CHAPTER XII.OUTWITTED.
As nearly hopeless as Everard Dawn’s pursuit of the fugitives had appeared even to himself when he began it, he had succeeded better than he could have expected.
His only hope had been to catch them at the station before the arrival of the train; but, owing to Arthur’s careful driving in the storm, and the stoppage to take in the woman found unconscious in the road, he had overtaken them while yet half a mile from the station.
He had run all the way to the livery stable, and as soon as a sleigh was furnished, leaped in and drove off at the highest speed possible in the condition of the weather, his mind wrought to the highest tension of trouble, renderinghim unconscious of personal danger. As the horse trotted briskly along, under the urging of voice and whip, the light sleigh rocked from side to side, almost overturning twice, but eventually gaining on Arthur’s horse, until he perceived the stoppage in the road by the light that streamed from Arthur’s lamps upon the snow.
He heard their voices blending with the wind, he saw something lifted into the sleigh, and wondered if his daughter had fallen out. Then, as Arthur leaped in and chirruped to his pony, he rose in his seat and shouted furiously:
“Halt, or I fire! Choose between death or instant surrender!”
And to emphasize his words, he instantly fired into the air, making both their horses snort and rear with terror.
Arthur’s only reply was to touch his horse with the whip, making it bound furiously forward.
A most unequal race ensued, Arthur’s sleigh being encumbered with the weight of three, while Mr. Dawn was quite alone.
One, two, three minutes, and Mr. Dawn’s horse flashed past Arthur’s. Then he drove across the front of the road, shouting, hoarsely:
“Stop! There will be a collision!”
Cinthia had slipped down senseless in her seat, and nothing but surrender was possible now. With a silent curse at his evil fate, Arthur pulled the lines, forcinghis plunging pony to a stand-still, as Everard Dawn continued, menacingly:
“I do not wish to harm you, Mr. Varian, but you must give me back my daughter!”
Arthur felt like a coward, but he realized that no other course was possible now. With a groan, he answered:
“I would rather part with my life than this dear girl, Mr. Dawn. Oh, think a moment, before you sunder our loving hearts, of the despair you are bringing into both our lives!”
Everard Dawn drove back to the side of the sleigh where Arthur waited, and said, sternly:
“Cinthia!”
“She is unconscious, sir.”
“Ah, then, it was Cinthia you lifted into the sleigh. Is she hurt?”
“It was not Cinthia, but an unconscious woman I found in the road.”
“If Cinthia is unconscious, so much the better. We will have no scene with her in transferring her to my charge, and she will not hear what I must say to you.”
“Speak on, sir,” Arthur answered most bitterly in his keen resentment. And Mr. Dawn began:
“I think very hardly of you, Arthur Varian, for disregarding my words to you this morning. I said frankly to you that reasons of the gravest import forbid the marriage of yourself and Cinthia.”
“I had a right to be informed of those reasons, sir,” Arthur said, hotly.
“Say you so? Then go to your mother, Arthur Varian, and ask of her the reason why my daughter can never be your wife!”
Arthur started in surprise that this man should know aught of his mother, but answered, quickly:
“She can not know anything against it, since only this morning she gave her pleased consent.”
“She knows better now; and I say again, go to her and ask her for the truth,” replied Everard Dawn, as he stepped out of the sleigh to take possession of Cinthia.
Arthur was before him. He lifted the inanimate form in his arms, and kissed the cold, white face in despairing love before he resigned her to the impatient father’s arms.
“Ah, you can not surely guess of what a priceless treasure you are robbing me, Mr. Dawn! May Heaven judge between us whether you have been merciful to me!” he cried, reproachfully.
“I rest my cause with Heaven,” Mr. Dawn answered, reverently, as he placed Cinthia in the sleigh, covered her with warm robes, and drove away with a cold good-night to the young man, who continued his course to the station as fast as he could urge his horse to go.
In his agony of grief at losing his beautiful, promised bride, and in hot resentment of what he deemed hardness of heart in her father, Arthur Varian had yielded withoutreflection upon the baseness of it, to a sudden, overmastering temptation.
His caresses and emotion on handing the unconscious woman to Mr. Dawn had been simply a superb bit of acting. It was the poor waif of the road he had placed in the arms of Everard Dawn, thus completely outwitting the unhappy father while he drove rapidly on to the station, hoping to board the train before his deception was discovered.
In a moment the few scattering midnight lights of the railway town began to appear, and Cinthia gasped and opened her eyes, beginning to sob with alarm:
“Oh, oh, oh!”
“It is all right, darling. We have distanced our pursuers,” said Arthur, cheerfully. “And here we are at the station, and the train is coming. We have not time to go into the waiting-room.”
He helped her out, and called a negro boy, to whom he intrusted his sleigh, telling him to return it to Idlewild next day, and pressing a liberal reward into his willing hand.
Then he helped the bewildered Cinthia aboard the train and led her at once to a stove, saying, tenderly:
“Warm yourself, my darling, while I try to secure seats in the parlor car.”
“It is very unfortunate, indeed,” said the conductor, “but the Pullman sleeper is crowded. Only one berthwas vacant when they came into the station, and it has just been engaged by a ladyen routefor New York.”
The lady had indeed just taken possession of her berth, brushing haughtily past without taking notice of either. Neither did Arthur notice her, or he would have seen with surprise that it was his own mother. Deeply chagrined that he could not get quarters for Cinthia in the parlor car, he returned to her side, and they spent the hours very happily till morning.