CHAPTER VIII.

“My darling,” he heard the voice of his friend Alec Douglas saying, “what should I have done if you had been drowned, my bonnie blue-eyed forget-me-not. Who rescued you?”

The grim listener had heard the name of that little flower before, and his lip curled scornfully and bitterly as he heard it now applied by the mouth of another to the woman whom he had always worshipped as his own.

Just for a moment he experienced a passing twinge as a reminder of the scene on the bridge where he had scarcely proven himself the knight without reproach.

But that was only a momentary yielding to a terrible temptation; a man surrenders very little in such an encounter compared with a woman.

Thus he reasoned to himself while his heart told him that such an argument in his case was false, false as the bottomless pit; and that never again in life could he rebuild against that besieger on the bridge, the broken walls and citadel of his heart.

But no man lessens his rage at the defection of another--especially if that other is a woman upon whom he has claims--simply because he happens to be conscious of a like personal frailty; and so, although he staggered under the accusation of his own heart, Richard Dalrymple abated not one whit the contempt of the glance he turned on the unconscious Jeannie.

And beyond all doubt he suffered acutely, although in the tumult of his mind he was conscious of wondering why he did not suffer more. The treachery of his sweetheart shattered an idol on whose worn shrine he had lavished all the love and fealty of his manhood’s freshest years, and around which he had twined the fairest garlands which youth’s blind unquestioning idolatry can weave.

That the idol he had worshipped was nobler than the divinity it represented, goes without saying where youth’s lofty ideal is unchecked and uncorrected by a continual comparison with the original.

Thus poor Jeannie had fallen not only from herself, but she had fallen deeper far from the high ideal her lover had fixed in his mind.

“A badly broken idol,” Richard Dalrymple said in looking at Jeannie--and notwithstanding all the ravage done to his own feelings, he was painfully conscious that it was a badly damaged idolater too, who looked on.

“Who rescued you, my darling?” repeated Alec Douglas.

“Oh dear, dear,” sobbed his companion, “how can I tell you? the man who saved my life was your friend Richard Dalrymple, and--- and he believes I am engaged to be married to him. Oh, please don’t be angry with--me, it was only a girlish love which I have outgrown, and I don’t love anyone but you, darling. I had not written to him for months and I thought he would understand that I wished everything to end between us.”

To the onlooker the idol seemed more than broken now, it was pulverized to very fine powder indeed.

A heavy shadow falling across the two lovers caused them to turn, and to find themselves face to face with a haggard and dishevelled man, whose pallid face and dark upbraiding eye, caused them to spring hastily to their feet.

Before the image confronting them both found themselves speechless.

“Is that true what you have been saying, Jeannie?” inquired Richard in a hollow voice, “that your love for me was but a girlish fancy, and that you love Douglas here--my old friend Alec, to whom I confided my secret last night?”

No answer save that of downcast eye and burning cheek, and presently a glance of wonderful regret and misery under the long level lashes.

“Betrayed by both betrothed and bosom friend! have _you_ nothing to say, Douglas?”

“Yes, indeed, I have, Dalrymple,” replied the other; “now, old friend, bear with me awhile. I swear to you I did not know of your engagement until last night--and as far as Jeannie is concerned, she was just telling me that as she had not written you for so long she thought you would understand that she wished to end the engagement. You know,” turning softly to Jeannie and laying a gentle caressing hand on her head, “if there is one thing this little girl dreads more than another it is anything approaching a quarrel, and she put off telling you of the change in her feelings thinking that you would scold and make a dreadful upset about it. Of course the whole thing is a terrible mistake all through, but, Dick, I never betrayed a friend in my life, and I would have killed myself rather than have made love to your sweetheart if I had known it.”

At this the gentle Jeannie gave a scarcely perceptible toss of her fair head as if to say, “That just shows how much wiser my way was.”

“I see, I see,” exclaimed the other bitterly, “I have only my own blind unsuspecting devotion to thank for all this. If I had doubted and mistrusted like other men this thing would never have happened. Alec, I bear _you_ no malice, you did not know. Jeannie, you made light work of a heart that deserved better from you.”

“Oh, Dick, _dear_ Dick, please----” began Jeannie, but he waved her away. “Please leave me,” he added bitterly, “and if I must do without your love, at least spare me the insult of your pity. Take back your forget-me-nots and broken coin,” he added, taking the cigar-case and coin from his pocket and handing them to her still wet with the whirling pool from which he had saved her.

Jeannie would have replied, but the wise Alec, recognizing that much lee-way must be allowed to the disappointed lover, motioned her not to speak, and in silence they left as Richard turned on his heel and strode away across the sand.

When he turned he expected to find himself if not face to face with, at least within reach of, Miss Beattison, and the fact that she was not in sight sent a keen and to him mysterious pang to his heart. He felt he needed the sympathy of someone whose tenderness would not be an insult, and now the only being whom he felt could have poured balm on his wounds had disappeared.

He sat down by the water’s edge to think out the new scheme of his life under the altered conditions of the morning, and somehow the tumult of the broken waves seemed a suitable back ground to his thoughts.

For a while he sat in silence revolving the morning’s events in his mind, and after a time he drew from his pocket two objects which we, the readers, have seen before.

One was the photograph of Miss Farquharson, and the other the handkerchief found in the train. The former, blurred and defaced by the action of the water in his rescue of Miss Farquharson, caused him to smile a sad, bitter, miserable smile, to which a tear would have been preferable.

“The river ends it all,” he said as he tossed the photograph into the torrent, “I almost wish it had ended me too.”

Then his eye fell upon the cambric handkerchief found in the train, and a warmth seemed to steal from it, wet and crumpled as it was, which set his heart beating to a faster measure.

“It seems to me,” he said softly, “as if all these long years I had been prizing the shell and neglecting the priceless pearl.” Then, as he kissed the handkerchief again and again--and now at last without remorse--his mind travelled back to the scene on the bridge. Again in his vision there arose the love illumined eyes and passionate glance of the woman whom he was fain to confess now he had loved fondly even when he fled from her. The passion of her presence seemed again to thrill him as he sat there pressing her handkerchief to his lips, and in the fever of his unrest he sprang to his feet and turned towards the highway, only to find himself face to face with Gwendoline Beattison herself.

For a moment the love-light still burning in his eyes seemed to surprise and dazzle her, and then as he opened wide his arms and murmured the one word “darling,” she fled to his heart with a glad cry.

There, eye to eye, heart to heart, and soul to soul, love’s dominion was restored, and Cupid’s glancing arrows at length found their rightful mark.

THE END.

* * * * *

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

lack of arrangement in the deceased’s affairs=> lack of arrangement in the deceaseds’ affairs {pg 42}

here and may be there=> here and maybe there {pg 49}

Madame Tassaud’s Chamber of Horrors=> Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors {pg 50}

vis-a-vis=> vis-à-vis {pg 100}

the custom-house officers came abroad=> the custom-house officers came aboard {pg 132}

coresponding relief or elation=> corresponding relief or elation {pg 132}

relief in excitment=> relief in excitement {pg 132}

The concagious excitement=> The contagious excitement {pg 133}

the last glimspe of verdure=> the last glimpse of verdure {pg 141}

Three week later=> Three weeks later {pg 161}

fade as even great warrior=> fade as even great warriors {pg 175}

well-preserved gentlemen of some forty years=> well-preserved gentleman of some forty years {pg 220}

by the waiter’s munifience=> by the waiter’s munificence {pg 231}

Felix Johnston found opportunities=> Felix Johnstone found opportunities {pg 235}

her bright head high in air=> her bright head high in the air {pg 249}

that must be by brother Wilfred=> that must be my brother Wilfred {pg 250}

unbending command and insistance=> unbending command and insistence {pg 257}

retired into the the seclusion=> retired into the seclusion {pg 278}

little piece of monogramed=> little piece of monogrammed {pg 297}

feather-like handerchief=> feather-like handkerchief {pg 297}

he was considerable surprised=> he was considerably surprised {pg 309}