"_Now!_ I can wait no longer! Is any one in the library?"
Before she could reply, he had pushed the door back, and led her in.
The room was not needed for the use of the guests, and was unlighted except by the low fire in the grate.
"I will light the gas!" said Jessie, trying to withdraw her hand from his clutch.
He tightened the grasp. It is said that every man is a savage at some time of his life. The brutish devil was rampant now in the polished citizen of the world, the indolent epicure. If he were ever to regain his lost influence, it must be by a _coup d"etat_--by threats, rather than flattery. He would show her what she risked in attempting to dupe and foil him. A desperate expedient, but the case was not a hopeful one.
"What affectation of prudery is this?" he asked, roughly. "Time was when you were less scrupulous about granting me interviews in the firelight. Do you imagine, silly child, that your overacted farce of wifely devotion blinds me as it does the fools you have called together to-night to witness this pretty display of domestic felicity? Or"--his tone changing suddenly--"that any amount of coldness and cruelty can extinguish my love for you? the love you once confessed--in my arms--was reciprocated by yourself, then the betrothed of him, who now believes you to be his loyal consort? You have found it an easy task to deceive him, because it is not in him to worship you as I do. You may struggle to escape from me, but you know I am speaking the truth, and leaving half of it untold. Don"t drive me to distraction, Jessie! or I shall divulge that which your husband, with all his phlegmatic philosophy, may resent. Resent, possibly, upon me--certainly upon you--in treatment you will find it hard to bear. I have warned you before, that generous forgiveness of an offence to his dignity and self-love is a height of virtue unknown to Roy Fordham. I warn you that you are dealing with a desperate, because a miserable man!"
"This is a specimen of the superior manliness, the lofty magnanimity you vaunt as your characteristics--is it?"
She had wrested her hand from him. The faint, red glare revealed the outlines of a figure drawn up to its full height, and instinct with anger and defiance. The clear accents were stinging hailstones.
"I am not afraid of you, if I do shrink from your touch. I am glad you have given me this opportunity to say what you ought to know.
You played upon my inexperience and loneliness, when I was committed--a too trustful child--to your care by my betrothed and my father. You tampered with my active imagination and my credulity, until you wrought in my mind false and florid views of life; and when your train was ready to be fired, insinuated suspicions--which you knew were groundless!--of Roy Fordham"s honor, and his fidelity to me."
"I suggested no suspicions!" he interrupted.
"You nourished the germs planted by Hester Sanford"s slander. And when I did not know where, or upon what I stood; when my brain was teeming with unhealthy fancies, and my heart sick with fever and thirst, you offered me what you called love--dragged from me the admission that it was returned."
"Since perfect frankness is the order of the day, allow me to observe that the "dragging" was not a difficult process!"
interjected Wyllys, offensively.
"I am willing to allow your amendment--if you will consent to have me repeat this story in detail to all who are a.s.sembled in the other room," she returned, undaunted. "I should enjoy the task, because it would pave the way for an avowal I should exult in proclaiming to the universe. It is that I value the least hair of my husband"s head more than I ever did you--body, soul, and what you denominate as your heart; that I had rather serve him as a bond-slave, and never receive a word or glance of affection, if I might live near and for him--than to reign an Empress at your side; that I never comprehend the height, depth and fulness of his condescension and love at any other time as when I reflect that these are bestowed upon a woman who was once misled into the conviction that you were a true man, and that she cared for you. I stand ready to say all this--and more.
I am no weak girl, now, to be terrified by bugbears. There is a perfectness, even of human love, that casteth out fear. You forget this when you threaten me with my husband"s displeasure."
She laughed, and all the corners of the quiet room caught up the mirthful echoes.
"Why, if Roy stood where you do, I could tell him all you have said, without a blush or tremor. That I have never done this, you owe to my reluctance to betray to the baseness of one in whose veins runs the same blood as in his. I would spare him the pain and shame of seeing you for what you are. But I wish he knew everything!"
"I think he does!"
While she was speaking, a shape had loomed into motion from a recess formed by two bookcases at the further end of the library, and was now at her side. As her husband"s voice greeted her astonished ears, she felt his supporting arm about her.
"Hush, my darling!" he said, at her stifled scream. "I came in for a book just before you entered. After hearing Mr. Wyllys" preliminary remark I thought it best to let you vindicate yourself without my help. Not that I needed to hear your justification, but I meant that he should. We will go back to our friends, now. Shall I tell Mrs.
Wyllys that you are waiting to take her home?" to Orrin.
"If you please," was the equally formal reply.
A week later, Selina Bradley brought Mrs. Baxter a piece of startling news.
"It is certainly true!" she insisted, as the other looked her incredulity. "The house and furniture are offered for sale. It is very doubtful when they will return. They may reside abroad for years--take up their permanent abode in Paris. Mr. Wyllys affects to treat the plan as one they have been considering this great while, but there are queer stories afloat. Hester is indiscreet, you know.
They had a violent scene in the hearing of the servants on their return from the Fordhams" christening party. The most unlikely, but a popular, rumor is that Hester was furiously jealous of her husband"s attentions to Jessie, or her sister, that night. She threatened to leave him, and go home to her father, unless he would take his oath never to speak to either of them again."
"You may well say "unlikely!"" Mrs. Baxter said, eyeing the doctor apprehensively, as he sat up to his eyebrows in a book at a distant window. "They are going to Paris, you say?"
The doctor had lowered his volume, let go his cravat, and pushed up his spectacles.
"So Hester says, and is in ecstasies (apparently) at the prospect.
As for Mr. Wyllys, he professes to think American society a very wishy-washy affair compared with Parisian circles."
"Humph!" snorted the doctor. "They could not choose more wisely and consistently. Paris is the world"s repertory of gilded shams!"
He tied a double knot in his handkerchief.
THE END.