CHAPTER XXXIX
It was a supreme moment. Laurel felt it to be such. Her heart beat, and her limbs trembled beneath her. But for the support of St. Leon's arm, she must have fallen to the earth. She wondered that she did not faint—rather that she did not die—for an intuition, swift as the lightning's flash, told her that these two strangers were Mr. Gordon and his wife.
She had never seen them in her life, but she did not for one moment doubt their identity. She saw Mrs. Merivale modestly giving place to them, allowing them to greet her first; she saw the smile of pleasure on St. Leon's lips—St. Leon, who thought she was having such a pleasant surprise. She could not move nor speak. She clung desperately to St. Leon's arm, and they came nearer and nearer, the tall, rather stern-looking man, and the pretty, faded blonde in her rich silks and laces. Laurel gazed at them with her great, dark, frightened eyes, much as the little princes in the Tower might have gazed upon their murderers.
A great horror grew upon her as if, indeed, they were about to strike her dead. She had been caught in a horrible trap—a pit of destruction yawned beneath her feet—in a moment she would be hurled down, down, down, into fathomless darkness and despair.
Mrs. Gordon drew nearer and nearer. There was a tender smile on the fair, delicate face, and the blue eyes looked straight into Laurel's own for an instant—only an instant, for then she started backward, and her cry of dismay and wonder pealed on the impostor's ears like the knell of doom.
"Beatrix! Oh, my God, it is not Beatrix! What does this mean?"
"It is not Beatrix!" Mr. Gordon echoed, blankly.
And for a moment there reigned a terrible silence in the room.
St. Leon Le Roy looked down at his wife. She was clinging to his arm with the desperation of despair. Her face was pale as death and convulsed with fear. Her wide, frightened, dark eyes stared up straight into his, with a hunted look in their somber depth that pierced his heart.
"Beatrix, what do they mean?" he cried. "Have they all gone mad?"
Her white lips tried to syllable the word "mad," but it died upon them in a straining gasp.
Mr. Gordon came slowly forward, a dazed expression on his features.
"Mr. Le Roy, there must be some mistake," he said. "This lady is not your wife?"
St. Leon answered gravely:
"There is no mistake. This is my wife, Mr. Gordon."
Mrs. Gordon cried out, startlingly:
"Then where is our daughter?"
She looked ready to faint. Her limbs tottered beneath her. She clung to her husband with one hand pressed upon her throbbing heart and stared at the lovely creature on St. Leon's arm as if she were a ghost. Mrs. Le Roy, still pale and wan from her recent illness, rose from the couch where she reclined and tottered to her side.
"My dear friends, have you all taken leave of your senses?" she cried. "Have you forgotten your own daughter's face? Beatrix, darling, why do you not come to your mother?"
Only a stifled moan came from Laurel's lips, but Mrs. Gordon answered, sternly:
"This is no daughter of ours. We have never seen her face before tonight!"
And Mrs. Merivale, in the background, gazed in gloating wonder and triumph at the pale, horrified face of St. Leon's wife. She was burning with anxiety to hear the dénouement of this strange and startling scene.
"This is no daughter of ours. We have never seen her face before tonight," repeated Mr. Gordon, and his wife feebly reiterated his words.
"You have gone mad—both of you," Mrs. Le Roy cried out, fretfully. "This is your daughter whom you sent to us, and whom my son married. How dare you deny it? Speak to them, St. Leon—speak to them, Beatrix. Do not let them deny you! It is monstrous, it is terrible!"
"She is no child of ours. She will not claim to be. She is a miserable impostor. Look at her guilty face," said Mr. Gordon, pointing a scornful finger at the white face that did indeed look shame-stricken and full of guilty woe.
St. Leon had never taken his eyes from that beautiful, terrified face. He spoke to her now, and his voice sounded hollow and stern.
"Beatrix, what do they mean? Is it true that you are not Mr. Gordon's daughter?"
The white hands slipped from his arm, and she fell on her knees before him, lifting up her woeful white face pleadingly.
"Oh, St. Leon, pity and forgive me," she moaned, appealingly. "It is true, and I have bitterly deceived you. I am not Beatrix Gordon!"
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