his_hearts_queen.txt Part 26

Again she was doomed to hear the simple, respectful, "No, madame."

More and more perplexed, and not a little alarmed, Mrs. Mencke hastened out into the hall, and was proceeding down stairs to seek Lord Cameron, when she met him just coming up to inquire for his betrothed.

He greeted her with his usual courteous manner; then, observing her troubled look, became suddenly grave.

"What is it?" he quickly asked. "I hope Violet is not ill."

"No--I do not know--I--I--have you seen her?" faltered and stumbled Mrs.

Mencke, in a tone of distress.

"Seen her?" the young man replied, greatly surprised; for on this morning, of all others, Violet would, of course, be supposed to be invisible. "No; certainly not," he added, recovering himself. "Is she not in her room?"

"No, and it looks as if it had not been occupied during the night," Mrs.

Mencke whispered, with pale lips.

"Do not tell me that," Lord Cameron said, sternly, his face growing ashen pale at the information.

He turned, and leaping two stairs at a time, was at the top in a moment, and striding forward toward Violet's room.

Reaching it, he stopped, his innate delicacy forbidding him to enter without permission, and waited until Mrs. Mencke joined him.

They went in together, and he observed with a terrible heart-sinking the perfect order in which everything had been left in both rooms.

Mrs. Mencke explained that she had questioned the chambermaid, but that she knew nothing about Violet's movements.

"She may have gone out for a walk--to get the air," the wretched groom-elect remarked, but he was white to his lips as he said it.

"Gone out for a walk on her wedding-morning, when there was scarcely time to prepare for the ceremony! I wish I could even believe it possible that she would do such an unheard-of thing," said Mrs. Mencke, in a tone of despair, and feeling nearly paralyzed by this sudden and inexplicable absence.

Nevertheless they exerted themselves to ascertain if the missing bride-elect was anywhere about the premises, Lord Cameron, with the proprietor of the hotel, to whom alone he confided his trouble, going out in search of her.

Meantime Mrs. Mencke went back to Violet's rooms to ascertain if anything was missing, but everything appeared to be in its accustomed place. Every drawer was daintily arranged, as she was in the habit of keeping them; all her jewels, laces, and ribbons were in their respective boxes; even the rings, which she usually wore, lay upon her pincushion, where she always put them before taking a bath.

Her dresses hung in her wardrobe--all but the traveling dress which she had worn when she came to Mentone. It was a dark-gray cloth, trimmed with narrow bands of blue silk. The hat to match, with its bows of blue velvet, and a single gray wing, together with a thick blue vail, were also missing, and a pair of thick walking-boots, together with a light traveling shawl.

Beyond these few things nothing, as far as she could ascertain upon so hasty an examination, was gone; not even a change of clothing, toilet articles, or a traveling-bag, things which Violet would be sure to need if she had contemplated flight.

Mrs. Mencke was somewhat rea.s.sured after these investigations, and tried to think that her sister had gone out for a walk--possibly to the town to post the letter she had been writing the previous night, rather than to wait for it to go later with the hotel mail.

Still, she was terribly anxious, and her face was pallid with fear and anxiety.

She had staked so much--far more than any one save herself knew--to achieve this brilliant marriage for Violet, and it seemed more than she could bear to have it fail at the last moment, and after all the heavy expense of the beautiful trousseau from Worth's.

She wandered restlessly from room to room in an agony of suspense, Lady Cameron following her and vainly trying to speak words of comfort and cheer, while they waited for the return of those who had gone to search for the missing one.

Lord Cameron came back after a time, accompanied by Mr. Mencke, who had arrived on the first train from Nice, but he brought no tidings of Violet.

"There will be no wedding to-day, even if she is found," he said, with a stern, set face, "so let all preparations be stopped at once."

Then without another word, he went out, mounted his horse, and rode away toward the mountains.

The wretched day pa.s.sed, and evening shut down again upon the place, where but one theme was thought of or talked about. Many believed that the young girl had gone out for a walk in the early morning and had, perhaps, fallen into some ravine among the mountains, or into the sea and been drowned.

There were only a few who thought otherwise, and these were Mr. and Mrs.

Mencke, Lord Cameron, and his mother.

Mr. and Mrs. Mencke did not lisp their suspicions that Violet might have fled from an uncongenial marriage to a suicide's fate; but Lord Cameron, who remembered his last interview with his betrothed, had a terrible fear that such might be the case; while Lady Cameron, having told him of Violet's strange excitement and remarks of the evening previous, suggested that she might have fled to escape wronging him and being untrue to herself.

"It may be so," the wretched young man said, "but oh, I fear she is dead. I shall search for her until I am satisfied of either one thing or the other."

When Lord Cameron had said there would be no wedding, even if Violet were found, Mrs. Mencke went away and shut herself in the room where Violet was to have dressed for her bridal, and where, spread out before her, were the lovely dress of white silk tulle, with its delicate garnishings of lilies of the valley and white violets the beautiful Brussels net vail, with its chaplet of the same flowers, the dainty white satin boots, gloves, and handkerchief; and there she gave vent to the rage, disappointment, and grief which she could no longer contain.

It was the most wretched day of her whole life, and she afterward confessed that there, for the first time, in the presence of these voiceless accusers of her for her treachery and heartlessness toward the young girl whom she should have tenderly cherished and shielded from all unhappiness, her guilty conscience began to upbraid her, and remorse to sting her with their relentless lashings.

CHAPTER XV.

"SHE IS MY WIFE."

It was later in the season than people were in the habit of remaining at Mentone; but the unusual attraction of a wedding in high life had induced many to delay their departure and so a large number had tarried, much to the gratification and profit of hotel proprietors and other natives, only to be disappointed by missing the wedding, after all.

Everything possible was done to obtain some clew to the missing girl, but all to no purpose. Three weeks went by, and every one, save Lord Cameron, had given up all hope of ever solving the sad mystery. He alone still patiently kept up his search day by day.

By the beginning of the fourth week, Mr. and Mrs. Mencke both agreed that the girl must be dead, and announced their intention of leaving in a few days for Switzerland. Mrs. Mencke was so confirmed in her opinion that Violet was not living that she a.s.sumed mourning for her, and while she remained in Mentone her deeply bordered handkerchiefs were never out of her hands, and were frequently brought into ostentatious use.

The day before the one set for their departure was intensely warm and oppressive, and everybody was almost prostrated by the heat.

Lady Cameron and Mrs. Mencke could only exist by lying, lightly clad, in hammocks swung upon the north piazza of the hotel, while Mr. Mencke idled away the hours as best he could, in the smoking and reading-room, or in imbibing mint juleps.

Lord Cameron, as was his invariable custom, had departed, in spite of the heat, upon one of his long rides immediately after breakfast. His quest for the girl whom he had so fondly loved was becoming almost a mania.

He had grown thin and pale; his appet.i.te failed, until he seemed not to eat sufficient to keep life in him. He was depressed, and absent-minded, and so nervous and restless that his mother suffered the keenest anxiety lest all this strain upon his mind and body should end in insanity!

"Oh, what an interminable day this has seemed!" sighed Lady Cameron to her companion, as, soft on the saltry stillness of the air, there came to them the sound of a distant church clock striking the hour of six. "I hope I may never pa.s.s another like it--I could neither read nor work, while my thoughts and the dread of something--I know not what--have nearly driven me wild."

Mrs. Mencke shivered, in spite of the heat, at these words. She also had felt as if she could never live through another twelve hours like the past, and she believed if she could but once get away from the place where she had suffered so much of disappointment and wretchedness, this terrible oppression and weight would in a measure disappear.

Tomorrow they would go, and she longed for tomorrow to come. During the latter part of the afternoon she had simply lain still and watched the lengthening shadows, which told that the sun was declining and evening drawing on apace, and longed for night and slumber to lock her senses in oblivion.

"I believe the name of Mentone will always give me a chill after this,"

she said, in a husky tone.

"Hark! is not that the sound of a horse's hoofs?" cried Lady Cameron, starting up to look down the road. "Yes, there comes Vane and--Mrs.

Mencke, he is riding at a break-neck pace! Can he--do you believe he has any--news?"