CHAPTER XII.
CUPID’S POSTMAN.
Amber did not intend to break faith with Cecil in the promise she had made.
She carried his fond love-letter to Violet that evening.
But she had taken it to her own room first, carefully extracted it from the envelope, and read every word.
Her dark cheek paled with anger, her heart throbbed with jealous pain at the words of love that Cecil had written to his darling.
“How I hate her for this!” she cried, bitterly. “How I would like to wring her heart as she has done mine!”
And the dark flash of her eye boded no good to her innocent rival.
She replaced the letter so carefully in its envelope that no one would have guessed the seal had been tampered with, and carried it to Violet.
“I have brought you a treasure—a letter from Cecil,” she exclaimed, gayly.
How the blue eyes sparkled, how the cheeks flushed with joy as Violet caught the letter and pressed it to her warm lips, murmuring:
“My darling!”
She tore it open and read it eagerly through twice, then looked up at Amber, her eyes shining through happy tears.
“Oh, how can I thank you, dear Amber?” she cried, gratefully.
“By believing that I am your true friend,” replied the crafty girl.
“Oh, I know now; I am sure of it, or you would not have brought me this letter, that has made me so happy!” and again Violet kissed her love-letter with blushing cheeks.
Ah, how bitterly, how jealously Amber envied her that exquisite happiness, she did not dream, or she would have started in affright at the evil in her cousin’s heart.
She thought that Amber had overcome her love for Cecil, and was content to be only his friend, and to forward his love affair with another with generous self-forgetfulness.
But sweet Violet had never felt the pain of a slighted love, or she might have known that only the noblest hearts can forget or forgive a wrong either real or fancied.
Alas, a hopeless love is one of the things seldom forgotten and rarely cured, coiling like a serpent around the heart, and stinging it to death.
Amber Laurens could have knelt in the dust at Cecil’s feet for one tithe of the fond love-words he had written to Violet, and she hated her successful rival with a bitterness that no words could have pictured.
Yet with rankling hate and jealousy in her heart, she stood there and smiled upon Violet—smiled at thought of the dark schemes weaving in her own brain for revenge upon the hapless pair of lovers whose love was her torture.
“Ah, Violet, don’t you wish you could have been in my place? I had a charming drive with your precious Cecil,” she cried. “But don’t be jealous, dear; we were talking of you all the time. Cecil wanted me to bring this letter to you and one from you to him. In short, Violet, I’ve promised to be Cupid’s postman. You two are to write to each other as often as you please, and I’ll deliver all the billet-doux. Are you pleased?”
“Pleased! Oh, Amber, I am happy! I see a rift of light in the darkness of my awful despair. I can never thank you enough for your goodness, but I pray Heaven to send you a lover as handsome and noble as my Cecil, to reward your generous heart!”
Amber gave a strange laugh, that grated harshly on her own hearing, and answered:
“Never mind wishing me a lover now, Violet, but get your pen and write Cecil a letter that I can deliver in the morning.”
“I will—oh, I will!” cried Violet, gladly, and Amber flew away to vent her rage in secret.
When the letter was committed to her care, she read it in the seclusion of her chamber before she carried it to Cecil, and she longed to tear it into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds of heaven before it should gladden his eyes.
“How silly they both are!” she cried to herself, disdainfully. “What a soft, forgiving little fool they must think me, to forget the injury they did me and befriend them, helping them to a happiness they cheated me of so heartlessly. Ah, it is another game I am playing, and when I am done, I fancy we can cry quits all around.”
She made herself as lovely as possible to carry the letter to Cecil, with some faint lurking hope, perhaps, of yet outshining Violet.
But Cecil scarcely looked at the dark, eager face, the rich attire, or the longing dark eyes. He almost snatched the letter from her jeweled hand, then recollected himself, with a deep flush, exclaiming:
“I beg your pardon for my rudeness, I was so anxious to read my darling’s letter. Will you honor my den by taking a seat, Miss Laurens?”
No, Amber could not stay to see him read her rival’s letter. The look of joy in his eyes would have driven her mad.
She said quietly that she must go; she had only stepped into the office on her way to the druggist’s for some eau de cologne for Violet—poor thing, her head ached so—and she would take another letter for him that evening, if he would have it ready when she took her afternoon drive.
He thanked her gratefully, and forgot her the next moment, as he turned gladly to the perusal of Violet’s letter.