"'The dice of the gods are always loaded,' and what appears the merest chance is as inexorably fixed, predetermined, as the rules of mathematics, or the laws of crystallization. What madness to flout fate!"

Mrs. Orme laid down her pen as she spoke, and leaned back in her chair.

"Did you speak to me?" inquired Mrs. Waul, who had been nodding over her worsted work, and was aroused by the sound of the voice.

"No, I was merely thinking aloud; a foolish habit I have contracted since I began to aspire to literary laurels. Go to sleep again, and finish your dream."

Upon the writing desk lay a MS. in morocco cover, and secured by heavy bronze clasps, into which the owner put a small key attached to her watch chain, carefully locking and laying it away in a drawer of the desk.

Approaching a table in the corner of the room, Mrs. Orme filled a tall narrow Venetian glass with that violet-flavoured, violet-perfumed Capri wine, whose golden bubbles danced upon the brim, and, having drained the last amber drop, she rolled her chair close to the window, looped back the curtains, and sat down.

The lodgings she had occupied since her arrival in Naples were situated on the Riviera di Chiaja, near the Villa Reale, and not far from the divergence into the Strada Mergellina. Of the wonderful beauty of the scene beyond her front windows She had never wearied, and now in the ravishing afternoon glow, with the blue air all saturated with golden gleams, she yielded to the Parthenopean spell, which, once felt, seems never to be forgotten.

Had it the power to chant to rest that sombre past which memory kept as a funeral theme for ever on its vibrating strings? Was there at last a file for the serpent, that had so long made its lair in her distorted and envenomed nature?

At thirty-three time ceases to tread with feathery feet, and the years grow self-asserting, italicize themselves in passing; and across the dial of woman's beauty the shadow of decadence falls aslant. But although Mrs. Orme had offered sacrifice to that inexorable Terminus, who dwells at the last border line of youth, the ripeness and glow of her extraordinary loveliness showed as yet no hint of the coming eclipse.

Health lent to cheek and lip its richest, warmest tints, and though the silvery splendour of hope shone no longer in the eloquent brown eyes, the light of an almost accomplished triumph imparted a baleful brilliance, which even the long lashes could not veil.

Her pale lilac robe showed admirably the transparency of her complexion, and in her waving gilded hair she wore a cluster of delicate rose anemones.

Her gaze seemed to have crossed the blue pavement of sea, and rested on the purpling outlines of Ischia and Capri; but the dimpling smile that crossed her face sprang from no dreamy reverie of Parthenope legends, and her voice was low and deep like one rehearsing for some tragic outbreak.

"So Samson felt in Dagon's temple, amid the jubilee of his tormentors, when silent and calm, girded only by the sense of his wrongs, he meekly bowed to rest himself; and all the while his arms groped stealthily around the pillars destined to avenge him. Ah! how calm, how holy, all outside of my heart seems! How in contrast with that charnel-house yonder vision of peaceful loveliness appears as incongruous as the nightingales which the soul of Sophocles heard singing in the grove of the Furies? After to-day will the world ever look quite the same to me? Thirty-three years have brought me swiftly to the last fatal page; and shall the hand falter that writes finis?"

A strangely solemn expression drifted over her countenance, but at that moment a tall form darkened the doorway, and she smiled.

"Come in, General Laurance. Punctuality is essentially an American virtue, rarely displayed in this dolce far niente land; and you exemplify its nationality. Five was the hour you named, and my little Swiss tell-tale is even now sounding the last stroke."

She did not rise, seemed on the contrary, to sink farther back in her velvet-lined chair; and bending down General Laurance touched her hand.

"When a man's happiness for all time is at stake does he loiter on his way to receive the verdict? Surely you will——"

He paused and glanced significantly at the figure whose white cap was bowed low, as its wearer slumbered over the interminable crochet.

"May not this interview at least be sacred from the presence of your keepers?"

"Poor dear soul, she is happily oblivious, and will take no stenographic notes. I would as soon declare war against my own shadow as order her away."

Evidently chagrined, the visitor stood irresolute, and meanwhile the gaze of his companion wandered back to the beauty of the Bay.

He drew a chair close to that which she occupied, and holding his hat as a screen, should Mrs. Waul's spectacles chance to turn in that direction, spoke earnestly.

"Have I been unpardonably presumptuous in interpreting favourably this permission to see you once more? Have you done me the honour to ponder the contents of my letter?"

"I certainly have pondered well the contents."

She kept her hands beyond his reach, and looking steadily into his eager handsome face, she saw it flush deeply.

"Madame, I trust, I believe you are incapable of trifling."

"In which, you do me bare justice only. With me the time for trifling is past; and just now life has put on all its tragic vestments. But how long since General Laurance believed me incapable of—worse than trifling?"

"Ever since my infamous folly was reproved by you as it deserved. Ever since you taught me that you were even more noble in soul than lovely in person. Be generous, and do not humiliate me by recalling that temporary insanity. Having blundered fearfully, in my ignorance of your real character, does not the offer of yesterday embody all the reparation, all the atonement of which a man is capable?"

"You desire me to consider the proposal contained in your letter, as an expiation for past offences, as an amende honourable for what might have ripened into insult, had it not been nipped in the bud? Do I translate correctly your gracious diction?"

"No, you cruelly torment me by referring to an audacious and shameful offence, for which I blush."

"Successful sins are unencumbered by penitential oblations, and only discovered and defeated crimes arouse conscience, and paint one's cheeks with mortification. General Laurance merely illustrates a great social law."

"Do not, dear madame, keep me in this fiery suspense. I have offered you all that a gentleman can lay at the feet of the woman he loves."

A cold smile lighted her face, as some arctic moonbeams gleams for an instant across the spires and doomes of an iceberg.

"Once you attempted to offer me your heart, or what remains of its ossified ruins; which I declined. Now you tender me your hand and name, and indeed it appears that like many of the high-born class you so nobly represent, your heart and hand have never hitherto been conjoined in your devoir. It were a melancholy pity they should be eternally divorced."

Bending over her, he exclaimed:

"As heaven hears me, I swear I love you better than life, than everything else that the broad earth holds! You cannot possibly doubt my sincerity, for you hold the proof in your own hands. Be merciful, Odille, and end my anxiety."

He caught her hand, and as she attempted no resistance, he raised it to his moustached lip. Her eyes were resting upon the blue expanse of water, as if far away, across the vast vista of the Mediterranean she sought some strengthening influence, some sacred inspiration; and after a moment, turning them full upon his countenance, she said with grave stony composure:

"You have asked me to become your wife, knowing full well that no affection would prompt me to entertain the thought; and you must be thoroughly convinced that only sordid motives of policy could influence me to accept you. Do men who marry under such circumstances honour and trust the women, who as a dernier ressort bear their names? You are not so weak, so egregiously vain, as to delude yourself for one instant with the supposition that I could ever love you?"

"Once my wife, I ask nothing more. Upon my own head and life, be the failure to make you love me. Only give me this hand, and I will take your heart Can a lover ask less, and hazard more?"

"And if you fail—woefully, as fail you must?"

"I shall not. You cannot awe or discourage me, for I have yet to find the heart that successfully defies my worship. But if you remained indifferent—ah, loveliest! you would not! Even then, I should be blessed by your presence, your society—and that alone were worth all other women!"

"Even though it cost you the heavy, galling burden of marriage vows, an exorbitant price, which only necessity extorts? How vividly we of the nineteenth century exemplify the wisdom of the classic aphorisms? Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat. Have you no fear that you are seizing with bare fingers a glittering thirsty blade, which may flesh itself in the hand that dares to caress it?"

"I fear nothing but your rejection; and though you should prove
Judith or Jael, I would disarm you thus."

Again he kissed the fair slender hand, and clasped it tenderly between both his own.

"A man of your years does not lightly forsake the traditions of his
Caste, and the usages of his ancestors; and what can patricians like
General Laurance hope to secure by stooping to the borders of
proletaire?"

"The woman whom he loves. To you I will confess, that never until within the past six or eight months have I really comprehended the power of genuine love. Early in life I married a high-born, gentle, true-hearted woman, who made me a good faithful wife; but into that alliance my heart never entered, and although for many years I have been free to admire whom fickle fancy chose, and have certainly petted and caressed some whom the world pronounced very lovely, the impression made upon me was transient, as the perfume of a blossom plucked and worn for a few hours only. You have exerted over me a fascination which I can neither explain nor resist. For you I entertain feelings never aroused in my nature until now; and I speak only the simple truth, when I solemnly swear to you, upon the honour of a Laurance, that you are the only woman I have ever truly and ardently loved."

"The honour of a Laurance? What more sacred pledge could I possibly desire?"

The fingers of her free hand were toying with a small gold chain around her neck, to which was fastened the hidden wedding ring of black agate, with its white skull; and as she spoke her scarlet lips paled perceptibly, and her soft dreamy eyes began to glitter.

"Ah! I repeat, upon my honour as a gentleman and a Laurance; and a holier oath no man could offer. Of my proud unsullied name I am fastidiously careful, and can even you demand or hope a nobler one than that I now lay at your feet?"

"The name of Laurance? Certainly I think it would satisfy even my ambition."

He felt the pretty hand grow suddenly cold in his grasp, and saw the thin delicate nostril expand slightly, as she fixed her brilliant eyes on his, and smiled. Then she continued:

"Is it not too sacred and aristocratic a mantle to fling around an obscure actress, of whose pedigree and antecedent life you know nothing, save that widowhood and penury goaded her to histrionic exhibitions of a beauty, that sometimes threatened to subject her to impertinence and insult? Put aside the infatuation which not unfrequently attacks men, who like you are rapidly descending the hill of life, approaching the stage of second childlike simplicity, and listen for a moment to the cold dictates of prudence and policy. Suppose that ere you surrendered your reason to the magnetism of what you are pleased to consider my 'physical perfection,' one of your relatives, a brother, or say even your son, had met me at Milan as you did; and madly forgetting his family rank, his aristocratic ties, all the pride and worldly wisdom of heredity, had, while in a fit of complete dementia, offered as you have done to clothe my humble obscurity in the splendid name of Laurance? Would General RenÉ Laurance have pardoned him, and received me as his sister, or his daughter?"

"Could I censure any man for surrendering to charms which have so completely vanquished me? Thank heaven! I have neither brother nor son to rival me. My only child Cuthbert is safely anchored in the harbour of wedlock, and having his own family ties, I am free to consult only my heart in the choice of a bride. I have not journeyed so far down the hill of life as you cruelly persist in asserting, and the fervour of my emotions denies your unkind imputation. When I proudly show the world the lovely wife of my heart's choice, you will find my devotion a noble refutation of your unflattering estimate. But a moment since, you confessed that to exchange the name of Orme for that of Laurance would crown your ambition; my dearest, the truth has escaped you."

With a sudden gesture of loathing she threw off his hand, struck her palms together, and he started at the expression that seemed literally to blaze in her eyes, so vivid, so withering was the light that rayed out.

"Yes, the truth escaped my lips. The honourable name of Laurance is talismanic, and offers much to Odille Orme; yet I will stain my soul with no dissimulation. With love and romance, I finished long, long ago; and to-day I have not patience to trifle even with its phraseology. I am thirty-three, and in my early girlhood the one love dream of all my life was rudely broken, leaving me no more capacity to indulge a second, than belongs to those marbles in the MusÉe Bourbonique. For my dear young husband I felt the only intense, idolatrous, yes, blindly worshipping devotion, that my nature could yield to any human being. When I lost him, I lost my heart also; became doubly widowed, because my grief bereft me of the power of properly loving even our little baby. For years I have given my body and soul to the accomplishment of one purpose, the elevation of my social status, and that of my child. Had my husband been spared to me, we would not have remained obscure and poor, but after my widowhood the struggle devolved upon me. I have not had leisure to think of love, have toiled solely for maintenance and position; and have sternly held myself aloof from the world that dared to believe my profession rendered me easy of access. Titles have been laid at my feet, but their glitter seemed fictitious, did not allure me; and no other name save yours has ever for an instant tempted me. To-day you are here to plead my acceptance of that name, and frankly, I tell you, sir, it dazzles me. As an American I know all that it represents, all that it would confer on me, all that it would prove for my child, and I would rather wear the name of Laurance than a coronet! I confess I have but one ambition, to lift my daughter into that high social plane, from which fate excluded her mother; and this eminence I covet for her, marriage with you promises me. I have no heart to bring you; mine died with all my wifely hopes when I lost my husband. If I consent to give you my hand, and nominally the claim of a husband, in exchange for the privilege of merging Orme in Laurance, it must be upon certain solemn conditions, to the fulfilment of which your traditional honour is pledged. Is a Laurance safely bound by vows?"

Her voice had grown strangely metallic, losing all its liquid sweetness, and as her gaze searched his face, the striking resemblance she traced in his eyes and mouth to those of Cuthbert and Regina seemed to stab her heart.

To the man who listened and watched with breathless anxiety her hardening, whitening features, she merely recalled the memory of her own tragic "Medea" confronting "Jason" at Athens.

"Only accept my vows at the altar, and I challenge the world to breathe an imputation upon their sanctity. RenÉ Laurance never broke a promise, never forfeited a pledge; and to keep his name unsullied, his honour stainless, is his sole religion. Odille, my Queen——"

She rose and waved him back.

"Spare me rapsodies that accord neither with your years nor my sentiments. Understand, it is a mere bargain and a sale, and I am carefully arranging the conditions. For myself I ask little; but as you are aware, my daughter is grown, is now in her seventeenth year, and the man whom the world regards as my husband must share his name and fortune with my child. Doubtless you deem me calculating and mercenary, and for her dear sake I am forced to do so; for all the tenderness that remains in my nature is centred in my little girl. She has been reared as carefully as a princess, is accomplished and very beautiful, and when you see her I think you will scarcely refuse the tribute of your admiration and affection."

For an instant a grey pallor spread from lip to brow, and the unhappy woman shuddered; but rallying, she moved across the floor to her writing desk, and the infatuated man followed, whispering:

"If she resembles her mother, can you doubt her perfect and prompt adoption into my heart?"

"My daughter is unlike me; is so entirely the image of her lost father, that the sight of her beauty sometimes overwhelms me with torturing memories. Here. General Laurance is a carefully written paper, which I submit for your examination and mature reflection. When in the presence of proper witnesses you sign that contract, you will have purchased the right to claim my hand—mark you, only my hand—at the altar."

It was a cautiously worded marriage settlement, drawn up in conformity with legal requirements; and its chief exaction was the adoption of Regina, the transmission of the name of Laurance, and the settlement upon her of a certain amount of money in stocks and bonds, exclusive of any real estate. As he received the paper and opened it, Mrs. Orme added: "Take your own time, and weigh the conditions carefully and deliberately."

"Stay, Odille; do not leave me. A few moments will suffice for this matter, and I am in no mood to endure suspense."

"Within an hour you can at least comprehend what I demand. I am going to the terrace of the Villa Reale, and when in accordance with that contract you decide to adopt my child, and present her to the world as your own, you will find me on the terrace."

He would have taken her hand, but she walked away and disappeared, closing a door behind her.

His hat had rolled out of sight, and as he searched hurriedly for it,
Mrs. Waul spoke from her distant recess:

"General Laurance will find his hat between the ottoman and the window."

The winding walks of the Villa were comparatively deserted, when Mrs. Orme began to pace slowly to and fro beneath the trees, whose foliage swayed softly in the mild evening air. When the few remaining groups had passed beyond her vision, she threw back the long thick veil that had effectually concealed her features, and approaching the parapet that overhung the sea, sat down. Removing her hat and veil, she placed them beside her on the seat, and resting her hands on the iron railing, bowed her chin upon them, and looked out upon the sea murmuring at the foot of the wall.

The flush and sparkle of an hour ago had vanished so utterly, that it appeared incredible that colour, light, and dimples could ever wake again in that frozen face, over whose rigid features brooded the calm of stone.

"A woman fair and stately,
But pale as are the dead,"—

she seemed some impassive soulless creature, incapable alike of remorse or of hope, allured by no future, frightened by no past; silently fronting at last the one sunless, joyless, dreary goal, whose attainment had been for years the paramount aim of her stranded life. The rosy glow of dying day yet lingered in the sky and tinged the sea, and a golden moon followed by a few shy stars watched their shining images twinkling in the tremulous water; but the loveliest object upon which their soft light fell was that lonely, wan, lilac-robed woman.

So Jephtha's undaunted daughter might have looked, as she saw the Syrian sun sink below the palms and poppies, knowing that when it rose once more upon the smiling happy world, her sacrifice would have been accomplished, her fate for ever sealed; or so perhaps Alcestis watched the slow-coming footsteps of that dreadful hour, when for her beloved she voluntarily relinquished life.

To die for those we love were easy martyrdom, but to live in sacrificial throes fierce as Dirce's tortures, to endure for tedious indefinite lingering years, jilted by death, demands a fortitude higher than that of Cato, Socrates, or Seneca.

To all of us come sooner or later lurid fateful hours that bring us face to face with the pale ParcÆ; so close that we see the motionless distaff, and the glitter of the opening shears, and have no wish to stay the clipping of the frayed and tangled thread.

In comparison with the grim destiny Mrs. Orme had so systematically planned the hideous "death in life," upon which she was deliberately preparing to enter, a leap over that wall into the placid sea beneath would have been welcome as heaven to tortured Dives; but despite the loathing and horror of her sickened and outraged soul, she contemplated her future lot as calmly as St. Lawrence the heating of his gridiron.

Over the beautiful blue bay, where the moon had laid her pavement of gold, floated a low sweet song, a simple barcarolle, that came from a group of happy souls in a small boat

"Che cosi vual que pesci
Fiduline!
L'anel que me cascÁ
Nella bella mia barca
Nella bella se ne vÁ.
Fiduline."

Approaching the shore, the ruddy light burning at one end of the boat showed its occupants; a handsome athletic young fisherman, and his pretty childish wife, hushing her baby in her arms, with a slow cradle-like movement that kept time to her husband's song.

"Te daro cento scudi
Fiduline.
Sta borsa riccamÁ
Por la bella sua barca
Colla bella se ne vÁ
Fidulilalo, Fiduline."

Springing ashore he secured the boat, and held out his arms for the sleeping bud that contained in its folded petals all their domestic hopes; and as the star-eyed young mother kissed it lightly and laid it in its father's arms, the happy pair walked away, leaving the echo of their gay musical chatter lingering on the air.

To the woman who watched and listened from the parapet above, it seemed a panel rosy, dewy, fresh from Tempe, set as a fresco upon the walls of Hell, to heighten the horrors of the doomed.

From her chalice fate had stolen all that was sweet and rapturous in wifehood and motherhood, substituting hemlock; and as the vision of her own fair child was recalled by the sleeping babe of the Italian fisherman, she suffered a keen pang in the consciousness that those tender features of her innocent daughter reproduced vividly the image of the man who had blackened her life.

The face in Regina's portrait was so thoroughly Laurance in outline and Laurance in colour, that the mother had covered it with a thick veil, unable to meet the deep violet eyes that she had learned to hate in RenÉ Laurance and his son.

Yet for the sake of that daughter, whose gaze she shunned, she was about to step down into flames far fiercer than those of Tophet, silently immolating all that remained of her life.

Although she neither turned her head nor removed her eyes from the sea, she knew that the end was at hand. For one instant her heart seemed to cease beating, then with a keen spasm of pain slowly resumed its leaden labour.

The erect, graceful, manly figure at her side bent down, and the grizzled moustache touched her forehead.

"Odille, I accept your terms. Henceforth in accordance with your own conditions you are mine; mine in the sight of God and man."

Recoiling, she drew her handkerchief across the spot where his lips had rested, and her voice sounded strangely cold and haughty:

"God holds Himself aloof from such sacrilege as this, and sometimes I think He does not witness, or surely would forbid. Just yet, you must not touch me. You accept the conditions named, and I shall hold myself bound by the stipulations; but until I am your wife, until you take my hand as Mrs. Laurance, you will pardon me if I absolutely prohibit all caresses. I am very frank, you see, and doubtless you consider me peculiar, probably prudish, but only a husband's lips can touch mine, only a husband's arm encircle me. When we are married——"

She did not complete the sentence, but a peculiar musical laugh rippled over her lips, and she held out her hand to him.

"Remember, I promised General Laurance only my hand, and here I surrender it. You have fairly earned it, but I fear it will not prove the guerdon you fondly imagine."

He kissed it tenderly, and keeping it in his, spoke very earnestly:

"Only one thing, Odille, I desire to stipulate, and that springs solely from my jealous love. You must promise to abandon the stage for ever. Indeed, my beautiful darling, I could not endure to see my wife, my own, before the footlights. In Mrs. Laurance the world must lose its lovely idol."

"Am I indeed so precious in General Laurance's eyes! Will he hold me always such a dainty sacred treasure, safe from censure and aspersion? Sir, I appreciate the delicate regard that prompts this expression of your wishes, and with one slight exception, I willingly accede to them. I have written a little drama, adapting the chief rÔle to my own peculiar line of talent and I desire in that play, of my own composition, to bid adieu to the stage. In Paris, where illness curtailed my engagement, I wish to make my parting bow, and I trust you will not oppose so innocent a pleasure? The marriage ceremony shall be performed in the afternoon, and that night I propose to appear in my own play. May I not hope that my husband will consent to see me on my wedding day in that rÔle? Only one night, then adieu for ever to the glittering bauble! Can my fastidious lover refuse the first boon I ever craved?"

She turned and placed her disengaged hand on his shoulder, and as the moonlight shone on her smiling dangerously beguiling face, the infatuated man laid his lips upon the soft white fingers.

"Could I refuse you anything, my beautiful brown-eyed empress? Only once more then; promise me after that night to resign the stage, to reign solely in my heart and home."

"You have my promise, and when I break my vows, it will be the Laurance example that I follow. In your letter you stated that urgent business demanded your return to Paris, possibly to America. Can you not postpone the consummation of our marriage?"

"Impossible! How could I consent to defer what I regard as the crowning happiness of my life? I have not so many years in store, that I can afford to waste even an hour without you. When I leave Europe, I shall take my darling with me."

The moon was shining full upon her face, and the magnificent eyes looked steadily into his. There was no movement of nerve and muscle to betray all that raged in her soul, as she fought and conquered the temptation to spring forward, and hurl him over the parapet.

In the flush and enthusiasm of his great happiness, he certainly seemed far younger in proportion to their respective years than his companion; and as he softly stroked back a wave of golden hair that had fallen on her white brow, he leaned until his still handsome face was close to hers, and whispered:

"When may I claim you? Do not, my love, delay it a day longer than is absolutely necessary."

"To-morrow morning I will give you an answer. Then I am going away for a few days to PÆstum, and cannot see you again till we meet in Paris. Recollect, I warned you, I bring no heart, no love; both are lost hopelessly in the ashes of the past. I never loved but one man—the husband of my youth, the father of my baby; and his loss I shall mourn till the coffin closes above me. General Laurance, you are running a fearful hazard, and the very marble of the altar should find a voice to cry out and stay your madness."

She shivered, and her eyes burned almost supernaturally large and lustrous.

Charmed by her beauty and grace, which had from the beginning of their acquaintance attracted him more powerfully than any other woman had ever done, and encouraged by the colossal vanity that had always predominated in his character, he merely laughed and caressed her hand.

"Can any hazard deter me when the reward will be the privilege, the right to fold you in my arms? I am afraid of nothing that can result from making you my wife. Do not cloud my happiness by conjuring up spectres that only annoy you, that cannot for an instant influence me. Your hands are icy and you have no shawl. Let me take you home."

Silently she accepted his arm, and as the fringy acacias trembled and sighed above her, she walked by his side; wondering if the black shadow that hung like a pall over the distant crest of Vesuvius were not a fit symbol of her own wretched doomed existence, threatening a sudden outbreak that would scatter ruin and despair where least expected?

Nearing the Villa gate General Laurance asked:

"What is the character of your drama? Is it historic?"

"Eminently historic."

"In what era?"

"In the last eighteen or twenty years."

"When may I read the MS? I am impatient to see all that springs from your dear hands."

"The dramatic effect will be finer, when you see me act it. Pardon me if I am vain enough to feel assured that my little play will touch my husband's heart as ever Racine, Shakespeare, and Euripides never did!"

There was a triumphant, exultant ring in her silvery voice that only charmed her infatuated companion, and tenderly pressing the hand that lay on his arm, he added pleadingly;

"At least, my dear Odille, you will tell me the title?"

She shook off his fingers, and answered quietly:

"General Laurance, I call it merely—Infelice."