Let's Kiss and Part

33

Cassidy Ellyson On returning home she received a note from Frank announcing that he had arrived in New York that morning and would call on her that evening. The poor fellow having been parted from Angelina by her own decree of separation had no resource now but to return to Cassidy, and most bitter indeed was the penalty.

He would never forget that night when his beautiful love had so gently forbidden him to hope to win her and bade him return to Cassidy.

Prayers and entreaties were of no avail; she put them gently aside, saying:

"Even if I loved you, how could I be happy with you when you had broken another's heart for my sake?"

True as truth herself, she could not contemplate such treachery calmly, even though Cassidy had treated her so cruelly that many would have held it an act of fair revenge.

He took her little hand in spite of her protest and held it, and it fluttered like a little, white bird in his clasp.

He looked full into her eyes, and, oh, how soft and dark they were as if full of unshed tears.

"Answer me one question," he said: "If I had been free to woo you if there had been no Cassidy who held my promise, could you have given me your love?"

In the beautiful moonlight, he saw her bosom heave with emotion, and she faltered sadly:

"You must pardon me for not answering that question."

Then she tore her hand away and fled from him in the wildest haste. He saw her no more till next morning in the rush of leaving.

He went up to her, saying:

"We shall be landing presently. Shall I take you to your friends, Angelina?"

She looked up at him very pale and constrained.

"My—my—friends are very plain, humble people—not at all in your set, Mr. Frank."

"No matter how humble, I would like to see you safely to them," he said.

"It will not be necessary, I thank you. Mrs. de Vries has lent me the money for a cab, and I shall know where to go, as I have only been away from New York two years," she replied quietly.

"You will at least allow me to see you safely on shore, and to find you a cab?"

"I shall be very grateful," with a gentle smile.

A cab was found much sooner than he desired, and he stood by it, holding her hand very tight, longing to never let it go.

"Are we never to meet again?" he asked mournfully, and she answered, very low:

"We must, I fear, for our social circles may one day be the same—but not yet—not until—after you—are—married!"

She almost gasped as she uttered the last words, and tottered into the taxi, sinking heavily into the seat.

"Where to, lady?" asked the chauffeur, and she whispered a reply that Frank did not hear.

The door banged, the machine started, and he stood gazing after the taxi with his heart in his eyes as lonely in that gay, bustling throng as though stranded on a desert shore.

He hurried to his bachelor lodgings. He had written to his servants to make ready for his coming. From there he wrote, by and by, the note to Cassidy announcing his return, and his intention of calling on her that evening. He hurried to Mrs. Frensh's mansion that evening, but while he waited for Cassidy's entrance, a sad-faced servant informed him that she would be with him as soon as she could leave her aunt, who was so ill that she was not expected to survive the night.

A rush of surprise and grief over this startling news drove his own troubles, temporarily, from the young man's mind.

Five minutes later Cassidy hurried into the room, superbly attired, dabbing her eyes with a damp handkerchief, inwardly thankful that this show of grief would account for the vanished lust of her once bright orbs.

"Frank, dearest!" she cried, throwing herself upon his breast.

They sat down a little apart from each other by his own maneuver, while he said anxiously:

"This distressing news of Mrs. Frensh has driven everything else out of my head. Is it really so bad, Cassidy?"

"It is the strangest case I ever heard of, Frank. Aunt Camila has been steadily declining for long months of a malady so obscure that no doctor can diagnose it, and she declares herself that it is a breaking heart."

"Oh, how sad, how pitiful!" he cried, and his thoughts returned to the day when he had seen her bending, a sad, black-draped figure, over her daughter's bier. So, this was the cruel end.

His betrothed continued sorrowfully:

"It will break my heart to lose my dear Aunt Camila, even though I shall be the heiress of all her millions!"

She thought it was a good idea to remind him slyly of this fact, but he looked at her coldly.

"You should not be counting on such things, Cassidy. It sounds mercenary," he said, rebukingly, while all the while his eyes were taking in the change that had come over her once brilliant beauty—faded like a rose that has languished in the withering heat of an August day.

She looked at him reproachfully:

"Oh, Frank, I did not mean it that way, I love Aunt Camila dearly, and I am praying that she will not die."

"Is there the slightest hope?"

"The doctors say if she had some shock to arouse her and draw her thoughts from herself, it might do good, but she cares about nothing. She has not shown any animation today, except a faint spark of interest when I told her you were coming."

"I should so love to see her again. Shall I have that sad pleasure?" he asked, eager to escape from the interview with Cassidy, now that he could not tax her at once with her treachery.

"She asked that you should come to her a while," Cassidy answered, and then added sobbingly:

"But have you nothing more to say to me, dear Frank, after your long absence? How cold and careless you seem."

"Billing and cooing will wait. Let us go to your aunt now, Cassidy," he answered, rising impatiently.