Countess Vera; or, The Oath of Vengeance

"How, father?" she queries, slowly.

The heavy gloom deepens in his night-black eyes.

"How—I cannot tell!" he says, hoarsely. "But I will bide my time. I will wait and watch. Edith's wrongs shall not go unavenged."

The beautiful young face on the pillow softens and saddens.

"Mother was very gentle and forgiving," she murmurs. "She would have said, leave it to Heaven."

"She was an angel—I am but human," he answers. "Vera, we must work together for vengeance. The time will come when we will make Marcia Cleveland bite the dust—when she shall curse the stars that shone over her ill-fated birth."

So the wronged man raves, and Vera's passionate heart is kindled into flames by his burning eloquence. She is with him heart and soul, loyal to the core of her woman's heart.

Strange, that when she tells him the story of her short, sad life she should hold one secret back. The words die on her white lips when she tries to tell him. A passionate shame fills her heart. Oh, the bitter pain, the deep humiliation of the thought that she is Leslie Noble's wife. Leslie Noble whom she scorns and despises. Have they told her father the truth? she wonders.

No, for presently he says, tenderly:

"Do not think that all my thoughts are given up to vengeance, Vera. I shall care for you very tenderly, darling. And if you should ever marry, I pray God that your wedded happiness may not be blighted by such a terrible wrong as mine."

Her heart gives a great throb of relief. He does not know. He never shall know by her telling, she resolves.

The day comes soon when they kneel hand in hand by Edith's grave to bid her good-bye before departing for England's shore.

"Edith, my darling," he whispers to the dead heart below, "the human vampire has escaped me this time. She has fled from my vengeance, and left no trace behind her. But let her beware, for I but bide my time. The bloodhounds of hate are howling behind her, and sooner or later she will be brought to bay. Farewell, my murdered darling. Remember that I only live to avenge your wrongs, and to protect your child!"

CHAPTER IX

No one had created such a sensation in London for several years as did Lady Vera, the Earl of Fairvale's only child, when she was presented at court. She was just nineteen, and a perfect beauty. She was more American than English in style—tall and slenderly formed, with a stately grace all her own, with large, dark eyes, and black brows and lashes, with hair of a magnificent, dark-golden shade, and well-formed, aristocratic features. Then, as the crowning charm to her brilliant loveliness, she had inherited from her English ancestry a dazzling complexion of lilies and roses.

People who studied and admired Lady Vera most, said that they could not quite understand the expression of her face. It was too intense for one so young. It was full of passion, tempered by the gravest thought.

The young English girls had dimples and smiles for everyone, but Lady Vera was different. She had the sweetest, most radiant smile in the world when you saw it, but that was so very seldom. She seemed to be thinking all the time—thinking deeply, even when she danced or sang, or conversed. And her favorite flowers were the beautiful, velvety pansies, whose very emblem is thought.

Yet when you looked into the Earl of Fairvale's face, you ceased to wonder at his daughter. The shadow on her face was reflected from the cloud on his. His dark, handsome face was a study. Where Lady Vera seemed to be thinking, his expression was that of one brooding—brooding all the while on one subject, and that not a pleasant one.

It was with some difficulty that he met the requirements of society. When spoken to suddenly sometimes, he would start and look bewildered as if his thoughts were far away. Ladies admired him immensely, although he was very inattentive to them. The dark, sad, melancholy face had a peculiar charm for them. They said he reminded them of Byron's heroes.

The earl was very fond of his daughter, and very careful of her. His eyes followed her everywhere, but their expression was always sad and melancholy. No one knew that every time he looked at her, he remembered how he had wronged her mother, and that his heart was breaking with remorse and grief, as well as with the consuming fires of a baffled revenge.

His story was not generally known. He had succeeded to the Earldom of Fairvale through a series of unexpected deaths, and though everyone knew of handsome Lawrence Campbell's accessions, little was known of him personally beyond the rumor that he had married an American lady, who had died and left him one only child, his beautiful and worshiped Vera.

Lady Vera had many admirers. Aside from her personal charms, the fact that she would succeed to the title and estates of Fairvale, cast a flattering prestige around her.

She was the same to all who came to woo—cool, courteous, gently indifferent. After awhile they began to say that the earl's daughter was very proud. Ordinary people were not to her fancy, evidently. She must be waiting for a duke or a prince. Poor Lady Vera! Who was to know the bitter secret, the ceaseless dread that ached in the fair breast, that rose and fell beneath the knots of velvety pansies that were her simple and favorite adornment?

Vera has seen and learned a great deal since that night when her father's mad frenzy had been the means of saving her from the horrors of a dreadful death.

She has traveled, she has had masters and governesses; luxuries of which she never even faintly dreamed, have surrounded her and become daily necessities. Pleasure has wooed her softly to its flowery paths, love has been lavishly laid at her feet. But through it all a loathing remembrance of Leslie Noble has poisoned her peace.

"Where is he? Does he know where I am? Will he ever come to claim me?" she often asks herself, never dreaming that he of whose coming she is so terribly afraid believes her dead, and that he has erected a costly marble monument over the spot where her remains are supposed to rest.

Her father's mistaken kindness has kept from her the knowledge of her deadly peril and her opportune rescue, little dreaming in what an untoward hour the startling truth shall come to her.

And she, in her sensitive pride, has held her peace over that ill-fated marriage by the bedside of her dying mother—the poor, heart-broken mother who had erred so fatally, when, with weak, human foresight she had tried to plan for the future well-being of her helpless child.

"Oh, mamma, dearest," she moans, when alone in her silken boudoir, she recalls the wretched past, "how terribly blind and mistaken you were. Oh, to be free from these fetters that chafe and fret and gall so terribly!"

"Shall you never marry, Vera?" her father asks her one day.

It is the day after she has refused Lord Greyhurst, one of the finest and wealthiest young noblemen in London.

The deep color flows into the girl's fair cheeks.

"I think not, father," she answers, gravely. "I have no wish to marry. I have never met anyone that I could love."

Earl Fairvale is well pleased.

"I am glad to hear you say that, my dear," he answers. "I have no wish to lose my daughter. And, after all, so much sorrow comes from love, one is best without it."

Lady Vera is very glad to hear him talk so. He will never urge her to marry, and she may keep her secret always—always, unless—dreaded possibility—Leslie Noble should return to claim her.

"But he will not. Why should he? He never cared for me. Yet how strange that he should have let my father take me away without one word. He must indeed have been glad to be rid of me," she muses.

The earl and his daughter are staying with Lady Clive for the "season." She is an American, and the daughter of a famous American general. She is very happily married to Sir Harry Clive, baronet. Loving everything American with intensest love, she falls an instant victim to Lady Vera's charms.

"Your mother was an American—so am I," she says, vivaciously; "so I claim you on that score. Do you like England, Lady Vera, and English people?"

"Yes," Vera answers, in her grave way.

"And," Lady Clive goes on, in her bright, airy fashion, "do you intend to marry an Englishman or an American?"

"I shall never marry at all," Lady Vera says, with a face of extreme disgust.

"Never! Ah, my dear, you are too young to decide such a momentous question. Only wait and see," cries Lady Clive, who has a match laid out in her mind for Vera, but who is far too wise to give her a hint of it.

"I shall never marry," Vera repeats, calmly. "I do not even like to think of such things as love and marriage. Dear Lady Clive, let us talk of something more interesting. You promised to take me into the nursery, and show me your little children—did you not?"

"Yes, and we will go now," her friend answers, leading the way; but to herself she says, wonderingly: "What a strange girl. At her age I did not think a set of noisy children more interesting than love and marriage."

The grave young face grows brighter than Lady Clive has ever seen it as Vera watches the beautiful little children at their playful sports. She even smiles when they caress her, and gives them the flowers from her bosom in payment for kisses.

"She loves children dearly," Lady Clive says to herself, well pleased. "How strange that she should be so set against marriage. She is an odd girl, but I think I shall live to see her change her mind."

CHAPTER X

Lady Vera having gained the entree to the nursery, pays it daily visits, always finding herself vociferously welcomed by the three small dwellers therein.

And one day she finds the youthful trio in a hubbub of excitement.