Mal Moulee Part 24

"I had a very painful piece of information to impart to Mr. Durand," he began, "and wished to ask his advice on the proper course to pursue. It is, however, a matter so extremely personal and of such a delicate nature, that I hardly know how to broach it to you. Are you--a relative?"

"I am Mr. Durand's nearest friend and confidant. We are very closely related indeed," Helena answered quietly. "Please proceed with what you have to say."

Homer drew a copy of the morning paper from his pocket.

"This paper reports the sudden death of an acquaintance of Mr. Durand,"

he said. "We both knew her abroad; but it seems she has been living in New York under an a.s.sumed name, or at least under the name of Madame Percy. I recognized her this afternoon as I visited her remains in company with another journalist, as the lady who had bestowed most graceful hospitality upon both Mr. Durand and myself, while we were abroad. I feel personally interested in her as a friend, and I am certain, that he also does. Whatever her secrets, or her sorrows, I desire to keep them from the daily papers. I wished the advice and a.s.sistance of Mr. Durand in this matter. The apartments of the deceased lady are left in care of a French maid who cannot speak a word of English. Unless some friend takes charge of her effects, it will be impossible to avoid an exposure of what I fear is a painful history."

"Exposure must be avoided at any cost," cried Helena, her voice choked with tears, her heart torn anew over this additional and unexpected sorrow. "Madame Percy was a dear friend of mine. I know her entire history; it is most sad, most unfortunate, but it must not be given to the public; it must not be discussed by curious people who did not know her as I knew her--to love and to pity."

"It need not be given to the public," Homer Orton answered, firmly. "But you must go at once and take charge of her effects. The knowledge that she has friends in the city will prevent the sensation-seekers from ferreting out her history. You can give the reporters such facts as you choose concerning her life, if they approach you, and I will use my influence to prevent anything unpleasant from creeping into print."

And so, while Percy believed Helena to be sleeping, she performed the last sad rites for the woman who had been her dearest friend and her unintentional foe. With the exception of faithful Lorette, she was the only mourner to shed tears as the beautiful body was lowered to its last resting-place. Tears made more scalding and bitter by the thought of another burial drawing near, where she must officiate in the lasting character of a life-long mourner.

A story which closes with a suicide and a death is not a pleasant story to relate, or to read. Yet we who peruse our daily papers, know that such stories are very true to life.

It is gratifying to me, however, that I need not complete my narrative with a double tragedy.

Percy did not die.

It might have been owing to the mental condition produced by the knowledge that Helena was really his wife, or it might have been due to the skill of his physician; but certain it is, that he recovered--recovered, to realize that he had gained a wife almost by "false pretenses;" and that Dolores was no longer in existence upon the earth where she came an undesired child, and from which she went forth a suffering, desperate woman.

Shocked and almost crazed with the knowledge of this tragedy, Percy called Helena to him, a few hours after she had imparted the sad information.

"I feel like a cheat and a liar," he said; looking mournfully in her eyes, "to think I did not die as I promised. But I shall not offend you with my presence long. As soon as my strength permits I am going abroad, to remain an indefinite time. I feel that I shall never return to my native land; something tells me I shall find a grave among strangers.

Our marriage will, of course, remain a secret with the few who know it now, and need cause you no annoyance."

Percy followed out the course of action he had set for himself, but, as is frequently the case with presentiments of evil, his impression that he was to find a grave among strangers was not verified.

He returned, after two years spent in travel, bronzed and robust, the light of his pure love for Helena shining more warmly than ever in his blue eyes.

It is so easy for a man to live down the errors that a woman (Christ pity her) can only expiate in the grave.

He reached out his arms, when he once more stood face to face with Helena.

"Can you not forgive all that miserable darkened past, and come and brighten the future for me?" he asked, in a voice that was like a caress. "I love you and I need you, Helena."

She looked up into his face, her eyes heavy with unshed tears. The love in her heart triumphed over every preconceived resolve, over every cruel, agonizing memory, as great love always must.

Yet there are triumphs sadder than any defeat: there are joys more painful than any woe. It was such a triumph, and such a joy, that filled Helena's heart as she glided into her lover's embrace.

"Oh, yes, I can forgive it all," she sighed. "Because I love you and because I am a _woman_. I sometimes think, Percy, that G.o.d must be a woman. He is expected to forgive so much."

Into her great heart, as she nestled upon his breast, in this supreme hour of reconciliation and recompense, there shot a keen, agonizing memory of the woman she had displaced; of the woman who had wrecked her whole happiness and lost her life in an unwise love for this man, whose tender, pa.s.sionate words were falling now upon willing ears.

It was a memory which must, to a nature as generous and unselfish as hers, cast a melancholy shadow over the most intense hour of happiness the future could hold for her.

It was a phantom shape, which must sit forever at her feasts of love.

Percy had made to her a complete surrender of his very soul; and she knew that their doubly wedded spirits, like two united streams, would mix and flow on together to the ocean of Eternity. Yet the more perfect her own joy, the deeper into her sympathetic heart must sink the sorrowful memories of Dolores.

Always, as she looked up to him with the worshiping eyes of a loyal wife, and saw in him her hero, her ideal, her protector and her guide, she must remember the young life his thoughtless, selfish folly helped to lay in ruins. All these emotions, robed the joy of that nuptial hour in mourning, as she lifted her sweet, sad face and filmy eyes to his.

And Percy, folding her in his arms, felt all a man's selfish pride, and all a lover's keen rapture in the knowledge that he was pressing the first kiss upon her pure lips, which had ever been placed there since her father's dying benediction fell upon them.

THE END.