With the murmur of his greetings to Maud in her ears, Bessie rose from her chair. She found the library chill and cheerless after her cozy boudoir on the floor above, and decided to go there. Glancing over her shoulder, as she mounted the stairs, she could see the count standing with his back to the fire, discoursing with a smile—a handsome, personable man, with his dark face and pointed beard looking darker than ever over his gleaming expanse of shirt bosom. It would be an entirely desirable marriage for Maud. Bessie had found out all about the count’s position and title in his native land, and both were all that he said they were, which had satisfied and surprised her.
In her own room she sat down before the fire to think. Maud’s future was in her own hands now, molding itself into shape downstairs in the reception-room. Bessie could do no more toward directing it than she had already done, and her active mind immediately seized on the other subject that had been engrossing it. She drew out Mrs. Willers’ letter and read it again. Then crumpling it in her hand, she looked into the fire with eyes of somber perplexity.
What was the matter with the girl? Mrs. Willers stated positively that, as far as she could ascertain, there was no man that had the slightest influence over Mariposa Moreau’s affections. She was acting entirely on her own volition. But what had made her change her mind, Mrs. Willers did not know. Something had undoubtedly occurred, she thought, that had influenced Mariposa to a total reversal of opinion. Mrs. Willers said she could not imagine what this was, but it had changed the girl, not only in ambition and point of view, but in character.
The letter frightened Bessie. It had made her silent all through dinner, and now brooding over the fire, she thought of what it might mean and felt a cold apprehension seize her. Could Mariposa know? Her behavior and conduct since Shackleton’s death suggested such a possibility. It was incredible to think of, but Lucy might have told. And also, might not the girl, in arranging her mother’s effects after her death, have come on something, letters or papers, which had revealed the past?
A memory rose up in Bessie’s mind of the girl wife she had supplanted, clinging to the marriage certificate, which was all that remained to remind her of the days when she had been the one lawful wife. Bessie knew that this paper had been carefully tied in the bundle which held Lucy’s few possessions when they left Salt Lake. She knew it was still in the bundle when she, herself, had handed it to the deserted girl in front of Moreau’s cabin. Might not Mariposa have found it?
She rose and walked about the room, feeling sick at the thought. She was no longer young, and her iron nerve had been permanently shaken by the suddenness of her husband’s death. Mariposa, with her mother’s marriage certificate, might be plotting some desperate coup. No wonder she refused to go to Paris! If she could establish her claim as Shackleton’s eldest and only legitimate child, she would not only sweep from Win and Maud the lion’s share of their inheritance, but, equally unbearable, she would drag to the light the ugly story—the terrible story that Jake Shackleton and his second wife had so successfully hidden.
Her thoughts were suddenly broken in on by the bang of the front door. She looked at the clock and saw it was only nine. If it was the count who was going he had stayed less than an hour. What had happened? She moved to the door and listened.
She heard a light step, slowly and furtively mounting the stairs. It was Maud, for, though she could attempt to deaden her footfall, she could not hush the rustling of her silken skirts. As the sweeping sound reached the stair-head, Bessie opened her door. Maud stopped short, her black dress fading into the darkness about her, so that her white face seemed to be floating unattached through the air like an optical delusion.
“Why, mommer,” she said, falteringly, “I thought you were in bed.”
“Has the count gone?” queried her mother, with an unusual sternness of tone.