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Dreadful Temptation

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<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> Jack Mainwaring—for it was indeed himself—looked at his sister-in-law with a half-sarcastic smile. He had no love for Lora's relations. He considered that they had treated him badly. He was as well-born as they were, and had been better off until Xenie had married the old millionaire. Yet they had flouted his love for Lora and refused to sanction an engagement between them, hoping to send her to the city and find a richer market for her beauty. So it was with a smile of scorn he contemplated the agitation of the beautiful young widow. "Yes, Mrs. St. John, it is Jack Mainwaring," he said, grimly. "Don't be alarmed, I won't eat you." Xenie regarded him with a stare of haughty amazement. "I do not apprehend such a calamity," she said, icily. "But—I thought you dead." "Yes," he said. "I have passed through some terrible disasters, but luckily I escaped with my life. You will not care to hear about that, though, so I will not digress. I will say that I came up from the country this morning. I[Pg 79] went down there yesterday to look for Lora. You will wonder, perhaps, why I am here this morning." Mrs. Carroll had sent the nurse away as soon as he entered. They were alone, she and Xenie and the child, with the handsome, desperate young man, looking as if he hovered on the verge of madness. He had not even spoken to his mother-in-law, who regarded him with a species of terror. Xenie fell back into her seat at the mention of Lora's name. Her lip quivered and her eyes filled. "You—you surely have not come for Lora," she said, and her voice was almost a moan of pain. "You surely must have heard——" "That my wife is dead," he said, and his voice shook so that it was scarcely audible. "Yes, they told me she was drowned. Is it true?" "She—she drowned herself," answered Xenie, in a low tone of passionate despair. She had not asked him to sit down, but Captain Mainwaring dropped down heavily into a chair with a groan of mortal agony, and hid his convulsed face in his hands. "Oh, my God, no!" he cried out, wildly. "They did not tell me that. It is not true. It cannot be true. She would not have done that, my little Lora!" "It is all your fault," cried out Mrs. Carroll, confronting him with a pale face and flashing eyes. "You drove her to it, Jack Mainwaring, you broke her heart. You killed her as surely as if your hand had pushed her into that great, cruel sea where she found her death!" "She was my wife—I loved her," said the sailor in a voice of anguish, as he lifted his wet eyes to the face of the angry mother of his lost one. "You were the cruel one. You denied her my love, and perhaps when you found out that she belonged to me in spite of you, you tormented her to death." Mrs. Carroll did not answer him. She was afraid to speak. A moment ago, in her rage and excitement, words had hovered on her lips that would have betrayed the fact that a child had been born to Lora. But a quick telegraphic signal from her daughter arrested the truth on her lips. So she remained silent, fearful that some angry, unguarded word might betray Xenie's perilous secret. Meanwhile little Jack clung to Mrs. St. John's dress, and regarded the big, handsome, bearded seaman with fearless, fascinated eyes. The door opened suddenly and Howard Templeton stepped into the room, but no one saw him or heard him, so intense was the excitement that pervaded their hearts. [Pg 80] He was about to advance toward Mrs. Carroll when he saw Jack Mainwaring sitting in a position that screened the new-comer from the ladies, while it exposed to full view his own anguished and tear-wet face. Howard paused instantly and stared at the handsome sailor with increasing surprise each moment, until that expression was succeeded by one of fervent pleasure. He had known Jack Mainwaring quite well several years before, and had been sincerely sorry when he had heard of his loss at sea. Now, after one puzzled moment, resulting from Jack's long, glossy beard, he recognized him, and his heart leaped with joy to think that Lora's husband was still numbered among the living. "But I did not come here to bandy words," continued poor Jack, lifting his bowed head dejectedly. "Mrs. St. John, will you tell me how long my wife has been dead?" Xenie named the date in a half-choked voice. It was fourteen months before. Captain Mainwaring took a well-worn letter from his pocket and ran over it again, while his manly face worked convulsively with emotion; then he said, in a voice that quivered with deep feeling: "My poor Lora, my unfortunate wife, left me a child, then. Where is that child, Mrs. St. John?" A blank, terrified silence overwhelmed the two women. Instinctively Xenie's arm crept around the child at her knee and drew him closer to her side. Captain Mainwaring had scarcely noticed little Jack before, but Xenie's peculiar action attracted his attention. He rose and took a step toward her. "You do not answer me," he said. "Can it be, then, that this is Lora's child and mine?" Xenie caught the child up and held him tightly to her breast, while she faced the speaker with wild, angry eyes, like a lioness at bay. "Back, back!" she cried, "do not touch him! This is my child—mine, do you hear? How dare you claim him?" "Yours, yours," cried the sailor, retreating before the passionate vehemence of her voice and gestures; "I—I did not know you had a child, madam." "You did not," cried Xenie with breathless defiance. "No matter. Ask mamma, there. Ask Doctor Shirley! Ask anyone you choose. They will all tell you that this is my child—my child, do you understand?" "Madam, I am not disputing your word," cried poor Jack, in amaze at her angry vehemence. "Of course you know best whose child it is. But will you tell me what became of Lora's baby?" [Pg 81] Mrs. St. John stared at him silently a moment, then she answered, coldly: "Lora's baby? Are you mad, Jack Mainwaring? Who told you that she had a baby?" His answer was a startling one: "Lora told me so herself, Mrs. St. John." Xenie St. John reeled backward a few steps, and stared at the speaker with parted lips from which every vestige of color had retreated, leaving them pallid and bloodless as a ghost's. "What, under Heaven, do you mean?" she inquired, in a hollow voice. Captain Mainwaring held up the letter in his hand. "Do you see this letter?" he said. "It is the last one Lora wrote me. I received it at the last port we touched before our ship was burned. She begged me to come back to her at once if I could, and save her name from the shadow of disgrace. She told me that a child was coming to us in the spring. I—oh, God, I was frantic! I meant to return on the first homeward bound vessel! Then came the terrible fire and loss of the vessel. Days and days we floated on a raft—myself and three others—then we were rescued by a merchant vessel bound for China. We had to go there before we could come home. For months and months I endured inconceivable tortures thinking of my poor young wife's terrible strait. And after all—when I thought I should so soon be at home and kiss her tears away—I find her dead!" His voice broke, he buried his face in his hands, and, strong man though he was, sobbed aloud like a child. They watched him, those four—Templeton, himself unseen—the frightened mother and daughter, and the little child with its sweet lips puckered grievingly at the man's loud sobs. But in a minute the man mastered himself, and went on sadly: "I was half frantic when I heard that my wife was dead. But, after awhile, I remembered the little child. I said to myself, I will go and seek it. If it be a little girl I will call it Lora. It may comfort me a little for its mother's loss." He paused a moment, and looked at the pale, statue-like woman before him. "Where is the child?" he asked, almost plaintively. Her eyes fell before his earnest gaze, her cheeks blanched to the pallor of marble. "She must have been mistaken," she faltered. "There was no child." The young sailor regarded her keenly. "Madam, I do not believe you," he answered, bluntly.[Pg 82] "You are trying to deceive me. I ask you again, where is my child? Is it dead? Was it drowned with its hapless young mother?"' "I tell you there was no child," she answered, defiantly, stung to bitterest anger by his words. "But there was a child," persisted Captain Mainwaring. "Lora would not have deceived me." "Not willfully, I know, but she was mistaken, I tell you," was the passionate response. "I do not believe you, Mrs. St. John. You are trying to deceive me for some purpose of your own. You kept my wife from me, and you would fain keep my child, also. You have hidden it away from me! Nay, I believe on my soul that it is my child you hold in your arms and claim as your own. Give it to me," he cried, advancing upon her. But she retreated from him in terror. "Never! never!" she cried out, in a passionate voice. "Xenie, Xenie!" cried Howard Templeton, advancing sternly, "do not stain your soul longer with such a horrible falsehood. Give Jack Mainwaring the child! You well know that it is his and Lora's own!" <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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