A Terrible Secret Part 75

Her eyes lighted--her lips parted--a question trembled upon them, but she hesitated.

"Go on," said Miss Stuart, enjoying it all; "there's something else on your mind. Speak up, Edie! don't be ashamed of yourself."

"I am afraid you _will_ laugh this time, Trixy--I know it is only a dream, but I thought Charley and I were--"

"Yes," said Trixy; "were--what?"

"Married, then!" with a faint little laugh. "Don't tell him, please, but it seems--it seems so real, I had to tell you."

She turned her face away. And Trixy, with suspicious dimness in her eyes, stooped down and kissed that thin, wan face.

"You poor little Dithy!" she said; "you _do_ like Charley, don't you? no, it's not a dream--you were married nearly a fortnight ago.

The hope of my life is realized--you are my sister, and Charley's wife!"

There was a little panting cry--then she covered her face with her hands and lay still.

"He is outside," went on Trix; "you don't know what a good boy he has been--so patient--and all that. He deserves some reward. I think if you had died he would have died too--Lord Lovel and Lady Nancy, over again. Not that I much believe in broken hearts where men are concerned, either," pursued Trix, growing, cynical; "but this seems an exceptional case. He's awfully fond of you, Dithy; 'pon my word he is. I only hope Angus may go off in a dead faint the first time I'm sick and get better, as he did the other day. We haven't let him in much lately, for fear of agitating you, but I think," says Trixy, with twinkling eyes, "you could stand it now--couldn't you, Mrs.

Stuart?"

She did not wait for a reply--she went out and hunted up Charley. He was smoking downstairs, and trying to read the morning paper.

"Your wife wants you," said Miss Stuart brusquely; "go! only mind this--don't stay too long, and don't talk too much."

He started to his feet--away went _Tribune_ and cigar, and up the stairs sprang Charley--half a dozen at a time.

And then Miss Stuart sits down, throws her handkerchief over her face, and for the next five minutes indulges in the exclusively feminine luxury of a real good cry.

After that Mrs. Charles Stuart's recovery was perfectly magical in its rapidity. Youth and splendid vitality, no doubt, had something to do with it, but I think the fact that she _was_ Mrs. Charles Stuart had more to do still.

There came a day, when propped up with pillows, she could sit erect, and talk, and be talked to as much as she chose, when blinds were pulled up, and suns.h.i.+ne poured in; and no suns.h.i.+ne that ever shone was half so bright as her happy face. There came still another day, when robed in a pretty pink morning-dress, Charley lifted her in his arms and carried her to the arm-chair by the window, whence she could look down on the bright, busy city street, whilst he sat at her feet and talked. Talked! who is to tell of what? "Two souls with but a single thought--two hearts that beat as one," generally find enough to say for themselves, I notice, and require the aid of no outsiders.

And there came still another day--a fortnight after, when looking pale and sweet, in a dark-gray travelling suit and hat, Mrs. Charles Stuart, leaning on her husband's arm, said good-by to her friends, and started on her bridal tour. They were to spend the next three weeks South, and then return for Trixy's wedding at Christmas.

Christmas came; merry Christmas, sparkling with snow and suns.h.i.+ne, as Christmas ever should sparkle, and bringing that gallant ex-officer of Scotch Grays, Captain Angus Hammond--captain no longer--plain Mr.

Hammond, done with drilling and duty, and getting the route forever, going in for quiet, country life in bonnie Scotland, with Miss Beatrix Stuart for aider and abettor.

Charley and his wife came to New York for the wedding. They had told Mr. Hammond how ill Edith had been, but the young Scotchman, as he pulled his ginger whiskers and stared in her radiant, blooming face, found it difficult indeed to realize. She had been a pretty girl--a handsome woman--happiness had made her more--she was lovely now. For Charley--outwardly all his easy insouciance had returned--he submitted to be idolized and made much of by his wife, after the calm fas.h.i.+on of lordly man. But you had only to see him look once into her beautiful, laughing face, to know how pa.s.sionately she was beloved.

Mr. and Mrs. Angus Hammond had a splendid wedding; and to say our Trixy looked charming would be doing her no sort of justice. And again Miss Seton was first bridesmaid, and Mrs. Stuart, in lavender silk, sniffed behind a fifty dollar pocket handkerchief, as in duty bound. They departed immediately after the ceremony for Scotland and a Continental tour--that very tour which, as you know, Trixy was cheated so cruelly out of three years before.

Mr. and Mrs. Stuart went back South to finish the winter and the honeymoon among the glades of Florida, and "do," as Charley said, "Love among the Roses." Mr. Darrell returned to Sandypoint. Mrs.

Stuart, senior, took up her abode with Nellie Seton, pending such time as her children should get over the first delirium of matrimonial bliss and settle quietly down to housekeeping. After that it was fixed that she was to divide her time equally between them, six months with each. Charley and his wife would make England their home; Edith's ample fortune lay there, and both loved the fair old land.

In May they sailed for England. They would spend the whole of the summer in Continental travelling--the pleasant rambling life suited them well. But they went down to Ches.h.i.+re first; and one soft May afternoon stood side by side in the old Gothic church where the Catherons for generations had been buried. The mellow light came softly through the painted windows--up in the organ loft, a young girl sat playing to herself soft, sweet, solemn melodies. And both hearts bowed down in tender sadness as they stood before _one_ tomb, the last erected within those walls, that of Sir Victor Catheron.

Edith pulled her veil over her face--the only tears that had filled her eyes since her second wedding-day falling quietly now.

There were many remembrances of the dead man. A beautiful memorial window, a sombre hatchment, and a monument of snow-white marble. It was very simple--it represented only a broken shaft, and beneath in gold letters this inscription:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF SIR VICTOR CATHERON, of Catheron Royals, Bart.

DIED OCT. 3, 1867, in the 24th year of his age.

"_His sun set while it was yet day_."

THE END.