genial spring, and Colonel Carlyle could restrain his impatient ardor
no longer, his proposal of marriage, worded with all the passion of a
younger lover, came upon her with the suddenness of a thunderbolt from
a clear sky.

"Surely, Mr. Carlyle, I have misunderstood your meaning," she said,
looking up at him when he ceased to speak, with terror and fright in
her large eyes. "You asked me to--to----"

"To _marry_ me," said the colonel. "You have not misunderstood me,
Bonnibel. I love you, my darling, as passionately as any young man
could do. I ask you to give yourself to me for my cherished wife. It
would be the sole aim of my life to make you happy. Will you be my
wife, little darling?"

"Why, you--you are engaged to Miss Herbert," said Bonnibel, in surprise
and reproach.

"I beg your pardon, my dear. I am not. I admire and esteem Miss Herbert
very much, but I have never addressed a word of love to her. It is
_you_ whom I love--_you_ whom I wish to make my wife," exclaimed the
ardent colonel.

"I certainly understood that you would marry Felise," answered
Bonnibel, gravely.

"It was a very serious error on your part, my dear little girl, for I
have been trying all the winter to make you see that I loved no one but
_you_."

"I never dreamed of such a thing," exclaimed the girl, in a tone of
genuine distress.

"Then you are the only one who did not suspect it," said he, in a
mortified tone. "The fact was very patent to all others."

Bonnibel looked down at the shimmering opal on her finger, and a blush
of shame rose over her delicate features. She thought to herself,
impulsively:

"This is dreadful for me--a wedded wife--to sit here and listen to such
words without the power of protesting against them."

"Perhaps you think I am too old for you, my angel," said the colonel,
breaking the silence; "but my heart and my feelings are much younger
than my years. I could not have loved you more ardently thirty years
ago. But if age is a fault in your eyes, my darling, I will atone for
it by every indulgence on earth, and by a deathless devotion."

"Oh, pray, do not say another word, Colonel Carlyle. It can never be,
sir. I can never be your wife!" exclaimed the girl, in deep agitation.

"But why not, my dearest girl?"

"I do not love you, sir," said the girl, cresting her graceful head
half-haughtily upon her slender throat.

"I will teach you to love me, darling. Come, say that you will let me
take you away from this house, where I can see that they hate you,
and make your life more happy. I will do anything to further your
happiness, Bonnibel," urged the colonel.

"What you wish is quite impossible, sir. I beg that you will dismiss
the subject, my dear, kind friend, and forget it," repeated Bonnibel,
earnestly.

"I will not take _no_ for an answer," replied the colonel, obdurately.
"I have taken you by surprise, and you do not know your own mind, my
dear little girl. I will give you a week to decide in. Think of all the
advantages I can offer you, Bonnibel, and of my devoted love, and say
_yes_ when I come back for your answer."

So saying he abruptly took his leave.

CHAPTER XIV.

"Mother, Bonnibel has refused Colonel Carlyle."

Mrs. Arnold looked up from the sofa where she lay reading a novel by
the gas-light with a start of surprise. Felise had come into the room
as quietly as a spirit in her white dressing-gown.

"Mercy, Felise, how you startled me!" she exclaimed. "I had just got to
such an exciting part where the heroine was just about to be murdered
by her jealous rival when in you came with your long hair and trailing
white wrapper, like Lady Macbeth walking in her sleep. I almost
expected to hear you exclaim:

"'Here's the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will
not sweeten this little hand!'"

"You are quite dramatic to-night, mother--your novel must be an
exciting one," said Felise, with a slight sneer. She came forward and
sat down in a large easy-chair opposite her mother. She looked pale,
and her eyes burned with repressed excitement.

"It is," said Mrs. Arnold, "the most thrilling book I have read lately.
But what were you saying when you came in and frightened me so?"

"I said that Bonnibel had _refused_ Colonel Carlyle," repeated Felise,
distinctly.

Mrs. Arnold sat up with her fingers between the pages of her book,
whose interesting perusal she felt loth to stop. She said, half
stupidly:

"Oh, she has, has she? Well, it had to come to that, sooner or later,
you know, my love."

"Indeed?" answered Felise, shortly.

"Well, you know we have been expecting it some time, Felise, ever since
Colonel Carlyle lost his heart about her. I must say his conduct to you
has not been that of a gentleman, my dear."

"I quite agree with you," said Felise dryly.

She was very quiet, but her small hands were tightly clenched. She
seemed "to hold passion in a leash" by a strong effort of will.

"But how did you find it out?" inquired her mother, thinking that
Felise was taking it quite calmly, after all.

"As I find out most things--by keeping my eyes and ears open!" retorted
her daughter, tartly.

"When did it happen?"

"This afternoon, while you were out calling on the Trevertons."

"Was the old fool much cut up about it?" inquired Mrs. Arnold,
inelegantly.

"He would not take _no_ for an answer," said Felise. "He wanted her
to take time to think of all the advantages he offered her, and he is
coming in a week to hear her decision."

"The silly old dotard!" ejaculated her mother. "Well, all he can get by
his persistence is a second refusal."

Felise Herbert straightened herself in her chair, and looked at her
mother with a strange smile on her face.

"I do not intend that he shall get a _second refusal_!" she said, in a
low voice that was very firm and incisive.

Mrs. Arnold stared at her daughter in blank surprise and incredulity.

"Why, Felise, what can you mean?" she inquired.

"I mean that Bonnibel Vere shall marry Colonel Carlyle!" her daughter
answered, in the same low, determined voice.

"Why, my dear, you know it cannot be when she already has a _husband_!
Besides, I did not know that you wanted them to marry. I thought--I
thought--" said Mrs. Arnold, stopping short because surprise had
overpowered her.

She looked at the white figure sitting so quietly there in the
arm-chair, with some apprehension. Had Felise's disappointment impaired
her reason?

"You need not look at me so strangely, mother," said Felise. "I assure
you I am not mad, as your eyes imply. I am as sane as you are; but I
have said that Bonnibel Vere shall marry my recreant lover, and I mean
to keep my word. She has stolen him from me, and now she shall marry
him and get out of my way! Or perhaps you would prefer to keep her here
to spoil the next eligible chance I get," said Felise, looking at her
mother with burning eyes.

"I don't see how you can bring her to consent to such a thing, even if
you are in earnest, my dear."

"You have got to help me, mother. You shall tell her that you will
not allow her to refuse Colonel Carlyle--that she shall become his
wife, and that if she does not revoke her rejection, you will turn her
instantly into the street!"

"Felise, will you tell me why you are so determined upon their
marriage? I supposed you were unwilling to it--it would be only natural
for you to oppose it--but you seem as anxious for it as Colonel Carlyle
himself. Again, I ask you why?

"Mother, I told you I would take revenge upon my rival. This is a part
of my revenge. Their marriage will be the first act in the drama. Do
not ask me how I am going to proceed. Let me work out my revenge in my
own way. I owe them both a score. Never fear but I will pay it off with
interest!"

"But, Felise, you must know that Bonnibel would sooner declare her
secret marriage than be forced into another one. I can turn her into
the street if you are determined upon it; but I know I cannot make a
girl as truthful and pure as Bonnibel Vere knowingly become the wife of
two husbands."

"I fully admit your inability to do that, mother. I do not intend to
insist on your performance of impossibilities. As for Leslie Dane, look
here!"'

She straightened out a folded paper she had carried in her bosom, and
leaning forward pointed out a small paragraph to her mother.

Mrs. Arnold read the brief paragraph with starting eyes, then turned
and looked at her daughter. She no longer kept her finger between the
pages of her novel. It had slipped down upon the floor. She was getting
absorbed in this tragedy in real life.

"Is it possible?" she exclaimed. "Felise, can it be true?"

"Why not?" was the cool interrogatory. "Such things happen often--don't
they?

    "'Every minute dies a man,
      Every minute one is born.'"

"Let me see the date," Mrs. Arnold said, bending forward. "Ah! it is
very recent. Well, I _am_ surprised. But yet it is a very fortunate
occurrence, is it not? Of course it is genuine."

"Why, of course it is," said Felise, with a short, dry laugh. "How else
could it be in the paper? They don't put such things in for sport, I
suppose."

"Of course not; but it came upon me so suddenly I felt quite
incredulous at first. Well, this puts a new face upon the matter, does
it not, my dear?"

"Certainly, mother. I will show her this paper, and she cannot have
any pretext for repeating her refusal in the face of the alternative
with which you shall threaten her. I suppose any girl in her senses
would marry Colonel Carlyle and his millions rather than be turned out
homeless into the street."

She sat still a moment staring before her into futurity with lurid eyes
that saw her revenge already, and curling lips that began to taste its
sweetness in anticipation.

"When must I tell her, Felise?" inquired Mrs. Arnold.

"To-morrow, mother. There is no use in delaying matters. Let us bring
the marriage about as speedily as possible. You will tell her to-morrow
what she has to do, and I will be on hand with the paper."

She rose slowly.

"Well, I will go, and leave you to finish your novel," she said; "but
if you take my advice you will retire instead. It is growing late.
Good-night."

"Good-night, my love, and pleasant dreams," her mother answered.

She went out as quietly as she had entered, her dark hair flying wildly
over her shoulders and her white robes trailing noiselessly after her.
She was twisting her hands together, and again Mrs. Arnold thought of
Lady Macbeth washing her hands and crying in her sleep, "Out, damned
spot!"

Ah, Felise Herbert! There was a stain on your soul as red as that on
Lady Macbeth's hand!

CHAPTER XV.

The morning after the rejection of Colonel Carlyle, Bonnibel Vere sat
alone in a pleasant little morning-room that was thrown out from the
main residence as a wing. It was daintily furnished in blue plush and
walnut, and had double glass doors that looked out upon a lovely little
garden that in this pleasant May season was glowing with bloom and
fragrance.

Bonnibel had been trying to read, but in the perturbed state of her
mind she could not fix her attention upon the book. It had fallen from
her lap upon the floor, and as she sat in the luxurious arm-chair she
leaned forward with her little chin buried in one pink palm and her
blue eyes gazing into vacancy, as if lost in thought.

She looked very fair and sweet sitting there in a cool, white
morning-dress, trimmed in lace and dotted about with several bows of
black ribbon. Her beautiful hair, which was growing long and thick
again, fell upon her shoulders in loose curls, like glints of sunshine.

She had broken a spray of white hyacinth and pinned it on her bosom,
and she looked as pure and sweet as the flower itself.

"I am very sorry," she was thinking to herself, "that I was so
unfortunate as to win Colonel Carlyle's affection. I certainly never
dreamed of such a thing, and a year ago I should have laughed in the
face of any old man who dared propose to me, and have told him I did
not wish to marry my grandfather. Heigh-ho! I have grown graver now,
and do not turn everything into a jest as I did then. Still, I wish
it had not happened. I liked him simply as my father's friend, and I
thought he liked me just as papa's daughter."

She sighed heavily.

"I think I understand some things now that have puzzled me all the
winter," she mused. "He was Felise's lover when I first came, and I
have unconsciously rivaled her. She hates me for it, and Aunt Arnold
hates me, too. Ah! if they knew all that I knew they need not be
afraid. Felise is welcome to him, and I will try to induce him to
return to her. I never thought that Colonel Carlyle could have acted so
basely toward her, as it seems he has----"

Mrs. Arnold's sudden entrance into the room interrupted her
meditations. She looked so angry and overbearing that Bonnibel rose and
was about leaving the room when she was recalled abruptly.

"Stay, Bonnibel; I wish to speak with you. Resume your seat, if you
please."

Flushing with resentment at the insolent authority of the tone,
Bonnibel turned and faced the lady with a gleam of pride shining in her
blue eyes.

"Pardon me," she answered, coldly. "I will hear what you have to say
standing."

"As you please," said Mrs. Arnold, with a sneer. "Perhaps your strength
may not stand the ordeal, however."

Bonnibel stared at her in silent surprise.

"You have refused an offer of marriage from Colonel Carlyle," said Mrs.
Arnold in a tone of deep displeasure.

Bonnibel's fair cheeks deepened their color ever so slightly.

"Yes, madam, I have," she answered after a moment's thought. "But I am
ignorant of the means by which you became cognizant of the fact."

"It does not matter," Mrs. Arnold replied, flushing to a dark red under
the clear pure eyes bent upon her. "Perhaps he told me himself. One
would think that even so elderly a lover would consult a young lady's
guardian and protector before addressing her! But no matter how I came
by my information, you admit its truth."

"Certainly, madam," Bonnibel answered quietly, but wondering within
herself what all this fencing meant. She was growing slightly nervous.
The fair hands trembled slightly as they hung lightly clasped before
her, and the white and red rose triumphed alternately in her cheek.

Mrs. Arnold stood resting her folded arms on the back of a chair,
regarding the lovely young creature as if she had been a culprit before
the bar of justice.

"May I ask what were your reasons for declining the honor Colonel
Carlyle offered you?" she inquired in measured tones.

Bonnibel was half-tempted to deny Mrs. Arnold's right to ask such
a question. With an effort she fought down the quick impulse,
and answered in a voice as gentle as the other's was rude and
self-assertive:

"I did not love him, Aunt Arnold!"

"Love! Love!" sneered the widow contemptuously. "What had _love_ to do
with the matter? You, a poor, penniless, dependent creature, to prate
of love when such a man as Colonel Carlyle lays his millions at your
feet! You should have jumped at the chance and thanked him for his
condescension!"

The listener regarded her with horror and amazement. Her delicate lips
quivered with feeling, and her eyes were misty with unshed tears.

"Surely, Aunt Arnold," she said, questioningly, "you would not have had
me accept Colonel Carlyle simply for his gold?"

"Yes, I would, though," answered Mrs. Arnold roughly, "and what is
more, I intend that you _shall_ accept him, Bonnibel Vere! Girl, you
must have been mad to dream of refusing such a splendid offer. When
Colonel Carlyle returns for his final answer you will tell him that
your first refusal was only a girlish freak of coquetry, to try his
love, and that you accept his offer gratefully."

Bonnibel's cheeks turned as white as her dress, a mist rose before her
eyes, shutting out the sight of her aunt's angry face.

She staggered and put out her hand to steady herself by a chair. Mrs.
Arnold regarded her with an air of cold insolence.

"I thought you would find it rather beyond your strength to stand
before our conversation was over," she remarked, with slight sarcasm.

Bonnibel did not seem to hear the last shaft of malice. She answered
the preceding words in a voice that she strove to render steady and
controlled.

"I cannot recognize your right to dictate to me in a matter that
concerns myself alone, madam."

Mrs. Arnold listened to the proud, calm tones in furious wrath.

"You defy my authority? You refuse to obey me?" she broke out angrily.

"Your violence leaves me no other alternative, Aunt Arnold," said the
young girl, trying hard to speak calmly. "I do not wish to marry yet,
and the man whom you wish me to accept as a husband, could never be the
choice of my heart. I cannot understand why you should wish to force me
into a marriage so unsuitable."

The graceful, womanly dignity of the young girl's words and manner made
no impression on the coarse woman's nature. She only saw before her the
girl she had hated ever since her innocent babyhood, the girl whose
peerless beauty had come between Felise and her brilliant prospects.
She broke out in a passionate resentment:

"Because I want to be rid of you, girl! You have been a tumbling-block
in my path your whole life, and I hate the very sight of your
baby-face! But I took pity on you and cared for you when poverty came
upon you. In return for my kindness you stole my daughter's lover! Now
you shall marry him and get out of her way. It is the only reparation
you can make her. Do you think I will allow you to refuse Colonel
Carlyle, and remain here to cheat her out of the next eligible chance
that offers? Never!"

It was hard work for the listener to be so fiercely assailed by
this woman and not break out into the angry remonstrances that were
swelling in her heart. But Bonnibel had learned the difficult art
of self-control lately. She reflected to herself that it was but
natural that Mrs. Arnold should feel sore over the disappointment and
humiliation of her clever, handsome daughter.

"I am very sorry to hear that you hate me so much," she said, a little
sadly. "I have had no one to love me since Uncle Francis died, and I
hoped I might win a little place in his wife's heart. But you wrong me,
indeed, in charging me with stealing Felise's lover. I never dreamed
of winning him away from her; I was deceived by his interest in me,
thinking it was simply because he had been a friend and comrade of my
dear papa. I might have known better, you say. Perhaps I might, but I
was blinded by private troubles of my own, and scarcely heeded what
went on around me. I am very sorry I have been the innocent cause of
pain to Felise."

"Spare her the additional mortification of your sympathy," was the
ironical answer. "I think she can bear the old dotard's desertion.
She does not desire your regrets, and I believe I have named the only
reparation possible for you."

"And that?" said the girl, slowly.

"Is to marry Colonel Carlyle and get out of her way," was the harsh
reply.

"I cannot do that," said Bonnibel, hurriedly. "It is impossible for me
to marry Colonel Carlyle--there are many reasons why I should not. As
to the other, I will----"

She was about to add, "I will go away from here," but a sickening
thought flashed across her. _Where_ could she go?

She had no relative to fly to in her trouble. She did not know how to
work and take care of herself. She had never learned anything useful,
and her education had been mostly limited to those showy, superficial
accomplishments in vogue in the fashionable world. She had five hundred
fashionable friends, but not one to whom she could turn for comfort in
this her dark hour.

"You say you cannot marry Colonel Carlyle," said Mrs. Arnold, breaking
in on her troubled silence. "Listen to the only alternative that is
left you. I give you until he returns for his answer to decide in. If
you do not then accept him you shall no longer have the shelter of my
roof. Yes, in the very hour that you refuse Carlyle's millions, I will
turn you out homeless into the streets!"

Into the streets! How the words grated on the girl's horrified hearing.
She had seen them take up a dead girl from the street once, a girl as
young and fair almost as herself.

They said she had poisoned herself because she had no home. They took
her away to the Morgue, but Bonnibel had never forgotten that fair,
still face as it lay cold in death.

She recalled it now with a shiver. Some one had turned the poor girl
into the streets to die. Would that be her fate?

A deadly weakness stole over her. She dropped into a chair like one
shot, and Mrs. Arnold as she stood near her could hear the loud, wild
beating of her heart. Her little white hands trembled, and her cheeks
and lips turned white as marble.

"Aunt Arnold," she said, looking up at the cruel, relentless woman,
"you would not do that, surely? I should have nowhere to go, and I
am so terribly afraid of the night and the darkness in the dreadful
streets of the city!"

"No matter," sneered the listener. "You can go to one of the finest
houses in the city if you like, and have every luxury that wealth can
command--but if you refuse that, out you go from under the shelter of
this roof!"

There was the sound of some one singing in the flower-garden outside.

It was Felise. She came in with one handful of roses, while the other
held a newspaper which she was studying with a thoughtful brow.

"Bonnibel," she said, abruptly, "do you recollect that young artist,
Leslie Dane, who used to visit at Sea View last summer?"

A wave of color drifted into the girl's white cheek. She looked up
quickly into the thoughtful face of Felise.

"Yes," she answered, "what of him, Felise?"

"Did he not go to Rome to study painting?" inquired the artful girl.

"That was his intention, I believe," said Bonnibel, wondering what was
coming now.

"I thought so. There can be no mistake, then--poor fellow! Look here,
Bonnibel."

She put the paper she carried into the young girl's hand, and touched
her taper finger to a marked paragraph.

Bonnibel's eyes followed the jeweled finger and read the few lines with
staring gaze, mutely conscious of the overpowering scent of the roses
that Felise carried in her hand.

Ever afterward Bonnibel associated roses with the thought of death.

"Died on the 10th of April, at Rome, Italy, of malarial fever, Leslie
Dane, in the 24th year of his age. Mr. Dane was an artist and a native
of the United States of America. _Requiescat in pace._"

CHAPTER XVI.

Felise was prepared to see her rival fall fainting at her feet.

She expected nothing less from the shock to the girl's already
overwrought feelings, and in anticipation she already gloated over the
sight of her sufferings.

But she was mistaken. Bonnibel neither screamed nor fainted. She sat
like one dazed for a moment, her blue eyes riveted to the paper, and
her face growing white as death, while the two women who hated her
watched her with looks of triumph.

The next instant, with a bound like that of a wounded fawn seeking some
leafy covert in which to die, she sprang from her seat and rushed from
the room, clenching the fatal paper in her hand.

They could hear her light feet flying along the hall and up the stairs
to her own especial apartments.

The two wicked women looked at each other blankly.

"I did not expect her to take it that way," said Mrs. Arnold.

"Nor I," returned Felise. "I looked for a fainting spell, or some kind
of a tragic scene at least."

"Perhaps she does not care much after all," suggested Mrs. Arnold. "She
is young, and the young are proverbially fickle. She may have ceased to
love him."

"No, she has not. I am confident of that, mother. Her face looked
dreadful when she went out. She is too proud to let us see how she is
wounded--that is all. She turned as white as a dead woman while she was
reading, and there was a hunted, desperate look in her eyes. Depend
upon it she is terribly stricken."

"Do you think she will consent to marry Colonel Carlyle now, Felise?"

"I rather think she will after the awful alternative you placed before
her."

"Did you hear our conversation, my dear?"

"Every word of it, mother. I must say you sustained your part
splendidly. I feared you would not display sufficient firmness, but you
came off with flying colors."

Mrs. Arnold smiled. She was well-pleased at her daughter's praise, for
though her life was devoted to the service of Felise, this scheming
girl seldom gave her a word or smile of commendation. She answered
quickly:

"I am glad you were pleased, my love. I tried to be as positive as you
wished me to be. I fancied I heard you under the window once."

"I was there," said Felise, with a laugh.

"She was very much shocked when I threatened to turn her out of doors,"
said Mrs. Arnold. "She looked at me quite wildly."

"She will be more shocked when she finds you meant every word, for,
mother, if she does not accept Colonel Carlyle, you shall certainly
drive her away!" exclaimed Felise, and a wild and lurid gleam of hatred
fired her eyes as she spoke, that boded evil to the fair and innocent
girl upon whom she had sworn to take a terrible revenge.

Bonnibel flew up the stairs to her own room, still clenching the fatal
paper tightly in her hand, and locking her door, threw herself downward
upon the carpet and lay there like one dead.

She had not fainted. Every nerve was keenly alive and quivering with
pain. Her heart was beating in great, suffocating throbs, her throat
felt stiff and choked as if compressed by an iron hand, and her head
ached terribly as if someone had hurled a heavy stone upon it.

Her whole being seemed to be but one great pulse of intense agony,
yet she lay still and moveless, save that now and then a convulsive
clutch of the small hand pressed to her throat showed that life still
inhabited that beautiful frame.

Life! The thought came to her suddenly and painfully. She raised
herself slowly and heavily, as if the weight of her sorrow crushed
her down to earth, and the full realization of the terrible change
broke over her. Leslie Dane was _dead_. That graceful form, that
handsome face was hidden beneath the damp earth mould. The dark eyes
of her artist husband would never shine down upon her again with the
love-light beaming in them, those lips whose smiles she had loved so
well would never press hers again as they had done that night when he
had blessed her and called her his wife. But _she_--she was a living,
agonized creature, the plaything of fate--oh, God! she thought,
clasping her hands together wildly, oh, God! that she were dead and
lying in the grave with the loved one she would never see again. She
felt in all its passionate intensity the force of another's heart-wrung
utterance.

    "Dead, dead!" she moaned.
    "Oh, God! since _he_ could die,
    The world's a grave, and hope lies buried there."

Ah! Bonnibel, sweet Bonnibel! It is a dark world indeed on which your
tearful gaze looks forth! It has been the grave of hope to many, yet
destiny pushes us forward blindly, and we cannot stay her juggernaut
wheels as they roll over our hearts.

"I am eighteen years old, and I am a _widow_," she moans at last, and
staggers blindly to her feet, pushing back the fair locks from her brow
with shaking hands. "_I am a widow!_"

Oh! the pathos of the words! As she speaks them she draws the blinds,
drops the curtains, and the room is shrouded in darkness. She has shut
out the world from the sight of suffering. You and I, my reader, will
turn aside, too, from the contemplation of that cruelly tried young
heart as it fights the battle in the gloom and silence.

    "Who breathes must suffer; and who thinks must mourn;
     And he alone is blessed who ne'er was born."

Six days later Colonel Carlyle was ushered into Mrs. Arnold's
drawing-room and sent up his card to Miss Vere.

After a slight delay she came gliding in, pale and pure as a snow-drop,
and demure as a little nun. Colonel Carlyle both felt and saw that some
subtle and indefinable change had come over her as he bowed over the
cold, white hand she placed in his.

It was a very warm day, even for May; but she was clothed from head to
foot in heavy mourning draped with crape. Her golden hair was brushed
straight back from her temples and gathered into a simple coil fastened
with a comb of jet. From that somber setting her fair face and bright
hair shone like a star.

"You are pale, Bonnibel; I trust you have not been ill," exclaimed the
ancient suitor anxiously.

"I am as well as usual," she answered, with a slight, cold smile.

They sat down, and the ardent lover at once plunged into the subject
nearest his heart.

"Bonnibel, I have come for my answer, you know," he said. "I hope and
trust it may be a favorable one."

The girl's sweeping lashes lifted a moment from her pale cheeks, and
her blue eyes regarded him sadly; but she did not speak. He bent down
and lifted her white, listless hand in his and held it fondly.

"My dear, shall it be yes?" he inquired. "Will you give me this
precious little treasure?"

Bonnibel looked down at the hand that lay in the colonel's--it was the
one which wore the opal ring--that beautiful, changeful gem. Its colors
were dim and pale to-day. She shivered slightly, as if with cold.

"Colonel Carlyle, I told you when we spoke of this before that I did
not love you," she said, faintly.

The colonel did not appear to be disheartened by this plaintive plea.

"At least you do not hate me, Bonnibel," he said, half questioningly.

"Oh, no," she answered quickly; "I like you very much, Colonel Carlyle.
You have been so very kind to me, you know--but it is only the liking
one has for a friend--it is in no way akin to love."

"I will try to be contented with just your friendly liking, my dear
one, if you will give yourself to me," he answered, eagerly.

"I believe I could give you a daughter's affection, but never that of a
wife," she murmured.

He did not in the least understand the swift, appealing look of the
eyes that were raised a moment to his own. A swift thought had rushed
over her and she had given it words:

"Oh, that he would adopt me for his daughter and save me from either
of those two alternatives that lie before me," she thought, wildly.
"He might do so for papa's sake, and I would make him a very devoted
daughter!"

But the sighing lover did not want a daughter--he was after a wife.

"I will take you even on those terms," he replied. "Let me give you the
shelter of my name, and we will see if I cannot soon win a warmer place
in your heart."

She shook her head and a heavy sigh drifted across her lips.

"Do not deceive yourself, Colonel Carlyle," she said. "My heart is
dead. I shall never love any one."

"I will risk all that," he answered. "Only say yes, most peerless of
women, and so that I call you mine I will risk all else!"

"Do you mean it?" she asked, earnestly. "The hand without the
heart--would that content you?"

"Yes," he answered, bent on attaining his end, and foolishly believing
that he could teach her to love him. "Yes; am I to have it, Bonnibel?"

"It shall be as you wish," she answered, quietly, and leaning slightly
forward she laid in his the hand she had withdrawn a while ago.

Colonel Carlyle was beside himself with rapture.

"A thousand thanks, my beautiful darling," he exclaimed, pressing
passionate kisses on the small hand. "Nay, do not take it away so soon,
my love. Let me first place on it the pledge of our betrothal."

Still and white as marble sat Bonnibel while the enraptured colonel
slipped over her taper forefinger a magnificent diamond ring, costly
enough for a queen to wear. Its brilliant stone flashed fire, and the
opal on her third finger seemed to grow dull and cold.

So Bonnibel had made her choice.

Her nature was tender, refined, luxurious. She was afraid of poverty
and cold, and darkness; yet if Leslie Dane had lived she would have
faced them all rather than have chosen Mrs. Arnold's alternative.

But Leslie Dane was dead. Life was over and done for her. There was
nothing to do but to die or forget. Death would have come soon enough
in the streets, perhaps, but she was _so_ afraid of such a death. So
she took "the goods the gods provided," and blindly threw herself
forward into the whirling vortex of fate.

It was not to be expected that Colonel Carlyle would be willing to
defer his happiness. He was well-stricken in years, and had no time to
spare in idle waiting. He therefore pressed Bonnibel to name an early
day for the wedding.

She had no choice in the matter, and allowed him to name the day
himself.

Armed with her permission, he consulted Mrs. Arnold in regard to the
earliest possible date for his happiness.

Mrs. Arnold, tutored by Felise, was all smiling graciousness, and
fully appreciated his eagerness. She thought it quite possible that a
suitable and elegant _trousseau_ might be provided for a wedding on the
twenty-fifth of June.

CHAPTER XVII.

Bonnibel's wedding-day dawned cloudless, fair and beautiful. The sun
shone, the flowers bloomed, the birds sang. Nothing was wanting to
complete the charm of the day.

Nothing? Ah! yes. The most important thing of all--the light and happy
heart that should beat in the breast of a bride was lacking there.

She was beautiful "in gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls," but she
looked like a statue carved in marble. No warmth or color tinged the
strange pallor of her face and lips, no light of love shone in the
violet eyes that drooped beneath the sweeping lashes. She spoke and
moved like a soundless automaton.

Bonnibel had pleaded for a private marriage, but Colonel Carlyle had
set his heart on a marriage at church, with all the paraphernalia of a
fashionable wedding. He wanted to show the whole world what a peerless
prize he was winning. He had urged the point with the persistency
and almost obstinacy that is characteristic of age, and Bonnibel had
yielded recklessly. She told herself that it did not matter what they
did with her. Her heart was broken and her life was ruined.

She was not in a position to dictate terms. Wretched, dejected,
friendless; what mattered this crowning humiliation of being decked in
satin and pearls and orange flowers, and paraded before all eyes as a
beautiful slave that an old man had bought with his gold.

Well, it was over. She had gone to the church with him, the wide
portals had opened to receive her, the wedding march had pealed over
her head, the beautiful bridesmaids had gone with her to the altar in
their gala dresses, and carrying little baskets of flowers on their
arms, and she had spoken the words that made her the bride of Colonel
Carlyle. The fashionable world had flocked to witness the pageant, and
nodded approval and congratulated both. And _now_?

Now the wedding breakfast was over, the "dear five hundred friends" had
departed, and Mrs. Carlyle stood arrayed in her traveling dress.

Long Branch was to be the first destination of the wedded pair--they
had made no further arrangements yet. Mrs. Arnold and Felise had
promised to join them there in a few days by the groom's express
invitation.

Felise had behaved so decorously after being thrown overboard by
her fickle suitor that the colonel felt that it behooved him to show
his appreciation of her conduct by every delicate attention that was
possible under the circumstances.

He had, therefore, insisted on their company at Long Branch while he
and the bride remained there, and the two ladies had promised to join
them there in a day or two at farthest.

Nothing but the coldest civilities had passed between the outraged
Bonnibel and the mother and daughter since the day when Mrs. Arnold had
cruelly insulted and threatened the helpless girl.

Bonnibel had kept her room almost entirely after that day, acquainting
her uncle's wife with her acceptance of Colonel Carlyle by a brief note
sent by Lucy, though she might have spared herself the trouble, for
Mrs. Arnold and her daughter had both been witnesses of the colonel's
happiness.

The bride-elect had been threatened by an avalanche of milliners and
dressmakers at first, but she had resolutely declined to have anything
to do with the details of her bridal outfit.

She had suffered a fashionable _modiste_ to take her measure once, and
after that Mrs. Arnold was forced to give her _carte blanche_ in the
whole matter of taste, expense and arrangement. Bonnibel would dictate
nothing in the preparation of those hated garments in which she was to
be sacrificed.

It was all over now. She stood in the hallway of the splendid home
that had sheltered her childhood, waiting for the carriage that would
bear her away on her honey-moon trip. She was leaving that dear home
forever; a quick tear sprang to her eyes as the servants crowded around
her with their humble, sorrowful adieux.

Lucy was to go with her, but the others, many of whom had been valued
domestics in the house for years, she might never see again.

They all loved her, and their farewells and good wishes were the most
fervent and heart-felt she had ever received.

Colonel Carlyle, though a little impatient, was pleased at these humble
manifestations and distributed gratuities among them with a liberal
hand. He wondered a little at the tears that crowded into the blue eyes
of his girl-wife. He did not know that she was thinking of the dear
uncle with whom she had spent so many hours beneath this roof. Ah,
those happy days! How far they lay behind her now in the green land of
memory!

"Come, dearest," he said, drawing her small hand through his arm and
leading her away, "you must not dim those bright eyes with tears."

He led her down the steps, placed her in the carriage that was gay with
wedding favors, and Mrs. Arnold and Felise airily kissed the tips of
their fingers to them. Janet threw an old slipper after the carriage
for good luck, and then Bonnibel was whirled away to the new life that
lay before her.

"I came very near being the bride in that carriage myself," said
Felise, turning away from the drawing-room window. "But 'there's many a
slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.'"

The tone was light, almost laughing; but Mrs. Arnold, turning to look
at her, read a different story in her eyes.

The slighted beauty looked very fair and handsome to-day. She had been
the first bridesmaid, and her dress rivaled that of the bride itself
for richness and elegance.

It was a creamy satin, heavily embroidered with pearl beads and draped
with rich lace, caught up here and there with deep-hearted yellow
roses. Her glossy black hair was adorned with the same flowers, and a
necklace of sparkling topaz made a circlet of pale flame around her
white throat. A dainty little basket of yellow roses had hung upon her
arm, but she had thrown it down now and stood trampling the senseless
flowers with fury in her eyes.

"My dear!" exclaimed the mother, in some trepidation.

"Don't 'my dear' me," Felise answered, furiously. "I am not in a mood
to be cajoled."

She began to pace the floor impatiently, her rich dress rustling over
the floor, her white hands busy tearing the roses from about her and
throwing them down as if she hated the beautiful things whose crushed
petals sent out a rich perfume as if in faint protest against her
cruelty. There was a wild glare akin to that of madness in her dark
eyes.

"'Hell has no fury like a woman scorned!'" she said, repeating the
words of the great poet. "Oh, mother, how I hate Colonel Carlyle and
his wife! I seem to live but for revenge."

"Felise, you frighten me with your looks and words," Mrs. Arnold said,
a little anxiously. "You seem like one on the verge of madness."

"I am," she said, stopping in her hurried walk a moment, and laughing a
low, blood-curdling laugh, "but never fear, mother, 'there is method in
my madness!'"

"I wish you would give up this scheme of revenge," pursued the mother,
anxiously. "I hate them as much as you do, I know, but then we have
got rid of the girl, and the misery she feels as the wife of a man she
cannot love is a very fair revenge upon her. Remember we have despoiled
her of everything, Felise, and given her over to a life that will make
her wretched. Is not that enough?"

"No, it is not!" exclaimed her daughter, in low, concentrated tones,
full of deep passion. "But, mother, what has changed you so? You used
to be as vindictive as a tigress--now you plead with me to forego my
revenge."

"Because I am afraid for you, my dear," Mrs. Arnold answered in
troubled tones. "I fear that your mind will give way under this
dreadful strain. I have never told you, Felise, but I will do so now
that you may guard yourself against yourself. _There was a taint of
madness_ in your father's family, and when I see you brooding, brooding
over your revenge, I am afraid, afraid!"

The excited creature only laughed more wildly as she continued her walk.

"Felise," the mother continued, "we have wealth, power, position, and
you are beautiful. We can make life a long summer day of pleasure. Let
us do so, and throw every vexing care to the winds."

"Mother, I cannot do it," Felise exclaimed. "I have been cruelly
humiliated in the eyes of world--everyone expected Colonel Carlyle to
marry me--do you think I will tamely bear their sneers and contempt?
No; the man who has brought such odium upon me shall bitterly rue the
day he first looked upon the siren face of Bonnibel Vere!"

"My love, do you remember the prediction of Wild Madge the sibyl? She
said 'you would have everything and lose everything, because the gods
had made you mad.'"

"Who cares for the predictions of that crazy old witch? What can she
know of the future? I wish she were dead and out of the way!" exclaimed
the angry girl, clenching her small white hands impotently together.
"Mother, have done with your warnings and pleadings. I will not have
them! You seem to be undergoing a softening process of the heart and
brain--perhaps both," and with a mocking laugh she swept from the
apartment.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Among all the radiant beauties that promenaded the beach and danced
in the ball rooms at Long Branch, the young bride of Colonel Carlyle
became immediately distinguished for her pre-eminent loveliness.

Wherever she went she created a great sensation.

People went to the places where they heard she would be, just to look
at that "faultily faultless" face "star-sweet on a gloom profound."

Artists raved over her form and features. They said she was the fairest
woman in the world, and that her beauty had but one fault--it was too
cold and pale. One touch of glow and color in that "passionless, pale,
cold face," they said, would have made her so lovely that men would
have gone mad for her--gone mad or died.

And then she was so young, they said. She had never been presented in
society. Colonel Carlyle, the cunning old fox, had married her out of
the schoolroom before anyone had a chance to see her. The fops and
dandies swore at him behind their waxed mustaches, while better and
nobler men said it was a shame that such a fair, charming girl should
be wedded to such an old man.

There were some who said that the girl, young as she was, had a hidden
heart-history. These were the poets and dreamers. They said that the
language of those pale cheeks and drooping eyes was that she had been
torn from her handsome lover's side and bartered for an old man's gold.

But these were mere conjectures. No one knew anything about her
certainly, until Mrs. Arnold and Felise came down after a week's delay.
Then they knew that she was the daughter of General Vere, and the niece
of Francis Arnold, the murdered millionaire.

Felise told them of the artist lover who had murdered the millionaire
because he would not give him his niece. The excitement only ran higher
than before, and people looked at the young creature with even more
curiosity and interest than ever.

Bonnibel could not help seeing that she was an object of interest and
admiration to everyone about her. She saw that the men sought her
side eagerly and often, and that the women were jealous of her. At
first she was vexed and angry about it. She could not get a moment to
herself. They were always seeking her out, always hovering about her
like butterflies round a flower. She wondered why they came round her
so, but at length she remembered what she had almost forgotten. Uncle
Francis had often told her so; Leslie Dane had told her so; she had
heard it from others, too, and even Wild Madge had admitted it.

Ah! Wild Madge! Over her memory rushed the words of the fearful old
hag, freighted with a deeper meaning than they had held at first.

"You are beautiful, but your beauty will be your bane." "Years of
sorrow lie before you!" "You will be a young man's bride, but an old
man's darling!"

"It has all come true," she thought, turning from the circle around
her, and looking wistfully out over the waves that came swelling
against the shore, like some wild heart beating against the bars of
life. "It has all come true--yet how little I dreamed that she could
read the future that lies folded, like the leaves of a book, from first
sight. How little I thought that a shadow could ever fall between me
and happiness! Yet in a few short months her wild prediction has been
fulfilled. I have drank deeply of sorrow's cup. I have been a young
man's bride; now they say I am an old man's darling. All--all has been
fulfilled save the shame and disgrace with which she threatened me. But
that can never come, never, _never_!" and a look of pride came over the
fair face, and the round throat was curved defiantly.

Colonel Carlyle was quite happy and proud at first over the sensation
created by his beautiful girl-wife. He liked to see how much people
admired her. It pleased him to note the admiring glances that followed
her slightest movement.

She belonged to him, and all the admiration she excited was a tribute
to his taste and his pride.

For a whole week he was as pleased and happy as a man could be, but
a shadow fell upon him with the coming of Felise. He grew morbidly
jealous.

Jealous, and without a shadow of reason, for Bonnibel was like the
chaste and lovely moon--she shone coldly and alike upon all.

But the colonel became a changed man--everyone noticed it, and many
said that the old man was growing jealous of his beautiful darling.

But no one could tell how it came about, not even Felise Herbert, who,
when questioned by her mother, refused to admit that the faintest, most
insidious hint from her lips had been dropped like poison into the
cup of perfect happiness from which the doting old husband was fondly
drinking.

One morning a note lay on his dressing-table--a little note scrawled
in a disguised hand--he took it up and read it, then put it down again
and stood gazing blankly at it as if it were the death-warrant of his
happiness. It was very short, but every word was stamped indelibly on
his memory.

"Your wife," it ran, "wears a little opal ring on the third finger of
her right hand. She prizes it more than all the costly jewels you have
lavished upon her. It was the gift of a former lover whom she still
adores. Ask her to cease wearing the ring, or even to show you the
inscription inside, and you will see who has the warmest place in her
heart."

Could this be true? Was this a friend who warned him, he thought. He
remembered the pretty little ring perfectly.

The jealous pang that had been tearing at his heart for days grew
sharper than ever.

He knew his wife did not love him yet, but he had fondly hoped to win
her heart in time.

If what the writer of that anonymous letter said was true, then it was
vain to hope any longer.

"A former lover whom she still adored." Oh! God, could that be true?

"I will test her," he said to himself. "No one shall poison my mind
against my beautiful wife without a cause. 'I will put it to the test
and win or lose it all.'"

He went to a jeweler's that morning and came back with a little box in
his vest-pocket.

Then he asked Bonnibel if she would walk down to the seashore with him.

She complied with a gentle smile, and he found her a shady seat a
little off from the crowd, where they could talk uninterrupted.

She laid down her parasol, and removing her delicate gloves folded her
white hands listlessly together.

Colonel Carlyle took up the hand that wore the opal ring and looked at
it fondly.

"My dear," he said, "that is a very pretty ring you wear, but it is
not beautiful enough for your perfect hand. I have brought you a much
handsomer one with which to replace it."

He took it from his pocket and showed it to her--a lovely, shimmering
opal set round with gleaming pearls.

"I have heard that opals are unlucky stones," he said, "but if you are
not superstitious, and like to wear them, will you lay aside the simple
one you now have and put this on instead?" and he made a movement as if
he would withdraw the tabooed one from her finger.

Bonnibel withdrew her hand quickly, and looked up into Colonel
Carlyle's face.

He saw her delicate lips quiver, and a dimness creep over her eyes,
while her cheeks grew, if anything, paler than ever. Her voice trembled
slightly as she answered:

"I thank you for your beautiful gift; but I cannot consent to wear it
in the place of the plainer one I now have."

"And why not, my dear little wife? It would look much handsomer than
the one you now wear on your finger."

A faint flush tinged her snow-white cheek at the half-sarcastic
emphasis of his words. Her glance wandered off to the sunlit sea and a
tear rolled down her check as she said, very gently:

"I am quite aware of that, Colonel Carlyle. Your ring is a marvel of
beauty and taste, and I will wear it on another finger if you like;
but I prize the other more for its associations than for its beauty or
value. It was a keepsake from a friend. You remember the pretty words
of the old song:

    "'Who has not kept some trifling thing,
        More prized than jewels rare,
      A faded flower, a broken ring,
        A tress of golden hair?'"

There was a tone of unconscious pleading in her pathetic voice, and the
heart of the jealous old husband gave a throb of pain as he listened.

"It is true, then," he thought to himself. "It was a gift of a former
lover."

Aloud he said rather coldly:

"Since you prize it so much as a keepsake, Bonnibel, put it away
in some secret place, and preserve it as romantic people do such
treasures--it will be safer thus."

"I prefer to wear it, sir," she answered, with a glance of surprise at
the persistency.

"But I do not wish you to wear it. I particularly desire that you
should lay it aside and wear the one I have brought you instead," he
insisted, rather sharply goaded on by jealousy and dread.

Bonnibel turned her eyes away from the blue waves of the ocean and
looked curiously at her husband. She saw that he was in desperate
earnest. His dark eyes flashed with almost the fire of youth, and his
features worked with some inward emotion she did not in the least
understand.

"I am sorry to refuse your request, sir," she answered, a little
gravely; "though I am surprised that you should insist upon it when I
have plainly expressed a contrary wish. I can only repeat what I have
said before, that I prefer to wear it."

"Against my wishes, Bonnibel?"'

"I hope that you will not further oppose it, sir, on the ground of a
mere caprice," she answered, flushing warmly. "It was the gift of a
dear friend, who is dead, and I shall always wear it in remembrance."

"The gift of a former lover, perhaps," sneered Colonel Carlyle, half
beside himself with jealousy.

"I suppose it cannot matter to you, Colonel Carlyle, who the giver may
have been," exclaimed Bonnibel, offended at his overbearing tone, and
flushing indignantly.

"Pardon me, but it does matter, Bonnibel. I dislike exceedingly to see
my wife wearing the ring of one whom she loves better than her husband!
Common regard for my feelings should induce you to lay it aside without
forcing me to issue a command to that effect!"

His jealous pain or innate tyranny was fast getting the better of
his prudence, or he would scarcely have taken such a tone with the
young wife whose heart he so ardently longed to win. She sprang
up impetuously and looked down at him with the fires of awakened
resentment burning hotly upon her cheeks, looking beautiful with the
glow and warmth of passion in the face that had been too cold and pale
before. The same proud spirit that had forced her to defy her Uncle
Francis that memorable night animated her now.

"I think you will hardly dare issue such a command to me, Colonel
Carlyle. Remember that though I am your wife I am not your slave!"

How fair she looked in his eyes even as she indignantly defied his
authority! But passion had made him blind to reason and justice. With
a swift glance around to assure himself that no one was in sight, he
caught her small hand and tried to wrench the ring from her finger by
force.

"At least I will see whose hated name is written within the precious
jewel!" he exclaimed.

"Release me, this moment, Colonel Carlyle! If you dare to persevere in
such a cowardly and brutal course, I swear to you that I will never
live with you another day! Yes, I would leave you within the hour
were I twice your wife!" cried the girl, in such passionate wrath and
scorn that the colonel let go of her hand in sheer surprise at the
transformation of his dove.

"You would not dare do such a thing!" he exclaimed, vehemently.

"Would I not?" she answered, with flashing eyes. "I dare do anything!
Beware how you put me to the test!"

He stood glaring at her with rage and malignity distorting his
aristocratic features. How dared that feeble, puny girl defy him thus?

For a moment he almost hated her. A sleeping devil was aroused within
his heart.

"Bonnibel," he exclaimed, angrily, "you shall repent this hour in dust
and ashes!"

All the latent fire and scorn of the girl's passionate nature were
fanned into flame by his threatening words.

"I care nothing for your threat," she answered, haughtily. "I defy you
to do your worst! Such threats do honor to your manhood when addressed
to a weak and helpless girl! See how little I prize the gift of one who
could act in so unmanly a way."

She stooped and caught up his ring where it had fallen on the sands
in all its shining beauty. She made a step forward towards the water,
her white hand flashed in the air a moment, and the costly jewel fell
shimmering into the sea.

They stood a moment looking at each other in silence--the girl
reckless, defiant, like a young lioness at bay; the man astonished,
indignant, yet still thrilled with a sort of inexpressible admiration
of her beauty and her daring. He saw in her that moment some of the
dauntless courage of her hero-father. The same proud, untamed spirit
flashed from her glorious eyes. It flashed across him suddenly and
humiliatingly that he had been a fool to try such high-handed measures
with General Vere's daughter--he might have known that the same
unconquerable fire burned in her veins. He had seen Harry Vere go into
the battle with the same look on his face--the same flashing eye, the
same dilated nostril and disdainful lip.

He went up to her, thrilled with momentary compunction for his fault,
and took her hand in his.

"You were right, Bonnibel," he said, humbly. "I acted like a coward and
a brute. I was driven mad by jealousy. Can you forgive me, darling?"

"I accept your apology, sir," she answered, coldly; but there was
little graciousness and much pride in her manner. Her pride had been
outraged almost past forgiveness.

CHAPTER XIX.

Colonel Carlyle keeps the peace for several days. He finds that he has
overstepped the mark and that it will take careful management to regain
his lost ground in his wife's regard. Bonnibel, though she married him
without a spark of love, has yet given him a very frank and tender
regard and esteem until now. She has always thought him a perfect
gentleman, a model of courtesy and propriety, and as such she has given
him all that was left in her heart to give--the reverence and affection
of a dutiful daughter. Now, without a moment's warning, her ideal has
fallen from the proud pedestal where she had placed it--its shattered
fragments bestrewed the ground, and _she_ knows, if he does not, that
the broken image can never be restored.

He has deceived her, she tells herself bitterly, but now that he has
won her, the mask of courtliness is laid aside, and he shows the iron
hand that was hidden beneath the velvet glove.

But a few short weeks had fled, and he begins to play the tyrant
already.

Her passionate, undisciplined nature rises up in hot rebellion against
his injustice. The foolish jealousy of his old age appears very
contemptible to her youthful eyes. She does not try to excuse it to
herself. A great revulsion of feeling comes over her, chilling the
gentle growth of tenderness and gratitude in her heart. Her manner
grows cold, reserved, almost offensively haughty.

Ere this first cloud on the matrimonial horizon clears away the grand
ball of the season comes off. The gay visitors at Long Branch dance
every night, but this is to be the most brilliant affair of any--a
"full dress affair" is what the ladies call it--meaning to say that
they wear their finest dresses and costliest jewels--the gentlemen
likewise.

The night is cloudless, balmy, beautiful--such nights as we have in
the last of July when the moon is full and Heaven martials its hosts
of stars in the illimitable canopy above. The spacious ball-room is
thronged with revelers. The dreamy, passionate strains of waltz-music
float out upon the air, filling it with melody.

Standing beside a window is Colonel Carlyle, in elegant evening dress,
looking very stately and distinguished despite his seventy years.
Leaning on his arm is Felise Herbert, looking radiant in rose-colored
satin and gauze, with a diamond fillet clasping her dark hair, and
diamonds shining like dew on her bare throat and rounded arms. Smiles
dimple her red lips as she watches the animated scene about her, and
her dark eyes shine like stars. Her companion thinks that he never saw
her half so handsome before as she hangs on his arm and chatters airy
nothings in his ears.

"Look at our little Bonnibel," she says, in a tone of innocent
amusement; "is she not a demure little coquette? She looks like a
veritable snow-maiden, as cold and as pure, yet she has young Penn
inextricably prisoned in her toils, and everyone knows it--no one
better than herself."

His glance follows hers across the room to where his young wife stands
a little outside the giddy circle of waltzers, leaning on the arm of
a handsome, dreamy-looking youth, and despite the jealous pang that
thrills him at Felise's artful speech, his heart throbs with a great
love and pride at her exceeding beauty.

She looks like a snow-maiden, indeed, as her enemy says. She wears
costly white lace over her white silk, and her cheeks and brow, her
arms and shoulders are white as her dress. Colonel Carlyle's wedding
gift, a magnificent set of diamonds, adorns her royally. There is not
a flower about her, nothing but silk and laces and costly gems, yet
withal, she makes you think of a lily, she looks so white, and cold,
and pure in the whirl of rainbow hues around her.

Her companion bends toward her, speaking earnestly, yet she listens
with such apparent indifference and almost ennui that if that be
coquetry at all it can surely be characterized by no other term than
that of Felise--"demure."

"I thought that Penn's loves were all ideal ones," the colonel says,
trying to speak carelessly as he watches his wife's companion closely.
"To judge from his latest volumes of poems, the divinities of his
worship are all too ethereal to tread this lower earth."

Felise laughs significantly as her companion ceases to speak.

"Byron Penn, despite the ethereal creatures of his brain, is not proof
against mortal beauty," she says. "Remember, Colonel Carlyle, that
angels once looked down from Heaven and loved the women of earth."

"He is a graceful waltzer," her companion returns, as the young poet
circles the waist of the snow-maiden with one arm and whirls her into
the mazes of the giddy, breathless waltz.

"Very," says Felise, watching the graceful couple as they float around
the room, embodying the very poetry of motion.

She is silent a moment, then looks up into her companion's face with a
slightly curious expression.

"Pardon my question," she says, thoughtfully; "but do you quite approve
of _married_ women waltzing with other men than their husbands?"

He starts and looks at her sharply. The innocent deference and
unconsciousness of her voice and face are perfect.

"Since you ask me," he says, slowly, "I may say that upon mature
consideration I might think it was not exactly _comme il faut_. Yet
I have really never before given a second thought to the subject. It
is quite customary, you know, and it seems even more excusable in my
wife than other women, since I never waltz myself, and she would be
compelled to forego that pleasure entirely unless she shared it with
others."

"Oh, pray do not think that I have any reference to Bonnibel,"
exclaimed Felise, hurried and earnestly, "I was speaking altogether in
the abstract. Yet I fully agree with you that your wife would be more
excusable for many little errors of head and heart than most women. She
is scarcely more than a child, and has never had the proper training
to fit her for her present sphere. Her uncle was culpably indulgent
to her, and hated to force her inclination, which was very adverse to
study or application of any kind. Consequently our little Bonnibel,
though beautiful as a dream, is little more than an unformed child. She
should be in the school-room this minute."

Every word is spoken with such a pretty air of excusing and defending
the young wife's errors, and condemning her dead uncle as their cause,
that Colonel Carlyle is entirely deceived. He did not know that
Bonnibel was so neglected and unformed before, but he takes it on trust
since Felise is so confident of it, and the thought rankles bitterly in
his proud heart. But he passes over the subject in silence and returns
to the primal one.

"So you would not, as a rule, Miss Herbert, commend the practice of
married women waltzing with other men than their husbands?"

She drops her eyes with a pretty air of mingled confusion and
earnestness.

"Perhaps you will call me prudish," she says, "or perhaps I may be
actuated by the more ignoble passion of jealousy; but I have always
felt that were I a man it would be insupportable shame and agony for
me to see my wife, whom I loved and revered as a being little lower
than an angel, whirled about a common ball-room in the arms of another,
while the gaping public nodded and winked."

She saw a look of shame and pain cross his face as his eyes followed
the white figure floating round the room in the clasp of Byron Penn's
arms.

"I suppose there are not many women who feel as strongly on that
subject as you do," he says, slowly.

"Oh, dear, no, nor men either, or they would not permit their wives
such license," is the quick reply.

The waltz-music ceases with a bewildering crash of melody, and some
one comes up and claims Felise for the next german. She floats away
airily as a rose-colored cloud on her partner's arm, and leaves her
victim alone. He stands there quite silently a little, seeming lost in
troubled thought, then goes to seek his wife.

He finds her the center of an admiring circle, the young poet, Byron
Penn, conspicuous among them.

With a slight apology to his friends he offers his arm and leads her
away from the throng out to the long moonlighted piazzas.

"Shall I find you a seat or will you promenade?" he inquires politely.

"Oh! promenade, by all means," she answers a little constrainedly.

They take a few turns up and down the long piazza, Mrs. Carlyle's long
robe trailing after her with a silken "swish, swish;" she makes no
observation, does not even look at him.

Her large eyes wander away and linger upon the sea that is glorious
beyond description with the radiance of the full moon mirrored in its
deeps, and making a pathway of light across its restless waves.

She thinks vaguely that the golden streets of the celestial city must
look like that.

"I hope you are enjoying the ball?" her liege lord observes
interrogatively.

"As much as I ever enjoy anything," she returns listlessly.

"Which means----" he says, quickly, then checks himself abruptly.

She finishes his sentence with a dreary little sigh:

"That I do not enjoy anything very much!"

He looks down at her, wondering at the unusual pathos of her tone, and
sees a face to match the voice.

Moonlight they say brings out the true expression of the soul upon the
features.

If that be true then Bonnibel Carlyle bears a sad and weary soul within
her breast.

The white face looks very _spirituelle_ in the soft, mystical light,
and the delicate lips are set in a line of pain.

No man likes to see his wife unhappy. It is a reflection upon himself.
It is his first duty to secure her happiness. Colonel Carlyle is
nettled, and says, half querulously:

"I am sorry to see you _ennuyed_ where everything seems conspiring to
promote your happiness. Can I do nothing to further that end?"

Her large eyes look up at him a moment in grave surprise at his fretful
tone. Then she says to herself in apology for him:

"He is old, and I have heard that old people become irritated very
easily."

"Pray do not trouble yourself over my thoughtless words, sir," she
says, aloud. "I am tired--that is all. Perhaps I have danced too much."

"It was of that subject I wished to speak with you when I brought you
out here," he answers, abruptly. "Are you very fond of the waltz,
Bonnibel?"

"I like it quite well;" this after a moment's study. "There is
something dreamy, intoxicating, almost delightful in the music and the
motion."

A spasm of jealousy contracts his heart. He speaks quickly and with a
labored breath.

"I have never waltzed in my life, and cannot, of course, enter into the
feelings of those who have, but I can see what I am about to ask may be
a great sacrifice to you."

She glances up inquiringly into his face, but he will not meet her eyes.

"Bonnibel, I want you to give up waltzing altogether--will you do it?"
he asks, bruskly.

"Give up waltzing?" she echoes, in surprise. "Is not that a very sudden
notion, Colonel Carlyle? I did not know you harbored any objections to
the Terpsichorean art."

"I do not in the abstract," he answers, evasively. "But you will pardon
me for saying that I consider it exceedingly indelicate and improper
for a married woman to dance with any man but her husband. That is why
I have asked you to give it up for my sake."

"Do other people think the same way, sir?" she inquires timidly.

"All right-minded people do," he answers firmly, quite ignoring the
fact that he is a perfectly new proselyte to his boldly announced
conviction of the heinousness of the waltz.

Silence falls between them for a little time. They have stopped walking
and stand leaning against the piazza rails. Quite unconsciously she
has pulled a flower from his elegant _boutonniere_, and is tearing it
to pieces between her white-gloved fingers. She looks up as the last
rose-leaf is shredded away between her restless fingers and asks,
quietly:

"Would it please you very much to have me give up waltzing, sir?"

"More than words can express, my darling; are you going to make me
happy by the promise?"

"I am quite willing to please you, sir, when it is possible for me to
do so," she answers quite gently; "you have my promise."

"Bonnibel, you are an angel!" exclaims the enraptured colonel. He draws
his arm around her an instant and bends to kiss her lips. "A thousand
thanks for your generous self-sacrifice!"

"You need not thank me, sir--it is not much of a sacrifice," she
answers, dryly.

She has drawn out her programme of the dances for the evening and is
hurriedly consulting it.

"I find that I am engaged for one more waltz," she says, carelessly. "I
suppose you do not object to my dancing that? It would be embarrassing
to excuse myself."

"Your partner is--whom?" he inquires, with a slight frown.

Again she consults her programme.

"It is Mr. Penn."

"Cannot you excuse yourself? Say you are tired? Your head aches? Women
know how to invent suitable excuses always--do they not?"

"I will do as you wish, sir," she answers, in so low a voice that he
does not catch its faint inflection of scorn.

Other promenaders come out on the piazza, and one or two laughing
jests are thrown at him for keeping the "belle of the ball away from
her proper sphere."

"Perhaps I _am_ selfish," he says. "Let us return to the ball-room, my
love."

"As you please," she answers.

He leads her back and lingers by her side awhile, then it strikes him
that _les proprietes_ do not sanction a man's monopolizing his wife's
company in society. With a sigh he leaves her, and tries to make
himself agreeable to other fair women.

He has hardly left her before the band strikes up "The Beautiful Blue
Danube," and Byron Penn starts up from some remote corner, from which
he has witnessed her return to the ball-room.

"This is our waltz, is it not?" he says, with a tremor of pleasure in
his voice.

A slight flush rises over Bonnibel's cheek.

"I believe it is," she answers; "but if you will not think me very
rude, Mr. Penn, I am going to ask you to excuse me from it. I am tired
and shall dance no more this evening."

"You are very cruel," says the poet, plaintively; "but if you wish to
atone for your injustice you will walk down to the shore with me and
look at the moonlight on the sea, and hear how delicious the music
sounds down there. You can form no conception of its sweetness when
mellowed by a little distance and blent with the solemn diapason of the
waves."

"If you will go and tell my maid to bring me a shawl," she answers,
indifferently, "I will go with you for a minute."

He returns with a fleecy white wrap, and they stroll away from the
"dancers dancing in tune."

CHAPTER XX.

Colonel Carlyle soon misses his heart's fair queen from the ball-room,
and immediately the whole enchanting scene becomes a desert in
his love-lorn eyes. He glances hither and thither; he wanders
disconsolately around, yet no flitting glimpse of his snow-maiden
rewards his eager eyes. She has vanished as completely from his sight
as if a sunbeam had shone down upon and dissolved her into a mist.

"Have you seen Bonnibel anywhere?" he inquires of Felise, meeting her
on her partner's arm as he wandered around.

Felise looks up with a low, malicious laugh.

"Bonnibel?" she says. "Oh, yes; she and Byron Penn have been down on
the beach this half hour in the moonlight, composing sonnets."

Her partner laughs and hurries her on, leaving the anxious old husband
standing in the floor like one dazed. A dozen people standing around
have heard the question and its answer. They nod and wink at each
other, for Colonel Carlyle's patent jealousy has begun to make him a
laughing stock. After a moment he recollects himself and turns away.
People wonder if he will go out and confront the sentimental pair, and
a few couples, on curiosity bent, stroll out to watch his proceedings.
They are rewarded directly, for he comes out and takes his way down the
shore.

Felise's assertion of a half an hour is merely a pleasant fiction. It
has not been ten minutes since she left the house on the arm of the
young poet. They are standing on the beach looking out at the glorious
sea, and the young man whose soul is so deeply imbued with poetry that
he can think and speak of nothing else, has been telling her what a
sweet poem is "Lucille," Owen Meredith's latest. He repeats a few
lines, and the girl inclines her head and tries to be attentive.

    "O, being of beauty and bliss! seen and known
     In the depths of my heart, and possessed there alone,
     My days know thee not, and my lips name thee never,
     Thy place in my poor life is vacant forever,
     We have met, we have parted, no more is recorded
     In my annals on earth."

The pretty lines have a more attentive listener than Bonnibel. Her
husband has come up softly and unnoticed. He sees the graceful head
graciously inclined, hears the lines that Byron Penn has, unconsciously
to himself, made the vehicle for expressing his own sentiments, and his
heart quakes with fury. He strides before them, white and stern.

"Mrs. Carlyle," he says, in low, stern accents, "will you come with me?"

The young wife lifts her drooping head with a start and sees him
standing before her, wan, white and haggard, quite a different man from
the enraptured lover who had kissed and praised her but a little while
ago.

"I--oh, dear me--has anything happened, Colonel Carlyle? Are you ill?"
she falters, in her innocent unconsciousness.

"Will you come with me?" he repeats, grinding his teeth in a fury.

"Certainly," she says, thinking that something dreadful must have
happened surely, and simply saying, "You will excuse me, Mr. Penn," she
bows and turns away on her husband's arm.

The handsome young fellow looks after them blankly.

"Upon my word," he exclaims, "what a furious, uncalled-for outbreak of
jealousy! So that's what it is to be an old man's darling, is it? Truly
an enviable position for such a peerless angel."

He throws himself down on the beach, to the detriment of his immaculate
evening costume, and resigns himself to some rather melancholy musings.

Meanwhile Bonnibel, as she walks away, again asks, with sweet
unconsciousness:

"_Has_ anything happened, Colonel Carlyle?"

"Let us go to your private parlor; I will tell you there," he answers,
coldly.

Inside that safe retreat they confront each other in momentary silence,
Bonnibel anxious, troubled, and totally unconscious, Colonel Carlyle
pale with anger and wild, unreasoning jealousy, his brain on fire with
contending passions that have been seething there ever since Felise's
consummate art had been employed to torture him this evening.

"Now you will tell me?" she inquires, standing before him with
loosely-clasped hands, the fleecy drapery falling from her shoulders,
the fairest vision his eyes ever rested upon.

"Bonnibel, you surely do not pretend to be ignorant that you have given
me cause for offense?" he exclaims, hoarsely.

Her blue eyes dilate; she retreats a step with genuine surprise
depicted on her face. Then she remembered her promise about waltzing.

"Surely, there is some misunderstanding," she answers, slowly. "I
assure you, sir, that I have not waltzed any more since you asked me
not to do so."

"You have done worse, much worse!" he exclaims, passionately, "and your
affectation of innocence must certainly be feigned. No woman in her
senses could be oblivious to the fact that your open flirtation with
that silly rhymester, Byron Penn, is simply scandalous."

In his excitement he characterizes her offense in terms more forcible
than true. She is dumb with astonishment for a moment, then she walks
straight up to him, a blaze of color rushing over her face and neck,
while her eyes flash lightning scorn upon him.

"This to me!" she exclaims, her girlish voice ringing with passion
and resentment. "Such an accusation to Harry Vere's daughter! Oh! for
shame! How dare you!"

"You provoked it yourself," he answers, retreating before her, for her
little hands were clenched wildly as if she would strike him down to
earth; "I gave you my honored name to wear--a name as proud as your
father's--and you have dragged it through the mire of a moonlight
flirtation with a dandy, an idiot."

"It is false," she answers, proudly, "I never flirted in my life, I
should not know how to do it. And there was no harm in my short walk
down to the shore with Mr. Penn. No one could make harm of it except a
man blinded by jealousy!"

A glimmer of the truth had begun to dawn upon her. It angered him
bitterly to know that she had detected his weakness.

"I have been blinded by many things," he answers, furiously. "I was
blinded by your beautiful face before I married you, and could not
see that you had never received the proper training and education to
fit you for the position to which I elevated you. My eyes have been
opened by your recent conduct, and I find you simply an unformed child,
utterly ignorant how to maintain your dignity as my wife!"

Word for word he is going over the specious sophistries of Felise, but
he is utterly unconscious of the fact. He has been merely a pliant tool
in her artful hands, but he believes that he has found out all these
facts for himself, and he asserts them with a perfect conviction of
truth.

For Bonnibel stands listening in stunned silence to his vehement
rhodomontade. She has walked away from him a little way, and stands
clinging to the back of a chair, as if to save herself from falling.
The angry flush has died out of her face, and she looks marble-cold,
and white even to her lips. As he pauses, she speaks in low, resentful
accents:

"Colonel Carlyle, you are the first man who has ever offered me an
insult!"

"An insult!" he exclaims. "Do you call the truth an insult? You talk
like a child and act like a child, Bonnibel. I see no other resource
before me than to put you at school and keep you there until you
learn the necessary amenities of social life which your uncle's blind
indulgence aided and abetted you in ignoring."

"Send _me_--a married woman--to school--like a child!" she says,
staring at him blankly.

"Why not? You are quite young enough yet," he answers, moodily. "Two
years at a convent school in Paris would give you the training and
finish you lack at present."

"I assure you, sir, that my education has not been so totally neglected
as your words imply," she answers from the depths of the arm-chair into
which she has wearily fallen. "My Uncle Francis, though he loved me
too well to send me away from him to school, always provided me with
competent governesses, and if my training does not do them credit it is
my own fault, not his; so I beg that you will not needlessly reflect on
his memory."

He was silent a moment, pacing restlessly up and down the floor. An
unconscious pathos in her words had stung him into reflection. "My
Uncle Francis loved me too well to send me away from him," has touched
a responsive chord in his own heart. Her uncle had loved her like that,
yet he, her husband, bound to her by the dearest tie on earth, could
talk of sending her away from him like a naughty child that, having
disobeyed, must be punished for its fault.

"_Could_ I do it?" he asked himself, suddenly. "I love her as my own
life, though her childish follies drive me mad with jealousy. I am
growing old--could I lose her out of my life two precious years when my
span of existence may be so short? No, no, fool that I was to threaten
her so; I will retract it if I can without compromising my dignity."

He paused before her and said abruptly:

"I understand from your words then, Bonnibel, that you refuse your
consent to my proposed plan?"

To his surprise and confusion she lifted her head with a proud,
stag-like motion, and said icily:

"_Au contraire_, sir, I think well of it, and fully agree with you that
I need more training and polish to fit me for the exalted position I
occupy as your wife!"

The fine, delicate irony of her tone could not fail to strike him
keenly.

He tried to ignore it as he said in a voice that betrayed nothing of
his conflicting emotions:

"My proposed course meets with your full approval, then, madam?"

She inclines her head with stately grace.

"I cannot think of anything at present, Colonel Carlyle, that would
please me so well as a few years at a Parisian school such as you
mentioned."

"She is only too glad to have an opportunity of separating herself from
me," he thinks, bitterly; but aloud he answers coldly, "So be it; I
shall be happy to meet your wishes."

CHAPTER XXI.

It is barely midnight and the mirth and merriment are at their hight
down-stairs. Bonnibel hears the sound of

    "The violin, flute and bassoon,
     And the dancers dancing in tune."

through all her interview with Colonel Carlyle, but when it is ended
she does not return to the ball-room. She leaves him with a cold
good-night, and retires to her own room.

Lucy, her maid, starts up drowsily from her easy-chair as she enters.

"You here, Lucy?" she says. "I told you not to stay up for me. You
should not break your rest staying up night after night like this."

"Lor', Miss Bonnibel, I have had as comfortable a snooze in your
arm-chair as if I had been tucked into my bed," Lucy answers
good-naturedly. "Don't you go for to worry over me staying up. I kin
stand it if you kin."

Her mistress stands in the center of the room, her eyes shining, her
white hands tearing at the diamond necklace about her throat.

"Take it off, Lucy," she cries out impatiently. "It hurts me, it chokes
me!"

Lucy hastens to obey, but starts back as she sees the wild, white face
of the hapless girl.

"Oh, me!" she exclaims, "you look like a ghost, you are that white. Are
you sick, Miss Bonnibel? Let me get you something to take--some wine,
or something?"

"No, no, I wish nothing," she answers, impatiently. "Only undress me,
Lucy, and help me to bed. I am very tired--that is all."

She sits quite still while Lucy removes the jewels that shine about
her, the white satin slippers, the elegant dress, and brings the snowy
night-dress instead. Then as the maid kneels down and buttons the
delicate robe, Bonnibel, glancing down, sees her eyes full of tears and
her full lip quivering.

"Lucy," she says, in surprise, "what is it? What has grieved you?"

Lucy starts as if frightened at being detected.

"Forgive me, ma'am," she says; "it's for you I grieve. You are that
changed that I can't bear it! Here I have been your maid since you was
a little girl of twelve, and how happy you used to be before the master
died--now for goin' on a year I've never seen a real smile on your
face. Something troubles you all the time. Can't I help you? Can't I do
something for you?"

The humble, patient fidelity of the girl touches Bonnibel to the heart,
it is so seldom that an honest, heartfelt word of kindness falls on
her ears. Impulsively she bends and puts her lily white hand into the
strong clasp of the girl sitting humbly at her feet, looking up at her
with tear-filled eyes.

"Lucy, my poor girl," she says, plaintively, "I believe you are the
only true friend I have on earth!"

"Then can't I help you, Miss Bonnibel?" cried Lucy, feeling that the
words of her young mistress are too true for her to dispute them.
"Something troubles you--can't I help you to be happier?"

A sigh--hopeless, passionate, profound--drifts across the lips of the
listener.

"No no, my poor, kind girl," she answers; "no one can help me--I must
bear my own cross--no one can carry it for me! Only stay with me, Lucy,
and love me always--I have so few to love me--and I shall feel better
when I can see that your kind heart sympathizes with me."

"I'll never leave you, my dear mistress," sobs the girl; "I'll never
forget to love every hair of your innocent head."

She kisses the little hand Bonnibel has given her reverently and
tenderly, as if it were some precious thing.

"Lucy, I am going to test your fidelity," says the girl, drearily. "I
am going away to Europe next week. Will you go with me?"

Lucy stares open-mouthed.

"To Yurrup, Miss Bonnibel! Away off to them furrin parts?"

"Yes, Lucy, away off there. Does your courage fail you?" her mistress
inquires, with a slight, sad smile.

"No, no, ma'am. I don't like furrin people much; but I'll go to the
ends of the earth with you!" is the resolute reply.

"Your devotion shall not be taxed that far, Lucy. We will go to France."

"That heathen land," exclaims Lucy, "where the monseers eats frogs and
snakes?"

Bonnibel cannot repress a smile at the girl's quick gesture of disgust.

"You will like the French people better, I hope, when you stay among
them two years, for I shall probably stay in Paris that long. I am
going to school there, Lucy. You know that I have never been to
school in my life, and my governesses were not strict enough with me.
There are many things I do not know yet, that one moving in society I
frequent should know. So I am going to learn something yet. It is never
too late to mend, you know."

Lucy looks up, her eyes growing round with surprise.

"Lor', Miss Bonnibel, I never heard of a married woman going to school
in my life."

"Perhaps you never heard of a married woman so untutored as I am," her
young mistress returns, somewhat bitterly; "anyway, I am determined to
go to school and learn something. But I cannot do without a maid, and I
will take you, if you will go."

"That I certainly will, Miss Bonnibel," said Lucy, emphatically.

"Very well, Colonel Carlyle and I will start to New York to-morrow to
make preparations for our trip. See that the trunks are all packed,
Lucy."

"I will, ma'am. They shall be ready, never fear."

She rises and looks wistfully at the little white figure in the chair,
resting its dimpled chin in the curve of one pink palm, the golden head
bent wearily.

"Sha'n't I get you something? Indeed, you look ill," she implores.

"Nothing, Lucy. Good-night."

"Good-night, ma'am," Lucy responds, going away rather reluctantly.

Bonnibel makes no move to retire when Lucy has gone. The little white
bed awaits her, tempting to repose by its daintiness and coolness, but
she does not look toward it; only sits still as Lucy left her, with her
face bowed on her hand.

Colonel Carlyle has gone back to the ball-room again, trying to steel
his heart against the upbraidings of his conscience. He moves among the
revelers pale and _distrait_, yet still trying to bear his part in the
gaieties lest people should whisper that he is unhappy, and fearful
that some one may read the secret of his jealousy and cruelty to his
beautiful darling.

Curious glances follow him, whispers breathe the story that he fain
would conceal, every eye notes Bonnibel's absence.

They shrug their shoulders and tell each other in confidence that
Colonel Carlyle is a perfect Bluebeard, and has banished his wife from
the festal scene because he is jealous of Byron Penn.

And the music and the dancing go on until daylight warns the gay ones
to flee from that too true light that reveals their weariness and
haggardness so plainly.

But the ball is long since over for Bonnibel. Lucy finds her as she
left her, curled up in the great arm-chair, sleeping like a grieved
child, with the trace of tears on her cheek.

CHAPTER XXII.

Long Branch is electrified next day by the sudden departure of the
Carlyles for New York.

Surprise and wonder run high, and the curious ones seek Felise,
thinking that she, if any one, must be acquainted with the whys and
wherefores.

But Felise is rather reticent on the subject.

"I will tell you all I know," she says, with a pretty affectation of
frankness. "That is not much. The Carlyles are going abroad next week
and the colonel is going to put his wife at a convent school in Paris
to finish her education and perfect herself in music. He told me that
much this morning, and I did not ask him why he proposed taking such a
singular step."

"You thought him so crazed by jealousy that he could hardly account for
his whims in a rational manner, eh?" inquired one.

"It is monstrous!" says another. "Why, the girl was as finished and
elegant in her manners as mortal could be. It were impossible to add
another charm to her."

While Byron Penn quoted with enthusiasm:

    "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
     To smooth the ice; or add another hue
     Unto the rainbow; or with taper light
     To seek the beauteous eye of Heaven to garnish,
     Were wasteful and ridiculous excess."

It was a nine days' wonder, and then it was over. People voted Colonel
Carlyle a bear and a Bluebeard, and his lovely young bride a victim and
martyr. They said that he was secluding her from the world because he
was too jealous for the light of Heaven to shine upon her.

The young poet indited some charming verses for his favorite magazine:
"To Those Blue Eyes Across the Sea," and then the gossip began to die
out, and new subjects engrossed society's mind.

Months rolled on, and the Carlyle _eclaircissement_ was almost
forgotten, or at least but seldom named, even by those who had been the
most interested at first.

But Felise was jubilant.

"Mother, you see what I can do," she said, with a wicked laugh. "The
honeymoon is barely over, yet I have thrown sand in the old man's eyes
and parted him from his darling for two whole years."

"Felise, how did you accomplish it?" Mrs. Arnold inquired curiously.

"That is my secret," she answered, triumphantly.

"You might share it with me," her mother said, reproachfully. "I never
have secrets from you, my dear."

"I only used a little tact and humbug, mother--just a word dropped
in season here and there--yet the seed I sowed has brought forth an
abundant harvest. I have driven him nearly mad with jealousy and doubt
and suspicion; I put that scheme of sending Bonnibel to school into his
mind. And yet so blinded is he by his jealousy that he does not dream
of my complicity in the matter, and he will always blame himself for
the everlasting alienation that will exist between them."

"You had your revenge sooner than I thought you would. You are a clever
girl, Felise," Mrs. Arnold said, admiringly.

"It is but begun," Felise answered, moodily. "If time spares the old
man until Bonnibel comes out of her school I will wring his heart even
more deeply than I have already done. I bide my time."

Her mother, cruel and vindictive as she was herself, looked at her in
wonder.

"Why, it seems to me that you have already deeply avenged yourself,"
she said.

"Hell has no fury like a woman scorned!" Felise exclaimed, repeating
her favorite text. "Be patient, mother, and you shall yet see what a
woman scorned can do."

"What does Colonel Carlyle propose to do with himself while his wife is
immured in her convent?" asked Mrs. Arnold.

"He talks of a trip around the world. He affects to be very fond of
travel now. But I could see while he talked to me that the old fool
repented his intention and would retract it if he could."

"Perhaps he may do so yet."

"No, he will not. He is too proud and stubborn to do so voluntarily,
and I think that Bonnibel has acquiesced so readily in the plan that
he can find no loop-hole of escape from it. She is as proud as he is;
besides, she does not love him, and his unreasoning harshness has
rendered her perfectly reckless. She will go to the school, if only to
break his heart."

"Perhaps he will die of grief, Felise, or disappointment, and then she
will be left a wealthy young widow," cautions Mrs. Arnold.

"No danger," sneers Felise, cynically. "Men have died and worms have
eaten them, but not for _love_, as the immortal Shakespeare says,
mother. I do not anticipate such a contingency. The old dotard has
buried two partners and not succumbed to the pangs of bereavement yet.
It is possible he may live to plant the weeping willow over his little
white-faced dove."

"Perhaps so. She has never seemed over strong since her illness last
summer."

"She has been grieving over the loss of Leslie Dane," Felise answered,
carelessly.

She goes to the piano, strikes a few chords, and gets up again,
wandering about the room restlessly. There is a marked fitfulness and
unrest in her every movement, and her eyes flash and roll about in
their sockets in a way that troubles her mother.

"Felise, do you sleep well at night?" she inquires, abruptly.

"Why should I not?" the girl asks, turning her head away.

"I do not know; but there is a haggardness and restlessness about
you as if you didn't sleep much. I fancy you are getting nervous and
wakeful brooding over this revenge of yours. Your face has grown wan
and your eyes quite wild. Take care of yourself or you will lose your
beauty."

"Never mind, mother; when we go to Paris next year I will go to one of
those wonderful women there and have myself made beautiful forever."

"To Paris? Do you really mean it, Felise? I thought you said the last
time we went abroad that you were tired of it and never meant to go
again."

"I have changed my mind, mother. That is the privilege of the fair sex,
you know."

"I suppose you have some motive in this change of mind, Felise."

"Yes. I have. I want to be on hand when Mrs. Carlyle comes forth from
her finishing school. I have a fancy to see her after the polishing
process is completed."

She laughs softly to herself as if something pleasant has occurred to
her.

"Well, well, have your own way about it, my dear--you always do. But
I wish you could forget the Carlyles and enjoy life better. We have
everything to make it enjoyable, and if you wanted to marry, why you
could buy almost anyone you wanted with our wealth."

"I could not buy Colonel Carlyle, mother, though I wanted him very
much. He is the wealthiest man I know of anywhere."

"You do not need to marry for wealth, my daughter; we have enough of
our own."

Felise did not answer. She was absorbed in thought. Nothing Mrs. Arnold
could say made the least impression on her mind.

She was wedded to one idea, and as the weeks and months rolled by it
only took a firmer hold on her feelings.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"Madam Carlyle, monsieur, your husband, awaits you in the _salon_."

The tall, beautiful blonde, practicing a difficult sonata at the piano,
pauses a moment and suffers her white hands to rest idly on the keys.

"Colonel Carlyle, did you say, madam?" she inquires calmly.

The dignified head of the Parisian school bows in assent, and stands
awaiting her pupil's pleasure. The latter rises slowly, folds her
music together, restores it to the proper place and turns to leave the
music-room.

"You will wish to make some changes in your dress, of course," the lady
superior blandly asserts.

Madam Carlyle gives a glance downward at her dress of dark blue
cashmere. It is made with almost nun-like simplicity, and fits her
rounded, graceful form to perfection. The neck and sleeves are finished
with frills and fine lace, and there is not an ornament about her
except the rings on her tapering fingers. She does not need ornament.
She is rarely, peerlessly beautiful with her fair flower-face and
luxuriant crown of golden hair.

"It is not necessary," she answers. "Colonel Carlyle is perhaps
impatient."

There is a delicate-veiled sarcasm in the words barely perceptible to
the trained hearing of the listener. With that simple speech she turns
and glides from the room, leaving the lady superior gazing after her in
some surprise.

"They say that we in France make _mariages de convenance_," she murmurs
in French (which we will spare our readers); "but surely the Americans
must do likewise. That old man and that fair young girl--surely it is
the union of winter and summer. After two years' absence she goes to
him as coolly as an iceberg."

Meanwhile Mrs. Carlyle has glided down the long hall, opened the door
of the reception-room with a steady hand, and stepped across the
threshold.

"Bonnibel!" exclaims a voice, trembling with rapture and emotion--"my
darling wife!"

His arms are about her, his lips touch hers.

After a moment she gently disengages herself and looks up in his face.

"Colonel Carlyle," she exclaims, involuntarily, "how changed you are!"

Ten years instead of two seem to have gone over his head.

A look of age and weakness has grown into his face, his erect form has
acquired a perceptible stoop; yet a look of disappointment flashes into
his eyes at her words.

"It is only the fatigue of travel," he answers, quickly. "I have been a
great wanderer since we parted, my dear, and the weariness of travel is
still upon me. But as soon as I get rested and recuperated I shall look
quite like myself again."

"I hope so," she answers, politely. "Pray resume your seat sir."

He looks at her a little wistfully as she seats herself some distance
from him.

"Bonnibel, are you glad to see me again?" he asks, gently.

She looks up, startled, and hesitating what to say to this point-blank
question.

He sees the struggle in a moment, and adds, quickly and a little sadly:

"Never mind, my dear, you need not answer. I see you have not forgotten
my harshness in the past, and you are not prepared with an answer that
would make me happy. But, my darling, you must learn forgetfulness of
those things that alienated you from me, for I shall bend every effort
now to the one object of making you happy. I have come to take you away
with me, Bonnibel."

A slight, almost impalpable, shiver runs through her at the words, and
she smothers a faint sigh.

She will be very sorry to leave this haven of peace in which she has
rested securely the last two years. She has grown fond of her quiet
life among the "passionless, pale-cold" nuns of the convent, and is
loth to break its repose by going back to the jar and fret of life with
her jealous husband. She wishes that she might stay in the convent all
her life.

"Do you intend to return at once to the United States, sir?" she
inquires, being at a loss for something to say.

"Not yet, unless you particularly desire it. I want you to see
something of life in the gay French Capital--'dear, delightful Paris,'
as we Americans call it. I have rented an elegant _chateau_ and
furnished it in handsome style, according to what I fancied your taste
would prefer; have engaged a retinue of servants; and there is a lovely
garden of roses; in short, the home is ready, and only awaits its
mistress. I have tried to arrange everything as you would like it."

"Thank you; you are very kind," she murmurs, almost inaudibly.

"The next thing," he goes on, "is to take you to Worth, where you
may order an outfit as handsome as a queen's, if you choose. And
jewels--well, you shall have as many and as costly ones as you like."

"I have enough jewels, I think," she answers. "There are the pearls
Uncle Francis gave me; then my wedding-gift--the diamonds."

"Tut, tut; you will need many more when you are fairly launched on
the tide of gay society here. You will see women fairly loaded
with jewels--you must not have less than they. Not but that you are
beautiful enough to dispense with extraneous ornament, but I wish you
to outshine all others in adornment as well as in beauty."

The long lashes droop over her cheeks a little sadly as he talks. So
these are the things with which she is to fill her life--society,
dress, jewels, fashion. A long life, too, perhaps, for she is barely
twenty-one now. For other women there may be love and happiness--for
her nothing but the gilded pleasures that wealth can purchase. Ah,
well, and with a start she remembers Mrs. Arnold's threat and her weak
subjugation by it--these are the things for which she sold herself to
the old man sitting yonder. She made the bargain herself, and now she
must abide by it. She is a fettered slave, but at least her bonds are
golden ones.

"You are very kind," she answers, trying hard to be cordial and
grateful for his generosity. "I do not know how to thank you for your
munificence, sir."

"I will tell you," he answers, quickly. "Try to like me a little,
Bonnibel. Once I dreamed of winning your love; but things went wrong
and I--I--perhaps I was too harsh with the bonny bird I had caught--so
I came near earning your hatred instead. But that was so long ago. You
will try to forgive me and like me just a little now, my wife."

The pathos of his words, his aged, weary looks touch a tender chord in
her young heart, and thaw out a little of the icy crust of reserve that
has been freezing around it these two years.

She rises impulsively and walks over to him, putting her delicate hand,
warm with youth and health, into his cold, white, trembling one.

"Indeed, I will try," she says, earnestly. "Only be kind to me, and do
not frighten me with your jealous fancies, and I will like you very
much indeed!"

He kisses the little hand with the ardor of a boyish lover, feeling his
heart beat warm and youthful still at her gently-spoken words.

"A thousand thanks, my angel!" he exclaims. "Your words have made me
very happy. I will try to curb my jealous temper and merit your sweet
regard. And now, my dearest, how soon can you accompany me? I do not
want to go away without you."

"You wish me to go at once--to-day?" she stammers, drawing back ever so
slightly.

"To-day--at once," he answers. "I have wearied for a sight of you so
long, my wife, that I cannot let you go again. I want you to put on
a carriage costume at once, and I will take you to Worth's, and from
thence to the _chateau_."

"But my maid--and my trunks," she urges, in dismay.

"Tell your maid to pack your trunks and we will send for them this
evening, and her also. By the way, who is your maid? Have you a
competent one?" he inquires.

"You remember Lucy--the girl who came over with me from New York?" she
says.

He frowns slightly.

"Ah, yes; but she will not suit you now, dear. You must let her go, and
secure a skillful French maid."

"Let Lucy go--the faithful creature!" For the first time her lip
quivers. "Oh, no, I cannot part with Lucy. She has been my attendant
ever since I was a child, and is the only link that is left to me out
of my old life."

"Keep her with you still, then, but secure a French maid also, and let
Lucy hold a sinecure."

"It would break her heart, Colonel Carlyle, to depose her from her post
as my chief helper. Besides, though she is rather illiterate, the girl
has real talent and taste in her vocation. Pray do not ask me to give
her up."

"As you please, my dear. But now go and make your adieux to the lady
superior and your friends here, and prepare to accompany me to your
new home," said the colonel, with slight impatience, for he already
felt his dominant passion, jealousy, rising within him at Bonnibel's
openly-expressed preference for her maid. Old or young, male or female,
he could not feel contented that anyone but himself should hold a place
in his young wife's heart.

She went away and remained what seemed a long time to the impatient
old man. She came back with slightly-flushed cheeks and a mist in her
sea-blue eyes, attended by the superior of the convent.

With a brief and gentle farewell to her, Bonnibel entered the carriage
with her husband.

CHAPTER XXIV.

"Hurrah, Leslie!"

"Well, Carl!"

"Our pictures are sold!"

"What pictures?"

"What pictures?" mimicking the indifferent tone. "Oh! how indifferent
we are! yet a year ago how blessed were the feet of the messenger who
brought such tidings! Success falls upon you, my boy. Now with me a
ready sale is quite an event. Of course I meant the pictures we sent to
Paris!"

The same old studio at Rome into which we looked three years ago, and
the same two artists we saw then. Carl Muller had just entered, waving
an open letter over his head.

The gay, mercurial German looked as boyishly handsome as ever, as
though time had forgotten him. Not so with Leslie Dane, who stood
beside a half-finished picture, critically regarding it. He was
handsomer than ever, as though the subtle hand of a sculptor had been
at work upon his features chiseling the fine Greek outlines into rarer
perfection and delicacy. A few lines of thought and care added rather
than detracted from the interest with which one turned a second time to
look at his face. The full lips half shaded by the dark mustache had
lost a little of the almost womanly sweetness of the past and acquired
a sterner curve. Into the dark eyes there had crept a gleam of brooding
sadness, and a few silver threads shone in the clustering locks about
his white brow. His last three years had made their mark upon him in
many subtle changes.

"I could have told you that yesterday, Carl," he said, smiling, "but
you were out when my letter came, and I was so busy over my picture
here that I forgot it when you returned."

"The agent wrote to you first then," said Carl. "He might have had the
courtesy to drop me a line at the same time."

"Do not blame him too much, Carl," said Leslie Dane. "He was in a
hurry about writing to me because he had a letter to inclose from the
purchaser of the pictures."

"Another commission, you lucky dog!" exclaimed Carl Muller.

"It amounts to that, I suppose. He wants me to go to Paris and paint
his wife's portrait. If I will not go to Paris he will come to Rome."

"If the mountain will not go to Mahomet, then Mahomet must go to the
mountain," said Carl.

"Something that way," said Leslie, carelessly.

"You will accept, of course. The old fellow paid such an extravagant
price for the pictures that another commission might be a temptation
even to you who have lately been surfeited with success."

"The money certainly might be an object, but I think I shall refuse,"
was the abrupt reply.

"Refuse!" exclaimed Carl, in surprise, "and why, if I may ask?"

"The man is an American."

"So are you," cried the German, surprised at the dark frown that
darkened on Leslie's brow. "Is that a disgrace?"

"I suppose not. Yet I will have nothing to do with my countrymen," said
the artist, sternly.

Carl gave vent to a low whistle.

"Ye gods! An American--born under the shadow of the eagle's wing of
liberty, a citizen of a land the most patriotic upon earth--coolly
repudiating his country! I never expected to see such a novel sight
under the sun!"

"You mistake me, Carl," said Leslie Dane, a little vexed. "I do not
repudiate my native land. I revere her as the noblest country upon
earth, but I am from henceforth an exile, self-expatriated from her
shores, and I do not wish to meet anyone who can recall memories I
would fain forget."

"You are a strange fellow, Leslie, I cannot understand your moods."

"You do not? Shall I explain, Carl? Listen, then."

Carl looked up into the dark face with its look of proud grief mingled
with bitterness.

"No, no; forgive my levity," he said; "I would not intrude upon your
secret, dear friend. Let it rest."

"It does not matter," said Leslie, his deep voice full of pain. "I will
tell you, Carl. It is only this: One woman in that fair land where I
was born has played me false and ruined my life. I hate and shun all
Americans for her sake!"

He took up his brush and went to work at his picture without another
word. Carl was silent also; he was recalling that episode of three
years ago when Leslie in his wild outbreak had painted out the portrait
of his fair, false-hearted love.

"So he has not forgotten her," he thought; "and yet he has never
breathed another word of her until to-day. Ah! she will never know what
a true and noble heart she cast away."

He sat still awhile thinking profoundly, and referring to his letter
now and then with ever-increasing pride in the lucrative sale of his
picture, for Carl was a lazy fellow, and though he commenced numbers
of things seldom had patience to finish them. Consequently a completed
work and its ready sale had all the charm of novelty to him.

"I say," he said, breaking the silence that had brooded as long as
he could bear it, and returning to the charge upon his friend, "old
fellow, it's a shame you should refuse such a profitable commission for
a scruple I must say is not worthy of you. Do accept it, Leslie. This
old fellow--let me see"--referring again to his letter--"Carlyle his
name is--Colonel Carlyle--need not trouble you much with the sight of
his obnoxious face, and the old lady--Favart says he is an old man, so
of course she is an old lady--need only give you a few sittings. They
would not trouble you long, and you need not think of them as Americans
at all. Simply regard the sitter as your model, and think no more about
it."

Leslie Dane did not answer, but the slight smile that played around his
lips showed that he had been an attentive listener to Carl's admonition.

"You know," resumed Carl, seeing that Leslie would not answer, "we
have been promising ourselves a trip to Paris for ever so long. I
see no chance so suitable as the present when I have this pot of
money to spend, and when you might so agreeably combine business with
pleasure in the execution of this portrait and the enjoyment of all the
pleasures of Paris. Recollect, you would be fairly lionized there."

"I do not fancy being lionized," said Leslie Dane, grimly.

"Do you not! Now, I should enjoy it above all things. But since I am
not apt to have that honor I should enjoy following in your wake and
taking all the glories second-hand. I should be sure to get a little
of the honor reflected on me, for though I am not the rose, you know I
have lived near it."

Leslie Dane looked up with a quizzical smile.

"Confess now, Carl," he said, "that nothing will content you but to
get away and spend the gold you have earned. All your flattery and
sophistry leads to this--that you are wild for a companion to aid and
abet you in spending the money that is burning a hole in your pocket
this minute."

"Somehow the gold does seem to burn through my pockets," said Carl,
reflectively. "But, tra, la, what is it good for but to buy pleasure?"

He began to hum a few bars of a German song with a gay refrain.

"Come, come, get to your work," exclaimed the other. "Your signal
success with your last work should stimulate you to renewed efforts."

"So it will," affirmed Carl; "but not to-day. I feel so giddy over my
good news that I could not work to-day. I should hardly know how to mix
my colors. I feel as lazy, shiftless and good-natured as the Italian
lazzaroni out in the sunshine."

Leslie Dane gave a little sigh as he looked at his happy companion.
Nothing ever seemed to ruffle the gay current of his good nature. His
temperament was an enviable one.

"Carl, did you ever have a sweetheart?" Leslie asked curiously.

"Sweethearts--yes, a score of them," laughed Carl. "More Gretchens,
Madchens, and Anitas than you could count on your fingers. Why do you
ask?"

"Only for curiosity. I thought you could not be so care-free and joyous
if love had ever come into your life."

"That is according to how we look at love," said the German; "with you
it is all a solemn epic or tragedy. With me it would be a pretty little
poem or a happy song."

Leslie sighed but did not answer.

"Come, now," said the German, "we have wandered from our subject. Give
up your selfishness this once, Leslie, and take a holiday. Come with me
to Paris next week."

Leslie stood silently meditating, and Carl saw that the battle was
almost won.

"Don't hesitate," said he, pushing his advantage. "Indeed you work too
hard, my boy. There is no need of it since you have forsworn marriage.
Take a breathing spell and come with me to Paris and paint old Mrs.
Carlyle's portrait."

Leslie frowned slightly at the words.

"Pray do not mention those people again," he said, in an irritated
tone. "Perhaps I will accompany you to Paris; but I have no fancy to
paint the portrait of a wrinkled old woman."

CHAPTER XXV.

"Confound the impudence of such fellows!" said Colonel Carlyle,
fretfully, as he entered his wife's morning-room.

It was a charming apartment with hangings of pale blue satin that made
a perfect foil to the pearl-fair beauty of Bonnibel.

The chairs and sofas were upholstered in the same rich material; the
carpet was white velvet, sprinkled over with blue forget-me-nots; the
costly white lace curtains were draped over blue satin, and the bright
fire burning in the silver grate shone upon expensive gilding and
delicate bric-a-brac scattered profusely about the room.

A marble Flora, half buried in flowers, stood in a niche, and vases of
delicate white lilies were on the marble mantel.

The young mistress of all this beauty and wealth so tastefully
combined, as she sat near the fire with an open book, looked like a gem
set in an appropriate shrine, so fair, and pure, and dainty, was her
person and her apparel.

She looked up with a slight smile as her liege lord's fretful
ejaculation fell upon her ears.

"What person has been so unfortunate as to incur your displeasure?" she
inquired.

"The artist of whom I purchased that splendid picture for the
drawing-room--the last one, you know."

"Yes," she said, languidly; "and what has he done now?"

"I wanted him to paint your portrait, you know."

"Excuse me, I did not know," she returned.

"Oh no; I believe you did not. I think I failed to mention the matter
to you. Well, he is the greatest artist in Rome--people are raving over
his pictures. They say he has the most brilliant genius of his time."

"Is that why you are angry with him?" she asked, with a slight smile.

"No; oh, no. But I wrote to him and asked him to paint your portrait. I
even offered to take you to Rome if he would not come to Paris."

"Well?"

"He had the impertinence to send me a cool refusal," said the colonel,
irately.

"He did--and why?" asked Bonnibel, just a little piqued at the unknown
artist.

"He did not like to paint portraits, he said--he preferred the ideal
world of art. Did you ever hear of such a cool excuse?"

"We have no right to feel angry with him. He is, of course, the master
of his own actions, and has undoubted right to his preferences," said
Bonnibel, calmly.

But though she spoke so quietly, her womanly vanity was piqued by the
unknown artist's cold refusal "to hand her sweetness down to fame."

"Who is he? What is his name?" she asked.

The colonel considered a moment.

"I have a wonderful faculty for forgetting names," he said. "Favart has
told me his name several times--let me see--I think--yes, I am sure--it
is _Deane_!"

"I should like to see him," she said, "I have always taken a great deal
of interest in artists."

"You will be very apt to see him," said the colonel; "he is in Paris
now--taking a holiday, Favart says. People are making quite a fuss
over him and his friend--the artist from whom I bought the other fine
picture, you know. You will be sure to meet them in society."

"Do you think so?" she asked, twirling the leaves of her book
nervously. The mention of artists and pictures always agitated her
strangely. She could not forget the young artist who had gone to
Rome to earn fame and fortune and died so soon. Her cheek paled with
emotion, and her eyes darkened with sadness under their drooping lashes
of golden-brown.

"Yes, there is not a doubt of it," he said. "In fact, I suppose we
shall have to invite them, too, though I do not relish it after the
fellow's incivility. But it is the privilege of greatness to be crusty,
I believe. Anyway, the fashionables are all _feting_ and lionizing him,
so we cannot well slight him. I shall have Monsieur Favart bring him
and his friend to our ball next week. What do you say, my dear?"

"Send him a card by all means," she answered, "I am quite curious to
see him."

"Perhaps he may repent his refusal when he sees how beautiful you are,
my darling," said the colonel, with a fond, proud glance into her face.
"His ideal world of art, as he calls it, cannot contain anything more
lovely than yourself."

"You flatter me, Colonel Carlyle," she said lightly, but in her heart
she knew that he had spoken truly. She had been afloat on the whirling
tide of fashionable life now for several months, and praises and
adulation had followed her everywhere. The gay Parisians went mad over
her pure blonde loveliness. They said she was the most beautiful and
refined woman in Paris, as well as the most cold and pure. She had
begun to take a certain pleasure in the gaieties of the world and in
the homage that followed her wherever she moved. These were the empty
husks on which she had to feed her heart's hunger, and she was trying
to find them sweet.

Colonel Carlyle's baleful jealousy had lain dormant or concealed even
since he had taken his wife from school.

True, his arch-enemy, Felise Herbert, was in Paris, but for some reason
of her own she had not as yet laid any serious pitfall for his unwary
feet.

Perhaps she was only playing with him as the cat does with the little
mouse before she ruthlessly murders it; perhaps Bonnibel's icy-cold
manner and studied reserve to all made it harder to excite the old
soldier's ever ready suspicion.

Be that as it may, life flowed on calmly if not happily to the colonel
and his young wife.

They met Mrs. Arnold and her daughter frequently in their fashionable
rounds, they invited them to their house, and received invitations in
return, but though the colonel was cordial, his wife was cold and proud
to the two women who had been so cruel to her and driven her into this
unhappy marriage with a man old enough to be her grandfather. She could
not forgive them for that cruel deed.

"I bide my time," Felise said to her mother one day when they were
discussing the Carlyles. "I am giving her a little taste of the world's
pleasures. I want her to fall in love with this life she is leading
here. She will be tempted by its enticements and forget her coldness
and prudishness. Then I shall strike."

"She is very circumspect," said Mrs. Arnold. "They say she is a model
of virtue and beautiful wifely obedience."

"The higher she soars now the lower her fall shall be!" exclaimed the
relentless girl, with her low, reckless laugh, "mother, I shall not
fail of my revenge!"

Ah! Felise Herbert! The coils of fate are tightening around you like a
deadly serpent while you exult in your wickedness.

CHAPTER XXVI.

The gay, pleasure-loving Parisians were on the _qui vive_ for Mrs.
Carlyle's masquerade ball, for it was everywhere conceded that her
entertainments were the most _recherche_ and delightful in the whole
city. Colonel Carlyle spared neither pains nor expense to render them
so.

In his laudable desire to further Bonnibel's happiness, the colonel
lavished gold like water. He knew no other path to success than this.
He wanted to win her regard, if possible, and his experience in society
had disposed him to believe that the most potent "open sesame" to a
woman's heart was wealth and power.

How far the colonel's convictions were true, or how ably he might have
succeeded in the darling wish of his heart, had things gone well,
we shall never know, for the frail superstructure of his happiness,
builded on the sand, was destined to be thrown down and shattered into
fragments by the wild winds of fate, that should converge into storms
on that fatal night to which so many looked forward with pleasure.

And yet not the faintest presentiment of evil came to him that day to
whisper of the gathering clouds of destiny. He knew not that his "house
of cards" tottered on its foundation, that the wreck and ruin of his
dearest hope was about to be consummated. He knew not, or he might have
exclaimed with the poet:

    "Of all that life can teach us,
       There's naught so true as this;
     The winds of fate blow ever,
       But ever blow amiss!"

The brief winter day came at length, gloomy and overcast, with clouded
sky that overflowed with a wild, tempestuous rain, as though

    "The heart of Heaven was breaking
     In tears o'er the fallen earth."

At night the storm passed over, the bright stars shone through the
misty veil of darkness, a lovely silver moon hung its crescent in the
sky. All things seemed propitious for the hour that was "big with fate"
to the lovely girl whose changing fortunes we have followed to the
turning point of her life.

Cold, and dark, and gloomy though it seemed outside, all was light, and
warmth, and summer in the splendid chateau.

Hot-house flowers bloomed everywhere in the most lavish profusion. The
air was heavy with their fragrance.

Entrancing strains of music echoed through the splendid halls, tempting
light feet to the gay whirl of the dance. The splendid drawing-rooms,
opening into each other, looked like long vistas of fairy-land, in
the glow of light, and the beauty shed around by countless flowers
overflowing great marble vases everywhere. The gay masquers moved
through the entrancing scene, chatting, laughing, dancing, as though
life itself were but one long revel. In the banqueting hall the long
tables were loaded with every luxury under the sun, temptingly spread
on gold and silver plates. Nothing that taste could devise, or wealth
could procure, was lacking for the enjoyment of the guests; and
pleasure reigned supreme.

It was almost the hour for unmasking, and Colonel Carlyle stood alone,
half hidden by a crimson-satin curtain, looking on idly at the gay
dancers before him.

He felt weary and dull, though he would not have owned it for the
world. He hated to feel the weakness and feebleness of old age creeping
over him, as it was too surely doing, and affected to enter into all
the gaieties of the season, with the zest and ardor of a younger and
stronger man.

He had for a few moments felt dull, sad and discontented. The reason
was because he had lost sight of his beautiful idol whom no mask could
hide from his loving eyes.

She had disappeared in the moving throng a little while ago, and now he
impatiently waited until some happy chance should restore her to his
sight again.

"I am very foolish over my darling," he said to himself, half proudly,
half seriously. "I do not believe that any young man could worship her
as passionately as I do. I watch over her as closely and jealously as
if some dread mischance might remove her from my sight at any moment.
Ah, those dreadful two years in which I so cruelly put her out of my
life and starved my eyes and my heart--would that I might recall them
and undo their work! Those years of separation and repentance have
sadly aged me!"

He sighed heavily, and again his anxious gaze roved through the room.

"Ah, there she is," he murmured, delightedly. "My beautiful Bonnibel!
how I wish the time for unmasking would come. I cannot bear for her
sweet face to be hidden from my sight."

At that moment a small hand fluttered down upon his arm.

He turned abruptly.

Beside him stood a woman whose dark eyes shone through her concealing
mask like coals of fire. She spoke in a low, unfamiliar voice:

"I know you, sir. Your mask cannot hide Colonel Carlyle from my eyes."

"Madam, you have the advantage of me," he answered politely. "Will you
accord me the privilege of your name?"

"It matters not," she answered, with a low, eerie laugh, whose
strangeness sent a cold thrill like an icy chill along his veins, "I am
but a wandering sibyl; I claim no name, no country."

"Perhaps you will foretell my future," he said, humoring her assumption
of the character.

"It were best concealed," she said, and again he heard that strange,
blood-curdling laugh.

He bowed and stood gazing at her silently, wondering a little who she
could be.

The wandering sibyl stood silent, too, as if lost in thought. Presently
she started and spoke like one waking from a dream:

"And yet perhaps I may give you a word of warning."

"Pray do so," he answered carelessly, for his eyes had returned to the
graceful form of Bonnibel as she stood leaning against a tall stand of
flowers at a little distance from him.

The woman's eyes followed his. She frowned darkly beneath her mask.

"You have gathered many distinguished guests around you to-night,
Colonel Carlyle," she said, abruptly.

"None more honored than yourself, madam, be sure, although unknown," he
answered, with a courtly bow.

"Pretty words," she answered, with a mocking laugh. "Let me repay them
by a friendly warning."

She bent nearer and breathed in a low, sibilant whisper:

"Your wife and the great artist who is your honored guest to-night,
were lovers long ago. Watch well how they meet when unmasked to-night!"

With the words she glided from him like the serpent forsaking Eden.

And that deadly serpent, jealousy, that had lain dormant in the
colonel's heart for months, "scotched but not killed," now coiled
itself anew for a fatal spring.

The blood in his veins seemed turning to liquid fire.

His heart beat so wildly that he could distinctly hear its rapid throbs.

He felt frightened at the swiftness and violence of the passion that
flooded his whole being.

The words spoken by the masked woman seemed to burn themselves into his
heart.

"Your wife and the great artist who is your honored guest to-night were
lovers long ago. Watch well how they meet when unmasked to-night."

For a moment Reason tried to assert her supremacy, and whisper, "Peace,
be still," to the seething whirlpool of emotion.

"Do not believe it," she said. "Someone is trying to tease you. It is
quite impossible that Bonnibel and this foreign artist should have met
before. Anonymous warnings should always be treated with contempt."

And then he remembered the anonymous note he had received at Long
Branch two years before.

"_That_ was true," he said to himself. "Bonnibel as good as admitted
it, for she would not show me the inscription in the ring, and she
refused to give up wearing it. But she said that the giver was dead.
Had she had two lovers, then, innocent and youthful as she was? Perhaps
she deceived me. Women are not to be trusted, they say. I will obey the
warning of my unknown friend and watch."

He waited impatiently for the summons to supper, which would be the
signal for laying aside the masks.

"It must be true," he said to himself, "for that would explain why he
was so discourteous about painting her portrait. He did not wish to
be thrown into familiar contact with her again. Perhaps she had used
him cruelly. It may be that she threw him over because he was poor and
unknown, then, and accepted me only for the sake of my wealth."

He was nearly maddened by these tumultuous thoughts. He was almost
on the point of going to her at once and overwhelming her with the
accusation of her wrong-doing.

At that moment the signal came and his guests unmasked.

He saw Monsieur Favart coming toward him accompanied by a handsome
distinguished-looking young man in the costume of a knight. He had
never met the great Roman artist, yet he felt a quick intuition that
this must be the man. The premonition was verified for Monsieur Favart
paused before him and said:

"Colonel Carlyle, it gives me pleasure to present my artist friend, Mr.
Dane."

The two gentlemen bowed to each other, but for a moment Colonel Carlyle
could not speak. When he did his voice was hoarse and strained, and
his words of welcome were so few that Monsieur Favart looked at him in
surprise. What had become of the old colonel's urbanity and courtliness?

"You will allow me to present you to my wife, Mr. Dane," said the host,
breaking the silence with an effort.

The artist bowed and they moved down the long room side by side, the
old man with his white face and silvery beard, the young one with his
princely grace and refined beauty.

Leslie Dane had been most reluctant to attend the ball given by the
American colonel, but Carl Muller had teased him into compliance. He
had nerved himself for the trial, and found that he could bear the
contact with one from his native land with more _sang froid_ than he
expected.

"Now I shall see the old lady," was his half-smiling comment to himself
as he walked along. "I wonder if she is very angry with me because I
would not paint her portrait."

The next moment, before he had time to raise his eyes, he found himself
bowing hurriedly at the sound of his host's voice uttering the usual
formal words of introduction.

Bonnibel was standing alone by a tall _jardiniere_ of flowers, looking
downward a little thoughtfully. She was dressed as Undine, in a
floating robe of sea-green, with billows of snowy tulle, looped with