"And this," said Luzerne, taking her hand in his, "is the way I feel towards you. Surely our souls have met at last. Annette," said he, in a voice full of emotion, "is it not so? May I not look on your hand as a precious possession, to hold till death us do part?"

"Why, Mr. Luzerne," said Annette, recovering from her surprise, "this is so sudden, I hardly know what to say. I have enjoyed your companionship and I confess have been pleased with your attentions, but I did not dream that you had any intentions beyond the enjoyment of the hour."

"No, Annette, I never seek amus.e.m.e.nt in toying with human hearts. I should deem myself a villain if I came into your house and stole your purse, and I should think myself no better if I entered the citadel of a woman's heart to steal her affections only to waste their wealth. Her stolen money I might restore, but what reparation could I make for wasted love and blighted affections? Annette, let there be truth between us. I will give you time to think on my proposal, hoping at the same time that I shall find favor in your eyes."

After Mr. Luzerne left, Annette, sat alone by the fireside, a delicious sense of happiness filling her soul with sudden joy. Could it be that this handsome and dignified man had honored her above all the girls in A.P., by laying his heart at her feet, or was it only a dream from which would come a rude awakening? Annette looked in the gla.s.s, but no stretch of imagination could make her conceive that she was beautiful in either form or feature. She turned from the gla.s.s with a faint sigh, wishing for his sake that she was as beautiful as some of the other girls in A.P., whom he had overlooked, not thinking for one moment that in loving her for what she was in intellect and character he had paid her a far greater compliment than if she had been magnificently beautiful and he had only been attracted by an exquisite form and lovely face. In a few days after Mr. Luzerne's proposal to Annette he came for the answer, to which he looked with hope and suspense.

"I am glad," he said, "to find you at home."

"Yes; all the rest of the family are out."

"Then the coast is clear for me?" There was tenderness and decision in his voice as he said, "Now, Annette, I have come for the answer which cannot fail to influence all my future life." He clasped the little hand which lay limp and pa.s.sive in his own. His dark, handsome eyes were bent eagerly upon her as if scanning every nook and corner of her soul. Her eye fell beneath his gaze, her hand trembled in his, tears of joy were springing to her eyes, but she restrained them. She withdrew her hand from his clasp; he looked pained and disappointed. "Have I been too hasty and presumptuous?"

Annette said no rather faintly, while her face was an enigma he did not know how to solve.

"Why did you release your hand and avert your eyes?"

"I felt that my will was succ.u.mbing to yours, and I want to give you an answer untrammeled and uncontrolled by your will."

Mr. Luzerne smiled, and thought what rare thoughtfulness and judgment she has evinced. How few women older than herself would have thought as quickly and as clearly, and yet she is no less womanly, although she seems so wise.

"What say you, my dear Annette, since I have released your hand. May I not hope to hold this hand as the most precious of all my earthly possessions until death us do part?"

Annette fixed her eyes upon the floor as if she were scanning the figures on the carpet. Her heart beat quickly as she timidly repeated the words, "Until death us do part," and placed her hand again in his, while an expression of love and tender trust lit up the mobile and expressive face, and Annette felt that his love was hers; the most precious thing on earth that she could call her own. The engagement being completed, the next event in the drama was preparation for the wedding. It was intended that the engagement should not be long.

Together they visited different stores in purchasing supplies for their new home. How pleasant was that word to the girl, who had spent such lonely hours in the home of her uncle. To her it meant one of the brightest spots on earth and one of the fairest types of heaven. In the evening they often took pleasant strolls together or sat and chatted in a beautiful park near their future home. One evening as they sat quietly enjoying themselves Annette said, "How happened it that you preferred me to all the other girls in A. P.? There are lots of girls more stylish and better looking; what did you see in poor, plain me?" He laughingly replied:

"I chose you out from all the rest, The reason was I loved you best."

"And why did you prefer me?" She answered quite archly:

"The rose is red, the violet's blue, Sugar is sweet and so are you."

"I chose you because of your worth. When I was young, I married for beauty and I pierced my heart through with many sorrows."

"You been married?" said Annette with a tremor in her tones. "Why, I never heard of it before."

"Did not Mr. Thomas or Mrs. Lasette tell you of it? They knew it, but it is one of the saddest pa.s.sages of my life, to which I scarcely ever refer. She, my wife, drifted from me, and was drowned in a freshet near Orleans."

"Oh, how dreadful, and I never knew it."

"Does it pain you?"

"No, but it astonishes me."

"Well, Annette, it is not a pleasant subject, let us talk of something else. I have not spoken of it to you before, but to-day, when it pressed so painfully upon my mind, it was a relief to me to tell you about it, but now darling dismiss it from your mind and let the dead past bury its dead."

Just then there came along where they were sitting a woman whose face bore traces of great beauty, but dimmed and impaired by lines of sorrow and disappointment. Just as she reached the seat where they were sitting, she threw up her hands in sudden anguish, gasped out, "Clarence! my long lost Clarence," and fell at his feet in a dead faint.

As Mr. Luzerne looked on the wretched woman lying at his feet, his face grew deathly pale. He trembled like an aspen and murmured in a bewildered tone, "has the grave restored its dead?"

But with Annette there was no time for delay. She chaffed, the rigid hands, unloosed the closely fitting dress, sent for a cab and had her conveyed as quickly as possible to the home for the homeless. Then turning to Luzerne, she said bitterly, "Mr. Luzerne, will you explain your encounter with that unfortunate woman?" She spoke as calmly as she could, for a fierce and bitter anguish was biting at her heartstrings.

"What claim has that woman on you?"

"She has the claim of being my wife and until this hour I firmly believed she was in her grave." Annette lifted her eyes sadly to his; he calmly met her gaze, but there was no deception in his glance; his eyes were clear and sad and she was more puzzled than ever.

"Annette," said he, "I have only one favor to ask; let this scene be a secret between us as deep as the sea. Time will explain all. Do not judge me too harshly."

"Clarence," she said, "I have faith in you, but I do not understand you; but here is the carriage, my work at present is with this poor, unfortunate woman, whose place I was about to unconsciously supplant."

Chapter XIX

And thus they parted. All their air castles and beautiful chambers of imagery, blown to the ground by one sad cyclone of fate. In the city of A.P., a resting place was found for the stranger who had suddenly dashed from their lips the scarcely tasted cup of happiness. Mr. Luzerne employed for her the best medical skill he could obtain. She was suffering from nervous prostration and brain fever. Annette was constant in her attentions to the sufferer, and day after day listened to her delirious ravings. Sometimes she would speak of a diamond necklace, and say so beseechingly, "Clarence, don't look at me so. You surely can't think that I am guilty. I will go away and hide myself from you.

Clarence, you never loved me or you would not believe me guilty."

But at length a good const.i.tution and careful nursing overmastered disease, and she showed signs of recovery. Annette watched over her when her wild ravings sounded in her ears like requiems for the loved and cherished dead. Between her and the happiness she had so fondly antic.i.p.ated, stood that one blighted life, but she watched that life just as carefully as if it had been the dearest life on earth she knew.

One day, as Annette sat by her bedside, she surmised from the look on her face that the wandering reason of the sufferer had returned.

Beckoning to Annette she said "Who are you and where am I?"

Annette answered, "I am your friend and you are with friends."

"Poor Clarence," she murmured to herself; "more sinned against than sinning."

"My dear friend," Annette said very tenderly, "you have been very ill, and I am afraid that if you do not be very quiet you will be very sick again." Annette gently smoothed her beautiful hair and tried to soothe her into quietness. Rest and careful nursing soon wrought a wondrous change in Marie Luzerne, but Annette thoughtfully refrained from all reference to her past history and waited for time to unravel the mystery she could not understand, and with this unsolved mystery the match between her and Luzerne was broken off. At length, one day when Marie's health was nearly restored, she asked for writing materials, and said, "I mean to advertise for my mother in a Southern paper. It seems like a horrid dream that all I knew or loved, even my husband, whom I deserted, believed that I was dead, till I came suddenly on him in the park with a young lady by his side. She looked like you. Was it you?"

"Yes," said Annette, as a sigh of relief came to her lips. If Clarence had wooed and won her he had not willfully deceived her. "Oh, how I would like to see him. I was wayward and young when I left him in anger.

Oh, if I have sinned I have suffered; but I think that I could die content if I could only see him once more." Annette related the strange sad story to her physician, who decided that it was safe and desirable that there should be an interview between them. Luzerne visited his long lost wife and after a private interview, he called Annette to the room, who listened sadly while she told her story, which exonerated Luzerne from all intent to deceive Annette by a false marriage while she had a legal claim upon him.

"I was born," she said, "in New Orleans. My father was a Spaniard and my mother a French Creole. She was very beautiful and my father met her at a French ball and wished her for his companion for life, but as she was an intelligent girl and a devout Catholic she would not consent to live a life by which she would be denied the Sacrament of her Church; so while she could not contract a civil marriage, which would give her the legal claims of a wife, she could enter into an ecclesiastical marriage by which she would not forfeit her claim to the rights and privileges of the Church as a good Catholic. I was her only child, loved and petted by my father, and almost worshipped by my mother, and I never knew what it was to have a wish unfilled if it was in her power to gratify it. When I was about 16 I met Clarence Luzerne. People then said that I was very beautiful. You would scarcely think so now, but I suppose he thought so, too. In a short time we were married, and soon saw that we were utterly unfitted to each other; he was grave and I was gay; he was careful and industrious, I was careless and extravagant; he loved the quiet of his home and books; I loved the excitements of pleasure and the ball room, and yet I think he loved me, but it was as a father might love a wayward child whom he vainly tried to restrain. I had a cousin who had been absent from New Orleans a number of years, of whose antecedents I knew not scarcely anything. He was lively, handsome and dashing. My husband did not like his society, and objected to my a.s.sociating with him. I did not care particularly for him, but I chafed against the restraint, and in sheer waywardness I continued the a.s.sociation. One day he brought me a beautiful diamond necklace which he said he had obtained in a distant land. I laid it aside intending to show it to my husband; in the meantime, a number of burglaries had been committed in the city of B., and among them was a diamond necklace. My heart stood still with sudden fear while I read of the account and while I was resolving what to do, my husband entered the house followed by two officers, who demanded the necklace. My husband interfered and with a large sum of money obtained my freedom from arrest. My husband was very proud of the honor of his family and blamed me for staining its record. From that day my husband seemed changed in his feelings towards me. He grew cold, distant and abstracted, and I felt that my presence was distasteful to him. I could not enter into his life and I saw that he had no sympathy with mine, and so in a fit of desperation I packed my trunk and took with me some money I had inherited from my father and left, as I said in a note, forever. I entered a convent and resolved that I would devote myself to the service of the poor and needy, for life had lost its charms for me. I had scarcely entered the convent before the yellow fever broke out and raged with fearful intensity. I was reckless of my life and engaged myself as a nurse. One day there came to our hospital a beautiful girl with a wealth of raven hair just like mine was before I became a nurse. I nursed her through a tedious illness and when she went out from the hospital, as I had an abundance of clothing, I supplied her from my wardrobe with all she needed, even to the dress she wore away. The clothing was all marked with my name. Soon after I saw in the paper that a young woman who was supposed from the marks on her clothing and the general description of her person to be myself was found drowned in a freshet. I was taken ill immediately afterwards and learned on recovering that I had been sick and delirious for several weeks. I sought for my mother, inquired about my husband, but lost all trace of them both till I suddenly came across my husband in Brightside Park. But Clarence, if you have formed other ties don't let me come between you and the sunshine. You are free to apply for a divorce; you can make the plea of willful desertion. I will not raise the least straw in your way.

I will go back to the convent and spend the rest of my life in penitence and prayer. I have sinned; it is right that I should suffer." Clarence looked eagerly into the face of Annette; it was calm and peaceful, but in it he read no hope of a future reunion.

"What say you, Annette, would you blame me if I accepted this release?"

"I certainly would. She is your lawful wife. In the church of her father you pledged your faith to her, and I do not think any human law can absolve you from being faithful to your marriage vows. I do not say it lightly. I do not think any mother ever laid her first born in the grave with any more sorrow than I do to-day when I make my heart the sepulchre in which I bury my first and only love. This, Clarence, is the saddest trial of my life. I am sadder to-day than when I stood a lonely orphan over my grandmother's grave, and heard the clods fall on her coffin and stood lonely and heart-stricken in my uncle's house, and felt that I was unwelcome there. But, Clarence, the great end of life is not the attainment of happiness but the performance of duty and the development of character. The great question is not what is pleasant but what is right."

"Annette, I feel that you are right; but I am too wretched to realize the force of what you say. I only know that we must part, and that means binding my heart as a bleeding sacrifice on the altar of duty."

"Do you not know who drank the cup of human suffering to its bitter dregs before you? Arm yourself with the same mind, learn to suffer and be strong. Yes, we must part; but if we are faithful till death heaven will bring us sweeter rest." And thus they parted. If Luzerne had felt any faltering in his allegiance to duty he was too honorable and upright when that duty was plainly shown to him to weakly shrink from its performance, and as soon as his wife was able to travel he left A.P., for a home in the sunny South. After Luzerne had gone Annette thought, "I must have some active work which will engross my mind and use every faculty of my soul. I will consult with my dear friend Mrs. Lasette."

All unnerved by her great trial, Annette rang Mrs. Lasette's front door bell somewhat hesitatingly and walked wearily into the sitting-room, where she found Mrs. Lasette resting in the interval between twilight and dark. "Why Annette!" she said with pleased surprise, "I am so glad to see you. How is Clarence? I thought you would have been married before now. I have your wedding present all ready for you."

"Mrs. Lasette," Annette said, while her voice trembled with inexpressible sorrow, "it is all over."

Mrs. Lasette was lighting the lamp and had not seen Annette's face in the dusk of the evening, but she turned suddenly around at the sound of her voice and noticed the wan face so pitiful in its expression of intense suffering.