The Tiger Lily Part 22

Then he stood looking at his visitor wonderingly, as, with her lips now white as if all the blood within them had fled to her heart, she said firmly--

"And the Conte?"

"Is a man of fashion--a dog--a scoundrel whom I could crush beneath my heel."

"Cornel," cried her brother firmly, "you have heard enough: you shall not degrade yourself by listening to these wretched details."

"Yes, I have heard enough," she said firmly; but she did not stir, only stood with her brows knit, gazing straight before her.

"Then now you will come back to the hotel," cried the doctor eagerly.

"No: not yet," she said, drawing herself up.

"Not yet?" cried Thorpe, in wonder at the firmness and determination she displayed.

"Not yet: I am going to see Armstrong Dale."

"No," cried Pacey excitedly. "You must not do that. I will see him and tell him you are here. It may bring him to his senses, and he will come to you."

Cornel turned to him, smiling sadly.

"You tell me that he is slipping away into the gulf, and when I would go to hold out my hands to save him, you say, `Wait, and he will come to you!'"

"At any rate you cannot go," cried Thorpe.

"Armstrong Dale is my affianced husband, and at heart, in his weakness and despair, he calls to me for help. I am going to him now."

"And G.o.d speed your work!" cried Pacey excitedly, "for if ever angel came to help man in his sorest need, it is now."

The next minute, without a word, Cornel Thorpe was walking alone down the old staircase to the street, while Pacey and her brother followed, as if they were in a dream.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

ANOTHER'S LOVE.

Four days had pa.s.sed, and Armstrong had not left his place, but waited, hoping against hope, and at last sinking into a wild state of despair.

"I must have been mad," he said again and again. "One false step leads to another, and I am going downward rapidly enough now."

He smiled bitterly as he sat with his head resting upon his hand, feeling that he had driven his beautiful model away for ever, and vainly asking himself how it could be that so mad a pa.s.sion had sprung up within him for a woman whose face he had never seen.

Then all at once he sprang to his feet, with his eyes flashing as he listened eagerly, and then a strange look of triumph began to glow in his countenance. "I must be more guarded," he said to himself, "or she will take flight again:" and catching up palette and brush, he made a pretence of painting as he waited with his back to the door for the entrance of her whose step was heard ascending the stairs in company with Keren-Happuch. Then he heard the girl's voice, and his heart sank like lead in doubt, for he felt that the model would have come up without being shown.

But the next moment he was full of hope as the door was opened, closed, and he heard the familiar rustle of the drapery, and the step across the floor.

He did not turn, but stood there with his heart beating violently, and a wild desire bidding him turn round quickly and s.n.a.t.c.h the veil from his models face. He was a coward, he told himself, not to have done so before. What did her anger matter? Had she not come back--penitent-- friendly--

His heart gave a great leap.

--Loving, for she laid her hand upon his shoulder, and he turned round with a smile of triumph, to drop palette and brushes and turn white as ashes.

"Cornel!"

"Yes, Armstrong. The world grows very small now. You wanted me, and I am here."

"I--I wanted you?" he faltered, as she took a step or two back, and then stood gazing at him wistfully, with her hands clasped before her, and a look of love, pity, and despair in her eyes that stung him through and through.

"Yes, Armstrong, I heard that you were in great peril. We were children together. Armstrong--you wanted help--and--I have come."

He sank into the nearest chair with a groan, and she advanced slowly and stood close to him.

"I have felt for weeks that there was something: your letters were so different. Then they became fewer; then they ceased. But I said you were busy, and I waited so patiently, Armstrong, till that message came."

"What message?" he cried hoa.r.s.ely.

"That which told me I ought to join Michael, and help you in this time of need."

"Who--who wrote to you?" he cried.

"There is no need to hide his name. Your dearest friend, Mr. Pacey."

"The wretched meddler!"

"The true, honest gentleman you have always said he was, Armstrong. I have come from him now."

"The cowardly hound!" muttered Dale.

"No; your truest and best friend. He wrote to me for your sake and mine, Armstrong, and I have come."

"What for?--to treat me with scorn and contempt?" he cried angrily, s.n.a.t.c.hing at a chance to speak; "to tell me that all is over between us?

Why have you not brought your brother with you, to horsewhip me and add his insults to your upbraidings?"

"Michael is here,"--Dale started, and looked with a coward's glance at the door--"he is in London, but it was not his duty to come to the man who is my betrothed. I came alone to ask you--if it is all true?"

He drew a hoa.r.s.e breath, and then forced himself to speak brutally, to hide the shame and agony he felt.

"Yes," he said roughly; "it is all true."

She winced as if he had struck her, and there was silence for a few moments before she spoke again, and then in a curiously changed voice, from her agony of heart.

"No, no," she whispered at last; "it cannot be true. It is a strange dream. I cannot--I will not believe it."

He strove again and again to speak, but no words would come. He tried to speak gently and ask her to forgive him, but in vain; and at last, even more brutally than before, he cried--

"I tell you it is true! If you knew all this, how could you come?"

There was a pause before Cornel spoke again, and then she drew herself up with an imperious gesture, and her words came firmly and full of defiance of the world.

"I came because I heard the man I loved was beaten down and wounded in the fight of life, and I said--`What is it to me?--he loved me very dearly, and if he has been met by a strange temptation, and has fallen, my place is there. I will go to him, and remind him of the past, and point out again the forward way.' Armstrong, that is why I have come."