A Woman-Hater Part 84

He groaned, and said there was no time to lose. Otherwise he never would have urged her so.

For all that, she could not be drawn to a decision. She must think over such a step. Next morning, at the usual time, he came to know his fate.

But she did not appear. He waited an hour for her. She did not come. He began to rage and storm, and curse his folly for driving her so hard.

At last she came, and found him pale with anxiety, and looking utterly miserable. She told him she had pa.s.sed a sleepless night, and her head had ached so in the morning she could not move.

"My poor darling!" said he; "and I am the cause. Say no more about it, dear one. I see you do not love me as I love you, and I forgive you."

She smiled sadly at that, for she was surer of her own love than his.

Zoe had pa.s.sed a night of torment and vacillation; and but for her brother having paraded Mademoiselle Klosking in his mother's sables, she would, I think, have held out. But this turned her a little against her brother; and, as he was the main obstacle to her union with Severne, love and pity conquered. Yet still Honor and Pride had their say. "Edward,"

said she, "I love you with all my heart, and share your fears that accident may separate us. I will let you decide for both of us. But, before you decide, be warned of one thing. I am a girl no longer, but a woman who has been distracted with many pa.s.sions. If any slur rests on my fair name, deeply as I love you now, I shall abhor you then."

He turned pale, for her eye flashed dismay into his craven soul.

He said nothing; and she continued: "If you insist on this hasty, half-clandestine marriage, then I consent to this--I will go with you before the registrar, and I shall come back here directly. Next morning early we will start for Scotland, and be married that other way before witnesses. Then your fears will be at an end, for you believe in these marriages; only as I do not--for I look on these _legal_ marriages merely as solemn betrothals--I shall be Miss Zoe Vizard, and expect you to treat me so, until I have been married in a church, like a lady."

"Of course you shall," said he; and overwhelmed her with expressions of grat.i.tude, respect, and affection.

This soothed her troubled mind, and she let him take her hand and pour his honeyed flatteries into her ear, as he walked her slowly up and down.

She could hardly tear herself away from the soft pressure of his hand and the fascination of his tongue, and she left him, more madly in love with him than ever, and ready to face anything but dishonor for him. She was to come out at twelve o'clock, and walk into Bagley with him to betroth herself to him, as she chose to consider it, before the stipendiary magistrate, who married couples in that way. Of the two marriages she had consented to, merely as preliminaries to a real marriage, Zoe despised this the most; for the Scotch marriage was, at all events, ancient, and respectable lovers had been driven to it again and again.

She was behind her time, and Severne thought her courage had failed her, after all. But no: at half-past twelve she came out, and walked briskly toward Bagley.

He was behind her, and followed her. She took his arm nervously. "Let me feel you all the way," she said, "to give me courage."

So they walked arm-in-arm; and, as they went, his courage secretly wavered, her's rose at every step.

About half a mile from the town they met a carriage and pair.

At sight of them a gentleman on the box tapped at the gla.s.s window, and said, hurriedly, "Here they are _together."_

Mademoiselle Klosking said, "Stop the carriage": then, pausing a little, "Mr. Vizard--on your word of honor, no violence."

The carriage was drawn up, Ashmead opened the door in a trice, and La Klosking, followed by Vizard, stepped out, and stood like a statue before Edward Severne and Zoe Vizard.

Severne dropped her arm directly, and was panic-stricken.

Zoe uttered a little scream at the sight of Vizard; but the next moment took fire at her rival's audacity, and stepped boldly before her lover, with flashing eyes and expanded nostrils that literally breathed defiance.

CHAPTER XXVII.

"YOU infernal scoundrel!" roared Vizard, and took a stride toward Severne.

"No violence," said Ina Klosking, sternly: "it will be an insult to this lady and me."

"Very well, then," said Vizard, grimly, "I must wait till I catch him alone."

"Meantime, permit me to speak, sir," said Ina. "Believe me, I have a better right than even you."

"Then pray ask my sister why I find her on that villain's arm."

"I should not answer her," said Zoe, haughtily. "But my brother I will.

Harrington, all this vulgar abuse confirms me in my choice: I take his arm because I have accepted his hand. I am going into Bagley with him to become his wife."

This announcement took away Vizard's breath for a moment, and Ina Klosking put in her word. "You cannot do that: pray he warned. He is leading you to infamy."

"Infamy! What, because he cannot give me a suit of sables? Infamy!

because we prefer virtuous poverty to vice and wealth?"

"No, young lady," said Ina, coloring faintly at the taunt; "but because you could only be his paramour; not his wife. He is married already."

At these words, spoken with that power Ina Klosking could always command, Zoe Vizard turned ashy pale. But she fought on bravely.

"Married? It is false! To whom?"

"To me."

"I thought so. Now I know it is not true. He left you months before we ever knew him."

"Look at him. He does not say it is false."

Zoe turned on Severne, and at his face her own heart quaked. "Are you married to this lady?" she asked; and her eyes, dilated to their full size, searched his every feature.

"Not that I know of," said he, impudently.

"Is that the serious answer you expected, Miss Vizard?" said Ina, keenly: then to Severne, "You are unwise to insult the woman on whom, from this day, you must depend for bread. Miss Vizard, to you I speak, and not to this shameless man. For your mother's sake, do me justice. I have loved him dearly; but now I abhor him. Would I could break the tie that binds us and give him to you, or to any lady who would have him! But I cannot.

And shall I hold my tongue, and let you be ruined and dishonored? I am an older woman than you, and bound by grat.i.tude to all your house. Dear lady, I have taxed my strength to save you. I feel that strength waning.

Pray read this paper, and consent to save _yourself."_

"I will read it," said Rhoda Gale, interfering. "I know German. It is an authorized duplicate certifying the marriage of Edward Severne, of Willingham, in Huntingdonshire, England, to Ina Ferris, daughter of Walter Ferris and Eva Klosking, of Zutzig, in Denmark. The marriage was solemnized at Berlin, and here are the signatures of several witnesses: Eva Klosking; Fraulein Graafe; Zug, the Capellmeister; Vicomte Meurice, French _attache';_ Count Hompesch, Bavarian plenipotentiary; Herr Formes."

Ina explained, in a voice that was now feeble, "I was a public character; my marriage was public: not like the clandestine union which is all he dared offer to this well-born lady."

"The Bavarian and French ministers are both in London," said Vizard, eagerly. "We can easily learn if these signatures are forged, like _your_ acceptances."

But, if one shadow of doubt remained, Severne now removed it; he uttered a scream of agony, and fled as if the demons of remorse and despair were spurring him with red-hot rowels.

"There, you little idiot!" roared Vizard; "does that open you eyes?"

"Oh, Mr. Vizard," said Ina, reproachfully, "for pity's sake, think only of her youth, and what she has to suffer. I can do no more for her: I feel--so--faint."

Ashmead and Rhoda supported her into the carriage. Vizard, touched to the heart by Ina's appeal, held out his eloquent arms to his stricken sister, and she tottered to him, and clung to him, all limp and broken, and wishing she could sink out of the sight of all mankind. He put his strong arm round her, and, though his own heart was desolate and broken, he supported that broken flower of womanhood, and half led, half lifted her on, until he laid her on a sofa in Somerville Villa. Then, for the first time, he spoke to her. "We are both desolate, now, my child. Let us love one another. I will be ten times tenderer to you than I ever have been."

She gave a great sob, but she was past speaking.