CHAPTER I.
A LETTER.
"The Red House,
"Benton's Station, New Hampshire,
"April, 188—."My Friend,
"A clever Frenchman once said, 'On revient toujours à ses premiers amours.' Let us suppose this to have been said of a woman who, in her first youth, had loved a man and jilted him, and then, after many years and much sorrow, her heart returned again to him with a love and constancy unknown before. Cannot the past teach you to read between the lines? I did not write to you of my engagement; but now that it is over, and I am free, I find myself instinctively seeking the old shelter of your friendship, which at one time was never denied me; appealing to the old sympathy to which I then never appealed in vain. Are you astonished—surprised? I am not. In those old days—whose glory is not yet faded, over whose memory 'Requiescant in pace' has not yet been written—I came to you at all times, and you refused me nothing save one thing—once. So now I creep back to the old refuge, and bid you fold down the cere-cloth from our dead past, and see if still, after all these years, it does not look somewhat fair; if still there does not cling to it the memory of those old days; of blue skies, bluer waters, sweet roses, sweeter vows, bright sunshine, brighter promises! My marriage engagement is broken, Philip. Why? I can give no reason. He was all that the world calls worthy, and I believe he loved me; yet I found him wanting. Memory is a rare and delusive beautifier, and my memory is sadly tenacious of the past; therefore I am free. I could not be dishonest to him, even though I would. Yes, I am free, and I am writing you after years of silence. I wonder will you smile over this half-confession, and say, 'Impetuous as ever!' or will you understand, and, so understanding, send me the answer I desire? But should you choose to misconstrue my words, I can but say that I have wished to be honest, however late in the day. Write to me, Philip, or better, come to me. After all, I am but a woman, and a very weak one.
"Patricia."
This was the letter that awaited Philip Tremain on his breakfast-table, one bright spring morning of that most fickle, yet most beautiful month, April. Even as he entered the room he became aware of its subtle presence made known to him by its faint, dead odour of violets; consequently it caused him no great shock of surprise to find the large, square envelope, sealed with the device of a lighted candle and a silly moth, and the motto "Delusion" below a monogram; with the firm handwriting forming his name and address looking up at him from its dainty surroundings of silver and damask. As the face of a once dearly loved friend, neglected yet not forgotten, comes back to one from out the mists of memory, recalled unexpectedly by some trivial circumstance—a strain of music, a line of poetry, a faded flower.
Time was when each succeeding morning of Mr. Tremain's life, the early post brought a similar letter, but in those days his manner of receiving it differed exceedingly from this greeting. Then, he would take it up tenderly, holding it for a few moments before his longing eyes, and perhaps—for he was young and very adoring—raise it to his lips before he broke the seal—which in those days was not a cynical candle and blind moth, but a true lover's knot, with a French sentiment intertwined.
Now he eyed it askance for a second or more before he lifted it, and then after balancing it lightly on his open palm, put it down unopened, made his tea, buttered his toast, and opened his newspaper; nor did he glance towards it again until, his breakfast finished, his cigar alight, sitting in the sunshine that flooded his apartment, he took it up and broke the seal.
Various emotions passed over his face as he read. Surprise, half anger, half scorn, and lastly, as he came to the final lines, a quiver of pity or tenderness softened the stern outlines of forehead and lips. He laid the open letter on his knee, and as he sat motionless, the increasing noise of the shrill street cries, and the echo of commencing traffic bespoke the reawakening of the great city to one more day of toil and strife and unrest, passed by him unheeded.
A breath of the past was mingled with the present, and bore along with it the scent of fresh grass, a mingled perfume of fruit and flowers, a vision of flowing muslin draperies, a lithe, graceful figure, dark, lustreless hair crowning a proud little head, eyes of deepest violet shaded by black, pencilled brows and lashes, a face whose almost dusky colouring flushed in an instant into richest carmine when deeply moved.
Ten years had gone by since Philip Tremain, a young barrister struggling for briefs, idle, clever, lazy, and cursed with expectations of money, first met Patricia Hildreth. He was living then in a small city, in the interior of New York State, situated near one of those great lakes so renowned for their beauty and their treachery. On account of his talents and position he was rather the enfant gâté of society in that aristocratic little town; which, by the way, held itself very exclusive, and counted among its residents many blue-blooded descendants of old colonial families; its customs were colonial as well as its traditions, and it looked down with contempt upon its sister city, on the borders of a sister lake, because it had admitted within the doors of hospitality scions of fathers who were known to have made their money in trade.
To this hot-bed of traditional conservatism came Patricia as a guest—handsome, disdainful, capricious, city-bred Patricia—armed with all her little wiles and graces, a creature of wonderful resource, to be looked upon from afar, and to be judged and condemned by the narrow code and petty by-laws of the unwritten Blackstone of Hurontown. To the married women she was a dangerous siren; to the girls a triumphant, unapproachable Thetis; to the men a delusion and a snare, so soon as ever she burned them with the blue fire of her eyes, or flashed her smile upon them from the freshest of red lips, revealing the whitest of pearly teeth.