A Mad Love, Charlotte Mary Brame [read this if txt] 📗

because I love him."

And Lady Marion, whose heart was touched by the pitiful words, looked up and kissed her.

"I cannot hate you, since you love him," she said. "He is mine, but my heart aches for you. Now let me tell you what I have come to say. You are good and noble as I felt you were. I have come to ask a grace from you, and it is easier now that I know you love him. How strange it seems. I should have thought that hearing you say that you loved my husband would have filled my heart with hot anger, but it does not; in some strange way I love you for it."

"If you love him, madame, his interests must be dear to you."

"They are dear to me," she whispered. "How strange," repeated Lady Marion, "that while the world is full of men you and I should love the same man."

"Ah, life is strange," said Leone; "peace only comes with death."


CHAPTER LXI.


A SACRIFICE.

Lady Marion raised herself so that she could look into the face of her beautiful rival.

"Now I will tell you," she said; "you are going to Berlin; you have an engagement at the Royal Opera House there, and my husband wishes to go there, too. But we all oppose it; his parents for social reasons, and I--I tell you frankly, because I am jealous of you, and cannot bear that he should follow you there. I have asked him to give up the idea, but he refuses--he will not listen to me. I have said that if he goes there, I will never see him or speak to him again, and I must keep my word. So, madame, I have come to you; I appeal to you, do not let him go: you can prevent it if you will."

Leone's dark eyes flashed fire.

"There is no harm in our friendship," she said; "would you take from me the only gleam of happiness I have in the world?"

But Lady Marion did not seem to hear the wild words; the same raptures of holy love had come over her face, and she blushed until she looked like a lovely, glowing rose.

"Think how I trust you," she said; "I have come to tell you that which I have told to no one. I have come to tell you that which, if ever there has been any particular friendship between you and my husband, must end it. I have come to tell you that which will show that now--now you must not take my husband from me.

"Bend down lower," continued the sweet voice, "that I may whisper to you. I have been married nearly four years now, and the one desire of my heart has been to have a little child. I love little children so dearly. And I have always thought that if I could give to my husband children to love he would love me better. I have prayed as Rachel prayed, but it seemed to me the heavens were made of brass--no answer came to my prayers. I have wept bitter tears when I have seen other mothers caressing their children. When my husband has stopped to kiss a child or play with it, my heart has burned with envy, and now, oh, madame, bend lower, lower--now Heaven has been so good to me, and they tell me that in a few months I shall have a darling little child, all my own. Oh, madame, do you see that now you must not take my husband from me; that now there must be no mischief between us; that we must live in peace and love because Heaven has been so good to us."

The sweet voice rose to a tone of passionate entreaty; and Lady Marion withdrew from the clasp of her rival's arms, and knelt at her feet. The face she raised was bright and beautiful as though angel's wings shadowed it.

"I plead with you," she said, "I pray to you. You hold my life in your hands. If it were only myself I would be glad to die, so that if my husband loves you best he might marry you, but it is for my little child. Do you know that when I say to myself, 'Lance's little child,' the words seem to me sweeter than the sweetest music."

But the beautiful woman who had been no wife, turned deadly pale as she listened to the words. She held up her hand with a terrible cry.

"For Heaven's sake, hush," she said hoarsely, "I cannot bear it!"

For one minute it was as though she had been turned to stone. Her heart seemed clutched by a cold, iron hand. The next, she had recovered herself and raised Lady Marion, making her rest, and trying to still the trembling of the delicate frame.

"You must calm yourself," she said. "I have listened to you, now will you listen to me?"

"Yes; but, madame, you will be good to me--you will not let my husband leave me? We shall be happy, I am sure, when he knows; we shall forget all this sorrow and this pain. He will be to me the same as he was before your beautiful face dazed him. Ah, madame, you will not let him leave me."

"I should be a murderess if I did," she said, in a low voice.

Her face was whiter than the face of the dead. She stood quite silent for a few minutes. In her heart, like a death-knell, sounded the words:

"Lance's little child."

Whiter and colder grew the beautiful face; more mute and silent the beautiful lips; then suddenly she said:

"Kiss me, Lady Marion, kiss me with your lips; now place your hands in mine. I promise you that I will not take your husband from you; that he shall not go to Berlin, either with me or after me. I promise you--listen and believe me--that I will never see or speak to your husband again, and this I do for the sake of Lance's little child."

"I believe you," said Lady Marion, the light deepening in her sweet eyes and on her fair face. "I believe you, and from the depth of my heart I thank you. We shall be happy, I am sure."

"In the midst of your happiness will you remember me?" asked Leone, gently.

"Always, as my best, dearest and truest friend," said Lady Marion; and they parted that summer morning never to meet again until the water gives up its dead.

Lady Marion drove home with a smile on her fair face, such as had not been seen there before. It would all come right.

She believed in Madame Vana's simple words as in the pledge of another. How it would be managed she did not know--did not think; but madame would keep her word, and her husband would be her own--would never be cool to her or seek to leave her again; it would be all well.

All that day there was a light on her face that did one's heart good to see; and when Lady Lanswell saw her that evening she knew that all was well.

"Lance's little child!" The words had been a death-knell to Leone. She had seen his wife and lived--she had seen him in his home with that same fair wife by his side, and she had lived; but at the thought of her rival's children in his arms her whole soul died.

Died--never to live again. She sat for some time just where Lady Marion left her, and she said to herself a thousand times over and over again those words--"Lance's little child." Only God knows the anguish that came over her, the piercing sorrow, the bitter pain--the memory of those few months when she had believed herself to be Lance's wife. She fell on her knees with a great, passionate cry.

"Oh, Heaven," she cried, "save me from myself!"

The most beautiful woman in Europe, the most gifted singer on the stage, the idol of the world of fashion--she lay there helpless, hopeless, despairing, with that one cry rising from her lips on which a world had hung:

"Heaven have mercy on me, and save me from myself!"

When she woke, the real world seemed to have vanished from her. She heard the sound of running water; a mill-wheel turning in a deep stream; she heard the rush and the foaming of water, the song of the birds overhead, the rustle of the great boughs, the cooing of the blue and white pigeons. Why, surely, that was a dream of home.

Home--the old farmhouse where Robert Noel lived, the kind, slow, stolid farmer. She could hear him calling, "Leone, where are you?" and the pigeons deafened her as they whirled round her head. She struggled for a time with her dazed, bewildered senses; but she could not tell which was the real life, whether she was at home again in the old farmhouse, and had dreamed a long, troubled dream, or whether she was dreaming now.

Her brain burned--it was like liquid fire; and she seemed to see always a golden-haired child.

"Lance's little child." Yes, there he was holding mother and child both in his arms, kissing them, while she lay there helpless and despairing.

"Mine was always a mad love," she said to herself--"a mad love."

Then she heard a sound of music--softest, sweetest music--floating through the room, and woke to reason with a terrible shudder to find that she was singing the old, sweet song:


"I would the grave would hide me,
For there alone is peace."


"I have been mad," she said to herself; "those words drove me mad, 'Lance's little child.'"

She went to her room and bathed her head in ice-cold water. The pain grew less, but not the burning heat.

The idea became fixed in her mind that she must go back to the old mill-stream; she did not know why, she never asked herself why; that was her haven of rest, by the sound of rushing waters. Within sight of the mill-wheel, and the trees, and the water lilies, all would be well, the cloud would pass from her mind, the fire from her brain, the sword from her heart.

She had two letters to write, one to the manager with whom her engagement expired in two nights, telling him she was ill and had gone away for her health, and that he would not probably hear of her for some time; and another to Lord Chandos. It was simple and sad:

"Good-bye. I am going--not to Berlin--but away from Europe, and I
shall never return; but before I leave I shall go to the
mill-stream to look at and listen to the waters for the last time.
Good bye, Lance. In heaven you will know how much I have loved you,
never on earth. In heaven you will know why I have left you. Be
kind, and true, and good to all who are dear to you. Lance, if I
die first, I shall wait inside the golden gates of heaven for you."

She did one thing more, which proved that her reason was still clear. She paid off all her servants, and to the most trusted one left power to give up her house in her name, as she was leaving it.

And far off the mill-wheel turned in