A heart-rending sigh heaved Lena’s breast, and she answered, sadly:
“I did not deserve Heaven’s mercy, Violet, for I was a willful, disobedient daughter, and ignored the fifth commandment in my determination to please myself. So I was punished for my sin. But with you, dear, it is different. You are good and gentle, but you fell a victim to the wicked plots of your enemies without fault of your own, so I believe that God is watching to save you and restore you to happiness again.”
“How can I ever be happy again, bound to that guilty wretch, Harold Castello?” cried hapless Violet, with the big tears raining from her blue eyes down upon her pale, lovely cheeks.
“Trust in God and wait,” answered poor Lena, reverently, and after a moment’s thought, she added:
“Who knows even yet but that I may be Castello’s lawful wife? In that case your own marriage would be a sham, and you would be free from your hateful bonds. I’ll tell you, Violet, that I have been trying to see his valet—the one that he said acted the parson in our marriage ceremony. I shall ask him if it is true, and thus settle the doubt forever.”
All Violet’s hopes hinged on this doubt. She prayed night and day that the truth might be revealed, and Lena Lavarre proved to be Harold Castello’s legal wife.
“Then I should be free again—oh, blissful thought!—and my undying love for Cecil would no longer be a sin! I should send for him to come to me here, and throwing myself into his dear arms, tell him how cruelly we both had been tricked and deceived. We would be married soon, and Amber’s wicked arts could never part us again!” she thought, hopefully.
But this faint, lingering doubt, that in its uncertainty saved her from complete despair, was soon to be dissipated by the truth.
Lena Lavarre had washed from her face and hands the brown dye she had assumed when she answered Harold Castello’s advertisement for a French maid for his bride, and with her fair complexion, rich golden hair, and large brown eyes, appeared so beautiful that Violet did not wonder at Harold Castello’s infatuation with the dazzling coquette. Even now, with the pensive shade of a tragedy on her exquisite face, she was very charming.
But Lena no longer exulted in the beauty that had brought her so much sorrow. When she went abroad on simple domestic errands for her mother, she always wore a thick vail that obscured her face, and she appeared unconscious of the admiring glances that rested on her queenly form and graceful carriage. The zest for flirtation was over now, for her proud heart was broken, and Lena would be glad when death released her from her undying remorse for her ruined life and her father’s untimely death.