"No, nothing, except that, like everyone else, he admired you very much."
"Nothing more?" asked Leone.
"No, nothing more."
"Then," said Leone to herself, "the secret that he has kept I will keep, and this fair, tender woman shall never know that I once believed myself his wife."
Lady Marion wondered why she bent down and kissed her with all the fervor of self-sacrifice.
"I have been very unhappy," continued Lady Marion. "I loved and admired you. I never had the faintest suspicion in my mind against you, until some one came to tell me that you and my husband had spent a day on the river together. I know it was true, but he would not explain it."
"Let me explain it," said Leone, sadly. "I trust you as you trust me. I have had a great sorrow in my love; greater--oh, Heaven!--than ever fell to the lot of woman. And one day, when I saw your husband, the bitterness of it was lying heavily on me. I said something to him that led him to understand how dull and unhappy I felt. Lady Chandos, he took me on the river that he might give me one happy day, nothing more. Do you grudge it to me, dear? Ah, if I could give you the happiness of those few fleeting hours I would."
And again her warm, loving lips touched the white brow.
"I understand," said Lady Marion. "Why did my husband not speak as you have done? Does he care for you, madame? You will tell me the truth, I know."
And the fair face looked wistfully in her own.
Leone was silent for a few minutes; she could not look in those clear eyes and speak falsely.
"Yes," she answered, slowly; "I think Lord Chandos cares very much for me; I know that he admires and likes me."
Lady Marion looked very much relieved. There could surely be no harm in their friendship if she could speak of it so openly.
"And you, madame--oh, tell me truly--do you love him? Tell me truly; it seems that all my life hangs on your word."
Again the beautiful face drooped silently before the fair one.
"It would be so easy for me to tell you a falsehood," said Leone, while a great crimson flush burned her face, "but I will not. Yes, I--I love him. Pity me, you who love him so well yourself; he belongs to you, while I--ah, pity me because I love him."
And Lady Marion, whose heart was touched by the pitiful words, looked up and kissed her.
"I cannot hate you, since you love him," she said. "He is mine, but my heart aches for you. Now let me tell you what I have come to say. You are good and n.o.ble as I felt you were. I have come to ask a grace from you, and it is easier now that I know you love him. How strange it seems. I should have thought that hearing you say that you loved my husband would have filled my heart with hot anger, but it does not; in some strange way I love you for it."
"If you love him, madame, his interests must be dear to you."
"They are dear to me," she whispered. "How strange," repeated Lady Marion, "that while the world is full of men you and I should love the same man."
"Ah, life is strange," said Leone; "peace only comes with death."
CHAPTER LXI.
A SACRIFICE.
Lady Marion raised herself so that she could look into the face of her beautiful rival.
"Now I will tell you," she said; "you are going to Berlin; you have an engagement at the Royal Opera House there, and my husband wishes to go there, too. But we all oppose it; his parents for social reasons, and I--I tell you frankly, because I am jealous of you, and cannot bear that he should follow you there. I have asked him to give up the idea, but he refuses--he will not listen to me. I have said that if he goes there, I will never see him or speak to him again, and I must keep my word. So, madame, I have come to you; I appeal to you, do not let him go: you can prevent it if you will."
Leone"s dark eyes flashed fire.
"There is no harm in our friendship," she said; "would you take from me the only gleam of happiness I have in the world?"
But Lady Marion did not seem to hear the wild words; the same raptures of holy love had come over her face, and she blushed until she looked like a lovely, glowing rose.
"Think how I trust you," she said; "I have come to tell you that which I have told to no one. I have come to tell you that which, if ever there has been any particular friendship between you and my husband, must end it. I have come to tell you that which will show that now--now you must not take my husband from me.
"Bend down lower," continued the sweet voice, "that I may whisper to you. I have been married nearly four years now, and the one desire of my heart has been to have a little child. I love little children so dearly.
And I have always thought that if I could give to my husband children to love he would love me better. I have prayed as Rachel prayed, but it seemed to me the heavens were made of bra.s.s--no answer came to my prayers. I have wept bitter tears when I have seen other mothers caressing their children. When my husband has stopped to kiss a child or play with it, my heart has burned with envy, and now, oh, madame, bend lower, lower--now Heaven has been so good to me, and they tell me that in a few months I shall have a darling little child, all my own. Oh, madame, do you see that now you must not take my husband from me; that now there must be no mischief between us; that we must live in peace and love because Heaven has been so good to us."
The sweet voice rose to a tone of pa.s.sionate entreaty; and Lady Marion withdrew from the clasp of her rival"s arms, and knelt at her feet. The face she raised was bright and beautiful as though angel"s wings shadowed it.
"I plead with you," she said, "I pray to you. You hold my life in your hands. If it were only myself I would be glad to die, so that if my husband loves you best he might marry you, but it is for my little child. Do you know that when I say to myself, "Lance"s little child,"
the words seem to me sweeter than the sweetest music."
But the beautiful woman who had been no wife, turned deadly pale as she listened to the words. She held up her hand with a terrible cry.
"For Heaven"s sake, hush," she said hoa.r.s.ely, "I cannot bear it!"
For one minute it was as though she had been turned to stone. Her heart seemed clutched by a cold, iron hand. The next, she had recovered herself and raised Lady Marion, making her rest, and trying to still the trembling of the delicate frame.
"You must calm yourself," she said. "I have listened to you, now will you listen to me?"
"Yes; but, madame, you will be good to me--you will not let my husband leave me? We shall be happy, I am sure, when he knows; we shall forget all this sorrow and this pain. He will be to me the same as he was before your beautiful face dazed him. Ah, madame, you will not let him leave me."
"I should be a murderess if I did," she said, in a low voice.
Her face was whiter than the face of the dead. She stood quite silent for a few minutes. In her heart, like a death-knell, sounded the words:
"Lance"s little child."
Whiter and colder grew the beautiful face; more mute and silent the beautiful lips; then suddenly she said:
"Kiss me, Lady Marion, kiss me with your lips; now place your hands in mine. I promise you that I will not take your husband from you; that he shall not go to Berlin, either with me or after me. I promise you--listen and believe me--that I will never see or speak to your husband again, and this I do for the sake of Lance"s little child."
"I believe you," said Lady Marion, the light deepening in her sweet eyes and on her fair face. "I believe you, and from the depth of my heart I thank you. We shall be happy, I am sure."
"In the midst of your happiness will you remember me?" asked Leone, gently.
"Always, as my best, dearest and truest friend," said Lady Marion; and they parted that summer morning never to meet again until the water gives up its dead.
Lady Marion drove home with a smile on her fair face, such as had not been seen there before. It would all come right.
She believed in Madame Vana"s simple words as in the pledge of another.
How it would be managed she did not know--did not think; but madame would keep her word, and her husband would be her own--would never be cool to her or seek to leave her again; it would be all well.