CHAPTER XXXIII
“I OWE YOU NOTHING”
“Oh, why did I not know of this?” groaned Sumner Dalton, beating his brow with his hands. “I was, after all, the legal husband of the heiress of Wycliffe. All these years I might have occupied that proud position, and with unlimited wealth at my command. It is too much—too much to bear. What evil genius has been pursuing me all my life, that I should have missed it all?”
“That ‘evil genius,’ as you term it, was but your own villainy—the spirit that rules in your own evil heart. You sought to ruin an innocent girl, and you overreached yourself. For once justice and punishment have been meted out where it belongs, and you have no one to blame for it but yourself,” Earle answered, sternly.
“’Tis false! She should have told me. She had no right to hide the knowledge from me—her husband.”
“You forget that you scorned her, and told her she had no claim upon you, and also that you refused to give her any right to call you husband.”
“But she had no business to consent to marry me under such false pretenses. ’Twas she who has kept me from my rights, when I might have been master of Wycliffe all these years—twenty-five years of glory and honor lost. It is too much; and if I could make her feel my vengeance now I would,” he groaned.
Earle turned from him, almost sick with disgust.
He was like many other people who have sought to do another some irreparable injury. He hated his blameless victim because, having overreached himself, the wrong had at last rebounded upon himself, and he was the chief sufferer from his own folly.
Gentle Marion Vance had done him no conscious wrong. She had loved and trusted him; she would have devoted her life to him and his interests. But, although he had not really succeeded in destroying her, and entailing lasting dishonor upon her name, yet she had suffered for the time as if he had accomplished his purpose.
But the truth had triumphed at last, as it always does. He stood exposed in all his baseness; his evil doings were revealed, and the shame and injury done to himself were far greater than he had ever dreamed of bringing upon her. Marion at last stood vindicated before the world as the pure and innocent girl she was, while the whole black catalog of Sumner Dalton’s guilt was now sweeping down like an avalanche upon him, threatening to ruin and crush him utterly.
He might live ten, twenty, even thirty years longer, but his treachery would follow him forever; it would never be forgotten by anyone who had known of it. Henceforth he would be a marked man, and one never more to be trusted or honored.
“Stay!” Mr. Dalton suddenly exclaimed, as if a new thought had struck him. “The legal husband of Marion Vance would have rights there even now. I will see to this matter. Who has been master at Wycliffe all these years?”
“Warrenton Fairfield Vance, my mother’s father, has ruled there until his death, which occurred only a few months ago,” Earle answered, quietly, but reading at once what was passing in the man’s mind.
“And who came into the property then?” he demanded, eagerly.
“A cousin of my mother’s—Paul Tressalia by name.”
“Zounds! Girl, do you hear that?” exclaimed Mr. Dalton, very much astonished, and turning to Editha. “But—” he began again, with a perplexed look.
“But he is not master there now,” Earle interrupted, calmly.
“Ah!” Mr. Dalton uttered, leaning forward with breathless interest, half expecting what was to follow.
“I am now the acknowledged Marquis of Wycliffe and Viscount Wayne,” Earle said.
“Have you proved your claim? Was it not contested? How—”
Mr. Dalton was very much excited, so much so that he trembled visibly, and leaned back, white and weak, in his chair.
“I have proved my claim; it was not contested,” the young man began. “When I first discovered that my mother’s marriage was valid and that I was the rightful heir to Wycliffe, I thought I would go at once and compel my grandfather to acknowledge me as such. But he had been so stern and cruel to my mother that I recoiled from him. I was underage, and I knew he would be apt to deal sternly with me also and demand implicit obedience to him. I knew if I went to him he would in all probability refuse to allow me to follow the course I had marked out for myself. So I resolved I would never cross the threshold over which my mother had been so relentlessly driven until I had either discovered the man who had so wronged her, and could tell the marquis that I had found him and proved that he had legally bound himself to her, or until his death, when of course it would become necessary that I should reveal my identity. So I began my lonely wanderings upon a very uncertain mission. I discovered upon inquiry that a George Sumner had been studying at a certain German university. I immediately repaired thither, and found, upon examining the books, that he was an American from a certain town in the State of New York. And now allow me to ask why you registered only a part of your name instead of the whole?” Earle asked, pausing.
“It does not matter,” Mr. Dalton muttered, uneasily, and with a rising flush.
It might as well be mentioned here what Earle afterward discovered, that he became implicated in a very shameful affair while studying in a noted college of his own country, and was expelled in deep disgrace, whereupon he had immediately gone abroad to finish his course in the German university referred to.
Fearing that there might be other American students there who knew of the disgraceful affair in which he had been a leader, he resolved not to give his whole name and thus escaped being a marked man.
He accordingly gave only his first two names, and though there were, as he feared, other students there who did know of the escapade connected with his previous college life, yet they never suspected that George Sumner and George Dalton, as he had before been known, were the same person. With a slight curl of his lip at the man’s reply, Earle continued:
“As soon as I found he was an American, I resolved to come to America and prosecute my search. But I was a poor boy; I had refused the aid which my grandfather had hitherto given my mother—I could not use the money of a man who had so long disowned me, even though it might belong to me by right—and so I was obliged to do something for my support. That was how I came to be in Mr. Forrester’s employ; and every holiday, every spare day that he would grant me, I devoted to my search. I procured the directories of several cities and studied up all the Sumners they contained, but could find none, upon seeking them out, who answered to the George Sumner that my dying mother had described to me.
“I never thought of such a thing as you being the man I was seeking; had I even suspected it, I never should have had to serve those three years in that miserable prison; for, as I told you before, it was while searching for you that I became entangled in that robbery. You, it seems, knew, during the greater part of my imprisonment, of the relation I sustained toward you. It would seem as if common humanity would have prompted you to make some effort for my release, or, at least, for a mitigation of my sentence; but instead, you sought to deprive me of the only comfort I had, for I am convinced that it was you who intercepted all the flowers and kind messages which I should otherwise have received.”
Earle fixed his stern glance upon Mr. Dalton as he said this, and knew by the guilty way his eyes fell that he was correct in his surmise.
“I do not wonder at it, now that I know something of your nature, but it will only be an added thorn planted in your pillow of remorse, as will also be the injuries which you sought to do me after my release, and in the end you will be the worst sufferer. But in spite of your every effort, I conquered. I was beginning to make for myself a name and reputation when I read in a paper about the death of the Marquis of Wycliffe. He had been dead some time, for this notice was only an item gleaned from European news, and reported in connection with the fact that Mr. Tressalia, of Newport fame, had succeeded to his vast property. I knew then that I must attend to my claim at once, and I immediately left for Europe. I found Mr. Tressalia, as I expected, already established as the Marquis of Wycliffe; but, like the nobleman that he is, when he found that I was the rightful heir he relinquished everything and kindly assisted me in establishing my identity. Then, feeling that the change in my prospects would be sufficient to make you waive all objections regarding me, I left my affairs in his hands, and returned for Editha—”
Earle suddenly stopped appalled—he could not go on. All his dreams of happiness were at an end now; that hour had crushed his every hope—Editha Dalton was his half-sister, and he must never dare to think of her again as becoming his wife.
But, God forgive him! he could never love her as a sister.
His great heart swelled within him with agony at the thought; the veins upon his forehead filled out hard and full, while the perspiration gathered upon his face, and, rolling off, dropped upon the floor.
Editha Dalton his half-sister!
He could not realize it, and it was the bitterest blow his life had ever known. How could he live all the long years that were before him, with the sin of this undying love clinging to him?
Now he knew something of what Paul Tressalia must have suffered from his unrequited affection.
Paul Tressalia!
The thought of him thrilled him with a sharper, fiercer pain.
Perhaps in time, now that Editha was lost to him, he might succeed in winning her.
It was too much for him to bear silently, and, bowing his head upon the table near which he had sat down, he groaned aloud.
Sumner Dalton smiled at the sound, while a cunning, sinister expression crept into his eyes. It did him good to know that Earle could suffer, and his strange hatred of him on his mother’s account made him inwardly exult over the sight.
But he had been revolving matters of importance in his mind while Earle was talking.
He had been immeasurably startled and mortified to learn how the rector of St. John’s chapel at Winchelsea had outwitted him, and fearfully angry and irritated when he realized how he had missed all the luxuries and magnificence of Wycliffe for so many years.
If he had only known that the marriage had been legal when he had opened that package and discovered that Earle was his son and heir of all the Marquis of Wycliffe’s great possessions, how differently he would have conducted himself.
If he could but have known what that piece of cardboard contained—if he could have read all this evidence then, and assured himself of its truth, as he would have taken pains to have done, how eagerly he would have worked for Earle’s release, and canceled every evidence of the evil passion within him. He would then have made peace with him, and have reaped all the advantages which the father of so noted a person as the future Marquis of Wycliffe would be would naturally enjoy.
But a faint hope animated him that perhaps it might not be too late, after all.
Earle was his son—that fact was established beyond a doubt—and he had said he would never stoop to anything like revenge; he had once said that he would not avail himself of the slightest advantage to do him an injury; he had also said that he desired to put in practice the mandate, “Love your enemies, do good to those who despitefully injure you.” If that was the case he would doubtless be ready to forgive him for all the wrong he had done him in the past, and if he expressed sorrow in a proper manner he would doubtless receive him into favor, and he could after all be able to worm himself into Wycliffe and be looked up to and honored as the father of the young marquis. It was strange that no feelings of guilt or shame restrained him. He did not hate Marion one whit the less, nor Earle either, because he henceforth might be able to enjoy what had so long been denied him.
But he was resolved to make the fact of their relationship serve him a good turn; he would get all he could out of him, gratify every selfish desire, accept every good thing that he could possibly worm out of him, and let all the former wrong he had done him go for naught.
He still hated him, I say, as such natures always hate those who have risen triumphant above them, and he would have gloried in it if he could have hurled him from his proud position and made the whole world despise and hate him likewise; but, as long as there was any prospect of advantage to be gained for himself, he must hide it and put on the semblance of regret and future good-will.
“You say that your claim is indisputably established at Wycliffe?” he asked after he had thought these things well over.
“Yes,” Earle answered, lifting his haggard face, with a heavy sigh; “everything was so clearly proved that no one could gainsay it.”
“That is exceedingly fortunate. When shall you return?”
“Immediately,” Earle said, with white lips.
“How did you find the estates and rent roll?” Mr. Dalton asked, with another cunning gleam in his eyes.
“In a very flourishing condition,” Earle answered briefly.
He was beginning to mistrust toward what these inquiries were tending.
“But what will you do? You have never had any experience in managing so large a property.”
“I can learn, sir.”
“I know, but that would be so tedious, and you are liable to make many mistakes. You need someone older and wiser than yourself to advise you.”
Mr. Dalton hesitates a moment and leans nearer Earle, eagerly searching his handsome face. But Earle sits pale and quiet, knowing, nevertheless, what is to follow, and conscious also of what the result will be.
“If—if,” began Mr. Dalton, with some hesitation, “you could be—ahem!—persuaded to—to overlook the past—if we could make a treaty to bury the hatchet, and be at peace. I—I really regret, you know, all that has gone by—and if we could come to some sort of terms, I—would consent to return to Wycliffe with you, and give you the benefit of my superior judgment and advice.”
Such amazing disinterestedness, such unblushing assurance was absolutely startling.
A quick, hot flush mounted to Earle’s brow, and for a moment his lips trembled as if scathing and terrible words rushed unbidden there for utterance.
Then he lifted his dark eyes and fixed them in a quiet, steady gaze upon the man opposite him.
Sumner Dalton could not meet that gaze unmoved. In spite of his hardihood, a blush of confusion mantled his face, and his guilty look told that all sense of shame was not yet quite dead within him.
“When I was simply Earle Wayne,” he began, without removing his glance, “a poor boy working for his daily bread, I was considered unworthy of your notice. When misfortune overtook me and I became a criminal in the sight of the law, even after you knew that it was your son who had been sentenced to hard labor for three years, you made no effort to help me—you did not come near me to offer me one kind and sympathizing word even. When your daughter was kind to me, and I dared to feel a tender regard for her, you resolved to crush me. When a kind friend remembered me on his deathbed, you would have wrested from me the comparatively small sum that he had bequeathed to me out of his abundance. You have scorned, insulted, and wronged me in every possible way. You have even owned to an implacable enmity toward me. For all this I could forgive you if convinced that you were truly repentant since it was against me alone that all your malice and hatred were turned; but for the slight, the scorn, and the misery which you plotted, and, to all intents and purposes, executed against my gentle and innocent mother, I cannot. I have no right to forgive you. By your own wickedness and folly, you have forfeited all right to be acknowledged as either her husband or my father. Mr. Dalton, you can never cross the threshold of Wycliffe.”
He had listened to Earle with a sinking heart, and when he concluded he fairly gnashed his teeth from anger and disappointment.
Earle had spoken very quietly. There was not the slightest excitement visible in his manner, but every word had in it the ring of an unalterable purpose.
“Do you mean it?” Mr. Dalton asked, in low, repressed tones.
“Most emphatically, sir; you can never enter the home from which my mother was driven in disgrace on account of your baseness and treachery.”
Mr. Dalton sat in sullen thought for a while. How he hated this calm, proud young man, from whom, even though he was his own son, he knew he had no right to expect anything of respect or consideration.
But the things of the world were desperate with him just at present, and he controlled his fierce passion to make one last appeal.
It was true that Editha still had her fortune, and while she still remained single he knew he need not want for anything within reason; still, he could not in any way control her property, and all he received had to come through her hands, which, to a man so proud and spirited as himself, was, to say the least, humiliating.
But if he could but once lay a hand upon the overflowing coffers of Wycliffe his future would be one long day of luxury and pleasure, and, having been wronged out of his share for so many years, he would feel no compunctions about scattering with lavish hand the shining treasure of the house of Vance.
“I will be frank with you,” he said, trying to speak in a conciliatory tone. “I am a ruined man. I have been speculating, and every dollar of my handsome property is gone. Even my house and furniture are mortgaged, and liable to be taken from me any day. I say again I regret the past sincerely;” and so he did, so much of it as had served to keep him out of Wycliffe, though no part of his sin. “I wish to be at peace with you, but if you turn against me now, I must come down to the level of the common herd.”
To the level of the common herd! How the words galled Earle. He would sink to the level of the common herd, of which he had once believed his mother was one, and so it had not mattered if he had ruined her.
Bitter words arose to his lips; his heart was full of scorn and indignation, but he controlled it, and answered, as calmly as before, but with an unmoved face:
“I regret that you have been so unfortunate—speculating is a very precarious business, but I can never consent to your becoming an inmate of Wycliffe, or of the home where I reside. It would not be right that I should overlook the past and treat you as if you had been guilty of no wrong; you have no right to expect me to entertain anything of either respect or affection for you, even though the same blood may flow in our veins—you have forfeited all right and title to any such feelings. I must, on the other hand, frankly confess to an aversion for you, but I would harbor no ill will, I would do you no injury even though I cannot tolerate your presence.”
“Is this your creed?” burst forth Mr. Dalton, unable to control himself any longer. “Is this your boasted forgiveness of your enemies—your ‘good-will toward men?’”
“You do not wish to be forgiven—you have no real sorrow for your sin. If any effort of mine could serve to make you truly repentant before God, I would not spare it. If you were sick and needy, I would minister to you, for my Master’s sake, as I would to any other stranger. But your feelings toward me are unchanged—were it not for what I possess, you would not even now make these overtures to me, and all idea of our residing under the same roof, or of sharing anything in common, is entirely out of the question. Still, I repeat, I bear you no malice, or cherish no spirit of revenge toward you, and to prove it, since you have been so unfortunate, I will make over to you, if Editha does not object, the ten thousand dollars which Mr. Forrester bequeathed to me, and which has remained untouched since she invested it for me. The interest of that will give you a comfortable living during the remainder of your life, if you do not touch the principal.”
A perfect tornado of wrath raged in Sumner Dalton’s breast at this calmly spoken but unalterable decision.
“So you will deign to give me, your father, a paltry ten thousand out of your exhaustless revenue!” he sneered, with exceeding bitterness.
“I owe you nothing on the score of relationship,” Earle answered, coldly; “and as for the ‘paltry ten thousand,’ allow me to remind you that you did not consider it in that light when Mr. Forrester bequeathed it to me.”
Again Mr. Dalton flushed.
How all his sins, one after another, were being visited upon himself.
With a fearful look of rage and hate convulsing his features, he leaned toward Earle and hissed:
“I would crush you this instant if I could; there is nothing of all the world’s ills too horrible for me to wish upon you, and I will yet be revenged upon you for what I have suffered this day. I will yet make you feel the power of my hate!” and he glanced darkly toward Editha as he said this.
Earle’s eyes involuntarily followed his look, and the bitterness of death seemed upon him as he realized that they two would have a life-long sorrow to bear.
A sudden fear startled him, as Mr. Dalton spoke, that he contemplated injury to her in order to carry out the revenge he meant to wreak upon him.
“You will be very careful what you do,” he said, with a sternness that cowed the man in spite of his bravado; “you will not forget that you occupy a very delicate position even now and that I have it in my power to make your own future very uncomfortable.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Mr. Dalton, with glittering eyes.
“I mean that if I choose I can make you answerable to the law; for, while one wife was living, you married another, and are liable at any time to be prosecuted for bigamy.”
Sumner Dalton swore a fearful oath, his white face testifying to the dreadful punishment which anything of such a nature would be to him, while a low, heart-rending moan burst at the same moment from Editha.
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