NORINE'S REVENGE.
y dear Mrs. Thorndyke;—Will you come and spend the evening with me? Fetch the little people. I shall be quite alone.
"Jane Liston-Darcy."
It was not the first time such notes had come to the tenement house—not the first time they had been accepted. Laurence was always away. The late hours had begun again. The evenings at home were so dreary. It was a glimpse of the old glad life, before poverty and hard work had ground her down. Yes, she would go.
Mrs. Darcy, very simply, but very prettily dressed, welcomed her. Baby Nellie she took in her arms and kissed fondly, but little Laurie, with his father's bold, blue eyes and trick of face, she shrank from. The father she could face unmoved; the old pain actually came back when she looked at the child.
As they sat, a pretty group in the gas-light, a card was brought in. Mrs. Darcy put the baby off her lap and passed the card to Helen.
"Your husband," she said. "He begged for this interview, and—I have granted it. But I wished you to be present. Whether I do right or wrong, you shall hear what he has to say to me. You love and trust him still. You shall hear how worthy he is of it. But first—have you ever heard the name of Norine Bourdon?"
"Norine Bourdon! the girl whom Laurence—"
"Betrayed by a false marriage—for whom he was disinherited. I am she."
"You!" Helen Thorndyke recoiled.
"It was Norine Bourdon, not Jane Liston, Mr. Darcy adopted. Have you not then the right to hear what your husband has to say to me? But it shall be as you wish."
"I wish to hear," Helen answered, almost fiercely. "I will hear."
Norine threw open a door.
"Wait in this room. I will leave the door ajar. My maid shall take the children. And be sure of this—neither by word nor look shall I tempt your husband to say one word more than he has come to say to-night."
Helen Thorndyke passed into the inner room. Norine Darcy rang for the servant waiting without.
"Show Mr. Thorndyke up."
He came, bounding lightly and eagerly up the stairs, and entered. She arose from her seat to meet him. In full evening dress, his face slightly flushed, his blue eyes all alight with eagerness, he had never perhaps, in the days when she had adored him, looked so handsome as now.
She smiled a little to herself as she recalled that infatuation; how long ago it seemed. And for this good-looking, well-dressed, heartless libertine, she had gone near to the gates of death.
"Norine!"
He clasped the small hand, shining with diamonds, that she extended, in both his, his tone, his eyes speaking volumes.
"Good-evening, Mr. Thorndyke. Will you be seated? Quite chilly for September, is it not, to-night?"
She sank gracefully back into her easy-chair, the gas-light streaming over her dusk, Canadian loveliness. She made an effort to disengage her hand, which he still held fast, but he refused to let it go.
"No, Norine! let me keep it. Oh, love, remember it was once all mine. Norine! Norine! on my knees I implore your forgiveness for the past!"
He actually sank on one knee before her, covering the hand he held with passionate kisses. No acting here; that was plain, at least. The infatuated man meant every word he said.
"Forgive me, Norine! I know that I have sinned to you beyond all pardon, but if you knew how I have suffered, how the memory of my crime has made my whole life miserable, how, to drown the torture of memory, I fled to the wine-cup and the gambling-table, and to—"
"Marriage with Miss Helen Holmes, heiress and belle. Oh, I know it all, Mr. Thorndyke. Pray get up. Gentlemen never go on their knees nowadays except in melodrama. Get up Mr. Thorndyke; let go my hand and sit down like a rational being. I insist upon it."
"A rational being!" he repeated. "I have ceased to be that since your return. It is my madness, Norine, to love you as I never loved any women before in my life."
She laughed, toying with the fan she held.
"My dear Mr. Thorndyke, I remember perfectly well what an absolute fool I was in the days of our acquaintanceship four years ago. Even such a statement as that might have been swallowed whole. But it is four years ago, and—you will pardon me—I know what brilliant talent Laurence Thorndyke has for graceful fiction. To how many ladies in the course of his thirty years of life has he made that ardent declaration, I wonder?"
"You do not believe me?"
"I do not."
"Norine, I swear—"
"Hush-h-h! pray don't perjure yourself. Was it to tell me this you came here this evening, Mr. Thorndyke?"
"To tell you, Norine, what I am sure you do not know. What I never knew myself until of late, that you and you alone have ever been my wife; that our marriage was a marriage, legal and true—that you, not Helen, are my lawful wife. To tell you this and much more, if you will listen. From my soul I have repented of the past; how bitterly, none may know. I left you—great Heaven! I sit and wonder at my own madness now; and all the time I loved you as I never loved any one else. I married Helen Holmes—yes, I cannot deny it, but what was I to do? I was bound to her, she loved me, 'my honor rooted in dishonor stood,' and I married her. There is horrible fatality in these things. While I knelt before the altar pledging myself to her, my whole heart was back with you. I will own it—despise me more than you do already, if that be possible—I married her for her wedding dower, and because I dared not offend Mr. Darcy. Wealth so won could bring little happiness. I fled from home and her presence to drown remorse and the memory of my lost love in drink. So poverty came. I was reckless. Whether you lived or died I did not know, I dared not ask—in abandoning you I had spoiled my whole life. Then suddenly you reappeared, beautiful as a dream, so far off, so cold, so unapproachable—you my love! my love! once my very own. You held me at arm's-length—you refused to listen to a word, and all the time my heart was on fire within me. To-night I have come to speak at last. Norine, I have sinned, I have suffered, I have repented. What more can I say? I love you madly, I always loved you. Say you forgive me, or I will never rise from your feet!"
Once more he cast himself before her, real passion, its utmost abandonment, in every tone. She had let him rave on, never moving, her cold eyes fixed upon him, full of hard, contemptuous fire.
"You mean all this, Mr. Thorndyke? Yes, I see you do. And you love me—you always loved me, even when you cast me off and married Miss Holmes, really and truly?"
"Really and truly! I swear it, Norine?"
"No—don't swear, please—it's against my principles to encourage profanity. But isn't it rather late in the day to tell me all this? There is your wife—you don't care for her, of course, but still you see she is your wife, in the eye of the world at least. And a gentleman's wife is rather an obstacle when that gentleman makes love to another lady."
The fine irony of her tone he did not hear—the scorn of her eyes he did not see. The "madness of the gods" was upon him—blind and deaf he was going to his doom.
"An obstacle, but an obstacle easily set aside. In any case I mean to have a divorce. I never cared for her—there are times when I loathe her now. A divorce, with permission to marry again I shall obtain, and then, Norine—"
He moved as though to clasp her. With a shudder of horror and repulsion she waved him back. And still he was blind.
"And your children, Mr. Thorndyke?"
"That shall be as Helen wishes. I don't care for them—never cared for children. She may keep them if she wishes. If I had loved her it would be easy to love her children. You consent then, Norine? It is as I hoped. You forgive the past. You will again be my wife. Oh, darling! my whole life shall be spent in the effort to blot out the past and make you entirely happy. You love me still—say it, Norine!"
He clasped both her hands vehemently. She arose to answer. Before the words of passionate scorn on her lips could be spoken the inner door opened and Helen Thorndyke stood on the threshold.
"Great Heaven! Helen!"
He dropped Norine's hands and staggered back. For a moment he almost thought it her ghost, so white, so ghastly with concentrated passion was she. She advanced,—she tried to speak—at first the words died huskily away upon her dry lips.
"I have heard every word," she panted. "You coward! You basest of all base cowards. Though I live for a hundred years, these are the last words I shall ever speak to you. Living or dying I will never forgive you—living or dying I will never look upon your face again! Norine!"
She turned to her suddenly:
"You offered me a home and a competence once, apart from him. For his sake I refused it then—for my children's sake I ask it now. I have no hope left but in you and—Heaven."
Her head fell on Norine's shoulder with one dry, hard sob, and there lay. Norine Darcy drew her to her side, her arm clasping her closely, and so—faced Laurence Thorndyke.
"'Every dog has his day'. It is not a very elegant adage, but it is a true one. Your day has been, Mr. Thorndyke—- mine has come. For it I have hoped, and worked, for it I have let you go on—for it I have listened to the words you have spoken to-night—for it I concealed your wife yonder, that she might hear too. You love me, you say—I am glad to believe it—since a little of the torture you once made me feel you shall feel in return. For myself all memory of the past is gone. You are so utterly indifferent to me, so utterly contemptible in my sight, that I have not even hatred to give you. To me you are simply nothing. After this hour I will never see you, never speak to you. For your wife and children I will provide. You did your best to ruin me, soul and body, because you hated Richard Gilbert. I take from you wife and children, and what you value far more—fortune. I think we are quits, and as there is no more to be said, I will bid you good-night. Liston! show this gentleman to the door, and admit him here no more."
Then Mr. Liston, pale of face, soft of step, furtive of glance, appeared on the scene. Still clasping the drooping form of the outraged wife, Norine moved towards the inner room.
Thorndyke had stood quite still, his arms folded, listening to all. The game was up! A devil of fury, of disappointment, would possess him by-and-by—just now he only felt half-stunned. He turned to the door, with a harsh laugh.
"I have heard of men who murdered the women they loved, and wondered at them. I wonder no longer. By Heaven, if I had a pistol to-night you would never leave this room alive, Norine Bourdon!"
