CHAPTER III.

Fifteen minutes before, while Reine Langton dreamed at the window, there had been great excitement in the villa. The house-maid's tale was a true one. The bride-elect has eloped with another man.

They have the terrible story down in uncompromising "black and white"--in her own hand-writing. She has gone away to marry Mr. Clyde.

"Because I loved him all the while, uncle," she writes, pleadingly, "and at last I found it would break my heart to give him up. I could not love Mr. Charteris, though I tried hard, because you wished it. And indeed, Uncle Langton, you are deceived in Vane Charteris. It was your money he wanted, not me; but poor Clyde loves me for myself alone. I know you will forgive me when I come back to you, for you cannot long be angry with your own loving Maud."

All this to the uncle she had disobeyed, but not one word to the lover she had betrayed and deserted. He stands silent, biting his lips to keep back the words that rush to them, a lurid flame of angry scorn burning in his dark blue eyes.

"I could bear all else but that most cruel thrust," he says to his old friend, hoarsely, when the dismayed bride's-maids have left them together, amid the splendid paraphernalia of the bridal chamber. "When she knew how I loved her, to cast that wretched money into my face! Great God! the falsity of women! Henceforth I live only for revenge!"

The old man, so old and feeble that people said of him already that he had "one foot in the grave and the other on the brink," whirled around, and paused in his terrible revilings of Maud and her chosen lover, and looked strangely at his favorite.

"So you want revenge, my boy," he said, chuckling wickedly. "You are right to live for it. Very well, you shall have it ready made to your hand."

"How?" Vane Charteris asked, eagerly.

"That false, deceitful jade shall never receive a penny from my hoarded wealth!" declared Mr. Langton. "You shall have all."

But Vane Charteris shakes his head, decisively.

"No," he says, firmly, "I will not have my revenge that way. It would be defrauding another. You have another niece."

"I have not forgotten her claims," Mr. Langton says, grimly. "I was going on to speak of her when you interrupted me. What I was about to say was this: Reine Langton shall be my heiress, and you shall be her husband."

Vane Charteris starts and recoils.

"No, no!" he exclaims.

"What! you refuse my niece's hand when I offer it to you?" he storms.

"Yes; I cannot marry her, for I do not love her," Vane answers, firmly.

"You handsome idiot! Who said anything about love? I thought we were discussing revenge," cries the old man, testily.

"So we were, but I cannot take my revenge like that! I would sooner die than have an unloved wife tied around my neck like a mill-stone," Vane Charteris answers, gravely.

"An unloved wife," the old man repeats; "and pray, couldn't you love my niece, Reine? She's a bright little beauty to my thinking."

"Love that little hoiden, that incorrigible vixen!" the young man cries, regarding his mother's old friend as if he thought he had taken leave of his senses.

Mr. Langton frowns darkly.

"Take care," he says, "you are speaking of my heiress, remember. I see how it is. Maud disliked Reine--jealous of her bright prettiness, perhaps--she has set you against her."

"She has not," declares Vane. "Reine has done it, herself. You cannot deny her brusk manners, and her sharp, ungoverned tongue, Mr. Langton."

"Pooh! mere girlish fun," retorts Mr. Langton. "I have never disliked her sprightly ways, myself; I like the vim and spirit of Reine. She makes me think of Lelia, a 'rosebud set with little willful thorns,' much more charming than Maud's 'passionless, pale-cold calm.'"

"'The king is dead, long live the king,'" Vane Charteris quotes with grim sarcasm.

"Yes, Maud is dethroned, and Reine shall reign in her stead," Mr. Langton replies; "and if you are wise, Vane Charteris, you will reign with her."

There is a moment's silence, and then Mr. Langton goes on:

"You talk of revenge. Marry Reine and you have it in full measure. Maud believes that she can marry Clyde, and come back and wheedle me into taking them both into my good graces. How glorious for Reine to take her place in my favor and in your heart!"

"She could not do that," Vane answers. "I was proud of Maud's beauty, and grace, and refinement. I loved her gentleness."

"The silky, purring deceitfulness of a treacherous cat," interpolates Maud's outraged uncle.

Vane flushes deeply.

"Still I should never love Reine," he said. "She continually jars upon me. She keeps my nerves upon edge. You are right to make her your heiress, but forgive me for saying that I can never make her my bride."

"She shall not be one without the other," declares the old man stubbornly.

"You mean--" Vane says, aghast.

"That if you refuse to marry Reine, she shall go back to her life of toil to-morrow, and I'll leave my money to found an asylum for idiots and fools," storms the old man, violently.

"You would never be so unjust, Mr. Langton," Vane exclaims, incredulously. "Let me reason with you. Though I do not admire Reine, I pity her. She has a hard life. Let me plead for the poor orphan girl. Take her in the place of Maud, and give her your love and your wealth."

"No, I have announced my ultimatum. To-morrow she leaves here, and to-morrow you leave here. She to her life of slavery, you as a mark for the finger of scorn to point at, a jilted man! How false-hearted Maud and her successful husband will laugh at the misery of the man they fooled so shamelessly; how the minister, waiting down-stairs, and the wedding guests will laugh in their sleeves at the deserted bridegoom. Go, now, sir, and remember that your cursed obstinacy has beggared you, and cheated Reine Langton of fortune."

He glares with bleared, furious eyes at the uncompromising young fellow. Vane looks troubled, reckless all at once.

"I do not want to cause Reine such a misfortune," he says, sadly. "Give me five minutes to decide in, Mr. Langton."

"Take them," the host says, shortly. Vane walks to the window and stares silently out at the dewy, odorous, tranquil summer night. Many thoughts crowd into his mind.

He has loved Maud Langton dearly, and he is cut to the heart by the bitter humiliation she has put upon him. He is a jilted man. How shall he face the sneering world again? that world that but a little while ago fawned upon him because he was going to marry Mr. Langton's heiress.

Mr. Langton waits impatiently, watch in hand, for the stipulated five minutes to pass. He is very anxious to have his way and spite Maud for her falsehood and disobedience. Inwardly he curses Vane's Quixotic foolishness in refusing a fortune, no matter how burdened.

"The time is up," he says, impatiently. "Yes or no. Marry Reine to-night and I will make my will to-morrow, and leave everything to you and your wife. For the present, until my death, which can't be far off," with sardonic humor, "I'll settle twenty-five thousand a year upon you; refuse, and you both go."

Vane Charteris turns upon him a white, desperate face.

"For myself I despise your threat," he says. "I am a man. I can carve my own way to fortune, yet I should hate for Reine to blame me with her loss of fortune. Mr. Langton, I will marry her if she will have me."

"Of course she will; no girl in her senses would refuse a handsome man like you, let alone the fortune," Mr. Langton cries, with returning good humor.

"On one condition," Vane continues, haughtily.

Mr. Langton lifts his eyebrows interrogatively.

"This: that I may go abroad to-morrow to be absent a year--you may offer any evasive excuse to the bride--and that while I am gone you will train Reine to be a graceful, dignified woman, whom I can respect and honor."

"Like Maud, for instance," Mr. Langton says.

"Maud's manners were perfect," Vane answers, flushing. "I could not wish more grace and refinement for my own wife so that her heart is kept truer."

"You are quite decided to go away?" Mr. Langton inquires, disappointed.

"Yes," decidedly. "I can marry Reine, but I cannot live with her just yet."

"Very well, you shall have your way. Now go and ask her if she will have you."

"Where shall I find her?"

"In her own room, I think. I have not seen her in all the bustle. I will wait here. If she says yes, bring her to me."

And Vane turns away with a white, set face, to obey him.