She struck her hands together and uttered a low cry.

"What is my name?" she said, in a tone so wild and vacant he thought her mind was wandering. "It used to be," she said, pa.s.sing one hand across her forehead, as if in an effort of memory--"it used to be Verrone--Christine Verrone, but I am not that happy-hearted girl the nuns used to call by that name. This is not Christine Verrone. The very flesh and blood and bones of this body are different--and surely in this mind and heart and soul there is no tinge nor remnant of that old Christine. How, then, can I be she? Oh! I have no home, no country, no dwelling-place on earth; I have not even a name to be called by!"

Noel could bear no more. Taking her hands in his, he held them firmly, and looking in her eyes, said fervently:

"Then take my name, Christine. Let me give you a home and friends, and call you by the name I bear. G.o.d knows I would feel honored in bestowing it upon you. If you will commit your precious life into my keeping--if you will marry me--"

The look of her eyes checked him. The meaning of his words had dawned upon her slowly, and to his infinite distress he saw that they filled her with pain.

"You are speaking out of pity for me. You think I would die beneath it, unless you sacrificed yourself and gave me the protection of your name,"

she said, speaking almost eagerly. "Tell me this is so. But you do not know how I feel. I can bear it somehow, or else I can die. I could never accept such a sacrifice from you, and, oh, I could never think of marriage again, even to the best and n.o.blest creature on G.o.d's earth, without a shrinking that is pain intolerable."

Noel saw he had made a mistake. He saw, too, that the only way out of it was to let her put this interpretation on it. So he merely soothed and comforted her, and told her things should be as she chose, and then he tied her bonnet under her chin as if she had been a little girl, gave her her gloves, lowered the veil before her face and asked her if she were ready.

"You will take your sweet girl-name," he said, "and be known as Mrs.

Verrone. Only Mrs. Murray and I will know anything of your past, and we will now turn that page, Christine, and go forth into a new world--and a brighter one, please G.o.d."

XII.

Christine was ill for many weeks, with Dr. Belford in daily attendance, and her faithful old Eliza to help Mrs. Murray with the nursing. All during the long fever, the gentle, little old lady, to whom Noel had confided her, watched and tended her with a mother's devotion and love.

The patient was far too ill to protest, and very soon she learned to lean upon and love Mrs. Murray as though she had indeed been her mother.

Again poor Noel felt himself banished, ignored and excluded, as he alone was kept away from her, but his care for her was so supremely above his care for himself that he never made a complaint.

He had learned from Eliza--whose mouth was shut so tight to the other servants that she went among them almost like a dumb woman--that on the day of his making the announcement concerning her husband to Christine, a messenger had brought Dallas a note, after reading which he had hurriedly put a few things into a valise and left the house. Since then he had not been heard from. Evidently Christine had warned him in her note and he had run away to escape the suit for bigamy. Noel had not suspected the poor girl's motive in writing, but, on the whole, he was glad. It was the simplest and surest way of getting rid of him.

At last Dr. Belford had p.r.o.nounced the patient convalescent, and she was sitting up and even moving about the up-stairs rooms.

One afternoon Noel came to the house, as usual, to make inquiries. As he mounted the steps he saw that by some accident the door had been left ajar. He bethought him to go in softly, in the hope of finding Mrs.

Murray in one of the lower rooms and taking her by surprise. He had bought a big bunch of crimson roses on the way. He crossed the hall softly and made his way to the cozy little sitting-room, attracted by the flickering light of a wood fire, which looked cheery and comfortable on a day like this. It was burning rather low, but the room was still partly lighted from without, and as he was about to cross the threshold he saw a picture which made him pause.

On a deep lounge half turned toward the fire a girl in white was lying fast asleep. It was Christine. Her dark hair was all gathered loosely back and coiled in a large knot low down against her fair throat, from which the white lace of her gown fell backward, leaving its beautiful pureness bare. There was a charming air of foreign taste and fashioning about the whole costume. Poor Christine! She had put it on obediently when Mrs. Murray had brought it to her, selecting it from among the contents of her trunk as the most comfortable and suitable thing for the convalescent to wear. It had been long since she had worn or even looked at it, and it had brought back sad memories of her pretty wedding outfit, but all her clothes had sad a.s.sociations for her, and the ones she had worn more recently would have been worse than this. So she put it on unquestioningly, too listless to care much what she wore, a fact which did not prevent its being exquisitely suitable to her.

She was very white, and the long black lashes that lay against her cheek made a dark shadow under her eyes that made her look the more fragile.

Her face was infinitely sad; the corners of the mouth drooped piteously, and a look of trouble now and then slightly contracted the brows.

Noel, who had cautiously drawn near, was seated in a low chair near her feet, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of waking her, and breaking the spell which seemed to hold him, also, in a sleep of enchantment. He made up his mind deliberately that he would remain and be near her when she waked. He had kept himself away from her long enough. Now he must see and talk with her. He sat so for some time, the red roses in his hands, and his steady, grave, intense dark eyes fastened upon her face.

Presently a long, deep sigh escaped her, and the fair figure on the lounge moved slightly, and then settled into more profound repose. It was evident that she was sleeping soundly. A thought occurred to Noel, and moving with infinite cautiousness and slowness he took the roses one by one and laid them over her white dress. One of her arms was raised above her head, so that her cheek rested against it, and the other lay along her side, the hand relaxed and empty.

As he was putting the last rose in its place, he observed this little, fragile left hand particularly and saw a thing that made his heart throb: the wedding-ring was gone from it. Christine was free indeed!

Here was the sign and token before his very eyes. Being free he might win her for his own. The force of his love in this minute seemed strong enough for any task. Oh, if he could only be patient! He felt it very hard--the hardest task that could beset him, but he gathered all the strength that was in him for a great resolve of patience. The sacredness of it rendered it a prayer.

And Christine slept on profoundly. He had known each moment that she might wake and discover him, but he felt himself prepared for that.

He looked at her and realized that she was well, for in spite of her pallor, she had the look of youthful health and strength, and he said to himself that his banishment was over and the time to set himself to the task before him was come.

As he kept his eyes upon her lovely face a sudden little smile lifted, ever so slightly, the corners of her mouth, as if there were pleasure in her dream. The man's heart thrilled to see it. If a dream could make her smile--if the power to smile remained to her--reality should do it, too.

If he could just be patient! If he could keep down the longing in his heart that clamored for relief in uttered words!

A piece of wood upon the fire fell apart, sending up a bright little blaze. The sound of it wakened Christine. Still with the memory of that dream upon her she opened her eyes, and met Noel's gaze fixed on her in sweet friendliness and gladness. For an instant neither spoke.

Christine's large eyes, clear as jewels in the firelight, gazed at him across the bank of crimson roses that seemed to send a red flush to her face.

Noel spoke first.

"All right again, at last!" he said, with a cheering smile. "Have you had a pleasant nap?"

And he leaned forward and held out his hand.

A rush of sad remembrance came over Christine's face. The lines of her mouth trembled a little and she dropped her eyes as she took his hand in both her own and pressed it silently. Noel knew the touch meant only grat.i.tude, and it left him miserably unsatisfied, but he felt himself strong to wait. She dropped his hand, and for a moment covered her face with her own, as if to collect herself thoroughly. Then she sat upright in her seat, scattering the roses to the floor. Noel knelt to gather them up for her, and when he had collected the great ma.s.s into a gorgeous bunch he knelt still as he held them out to her.

She took them, hiding her face in their glowing sweetness, and Noel, rising, walked a few steps away, feeling it impossible to speak, unless he allowed himself the words he had forsworn.

At this instant a cheery voice was heard in the hall.

"Who in the world left the front door open?" it said, in energetic, matter-of-fact tones, at the sound of which Noel felt suddenly fortified.

Mrs. Murray had entered just in time, for the sight of Christine here alone had been almost too much for the resolutions of reserve in which he had flattered himself he was so strong.

XIII.

In a little while the lives of Mrs. Murray and Christine had settled into a calm routine of work and talk, and the simple recreations of reading and house-decorating which were the only ones that Christine ever seemed to think of. She never went out, and worked with as much application as Mrs. Murray would permit at the embroidery which, at her earnest request, the wise old lady had got for her. She and Christine had a frank and loving talk, in which one was as interested as the other, in Christine's making her own living, and in which it was settled, to the joy of each, that their home in future was to be together. They were days of strange peace and calm for poor Christine, and her heart would swell with gratefulness for them, as she sat over her beautiful embroidery, which was in itself a pleasure to her.

But the evenings were the best of all, for then Noel invariably came--sometimes to look in and say a bright and cheery word, on his way to keep an engagement, sometimes to give them the benefit of the bright stories and good things he had heard at a dinner, and sometimes to spend a whole long evening, talking, laughing and reading aloud from new magazines and books which he brought with him in abundance. These were the sorts of delights utterly unknown to Christine before. She had read very little, and the world of delight that reading opened up to her was new, inspiring and enchanting. Noel read aloud his favorite poets, their two young hearts throbbing together, and their eyes alight with feeling at the pa.s.sages which left the matured heart of Mrs. Murray undisturbed.

It had been in vain that Mrs. Murray had tried to induce Christine to sing. It occurred to her at last to put it in the light of a favor to herself, and when she told Christine that she loved music very dearly, and rarely had an opportunity to hear it, the girl went at once and played and sang for her, and then Mrs. Murray used the same argument--that of giving a friend pleasure--with regard to Noel. At first it was difficult and awkward, but before very long Christine and Noel were singing duets together, and music now became a delightful part of their evening's entertainment. How dull the evenings were when Noel did not come!--for sometimes there were engagements from which he could not escape. Mrs. Murray missed him much herself and it pleased her to be sure that Christine did also. Sometimes he would come late after a dinner, and if it were only a brief half-hour that he spent with them it made the evening seem a success, instead of a failure.

After a little while Mrs. Murray succeeded in inducing Christine to take walks with her along those quiet unfashionable streets, in the bracing air of the late autumn afternoons. She would return from these expeditions so refreshed, with such a charming color in the fair, sweet face to which peace and love and protecting companionship had given an expression of new beauty, that Mrs. Murray would be half protesting at the thought that the people that pa.s.sed it, in the street, were deprived of a sight of its loveliness by that close, thick veil, which it never seemed to occur to Christine to lay aside. It seemed an instinct with her, and her good friend felt hurt to the very heart when she thought what the instinct had its foundation in.

In proportion as the influence of these days and weeks brought peace and calm to Christine, to Noel they brought an excited restlessness.

He was under the spell of the strongest feeling that he had ever known.

All the circ.u.mstances of his intercourse with Christine, the difficult self-repression to which he had compelled himself so long, and the sudden sense of her freedom which made vigilance harder still--all these things together brought about in him a state of excitement that kept him continually on a strain. It was only in her presence that he was calm, because it was there that he recognized most fully the absolute need of calmness and self-control. Away from her, he sometimes rushed into rash resolves, as to a resolute manly sort of wooing which he felt tremendously impelled to, and in which he felt a power in him to succeed. He would even make deliberate plans, and imagine himself going to the house and insisting on seeing Christine alone, and then his thoughts would fairly fly along, uttering themselves in excited words that burned their way to Christine's heart and melted it.

But when, in actuality, he would come to where she was, all these brave and manful purposes faded, like mist, before the commanding spell of her deep and solemn calm. She seemed so tranquil in her a.s.sured sense of his simple friendliness that he often thought she must have forgotten entirely, in the excitement that followed, that he had offered her his heart and hand and name, or else that she was so convinced of the fact that it had been done in pity that she had never given it a second thought.

So perplexed, bewildered, overwrought did he become with all these thoughts that he forced himself to make some excuse and stay away from Christine. When at last he went again, it was late in the evening and his time, he knew, would be short. It was three days now since he had been, and his blood flowed quick with impatience. He had thought of little else as he sat through the long dinner, eating the dishes set before him while he talked with a certain preoccupation to the beautiful _debutante_ whom he had brought in, and who made herself her most fascinating for him, Noel being just the sort of man to represent such a girl's ideal--older, graver, more finished in manner than herself, and possessed of the still greater charm of being thoroughly initiated in all the mysteries of the great world, across whose threshold only she had seen. She was exceedingly pretty, and Noel was too much an artist not to be alive to it, but as he looked at the fair, unwritten page her face represented to him, he was seeing, in his mind's eye, that far lovelier face on which the spiritualizing, beautifying hand of sorrow had been laid. He had not gone thus far on his journey of life without deep suffering himself, and the heart that had suffered was the one to which he felt his true kinship. At the close of the dinner the whole party adjourned to the opera, Noel alone excusing himself, at the door of the _debutante's_ carriage, on the plea of an important engagement.

The lovely bud looked vexed and disappointed, but Noel knew his place at her side would be abundantly filled, and got himself away with all the haste decorum permitted.

When he rang at Mrs. Murray's door Harriet ushered him into the little drawing-room where Christine was seated at the piano singing. Mrs.

Murray was not present. Motioning the servant not to announce him he took his position behind a screen, where he could see and hear without being seen. Christine had heard neither his ring nor his entrance, so she was utterly unconscious of any presence but her own, and indeed most probably not of that, for there was a strange abandonment to sway of the song as her voice, rich and full and deep, sang softly:

"I am weary with rowing, with rowing, Let me drift adown with the stream.

I am weary with rowing, with rowing, Let me lay me down and dream."