CHAPTER XI.

The _Sea Gull_ wings her flight blithely and rapidly across the "dark blue waves," as if she were not freighted with the heaviest heart that ever beat in breast of mortal man.

For Vane Charteris, although his passionately longed-for revenge has come to him in such strange and subtle fashion, is a most unhappy man.

Mingled with his almost fierce joy at the speedy retribution that has been dealt out to Maud, his false love, is a stinging, unconquerable remorse that pursues him like an evil spirit, although he cannot bring himself to repentance for what he has done. A shuddering horror takes possession of his soul when he thinks of the cloud of shame and disgrace, and impending peril lowering darkly over that golden head he has loved so dearly, but his passionate anger and resentment are stronger than the languid, admiring affection he had cherished for his fair, queenly-looking betrothed.

In the madness of his insulted pride it seems to Vane impossible that he should lift a finger to save the treacherous one from her terrible fate.

Arriving in the great, smoky city of London, that is hot and smoky and altogether unbearable, Vane throws himself into whatever excitement is going with an _abandon_ and recklessness altogether unlike himself.

He is bent on losing himself and his tormenting thoughts in the deepest oblivion he can find, but in less than a week he succumbs to fatigue and mental agony, and decides that he is "fagged out." Either he must recuperate or he must die.

Life is sweet to us all; even to Vane, with his dearest hope gone from him.

He decides to run down to the sea-shore a little way, and brace his constitution with the life-giving sea-breezes.

He hears of a quiet place, frequented by invalids, authors, and poets, and such quiet people, "packs his traps" and goes down by the first train. Behold, it is a coast such as Tennyson portrays:

"All sand and cliff and deep-inrunning cave."

"I shall die of memory and stagnation here in less than a week," he tells himself grimly, as he paces along the yellow sands up to his balconied hotel, where a few dispirited invalids and long-haired poets eye the handsome young American with a dreamy, listless curiosity. "I shall find health and quiet here with a vengeance. I shall go mad with this eternal sea!"

And after one night with the long, low moan of the "sad sea waves" in his ears, and the ghosts of the past stalking drearily in the haunted darkness, he stoutly prepares to "fold up his tent like the Arabs, and silently steal away" to "fresh fields and pastures new." The spirit of unrest is upon him; strange mood for one who all his life-long had been indolent, languid, not to say, in Reine's plain English, _lazy_.

But while he chews the end of his morning segar, and restlessly meditates on the where to go next, a boy comes to him with a pretty little three-cornered note. In stupid astonishment he takes it and holds it unopened in his hand.

"I was to take back an answer, sir," the lad ventures, as a gentle reminder.

Then Vane turns it over and looks at the superscription. It is addressed to himself in a pretty, graceful hand, with a good deal of character in it.

Unfolding it, he reads, with staring eyes:

"MR. CHARTERIS:--Arriving at the hotel an hour ago, I learned, on inquiry, that you were at the 'Haven of Rest.' Will you come to me for ten minutes? Hastily,

"REINE LANGTON."

The earth seems to yawn beneath Mr. Charteris' feet. He mutters, on the uncontrollable spur of the moment, a profane expletive:

"_The_ devil!"

"Eh, what, sir?" the lad mutters, uncomprehendingly.

The words recall Mr. Charteris to his senses, he having been momentarily shocked out of them.

"Who gave you this note, boy!" he demands, sternly.

Really, it seems to him there must be some mistake. Reine, his unloved wife, here on Albion's wave-washed shore--impossible.

But the lad replies, distinctly:

"A young lady at the Sea View Hotel, a very pretty lady, with big black eyes."

This description is too suggestive of Reine to admit of further doubt.

With a suppressed groan, Vane tears a leaf from his memorandum book, and scribbles, hastily:

"Reine:--I will be with you in fifteen minutes.

"VANE."

Totally forgetting, in his flurry, to put her name upon it, he doubles the sheet and puts it into the lad's hand with a generous silver piece.

"Now, fly back to the lady, you young scamp," he apostrophizes.

As if the reward had lent wings to his feet, the urchin runs lightly along the sandy shore, and disappears in the distance.

Vane takes a turn up and down the balcony to steady his nerves. He has had what some people are wont to call a "turn."

The authors and invalids eye him with blended curiosity and admiration. It is not often that a handsome, comely young fellow like this anchors his bark in this "Haven of Rest."

"She has followed me here," Vane is saying to himself, through his compressed lips. "Now, I call _that_ downright bold and unwomanly. It proves to me more and more how unwise a choice was forced upon me by Mr. Langton's perverse will. Why did he let her come? And how the deuce am I to get rid of her? For I swear I won't live with her, at least not yet."

So saying, he flings on his hat and starts off at a swinging pace along the sands toward the hotel.

"I must see what she wants," he says, under his breath, and gnawing the ends of his golden-brown mustache savagely, while the _habitues_ of the place watch him carelessly, little thinking that the handsome American is going unwillingly to the bonniest bride all England holds.

* * * * *

He had called her "bold and unwomanly," yet in his heart he is forced to retract the words when he finds himself in her presence, and the spell of her dark, bright beauty throws its glamor over him, against his will.

For Reine, with the pardonable vanity of "lovely woman," has hastened to make herself fair for her husband's coming.

In London, while they rested and searched for Vane, Mr. Langton has bought her a box of what he calls "fine things." Among them is a sheer, white India muslin morning robe, trimmed with a profusion of fine, rich lace. Nothing could be lovelier than Reine in this dainty robe, with deep-hearted crimson roses in her hair and at her belt.

The slight, graceful figure advances to the center of the pretty morning parlor, then pauses suddenly, while the curling, black lashes flutter and fall till they waver against the burning crimson cheeks.

"You sent for me?" he says, abruptly, noting her sudden shame and confusion with ungenerous malice.

"Yes, I--I----" she pauses, and throws up her girlish white hands as if to ward off a blow. "Oh, do not look at me so," she says, imploringly. "I _know_ what you are thinking and saying to yourself. It is that--that I am bold, forward, unlady-like, to have followed you here, when you," a choking sob, quickly suppressed, "when you despise me so!"

It is his turn to blush now under the dazzling light of the "dark, dark eyes" she opens wide upon his face, while she makes her frantic plaint.

"It is no such thing, pray do not say so," he retorts, fibbing unblushingly, in that he feels himself, to use his own graphic inward phrase, "cornered." "Of course you had a perfect right," dejectedly, "to come after me."

"Not at all," she says, decidedly. "No right that I would presume upon thus far. Oh, Mr. Charteris," with a sudden transition from shame and self-pity to irrepressible mirth, "pray, pray, do not look so dejected and forlorn. I have not come after you, indeed; that is, not as you think. I hope to leave here for America to-morrow."

"Leading me as a captive in your train?" he inquires, not feeling half so bad at the prospect as he could have imagined ten minutes ago.

"Certainly not," she replies, in her frank, decisive way; then, a little frigidly, "pray be seated, sir, and I will unfold to you the business upon which I have followed you to England."

He bows silently, turning a little pale beneath his healthy, florid tinge.

What an ominous sound that dull, prosaic word, "business," has from her lovely, heart-shaped, crimson lips. Besides, he feels, to use his own inward thought again, "_wilted_." She does _not_ want him, as he has vainly imagined, and ridiculously resented in secret. She is come on a mere matter of business. She makes him understand that thoroughly by her pretty, dignified manner that has stiffened into ice.

"I should not have come--nothing could have induced me to," she goes on, with sensitive deprecation and lowered eyelids, "only for the sake of _Maud_."

"Of Maud!" he starts, and his pallor grows death-like. "What has she to do with you and me, Reine?"

She looks up silently, and their glances meet and hold each other a moment; the velvety black orbs, swimming in golden light, hold a mute and stern reproach before which the proud, defiant blue ones waver and shrink, pained and ashamed.

"I do not understand," he says, sullenly, answering her look against his will.

"Oh, yes, you do, you know," she returns with airy frankness. "You remember poor Mr. Clyde wrote Maud a note, swearing he would kill himself if she didn't marry him. And Maud lost the note that day she was in the hammock-chair under the tree. You, Mr. Charteris, found it, and tucked it into your vest pocket, thinking it of no consequence. But in that you were mistaken, as you learned the day of the inquest. Oh, Mr. Charteris, will you give up that note, and pray God to pardon your wicked revenge?"