CHAPTER XXVII.

A FORGOTTEN BRIDE.

She was dead, the gentle mistress of The Crags, without ever recovering consciousness, without a parting word or look for the relatives who watched around her bed--she had always had a weak heart, said the doctor, and a shock of grief had broken it.

It was a most inauspicious happening for a bridal night; the whole household felt it so.

Every one sympathized with the bridegroom, but Lelia got scant sympathy.

They all whispered among themselves that the wedding had been urged on with most indecent haste when the mistress of The Crags lay so critically ill, and they laid it all at Lelia’s door, not scrupling to hint that the pretended suicide had been merely a means to an end.

But that end had been most cleverly accomplished, and whether she or her husband inherited The Crags she would still be mistress, substituting an iron sway for the gentle rule of Miss Willoughby.

The prospect was not very alluring to the indulged servants, and they all hinted at leaving in a body as soon as the funeral was over.

For there must be a funeral now--Lelia could not prevent it as she had done the other. She did not wish it, indeed, for as soon as her mother led her back to her room she began to plan, eagerly, for a mourning suit--that must be ordered for the occasion.

“Though I shall only wear black to the funeral; of course, as a bride, I cannot be expected to go into regular mourning,” she said complacently.

Mrs. Ritchie looked doubtful, saying:

“Aren’t you afraid that people will talk?”

“Let them! What do I care? Laurie and the fortune are both mine now. I can be independent of any one’s opinion,” was the careless reply, and presently she added:

“I think I shall let The Crags to a good tenant. I could never bear the lonesome old place!”

“But Laurie is fond of it, my dear. He will very likely prefer to spend a short time here each year for the shooting and fishing,” remonstrated her mother.

“Laurie will have to consider my wishes,” snapped Lelia.

“But he has lately developed a will of his own!”

“I shall know how to break it!” cried Lelia exultantly, remembering how she had compassed the marriage.

Not a tear, not a word of regret, from either, for the dear old lady lying dead in yonder room, shocked into death by Lelia’s sin.

All they thought of was the property that Lelia expected to inherit and enjoy.

All her life she had been tutored by her artful mother to scheme for and expect it, and now she felt it in her grasp at last; she could but rejoice in secret that the end had come.

How different from her young husband, whose mind was torn with grief over the loss of the dear one he had loved all his life.

As he stood and gazed on the dear, dead face and recalled all her love and kindness from his boyhood until now, a mighty grief shook his broad shoulders with convulsive sobs, and he was not ashamed of the tears that rolled down his cheeks and fell on her cold brow.

No thought came to him of the rich estate she had left behind, and that he would profit by her death. His breast heaved with genuine grief, and he felt with bitter pain that this death, too, lay at the door of the unknown assassin who had done Gipsy Darke to death.

When he went at length from the chamber of death it was to consult with his father over the arrangements for the funeral, and as a result he galloped away within the hour to Lewisburg, to personally superintend everything. In his grief and excitement he forgot Lelia’s existence, and left her to pass her first night of wedded life alone, a forgotten bride.

When she learned of this desertion, she went into hysterics and had to be soothed with an anodyne, her mother spending the night by her bedside.

It was a vigil never to be forgotten by Mrs. Ritchie, and she emerged from it with wan cheeks and hollow eyes, and profound thankfulness at Laurie’s absence.

For Lelia’s sleep had been restless in spite of the anodyne; her dreams had been horror-haunted, she had babbled of things so strange and fearful that the woman’s blood had run icy cold through her chilled veins.

She had even looked anxiously into the mirror, at day-dawn, to see if any gray threads had come into her fair hair, and sighed with relief that none were visible.

“How glad I shall be to get away! I cannot help but sympathize with Lelia in her distaste for The Crags. It is unendurably lonely. I shall go away the day after the funeral, as soon as the will is read. I suppose the old lady has certainly left me a legacy,” ran her thoughts, as she sought her own room to rest.

As for Lelia, all unconscious of the revelations of her nervous slumber, she arose, rested and refreshed, but so sullen over Laurie’s desertion that she remained in her own room making a great parade of grief, so as to deny herself to the neighbors who came from miles around to express their sincere sympathy.