and wife to meet, is it? What? You can't come?" His voice hoarsened-he clutched her arm so fiercely that she gave a faint cry. "You don't want me?" he exclaimed, in tones which to her strained ears seemed those of deadly menace. "If you don't-I know you, you see! I have not forgotten your kisses, if you have mine-it means another man! And if it does, I will have no mercy on you, do you understand? None!"
"How dare you?" Once more she faced him, this time in an access of desperation. "How dare you accuse me of crime? My coldness, my absolute refusal to listen to any man is so well known that it has been common talk in society! More than once I have felt that uncle has suspected me-and, indeed, he has sounded me-"
In her earnestness she was off guard, and drawing her to him, he suddenly threw his arms about her neck and kissed her lips-a long, violent, almost savage kiss.
"There-go home and think of that!" he said, with a triumphant chuckle, as she staggered away and almost fell against the fence. "And take this address. I shall be here every evening at the same hour. And if you don't come-well, you had better come, that's all! I am not in a very patient humour."
She made her way out of the Park at his side, dazed, trembling. When at last he consented to leave her, and hailing a hansom, she clambered in, she leant back, and for a few minutes was barely conscious. She came to herself with a sob.
"Will God have mercy on me?" she wailed. "I was so-so-very young!"
CHAPTER VI
Joan made her way home-how, she hardly knew. In the confusion of thought succeeding that terrible interview which had successfully shown her she was in the power of a merciless tyrant, instinct guided her. After Victor Mercier had put her into a cab, and she had alighted from it in a thoroughfare near her uncle's house, she let herself in with the latchkey she had playfully annexed, little dreaming how she would need to use it-and meeting no one as she made her way up to her room, locked herself in to face her misery alone.
As she tossed and writhed through the long, miserable night she almost despaired. Perhaps she would have utterly and entirely lost heart, had not a thought flashed upon her mind-an idea she welcomed as an inspiration.
"There is only one way to escape the grip of that savage tiger-flight!" she told herself. Although the sole tie between them was the hasty ceremony in a Registrar's office he had cajoled her into years ago-although she had met him but once afterwards before he absconded and disappeared, and that was in the very spot where their interview a few hours before had taken place, she believed, indeed she knew, that for her to try to undo that knot would entail publicity-disgrace-even shame-that if she endured the ordeal, she would emerge unfit to be Vansittart's wife. If he forgave her, even her uncle-society could and would never overlook the smirch upon her fair girlhood. She would bear a brand.
"Victor gave me the idea, himself," she told herself, with a bitter smile at the irony of the fact. "He-the man who is legally my husband until he chooses to renounce me" – in her ignorance of the law she fancied that Victor Mercier might divorce her quietly in some way, if he pleased-"proposed that we should disappear together, and frighten my uncle into a concession. What if I disappeared alone-and only allowed one person to find me-Vansittart?"
That Vansittart loved her passionately, with all the fervour and intensity of a strong, virile nature, she knew. Whether the love was mad enough to fall in with any wildly romantic proceeding, she had yet to discover.
"He will seek me as soon as he can!" she correctly thought. As she was crossing the hall after breakfasting with her uncle, who-in his hopes that his only niece and adopted daughter and heiress was thinking better of her aloofness to mankind, and melting in regard to his favourite among her many admirers, Lord Vansittart-had been unwontedly urbane and affectionate, a telegram was brought to her.
"If I may see you at twelve, noon, do not reply. – Vansittart."
At noon her uncle would be at his club, and her aunt had, she knew, an appointment with her dressmaker in Bond Street. She went to her room and spent some little time in deciding upon her toilette. How did she look best, or, rather, how should she be attired to appeal most strongly to Vansittart's imagination and senses?
Most women are born with subtle instincts in regard to the weakness of manhood, especially the manhood already to a certain extent in their power. Joan hardly knew why she felt that a certain dishabille-a suggestion of delicacy and fragile helplessness in her appearance, would place Vansittart more entirely at her mercy; but it was with this conviction that she attired herself in a white, soft, silken and lace-adorned tea-gown, with lace ruffles about her smooth, rounded throat and wrists-a robe that fell away from a pink silk underdress which, fitting tightly about her waist, showed the rich, yet girlish curves of her beautiful form to the fullest advantage.
Her hair had been wound somewhat carelessly but classically about her small head by Julie, who was rather excited at having received an offer of marriage. Joan had listened sympathetically-she had encouraged the girl in her love affair, more, perhaps, because it would serve her own interests, being one which was to remain a secret from "his parents in France" until they had seen Julie, and therefore subject to mysterious "evenings-out" and holidays taken, with other explanations to the housekeeper. Altogether there was a certain softness about her whole appearance, Joan considered, as she anxiously gazed at her reflection in the many mirrors she passed proceeding to her boudoir, which was on the same floor as the drawing-rooms, and opened upon a small balcony full of flowers, with a peep of the enclosure and the Park beyond, just under the red and white awning.
It was eleven when she entered her room and set herself to write a whole host of letters. She had barely finished three before a brougham dashed up to the hall door. She started up, her heart beating, her cheeks aflame.
"It cannot be-why, it is hardly a quarter to twelve," she thought, glancing at the Dresden china clock. But even as she spoke she heard his voice-those musical, resonant, manly tones she loved-and in another moment the groom of the chambers announced, "Lord Vansittart," with an assurance which seemed strange to Joan, unaware of the freemasonry below stairs which enlightened the domestic staff as to the wishes and opinions of the master of the house.
As he came in, tall, his fair, wavy hair flung back from his broad brow; his large, frank eyes alight, his cheeks aglow with passion; some suggestion of a conqueror in his mien-his very fervour and exultation were infectious-she could have fallen into his arms and abandoned herself to his embraces as if there were no obstacle to their mutual love.
As it was she merely gave one limp, chill hand into his eager clasp, and cast down her eyes as he said: "I am early-I could not help it-Joan, Joan, what is it? You are not glad to see me" – his voice faltered.
"Sit down-won't you?" she said, and she sank into a low chair and motioned him to one out in the cold-but he would not understand-he drew a light low chair quite near to hers, and fixed her with an intent, anxious gaze.
"Last night you behaved-as if-you cared a little for me," he began, almost reproachfully.
"Last night-I was a fool!" she bitterly said. "I let you see too much."
"Why too much?" he drew eagerly nearer. "Joan, my beloved-the only one in the whole world I care for-for, indeed, you have all my love, all-I am yours, body and soul! – what can come between us if you love me? And you do! I know you do! I feel you don't want to-and I don't wonder, I am not good enough, no one can be-but if you love me, I and no other man, ought to be your husband!"
"Understand-I beg, pray, implore you to understand," she began, slowly, painfully-this holding her wild instincts in check was the most terribly hard battle she had ever fought-"I have sworn to myself never to marry. Years ago my uncle was hard, cruel to my parents: they literally died, half-starved, because he would not help
