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

"We must go a mile below the village to the home of my friend's mother," Howard explained, as they went along.

Then he fell to wondering how Xenie would receive him when he came to her with the glad tidings of Lora's discovery.

"How strange that I should carry her glad tidings," he thought. "I am afraid I do not keep to the letter of my vow of hatred as firmly as she does. Would she bring me good news as willingly?"

His heart answered no.

The keel grated on the shore, and springing out, they went up to the pretty cottage were Mrs. Carroll had lived in strict retirement for several months with her two daughters.

But there a terrible disappointment awaited Howard.

The cottage was untenanted.

They knocked several times, eliciting no response, and finally opening the doors, they found that the occupants had moved out.

All was still and silent, and Howard's heart sank heavily as he thought of poor Lora lying in the widow's cot and moaning for the child he had promised to bring her.

"They are gone away," said Howard in a more hopeless voice than he knew himself. "We must return to the village. We may hear news from them there."

And in his heart he was fervently praying that he would, for how could he return to Lora without the child?

They went to the little village where the dead body had been washed upon the sands, and he asked everyone he met if they knew where the occupants of the little cottage had gone.

No one could tell him anything of their whereabouts. They had identified the drowned woman as their relative, had buried her, and then quietly left the place, taking Ninon, the little maid, with them.

He could not obtain the least clew by which he might follow them and bring them back to the sick girl whom they mourned as dead.

Howard did not know what to do now, for he remembered that Dame Videlet had said that the child was the only thing that could save Lora's life.

He went into the churchyard and looked at the new-made grave with the cross of white marble, and the simple inscription "Lora, ætat 18."

"Perhaps the inscription might come true after all in a few—a very few days," he thought, sadly.

CHAPTER XX

Howard did not know what to do: it seemed such a terrible thing to go back to Lora with bad tidings. Perhaps the shock would kill her.

Oh, if Mrs. St. John had but waited a little longer! Why need she have hurried away so precipitately?

Well, there was no help for it.

He must go back and tell her how inopportunely things had turned out, and how sorry he was that he could not keep his promise.

He would get Dame Videlet to break it to her very gently.

She would not bungle over it like a great, awkward fellow like himself.

The good old woman was waiting for him outside the door.

Her face was radiant, but it changed and grew very anxious as he came up to her, and she saw that his arms were empty.

"Where is the child?" she whispered.

Briefly and sadly he told the story of his disappointment, and the widow wiped the tears of sorrow from her eyes as he concluded.

"How is she now?" he inquired, anxiously.

"She has been better, much better, since you told her the child was found. Her reason has returned to her, and she has wept tears of joy. She is impatiently waiting for you now, for I told her just now that you were returning. Alas, alas!" groaned Dame Videlet, her tender heart quite melted by the thought of Lora's disappointment.

Howard groaned in unison with her.

"Will it go hard with her?" he asked, sorrowfully.

The dame shook her head mournfully.

"Alas, alas!" she groaned again.

"You will break the news to her—will you not?" asked Howard. "It would be better for you to do it; I am a great, awkward fellow, and could not tell her tenderly and gently like a woman. Tell her we will try to find her mother and sister as soon as possible. Do not let her despair."

"I will tell her," said the good woman, turning toward the door, "but I am afraid the disappointment will nearly kill her. She is very ill. She cannot bear much. Do you remain outside while I go in."

Howard sat down on a rough bench outside the door and waited, his heart heavy with grief for the poor, unfortunate girl within.

"Far better that I had not seen her at all, than have given her such hope only to be followed by disappointment," he thought sadly to himself.

Suddenly a wild, piercing, delirious shriek issued from the widow's cot, causing him to spring up in alarm, and rush into the room.

He met the bereaved mother in the center of the floor, trying to make her escape from the feeble arms of Dame Videlet who was drawing her back to the bed.

She looked like a mad creature struggling with the weak, old woman, her dark hair flying loose in wild confusion, her arms flung upward over her head, while shriek after shriek burst from her foam-flecked lips.

"Take her," cried the old woman, excitedly. "Hold her tightly in your arms a minute."

Howard obeyed her quickly, and in his strong, yet gentle clasp, the mad girl was held securely while Dame Videlet poured something from a bottle upon a sponge and held it to the girl's dilated nostrils.

Directly her wild cries grew fainter, her eyelids fell, her head dropped heavily upon Howard's breast.

"Lay her down upon the bed, now, sir," said the dame, "and fetch the doctor as quickly as you can. This delirium will soon return upon her. The effect of the drug will not last very long."

"She cannot live the night out," said the doctor, sadly.

Three weary days and nights had Lora been tossing restlessly in the delirium of fever. Everything that money or skill could do had been done for her, but all to no avail.

Now, as they stood around the bed and listened to her wild, delirious ravings, the kind old doctor shook his head and sighed at the sight of so much youth and beauty going down to the grave.

"She cannot live the night out," he said again, in a voice of deep feeling.

"Can nothing more be done?" asked Howard Templeton, his blue eyes resting sadly on the wreck of the beautiful Lora.

"I have done all that the medical art can do," declared the physician, "but all to no avail. She has sustained a terrible shock. Her dreadful tramp through the wind and rain the day she came here was enough to have killed her. But her constitution was a superb one, and I believed that I might have saved her after all, if the child could have been restored to her."

"Why did we not think of procuring a substitute for the child?" exclaimed Howard, suddenly. "If we could have put another child in its place might not the innocent deception have saved her life?"

"Such a plan might have been tried," said the doctor, thoughtfully. "But it must have been a terrible risk to tell her the truth even after her recovery. She is very nervous, and her organization is high-strung."

Even as he spoke, the grayness and pallor of death settled over Lora's beautiful, wasted features.

CHAPTER XXI

"My love, you are simply perfect. You look like a bride."

Mrs. Carroll spoke enthusiastically, and her daughter flushed brightly with gratified pride and pleasure.

She was standing before the long cheval-glass in her dressing-room. She was about to attend a ball at Mrs. Egerton's, and her maid had just put the finishing touches to her toilet.

It was no wonder that Mrs. Carroll's admiration had broken out into enthusiastic words. Xenie's loveliness was dazzling, her toilet perfection.

She wore a dress of the rarest and costliest cream-white lace over a robe of cream-colored satin. The frosty network of the over-dress was looped here and there with diamond stars.

A necklace of diamonds was clasped around her white throat, a diamond star twinkled in the dark waves of her luxuriant hair, and the same rich jewels shone on her breast and at her tiny, shell-like ears.

Her dark and brilliant beauty shone forth regally from the costly setting.

Her eyes outrivaled the diamonds, her satin skin was as creamily fair as her satin robe, her scarlet lips were like rosebuds touched with dew.

No wonder that Mrs. Carroll caught her breath in a kind of ecstacy at the resplendent vision.

More than a year had passed since that dark and rainy morn on the shores of France, when Xenie had wandered up and down on the "sea-beat shore" seeking her lost sister—a year that had brought its inevitable changes, and dulled the first sharp edge of grief—so that to-night she was to throw off her mourning robes and reappear in society for the first time at a ball given by her aunt, Mrs. Egerton.

Yet, after that first moment of exultant triumph at her mother's praise, a faint, intangible shadow settled over Mrs. St. John's brilliant face.

The scarlet lips took a graver curve upon their honeyed sweetness, the dark, curling lashes drooped low, until they shaded the peachy cheek.

The white-gloved hand that held the rare bouquet drooped wearily at her side.

"Mamma," she said, abruptly, "I wish I had not promised to go."

"What has come over you, Xenie? I thought you had looked forward to this night with real pleasure."

"I did—I do, mamma, and yet for the moment my heart grew sad. I was thinking of poor little Lora."

A hot tear splashed down upon her cheek, and Mrs. Carroll sighed heavily, while her grave, sad face grew sadder and graver still. She put her hand upon her heart.

"Oh, that we might have her back!" she breathed, in a voice that was almost a moan of pain.

"The carriage is waiting, madam," said Finette, appearing at the door.

"Well, I am ready," said Mrs. St. John, listlessly. "My cloak, Finette."

The maid came forward and threw the elegant wrap about her shoulders, and leaving a light kiss on her mother's lips, Mrs. St. John swept out of the dressing-room and down to the carriage that waited to take her to the brilliant fete that Mrs. Egerton had planned in her especial honor.

Mrs. Carroll bent her steps to the nursery.

Ninon, the little French nurse, sat beside the hearth sewing on a bit of fancy work, and the soft glow of firelight and gaslight shining upon her made her look like a quaint, pretty picture in her neat costume and dark prettiness.

The nursery was a dainty, airy, white-hung chamber. It had been a smoking-room in Mr. St. John's time. His widow had converted it into a nursery.

In a beautiful rosewood, lace-draped crib lay the spurious heir to the millionaire's wealth—a beautiful, rosy healthy boy, sleeping softly and sweetly in innocent unconsciousness of the terrible fraud that had been perpetrated in his name.

For Mrs. St. John's daring scheme had succeeded. Lora's child had been foisted upon the law and the world as the millionaire's legal heir, and Howard Templeton's heritage had passed into the hands of the child's guardian, Mrs. St. John, his pretended mother.

But, alas! in the hour of her triumph, when the golden fruit of her wild revenge was within her grasp, its sweetness had palled upon her, its taste had been bitter to her lips. It was but Dead Sea fruit, after all.

For the struggle with Howard Templeton for the possession of the millionaire's fortune which Xenie had anticipated with such passionate zest had been no struggle after all.

In a few weeks after the burial of the poor drowned woman whom she had identified as her sister, Xenie and her mother had returned to the United States, taking with them Lora's child, and as nurse, Ninon, the little maid-servant.

A costly bribe had sealed the lips of the little French maid, and the truth of the little boy's parentage was a dead secret with her.

Immediately after her arrival at home, Xenie had placed her case in the hand of a noted lawyer.

He undertook it in perfect faith. He did not dream that he had been employed as the necessary aid to carry out a wicked scheme of revenge and perpetrate a gigantic fraud.

He took immediate steps to regain the possession of the deceased millionaire's property in the interest of his posthumous child.

The case immediately attracted public attention and interest, both from the high position of the parties to the suit and the great wealth involved.

But for several months nothing could be heard from the defendant, who was still absent in Europe, although the lawyer who managed his property in his native city wrote him frantic and repeated appeals to return and defend his case.

At length, when patience had ceased to be a virtue with the plaintiff, and the opposition was about to push the suit for judgments without him, a brief letter was received from Howard Templeton, instructing the lawyers to postpone everything until after his arrival.

He would sail on a certain day and upon a certain steamer, and be with them four weeks from date.

Mrs. St. John was quite content to wait after she heard of that letter.

She felt so sure that she would win that she was willing to wait until her enemy came. She wanted to triumph over him face to face.

So the weeks dragged by, and Howard's steamer was due in port.

It did not come. Soon it was a week over-due.

Then came one of those dreadful reports of marine disasters that now and then thrill the great heart of humanity with horror.

There had been a terrible storm at sea, and the ship had gone to pieces upon a hidden rock. Only seven persons had been saved.

Howard Templeton's name appeared in the list of passengers who had perished.

So there could be no further delay now. The case went before the courts and was very speedily decided.

Mrs. St. John gained the case and had her revenge.

But it was no revenge, after all, since Howard Templeton was not alive to pay the bitter cost of her vengeance.

So the golden fruit, bought at the price of her soul's peace, turned to bitter ashes on her loathing lips.

CHAPTER XXII

"Mrs. St. John, allow me to present to you Lord Dudley."

Xenie turned with a languid smile and bowed to the tall, elegant gentleman who bent admiringly before her.

Only ten minutes before Mrs. Egerton had whispered to her eagerly:

"My dear, Lord Dudley, the great English peer, is present. There's a catch for you."

"I am not looking for a catch," Xenie said, almost bruskly.

"No," said her aunt, who was an indefatigable matchmaker; "but then you are too young and beautiful to remain always single. You are sure to marry some day again, and why not Lord Dudley?"

"He has not asked me, aunt," said Xenie, half-smiling, half-provoked. "I am not even acquainted with him."

"No, but you will be," said Mrs. Egerton. "I heard him asking just now about you. He said you were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen—a compliment worth having from such a man as Lord Dudley, so elegant and distinguished, with such an air of culture and travel. Besides, he is so wealthy, owning several castles in England, I'm told, and a fabulous bank account."

"A distinguished parti, certainly," said Xenie, indifferently, and then, as her aunt moved away, she completely forgot Lord Dudley's existence.

She stood leaning carelessly against a tall flower-stand, looking at the dancers, a little later, when Mrs. Egerton approached, leaning on the arm of a handsome gentleman, and then she found herself bowing and smiling in acknowledgement of an introduction to Lord Dudley.

"I have been watching you a long time, Mrs. St. John," he said, taking his place by her side. "Your face puzzled me."

"Indeed?" she said, raising her dark eyes to him with a kind of languid wonder.

"Yes, it is true," he said. Then suddenly, as the intoxicating strains of a waltz began to pulsate on the perfumed air, he exclaimed, in a different tone: "Will you give me this waltz, Mrs. St. John?"

She assented indifferently, and a moment later she was whirling down the long room, the envy of every woman at the ball, for every feminine present had set her cap at the distinguished traveler.

His tall, proud form in the black evening dress showed to the most perfect advantage, as clasping her petite and graceful form closely in his arm, they whirled round and round to the enchanting strains, looking, in the perfect accord and gracefulness with which they moved, like the spirit of harmony embodied.

"That will be a match," predicted some of the wiseacres around, and those that did not say that much thought it to themselves.

Among the latter class was a gentleman who had entered a moment before and now stood talking courteously to the hostess.

It was she who had directed his attention to the handsome pair.

"Look at Xenie," she said with a spice of malicious triumph in her tone. "That is Lord Dudley with whom she is waltzing. She has quite captivated him. Doubtless it will be a match."

His eyes followed the flying form a moment steadily, then he answered calmly:

"They are a handsome pair, certainly, Mrs. Egerton. I am acquainted with Lord Dudley."

"You met him abroad, I suppose?"

"No, we came over from England in the same–"

But at that moment someone came hastily up and claimed his attention.

Then a little excited group formed around him, and even the waltzers began to see that an unusual interest was agitating the wall-flowers.

Xenie looked carelessly at first, then more closely as she saw that her aunt stood in the center of the group.

"Aunt Egerton has suddenly become the center of attraction," she said, laughingly, to her companion.

Then she started and the room seemed to swim around her, the lights, the flowers, the black suits of the men, the gay, butterfly robes of the women seemed to be blending in an inextricable maze.

Her heart seemed beating in her ears, so loudly it sounded.

She had caught a flitting glimpse of a man's form standing just beyond her aunt. It was he around whom the excited little throng buzzed and eddied.

He was tall, straight, graceful as a young palm tree, handsome as Apollo, in his elegant evening dress.

His head, crowned with fair, curling locks, was held aloft with half-haughty grace; his Grecian profile, clearly-cut as a cameo head, was turned toward Xenie, and she saw the smile that curved the fair, mustached lips, the flash in the proud, blue eyes.

For a moment she lost the step, and hung droopingly on her partner's arm.

"You are tired," he said, stopping and looking down into her deathly-white face. "Pardon me, I kept you on the floor too long; but your step was so perfect, the music so entrancing, I forgot myself."

He was leading her to a seat as he spoke. She came back to herself with a quick start.

"No, do not blame yourself," she answered. "The fact is I am not accustomed to waltzing of late. This is the first time for almost two years, and it is so easy to—to grow dizzy—to lose one's head."

"Yes, indeed, it is," he answered. "Shall I get you a glass of water?"

"If you please," she murmured, faintly.

He went away, and she tried to rally from her sudden shock.

By the time he returned she was calm, nonchalantly fanning herself with a languid, indolent grace. No one but herself knew how hard and fast her heart was beating yet.

"Thank you," she murmured; then, as she lifted her head, she saw her aunt coming to her, leaning on the arm of a gentleman.

Lord Dudley stared and exclaimed:

"Heaven! it is Howard Templeton! The sea has given up its dead!"

"Do you know him?" asked Xenie.

"Yes, we crossed together. That is—until the terrible storm that wrecked us—I was one of the seven that were saved. It was supposed that Templeton was lost."

"Xenie," said Mrs. Egerton, vivaciously, and yet with a note of warning in her tones that was distinguishable only to her ears for whom it was intended, "here is an old friend whom we all thought dead. Bid him welcome."

Xenie arose, languid, careless, pale as a ghost, yet wearing a gracious smile for the eyes of the little social world that watched her keenly.

He took the half-extended hand in his a moment, and bowed low over it, touching it an instant to his mustached lips.

"I kiss the hand that smites me," he murmured in her ear, sarcastically; then turned aside to greet Lord Dudley.

Fervent congratulations were exchanged between these two, who had been ocean voyagers together, and who had parted on the deck of the broken vessel, expecting to meet again only upon the other shore of eternity.

"I am dying of impatience to hear how you were rescued from the horrors of that terrible shipwreck," said Lord Dudley. "Is the story too long to tell us to-night?"

"It is a long story, but it may be told in a few words," said Howard. "I was tossed about for some time, clinging desperately to a slender spar, then picked up by a blockade runner bound for Cuba.

"This, in turn, was captured by a Spanish war vessel. I remained a prisoner of Spain until such time as the vessel put into port, and I reported to our American consul in that country.

"He immediately wrote to America for the necessary papers to prove my identity as a citizen of America. These being obtained and examined, I was released, after a tedious delay, and came home as fast as wind and tide could carry me. There, my lord, you have the whole story in a nutshell."

"And a very interesting one, too, I doubt not, had it been related in detail. I heartily rejoice that you were saved to tell it," said Lord Dudley, with interest.

Then he added, as if some afterthought had suddenly struck him:

"And, Templeton, the lady—who came over in your care—was she also saved?"

Templeton started, and flashed a hurried glance at Xenie.

She was toying with her jeweled fan, and looking away as carelessly as if she had forgotten his existence.

He did not know that she was listening intently to every word.

He looked back carelessly at the nobleman.

"Yes, she was rescued with me. We clung to the spar together. I would have lost my own life rather than that frail and helpless girl should have perished!"

"She returned with you, then?" said Lord Dudley.

"Yes, she returned in my care. She was a helpless young widow," said Howard, evasively. "She lost all her friends in Europe."

Then other friends claimed him, and he turned away.

"So Mr. Templeton is an old acquaintance of yours, Mrs. St. John?"

"Yes; he was my late husband's nephew," she answered, with languid indifference.

He saw that she did not care to pursue the subject.

"It puzzled me when I first saw you to-night that I could not account for the strange familiarity of your face," he said; "but since I have so unexpectedly met with my fellow-voyager, Howard Templeton, I distinctly recall the reason. You are singularly like a lady who traveled in his care—your very height, your very features; though, as I remember now, very different in expression. She appeared almost heart-broken; yet she was very beautiful. I need not tell you that, though, since I have already said she looks like you," he added, with an admiring bow.

"What was her name?" asked Mrs. St. John, eagerly, quite oblivious of the delicate compliment.

"I have forgotten it," said Lord Dudley. "Forgetting names is a weakness of mine. Yet I remember that Templeton called her by her Christian name—a very soft and sweet one. Let me see—Laura, perhaps."

Xenie sat silent and thoughtful. There was a strange pain at her heart. She could not understand it.

"It cannot be that I am sorry he is living," she said to herself. "My triumph is greater than if he were dead. He knows that I have my sweet revenge. It was never sweet until I knew him living to feel its pangs! For all his haughty bearing it must be that he feels it in all its bitterness."

Then a sudden irrelevant thought flashed across these self-congratulations.

"I wonder who that Laura can be? Is he in love with her?"

It was the most natural thought in the world for a woman; yet she put it away from her with a sort of angry impatience.

"What if he does love her?" she thought, scornfully, "He cannot marry her. He is a beggar. I have stripped him of everything. She will leave him for lack of gold, as he left me. Then he may feel something of what I suffered through his sin!"

And she felt gladder than ever before at the thought of Howard Templeton's poverty. She knew that he could not marry the girl for whom he said he would have lost his own life—that beautiful, mysterious Laura.