"Mamma and Bertha would not forgive, but they plotted to save the family honor. The affair had never been publicly known. We went abroad, and among strangers, where in a few months you were born, my poor wronged Irene. When we came home mamma claimed my child for her own, and by her stern command I took my place in society and played my part as calmly as if my heart were not broken. Now, Irene, you know the full extent of your mother's sin. I have been wronged as well as you, my darling. You are nameless, but not through sin of mine."
Her faltering voice died into silence. Irene made no answer. She had dropped her face in her small white hands. Guy Kenmore felt the slight form trembling against his arm.
"I was mistaken in my first estimate of her," he thought. "She has more depth, more character than I thought."
Then he turned to Elaine.
"You have indeed been wronged bitterly," he said. "The fault is not yours, save through your disobedience to your parents."
"Yes, I was willful and thoughtless, and I have been most terribly punished for my fault," she replied, sorrowfully.
"Is there no possibility that you have been deceived by your husband's father? Such things have been," said Mr. Kenmore, thoughtfully.
"There was no deception. He was armed with every proof, even the newspaper, with the marriage of his son to the wealthy heiress whom his family had chosen for him," answered Elaine, blushing crimson for her unmerited shame and disgrace.
"Then your lover was a villain unworthy the name of man. He deserved death," exclaimed Guy Kenmore.
Elaine's angelic face grew pale as death. She sighed heavily, but made no answer.
Suddenly Irene sprang to her feet, with blazing eyes.
"His name!" she cried, wildly, "his name!"
"My poor child, why would you know it?" faltered Elaine.
"That I may hunt him down!" Irene blazed out. "That I may punish him for your wrongs and mine!"
"Alas, my darling, vengeance belongs to Heaven," sighed the martyred Elaine.
"It belongs to you and to me," cried Irene. "His name, his name!"
"I cannot tell you, dear," wept the wronged woman.
"Then I will go to Bertha," flashed the maddened girl.
"Bertha is bound by an oath never to reveal that fatal name," Elaine answered.
The door opened, Mrs. Brooke entered, stern and pale. She glanced scornfully at Irene, then turned to her daughter:
"Elaine, I am sorry this has happened," she said. "I could not keep Bertha from betraying you. The poor girl was driven mad by her wrongs. If Irene had remained away from the ball to-night, as I bade her do, you would have been spared all this. Her disobedience has caused it all."
Old Faith put her head, with its flaring cap-ruffles, inside the door before Elaine could speak.
"Oh, Mrs. Brooke, Mrs. Brooke!" she cried, and wrung her plump old hands disconsolately.
"Well, what is it? Speak!" cried her mistress, sharply.
"Oh, ma'am, some men have come—with news—they found master down on the shore—oh, oh, they told me to break it to you gently," cried the old housekeeper, incoherently.
A flying white figure darted past old Faith and ran wildly down the broad, moon-lighted hall, to the old-fashioned porch, bathed in the glorious beams of the moonlight.
Mrs. Brooke went up to the woman and shook her roughly by the arm.
"What are you trying to tell me, Faith? What of your master?" she exclaimed. "Speak this instant!"
Elaine came up to her other side, and looked at her with wide, startled eyes.
"Oh, Faith, what is it?" she cried.
"They told me to break it gently," whimpered the fat old woman.
At this moment a shrill young voice, sharpened by keenest agony, wild with futile despair, came floating loudly back through the echoing halls:
"Papa, oh, darling papa! Oh, my God, dead, dead, dead!"
CHAPTER IX.
They bore him into the parlor and laid him down. He was dead—the handsome, genial, kind old father, who had been Elaine's truest friend in her trouble and disgrace. It was strange and terrible to see the women, each of whom had loved the dead man in her own fashion, weeping around him.
Their gala robes looked strangely out of place in this scene of death. There was Bertha in her ruby satin and shining jewels, Elaine in her shimmering silk and blue forget-me-nots, Mrs. Brooke in crimson and black lace, lighted by the fire of priceless diamonds. Saddest of all, little Irene, crouched in a white heap on the floor at his feet, adorned in the modest bravery he had brought her for a birthday gift. Poor little Irene who has lost in this one fatal day all that her heart held dear.
A physician was called to satisfy the family. He only said what was plainly potent before. Mr. Brooke was dead—of heart disease, it appeared, for there were no marks of violence on his person. He was an old man, and death had found him out gently, laying its icy finger upon him as he walked along the shining sand of the bay, in the beautiful moonlight. His limbs were already growing rigid, and he must have been dead several hours.
"Dead! while we laughed and danced, and made merry over yonder in their gay saloons," Elaine wailed out, in impatient despair. "Oh, my God, how horrible to remember!"
Only Guy Kenmore saw that the right hand of the dead man was rigidly clenched.
"What treasure does he clasp in that grasp of death?" he asked himself, and when no one was looking he tried to unclasp the rigid fist. He only succeeded in opening it a little way—just enough to draw from the stiffened fingers a fragment of what had once been a letter—now only one line remained—a line and a name.
Guy Kenmore went to the light, spread the little scrap open on his hand and looked at it. The writing was in a man's hand and the few words were these:
"That the truth may be revealed and my death-bed repentance accepted of Heaven, I pray, humbly.
"Clarence Stuart, Senior."
Suddenly a cold little hand touched his own.
"I saw you," said Irene, in a low, strange voice. "What does it mean?"
"A great deal, or—— nothing," he answered, in a voice as strange as her own.
She read it slowly over. The fragmentary words and the proud name seemed to burn themselves in on her memory.
"Who is Clarence Stuart?" she asked, wonderingly.
"I intend to find out," he answered. "When I do, I shall tell you, little Irene."
In his heart there was a deadly suspicion of foul play. Who had torn from old Ronald Brooke's hand the letter whose fragmentary ending he grasped within that clenched and stiffened hand? Had there been murder most foul?
He went back and looked attentively at the corpse. It was true there was no sign of violence, but was that the face of one who had died from one instant's terrible heart pang, who must have died before he had realized his pain? No, the face was drawn as if in deadly pain, the open eyes stared wide with horror.
"I shall say nothing yet," he said to himself, gravely. "Let them think that death came in the quiet course of nature. But if old Ronald Brooke was murdered I shall bring his murderer to justice."
And on the man's handsome face, usually so gay and debonair, was registered a grim, firm purpose.