"I shall die of memory and stagnation here in less than a week," he tells himself grimly, as he paces along the yellow sands up to his balconied hotel, where a few dispirited invalids and long-haired poets eye the handsome young American with a dreamy, listless curiosity. "I shall find health and quiet here with a vengeance. I shall go mad with this eternal sea!"
And after one night with the long, low moan of the "sad sea waves" in his ears, and the ghosts of the past stalking drearily in the haunted darkness, he stoutly prepares to "fold up his tent like the Arabs, and silently steal away" to "fresh fields and pastures new." The spirit of unrest is upon him; strange mood for one who all his life-long had been indolent, languid, not to say, in Reine's plain English, lazy.
But while he chews the end of his morning segar, and restlessly meditates on the where to go next, a boy comes to him with a pretty little three-cornered note. In stupid astonishment he takes it and holds it unopened in his hand.
"I was to take back an answer, sir," the lad ventures, as a gentle reminder.
Then Vane turns it over and looks at the superscription. It is addressed to himself in a pretty, graceful hand, with a good deal of character in it.
Unfolding it, he reads, with staring eyes:
"Mr. Charteris:—Arriving at the hotel an hour ago, I learned, on inquiry, that you were at the 'Haven of Rest.' Will you come to me for ten minutes? Hastily,
"Reine Langton."
The earth seems to yawn beneath Mr. Charteris' feet. He mutters, on the uncontrollable spur of the moment, a profane expletive:
"The devil!"
"Eh, what, sir?" the lad mutters, uncomprehendingly.
The words recall Mr. Charteris to his senses, he having been momentarily shocked out of them.
"Who gave you this note, boy!" he demands, sternly.
Really, it seems to him there must be some mistake. Reine, his unloved wife, here on Albion's wave-washed shore—impossible.
But the lad replies, distinctly:
"A young lady at the Sea View Hotel, a very pretty lady, with big black eyes."
This description is too suggestive of Reine to admit of further doubt.
With a suppressed groan, Vane tears a leaf from his memorandum book, and scribbles, hastily:
"Reine:—I will be with you in fifteen minutes.
"Vane."
Totally forgetting, in his flurry, to put her name upon it, he doubles the sheet and puts it into the lad's hand with a generous silver piece.
"Now, fly back to the lady, you young scamp," he apostrophizes.
As if the reward had lent wings to his feet, the urchin runs lightly along the sandy shore, and disappears in the distance.
Vane takes a turn up and down the balcony to steady his nerves. He has had what some people are wont to call a "turn."
The authors and invalids eye him with blended curiosity and admiration. It is not often that a handsome, comely young fellow like this anchors his bark in this "Haven of Rest."
"She has followed me here," Vane is saying to himself, through his compressed lips. "Now, I call that downright bold and unwomanly. It proves to me more and more how unwise a choice was forced upon me by Mr. Langton's perverse will. Why did he let her come? And how the deuce am I to get rid of her? For I swear I won't live with her, at least not yet."
So saying, he flings on his hat and starts off at a swinging pace along the sands toward the hotel.
"I must see what she wants," he says, under his breath, and gnawing the ends of his golden-brown mustache savagely, while the habitues of the place watch him carelessly, little thinking that the handsome American is going unwillingly to the bonniest bride all England holds.
He had called her "bold and unwomanly," yet in his heart he is forced to retract the words when he finds himself in her presence, and the spell of her dark, bright beauty throws its glamor over him, against his will.
For Reine, with the pardonable vanity of "lovely woman," has hastened to make herself fair for her husband's coming.
In London, while they rested and searched for Vane, Mr. Langton has bought her a box of what he calls "fine things." Among them is a sheer, white India muslin morning robe, trimmed with a profusion of fine, rich lace. Nothing could be lovelier than Reine in this dainty robe, with deep-hearted crimson roses in her hair and at her belt.
The slight, graceful figure advances to the center of the pretty morning parlor, then pauses suddenly, while the curling, black lashes flutter and fall till they waver against the burning crimson cheeks.
"You sent for me?" he says, abruptly, noting her sudden shame and confusion with ungenerous malice.
"Yes, I—I——" she pauses, and throws up her girlish white hands as if to ward off a blow. "Oh, do not look at me so," she says, imploringly. "I know what you are thinking and saying to yourself. It is that—that I am bold, forward, unlady-like, to have followed you here, when you," a choking sob, quickly suppressed, "when you despise me so!"
It is his turn to blush now under the dazzling light of the "dark, dark eyes" she opens wide upon his face, while she makes her frantic plaint.
"It is no such thing, pray do not say so," he retorts, fibbing unblushingly, in that he feels himself, to use his own graphic inward phrase, "cornered." "Of course you had a perfect right," dejectedly, "to come after me."
"Not at all," she says, decidedly. "No right that I would presume upon thus far. Oh, Mr. Charteris," with a sudden transition from shame and self-pity to irrepressible mirth, "pray, pray, do not look so dejected and forlorn. I have not come after you, indeed; that is, not as you think. I hope to leave here for America to-morrow."
"Leading me as a captive in your train?" he inquires, not feeling half so bad at the prospect as he could have imagined ten minutes ago.
"Certainly not," she replies, in her frank, decisive way; then, a little frigidly, "pray be seated, sir, and I will unfold to you the business upon which I have followed you to England."
He bows silently, turning a little pale beneath his healthy, florid tinge.
What an ominous sound that dull, prosaic word, "business," has from her lovely, heart-shaped, crimson lips. Besides, he feels, to use his own inward thought again, "wilted." She does not want him, as he has vainly imagined, and ridiculously resented in secret. She is come on a mere matter of business. She makes him understand that thoroughly by her pretty, dignified manner that has stiffened into ice.
"I should not have come—nothing could have induced me to," she goes on, with sensitive deprecation and lowered eyelids, "only for the sake of Maud."
"Of Maud!" he starts, and his pallor grows death-like. "What has she to do with you and me, Reine?"
She looks up silently, and their glances meet and hold each other a moment; the velvety black orbs, swimming in golden light, hold a mute and stern reproach before which the proud, defiant blue ones waver and shrink, pained and ashamed.
"I do not understand," he says, sullenly, answering her look against his will.
"Oh, yes, you do, you know," she returns with airy frankness. "You remember poor Mr. Clyde wrote Maud a note, swearing he would kill himself if she didn't marry him. And Maud lost the note that day she was in the hammock-chair under the tree. You, Mr. Charteris, found it, and tucked it into your vest pocket, thinking it of no consequence. But in that you were mistaken, as you learned the day of the inquest. Oh, Mr. Charteris, will you give up that note, and pray God to pardon your wicked revenge?"
There is a moment's perfect silence. From deathly white Vane Charteris has turned to a burning crimson, then marble-pale again. No sound is heard save the low, hoarse swell of the waves as they break on the rocky shore.
"Oh, you did not realize, surely," the girl goes on, with pained eyes, and clasped hands, "what a terrible thing you were doing when you went away silently with that note in your possession, that is worth the wealth of the world to poor Maud Langton. You were blinded by your wounded pride and insulted love, or you could not have stooped to take such an ignoble revenge for your wrongs."
He stares at her still, like one dreaming. Is the girl a witch? How does she know?
"Oh, speak!" she breaks out, impatiently. "Have you nothing to say?"
"You have taken my breath away," he answers. "Why do you bring this absurd charge against me? Who says," with a sneer, "I have that wonderful note?"
"I am your accuser," she answers, fixing upon him the full fire of her magnetic dark eyes. "I saw you, I was not very far away when Maud left you that day, I saw you pick up a note from the ground and read it, then you slipped it into your vest pocket. I am quite sure it was Maud's note. I do not believe you will deny it."
"Since you know so much, I will not," he answers, with blended amaze and defiance. "What then?"
The beautiful dusky face lights up with the lovely earnestness of hope.
"You will give it to me," she says. "I have followed you across the wide ocean to ask you for it."
"Why should I give it to you?" he asks, with distinct coldness.
She gives him a glance of blended pride and patience.
"Not for any grace you owe me, certainly," she says, with gentle calmness, "but for Maud's sake."
"Do I owe her any kindness?" he asks, sardonically.
"You owe her forgiveness, which is divine," she answers, anxiously.
"I prefer revenge. Do you remember these lines?
She rises and faces him, something of proud scorn in her free and girlish bearing.
"Yes, I remember them, but such sentiments are unworthy of you, Mr. Charteris. What! are you not the brave, noble gentleman I deemed you? Am I to blush for my—husband?"
A subtle thrill, he cannot tell whether it be of pain or pleasure, it is so intense, shoots through him as the low word falls from her lips. A passionate shame, evoked by her proud scorn, tingles through all his frame, yet he says, mockingly:
"So you own the tie that binds us? I thought not, as when I came just now and inquired for Mrs. Charteris I was told there was no such person staying in the hotel. I had to ask for Miss Langton."
"I am traveling as Miss Langton," she explains, simply, yet coloring crimson under his keen, cool gaze.
"May I ask why?" with an unconscious touch of pique in his tone.
"No, you may not ask," with a great deal of dignity in her tone; then, suddenly: "Yet I think you should know I am too sensitive to claim the name you will not accord me of your own free will."
She opens the scrawl he has sent her awhile ago, holding it open before his eyes. There is neither name nor address upon it.
"I, upon my word, I beg your pardon. It was entirely—I give you my word of honor—unintentional; a mere omission. I was so flurried, you see, and somehow I forgot. Can you forgive me?" he stammers.
"With pleasure," she returns, coolly, looking away from his shamed countenance. "But we have digressed from our subject. We were talking of Maud and the note you hold. How can you withhold it from her when you know that her very life hangs upon it?"
"Reine, do you know that I hate that woman?" he cries, with subdued fierceness.
"Then you never loved her," she replied, decisively.
"I did; but her falsity turned my love to hate," he answers, moodily.
"No," she answers.
An utter silence which she breaks again, anxiously: "You will not refuse my prayer? Give me the note and let me go to Maud."
He turns from her sullenly and looks out of the window at the blue, sun-gilded waves breaking in snowy foam against the shell-strewn shore.
"You could not let her suffer for a crime of which she is innocent," the pleading voice goes on.
"I suffered innocently," he says, shortly enough, without turning around. "Why did she make me a mark for the finger of scorn?"
"You can live that down," she answers. "But she, her very life is at stake. Do not forget that if she suffers the full penalty of the law, for this crime of which she is not guilty, her blood will be on your hands. You will, in the sight of God, and to my knowledge, be Maud's Langton's murderer."
Though he will not turn around, she sees the strong shudder that shakes his frame.
"You will be a haunted man," she goes on, relentlessly. "By day and by night you will dream of the girl you have slain. You will remember always that the golden head you hoped to pillow on your breast is laid low in a dishonored grave."
"For God's sake, Reine, why do you torment me so?" he cries, turning fiercely round upon her.
"For Maud's sake, and your own sake, and for humanity's sake, and my own sake," she retorts, bravely. "That Maud's innocence may be vindicated, that you may be saved from the evil consequences of your wicked revenge, that the world may see how divine a thing is repentance and forgiveness, and that I," her brave voice falls to a low, pathetic cadence, "that I may not have to die of shame because I have given my heart to one so lost to honor, truth and mercy."
Vane Charteris stands like one stunned a moment.
"What a little vixen it is," he says to himself, darkly. "There is no end to her tongue."
"I know what you are saying to yourself," the girl breaks in, vivaciously; "you are wishing I would go away and leave you alone——"
"You are mistaken," he replies, thinking of a way to put her to confusion, and silence her tongue that is but a little louder than his own accusing conscience. "I was thinking of what you said just now. Is it really true that you have given me your heart?"
The warm, red color creeps up to her temples under the blue fire of his steady, curious eyes. She rallies herself with a brave little effort of will.
"Yes," she answers, with a little touch of pathos in her low voice. "It is quite true. Does it amuse you? It is only a girl's heart. You will break it and throw it from you of course. I have often heard that women's hearts were men's playthings."
He regards her in curious silence. Few women would be brave enough to make that frank admission to a cold, careless, unloving husband. Yet Reine is as proud as the most, she lacks none of the modesty of her sex.
There is a curious, restrained pride in her every look and movement now. And, strange to say, he does not feel disgusted at her pathetic admission of her love for him.
"She loves me," he repeats over and over to his heart, looking at the lissome, daintily rounded figure, and the brilliant face, bright and rich like a tropical flower, with the softness of emotion lying on it like dew. "She loves me," and there is a certain masculine vanity in the thought that he, Vane Charteris, is the lode-star of her girlish dreams.
But before he can think of anything to say, she goes back, pertinacious, to the old theme:
"But we have digressed from the original subject. Once more, Mr. Charteris, will you give me the note?"
And he answers, bluntly, almost angrily:
"No, I will not."
And for the first time since their interview, Reine shows a sign of weakness. She reels unsteadily, and throws up her white hands in the air.
"I have failed, I have failed," she cries, despairingly. "Oh, you are merciless; you are a veritable Shylock. Nothing will sate your thirst for vengeance but a pound of flesh!"
He catches the falling figure in his arms. For one moment the white, anguished face rests against his breast, then she opens her eyes and struggles from his clasp.
"Do not touch me," she says, with indignant scorn. "You are a monster!"
And his own conscience, knocking loudly at the door of his heart, echoes the words.
"Reine, Reine," he falters, hurriedly, "do not be hasty. Give me a little time. I will answer you to-morrow."
"You take back your refusal?" brightening so swiftly that you think of the sun coming out from under a cloud.
"Until to-morrow—yes," he says, feeling a sort of relief at his own words. "You can wait until then?"
"Yes, for I cannot go until to-morrow. Did I forget to tell you that Uncle Langton is with me?"
"Is he, really?"
"Yes, and I fear the trip has been too much for him, poor old dear," with loving compassion. "He feels worn and tired. He is lying down this morning. Will you go to him?"
"I shall be very glad. Does he—does he know why you came?"
"No," quietly; then, flushing: "You will not mind if he is a little cross, and—and fault finding? He is so old, you know, and then he is tired and half sick."
"I shall not mind," he answers, a little grimly, as he follows her through a small suite of rooms to Mr. Langton's own especial one.
"Mr. Charteris is here, uncle," she says, quietly ushering the visitor in, and sensitively withdrawing.
Vane Charteris, entering the cool, breezy white room, with its wide windows opening upon the sea, encounters the half-indignant gaze of his old friend, who is lying on a low couch in a silken dressing-gown and tasseled cap, his wrinkled old hands grasping the knob of his gold-headed cane, which he proceeds to thump viciously on the floor at the young man's entrance, thereby expressing the war-like state of his mind.
"I hope I see you well, Mr. Langton," airily observes the handsome young "reprobate," as Mr. Langton mentally dubs him.
"Then you'll be disappointed," snaps the old millionaire, irefully. "Never was so mortally used up before in my life. Soul and body will scarcely hold together. And all on your account, you disobedient young rascal."
"Disobedient?" Mr. Charteris queries, in a mild tone, slightly arching his eyebrows.
"Disobedient, yes;" with an emphatic thump of the cane. "Didn't you receive my telegram ordering you to remain in New York until I came?"
"Ye-es, I did," admits the culprit, with no great show of repentance, "but being, according to the old law, free, white, and twenty-one, I didn't seem to see that I was under any man's orders."
"Nor any woman's either?" testily.
"Nor any woman's either," Vane repeats, undauntedly.
"At least I expected a show of courtesy from a young fellow whom I had tried hard to benefit," Mr. Langton retorts, with his stiffest air.
Whereat Mr. Charteris, after a little ambiguous cough, puts on a show of meekness.
"Ah, there I see my naughtiness," he says. "I acted like a churl. There can be no two opinions as to that. But, sir, if you could only know the madness of the passion that drove me on, I think you might find some excuse for me in your heart."
Mr. Langton, differing from him on this latter point, says nothing in reply, but discreetly changes the conversation.
"You talked with Reine?" he inquires.
"Oh, yes; or, I may say, she talked with me," this ruefully.
Mr. Langton at this chuckled heartlessly.
"She has a sharp tongue of her own, I warrant you," he says.
"Inherited honestly enough," replies Mr. Charteris, with a pointed bow at the old gentleman.
"Yes—yes; chip of the old block," Mr. Langton retorts, in nowise disconcerted at the hint of his niece's resemblance to himself. "Well, Vane, this mission on which she has followed you abroad—has she broached it?"
His yet keen eyes detect the flush that steals up to the young man's temples as he replies in the affirmative.
"I hope it was concluded to her satisfaction."
"It has not been decided yet," Vane replies, with no little embarrassment.
"I may not venture to inquire into its nature?" Mr. Langton asks, curiously.
"No, I think not—at least, not just yet. Later on you shall hear, perhaps," Vane responds, ambiguously, and with very palpable confusion.
They have some desultory conversation, then Mr. Langton asks, casually:
"Well, and have you enjoyed your 'outing?'"
"Recklessly," responds he.
"I don't think I quite enter into your meaning," the old millionaire retorts; and Vane, laughing carelessly, replies:
"I mean I have enjoyed it down to the ground, as the fellows say here."
"Humph! looks as if you had been dissipating straight through," Mr. Langton comments, glaring keenly at him under his shaggy brows. "You don't ask me anything about that wretched girl," he says, startlingly.
"Reine has told me," Vane replies, pale to the lips.
"Serves her right. I can't, for my life, feel sorry for the treacherous little cat! To think that she should have treated me so!" said the vindictive old man.
"This affair is likely to go hard with her," says Vane, with admirably-acted indifference.
"Pooh! nothing of the sort," Mr. Langton returns, trying to salve his uneasy conscience. "No danger of such a pretty girl as Maud coming to grief. That cold, white beauty that reminds you," maliciously, "of a lily, would win over any jury in the world."
They discussed the subject a little while, carelessly, almost unfeelingly, it would seem, since Maud Langton has been so much to them both a little while ago; then the old millionaire turns carelessly, to all intent, to another subject.
"Do you know it seemed to me superlatively ridiculous to be dragging my old, sapless bones so far as this, dancing attendance on another man's wife?"
Vane colors, then turns aside the implied reproach.
"It must have weighed upon you, certainly," he responds. "I am rather surprised at such thoughtlessness, even on the part of Reine. Why did you let her persuade you?"
"Nothing of the kind. I simply came in spite of her. Did you think I would have suffered your wife to come alone, Vane?"
"Will you smoke?" Mr. Charteris inquires, proffering a choice Havana, and lighting one himself.
Mr. Langton, taking one gingerly between his fingers, resumes:
"There is a good deal more to Reine than we thought for. I am downright pleased over the exchange of heiresses I made. I wish now, seeing how all fell out, that I had taken her without encumbrance."
"Meaning me?" Vane asks, with an uncomfortable flush.
"Meaning you," Mr. Langton replies, beginning to puff away furiously at his Havana, as if he were a smoke-stack. "You see I am mistaken in you, Vane. After all you said I didn't believe it was in you to treat your bride in such a cavalier style. If I had thought you would really run away from Reine the next day, and set all the country talking and sneering, you might have gone to the devil before I'd have given you my pretty little niece!"
"The regret is mutual, sir," Vane replies, with some heat; and then, glancing up, warned by some strange instinct, he sees his unloved wife standing just within the door.
She has entered just in time to catch Mr. Langton's closing speech and the angry answer.
Vane sprang to his feet, very red and confused.
"I—I beg your pardon," he says, in the utmost confusion.
She bows, speechlessly. Her face has gone quite white; her eyes shun his in a kind of fearful shame. She says at last, in a strange voice, but with desperate calmness:
"I feared Uncle Langton would be rude to you. You must pardon him, and pardon me."
"For what?" he gains courage to ask, a little blankly.
"For our share in making you unhappy," she answers, very low.
Something in the proud humility of her attitude strikes a remorseful pang through his heart.
She stands alone in the center of the room, slender and graceful as a young palm tree, her head drooped slightly forward, the dew of unfallen tears shining like pearls in her long, dark lashes. She is like, yet unlike, the giddy Reine of a month ago.
"There is nothing to pardon," he says, in a flurried tone, "Mr. Langton was right. I have acted very badly—like a brute, in fact. You must wish you had never seen me."
"Yes," she says, low, but steadily. "It would have been so much better for you."
"I did not mean that," says he, disconcerted.
"You are good enough to say so," she replies, with delicate disbelief, and then she goes up to her uncle.
"The physician you sent for is here," she says. "Shall I send him in?"
"Are you so bad as that?" Vane asks, with a slight start.
"Yes; I can scarce hold myself together," Mr. Langton replies, and his trembling old hands attest the truth of his words. "I must have something for my nerves or I shall not be able to stir from this to-morrow."
Vane rises, glad to get away under any terms.
"Au revoir," he says. "I will call again to-morrow."
He goes back to the Haven of Rest with the poets, æsthetes and such people, lounging on the balconies. That name is a misnomer. It appears to him a haven of unrest. He wanders away to the shell-strewn beach, and smokes like a chimney while he reviews the situation.
Meanwhile, the physician attending Mr. Langton has thrown a bomb-shell into that camp.
"You are quite broken down and exhausted," is his dictum. "Rest and recuperation are what you need. I will leave you a tonic, and in about ten days you may be well enough to be taken for a short drive, and in two days more you may be strong enough to walk down to the sea-shore, and——"
"Distraction, man!" thunders the irascible invalid. "Do you think I have come to this place to stay a year? No, sir. I am going to start back to America to-morrow."
"But, my friend, you know that is quite impossible," laughs the stout, good-natured physician. "At your time of life, recuperation goes on but slowly, and——"
"I tell you I'm as young as I ever was," this from Mr. Langton, in tones of mulish obstinacy.
"And I tell you you're breaking down of old age, and you'll not stir from this for two weeks; if you do you'll risk your life. You understand me, young lady?" turning to Reine.
"Yes, sir, and your directions shall be implicitly carried out."
"But, Reine," he objects when the doctor has gone, "you know you said it would be impossible we should stay beyond to-morrow."
"We must manage some way—you must not be hurt by our haste. We will go as soon as we can, that is all," she answers, patting his cheek, then turning gently from him to the window.
The dark, blue waves go splashing softly past under the gaze of her dark, sad eyes. A thought comes into her mind:
"Another day. Never was mortal so glad to behold daylight," ejaculated Vane Charteris, yawning with all the weariness of one who has seen the long hours of a sleepless night glide past.
This is somewhat an unusual experience for our hero, but for once mind has so far triumphed over matter as to keep the drowsy god Somnus far away. A day and a night have been passed in vexing thought. Now when the first golden beams of sunshine gild the sea, he rises weary and unrefreshed, and goes for a stroll on the shore, this early outing being also a novel experience for him.
Early as it appears to him, others are astir before him. He meets several people returning from an early morning dip in the briny element.
Down on the sands he comes face to face with a vision fresh and fair as the summer morn itself—Reine, in a graceful boating dress, stepping lightly into a little boat that rides at anchor on the tide.
As she takes up the oars with consummate skill, his voice falls on her hearing, giving her a shock of surprise:
"Good morning; will you carry a passenger?"
She lifts to him her lovely face, flushed with a Hebe-like bloom, the light of the new day sunning itself goldenly in her pansy-dark eyes.
Somehow in this out-of-doors chance encounter there is none of the embarrassment that would attend a formal meeting in the house. There is even some of the old time badinage and sauciness in her tones as she replies:
"Can I believe my ears or my eyes? Mr. Charteris out at this unheard-of hour? I thought you 'never, never——'"
"'Well, hardly ever,'" he returns, with a spice of malice. "How came you to do it yourself?"
"Because I always do, you know," she returns, smilingly. "I have been out some time; I have had a glorious bath in the sea this morning, have you?"
He laughs no, and again renews his petition to be taken in, to which she assents, carelessly.
"I did not know you could manage a boat," he observes, as with a skillful sweep of the oars she turns the little craft forward, dancing lightly on the crest of the waves.
"Did you not? Well, that is not strange, seeing how little you know of me anyway. I am a good swimmer, too. You would not have guessed that?" she says, lightly.
"No, and yet it is a knowledge all women should possess," he returns. "Where have you learned these things?"
"My father taught me. He wanted me to be thorough in such things as well as in more lady-like accomplishments."
"He must have been a sensible man," Mr. Charteris comments to himself, and then there is a silence broken only by the soft, steady splash of the oars in the water. An embarrassing consciousness has fallen over both. Vane is thinking to himself that after all there may be some excuse for the brusquerie and wildness of the little savage, as he sometimes unkindly termed her in his thoughts. He remembers what Maud had told him of her tuition under her father. Masculine training would be apt to give her that touch of wildness.
She in her turn studies him shyly, but intently. She sees the haggard impress of the sleepless night on the pale, handsome face, and about the dark-blue eyes, with their slight heaviness and the faint blue circles around them. Impulsively she speaks:
"You have thought the matter well over. You will forego your revenge and save Maud?"
"Why should you think so? What sign have I given of yielding?" he asks, curiously.
"Your face, even your voice betrays you. If you had decided to refuse my prayer, you would look and speak differently. You would despise yourself, and your very looks would reveal it."
"I did not know you were such a close observer," he replies, "but it is true. You have saved me from myself, Reine."
As he speaks he leans forward, tossing a folded paper into her lap. The oars lie idle a moment, as they drift at the mercy of the wind and tide, while she reads the precious note.
Then she lifts her eyes, full of eloquent thankfulness, to his face.
"I expected no less of you," she says. "I knew you could not be so cruel to Maud."
The handsome blonde face darkens.
"It was not solely for Maud's sake," he replies. "Pray remember that I would not have yielded to you, Reine, only—only you showed me so plainly what a monster I was, and how truly I would be that false girl's murderer if I persevered. And then—then, I could not bear to have my wife ashamed of me."
He looks away consciously as he speaks. A thousand tingling little arrows of rapture shoot through her frame as the low words, "my wife," fall from his lips; spoken not harshly nor sneeringly, but kindly, almost tenderly. Is it possible, she asks herself, in thrilling silence, that he may one day forgive her, and be kind to her—nay, even give her love for love?
"I remembered," he goes on, even more kindly, "that this was the first request my wife had made of me, and I could not choose but grant it."
He can be dangerously winning when he pleases. It pleased him to be so then—perhaps to try his power over her. The result is quite satisfactory. The rich color leaps to her cheeks, the light of joy flashes into her deep, dark eyes, the low-breathed answer is freighted with emotion.
"I thank you more than I can express for your kindness," she answers, earnestly. "You make me very happy."
"Then, while you are in that pleasant mood, there is something I must ask you," he ventures.
"Yes?" She flashes him a bright, swift look of inquiry.
He is silent for a moment. He has an air of confusion that does not sit ill upon him.
"Reine," he says, "it was all a mistake, your traveling under your maiden name. It—it places you in a false position."
"No one knows aught of us here—it cannot matter," she replies, with a blush, and quickly-drawn breath.
He studies the beautiful face attentively. How fair, how young, how lovely it is. How sweet the heart-shaped, crimson lips, how long and dark the lashes that droop against her cheeks. How luxuriant and long the silken tresses that float like a banner on the fresh morning breeze. And she loves him; some strange, sweet thrill strikes through him whenever he recalls the truth she had owned with such pathetic frankness.
"I have acted badly—no one realizes that fact more than I do," he continues, gravely; "but, Reine that is past. I am your husband; you are my wife, shall we let bygones be bygones and begin again?"
"You mean——" she says, giving him a little wondering look.
"I mean," he replies, "that I will go back to America to-day with you, and I will try to do my duty by you in future if only you will forgive me for shirking it in the first instance, and running away in such a dastardly fashion."
Two crimson spots rise into her cheeks, her lashes fall lower.
"But—but we are not going back to-day," she explains, in an agitated voice, telling him what her uncle's physician had said.
"Not get away for two weeks?" he says. "Very well, Reine, then I shall leave the Haven of Rest and come to stay at Sea View Hotel, and it must be publicly made known that you are mine."
"Indeed you will not, then," she breaks out with sudden self-assertion. "I am not willing."
"Not willing?" he cries, and Reine's quick ear fancies it detects a tone of relief in his voice. "You refuse to be my wife, Reine—woman-like, taking revenge for a transient wrong."
"It is not that," she says, falteringly; "I am not angry with you, Vane, but it is best to—to wait."
"Until when?" he asks, bending his curious eyes on the bright, arch face.
And looking frankly at him, she replies, gently:
"Until love comes."
"Until love comes?" he repeats, blankly. "But I thought you owned——"
"Yes, I know," she says, checking him with uplifted finger, "but I mean mutual love."
With a light dip of the oars she whirls the boat around on its homeward way. The graceful head is poised in a free, half-haughty fashion. He cannot understand the strange look on the dusky, lovely face. It is neither pride nor humility, yet a strange blending of both.
After a moment she says in her clear, sweet voice, toned to a softer cadence than usual:
"Do not think me stubborn that I refuse to own your claim just now, Vane—I am proud in my own way. I cannot come to you until you wish it from your heart."
He is silent, gazing at her in sheer perplexity. She goes on gently:
"You see I was deceived at first, Vane—not willfully—I do not accuse you of that, but I fancied there must be in your heart some little spark of tenderness for love to grow upon. When I found out my mistake—how my uncle had forced the match upon you, and how but for my too eager consent Maud might have been yours, I—well, it was hard to bear! So I would rather wait, Vane—until the year you wished is over. Perhaps by then, the soreness of your regret for—another—will be past, and your heart may be open to me."
Has the moisture of the sea got into his eyes that they look so dim? He draws his handkerchief across them, and can find no words to answer. So she resumes, after a minute's weary waiting:
"I am not perverse, Vane. I am not fighting against my fate—only trying to make the best of it. You will give me a fair chance to win your heart before I wear your name? Will you not?"
"Yes," he answers, wondering at her strangeness.
"Thank you. Now we will return to my uncle. I will take the liberty to invite you to breakfast with him. Will you come?"
"Yes, thank you," he replies, and the little boat touching the shore, they spring out and go up the walk together, both very silent and thoughtful. He begins to think that Mr. Langton's quaint phrase of yesterday is true. "There is more in Reine than we suspected."
A sociable breakfast for three being laid in Mr. Langton's room, the small party proceed to enjoy it, Vane and Reine with appetites sharpened by the early morning air, and the sharp sea-breeze.
The old millionaire regards the young people curiously beneath his shaggy brows. Something in their expressions makes him say, confidently:
"You have come to an understanding regarding that secret mission, you two, I see."
"Yes," Reine answers, giving him a radiant glance from under her drooping, black-fringed lashes.
"And you are ready to return to America?"
"As soon as you are strong enough," Reine makes answer, trying not to let him see her inward anxiety to be gone.
"It is too bad that this old hulk of mine should be the means of detaining you," he grumbles. "What shall you do now?"
She lifts her dark, inquiring eyes to the face of Mr. Charteris. He nods, affirmatively.
"I will tell you, uncle," she replies. "I shall write to Maud's counsel, and tell him I have found the missing note, and that I shall soon return, bringing it with me. He must obtain a stay of proceedings until my return."
"And this was your mission abroad?" Mr. Langton queries, surprised.
She smiles and nods, and Mr. Charteris comes in for his share of the old man's scrutiny.
"Then you had the note, Vane!" he says.
"Yes, sir," he responds, rather shame-facedly.
Mr. Langton looks from one to the other of the expressive faces, and comes to a very fair comprehension of the truth.
After a moment passed in silent thought, he breaks out with irrepressible enthusiasm:
"Reine, you are a trump!" whereat both the young people laugh with contagious merriment.
"Where are you staying, Vane?" Mr. Langton queries.
"At the Haven of Rest. I wished to change my quarters to the Sea View Hotel, but this imperious little lady here forbids me," he replies.
The keen little old eyes turn curiously on the crimsoning face of the girl.
"Why should you do that?" he asks, and stammering some incoherent excuse Reine flies from the room.
Then Vane rather ruefully explains the reason. To tell the truth he begins to feel ashamed of himself, the more so that Mr. Langton applauds Reine's determination.
"I am proud of her," he declared. "I was vexed at first. I thought she meant to follow you and plead her own case. Now I cannot help but glory in her nobility and her reasonable pride. She has the head of a Solomon on her young shoulders. If you were not blind, Vane, you could not fail to see what an adorable girl you have married."
"She is different from what I thought, certainly," Vane admits, gravely.
"She can hold her own—I am glad of that," Mr. Langton grunts, amicably. "You see you could not have her for the asking. Serves you right. There is hardly any excuse for the way you acted."
"It was outrageous, certainly," Vane answers, with admirable penitence, "but I wish she would have made it up and let me come here. The Haven of Rest is a dry place certainly—given up to invalids and poky people."
"I hear that Sea View is rather gay," Mr. Langton replies. "Some new people arrived this morning. There is talk of a ball to-night."
"A ball! Will Reine go down?" Mr. Charteris inquires.
"Scarcely, I think. You see I shall not be able to escort her."
"Perhaps she will allow me that honor," Mr. Charteris observes, promptly.
"Perhaps so," Mr. Langton responds, with a dry smile.
The ball comes off. Vane constitutes himself the attendant cavalier of Reine. In a white lace dress with Marechal Neil roses on her breast and in her hair, she has never looked more brilliant and beautiful. There is a softened grace about her, a new light in her eyes that is wondrously winning. She is withal a perfect dancer, embodying the very poetry of motion.
Some very pretty girls are present, some very nice men, but Reine is the belle of the ball. Mr. Charteris looks on in surprise. Reine had not been appreciated at Langton Villa.
"You have not given me a single dance," he says to her late in the evening.
"You have not asked me," she replies, in just the slightest tone of reproach, "and now I cannot; my card is full."
She floats away with a partner who has just claimed her. Vane, leaning carelessly against a chair in the corner, watches her languidly. She seems to enjoy herself. Smiles hover on the crimson lips, the dark eyes flash beneath their curling lashes.
Suddenly someone comes up to him—an acquaintance he has formed in London, and who has, somehow, found his way to this secluded spot.
"Ah, Charteris, how-de-do," the new-comer says, unceremoniously. "Who is the dark-eyed beauty? I've been watching her this half hour."
"Which one, Sir George?" with affected nonchalance.
"By Jove! there is but one, you know, the divinity in white lace and yellow roses. I saw you speaking to her just now," returns Sir George Wilde, with a look of interest in his handsome brown eyes.
"That!" says Mr. Charteris, "oh, that is—Miss Langton," with a curious hesitation over the name.
"Friend of yours?" inquires the dashing young baronet.
"Slight acquaintance," Charteris answers, warily.
"A compatriot, I take it," pursues Sir George.
Vane nods affirmatively.
"You'll introduce me, then?"
"With her permission," Vane responds, a trifle stiffly.
"That, of course," laughs Sir George.
A little later Vane goes to her to proffer his request. She stands for the moment alone in the embrasure of a window, her dark eyes turned from the giddy dancers out upon the mystic, lonely sea, with the moon and stars asleep upon its breast. He tells her, watching the bright face narrowly, that an English baronet has been so attracted by her beauty that he desires an introduction. Will she accord it?
The laughing, dark eyes, a spice of mischief in their starry depths, glance up into his own.
"A baronet!" she says, making a little round O of her rosy mouth. "Do you think, Mr. Charteris, I could really bear the burden of such an honor without being crushed by it?"
"You can but try," he retorts, lightly. "England expects every man and every woman to do their duty."
"Then I am ready for the sacrifice," she laughs, as lightly.
He looks at her a moment in thoughtful silence.
"Well?" she asks, interpreting a question in his look.
"It is this, then, Reine: I am placed in an awkward position. How shall I introduce you—as Miss Langton, or as—as Mrs. Charteris?"
He flushes uncomfortably as the words leave his lips. His bride's face reflects the crimson glow. After a minute she replies, with outward indifference:
"Better, perhaps, as—Miss Langton, according to our agreement this morning."
Some slight feeling of pique rises in his heart. He will not own to himself that when he condescended to ask her the question he had thought to give her pleasure, and had felt, too, that he should not be ashamed to see this peerlessly-lovely girl wearing his name.
"Perhaps she does not really care for me as she pretended," he thinks to himself, and the first spark of jealousy is lighted in his heart when he sees her long lashes fall before Sir George's admiring gaze, and sees with what calm and graceful self-possession she acknowledges the introduction to the handsome, titled nobleman. "Who would have thought, when she first came to Langton Villa, that the wild little 'school ma'am' had so much dignity?" he thinks. "Is it, after all, a new phase of her character, or was I simply blinded then by my admiration for Maud? It seems that Sir George is irresistibly attracted by her graces. What can he see in the girl that I was blind to?"
And full of this wonder, he sets himself to watch the young baronet, who hovers around Reine with the palpable desire of the "moth for the star."
The whole room sees his admiration, and smiles at the fair American's conquest.
Vane is a good deal amused, and unknowingly piqued.
"What barefaced admiration," he says, within himself. "The young dandy is falling in love with my wife, confound him!"
At a rather early hour the next morning, Mr. Charteris is astir, and out upon the sands.
Not so early as some others, though, he finds, for in a merry group of young people on the sands, he meets Sir George Wilde in close proximity to Reine. Vane, giving them a careless good-morning, passes on to some little distance, where he pauses with folded arms, and a slightly sulky aspect, to look out over the wide waste of heaving sea, his shapely back turned resolutely on the merry-makers.
"Confound the fellow's impudence," he remarks to himself, with needless savagery. "How he follows her around. Of course she would rather be with me. She loves me, or pretends to."
Why he should feel vexed at Sir George's monopoly of his, Vane's, unloved bride he could not explain to himself. Yet the feeling is there.
Glancing furtively over his shoulder, and seeing the undeniably handsome and well-matched pair strolling on side by side, creates a feeling of decided ill-humor within him.
"It is quite a flirtation," he tells himself. "Reine should know better, being a married woman. But perhaps she has taken a fancy to the fellow. Perhaps she was mistaken in the notion that she cared for me. She had seen no one else then. But now, meeting this handsome, spoony young baronet, she may regret this nasty marriage as much as I do."
While these thoughts flash through his mind, the gay hum of voices die away. The party have gone out of sight, and a sudden resolution comes into Vane's mind.
"I'll go and breakfast with the old gentleman again," he thinks. "After all it's only the proper thing to call and inquire for his health. Of course Reine will not have come in from her walk yet."
In this he deceives himself. Reine is there by the side of the old man's couch, with a lapful of rosy-tinted shells which she is displaying with a good deal of childish pleasure in their acquisition.
"Sir George found this one; isn't it a beauty?" she is saying, vivaciously, as the door opens, and Mr. Charteris is ushered in.
A start, a blush, a dimpling smile. She rises, gathering her treasures, child-like, in her apron overskirt.
Mr. Charteris, vouchsafing her a careless nod, passes on to Mr. Langton.
"I hope I find you better this morning, and rested?" he observes, taking the chair Reine places, without seeming to see her.
"A trifle easier, yes," Mr. Langton responds, with more than ordinary graciousness, and then Vane steals a furtive glance at Reine.
Some of the brightness that came into her face at his entrance has faded from it. She has quietly seated herself again, her long lashes droop to the shells in her lap, which she fingers rather at random.
"So the baronet helped you gather shells," he remarks, condescendingly.
She looks up, with returning smiles.
"Yes," she returns, spreading the pretty collection out to view. "Will you look at them? Some are quite pretty."
"Reine has been telling me about your friend," put in Mr. Langton. "He was very kind."
"Not my friend, a mere acquaintance," Vane replies with acerbity. "I saw him a few times in London; he is wild, rather."
"Indeed! and I thought him so nice," Reine says, with dismay.
"So he is nice; wildness, a little, you know, doesn't count," Vane hastens to say, ashamed of the spirit in which he has spoken a moment before. "Sir George is unexceptionable, rich, titled, and all that. He is what the ladies term a most desirable parti. A pity you are a-a-already married, Reine."
"Were I free he could be nothing to me," Reine retorts, a crimson flame coming to her cheeks.
Mr. Langton, struck by something in Vane's tone, looks from one to the other of the flushed faces, and says, laughingly:
"O-ho, my fine young lad, jealous, are you?"
Mr. Charteris is positively indignant.
"Don't tease, if you please, Mr. Langton," he retorts, with immense dignity. "Jealousy only exists with love, you know. And I haven't pretended to fall in love with my wife yet!"
With this most ungenerous stab, he flies out of the room in a passion.
The rosy-lipped shells fall unheeded from Reine's lap to the floor as she rises and stands before her uncle, the bitter tears of shame crowding into her eyes.
"Oh, Uncle Langton, how could you—how could you?" she cries, in bitter distress. "It—it is too—too absurd. He never could, you know——"
"There—there, don't cry, dear," he soothes, gently. "I am an old bungler, I know, and I shouldn't have said it so plain, but the fact remains. Vane Charteris, whether he knows it or not, is falling in love with you, my dear, and is correspondingly jealous of the baronet's attentions to you."
The beautiful dark eyes looked at him incredulously. She shakes her head.
"You are mistaken," she answers, decidedly. "Your hopes mislead you. Confess now," smiling pensively through her tears, "that 'the wish was father to the thought.'"
"Perhaps so," he answers, willing to drop the subject and sorry he had agitated it.
Vane goes home rather ruefully, without breakfasting with Mr. Langton, as he had promised himself.
"What possessed me to be so rude, I wonder?" he soliloquizes. "Though I did not love her, it was awkward and ill-considered to cast it in her teeth. I begin to believe that it is I who am brusk and unmannerly, not she."
The day goes, long and wearily it seems to Vane, who is conscious of some new feeling he cannot realize, perhaps does not try to.
He smokes and reads, turning an unsociable cold shoulder on the rather dry habitues of the hotel. In the evening, drawn by "a spirit in his feet," and thoroughly ennuyed with his own society, he saunters over to the Sea View Hotel.
On his way he meditates rather slowly.
"It is doubtful whether she will receive me," his musings run. "I was rude this morning. Of course the little spitfire will resent it. She has too much spirit to tamely brook such shameless impudence. I certainly forgot myself in my vexation at that stupid old man."
The wide balcony of the Sea View presents a pleasant sight. A dozen or two of "young men and maidens" are assembled on it, some sitting, some walking, but one and all flirting with the greatest interest and delight.
Vane's quick eye singles out one solitary figure sitting apart from the rest, a slight, girlish one in white, the dark head bent over a book.
To this figure Vane goes forward, not without a lurking dread of meeting a petulant repulse.
He stops behind her chair, and Reine, startled, looks around.
Vane is relieved to find that there is no resentment in her face, only a new, sweet gravity a little strange to see on the piquant, girlish face.
"Ah, it is you, Mr. Charteris!" she says, carelessly. "You left us so unceremoniously this morning, I fear—thought you would not return."
Vane slips into the chair beside her, his heart unconsciously lightened of the burden that has weighed it down all day.
"To tell the truth I was half-afraid to come," he answers; "I was very rude to you this morning, and I knew you had reason to resent it, and expected you would. You remember you were wont to give me a piece of your mind very often in the days 'when we were first acquainted.'"
"Yes, but things are changed, you know," she returns, gently.
Reine is changed too. The thought flashes over him suddenly as he looks at her keenly, taking advantage of her momentary obliviousness of his presence.
She has folded her very small and slender white hands across the book in her lap, and is gazing a little dreamily out to sea.
The dark eyes are not so free and glad as they were of old.
They have grown larger and vaguely sad, the peachy cheek, rounded daintily like a child's, is pale to-day, the crimson lips have a slight, pathetic droop. Something in the softened loveliness of the brilliant face goes to his heart like a wordless reproach.
For a moment he regrets the arch, daring, sparkling face that used to flash defiance at him and his opinions.
"You are changed, too, Reine," he says, unconsciously putting his thought into words. "You used to scold me when I was naughty. I hope you are not afraid of me now because you are my wife?"
A great wave of color surges into her cheek at his words. She turns on him the half-shy gaze of the frank, dark eyes.
"Afraid of you—oh, no, it is not that," she says. "But you disliked my wild ways so much that I have tried to be more what you wished me, more dignified, more gentle."
He looks at her with a half question in his blue eyes, a flush on his handsome face.
"Like Maud," she explains, further.
"Like Maud—why, really," he begins, with supreme anger and sarcasm, but she interrupts him, somewhat incoherently:
"I thought—I was told, I mean that—that I was to stay with Uncle Langton a year, and be formed over into a woman like Maud."
His blue eyes darken with shame and anger.
"So you have heard that!" he says, with self-contempt. "I was a fool, a dolt. Give over the attempt, Reine. You can never be like Maud any more than—than a rose is like a lily!"
"So I thought," she answers, visibly abashed. "Maud is so grand, and white, and queenly, and I am so little, and dark, and ugly."
"That is not true," he answers, hastily. "You are beautiful, Reine. I am sure you know that. You are like a beautiful 'queen-rose,' all sweetness, color and dew, 'set round with little willful thorns.' Maud is like a grand white calla lily, beautiful, but devoid of sweetness and perfume."
"The lily is the most beautiful of all flowers," the girl answers, sighing.
"But the rose is the emblem of love," he replies, smiling as the swift color floods her cheeks.
She has no answer ready, and he goes on with some embarrassment:
"Do not try to be like Maud, Reine. Though so beautiful and stately, she was mercenary and treacherous. Perhaps a less perfect manner is preferable with a heart free from guile. Do you not think so?"
Before she can reply, Sir George Wilde comes up to them. His eyes rest admiringly on the beautiful, graceful, dark-eyed girl by the side of Vane Charteris.
"Sentimentalizing and reading poetry?" says the intruder, looking at Reine's book. "Upon my word it is simply shocking, the number of flirtations going on this evening. Miss Langton, let me see your verses," coolly taking the open volume from her hand.
Vane, looking off to sea, unreasonably vexed, and out of humor, hears him reading in a clear, full voice, the lines on which Reine's hands have been closely folded since he sat down by her.