"But Aubrey is not here to-night. Does not affect parties, I believe?"

"Rarely shows himself. But you mistake: he came in not twenty minutes ago; and you should have seen what I saw--the rare-ripe red deepen on Salome's cheeks when he spoke to her."

Irene moved away from the window, and soon after was about to accompany Charlie to the hall, when a Mr. Bainbridge came up and claimed her hand for the cotillion forming in the next room. As they took their places on the floor, she saw that Salome and Russell would be _vis-a-vis_.

Irene moved mechanically through the airy mazes of the dance, straining her ear to catch the mellow voice which uttered such graceful, fascinating nothings to Salome. Several times in the course of the cotillion Russell's hand clasped her, but even then he avoided looking at her, and seemed engrossed in conversation with his gay partner. Once Irene looked up steadily, and as she noted the expression with which he regarded his companion she wondered no longer at the rumour she had heard, and acknowledged to herself that they were, indeed, a handsome couple.

The dance ended; Irene declined to dance again. She looked about for Dr.

Arnold, but he had disappeared; her father was deep in a game of euchre; and as she crossed the hall she was surprised to see Philip leaning against the door-facing, and peering curiously into the parlours.

"Philip, what are you doing here?"

"Oh, Miss Irene! I have been hunting for you ever so long. Mrs. Davis is dying, and Susan sent me after you. I went to your house two hours ago, and they said you were here. Will you come, ma'am!"

"Of course. Philip, find Andrew and the carriage, and I will meet you at the side door in five minutes."

She went to the dressing-room, asked for pencil and paper, and wrote a few lines, which she directed the servant to hand immediately to her father--found her shawl, and stole down to the side door. She saw the dim outline of a form sitting on the step, in the shadow of cl.u.s.tering vines, and asked--

"Is that you, Philip? I am ready."

The figure rose, came forward into the light, hat in hand, and both started visibly.

"Pardon me, Mr. Aubrey. I mistook you in the darkness for another."

Here Philip ran up the steps.

"Miss Irene, Andrew says he can't get to the side gate for the carriages.

He is at the front entrance."

"Can I a.s.sist you, Miss Huntingdon?"

"I thank you; no."

"May I ask if you are ill?"

"Not in the least--but I am suddenly called away."

She pa.s.sed him, and accompanied Philip to the carriage. A few minutes'

rapid driving brought them to the Row, and, directing Andrew to return and wait for her father, Irene entered the low small chamber, where a human soul was pluming itself for its final flight home. The dying woman knew her even then in the fierce throes of dissolution, and the sunken eyes beamed as she bent over the pillow.

"G.o.d bless you! I knew you would come. My children--what will become of them? Will you take care of them? Tell me quick."

"Put your mind at rest, Mrs. Davis. I will see that your children are well cared for in every respect."

"Promise me!" gasped the poor sufferer, clutching the jewelled arm.

"I do promise you most solemnly that I will watch over them constantly.

They shall never want so long as I live. Will you not believe me, and calm yourself?"

A ghastly smile trembled over the distorted features, and she bowed her head in a.s.sent.

"Mrs. Davis, don't you feel that you will soon be at rest with G.o.d?"

"Yes--I am going home happy--happy."

She closed her eyes and whispered--

"Sing my--hymn--once--more."

Making a great effort to crush her own feelings, Irene sang the simple but touching words of "Home Again," and though her voice faltered now and then, she sang it through--knowing, from the expression of the sufferer's face, that the spirit was pa.s.sing to its endless rest.

A pa.s.sionate burst of sorrow from Johnnie followed the discovery of the melancholy truth, and rising from the floor Irene seated herself on a chair, taking the child on her lap, and soothing his violent grief. Too young to realize his loss, he was easily comforted, and after a time grew quiet. She directed Susan to take him into the next room and put him on his pallet; and when she had exchanged a few words with Philip's mother about the disposition of the rigid sleeper, she turned to quit the apartment, and saw Russell standing on the threshold. Had the dead mother suddenly stepped before her she would scarcely have been more astonished and startled.

He extended one hand, and hastily taking hers, drew her to the door of the narrow, dark hall, where the newly-risen moon shone in.

"Come out of this charnel-house into the pure air once more. Do not shrink back--trust yourself with me this once at least." The brick walls of the factory rose a hundred yards off, in full view of the Row, and leading her along the river bank he placed her on one of the ma.s.sive stone steps of the building.

"What brought you here to-night, Mr. Aubrey?"

"An unpardonable curiosity concerning your sudden departure--an unconquerable desire to speak to you once more. I came here overmastered by an irresistible desire to see you alone, to look at you, to tell you what I have almost sworn should never pa.s.s my lips--what you may consider unmanly weakness--nay, insanity, on my part. We are face to face at last, man and woman, with the golden bars of conventionality and worldly distinction snapped asunder. I am no longer the man whom society would fain flatter, in atonement for past injustice; and I choose to forget for the time, that you are the daughter of my bitterest deadly foe--my persistent persecutor. I remember nothing now but the crowned days of our childhood, the rosy dawn of my manhood, where your golden head shone my Morning Star. I hurl away all barriers and remember only the one dream of my life--my deathless, unwavering love for you. Oh, Irene! Irene! why have you locked that rigid cold face of yours against me? In the hallowed days of old you nestled your dear hands into mine, and pressed your curls against my cheek, and gave me comfort in your pure, warm, girlish affection; how can you s.n.a.t.c.h your frozen fingers from mine now, as though my touch were contamination? Be yourself once more--give me one drop from the old overflowing fountain. I am a lonely man; and my proud, bitter heart hungers for one of your gentle words, one of your sweet, priceless smiles. Irene, look at me! Give it to me?"

He sat down on the step at her feet, and raised his dark magnetic face, glowing with the love which had so long burned undimmed, his lofty full forehead wearing a strange flush.

She dared not meet his eye, and drooped her head on her palms, shrinking from the scorching furnace of trial, whose red jaws yawned to receive her.

He waited a moment, and his low mellow voice rose to a stormy key.

"Irene, you are kind and merciful to the poor wretches in the Row.

Poverty--nay, crime, does not frighten away your compa.s.sion for them! Why are you hard and cruelly haughty only to me?"

"You do not need my sympathy, Mr. Aubrey, and congratulations on your great success would not come gracefully from my lips. Most unfortunate obstacles long since rendered all intercourse between us impossible still; my feeling for you has undergone no change. I am, I a.s.sure you, still your friend."

It cost her a powerful effort to utter these words, and her voice took a metallic tone utterly foreign to it. Her heart writhed, bled and moaned in the grip of her steely purpose, but she endured all calmly--relaxing not one jot of her bitter resolution.

"My friend? Mockery! G.o.d defend me from such henceforth. Irene, you loved me once--nay, don't deny it! You need not blush for the early folly, which, it seems, you have interred so deeply; and though you scorn to meet me even as an equal, I know, I feel, that I am worthy of your love--that I comprehend your strange nature as no one else ever will--that, had such a privilege been accorded me, I could have kindled your heart, and made you supremely happy. Cursed barriers have divided us always; fate denied me my right. I have suffered many things; but does it not argue, at least, in favour of my love, that it has survived all the trials to which your father's hate had subjected me? To-night I could forgive him all! all! if I knew that he had not so successfully hardened, closed your heart against me. My soul is full of bitterness which would move you, if one trait of your girlish nature remained. But you are not my Irene! The world's queen, the dazzling idol of the ball-room, is not my blue-eyed, angelic Irene of old! I will intrude upon you no longer. Try at least not to despise me for my folly; I will crush it; and if you deign to remember me at all in future, think of a man who laughs at his own idiocy, and strives to forget that he ever believed there lived one woman who would be true to her own heart, even though the heavens fell and the world pa.s.sed away!"

He rose partially, but her hand fell quickly upon his shoulder, and the bowed face lifted itself, stainless as starry jasmines bathed in equatorial dews.

"Mr. Aubrey, you are too severe upon yourself, and very unjust to me. The circ.u.mstances which conspired to alienate us were far beyond my control; I regret them as sincerely as you possibly can, but as unavailably. If I have individually occasioned you sorrow or disappointment, G.o.d knows it was no fault of mine! We stand on the opposite sh.o.r.es of a dark, bridgeless gulf; but before we turn away to be henceforth strangers, I stretch out my hand to you in friendly farewell--deeply regretting the pain which I may have innocently caused you, and asking your forgiveness. Mr. Aubrey, remember me as I was, not as I am. Good-bye, my friend. May G.o.d bless you in coming years, and crown your life with the happiness you merit, is the earnest prayer of my heart."

The rare blue cord on her brow told how fiercely the lava-flood surged under its icy bands, and the blanched lip matched her cheek in colourlessness; save these tokens of anguish, no other was visible.

Russell drew down the hand from his shoulder, and folded it in both his own.

"Irene, are we to walk different paths henceforth--utter strangers? Is such your will?"

"Such is the necessity, which must be as apparent to you as to me. Do not doubt my friendship, Mr. Aubrey; but doubt the propriety of my parading it before the world."

He bent his cheek down on her cold hand, then raised it to his lips once, twice--laid it back on her lap, and taking his hat, walked away toward town.