CHAPTER V.

Dead silence falls. Every eye turns on that graceful, kneeling figure, and fair, uplifted face, with the gold braids crowning the graceful head so royally.

Mr. Langton stares stupidly a moment.

Maud puts her hand on his arm and shakes him.

"Uncle, don't you understand?" she says. "I have come back to marry Vane. I repented as soon as I saw Mr. Clyde. I knew in a moment that I did not care for him enough to sacrifice everything for him. I told him so, and he was very angry, but I came away in spite of his terrible threats. I--I like Mr. Charteris best."

Vane Charteris starts forward like one awakening from a nightmare.

"Hush; do not perjure your soul, Maud," he breaks out, sternly. "Say what you mean. You do not care for Vane Charteris, but you love Mr. Langton's money too well to give it up for love in a cottage with Mr. Clyde."

She starts to her feet, half extending her arms.

"This from you, Vane!" she cries, dramatically. "Surely you have not turned against me after all your professions of love. Do not be so hard, Vane. You see I have come back to you. Forgive me, I pray you. I _do_ care for you, I want to be your wife!"

"You can never be my wife. By the folly of an hour you have barred yourself out of my life forever," he answers her with a strange, icy sternness.

She stares at him mutely a moment, then turns to Mr. Langton.

"You see," she says, triumphantly, "it is Mr. Charteris who refuses me--I do not refuse him. I am willing to keep to my contract--he declines my hand. Surely you will forgive me now, dear uncle, and take me back. I have not forfeited your love nor your fortune."

And Mr. Langton, finding voice at last, answers her, angrily:

"You have forfeited both by your cursed madness. Henceforth you have no part in my heart nor my home. Yonder sits my heiress, and Vane Charteris' _wife_!"

With a gasp like one dying, Maud follows the direction of his pointed finger.

She sees a slight, girlish figure that has suddenly come forward to the side of Vane Charteris as if mutely claiming him for hers. Her own costly wedding veil drapes the dainty, lissome figure.

"Reine Langton," she cries, furiously, "have you dared to rob me of my fortune and husband?"

Reine lifts her flashing, dark eyes.

"Remember, Maud, you flung them both away," she answers, indignantly.

"Fool that I was," Maud wails, despairingly. "I have lost all, all, by my brief madness! Oh! Uncle Langton, surely you will forgive me, and take me back now when I am so bitterly repentant. Let her have Mr. Charteris--I can do without him--but do not send me away!"

He looks coldly at the pleading blue eyes, and the eager, upraised hands. If possible he is more bitterly angry with her now than he was when he received her note an hour ago.

"It is useless to plead with me," he says, coldly. "You should have thought of all this before. It is too late now. I have flung you out of my heart forever. Reine will be my heiress--you can go."

"I have nowhere to go," she says, looking at him with wide, frightened eyes and parted lips.

"It matters not to me," he answers, cruelly. "Go back to the fine, gay lover that lured you from your duty and your plighted word. See if he will take you, now that you have lost all chances of the Langton fortune."

Reine comes bravely forward to the side of the discarded girl.

"Oh! uncle, let her stay," she says, imploringly; "I do not want your fortune, I have _Vane_. That is enough for me. Let Maud come home and have the money--or at least _share_ it."

"No," he thunders, stormily; "I have said my say--I will abide by it. She is nothing to me henceforth. Let her go."

Maud looks around at the bride.

"It is all your fault," she says, bitterly. "If you had not married Vane before I came, my uncle would have forgiven me. Vane does not love you, he has only taken you for my uncle's money. Beware that you do not rue this night in dust and ashes."

"If I had only known that you would come back, Maud, like this," Reine begins, wringing her hands in a passionate kind of self-pity.

Maud crosses to the door before them all, with that proud, imperial step that had become Mr. Langton's heiress so well, but is mockingly out of place now. The bride follows her.

"Maud," she whispers, anxiously, "send me your address to-morrow, and I will come to you. Indeed, indeed I am anxious to befriend you."

Maud puts her aside without a word, and steps over the threshold. She walks with her light, proud step down the hall, and disappears in the outer darkness, looking regretfully back, as Eve might have looked when she was driven from paradise.

"My friends," Mr. Langton says, rising, "do not let this unpleasant episode damp the wedding festivities. You came to do honor to my heiress, and Vane Charteris' bride. _She_ is here, and the banquet waits."

"The queen is dead, long live the queen!" that is what he means. They understand that Maud is dethroned, and Reine reigns in her stead. They obey his implied wish. No one speaks the name of Maud either in praise or blame. The festivities go on. The luxurious banquet duly discussed, the joyous music invites the young and gay to "trip the light fantastic toe." This is a country wedding where all is freedom and simple enjoyment. The guests "don't go home until morning."

In the pale dawn-light some of the young men, who left with gay words and light hearts, came hurrying back with blanched faces and startled eyes. In the woods near-by, they have found the blood-stained body of a dead man--Maud's lover, Mr. Clyde.