A Mad Marriage, May Agnes Fleming [best big ereader .TXT] 📗

wife! Yonder creature,

singing, dancing in that dress, that undress rather—gaped at by all

these people. His wife!

 

The lights, the faces, the stage, seem to swim before him in a hot, red

mist. He grasps the back of the chair he holds, and sets his teeth.

Great Heaven! is the Nemesis of his mad, boyish folly to pursue him to

the end?

 

And then France’s cool, sweet voice falls on his ear. “Do you like it,

Gordon!” she is asking, with a smile. The fair pure face, the loving,

upturned eyes, the trustful smile, meet him and stab him with a pang

that is like death. He has forgotten her—in the first shock of

recognition and dreadful surprise, he has forgotten her. Now he looks

down upon her, and feels without thinking at all, that in finding his

divorced wife he has lost his bride.

 

He cannot answer her—his head is reeling. He feels her wondering,

startled eyes, but he is beyond caring. He tries to answer, and his

voice sounds far off and unreal even to his own ears.

 

It ends. The curtain is down, the blinding stage-light is out, she is

gone. He can breathe once more now that fatal face is away. The whole

theatre has uprisen. Lady Dynely is moving out on the arm of her

son—France is clasping his and gazing up at him with eyes of wistful

wonder.

 

They are out under the cool, white stars—he has placed them in their

carriage, seen them roll away, and is alone.

 

Alone, though scores pass and repass, although dozens of gay voices and

happy laughs reach him; although all the bright city is still broad

awake and in the streets. He takes off his hat and lets the cold wind

lift his hair. What shall he do, he thinks, vaguely; what ought he do

first?

 

Rosamond, his divorced wife, is living—he has seen her to-night. And

France Forrester will marry no man who is the husband of a wife. They

have spoken once on the subject—gravely and incisively—he recalls the

conversation now, word for word, as he stands here.

 

“If she had not died, France,” he had asked her, “if nothing but the

divorce freed me—how then? Would you still have loved me and been my

wife?”

 

And she had looked at him with those clear, truthful, brave eyes of

hers, and answered at once:

 

“If she had not died—if nothing but your divorce freed you, there could

have been no ‘how then.’ Loved you I might—it seems to me I must; but

marry you—no. No more than I would if there had never been a divorce. A

man can have but one wife, and death alone can sever the bond. I believe

in no latter-day doctrine of divorce.”

 

They had spoken of it no more, he had thought of it no more. It all

comes back to him as he stands here, and he knows he has lost forever

France Forrester.

 

And then, in his utter despair, a wild idea flashes across his brain,

and he catches at it as the drowning catch at straws. It is not his

wife—he will not believe it. It is an accidental resemblance—it may be

a relative—a sister; she may have had sisters, for what he ever knew.

It is not Rosamond Lovell—the dead do not arise, and she was killed ten

years ago. Some one must know this Madame Felicia’s antecedents; it is

only one of these accidental resemblances that startle the world

sometimes. He will find out. Who is it knows Madame Felicia?

 

He puts his hand to his head as this delirious idea flashes through it,

and tries to think. Terry Dennison—yes, he is sure Terry Dennison knows

her, and knows her well. He will be able to tell him; he will follow at

once.

 

A moment later and he is striding with a speed of which he is

unconscious in the direction of the Hotel du Louvre. He finds his man

readily enough. Terry is standing in the brilliantly-lit vestibule,

smoking a cigar. Eric is bon gar�on, and has run up at once to his

wife. A heavy hand is laid on Terry’s shoulder, a breathless voice

speaks:

 

“Dennison!”

 

Terry turns round, takes out his cigar, and opens his eyes.

 

“What! Caryll! And at this time of night! What’s the matter? My dear

fellow, anything wrong? You look—”

 

“There’s nothing wrong,” still huskily. “I want to ask you a question,

Dennison. Come out of this.”

 

He links his arm through Terry’s, and draws him out of the hotel

entrance into the street. Terry still holds his cigar between his finger

and thumb, and still stares blankly.

 

“There must be something wrong,” he reiterates; “on my word, my dear

fellow, you look awfully.”

 

“Never mind my looks,” Caryll impatiently cries. “Dennison, you know

Madame Felicia?”

 

At this unexpected question, Dennison, if possible, stands more agape

than ever. Then he laughs.

 

“What! You, too, Caryll! Oh, this is too much—”

 

“Don’t laugh,” Caryll says, harshly. “Answer me. You know this woman?”

 

“Well, yes.”

 

“Intimately?”

 

“Well, yes, again. I suppose I may say tolerably intimately.”

 

“What is her history?”

 

“What?”

 

“Who is she? Where does she come from? What is her real name?” Caryll

asks, still in that same hoarse, breathless haste.

 

Mr. Dennison’s eyes dilate to twice their usual size. He altogether

forgets to resume his newly-lit cigar.

 

“My dear fellow–-”

 

“The devil!” Gordon Caryll grinds out between his set teeth. “Answer me,

cannot you?”

 

No jesting matter this, evidently, and Terry, slow naturally, takes that

fact in.

 

“Who is she? Where does she come from? What was the rest?” he demands

helplessly. “Good Lord! Caryll, how should I know? I’m not Felicia’s

father confessor.”

 

“You told me you knew her intimately.”

 

“I know her as well as most people know most people, and that goes for

nothing. What do we, any of us, know of any one else? Don’t grow

impatient, old fellow; all I know I’m willing to tell, but it’s precious

little. Now begin at the beginning and cross-examine. You shall have the

truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Only don’t keep the

steam up to its present height, or you’ll go off with a bang!”

 

There is a second pause. Terry resumes his cigar, thrusts his hands in

his coat pockets and waits. Gordon Caryll comes to his senses

sufficiently to make a great effort and calm down.

 

“I beg your pardon, Terry,” he says, more coherently than he has yet

spoken; “but this is a matter of no ordinary importance to me—a matter

almost of life and death.”

 

Again Terry’s eyes dilate, but this time he says nothing.

 

“I never saw Madame Felicia before to-night,” goes on Caryll; “and she

bears the most astonishing, the most astounding resemblance to another

woman, a woman I have thought dead for the past ten years. I want to

know her history, and I have come to you.”

 

“Go on,” says Terry, calmly.

 

“Was Madame Felicia ever in America?—ever in”—a pause—“in Canada?”

 

“She says not,” is Terry’s answer.

 

“Says not? Then you think—”

 

“I think she was. She has always been so vehement in denying it that I

have suspected from the first she lied. And since last night I felt sure

of it.”

 

“Since last night—”

 

“I don’t know that it’s quite fair to tell,” says Terry; “but I don’t

see that I’m bound to keep Felicia’s secrets—I owe her no good turn,

and if it’s of any use to you, Caryll—”

 

“Anything—everything connected with that woman is of use to me,” Caryll

answers, feverishly.

 

Without more ado, Terry relates the episode of last night—the rescuing

the girl in the street, her inadvertent words, and the bringing her to

Felicia.

 

“She asseverated again and again that Felicia had been in Canada. She

said she herself had been born there, in such a way, by Jove! that you

could only infer Felicia to be her mother. And she looked like Felicia.

And she had Felicia’s picture. And Felicia received her at once. And I

believe, upon my soul, that she is Felicia’s daughter.”

 

Gordon Caryll listened dumbly. Felicia’s child and—his. He knew there

had been a child—a daughter—had not Mr. Barteaux told him? And she too

was here.

 

“She called herself—?” he began.

 

“She called herself Gordon Kennedy. Gordon! By Jove!” For the first

time a sudden thought strikes Terry—a thought so sudden, and so

striking that it almost knocks him over. “By Jove!” he repeats again,

and stares blankly at his companion.

 

There is no need of further questioning. Assurance is made doubly

sure—Felicia and Rosamond Lovell are one, and this girl picked up

adrift in the Paris streets is his daughter. No need of further

questions, indeed. He withdraws his arm abruptly and on the spot.

 

“That will do,” he says. “Thanks, very much. And good-night.”

 

Then he is gone, and Terry is left standing, mouth and eyes open—a

petrified pedestrian. It all comes upon him—the story of Gordon

Caryll’s Canadian wife—the actress—the picture—the puzzling

resemblance to Felicia—her eager questions about him the evening

before. Terry is dumbfounded.

 

“By Jove!” he says again aloud, and at the sound of that dear and

familiar expletive his senses return. “By Jove, you know!” he repeats,

and puts his cigar once more between his lips, and in a dazed state

prepares to go home.

 

Gordon Caryll goes home too. He sees France’s face at the drawing-room

window as he passes, looking wistful and weary, and at the sight he sets

his teeth hard. He cannot meet her. He goes up to his room, locks the

door, and flings himself into a chair to think it all out.

 

He has lost her—forever lost her. To-morrow at the latest she must know

all, and then—he knows as surely as that he is sitting here—she will

never so much as see him again.

 

It is no fault of his—she will not blame him—she will love and pity

him, and suffer as acutely as he will suffer himself. All the same,

though, she will never see him more. And at the thought he starts from

his chair, goaded to a sort of madness, and walks up and down the room.

 

The hours pass. He thinks and thinks, but all to no purpose—not all the

thinking he can do in a lifetime can alter facts. This woman is his

divorced wife—and France Forrester will marry no divorced man. The law

can free him from his wife, but it cannot give him France. The penalty

of his first folly has not been paid—and it is to be paid, it seems, to

the uttermost farthing. His exile and misery are to begin all over

again.

 

He suffers to-night, it seems to him, as he has never suffered in the

past. And as the fair February morning dawns, it finds him with his

face bowed in his hands, sitting stone-still in absolute despair.

 

The first sharp spear of sunshine comes jubilantly through the glass. He

lifts his head. Haggard and pallid beyond all telling, with eyes dry and

burning, and white despair on every line of his face. His resolve is

taken. All shall be told, but first that there may not be even a shadow

of mistake, he will see this woman who calls herself Madame

Felicia—will see her and from her own lips know the truth.

 

Early as it is he rings for his man, and has a cold bath. It stands him

in the