"You are always insinuating some fault against my darling. Your heart is cold to her, Edmund."
He put his arms around her, and kissed the still lovely face with the passion of a lover.
"At least it is not cold to you, my darling!" he cried; and pleased at his love-making, she momentarily forgot Roma, and nestled confidingly against his breast.
He was glad that she could not know his secret thoughts, for they ran stubbornly:
"She is right. My heart is indeed cold to Roma. I shall be glad when Devereaux marries her and takes her away, and I do not believe it will break my wife's heart, either; for she seemed to bear it well enough when her daughter was away at boarding school those three years."
Meanwhile Sophie went away most reluctantly with her message, thinking:
"I am sure Miss Roma will not thank me for breaking up her tête-à-tête with her lover, for, of course, she is staying out just to keep him all to herself. But I cannot disobey Mrs. Clarke's commands, though I'll saunter along as slowly as I can, so as to give Miss Roma a little more time."
Sophie was an intelligent and good-hearted girl, and might have been invaluable to Roma, if she could have appreciated such a treasure; but by her selfishness and arrogance she had completely antagonized the young woman, who only stayed, as she had frankly told Liane, for Mrs. Clarke's sake.
As she strolled along, picking a flower here and there, and giving Roma all the time she could, she thought of Liane with pity and admiration.
"There's a lovely girl for you! If she had been rich instead of Miss Roma, I fancy she'd make a better mistress," she murmured, and then the sound of subdued voices came to her ears.
"There she is at the gate with Mr. Devereaux, sure!" she thought, as she saw two heads together, the man's outside, while the murmur of excited voices came to her ears.
"I hope they aren't quarreling already! She had trouble enough hooking him, to be sure!" she thought as she went forward noiselessly, perhaps hoping to catch a word.
She was rewarded by hearing Roma say:
"I will come outside and talk with you. We must not run the risk of being overheard by any one from the house."
The gate latch clicked as she stepped outside and joined her companion, a tall, dark man, whom Sophie did not doubt must be Jesse Devereaux.
She led her companion out toward the high cliff, washed at its base by the surging sea, and Sophie stole after them, thinking curiously:
"Now, what secret have they got, these two, that no one from the house must overhear, I wonder? It is very strange, indeed, and I'll bet they have a mind to elope, just to make a sensation! These rich folks will do any foolish thing to get their names and pictures in the papers! They think it's fame, but any jailbird can get published in the papers. Well, I'll follow you, my lady, and there's one from the house who will hear your secret in spite of your precautions."
She crept along after them, so near that if they had turned their heads they must have seen the skulking figure; but neither Roma nor the man looked back, but kept along the edge of the cliff on the narrow path, talking angrily, it seemed to Sophie, though their words were drowned by the roar of the sea, to the great chagrin of the curious maid.
"But they are certainly quarreling! Ah, now they are stopping! I don't want to interrupt them yet; so I'll hide!" she thought, darting behind a convenient ledge.
In the clear and brilliant moonlight the two figures faced each other, perilously near to the edge of the cliff, and Sophie, peering at them from her concealment, suddenly saw a terrible thing happen.
The man had his back to the sea, facing Roma, and both were talking vehemently, it seemed, from their gestures; when all at once the girl thrust out her foot and struck her companion's knee, causing him to lose his balance. The result was inevitable.
The tall figure lurched backward, swayed an instant, trying to recover itself, toppled over with a shriek of rage, and went over the cliff a hundred feet down into the foaming waters.
CHAPTER VI.
AFTER THE CRIME
Sophie Nutter could hardly believe the evidence of her own startled eyes when she saw the terrible crime of her young mistress.
She knew that Roma was selfish and cruel, but she had never realized that such depths of wickedness were concealed beneath her beautiful exterior.
When she saw Roma push the supposed Jesse Devereaux over the face of the cliff to a dreadful death, the hair seemed to rise on her head with horror, and from her lips burst an uncontrollable shriek of dismay and remonstrance, while she tried to spring forward with outstretched arms in a futile impulse to avert the man's awful fate.
Too late! The writhing, struggling body went hurtling down over the high cliff, and struck the water with a loud thud that dashed the spray high in air. Then Sophie's limbs relaxed beneath her, and she fell in a heap like one paralyzed, behind the ledge of stones, while her terrified shriek went wandering forth on the air of night like a wailing banshee.
But Roma had shrieked, wildly, too—perhaps in nature's recoil from her own sin—so Sophie's protesting cry lost itself in dismal echoes. Then all grew still save for the voice of the sea and the dash of water churning itself to fury at the foot of the bluff.
The maid, crouching low in her concealment, heard Roma flying with terror-haunted footsteps from the scene of her awful crime, and muttered distractedly:
"She has murdered her handsome lover, the beautiful fiend! God in heaven alone knows why! I thought she loved the very ground he trod on!"
The maid was suffering from severe nervous shock. She sobbed hysterically as she thought of handsome Jesse Devereaux lying drowned at the foot of the cliff, and beaten by the cruel waves that would wash him out to sea when the tide turned, so that Roma's sin would be forever hidden from the sight of men.
"I will go and inform on her at once! She shall suffer the penalty!" she vowed at first; but when she thought of gentle, loving Mrs. Clarke her resolution wavered.
"It will kill her to learn of her child's wickedness, the good, gentle lady who has been so kind and generous to me! I do not know what to do! I would like to punish the daughter, and spare the mother, but I cannot do both," she groaned, in a state of miserable indecision.
It was some time before her trembling limbs permitted her to drag herself from the spot; and when she gained the house and her bed she could not rest. She tossed and groaned, and at length was seized with hysterical spasms, obliging the housemaid to call for assistance.
In the meantime Roma, far less excited than Sophie, had also retired to her room and flung herself down by the open window to await impatiently the inevitable good-night chat with her mother.
"I wish she would not come. Her affection grows really tiresome at times," she muttered rebelliously, as she heard the light footsteps outside her door.
Mrs. Clarke entered and sat down close to her daughter, putting her white hand tenderly on the girl's shoulder.
"Good girl, to come in when mamma sent for you," she said caressingly, as to a child.
"You—sent—for—me!" Roma faltered, in surprise.
"Yes, by Sophie. I feared you would take cold, bareheaded out in the night air."
"I have not seen Sophie," Roma muttered sullenly, with a downcast face.
"Why did Jesse leave so soon?" continued the mother curiously.
"He did not come. I have been walking in the grounds alone."
"But your papa said, dear–"
"Yes, I know; papa told you I was waiting for Jesse at the gate, but he never came. He disappointed me!"
"Why, that is very strange, dear. And you are grieved over it, I see. Your face is pale, and your whole frame trembles under my touch. Do not take it so hard, darling. Of course Jesse was detained. He will come to-morrow."
"He should have sent me an excuse, mamma!"
"He must have been prevented. I am sure he would not neglect you purposely. He will explain to-morrow."
Roma tossed her proud head, with a bitter laugh.
"I tell you, mamma, I will not brook such negligence. I have broken our engagement."
"Roma!"
The girl gave a reckless laugh of wounded pride.
"Yes; I sent him a note, with his ring, just now, setting him free."
"You were precipitate, Roma; you should have waited for an explanation."
"I did not choose to wait!"
"I fear you will regret it."
"I do not think it likely."
Mrs. Clarke gazed at her in sorrowful silence, whose reproach goaded Roma into adding haughtily:
"I wished to teach Jesse, early, a lesson that I am not to be neglected for anything; that I must be foremost always in his thoughts."
"But have you not gone too far in giving him this lesson? His thoughts will not belong to you now."
"He will bring back his ring, and beg me to take it back to-morrow."
"Are you certain, Roma?"
"As sure as I am of my life!" with a confident laugh.
"Well, perhaps you know him better than I do, Roma, but I fancied Jesse Devereaux very high-spirited—too high-spirited to bear dictation."
"He will have to bend to my will!" Roma cried arrogantly, and the gentle lady sighed, for she knew that her daughter made this her own motto in life. Power and dominion were hers by the force of "might makes right."
Mrs. Clarke rose with a sigh and touched Roma's cheeks with her lips, saying kindly:
"Well, I hope it will all come right, dear. Good night."
She returned to her own room, thinking: "Poor girl, she is the miserable victim of her own caprice. I could see that she is too terribly agitated to sleep an hour to-night."
CHAPTER VII.
GRANNY'S REVENGE
The half dozen pretty young girls who served for Miss Bray were light-hearted, hopeful young creatures in spite of their poverty, and at their daily work they sociably discussed their personal affairs with the freedom and intimacy of friends. Beaus and dress were the choice topics just as in higher circles of society. Liane Lester was the only quiet one among them, granny's edicts barring her both from lovers and finery.
Dolly Dorr was turning them all green with envy the next morning by boasting of the attentions she had received from the grand Mr. Devereaux, when one of the girls, Lottie Day, interposed:
"He is not likely to call on you again very soon, for I heard Brother Tom saying at breakfast this morning that Mr. Devereaux had broken his arm by a fall last night."
A chorus of compassionate remarks followed this announcement, and Dolly exclaimed vivaciously:
"I wish I might be allowed to nurse the poor fellow!"
Nan Brooks replied chaffingly:
"Miss Roma Clarke might have some objection to that scheme. They say she is engaged to him."
"That's why I want a good chance to cut her out. The proud, stuck-up thing!" cried Dolly indignantly, and from the remarks that followed it was plainly to be seen that Miss Clarke was not a favorite among the pretty sewing girls.
Roma had never lost an opportunity to impress them with the difference in their stations and her own, as if she were made of quite a superior sort of clay, and the high-spirited young creatures bitterly resented her false pride.
Not one of them but would have been glad to see Dolly "cut her out," as they phrased it, with the handsome Devereaux, but they frankly believed that there could be no such luck.
In their gay chatter, Liane alone remained silent, her beautiful head bent low over her sewing to hide the tears that had sprung to her eyes while they talked of Jesse Devereaux's accident.
"It was for my sake!" she thought gratefully, with rising blushes, though her heart sank like lead when she heard them saying he was engaged to Miss Clarke.
"He belongs to that proud, cruel girl! How I pity him!" she thought. "Yet, no doubt, he admires her very much. She does not show him the mean, selfish side of her character, as she does to us poor sewing girls."
She would have given anything if only she had not yielded to her passionate gratitude, and kissed his hand.
"He was disgusted at my boldness. He believed I had given him my love unasked, and he turned away in scorn. Yet how could I help it, he was so kind to me; first saving me from that ruffian, then from granny's blows? Oh, how could I help but love him? And I wish, like Dolly, that I might be permitted to nurse him as some reparation for his goodness," she thought, her cheeks burning and her heart throbbing wildly with the tenderness she could not stifle.
Every way she looked it seemed to her she could see his dark face, with its dazzling black eyes, looking at her with an admiration and tenderness they should not have shown, if he were indeed betrothed to another. Those glances and smiles had lured Liane's heart from her own keeping and doomed her to passionate unrest.
She listened to everything in silence, nursing her sweet, painful secret in her heart, afraid lest a breath should betray her, until suddenly Ethel Barry, the girl next her, exclaimed:
"How quiet Liane is this morning, not taking the least interest in anything we say!"
"No interest! Oh, Heaven!" thought Liane, but Dolly Dorr interposed:
"You would be quiet, too, if you had been beaten as Liane was by granny last night, and forced to seek refuge with a friend."
Liane crimsoned painfully at having her own troubles discussed, but granny's faults were public property, and she could not deny the truth.
"She is old and cross," she said, generously trying to offer some excuse.
"You need not take up for her, Liane. She doesn't deserve it!" cried one and all, while Mary Lang, the oldest and most staid of the six girls, quickly offered to share her own room with Liane if she would never return to the old woman.
She was an orphan, and rented a room with a widow, living cozily at what she called "room-keeping," and the girls had many jolly visits taking tea with Mary.
Liane thanked her warmly for her offer.
"But will you come?" asked Mary.
"I cannot."
"But why?"
The girl sighed heavily as she explained:
"Granny came to Mrs. Dorr's this morning, all penitence for her fault, and begged me to come home, promising never to beat me again."
"Do not trust her; do not go!" cried they all; but it was useless.
"She is old and poor. How could she get along without me? She would have to go to the poorhouse, and think how cruelly that would disgrace me!" cried Liane, who had no love for the old wretch, but supported her through mingled pride and pity.
And she actually returned to the shanty that day when her work was done, much to the relief of the old woman, who feared she had driven her meek slave off forever.
"So you are back? That's a good girl!" she said approvingly, and added: "They may tell you, those foolish girls, that I am too strict with you, Liane, but I'm an old woman, and I know what's best for you, girl. It was through letting your mother have her own way that she went to her ruin; that's why I'm so strict on you."
"My mother went to her—ruin!" faltered Liane, flushing crimson, but very curious, for she had never been able to extract a word from granny about her parents, except that they were both dead and had been no credit to her while living.
"Yes, her ruin," granny replied, with a malicious side glance at the startled girl. "She ran away from me to be an actress when she wasn't but seventeen, and a year later she came back to me with a baby in her arms—you! She had been deceived and deserted, and you, poor thing, had no lawful name but the one she had picked out of a book—Liane Lester."
"Oh, Heaven!" sobbed the girl, burying her white face in her hands, thinking that this blow was more cruel even than one of the old woman's beatings.
At heart Liane had a strange pride, and she was bitterly ashamed of her low origin and her cruel grandmother, whom no one respected because of her vile temper.
To be told now that she had no lawful name, that her mother had been deceived and deserted, was like a sword thrust in the poor girl's heart.
She sobbed bitterly, as granny added:
"I didn't never mean to tell you the truth, but now that you are getting wild and willful, like your mother was, it's best for you to know it, and take her fate as a warning."
Liane knew the accusation was not true, but she did not contradict it; she only sobbed:
"Did my mother die of a broken heart?"
"No, indeed, the minx; she got well and ran away again, and left you on my hands."
"Is she living now?"
"She is, for all I know to the contrary. But she takes good care never to come near me, nor to send me a dollar for your support."
"I take care of myself, and you, too, granny."
"Yes, the best you can; but she ought to help—the ungrateful creature!" granny exclaimed so earnestly that she could scarcely doubt the truth of her story.
It was a cruel blow to Liane's pride, and up in her bare little chamber under the eaves that night she lay awake many hours sobbing hopelessly over her fate.
"I would rather be dead than the daughter of a woman who was deceived and deserted! Mr. Devereaux would never give me a second thought if he knew," she sighed, with burning cheeks, as she sank into a restless sleep, troubled with dreams in which her hero's magnetic, dark eyes played the principal part—dreams so sweet that she grieved when the cold gray light of dawn glimmered upon her face and roused her to reality and another day of toil.
Very eagerly the girls questioned her when she reached Miss Bray's as to granny's mood, and she answered quietly:
"No, she did not scold me or strike me this time; she was kind in her way."
But she did not tell them granny's way of kindness, for her heart sank with shame as she looked around the group of her light-hearted friends, thinking how different their lot was from hers; all of them having honorable parentage, and dreading lest they would not wish to associate with her if they knew she had no right to her pretty name, Liane Lester, that her wronged mother had simply picked it out of a story book.
Miss Bray had a hurry order this morning—a white gown ruffled to the waist—so she set all the girls to work, and as they worked their tongues flew—they knew pretty nearly everything that had happened in the village since yesterday.
The choice bit of gossip was that Miss Clarke's maid, Sophie Nutter, had left her, and gone to Boston.
"They say she had a sick spell night before last, and went out of her head, talking awful things, so that the servants were quite frightened, and called up their mistress herself. Sophie had hysterical spasms, and accused Miss Roma of dreadful crimes right before her mother's face," said Mary Lang.
"Miss Roma must have been very angry—she has such a temper," cried Dolly, as she threaded her needle.
"Oh, Miss Roma wasn't present, and her mother took steps never to let her find it out, you may be sure."
"It must have been something awful," said Lottie Day.
"I should say so! She declared to Mrs. Clarke she had seen Miss Roma push Mr. Devereaux over the bluff and drown him! Just think—when Mr. Devereaux had not been near the place, but was lying at his hotel with a broken arm!"
"It was all a dream," said Miss Bray from her cutting board.
"Yes, but she could hardly be convinced yesterday morning that she had not really seen Miss Roma commit a murder. They had to send for the doctor to tell her that Mr. Devereaux was really alive at his hotel, having broken his arm by a fall on the sands. They say she went off into more hysterics when she heard that, and muttered: 'A fall over the cliff was more likely, but how he escaped death and got to shore again puzzles me. And why did she do it, anyway? It must have been a lovers' quarrel. I must get away from here. She will be pushing me over the bluff next.' And she had her trunk packed and went off to Boston, though she looked too ill to leave her bed," added Mary Lang, who had had the whole story straight from the housekeeper at Cliffdene.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT
"Oh, how rash and foolish I have been!" thought Roma, the next day, when she heard of Jesse Devereaux's accident.
"His arm broken by a fall on the sands last night—most probably on his way to see me, poor fellow! And in my angry resentment at my disappointment I have broken our engagement! How rash and foolish I am, and how much I regret it! I must make it up with him at once, my darling!" she cried repentantly, and hurried to her mother.
"Mamma, you were right last night. I regret my hasty action in dismissing Jesse without a hearing. How can I make it up with him?"
"You can send another note of explanation, asking his forgiveness," suggested Mrs. Clarke.
"Oh, mamma, if I could only go to him myself!" she cried, impatient for the reconciliation.
"It would not be exactly proper, my dear."
"But we are engaged."
"You have broken the engagement."
Roma uttered a cry of grief and chagrin that touched her mother's heart.
"Poor dear, you are suffering, as I foreboded, for last night's folly," she sighed.
"Please don't lecture me, mamma. I'm wretched enough without that!"
"I only meant to sympathize with you, dear."
"Then help me—that is the best sort of sympathy. I suppose it wouldn't be improper for you to call on Jesse, at his hotel, would it?"
"No, I suppose not."
"Then I will write my note to him, and you can take it—will you?"
Mrs. Clarke assented, and was on the point of starting when a messenger arrived with a note for Roma, replying to hers of the night before.
In spite of his broken right arm, Jesse Devereaux had managed a scrawl with his left hand, and Roma tore it open with a burning face and wildly beating heart, quickly mastering its contents, which read:
Mr. Devereaux accepts his dismissal with equanimity, feeling sure from this display of Miss Clarke's hasty temper that he has had a lucky escape.
It was cool, curt, airy, almost to insolence; a fitting match for her own; and Roma gasped and almost fainted.
Where was all her boasting, now, that she would teach him a lesson; that he would be back in a day begging her to take back his ring?
She had met her match; she realized it now; remembering, all too late, how hard he had been to win; a lukewarm lover, after all, and perhaps glad now of his release.
Oh, if she could but have recalled that silly note, she would have given anything she possessed, for all the heart she had had been lavished on him.
With a genuine sob of choking regret, she flung the humiliating note to her mother, and sank into a chair, her face hidden in her hands.
Mrs. Clarke read, and exclaimed:
"Really, he need not comment on your temper while displaying an equally hasty one so plainly. He must certainly be very angry, but I suppose his suffering adds to his impatience."
"He—he—will forgive me when he reads my second note!" sobbed Roma.
"But you do not intend to send it now, Roma!" exclaimed Mrs. Clarke, with a certain resentment of her own at Jesse's brusqueness.
But Roma could be very inconsistent—overbearing when it was permitted to her; humble when cowed.
She lifted up a miserable face, replying eagerly:
"Oh, yes, mamma, for I was plainly in the wrong, and deserve that he should be angry with me. But he will be only too glad to forgive me when he reads my note of repentance. Please go at once, dear mamma, and make my peace with Jesse! You will know how to plead with him in my behalf! Oh, don't look so cold and disapproving, mamma, for I love him so it would break my heart to lose him now. And—and—if he made love to any other girl, I should like to—to—see her lying dead at my feet! Oh, go; go quickly, and hasten back to me with my ring again and Jesse's forgiveness!"
She was half mad with anxiety and impatience, and she almost thrust Mrs. Clarke from the room in her eagerness for her return.
It mattered not that she could see plainly how distasteful it was to the gentle lady to go on such a mission; she insisted on obedience, and waited with passionate impatience for her mother's return, saying to herself:
"He is certainly very angry, but she will coax him to make up, and hereafter I will be very careful not to let him slip me again. I can be humble until we are married, and rule afterward. Mamma will not dare leave him without getting his forgiveness for me. She knows my temper, and that I would blame her always if she failed of success."
But there are some things that even a loving, slavish mother cannot accomplish, even at the risk of a child's anger. Jesse Devereaux's reconciliation to Roma was one of them.
The mother returned after a time, pale and trembling, to Roma, saying nervously:
"Call your pride to your aid, dear Roma, for Jesse was obdurate, and would not consent to renew the engagement. I am indeed sorry that I humbled myself to ask it."