CHAPTER XXVI.

THE DESERTED BRIDE.

Ralph and Alexie had, some time before the wedding-day, entirely changed their plans for the bridal-trip.

They had decided that they did not care to cross the ocean in January, and a Southern town was decided on instead. Then they would return to occupy the beautiful home that was being built for them in Winthrop, and in the spring they would go abroad where Ralph’s parents were still sojourning.

But Mrs. Dunn adhered rigidly to the original plan. The great ambition of her life was to take rank as a society woman, and she believed that a European tour would confer upon her an enviable éclat. Nothing would have induced her to forego this great dream of her life, and the prospective bridegroom grimly resigned himself to the inevitable, although chafing in secret against his doom. But there was no retreat he knew. Mrs. Dunn held over his head like the sword of Damocles his guilty secret. He could not afford to risk its betrayal, so he was preparing to go like a lamb to the nuptial altar.

And now the final hour was at hand, and the bridal-train was entering the aisle of one of the most beautiful churches in Boston to the gay strains of the wedding-march.

Ralph Allen was as handsome as a picture, and Alexie was dazzling in satin and pearls and misty veil, all of lustrous white. In her train of bridemaids Italy came second to Alys--poor Alys, who was signally disappointed in her plan of making the third bride on this occasion.

Mrs. Dunn, in her character of a widow, did not wear pure white, but was elegantly robed in brocaded lavender silk and diamonds, with a point-lace veil obscuring her plump charms. She carried a bouquet of heliotrope and white japonica instead of orange flowers. Her bridegroom, dressed in the height of style, wore a bored expression, as if he wished the affair well over.

Every one was looking at the bridal-party, of course, or many would have seen that beautiful Italy was trembling as though under the stress of deep anxiety. They would have thought it but natural excitement over a wedding, but the cause lay deeper yet. She was in a fever of unrest and anxiety, and as she looked at the bared, handsome face of Percy Seabright, she thought to herself:

“He must surely have received the anonymous note. Is it possible that he calmly disregards it? Steeped to the lips in crime himself, he coolly disregards Mrs. Dunn’s sin, and will marry her just the same. Yet I have heard it said that the vilest men preferred good women!”

She could think of nothing but that in a few more hours Percy Seabright would be on the broad ocean, secure for months and months from the punishment for his guilt that she hoped to soon bring home to him. Over and over she asked herself:

“Did he receive the anonymous note? Can it be he has missed it by some strange fatality?”

Ralph had turned from the altar with blushing Alexie on his arm, the happiest young husband in the world.

The marriage-service was being solemnized now for Percy Seabright and Ione Dunn.

“Foiled!” Italy murmured to herself, and she could have fallen down in the midst of that perfumed throng of fashionables and cried out aloud in her despair. But she had to wear a mask of smiles over her keen defeat and congratulate the bridal couples. Yes, even Percy Seabright and his triumphant bride, although her lips were so stiff they could scarcely speak the words, and her little hand, even through her glove, was icy cold.

The bridal-party returned to Mrs. Dunn’s house for a short reception, and then traveling-dresses were donned and the carriages were driven away amid a shower of rice and good wishes. Percy Seabright and his bride drove rapidly to the great ocean steamer on which their passage had been taken.

Mrs. Seabright was all smiles and joy despite the moody cloud that lowered on Percy’s brow. She did not know that during the wedding reception a messenger-boy had brought him a letter marked “Important.” He led her into a saloon, then said quickly:

“Ione, dear, I must leave you here a moment while I go back on shore to speak to some one. You see, I have forgotten----” the rest of the words were inaudible in the babel of voices and noises that signalize a great steamer’s leaving her mooring to cross the broad Atlantic, but he left her side.

They were afloat, and a great cheer rose up from the shore. Mrs. Seabright looked anxiously around for her husband. In the great crowd of passengers she could not distinguish his form.

“My husband--oh, they have left him on shore!” she shrieked, in the wildest dismay.

Was there ever a more awkward contretemps? A bride starting on her wedding-journey alone far across the wide Atlantic! The passengers crowded around and offered their sympathy, assuring her that her husband would be certain to follow on the next steamer.

Somewhat propitiated by the attention she was receiving, the bride dried her tears and dwelt hopefully on the prospect of greeting her Percy on the other side within a few hours of her own landing. The captain even told her that if her husband sailed on the next steamer he had the probability of reaching there first, as it was celebrated for its speed. But when they had been only three days out the captain approached her with a letter in his hand, saying:

“A gentleman on shore gave me this letter for you just before we sailed, and asked me not to deliver it until to-day.”

“A letter for me!” and Mrs. Seabright’s heart gave an excited thump against her side as she took it from the captain’s hand and sank nervously into a steamer-chair before she opened it.

It was a little odd receiving a letter in this fashion. It startled her for a moment, then she took courage and tore it open. And the contents startled her still more.

The beautiful chirography was that of her new-made husband, and ran this way:

“MADAM: I fear it seems discourteous to leave you to pursue your wedding-journey alone, but it would do the greatest violence to my feelings to accompany you.

“Although I am not a model man myself, I have a prejudice in favor of good women that makes it impossible I should live with you. You forced me into this marriage, so I consider myself entirely justifiable in deserting you.

“Your boasted power over me is at an end, as I am informed of a crime _you_ have committed that quite equals, if not transcends, mine, since mine was unsuccessful, and yours did not fail.

“Briefly, then, while I was absent last August, a friend of mine was murdered in my country house by a shot fired through the window, as he was about to embrace a young girl. His name was Harold Severn, and the mystery of his fate has never been solved, as his body was afterward placed in the river by persons, no doubt, who wished it out of the house.

“But there is one person who knows how Harold Severn was killed. The murderess was seen at the window as she dropped the pistol, and--recognized as Mrs. Dunn! The witness of your crime has mercifully spared you, but felt impelled to inform me, in order to save me from marrying you. Unfortunately the letter came too late, but in time at least to give me this signal triumph over you.

“I confess I am filled with wonder over your reasons for killing Harold Severn. Can it be he was secretly your lover, and you were jealous of his fair companion? And who on earth was the girl, anyway? I mean to trace her out.

“Fair Ione, we are quits. You hold a dangerous secret of mine and I hold a yet more fatal one of yours. You understand that we will have to mutually respect these secrets.

“Adieu, madam, and bon voyage.

“PERCY SEABRIGHT.”

She sat there on the cold, wind-swept deck, reading that letter as if turned to stone, her face dead-white, her peculiar eyes a-glitter with greenish fire. The blue and sunny sky, the blue and rippling sea all seemed to blend into a broad, dark canvas, on which was painted in great black letters that all the world was reading:

“Deserted!--deserted in the first hour of your marriage!”

And she had loved this man--loved him as wildly as was possible to one of her cruel and selfish nature. In that love lay the deepest sting of her shame.

Her first husband she had never loved. She had married him for his money and played him false. A divorce had followed, and she had left her far-off home to escape the odium that settled on her name.

In Boston she called herself a widow, and here she after a while became acquainted with Percy Seabright. The man was a miserable flirt and a born actor. He could assume any rôle.

So Mrs. Dunn had fallen under the spell of the traitor, and put forth all her powers to win him. He was rich, or she believed so, at least, but she thought more of him, for a wonder, than of his supposed wealth. From the first hour of their meeting she had thrown herself at his head, and she hated with a jealous, murderous hatred every other woman of his acquaintance. She pursued them with all the animosity of an unscrupulous and vindictive nature, telling falsehoods on them, and placing them in the worst light before his eyes. At length she rejoiced in becoming his betrothed, little dreaming that a score of other women were holding the same position toward him, and that the arch-villain was laughing at them all, and secretly holding them up to the derision of his friends.

But later on, when she discovered all this, it did not cool the fever of her passion. She determined that he should be her husband, and for the sake of this heartless fiend even committed murder, staining her already guilty soul with a sin that would doom it to perdition. And what had all this devotion availed?

Nothing! He had had no mercy on her, deserting her as coolly as he would have thrown aside a soiled glove. A sudden glare leaped into her eyes, and she thought:

“I will spring into the ocean, and thus forever bury my torturing humiliation.”

She started forward, then recoiled as her hand touched the steamer-rail. The glitter of her eyes, the expression of her face were terrible.

“No, I will live--live for revenge!” she hissed, in an undertone of savage fury.