A Dreadful Temptation; or, A Young Wife's Ambition. Alex. McVeigh MillerЧитать онлайн книгу.
closed the door.
"I have made my will, dear," he said, looking at her with a curious smile.
"And you have cut Howard Templeton off without a shilling?" she said, anxiously.
"Yes, darling, I have made you the sole heir to all my wealth," answered the old man, drawing his arm around her shrinking form. "But perhaps you will wish the old man dead, now, that you may enjoy his money without any incumbrance."
"Oh! no," she exclaimed quickly, for something in his words touched her heart, and made her forget for a moment that cruel blow from his hand. "Oh! no, I shall never wish you dead, and I thank you a thousand times for your generosity."
"Then you forgive me for my—for that—to-day?" he inquired in a flighty, half-frightened way, fixing his dim eyes on her beautiful face with an anxious expression.
"Yes, I forgive you freely," she said, touched again, as she scarcely thought she could be, by his looks and tones, and yet longing to get away, for she was half-frightened by a certain inexplicable wildness about him. "And now I must go and dress for dinner."
"Wait, I have not done with you yet," he said, catching her tightly around the wrist, his restlessness increasing. "I saw my nephew on the street, and brought him home with me to dinner. Do you care, Xenie?"
"No, I do not care," she answered, steadily, yet her heart gave a great passionate throb of bitter anger.
Still holding her tightly by the hand he pulled open the door and sent his voice ringing loudly down the hall.
"Howard, Howard, come here!"
Xenie heard the distant door of the library unclose, then shut again, and a man's footsteps ringing along the marble hall.
She tried to wrench her hand away and flee, but it was useless. He held her as in a vise.
"Let me go," she panted, "my hair is down, my dress is disarranged, my face is disfigured, I do not wish to meet him."
But he held her tightly, gnashing his teeth in sudden rage at her efforts to escape.
At that moment Howard Templeton entered the room.
He started back as his gaze encountered Mrs. St. John's, then with a cold bow stood still, turning an inquiring glance upon his uncle's excited face.
"I want you to take a glass of wine with me, Howard," said his uncle in a cordial tone. "Xenie, my love, you will pour the wine for us."
He led her forward, to the little marble-topped table where stood the wine and glasses.
She saw that the corks were both drawn from the bottles, and taking up one she poured some of its contents into the richly-chased glass beside it.
"Now pour from the second bottle into the second glass," commanded her husband.
Xenie silently obeyed him, without a thought as to the strangeness of the request, for her heart was beating almost to suffocation with the bitter consciousness of her enemy's presence.
Mr. St. John watched her every motion with a strange, repressed excitement.
His eyes glittered, his lips worked as if he were talking to himself. He nodded to his nephew as she stepped back.
"Let us drink long life and happiness to Mrs. St. John," he said.
Howard Templeton took one glass, and his uncle took the remaining one.
Both bowed to the shrinking woman who stood watching them, drained their glasses, and set them back with a simultaneous clink upon the marble table.
Then a wild, maniacal laugh filled the room—so shrill, so exultant, so blood-curdling, it froze the blood in the veins of the man and woman who stood there listening.
"Ha, ha," cried Mr. St. John, "you thought I did not know your secret, you two! But I did. I heard your talk on my wedding-night. I knew then that I had taken the woman you loved. Howard, I knew that she had sought me, and won me, and married me, to revenge her wrongs at your hands. I said to myself her beautiful body is mine—I have bought it with my gold—but her heart is Howard Templeton's!"
"No, no," cried Xenie, stamping her foot passionately; "I hate him! I hate him!"
"Hush!" thundered the old man, turning on her with the wild glare of madness in his eyes, "hush, woman! I have thought it over for months—at last I have reached a conclusion. The world is not wide enough for us two men to live in. So I said to myself—one of us must die!"
"Must die!" repeated Howard Templeton, with a sudden strong shudder.
"Yes, die!" cried the maniac, with another horrible laugh. "So I put deadly poison into one of the bottles that chance might decide our fates. Xenie poured out death for one of us just now. In ten minutes either you or I will be dead, Howard Templeton!"
CHAPTER VI
For one terrible moment Xenie St. John and Howard Templeton remained silently gazing at the excited old man, as if petrified with horror, then:
"My God, my uncle is a madman!" broke hoarsely from the young man's ashen lips, in tones of unutterable horror and grief.
Mrs. St. John rushed to the door, threw it wide open, and shrieked aloud in frenzied accents for help.
The servants came rushing in and found their old master crouching in a corner of the room, gibbering and mouthing like some terrible wild beast, his bloodshot eyes rolling in their sockets, his lips all flecked with foam, while Howard Templeton remained silent in the center of the room, like a statue of horror.
"A doctor—bring a doctor!" shrieked Xenie, wildly.
It was not five minutes before a physician, living close by, was brought in, but even as he crossed the threshold, the insane creature rolled over upon the floor in the agonies of death.
One or two desperate struggles, a gasp, a quiver from head to foot and the old millionaire lay dead before them.
The physician knelt down and felt his heart and his pulse.
"He is dead," he said, shaking his head slowly and sadly. "I apprehended a fit the last time he consulted me, some three weeks ago. His mind and body were both weakening fast. This mournful end was not unexpected by me."
Mrs. St. John made a quick step forward.
She was about to say, "He did not die in a fit, doctor, he died of poison," when a hand like steel gripped her wrist.
She looked up and met the stern, awful gaze of Howard Templeton.
"Hush!" he whispered, hurriedly and sternly. "Let the world accept the physician's verdict. Say nothing of what you know. Do not brand his memory with the terrible obloquy of insanity and self-murder!"
As he spoke he turned away, and crossed the room, and as he passed the marble-topped table, it fell over, no one could have told how, and the bottles and glasses were shivered upon the floor.
One of the servants removed the debris, and mopped up the spilled wine from the floor, and no one thought anything more of it.
Yet, by that simple act, Howard Templeton saved his uncle's name and his own from the shafts of malice and calumny that must have assailed them if the terrible truth had come to light.
So the physician's hasty verdict of apoplexy was universally accepted by the world, and the old millionaire was laid away in his costly tomb a few days later, regretted by all his friends, and the secret of his tragic death was locked in the breasts of two who kept that hideous story sacred, although they were deadly foes.
Yes, deadly foes, and destined to hate each other more and more, for when the old millionaire's papers were examined, the beautiful widow found that she was foiled of her dearly-bought revenge at last.
For no will was found, although Xenie protested passionately that her husband had made a will the very last day of his life.
The most careful and assiduous search failed to reveal the existence of any legal document like a will, and the lawyers gravely assured Mrs. St. John that she could claim only a third of her deceased husband's wealth, the remainder falling to the next