A Dreadful Temptation; or, A Young Wife's Ambition

Xenie knew it instantly, and a cry of terror broke from her lips. It belonged to Lora.

She had seen it lying around her sister's shoulders when she kissed her good-night; yet here it hung on Ninon's arms, wet and dripping, the thick, rich fringes all matted with seaweed.

CHAPTER XVII

Xenie's heart beat so fast at the sight of what Ninon was carrying that she could not move another step.

She had to stand still with her hands clasped over her throbbing side and wait till the girl came up to her. Then:

"Oh, Heaven, Ninon, where did you get that?" she gasped, looking at the shawl with eyes full of horror, yet afraid to touch it, for it seemed like some dead thing.

"Oh, ma'amselle," faltered the girl stopping short and looking at Xenie's anguished face. "Oh, ma'amselle," she faltered again, and her pretty, piquant face grew white and her black eyes sought the ground, for Ninon, although poor and lowly, had a very tender heart, and she could not bear to see the anguish in the eyes of her young mistress.

"I asked you where did you get that shawl?" Xenie repeated. "It was my sister's shawl. She wore it last night, and now, to-day, she is missing. Did you know that, Ninon?"

"Yes," the girl answered, in her pretty, broken English. She had heard it. A gentleman, a tourist, had brought the news to the village, and the men were all out looking for her.

Would her mistress come to the house? She had something to tell her, but not out there in the cold and wet. She looked fit to drop, indeed she did, declared the voluble, young French girl.

So she half-led, half-dragged Mrs. St. John back to the cottage and into the room where the stricken mother was waiting for tidings of her lost one.

The maid had a sorrowful story to tell.

The waves had cast a dead body up on the beach an hour ago—the corpse of a woman, thinly dressed in white, with long, beautiful black hair flowing loosely and tangled with seaweed.

They could not tell who she was, for—and here Ninon shuddered visibly—the rough waves had battered and swollen her features utterly beyond recognition.

But they thought that she was young, for her limbs were white and round, and beautifully moulded, and this shawl which Ninon carried had been tightly fastened about her shoulders.

The maid had recognized it and brought it with her to show the bereaved mother and sister, and to ask if they wished to go and view the body and try to identify it.

All this the maid told sorrowfully and hesitatingly, while the two women sat like statues and listened to her, every vestige of hope dying out of their hearts at the pitiful story, and at length Xenie cast herself down upon the wet shawl and wept and wailed over it as though it had been the dead body of poor Lora herself lying there all wet and dripping with the ocean spray before her anguished sight.

Then Ninon begged her to listen to what she had to say further.

"The gentleman is going to send a vehicle for you that you may go and see the body, if you wish—I can hear the roll of the wheels now! Shall I help you to get ready?"

Xenie looked at her mother with a dumb inquiry on her beautiful, pallid features.

"Yes, go, dear, if you can bear it. Perhaps, after all, it may not be our darling," said Mrs. Carroll, with a heavy sigh, even while she tried to cheat her heart by the doubt which she felt to be a vain one.

So, with Ninon's aid, Xenie changed her wet and drabbled garments for a plain, black silk dress, and a black hat and thick veil.

Then, leaving the maid to take care of her mother, Mrs. St. John entered the vehicle and was driven to the place where a group of excited villagers kept watch over a ghastly something upon the sand—the mutilated semblance of a human being that the cruel sea had beaten and buffeted beyond recognition.

It was a terrible ordeal for that young, beautiful, and loving sister to pass alone.

As she stepped from the vehicle with a wildly-beating heart before the curious scrutiny of the strangers around her, she involuntarily cast a glance around her in the vague, scarce-defined belief that Howard Templeton would be upon the scene. But, no, there was no sign of his presence.

Strangers advanced to lead her forward; strangers questioned her; strangers drew back the sheet that had been reverently folded over the dead, and showed her that ghastly form that all believed must have been her sister.

She knelt down, trying to keep back her sobs, and looked at the form lying there in the awful majesty of death, with the cold, drizzling rain beating down on its swollen, discolored features.

How could that awful thing be Lora—her own, beautiful, tender Lora?

And yet, and yet, that beautiful, long, black hair—that fine, embroidered night-robe, hanging in tattered remnants now where the sea had rent it—did they not belong to her sister? Sickening with an awful dread, she touched one of the cold, white hands.

It was a ghastly object now, swollen and livid, yet you could see that once it had been a beautiful hand, delicate, dimpled, tapering.

And on the slender, third finger, deeply imbedded in the swollen flesh, were two rings—plain, broad, gold bands. Xenie's eyes fell upon them, and with a wild, despairing cry, "Oh, Lora, my sister!" she fell upon the wet sand, in a deep and death-like swoon.

CHAPTER XVIII

After leaving Xenie on the seashore, Howard Templeton walked away hurriedly to the little fishing village, a mile distant, and gave the alarm of Lora's disappearance.

By a promise of large rewards, he speedily induced a party of men to set out in separate directions to scour the adjacent country for the wanderer.

But scarcely had they set out on their mission when someone brought to Howard the news of the corpse that old ocean had cast upon the sands.

Dreading, yet fully expecting to behold the dead body of Lora Carroll, Howard Templeton turned back and accompanied the man to the scene.

They found a group of excited men and women gathered, on the shore, drawn thither by that nameless fascination which the dreadful and mysterious always possesses for every class of minds whether high or low.

Conspicuous in the group was Ninon, the pretty young maid-servant, and, as Howard came upon the scene, she was volubly explaining to the bystanders that the shawl which was tightly pinned about the shoulders of the dead woman belonged to the missing girl for whom the men had gone out to search.

Was she quite sure of it, they asked her. Yes, she was quite sure.

She had seen it night after night lying across the bed in the young lady's sleeping-apartment.

When she was ill and restless, as often happened, she would put it around her shoulders and walk up and down the room for hours, weeping and wringing her hands like one in sore distress.

"Yes," Ninon said, she could swear to the shawl. She would take it home with her and show it to her mistress, and they would see that she was right.

No one interfered to prevent her.

With an irrepressible shudder at touching the dead, the girl drew out the pins and took the wet shawl.

Then, as she started on her homeward way, Howard Templeton, who had stood still like one in a dream of horror, started forward and told her that he himself would send a vehicle for the ladies, that they might come if they wished to identify the body.

For himself, he had no idea whether or not that the poor, bruised and battered corpse could be Lora Carroll.

He could see nothing that reminded him of her except the beautiful, black hair lying about her head in heavy, clinging masses, sodden with water and tangled with seaweed.

He longed, yet dreaded, for Mrs. Carroll and her daughter to arrive and confirm or dissipate his fears and end the dreadful suspense.

And yet, with the rumble of the departing wheels of the conveyance he had sent for them, a sudden cowardice stole over the young man's heart.

He could not bear the thought of the anguish of which he might soon be the witness.

Obeying a sudden, inexplicable impulse, he turned from the little company of watchers by the dead and walked off from them, taking the course along the shore that led away from the little village.

Oftentimes those simple little impulses that seem to us mere accidental happenings, would appear in reality to be the actual fulfillment of some divine design.

Howard little dreamed, as he turned away with a kind of sick horror, that was no shame to his manhood, from the sight of so much misery, that "a spirit in his feet" was guiding him straight to the living Lora, even while his heart foreboded that it was she who lay cold and lifeless on the ocean shore.

Yet so it was. True it is, as the great bard expresses it, that "there's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will."

Howard hurried along aimlessly, his thoughts so busy on one painful theme that he took no note of where he was going, or how fast he went.

He was a rapid walker usually, and when he at length brought himself to a sudden abrupt stop he realized with a start that he had come several miles at least.

The rain had ceased, the sun had come out in all its majestic glory, and beneath its fervid kisses the mist that hid the ocean was melting into thin air.

It bade fair to be a beautiful day, after all.

The pearly rain-drops sparkled like diamonds on the leaves and flowers, the sky was blue and beautiful, with here and there a little white cloud sailing softly past.

The day had began like many a life, in clouds and tears, but it promised to close in as fair and sweet a serenity as many an early-shadowed life has done.

Howard involuntarily thought of the poet's beautiful lines:

"Be still, sad heart, and cease repining,Behind the clouds is the sun still shining!Days of sunshine are given to all,Though into each life some rain must fall."

He paused and looked around him. He found that he had come into the outskirts of another rude, little fishing village.

A little ahead of him he could see the fishers bustling about on the shore.

"I have come four miles, at least," he said to himself. "What a great, hulking, cowardly fellow I am to run that far from a woman's tears. Far better have stayed and tried to dry them. Um! She wouldn't have let me," he added, with a rueful second thought.

Then, after a moment's idle gazing out at sea, aimlessly noting the flash of a sea-gull's wing as it wheeled in the blue air above him, he said, resolutely:

"I'll go back, anyhow. Perhaps I can do something to help them. They are but women—my countrywomen, too, and I'll not desert them in their trouble, even though she does hate me."

He turned around suddenly to return, and the fate that was watching him to prevent such a thing, placed a simple stone in the way. He stepped upon it heedlessly, his ankle turned, and, with a sharp cry of pain, Howard fell to the ground.

He made an effort to rise, but the acute pains that suddenly darted through his ankle caused him to fall back upon the wet sand in a hurry.

"Umph! my ankle is evidently master of the situation," he thought, with an expression of comical distress.

Raising himself on his elbow, he shouted aloud to the men in the distance, and presently two of them came running to his assistance.

"I have sprained my ankle," he explained to them in their native tongue. "Please assist me to rise, and I will try to walk."

But when they took him by the arms and raised him up, they found that it was impossible for him to walk.

"This is a deuced bore at the present time, certainly," complained the sufferer. "Can you get me any kind of a trap to drive me back to the village yonder?"

The peasants looked at him stupidly, and informed him carelessly that there was nothing of the kind available. Only one man in the vicinity owned a horse, and it had sickened and died a week before.

Howard felt a great and exceeding temptation to swear a very small oath at this crisis, but being too much of a gentleman to yield to this wicked whisper of the evil one, groaned very loudly instead.

"Then what the deuce am I to do?" he inquired, as much of himself as of the two fishermen. "How am I to get away from this spot of wet sand? Where am I to go?"

The peasants scrutinized him as stupidly as before, and to all of these questions answered flatly that they did not know, indeed.

Howard thought within himself that the proverbial politeness of the French was greatly tempered by stupidity in this case.

"Well, then," he inquired next, "is there any kind of a hotel around here?"

"Yes, there was such a place," they informed him, readily; and Howard at once begged them to summon aid and construct a litter for him, promising to reward them liberally if they would carry him to the hotel.

Gold—that magic "open sesame" to every heart—procured him ready and willing attention.

It was but a short while before he found himself in tolerably comfortable quarters at the rude hotel of the fishing village, and obsequiously waited upon by the single Esculapius the place afforded.

Howard's sprain was pronounced very severe indeed. It was so painful that he could not walk upon it at all, and was ordered to strict confinement to his couch for three days.

"A fine prospect, by Jove!" Howard commented, discontentedly. "What am I to do shut up here three days in solitary confinement? and what will those poor women do over yonder with not a single masculine soul to turn to in their helplessness? Not that they wish my help, of course, but I had meant to offer it to them all the same if there was anything I could have done," he added, grimly, to his own self.

The three days dragged away very drearily. On the fourth day Howard availed himself of the aid of a crutch and got into the little public room of the hotel.

Among the few idlers that were gathered about in little friendly groups, he saw a rather intelligent-looking fisherman going from one to another with a small slip of paper in his hand.

As they read it some shook their heads, and some dived into their pockets and brought forth a few pence, which they dropped into the fisherman's extended palm.

Howard was quite curious by the time his turn came. He took the paper in his hand and found it to be an humble petition for charity, which duly set forth:

"Whereas, an unknown woman lies ill of a fever at a house of one Fanchette Videlet, a poor widow, almost without the necessaries of life, it is here begged by the said widow that all Christian souls will contribute a mite to the end of securing medical attendance and comforts for the poor unknown wayfarer."

This petition, which was written in excellent French, and duly signed Fanchette Videlet, had a strange effect upon Howard Templeton. His face grew pale as death; his eyes stared at the poor fisherman in perplexed thought, while he absently plunged his hand into his pocket and drew it out full of gold pieces.

CHAPTER XIX

"Here, my man, take this," he said, putting the coins into the man's hand.

"Why, this is too much, sir," said the honest fisherman, holding his hand out and looking at the gold in surprise. "You will rob yourself, sir."

"No, no; keep it. It is but a trifle," said Howard, pushing his hand back. "But, pray, will you answer a few questions for me?"

"As many as you like, sir—and thank you for your generosity," answered the fisherman, politely.

"I am very much interested in the sad story written here," said Howard, glancing at the paper which he still held in his hand.

"Yes, sir, it is very sad," assented the fisherman.

"How came this unknown sick woman at the Widow Videlet's house?" inquired Howard.

"The poor soul came there a few days ago, sir. She was ill and quite out of her head—could give no account of herself."

"Can you tell me what day she came there?"

"This makes the fourth day since she came, sir. I remember it was the same day you were brought to the hotel."

The young man started. It was the same day that Lora Carroll had disappeared.

Could it be Lora? Had it been some other waif the great sea had cast up from its deep?

"Did you see this woman? Could you describe her to me?" asked Howard, eagerly.

"I saw her the day she came wandering into Dame Videlet's cottage," was the answer.

"You can tell me how she looked then," said Howard, restraining his impatience by a great effort.

"Yes, sir. She was a mere girl in appearance—very young and very beautiful, with black eyes and long, black hair. She was thinly clad in a fine night-dress," answered the fisherman.

"Did you say she was out of her mind?" asked Howard.

"Yes, sir; she raved continually."

"What form did her delirium take?"

"Oh, sir," cried the fisherman, in a tone of pity and sympathy for the wretched unknown, "it seemed like she had lost her baby. She was going around from one to the other in the place asking, asking everyone, for her baby. She said she was so tired and she had lost it out of her arms in the rain and the darkness, and could not find it again."

Howard's heart gave a great, tumultuous bound of surprise, then almost stopped beating with the suddenness of the shock.

It all rushed over him with the suddenness of a revelation.

It had seemed so strange to him that Mrs. St. John should have taken the tender little babe with her in the rain and wind when she went to search for Lora.

The truth flashed over him like lightning now.

Xenie had found the babe upon the sand where Lora had dropped it in her fevered flight.

No wonder she had been so angry and defiant when he had questioned her about it.

He felt sure now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the unknown sick woman in the poor widow's cottage could be none other than Lora herself.

"Poor, unhappy creature," he thought, with a thrill of commiseration. "It must be that God himself has sent me here to succor and befriend her."

He rose hurriedly and took up his crutch.

"How far is Dame Videlet's cottage from here?" he inquired.

"But a few rods, sir—a little further on toward the beach," said the fisherman, regarding him in some surprise.

"I will go down there and see that unfortunate woman, if you will guide me," said Howard. "I believe that she is a friend of mine. You may return their pence to those poor fishermen, who can ill spare it, perhaps. I will charge myself with her expenses even if she should not prove to be the person I think she is."

The fisherman looked at him admiringly and hastened to do his bidding.

Then they walked along to the widow's cottage very slowly, for Howard found himself exceedingly awkward in the use of his crutch.

But after all it seemed but a very few minutes before they stood in the one poor little room of Dame Videlet's dilapidated cot bowing to the kind old soul who had taken the poor wayfarer in beneath the shelter of her lowly roof, shared her simple crust with her, and tended her with kindly, Christian hands.

"How is your patient to-day, my kind woman?" inquired the young man.

"Ah, sir, ah, sir, you may even see for yourself," she answered sadly, as she turned toward the bed.

Howard went forward with a quickened heart-beat, and stood by her side looking down at the sufferer.

Yes there she lay—poor little Lora—with wide, unrecognizing, black eyes, with cheeks crimson with fever and parted lips through which the breath came pantingly. A heavy sigh broke unconsciously from Howard's lips.

"Good sir, do you know her?" asked the woman, regarding him anxiously.

"Yes, I know her," he answered; "she is a friend of mine and has wandered away from her home in the delirium of fever. You shall be richly rewarded for your noble care of her."

"I ask no reward but the blessing of Heaven, sir," said the good old woman, piously; "I have done the best I could for her ever since she staggered into the door and asked me for her lost baby."

As if the word struck some sensitive chord in her consciousness, Lora turned her wild, bright eyes upon Howard's face, and murmured in a pathetic whisper:

"Have you found my baby—Jack's baby and mine?"

Alas for Xenie's secret, guarded with such patient care and sleepless vigilance.

Howard looked down upon her with a mist of tears before his sight—she looked so fair, and young, and sorrowful, lying there calling for her lost little child.

"I have lost my baby, I have lost my baby!" she wailed aloud, throwing her arms wildly over her head and tangling her fingers in the long, dark tresses floating over the pillow in their beautiful luxuriance. "It is lost, lost, lost, my darling little one! It will perish in the rain and the cold!"

Involuntarily Howard reached out and took one of the restless white hands in his, and held it in a firm and tender clasp.

"Lora, Lora," he said, in a gentle, persuasive voice, "listen to me. The baby is found. Xenie found it on the shore where you lost it out of your arms. It is safe—it is well, with Xenie."

Lora turned her hollow glance upon his face, and though no gleam of recognition shone in her eyes, his impressive words penetrated her soul. She threw out her arms yearningly.

"It is found, it is found! Oh, thank God!" she murmured, happily. "Bring him to me, for the love of Heaven! Lay him here upon my breast, my precious little son!"

"Oh, sir, then it is true she had a child; and it is living. I thought perhaps it was dead," said the poor widow.

"She has a child, indeed, and she lost it in her delirious flight; but her sister found it soon afterward. It is at this moment not more than four miles from here," answered the young man, without reflecting that many things might have happened during his long imprisonment of four days in the lonely little fishing village.

"Then, if you will take my advice, sir, as she is a friend of yours, you will try to get that child here as soon as possible. I will do the best I can for her, and the doctor has promised to do all in his power; but I believe that the child is the only thing that will save her life," said Dame Videlet, gravely shaking her head in its homely white cap.

"It shall be brought," said Howard, earnestly, and without a doubt but that he could keep the promise thus made.

Dame Videlet thanked God aloud, then added that the sooner it were brought the better it would be for the mother.

All the while poor Lora lay tossing in restless pain, and begging piteously for her little child to be laid upon her breast.

Howard bent over her as tenderly and gently as a brother.

"Lora, my poor child, try to be patient," he said. "I will bring the child to you; only be patient a little while."

But it was all in vain to preach patience to that racked heart and weary, fevered brain.

He stole away, followed by despairing cries for the little child—cries that echoed in his heart and brain many days afterward, when his warm heart was half-broken because he could not keep the promise he had made in such perfect confidence and hope.

"How shall I get back to the village four miles away from here?" he asked of the man who had accompanied him and was still waiting for him.

"I can take you in my fishing-boat and row you there, and welcome, sir," was the hearty response. "It's a wee bit leaky, but as good as any other craft about, and there's no conveyance to be had by land."

"What a great simpleton I have been, by George, never to have thought of a boat before," said Howard, looking vexed at himself. "Here I have been four days, and wanting to get back to the village badly, and never thought of all the little boats and the great, wide ocean."

"Mayhap it's all for the best, sir," said the fisherman. "If you had gone back sooner, you might never have found the sick lady, your friend. You should see the hand of the Lord in it, my young sir."

"It looks like it," admitted Howard, "though, truth to tell, mon ami, I do not usually look for such intervention in my affairs. His Satanic Majesty is at present controlling my mundane affairs."

"The Lord rules, sir," answered the man, launching his little boat, and trying to make a comfortable and dry seat for his crippled young passenger.

The little boat shot out into the blue and sparkling waves, and danced along like a thing of life in the beautiful spring sunshine.