Following that desperate declaration from Leslie Noble, there is a scream of rage and anguish commingled. Ivy has fallen back on the sofa in violent hysterics. Mrs. Cleveland glares at him reproachfully.
"You have killed her, my poor Ivy!" she cries. "She loved you, and you had given her reason to think that—you meant to marry her."
"I did so intend," he answers, on the spur of the moment. "I was only waiting to be sure of my feelings before I declared myself. But now, this dreadful marriage has blighted my life and hers. Poor little Ivy."
"I could almost curse my sister in her grave!" Mrs. Cleveland wails, wringing her hands.
"Curse me rather," Leslie answers, bitterly, "that I was weak enough to be deluded into such a mesalliance. She was ill and dying, she barely knew what she did; but I was in full possession of my senses. Why did I let my weak pity overcome me, and make me false to the real desire of my heart?"
"Falsest, most deceitful of men!" sobs Ivy from her sofa, and Leslie takes her white hand a moment in his own, pressing it despairingly to his lips as he cries:
"You must forgive me, Ivy, I did not know how well I loved you until I had lost you."
Mrs. Cleveland interposes sternly.
"Come, come, I cannot allow any tender passages between you two. If Leslie intends for this nefarious marriage to stand, it will be best that he shall remain a stranger henceforth to us both."
"To stand?" Leslie repeats, looking at her like one dazed.
"Yes," she answers, meaningly. "I ask you, Leslie, if such a marriage as this can be legal and binding?"
"Oh, yes, it is perfectly so," he answers.
"Do you love her? Oh, Leslie, do you love that dreadful girl?" wails Ivy, from her sofa.
He shakes his head, Mrs. Cleveland having interdicted other intercourse.
"Do you intend to live with her?" Mrs. Cleveland queries, significantly.
"Pray, what else can I do?" Mr. Noble queries, bewildered, and Ivy groans, lugubriously.
"Oh, nothing, nothing," the lady answers, with a scornful laugh. "But if it were me who had been deluded into such a marriage with a low and mercenary girl, I am sure that nothing could induce me to live with her. I would either divorce her, or pension her off."
Mr. Noble walks up and down the floor with folded arms, in deep agitation.
"It would be quite impossible to procure a divorce," he answers, after a moment's thought. "I could assign no earthly cause for demanding one. I married her of my own free will, though I admit I was unduly persuaded."
"All she cares for is your money," snaps Ivy, quite ignoring the fact that this was her own motive for winning him. "It will kill me if you take her home with you, Leslie. I shall die of a broken heart."
"Poor, deceived dear," sighs her mother, while Leslie breaks out, ruefully:
"What else can I possibly do, Ivy?"
Mrs. Cleveland, who had been silently cogitating, answers with sudden blandness:
"If you want my advice, Leslie, you shall have it, unfairly as you have treated us. I say the girl is ignorant and uneducated, and quite unfit to become the mistress of your elegant home in Philadelphia. If you are compelled to stick to your unlucky bargain, you must try and make the best of it. You will have to put her into a strict convent school where her ill-nature will be tamed down, and her manners educated up to the proper standard for your wife. How do you like that plan?"
Her magnetic gaze is fixed on Ivy as she speaks, compelling her to be silent, though she was raising her shrill voice in protest.
"Would they be harsh with her?" Leslie asks anxiously, some instinct of pity for the orphan girl struggling blindly in his heart.
"Not at all. I was educated at a convent school myself. I liked it very much. But you will have to be very positive about Vera, to induce her to go. She will wheedle you out of the notion if possible. Raw, untrained girl as she is, she thinks she is quite capable of doing anything, or filling any position. But if you listen to her, you will find yourself mortified and disgraced directly," blandly insinuates the wily woman.
Leslie Noble winces as she had meant he should. He is very proud and sensitive, this rich, handsome man who finds himself placed, through his weakness, in such a sore strait.
"I think your plan is a very good one," he says, hastily. "Do you know where there is a school, such as you named just now?"
"I can give you the address of one in Maryland," Mrs. Cleveland answers, readily.
"I will go there to-morrow and make arrangements for her reception as a pupil," he replies. "Would it be better to apprise her of my intention beforehand?" he inquires with some embarrassment.
"No, decidedly not. She might find means to circumvent you. She is a very sharp witted girl. Merely tell her that you are called away unexpectedly, on business, and that you will leave her in my charge until you return."
"Would it be agreeable to you to have her stay that long?" he queries.
Mrs. Cleveland smiles a little grimly.
"Of course, as your wife, Vera may expect every courtesy from me," she answers in a strange kind of voice, and there the conference ends.
From her hiding-place in the adjoining room Vera creeps out with a white face, and takes her way up-stairs to her mother's room. Her step is slow and heavy, her eyes are dull and black, there is no single gleam of brightness in them. The last drop has been added to the already overflowing cup of misery and despair.
With an unfaltering hand she goes to a small medicine chest kept for her mother's use, and unlocking it, takes out two small vials filled with a dark-colored liquid. Each vial has a label pasted on, containing written directions for use, but without the name of the drug.
Vera knits her straight, black brows thoughtfully together as she puzzles over them. "I remember," she says, aloud, "that mamma said one would produce a long, deep sleep, the other—death! Now which is which?"
After a minute she decides to her satisfaction, and placing one vial back, goes away with the other in her bosom. In her own little room she sits down to pen a few words to Leslie, then slowly kneels by the bedside.
"I do not think anyone can blame me," she murmurs, "not even God. The world is so cold and hard I cannot live in it any longer. I am going to my mother."
Some broken, pleading words falter over the quivering, white lips, then a low amen.
She rises, puts the treasured vial to her lips, and drains the last bitter drop, throwing the empty vessel on the hearth where it cracks into a hundred fragments. Then she lies down upon the bed with her letter to Leslie clenched tightly in her slim white hand. And when they come to awake her in the morning, she is lying mute and pale, with the marble mask of death over all her beauty.
CHAPTER VI.
When they tell Leslie Noble the fatal truth—when they lead him to the cold, bare chamber where his girl-wife lies dead, he is stunned by the swift and terrible blow that the hand of fate has dealt him. A quick remorse has entered his soul. He did not love her, yet he would not have the light of her young, strong life go out in darkness like that.
Though he has walked the floor of his room all night, raving, and almost cursing himself because he had married her, the sight of her now—like that—and the sad pathos of that brief letter touch him to the depths of his heart with a vain remorse and pity. With a faltering voice he reads aloud the sad and hopeless words:
"When