The Senator's Bride

"At your service, sir," said Bruce.

"Mr. Conway," said the gentleman, with a glittering smile that showed all his lovely white teeth, "I am the bearer to you of a message from Senator Winans. My friend, sir, considers himself insulted by you, and demands such satisfaction as all gentlemen accord each other."

He placed an open note in Mr. Conway's hand, who silently perused it.

It was a challenge to fight a duel.

"Any friend of yours can call on me to-morrow at three to settle the preliminaries," suggested the blonde captain, placidly smiling up into Mr. Conway's impassive face, and taking his acceptance for granted.

"Very well, sir; I will send a friend of mine to you quite punctually at three to-morrow. Is that satisfactory for the present?"

"Quite so, sir; very much so, sir," smoothly returned Captain Fontenay, bowing his quite imposing military presence out.

CHAPTER V.

WHAT THE WINNER'S HAND THREW BY

"Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words
That ever blotted paper."—Shakespeare.

"Farewell!—a word that hath been and must be,
A sound that makes us linger—yet, farewell!"

    —Byron's Childe Harold.

Grace Winans waked from her troubled sleep with a vague presentiment of impending evil. She heard the small clock on the mantel chiming seven, and looked about her half bewildered.

The shaded taper burned faintly in the room, and the gray morning light stole dimly through the closed shutters and lace curtains. Her baby lay on her arm, sleeping sweetly in his warm white nest. She raised her head a little, only to sink back wearily with a dull, fevered throbbing in her temples, and a sharp pang of remembrance that forced a low cry from her lips:

"Oh, Paul!"

Where was he? She thought of the study, and with a pang at fancy of his tiresome vigil, eased the baby lightly off her arm, and tucking him softly round, donned dressing-gown and slippers, and stole gently down stairs, rapped slightly at the door, then opened it and entered.

The light still burned in the room, looking garish and wan in the pale beams of morning; the easy-chair was drawn near the writing-table, but vacant. She glanced around her. He was not there, and no trace of him remained.

The young wife slowly retraced her steps.

"He will come presently," she whispered to herself, "but I wonder where he is;" and as she bent over little Paul, laying her round, white arm on the pillow, the sharp edge of the note grazed her velvet-like skin. She looked at it, shrinking, afraid, it seemed, to touch it for the moment; then, with a terrible effort over herself, her trembling hand took it up, her shady, violet eyes ran over the contents:

"Oh Grace!" it read, "you know that I adore you—too well, too well! for I cannot bear to live with you and know that your heart—the heart I thought so wholly and entirely mine—has ever held the image of another! You should have told me of this before we married. You wronged me bitterly, Gracie, but I will not upbraid you. Still, until I can learn to curb this jealous passion of mine, I will not, cannot remain where you are. I should only render you miserable. You and my boy will remain in my home—remember, I command this—and you will draw on my banker as usual for what sums you may need or want. I do not limit you in anything, my wife, my own idolized wife—please yourself in all things, do as you like, and try to be content and happy. If I can ever overcome this jealous madness—can ever reconcile myself to knowing that I was second instead of first in your pure heart, I will come to you, but not till then. Try to be happy with our little boy, and forgive your own, erring, unhappy

    "Paul."

White and still as marble, the deserted wife sat holding that mad note in her hand, looking before her into vacancy, moveless, speechless—yes, and pallid as she would ever be in her coffin.

A terrible, overwhelming sense of her desolation rushed upon her; but, strangely enough, her first thoughts were not of her husband in his jealous grief, but of herself—of the scandal, the disgrace, the nine-days' wonder that would follow all this. She knew her husband well enough to know that once his mad resolve was taken it would be adhered to.

He was no Bruce Conway, with wavering, doubting will, that could be blown aside by a passing breeze. Firm, proud, sensitive, but unbending as adamant, was Paul Winans when once his resolution was taken. No one knew it better than his wife, though he had ever been kind and loving to her.

A dumb horror settled on her soul as she realized the meaning of his letter. He blamed her as having willfully deceived him. She had not meant to do so; she had not thought it a matter of any moment to Paul Winans whether or not she had loved before she met him. Other men would not have cared—why should he? He had not questioned her, had taken her past for granted. How could she tell him of that unsought, scorned, neglected love that had darkly shadowed the joy of her young girlhood? He was unjust to her. She felt it keenly in the midst of her sufferings.

Were all men like these two whom she had loved, she questioned herself, mournfully. Not one of them was worthy of a true woman's love—no, not one.

It had come to this—a deserted wife—through no fault of hers was this tribulation brought on her. She felt that the world had used her hardly and cruelly. The passion and pride that underlie firm yet sweet natures like hers, surged up to the surface and buoyed her up above the raging billows of grief and sorrow. She felt too indignant to weep. She had almost wept her heart out long ago. She meant to sit still with folded hands and tranquil heart, and let the cold, harsh world go by heedless of its pangs, as it was of hers.

Her husband was using her cruelly in bringing this unmerited disgrace upon her and her child. She half resolved to flee far away with her boy where he could never find her in the hour when shame and repentance should drive him back to her side. It was but for a moment. Then she remembered the brief sentence in his note that commanded her to remain in his home, and then her resolution wavered; for when Grace Grey had taken that solemn oath before God to "love, honor, and obey," she had meant to keep her word.

Poor child! for hers was a strangely complex nature—a blending of the child and woman that we often meet in fine, proud feminine natures, and never wholly understand.

A hundred conflicting emotions surged madly through her as she sat there, motionless and pale, until moment after moment went by, and the overtaxed brain, the overwrought heart gave way, and blessed unconsciousness stole upon her. With her hands folded loosely in her lap over that cruel note, a sharp despair shadowed forth in that lovely face, the stately head fell forward and rested heavily on the pillow beside the child, whose rosy, unconscious slumber was unbroken, as though the hovering wings of angels brooded above him and his forsaken mother.

Norah found her thus when the cooing voice of the awakened babe reached her ears in the nursery. His pretty black eyes were sparkling with glee, his rosy lips prattled baby nothings, his dimpled, white fingers were twisted in the bright curls of his mother's hair as they swept luxuriantly over the pillow.

With all the art of his babyhood he was trying to win a response from his strangely silent mother.

She came back to life with a gasping sigh, as Norah dashed a shower of ice-water into her face, opened her eyes, said, "Don't, Norah, don't!" and drifted back to the realms of unconsciousness; and so deep was the swoon that this time all the restoratives of the frightened Norah failed for a long time of any effect.

"Looks like she's dead!" muttered the Irishwoman, divided between her care for the child's mother and the child itself, who began to grow fretful from inattention and hunger.

Better for her if she had been, perhaps. There are but few women who find the world so fair that the grave is not held as a refuge for their tired souls and bodies. But Grace came back, with a little gasping sigh, to the life that had never held much attraction for her, and with a trembling arm drew her baby to her breast.

"Poor little Paul!" she quavered, "he is hungry and fretful. Go and get his bath ready, Norah. I can't think how I came to faint. I feel well enough now, and it is quite unusual to me to lose consciousness so easily."

She was herself again. Pride sat regnant on her brow, on her curling lip, in her quiet eyes. It held her up when the poor heart felt like breaking. She had learned the lesson long ago—learned it too thoroughly to forget.

So the day passed quietly away. She had briefly explained to the curious servants that their master had been called off by an emergency that required his absence from home. She did not know at what time he would return—he did not know himself yet. In the meantime all would go on in the house as usual. And with this miserable subterfuge, for which she despised herself, the young wife tried to shield her husband's name from the sharp arrows of censure.

Two or three visitors were announced that evening, but she quietly declined seeing company; and so one of the longest days of her life wore to its close, as even the longest, dreariest days will, if we only have patience to wait.

She was not patient, nor yet impatient. A dull, reckless endurance upheld her in that and succeeding days of waiting that passed the same. She heard nothing from her husband. In the excited, unnatural state of her mind, smarting under the sense of injustice and wrong, it seemed to her that she did not care to hear.

She spent her time altogether with her little son, never seeing company nor going out. When Norah took the child out for his daily airing and ride through the fresh air, she whiled away the time till his return by reckless playing on the grand piano or organ, in the elegant drawing-room. She could not settle herself to reading, sewing, or any other feminine employment. She filled up the great blank that had come into her life as best she might with the sublime creations of the old masters.

Sometimes the very spirit of mirth and gayety soared in music's melting strains from the grand piano; sometimes the soul of sadness and despair wailed along the organ chords, but the fair face kept its changeless, impassive calm through all, while the white fingers flew obedient to her will. Sometimes she tried to sing, but the spirit of song was wanting. She could not even sing to her child, could scarcely speak, and started sometimes at the hollow echo of her own sweet voice.

And thus a dreary week passed away. But even this semblance of calm and repose was destined to be rudely broken. Miss Lavinia Story effected an entrance one day, being determined not to be kept out any longer by the stereotyped "not at home;" and with her tenderest smile she took both hands of Mrs. Winans in hers, and looked with deep solicitude into her calmly beautiful face.

"Dear friend, you must forgive me for this intrusion, but I felt that I must see you, must condole with you in your trying situation. You are very pale, my dear, looking wretched I may say, but you bear up well, remarkably well, I think, considering everything."

Mrs. Winans invited her visitor to a seat with freezing politeness and hauteur. Then she went back to her place on the music-stool.

"I was playing when you came in," she remarked, coolly. "If you will tell me what music you like, Miss Lavinia, I will play for you."

"Not for the world would I lacerate your feelings so much," sighed the old maid, putting her lace handkerchief to her eyes to wipe away a tear that was not there. "What, when all Norfolk is sympathizing with you in your distress and mortification, and commiserating you, shall I be heartless enough to beg you to play for me, even though you are bearing up so sweetly and wonderfully. No, my love, don't exert yourself for me. I understand your feelings, and only wish to sympathize with you—not to be a source of annoyance."

"I beg your pardon, Miss Lavinia"—the soft eyes looked gravely at her, the fair face keeping its chilling calm, the musical voice its polite indifference—"I did not know myself so honored by the good people of Norfolk, and really, I must say their commiseration is wasted in a bad cause, and I do not know what has given them occasion for its exercise. When I need sympathizers and 'Job's comforters,' I will seek them. At present I do not feel their need."

"Dear me! how high and mighty Mrs. Conway's companion has got to be," thought Miss Lavinia, spitefully, but she only said: "My dear, I am glad to see you bear up so well. Your strength of mind is quite remarkable. Now, had such a thing happened to me I feel sure I should have been extremely ill from shame and terror. But," with a simper, "I am such a timid, nervous girl. With your beauty and notoriety you have no doubt grown accustomed to this kind of thing, and do not mind it. But my sympathy is truly great for your little boy."