_The clock struck five!_ and echoing from the Granby hills the engine- whistle came. Then a slight tremor ran through her frame, and Mrs.
Peters whispered joyfully, "There"s life--there"s hope."
Along the highway the returning traveler came with rapid tread, but "neath the sycamore no Rosamond was waiting.
"She is hiding from me," he said, but his search for her was vain, and he rapidly hastened on.
All about the house was still. There was no Rosamond at the door--nor in the hall--nor in the parlor--nor on the stairs; but from her chamber came the buzz of voices, and he entered unannounced, recoiling backward when he saw the face upon the pillow, and knew that it was Rosamond"s. Every particle of color had left it; there were dark circles beneath the eyes, and a look about the mouth as if the concentrated agony of years had fallen suddenly upon her.
"What is it?" he asked, and at the sound of his voice, the brown eyes he had been wont to call so beautiful unclosed, but their sunny brightness was all gone, and he shuddered at their dim, meaningless expression.
She seemed to know him, and stretching her arm toward him as a child does toward its mother when danger threatens, she laid her head upon his bosom with a piteous wail--the only really audible sound she had yet uttered.
"Rosamond, darling--what has come upon you?" he said, "and why are you in your bridal dress?"
At that word she started, and moving away from him, moaned sadly, "It was cruel--oh, so cruel to deceive me, when I loved and trusted him so much."
"Won"t somebody tell me what this means?" he demanded, and Mrs. Peters replied, "We do not know. There"s been a strange woman here, and she was with Rosamond when it happened."
"Woman? What woman? And where is she now?" he asked, and Mrs. Peters replied, "She was faint--dying, she said, and Maria took her into another chamber."
Mechanically he started for that chamber--hearing nothing--seeing nothing--thinking nothing for the nameless terror which had fallen upon him. He did not suspect the real truth. He merely had a vague presentiment that some one who knew nothing of the drowning had come there to save his Rosamond from what they supposed to be an unlawful marriage, and when at last he stood face to face with his living wife, when he knew the grave had given up its dead, he dropped to the floor as drops the giant oak when felled by the lightning"s power!
Marie Porter, even had she been cruelly wronged, was avenged--fully, amply avenged, and covering her face with her hands, she moaned, "I have killed them both, and there"s nothing left for me now but to die!"
CHAPTER XI.
THE END
Over the horrid awakening which came to the wretched man, we need not linger; neither is it necessary to dwell upon the first few days of mystery and dread, when death seemed brooding over Riverside, and rumor was busy with surmises and suspicions concerning the stranger, and the relation, if any, which she bore to Rosamond Leyton. We will rather hasten on to the morning when to Mr. Browning the joyful tidings came that Rosamond was better--so much better, indeed, that he could see and talk with her if he chose.
Only once since the fearful night when he found her moaning in her bridal dress, had he stood by her bedside--for, though he longed to be there, he could not endure to see her turn away from him, whispering as she did so, "It was cruel--oh, so cruel to deceive me so." Neither had he been near Marie Porter, consequently he knew nothing of the means by which she had imposed upon him the story of her death. But Rosamond knew--Rosamond could tell him, and from no other lips would he hear it. So, when he learned that she was better, he asked to see her alone, and Mrs. Peters, to whom he had necessarily confided the story of his marriage, carried his message to Rosamond.
For a moment Rosamond did not seem to hear, but when the message was repeated, the great tears forced themselves from beneath her long eyelashes, and rolling down her cheeks, dropped upon the pillow.
"He might have spared me this," she said," but if it is his wish, I can see him."
With a mighty effort she stilled the violent throbbings of her heart, forced an unnatural calm upon her face and whispered--"Let him come now; I am ready."
He was standing without the door, so near that he heard the words, and in a moment he was at her side. Falling upon his knees before her, he clasped her hands in his, imploring her forgiveness for the great wrong he had done her in not telling her the truth at first. "But I am innocent of the last," he said; "believe me, Rosamond, I thought her dead, or I had never asked you to be my wife. I know not how she deceived me so terribly, but you know, and I have sought this interview to hear the story from your own lips. Will you tell it to me, darling--Miss Leyton, I mean," he added hastily, as he saw a shadow of pain flit over her face.
"I will if I can," she faintly answered, and summoning all her strength, she repeated to him what Miss Porter had told her, except, indeed, the parts with which she knew he was familiar.
"The plot was worthy of her who planned it," he said bitterly; then, as Rosamond made no reply, he continued--"she told you, I suppose, of our married life, and painted me the blackest villain that ever trod the earth. This may in part be true, but, Rosamond, though I may never know the bliss of calling you my wife, I cannot be thus degraded in your sight and offer no apology. I was a boy--a self-willed, high- tempered boy, nineteen years of age, and she aggravated me beyond all human endurance, seeking ways and means by which she could provoke me.
I loved her at first--nay, do not turn away incredulously. Heaven is my witness that I loved her, or thought I did, but "twas a boyish love, and not such as I feel for you,"
"You swore at her," said Rosamond, unable to reconcile love with an oath.
"Once--only once," he replied. "I blush to own it, for it was not a manly act."
"You struck her," and for the first time since he had been in that room the brown eyes rested full upon his face.
"Yes, Rosamond," he answered; "I own that, too, but she goaded me to madness, and even raised her voice against my sainted mother, who had borne so dastardly a son as _I_!"
"And Riverside?" said Rosamond. "Did your uncle die deceived?"
"Never--never," Mr. Browning exclaimed, starting to his feet. "I told the whole truth, or I would not have lived here a day. Rosamond, I have greatly sinned, but she has not been blameless. She insulted me in every possible way, even to giving _you_ her _wedding ring_, and then, lest I should not see it, wrote to me "to look upon your finger." No wonder you thought me mad!"
"Her _wedding ring_! Could she do that?" said Rosamond.
"Yes, her wedding ring. It first belonged to Susan, who gave it to me for the occasion, and two weeks after I had it marked with Marie"s name and the date of our marriage. It is broken now, and I would to Heaven I could thus easily break the tie which binds me to her, and keeps me from you! Oh, Rosamond, Rosamond, must it be? Must I live my life without you, when I need you so much--when my heart longs so to claim you for its own?"
He covered his face with his hands, and Rosamond could see the tears dropping slowly through his fingers. Terribly was he expiating the sin of his boyhood, and what wonder is it, if, in his agony, he cried, "My punishment is greater than I can bear!"
Rosamond alone was calm. She seemed to have wept her tears away, and the blow which had fallen so crushingly upon her, had benumbed her heart, so that she now did not feel as acutely as the weeping man before her. Very soothingly she spoke to him, but she offered no word of cheer--no hope that all would yet be well. "They would bear it with brave hearts," she said, "and he must be reconciled to his wife."
"Never--never," he exclaimed. "The same roof cannot shelter us both, and if she chooses to stay when she is better, she is welcome to Riverside, but I cannot share it with her."
Neither said to the other, "It may be she will die," for such a thought had never intruded itself upon their minds, and yet Marie Porter"s life was numbered now by days. The heart disease, from which she had long been suffering, was greatly aggravated by the strong nervous excitement through which she had recently been pa.s.sing.
Stimulants of a most powerful kind had created a kind of artificial strength, which had enabled her to come to Riverside, but this was fast subsiding; and when she bent over the motionless form of Rosamond, and feared that she was dead, she felt, indeed, that death would ere long claim her as his own. The sight of her husband, too, had well nigh been more than she could bear. For nearly nine long years she had not looked upon his face, but she remembered it well--a handsome, boyish face. His hair, she remembered, too--his soft, dark, wavy hair, through which her fingers had sometimes strayed, in the far back days at Holly Wood, before she was his bride. He would not be greatly changed, she thought; and when, on that fatal night, she heard his coming footsteps, she pictured him in her mind much as he was that winter-day, when, standing in his sister"s door, he bade her a long good-by. Nearer and nearer he had come--faster and louder had beaten her heart, while a cold, faint sickness crept over her.
"Open the window--I cannot breathe," she gasped; but ere her request was obeyed, Ralph Browning had fainted on the threshold, and she had asked that she might die.
She had seen him only for an instant, but that sufficed to tell her he was changed from the dark-haired, handsome boy, into the gray-haired suffering man. His eyes had met hers, but the fierce hatred she expected, was not there; and the look of utter hopeless despair which she saw in its place, touched her as reproach and resentment could not have done.
"Oh, I hope I shall die," she said, as she hid her face in the pillow.
"I hope I shall die."
This wish she uttered every hour; and when, at last, the physician said to her, "Madam, you _will_ die," she answered, "It is well!"
She did not ask for Mr. Browning, for she knew he would not come, but she inquired anxiously each day for Rosamond; and when, at last, she heard they were together, she laid her hand upon her heart, and watching its rise and fall, smiled to think how fast her life was going out.
"Listen, Maria," she said, "Listen to what they say, and hear if they talk of me."
Noiselessly Maria glided to the door of Rosamond"s chamber--stood there for a moment and then as noiselessly came back repeating to her mistress the substance of what she had heard, together with sundry little embellishments of her own.
"He will give you Riverside and go away himself," she said, and Miss Porter quickly rejoined, "Go where? Go with whom?"
"With Miss Leyton of course," returned Maria. "He said he would not live without her."
"The wretch!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the angry woman, all her softer emotions giving way to this fancied insult. "He might at least wait now until I"m dead. I"ll go to him myself, and see if in my presence he dare talk thus to her."
She was greatly excited, and in spite of the painful throbbings of her heart and the dizzy sensation she felt stealing over her, she stepped upon the floor, and hurriedly crossed the room. The effort was too much for her feeble strength, and she sank fainting upon a chair. The girl Maria had seen her faint before, but never before had she seen so fearful a look upon her face, and she ran in terror to Mr. Browning, beseeching him to come "for her mistress was dying sure, and would trouble n.o.body much more."
For a moment he hesitated, but when Rosamond said, "Go," he went.
Taking the fainting woman in his arms he laid her upon the bed as gently, though not as tenderly as he would have laid his Rosamond there.