She stands in the large, handsome room, alone, a long, low room, with a carpet of rich, dull crimson velvet, curtains of dull crimson satin damask, papered walls, dull crimson, too. There are oil paintings in gilded frames, ponderous mahogany chairs, tables and footstools; but there is nothing bright in the apartment save the cheerful red fire. It is all dark and oppressive--not even excepting the girl. The pale face that looks gloomily out at the fast drifting sky, at the fast-fading light, is smileless and sober as all the rest. And yet it is a youthful face, a beautiful face, a face that six months ago bloomed with a childish brightness and bloom, the face of Norine Bourdon.

It is close upon four months since she entered this house, as companion, secretary, amanuensis, to Mr. Hugh Darcy. Now she stands here debating within herself whether she shall go to him to-night and tell him she must leave. She shrinks from the task. She has grown strangely old and wise in these four months; she knows something of the world--something of what it must be like to be adrift in New York, friendless and penniless, with only eighteen years and a fair face for one's dangerous dower. Friendless she will be; for in leaving she will deeply irritate Mr. Darcy, deeply anger Mr. Liston, and in all the world, it seems to Norine, there are only those two she can call friends.

And yet--friends! Can she call even them by that name? Mr. Liston is her friend and protector so long as he thinks she will aid him in his vengeance upon his enemy. Mr. Darcy--well, how long will Mr. Darcy be her friend when he discovers how she has imposed upon him? That under a false name and history she has sought the shelter of his roof--she, the cast-off of his nephew? He likes her well--that she knows; he trusts her, respects her--how much liking or respect will remain when he knows her as she is?

"And know he shall," she says, inwardly, her lips compressed. "I cannot carry on this deception longer. For the rest I would have to leave in any case--_they_ return in May, and I cannot, I cannot meet them. Mr.

Liston may say what he pleases, it were easier to die than to stay on and meet him again--like that."

She has not forgotten. Such first, passionate love as she gave Laurence Thorndyke is not to be outlived and trampled out in four months; and yet it is much more abhorrence than love that fills her heart with bitterness now.

"The dastard!" she thinks, her black eyes gleaming dangerously; "the coward! How dare he do it! One day or other he shall pay for it, that I swear; but I cannot meet him now. There is nothing for it but to go and tell Mr. Darcy I must leave, and take my chance in the world, quite alone."

She leaned her forehead against the cold, clear glass with a heavy heart-sick sigh. The first keen poignancy of her pain was over, but the dull, deadly sickening ache was there still, and would be for many a day. Hate him she might, long for retaliation she did, but not once could she think of him the happy husband of Helen Holmes without the very heart within her growing faint with deadly jealousy. The sound of his name, the sight of his letters, had power to move her to this day.

In the drawing-room below a carefully-painted portrait of the handsome face, the bright blue eyes, the fair, waving hair, hung--a portrait so true, that it was torture only to took at it, and yet how many hours had she not stood before it, her heart full of bitterness--until burning tears filled and blinded her dark impassioned eyes.

Now he and his bride were coming home to this house, and she was expected to stay here and meet them. Expected by Mr. Darcy, who had learned to love her almost as a daughter; expected by Mr. Liston, who had told her she must confront Laurence Thorndyke in this very house, and show him to uncle and wife as he really was--a coward, a liar, a seducer.

"I cannot do it!" she said, her hands clenching together. "I cannot meet him. _Mon Dieu_, no! not yet--not yet."

She had been introduced into the house just two weeks after the marriage as "my niece from the country--Jane Liston." As Jane Liston she had remained here ever since, winning "golden opinions" from all the household. She had found Mr. Darcy a decrepit, irritable old invalid, bored nearly to death since his ward's wedding--lonely, peevish, sick.

He had looked once into the pale, lovely face, and never needed to look again to like her. Trouble and tears had not marred her beauty. A little of the bloom--there never had been much--all of the sparkle, the gay brilliance that had charmed Richard Gilbert were gone; but the eighteen-year-old face was very sweet, very lovely, the dark Canadian eyes, with their unutterable sadness and pathos, wonderfully captivating; and old Hugh Darcy, with a passion for all things fair and young, had become her captive at once.

"You suit me fifty times better than Helen," he said often, drawing the dark loops of shining hair fondly through his old fingers. "Helen was a rattle pate. Never mind--matrimony will tame her down, though the lad's fond of her enough, and will make her a very good sort of husband, I dare say, as husbands go. But you, little woman, with your soft voice--you have a voice like an aeolian harp Jennie, your deft fingers, your apt ways--you are a treasure to a cross old bachelor. You are a nurse born, Jennie, child; how did I ever get along all these years without you?"

He meant it, every word, and a moonlight sort of smile, sweet and grateful, if very sad, thanked him. Once she had lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it, passionate tears filling her eyes.

"I a treasure! Oh, Mr. Darcy! You do not know what you say. I am a wretch--a wretch unworthy of your kindness and trust. But one day I shall tell you all."

He had wondered a little what she meant. "Tell him all!" What could the child have to tell? She was so young--so pathetically young to be widowed--what story lay in her life? The very oldest of all old stories, no doubt--a beloved one lost. He sighed as he thought it, bald-headed, hoary patriarch that he was. _He_ had had his story and his day. The day had ended, the story was read, the book closed and put away, years and years and years ago. In the gallant and golden days of his youth he had met and loved a girl, and been (as he believed, as she told him,) loved in return. He left her to make a home and a competence--he was no millionaire in those far-off days, save in happiness--to return in a year and marry her. Eight months after there came to him his letters, his picture, his ring. A richer knight had entered the lists, and the lady was borne off no unwilling captive. A commonplace, every-day story--nothing new at all.

He took his punishment like a man, in brave silence, and the world went on, and years and riches and honors came, and a man's life was spoiled forever, that was all. As he recalls it, old, white haired, half paralyzed, now in the twilight of seventy odd years, he can remember with curious vividness how brightly the July sun shone down on the hot white pavement of the streets below, the cries of the children at play, the quivering glare of the blazing noontide, as he sat in his office and read the words that renounced him. Twenty-seven years ago, but the picture was engraven on Hugh Darcy's brain, never to be blotted out.

Twenty-seven years ago, and when the fortunate rival had fallen in the battle of life, ten years later; when his feeble-souled wife had followed him to the grave, Hugh Darcy's revenge upon her had been to step forward and take the child of that marriage to his heart and home to rear him as his own son, to make his will in his favor, leaving him sole heir to a noble inheritance.

Laurence Thorndyke had sown his wild oats. Well, most young men go in for that kind of agriculture, and the seed sown had not yet begun to crop up. He was happily married, and done for, and for himself Mr. Darcy meant to keep his little "Jennie" with him always, to travel about with her this coming summer, and leave her a handsome portion at his death.

"For of course," said Mr. Darcy, "she will forget the husband she has lost, and make some good man happy after I am gone."

He had settled her little romance quite to suit himself. She had crept with her quiet, gentle, womanly ways into his inmost heart--a very kindly heart in spite of life's wear and tear; very kindly, yet with a stubborn sense of justice, and of right and wrong underlying all.

Kindly, yet terribly, obstinately, unforgiving to anything like immorality, deception or dishonor.

"I love the child almost better than Helen," he thought sometimes. "I don't want to lose her, and yet I should like to see her safely sheltered under a husband's wing before I go. There's Richard Gilbert now. I've often meant to introduce him to her, but somehow she always slips out of the room and the house when he sends up his card. I wonder if he's got over the loss of that girl last fall. Some men do get over that sort of thing they say. I hope Laurence had nothing to do with it.

Gilbert suspected him, I know, but then--'give a dog a bad name and hang him.' Yes, my little Jennie wouldn't make half a bad wife for Dick Gilbert. I'll introduce him the very next time he comes."

Mr. Darcy sits before his study fire this chill afternoon alone. Liston left some hours ago. It is not yet dinner time, and his companion--where is she? He looks impatiently around--while he took his afternoon nap she has left him. He listens a moment to the wailing voice of the wind, sobbing in a melancholy way about the house, then reaches forth nervously, and rings the bell.

"Send Mrs. Liston here," he says to the servant who answers.

This gray twilight hour is haunted for him, with melancholy flitting faces, dead and gone. He will have Mrs. Liston in to sing and play and exorcise the ghosts. Nobody ever sang Scotch songs or played Scotch melodies half so sweetly, thinks the worn old man, as his little companion.

The door opens and she enters. Her tread, her touch, her garments, are always soft and noiseless. She comes gliding forward in the gloaming, not unlike a ghost herself. Her pale face seems almost startlingly pale in contrast with the black dress she wears. In its whiteness her great dusk eyes look bigger and blacker than ever. It strikes Mr. Darcy.

"Child," he says, "how pale you are. Come over here and let me look at you. You are more like a spirit of the twilight than a young lady of the period."

He draws her affectionately to him, and she sinks on her knees by his chair. There is no light but the dull glow of the fire; he tilts up her chin, and gazes smilingly down into the lovely sombre eyes.

"'Oh, fair, pale Margaret,'" he quotes. "Little one, what is it? You promised to tell me sometime. Why not to-night?"

"Why not to-night?" she repeats. "To-night be it, then. But first, is that a letter on the table?"

"Oh, by-the-by, yes--I nearly forgot all about it. Another letter from our mated turtle doves in Florida. I see by the postmark they are in Florida now. I have kept it for you to read, as usual."

She takes it quite calmly; she knows that big, bold chirography well, and the day comes back to her when Mr. Liston brought to the Chelsea cottage the brief, pitiless note in the same hand--her death warrant.

She seats herself on a hassock near the big invalid chair, and by the light of the fire reads Laurence Thorndyke's letter.

It is the gay letter of a happy bridegroom whose bride bends over his shoulder smiling while he writes. He tells of their travels, of how well and handsome Helen is looking; that in another month for certain they will be at home. And with best love and all the kisses he can spare from Nella, he is, as ever, his affectionate nephew, Laurence Thorndyke.

She finished the letter and laid it down.

"Coming home," Mr. Darcy repeats. "Well, I am always glad to see the boy, always fond of Nella. And we will all go to Europe together in May--you to take care of the old man, my dear, and help him laugh at the turtle doves billing and cooing. And in sunny France, in fair Italy, we will see if we cannot bring back roses to these white cheeks."

The dark eyes lift, the grave young voice speaks.

"Thank you," she says. "You are always kind, Mr. Darcy, but I cannot go."

"Jennie! Cannot go?"

"I cannot go Mr. Darcy. I am sorry to leave you, more sorry than I can say, but you must get another attendant and companion. I am going away."

"Mrs. Liston?"

"I am not Mrs. Liston--my name is not Jennie--I am not Mr. Liston's niece. From first to last I have deceived you. I have come to tell you the truth to-night, although it breaks my heart to see you angry. I will tell you the truth, and then you will see that I must go. My name is not Jane Liston. It is Norine Bourdon."

There is a pause. He sits looking at her, astonishment, anger, perplexity, doubt all in his face, and yet he sees that she is telling the truth. And Norine Bourdon--where has he heard that name before?

Norine Bourdon! A foreign-sounding and uncommon name, too. Where has he heard it?

"I do not wish you to blame Mr. Liston too much," the quiet voice goes on. "He is to blame, for he suggested the fraud, but I was ready enough to close with it. I had not a friend nor a home in the world that I dared turn to, and I could not face life alone. So I came here under a false name, false in everything, and broke your bread, and took your money, and deceived you. I am not what you think me; I am a girl who has been lured from her home, deceived and cast off. A wicked wretch who fled from her friends, who betrayed a good man's trust, who promised to marry him, and who ran away from him with one who betrayed her in turn.

You have heard of me before--heard from Richard Gilbert of Norine Bourdon."

A faint exclamation comes from his lips.

Yes, yes, yes, he sees it all. This is _that_ girl--"Norine Bourdon!" He remembers the odd French name well now.

"I will tell you my story, Mr. Darcy--my wicked and shameful story, and you shall turn me out this very night if you choose. I am the girl your friend, Richard Gilbert, honored with his respect and love; whom he asked in marriage. I loved another man, a younger, handsomer man, but he had left me, forever, I thought, and wearied of my dull country life, sad and disappointed, I accepted him. The man I loved hated Mr. Gilbert.

Liston will tell you why, if you ask him. In that hatred he laid a plan of revenge. He cared nothing for me; he was betrothed to a beautiful and wealthy lady; I was but the poor little fool to whom a wise man had given his heart--what became of me did not matter. Three days before my wedding-day he came to me and urged me to fly with him. He loved me, he said; he would make me his wife; he would come for my answer the next night. I must meet him; I must go with him. At night, when they all slept, I stole from the house to meet him; not to fly with him, the good God knows--to refuse him, to forget him, to keep to my duty if my heart broke in the keeping. He had a horse and carriage waiting, and--to this day I hardly know how--he made me enter it, and drove me off. I cried out for help; it was too late; no one heard me. He soothed me with his specious promises, and perhaps I was not difficult to soothe. It was too late to go back; I thought he loved me and went on. He took me to Boston. There, next morning in the hotel, without witnesses, we were married. A man, a clergyman, he told me, came, a ceremony of some sort was gone through, we were pronounced man and wife.

"He took me with him to a cottage he had engaged by the sea shore. For three weeks he remained with me there, tired to death of me, I know now.

Then he was summoned to New York to his home, and I was left. Mr. Darcy, he never came back.

"I waited for him weeks and weeks--ah, dear Heaven! what weeks those were. Then the truth was told me. His uncle's servant was in his confidence. I was deserted. I had never been his wife, not for one hour.