The Masked Bridal Part 45

"I think my past relations with you have not served to establish a feeling of excessive confidence in you," was the quietly ironical response.

The man flushed hotly, while anger for the moment rendered him speechless.

"Possibly you might be able to induce your--companion to surrender the doc.u.ment," the lady added, after a minute of awkward silence.

Gerald G.o.ddard gnawed his under lip in impotent wrath at this sarcastic reference to the woman who had shared his life for so many years; while the wretched eavesdropper herself barely suppressed a moan of pa.s.sionate anguish.

"You have very little idea of Anna's spirit, if you imagine that she would ever yield one jot to you," Mr. G.o.ddard at length retorted, his face crimson with rage.

Isabel Stewart arose from her chair and stood calm and cold before him.

She gazed with a steady, searching look into his eyes, then remarked, with slow emphasis:

"She will never be asked to yield to me, and I am spared the necessity of suing to either of you, for--that all-important certificate of marriage is already in my possession."

As we know, Gerald G.o.ddard had feared this; he had even suggested the possibility to Anna, on the night of the ball at Wyoming, when she told him of the disappearance of the paper.

Nevertheless, the announcement of the fact at this time came upon him like a thunderbolt, for which he was utterly unprepared.

"Zounds!" he cried, starting to his feet, as if electrified, "can you mean it? Then you stole it the night of the ball!"

"You are greatly mistaken, Mr. G.o.ddard; it was in my possession before the night of the ball," quietly returned his companion.

"I do not believe it!" cried the man, excitedly.

"I will prove it to you if you desire," Mrs. Stewart remarked.

"I defy you to do so."

"Very well; I accept your gage. You will, however, have to excuse me for a few moments," and, with these few words, the stately and graceful woman turned and disappeared within a chamber that opened from the room they were in.

It would be difficult to describe the conflict of emotions that raged in Gerald G.o.ddard's breast during her absence.

While he was almost beside himself with anger and chagrin, over the very precarious position in which he found himself, he was also tormented by intense disappointment and a sense of irritation to think he had so fatally marred his life by his heartless desertion of the beautiful woman who had just left him.

Anna was not to be compared with her; she was perhaps more brilliant and p.r.o.nounced in her style; but she lacked the charm of refinement and sweet graciousness that characterized Isabel; while, more than all else, he lamented the loss of the princely inheritance which had fallen to her, and which he would have shared if he had been true to her.

Ten minutes pa.s.sed, and then he was aroused from his wretched reflections by the opening of the chamber door near him, when his late housekeeper at Wyoming walked into the room.

CHAPTER XXIX.

"OUR WAYS PART HERE, NEVER TO CROSS AGAIN."

Gerald G.o.ddard arose from his chair, and stared at the woman in unfeigned astonishment.

"Really, Mrs. Weld! this is an unexpected meeting--I had no thought of seeing you here, or even that you were acquainted with Mrs. Stewart,"

he remarked, while he searched his recent housekeeper's face with curious eyes.

"I have known Isabel Haven all her life," the woman replied, without appearing in the least disconcerted by the gentleman's scrutiny.

"Can that be possible?" exclaimed her companion, but losing some of his color at the information.

"Yes."

"Then I presume you are familiar with her history."

"I am; with every item of it, from her cradle to the present hour."

"And were you aware of her presence in Boston when you applied for your position at Wyoming?"

"I was."

"Perchance it was at her instigation that you sought the place," Mr.

G.o.ddard remarked, a sudden suspicion making him feel sick at heart.

"Mrs. Stewart certainly knew that I was to have charge of your house,"

calmly responded Mrs. Weld.

"Then there was a plot between you--you had some deep-laid scheme in seeking the situation."

"I do not deny the charge, sir."

"What! do you boldly affirm it? What was your object?" demanded the man, in a towering rage, but growing deathly white at the explanation that suggested itself to his mind.

"I perceive that you have your suspicions, Mr. G.o.ddard," coolly remarked the woman, without losing an atom of her self-possession in view of his anger.

"I have. Great Heavens! I understand it all now," cried her companion, hoa.r.s.ely. "It was you who stole that certificate from my wife's room!"

"Yes, sir; I was fortunate enough to find it, two days previous to the ball."

"You confess it!--you dare own it to me, madam! You are worse than a professional thief, and I will have you arrested for your crime!" and Gerald G.o.ddard was almost beside himself with pa.s.sion at her cool effrontery.

"I hardly think you will, Mr. G.o.ddard," was the quiet response. "I imagine that you would hesitate to bring such a charge against me, since such a course would necessitate explanations that might be to you somewhat distasteful, if not mortifying. You would hardly like to reveal the character of the doc.u.ment, which, however, you have made a mistake in a.s.serting that I stole--"

"But you have admitted the charge," he excitedly interposed.

"I beg your pardon, I have not acknowledged the crime of theft--I simply stated that I was fortunate enough to find the doc.u.ment in question."

"It seems to me that that is a distinction without a difference," he sneered.

"One can hardly be accused of stealing what rightly belongs to one's self," Mrs. Weld composedly said.

"What--what on earth can you mean? Explain yourself."