"Trifles light as airSeemed confirmation strong as Holy Writ"
"Trifles light as airSeemed confirmation strong as Holy Writ"
as she viewed them now.
"Even the guests notice how attentive he is to her," she said to herself, with a bitter sob, wringing her cold little hands and clutching them tightly over her heart.
Suddenly she heard the sound of voices, and sank down upon a seat at hand until they should pass by.
She did not know that the seat which she had selected on the broad piazza was directly back of one of the large, vine-wreathed, fluted pillars, and in the dense shadow.
This time she readily divined that the voices must belong to two light-hearted, happy girls.
"Are you having a good time, Grace, dear?" asked one.
"Oh, quite the jolliest I have ever had in all my life!" was the reply. "I haven't missed one dance, and all my partners have been so handsome—quite the prettiest fellows in the ball-room! And how is it with you?"
"Oh, I'm enjoying myself, too!" laughed the other girl, "But did you notice what a ninny I had in that last waltz-quadrille? Don't you hate partners who stand away off, and barely touch your finger-tips as they dance with you? Upon my word, I'd rather have the straight-as-a-mackerel kind, who hold you so tight you can scarcely catch your breath!"
And at this both girls went off into uproarious laughter, when suddenly one of them exclaimed:
"Have you yet had a waltz with handsome Harry Kendal?"
"No," returned the other, ruefully. "At the last ball I went to he was almost wild to put his name down for every waltz with me. But, after all, I can not wonder at that when I see how greatly he is infatuated with the beauty of the ball to-night—the fair Iris Vincent."
"Have you heard all the talk to-night about that?"chimed in the other, her voice sinking to a low, confidential tone. "Every one has noticed it, and it is the talk of the ball-room."
"It is shameful for him to carry on so," returned her companion, "when every one knows that his wedding day with poor, blind Dorothy Glenn is so near at hand."
"Do you know," said the other, slowly, "that I doubt if he will ever marry Dorothy now? You must remember that he became engaged to her before that terrible accident. And do you know there is great diversity of opinion as to whether the poor fellow should marry her or not. It is very nice to read about in books—of lovers proving true to theirfiancéesthrough every trouble and tribulation—but I tell you they don't do it in real life. When trouble comes to a girl, nine lovers out of ten fly from her 'to seek pastures new;' and, after all, to come right down to the fine point, between you and me, could you really blame Harry Kendal if he were to break off with Dorothy? He is young and handsome, and I say that it would be a bitter shame for him to go through life with a blind girl for a wife; and when I think of it I actually feel indignant with the girl for holding him to his engagement under such circumstances. She ought to know that in time he would actually hate her for it. She can share none of his joys. Why, she would be only a pitiful burden to handsome Harry Kendal! That girl whom he seems so infatuated with would be a thousand times more suitable for him. Oh, what a handsome couple they do make! And every one can see, though they think they hide it so well, how desperately they are in love with each other."
They moved on, little dreaming of the ruin and blight they had left behind them.
They were scarcely out of hearing when the great cry that had been choked back so long burst forth in a wild, piercing wail of agony that meant the breaking then and there of a human heart. But the dance-music inside, to which the joyous, merry feet kept time, completely drowned it.
Dorothy had risen from her chair, and the look on her face was terrible to behold.
"Let me quite understand it," she whispered—"let me try to realize and grasp the awful truth: Harry Kendal, my lover, has ceased to care for me, and is lavishing his attention, nay, more, his affection, upon another and one who in return loves him; and they say that I should give him up to her—I, who love him better than my own life! He is all I have left me in my terrible affliction, and they would take even him from me and give him to another. They said it was not right for me to cling to him, and to burden him with a blind wife through life—that the thought is torture to him. Oh, God in Heaven! can it be true?"
And again the angels at the great White Throne were startled with the piercing cries of woe that broke from the girl's white lips, which once more the dance-music mercifully drowned.
"I will go to him and confront him with what I have heard. He shall choose between us before all the people assembled here to-night. I will fling myself upon my knees at his feet, crying out: 'Oh, my darling! my love! my life! tell me that the cruel rumors which I have heard are false—that you donot hate me because—because of the awful affliction that Heaven has seen fit to put upon me! Turn from the girl by your side to me—to me, your promised bride! She can never love you as I do. You are my all—my world! If I were to die to-day—aye, within this hour—my soul could not leave this earth while you were here! I would cling to you in life or in death!'"
With a swift motion Dorothy turned and re-entered the house, forgetful of her blindness, and to count the steps which she had taken, remembering only that she was undergoing the greatest trial of her life.
Swift as a fluttering swallow she hastened across the broad piazza, but in the confusion of her whirling brain she had mistaken the direction.
One instant more, too quick for a cry, too quick for a moan, she had stepped off the veranda, and fell with a terrible thud down five feet below, and lay, stunned and unconscious, on the graveled walk.
The shock was so sudden, so terrible that surely God in His mercy was kind in that the fearful pain of the fall was not realized by her.
The moments dragged themselves wearily by as she lay there. Fully half an hour elapsed. No one missed her save Katy, no one thought of looking for her out in the cold and darkness, which was penetrated only by the dim light of the stars. The dew of night fell silently, pityingly upon the white, upturned face and curling golden hair, which lay tangled among the sharp pebbles. Gradually consciousness dawned upon her brain. The warm blood crept back to the chilled veins and pulsed feebly, but with it camethe remembrance of the terrible blow that had fallen upon her.
Dorothy staggered to her feet, but as she did so a strange electric shock seemed to pass through her body and balls of fire to whirl before her eyes. But as they cleared away a great cry broke from the girl's lips:
"Oh, God! can it be true? Heaven has restored my sight to me as miraculously as it was taken from me!"
Once again she saw the blue sky, with its myriads of golden-hearted stars, bending over her; the great stone house, with its lighted windows, and beyond, the tall, dark oak trees, with their great, widespread tossing branches; and she fell upon her knees and kissed the very stones at her feet and the green blades of waving grass that she never once thought she would see again, and she raised her white arms to heaven with such piteous cries of thankfulness that the angels must have heard and wept over.
Yes, Dorothy's sight had been restored to her as miraculously as it had been taken from her.
But even in the midst of her great joy the dregs of woe still lingered as memory brought back to her the terrible ordeal through which she had passed.
With bated breath she turned and crept swiftly back to the house and up to the long windows that opened out on the porch, sobbing bitterly to herself that she would see at last if her lover was true or false to her.
With her heart throbbing with the most intense excitement, Dorothy pushed aside the great clusters of crimson creepers and thick green leaves, pressed her white face close against the window-pane, and gazed in upon the gorgeous scene.
For an instant the great blaze of light dazzled her weak eyes, and everything seemed to swim before her.
But gradually, little by little, she began to distinguish objects, and at last her eyes fell upon the face of Harry Kendal.
With a great cry, the girl clutched her hands tightly over her heart. She never thought that she would look upon his face again in this world.
It washisface—the face of her hero, her king, before which all else paled as the moonbeams pale before the glaring light of the rising sun. Then suddenly she saw the face beside him into which he was gazing, and it was then that the heart in her bosom almost turned to stone.
Never in all her life had she beheld such a vision of loveliness, and she knew in an instant that the proud beauty must be Iris Vincent.
Slowly Dorothy crept around to the other side of the porch, up to the window, that she might have a better view of them, and perhaps she could hear what they were saying.
But as she reached it, to her great disappointment she saw them link arms and stroll out of the ball-room toward the conservatory, and thither she bent her steps, intent upon reaching it before they did.
She had barely screened herself behind a talljardinièreof roses and flowering plants, ere, laughing and chattering, the two entered the floral bower.
"The ball is a grand success, Iris," he was saying, gayly; "they all seem to be enjoying themselves immensely. How is it with you?"
"It is a night that will stand out forever in my life," she responded, glancing up at him with those dangerously dark eyes, and a smile on her red lips.
The girl who watched them breathlessly from behind the roses clutched her hands over her heart.
The sight maddened her. They were so near each other, their heads bent so close; and while she gazed, suddenly Kendal bent still closer and kissed the girl's lips.
Dorothy tried to cry aloud, to spring out and confront them. Her brain reeled; the blood, chill as ice, stood still in her veins, and without a cry, or even a moan she sank down unconscious in her hiding-place.
"What is that sound?" cried Iris, with a start.
"Only some of the clumsy servants in the corridor without," replied Kendal. "But, Iris, are you trying to avoid me? I have brought you here to tell you something, and you must listen. The time has come when we must fully understand each other. You know quite as well as I that the life we are leading, Iris, can not go on like this forever. From the first moment we met the attraction I felt toward you changed the whole current of my life."
Iris hid her face in the bouquet of white hyacinths which she carried.
"It is too late to talk of that now," she murmured."Your heart went out to another before—before I met you."
"There is such a thing as affections waning when one discovers that one's heart is not truly mated, Iris," he cried.
She did not answer; and thus emboldened by her silence, he went on, huskily:
"Let me give you the whole history of my meeting with Dorothy Glenn, from first to last, and you will understand the situation better. You can realize, Iris, that an acquaintance which commences through a flirtation, as it were, can never end in true love. Such an acquaintance is not a lasting one. Come and sit down on this rustic seat, Iris, and listen; and as we sit here in the dim, mellow light, you shall judge me, and your decision shall seal my fate."
At the self-same moment in which Harry Kendal was beginning his narrative, there was quite a commotion at the outer gate which guarded the main entrance of Gray Gables.
One of the servants, lounging lazily at his post of duty, was suddenly startled out of the doze into which he had fallen by the shadow of a woman flitting hurriedly past him.
"Hold on, there! Hold on, I say! Who are you, and what do you want?"
A figure clad in a long dark cloak, hooded and veiled, stopped short with a little exclamation, which he could not quite catch.
"Hold on, there! Where are you going?" he repeated, springing to her side. "There is something going on here to-night. You can't enter these grounds until I know who you are and what your business is."
"This is Gray Gables, is it not?" exclaimed a tremulous voice from behind the veil.
"I should have supposed you would have found that out before you entered the grounds," declared the man, suspiciously.
She saw her mistake, and started.
"I only wanted to make sure that I was right," she said, apologetically. "I—I have business with the housekeeper; I want to see her."
Before she could utter another word he whistled sharply. His call brought a small lad to his side.
"Tell Mrs. Kemp there's a young woman here who would like to see her. What name, please?" he asked, abruptly, turning to the veiled figure.
"I—I am afraid she wouldn't know; but you might, mention the name—Miss Mead"—this rather stutteringly.
Very soon the answer came back that the housekeeper did not know Miss Mead, and hadn't time to see strangers.
"But I must see her!" implored the excited voice from behind the thick veil. "Do let me go to the house to her. I will detain her but a moment, I assure you. She would be so sorry if she missed seeing me."
With no suspicion of the terrible catastrophe that was to follow on the heels of it, the man without further ado allowed her to pass.
The stranger sped quickly up the graveled walk, and, as Dorothy had done but a short time before, drew cautiously up to the brilliantly lighted window, threw back her veil, and peered breathlessly in upon the gorgeous scene.
As the light fell athwart her, you and I, dear reader, can easily recognize the marble-white face of—Nadine Holt.
"So!" she muttered, between her clinched teeth, "I have tracked my false, perfidious lover to his home at last. When Harry Kendal lighted the fire of love in my heart, he little knew that the blaze would in time consume himself. I am not one to be made love to and cast off at will, as he shall soon see.
"From the hour that he eloped with Dorothy Glenn, on that memorable Labor Day, life lost all its charms for me, and I vowed to Heaven that I would find them, and deal out vengeance to them. They crushed my heart, and now I shall crush theirs. Ah, how I watched for him in the crowded streets, the ferries, and on the elevated roads!
"I believed sooner or later that I should find him, and I was right. Only a week ago I met him face to face, but he did not know me because of the thick veil I wore. I might have raised my veil and he would never have recognized in the pinched and haggard features the countenance of Nadine Holt, whose beauty he was wont to praise so lavishly. Ah, the traitor!
"He turned into a florist's shop, and he never dreamed who the woman was who entered the place and stood silently beside him while he gave the order for the great decorations for the grand ball which was to take place at his home in Gray Gables, in Yonkers, a fortnight from that date.
"When he quitted the shop I flew out after him; but all in an instant he disappeared from my sight as though the ground had suddenly opened and swallowed him. But I laughed aloud. What cared I then. I knew just where to find him. The place was written indelibly on my brain in letters of fire—Gray Gables, Yonkers!
"Only Heaven knows how I have worked to get a day off and to earn extra money to make this little trip! And now I am here to face him. Is he married to Dorothy Glenn, I wonder? It would take only that knowledge to make a fiend incarnate of me!"
At that moment one of the servants passing along the porch stopped short at sight of the young woman in black, with the death-white face and flashing black eyes, peering into the ball-room from the long porch window.
"They are having a great time in there," he said, jerking his head with a nod in the direction of the ball-room.
"Yes!" returned Nadine Holt, sharply.
Then it occurred to her that she could find out something about the lover who had deserted her. And there was another thing which puzzled her greatly. The name which he had given the florist was not the one by which she had known him—she would find out all by this man. Now he was calling himself Mr. Harry Kendal—that was the name he had given the florist.
"In whose honor is the ball given, my good fellow?" she asked, with an assumption of carelessness.
For a moment he looked stupidly at her.
"I mean, who is giving the ball?" she added.
"Oh, it's Mr. Kendal, ma'am—leastwise, he and Miss Dorothy are giving it together."
She started as though a serpent had stung her,then stood perfectly still and looked at the man with gleaming eyes.
"Miss Dorothy—who?" she asked, knowing full well what his answer must be.
"Miss Dorothy Glenn, ma'am," he replied. "But she won't be 'miss' very long, for she is soon to marry Mr. Kendal."
"Soon to marry him!" she repeated, vaguely, saying in the next breath, "then they are notalreadymarried," muttering the words more to herself than to the man. "Where does this girl, Dorothy live?" she asked, suddenly.
"That I couldn't say, ma'am," he replied. "I only came to Gray Gables to-day, to work. I know only the little that I have heard the servants say while at their work this afternoon. They say Miss Dorothy is very beautiful."
The white face into which the man gazed grew whiter still, the eyes dilated, and her heart twinged with a pang of jealousy more bitter than death to endure.
People always made that remark when speaking of Dorothy. It was that fatal gift which had won her lover from her, Nadine said to herself, and which had wrecked her life.
Oh! if she could but destroy that pink-and-white beauty!
The thought was born in Nadine Holt's breast all in an instant, and seemed to fire her whole being.
She knew her lover's passionate adoration of a beautiful face, and then and there the thought came to her: How long would he love Dorothy Glenn if that pretty pink-and-white face were seamed and scarred?
She laughed—a low, strange, eerie laugh that quite startled the man as he walked away.
Left to herself, Nadine Holt deliberately opened the hall door and stole into the house. She had but one purpose in view, and that was to confront her lover and Dorothy before all the invited guests.
There was nothing about the dark figure to attract especial attention, and she glided through the corridor unnoticed.
Was it the hand of fate most terrible that guided her toward the conservatory? The dark figure glided like a shadow toward the open door, and then paused abruptly, for the low sound of voices fell upon her ear, and one of them she recognized as that of her perfidious lover.
Through the softened pearly gloom she saw him sitting on the rustic bench close—very close—to the slender, girlish figure in fleecy white, and the sight made the blood in her veins turn to molten fire.
Like an evil spirit she crept toward them. She would—shemust—know what he was saying to his companion in that leafy bower.
She said to herself, of course it was Dorothy, and that they had stolen away from the lights and the music for a few tender words with each other, after the fashion of love-sick lovers.
It had not been so very long ago since he had been talking with her in just that lover-like way, only their courtship had taken place in the public parks, sitting on the benches, or walking lovingly arm in arm along the crowded thoroughfares; and he had brought Dorothy to his own grand home—Dorothy, her hated rival!—to enjoy this paradise of a place, and to make love to her in this Eden bower of roses and scented, murmuring, tinkling fountains.
"Dorothy!" he murmured in his rich, low, musical voice. How plainly she heard the name! The rest of the sentence she could not catch, though she crept nearer and nearer, and strained every nerve to listen. "I love you as I have never loved anything in this life before," she heard him say, "and my future without you would be unendurable. I can not endure it—I will not!"
The poor wretch who listened grew mad as she heard the tender words whispered into the ears of another by her false lover.
She crouched still lower, and her hand, as she threw it out wildly, came in contact with something hard and cold. It was a long, thin, sharp-bladed knife which the gardener had been using only that day to trim the bushes, and which, in his hurry, he had carelessly forgotten. She realized instantly what it was, and, with the thought, a diabolical idea crept into her brain.
"Why should Dorothy Glenn live to enjoy the smiles of the man whose love she has robbed me of," she muttered below her breath, "while my heart hungers and my soul quivers in endless torture for theaffection that is denied me? I can endure it no longer!"
The mad desire to spoil the fair beauty of her rival overpowered her until the thought possessed her and rendered her almost a fiend incarnate.
Grasping the long, sharp-bladed knife tightly, Nadine Holt raised her right arm slowly, cautiously. Not so much as a leaf rustled to warn the two sitting on the rustic bench of the terrible danger that hung over them.
Harry Kendal's low, musical voice sank to a lower cadence. He drew the slender figure of the girl nearer and that action was fatal.
There was a quick, whizzing sound, followed by an awful cry of terror from Iris, and Kendal's hand, resting lightly about her waist, was deluged in blood.
"Murder! murder! Oh, heavens!" shrieked Iris, and she fell at his feet in a swoon.
In the commotion Nadine Holt turned like a pantheress and made her escape from the conservatory and from the house.
"Murder! murder!" Those terrible cries that rent the air were the first sounds that Dorothy heard as her benumbed brain gained consciousness. And as she staggered, benumbed and dazed, to her feet she almost fell over a slimy knife lying there, and at that instant a strong hand flung back the rose-vines and Harry Kendal, white and quivering with wrath, confronted her.
"Dorothy Glenn!" he cried, in a horrible voice fairly reverberating with intense emotion, "You! Oh, you cruel, wicked girl! You—you fiend! to do what you have done!" and reaching out his hand he flungher backward from him as though she were a scorpion whose very touch was contamination. "Fly up to your own room," he cried, hoarsely, "and do not leave it for a moment until I come to you there! Have nothing to say; refuse to speak to any one!" and catching her fiercely by the shoulder, he fairly dragged her through the conservatory toward the rear door, which communicated with a back stairway that led up to her room.
Faint and dazed, Dorothy had not offered the least resistance to this cruel treatment. Her brain seemed stupefied by the whirling, confusing events taking place so rapidly around her. She only realized two things: that she had betrayed her presence in the conservatory when she fell to the floor upon hearing her lover speak words of affection to her rival, and that Harry was bitterly angry with her for being there. She did not remember that she had lost consciousness. It seemed to her that as her senses were about leaving her strange cries recalled them.
It occurred to her that in his excitement and anger her lover had not noticed that she had regained her sight.
Wearily Dorothy ascended the steep, narrow stairway and entered her own room. A soft, low, dim light flooded the apartment, upon which she had not gazed for many and many a long day.
Katy was not there, and she flung herself into the nearest arm-chair, sobbing wretchedly, although on that night she had cause to cry out to Heaven and rejoice for God's mercy to her for so unexpectedly restoring her sight. But, ah, me! how strange it is that all the blessings Heaven can shower upon usseem as dross when the one love we crave proves fickle.
Dorothy did not have the heart to cry out joyfully and thankfully. Her head drooped on her breast with a low, quivering sigh, and her hands fell in her lap.
Suddenly something around the bottom of her dress caught her eye, and she started to her feet with a low cry.
"It is blood!" she cried out in an awful voice.
No sooner had the door closed behind Dorothy ere Kendal flew back to Iris' side.
No one had heard the terrible cries. He thanked Heaven for that. The music had drowned them.
He had quite believed that Iris was dying. A hasty examination showed him that it was only a slight wound on the shoulder, from which blood was flowing profusely.
"Thank God it is no worse!" he cried, breathing freely.
He quickly set about restoring Iris, and in a moment she opened her eyes.
"Murder! murder!" she would have cried again, but he put his hand instantly over her red lips.
"Hush! hush! in Heaven's name!" he cried. "You will alarm the whole household. You are not seriously hurt!"
"Some one was trying to murder me!" shrieked Iris, hysterically.
"No, no!" he returned, quickly. "Listen, Iris, for Heaven's sake! One of the panes of glass of the conservatory directly overhead was broken, and—and a little part of it fell in, grazing your shoulder. It isa deep and painful scratch, I can well understand; but it is only a scratch, I can assure you."
"Oh, it has ruined my dress!" cried the girl, in anger and dismay, never thinking for an instant of doubting the truth of his assertion. "I can not appear in the ball-room again. No one must know that we were here together," she went on, hastily—"not one human soul! You must give out that I—I became suddenly indisposed and went to my own room."
"Yes, I think your suggestions are best," he agreed.
The guests received this explanation of the sudden absence of the beauty of the ball with regret, and more than one whisper went the rounds of the room how this seemed to disturb handsome Harry Kendal, for his face was very pale, and he seemed so nervous.
At the earliest opportunity Harry Kendal slipped away from the merry throng and up to Dorothy's apartment, hastily knocking at the door.
She opened it herself.
"Step out into the corridor," he said, sternly; "I want to speak to you."
And trembling with apprehension caused by his stern manner, Dorothy obeyed.
She could see, even in the dim light, that his face was white as death.
"I have come to have an understanding with you, Dorothy Glenn!" he cried hoarsely. "Your dastardly action of to-night has forever placed a barrier between you and me! I am here to say this to you: here and now I sever our betrothal! The same roof shall no longer shelter us both! Either you leave this house to-night, or I'll go!"
It was the most pitiful scene that pen could describe. The beautiful young girl, in her dress of fleecy white, with the faded purple blossoms on her breast entwined among the meshes of her disheveled golden hair, crouching back among the green leaves, and the white-faced, handsome, angry man clutching her white arm, crying out hoarsely that never again should they both breathe the same air beneath that roof—that she must leave Gray Gables within the hour, or he would.
"I did not know that I had done so terribly wrong," moaned the girl, shrinking back from those angry, fiery eyes that glowered down so fiercely into her own.
A laugh that was more horrible than the wildest imprecation could have been broke from his lips.
"You seem to have a remarkably mixed idea of right and wrong," he retorted, sternly, relaxing his hold and standing before her with rigid, folded arms, his anger growing more intense with each passing instant as he looked down into the girl's agonized face.
Had she done so very, very wrong in remaining in the conservatory, and in listening to her betrothed make love to her rival? she wondered vaguely.
Surely, she should have been the one to have cried out in bitter anger, not he.
"Let me tell you how it all came about," she gasped, faintly.
"I—I was in the ball-room with Katy, when it grew so warm that I sent for an ice. She did not return as soon as I had expected her, and—and I groped myway out into the garden to await her there. But as I stepped from the porch a wonderful thing happened, Harry. I—I missed my footing and fell headlong down the steps to the graveled walk below, and the shock restored my sight. Oh! look at me, Harry!" she exclaimed, with quivering intensity, holding out her white arms toward him. "I can see now. I can see your idolized face, oh, my beloved! I—I came here to tell you this—to tell you the wonderful tidings! I intended to send to the ball-room for you, but before I could put my intention into execution I—I heard steps approaching, and drew back among the screening leaves till they should pass. You came in with Iris Vincent, and I heard what you said, and my brain whirled—I grew dazed. You—you know the rest!"
He was not overwhelmed by the great tidings that she had regained her sight, as she had expected he would be. Instead, he retorted brusquely:
"It was a pity that your sight returned to you to enable you to do so dastardly a deed; and I am beginning to have my doubts whether or not you have not been duping us all along, and, under that guise, spying upon us—which seems to be your forte. This revelation makes me angrier than ever," he went on, "for it leaves you with no possible hope of pardon for your atrocious conduct, which merits the whole world's scorn and contempt!"
"I see it all!" cried Dorothy, springing to her feet and facing him. "You have prearranged this quarrel with me to break our betrothal, that you might wed your new love—Iris Vincent. But, just for pure spite, I will not release you—never! I will tell thewhole world of your duplicity. An engagement is a solemn thing. It takes two to enter into it and two to break it."
The scorn on his handsome face deepened.
"I do not very well see how you can marry a man when he makes up his mind not to have you," he declared. "That is a difficult feat, and I shall have to see it done before I can be convinced that it can be accomplished," he replied, icily, adding: "There are many women in this world who would stand back and watch such a proceeding with the wildest anxiety, I imagine;" this sneeringly.
"You shall never marry Iris Vincent!" Dorothy panted. "I—I would prevent it at any cost. Once before you forsook me when I needed you most; you left me to die when I fell from the steamer down into the dark water, when we were returning from Staten Island, that never-to-be-forgotten night; so why should I be surprised at your willingness to desert me now?"
He turned on his heel.
"It is now two o'clock in the morning," he said. "My duty requires me to go down to the ball-room and bid the guests adieu as they take their departure, and when that is over I shall leave this house until this difficulty has been settled. The reading of Doctor Bryan's will is to take place at noon. I shall be present then, and after that—well—well, we shall see what will take place."
With these words Kendal quitted the room, and left Dorothy standing there with the tears falling like rain down her cheeks—surely the most piteous object in the whole wide world.
When Kendal found himself alone his intense anger against Dorothy began to cool a little.
"It is true she attempted to do a horrible deed," he muttered; "but I must not forget that love for me prompted her to it, and show hersomemercy."
After all the guests had taken their departure, and the house had settled down into the darkness and quiet of the waning night, Kendal paced his room in a greatly perturbed state of mind, thinking the matter over.
He was terribly in love with Iris, he admitted to himself; but he had done wrong, fearfully wrong, in breaking off his engagement with Dorothy until after the reading of the will. Iris was beautiful, bewitching—his idea of all that a proud, imperious, willful sweetheart should be—but Dorothy would have what was much better than all this, the golden shekels; and then, too, now that the girl was no longer blind, she would have plenty of admirers; and he could have cursed himself for those hasty words, that no longer should she live under the same roof with himself.
It was daylight when he threw himself down on the bed, fairly worn out; and his head no sooner touched the pillow than he fell into a deep sleep, and it was almost noon ere he opened his eyes again, and then it was the slow, measured chime of the clock as it struck the half hour which awakened him.
"Great Heaven! half past eleven!" he ejaculated, springing from the couch. "I shall barely have time to get downstairs to be present at the reading of the will. I must make all haste; but first of all I must find out how Iris is, and if her shoulder pains her much."
He rang the bell hastily, and to the servant who answered the summons he gave his verbal message to Miss Vincent. But in a very short time the man returned, placing a letter in his hand.
Kendal was mystified, for he saw that it was Iris' delicate chirography. He tore open the envelope with the fever of impatience, and as his eye fell upon the delicately written lines his handsome face turned white as marble.
"Mydear Harry," it commenced, "you will feel greatly surprised at the contents of this letter. I think it best to break into the subject at once, and to tell you the plain truth of just what has happened."Shortly after I left you and retired to my own apartments the pain in my shoulder became so intense that, remembering there was a young surgeon among the invited guests, I sent for him at once. I can never tell you just exactly how it came about, but the upshot of the whole matter was that he asked me to marry him."I wanted time to consider it; but he said it must be then and there, within the hour, or never. I demurred, but he was resolute."I realized that I held my future in my own hands, and that I had to decide upon my own destiny at once."He is a millionaire's son, and you are only a poor, struggling physician. Can you wonder that it could terminate only in one way?"I accepted him, and by the time that you are reading this we shall be married and far away. So good-bye, Harry. Try and forgive me, if you can."Iris."
"Mydear Harry," it commenced, "you will feel greatly surprised at the contents of this letter. I think it best to break into the subject at once, and to tell you the plain truth of just what has happened.
"Shortly after I left you and retired to my own apartments the pain in my shoulder became so intense that, remembering there was a young surgeon among the invited guests, I sent for him at once. I can never tell you just exactly how it came about, but the upshot of the whole matter was that he asked me to marry him.
"I wanted time to consider it; but he said it must be then and there, within the hour, or never. I demurred, but he was resolute.
"I realized that I held my future in my own hands, and that I had to decide upon my own destiny at once.
"He is a millionaire's son, and you are only a poor, struggling physician. Can you wonder that it could terminate only in one way?
"I accepted him, and by the time that you are reading this we shall be married and far away. So good-bye, Harry. Try and forgive me, if you can.
"Iris."
With a horrible imprecation, Kendal tore the note into a thousand fragments, hurled them upon the floor, and ground his heel into them.
"False!" he cried. "I might have known it. It is always these beautiful women who are so heartless. They draw men on with their smiles and their bewitching fascinations, only to throw them over when a more eligiblepartiappears upon the scene."
Deeply as he had been smitten with her charms, her action caused an instantaneous revulsion of feeling.
"'What care I how fair she be, if she be not fair to me?'" he cried out, bitterly, to himself. "What a fool I was, to be duped by her so long! The iron has entered deep into my soul, but she shall see that she can not quite crush me. I will live to be revenged upon Iris Vincent if it costs me my life! If Dorothy inherits the million, I will marry her before the sun sets to-night. I only wish that I had known the way that affairs were shaping themselves. I—I should not have treated Dorothy so harshly."
It seemed as though all in an instant his heart went back to her in the rebound.
He rushed hurriedly down into the dining-room, there to be met by Mrs. Kemp, who advanced toward him with a white, startled face.
"Oh, Mr. Kendal," she gasped, breathlessly, "you can never in the world guess what has happened!"
"I rather think I can," retorted the young man, harshly: "your niece, Miss Vincent, has eloped with the millionaire's son across the way."
"That—that is not what I had reference to," said Mrs. Kemp, with a sob. "I—I admit that Iris haseloped, but it is not she whom I meant, but Dorothy."
"What of her?" cried Kendal, sharply, little dreaming the truth.
For an instant Kendal looked at the housekeeper in amazement.
"What of Dorothy?" he repeated, breathlessly.
"She has disappeared too!" returned the housekeeper, faintly, adding: "She did not go with Iris, as you may imagine."
"No?" he echoed, faintly, inquiringly.
"No," she responded; "she went alone. She said to Katy, last night, 'If you wake up on the morrow, and do not find me here, do not weep. I shall be where I will be better off. No one will miss me—no one will know or care whither I have gone.' Katy thought them idle words, and paid little heed to them; but this morning, when she awoke and found that Dorothy was not in her room, in the greatest of alarm she came to me and told me what had occurred. At that moment I was just smarting under the blow of Iris' elopement, and words fail to describe my feelings at this second and most terrible catastrophe, for I realized how it would affect you, my poor boy."
Kendal had sunk down into the nearest chair, white as death, and trembling like an aspen-leaf.
He could hardly grasp the meaning of her words. "Dorothy gone—Iris fled with another!" His lips twitched convulsively, but he uttered no sound.
"I made diligent search for Iris and Dorothy," Mrs. Kemp went on, tearfully. "I found my niece had been married at the rectory, and had taken the first train to the city with her newly made husband; they intend starting on the steamer which leaves New York for Europe to-day. So, of course, there was nothing to be done in Iris' case, so I turned my attention to Dorothy. But, as I remarked before, it was useless. I think she must have gone to New York City, and if she has, trying to find her will be like hunting for a needle in a hay-stack. I was shocked that she should have left to-day, because she well knew that this was the day on which the will was to be read, and that concerns her so vitally. Ah! here is the lawyer now," and before Kendal could frame a reply the gentleman was ushered into the old-fashioned library.
He greeted both Mrs. Kemp and the young man gravely, and they knew by his demeanor that he had heard what occurred.
His very first words assured them of that fact, and he went on to say that Dorothy's disappearance, however, would make no difference in the reading of Doctor Bryan's will, which was set for that day and hour.
"As my time is rather limited," he continued, "you will, I trust, pardon me if I proceed to business at once."
He looked sharply from one to the other, and, as they both bowed assent, he opened the satchel he had brought with him, and proceeded to take out the document which meant so much to Kendal, unfoldedit with great precision, and in his high, metallic voice he read it through slowly and impressively.
Kendal had quite imagined that the old doctor would leave him a goodly share of his vast estate—perhaps something like a hundred thousand or so—indeed, he would not have been surprised to have learned that the doctor had left him a quarter of a million dollars.
To his unspeakable horror he found that he had been cut off without a dollar; all had been left to Dorothy, without reserve or condition, save one, and that condition was a most important one: that she should marry Kendal six months after his decease, or relinquish the fortune bequeathed to her.
"I may as well explain to you my old friend's idea in making this will," said the lawyer, turning to the young man. "He wished Miss Glenn to marry you, and thought this the most expedient and effectual way of bringing about the marriage of two young people whose interests he had so deeply at heart. Had he lived long enough to have made a new will, I am sure it would have been entirely different."
But not one word of all this did Harry Kendal hear. His brain was on fire. He only realized one thing—that he was a beggar on the face of God's earth; and, to make matters worse, he had by his own rash act driven Dorothy from beneath that roof, thereby cutting off his own chance of marrying her and being master of Gray Gables.
He clinched his hand and ground his handsome white teeth together in terrible rage.
There was but one thing to do, and that was to find Dorothy ere the fortnight waned, and marry her atonce—that is, if he could ever persuade her to forgive him.
He had parted from her in bitter anger, and said words to her that women never forgive when uttered by those whom they love. The worst part of the whole affair was, their quarrel had been over another girl.
"No steps will be taken until the fortnight has elapsed," said the lawyer in his metallic voice; "and at the expiration of that time, if we do not congratulate you, Mr. Kendal, upon your marriage to Miss Dorothy, we shall have to make great changes at Gray Gables. Allow me to wish you both a very good-morning."
With these brief words the brisk little lawyer took a hasty departure.
Mrs. Kemp and Kendal stood looking at each other long after his departure with faces pale as death.
It was the housekeeper who broke the silence.
"I am sorry for you, Mr. Kendal," she said. "It is a terrible thing to have one's hopes dashed after that fashion—and when one doesn't deserve it, either. You were always so good and faithful and true to Dorothy, sir; even keeping your promise with her through the most terrible affliction that ever could have befallen her—that of blindness. It is dreadful to think that the moment she regained her sight, and believing herself to be the possessor of a great fortune, that she should show every one so plainly that she thought you were not good enough for her to marry by running away from you, Mr. Kendal!"
Every word she so innocently uttered cut him like a sharp sword.
"Not good enough for her?" he echoed, crushing back the imprecation that sprang to his lips. His blood boiled at the construction which she put upon the matter. It was a terrible blow to his pride, yet he dared not utter the truth until he should know whether or not he should be able to find Dorothy and marry her within the allotted fortnight.
Without a word Kendal turned on his heel and quitted the room, slamming the door after him with a decided bang.
Before the sun set that night he was in New York City again and searching for Dorothy.
It meant a fortune for him. Hemustfind her. He dared not think of what failure would mean to him—of the ruin that would stare him in the face.
The idea suggested itself to him that in all probability Dorothy would seek out her old companions of the book-bindery. He felt that it would be rather daring to go there, where he would meet Nadine Holt, after his so abrupt desertion of her; but his anxiety over Dorothy overcame all scruples, and late that afternoon the girls of the Hollingsworth book-bindery were astonished at the door being flung suddenly open and seeing the handsome young man whom they had known as the street-car conductor and Nadine Holt's lover standing on the threshold.
His eyes ran rapidly over the scores of girls at their tables, resting at length upon a fair, pale thoughtful young girl standing nearest him. He remembered having often seen her with Dorothy. He recollected, too, that her name was Nannie Switzer. He stepped up to her and raised his hat with that courteous bow that was always so fascinating to young girls.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "but, finding myself in your vicinity, I dropped in to look up my old friend. I refer to the young girl with whom I used to see you so much—Dorothy Glenn."
To his utmost surprise, the young girl burst into a flood of tears.
"Oh, sir, you can not tell how your words affect me!" she sobbed.
"Why?" he asked, surprisedly.
The girl hung her pretty head, and her blue eyes sought the floor in the greatest embarrassment.
"Will you tell me why?" he repeated, earnestly. "It is my right to know, is it not, Miss Nannie?"
"Well, you see, sir," she stammered, confusedly, "we have not seen or heard anything from Dorothy Glenn since Labor Day and every one hereabouts thought that—thatyouknew where she was."
He flushed a dark crimson and gave a guilty start.
"I am so glad to know that our suspicions were groundless," she breathed, thankfully; adding: "I am indeed sorry that I can not tell you where Dorothy is; we would all give the world to know, I assure you."
He could not help asking next, in a low, husky voice:
"What of Nadine Holt? Where is she?"
Again the girl's face clouded.
"She has worked right along here with us up to a week ago," she answered, "and then Nadine went away suddenly, without saying so much as good-bye to any of us." She could not help but add: "She has changed so greatly that you would never know her. She is no longer the dark-eyed beauty whom you remember; she looks ten years older. She never smiles now, and there is a horrible look in her eyes—like the cunning gleam one sees in the eyes of the insane; and, oh! sir, let me warn you—you, of all men—for the love of Heaven, do not cross her path! Remember, I—I warn you."
Harry Kendal threw back his dark, handsome head with a gesture of disdain and looked at the girl.
"I do not know of any reason why you should warnme, above all other men, that it is dangerous to cross Miss Holt's path," he said. "Almost any young man will flirt with a pretty girl when he finds her soverywilling. She understood that it was only a flirtation; but when I met your little friend Dorothy, of course all that nonsense with Nadine ceased."
"Nadine did not call it a flirtation," returned the girl, gravely. "You might call it that. She thought of it differently, I am sure."
"Where is Jessie Staples?" he asked, abruptly, to change the embarrassing subject.
"She, too, has left the bindery," was the unexpected reply. "There have been great changes among the people in this book-bindery within the last few months. A young man connected with the place had quite a sum of money left him, and Jessie Staples was a great favorite with this young man's mother, so at their invitation Jessie went to live with them."
Finding that she had nothing more to tell him, Kendal soon after took his departure.
He was desperate as he walked along the street.
"What in the name of Heaven shall I do?" he cried. "One day of the fortnight has already passed, and I have not even the slightest clew to Dorothy's whereabouts." And in that hour in which he realized that she was indeed lost to him he knew how well he actually loved the girl. Iris' fickleness had killed his mad infatuation at one blow, and, man-like, his heart returned at once to its old allegiance.
Now that he knew that it was only a question of the merest chance of ever finding Dorothy, his very soul seemed to grow wild with anxiety.
Suddenly a thought born of desperation occurred to him—why not consult a fortune-teller as a last resort? It just flashed across his brain, an advertisement he had read and laughed over in one of the New York papers a few days before: