Countess Vera 24

Countess Vera 24

Weeping and lingering, dreading to go, the half-hour is almost up

before she drags herself to the library where Philip is pacing up and

down the floor in a fever of doubt and suspense.

 

"Vera, my darling," he cries. "Oh, how could you treat me so cruelly?"

 

She pauses with her arms folded over the back of a chair, and regards

him sorrowfully. Colonel Lockhart can see that she has been weeping

bitterly. Her tremulous lips part to answer him, then close without a

sound.

 

He goes up to her and takes one white, jeweled hand fondly into his own.

 

"Tell me what troubles you, Vera," he whispers gently.

 

"Can you not guess, Philip? It is because I must part from you," she

answers sadly.

 

"But why must you do so, Vera?" he asks, gravely, touched to the heart

by her drooping and despondent attitude.

 

"I cannot tell you," she answers sadly, with a heavy sigh.

 

"Perhaps you have ceased to love me," her lover exclaims, almost

sternly.

 

She starts and fixes her dark eyes reproachfully on his face.

 

"Oh, would that I had!" she exclaims. "This parting would then be

easier to bear!"

 

They regard each other a moment with painful intentness. The marks of

misery on her face are too plain to be mistaken, and the wonder deepens

on his own.

 

"Vera, why are you so mysterious?" he asks, anxiously. "If you throw me

over like this, I have at least a right to know the reason why."

 

"You shall know--soon," she answers, almost bitterly.

 

Then she lifts her eyes to his face pleadingly.

 

"Oh, Philip, do not torture me," she cries wildly. "We must part! There

is no help nor hope for us! A terrible barrier has risen between us! I

have a terrible duty to perform, and there is no turning back for me.

But, oh, Philip, if I could persuade you to go away now--at once--where

you might never hear or know the fatal secret that has come between us!

Darling, let me beg you," she falls suddenly on her knees before him,

"to take me at my word and put the whole width of the world between us!"

 

He lifts her up and wipes the streaming tears from her beautiful eyes.

 

"My darling, you make it hard for me to refuse you," he answers, in

sorrow and perplexity, "but do you think I could be coward enough to

desert you when trouble and sorrow hung over your head? I am a soldier,

Vera. I cannot show the white feather. If sorrow comes I will be by

your side and help you to bear it."

 

"_You_, of all others, could help me the least," she answers, brokenly.

 

And again his noble, handsome face clouds over with wonder and sorrow.

 

"I will try, at least," he answers, with sad firmness. "Do not ask me

to leave you, Vera, I cannot do it. Oh, darling, are you sure, quite

sure, that we need really part? That you cannot be my wife?"

 

"I am as sure of it as if one or the other of us lay at this moment in

the coffin," she answers, drearily.

 

"And that barrier, Vera, will it always stand?" he asks.

 

"Always, unless death should remove it," she answers, with a shudder;

and with a moan, she continues: "Once I believed that death had already

stricken it from my path, and I was so happy, Philip--happy in your

love and mine. But the grim specter of the past has risen to haunt me.

I can never be your wife. I can never know one moment's happiness in

life again."

 

"She is ill and desperate," Colonel Lockhart tells himself, uneasily.

"Surely things cannot be so bad as she represents. She exaggerates her

trouble. When I come to know the truth I shall find that it is some

simple thing that her girlish fears have magnified a hundredfold. I

must not let her drive me away from her. I may be of service to her in

her trouble."

 

Aloud he says, gently:

 

"Since I may no longer be your lover, Vera, you will let me be your

friend?"

 

"Since you wish it, but you will change your mind soon," she answers,

hopelessly.

 

"I think not," he answers, lifting her hand gently to his lips, and

then she turns away, meeting Lady Clive upon the threshold coming in.

 

"Vera, my dear, how ill you look," she exclaims. "Has anything

happened? Ah, Phil, are you there? What have you said to Vera? You are

not having a lover's quarrel, I hope?"

 

He makes her no answer, but Vera, turning back, throws her arms around

her friend's neck, and lifts her pale, beseeching face.

 

"I will tell you what has happened, Lady Clive," she answers. "I have

broken my engagement with Philip."

 

"Broken your engagement with Philip? Why, what has he done?" Lady Clive

exclaims.

 

"Nothing," Lady Vera answers, meekly as a child.

 

"Nothing?" the lady repeats, half-angrily. "Nothing? Then why have you

thrown him over, Lady Vera? Did you tire of him so soon? I did not know

that you were a flirt."

 

"Hush, Nella, you shall not blame her," her brother exclaims, sternly.

 

"You see Philip is not angry with me, Lady Clive," Vera says,

entreatingly. "Indeed I am not a flirt. I love him dearly, but I cannot

be his wife. There are reasons," she almost chokes over the word,

"that--that you will know soon. You will see I was not to blame. Oh,

Lady Clive, do not be angry with me."

 

"I will not, dear," answers the gentle-hearted lady, kissing the sweet,

quivering lips of the wretched girl. "I do not understand you, but if

Philip is not angry with you, neither can I be. Yet I am very sorry

that I shall not have you for my sister."

 

With a stifled sob Lady Vera breaks from her clasp and flies up to her

own room. She does not appear at breakfast.

 

At luncheon she is so pale and sad and wretched-looking that it makes

one's heart ache to see her.

 

At night they attend a ball, from which Colonel Lockhart excuses

himself on the plea of indisposition, and at which the rich Americans

also fail to put in an appearance.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXIV.

 

 

The invitations for Mrs. Vernon's lawn-party had been issued at least a

fortnight, and but few people had declined them.

 

It was well known that she gave charming entertainments, and people

were always eager to attend. A lawn-party, too, was so romantic,

"too sweet for anything," declared the young women who adored those

out-of-door entertainments where the most flagrant flirtations were

possible, and where the plainest faces acquired a certain beauty from

the blended light of lamp-light and moonlight, and the flickering

leaf-shadows cast by the over-arching trees.

 

Older people dreaded the night-air and the dew, but to these the

drawing-rooms were always open, so that no one dreamed of declining

Mrs. Vernon's elegant cards.

 

Lady Clive was present that evening, her fair and stately beauty, so

like her brother's, thrown into perfect relief by a robe of blue and

silver, with pale, gleaming pearls around her graceful throat and white

arms.

 

Lady Vera wore white satin and tulle, with water-lilies here and there,

a beautiful dress that was most becoming to her, and made her look

regal as a young princess.

 

A flush of excitement glowed upon her cheeks, and her eyes were bright

and restless with a strange look of expectancy and almost dread in

their beautiful depths.

 

The constant thought in her mind was:

 

"I shall see my enemies to-night. What will be the result? They pretend

to regard me as a perfect stranger. What shameless audacity. I cannot

understand how they can carry it out so boldly. And yet God knows that

but for my oath of vengeance I would never speak. Ivy might have my

husband and welcome. Yet I would give much to know whose death it was I

read in that American paper. Leslie Noble's father, perhaps, though I

had some vague idea that he was dead long ago."Colonel Lockhart is present too, this evening, ever watchful, ever near his darling, though without the least appearance of intrusiveness.