Slighted love or, At her heart's expense
and love, your mother gave him the hand without the heart. She was
young and beautiful, the last descendant of a famous old Puritan
family, but, alas! poor in everything but her own charms, and for
ambition’s sake she married Ronald Vale.
“She became a social queen in New England society, and her husband
worshiped her and believed in her love and purity as he believed in
the angels. When your baby eyes first opened to the light your advent
was hailed like that of a little princess. The father and mother both
idolized you. A few years passed with seemingly fair skies, then the
bolt of lightning fell--your father was found dead in his library,
and the servants proved that your mother had been seen to leave the
room stealthily just five minutes before he was found by the butler,
murdered.”
“Yes, yes, I know all that,” Italy breathed eagerly. “My mother told
me, and then I read it in the papers she had kept for me. Papa was
sitting up late that night to look over some papers his lawyer had sent
him that day. Mama had been compelled to attend a reception without
him. She remained but a short time, and went, on returning, to the
library to bid papa good night before retiring. He told her not to
sit up for him, as he would be detained an hour yet, and had ordered
the butler to bring him some warm coffee presently. As she kissed him
an affectionate good night she noticed his diary lying close to his
elbow on the desk, as though he had been writing in it. Then she went
out softly and came to the nursery to me, where, five minutes later,
she was startled by the outcries of the butler, who, on taking in the
coffee to his master, had found him lying dead, stabbed to the heart.”
“Those are the precise acts that were submitted to the jury,” Mr.
Gardner answered. “But though circumstantial evidence pointed to your
mother as the guilty party, still the absence of a motive so influenced
the jury that they leaned strongly to a theory of suicide, and
acquitted Mrs. Vale on that doubt.”
He paused and looked at her gravely, but she looked back at him fixedly
without reply, and he added sadly enough:
“Alas! the motive was known to one who loved your mother--her secret
lover, the partner in her frailty--but who, though doubting not her
guilt, because she had hinted to him a desire for her husband’s death,
was too loyal to betray her, and so by his silence saved her life and
her honor. For no one had suspected the secret liaison that prompted
her to the commission of murder.”
He paused, expecting and dreading a terrible outburst, but for a moment
she did not speak, only stared before her like one in a trance of
horror, her face dead-white, her eyes wild.
“Miss Vale!” he cried out, in alarm at her strange looks.
She started, shivered, and looked at him, gasping out:
“Oh, this is infamous! infamous!”
“I am grieved that I had to reveal it to you and destroy your loyal
faith in your mother’s goodness,” he replied very sadly.
Instantly her eyes flashed with keen displeasure.
“Do not think that you have destroyed my faith in her; no, no, you
could never do that,” she exclaimed proudly. “No, Mr. Gardner, you
have but added another score to the long list of wrongs I have to
avenge in my mother’s sacred name. But this man who pretended to be her
lover--his name?”
“I cannot tell you, Miss Vale.”
“Do you know it?”
“I do not.”
“Then who can tell the traitor’s name?”
“No living person, Miss Vale, for the only man who knew the name and
the story is believed to be dead.”
“Francis Murray?”
“Yes.”
There came back to her mind the hints Francis Murray had dropped that
day in the garden when they had talked of this subject. This was what
he had meant. A sudden flush rose over her face, bathing it in a
burning tide of shame.
So _he_ had believed this horrible slander of her angel mother? She
buried her face in her hands for a moment, and he thought it was a mute
acknowledgement of her terrible defeat. He began to murmur some words
of heartfelt sympathy. She dropped her hands and looked up at him.
“You think I have pulled down my colors, that I own myself defeated,”
she said curtly. “No, you are mistaken. Mr. Murray believed what he
told you, of course, but--where is that man whose silence saved my
mother? Why has he never been near her all these years?”
“Her crime inspired him with such horror that he refused her plea that
he would marry her, and left her to her fate.”
Oh, the exquisite scorn of those curled lips, those flashing eyes!
“The dastard!” she hissed bitterly, and cried:
“He lied, basely lied, and I will yet bring home to him all the
infamous slanders that have tracked my mother’s pathway since the hour
my father died. Why, it is he, and no other, who murdered my father and
followed my mother’s life with such hellish malignity. Oh, God! but to
stand at the foot of the gallows-tree and see him swing!”
She choked with emotion, and hot tears sprang from her eyes, blinding
their fierce glitter.
“Calm yourself, Miss Vale,” implored the lawyer.
She clashed the tears from her eyes, looked at him half-defiantly, and
answered, in a steely voice:
“Nothing in what you have told me shows any cause for me to give up the
search for new evidence to prove my mother’s innocence of all that with
which she is charged.”
“You will only bring down irretrievable ruin upon your head,” he
protested, growing alarmed at what seemed to him her stubborn hardihood.
“No,” she answered; “I shall triumph by the help of God, and then you
will applaud me for my courage and my loyalty. Ah! I understand you,
Mr. Gardner; you believe that might is right. You believe my mother
was guilty because she could not defend herself, because she could not
ward off the blows struck at her in the dark by a cowardly dastard. But
wait, wait, and you shall yet see me avenge the wrongs of my parents.
All is not lost while there is courage in one brave heart.
“You see how I feel. I cannot take your advice not to reopen the case.
I shall bend every energy to the purpose I am sworn to. As for you, you
shall help me or not, as you choose. I give you two days, Mr. Gardner,
to decide what you will do. No, do not refuse without consideration.
Think of it, weigh it well, and remember that a young girl’s prayers go
up every hour to Heaven for your consent.”
He was about to speak, but she silenced him again with a queenly
gesture.
“I will not take your answer for two days, sir. Come to me then with
the words of consent on your lips. If you refuse me, I shall only go to
another lawyer; I have money to push the investigation, and I shall not
falter in my purpose, believe me.”
“So I have told you that dark story all in vain!” he exclaimed
unhappily.
“No, not in vain, sir, for it has given me another important clue
to work on. Oh, that Francis Murray were alive to-day that I might
wrest from his unwilling lips the name of my mother’s traducer, whom I
believe to be my father’s murderer!”
With a deep sigh, he took her hand to say good-by.
“God help you and bless you, you brave, noble girl!” he exclaimed,
with irrepressible admiration of her courage in the face of such black
despair, and he went away with a keen pain in his heart at the thought
of her ultimate failure.
CHAPTER XVI.
ITALY’S RESOLUTION.
The lawyer had scarcely taken his departure before Italy had another
visitor. It was that dainty, blonde beauty--Alexie Audenreid. She
looked lovely in a handsome carriage-suit of dark-blue cloth and
velvet that formed so pleasing a contrast with her curly, golden hair
and peachy complexion. Her dazzling, dark-blue eyes were radiant with
happiness.
“Are you ready to go for your sitting this morning? My coupé is
waiting,” she said, then started in surprise at Italy’s agitated looks.
Ralph Allen was painting their portraits, and they went together each
morning for alternate sittings.
“Oh, my dear! what is the matter? You are so pale, and you look like
you had been crying?” exclaimed sweet Alexie anxiously.
“I--I--have a headache,” Italy faltered evasively. “Dear Alexie, I
_cannot_ sit to Ralph this morning. You must take my place, please.”
“But, Italy, come with me to the studio, won’t you? The morning is so
bright and crisp that it will cure your head to get out in the fresh
air, and you can rest on the sofa there, you know.”
Italy could not resist the sweet pleading of her friend, and she knew
it would be better to get away from her own torturing thoughts for
the present, so she hastily made a fresh toilet, and, joining Alexie,
they were driven in the natty coupé to Ralph Allen’s studio on Tremont
Street.
“You are late,” the young artist said, greeting them with his bright
smile and a sweet, stolen glance at his adored one.
“It was all my fault. I was not feeling well and forgot my sitting
until Alexie called for me. Then she had to wait for me to dress.
And--I cannot sit to you this morning. Alexie must have my turn,”
explained Italy, who was still looking ghastly pale and distrait with
the memory of all that Mr. Gardner had told her that morning.
“You shall lie on the sofa and rest,” said the artist kindly. “And here
is Mr. Seabright to amuse you.”
Percy Seabright came forward with his cheerful air and greeted both
girls warmly.
“I heard that Ralph was painting you two on canvas together as ‘Night’
and ‘Morning,’ and rushed off to see it,” he explained. “It is going
to be beautiful--beautiful! How arch and smiling Alexie looks as
‘Morning,’ ‘in her eyes the blue of the sea, on her hair the gold of
the sun,’ and Italy, with that pensive, moonlight smile and her dusky
hair and eyes, makes an ideal ‘Night.’”
They stood a few moments contemplating the canvas on which the two girl
faces were growing in exquisite likeness to the originals, then Alexie
exclaimed:
“Come, Italy, take off your hat and lie down on the sofa in this
little alcove. I know Mr. Seabright will amuse you until Ralph finishes
my sitting.”
She lay down and closed her eyes wearily, but knowing too well that she
should not rest, but go on thinking, thinking, until her brain seemed
to burn with its torturing burdens.
Suddenly a soft, cool hand fell on her hot forehead.
“Do you know that there is magic in my touch? Just a few light little
passes, if you will permit me, and the poor head will be well,” said
Percy Seabright’s voice, low and tenderly.
She did not answer, and he continued to stroke her brow and hair with
light, caressing touches that did indeed seem to charm away the heated
throbbing in her temples. Then she opened her eyes with a faint,
grateful little smile.
“It is so much better--thank you!” she said, drawing back her head
gently from the hand whose pressure was so tender she found it
embarrassing.
“I knew you would be better,” he said smilingly. “Now close your eyes
and you will sleep.”
“Oh, that I could sleep and forget,” she sighed, and let the
dark-fringed lids droop wearily again.
Surely he possessed some magnetic power, or else the narcotic influence
of pain overpowered her. She sank quickly into a deep, restful sleep,
and the man by her side sat very still, watching the lovely, sleeping
face and the closed lids, still delicately roseate from the tears she
had shed a while ago.
“She has been weeping--over what, I wonder?” he thought curiously.
The studio grew very still as Italy slept and Ralph painted, though
not very industriously, he exchanged so many sweet whispers with his
beautiful model; but the sitting was almost over when Italy sighed
softly and opened her eyes.
She saw Mr. Seabright still by her side, watching her with an air of
tender devotion.
“I have really slept,” she said gently, forcing a smile for him.