A Colony of Girls Part 5

"It is as well I should know the truth now as later. You do not love me, Helen. There is nothing left now, but for us to part."

When he was leaving a sudden recollection came to him of the cause of all this unhappiness, and crushing down his own bitterness, he endeavored in quiet and carefully chosen words to dissuade her from a friendship which he feared she would rue, but she maintained an almost unbroken silence, and the expression of her face told him that his warning was of no avail. So they parted.

Guy was more than justified in his distrust of Lillian Stuart. Had he been a man of less delicate sense of honor he could have righted himself in Helen's eyes by simply relating to her some incontrovertible facts; but the circ.u.mstances which had given him his knowledge sealed his lips.

While at college, the name, Lillian Stuart, had grown familiar to him, through hearing her praises sounded by his chum Nelson Leonard. The year after their graduation they ran across each other at Baden, and their college friendship was resumed. Guy was not long in discovering that there was something radically wrong with his friend, and the cause, which all Baden apparently understood, was soon made clear to him.

Among the most noted people frequenting Baden at this time, were a Mrs. Ogden-Stuart and her beautiful daughter. It had been understood on their arrival that Miss Stuart was engaged to the good-looking American, Mr. Leonard, who was traveling in their party. This fact, however, did not seem to stand in the way of her flirting openly with every eligible man in the place, nor prevent her from receiving their constant homage. Leonard was evidently wretched, and there was a touch of recklessness in his manner, which, Guy felt, boded no good to a man of his highly strung, sensitive nature. For a week after Guy's arrival things drifted on, but there was something in the air that seemed to foretell a crisis. Guy had been presented to Miss Stuart, but in spite of her beauty and fascination found nothing in her to like or respect.

This Miss Stuart felt instinctively, and as she was accustomed to admiration, it stung her into a desire to win something more than indifference from Leonard's friend. Her efforts were totally unsuccessful, and, as her treatment of her lover became less and less loyal, Guy withdrew altogether from her society, showing her no further courtesy than an occasional bow of recognition. In the meantime Miss Stuart's latest affair, with a certain Frenchman of unenviable reputation, was giving Baden food for gossip and keeping it on the _qui vive_ for a scandal.

Late one afternoon, while Guy sat on the veranda reading letters from home, Miss Stuart and Leonard pa.s.sed him. The girl's face wore a mocking smile, her eyes a taunt; Leonard was white as death, and his lips twitched piteously. Guy's own face grew stern as he looked up at them, and when Miss Stuart threw him a careless word in salutation he could scarcely frame a civil reply.

That evening Leonard went to Guy's room, and flinging himself down in a chair, gave voice for the first time to his misery.

"I tell you, Appleton," he exclaimed, with a hard laugh, "I shall throw up the game pretty soon. I may be a coward; but it takes more courage than I have to face this thing any longer."

Guy was more startled than he cared to reveal by his friend's pa.s.sionate, despairing vehemence; and he made an effort to treat the matter lightly and to divert Leonard's thoughts, but his efforts were not crowned with success. When Leonard had left him he paced up and down the room, revolving in his mind what step he should take. At length he determined to go to Miss Stuart, and appeal to her, hoping that so direct a course would result favorably.

He began the interview awkwardly, feeling that his presumption was almost unwarrantable, but when she met his earnest plea for his friend first with indifference, and then with undisguised amus.e.m.e.nt, he found his anger rising.

"I do not think you can realize Leonard's condition of mind, Miss Stuart," he said darkly. "If you would only put an end to this once for all, I am sure that he is man enough to go away from you and try to live down his disappointment; but he has a peculiarly excitable and sensitive temperament, and if you continue to torture him in this way, I fear you will have his death at your door."

"I am sorry to say," she replied lightly, "that our friend is a fool now," looking up at him with a glance strangely deep and subtle, "if he were half the man you are----"

"I have nothing further to say," Guy interrupted, flushing with indignation and disgust, and without another word he abruptly left her.

Two days later all Baden was shocked by the startling news that young Nelson Leonard had accidentally shot himself and was lying at the point of death.

Those melancholy hours of watching by Leonard's bedside, in that dreary hotel room, lived in Guy's memory. When the doctor's sad verdict was p.r.o.nounced, the dying man pleaded to be left alone with his friend.

"Ah, dear old fellow," he said gently, when they were alone, "pretty well done--for an accident? Forgive me," he murmured, as he caught a sharp look of pain in Guy's face. "Forgive----" his voice faltered, and his head fell wearily back on the pillow.

Then the poor boy's mind wandered, and Lillian Stuart's name was constantly on his lips. In broken, halting sentences a pitiful story of deception and disappointment was revealed to Guy--a story which would be sacred to him to his life's end, and, as he listened, his whole soul revolted against the woman who had so willfully trifled with this man's tender, loyal heart. Before morning dawned, Nelson Leonard's eyes had closed forever on a life which he had found too difficult for him. When the sad affair was over, Guy would fain have left Baden at once, but he was obliged to await there the arrival of Leonard's family from America.

In the days that ensued Lillian Stuart was markedly subdued, but if she had any suspicion of the real truth concerning Leonard's death she never betrayed it by word or look. She did all in her power to overcome Guy's aversion for her, but he sternly repulsed her. To attempt conciliation was a new role for Miss Stuart, and his cold disregard of all her efforts was the severest wound her vanity had ever received.

Such a slight is not readily forgiven or forgotten by a woman of her type. So when Guy Appleton once more crossed her path, and she found, in his deep love for Helen, his vulnerable point, she felt that her day of triumph had come.

It had been an easy task to secure Helen's friendship, and then to so use her influence with the girl as to effect the annulling of the engagement. Miss Stuart knew Guy's nature well enough to feel almost sure that, however sorely he might be tempted, he would probably never betray his knowledge of that unpleasant episode in her past; so, trading on the man's very uprightness, she revenged herself for the bitter sting of wounded vanity that rankled in her memory.

Her well-planned scheme had been marvelously successful, but one unlooked-for element had entered into it; for Helen's simplicity and purity of nature, her lack of vanity, coquetry, or duplicity, above all, her entire confidence and trust, had touched a tender chord in the heart of this cold and worldly woman, and were in themselves a power so great she felt herself held by them. Could she have foreseen the future, she would, perhaps, have struggled against this most disturbing element.

Guy's return to Hetherford with the announcement that his engagement was at an end, and that he was going immediately abroad, created quite a ferment among the good people at the manor and Rose Cottage, and many were their fruitless conjectures as to the cause of Helen's sudden change of feeling. Across at the parsonage, happy-go-lucky Nan puckered up her jolly face, pondered long over this vexatious question, and hit at last upon the correct solution of it, but wisely kept her own counsel.

Mrs. Appleton took her son's disappointment very much to heart, and when Helen came home again Rose Cottage was closed and its occupants once more gone abroad. When the buckboard rolled by the deserted little place Helen drew her breath sharply, then, catching Jean's reproachful eyes upon her, began hurriedly to speak of other things.

The Lawrences frankly avowed to her their regret and disappointment, but not one word of explanation did the girl vouchsafe to them, so after a little they accepted the inevitable, and Guy's name was no longer spoken among them.

And thus it was that of the Lawrence girls, Helen alone had the proud distinction of having had a genuine love affair, the memory of which, however, was tinged with deep regret, and caused her naught but pain.

Perhaps she felt intuitively that she had done wrong. What was a pleasant friendship compared to the love of a true man's heart? Yet the thought of a marriage with Guy was out of the question.

So the foolish girl reasoned. Time brings many changes, however, and perhaps what once seemed to Helen a catastrophe may one day seem to open the very gates of Paradise.

And now that we have taken a leaf from Helen's past, let us resume our way.

CHAPTER IV.

A SAIL ON THE "CYCLONE."

"They have hired the dear old _Cyclone_, Helen, because the men thought the wind was bound to be light to-day and we would have so much more sport in a small boat than on the _Vortex_."

Nathalie stood in the doorway, gesticulating eagerly with her slender brown hands. Her pretty face was quite flushed with excitement, and her hurried words tripped over each other in their anxiety to be spoken.

"You see we must make haste, for d.i.c.k says we must be at the dock at eleven, or we won't catch the tide."

"But what about luncheon?" interposed Helen quietly.

A comical expression of dismay crossed Nathalie's face.

"Oh, dear, I suppose you will want to kill us; but Jean and I, in a sudden fit of enthusiasm, said we would attend to that, and not one thing have we done yet."

"Did you think to provide any cold meat for sandwiches?" demanded the young housekeeper.

"Oh, yes; there are three stout chickens, some cold corned beef, and a 'bit of ham bone,' as Bridget puts it, gracing your larder."

"Well, we haven't a moment to spare, so call Jean, and let us get right to work."

The pile of sandwiches grew rapidly under the girls' deft hands, and little Larry, wandering in from the veranda, looked longingly at these interesting preparations.

"Wish I could go with you," he ventured, with sudden courage.

"Don't speak of it," replied Helen emphatically, as she ran out of the room to get a fresh supply of bread.

"Guess you'll all be drownded, anyway," and Larry eyed them with a superior and triumphant mien.

"That's right, my cheerful little brother," laughed Jean. "Always look on the bright side of things."

"Now, when shall we tell Aunt Helen we will be back?" asked Nathalie, as they were fitting the cover down on the well-filled hamper.

"Not later than five, I should think."

"Don't let's commit ourselves, Helen," suggested Jean. "It is such a bore, and we will be troubling about it all the afternoon."

"We must be home by five; I am not willing to leave the children any longer than that."