The Masked Bridal Part 48

When angrily called to account for it by his brother-in-law, he at once replied, with an air of reckless defiance:

"Yes, I am glad of it--I would even have helped the girl to get away; indeed, I was planning to do so, for such a dastardly fraud as you perpetrated upon her should never be allowed to prosper."

He was rewarded for this speech, so loyal to Edith, only by an angry oath, to which, however, he paid no attention.

Strangely enough, Anna Correlli, after the first emotion of surprise and dismay had pa.s.sed, paid no heed to the exciting conversation; she had sunk into a chair by the window, where she sat pale and silent, and absolutely motionless, save for the wild restlessness of her fiery black eyes.

Mr. G.o.ddard, finding the atmosphere so disagreeable, finally left the room, and, mounting the stairs, shut himself in his own chamber, while the enraged lover dashed out of the house to the nearest telegraph office to send the message that caused the policeman to intercept Edith upon her arrival in New York.

A few moments later, Mrs. G.o.ddard--as we will, from courtesy, still call her--crept wearily up to her room, where, tottering to a couch, she threw herself p.r.o.ne upon her face, moaning and s.h.i.+vering with the agony she could no longer control.

The blow, which for twenty years she had been dreading, had fallen at last; but it was far more crus.h.i.+ng and bitter than she had ever dreamed it could be.

She had come at last to the dregs of the cup which once had seemed so sweet and alluring to her senses, and they had poisoned her soul unto death.

She knew that never again while she lived would she be able to face the world and hide her misery beneath a mask of smiles; and the bitterest drop of all, the sharpest thorn in her lacerated heart, was the fact that the little insignificant girl who had once been her hated rival in Rome, should have developed into the peerlessly beautiful woman, whom all men admired and reverenced, and whom Gerald G.o.ddard now idolized.

An hour pa.s.sed, during which she lay where she had fallen and almost benumbed by her misery.

Then there came a knock upon her door, which was immediately opened, and Mr. G.o.ddard entered the room.

He was still very pale, but grave and self-contained.

The woman started to a sitting posture, exclaiming, in an unnatural voice:

"What do you want here?"

"I have come, Anna, to talk over with you the events of the morning--to ask you to try to control yourself, and look at our peculiar situation with calmness and practical common sense," he calmly replied.

"Well?" was all the response vouchsafed, as he paused an instant.

"I have not come to offer any excuses for myself, or for what you overheard this morning," he thoughtfully resumed; "indeed, I have none to offer--my whole life, I own, has, as Isabel rightly said, been a failure thus far, and no one save myself is to blame for the fact. Do not sneer, Anna," he interposed, as her lips curled back from her dazzling teeth, which he saw were tightly locked with the effort she was making at self-control. "I have been thoroughly humiliated for the first time in my life--I have been made to see myself as I am, and I have reached a point where I am willing to make an effort to atone, as far as may be, for some of the wrongs of which I have been guilty.

Will you help me, Anna?"

Again he paused, but this time his companion did not deign to avail herself of the opportunity to reply, if, indeed, she was able to do so.

She had not once removed her glittering eyes from his face, and her steady, inscrutable look gave him an uncanny sensation that was anything but agreeable.

"I have come to propose that we avail ourselves of the only remedy that seems practicable to relieve our peculiar situation," he continued, seeing she was waiting for him to go on. "I will apply to have the tie which binds me to Isabel annulled, with all possible secrecy--it can be done in the West without any notoriety; then I will make you my legal wife, as you have so often asked me to do, and we will go abroad again, where we will try to live out the remainder of our lives to some better purpose than we have done heretofore. I ask you again, will you try to help me? It is not going to be an easy thing at first; but if each will try, for the sake of the other, I believe we can yet attain comparative content, if not positive happiness."

"Content! happiness!"

The words were hissed out with a fierceness of pa.s.sion that startled him, and caused him to regard her anxiously.

"Happiness!" she repeated. "Ha! ha! What mockery in the sound of that word from your lips, after what has occurred to-day!"

"I know that you have cause to be both grieved and angry, Anna," said Gerald G.o.ddard, humbly; "but let us both put the past behind us--let us wipe out all old scores, and from this day begin a new life."

"'Begin a new life' upon a heap of ashes, without one spark among them to ignite the smallest flame!" was the mocking rejoinder. Then, with a burst of agony, she continued: "Oh, G.o.d! if you had taken a dagger and stabbed me to death in that room to-day, you could not have slain me more effectually than by the words you have uttered. Begin a new life with you, after your confessions, your pleadings and protestations to Isabel Stewart? Heaven! Never! I hate you! hate you; hate you! with all the strength of my Italian blood, and warn you--beware! And now, begone!"

The woman looked like a maniac as she poured this wild torrent upon him, and the man saw that she was in no mood to be reasoned with or to consider any subject; that it would be wiser to wait until the fierceness of her anger had spent itself.

He had broached the matter of their future relations, thus giving her something to think of, and now he would leave her to meditate upon it by herself; perhaps, in a few days, she would be in a more reasonable frame of mind, and look at the subject from a different point of view.

"Very well, Anna," he said, as he arose, "I will obey you. I do not pretend to claim that I have not given you cause to feel aggrieved in many respects; but, as I have already said, that is past. I simply ask you to do what I also will do--put all the old life behind us, and begin over again. I realize that we cannot discuss the question to any purpose now--we are both too wrought up to think or talk calmly, so I will leave you to rest, and we will speak of this at another time. Can I do anything for you before I go?--or perhaps you would like your maid sent to you?"

"No," she said, briefly, and not once having removed her wild eyes from his face while he was speaking.

He bowed, and pa.s.sed out of the room, softly shutting the door after him, then walked slowly down the hall to his own apartment.

The moment he was gone Anna G.o.ddard sprang like a cat to her feet.

Going to her writing-desk, she dashed off a few lines, which she hastily folded and slipped into an envelope, which she sealed and addressed.

She then touched the electric b.u.t.ton above her desk to summon her maid, after which she sat motionless with the missive clasped in her hands until the girl appeared.

"Dress yourself for the street, Mary, and take this note to Mr.

Clayton's office. Be quick about it, for it is a matter of importance," she commanded, while she forced herself to speak with outward calmness.

But Mary regarded her mistress with wonder, for, in all her "tantrums," as she termed them, she had never seen the awful look upon her face which was stamped upon it at that moment.

But she took the note without comment, and hastened away upon her errand, while Mrs. G.o.ddard, throwing herself back in her chair, sat there waiting with an air of expectation that betrayed she was looking for the appearance of some one.

Half an hour later a gentleman was admitted to the house, and was shown directly up to my lady's boudoir.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

RECORDS SOME STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS.

The gentleman caller referred to in the last chapter was closeted with Mrs. G.o.ddard for fully two hours, when he quietly left the house.

A few moments later, however, he returned, accompanied by two other men--clerks from a neighboring drug store--whom he admitted with a latch-key, and then conducted them up to Mrs. G.o.ddard's boudoir.

The strangers did not remain long; whatever their errand, it was soon finished, and they departed as silently as they had come.

Mr. Clayton remained some time longer, conversing with the mistress of the house, but their business being finally concluded, he also went away, bearing a package of papers with him.

Emil Correlli returned just in season for dinner, which, however, he was obliged to partake of alone, as Mr. and Mrs. G.o.ddard did not make their appearance at the table.

The young man paid slight heed to ceremony, but after eating a hasty meal, sought his sister and informed her that he was going to start for New York on the late evening train.

The woman gave him one wild, startled glance, and seemed strangely agitated for a moment over his announcement.

He could not fail to notice her emotion, and that she was excessively pale.