CHAPTER LXXI.

THE COWARD'S THREAT.

"That is the first part of your declaration," said Lady Doris, with the calm of infinite contempt; "if I will promise to be your wife, you will promise to marry me. What if I refuse?"

"You are placing a very painful alternative before me," he replied.

"Never mind the pain, my lord; we will waive that. I wish to know the alternative."

"If you will marry me I will keep your secret, Lady Doris Studleigh, faithfully, until death."

"Then I clearly, distinctly, and firmly refuse to marry you. What then?"

"In that case I shall be compelled to take the most disagreeable measures--I shall be compelled to hold your secret as a threat over you, if you refuse to be my wife. I tell you, quite honestly, that I will make you the laughing-stock of all London. You--fair, beautiful, imperial--you shall be an object of scorn; men shall laugh at you, women turn aside as you pass by. Even the most careless and reckless shall refuse to receive you--shall consider you out of the pale. I will tell the whole world, if you compel me to do it, what you were to me in Florence; I will tell the handsome earl, your father, whose roof in that case will no longer shelter you. I will tell your proud, high-bred step-mother--the haughty duchess who presented you at court--nay, even the queen herself, she who values a woman's good name far above all worldly rank."

"You would do all that?" she said.

"Yes, just as soon as I would look at you."

"And you call that honor?"

"No; it is, on the contrary, most dishonorable. Do not imagine that I seek to deceive myself. It would be about the most dishonorable thing any person could do; in fact, nothing could be more base; I grant that. But, if you drive a man mad with love, what can he do? You compel me to take the step, or I would not take it."

She could not grow paler; her face was already ghastly white; but from her eyes there shot one glance that might, from its anger and its fire, have struck him blind.

"You would not spare me," she said, "because it was you yourself who led me to ruin."

"I love you so madly," he said, "that I cannot spare you at all."

"Have you thought," she asked, "what, if you do this deed, the world will say of you and to you? Have you weighed this well?"

"I am indifferent," he said; "I care for nothing on earth but winning you."

"Do you realize that in destroying me you destroy yourself; that you will make yourself more hated and despised than any man ever was before? Do you not see that?"

"I repeat that nothing interests me save winning you, Dora; I am quite willing to be destroyed with you."

"What will the world say to a man who deliberately destroys and ruins a girl as you did me?"

"My dearest Dora, the world hears such stories every day and, I am afraid, rather admires the heroes of them."

"What does it say, then, of cowardly men who, having won such a victory, boast of it?"

"I own that the world looks askance on such a man, and very properly too. It is a base, cowardly thing to do. What other course is left me? You drive me to it: I have no wish to play such a contemptible part; I have no wish to boast of a victory--I shall hate myself for doing it; but what else is there for it? Listen, once and for all. Dora--I cannot help calling you by the old familiar name--I will have you for my wife: I will marry you; nothing, I swear, except death, shall take you from me. I will make you happy, I will see that every desire of your heart is fulfilled; but I swear you shall be my wife. There is no escape--no alternative; either that or disgrace, degradation, and ruin. Do not think I shall hesitate from any fear of ruin to myself; I would ruin myself to-morrow to win you. You might as well try to stem the force of a tide as to alter my determination."

She saw that she was conquered; mortifying, humiliating as it was, she was conquered--there was no help for her.

She stood quite still for one moment; then she said slowly:

"Will you give me time?"

His face flushed hotly; his triumph was coming. A smile played round his lips and brightened his eyes.

"Time? Yes; you can have as much time as you like. You see the solution plainly, do you not? Marry me, and keep your fair name, your high position; defy me, and lose it all. You see it plainly?"

"Yes, there is no mistake about it--you have made it most perfectly plain," she said, in a low, passionless voice. "I quite understand you. Give me time to think it over--I cannot decide it hurriedly."

"What time do you require?" he asked. "I shall not be willing to wait very long."

"It is June now," she continued; "you cannot complain if I say give me until the end of August."

"It shall be so, Dora. Will you give me your hand upon it?"

"No," she replied, "I will not give you my hand. Come at the end of August, and I will give you your answer."

"I shall not be deprived of the happiness of seeing you until then, Dora?"

"I cannot say; I will not be followed, I will not be watched. I claim my perfect freedom until then."

"You shall have it. Do not think worse of me than I deserve, Dora. If I had found you married, I would not have spoken, I would never even have hinted at the discovery; but you are not married, darling, nor, while I live, shall any man call you wife except myself."

How bitterly at that moment she regretted not having been married! If she had known--if she had only known, he should have found her the wife of Earle!

"I have no wish to injure you, or to do anything except make life pleasant for you; but my love for you has mastered me, it has conquered me. You must be mine!"

Such passion shone in his eyes, gleamed in his face, that she shrunk back half frightened. He laughed, as he said:

"It is one thing, you see, Dora, to light a fire, another to extinguish it."

"Now, will you leave me, Lord Vivianne? You have placed the pleasing alternative very plainly before me; we have agreed upon a time until you come for my answer--that will be at the end of August. Until then your own good sense will show you the proper course to pursue; you need neither seek nor avoid me."

He bowed.

"I hope, Lady Studleigh, you will have overcome your great objection to my presence before you see me again. I will now go. Let me give you one word of warning. A desperate man is not to be trifled with; if you attempt to escape me, if you place yourself in any way legally out of my reach, you shall answer to me, not only with your fair name, but with your life! You hear?"

"I hear," she replied, calmly, "but I do not come of a race that heeds threats. Good-morning, my lord."

"Dora," he said, "for the sake of old times--of the old love--will you not give me one kiss?"

"I would rather see you dead!" was the reply, given with an angry bitterness she could not control.

He laughed aloud.

"I shall soon see that pretty spirit humbled," he said. "Good-morning, my lady."

And the next minute he was gone.

She stood for some little time where he had left her. Such fiery passion and anger surging in her heart as almost drove her mad. Her face flushed crimson with it, her eyes flamed, she twisted her white hands until the gemmed rings made great dents in them. She hated him with such an intensity of hatred, that she would have laughed over his death. Her graceful figure shook with its heavy strain of anger--her lips parted with a low, smothered cry.

"I pray Heaven to curse him!" she cried, "with a terrible life and a terrible death; to send him a thousandfold the torture he has given to me! I--I wish I could kill him!"

In the might of her wrath she trembled as a leaf upon a tree. She raised her right hand to heaven.

"I swear I will never marry him," she said. "Let him threaten, punish, disgrace, degrade me as he will, I swear that I will never marry him. I will lose love, happiness, wealth, position, nay even life first; but I swear also that I will torture him and pay him for all he has made me suffer!"

She walked to and fro, never even seeing the brilliant blossoms and the glossy leaves, trampling the fragrant flowers she gathered underfoot, moaning with a low, piteous wail. It was too cruel--too hard. She had sinned--yes, she knew that--sinned greatly; but surely the punishment was too hard. Others sinned and prospered; why was she so heavily stricken? She was young when she sinned--careless, ignorant, heedless; now she was to lose all for it. She had beauty that made all men her slaves; she had wealth such as she had never dreamed of; she had one of the highest positions in the land; she had, above all, the love of Earle, the love and fealty of Earle. Now, in punishment for this one sin, she must lose all. Would Heaven spare her?

Was it of any use in this her hour of dire need, praying? Why, in all her life--her brief, brilliant life--she had never prayed; was it of any use her beginning now? She did not even remember the simple words of the little prayer she had been used to say with Mattie at her mother's knee--it was all forgotten. She knew there was a God in heaven, although she had always laughed and mocked at religion, deeming it only fit for tiresome children and old women; surely there was more in it than this.

She knelt down and stretched out her hands with a yearning look, as though some voice in the skies would surely speak to her; then she could not remember how it happened, the fragrance of the flowers seemed to grow too strong for her, the glass roof, the green, climbing plants, the brilliant blossoms, seemed to fall on her and crush her. With a long, low cry she fell with her face on the ground, a streaming mass of radiant white and golden hair.

It was there, that, going in an hour afterward, Earle found her, and raising her from the floor, thought at first that she was dead.

Great was the distress, great the consternation; servants came hurrying in, the doctor was sent for. The earl and the countess returning, were driven half frantic by the sight of that white face and silent figure. It hardly reassured them to hear that it was only a fainting fit.

"Brought on by what?" asked the earl, in a fever of anxiety.

"Nothing more than the reaction after too great physical fatigue," replied the doctor.

"The Lady Doris looks stronger than she really is; the best advice I can give is, that she should leave London at once, and have some weeks of perfect rest in the country. Medicine is of no use."

Lady Linleigh quite agreed in this view of the subject, and the earl declared impetuously that they should go at once--to-morrow if she is better, he said, "I should not like such another fright."

That evening when Lady Doris lay on the little couch in Lady Linleigh's boudoir, and Earle sat by her side, he said to her:

"What caused that sudden illness, my darling? Did anything frighten you?"

"No; I was only tired, Earle."

"Tired! I am beginning to dread the word. Do you know what they told me, Doris?"

"No," she replied, looking at him with frightened eyes; "what was it?"

"One of the servants said she was quite sure that she had heard some one talking to you in the conservatory; but when I went in you were quite alone. Had any one been there?"

"What nonsense," she cried evasively; time and experience had taught her that it was foolish to risk the truth recklessly.

"I thought it was a mistake," said loyal Earle. "Who would be likely to be with you there, when you had reserved the morning for me?"

She closed her tired eyes, and said to herself how thankful she should be when all this was over.