Dreadful Temptation — Chapter 27
"Howard Templeton!"
CHAPTER XXVII.
A gentleman, standing alone beside a marble fountain, turns with a start and looks at her.
His face is handsome, eager, agitated.
"Mrs. St. John," he says; then a strange constraint seems to fall upon both.
They remain standing still and regarding each other in painful silence.
It is the first time they have met since the day of her terrible humiliation, more than two months ago.
In the passionate war they waged he had been the victor.
One would think that he would meet her now with words of exultation.
Yet he is silent, and a dark-red flush creeps slowly up his temples, while his handsome blue eyes regard her with a strange intentness.
To the day of his death he remembers her as she looks now.
Not the expression of a feature, not a fold of her robe escapes his memory.
She looks like some beautiful, pale statue.
"Gown'd in pure white that fitted to the shape-- A single stream of all her soft, dark curls Pour'd on one side."
The sunshine beams upon her lovingly.
A creeping rose-tree throws out its briery arms as though it would fain draw her into its thorny embrace.
The light breeze scatters the scented rose-petals in a shower of sweetness under her feet.
A happy bird warbles its lay of love above her drooping head.
Suddenly she turns to go, thrilled with a bitter pang of remembrance.
The movement breaks the spell that binds him.
He springs after her.
"Do not go," he exclaims, in a voice of unconscious pleading.
"Why should I stay?"
she asks, turning her proud, dark eyes upon him.
"Why have you intruded your unwelcome presence upon me?"
The flush on his fair, handsome face deepens.
"Xenie, pardon the _ruse_ by which I have gained admittance to your presence," he exclaims.
"I wished to see you and I went to Mrs. Egerton, and stating my reasons, begged her to arrange this meeting."
"Did you not know that the very sight of you is hateful in my eyes?"
she demands, spiritedly.
"I feared so," he answers, with an unconscious tone of sadness in his voice.
"Yet I wished to see you.
There is something I have to tell you."
"You can tell me nothing that I wish to hear," she retorts, haughtily.
"Let me pass, sir.
I refuse to listen!"
But the tall, handsome form blocks her way, and shows no signs of yielding.
"Stay, one moment, Xenie," he exclaims.
"Suppose I tell you that your vengeance is secure after all--that Uncle John's missing will is found at last?"
She whirls toward him, her dark eyes blazing with incredulous surprise.
"At last!"
she says, with a stifled gasp.
"At last!
And who--who----" "I found it," he answers, not waiting for her to finish the incoherent question.
"He had hidden it, I cannot imagine why, in the most unlikely place in the world.
By the merest accident I came upon it yesterday.
Take it, Xenie.
It secures your revenge to you now, beyond the shadow of a doubt."
He drew an official-looking document from his breast and placed it in her shaking hand.
She holds it in a mechanical grasp, her dark, wondering eyes lifted to his proud, agitated face.
"Yes," he repeats, slowly, "your vengeance is now secure.
Every penny of my Uncle John's vast wealth is bequeathed to you in the legal document you hold in your hand.
I am left utterly penniless!"
But instead of the triumphant joy he expects to see in her mobile face, her look of wonder deepens.
"_You_ found the will--_you_ brought it to me," she says, with slow gravity.
"Who knows of it besides yourself?"
"No one except your aunt, Mrs. Egerton," he answers, calmly; "I have told her, and she is very anxious to congratulate you."
Her red lips curl with faint scorn.
But she does not speak.
This sudden turn of fortune's wheel seems to have dazed her.
She stands quite still holding the precious paper in her tightly-clasped hand, while her dark eyes fix themselves upon it in a strange, intent fashion.
She has lost her revenge, she has lost the world's applause, but this little bit of yellow paper is able to buy it all back for her.
It seems too stupendous to believe.
"Why have you done this thing?"
she asks, rousing herself, and lifting a curious glance to the silent man before her.
"I do not understand you," he begins, half-haughtily.
"Oh!
yes, you do," she interrupts him quickly.
"When you found this will, which leaves you penniless, and me, your enemy, triumphant, you must have been tempted to destroy it.
You knew that I had resorted to a fraud in order to gain my revenge.
How did you conquer the temptation to repay me likewise?
Were you nobler than I that you did not burn this paper and keep your uncle's wealth?"
"Xenie, if you will answer me one simple question, I will tell you why I beat down the temptation to keep the wealth which has caused us both so many a bitter heart-ache," he said to her, in a grave, sad voice.
"I will answer you," she repeated, slowly.
"Tell me this, then, Xenie.
In the hour when the result of your hopes and plans became known to you--when you thought you had fully secured the revenge for which you had toiled--did your success make you happy?"
"No," she answered, in low but steady tones, while her whole frame quivered with suppressed emotion.
"No," he re-echoed; "revenge has not in it the elements of happiness.
It is but a consuming fire that destroys everything sweet and lovely.
We both have proved it; therefore, Xenie, I will have no more to do with it.
I have repented in bitterness of spirit the deadly feud we waged so long against each other.
The only atonement that was left to me you hold in your hand."
"It was a brave atonement when you remember all that it involves for you," she cried, with a sudden remorseful pity in her voice.
"You have been nobler than I have."
"Perhaps it was only selfish after all," he answered, impulsively; "for, Xenie, I have been very unhappy in your unhappiness.
Every arrow that was pointed at your heart has pierced mine.
I have long ago realized that, no matter how terrible the loss to myself, I could never be happy save in the ultimate triumph of the woman I love."
"Love!"
she echoed, looking at him with a wondering, startled gaze.
The blue eyes met hers, full of mad, hopeless passion, so long repressed and beaten down that now it seemed a consuming flame.
"Yes, love," he answered, recklessly.
"Forgive me, Xenie, but let me speak one moment.
Do you think I have forgotten those brief, bright days when we loved each other?
Do you think I can ever forget them?
I have never ceased to love you; I never shall until this beating heart is dust and ashes!
I count that one bright memory of our mutual love worth all its bitter cost!"
The burning crimson flashed into her cheeks.
Did he mean it--all that those impetuous words implied?
"You cannot fool me with empty words," she cried.
"Do I not know better?
Could my love be so much to you when you threw it away for--for this that I hold in my hand?"
and she threw a glance of scorn upon the paper in her grasp that represented all the vast wealth of the old millionaire.
There was a moment's silence; then the pent-up heart of the man broke out into passionate words; the bird in the bough overhead hushed its song and seemed to listen.
"Xenie, Xenie, my love and lost darling, why will you wrong me so?
Oh, my God!
how little I weighed that filthy lucre against your love!
I
swear to you here, under this blue heaven, and in this hour when I never expect to behold your beautiful face again, that I broke our troth alone because I loved with too dear a passion to doom you to the ills of poverty for my sake.
I love you, Xenie, deeply, fondly, devotedly, and I gloried in the thought of lavishing wealth upon you; and when my uncle bade me resign you I gave up my hope--not because I was afraid to brave poverty _for_ you, but because I dared not face it _with_ you.
Darling, how could I bear to doom you, my tender flower, to the ills of poverty and want?
But, there, I have told you all this before, and you would not believe it.
Why should I weary you again?
It is only because I am leaving you forever that I have yielded to the weakness.
Farewell, Xenie, and may God bless you!"
He ceased, and in the solitude and stillness of the odorous rose garden it seemed to him as if she must hear his heart beating, so loud and fast were its throbs of anguish.
But she was silent, and he turned to go.
"Howard, stay," she murmured, faintly.
He retraced his steps to her side.
"Xenie, what are you doing?"
he cried in horror; for she had taken the millionaire's will between her white and jeweled fingers and was tearing it swiftly into the smallest fragments.
The tiny white bits were flying from her hands like a miniature snow-storm.
She laughed lightly at his look of horror.
"John St. John never meant me to have all his money," she answered.
"I coerced him into making this will, and he hid it then, hoping, no doubt, that it would never be found.
There is an end of it.
Let all remain as it was before.
You have your share and I mine."
"And your revenge?"
he asked, looking at her as if he doubted his own sanity.
"Never speak of it again," she answered, turning from him, while the crimson blush of shame overspread her face.
A wild hope, undreamed of before, darted into his mind.
He caught her hand in his.
"Xenie, why have you done this thing?"
he asked.
Her dark eyes lifted to his, full of a noble repentance.
"Because I love you," she answered, "and I cannot war against you any longer.
Forgive me, Howard; it was never hatred that wrought my sin; it was the cruel madness of love."
He caught her in his arms with a low cry of passionate thanksgiving, and the little birds, listening in the nests above their heads, heard the sound of kisses and passionate words, mixed with a woman's happy sobs.
"Xenie," he said, presently, when her sobs grew calmer, "they told me that Lord Dudley had sued for your hand, and that you had promised to return to England with him as his bride.
You cannot imagine what I suffered when I heard it.
Even while I thought you hated me I could never feel indifferent to you, though I tried hard to put you out of my heart."
"Lord Dudley asked me," she whispered back.
"He was very noble.
He knew all my story, but he judged me very gently, and he would have given me his name and love, but I told him it might never be--that I had loved but one in my life, and that I could never love another."
He pressed a dozen kisses on the sweet red lips that whispered the fond confession.
"And you forgive me everything, do you, Howard?"
she questioned, gravely.
"You know that I have sinned very grievously.
I have almost periled my soul in my mad rage for an unholy revenge."
"May God forgive you as freely as I do, my darling," he answered, fondly.
* * * * * When they strolled into the drawing-room arm-in-arm, a little later, Mrs. Egerton rose from her arm-chair, rustling more than ever in her happy self-importance.
"My dear Xenie," she simpered, "let me be the first to congratulate you that your husband's missing will is found at last."
For answer, Xenie drew her to the window.
"Aunt Egerton, I forgot your bunch of roses," she said, "but I want you to look down there in that graveled walk."
She pointed to the tiny fragments of paper, and Mrs. Egerton's face grew pale.
"What is it?"
she asked, uneasily.
"It is St. John's will," Xenie answered steadily, yet crimsoning painfully beneath her aunt's curious glance.
"And you have destroyed it," Mrs. Egerton exclaimed.
"Were you mad, child?"
Xenie looked at her aunt with a gesture of proud humility.
"No," she answered, "I have been mad, but, thank God I have come to my senses at last.
I destroyed the will because I had wronged Howard enough already without taking his inheritance from him.
I have confessed my faults to him and he has forgiven everything."
"And the long vendetta is over," said Mrs. Egerton.
"Henceforth you will be----" she paused for a suitable word.
"Xenie will be my wife," said Howard Templeton, drawing near.
Mrs. Carroll, who had been silent all this while, drew near and took her daughter for one moment into the tender clasp of her maternal arms.
"God bless you, my daughter," she murmured.
"You have known deep sorrow--may your future years be very happy ones."
* * * * * My readers, we close our story as we began it--with a wedding.
But this time the wedding bells indeed are "golden bells," ringing out the mellow chimes of true happiness.
For this is not the union of winter and summer, this is not the sordid barter of youth and beauty for an old man's gold.
It is that one true and beautiful union upon earth where the solemn vow of marriage welds eternally together "Two souls with but a single thought, Two hearts that beat as one."
[THE END.
] Transcriber's Notes: This novel was originally serialized in the _New York Family Story Paper_; this electronic edition is derived from the later hardcover reprint in the _Columbus Series_, in which it shared a volume with _Wild Margaret_ by "Geraldine Fleming" (actually Charles Garvice).
Added table of contents.
Retained some obsolete spellings (e. g. hight).
Italics are represented with _underscores_.
Page 5, changed "marry him for him for money" to "marry him for his money."
Page 10, moved comma from before to after "now" in "May I ask if you are friends with Mr. Templeton now, Mrs. St. John?"
Page 13, added missing open quote before "I'll tell them that you are mad."
Page 15, changed "you generosity" to "your generosity" and "where both drawn" to "were both drawn."
Page 16, changed "brought it with my gold" to "bought it with my gold."
Page 17, changed "desparate" to "desperate."
Page 21, changed ?
to !
in "No, no--oh, better that she were!"
Page 22, changed "by-and-bye" to "by-and-by."
Page 26, capitalized d in "Doctor Shirley" and added missing close quote after "serve her as well."
Page 30, changed Carrol to Carroll.
Page 31, changed "Mr. Carroll" to "Mrs. Carroll."
Page 33, changed "gaping audibly" to "gasping audibly."
Page 36, changed "sound's" to "sounds."
Page 37, changed "Howord Templeton" to "Howard Templeton."
Page 38, changed "prevade" to "pervade."
Page 48, changed .
to ?
in "Is it not a brilliant victory?"
Page 50, changed ?
to !
after "too horrible."
Page 51, changed "Mr. Carroll" to "Mrs. Carroll."
Page 56, removed erroneous quotes from text following "Ninon said."
Page 59, changed "unknow" to "unknown."
Page 61, changed "unknow" to "unknown."
Page 64, changed .
to ?
in "how could he return to Lora without the child?"
Page 67, changed "about to attended" to "about to attend."
Page 72, changed "nonchalantly" to "nonchalant."
Page 79, added missing second hyphen to "mother-in-law."
Page 82, added missing period after "persisted Captain Mainwaring."
Page 86, added missing inner close quote after "my child and yours" and changed "Uupon" to "Upon."
Page 87, added missing close quote after "world's censure."
Page 88, changed "foward" to "forward" and "grset" to "greet."
Page 90, changed "exclaimed" to "exclaims."
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