CHAPTER XX
At Darnley House on the night of Lady Spencer's ball, all the devices of art and the aid of two well-nigh distracted maids are called in to beautify Mrs. Leslie Noble for her debut in London fashionable society. Her small, pale, faded face is rejuvenated by rouge and powder, the hair-dresser furnishes a tower of straw-gold puffs to crown her own sparse locks, and add dignity and hight to her low stature. Her dress is a chef-d'œuvre of the Parisian man milliner—palest blue satin, with diaphanous, floating draperies of blue embroidered crape. A magnificent diamond necklace clasps her small throat. Bracelets of diamonds shine on her wrists, diamonds blaze in her hair, diamond clasps hold the azure draperies in place. From head to foot the small blonde sparkles with splendor, and her weak soul thrills with vanity. She is determined to create a sensation, and to have the incense of admiration poured at her shrine.
When she has fretted and worried through the process of dressing, and slapped the face of one maid, and scolded the other one into floods of tears, she sends for her mother to come into the dressing-room.
There is a little delay, and then Mrs. Cleveland sails in, gorgeous in crimson brocade and rubies, her black eyes shining with triumphant satisfaction at her own really fine appearance. But Ivy, absorbed in her own self, has no admiration to spare for her mother.
"I sent for you, mamma, to ask you how I look," she says. "These stupid women have worried me into a fever. They can do nothing right. Tell me, do you think any of these proud, titled dames will outshine me in the ball-room to-night?"
Mrs. Cleveland's glance roves critically over the resplendent figure. All the appliances of wealth and art cannot hide the fretful, ill-natured look on the small, thin face, nor the shrewish light in the pale-blue eyes.
"Your dress is faultless—I do not believe anyone will be more magnificent than you," she answers; "but try to look more complaisant, do, Ivy. You have no idea how that fretful look mars the beauty of your face. Remember you will have some formidable rivals to-night. The grandest and most beautiful women in London will be at Lady Spencer's ball."
"I am as pretty as any of them," Mrs. Noble cries, irascibly. "I don't see why I am to be cautioned against my looks so much. An angel would lose her temper. There was Leslie to-day, telling me to look for my laurels, for the beauty of last season would be there, and carry all before her?"
"The Countess of Fairvale—yes, I have heard that she would be there," Mrs. Cleveland answers. "I am quite curious to see her. She is as lovely as a dream, they say, a dark-eyed blonde with golden hair."
"Leslie saw her portrait at Delany's—the great artist, you know," Mrs. Noble answers. "Would you believe he had the insolence to tell me she reminded him of that wretched creature—Vera Campbell?"
"She had dark eyes and fair hair, you remember," Mrs. Cleveland answers, carelessly.
"Yes, but the idea of comparing her to a great beauty like this Lady Fairvale—that girl who was no better than a servant!" Mrs. Noble cries, indignantly.
"Well, well, there is no use to be jealous of the dead. Vera Campbell was beautiful, certainly, but Leslie never cared for her, you know," Mrs. Cleveland answers, impatiently.
"Precious little he cares for me, either," her daughter complains. "He pretended to love me once, but he has dropped even the pretense long ago!"
"What does it matter? You are his wife, and spend his money all the same," Mrs. Cleveland answers, heartlessly. "Come, Ivy, if you mean to attend the ball to-night, it's time to be off. For Heaven's sake, smooth those ugly frowns off your face before we reach Lady Spencer's, or people will think you old and ugly in spite of your diamonds."
Ivy's pale eyes flash with rage at the cool reminder, but she is wise enough to know that her mother is speaking for her good. She dabs on a little more pearl powder, takes up her white satin cloak lined with snowy swan's-down, and with a fond, farewell glance into the mirror, turns to go.
"You need not fear for me, mamma," she says, summoning a smile to her painted lips. "I shall be as bright and smiling as the Countess of Fairvale herself. But I wonder where Leslie can be! He drank so much wine at dinner that I am afraid he is in no condition to attend us."
A door opens suddenly to her right, and Mr. Noble appears in full evening dress, his face somewhat flushed, but looking otherwise none the worse for the wine his wife deplores. He looks ungraciously at his resplendent wife.
"So you have got on all your war-paint," he sneers. "How ridiculously over-dressed you are, Ivy. You make one think of a jeweler's show-window. A pity you could not have bored a hole through your nose, and hung a diamond there, too."
"A pity you drank enough wine at dinner to make you a drunken boor," she retorts angrily.
CHAPTER XXI
Dazzling vistas of gorgeous rooms; a blaze of light and flowers everywhere: men and women in festive attire; over all, the throb and swell of the gay, sweet, maddening dance-music.
Lady Spencer's ball is in full blast, and as Sir Harry Clive predicted, it is a "crush." But after all everyone seems to be enjoying it, even Mrs. Noble, who, in a conspicuous position, and surrounded by a small circle of diamond-admirers, deems herself an acknowledged belle, and gives herself pleasant and coquettish little airs, accordingly.
"I have seen no one any prettier than I am," she confides to her mother, in a delighted whisper. "If that Lady Fairvale is here she cannot be a very great beauty. Doubtless she has been greatly overrated. I fancy that girl over there in the pink satin and opals must be she. You observe she has fair hair with dark eyes."
"No; for that is Lady Alice Fordham, I am told," Mrs. Cleveland answers. "I do not think the beauty has arrived yet."
"Staying late in order to create a sensation," Mrs. Noble sneers, then returning to her own admirers, forgets the distasteful subject for awhile in airing her own graces with the laudable intent of aggravating her husband, who has retired to a distant part of the room in supreme disgust.
But suddenly in Mrs. Noble's vicinity an eager whisper runs from lip to lip, all eyes turn in one direction, a lady and gentleman advancing down the center of the room are the cynosure of all eyes—Lady Fairvale and Colonel Lockhart. Mrs. Noble catches her breath in unwilling admiration.
For surely since Adam and Eve were paired in the Garden of Eden, no more beautiful pair had been created than these two!
Colonel Lockhart, to humor a whim of his sister's, appeared in the splendid and becoming uniform of a colonel in the United States Army. His martial form and handsome face appeared princely in his becoming garb, and his fine, dark-blue eyes were sparkling with pride and happiness as they rested on the lovely girl who hung upon his arm with all the confidence of first, pure, innocent love.
"She is as lovely as a dream," Mrs. Cleveland had said to her daughter, and Ivy, with a gasp of envy, is fain to acknowledge the truth.
Tall, slenderly formed, with
"Cheek of rose and brow of pearl,
Shadowed by many a golden curl,"
with dark eyes radiating light beneath the drooping, ebon lashes, with neck and arms moulded like the gleaming white marble of a sculptor's masterpiece, and guiltless of all adornment; with that silvery robe sweeping about the stately form as if the mist of the sea had enveloped her, Lady Vera looks and moves "a queen," gracious, lovely, smiling, as if the shadow of a great despair were not brooding over that golden head.
"Not a jewel, scarcely a flower, and yet more perfect than an artist's dream," Mrs. Cleveland whispers maliciously to her overbearing daughter.
But Ivy forgets to be angry at the little thrust. She stares at the beautiful vision, pale to the very lips.
"Leslie was right," she murmurs, like one dazed. "She frightens me, she is so like—so like that dead girl, Vera. Do you not see it, mamma?"
"Yes, but why should a mere chance likeness frighten you?" Mrs. Cleveland retorts, with subdued scorn.
Lady Vera has not seen her enemies yet. A group of admirers has closed around her, and for a little while she forgets that she will meet here the heartless and vindictive woman who destroyed the happiness of her parents. Her lover claims her hand for the dance, and she passes from their sight a little space.
Colonel Lockhart is radiant with joy and pride. The hum of admiration that follows his darling everywhere is music in his ears.
"My darling, do you see how every eye follows you?" he whispers, fondly.
But Lady Vera laughs archly in the happiness of her heart.
"You are mistaken. They are only admiring your uniform," she retorts, gayly, and the soldier thinks to himself that surely the smile upon the crimson lips is the gladdest and sweetest that ever rejoiced a lover's heart.
But it fades suddenly, the glad, sweet smile, and the blush upon the rounded cheek.
The dance is over, and they are lingering together by a stand of rare and fragrant flowers.
Suddenly the blush and smile fade together. A strange, stern look comes into the dark eyes, she drops the rose that her lover has just placed in her hand.
"Vera," he asks, looking anxiously at her, "what ails you, dear? You have grown so grave."
She looks up at him with strange eyes, from which the light and joy of a moment ago have faded as if they had never been.
"Philip, who is that woman over there, in the crimson brocade and rubies?" she asks, indicating the person by a slight inclination of her head.
His glance follows hers.
"That woman—yes, someone told me awhile ago that she was a countrywoman of mine, a Mrs. Cleveland. The one next her, in the diamonds, is her daughter."
Lady Vera is silent a moment, gazing steadily at the unconscious two.
She has recognized them instantly, and only asked the question to "make assurance doubly sure." Some of the bitterness in the heart rises up to her face. Her lips curl in scorn.
Colonel Lockhart regards her anxiously, puzzled by the inexplicable change in her face.
"What is it, Vera? Do you know these people?" he asks.
"How should I know them?" she asks, trying to throw off the weight that has fallen on her heart.
"Are you ill, then? These flowers are too heavy and sweet, perhaps. Shall I take you away?" he inquires.
"Not yet," she answers.
She continues gazing steadily at Mrs. Cleveland and her daughter. To her heart she is saying over and over:
"I am face to face with my enemies at last. What form will my vengeance take?"
In a moment that question that she has asked herself so many times is terribly answered.
Watching Ivy with her strange, intent gaze, she sees a gentleman come up to her side.
"Am I mad," she asks herself, with terrible calm despair, "or is it really Leslie Noble?"
Her lover unconsciously answers the silent question.
"You see that dark, handsome man, Vera?" he says. "His name is Leslie Noble. He is the husband of the lady in the diamonds."
She makes him no answer at first. Her eyes are wide and dark with horror. All in a moment she sees plainly the awful answer to the question so often asked of her shuddering heart.
"Vera, indeed you are ill. Let me take you away from the heavy scent of these flowers," her lover pleads.
She starts like one waking from a dreadful dream, and clings to his arm.
"Yes, take me away," she echoes, in a far-off voice. "There are too many flowers here, and the light hurts my eyes, and the music my heart."
CHAPTER XXII
"My darling, I do not know what to think," Colonel Lockhart exclaims, anxiously. "A moment ago you were so bright and happy—now you look pale and startled, and your words are strange and wild. Has anything frightened you, my darling?"
She lifts her heavy, dark eyes almost beseechingly to his own.
"Philip, please do not talk to me, now," she says. "Do not ask me any questions. Only find me a quiet place away from the crowd, where I may rest awhile. I am ill."
"I do not know where to find such a place, unless I take you into the conservatory. I expect it is quite deserted now," he answers.
"We will go there, then," she replies.
Troubled at heart, and very anxious over his darling, Colonel Lockhart leads her down through the long vistas of fragrant bloom to a quiet seat under a slender young palm tree. There are very few flowers here—only cool, green thickets of lovely, lace-like ferns, watered by the sparkling fountain poured from the lifted urn of a marble Naiad.
"Will this spot suit you, Vera?" he inquires, anxiously.
She bows, and looks at him with her grave, sad gaze.
"Philip, you must leave me here alone for half an hour," she says, "I wish to rest awhile. Then you may come to me."
"You look so ill and pale I am almost afraid to leave you alone," he answers. "May I not remain near you, Vera? I will not talk to you, nor weary you in any way. I will sit silently and wait your pleasure."
"I would rather be alone," she answers, wearily.
"Then I will go, my darling, but I shall be very anxious over you. It will be the longest half hour of my life."
He stoops over her, and taking the sweet white face in his hands, kisses the pale, drawn lips. A stifled sob breaks from her at the thought that in a little while these kisses will be hers no longer.
"You are nervous, dear. Let me send my sister to you," he urges.
"I had rather be alone," she answers.
"Forgive me, dear. I will go, then," he answers, turning away.
The tall form disappears in the green, flowery shrubbery. The echo of the firm, elastic footstep dies away. Lady Vera is alone at last, sitting with folded hands and dark, terrified eyes, face to face with the awful reality of her life's despair.
"Leslie Noble, my unloved and unloving husband, is alive and married to his old love, Ivy Cleveland—how passing strange," she murmurs, hollowly, to herself. "What strange mystery is here? Did he believe me dead, as I did him? Or has he, in the madness of his love for Ivy, recklessly plunged into sin? But if so, why did he bring her here where they must meet me? There is some strange, unfathomable mystery here which I cannot penetrate."
Alas, poor Vera! the gloom of a subtle mystery wraps thee round, indeed, and the hand that held the key to the secret is cold in death.
Low moans gurgle over her lips, and blend with the murmur of the fountain as it splashes musically into the marble basin. She is thinking of her handsome, noble lover between whose heart and hers a barrier has risen, wide and deep as the eternal Heaven.
"I must part from him, my Philip, my love!" she moans, "for in the sight of God I am Leslie Noble's wife, even though before men he is Ivy Cleveland's husband."
She bows her face in her hands, and bitter, burning tears stream through her fingers. In all the hours when she has brooded over that oath of vengeance made by her father's death-bed, no slightest thought has come to her in what terrible way she must keep her vow, and at what fearful cost to her life's happiness.
"What strange prescience came to my father in dying?" she asks herself, in wonder. "How strangely his words were shaped to fit the awful reality. I must punish Marcia Cleveland through her dearest affections, he said. All her heart is centered on Ivy, and when I claim Leslie Noble from her and cover her head with that awful shame, my father's wishes will be fulfilled. And lest I should falter in my dreadful task, he added that last clause, no matter at what cost to myself. Oh, God! what will Philip say when he learns the truth? The way is plain before me how to keep my vow. I, who loathe and despise Leslie Noble, must claim him before God and man as my husband, and humiliate Ivy Cleveland to the dust. In no other way can I punish Marcia Cleveland and avenge my mother's wrongs."
"In no other way," the fountain seems to echo, as it splashes musically down, and Lady Vera, turning coward now in the face of the terrible future, prays in bitterest agony: "Oh, God! if I could die—die here and now, with Philip's last fond kiss still warm upon my lips, before I have to speak the dreadful words that will doom us to a living death in life."
With an effort she shakes off, presently, the horror and dread and shrinking repugnance with which she looks forward to the fulfillment of her oath.
"Mother, forgive me," she weeps. "Do I not remember all your bitter wrongs and mine, and how often my young heart burned to avenge them? And shall I shrink back now when the flaming sword is in my hand, and I am able to crush your enemy into the dust? No, no! What matter if it breaks my heart? My gentle mother, yours was broken, too. And though I tread on burning plow-shares, I will keep my oath of vengeance."
No faltering; no looking back now. Something of her father's haughty spirit is infused into Lady Vera's soul. Her dark eyes light with the strange fire that burns on the altar of her heart, and when her lover comes anxiously to seek her, she has recovered all her usual calmness, and greets him with a smile.
"You are better, dear?" he exclaims.
"Yes, and we will return to the ball-room now," she answers, resting her icy fingers lightly against his arm.
Passing from the subdued light of the conservatory into the glare of the ball-room, they come face to face with Leslie, with Ivy hanging on his arm, flushed and heated from the dance. Lady Vera lifts her head with stag-like grace, and looks steadily into their eyes, but beyond an insolent stare from Ivy, and a glance of warm admiration from the man, they give no sign of recognition. Lady Vera passes on, and Lady Clive comes up to her, laughing.
"My dear, you have seen our country people—the rich Americans," she says. "How do you like them?"
"I will tell you some day," she answers, in a strange tone, yet with a careless smile.
Still later in the evening Lady Spencer seeks out the countess.
"Dear Lady Fairvale, will you allow me to introduce to you our American guests?" she asks. "They are most anxious to know the beauty of the season."
Lady Vera, growing pale as her white robe, draws her slight form proudly erect.
"Pray, pardon my rudeness, Lady Spencer," she answers, coldly. "But I must decline. I do not wish to know them."
CHAPTER XXIII
Society, which likes nothing better than a bit of gossip, commented considerably on the Countess of Fairvale's refusal to know the rich Americans. There were some who blamed her and thought she was over-nice and proud. The American Consul vouched for their respectability, and their style of living attested to their wealth. What more could she desire? Everyone else received them on equal terms. Why did Lady Vera hold out so obstinately against speaking to them? It could only be a girl's foolish whim—nothing more, for she assigned no reason for her refusal.
But it created some little embarrassment at first. People did not like to invite the countess and the Americans together for fear of an unpleasant collision. They could not slight Lady Vera, and they did not wish to offend the Americans. The affair was quite unpleasant, and created some little notoriety.
"And after all, Lady Vera's mother was an American, and she was born in the United States herself. Why should she hold herself above one of her own country people?" said one of the knowing ones.
No one could answer the question, and least of all the Americans themselves, who were secretly galled and humiliated almost beyond endurance by the scorn and indifference of the proud and beautiful young girl.
Mr. Noble was sorely chafed by Lady Vera's course. He had conceived a great admiration for her, and desired to hear her talk, that he might learn if her voice as well as her face resembled his dead wife, Vera, the girl who had committed suicide rather than be an unloving wife. Mrs. Cleveland, who had desired to know her because she was the fashion just then, was very angry, too, but Ivy took it the hardest of all. She considered it a deliberate and malicious affront to herself.
"The proud minx!" she said, angrily. "In what is she better than I am that she should refuse to know me? I shall ask her what she means by it."
"You will do no such thing," Mrs. Cleveland cries out, startled by the threat. "You would make yourself perfectly ridiculous! We will pass it over in utter silence, and show her that we cannot be hurt by such foolish airs as she gives herself."
"I am as good as she. I will not be trampled upon!" Ivy retorts, venomously. "What! is she made of more than common clay because she has gold hair and black eyes, and a pink and white face like a doll? It is all false after all, I have no doubt. Her hair is bleached by the golden fluid, and her red and white bought at Madame Blanche's shop!"
"People who live in glass houses should never throw stones," interpolates her lord and master, thus diverting her wrath a moment from Lady Vera and drawing it down upon his own devoted head.
But no one is more surprised at Vera's course than her lover, Colonel Lockhart.
It is when they have gone home from Lady Spencer's ball, and he detains her one moment in the drawing-room to say good-night, that he asks her anxiously:
"Vera, my darling, what story lies behind your refusal to know these people to-night?"
He feels the start and shiver that runs over the graceful form as he holds her hand in his own. She looks up at him with such a white and despairing face that he is almost frightened.
"Oh, Philip," she cries, in a voice of the bitterest pain, "I wish you had not asked me that question yet. Believe me, you will know too soon."
"Then there is a story!" he exclaims.
"Yes," she answers, wearily. "But, Philip, let me go now. I am very tired. You do not know all that I have borne to-night."
He folds the beautiful figure closely in his arms, and kisses the white eyelids that droop so wearily over the sad, dark eyes.
"Forgive me for troubling you, darling," he says, tenderly. "I do not wish to force your confidence, Vera. Only believe me, my own one, every sorrow that rends your heart causes me unhappiness, too."
She lies still against that loyal heart one moment—oh, happy haven of rest, never to be hers! then struggles from him with one last, lingering kiss, and goes to her room and her sleepless couch to brood alone in that dark, dark hour that comes before the dawn, over the terrible discovery she has made.
For Colonel Lockhart the hours pass sleeplessly, too. The shadow of Vera's unknown sorrow lies heavily upon his heart.
He rises early, and long before the late breakfast hour Lady Vera's maid brings him a sealed note. He tears it hastily open, and her betrothal ring falls sparkling into his hand.
"Dear Philip," she writes, "I return your ring. A terrible barrier has risen between us that all our love can never bridge over. So we must part. And, oh! believe me, dearest, it breaks my heart to write it. One thing I would ask you, Philip—will you go away from here and save me the sorrow of meeting you again? I can bear my misery and my impending shame far better if I cannot see you whom I have so fondly loved, and must so fatefully resign.
"Your Wretched Vera."
"Has my darling grown mad?" the handsome soldier asks himself, staring almost stupidly at the note and the ring in his hand. "What shame can touch her, my beautiful, pure-hearted one? She is going to be ill, perhaps, and this is but the vagary of a mind diseased."
So he writes back impulsively:
"Vera, let me see you for even ten minutes. Surely, my darling, you do not mean what you say. What shame can touch you, my innocent love? And why should you wish to send me away? Is it not my right and duty and desire to stand by your side through all the trials of life?
"'Oh! what was love made for if 'tis not the same,
Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame?'
"Do not ask me to leave you, darling. If indeed sorrow and trouble are near you, my place is by your side. I will wait for you half an hour in the library. Do not fail me, dear. I want to put your ring back upon your finger.
"Your Own Philip."
Lady Vera weeps bitterly over her lover's note.
"Ah, he does not know, he does not dream of the fatal truth," she moans, wildly. "And what can I say to him? I cannot, I will not tell him. I could not do it. I should die of the shame. He will know too soon as it is. And yet I must go to him. He will not be denied. Oh! what shall I say to him, my poor boy?"
Weeping and lingering, dreading to go, the half-hour is almost up before she drags herself to the library where Philip is pacing up and down the floor in a fever of doubt and suspense.
"Vera, my darling," he cries. "Oh, how could you treat me so cruelly?"
She pauses with her arms folded over the back of a chair, and regards him sorrowfully. Colonel Lockhart can see that she has been weeping bitterly. Her tremulous lips part to answer him, then close without a sound.
He goes up to her and takes one white, jeweled hand fondly into his own.
"Tell me what troubles you, Vera," he whispers gently.
"Can you not guess, Philip? It is because I must part from you," she answers sadly.
"But why must you do so, Vera?" he asks, gravely, touched to the heart by her drooping and despondent attitude.
"I cannot tell you," she answers sadly, with a heavy sigh.
"Perhaps you have ceased to love me," her lover exclaims, almost sternly.
She starts and fixes her dark eyes reproachfully on his face.
"Oh, would that I had!" she exclaims. "This parting would then be easier to bear!"
They regard each other a moment with painful intentness. The marks of misery on her face are too plain to be mistaken, and the wonder deepens on his own.
"Vera, why are you so mysterious?" he asks, anxiously. "If you throw me over like this, I have at least a right to know the reason why."
"You shall know—soon," she answers, almost bitterly.
Then she lifts her eyes to his face pleadingly.
"Oh, Philip, do not torture me," she cries wildly. "We must part! There is no help nor hope for us! A terrible barrier has risen between us! I have a terrible duty to perform, and there is no turning back for me. But, oh, Philip, if I could persuade you to go away now—at once—where you might never hear or know the fatal secret that has come between us! Darling, let me beg you," she falls suddenly on her knees before him, "to take me at my word and put the whole width of the world between us!"
He lifts her up and wipes the streaming tears from her beautiful eyes.
"My darling, you make it hard for me to refuse you," he answers, in sorrow and perplexity, "but do you think I could be coward enough to desert you when trouble and sorrow hung over your head? I am a soldier, Vera. I cannot show the white feather. If sorrow comes I will be by your side and help you to bear it."
"You, of all others, could help me the least," she answers, brokenly.
And again his noble, handsome face clouds over with wonder and sorrow.
"I will try, at least," he answers, with sad firmness. "Do not ask me to leave you, Vera, I cannot do it. Oh, darling, are you sure, quite sure, that we need really part? That you cannot be my wife?"
"I am as sure of it as if one or the other of us lay at this moment in the coffin," she answers, drearily.
"And that barrier, Vera, will it always stand?" he asks.
"Always, unless death should remove it," she answers, with a shudder; and with a moan, she continues: "Once I believed that death had already stricken it from my path, and I was so happy, Philip—happy in your love and mine. But the grim specter of the past has risen to haunt me. I can never be your wife. I can never know one moment's happiness in life again."
"She is ill and desperate," Colonel Lockhart tells himself, uneasily. "Surely things cannot be so bad as she represents. She exaggerates her trouble. When I come to know the truth I shall find that it is some simple thing that her girlish fears have magnified a hundredfold. I must not let her drive me away from her. I may be of service to her in her trouble."
Aloud he says, gently:
"Since I may no longer be your lover, Vera, you will let me be your friend?"
"Since you wish it, but you will change your mind soon," she answers, hopelessly.
"I think not," he answers, lifting her hand gently to his lips, and then she turns away, meeting Lady Clive upon the threshold coming in.
"Vera, my dear, how ill you look," she exclaims. "Has anything happened? Ah, Phil, are you there? What have you said to Vera? You are not having a lover's quarrel, I hope?"
He makes her no answer, but Vera, turning back, throws her arms around her friend's neck, and lifts her pale, beseeching face.
"I will tell you what has happened, Lady Clive," she answers. "I have broken my engagement with Philip."
"Broken your engagement with Philip? Why, what has he done?" Lady Clive exclaims.
"Nothing," Lady Vera answers, meekly as a child.
"Nothing?" the lady repeats, half-angrily. "Nothing? Then why have you thrown him over, Lady Vera? Did you tire of him so soon? I did not know that you were a flirt."
"Hush, Nella, you shall not blame her," her brother exclaims, sternly.
"You see Philip is not angry with me, Lady Clive," Vera says, entreatingly. "Indeed I am not a flirt. I love him dearly, but I cannot be his wife. There are reasons," she almost chokes over the word, "that—that you will know soon. You will see I was not to blame. Oh, Lady Clive, do not be angry with me."
"I will not, dear," answers the gentle-hearted lady, kissing the sweet, quivering lips of the wretched girl. "I do not understand you, but if Philip is not angry with you, neither can I be. Yet I am very sorry that I shall not have you for my sister."
With a stifled sob Lady Vera breaks from her clasp and flies up to her own room. She does not appear at breakfast.
At luncheon she is so pale and sad and wretched-looking that it makes one's heart ache to see her.
At night they attend a ball, from which Colonel Lockhart excuses himself on the plea of indisposition, and at which the rich Americans also fail to put in an appearance.