It was the last time that such words were destined to pass her lips for many a dark and dreadful day. They reached home, and Beatrix went straight to her room. She wanted to be alone and think over her new-found happiness. She gazed upon the wedding-ring on her finger as she hid the marriage-certificate away safely in her desk.
"My husband!" she whispered, softly. "Nothing can part us now—nothing but death! No one can come between us now—never while we live!"
Hark! what is that? The sound of voices—women's voices—fell upon her ears.
It was Serena and her mother in an empty room adjoining Beatrix's chamber. They had gone there for a private conference, and did not dream that she would overhear.
"Mamma,"—Beatrix heard Serena's sibilant voice, and a shudder passed over her—"I know all the whole fearful secret at last, and Beatrix Dane will never marry Keith Kenyon now. I know the nature of the awful curse which descends from Mildred Dane upon her child, which was originally transmitted from Mildred Dane's South American ancestors, and I no longer envy Beatrix her beauty. Better be the ugliest woman in the land than the thing she is! I would not exchange my plain face, were it ten times plainer, for Beatrix Dane's glorious beauty. Mother, listen, and do not faint or cry out. This is the bad, black secret: Mildred Dane inherited the awful plague of leprosy, and from her it descends to her child, Beatrix Dane!"
[CHAPTER XIX.]
BEATRIX HEARS THE SECRET.
Silence—awful silence! Beatrix could hear her own heart beat as she stood there alone in the silence and darkness of her own chamber, the hand that wears Keith Kenyon's wedding-ring pressed against her madly throbbing heart.