Slighted love or, At her heart's expense
“Oh, you cannot mean Francis Murray?” she breathed, in a voice of
absolute agony.
“Alas! that I must answer yes, for it is plain to me that you gave him
more regard than was his due. But, Italy, who else was benefited by
your father’s death?”
“That is no proof of crime,” she cried desperately. She who had come to
Winthrop to fasten that guilt upon Francis Murray was now mad to prove
him innocent.
“True,” answered Percy Seabright sadly, “but suppose I tell you that
Francis Murray, then a poor young man, at odds with fate, living far
from Winthrop, was at The Lodge secretly the night of your father’s
murder--came there secretly, went away secretly, and the next morning
found himself heir to the Vale millions--what then?”
“If he were alive he could prove his innocence, no matter how dark the
cloud of circumstantial evidence!” she cried.
“Poor child! you loved him, and your love blinds you. How can I blame
you? for I loved him, too, he was so winning. In spite of what I knew
I tried to believe him innocent, and I would never, while he lived,
have betrayed my knowledge of the hidden crime of which I feared--not
believed--he must be guilty. Yet he is dead--betrayal cannot harm
him now--and how can I withhold from your desolate, orphaned heart
the evidence of your mother’s innocence? But it is yours to do with
as you will, to make public or keep secret as you will. Yet my own
advice would be--let them rest, those two--your mother and the man you
loved--in their quiet graves. By so doing you can shield his memory;
and as for her, the jury found her innocent, and public opinion does
not matter.”
“It does matter. Alas! you do not understand!” she cried out, in bitter
anguish; then, desperately:
“What did that secret visit count against him? He was poor, you say?
Perhaps he came to ask his kinsman for assistance.”
“And being refused took a dastardly revenge, eh?” returned Percy
Seabright, with a grim pleasantry that made her shudder, it was so
heartless.
“Oh, this is terrible!” she cried helplessly; then, with sudden,
strange defiance: “You cannot prove what you have declared!”
“I _can_ prove it--to Francis Murray’s face, if he were alive. Yet I
do not say I can prove the murder. It is circumstantial evidence, you
see, the same as it was against your mother. But both of them might
be perfectly innocent. Suppose you employ a detective to ferret out
the affair--only the publicity would break the loving heart of Francis
Murray’s mother.”
“True, true, I will do nothing yet. I will wait--a little while--until
I can make sure of something,” she declared, and Percy Seabright
eagerly applauded her resolution.
CHAPTER XV.
THE LAWYER’S STORY.
Italy had made up her mind by the next day, and a brief note to Lawyer
Gardner brought him quickly to her side. He had not heard of his former
client for years, and it was a great surprise to him to receive a
letter from her daughter stating that she had lost her mother, and,
having come to Boston on a matter of business, desired his advice.
He was a fine-looking man, between fifty and sixty, with a kind,
shrewd, yet benevolent face that drew the girl’s heart to him at once.
As for him, he looked at her in pity and admiration, she was so
beautiful, yet her lot was so sad.
“You were my mother’s friend and lawyer,” she said; “I want you to be
both to me.”
She held out her little hand to him, and he pressed it warmly.
“I will do all that I can for you in both qualities,” he replied, and
then she poured out to him her sorrows, the story of her mother’s
tortured life, and her own vow to bring the real murderer to justice
and clear her memory from all stain.
“I will confess to you that I at first suspected the man who succeeded
my father in the Vale fortune, but he was lost at sea some time since,
and is believed to be dead,” she added.
“You were wrong, Miss Vale. Francis Murray was one of nature’s
noblemen, incapable of an ignoble action. I knew him well, and esteemed
him highly as a gentleman, and admired his talents as an author.”
“But, Mr. Gardner, appearances are often deceitful. Remember _Arthur
Dimmesdale_, in the ‘Scarlet Letter,’” she said.
Mr. Gardner answered decisively:
“Francis Murray was no criminal. Put that idea out of your head at once
and forever, Miss Vale.”
His words were like sweet music to her ears. She decided not to tell
him yet of what Percy Seabright had asserted.
“I want you to help me trace the murderer,” she said pleadingly.
“Miss Vale, I cannot take the case,” he replied, so abruptly that she
flushed with anger, and retorted:
“I will go to another lawyer.”
“You must not--you shall not!” he cried out agitatedly, and caught her
hand. “In mercy let this matter rest. You can do nothing but ill by
reviving the case.”
“What _can_ you mean?” she cried, startled by the similarity of his
words with the advice of Francis Murray.
He looked at her doubtfully a moment, then said resolutely:
“God knows I hate to wound you, Miss Vale, but unless I tell you the
truth you will go on with this Quixotic thing, and perhaps bring out
hidden facts that your friends would be glad to shield from public
knowledge.”
“Explain!” she cried out haughtily. And then he said:
“Listen, then, my poor child. After I succeeded in clearing your mother
from the charge of murder, there came to me from a private source some
evidence that was so black and conclusive that it would most surely
have convicted her if given to the jury. But this evidence had been
withheld by friends who loved Ronald Vale so dearly that they shielded
the guilty woman, to save his child from the black disgrace that would
have been her portion had the truth been known.”
Her bosom heaved, her eyes blazed, she cried out imperiously:
“I demand to know the nature of this hidden evidence, although even
before I hear it I stamp it as an infamous lie!”
“Would to God it might be proved so, for your sake, my poor girl,”
Lawyer Gardner answered sadly. “But, alas! it carries such conviction
with it that even I, who had all along believed in your poor mother,
was forced to accept it as conclusive. But for your own dear sake, I
beg you not to insist upon hearing the story!”
Italy Vale caught her breath with a great strangling gasp at those
words from the lawyer, and sat staring at him for a moment in appalled
silence.
He on his part looked at her in sympathy and pity mixed with
admiration. She was the most dazzlingly beautiful creature he had ever
beheld, and as he noted the exquisite face and form, the white-rose
skin, the magnificent eyes, the scarlet lips, the shining hair with its
rich waves, he thought what a pity it was that this exquisite creature
should have had so weak and wicked a mother, should have had the fair
promise of her life darkened and blighted by the stain of a mother’s
sin.
He saw the slender white hands writhing in and out of each other upon
the dark crimson of her rich morning-dress, saw the fair face change
from horror and shame into swift anger and incredulity. Then she spoke
resolutely:
“It is good of you to try to spare me, but I am not afraid to hear the
story you have to tell, for no evidence can make me believe ill of my
mother.”
“You have a loyal heart,” the lawyer exclaimed admiringly.
“I worshiped my beautiful mother,” she answered, with pearly tears
starting out upon her lashes. “Ah, Mr. Gardner, if you had known her as
I did, her love, her sorrow for her dead husband, the ineffable sadness
of her whole life, you could not doubt she was an angel.”
“I hope you will always keep this noble faith in her,” he replied, with
a sigh from the bottom of his kindly heart.
“I shall, Mr. Gardner, but I must make the world believe in her, too,
I must prove her innocence to all.”
“My dear Miss Vale, she was acquitted by the law. I beg that you will
rest satisfied with the verdict of the jury.”
She crested her proud head impatiently.
“Listen,” she said, and he wondered that one so young could cling so
tenaciously to a purpose.
“The world was not satisfied with the verdict,” she said. “Oh, I
know it all, how she was hissed by the populace when she left the
court-room, how popular clamor branded her, how friends fell away from
her, and left her alone in the world with her little child.
“Ah,” she cried, with clasped hands and streaming tears, “it is the
most pathetic story ever known, the sufferings of my martyred mother!
But she shall be cleared, the truth shall be known, the world shall do
her justice!”
Her face was holy in its pure purpose, but the listener shuddered.
“Will nothing dissuade you from this Quixotic purpose?” he cried
imploringly.
“No,” she answered, with upraised hand and gleaming eyes, “I have sworn
to unmask the fiend who murdered my father, and whose malignity has
hounded my mother through the world all these wretched years. They are
one and the same person, I am sure, and no entreaties can turn me from
my purpose. Although I am groping blindly in the dark now, I feel a
presentiment that Heaven will send light at last to guide me.”
“You are mad, you are blind!” cried Lawyer Gardner impressively; and he
added:
“If your mother were alive she would be the first person to forbid your
raking open the ashes of the past, for the smoldering coals when blown
into flame would only throw light upon that which has been hidden in
darkness--the motive for her sin!”
“How dare you? How dare you?” she cried, in a white heat of passionate
resentment.
“I beg your pardon for wounding you, Miss Vale, but I am only trying to
prove my friendship to you in all that I say. Leave the past alone, I
implore you.”
“I will not,” she flashed angrily.
And with deepest pain and pity he replied:
“Then I must do you the cruel kindness of telling you the truth. That
verdict of the jury is the greatest blessing her child could have.
Beneath its merciful veil she finds her surest refuge; for, alas! Italy
Vale, your mother was a--_guilty woman_!”
“It is false!” quavered over her ashy lips.
“It is true; and should that old case be reopened the truth might
accidentally come to light, and blast you with its horror.”
His voice was full of unspeakable pain and pity.
“I do not credit your assertion yet--I demand to know all the truth,”
came in a low, imperious voice from her white lips.
“It is not fit for the pure ears of a young girl,” Mr. Gardner answered
sadly; and, looking up at her angry face, he quoted: “‘Where ignorance
is bliss ’tis folly to be wise.’”
“I covet no such poor bliss as ignorance,” she cried, with a curling
lip. “Speak! I demand it in the name of my injured mother! Let me know
the worst that the infamous slanderer has done, then I shall know
better how to strike a blow in her defense. Tell me all. I am waiting.”
It seemed to him that she was blind and mad as he had called her, but
there was no retreat from betraying all that he knew. It was cruel, but
perhaps it would deter her from her insane purpose of vindicating her
mother’s name. It would rankle like a thorn in her heart, but perhaps
it would teach her the worldly wisdom of saving the Vale name from
further obloquy. With a heart-wrung sigh of the most honest sympathy,
he bent forward and whispered low and rapidly in her ear for several
minutes.
She sat and listened, her slight form rigid, her face pallid, her
somber eyes gleaming strangely, and heard the saddest story ever
breathed in a young girl’s ears against an idolized mother. And yet one
with which the world is too sadly familiar!
It was that old story of a girl’s ambition, and then a woman’s frailty
and sin. And this was what he said:
“Although Ronald Vale was a prince among men, and worthy of all honor