CHAPTER XXII.
CLAIRE'S LOVER.
During the dinner that followed Kendale longed to introduce the subject of "Faynie," but found no opening. His eagerness to know what they thought and what they had to say concerning her disappearance was intense, but he had to bide his time to find out.
Meanwhile he paid the most flattering attention to Claire.
He had noticed with a keen sense of regret that the girl limped most painfully in her walk, but, despite this defect, for the first time in his reckless life, he was thoroughly fascinated with her.
He took his leave early, promising them that he would certainly avail himself of their gracious permission to call again, very, very soon.
Long after his departure the mother and daughter still sat in the drawing-room discussing him eagerly.
"It is a good thing for you that Faynie declines to come down to the drawing-room to see visitors and insists upon having her meals in her own room. If she had seen this handsome Mr. Armstrong, you would have stood little chance of winning him, my dear," declared Mrs. Fairfax.
Claire rose slowly to her feet, turned and faced her mother.
"You and I do not agree on that point, mamma," she said, quickly, "I have what you call a Quixotic notion, perhaps, and that is that we are attracted toward those whom Heaven intended for us, and if this be so he would not have been attracted toward Faynie if he were intended for me."
"We will not argue the matter, Claire, for we shall never agree," declared her mother, adding: "I shall always be opposed to Mr. Armstrong meeting Faynie or ever hearing one word concerning the existence of such a person. If he should, mind, I predict harm will come of it."
Those were the words that rang in Claire's ears long after she retired to her room.
"I shall tell Faynie that we had a caller last evening and how handsome he was; but I shall take good care to follow mamma's advice and never let her know his name," the girl ruminated.
She was only a young girl, full of girlish enthusiasm, and it was certainly beyond human expectation to believe she could refrain from mentioning that much to Faynie the next morning.
Faynie laid a little white hand on Claire's nut-brown head.
"Take care not to fall too deeply in love with this handsome stranger," she said, "for handsome men are not always good and true as they seem."
"I am sure this gentleman is," declared impulsive Claire emphatically. "He has the deepest, richest, mellowest voice I ever heard, and such eyes—wine dark eyes—those are the only words which seem to express what they are like—and when he takes your hand and looks down into your face, the hand he holds so lightly tingles from the finger tips straight to your heart."
"I am afraid he has been holding your hand, Claire. Ah, take care—beware!" warned Faynie.
During the fortnight that followed Kendale was a constant visitor at the palatial Fairfax home.
And those two weeks changed the whole after current of Claire's life, as Faynie observed with wonder. It was certainly evident the girl was deeply in love, and Faynie trembled for her, for love would bring to such natures as hers the greatest peace or the bitterest sorrow.
She wondered if her stepmother saw how affairs were drifting.
If it had not been that she and her stepmother were always at cross-purposes with each other, she would have gone to her and warned her that it was dangerous to throw this handsome young man so often into Claire's society, unless she could readily see that he was pleased with the girl—realizing that poor Claire had a sad drawback in her lameness and that many would seek her society because she was bright and witty, who would never dream of asking her hand in marriage because of it.
Once she attempted to warn Claire of the hidden rocks that lay in love's ocean, but the girl turned quickly a white, pained face toward her.
"Say no more, Faynie," she cried; "the mischief, as you call it, has already been done. My heart has left me and gone to him. If I do not win him I shall die. You know the words:
"Some hold that love is a foolish thing,
A thing of little worth;
But little or great, or weak or strong.
'Tis love that rules the earth.
"The tale is new, yet ever told;
It has often been breathed ere now—-
'There was a lad who loved a lass'—
'Tis old as the world, I trow!
"The song I sing has been sung before,
And will often again be sung
While lads and lasses have lips to kiss,
Or bard a tuneful tongue.
"And this is the burden of my rhyme—
Though love be of little worth,
Yet from pole to pole and shore to shore,
'Tis love that rules the earth."
"And it is love that breaks hearts and wrecks lives," murmured Faynie, with streaming eyes and quivering lips. "Oh, Claire! again I warn you to take care—beware!"
For one brief moment she was tempted to tell Claire her own story.
Ah, had she but done so, how much misery might have been spared the hapless girl! But she put the impulse from her with a shudder.
No, no, she could not breathe to human ears the story of her false lover and the tragedy that had ended her dream of love.
She had never permitted her thoughts to dwell upon Lester Armstrong since that fatal night.
If there were times when she thought of him as when she knew him first, seemingly so loving, tender and true, she put the thought quickly from her, remembering him as she saw him that fatal night—transformed suddenly into a demon by strong drink, when he struck her down upon finding that she had just been disinherited—that she was not the heiress that he had taken her to be.
He thought his crime buried fathoms deep under the drifting snow heaps. Ah, how great would be his terror to find that the grave to which he had consigned her had given her back to the world of the living! No, no, she could not shock Claire's young ears with that horrible story!
It would be bad enough for her to learn of it in after years.
Thus Faynie settled the matter in her own mind, and her lips were sealed.
One morning Claire burst eagerly into the room, quite as soon as it was light.
"I was here late last night, but you were asleep, Faynie," she said, "and I came away, though I could scarcely wait to tell you the wonderful news."
"I think I can guess what it is," replied Faynie, stroking the girl's brown curls, "Your lover has declared his love for you and asked you to be his wife. Is it not so?"
"You know it could be nothing else which could make me so very, very happy," laughed Claire, her cheeks reddening.
"And you have answered—yes?" asked Faynie.
"Of course I said yes," responded Claire.
"And when is the wedding to take place?" queried Faynie, hoping with all her heart that this lover of whom the girl was so desperately fond loved Claire for herself—not for the wealth she had fallen heir to.
Claire raised her bright, blushing face shyly, the dimples coming and going, making her rather plain little face almost beautiful at that moment.
"Mamma wanted the marriage put off for a year—I am so young—but Lester was so impatient that he would consent to no such arrangement. He wants the ceremony performed with as little delay as is absolutely necessary."
"Lester!" The name went through Faynie's heart like the thrust of a knife.
For an instant every nerve in her body seemed to tremble and throb with quick, spasmodic pain, then to stand still as though the chill of death were creeping over her. Her eyes grew dim with an awful darkness, and Claire's voice seemed far off and indistinct. Then the world faded from her altogether and she fell at Claire's feet all in a little heap, in a dead swoon.