The next morning, Colonel Vaughn, returning from his morning walk, was
overtaken by a ragged boy, who thrusting a billet into his hand with the injunction,
“Miss Rhee says you must look at it right off,” turned and shot away in the
direction of Carrick with a rapidity strongly suggestive of a reward in prospect.

Vaughn looked after him a moment in some surprise, and then opening the
paper read,

“I am dying. Come to me once more for the sake of Francia's mother, if not
for the sake of poor Anita.”

As he read, Vaughn's haggard face grew yet paler, and he muttered:

“Does not the day bring its own troubles without calling back those of yesterday?
Anita, Gabrielle, Francia, if I have wronged you, be content, for Neria
revenges all.”

Tearing the paper into atoms, he scattered them upon the fresh autumn wind
and walked slowly homeward.

The unsocial breakfast over, Vaughn took his hat and left the house, but
paused a moment on the terrace, doubting whether he should not mention his
destination, and yet disliking to enter upon the subject of Mrs. Rhee with any
member of the family who had been taught to avoid her name.

Standing thus, Fergus's voice reached his ear through the closed blinds of the
library. “You look ill and worn, Neria. Are you disturbed at anything?”

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“How can you ask, Fergus? This terrible secret crushes me to the earth.
It will kill me with its shame and sin,” murmured Neria in reply; and Vaughn
starting as if a serpent had lain at his feet, sprang down the steps and struck
toward Carrick, his brows drawn low above his glittering eyes, his mouth hard
and white with the emotion he suppressed.

Arrived at the little cottage, he was admitted by the old domestic as an
expected guest, and conducted at once to Mrs. Rhee's bedchamber.

“You have come!” exclaimed the dying woman, extending her wasted hands
and fastening her eyes hungrily upon his face. “I was afraid you would not.”

“Why should I refuse, Anita? If you indeed are dying, I shall lose in your
death a heart that once, at least, loved me well.”

And Vaughn, half bitterly, half tenderly pressed the thin hands to his lips; and,
seating himself, retained them in his grasp. Upon the wan face of the dying
woman came the flush and light of almost incredible joy, and the ebbing life
seemed to rush back in a flood to her heart as she cried:

“And you say it! O Frederick, not once, but always—now—this very moment,
I love you as no woman ever will or ever can love you. Believe that, and tell
me you believe it before I die, for it is so many, many years that you have forced
me to be silent, that you cannot know how unswerving my love has been from
then till now.”

“And has this love been joy or sorrow?” asked Vaughn, abruptly.

“A bitter joy, a cherished sorrow,” replied Anita, atter a pause.

“So is love always to one of the two it falls between,” returned Vaughn,
harshly. “Be content, Anita, your love is as happy as mine; happier, for it had
its day, a brief one, perhaps, but bright while it lasted. You were content while
we were abroad?”

“Content!” exclaimed Anita, while the flush upon her cheek deepened to a
fever glow. “Each moment of that time has made tolerable a year of the life
since. I die because those moments are expended.”

“Pity me, then, Anita,” groaned Vaughn, hiding his face upon the bed.
“Pity me, for I have no such memories to support me, and I am a man and cannot
die.”

“She does not love you then, this pale girl, whom you have placed above all the
queens of the earth by giving her your heart and your name?” asked the octoroon,
fiercely.

“She does not love me! She loathes my presence, my voice, my face. If I
touch her she swoons with disgust and terror.”

As the bitter words dropped from his lips Vaughn would, if he could, have
snatched them back, but it was too late. Anita's jealous ears had caught every
one, and she murmured passionately, “If I could but live, if I could but
live!”

Vaughn did not hear her. He was pacing the little room through and
through, and already had forgotten the presence of the dying woman, when she
said meaningly,

“There is good cause, no doubt, for such coldness. Does Fergus Murray
remain at Bonniemeer since your return?”

Vaughn was at her side in an instant, her hands grasped in his, her eyes
chained by the terrible inquisition of his gaze. “Anita! What does this
mean? Explain yourself, or you shall die repenting that you had ever spoken.”

“You should have learned in the old time that to threaten was to seal my
lips,” returned Anita sullenly.

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“Yes, but speak! Woman, you will drive me mad! Speak out, for God's
sake.”

“For your sake, who are my God, I will speak. Do you not know that long
before the fatal idea of making her your wife occurred to you, your nephew loved
her and she him? She would have married him, but it was better to be mistress
of Bonniemeer than the wife of a young man with his fortune yet to
make—”

“No. There you are wrong, I will swear,” interposed Vaughn, sternly. “She
has nothing mean or calculating about her. She is above the world in her errors
as in her virtues.”

“O well then,” sneered Anita. “Very likely it was some romantic idea of
gratitude, of sacrificing her own wishes to those of the man who had been a
providence to her when Providence deserted her. She offered herself a victim
to your passion.”

Again Vaughn started to his feet, stung to the heart by an explanation tallying
so cruelly with the experiences of his married life. “And I, who loved her
so far beyond myself, accepted the sacrifice.”

“The sacrifice was incomplete it seems, for she could not conceal, even in
your arms, her regrets for another,” said she, cunningly.

Vaughn paused in his stride, looked at her as looks the wounded lion at the
foe who has hurt him unto death and yet holds himself beyond his reach, and
said nothing.

“It is not for myself that I speak,” resumed Anita; “I am dying, and even
though I lived, I have long since relinquished all hope of your love; but it is
Francia—it is the child of my child who is the true sufferer, the real victim.
Long ago, before you forbade her to visit me, I knew that she loved Fergus, and
when I found her suffering and troubled, I drew from her the secret that was
poisoning her life. She loved Fergus, and Fergus would have loved her, but
that Neria stood between, and drew him to her with the wonderful magic of her
smile. I tried to soothe and quiet her, but the child inherits the passions of
her mother's race with the pride of yours, and she threw herself away upon a
man whom already she despises. Neria married you, and now rewards herself
for the sacrifice by indulging her passion for Fergus in your absence. “Do you
know where they were yesterday?”

“At Cragness,” replied Vaughn, briefly.

“Yes. The whole day alone in that deserted house. Even the woman who
lived there was sent to Carrick, and it was night before they returned home.”

“What scandal are you trying to make of this? The place was struck by
lightning and burned to the ground. Mrs. Vaughn's horses were frightened and
escaped, and she was forced to walk home; of course it was late when they arrived.
Be careful, Anita, not to go beyond the truth.”

“Beyond!” exclaimed the octoroon, with an evil laugh. “Be careful you,
not to go so far as the truth if you still would hold to your idol. How engrossing
the conversation or the business which took them there must have been,
when neither the lady nor the gentleman perceived the tempest gathering in time
to escape it! Nancy Brume had watched it for hours, and went to the library
door to warn them of it, but, although she knocked loudly, no one replied. Mrs.
Vaughn is a great business woman, I believe; probably she was engaged in settling
old accounts.”

“That is enough. Not one word more,” groaned Vaughn, and his torturer,
looking in his livid face and meeting the gaze of his burning eyes, saw that it

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was enough, and sank back upon the pillows exhausted with the vehemence of
her own passion. When she spoke again it was in an altered tone. “Frederick,
shall not I see Francia once more before I die?”

“To poison her ears with this?”

“No; I swear before God not to reveal one word of all that has passed between
us. I only wish to bid her good-by, to kiss her lips and feel her pure
breath upon my cheek. Remember, she is the only creature of my blood in the
whole world. You will not deny my dying wish?”

“I dare not. She shall come, if you will promise also not to reveal yourself.”

“I promise. When shall she come?”

“To-day.” I shall not return to Bonniemeer, but you may send for her.”

“You will not return! Will you not let them know that they are discovered?”

“Discovered? I do not comprehend you, Mrs. Rhee,” said Vaughn, with a
haughty coldness. “The scandalous suspicions you have suggested with regard
to my wife and my nephew, inspire in my mind only a feeling of contempt
for the slanderer who can utter them. They harmonize well with the anonymous
letter whose author I now recognize.”

Anita started to her elbow. “An anonymous letter relating to Neria and
Fergus!” cried she, in tones of genuine surprise. “Have you such a one?
It was not from me. I swear it by all that is sacred.”

“It is sufficient. I believe you,” said Vaughn, briefly.

“And this letter, from an entirely different source—does this also excite only
contempt for the slanderer who wrote it?” sneered the octoroon.

Vaughn hesitated; but only for a moment, only until the chivalrous honor of
his nature could assert itself. Then he said: “Yes; I will not believe Neria
guilty of more than the fatal error of sacrificing herself to me, until my own
eyes or her own tongue convict her.”

“Such proof you will never have. She is too careful,” muttered the baffled
woman, bitterly.

“Such proof I shall never have, for a lie cannot be proved. To connect sin
or shame with Neria is to drag the heavens down and trample on them.” But
as the words left his lips, a fiend's echoed in his ear those that Neria had that
morning spoken to Fergus:

“This terrible secret crushes me to the earth. It will kill me with its shame
and sin,” and his proud heart quailed within him. He threw himself upon his
knees. “My God, my God!” groaned he. “Let me not lose my reason, let me
not lose my faith in her. Take life, take honor, happiness, all, but leave me my
faith in her—let me die with her pure image in my heart.” Never prayer was
thus wrung from the centre of a tortured soul, and remained unanswered, never
since He, hanging on the cross, called upon the Father and was comforted.
Vaughn arose pale and serene. The temptress, looking at him, knew that her
power was over, her work done, and with a bitter moan she turned her face to
the wall and was dumb. Without another word Vaughn left the room, and an
hour later was on his way to the great battle he knew to be approaching, and in
whose front he now hoped to lay down the life he no longer cared to keep. He
had not, however, forgotten his promise. In the hurried note of leave-taking,
written to Francia, from Carrick, he had bidden her go to Mrs. Rhee as soon as
possible, and had sent word to Neria that she would receive a letter from him in
a day or two, explaining his abrupt departure in full.

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