The Tree of Knowledge Part 78

"Because, my friend, I am, unlike you, a student of character. Percivale is besottedly in love, and, with his idiotic, romantic notions, would be sure to think he must tell his precious Elsa everything."

"Your inconsistency pains me, Mrs. O. Does this tally with the character of the deliberate adventurer? Surely he would have more prudence."

"Well," said she, after a pause, "if she does not know it now, she could certainly make him tell her, if it were put into her head to ask."

"You would be a bad amba.s.sadress. If there is one person on the face of this earth whom she hates, I imagine it to be yourself."

"Oh! Pooh! Let me have her for an hour, I would be her warmest friend."

He smiled.

"You are sanguine," he answered.

"Osmond, you think I am talking nonsense," she said, impetuously. "I tell you I am not. Will you bet on it? Will you bet me that I don't get an interview with Elsa Percivale, win her over, and extract her husband's secret?"

"Yes, I will. Twelve pairs of gloves--anything you choose. You won't do it. To begin with, is it likely her husband will ever leave her alone?

Besides, I think you are all wrong. I don't believe in any mystery except what is the invention of gossip."

"Very good. We shall see," was the lady's oracular answer. "Remember, it's a bet."

"Certainly. What am I to have if you fail?"

"A couple of boxes of the very best cigars."

"Done."

No more was said, for they were in the very steepest part of the ascent, and even Osmond's breath began to fail.

At last they were at the summit, repaid by a view which more than atoned for past struggle. As they leaned over the terrace, and gazed down, there was nothing beneath their eye but a foaming sheet of white, spray-like blossom and tender green foliage. The whole air was heavy with its fragrance. It was like a fairy sea, and inspired a longing to plunge one's weary limbs into its flowery midst and be at rest. As Osmond gazed around him, a sadness, born of the evening consecration, stole meltingly over his pa.s.sion-twisted heart. The monotonous iterance of a little vesper bell somewhere in the valley, hidden by the orchard bowers, added the finishing touch. Leaning over the parapet, he felt unmanly tears welling up from his heart. All around spoke of peace, and it seemed as though the force of an invisible yet all pervading love flung around him.

"A slow arm of sweet compression felt with beatings at the breast."

Not for long had nature had the power so to move him; not since the fair June day when, in the Devonshire Combe, had first shone on him the eyes of the girl who was to prove his undoing. Remorseful memories swept over him all in a moment. A wholesome sense of failure, not in his worldly career, but morally, weighed down his spirit.

Ottilie, seated on the parapet, with her jewellery and her gorgeous parasol, looked out of place. At the moment it seemed as if he loathed her company, and must leave her.

A great yearning to be at peace, and forgive, flooded his heart. All the springs of sentiment were touched. Perhaps if any spot could lift up the degraded soul, and speak to it intensely of its own high possibilities, that spot is Heidelberg at the blossoming of spring.

A bough of lilac swayed close to his lips. Its surpa.s.sing freshness drifted past him on the breeze. The wallflower in the cleft of the red sandstone wall gave out with odorous sighs the store of warm sunlight which it had imbibed all day. He covered his face with his hands. Had he been alone, he would have fallen on his knees. There, on the bounteous hill-side, was the ruin of a palace--one of those "little systems of this world, which have their day, and cease to be." The kings who had erected it and lived in it, the men who had, may be, broken their hearts there, as he, Osmond, had lately done, were all past and gone, like a dream. But all around the woods were yet green, the fruit-trees blossomed still; and, encircling the decaying works of man, the works of G.o.d took on the semblance of the endless youth of immortality.

No such thought as this took definite shape in Osmond's mind; but the influence spoke all around him in the eloquent silence, teaching him, as G.o.d is apt to teach, without words, by the stress of the unseen upon his soul, felt without being comprehended. He had wandered away from Mrs.

Orton's incongruous presence, and was alone in the most lonely part of the terrace.

Steps on the gravel roused him--low voices. Then the light ripple of a girl's laugh, like a splash of musical water, made him almost leap from his att.i.tude of musing, every fibre of him alive and quivering with a rush of memory.

She stood before him--Elsa Percivale. Inwardly he said over the strange name that was now hers. One hand was in her husband's arm, the other was full of lilac and cherry-blossom. Her shining eyes beamed from beneath the most alluring of large hats. They looked, at that moment, an ideal bride and bridegroom.

Osmond whitened to the very lips as he faced the pair. He had no moment of preparation. Though he had just heard that they were in Heidelberg, the idea of meeting them face to face had not occurred to him very forcibly.

But, after the first moment of confusion, he felt that he could perhaps more easily have achieved such a meeting in this particular spot, than anywhere else in the world. His mood was that of being lifted above disappointment. He raised his hat with a hand that hardly trembled, and then stepped forward with a low word of greeting.

As for Elsa, when she saw who confronted her, the color flew to her face, and she glanced up at Leon's face with a guilty start. He scarcely looked surprised, but advanced with frank courtesy, saying.

"How do you do? What a lovely spot in which to meet."

"It is indeed," said Osmond, wondering at the calm with which he was able to proceed to offer the customary hopes as to the bride's health, and inquire what sort of weather they had had for their honeymoon.

Elsa was in radiant spirits this evening. She was on her way to London--that London which she loved so well. She was travelling, too, from place to place. Almost every night they stopped at a different hotel, and she sunned herself in the admiring glances of fresh _tables-d'hote_. Whatever she expressed a wish for was immediately hers.

Marriage, so far, suited her exactly. Certainly it was rather dull at Schwannberg and Leon had been rather tiresome sometimes, talking in a manner she could not understand. But that was over now; and honeymoons are not, as a rule, of frequent occurrence in one's career.

Whether Percivale was equally satisfied was a problem not yet to be answered. His thoughts were always hard to guess. Osmond could only note afresh every grace of his person and bearing with a bitterness which not even his late musings could take away.

"Are you here alone?" asked Elsa of Osmond, after her first panic; she was so relieved to find that he shook hands like any other mortal, and attempted no denunciations, that she felt quite at ease.

"No," he said, "I am with the Ortons."

"The Ortons!" cried she, with a gesture of dislike, and then she turned her head, and saw Ottilie Orton just behind her.

"I don't wonder at that involuntary expression of opinion, Mrs.

Percivale," said Ottilie, in the soft low tones she could employ when she chose. "I am afraid you will never be able to forgive me for the wrong I did--for the greater wrong I intended to do you."

Ottilie dearly loved a little melodrama, anything approaching a "scene"

was quite in her line. After the above speech she looked imploringly at Elsa, not holding out her hand, yet seeming by her whole att.i.tude and expression, to denote that from one so good and beautiful she dared to hope much.

Elsa looked at her husband, and her husband hesitated. His distrust of the lady was profound, yet he did not wish to be rude.

"You cannot know, how can anyone tell," pleaded she, "what little G.o.dfrey was to me? Ah, you saw only the bad side of his nature, you never knew what he could be to those he loved. I--never," here the rich, expressive voice broke, "I never had a child of my own--he was all I had to love. Cannot you imagine the burning sense of wrong--the feeling that my darling was dead, that some one must and should pay for his death? I was blind--mad! I lost all sense of right. I never thought of you, I only wanted vengeance for my boy."

It was beautifully done. The fervent tones took fresh meaning from the picturesque ruin and the lovely surroundings. Two of her auditors listened eagerly, the third, Osmond, turned away sick with disgust. He knew Mrs. Frederick pretty well by now. He had heard her conversation as they climbed the hill together, he knew that, if she possessed one sensation more prominently than another, it was hatred of the two standing before her. Yet she could speak thus to compa.s.s her own ends.

Almost before he knew what had happened, both the husband and wife had shaken hands with her, and she had seated herself on the parapet, holding Elsa's hand in hers. He stood apart, hearing as in a dream the conversation which Ottilie knew so well how to sustain--hearing her faltering statements of contrition, and her pitiful complaint of sleepless nights, spent in the wonder as to whether chance would ever give her the opportunity to crave that forgiveness which she so sorely needed.

What the influence of the calm, spring sunset had begun, the violent revulsion of feeling completed in Osmond. A stinging contempt for himself, in that he had worse than idled away three months in this woman's society, overcame him. The thought that, in his cowardly desire of revenge, he had well nigh plotted with her the destruction of this young Elsa's golden dream of happiness seemed to strike him like a lash.

No more--no more! A little fount of longing for his despised and deserted home broke over his barren heart. Home, straight home, now. To sever instantly all connection with the Ortons was his one fixed intention.

"The Castle Hotel!" Ottilie was saying, "why, that is ours. We shall meet at the _table-d'hote_ to-night."

CHAPTER LI.

A lady! In the narrow s.p.a.ce Between the husband and the wife!

... She showed a face With dangers rife.

A subtle smile, that dimpling fled As night-black lashes rose and fell.

_The Letter L._