CHAPTER XIV.
CROSS-PURPOSES.
Violet recoiled with a cry of horror; she could not speak; the very thought was enough to make her heart sink with a feeling of sickening aversion.
“You are mad!” she panted at last, when she could find words. “This is an insult, and I will have you punished for it!”
A smile stole over Gilbert Warrington’s thin lips.
“Do not imagine for one moment that I care for you,” he said, harshly. “I have never loved any woman in all my life save your mother, and she scorned me. Listen, Violet, while I tell you my story in as few words as possible. Years ago, when I first met your mother, she and Harold Arleigh were living as happily as ideal lovers, just for all the world like romances one reads in old books. It was not the fashion then to debate the question, ‘Is marriage a failure?’ and Harold and Rosamond never once thought of such a thing. Their lives were perfectly happy. Then it was that I came to Yorke Towers; they lived there at the time. You know that the place was known then only as The Towers; but when the Yorkes came into possession they rechristened it Yorke Towers, and so it has remained ever since. Well, I was the overseer on the plantation—not a very elevated position, you will say; but I was treated with great kindness by both your father and mother—too kind was she, in fact, for I soon awoke to the knowledge that I loved her!”
“Loved her? And she a married woman?”
Violet’s voice was full of surprise, not unmixed with scorn.
A strange expression flashed into Warrington’s eyes.
“Now, Violet, you need not look so horrified. I learned to love Rosamond Arleigh before I was aware of it, and when it was too late I awoke to the truth, and then I could not crush out the affection from my heart. It has lived and flourished ever since. But she is gone, and I can never hope to win her heart.”
“You would never have won her had she lived!” cried Violet, scornfully.
Warrington smiled a meaning smile.
“We will not discuss that question now, my dear,” he said, softly. “The business in hand is this: There is something connected with the past—with your mother’s past—which, if it were known, would ruin you. Nobody knows this secret but myself. I swear to keep it a secret forever, on the condition already named—that you consent to marry me and share the Arleigh fortune with ‘yours truly.’”
“I will die first!”
“Ah! Very well. But you will never marry Leonard Yorke, all the same, my dear; and you will be sorry, I am sure, to have your dead mother’s name upon the lips of everybody, coupled with dishonor.”
“Dishonor? My mother? You villain!”
Violet moved swiftly over to the door and threw it open.
“Go!” she panted, in a low, tense tone, her voice full of dangerous meaning, her eyes blazing.
He stood staring into her pale face for a moment, then drew a little nearer her, and his voice was low and ominous as he hissed, vengefully:
“I will prove it to you, Miss Violet Arleigh!” he cried. “Rosamond Arleigh was a base woman—a——”
But Violet, unable to bear any more, stepped quickly past him through the open door, and hastening down the hall, left the house without a word. Her heart was beating tumultuously, her eyes shone with a wild light, her breath was coming thick and fast.
On, on, she went, like a mad creature, down the long walk which led to the entrance to The Oaks. A turn to the right, and there, at the foot of a huge magnolia-tree, she saw Leonard Yorke. He arose from his seat upon a rustic bench, and, pale and agitated, came to meet her.
“Violet! Good heavens! what is the matter?” he cried. “Oh, my darling, you are ill and in trouble! What has hurt you? Tell me all, Violet, for I would lay down my life for you!”
She sunk upon the seat which he had just vacated, and pressed her hand to her throbbing heart.
“I—I thought you were gone long ago,” she faltered, at last.
“We started for home together, Miss Glyndon and I,” he returned; “but we met Captain Venners” (a frown darkened his handsome face as he spoke the name); “he has just run over from New Orleans, upon business, he says. The moment Miss Glyndon saw him she grew pale as death. Somehow, I believe she hates him. She just bowed to Venners, and then excusing herself to me, saying that she must go home to mother, who is very ill, she galloped off as though for dear life, leaving me with Venners. But he did not linger long. Violet, do you like Will Venners?”
Violet’s face flushed beneath Leonard’s strange searching gaze. She had just recollected the poem which Will had intrusted to her, and which she had failed to deliver. It was the memory of her own delinquency which made her look confused; but how was Leonard to know that?
“Like him?” she repeated; “why, of course I do. Everybody does, I think. He is so gentle and kind and thoughtful for everybody, and he is so handsome and talented, and——”
“There, that is enough!” interposed Leonard, bitterly. “Quite a piece of perfection, to be sure. But don’t forget to supplement his perfections with the fact that he is an outrageous flirt—a trifler—a man who thinks only of his handsome face and graceful figure, and cares nothing for the hearts he breaks in his mad career.”
“I think you are hard on poor Will,” observed Violet, shyly.
But jealousy had the upper hand with Leonard Yorke now, and nothing could stop him or check his mad heart and jealous hatred.
“Hard on poor Will, indeed!” he repeated, wrathfully. “How much you must care for him to champion him as you do.”
“Care for him! I? Oh, no; only as a friend; but that, of course, you know, Leonard, after—after what passed between you and me on my birthday.”
Her shy eyes drooped, and the sweet face flushed faintly as she recalled his loving words, his fond vows. Yet here he stood before her, pale with anger, his dark eyes flashing, the very picture of an angry man, and not at all like a lover—her own true lover, Leonard. Her eyes wore a look of wondering surprise. She said to herself that he had ceased to care for her; that he loved Hilda instead (perhaps, indeed, he had never cared for Violet), and then a wave of passionate anger surged over the girl’s heart, and made it bitter and sore.
“Well, if he regrets the past, and wishes to recall his vows, he must suit himself,” she exclaimed under her breath, her heart hot with a jealous anger. She rose slowly and turned away. “I must go back to the house,” she observed, though her heart sunk at the thought of possibly encountering Gilbert Warrington there.
She hesitated, and a keen pang of regret struck to her heart like a knife.
Could she leave Leonard thus? Could she bear it that he should be angry with her without a cause? She ventured to lay her hand upon his.
“Leonard!”
He turned, and his eyes rested upon her face, pale, sad, and troubled exceedingly. He pressed the little hand to his lips.
“Violet! Violet!” he cried, “why do you torture me so? Surely you are not deceitful, and——”
“Torture you!” she interrupted, in a clear, ringing voice. “Deceitful! And I used to think that you loved me!”
“Loved you! My God——”
But the words died upon Leonard’s lips; the hand that held Violet’s dropped to his side. He stared before him, pale and calm, and outwardly indifferent. For at that moment, just around a curve in the adjacent shrubbery, Hilda appeared. She looked like a picture in her long, clinging black princess gown, which revealed every outline of her graceful figure.
She looked pensive and thoughtful, too; but as she drew nearer the pair beneath the magnolia-tree, she lifted her eyes. Her face flushed, and then grew pale.
“Why, Leonard,” she cried, in affected surprise, coming to a halt before the two, “I thought that you had gone—oh, ages ago!”
Leonard forced a smile.
“I had only reached the gate when Miss Glyndon and I met Captain Venners. He had just arrived from New Orleans—came home upon some business of importance, he said. He stopped his horse long enough to speak with Miss Glyndon and myself, then rode on. But Miss Glyndon has gone home to Yorke Towers,” he added, swiftly, “and I was feeling a little blue and ‘off,’ and so I concluded to sit down here under this grand old magnolia-tree to—to smoke. And then, after I had finished my cigar, I saw Violet coming, and we remained here talking for a few moments.”
Hilda’s great dark eyes were fixed upon his face, as though striving to read its every expression. It struck to poor Violet’s heart like a blow that he had taken great pains to prepare an elaborate explanation to satisfy fair Hilda.
“Violet,” she said, abruptly, “I saw Captain Venners just now for a moment. He asked me to say to you that he would call upon you this evening.” Then, laying her hand upon Leonard’s arm, she added, softly: “Come, Leonard; I want you to look at my bed of Mexican Torranias. They are just lovely!”
And as though powerless to resist her, Leonard allowed her to lead him away, and Violet was left alone.