Wife in Name Only Part 36

I used to try to deceive her even, but I never could succeed. She loved me so, my poor mother. She would take my hands in hers and kiss them.

'Such dainty hands, dear,' she would say, 'must not be spoiled.' After a great deal of trouble and expense, she contrived to get me an engagement as governess-pupil in a lady's school; there I did receive a good education. One failing of my mother always filled me with wonder--she used to fancy that people watched me. 'Has any one spoken to you, darling?' she would ask. 'Has any stranger seen you?' I used to laugh, thinking it was parental anxiety; but it has struck me since as strange.

While I was at the ladies' school my father committed the crime for which I--alas!--am suffering now."

"Will you tell me what the crime was?" requested Lord Arleigh.

A dreary hopelessness, inexpressibly painful to see, came over her face, and a deep-drawn sigh broke from her lips.

"I will tell you all about it," she said--"would to Heaven that I had done so before! My mother, many years ago, was in the service of Lady L'Estrange; she was her maid then. Miss L'Estrange married the Duke of Hazlewood, and, when my mother was in great difficulties, she went to the d.u.c.h.ess to ask for employment. The d.u.c.h.ess was always kind,"

continued Madaline, "and she grew interested in my mother. She came to see her, and I was at home. She told me afterward that when she first saw me she conceived a liking for me. I know now that I was but the victim of her plot."

She stopped abruptly, but Lord Arleigh encouraged her.

"Tell me all, Madaline," he said, gently; "none of this is your fault, my poor wife. Tell me all."

"The d.u.c.h.ess was very kind to my mother, and befriended her in many ways. She interested the duke in her case, and he promised to find employment for my unfortunate father, who went to his house to see him.

Whether my father had ever done wrong before, I cannot tell. Sometimes I fear that he had done so, for no man falls suddenly into crime. In few words--oh, Norman, how hard they are to say!--what he saw in the duke's mansion tempted him. He joined some burglars, and they robbed the house.

My unfortunate father was found with his pockets filled with valuable jewelry. My mother would not let me read the history of the trial, but I learned the result--he was sentenced to ten years' penal servitude."

She paused again; the dreary hopelessness of her face, the pain in her voice, touched him inexpressibly.

"None of this is your fault, my darling," he said. "Go on."

"Then," she continued "the d.u.c.h.ess was kinder than ever to my mother.

She furnished her with the means of gaining her livelihood; she offered to finish my education and adopt me. My mother was at first unwilling; she did not wish me to leave her. But the d.u.c.h.ess said that her love was selfish--that it was cruel to stand in my light when such an offer was made. She consented and I, wondering much what my ultimate fate was to be, was sent to school in Paris. When I had been there for some time, the duke and d.u.c.h.ess came to see me. I must not forget to tell you, Norman, that she saw me herself first privately. She said he was so forgetful that he would never remember having heard the name of Dornham.

She added that the keeping of the secret was very important, for, if it became known, all her kind efforts in our favor must cease at once. I promised to be most careful. The duke and d.u.c.h.ess arranged that I was to go home with them and live as the d.u.c.h.ess' companion. Again she warned me never upon any account to mention who I was, or anything about me.

She called me the daughter of an old friend--and so I was, although that friend was a very humble one. From the first, Norman, she talked so much about you; you were the model of everything chivalrous and n.o.ble, the hero of a hundred pleasant stories. I had learned to love you long even before I saw you--to love you after a fas.h.i.+on, Norman, as a hero. I can see it all now. She laid the plot--we were the victims. I remember that the very morning on which you saw me first the d.u.c.h.ess sent me into the trellised arbor; I was to wait there until she summoned me. Rely upon it, Norman, she also gave orders that you were to be shown into the morning-room, although she pretended to be annoyed at it. I can see all the plot now plainly. I can only say---- Oh, Norman, you and I were both blind! We ought to have seen through her scheme. Why should she have brought us together if she had not meant that we should love each other?

What have we in common--I, the daughter of a felon; you, a n.o.bleman, proud of your ancestry, proud of your name? Oh, Norman, if I could but die here at your feet, and save you from myself!"

Even as she spoke she sank sobbing, no longer on to his breast, no longer with her arms clasped round his neck, but at his feet.

He raised her in his arms--for he loved her with pa.s.sionate love.

"Madaline," he said, in a low voice, "do not make my task harder for me.

That which I have to do is indeed bitter to me--do not make it harder."

His appeal touched her. For his sake she must try to be strong.

Slowly he looked up at the long line of n.o.blemen and women whose faces shone down upon him; slowly he looked at her graceful figure and bowed head of his wife, the daughter of a felon--the first woman who had ever entered those walls with even the semblance of a stain upon her name. As he looked at her the thought came to him that, if his housekeeper had told him that she had inadvertently placed such a person--the daughter of a felon--in his kitchen, he would never have rested until she had been sent away.

He must part from her--this lovely girl-wife whom he loved with such pa.s.sionate love. The daughter of a criminal could not reign at Beechgrove. If the parting cost his life and hers it must take place. It was cruel. The strong man trembled with agitation; his lips quivered, his face was pale as death. He bent over his weeping wife.

"Madaline," he said, gently, "I do not understand the ways of destiny.

Why you and I have to suffer this torture I cannot say. I can see nothing in our lives that deserves such punishment. Heaven knows best.

Why we have met and loved, only to undergo such anguish, is a puzzle I cannot solve. There is only one thing plain to me, and that is that we must part."

He never forgot how she sprang away from him, her colorless face raised to his.

"Part, Norman!" she cried. "We cannot part now; I am your wife!"

"I know it; but we must part."

"Part!" repeated the girl. "We cannot; the tie that binds us cannot be sundered so easily."

"My poor Madaline, it must be."

She caught his hand in hers.

"You are jesting, Norman. We cannot be separated--we are one. Do you forget the words--'for better for worse,' 'till death us do part?'--You frighten me!" And she shrank from him with a terrible shudder.

"It must be as I have said," declared the unhappy man. "I have been deceived--so have you. We have to suffer for another's sin."

"We may suffer," she said, dully, "but we cannot part. You cannot send me away from you."

"I must," he persisted. "Darling, I speak with deepest love and pity, yet with unwavering firmness. You cannot think that, with that terrible stain resting on you, you can take your place here."

"But I am your wife!" she cried, in wild terror.

"You are my wife," he returned, with quivering lips; "but you must remain so in name only." He paused abruptly, for it seemed to him that the words burned his lips as they pa.s.sed them. "My wife," he muttered, "in name only."

With a deep sob she stretched out her arms. "But I love you, Norman--you must not send me away! I love you--I shall die if I have to leave you!"

The words seemed to linger on her lips.

"My darling," he said, gently, "it is even harder for me than for you."

"No, no," she cried, "for I love you so dearly, Norman--better than my life! Darling, my whole heart went out to you long ago--you cannot give it back to me."

"If it kills you and myself too," he declared, hoa.r.s.ely, "I must send you away."

"Send me away? Oh, no, Norman, not away! Let me stay with you, husband, darling. We were married only this morning My place is here by your side--I cannot go."

Looking away from her, with those pa.s.sionate accents still ringing in his ears, his only answer was:

"Family honor demands it."

"Norman," she implored, "listen to me, dear! Do not send me away from you. I will be so good, so devoted. I will fulfill my duties so well, I will bear myself so worthily that no one shall remember anything against me; they shall forget my unhappy birth, and think only that you have chosen well. Oh, Norman, be merciful to me! Leaving you would be a living death!"

"You cannot suffer more than I do," he said--"and I would give my life to save you pain; but, my darling, I cannot be so false to the traditions of my race, so false to the honor of my house, so untrue to my ancestors and to myself, as to ask you to stay here. There has never been a blot on our name. The annals of our family are pure and stainless. I could not ask you to remain here and treat you as my wife, even to save my life!"

"I have done no wrong, Norman; why should you punish me so cruelly?"

"No, my darling, you have done no wrong--and the punishment is more mine than yours. I lose the wife whom I love most dearly--I lose my all."

"And what do I lose?" she moaned.

"Not so much as I do, because you are the fairest and sweetest of women.

You shall live in all honor, Madaline. You shall never suffer social degradation, darling--the whole world shall know that I hold you blameless; but you can be my wife in name only."

She was silent for a few minutes, and then she held out her arms to him again.