OCR Text |
Show IN THE GLOAMING. "You are the best judge of your own heart, but I do not think your future promises much happiness as the wife of Godfrey Hope. Remember who and what he is." There were the words over which Alice Hope pondered as she walked through the grove at Bellows Falls. It was her favorite walk when she wished for solitude, though it lay at some distance from her home, the stately house that crowned an in??? stretch of ground overlooking the village. <br><br> Remember who and what he is. Mrs. Hope had said these words very slowly, and with due emphasis, only a few hours before, when Alice had read to her a letter in which Godfrey Hope had asked her to be his wife. Who was he, then? He was the second cousin of Alice, a man about twenty seven, who had been brought up by his grandfather in the house at Bellows Height, and had supposed his inheritance of house and furniture assured. <br><br> Alice and her widowed mother had never entered the stately house while old Mr. Hope lived, but had supported themselves by keeping a school for young children after Alice's father had died. It had never crossed their wildest imagination that the old gentleman at Bellows Falls would remember them by even a trifling legacy, and they were inclined to think that they were the victims of a practical joke then they received the lawyer's letter informing them that Alice was the sole heiress of the entire estate of John Hope, of Bellows Falls. <br><br> It was like a dream to come to the splendid house, to know there was to be no more weary struggles for daily bread, to wander through the [line unreadable]cent rooms and extensive grounds with the deliciously novel sensation of ownership. And it must be confessed that Alice at first thought little of the dispossessed heir. But he introduced himself soon as a cousin, and visited the house as a welcome guest. <br><br> In answer to the second clause of Mrs. Hope's question, "what was he?" Alice could have answered truthfully that he was the most fascinating man she had ever seen. And Alice Hope, though a bread-winner in the busy World, had moved in good society, having aristocratic family connections both on her father's and mother's side. <br><br> She was no novice, to be won by a mere courtly manner, but she had never met a man whose intellect was so broad, whose courtesy was so winning, whose face was so handsome as were those of Godfrey Hope. And yet there was a letter in her writing-desk, written by the man whose heiress she was, warning her that "because he is unworthy, because he has betrayed the trust I placed in him, I have disinherited Godfrey Hope." <br><br> There was no special charge, no direct accusation, but the young lady was warned against her cousin. Yet, in the many long conversations the two had had together, Godfrey Hope had endeavored to convince his fair oousin that his grandfather had been influenced by false friends to believe statements to his discredit utterly untrue. He had almost convinced her that he was an innocent victim to unfortunate circumstances, a victim to the mistaken abuse? of honor. <br><br> She was young, naturally trustful and her heart was free; so it is not wonderful that Alice Hope was inclined to restore the disinherited man to his estate by accepting the offer of his heart and hand. <br><br> Absorbed in her reflections, Alice did not notice that clouds were gathering until a sudden summer shower broke with violence above the tree-trops suddenly drenching through her thin black dress, and she ran to the nearest house for shelter. This proved to be the cottage where Mrs. Mason, who did the washing for the great house lived with her daughter Lizzie, one of the village beauties. There was a great bustling about when Alice presented herself at the door. <br><br> "Mercy sakes?, you're half drowned!" the woman exclaimed, hurrying her unexpected visitor to the kitchen fire. "You're wet to the skin, dearie. Now ain't it a blessing there's a while washing in the basket to go home? You can go into Lizzie's room and change your clothes. Dear, dear! Your hat is just ruined-crapo won't bear wetting- and you've no shawl. You must put on a dress of Lizzie's to go home in. It's nearly dark anyway." <br><br> "Where is Lizzie?" Alice asked. "Sewing at Mrs. Gorbam's, dearie. She'll be coming home soon. I allers Make that a part of the bargain, that she's to be let home before dark, and it gets dark before six-fall days are shorter than summer ones. So she'll be here soon. It's clearing up." <br><br> It was clearing up and it was also growing dark, so, promising to send home the borrowed dress in the morning, Alice started for home. <br><br> She smiled at herself as she stood before the cottage mirror, for she had not worn a gay color since her father's death, five years before. Lizzie's blue dress, scarlet shawl, and gay Sunday hat were oddly out of place upon the slender figure, and setting off the pale, refined face of Alice Hope. <br><br> "Dear me," said the old woman, ""I hope you will chirp up a bit, Miss Alice, and take off your black. The old gentleman has been dead for a year now. Them roses do suit you beautiful." <br><br> Alice glanced at the staring red flowers reflected in the mirror, and smiled as she said-"I will take good care of Lizzie's hat, Mrs. Mason. Good-by, and thank you." <br><br> It was nearly dusk, and there was a quarter of a mile to walk before home was reached, so Alice hurried through the grove, where the trees had already shut out the lingering daylight. She had tied a veil of gray tissue over the gaudy hat as she left the cottage and she hoped that if she met suy? any? Acquaintance she would escape recognition. When she was half way through the grove, she heard quick footsteps coming from the village, and a moment later a voice said, "You are punctual," and she was caught for a moment in Godfrey Hope's arms. She knew his voice, and struggled to release herself before realizing that he had mistaken her for the village beauty. <br><br> "Pooh!" he said, releasing her. "Don't put on airs, Liz. Were you going to the house?" "Yes." She said, faintly indignant and yet curious, her woman's wit seeing his error. "I must go, too, before long, though I had rather stay here with you, sweetheart." <br><br> "Your sweetheart is at the house," Alice said, trying to assume the jealous tone of an uneducated girl. "What! That chalky-faced girl in black? Not a bit of it. Didn't I love you long before she came to take what is mine?" And a curse followed, coupled with her name, that thrilled Alice with horror. <br><br> "But they say you will marry her," she persisted, calming her voice as well as she could. "They say right! I will marry her, and have my own. Then, when she is dead, you shall have your old beau again, Lizzie, and come to the great house as my wife. It is only waiting a year or two." "But she may not die!" gasped the terror-stricken girl. <br><br> "She will die! I'll have no fine lady taking what is mine-mine. I tell you! But what ails you? You are asking as if you had an ague? fit. I've talked it all over often enough before, and you never went off into such shaken! It is nothing new I am telling you." <br><br> "But you-would-not-murder-her?" the poor girl cried, drawing the veil closer. <br><br> "Come now, none of that," was the rough answer; "you're not going back on me now, after all you've heard of my plans. You've sworn to keep my secrets, or I'd have never told them. But what is the matter?" <br><br> Here Alice found herself shaken with no gentle hand, to her great indignation. But her fear overmastered her [unreadable line] newly-acquired fortune, and if he suspected her identity in those dark woods, she did not doubt, after what he had already said, that he would take her life! <br><br> "I am not well," she said, freeing herself from the rough grasp on her arm, "and I must hurry on. Wait for me here until I do my errand at the house and come back." "Be quick, then." was the gruff-response. <br><br> And if he was in haste, the scoundrel might well be satisfied with the rapidity with which his companion left, and wrote to Godfrey Hope declining the honor he had proposed to her, but giving no other reason for her refusal than the statement that she did not love him sufficiently to be his wife. <br><br> "Mamma," she said, coming into the drawing room. "I have written to Godfrey, declining his offer, and sent the letter to him by James. I have remembered who and what he is." <br><br> Mr. Godfrey Hope's amazement was unbounded when, returning to his room in the village hotel to dress for his promised call on Alice, he found her note awaiting him. But he did not renounce his hope of shaking her recollection until the next day, when he met the true Lizzie Mason in the grove, and in the course of their lover-like conversation, that damsel told him who had worn her hat and shawl on the previous evening. <br><br> "An' she sent me a five doller bill with the dress, because it got wet," said the girl. "An' that I call real handsome of her. Why, what ails you? You're white as chalk." "Nothing-nothing. You were not in the grove at all, then, yesterday?" "No, I couldn't get off till long after dark, so I stayed all night. I know you'd be mad waiting for me, but I couldn't help it. Why!" For her lover had started for the village without even the ceremony of a good-by. <br><br> He lost no time on his way, till he stood in the offices of Jermyn & Jermyn, his grandfather's lawyers. White as death, with a voice hoarse and thick, he said to the old partner,-"You told me my grandfather left me ten thousand dollars upon certain conditions." "<br><br> Quite correct. The conditions are that you leave Bellows Falls and never return to it, and that you sign a deed relinquishing all claims as heir-at-law, in case Miss Hope dies before she is of age. Mr. Hope did not draw up this paper until his will was signed and sealed; he was reminded that he had made no stipulation for the reversion of the estate." <br><br> "Reminded by you!" was the bitter response. "Reminded by me. He was shown the danger that you might become a suitor for the heiress." <br><br> "Well, that danger is over. I have been a sincere suitor for the heiress, and she has refused the honor of an alliance." "Hum!" "So, having lost that stake, I am prepared to accept the conditions, take the ten thousand dollars, and turn my back on the Bellows Falls for life." <br><br> It was with a sense of great relief from a very urgent fear, that Alice Hope heard from her lawyer of the demand upon her estate that made her poorer by ten thousand dollars, and removed Godfrey Hope from her path for life. She told no one of the walk in the gloaming that had revealed to her the treachery of the man who had wooed her so gently and so nearly won the treasure of her young heart. It made her shy of suitors for a long time, fearing her money was the magnet that drew them to her side; but there came a true lover at last-one she trusted and loved-and won her for his tender, faithful wife. And Godfrey Hope left his old home, never to return. There was [unreadable word] of revenge in Alice's heart when she heard of her cousin's death, nearly three years after his departure from Bellows Falls; but she could not restrain the thought of thanksgiving when she realized that there was no murderous thoughts hanging upon her possible death. And in her relief she told her husband for the first time of that involuntary masquerade which saved her from the power of a villain. "It was at this hour, Will," she whispered; "and this is the first time since that day that I have been able to sit, without a shudder, in the gloaming." |