In a quiet, old-fashioned street—for there are quiet, old-fashioned streets even in New York—there stands a big, square, dingy, red brick house, set in a square of grass-grown front garden, a square of brick paving in the rear. Two slim poplars—"old maids of the forest," lift their tall, prim green heads on either side of the heavy hall door. The house looks comfortable, but gloomy, and that is precisely what it is, this dun-colored spring day, comfortable, but gloomy. There are heavy curtains of dark, rich damask draping the windows. Through the clear panes of one of the upper windows you catch the flicker and fall of a red coal fire, and the sombre beauty of a girl's face.
She stands in the large, handsome room, alone, a long, low room, with a carpet of rich, dull crimson velvet, curtains of dull crimson satin damask, papered walls, dull crimson, too. There are oil paintings in gilded frames, ponderous mahogany chairs, tables and footstools; but there is nothing bright in the apartment save the cheerful red fire. It is all dark and oppressive—not even excepting the girl. The pale face that looks gloomily out at the fast drifting sky, at the fast-fading light, is smileless and sober as all the rest. And yet it is a youthful face, a beautiful face, a face that six months ago bloomed with a childish brightness and bloom, the face of Norine Bourdon.
It is close upon four months since she entered this house, as companion, secretary, amanuensis, to Mr. Hugh Darcy. Now she stands here debating within herself whether she shall go to him to-night and tell him she must leave. She shrinks from the task. She has grown strangely old and wise in these four months; she knows something of the world—something of what it must be like to be adrift in New York, friendless and penniless, with only eighteen years and a fair face for one's dangerous dower. Friendless she will be; for in leaving she will deeply irritate Mr. Darcy, deeply anger Mr. Liston, and in all the world, it seems to Norine, there are only those two she can call friends.
And yet—friends! Can she call even them by that name? Mr. Liston is her friend and protector so long as he thinks she will aid him in his vengeance upon his enemy. Mr. Darcy—well, how long will Mr. Darcy be her friend when he discovers how she has imposed upon him? That under a false name and history she has sought the shelter of his roof—she, the cast-off of his nephew? He likes her well—that she knows; he trusts her, respects her—how much liking or respect will remain when he knows her as she is?
"And know he shall," she says, inwardly, her lips compressed. "I cannot carry on this deception longer. For the rest I would have to leave in any case—they return in May, and I cannot, I cannot meet them. Mr. Liston may say what he pleases, it were easier to die than to stay on and meet him again—like that."
She has not forgotten. Such first, passionate love as she gave Laurence Thorndyke is not to be outlived and trampled out in four months; and yet it is much more abhorrence than love that fills her heart with bitterness now.
"The dastard!" she thinks, her black eyes gleaming dangerously; "the coward! How dare he do it! One day or other he shall pay for it, that I swear; but I cannot meet him now. There is nothing for it but to go and tell Mr. Darcy I must leave, and take my chance in the world, quite alone."
She leaned her forehead against the cold, clear glass with a heavy heart-sick sigh. The first keen poignancy of her pain was over, but the dull, deadly sickening ache was there still, and would be for many a day. Hate him she might, long for retaliation she did, but not once could she think of him the happy husband of Helen Holmes without the very heart within her growing faint with deadly jealousy. The sound of his name, the sight of his letters, had power to move her to this day. In the drawing-room below a carefully-painted portrait of the handsome face, the bright blue eyes, the fair, waving hair, hung—a portrait so true, that it was torture only to took at it, and yet how many hours had she not stood before it, her heart full of bitterness—until burning tears filled and blinded her dark impassioned eyes.
Now he and his bride were coming home to this house, and she was expected to stay here and meet them. Expected by Mr. Darcy, who had learned to love her almost as a daughter; expected by Mr. Liston, who had told her she must confront Laurence Thorndyke in this very house, and show him to uncle and wife as he really was—a coward, a liar, a seducer.
"I cannot do it!" she said, her hands clenching together. "I cannot meet him. Mon Dieu, no! not yet—not yet."