His glance falls on Mrs. Cleveland, who is standing in the room with a strange expression upon her face. He does not like to think it is relief and satisfaction, and yet it is marvelously like it.
"Who has told her the truth? How has she learned it?" he asks. "I never meant that she should know. I meant to do my duty by the poor, friendless girl."
"No one told her. She must have listened at the door last night. It was like her low, mean disposition to be peeping, and prying, and listening to what did not concern her," Mrs. Cleveland bursts out, scornfully.
"Pardon me, but our conversation did concern her," he answers, gravely.
"At least, it was not intended for her hearing," she replies, shortly.
Mr. Noble is silent a moment, gazing earnestly at the pale, dead face, from which the woman's eyes turn in fear and aversion.
"Perhaps we have wronged her," he says, slowly. "If she had been what you believed her—coarse and low, and violent like her father—would she have been driven," shudderingly, "to this!"
"You are allowing a maudlin sentimentality to run away with your reason, Leslie," the woman answers, coldly. "Do you suppose I have lied to you? The girl has lived here since infancy. I knew her temper well, and I repeat that she was unbearable. I only endured her for her mother's sake. This is very sad. Of course, you feel badly over it. And yet, common sense whispers that this is a most fortunate thing for you. You are freed from a galling bond. Had she lived, she would almost inevitably have become a sorrow and a disgrace to you."
"We should not speak ill of the dead," he answers, a little sternly.
"Pardon me; I know there are some truths which we innately feel, but should not give expression to," she answers, with keen irony.
"Does Ivy know?" he asks her.
"Not yet; poor dear, I have been watching by her bedside all night. She is ill and almost heart-broken. I must go and break the news to her now."
She moves to the door, but, seeing him standing irresolute in the center of the floor, looks back over her shoulder to say, anxiously:
"Will you come away now, Leslie? The women would like to come in to prepare the body for the grave."
He shivers, and turns to follow her, casting one long, lingering look at the fair, immobile face upon the pillow.
"I did not know she was so beautiful," he murmurs to himself as he passes out.
"Have you no message to send Ivy?" Mrs. Cleveland asks him, as they pass along the hall. "She would be so glad of even one kind word from you."
"I thought you interdicted all intercourse between us last night," he answers, blankly.
"Yes; but the obstacle no longer remains," she replies, significantly, and, with a violent start, Leslie realizes the truth of her words. In his horror and surprise he had not thought of it before. Yes, Vera's death has set him free—free to marry Ivy when he will.
"Tell her that I am very sorry she is ill. I hope she will soon be better," he answers, gravely and courteously. He will not say more now out of respect to the dead, and Mrs. Cleveland is wise enough not to press him.
Ivy, whose pretended illness is altogether a sham, is jubilant over the news.
"Was there ever anything more fortunate?" she exclaims. "Lucky for us that she listened, and found out the truth."
"Yes, indeed, she saved me a vast deal of plotting and planning, for I was determined that she should be put out of the way somehow, and that soon," Mrs. Cleveland answers, heartlessly. "The little fool! I did not think she had the courage to kill herself, but I am very much obliged to her."
"'Nothing in her life became her like the leaving it,'" Ivy quotes, heartlessly.
"Remember, Ivy, you must not allow Leslie to perceive your joy. He is very peculiar—weak-minded, indeed," scornfully. "And he might be offended. Just now he is carried away by a maudlin sentimentality over her tragic death."
"Never fear for me. I shall be discretion itself," laughs Ivy. "But, of course, I shall make no display of grief. That could not be expected."
"Of course not. But it will be a mark of respect to Leslie if you will attend the funeral to-morrow."
"Then I will do so, with a proper show of decorum. I am determined that he shall not slip through my fingers again."
So the two cruel and wicked women plot and plan, while the poor victim of their heartlessness lies up-stairs dead, in all her young, winsome beauty, with her small hands folded on her quiet heart, and the black-fringed lashes lying heavily against the marble-white cheeks. They have robed her for the grave, and left her there alone, with no one "to come in and kiss her to lighten the gloom."
So the day wanes and the night, and Vera lies still and white in the long black casket to which they have consigned her. They have left the cover off, and only a transparent veil lies lightly across her face, through which her delicate features show clearly. How wonderfully the look of life lingers still; how the pink lips retain the warm, pink coloring of life. But there is no one to note how wonderfully death has spared her fairness; no one to exclaim, with the power of affection:
"She looks too sweet and life-like for us to bury her out of our sight."
Afternoon comes, and they carry the casket down into the parlor where a little group are waiting to hear the brief service of the black-robed minister. Then they gather around in the gloomy, darkened room, glance shudderingly at the beautiful white face, and turn away, while the stolid undertaker screws down the coffin-lid over the desperate young suicide. After that the solemn, black-plumed hearse is waiting to bear her away to her rest, by her mother's side. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." "Resquiescat in pace."
Leslie Noble goes home that night. In his character of a widower, he must wait a little space before he renews his suit to the impatient Ivy.
"You will come back to me soon, Leslie dear?" she sighs, sentimentally, as she clings to his arm.
"As soon as decorum permits me," he replies. "Will you wait for me patiently, Ivy?"
"Yes, only do not stay too long," she answers, and he presses a light kiss on her powdered forehead, which Ivy takes in good faith as the solemn seal of their betrothal.
"Oh, dear, it is very lonely," Ivy sighs, that evening, as she and her mother sit alone in the luxurious parlor, where so late the presence of death cast its pall of gloom. "I miss Leslie very much. Shall we be obliged to seclude ourselves from all gaiety, mamma, just because those two people—the plague of our lives—are dead?"
"I am afraid so—for awhile, at least, dear. People would think it strange, you know, my dear Ivy, if we did not make some outward show of grief," Mrs. Cleveland answers, thoughtfully, for she has been turning the matter over in her own mind, and, like her daughter, she cannot endure the thought of foregoing the daily round of fashionable pleasures that are "meat and drink to her."
"How horrid!" complains Ivy. "I should die of the dismals! Listen, mamma, I have a plan."
"Really?" Mrs. Cleveland asks, with faint sarcasm, for her daughter is not at all clever.
"Yes, although you think I am so stupid," Ivy answers, vivaciously. "It is this, mamma. Let us leave Washington and go south this winter to one of the gayest, most fashionable cities, and have a real good time where nobody can expect us to be snivelling several long months over two deaths that give us unqualified pleasure."
"Vera and her mother were very useful to us, after all," Mrs. Cleveland answers, with a sigh to the memory of her purse. "They saved me a good deal of money in dressmaking bills and the like.