"Suppose, just for a moment, Miss Hillyer, that we should find it possible to help this manto readjust the mechanism of thought and memory in his brain-would he thank us?-would he take up life again with gratitude or reluctance, do you think? Suppose his reckless passion for Rose should revive with his dormant faculties? Mind, the thing is not at all probable, but I ask you to suppose it-would not André Gautier curse God and die when he found himself forsaken, deserted, by the very woman to whom he owed his frightful misfortune ?" CHAPTER XXXI. A GIRL'S TEARS. THE wintry moonlight was falling in the long avenues of Windmere, and over the bare, frostbitten terraces. Mignon, standing in a low, wide window with that white radiance on her brightly joyous face, gazed out into the night, and clung a little closer to the arm on which she leaned. "I am so happy, Paget!" she whispered to her lover. "Yes, I know that I am too happy." He smiled as he looked down upon her soft, childish beauty-to him the most beguiling upon earth. "It is impossible for you to be too happy," he answered. "Little darling, for whom was happiness made, if not for you? The sadder things of life shall never come near you while I have power to keep them away." She lifted her face in the moonlight "Fair, not pale." A half-blown Catherine Mermet rose was in her hand; a faint smile parted her red lips. Her eyes wore a meditative expression. Behind the lovers stretched the long hall with a blaze of hickory logs on the hearth, and the faint, fine shadows of palms along the carved wall. "Is it really true," she murmured, "that you never loved any woman before me? Let me hear you say it again, Paget." "It is absolutely true," he replied, with a fervor that might have laid to rest the darkest doubt. "You were made for me-I see it now. I waited long, lonely years, mateless, restless, and at last you came to your lover-ah, you were well worth waiting for!" She trembled a little in his embrace. Her face, silvered over by the moonlight, was like that of an angel. What man in his senses could have associated the thought of guile with that delicate, dainty loveliness? He laid his bronzed cheek upon her golden hair. "And if death does not come till I cease to love you, Mignon, you may look upon yourself as immortal." "Death is not the only thing that parts human hearts," she faltered. "I might do some wicked thing, and make you very angry, Paget-there is a stern look about your eyes sometimes that bodes ill to evil doers. You might cease to care for me altogether-you might despise-detest me, perhaps." He kissed the last word passionately from her lips. "How dare you talk such heresy? Nothing could make me despise you! I would as soon think of an angel of light doing wickedly as you, my little Mignon." "But should the impossible become possible— why, I would forgive you, darling-I would hide you and your sin together deep down in my heart of hearts." He fancied that he was talking to an innocent child; but she who listened was, alas! a woman, daring everything, defying everything, to secure a forbidden love. Her violet eyes shone like twin stars. "I will never doubt you again-never!" she cried, joyfully. "I want you to believe that I, too, loved for the first time, when I met you in your ocean tower. Never before had I known a real passion. It was you who awakened my heart, and changed the world for me." "How can I doubt it ?" he answered, ardently. "Why, you are a mere child still-a lily, whose petals have hardly unfolded." She had that day been dining at Windmere, with Mrs. Ellicott and a few other guests. Dinner was now over. The lovers had slipped away for a tête-à-tête in that moonlit window. From the neighboring drawing room came a hum of voices, the rattle of coffee cups, an étude of Thalberg. Mignon nestled her golden head against her lover's shoulder, his arm encircled her lissom body. "My king!" she whispered, proudly, solemnly, and he, from the depths of his adoring heart, replied: "Darling-precious darling!" At that moment a man entered the hall by the main door. It was impossible for him to avoid seeing the lovers. As his eyes fell upon them ne gave an involuntary start. Paget Fassel, remembering the secrecy that was supposed to invest his engagement, withdrew his arm reluctantly from "If you ever love me less," she whispered, "it his betrothed. She looked up-grew frightfully will be time for me to die!" pale, and dropped the Catherine Mermet rose. "That man!" she gasped. "It is Auut Latimer's physician," answered Fassel, in a low voice. "She had a nervous at tack at dinner, and persisted in sending for him." Forbearing to glance a second time at the win dow, Nigel Hume ascended the carved stair. Aunt Latimer was in her own chamber. He presented himself before her, with a countenance gloomy, distrait. "You see that I am utterly prostrated tonight, doctor," groaned the old woman, from the depths of an invalid chair. "My nerves are all on edge. I must have something quieting-a little chloral would not come amiss. I nearly fainted at table." "Now, what is the meaning of all this?" demanded Hume, kindly, but firmly. "First of all," said Aunt Latimer, in a feebly aggrieved voice, "nobody-not even Edith-tells me anything in this house. I am supposed to be unable to keep a secret. Yet I can see some things. I am not altogether imbecile. To-day, at dinner, I watched my nephew Paget-Paget, whom no woman could ever before subdue. He sat next Mignon Hillyer-I saw him look at her. Oh! oh!" shaking her head dolefully, "that was enough. She is charming-she will be a great heiress; but the influence of the Ellicotts upon the Fassels is evil-evil. Any second attempt to unite the two families will surely bring disaster upon us all. I am frightened, Dr. Hume-I am torn with presentiments." As a sensible man, it was Hume's duty to laugh at this outbreak ; but, unluckily, he had presentiments of his own, so he only said: "Do I not make my meaning plain to you? I am tired of Lepel Ellicott's name. I never loved him, living or dead. True, I was fond of him in a sisterly way, until I discovered what a poor weak coward he was-after that I simply despised him." "Edith!" cried Aunt Latimer, in shocked amaze. She had not once looked at Hume, but, somehow, her words seemed directed to some other than the old woman in the chair. Her voice took a cheerful, almost joyous tone. "For Mrs. Ellicott's sake, I have held my peace, and let the world think as it would; but one grows weary of dissembling-of being always misunderstood. The humiliation that Lepel brought upon me was not too great a price to pay for my escape from him. Had he married me I must have been the most miserable of mortals." "Edith, I am astonished at you!" said poor Aunt Latimer. She drew a deep breath, as though she had thrown off some burden. "I am astonished at myself, Aunt Latimer," she answered, brightly; "at my own prolonged hypocrisy. Pity for Mrs. Ellicott must be my excuse. I feared to speak the truth, lest I should open all her old sad wounds." Hume's heart was beating with suffocating strokes. Suddenly she turned her proud, dark glance upon him, and with a smile said : "Dr. Hume, I wish you would induce your patient to come down to the drawing room again, and entertain her guests, and forget her forebodings." He remembered the sight he had seen in the "Be calm, Mrs. Latimer. You are making hall window, and shook his head. yourself ill for nothing." "Ah, doctor, can you wonder that the bare thought of another love affair betwixt a Fassel and any creature of the Ellicott blood quite unnerves me? Remember Edith's humiliation-her blighted hopes-her broken heart" "Aunt Latimer!" From the far end of the room, where she had been concealed in shadow, Edith Fassel glided quietly forward. Her trailing dinner dress shone with a dull blue lustre. In her hair a diamond star sparkled like fire. My heart is not, and never has been, broken," she said, sweetly. "When you talk like that, you make me feel like a gigantic cheat, dear Aunt Latimer." Her mystic eyes put on a weary look. "It is hard to maintain a falsehood, year after year, you know, even when one's motive is good." "My dear?" cried Aunt Latimer, helplessly. "Mrs. Latimer will do well to remain here for the rest of the evening. I will leave her a sedative." And soon after he turned to go. Miss Fassel, standing by her aunt's chair, watched him quietly. "May I ask you to step outside a moment ?" he said, in a low, embarrassed voice. "I have something to tell you which Mrs. Latimer must not hear." Without a word she followed him. He closed the door on his patient. A cluster of lights burning near showed him the vivid crimson pulsing in Miss Fassel's cheek. "Do not be alarmed," he said, stiffly. "I am not going to allude to any past madness of mine.” It was an unfortunate beginning. A woman does not like to hear that her sway is a thing of the past. Miss Fassel grew a trifle more regal. "It is difficult for me to pick my words," he went on, with studied coldness, "but you must be warned. I beg to ask if your brother is engaged to Miss Hillyer ?" She drew back a step. 66 "Do not doubt it! Andy Gaff lives, and you are his wife." She gave a despairing cry, and the hand which had been pressed to her heart fell helplessly at "I am not at liberty to answer that question, her side. Under her feet the frosty pebbles glis Dr. Hume." tened in the moonlight; over her uncovered head "Let us hope that he is not, for Miss Hillyer the bare branches of the trees rattled mournfully can never marry him." "And why?" she asked, coldly. "For reasons that have existed for years-good and sufficient reasons," he answered. "Perhaps you will mention one." "Unfortunately, I cannot !" "Ah," she said, with a faint curl of the lip, "you have no friendly feeling for Miss Hillyershe is your aunt's heiress!" The words were not out when she would fain have recalled them. He grew pale, as though she had dealt him a hard thrust. "You dislike me too much to be just," he said, huskily; "but I warn you again-Miss Hillyer cannot marry your brother." "Why do you say this to me? Would it not be better to go to Paget, or to Miss Hillyer herself?" "Without doubt-pardon my stupidity," he answered, in a bitter voice; and with a flush of anger on his face he went off down the stair. The moonlit window was now deserted. Hume, inwardly cursing the fate which had entangled him with all these people, passed out through the entrance door of Windmere, and descended the steps to the long driveway. There a slender figure, hatless, cloakless, darted from the shelter of the nearest tree, and faced him in the moonlight-Mignon. "Oh, Dr. Hume," she said, in sharp appeal, "what do you mean to do?" "That is a question which I might, with good reason, propound to you," he replied, sternly. She pressed her hand to her heart. "Oh, do not speak so loud! I stole away from the drawing room to meet you here, when you should come out. Show me a little mercy!" "What mercy are you showing these Fassels? You owe them some consideration, do you not? They are Mrs. Ellicott's intimate friends." Her small, childish face was gray with fear. "I know, and I am very weak, very wicked. But answer me one question, Dr. Hume. Did you ever love any person with all your heart and soul-so dearly, so entirely, that the world seemed to hold no other-that nothing else in the wide universe was of any importance to you?" in the wind. "You have found out for certain ?" she shuddered. "I have found out for certain !" "You have seen some one from Cape Desolation ?" "Yes." She trembled, and seemed unable to frame another question. "I cannot, all in a moment," she murmured, faintly, "break my own heart and-his. I must have a little preparation-one week-two weeksthen I will tell him. But not sooner-oh, not sooner! You will not deny me a short reprieve ?" It was Hume's misfortune that he could never feel anything but compassion for this unhappy girl. "You cannot escape from these complications without trouble," he said. "You have allowed an honorable man to make love to you. Take my advice, and without delay confess everything to him, or to Miss Fassel." "You will not listen to reason," he said, impatiently. "Well, have your way. But remember what I told you at the ball. These Fassels are nothing to me," with cold indifference; "yet, I must keep you from dragging their good name in the mire. I will remain silent, then, for another two weeks-not a day longer. It is the last favor I can show you." "I will ask for nothing more, Dr. Hume," she replied, in a queer, stifled voice. He stalked away, and left her standing there in the moonlight, her face as white as hoar frost, but on her lips a wicked little smile of triumph. CHAPTER XXXII. RESTORED. STRETCHED upon a table, in a private operating room, lay a man, breathing heavily under the influence of ether. |