University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.
A SUMMER NIGHT.

Eight more years had etched their almost imperceptible wrinkle upon
earth's furrowed brow, and the moon of a summer's night dreamed
softly upon sea and shore, upon the grey and grim old walls of Cragness, within
whose shade John Gillies and the Secret still watchfully confronted each other
upon the still fair waters of Bonniemeer, the lakelet that gave its name to the
estate, and upon a pretty pleasure-boat drifting across its placid waters.

The occupants of this boat were Neria and Francia Vaughn, Claudia Livingstone,
a bride in her honeymoon, and her brother Fergus Murray, a young
man whose five-and-twenty years had done for him the work that fifty fail to accomplish
for many men.

Let him who would read faces aright watch them when exorcised to truth
by the magic of such a night; and when we remember that madness is but undisguised
sincerity, and that a lunatic is but too fervent a lover of that fair moon
who first entices men to sleep beneath her kisses and then stabs them to the
brain while they dream of her, we see at once that to submit to her influence, to
meet her smile, is to voluntarily enter upon the first stage of madness by allowing
the deepest emotions of the heart to become patent upon that bulletin-board,
the face.

Watch we then by moonlight, these, the principal characters of our story,
as each slips idly through his fingers the white and grey thread that Arachne
twists as pitilessly in the moonlight as in the dark, while we smile as we weep,
while we trust in her, as after we have learned to sneer.

Claudia, tall, elegant, and Circean in her beauty, reclined in the stern of the
boat, gazing now at her own reflection in the water, now at the diamonds upon
her white fingers.

At her feet sat Neria, her hands clasped upon her lap, her eyes upraised in

absorbing reverie, her pure profile clear cut against the background of dark
woodland, her attitude as graceful as it was unconscious.

In the bows, Francia, smiling to herself, wove with nimble fingers a wreath
of dripping water-lilies, glancing as she wrought at the handsome head of her
Cousin Fergus, who, with his back to her, found amusement now in lightly dipping
the oar that he held, so as to shatter the image Claudia watched with so
much satisfaction, and now, in gazing at Neria's wonderful loveliness.

The wreath was done, and Francia lightly placed it upon the head of the unconscious
oarsman, who started slightly, and then catching the hands still busy
about his temples, drew them to his lips, and lightly kissing them, said,

“That is too much honor, little cousin, and besides the decoration is not appropriate.
Give it to Neria, who in the moonlight looks like the spirit of the
lake, or,” and releasing the hands, the young man turned toward his cousin and
lowered his voice. “If we want a veritable Undine, I know where to find
her.”

“Undine before she found her soul?” asked Francia, archly.

“Before she was married, yes,” replied Fergus.

“The idea that a woman must necessarily be improved by being married. I
don't believe it—there's Claudia now.”

“I believe we won't discuss Claudia's affairs. I don't approve of meddling
with what don't concern me,” said Fergus, with a shade of severity in his voice.
Francia drew a little back, and silently averted her face, while a rich, lazy voice
asked, from the stern of the boat:

“What's that about Claudia?”

“Claudia has admired herself sufficiently for once,” replied Fergus, resuming
his seat and his oars, and must now go to relieve the anxieties of her friends
on shore.”

“Whether she will or no?” asked Claudia, half rebelliously. Her brother
made no reply, and in a few moments the keel of the little boat grated upon the
white sand of the beach. At the sound, three gentlemen rose from a bench,
where they had been sitting, and came down to meet the voyagers.

In the first, a fine-looking man, bearing his forty years as Time's seal of perfected
manhood, we recognize Frederic Vaughn, the master of Bonniemeer.

The shorter, stouter, more florid man beside him, is John Livingstone, the
bridegroom of Claudia Murray, and the tall, thin, grey-haired, and grey-faced
gentleman behind them is her father, the widowed brother-in-law of Vaughn.

Without waiting for the hand her father stepped forward to offer, Francia
sprang lightly to the shore, and passed hastily up the path leading through the
wood to the house. Fergus, stepping more deliberately from the boat, drew it
up on the beach, and after carefully handing Neria out, impatiently called:

“Come, Claudia, we are waiting for you!”

But Claudia lingered, adjusting her draperies; and when, at last, she stepped
upon the gunwale, placing her hand in that of Fergus, he seized it so hastily that
Claudia stumbled, tangled her feet in her long dress, and was only saved from
falling by the destruction of the gauzy fabric.

“Take care! Did you tear your dress? It is not a fit one for a boating
party,” said Fergus, hurriedly passing the boat-chain over the post set for it, and
hastening after Neria, already disappearing in the sombre woodland path.

“There, Mrs. L, that's fifty dollars gone, I suppose,” remarked Mr. Livingstone,
as Claudia ruefully gathered up her ruined dress.

“I wish you wouldn't call me Mrs. L.,” retorted the lady, pettishly. “You
know that I detest it.”

“Don't get mad, young woman. It wasn't me tore your dress, and I guess
it won't break Livingstone Brothers to furnish the funds for a new one,” said
the husband, good-humoredly, as he tucked his wife's arm under his own, and led
her up the path.

Mr. Vaughn and his brother-in-law slowly followed.

“Livingstone makes Claudia a very good husband,” said the latter, complacently.

“He seems very good-natured,” assented Vaughn, with reserve.

“Yes, and that is a great deal. Then he is perfectly willing to leave her to
her own pursuits and companions, and has both means and inclination to indulge
all the costly whims which nearly ruined me while I had the honor of supplying
her purse.”

Mr. Vaughn slightly smiled, but said nothing; and, after a little pause, his
companion added, positively:

“A very good husband, and a very good match.”

“I am glad you are so well pleased,” said Vaughn, finding an answer imperative.

“Humph! Your aristocratic prejudices won't allow you to be reasonable,
Vaughn. You don't like my son-in-law because he's in trade, and because his
father had no idea of a grandfather or a coat-of-arms. But, as for the last, I
assure you, Livingstone has imported the very finest one in the Heralds' College,
and Claudia has got it engraved on everything in the house.”

“Your satire is more honest than your praise, Murray. You are more of a
conservative at heart than I,” said Mr. Vaughn.

Murray slightly smiled.

“My practice is for myself—my theories for others,” said he. “I have a
theory that Mr. John Livingstone is an admirable husband; but in practice I
see him as little as possible.”

“But Claudia is your daughter, and may be supposed to have the same tastes
and prejudices as her father,” pursued Vaughn.

Mr. Murray's sarcastic smile deepened.

“Claudia,” said he, slowly, “is a young woman of uncommon good sense.
She considered this matter well, and decided for herself, and, as I think, wisely.
There was a young man, good-looking, well-mannered, romantic, and all that,
whom she preferred, no doubt; but he was just out of the medical school, and
was beginning on the thankless course of gratuitous practice incumbent at
this day upon a young physician. In ten years he may be able to marry and
live in a small way; but he never will be able to provide the sum Claudia expends
each year for pin-money. Mr. Livingstone and he offered themselves on
the same day. The girl dutifully came to me and asked advice.”

“And you counselled her to accept the richer?” asked Vaughn.

“I said to her, `My dear, look past the next five years into the forty or fifty
which I hope await you beyond, and consider whether you will roll over them in
a barouche, or plod through on foot, dragging a baby-cart after you.' She looked
me in the eye a minute, turned as pale as a ghost, and quietly laid Dr. Lutrell's
letter on the fire. That was all.”

Vaughn's lip curled, but he made no reply; and the two men walked on

through the rustling wood, where the moonlight quivered down, to make a
diamond of every swinging dewdrop, and to light the rendezvous of amorous fays.

Vaughn stopped and looked about him. Twenty years before, he would have
said:

“Can worldliness assert itself in such a scene as this?” But at forty one
has learned, if ever, that “speech is silvern and silence is golden.”

Mr. Murray cast a vacant eye upon the moony sky, the dreaming earth, the
swinging blossoms, and whispering trees, and then said:

“You like this sort of thing, Vaughn?”

“Yes.”

“Why don't you take a wife and settle down, then? You havn't spent a
month here since Gabrielle died; have you?”

“Only the summer we all spent here five years ago,” said Mr. Vaughn,
quietly.

“O, yes; the last summer of Mrs. Murray's life—poor Catherine.”

Again, silently, Mr. Vaughn considered whether the ruthful epithet was best
applied to Mrs. Murray dead or Mrs. Murray living; and the unconscious widower
resumed:

“But why don't you marry again, Vaughn.”

“I have no inclination at present,” returned his companion, coldly.

“Perhaps not; but you will do it yet, and, unless you look out for yourself,
you will be drawn into a very foolish thing. It is not my affair, and I know so
well the reward of friendly interference that I would not have risked speaking
except from the very highest regard for your welfare.”

“I am extremely grateful, my dear fellow,” replied Vaughn, in good-humored
astonishment, “but I haven't an idea what you're driving at.”

“Of course, you'll laugh, and, possibly, will be offended; but, once for all, I
tell you that little ward of yours, Neria, is falling in love with you,” said Mr.
Murray, in a matter-of-fact voice. Vaughn stopped and stared at him.

“Neria in love with me!” exclaimed he.

“Falling in love, I said,” returned Murray. “It is only a few weeks that
you have been at home, you know; and since she saw you last she has grown
from a girl to a woman, and is, womanlike, all ready to fall prostrate at the feet
of the first idol that chance sets before her. She is fascinated by your appearance
and manners, and the savoir faire resulting from your wide travels appears
to her the wisdom of a God. She is devoting herself now to the building of an
altar for this god; and, presently, when the incense begins to rise, you may find
it more intoxicating than you imagine.”

Vaughn walked thoughtfully on for some moments, and then said,

“The caution is kindly meant, Murray, and, I assure you, kindly taken; but
I don't think you quite know me, and neither of us knows more of Neria than
her exquisite beauty. Perhaps, then, we had better not try to look into the
sacred mysteries of a virgin heart, or discuss, as probabilities, ideas which seem
to me the wildest of chimeras.”

Mr. Murray stoically accepted the delicate rebuke, and said,

“O, very well. I only wished to open your eyes; and now have no more to
say, except to rather demur at your phrase, `exquisite beauty.' To my mind
either Francia or Claudia is far handsomer than Neria. She is too cold and
lifeless, has too little color and curve for my taste. She always reminds me of
the winter sea that washed her up.”

“You have not seen her as I have,” said Vaughn, quietly; “and perhaps
never could. And to compare her with Claudia and Francia, or them with each
other, is unjust to all three, for while each is an almost perfect type of a special
form of beauty, the three forms are as wide apart as the sea and the sun. I saw
women like Claudia in Spain, in Italy, in the Ionian Isles; I have found
Francias in England, in Germany, and here at home, but there are no more
Nerias.”

He smiled dreamily as he spoke, and Mr. Murray shrugged his shoulders.

“I should think in Norway, Sweden, Russia, anywhere near the North Pole,
you might find plenty of them,” said he, slightingly.

“Plenty of complexions as pure, and once in a year, perhaps, features as
delicately moulded, a form as exquisitely proportioned—but the peculiarity of
this girl's beauty is one that I have never before encountered. She is transparent.
The body is beautiful enough, although men like you might call it cold
and inanimate, but the real beauty is within, and only once in a while takes possession
of the body and transfigures it, absolutely changes it to another.”

Mr. Murray shook his head.

“Just as romantic as ever,” said he, compassionately. “More of a boy than
my Fergus ever was. Now, I suppose in common every-day parlance, you mean
by this transfiguration and `possession' that Neria has a very expressive face.
Well—”

“No, that is not what I mean,” interposed Vaughn. “I mean that under
strong emotion or deep interest, she becomes another person. Her eyes, which
ordinarily are a clear, light grey, deepen to the color of the sea beneath a thunder
sky; her lips glow with a vivid scarlet, and ripen to an exquisite fulness; her
cheeks bloom with the rare tint that Titian strove all his life to embody in color;
her very hair deepens from its pale gold to an aureola of glory; her slender
figure dilates and rounds itself to the perfection of womanhood. It is marvellous—absolutely
marvellous, and no one who has never witnessed this change
should speak of Neria's beauty, for it is a thing he cannot understand.”

Mr. Murray plunged his hands into his pockets, and looked askance at his
brother-in-law.

“I had better have held my tongue,” said he. “I had no idea you were in
this condition, or that you had turned your forty years to so little account.”

Vaughn slightly frowned, then smiled.

“It is I who should have held my tongue,” said he. “You and I never
looked out of the same eyes, Murray, and you do not see that I am admiring
this lovely ward of mine just as I admired the Madonnas of the Sistine, the
Psyche of Florence. She is to me another embodiment of beauty, that is all—
another reason to praise God, who gave me eyes and brain to admire His works.”

“And that is all?” asked Murray, incredulously.

“That is all,” assented Vaughn, with a grave and steadfast look into the furtive
eyes of his companion.

“Wait awhile,” said Mr. Murray, dryly, and they ascended the broad steps
to the terrace, where Claudia sang passionate love-songs to her guitar, while her
husband, with a handkerchief over his head, sat upon the sill of the drawing-room
window, and Francia wandered restlessly up and down, looking every
moment toward the garden where Neria's white dress floated through the long
alleys with a dark shadow at its side.

Light and shadow presently came toward the house, and Francia, who had

been for some moments immovable at the end of the terrace nearest to the garden,
hurried to the other end, and seated herself upon the shaded steps, with a
cruel little pang at the thought that she should not be missed. Without turning
her head, she heard the merry talk that sprang up at the farther end of the terrace,
heard some one ask for herself, and Claudia's careless answer that she had
gone into the house, perhaps to rest. Then she heard a firm quick tread along
the marble walk, and drew still further into the shadow as Fergus approached,
paused, and sat down beside her.

“What is the matter, Francia?” asked he, with a little impatience and a
good deal of tenderness mingling in his voice.

“Nothing's the matter,” said Francia, pettishly.

“Yes, but a good deal's the matter when you speak in that way, little girl,'
retorted her cousin, taking in his own one of the listless hands that only half-tried
to evade the capture.

“Now tell me, Franc, what is it?”

Half yielding to the tender and imperious tone of this demand, Francia
spoke, but, womanly, left the most unsaid.

“You were so cross in the boat!”

Fergus laughed aloud.

Now, Franc, aren't you ashamed of yourself? Very likely I spoke too
sharply, but was that a thing worth pouting over for hours? What I meant was
that you and I have no right to judge, or even discuss other people's affairs.
You were beginning a remark about Claudia's marriage, you know, and I
thought it was something of which you should not talk. I could not explain
then, but you ought to have understood.”

Francia looked up with a smile in her blue eyes.

“You are so fastidiously honorable,” said she.

“And you are such a little goose,” retorted her cousin, meeting the smile
half way.

“Come, Franc, we are going in,” called Claudia from the window, and with
a little reluctant sigh, the girl obeyed the summons, slowly followed by Fergus,
who, instead of entering the house, sought again the garden paths and wandered
there until “Orion, low down in his grave,” showed that the night had changed
to morning.