Vivienne in her bewilderment and distress almost cried out. She had become very much attached to the eccentric physician, whom Stargarde tolerated so good-naturedly, and she fondly hoped that some day Stargarde would marry him. And now she was bestowing caresses on another man, which from a woman such as she was, could mean only one thing, that she loved Mr. Armour and would marry him.
Some movement that Vivienne involuntarily made, attracted the attention of the two people below; Stargarde looked up hastily and on seeing the disturbed face peering down at her, grew first pale and then red, but did not release her hold on Mr. Armour. “Vivienne,” she said quietly, “come here, dear child.”
Slowly and most unwillingly Vivienne went down step by step, till at last she stood in the lower hall.
Stargarde led Mr. Armour up to one of the panel mirrors with which Flora was fond of decorating the house. There she threw one arm around his neck, and with her hand covered his moustache. A quick motion of her other hand brushed back the yellow curls from her face. The exposed forehead in her case, the hidden moustache in his, heightened the strong resemblance between them that Vivienne was intensely astonished to perceive, and yet wondered at herself for not noticing before.
The two heads were of the same classical shape, the straight noses were alike, both had a clear, healthful pallor of skin and faint coloring of the cheek; but Armour’s thick, light hair was straight and waveless, and several shades paler than Stargarde’s yellow, curling locks.
In troubled confusion Vivienne gazed at them, thankful that their backs were to her, and that Stargarde had been thoughtful enough to present their faces to her in the mirror. They were brother and sister. She did not understand it, nor know what to say about it, and it was an immense relief when Stargarde turned to her with one of her quick motions, kissed her lovingly, and going upstairs with her murmured, “Don’t worry over it, dear; it is all right.”
When they reached the turn in the staircase, Vivienne looked over her shoulder. Mr. Armour was going about the hall, putting out the lights, with the same dull, unmoved expression of countenance that he had worn ever since he came into the house. Under his own roof there always seemed a heavier shadow upon him than when he was away from it.
“Oh, Stargarde,” said Vivienne, clasping her friend’s hand to her breast, “I am so miserable!”
“I know it, darling; your face is pitiful. Go and undress and get into your little white bed, and I will come and sit beside you, and you shall tell me all about it. I want to speak to Mammy first.”
Late that night, long after Stargarde had watched Vivienne lay her black head on her pillow and had kissed her, murmuring sweetly in French, “Bonne nuit; dormez bien, mon ange,” old Mammy Juniper crept to the sleeping apartment of the stranger under the roof. Noticing that there were tears on the lovely cheeks, she wiped them away, and with fierce mutterings looked in the direction of Vivienne’s room and called down a curse upon her, if she had been the one to bring them there.