He took his fair young wife into his arms, and kissed her many times; he smoothed the waving, golden tresses with loving hands, telling her how dearly he loved her—how happy she made him. Then, even while she clung to him, he released her gently from his embrace, not knowing it was the last—not dreaming of the years to come, when his arms would ache in vain to clasp her.
"My mother is waiting for you in the drawing-room," he said. "There is some one with her—a visitor. Can you guess whom, darling?"
She gave a terrible start—a smothered cry—and clung to his arm with both small, white hands.
"My dear, how nervous you are!" he said. "One would think you were frightened. It is your old rival, Maud Merivale. Think of her insufferable impertinence in coming here after that night last summer! But courage, love, she will only be consumed with envy when she sees how much lovelier you have grown since you became my wife."
She tried to murmur some careless reply, but her heart leaped with fear. Another enemy! Too surely the coils of fate were closing round her!
They went down the broad staircase, along the lighted hall, and so into the brilliant drawing-room, the handsome man with the lovely girl borne proudly on his arm. She looked up and saw Mrs. Le Roy smiling at her, Mrs. Merivale rustling toward her in "gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls," and, beyond her, two others—a man and a woman—both strangers. They were rising eagerly, too, coming toward her with smiles and outstretched hands. A dim perception flashed over Laurel; her heart felt like a stone in her breast.
[CHAPTER XXXIX.]
It was a supreme moment. Laurel felt it to be such. Her heart beat, her limbs trembled beneath her. But for the support of St. Leon's arm she must have fallen to the earth. She wondered that she did not faint—rather that she did not die—for an intuition, swift as the lightning's flash, told her that these two strangers were Mr. Gordon and his wife.
She had never seen them in her life; but she did not for one moment doubt their identity. She saw Mrs. Merivale modestly giving place to them, allowing them to greet her first; she saw the smile of pleasure on St. Leon's lips—St. Leon, who thought she was having such a pleasant surprise. She could not move nor speak. She clung desperately to St. Leon's arm, and they came nearer and nearer, the tall, rather stern-looking man, and the pretty, faded blonde in her rich silks and laces. Laurel gazed at them with her great, dark, frightened eyes, much as the little princes in the Tower might have gazed upon their murderers.