CHAPTER XXX.
THE END.
At the foot of the stairs Lillian’s strength suddenly gave way, and she sunk down upon the floor in a huddled heap, in a dead swoon.
Mrs. Raleigh, tired with waiting for her to return, came to search for her, and found her lying there with that book clasped to her breast, her eyes closed—no sign of life. She summoned a servant and had the unconscious girl carried to her own apartment; then she went back to Rosamond’s side. There was a little change apparent in the sick girl—it was hoped, for the better.
There was a light step upon the stairs; the door of Rosamond’s room opened softly. Mrs. Raleigh lifted her heavy eyes and saw Lenore standing near.
“Auntie, you are quite worn out,” said a sweet, compassionate voice. “I have come to relieve you. Go and lie down for awhile, and I will do everything for Rosamond.”
She led the exhausted woman away to another room and made her lie down, while she bathed the aching brow with Cologne water; then darkening the windows, she went out and left Mrs. Raleigh just sinking into a peaceful slumber. Then Lenore went back to Rosamond.
Upstairs in his own room Richard Raleigh stood staring blankly into vacancy. His face was like marble; all the triumph had left his eyes, and fear and horror unutterable were in its place. He went over to the escritoire at last and sunk into a seat before it.
“She means it!” he muttered, fiercely, “she means every word that she uttered! She will set the bloodhounds of the law upon my track, and I shall die a horrible death upon the gallows, or drag out an endless existence in a prison cell. I will not! No, I will circumvent her yet!”
He drew a sheet of paper toward him and wrote upon it these words:
“I hereby confess that I am the murderer of Gilbert Leigh. He held in his possession certain facts in regard to my private affairs which he refused to relinquish, and which he declared to be his duty to lay before the house of Raleigh & Raleigh. I knew that he would keep his word; I knew also that if these facts were to become known I would be disgraced and turned adrift. I used every endeavor to induce Leigh to give up this book in which his information had all been noted, and to give up at the same time his intention of exposing me; but he refused. I met him one night not far from his own door, and endeavored to take forcible possession of the book, but he fought like a tiger, and in the struggle met his death.
“The very day after his burial, an old man—a stranger in the city—came to our office and introduced himself as the only brother of Gilbert Leigh, and left in our care his private papers, including his will, in which he bequeathed all he possessed to his niece, Lillian. That night the old man died suddenly in the street, with heart disease. The Raleigh fortune was in peril. Wild speculations had made us tremble for our own safety; and my father and I conceived the idea of retaining the will and inducing Lillian to become my wife; after which I believed it an easy matter to get her to sign her property over to me as her lawful guardian; then I could rescue the tottering house of Raleigh. The fortune, which belongs by right to Lillian Leigh Raleigh, is estimated at over a million. She has become my wife, but she hates me and loves Jack Lyndon. I confess that I separated these two by false representations. He was led to believe her false; she was made to believe that in a quarrel with her father Jack Lyndon had killed him. I threatened to hand him over to the authorities unless she consented to marry me. But she repudiated me after the marriage, and declared that she had sacrificed herself to save the man she loved. I swear that this is a full and true confession, so help me God!
“Richard Raleigh.”
Silence in the room—utter silence as the last words are traced. Richard Raleigh’s face was like marble, and his eyes wore a hunted, desperate look. He opened a drawer in the escritoire and took from it a small leather case; it contained two revolvers—one was empty, the other loaded. He removed the latter from its crimson velvet bed and passed his hand lightly over it, a cynical expression upon his face.
“Six shots,” he muttered, sharply; “six chances of emigration to another world!”
His lip curled scornfully; he threw his handsome head back with a gesture of disdain.
“Bah! what do I fear?” he cried, contemptuously. “What is it that Bulwer says:
Farewell, dear world!” he cried, sarcastically. “I am going to another, and, let us hope, a better one! Hush! I hear the sound of footsteps upon the stairs. Come, my friend; the hour draws nigh. The officers! the officers!” he cried, starting up. “But I shall escape them!” he added, sinking slowly back into his seat once more.
The revolver was pressed against his temple; the footsteps came nearer—nearer; they halt at the door of his chamber, and then a loud rap resounded throughout the house—a rap which was followed by a startling report. Richard’s fingers closed over the weapon in his grasp; he pulled the trigger.
In Rosamond’s sick-room, whither she has returned, his mother hears the ominous report. Pale and trembling, she stands for a moment, then she dashes open the door, only to find herself confronted by her husband. Grafton Raleigh looks like a ghost as he grasps her hand and leads her into an adjoining room.
“Be brave!” he moans, “for an awful calamity has come upon us!”
And then with many pauses, and between her sobs and broken cries, he tells her the story—the whole ghastly story of how her only son has died.
The sound of footsteps upon the stairs had not been the footsteps of the officers come to drag him away, but some of Richard’s own boon companions who had come in haste to consult him upon some matter of importance to them.
The ghastly remains of Richard Raleigh were buried away out of sight, and poor Lillian, having placed her affairs, together with his dying confession, in the hands of a competent lawyer, was soon installed heiress to her uncle’s fortune. Through her agency the affairs of the Raleighs were set straight, and no one knew how nearly they had come to ruin.
Rosamond recovered—a pale wreck. The first thing that she did was to send for Jack Lyndon and give him his freedom. She afterward married old Arbuthnot, and although she will never entirely recover her mental equilibrium, she leads society in her city to-day. For brain is not a requisite for the average leader of fashion.
Lenore and Cyril live in a handsome house in the most aristocratic quarter of the city, and are so very happy that they are learning to forget the sad past.
Bessie Vernon eloped with Charlie Stuart soon after the return of Lenore to America—even at the very time that she was refusing to acknowledge Lenore as a friend.
“Jack, Jack! look up and say that you forgive me for ever harboring such a dreadful suspicion against you.”
The journalist lifted his head from the writing with which he was busily engaged, and saw standing before him a slim, black-robed figure. Perhaps he thought of another interview which once took place in the office of the “Thunderer” as he arose and stood before Lillian, pale and still.
“Don’t look at me like that!” she cried; “but say that you forgive me; for oh, Jack, you do not know how I have suffered!”
“I forgive you! Of course I could not do otherwise!” he returned, gravely. “You were under the influence of a wicked man, and—”
“You do care a little for me still, don’t you, Jack?” all pride thrown to the winds now, and her two hands clasping his. She knows his stubborn pride—the pride which will not give way an inch; and she knows that never for one moment does he forget the difference between the poor journalist and the heiress to a million. But Lillian is determined to have no more misunderstandings, so she clings to his hands and looks straight into his eyes.
“Jack, you asked me once to be your wife. I—I have never cared for any one but you! If you—would—ask me again!”
He stoops and gathers her close to his heart, and their eyes meet in a look of deathless affection—perfect trust.
“Dear love!” he whispers, softly—“the one love of my life!”
THE END.