Back Aa

Dreadful Temptation

Close

<h2>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> Xenie St. John turned with a half-stifled shriek and looked at the daring intruder. She saw her enemy standing in the center of the room looking down at her from his princely hight with a lightning flash of scorn in his bright blue eyes, his lips set sternly under his curling blonde mustache. He was elegantly attired in the most fashionable morning costume, and his fair, proud Saxon beauty had never appeared more striking. Xenie's dark eyes flashed their gaze into his blue ones with a blaze of passionate defiance. "How dare you say so?" she cried, stamping her small, slippered foot upon the rich carpet with angry vehemence. "Are you mad, Howard Templeton?" He stood still, folding his arms across his broad breast, regarding her with a steady calmness strangely at variance with her passionate vehemence. "No, I am not mad," he answered, in low, even tones, while his blue eyes gazed strangely into her own—"I am not mad, and I dare assert nothing but what I know to be the truth. So I repeat what I said to you just now. Give Captain Mainwaring the innocent little child in whose name you have perpetrated such a monstrous fraud. It is his child and your sister's. I will prove it, and swear to it if necessary, before any court in the land." The calm and steady assurance of his words and looks[Pg 83] and tones struck Xenie with inward terror. Yet it seemed to her impossible that Howard Templeton could really know the truth. Her heart quaked with terror, yet she tried to brave it out in very desperation. "How dare you say so?" she repeated, but her voice faltered, and she trembled so that she could scarcely hold the little child in her arms. Mrs. Carroll crept to her side and stood there dumbly, filled with a yearning desire to help Xenie and shield her from the consequences of her sin, but so horror-stricken that she could not even speak. Howard Templeton regarded Xenie with a look of scornful amazement. "Madam," he said, in clear, ringing, vibrant tones, "I can scarce believe that you will try to persist in this terrible deception in the face of all that I have said. Listen, then, and you shall know why I dare confront you with your sin." "Speak on," she answered, cresting her beautiful head so defiantly, and looking at him so proudly that no one, not even her mother, dreamed of the terrible pain that ached at her heart. "I have known of this deception from the first," he said. "Ever since the evening I called upon your sister, before you went to Europe. You personated Lora very cleverly. I will give you that much credit; but you did not deceive me five minutes. I saw through the mask directly, and understood the daring game you were playing in furtherance of your revenge against me. Your clever acting did not blind me. I had loved you once, remember, and the eyes of love are very keen." Alternately flushing and paling, Xenie stared at him, still clasping the little child to her wildly beating heart. "Bah!" she cried out, contemptuously, as he paused; "who would believe this wild tale that you are telling? If you suspected me, why did you not speak out?" "I had a fancy to see the farce played out," he answered, coldly. "I was curious to know how far you would willfully wander in the path of sin to gratify your thirst for revenge. I followed you to Europe, although you did not dream of such a thing until that wild and rainy dawn when you met me on the shore near your cottage." A groan forced itself though her pallid lips as she recalled that dreadful day. "But, Xenie," he continued, slowly, "I never meant to let matters go as far as they have gone. It amused me for a little while to watch your desperate game, but I always intended to check you before you consummated your clever plan. But that strange power that some call fate, and[Pg 84] others Providence, has come between me and my first intention. You have tasted the full sweetness of the cup of revenge, and now you are doomed to drink the bitter dregs. The disgraceful truth will all be known. The wealth you have cheated me of by a terrible fraud will have to be restored. The time has come when I cannot spare you if I would." She shivered as if an icy wind had blown against her, so impressive were his looks and words; but she saw that Captain Mainwaring was looking at her with mingled wrath and scorn on his handsome, honest face; and the spirit of defiance only grew stronger within her. "I defy you," she began, imperiously, but the words died half-uttered on her lips, and a shriek of fear and terror burst forth instead. For the closed door had opened silently and suddenly, and a beautiful, fragile-looking woman had glided into the room. Xenie thought it was the ghost of her who lay in that green grave under the skies of France, with the white cross marked: "Lora, ætat 18." The beautiful intruder paused a moment and gazed questioningly around her. As if by magic, her gaze encountered that of the young sea captain who was staring at her with wild, half-frightened eyes, like one who sees a vision. Lora—for it was indeed herself—gazed at the handsome young sailor a moment in bewilderment; then a wild and piercing shriek of joy burst from her lips. She rushed forward and threw herself upon his broad breast in a transport of happiness. "Oh, Jack, Jack!" she cried, twining her white arms tightly around his neck, "you are alive! What happiness for your poor Lora!" Captain Mainwaring clasped and kissed her with passionate joy, understanding nothing very clearly except the one ecstatic fact that Lora was indeed alive, and having through his deep joy a vague consciousness that Mrs. St. John had somehow terribly wronged and deceived him. "You see," said Howard Templeton, coldly to Xenie as she stared speechlessly. "Lora has returned to claim her own. Your reign is over." Lora heard the words, and breaking from the fond clasp of her husband's arms, turned to her sister. "Oh, Xenie!" she cried, then she stopped short, and her lovely face flushed and her dark eyes beamed. She had caught sight of the beautiful boy that nestled in the clasp of her sister's arms. [Pg 85] Lora watched him a moment with parted lips and eager eyes. "Oh!" she breathed, in tones of ineffable tenderness, "how beautiful he is!" then, in low and almost humble accents, she murmured: "Xenie, you will let me kiss him once." "It is Lora's voice and face," cried Mrs. St. John, half-retreating before her as she advanced, "and yet I saw Lora lying dead—drowned in the cruel sea!" "No, no," cried Lora, eagerly, "that poor creature you saw drowned was not your sister, Xenie." "She wore your shawl, your rings," exclaimed Mrs. St. John, incoherently. "Yes, that is true," said Lora, patiently, "but I can easily explain that, Xenie. She was a poor, mad creature that I met in my wandering—even madder than myself, perhaps, for I remember it all distinctly. She stripped me of my shawl and my jewels—to make herself fine as she said. I let her have them and she went away and left me. Then it must have been that she cast herself into the sea. It was she whom they found and whom you buried under the marble cross with my name upon it. She was some poor, unknown unfortunate whom you mourned as your sister." She came closer to her sister's side as she spoke, and looked up pleadingly into her face. "Xenie, you will not disown me, will you? I am indeed your sister, Lora, although you thought me dead. I owe my life to Howard Templeton. He found me ill and dying in a poor woman's cot, and cared for me and saved me. Yes, at the very last hour, when they said I was dying, he would not give me up. He brought a little baby and laid it in my arms, and life came back to me at the touch of the little lips and hands. He deceived me, but it was for my own good. It saved my life, and when I grew stronger I could bear to be told of the innocent deception he had practiced, and I gave back the child to the kind peasant mother who had lent it to me to save my life. But, oh, Xenie, if I talked all day I could never tell you how much I owe to Howard Templeton. He has been all that the best and noblest brother on earth could be! You must not hate him any longer. Xenie, you must forgive him and be kind to him for my sake, since but for his tender care I must surely have died." As she ceased to speak, Jack Mainwaring strode forward and caught Howard Templeton's hands in a grasp of steel. Words failed him, but the tearful gaze of the honest eyes was far more expressive of his gratitude than the most eloquent speech. But Xenie remained still and speechless. She suffered[Pg 86] Lora to kiss and caress her, but she remained still and pale, seemingly incapable of a return of her sister's tenderness. Her dark eyes stared straight before her, filled with a dumb terror, as if some dread anticipation was painted on the walls of her mind. Slowly, like one fascinated, Lora crept nearer, and twining her arms about her little child, kissed his sweet brow and lips. Xenie turned mechanically and their eyes met. They regarded each other silently a moment, but in Lora's eyes there was a yearning tenderness, a plaintive prayer that said plainer than words: "Oh! my sister, give me my child. Let me lay him in his father's arms, and say: 'My husband, this is my child and yours.'" The ice around Xenie's frozen heart melted at that wordless prayer. Slowly she laid the beautiful, dark-eyed boy in the yearning arms of the young mother. "Take him, Lora," she said, "I absolve you from your vow of silence. I cannot withhold this crowning joy that will complete your happiness, although it wrecks my own. Upon my head fall all the bitter consequences of my sin." With the words she turned to leave the room, but that bitter renunciation before her deadly foe had been too hard for her. She staggered blindly a moment, then fell to the floor like one bereft of life. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2