"Poor mamma, leading her slavish life in Mrs. Cleveland's house," the girl murmurs, in vain regret.
"Poor martyr to the sins of others," the man echoes, heavily.
"Yet you came back at last," Vera murmurs. "Had you repented of your hasty desertion?"
"I had learned the truth, Vera, through the dying confession of Mrs. Cleveland's weak tool. I had learned how terribly I had been deceived, and that I had deserted my angel wife for naught. Vera, did she curse my memory when she lay dying of a broken heart?"
"She never named you either in praise or blame, father. I had some vague impression that you were dead. I knew no better until I overheard Mrs. Cleveland telling some one that you had deserted my mother before I was born, and that you were a low, drunken, brutal wretch, who had abused and maltreated her from the first."
"Oh, my God, my God! that such demons should walk the earth!" the man groans through his clenched teeth.
He rises and walks up and down the floor, struggling with his strong, overmastering agitation.
"Vera, we three—you and I, and our lost loved one—have been wronged as, it seems to me, never mortals were before. My heart is on fire with rage and hate for the devil who has so blasted our lives. It seems to me that I can never rest until I strike back. Vera, shall we not avenge ourselves?"
His dark, passionate eyes fill with the fire that rages in his soul. Vera looks up at him, half-fearfully.
"How, father?" she queries, slowly.
The heavy gloom deepens in his night-black eyes.
"How—I cannot tell!" he says, hoarsely. "But I will bide my time. I will wait and watch. Edith's wrongs shall not go unavenged."
The beautiful young face on the pillow softens and saddens.
"Mother was very gentle and forgiving," she murmurs. "She would have said, leave it to Heaven."
"She was an angel—I am but human," he answers. "Vera, we must work together for vengeance. The time will come when we will make Marcia Cleveland bite the dust—when she shall curse the stars that shone over her ill-fated birth."
So the wronged man raves, and Vera's passionate heart is kindled into flames by his burning eloquence. She is with him heart and soul, loyal to the core of her woman's heart.
Strange, that when she tells him the story of her short, sad life she should hold one secret back. The words die on her white lips when she tries to tell him. A passionate shame fills her heart. Oh, the bitter pain, the deep humiliation of the thought that she is Leslie Noble's wife. Leslie Noble whom she scorns and despises. Have they told her father the truth? she wonders.
No, for presently he says, tenderly:
"Do not think that all my thoughts are given up to vengeance, Vera. I shall care for you very tenderly, darling. And if you should ever marry, I pray God that your wedded happiness may not be blighted by such a terrible wrong as mine."
Her heart gives a great throb of relief. He does not know. He never shall know by her telling, she resolves.
The day comes soon when they kneel hand in hand by Edith's grave to bid her good-bye before departing for England's shore.
"Edith, my darling," he whispers to the dead heart below, "the human vampire has escaped me this time. She has fled from my vengeance, and left no trace behind her. But let her beware, for I but bide my time. The bloodhounds of hate are howling behind her, and sooner or later she will be brought to bay. Farewell, my murdered darling. Remember that I only live to avenge your wrongs, and to protect your child!"
CHAPTER IX.
No one had created such a sensation in London for several years as did Lady Vera, the Earl of Fairvale's only child, when she was presented at court. She was just nineteen, and a perfect beauty. She was more American than English in style—tall and slenderly formed, with a stately grace all her own, with large, dark eyes, and black brows and lashes, with hair of a magnificent, dark-golden shade, and well-formed, aristocratic features. Then, as the crowning charm to her brilliant loveliness, she had inherited from her English ancestry a dazzling complexion of lilies and roses.
People who studied and admired Lady Vera most, said that they could not quite understand the expression of her face. It was too intense for one so young. It was full of passion, tempered by the gravest thought.
The young English girls had dimples and smiles for everyone, but Lady Vera was different. She had the sweetest, most radiant smile in the world when you saw it, but that was so very seldom. She seemed to be thinking all the time—thinking deeply, even when she danced or sang, or conversed. And her favorite flowers were the beautiful, velvety pansies, whose very emblem is thought.
Yet when you looked into the Earl of Fairvale's face, you ceased to wonder at his daughter. The shadow on her face was reflected from the cloud on his. His dark, handsome face was a study. Where Lady Vera seemed to be thinking, his expression was that of one brooding—brooding all the while on one subject, and that not a pleasant one.
It was with some difficulty that he met the requirements of society. When spoken to suddenly sometimes, he would start and look bewildered as if his thoughts were far away. Ladies admired him immensely, although he was very inattentive to them. The dark, sad, melancholy face had a peculiar charm for them. They said he reminded them of Byron's heroes.
The earl was very fond of his daughter, and very careful of her. His eyes followed her everywhere, but their expression was always sad and melancholy. No one knew that every time he looked at her, he remembered how he had wronged her mother, and that his heart was breaking with remorse and grief, as well as with the consuming fires of a baffled revenge.
His story was not generally known. He had succeeded to the Earldom of Fairvale through a series of unexpected deaths, and though everyone knew of handsome Lawrence Campbell's accessions, little was known of him personally beyond the rumor that he had married an American lady, who had died and left him one only child, his beautiful and worshiped Vera.
Lady Vera had many admirers. Aside from her personal charms, the fact that she would succeed to the title and estates of Fairvale, cast a flattering prestige around her.
She was the same to all who came to woo—cool, courteous, gently indifferent. After awhile they began to say that the earl's daughter was very proud. Ordinary people were not to her fancy, evidently. She must be waiting for a duke or a prince. Poor Lady Vera! Who was to know the bitter secret, the ceaseless dread that ached in the fair breast, that rose and fell beneath the knots of velvety pansies that were her simple and favorite adornment?
Vera has seen and learned a great deal since that night when her father's mad frenzy had been the means of saving her from the horrors of a dreadful death.
She has traveled, she has had masters and governesses; luxuries of which she never even faintly dreamed, have surrounded her and become daily necessities. Pleasure has wooed her softly to its flowery paths, love has been lavishly laid at her feet. But through it all a loathing remembrance of Leslie Noble has poisoned her peace.
"Where is he? Does he know where I am? Will he ever come to claim me?" she often asks herself, never dreaming that he of whose coming she is so terribly afraid believes her dead, and that he has erected a costly marble monument over the spot where her remains are supposed to rest.
Her father's mistaken kindness has kept from her the knowledge of her deadly peril and her opportune rescue, little dreaming in what an untoward hour the startling truth shall come to her.
And she, in her sensitive pride, has held her peace over that ill-fated