"To-morrow I shall have won the one great prize I covet," she murmured, half aloud. "After to-morrow I can defy Lester Stanwick to bring one charge against me. I shall be Rex"s wife--it will avail him nothing."
"Speaking of angels, you often hear "the rustle of their wings." I believe there is an old adage of that sort, or something similar,"
said a deep voice beside her, and turning around with a low cry she saw Lester Stanwick himself standing before her.
For one moment her lips opened as though to utter a piercing cry, but even the very breath seemed to die upon them, they were so fixed and still.
The flowers she held in her hand fell into the fountain against which she leaned, but she did not heed them.
Like one fascinated, her eyes met the gaze of the bold, flashing dark ones bent so steadily upon her.
"You thought you would escape me," he said. "How foolish and blind you are, my clever plotter. Did you think I did not see through your clever maneuverings? There shall be a wedding to-morrow, but you shall marry me, instead of handsome, debonair Rex. You can not fly from your fate."
She set her lips firmly together. She had made a valiant struggle. She would defy him to the bitter end. She was no coward, this beautiful, imperious girl. She would die hard. Alas! she had been too sanguine, hoping Lester Stanwick would not return before the ceremony was performed.
The last hope died out of that proud, pa.s.sionate heart--as well hope to divert a tiger from its helpless prey as expect Lester Stanwick to relinquish any plans he had once formed.
"I have fought my fight," she said to herself, "and have failed on the very threshold of victory, still, I know how to bear defeat. What do you propose to do?" she said, huskily. "If there is any way I can buy your silence, name your price, keeping back the truth will avail me little now. I love Rex, and no power on earth shall prevent me from becoming his wife."
Lester Stanwick smiled superciliously--drawing from his pocket a package of letters.
"Money could not purchase these charming _billets-doux_ from me," he said. "This will be charming reading matter for the Honorable Rex Lyon, and the general public to discuss."
She raised her flashing eyes unflinchingly to his face, but no word issued from her white lips.
"A splendid morsel for the gossips to whisper over. The very refined and exclusive heiress of Whitestone Hall connives to remove an innocent rival from her path, by providing money for her to be sent off secretly to boarding-school, from which she is to be abducted and confined in a mad-house. Your numerous letters give full instructions; it would be useless to deny these accusations. I hold proof positive."
"That would not screen you," she said, scornfully.
"I did not carry out your plans. No matter what the intentions were, the points in the case are what actually happened. I can swear I refused to comply with your nefarious wishes, even though you promised me your hand and fortune if I succeeded," he answered, mockingly.
"Will not money purchase your silence?" she said, with a deep-drawn breath. "I do not plead with you for mercy or compa.s.sion," she said, haughtily.
Lester Stanwick laughed a mocking laugh.
"Do not mistake me, Miss Pluma," he said, making no attempt at love-making; "I prefer to wrest you from Rex Lyon. I have contemplated with intense satisfaction the blow to his pride. It will be a glorious revenge, also giving me a charming bride, and last, but not least, the possession at some future day of Whitestone Hall and the Hurlhurst Plantations. A pleasing picture, is it not, my dear?"
CHAPTER x.x.xII.
Pluma Hurlhurst never quailed beneath the cold, mocking glance bent upon her.
There was no hope for her; disgrace and ruin stared her in the face; she would defy even Fate itself to the bitter end with a heroism worthy of a better cause. In that hour and that mood she was capable of anything.
She leaned against a tall palm-tree, looking at him with a strange expression on her face, as she made answer, slowly:
"You may depend upon it, I shall never marry you, Lester Stanwick. If I do not marry Rex I shall go unmarried to the grave. Ah, no!" she cried desperately; "Heaven will have more mercy, more pity than to take him from me."
"What mercy or pity did you feel in thrusting poor little Daisy Brooks from his path?" asked Stanwick, sarcastically. "Your love has led you through dangerous paths. I should call it certainly a most perilous love."
She recoiled from him with a low cry, those words again still ringing in her ears, "A perilous love."
She laughed with a laugh that made even Stanwick"s blood run cold--a horrible laugh.
"I do not grieve that she is dead," she said. "You ought to understand by this time I shall allow nothing to come between Rex and me."
"You forget the fine notions of honor your handsome lover entertains; it may not have occurred to you that he might object at the eleventh hour."
"He will not," she cried, fiercely, her bosom rising and falling convulsively under its covering of filmy lace and the diamond brooch which clasped it. "You do not know the indomitable will of a desperate woman," she gasped. "I will see him myself and confess all to him, if you attempt to reveal the contents of those letters. He will marry me and take me abroad at once. If I have Rex"s love, what matters it what the whole world knows or says?"
She spoke rapidly, vehemently, with flushed face and glowing eyes; and even in her terrible anger Stanwick could not help but notice how gloriously beautiful she was in her tragic emotion.
"I have asked you to choose between us," he said, calmly, "and you have chosen Rex regardless of all the promises of the past. The consequences rest upon your own head."
"So be it," she answered, haughtily.
With a low bow Stanwick turned and left her.
"_Au revoir_, my dear Pluma," he said, turning again toward her on the threshold. "Not farewell--I shall not give up hope of winning the heiress of Whitestone Hall."
For several moments she stood quite still among the dark-green shrubs, and no sound told of the deadly strife and despair. Would he see Rex and divulge the crime she had planned? Ah! who would believe she, the proud, petted heiress had plotted so cruelly against the life of an innocent young girl because she found favor in the eyes of the lover she had sworn to win? Ah! who could believe she had planned to confine that sweet young life within the walls of a mad-house until death should release her?
What if the plan had failed? The intention still remained the same.
She was thankful, after all, the young girl was dead.
"I could never endure the thought of Rex"s intense anger if he once imagined the truth; he would never forgive duplicity," she cried, wildly.
The proud, beautiful girl, radiant with love and happiness a short time since, with a great cry flung herself down among the ferns, the sunlight gleaming on the jewels, the sumptuous morning dress, the crushed roses, and the white, despairing face.
Any one who saw Pluma Hurlhurst when she entered the drawing-room among her merry-hearted guests, would have said that she had never shed a tear or known a sigh. Could that be the same creature upon whose prostrate figure and raining tears the sunshine had so lately fallen? No one could have told that the brightness, the smiles, and the gay words were all forced. No one could have guessed that beneath the brilliant manner there was a torrent of dark, angry pa.s.sions and an agony of fear.
It was pitiful to see how her eyes wandered toward the door. Hour after hour pa.s.sed, and still Rex had not returned.
The hum of girlish voices around her almost made her brain reel. Grace Alden and Miss Raynor were singing a duet at the piano. The song they were singing fell like a death-knell upon her ears; it was ""He Cometh Not," She Said."
Eve Glenn, with Birdie upon her lap, sat on an adjoining sofa flirting desperately with the two or three devoted beaus; every one was discussing the prospect of the coming morrow.
Her father had returned from Baltimore some time since. She was too much engrossed with her thoughts of Rex to notice the great change in him--the strange light in his eyes, or the wistful, expectant expression of his face, as he kissed her more fondly than he had ever done in his life before.
She gave appropriate answers to her guests grouped around her, but their voices seemed afar off. Her heart and her thoughts were with Rex. Why had he not returned? What was detaining him? Suppose anything should happen--it would kill her now--yet nothing could go wrong on the eve of her wedding-day. She would not believe it. Stanwick would not dare go to Rex with such a story--he would write it--and all those things took time. With care and caution and constant watching she would prevent Rex from receiving any communications whatever until after the ceremony; then she could breathe freely, for the battle so bravely fought would be won.
"If to-morrow is as bright as to-day, Pluma will have a glorious wedding-day," said Bessie Glenn, smiling up into the face of a handsome young fellow who was fastening a rosebud she had just given him in the lapel of his coat with one hand, and with the other tightly clasping the white fingers that had held the rose.
He did not notice that Pluma stood in the curtained recesses of an adjoining window as he answered, carelessly enough:
"Of course, I hope it will be a fine, sunshiny day, but the indications of the weather don"t look exactly that way, if I am any judge."