dear child, if you can prove to us that we have wronged you, I, for one, shall be happy, both for your own sake and that of the woman who bears my name, your mother; and now, Iris, I shall appropriate the car of one of my guests to take you to your home, as you are looking weak and ill, and it is nearly midnight. St. John, I may have your machine for this purpose, may I not?”
At this direct appeal, Chester—who had crossed the room, and stood leaning against the low marble mantel, with his eyes bent on the floor, and his face pale with an agony he did not endeavor to conceal—advanced quickly to the spot on which Iris stood, with a look in his eyes that filled Oscar Hilton with fear.
St. John was about to ask Iris a question which would have betrayed him.
He was about to ask her where was the man whose fortune she had left her home to follow, that he might have constituted himself her champion and avenger, had he discovered that this lover had basely deserted or deceived her.
At this moment light footsteps were heard approaching the door, and a sweet, girlish voice calling gayly:
“Chester! Isabel! Where are you, truants?” as the door was thrown open unceremoniously to admit a fairylike vision in the person of pretty, golden-haired Grace St. John, who had been Iris Tresilian’s most intimate and best-loved friend.
“Ah, brother Chester, how wicked of you to keep Belle all this time from her friends; we shall be obliged——”
Grace’s merry voice ceased all of a sudden, for her eyes had fallen on the pale, drooped face of Iris, and although Chester made an involuntary movement as if to step between them—a movement Iris understood but too well, the impulsive Grace sprang quickly to the side of the outcast, and clasped her white arms around the latter’s neck, crying joyously:
“Oh, Iris, darling, I am so glad to see you; I have missed you so—I shall be so happy now that you have come home, but, Iris, dear, why do you sob so bitterly?”
At the first word of kindness, and the first touch of Grace’s caressing hands, Iris had broken down utterly, and her slender frame was racked with hoarse, convulsive sobs that were pitiful to hear.
Mr. Hilton addressed St. John in a harsh, imperative tone:
“Take your sister and Isabel back to the parlors while I attend to Iris. This is no scene for either of them.”
Iris heard these words, and put aside Grace’s clinging arms.
“Let me go, Gracie, dear; I am no fit associate for you now,” she said sadly and bitterly, walking with tottering steps toward the door as she spoke; but Grace St. John reached it before her and prevented her egress.
“Wait, Iris; I must understand this scene,” she said firmly, her pretty white-rose face growing paler than its wont, and her blue eyes glancing reproachfully from face to face. “I do not understand why you left your home, Iris. I only know that some great sorrow or misfortune has fallen on you, and changed you almost beyond recognition. I have loved you like a sister since you and I were little children, and yet you say you are no fit associate for me now, Iris! What do you mean? Why do you speak of leaving this house at such an hour, darling? If these doors are closed against you, you shall come home with me. Don’t shudder and shake your head; I tell you, Iris, there is no barrier strong enough to separate us, unless—unless”—the girl hesitated, while a faint tinge of color crept into her white face—“unless you had sinned beyond even a mother’s forgiveness, and——”
The cold, metallic tones of Oscar Hilton’s voice here interposed:
“Miss St. John, it grieves me beyond the power of words to express, but I am forced to tell you the truth, that this scene may be no longer prolonged. Iris Tresilian has sinned beyond a mother’s forgiveness. My wife has cast her out of her heart, and forbidden me to receive her again in my home. She——” A suppressed cry from Isabel checked the words he was about to have added, and, following the glance of his daughter’s eyes, he saw the cause of her alarm.
The door near which Grace and Iris were standing had been pushed softly open, and Evelyn Hilton was crossing the threshold, moving slowly, with her hands clasped in front of her and her eyes bent downward.
She was attired in a long, loose white wrapper, and her fair hair, escaped from its fastenings, hung far below her waist, giving her a singularly weird and ghostlike appearance.
Oscar Hilton’s face grew white as marble, and great beads of perspiration stood out thickly on his forehead.
“She is asleep!” he whispered.
“Not a sound for your lives. A sudden awakening would cause her death—I have been warned.”
This was indeed true. Mrs. Hilton was a confirmed somnambulist, and her doctor feared that a sudden awakening from one of these spells would sooner or later prove fatal.
“Steal quietly out of the room, and leave her alone with me,” said Hilton, in the same low whisper; but even while he spoke he saw that this would be impossible, for the sleepwalker had paused directly in the doorway, and stood in such a position that it would have been impossible for any one to pass out without touching her, and the very lightest touch would have awakened her.
There was a moment of intense silence, broken only by the heavy breathing of the sleeping woman.
Iris trembled like a leaf in a storm, and was scarcely conscious that it was Chester St. John’s firm hand that had forced her into an easy-chair, against the back of which he was now leaning, with his face hidden in his hands.
Presently the lips of the somnambulist opened, and she spoke, slowly and distinctly:
“Don’t ask me to do it, Oscar; I’ve been a bad, unfeeling mother always, but I cannot do this thing; it is such a cruel letter—it will make Chester St. John despise her—I can copy her handwriting—yes—I know—but to say she left her home for an unworthy lover—while I know that all her heart is given to him—to Chester—no! no! Oscar! Don’t threaten to betray my secret—I will write—anything—anything you dictate——”
Tears were streaming down the poor, wan cheeks of the unfortunate woman now, while Iris with difficulty checked her own wild sobbing, and Chester St. John whispered hoarsely:
“What can this mean!” And dropping on his knees, weak as a fainting woman, hid his face on the arm of the chair in which Iris reclined.
Oscar Hilton had crept noiselessly to his daughter’s side, and was pressing his hand firmly on her shoulder to prevent her from making any outcry; for, base and worldly as this man was, he loved his wife with all the strength of which his selfish nature was capable, and bore even this betrayal of his baseness rather than silence her at the risk of her life.
Again there was a moment of silence, while the fingers of the sleeper made the motions of writing, slowly and carefully, pausing often, and bending her head as if to study some written page before her.
She seemed to have finished at last, all to the signing of the name, and this she repeated aloud:
“Iris Tresilian,” adding, after a brief pause, during which she had sobbed like a child: “It is done, Oscar. I have bought your silence at the price of my daughter’s reputation, even as I purchased wealth at the cost of my husband’s honor.”
The last words were spoken very faintly, and Mrs. Hilton now came farther into the room, with her hands outstretched as if searching for something.
“My chair, Oscar; wheel it close to the fire,” she whispered, and Hilton sprang forward quickly to place a chair for her; but in his agitation his foot struck against a small ormolu stand upon which Isabel had placed a glass tank containing several gold fishes.
The stand was overturned, and the glass fell with a loud crash, shattered to pieces on the floor.
The eyes of the somnambulist sprang wide open; she gazed wildly from one to another of the surrounding faces, and with a cry that echoed from basement to attic, fell to the ground, writhing in strong convulsions.
“Good God, I have killed her!” And Oscar Hilton threw himself frantically on his knees beside her, while the guests, attracted by that wild and pitiful cry, came thronging to the spot, and Iris, sobbing out the words: “Mamma! Oh, my poor mother!” attempted to reach the spot where the latter lay, but fell back, feeble and helpless as an infant, in Chester St. John’s outstretched arms.