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

Mrs. Egerton was passing and she called her.

"I am going home," she said. "I have danced too much. I am tired, and the rooms are suffocating."

"A multiplicity of excuses," laughed Lord Dudley. "Ossa upon Pelion piled. Mrs. St. John, you will not be so cruel?"

"I must; my head aches," she replied; and though he pleaded and Mrs. Egerton protested, she was obstinate.

Mrs. Egerton saw her depart, feeling sorely vexed with her.

Howard Templeton saw her leaving, and crossed the room to her.

"I shall do myself the pleasure of calling upon you to-morrow," he said, quietly, as he lightly touched her hand.

They had to wear a mask, these two deadly foes, before the curious eyes of the world.

She flashed a sudden, haughty look of inquiry into his steadfast eyes.

He stooped over her quickly.

"Yes," he whispered, hurriedly and lowly; "it is vendetta still. War to the knife!"

Then Lord Dudley, full of regrets, attended her to her carriage.

CHAPTER XXIII

"Xenie, is that you? Are you just home from the ball?"

Mrs. Carroll turned sleepily on her pillow and looked at the little figure that came gliding in, looking ghost-like in the pale glimmer of the night-lamp in its trailing white robes and unbound hair.

"Yes, mamma, it is I. But I have been home several hours from the ball."

"And not asleep yet, dear?" said Mrs. Carroll, in mild surprise.

"No; I am so restless I cannot sleep. I am sorry I had to disturb you, mamma, but I came to ask you to give me some simple sleeping potion."

"Certainly, love; but wouldn't it be wiser to try and sleep without it? Did you try counting backward?"

She rose as she spoke and turned up the gas. Mrs. St. John laughed—a short, mirthless laugh.

"Oh, yes, mamma, I tried all the usual old-woman remedies, but to no avail. My brain is too excited to yield to trifling measures. Give me something strong that will induce sleep directly."

Her mother, looking at her keenly, saw that she was very pale, and her wide-open, dark eyes looked heavy with some speechless pain.

"Dear, you are not ill, are you?" she inquired, going to a little medicine-case and taking out a small vial and wineglass.

"No, mamma, only nervous and restless. Give me the opiate. It is all I need."

"Did you enjoy the ball?" asked her mother, pouring out the drops with a steady hand. "Who was there?"

"Oh, a number of people. Lord Dudley, for instance. You remember we visited his castle while we were abroad—that great show-place down in Cornwall. I did not tell him about it, though. He is very handsome and elegant. Aunt Egerton recommended him to me as a most desireable catch."

She wanted to tell her mother that the sea had given up its dead—that she had seen Howard Templeton alive and in the flesh, but somehow she could not bring herself to utter his name; so she had rattled on at random.

"Humph! I should think Mrs. Egerton had had enough of making matches for you," her mother muttered. "After the way Howard Templeton treated you she–"

"Oh, mamma," said Xenie, interrupting her suddenly.

"What?" said Mrs. Carroll.

"He—he is here," said Xenie, with a gasp.

"He—who, child?" asked her mother.

"The man you named," said Xenie, in a low voice, as she took the wineglass into her shaking hand.

"Not Howard Templeton?" said Mrs. Carroll, with such an air of blank astonishment that she looked almost ludicrous in her wide-frilled, white night-cap, and Xenie must have laughed if it had not been for that strange and heavy aching at her heart. As it was, she simply said:

"Yes, mamma."

"Then he wasn't shipwrecked, after all—I mean he wasn't drowned, after all. Somebody saved him, didn't they?" said Mrs. Carroll, in a good deal of astonishment.

And again Xenie said, quietly:

"Yes, mamma."

"But how did it all happen? Or did you ask him?" inquired her mother, curiously.

"He is coming here to-morrow. I dare say he will tell you all about it. I am going now. Good-night," said Xenie, draining the contents of the wineglass and setting it down.

"Good-night, my darling," said Mrs. Carroll, looking after her a little disappointedly as she went slowly from the room.

But Xenie did not look back, though she knew that her mother was burning with curiosity to know more of her meeting with Howard Templeton.

She went to her luxurious room, crept shiveringly beneath the satin counterpane, and was soon lost to all mundane interest in the deep sleep induced by the drug she had taken.

She slept long and uninterruptedly, and it was far into the day when she awoke and found her maid, Finette, waiting patiently to dress her.

"You must arrange my hair very carefully, Finette," she said, as the maid brushed out the dark luxuriance of her tresses, "and put on my handsomest morning-dress. I expect a caller this morning."

It always pleased her to appear at her very fairest in Howard Templeton's presence.

She liked for him to realize all he had lost when he gave her back her troth because she was poor, and because he was not manly enough to dare the ills of poverty for her sake.

So Finette arranged the silky, shining, dark hair in a soft mass of waves and puffs that did not look too elaborate for a morning toilet, and yet was exquisitely becoming, while it gave a certain proud stateliness to the petite figure.

Then she added a little comb of frosted silver, and laid out several morning-dresses of various hues and styles for the inspection of her mistress.

Mrs. St. John looked them over very critically.

It was a spring morning, but the genial airs of that balmy season had not yet made their appearance sufficiently for an indulgence in the crisp muslin robes that suited the month, so Xenie selected a morning-robe of pale-pink cashmere, richly trimmed in quilted satin and yellowish Languedoc lace.

The soft, rich color atoned for the unusual absence of tinting in the oval fairness of her face, and when she descended to the drawing-room she had never looked lovelier.

The slight air of restless expectancy about her was not enough to detract from her beauty, though it robbed her of repose.

"Mamma, has little Jack come in yet from his morning airing?" she inquired of Mrs. Carroll, who was sorting some bright-colored wools on a sofa.

"Yes, half an hour ago. You slept late," said Mrs. Carroll.

"Let us have him in to amuse us," said Mrs. St. John, restlessly.

Mrs. Carroll rang a bell and a servant appeared.

"Tell Ninon to bring my son here," said Mrs. St. John.

Presently the little French maid appeared, leading the beautiful, richly-dressed child by the hand.

Little Jack rushed forward tumultuously and climbed into Xenie's lap. She kissed him fondly but carefully, taking care that he did not disarrange her hair or dress.

"Pretty mamma," whispered the dark-eyed child, patting her pale cheeks with his dimpled, white hand.

Mrs. St. John smiled proudly, and just then her mother said, with the air of one who vaguely recalls something:

"Did I dream it last night, Xenie, or did you tell me that Mr. Templeton is alive, and that he is coming here to-day?"

There came a sudden hurried peal at the door-bell. Xenie started, growing white and red by turns.

"I told you so," she answered. "And there he is now, I suppose."

She sat very still and waited, clasping the beautiful boy to her wildly beating heart.

There was a bustle in the hall, then the door was thrown open and a gentleman was ushered in.

He was a large, handsome young man, in the uniform of a sea captain. He wore a large, dark beard, and his brown eyes flashed their eagle gaze around the room, half-anxiously, half-defiantly, until they rested on Mrs. St. John's face where she sat clasping the child in her arms.

As she met his gaze she put the child down upon the floor and started up with a low cry.

"Jack Mainwaring!" she gasped.

CHAPTER XXIV

Jack Mainwaring—for it was indeed himself—looked at his sister-in-law with a half-sarcastic smile.

He had no love for Lora's relations. He considered that they had treated him badly. He was as well-born as they were, and had been better off until Xenie had married the old millionaire.

Yet they had flouted his love for Lora and refused to sanction an engagement between them, hoping to send her to the city and find a richer market for her beauty. So it was with a smile of scorn he contemplated the agitation of the beautiful young widow.

"Yes, Mrs. St. John, it is Jack Mainwaring," he said, grimly. "Don't be alarmed, I won't eat you."

Xenie regarded him with a stare of haughty amazement.

"I do not apprehend such a calamity," she said, icily. "But—I thought you dead."

"Yes," he said. "I have passed through some terrible disasters, but luckily I escaped with my life. You will not care to hear about that, though, so I will not digress. I will say that I came up from the country this morning. I went down there yesterday to look for Lora. You will wonder, perhaps, why I am here this morning."

Mrs. Carroll had sent the nurse away as soon as he entered. They were alone, she and Xenie and the child, with the handsome, desperate young man, looking as if he hovered on the verge of madness.

He had not even spoken to his mother-in-law, who regarded him with a species of terror.

Xenie fell back into her seat at the mention of Lora's name. Her lip quivered and her eyes filled.

"You—you surely have not come for Lora," she said, and her voice was almost a moan of pain. "You surely must have heard–"

"That my wife is dead," he said, and his voice shook so that it was scarcely audible. "Yes, they told me she was drowned. Is it true?"

"She—she drowned herself," answered Xenie, in a low tone of passionate despair.

She had not asked him to sit down, but Captain Mainwaring dropped down heavily into a chair with a groan of mortal agony, and hid his convulsed face in his hands.

"Oh, my God, no!" he cried out, wildly. "They did not tell me that. It is not true. It cannot be true. She would not have done that, my little Lora!"

"It is all your fault," cried out Mrs. Carroll, confronting him with a pale face and flashing eyes. "You drove her to it, Jack Mainwaring, you broke her heart. You killed her as surely as if your hand had pushed her into that great, cruel sea where she found her death!"

"She was my wife—I loved her," said the sailor in a voice of anguish, as he lifted his wet eyes to the face of the angry mother of his lost one. "You were the cruel one. You denied her my love, and perhaps when you found out that she belonged to me in spite of you, you tormented her to death."

Mrs. Carroll did not answer him. She was afraid to speak. A moment ago, in her rage and excitement, words had hovered on her lips that would have betrayed the fact that a child had been born to Lora.

But a quick telegraphic signal from her daughter arrested the truth on her lips. So she remained silent, fearful that some angry, unguarded word might betray Xenie's perilous secret.

Meanwhile little Jack clung to Mrs. St. John's dress, and regarded the big, handsome, bearded seaman with fearless, fascinated eyes.

The door opened suddenly and Howard Templeton stepped into the room, but no one saw him or heard him, so intense was the excitement that pervaded their hearts.

He was about to advance toward Mrs. Carroll when he saw Jack Mainwaring sitting in a position that screened the new-comer from the ladies, while it exposed to full view his own anguished and tear-wet face.

Howard paused instantly and stared at the handsome sailor with increasing surprise each moment, until that expression was succeeded by one of fervent pleasure.

He had known Jack Mainwaring quite well several years before, and had been sincerely sorry when he had heard of his loss at sea.

Now, after one puzzled moment, resulting from Jack's long, glossy beard, he recognized him, and his heart leaped with joy to think that Lora's husband was still numbered among the living.

"But I did not come here to bandy words," continued poor Jack, lifting his bowed head dejectedly. "Mrs. St. John, will you tell me how long my wife has been dead?"

Xenie named the date in a half-choked voice. It was fourteen months before.

Captain Mainwaring took a well-worn letter from his pocket and ran over it again, while his manly face worked convulsively with emotion; then he said, in a voice that quivered with deep feeling:

"My poor Lora, my unfortunate wife, left me a child, then. Where is that child, Mrs. St. John?"

A blank, terrified silence overwhelmed the two women. Instinctively Xenie's arm crept around the child at her knee and drew him closer to her side.

Captain Mainwaring had scarcely noticed little Jack before, but Xenie's peculiar action attracted his attention. He rose and took a step toward her.

"You do not answer me," he said. "Can it be, then, that this is Lora's child and mine?"

Xenie caught the child up and held him tightly to her breast, while she faced the speaker with wild, angry eyes, like a lioness at bay.

"Back, back!" she cried, "do not touch him! This is my child—mine, do you hear? How dare you claim him?"

"Yours, yours," cried the sailor, retreating before the passionate vehemence of her voice and gestures; "I—I did not know you had a child, madam."

"You did not," cried Xenie with breathless defiance. "No matter. Ask mamma, there. Ask Doctor Shirley! Ask anyone you choose. They will all tell you that this is my child—my child, do you understand?"

"Madam, I am not disputing your word," cried poor Jack, in amaze at her angry vehemence. "Of course you know best whose child it is. But will you tell me what became of Lora's baby?"

Mrs. St. John stared at him silently a moment, then she answered, coldly:

"Lora's baby? Are you mad, Jack Mainwaring? Who told you that she had a baby?"

His answer was a startling one:

"Lora told me so herself, Mrs. St. John."

Xenie St. John reeled backward a few steps, and stared at the speaker with parted lips from which every vestige of color had retreated, leaving them pallid and bloodless as a ghost's.

"What, under Heaven, do you mean?" she inquired, in a hollow voice.

Captain Mainwaring held up the letter in his hand.

"Do you see this letter?" he said. "It is the last one Lora wrote me. I received it at the last port we touched before our ship was burned. She begged me to come back to her at once if I could, and save her name from the shadow of disgrace. She told me that a child was coming to us in the spring. I—oh, God, I was frantic! I meant to return on the first homeward bound vessel! Then came the terrible fire and loss of the vessel. Days and days we floated on a raft—myself and three others—then we were rescued by a merchant vessel bound for China. We had to go there before we could come home. For months and months I endured inconceivable tortures thinking of my poor young wife's terrible strait. And after all—when I thought I should so soon be at home and kiss her tears away—I find her dead!"

His voice broke, he buried his face in his hands, and, strong man though he was, sobbed aloud like a child.

They watched him, those four—Templeton, himself unseen—the frightened mother and daughter, and the little child with its sweet lips puckered grievingly at the man's loud sobs.

But in a minute the man mastered himself, and went on sadly:

"I was half frantic when I heard that my wife was dead. But, after awhile, I remembered the little child. I said to myself, I will go and seek it. If it be a little girl I will call it Lora. It may comfort me a little for its mother's loss."

He paused a moment, and looked at the pale, statue-like woman before him.

"Where is the child?" he asked, almost plaintively.

Her eyes fell before his earnest gaze, her cheeks blanched to the pallor of marble.

"She must have been mistaken," she faltered. "There was no child."

The young sailor regarded her keenly.

"Madam, I do not believe you," he answered, bluntly. "You are trying to deceive me. I ask you again, where is my child? Is it dead? Was it drowned with its hapless young mother?"'

"I tell you there was no child," she answered, defiantly, stung to bitterest anger by his words.

"But there was a child," persisted Captain Mainwaring. "Lora would not have deceived me."

"Not willfully, I know, but she was mistaken, I tell you," was the passionate response.

"I do not believe you, Mrs. St. John. You are trying to deceive me for some purpose of your own. You kept my wife from me, and you would fain keep my child, also. You have hidden it away from me! Nay, I believe on my soul that it is my child you hold in your arms and claim as your own. Give it to me," he cried, advancing upon her.

But she retreated from him in terror.

"Never! never!" she cried out, in a passionate voice.

"Xenie, Xenie!" cried Howard Templeton, advancing sternly, "do not stain your soul longer with such a horrible falsehood. Give Jack Mainwaring the child! You well know that it is his and Lora's own!"

CHAPTER XXV

Xenie St. John turned with a half-stifled shriek and looked at the daring intruder.

She saw her enemy standing in the center of the room looking down at her from his princely hight with a lightning flash of scorn in his bright blue eyes, his lips set sternly under his curling blonde mustache.

He was elegantly attired in the most fashionable morning costume, and his fair, proud Saxon beauty had never appeared more striking. Xenie's dark eyes flashed their gaze into his blue ones with a blaze of passionate defiance.

"How dare you say so?" she cried, stamping her small, slippered foot upon the rich carpet with angry vehemence. "Are you mad, Howard Templeton?"

He stood still, folding his arms across his broad breast, regarding her with a steady calmness strangely at variance with her passionate vehemence.

"No, I am not mad," he answered, in low, even tones, while his blue eyes gazed strangely into her own—"I am not mad, and I dare assert nothing but what I know to be the truth. So I repeat what I said to you just now. Give Captain Mainwaring the innocent little child in whose name you have perpetrated such a monstrous fraud. It is his child and your sister's. I will prove it, and swear to it if necessary, before any court in the land."

The calm and steady assurance of his words and looks and tones struck Xenie with inward terror. Yet it seemed to her impossible that Howard Templeton could really know the truth. Her heart quaked with terror, yet she tried to brave it out in very desperation.

"How dare you say so?" she repeated, but her voice faltered, and she trembled so that she could scarcely hold the little child in her arms.

Mrs. Carroll crept to her side and stood there dumbly, filled with a yearning desire to help Xenie and shield her from the consequences of her sin, but so horror-stricken that she could not even speak.

Howard Templeton regarded Xenie with a look of scornful amazement.

"Madam," he said, in clear, ringing, vibrant tones, "I can scarce believe that you will try to persist in this terrible deception in the face of all that I have said. Listen, then, and you shall know why I dare confront you with your sin."

"Speak on," she answered, cresting her beautiful head so defiantly, and looking at him so proudly that no one, not even her mother, dreamed of the terrible pain that ached at her heart.

"I have known of this deception from the first," he said. "Ever since the evening I called upon your sister, before you went to Europe. You personated Lora very cleverly. I will give you that much credit; but you did not deceive me five minutes. I saw through the mask directly, and understood the daring game you were playing in furtherance of your revenge against me. Your clever acting did not blind me. I had loved you once, remember, and the eyes of love are very keen."

Alternately flushing and paling, Xenie stared at him, still clasping the little child to her wildly beating heart.

"Bah!" she cried out, contemptuously, as he paused; "who would believe this wild tale that you are telling? If you suspected me, why did you not speak out?"

"I had a fancy to see the farce played out," he answered, coldly. "I was curious to know how far you would willfully wander in the path of sin to gratify your thirst for revenge. I followed you to Europe, although you did not dream of such a thing until that wild and rainy dawn when you met me on the shore near your cottage."

A groan forced itself though her pallid lips as she recalled that dreadful day.

"But, Xenie," he continued, slowly, "I never meant to let matters go as far as they have gone. It amused me for a little while to watch your desperate game, but I always intended to check you before you consummated your clever plan. But that strange power that some call fate, and others Providence, has come between me and my first intention. You have tasted the full sweetness of the cup of revenge, and now you are doomed to drink the bitter dregs. The disgraceful truth will all be known. The wealth you have cheated me of by a terrible fraud will have to be restored. The time has come when I cannot spare you if I would."

She shivered as if an icy wind had blown against her, so impressive were his looks and words; but she saw that Captain Mainwaring was looking at her with mingled wrath and scorn on his handsome, honest face; and the spirit of defiance only grew stronger within her.

"I defy you," she began, imperiously, but the words died half-uttered on her lips, and a shriek of fear and terror burst forth instead.

For the closed door had opened silently and suddenly, and a beautiful, fragile-looking woman had glided into the room.

Xenie thought it was the ghost of her who lay in that green grave under the skies of France, with the white cross marked: "Lora, ætat 18."

The beautiful intruder paused a moment and gazed questioningly around her.

As if by magic, her gaze encountered that of the young sea captain who was staring at her with wild, half-frightened eyes, like one who sees a vision.

Lora—for it was indeed herself—gazed at the handsome young sailor a moment in bewilderment; then a wild and piercing shriek of joy burst from her lips. She rushed forward and threw herself upon his broad breast in a transport of happiness.

"Oh, Jack, Jack!" she cried, twining her white arms tightly around his neck, "you are alive! What happiness for your poor Lora!"

Captain Mainwaring clasped and kissed her with passionate joy, understanding nothing very clearly except the one ecstatic fact that Lora was indeed alive, and having through his deep joy a vague consciousness that Mrs. St. John had somehow terribly wronged and deceived him.

"You see," said Howard Templeton, coldly to Xenie as she stared speechlessly. "Lora has returned to claim her own. Your reign is over."

Lora heard the words, and breaking from the fond clasp of her husband's arms, turned to her sister.

"Oh, Xenie!" she cried, then she stopped short, and her lovely face flushed and her dark eyes beamed.

She had caught sight of the beautiful boy that nestled in the clasp of her sister's arms.

Lora watched him a moment with parted lips and eager eyes.

"Oh!" she breathed, in tones of ineffable tenderness, "how beautiful he is!" then, in low and almost humble accents, she murmured: "Xenie, you will let me kiss him once."

"It is Lora's voice and face," cried Mrs. St. John, half-retreating before her as she advanced, "and yet I saw Lora lying dead—drowned in the cruel sea!"

"No, no," cried Lora, eagerly, "that poor creature you saw drowned was not your sister, Xenie."

"She wore your shawl, your rings," exclaimed Mrs. St. John, incoherently.

"Yes, that is true," said Lora, patiently, "but I can easily explain that, Xenie. She was a poor, mad creature that I met in my wandering—even madder than myself, perhaps, for I remember it all distinctly. She stripped me of my shawl and my jewels—to make herself fine as she said. I let her have them and she went away and left me. Then it must have been that she cast herself into the sea. It was she whom they found and whom you buried under the marble cross with my name upon it. She was some poor, unknown unfortunate whom you mourned as your sister."