CHAPTER IX.
"But, ah! if thou hadst loved me—had I been
All to thy dreams that to mine own thou art."
On a dim, gray morning in early winter, Lawrence Hardin sat by the couch of his wife, her thin, wasted hand lying unconsciously in his, and her quick, heavy breathings moving the dark locks of his hair, as he bent low over her sleeping form. Three months had passed since that fainting scene, and the young wife had encountered a long, severe stroke of illness. The husband watched incessantly by her bed-side, for he would not suffer her wild, fevered ravings to be heard by other ears than his own.
It was all revealed to him. He knew he had married a woman whose heart was another's, and that she had been compelled to the step by the threats and vehemence of her mother.
O, how the strong man writhed in his agony! To know Marion did not love him, was enough to endure; but to know she loved another, ah! that was madness. His passions were roused to fury, yet not on her should they wreak their vengeance. No; on the man that had stolen her love from him, or rather the man on whom she had bestowed her love, Frank Sheldon. On his devoted head should the vengeance fall.
Thus he resolved, but kept his fell design buried in his own breast, and, by an engaging exterior, sought to lure his victim into his toils.
Sheldon was a brave, generous fellow. Left early an orphan, he had been reared in the family of Dr. Prague, who was instituted guardian of the large fortune left by his parents. He was endowed by nature with fine intellectual abilities, and an exquisite taste for the grand and beautiful in nature and art, and, during three years' travel in foreign parts, had so improved upon these natural advantages, as to stand acknowledged one of the most elegant and accomplished young men of his country. But it often happens that such high-wrought natures are but poorly versed in the plodding concerns of this nether world. And thus it was with him. Alive to every lofty feeling and generous impulse, he fancied others like himself. Low cunning and artifice were unknown to his bosom, and consequently he would fall the easier victim to Hardin's scheme of revenge.
And now there came another fact to this base man's knowledge. Sheldon had not only robbed him of Marion's affections, but had won and slighted Kate Prague, to fall in love with Annie Evalyn. Worse still, the passion was mutual. That he saw and knew long before the parties themselves had acknowledged the growing love in the still depths of their own beating hearts, much more given voice to the feeling in words.
Love is so blind, and shy, and unbelieving, the poets tell us. Had Sheldon's love met no response, then Hardin's revenge had been in part gratified; but now it was only whetted to a keener edge, for he saw, or fancied he saw, not only his rival's happiness, but the sister of the woman he loved pining from an unrequited affection.