Chapter XI: The Shadows Fall

Sibyl St. Alban uttered a dramatic shriek, and rushed forward to meet her host.

“Oh, Talbot, Talbot,” she cried, lifting her humid blue eyes to his face, appealingly, “Your wife has insulted me cruelly! She has been saying the most dreadful things to me. She hates me, she says, and she has called me all sorts of bad names, and----”

But he checked the torrent of complaint by putting her firmly aside, while his dark eyes flashed her a look so stern that she quailed beneath it.

“Sibyl, I have no time to hear your complaints now,” he said, impatiently. “My wife needs me. I must attend to her.”

She threw herself, weeping, upon a silken sofa, and Talbot hastened on to the spot where Nina lay white and motionless, with the veil of her golden hair about her. He was frightened when he saw how white and rigid was the lovely young face.

“It is only a faint,” said Miss Drusilla, “But I wish you would carry her to her room, Talbot.”

“If you will lead the way,” he replied; and the ladies exchanged glances. What a strange husband not even to know where his wife’s room was.

He took the slender young form up tenderly in his strong arms, and followed Miss Drusilla from the room. Mrs. St. Alban sent a long look, full of hatred, after the retreating forms.

“I will be revenged for this,” she muttered, clenching her tiny fist angrily under the silken folds of her dress. “I will not be thrown aside for that impertinent, black-eyed minx! So she saw me with him in the conservatory, did she? Well, I meant that she should. That theatrical scene was intended for her benefit. She is madly jealous; she knows already that he loves me, that he has loved me for years. I intended that she should know it, but she has found it out by Talbot’s bungling, not by my telling. That is best. All is working well for my purpose; all but Talbot himself. How dare he throw me over after all our hopes and plans? But he shall not do it. I will not give him up. I will yet win him for my husband. I love him, and I will not give him up to that disdainful heiress, not if he were hers by even a stronger tie than he is!”

And as she lay there in sullen anger, a diabolical purpose entered her soul.

Dashing the angry tears from her cheeks, she rose and trailed her rich silken robes slowly over the floor to where the two young girls were whispering together.

“Did you ever hear such an ill-bred, unprovoked attack?--and in her own house, too?”--she exclaimed, “I never was so insulted in my life! I shall go back to Baltimore in the morning. If Duke Cameron won’t take me in the yacht, I’ll go on the earliest steamer!”

“I want to go, too,” said Virgie Mason, “somehow I feel mean, although I didn’t dream that I should cause such a scene by my idle curiosity. But, oh, Sib, I love Mrs. Strangemore, and I feel sorry for her. Only fancy her feelings! she saw you--we all saw you--among the flowers, with your arms around Talbot Strangemore and your head on his breast,” and she flashed a look that was almost contempt upon the flaxen haired blonde.

Mrs. St. Alban had the grace to color under the reproachful glance of those pure young eyes, then she crested her head defiantly.

“How could I help it if Talbot Strangemore caught me in his arms and kissed me and cried out that he was wretched in his marriage to that girl?” she said. “He has been in love with me six years, as you all know. I threw him over once for Mr. St. Alban, and since my husband’s death you know he has come back again as loving as ever. I am sorry for the girl, but how can I help Talbot’s loving me so?”

“But indeed, Sibyl, I rather think you encouraged him to flirt with you--didn’t you now?” said frank Virgie.

“Oh, Virgie Mason, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! How can you even hint such a thing? I encourage a married man’s folly and misplaced affection! you know me better than that although you talk to me so! I wish I had never allowed myself to be persuaded to come to this dreadful place!” wept Mrs. St. Alban, hiding her face in her tiny lace handkerchief.

“I thought that you were the first one that proposed coming,” said Helen Starr, rather drily, but the wounded widow was saved the necessity for a reply by the entrance of the gentlemen.

Candid Virgie immediately blurted out the whole story of the scene that had passed. They all looked very grave when they heard it. Talbot’s infatuation for the beautiful widow had long been patent to all, and they had heretofore made a jest of it: Now that they had come to Selwyn Heights and seen the beautiful young neglected wife and heard her indignant plaint the affair suddenly assumed a different aspect.

“We should not have come here at all. It was an unwarrantable intrusion,” said Duke Cameron, who was the prince of good fellows, immensely rich, and as generous as a king to his friends. “I think we must all go away in the morning.”

“That is just what I was saying before you came in,” cried the widow, eagerly, “I have been cruelly insulted by poor Talbot’s wife, and if you all will not go with me, I shall go alone! I do think however, that that girl ought to apologize to me for what she said. I am not to blame for her husband loving me! We were engaged when he was a student at college, and how could I help it if he went on loving me after I threw him over for one whom I liked better than----”

Her torrent of words was interrupted by the sudden entrance of Talbot himself. He came up to them pale, but composed.

“I can guess what you are talking of,” he said, seeing how silent they all suddenly became. “I am very sorry for all that has happened this evening. I hope no one will blame my wife. She is but a child in her innocence and ignorance of the world. I take the blame upon myself. I have neglected her, forgotten her, and acted a dastardly part for which the devotion of my whole future can scarce atone.”

He looked so shamed and contrite that every one was sorry for him but Sibyl, at whom he did not look while he was speaking, for he well knew that his words would make her bitterly angry.

Virgie Mason cried out, impulsively:

“I love your sweet Nina dearly, and I do not blame her one bit! Please tell us if she is any better, Mr. Strangemore?”

“I left her with her maid and my aunt. They think she will soon be better,” he replied, gratefully.