April's Lady Part 76

Do you dare to tell me that still? Supposing your story to be true, and mine--that woman's--false, how would it be between us then?"

"As it was in the first good old time when we were married."

"You, could forgive the wrong I have done you all these years, supposing----"

"Everything--all."

"Ah!" This sound seems crushed out of her. She steps backward, and a dry sob breaks from her.

"What is it?" asks he, quickly.

"Oh, that I could--that I dared--believe," says she.

"You would have proofs," says he, coldly, resigning her hand. "My word is not enough. You might love me did I prove worthy; your love is not strong enough to endure the pang of distrust. Was ever real love so poor a thing as that? However, you shall have them."

"What?" asks she, raising her head.

"The proofs you desire," responds he, icily. "That woman--your friend--the immaculate one--died the the day before yesterday. What? You never heard? And you and she----"

"She was nothing to me," says Lady Baltimore. "Nothing since."

"The day she reviled me! And yet"--with a most joyless laugh--"for the sake of a woman you cared so little about, that even her death has not caused you a pang, you severed the tie that should have been the closest to you on earth? Well, she is dead. 'Heaven rest her sowl!' as the peasants say. She wrote me a letter on her bed of death."

"Yes?" Eagerly.

"You still doubt?" says he, with a stern glance at her. "So be it; you shall see the letter, though how will that satisfy you? For you can always gratify your desire for suspicion by regarding it as a forgery.

The woman herself is dead, so, of course, there is no one to contradict.

Do think this all out," says he, with a contemptuous laugh, "before you commit yourself to a fresh belief in me. You see I give you every chance. To such a veritable 'Thomas' in petticoats every road should be laid open. Now"--tauntingly--"will you wait here whilst I bring the proof?"

He is gazing at her in a heartbroken sort of way. Is it the end? Is it all really over? There had been a faint flicker of the dying candle--a tiny glare--and now for all time is it to be darkness?

As for her. Ever since he had let her hand go, she had stood with bent head looking at it. He had taken it, he had let it go; there seemed to be a promise of heaven--was it a false one?

She is silent, and Baltimore, who had hoped for one word of trust, of belief, makes a gesture of despair.

"I will bring you the letter," he says, moving toward the door. When he does bring it--when she had read it and satisfied herself of the loyalty so long doubted, where, he asks himself, will they two be then? Further apart than ever? He has forgiven a great deal--much more than this--and yet, strange human nature, he knows if he once leaves the room and her presence now, he will never return again. The letter she will see--but him--never!

The door is open. He has almost crossed the threshold. Once again her voice recalls him, once again he looks back, she is holding out her arms to him.

"Cyril! Cyril!" she cried. "I believe you."

She staggers toward him. Mercifully the fountain of her tears breaks loose, she flings herself into his willing arms, and sobs out a whole world of grief upon his bosom.

It is a cruel moment, yet one fraught with joy as keen as the sorrow--a fire of anguish out of which both emerge purified, calmed--gladdened.

CHAPTER LVIII.

"Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of the birds has come."

The vague suspicion of rain that had filled their thoughts at breakfast has proved idle. The sun is shining forth again with redoubled vigor, as if laughing their silly doubts to scorn. Never was there so fair a day.

One can almost see the plants growing in the garden, and from every bough the nesting birds are singing loud songs of joy.

The meadows are showing a lovely green, and in the glades and uplands the

"Daffodils That come before the swallow dares,"

are uprearing their lovely heads. The air is full of sweet scents and sounds, and Joyce, jumping down from the drawing-room window, that lies close to the ground, looks gladly round her. Perhaps it is not so much the beauty of the scene as the warmth of happiness in her own heart that brings the smile to her lips and eyes.

He will be here to-day! Involuntarily she raises one hand and looks at the ring that encircles her engaged finger. A charming ring of pearls and sapphires. It evidently brings her happy thoughts, as, after gazing at it for a moment or two, she stoops and presses her lips eagerly to it. It is his first gift (though not his last), and therefore the most precious. What girl does not like receiving a present from her lover?

The least mercenary woman on earth must feel a glow at her heart and a fonder recognition of her sweetheart's worth when he lays a love-offering at her feet.

Joyce, after her one act of devotion to her sweetheart, runs down the garden path and toward the summer house. She is not expecting Dysart until the day has well grown into its afternoon; but, book in hand, she has escaped from all possible visitors to spend a quiet hour in the old earwiggy shanty at the end of the garden, sure of finding herself safe there from interruptions.

The sequel proves the futility of all human belief.

Inside the summer house; book in hand likewise, sits Mr. Browne, a picture of studious virtue.

Miss Kavanagh, seeing him, stops dead short, so great is her surprise, and Mr. Browne, raising his eyes, as if with difficulty, from the book on his knee, surveys her with a calmly judicial eye.

"Not here. Not here, my child," quotes he, incorrectly. "You had better try next door."

"Try for what?" demands she, indignantly.

"For whom? You mean----"

"No, I don't," with increasing anger.

"Jocelyne!" says Mr. Browne, severely. "When one forsakes the path of truth it is only to tread in----"

"Nonsense!" says Miss Kavanagh, irreverently.

"As you will!" says he, meekly. "But I a.s.sure you he is not here."

"I could have told you that," says she, coloring, however, very warmly.

"I must say, d.i.c.ky, you are the most ingeniously stupid person I ever met in my life."

"To shine in even the smallest line in life is to achieve something,"

says Mr. Browne, complacently. "And so you knew he wouldn't be here just now?"

This is uttered in an insinuating tone. Miss Kavanagh feels she has made a false move. To give d.i.c.ky an inch is, indeed, to give him an ell.

"He? Who?" says she, weakly.

"Don't descend to dissimulation, Jocelyne," advises he, severely. "It's the surest road to ruin, if one is to believe the good old copy books.

By he--you see I scorn subterfuge--I mean Dysart, the person to whom in a mistaken moment you have affianced yourself, as though I--I were not ready at any time to espouse you."