DENIS WILDE'S LOVE.
A mighty pain to love it is,
And 'tis a pain that love to miss;
But, of all pains, the greatest pain
Is to love, but love in vain.
Cowley.
He had not been mistaken. It was Helen who had crept out after him in the darkness, and whose slight figure, in her pale blue dress, stood close by him in an angle of the road.
How long she had stood there and what she had heard he did not know. He expected a torrent of abuse and a storm of reproaches from her, but she refrained from either. She passed her arm within his, and walked beside him for several minutes in silence. Maurice, who felt rather guilty, was weak enough to say, hesitatingly,
"The night was so fine, I strolled out to smoke——"
"Qui s'excuse s'accuse," quoted Helen; "only you are not smoking, Maurice!"
"My cigar has gone out; I—I met Miss Nevill at the gate of the vicarage."
"So I saw," rather significantly.
"I stopped to have a little talk to her. There is no harm, I suppose, in that!" he added, irritably.
Helen laughed shortly and harshly.
"Harm! oh dear, no; whoever said there was? By the way, is not this freak of yours of going out into the roads to smoke, as you say, alone, rather a slight on your guest? Here is Mr. Wilde; how very amusing! we all seem to be drawn out towards the vicarage to-night."
Denis Wilde, in fact, had followed in the wake of his hostess, and they met him now by the lodge gates.
"How very strange!" called out Helen to him, in her scornful, bantering voice; "how strange that we should all have gone out for solitary rambles, and all meet in the same place; and there was Miss Nevill out in the vicarage garden, also on a solitary ramble."
"Is Miss Nevill there? I think I will go on and call upon her," said Denis.
"You too, Mr. Wilde!" cried Helen. "Have you fallen a victim to the beauty? We heard enough of her in town; she turned all the men's heads; even married men are not safe from her snares, and yet it is singular that none of her admirers care to marry her; there are some women whom all men make love to, but whom none care to make wives of!"
And Maurice was a coward, and spoke no word in her defence; he did not dare; but young Denis Wilde drew himself up proudly.
"Mrs. Kynaston," he said, sternly, "I must ask you not to speak slightingly of Miss Nevill."
"Good gracious, why not? I suppose we are all free to use our tongues and our eyes in this world! Why should you become the woman's champion?"
"Because," answered Denis, gravely, "I hope to make her my wife."
Maurice was man enough to hold out his hand to him in the darkness.
"I am glad of it," he said, rather hoarsely; "make her happy, Denis, if you can."
"Thanks. I shall go on to see her now."
Helen murmured an unintelligible apology, and Denis Wilde passed onwards towards the vicarage.
He had taken her good name into his keeping, he had shielded her from that other woman's slandering tongue; but he had done so in his despair. He had spoken no lie in saying that he hoped to make her his wife; but it was no doubt a fact that Helen and her husband would now believe him to be engaged to her. Would Vera be induced to verify his words, and to place herself and her life beneath the shelter of his love, or would she only be angry with him for venturing to presume upon his hopes? Denis could not tell.
Ten minutes later he stood alone with her in the vicarage dining-room; he had sent in his card with a pencilled line upon it to ask for a few minutes' conversation with her.
Vera had desired that her visitor might be shown into the dining-room. Old Mrs. Daintree had been amazed and scandalized, and even Marion had opened her eyes at so unusual a proceeding; but the vicar was out by a sick bedside in the village, and no one else ever controlled Vera's actions.
Nevertheless, she herself looked somewhat surprised at so late a visit from him. And then, somehow or other, Denis made it plain to her how it was he had come, and what he had said of her. Her name, he told her, had been lightly spoken of; to have defended it without authority would have been to do her more harm than good; to take it under his lawful protection had been instinctively suggested to him by his longing to shield her. Would she forgive him?
"It was Mrs. Kynaston who spoke evil things of me," said Vera, wearily. She was very tired, she hardly understood, she scarcely cared about what he was saying to her; it mattered very little what was said to her. There was that other scene under the shadow of the roses of the gateway so vividly before her; the memory of Maurice's passionate kisses upon her lips, the sound of his beloved voice in her ears. What did anything else signify?
And meanwhile Denis Wilde was pouring out his whole soul to her.
"My darling, give me the right to defend you now and always," he pleaded; "do not refuse me the happiness of protecting your dear name from such women. I know you don't love me, dear, not as I love you, but I will not mind that; I will ask you for nothing that you will not give me freely; only try me—I think I could make you happy, love. At any rate, you shall have anything that tenderness and devotion can give you to bring peace into your life. Vera, darling, answer me."
"Oh, I am very tired," was all she said, moaningly and wearily, passing her hand across her aching brow like a worn-out child.
It was life or death to him. To her it was such a little matter! What were all his words and his prayers beside that heartache that was driving her into her grave! He could do her no good. Why could he not leave her in peace?
And yet, at length, something of the fervour and the passion of his love struck upon her soul and arrested her attention. There is something so touching and so pitiful in that first boy-love that asks for nothing in return, craves for no other reward than to be suffered to exist; that amongst all the selfish and half-hearted passions of older and wiser men, it must needs elicit some response of gratitude at least, if not of answering love, in the heart of the woman who is the object of such rare devotion.
It dawned at length upon Vera, as she listened to his fervent pleading, and as she saw the tears that rose in poor Denis's earnest eyes, and the traces of deep emotion on his smooth, boyish face, that here was, perchance, the one utterly pure and noble love that had ever been laid at her feet.
There arose a sentiment of pity in her heart, and a vague wonder as to his grief. Did he suffer, she asked herself, as she herself suffered?
"Vera, Vera, I only ask you to be my wife. I do not ask you for your heart; only give me your dear self. Only let me be always with you to brighten your life and to take care of you."
How was she to resist such absolute unselfishness?
"Oh, Denis, how good you are to me!" burst from her lips. "How can I take you at your word? Do you not know that my heart is gone from me? I have no love to give you."
"Yes, yes, darling," he said, quickly, pressing her hand to his lips. "Do not pain yourself by speaking of it. I have guessed it. I have always seemed to know it. But it is hopeless, is it not? And I—I would so gladly take you away and comfort you if I could."
And so, in the end, she half yielded to him. What else was she to do? She gave him a sort of promise.
"If I can, it shall be as you wish," she said; "but give me till to-morrow night. I will think of it all day, and if you will come here again to-morrow evening, I will answer you. Give me one more day—only one," she repeated, with a dull reiteration, out of her utter weariness.
"One day will soon be gone," he said, joyfully, as he bade her good night.
Alas, how little he knew what that day was to bring forth!
That night the heavens were overcast with heavy clouds, and torrents of rain poured down upon the face of the earth, and peal after peal of thunder boomed through the heavy heated air. Helen could not sleep; she rose, feverish and unrested from her husband's side, and paced wildly and miserably about the room. Then she went to the window and drew back the curtain, and looked out upon the storm-driven world. The clouds racked wildly across the sky; the trees bent and swayed before the howling wind; the rain beat in floods upon the ground; yet greater and fiercer still was the tempest that raged in Helen Kynaston's heart. Hatred, jealousy, and malice strove and struggled within her, and something direr still—a terror that she could not quench nor stifle; for late that night her husband had said to her suddenly, without a word of warning or preparation—
"Helen, do you know a Frenchman called D'Arblet?"
Helen had been at her dressing-table—her back was turned to him—he did not see the livid pallor which blanched her cheeks at his question.
A little pause, during which she busied herself among the trifles upon the table.
"No, I never heard the name in my life," she said, at length.
"That is odd—because neither have I—and yet the man has sent me a parcel." It was of so little importance to him, that it did not occur to him that there could possibly be any occasion for secresy concerning Vera's commission. What could an utter stranger have to send to him that could possibly concern him in any way?
It did not strike him how strained and forced was the voice in which his wife presently asked him a question.
"And the parcel! You have opened it?"
"No, not yet," began Maurice, stifling a yawn; and he would have gone on to explain to her that it was not yet actually in his possession, although, probably, he would not have told her that it was Vera who was to give it to him; only at that minute the maid came into the room, and he changed the subject.
But Helen had guessed that it was Vera who was the bearer of that parcel. How it had come to pass she could not tell, but too surely she divined that Vera had in her possession those fatal letters that she had once written to the French vicomte; the letters that would blast her for ever in her husband's estimation, and turn his luke-warmness and his coldness into actual hatred and repulsion.
And was it likely that Vera, with such a weapon in her hands, would spare her? What woman, with so signal a revenge in her power, would forego the delight of wreaking it upon the woman who had taken from her the man she loved? Helen knew that in Vera's place she would show no mercy to her rival.
It was all clear as daylight to her now; the appointment at the vicarage gate, the something which she had said in her note she had for him; the whole mystery of the secret meeting between them—it was Vera's revenge. Vera, whom Maurice loved, and whom she, Helen, hated with such a deadly hatred!
And then, in the silence of the night, whilst her husband slept, and whilst the thunder and the wind howled about her home, Helen crept forth from her room, and sought for that fatal packet of letters which her husband had told her he had "not yet" opened.
Oh, if she could only find them and destroy them before he ever saw them again! Long and patiently she looked for them, but her search was in vain. She ransacked his study and his dressing-room; she opened every drawer, and fumbled in every pocket, but she found nothing.
She was frightened, too, to be about the house like a thief in the night. Every gust of wind that creaked among the open doors made her start, every flash of lightning that lighted up the faces of the old family portraits, looking down upon her with their fixed eyes, made her turn pale and shiver, lest she should see them move, or hear them speak.
Only her jealousy and her hatred burnt fiercely above her terror; she would not give in, she told herself, until she found it.
Denis Wilde, who was restless too, had heard her soft footsteps along the passage outside his door; and, with a vague uneasiness as to who could be about at such an hour, he came creeping out of his room, and peeped in at the library door.
He saw her sitting upon the floor, a lighted candle by her side, an open drawer, out of her husband's writing-table, upon her lap, turning over papers, and bills, and note-books with eager, trembling hands. And he saw in her white, set face, and wild, scared eyes, that which made him draw back swiftly and shudderingly from the sight of her.
"Good God!" he murmured to himself, as he sought his room again, "the woman has murder in her face!"
And at last she had to give it up; the letters were not to be found. The storm without settled itself to rest, the thunder died away in the far distance over the hills, and Helen, worn out with fatigue and emotion, sought a troubled slumber upon the sofa in her dressing-room.
"She cannot have given it to him," was the conclusion she came to at last. "Well, she will do so to-morrow, and I—I will not let her out of my sight, not for one instant, all the day!"