An Old Man's Darling

"The higher she soars now the lower her fall shall be!" exclaimed the relentless girl, with her low, reckless laugh, "mother, I shall not fail of my revenge!"

Ah! Felise Herbert! The coils of fate are tightening around you like a deadly serpent while you exult in your wickedness.

CHAPTER XXVI

The gay, pleasure-loving Parisians were on the qui vive for Mrs. Carlyle's masquerade ball, for it was everywhere conceded that her entertainments were the most recherche and delightful in the whole city. Colonel Carlyle spared neither pains nor expense to render them so.

In his laudable desire to further Bonnibel's happiness, the colonel lavished gold like water. He knew no other path to success than this. He wanted to win her regard, if possible, and his experience in society had disposed him to believe that the most potent "open sesame" to a woman's heart was wealth and power.

How far the colonel's convictions were true, or how ably he might have succeeded in the darling wish of his heart, had things gone well, we shall never know, for the frail superstructure of his happiness, builded on the sand, was destined to be thrown down and shattered into fragments by the wild winds of fate, that should converge into storms on that fatal night to which so many looked forward with pleasure.

And yet not the faintest presentiment of evil came to him that day to whisper of the gathering clouds of destiny. He knew not that his "house of cards" tottered on its foundation, that the wreck and ruin of his dearest hope was about to be consummated. He knew not, or he might have exclaimed with the poet:

"Of all that life can teach us,There's naught so true as this;The winds of fate blow ever,But ever blow amiss!"

The brief winter day came at length, gloomy and overcast, with clouded sky that overflowed with a wild, tempestuous rain, as though

"The heart of Heaven was breakingIn tears o'er the fallen earth."

At night the storm passed over, the bright stars shone through the misty veil of darkness, a lovely silver moon hung its crescent in the sky. All things seemed propitious for the hour that was "big with fate" to the lovely girl whose changing fortunes we have followed to the turning point of her life.

Cold, and dark, and gloomy though it seemed outside, all was light, and warmth, and summer in the splendid chateau.

Hot-house flowers bloomed everywhere in the most lavish profusion. The air was heavy with their fragrance.

Entrancing strains of music echoed through the splendid halls, tempting light feet to the gay whirl of the dance. The splendid drawing-rooms, opening into each other, looked like long vistas of fairy-land, in the glow of light, and the beauty shed around by countless flowers overflowing great marble vases everywhere. The gay masquers moved through the entrancing scene, chatting, laughing, dancing, as though life itself were but one long revel. In the banqueting hall the long tables were loaded with every luxury under the sun, temptingly spread on gold and silver plates. Nothing that taste could devise, or wealth could procure, was lacking for the enjoyment of the guests; and pleasure reigned supreme.

It was almost the hour for unmasking, and Colonel Carlyle stood alone, half hidden by a crimson-satin curtain, looking on idly at the gay dancers before him.

He felt weary and dull, though he would not have owned it for the world. He hated to feel the weakness and feebleness of old age creeping over him, as it was too surely doing, and affected to enter into all the gaieties of the season, with the zest and ardor of a younger and stronger man.

He had for a few moments felt dull, sad and discontented. The reason was because he had lost sight of his beautiful idol whom no mask could hide from his loving eyes.

She had disappeared in the moving throng a little while ago, and now he impatiently waited until some happy chance should restore her to his sight again.

"I am very foolish over my darling," he said to himself, half proudly, half seriously. "I do not believe that any young man could worship her as passionately as I do. I watch over her as closely and jealously as if some dread mischance might remove her from my sight at any moment. Ah, those dreadful two years in which I so cruelly put her out of my life and starved my eyes and my heart—would that I might recall them and undo their work! Those years of separation and repentance have sadly aged me!"

He sighed heavily, and again his anxious gaze roved through the room.

"Ah, there she is," he murmured, delightedly. "My beautiful Bonnibel! how I wish the time for unmasking would come. I cannot bear for her sweet face to be hidden from my sight."

At that moment a small hand fluttered down upon his arm.

He turned abruptly.

Beside him stood a woman whose dark eyes shone through her concealing mask like coals of fire. She spoke in a low, unfamiliar voice:

"I know you, sir. Your mask cannot hide Colonel Carlyle from my eyes."

"Madam, you have the advantage of me," he answered politely. "Will you accord me the privilege of your name?"

"It matters not," she answered, with a low, eerie laugh, whose strangeness sent a cold thrill like an icy chill along his veins, "I am but a wandering sibyl; I claim no name, no country."

"Perhaps you will foretell my future," he said, humoring her assumption of the character.

"It were best concealed," she said, and again he heard that strange, blood-curdling laugh.

He bowed and stood gazing at her silently, wondering a little who she could be.

The wandering sibyl stood silent, too, as if lost in thought. Presently she started and spoke like one waking from a dream:

"And yet perhaps I may give you a word of warning."

"Pray do so," he answered carelessly, for his eyes had returned to the graceful form of Bonnibel as she stood leaning against a tall stand of flowers at a little distance from him.

The woman's eyes followed his. She frowned darkly beneath her mask.

"You have gathered many distinguished guests around you to-night, Colonel Carlyle," she said, abruptly.

"None more honored than yourself, madam, be sure, although unknown," he answered, with a courtly bow.

"Pretty words," she answered, with a mocking laugh. "Let me repay them by a friendly warning."

She bent nearer and breathed in a low, sibilant whisper:

"Your wife and the great artist who is your honored guest to-night, were lovers long ago. Watch well how they meet when unmasked to-night!"

With the words she glided from him like the serpent forsaking Eden.

And that deadly serpent, jealousy, that had lain dormant in the colonel's heart for months, "scotched but not killed," now coiled itself anew for a fatal spring.

The blood in his veins seemed turning to liquid fire.

His heart beat so wildly that he could distinctly hear its rapid throbs.

He felt frightened at the swiftness and violence of the passion that flooded his whole being.

The words spoken by the masked woman seemed to burn themselves into his heart.

"Your wife and the great artist who is your honored guest to-night were lovers long ago. Watch well how they meet when unmasked to-night."

For a moment Reason tried to assert her supremacy, and whisper, "Peace, be still," to the seething whirlpool of emotion.

"Do not believe it," she said. "Someone is trying to tease you. It is quite impossible that Bonnibel and this foreign artist should have met before. Anonymous warnings should always be treated with contempt."

And then he remembered the anonymous note he had received at Long Branch two years before.

"That was true," he said to himself. "Bonnibel as good as admitted it, for she would not show me the inscription in the ring, and she refused to give up wearing it. But she said that the giver was dead. Had she had two lovers, then, innocent and youthful as she was? Perhaps she deceived me. Women are not to be trusted, they say. I will obey the warning of my unknown friend and watch."

He waited impatiently for the summons to supper, which would be the signal for laying aside the masks.

"It must be true," he said to himself, "for that would explain why he was so discourteous about painting her portrait. He did not wish to be thrown into familiar contact with her again. Perhaps she had used him cruelly. It may be that she threw him over because he was poor and unknown, then, and accepted me only for the sake of my wealth."

He was nearly maddened by these tumultuous thoughts. He was almost on the point of going to her at once and overwhelming her with the accusation of her wrong-doing.

At that moment the signal came and his guests unmasked.

He saw Monsieur Favart coming toward him accompanied by a handsome distinguished-looking young man in the costume of a knight. He had never met the great Roman artist, yet he felt a quick intuition that this must be the man. The premonition was verified for Monsieur Favart paused before him and said:

"Colonel Carlyle, it gives me pleasure to present my artist friend, Mr. Dane."

The two gentlemen bowed to each other, but for a moment Colonel Carlyle could not speak. When he did his voice was hoarse and strained, and his words of welcome were so few that Monsieur Favart looked at him in surprise. What had become of the old colonel's urbanity and courtliness?

"You will allow me to present you to my wife, Mr. Dane," said the host, breaking the silence with an effort.

The artist bowed and they moved down the long room side by side, the old man with his white face and silvery beard, the young one with his princely grace and refined beauty.

Leslie Dane had been most reluctant to attend the ball given by the American colonel, but Carl Muller had teased him into compliance. He had nerved himself for the trial, and found that he could bear the contact with one from his native land with more sang froid than he expected.

"Now I shall see the old lady," was his half-smiling comment to himself as he walked along. "I wonder if she is very angry with me because I would not paint her portrait."

The next moment, before he had time to raise his eyes, he found himself bowing hurriedly at the sound of his host's voice uttering the usual formal words of introduction.

Bonnibel was standing alone by a tall jardiniere of flowers, looking downward a little thoughtfully. She was dressed as Undine, in a floating robe of sea-green, with billows of snowy tulle, looped with water-lilies and sea-grasses, and lightly embroidered with pearls and tiny sea-shells. Her appropriate ornaments were aquamarines in a setting of golden shells. Her long, golden hair fell unbound over her shoulders and rippled to her waist, enveloping her form in a halo of brightness. She looked like a beautiful siren of old ocean, as fair and fresh and beautiful as Venus when she first arose from its coral caves.

Someone had said to her just a moment before, "Mrs. Carlyle, you look like a beautiful picture," and the words had recalled to her mind the great artist who had refused to paint her portrait.

"I wonder if Mr. Deane is here to-night," she was thinking, when Colonel Carlyle's voice spoke suddenly beside her, and she bowed haughtily, actuated by a little feeling of pique, and lifted her sea-blue eyes to the face of the artist. She met his gaze fixed steadily upon her with a look of utter surprise, bitter pain and bitterer scorn upon his deathly pale face. In an instant the tide of time rolled backward and these two, standing face to face the first time in years, knew each other!

Ah, me! how could she bear the revelation that flashed over her so swiftly, and live through its horror, its shame and disgrace! The words she had been about to speak died unuttered on her lips, the lights, the flowers, the stern, set face of Leslie Dane, all swam before her eyes as things "seen in a glass, darkly." She threw up her hands blindly and reeled backward, striking against the light jardiniere as she fell. It was overturned by the shock, and scattered its wealth of flowers about her as she lay there unconscious, as beautiful, as fragile, as innocent as they.

For a moment neither Colonel Carlyle nor Leslie Dane moved or spoke. It was a third person who pushed past them and lifted the fair, inanimate form. For Colonel Carlyle, there was murder seething in his jealous heart that moment, and in the breast of Leslie Dane a grand scorn was strangling every emotion of pity.

"Falser than all fancy fathoms,Falser than all songs have sung,"

was the thought in his heart as he looked down on the pale and lifeless face.

People crowded around, with advice and restoratives, and as she came back slowly to life they asked her what had caused her to faint. Was she ill, were the flowers too overpowering, were the rooms too warm?

"I struck my head against the jardiniere and fell," was all she would say as she hid her pale face in her hands to shut out the sight of the cold, calm eyes that looked down upon her with veiled scorn.

Colonel Carlyle revived sufficiently to lead her away to her room, and people told each other that an accident had happened to Mrs. Carlyle. She had struck her head against the jardiniere of flowers and fainted from the pain.

CHAPTER XXVII

Colonel Carlyle would fain have lingered in Bonnibel's apartment and asked for some explanation of her fainting spell, which he was convinced was the result of her meeting with the artist, although her simple assertion of striking her head against the jardiniere had deceived all others except himself, as it might have deceived him but for the warning of the masked sibyl.

But it was quite true that she had hurt her head, and when the faithful Lucy parted the thick locks and began to dress the slight wound, her young mistress turned so ghastly pale and closed her eyes so wearily that the jealous old man saw that it was no fitting time for recrimination, and went away to attend to his guests, half-resolved to have it out with the artist himself.

But calmer thoughts stepped in and forbade this indulgence of his spleen. After all, what could he say to the young man? What did he know wherewith to accuse him? His anonymous informant had only said that his wife and the artist had been former lovers. What, then? How the gay world would have laughed if he picked a quarrel with the lion of the hour on such a charge as that.

Many of the women whom Colonel Carlyle knew would have deemed it an honor to have been loved either in the past or present by the gifted artist. No, there was nothing he could say to the man on the subject, yet he determined that he would at least watch him closely, and if—if there should be even the faintest attempt on his part to revive the intimacy of the past, then woe unto him, for Colonel Carlyle was nerved to almost any act of frenzy.

Bonnibel lifted her head when the colonel was gone and looked at her faithful attendant with a face on which death itself seemed to have set its seal.

"Oh, me! Miss Bonnibel, you are as white as a ghost," exclaimed Lucy. "And no wonder! It is a bad cut, though not very deep. Does it hurt you very much?"

"What are you talking of, Lucy? What should hurt me?" inquired her mistress in a wild, startled tone, showing that she had quite forgotten her wound.

"Why, the cut on your head, to be sure," said Lucy in surprise.

"Oh! Heaven, I had forgotten that," moaned the poor young creature. "I do not feel the pain, Lucy, for the wound in my heart is much deeper. It is of that only I am thinking."

She bowed her face in her hands and deep, smothered moans shook her from head to foot. The delicate frame reeled and shook with emotion like some slender reed shaken by a storm.

Lucy knelt down at her feet and implored her mistress to tell her what she could do to help her in her trouble, whatever it might be.

"Miss Bonnibel," she urged, "tell me something that I can do for you—anything, no matter what, to help you out of your trouble if I can."

Bonnibel hushed her sobs by a great effort of will, and looked down at the faithful creature.

"Bring me my writing-desk, Lucy," she said, "and I will tell you what you can do for me."

Lucy complied in wondering silence.

Bonnibel took out a creamy white sheet, smooth as satin, and wrote a few lines upon it with a shaking hand. Then she dashed her pen several times through the elaborate monogram "B.C." at the top of the sheet.

"Lucy," she said, as she inclosed her note in an envelope and hastily addressed it, "do you remember a gentleman who used to visit at Sea View before my Uncle Francis died—a Mr. Dane?"

"Perfectly well, ma'am," Lucy responded, promptly. "He was an artist."

"Yes, he was an artist. Should you know him again, Lucy?"

"I think I should, ma'am. He was very handsome, with dark eyes and hair," said the girl, who was by no means behind her sex in her appreciation of manly beauty.

"He is down-stairs now, Lucy—he is one of our guests to-night," said Bonnibel, with a heavy sigh.

"Is it possible, ma'am?" exclaimed the girl, in surprise. "I thought—at least I heard—Miss Herbert's maid told me a long while ago that Mr. Dane was dead."

"There was some mistake," answered Bonnibel, drearily. "He is alive—I have seen him. And now, Lucy, I will tell you what I wish you to do."

The girl stood listening attentively.

"You will take this note, my good girl, and go down-stairs and put it in the hands of Mr. Dane, if you can find him. Try and deliver it to him unobserved, and bring me back his answer."

"I will find him if he is to be found anywhere," said Lucy, taking the note and departing on her secret mission.

Leslie Dane's first passionate impulse after his abrupt meeting with his lost wife was to leave the house which sheltered her false head.

But as he was about to put his resolve into execution he was accosted by a group of ladies and detained for half an hour listening to an idle hum of words, from which he longed to tear himself away in the frenzy of scorn and indignation which possessed him.

At length he excused himself, and was about passing through the deserted hall on his way out when he encountered Bonnibel's maid.

Lucy had, like many illiterate persons, a keen recollection of faces. She knew the artist immediately.

"You are Mr. Dane," she said, going up to him after a keen glance around to see if she were unobserved.

"Yes," he answered, looking at her in wonder.

"I have a note for you, sir. Please read it and give me an answer at once."

He took it, tore off the envelope, and read the few lines that Bonnibel had penned, while a frown gathered on his brow.

"Well, sir?"

"Wait a moment."

He took a gold pencil from his pocket and hastily scribbled a few lines on the back of Bonnibel's sheet. Lucy, watching him curiously under the glare of gas-light, saw that he was deadly pale, and trembled like a leaf.

"Give this to your mistress," he said, putting the sheet back in the torn envelope, "and tell her that I am gone."

He turned away and walked rapidly out of sight.

Lucy sighed, she could not have told why, and turned back along the hall.

"Hold, girl!" exclaimed a hoarse, passionate voice behind her.

She turned in a fright, and saw Colonel Carlyle just behind her, his features distorted by rage and passion. He caught her arm violently and tore the note from her grasp.

"I will myself deliver this note to your mistress," he said, "and as for you, girl, go!"

He dragged her along the hallway to the open door, and pushed her out violently into the street, bareheaded and with no wrapping to protect her frail, womanly form from the rigors of the wintry night.

"Go, creature!" he thundered after her, "go, false minion of a false woman, and never darken these doors again with your hated presence!"

Lucy sank down upon the wet and sleety pavement with a moan of pain, and Colonel Carlyle closed and locked the door upon her defenseless form.

Rage had transformed the courteous old man into something more fiend-like than human.

As soon as he had disposed of his wife's attendant so summarily he turned his attention to the note he had wrested from her reluctant grasp.

Retiring into a deserted ante-room he opened and read it as coolly as if it had been addressed to himself.

What he read caused the veins to start out upon his forehead like great twisted cords, and his lips to writhe, while his face grew purple, and his eyes almost started from their sockets.

Bonnibel had written:

"Leslie, forgive me if you can. Before God, I wronged you innocently! I thought you dead! If there is one spark of pity or honor in your breast keep my secret. It would kill me to have it known to the world! I will go away from here and hide myself in obscurity forever! Of course I cannot remain with Colonel Carlyle a day longer. You seemed very angry to-night—your eyes flashed lurid lightnings upon me. I pray you, do not believe me willfully guilty—do not betray me for the sake of revenge! The shame, the horror, the disgrace of our fatal secret will kill me soon enough.

Bonnibel."

Looking at the top of the page he saw that she had dashed her pen several times through her monogram. He gnashed his teeth at the sight.

"What could she possibly mean by it?" he asked himself, as he turned the sheet and read the artist's reply:

"Do not fear for your proud position, Bonnibel. Mine is the last hand upon earth that would drag you down from it! Pursue your wonted way in peace and serenity. You need not go away—that is for me to do. God knows I would never have come here to-night had I dreamed of meeting you! But try to forget it! To-morrow I shall have passed out of your life forever, and that most deplorable secret will be as safe with me as if I really were dead!

Leslie Dane."

Colonel Carlyle crumpled those strange, unfathomable notes into his breast-pocket, and went out with ominous calm to bid adieu to his parting guests.

They had enjoyed themselves so much, they said, and with many regrets for Mrs. Carlyle's unfortunate accident they hastened their departure.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Bonnibel sat crouching in her chair, a prey to the most hopeless misery, waiting for Lucy's return.

She was stunned and bewildered by the force and suddenness of the blow that had stricken her.

One tangible thought alone ran through the mass of confused and conflicting feeling.

It was that she must fly, at all hazards, from her humiliating position in Colonel Carlyle's house.

She did not know where she would go, or how she would manage her flight. She would leave it all to Lucy.

The girl was clear-headed and intelligent. They would go away together, and Lucy would find a hiding-place somewhere for her wretched head.

But, oh! the shame, the misery of it all!

Leslie Dane was alive, yet she who was his wife in the sight of Heaven dare not rejoice in the knowledge. His resurrection from his supposed death had fixed a blighting hand upon her beautiful brow.

"Oh, God!" she moaned, wringing her white hands helplessly, "what have I done to deserve this heavy cross?"

The minutes passed slowly, but Lucy did not return. The little French pendule on the mantel chimed the quarters of the hour three times while Bonnibel sat drooping in her chair alone. Then the door was pushed rudely open and Colonel Carlyle entered.

In her dumb agony the creature failed to look up or even to distinguish the difference in the step of Colonel Carlyle.

"You saw him, Lucy?" she asked, without lifting her head.

There was no reply.

She looked up in surprise at the girl's silence and saw Colonel Carlyle standing in the center of the room regarding her fixedly.

Bonnibel had seen him jealous and enraged before, but she had never seen him look as he did then.

The veins stood on his forehead like thick, knotted cords. His face was purple with excitement, his eyes glared like those of a wild animal, his hands were clenched. It seemed as though he only restrained himself by a powerful effort of will from springing upon and rending her to pieces.

Thus convulsed and speechless he stood gazing down upon her.

"Oh, Colonel Carlyle, you are ill," she exclaimed, regarding him in terror. "Shall I not ring for assistance?"