Cruel as the grave
face, now all aglow with the delight of benevolence, and told him all
that had passed in the interview between herself and Mrs. Blondelle.
And Lyon Berners, with his arm over her graceful shoulders, his fingers
stringing her silken black ringlets, and his eyes gazing with infinite
tenderness and admiration down on her eloquent face, listened with
attentive interest to the story. But at its close, great was his
astonishment.
"My dear, impulsive Sybil, what have you done!" he exclaimed.
"What!" echoed Sybil, her crimson lips breathlessly apart--her dark eyes
dilated.
"Love, you have invited a perfect stranger, casually met at a hotel--a
gambler's wife, even by her own showing, an adventuress by all other
appearances, to come and take up her abode with us for an indefinite
length of time!"
Sybil's mouth opened, and her eyes dilated with an almost comical
expression of dismay. She had not a word to say in self-defence!
"Do not think I blame you, dear, warm, imprudent heart! I only wonder at
you, and--adore you!" he said, earnestly pressing her to his bosom.
"Oh, but you would have done as I did, if you had seen her distress!"
pleaded Sybil, recovering her powers of speech.
"But could you not have helped her without inviting her home with us?"
"But how?" inquired Sybil.
"Could you not have paid her board? or lent her money?"
"Oh, Lyon! Lyon!" said Sybil, slowly shaking her head and looking up in
his face with a heavenly benevolence beaming through her own. "Oh, Lyon!
it was not a boarding-house she wanted, it was a _refuge_, a home with
friends! But I am very sorry if this displeases you."
"Dear, impetuous, self-forgetting child! I am not so impious as to find
fault with you."
"But you do not like the lady's coming."
"I should not like any visitor coming to stay with us and prevent our
_tete-a-tete_," said Lyon, gravely.
"I thought of that too, dear, and with a pang of selfish regret; for of
course I would much rather that you and I should have our dear old home
to ourselves, than that any stranger should share it with us. But then,
oh, dearest Lyon, I reflected that we are so rich and happy in our home
and our love, and she is so poor and sorrowful in her exile and
desertion, that we might afford to comfort her from the abundance of our
blessings," said Sybil, earnestly.
"My angel wife! you are worthier than I, and your will shall be done,"
he gravely replied.
"Not so, dear Lyon! But when you see this lady in her beauty and her
sorrow, you also will admire and pity her, and you will be glad that she
is coming to the refuge of our home."
"I may be so," replied Mr. Berners with an arch smile, "but how will
your proud neighbors receive this questionable stranger?"
The stately little head was lifted in an instant, and--
"My 'proud neighbors' well know that whom Sybil Berners protects with
her friendship is peer with the proudest among them!" she said, with a
hauteur not to be surpassed by the haughtiest in the Old Dominion.
"Well said, my little wife! And now, as this matter is decided, I must
see about taking additional places in the stage-coach. How many will be
wanted? What retinue has this foreign princess in distress," inquired
Lyon, rather sarcastically.
"There will be three places required, for the lady, child and nurse."
"Whe-ew! My dear Sybil, we are collecting a ready made family! Does the
child squall? or the nurse drink?" inquired Lyon, with a laugh, as
without waiting for a reply he rang the bell, and gave the order for
three more places to be taken inside the Staunton coach for the morning.
And soon after this the young pair retired to rest.
Very early the next morning Sybil Berners came out of her chamber,
looking fresh and bright as the new day itself. She wore a close-fitting
travelling dress of crimson merino, that well became her elegant little
figure and rich, dark complexion.
She glanced around the room to see that everything was in order. Yes;
the fire was bright, the hearth clean, the breakfast-table neatly set,
and the morning sun shining through the red-curtained windows and
glancing upon the silver tea-service.
With a smile of satisfaction, she tossed back her raven-black ringlets,
and passed from the room and through the hall, and rapped at the door of
her new acquaintance.
Mrs. Blondelle herself opened it, and stood there quite ready to
accompany her friend to breakfast.
Radiantly beautiful looked the fair young stranger this morning, in the
dark, bright-blue cloth habit that so highly enhanced the dazzling
splendor of her blooming complexion and the golden glory of her hair.
An instant Sybil paused in involuntary admiration, and then recovered
herself and greeted the lady with affectionate warmth.
"It is nearly eight o'clock, dear, and breakfast is quite ready. Will
you come now?" inquired Sybil, when these salutations were passed.
Rosa assented with a sweet smile, and Sybil led the way into her own
sitting-room.
Mr. Berners had come in during his wife's short absence, and he now
stood before the fire with the morning paper in his hand. He put it down
on the table, and came forward to meet his wife, and to welcome her
guest.
"Mrs. Blondelle, Mr. Berners," said Sybil, introducing the parties to
each other by the simplest formula.
And while they were bowing together, Sybil was watching mischievously to
see what effect the dazzling beauty of Rosa Blondelle would have upon
Lyon Berners.
She saw it!
After bowing, they lifted their heads and looked at each other--he, at
first, with the courtesy of a host--but she with a radiant and
enchanting smile.
Sybil was prepared to see Lyon's surprise at the first view of this
peerless creature; but she was by no means prepared to witness the
involuntary gaze of intense and breathless admiration and wonder that he
fixed for a moment on her beautiful face. That gaze said as eloquently
as words could have spoken:
"This is the most wondrous, perfect creature that the world ever saw!
This is the master-piece of nature."
With the sunlight of her smile still shining on him, Rosa held out her
hand, and said in the sweetest tones:
"Sir, I have no words good enough to tell you how deeply I feel your
kindness and that of your dear wife to me."
"Dear lady, Mrs. Berners and myself do but gratify our own tastes in
_trying_ to serve you; for it will be a great happiness to us if we
succeed in doing so," replied Lyon Berners, with a look and tone that
proved his perfect sincerity and earnestness.
As thus they smiled and glanced, and spoke to each other, Sybil also
glanced from the one to the other; a sudden pang shot through her heart,
exciting a nameless dread in her mind. _"Even so quickly may one catch
the plague!"_
"Let me lead you to the table," said Mr. Berners, offering his arm to
Mrs. Blondelle, and conducting her to her place.
Above all, Sybil was a lady; for she was a Berners. So, with this
strange wound in her heart, this vague warning in her mind, she took her
seat at the head of her table and did its honors with her usual courtesy
and grace.
Mr. Berners seconded his wife in all hospitable attentions to their
beautiful young guest.
While they were all still seated at the table, a groom rapped at the
door and reported the stage-coach ready.
They all arose in a hurry, and began to make the last hasty preparations
for departure.
Mrs. Blondelle hurried into her own room, to have her luggage taken down
stairs to be put on the coach, and also to summon her nurse with the
child.
When Sybil Berners found herself for a moment alone with her husband,
she laid her hand upon his coat sleeve to stay him, in his haste, and
she inquired:
"What do you think of her now?"
"I think, my darling Sybil, that you were right in your judgment of this
lady. And I agree with you perfectly. I think, my only love, that in
what you have done for this stranger, you have acted not only with the
goodness, but with the wisdom of an angel," replied Lyon Berners,
snatching her suddenly to his heart, and holding her closely there while
he pressed kiss after kiss upon her crimson lip; and murmured:
"I must steal a kiss from these sweet lips when and wherever I can, my
own one, since we are not to be much alone together now."
And then he released her, and hurried off to put on his overcoat.
Sybil stood for a minute, smiling, where he had left her, and so happy
that she forgot she had to get ready to go. The pain was gone from her
heart, and the cloud from her brain.
And as yet, so little did she know of herself or others, that she could
not have told why the pain and the cloud ever came, or why they ever
went away.
As yet she did not know that her husband's admiring smiles given to a
rival beauty had really caused her nameless suffering; or that it was
his loving caresses, bestowed upon herself, that had soothed it.
In a word, Sybil Berners, the young bride, did not dream that the
bitter, bitter seed of JEALOUSY was germinating in her heart, to grow
and spread perhaps into a deadly upas of the soul, destroying all moral
life around it.
CHAPTER VII.
DOWN IN THE DARK VALE.
Where rose the mountains, there for her were friends,
Where fell the valley, therein was her home;
Where the steep rock and dizzy peak ascends,
She had the passion and the power to roam.
The crag, the forest, cavern, torrent's foam,
Were unto her companions, and they spake
A natural language clearer than the tone
Of her best books, which she would oft forsake
For Nature's pages, lit by moonbeams on the lake.--BYRON.
Jealousy, once called to life in any human heart, is not easily to be
destroyed. Sybil Berners' almost unconscious jealousy suddenly called
into existence, and as suddenly soothed to sleep, was awakened again by
something that occurred just as the travellers were about to start.
It was the merest trifle, yet one of those trifles which turn the course
of fate just as surely as the little switch of the railroad controls the
direction of the train.
The travellers were just entering the stage-coach. Mr. Berners handed
in first Mrs. Blondelle, then Mrs. Berners, and then he himself entered.
"You sit down here in this right-hand corner, Lyon, dear, and I will sit
in the middle next to you, and Mrs. Blondelle shall sit in the left-hand
corner next to me," said Sybil, still standing while she pointed out
their several places on the back seat; and she spoke perhaps under the
influence of a latent jealousy, that instigated her to place herself
between her husband and her guest, for that long journey.
"No, no, my dear, not so; but if you will change places with me and take
the right-hand corner-seat, while our fair friend occupies the left-hand
one, I will sit between you two ladies, the proverbial 'thorn between
two roses,'" replied Lyon Berners, gayly and gallantly, with perhaps on
his side a latent desire to sit next the beautiful blonde, but also
quite unconscious of how these words had disappointed and wounded her
whom he would not have willingly wronged for the world.
Sybil silently took her seat, leaving the others to follow her example.
Mr. Berners politely put Mrs. Blondelle in the left-hand corner, and
then seated himself in the middle seat, between his wife and her guest.
In front of them, on the movable central seat, sat Mrs. Blondelle's
child and nurse. Facing them on the front seat, with their backs to the
horses, were the two negro servants, Mr. Berners' valet and Mrs.
Berners' maid.
Though the morning was a very fine one for travelling, there were no