"Sweet face, swift eyes and gleamingSun-gifted rippling hair—Lips like two rosebuds dreamingIn June's fruit-scented air:Life when her spring days meet her,Hope when her angels greet her,Is not more calm—nor sweeter;And love is not more fair."God bless your thoughts, my sweet one,Whatever they may be!Youth's life is but a fleet one,Foam from an ebbing sea.Time, tide, and fate o'erturn all,Save one thing ever vernal,Sweet love that lives eternal,Life of eternity!"
"Sweet face, swift eyes and gleamingSun-gifted rippling hair—Lips like two rosebuds dreamingIn June's fruit-scented air:Life when her spring days meet her,Hope when her angels greet her,Is not more calm—nor sweeter;And love is not more fair.
"God bless your thoughts, my sweet one,Whatever they may be!Youth's life is but a fleet one,Foam from an ebbing sea.Time, tide, and fate o'erturn all,Save one thing ever vernal,Sweet love that lives eternal,Life of eternity!"
To the day of his death Arthur, Lord Chester, carried this picture in his memory and his heart—this picture of a girl standing by a magnificent large mastiff with one tiny white hand holding his silver collar. Beneath her fairy feet was daisied grass, and her simple white gown and the broad straw hat she carried on her arm seemed to fit the spring-time that was imaged in the golden lengths of rippling hair. So she stood—"a sight to make an old man young"—Ethel's younger sister, the senator's favorite.
The words of a poet of his own fair land leaped to his lips:
"Sovereign lady in fair fieldMyself for such a face had boldly died."
"Sovereign lady in fair fieldMyself for such a face had boldly died."
Later in the day he called at the Winans mansion, and Ethel received him alone. Her mamma was too ill and nervous to see any one.
Never had the queenly Ethel looked more charming. No shade of anxiety dimmed the dark radiance of her eyes. She had slept long and late, and when she awoke and heard that Precious was not yet found she laughed andsaid that she was sure that her sister had eloped with some handsome young man, and would be coming home in a few days from her bridal tour, with her husband, to ask papa's forgiveness.
And she repeated this to Lord Chester when he expressed solicitude over her sister's fate.
"I am not at all uneasy, my lord," she cried lightly; "I think it very likely that Precious has eloped with one of her tutors. Papa had several young men coming here to teach my sister music, and drawing, and dancing. Of course her French governess was always present. But she scarcely understood a word of English, so it was easy enough for one of them to make love to her if he wished, and Precious was just the kind of pretty, willful simpleton to fall in love with a nobody and marry him."
A keen, inexplicable pain tore the young man's heart at those words, and it seemed to him that Ethel's levity amounted to heartlessness. He looked gravely at her with his dark-gray eyes, and it seemed to him that there was something lacking in her beauty that he had not missed last night, but he did not realize as yet that the change was in himself.
He would have denied it if any one had taxed him with being in love with a girl whom he knew only by her portrait.
Only last night he had adored charming Ethel Winans. It was only her mother's interruption that had prevented him from laying his heart and title at her feet. The words had trembled on his lips while he looked at her with his heart in his eyes.
Why did he not speak to-day?
The opportunity was very favorable, for it was but seldom he could find the brilliant belle alone.
And Ethel's languid air, just touched with the softness of love, was very inviting. It was just the gentle mood in which a girl is likely to accept a proposal.
But he did not propose, although he said to himself that really he ought to, and he was afraid she expected it, afterlast night. But really it might not be quite correct to speak just now when the family was crushed with grief over the kidnaping of a beloved daughter. He would postpone the declaration.
In truth last night's zest was lacking. Last night Ethel had seemed to him a peerless goddess. To-day she was only an ordinary mortal—beautiful, but—not as divine as her younger sister.
If he had dreamed of the mad passion of jealousy surging under her calm exterior he would never have uttered his next words:
"I saw your sister's portrait at Valentine's studio to-day. Her beauty merits all her father's praise."
She bit her scarlet lip and tore to pieces a rose in her fingers.
"The portrait is flattered. Precious is not half so beautiful," she answered coldly, and a sudden constraint came between them. Lord Chester, blind to the smoldering fury under the long black lashes, thought her weary of him, and soon took leave.
Ethel, left alone in the splendid room, with the scattered rose petals at her feet, flung out her arms with a gesture of rebellious despair, and moaned bitterly:
"She has won my lover's heart with that fatal, luring, childish beauty! How can I help but hate her now?"
The evening's post brought a mysterious type-written letter to Senator Winans. It ran thus:
"You have made a mistake. I did not steal Precious for a ransom, but for love of her fair face. Do not be uneasy. I shall not harm your beautiful daughter. She is safe in the care of a kind, motherly woman, but she is also my prisoner, and will remain so until she consents to become my bride. After she is married to me you shall see her again, but never before; so you must be patient, for she is a little obdurate now, but in the end I shall win her consent."
"You have made a mistake. I did not steal Precious for a ransom, but for love of her fair face. Do not be uneasy. I shall not harm your beautiful daughter. She is safe in the care of a kind, motherly woman, but she is also my prisoner, and will remain so until she consents to become my bride. After she is married to me you shall see her again, but never before; so you must be patient, for she is a little obdurate now, but in the end I shall win her consent."
The letter had no date or signature, but it was postmarked Washington.
"Didn't I say it was an elopement?" cried Ethel, inscornful triumph, but her father turned on her a lightning glance of reproof, and cried sternly:
"Never dare, Ethel, to repeat that false word elopement of your innocent sister again. You have just read in this letter that it was an abduction, not an elopement. So do not make another such mistake."
IN A VILLAIN'S POWER.
"To see her is to love her,And love but her forever;For nature made her what she is,And never made another!"—Burns.
"To see her is to love her,And love but her forever;For nature made her what she is,And never made another!"—Burns.
When Senator Winans left Precious standing like a vision of beauty under a garlanded pillar to await his return, he did not dream that the vulture of danger hovered near his blue-eyed darling.
But burning eyes only a little distance away glared on the girl with wolfish eagerness, and minute by minute those small keen eyes grew fiercer with the fire of passion.
Precious, all unconscious of those burning eyes, stood quietly watching the strangers that surrounded her, coming and going in ceaseless ebb and flow like the waves of the sea.
Suddenly those eyes came nearer, nearer, and burned on the lovely face. Then a voice spoke in her ear:
"Good-evening, Miss Winans."
Precious started and looked at the speaker.
She recognized her drawing-master, Lindsey Warwick, a young man she secretly disliked because she had a vague suspicion that he was the writer of several mysterious love-letters she had lately received.
She gave him a haughty nod, but she did not speak, only stared in surprise at his elegant evening suit and the rose in his buttonhole, that transformed him from the poor drawing-master to the elegant man of fashion.
Lindsey Warwick was not at all abashed by her superciliousair. He seemed to be wildly agitated, his face pale, his firm chin trembling with emotion. Bending close to the girl's ear he whispered:
"Come! your father wishes me to take you to your mother."
Something about him, his awe-struck tone, his agitation frightened the girl. She gasped inquiringly:
"Mamma?"
And Lindsey Warwick answered unhesitatingly, though his voice was hoarse and strange:
"Yes, poor child, your mother has just dropped dead of heart-disease over yonder. Come," and he held out his arm.
If she had uttered a cry the little scene might have attracted attention from the vast crowd surging about, but had he thrust a sword to the very hilt in her heart Precious could not have fallen more silently or swiftly at his feet. She just dropped down unconscious without moan or cry—that was all.
No one had observed anything strange, only one or two looked around when he exclaimed, "My sister has fainted!"
His ruse had succeeded admirably. Precious lay like a dead girl at his feet, and there was no one to interfere.
The villain lifted the slender white form in his arms and pushed through the crowd, trying to gain the door. People made way when they saw his burden and heard him mutter his formula, "My sister has fainted." But no one displayed any special interest. Half a score of women had fainted that night.
So Lindsey Warwick gained the outer air with his burden, and soon finding a cab took her away.
It was a daring game that he had played, but he had won.
The project had flashed into his mind when he saw her alone and unguarded in the heedless crowd, and in the desperation of a mad and hopeless love he had carried it out. He knew that the chances were terribly againsthim, but he resolved to run the risk in hope of the prize.
The cab took him and his captive to the very suburbs of South Washington—to an old tumble-down red brick house of two stories that stood alone in a large neglected lot. There were but a few more houses in the square, and those strictly of the shanty order.
Cabby held out his hand, remarking grumpily:
"Five dollars, you know, is legal fare for Inauguration night."
"I'll make it ten for good luck, and you can go on a big spree to-morrow," laughed Lindsey Warwick, handing him a bill.
Cabby thanked the kind gentleman vociferously, but he did not wait till the next day, but went on his orgies at once, and wound up early next morning in the police court, where he was sent to jail for ten days in default of payment of his fine. He never saw the papers, never knew of the sensation that had followed the simple fact of his driving a young lady and gentleman home from the Inauguration Ball. He did not dream that he had been concerned in an abduction, or that Senator Winans would have made him rich for life if he had given to him the clew he possessed to his lost daughter.
Precious, the petted daughter of wealth and luxury all her life, recovered her consciousness in the smallest, shabbiest, most common-looking bedroom she had ever beheld.
A coarse woman of about fifty years was leaning over her. She looked and smelled like a laundress.
"Who are you, and where am I?" quavered Precious.
A man came forward then, and at sight of him everything came back to her memory. She lifted her head from the coarse pillow with a shriek.
"Mamma! oh, darling mamma!"
"Be quiet. Your mother is all right, my dear," said Warwick. "The story of her death was only a ruse to make you faint, so that I could get you into my power.I love you, so I brought you away to make you my prisoner until you would consent to be my bride."
Precious sprang to her feet, her blue eyes blazing with anger and scorn.
"You must be crazy! Why, my papa will kill you for this!" she panted indignantly.
Lindsey Warwick laughed mockingly.
"Oh, no, my dear; he will not get the chance. He will never know where you are until you marry me!"
She stamped her little foot with the pride of a queen.
"Senator Winans' daughter marry you—a drawing-master!" she cried, with increased indignation.
"Certainly, my dear. Pride can stoop sometimes. Your mother was only a governess when she became the senator's bride!"
She looked at him in amazement at his knowledge of their family history, and answered proudly:
"My mother belonged to one of the proudest families in the South. It was only the reverse of fortune that placed her for a short time in a dependent position."
With a laugh he answered:
"Granted, but she was only a governess, and the senator's daughter may stoop like her father to wed her tutor."
"I hate you! I would not marry you if you were the last man on earth! Release me at once, and let me go home!" she cried imperiously.
"I will not. I love you to madness, and I have sworn that I will make you my bride. I will keep you imprisoned here until you consent."
"I will kill myself first."
"I am not afraid of that."
She looked at the coarse, frowzy-haired woman whose greasy clothes smelled of soapsuds.
"Are you in this plot?" she asked disdainfully.
"He is my son, and has put you in my charge, and Ihave promised to keep you safe; that is all," was the careless answer.
"But my father will search everywhere for me, and he will punish you both when he finds me."
"He will not find you, for there will not be the slightest clew for him to follow. This house is an old ruin, and my mother lives here alone. I board in one of the best neighborhoods in Washington, and I will never come here to see you only late at night."
He made a motion to the old woman, and she immediately retired from the room.
Then the dark, sneering face of the young man softened with love and longing. He knelt at her feet, and cried passionately:
"Forgive me, for I love you wildly, and I knew I could never win you except by force. I have loved you madly for months. I sent you the tenderest love-letters man ever penned, but you did not reply to them. I looked at you often with my heart in my eyes, but you averted your face. Why were you so cold to me?"
"I despised you," answered Precious. "Only yesterday I resolved to tell mamma that you were presuming on your position to try to make love to me. I wish now that I had told her. Then she would have had some suspicion of the truth."
"She will think now that you have eloped with some low-born lover!" he sneered, rising to his feet, for she had drawn back from him in disdain. "But I will leave you to rest now, my beautiful love, and my mother will come and help you to retire. Fear nothing. You will be kindly treated here, but you will never be restored to your home until you consent to marry me—ay, until the knot is tied. So think well of my proposal, for I will make you a good husband. Good-night," and he bowed and withdrew.
If the thought of her captivity had not been so dreadful, Precious could have laughed at the man's presumption.
To think that she, the daughter of an illustrious statesman, should have such a lover as this—a drawing-master, the son of a laundress! Well, papa would come to find her very, very soon, and then he would punish the bold villain for his presumption.
THE FORTUNE-TELLER.
"I miss you my darling, my darling—The embers burn low on the hearth,And still is the air of the household,And hushed is the voice of mirth.The rain splashes fast on the terrace,The winds past the lattices moan;The midnight chimes out from the minsterAnd I am alone!"
"I miss you my darling, my darling—The embers burn low on the hearth,And still is the air of the household,And hushed is the voice of mirth.The rain splashes fast on the terrace,The winds past the lattices moan;The midnight chimes out from the minsterAnd I am alone!"
Lindsey Warwick had not counted on such determined obstinacy as his lovely young captive displayed.
From first to last she refused to taste a morsel of food beneath the roof of her jailer.
The keenness of her thirst made her accept water from the woman, but that was all. Neither cajoleries, threats, nor bribes could induce her to taste the food provided for her, though it was of the best, with fruits and wines, and even bon-bons to tempt her girlish appetite. Although she was starving she pushed them aside with disdain, and lay all day on the couch weeping forlornly, and calling by turns on the names of her father, mother, and sister.
Poor Precious! she had fully believed that her father would find her in less than twenty-four hours, but the long days wore away, and she gave herself up to despair. Prayers, promises, pleadings, were of no avail with the cruel old woman and her enamored son.
But at heart the old woman was uneasy and frightened as the long days waned and the beautiful captive grew paler and weaker day by day.
"She will die, Lindsey, for she has never tasted foodsince she came here, and that is a long week now. You had better let her go. She will never marry you; she will die first, as she said."
"Then she will be mine in death. I will bury her under the cellar of this house, and no one will ever know the secret of her fate."
"It is a wonder they did not suspect you," she exclaimed.
"I fancy the detectives did at first, but I was clever, and threw them off the scent. In the first place, I went as usual that day to give her her lesson in drawing. When the servants told me she was missing I pretended to be entirely in ignorance. Then I devoted myself to a girl in my own rank, and contrived to make every one think me engaged to her. That cleared me, you see."
"Better marry that girl, Lindsey. She might be happy with you. T'other one wouldn't, even if you got her. You're too poor; she couldn't bear it."
"But her father worships the ground she walks on; he would give her a dowry if she married me."
"Better say he would disinherit her for such a marriage."
"Not if she could be brought to love me. He's a stickler for love matches, I know. He married a governess himself. No, mother, only let me get the little beauty to marry me; and the senator would forgive us, and my fortune would be made."
"Go upstairs and look at that poor girl a-dying, as white as the wall, and not able to walk across the floor, and maybe you'll change your mind," replied she cynically.
"By heaven! she shall eat!" he cried frantically. "I will force her to swallow food at the point of a pistol."
"And drive her insane—yes, that's what you'll do!"
"Mother, you're a fool! Come along and help me, and we'll pour some wine down her throat. She shall not die. I love her too well. Life would be a desert without her."
She followed him up the dark, rickety stairway, carrying the lamp, for it was after dark, and presently unlocked the door of the girl's prison.
"What is that?" he cried in horror.
Precious lay face downward on the floor, seemingly lifeless.
"I told you so. She's dead! You've killed her!" the woman muttered.
With a groan he flung himself on his knees and lifted the silent form. The white face with its closed eyes fell inertly across his arm. He bent his ear to her heart.
"No, no, she is not dead. Her heart beats faintly. Quick! some wine in a spoon. Here, put it between her lips. Let it trickle down her throat," and with wild anxiety he held the still, white face up to the light.
Meantime there were suspense and horror unutterable in the senator's splendid mansion.
Since that bold and daring letter that had told them Precious was in the power of a lover whose passion amounted to insanity, no further clew had been found.
The most alert detectives of Washington and New York were completely baffled, though neither time nor money was spared in the quest.
Mrs. Winans had taken to her bed, a weak, nervous, weeping woman, and the physician declared that she would never rise from it again unless her daughter were soon restored. Her husband looked like a man whose mind might go wrong at any moment. Ethel, who had been sullenly indifferent at first, and secretly exultant at her sister's strait, began to get over her first anger, and missing the sunshine from the house prayed God to pardon her mad jealousy and restore her little sister to their yearning hearts.
"And let Lord Chester love her if he will, for if he can turn so easily from one to another he is not worth the winning," she thought with bitter pride.
She did not see him much in those days, but she knew that he was often with her father, and that he was eager to join in and forward every plan for finding Precious.
"I am forgotten already; but let him go, he is nothing to me," she said to herself with jealous pride, trying to cheat her own aching heart.
Suddenly her brother, Earle, who had been abroad, came home, and his grief and horror at the fate of Little Blue Eyes, as he had loved to call his younger sister, were most intense.
Ethel could not resist one bitter fling.
"Now that your idol is gone, perhaps you will be able to remember sometimes that you have another sister," she cried bitterly.
Earle, who was dark and handsome and impetuous, like his father, turned on her a glance of displeasure.
"Ethel, how can you speak so? Have I ever forgotten you? Did I not bring you from abroad more costly gifts than I brought Precious?"
"Earle, forgive me; I was only jesting;" she cried quickly. But the pretense did not deceive the brother, who said to himself:
"Ethel is as foolishly jealous as ever. What a pity!"
But he put his arm around her and kissed the rosy cheek.
"You are more beautiful than ever, dear, and I have heard it whispered that you will some day be—Lady Chester," he whispered.
"Do not speak to me of Lord Chester. I hate him!" cried Ethel, and fled, sobbing wildly, to her own room.
She might weep all she would over her false lover now, and they would only think it was grief for her sister. Her maid thought so when she came into the room with tearful eyes and said eagerly:
"Oh, miss, if you'd take my advice you'd go to see a fortune-teller about Miss Precious. I know one in South Washington almost out in the country, and she tells very true."
"Nonsense, Hetty; they have no knowledge of the future—no more than we have."
"Oh, but, Miss Ethel, she told me wonderful things, and true as gospel, every word. I do believe as sure as my name's Hetty Wilkins that she could give you a clew to your sister's whereabouts. She's a clairvoyant, and charges a dollar for each person. Them clairvoyants always tells true, they say. Now, if you would like to slip out this afternoon for a walk, I'd go with you, for it's a lonesome neighborhood, and not safe for a lady like you alone."
"What is the address, did you say, Hetty?" inquired Ethel eagerly.
The woman fumbled in her pocketbook and brought out a crumpled bit of paper that she spread before Ethel's eyes.
"Perhaps I'll go with you to-morrow; I've another engagement for this afternoon to go walking with Miss Miller," Ethel said carelessly, and when Hetty saw her going out an hour later in a simple tailor-made suit and thick veil, she thought her young lady was going to keep her engagement, and sighed regretfully at Ethel's lack of faith in the wonderful clairvoyant seeress.
But Ethel knew how to keep her own secrets. She was on her way to the woman now.
She was not afraid, in spite of what Hetty had told her, for she had her sister's magnificent great mastiff along for protection—Kay, his young mistress insisted on calling him, because a beautiful young lady at the White House had one of that name.
It was a dreary March afternoon with a high wind and sunless sky, and Ethel had a long walk before her, but she preferred it to riding. She was an excellent pedestrian.
She reached the lonely old tumble-down brick house, and after knocking several times was admitted by a frowzy looking woman, who said that she was a fortune-teller.
"I have a lover, but I fear I have lost his love. I wantto know if I shall ever marry him," faltered Ethel, putting some money in the outstretched palm.
"I can tell you about him, miss, but you must quiet that dog first. He is running and barking in the hall like a crazy thing, with his nose on the floor. What ails him?" uneasily.
Ethel opened the door and after some difficulty induced Kay to enter.
"He will be quiet now," she said, but Kay belied her words. The beautiful great fellow ran whining about the room, giving every symptom of excitement and interest. Suddenly he dipped his muzzle into a basket of trash in one corner and emitted a prolonged and dismal howl as he trotted back to Ethel.
Turning in surprise she saw in his mouth a long white kid glove, very tiny, and with golden buttons.
"Oh, heaven! my little sister's glove!" she cried.
"IT IS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF FATE THAT YOU WILL SIN AND YOU WILL SUFFER."
"Man's love is like the restless waves,Ever at rise and fall;The only love a woman cravesIt must be all in all.Ask me no more if I regret—You need not care to know,A woman's heart does not forget——"
"Man's love is like the restless waves,Ever at rise and fall;The only love a woman cravesIt must be all in all.Ask me no more if I regret—You need not care to know,A woman's heart does not forget——"
The fortune-teller, who was no other than Mrs. Warwick, the laundress, became terribly agitated at the finding of the glove, and the excited shriek of Ethel.
"Oh, God! my sister's glove!" shrieked the girl, and the woman cowered before her, and turned ashy pale.
The immense mastiff permitted Ethel to take the little white glove from his mouth, but he pressed close to her side with his great fore-paws in her lap, and fixing his big intelligent eyes on her face with an imploring expression, kept on yelping and whining in a dismal strain that was almost terrifying.
Kay had loved his fair young mistress with intense canine devotion, and as soon as he entered the old house his keenness of scent had made him acquainted with her presence there. He was following up the trail with blended joy and perplexity, when Ethel had called him into the room, where he had at once renewed his investigations, with the result that he had found the glove.
It was hers, Kay knew it, and with almost human excitement he carried it to Ethel, while his dismal yelps said as plain as words:
"My darling little mistress is somewhere near to us, but I cannot find her. Help me! oh, help me!"
Mrs. Warwick stared at both in horror, for the fatal truth dawned on her mind. This girl was the sister of the captive upstairs, and the faithful dog had penetrated the mystery.
While she was collecting her scattered self-possession Ethel turned to her, exclaiming agitatedly:
"My sister is in this house, a prisoner! Lead me to her at once."
The expression of fear on Mrs. Warwick's face changed to one of cunning, and she cried sullenly:
"Lady, I don't know what you mean! What would your sister be doing in this old house, where nobody lives but me? That glove was left here a week ago by a beautiful young lady that wanted her fortune told. I kept it, a-thinking she'd likely come back for it, but she never did."
"The girl was my sister. Did she come alone?" asked Ethel, fancying that perhaps her maid had told Precious about the fortune-teller, too. It made the woman's story sound plausible.
"That dog makes me nervous. But get him to stop his racket, and I'll tell you all about the girl."
Ethel pressed Kay's head down upon her knee, and soothed him until his sharp, impatient yelps subsided into low, dismal whining, and then the woman said:
"It was Inauguration night, about midnight, I guess, that I was aroused by a couple, a pretty, blue-eyed girl in white, with long yellow curls, and a handsome young man. They told me they had run away from the ball to get married, and the girl was afraid of her father, and wanted me to tell her if he would ever forgive her for doing it. It seemed as how he was a swell, and rich, but her young man was poor, and worked for a living. I read the cards for them, and told them to go ahead, that the old man would come round and take them home to live in the grand mansion. The girl laughed for joy, and the young manpaid me a double fee, then they went away in their carriage, and presently I found the girl's glove on the floor where she had dropped it."
Her story had a plausible sound, but Ethel looked at her suspiciously, and said:
"The girl's description answers to that of my sister, Precious Winans, who was abducted from the Inauguration Ball; but there is something strange about your story, for my sister was not willing to marry the man. I'm certain of that."
"Then it couldn't be the same young lady, for the one I saw here was desperate fond of her young man, I'm sure," returned the woman maliciously, hoping that this falsehood would help her son's cause with the senator.
"It is very strange," said Ethel, with a perplexed air, for she did not believe in her heart that Precious was in love with anybody. She rose abruptly, restraining Kay by a hand on his silver collar. "I will take the glove to papa and tell him what you have told me. Perhaps it may give him a clew."
"Oh, but, miss, I haven't told your fortune yet. Just stay a little longer, and keep that brute quiet, and I'll go into a trance, and tell you all you want to know."
Ethel paused irresolute. She did not really have much faith in the old woman's powers of divination, but she was curious, and—"the woman who hesitates is lost."
The fortune-teller threw herself into a chair, leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and feigned sleep.
Ethel, with her hand on Kay's collar, waited nervously.
Soon the woman began to mutter, like one asleep.
And as she was very angry at Ethel for coming there and getting her into what she foresaw would be a very bad scrape, she determined to give the young lady a very grewsome fortune. She accordingly began:
"You have a rich and handsome lover, and every girl in Washington has envied you, but now they laugh in derision."
Ethel started violently, her dark eyes flashing luridly.
"They laugh," continued the pretended clairvoyant, "because another girl has cut you out with your grand lover. He has almost forgotten you already, and worships the blue eyes and golden hair of his new love."
She heard a repressed gasp of agony that assured her that the chance shot had hit the mark, but her malice was not satiated yet, and she continued solemnly and dreamily:
"You will have a bad, black, bitter future. Your jealous hate of your successful rival will cause you to commit a crime. I cannot tell you for certain whether you will be sent to prison or hung for it, for I cannot clearly read the jurors' minds; besides, much will depend on the great influence of your powerful relations, so I don't know exactly how much punishment you will get, but it is written in the book of fate that you will sin and you will suffer."
It was the merest malicious jargon, guess-work, based on Ethel's first statement that she had lost her lover's heart, but it struck home to Ethel's proud, passionate heart with the awful certainty of prophecy. She trembled with terror, and the cold dew of fear started out on her brow, beneath the dark wavy tresses of her rich hair. With an effort she shook the woman's shoulder loathingly.
"Wake up! I don't want to hear any more of your dismal stuff! I'm going," she cried imperiously.
Mrs. Warwick shuddered, gasped, and seemed to come out of a deep sleep. Her guest was already going through the doorway into the hall.
Just then Kay broke from Ethel's grasp, and bounded up the rickety stairs to the narrow passageway above. They heard him, reared up on his hind feet, beating with his fore-paws on a door, and barking furiously.
"Call your dog down, or I will kill him!" shrieked the woman.
"You will not dare to do it. Papa brought him from Europe for my sister, and he cost several hundred dollars,"answered Ethel quickly, but she stood at the foot of the stairway and called the mastiff repeatedly, first persuasively, then authoritatively.
But one tone had no more effect than the other.
Kay continued his vociferous barking, and the sound of his huge body as he hurled it against the resisting door echoed through the house.
"The brute is devilish! If I had a pistol I'd shoot him, even if he cost ten thousand dollars!" vowed the irate fortune-teller.
"I will go and bring him down," cried Ethel, but the woman pushed her away.
"No, no! you must not go up there! He is only after my big cat! I will go myself, and drive him down!"
"But you must not strike him. Precious never allowed any one to strike him," Ethel called anxiously.
The woman did not answer; she rushed on, and caught up a stick in the hall. Furious with anger she brought it down on Kay's back.
There was a savage howl of pain and fury.
The petted mastiff that had never felt the weight of a blow in his life, turned glaring red eyes on his assailant, and sprang at her ferociously.
In a minute she was down under the huge paws.
Ethel heard the blow, the savage howl of the startled dog, the fall of the woman's body on the floor, borne down by Kay's strong paws, then strangling shrieks:
"Help! Help! He will kill me!"
The girl bounded up the stairs and saw the infuriated Kay at the throat of the prostrate woman.
With a cry of horror Ethel caught his collar in both hands, trying to drag him off.
But Kay resisted all the efforts of her puny strength, and the contest must have ended in a tragedy but for a sudden happening.
From within the closed and locked door where Kay had been struggling to effect an entrance sounded a low, clear, eager voice:
"Kay! Kay! come to Precious!"
The woman on the floor was kicking, struggling, shrieking, and the dog, with his paws on her breast had his fangs at her throat, but at that sweet, clear voice everything changed on the instant.
The dog, with his jaws wide open, emitted a howl of savage joy, and leaped upward to the height of a man, then turned from the woman and back to the door. His victim scrambled to her feet, her garments hanging in tatters, her face ashy pale and absolutely fiendish, but before she could utter a word she saw Ethel come up to her with blazing eyes.
The girl cried sternly:
"My sister is in that room. Open the door this instant, I command you."
"I will not obey you!"
"You shall!"
"I will not!"
Ethel's face was corpse-like in its pallor, her black eyes glowed with light.
"Kay!" she called, in a low, menacing voice, and the woman shuddered. At the same time a voice in the locked room called plaintively:
"Ethel! Ethel! darling sister Ethel!"
"That is my sister's voice," cried Ethel wildly. "Woman, your defiance drives me mad! If you do not instantly open that door and release Precious I shall set the mastiff on you. He will tear you limb from limb!"
"I'll murder you first!" growled the woman, edging toward the club on the floor.
"Kay will protect me," the girl answered dauntlessly. "Once more, will you open the door? No? Kay!"
The mastiff, leaping and yelping at the door, turned his head, and the woman's defiance all fled.
"Take him away; let me get at the door, and I'll open it. The key's in my pocket," she growled.
Ethel drew Kay away and talked to him coaxingly while Mrs. Warwick pushed the key in the lock, turned it, and opened the door a little way.
"Go in now, you and the dog," she cried. "The girl's bed-rid, and can't come out to you, and you can't leave that devil outside to devour me."
Ethel was so excited that she did not dream of danger or treachery to herself. She and Kay pushed past the woman, and entered the room. That instant the door was banged and locked on the outside.
"IF I EVER HAVE A LOVER HE MUST BE GRAND AND HANDSOME."
"He to whom I give affectionMust have princely mien and guise;If devotion lay below meI would stoop not for the prize.Bend down to me very gently,But bend always from above;I would scorn where I could pity,I must honor where I love."—Phebe Cary.
"He to whom I give affectionMust have princely mien and guise;If devotion lay below meI would stoop not for the prize.Bend down to me very gently,But bend always from above;I would scorn where I could pity,I must honor where I love."—Phebe Cary.
Ethel heard the key click in the lock, but in the excitement of finding her sister she attached no significance to the fact.
She turned eagerly to the bed where lay a slender form clothed in a cheap blue wrapper of eider-down, over which swept a torrent of curling hair like sunshine.
But, oh, that face! Could it be Precious, the laughing, dimple-faced darling, with her cheeks like rose-leaves, her ripe red lips, her glorious eyes like blue pansies in the sunshine?
That wan little face on the coarse pillow was all thin and pale, with great shadows under the hollow eyes that were dim and faded from constant weeping. The little white hands were wasted so that the bewitching dimples were gone from the knuckles and the blue veins showed with painful clearness through the transparent skin.
At that piteous sight all the jealous hardness went out of Ethel's heart. She sprang with open arms to Precious, and clasped her to her breast, while Kay hovered overthem in delight, licking the little feeble hands of his darling young mistress.
"Oh, Ethel, why didn't you come sooner? Where is papa? Why didn't he come with you? I shall die, and never see him any more," sobbed Precious plaintively.
"Die! Oh, no, my darling!" soothed Ethel, but she was startled by the words and the weakness and pallor of her sister.
"Precious, what has changed you so? Have you been ill?" she exclaimed anxiously.
"I am starving. I have never tasted food since the night I was kidnaped from the ball," answered Precious, in her faint, weak, hollow voice.
Ethel could scarcely credit the words, for a small stand near the bed was heaped high with edibles, fruits, and wines.
But Precious explained that she had determined to starve herself to death unless she was released from the power of the hated Lindsey Warwick.
"Yesterday I fainted from weakness when I tried to walk across the floor, and those two wretches came in and poured wine down my throat while I was too weak to resist, and again this morning she forced wine between my lips, and made me live a little longer, or else I think I should be dead already," and here Precious paused and gasped, too weak to continue.
"But you must eat and drink now, for I shall want you to go home with me," said Ethel tenderly, and she fed Precious like a little child, the poor girl taking food readily, for the pangs of hunger had been terrible to bear.
She ate and drank with grateful eagerness, and Ethel watched her with moist, dark eyes, and thought:
"Poor child, if I had stayed away a little longer she would have been dead; my little sister, that I have hated and envied in my evil moments, would never have crossed my path again, and I should not lose my lover as I shall surely do when once he sees Precious."
Was she glad or sorry that she had come?
She was glad!
It was one of the moments when good triumphed over evil in the complex nature of Ethel Winans.
"It was Heaven that sent me here to rescue Precious," she thought happily, and for awhile Lord Chester was forgotten while the sisters made mutual explanations.
"So it was Lindsey Warwick, after all. The detectives suspected him at first, but he hoodwinked them very cleverly," said Ethel.
"Oh, he is a fiend!" cried Precious shudderingly.
"Then you could never accept him as a lover?" Ethel asked curiously.
"Oh, never, never! He is very repulsive to me, with his keen little eyes, and his thick lips, and his perpetual smirk. If I ever have a lover I must have a grand, handsome one, as noble as papa, or perhaps like your lover, Ethel—I do not know his name, but I saw him at the ball with you, and I thought he was splendid. Well, when I have a real lover he must be like that, Ethel!" cried Precious innocently.
A shadow gleamed over Ethel's dusky beauty, and she thought:
"They are mutually attracted to each other. It is fate."
But she said carelessly:
"You are too young to dream of lovers yet, my dear, and when you get safe home again you must devote yourself to your studies, and not tease about going to balls. It was your willfulness about the Inauguration Ball that brought you into this trouble."
"And papa will put that villain into prison for this, I know," cried Precious, her voice a little stronger from the food and wine she had taken. Then she hugged Kay around his neck and kissed the top of his head.
"Darling old fellow, if it had not been for you Ethel would have come and gone without finding me. Oh, how shall I ever pay you for this? You shall have a golden collar with your name set in rubies—yes, you shall. Papawill buy it for you, I know, to pay you for saving his pet."
Kay showed as much boisterous delight as if he understood every word, and kept licking her little hands with joy unutterable.
"And now, dear, we must get out of this place, and go home if you think you are ready," smiled Ethel.
"Ready!" cried Precious gayly. "Well, I know I am very weak from my long fast, but joy makes me feel like a new girl. I have nothing to wear home but this blue wrapper over my ball dress, but no matter—let us start at once. If I am too weak to walk I can crawl there, or perhaps Kay will let me ride on his back," patting him tenderly.
Ethel turned the handle of the door, but it resisted her efforts, and she recoiled with a low cry.
"Oh, Heaven, I had forgotten! I heard that old hag lock the door on the outside as I entered. I am a prisoner too. What shall I do?"
The tears rushed into her sister's blue eyes.
"There is no use in screaming, for I cried that day and night until I was hoarse as a raven, but no one ever seemed to hear me. And the only window is nailed down, you see. But, oh, Ethel, they will miss you at home and come here to look for you presently, won't they dear?"
"I did not tell them I was coming here. I felt ashamed of going to see a fortune-teller to find out about you. They would have laughed at me. I let my maid think that I was going to see a friend. Oh, what shall I do? Why did I ever come here?" wept Ethel, wringing her hands in terror, and forgetting that she had told herself just now that God himself had sent her to the aid of Precious.
She shrieked aloud; she tore at the door with frantic hands.
"It will soon be night, and they will wonder what has become of me. This double sorrow will drive our poor mother mad. Oh, what shall I do?" she cried again in agony.
"If we could only get that window open," cried Precious eagerly. "But I have tried it every day, and my hands bled, but the nails would not come out. But if we could only open it, Ethel, we could plait a rope of the bedclothes, and get out."
Kay looked from one to the other, whining in unison with their grief.
Ethel turned a flashing glance on the window, then caught up a thick wash pitcher of heavy iron-stone ware. She poured the water out, and rushed at the window, dealing blow after blow on the panes. Joy! the thin glass and slight framework gave way before her furious onslaught. Then she attacked the shutters with the same signal success. They tumbled from their fastenings down to the ground two stories below. The sash was all gone, too, and the fresh outer air rushed into their faces—fresh, but full of the fog and damp of early twilight.
"Quick! now the bedclothes! We will sit at the window while we tear them in strips, and if we see any one passing we will scream to them for help," cried Ethel bravely, though her lovely hands were torn and bleeding from fragments of flying glass. They set to work, but Precious was so weak from her long fast that she could not help much. The little hands were strengthless and nerveless.
"She must have heard you breaking in the window, and she will come up here presently and kill us," she shuddered, with terrified eyes.
"Don't be a coward, Precious. I think the old wretch has very likely run off to tell her son what has happened, and we must get away before they come back, for, of course, he will be very angry, and, as you suggested, he may kill us," answered Ethel, working away in a perfect frenzy of fear and excitement.
But Precious was very weak and nervous; she could not bear the strain of this horrible dread, following on the hope of a few minutes ago. She dropped back quietly in her chair and fainted.
Ethel would not relax her frantic labor to resuscitateher, but Kay fell to licking the white face with such a rough, energetic tongue that presently Precious sighed and revived, pushing him down with feeble hands.
"Down, sir! down! You must not be so impudent," she sighed faintly.
"Come, Precious, our rope is done. Can you help me to fasten it to the leg of the bed? Then we will throw it from the window. I will slide down first, and you will follow. I will catch you at the bottom if you fall. And Kay can jump out after us. Oh, Heaven, what is that?"
She might well exclaim, for at that moment the wall at the opposite side of the room was suddenly divided by a burst of smoke and flame that lighted up the gloom with a lurid glare.
They had thought it was the wind, the strange, crackling noises they had faintly heard for some time, but now they understood the full horror of their situation.
The old house was in flames—fired doubtless by the fiendish old hag who had thus wreaked her vengeance and fled, leaving them to their fate.
It was a moment of the most sublime horror, the most deadly peril.
The two girls gazed at each other with horror-stricken faces, and the mastiff lifted up his voice in a prolonged and dismal howl like a banshee.
"We are trapped," cried Ethel wildly. "She has fired the house and gone. But we shall escape. Come, dear." She drew Precious to the window, and climbed upon the sill. "I will go first; you follow."
She grasped the rope, and swung outward, her heart beating wildly, her eyes watching the face of Precious as it leaned forward against the awful background of smoke and flame. The small pale face, like a snowdrop, the luminous blue eyes, the aureole of golden hair, made Precious look angelic.
Ethel felt herself rushing through the cold March air, and—suddenly she shot down wildly, and fell on the wet ground where the thick spongy turf broke the severity of the fall. Safe!
But an awful cry escaped her lips.
The plaited rope had proved treacherous, and broken off midway, dangling its useless length about a yard below the window sill, above which that beautiful white face looked down in a frenzy of despair.
Ethel staggered to her feet; she flung out her arms, she shrieked:
"Come, darling, climb out upon the rope, and drop. I will catch you—I will break the fall."
But Precious scarcely heard. Her senses had deserted her at sight of the broken rope. Ethel saw the dilated blue eyes close again, saw her sister fall backward into the blinding smoke, heard the frenzied yelp of Kay as he sprang upon the window sill, and felt that no earthly power could save her doomed sister now.
She held out her arms to Kay, and shrieked wildly:
"Come to me, Kay, come!"
But the poor beast gave a desolate howl, and sprang back into the room where Precious lay unconscious. Then a great black volume of smoke poured through the window, and from the front of the house Ethel saw the red glaring flame shoot quickly.
"The front of the house is all in flames. No one can save my sister now," she thought. Then something seemed to say in her heart:
"You are to blame. You should have sent her down the rope first. She was so light and small it would have carried her safely, and both would have been saved."
It made her angry, that still small voice of conscience, for she knew that it was a selfish anxiety over her own safety that made her descend first. Moving away she muttered:
"Why should I run the risk of my life for her? I tried to save her, and if she had not been so cowardly I would have succeeded. She will perish, but it is not my fault."
Why did she not run and spread the alarm? Some manmight be found who would be brave enough to scale the window and bring out the unconscious girl.
But Ethel moved away, going backward, watching with fascinated eyes the burning building, her sister's funeral pyre.
Shrieks began to fill the air from the occupants of the shanties around, just discovering the fire. A crowd began to gather. Why did not the retreating girl pray the people to rescue her sister?
A tempting devil had recalled to her mind her sister's words of admiration for Lord Chester a little while ago—her longing for just such a splendid lover.
"Precious dead he would be yours; living she would win him from you," whispered the tempter, and she turned away muttering, "It is too late. No one could save her now."
A FAITHFUL FRIEND.