Chapter 32

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_ CHAPTER XXXII Pluma Hurlhurst never quailed beneath the cold, mocking glance bent upon her. There was no hope for her; disgrace and ruin stared her in the face; she would defy even Fate itself to the bitter end with a heroism worthy of a better cause. In that hour and that mood she was capable of anything. She leaned against a tall palm-tree, looking at him with a strange expression on her face, as she made answer, slowly: "You may depend upon it, I shall never marry you, Lester Stanwick. If I do not marry Rex I shall go unmarried to the grave. Ah, no!" she cried desperately; "Heaven will have more mercy, more pity than to take him from me." "What mercy or pity did you feel in thrusting poor little Daisy Brooks from his path?" asked Stanwick, sarcastically. "Your love has led you through dangerous paths. I should call it certainly a most perilous love." She recoiled from him with a low cry, those words again still ringing in her ears, "A perilous love." She laughed with a laugh that made even Stanwick's blood run cold--a horrible laugh. "I do not grieve that she is dead," she said. "You ought to understand by this time I shall allow nothing to come between Rex and me." "You forget the fine notions of honor your handsome lover entertains; it may not have occurred to you that he might object at the eleventh hour." "He will not," she cried, fiercely, her bosom rising and falling convulsively under its covering of filmy lace and the diamond brooch which clasped it. "You do not know the indomitable will of a desperate woman," she gasped. "I will see him myself and confess all to him, if you attempt to reveal the contents of those letters. He will marry me and take me abroad at once. If I have Rex's love, what matters it what the whole world knows or says?" She spoke rapidly, vehemently, with flushed face and glowing eyes; and even in her terrible anger Stanwick could not help but notice how gloriously beautiful she was in her tragic emotion. "I have asked you to choose between us," he said, calmly, "and you have chosen Rex regardless of all the promises of the past. The consequences rest upon your own head." "So be it," she answered, haughtily. With a low bow Stanwick turned and left her. "Au revoir, my dear Pluma," he said, turning again toward her on the threshold. "Not farewell--I shall not give up hope of winning the heiress of Whitestone Hall." For several moments she stood quite still among the dark-green shrubs, and no sound told of the deadly strife and despair. Would he see Rex and divulge the crime she had planned? Ah! who would believe she, the proud, petted heiress had plotted so cruelly against the life of an innocent young girl because she found favor in the eyes of the lover she had sworn to win? Ah! who could believe she had planned to confine that sweet young life within the walls of a mad-house until death should release her? What if the plan had failed? The intention still remained the same. She was thankful, after all, the young girl was dead. "I could never endure the thought of Rex's intense anger if he once imagined the truth; he would never forgive duplicity," she cried, wildly. The proud, beautiful girl, radiant with love and happiness a short time since, with a great cry flung herself down among the ferns, the sunlight gleaming on the jewels, the sumptuous morning dress, the crushed roses, and the white, despairing face. Any one who saw Pluma Hurlhurst when she entered the drawing-room among her merry-hearted guests, would have said that she had never shed a tear or known a sigh. Could that be the same creature upon whose prostrate figure and raining tears the sunshine had so lately fallen? No one could have told that the brightness, the smiles, and the gay words were all forced. No one could have guessed that beneath the brilliant manner there was a torrent of dark, angry passions and an agony of fear. It was pitiful to see how her eyes wandered toward the door. Hour after hour passed, and still Rex had not returned. The hum of girlish voices around her almost made her brain reel. Grace Alden and Miss Raynor were singing a duet at the piano. The song they were singing fell like a death-knell upon her ears; it was "'He Cometh Not,' She Said." Eve Glenn, with Birdie upon her lap, sat on an adjoining sofa flirting desperately with the two or three devoted beaus; every one was discussing the prospect of the coming morrow. Her father had returned from Baltimore some time since. She was too much engrossed with her thoughts of Rex to notice the great change in him--the strange light in his eyes, or the wistful, expectant expression of his face, as he kissed her more fondly than he had ever done in his life before. She gave appropriate answers to her guests grouped around her, but their voices seemed afar off. Her heart and her thoughts were with Rex. Why had he not returned? What was detaining him? Suppose anything should happen--it would kill her now--yet nothing could go wrong on the eve of her wedding-day. She would not believe it. Stanwick would not dare go to Rex with such a story--he would write it--and all those things took time. With care and caution and constant watching she would prevent Rex from receiving any communications whatever until after the ceremony; then she could breathe freely, for the battle so bravely fought would be won. "If to-morrow is as bright as to-day, Pluma will have a glorious wedding-day," said Bessie Glenn, smiling up into the face of a handsome young fellow who was fastening a rosebud she had just given him in the lapel of his coat with one hand, and with the other tightly clasping the white fingers that had held the rose. He did not notice that Pluma stood in the curtained recesses of an adjoining window as he answered, carelessly enough: "Of course, I hope it will be a fine, sunshiny day, but the indications of the weather don't look exactly that way, if I am any judge." "Why, you don't think it is going to rain, do you? Why, it will spoil the rose-bower she is to be married in and all the beautiful decoration. Oh, please don't predict anything so awfully horrible; you make me feel nervous; besides, you know what everybody says about weddings on which the rain falls." "Would you be afraid to experiment on the idea?" asked the impulsive young fellow, who always acted on the spur of the moment. "If to-morrow were a rainy day, and I should say to you, 'Bess, will you marry me to-day or never?' what would your answer be?" "I should say, just now, I do not like 'ifs and ands.' Supposing a case, and standing face to face with it, are two different things. I like people who say what they mean, and mean what they say." Pluma saw the dazzling light flame into the bashful young lover's eyes as he bent his head lower over the blushing girl who had shown him the right way to capture a hesitating heart. "That is love," sighed Pluma. "Ah, if Rex would only look at me like that I would think this earth a heaven." She looked up at the bright, dazzling clouds overhead; then she remembered the words she had heard--"It looked like rain on the morrow." Could those white, fleecy clouds darken on the morrow that was to give her the only treasure she had ever coveted in her life? She was not superstitious. Even if it did rain, surely a few rain-drops could not make or mar the happiness of a lifetime. She would not believe it. "Courage until to-morrow," she said, "and my triumph will be complete. I will have won Rex." The little ormolu clock on the mantel chimed the hour of five. "Heavens!" she cried to herself, "Rex has been gone over two hours. I feel my heart must be bursting." No one noticed Pluma's anxiety. One moment hushed and laughing, the queen of mirth and revelry, then pale and silent, with shadowed eyes, furtively glancing down the broad, pebbled path that led to the entrance gate. Yet, despite her bravery, Pluma's face and lips turned white when she heard the confusion of her lover's arrival. Perhaps Pluma had never suffered more suspense in all her life than was crowded into those few moments. Had he seen Lester Stanwick? Had he come to denounce her for her treachery, in his proud, clear voice, and declare the marriage broken off? She dared not step forward to greet him, lest the piercing glance of his eyes would cause her to fall fainting at his feet. "A guilty conscience needs no accuser." Most truly the words were exemplified in her case. Yet not one pang of remorse swept across her proud heart when she thought of the young girl whose life she had so skillfully blighted. What was the love of Daisy Brooks, an unsophisticated child of nature, only the overseer's niece, compared to her own mighty, absorbing passion? The proud, haughty heiress could not understand how Rex, polished, courteous and refined, could have stooped to such a reckless folly. He would thank her in years to come for sparing him from such a fate. These were the thoughts she sought to console herself with. She stood near the door when he entered, but he did not see her; a death-like pallor swept over her face, her dark eyes had a wild, perplexing look. She was waiting in terrible suspense for Rex to call upon her name; ask where she was, or speak some word in which she could read her sentence of happiness or despair in the tone of his voice. She could not even catch the expression of his face; it was turned from her. She watched him so eagerly she hardly dared draw her breath. Rex walked quickly through the room, stopping to chat with this one or that one a moment; still, his face was not turned for a single instant toward the spot where she stood. Was he looking for her? She could not tell. Presently he walked toward the conservatory, and a moment later Eve Glenn came tripping toward her. "Oh, here you are!" she cried, flinging her arms about her in regular school-girl abandon, and kissing the cold, proud mouth, that deigned no answering caress. "Rex has been looking for you everywhere, and at last commissioned me to find you and say he wants to speak to you. He is out on the terrace." How she longed to ask if Rex's face was smiling or stern, but she dared not. "Where did you say Rex was, Miss Glenn?" "I said he was out on the terrace; but don't call me Miss Glenn, for pity's sake--it sounds so freezingly cold. Won't you please call me Eve," cried the impetuous girl--"simply plain Eve? That has a more friendly sound, you know." Another girl less proud than the haughty heiress would have kissed Eve's pretty, piquant, upturned, roguish face. "What did Rex have to say to her?" she asked herself, in growing dread. The last hope seemed withering in her proud, passionate heart. She rose haughtily, and walked with the dignity of a queen through the long drawing-room toward the terrace. Her heart almost stopped beating as she caught sight of Rex leaning so gracefully against the trunk of an old gnarled oak tree, smoking a cigar. That certainly did not look as if he meant to greet her with a kiss. She went forward hesitatingly--a world of anxiety and suspense on her face--to know her fate. The color surged over her face, then receded from it again, as she looked at him with a smile--a smile that was more pitiful than a sigh. "Rex," she cried, holding out her hands to him with a fluttering, uncertain movement that stirred the perfumed laces of the exquisite robe she wore, and the jewels on her white, nervous hands--"Rex, I am here!" _

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