his_hearts_queen.txt Part 28

He was so much overcome by the announcement that those observing him feared he was upon the point of fainting, strong man though he was.

"Wallace Richardson--from America?" he whispered, hoa.r.s.ely.

"Yes."

"I--I thought you were dead! She believed you were dead!" the young lord returned, with ashen lips.

"Dead!" repeated Wallace, wonderingly, his. .h.i.therto inflexible face softening a trifle. "Oh, say it again--does Violet really believe that I am dead?" and the eager, quivering tones rang sharply through the room.

"Yes, she believes so; it was so announced in one of the American papers," Lord Cameron replied, with something more of composure, but never losing that first look of horror.

Like a flash Wallace wheeled about and faced Wilhelm Mencke and his trembling wife.

"Then that was some more of your miserable work!" he cried, in a terrible voice, "a diabolical plot to separate us. From the first you have left nothing undone to part us, and so, when all else failed, you reported me dead, knowing well that she would never marry another while she believed me to be living. Oh! I see it all now, and my love, my love, I have wronged you!" he concluded, in a tone of anguish.

When he had turned with such fiery denunciation upon them, Mrs. Mencke shrank from him with such an expression of awe, fear, and guilt upon her face, that she was instantly self-condemned; every one in the room was as sure that she had caused that lying paragraph, announcing Wallace's death, to be inserted in the paper to mislead Violet, as if she had openly confessed it.

"Did you do it--did you drive that poor child thus to promise to become my wife?" demanded Lord Cameron, in a voice that was like the ominous calm before a tempest.

The woman was speechless; but her guilty eyes drooped beneath his stern look, for she knew that her miserable secret was revealed.

"You do not know what you have done," Wallace cried, growing wild again, "but you will pay dearly for your treachery--ha! ha! you little dream how dearly it will cost you, when the consequences of your wretched plot shall be noised abroad from the aristocratic summit upon which you have hitherto so proudly stood, and from which you will soon be ruthlessly hurled."

Wilhelm Mencke, having by this time begun to recover somewhat from the shock of Wallace's unexpected appearance, commenced to bl.u.s.ter:

"Look here, you young upstart," he cried, growing very red in the face, and a.s.suming a threatening att.i.tude, "all these charges and accusations may or may not be true--we won't discuss that point just now; but whether it is or not, it can be no possible concern of yours. I should like to know what you mean by bursting in upon respectable people in this rude way. What was Violet to you?--what right or business have you to interfere with whatever she might have chosen to do?"

"The most sacred right in the world, sir, for--she is my wife!"

CHAPTER XVI.

"I MUST FIND HER--I MUST FOLLOW HER."

This thrilling and unexpected announcement was electrical in its results.

Mrs. Mencke gave vent to a shriek of horror, and sank, weak and trembling, upon a chair, while her husband gazed at the young man with a look of blank astonishment and dismay; indeed, for the moment, he seemed almost paralyzed by the astounding declaration, for if Violet was indeed Wallace's wife, he and his wife had been criminally guilty in trying to drive her into a marriage with Lord Cameron, and in view of what the consequence might have been had they succeeded and Violet had lived, he had every reason to feel appalled.

Lady Cameron, also realizing all this, bowed her blanched face upon her hands and sat quivering as if with ague. What a terrible fate had been spared her son; but at what a fearful cost!

Lord Cameron alone betrayed no surprise, made no comment, though he still remained as colorless as when Wallace had first revealed his ident.i.ty; while he stood regarding the young man with a sad, pitying look, for he saw that Wallace did not suspect what they yet had to tell him--had not even noticed that they spoke of her in the past tense or that Mrs. Mencke was clad in deep mourning.

There was an oppressive silence in the room for the s.p.a.ce of three or four minutes then Wilhelm Mencke started forward, his phlegmatic nature for once all aflame.

"It is an infernal lie!" he cried, shaking his ma.s.sive fist before Wallace's face; "all an infernal lie, I tell you, made up for the occasion, with the design, perhaps, of claiming her money. But you'll find, my would-be smart young man, that you have tackled the wrong parties this time."

Wallace made no verbal reply to this coa.r.s.e outbreak, but, quietly slipping one hand within a breast-pocket, he drew forth a folded paper, which he opened and held before the man.

"Read," he said, briefly.

With rapidly fading color, with eyes that grew round and wide, with mingled conviction and dismay, Wilhelm Mencke read the marriage certificate, which proved that Wallace Hamilton Richardson and Violet Draper Huntington had been legally united, by a well-known clergyman of Cincinnati, about three weeks previous to the sailing of the young girl for Europe.

The man knew it was the truth, and this conviction was plainly stamped upon his face as he read; but he was so enraged by the fact, and also by the secret fear that Wallace might make him some trouble pecuniarily, that he lost control of his temper and reason.

A coa.r.s.e, angry oath escaped him, and then he cried out, as he grew crimson with pa.s.sion:

"It is a ---- forgery, cleverly executed for the purpose of gaining his own ends."

Lord Cameron colored and drew himself up with dignity, while he remarked, with marked displeasure:

"Mr. Mencke, allow me to request you to refrain from profanity in the presence of my mother."

"Beg pardon, your lordship," said Mencke, looking somewhat abashed, "but I am so upset by this blamed trick that I forgot myself entirely."

"It is no trick, sir--it is the truth," quietly returned Vane Cameron.

"What do you mean, Lord Cameron? How can you know anything about it?"

cried Mrs. Mencke, forgetting, for the moment, her weakness and agitation in her surprise at his positive declaration.

"Violet told me--she confided the fact of her marriage to me," he calmly returned.

"She told you," Wallace cried, his face lighting, his voice dropping to a tender cadence, as he began to realize how true Violet had been to him, in spite of her apparent faithlessness.

"Yes, when I asked her to become my wife," replied his lordship; then he added: "But sit down, Mr. Richardson, and let us freely discuss this matter, so that you can clearly understand it."

Vane rolled forward a comfortable chair for his visitor, a sad deference in his manner, which betrayed how strongly his sympathies were enlisted for the young man, who still had no suspicion of the sad news in store for him. He then seated himself near him and proceeded to relate all that had occurred in connection with his proposed marriage with Violet.

He would not tell him at once that the ceremony had never taken place, for Wallace was still greatly excited, and he felt that his news must be all broken to him gradually, or he would be completely unnerved.

"Evidently you have not learned that Miss Huntington was very ill for several weeks in London," he began.

"No," Wallace said, with a start.

"Yes, she was very sick with brain fever. The attack was caused by reading the notice of your death, and for a month her life was nearly despaired of. When she began to recover, her physician recommended that she be brought to Mentone for a change, and Mrs. Mencke acted immediately upon his advice. Just previous to her illness I had confided my feelings to Mrs. Mencke, and solicited her permission to address her sister. It was freely given, but, of course, I could not avail myself of it while Miss Huntington was so ill, and it was arranged--without her knowledge, I have since learned--that I was to follow her hither when she should have gained somewhat in strength. She had been here about a month when I received word that I might come. A few days later I was granted an interview, during which I confessed my affection and asked her to become my wife.

"She told me frankly at once that she did not love me well enough to marry me, and then, with sudden impulse, asked if she might make a confession--might open her whole heart to me. Of course this request was readily granted, and then she told me of her love for you, Mr.

Richardson; how it had originated, and how, when"--bending a grave look upon Mrs. Mencke as he said this--"sorely pressed and alarmed by the fear of being sent away from home and deprived of her liberty, she had begged you to advise her what to do, and you told her that the only safe-guard that you could throw around her would be to make her your wife----"

"Yes," Wallace here interrupted, "Violet had been threatened with being sent to a convent unless she would promise to cast me off. Such a fate seemed to possess excessive terrors for her, and, being fully convinced that nothing could change our affection for each other, I suggested that we should be privately married, and then, if she was deprived of her liberty, it would be in my power to aid her by claiming her as my wife."

"Yes, that was what she told me in substance," said Lord Cameron. "She stated that you were married, but that you did not propose to claim her, because of the opposition of her friends, until a year or two should elapse and you were in a better position to make a home for her; that you advised her to travel and see all of the world that was possible, while you pursued your profession. Then came your separation, and she made no secret of the unhappiness that this caused her, or of her absorbing affection for you, and she spoke of the intense anxiety that she experienced because she received no letters from you after leaving home."

Surely Lord Cameron, with his usual n.o.ble self-abnegation, was doing all in his power to soothe Wallace's wounded heart and prepare him for the trial before him.

"But I wrote twice every week for more than two months," Wallace here interposed, "without receiving a single letter from her. This fact also we doubtless owe to the sisterly interposition that has been so vigilant and active regarding her welfare," he concluded, bitterly.