"Oh, my poor, young mistress, you are dead, too! We shall all be killed!" Mrs. Robson exclaims in an access of mortal terror, for Lady Vera, overcome by the horrors of that dreadful night has fallen back in a deathly swoon upon her pillow.
At that cry of grief the two who have lingered at the door spring into the room. Mr. Sharpe, the detective, and Colonel Lockhart.
It is Mr. Sharpe who recoils from the sight of the two dead bodies, and the still sadder sight of the living madwoman, crooning her senseless songs, and counting her jewels in a distant corner.
Colonel Lockhart has no eyes for these. At one bound he is by the bedside where the missing countess lies cold and white and still in all her beauty.
"Oh, Vera, my love, my darling, have I found you only for this?" he groans, taking the slight form into his arms, pressing it to his aching heart, and lavishing passionate kisses on the cold, white lips.
But as if his love had power to call her back to life, Lady Vera sighs faintly and opens her eyes, heavily at first then with a flash of wondrous brightness in them as she recognizes her lover.
"Oh, Philip, is it you?" she sighs with ineffable content, nestling closer in his strong loving clasp. "I thought I was dying, but your voice has called me back from the world of shadows. I cannot die, now that you have come for me. Am I safe at last, Philip?"
"You are safe at last, my darling," he answers, solemnly, and glancing behind him with a slight shudder. "A terrible retribution has overtaken your enemies."
"I know," she answers, shuddering. "Is it not fearful, Philip? But oh, tell me," she continues, pleadingly, "am I responsible for the terrible ending of these selfish lives?"
"No, Vera. They were wicked people whose sins wrought out their own retribution. No blame can attach to you, darling," he answers, decisively.
"Do you really know this lady, sir?" inquires poor Betsy Robson, touching him timidly on the arm.
"Yes," he answers, looking round at her. "She is the Countess of Fairvale, my betrothed wife, whom Leslie Noble abducted from her home."
"Oh, me, and I thought she was Mr. Noble's crazy wife. He said so," cries Mrs. Robson, dissolved in penitent tears. "Oh, my lady, can you ever forgive me for not listening to your true story?"
"Freely, my poor creature, since you were always kind to me," Lady Vera answers, moved to greatest compassion by the woman's humble penitence.
Then, with something of a shudder, Lady Vera turns back to her lover.
"It seems a dreadful thing to do, but you must search Mr. Noble's person," she says. "He had the stolen memorandum-book."
"My lady, I have already taken the liberty of doing as you suggest," Mr. Sharpe answers, respectfully, advancing with the gold-clasped book in his hand.
She takes it from him with a subdued cry of joy.
"And now, Vera, when will you feel able to leave this dreadful place?" inquires Colonel Lockhart.
"To-morrow," she answers, promptly.
"Then we will start for London in the morning. How glad Sir Harry and Nella will be," he exclaims. "And now, Sharpe, we will, with this good woman's assistance, make some arrangement for removing Lady Vera from this scene of horror into another chamber."
"There's only the kitchen," Mrs. Robson said, dismayed at her lack of resources. "All the chambers but this are leaky and damp. But the kitchen where I cook and sleep is warm and dry."
"The kitchen will suit me excellently well; anywhere but this," Lady Vera answers, shuddering. "You must bring poor Ivy, too," she adds, with a compassionate glance at the poor, insane creature.
The maniac went willingly enough, satisfied to go anywhere so long as she was not parted from her beloved jewels, and the warm, clean kitchen was felt by all to be a safe haven of refuge from the inclement night and the horror-haunted chamber up-stairs.
The remainder of the night was spent in a wakeful vigil. The next morning the gentlemen made hurried preparations for the inquest that was necessary to be held over the dead.
It was found that Mrs. Cleveland had come to her death by a stroke of lightning, and that Leslie Noble had been murdered by Ivy Cleveland.
But human vengeance was powerless to touch poor Ivy. The hand of God had already smitten her. A lunatic asylum received her for the remainder of her poor, wrecked life.
CHAPTER XLVII
Marcia Cleveland and Leslie Noble were buried in a quiet, country graveyard. By Lady Vera's care a plain gray stone was raised above their graves recording their names and nationality, with a brief line commending them to the mercy of Heaven.
The remnant of Leslie Noble's once princely fortune reverted to the Countess of Fairvale. She devoted it to the maintenance of poor Ivy Cleveland in the best insane asylum in England.
She hoped that with time and care her reason might return to her, but the poor creature remained a confirmed maniac to the end her long life, never very dangerous or troublesome, but always fancying herself some royal personage, and always planning new costumes for some imaginary ball.
The splendid jewels, for whose sake she dyed her hands in human blood, were kindly spared to her as playthings. They constituted all the happiness of her life.
For Countess Vera, after that night of storm and death and merciful rescue, there dawned a brighter day.
Only one cloud dimmed the horizon of her life-sky. It was Raleigh Gilmore's suit at law. Even her best friends, those who believed in her the most loyally, secretly feared that it would go against her.
When Lady Vera met Sir Harry Clive again she went to him with a smile, the open memorandum-book in her white hand.
"You see," she said to him with that triumphant I-told-you-so smile, which women are wont to wear on such occasions, "it was no dream, Sir Harry. Here are the precious lines in my father's writing, word for word, as I repeated them to you that day."
Sir Harry humbly begged her pardon for his doubts.
"You wrote to this Joel McPherson, did you not?" he asks, anxiously.
"Yes," she answers. "Has no word come from him yet?"
"No," Sir Harry replies, "not a word. Perhaps he is dead; perhaps he has gone away."
"We must send someone over to America to look for him," Lady Vera replies decisively.
"I think you are right. It is the best thing that can be done," he agrees.
Her lawyer is of the same opinion. They decide to send Mr. Sharpe, the efficient detective, to Washington to find the missing sexton of Glenwood.
When Lady Vera has repeated to them Leslie Noble's assertion, that he had written to a friend to keep the sexton out of the way, they strongly suspect that McPherson has been made away with.
Mr. Sharpe is sent on his errand to America, Lady Vera's keen-witted lawyer staves off the impending trial from day to day pending the arrival of her important witness, and all wait in suspense for news from the detective.
Meanwhile, Raleigh Gilmore's case has weakened daily.
The witnesses upon whom he had relied so confidently, Mrs. Cleveland and her daughter, and possibly Leslie Noble, were all unavailable, two being dead, one the incurable inmate of a madhouse.
The tide of fortune was setting against him. Lady Vera's friends began to desert his banner.
Meanwhile, Lady Vera's lover and friends rejoiced in her returning health and strength. She had been so frail and delicate when Colonel Lockhart brought her back to them that they were shocked and frightened. They thought she would die. Lady Clive and the faithful maid, Elsie, wept floods of tears over her. Little Hal took a great deal of blame to himself for Lady Vera's abduction.
"Vera, I should never have given you that dreadful old woman's letter if I had known what it was about," he reiterates in her patient ear many times.
"I know that, dear," she always answers, kindly. "No one blames you, Hal, for my misfortune. It was my own willfulness that led me into danger. Had I listened to my faithful Elsie, I should not have gone."
But their fears for her health are soon dissipated. Happiness, love and hope, are potent restorers. The light returns to Lady Vera's eyes, the roundness to her face and form, the color to her cheeks, and the slight shade of thought and sadness around her lovely lips does not detract from her beauty.
No one can tell with what happiness Colonel Lockhart basks in the sunlight of her presence, though when she runs her white fingers through his hair, she wonders at the silver threads that shine in the brown, clustering curls.
"They were not there three months ago," she says to him thoughtfully. "Are you growing old so fast, Philip?"
"I have grown old in sorrow since we parted, dear," he answers, searching her face, gravely. "Shall you love me less for my gray hairs, dearest?"
"No, for they were whitened by your grief for me," she answers, pressing her sweet, shy lips on those silvery tokens of his sorrow.
And now Colonel Lockhart begs her to name an early day for their marriage.
"We have had so many vicissitudes in our courtship, darling, that I can never feel sure of you until you are my wife. Let it be soon, dear," he pleads.
But Lady Vera, blushing her sweetest, answers:
"Not until after the trial is decided, Philip."
But this is just what the handsome soldier is unwilling to do.
"Why wait until after that?" he asks. "Do you mean to throw me over if—all does not go to please you?"
The dark eyes look at him gravely.
"If it goes against me, Philip, would you be willing to wed one whom the world will brand as an impostor?" she asks him, slowly.
"Yes, for I would know the charge was untrue. Oh, Vera, let me make you my own now, while the issue is still in doubt, that you may know that I loved you for yourself alone."
"As if I did not know that already," she answers, looking at him with sweet reproach.
"That the world may know it, too, then," he urges.
He is most anxious that the marriage shall take place before the trial. Then if, as he fears, the trial should go against her, she will be safe in her position as his wife, and none will dare assail her. But he cannot explain this without wounding her sensitive feelings, so he is forced to admit her denial.
"Not until after the trial, Philip."
"And then?" he asks, eagerly.
"As soon as you please," she answers, with tender blushes glowing all over her beautiful face, and then she laughs musically.
"We are setting the day for our marriage, and we are not even engaged," she laughs, in answer to his aggrieved look.
"We are!" he insists.
"We are not," she declares. "We dissolved our engagement several months ago, and since I became free you have not asked me to renew it."
The tender mischief in the lovely, laughing, dark eyes, almost disconcerts the handsome soldier.
"Oh, Vera, I thought of course you knew that I meant it," he says, rather incoherently. "We are engaged, and we are going to be married, aren't we, dear?"
"If you ask me," she says, with demure mirth, out of the happiness of her heart.
"I ask you now," he answers, laughing too. "Is it yes, Vera?"
She murmurs assent with a pretty assumption of coquetry, and bends her head for her second betrothal kiss, delighting her lover by the child-like gaiety that shows how her spirit is gradually throwing off the depressing influence of grief that has so long surrounded her.
"Then, Vera, I may write to my father, General Lockhart, and ask him to come over to the wedding?" he says, presently.
"What! and the trousseau not ready yet?" she laughs.
"Oh, my darling, you will write and order it at once, will you not?" he exclaims.
"I have already ordered it, Colonel Lockhart," she replies, demurely.
"What! before you were engaged?" he retorts, feeling it his turn to tease now.
"I had the prospect of a proposal, sir," she answers, with charming frankness.
"Then I shall write to my father to come over. I would not miss having him see my lovely bride, and I intend that the wedding shall come off as soon as the trousseau is ready," declares the happy lover.
Lady Vera does not say him nay. She is very happy in the prospect of a union with her faithful lover. The days glide past like a dream of pleasure, quietly, because as yet she denies herself to callers, but happily, because surrounded by her dearest friends and her adoring lover.
CHAPTER XLVIII
And one day the last sweet rose leaf is added to the brimming cup of Lady Vera's new happiness, which even the thought of Raleigh Gilmore's fell design could not wholly overshadow.
Sir Harry Clive had sent her an urgent request to come into the library to meet a visitor, and only staying a moment to arrange her disordered hair, for she had been in the nursery playing with Lady Nella's children, she obeys him.
Sir Harry takes her hand and draws her forward to the man, neatly clothed in black, who has risen from his chair to meet her.
"I know your face," she cries, instantly. "I have seen you somewhere. It is—oh, can it be Mr. McPherson?"
"It is Joel McPherson, Lady Vera, at your service," he answers, in honest, hearty tones. "I am glad you remembered me, my lady. I knew you again instantly although you look prettier and happier than you did that morning when your father took you away from Glenwood."
"Oh, then, you can tell me all about that dreadful night," she cries, repressing the shudder that always steals over her at the thought of her living entombment.
"Yes, my lady, that is why I came to England with Mr. Sharpe," he answers, respectfully. "I told your father that day that it was wrong to keep the story of your burial from you. He answered me that he meant to tell you all some day when you grew well and strong again."
"Poor father! He was too tender-hearted to keep that promise," Lady Vera murmurs, dropping into a chair, and hiding her tearful face in her hands.
"You wish to hear how you came to be rescued from your living grave, dear Lady Vera?" says the baronet, anxious to distract her mournful thoughts from her dead father.
"Yes, oh, yes," she murmurs, lifting her head, and looking at Mr. McPherson's grave, kindly face. "You will tell me, will you not, sir?"
"You see it was this way, my lady. On the evening of the day that you were buried, your father went to Mrs. Cleveland's to seek his wife and child. She told him cruelly to seek you both in your graves at Glenwood. He could scarcely believe it. It seemed too horrible to believe, and in the horror with which his enemy's words inspired him, he fell down like one dead at her feet. He came to himself lying out on the pavement with the wild rain and wind beating into his uncovered face. She had cast him out into the street to die like the veriest wretch, unfriended and alone."
"Heartless!" Sir Harry Clive utters, indignantly, while Lady Vera's choking sobs attest the strain upon his feelings.
"Then he came to me," continued Joel McPherson, his kind eyes moist at the remembrance of the earl's despair. "I could only confirm Mrs. Cleveland's story. Both his wife and child were dead. Then a longing came over him to look at the face of the dead wife. He had wronged her living, he said, and he could not rest until he saw her face again. He offered me gold to open the grave, but it was not the bribe, it was the misery on his face that made me yield to his wish."
He pauses, drawing a long breath, and wiping the moisture from his eyes, waits for Lady Vera to grow calmer. The sound of her suppressed sobbing fills the room.
Sir Harry touches her arm gently.
"This is too much for you," he says kindly. "Shall we defer the story's conclusion until you are better, my dear?"
"No, I will be calm," she answers, repressing with an effort the sobs that rise at these reminiscences of the past; "I will not disturb you again. Go on with your story, Mr. McPherson."
"There is little more to tell, my lady," he returns. "I yielded to the earl's wish because, after hearing all his strange story I had not the heart to refuse. But in the haste with which the deed was done, and in the pitch-black, rainy night I made a mistake. Judge of my surprise when on wrenching off the lid of the coffin, and flashing the light of the lantern on the face within, I found that I had disinterred the daughter instead of the mother. It was the happiest mistake of my life, for in a few minutes we found that she was not dead, but simply wrapped in a deep, narcotic sleep," he adds, with emotion.
In a moment he continues:
"Your father, Lady Vera, did not discover the mistake until I explained it to him. He had not seen your mother for sixteen years, and as you greatly resembled her, he fancied that she had retained the fairness of girlhood through all those years, whereas, in reality, she was gray-haired and sadly aged by sorrow. I explained all this to him, and then we took you to my cottage near by, and when you revived, he quieted you by some plausible story that you had been asleep, fearing to shock you too much by the story of your burial while yet alive. He still clung to his fancy of seeing his dead wife's face, so I went back and opened that grave too, but," with a shudder, "it was too late. Death had marred her too sadly. I filled up both graves again, and by your father's wish, my lady, no one ever knew that one was empty. I questioned the wisdom of such a course, but the earl was peremptory, and the little mound remained, while very soon after Mr. Noble erected the monument that told every one that his wife, Vera, was buried beneath, while the truth was that you had gone abroad with your father. The earl, in his joy over your restoration to life, settled a generous little fortune upon me, which has made me independent ever since. He was a good man and true, and I am sorry that he is dead," adds Mr. McPherson, brushing his hand across his eyes.
"And my letter to you—did you ever receive it?" questions Lady Vera.
"Yes, my lady, promptly. And I was making my arrangements to come right over to England and help you, when I was basely kidnapped by some unknown party and held in durance over two months, when, by good luck and constant watchfulness, I effected my escape. I went straight back to Glenwood, and there I found your man, Mr. Sharpe, interrogating the sexton, who now occupied my cottage. He was delighted to find in me the man he was looking for, and I came straight over to England with him. But if you had not sent him after me, Lady Vera, I should have come anyhow as soon as I escaped from my jailers."
Lady Vera, rising impulsively, goes over to press the hand of this kind, true friend in her two soft, white ones.
"God bless you," she murmurs; "I can never thank you enough. And will you swear to all this before a court of justice?"
"Certainly, my Lady Fairvale. That is what I came to England for," Mr. McPherson answers, heartily.
When Raleigh Gilmore's lawyer heard of this new witness in Lady Vera's favor, he declared that his client had no case at all against the defendant. He said it would be useless to bring it into court. They would only be routed ignominiously, for Lady Fairvale's identity was so perfectly established by the note in her father's memorandum-book, and by the sexton of Glenwood's testimony, that there was really nothing to be said against it. Besides, Mr. Gilmore's witnesses were all dead, or worse. So the base conspiracy fell through harmlessly, and there was no trial at all, though Countess Vera's friends were rather eager for it now, foreseeing that victory must perch upon her banner. Raleigh Gilmore retired to his country estate again, soured by his defeat and disgrace, and heartily wishing that he had never been beguiled from its quiet shades by the specious representations of the Widow Cleveland. There was one drop of sweetness in the bitter cup of humiliation pressed to the old bachelor's lips. Marcia Cleveland was dead, and he would not have to marry her as he had promised.
Countess Vera felt no animosity toward the man who had tried to oust her from her rights. She wrote him a kind and pitying letter, in which she offered him generous pecuniary assistance if he required it, and freely forgave him the part he had acted.
To this sweet and womanly offer, Mr. Gilmore replied gruffly and rudely that he neither asked nor needed aid from the usurper of his rights, and had no desire for her forgiveness.
After this, Lady Vera tacitly dropped him, and he figured no more in the pages of her romantic life-history, which thereafter flowed serenely in the unclouded sunshine of happiness.