CHAPTER XL.
A GREAT SACRIFICE.
“Heaven help me, for I am scarcely brave enough to refuse this noble sacrifice of yours, Pansy,” groaned Colonel Falconer. “Oh, my little love, are you quite sure you will never regret this—never wish for Norman Wylde and your lost happiness?”
Clasping her slender white hands tenderly around his arm, and lifting her sad white face, with all a woman’s tenderness shining out of her soulful eyes, she replied earnestly:
“The happiness you speak of could not be mine, for if I left you for Norman the thought of you would always sadden me so that I should suffer from remorse and anxiety. I love you, though not with the wild passion I felt for my first love. But this deep, steady affection, born of admiration for your manliness and your many virtues, is so strong that it would divide the allegiance I should owe to Norman. You would be ever in my thoughts, for you need me so much, and would miss me so much, while he has long believed me dead and could bear the shock of losing me better. Therefore, if you will help me about the divorce, I will be your wife again as soon as possible.”
“I will send the most clever lawyer in New York to you, Pansy, and you can commit your case to him. Bless you for your noble decision! I did not dare hope for such a sacrifice on your part, but I love you so well that I have not courage to refuse it.”
She bowed her head in silence, and he continued:
“Of course you understand, darling, that I must leave you to-day and remain away from you until the divorce is procured. Do you wish to remain here quietly with Phebe, Charles, and the other servants, or have you any other plans?”
She was silent a few moments, then she answered:
“I will remain here.”
He left the mountains for New York City that day, and on the next she was visited by an eminent lawyer, who took her case in hand, and assured her that he believed there would be no difficulty in securing a divorce.
When he had gone she fell sobbing on the floor of her chamber, crying out:
“Oh, my lost love, my lost love!”
Colonel Falconer wrote her in a few days, saying that he would go to White Sulphur Springs, to try to make some arrangements for the future of Juliette Ives.
“I shall never care for her in the same fashion as I did before I learned her treachery to you and Norman Wylde,” he wrote. “But she has no living relative but me, and she is dependent on me for support, and, for her mother’s sake, I will not shirk the responsibility.”
He found his pretty niece cool, impudent, defiant. She utterly denied her complicity in Mr. Finley’s crime.
“I did not even know the man. Never saw him in my life!” she affirmed.
He was staggered by her effrontery and scarcely knew what to say, and she went on eagerly:
“Dear uncle, please tell me the truth: You have found out at last that your wife is really Pansy Laurens, have you not?”
“Nonsense!” he answered sharply; and she opened wide her pale-blue eyes, exclaiming:
“Is it possible she can still deny it, after finding out that she was really Norman’s wife? Ah, I see it all now! She will stay with you because you are rich and her legal husband is poor.”
Colonel Falconer’s eyes flashed wrathfully.
“Beware, Juliette, how you try me too far! Remember that you are helpless and penniless, except for my bounty!”
“And because I will not cringe and fawn upon the lowbred creature you have made your wife, although, unfortunately, the tie is not a legal one, you threaten to deprive me of the pittance sufficient for my support! Very well, I can go and work in Arnell & Grey’s tobacco factory. You will not consider it a disgrace for your niece to work there, as the woman you call your wife was an employee there for many years!” she burst out spitefully, her virago temper all aflame, and goading her to such rebellion that she actually shook her little jeweled fist in his face.
She knew his good heart and generous nature so well that she believed she could defy him with impunity. He would not dare cast her helpless on the world, no matter what she did to him or the wife he idolized.
But her insults to Pansy had struck a fire of rage in his nature, and, while his face whitened with pain and his eyes gleamed with anger, he turned on her, and said sternly:
“Since you are so willing to earn your own support, I wash my hands of a most unwelcome burden! Go into a tobacco factory as soon as you please, and I hope you may be industrious enough to retain a position there as long as Pansy Laurens did!”
With those words, the offended gentleman stalked out of the presence of Juliette, who comprehended instantly that she had gone too far in her spiteful defiance, and that she must either humiliate herself by apologizing or go to work, as she had threatened, to earn her own living.
It did not take her a minute to decide which of these alternatives to choose, and as soon as the door banged to behind the irate colonel she jerked it open and flew swiftly down the corridor, arresting his quick footsteps by clasping both hands around his arm.
“Oh, uncle, dear uncle, come back and forgive me! I am sorry I wounded your feelings. I did not mean it; but every one had deserted me, and I felt so miserable!” she panted eagerly, as she clung to his arm.
He stopped short and looked suspiciously into her false face.
“Where is Mrs. Wylde?” he asked.
“Come back, and I will tell you. We might be overheard here,” she replied, looking uneasily down the length of the broad hotel corridor, and very unwillingly he accompanied her back to her room. Then she said:
“Mrs. Wylde and Rosalind have gone back to Richmond, and I am here alone with my maid.”
“She promised to chaperon you,” he said, frowning.
“I know,” whimpered Juliette; “but we quarreled dreadfully. They—they actually believed that man Finley’s falsehood about me, although I denied it bitterly. The truth is that they are the ones in fault, for they sent Norman off to London on a false scent, just to break up his love affair; but now they have the meanness to say that they would never have sent him if they had known he was actually married to the girl,” panted Juliette angrily, adding: “So we had a bitter quarrel when they refused to believe my story. And Mrs. Wylde said she hoped you would take me from under her care soon, as she was tired of chaperoning a girl who had brought such trouble on her poor son. I told her I would never speak to her again, so then she and Rosalind packed up and went back, as Judge Wylde had telegraphed for them. She sent me a note, asking if I cared to go back with them, and I declined. But they set every one against me. I am so stared at and snubbed by people since Finley’s lies against me were published that I cannot bear to go outside my room,” concluded Juliette, going into hysterical sobs.
“This is very bad. I do not know what I shall ever do with you, Juliette,” sighed the colonel, in dismay.
“I shall go back to you, of course,” she sobbed.
“No; that plan will not answer any longer. I can never have you again as a member of my family,” he replied firmly.
She could scarcely resist the impulse to cry out against him with the sharpest reproaches, but wisely restrained herself, and presently he said:
“I will remain with you here for a week, Juliette, and in that time I will decide regarding your future.”
That same day he wrote to Pansy and explained the situation to her, asking for her advice in the matter.
When Pansy heard of the sad plight of the girl whose wickedness had wrought her so much woe she rejoiced at first, thinking that Juliette had met her just reward for her sin.
Then kinder, more pitiful thoughts intervened, and at length she wrote to Colonel Falconer:
Send Juliette here to me, and I will stand her friend if she will treat me with proper respect.
He read those words to Juliette, who curled her lip, but did not refuse, for the contempt of all her old associates in her little social world had so cowed her that she was only too happy to accept Pansy’s offer.
When they met again, Pansy said determinedly:
“Miss Ives, there shall be no further concealments between us. I am Pansy Laurens, as you thought, but I am going to procure an immediate divorce from Norman Wylde, that I may be remarried to your uncle, Colonel Falconer. Wait!” as Juliette was about to make an excited remonstrance. “It will be against your own interest to betray me, for your uncle’s will is made in my favor now, and if you go against me I will use my strong influence to have you sent adrift penniless.”