CHAPTER XXXII.
Pluma Hurlhurst never quailed beneath the cold, mocking glance bentupon her.
There was no hope for her; disgrace and ruin stared her in the face;she would defy even Fate itself to the bitter end with a heroismworthy of a better cause. In that hour and that mood she was capableof anything.
She leaned against a tall palm-tree, looking at him with a strangeexpression on her face, as she made answer, slowly:
"You may depend upon it, I shall never marry you, Lester Stanwick. IfI do not marry Rex I shall go unmarried to the grave. Ah, no!" shecried desperately; "Heaven will have more mercy, more pity than totake him from me."
"What mercy or pity did you feel in thrusting poor little Daisy Brooksfrom his path?" asked Stanwick, sarcastically. "Your love has led youthrough dangerous paths. I should call it certainly a most perilouslove."
She recoiled from him with a low cry, those words again still ringingin her ears, "A perilous love."
She laughed with a laugh that made even Stanwick's blood run cold--ahorrible laugh.
"I do not grieve that she is dead," she said. "You ought to understandby this time I shall allow nothing to come between Rex and me."
"You forget the fine notions of honor your handsome lover entertains;it may not have occurred to you that he might object at the eleventhhour."
"He will not," she cried, fiercely, her bosom rising and fallingconvulsively under its covering of filmy lace and the diamond broochwhich clasped it. "You do not know the indomitable will of a desperatewoman," she gasped. "I will see him myself and confess all to him, ifyou attempt to reveal the contents of those letters. He will marry meand take me abroad at once. If I have Rex's love, what matters it whatthe whole world knows or says?"
She spoke rapidly, vehemently, with flushed face and glowing eyes; andeven in her terrible anger Stanwick could not help but notice howgloriously beautiful she was in her tragic emotion.
"I have asked you to choose between us," he said, calmly, "and youhave chosen Rex regardless of all the promises of the past. Theconsequences rest upon your own head."
"So be it," she answered, haughtily.
With a low bow Stanwick turned and left her.
"_Au revoir_, my dear Pluma," he said, turning again toward her on thethreshold. "Not farewell--I shall not give up hope of winning theheiress of Whitestone Hall."
For several moments she stood quite still among the dark-green shrubs,and no sound told of the deadly strife and despair. Would he see Rexand divulge the crime she had planned? Ah! who would believe she, theproud, petted heiress had plotted so cruelly against the life of aninnocent young girl because she found favor in the eyes of the lovershe had sworn to win? Ah! who could believe she had planned to confinethat sweet young life within the walls of a mad-house until deathshould release her?
What if the plan had failed? The intention still remained the same.She was thankful, after all, the young girl was dead.
"I could never endure the thought of Rex's intense anger if he onceimagined the truth; he would never forgive duplicity," she cried,wildly.
The proud, beautiful girl, radiant with love and happiness a shorttime since, with a great cry flung herself down among the ferns, thesunlight gleaming on the jewels, the sumptuous morning dress, thecrushed roses, and the white, despairing face.
Any one who saw Pluma Hurlhurst when she entered the drawing-roomamong her merry-hearted guests, would have said that she had nevershed a tear or known a sigh. Could that be the same creature uponwhose prostrate figure and raining tears the sunshine had so latelyfallen? No one could have told that the brightness, the smiles, andthe gay words were all forced. No one could have guessed that beneaththe brilliant manner there was a torrent of dark, angry passions andan agony of fear.
It was pitiful to see how her eyes wandered toward the door. Hourafter hour passed, and still Rex had not returned.
The hum of girlish voices around her almost made her brain reel. GraceAlden and Miss Raynor were singing a duet at the piano. The song theywere singing fell like a death-knell upon her ears; it was "'He ComethNot,' She Said."
Eve Glenn, with Birdie upon her lap, sat on an adjoining sofa flirtingdesperately with the two or three devoted beaus; every one wasdiscussing the prospect of the coming morrow.
Her father had returned from Baltimore some time since. She was toomuch engrossed with her thoughts of Rex to notice the great change inhim--the strange light in his eyes, or the wistful, expectantexpression of his face, as he kissed her more fondly than he had everdone in his life before.
She gave appropriate answers to her guests grouped around her, buttheir voices seemed afar off. Her heart and her thoughts were withRex. Why had he not returned? What was detaining him? Suppose anythingshould happen--it would kill her now--yet nothing could go wrong onthe eve of her wedding-day. She would not believe it. Stanwick wouldnot dare go to Rex with such a story--he would write it--and allthose things took time. With care and caution and constant watchingshe would prevent Rex from receiving any communications whatever untilafter the ceremony; then she could breathe freely, for the battle sobravely fought would be won.
"If to-morrow is as bright as to-day, Pluma will have a gloriouswedding-day," said Bessie Glenn, smiling up into the face of ahandsome young fellow who was fastening a rosebud she had just givenhim in the lapel of his coat with one hand, and with the other tightlyclasping the white fingers that had held the rose.
He did not notice that Pluma stood in the curtained recesses of anadjoining window as he answered, carelessly enough:
"Of course, I hope it will be a fine, sunshiny day, but theindications of the weather don't look exactly that way, if I am anyjudge."
"Why, you don't think it is going to rain, do you? Why, it will spoilthe rose-bower she is to be married in and all the beautifuldecoration. Oh, please don't predict anything so awfully horrible; youmake me feel nervous; besides, you know what everybody says aboutweddings on which the rain falls."
"Would you be afraid to experiment on the idea?" asked the impulsiveyoung fellow, who always acted on the spur of the moment. "Ifto-morrow were a rainy day, and I should say to you, 'Bess, will youmarry me to-day or never?' what would your answer be?"
"I should say, just now, I do not like 'ifs and ands.' Supposing acase, and standing face to face with it, are two different things. Ilike people who say what they mean, and mean what they say."
Pluma saw the dazzling light flame into the bashful young lover's eyesas he bent his head lower over the blushing girl who had shown him theright way to capture a hesitating heart.
"_That_ is love," sighed Pluma. "Ah, if Rex would only look at me likethat I would think this earth a heaven." She looked up at the bright,dazzling clouds overhead; then she remembered the words she hadheard--"It looked like rain on the morrow."
Could those white, fleecy clouds darken on the morrow that was to giveher the only treasure she had ever coveted in her life?
She was not superstitious. Even if it did rain, surely a fewrain-drops could not make or mar the happiness of a lifetime. Shewould not believe it.
"Courage until to-morrow," she said, "and my triumph will be complete.I will have won Rex." The little ormolu clock on the mantel chimed thehour of five. "Heavens!" she cried to herself, "Rex has been gone overtwo hours. I feel my heart must be bursting."
No one noticed Pluma's anxiety. One moment hushed and laughing, thequeen of mirth and revelry, then pale and silent, with shadowed eyes,furtively glancing down the broad, pebbled path that led to theentrance gate.
Yet, despite her bravery, Pluma's face and lips turned white when sheheard the confusion of her lover's arrival.
Perhaps Pluma had never suffered more suspense in all her life thanwas crowded into those few moments.
Had he seen Lester Stanwick? Had he come to denounce her for hertreachery, in his proud, clear voice, and declare the marriage brokenoff?
She dared not step forward to greet him, lest the piercing glance o
fhis eyes would cause her to fall fainting at his feet.
"A guilty conscience needs no accuser." Most truly the words wereexemplified in her case. Yet not one pang of remorse swept across herproud heart when she thought of the young girl whose life she had soskillfully blighted.
What was the love of Daisy Brooks, an unsophisticated child of nature,only the overseer's niece, compared to her own mighty, absorbingpassion?
The proud, haughty heiress could not understand how Rex, polished,courteous and refined, could have stooped to such a reckless folly. Hewould thank her in years to come for sparing him from such a fate.These were the thoughts she sought to console herself with.
She stood near the door when he entered, but he did not see her; adeath-like pallor swept over her face, her dark eyes had a wild,perplexing look.
She was waiting in terrible suspense for Rex to call upon her name;ask where she was, or speak some word in which she could read hersentence of happiness or despair in the tone of his voice.
She could not even catch the expression of his face; it was turnedfrom her. She watched him so eagerly she hardly dared draw herbreath.
Rex walked quickly through the room, stopping to chat with this one orthat one a moment; still, his face was not turned for a single instanttoward the spot where she stood.
Was he looking for her? She could not tell. Presently he walked towardthe conservatory, and a moment later Eve Glenn came tripping towardher.
"Oh, here you are!" she cried, flinging her arms about her in regularschool-girl _abandon_, and kissing the cold, proud mouth, that deignedno answering caress. "Rex has been looking for you everywhere, and atlast commissioned me to find you and say he wants to speak to you. Heis out on the terrace."
How she longed to ask if Rex's face was smiling or stern, but shedared not.
"Where did you say Rex was, Miss Glenn?"
"I said he was out on the terrace; but don't call me Miss Glenn, forpity's sake--it sounds so freezingly cold. Won't you please call meEve," cried the impetuous girl--"simply plain Eve? That has a morefriendly sound, you know."
Another girl less proud than the haughty heiress would have kissedEve's pretty, piquant, upturned, roguish face.
"What did Rex have to say to her?" she asked herself, in growingdread.
The last hope seemed withering in her proud, passionate heart. Sherose haughtily, and walked with the dignity of a queen through thelong drawing-room toward the terrace. Her heart almost stopped beatingas she caught sight of Rex leaning so gracefully against the trunk ofan old gnarled oak tree, smoking a cigar. That certainly did not lookas if he meant to greet her with a kiss.
She went forward hesitatingly--a world of anxiety and suspense on herface--to know her fate. The color surged over her face, then recededfrom it again, as she looked at him with a smile--a smile that wasmore pitiful than a sigh.
"Rex," she cried, holding out her hands to him with a fluttering,uncertain movement that stirred the perfumed laces of the exquisiterobe she wore, and the jewels on her white, nervous hands--"Rex, I amhere!"