The morning after the end of the famous trial Mrs. Murray came with her son to call on the Vales.
Francis Murray’s luxuriant beard had been all shaved off and his fair clustering locks carefully trimmed to his well-shaped head.
The blue glasses had been laid aside with the German professor’s slouching gait and careless clothes. He was dressed in the extreme of fashion, and appeared handsomer than ever to Italy’s admiring eyes. But she greeted him with a very quiet, constrained air.
She was afraid, horribly afraid, that Mrs. Murray had confided to her son the story of that night when she had owned her love for him.
Mrs. Murray had come to carry off the Vales to The Lodge. They must be her guests this winter, she declared! Her heart yearned over the pale, sad, golden-haired woman who had borne such a heavy cross of sorrow. She longed to make amends to her for all the grievous past.
“Come back to us, my dear, in your own old home, and let us love you as we want to and try to make you happy,” she said lovingly, as she put her arms about the graceful drooping form.
If there was one wish in the world that Mrs. Vale cherished it was to return to the old home where she had been so happy with her lost Ronald. Tears of joy sparkled in her dark-blue eyes, as she answered:
“We will be glad to come to you until we make arrangements for another home.”
Whatever Italy felt, she could not gainsay the wishes of that beloved mother, so she became Mrs. Murray’s guest at The Lodge, exposed to all the dangerous fascinations of its magnificent master.
And certainly he did not spare any effort to wound that girlish heart with the shaft of Cupid. He could be dangerously fascinating when he chose to exert himself, and he chose to do it now. Without the least obtrusiveness he surrounded her life with the most delicate attentions.
But there are none so blind as those who will not see.
Italy saw in her host’s tenderness only the rites of a courteous hospitality. A little thorn of jealousy was rankling deep in her heart. She knew that he had been to call on Alys Audenreid, for he had spoken of it frankly one day, but she did not know that Alys was in the habit of writing him tender little notes begging for these visits. The girl was playing her last desperate card to win him.
But when he spoke of her one day before his mother, she said curtly:
“Only for the sake of our sweet Alexie I could not tolerate Alys and her aunt. They are both scheming and deceitful creatures for whom I have neither liking nor respect.”
She could not forget that they had both pretended to believe in her son’s guilt, and she thought it was now too late for repentance. She was not uneasy on the score of Alys, however, for she knew well where her son’s heart was fixed. All that troubled her was Italy’s fixed coldness. Why had the girl’s heart turned from her son?
She knew that she cared for no one else, although she had so many admirers. But while she doubted, the pretty little play went on before her eyes, the devotion of Francis to the shy girl who accepted his attentions so coyly, sometimes even with studied indifference.
“He is not bold enough. He ought to speak to her and press his suit,” she thought impatiently, but she did not know that he feared his fate too much.
He thought himself unworthy of the beautiful, brave girl who was the heroine of the hour, who had fought such a valiant battle for her mother’s good name and peace of mind when strong men had tried to strike down her little, aggressive sword.
A month had passed away, and March was coming in. Soon the long and weary winter would be over.
Ralph Allen and his bride were coming home from their charming Southern tour. The Breakers, their beautiful new home in Winthrop close to The Lodge, was all ready for their reception.
Emmett Harlow, too, was building a beautiful home in Winthrop, and Madam Rumor hinted that it was for a bride. Certainly Emmett began to wear a happier look, and could meet Italy more cordially than of yore. She knew that he admired Mrs. Severn very much. He had brought her to The Lodge twice to see them all, and it was noticed that the young widow began to wear a brighter, happier look. Perhaps the knowledge of her husband’s treachery had proved an antidote to her sorrow. Italy cherished a secret, happy consciousness that dark-eyed Isabel would soon supplant her in Emmett’s heart.
The Gardners were frequent visitors. They adored Italy, and thought her the greatest heroine in the world. To Mr. Gardner, Mrs. Vale confided her desire to purchase a home for herself in Winthrop.
“I love the sea and want my home beside it. Ronald loved it, too,” she said, in that plaintive voice like saddest music.
“There are plenty of charming sites in Winthrop,” said the lawyer. “But, my dear madam, why not wait a while before you settle on anything? Are you not very pleasantly situated here?”
“I love Winthrop and The Lodge, but Italy thinks we ought to be settled in a home of our own,” she answered gently.
“So then it is you, Italy, who are trying to break up our happy little party,” cried Mrs. Murray, shaking a reproachful finger at the girl.
“We cannot stay here forever!” Italy answered, a little abruptly, but there was a curious break in her voice, and presently she slipped away from them all and went away to walk alone by the wild, March sea.
A lurid, crimson sunset was straining through low-lying snow-clouds that banked the horizon, and the red glow burned on the dull-gray sea with its long swelling white breakers.
Soon it would be dull-gray twilight, but now the warm glow bathed the girl’s figure in rich light, bringing out the brown hue of her sealskin cap and jacket, the purplish bloom on her waving hair and the golden light in the pansy-dark eyes.
The nipping wind blew the pink petals from the hothouse roses on her breast and scattered them as she walked along the level sands, while the voice of the sea, sullen, hollow, mournful, seemed like the voice of her heart, lonely, desolate.
Her mind went back to her first coming to Winthrop last summer--so long ago now it seemed--and all that had followed after. She had come with a heart full of resentment and suspicion, hating Francis Murray, determined to drag him down and bring home to him her father’s murder. That was barely eight months ago. Now she knew that Francis Murray was her fate.
“And he cares naught for me. Oh, how hard it is to lose him!” she thought with passionate despair.
There was a step on the sands behind her, and she turned with a start of fear.
“I have followed you, traced you by the rose-petals on the sands. Are you angry?” said a musical voice.
It was Francis Murray, handsome as a god in the lurid sunset light. He smiled as she turned and faced him--that wondrous smile so dangerous to her peace of mind.
“Are you angry?” he asked again anxiously.
“Why should I be angry?” she faltered. “But--you have taken unnecessary trouble. It is early yet, and I am not afraid.”
“I came to scold you,” he replied.
“What have I done?” she asked proudly, though her lips quivered.
“You have been spoiling your mother’s peace, trying to drag her from The Lodge to a new home.”
“Our visit has extended over a month already. We must not trespass too long on your hospitality.”
“Italy, how coldly you speak to me. Ah! child, will you never forgive my fault?”
“I do not understand you, Mr. Murray.”
“No? That is very strange, for all my thoughts dwell upon it, and I can never forgive myself. How you must have hated me when I would not help you track down the murderer of your father, when I sneered at your faith in your mother!”
His voice was earnest and intense. It thrilled her with its pathetic music, and her heart leaped wildly. She cried out impulsively:
“Oh, how could you think me anything but grateful to you? You were blind then, but so was all the world. It was only my love for my mother that kept my faith so strong, that made me triumph in the end. But you--you saved my mother’s life and mine at deadly peril of your own. We can never be grateful enough to you.”
“If you think you owe me any gratitude, child, it is easy to pay the debt.”
“How?”
“Give up this fancy of another home for yourself and your mother. Stay with us. There is room in that great house for us all. And she is so happy there in the home that used to be hers. And my mother, too, she will be lonely without the two she loves so well.”
“She will have you, her son,” she answered coldly.
“True; but your mother is a pleasanter companion, and the day may come, Italy, when--I--shall--marry. Then my time must be given to my bride.”
There was silence for a long, long minute. The meaning waves seemed to echo loudly in the girl’s ears:
“My bride! my bride!”
The pretty, shallow face of her rival rose before her mind’s eye. She thought how Alys would queen it at the great house yonder. Then she crested her head with defiant pride. His keen, earnest eyes should never read her heart, where that cruel thorn of sorrow hid and ached.
“I congratulate you on your approaching marriage, Mr. Murray, but that is only another reason why we should go away.”
“Why, Italy?”
“Because there could never be room enough for your wife and us two. Do you not remember that we were never friendly, Alys Audenreid and I?”
“Alys Audenreid, dear, has nothing to do with the matter. No bride of mine can ever oust you from The Lodge.”
He took her hand in his and drew her nearer to him. She trembled, but she did not resist.
The sunset light on his handsome, eager face showed her something in his eyes that was more than simple friendship.
“Have you been thinking I would marry Alys?” he demanded.
“Ye-es.”
“Was that the reason you have been so cold and cruel to me?”
“No.”
But Francis Murray laughed softly to himself. Light began to break on his darkness.
“Italy, won’t you look at me one moment?”
But the long lashes swept the glowing cheeks, and the red lips trembled with intense feeling.
He took the other little hand now and drew her closer still, until his broad figure seemed to shield her utterly from the nipping east wind. But neither knew that it was winter then. The summer of love was in their hearts.
“Little girl, I fear that you have a very bad memory. Have you forgotten the night we were parted in the water by that terrible accident?”
“No--oh, no!” she shuddered.
And he leaned over her a little nearer, so near that his breath caressed her glowing cheek.
“Do you remember the last words I said to you that night, my little girl?”
“I--I----” faltered Italy, in dire confusion, and paused.
“You do remember them!” cried he triumphantly. “I called you my love and my darling. How, then, could you think me false to that night? You have known all the while that I loved you.”
His eager, impetuous voice died away in a thrilling whisper, but no answer came from the happy girl leaning so near to his heart.
“You have known all the while that I loved you,” repeated Francis Murray ardently. “Then why have you been so cold to me? Was it because you could give me no hope? Am I too old at thirty-three to win the heart of a girl like you, barely eighteen? Oh, Italy, speak to me, child! Must I leave you?”
The little hand held him back, the low voice sobbed:
“Professor Doepkin was so cold to me it made me distrust your love. I thought you meant to ignore the past, and it almost broke my heart.”
“I was cruel, dear, but I thought Emmett had won you, after all, and that I was forgotten--even if you had ever cared for me. I hoped you would know me, through all disguises, and I almost despaired because you did not. But Emmett told me lately you had rejected him again, and he was learning to care for Isabel. So I took heart of hope once more. Oh, my darling, will you love me? Will you take my heart and my life?”
And the moaning waves echoed tenderly: “My heart and my life?”
Oh, the face that she raised to his, so beautiful, so loving, so happy! It was like an angel’s to his devouring eyes.
“My love, my bride!” he murmured rapturously, and caught her in his arms, pressing fervent kisses on the face that was so lovely and so happy.
And the sun, just sinking to rest below the restless sea, sent one long lance of quivering golden light across the waves, touching with a heavenly benison the dark and golden heads so close together.
