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Dreadful Temptation

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<h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2> Like one stricken motionless by terror, she stood still and looked up into the proud face and scornful blue eyes of the man she had thought far, far away beneath the skies of his native land. The ground seemed slipping from beneath her feet, the wild elements seemed whirling aimlessly over her head; she forgot Lora, she forgot the child that nestled against her breast; she remembered nothing else but her enemy's presence and the deadly peril to which her secret was exposed. "Howard Templeton," she panted forth wildly, "why are you here?" "Mrs. St. John," he returned, with a bitter smile, "I might rather ask you that question. What are you doing here in this stormy dawn, with your bare head and your thin slippers and evening dress? Permit me to offer you my cloak. Do you forget that it is cold and rainy, that you court certain death for yourself and the—the——" He paused without ending the sentence and looked at the little white bundle lying helpless in her arms, and a steely gleam of hatred flared into his eyes. "The child," she said, finishing the sentence for him with a passionate quiver of joy in her voice, "my child—Howard Templeton—the little one that has come to me to avenge his mother's wrongs. Look at him. This is your uncle's heir, this tiny little babe! He will strip you of every dollar you now hold so unjustly, and his mother's revenge will then be complete." She turned back a corner of the blanket, and gave him a glimpse of the little pink face, and the babe set up a feeble and pitiful little wail. It was as though the unconscious little creature repeated its mother's plaintive remonstrance against making such an innocent little angel the instrument for consummating a cruel revenge. But Xenie was deaf to the voice of conscience, or she might have fancied that its accusing voice spoke loudly in the wail of the little babe. She looked at Howard Templeton with a glow of triumph in her face, her black eyes shining like stars. The wind and the rain tossed her dark, loosened ringlets[Pg 48] about her, making her look like some mad creature with that wicked glow of anger and revenge in her beautiful, spirited face. "Say, is it not a glorious revenge?" she cried. "You scorned me because I was poor. I was young, I was fair, I was loving and true, but all that counted for nothing in your eyes. For lack of gold you left me. Did you think my heart would break in silence? Ah, no, I swore to give you back pang for pang, and I have taken from you all that your base heart ever held dear—gold, shining gold. Through me you will be stripped of all. Is it not a brilliant victory? Ha! ha!" His blue eyes flashed down into her vivid, black ones, giving her hate for hate and scorn for scorn. In a low, concentrated voice, he said: "Are you not afraid to taunt me thus? Look there at that seething ocean beneath its shroud of mist. Do you see that no one is near? Do you know that there is no one in hearing? Suppose I should take you up with your revenge in your arms and cast you into yonder sea? The opportunity is mine, the temptation is great." "Yet you will not do it," she answered, giving him a glance of superb scorn. "Why do you say I will not do it?" he asked; "why should I spare you? You have not spared me! You are trying to wrest my inheritance from me. We are sworn and deadly foes. I have nothing to lose by your death, everything to gain. Why should I not take the present opportunity and sweep you from my path forever?" He paused and looked down at her in passionate wrath while he wondered what she would say to all this; but she was silent. "Again I ask you why should I spare you?" he repeated; "are you not afraid of my vengeance, Xenie St. John?" "No, I am not afraid," she repeated, defiantly, yet even as she spoke he saw that a shudder that was not of the morning's cold shook her graceful form. A sudden consciousness of the truth that lurked in his words had rushed over her. "Yes, we are deadly foes," she repeated to herself, with a deeper consciousness of the meaning of those words than she had ever had before. "Why should he spare me, since I am wholly in his power?" His voice broke in suddenly on her swift, tumultuous thoughts, making her start with its cold abruptness. "Ah, I see that you begin to realize your position," he said, icily. "What is your revenge worth now in this moment of your deadly peril? Is it dearer to you than your life?" [Pg 49] "Yes, it is dearer to me than my life," she answered, steadily. "If nothing but my life would buy revenge for me I would give it freely!" He regarded her a moment with a proud, silent scorn. She returned the gaze with interest, but even in her passionate anger and hatred she could not help owning to her secret heart that she had never seen him looking so handsome as he did just then in the rough but well-fitting tweed suit, with the glow of the morning on his fair face, and that light of scorn in his dark-blue eyes. Suddenly he spoke: "Well, go your way, Xenie St. John. You are in my way, but it is not by this means I will remove you from it. I am not a murderer—your life is safe from my vengeance. Yet I warn you not to go further in your wild scheme of vengeance against me. It can only result in disaster to yourself. I am forewarned of your intentions and your wicked plot. You can never wrest from me the inheritance that Uncle John intended for me!" "We shall see!" she answered, with bold defiance, undaunted by his threatening words. Then, as the little babe in her arms began to moan pitifully again, she remembered the dreadful trouble that had sent her out into the rain, and turning from him with a sudden wail of grief, she began to run along the shore, looking wildly around for some trace of the lost one. She heard Howard's footsteps behind her, and redoubled her speed, but in a minute his hand fell on her shoulder, arresting her flight. He spoke hastily: "I heard you calling for Lora before I met you—speak, tell me if she also is wandering out here like a madwoman, and why?" She turned on him fiercely. "What does it matter to you, Howard Templeton?" "If she is lost I can help you to find her," he retorted. "What can you do? A frail woman wandering in the rain with a helpless babe in your arms!" Bitterly as she hated him, an overpowering sense of the truth of his words rushed over her. She hated that he should help her and yet she could not let her own angry scruples stand in the way of finding Lora. She looked up at him and the hot tears brimmed over in her black eyes and splashed upon her white cheeks. "Lora is missing," she answered, in a broken voice. "She has been ill, and last night she wandered in her mind. This morning while mamma and I slept she must have stolen away in her delirium. Mamma was prostrated by the shock, and I came out alone to find her." [Pg 50] "You should have left the child at home. It will perish in the rain and cold," he said, looking at her keenly. She shivered and grew white as death, but pressed the babe closer to her breast that the warmth of her own heart might protect its tender life. "Why did you bring the child?" he persisted, still watching her keenly. "I will not tell you," she answered, defiantly, but with a little shiver of dread. What if he had seen her when she found it on the sands? "Very well; you shall not stay out longer with it, at least. Granted that we are deadly foes—still I have a man's heart in my breast. I would not willingly see a woman perish. Go home, Xenie, and care for your mother. I will undertake the search for Lora. If I find her you shall know it immediately. I promise you." He took the heavy cloak from his own shoulders and fastened it around her shivering form. She did not seem to notice the action, but stood still mechanically, her dark, tearful eyes fixed on the mist-crowned sea. He followed her gaze, and said in a quick tone of horror: "You do not believe she is in there? It would be too horrible!" "Oh, my God!" Mrs. St. John groaned, with a quiver of awful dread in her voice. He shivered through all his strong, lithe young frame. The thought of such a death was terrible to him. "You said she was ill and delirious?" he said, abruptly. "Yes," she wailed. "Poor Lora—poor little Lora!" he exclaimed, with a sudden tone of pity. "Alas! is it not too probable that she has met her death in those fatal waves?" "Oh, she could not, she could not," Xenie moaned, wildly. "She hated the sea. Her lover was drowned in it. She could not bear the sight or the sound of it." He did not answer for a moment. He was looking away from her with a great, solemn dread and pity in his beautiful, blue eyes. Suddenly he said, abruptly: "Go home, Mrs. St. John, and stay there until you hear news. I will go and arouse the village. I will have help in the search, and if she is found we will bring her home. If she is not, God help you, for I fear she has drowned herself in the sea." With a long, moaning cry of anguish, Xenie turned from him and sped along the wet sand back to her mother. Howard Templeton watched the flying figure on its way with a grave trouble in his handsome face, and when she was out of sight, he turned in an opposite direction and[Pg 51] walked briskly along the sand, looking carefully in every direction. "They talk of judgment," he muttered. "Has God sent this dreadful thing upon Xenie St. John for her sinful plans? If it is so, surely it will bring her to repentance. In the face of such a terrible affliction, she must surely be afraid to persist in attempting such a stupendous fraud." <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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