The Saint Paul globe., April 23, 1899, Novels for Leisure Hours, Page 5, Image 33

About The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905

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at her cousin's brooding profile with a faint
misgiving.
Was it possible that she was beginning to
reel afraid of this stately creature, upon
whom she had wished to lavish a wealth of
sisterly love?
Clorinda had startled her on several oc
casions b> a fierce outburst of ugly temper,
and a firs in her eyes. Doth alarming and re
pulsive had revealed traits terrible to Elva.
"Talk of Sir Oscar instead of that perpet
ual mystery," commanded Miss Vansdlyt, af
ter a moment's silence. "Tell me what you
think of him?"
"I scarcely know him enough to give an
opinion," Tlva responded. "Are you very
fond of him?" she asked.
"Fond of him!" repeated Clorinda. scorn
fully. "I might be— if he worshipped me
less.
"Oh, I never can help liking people who
like me!" exclaimed Elva, puzzled by the
vehemence of her cousin's strange assertion.
Clorinda laughed.
Her scarlet lips mocked the sound of mirth.
"Ashcroft is a richer estate than the
Priory," she went on. "Don't you think that
I might make a queenly Lady Drake?"
"You are always splendid, Clori," was
Elva's enthusiastic reply; "excepting when
you are angry," she added, candidly. "It is
terrible to see you then."
"We Vansdlyts have plenty of spirit,"
Clorinda said, drawing her regal figure to its
full height. "You are a Caryl altogether,
Elva— small and tame. Nothing in the world |
could frighten or intimidate me, and you look j
scared when I so much as raise my voice
above the usual key. Wait till you have seen
Bernard in one of his rages."
"I hope I never shall," Elva answered.
They were now in the woodland, Bruno
bounding before them, and suddenly Clorinda
said, coolly—
"You may run on with Bruno, if you want
to. I can see Sir Oscar in the distance, and
he will be disappointed to meet me with you.
Should he wish to propose, your presence
would prevent him from asking me to be his
wife— and I really am resolved to become i
Lady Drake of Ashcroft." she added, smiling
with a conscious self-approval.
Elva stood still, and regarded Miss Vansdlyt
with wide-open eyes of amazement.
"How odd to arrange to marry him!" she
exclaimed. f
"Go!" cried Clorinda, with a flash of her!
tawny eyes. "I do not want your criticism.
You are so silly, Elva!"
The young girl flushed at the taunt, gave
a little stifled sigh, and turned quickly from
the light of those glittering orbs.
Again that chill— a frightened tremor— had
contracted her heart, and she was glad to
leave Miss Vansdlyt.
"Bruno! Bruno!" she called, softly, as she
darted through the glade; "let us go to the
brook. Perhaps we shall find some flowers
for Mr. Romer."
Reaching another avenue, she sprang light
ly through some tangled branches, alighting
into a lovely dell.
The turf was like velvet; a sparkling rill
gurgled below the sun-pierced leafage.
Bruno scampered forward with barks of
delight, and Elva followed just as eagerly.
On the cool grass at the water-side a man
reclined, at sight of whom she paused in
great surprise; theft, uttering a muffled cry,
she noiselessly crossed the sward and looked
dojvn into the clear surface of the brook.
She did not notice the sweet, dim reflection
of her own face — the sunny glint of her
golden hair pictured in the stream.
She was gazing into despairing grey eyes —
into the haggard face— of the hermit.
What had happened to him? she asked her
self, with a thrill of apprehension.
Why did he wince as she stopped beside
him; recoil when, in childish sympathy and
bewilderment, she knelt by his side?
"Mr. Romer, is anything the matter? Are
you in trouble?" she asked.
He rose quickly, his pallor becoming more |
death-like, while he forced a smile to his
lips.
"I am taking your advice, and have been
listening to the 'music of the leaves,' " he
said, as she also rose. "I am afraid it does
not agree with me to be idle, Miss Caryl,
since you find me looking as though some
calamity had happened."
"I am glad that it is nothing," she told
him, relieved. "It seemed to me that you
were terribly unhappy. Were you thinking
of poor Jim, just as I keep thinking of him?"
she addded, whisperingly.
Osmonde Romer winced; his face grew
more haggard and lined.
"Yes," he huskily assented; "I keep think
ing of him. Miss Caryl. I would give my life
to know that he is alive."
"I may speak of him to you," she cried
tremulously. "Neither Clorinda nor Bernard
cares to be reminded of his strange disap
pearance; and not to talk of him at all is like
classing him with the dead, is it not?"
The secretary drew a sharp breath.
It tortured him to discuss the unfortunate
young squire of Rose Dene with Elva, but
the appeal made to him touched his heart,
and he said, slowly —
"Speak of him to me whenever you wish.
Do you think that he fell from Priory Cliff
into the sea?" he asked, and he looked
piercingly into her face.
"Yes; some say that he must have been
thrown in!" Elva observed, and, after a
pause, she resumed: "I believe that he is
living; something convinces me that we shall
see him again."
A glow of hope flashed into Osmonde's grey
eyes.
"Heaven grant it!" he muttered. "This is
the nearest way home," he added, changing
the wearying subject. "Are you coming now
Miss Caryl?"
"Yes," she responded, with a dread of en
countering Clorinda by retracing her steps,
and loth to let Osmonde go on without- her!
•I will come — if I shall not be in your way."
"In my way!" he repeated, and checked
himself suddenly.
He tenderly loved Elva, but a thought an
accident — had cast a dark shadow between
them.
The merry face of Jim Dage sprang into
ltfe before him, and dared him to avow his
secret.
—NAN WOODYILLE'S LOVERS^
He felt the guilty burden of that awful
moment when, in the roar and buffeting of j
the storm, his jealous anger had raged
against the young squire, and the latter had
taken that false step on the brink of the cliff
path.
It was as though an unsee nhand had
stricken Jim down into the sea, in answer to
the veil feeling with which the secretary had
approached him.
The terrible crime of St. Kevin's Cave did
not trouble Bernard Vansdlyt with the same
anguish of remorse which was endured by
the innocent man, who suffered burning
pangs of conscience.
The girl's sweet eyes seemed to smite him
with their look of utter faith.
When she appealed to him as to a dear
friend in whom she had unspeakable belief,
he longed to tell her all the harrowing truth,
that he might be less unworthy of her trust.
On their reaching the Priory, Bernard, with
a heavy scowl on his dark face, met them at
the alcoved entrance of the dwelling.
"You went out with Clori, did you not?" he
commented to Elva, a flame of repressed rage
in his eyes. "Why is she not with you?"
"She met Sir. Oscar, and "
"I was fortunate enough to meet Miss
Caryl," interposed the secretary, as Elva
paused, scared by an ominous quietude in
Bernard's manner.
The light in the towny, dusky eyes, so like
Clorinda's made the timid sensation, quite
new to Elva, thrill coldly through her veins.
"Wait till you have seen Bernard in one of
his rages!" she seemed to hear repeated jeer- ]
ingly in her ears, and sha gave a little gasp,
suddenly realizing tnat such a contingency
might occur.
Osmonde passed on to his study, not hav
ing any excuse to remain, and, with a hissing
sound breaking from his livid lips, Bernard
caught Elva's delicate wrist in a savage
grasp.
"Look at me!" he said. "Do you think
that I mean to allow you to give so much of
your attention to my steward? You forget
your position here, Elva. As the future mis
tress of Cliff Priory, ycu must learn to keep
our servants in their proper place. Do you
hear me? Do you?" he repeated, panting, his
set teeth gleaming like a wolf's.
"Clorinda is the mistress of Cliff Priory,"
faltered Elva, her face deadly pale, her
heart palpitating in affraight. "As for Mr.
Romer, he is not a servant, but a true gentle
man, Bernard. Oh, please let me go!" she
added, shrinking from the fury revealed in
his face. "I do not understand you — the
'Vansdlyt spirit' is horrible to me, and I shall
never get used to it — never. The sisters
thought it a sin to give way to anger, and I
am only a Caryl — it turns me to ice!"
She looked so fragile, trembling before him,
a purple shadow round her eyes and lips, that
he roughly released her arm.
"Don't annoy me again, Elva," he mut
tered. "I am very fond of you — and jealous.
Come, little fiancee, give me a kiss and for
give me."
She gazed at him in dazed uncertainty, as
to whether he had spoken in jest or earnest.
"Don't call me 'little fiancee,' Bernard," she
protested, and she tossed her clustering curls
away from her damp forehead, with a singu
lar sense of uneasiness. "I am only your
cousin "
"I love you more than that!" he inter
rupted, and she gave a cry of dismay. "I am
going to kiss you, Elva, in spite of every
one. Come, are we not friends?"
She did not answer him, but, with an ex
pression of positive aversion in her pansy
blue eyes, turned and rushed from his pres
ence.
CHAPTER 111.
"You dare to tell me that all is over— that
I am to be sent adrift for Sir Oscar?"
"I am affianced to Sir Oscar," Clorinda
replied, speaking with a look of fierce deter
mination on her face, 'and you must con
sider our romantic friendship at an end nok,
Giles. "As the mistress of Ashcroft, I cannot
count a horse trainer among my visitors,
can I?"
The man drew back a step as though she
had struck him.
His handsome face went grey in the semi
dusk of the woodland.
"Are you serious?" he asked, and his great
chest heaved. "Were you mocking me when
you declared that ;-ou returned my love? Did
you lead me on, only to fool — to slight me?"
Clorinda seemed unable to respond with her
usual ready contempt.
If there was a living creature for whom
she cared in the whole world, it was for Giles
Wynter.
She had accepted Sir Oscar for his position,
ajjd Giles was her ideal of manly courage
and beauty.
His tall, lithe figure and singularly classic
face, the dark eyes watching her with an
intensity that boded danger, made the mem- I
ory of her fiancee something to be despised I
in comparison, and she hated Sir Oscar at
that moment.
"I did love jou, Giles!" she exclaimed,
recklessly, a thrill of real feeling in her voice.
"I thought that I could be happy as your
wife, but I know better now. I am too
proud, too selfish to give up my place in
society for your sake. Married to a horse
trainer! It would shame me to sink like
that! As Lady Drake I shall be in my nat
ural element."
"Your natural element, bound to a man for
whom you do not care two straws!" sneered
Giles; and then he added passionately, draw
ing close to her side: "It is a diabolical I
arrangement, Clorinda. You cannot mean to
carry it out— you shall not! What a position
in the balance of an attachment strong as
ours? Dearest, when I am rich I can give
up training horses. Don't cast me aside. Will '
Sir Oscar understand you as I do? Will he
bear with ycur cnangeable moods, your
haughty spirit, as I am willing to bear with
them? Anything bui. your desertion!"
"He will have to take me as I am, and i
make the best of my faults," she retorted I
"I am betrothed to him, and ought to stand '
here talking to you. It is good-bye, Giles
for I do not wish to see you again."
He gave a harsh laugh.
"Take back that wish, for Heaven's sake!"
he urged, a curious gleam in his eyes.
"I cannot," she returned. "I must not :
forget that I am Sir Oscar's plighted wife. ;
You are henceforth a stranger to me."
"Less than a stranger," he huskily as
sented. "I can be dead to you."
What did he mean?
Her heart seemed to rise in her throat
with a throb of dread.
"I am sorry, Giles," she panted; "indeed I
am."
She was visibly agitated, and- more than
vaguely alarmed by his odd manner.
There was a desaerate look in his eyes, at
sight of which she quailed and shivered.
He seemed crushed— stunned by her cru
elty. But his evident suffering did not turn
her from her rtsolve.
Her greed foi power was greater than her
love.
"I must go, Giles," she said, retreating from
him, her face rigidly pale. "It will be dark
before I get back to the Priory, and Sir Os
car is coming to see me this evening. Oh,
Giles! if only you could have changed places
with him!"
"I do not envy him," he muttered. "You
will be a miserable woman, Clorinda, pining
in your loveless splendor; and I "
"You will forget me!" she broke in, speak
ing wildly, with burning eyes.
He turned to her, clenching his hands.
"Go!" he commanded, "or I may kill you!
You have ruined my life! Now leave me!"
He was searnly facing her, with a look that
ever after haunted her; and, with asmothered
wail, she rushed away from him.
A moment later, the dusky glade in which
Giles Wynter stood alone, echoed with a
sharp report, and, staggering, he dropped
like a log on to the soft turf.
* • » • •
It chanced that Elva was returning, with
Bruno, through the wood from a little fish
ing village, called Hazel Cross, and she had
seen Clorinda talking to a stranger.
In her awe of the "Vansdlyt spirit," she
had not intruded upon the meeting, which
had ended so fatally, but had slipped past
at the other side Gf the arching trees, keep
ing the dog with her.
The noise of the deadly weapon with
which Giles Wynter had destroyed himself
arrested her steps, filling her with perplexity,
and, as a dim suspicion of the truth flashed
ir to her mind, she turned, running back to
the spot she had just avoided.
On the grass lay Clorinda' s victim, a dread
ful stain creeping over his pallid face.
Elva uttered a shuddering cry, appalled,
white with horror, and, kneeling down, she
searched, w ith shrinking tremulousness, for
some sign of consciousness.
But instinct told her that she was in the
solemn presence of death.
She was about to rise, when a cold hand
flung her violently aside, and Clorinda cast
herself upon the lifeless breast of the man
she had driven to despair.
"Giles!" she hoarsely articulated, and, as
she dizzily stumbled up from the green
eward, Elva felt her blood turn to ice at
sight of such savage grief. "Giles! speak to
me, and I will give up all— all, but you!"
Alas! it was too late to offer to sacrifices
ambition for love.
As she realized that the livid lips were
closed for ever, she gave a wild scream and
sprang erect.
"Clori! dear Clori!" Elva said, soothingly,
trying to take .her cousin's hand in her little
shaking clasp. "Oh, hush!"
"Hush! yes; keep my secret!" Miss Vans
dlyt hissed, to the young girl's infinite ter
ror, and her eyes glittered threateningly in
her blanched face. "Nobody must know that
I was in the wood when this happened, that
you saw me here; you are to be dumb on
the subject. Do you hear? Come away,
come at once, and never speak of this to a
living being."
She seized Elva by the arm, compelling
her to leave the dell in which that silent
proof Clorinda's evil power lay stretched
in the shadow of the trees.
They swiftly quitted the woodland, Elva
in mortal dread of her companion.
CHAPTER IV.
The following morning Clorinda appeared
at breakfast with a brooding 1 , sullen dark
ness on her handsome face.
During the long night she had lain sleep
less, the thought of the dead form of Giles
filling her brain, until, wrought to an intol
erable pitch of fear and misery, she had
risen and paced her room In a fever of
guilty unrest.
She had caused his death as surely as
though she herself had held that dangerous
little weapon with which he had taken his
own life.
Sir Oscar and Ashcroft had lost their value
all at once.
She realized that she had destroyed he"
one chance of happiness in having forsaken
the man who had loved her in spite of her
faults.
"Run and get your hat," she said to Elva,
who had sat silent during the meal. "I'm
going for a row and you can come with me "
Elva looked up with a half-frightened
start, which did not escape Osmonde Rom
er's notice.
Her pretty dimples and sunny smiles
had given place to a wistful expression and
she actually flinched when Miss Vansdlyt's
imperious gaze met hers.
"You do not want tc go?" the secretary
asked, suddenly moving to her side from
the open window by which he had been
standing.
"Not much," she assented; "but if Clori
wishes "
"Are you afraid that I shall upset the
boat?" interrupted Clorinda, scornfully
"You are not only stupid, Elva, but a pitifui
little coward as well. Here is Bernard. Shall
I ask him to join us? You will acknowledge
that he can be safely trusted to land us,
without accident, at Hazel Cross."
Elva flushed painfully and the next In
stant went so white that even the red in
her lips faded.
"I have not refused to go," she protested
"I feel a little ill and giddy," she added her
face quivering, as Miss Vansdlyt's eyes di- i
lated with a warning fla°h.
"Then I am sure that your cousin will
excuse you," Osmonde said, turning to Clor
inda with a steady look.
She crimsoned with ang-er, and drawing
herself up majestically, answered, with dis
dainful emphasis —
"I do not think that I shall, Mr. Romer.
Elva can speak for herself, can she not? A
sea breeze is a certain cure for giddiness,
and it is a pity that the poor child should
suffer." i
Bernard crossed to the shivering girl's
side, and bending-, scanned her colorless face
"Clori is right," he decided, "I will come
with you. She may do all the rowing, while
I steer, and talk to my little fiance."
With t gasp, as though suffocating, E!va
dashed past them, and ran from the room.
"Something is the matter," Bernard com
mented, scowling at his sister, as burning
with indignation, Osmonde went to his
study. "Have you been scaring the child
in one of your pleasant tantrums?"
"You are more likely to scare her with
your imbecile -little fiance.' Pshaw!"
mocked Clorinda. "Is that the way to win
her? Save yourself the trouble, Berne. .She
is pining for Jim Dage— that is the secret of
the alteration in her."
The frown grew sinister on the face of the
man who had, with jealous deliberation*
watched the waves of St. Kevin's Cave wash
over the drifting body of the young squire.
Was it the punishment of Pate that Elva
should have taken this strange aversion to
him?
She had been repelled by the love which
had tempted him to refrain from snatching
Jim from the peril in which he had floated
to him, on the wild wings of the storm.
She shrank and trembled with terror when
he called her his little fiance.
Had he gained nothing by yielding to the
hideous wish that the master of Rose Dene
might disappear forever?
He did not persist in his offer to accom
pany Clorinda to Hazel Cross.
They would have to pass the cavern in the
cliff to reach the fishing village by the sea,
and he hated the idea af rowing in that
direction.
His sister's allusion to Jim Dage had
jarred his nerves and when, with a discord
ant laugh, she said, "You had better give up
all thoughts of Elva and turn your atten
tion to Lena Bramble," he went out through
the wide French window into the open air
in a towering passion.
Left in solitude, Miss- Vansdlyt's scoffing
manner changed and with a moan she stood
clenching her white hands in a sudden fit
of grief and anguish.
Had Giles been discovered yet?
Soon the fact of his strange death would
become a theme of discussion at Bell Bay
She must steel herself to be self-composed
—to keep firm guard over Elva, who, in her
simple, honest love of truth, might betray
all that she had seen and heard the previous
day in the woodland.
Sir Oscar was not the kind of man who
ceived h^ 6 * 0 marry a wom a n who had de-
With that awful blot of the horse- trainer's
suicide on her soul Clorinda knew perfectly
well that her betrothed husband would have
stern y released her from their engagement
in spite of his present devotion, did hi know
She suddenly quitted the morning room
with restless doubt of Elva'a strength of
mind to keep her secret and went upstairs,
knocking at her cousin's door.
"Are you ready?" she asked. "Bernard
has decided not to come, and "
The sound of a sob wrung an exclamation
of annoyance from Miss Vansdlyt; instead
of finishing her remark she burst' in upon
Elva— so stormily that the poor little crea
ture jumped from her chair, raising her
tear-stained face in a panic of apprehension.
"Of all the miserable, spiritless specimens
of the Caryl family, commend me to the last
of the race!" sneered Clorinda. "What are
you crying about?"
"I am so unhappy!" was the choking re
sponse. "I couldn't sleep last night— oh, not
for an instant! That face, Clori; I know ex
actly how it was looking in the moonlight
and I kept thinking of it until my brain was
in a fever; then, in the pitch darkness, it
still haunted me, and daybreak I rose and
paced by room incessantly for I "
"What did I say yesterday?" interrupted
Miss Vansdlyt, furiously. "Do you want to
spoil my life with your stupid blundering?
Keep a silent tongue, or, if you must babble
choose another subject, for Heaven's sake!
If you don't, I swear it shall be the worse
for you. Are you coming with me to Hazel
Cross?"
"Yes, I am getting ready," the quavering
lips were forced to utter. "Of course I will
go with you."
Almost blindly Elva reached for her hat
and set it on her bright curls.
All she could se were the fierce and flam
ing eyes she feared, and although she reeled
slightly as she moved, she followed Clorin
da, leaving the Priory with her, the heavy
burden of her enforced silence like lead la
her innocent heart.
i &,• „ chapter v. r.':i'T;r- ~ J
The ordeal, equally dreaded by Miss Vans
dlyt and Elva, passed; Giles Wynter was
found lying in the glade of Hazel Wood,
stcne-dead, claimed by his family and buried
in the valley churchyard at Bell Bay.
The cause of his self-inflicted death was a
mystery to even those who were related to
him.
Clorinda had never been seen with him,
but had always met him by stealth, and
nobody, with the exception of Elva, knew
the tragic details of the strange affair.
Sir Oscar, now constantly at the Priory,
had taken a gerat liking to the little cousin
in-law, towards whom his fiance, he noticed,
was sometimes disdainfully brusque and
domineering.
"My darling," he remonstrated once In
pity for Elva's painfully flushed cheeks and
trembling embarrassment, "you must let me f
teach you to curb that hot temper of yours
It makes you thoughtless and cruel and my
wife must be able to control her wayward
impetuosity."
••your wife will not be different to the girl
5