"Is it too plain? I"ll stop if you say so."
"Oh, no. Pray continue. It does me good. And, besides, I don"t know but that I agree with you."
"I thought you did. I have thought so for some time."
"Were you jealous, Doctor? You used to be rather attentive to Rose, if I remember rightly."
"Fearfully jealous; but where is the use? She gave me my _coup de conge_ long ago. That I am still alive, and talking to you is the most convincing proof I can give that hearts do not break."
"After all," said Stanford, "I don"t believe you ever were very far gone with Rose. My stately fiancee suits you better. If I take you at your word, and she rejects the baronet and the viscount, you might try your luck."
"It would be worse than useless. I might as well love some bright, particular star, and hope to win it, as Miss Danton. Ah! here she comes!"
Leaning on the arm of Lord Ellerton, Miss Danton came up smilingly.
"Are you two plotting treason, that you sit there with such solemn faces all the evening?" she asked.
"You have guessed it," replied her lover; "it is treason. Doctor, I"ll think of what you have been saying."
He arose. Lord Ellerton resigned his fair companion to her rightful owner, and returned to Rose, who was looking over a book of beauty; and Doctor Danton went over to Eeny, who was singing to herself at the piano, and listened, with an odd little smile, to her song:
"Smile again, my dearest love, Weep not that I leave you; I have chosen now to rove-- Bear it, though it grieve you.
See! the sun, and moon, and stars, Gleam the wide world over, Whether near, or whether far, On your loving rover.
"And the sea has ebb and flow, Wind and cloud deceive us; Summer heat and winter snow Seek us but to leave us.
Thus the world grows old and new-- Why should you be stronger?
Long have I been true to you, Now I"m true no longer.
"As no longer yearns my heart, Or your smiles enslave me, Let me thank you ere we part, For the love you gave me.
See the May flowers wet with dew Ere their bloom is over-- Should I not return to you, Seek another lover."
Doctor Danton laughed.
""Long have I been true to you, Now I"m true no longer!""
"Those are most atrocious sentiments you are singing--do you not know it, Miss Eeny?"
Mr. Stanford beside Kate, Lord Ellerton listening politely to Rose, and Doctor Frank with Eeny, never found time flying, and were surprised to discover it was almost midnight. The guests departed, "the lights were fled, the garlands dead, and the banquet-hall deserted" by everybody but Reginald Stanford and Captain Danton. They were alone in the long, dimly-lighted drawing-room.
"You will take Kate"s place to night," the Captain was saying, "and be Harry"s companion in his const.i.tutional. I told him that another knew his secret. I related all the circ.u.mstances."
"How did he take it? Was he annoyed?"
"No; he was a little startled at first, but he allowed I could not do otherwise. Poor fellow! He is anxious to see you now. If you will get your overcoat, you will find him here when you return."
Mr. Stanford ran upstairs in a hurry, and returned in fur cap and overcoat in ten minutes. A young man, tall and slender, but pale to ghastliness, with haggard cheeks and hollow eyes, stood, wrapped in a long cloak, beside the Captain. He had been handsome, you could see, even through that bloodless pallor, and there was a look in his great blue eyes that startlingly reminded you of Kate.
"You two know each other already," said the Captain. "I claim you both as sons."
Reginald grasped Harry Danton"s extended hand, and shook it heartily.
"Being brothers, I trust we shall soon be better acquainted," he said.
"I am to supply Kate"s place to-night in the tamarack walk. I trust no loiterers will see us."
"I trust not," said Harry, with an apprehensive shiver. "I have been seen by so many, and have frightened so many that I begin to dread leaving my room night or day."
"There is nothing to dread, I fancy," said Stanford, cheerfully, as they pa.s.sed out, and down the steps. "They take you for a ghost, you know.
Let them keep on thinking so, and you are all right. You have given Danton Hall all it wanted to make it perfect--it is a haunted house."
"It is haunted," said his companion, gloomily. "What am I better than any other evil spirit? Oh, Heaven!" he cried, pa.s.sionately, "the horror of the life I lead! Shut up in the prison I dare not leave, haunted night and day by the vision of that murdered man, every hope and blessing that life holds gone forever! I feel sometimes as though I were going mad!"
He lifted his cap and let the chill night wind cool his burning forehead. There was a long, blank pause. When Reginald Stanford spoke, his voice was low and subdued.
"Are you quite certain the man you shot was shot dead? You hardly waited to see, of course; and how are you to tell positively the wound was fatal?"
"I wish to Heaven there could be any doubt of it!" groaned the young man. "My aim is unerring; I saw him fall, shot through the heart."
His voice died away in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. Again there was a pause.
"Your provocation was great," said Reginald. "If anything can extenuate killing a fellow-creature, it is that. Are you quite positive--But perhaps I have no right to speak on this matter."
"Speak, speak!" broke out Harry Danton. "I am shut up in these horrible rooms from week"s end to week"s end, until it is the only thing that keeps me from going mad--talking of what I have done. What were you going to say?"
"I wanted to ask you if you were quite certain--beyond the shadow of doubt--of your wife"s guilt? We sometimes make terrible mistakes in these matters."
"There was no mistake," replied his companion, with a sudden look of anguish, "there could be none. I saw and heard as plainly as I see and hear you now. There could be no mistake."
"Do you know where your--where she is now?"
"No!" with that look of anguish still. "No, I have never heard of her since that dreadful night. She may be dead, or worse than dead, long ere this."
"You loved her very much," said Reginald, impelled to say it by the expression of that ghastly face.
"Loved her?" he repeated. "I have no words to tell you how I loved her.
I thought her all that was pure, and innocent, and beautiful, and womanly, and she--oh, fool, that I was to believe her as I did!--to think, as she made me think, that I had her whole heart!"
"Would you like to have some one try and trace her out for you? Her fate may be ascertained yet. I will go to New York, if you wish, and do my best."
"No, no," was the reply. "What use would it be? If you discovered her to-morrow, what would it avail? Better let her fate remain forever unknown than find my worst fears realized. False, wicked, degraded, as I know her, I cannot forget how madly I loved her--I cannot forget that I love her yet."
They walked up and down the tamarack-walk in the frosty starlight, all still and peaceful around them--the sky, sown with silver stars, so serene--the earth, white with its snowy garb, all hushed and tranquil--nothing disturbed but the heart of man, all things at peace but his storm-tossed soul.
"I am keeping you here," said Harry, "and it is growing late, and cold.
I am selfish and exacting in my misery, as, I fear, poor Kate knows. Let us go in."
They walked to the house. When they entered, Reginald secured the door, and the two young men went upstairs together. Ogden sat sleepily on a chair, and started up at sight of them. Harry Danton held out his hand, with a faint sad smile.
"Good night," he said; "I am glad to have added another to the list of my friends. I hope we shall meet soon again. Good night, and pleasant dreams."