“Not that name—not that name!” she gasped, as she turned her beautiful, ghastly face from side to side, as though seeking air. She seemed about to faint. Then she sank upon the floor and literally grovelled there, her face hidden by the long hair which enveloped her like a veil.
John was nonplussed at the perfect success of his plot; he was exultant. The terror of the girl was awful to behold. Surely he had her now. She must turn to him for help.
“Sappho,” he said in feigned pity, “I feel for you. God knows I am sorry for this, and that I should have been the one to bring it upon you. But think of your story, and its effect upon Will if he should learn it after marriage!”
“I was a victim! an innocent child!” moaned the figure on the floor.
“I know,” said John, “but girls of fourteen are frequently wives in our Southern climes, where women mature early. A man as supercilious as Will in his pride of Northern birth would take no excuse, and would never forgive.”
“Ah! what can I do?” cried the unhappy woman, as she rose to her feet and began to pace the floor. “Have I not suffered enough?” Now was the time for which he had waited and planned.
“Sappho, do not think that I forget how abominable I must appear to you. I know what you will say—that I betray my friend, and worse than that, the girl who holds my promise; but my excuse is that my passion is stronger than honor, stronger than reason. There are men in the world who would not forsake you, and who would always befriend you. Give up Will, and trust yourself to me. I am making money in my profession. I can and will do well by you. Your story need never be known.”
“Doubtless you mean it in kindness,” replied the girl wearily, “and I thank you, but I can never marry anyone but Will.”
“Marriage!” exclaimed John, “who spoke of marriage? Ambitious men do not marry women with stories like yours!”
At last the murder was out—his meaning clear!
For one moment Sappho was speechless with disgust.
“Infamous villain!” she said at length, “you abuse my forlorn condition. Leave me! Never till this moment have I realized the depths of my degradation!”
“I go at your command,” said John. “I give you one week to think over what I have said. At the end of that time—”
“Go! go! will you go?” interrupted Sappho, pointing to the door with queenly dignity.
With a low bow John Langley passed out and closed the door behind him.
Sappho turned the key in the lock and sank upon the couch overcome with the horror of her situation. Nervous spasms shook her frame as she mentally measured the abyss of social ostracism and disgrace which confronted her. A thunderbolt from a clear sky had shattered her hopes and dashed the cup of happiness from her lips. Heartrending sobs of anguish mingled with passionate appeals to heaven for mercy, tore her frame as she contemplated this sudden overthrow of her dreams of a bright future. The quiet which had attended her life since she had settled in Boston was rudely interrupted, and the ruin which threatened her was the more stupendous because unlooked for in the direction from which it came.
She got up at length, and going to the dressing-table, began mechanically to collect her jewelry. She caught sight of her face in the glass. What a change from the glowing beauty of one short hour ago! She looked at the pale, drawn countenance with scorn. “Men call me beautiful,” she murmured bitterly; “what has beauty been to me but a curse?”
She heard the closing of doors and the voices of the returned churchgoers. Could it be possible that she was the same happy girl whose smiling face had been given back from the mirror so radiantly a short hour ago? She heard the front door close again. It was Will’s step upon the stair. He paused at her door a moment, and then passed on to the floor above. How often she had listened for that familiar tread. Her heart kept repeating: “Never again—never again.”
Two hours later deep silence had fallen upon the house. A form attired in black, closely veiled, and carrying a traveling bag, passed from No. 500 D Street into the night, boarded an electric car, and was swallowed up in the heart of the metropolis.
Will in his room had fallen into his first sleep when he thought he heard the sound of noiseless footsteps in the hall. He listened a moment, and then concluded that he was mistaken. Who could be moving through the house at that hour? No, he was mistaken. His thoughts were all with Sappho. He lived over again the words and scenes of the morning. He heard the clocks strike twelve, one, two; then he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
XIX
The Bitter Arrow
O, breaking heart that will not break,
Tennyson
Oriana!
O, pale, pale face so sweet and meek,
Oriana!
The next morning found the household early astir. It is a rule in hotels that a “late watch,” as it is called, exempts the employee from an early appearance for duty the next morning. On these mornings Will breakfasted with his mother and sister. Since Sappho had boarded with them this humble meal had become a feast to him.
He arose very early on this eventful Monday morning and hurried down the stairs, bursting to impart his good news to the sympathetic ears of his loved ones. He entered the kitchen just as Dora was laying the cloth for breakfast.
“What in the world brings you down so early?” she asked in a surprised tone as he entered the room.
“Oh, I couldn’t stay in bed this morning of all others,” he said, as he kissed her lightly on the cheek; “I am too happy.”
“What under the sun is the cause of so much joy,
