"Within an hour you can at least comprehend what I demand. I am going to the terrace of the Villa Reale, and when in accordance with that contract you decide to adopt my child, and present her to the world as your own, you will find me on the terrace."

He would have taken her hand, but she walked away and disappeared, closing a door behind her.

His hat had rolled out of sight, and as he searched hurriedly for it, Mrs. Waul spoke from her distant recess:

"General Laurance will find his hat between the ottoman and the window."

The winding walks of the Villa were comparatively deserted, when Mrs.

Orme began to pace slowly to and fro beneath the trees, whose foliage swayed softly in the mild evening air. When the few remaining groups had pa.s.sed beyond her vision, she threw back the long thick veil that had effectually concealed her features, and approaching the parapet that overhung the sea, sat down. Removing her hat and veil, she placed them beside her on the seat, and resting her hands on the iron railing, bowed her chin upon them, and looked out upon the sea murmuring at the foot of the wall.

The flush and sparkle of an hour ago had vanished so utterly, that it appeared incredible that colour, light, and dimples could ever wake again in that frozen face, over whose rigid features brooded the calm of stone.

"A woman fair and stately, But pale as are the dead,"--

she seemed some impa.s.sive soulless creature, incapable alike of remorse or of hope, allured by no future, frightened by no past; silently fronting at last the one sunless, joyless, dreary goal, whose attainment had been for years the paramount aim of her stranded life. The rosy glow of dying day yet lingered in the sky and tinged the sea, and a golden moon followed by a few shy stars watched their shining images twinkling in the tremulous water; but the loveliest object upon which their soft light fell was that lonely, wan, lilac-robed woman.

So Jephtha's undaunted daughter might have looked, as she saw the Syrian sun sink below the palms and poppies, knowing that when it rose once more upon the smiling happy world, her sacrifice would have been accomplished, her fate for ever sealed; or so perhaps Alcestis watched the slow-coming footsteps of that dreadful hour, when for her beloved she voluntarily relinquished life.

To die for those we love were easy martyrdom, but to live in sacrificial throes fierce as Dirce's tortures, to endure for tedious indefinite lingering years, jilted by death, demands a fort.i.tude higher than that of Cato, Socrates, or Seneca.

To all of us come sooner or later lurid fateful hours that bring us face to face with the pale Parcae; so close that we see the motionless distaff, and the glitter of the opening shears, and have no wish to stay the clipping of the frayed and tangled thread.

In comparison with the grim destiny Mrs. Orme had so systematically planned the hideous "death in life," upon which she was deliberately preparing to enter, a leap over that wall into the placid sea beneath would have been welcome as heaven to tortured Dives; but despite the loathing and horror of her sickened and outraged soul, she contemplated her future lot as calmly as St. Lawrence the heating of his gridiron.

Over the beautiful blue bay, where the moon had laid her pavement of gold, floated a low sweet song, a simple barcarolle, that came from a group of happy souls in a small boat

"Che cosi vual que pesci Fiduline!

L'anel que me casca Nella bella mia barca Nella bella se ne va.

Fiduline."

Approaching the sh.o.r.e, the ruddy light burning at one end of the boat showed its occupants; a handsome athletic young fisherman, and his pretty childish wife, hushing her baby in her arms, with a slow cradle-like movement that kept time to her husband's song.

"Te daro cento scudi Fiduline.

Sta borsa riccama Por la bella sua barca Colla bella se ne va Fidulilalo, Fiduline."

Springing ash.o.r.e he secured the boat, and held out his arms for the sleeping bud that contained in its folded petals all their domestic hopes; and as the star-eyed young mother kissed it lightly and laid it in its father's arms, the happy pair walked away, leaving the echo of their gay musical chatter lingering on the air.

To the woman who watched and listened from the parapet above, it seemed a panel rosy, dewy, fresh from Tempe, set as a fresco upon the walls of h.e.l.l, to heighten the horrors of the doomed.

From her chalice fate had stolen all that was sweet and rapturous in wifehood and motherhood, subst.i.tuting hemlock; and as the vision of her own fair child was recalled by the sleeping babe of the Italian fisherman, she suffered a keen pang in the consciousness that those tender features of her innocent daughter reproduced vividly the image of the man who had blackened her life.

The face in Regina's portrait was so thoroughly Laurance in outline and Laurance in colour, that the mother had covered it with a thick veil, unable to meet the deep violet eyes that she had learned to hate in Rene Laurance and his son.

Yet for the sake of that daughter, whose gaze she shunned, she was about to step down into flames far fiercer than those of Tophet, silently immolating all that remained of her life.

Although she neither turned her head nor removed her eyes from the sea, she knew that the end was at hand. For one instant her heart seemed to cease beating, then with a keen spasm of pain slowly resumed its leaden labour.

The erect, graceful, manly figure at her side bent down, and the grizzled moustache touched her forehead.

"Odille, I accept your terms. Henceforth in accordance with your own conditions you are mine; mine in the sight of G.o.d and man."

Recoiling, she drew her handkerchief across the spot where his lips had rested, and her voice sounded strangely cold and haughty:

"G.o.d holds Himself aloof from such sacrilege as this, and sometimes I think He does not witness, or surely would forbid. Just yet, you must not touch me. You accept the conditions named, and I shall hold myself bound by the stipulations; but until I am your wife, until you take my hand as Mrs. Laurance, you will pardon me if I absolutely prohibit all caresses. I am very frank, you see, and doubtless you consider me peculiar, probably prudish, but only a husband's lips can touch mine, only a husband's arm encircle me. When we are married----"

She did not complete the sentence, but a peculiar musical laugh rippled over her lips, and she held out her hand to him.

"Remember, I promised General Laurance only my hand, and here I surrender it. You have fairly earned it, but I fear it will not prove the guerdon you fondly imagine."

He kissed it tenderly, and keeping it in his, spoke very earnestly:

"Only one thing, Odille, I desire to stipulate, and that springs solely from my jealous love. You must promise to abandon the stage for ever. Indeed, my beautiful darling, I could not endure to see my wife, my own, before the footlights. In Mrs. Laurance the world must lose its lovely idol."

"Am I indeed so precious in General Laurance's eyes! Will he hold me always such a dainty sacred treasure, safe from censure and aspersion? Sir, I appreciate the delicate regard that prompts this expression of your wishes, and with one slight exception, I willingly accede to them. I have written a little drama, adapting the chief _role_ to my own peculiar line of talent and I desire in that play, of my own composition, to bid adieu to the stage. In Paris, where illness curtailed my engagement, I wish to make my parting bow, and I trust you will not oppose so innocent a pleasure? The marriage ceremony shall be performed in the afternoon, and that night I propose to appear in my own play. May I not hope that my husband will consent to see me on my wedding day in that _role_? Only one night, then adieu for ever to the glittering bauble! Can my fastidious lover refuse the first boon I ever craved?"

She turned and placed her disengaged hand on his shoulder, and as the moonlight shone on her smiling dangerously beguiling face, the infatuated man laid his lips upon the soft white fingers.

"Could I refuse you anything, my beautiful brown-eyed empress? Only once more then; promise me after that night to resign the stage, to reign solely in my heart and home."

"You have my promise, and when I break my vows, it will be the Laurance example that I follow. In your letter you stated that urgent business demanded your return to Paris, possibly to America. Can you not postpone the consummation of our marriage?"

"Impossible! How could I consent to defer what I regard as the crowning happiness of my life? I have not so many years in store, that I can afford to waste even an hour without you. When I leave Europe, I shall take my darling with me."

The moon was shining full upon her face, and the magnificent eyes looked steadily into his. There was no movement of nerve and muscle to betray all that raged in her soul, as she fought and conquered the temptation to spring forward, and hurl him over the parapet.

In the flush and enthusiasm of his great happiness, he certainly seemed far younger in proportion to their respective years than his companion; and as he softly stroked back a wave of golden hair that had fallen on her white brow, he leaned until his still handsome face was close to hers, and whispered:

"When may I claim you? Do not, my love, delay it a day longer than is absolutely necessary."

"To-morrow morning I will give you an answer. Then I am going away for a few days to Paestum, and cannot see you again till we meet in Paris. Recollect, I warned you, I bring no heart, no love; both are lost hopelessly in the ashes of the past. I never loved but one man--the husband of my youth, the father of my baby; and his loss I shall mourn till the coffin closes above me. General Laurance, you are running a fearful hazard, and the very marble of the altar should find a voice to cry out and stay your madness."

She shivered, and her eyes burned almost supernaturally large and l.u.s.trous.

Charmed by her beauty and grace, which had from the beginning of their acquaintance attracted him more powerfully than any other woman had ever done, and encouraged by the colossal vanity that had always predominated in his character, he merely laughed and caressed her hand.

"Can any hazard deter me when the reward will be the privilege, the right to fold you in my arms? I am afraid of nothing that can result from making you my wife. Do not cloud my happiness by conjuring up spectres that only annoy you, that cannot for an instant influence me. Your hands are icy and you have no shawl. Let me take you home."

Silently she accepted his arm, and as the fringy acacias trembled and sighed above her, she walked by his side; wondering if the black shadow that hung like a pall over the distant crest of Vesuvius were not a fit symbol of her own wretched doomed existence, threatening a sudden outbreak that would scatter ruin and despair where least expected?

Nearing the Villa gate General Laurance asked:

"What is the character of your drama? Is it historic?"

"Eminently historic."

"In what era?"

"In the last eighteen or twenty years."