The shock of the telegram seemed to impart to Carlita the strength she required for action.
She felt a new vitality, new courage pouring through her like the false, effervescent strengthfrom wine, but she did not recognize its falsity. She felt herself capable of anything to bring Leith Pierrepont to justice, to bring to the gallows the craven coward that had robbed Olney Winthrop of life.
"The carriage is here; let us go out!" she cried feverishly to Jessica. "I can be ready in five minutes."
She arose and placed the two telegrams with their translations in her desk, together with the volume of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," and locked it carefully, while Jessica went away to her own room.
To her surprise she found her mother standing there, her hands pressed upon her breast, her haggard eyes wild with fear.
"What are you doing here?" cried Jessica, roughly, now that there was no longer a necessity to oil her treacherous tongue. "You look like a fright! Ever since that milk-sop, Olney, was reported murdered, you have gone about like an uneasy ghost. You've even neglected your hair until there is a black stripe as wide as my fingers down the middle of your head. For the Lord's sake, pull yourself together, and stop acting like a frightened school miss who has found a mouse nibbling at her bread and butter. Go and color your hair!"
"Jessica, have you no heart at all? What is it that you intend to do? Oh, I wish to God I had never consented to allow the child of another woman to come into our household. I wish—"
"Oh, let up!" interrupted her respectful daughter, carelessly. "You've done it, and there is no use in grieving over spilled milk. We've got her money, and I'll have a darned sight more of it before I get through with life, or I'll miss my reckoning."
"Jessica! Jessica, for the love of Heaven! what is it that you mean to do?"
"Oh, rot! Don't stand there wringing your hands and whining like a whipped cur. If you had any blood in your veins you would help me, and not make difficulties the greater. What do I mean to do?"—her face darkening cruelly—"I mean to have the deepest and most complete revenge upon those two that woman ever planned. I have thought it all out carefully and well, and the best of it is, that she shall execute my every wish. I mean to ruin her body and soul. And as for him—well, his punishment shall remain my secret. And now there is something that I want you to do."
"Oh, Jessica, I can not! I—"
The girl turned swiftly and caught her mother by the wrist, her fingers closing upon it like bands of steel. Her eyes, burning in their fierce wrath, looked into those shrinking ones, and her voice came in a heavy, hoarse whisper:
"You will obey me, do you hear? You will obey me, or—"
She did not complete the threat. It was not necessary. The haggard eyes had dropped. A slow shiver had passed over the elder woman. She looked suddenly bowed and broken, and, for the first time in her life, old.
Jessica dropped her wrist, and turned away, a low exclamation of disgust dropping from her lips.
"I want to send for Meriaz!" she exclaimed, contemptuously.
"He is—here," stammered Mrs. Chalmers, helplessly.
"Here!" exclaimed Jessica, turning quickly, her interest returning.
"Yes."
"And you never told me?"
"I came to tell you now."
"And you beat about the bush in this whiningway? Heavens! I sometimes wonder how it is that you can be my mother! Where is he?"
"At the Holland."
"Send for him. Let him be here in my room at seven o'clock this evening."
"He—wants—money," faltered Mrs. Chalmers.
"Money? I thought to have to pay a higher price for his services than that. Certainly he can have money—Carlita's money," she added, maliciously. "Give him all he wants, but have him here at seven. I am going out to drive with your ward. Look here! There'll be a game of poker here tonight. It'll be a rattler, too, and don't you forget it! I want you to have your wits about you, and not go wool-gathering. Carlita will play."
"Carlita!"
"You look as shocked as if I had told you I intended to murder her. She must win. Win heavily, you understand?"
"She has consented to play?"
"No; but I mean that she shall before the evening is over. Take care that the supper afterward is exceptionally nice, and make sure that there is plenty of champagne."
"You mean that she shall drink that?"
"I do. I know her hot Southern temperament. There will be no half measures with her when she has once learned her lesson. A useless waste of time might be fatal to my plans, and I do not propose that there shall be a moment lost. I don't want you to come down there tonight looking as you do now. Clear up your lugubrious countenance, get that black stripe out of your hair, and come down as your old smiling self. If you fail me, you know well enough that there will be another added in my list for vengeance."
"Is it possible that you are human, Jessica?"
"And your daughter, my lady!" she added, witha mocking bow. "Bah! One would think that you were an angel! Don't forget that I know your life. Posing is not becoming to you. You are detaining me from my sweet friend. Au revoir!"
Ten minutes later she was tucking the robes around Carlita in the victoria with as much tenderness as a loving sister could have shown, and as they were driving through the park she carefully broached the subject upon which she had spoken to her mother.
"Look here, Miss Priscilla," she began, half laughing, in her boyish, fascinating way, "the time has come for you to get out of this Madonna life you are leading. I am going to take the reins in my hands. Do you know what I have done?"
"No! What?"
"I have made arrangements to have a great blowout at the house tonight, and you are to be the principal attraction."
"I?"
"Yes. Did it ever really come home to you with great force, Carlita, that you are a wonderfully beautiful girl?"
"Flatterer!"
"Not at all: it's the solemn truth. If you are really serious in desiring to work out the end you have in view about Olney, you must bring Leith Pierrepont to terms as quickly as you can. There is absolutely nothing that will do it like feeling that you need a protector. In spite of the crime that he has committed, he is really a great prude himself, or poses as one, which is quite the same thing. He will not like to have the woman whom he wishes to make his wife playing poker, and it will bring him around more quickly than anything. Come, now; will you join us tonight?"
It never occurred to Carlita to look into the logic of the speech. She was restless, nervous. Shewanted to do something that would help her to forget for even such a short time, and Jessica's victory was infinitely easier than she had any idea it would be.
"Yes, I will join you," she answered, feverishly, feeling a sudden elation in knowing that she would be doing something to which he would object. "But I don't know how to play."
"You know the cards?"
"Oh, yes."
"Then that will be quite sufficient. You'll learn the rules of poker in five minutes, and that is about all of the game that two-thirds of the people know who play it, particularly those who consider themselves experts. I told mamma to have a supper prepared. We'll have a lark, and don't you forget it. We shall accomplish your object sooner than you anticipated."
"How shall I thank you for your help?"
"Wait until it is done, and your object is attained, then, perhaps, you may see a way. What have you got to wear tonight? It must not be black."
"I have a white gown."
"We can make that answer with flowers. Suppose we drive to the florist's, and then on home, to make sure that everything will be in readiness?"
"I am willing."
A gleam of color had sprung already to Carlita's pale cheeks, in anticipation of the evening. She had determined that the old reserve should be thrown completely aside, and that she would be the gayest of the gay. She was comforting her shrinking, sickening soul by the reflection that it was for Olney's sake—to discover Olney's murderer.
And so they returned to prepare for the evening, both of them in a whirl of excitement, though for far different reasons.
It seemed to Carlita that it was impossible that so much could have been accomplished in the few short hours that had been allotted to the florist; and yet, when she descended to the drawing-room, the mantels were banked with flowers and the rooms were decorated as if some grand ball were in progress.
Her gown had been rearranged by the deft fingers of Jessica's own maid until it seemed impossible that it could have been one of the last year's fashioning. The bodice was décolleté and over the back and across the shoulders a fall of magnificent old lace had been arranged, falling in jabots from the front of the shoulders. A soft old piece of "the cloth of silver" was laid in cross plaits over the front, after the fashion of an old fichu, and fastened at the waist with superb diamond buckles which had belonged to her paternal grandmother. On the shoulders, fastening the lace, were diamond butterflies, their wings raised as if they had but alighted for the moment, and were even then ready to wing their way again. The broad, round belt was caught with a diamond arrow in the back, while in the hair a beautiful bow knot of the same gems caught the rolls of blue-black hair together.
Her throat and arms were bare save for a row of diamonds about the wrists.
It was really a picture of superb beauty that she presented as she stood there in the door of that artistically decorated apartment, and one that no man could look upon unmoved.
There was a glitter in Jessica's eyes as she observed—a glitter of malicious hatred—and for a moment the small teeth closed upon the crimson underlip.
"Curse her!" she muttered, in voiceless hatred—"curse her! She shall rue the day that she robbed me of Leith Pierrepont's love! There is nothing so sweet in life as vengeance!"
But she went forward with a bewilderingly fascinating smile upon her lips.
"Ah, chèrie, how lovely you are," she exclaimed, clasping her arms in delight. "If I were a man, I should commit any folly, any madness to win you. I even think I might emulate the young Lochinvar and steal you away bodily. I can almost find it in my heart to forgive the man who would commit a crime in order that he might possess you."
"Hush!" exclaimed Carlita, with a slight shiver. "I never felt such a sneak in my life. My courage almost fails me at times. Have I the right to do evil that good may come?"
Jessica shrugged her shoulders slightly.
"You must be the judge of that," she answered, lightly. "It is your lover who has been murdered, not mine. It was the man who was to have been your husband who lies out there, treacherously lured to his death, given no chance for self-defense, suffocated like a rat in a hole, not even given an opportunity for escape. It was your—"
"For the love of Heaven, hush!" cried Carlita, all her lovely color forsaking her. "You are right—you are right. I should be a coward—worse than that, an accomplice—did I fail to make him pay the penalty of his crime."
"Take care. There is the bell."
She took Carlita by the arm and led her quickly into the conservatory, in order that she might have time to recover herself, speaking to her in the old, soothing voice, knowing her power as well as did the treacherous sirens of old.
An hour later there were two tables for poker formed in the drawing-room. At one of them Jessica and Carlita sat with Redfield Ash, DudleyMaltby and Hugh Beresford. At the other there were six persons.
"We are to teach Carlita tonight!" exclaimed Jessica, gayly, to the men at their table. "I assure you she will be an apt pupil, though it is her first attempt. I spent a whole hour this evening giving her points on the game. Don't be surprised if you all lose your good ducats, for you well know the luck of a beginner. How many cards, Carlita?"
"Two, please."
"Three of a kind already? I shall be very careful, I assure you, how I go up against your hands. There you are! Now, Dudley, open the ball and make it lively."
"Not on a pair of deuces," he answered, with a short laugh, throwing down his cards. "I'm afraid Miss de Barryos has robbed the pack."
The betting was really very small, the limit being one dollar, and no one with a hand worth much except Carlita. The pot was finally awarded to her without seeing her hand, and once more the cards were dealt.
This time she called for one, and a groan went around the table.
"What is it?" asked Jessica, laughing. "A flush or a straight?"
But Carlita only smiled and held her cards closely.
There were some rather good ones against her this time, and the betting became lively; but as she raised the bet again and again one backed down and then another, until she finally proved herself the victor once more.
"Let me see what you had!" exclaimed Jessica. "Just as a matter of fun, you understand, though it's not in accord with the rules of the game. A bob-tail flush, as I live, and full a hundred to the good!"
There was a shout of laughter from the men at the wisdom of their new opponent, and the capitalmanner in which she had won their money, and as the noise continued, the name of the new arrival which the servant announced was drowned:
"Mr. Pierrepont!"
It gave him an opportunity to pause at the door. For a moment he did not recognize Carlita in her white gown, flashing as she was with diamonds, the flush of excitement coloring her lovely cheeks to the hue of the wild rose, and when he did an expression of such pain darkened his eyes as must have attracted the attention of every one who observed him. But no one did except Jessica, and he had had ample time to recover himself before the laughter had subsided.
He went forward in the old debonair manner and stood behind Carlita's chair.
"Who won a hundred with a bob-tail flush?" he asked, carelessly.
"Carlita!" answered Jessica, putting out her hand to welcome him. "And she did it with the coolness of a man who had spent his life in the business. I predict she will become one of the best players in New York. Come and join us. Here is a chair for you."
"Thanks, no," he answered, after a slight hesitation. "I don't feel up to it tonight. I'll watch you for a moment, and perhaps you'll let me play something for you on the piano later. No, don't urge me, Maltby. I really couldn't. Do you like the game, Miss de Barryos?"
There was something almost wistful in the question, but Carlita threw up her head with a sort of defiance and answered in a tone that contained a metallic ring:
"Very. It is fascinating. I really think I shall never want to do anything else."
Leith sighed slightly.
He was silent, striving to account for the sudden and mysterious change in her, and yet for somereason unfathomable he dared not ask her the cause. He watched them for a few hands, and then wandered to the piano, playing a few selections in which there was so little heart that it wearied him.
Once or twice he got up to go, but some invisible power seemed to chain him to the place. He could not leave.
It was not until eleven o'clock, when supper was announced, that he got an opportunity of saying a word alone to Carlita.
"And so you are trying to unlearn Puritanism," he said to her, with a little wistful smile upon his lips that made him so singularly handsome. "Do you think you will like the change from saint to satyr?"
"I was never a saint, and there is no reason why I should be a satyr," she answered, forcing herself to smile in return. "Puritanism must be an awfully trying thing to one's friends."
"Not to the friends who love you."
"Our friends never love us unless we are interesting to them."
"Friends who love you because you entertain and amuse them are not worth having. They desecrate the name. And friends who would degrade you are demons in disguise, who are tempting you to eternal ruin, branding your soul with the crest of Satan in order that you may make them laugh."
For a moment Carlita glanced up with a mocking smile upon her lips. Ah, verily was this the "devil quoting scripture." A murderer—the murderer of her lover, prating to her of her soul!
"You ought to go into the Salvation Army," she cried, compelling her tongue to speak lightly. "Are you without sin that you are willing to cast a stone?"
"God knows I am not; but is a future denied to man because of a blackened past? Heaven knowsI would give all the years to come if I could cleanse my soul of sin and stand before you and my God for one brief hour a pure man."
A wild light gleamed in her eyes. She bent forward away from him, not daring to look at him. Her voice was scarcely more than a whisper, and yet he heard the words:
"You have sinned so deeply, then?"
He paused, lifting the heavy hair from his white brow, as if its weight oppressed him.
"Yes," he answered.
"How?" she panted.
Another pause, then slowly:
"I can not tell you now, but some day I will. Some day when—"
"When what?" she whispered, breathlessly.
He leaned forward and whispered in her ear:
"When I know that you love me, even as I love you!"
Carlita's heart was beating so that Pierrepont's words were almost drowned in the sound. It seemed impossible for her to reply. She had grown dizzy and blind suddenly, and it was with a relief that was almost hysterical that she welcomed a young man who interrupted the tete-a-tete.
She knew perfectly well that that was not what Stolliker would have had her do, that she was losing an opportunity that she might never be able to regain; but she could not help that, and when one of the men who had played at the other table bent over her to inquire how she had enjoyed the game, she looked into his face with an interest, an animation, that caused Pierrepont to turn away with a weary sigh.
The supper was of the best; but when she left the table, it would have been impossible for Carlita to have told one thing that had been served. It seemed to her that she had passed the time in a state of hypnotism, living, moving, acting while her senses were governed by some other power than her own.
And yet she jested with a blithe merriment that brought again the old expression of cynicism to Pierrepont's countenance. Jessica had reserved the seat beside herself for him, and he slipped into it when there was nothing else to do.
"Is not our little Puritan charming tonight?" she asked, with an animated smile. "I never imagined that Carlita could be so bewitching. I fancy that half the men in the room are in love with her. Did you ever see her so beautiful?"
"Never so beautiful," he answered, with affected lightness; "but much more charming many times."
"You approve of the Puritan type, then?"
"I am the strongest believer in individuality, and she has lost hers tonight. She is as out of place as—as—you would be in the role of Priscilla."
"I am not quite sure whether you intend that as a compliment or the reverse," returned Jessica, laughing; "but analysis is such a stupid thing. At all events she gives promise of being one of the best poker players I have ever seen, and while that may not be altogether a recommendation for a woman to the clerical class, it certainly is to the persons whom Carlita is liable to meet. But let us talk about yourself. Do you know, I fancy you are not looking well."
"It is all fancy, I assure you."
"No, it is not. You are pale, dark under the eyes, and disturbed looking."
"Biliousness, I give you my word."
"No. I'm afraid you got a germ of some sortof disease in Mexico. You have never been yourself since you returned from there."
He was eating a deviled kidney, sandwiched between two broiled mushrooms, but pushed it away from him as she spoke. The faintest perceptible frown gathered between his eyes.
"Imagination!" he answered, with a short laugh.
"You liked Mexico, then?"
"I loathe it!" he returned. "I wish to God I could never hear the name mentioned again. I wish to God I had never seen the place!"
There had been a lull in the conversation, and the words, low as they were spoken, were heard from one end of the table to the other. Carlita glanced up. A ghastly whiteness overspread her countenance. For a moment it seemed to Jessica that she was going to faint, but young Beresford handed her a glass of champagne which she drained before taking it from her lips.
Jessica's small teeth set angrily.
"If she believes him to be guilty," she muttered, mentally, "why does this new evidence of his guilt upset her like this? Curse her! She thinks she can deceive me; but she shall see—she shall see!"
But she only smiled above her wrath, and turned again to Pierrepont.
"How you are changing from the indifferent, nonchalant man you used to be, whom nothing could arouse from the even tenor of his way. There are absolutely traces of passion in your speech nowadays."
He bestowed a smile upon her which sent the blood tingling through her veins, and said in the old drawling, indolent way:
"There have always been traces of passion in my nature."
It was just such a speech as in the old days had convinced her, without further declaration from him, that he loved her; and as memory returned ofthose times, she was forced to bite her lip to keep the angry, bitter tears from her eyes. She saw now how little there had ever been in it, saw how little he had ever really cared, and a fierce hatred of him leaped to life in her breast, a hatred that was all the more savage because its very essence and flame was the wild, passionate love for him which she had not the least power to control.
"What frauds you men are!" she exclaimed, forcing herself to speak lightly, though her heart still ached poignantly. "There is so little in your words and so much in your manner of saying them. No wonder you break our hearts, and then still your conscience by making yourselves believe that you were not in fault, that you had said nothing by which your honors were compromised."
"Do you believe that hearts break?" asked Leith, mockingly.
"Not the heart of the 'new woman,'" answered Jessica, laughing. "She is too familiar with the genus homo."
"The 'new woman' has no heart. She is all brain."
"Then you acknowledge that woman has, until recently, had a 'corner on heart,' so to speak, and that man for all time has been without one, being a creature simply of brain?"
"Did I say so?"
"Practically, as the 'new woman' is only taking her place in the front walks as man's intellectual companion."
"Perhaps you are right; I don't know. It seems to me sometimes as if men, and women, too, would be better off without hearts. It has caused more sin than it ever prevented a thousand times, and has created more misery than happiness a million to one. For my own part, if I could dispense with the very necessary organ, it would give me the greatest relief possible."
"Does that mean that you are in love, Pierrepont?" questioned Redfield Ash, with his mouth rather too full of food to be altogether intelligible.
"Did there ever live a man worthy of the name who was not in love?" returned Leith, gallantly. "I love all women."
"For the sake of one?" asked young Beresford, with a sentimental glance toward Carlita.
Before Leith could reply, Jessica was on her feet.
"This is not a confessional!" she cried, lightly. "Now, we are going to award you gentlemen just thirty minutes for your wine and cigars. At the end of that time we shall expect you promptly in the drawing-room."
"It is too much!" exclaimed Beresford. "I for one am willing to forego the cigar in this occasion."
Jessica hesitated a moment, then, with a half glance at Carlita, exclaimed:
"If Miss de Barryos does not object, you may have the men in the drawing-room. Does smoke nauseate you, Carlita?"
Carlita laughed.
"I used to light my old friend the gardener's pipe, and I am sure he never had a new one oftener than once in five years."
The men followed at once, and Jessica paused only long enough to give instructions to the butler. When she reached the drawing-room, Carlita was already seated at the piano.
Her voice was a trifle weaker, from lack of practice, than it had been the last time Leith heard her sing, but it was infinitely sweet, and was greeted with a vociferous round of applause which neither one nor two songs would still; and then, stepping to the piano, Leith asked her if she would undertake the duet from "Aïda," which she had sung with him on one occasion.
She hated him for the request, and yet nothing under heaven could have caused her to decline. There was almost defiance in her eyes as she arose and yielded her place upon the stool to him.
It was a magnificent thing, sung with wonderful depth of feeling and power of expression, and was a vast surprise to those present. Carlita wondered afterward how she had ever been able to complete it, but she heard his words of praise above all the rest, though they were fewer and spoken scarcely above his breath.
"What an artiste you will make—what an artiste you are! God! it is enough to make a Christian of a man to listen to you. And how you have improved since we sang that together the last time. I wish you would let me sing with you often. It is like being permitted a glimpse into paradise."
He had risen, and was standing with his back to the piano, looking down at her. The others were all around them; but suddenly they seemed to separate, no one knew how or why. They had heard no announcement of a new arrival, but as they stepped apart they realized that Jessica was standing there, her fingers touching the arm of a dark-visaged man whose aspect certainly was not pleasant.
There was a tremulous smile upon her lips, half expectant, half triumphant. She seemed to have forgotten them for the moment, but went forward straight up to Leith, who was not looking toward her, but down at Carlita.
"Mr. Pierrepont," she exclaimed, speaking rather louder than usual, "I want to introduce you to a gentleman from Mexico. Senor Meriaz, Mr. Pierrepont!"
Leith glanced up. There had been a flush upon his cheeks, brought there by the pleasure of singing with Carlita, but as his eyes rested upon the man before him, his color vanished, and from browto throat a ghastly pallor overspread his face, that the least observant could not fail to marvel at.
He caught at the edge of the piano, then recovered himself almost as suddenly as he had lost his self-control.
But it was Meriaz who replied to the introduction, Meriaz whose voice alone was heard.
"Senor Pierrepont and I have met before!"
Then deliberately the dark-browed Mexican, who possessed not an element of refinement or gentlemanliness in his entire make-up, turned his back upon the elegant man of the world.
There was a sensation in the drawing-room over which Mrs. Chalmers presided.
They were not looking at that lady, or they might have seen her pallor under all the artificial color of her complexion, and would certainly have noticed the nervous interlacing of her long fingers as they twined themselves about each other, and the little gasping breath that came through her parted lips.
Carlita alone seemed to retain her absolute composure.
Not a detail of the situation had escaped her, not even the angry compression of Leith Pierrepont's lips as Senor Meriaz turned his back and calmly sauntered to the other side of the room.
Young Beresford laughed constrainedly, feeling that something must be done to lighten the situation.
"'Pon my soul, Pierrepont," he said, in a stage whisper, "if looks were poniards, you wouldn't be alive at this moment. Evidently you didn't hit it off with your friend from Mexico. What was it?One of your usual escapades with a beautiful senorita? His daughter, perhaps?"
Leith had never come so near having a downright affection for the light-headed individual in his life.
"I never had the pleasure of an acquaintance with Senorita Meriaz, though I have met her," he said, nonchalantly; "but I am not fond of her father."
"It seemed almost as if your dislike extended to all things Mexican," said Carlita, lightly, marveling at her own coolness.
"Not to all things," he exclaimed, gallantly. "I believe you are partly Mexican."
"We must all adore angels," said Redfield Ash, with a bow to Carlita, "whether they be Mexican, Hindoo or heathen Chinee, and such you have proven yourself tonight by the beauty of your exquisite voice, Miss de Barryos. Won't you sing for us again? or are you weary?"
Carlita could never tell what impulse moved her, nor how she happened to yield to it, but she looked up into Pierrepont's face wistfully, and said, slowly:
"Will you accompany me? Your playing would convert a linnet to a nightingale."
He smiled the pleasure he felt, and seated himself at once; but his mind seemed preoccupied, for while he played the notes of the selection she placed before him, there was not the spirit—the exquisite coloring that usually characterized his playing, Carlita observed, watching with ceaseless intent.
Suddenly she seemed to have forgotten to hate herself for the despicable part she was playing—to have forgotten everything in the interest that surrounded the central figures in her little drama. She was like the detective who forgets he is a spy, under the excitement of a human chase.
After the song was finished, there was another call to the tables for the poker to begin again, but neither Pierrepont nor Meriaz joined them. Leith retained his seat at the piano for a time, then suddenly rose.
The game was progressing hilariously. No one seemed to observe the fact that he had left the piano. Meriaz was seated a trifle back of Carlita, watching her hand, and as she glanced up she saw Pierrepont look at him. There was a slight uplifting of the eyebrows and the faintest movement of the head toward the door, and then he turned and went out.
Five minutes afterward, Meriaz arose leisurely, and after walking about the room quietly, looking at statuary and dainty objects of virtu, he followed in the direction Leith had indicated.
Apparently Jessica had been oblivious of the by-play, but Carlita looked toward her imploringly.
"I wonder if you could excuse me for a very few minutes?" she questioned, her excitement making her voice low and strained.
"Why, certainly," answered Jessica, sweetly. "Is the heat of the room too much for you?"
"I—I don't know; but I will not be long absent. You can play without me?"
"Oh, yes!" answered Jessica, laughing. "Perhaps some of your luck will flow over to my side. My chips are getting pitifully low."
She did not even glance up as Carlita left the room; but there was a curious twitching at the corners of her mouth when she saw Carlita leave by the same door by which Leith and Meriaz had made their exit.
Carlita did not pause to think. She was keeping her oath to the dead. She did not remember that what she was about to do was dishonorable, unwomanly. She had sworn that she would put allconsideration of self behind in this search for the murderer of her lover, and she was doing it.
She was in time to see Meriaz walk calmly into the library, through the open door of which she had seen Leith, and then the door was closed upon them.
She hurried swiftly through the hall and lifted a portière at the back end, through which she passed into the adjoining room, separated from the library only by a Japanese portière. The light was out in the room that screened her, and was burning brilliantly in the room that contained them, so that she could see and hear everything without fear of being seen.
"What has brought you here?" she heard Leith demand, indignantly, of the repulsive-looking Mexican who stood before him.
It was rather a change from his shrinking and the bold manner of the Mexican when they had been presented in the drawing-room, and she listened breathlessly for the answer.
"To see you!" returned Meriaz, his black, cunning eyes fixed greedily upon Leith's face.
"What for?" demanded Leith, towering over the short, bulky Mexican in his majestic rage.
"You know perfectly well," answered Meriaz, with a hateful grin. "I've come to find out the whole of the situation that made you so anxious that none of the story of young Winthrop's death should ever get to this section of the country."
"And you have found out?" questioned Leith, proudly.
"Oh, yes! You know me well enough to know that it doesn't take long to do that. You are in love with Miss de Barryos, the fiancé of the murdered man."
"May I ask who gave you this information?"
"It was not necessary that any one should. I'mnot blind. But, anyway, you know how perfectly you are in my power."
"In what?" cried Leith, forgetting himself for a moment, and thundering the word out so that Meriaz lifted his hand warningly.
"There is no use in your giving the snap away until that becomes necessary," he said, with despicable cunning. "I am not going to peach, provided you make it to my interest to keep quiet."
"What the devil do you want?"
"Money."
Leith hesitated. Even under his mustache both Carlita and Meriaz saw how his lips were twitching, how white they had grown.
"Pouf!" exclaimed the Mexican. "Why do you hesitate? You got all of his money, and you can surely give up that for protection."
Carlita half expected to see Pierrepont throttle the wretch before him, but instead he turned away and sat down before the writing-desk, leaning his elbow upon it and shading his eyes with a hand which trembled.
"I suppose you are right," he said, dully, after a long pause. "How much do you want?"
"Five thousand—now."
"And when you have got it, do you promise to take yourself back to Mexico or any place out of my sight? Do you promise that this cursed business shall be buried between us?"
"Yes, I promise; but you will leave me your address so that I can write to you occasionally."
"You know the address well enough without my giving it to you. There is one thing more. Will you answer a question?"
"If I can."
"How did you happen to know Miss Chalmers?"
A curious expression crossed the face of the wily Mexican.
"I knew her when she was a child," he answered,evasively. "I knew her father. It was quite natural that I should come to call when I came to America."
"But not natural that she should bring you into her drawing-room to introduce you to her friends," returned Leith, forgetting that he was not very complimentary. "Have you told her anything of this story?"
"Not a thing."
"You swear it?"
"I swear it!"
There was another short pause, then Leith threw out his hand deprecatingly.
"All right," he exclaimed. "There is my card with my address. Come there tomorrow at twelve and I will give you the five thousand. And now, go back to the drawing-room and I will follow you as quickly as possible so as not to attract attention."
The Mexican left the room without another word, and feeling old and stiff, Carlita crept away from her position beside the door.
She had seen Leith's head bowed upon his arms which rested upon the desk, and somehow there was a great lump in her throat which she felt would burst into hysterical sobbing if she stood there watching him.
The last doubt was gone now, but there was no triumph in the convincing proof of his guilt.
She went out upon a little side balcony and stood there with the cold night air blowing upon her heated face. She never knew how long she stayed there, but she was aroused at last by a mild flood of tears that came pouring uncontrollably from her eyes and hearing her own voice in her ears sounding strange and eerie to her strained senses:
"My God—my God! if it were only I who had died—if it were only I!"
It was a marvel to Carlita ever afterward how she had the strength to drag through the apparently endless hours of that evening, and yet after that outburst of passion there alone under the pitiless stars, she was to all appearances calm as a stoic.
She said good-night to Pierrepont as smilingly as to the others, and even permitted him to clasp her cold fingers for a moment as he took his leave.
"Do tell me everything!" exclaimed Jessica, when they were alone. "I have been feverishly anxious for them to go for two hours, because I knew there was so much that we should wish to talk about."
But she only shook her head and pressed the hand of her Judas wistfully.
"Not tonight," she answered, barely able to keep the sobs out of her voice. "I am nervous and tired. Tomorrow. Wait. You shall know everything then, and you will help me to decide what I am to do."
And Jessica, who knew all that would be told to her on the morrow as well then as she ever could know, put aside her curiosity gracefully.
"Of course, you poor, little tired child!" she exclaimed, soothingly. "I should have had more care for you and have put them out long ago. Come to your room and let me be your maid. I'm going to give you a nice soothing bromide, and tomorrow you will be as good as new."
She would listen to no denial, but dismissed Ahbel, and did not leave her charge until she was well tucked up in bed with the bromide swallowed, then she turned out the light and left the room softly.
Once outside the door, she paused and looked back with a sneering smile.
"You poor little fool!" she muttered. "You poor little fool! I know you already a thousand times better than you know yourself. I could tell you things about the state of your own heart that would surprise you, I fancy. At all events, it is something which you must not suspect until my plot has been worked to the end. Upon my word, matters are shaping themselves to my will better even than if I had planned the circumstances of it all."
But whatever may have been her intention in the matter, her bromide worked to a charm, and the following morning Carlita arose refreshed from a profound sleep. Her cold plunge quite restored her, and she descended to the breakfast-room as bright and beautiful as if nothing had ever marred the serenity of her young life.
After breakfast she and Jessica talked long and earnestly in the privacy of the boudoir, a conversation in which she detailed to Jessica what she had purposely overheard the evening before, and then they conferred upon what course had best be pursued for the carrying out of their plan.
"You see!" exclaimed Jessica, when she had been appealed to for advice, "the conversation which you overheard has proven to you that this man Meriaz can be bought. Now, the question is, are you willing to give more for this information than Pierrepont is for his silence?"
"I would give my fortune to the last farthing!" cried Carlita, excitedly.
"Well, don't be foolish and give that away to Meriaz, or he would be just hog enough to demand it. My own opinion is that he has come down rather light on Pierrepont, and when he has pocketed that five thousand, with no evidence in the hands of Pierrepont that it has been given over,he may be willing to sell his story to you for another five, if you drive your bargain hard, or ten at the outside. It isn't a good plan to squander money on a scoundrel like that when you can prevent it. You say that his appointment with Pierrepont is for twelve?"
"Yes."
"Then I will write asking him to be here at two. It is eleven thirty now," looking at a little Dresden clock upon the mantel-shelf. "If my opinion is worth anything, I should say that you are very nearly at the end of your dilemma, and I certainly think you have gotten out of it very easily."
Carlita did not reply, but sighed wearily. There was no elation in her success, on the contrary her heart ached as it had not done when she had been informed of Olney's death, and a mist stood before her eyes as she sat beside the window that prevented her seeing the objects in the street.
And yet she took the note when Jessica had completed it, and sent it by her own maid to the address upon the envelope.
It seemed to her that the hours would never pass between twelve and two, and yet when the announcement was made to her that Senor Meriaz was awaiting her in the library, she could not go down and face him. She loathed him with a passionate repulsion, and her whole nature rebelled at the interview that must follow, yet she nerved herself to it, and was stately in her calmness as she entered the room where he waited.
"You sent for me, senorita?" he said, bowing to her with the innate politeness of even the lowest Spaniard.
"Miss de Barryos," she corrected, calmly.
"Was I mistaken, or did Miss Chalmers tell me that you also were Mexican?"
"My father was a Mexican, not I. I do not know the country," answered the girl, who but afew short months ago had loved to hear tales of travel there, and had spoken the liquid, musical language with such delight. "I sent for you, Senor Meriaz, upon a most unpleasant errand."
"I can imagine nothing unpleasant connected with—Miss—de Barryos," he answered, watching her shiver curiously.
She took no notice of his words, but continued, even more coldly than before:
"By design, senor, I overheard the conversation between you and Mr. Pierrepont in this room."
"By design, senorita?"
"Yes," she answered, haughtily. "I was a witness of your presentation to him; I saw him motion to you to follow him from the drawing-room, and a moment afterward I followed also. I was behind that portière there when your conversation took place."
"Well, senorita?" he said, coolly.
"I must ask you once more not to call me that."
"I beg your pardon. Custom causes me to use it unaware."
She inclined her head slightly, and continued:
"Senor Meriaz, you are aware, as you informed Mr. Pierrepont in that conversation, that I was the betrothed wife of Mr. Olney Winthrop, five thousand dollars of whose money was paid you today to conceal some secret concerning his death."
She paused, but Meriaz only bowed with profound indifference.
"You must understand," she went on, when she saw that he did not intend to assist her, "how very much interested I am in discovering everything connected with the death of my fiancé, and it was to induce you to tell me this secret that I asked Miss Chalmers to send for you today."
"What inducement do you offer, seno—Miss de Barryos?"
She hesitated a moment, then said, slowly:
"What inducement do you require, Senor Meriaz?"
"Well," he exclaimed, greedily, passing his mottled tongue over his still more mottled lips, "it is quite true that Mr. Pierrepont paid me the five thousand today to preserve the secret; will you double that amount if I break my word and return his five thousand to him?"
"No. In the first place, the money did not belong to him. It belonged to the man who has been murdered, and whose murderer I intend to bring to the gallows, as he would desire. As his affianced wife, I tell you that you may keep the money, and to it I will add another five thousand if you tell me the story Leith Pierrepont wished concealed, if you will tell me how Olney Winthrop came to his death; but not a dollar will I add to that amount."
For a moment Meriaz hesitated, then leaning forward, with his beady eyes fixed upon her, he exclaimed:
"I may trust you?"
"I give you Miss Chalmers as my reference," she answered, coldly.
He leaned further forward, placing his arms upon his knees. He reminded her of some treacherous animal about to spring upon his helpless prey, and somehow she felt as she imagined she would if she were alone in a forest, the victim of some repulsive beast.
"You want to know how Olney Winthrop came to his death," he said, speaking in a half-hoarse whisper, whose effect he had counted, "and you offer me five thousand dollars to tell you the story Leith Pierrepont would have concealed?"
"I do."
"Very well; I consent. Listen: Olney Winthrop was suffocated in a deserted mine. He waspushed down by some one with whom he was walking along the lonely road."
She had risen slowly, her hands pressed upon her breast, her eyes wild with terror.
"And the person with whom he was walking," she cried, heavily, pantingly, "was—"
"Leith Pierrepont," he answered, sullenly.
She uttered a little half-strangled cry.
"You are sure," she gasped; "sure?"
"I saw it all," he said, slowly. "I saw them walking, saw them approach the mine, saw the shove, heard the fall and the awful cry as Winthrop reached the bottom. There was no possible way to save him, and Pierrepont knew that when he threw him to his death."
She stood there stonily, the quiet of death growing upon her.
"Can you prove this?" she asked, dully.
"Every word," he returned, cunningly, "if you offer sufficient—inducement. That was not included in the bargain."
Carlita stood there for some moments resembling nothing so much as some magnificent statue, her countenance just as stony, her face just as colorless, her form just as rigid. If she felt anything whatever—any emotion of horror, contempt, or triumph—there was no evidence of it—not even in the tones of her voice when she spoke at last.
"I have no objection to paying you for the proof which I shall demand that you furnish," she said, quietly; "but you must understand that it must be convincing—it must mean conviction. Accomplish this, and I will add ten thousand to the amount already agreed upon; fail, and you receive nothingbeyond payment for your secret. Is this satisfactory?"
She must have been unobserving, indeed, not to have seen the greedy roll of his beady eyes, the miserly clutching of his grimy fingers, as if he already felt the beloved gold in his too affectionate clasp.
And yet he bowed almost coldly, in his absolute control over himself.
"I have no fear of failure, senorita. Get him back to Mexico, and leave the rest to me," he said, indifferently. "I shall not regret to see him suffer for his crime, but a man must look to his own interest first."
A slight shiver of repugnance and contempt passed over her, but vanished quickly in the utter apathy that seemed to possess her.
She interrupted him almost before he had completed his sentence.
"Until after the—the trial, I shall expect your time to be mine, your services constantly at my disposal. I shall expect you to remain in New York until I tell you to go to Mexico, and to give all information that may be required."
"I understand that to be in the bargain, senorita," he returned, formally. "You will not find me shirking any of the responsibility I have undertaken."
"Very well. Leave your address upon that table, I shall send for you when I need you."
It seemed to her that it would have been impossible for her to stand there watching him until he had written it out and left the room. The very sight of him nauseated her—oppressed her with terrible loathing. She turned from him and left the room with that stately dignity which was so recently acquired a characteristic, and slowly mounted the stairs to her room, feeling worn and weary, as if some new and hideous afflictionweighed upon her, instead of the accomplishment of a cherished revenge.
She had scarcely deserted the library when, through the portière through which she had listened the evening before to the conversation between Meriaz and Pierrepont, Jessica glided with the grace of a shining serpent. She went straight up to Meriaz and smiled into his face with as singular a fascination as she had been wont to use upon her victims in society.
"Well," she exclaimed, half caressingly, "you have accomplished it?"
He laughed slightly—not a pleasant sound; but she did not shrink from it in the least.
"You put a good job in my way, little one," he said, familiarly. "Twenty thousand ain't picked up every day in the week. It was a lucky stroke for me the day I started for New York, but that walk down by the old Donato Mine was a still luckier one. It ain't safe for us to talk too much here, for I have found that walls have ears just as often as little pitchers, and this room is a particularly good place for eavesdroppers. But there is one thing I want you to do for me, little one."
"What is it?"
"I want about five minutes' conversation with your mother."
"What about?"
He smiled.
"That is my secret—and hers," he answered.
"She has no secrets from me."
"Perhaps not, but I don't mix up my affairs in that promiscuous way. She may tell you, afterward, if she likes. Will you arrange it so that I can see her?"
For just a moment Jessica hesitated, and then said, quietly:
"Come with me; I'll take you to her boudoir."
And, knowing how her mother detested the man,knowing how she feared him, Jessica led him upstairs, and without seeking permission, ushered him into her mother's presence.
She did not wait to overhear that conversation, but went at once to Carlita's room.
Carlita did not hear her knock, did not hear the door open; but Jessica found her seated beside the window, her head resting upon the back of her chair, her eyes closed, her hands upon her lap, every muscle seemed to be relaxed save those of the hands, but these were so tightly compressed as to give ample indication of the terrible mental strain which had well-nigh exhausted her.
There was time for Jessica to observe her closely before Carlita became aware of her presence, and a smile of absolute hatred was changed quickly to one of tenderest solicitude as the dark eyes suddenly opened and rested upon her face.
She went forward quickly and knelt by Carlita's side, clasping her waist with both arms.
"I thought you were sleeping," she said, gently, telling her lie as sweetly as if it were unvarnished truth.
"Sleeping!" returned Carlita with a little shiver, her voice heavy and dry and expressionless. "Oh, no! I don't feel as if I should ever sleep again."
"Then it is—true?"
"God! So cruelly true that it seems impossible! Why is it that fact is so much more ghastly in its horror than fiction?"
"He can prove it?" asked Jessica, allowing the question to go unanswered for want of knowledge to meet it.
"Yes," cried Carlita, with the first semblance of passion in her tone. "Prove it the most dastardly crime in all the annals of criminal records. Oh, my God! that man could be so false, so craven a coward!"
"But the act is not what you have to think ofnow," exclaimed Jessica, feverishly, "it is its punishment. What are you going to do?"
"I have not thought. It seems to me that I am incapable of thought."
"But there is no time to be lost. If he should discover in any way that we suspect him, he would make his escape, and your opportunity would be forever lost. You must act at once."
"But how?" asked Carlita, hoarsely, her interest at piteously low ebb.
"Telegraph to Stolliker that you have the proof."
"Will you write it out for me? I feel so incapable, so helpless."
Jessica did not wait for any instructions, but went at once to the desk and wrote rapidly:
"Have every proof you seek of guilt of man we suspect in my possession. Obtain extradition papers at once, and return here without loss of time. Let me hear when this is received."
"Have every proof you seek of guilt of man we suspect in my possession. Obtain extradition papers at once, and return here without loss of time. Let me hear when this is received."
And then with only the assistance from Carlita of setting down the numbers in an apathetic way on a telegraph blank as she hunted them out, Jessica prepared it for transmission.
She did not leave Carlita alone after that, but tortured her with ways and means of completing her revenge, until it seemed to the poor, unhappy child that she should go mad under the sound of the well-modulated, musical voice. And yet she would not have been left alone for worlds. It seemed to her that in solitude madness lay, while longing for it with all her heart.
If you have ever suffered from some terrible shock, you will perfectly understand such inconsistency.
It was almost twelve o'clock that night when Stolliker's answer arrived, and even to send it thenhe had been forced to bribe the operator to open the office.
Carlita's fingers trembled so that she could not hold the volume to search out the meaning of the figures, but once more Jessica came to her aid.
"Send necessary affidavit at once. Even then much money will be required. Shall be forced to bring officer with me. Be sure suspect knows nothing of your movements and keep him near you as constantly as possible. If you lose sight of him, everything will fail."
"Send necessary affidavit at once. Even then much money will be required. Shall be forced to bring officer with me. Be sure suspect knows nothing of your movements and keep him near you as constantly as possible. If you lose sight of him, everything will fail."
And the reply was sent before either of the two girls slept:
"Call upon me for all money necessary, and spare no expense. Will send affidavit tomorrow morning. Your instructions shall be fully carried out."
"Call upon me for all money necessary, and spare no expense. Will send affidavit tomorrow morning. Your instructions shall be fully carried out."
And then Carlita found herself alone.
Where was the triumph over the murderer of her betrothed husband? Where was the exultation in bringing to justice so dastardly a criminal? Where was the wild joy in the fulfillment of an oath to the dead?
Was it expressed in the tight clasping of those interlaced fingers? Was it displayed in that passionate outburst of bitter, uncontrollable weeping?
God knows alone; for the heart of women is beyond human understanding, but after hours of groveling in the most exquisite anguish which she had ever known or ever dreamed of, she arose and crept into bed, turning out the light before she had undressed, because she was ashamed to face herself, ashamed to think of the bitterness of her agony, and yet understanding it no more than a child would have understood.
The curse of Pocahontas was following her with relentless severity.