One Day Part 26

"Oh, but she is! Fancy loving a cow!"

Opal's heart grew heavy with a great pity for this poor, unfortunate royal lady who was to be Paul's wife--the mother of his children--but never, never his Love!

"But, Paul, you'll be good to her, won't you? I know you will! You couldn't be unkind to any living thing."

And she ran into his arms, and clasped his neck tight! And the poor Princess Elodie was again forgotten!

"You--Opal--are my real wife," Paul a.s.sured her, "the one love of my soul, the mate the G.o.ds have formed for me--my own forever!"

Opal wept for pity of him, and for herself, but she faced the future bravely. She would always be his guiding star, to beckon him upward!

"And, Opal, my darling," Paul went on, "I promise you to live henceforth a life of which you shall be proud. I will be brave and true and n.o.ble and great and pure--to prove my grat.i.tude to the G.o.ds for giving me this one day--for giving me you, dearest--and your love--your wonderful love!

I _will_ be worthy, dear--I will! I'll be your knight--your Launcelot--and you shall be my Guenevere! I will always wear your colors in my heart, dear--the red-brown of your hair, the glorious hazel of your eyes, the flush of your soft cheek, the rose of your sweet lips, the virgin whiteness of your soul!"

Opal looked at him with eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with pride. Young as he was, he was indeed every inch a king.

And she had crowned him king of her heart and soul and life before she had known! Oh, the wonder of it!--the strange, sweet wonder of it! _He_, who might have loved and mated where he would, had chosen her to be his love! She could not realize it. It was almost beyond belief, she thought, that she--plain little Opal Ledoux--could stir such a nature as his to such a depth as she knew she had stirred it.

Ah, the G.o.ds had been good to her! They had sent her the Prince Charming, and he had wakened her with his kiss--that first kiss--how well she remembered it--and how utterly she belonged to him!

Then she remembered that, however much they tried to deceive themselves, there was a to-morrow--a to-morrow that would surely come--a to-morrow in which they would not belong to each other at all. He would belong to the world. She would belong to a--

She sprang up at the recollection, and drew the curtains of the window closer together.

"We will shut out the cold, inquisitive, prying old world," she said.

"It shall not look, shall not listen! It is a hard, cruel world, my Paul. It would say that I must not put my arms around your neck--like this--must not lay my cheek against yours--so--must not let my heart feel the wild throbbing of yours--and why? Because I do not wear your ring, Paul--that's all!"

She held up her white hand for his inspection, and surveyed it critically.

"See, Paul--there is no glittering, golden fetter to hold me to you with the power of an iron band, and so I must not--let you hold me to you at all"

They both laughed merrily, and then Paul, pulling her down on his knee and holding her face against his own, whispered, "What care we for the old world? It is as sad and mad and bad as we are--if we only knew! And who knows how much worse? It has petty bickerings, d.a.m.ning lies of spite and malice, trickery and thievery and corruption on its conscience. Let the little people of the world prate of their little things! We are free, dearest--and we defy it, don't we? Our ideals are never lost. And ideals are the life of love. Is love--a love like ours--a murderer of life?"

"Sometimes, Paul--sometimes! I fear it--I do fear it!"

"Never fear, Opal, my beloved! You need not fear anything--anywhere! I will stand between you and the world, dear--between you and h.e.l.l itself!

My G.o.d, girl, how I love you! Opal! My Opal! My heart aches with the immensity of it! Come, my love, my queen, my treasure, come! We have not many more hours to--live! And I want you close, close--all mine! Ah, Opal, we are masters of life and death! All earth, all heaven, and--h.e.l.l itself, cannot take you from me now!"

Oh, if scone moments in life could only be eternal!

CHAPTER XXVII

And the day--died!

The sun sank beneath the western horizon; the moon cast her silvery sheen over the weary world; the twinkling stars appeared in the jewelled diadem of night; and the silence of evening settled over mountain and lake and swaying tree, while the two who had dared all things for the sake of this one day, looked into each other's eyes now with a sudden realization of the end.

They had not allowed themselves once to think of the hour of separation.

And now it was upon them! And they were not ready to part.

"How do people say good-by forever, Paul?--people who love as we love?

How do they say it, dear? Tell me!"

"But it is not forever, Opal. Don't you know that you will always be part of my life--my soul-life, which is the only true one--its sanctifying inspiration? You must not forget that--never, never!"

"No, I won't forget it, my King!" She delighted in giving him his t.i.tle now. "That satisfaction I will hold to as long as I live!"

"But, Opal, am I never to see you?--never? Surely we may meet sometimes--rarely, of course, at long intervals, when life grows gray and gloomy, and I am starving for one ray of the sunshine of your smile?"

"It would be dangerous, Paul, for both of us!"

"But the world is only a little place after all, beloved. We shall be thrown together again by Fate--as we have been this time."

Then she smiled at him archly. "Ah, Paul, I know you so well! Your eyes are saying that you will often manage to see me 'by chance'--but you must not, dear, you must not"

"Girl, I can never forget one word you have uttered, one caress you have given--one tone of your voice--one smile of your lips--one glance of your eye--never, never in G.o.d's world!"

"Hold me closer, Paul, and teach me to be brave!"

They clung together in an agony too poignant for words, too mighty for tears! And of the unutterable madness and anguish of those last bitter kisses of farewell, no mortal pen can write!

But theirs had been from the beginning a mad love--a mad, hopeless, fatal love--and it could bring neither of them happiness nor peace--nothing but the bitterness of eternal regret!

And thus the day--their one day of life--came to an end!

That evening, from the hotel at Lucerne, two telegrams flashed over the wires. One was addressed to the Count de Roannes, Paris, and read as follows:

"_Shall reach Paris Monday afternoon.--Opal._"

The other was addressed to Sir Paul Verdayne, at Venice, and was not signed at all, saying simply,

"_A son awaits his father in Lucerne_."

CHAPTER XXVIII

That night a sudden storm swept across Lucerne.

The thunder crashed like the boom of a thousand cannon; like menacing blades the lightning flashed its tongues of savage flame; the winds raved in relentless fury, rocking the giant trees like straws in the majesty of their wrath. Madness reigned in undisputed sovereignty, and the earth cowered and trembled beneath the anger of the threatening heavens.