at mollie's words philip sprang erect, a sudden rage possessing him.
"you engaged!" he faltered in a scarcely audible voice. he had only rejoined his mother in washington a few days previous, and, as yet, had not heard of the formal announcement of mollie's engagement to clifford. he had been secretly enraged during the latter part of the previous winter because of the young man's attentions to her, and he had feared that they might result in their union; but now that the blow had fallen, he found that he was entirely unprepared for it, and was almost beside himself with mingled hate and jealousy.
it did not once occur to him that he himself was playing the part of a treacherous villain, for he was still pledged to gertrude athol. but he would not have hesitated an instant to throw her over if he could have won mollie and her fortune.
"you engaged!" he repeated, his clouded eyes searching the fair face before him.
mollie flushed. she had felt almost sure he must have known the fact, and she was considerably embarrassed to be obliged to explain matters to him. but she was determined to make him understand, once for all, that their old-time friendship could never be renewed, and that he must cease persecuting her with avowals of love.
"yes," she quietly returned, but with downcast eyes, and a tender inflection unconsciously creeping into her tones, "i am going to marry mr. faxon the 25th of january."
the ax had fallen! the man whom he had hated for years had won the prize which he coveted. he could have borne it better if she had named some stranger, but to be told that his old enemy, who, in spite of every adverse circumstance, had gone straight to the front, distancing him in college; who had proved himself a hero over and over; to whom he owed the life of his young sister; against whom he had once lifted a murderous hand, and who was now rapidly rising, both in the social and political world. oh! it was too much; it was crushing, maddening!
he stood rigid as a statue for a full minute after mollie concluded, trying to master the tempest of jealous hate that raged within him. then he said in a voice that was ominous in its calmness:
"and you love him?"
mollie flashed him a glance that answered him even before she spoke, for there was a light of ineffable happiness in her eyes.
"you do not need to ask such a question!" she replied, "you know that i would never give my hand to any man who had not first won my deepest affection."
"enough!" cried philip, now wrought up to uncontrollable fury, "you need say no more. so that low-born upstart has effectually cut me out; curse him! bah! i could cut his heart out!"
"stop!" commanded mollie, facing him with an air and look that silenced him for the moment. "if you must give expression to such ignoble sentiments regarding one who is vastly your superior in every respect, you at least shall not offend my ears with such language."
she turned abruptly as she ceased, and swept down the marble walk with the hauteur of an offended queen, and a moment later disappeared within the mansion.
philip wentworth, left to himself, paced back and forth in the flower-bordered path with the restless step of a caged lion, while he muttered and swore and raved like one almost on the verge of insanity, and wholly unaware of the slender, white-clad figure which had a few minutes previous flitted down another path and suddenly halted behind a huge japanese vase taller than herself, and in which there was growing a luxuriant mass of vines, which entirely concealed her from view.
the second time he turned the sound of a quick, elastic step caught his ear. he peered around the corner, and instantly a lurid light began to blaze in his eyes. the man he hated, the rival who had come between him and the—to him—one woman in the world, was approaching him, and evidently in search of some one.
philip wentworth stood still, concealed from the other's view by the heavy foliage beside him, and involuntarily reaching out his hand, grasped the stem of a plant that was growing in a pot, and lifted it from its place.
clifford, who was seeking mollie, came rapidly on, rounded the corner, and almost ran upon philip. he pulled himself up short, and, after a swift glance around, he observed in an easy tone, as he courteously inclined his head to his former classmate:
"ah, wentworth, pardon me! i should have moderated my movements somewhat before turning this corner."
he was about to pass on, when philip hoarsely exclaimed while he faced him:
"hold! what is this i hear? i am told that you are going to marry mollie heatherford. is it true?"
clifford drew himself up slightly before replying.
"it is true, mr. wentworth; i am going to marry miss heatherford," he coldly replied, but with significant emphasis.
"curse you!" fairly hissed wentworth, while his grip tightened on the stem of the plant. "so that has been your game, has it? you have deliberately set yourself to cut me out. i told you four years ago that she was my promised wife; we had been pledged to each other from childhood, and heavens! do you think i am going to tamely submit to being robbed by a low-born pauper like you? do you imagine that i'm going to let you marry her? never, so help me!"
his right hand swung out with tremendous force, lifting the flower-pot above his head and aiming it directly at clifford's face.
but faxon was too quick for him. he sprang to one side, caught the uplifted arm with a grip that almost paralyzed it, and, wrenching the dangerous missile—which fortunately remained intact, the plant having become root-bound in the pot—from his grasp, calmly replaced it where it belonged.
"mr. wentworth, this is the second time that you have made a rash attempt upon my life," he quietly observed. "i advise you never to repeat it, and you will remember that miss heatherford is my promised wife, and i shall not tolerate anything that verges upon a recurrence of what has just taken place."
he paused a moment, while a softer expression swept over his fine face.
"wentworth, what ails you?" he continued in a more friendly tone. "what has made you so strangely antagonistic toward me all these years? i fail to understand it. it began away back during our first term in college; what caused it? where is your manliness that you could cherish a grudge for so long? believe me, i never had the slightest personal ill-will against you, and certainly you must have been in a very uncomfortable frame of mind most of this time. if i have unconsciously done you any wrong in the past, i should be very glad to be told of it."
again he paused, but philip stood silent, with downcast eyes and a sullen frown upon his brow. clifford saw that he was incorrigible, and, repressing a sigh of regret for a life so warped by selfishness, he observed:
"possibly i am unwise in appealing to you in any such way; but i believe the day will yet come when you will regret some of these things."
he turned and went swiftly back the way he had come, while philip watched him with a lowering brow and a look of hate in his eyes.
suddenly a slight rustle caused him to turn and look behind him, when an exclamation of dismay escaped him, for, leaning against the tall vase, and pale as the snowy dress she wore, he saw gertrude athol standing not a dozen feet from him.
"gertrude!" the young man faltered, for he knew from her manner that she must have overheard much of what had passed—how much he dared not think.
the sound of his voice acted like a shock of electricity upon her. she stood erect, swept into the path where he was, and confronted him.
"i have heard all," she said in a cold, quiet tone. "i had no intention of playing the eavesdropper, however. miss heatherford and i were here in the conservatory a while ago, when my father called me, but he only wished to ask me a question or two, and then i thought that i would come back to miss heatherford, and that is how i happened to be here. i came just as you were declaring that she and she alone held your life and your future in her hands——" and the beautiful girl's nostrils dilated with supreme contempt as she thus repeated his words. "therefore, considering the relations that have existed between you and me for the last four years, i felt that i had the right to hear you out and learn just to what extent i had been made your dupe——"
"oh, gertrude!"
"hush!" she commanded imperatively. "i will not listen to a word of extenuation from you—there is none—there can be none. i will say my say out, and that will end everything between us. i have long felt that i might perhaps be building my hopes for the future upon shifting sand—there have been many indications of it, but i hoped that you might change for the better—that your good qualities would in the end overbalance your weakness. for more than four years i have worn your ring, believing myself pledged to you," gertrude went on, as she calmly began to unlace the glove on her left hand, "but to-night you have said in my presence that for many years you have been betrothed to another—that you have loved—worshiped that other."
she turned the glove wrong-side out, to remove it the more quickly, slipped the ring from her finger, and held it out to him. "here, take it. you and i will part here and now. and do not think that i shall eat my heart out and die because of disappointed love—like the girl of whom we read that summer in the mountains. i am not in the slightest danger of such a fate, for you have this night slain every spark of regard or respect that i ever entertained for you."
"gertrude, hear me——" philip began, as he shrank away from the hand that held the ring out to him.
"i have already heard all i wish to hear," she spiritedly returned, and with an inflection that made him wince. "take it!" she reiterated as she again offered him the ring. "very well," as he still refused, "i will leave it here for you to think about."
she hung it upon a twig of the plant before him, then turning abruptly from him, swept down and out of the conservatory with the air and step of one who exulted in recovered freedom.
as she disappeared he reached forth his hand and secured the ring, for it was a valuable one, but with a shamefaced air and a muttered curse at his—"luck."
fifteen minutes later, when he sought his mother, to inform her that he "was not well, and was going home," he espied mollie and gertrude standing in an alcove chatting socially together, and as calmly and serenely as if no thought of regret in connection with him had power to cast a shadow across their pathway. gertrude was perhaps a trifle paler than usual, but she was bright and animated, and he was assured that she "never would eat her heart out for him."
the contempt that had vibrated in her tones as she said it was still ringing in his ears as he left the house, making him quiver from head to foot with a sense of humiliation such as he had never experienced before.
when gertrude athol entered her own room, after her return from the reception, she sat down and tried to calmly review the recent scene between her discarded lover and herself, and to consider what influence it was likely to have upon her future.
"i believe i can truly say that i am glad to be free," she said after a while, with a sudden proud uplifting of her head. "i have known from almost the first of our acquaintance that philip wentworth is a weak and selfish man; but he is a handsome fellow, entertaining, and well versed in all the little courtesies of life and possessing strong mesmeric power, and i believe that he was fond of me. i foolishly imagined that, because of this supposed fondness, i might be able to help him overcome his faults and arouse within him an ambition to cultivate the best there is in him; but i know him now for a treacherous villain—for a coward, and almost a murderer. oh, yes; i am glad that i am free, and i shall not grieve for him; though, of course, any woman would naturally be keenly stung to discover that she has only been made a tool of—simply held in reserve in the event of the failure of other plans!"
her cheeks grew crimson, and her eyes flashed indignantly at the thought, while two tears fell upon her jeweled hands. she flung them off with an impatient gesture.
"they are not for him!" she cried scornfully; "they fell only for my own wounded pride; and they are the last i shall ever shed for that. the hurt is not so very deep, thank heaven! and will soon heal. so he has been in love with mollie heatherford 'all his life?' well, she certainly is one of the dearest and loveliest girls i have ever met, and she has shown good judgment in her choice of a husband, for clifford faxon is worth a dozen men like philip wentworth."
a little later, after her acquaintance with mollie had ripened into a strong and enduring friendship—when she learned how philip had played fast and loose with her, according to the changes in her circumstances—her contempt merged into positive repulsion for the young man; and before the season was over her acquaintance with a son of the british ambassador, whom she met that evening for the first time, developed into a strong mutual attachment which bade fair to result in an early marriage.
upon their return from the reception, clifford lingered a while with mollie before proceeding to his lodgings, and it was, therefore, quite late when he reached home. he was somewhat surprised to find a carriage standing before the house where squire talford boarded, while the coachman was assisting his former employer up to the door, the man groaning at every step.
"here, sir!" called the cabman, as he espied clifford, "will you lend a hand here, please? the gentleman has sprained his ankle, and he is more than i can manage."
"certainly," clifford cheerfully responded, as he sprang forward with alacrity to render what assistance he could.
"here is his latch-key, sir," the driver continued, passing it to the young man, "if you'll open the door, we'll make an armchair and carry him up to his room, as easy as snapping your thumb and finger."
clifford did as he was requested, and then the two clasped hands, making the squire sit upon them, with an arm around the neck of each of his helpers, and in this way he was borne up two flights of stairs and deposited upon a chair in his own room, which was little better than a closet at the back of a hall.
