CHAPTER XXXVIII.
A BITTER SECRET.
“Rosalind Montague here! Ah, Heaven, what ill work is on foot now?”
The words broke almost unconsciously from Berenice’s lips when they told her that her arch enemy was in the house.
She flung out protecting arms, and clasped Charley, as he lay in a half stupor on his couch, murmuring, half distractedly:
“Ah, my love, my love, I must guard you now from her hate as well as from your terrible illness. I will never leave your side, never, my darling, never leave you alone, lest her baleful presence overwhelm your life!”
The startled sisters thought she must have suddenly gone mad with unwarrantable hatred of Rosalind, and they tried to soothe her frenzy.
“Oh, my dear, what wild words are you saying? Do you not realize that it is wiser to be friends with Rosalind, who will have, as our father’s wife, more influence over him than any one else? She is willing to be friends with you, and that is noble in Rosalind, for she was the wronged one in the beginning.”
But the beautiful young wife, who looked so gentle and spoke so softly, could be spirited enough when she chose, and she tossed her head proudly and cried, with flashing eyes and crimson cheeks:
“I will never be friends with cruel Rosalind, never! Oh, take her away from here, I beseech you, and leave me alone with my Charley, in peace and safety. You may all go with her if you wish, only send her away, for I cannot know a moment’s peace under the same roof with Rosalind!”
Lucile whispered to her sister: “It is pure jealousy, nothing else—and how silly in Berenice to fear that Rosalind wants to steal Charley’s heart away!”
“Tell her the truth, and she will get over it,” was the answer.
And so they broke it to Berenice that they had been talking over matters with their father, explaining Rosalind’s wishes, and he had agreed to marry her quietly to-morrow, to silence the tongue of gossip that might babble because she had come alone to him across the sea.
Berenice was almost petrified with astonishment at the unexpected news.
“Oh, it is horrible to think of!” she cried vehemently. “Must this terrible sacrifice go on? Will no one save the victim?”
The sisters began to feel very angry with Berenice, she was so stubborn, so unjust to Rosalind.
It was no use arguing with her, she would not listen to reason. They decided to appeal the case to their father.
They told him all Berenice’s resentment, all her hatred of Rosalind, whom she had already wronged so deeply, and they told him it was his duty to lecture the unreasonable young wife and compass her reconciliation with Rosalind.
“For if Rosalind is willing to forgive her, Berenice ought to be thankful to be forgiven,” they said, very pertinently, and indeed it seemed that way.
So Senator Bonair himself went to argue the case with his daughter-in-law, which he did with all the eloquence at his command, since it was the dearest wish of his warm heart to have all his family on friendly terms.
Berenice listened with downcast eyes and heaving breast to every word, for she knew she was being blamed for causeless resentment.
They thought Charley was asleep in so deep a stupor he comprehended nothing, but suddenly he opened his eyes full upon them with the clear light of reason shining through.
“Oh, Charley, do you know us? Have we disturbed you?” sobbed Berenice. And he answered weakly:
“I have been hearing and understanding all you and father said, and I think you are in the wrong, my darling.”
“In the wrong?” she panted.
“Yes, all in the wrong. If Rosalind wants to be friends with us, let us yield for father’s sake, because it will make him happier.”
Berenice slipped her cold hand in his and looked up wistfully at her father-in-law, saying:
“Do you then love Rosalind so very much?”
For a moment the senator hesitated, then he answered frankly:
“I have never pretended to love Rosalind, but I esteem and admire her very much, so that I am willing to marry her, to atone for Charley’s desertion.”
“Then we should all make sacrifices to that end,” she murmured rather bitterly.
“Yes, I think we should,” the senator replied, out of his high code of honor, though his heart was heavy in his breast with thoughts of the wedding to-morrow.
Charley pressed the cold little hand that nestled in his and faltered weakly:
“I agree with father, Berenice. We should be friends with his future wife.”
“Oh, Charley, you would not ask me if you knew all!” she sobbed, then suddenly:
“Forgive me, for we have wronged Rosalind so much that we cannot sit in judgment on her sins. Yes, yes, I will bury my resentment, I will be friends for your sakes, not for hers.”
They were glad of even that concession, and Senator Bonair hastened to say that he would like to bring Rosalind in and have the greeting over, that is, if it would not agitate Charley too much.
Charley faintly protested that he should not mind at all.
So presently the smiling beauty was ushered in to where Berenice sat stroking Charley’s thin hand so tenderly in hers, and though the sight almost drove her wild with anger, she kept her cool, set smile, and spoke calmly, with friendly words of greeting, though the hand she touched to theirs was so cold it made them shudder.
“I am intruding only for a moment,” she smiled, and quickly withdrew on the senator’s arm, while Charley dropped asleep again, and Berenice sobbed to herself in silent grief:
“Oh, my secret, my bitter secret I have kept so long, would that I could forget it now!”
The day waned to a close, the purple gloaming fell, and the nurse who had had a day off for rest, now came in, saying:
“You have been in so closely all day you must go out into the fresh air and rest a while. I will watch your husband carefully.”
She wondered why Berenice caught her hand so tightly, whispering passionately:
“I will not go until you promise to remain closely by the bed and not to trust him to any other, not even his father and sisters, till I return.”
“I promise faithfully, madam,” returned the nurse.
“That is well,” said Berenice briefly, and she slipped out into the fragrant, balmy gloaming, with a sense of relief in the perfect solitude.
She walked down the quiet country road a little way, drawing back into the shadows as a man passed her on his way toward the cottage, reining his horse up there a little later, as she saw to her intense surprise. For a moment, in one hurried glance, she thought she recognized this man. Was he, could he possibly be Adrian Vance, her own mother’s prodigal son, by a former marriage? Ah, no! it was impossible that Adrian should appear on the scene, now, after all these years of absence, during which he had never seen or written to his mother.
“I must not go any farther,” she said, pausing suddenly and sitting down beneath a low-spreading tree, the center of a thick undergrowth of shrubbery. “I will sit here and think over my troubles a while, for my heart misgives me I am not doing right to hold my peace and let Charley’s noble father marry wicked Rosalind. She does not love him, I am sure, and—ah, there are voices. Some one is passing; I hope I shall not be seen.”
She drew back and almost held her breath, seeing through the dark branches that a man and woman were walking together toward her retreat. She started in wonder when she saw that it was Rosalind and the man she had seen on horseback.