Guy Kenmore's Wife, and The Rose and the Lily

"I must confess to an almost feminine curiosity regarding your promised story of your beautiful protege."

"You wish to hear it now?" said the lady, smilingly.

"Yes," he admitted, frankly.

"After all there is little to tell," she replied. "I know actually nothing of her except that she is a beautiful, fascinating mystery."

"A mystery—how?" he asked.

"I will tell you," she said, "for I do not suppose it is any betrayal of confidence. If I do not tell it you will hear it from others who love her less than I do."

"No one could appreciate your confidence more than I will do," he said, eagerly.

Mrs. Leslie's heart beat quickly. She believed that Mr. Kenmore held the key to the mystery she had promised to unravel for Clarence Stuart. She determined to tell him Irene's story, in the hope of eliciting a like confidence.

"It is nearly four months now since we left Richmond for Italy," she began. "We sailed in Mr. Stuart's own yacht."

"Yes. I saw that fact duly announced in the Richmond papers," he observed.

"But, pardon me for having interrupted your story. Please go on."

"It was the tenth of June when we left Richmond—I like to be particular as to dates," said Mrs. Leslie. "Well, it was lovely weather, and we all planned to get up early the next morning and see the sun rise over the sea. We did so, and as you may be aware, it was a glorious sight; but we only got one glimpse of it, for its first beams showed us a more tragic and interesting sight."

Mr. Kenmore caught his breath, and gazed eagerly at the speaker.

"It was a loud scream for help that first attracted our attention," said Mrs. Leslie. "The sound was not very far away, and we all turned instinctively toward it. To our horror we saw on the level, sun-lighted waves a floating plank, with a human figure clinging to its frail support. Literally, there remained but one plank between her and eternity."

"Ah!" exclaimed Guy Kenmore, with a shudder.

"Mr. Stuart is one of the bravest men in the world, I think. He immediately sprang over the side of the yacht into the sea, and swam toward the floating figure. Before he reached her she lost her hold of the plank, and sank under the water. Mr. Stuart instantly dived, and brought her up in his arms."

"He saved her life. How strange," exclaimed Mr. Kenmore, as if speaking to himself.

"Do you think so?" she asked, looking at him keenly. "Why strange, Mr. Kenmore?"

"I beg your pardon. I did not express myself properly," he said, biting his lips nervously. "Well, Mrs. Leslie, do you mean to tell me that the heroine of that romantic episode was the beautiful Miss Berlin?"

"Yes, it was she," replied Mrs. Leslie.

There was a minute's dead pause. Irene was singing again. In the stillness her full, sweet voice floated out to them softly:

"Go! be sure of my love—by that treason forgiven,Of my prayers, by the blessings they win thee from Heaven;Of my griefs (guess the length of the sword by the sheath's)By the silence of life more pathetic than death's!Go, be clear of that day!"

Mrs. Leslie looked at the man's handsome face. It was grave and troubled in the moonlight.

"Is it not strange?" she said. "She would never sing for us until to-night. We did not suspect that she had such a soulful voice. But she was betrothed to Mr. Revington to-day. Perhaps the happiness of her soul finds natural vent in song."

She saw him wince as if she had touched a secret wound. He looked away from her at the lovely Italian landscape bathed in the pearly radiance of the moonlight. When he spoke again he did not look at her.

"Mrs. Leslie. I am curious to hear how your protege came to be in the water?"

"She threw herself in, Mr. Kenmore."

"No," he cried, with a shudder.

"It is true," she replied. "She says she had lost her only friend and did not wish to live."

"Who was that friend?" he asked.

"She declined to say. She declined to speak of her past. She had broken loose from all its ties, and never wished to unite them again. She shrouded herself in mystery, claiming nothing from the life she had left except the sweet, simple name of Irene."

"Yet you called her Berlin," he said.

"Yes, but it was my own maiden name which I gave her because she declared herself nameless," said Mrs. Leslie.

"You were very kind."

"Do you think so? I fell in love with the child, and adopted her as my protege. I am sure she has had a great sorrow in her life, but I am equally sure that she is pure and innocent as a little child."

He looked at her, gratefully.

"And the Stuarts?" he inquired, in a tone of veiled significance.

"Mr. Stuart was as much fascinated by Irene as I was. He wished to adopt her as Lilia's sister, but his jealous wife would not permit him to do so."

"And Revington is her lover?"

"Yes, she accepted him to-day."

"Is it a good match for her?" inquired Mr. Kenmore, dropping into a light, conventional, society tone.

"Not in a worldly way," she replied. "Mr. Revington's fortune is very small, barely sufficient for his own luxurious needs. He is of good family, however, being cousin to Clarence Stuart. I cannot say I have any admiration for the man, and I am disappointed at Irene's choice."

He made no comment on her words, but remained gazing thoughtfully at the beautiful starry arch of night. Mrs. Leslie thought that it was now her turn to receive confidence.

"Now, I have told you all I know of my interesting protege, you must tell me about your friend whom she resembled so much that she frightened you to-night," she said, blandly.

He started and looked at her, but before he could speak they were interrupted.

Mr. Revington and Irene came out upon the balcony and took seats near them. The girl looked at Mr. Kenmore with a bright, careless smile.

"We have been talking about you, Mr. Kenmore," she said. "We are exceedingly anxious to know how you escaped from the wreck in which you were reported as lost."

She spoke and looked as if he were an utter stranger. He answered with indifference equal to her own:

"I am gratified by your solicitude, Miss Berlin. I can very easily gratify your curiosity. I was rescued by one of the small boats that was lowered from the steamer that sunk us."

"Thank you for your concise explanation," she replied, gaily. "I see you are not disposed to weave any romance around it."

"It was too terribly real to be associated with the thought of romance," he replied, repressing a slight shudder.

"And yet our daily life is often more romantic than fiction," observed Mr. Revington, sentimentally.

No one dissented from the proposition. Mr. Kenmore rose and prepared to take leave.

But when he had bowed formally to Irene and her lover, and returned to the drawing-room, the hospitable host and hostess quite took him by storm.

"Return to Florence that night? They would not hear of such a thing! They could not think of losing such a pleasant addition to their party. Mr. Kenmore must promise to be their guest a week at least." The end of it all was that Mr. Kenmore gracefully accepted their cordial invitation, and promised to send to Florence for his luggage on the morrow.

Very soon afterwards the party separated for the night. Mr. Kenmore went to his room, but he was in no mood for retiring. He threw himself down into a chair at the window and lighted a cigar.

"Decidedly I have made a fine beginning," he said to himself. "I have found out more than I expected to do when I came to Mr. Stuart's villa. Perhaps I had been wise to have remained in America. I am come too late."

He was restless and ill at ease. The four walls of his room, spacious and elegant as it was, seemed to confine and stifle him. A fancy seized him to go out into the night air. It would cool his throbbing brow perhaps and he could think more clearly.

A narrow balcony ran across the front of his window, and a flight of steps led from it to the garden below. He stepped safely through his open window and went down the stairs just as all the clocks in the house simultaneously chimed eleven.

CHAPTER XXXV

"You have kept me waiting, Julius."

Mrs. Stuart spoke impatiently. She had been waiting some time at the end of the myrtle avenue among its deepest shadows and her temper was not sweetened by the delay.

"I beg your pardon," Mr. Revington replied, "I was smoking a cigar with your husband and could not come any sooner."

He paused a moment, and then added in a rather complaining tone:

"I could not imagine what you wanted of me, anyhow."

"Could you not?" she inquired, with a smothered sneer. "Well, sit down here on this quiet seat and I will tell you."

They seated themselves and began talking softly, unconscious that in the long grass just beyond the thick belt of shrubbery that inclosed the myrtle avenue, a man had flung himself down full length, so absorbed in his own painful thoughts as to be for the moment unaware of their presence.

Suddenly he became aware of the murmuring sound of voices. His first impulse was to rise and leave the spot, but in the next he decided that it would startle the speakers and draw down their ill-will perhaps upon himself.

"Some of the servants out sparking," he laughed to himself. "I will not disturb them. They will be none the worse for my presence."

So he laid his head down again upon his arm, and relapsed into his painful musing.

"I will tell you what I have to say to you, Julius," repeated Mrs. Stuart. "I wish to ask you who is this girl, Irene?"

Julius Revington gave a violent start in the darkness.

"My dear madame, how should I know?" he exclaimed.

"She has promised to be your wife, and it is very likely that she has confided the story of her past to you," replied Mrs. Stuart.

"You are mistaken in the supposition. She has steadily declined any such confidence. I have taken her upon her own merits, mystery and all," he replied.

There was a moment's pause. Their faces were in shadow, and Mrs. Stuart devoutly wished that she could pierce the veil of the darkness, and read upon his weak face whether or not he was deliberately trying to deceive her.

"Perhaps you have formed some opinion of your own," she said.

"I have had no clew upon which to base an opinion," he replied.

"Have you ever seen the pictures in her locket?" she inquired.

Taken by surprise, he stammered faintly: "Ye-es, once, by the merest accident."

"You recognized them?" she asked, coldly.

"How should I?" he asked, startled.

"Why should you not?" she mimicked. "Julius, do not try to beat about the bush with me. I am in desperate earnest. I will not be put off by lies and evasions! You have seen Elaine Brooke's portrait; therefore you must have recognized the face in Irene's locket as hers."

"And if I did?" he asked, sullenly.

"You must have guessed at the girl's name. You could not have helped it. It is written on her face. You know whom she is, but you are trying to deceive me. You know that you are," she said, passionately.

He saw that he had to deal with a passionate, jealous woman, and that his game was all up, so far as concealment of his plans was concerned.

"I shall be forced to admit what I cannot deny," he told himself, grimly.

Aloud, he asked, in a tone of forced suavity: "Whom do you say that the girl is, Mrs. Stuart?"

She bent toward him and answered in a hissing whisper of anger and hate:

"She is the daughter of Clarence Stuart and his first wife, Elaine Brooke."

A cry of dismay and surprise came from his lips.

"You dare not deny it," she hissed.

"I do not intend to. It is quite true," he replied, doggedly.

"I knew it! How I hate her!" exclaimed Mrs. Stuart, vindictively. "Would to God she had perished in the sea that day! From the very first I hated her even before I dreamed of her identity!"

And for a few moments the air was filled with the sharp ravings of her anger and bitter hatred.

"How have you learned so much?" inquired Julius Revington, curiously, for he had fancied that the mystery surrounding Irene was impenetrable to all but himself.

"No matter. I am not blind to anything around me. I carry too terrible a secret in my breast to run the risk of its detection. I must guard it at every point," she replied. "Can you guess what question I am about to ask you, Julius Revington? You cannot? It is this, then, and mind that you answer me truly. Do you intend to turn traitor?"

CHAPTER XXXVI

"Traitor? What do you mean?" stammered Julius Revington.

"You know well enough what I mean," flashed Mrs. Stuart angrily. "You are going to marry that girl, and of course her welfare will be yours. It will be to your interest to betray me. Do you intend to reveal the secret and drive me and Lilia out into the world nameless and disgraced– through no fault of mine, remember, but through the sin of that old dotard who should have carried his miserable secret to the grave with him?"

A pause. It seemed to Guy Kenmore that they must hear his heart beating so near them in the stillness. He was thoroughly aroused now, but he could not believe that it was wrong to listen. On the contrary he blessed the fancy that had led him out into the cool night air.

Julius Revington made no reply to Mrs. Stuart's half-piteous appeal.

"Cannot you speak?" she cried out, sharply. "Are you too cowardly to own your vile intentions?"

"You use strong terms, Mrs. Stuart," he said, sullenly. "Is it a vile act to carry out the sacred commands of a dying man? To restore to Clarence Stuart the last love of his youth? To give honor and happiness to a wronged woman? To restore her unhappy child to her father's name and love?"

"Then you do intend to do so! Wretch!" cried the lady, bitterly; then she broke down, sobbing in an abandonment of despair: "Oh, Lilia, Lilia, my poor, fragile darling! This will kill you!"

Julius Revington sat sullenly silent, ashamed of being found out in his designs, yet by no means ready to forego them.

"And you promised to keep the secret for me. You took my bribes, and swore you would never tell the truth to Clarence! You are a perjured villain!" upbraided the lady, violently.

"And you are a–". He bent and whispered the last word in her ear in a tone of threatening. "Beware how you call names, my lady! I am not to be abused and bullied, remember that!"

A wail of pain broke from her lips.

"It was for Lilia's sake," she moaned. "My proud, beautiful child, how could she bear shame and disgrace? Oh, Julius Revington, I would go down on my knees to you, I would bless you forever, I would deem you the noblest man on earth, if you would spare me and my Lilia this shame and ignominy!"

"Irene has lived under the shadow of shame and ignominy all her life. It is her turn now," he retorted, sullenly.

"Does she suspect the truth?" she asked, anxiously.

"No," he replied, ashamed of the bribe he had held out as the means of winning his lovely betrothed.

"She need not ever know. Oh, Julius, why cannot you marry her, and take her away, far away, and leave us in peace?" she cried, miserably.

"You forget that she is the legal heir to her father's fortune," he retorted, with coarse significance.

"Ah! that is the object," she cried. "You are poor, and you cannot forego your grip on the Stuart fortune. Oh, Julius, I bought your silence once; let me do so again."

"It would be at a costly price," he said, in a hard, snappish voice.

"At any price!" she cried, desperately. "Listen, Julius. My own private fortune is as large as Mr. Stuart's. I have complete control of it. I will portion you off handsomely, if you will keep the secret and take Irene away from here—far away—where she can never trouble my peace again. Oh, for pity's sake, Julius, grant my prayer!" She threw herself desperately on the ground and clasped his knees despairingly. "It can matter little to you. You will have the woman you love; and I swear that you shall receive from me as much money as Mr. Stuart would leave her. Will you do this, Julius, for Lilia's sake? If you refuse, it will be the death-warrant of my child!"

"Since you put it like that, I suppose I must yield the point. I do not want to kill the child," he muttered. "But it is hard on Irene, and if a large slice of your fortune isn't handed out, you needn't count on my silence!"

"As much as you wish," she cried, eagerly; "and, oh, Julius, you will marry her as quick as possible—to-morrow—next week—the earliest moment she will consent! And let your wedding tour be to the other end of the world!" she added, feverishly.

"I do not care how far it be so that I have beautiful Irene for my companion, and a large bank account to draw on," Julius Revington answered, with a coarse laugh.

"And this contemptible creature is the man Irene loves, the man she would wed," Guy Kenmore said to himself in bitter disgust.

CHAPTER XXXVII

"What am I to do?" Irene asked herself that night when she was alone in the quiet and seclusion of her chamber.

She had laughed and sung and jested while Guy Kenmore's eyes were upon her, and feigned an indifference she was very far from feeling. But now she had to tear off the mask so proudly worn, and face her fate.

"What am I to do?" she asked herself, miserably, as she walked up and down the floor in her pretty blue dressing-gown, with her white hands twisted together in a childish fashion she had. "I do not believe the heroine of the most impossible novel was ever placed in a more harrowing situation. Here am I betrothed to the villain of the story, when my husband, whom I believed to be dead, unexpectedly pops upon the scene. And instead of his appearance simplifying matters, it tangles them into a Gordian knot, and I can only ask myself what I shall do!"

She laughed—a mocking, mirthless little laugh that startled a dozen eerie little echoes in the corners of the room.

"Heigh-ho! I know what I would do if he loved me," she said to herself, wistfully, "I would fly to my husband's arms, and defy Julius Revington to do his worst. I would say to him proudly, I have here an honest name, and a true love of which your machinations cannot deprive me!"

The quick tears started out beneath her golden-brown lashes.

"Alas, alas! he does not love me," she sighed. "Why should he do so? He never saw me but once before last night. It was my own willful folly that led him into that dreadful marriage. I doubt not he was glad when he thought that my reckless suicide had broken the fetters that had bound him. Last night he pretended not to know me, yet he could hardly have been ignorant of my identity. He could not have forgotten my face so soon. It is a fair one, they say—yet not fair enough to have won his heart."

That momentous question, "What am I to do?" echoed drearily in her heart. She could find no answer to it; she could think of no refuge from her sorrow. For the first time since that awful night in the cold, dark waves, she wished that the friendly plank had not drifted to her reach—that she had perished miserably then rather than have lived to find herself in this terrible strait.

"I cannot marry Mr. Revington now," she thought. "I must take back my promise of yesterday, with no reason save that of a woman's fickleness. He will be very angry; he will tell my miserable story to Mr. Stuart and Mrs. Leslie, to all of these people that sneer at the mystery that enshrouds my past. What shall I do?"

A passionate shame surged over her at the thought of the cold looks and sneering words that would be thrown at her when her discarded suitor should tell these strangers that her mother was a dishonored woman, and that she, her child, had no right to her father's name. She fancied that Mrs. Leslie and Mr. Stuart, the only two friends she had, would be turned against her, too. She would be utterly alone and wretched—friendless and forsaken.

"And yet I cannot be sorry that Guy Kenmore lives," she murmured. "Though he hate me and deny me; though he bring down shame and sorrow on my head, I must still be glad that he did not perish in the cold and dark waves. How strange it seems that only twenty-four hours ago I wept him dead, and now I weep him living. Alas! living or dead, he is lost to me the same. I must ever remain an unloved, unacknowledged bride."

Worn out by the weary vigils of the past two nights she threw herself down on the bed, dressed as she was, and fell into an exhausted slumber. She slept late and dreamlessly, and when she opened her bewildered blue eyes the next morning upon the beautiful sunny day no answer had come to the question that vexed her brain last night.

But in the golden light of the new day her woful strait did not look so grievous as it did last night. A feverish hope sprang up in her heart that God would befriend her in her sorrow and helplessness and show her some way out of her trouble.

When she had made her simple, pretty toilet, and gone down-stairs, she found that everyone had breakfasted except Mr. Revington, who had sentimentally waited for her. She swallowed her breakfast with what appetite she could, and then he asked her to take a walk with him.

"All the ladies of the family are out in the garden," he said. "Mrs. Leslie and her admirer, Mr. Kenmore, have been out almost an hour. That will be a match, I think."

"I think you are mistaken," Irene answered, almost angrily.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Irene brought her shady sun-hat and went out into the beautiful garden with her lover. Mr. Revington carried his guitar, thinking that he would beguile the hours with music.

They went to Irene's favorite seat under the orange trees, where she could watch the river gliding past. She was very languid and quiescent this morning, the natural result of last night's emotion. She said to herself that she would make no struggle against her fate to-day; she would just drift quietly with the tide and see where it would bear her.

She little dreamed what subject was agitating Mr. Revington's mind.

He was full of the new idea Mrs. Stuart had suggested, and had brought his betrothed out expressly to ask her to name an early day for their marriage.

Some little remorse for the treachery he meditated toward her disturbed his mind, but it was not deep enough to cause him to repent of the promise Mrs. Stuart had exacted from him. Once he was safely married to beautiful Irene he intended to invent some plausible story of losing the documents he had promised her as proving her mother's honorable marriage. Oh, he would manage cleverly enough. Once bound to him Irene could not help herself, doggedly reasoned the dastard.

But somehow he did not find it easy to broach the subject uppermost in his thoughts. Irene was grave and distrait this morning, with a chilly reserve about her that did not court lover-like advances. All her bright spirits and coquettish wiles of last night had vanished. He was dismayed at her relapse into her old, ennuyed self. She would not encourage his advances. She was absolutely frigid.

So he was obliged to plunge into the subject with an inward shiver like one about taking a bath in ice-cold water.

"My darling, can you guess what I am going to ask you this morning?" he ventured.

She looked at him with a crimsoning face and flashing eyes.

"I wish you would not call me names, Mr. Revington," she said, with petulant dignity.

"Names!" he echoed, blankly.

"Yes," she replied, loftily. "Darling, and all such names as belong to the jargon of love, I heartily despise, and I must beg you to spare me their infliction."

"But you have promised to marry me, Irene," he expostulated.

"I have not promised to love you, though," she retorted with spirit. "Please remember that, Mr. Revington, and spare me your love-sick phrases!"

He stared at her, angered and abashed. Her purple-blue eyes sparkled with scorn, her sweet, red lips were curled disdainfully. He kept down his bitter anger with an effort, remembering the boon he wished to crave.

"Do not forget that our compact was a mere matter of the bargain and sale of the secret you held," Irene continued, bitterly. "You drove me into it by your threats of disgracing me in the eyes of the world. Let us keep to the letter of our bargain. You will never have any terms of endearment from me, and I expect and desire none from you. On such terms they are simply revolting."