Chapter X: “i Will Never Forgive Her.”

“Mrs. Strangemore, I think yours is the most romantic marriage I ever heard of. You were the merest child, weren’t you?” said Virgie Mason, curiously.

The gentlemen were lingering over their cigars, and the ladies had gone back to the parlor. Virgie, a pretty and very voluble young lady, started the after-dinner conversation with the above remark.

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” Miss Drusilla snapped to herself. “Now, what under heaven does that chatterbox want to discuss Nina’s marriage for? And before that hateful St. Alban’s woman, too!”

She hoped that Nina would, as _she_ mentally phased it, “shut her up;” but the girl only answered, in a dreamy sort of way:

“Yes, I was only a child--barely thirteen years old.”

Sibyl St. Alban flashed her a look of hate under her drooping lids. Only eighteen, while she was twenty-six.

“Were you very much impressed with the importance of your position--married, although but a child in years?” continued inquisitive Virgie, while her bosom friend, Miss Starr, tried to telegraph her a warning glance, but failed utterly, because Virgie’s grey eyes were fixed admiringly on Nina’s agitated face, as she answered, slowly:

“I was very much impressed by the dying words of Talbot’s mother addressed to me. I have never forgotten one single word.”

“They were solemn words, perhaps,” the girl said, with irrepressible curiosity.

“Yes,” her hostess answered. “Would you like to hear them? These were the words she said:”

She looked straight into Sibyl St. Alban’s face as she repeated:

“‘Talbot is your husband now, my darling. You will belong to him always, and he to you. Promise me now that you will give him all your love and all your life, that you will always try to secure his happiness.’”

The blue-eyed beauty flashed her a furtive look of defiance, but her heart sank with fear. It seemed to her that Nina had already penetrated her secret, and that she was appealing to the dead against her.

“How sweet! how romantic!” said Miss Starr’s gentle voice.

“You promised her, I know,” said Virgie, with that confidence with which one young, noble heart reads another.

“Yes, I promised her,” Nina answered, and suddenly at the thought of all the wasted love and trust she had lavished on Talbot Strangemore a pulse in her heart seemed to snap asunder--her bitter pride seemed to fail her--she broke down before them all, and hiding her face in her hands, sobbed passionately.

“Oh, I was too thoughtless, making you talk about those long past things; I am so sorry! Do forgive me dear Mrs. Strangemore,” cried Virgie, full of compunction.

Miss Drusilla scowled at the penitent girl.

“Let her alone, please, she is not used to being so badgered,” she cried, testily. “Nina, my dear, let me take you to your room until you feel better--or let me call Talbot.”

“Not for worlds,” shivered the girl, dashing the tear-drops from her eyes, and turning them full of superb wrath upon Sibyl St. Alban. “Why should you call him to my side to comfort me?” she flashed. “He is not mine, no, not even though God and his mother gave him to me! He belongs to that woman there, who this evening put her arms around him and rested her head on his breast. Do not look at me so strangely, all of you, I know all that you thought was hidden from me! Aunt Drusilla, I heard all that Talbot confided to you, yesterday. I know that Talbot Strangemore is my husband in name only, for this woman here who cast him aside when he was a boy to marry a richer man, has thrown her fetters around him again. She is cruel, heartless, shameless, for she kept him from me all the time while I was waiting for him and loving him so truly. She is false and wicked and I hate her for what she has done--”

“Nina, hush, dear!” Miss Drusilla implored.

“I will not hush!” the girl raved, madly, “she is a wicked woman, and I pray God to punish her for her sin. I will never forgive her for what she has done by the power of her cruel beauty. I--”

She looked up, saw Talbot Strangemore gazing at her in wonder and dismay from the open door-way and with an inarticulate moan of shame, she fell forward senseless and apparently lifeless, at Miss Drusilla’s feet.