"No, I"ll be ---- if I will!" fiercely retorted the other, in a low, angry tone. Then he elbowed his way by his enemy, and disappeared among the crowd.
The squire chuckled viciously to himself, his irritation against Clifford forgotten for the moment in his new and rather startling encounter.
"Ha, ha! Bill. You"re afraid of me, and you can"t conceal the fact. And you have even more cause than you dream of," he muttered, a cruel smile wreathing his lips. "I wonder what you are doing here in Washington--I"ll bet you"re trying to lobby some devilish scheme or other, for your own private interests. But I think there"ll be a day of reckoning between you and me before you"re much older."
A little later Mollie and Gertrude Athol slipped away from the company and went for a stroll through the fine conservatory that led from the south side of the house. They wandered about, chatting socially, for a time, until Gertrude, chancing to glance up, saw her father standing in the doorway beckoning to her.
"Papa wants me," she said. "I expect he wishes to introduce me to some friends of whom he told me to-day. I am sorry to leave you, Miss Heatherford, but you will come to see me soon, will you not? and then we will plan to meet often. Good night, if I should not see you again."
She tripped away, but Mollie, who was a dear lover of flowers, lingered in that bower of beauty to examine some rare and exquisite orchids which were in full bloom. Suddenly, as she rounded a corner at the extreme end of the conservatory, some one started up from a seat that was half-concealed by some palms and foliage plants, and she found herself confronted by Philip Wentworth.
She had not dreamed of his being in the house, for she had seen none of the family that evening, and, in truth, he had been there but a few minutes, having had another engagement, but had promised to join his fiancee, Gertrude Athol, before the evening was over. He had been looking for her--had come to the conservatory to seek her, entering by a door leading from the dining room, instead of the hall, when, seeing the two girls, and not wishing to meet them together, he had sought the seat referred to, and concealed himself among the foliage until they should return to the house.
But when he saw Gertrude leave and Mollie loitering among the flowers, a wild desire to talk with her took possession of him, and he arose and stood in her path.
Mollie drew herself haughtily erect, and would have pa.s.sed him without a word, but he stretched forth his arms and barred her way.
"No, you shall not evade me this time," he cried in a voice tremulous with pa.s.sion and wounded feeling. "I have the right to vindicate myself, and no criminal is ever condemned without a hearing. Oh, Mollie! Mollie!
forgive me--forgive me! I was not myself that night. I own I had been drinking more than was good for me, and I hardly knew what I was about."
Mollie had not intended to exchange a word with him, but the self-reproach in his tones--the misery in his face--appealed to her gentle heart, and she began to be sorry for him. She told herself that she had no right to condemn him utterly, even though she felt that she could never respect or admit him to her friendship again. She recoiled a step or two from him, and her face involuntarily softened.
"If that is so," she began gently, "let it be a lesson to you, and never again make such free use of that which you admit has power to control you."
"I will not, Mollie--I will not, indeed. I promise you," Philip eagerly returned, adding appealingly: "And you will forgive me--say that you will forgive, and let us be friends, as of old, once more."
Mollie"s face flushed, and she shrank involuntarily. She knew that she could never receive him as a friend again--she had no wish ever to resume the old relations with any of the family, for their treachery and ill usage had done more to weaken her faith in humanity than anything that had ever occurred in all her experience.
"No," she said, after a moment of thought. "I will be frank with you, Philip--we can never be friends again, as I understand the term. One must have confidence in one"s friends--you have destroyed my confidence in you. One must respect one"s friends--you have forfeited my respect.
It is not easy to tell you this, but you know that I was never guilty of deception, and so I cannot pretend to a friendship that is not real."
The young man staggered back a pace. He felt as if some one had struck him a blow upon his bare heart, and in all his life he had not known such genuine suffering as he experienced at that moment. Mollie seemed beautiful as a G.o.ddess--as far above him in strength and purity of character as the stars, and yet he had never yearned for her as he did now.
"Oh! I deserve it all--I deserve you should despise me!" he exclaimed in a voice of agony; "but I love you--I love you! You, and you alone, hold my life and my future in your hands! Forgive me, Mollie--let me try to win back your respect. I swear that no one shall lead a more exemplary life--no one shall be more worthy of your confidence--your love, than I, if you will but give me a chance. See! I kneel--I beg----"
"Stop!" cried Mollie authoritatively, as she put out one hand to stay him, "never do that, for no true woman would ever wish a man to humiliate himself. And now let me say," she continued even more impressively, "you must never speak like this to me again, for--I am already the promised wife of another."
CHAPTER XVI.
WENTWORTH SPURNED.
At Mollie"s words Philip sprang erect, a sudden rage possessing him.
"You engaged!" he faltered in a scarcely audible voice. He had only rejoined his mother in Washington a few days previous, and, as yet, had not heard o the formal announcement of Mollie"s engagement to Clifford.
He had been secretly enraged during the latter part of the previous winter because of the young man"s attentions to her, and he had feared that they might result in their union; but now that the blow had fallen, he found that he was entirely unprepared for it, and was almost beside himself with mingled hate and jealousy.
It did not once occur to him that he himself was playing the part of a treacherous villain, for he was still pledged to Gertrude Athol. But he would not have hesitated an instant to throw her over if he could have won Mollie and her fortune.
"You engaged!" he repeated, his clouded eyes searching the fair face before him.
Mollie flushed. She had felt almost sure he must have known the fact, and she was considerably embarra.s.sed to be obliged to explain matters to him. But she was determined to make him understand, once for all, that their old-time friendship could never be renewed, and that he must cease persecuting her with avowals of love.
"Yes," she quietly returned, but with downcast eyes, and a tender inflection unconsciously creeping into her tones, "I am going to marry Mr. Faxon the 25th of January."
The ax had fallen! The man whom he had hated for years had won the prize which he coveted. He could have borne it better if she had named some stranger, but to be told that his old enemy, who, in spite of every adverse circ.u.mstance, had gone straight to the front, distancing him in college; who had proved himself a hero over and over; to whom he owed the life of his young sister; against whom he had once lifted a murderous hand, and who was now rapidly rising, both in the social and political world. Oh! it was too much; it was crushing, maddening!
He stood rigid as a statue for a full minute after Mollie concluded, trying to master the tempest of jealous hate that raged within him. Then he said in a voice that was ominous in its calmness:
"And you love him?"
Mollie flashed him a glance that answered him even before she spoke, for there was a light of ineffable happiness in her eyes.
"You do not need to ask such a question!" she replied, "you know that I would never give my hand to any man who had not first won my deepest affection."
"Enough!" cried Philip, now wrought up to uncontrollable fury, "you need say no more. So that low-born upstart has effectually cut me out; curse him! Bah! I could cut his heart out!"
"Stop!" commanded Mollie, facing him with an air and look that silenced him for the moment. "If you must give expression to such ign.o.ble sentiments regarding one who is vastly your superior in every respect, you at least shall not offend my ears with such language."
She turned abruptly as she ceased, and swept down the marble walk with the hauteur of an offended queen, and a moment later disappeared within the mansion.
Philip Wentworth, left to himself, paced back and forth in the flower-bordered path with the restless step of a caged lion, while he muttered and swore and raved like one almost on the verge of insanity, and wholly unaware of the slender, white-clad figure which had a few minutes previous flitted down another path and suddenly halted behind a huge j.a.panese vase taller than herself, and in which there was growing a luxuriant ma.s.s of vines, which entirely concealed her from view.
The second time he turned the sound of a quick, elastic step caught his ear. He peered around the corner, and instantly a lurid light began to blaze in his eyes. The man he hated, the rival who had come between him and the--to him--one woman in the world, was approaching him, and evidently in search of some one.
Philip Wentworth stood still, concealed from the other"s view by the heavy foliage beside him, and involuntarily reaching out his hand, grasped the stem of a plant that was growing in a pot, and lifted it from its place.
Clifford, who was seeking Mollie, came rapidly on, rounded the corner, and almost ran upon Philip. He pulled himself up short, and, after a swift glance around, he observed in an easy tone, as he courteously inclined his head to his former cla.s.smate:
"Ah, Wentworth, pardon me! I should have moderated my movements somewhat before turning this corner."
He was about to pa.s.s on, when Philip hoa.r.s.ely exclaimed while he faced him:
"Hold! What is this I hear? I am told that you are going to marry Mollie Heatherford. Is it true?"
Clifford drew himself up slightly before replying.
"It is true, Mr. Wentworth; I am going to marry Miss Heatherford," he coldly replied, but with significant emphasis.
"Curse you!" fairly hissed Wentworth, while his grip tightened on the stem of the plant. "So that has been your game, has it? You have deliberately set yourself to cut me out. I told you four years ago that she was my promised wife; we had been pledged to each other from childhood, and heavens! do you think I am going to tamely submit to being robbed by a low-born pauper like you? Do you imagine that I"m going to let you marry her? Never, so help me!"
His right hand swung out with tremendous force, lifting the flower-pot above his head and aiming it directly at Clifford"s face.
But Faxon was too quick for him. He sprang to one side, caught the uplifted arm with a grip that almost paralyzed it, and, wrenching the dangerous missile--which fortunately remained intact, the plant having become root-bound in the pot--from his grasp, calmly replaced it where it belonged.
"Mr. Wentworth, this is the second time that you have made a rash attempt upon my life," he quietly observed. "I advise you never to repeat it, and you will remember that Miss Heatherford is my promised wife, and I shall not tolerate anything that verges upon a recurrence of what has just taken place."