CHAPTER XI.

IN THE CONSERVATORY.

Senator Van Alstyne’s splendid mansion was ablaze with light. It looked like a fairy palace, glittering with its brilliant illumination. Within, the great rooms were thrown open, and wreathed and decorated with flowers, with banks of roses and jasmine, and a flower-wreathed nook from behind which a band of musicians sent forth strains of music maddening, intoxicating. A grand reception was taking place, and Senator Van Alstyne, in all the ugliness of conventional evening-dress, was prominent among his aristocratic guests, his red face fairly shining with gratified pride and flattered vanity. In the center of the great drawing-room stood a queenly figure in a sweeping robe of white velvet, with diamonds sparkling all over her white lace overdress like fairy frost-work glittering with dew-drops. She was pale and cold and proud, and in the depths of the beautiful dark eyes there was a weary look--a look of self-scorn.

“I am pitiably weak,” she was saying to herself, with bitter self-contempt, “for I ought to have asserted my dignity as a woman; and when that blow was struck me--that cowardly, unmanly blow--it would have been better, and I would have more self-respect now, if I had gone away. Gone to toil and hardship--to work, to starve and die, and be out of all this gilded misery. For, oh! if it be true, and if he is living, what am I? I dared not read the entire letter, for Van Alstyne would have taken forcible possession of it; so I do not know his address, or where he is, or where to write. Heaven help me!” she murmured, feebly. “What shall I do?”

Yet all the time these bitter thoughts were running riot through her brain she was standing, the cynosure of all eyes, in the sumptuous drawing-room, in her white velvet and point lace and sparkling diamonds, the most admired, even as she was the most beautiful, woman present. And like a huge watch-dog Senator Van Alstyne moved about near her, his keen, ferret-like eyes keeping vigilant watch upon her movements.

“I will find out what is tormenting her so!” he declared, resolutely. “There is something wrong--some secret--and it is connected with that letter. The next letter that arrives for her shall be opened by my hands before ever she sees it. It is no more than right that I should know the contents of her letters. By Jove! she is my wife, and I am her lord and master!”

Just then his eyes fell upon a stylish, graceful little figure in trailing yellow silk and blood-red rubies. A pair of big, black, velvety eyes were uplifted with an admiring expression to his face--with a look which drew him to her side--and the great Senator Van Alstyne was soon engrossed with Mrs. Vernon, a notorious flirt and belle, who looked upon all men as lawful prey, and lost no opportunity of subjugation. There was a Mr. Vernon, too; but then nobody ever troubled themselves in regard to him, save only as Mrs. Vernon’s husband. She monopolized all masculine attention, and in her sweet, innocent, childish way had been guilty of more cruelty, responsible for more family feuds and conjugal infelicities than any other woman in the city. Yet she had always contrived to escape blame or censure, and if any one ventured to blame her she posed as a martyr, and was looked upon as the victim of envious foes.

“My dear senator,” she cooed sweetly, as she laid her white-gloved finger-tips upon his black coat-sleeve, and prepared for an agreeable promenade, “I really must congratulate you upon the success of your entertainment. It is _recherché_; it is the most perfect that I have ever witnessed. And how superbly beautiful Mrs. Van Alstyne looks to-night! No wonder everybody falls in love with her. That reminds me to ask you the name of her new admirer--the stranger who haunts her like a shadow. He is so handsome--perfectly splendid. With such an interesting pallor, and large, dark, melancholy eyes, silky black mustache and wavy dark hair. I declare he is just for all the world like the Giaour and all of dear, delightful, awfully wicked Lord Byron’s heroes! And he looks at Lenore--Mrs. Van Alstyne--with such a look! What is his name, did you say, senator?”

And she knew full well that the jealous old senator had not said, and did not know, and it was for that very reason that she had broached the subject. For Lenore had been so coldly proud in her reception of Mrs. Vernon that that lady could not find it in her heart to forgive her, and instead had vowed to pay her back.

She watched Van Alstyne’s face change from smiling red to angry purple, and his small eyes snap with displeasure. She noticed, too, the clinched hand and hard, labored breathing. Nothing escaped her eager, malicious eyes.

“I have not the pleasure of knowing all Mrs. Van Alstyne’s friends,” he returned, stiffly. “Be good enough to point him out to me, Mrs. Vernon. Perhaps I can tell you his name if I have the pleasure of seeing the gentleman.”

“Ah, yes, to be sure! I am always doing foolish, childish things,” in a tone of mock sorrow. “Forgive me, senator--please; and I’ll promise, like the naughty boy, never to do it again. There! I see my fascinating hero--the mysterious unknown. He is standing not far from Mrs. Van Alstyne. She does not appear to see him at all; but some magnetism draws him thither--sort of needle and the pole attraction, you know,” with a silly laugh.

Van Van Alstyne’s greenish eyes followed the direction in which Mrs. Vernon was gazing. He saw a tall, graceful figure in faultless evening-dress standing near Lenore. A wondrously handsome man with a decidedly foreign aspect, dark Oriental eyes, and pale, statuesque face. Lenore evidently did not observe him. She was engaged in conversation with a group of ladies and their attendant cavaliers, but the stranger stood still as a statue, his eyes fastened upon her like one who is biding his time, waiting patiently for his hour to come. And still without observing him she turned aside and wandered away to the conservatory. Van Alstyne’s eyes shone with a lurid light, and he set his yellow teeth close together, hissing forth a naughty word from between them. He arose to his feet; Mrs. Vernon arose also and laid her hand upon his arm. He could not shake her off, and he knew it; it was best also to keep in Mrs. Vernon’s good graces, so the wily senator was compelled to stifle his yearnings in the direction of the conservatory--the conservatory which Lenore entered and went on straight to her doom.

She wandered down the flower-scented aisles with a tinkling fountain splashing dreamily and tropical birds singing overhead in their gilded cages--birds that, like herself, had been taken in their wild beauty and imprisoned in a glittering prison against which they might beat their wings in vain, for they could never escape--nothing would free them but death. Lenore caught her breath with a weary little sigh.

“Nothing but death,” she murmured, softly; “and I have the means of escape always with me.”

She gazed upon one white finger on which a large solitaire diamond glittered in the gas-lighted conservatory like living fire.

“No one would ever dream,” she went on, drearily, “that under this shining stone there lies a drop of poison--such subtle, deadly poison, and so swift in its effect, that I have only to press the hidden spring in this ring to find death and eternal quiet.”

“Lenore!”

A voice at her side--a rich, sweet voice, speaking in a cautious tone. She started, and her face grew white as marble. She pressed one hand against her heart, with a low cry. One swift glance around the place, and then both white hands were laid in his, and a voice full of suppressed delight murmured, faintly:

“Cyril! Good God! can it be you? I could not believe it--I could not believe it even when I saw your letter! Oh, Cyril! Cyril!”

She threw herself into his arms, her proud head pillowed upon his breast, her white arms wound about his neck, and lay there in a very trance of delight.

“Oh! my love--my love!” she murmured, softly. “After all these years, to hold you thus once more! But, Cyril,” starting up with wide-open, wild, dilated eyes and a face of ashen pallor, “stop--and think! You--you know all; and in your letter you said that if I would see you, you would be able to explain away all the awful mistake of the past. Tell me, Cyril--tell me, oh! my beloved, you were not all to blame!”

“So help me Heaven, I was not to blame!” he said, fervently. “We were duped, betrayed, deceived--you and I. It was not my fault--it was not our sin; and for seventeen years--seventeen long, dark, bitter years--we have walked apart upon this earth--you and I. But no human power shall part us now, my darling--no one can come between us ever any more.”

Her eyes met his with wild terror.

“Cyril--I am Van Van Alstyne’s wife,” she faltered.

His eyes flashed. He stooped and whispered a few words in her ear--words which made the blood leap madly in her veins.

“Cyril! Can you--prove it?” she cried.

“I can and will, my beloved!” He held her close to his heart once more, and showered kisses upon the sweet red lips. “You are mine, Lenore!” he whispered, tenderly. “All this mystery shall be cleared up, and the world shall know the martyr you have been.”

Footsteps! She sprung to an upright position and hastened away, while her companion turned to encounter the scowling face of the master of the house--and upon his arm, smiling, giggling, the irrepressible Mrs. Vernon, her black eyes twinkling with gratified malice and spite.