"Death!" ejaculated Ida, horrified. How had the "bold, bad man" gone to his account? Where was he now?
"He was killed in a duel in Bourdeaux," said Richard, coolly. "The villain escaped a less honorable fate by flight. Devoted as Helen was to him, the news was a relief,—removing as it did, her apprehensions of our meeting. So much for her. Thus ends the last chapter of that tragedy!" His countenance lost its bitter scorn.
"Miss Ida—before I met you, I never feared to speak what was in my thoughts. Policy or compassion may have deterred me—but cowardice never! I believed I had read every page in man's or woman's heart, and could flutter them with a breath. You were a study, taken up in curiosity, and baffling me by its very simplicity. You furnished me with a clue; but my skepticism cast it aside—to seek it again, and admit its efficacy in a solitary instance. Ingenuous in word and deed—you had yet, a hidden history. I felt it then, vaguely—not able to tell from whence the consciousness sprung. Can it be that virtue thrives only in the shade?"
He stopped again. Ida's face was crimsoning slowly with confusion and suspense.
"It must be said!" resumed he, desperately. "I may probe a wound, or touch a callous heart. Miss Ross! will you state to me candidly, the character of your acquaintance with Mr. Lacy?"
Ida's tongue was palsied. She would have given her estate for power to say—"He was my friend;" but it was denied.
"Then bear with me awhile. The evening of our introduction, I imparted to you the information of Lelia Arnold's engagement; and your deprecation of her trifling seemed only the detestation of a pure and upright soul. If I saw mournful pity in the eyes, which were often riveted by her beauty, I suspected no more. Before leaving Richmond, I heard that he had been—perhaps was then your lover:—the direction of your preference was not known. In my superior sagacity, I opined that my friend Germaine was his fortunate rival. Your rejection of his suit recalled the gossip I had not thought worth remembering. Lelia was Helen's confidante; knew of her betrothal to Ashlin, and surmised, if she was not informed of the rupture, when it occurred. After Mr. Read's death, my mother mentioned incidentally, that her influence had been exerted to the utmost, to persuade her friend to accept him. Until I heard that, I had laughed at her snares to entangle me—the only man, it was said, who was invulnerable to her arts. I despised her before, I hated her now; yet the county rung with acclamations over my capture; and the fair Lelia, in her exultation, was beguiled into an impolitic show of tenderness. I have her picture, her ring, her letters. I could dash them into the sea, without a pang, and would plunge after them, sooner than marry her. I designed a punishment for her falsehood in friendship and love; but all the while, was haunted with an indefinite thought that you were to be affected by the result. If your lover had been wiled away by her machinations, or more likely—if she had played upon his imagination and sense of honor, in an unguarded hour—I could free him. I intended to see you, and tell you this, but Helen hastened the execution of the plot. Breaking our accustomed reserve, she implored me to quiet her fears touching my marriage. A glimmering of Leila's treachery had penetrated her mind;—she mistrusted that she was playing me false, and that she had deceived others. I struck a key, which I knew would give a true sound—her love for you. She had heard your name coupled with his, she said; and once, a direct assertion of your attachment for him, but it was from lying lips. If I have wearied and displeased you, intimate it. If not—here are the proofs to secure you revenge or happiness. Say the word, and the dupe is enlightened. She will not suffer more, that you connive at her disgrace. Her mortification will be public, and is inevitable. Where is Mr. Lacy?"
"I do not know, and would not tell you if I did!" cried Ida. "If I were dying of a broken heart, I would refuse the healing your cold-blooded scheme offered. She may be—I believe her unworthy of him; but when he sought her, he was shackled by no vows to me. He is not a vain boy, to be flattered into a courtship! if duped, she has cruelly deceived the noblest heart that ever beat. I honor him more for not discovering her snare, than you, for mastering her in duplicity. No! Mr. Copeland! I have no wrongs to avenge upon him or her—nor is it your prerogative, to retaliate for your, or your sister's injuries. We do not understand each other! You impute traits to me, which the weakest of my sex would blush to own; and I thought you generous—high-minded! 'Fallen,' indeed!" Her voice shook, and her head sank upon the table. The man of the world was confounded. The lofty tone of her principles lowered his plotted vengeance into unmanly spite.
He had been incited to it by the low standard of the sex, his sister's and her associate's conduct had set up in his mind; and a desire to betray the baseness of the currency the accomplished coquette was passing off upon society—backed by a justifiable displeasure at the evils of which she was the author.
"I am to understand that you disdain my offer to serve you?" he said, rising.