Veigh Miller
A Dreadful Temptation; or, A Young Wife's Ambition
CHAPTER I
"Hear the mellow wedding-bells—
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness
Their melody foretells!"
"Hark! there's the wedding-march."
"Here they come!"
"Looks as white as a corpse, doesn't she?"
"Oh, no; as beautiful as a dream, to my notion. Pallor is becoming in brides, you know."
"He's a silly old dotard, though, not to know that she's taking him for his money."
"Of course he knows it. I dare say the old gray-beard is glad he had money enough to buy so much youth and loveliness."
"What a splendid veil and dress! They say her rich aunt furnished the trousseau."
"Her jewels are magnificent."
"The bridegroom's gift, of course. Well, he is able to cover her with diamonds."
These were but few of the remarks that were whispered in the fashionable throng gathered at Trinity to witness a marriage in high life—a marriage that was all the more interesting from the fact that the contracting parties were so totally dissimilar to each other that the whole affair in the eyes of the outsiders resolved itself into a simple matter of bargain and sale—so much youth and beauty for an old man's gold.
The bridegroom was John St. John, a millionaire of high birth and standing in the city where he lived, but so old and infirm that people said of him that "he had one foot in the grave and the other on the brink of it," and the bride was the young daughter of some obscure country people.
An aunt in the city had given her some advantages, and kept her in town two seasons, hoping to bring about a good match for her, since she had no dowry of her own, save youth, talent and peerless beauty.
"And what is your fortune, my pretty maid?"
"My face is my fortune, sir," she said.
And Xenie Carroll was fulfilling her aunt's ambitious hopes and desires to their uttermost limit as she walked up the broad aisle of Trinity that night, clothed in her bridal white, and leaning on the arm of the decrepit old millionaire, John St. John.
His form was bent with age, his hair and beard were white, his eyes were dim and bleared; and she was in the bloom of youth and beauty. It was the union of winter and summer.
They passed slowly up the aisle to the grand music of the wedding-march, and after them came fair maidens, robed in white and adorned with flowers and jewels.
These stood round about the pair at the altar who were taking upon their lips the sacred vow of marriage.
It was over.
The holy man of God lifted reverent hands and invoked God's blessing upon this sordid bargain that desecrated the holy rite of marriage, the ring was slipped over the bride's white finger, and Xenie Carroll turned away from the altar Mrs. John St. John, mistress of the handsomest house in the city and the most princely private fortune.
There was a flash of triumph in her dark eyes as she received the congratulations of her friends, yet her cheeks and lips were cold and white as marble.
But the light and color came back to her beautiful face when, in the same carriage that had taken her from her aunt's roof a poor, dependent girl, she was whirled back to the millionaire's splendid home to take her place as its queen.
The aged bridegroom scarcely felt equal to an extended bridal tour, so he had wisely eschewed a trip, and determined to inaugurate the reign of the new social star by a brilliant reception at his splendid residence.
All the beauties of art and nature were called in to further his design.
The elegant drawing-rooms were almost transformed into bowers of tropical bloom.
Beautiful birds fluttered their tropical plumage and caroled their sweet songs in the gilded cages that swung in the flowery arches and niches.
Music filled the air with entrancing strains, wooing light feet to the giddy dance.
In the spacious supper-room the tables shone with silver and gold and crystal, and every delicacy that could tempt the appetite from home or foreign shores was daintily served for the wedding-guests, with wines of the purest vintage and greatest age.
There was no lack of wealth, there was no lack of beauty in the brilliant assemblage that graced the millionaire's proud house that night; and she, his bride, was now the wealthiest, as she had ever been the loveliest, of them all, yet she stole away at length from her aged bridegroom's flatteries, and sought the solitude of the conservatory.
CHAPTER II
The beautiful fragrance-breathing bower was deserted. The soft light of the wax-lights, half-hidden in flowers, streamed down upon her as she trod the leafy walks alone in her beautiful white satin robe, frosted with delicate lace, and her shining jewels that encircled a throat as white and round and queenly as if she had been a princess royal.
Yet none were here to praise the soft light of her dark eyes, the dazzling beauty of her smiles, the tender, tinted oval of her face.
Why was she here alone to "waste her sweetness on the desert air?"
Ah! in a moment she spoke in a stifled voice, her white hands twisted in the band of jewels that encircled her throat as if the beautiful flashing things burned her by their mere contact.
"I had to come here for a free breath away from that old man whose very presence stifles and smothers me. And yet—and yet, I am his wife! Oh, Heaven, what a terrible price I must pay for my revenge!"
She paused, and a strange look came into her eyes. It was a look of terrible dread and despair, inexplicably blended with passionate triumph.
"And yet," she began again, after a moment's silence, looking around at the evidences of wealth and taste so lavishly scattered about her, "what a glorious revenge it is! It was for this he scorned and deserted me! Yet I have stripped him of his heritage. I have stolen from him the empire he held so long. I have revenged myself tenfold for what I suffered at his hands. Ah! weak fool that I am, why regret the price of such a splendid triumph?"
Her face grew hard and cold, a cruel smile curled her scarlet lips, her eyes flashed with scorn.
Pride and passion spoke in every curve of her mobile, spirited face.
The lace hangings at the entrance parted noiselessly, and a man stepped lightly across the threshold.
Not a sound announced his presence, yet she looked up instantly, as if by some subtle inner sense she divined that he was there.
"Ah!" she breathed, in a hissing tone of hate and scorn.
A mocking smile curled the man's lip as he bowed before her.
"Ah! ma tante," he said, in a cool tone of scorn, "permit me to offer my congratulations."
Some emotion too great for utterance seemed to overpower her, so that she struggled vainly for speech a moment, while he stood silent, with folded arms, looking down at her from his haughty height with a look of veiled hatred in his dark-blue eyes.
They were deadly foes, this man and woman, yet nature had formed them as if for the perfect complement of each other.
He was tall, strong and fair, with the proud beauty and commanding air we fancy in the Grecian gods of old.
She was petite, dark, brilliant as a rose, and passionate as the tropical blood of the south could make her.
Breaking down the bars of her great emotion at last, she laughed aloud—a cool, insolent, incredulous laugh that made the hot blood bound faster through his veins, and a flush creep over his face.
"You call me aunt," she said; "ha! ha!"
"Yes, madam, you bear that relationship to me since your marriage with my