A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette

"Yes," said the earl. "Although I am not what the world would call a religious man, I am quite sure that a just God will never allow such a crime to go unpunished. Now, about the picture. Lord Vivianne, if you loved my dear, dead daughter, I can well understand that you want this."

Then they finally agreed that Lord Linleigh should have the original, and Mr. Leslie should paint a copy for Lord Vivianne. Lord Linleigh at the same time ordered a copy for Earle. Then, looking at the picture, he saw the name. He looked at the artist with a smile.

"'Innocence,'" he said. "Why did you call that picture 'Innocence?'"

"Because the face was so fair, so fresh, so bright. I could think of no other name. There is in it the very innocence and beauty that angels wear. Look at the clear, sweet eyes, the perfect lips, the ideal brow."

"'Innocence!'" said Lord Vivianne, in a strange voice; "It was well named."

They both looked at him quickly, but he was on his guard again. He shook hands with the earl. They never met again. He said adieu to Leslie, and begged that the portrait might be sent home as soon as possible. Then he went away. The earl and the artist looked after him.

"That is a dying man," said Gregory Leslie, slowly.

"If he dies," said the earl, "it will be love for my daughter that has killed him."

The earl was never any nearer to the solution of the mystery. That Lord Vivianne, who spoke so openly of having loved her, had any hand in her death, he never even faintly surmised. He took the picture home, and it hangs now in Linleigh Court, where the earl's children pause sometimes in their play to ask about their elder sister, Doris, whose name the picture says was "Innocence."

It was not long afterward that the fashionable world was startled from its serenity by the sad intelligence of the suicide of Lord Vivianne. Then they heard a strange story, although no one could solve it. His servants told how dreadfully he had suffered. Let those who laugh at the retribution that follows sin believe. Slowly, and in terrible torture, had that wretched life ended. He had rushed from the scene of his crime, mad with baffled love, with fiercest passion, with regret and remorse. Mad with the wild fury of his own passions – above all, with the terrible knowledge of her death – for many days and nights he neither slept, rested, ate, nor drank. He went away to Paris. It was not exactly that he feared pursuit – he knew that it was not likely that any suspicion should attach itself to him. But, wherever he went, he saw that dead face, that golden web with the crimson stain.

In Paris he plunged into the wildest dissipation. He tried drink – all possible resources – in vain. Where the sun shone brightest, where the gaslight flared, where painted faces smiled – he saw the same sight – a white face looking up, still and cold in death.

If by chance he were left alone, or in the dark, his cries were awful. His servants talked about him, but they never thought crime or remorse was busy with him; they fancied he had drank himself into a fit of delirium. They could have told, and did tell after his death, of awful nights when he raved like a madman – when he was pursued by a dead woman, always holding a knife in her hand; they told of frantic fits of anguish when he lay groaning on the floor, biting his lips until they bled, so that one's heart ached to hear him.

Let no man say that he can sin with impunity; let no man say sin remains unpunished.

The time came when he said to himself, deliberately, and with full purpose, that he would not live. What was this tortured, blighted life to him? Less than nothing.

Once, and once only, he asked himself if it were possible to repent – repent of his sins, his unbridled passions, his selfish loves? Repent? He laughed aloud in scornful glee. It would, indeed, be a fine thing, a grand idea for him, a man of the world; he who had been complimented on being the Don Juan of the day. He – to repent? Nonsense! As he had lived he would die.

What mad folly had possessed him? He gnashed his teeth with rage when he thought of what he had done. Then something brought to his mind the remembrance of that picture, and his heart filled with hope. Perhaps if he could buy it – could have the pictured face in its living, radiant beauty always before him, it might lay the specter that haunted him; it might turn the current. He had forgotten almost what the lovely, living face was like; he only remembered it cold and dead.

He purchased the picture, but it only worked him deeper woe – deeper, darker woe. He fancied the eyes followed him and mocked him; he had a terrible dread that some time or other the lips would open and denounce him.

Then, when he could bear it no longer, he determined to kill himself. He would have no more of it.

All London was horrified to hear that Lord Vivianne had been found dead; he had shot himself. Even the journals that, as a rule, avoided details, told how he died with his face turned to a picture – the picture of a beautiful girl with a fair face, tender eyes, and sweet, proud lips – a picture called "Innocence."

If any one dare to believe that he can sin with impunity, let him stand for one minute while a sin-stained suicide is laid in his lonely grave.

CHAPTER LXXXVII

SILENT LOVE REWARDED

Five years had passed since the occurrence of the events recorded in the preceding chapter. Lord Vivianne's place was filled, his name forgotten; flowers bloomed fair and fragrant on the grave of Lady Doris; the earl and countess had drawn themselves more from public life, and found their happiness in the midst of their children. The duchess seemed to have renewed her youth in those same children, and was never so happy as when she could carry one or two of them off with her to Downsbury Castle.

One autumn day Mattie Brace stood at the little gate that led from the garden to the meadow. The sun was shining, and the red-brown leaves were falling from the trees. She was thinking of Earle; how prosperous, how fortunate he had been during these last few years, when he had worked with all his heart to drown his sorrow. How he had worked! And now he reaped the reward of all industry – success. The critics and the public hailed him as the greatest poet of the day. In the House of Commons he was considered a brilliant leader, a brilliant speaker. He had speculated, too, and all his speculations turned out well; he had sent his last poem to Mattie, and told her he should come to hear her opinion from her own lips.

It was not a great surprise to her, on that bright autumn day, to see him crossing the meadows. How many years had she waited for him there! She thought him altered. They had written to each other constantly, but they had not met since the tragedy. He was older, his face had more strength and power, with less brightness. She thought him handsomer, though so much of the light of youth had died away from him.

He held out his hand to her in loving greeting, then he bent down and kissed her face.

"Such a kind, sweet face, Mattie," he said: "and it is sweeter than ever now."

He spoke truly. Mattie Brace had never been a pretty girl, but she was not far from being a beautiful woman. The rich brown hair was smooth and shining as satin; the kindly face had an expression of noble resolve that made it beautiful; the brown eyes were clear and luminous; the lips were sensitive and sweet. Earle looked at her with critical eyes.

"You please me very much, Mattie," he said. "Do you know what I have come all the way from London to ask you?"

"No," she replied, in all simplicity, "that I do not."

"I want you to be my wife, dear. I know all that lies between us. If I cannot offer you the enthusiastic worship of a first love, I can and do offer you the truest and deepest affection that a man can give. I always liked you, but of late have begun to think that you are the only woman in the world to me."

"Can I make you happy, Earle?" she asked, gently.

"Yes, I am sure of it."

"But I am not beautiful," she said, sadly.

An expression of pain came over his face.

"Beauty! Oh, Mattie, what is it? Besides, you are beautiful in my eyes. Be my wife, Mattie; I will make you very happy."

It was not likely that she would refuse, seeing that she had loved him for years. They were married, much to the delight of Lord and Lady Linleigh.

Now Earle has a beautiful house of his own: his name is honored in the land; his wife is the sweetest and kindest of women; his children are fair and wise. He has one golden-haired girl whom they call Doris; and if Earle loves one of the little band better than another, it is she. He has a spacious and well-adorned room opening on a flowery lawn; it is called a study. And here sometimes, at sunset, his children gather round him, and they stand before a picture – a picture on which the sunbeams fall, shining on a radiant face, with bright, proud eyes, and sweet, smiling lips – a picture known to them by the name of "Innocence."