Chapter V: “nothing Can Undo the Folly of Five Years Ago.”

Miss Drusilla Strangemore, Talbot’s aunt, was a tall angular lady in the fifties--a lady who detested men and whose opinion of the sex in general had not been improved by what she called the “shilly-shallying” of her absent nephew.

“Dawdling over Europe these five years and more, leaving his poor little wife at home in this great, lonely house with nothing but me and the servants for company, not but what she thinks more of the black dog Talbot sent her than of the whole of us,” she would mutter to herself. “I say it’s a shame and a sin for him to neglect her so, and she bearing it all so patiently, and never breathing a word of complaint, although he has not even written her a letter for a year and more! I never liked men any how, and I like them less than ever now, seeing how shamefully my nephew has treated the poor little ignorant child, his mother fooled into marrying him just for the sake of the fortune her father left her!”

For this was the way that Mrs. Selwyn’s sister-in-law and the world at large regarded the strange marriage of Talbot and Nina. It was considered in the light of a purely mercenary scheme in which the innocent little heiress had been made the victim of a designing mother and son. But no one, not even the sour old maid, dared hint to the pure young maiden-wife that she had been married for her money. Her trust in her absent husband was too flawless and perfect, her worship too entire and deep to admit of a doubt of him. Most purely and earnestly had she kept her vow that she would give all her life and all her love to him.

And now Miss Strangemore who was leisurely taking a cup of tea and some seed cakes in the cozy privacy of her own chamber was startled by the entrance of a servant who carried upon a salver a masculine looking square white card----she almost dropped the china cup out of her shaking fingers when she read upon it the name of Talbot Strangemore.

“At last!” she exclaimed, in blended sarcasm and surprise, and it was several minutes before she recovered herself sufficiently to tell the negro to apprise Mr. Strangemore that she would be with him directly.

But when she was left alone she dawdled over her tea and cakes, out of pure perversity.

“Why should I hurry myself?” she thought, grimly. “_He_ has not made any haste in coming, certainly; and then, of course, Nina is with him. She went down to the wharf to meet him as she has done every day for years, poor little simpleton! I will give them a little while to bill and coo.”

So Talbot Strangemore waited impatiently in the library almost half an hour before Nina’s grim chateleine appeared before him, stiff and stately in her black silk dress and point lace collar, her cap-border bristling with indignation at “the graceless young scamp,” whom, she said to herself, had perhaps only come home “to get a big slice of his wife’s money, and be off again!”

She was rather surprised when she found him all alone. She said to herself that he had missed meeting Nina after all.

He was not much disheartened at her chill, nonchalant greeting. He knew that his aunt despised men, and that she had never made much exception in his favor.

“Have you seen Nina?” she asked him, brusquely, adding, maliciously: “Not that I suppose you are in any hurry to meet your wife.”

Hardly as she judged him, she was unprepared for his agitated answer. He flung recklessly out of his chair, and began to stride madly up and down the floor, while he said in hoarse, strained accents:

“You are quite right there, Aunt Drusilla. I wish indeed that I had never met her!”

She gazed keenly at the dark, handsome face, and she saw that he was laboring under intense excitement that had been rising to fever heat while he waited for her entrance in the solitude of the dim and quiet library. Before she could answer, he flung himself down again into a chair in front of her, and, lifting his eyes to her face, said, almost pleadingly:

“Tell me, Aunt Drusilla, do you not think with me that this marriage of mine with Nina Selwyn was a cruel and inexcusable outrage?”

Miss Strangemore regarded him in surprise a moment, then she answered, with the perfect frankness which often made her a disagreeable companion to thin-skinned people:

“Yes, indeed, I do consider it an outrage, Talbot, but I did not think you would have the grace to acknowledge it. I never _did_ like your mother, but I could not have believed that she would do such a wicked thing on her death-bed as to take advantage of that helpless child and bind her to you, so that you might get all her money.”

A deep, angry red flashed through the rich, clear bronze of Talbot Strangemore’s face. He tore, furiously, though with a trembling hand, at the drooping ends of his long, silky moustache.

“Aunt Drusilla, for shame’s sake, forbear! How dare you traduce the memory of my angel mother?” he cried, hotly.

She was a little bewildered, but she retorted, curtly:

“You began it yourself, sir, remember. You said it was a cruel and inexcusable outrage, and I agreed with you with all my heart.”

“But, Aunt Drusilla, you misunderstood me,” he replied. “I did not mean to throw a reflection on the memory of my mother. She was a good woman, and she was not envious of Nina’s fortune. She was only solicitous over the child’s future, and anxious to leave her in the care of one whom she knew and trusted. She told me that it was Mr. Selwyn’s cherished wish that Nina should some day become my wife; so I weakly yielded to her wishes, but, oh, what a terrible mistake we all made in the consummation of that ill-starred marriage!” he added, in deep agitation.

Miss Strangemore gave him a scathing glance over the tops of her gold-bowed eye glasses.

“I begin to understand you, Talbot Strangemore,” she said, frigidly. “You do not mean that a wicked and inexcusable outrage was committed on Mr. Selwyn’s daughter in making her your wife, but that you were the one wronged, in being made her husband.”

He flinched when she put the real meaning of his words before him in her cold, matter-of-fact way, and grew crimson again.

“Perhaps I should not have said that,” he answered. “I--I did not mean to put it in such an offensive way. I did not mean to say one word of what I _have_ said; but somehow, sitting here all alone, my nerves were unstrung by my thoughts, and I spoke out what was in my heart. I was a fool for my pains, for nothing can undo the folly of five years ago, least of all mere empty words.”

“I gather from your talk that you regret your marriage. Indeed, I surmised as much long ago, from your shameful neglect of your wife!” said Miss Drusilla, sharply.

“Neglect?” he echoed, a little blankly.

“Yes,” she replied, “Have you not stayed away from her five long years?”

“I know that,” he replied. “But I did not intend it for neglect. It was originally planned that I should stay three years, you know, and--somehow--they lengthened into five. I will tell you the truth, Aunt Drusilla. There were reasons why I could not bear to come. But, after all, you cannot call it neglect, for Nina was only a child--too young to be my wife yet, only in name.”

“Too young--she is in her nineteenth year,” said the old maid, tartly. “And let me tell you, young man, your mother was a married woman and you were born before she was as old as Nina is now!”

He gave a gasp as if she had thrown cold water over him.

“Nina in her nineteenth year!” he exclaimed, “she is a woman then, how strange it seems! Do you know, Aunt Drusilla, that I have gone on all these years thinking of Nina just as the child I left behind me!”

“She is greatly altered. You would not know her again,” said Miss Strangemore, thinking of the many charms of beautiful Nina.

But her nephew only groaned:

“So much the worse. I used to like the child quite well. Perhaps it may be different now!”

“You might wait until you see her before you make up your mind at least,” his aunt said, with a curling lip.

The handsome young fellow looked at her, gloomily.

“Aunt Drusilla, you despise me,” he said, abruptly.

“I despise men in general, and I see no reason to make an exception in your favor,” snapped the maiden lady, scornfully.

“And yet I am not a bad fellow as men go,” said Talbot Strangemore, self-excusingly. “Aunt Drusilla, I am going to tell you the truth now before I meet Nina, and then we will never speak of it again. Somehow I think I shall feel better if I confess to someone.”

“I can guess your secret. It is an entanglement with some woman or other,” she said.

“Not an entanglement,” he said, with dignity. “I am not that kind of a man, Aunt Drusilla, but it is that my whole heart is so irrevocably given to another woman that the bare thought of taking Nina to my arms thrills me with dread and repulsion. I have fought many a battle with my heart, tried bravely to cast out the passion within me that is an insult to the girl who is my wife, but I have ignobly failed in every effort, and now having torn myself away from my idol, I have brought only a broken heart to lay in Nina’s shrine.”

He went on then to tell her his whole sad story, and neither of them dreamed of the white-faced girl in the next room, who had stolen in quietly just to catch the sound of her idol’s voice, and who had thus heard in horror and amazement the tale of his love for another and his repugnance to herself.

She went away presently very quietly to her own room with a face from which all the beauty and brightness had suddenly been stricken as a flower is blighted by the frost of a night, leaving her pale and wild-eyed and forlorn.

She locked herself into the room and stood up white and agonized, looking her fate in the face.

“How dared she take him from me, that beautiful woman?” she muttered, bitterly, twisting her white hands in and out in anguish. “He belongs to me always, and I to him! Mamma told me so on her dying bed, and she would not have told me a falsehood. I shall go and see that woman and I shall tell her that she is a criminal before high heaven, for she has robbed me of my husband, and ruined all my life. What do they do with such women I wonder? Is there any punishment for a woman that steals the heart of another woman’s husband? If there is, I will find it out and punish her for her sin!”