An Old Man's Darling

He did not answer, but continued to gaze upon her in the same stony silence.

Fearing that he was suddenly seized with some kind of a fit, she sprang up and shook him violently by the arm.

But he shook off her grasp with such force and passion that she lost her balance and fell heavily to the floor.

Half stunned by the violence of the fall she lay quite still a moment, with closed eyes and gasping breath.

He looked at her as she lay there like a broken flower, but made no effort to assist her.

Presently the dark blue eyes flashed open and looked up at him with a quiet scorn in their lovely depths. She made no effort to rise, and when she spoke her voice startled him with its tragic ring.

"Finish your work, Colonel Carlyle," she said, in those deep tones. "I will thank you and bless you if you will strike one fatal blow that shall lay me dead at your feet."

Something in the words or the tone struck an arrow of remorse into his soul. He bent down and lifted the slight form, gently placing her back in her chair.

"Pardon me," he said, coldly, "I did not mean to hurt you, but you should not have touched me. I could not bear the touch of your hand."

She lifted her fair face and looked at him in wonder.

"Colonel Carlyle, what have I done to you?" she asked, in a voice of strange pathos.

"You have wronged me," he answered, bitterly.

Her face blanched to a hue even more deathly than before, at his meaning words. What did he suspect? What did he know?

"I know all," he continued, sternly.

For a moment she dropped her face in her hands and turned crimson from brow to throat under his merciless gaze, then she looked up at him proudly, and said, almost defiantly:

"If, indeed, you know all, Colonel Carlyle, you know, of a truth, that I did not wrong you willfully."

He was silent a moment, drawing her crumpled note from his breast and smoothing out the folds.

"This is all I know," he said, holding it up before her eyes. "This tells me that you have wronged me, that you have a dreadful secret—you and the man at whose feet you fainted to-night. You must tell me that secret now."

"Where did you get the note?" she panted, breathlessly.

"Perhaps the artist gave it to me!" he sneered.

"I will not believe it," she said, passionately. "Lucy—where is Lucy?"

"She is out in the street where I thrust her when I found her with this note," he answered, harshly. "It is enough that my roof must shelter a false wife, it shall not protect her false minion!"

"Out in the street!" gasped Bonnibel, hoarsely. "In the cold and the darkness. My poor Lucy! Let me go, too, then; I will find her and go away with her. We will neither of us trouble you!"

She was rushing to the door, but he pushed her back into her seat, locked the door and put the key into his pocket.

"We will see if you shall disgrace me thus," he cried out. "You would fly from me, you said. And where? Perhaps to the arms of your artist-lover! You would heap this disgrace on the head of an old man, whose only fault has been that he loved you too well and trusted you too blindly."

She shivered as he denounced her so cruelly; but not one word of defiance came from her pale, writhing lips. The fair face was hidden in her hands, the golden hair fell about her like a veil.

"But I will protect my honor," he continued, harshly. "I will see that you do not desert me and make my name a by-word for the scorn of the world. You shall stay with me, even though I am tempted to hate you; you shall stay with me if I have to keep you imprisoned to save my honor!"

She looked up at him wildly.

"Oh, for God's sake, let me go!" she said. "In pity for me, in pity for yourself, let me go away from you forever! It is wrong for me to stay—I ought to go, I must go! Let the world say what it will—tell them I am dead, or tell them I am mad, and chained in the walls of a mad-house! Tell them anything that will save your honorable name from shame, but let me go from under this roof, where I cannot breathe—where the air stifles me!"

"It must indeed be a fatal secret that can make you rave so wildly," he answered, bitterly. "Let me hear it, Bonnibel, and judge for myself if it is sufficient to exile my wife from my home and heart."

She shivered at the words.

"Oh! indeed it is sufficient," she moaned, wringing her hands in anguish. "I implore you to let me go."

"Let me be the judge," he answered again. "Tell me your reasons for this wild step."

She was silent from sheer despair.

"Bonnibel, will you tell me the secret?" he urged, feverishly.

"I cannot. I cannot! Do not ask me!" she answered pleadingly.

"What if I demand it from Mr. Dane?" he said, threateningly.

"I do not believe he will tell you," she answered bitterly. "If he did you would regret that you learned it. Oh! believe me, Colonel Carlyle, that 'ignorance is bliss' to you in this case. Oh! be merciful and let me go!"

"Would you know what answer your artist lover sent to your wild appeal?" he exclaimed abruptly.

She looked at him wildly. He straightened out the sheet and read over the words that Leslie Dane had written, in a bitter, mocking tone.

"Leslie Dane," he repeated. "Leslie Dane! Why, this is the first time I have caught the villain's name aright! It seems familiar. I have heard it somewhere long ago—let me think."

In a sudden excess of excitement he dropped the note and paced furiously up and down the room. Bonnibel watched him forlornly under her drooping lashes.

He stopped suddenly with a violent start, and looked at her sternly.

"I have it now," he said triumphantly. "My God! it is worse than I thought; but when I knew his real name it all rushed over me! Yes, Bonnibel, I know the fatal secret now, that you, oh! my God, share with that miserable wretch!"

"Oh! no, you cannot know it," she breathed!

"I do know it," he answered sternly. "I remember it all now. Leslie Dane is that guilty man who rests at this moment under the charge of murdering your uncle!"

"It is false!" she exclaimed, confronting him indignantly. "No one ever breathed such a foul aspersion upon Leslie Dane but you!"

"Great God! do you deny it?" he exclaimed in genuine surprise and amazement. "Surely your brain is turned, Bonnibel. Everyone knows that Leslie Dane was convicted of the murder on circumstantial evidence; everyone knows that he fled the country and has been in hiding ever since. But the fatal charge is still hanging over his head."

"I have never heard such a thing before, never! And I would believe that Leslie Dane was guiltless in the face of all the evidence in the world! He is the very soul of honor! He could not do a cowardly act to save his life!" exclaimed Bonnibel, springing up in a fever of passionate excitement.

Colonel Carlyle was fairly maddened by her words.

"You shall see whether he be guilty or not," he exclaimed, leaving the room in a rage.

Bonnibel heard the key grate in the lock outside, and discovered, to her dismay, that she was Colonel Carlyle's prisoner in truth.

CHAPTER XXIX

"You went off from the ball in a hurry last night, Leslie. Why did you not stop for me?"

It was Carl Muller who spoke. He had come into Mr. Dane's rooms the morning after the ball and found him sitting over a cup of coffee, looking haggard and weary in the clear light of day.

"Excuse me, Carl," he responded. "The actual truth is, I forgot you. I was tired and wanted to come away, and I did so, sans ceremonie."

"Well, you look fagged and tired out, that's a fact. I never saw you look so ill. Have a smoke; it will clear the mist from your brain."

"Thank you, no," said the artist, briefly.

Carl sat down on a chair and hummed a few bars of a song while he regarded his friend in some surprise at his altered looks.

"I was sorry you went off without me, last night," he said presently. "I wanted to chaff you a little. Weren't you surprised and abashed when you found that the old woman whose portrait you declined to paint was the loveliest angel in the world?"

"It was quite a surprise," Mr. Dane said, sipping his cafe au lait composedly.

"Did you ever see such a beautiful young creature?" continued Carl, with enthusiasm.

"Yes," was the unexpected reply.

"You have!" exclaimed Carl; "I did not think it possible for two such divinities to exist upon this earth. Have the goodness to tell me where you ever saw Mrs. Carlyle's equal in grace and loveliness."

But Mr. Dane, who but seldom descended to Carl's special prerogative, poetry, sat down his cup and slowly repeated like one communing with himself:

"'I remember one that perished; sweetly did she speak and move;Such an one do I remember, whom to look at was to love.'"

"She is dead, then?" said Carl.

"She is dead to me," was the bitter reply.

And with a significant look Carl repeated the lines that came next to those that Leslie had quoted:

"'Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?No, she never loved me truly; love is love forevermore.'"

"Forevermore," Leslie Dane repeated with something like a sigh.

He rose and began to pace the floor with bowed head and arms folded over his breast.

"Carl," he said suddenly, "I have had enough of Paris. Have you?"

"What, in seven days? Why, my dear fellow, I have just begun to enjoy myself. I have only had a taste of pleasure yet."

"I am going back to Rome to-day," continued Leslie.

"I should like to know why you have made this sudden decision, Leslie—for it is sudden, is it not?" asked Carl, pointedly.

Leslie Dane flushed scarlet, then paled again.

"Yes, it is sudden," he answered, constrainedly, "but none the less decisive. Don't try to argue me out of it, Carl, for that would be useless. Believe me, it is much better that I should go. I want to get to work again."

"There is something more than work at the bottom of this sudden move," said Carl Muller, quietly. "I don't wish to intrude on your secrets, mon ami, but I could tell you just why you are going back to Rome in such a confounded hurry."

"You could?" asked Leslie Dane, incredulously.

"You know I told you long ago, Leslie, that there is a woman at the bottom of everything that happens. There is one at the bottom of this decision of yours. You are running away from a woman!"

"The deuce!" exclaimed Leslie, startled out of his self-control by Carl Muller's point-blank shot; "how know you that?"

"I can put two and two together," the German answered, coolly.

Leslie looked at him with a question in his eyes.

"Shall I explain?" inquired Carl.

Leslie bowed without speaking.

"Well, then, last night, when we laid aside our masks I happened to be quite near to our lovely hostess, and a friend who was beside me immediately presented me."

"Well?" said Leslie Dane, with white lips.

"I was immediately impressed with the idea," continued Carl, "that I had met Mrs. Carlyle before. The impression grew upon me steadily during the minute or two while I stood talking to her, although I could not for the life of me tell where I had met her. But after I had left her side I stood at a little distance and observed her presentation to you."

Leslie Dane walked away to a window and stood looking out with his back turned to his friend.

"I saw her look at you, Leslie," Carl went on, "and that minute she fell back and fainted. They said that she struck her head against the jardiniere, which caused her to faint. But I know better. She may have struck her head—I do not dispute that—but the primal cause of her swoon was the simple sight of you!"

"I do not know why you should think so, Carl," said his friend, without turning round. "It is not plausible that the mere sight of a stranger should have thus overcome her. Am I so hideous as that?"

"You were not a stranger," said Carl, overlooking the latter query, "for in that moment when she bowed to you it flashed over me like lightning who she was. I was mistaken when I thought I had met her before. She was utterly a stranger to me. But I had seen her peerless beauty portrayed in a score of pictures from the hand of a master artist. It is no wonder the resemblance haunted me so persistently."

There was silence for a minute. Leslie did not move or speak.

"Leslie, you cannot deny it," Carl said, convincingly: "the beautiful Mrs. Carlyle is the original of the veiled portrait you used to keep in your studio, and which you allowed me to look at only on the occasion when you painted it out."

"I do not deny it," he said, in a voice of repressed pain. "What then, Carl?"

"This, mon ami—she was false to you! I do not know in what way, but possibly it was by selling herself for that old man's gold. You owe her no consideration. Why should you curtail your holiday and disappoint your friends and admirers merely because her guilty conscience feels a pang at meeting you? You two can keep apart. Paris is surely large enough for both to dwell in without jostling each other."

What Leslie Dane might have answered to this reasoning will never be a matter of history, for before he could open his lips to speak there was a thundering rap at the door.

In some suspense he advanced and threw it open.

Three or four officers of the French police, in their neat uniform, stood in the hallway without.

"Enter, gentlemen," he said, courteously, though there was a tone of surprise in his voice that they could not mistake.

Carl Muller, too, though he did not speak, rose from his seat and expressed his amazement by his manner.

The officers filed into the room gravely, closing the door after them. Then the foremost one advanced, with an open paper in his hand, and laid his hand firmly but respectfully on Leslie Dane's arm.

"Monsieur Dane," he said, in clear, incisive tones that fell like a thunder-clap on the hearing of the two artists—"Monsieur Dane, I arrest you for the willful murder of Francis Arnold at his home in America three years ago!"

CHAPTER XXX

"Quelle horreur, Felise! that was a shocking denouement to-night. We tremble on the brink of a volcano."

Mrs. Arnold and her daughter were rolling homeward in their luxurious carriage from the masquerade ball at Colonel Carlyle's chateau, and the elder lady's remark was uttered in a tone of trepidation and terror.

But Felise leaning back in her corner among the silken cushions in the picturesque costume of a fortune-teller, only laughed at her terror—a low and fiendish laugh that expressed unqualified satisfaction.

"Ma mere, was Leslie Dane's resurrection a great surprise to you?" she inquired, with a covert sneer.

"A great surprise, and a terrible shock to me, too," the lady answered. "Of course, after believing him dead so long, it is very inconvenient to have him come to life again—as inconvenient for Colonel Carlyle and his wife as for us."

And again Felise laughed mockingly, as if she found only the sweetest pleasure in her mother's words.

"Felise, I cannot understand you," exclaimed Mrs. Arnold, anxiously. "Surely you forget the peril we are in from this man's resurrection from the grave where we thought him lying. I thought you would be as much surprised and frightened at this dreadful contretemps as I am."

"I have known that Leslie Dane was living all these three years," answered Miss Herbert, as coolly as before.

"Then the paper you showed to me and to Bonnibel must have been a forgery!'

"It was. I had the notice of Leslie Dane's death inserted myself."

The carriage paused at their hotel, and they were handed out.

Mrs. Arnold followed her daughter to her own apartments.

"Send your maid away, Felise. I must talk to you a little," she said.

Felise had a French maid now instead of Janet, who had resolutely declined to cross the ocean with her.

"Finette, you may go for awhile," she said. "I will ring when I need you."

The maid courtesied and went away.

Felise motioned her mother to a chair, and sank into another herself. Mrs. Arnold seated herself and looked at her daughter searchingly.

Mrs. Arnold took up the conversation where it had been dropped when they left the carriage.

"You say you forged the notice of Leslie Dane's death in the newspaper," she said. "Of course you had some object in doing that, Felise."

"Yes, of course," with another wicked laugh. "It was to further the revenge of which I have had so sweet a taste to-night."

"So what has happened to-night is only what you have intended and desired all along?"

Felise bowed with the grace of a duchess.

"Exactly," she answered, with a triumphant smile. "I have been planning and scheming over two years to bring about the consummation of to-night."

"It was cleverly planned and well executed," Mrs. Arnold said, admiringly; "but is it quite finished? Of course Colonel Carlyle does not know the truth yet."

"He knows that Leslie Dane was a former lover of his wife; he witnessed their meeting to-night. That of itself was enough to inflame his jealous passions to the highest degree, and make him wretched. I rely upon Bonnibel herself to finish my work."

"Upon Bonnibel! How will she do it?"

"You know her high and overstrained sense of honor, mother. Of course she will not remain with Colonel Carlyle, now that she knows she is not his wife. There is but one course open to her. She will fly with Leslie Dane, and leave a note behind her revealing the whole truth to him."

"Are you sure she will, Felise?"

"I am quite certain, mother. That is the only orthodox mode for such a heroine of romance as your husband's niece. To-morrow Leslie Dane and his silly young wife will have flown beyond pursuit and discovery, yet neither one can be happy. The years in which she has belonged to Colonel Carlyle will be a blight and a blot upon her fair fame that she can never forget, while Leslie Dane, with the passions of manhood burning in his veins, cannot forget and will scarcely forgive it. They cannot be happy. My revenge has struck too deep at the root of that evanescent flower that the world calls happiness. And Colonel Carlyle is the proudest man on earth. Think you that he can ever hold up his head again after the shame and disgrace of that dreadful blow?"

"Scarcely," said Mrs. Arnold, echoing her daughter's laugh with one as cold and cruel. "You have taken a brave revenge, Felise, for Colonel Carlyle's wrongs against you, and if all goes as you have planned, I shall be proud of your talents and rejoice in your success. But my mind misgives me. Suppose some officious American here—and you know there are plenty such now sojourning in Paris—should remember Leslie Dane and arrest him for my husband's murder?"

For a moment Felise Herbert grew pale, and an icy hand seemed tugging at her heart-strings.

"I do not have the least apprehension of such a calamity," she answered, throwing off the chill presentiment with an effort. "I feel sure that Leslie Dane and his Bonnibel will be far beyond pursuit and detection before to-morrow night. And you will infinitely oblige me by keeping your doleful croaking to yourself, mother."

Mrs. Arnold looked at her watch and rose wearily.

"It is almost morning," she said; "I think I will retire. Good-night, my dear, and pleasant dreams."

"They cannot fail to be pleasant!" answered Felise, with her mocking, triumphant laugh.

But her dreams were all waking ones.

She was too triumphant and excited to sleep.

"This is a happy, happy night for me!" she exclaimed again and again.

CHAPTER XXXI

Bonnibel was completely crushed by the knowledge that Colonel Carlyle had put into execution his threat of making her a prisoner.

For a moment she ran wildly about the room, passionately seeking some mode of egress, filled with the impulse of seeking and following her poor, maltreated Lucy.

But no loophole of escape presented itself.

Her suite of rooms, boudoir, dressing-room, and sleeping-apartment, all communicated with each other, but only one opened into the hall, or presented any mode of egress from her imprisonment. Of this room, the boudoir which she then occupied, Colonel Carlyle had taken the key. She was in an upper story, many feet from the ground, or she would have jumped from the window in her desperation. As it was she could do nothing. She threw herself down upon the floor, crushing her beautiful ball-dress with its grasses and lilies, and wept unrestrainedly.

The slight form heaved and shook with emotion, the tears rained from her eyes in a torrent. At length, worn out with passionate weeping, and overcome by the "dumb narcotic influence of pain," she fell asleep where she lay on the floor, her wet cheek pillowed on her little hand, her golden hair floating about her in "sad beauty."

Thus Colonel Carlyle found her when he entered, late that morning. He was honestly shocked at the sight, for he had supposed that she would yield gracefully to the inevitable, and retire to her sleeping-apartment without more ado when she found how inflexible a will he was possessed of. Instead, here she lay prostrate on the rich velvet carpet of the boudoir, still attired in her ball-dress, the traces of tears on her pale cheeks, and her restless slumber broken by sobs and moans that shook her slight form like a wind-shaken-willow.

He stood still looking down at her, while pity vainly struggled against the fierce anger and resentment burning hotly in his heart.

"She can grieve for him like this," he muttered bitterly, and lifted her, not rudely, but yet unlovingly, and laid her down upon a silken sofa.

The movement disturbed her, and for a moment she seemed about to wake; but the heavy lethargy of her troubled sleep overpowered her.

Colonel Carlyle stood silently watching her for a little while, marveling at her beauty even while he felt angry with her for the uncontrollable emotion that had touched her fairness with the penciling of grief. Then, with a deep yet unconscious sigh, he kissed her several times and went softly away. It was noon when she started up from her restless slumbers, pushing off the silken coverlet that had been carefully spread over her.

She sat up, pressing her hand upon her aching temples, and looked about the room with dazed, half-open eyes. For the moment she had forgotten her trouble of the previous night, and fully expected to see her faithful Lucy Moore keeping her patient vigil by the couch of her weary mistress. But memory returned all too swiftly. The kind, loving face of Lucy did not beam its welcome upon her as of old. Instead, the cold, hard face of a smartly-dressed, elderly Frenchwoman looked curiously at her as the owner rose and courtesied.

"I am the new maid, madam," she explained. "I hope madam feels better."

Bonnibel stared at her in bewilderment.

"Where is Lucy? I want Lucy," she said almost appealingly.

"Madam, I knows nothing of Lucy," she answered. "Monsieur le colonel, the husband of madam, engage me to attend upon madam. I will remove your ball dress, s'il vous plait."

With those words the whole bitter truth rushed over Bonnibel's mind. A low, repressed cry, and she fell back on the sofa, again hiding her convulsed face in her hands.

"Madam, you make yourself more sick by dis emotion," said the new maid in her broken English. "Allow me to bring you someding to break your fast—some chocolate, a roll, a bit of broiled bird."

"I want nothing," Bonnibel answered, bitterly at first, but the next moment she sat up and struggled to regain her composure.

"What is your name, my good woman?" she inquired.

"Dolores, madam, at your service," said the maid, with one of her low courtesies, "Dolores Dupont."

Bonnibel rose and moved slowly toward her dressing-room.

"Dolores," she said, "you may come and remove this robe. I was very tired last night, and my maid having left me, I fell asleep in my ball costume."

Dolores deftly removed the crushed and ruined robe, and substituted a dressing-gown, while she brushed and arranged the beautiful golden hair that was straying on her shoulders in wild disorder.

"It is the most beautiful hair in de world," she said. "Dere are many ladies would give a fortune to have it on deir own heads."