"Ah! yes, poor child! lost her father and mother within a few weeks of each other," answered Lady C.
"But that was six months ago; she ought to have recovered some cheerfulness by this time," remarked old Madame Bamboullet, who was a walking register of all the births, deaths and marriages of high life in Paris for the last half century.
"Well, you see she has not done so; but here come the gentlemen,"
observed Lady C., as a rather straggling procession from the dining-room entered.
The host, Lord C., went up to the emba.s.sadress to whom it was his cue to be most attentive.
The Duke of Hereward sought out his hostess, and entered into a bantering conversation with her.
Count Waldemar de Volaski came directly up to Valerie where she sat alone on the sofa in a distant corner of the room. The little gilded stand stood before her, and the photographic alb.u.m lay open upon it. Her eyes were fixed upon the alb.u.m, and were not raised to see the new-comer; but the sudden accession of pallor on her pale face betrayed her recognition of him.
He drew a chair so close to her sofa that only the little gilded stand stood between them. His back was toward the company; his face toward her; his elbows, with unpardonable rudeness, were placed upon the stand, and his hands supported his chin, as he stared into her pale face with its downcast eyes.
"Valerie," he said.
She did not look up.
"Valerie de Volaski!" he muttered.
_"My wife!"_
She shuddered, but did not lift her eyes.
She shrank into herself, as it were, and her eyes fell lower than before.
"Is it thus we two meet at last?" he demanded, in low, stern, measured tones, pitched to meet her ear alone. "Is it thus I find you, after all that has pa.s.sed between us, bearing the name and t.i.tle of another man who calls himself your husband, oh! shame of womanhood!"
"They told me our marriage was not legal, was not binding!" she panted under her breath.
"It should have been religiously, sacredly binding up on you as it was upon me, until we could have made it legal. It is amazing that you could have dreamed of marriage with another man!" muttered Volaski.
"But they told me you were dead. They told me you were dead!" she gasped, as if she were in her own death throes.
"Even if they had told you truly--even if I had been dead--dead by the hand of your father--could that circ.u.mstance have excused you for rushing with such indecent haste to the altar with another man? It was but a poor tribute to the memory of the husband of your choice (if he had been dead) to marry again within six months."
"Oh, mercy! Oh, my heart! my heart! They forced me into that marriage, Waldemar! They forced me into that marriage! I was as helpless as an infant in the hands of my father and my mother!" she panted, in a voice that was the more heart-rending from half suppression.
"Valerie! love! wife!" murmured Volaski, in low and tender tones, as he essayed to take her hand.
But she s.n.a.t.c.hed it from him hastily, gasping:
"Do not speak to me in that way! Do not call me love or wife!"
"No man on earth has a better right to speak to you in this way than I have. No _other_ man in the world has the right to call you love or wife but me! You _are_ my wife!" grimly answered the young count.
"I am the wife of the Duke of Hereward. Oh, Heaven, that I were a corpse instead!" gasped Valerie.
""The wife of the Duke of Hereward!" Have you then forgotten our betrothal at St. Petersburg? Our flight from Warsaw to St. Vito? Our marriage at the little chapel of Santa Maria? Our short, blissful honeymoon in the vine-dresser"s cottage under the Apennines?" he inquired, bitterly.
"I have forgotten nothing! Oh, Heaven! Oh, earth! Oh, Waldemar! that I could die! that I could die!" she wailed in low, heartbroken tones.
It was well for her that the corner sofa stood in the shade, far removed from the seats of the other guests in that long drawing-room.
"Valerie! love! wife!" he murmured again.
"Oh, Waldemar, if I were your wife, as I truly believed myself then to have been, oh, why did you not defend and protect me from all the world, even from my father--even from myself? Oh, why did you suffer me to be torn from your protection, to be deceived with a false story of your death, and forced into this marriage? Oh, Waldemar! if I were indeed and in truth your lawful wife, as I believed myself to be, why, oh why did you permit all these evils to happen to me? Ah, what a position is mine!
What a position! I cannot bear it! I will not bear it! I will not live!
I will kill myself! I _ought_ to kill myself! It is the only way out of this!" she wailed, wringing her hands.
"I will kill that Duke of Hereward!" hissed Volaski, through his clenched teeth.
"Hush! For mercy"s sake, hush! Put away such thoughts from your heart!
I, the only wrong-doer, should be the only victim! Whatever wrong has been done, the Duke of Hereward has been blameless. He knew nothing of my former marriage; if he had, I do not believe he would have married me, even if I had been a princess."
"He was deceived, then?" coldly inquired the count.
"He was; but not willingly by me. I was forced to be silent about my marriage."
"You were "forced" from my protection! "forced" to conceal the fact of your marriage with me! and "forced" to marry the Duke of Hereward under false colors. Could force on one side, and feebleness on the other, be carried any further than this?" muttered Volaski, between his teeth.
"I knew how helpless, in the hands of my parents, I was," wailed Valerie.
"Well, you are a d.u.c.h.ess! Do you love the Duke of Hereward?"
"Oh, mercy! what shall I say? He deserves all my love, honor, and duty!"
"Does he _get_ his deserts?" mockingly inquired Volaski.
"Ah! wretch that I am, why do I live?--I give him honor and duty; but love! _love is not mine to give!_" she murmured, in almost inaudible tones.
Their conversation--if an interview so emotional, so full of "starts and flaws" could be called so--had been carried on in a very low tone, while the count turned over the leaves of the photographic alb.u.m, as if examining the portraits, but really without seeing one.
They were, however, so absorbed that neither perceived the approach of a footman until the man actually set down a small golden tray with two little porcelain cups of tea on the stand between them, and retired.
Valerie looked up with a sudden shudder of terror. Had the company, or any one of their number, overheard any part of the fatal interview? No, the company were drinking tea, at the other end of the room.
And now the Duke of Hereward, with a tea-cup in his hand, sauntered toward them, saying, as he reached the stand:
"Lady C. has just been telling me that you are showing the d.u.c.h.ess some interesting family pictures there--among the rest, those of your _belle fiancee_. When shall I congratulate you, Count?"
"Not yet; I will advise your grace of my marriage," answered the count, gravely.
"Something gone wrong in that direction," thought the duke, but his good humor was invincible.
"If you have no engagement for to-morrow evening, I hope you will come and dine with us _en famille_, for we do not see much company, the d.u.c.h.ess and myself."
Valerie cast an imploring look on the count, silently praying him to decline the invitation; but Volaski did not understand the meaning of the look, or did not care to do so, for he immediately accepted the invitation in the following unequivocal terms: