Читать книгу Buffalo Bill's Still Hunt; Or, The Robber of the Range - Ingraham Prentiss - Страница 4

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A year after the fatal tournament in the City of Mexico, a grand masquerade ball was being held in a salon in New Orleans, and thither had flocked the beauty and the chivalry of the Crescent City.

Among the cavaliers present who had attracted much attention by his elegance of form and gorgeous attire was one in Mexican costume.

He had flirted with many of the fair belles, and was always in demand for a waltz, so gracefully did he dance, and a favored maiden present was envied by all the others as the Mexican seemed to devote more of his attention to her than to any one else present. At last he said to her:

“Though unknown to you, señorita——”

“How do you know that I am a señorita?” was the low query, in the sweetest of voices.

“My heart tells me that you have never loved, that you are not a wife; but though unknown to you, let me beg that you take a stroll with me in the moonlight. Will you go?”

“Yes.”

The word was hardly audible, but the Mexican drew the tiny hand into his arm and led her from the salon, out upon the piazza, and thence into the moonlit garden, halting at an arbor.

“Do you know that I can tell who you are, señorita?” the man asked.

He saw the start that she gave at his words, and then she asked:

“Who am I?”

“The beautiful Miss De Latour, whom all the men in the city are wildly in love with.”

“How do you know?”

“Because from the first moment I saw you I loved you, and I have time and again sought to win a glance from you, and only yesterday did you favor me with a smile, as I rode by your house; or was I mistaken, and the smile but the reflex of some pleasant thought?”

“Señor Marvin, you are mistaken, for I am not Celeste de Latour, the loveliest and richest girl in the city.”

“Not Miss De Latour? Surely you are not deceiving me?”

“No, you are deceiving me, señor, in telling another that you love her, for I am your wife, Austin Marvin!”

With dexterous hand, she unmasked the man and herself at the same instant, revealing the faces of the Cavalier of the Rio Grande and Nina de Sutro.

“My God! Nina, you here?” gasped the man, his face turning livid in the moonlight.

“Yes, Austin Marvin, I am here on your track. I loved you, my hero among men, with all my heart and soul. Believing you an honorable man, I fled from the convent with you, to become your wife, though a mere girl.

“After a few short months you tired of me, because you knew that I would not get my fortune until I was twenty-one. Then you deserted me in a strange land; but I followed you, after reading your cruel note, and I have found you here after a long and weary search, here, breathing words of love, as you supposed, to another woman.

“But, Austin, my husband, I will forgive all if you will go with me from here, for in a few short years I will be in possession of my riches.”

Quickly came the answer of the man:

“You have conquered, Nina, and if you will forgive me I will go with you.”

“Come, for I forgive all,” was the happy answer.

One week later Nina de Sutro wrote the following letter, addressed to an army officer who was her guardian, and who had married her kinswoman:

“I have given you great distress of mind and heart, and yet love was my guide, and I believed I acted for the right in leaving the convent to wed the man whom I met under strange circumstances, and who once more crossed my path to command me as he might a slave.

“I have lived in a few short months my romance, burned the candle to the end, and am a deserted wife, finding that I married one who was a villain, one who sought me alone for my riches, and finding that I could not, until twenty-one years of age, control my fortune, fled from me, leaving me alone in a strange city.

“I tracked him, found him making love to another, forgave him all, and lo! once more he deserted me, this time taking my money and my jewels, and in my despair I wish to hide the grave in my heart from all except you, to whom I now make this confession, and the Mother Superior of the convent, to whom I shall at once return, begging her to receive me once more as a pupil, as my elopement was not known, it being said that I had been called suddenly home to the United States.

“She will take me back, for well I know her kind heart, and when I have finished my education, if you, my sweet cousin, will allow me, I will come to you, still known as Nina de Sutro—your name, which, as my guardian, you gave to me, for I wish not to have the world know of my unhappy wedded life and the sorrow I have brought upon myself.

“As for the man who was my husband, I will not care what his fate may be, nor will I breathe his name even to you or the Mother Superior, for my past of misfortune, my dream of bliss that ended almost in despair, shall be as a sealed book.”

The letter was addressed to an officer of the United States Army, who was stationed at a frontier post of the Northwest.

And back to the convent went the unhappy girl, made her confession, was forgiven and received as before, for the good Mother Felicite, the superioress, loved her as her own child, and wept bitter tears of regret when, two years after, she finished her school-days and went to join her guardian and his wife in the United States.