CHAPTER XXXV.

Colonel Carlyle had not quitted the room an hour before Bonnibel's maid, Dolores, came into her presence, bearing a sealed letter upon a salver.

"Une lettre from monsieur le colonel, for Madam Carlyle," she said, in her curious melange of French and English. Bonnibel took the letter, and Dolores retreated to a little distance and stood awaiting her pleasure.

"What can he have to write to me of?" she thought, in some surprise, as she opened the envelope.

She read these words in a rather tremulous hand-writing:

    "Bonnibel, my dear wife," and she shuddered slightly at the words—"I sought you a little while ago to inform you of my immediate departure for Paris, but our interview was of so harrowing a nature that I was forced to leave you without communicating my intention. I could not endure your reproaches longer. I am compelled to leave you here—circumstances force my immediate return to Paris. It is possible, nay, probable, that I may have to make a trip to the United States before I return to Naples. Believe me, it is distressing to me beyond measure to leave you now under existing circumstances, but the business that takes me away is most imperative and admits of no delay.

    "I have made every possible provision for your comfort and pleasure during my absence. The housekeeper, the domestics and your own especial maid will care for you faithfully. In an hour I leave here. If you have any commands for me; if you are willing to see me again, and speak even one word of kind farewell, send me a single line by Dolores, and I will be at your side in an instant.

    "Clifford Carlyle."

She finished reading and dropped the letter, forgetful of the lynx-eyed French woman who regarded her curiously. Her eyes wandered to the window, and she fell into deep thought.

"Madam," the maid said, hesitatingly, "Monsieur le colonel awaits une reply. He hastens to be gone."

Bonnibel looked up at her.

"Go, Dolores," she answered, coldly; "tell him there is no reply."

Dolores courtesied and went away. Bonnibel relapsed into thought again. She was glad that Colonel Carlyle was going away, yet she felt a faint curiosity as to the imperative business which necessitated his return to his native land. She had never heard him allude to business before. He had been known to her only as a gentleman of elegant leisure.

"Some of the banks in which his wealth is invested have failed, perhaps," she thought, vaguely, and dismissed the subject from her mind without a single suspicion of the fatal truth—that the[Pg 116] jealous old man was going to America to be present at the trial of Leslie Dane, and to prosecute him to the death. Ah! but too truly is it declared in Holy Writ that "jealousy is strong as death, and as cruel as the grave."

Colonel Carlyle was filled with a raging hatred against the man who had loved Bonnibel Vere before he had ever looked upon her alluring beauty.

He had received an anonymous letter filled with exaggerated descriptions of Bonnibel's love for the artist, and his wild passion for her. The writer insinuated that the lovely girl had sold herself for the old man's gold, believing that he would soon die, and leave her free to wed the poor artist, and endow him with the wealth thus obtained. Now, said the unknown writer, since the lovers had met again their passion would fain overleap every barrier, and they had determined to fly with each other to liberty and love.

Colonel Carlyle was reading the letter for the hundredth time when Dolores returned from delivering his letter to Bonnibel with the cold message that there was "no reply."

That bitter refusal to the yearning cry of his heart for one kind farewell word only inflamed him the more against the man whom he believed held his wife's heart. It seemed to him that that in itself was a crime for which Leslie Dane merited nothing less than death.

"She read my letter?" he said to the maid who stood waiting before him.

"Oui, Monsieur," answered Dolores, with her unfailing courtesy.

"That is well," he said, briefly; "now, go."

Dolores went away and left him wrestling with the bitterest emotions the heart of man can feel. He was old, and the conflicting passions of the last few years had aged him in appearance more than a score of years could have done. He looked haggard, and worn, and weary. But his heart had not kept pace with his years. It was still capable of feeling the bitter pangs that a younger man might have felt in his place. Felise Herbert had done a fearful work in making this man the victim of her malevolent revenge. Left to himself he had the nobility of a good and true manhood within him. But the hand of a demon had played upon the strings of the viler passions that lay dormant within him, and transformed him into a fiend.

"Not one word!" he exclaimed, to himself, in a passion of bitter resentment. "Not one word will she vouchsafe for me in her pride and scorn. Ah, well, Leslie Dane, you shall pay for this! I will hound you to your death if wealth and influence can push the prosecution forward! Not until you are in your grave can I ever breathe freely again!"

"The slow, sad days that bring us all things ill" merged into weary weeks, but brought no release to the restless young creature who pined and chafed in her confinement like a bird that vainly beats its wings against the gilded bars of its cage. Dolores Dupont guarded her respectfully but rigorously. Weary days[Pg 117] and nights went by while she watched the sun shining by day on the blue Bay of Naples, and the moonlight by night silvering its limpid waves with brightness. Her sick heart wearied of the changeless beauty, the tropical sweetness and fragrance about her. A cold, northern sky, with darkening clouds and sunless days, would have suited her mood better than the tropical sweetness of Southern Italy. As it was she would sometimes murmur to herself as she wearily paced the length of her gilded prison:
"Night, even in the zenith of her dark domain, Is sunshine to the color of my fate."

But "the darkest hour is just before day," it is said. It was as true for our sweet Bonnibel as it has proved for many another weary soul vainly beating its weary wings against the bars of life in the struggle to be free. Just now, when her heart and hope had failed utterly and her only chance of escape seemed to lie in a frank confession of the truth to Colonel Carlyle, the path of freedom lay just before her feet, and destiny was busy shaping an undreamed-of future for that weary, restless young heart.

"I can bear it no longer," she murmured, as she paced the floor late one night, thinking over her troubles until her brain seemed on fire. "I will write to Colonel Carlyle and tell him the truth—tell him that dreadful secret—that I am not his wife, that I belong to another! Surely he must let me go free then. He will hate me that I have brought such shame upon him; but he will keep the secret for his own sake, and let me go away and hide myself somewhere in the great dark world until I die."

She dropped upon her knees and lifted her clasped hands to heaven, while bitter tears rained over her pallid cheeks.

"Heaven help me!" she moaned; "it is hard, hard! If I only had not married Colonel Carlyle all might have gone well. Oh, Leslie, Leslie, I loved you so! God help me, I love you still! Yet I shall never see you again, although I am your wife! Ah, never, never, for a gulf lies between us—a gulf of sin, though Heaven is my witness I am innocent of all intentional wrong-doing. I would have died first!"

Her words died away in a moan of pain; but presently the anguished young voice rose again:

"The sibyl's fateful prophecy has all been fulfilled. Yet how little I dreamed that it could come true! Oh, God, how is it that I, the proud daughter of the Veres and the Arnolds, can live with the shadow of disgrace upon my head?"

She dropped her face in her hands, and the "silence of life, more pathetic than death," filled the room. All was strangely still; nothing was heard but the murmurous waves of the beautiful Bay of Naples softly lapping the shore. Suddenly a slight, strange sound echoed through the room. Bonnibel sprang to her feet, a little startled, and listened in alarm. Again the sound was repeated. It seemed to Bonnibel as if someone had thrown a few pebbles against the window. Yes, it must be that, she was sure.