CHAPTER XXXIII.
IN THE CONSERVATORY.
Several days have passed since the visit of Mamma Francoise to theWarburton mansion, with all its attendant circumstances; since theflight from the Francoise tenement, and Van Vernet's rescue from a fierydeath.
The Warburton Mansion is closed and gloomy. The splendid drawing-roomsare darkened and tenantless. The music-room is silent and shut from anyray of light. The library, where a dull fire glows in the grate, looksstately and somber. Only in the conservatory--where the flowers bloomand send out breaths of fragrance, and where the birds chirp and carolas if there were no sorrow nor death in the world--is there any lightand look of cheer.
Yesterday, the stately doors opened for the last exit of the master ofall that splendor. He went out in state, and was followed by animposing cortege. There was all the solemn pomp, all the grandeur of anaristocratic funeral. But when it was over, what was Archibald Warburtonmore than the poorest pauper who dies in a hospital and is buried by thecoroner?
To-day the doors are closed, the house is silent. The servants go aboutwith solemn faces and hushed voices. Alan Warburton has kept his ownroom since early morning, and Leslie has been visible only to her maidand to Winnie French.
She is alone in her dressing-room, at this moment, standing erect beforethe daintily-tiled fire-place, a look of hopeless despair upon hercountenance.
A moment since, she was sitting before the fire, so sad, so weary, thatit seemed to her that death had left the taint of his presence overeverything. Now, that which she held in her hand had brought her back tolife, and face to face with her future, with fearful suddenness.
It was a note coarsely written and odorous of tobacco, and it containedthese words:
We have waited for you five days. If you do not come to us before two more, they shall know at police headquarters that you can tell them who killed Josef Siebel. You see we have changed our residence.
Then followed the street and number of the Francoises' new abode. Therewas no date, no address, no signature. But Leslie knew too well all thatit did not say; comprehended to the full its hidden meaning.
She had not anticipated this blow; had never dreamed that they woulddare so much. Standing there, with her lips compressed and her fingersclutching the dirty bit of paper, she looked the future full in theface.
Stanhope had bidden her ignore their commands and fear nothing. But thenhe never could have anticipated _this_. If she could see him; couldconsult him once again. But that was impossible; he had told her so.
For many moments she stood moveless and silent, her brow contracted, thedesperate look in her eyes growing deeper, her lips compressingthemselves into fixed firm lines.
Then she thrust the note into her pocket, and turned from the grate.
"It is the last straw!" she muttered, in a low monotone. "But thereshall be no more hesitation; we have had enough of that. They may dotheir worst now, and--" she shut her teeth with a sharp sound--"and Iwill frustrate them, at the cost of my honor or my life!"
There was no timidity, no tremor of hesitation in her movements, as shecrossed the room and opened the door. Her hand was firm, her stepsteady, her face as fixed as marble; but it looked, in its whiteimmobility, like a face that was dead.
She crossed the hall and entered the chamber occupied by her friend. Amaid was there, engaged in sewing.
Miss French had just left the room, she said. Miss French felt oppressedby the loneliness and gloom. She had gone below, probably to theconservatory.
Winnie was in the conservatory, holding a book in one listless hand,idly fingering a trailing vine with the other. Her eyes, usually somerry and sparkling, were tear-dimmed and fixed on vacancy. Her prettyface was unnaturally woeful; her piquant mouth, sad and drooping.
She sprang up, however, with a quick exclamation, when Leslie's handparted the clustering vines, and Leslie's self glided in among theexotics.
"Sit where you are, Winnie," said Leslie, in a voice which struck herlistener as strangely chill and monotonous. "Let me sit beside you. It'snot quite so dreary here, and I've something to say to you."
Casting a look of startled inquiry upon her, Winnie resumed her seatamong the flowery vines, and Leslie sank down beside her, resuming, asshe did so, and in the same even, icy tone:
"Dear, I want you to promise me, first of all, to keep what I am aboutto say a secret."
Winnie lifted two inquiring eyes to the face of her friend, but said noword.
"I know, Winnie, that you have ever been my truest, dearest friend,"pursued Leslie. "But now--ah! I must put your friendship to a new,strange test. I feel as if my secret would be less a burden if shared bya true friend, and you are that friend. Winnie, I have a sad, sadsecret."
The young girl turned her face slowly away from Leslie's gaze, and whenit was completely hidden among the leaves and blossoms, she breathed, ina scarcely audible whisper:
"I know it, Leslie; I guessed."
"What!" queried Leslie, a look of sad surprise crossing her face, "you,too, have guessed it? And I thought it so closely hidden! Oh," with asudden burst of passion, "did my husband suspect it, too, then?"
"No, dear," replied Winnie, turning her face toward Leslie but keepingher eyes averted; "no, I do not believe that Archibald guessed. He wastoo true and frank himself to suspect any form of falsity in another."
"_Falsity!_" Leslie rose slowly to her feet, her face fairly livid.
Winnie also arose, and seizing one of Leslie's hands began, in a brokenvoice:
"Leslie, forgive the word! Oh, from the very first, I have known yoursecret, and pitied you. I knew it because--because I, too, am a woman,and can read a woman's heart. But Archibald never guessed it, andAlan--"
She broke off abruptly, wringing her hands as if tortured by her ownwords.
But Leslie coldly completed the sentence. "Alan! He knows it?"
"Oh, yes. It began by his doubting your love for his brother, andthen--the knowledge--that you cared--for him--"
Across Leslie's pallid face the red blood came surging, and a bitter crybroke from her lips; a cry that bore with it all her constrainedcalmness.
"_That I cared!_" she repeated wildly. "Winnifred French, what are yousaying! God of Heaven! is _that_ madness known, too?"
She flung herself upon the divan, her form shaken by a passion ofvoiceless sobs.
"Oh, Leslie, don't!" cried Winnie, flinging herself down beside herfriend. "We cannot always control our hearts; and indeed, dear, _I_ donot blame you for loving him. Leslie," lowering her voice softly, "it isno sin for you to love him, now."
"No sin!" Leslie's voice was regaining its calmness, but not its icytone. "Winnie, _you_ can say that? Ah! a woman _can_ read a woman'sheart, and I have read yours: you love Alan Warburton."
"I? no, no!"
"I say yes; and but for your Quixotic notions of loyalty and friendship,you would be his promised wife to-day. Winnie, listen; having begunanother confession I will make my confidence entire. I never dreamedthat you or--or Alan, guessed my horrible folly. I did not come tointrust to your keeping that dead secret. You tell me that it is no sinto love Alan now. Winnie, the greatest sin of my life has been that Ipromised to marry Archibald Warburton without loving him. But, at least,I was heart-free then; I cared for no other. We were betrothed threemonths before Alan came home, and I--. But let that pass; it is thecrowning-point of my humiliation. I did love Alan Warburton. If I lovedhim still, I could not say this so calmly. Winnie, believe me; thatmadness is over. To-day Alan Warburton is to me--my husband's brother,nothing more; just as I am nothing, in his eyes, save a woman who wearswith ill grace the proud name of Warburton. This may seem strange toyou. It will not appear so strange when you hear what I am about totell. Alan Warburton's egotism has cured me effectually. I am free fromthat folly, thank Heaven, but I shall never cease to hate myself for it.And my humiliation is now complete, since you tell me that Alan knew ofmy madness. But, Winnie, this is not what I c
ame to tell you. I haveanother secret, dear, but this one is not like the other, a sin of myown making. It is a story of the craftiness of others, and of myweakness--yes, wickedness."
"Hush, Leslie," said Winnie impetuously, "I won't hear you talk ofwickedness. I am glad you no longer care for Alan; and as for me, I justhate him; the detestable, stiff-necked--pshaw, don't talk as if you hadwronged _him_!"
There is a movement of the heavy curtains that separate this bower fromthe library. Some one is approaching, but Leslie, unaware of this nearpresence, answers sadly:
"Ah, Winnie, you don't know all. I have dared to unite myself to thehaughty house of Warburton; to take upon myself a name old, honored andunsullied, and to drag that name--"
A sound close at hand causes them both to start. They lift their eyes tosee, pale and erect among the roses and lilies and trailing vines,wearing upon his handsome face a look of mingled sadness and scorn--AlanWarburton.
Dangerous Ground; or, The Rival Detectives Page 34
