CHAPTER XX.
VIOLET OBEYS.
As Violet passed Mrs. Yorke’s door, she heard a faint voice call her name. She paused at the open door of the room.
“Did you speak, Mrs. Yorke?” she asked, timidly.
The invalid’s pale face flushed slightly.
“Yes. Will you come in here a moment?” she asked.
Violet entered the room and went over to the bedside. Mrs. Yorke was dressed in a silken wrapper, and lay upon the bed, her eyes shining with suppressed excitement.
“Violet Arleigh,” she began in a low tone, when the girl had come to the bedside and paused awaiting her pleasure, “I invited you here to Yorke Towers for a purpose. I have never liked you or your mother; she knew well the reason why. Violet Arleigh, I wish to ask you a question: do you care for my son?”
Silence! You could hear distinctly the beating of the girl’s frightened heart as she stood there before her censor—a little black-robed figure, her bright head bent, her eyes fixed upon the pale, eager face of the sick woman.
“You have asked me a question, Mrs. Yorke,” the girl said, quietly, “which I have no reason to be ashamed of answering. Yet you should have first spoken upon this subject to Leonard; the subject of my engagement should have been first mentioned by him, and not forced upon me. I do not deny the truth, Mrs. Yorke, I do care for your son very, very much—with all my heart, and I mean to make him a good, true, devoted wife!”
“Ah! So that is the situation, for sure?”
Mrs. Yorke’s voice was coldly sarcastic in its tone.
“I am quite pleased to be taken into your and Leonard’s confidence at last; though it strikes me as being a little late, when you consider that Leonard is my only son—my only child. Strange, that he should have neglected to mention the matter to me!” she added, thoughtfully. “I can scarcely believe that he is really in earnest. Why, I might never have heard of the matter at all, and might not have suspected any sentimental folly between you two, but for some remarks let fall by one of the neighbors. Then I asked Miss Glyndon some questions in regard to the affair, and although she was very prudent and careful concerning what she said, I could see that she looked upon the matter in the same light that I do. Miss Arleigh, I ask you, do you expect to marry my son?”
The question was abrupt, not to say rude. Violet’s checks flushed, then grew pale as marble; her eyes flashed.
“If I did not expect to become his wife some day, Mrs. Yorke,” she said, firmly, “I would never have promised to marry him.”
“Humph! I suppose not. Well, you may go now; I wish to be alone,” Mrs. Yorke added, curtly. And with flaming cheeks and flashing eyes, Violet left the room and sought her own apartment. At its door she encountered old Betty Harwood.
“So you have seen madame? And I rather guess you didn’t get too much kindness and courtesy!” cried the woman. “I tell you, Miss Arleigh, Mrs. Yorke is half crazy, and, in my opinion, she is a dangerous person to deal with. She thinks that there is no one on earth but her son. If I were you, I would have your engagement publicly announced.”
But without a word, trembling with indignation so that she could not speak, Violet entered her own room and closed and locked its door.
“I will not stay here,” she pouted, angrily, as soon as she was alone. “I have been outraged and insulted upon every side, by my hostess herself and by her servant. How dared Mrs. Yorke speak to me as she did? I am just as good as she. The Arleighs are every bit as good as the Yorkes.”
For a moment Violet’s anger was so intense that she even forgot her love for Leonard Yorke. She felt only indignation at his mother’s insults and the insolence of old Betty. Yet all the time, away down in the depths of her sore little heart, Violet was conscious of a feeling which corroborated the words to which she had just listened. If Leonard Yorke loved her well enough to wish to make her his wife, why did he not openly announce the engagement between them? Why did he not at least tell his own mother, and not leave it for her to find out from strangers, or to put the delicate questions to Violet with which she had just tortured her?
“I will go to Leonard at once,” decided Violet, when the first paroxysm of anger was over and she was a little more calm. “He must explain to me his reasons for this strange secrecy, and set it all right, or our engagement shall be at an end.”
She descended the outer staircase which led from her own room to the grounds, and the first person upon whom her eyes fell was Leonard himself. But he was not alone; Hilda was with him—Hilda, with a pale and eager face uplifted to his own, and a look of pleading in her beautiful dusky eyes.
It was a pretty tableau as the two stood together under a large tree, with the evening sun, setting just behind the distant hills, casting a golden glow over the green grass, and touching the silvery river with jeweled finger-tips. But Violet, in the bitterness of her heart, could see no beauty in the scene or the pretty picture.
“Leonard!”
Hilda’s voice was perfectly audible, and reached Violet’s ears distinctly where she stood concealed from view by trailing vines of Maréchal Neil roses which hung all around her.
“I have thought of this so many times,” went on the soft, sweet voice of Hilda, “and I have wondered if you really cared for Violet, or if—if you did not care a little for me.”
Pale and trembling, Violet still hesitated, while the soft, sweet voice went on:
“I have cared, Leonard, for, oh, ever so long! I thought that you surely knew it, or at least suspected my secret.”
Not a word was spoken. With a low moan of heart-break, Violet turned and swiftly retraced her steps up the narrow staircase, back to her own room.
“Hilda”—Leonard’s voice broke the silence at last, with a tone of intense regret and grieved surprise—“Hilda, believe me, I never dreamed of this. I—I thought that you knew how dearly I love Violet; and our engagement would have been announced but for her mother’s death. Violet is my promised wife.”
“Impossible!” Hilda Rutledge faced the young man with a pale, angry countenance, and her voice rang out clear and cold. “Leonard, your own common sense ought to show you that Violet is dead in love with Will Venners.”
That old jealous pang contracted Leonard’s heart with a sharp pain. He turned away. Then his eyes wandered to Hilda’s pale face, and his own grew white as death.
“You are mistaken, Hilda,” he said, quietly; yet there was something in his heart all the time which contradicted the assertion. “Violet is my betrothed wife, and she loves me.”
“Oh, very well. I have no more to say. Only you will find out the truth some day, then you will remember my warning.”
In the meantime, Violet had returned to her own room, pale and wrathful.
“Let her win him if she can!” she panted. “I will not stand in her way. If Leonard cares for Hilda Rutledge, he shall have the chance to win her. If Hilda cares for him—and I have suspected it long—she shall have every opportunity to gain his love. I would not have his love unless it was free and spontaneous. But he shall trifle with me no longer. I am determined upon that point.”
As the words passed her lips, she heard the rustle of woman’s garments, and a woman stepped over the threshold and entered Violet’s room.
It was old Betty. She held in her hand a huge key; upon her ugly face a strange look of determination hovered.
“Here, Miss Arleigh,” she began at once, an ugly grin overspreading her wrinkled countenance—“here is the key to the east chamber. Just you go there yourself and see what you can find. It will be a grand thing for you if you should find the papers that I have reason to believe are hidden away there. Do not hesitate a moment, or be at all afraid. Mrs. Yorke will never know. See? Now is your time. There is no one around.”
She seized Violet’s hand in a strong grasp, and before the girl could utter a protest, she led her swiftly to a long passage which separated the main building from the eastern portion of the house.
“There!” whispered Betty, in a stage whisper. “Just you follow that passage to the end, then unlock the door before you, and you will be in the east chamber. Once there, search everywhere for the package of papers which will give you your own.”
