Chapter XXXIV: The Suspended Sword

The kind-hearted Warrens could not congratulate Maisie enough on the happy finale of her love-story.

“It is better than a play,” they said, and they rejoiced over her with as much pride as if she had been their own daughter.

“You will be a grand, rich lady now, but you deserve it all,” cried Mrs. Warren warmly, as she kissed her beautiful protégée--more beautiful now than ever, with that light of love and joy on her exquisite face.

The hours flew by on wings of joy and the starry night brought happy dreams to Maisie--dreams of her grand and noble lover, whose devotion was rewarded at last by the love of her whole heart.

She dressed herself with great care and taste next morning, with something, too, of nervousness at the thought of encountering Josephine and the other Barringtons. She wondered if she could keep up her masquerade before their keen eyes, for Mrs. Warren had persuaded her to preserve her incognito a little longer, just for a greater dramatic effect when she confessed it. It seemed as if Maisie were living a real drama with a startling dénouement--more startling, alas! than they even guessed.

Quite early after breakfast, while she was waiting in their parlor for her lover’s coming, Burton Kingwood was announced.

“More beautiful than ever,” he exclaimed, as he bowed over her hand, while his eyes said plainly that he would like to clasp her in his arms and press her to his heart.

At the mere sight of her all his old love returned and the flirtation with Josephine was temporarily forgotten. His heart throbbed wildly and his cheek glowed with passion.

“You see that I could not stay away from you. I am come to try my fate again,” he cried.

Her fair face paled a little in sympathy and she answered gently:

“I am very sorry. If you had waited a little you would have heard that I--that I----”

“You do not mean that you love another?” he interrupted wildly.

“Yes,” she answered, with a pride she could not conceal, she was so happy this golden spring morning.

“A curse on my rival!” he groaned beneath his breath, and added wildly:

“What is his name?”

At that moment, as if in answer to his question, the door opened, admitting Barrington.

“Ah, Violet!” he cried, advancing joyously, then stopping short at sight of Kingwood, with a slight frown.

They greeted each other distantly. Then the discomfited suitor made some incoherent excuses and took a hasty leave.

“So you were acquainted with Burton Kingwood?” he cried, in slight surprise, and she smiled.

“He used to play the villain in our company.”

“And looks quite capable of playing it in real life,” commented Barrington. “What a jealous, angry frown he gave me, plainly betraying himself as a rejected lover.”

Maisie blushed warmly, but answered with her usual frankness:

“I am not going to deny it, but as this is the third time I have said no to him, I hope he will seek consolation elsewhere.”

“Poor fellow, I cannot help but pity him. It is hard to love and to lose,” said Barrington, with ready sympathy as he stole a kiss from the dewy, scarlet lips, and added: “One sweet half-hour together and I am going to take you to call on my folks, who are all eagerness to meet you.”

He sat down by her side and in a minute they forgot all about the poor, rejected lover who had gone away in bitter anger, cursing alike his own hard fate and his successful rival.

He sought solitude to puzzle over the strange mystery which confronted him--the mystery of Maisie’s masquerade.

As the reader knows, he had found out the girl’s identity long ago, and he was astonished to find her and Barrington together while she still flaunted in borrowed plumes.

“How has she managed to fool him, and why does she keep it up?” he asked himself in wonder.

Strangely enough, he did not yet know that Maisie’s soldier husband lived in the person of Lieutenant Barrington.

Byrd Barrington might have had half a dozen brothers for aught he knew to the contrary.

He had met with the Barringtons in Paris and attached himself to the Bonners, with whom Josephine went everywhere. The sick husband he had seen but twice, and did not know that his name was Delmar. Josephine, who scarcely remembered his existence while in the midst of her varied pleasures, only referred to him as the lieutenant, taking lofty pride in his martial title.

So Kingwood was as ignorant as Maisie of Delmar’s continued existence and destined to almost as great a shock when he found it out.

Thwarted in his passion for Maisie, his thoughts returned to Josephine and their pronounced flirtation.

“I believe she’s downright in love with me, and, if I play my cards straight, I can marry her when the poor lieutenant dies and get a pretty wife with a big dowry--not but that I’d rather have Maisie without a rag to her back. But that Barrington has cut in before me, and that’s hopeless, so I’d as well be making up to Josephine again,” his thoughts ran, and, after waiting a while for her to come out, and being disappointed, he got up and sauntered over to the hotel, boldly resolving to call on the Barringtons and see for himself if the sick soldier was really bad enough to have warranted him dragging his wife away from all the delights of Paris to his sick-bed.

He was readily admitted to the private parlor, where Aunt Constance, with her nephew and his wife, were awaiting the return of Byrd with his promised bride.

Delmar Barrington, in his character of invalid lay on a sofa wrapped in his dressing-gown, a wan shadow of his former self, his hollow, dark eyes glaring jealous disapproval of Kingwood, who did not hesitate to make eyes at Josephine before her husband’s scandalized face.

Josephine was bored to death by her husband and his aunt, and she was so delighted with her admirer’s presence that she could not help brightening up in the most magical fashion, returning his frank glances with shy coquetry.

Aunt Constance glanced anxiously at her nephew and saw that his large, black eyes were fairly blazing in his pallid face. She feared that he was on the verge of a passionate outbreak, but the imminent danger was happily averted at that moment by the entrance of Byrd Barrington, with his lovely betrothed leaning on his arm.

He had tried to prepare them for her wonderful likeness to the dead, but a tremor of amazement ran over all three at the first sight of that lovely face.

It was as if Maisie had come out of the grave where she had been lying over a year, and Josephine recoiled in superstitious dread with something of the horror she had felt that night when she saw Maisie’s pale, agonized face peering in at her through the window. Her face went dead-white again and she barely repressed the cry of alarm that sprang to her lips.

Mrs. French, too, trembled like a leaf as the girl was led up to her and introduced as Miss Summers.

She was not usually a demonstrative woman, but she was so deeply moved that impulsively she drew the girl to her and warmly kissed her rosy lips.

“Forgive me, I could not help kissing Byrd’s sweetheart,” she said, and Maisie answered: “Thank you,” as Byrd turned her toward the sofa close by his aunt.

“Lieutenant Barrington,” he said simply, and Maisie could have screamed aloud with nervous agitation as she turned and met the startled, admiring gaze of Delmar’s burning dark eyes.

If Byrd had only said “my brother,” the whole tragedy of fate would have burst upon her in a moment, but again, as by some strange chance, he had spoken of him as the lieutenant, all the family taking cordial pride in his soldierly rank.

Maisie had never seen the two Barrington cousins, one of whom she thought Josephine had married, or she would have known that both were blond men like Byrd. Instead, she thought dizzily what a startling resemblance the young soldier had to her dead husband, so startling that it frightened her, and the blood retreated from her face and her voice sounded hoarse and strange as she touched his hand and murmured some conventional words of greeting.

Delmar, on his part, was also deeply moved, though better prepared for the likeness to the dead. So his voice and words were cordial as he welcomed her kindly as his future relative.

Then Josephine, who had recovered herself by now, advanced with a smile, exclaiming:

“We cannot regard you as a stranger, Miss Summers. You look so much like a dear lost one we once knew and loved. I hope we shall be the best of friends.”

Maisie did not refuse the olive-branch. She did not hate the arch coquette so much now as when she thought she had married Byrd. In her own great happiness she had not a hard thought toward any one and even smiled radiantly on Burton Kingwood as she met his wondering glance.

The young man indeed felt like one in a strange dream as he sat there watching Maisie in her rôle of Violet Summers, asking himself in wonder why she chose to play a part instead of revealing herself frankly to the friends she loved.

As he watched her happy face while she talked and intercepted her radiant glances toward Byrd his jealous love turned to envious hate, and he felt as if he would be willing to make almost any personal sacrifice to break her heart and wreck her life.

It did not seem to him as if such an opportunity could ever come to him. The wildest stretch of fancy could not have led him to believe that the chance he desired was ready to his hand, that a suspended sword hung over that beautiful head and was even now about to fall.

All in one terrible moment the blow fell, hurling her from bliss to despair, from heaven to hell.

The pity of it was that the word of fate came from Byrd’s own lips.

Josephine had turned the talk to Paris. She was asking Maisie if she had been there, and the girl had mentioned the art-gallery episode.

“I saw you and Byrd there together before a portrait that Mrs. Warren thought resembled me. We thought then that you must be his wife,” she said.

Josephine laughed lightly.

“A natural mistake, as he had to be my escort everywhere. Lieutenant Barrington was not strong enough to go about.”

Byrd Barrington sighed deeply as he added to her speech:

“I shall never cease to regret that my brother was too ill to enjoy the sights with us.”

“My brother,” he had said at last, and Maisie started violently and went deadly white all in a moment.

Her great purplish blue eyes, dilating wildly, flashed on Delmar’s face, then back to Byrd, while she faltered wildly:

“Your brother?”

He did not comprehend the terrible agitation of her face and voice, and answered smilingly:

“Have I not told you before that Delmar--Lieutenant Barrington, the hero of El Caney--is my brother?”

“Heaven have mercy!”

The suspended sword had fallen at last, and, as if its keen point had pierced her heart, Maisie threw up her arms with that frenzied cry and sank swooning to the floor.