The Haunted Chamber - Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (latest books to read .TXT) 📗

should not please or gratify any one at the expense of truth."

"No, of course not. You are such a high-principled girl, so different from many others. Then you think I might go and meet him this evening without sacrificing my dignity in any way?"

"Certainly."

"Oh, I'm so glad," exclaimed little Mrs. Talbot rapturously, nodding her "honorable" head with a beaming smile, "because I do so want to meet him, dear fellow! And I value your opinion, Flo, more highly than that of any other friend I possess. You are so solid, so thoughtful--such a dear thing altogether."

Florence takes no heed of this rodomontade, but sits quite still, with downcast eyes, tapping the small table near her with the tips of her slender fingers in a meditative fashion.

"The fact is," continues Dora, who is watching her closely, "I may as well let you into a little secret. Yesterday Sir Adrian and I had a tiny, oh, such a tiny little dispute, all about nothing, I assure you"--with a gay laugh--"but to us it seemed quite important. He said he was jealous of me. Now just fancy that, Flo; jealous of poor little me!"

"It is quite possible; you are pretty--most men admire you," Florence remarks coldly, still without raising her eyes.

"Ah, you flatter me, naughty girl! Well, silly as it sounds, he actually was jealous, and really gave me quite a scolding. It brought tears to my eyes, it upset me so. So, to tell the truth, we parted rather bad friends; and, to be revenged on me, I suppose, he rather neglected me for the remainder of the day."

Again Florence is silent, though her tormentor plainly waits for a lead from her before going on.

"You must have remarked," she continues presently, "how cold and reserved he was toward me when we were all together in that dreadful haunted chamber." Here she really shudders, in spite of herself. The cruel eyes of Arthur Dynecourt seem to be on her again, as they were in that ghostly room.

"I remarked nothing," responds Florence icily.

"No--really? Well, he was. Why, my dear Florence, you must have seen how he singled you out to be attentive to you, just to show me how offended he was."

"He did not seem offended with any one, and I thought him in particularly good spirits," replies Florence calmly.

Dora turns a delicate pink.

"Dear Adrian is such an excellent actor," she says sweetly, "and so proud; he will disguise his feelings, however keen they may be, from the knowledge of any one, no matter what the effort may cost him. Well, dearest, and so you positively advise me to keep this appointment with him?"

"I advise nothing. I merely say that I see nothing objectionable in your walking up and down the lime-walk with your host."

"How clearly you put it! Well, adieu, darling, for the present, and thank you a thousand times for all the time you have wasted on me. I assure you I am not worth it"--kissing her hand brightly.

For once she speaks the truth; she is not indeed worth one moment of the time Florence has been compelled to expend upon her; yet, when she has tripped out of the room, seemingly as free from guile as a light-hearted child, Miss Delmaine's thoughts still follow her, even against her inclination.

She has gone to meet him; no doubt to interchange tender words and vows with him; to forgive, to be forgiven, about some sweet bit of lover's folly, the dearer for its very foolishness. She listens for her footsteps as she returns along the corridor, dressed no doubt in her prettiest gown, decked out to make herself fair in his eyes.

An overwhelming desire to see how she has robed herself on this particular occasion induces Florence to go to the door and look after her as she descends the stairs. She just catches a glimpse of Dora as she turns the corner, and sees, to her surprise, that she is by no means daintily attired, but has thrown a plain dark water-proof over her dress, as though to hide it. Slightly surprised at this, Florence ponders it, and finally comes to the bitter conclusion that Dora is so sure of his devotion that she knows it is not necessary for her to bedeck herself in finery to please him. In his eyes of course she is lovely in any toilet.

Soon, soon she will be with him. How will they greet each other? Will he look into Dora's eyes as he used to look into hers not so very long ago? Arthur Dynecourt read her aright when he foresaw that she would be unable to repress the desire to follow Dora, and see for herself the meeting between her and Sir Adrian.

Hastily putting on a large Rubens hat, and twisting a soft piece of black lace round her neck, she runs down-stairs and, taking a different direction from that she knows Dora most likely pursued, she arrives by a side path at the lime-walk almost as soon as her cousin.

Afraid to venture too near, she obtains a view of the walk from a high position framed in by rhododendrons. Yes, now she can see Dora, and now she can see too, the man who comes eagerly to meet her. His face is slightly turned away from her, but the tall figure clad in the loose light overcoat is not to be mistaken. He advances quickly, and meets Dora with both hands outstretched. She appears to draw back a little, and then he seizes her hands, and, stooping, covers them with kisses.

A film seems to creep over Florence's eyes. With a stifled groan, she turns and flies homeward. Again in the privacy of her own room, and having turned the key securely in the lock to keep out all intruders, she flings herself upon her bed and cries as if her heart would break.

* * * * *


Not until her return to her room does Dora remember that she did not get back the false letter from her cousin. In the heat of the conversation she had forgotten it, but now, a fear possessing her lest Florence should show it to any one, she runs upstairs and knocks at Miss Delmaine's door.

"Come in," calls Florence slowly.

It is three hours since she went for her unhappy walk to the lime-grove, and now she is composed again, and is waiting for the gong to sound before descending to the drawing-room, where she almost dreads the thought that she will be face to face with Sir Adrian. She is dressed for dinner, has indeed taken most particular pains with her toilet, if only to hide the ravages that these past three hours of bitter weeping have traced upon her beautiful face. She looks sad still, but calm and dignified.

Dora is dressed too, but is looking flurried and flushed.

"I beg your pardon," she says; "but my letter--the letter I showed you to-day--have you it?"

"No," replies Florence simply; "I thought I gave it back to you; but, if not, it must be here on this table"--lifting a book or two from the small gypsy-table near which she had been sitting when Dora came to her room early in the day.

Dora looks for it everywhere, in a somewhat nervous, frightened manner, Florence helping her the while; but nothing comes of their search, and they are fain to go down-stairs without it, as the gong sounding loudly tells them they are already late.

"Never mind," says Dora, afraid of having betrayed too much concern. "It is really of no consequence. I only wanted it, because--well, because"--with the simper that drives Florence nearly mad--"he wrote it."

"I shall tell my maid to look for it, and, if she finds it, you shall have it this evening," responds Florence, with a slight contraction of her brows that passes unnoticed.

To Florence's mortification, Arthur Dynecourt takes her in to dinner. On their way across the hall from the drawing-room to the dining-room, he presses the hand that rests so reluctantly upon his arm, and says, with an affectation of the sincerest concern--

"You are not well; you are looking pale and troubled, and--pardon me if I am wrong, but I think you have been crying."

"I must beg, sir," she retorts, with excessive _hauteur_, removing her hand from his arm, as though his pressure had burned her--"I must beg, you will not trouble yourself to study my countenance. Your doing so is most offensive to me."

"To see you in trouble, and not long to help or comfort you is impossible to me," goes on Dynecourt, unmoved by her scorn. "Are you still dwelling on the past--on what is irrevocable? Have you had fresh cause to remember it to-day?"

There is a gleam of malice in his eyes, but Florence, whose gaze is turned disdainfully away from him, fails to see it. She changes color indeed beneath his words, but makes him no reply, and, when they reach the dining-room, in a very marked manner she takes a seat far removed from his.

There is a sinister expression in his eyes and round his mouth as he notes this studied avoidance.


CHAPTER VIII.

It is now "golden September," and a few days later. For the last fortnight Florence has been making strenuous efforts to leave the castle, but Dora would not hear of their departure, and Florence, feeling it will be selfish of her to cut short Dora's happy hours with her supposed lover, sighs, and gives in, and sacrifices her own wishes on the altar of friendship.

It is five o'clock, and all the men, gun in hand, have been out since early dawn. Now they are coming straggling home, in ones or twos. Amongst the first to return are Sir Adrian and his cousin Arthur Dynecourt, who, having met accidentally about a mile from home, have trudged the remainder of the way together.

On the previous night at dinner, Miss Delmaine had spoken of a small gold bangle, a favorite of hers, she was greatly in the habit of wearing. She said she had lost it--when or where she could not tell; and she expressed herself as being very grieved for its loss, and had laughingly declared she would give any reward claimed by any one who should restore it to her. Two or three men had, on the instant, pledged themselves to devote their lives to the search; but Adrian had said nothing. Nevertheless, the bangle and the reward remained in his mind all that night and all to-day. Now he can not refrain from speaking about it to the man he considers his rival.

"Odd thing about Miss Delmaine's bangle," he remarks carelessly.

"Very odd. I dare say her maid has put it somewhere and forgotten it."

"Hardly. One would not put a bracelet anywhere but in a jewel-case, or in a special drawer. She must have dropped it somewhere."

"I dare say; those Indian bangles are very liable to be rubbed off the wrist."

"But where? I have had the place searched high and low, and still no tidings of it can be found."

"There may have been since we left home this morning."

Just at this moment they come within full view of the old tower, and its strange rounded ivy-grown walls, and the little