Zula Part 59

"You were very kind to overlook our misfortunes."

"Oh, no, do not call me kind; I acted only from a sense of duty, and because I pitied her."

"You knew how deeply she had sinned?"

"Yes."

"G.o.d knows I tried to save her, and if I did not my duty it was for lack of judgment, not charity."

Scott knit his brow, and pa.s.sed his hand in an absent sort of a way through his auburn locks.

"That voice," he said, "where have I heard it?"

"I cannot tell you."

"I must have seen you; I am sure I have heard that voice. Oh, I remember, you saved the life of an old woman, who would have been trampled to death by a span of fractious horses. Do you not remember it?"

"Yes, but how do you know that I was the one?"

"I was told that it was Miss Elsworth, the auth.o.r.ess."

"I remember; you are the gentleman who came to my rescue. I never forget a face I have once seen."

"You are fortunate, as a retentive memory is often very useful."

"I have found it so in many cases, for my acquaintance has been so brief with very many whom I have met that I might have forgotten my old friends had not their faces been stamped upon my memory."

"Your home is not in the city, I believe."

"My home is anywhere. For a quiet place, in which to do my work I made a home of an old, almost ruined house at Roxbury, but there has been such a sad scene enacted there that I am glad to leave the place."

"A death?"

"Yes, two at the same hour."

"Ah."

"Yes," she said, raising her beautiful eyes to Scott's face, "a victim of too much love. Bessie Graves, a beautiful, innocent, confiding girl, the pet of the house, made a hopeless maniac, and a suicide, by the false pretense of Max Brunswick's love."

Scott started, and his compressed lips betrayed the storm within.

"That villain again," he said, "where is he now?"

"Be patient, and I will tell you. I am sorry to bring him again to your mind, but it is right that you should know the end. He is dead."

"Dead!"

"Yes; died as he lived; murdered by the hand of the girl he had betrayed. They are lying side by side near the home of her childhood."

Scott looked thoughtfully down at the grave of his wife. There was a hungry look in his eyes, as he raised them, again to Miss Elsworth's face.

"Poor girl," he said.

"Mr. Wilmer, I am sorry, very sorry, that your life has been so clouded," said Miss Elsworth, "but if you can bury the past it will be so much better for you. You have your mother and a lovely sister, and wealth to satisfy every desire."

"Yes, and a cloud above me that can never be lifted until the bright morning shall come, that will shed light on every sorrowing heart. You do not know, you never can know how some souls are hungering."

"Ah," she said, "I have not even the love of a mother and sister to cheer me, as I traverse life's path. There is a skeleton in the closet of every home, and mine will step out and mock me with its hideous form even though I doubly bar the door."

"A skeleton in your home, Miss Elsworth; have you no friends or relatives?"

"I am all alone. I never knew a mother's love or a sister's."

"Then why mourn the loss of that which you never possessed?"

"Ah, Mr. Wilmer, it is the skeleton that still lives that is throwing its shadow across my path. Had I a mother's companionship the shadow might seem less."

"Yes, but a woman possessing your talents and the name you have won should be happy."

She smiled sadly.

"I try to be happy and I make myself believe that I am. I do not allow the skeleton to crowd out every other thought and duty; only at times it stands before me ere I am aware of its presence, and then my heart cries out because I know that it will follow me to the end of life."

Scott wondered, but he did not ask what her sorrow could be. He looked at the lovely face before him; he noticed the beautiful tint of the rich complexion; the crimson lips and the dreamy black eyes shaded by their curling lashes, and he was lost in admiration.

"Miss Elsworth," he said, "I wish you could know my mother and sister."

"I have promised Mr. Horton that I would try to know his wife, but I have had so much work to attend to of late that I have neither made nor received calls; indeed I seldom find time for that pleasure at all."

"Some ladies find time for little else," said Scott, smiling.

"Yes, some live for pleasure; my life is made up of work."

"How much better it would be if the idlers in the world were compelled to bear a part of the labor."

"It is no doubt right as it is, but yet the world makes one doubt their best friends, and when one is deceived, and cruelly wronged, it is so hard to know who is true, so we are apt to overlook the good qualities of many and cla.s.s them all as selfish. How the time pa.s.ses,"

she said, glancing at her watch. "I have already remained too long.

Good bye," giving him her hand. "Please tender my regards to your mother and sister."

He held her hand a moment. There was a magnetism in the touch that almost frightened him. He would not allow the power of a woman's fascination to overcome him.

"Good bye, Miss Elsworth," he said.

She had taken but a step when he again spoke her name. There was a charm about her that he could not resist, and he asked:

"Will you not allow me the pleasure of calling on you?"

"Yes, when I am more at leisure."