We must return to Irene Brooke that fatal night, whose accumulating horrors induced a transient madness that drove the wretched girl to seek oblivion from her woes in self-destruction.
Life is sweet, even to the wretched. Irene's sudden, violent plunge into the cold waves cooled the fever of her heart and brain like magic. In that one awful, tragic moment in which the waters closed darkly over her golden head, a sharp remorse, a terrible regret woke to life within her heart.
Out of that swift repentance and awful despair, a cry for pity broke wildly from her almost strangling lips:
"Oh, Lord, pardon and save me!"
As she came back from the depths with a swift rebound to the surface of the water, the girl threw out her white arms gropingly, as if to seize upon some support, however slight and frail, on which to buoy her drenched and sinking frame.
Joy! as if God himself had answered her wild appeal for help and pardon, a strong, wide plank drifted to her reach. Irene grasped it tightly and threw herself upon it, while a cry of thankfulness broke from her lips. Alone in the dark and rushing waves, her heart filled with relief at the thought of this frail barrier between herself and that mysterious Eternity, to which a moment ago she had blindly hastened.
"If I can only hold on a little while, Elaine will bring me help and rescue," she said to herself, hopefully, and calling her mother by the old familiar sisterly name, for the name of mother was strange to her young lips yet.
Alas, for her springing hopes! Poor Elaine lay white and still in that long, long trance of unconsciousness that followed on her realization of her daughter's suicide. Her locked lips did not unclose to tell her anxious watchers the story of that white form floating on the dark waters, waiting, hoping, praying for rescue, while her strength ebbed, and her arms grew tired and weak, clinging so tightly to that slender plank that floated between her and the death from which she shrunk tremblingly now with all the ardor of a young heart that has found life a goodly thing and fair.
No rescue came. The girl floated farther and farther out to sea in that thick darkness that comes before the dawn. Hours that were long as years seemed to pass over her head, and hope died in her breast as the cruel waves beat and buffeted her tender form.
"I am forgotten and deserted," she moaned. "My mother has raised no alarm. Is it possible she was glad to be rid of me, and held her peace?"
A jeering voice seemed to whisper in her ear:
"It is best for all that you die. Bertha and her mother hated you. You were a stumbling block in your mother's path. You had involved Guy Kenmore in a fatal entanglement. You had no right and no place in the world. Not one whom you have left but will be glad that you are dead."
A cry of despair came from the beautiful girlish lips in the darkness.
"Oh, God, and only yesterday life seemed so beautiful and fair! Now I must die, alone and unregretted! Oh, cruel world, farewell," she cried, for she felt her strength forsaking her, and knew that in a moment more her arms would relax their hold and that she would sink forever amid the engulfing waves.
But in that last perilous moment something occurred that seemed to her dazzled and bewildered senses nothing less than a miracle.
In her bodily pain and mental trouble, with eyes blinded by the salt sea waves that mixed with her bitter tears, Irene had not perceived the faint grey light of dawn dispelling the thick darkness of the night. But suddenly, all suddenly, the crest of the waves was illuminated marvellously by a gleam of brightness that shot far and wide across the water; the blank horizon glowed with light.
Startled by the swift and seemingly instant transition from darkness to light, Irene uttered a shrill, sharp cry and looked up. The beautiful, life-giving sun was just peeping across the level green waves, and touching their foamy crests with gold. Through half-dazzled eyes she saw riding, like a thing of beauty on the beautiful water, a stately, white-sailed yacht only a few rods away. Irene could see moving figures on her decks.
There was one awful moment when the girl's breath failed, her heart stood still, and she could scarcely see the moving yacht outlined against the rosy dawn, for the mist that filled her eyes. Then she shook off the trance that threatened to destroy her, and with one last, desperate effort sent her sharp young voice ringing clearly across the waves:
"Help! Help! In God's name, help!"
The cry was heard and answered by the moving figures on the vessel's deck.
Was it hours or moments before the gallant figure that sprang over the side of the yacht reached Irene's side?
The girl never knew, for even as she watched his progress through the water, and admired his swift and graceful swimming, a dizziness stole over her; her arms relaxed their hold; the friendly plank slipped from beneath her, and she felt herself sinking down, down into the fathomless depths of green water.
It was well that her rescuer was a skillful diver, or our hapless heroine's history must have ended then and there.
But the dauntless swimmer who had gone to her assistance was brave, bold, daring. He redoubled his speed, made a desperate dive beneath the water and reappeared with the form of the exhausted and unconscious girl tightly clasped in one arm.
In the meantime a small boat had been lowered from the yacht, and was coming with rapid strokes to her assistance.
When Irene came to herself again she lay on a pile of blankets upon the deck of the yacht. An anxious group was collected around her, conspicuous among them being one wet and dripping figure whom she instinctively recognized as her gallant preserver.
Irene opened her beautiful eyes, blue as the cerulean vault above, and smiled languidly at the stranger.
The man, who was middle-aged and had the rich, dark, picturesque beauty of the southern climate, started and bent over her. He grew ashy pale beneath his olive skin.
"She recovers," he said, hoarsely. "She will live."
"Clarence, Clarence," cried a thin, peevish, authoritative voice at this moment, "I insist that you shall go and change your wet clothing this moment! You will catch your death of cold standing around here drenched and shivering."
Irene turned her languid eyes and saw a pale, faded, yet rather pretty little woman, clothed in an elegant blue yachting dress with gold buttons. She was looking at Irene's rescuer with a peevish look in her light hazel eyes.
The man scarcely seemed to heed her, so intent was his gaze at Irene. Some one handed him a glass of wine at that moment, and, kneeling down, he lifted the girl's head gently on his arm and held it to her lips.
"Drink," he said, in a voice so kind and musical it thrilled straight through the girl's tender heart. She drank a little of the beautiful, ruby-colored liquid, and it ran like fire through her veins, warming and reviving her chilled frame.
"Clarence," again reiterated the woman's peevish voice, "do oblige me by changing your wet clothing. You seem to think less of your own health than of this total stranger's."
His brow clouded over, but he forced a smile on his handsome face.
"Very well, Mrs. Stuart, I will do so to oblige you," he said; "but pray do not make me ridiculous among my friends by such unfounded apprehensions! I am not a baby to be killed by a bath in salt water!"
He went away, and several ladies came around Irene, gazing curiously at the pale, fair face. They whispered together over her wondrous beauty, which, despite the long hours of suffering endured in the water, shone resplendently as some fair white flower in the beams of the rising sun.
"Her clothing should be changed, too," said one, more thoughtful than the rest. "She shall have my bed and dry clothing from my wardrobe. She is about my size, I believe."
Irene smiled her languid gratitude to the kind-hearted lady, then her weary eyes closed again. An overpowering drowsiness and languor was stealing over her. When they had changed her drenched clothing for warm, dry, perfumed garments, and laid her in a soft, warm bed, she could no longer keep awake. She swallowed the warm, fragrant tea they brought her and fell into a long, deep, saving slumber.
The ladies were all burning with curiosity over the beautiful waif so strangely rescued from the cruel waves, but they refrained through delicacy from asking her questions when they saw how weary and exhausted she was. When she was asleep they examined her wet, cast-off linen for her name, but were disappointed, for they found none.
Then, with feminine curiosity, they peeped into the gold locket that hung by its slender chain around Irene's neck.
"What a handsome old man, and what a beautiful woman!" they cried. "Who can the girl be?"
Everyone was eager and interested except the faded, peevish Mrs. Stuart. She openly railed at her husband for risking his life for an utter stranger. She would not allow anyone to praise his bravery in her presence.
"I will not have him encouraged in such bravado and foolhardiness," she said, angrily.
"Oh, Mrs. Leslie, isn't she just lovely? And she cannot be much older than I am!"
Irene had slept profoundly for a day and night, being physically and mentally exhausted by her terrible ordeal in the water. When she awoke after twenty-four hours of restful slumber those words of admiration rung in her ears, uttered by a soft, girlish voice, interrupted by an ominous hacking cough.
Irene opened her eyes and glanced languidly around her. Beside her bed she saw Mrs. Leslie, the little lady who had been so kind to her the day before. Next to the lady, in a low, cushioned rocker, sat a girl of thirteen or fourteen, richly and tastefully dressed, but with a thin face as white as alabaster, save for two burning spots of hectic on her hollow cheeks, and with large, brilliant black eyes burning with the feverish fire of consumption.
"So you are awake at last!" cried the girlish voice, joyously, "I thought you were going off into a regular Rip Van Winkle sleep, and I have been just dying of curiosity over you."
Irene felt the sudden crimson dying her cheeks at the vivacious exclamation of the delicate-looking girl.
"Lilia, my love, you startle her," said Mrs. Leslie, gently; then she bent over Irene, saying kindly: "You feel better, I hope, after your long rest. This is Miss Stuart, the daughter of the gentleman who saved your life. She has been very anxious over you."
Irene looked gratefully at the dark-eyed girl who rose impulsively and kissed her.
"You are so pretty, I love you already," she cried, and Mrs. Leslie laughed.
"Pretty is as pretty does," she said, gaily, and Irene crimsoned painfully, as if the words had been a poisoned shaft aimed at her breast.
"Are you going to be well enough to sit up to-day?" pursued Lilia Stuart, anxiously. "Because if you are, I want you to come into my little saloon with me. I will give you my softest lounge to lie on. Aren't you very hungry? Will you take your breakfast now?"
"Yes, to all of your questions," Irene answered, looking in wonder at this girl who was but two years younger than herself, yet who seemed so very light and childish. Alas, poor Irene, that fatal night had forced her into a premature womanhood.
When she had taken a light, appetizing breakfast, and been robed in a white morning-dress, Mrs. Leslie advised her to spend the day in Lilia Stuart's saloon.
"She is a spoiled child," she said, "but we humor her all we can, for hers is a sad fate. She is dying of consumption."
"Dying—— so young!" cried Irene with a shudder, remembering how horrible the thought of death had appeared to her while she was struggling in the cold, black waves.
"Yes, poor child, she is surely dying," sighed Mrs. Leslie. "Her father bought this beautiful yacht to take her to Italy by the advice of her physicians. They fancied a sea voyage might benefit her. But I do not believe she will survive the trip. Some days she is very ill. Poor little Lilia. It is very hard. She is Mr. Stuart's only child."
They went to Lilia's luxurious saloon which was fitted up with every comfort, and was exquisitely dainty and charming, though small. Mrs. Stuart was there with her daughter. She gave the stranger a little supercilious nod, and invited Mrs. Leslie to go on deck with her.
Lilia, who had just recovered from a violent spell of coughing, led her visitor to a softly cushioned satin lounge.
"You may rest here," she said. "I am well enough to-day to sit up in my easy-chair, but some days I lie down all day. You may call me Lilia. What shall I call you?"
"You may call me Irene," was the answer, while a burning flush mounted to the speaker's forehead.
"Irene—— what a soft, sweet name! I like that," said Lilia, and just then the door unclosed and her father came in softly. "Ah, here is papa! you see I have a visitor, papa," she cried.
Mr. Stuart was a handsome, stately-looking man, middle-aged, with abundant threads of silver streaking his dark hair. His mouth, in repose, looked both sad and stern.
Irene arose and held out her hands.
"I owe you my life," she said, gratefully.
A transient, melancholy smile lit the grave, dark face.
"You need not thank me," he said, almost bruskly. "Wait until years have come and gone, and you have fairly tested life. It will be a question then whether you will award me blame or praise for the turn I did you yesterday."
The large, dark, melancholy eyes held Irene's with a strange fascination.
"Ah! you think that youth is all sunshine and roses," she answered, almost against her will. "I have already learned the reverse of that, and yet I find life sweet."
"How came you to be in the water?" he asked, anxiously, sitting down and drawing Lilia to a seat upon his knee.
The deep color rushed over Irene's pale, lovely face. A deep shame overpowered her, and yet against her will something within her forced her to confess her sin.
"You will be shocked," she said; "but I must tell you the truth. I threw myself in."
"No," he exclaimed, in surprise.
"Yes," she answered, sadly.
"Oh, Irene, why did you do that?" exclaimed little Lilia.
"Why did you do it?" echoed the man.
"I had lost the only friend I had on earth, and I did not wish to live," she answered.
"Then I was right. You will not thank me for saving your life," exclaimed Mr. Stuart.
"Yes, for I repented my rashness as soon as my body struck the cold waves," she answered, shivering. "I am thankful my life was spared to me. Life is hard, but death is harder."
He looked at the beautiful, agitated girl with deep interest. He began to see that there had been some romance in her life. Her face had a tragedy written on it.
"You will wish to return to your home and your friends?" he said.
An exceedingly bitter expression crossed the lovely young face, and for a moment she was silent. To herself she said: "I have neither home, nor friends, nor name. Those whom I left will be glad to think that I am dead."
Her heart was hardened against them all. She believed that her mother had left her to perish without one effort at rescue.
"She was glad to be rid of her illegitimate child," she said to herself, with inexpressible bitterness.
Mr. Stuart, thinking she had not heard him, repeated his question.
"You will be glad to return to your home and friends?"
She raised her large, beautiful eyes to his face. They were dark with unutterable despair.
"I have neither home nor friends—nor name!" she said.
He started, and looked at her keenly.
"You must have borne some name in the world," he said, almost sternly.
"I did; but I had no right to it, and I have renounced it forever. I am called Irene. That is the only name I can rightfully claim," she answered, bitterly, and drooping her shamed eyes from his earnest gaze.
For a moment both were silent.
Mr. Stuart's dark, sad eyes were fixed on her with a look that was almost pain. This fair, mysterious waif from the sea, stirred his soul to its deepest depths. His presence held the same mysterious fascination for her.
Lilia, the most innocent child in the world, and who had been listening with deepest interest, broke the silence, wide-eyed.
"You have only one name," she said. "How strange! I thought everyone had two names. I have. Mine is Lilia Stuart. Mamma's is the same. Papa's name is Clarence Stuart."
She paused, for a stifled cry broke from Irene's lips. The dainty saloon, the faces of the father and child seemed to fade before her. She was back in the parlor of Bay View, that fatal night when they had brought old Ronald Brooke home dead. Again she saw, through the blinding mist of her tears, Guy Kenmore extricating the fragment of paper from the dead hand. Again she looked over his arm and read:
"That the truth may be revealed, and my death-bed repentance accepted of Heaven, I pray humbly.
"Clarence Stuart, Senior."
"My God! what does it mean?" she asked herself; and Guy Kenmore's ambiguous answer recurred to her mind:
"A great deal—or nothing!"
"Irene, are you ill?" asked Lilia, anxiously. "You almost screamed out, and your face is as white as chalk!"
"I am very nervous. You must not let me frighten you, Lilia," the girl answered, sadly.
Lilia came coaxingly to her side.
"I am going to tell you something," she said, with her pretty air of a spoiled child. "While you were asleep I was very naughty. I peeped at the beautiful lady in your locket!"
"Lilia!" her father exclaimed.
"All the ladies looked, papa," Lilia answered, self-excusingly. "And I am going to have one more peep! Irene will not care, I know!"
She flashed the lid open suddenly before his dazzled eyes. He could not choose but see that fair face, with its haunting eyes, and tremulous smile, and golden hair, Elaine's perfect image, even to the shadow of a tragedy that even a stranger could read on her beauty.
He gazed and gazed, and the breath fluttered sharply over his parted lips. Then, all in a moment, with a smothered cry of despair, he put out his hands and shut out the sight of the lovely face, even as his head fell back against the chair, his breath failed, and he lay all white and corpse-like before the two frightened girls.
Bertha had promised to keep Guy Kenmore informed of the progress of Elaine's illness, and she was glad to keep her word, as it afforded her a pretext for writing to the young man, and thus keeping her memory alive in his heart.
Since the supposed death of poor Irene, the artful Bertha was again laying plans for the capture of Mr. Kenmore. She hoped in time to allay the unfavorable impression she had created in his mind the night of the ball, and to establish an empire over his heart. Mr. Kenmore belonged to one of the wealthiest and most aristocratic families in Baltimore, and it was the hight of her ambition to become his wife.
Though the young man's interest in Elaine afforded her a pretext for corresponding with him, Bertha was vaguely displeased at his anxiety over her sister. It filled her with secret jealousy. Elaine was still young and beautiful enough to win the heart of the man who had married her daughter. Bertha was determined not to tolerate her as a rival.
"There is no accounting for men's tastes," she said, angrily, to her mother. "I supposed that his knowledge of Elaine's shameful secret would utterly disgust him with her. But he is almost as anxious over her as if he were her lover."
"Men regard these things somewhat differently from women," replied Mrs. Brooke. "It is possible he may regard Elaine with pity, rather than disgust. And pity is akin to love, you know."
In her heart Mrs. Brooke was rather elated at Guy's interest in Elaine. If she could not secure him for Bertha, she would be very pleased to have him for her elder daughter.
Bertha saw the bent of her mother's mind, and inwardly raged at it. Day and night her mind was filled with projects for diverting Guy's mind from the charms of her elder sister. On this particular state of her mind Elaine's announcement of leaving Bay View fell like healing balm.
Several days elapsed after her departure before Bertha communicated the fact to Mr. Kenmore in a brief, ambiguous note.
It was no part of her plan that he should become acquainted with their poverty, or with the reason of Elaine going.
So she wrote simply:
"Elaine convalesced more rapidly than was expected, and has left us in anger, declining to live with us longer, and making a mystery of her destination. Come down to Bay View and I will give you the particulars."
The note had the effect she anticipated of bringing Mr. Kenmore down to Bay View without delay.
Then Bertha told her story with well-acted grief and penitence.
"It was all my wretched fault," she sighed. "Elaine would not forgive me for giving way to my jealous passion that dreadful night, and betraying her shameful story. It was all in vain that I declared my penitence on my knees and implored her forgiveness. She would not hear me. She declared that she should hate me so long as she lived, and that the same roof could not shelter us both. So she went away from mamma and me, declaring that it was forever."
The arch deceiver here shed some quiet, natural-looking tears into her perfumed, black-bordered handkerchief.
"It was very hard, losing papa and Elaine, and poor little Irene, all, as it were, at one fatal stroke," she declared, sobbingly.
Mr. Kenmore was gravely, sadly silent. He did not think of doubting Bertha's clever tale. It seemed very natural that poor Elaine should resent her sister's cruel betrayal of the long-guarded secret of Irene's birth. He scarcely wondered that she had gone away desperately wounded and unforgiving, in the smart of her bitter pain.
"Oh, if you could know how bitterly I have repented all that I said that dreadful night," sighed Bertha, giving him a sidewise glance under her long, black lashes. "I must have been mad, I think. You know the great poet says, 'There's madness in the moon,' and that night Irene had fairly driven me wild. Oh, if I could only think you had forgotten the unkind things I said to you in my foolish passion!" she pursued, remorsefully.
Her pretty shame and penitence touched him.
"I wish that you could forget it as freely as I forgive it, Miss Brooke," he answered, kindly.
"Oh, thank you, thank you," she cried. "I have repented my folly in bitterness and tears. I let my own heart deceive me. I know now that a woman should not give her heart unasked, still less betray its tender throbbings to the cold and careless."
She hid her face in her hands as if she could not bear his kindly gaze. Guy, touched by her tears and sorrow, did not know what to say or do. He was intensely sorry for her, forgetting how much he had disliked her that night when she had shown herself in her true colors.
"Let us forget it all, Miss Brooke," he said, uneasily, anxious to dry up her springing tears.
The beautiful brunette gave him a swift, shy look of gratitude.
"Oh, how gladly I will do so!" she exclaimed, putting out her delicate, white hand to him. "Shall we be friends as we were before—— that fatal night?"
"Yes," he replied, pressing her hand kindly, but lightly, for he had no mind to be drawn into the role of a lover again.
"And you will come down to Bay View sometimes? Mamma and I will be so lonely and sad now, after losing so many dear links from our family circle," said the dark-eyed beauty, following up her advantage.
"Sometimes—when I can find leisure," he replied ambiguously.
And with that Bertha was obliged to be content. She hoped great things from the concessions he had already made. Now that Irene was dead, and Elaine gone, she would have no rivals, and surely, surely her beauty, her fascination, her tenderness for him must win him even against his will.
She brought the whole battery of her charms and graces to bear upon him, but was obliged to confess to herself that she had never seen him so sad, so grave, so pale and so distrait.
"It cannot be that he is sorry over that child's death. He ought to be glad," she thought to herself. "It must be that he assumes this gravity in deference to my affliction."
Yet she was troubled and chagrined when he left her so indifferently and went down to the shore. She watched him from her window, standing quietly, with folded arms, a tall, dark shape, outlined against the brightness of the summer eve.
"Of what is he thinking?" she asked her heart, uneasily.
It would have seemed strange to her if she had known. It even seemed strange to himself.
He was standing there gazing with dark, heavy eyes at the rolling waves, much as if he had been gazing on a grave.
He was recalling to mind the winsome, changeful, perfect beauty, the fire, the soul, the passion of the girl he had so strangely wedded, the girl who had recklessly flung herself into the deep, relentless waves, leaving him only the memory of the few, brief hours in which she had flashed before him in the extremes of joy and despair—— one moment a beautiful, spirited, happy child, the next a passionate, despairing, crushed and broken-hearted woman!
"Poor little Irene," he said to himself. "If she had lived, who knows"—then a sigh, deeper than he knew, finished the regretful words.
He stood there a long, long time, listening to the beat of the waves, and thinking of Irene and her mother. Bertha grew tired of watching him and stole away to try the effect of a new mourning bonnet that had just been sent home from the milliner. Guy had forgotten her. He was wrapped in other thoughts. New feelings had come to him since that night, when, indolent, blase, careless, he had come face to face with his fate. He was haunted by a voice, a face. Some sad words came to his mind:
He turned away at last warned by the darkening twilight that fell like a pall over his lost bride's "vast and wandering grave."
"I must bid adieu to Mrs. Brooke and Bertha and return home to-night," was the thought in his mind.
Mrs. Brooke was in the parlor alone, Bertha being still absorbed in the new bonnet. A sudden impulse came to Guy Kenmore.
He sat down by the matron's side and gazed sympathetically into her still youthful-looking and handsome face.
"Miss Brooke left you no address when she went away, I presume?" he inquired in a tone of respectful anxiety.
Mrs. Brooke had received her cue from Bertha and answered accordingly:
"No. She has deserted us most heartlessly, and I fear, I fear"—— she broke down and buried her face in her handkerchief.
"You do not suppose that she can have made away with herself?" he cried in low, awe-struck tones.
"No, no; worse, far worse," groaned the apparently deeply agitated woman. "Oh, Mr. Kenmore, pity the grief and shame of a heart-broken mother—I fear that Elaine has returned to her wicked deceiver."
"Impossible!" he exclaimed, in stern and startled tones.
"Would that I could think so," sighed the unjust mother. "But my heart is torn by cruel suspicions. Elaine has never ceased to love that wicked wretch, and to whom else can she have gone?"
To herself she said, self-excusingly: "Poor Elaine, I would not blacken her name still more, only to help Bertha. If she marries him I shall manage to let him find out the real truth about Elaine directly afterward. She shall not lie under that base imposition any longer than is necessary for Bertha's welfare."
She was startled when she saw how reproachfully and sternly his brown eyes gleamed upon her.
"A mother is the last person to impute sin to her child," he said.
Mrs. Brooke only sobbed into her handkerchief by way of answer to this reproach.
"I have become deeply interested in your daughter's sad story, Mrs. Brooke," he went on. "Pray do not think me inquisitive if I ask you one question."
She looked it him in startled surprise.
"It is only this, Mrs. Brooke," he said. "Will you tell me in what city lived the man who so cruelly wronged beautiful Elaine?"
"It can do no good to rake up these old things," she said, half-fretfully.
"It was only a single question. It cannot hurt you to answer," he said, almost pleadingly.
She said to herself that it could not matter indeed, and she did not wish to offend the young man whom she hoped to capture for her son-in-law.
"It is very painful re-opening these old wounds," she sighed; "but since you insist upon it I will answer your question. The young villain lived at Richmond."
He bowed his thanks.
"I already know his name," he said, "and since you have no son to send upon this delicate mission, Mrs. Brooke, I will make it my business to inquire if your elder daughter has indeed deserted you for her base betrayer."
She was about to protest against his doing so on the first pretext she could think of, when Bertha's entrance suddenly closed the conversation.
He made his adieux and departed, giving an evasive reply to the young lady's wishes for his swift return.
One week later Mrs. Brooke received a letter from him dated at Richmond.
"You wronged your daughter by your unkind suspicions," he wrote; "she is not with the man you thought. Clarence Stuart left Richmond on the very day of your husband's death, in his own yacht, with his wife and daughter, and a party of friends. They were on a pleasure-trip to Italy. You will no doubt be glad to hear that Elaine is not so wicked as you believed her."
Thus the letter closed abruptly. Mrs. Brooke, in a curt note, thanked Mr. Kenmore for his information. She did not dare give way to her indignation at his interference, dreading that it would injure the success of Bertha's husband-hunting.
Lilia Stuart was very much frightened by her father's strange seizure. She was about to scream loudly for help when Irene, with a sensitive horror of scenes, laid her white hand gently but firmly over the parted lips.
"Do not be frightened, Lilia," she said. "Get some cold water. That is all that is necessary."
Lilia sprang to the ice-flagon and returned with a glass of cold water in her trembling grasp. Irene thrust her white hand into the cold fluid, and deluged Mr. Stuart's rigid white face with it.
It produced the desired effect. Mr. Stuart shivered, opened his eyes, and stared blankly around him for a moment.
"Oh, papa, you are better," cried Lilia, springing to throw her arms around his neck. "I am so frightened, dearest papa, shall I not call mamma?"
Something like dread or fear flashed for a moment into his open dark eyes.
"No, for Heaven's sake, don't!" he exclaimed, testily; "I detest scenes! There is nothing at all the matter with me! Say nothing to your mother, Lilia. You understand me?"
"Yes, papa," the girl replied, obediently. "But what made you faint?" she continued, curiously.
An expression of deep annoyance clouded Mr. Stuart's handsome face.
"Pooh, I did not faint," he said, sharply. "A mere dizziness overcame me. Don't let your fancies run away with your reason, Lilia."
He rose as he spoke, and without a glance at Irene or the open locket that still swung at her throat, hastily quitted the room. Lilia, forgetting her guest, followed after him.
Irene thus left alone, fell into a startled revery.
She had not been deceived like Lilia by Mr. Stuart's short assertion of dizziness. She knew that he had actually fainted, and she believed that the bare sight of her mother's face in the locket had been the cause of his agitation.
"He recognized the face, and it had power to stay the very pulses of his life for a moment," she said to herself.
A terrible suspicion darted into her young mind, chilling the blood in her veins, and driving it coldly back upon her heart.
"Can this man be my father, my mother's base betrayer?" she thought.
She did not like to think so. Her heart had gone out strangely to this man, the savior of her young life. She liked to think that he was noble, good and brave. For the villain who had betrayed her trusting young mother she had nothing in her heart but hatred, and a burning desire for revenge.
Suddenly the saloon door opened softly. Mr. Stuart had eluded Lilia and returned.
He came to her side and sat down again. His dark face was strangely pale still. There was a troubled look in his large, dark eyes.
"You must have thought my agitation strange just now, Irene," he said.
"Yes," she answered, gravely.
"And—you guessed the reason?" he inquired, slowly, fixing a keen glance on her face.
She raised her beautiful, troubled blue eyes steadily to his.
"You recognized the pictures in my locket," she replied, touching it with her trembling hand.
"My God, yes!" he answered hoarsely. "Irene, child, for the love of Heaven, tell me what this man and woman are to you."
She had no answer for him. In her own heart she was saying, dumbly:
"I cannot tell him. It is my mother's secret. She guarded it for sixteen years, and I must not betray her."
He looked at the white, agonized face of the girl, and repeated his question:
"Tell me what this man and woman are to you."
"I cannot tell you, Mr. Stuart," she replied, falteringly.
"You mean you will not," he said, studying her downcast face, with grave, attentive eyes.
"I cannot," she replied. "It is a secret that belongs to others. I cannot betray confidence."
A baffled look came into his troubled, marble-white face.
"Do you mean to preserve an utter incognito among us?" he asked.
"I must," she answered, while great, trembling tears started beneath her drooping lashes. "I can say no more than what I have told you already. I am homeless, friendless, nameless!"
"How old are you?" he inquired.
"I was sixteen years old but a few days ago," she answered.
He looked again keenly at her face, and bending forward, again looked at the beautiful, pictured face of Elaine Brooke.
A shudder shook his form.
"You are strangely like her—strangely like," he said. "Child, I would give much to hear you say what this beautiful woman is to you."
Irene looked gravely at him, her young bosom shaken by a storm of suspicion.
"Confidence invites confidence," she said, harshly. "I will tell you what this woman is to me if you tell me what she once was to you."
Irene's stern, abrupt question produced a startling effect upon Mr. Stuart. His face grew ashy pale, even to his lips, and he gazed suspiciously, almost angrily, at the girl's grave face. Seeing only an earnest wonder mirrored in her clear, sweet eyes, he sprang abruptly from his seat, and without replying to her question began to pace rapidly up and down the room.
Her grave, troubled eyes followed him slowly up and down, while a terrible pain tore her heart.
He seemed to have forgotten her presence, as with clenched hands and wildly staring eyes he paced up and down, muttering bitter phrases to himself.
Irene caught the echo of some passionate words quoted in a voice of raging scorn:
Suddenly he stopped in his wild march, and came back to her side.
"No, child, keep your secret," he said, hoarsely. "Keep your secret, and I will keep mine. God help you if yours be as hard to bear as mine."
She must have pitied the dreary despair of his face and voice if her heart had not been hardened against him by her terrible suspicions. A hard, scornful laugh broke over her lips.
"Remorse is always hard to bear," she said, bitterly, to herself.
He looked at her in wonder.
"We will keep our own sad secrets," he repeated, mournfully. "But you are friendless. I will be your friend. You are homeless. My home shall be yours. You are nameless. You shall be Lilia's sister, and share her name. It is a noble one, and has never been stained by disgrace."
She looked at him gravely, fixedly.
Did he speak the truth? Did not her mother's shame and hers lie at his door?
"Do you accept my proposition?" he inquired, anxiously.
For a moment she was tempted to give him an angry passionate denial, to say bitterly:
"No, I will not have these things on sufferance that should be mine by right. I will not have your favor or your pity, you demon, who blasted my mother's life and mine! I could rather curse you!"
But on a sudden she remembered that her suspicions were merely suspicions. She had no proof that this noble-looking man, who seemed crushed by the weight of some inward sorrow, was her father. Perhaps she wronged him in her thoughts.
"I must give him the benefit of the doubt, since he saved my life," she thought, and put out a cold, little hand to him.
"I must perforce accept your kindness," she said, mournfully, "since I have not a friend to turn to in all the wide, wide world."
He crushed the slender fingers in his firm clasp.
"I will be your friend, always—remember that," he said.
Irene would have thanked him feebly, but the saloon door hastily unclosed, admitting Lilia and her faded, peevish-looking mother.
"You here, Clarence!" exclaimed the latter, in a tone of marked displeasure.
He gave her a quick, cold look. Her eyes fell before it. Cowed by her husband's superior will, she vented her spite on Irene.
"Lilia has been telling me that you threw yourself into the water," she said, flashing her eyes full of greenish rage on the pale young girl. "Oh, you wicked, wicked girl!"
"Madam!" exclaimed Irene, in a proud and haughty tone.
Mr. Stuart advanced, and drew his wife's arm through his own.
"Come with me, Mrs. Stuart, I want you," he said, leading her deliberately from the room.
Lilia stood looking at Irene's indignant face, with a strange expression. The child was like a cat, one moment all silky fur and purring fondness, the next ready to attack with teeth and claws.
She saw the resentment at her mother's coarse attack burning in Irene's dark blue eyes, and exclaimed, with peevish childishness:
"Mamma says you must have done something very bad, indeed, or you wouldn't have thrown yourself into the water! She says you are a bad, wicked girl, and that I musn't entertain you in my pretty saloon, so I guess you had better go back to Mrs. Leslie, and let me have my lounge!"
Irene gazed at the child, almost petrified by her startling change from sweetness and affection to spite and rancour. She saw the mother's spirit flashing from the eyes of the child, and rising with a proud step, left the room without a word.
"Is he really my father," she asked herself, "and is that coarse woman the one who was thought better to bear his name than my angel-hearted mother? And that sickly, petted child—does she shed greater lustre on the proud name of Stuart than I would have done?"
She hastened to Mrs. Leslie's tiny apartment, and finding herself alone, threw herself down upon the white bed and burst into a torrent of bitter tears.
Mrs. Leslie entering more than an hour later found her there, still sobbing and weeping in a very abandonment of despair. She stooped down impulsively and kissed the pure, white brow.
"Do not mind Mrs. Stuart, my dear," she said consolingly. "She is a spiteful, jealous cat, and hates you for your fair, young face."
Irene looked up, startled. How had Mrs. Leslie learned so much?
"Oh, I have heard about her naughtiness to you just now," smiled the lady. "Do not grieve, Irene. I will be your friend. I am a wealthy widow, and have no one to please but myself. I have fallen in love with you, you mysterious little waif! You shall be my protege if you will."
Seeing that Irene could not speak for tears, she slipped a little note into her hand.
"Dry your eyes and read that," she said. "It is my recommendation to your favor."
Irene obeyed her in surprise. It was a pencil scrawl, hastily done.
"My poor, unfortunate child," it ran, "owing to the hardness of my wife I am unable to take you into the bosom of my family, as I wished to do; but I am none the less interested in your welfare. You will be Mrs. Leslie's protege. She is one of my oldest friends, and will be like a sister to you, while you may always command me as your best friend. It will be necessary, perhaps, that you should assume some name in order to avoid censure and suspicion. The world is very hard and cold, as you may have learned ere now, and it is best to put every defense possible between you and its sneers. Let Mrs. Leslie assist you in the selection of a suitable name."
The hurried note closed abruptly with the name of Clarence Stuart. Irene raised her eyes wonderingly to the lady's face.
"Why does he take such an interest in me?" she asked.
"He saved your life, my dear, and you seem in some sort to belong to him. Besides, he is naturally one of the noblest and best of men. His heart is full of pity for the weak and helpless," said the lady, enthusiastically.
There was a moment's silence; then Mrs. Leslie said, kindly:
"What do you say, my dear—will you be my little sister, and let me care for you?"
"Yes, until I can act for myself," Irene answered, softly, and pressing her girlish lips gratefully upon the lady's small white hand.
Mrs. Leslie smoothed the girl's rippling golden curls tenderly.
"And the name?" she said. "Shall you not take Mr. Stuart's advice about that? It will be far—far better."
Irene was silent, warm blushes drifting over her fair, young face.
"Think," said the gentle lady, "there must surely be some name to which you have a legal right. Is there not, my dear?"
Deeper and warmer grew the blush on the fair, girlish face.
She had suddenly remembered Guy Kenmore, and the ceremony which Mr. Clavering had declared to be binding upon them.
"My name is Mrs. Kenmore," she said to herself, with a strange feeling trembling at her heart as she recalled the handsome man to whom she was bound.
Then a flash of pride usurped the thrill of almost unconscious tenderness.
"He did not wish for me to be his wife," she said to herself. "I remember he regarded me simply as a spoiled child. I shall not claim his name, shall never trouble him more. He shall think me dead."
She looked up gravely at her kind friend.
"Mrs. Leslie," she said, "there is no name from out my past that I wish to claim. I have severed myself violently from all that once bound me. I have done no wrong, I have sinned no sin, but I have been terribly wronged and sinned against. It is true I have borne a name in the world where I used to move, but when I found it was not mine I flung it away. I will not be called by it, I will have nothing to remind me of the past. Now tell me what I shall do."
Mrs. Leslie was silent a few moments. She wondered who had been so cruel as to wrong this beautiful girl, whose words, whose looks, whose every action was so pure and high-toned.
After a moment's reflection she said:
"My maiden name was Berlin; will you bear that, Irene?"
"You would give your own name to me, an utter stranger?" Irene cried, in grateful surprise.
"Yes, because, as I said just now, I have fallen in love with you. Whatever may be the sad secret of your past I can look into your eyes and see that you are pure and good. The name of Berlin is an old and honorable one, but I do not believe you would disgrace it in the bearing," said the sweet lady, heartily.
"Then I accept the loan of it with sincerest gratitude," replied Irene, through springing tears.
"Then you shall be called Irene Berlin," said Mrs. Leslie. "It is a pretty name, and will suit you. And now we will discuss other affairs. I am going to Italy with the Stuarts. Shall you be willing to go with me?"
"Nothing could please me better than to leave my native land behind me," replied the girl.
"That is settled, then. And now do you feel well enough to go on deck with me? It is a lovely day. The sun is shining softly and brightly. The sea is almost as calm and blue as the sky. The fresh air will do you a world of good."
"I have nothing to wear," said Irene, flushing deeply.
"That is true," laughed Mrs. Leslie. "The party dress in which you came among us is not exactly a yacht costume. But I can remedy that defect, I think, from my own wardrobe. Fortunately we are about the same size."
She brought out from her trunk a dark blue velvet suit and a cap of the same with a jaunty bird's wing on one side. Nothing could have become Irene better. The suit fitted to a charm, and when Mrs. Leslie set the jaunty cap on the streaming curls she exclaimed in wonder at the dazzling loveliness of her protege.
"It is no wonder Mrs. Stuart was jealous of you, you are the loveliest creature I ever saw," she exclaimed frankly.
"If I were not so unhappy you would make me vain, Mrs. Leslie," sighed the lovely girl.
"You are too young to be unhappy, my dear. I hope you will soon forget your sorrows. But come, let us go on deck and I will introduce you to your Compagnons du Voyage."
They went out and Irene's eyes were dazzled with the beauty of the day. The sky was deeply blue, with little white clouds sailing over it. The sun shone on the blue waves, and white-winged sea-gulls darted here and there. Several ladies and gentlemen were on deck, walking and chatting. They started in surprise—the women envious—the men admiring—at the new comer. She looked like a young princess. Her step was light and proud, her bearing calm and self-possessed. The sun shone on her golden curls, her fair face and her velvet blue eyes, making her look like a perfect picture. Several gentlemen came around Mrs. Leslie, waiting eagerly for an introduction.
Lilia Stuart had not failed to repeat Irene's confession of her namelessness to her mother. Mrs. Stuart, with the malice of a little mind, industriously disseminated the news among her guests. Curiosity and excitement were rife, regarding the mysterious waif from the sea.
So when Irene came upon deck, looking so wondrously lovely in the blue velvet dress and her rippling, waving, golden curls, they all came around her, full of wonder and surprise. They were amazed and disconcerted when Mrs. Leslie, with the cool self-possession that never deserted her under any circumstances, proceeded to introduce her protege by the name of Miss Berlin.
"Why, we thought she had no name—that she was a child of shame. Mrs. Stuart certainly said so," the ladies exclaimed to each other in whispers. "Depend upon it there is something wrong. We will be very shy of having anything to do with her."
If Irene had been homely and stupid, they might have pitied her, but her girlish beauty and grace at once enlisted the spite and envy of their little minds. Mrs. Leslie was the only lady on board who did not wish that she had perished in the cold waves. They regarded her as an interloper and unwelcome burden on them.
The gentlemen took a different view of the matter from their feminine friends. They were full of wonder and admiration over the beautiful stranger.
There were three gentlemen beside Mr. Stuart, on board the yacht, as there were three ladies. With two of these men our story has no interest. The third one, who was a distant relative of Mr. Stuart, and who at once fell desperately in love with our heroine, we will slightly describe.
He was tall and slight, with very dark eyes and hair, and a face that though weak and irresolute in expression, was rather handsome, having an effeminate mouth and chin that lent sweetness to his ever-ready smile. His dark eyes had a trick of falling beneath your glance, as if some inner consciousness made him shrink from meeting you with an open, steady gaze. In dress and manner he was rather a dandy, and was counted popular among the fair sex for his obliging disposition, and also a very fair tenor voice, with which he accompanied himself on the guitar. He answered to the name of Julius Revington.
On the heart of this handsome ladies'-man, the fair, blonde loveliness of Irene at once committed terrible havoc.
He gazed as if fascinated, on that arch, bright face to which the delicate color mounted in a roseate glow at his ardent gaze.
Mrs. Leslie smiled as she saw how deeply he was smitten with her protege's charms, and immediately introduced him.
He acknowledged the introduction with delight, and invited Miss Berlin to promenade the deck with his arm for support.
As Irene gently declined, pleading weariness for excuse, he brought her a comfortable chair and stood beside her ostensibly to shade her face from the too ardent kisses of the wind and sun, but really that he might feast his eyes on her fresh and pearl-fair beauty. Revington holding his umbrella over Irene provoked some mirth and more envy in the breasts of Brown and Jones. The ladies were unanimously disgusted. It was too bad that she should wile Revington from them. Miss Smith, a tall brunette who rather regarded him as her own prey, looked daggers. Mrs. Leslie was secretly amused and delighted. She knew that Mrs. Stuart had been forming a coalition against Irene, and it pleased her to see how hard they took Revington's desertion to the banner of the newcomer.
But rave as they would, Irene's conquest was potent to everyone but herself. She who had never had a lover in the course of her brief, secluded life, was innocent of coquetry and unversed in the arts of love. She accepted Revington's attentions kindly, and congratulated herself that she had won another friend.
But though she was patient and gentle the beau could not congratulate himself on any rapid progress in her favor. She was strangely sad and grave. The red lips had no smiles for him though they answered him gently when he spoke. The blue eyes did not look at him, though he tried all his arts to win them to meet his gaze. They wandered strainingly across the sea, as if seeking something lost to sight. The lids, with their heavy golden lashes, had a pathetic droop as if unshed tears weighed them down. The lips quivered now and then as if with mute sobs. A story was written on her face—a story of sorrow and pain that clouded somewhat its spring time loveliness as clouds overshade an April sky. Revington, who was poetical, thought of some applicable lines, and bending over her softly repeated them: