A Terrible Secret - May Agnes Fleming (best ebook reader txt) 📗

with him, and was driven to Oxford Street. It was a very silent drive; she was glad when it was over, and he set her down near the shop of Madame Mirebeau.

"I will wait here," he said. "If she will come with you, you will take a cab and drive back to Poplar Lodge. If she does not--" he had to pause a moment--"then return to me, and I will take you home."

She bent her head in assent, and entered the shop. Her own heart was beating at the thought of the coming interview and its probable ending. She advanced to the counter, and, without raising her veil, inquired if Miss Stuart were come.

The girl looked inquisitively at the hidden face, and answered:

"Yes, Miss Stuart had come."

"I wish to see her particularly, and in private, for a few moments. Can you manage it for me?"

She slipped a sovereign into the shopwoman's hand. There was a second curious look at the tall, veiled lady, but the sovereign was accepted. A side door opened, and she was shown into an empty room.

"You can wait here, ma'am," the girl said. "I'll send her to you."

Miss Catheron walked over to the window; that nervous heart beat quicker than ever. When had she been nervous before? The window overlooked busy, bright Oxford Street, and in the distance she saw the waiting cab and her cousin's solitary figure. The sight gave her courage. For his sake, poor fellow, she would do all human power could do.

"You wish to see me, madame?"

A clear, soft voice spoke. The door had quietly opened and a young girl entered.

Inez Catheron turned round, and for the second time in her life looked in the face of her cousin's wife.

Yes, it was his wife. The face she had seen under the trees of Powyss Place she saw again to-day in the London milliner's parlor. The same darkly handsome, quietly resolute young face, the same gravely beautiful eyes, the same slender, graceful figure, the same silky waves of blackish-brown hair. To her eyes there was no change; she had grown neither thinner nor paler; she had lost none of the beauty and grace that had won away Sir Victor Catheron's heart. She was very plainly dressed in dark gray of some cheap material, but fitting perfectly; linen bands at neck and throat, and a knot of cherry ribbon. And the slim finger wore no wedding-ring. She took it all in, in three seconds; then she advanced.

"I wished to see you. We are not likely to be disturbed?"

"We are likely to be disturbed at any moment. It is the room where Madame Mirebeau tries on the dresses of her customers; and my time is very limited."

The dark, grave eyes were fixed upon the close veil expectantly. Inez Catheron threw it back.

"Edith!" she said--and at the sound of her name the girl recoiled--"you don't know me, but I think you will know my name. I am Inez Catheron."

She recoiled a step farther, her dark face paling and growing set--her large eyes seeming to darken and dilate--her lips setting themselves in a tense line. "_Well_?" was all she said.

Inez stretched out her hands with an imploring gesture, drawing near as the other retreated.

"Oh, Edith, you know why I have come! you know who has sent me. You know _what_ I have come for."

The dark, deep eyes met hers, full, cold, hard, and bright as diamonds.

"I don't in the least know what you have come for. I haven't an idea who can have sent you. I know who you are. You are Sir Victor Catheron's cousin."

Without falter or flinch she spoke his name--with a face of stone she waited for the answer. If any hope had lingered in the breast of Inez it died out as she looked at her now.

"Yes," she said sadly; "I am Victor Catheron's cousin, and there could be but one to send me here--Victor Catheron himself."

"And why has Sir Victor Catheron given you that trouble?"

"Oh, Edith!" again that imploring gesture, "let me call you so--need you ask? All these months he has been searching for you, losing health and rest in the fruitless quest--wearing himself to a very shadow looking for you. He has been to New York, he has hunted London--it has brought him almost to the verge of death, this long, vain, miserable search."

Her perfect lips curled scornfully, her eyes shot forth gleams of contempt, but her voice was very quiet.

"And again I ask why--why has Sir Victor Catheron given himself all this unnecessary trouble?"

"Unnecessary! You call it that! A husband's search for a lost wife."

"Stop, Miss Catheron!" she lifted her hand, and her eyes flashed. "You make a mistake. Sir Victor Catheron's wife I am not--never will be. The ceremony we went through, ten months ago, down in Cheshire, means nothing, since a bridegroom who deserts his bride on her wedding-day, resigns all right to the name and authority of husband. Mind, I don't regret it now; I would not have it otherwise if I could. And this is not bravado, Miss Catheron; I mean it. In the hour I married your cousin he was no more to me than one of his own footmen--I say it to my own shame and lasting dishonor; and I thank Heaven most sincerely now, that whether he were mad or sane, that he deserted me as he did. At last I am free--not bound for life to a man that by this time I might have grown to loathe. For I think my indifference then would have grown to hate. Now I simply scorn him in a degree less than I scorn myself. I never wish to hear his name--but I also would not go an inch out of my way to avoid him. He is simply nothing to me--nothing. If I were dead and in my grave, I could not be one whit more lost to him than I am. Why he has presumed to search for me is beyond my comprehension. How he has had the audacity to hunt me down, and send you here, surpasses belief. I wonder you came, Miss Catheron! As you have come, let me give you this word of advice: make your first visit your last. Don't come again to see me--don't let Sir Victor Catheron dog my steps or in any way interfere with me. I never was a very good or patient sort of person--I have not become more so of late. I am only a girl, alone and poor, but," her eyes flashed fire--literally fire--and her hands clenched, "I warn him--it will not be safe!"

Inez drew back. What she had expected she hardly knew--certainly not this.

"As I said before," Edith went on, "my time is limited. Madame does not allow her working-girls to receive visitors in working hours. Miss Catheron, I have the honor to wish you good-morning."

"Stay!" Inez cried, "for the love of Heaven. Oh, what shall I say, how shall I soften her? Edith, you don't understand. I wish--I wish I dared tell you the secret that took Victor from your side that day! He loves you--no, that is too poor a word to express what he feels; his life is paying the penalty of his loss. He is dying, Edith, dying of heart disease, brought on by what he has suffered in losing you. In his dying hour he will tell you all; and his one prayer is for death, that he may tell you, that you may cease to wrong and hate him as you do. O Edith, listen to me--pity me--pity him who is dying for you! Don't be so hard. See, I kneel to you!--as you hope for mercy in your own dying hour, Edith Catheron, have mercy on him!"

She flung herself on her knees, tears pouring over her face, and held up her clasped hands.

"For pity's sake, Edith--for your own sake. Don't harden your heart; try and believe, though you may not understand. I tell you he loves you--that he is a dying man. We are all sinners; as you hope for pity and mercy, have pity and mercy on him now." With her hand on the door, with Inez Catheron clinging to her dress, she paused, moved, distressed, softened in spite of herself.

"Get up, Miss Catheron," she said, "you must not kneel to me. What is it you want? what is it you ask me to do?"

"I ask you to give up this life of toil--to come home with me. Lady Helena awaits you. Make your home with her and with me--take the name and wealth that are yours, and wait--try to wait patiently to the end. For Victor--poor, heart-broken boy!--you will not have long to wait."

Her voice broke--her sobs filled the room. The distressed look was still on Edith's face, but it was as resolute as ever.

"What you ask is impossible," she said; "utterly and absolutely impossible. What you say about your cousin may be true. I don't understand--I never could read riddles--but it does not alter my determination in the least. What! live on the bounty of a man who deserts me on my wedding-day--who makes me an outcast--an object of scorn and disgrace! I would die first! I would face starvation and death in this great city. I know what I am saying. I would sweep a crossing like that beggar in rags yonder; I would lie down and die in a ditch sooner. Let me go, Miss Catheron, I beg of you; you only distress me unnecessarily. If you pleaded forever it could not avail. Give my love to Lady Helena; but I will never go back--I will never accept a farthing from Sir Victor Catheron. Don't come here more--don't let _him_ come." Again her eyes gleamed. "There is neither sorrow nor pity for him in my heart. It is like a stone where he is concerned, and always will be--always, though he lay dying before me. Now, farewell."

Then the door opened and closed, and she was gone.


CHAPTER III.

HOW THEY MET.

Miss Stuart went back to the workroom, and to the dozen or more young women there assembled. If she was a shade paler than her wont they were not likely to notice it--if she was more silent even than usual, why silence was always Miss Stuart's forte. Only the young person to whom Miss Catheron had given the sovereign looked at her curiously, and said point blank:

"I say, Miss Stuart, who was that? what did she want?" And the dark, haughty eyes of Miss Stuart had lifted from the peach satin on which she worked, and fixed themselves icily upon her interrogator:

"It was a lady I never saw before," she answered frigidly. "What she wanted is certainly no business of yours, Miss Hatton."

Miss Hatton flounced off with a muttered reply; but there was that about Edith that saved her from open insult--a dignity and distance they none of them could overreach. Besides, she was a favorite with madame and the forewoman. So silently industrious, so tastefully neat, so perfectly trustworthy in her work. Her companions disliked and distrusted her; she held herself aloof from them all; she had something on her mind--there was an air of mystery about her; they doubted her being an English girl at all. She would have none of their companionship; if she had a secret she kept it well; in their noisy, busy midst she was as much alone as though she