“What—you fear to ask me to be your second? Be of good courage, my friend. I will bear your cartel of defiance, and ask him who is his friend.”
“Bah!” ejaculated Dale, so roughly that Leronde frowned. “There, don’t take any notice of me, old fellow,” he cried. “Sit down and smoke. You will excuse me.”
Leronde bowed, and Armstrong hurried into his inner room, where he smoothed out the note, and read half aloud and in a disconnected way:—
“How can you stay away—those long weary weeks—my unhappy state—force me to write humbly—appealingly—my wretched thoughts—Lady Grayson—her double looks of triumph over me—will not believe it of you—could not be so base for such a heartless woman as that—heartbroken—my first and only love—won from me my shameless avowal—not shameless—a love as true as ever given—for you so good and noble. In despair—no rest but in the grave—forgive your coldness. Come back to me or I shall die—die now when hope, love, and joy are before me. You must—you shall—I pray by all that is true and manly in your nature—or in my mad recklessness and despair I shall cast consequences to the winds and come to you.”
Dale crushed up the letter once again, and as he stood frowning and thoughtful, he struck a match, lit the paper, and held it in his hand till it had completely burned out, scorching his hand the while. Then, going to the window, he blew the tinder out and saw it fall.
“The ashes of a dead love,” he muttered; and then quickly, “No, it was not love. The mad fancy of the moment. There, it is all over. Poor woman! if all she says is honest truth, she must fight it down, and forgive me if I have been to blame. Yes; some day I can tell her. She will not forgive me, for there is nothing to forgive. Poor little woman! Ah, if the one who loves us could see and know all—the life, the thoughts of the wisest and best man who ever breathed! Nature, you are a hard mistress. Well, that is over; but poor old Joe! He will find out the truth, though, and ask my pardon. Everything comes to the man who waits.”
He crossed to a desk lying on a table by his bed, opened it, took out a photograph, and gazed at it for a few moments before replacing it with a sigh.
“You can be at rest, little one. Surely I am strong enough to keep my word.”
Then he started and bit his lip, for a hot flush came to his temples as the last words in the letter he had burned rose before him: “cast consequences to the winds and come to you.”
He shivered at the idea, as for the moment he saw the beautiful, passionate woman standing before him with her pleading eyes and outstretched hands.