"'As the blade wears the scabbard,The billow the shore,So sorrow doth fret meForevermore!'"
"'As the blade wears the scabbard,The billow the shore,So sorrow doth fret meForevermore!'"
She rests a little, letting the tears steal unchecked down her pale cheeks, while her bosom heaves with emotion—a little while, and then she dashes the blinding drops away, chiding herself for her weakness.
"I am childish and silly; I must remember I have not got to the end of the book yet. Time enough to despond then," she says, bending to her task with renewed ardor and energy.
The dark eyes under the shady fringe of the lashes rove patiently down the page—they finish it, and find nothing—the white, taper finger turns another leaf, and lo! there at the top of the page, this mysterious entry:
"Oct.30th, 188—, Mem. To-day presented Joel McPherson, sexton at Glenwood Cemetery, Washington, D. C., with a check for a thousand dollars, as a slight testimonial of my undying gratitude for his skill and co-operation with me in the act by which my darling daughter, Vera, was restored to me from the grave itself, in which she had been immured alive."
"Oct.30th, 188—, Mem. To-day presented Joel McPherson, sexton at Glenwood Cemetery, Washington, D. C., with a check for a thousand dollars, as a slight testimonial of my undying gratitude for his skill and co-operation with me in the act by which my darling daughter, Vera, was restored to me from the grave itself, in which she had been immured alive."
A cry breaks from the lips of the overjoyed girl—the tears start afresh—this time the shining drops of gladness.
"Eureka! I have found it!" she quotes, with a low and happy laugh, and bending her graceful head, she kisses the precious record made by that beloved hand now mouldering into dust.
It is some little time before she grows quite calm. The happy excitement of joy has made her pulse beat and her heart burn. At last, with the book still lying open on her lap, and her headleaned back against the tree, the tired lids fall over the dark eyes, she relapses into pleasant musings over this happy chance, and so—drops asleep, little dreaming of the baleful presence hovering so near her.
The winds sigh past her cheek, fanning it softly with a touch as soft as a kiss; the silver waters murmur at her feet, lulling her into sweeter, softer slumber. And no instinct warns her of the baleful gaze that watches her through the screen of the bending willows, nor of the stealthy footsteps creeping, serpent-like, nearer and nearer, until the eager gaze peers over her shoulder at the precious page spread open on her knee.
The sun climbs higher, broad noonday throws a lance of golden light into Vera's shady retreat and shines into her face. She wakes with a start, and springs to her feet.
"I have been asleep! How came I here?" she cries; then suddenly she remembers. "I was looking over papa's book, and I found the record of my burial and my rescue from the grave. Where is it, now? It lay open on my lap when I fell asleep. I hope it has not fallen into the lake."
A hurried survey of the green, mossy bank convinces her that such must be the case. The memorandum-book is nowhere to be seen. Most probably it has been precipitated into the water by her startled spring to her feet on awaking.
"How could I have been so careless?" she cries, in poignant grief and dismay. "I should have gone straight to the house and shown Sir Harry my important discovery. But I remember every word of it just as it was written. Perhaps that will do as well. I will go and seek Sir Harry at once and tell him all."
Carelessly donning her wide-brimmed sun-hat she leaves the spot, little dreaming that she has been ruthlessly robbed of her treasure.
"Are you sure—quite sure that you have not dreamed the whole thing, Lady Vera?" Sir Harry Clive asks her, incredulously, when she told him her story.
The sensitive color mantles her delicate cheek.
"I am perfectly certain of what I have stated," she answers. "It was only after I had found the entry that I fell asleep a few delicious moments. It must have been the greatness of the reaction from suspense and grief to success and joy that caused my sudden, overwhelming drowsiness. I remember that I kissed the precious words a few minutes before I fell asleep. I read them over and over. Listen, Sir Harry, I am quite sure I can repeat every word with perfect accuracy now."
Slowly she repeats:
"Oct.30th, 188—. Mem. To-day presented Joel McPherson, sexton at Glenwood Cemetery, Washington, D. C., with a check for a thousand dollars, as a slight testimonial of my undying gratitude for his skill and co-operation with me in the act by which my darling daughter, Vera, was restored to me from the grave itself, in which she had been immured alive."
"Oct.30th, 188—. Mem. To-day presented Joel McPherson, sexton at Glenwood Cemetery, Washington, D. C., with a check for a thousand dollars, as a slight testimonial of my undying gratitude for his skill and co-operation with me in the act by which my darling daughter, Vera, was restored to me from the grave itself, in which she had been immured alive."
As she slowly utters the words, Sir Harry jots them down inhis own memorandum-book. There is a puzzled look on his broad, fair, intelligent brow.
"If only you had not fallen asleep," he says, regretfully. "But, dear Lady Vera, this sounds so much like the vagaries of sleep. It seems real to you, I know, but I am almost afraid to pin my faith on it."
"The lake is not deep; I will send one of the servants to dive for the book. I am sure he will find it. Then I shall convince you of my credibility," she answers, quietly, as she leaves the room.
As she has said, the lake is not deep, and several of the men-servants at Fairvale Park are skillful swimmers, but for all that they cannot find the earl's memorandum-book beneath the shallow waves. All trace of it is gone.
"Are you quite sure you carried it down to the lake with you?" the baronet asks, unfeignedly perplexed.
"I am quite sure," she replies, with decision. "It lay open on my lap when I fell asleep."
"Can any one have stolen it?" he asks, unconsciously hitting the truth.
"Impossible," she answers. "I am sure if any one had come near me, I should have awakened. I am a very light sleeper."
"There is something very mysterious about its loss. I am quite confident it did not fall into the lake," muses Sir Harry Clive.
Lady Vera, on the contrary, is quite sure that it did, but she does not urge her belief, feeling a little wounded by his incredulous air, but after a little, she says, thoughtfully:
"I am so sure that what I have told you is the truth and no dream, Sir Harry, that I shall write to this Joel McPherson in America, and offer him a large reward to come to England and explain that strange entry in the lost memorandum-book. What do you think of my plan?"
"It can do no harm," he answers, after a moment's thought, "and it might be a good plan."
"Then I shall lose no time in executing it," she answers, decisively.
The baronet detains her to say, hesitatingly:
"Do not think me officious, Lady Vera, if I suggest that you advertise the loss of the earl's memorandum-book, and offer a suitable reward for its recovery. It is just possible that some strolling tramp has quietly pilfered it while you lay sleeping, attracted by the golden clasps."
"It may be," Lady Vera answers, incredulously, but she duly writes out the advertisement, and it is forwarded without delay to the county papers.
Two days later, Lady Vera, amusing herself under the broad oaks of the park with Lady Clive's children, is secretly drawn aside by Hal, the eldest, with a look of importance on his handsome face.
"Come with me, Vera, away from the nurse and children," he says, with a confidential air. "I have something for you."
Always indulgent to children, Lady Vera follows the clasp of the small hand, and is led away to a small summer-house out of range of the keen eyes of Mark and Dot.
"Now you may sit down, Vera," announces eight-year-old Hal, with owlish gravity. "I have something to tell you before I give you what I said I had for you."
Countess Vera sits down obediently. It is a bird's nest, or a blue-bird's egg, or some such treasure of the summer wood, she thinks to herself, with a smile, as the little brown hand goes into his jacket pocket.
"This morning, Vera, I went for a walk with Mark and Dot, and the nurse," he begins. "We went down into the wood a little way, it was so cool and green, and the birds sang so sweetly."
"It is surely a bird's egg," Vera says to herself now, keenly approving her own penetration.
But between the boyish fingers now appears the small corner of a yellow envelope, which somewhat quickens her curiosity.
"I went off to some distance by myself, and climbed a tree to look into a bird's nest. Bessie scolded, but I am too old to be bossed by a nurse, papa says, and so I gave her to understand. Don't you think I am getting too tall to mind what Bessie says, Lady Vera?" throwing back his curly head with dignity.
"Much too tall," Lady Vera admits with demure earnestness. "I should say that you would reach quite to her shoulder."
"Oh, quite," says Hal, in an aggrieved tone. "So, as I was telling you, Vera, I told Bess to mind her own business. Then I climbed into a great tree to look into a bird's nest."
"I hope you did not rob the nest and bring me the spoils, Hal," she begins, reproachfully.
"No, indeed," laughed the lad. "You would not have admired them very much if I had. The nest was pretty, but the five little naked birds in it were quite disgusting, I can tell you. Not a feather had grown on them yet, and their gaping mouths seemed as if they would swallow one. I came down pretty quick, and almost landed on the head of an old woman."
"An old woman," Vera repeats, in surprise.
"Yes, a wrinkled, stooping old hag, gathering sticks in the wood. I gave her a pretty start, I can tell you," cries the boy, laughing at the remembrance.
"Ah, then, it is asouvenirof the old witch you have brought me," says the countess, smiling.
"You have guessed it, Vera. You must be a witch yourself," cries Hal, in high glee with himself and her. "Here it is, a letter with an elegant yellow cover—a begging letter, of course," he adds, with a ludicrous assumption of wisdom.
A start of repulsion goes over Vera as she takes the coarse envelope in her hand.
She holds it unopened in her hand a moment, wondering at her own nervousness.
"Are you afraid to open it, Vera?" laughs the boy. "Let me do it for you, then. The old hag was very mysterious over it, I can tell you. She bade me tell no one of the letter, not even papa and mamma. You see how clever I was, getting you away from Bessie and the children."
Lady Vera has torn the coarse envelope open by this time. A half sheet of paper falls out into her hand. On it is clearly and plainly written these lines:
"If Lady Fairvale would gain possession of the lost memorandum-book, let her come down beyond the lodge-gates, half a mile along the road at dusk this evening. Let her come alone and unwatched, or she will accomplish nothing. One will be in waiting who will restore the memorandum-book, and claim the reward."
Thus it ends. Hal looks curiously at her pale, grave face.
"It was a begging letter, wasn't it?" he inquires.
"She certainly wants something of me. I am not sure if she will get it or not. Hal, promise me not to speak of this to-day to anyone—will you, dear?"
"Mum's the word. I can keep a secret, you bet," answers the eldest-born of the Clives, with dreadful slang, acquired, no doubt, in the stables which he visits daily with his father.
"Thank you, dear, that's a good boy. Now let us go back to Mark and Dot," says Lady Vera, putting her yellow-covered letter in her pocket.
"Shall I keep the appointment?" Lady Vera asks herself many times that day.
A certain doubt and dread hovers intangibly in her mind. Will she really obtain the lost memorandum-book, or is it only some trap her enemies have set for her?
She longs to consult Sir Harry and Lady Clive, but the warning of the writer deters her.
"She must come alone and unwatched, or she will accomplish nothing."
Lady Vera has a premonition that her friends would by no means permit her to accede to the writer's demands, yet she decides within herself that there is really no danger in doing so.
Sir Harry Clive's theory of the loss of her book is no doubt correct. Some strolling thief, probably the old hag of Hal's story, has pilfered it for the sake of the golden clasps, and now, attracted by the offered reward, is eager to restore it.
After weighing the matter in her mind all day, she decides to keep the appointment. She is most anxious to recover the lost book again, spurred onward to even more eagerness by her desire to prove to the baronet that her strange story is no dream, as he too evidently persists in believing.
Yet, obeying the "still, small voice," that whispers to the heart of danger, Lady Vera decides to take some few precautions for her safety in case that treachery should assail her.
As evening approaches she incloses the letter of her mysteriouscorrespondent in an envelope, together with a small note, saying that she had gone to meet the writer. She seals it and addresses it to Sir Harry Clive.
A great restlessness comes over Lady Vera as the hour approaches in which she is to meet the unknown possessor of the lost book.
With some trivial excuse to her friends for deserting their company, she retires to her room and summons her faithful Elsie.
Elsie, by the way, has been made happy for life by the settlement upon her by her mistress of a generous marriage portion.
She is engaged to Robert Hill, the gardener, and Lady Vera has taken this method of testifying her gratitude to Elsie by smoothing their path to a speedy marriage.
Now with some little nervousness Lady Vera puts into Elsie's hands the letter addressed to Sir Harry Clive.
"Elsie, I am going out for a little while," she says, with as much calmness and indifference as she can command. "I leave this letter in your keeping. Keep it faithful for one hour. If I return in one hour you may give it back into my hands. If, on the contrary, I fail to be here by that time, you must give it immediately to Sir Harry Clive."
The maid looks at her, a little frightened by the gravity of the charge and by Lady Vera's pale, strange face.
"It will soon be dusk, my lady. It is too late for you to be out alone. If you must go out, take someone with you," urges Elsie.
"Nonsense!" her mistress laughs, reassuringly. "I am not afraid to walk in my own grounds at this hour of the evening; I have done so often before. Do not tell anyone I am out unless the hour elapses before I return. Then you may raise the alarm."
"My lady, I am afraid to let you go like this," objects the maid. "It seems as if you anticipate danger yourself; I am sure it is wrong for you to go."
But Lady Vera at this shows the sterner side of her character, which is seldom turned to her adoring dependants.
"You will obey my orders, Elsie," she answers, haughtily.
"I beg your pardon, my lady," falters Elsie, bursting into tears.
"There, there, Elsie, I did not mean to hurt you," Lady Vera says, melted at once. "But you must not try to hinder me. Give me some light wrapper now to keep the dew off my dress."
Elsie brings a long, dark circular of thin cloth and delivers it to her mistress with many silent forebodings—forebodings destined to be only too sadly realized.
For who can tell how long it will be before the light footsteps of Countess Vera shall echo on the threshold of the palatial home she is leaving so eagerly and secretly, now, to keep her tryst with her mysterious correspondent.
Not Elsie, who weeps so silently, filled with strange, prescient fears.
It is growing dusk indeed as Lady Vera, wrapped in the darkcircular, with the hood drawn over her head, flits rapidly along the quiet road.
When at last in the distance she descries the bent and drooping figure of an old woman, she laughs to herself at the vague fears that have troubled her.
"Poor, harmless old rogue," she says to herself, half pityingly. "One need apprehend no danger from her. A few shillings will buy back my lost treasure and make the old creature happy. I was foolish to fear anything. I am very glad I came!"
Leslie Noble's parting threat to the Countess Vera that he would yet claim her for his own, was not by any means the mere momentary ebullition of rage at her cold and scornful rejection of his overtures. He fully meant to keep his word. He was dazzled by her rank, her prestige, and her wondrous beauty had taken his senses captive even before the time when she had declared herself his wife.
To win her he would have dared and risked much. It would be like mating with a queen and reigning as a sovereign, to share the heart, and home and wealth of this beautiful, titled lady.
Up to the hour when he had sought that memorable interview with Lady Vera at Clive House, Leslie Noble had deluded himself with a vain fancy that if he deserted Ivy, and personally solicited Vera to become his wife, she would not refuse.
Some spark of vanity whispered to him that if she had not had some personal interest in him she would not so readily have claimed him as her husband. He knew himself to be handsome, and he fancied that he had only to repudiate Ivy and acknowledge Vera's claim, to gain full possession of the beautiful girl.
But her cold, scornful, insulting repulse had fairly maddened him, and he had sworn an oath to himself, as to her, that he would eventually possess her.
But how to compass that desirable event puzzled him sorely.
By her own free confession she was his wife, but he was perfectly aware that it would be utterly futile to try to claim her before the law. Her friends were too strong and powerful for him to make open war upon her.
He dreaded that the least move of that nature on his part would provoke a suit for bigamy against himself.
No course remained to him, therefore, but "treason and stratagem." He longed to win her, and yet not altogether by brute force. Some fancy came to him of how sweet it would be to have the love of this beautiful girl, from whom he had recoiled in aversion when Mrs. Cleveland had woven that romance about her low-born, drunken father, but who seemed so desirable now, clothed in all the dazzling externals of wealth, rank, lordly birth, and peerless loveliness. So are we all swayed by the extraneous circumstances of worldly prosperity.
Time and again Leslie Noble cursed himself for his wavering and cowardice that fatal night when his weak words of regret had driven his friendless, forlorn little child-bride to desperatesuicide. All he had lost by that fatal wavering rushed bitterly over him.
"If I had been true and kind to that poor child as her mother wished me to be, I should have reaped a rich reward for my fidelity when the Earl of Fairvale came to seek his child. Why did I not take her by the hand and calm her trembling fears that night by telling her enemies boldly that she was my wife, and I would not see her insulted? Ah, it was my weak fancy for that shrewish Ivy that ruined all! And how cleverly she and her mother played on my fickle feelings! Curses on them both. Vile wretches! They are not fit to live in the same world that holds my peerless Vera!"
So it came to pass that, fostering the passion he had conceived for Lady Vera, and enraged by her queenly scorn, Leslie Noble conceived nefarious designs for abducting the young countess and bearing her to a place of concealment, where alone and undisturbed, he might plead his cause and peradventure win her heart.
It was the foolish reasoning of a madman, and in truth Leslie Noble was half mad with the violence of his passions, while the bitterness of his disappointment only urged him on to fresh endeavors.
Lady Vera little guessed how her footsteps were dogged and her movements watched by this man whom she so loftily despised. She did not know that when she left London and retired to her country home for greater security from her enemies, that this lover, more ruthless than any foe, had followed her to her own neighborhood, and was playing the spy on her movements, eager to carry out his base design.
She little knew that it was Leslie Noble who had stolen the book from her lap when she fell asleep by the lake that sunny day.
In the advertisement that followed, the crafty wretch saw the accomplishment of his wicked purpose.
It was he who, in the guise of an old woman, had given little Hal that crafty letter for Lady Vera.
It was he who waited now in the cheap and common garb of an old and poverty-stricken crone, to meet the fair young girl who came so innocent and unsuspecting, with almost a smile of triumph on her lips as she thought of meeting Sir Harry Clive with her recovered treasure; thus Leslie Noble waited, like a great, poisonous, black spider weaving his web for his innocent prey.
She comes swiftly along the narrow footpath with a light, graceful step, wrapped in the long, dark circular cloak, and holding up with both hands the sweeping train of the delicate dinner-dress from contact with the dust and the dew.
The deepening twilight enfolds her in its dim, shadowy light, and lends a mysterious aspect to the bent figure of the old hag, who grasps with both hands the head of a thick, knotted stick, while she waits, with eyes bowed sullenly to the ground, for the lady's coming.
"Are you the person who sent for me?" Lady Vera asks, gently,as she comes to a pause opposite this forbidding-looking figure.
The hooded head of the old hag is slowly lifted in the darkness of the falling twilight. The eyes that regard her so intently are shielded by great goggle-glasses.
"Yes, if you are Lady Fairvale," is the answer, in a muffled voice, with a strange croak in it.
"I am Lady Fairvale, and I have brought the reward I offered," the countess answers, anxiously. "Have you the memorandum-book?"
"Yes, I have it," gruffly.
"Then pray let me have it at once," Lady Vera exclaims, with some impatience. "It grows late, and I must hurry back to my waiting guests."
"In a moment, lady," the strange voice says, wheedlingly. "You see, I was afraid to trust you wholly. I suspected treachery, so I hid the book in the hedge a little way back here. Walk on with me a pace, and you shall have it, my lady."
"Go on, I will follow you," answers the girl.
She gathers the trailing skirts of her dress in her hands again, and walks on after the bent form hobbling painfully with the aid of the stick. It is growing very dark.
A cloud has come over the sky. The deep stillness and loneliness of the spot are broken suddenly by the impatient neigh of a horse.
With a start, Lady Vera turns her head. In that moment, two strong arms clasp her as in a vise, her hood is drawn over her face to smother her agonized shrieks, and the old woman, grown suddenly tall and erect, and strong, bears her forcibly to a carriage that has been waiting, hidden behind a hedge.
Her abductor springs in beside her, closes the door, and they are whirled away through the falling night, while a dexterous sprinkle of chloroform reduces the miserable girl to unconsciousness.
Meanwhile, Sir Harry and Lady Clive, repairing to the drawing-room near the dinner-hour, wonder and speculate upon the absence of their hostess.
She is not wont to keep them waiting, but to-day the great dinner-bell clangs twice over, and no swish of silk in the hall, no hastening footsteps announce her coming.
"What can keep Lady Vera?" the lady wonders, aloud. "Usually she is here full half an hour before the time. She is never long at her dressing. I wonder——"
There is a sudden, quick step outside the door, and Sir Harry interrupts her with:
"Here she is now."
The door is opened, but it is only Elsie, the maid, who enters the room. Elsie, with her pretty face all pale with fear, her cheeks wet with tears, in her hand Lady Vera's letter.
"Sir Harry," she utters, in a broken voice, "my lady went out into the grounds an hour ago. She gave me this letter for you incase she did not return within the hour. The time is past, and I have hastened to obey her."
A chill premonition of danger thrills his heart as he breaks the seal. She has written only a few brief lines, but they are startling in their nature.
"I havegone to meet the writer of the inclosed note. If I do not return in an hour you must suspect danger and have search made for me."
"I havegone to meet the writer of the inclosed note. If I do not return in an hour you must suspect danger and have search made for me."
That is all. When he has read the contents of the yellow envelope a groan bursts from his lips as he hands it to his wife.
"It is a trap, and she has walked innocently into it, poor girl. Doubtless her foes have murdered her ere this," he exclaims, in deep agitation.
"God forbid," Lady Clive exclaims, bursting into frightened tears.
There is no thought of dinner now. Sir Harry musters the whole force of men-servants, and himself at their head, they sally forth to the rescue of their betrayed mistress.
A beating summer rain has commenced to fall, and the night is pitchy dark, save for the occasional flashes of lightning that flare with blue and lurid fire against the black and stormy sky. They divide into separate forces and search frantically till the day-dawn. But all trace of Countess Vera is swallowed up in the blackness of the stormy, mysterious night.
In the early dawn, a telegram flashes over the wires to Colonel Lockhart in London:
"Come quickly. Vera has been abducted."
In an obscure but respectable street in London, Mrs. Cleveland and Ivy had hidden themselves away in cheap and shabby lodgings, the better to husband the small hoard of money that remained to them of all their departed wealth and grandeur.
"I will never consent to sell my jewels and dresses, never!" the repudiated wife declared, firmly, the ruling passion still strong even in her defeat and disgrace. "For when Leslie finds that Vera will not live with him, and when Mr. Gilmore's lawyers prove her to be the adventuress and impostor that she is, he will return to me, and I shall be his wife again. We will return to America, where no one knows anything of our trouble, and then I shall need my fine dresses and jewels again."
"But what if we come to want in the meantime?" Mrs. Cleveland inquires grimly.
"You may sell your rubies. They are worth a thousand pounds, at least, and the proceeds will keep us comfortable for some time," Ivy answers, with cool insolence.
So, with the dread of selling her beloved rubies before her eyes, Mrs. Cleveland proceeds to practice economy with a vengeance, living in the cheapest style with a view to lengthening to its utmost capacity the check that Leslie Noble had contemptuously thrown them at their last interview.
But the wily widow has her own schemes and plans for the future, though she imparts none of them to Ivy, whose selfishness and insolence have begun to disgust even the wicked and crafty woman who bore her. Ivy always contrived to make herself a despised burden to anyone who had aught to do with her. Even her mother was sensible of that patent fact.
In these days of their disgrace and humiliation, the deserted wife shut herself into her shabby chamber, incessantly bewailing her hard fate, and upbraiding her mother for her long-ago sin which had been the means of bringing down this vengeance on her daughter's head. Not that Ivy regretted the wrong that had broken the hearts of Lawrence and Edith Campbell, but she was exceedingly wroth that the consequences had recoiled upon her own devoted head.
While she nurses her woes in the seclusion of her small, hot chamber, Mrs. Cleveland is maturing her plans for the future in the shabby-genteel parlor where she is interviewing a visitor—no less a person than Raleigh Gilmore.
Mr. Gilmore, after a calm, dispassionate view, does not appear like a man who would honor the title and estates from which he is desirous of ousting the present fair incumbent, Lady Fairvale. He is tall and thin, and stoop-shouldered, with shaggling, gray hair, gray, ferret eyes, and a coarse face on which nature has stamped "villain" too unmistakably for cavil. So much the better for her purpose, the woman thinks to herself as she reads the cunning features like an open book.
The first purport of their interview having been discussed, the visitor proceeds to the second.
"When I received your letter advising me of your ability and willingness to furnish evidence to oust that adventuress from Fairvale and leave me in possession, you hinted at a reward which you should exact in return for your valuable services," he observes, regarding her closely under his shaggy, overhanging, gray eyebrows.
"Yes," she remarks, with a cool, self-possessed bow.
"I should be glad to know the amount of the sum that will compensate your aid," Mr. Gilmore pursues, as eagerly as if he already held the vast wealth of Fairvale within his close, penurious grasp.
A slight, mocking smile glances over the wily widow's handsome, well-preserved face.
"You are a bachelor, I have heard," she answers, in a significant tone.
"Yes; I have never liked women well enough to tie myself to one," Mr. Gilmore retorts, with grim frankness.
The widow tosses her head.
"I am sorry for that," she says, audaciously; "I had hoped you would like my looks, for I must tell you frankly, that the reward I claim is to share your good fortunein totoas your wife."
He stares at her, growing pale in his angry amazement.
"There will be a kind of poetic compensation in such a marriage," Mrs. Cleveland pursues, coolly enjoying his rage. "I loved Lawrence Campbell, but my half-sister stole his heart fromme. By rights I should have been his wife, and in course of time, Countess of Fairvale. No reward will satisfy me except to step into Vera Campbell's place and reign absolute sovereign where she has queened it so long. You see I do not offer to take away anything from you, only to share it with you."
"But, Mrs. Cleveland—madam—I have already explained to you that I am prejudiced against women. I do not wish to marry," protests the old bachelor, finding voice after his first surprise.
"So you reject me?" she inquires, with an air of chagrin.
"Yes, decidedly yes," he returns, nervously. "Be pleased to name some other reward."
"I have already explained to you that nothing will satisfy me except to be Countess of Fairvale. I wish to ride rough shod over Vera Campbell's heart, and in no other way could I be revenged so well as in taking her own place. Since you deny me this small grace I decline to help you to the earldom, and all that we have said about it goes for nothing," returns the widow, with the utmost frankness.
Anger almost gets the better of Mr. Gilmore for a moment, but crushing back the words upon his lips, he looks steadily at the speaker in blank silence.
"You do not find me very bad-looking, do you?" she inquires, with an air of unruffled good nature.
"On the contrary, I think you decidedly handsome and well-preserved. I never expected to be courted by so fine-looking a woman. Do you consider me handsome, madam?"
"Not at all. You are abominably ugly," she replies, after a calm scrutiny of his face. "If I marry you, it will not be for any personal merit you possess, only as a stepping-stone to power."
"You are very candid, but since you have the balance of power in your hands, you can afford to speak freely. Madam, I offer you my heart, hand and fortune. Will you accept them?" he exclaims, in grim displeasure.
"Are you in earnest?" she inquires.
"Never more so. You have left me no alternative," he answers, bitterly. "But I warn you, I shall not make a very loving husband."
"Nor I a loving wife. But I accept you as I said just now, as a stepping-stone to power," she replies, with provoking coolness.
He rises to depart.
"It is settled, then," he observes, with forced complaisance. "You will help me to the earldom, and I will pay you by making you my bride. When shall the wedding be?"
"On the day when you take possession of Fairvale's title and estates," she answers, promptly. "Au revoir, my charming bridegroom."
Ere Lady Vera fully recovers consciousness again, she has reached her destination, the ruins of a once fine old mansion in the heart of a dense wood near the sea.
She opens her eyes in a large and lofty upper chamber to find herself lying in a high, old-fashioned, four posted bed, with faded hangings of crimson velvet. Two waxen candles in silver candelabra on the tall, carved mantel shed a soft, steady light through the room, and by their aid Vera deciphers the features of a stout, middle-aged woman, in cap and apron, who is bending over her, bathing her face and hands with aromatic vinegar.
The beautiful girl springs up to a sitting posture with a cry of fear and indignation, and with outstretched hands repulses the woman.
"Do not touch me, wretch!" she cries. "How dared you bring me here, away from my home and friends? You shall suffer for this."
But the woman only smiles as if at the ravings of a spoiled child.
"My lady, you are mistaken," she answers, not unkindly. "It was your husband who brought you here. I am only your maid. I am here to wait upon you."
"I have no husband," Lady Vera answers, with a cold thrill of fear creeping around her heart.
"Oh, my lady, don't go for to say that," the woman answers, cajolingly. "Such a kind, handsome man as Mr. Noble is ought not to be denied by his wife. I'm sure it was very good in him to carry you off, and hide you from the people as wanted to put you into a lunatic asylum. The keepers would have abused you dreadfully, my poor dear, but I shall be as kind and patient with you as your own mother. Your husband is that tender-hearted he couldn't bear to see you ill-used."
"So it is Leslie Noble who has abducted me," Lady Vera thinks to herself, with a start. Up to that moment her suspicions had turned upon Marcia Cleveland. "The wretch! And he has pretended to this woman that I am crazy."
The crimson color flies into the captive's face, then retreats, leaving her deathly pale again. She rises and walks up to the woman, who retreats half-fearfully before her.
"You need not fear me," Lady Vera tells her, sadly. "I have no intention of harming you. I only wish to ask you a simple question."
Thus adjured, the woman waits respectfully, humoring the whim of her mistress.
"Look at me," says Lady Vera, lifting the dark fringe of her brilliant, star-like eyes, and fixing a calm, steady gaze on the woman's face. "Do I look like a mad person? You know that lunatics have a wild, dangerous glare in their eyes. Are not mine calm, reasonable, steady?"
"She is one of the cunning ones," the maid mutters to herself, then aloud, soothingly, she answers: "They are beautiful eyes, my lady, so bright and black! No wonder my master adores you, so lovely as you are."
"I tell you I am not mad," Vera cries impatiently, vexed at the woman's stolid persistence in her belief. "I am as sane as you are, and your master is a villain. He has abducted me frommy friends and my home, but they will trace me out and punish him for his villany, be sure of that."
"Come, my dear, do not excite yourself. It will all come well. Sit down in this arm-chair, and make yourself comfortable, while I go and fetch your lunch and a cup of tea. I dare say you have had no dinner, traveling so far."
She wheels forward a large, crimson-cushioned easy-chair, but Lady Vera rejects it with a gesture of scorn.
"Where is the man you call your master?" she inquires, haughtily. "Is he in the house?"
"Yes, my lady. Should you be pleased to see him?" inquires her keeper, deferentially.
"Yes; tell him to come. I wish to know the meaning of this dastardly outrage," the countess answers, indignantly.
The woman withdraws with a bow. The click of a key in the lock informs Lady Vera that she is a prisoner. She paces up and down the floor, a storm of indignation raging in her breast, mixed with a wild hope that her friends will soon deliver her from the trap into which she had walked so unsuspectingly.
Suddenly the key clicks in the lock, and Leslie Noble walks boldly into the room.
For a moment they regard each other silently, Mr. Noble appearing handsome and elegant as usual, having removed the disfiguring toggery that had transformed him into a stooping old woman, and Lady Vera facing him with her slight form drawn haughtily erect, the scorn of an outraged queen flashing in her dark and star-like eyes.
"Coward, villain, how dared you perpetrate this high-handed outrage?" she demands, in a clear, high voice, that trembles with its bitter anger.
For answer he throws himself abjectly at her feet.
"Vera, my love, my darling, my wife, my passionate love must plead my excuse. I loved you and I could not live without you. So I brought you away where I might have some chance to plead my cause with you and win your heart," he answers, weakly, still kneeling there, and gazing at her with adoring eyes.
A scornful laugh ripples over the listener's beautiful lips as she retreats from him to the furthest corner of the room.
"And did you think this craven course could win my heart?" she asks, with stinging contempt. "Was it a manly, a lovable feat to don the rags of a poor and feeble old woman, that you might kidnap a weak girl who hated you? Was it to surrender my heart to the handsome and manly figure you appeared on that occasion?"
He writhes beneath the keen lash of her superb scorn.
"Edward Rochester masqueraded as an old woman, and yet Jane Eyre loved and admired him as her hero among men," he answers, sullenly, rising to his feet.
"There is no parallel between the cases," she answers, icily."You can bring no precedent from fiction or history that could make me admireyou, either in your own form or any other. I despise you, I have always despised you, and I warn you that my friends will rescue me out of your power. I left your lying note behind me with directions that I must be sought for if I failed to return. Even now they are searching for me. At any moment I expect them to rescue me."
He pales at first, then laughs easily.
"You were more crafty than I deemed you, but I am not frightened," he answers. "Do you know where you are? You are thirty miles from Fairvale Park, in the midst of a dense wood. You are occupying the only habitable chamber in a ruined and deserted old mansion, whose owner is in Egypt. The place has the name of being haunted, and no one ever ventures into the vicinity. I have hired the woman you saw just now at an extravagant bribe to remain here to guard and wait on you. I have sworn to her that you are mad, and she firmly believes me. She will regard all you say as the aimless ravings of a lunatic. Now do you believe it likely that you will soon be delivered out of my power?"
She has no answer ready for him now. Despair has stricken her dumb.
"It does not rest with your friends, it does not rest with me to say when you shall go free," he pursues, coolly. "It is all for you to say, Lady Vera. I am ready to make a treaty of peace with you at any time."
"How?" she asks, with white lips.
"You are my wife," he answers. "I love you, and if you will consent to acknowledge my claim upon you, and live with me, I will take you back to Fairvale Park to-morrow."
"And do you think I would purchase freedom upon such ignominious terms?" she asks, with a curling lip. "Live with you, coward to your first wife, traitor to your second? Not for an hour. I would pine to death in this loathsome prison first, and die thanking Heaven for my happy release from the arts of a villain."
"You forget that you are here alone, defenseless, utterly in my power," he answers, pale with anger and shame. "What is there to prevent me from forcing you to do my will?"
Crimson for a moment, then pale as death again, Countess Vera lifts her hand.
"God is here," she answers, solemnly, "God is here, and He will protect me. I tell you frankly," she goes on with vehement emphasis, "I will kill you, or I will kill myself before I will yield to your will. Do not attempt to drive me desperate."
Pale with rage, he thrusts his hand into his breast and withdraws the missing memorandum-book.
Lady Vera's face lights up at that sight.
"So youdidhave it," she cries out, quickly. "You are a thief as well as an abductor of helpless women! Oh, for shame, for shame!"
His face grows black as night.
"As you are in my power, you would do well to moderate yourlanguage," he answers, in the low tone of bitter rage. "Beware how you transform my love to hate!"
"I fear neither your love nor your hate," Countess Vera answers, dauntlessly.
"Perhaps you will pay a heavier ransom for this book than you would have done simply for your freedom—will you not?"
"Is the same ransom required?" she asks, regarding him steadily.
"Yes."
"I would purchase no earthly boon at so terrible a price," Countess Vera answers, shuddering.
"Not even title, wealth and power?" he asks, significantly.
"All three I can claim already," she answers, with a gesture of unconscious pride.
"But if you must lose all without this little talisman?" he inquires, in the same significant tone, and regarding her intently.
"I can do without the talisman, as you call it," she answers, coldly. "Before I fell asleep that day, every word of my father's memorandum was fixed in my memory. I have written to Joel McPherson to come to England and establish my identity with that of the girl who was buried alive in Glenwood Cemetery."
For a moment Leslie Noble stares blankly at his beautiful opponent, dismayed at her calm declaration.
"By Jove! but you are a keen one," he mutters, unable to repress a glance of angry admiration. "You seem to anticipate everything. I did not credit you with such a ready brain. And so you have written to Joel McPherson?"
"Yes," she answers, with a little note of triumph in her voice.
"Yes, and I have written to a friend of mine in Washington to keep the sexton of Glenwood out of the way by force, or fraud, or bribe; you will never see him in England until he comes by my will," he answers, insolently.
Coldly disdainful, she makes him no reply.
"Do you know what will happen to you if you continue to defy me?" he goes on, angrily. "Raleigh Gilmore is about to begin a suit against you. His aim is to prove you an impostor. Mrs. Cleveland is aiding and abetting him in the endeavor. She hates you so bitterly that she will stop at nothing to drag you down from your high estate. They will succeed, unless Joel McPherson's evidence can be given against them. With the old sexton lies the only real knowledge of that night's mystery, when Vera Campbell was removed from the grave where I myself saw her laid. You alone can never prove that Earl Fairvale's heiress rose from that grave again."
He pauses, but her bloodless lips offer no reply.
"Admit my rights as your husband, Vera, and I will fight with you and by your side for the grand heritage your father left you. I will summon Joel McPherson to your aid and prove your identity beyond all cavil. Deny me and I swear I will be terribly revengeful for your obstinacy. I will join the ranks of your enemies. I will deny that you are my wife. Your defeat will be certain then. Think of yourself penniless, friendless, branded all over England as an adventuress and impostor."
The beautiful face is deadly pale, the hands are clenched until the pink nails cut into the delicate palms. In silent agony she admits to herself that his threats are not at all idle ones. Sir Harry Clive's reluctant communications have prepared her for all this.
"Well, what have you to say to all this?" he asks of the silent figure before him.
"Nothing. I know that of myself I am utterly powerless. I leave my cause with God," she answers, briefly.
He smothers a curse on his dark mustached lips.
"So you will lose all rather than take me for your husband?" he asks her, in unfeigned amazement.
She lifts her eyes for a moment, and surveys him with a look of steady contempt.
"Have you still any doubt on that point?" she inquires, fearlessly and defiantly. "Let me assure you then that I would rather be a homeless beggar in the streets of London than submit to your loathsome love!"
The look, the tone, the words, fill him with blind, overmastering rage.
"By Heaven, I will make you repent those words!" he exclaims, springing toward her and clasping his arm around her slender waist.
But with one piercing cry of terror Countess Vera puts her hand into her breast and withdraws a tiny, jewel-hilted dagger.
Maddened with fear, she thrusts the keen blade into the arm that holds her so tightly, and with a scream of pain the villain releases her and retreats to the door.
"Oh, Mr. Noble, your arm is all bleeding!" exclaims the woman, entering at that moment with the tea-tray.
"Yes, my wife is in one of her occasional violent fits, and has tried to murder me," he answers, shortly.
"She has a dagger which you must try to get away from her or she may hurt you too. Lock her into the room now and come down and dress my wound for me," he adds, stalking out of the room.
The woman advanced into the room and deposited her tea-tray on the table. A tempting little lunch was arranged upon it in a pretty china service.
"Come, Mrs. Noble, and drink your tea while it is still warm," she said, coaxingly. "I know you are tired and hungry. Will you take a bit of this chicken salad and cold sliced ham? 'Twill do you good."
"I have no appetite, thank you," Vera answers, turning her head aside.
"Well, I'll leave the tray with you while I go and bind up master's wounded arm. Mayhap you'll eat by-and-bye," the woman answers kindly as she goes out, carefully locking the door behind her.
Left to herself, Lady Vera draws a long breath of relief, andturning to a window, draws aside the heavy velvet curtain, glancing anxiously out for any possible prospect of release.
Alas! her captor's words proved all too true. The first faint beams of dawn rising palely in the east, show her the wide, dense belt of woodland surrounding the ruined mansion in which she is imprisoned.
The wild, tangled garden beneath the window sends up gusts of rainy perfume to her eager senses. She pushes up the sash and leans out, inhaling the fresh, sweet air, and wondering if it would not be possible to escape through the window from this horrible trap into which her credulity had led her.
Alas! her eager, downward glance shows her that she is in the third story of the house.
She drops the heavy curtain and sinks shivering to a seat, worn and trembling with the terrible experiences of the night. Her thoughts fly to the home from whence she has been so rudely torn.
"Are they frightened? Are they seeking for me, I wonder?" she thinks. "Oh, may God guide them in their search!"
And then she thinks of her lost lover, handsome, manly Philip Lockhart. She knows how heavily the blow will fall on that true, manly, loving heart.
She leans her head wearily down on her arm, and gives herself up to the sad, sweet pleasure of thinking of Philip Lockhart. Gradually a weary sleep steals over her, from which she is awakened by the entrance of her keeper.
"Asleep, dear? I'm sorry I awakened ye," she says, blandly. "Do you feel better of your little fit of temper?"
Lady Vera makes no answer to this kind query.
"Mr. Noble has gone up to London," pursues the maid, glibly. "He left his love and good-bye for you. You gave him quite an ugly cut, so you did, my pretty lady. Won't you let poor old Betsy Robson see the pretty little knife you did it with?" she continues, coaxingly.
Lady Vera lifts her eyes and regards her calmly.
"Betsy Robson, if that is your name," she said, "listen to me a moment. I have a dagger concealed on my person, and Leslie Noble has set you on to take it from me. I warn you that if you make the slightest attempt to do so, it will be at the peril of your life. It is my only weapon of defense against Leslie Noble, and I will never part with it while I am in that villain's power."
"Oh, fie, my lady, why should you be so set against your loving husband?" remonstrates Mrs. Robson.
Lady Vera regards her keenly.
"Are you acting a part, or do you really believe what that man tells you?" she asks, wonderingly. "I tell you Leslie Noble has no claim on me at all. He is a villain who has stolen me away from my home and friends to try to force me to be his wife. I am Lady Fairvale, of Fairvale Park, and if you will restore me to my liberty, Mrs. Robson, I will reward you generously."
The dark eyes, full of bitter tears now, are lifted pleadingly tothe woman's stolid face, but the wild appeal only elicits some words under Betsy Robson's breath:
"Poor soul! He told me she fancied she was some great, rich lady. A pity she is so wild-like. So lovely as she is, too, and might be such a pride to her handsome husband."
Countess Vera turns away her head with a heart-wrung cry.
"Oh, may God forgive you, woman, for lending yourself to this wicked conspiracy against a wronged girl! Surely He who reigns above will send me safe deliverance from my prison-house."
"Poor, pretty creature, raving mad, that she is," comments stupid, yet kind-hearted Betsy Robson.
The utmost dismay and horror settled down upon the household at Fairvale Park when it was found that every trace of Lady Vera's whereabouts was swallowed up in impenetrable darkness and mystery.
Sir Harry and Lady Clive believed that Mrs. Cleveland was the guilty party who had decoyed her from her home, and they foreboded that the too-confiding girl had been murdered in cold blood by her ruthless foe. Little Hal's story of the woman who had given him the note for Lady Vera in the wood confirmed them in their first suspicions, and they bitterly bewailed Lady Vera's mistaken clemency in letting her would-be murderess go free that night in London.
But when Colonel Lockhart came down from London that evening in response to their telegram, though he was almost distracted by this new and crushing blow to his happiness, the quick instinct of love turned his suspicions unerringly to the truth.
"It is not Mrs. Cleveland who has abducted Lady Vera. I cannot believe it for an instant. She would not have ventured on such a course," he says, decidedly; "Leslie Noble is the guilty party."
"Then what are we to do, Philip?" Lady Clive asks, piteously.
"We must oppose cunning to cunning," he answers, thoughtfully. "I shall return to London to-night and employ a skillful detective to shadow Leslie Noble's every footstep. You may be sure that the wretch has shut Lady Vera up in some obscure place in the hope of coercing her to yield to his wishes. Oh, Heaven, what anguish may not my darling be suffering now while I am powerless to rescue her!"
He walks distractedly up and down the floor, while tears of not unmanly grief gather in his troubled blue eyes.
"But, Philip, you forget that it was a woman who gave little Hal the note for Lady Vera," exclaims Sir Harry, unwilling to give up his theory of Mrs. Cleveland's handiwork in the abduction.
"Leslie Noble may have employed a woman as his tool in the affair, or he may have masqueraded in female attire himself, but I am sure that he is the guilty party," Colonel Lockhart answers, unshaken in his conviction, "But to satisfy your doubts, SirHarry, we will have a watch set upon Mrs. Cleveland also. Nothing shall be left undone that can possibly tend to the rescue of Lady Vera from the power of her enemies."
He goes back to London that night.
Sir Harry Clive and his family follow him the next day. Two of the most skillful detectives in London are quietly set on the track of the supposed guilty parties. All London rings with the story of the daring abduction of the beautiful Countess of Fairvale.
At first public opinion was strong against the Clevelands and Mr. Noble, but when it is discovered that all three are living quietly but openly in London, a doubt falls on the first suspicions. An inexplicable mystery centers around that strange disappearance.
The sensation grows all the greater because, simultaneously with her disappearance, Raleigh Gilmore had entered suit against her for the title and estates of Fairvale, alleging that the true heiress had died in her early girlhood, and that the late earl had foisted an impostor on the public as his daughter.
But pending the return of the missing countess, the lawsuit lay in abeyance. Nothing could be done in her absence, and conjecture became rife over the strange circumstances of her abduction. Various opinions were advanced.
Raleigh Gilmore did not hesitate to assert his conviction that there had been no abduction in the case. Lady Vera had simply run away from fear of the threatened suit against her, knowing that she could not defend herself against the prosecution, and ashamed to stay and face the trial where she would be branded as a beautiful and lying impostor whom the late earl had adopted as his daughter.
There was not the slightest likelihood that she would ever return, he asserted, vehemently, and he would have liked to take possession of Fairvale at once, but the strong arm of the law held him back, and meanwhile, Sir Harry Clive engaged the most eminent lawyers to defend the missing heiress.
A man was sent to America to collect information at Washington. No pains nor expense was spared on either side to make the contest a close and exciting one. Raleigh Gilmore found few believers in his cause, and few friends.
But amid all the storm of wonder and conjecture in London, there was one woman whose suspicions had pointed, like Philip Lockhart's, unerringly to the truth. This was Ivy Cleveland. Her jealous instincts had at once settled upon her whilom husband as the abductor of Lady Vera.
Meanwhile the weeks wane slowly with no tidings of the lost one. The blackest mystery enshrouds her fate. The keen detectives are baffled and thrown off the scent by Leslie Noble's inimitablesang froid. He leads the careless life of a man about town, never leaving the city, his slightest actions open to scrutiny, no mystery seeming to be hidden under his comings and goings.
But though the detectives begin to hint that they are beatingabout the wrong bush, Colonel Lockhart's firm convictions are in no wise altered.
He holds them closely to their duty, though they find nothing suspicious either in the movements of Mr. Noble or Mrs. Cleveland.
But though Colonel Lockhart is outwardly so calm and firm, his noble heart is wrung with despair over the fate of his lost Vera.
"My poor Phil, this terrible sorrow is making an old man of you," his sister sighs, sorrowfully, as she threads her jeweled fingers softly through his hair.
"It is hard lines upon me, that is true, Nella," he answers, with a repressed sigh, as he draws his arm around her waist.