Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

“ She felt weary and depressed. She longed for some one to lean upon—some one strong and true to shield her from the cares and worry of life.
Every day, during the first two weeks of May, Virgie watched for the coming of Rupert Hamilton.
She knew that he expected to return to New York about this time, and she felt sure that he would seek her at once, while she believed that his coming would mean a great deal to her. There was an eager, expectant look on her young face, a deeper flush in her cheeks, a bright and hopeful light in her eyes. ”

“ She was very lovely on the evening of her first appearance at a reception at Lady Huntington’s.
She came into the great drawing-room leaning on the arm of Helen Huntington, a sparkling brunette, clad in garnet silk.
Virgie’s mother had taken great pains with her toilet, and it was absolutely perfect. It was of finest albatross cloth, combined with white satin, fitting her slender form like a glove, and draped in the most artistic manner, while the scarlet flowers, gleaming here and there among the graceful folds, made a very pleasing effect. ”

“ As Virgie came down stairs, after exchanging her bridal dress for a traveling suit, Sir William met her in the hall and drew her into the library for a last few words. He put a package into her hands; and then, drawing her to his breast, he said, with great tenderness:
“My darling, this is your marriage dowry, to be used just as you choose, and I am sure of its being wisely used; but remember that you are to come freely to your father if at any time you particularly wish for anything. All that I have is yours. I live but for you and my other Virgie, and Heathdale is your inheritance.” ”

“ Virgie saw and heard all with the keenest pain in her heart and though a torturing jealousy filled her soul—a sense of wrong and humiliation—from the belief that another had supplanted her in the heart and home of the man she loved, yet she could but own the worth, the beauty, and the fascination of that sweet, womanly woman who seemed so unconscious of wrong, whose heart was so full of tenderness and sympathy for the sorrows of others. ”

“ The color left her face; something seemed to smite her heart with a heavy blow, almost benumbing her, and she put out her hand, catching at the table for support, while the Bible fell heavily to the floor.
But she was very lovely even in her pallor and consternation. She wore a tea-gown of silver-gray, with a dainty fichu of lace and blue ribbons, while, as she arose from the dinner-table an hour before, Virgie had selected some pink and white roses and playfully tucked them in her corsage. ”

“ Lady Linton sank back again with a groan.
She was too late. She had meant to do a good deed. Under the impulse of the moment, and with a feeling of gratitude animating her, overcome with admiration for a rarely beautiful woman, and a sense of superiority; with the vision of that lovely, dark-eyed child still before her, she had resolved to make a full confession of all her wrong-doing, try to effect a reconciliation between those two who, she knew, still devotedly loved each other, and thus atone, as far as was possible, for the sin she had committed. ”

“ Then her cheeks began to dimple and her eyes to gleam with mirth.
“I know of one ‘old fogy’ who is fishing for a compliment,” she retorted, with a saucy toss of her bright head, “and who has been speaking two words for himself and one for others. I know what he wants. Mr. Hamilton, do you play whist? Because if you do,” she went on, archly, without waiting for him to reply, “and are fond of it, it will be all right; for you will doubtless be invited by my guardian to ‘take a hand,’ and once committed, look out for yourself; he is an inveterate player, and he has no mercy on his foes.” ”

“ Virgie answered, firmly. “I cannot leave Mina to die there. Be a brave little girl and do not detain me. I will come back as soon as I can.”
“But I am afraid, mamma.”
“Nothing can harm you now, dear; we are both safe, thank God! while no one can tell how many have met their doom and are dead or dying.”
She bent down and kissed the child tenderly, thankfully, and then sped back to the car, determined to know the fate of her maid.
All about her the direst confusion prevailed. Men were hurrying hither and thither. ”

“ The richer I grew the more wretched I became. I had heard that your father had sacrificed all that he was worth toward wiping out my iniquity; but of course I knew that it could not begin to make my defalcation good, and that people would only scoff and sneer, and say it was all pretense—doubtless we were in league and would share equally in the spoils. I knew his high sense of honor, and how sensitive he was, and I believed the blow would crush him.”
“It did! it did!” cried Virgie, bursting into a passion of tears, as all the sad past came pressing upon her with this recital. ”

“ It was truly a strange fate that placed her thus in the power of Virgie.
For an instant an evil spirit took possession of her heart and whispered:
43“She helped to ruin my life; she mocked and scoffed at my misery, and she ought to suffer.”
But the next moment she called out in clear, resolute tones:
“I will save you! have courage—do not fear,” and she almost flew over the debris, through the gathering smoke and out of the car, where she seized a man by the arm and cried:
“Come with me; a woman is helplessly pinned down inside this car; it is on fire, and she will soon be burned to death.” ”

“ Lillian asked, with a toss of her head.
“Harry Webster, the young man with whom I traveled, last winter, in America.”
“I despise Americans,” retorted Miss Linton, with considerable asperity.
“That is rather a sweeping assertion; isn’t it, my dear?” asked Sir William, looking a trifle amused.
“It is the truth, Uncle Will, whatever else it may be,” she retorted, as she began to arrange her flowers in a vase on the table. “I am English to the backbone. I am thoroughly imbued with a love for my own people, and I shall never permit myself to draw disloyal comparisons.” ”

“ Again she seemed to hear those ringing, prophetic words, “My child is also the lawful child of Sir William Heath; she is the heiress of Heathdale, and she shall yet occupy the position that rightfully belongs to her. Let your ‘peer of the realm and his honored family’ take warning; the time will come when a righteous judgment will overtake them.”
She shivered slightly as she recalled all this and Virgie wondered what should make the fine-looking woman grow so suddenly pale, and why she should regard her with such a fixed and startled gaze. ”

“ The fact of Sir William’s marriage was no longer a secret, although Lady Linton had tried every way to conceal it. It was not very generally known, however, even now; but in his own household and among his intimate friends it was understood that he had married a beautiful woman while on his first visit to America, and that some cruel misunderstanding had resulted in a separation. He had insisted upon this explanation, for hope was not yet quite dead in his heart that some time he might find Virgie, effect a reconciliation, and bring her home to Heathdale. ”

“ Alexander’s health had improved somewhat, but she was far from strong even yet, and her physician had urgently advised an ocean voyage.
She had demurred at first, but when he said, “Your daughter, too, needs the change; I do not like her looks at all,” her mother-love prevailed, and she nerved herself for her long contemplated voyage to England, feeling that perhaps the proper time had come for her to act in the matter of Virgie’s inheritance, and thus it chanced—if chance it was—that they were booked for the same steamer in which Rupert had sailed. ”

“ MORE INTRODUCTIONS. Meanwhile another spiritual episode was transpiring in a different portion of Lady Dunforth’s drawing-room.
Lillian Linton, brilliantly beautiful in pale pink silk, with elegant ornaments of opals, was entertaining a group of young people, while merry jest and sparkling repartee ran from lip to lip, when, chancing to glance toward the door, she saw Rupert Hamilton coming forward with a girl of bewildering loveliness leaning on his arm. ”

“ She had come to take leave of her ladyship, for they were going away to some quiet resort for a few weeks, for Mina’s sake, and after that home to New York. She brought Virgie as a sort of shield from embarrassment, for she dreaded any effusions of gratitude from the woman who, she felt sure, would hate her even now, in spite of all she had done for her, for having won her brother’s love; while, too, she had a curiosity to see if she would be attracted toward her child; she was a believer in the old adage that “blood is thicker than water.” ”

“ I will do all that can be required of me. But, Virgie, you have been the heaviest loser of all through what your father paid out for me, and that will be one of the debts to be canceled with the rest. Don’t let your pride prevent my relieving my conscience of that obligation,” said the sick man, tremulously.
Virgie had not thought of the matter in that light before. Her chief desire had been to have a confession, and restitution made to the bank and all depositors, and thus clear her father from all imputation of wrong-doing. ”

“ God is good to give both my treasures to me, so fair and loving,” he murmured, fondly, while his own tears mingled with hers, and his chest heaved with the emotion he could not control.
“Papa!” Virgie breathed, with a tender inflection that touched him deeply; “to think that I have never been able to say it before, while I have hardly dared to speak of you at all, because of the suffering it caused mamma.” ”

“ Lady Linton looked up astonished, as these cold, measured words fell upon her ears.
Virgie had not meant to speak so frigidly, but her ladyship’s reference to her “friends” made her surmise instantly that she was speaking of her brother and his family, whom she believed she had seen at Niagara, and it was with the greatest difficulty that she could control herself at all.
“Surely you are not going to leave me thus?” said the sick woman, reproachfully, “without even allowing me to clasp your hand; you, who have done so much for me, who have twice saved my life. ”

“ On the day that Virgie had encountered Lady Linton in Oxford street she had come to London, Sir William and Virgie accompanying her, to spend several days, having found it necessary to make a few purchases and some changes in her wardrobe before going to Heathdale; so it will be readily understood why the happy woman was at that time so unmoved by her ladyship’s warnings and threats. Her heart was too full of joy and gratitude to allow of her feeling anything save pity and sorrow for her enemy, for she knew but too well that her evil deeds would all recoil upon her own head. ”

“ She did not repulse him; she made no effort even to release her hands from his clasp. She cast one shy, sweet glance into his face, a little smile of love and joy trembled on her lips, while rosy blushes surged up to the waves of bright hair lying on her forehead, and Rupert needed no other answer to assure him of his heart’s desire.
“You do love me, my darling!” he cried, drawing 128her into his arms. “I read it in your dear face, in your beautiful eyes; but let me hear it from your lips. I am selfish enough not to be satisfied with anything less. Virgie, you will give yourself to me?” ”

“ Your own conscience needs no other accuser than itself,” was the calm reply. “But it would have been far better had your ladyship constituted yourself my friend instead of my enemy.”
“I could never be your friend. I shall be your foe to the bitter end, and it was to warn you of this that I detained you to-day. If you have come to London with the intention of thrusting yourself and your daughter upon my brother, let me tell you to beware! You are a divorced woman; you have no claim whatever upon Sir William Heath, and your child shall never be acknowledged by his name. ”

“ April passed and May came, and Virgie began to grow expectant. She was blooming into brighter beauty with every day, and seemed to become more womanly, so that her mother felt, with something of sadness, that she no longer had her little girl, but a lovely and winsome maiden, who would doubtless soon be won from her sheltering care to grace the home of another. ”

“ Excepting her child, she had not a single object for which to live, nothing to look forward to. She cared little for society, indeed she shrank from meeting strangers; at least, those in her own position in life, although she went much among the poor, and spent money freely upon them.
When Mr. Knight went to New York she went also, making a quiet but elegant home for herself not far from his residence, where he and his sister kept bachelor’s and old maid’s hall, and there she lived her uneventful life, with nothing save a season of travel now and then, to vary its monotony. ”

“ Sir William answered, all unsuspicious that her ladyship had learned the secret at the same time that he was informed of it.
“Does Lillian care for him?” Virgie asked.
“I am afraid she does,” was the sober response.
“Poor child,” sighed Virgie, regretfully, “and I am really sorry for Lady Linton’s disappointment.”
“Can you so readily forgive my sister, Virgie?”
“I believe I can, Will; I truly desire the spirit of forgiveness even for the great wrong that she has been guilty of; and, since nothing can ever again mar our trust in each other, I do not wish to cherish bitterness toward anyone. ”

“ No, it was no delusion—it was no trick; for just before her, looking like a queen in her rich robes, her 198face radiant with happiness as she leaned proudly upon her husband’s arm, she saw the woman who she had hated and wronged for long, long years; whom she had plotted to ruin and sweep from her path forever—Virginia Alexander! the chosen bride of her brother in his youth, and now, in spite of falsehood, calumny, treachery and even divorce, his happy wife, and the mistress of Heathdale! ”

“ Virgie’s meeting with her father was quite touching. Her mother had never told her who he was. She had shrunk more and more from the ordeal as the time drew near when it must be revealed.
She had intended telling her the morning following Lady Dunforth’s reception when she had so unexpectedly learned that Sir William was Rupert’s guardian, and she would have done so but for Mr. Thurston’s visit, his startling revelation of her relationship to Lord Norton, and their sudden departure from London. ”

“ Oh, how supremely happy she had been in those lovely rooms in New York, when she had believed herself to be his honored wife, and was looking forward to a bright future as the mistress of Heathdale.
But now she believed another was reigning there. She wondered if she was fair and lovely; if she had ever suspected the wrong that her husband had done his first wife. She wondered, too, if Sir William had ever legalized that mock marriage after receiving the notice of his divorce from her.
All day she lay there, too miserable to rise, listening to every footfall that passed her door ”

“ She did not, of course, know the extent of the wrong of which she had been guilty, but she had never forgotten Lady Linton’s arrogance, nor the scorn which she had expressed regarding her to Mrs. Farnum; still, as she now lay there before her, so helpless and miserable, she could feel only compassion and regret for her. Something of the divine nature always animates the heart and begets a certain tenderness for those whom we benefit, particularly if some signal sacrifice has been made to secure it. ”

“ She saw the tall, slight figure of a beautiful woman very like this young girl, standing straight and proud before her, as, with a face of agony and a voice full of despair, she asserted her own purity and her child’s legitimacy, and hurled back scorn for scorn upon the arrogant women who repudiated her claim and tried to crush her with a vile conspiracy. ”