CHAPTER XXIV.

HAUNTED.

Lelia was ready to weep with chagrin and mortification at Laurie’s cold reception of her tender advances.

He did not go into raptures as a lover ought to do when his darling sets the wedding-day; he did not offer her the slightest caress, he only said in that cold, bitter voice of weary resignation:

“You shall have your own way, Lelia.”

Furious with chagrin and wounded pride, she would have liked to rate him soundly for his reluctance and indifference.

But she did not dare.

The beautiful shrew had found out that she could not indulge her violent temper with impunity.

Her meek slave had rebelled, the trampled worm had turned and stung her foot. She had learned discretion at most bitter cost.

But she had gained a victory, anyhow, and with that she must be content.

She gave over talking, and sat silently by the side of her dejected betrothed, wondering uneasily if he would always be like this, if she could never win him to love again, and at last he looked up at her with absent eyes, saying abruptly:

“I will not wait till to-morrow, Lelia. I will go to Lewisburg to-day and attend to that business, and return to-morrow afternoon.”

“As you will,” she replied radiantly, believing that after all he was coming round, and showing an eagerness to make the wedding arrangements.

In fact, he cared nothing about it. He was thinking of the vow he had made last night--the vow of vengeance he had called Gipsy’s spirit to look down from heaven and witness.

His marriage to Lelia would not make him relax one jot or tittle of vigilance in keeping his solemn vow.

He was going to Lewisburg to get the advice of the best lawyer there on the case, and to have him employ a professional detective to ferret out the mystery.

It seemed to him that they had only to trace the diamond-robbers to bring home punishment to the murderers. Lelia’s plausible theory had taken hold on every one, even Laurie.

He lost no time in starting, though when Lelia confided the truth to her mother and the general, both were surprised, and slightly demurred at the hasty wedding.

“But Laurie wishes it very much, and so do I,” was her excuse, and she easily brought them around to approval of her plans. Both were heartily tired, in fact, of the caprices of the proud young pair, and eager to see them settle down to wedded happiness.

The general only ventured to hint that if Cyrilla got well she would be disappointed at having missed the wedding.

“Oh, no, she will be heartily glad that it is over. I know it from all that she has said to me,” protested Lelia.

So they said no more, and the wedding preparations went on, such as they were, for there would be no show, no gaiety, just a simple ceremony; then the bride and groom would remain to help nurse the invalid.

“Just to snare the bird so that he cannot escape me again!” Lelia confided to her mother, who applauded her daughter’s cunning.

Laurie returned from town quite late the next afternoon; but he brought the license, the minister, and the rings, as Lelia wished, and her heart beat high with triumphant joy. The victory had cost her dear, but she was all the more exultant.

Laurie hurried to his aunt’s room, but she still lay silent and pale as a death-mask on her bed, without recognizing any one, faithfully tended by Mrs. Goodwill, who never ceased lamenting the haste with which she had blurted out the awful tragedy to the hapless lady.

“You see, I never knew as she were so greatly attached to poor Gipsy Darke,” she said humbly. “Not but that the girl didn’t deserve to be loved. She was sweet and pretty, as if she had been born in a palace instead of a gipsy tent. And, oh, sir, it makes me glad to tell you her last hours on earth were made happy by your kindness!” she said to Laurie, as he stood alone by Miss Cyrilla’s bed, adding:

“She was that proud of the pretty ring you gave her, sir, that she jist sat and smiled to herself all the time as if she had come into a fortune.”

Laurie listened as attentively as if it had been the greatest lady in the land speaking to him, and he was more moved than she could see.

“Tell me,” he said gently, when she paused in her voluble speech, “did any one but you know of my giving the ring to Miss Darke?”

“No, sir, not a soul but me,” she answered readily, adding: “You see, no one else was in her room after you went but me. As for me, I never can forgive myself for listening to her when she told me not to sleep in her room that night, she felt quite well and preferred to be alone. I humored her, and now it almost breaks my heart to think of her fate, poor, innocent lamb!” and she sobbed in genuine distress.

But dashing away her tears the next minute, she sighed:

“A sick-nurse has no time for tears! Here I was almost forgetting it was time to pour that beef-juice between Miss Willoughby’s lips, though I never expect her to open her poor eyes again in this sinful world!”

Laurie started and glanced at his watch.

It lacked less than an hour to the wedding, and he had to have a bath and dress. With a sigh he hurried away, and the quaint old nurse, who considered the proud Lelia the incarnation of spite and jealousy, shook her head in frank disapproval, muttering:

“To be married in an hour to the spitfire. Lord, how I do pity him! He’s rich and he’s grand, but I wouldn’t be in his shoes for a fortune! And as for her taking that poison--bah! I’ll never believe she tasted a drop of it! It was just a pretense to scare him into taking her back, that’s what it was, and now she’s going to put him in matrimonial chains to keep him straight. I see right through the artful minx!”

In the long drawing-room some potted plants and white flowers had been arranged to give it a gala air, and the windows stood wide open, admitting the evening breeze. Outside long, blossoming tendrils of white clematis swayed in the wind and diffused fragrance on the warm air.

One by one the witnesses to the wedding dropped into the room, the servants huddling near the door; the doctor, who was gently complacent over the match, and serious over the unchanged condition of the patient; the nurse, who was allowed to forsake her charge a few minutes; the old general, who hovered near the door waiting to give away the bride, and at the last moment Laurie, in the conventional black dress-suit and white tie, and paler even than the usual scared bridegroom, a far-off look in his eyes, his lips set in tense, rigid lines that hinted despair.

At the door appeared Lelia in bridal white, following her mother; and, taking her hand, the gallant old gentleman led her before the minister, where Laurie waited in dumb despair for her coming, feeling bitterly that he had been tricked and deceived into this sacrifice. Grave doubts were constantly assailing him as to whether his artful cousin had ever touched a drop of the poison.

But bound in honor to the sacrifice, he stood there to utter the solemn vows binding him irrevocably to her he no longer even respected. Oh, the pity of it, the sin of it!

The ceremony proceeded, every word falling like a hailstone on Laurie’s heart, while Lelia’s leaped in passionate joy. Her responses were clear and joyous, Laurie’s husky and low, scarcely intelligible.

The ring was on her hand, placed there by fingers marble cold, and the minister solemnly pronounced them man and wife.

She turned eagerly to receive congratulations, and her glance fell on the farthest window, where a white hand from the outside held back the lace curtain, while a wild, white face peered into the room.

Lelia stood as if turned to stone a moment, then a thrilling cry burst from her convulsed lips:

“I am haunted!” she shrieked, pointing wildly at the window.

Every eye followed the pointing finger, every one saw the spectral face glaring in at the scene--the lovely face of Gipsy Darke, framed in dark tresses of curling hair, white as a ghost’s face ever must be. So it glimmered for a moment, then faded like a dream.