His other wife. A novel

Front matter

4 0^

V

40 ,

Contents

CBArTlK. PACl.

I. — Sleeping Beauty 9

II. — The Widows Confession 18

CHAPTER I. ** Lucerne to be sold I How dreadful

** Dreadful? Humph! I really can’t see why that is more deplorable than any other occurrence.”

Is there nothing shocking to your sense of humanity, Mr. Croft, in the fact that two women, nobly born and tenderly reared, are to be expelled by the law from the grand ancestral estates that have sheltered their fathers for over a century, and they left houseless and penniless in a country like this?”

*‘My dear Warren, when you’ve lived as long as I have, you'll spend less Quixotic sympathy on cold, haughty patricians like Mrs. Morgan and her imperial daughter.”

As he uttered the last sentence, Mathew Croft, the

leading attorney of , Fla., by a caustic curl of his

grizzly mustache showed a very ugly set of teeth, that gave to his wide mouth the look of a ferocious beast with tusks. The deep-set, steel-colored eyes that glittered under shaggy arches of a hue to match his beard, wore an expression lO

SLEEPING PEA [/TV, of malignant enjoyment that is not good to see in a man's look when women are in the question.

It seemed to revolt and disgust his companion, the pale, homely, self-contained young man whom he had addressed as his ‘"dear Warren,” for the latter turned abruptly and resumed the perusal of a document from which he had just read something which caused him to give expression to the opening sentences of this story.

Mr. Croft let his keen glances rest a moment longer on the firm, inscrutable face of his junior partner, as if seeking to inform himself of other motives than mere chivalrous sentiments for the interest the young man evinced in the broken fortunes of Mrs. and Miss Morgan of Lucerne. Gordon Warren’s countenance never said to any one more than he willed it should, and now even its passing emotion of pained surprise had vanished from it — it was unrevealing as a stone cast.

“I was not aware that you had any acquaintanceship with the ladies of Lucerne, Warren,” Mr. Croft said, with an inquisitorial tone that seemed to displease the other, who answered curtly, without looking up from the paper :

“ Nor have I, sir ; but I suppose a man may regard the hard lines that adversity draws about frail creatures like those, even with all the distinctness of class between him and them.”

“That’s what I call making a fool of himself, then. How much do you suppose it would disturb their fine heads tQ hear that you were starving to-morrow?”

SLEEPING PEA C/TV.

II

Warren made no answer ; he continued to read as if he had not heard the taunt Mr. Croft went on ;

“But since you are so soft about the widow's troubles, I’ll give her the benefit of your consideration, and let you take these papers out for her signature this afternoon. It may soften the blow some to have it dealt her by an executioner so sympathetic. ”

To this Warren made no rejoinder, but said ;

“Is it not a little strange that the misfortunes of this family have fallen so suddenly? I have never heard a suspicion of the insolvency of Mis. Morgan's property before reading these statements.”

“Not in the least strange. The management of Mrs. Morgan’s affairs having been in my hands solely, it has been my care to keep them secure from public notice up to the present time; but, as you see by the showing of these papers, secrecy is no longer possible — creditors are pressing, and, either by private sale or on the block. Lucerne must go to satisfy the claims. Fortunately, I have been able to effect an advantageous sale of the property to a rich New York friend of mine, on conditions that he can have possession by the end of October. There remains nothing now to complete the arrangement but Mrs. Morgan’s signature to those documents. You will oblige me, and doubtless do her a favor, by taking them to her at once, that I may be able to post a letter this evening announcing the conclusion of the business to my client. ”

Of course I shall take the papers if you desire it; but I don’t quite see how my performance of that odious duty is to confer a favor on Mrs. Morgan. ”

Simply on the ground that a sick child would prefer to take its physic from any other hand than the doctor’s. ”

Mr. Croft gave a low chuckle of satirical mirth as he uttered this grim pleasantry.

“How much of the purchase money will the widow have after her debts are paid?” asked Warren, as he refolded the legal scrip which transferred the Lucerne property to an alien and a stranger.

“Not a cent; it all goes to mortgagees.”

“What is to become of these women then?”

“That is not my affair, nor yours, I think.”

Evidently the senior lawyer meant to close the discussion by the last remark, which was accented with that insolence of power that coarse natures love to assume toward their dependents.

Duly abhorring the mission imposed upon him, yet having no just reason to refuse it, young Warren set out to perform it.

As he had stated, he had no personal knowledge whatever of the parties concerned in the transaction, and had never set his eyes on either of the ladies.

Mrs. Morgan and her daughter had been residing at the North during several years, and had only recently returned

SLEEPING BEAUTY.

n to their elegant home in Florida. But under no circumstances would Mr. Warren have been socially acquainted with persons so far removed from his own humble rank. By sheer force of genius and manhood the young lawyer had emerged from obscure poverty at that period in Southern life when even affluence could not atone for the disgrace of being a tradesman or a plebeian.

He had not yet worn the professional dignity sufficiently long to win him admittance into the patrician circles, even had he been properly desirous of that distinction. But, unhappily for his future prospects, he had tenaciously clung to a vulgar contempt for the condescensions of the upper classes. He came of a cold-blooded race of independent artisans, who asked nothing better of the world than a chance to win their own bread, and eat it as they chose. Such had been Gordon Warren’s success at the bar that, with a little enterprise, he might easily have procured the recognition of society, with whom a laurel wreath would be accepted as ample apology for a very conspicuous pair of horns. But the steady acquisition of popular favor and patronage seemed to fill the measure of his ambition ; and though all the world spoke of his eloquence and talent, he made no effort to use them as levers to social preferment.

One pair of eyes only watched, with fond and loving tenderness, the gathering sunrays about the quiet, sober brow of the young attorney. They were old eyes, and faded by many tears, but their welcome seemed all suffident for the heart-peace of the tireless student, who knew few other paths than the one which led from his widowed mother’s cottage to the office of Croft k Warren, counselorsat-law.

To good Dame Warren her “brave laddie" had not his equal in all the width of the world, but much I doubt if other women would have said so much of his outer man. A tall, spare, vigorous frame, with enough of supple grace and practical strength to give his physique a somewhat formidable aspect; a well-poised head, that sat haughtily on his broad shoulders; clea!*, large eyes, with a look of eternal calm in them ; heavy black eyebrows, that almost met over a straight nose; a firm, chaste mouth, lightly shrouded by a very black mustache that intensified the sallow paleness of his complexion, made up the personnel of our hero — Dame Warren’s and mine, dear reader — yours hereafter, if you will. With all this depth of coloring and sharpness of outline, there was a passionless repose about him that won Gordon Warren the reputation of a cold, stern man. Perhaps his mother alone knew that he carried a warm, loving heart in his breast. Not much of it showed on the surface, but one might easily see that the resolute quiet on his face was like the calm that may rest on a sea full of terrors.

Lucerne lay three miles beyond the city. Thither Mr. Warren proceeded afoot along the shady road, hedged with magnolia and live-oak trees of great size. The fervid haze of a warm September afternoon gilded the tops of the forest trees, while beneath them a soft gloom, as of slowlycoming twilight, made tender mystery. A lazy wind stirred Overhead, and filled the voluptuous air with the scent of orange groves lying close about the white villa that nestled its wings in the luxuriance of tropical shrubbery that was over a hundred years old. At a light, swinging pace, Warren traversed the lovely sketch of woodland that lay between the city and the lake shore on which the Lucerne mansion stood. A miniature of the famous Swiss water was the small lagoon that now reflected the after-glow of sunset. Resisting his impulse to pause on the steep banks of myrtle trees that inclosed the lake, Warren hastened along the winding walk that led to a broad, paved veranda in front of the building. A cornice of ivy fringed the low eaves of the piazza and climbed about the slender stone columns, giving an appearance of greater antiquity to the quaint, half-mediaeval architecture of the building. Coolness and profound quiet were the most noticeable influences of the scene. No sound of human or animal life troubled the evening hush, that was dream-like and vague.

The visitor felt himself strangely spelled by the utter silence that reigned without and within the closed shutters. He had a reluctance to touch the heavy silver knocker on the hall door, lest the sound thereof might startle ghosts of a vanished time from out the labyrinthine arcades of the aged lime trees.

■ And then he remembered, with a pang, that his presence i6

SLEEPING BEAUTY.

here was the harbinger of doom and sorrow to two helpless darlings of fortune, now to learn for the first time what want and privation could do to enervated natures that had never learned to endure. Growing restive under this thought, he sounded the alarm impatiently, and was admitted by a stately old negress into the dim hall-way, and thence shown into a suite of rooms on the left side of the vestibule. At the entrance of these the dusky guide left him to take his card to Mrs. Morgan.

Heated by his rapid walk, Warren experienced a delicious sense of refreshment as he glanced down the length of these chambers, all opening together through archways supported on gray marble columns, and draped with lace curtains. The neutral tints of the walls deepened still more the tender shadows of the fading day, and the figures of statuary stood out in spectral distinctness here and there against their surrounding of sober-hued furniture. Presently, as his sight grew accustomed to the dimness, he discerned, through soft tones of roseate light that stole in from the crevices of the western windows, an object that startled his sensuous interest keenly. This was the form of a woman lying at full length upon a gorgeous tiger-skin on the floor of the end room. She seemed to be fast asleep. The face was turned toward him, and rested on a bare arm that was curled, in the fashion of a sleepy kitten’s, under her head. An open book lay beside her ; she had lapsed from its pages into her siesta. Almost unconsciously the young man had drawn nearer, and

Stopped within a few paces of the sleeper. Had he been an artist, he would probably have thought of Cybele, heavy-limbed and white, as he looked on the large, soft loveliness of luxuriant curves and snowy flesh, too lightly vailed in the thin folds of a muslin negligee, that clung as closely as the drapery of an Aurora standing hard by in the window recess.

Nothing could excel the languid grace of her pose, as she lay there in the unconscious abandonment of sleep. Magnificent lengths of bronze-colored hair flowed loose about her throat and shoulders, and but for the light, panting breath that warmed her parted lips into a scarlet glow, one could scarce have said she was not a waxen mold, too perfect and too fair for reality. Despite the intense sensuousness of her rich, redundant beauty, there was a delicate idealism, too, in its utter repose. She seemed to exhale a soft, intoxicating atmosphere from her slumbering form. Involuntarily Warren leaned closer to breathe it. His intent gaze fed feverishly upon the wonderful beauty of this woman. All silent and motionless as it was, it bewildered and enchanted him so that he felt dizzy. He had seen and been near beautiful women often before, and had not felt the smallest care for them — he had even fancied himself rather impervious to feminine charms ; but now he trembled like a snared bird in presence of this creature, whose powers were all fast locked in slumber.

At last his steady look seemed to disturb her ; the long;, l8 THE WIDOW'S COrrFESSIOH.

ruddy lashes quivered a little, then swept upward from the purple warmth of humid eyes that seemed still pursuing dreams, so far off their tremulous regard.

She did a very unromantic thing, dear reader — she yawned, and stretched her splendid arms above her head, and then rose on her elbow, wide awake, and curiously scanning the stranger who stood before her.

‘‘Well, sir ?’" she said, half smiling, half annoyed.

CHAPTER II. THE widow's confession

The singular self-possession of the young woman instantly relieved the visitor of the acute embarrassment he had felt a moment previous to her question, and in a few words Mr. Warren explained his intrusion upon her afternoon nap.

With a wondrous serpentine movement, in which scarcely any muscular action was visible, the young lady rose to her feet, as she said, laughing softly :

“I shall have to be more careful how I lie down to read in the parlors. We seldom have a visitor, at this hour, and this place is the stillest md coolest— and a.ccU dents will happen."

THE WIDOW^S CONEESSIOH.

She laughed again as she drew a chair forward, and added :

“Pray be seated, and I will see that mamma comes to you.”

Strangely enough, Warren felt that he would rather she staid, but he did not have the nerve just then to tell her so.

Her light garments swept his feet as she glided past him with a wax-like ophidian grace that matched her dazzling beauty well. Instead of taking the chair she had offered, Warren stood looking after her, and feeling all his pulses quickened as by electricity. The touch of her filmy robe had thrilled him through by the nameless power of that wonderful something for which the wisdom of science has found no term more definite than magnetism. The air about him seemed vital with subtle emanations from the warm luster of her glance, the auriferous shine of her fragrant hair. About the tiger-skin from which she had arisen there remained, to his excited fancy, a soft odor of crushed roses, that came to him hauntin^ly after she had passed out of sight.

He knew at once this must be Leda, of whose rare beauty he had heard other men rave.

Perhaps he would soon have called himself a fool for permitting his sensibilities to be disturbed by the loveliness of a woman whose lot was separated from his own by the great gulf of caste ; but before he had time to make so wise a comment upon his emotions, Mrs. Morgan entered the first of the three parlors.

THE mnOlV'S CONFESSION

Warren stepped forward to meet the slender, delicate, and intensely aristocratic woman, who approached him feebly, as if scarcely able to sustain herself in walking. He saw at a glance that she was an invalid, in the last stage of some fatal malady, but still fair as a dream.

She took the nearest chair, and held out a frail hand that was bloodless and wasted. For a moment she gasped painfully without trying to speak ; the exertion of crossing the house had exhausted her,

Warren clasped the pallid fingers, and asked, with anxious concern ;

‘‘Can I get you anything, madam?”

She smiled, shook her head, and pointed to a seat beside her.

“I am a little more ill than usual this evening, and moving has unnerved me. I shall be over it presently. Give me some air, please. ”

She glanced toward the closed blinds of a French window that gave upon the piazza. Warren opened it, and a stream of cool, vapor-laden air from the lake flowed in. Mrs. Morgan opened her mouth to breathe in a long draught of it.

The sky was still aglow, and as its radiance of rose and saffron tints fell over her face, the woman looked unearthly as a disembodied spirit.

Perhaps the late vision of Leda's superb health and gorgeous coloring had sharpened his perceptions painfully to the contrast which her mother’s transparent fragility now presented. Warren could scarcely believe that this diaphanous being, that reminded him of the ‘Mamp of naphtha in an alabaster vase,” could be the parent of that other organism so richly and almost superfluously endowed with strength and vigor.

Mrs. Morgan seemed sensibly touched by the reverent and almost tender solicitude with which Warren regarded her during the paroxysm of weakness, from which she was now sufficiently recovered to say :

“ Do not look so troubled ; it is over now.”

He thought it would soon be over forever and aye, and his heart shrank so much from the task he had come to perform, that he resolved to leave it unattended to. But Mrs. Morgan defeated his considerate determination by adding :

“I presume that you come to me from Mr. Croft with the papers I agreed to sign to-day.?”

“Yes, madam, the papers are here; but, in your present condition, you have every right to postpone a mere business formality which can stand for a few days.

“ Thank you, Mr. Warren, for the thoughtful suggestion ; but I shall never be better able to make an exertion than now — and what could delay avail me ? I suppose you are thoroughly acquainted with the unhappy condition of my affairs ?”

“ I learned only this morning by a hasty review of these statements that your estates are to pass to a stranger, dear madam, and much I grieve that it is so. ”

**You are very kind, sir, to feel so. But can it be possible that you knew nothing of my embarrassments until to-day V'

“Truly nothing whatever.”

“Are you not Mr. Croft’s business partner, as well as professionally associated with him ?”

“Yes; but in your case he reserved the right, as your friend and my senior, to keep your affairs to himself.”

Mrs. Morgan smiled bitterly. She was silent for a few moments; then, turning herself with an eager motion to where Warren sat beside her, she laid her fingers on his arm, and said, earnestly :

“Mr. Warren, do you believe that motives of consideration for me prompted Mr. Croft’s reticence toward you in this business V*

“He distinctly told me that to-day, and I have no reason to doubt his assertion. ”

“Then I will give you one. It is proper that you shall hear my version of this transaction before receiving my signature to these papers, which must hereafter inculpate you, as Mathew Croft’s partner, in one of the most unholy frauds ever practiced on a helpless woman by a dark and cruel man.”

She halted in her speech to take breath. Her cheek had flushed faintly and then grown more ghastly during her excited remarks.

Now there was something terrible in the hueless face, lit by the wild and desperate eyes of a woman half mad-

THE WIDOWS S CONFESSION, dened by a secret torture, that Warren could see was at that instant wrenching at her heart.

He seemed afraid of the consequences of her further effort to talk, and said, with decision :

“ Madam, 1 cannot allow you to tax your feeble powers in my behalf. If you say there has been wrong-doing in ' my partners conduct of your affairs, I will insist upon a full investigation before I allow this sale to go forward.”

^‘You would insist in vain; you can learn from no other source than my confession all the black infamy with which that man — that fiend — has netted in my life. He never dreamed its history would be revealed by me ; nor could it have been torn from me by torture, except to save the honor of a taintless character like yours. I should not rest in my grave if I left you in ignorance of the treachery with which you are surrounded in your connection with Mathew Croft.”

** Some other time, then ; not to-day — ^you cannot bear it. ”

^‘Alas! I have no surety of any to-morrows. Besides, » there is something in your face that woos my confidence strangely. I fain would intrust you with knowledge that may hereafter stand between my child and dreadful harm. ”

“In that case, dear lady, speak on. I shall feel it a privilege to ease your heart of the sad case. ”

“Come nearer,” she whispered, as she leaned more heavily upon the arm on which her hand still rested, till her tremulous white lips were very close to his ear.

“Judge now what cause I have to pronounce your partner a cruel traitor/' said Mrs. Morgan, as she finished a recital that had sent the hot, indignant blood with tumultuous force through the knightly breast of Gordon Warren.

He had heard her through without a comment; and now his cheek was flushed, and his eye glittered as he took the weak hand from his arm and raised it to his lips. He said, with suppressed feeling :

“I were unworthy the -name of man, far less of gentleman, did I suffer any consideration of personal interest to hinder me from giving whatever aid I can to extricating you and yours from the tissue of false appearances with which you believe yourself environed. But the matter is one of extreme delicacy, in which I must proceed with the utmost caution. Trust me implicitly, I beg of you."

“You must know that I have done that unasked.”

“I am proud of it, madam."

“In my turn, I beg one favor — never, under any circumstances, let Leda know a breath of what has transpired. "

“Can it be that Miss Morgan is ignorant of your pecuniary distress?"

“Not entirely; yet she does not dream of the dire strait to which my affairs have come. I thought it useless to give her pain until it no longer could be avoided."

“Your wish shall, of course, govern me. Yet I think it would be wisest to have her know."

THE tV/jDOtV*S COHFESSIOH. 25

“Perhaps wisest; but, for reasons I canrtot give you, I insist that she shall not.”

“Then it shall be as you say.”

“ I am not to sign these papers now?”

“Not now, or ever, I trust.”

As he spoke, Warren rose to his feet, and under the stern repression of his manner there throbbed a passionate purpose, that made Mrs. Morgan conscious of having linked the young stranger's future destiny with her own misfortunes — how, or to what end, remained to be seen. Now that she had unburdened her heart of its secret, the little store of strength that was in her failed quite.

“I have no words to thank you for your sympathy, Mr. Warren. I — I ”

The sentence perished unfinished on her pallid lips, from which flowed a dark stream over the spotless cambric of her robe, and Mrs. Morgan fell heavily forward in a swoon.

Warren lifted her in his arms and laid her upon a couch, stanching the life-tide with his handkerchief, after sounding the bell for assistance,

Miss Morgan appeai'ed veiy’ quickly, and, by her desire, Warren removed the insensible woman to her bed-chamber in the opposite wing of the house.

“Wait in the parlors until I come to you,” said Leda, as she motioned him away and assumed the care of her mothers restoration.

The young man saw at once that it was a sad 3uty, with

THE WIDOWS S CONFESSION, which the girl had become familiar. She showed no nervousness nor excitement whatever, but seemed confident in her skill. He therefore withdrew to the room in which he had first beheld the beautiful tableau, and half an hour later Leda appeared through the vailed archways, bearing in one hand a small lighted lamp, behind which her face shone as that of a young goddess.

“Your mother is better, I trust?” said Warren, as he moved forward to meet her.

“Yes; she is now asleep— she always slumbers profoundly for hours after one of these attacks. I want you to tell me what caused this one, Mr. Warren?”

She was standing opposite to him, with a small ebony table between, on which her right hand rested. Her tone was serious and anxious, yet a little imperious.

“Your mother was discussing an annoying business matter with me. Miss Morgan.”

“Will you state to me the precise nature of that discussion ?”

“I have not the right to do so. Mrs. Morgan is the proper person to answer your question.”

“That is precise!/ what she will not do. I have asked her, prayed her to explain the meaning of certain words which she uttered in the first instant of consciousness after her swoon. She tells me they were meaningless ravings. I know better. There is some dreadful trouble on my mother’s mind, and I think she has told you, a stranger, what she refuses to confide to her dauj2:hter. Is it so ?”

THE WIDOW^S CONFESSION.

‘‘Miss Morgan, you must excuse me if I refuse to answer any questions concerning your mother s business, of which I am simply the professional guardian for the present.”

Leda was silent for a few moments ; then, with a swift movement, she reached across the table and placed her hand upon Warren's, which also rested on the opposite edge of the ebony slab. She raised her eyes entreatingly, and said, softly :

“Do not speak to me like that; you see how ill she is — that at any moment I may lose her. She hides her trouble from me, because she loves me too well to pain me ; but I ought to know it — ^you see that it is time I did know.”

The pressure of her warm, lissome fingers on his hand gave a powerful emphasis to her words, and Warren felt his fibers quiver to his very heart’s core under her touch.

“It grieves me to refuse you anything, but indeed. Miss Morgan, I cannot tell you one word of what your mother has been pleased to confide to me — I have no right. Command me to any extent that I can serve you otherwise. ”

Leda drew her hand away, and said, with cool haughtiness :

“Thank you; but it is not likely I shall ask anything further of you after your treatment of my first request ”

‘*I am sorry that you take it so, but I have no option,” said Warren, with severe dignity.

you know, sir, that I have never before had a gentleman speak so to me?"

‘‘I conclude, then, that I am the first on whom you have urged a request so impossible for any gentleman to comply with.”

His cool, incisive accents seemed intolerable to the young lady, who flushed hotly and asked, angrily ;

Do you mean to reprove me?”

‘‘Certainly not — only to justify myself.”

She looked keenly into his calm eyes, as if seeking to find the most vulnerable spot in his soul.

There was inexpressible dignity and manliness in his whole bearing as he stood fronting her, with his proud crest slightly raised, and his glance meeting hers, steadfast and patient.

Quick as thought all her aspect changed ; the imperious challenge in her look gave place to that ineffable supplication that is a woman’s most invincible argument when she appeals to the strength of true manhood. Her tones grew tenderly tremulous as she said :

“Forgive me; I was hasty. I do not demand, but I entreat you to tell me what my mother ^aid to you. I must know, Mr. Warren.”

A moment of delirium like drunkenness made hie brain swim, as the ravishment of her beauty and the piteousness of her prayer besieged his soul and senses. He could only say, briefly :

“I cannot,”

THE WIDOWS S CONFESSION,

*‘You will not?" — this with a tender reproachfulness that hurt him like a stab.

“I will not,” he replied; but the pain of saying it had whitened his strong face.

Leda dropped her face in her hands, and sobbed passionately as a young child.

There are men who smile at cannon-balls and rifleshots on a battle-field, that are the veriest cowards in presence of a weeping woman. And a beautiful woman in tears is a power more dangerous to a good man’s honor than a whole army of tempting devils.