CHAPTER VIII.

Mr. Langton is nowhere to be seen when Maud re-enters the home, so late her own. Reine comes to meet her, pale, troubled, sympathetic. They have not been very fond of each other in the past--Maud has been too proud to encourage the friendship of her poor cousin--but now the heart of the younger girl goes out to the other in a gush of sympathy and sorrow.

"Maud, I am _so_ sorry," she says, putting her hand gently on the girl's arm; "but never fear, dear. All will come right. Of course you would not have harmed a single hair of Mr. Clyde's head. Everybody must know _that_."

"Come with me to my room, Reine," Maud answers.

Inside that quiet room she had quitted only yesterday eve in such high hope Maud's proud self-possession breaks down. Throwing herself on a luxurious sofa, she gives way to hysterical weeping.

"I am _so_ sorry, Maud," Reine can only repeat, in gentlest sympathy.

Maud gives her an angry glance through her tears.

"Sorry," she says. "Sorry! Why should you be? Your fortune is built on the wreck of mine."

"Oh, Maud, do not say so," the girl cries, deeply pained. "Indeed, indeed, I do not want the money. I will ask Uncle Langton to give it all to you. I have Vane, I care for nothing else."

"You love him?" Maud says, with lifted brows, slightly incredulous.

"Yes," with a deep, beautiful blush.

"You cannot suppose that he cares for you," Maud says, with subdued contempt.

"Not yet--not as he cared for you, of course, Maud. But I hope to win him after awhile. You know," hopefully, "he must have thought he could learn to care for me, else he would not have married me."

"What a little simpleton you are," Maud says, disdainfully. "Ring the bell for my maid, please."

The maid comes, her eyes red with weeping. She has been mourning over the troubles of her late mistress, and now, with dejected brow, stands waiting.

"Nellie, you remember the note you brought me from Mr. Clyde yesterday?"

"Yes, miss, an' if I'd known what trouble it would bring, I'd never have carried the first note back and forth," says Nellie, with vain lamentation.

"It's too late for regrets now," Maud answers her impatiently. "I want that note, Nellie. It is in the pocket of the blue dress I wore yesterday. Get it for me."

Barely a minute--and a cry of dismay from Nellie's lips.

"Oh, Miss Maud, 'tisn't there."

Maud's face grows suddenly white and scared.

"Look again," she says, with a gasp.

"'Tisn't there," the maid reiterates, after a second flurried search.

"Then it's somewhere else," confidently. "I know it is in this room. Look until you find it, Nellie."

Then she turns to Reine.

"Can you guess why I came back last night?"

"You told us the reason when you came, didn't you?" Reine says, blankly.

"Not exactly. I will tell you now while Nellie is searching for the note. Of course you knew when I went away I didn't expect to lose my uncle's fortune?"

"I thought you did. Hadn't he said----" begins simple Reine.

"That I should marry Charteris, or lose the money--yes, I know, but I give you my word I never believed it. I honestly thought I could marry Mr. Clyde and return here. I thought it would be an easy matter to wheedle my doting uncle into taking us both back. I never dreamed that you would throw yourself into the breach and help them to their revenge against me."

"I never thought of such a thing myself, until--until Vane _asked_ me!" Reine murmurs, blushingly.

"Do you know why he asked you?" sneers the beautiful girl before her.

"To spite you for having jilted him so publicly, Maud, and, perhaps, because he liked me a little after all," she says, a little wistfully.

"I gave you credit for just a little more sense, Reine," Maud answers, bitterly. "Vane Charteris disliked you exceedingly. He thought you a vixen, neither more nor less. He made you his wife because Mr. Langton literally forced him to it."

"It is not true. Why do you say such things? You are cruel, Maud," the bride cries out, starting indignantly to her feet.

"It is the truth. Nellie, have you found the note yet?"

"No, miss, nor I don't think I can. Was it so very important?" returns the girl.

"Important! My very life hangs on its production," Maud says, wildly. "You have looked carelessly. I could swear that it is in this room. It _must_ be found."

"I'll look again. Perhaps I've overlooked it, being in a hurry," the maid returns, patiently, and Maud turns again to her cousin.

"Nellie has always been very faithful to me," she says. "She was in my confidence. She knew the trysting-place in the woods where I was to meet Mr. Clyde. As soon as she learned that it was likely you would marry Vane Charteris and cheat me out of Uncle Langton's fortune, she hastened after me, and urged me to return and prevent such a catastrophe. I decided at once to return. I had no notion of doing the love-in-a-cottage business with my poor, but handsome lover."

"You were heartless, Maud," Reine says, with a flash of her superb, dark eyes.

"So Mr. Clyde said," carelessly. "Anyway, I told him I should come back. He was very angry. He drove Nell back, and swore I should stay and go with him to the preacher that was even then waiting to marry us. I would not yield an inch, and as soon as I could I got away."

"Why do you tell me all this, Maud?" Reine says, with something like royal scorn. "You make me think very little of you."

"You will perhaps think very little of yourself presently," beautiful Maud answers, maliciously. "Come here, Nellie, and tell Mrs. Charteris all the hard things her husband said about her when Mr. Langton almost went down on his knees to him to marry her."

"How can she know?" Reine says, puzzled.

"I was hid in a closet, listening, if you'll please to excuse me, ma'am," the maid says, timorously, to the new mistress of Langton Villa. Then she looks at Maud. "Oh, I'd rather not," she exclaims. "It would only hurt Mrs. Charteris' feelings."

"Do as I bid you," Maud answers, with her imperious tone of command. "When Mr. Langton asked Vane Charteris to marry Reine, what words did he use in reply?"

Nellie looks at the bride with scared eyes.

"Mrs. Charteris, you mustn't get mad at me. I wouldn't tell it, no, not to save my life, only that Miss Maud will be angry if I don't," she says, deprecatingly.

No words come from Reine's pale lips. She stares with great, troubled dark eyes alternately at the beautiful, cruel mistress and the shrinking little maid.

"Tell her," Maud repeats, imperiously.

"Well, then, he said," the maid begins, nervously, "he said, Mrs. Charteris, a flat no that he wouldn't marry you, that he couldn't love a vixen and a hoiden like you, an' he'd sooner die than have you hanged like a mill-stone around his neck."

"Why, then, did he consent to marry me?" the bride gasps, after a shiver and moan of unspeakable humiliation.

"For your own sake, ma'am, 'cause Mr. Langton said he'd make you his heiress if the gentleman would marry you, and if he wouldn't, why he would leave his money to some asylum for fools. An' so Mr. Vane he said he would marry you, 'cause he wouldn't want you to lose the fortune on his account."

"On one condition," Maud says, in her clear, high-pitched voice, gazing with pitiless eyes at the beautiful, scarlet face before her.

But Reine lifts her small hand with a sudden imperious gesture of command.

"I will not hear another word," she says, in a tone of mingled sorrow and pride. "You must obey me now, Nellie; I am your mistress, not Maud. And I command you never to open your lips on this subject again."

Nellie shrinks abashed. Her whilom mistress laughs low and mockingly.

"You have heard enough, eh? Well, I don't blame you. Well, Nellie, the note?"

"Oh, miss, I haven't found it yet, and indeed--indeed, I've looked in every spot in this room where it could possibly be. Sure, you've tucked it away somewhere and forgot, Miss Maud. Try to remember where you had it last," the girl says, soothingly.

Startled and half afraid, Maud springs to her feet putting her white hand to her brow.

"Let me think," she says, confusedly; "ah, now I remember; yesterday, when I went down the path to Mr. Charteris and Reine under the tree I had the note in my hand. I slipped it into my pocket."

"It must have fallen on the ground," Nellie says, quickly. "Shall I go and see?"

"Yes," Maud answers, anxiously.

Reine, grown suddenly, strangely pale, looks at the beautiful, harassed face of her cousin.

"That note, Maud," she says, in a voice of repressed excitement. "Is it so very important?"

"Important?" Maud says, peevishly. "Did I not tell you my very life hangs on it? They believe that I killed Mr. Clyde. I must go to prison unless I can find that note, which would establish my innocence."

"Then it must be found," Reine says with sudden nervousness. "I will go and help Nellie find it."

"No--no, Reine; where is my uncle?"

"Shut up in the library, I think, Maud."

"Is he so very--very angry with me," she asks, lifting her large blue eyes to Reine's troubled face.

"I--I'm afraid so," Reine stammers, with marked hesitation.

"Would he see me, do you think?" Maud inquires.

"I do not know," Reine answers, with an unconscious sigh.

"Go and ask him, Reine. Oh, I must make friends with him! What shall I do without a friend in this perilous time?"

"I will be your friend," Reine ventures, wistfully.

Maud measures the slight figure with scornful eyes.

"_You!_ what good could you do me?" she asks, disdainfully.

"I do not know. I am small, but I am willing," Reine answers to that look. "Remember, Maud, a little mouse once saved a lion."

"Go and ask my uncle if he will let me come in and speak to him," Maud answers, ignoring her offer with proud indifference.

The slight, girlish figure turns away without a word. In the hall she meets Nellie returning.

"You have not found the note?" she says.

"No, ma'am, and whatever will my poor Miss Maud do? Oh, Mrs. Charteris, will they hang her for Mr. Clyde's murder? Oh, I daren't go in and tell her I cannot find it," whimpers poor Nellie.

"Nellie," abruptly, "tell me where to find Mr. Charteris."

"Oh, ma'am, at the inquest, most probably," returns Nellie, surprised; then, with an imploring look, "oh, Mrs. Charteris, please'm don't tell him what I told you. I know Mr. Langton would discharge me for listening. I shouldn't have told you, never, but for Miss Maud."

Reine looks at her sadly. A far-away look in her "dark--dark eyes."

"You needn't be afraid, Nell. I shall never tell him," she says, slowly, and passes on.

She opens the library door softly, and goes in. Mr. Langton is sitting dejectedly in his arm-chair.

"Uncle, dear," she says, in a strange, low voice, "tell me where to find Mr. Charteris."

He starts, guiltily, it seems to her. His fingers close over a slip of paper in his hand.

"You want Vane--oh, ah, yes, of course," he says, confusedly. "What can you want of Vane?"

She smiles sadly to herself. Her own husband, yet "what can she want of him."

"A matter of business, sir," she replies, with cold brevity.

"Business!" He glances up and sees how white and strange her face is. "Is it important? It will wait, won't it?"

"No; it's a matter of life and death," she says, with trembling lips.

"Life and death? You are jesting, child, surely. I am very sorry, dear, but Vane has just sent me a line. He has gone--I mean he has been called away suddenly. He may be compelled to remain some time. You will have to be satisfied with my poor society. Vane sent you his love, and regrets that he could not bid you farewell."

A slight, cold smile touches the scarlet lips that curl in faint scorn.

"Do not fib to me, Uncle Langton. You know very well he sent me no such message. Let me see that note."

She draws it deliberately out of his fingers, and reads the curt message:

"Mr. Langton, I am about going away as we agreed upon. I will write you from abroad. Invent some excuse to satisfy the curiosity of Reine."

"So that is the love he sent me," she says, looking at him with reproachful, dark eyes. "How charmingly affectionate he is! Aren't you afraid that you'll never get to Heaven, Uncle Langton, after that tremendous fib?"

"Don't tease, child, I have vexation enough. I did not think it of Charteris, really. I wish now I hadn't----" he stops and gnaws his gray mustache, fiercely.

"I wish so, too," she says, with subdued bitterness. "It was a sad mistake all round. It cannot be helped now. But, uncle, I _must_ see him. Tell me where to find him."

"You may find him in New York to-morrow. He left on the ten o'clock train to-day."

"This is dreadful--poor Maud," she says, incoherently. "Oh, uncle, Maud is up-stairs. She prays you to see her. Uncle, you _must_. She has no one to turn to but you. The shadow of a terrible crime is hanging over her head. She must go to prison unless something happens to help her."

"She has made her bed, so let her lie," he says, petulantly.

"Oh, uncle, you must forgive her and befriend her; say that you will."

"I won't," he says, with bitter brevity.

"Let her come to you for five minutes; she can plead her own cause better than I can."

"I decline to see her. Tell her so. Tell her I will never have anything more to do with her," he replies, sternly, leading her to the door, and shutting her out into the hall.

She goes back to her cousin, stumbling over Nellie, who is crouched outside the door, dreading to enter with the story of her non-success.

"He will see me?" Maud says, hopefully, as she enters.

"I am very sorry, dear, but he utterly declines," Reine says, sorrowfully.

"Of course! I doubt if you ever asked him," Maud cries, irritably. "But, Reine, what is the matter? You look white and scared? What has happened?"

"Vane--Mr. Charteris has gone away," Reine falters, miserably.

"Gone away--of course. That was the condition on which he married you. He said he could marry you, but he could not live with you."

"Maud, why do you tell me these horrible things?" falters the wretched young bride.

"To make you as wretched as I am," Maud breaks out, with vindictive passion in her voice and face. "But it is all true, every word. He said he would stay away a year, and Mr. Langton must train you to be such a woman as he could respect and honor; a woman," triumphantly, "like me."

"God forbid!" Reine says, with a stifled gasp, turning her white face away that Maud may not see the hopeless pain that shadows the brightness.

The door opens and Nellie creeps forlornly in.

"Oh, Miss Maud," she says, tearfully, "I can't find it, I can't find it! I've searched high and low but it's nowhere to be found!"