A Terrible Secret, May Agnes Fleming [best book clubs .TXT] 📗

and showed her the face of Sir Victor Catheron.


CHAPTER XXIII.

THE SECOND ENDING OF THE TRAGEDY.

The morning dawned over Powyss Place--dawned in wild wind and driving rain still--dawned upon Edith, deserted more strangely than surely bride was ever deserted before.

She had darkened her chamber; she had forced herself resolutely to sleep. But the small hours had come before she had succeeded, and it was close upon ten when the dark eyes opened from dreamland to life. Strange mockery! it was ever of Charley and the days that were forever gone she dreamed now.

For hours and hours she had paced her room the evening and night before, all the desolation, all the emptiness and loss of her life spread out before her. She had sold herself deliberately and with her eyes open, and this was her reward. Deserted in the hour of her triumph--humiliated as never bride was humiliated before--the talk, the ridicule of the country, an object of contemptuous pity to the whole world. And Charley and Trixy, what would _they_ say when they heard of her downfall? She was very proud--no young princess had ever haughtier blood coursing through her royal veins than this portionless American girl. For wealth and rank she had bartered life and love, and verily she had her reward.

She suffered horribly. As she paced up and down, her whole face was distorted with the torture within. She flung herself into a seat and tried to still the ceaseless, gnawing, maddening pain. In vain! She could neither sit still, nor think, nor deaden her torment. And when at last she threw herself face downward on her bed it was only to sleep the spent sleep of utter exhaustion. But she was "pluck" to the backbone. Next day, when she had bathed and made her toilet, and descended to the breakfast-room, the closest observer could have read nothing of last night in the fixed calm of her face. The worst that could ever happen had happened; she was ready now to live and die game.

Lady Helena, very pale, very tremulous, very frightened and helpless-looking, awaited her. A large, red fire burned on the hearth. Her ladyship was wrapped in a fluffy white shawl, but she shivered in spite of both. The lips that touched Edith's cheek were almost as cold as that cold cheek itself. Tears started to her eyes as she spoke to her.

"My child," she said, "how white you are; how cold and ill you look. I am afraid you did not sleep at all."

"Yes, I slept," answered Edith; "for a few hours, at least. The weather has something to do with it, perhaps; I always fall a prey to horrors in wet and windy weather."

Then they sat down to the fragrant and tempting breakfast, and ate with what appetite they might. For Edith, she hardly made a pretence of eating--she drank a large cup of strong coffee, and arose.

"Lady Helena," she began abruptly, "as I came out of my room, two of the servants were whispering in the corridor. I merely caught a word or two in passing. They stopped immediately upon seeing me. But from that word or two, I infer this--Sir Victor Catheron was here to see you last night."

Lady Helena was trifling nervously with her spoon--it fell with a clash now into her cup, and her terrified eyes looked piteously at her companion.

"If you desire to keep this a secret too," Edith said, her lips curling scornfully, "of course you are at liberty to do so--of course I presume to ask no questions. But if not, I would like to know--it may in some measure influence my own movements."

"What do you intend to do?" her ladyship brokenly asked.

"That you shall hear presently. Just now the question is: Was your nephew here last night or not?"

"He was."

She said it with a sort of sob, hiding her face in her hands. "May Heaven help me," she cried; "it is growing more than I can bear. O my child, what can I say to you? how can I comfort you in this great trouble that has come upon you?"

"You are very good, but I would rather not be comforted. I have been utterly base and mercenary from first to last--a wretch who has richly earned her fate. Whatever has befallen me I deserve. I married your nephew without one spark of affection for him; he was no more to me than any laborer on his estate--I doubt whether he ever could have been. I meant to try--who knows how it would have ended? I married Sir Victor Catheron for his rank and riches, his title and rent-roll--I married the baronet, not the man. And it has ended thus. I am widowed on my wedding-day, cast off, forsaken. Have I not earned my fate?"

She laughed drearily--a short, mirthless, bitter laugh.

"I don't venture to ask too many questions--I don't battle with my fate; I throw up my arms and yield at once. But this I would like to know. Madness is hereditary in his family. Unworthy of all love as I am, I think--I think Sir Victor loved me, and, unless he be mad, I can't understand _why_ he deserted me. Lady Helena, answer me this, as you will one day answer to your Maker--Is Sir Victor Catheron sane or mad?"

There was a pause as she asked the dreadful question--a pause in which the beating of the autumnal rain upon the glass, the soughing of the autumnal gale sounded preternaturally loud. Then, brokenly, in trembling tones, and not looking up, came Lady Helena's answer:

"God pity him and you--he is not mad."

Then there was silence again. The elder woman, her face buried in her hands and resting on the table, was crying silently and miserably. At the window, the tall, slim figure of the girl stood motionless, her hands clasped loosely before her, her deep bright eyes looking out at the slanting rain, the low-lying, lead colored sky, the black trees blown aslant in the high October gale.

"Not mad?" she repeated, after that long pause; "you are quite certain of this, my lady? Not mad--and he has left me?"

"He has left you. O my child! if I dared only tell you all--if I dared only tell you how it is _because_ of his great and passionate love for you, he leaves you. If ever there was a martyr on this earth, it is my poor boy. If you had seen him as I saw him last night--worn to a shadow in one day, suffering for the loss of you until death would be a relief--even _you_ would have pitied him."

"Would I? Well, perhaps so, though my heart is rather a hard one. Of course I don't understand a word of all this--of course, as he said in his letter, some secret of guilt and shame lies behind it all. And yet, perhaps, I could come nearer to the 'Secret' than either you or he think."

Lady Helena looked suddenly up, that terrified, hunted look in her eyes.

"What do you mean?" she gasped.

"This," the firm, cold voice of Edith said, as Edith's bright, dark eyes fixed themselves pitilessly upon her, "this, Lady Helena Powyss: That the secret which takes him from me is the secret of his mother's murder--the secret which he learned at his father's deathbed. Shall I tell you who committed that murder?"

Her ladyship's lips moved, but no sound came; she sat spellbound, watching that pale, fixed face before her.

"Not Inez Catheron, who was imprisoned for it; not Juan Catheron, who was suspected of it. I am a Yankee, Lady Helena, and consequently clever at guessing. I believe that Sir Victor Catheron, in cold blood, murdered his own wife!"

There was a sobbing cry--whether at the shock of the terrible words, or at their truth, who was to tell?

"I believe the late Sir Victor Catheron to have been a deliberate and cowardly murderer," Edith went on; "so cowardly that his weak brain turned when he saw what he had done and thought of the consequences; and that he paid the penalty of his crime in a life of insanity. The motive I don't pretend to fathom--jealousy of Juan Catheron perhaps; and on his dying bed he confessed all to his son."

With face blanched and eyes still full of terror, her ladyship looked at the dark, contemptuous, resolute speaker.

"And if this be true--your horrible surmise; mind, I don't admit that it is--would _that_ be any excuse for Victor's conduct in leaving you?"

"No!" Edith answered, her eyes flashing, "none! Having married me, not ten thousand family secrets should be strong enough to make him desert me. If he had come to me, if he had told me, as he was bound to do before our wedding-day, I would have pitied him with all my soul; if anything could ever have made me care for him as a wife should care for a husband, it would have been that pity. But if he came to me now, and knelt before me, imploring me to return, I would not. I would die sooner!"

She was walking up and down now, gleams of passionate scorn and rage in her dark eyes.

"It is all folly and balderdash, this talk of his love for me making him leave me. Don't let us have any more of it. No secret on earth should make a bridegroom quit his bride--no power on earth could ever convince me of it!"

"And yet," the sad, patient voice of poor Lady Helena sighed, "it is true."

Edith stopped in her walk, and looked at her incredulously.

"Lady Helena," she said, "you are my kind friend--you know the world--you are a woman of sense, not likely to have your brain turned with vapors. Answer me this--Do you think that, acting as he has done, Sir Victor Catheron has done right?"

Lady Helena's sad eyes met hers full. Lady Helena's voice was full of pathos and earnestness, as she replied:

"Edith, I am your friend; I am in my sober senses, and, I believe in my soul Victor has done right."

"Well," Edith said after a long pause, during which she resumed her walk, "I give it up! I don't understand, and I never shall. I am hopelessly in the dark. I can conceive no motive--none strong enough to make his conduct right. I thought him mad; you say he is sane. I thought he did me a shameful, irreparable wrong; you say he has done right. I will think no more about it, since, if I thought to my dying day, I could come no nearer the truth."

"You will know one day," answered Lady Helena; "on his death-bed; and, poor fellow, the sooner that day comes the better for him."

Edith made an impatient gesture.

"Let us talk about it no more. What is done is done. Whether Sir Victor Catheron lives or dies can in no way concern me now. I think, with your permission, I will go back to my room and try to sleep away this dismal day."

"Wait one moment, Edith. It was on your account Victor came here last night to talk over the arrangements he was making for your future."

A curious smile came over Edith's lips. She was once more back at the window, looking out at the rain-beaten day.

"My future!" she slowly repeated; "in what possible way can my future concern Sir Victor Catheron?"

"My child, what a question! In every