St. Elmo Part 27

Mrs. Murray took up the sheet, glanced at the signature, and said:

"Look at me; don't hide your face, that argues something wrong."

Edna raised her head, and lifted her eyes full of tears to meet the scrutiny from which there was no escape.

"Mr. Manning's signature somewhat rea.s.sures me, and beside, I never knew you to prevaricate or attempt to deceive me. Your habitual truthfulness encourages me to believe you, and I will not insist on reading this letter, though I can not imagine why you should object to it. But, Edna, I am disappointed in you, and in return for the confidence I have always reposed in you, I want you to answer candidly the question I am about to ask. Why did you refuse to marry Gordon Leigh?"

"Because I did not love him."

"Oh, pooh! that seems incredible, for he is handsome and very attractive, and some young ladies show very plainly that they love him, though they have never been requested to do so. There is only one way in which I can account for your refusal, and I wish you to tell me the truth. You are unwilling to marry Gordon because you love somebody else better. Child, whom do you love?"

"No, indeed, no! I like Mr. Leigh as well as any gentleman I know; but I love no one except you and Mr. Hammond."

Mrs. Murray put her hand under the girl's chin, looked at her for some seconds, and sighed heavily.

"Child, I find it difficult to believe you."

"Why, whom do you suppose I could love? Mr. Leigh is certainly more agreeable than anybody else I know."

"But girls sometimes take strange whims in these matters. Do you ever expect to receive a better offer than Mr. Leigh's?"

"As far as fortune is concerned, I presume I never shall have so good an opportunity again. But, Mrs. Murray, I would rather marry a poor man, whom I really loved, and who had to earn his daily bread, than to be Mr. Leigh's wife and own that beautiful house he is building. I know you wish me to accept him, and that you think me very unwise, very short-sighted; but it is a question which I have settled after consulting my conscience and my heart."

"And you give me your word of honor that you love no other gentleman better than Gordon?"

"Yes, Mrs. Murray, I a.s.sure you that I do not."

As the mistress of the house looked down into the girl's beautiful face, and pa.s.sed her hand tenderly over the thick, glossy folds of hair that crowned the pure brow, she wondered if it were possible that her son could ever regard the orphan with affection; and she asked her own heart why she could not willingly receive her as a daughter.

Mrs. Murray believed that she entertained a sincere friendship for Mrs. Inge, and yet she had earnestly endeavored to marry her brother to a girl whom she could not consent to see the wife of her own son.

Verily, when human friendships are a.n.a.lyzed, it seems a mere poetic fiction that--

"Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pa.s.sed in music out of sight."

CHAPTER XVI.

One afternoon, about ten days after the receipt of Mr. Manning's letter, when Edna returned from the parsonage, she found the family a.s.sembled on the front veranda, and saw that the expected visitor had arrived. As Mrs. Murray introduced her to Mr. Allston, the latter rose, advanced a few steps, and held out his hand. Edna was in the act of giving him hers, when the heart-shaped diamond cl.u.s.ter on his finger flashed, and one swift glance at his face and figure made her s.n.a.t.c.h away her hand ere it touched his, and draw back with a half-smothered exclamation.

He bit his lip, looked inquiringly around the circle, smiled, and returning to his seat beside Estelle, resumed the gay conversation in which he had been engaged.

Mrs. Murray was leaning over the iron bal.u.s.trade, twining a wreath of multiflora around one of the fluted columns, and did not witness the brief pantomime; but when she looked around she could not avoid remarking the unwonted pallor and troubled expression of the girl's face.

"What is the matter, child? You look as if you were either ill or dreadfully fatigued."

"I am tired, thank you," was the rather abstracted reply, and she walked into the house and sat down before the open window in the library.

The sun had just gone down behind a fleecy cloud-mountain and kindled a volcano, from whose silver-rimmed crater fiery rays of scarlet shot up, almost to the clear blue zenith; while here and there, through clefts and vapory gorges, the lurid lava light streamed down toward the horizon.

Vacantly her eyes rested on this sky-Hecla, and its splendor pa.s.sed away unheeded, for she was looking far beyond the western gates of day, and saw a pool of blood--a ghastly face turned up to the sky--a coffined corpse strewn with white poppies and rosemary--a wan, dying woman, whose waving hair braided the pillow with gold--a wide, deep grave under the rustling chestnuts, from whose green arches rang the despairing wail of a broken heart:

"Oh, Harry! my husband!"

Imagination travelling into the past, painted two sunny-haired, prattling babes, suddenly smitten with orphanage, and robed in mourning garments for parents whose fond, watchful eyes were closed forever under wild clover and trailing brambles. Absorbed in retrospection of that June day, when she stood by the spring, and watched

"G.o.d make himself an awful rose of dawn,"

she sat with her head resting against the window-facing, and was not aware of Mr. Murray's entrance until his harsh, querulous voice startled her.

"Edna Earl! what apology have you to offer for insulting a relative and guest of mine under my roof?"

"None, sir."

"What! How dare you treat with unparalleled rudeness a visitor, whose claim upon the courtesy and hospitality of this household is certainly more legitimate and easily recognized than that of--"

He stopped and kicked out of his way a stool upon which Edna's feet had been resting. She had risen, and they stood face to face.

"I am waiting to hear the remainder of your sentence, Mr. Murray."

He uttered an oath, and hurled his cigar through the window.

"Why the d--l did you refuse to shake hands with Allston? I intend to know the truth, and it may prove an economy of trouble for you to speak it at once."

"If you demand my reasons, you must not be offended at the plainness of my language. Your cousin is a murderer, and ought to be hung! I could not force myself to touch a hand all smeared with blood."

Mr. Murray leaned down and looked into her eyes.

"You are either delirious or utterly mistaken with reference to the ident.i.ty of the man. Clinton is no more guilty of murder than you are, and I have been led to suppose that you are rather too 'pious'

to attempt the role of Marguerite de Brinvillers or Joanna of Hainault! Cufic lore has turned your brain; 'too much learning hath made thee mad.'"

"No, sir, it is no hallucination; there can be no mistake; it is a horrible, awful fact, which I witnessed, which is burned on my memory, and which will haunt my brain as long as I live. I saw him shoot Mr. Dent, and heard all that pa.s.sed on that dreadful morning.

He is doubly criminal--is as much the murderer of Mrs. Dent as of her husband, for the shock killed her. Oh! that I could forget her look and scream of agony as she fainted over her husband's coffin!"

A puzzled expression crossed Mr. Murray's face; then he muttered:

"Dent? Dent? Ah! yes; that was the name of the man whom Clinton killed in a duel. Pshaw! you have whipped up a syllabub storm in a tea-cup! Allston only took 'satisfaction' for an insult offered publicly by Dent."

His tone was sneering and his lip curled, but a strange pallor crept from chin to temples; and a savage glare in his eyes, and a thickening scowl that bent his brows till they met, told of the brewing of no slight tempest of pa.s.sion.

"I know, sir, that custom, public opinion, sanctions--at least tolerates that relic of barbarous ages--that blot upon Christian civilization which, under the name of 'duelling,' I recognize as a crime, a heinous crime, which I abhor and detest above all other crimes! Sir, I call things by their proper names, stripped of the glozing drapery of conventional usage. You say 'honorable satisfaction'; I say murder! aggravated, unpardonable murder; murder without even the poor palliation of the sudden heat of anger. Cool, deliberate, willful murder, that stabs the happiness of wives and children, and for which it would seem that even the infinite mercy of Almighty G.o.d could scarcely accord forgiveness! Oh! save me from the presence of that man who can derive 'satisfaction' from the reflection that he has laid Henry and Helen Dent in one grave, under the quiet shadow of Lookout, and brought desolation and orphanage to their two innocent, tender darlings! Shake hands with Clinton Allston? I would sooner stretch out my fingers to clasp those of Gardiner, reeking with the blood of his victims, or those of Ravaillac! Ah! well might Dante shudder in painting the chilling horrors of Cama."

The room was dusky with the shadow of coming night; but the fading flush, low in the west, showed St. Elmo's face colorless, rigid, repulsive in its wrathful defiance.

He bent forward, seized her hands, folded them together, and grasping them in both his, crushed them against his breast.

"Ha! I knew that h.e.l.l and heaven were leagued to poison your mind!