Wife in Name Only, Charlotte Mary Brame [carter reed txt] 📗

the love of a woman who loved you--you who looked for your ideal in the clouds, have found it near a prison cell! The daughter of a felon will be the mistress of the grand old house where some of the noblest ladies of the land have ruled--the daughter of a felon will be mother of the heirs of Arleigh. Could I have planned, prayed for, hoped for, longed for a sweeter revenge?

"I am indifferent as to what you may do in return. I have lived for my revenge, and now that I have tasted it life is indifferent to me. You will, of course, write to complain to the duke, and he, with his honest indignation justly aroused, will perhaps refuse to see me again. I care not; my interest in life ended when my love died.

"Let me add one thing more. Madaline herself has been deceived. I told her that you knew all her history, that I had kept nothing from you, and that you loved her in spite of it, but that she was never to mention it to you."

He read the letter with a burning flush on his face, which afterward grew white as with the pallor of death; a red mist was before his eyes, the sound of surging waters in his ears, his heart beat loud and fast. Could it be true--oh, merciful Heaven, could it be true? At first he had a wild hope that it was a cruel jest that Philippa was playing with him on his wedding-day. It could not be true--his whole soul rose in rebellion against it. Heaven was too just, too merciful--it could not be. It was a jest. He drew his breath with a long quivering sigh--his lips trembled; it was simply a jest to frighten him on his wedding day.

Then, one by one--slowly, sadly, surely--a whole host of circumstances returned to his mind, making confirmation strong. He remembered well--only too well--the scene in the balcony. He remembered the pale starlight, the light scarf thrown over Philippa's shoulders, even the very perfume that came from the flowers in her hair; he remembered how her voice had trembled, how her face had shown in the faint evening light. When she had quoted the words of _Priscilla_, the loveliest maiden of Plymouth, she had meant them as applicable to her own case--"Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" They came back to him with a fierce, hissing sound, mocking his despair. She had loved him through all--this proud, beautiful, brilliant woman for whom men of highest rank had sighed in vain. And, knowing her pride, her haughtiness, he could guess exactly what her love had cost her, and that all that followed had been a mockery. On that night her love had changed to hate. On that night she had planned this terrible revenge. Her offering of friendship had been a blind. He thought to himself that he had been foolish not to see it. A thousand circumstances presented themselves to his mind. This, then, was why Madaline had so persistently--and, to his mind, so strangely--refused his love. This was why she had talked incessantly of the distance between them--of her own unworthiness to be his wife. He bad thought that she alluded merely to her poverty, whereas it was her birth and parentage she referred to.

How cleverly, how cruelly Philippa had deceived them both--Philippa, his old friend and companion, his sister in all but name! He could see now a thousand instances in which Madaline and himself had played at cross purposes--a thousand instances in which the poor girl had alluded to her parent's sin, and he had thought she was speaking of her poverty. It was a cruel vengeance, for, before he had read the letter through, he knew that if the story were correct, she could be his wife in name only--that they must part. Poverty, obscurity, seemed as nothing now--but crime? Oh, Heaven, that his name and race should be so dishonored! If he had known the real truth, he would have died rather than have uttered one word of love to her.

The daughter of a felon--and he had brought her to Beechgrove as successor to a roll of noble women, each one of whom had been of noble birth! She was the daughter of a felon--no matter how fair, how graceful, how pure. For the first time the glory of Beechgrove was tarnished. But it would not be for long--it could not be for long; she must not remain. The daughter of a felon to be the mother of his children--ah, no, not if he went childless to the grave! Better that his name were extinct, better that the race of Arleigh should die out, than that his children should be pointed at as children with tainted blood! It could never be. He would expect the dead and gone Arleighs to rise from their graves in utter horror, he would expect some terrible curse to fall on him, were so terrible a desecration to happen. They must part. The girl he loved with all the passionate love of his heart, the fair young wife whom he worshiped must go from him, and he must see her no more. She must be his wife in name only.

He was young, and he loved her very dearly. His head fell forward on his breast, and as bitter a sob as ever left man's lips died on his. His wife in name only! The sweet face, the tender lips were not for him--yet he loved her with the whole passion and force of his soul. Then he raised his head--for he heard a sound, and knew that she was returning. Great drops of anguish fell from his brow--over his handsome face had come a terrible change; it had grown fierce with pain, haggard with despair, white with sorrow.

Looking up, he saw her--she was at the other end of the gallery; he saw the tall, slender figure and the sweeping dress--he saw the white arms with their graceful contour, the golden hair, the radiant face--and he groaned aloud; he saw her looking up at the pictures as she passed slowly along--the ancestral Arleighs of whom he was so proud. If they could have spoken, those noble women, what would they have said to this daughter of a felon?

She paused for a few minutes to look up at her favorite, Lady Alicia, and then she came up to him and stood before him in an the grace of her delicate loveliness, in all the pride of her dainty beauty. She was looking at the gorgeous Titian near him.

"Norman," she said, "the sun has turned those rubies into drops of blood--- they looked almost terrible on the white throat. What a strange picture! What a tragical face!"

Suddenly with outstretched arms she fell on her knees at his side.

"Oh, my darling, what has happened? What is the matter?"

She had been away from him only half an hour, yet it seemed to him ages since he had watched her leave the gallery with a smile on her lips.

"What is it, my darling?" she cried again. "Dear Norman, you look as though the shadow of death had passed over you. What is it?"

In another moment she had flung herself on his breast, clasped her arms round his neck, and was kissing his pale changed face as she had never done before.

"Norman, my darling husband, you are ill," she said--"ill, and you will not tell me. That is why you sent me away."

He tried to unclasp her arms, but she clung the more closely to him.

"You shall not send me away. You wish to suffer in silence? Oh, my darling, my husband, do you forget that I am your wife, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health? You shall not suffer without my knowledge."

"I am not ill, Madaline," he said, with a low moan. "It is not that."

"Then something has happened--you have been frightened."

He unclasped her arms from his neck--their caress was a torture to him.

"My poor darling, my poor wife, it is far worse than that. No man has ever seen a more ghastly specter than I have seen of death in life."

She looked round in quick alarm.

"A specter!" she cried fearfully; and then something strange in his face attracted her attention. She looked at him. "Norman," she said, slowly, "is it--is it something about me?"

How was he to tell her? He felt that it would be easier to take her out into the glorious light of the sunset and slay her than kill her with the cruel words that he must speak. How was he to tell her? No physical torture could be so great as that which he must inflict; yet he would have given his life to save her from pain.

"It is--I am quite sure," she declared, slowly--"something about me. Oh, Norman, what is it? I have not been away from you long. Yet no change from fairest day to darkest night could be so great as the change in you since I left you. You will not tell me what it is--you have taken my arms from your neck--you do not love me!"

"Do not torture me, Madaline," he said. "I am almost mad. I cannot bear much more."

"But what is it? What have I done? I who you send from you now am the same Madaline whom you married this morning--whom you kissed half an hour since. Norman, I begin to think that I am in a terrible dream."

"I would to Heaven it were a dream. I am unnerved--unmanned--I have lost my strength, my courage, my patience, my hope. Oh, Madaline, how can I tell you?"

The sight of his terrible agitation seemed to calm her; she took his hand in hers.

"Do not think of me," she said--"think of yourself. I can bear what you can bear. Let me share your trouble, whatever it may be, my husband."

He looked at the sweet, pleading face. How could he dash the light and brightness from it? How could he slay her with the cruel story he had to tell. Then, in a low, hoarse voice, he said:

"You must know all, and I cannot say it. Read this letter, Madeline, and then you will understand."


Chapter XXVII.


Slowly, wonderingly, Lady Arleigh took the Duchess of Hazlewood's letter from her husband's hands and opened it.

"Is it from the duchess?" she asked.

"Yes, it is from the duchess," replied her husband.

He saw her sink slowly down upon a lounge. Above her, in the upper panes of the window beneath which they were sitting, were the armorial bearings of the family in richest hues of stained glass. The colors and shadows fell with strange effects on her white dress, great bars of purple and crimson crossing each other, and opposite to her hung the superb Titian, with the blood-red rubies on the white throat.

Lord Arleigh watched Madaline as she read. Whatever might be the agony in his own heart, it was exceeded by hers. He saw the brightness die out of her face, the light fade from her eyes, the lips grow pale. But a few minutes before that young face had been bright with fairest beauty, eloquent with truest love, lit with passion and with poetry--now it was like a white mask.

Slowly, and as though it was with difficulty that she understood Lady Arleigh read the letter through, and then--she did not scream or cry out--she raised her eyes to his face. He saw in