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Kurston entreated the favor of an interview." She gladly accorded it; she robed herself with subtle skill; she made herself marvelous. "Mother," she said, as she left her dressing-room, "you will have a headache. I shall excuse you. I can manage this business best alone." In an hour she came back triumphant. She put her feet on the fender, and sat down before the cheerful blaze to "talk it over."
I do not think I shall live long, and I leave a duty unfulfilled that makes to me the bitterness of death. I have a daughter the lawful heiress of the Kurston lands whom my wife drove, by subtle and persistent cruelty, from her home. By no means have I been able to discover her; but you must continue the search, and see her put in possession of her rights."
The coincidence was auspicious, and he warmly pressed his suit, pouring into Pauline's ears such a confused account of his feelings and his affairs as only love could disentangle and understand. "But, Philip," said Pauline, "do you mean to say that this Mrs. Kurston makes love to you? Is she not a married woman, and her husband your best friend and patron?" "Mr. Kurston, Pauline darling, is dead!"
Kurston's presentiment of death was no delusive one; he sank gradually during the following week, and died his last word, "Remember!" being addressed, with all the strong beseeching of a dying injunction, to Philip Lee. A free woman, and a rich one, Mrs. Kurston turned with all the ardor of a sentimental woman to her first and as she chose to consider it her only true affection.
One night, in the middle of the third winter after Athel's disappearance, Philip Lee called with an important lease for Mr. Kurston to sign. He found him alone, and strangely moved and sorrowful. He signed the papers as Philip directed him, and then requested him to lock the door and sit down. "I am going," he said, "to confide to you, Philip Lee, a sacred trust.
A divided household is always a miserable one; but the chief sufferer here was Mr. Kurston, and Athel, who loved him with a sincere and profound affection, determined to submit to circumstances for his sake.
In fact, of his daughter, Athel Kurston, he stood just a little bit in fear, and she had ruled the household at the Chace for many years as absolute mistress. No one knew anything of her mother; he had brought her to her present home when only five years old, after a long stay on the Continent.
It now became Philip's duty to acquaint the second Mrs. Kurston with her true position, and to take the necessary steps to reinstate Athel Kurston in her rights.
Henceforward Clementina Kurston was a woman to be courted instead of patronized, and many a woman who had spoken lightly of her beauty and qualities, was made to acknowledge with an envious pang that she had distanced them. This was her first reward, and she did not stint herself in extorting it.
He was not the man to be deluded twice by the same false woman; he was a man of honor, and detested the social ethics which scoffed at humanity's holiest tie; and he was deeply in love with a woman who was the very antipodes of the married siren. Yet he visited frequently at the Kurston mansion, and became a great favorite, and finally the friend and confidant of its master.
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