VICTOR'S TRIUMPH

SEQUEL TO

A BEAUTIFUL FIEND

BY

Mrs. E. D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH

AUTHOR OF "TRIED FOR HER LIFE," "THE LOST HEIRESS,"
"ALLWORTH ABBEY," ETC., ETC.

NEW YORK
HURST & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

VICTOR'S TRIUMPH.

Chapter I.

SAMSON AND DELILAH.

As soon as the subtle siren was left alone in the drawing-room with the aged clergyman she began weaving her spells around him as successfully as did the beautiful enchantress Vivien around the sage Merlin.

Throwing her bewildering dark eyes up to his face she murmured in hurried tones:

"You will not betray me to this family? Oh, consider! I am so young and so helpless!"

"And so beautiful," added the old man under his breath, as he gazed with involuntary admiration upon her fair, false face. Then, aloud, he said: "I have already told you, wretched child, that I would forbear to expose you so long as you should conduct yourself with strict propriety here; but no longer."

"You do not trust me. Ah, you do not see that one false step with its terrible consequences has been such an awful and enduring lesson to me that I could not make another! I am safer now from the possibility of error than is the most innocent and carefully guarded child. Oh, can you not understand this?" she asked, pathetically.

And her argument was a very specious and plausible one, and it made an impression.

"I can well believe that the fearful retribution that followed so fast upon your 'false step,' as you choose to call it, has been and will be an awful warning to you. But some warnings come too late. What can be your long future life?" he sadly inquired.

"Alas, what?" she echoed, with a profound sigh. "Even under the most propitious circumstances—what? If I am permitted to stay here I shall be buried alive in this country house, without hope of resurrection. Perhaps fifty years I may have to live here. The old lady will die. Emma will marry. Her children will grow up and marry. And in all the changes of future years I shall vegetate here without change, and without hope except in the better world. And yet, dreary as the prospect is, it is the best that I can expect, the best that I can even desire, and much better than I deserve," she added, with a humility that touched the old man's heart.

"I feel sorry for you, child; very, very sorry for your blighted young life. Poor child, you can never be happy again; but listen—you can be good!" he said, very gently.

And then he suddenly remembered what her bewildering charms had made him for a moment forget—that was, that this unworthy girl had been actually on the point of marriage with an honorable man when Death stepped in and put an end to a foolish engagement.

So, after a painful pause, he said, slowly:

"My child, I have heard that you were about to be married to Charles Cavendish, when his sudden death arrested the nuptials. Is that true?"

"It is true," she answered, in a tone of humility and sorrow.

"But how could you venture to dream of marrying him?"

"Ah, me; I knew I was unworthy of him! But he fell in love with me. I could not help that. Now, could I? Now, could I?" she repeated, earnestly and pathetically, looking at him.

"N-n-no. Perhaps you could not," he admitted.

"And oh, he courted me so hard!—so hard! And I could not prevent him!"

"Could you not have avoided him? Could you not have left the house?"

"Ah, no; I had no place to go to! I had lost my situation in the school."

"Still you should never have engaged yourself to marry Charles Cavendish, for you must have been aware that if he had known your true story he would never have thought of taking you as his wife."

"Oh, I know it! And I knew it then. And I was unhappy enough about it. But oh, what could I do? I could not prevent his loving me, do what I would. I could not go away from the house, because I had no place on earth to go to. And least of all would I go to him and tell him the terrible story of my life. I would rather have died than have told that! I should have died of humiliation in the telling—I couldn't tell him! Now could I? Could I?"

"I suppose you had not the courage to do so."

"No, indeed I had not! Yet very often I told him, in a general way, that I was most unworthy of him. But he never would believe that."

"No; I suppose he believed you to be everything that is pure, good and heavenly. What a terrible reproach his exalted opinion of you must have been!"

"Oh, it was—it was!" she answered, hypocritically. "It was such a severe reproach that, having in a moment of weakness yielded to his earnest prayer and consented to become his wife, I soon cast about for some excuse for breaking the engagement; for I felt if it were a great wrong to make such an engagement it would be a still greater wrong to keep it. Don't you agree with me?"

"Yes, most certainly."

"Well, while I was seeking some excuse to break off the marriage Death stepped in and put an end to it. Perhaps then I ought to have left the house, but—I had no money to go with and, as I said before, no place to go to. And besides Emma Cavendish was overwhelmed with grief and could not bear to be left alone; and she begged me to come down here with her. So, driven by my own necessities and drawn by hers, I came down. Do you blame me? Do you blame me?" she coaxed, pathetically.

"No, I do not blame you for that. But," said the old man, gravely and sadly, shaking his head, "why, when you got here, did you turn eavesdropper and spy?"

"Oh, me!—oh, dear me!" sobbed the siren. "It was the sin of helplessness and cowardice. I dreaded discovery so much! Every circumstance alarmed me. Your arrival and your long mysterious conversation with madam alarmed me. I thought exposure imminent. I feared to lose this home, which, lonely, dreary, hopeless as it is to me, is yet the only refuge I have left on earth. I am penniless and helpless; and but for this kind family I should be homeless and friendless. Think if I had been cast out upon the world what must have been my fate!"

"What, indeed!" echoed the old man.

"Therefore, I dreaded to be cast out. I dreaded discovery. Your visit filled me with uneasiness, that, as the day wore away, reached intense anxiety, and finally arose to insupportable anguish and suspense. Then I went to listen at