Chapter VII: Part 7

There was only one hope that she could see, and that was wild and irrational; the hope Paul had himself suggested. If that prediction could be fulfilled! Elizabeth shuddered. It was terrible to think of such a thing; terrible to obtain one's own happiness at the cost of another person's life. She did not really wish Paul dead--that would be wicked. And yet--and yet--the thought pressed irresistibly upon her--if it had to be!--if it had to be! What a blessed relief--what an end to all this misery! "Oh, I do wish it, I do wish it!" she broke out, speaking aloud, unconsciously. "I would give anything in this world to hear of his death."

She stopped, startled at the sound of her own voice. The wish shocked her, even in the moment of expressing it. Her wishes were so often fulfilled--she had an almost superstitious faith in their efficacy. If this one were fulfilled, what then?--For a moment she, thinking it over, balanced possibilities; and then with a stifled cry, fell on her knees and hid her face in her hands.

"Oh, I'm growing so wicked," she sobbed out. "It's because I'm so miserable. Only let me have what I want, and I'll be different; I'll be the kind of woman that he admires; only--I must find a way, I must have what I want--_first_."

_Chapter XXIV_

The next day dawned clear and bright; a beautiful morning in early spring after a night of storm. Upon Elizabeth's spirits as she dressed the weather produced the illogical effect that it does upon most of us. Reviewed by daylight, the situation seemed to her many degrees less desperate. The night before, there had seemed to her only one way out, and that a tragical one; but now there were--there must be--a hundred ways, if only she could gain the time to think of them.

The first thing was to obtain the money; but this in itself was no easy matter. She had promised it to Paul as if it were a mere trifle; yet, as a matter of fact, she was as badly off herself at the time as was to be expected of a young woman who had gone out a great deal, and established and lived up to an expensive reputation for being always well and appropriately gowned.

She reviewed her resources. Mrs. Bobby would have lent her the money at once and asked no questions; but from this course Elizabeth's pride shrank uncontrollably. She preferred to take a sum she had just laid aside to satisfy to some extent the claims of a long-suffering and complaisant dressmaker; but even with this sacrifice determined on, she was still far short of the amount required. She took out, in desperation, her various jewels and trinkets, and looked them over, wondering how much they were worth. There were many pretty things her aunts had given her, none of them probably of any great intrinsic value, and there were the beautiful gifts that Mrs. Bobby had showered upon her; and, finally, there was the string of pearls which she always wore about her neck, one of the few heirlooms which old Madam Van Vorst had once kept under lock and key, and which her daughters had of course made over to Elizabeth. The girl stood now hesitating with the pearls in her hand. She had worn them to every ball that winter, she was wont to say, with her half-joking, half-real touch of superstition, that they brought her luck; as if, with their possession, something of the spirit of that proud beauty of a by-gone day had entered into her, enabling her to conquer the world in which the older woman had been naturally at home. Would the power leave her with the pearls? The fantastic thought lingered for a moment, and then impatiently she thrust it aside, and put the precious heirloom in with the rest of her possessions, which she had resolved to sacrifice. It was not a moment when she could afford to dally with sentiment.

Yet what a strange, disreputable proceeding it seemed! She was haunted with a vague sense of losing caste, as she took her trinkets to one of the smaller jewelry-shops, and faltered out her improbable tale of their being unbecoming and of no use to her. The jeweler, well used to the straits of fashionable young women, listened without a smile, and offered her on the whole a fair price, though it was much less than she expected. There was nothing that she was not obliged to part with--from the jeweled watch which Mrs. Bobby had given her at Christmas, to the pearls, which proved to be the most valuable of all. When she left the shop she had deprived herself of all her ornaments, but she held the necessary bribe in her hand, and as the simplest way of conveying it to Halleck, she got on a cable car and went up at once to his studio at Carnegie. There was nothing startling in the proceeding, for he had now a number of pupils, who came to him at his studio; and though the girls whom Elizabeth knew always brought their maids, or a chaperone of some sort, she was not in the mood to waste much thought on conventionalities. Her one idea was to fulfil her share of the bargain before he should, perchance, have repented of his, and she did not think of the chance of meeting any one. Her own affairs had reached a crisis which blinded her to the fact that to other people, the world was progressing peacefully, in the usual order of events.

This dream-like state of indifference to all but the one anxiety continued till she reached Carnegie and was borne up in the elevator to Paul's studio, which was directly opposite to Mr. D'Hauteville's. And here, for the first time, she paused, seized by a sudden panic. From behind the closed curtain at the end of the small vestibule, there came the sound of a woman's voice, strained, nasal, raised high in what seemed a tirade of denunciation. To Elizabeth's mind, as she heard it, there arose an involuntary recollection of Bassett Mills, and of the gaudy little parlor behind her aunt's shop, and some bitter words directed against herself, in what seemed a past period of her history. She stood hesitating, terrified; then the curtain was pushed aside, and a woman came out. It was her cousin Amanda. Her face was white and set, her eyes blazing. She stared at Elizabeth for a moment as if dazed, then brushed past her without a word.

Paul stood on the threshold, a picturesque object in his velveteen coat and turned-down collar, against the artistic background of the luxuriously-furnished studio. He looked flushed, annoyed; the scene which had just taken place had evidently been a trying one. But when he saw Elizabeth standing doubtful in the hall, his face cleared and he came forward to greet her with effusion.

"Darling, how good of you to come here!" He evidently hailed the visit as an overture towards reconciliation. She hastened to disabuse him.

"It was the easiest way to bring this," she said, handing him the package which she had clasped nervously all the way up. "Will you be kind enough, please, to count it and see if it is all right?" It was impossible to speak with more icy brevity, or to impart to any proceeding a more severely business-like air.

He flushed uncomfortably, but did not allow his vexation to interfere with the evident necessity of counting the money. "It is all right," he said, biting his lips, as he put down the last roll of bills. "Do you wish me to give you a receipt?" he asked, with fine sarcasm.

"No," said Elizabeth, gravely. "I rely on your word."

Paul bowed. "Thank you," he said. "And now--is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Nothing," said Elizabeth, briefly, "except what you know already. And now, I must go." She moved towards the door, but he placed himself in her way.

"Come, come, Elizabeth," he said. "I'm not going to let you go like that--the first time you make me a visit. Give me a kiss now, just to show that you don't bear malice."

Elizabeth's only reply was a look of ineffable haughtiness. "Will you let me pass, please?" she said, in a low tone of concentrated wrath, and with an uneasy laugh, he obeyed her.

"What a virago you are!" he said, "almost as bad as your cousin Amanda. It must be the hair," he added, with a sneer, but Elizabeth did not pause to reply. Anxious only to escape, she closed the studio door hastily behind her, and a moment later the elevator bore her swiftly down, and she regained the street, with the feeling of having staved off misfortune, for the moment at least.

She found, when she got home, a note from Gerard, informing her that he had been unexpectedly called out of town for a few days on business, but hoped to see her on his return. There were the flowers, too, which he sent her daily. He had no intention, evidently, of taking her answer of the day before as final. She realized this, with a thrill that held in it more of pleasure than alarm. Still, she was glad that he was out of town. His absence was a reprieve, giving her more of the time she wanted, though it is hard to say what she expected to gain by it. But very little often sufficed to restore Elizabeth's spirits. She was going out to dinner that evening, and she dressed for it with a mind that was comparatively at ease.

But poor Elizabeth's moments of tranquillity just then were short. She was nearly dressed when Celeste entered with the information that a young person had called to see Mademoiselle, who insisted upon seeing her at once. "I told her that Mademoiselle is dressing," said the maid, with expressive gestures; "that she has an engagement, it is most important, but--but she is a most determined young person, she insists that I bring up a message at once."

"It is Amanda, of course," thought Elizabeth, with a terrible sinking of the heart. She had forgotten, until that moment, the meeting in the studio. She glanced at the clock. "I have fifteen minutes, Celeste," she said. "Show her up. She may want to see me about something important." The maid departed, and Elizabeth bent down nervously to sort out gloves and handkerchief, wondering as she did now at each unexpected incident, what danger it might portend.

"I thought," said Amanda, "I might come up--seeing we're first cousins." She stood in the door-way, her eyes roaming about the room, taking in every detail--the soft prevailing harmonies of pale blue and rose, the firelight flickering on the tiled hearth, the shining silver ornaments on the dressing-table, the profusion of bric-à-brac, of cotillion favors, the roses in the china bowl, the general air of luxury--all a fit setting to the proud young beauty, standing before the mirror in her shimmering white satin and laces.

"My, but you look fine!" said Amanda, under her breath. A slightly awed expression crossed her face, modifying the assurance of her entrance. "You're going out?" she asked, looking almost ready to retreat.

"To dinner--yes; but not just yet. Won't you sit down, Amanda?" Elizabeth said, trying to speak easily. "I--I'm glad to see you. How is Aunt Rebecca, and--every one at Bassett Mills?"

Amanda sat down, her eyes still wandering eagerly around the room. Elizabeth, looking at her, saw the unfavorable change that a few months had made. True, she was smartly dressed, with the cheap, tawdry smartness that can be bought ready-made at the shops, and her hat was tilted carefully at the fashionable angle; her hair, growing low about her forehead, had still the pretty, natural wave to it, which was a legacy from the fever, and the general effect at a first glance was striking. But the face, under the jaunty, be-feathered hat, was white and haggard, the eyes had a wild restless look, there were hard, vindictive lines about the mouth. Her hands moved incessantly, plucking at the fringe on her gown.

"Glad? Well, I guess you're not very glad to see me," she said, with a strange, mocking smile, ignoring the latter part of Elizabeth's speech. "There never was much love lost between us, and now--but still I thought I'd pay you a visit. I'm staying with Uncle Ben's folks, and they told me I ought to look up my swell cousin--since you were so sure to want to see me"--she gave a short, jarring laugh. "That stuck-up maid wouldn't believe me--thought I was crazy, when I said we were first cousins. I don't see why--I'm sure I don't look so--so different as all that." Her voice sank into rather a wistful key, and she stole a glance at the long pier-glass that stood opposite her. "I got my suit at a bargain sale," she said. "The girls said it was--real stylish."

"It's very pretty," said Elizabeth, gently. She glanced at Amanda with a sudden pity that overpowered her first annoyance and alarm at the inopportune visit. What had brought her to town? Some vague, irrational hope of winning back Paul's admiration, perhaps, with this gown that was "real stylish," and the new hat, and the general, tawdry attempt at smartness. It was that, probably, which had taken her to the studio, and no doubt Paul had been disgusted with this attempt to revive an old flirtation, and in his irritation, had convinced her somewhat rudely of his indifference. Poor Amanda! Really she had not seemed quite right in the head since the fever.

"Were you surprised to see me this morning?" said Amanda, watching her and seeming to read her thoughts. "I went to call on another old friend, and--I wasn't welcome"--she gave another jarring laugh, which ended this time in a sob. "He--he didn't seem glad to see me, considering how well he used to know me--once." Her voice broke piteously, she paused for a moment, and then: "I hate him, I hate him!" she broke out, fiercely. "I'd give anything in this world if I'd never known him."

"So would I," said Elizabeth, low and bitterly, and then stopped, frightened at what she had said. But Amanda showed no surprise.

"Ah, you think that now," she said, slowly, "but you didn't use to. You've got so many rich beaux now that you don't care about him any longer. But I wonder what they'd think--these rich beaux of yours--if they knew how wild you used to be about him, how you went wandering about the country with him, if they knew"--Amanda leaned forward and spoke in an impressive whisper--"if they knew that you have to do what he wants now, that you're afraid of him."

There was a silence. Elizabeth, faint and giddy, sank into the nearest chair, and put up involuntarily her hand to her heart. So here was another danger threatening, another person who knew something--everything, perhaps? Her brain reeled. Amanda leaned back in her chair, watching her triumphantly, a hard, bright glitter in her eyes.

"Amanda!" Elizabeth's white lips tried in vain to frame a coherent question. "Amanda,"--she made another attempt--"what do you mean?"

Amanda smiled contemptuously. "Oh, you know well enough what I mean," she said. "Why did you go there this morning when you don't care for him any more, and are sorry you ever knew him, unless you're afraid of him, and have to do what he wants?"

"Oh, is that all?" Elizabeth drew a long sigh of relief. "I went there this morning because--because I wanted to meet a friend"--she broke off in confusion before the look on Amanda's face. Then, with a sudden reaction of feeling, she raised her head haughtily. "It doesn't matter," she said, "_what_ I went there for. It's a--a studio; all his pupils go there. I might have wanted to see him about singing-lessons, about anything.--If that is all you base your suspicions on, Amanda"----She stopped.

"Ah, but if it isn't?" said Amanda, in her impressive whisper, which seemed fraught with a mysterious consciousness of power.

Another silence. The defiant look on Elizabeth's face faded; she leaned back in her chair and half closed her eyes. Ah, she was weary, deathly weary, of these constant nervous shocks. How much did Amanda know--how much? If she could only be sure!

"I think they'd be rather surprised," Amanda went on, in unnaturally quiet tones, "these swell friends of yours, if they knew all about you. They think you very sweet, they give you lots of things"--Amanda's hard, restless eyes roamed again about the room and rested on Elizabeth's beautiful gown. "It don't seem fair," she broke out, suddenly, with a fierce little sob; "it don't seem fair, that you should have so much--and then to be so pretty too, as well as all the rest!"

She was silent for a moment, struggling with the tears that threatened to break forth, and Elizabeth began to breathe more freely. All this bluster, after all, these vague threats, seemed to resolve themselves into the old, unreasoning, powerless jealousy--nothing more. And with the relief came again the sense of pity, of a certain justice in Amanda's point of view.

"It isn't fair," she said, softly. "I don't deserve it, but"----

"Well, fair or not, I guess it don't make much difference," Amanda interrupted her, drearily, rising to her feet. "You've always had the best of me, and probably, you always will. But, if ever you don't"----She broke off suddenly and moved towards the door. "I guess I'd better be going," she said. "You'll be late for your dinner. Only, before you go"--she paused with her hand on the knob of the door, that hard, mocking glitter in her eyes--"before you go, just put on some of your jewelry, won't you? Seems to me you look sort of bare without it."

"My--my jewelry?" Elizabeth's heart, which had been beating more quietly, suddenly stood still. "I--I don't wear jewelry, Amanda," she said, in a dull, toneless voice.

"What, not your pearls?" Amanda's hard, mocking eyes seemed to read her through and through. "Your pearls you were so proud of in the country, that you said you'd always wear. Seems to me you need them--with that fine dress!"

She stood hovering by the door, a weird figure in the exaggerated smartness of her attire, with her white face framed in the deep red hair, and that strange, uncanny smile gleaming across it, lighting it up into an elf-like suggestion of mysterious power. Elizabeth stared at her helplessly, fascinated; then, with a great effort, she roused herself and hurried towards her.

"Amanda!" she cried, desperately. "Amanda, for Heaven's sake, stop these insinuations! Tell me plainly what you mean?" She gripped her fiercely by the arm, her face was white and set. For a moment Amanda's eyes met hers. Then, as if in spite of herself, they fell, she freed herself sullenly from Elizabeth's grasp.

"Well, I guess I didn't mean much," she said, awkwardly, "or if I did, it don't matter. I wouldn't tell tales against--my first cousin"--She turned the knob of the door, but again she paused, that weird smile still flickering in her eyes. "Good-night," she said, "I hope you'll enjoy your dinner. Too bad you haven't got your pearls." She gave one last jarring laugh, opened the door and went out.

Elizabeth, white and trembling, sank into the nearest chair.

"How she frightened me!" she gasped out. "These constant shocks will kill me. Does she know anything definite? Probably not. But what can I do, how can I find out?--Ah, Celeste!"--as the maid appeared with an anxious expression in the door-way. "The carriage is waiting? Very well." She hurried to the dressing-table, caught up her gloves and gave one hasty glance at her white face. "How ugly I am growing," she thought, turning away with a shudder; "quite like Amanda! I see the resemblance. It is this awful life. I wish--oh, how I wish I were home!" The thought swept over her, thrilling her with an intense, passionate longing for her aunts' presence, for the country quiet, for rest and peace.

"Yes, I will go home," she thought, as Celeste adjusted the cloak about her shoulders and she hastened down to the carriage. "I will go home," she repeated to herself at intervals during the evening, while she talked and laughed with a restless light in her eyes and a feverish flush on her cheeks. "The country will be so peaceful. I shall be quite safe there, away from all this agitation, this trying to keep up appearances. It is the best way out. How fortunate that he is away! I won't see him again before I go."

It was, she felt, an heroic resolution. Yes, she would go at once. And she resolutely crushed back the thought: "He will follow."

_Chapter XXV_

"The Van Antwerps have come up for the summer," said Miss Joanna, who had made the same announcement, if you remember, not quite a year before. "The butcher says they came last night. They never got here so early before."

Elizabeth, who was arranging flowers, looked up suddenly. "Yes, I know," she said, quietly, "Eleanor wrote me." She left her roses half arranged, and wandered restlessly over to the long French window. Before her stretched the well-kept lawn, with its flower-beds and rose-bushes and beyond, field and wooded upland, all clothed in their newest, most vivid dress of green; further still the river, with the white sails on its surface--that river from which, more than half a century before, another Elizabeth Van Vorst had resolutely turned away her eyes, refusing to be reminded of the life that she had given up. But that woman of an older generation was made of sterner stuff, perhaps, than her grand-daughter. And then there was not much travel in those days, no daily mails, no guests coming up to neighboring house-parties over Sunday.... "It will be nice for you, Elizabeth, to have Mrs. Bobby," said Aunt Joanna, in her comfortable monotone, her knitting-needles clicking peacefully. "You have found it a little dull, you know, dear, since you came back."

A little dull! Elizabeth could have laughed out loud at the words. A little dull--with such exciting subjects to discuss as the new Easter anthem, and the latest illness of the Rectory children; with such diversions as a drive to Bassett Mills, a tea-party at the Courtenays! ...

"If I am dull," she said, turning round presently with the ghost of a smile "It certainly isn't the fault of the Neighborhood. I didn't tell you that Mrs. Courtenay has asked me to tea--a third time. She says 'Frank will see me home--no need to send the carriage.'" She laughed a little, not without a shade of bitterness. "Fancy Mrs. Courtenay suggesting that--last summer!"

"Well, dear, she means well, I suppose," said Miss Joanna, puzzled but kindly. Miss Cornelia raised her head with a little, involuntary touch of pride.

"The Courtenays are--are really quite pushing, I think," she said, a most unwonted tone of asperity in her voice. "I told Mrs. Courtenay, Elizabeth, that you had been so _very gay_"--with emphasis--"you really needed a complete rest."

Elizabeth laughed. "And of course," she said "that only made her--dear good woman!--all the more anxious to provide me with a little more amusement. I never realized before how fond the girls have always been of me. But then that's the case, apparently with the whole Neighborhood. They always concealed their affection for me very successfully--until this spring!"

She paused, her aunts made no reply. She went over to the piano and began absently turning over sheets of music.

"Do you remember, auntie," she said, abruptly--Miss Joanna had left the room in response to a summons from the maid, and Elizabeth and Miss Cornelia were alone--"do you remember that I told you once that I felt myself a sort of nondescript--neither flesh, fowl, nor good red herring? But now I seem to be considered a very fine fowl indeed--the ugly duckling, probably, that turned into a swan."

"You never were an _ugly_ duckling, my dear," Miss Cornelia could not help protesting, in spite of her principles. "It certainly wasn't that."

"Perhaps not," said Elizabeth, "at all events, I'm no better-looking than I was--let us say, last year. I heard a woman at The Mills say the other day that I had "gone off terrible," in my looks. But that doesn't prevent Frank Courtenay from coming here day after day, boring me to death, since he has discovered as his mother tells me, that I am "just the style that he admires"--it doesn't prevent the Johnston girls from going into raptures over my beautiful hair, and asking if I mind their copying my lovely gowns. They _have_ copied my new spring hat, if you notice. Oh, it would be amusing, if it wasn't--so very petty!" She put out her hand with a weary, contemptuous gesture. "And then the funny part of it all is that I am not really so nice, if they only knew it, as I was last year, when they all treated me as if I had committed some sort of crime, merely in existing."

"My dear," remonstrated Miss Cornelia, "how can you talk like that? I'm sure you're not a bit spoiled--every one says so."

"Ah, they think so," said Elizabeth, quickly, "they think me nice, because I've acquired a society manner, and say the correct thing, but if they knew--everything"--she stopped suddenly and stood for a moment staring steadily before her, with knit brows. "Do you know, Aunt Cornelia," she said abruptly "what I think I am?--a sort of moral nondescript, neither good nor bad. I see the right way--oh, I see it so very plainly, and I want to take it; and then I choose the wrong--always and inevitably I choose the wrong, and shall all my life, until the end. It's not my fault, really--I can't do right, no matter how hard I try."

"My dear!" Miss Cornelia looked at her, puzzled and shocked. "There's no one," she said, putting into trite words her own simple conviction "there's no one, Elizabeth, who can't do right, if they try hard enough."

"Do you think so, auntie?" said Elizabeth, very gently. "Then probably I don't try--hard enough." She went over to Miss Cornelia and kissed her on the cheek. "If I were like you," she said, "I should." Then without further words, she sat down at the piano and began to play, as she did every day for hours at a time. Such restless, passionate, brilliant playing! A vague uneasiness mingled in Miss Cornelia's mind with her pride in the girl's talent, as she listened to it. Something was troubling Elizabeth, evidently; something which had brought her home so unexpectedly, which had changed her in looks and manner beyond what could be accounted for by excitement and late hours. Yet innate delicacy and timidity prevented Miss Cornelia from forcing in any way the confidence which seemed to tremble, now and again, upon the girl's lips. She had a vague idea that the difficulty, whatever it was, would soon be decided one way or another, that the Van Antwerps' arrival, which Elizabeth seemed at once to dread and look forward to, would bring matters to a crisis, and the whole thing would be explained.

Elizabeth was still playing when Mrs. Bobby interrupted her. That she had not allowed a day to elapse before hastening to the Homestead was a fact noted with jealous care by the Misses Courtenay, who met her at the gate.

"He is desperate." Mrs. Bobby's visit had not lasted many minutes before she murmured this, holding Elizabeth's hand, and scanning eagerly her averted face. At Mrs. Bobby's words it quivered, the color flushed into her cheek; but otherwise she made no sign.

"When you first went away," Mrs. Bobby continued, as no answer came, "he was all for coming up here at once. He thought it a caprice, a morbid, unaccountable whim; he was sure that if he could see you, remonstrate with you--And then there was your letter, forbidding him to come. He was beside himself! It was all I could do to keep him from taking the first train up here. I said--Wait--it doesn't do, always, to force a woman's will; give her a little time. At least she has paid you the compliment, which she has paid to no one else of--running away from your attentions."

She paused, her eyes still eagerly fixed upon Elizabeth's face. The color in the girl's cheek was now brilliant, her lips were parted; but still she did not speak.

"Day after day," said Mrs. Bobby, "we have talked it over--he walking up and down, restless, wild; I trying to soothe him, urging him to be patient--Sometimes he thinks that you are revenging yourself in this way for his former neglect, that it is a little scheme to pay him back--the idea drives him frantic, makes him furious with himself, yet he is always encouraged when he thinks of it. And then again--he thinks that you don't care for him, that you never will, that there is some one else.... Ah, my dear, if you really do care, you are cruel, unpardonably cruel, to torment him like this."

Again she paused. Elizabeth, with a quick, impatient movement, dragged her hand away from her grasp, and began to pace up and down, gasping as if for breath. "Cruel," she cried out, "cruel! And you think it gives me pleasure--to torment him!"

"If it doesn't," said Mrs. Bobby, following her with her eyes and speaking with some coldness, "I confess I am at a loss to account for your behavior."

Elizabeth stopped suddenly and bending down, almost buried her face in the roses, whose fragrance she inhaled.

"There never was a man," said Mrs. Bobby, "who loved a woman more than he loves you, Elizabeth. And there isn't a man, who, I believe, deserves a woman better."

"Deserves her!" murmured Elizabeth, "deserves _me_! Oh, good Heavens!" The exclamation was barely audible, and apparently addressed only to the roses.

"I said to him yesterday," said Mrs. Bobby, "'You'll come up Saturday, of course?' But--he's proud now and hurt, Elizabeth--he said: 'I won't come, I won't force myself upon her without--her knowledge and consent. If she knows, if she's willing, why, then, I'll come--not otherwise.'"

There was a pause. Elizabeth turned presently a face which seemed to reflect the glowing color of the roses over which she had bent. "What do you--want me to do, Eleanor?" she asked, softly.

"Tell me what I shall say," said Mrs. Bobby "in the letter which I must write when I get home." She went over to Elizabeth and put her hand on her arm. "Shall he come, or shall he not? It rests with you."

Elizabeth's eyes were again averted. "It isn't for me, Eleanor," she murmured, "to drive your guests away, if--if they really want to come."

And so Mrs. Bobby, when she got home, wrote her letter. It consisted of only one word.

The Saturday following was extremely warm. The Rector and his wife came to take tea at the Homestead, and they all sat afterwards in the dimly-lighted drawing-room. Elizabeth wandered to the long French window, and stood looking out upon the moon-lit lawn. "It's so warm that I think I shall go for a walk," she said, half aloud, but no one heard her. The Rector was telling Miss Cornelia about the death of an old clergyman in Cranston, who had lived alone with two old servants. Elizabeth stood and listened for a moment to the deep, impressive tones which mingled strangely with the comfortable monotone which the Rector's wife was addressing to Miss Joanna.

"And so," she was saying "you see I have had blue put on it again, being more summery"--

"I feel particularly sorry," the Rector's voice broke in, "for the old servants. They were quite prostrated, I fear, poor things! They too have not long to live."

"Black satin at four dollars a yard," said his wife, "is sure to last forever."

"He was an excellent man," said the Rector. "His death is a great loss." But here Elizabeth, weary of listening, softly turned the knob of the window and stepped out on the lawn.

What a beautiful night it was outside! The long twilight was fading into dusk, but the moon silvered the shadows that the trees cast across the road. Elizabeth walked to the gate and stood leaning against it. In the distance she heard distinctly the sound of a horse's hoofs. It grew nearer and nearer, and in a few moments a man on horseback was beside her, and drew his rein abruptly before this figure in white, which stood like an apparition in his path.

"Elizabeth," he said. "Elizabeth, is it you?"

"Did you think it was my ghost?" she asked, with a soft laugh. Her white gown shimmered in the moonlight, her hair framed in her face with a vivid halo, her eyes shone like stars. Gerard sprang from his horse.

"Elizabeth," he said "were you waiting for me?"

"Yes," she answered, "I was waiting for you."

And the next moment he had her in his arms, and she had forgotten all other thoughts, all other claims, beneath the fervor of his kisses.

_Chapter XXVI_

The summer passed for an eventful one at Bassett Mills, being marked by at least two subjects of conversation; the one the engagement of Elizabeth Van Vorst of the Homestead "that girl of Malvina Jones," to a gentleman from town, who was reported to be "rolling in wealth;" the second, the illness of Amanda Jones, of that fashionable disease called nervous prostration, which no other girl at Bassett Mills but Amanda, who had always given herself airs, would have had the time or the money to indulge in. She had been taken ill while visiting her relations in New York, and her mother had gone up to nurse her, and announced on her return that Amanda was "that nervous" the doctor--"the best that could be had," as she observed with pride, had recommended complete rest, and sending her to a sanitarium for a few months.

"But there really ain't much the matter with her," Amanda's mother explained rather tartly to Elizabeth, who inquired for particulars as to her cousin's illness. "She has fits of crying, and then of sitting still and staring straight before her, like as if she was in a trance, and then she'll get up, and walk up and down the room for hours, and sometimes she'll notice you, and sometimes she won't--but dear me, it's all nonsense, I say. If she had some hard work to do, it would be better for her--but the doctor didn't seem to think so, and so I let her go to the sanitarium. No one shall say that I grudge the expense, as, thank Heaven! I don't have to, though there ain't another person at The Mills that wouldn't."

"I'm sure I hope it will do her good," Elizabeth said, kindly. She felt so glad to have Amanda, whatever the reason, away from Bassett Mills that she was conscious of a sudden pang of remorse, which increased when she received a letter from her cousin, congratulating her upon her engagement. It was a perfectly rational letter, with only slight references to her illness, and none at all to that unpleasant last interview in town; and Elizabeth answered the congratulations in the same amicable spirit in which they were offered, reflecting that, after all, much of Amanda's peculiarity must be excused on the ground of her persistent ill-health. And yet, as she sealed and directed her own letter, she breathed again a fervent thanksgiving that Amanda was safely out of the way.

There was another person for whose absence just then she felt devoutly thankful. When her engagement was announced, early in July--against her own wishes and in deference to Gerard's--she had received a terrible letter from Halleck, denouncing her perfidy, and threatening to come up at once. She had answered it as best she could, imploring his silence, and enclosing a sum of money which she borrowed from her aunts, on the plea of urgent bills--far from mythical, unfortunately, but which remained unpaid. Whether or no Paul granted her request, he pocketed the money, and she next heard of him as having gone abroad for the summer. The piece of news, casually mentioned one day in the course of conversation, thrilled her with a sense of overpowering relief, a suggestion, against which she struggled in vain, of possible accidents, of all the things that might reasonably happen to those who travel by sea or land. Elizabeth breathed a devout wish--it might almost be called a prayer--that this particular traveler might never return.

Meanwhile, the summer passed; a cool, delightful summer, rich with a succession of fragrant, sunshiny days and long, balmy evenings; and signalized by what for the Neighborhood was an unusual amount of gaiety. Several entertainments were given in honor of Elizabeth's engagement, among others a large dinner at the Van Antwerps'. And for this Elizabeth wore--it was Gerard's fancy--the same white gown in which he had first seen her, which he vowed that he cared for more than all her other gowns put together. And though she had pouted a little and declared that the others were far more smart, she yielded to his wishes in this, as she did in most things. Yet during the evening she noticed now and again his eyes fixed upon her with an odd, doubtful expression, as one who searches his memory for the details of a likeness, and finds inexplicably something lacking.

"I know what it is," he announced, abruptly, when they had wandered after dinner for a little while into the conservatory. "I was wondering what it was I missed, and now I know. You haven't got on your pearls. You wore them that night--in fact, I never saw you in full dress without them."

She flushed beneath his wondering gaze, reflecting how constantly he had observed her, wishing--almost--that he had not observed her quite so much.

"Did you forget them?" he asked smiling, as she made no response, but merely put up her hand to her white neck, as if just reminded of the fact that it was unadorned.

She plucked a rose from a plant near by, and began, nonchalantly, to pull it to pieces.

"Oh, I--I didn't feel in the mood to put them on," she said carelessly. "I--somehow I think I shall _not_ be in the mood to wear them again for a long while."

He was watching her lazily, an amused smile gleaming in the depths of his dark eyes. "What an odd, capricious child you are!" he said. "You're all made up of moods. I never know what to expect next."

She was picking the rose to pieces very deliberately, petal by petal, her eyes cast down. "Yes, I'm all made up of moods," she echoed, softly. "You must never be surprised at anything I do or say."

"I'm not," he returned, smiling. "And yet," he went on, after a moment, "I confess I'm a little surprised--and disappointed at this last one. I was thinking, to tell the truth, as I had an idea you valued those pearls particularly, of asking you to let me have them, so that I could get you another string to match them exactly."

The last petal of the rose fell from Elizabeth's hand, she stared up at Gerard with an odd, frightened expression. "Don't," she broke out, harshly. "I--I hate pearls." Then with a sudden change, as she saw the absolute bewilderment in his face, she laid her hand gently on his arm. "Dear," she said, very sweetly, "you must have patience with my moods. I've got an idea, just now, that pearls are unlucky. It's very silly, I know, but--don't argue with me. Bear with me, Julian, let me have my own way--a little."

They were alone in the conservatory. He put his arm around her and pressed his lips to hers. "A little," he murmured. "Have your own way--a little! Didn't I tell you, my darling, that you should have your own way in everything?"

She seemed to shrink away with an involuntary shiver at the words. "Ah, but I don't want it," she protested. "It's the last thing I want. If"--she freed herself from his hold and stood looking him, very sweetly and steadily, in the face--"if we are married, Julian"--

"_If!_" he echoed, reproachfully.

"It's always safer to say 'if'" she said.

"Ah, but that's a suggestion I won't tolerate," he declared, firmly. "I'll have my own way in that, if in nothing else. But, _when_ we are married, Elizabeth"--he paused.

"When we are married, then,"--she ceded the point resignedly, blushing rosy red--"when we are married, Julian, it must be your way, not mine. Yours is far better, wiser--yes"--she stopped his protest with an imperious gesture--"I feel it, even though I try sometimes to dispute it. I shall never do that--later. I shall try, with all the strength I have, to be more worthy of your love. But now--just now, Julian"--she looked at him anxiously, and a note of appeal crept into her voice--"if I seem odd, wilful, don't blame me, don't--doubt me"--

"Doubt you?" He took her hand and raised it reverently to his lips. "I shall never doubt you--again, my darling, no matter what you do or say."

There was the ring of absolute confidence in his voice. Yet it might have been that which made her shiver and shrink away, almost as if he had struck her a blow.

"I--I think we had better go back to the others," she announced, abruptly, in a moment, and her intonation was quick and sharp, almost as if she were frightened and trying to escape from some threatened danger. "It"--she smiled uncertainly--"it's not quite good form, I think, for us to wander off like this."

"Hang good form!" said Gerard, but still he followed her back resignedly to the other room, and she gave, as they reached the lights and the people, a soft sigh of relief, which fortunately he did not hear. Yet he noticed that for the rest of the evening she was paler than she had been at first.

This pallor increased when Mrs. Bobby, too, voiced the question which had been perplexing her all the evening, as to why she did not wear the pearls. Elizabeth did not mention her moods--it is evident that women cannot be put off, in such important questions as that of jewelry, with the vague answers that might satisfy a man. She said that the string had broken, and she had sent them to town to be re-strung. Her aunts knew that they had been there for that purpose since early spring, and they could not understand why she did not send for them, since other things had been left at the same jeweler's--notably that little jeweled watch, which they had heard of, but never seen. It was odd that Elizabeth should have lost, to so large an extent, her taste for pretty things.

Gerard, too, noticed this, but he would not ask her any more questions. Later he gave her a string of emeralds set with diamonds, which she wore to entertainments in the Neighborhood that autumn, and no one asked any more questions about the pearls, since it was natural that she should prefer to wear his gift.

His trust in her was absolute, as he had said. It seemed as if he would make amends now by the plenitude of his confidence, for that former instinctive, reasonless distrust. And then she was so different from the frivolous girl he had first imagined her. Every day he reproached himself with his old estimate of her character, as he discovered in her new and unexpected depths of brain and soul. She read all the books that he recommended--some of them very deep, and she would once have thought very tiresome--and she surprised him by the intelligence of her criticisms, she took a sympathetic interest in those articles by which he was making a name for himself in the scientific world, and she entered with an apparently perfect comprehension into all his hopes, thoughts and aspirations. There was only one thing in which she baffled him, one point where her old wilfulness would come between them. This was her obstinate and unaccountable refusal to name their wedding day.

The Neighborhood was exercised on the subject. It had been decided by unanimous consent that the wedding should be in the autumn--"quite the best time for a wedding" as the Rector's wife observed, and lay awake one whole night planning the most charming (and inexpensive) decorations of autumn leaves and golden-rod. But all the reward she received for her pains was the information that Elizabeth did not care for autumn weddings, and as the Misses Van Vorst at Gerard's request, had taken a small apartment in town for the winter, the Rector's wife had many pangs at the thought that the Bassett Mills church and her husband would lose all the prestige that would attend this great event--to say nothing of the fee.

But when Gerard, as a matter of course, spoke of their being married in town, Elizabeth looked up deprecatingly into his face.

"Wait till I'm twenty-one," she pleaded. "This is my unlucky year, you know. Do please, Julian, wait till it's over."

But Gerard's face was set in rigid lines, like that of a man who is determined to stand no more trifling. Elizabeth's unlucky year would not be past till April.

_Chapter XXVII_

It was a bleak December day and Central Park seemed the last place where one would wish to loiter. The sky hung lowering overhead, gray, cold, heavy with the weight of invisible snowflakes. The wind made a dull moaning sound, as it stirred the bare branches of the trees. The lake, where at another season you see children sailing in the swan-boats, was nearly covered with a thin coating of ice. But Elizabeth Van Vorst as she stood with eyes intently fixed upon the small space of water still visible, did not seem to notice either the cold or the dreariness of the scene. She was leaning against a tree, and looking at nothing but the lake, till at the sound of foot-steps on the path, she turned to face Paul Halleck.

"So you got my note," she said, speaking listlessly, without a sign of surprise or satisfaction. She did not give him her hand, which clasped the other tightly, in the warm shelter of her muff.

"Yes, I got it; but I could wish you had chosen a warmer meeting-place, my dear." The last months had changed him, and not for the better. His figure had grown stouter, his beauty coarser. She shrank away in invincible repugnance from the careless familiarity of his manner.

"It was the best place I could think of," she said, curtly. "At home, we are always interrupted; at your studio--it is impossible. I had to see you--somehow, somewhere." She sat down on a bench near by, and shivering drew her furs about her.

"You do me too much honor," Paul returned, lightly. He took the seat beside her, his eyes resting, in involuntary fascination, on the rounded outlines of her cheek, the soft waves of auburn hair beneath her small black hat. "It's a long time since you have wished to see me of your own accord, my dear," he said, in a tone in which resentment struggled with his old, instinctive admiration of her beauty.

She turned to him, suddenly, her eyes hard, her face very white and set. "You know the reason." "I had to see you, to--to talk things over. You assume a right to control me, you ask me for money, you try to frighten me with threats. There must be an end of it. I"--she paused for a moment, and drew her breath quickly, while she flushed a dull crimson. "I have promised--Mr. Gerard," she said "to--to marry him next month."

He interrupted her with a scornful laugh. "To marry him--next month," he repeated. "And how about that ceremony which we know of--you and I--in the church at Cranston?"

The crimson flush faded and left her white, but still she did not flinch. "I have thought of that," she said, steadily, "and I have decided that it should not--make any difference. I don't believe the marriage would be legal--but that's neither here nor there. I don't want a divorce, I don't want the thing known, I don't consider that we were ever married. I don't think such a marriage as ours, which we both entered into without the slightest thought, which we have repented of"--

"Speak for yourself," he interposed.

"Which I have repented of, then," she went on, "ought to be binding. The clergyman who married us is dead; the witnesses, so old that they are childish, probably remember nothing about it. There is no one now living who remembers, except you and I. And for me I have determined to think of it as a dream, and I want you to promise me to do the same."

"But--there is the notice in the parish register." He was staring at her blankly, admiring in spite of himself, the calm resolution of her manner, the business-like precision with which she was unfolding her arguments, as if she had rehearsed them many times to herself.

"I have thought of that, too," she said, in answer to his last objection, "and I don't think it in the least likely that any one will ever see it. Why should they, without any clue? At all events, this is--the only way out." She faltered as her mind wandered for a moment unwillingly to another way which she had now despaired of--too easy a solution to her difficulties ever to come true. What a fool she had been to think that he would die! People like that never die. As she saw him now, in the full pride of his health and good looks, it seemed impossible to believe that any misfortune could assail him--least of all death! ...

"There is--no other way," she repeated, with a little, involuntary sob. "The risks are not great--but, at any rate, I must take them. Now, there is only one other thing"--She paused for a moment and then drew out of her purse a plain gold ring, and showed it to him. It was the ring which she had once worn on her finger for a few minutes, which she had kept carefully hidden ever since. She glanced about her; there was no one in sight except the policeman, who in the distance near the carriage-drive, was pacing up and down at his cold post and beating his hands to keep them warm. Elizabeth rose and went to the edge of the lake. With well-directed aim, she threw the tiny circlet of gold so that it struck the fast-vanishing surface of water and quickly disappeared. She drew a long sigh of relief. "There," she said, "that is over."

Paul watched her curiously. He saw that she attached to this little action a mysterious significance. He sneered harshly. "Very pretty and theatrical," he said. "But do you really think that by a thing like that--throwing away a ring--you can dissolve a marriage?"

She turned to him, her white face still resolute and intensely solemn. "I don't know," she said, quietly, "but I wanted to throw it away before you, so that you would understand that everything is over between us, and that day at Cranston is as if it never had been. _Never had been_, you understand," she repeated, with eager emphasis. "I want you to promise to think of it like that."

He shrugged his shoulders. "How we either of us think of it, I suppose, doesn't make much difference so far as the legality of the thing goes," he said. "But,--have your own way. If you choose to commit a crime, it's not my affair."

"A crime!" She started and stared at him. "Do you call that a crime?"

He smiled. "It's a rough word to use for the actions of a charming young girl," he said "but I'm afraid that the law might look at it in that light."

Elizabeth returned to the bench and sat down. She seemed to be pondering this new view of the matter. "I can't help it," she said at last, in a low voice. "If that's a crime, why--I understand how people are led into them. And I can't ruin his happiness, crime or no crime."

"And my happiness?" he asked her bitterly. "You never think of that? You professed to love me once. You took me for better, for worse, and how have you kept your word? If my life is ruined, the responsibility is yours. If you had gone with me as I wanted you to, I should have been a different man." There was a curious accent of sincerity in his voice. He really believed for the moment what he said.