XXXV
ROSES
One more scene, and this narration of my life's most stirring episodewill have reached its conclusion.
It was a memorable scene to me. It took place in the parlours of thelittle cottage in New Jersey on the day we laid Mille-fleurs away torest.
The burial had taken place, the guests had departed, and only themembers of the family remained to close up the cottage, now more thanever precious in Leighton's eyes. George and Alfred, with anassumption of brotherly feeling they probably thought due theoccasion, had stepped out together to see that everything was readyfor Hope's departure, and, from the window where I stood, I couldsee--arrant spy that I was--the nonchalant air with which eitherturned a wary eye upon the other as Hope's voice was heard above,speaking to little Claire. They evidently still looked upon each otheras the possible object of her preference, no suspicion having reachedthem of the tragic secret which had made this young girl's heartinaccessible to them both. I, who knew it, and had my own place in thetragedy to which they had been blind, did not watch them long,Leighton being the more interesting figure at that moment, as,standing on his desolate hearthstone, he allowed his eyes to wanderfor the last time, perhaps, over the beauties of the bijou dwellingwhich, exquisite as it was, had been as powerless as his love to holdhis roving wife in check.
He was waiting for Hope, and as this thought, with its suggestion ofanother and longer waiting struck my mind, a pang seized me which ittook all my self-possession to hide. Waiting for--Hope! Hope, who hadsat that day with his child crushed close against her breast, and alook on her face which angels might view with pity, but which I----
Ah! she was coming! I turned my face away, not that I had anything todread from this meeting, but that I felt as if I could not bear atthis moment to see the shadow veiling his melancholy countenance lift,were it ever so lightly, at the sound of the step that was shaking myown heart. But I immediately glanced back; uncertainty was worse thanknowledge; and, glancing back, saw Hope, and Hope only.
She was standing in the open doorway with her arms full ofroses--roses which she had brought from New York, and which she nowheld out towards Leighton, with a smile I hardly think he saw, so muchwas his attention fixed upon the flowers.
"What are these for?" he asked, advancing towards her and touching thegreat roses with a trembling hand.
"They are for her," said Hope, in a low tone; "for my cousinMillicent. I could not bear to have her lie with only her husband'stokens on her breast, as if she had no--no----"
He caught her to his heart. Moved to the very soul, he kissed her onthe lips; then he took the flowers.
As he passed out, she tottered pale and almost swooning to where Istood trembling with my own emotions. Lifting her face, with itscandid eyes and quivering lips, she faltered between her sobs:
"Have patience with me! I see now that he has never loved me and neverwill. Had so much as the possibility been in his breast, he could nothave kissed me like that to-day."
It was not on George's arm, or Alfred's, or even Leighton's that shepassed out of that little house into the new life she was to sharesome day with me.
* * * * *
A long time after those flowers had withered on Mille-fleurs' peacefulbreast, Leighton said to me, with his hand on the head of his child:
"I shall never marry again, Outhwaite. To train this child up to be mypride as she is now my joy, will fill my life as full of happiness asis necessary to me now. And, Outhwaite, she is a quiet child,--" hestopped--I knew what thought had stayed him,--"a quiet and a lovingchild. Yesterday she sat for a full hour with her arms about my neckand her cheek pressed to mine, listening while I talked to her ofthings a child usually cares but little about. This is balm for many ahurt, Outhwaite, and if it is given to her mother to look down upon ustwo----"
A smile, the rarest I had ever seen, finished the sentence. Seeing it,and noting how it irradiated features which once bore the stamp ofdeepest melancholy, I could never again look upon Leighton Gillespieas an unhappy man.
FINIS
* * * * *
Works by Anna Katharine Green
I.--THE LEAVENWORTH CASE. A Lawyer's Story. 4to, paper, 20 cents; 16to,paper, 50 cents; cloth $1.25
"She has worked up a _cause celebre_ with a fertility of device and ingenuity of treatment hardly second to Wilkie Collins or Edgar Allan Poe."--_Christian Union._
II.--BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. 16to, paper 50 cents; cloth $1.00
"... She has never succeeded better in baffling the reader."--_Boston Christian Register._
III.--THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES. A Story of New York Life. 16to, paper, 50cents; cloth $1.00
"'The Sword of Damocles' is a book of great power, which far surpasses either of its predecessors from her pen, and places her high among American writers. The plot is complicated and is managed adroitly.... In the delineation of characters she has shown both delicacy and vigor."--_Congregationalist._
IV.--X. Y. Z.: A DETECTIVE STORY. 16to, paper 25 cents
"Well written and extremely exciting and captivating.... She is a perfect genius in the construction of a plot."--_N. Y. Commercial Advertiser._
V.--HAND AND RING. 16to, paper, illustrated 50 cents; cloth $1.00
"It is a tribute to the author's genius that she never tires and never loses her readers.... It moves on clean and healthy.... It is worked out powerfully and skilfully."--_N. Y. Independent._
VI.--A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE. 16to, paper 50 cents; cloth $1.00
"A most ingenious and absorbingly interesting story. The readers are held spell-bound until the last page."--_Cincinnati Commercial._
VII.--THE MILL MYSTERY. 16to, paper 50 cents; cloth $1.00
VIII.--7 to 12: A DETECTIVE STORY. Square 16to, paper 25 cents
IX.--THE OLD STONE HOUSE, AND OTHER STORIES. 16to, paper, 40 cents;cloth 75 cents
"It is a bundle of quite cleverly constructed pieces of fiction, with which an idle hour may be pleasantly passed."--_N. Y. Independent._
X.--CYNTHIA WAKEHAM'S MONEY. With frontispiece. 16to, paper, 50 cents;cloth $1.00
"'Cynthia Wakeham's Money' is a story notable even among the many vigorous works of Anna Katharine Green."--_New York Sun._
XI.--MARKED "PERSONAL." 16to, paper 50 cents; cloth $1.00
"The ingenious plot is built up with all the skill of the writer of 'The Leavenworth Case' to the very last chapter, which contains the surprising solutions of several mysteries."
XII.--MISS HURD: AN ENIGMA. 16to, paper, 50 cents; cloth $1.00
"A strong and interesting novel in an entirely new field of romance."
XIII.--THE DOCTOR, HIS WIFE, AND THE CLOCK. 32to, limp cloth 50 cents
"The story is entertainingly told...."--_Cincinnati Tribune._
XIV.--DR. IZARD. 16to, paper, 50 cents; cloth $1.00
"Those who have read her other books will not need to be urged to read this; they will be eager to do so, and we assure them a very interesting story."--_Boston Times._
XV.--THAT AFFAIR NEXT DOOR. 16to, paper 50 cts.; cloth $1.00
"Startling in its ingenuity and its wonderful plot."--_Buffalo Enquirer._
XVI.--LOST MAN'S LANE. 16to, paper, 50 cts.; cloth $1.00
XVII.--AGATHA WEBB. 16to, paper, 50 cts.; cloth $1.25
XVIII.--ONE OF MY SONS. 16to, cloth only, illustrated $1.50
X. Y. Z, and 7 to 12, together, 16to, cloth $1.00
THE DEFENCE OF THE BRIDE, AND OTHER POEMS. 16to, cloth $1.00
RISIFI'S DAUGHTER. A Drama. 16to, cloth $1.00
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York and London
* * * * *
WORKS BY
RODRIGUES OTTOLENGUI
The Crime Of the Century. Hudson Library, No. 12. 16mo. $1.00; pa
per50 cts.
"It is a tribute to the author's skill, that he never loses a reader. For fertility in imagining a complex plot, and holding the reader in ignorance of its solution until the very end, we know of no one who can rival him."--_Toledo Blade._
"The book deals with the subject involved in the most powerful style that the author has shown. There is more purpose and thought in it than in the other books."--_Boston Globe._
"It is one of the best-told stories of its kind we have read, and the reader will not be able to guess its ending easily. It is ingeniously worked out without giving away the true solution, and those who enjoy a well-written detective story should not fail to read it."--_Boston Times._
An Artist in Crime. 16mo, $1.00; paper 50 cts.
"One may safely say that it ranks with the best detective novels yet published in this country."--_Boston Times._
"'An Artist in Crime' is the best detective story which has been published in several years."--_New Haven Palladium._
A Conflict Of Evidence. 16 mo, $1.00; paper 50 cts.
"This particular book is the best of its kind and just what its title sets forth.... It is a masterpiece of consistent theory, and will bear reading at any time and in any place."--_Omaha Excelsior._
"An ingenious novel of the detective type.... The whole book is one of interest, both in construction and in literary execution, vastly superior to most of its general class."--_New York Advertiser._
A Modern Wizard. 16 mo, $1.00; paper 50 cts.
"The plot is ingeniously constructed, and the book is intensely exciting."--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._
"The story is ingenious, the characters are dramatic, and the evolution of the plot is natural."--_Boston Times._
Final proof, or, The Value of Evidence. Hudson Library, No. 33. 16mo,$1.00; paper 50 cts.
"Dr. Ottolengui has given us another of his powerfully imaginative detective stories. The present one is a continuation of 'An Artist in Crime' and 'The Crime of the Century.' The problem in this story is shrewdly solved, and the interest on the reader's part is kept up until the very close."--_New Orleans Picayune._
G. P. Putnam's Sons
NEW YORK AND LONDON
* * * * *
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends