CHAPTER XXXV. “HE IS FICKLE AND FALSE--MY LOVER WHOM I TRUSTED SO

FONDLY!--HOW CAN I BEAR THIS PAIN AND LIVE?”

Mr. Beresford, when he saw himself discovered, advanced to the bedside.

He was a tall, portly gentleman, with kind brown eyes and a pleasant face that beamed with joy as he said:

“A letter from Alva at last!”

His wife sunk back in her chair and eagerly perused it. Then she handed it to her husband, and turned again to her son.

“I suppose Alva is at Newport?” he said, trying to bring his thoughts back from the painful theme that held them--the loss of his darling.

But it was hard to remember anything else now, when sorrow was at its flood-tide, sweeping like a torrent over his heart.

“No; Alva is at home. She will not leave New York till we return,” his mother returned.

“But she will be very lonely, I fear.”

“No; she is very busy painting, and Alva loves art better than society, you know. Besides, she has a companion--a lovely young girl whom she has employed as a model.”

Alva’s letter had not been very long, and she had chronicled the finding of Floy in one careless paragraph:

“Floyd Landon was so fortunate as to find Cupid the very day you left the city, and brought her to me at once, so I hope to finish my picture before your return.”

St. George, in his bitter despair over Floy’s supposed death, took no interest in his sister’s pretty model, and Mrs. Beresford, of course, had no idea that her son’s sweetheart was domiciled beneath her roof, while her lover mourned her as dead.

The mere utterance of her name by St. George would have solved the mystery, and saved him hours and days and weeks of pain, hastening his recovery by the force of joy; for the influence of mental emotions on the bodily health is too well known to be disputed, and the effects of grief and sorrow in breaking down health and retarding recovery are especially significant.

So the long summer days waxed and waned until it was well into July before the invalid’s tedious convalescence became confirmed enough for him to be removed from his room to a pleasant place by the sea. Here he remained for a week, gaining strength more rapidly, and at last asking to be taken home.

A fancy had seized him to revisit the scenes made sacred by their connection with his lost love, and to find her lonely little grave, unmarked perhaps by monument or flower, and to raise a costly stone above the spot.

But he did not confide these thoughts to his parents.

The subject had never been revived between them again.

St. George had a bitter, secret consciousness that he did not have their sympathy in his sorrow, and that at heart the death of his betrothed was a relief to them.

Mrs. Beresford had indeed hinted to her son that a certain fair English dame, a dainty Lady Maud whom he had met the previous year, was not indifferent to him, and would be a very welcome daughter-in-law.

But her son had answered, with the indifference of ill-health and an aching heart:

“I would not want her though she were ‘the daughter of a hundred earls!’”

And his father had whispered to his wife:

“Leave the lad alone awhile. His grief is too fresh and new to bear consolation yet. Time will bring the only balm--forgetfulness.”

So when St. George renewed the subject of going home, they did not say him nay.

They, too, were anxious to return, and by the middle of July had engaged their state-rooms on a steamer of the fastest line.

Bidding farewell to all their little coterie of English friends at Brighton, they were soon _en route_ for home and Alva.

St. George was gaining strength but slowly, and his large, dark eyes looked out of a wan, pale face, whose expression was too sad for tears.

This home-coming was inexpressibly bitter to his tortured heart, and his pale, grave, handsome face made him an object of romantic interest to all the lady passengers.

But he did not reciprocate their interest, he cared nothing for black eyes or blue that looked at him with gay coquetry or tender sympathy.

He said to himself that since Floy was dead he could never love again.

He held himself moodily apart from every passenger but one.

This was a blonde nobleman of barely middle age, very handsome and grave-looking--Lord Alexander Miller, who had recently inherited by his father’s death a grand estate in Devonshire.

He was going over for a tour of the States, he told the Beresfords, but his grave blue eyes had in them a look as if he should not enjoy anything very much, the look of a man with some secret sorrow tugging at his heart-strings.

Perhaps it was this secret kinship of sorrow that drew the two men together on shipboard, for each recognized a subtile affinity in the other, and so they became fast friends.

There was something, too, in the nobleman’s fair, frank face, so debonair though so serious, that fascinated the younger man. Where had he seen such blue eyes before in the dim past?

It came to him at last with a shock of mingled pain and pleasure.

His new friend bore a subtile, haunting, charming likeness to his dead love Floy. And for this likeness St. George admired him all the more.

By the time they reached New York, St. George was loath to part with his fascinating friend.

He pressed him to become his guest. The reply startled him.

“I shall be most happy to visit you later on, but for the present I am going to Mount Vernon, New York, where I have--friends.”

It was a startling answer to St. George, who had also planned an early trip to Mount Vernon.

Why he wished to go he hardly knew, except to revisit in silence and sorrow the places sacred to his brief, ill-fated love-dream.

“As for the Maury’s, they need not know I am there. I shall not call, for I despise that scheming Maybelle,” he decided, remembering how falsely she had told Floy she was engaged to marry him.

But he did not tell the nobleman that he also was soon to visit Mount Vernon. He parted from him with frank regret, expressing the hope that they might soon meet again.

Then they went on shore, and there was Alva radiant with joy to meet them.

She had come down in the carriage to meet them, and tears flashed into her bright eyes as she looked at her darling brother so pale, so changed, so sad.

Her mother had written to her simply that her son’s love affair was ended forever, making no mention of the girl’s death, and Alva had been very indignant, saying to Floy:

“Mamma has made him give up his love. I feared she would, but I hoped St. George would hold out against her arguments. I see how it is. He loves mamma so dearly--never son adored a mother so blindly--and she has made him think that the girl is unworthy of him.”

Floy choked back a rising sob, and sat like a statue in her chair, fearing to breathe lest she betray her cruel secret.

She was as proud as she was beautiful, this willful little Floy.

In the long happy weeks since she had been here with Alva she had dreamed some happy dreams, but now they were all over.

At first she had been glad to be here with her lover’s sister, and she had pictured to herself over and over his joy when he should come home and find her here an inmate of his home, a pet with his loved ones. Surely, then, it would be easy to win their liking for his chosen bride.

But when Alva’s confidences showed Floy the overweening pride of the Beresfords, she began to be frightened even of charming Alva.

She said to herself in weary nightly vigils:

“She, too, is proud, although she pretends to take her brother’s part. I can see that she has little sympathy with unequal marriages. If she but guessed that I am the girl her brother loves, she would send me away from the shelter of this roof.”

And in her terror of the cold world outside, her fear of her foes, and her longing to stay here till her lover’s return, poor Floy held fast her wretched little secret of love, scarcely daring to breathe when Alva named her brother’s name in praise or blame.

But that last conjecture of Alva’s as to her brother’s resignation to his mother’s will nearly broke the poor child’s heart.

She could not doubt Alva’s word. It must be true that among them all, in their pride of name and place, they had turned his heart against her, his absent little love.

“He is fickle and false, my lover whom I trusted in so fondly! How can I bear this pain and live?” she moaned to her stricken heart, in the silence of her terrible despair.