When Nita had left the room the housekeeper stood gazing with deep commiseration at the deathlike face of Dorian Mountcastle as it lay among the pillows.
"Not much use to send for a doctor, for he is certainly dead, poor fellow," she said aloud.
"Oh, what a pity!" exclaimed a voice at her side, and, turning abruptly, she saw a pretty young woman—Nita's maid, Lizette.
"Oh, Mrs. Hill, I hope he's not dead! Can I do anything to help you, please?"
"Why, Lizette, I did not know you were out of your bed, but I'm glad some one awoke you, for your mistress needs you very badly. Go up-stairs and attend to her while I wait here for the doctor."
Lizette went away obediently, and ascended the stairs to Nita's room, full of surprise at the strange happenings of this summer night at Pirate Beach.
Finding Nita's door ajar, she stepped over the threshold. Then she recoiled with a cry of surprise and terror.
A startling sight was before her eyes. Prostrate upon the floor lay her young mistress, and across her body was stretched the lean, lithe frame of an old witchlike woman, whose skinny claws gripped Nita's throat in a murderous clasp. The victim's face was purple and distorted.
The dim light that shone upon the scene showed also to the wondering maid the open chest of gold and the glittering coins scattered over the floor in reckless profusion, where the hag had dropped them in her spring upon Nita.
One moment's recoil of amazement and horror, then Lizette comprehended the full meaning of the scene—robbery and murder.
"Lord help me!" she exclaimed, and sprang upon the murderess, grasping her arms in a viselike hold, and tearing them apart from Nita's throat, although the hag struggled and snarled like a wild beast baffled of its prey.
Finding herself unable to regain her grip on the girl, she turned with a fierce howl upon her assailant. There was murder in Meg's heart, and she was determined to silence forever the witness to her attempt upon Nita's life.
But although she was strong and wiry, her lean frame soon weakened under the vigorous onslaught of her young and agile foe, and the struggle soon ended, for Lizette adroitly tripped her up, and she fell heavily, her head striking the corner of the iron-bound chest with a loud thud.
Then the maid turned to kneel down by her unconscious mistress. Nita lay motionless, but when Lizette put her ear against the girl's heart she was rejoiced to find that it was still throbbing faintly.
"Poor darling, that old fiend didn't quite kill her!" she cried joyfully, and set to work to revive her hapless mistress.
But Nita came back to life very slowly, and it was not until her wet garments were all removed and she was laid in her bed, that she opened a pair of languid dark eyes and met the affectionate gaze of the anxious maid.
"What has happened?" she breathed faintly, and Lizette explained, softening the whole affair as much as she could, not to excite the patient.
"You saved my life, Lizette," cried Nita gratefully. Then she shuddered at perceiving the unconscious form of the old fortune-teller.
"I'll see how much she's hurt now; I have been tending to you all this time," said the maid. "I don't suppose she's dead, but there's an awful cut on the side of her head. She will go to prison for this if she lives—oh, Lordy!" as the apparently dead woman suddenly opened her dazed eyes and lifted up her grizzled head. Lizette sprang to the door, and locked it.
"You don't get out of here except to go to prison, old woman," she observed, then brought water and sponges and bathed and bandaged the wounded head. Then she gave Meg a drink of cordial, and said:
"You're all right now. The cut ain't as bad as I thought at first. Well, now I'm going to send for an officer and hand you over on a charge of attempted robbery and murder."
The hag sprang to her feet, her sullen face ghastly in the dim light, her eyes lurid with hate.
"You shall not send me to prison," she hissed savagely.
"You will see!" cried the maid, stretching out her hand to the bell.
Meg's skinny, upraised arm arrested the movement.
"Wait. See what your mistress will say," she snarled, and, moving to the side of the bed, she bent down and whispered sharply for several minutes in Nita's ear.
A low cry of horror came from the bed, and the old harpy moved aside, muttering significantly:
"I knew when I told you that, you would let me go free. Indeed, I did not mean to touch you if I could get the gold without—but you took me by surprise."
Lizette looked at her mistress for orders.
"Miss Nita, you surely won't let the old hag escape?" she cried.
"Yes, open the door," Nita cried faintly, shudderingly.
"But, Miss Nita——"
"Let the woman go!" Nita repeated, and the maid reluctantly obeyed. Then Nita said faintly:
"Lizette, I am already your debtor for my life, and indeed you will find me grateful. Do me one more kindness. Keep the secret of this terrible adventure locked forever in your breast unless I give you leave to speak."
"Oh, Miss Nita, is it best to shield that old wretch from justice? She may come back again and carry off all your gold, and kill you, too."
"No, Lizette, she has sworn never to attempt it again, and you must keep it a secret. Gather up the gold, put it back in the chest, and lock it carefully away. But first take some for yourself."
"Oh, Miss Nita, I don't want any reward for saving your life."
"But I insist," murmured Nita sweetly. "Take five hundred dollars."
She saw the young woman's eyes grow suddenly eager.
"God bless you, Miss Nita. It means so much to me—oh, you can't think the good I can do with just two hundred dollars. I will take that much, no more, if you please, and, dear Miss Nita, I'll love you with every drop of my heart's blood to the end of my life for this. Oh, I will tell you all some day, my lady," and Lizette, sobbing like a little child, kissed Nita's white hand. Then she locked and carefully put away the chest of gold.
"For no one else must find out that you have such a treasure in this room," she said cautiously.
Then Nita sighed wearily:
"Oh, Lizette, I feel so tired and ill. My arms ache with pain, my whole body is stiff and sore. I should like to go to sleep, but first you must go down-stairs and bring me news of Dorian Mountcastle—if he is dead or alive, for surely the doctor must have come by this time."
Mrs. Courtney, sitting at a desk in her own room the morning after the arrival at Pirate Beach, was busy writing a letter to her daughter, who had been absent from New York when Miser Farnham had called at her lodgings and electrified her with the welcome offer to become the chaperon of his beautiful ward.
After acquainting her daughter with these facts and the later ones of the night's happenings, Mrs. Courtney added:
"Now, prepare for a joyful surprise, my dear Azalea. A happy fate has thrown Dorian Mountcastle across your path again. It is he whom Miss Farnham so romantically saved, and although he has a mysterious wound in the side which will cause several weeks of confinement, the doctor thinks he can pull him safely through. Of course, I shall nurse him assiduously, and I want you to drop everything and come home. That girl is quite ill to-day, feverish and delirious from her exposure last night. Before she is well enough to come down and see Dorian Mountcastle, you will have a chance to cut her out with him. Our former acquaintance will be to your advantage, too, for there is some secrecy about Miss Farnham's antecedents that I don't at all approve. Well, if you can only secure the prize, we can soon drop this other affair; so come quickly, my deardaughter, for I know your heart seconds my wishes in this matter."
It was barely twenty-four hours later that Nita's maid said to her mistress, who was still too ill to leave her bed:
"Mrs. Courtney's daughter, Miss Azalea, came to-day."
"Is she pretty?" asked Nita—always a girl's first question about another one.
"She is a little thing with blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and golden hair. The housekeeper was just telling me that these Courtneys used to be grand rich people, and that they are old friends of this Mr. Dorian Mountcastle."
"Old friends," murmured the invalid, and her heart gave an inexplicable throb of pain.
"And," continued Lizette, "Mrs. Hill says Mrs. Courtney is perfectly devoted to the young man, and just takes the nursing right out of her hands."
Nita smiled a little contemptuously, for Mrs. Courtney had made her but two formal visits, into both of which she had infused a sarcastic disapproval of the girl's nocturnal wandering.
"Oh, Mrs. Courtney, it was an irresistible impulse stronger than myself that led me out. Indeed, I think God sent me to save Mr. Mountcastle's life," the girl had cried reverently.
Mrs. Courtney had smiled in a sort of cold derision.
"Never go out alone like that again. I would never forgive my daughter, Azalea, for doing anything so highly improper," she had replied stiffly.
And now Azalea had arrived upon the scene, and the housekeeper had bluntly told Lizette that the lady was preparing to throw her pretty daughter at the young man's head.
"But it won't work, for he's always talking about Miss Farnham, and begging to see her to thank her for her bravery. He told me he took her for a real angel when he first opened his eyes down there by the water and saw her face!" cried Mrs. Hill, and Lizette returned:
"And when Miss Nita was delirious last night, she kept calling his name: 'Dorian, Dorian, Dorian,' like they were old acquaintances. I think myself, it's a case of love at first sight on both sides."
"And so do I, Lizette."
And, kindly, romantic souls that they were, they took a keen, womanly delight in this incipient love-affair. Miss Farnham had saved Mr. Mountcastle's life, and in novel-lore this romantic incident always led up to love and marriage.
It was noon the next day before Nita saw Azalea. A bewitching golden-haired vision in a white morning-gown, with floating blue ribbons, that matched the color of her large, turquoise-blue eyes, and brought out clearly the rose-pink tinting of her soft skin—this was the fairy that floated into Nita's room alone, and murmured gushingly:
"How do you do, Miss Farnham? Mama has been trying to keep me out, saying that you were too ill to be disturbed. But you must not mind me, will you? I am only Azalea! May I call you Nita?" Dropping suddenlyon her knees, she kissed Nita's feverish cheek. "I love you, you brave heroine!" she cried.
Nita could only smile, for Azalea gave her no chance to speak. She went on cooingly:
"I want to whisper a sweet secret to you, dear. I love you already, because—well, because you saved Dorian's life. When I came yesterday and found him here, I almost fainted with surprise and joy. Do you understand, Nita? Dorian and I were—lovers—once—but afterward we were cruelly parted. But now, we have made it up, and are happy. But only think, dearest, if you had not saved his life that night I should have gone mourning him all my days. God bless you, Nita."
Strange that those words of blessing almost sounded like a curse in Nita's ears. She shrank from the red lips that again caressed her cheek, and murmured coldly:
"Pray, take a seat, Miss Courtney."
"Do I weary you, poor dear?" sinking gracefully into an arm-chair. "Oh, how dreadfully ill you look; I suppose you will be in bed for weeks."
"I am going to sit up to-morrow."
"Surely not so soon, dear. I don't think mama will permit you."
"I beg your pardon, I shall not ask her leave, Lizette is my nurse"—quietly.
"But I thought mama ought to be consulted. She is your chaperon, you know"—wheedingly.
"I am very wilful, Miss Courtney, and intend to have my own way. I am better, and there is no need of my remaining in bed longer than to-morrow. Then, too, Ihave a guest, you should remember, and courtesy demands that I should greet him as soon as possible."
"Although a perfect stranger to you. But, perhaps, mama will not consider it correct form for you to visit the invalid," almost sneered Azalea.
"You have called on him, I presume"—pointedly.
"Why, of course"—flushing slightly—"but that is very different. I have known Dorian a long time."
"Ah, and I saved his life," replied Nita quietly.
Their glances met, the artful blue ones, the defiant black ones—in their hearts they knew themselves sworn foes. Nita saw through the girl before her, her artfulness, her assumptions, and despised her already.
"Can it be true that Dorian Mountcastle loves this pretty, shallow girl?" she wondered, with inexplicable anger and bitterness. She thought him a thousand times too good and noble for Azalea, and felt a sudden passionate longing to be free of the hated fetters that held her in thrall that she might measure lances with her for the prize of his heart.
Dorian Mountcastle belonged to that gay, careless, half-Bohemian class of rich young men, who, without seriously offending the proprieties, manage to set at naught many of the petty conventionalities that obtain in their set, and enjoy themselves after their own fashion in a sort of come-and-go-as-you-please style.
He was five-and-twenty. His parents had both died before he was sixteen, and he had traveled extensively, five years with a tutor, and latterly alone. Many men envied him, and many women sighed for him—or for his fortune, he was not certain which.
Chance had brought the young man to Pirate Beach the night of Nita's arrival there. Two days before he had joined a yachting-party, but caprice, or disgust, at the machinations of a husband-hunting young lady on board, had inspired him with so keen a longing for escape, that he had prevailed on his friend to set him ashore, at an hour when plain people are just seeking their beds.
"I'll seek shelter presently at that imposing old mansion up there," he thought indifferently, and walked musingly along the shore, thinking in weary disdain of the woman who had persecuted him on his friend's yacht.
"And all for the Mountcastle gold, not at all for theowner," he muttered cynically. "How beautiful and heartless women are! Shall I never be loved for myself alone? No, I have proved that," and he turned his face to the sea with a short, angry laugh.
There glided toward him across the noiseless sands, like a spirit of evil, the bent and crouching form of an old woman, with a hideous, scarred face, and bright, furtive eyes. A catlike bound brought her within hearing of his last words, and she echoed his laugh with one more cynical and hard than his own.
Turning with a start of surprise, Dorian Mountcastle beheld the witch, and exclaimed, in a tone of comic despair:
"Ye gods, another female! Can I not escape them either on land or sea?"
"No, for a woman is destined to work you bitter woe, young sir," replied a cracked and gibing voice.
"A safe prophecy, madam. Woman has worked woe to man ever since Adam's day, and will no doubt continue it to the end of the chapter," laughed the young man, in a tone of careless raillery.
The scarred, hideous old hag was watching so greedily the flashing diamond on his hand that she forgot to answer him, until he touched her lightly, and asked mockingly:
"Are you so overcome with admiration that you cannot speak? Who lives up there in the great house?"
"They are new tenants—just arrived to-night. I know nothing about them, but the house is called Gray Gables, and belongs to an old man in New York. You must bea stranger, sir, not to know Gray Gables?"—with a glance of furtive inquiry.
"Yes, I am a stranger. I landed here from a yacht to-night," Dorian answered, with careless confidence. "I'll tell you the truth, old lady. Some women badgered me so that I was fain to jump overboard into the sea to avoid them, so my friend, the owner of the yacht, kindly consented to set me off here, where I'm as lonesome as Robinson Crusoe on his desert-island."
"You don't know anybody at Pirate Beach?" she suggested.
"Not a living soul but you, my friend—no, not even the name of the place until now. Pirate Beach! Jove, an unpleasantly suggestive name."
"There's nothing in the name, though there might have been many years ago. There's no danger now, young sir"—wheedingly.
"Glad to hear it, I'm sure. Well, is there any hotel hereabout?"
"A matter of five miles or so on a lonely road."
"Too long a tramp for a lazy man. Maybe they will give me a bed up yonder."
A hoarse cry issued from the woman's lips, and, recoiling from him, she suddenly lifted her skinny right arm on high, and almost shrieked, so loud and uneven was her voice:
"Young man, venture not now or ever beneath the roof of Gray Gables. It is written in the stars that Fate threatens thee there!"
Dorian Mountcastle stared, then laughed at her tragic turn.
"So you are a sibyl? Come, read me a page from the mystic stars."
A piece of silver crossed her skinny palm, and she laughed in joy. There was more where that came from. She had caught the clink in his vest pocket. She laughed, then scowled.
"Oh, you may sneer," she cried angrily. "You do not believe that old Meg can read the stars, you jest at her art. But the time comes when you shall weep. Look up yonder at that old gray house, so dark and forbidding, among the trees. It has been accursed and uninhabited for years; but to-night I see in the shining stars a new shadow hovering, vulturelike, above it. You are mixed up in it—you, whom fate has sent here to-night. For you I read woe and despair. You will go mad for a woman's love!"
He laughed at her in keenest mockery, this Dorian Mountcastle, who was so tired of lovely woman and her deceitful wiles.
"You are cheating me, Madam Sibyl! I know the shallow sex too well to lose my head over any of them!" he exclaimed, in a voice of cynical melancholy, and, throwing her another coin, walked impatiently away to some little distance, standing with his back to her, and his moody face turned to the sea.
Meg, the fortune-teller, remained where he had left her several moments watching him with a strange, catlike intentness. Now and then she would throw a cautiousglance around her, but there was no one in sight—no one but the young man yonder with the diamond gleaming on his hand, and his pockets full of gold—yes, gold, for the last piece he had thrown her was yellow and shining. A terrible cupidity was aroused in the old crone's breast.
As for Dorian Mountcastle; in his careless or cynical self-absorption he had already forgotten the woman and her wild predictions—a fatal forgetfulness. For, as Meg crouched there, on the shining sands, her lean claw slipped inside the long black cloak she wore, and clutched the hilt of a sharp knife she carried in her breast. A low grating chuckle escaped her lips—the laugh of a fiend—and she began to advance upon her unconscious prey.
With his back to her, and his hands in his pockets, he was watching the sea, and softly whistling a melancholy strain from a favorite opera.
Meg crept close, unheard, unseen, threw out a cautious foot, tripped him, and he fell backward on the wet sands, ere he could extricate his hands from his pockets.
That instant she sprang upon her helpless victim. The murderous knife glittered in the moonlight, then descending, sheathed itself deep in his breast. Dorian Mountcastle quivered all over, like one in the agonies of a violent death, then lay quiet, at the mercy of the murderess.
And so Dorian Mountcastle, saved from death by Nita's brave efforts, lay ill beneath the roof of Gray Gables—the house of all others that the murderous old sibyl had warned him to avoid.
And very pale he looked that morning when the housekeeper entered, bearing a fancy basket, heaped high with dew-wet roses of all colors, whose fragrance filled the air of the sick-room with the perfumed breath of rosy June.
"From Miss Farnham, with her best wishes for your recovery," she said graciously.
She saw his eyes light up with eager pleasure as he placed the flowers close to his pillow, and inhaled their spicy fragrance.
"My mistress gathered them for you herself," continued Mrs. Hill, and he looked at her in surprise.
"Impossible! Why, I was told that she was too ill to leave her bed for weeks!" he exclaimed.
Mrs. Hill tossed her head with a knowing air, and answered:
"Them that told you that, Mr. Mountcastle, wished it might be the case, no doubt, but Miss Farnham is up and dressed, and took breakfast with the family this morning."
"Happy, happy news!" murmured the young man, gladly. "She is better, thank Heaven! Oh, Mrs. Hill, will she be kind enough to come to me and let me thank her for so nobly saving my life?"
"The same ones that were so anxious to keep her abed so long have busied themselves this morning to persuade her that it would be highly improper for her to visit you in your sick-room," replied the worthy housekeeper, swelling with indignation.
"Pshaw! Why, Azalea has been in here a dozen times."
"They told her that was quite different. You see, sir—old friends, and all that."
She saw his lips curl in angry contempt under his mustache, and he exclaimed angrily:
"Mrs. Hill, I will not submit to this hectoring by the Courtneys. Go at once to Miss Farnham, say distinctly that I demand an interview. If she refuses I shall consider myself an unwelcome guest, and depart from Gray Gables within the hour."
"Oh, sir, it would kill you to be moved!"
"No matter. I will not remain."
Mrs. Hill chuckled to herself, and departed on her errand without more ado.
"Do come, Miss Nita, please. He's that cranky he thinks you don't want him here, and if you don't go and pacify him he'll go away sure, and that will be the death of him, for the wound would get to bleeding again, and the doctor said it mustn't on no account," she pleaded anxiously.
"He has no right to demand," Nita said haughtily,but she followed Mrs. Hill to the sick-room, somehow glad in her secret heart of that imperious message.
Mrs. Hill pushed her gently over the threshold, shut the door on the outside, and—trembling with a new timidity, her face burning, her heart beating wildly, Nita was alone with Dorian Mountcastle. His eager blue eyes turned to her, dwelling on her beauty in wondering delight.
"Miss Farnham," he cried, and his musical voice thrilled her. Involuntarily, she moved nearer to him till she stood by his side.
"How can I ever thank you enough for your goodness?" he said, holding out an eager hand. She laid hers gently in it, and as he clasped it their eyes met.
When love is young and new there is something wonderful in the spell of a glance. This pair, looking into each other's eyes, wore pale, serious faces, and felt their hearts leap and their breath flutter unevenly over their parted lips. They seemed looking not alone in each other's eyes, but into each other's hearts. The veil of conventionality had unconsciously fallen, and Nita stood with her lips trembling, her eyes wide, solemn, half-questioning as they met and held his devouring gaze.
Suddenly, she recovered her self-consciousness. She started back, flushed vividly, and let her eyes falter shyly from his gaze, while she murmured in a low voice:
"Do not try to thank me. Only live, that is all I ask!"
In tones of tenderness he answered:
"Now that you are well I hope that I shall live. But when they told me you were so very, very ill I did notcare if I died," and impulsively he kissed the hand he held, adding, "you know me, Miss Farnham. They have told you my name?"
She drew away the hand he had kissed, her whole frame thrilling, and with a struggle for calmness, answered smilingly:
"Mrs. Courtney has told me your name and position, and that your sojourn at Gray Gables is an honor to us."
"Nonsense! Mrs. Courtney knows that I am simply a lazy young vagabond who has inherited a fine old name and plenty of money, and that Azalea is making a dead set at me to get it," he rejoined, almost curtly in his vexation. "How I wish no one had recognized me here," he added, "then I should have palmed myself off on you as a poor young man, and tried to win your friendship on my personal merits."
"Is not that the only way, anyhow?" she queried ingenuously.
His blue eyes began to twinkle with the merry light of laughter.
"Mercy, no, Miss Farnham, I've never had a true friend in all my life! People value me solely for the length of my purse. Ask Miss Courtney if that is not true," and he smiled with sarcasm that puzzled Nita, but that also recalled to her mind Mrs. Courtney's displeasure if she should find her here with Dorian Mountcastle.
"I must go now. Mrs. Courtney did not wish me tocome in here at all," she faltered, turning toward the door.
"Please stay a little while with me, won't you? There is not the least impropriety in it, I'm sure. That old cat is only trying to keep you in the background because you are so—beautiful—pardon my frankness, won't you? And do say you're not going yet. I want to thank you for these sweet roses—and, one minute, please—I'd like you to read to me every day to cheer me up. Will you? It would be so good of you to come to my rescue."
With a merry smile she answered:
"Perhaps—perhaps—you might think the same of me."
"Never! I only wish you would! It would make me the happiest vagabond on earth if you only—beg pardon, Miss Farnham, indeed I did not mean to offend," for she had suddenly drawn back from him, her eyes startled, her cheeks pale, her pose haughty.
Nita, who for a few brief moments had been wandering with bounding pulses and dreamy bliss through an earthly paradise, had suddenly remembered.
Remembered that she was not free.
And Dorian Mountcastle, such a short while ago a cynical scoffer at woman's love, gazed in alarm and surprise at the cold white change that had come over that lovely face that but a moment ago blushed with love beneath his eyes.
"Your pardon—I spoke lightly—but I meant no offense," he repeated anxiously.
She turned on him the full gaze of her large eyes,somber now and grave with secret pain, and their sadness pierced his heart.
"Oh, no, no, Mr. Mountcastle, I am not offended. Do not fancy such a thing, but—I—I have forgotten something. I must go—this moment," she answered gently, but incoherently, and almost staggering to the door, half-blinded by starting tears, she tore it open and hastened out.
In the strange confusion of her abrupt departure Nita did not notice that she had left Dorian Mountcastle's room by a door exactly opposite to the one she had entered.
But in a moment she realized that she had blundered. She found herself in a dark, narrow, carpetless corridor, with closed doors frowning grimly upon her from either side of the moldy-smelling hall.
"It must be the servant's quarters, but I will try to escape this way. I cannot possibly go back through his room," she murmured, and pursued her way timorously along the hall, soon losing herself in an intricacy of abrupt turnings and obscure passages seeming to have no outlet.
"How strange," she murmured uneasily; "I do not seem to be finding my way out at all, and perhaps I could not find it back to Mr. Mountcastle's room. Ah! there is a narrow door and a dark little stairway. I suppose it will lead me out-doors into the garden," and Nita began to descend the dark, rickety old stairway, all unconscious of the startling discovery she was on the eve of making, or she would have fled back in an agony of terror.
Slowly and carefully Nita went down the dark, narrow, dusty steps to the rickety door at the foot, expecting confidently that it would lead her straight out-doors, most probably into the kitchen-garden. She found the door slightly ajar, pushed it quickly open, and found herself, without warning or premonition, in a small, dingy, cobwebby room, full of gloomy shadows, and dimly lighted by a flaring dip, in an old battered tin candlestick.
The little closetlike chamber, barely eight feet wide, was furnished with a small table, and an arm-chair, over which was thrown a coarse, dark-gray blanket. Against the walls were ranged a large number of small, iron-bound chests, similar to the one up-stairs in Nita's closet. The lids of several were open, and the wondering girl saw that they were filled to the brim with money, that gleamed bright and yellow in the flaring, uncertain light of the solitary candle.
But not even all this hoarded gold could have surprised Nita as did the central figure of it all—the old man kneeling with his back to her over one of the open chests, and running his shriveled fingers through the bright coins, while his lips worked nervously, emitting chuckling and guttural noises of ghoulish delight.
Nita's instant alarm struck her dumb. She was forthe moment incapable of speech or motion. She could only stare in an appalled silence. She had recognized in the crouching old man gloating over his treasure her miser-husband, Charles Farnham, whom she had supposed to be far away from this place, according to the terms of the marriage-contract.
Even while she gazed there crept over her a sensation of deadly fear and dread, that seemed to freeze the very blood in her veins. She thought in wild alarm:
"I have blundered upon this secret, and the accident may cost me my life. Heaven help me to escape before he discovers me!"
Absorbed in his fascinating employment, the miser had not noticed her entrance. He continued to play with the gold like a child, pouring it from one trembling hand to the other, muttering and chuckling in a strange ecstasy.
Nita summoned all her will-power to break the thrall of terror that seemed to hold her limbs immovable. Suddenly, the power of motion returned. She turned softly, made two catlike steps, and was on the stairs on the other side of the door, safe—ah, what was that grating sound?
In drawing the door softly to behind her the rusty hinge had creaked harshly! Nita's heart gave a bound of deadly fear, she gasped for breath, and sprang wildly forward.
If only she could reach the corridor above with its intricate windings, she could elude pursuit in some dark corner.
But from the room she had left came a sound betweena howl and a groan, and the old man bounded to the stairs with such wondrous agility that his outstretched hand caught the long skirts of the escaping girl, and dragged her ruthlessly backward.
Clutching her fiercely, in spite of her cries and struggles for liberty, and bearing her forward into the light, he gazed eagerly into her face. A bitter oath escaped his lips as he beheld in his struggling captive the face of his beautiful, unloving bride.
To Nita, with her nerves yet unstrung by sickness and excitement, the sight of the old miser's face, distorted by rage and surprise, was absolutely terrifying.
She trembled like a leaf in his rude grasp, and moans of terror came from her blanched lips.
"Spy!" he hissed angrily, and in the fierce malevolent gleam of his snakelike eyes she read a wild temptation to grasp her fair white throat in his strong hands and throttle her to death.
"Spy! You have followed me here!" the old man hissed again savagely.
He shook her rudely until the breath had almost left her body, then flung her upon one of the chests, and, locking the little door, dropped the key into his pocket. She was at the mercy of this fiendish old man who had come into her life so strangely, and at so dark an hour.
"Release me, oh, release me!" she gasped faintly, pleadingly, but he looked at her with pitiless eyes, and answered:
"Once before a woman, filled with the greed for gold, followed me here to find out the secret of my hiddentreasures. Well—her friends are searching for her yet, as perchance yours will be, too, for many a year."
"You murdered her!" gasped Nita, with a creeping thrill of utter horror.
"No," he replied, and after a moment's pause continued with a hideous leer:
"I simply left her locked in this room and went away, leaving her alone with the treasure she coveted. It was a long, long time before I came back, and then—I found her still here."
"Still here!" the startled captive repeated. He saw the shudder that crept over her frame, and laughed mockingly.
"Still here—waiting for me still," he sneered. "Always here, waiting for me when I come. Look!"
Turning from her, he threw aside the dark blanket that had draped the chair by the table. Nita looked and shrieked aloud.
The coarse blanket had concealed the fleshless skeleton of a human being sitting at ease in the chair, with the bony digits of one hand resting on the table. About the neck was clasped a golden chain with a shining pendant, while on one finger gleamed a magnificent emerald ring, ghastly mockery of adornment.
Nita's overstrained nerves gave way at the startling sight. She crouched upon the chest of gold with her hands before her eyes, while appalling shrieks burst from her lips.
She doubted not the same awful fate would be herown, despite the fact that she was bound to Charles Farnham by the most solemn tie.
At her shrieks he turned upon her with the fierce command:
"Silence! Do not think that your cries will bring assistance to this vault! This wing of Gray Gables is utterly uninhabited and isolated from the newer part of the house. You are wholly in my power and at my mercy to punish as I will."
From his excited, remorseless face she doubted not what that punishment would be—isolation and starvation in the miser's hidden treasure-vault in company with that awful thing yonder, the ghastly, grinning, jewel-bedecked skeleton.
There came a swift thought of Dorian Mountcastle. She should never see him again. Would he miss the girl into whose eyes he had gazed with such passion? Would the mystery of her strange fate sadden his life? She cried out, rebelliously:
"Punish at your will! Yet I have done nothing—nothing!" and, falling on her knees, she poured out impetuously the story of the mistake in opening the door that had brought her to this terrible strait.
"Through no fault of mine," she sobbed wildly. "Yet—yet—I am to suffer death for this unconscious wrong. Ah, sir, how can you be so cruel? Why, then, did you save me from the river for this more terrible fate?"
He stood silent, gazing at the beautiful, convulsed face. Yes, it was scarce a week since he had turned her aside from a self-sought death.
He remembered her strange, almost stoical calm, in such contrast with her wild agitation now. Life had grown sweeter, dearer now since that day in Central Park, when, starving and friendless, she had derided him with the scorn of a hopeless and reckless despair.
"Let me go free, only give me my liberty, and the secret I have unwillingly discovered shall never pass my lips!" she cried frantically. "Do you remember that day in the park when you pretended that you loved me? Then, how can you be so cruel?"
The old miser's face changed suddenly from rage and malevolence to a leering softness more hateful still to her shrinking eyes. He came closer, and she started back in disgust.
"Ah, Nita, you remember that day still!" cried the old man in a transport of joy. "You remember that you are my wife! Do you know that in my wrath I had almost forgotten it? And so you appeal to my love? Have you none to give me in return, pretty one?"
As he approached her she thrust him violently back with hands that were nerved by the strength of fear and hate.
"Do not touch me, do not ask me for love. Remember our marriage-contract!" she exclaimed.
"I remember it," he answered, gazing on her with fiery eyes. "But, listen, Nita; I will give you one chance of escape from the doom that hangs over you. Burn the marriage-contract. Become my wife in reality as you are now only in name, and we will begin our new life to-day. I love you, Nita, but only on these terms can you regain your freedom."
She shrank back with dilated eyes full of horror, and cried:
"I would not abridge one hour of that year if twenty lives were at stake. Ah, no, no, no—sooner death!"
"So be it!" he exclaimed bitterly, incensed by her scorn, and pointing to the skeleton. "I will go now and leave you to the companionship of this grim lady whosefate you will share." He moved toward the door, but she sprang before him with desperate courage to do battle for her liberty.
"Do not dare to leave me here!" she cried imperiously. "Listen to me, you wicked wretch! If you leave me here to perish with this woman you have already murdered, I—while I am dying of starvation here in this gold-vault, surrounded by enough wealth to feed famishing thousands—I will curse you with my latest breath! I, to whom Heaven will listen because I am good and friendless, will pray God to chastise you with a terrible punishment, and to bring down on you a death even more awful than mine. And after death I will haunt you night and day, if such things can be, until I drive you mad with horror."
Before the solemn force of Nita's frenzied adjuration, the old man started and grew ashen pale. His eyes glared, his knees trembled. She saw quickly that her desperate words had some effect upon him, and continued:
"See, I will take an oath, if you let me go free, never to reveal the secret of what I have seen here to-night, never to enter this place again. The secret of your hidden wealth, and of this murdered woman, shall be as though I had never known it. Will not this suffice?"
Charles Farnham did not answer at first. With bowed head and ashen features, he remained in deep thought several minutes, while Nita waited in keen anxiety. Then he looked up, and said:
"You promise to take a solemn oath! Very well. For the love I bear you I will spare your life. But there is one condition."
"Yes," she breathed eagerly.
"You note the ring on that skeleton-hand there? Come nearer, Nita, and examine it. You shudder. A coiled serpent, with quivering, emerald scales, you observe. Is it not magnificent and unique? It has a history, and was made for this woman by a foreign artisan, who then destroyed the pattern. Note the tiny quivering gold wires that uphold each emerald scale. At the least movement of the hand the serpent-head seems to raise itself, and the eyes and scales to glow with malignant greenish fire."
"Yes, yes," she answered impatiently. "But the condition, sir—the condition?"
Scowling darkly at her, he hissed rather than spoke:
"That you take your oath of silence with that skeleton hand clasped in your own, and afterward withdraw the serpent-ring from that bony finger, and wear it always, in memory of this hour."
She shuddered and recoiled at first, then, catching the gleam of triumph in his eye, answered, with apparent calm:
"I agree to your condition."
With an evil, jeering smile, he said:
"Perchance there are people yet alive who have never given up the hope of tearing aside the thick veil of mystery that enshrouds the fate of this woman. If you wearthis ring you may meet them—they will recognize it, they will ask you questions that you will not dare to answer."
Her brain was reeling, her limbs trembled, her strength was fast going in this atmosphere of horror, but there was an element of desperate bravery in the girl when driven to bay. She answered her tormentor:
"Only give me my liberty, and I will risk it all—all!"
The die was cast. He looked at her for a moment with a strange expression, and exclaimed warningly:
"One moment, please. You will remember that you will have no chance to prove a traitor to your oath, even if you dared. This door I shall wall up immediately, as there is a secret entrance that I shall use hereafter. So beware of attempted treachery, girl."
With a shudder she replied:
"The wealth of the Indies would not tempt me to return to this dreadful place! Now, the oath."
With wolfish eyes he saw her white hand close shrinkingly over the dead one on the table. Sepulchrally he spake some words which Nita repeated after him through stiff white lips, her eyes dilated with horror.
Then she drew the glistening ring from the skeleton's bony hand, and placed it on her third finger. The emerald scales quivered with greenish fire, and a shock as of electricity seemed to thrill through her at the contact. Repressing a cry of terror, she turned toward the stairway.
"You must return the way you came," said Farnham,unlocking the door, and holding it ajar. "Good-by, Nita, and do not forget the oath sworn on the dead hand."
But the girl was speechless. Flitting past him like a shadow she crept up the stairway, and heard with silent thanksgiving the lock turn in the door, between her and the miser's gold-vault.
When Nita had left him, Dorian Mountcastle lay with half-shut eyes in a delicious reverie. Believing himself proof against all the darts of Cupid, he had yet gone down helplessly before the fire of a girl's dark eyes, and the charm of her sweet, sad smile. Upon his life's horizon had dawned the radiant star of Love.
He forgot his weakness and illness in the intoxication of the moment. He was too well versed in the signs of love not to interpret aright Nita's looks and blushes. It only brought a smile to his lips when he recalled her strange pallor and sudden flight.
"Sweet girl, she was frightened and agitated at the sudden discovery mutually made that our hearts had leaped to meet each other. She will return when she recovers her composure," he thought happily.
A light tap at the door, then it opened softly, and his heart leaped at the thought that it might be Nita already returning. But it was only Azalea Courtney, radiant as the morning, carrying a little silver pitcher full of iced lemonade.
"Alone, Dorian? I thought Miss Farnham was with you?" she cooed, in silvery tones.
"You were mistaken," he replied coldly, vexed that she had disturbed his sweet love-reverie, and out of mereperversity he refused to drink the draft she proffered, declaring that he was not thirsty.
But if he thought to freeze out his dainty visitor by his indifference he was mistaken. She slipped into the arm-chair by his bed, and began with pretty raillery:
"Miss Farnham made you but a short visit. I fear you did not make a good impression."
"I should be sorry to think so, for in that case I should feel compelled to leave Gray Gables immediately, and be jolted five miles to the nearest hotel," he rejoined maliciously.
"Leave us, Dorian? Indeed, you should not. It would kill you to be moved. Besides, what does it matter what that girl thinks, so long as mama and I are delighted to have you, and to be of service to you?"
"It matters everything, Azalea, since Miss Farnham is the real mistress here. Remember your mama is only her salaried chaperon, and you, like myself, but a transient guest."
Azalea pouted prettily at this rebuke.
"You take pleasure in reminding me of my poverty—you forget the past," she half-sobbed, and he answered impatiently:
"I choose to ignore it, and, pardon me, but it is bad taste in you to recur to it."
"Ah, Dorian, will you never forgive?—never permit me to atone?" she sighed.
The young man made a gesture of impatient scorn, as though dismissing an unwelcome subject, and half-buried his face in the roses that still lay beside his pillow.
Azalea Courtney knew that Nita had sent the roses. A spasm of mingled pain and bitterness crossed the pretty, pink-and-white face, and she cried out sharply:
"Well, how do you like Miss Farnham?"
He knew well how to stab this dainty beauty—perhaps he knew, too, that she deserved it. He looked straight into her curious blue eyes, and answered enthusiastically:
"She is charming!"
"Ah!" breathed Azalea, with her little white hand pressed against her side to still her heart's jealous throbs.
"She is charming," repeated Dorian Mountcastle, quite oblivious to her pain, and, furious with anger, Azalea darted from her seat and left the room as precipitately as Nita had done a while ago—left the room to hurry to her mother and sob out her jealous longing for vengeance upon dark-eyed Nita, her beautiful rival.
Without the least compunction over the stab he had given his visitor, Dorian Mountcastle dismissed all thoughts of her, and again fell to dreaming of the girl who had bewitched him.
Beautiful women he had seen in plenty, but hovering about this one there was something more than beauty. With closed eyes he lay silent, breathing the fragrance of the roses by his pillow, and going over in his enraptured mind all her separate, distinctive charms.
Suddenly, he started broad-awake, his brow beaded with dews of terror, his heart throbbing painfully. What was the sound that had awakened him? Ah, a timid tapping over and over again upon the door.
"Enter!" he called out in a strangled voice, and the door opened and closed again, admitting—Nita!
Nita, pale and gasping, with wild eyes and disheveled tresses, her white gown soiled with soot and cobwebs, her slender hands grimy with dust, outstretched before her like a sleep-walker's, as she staggered across to him, gasping, it seemed, with mortal terror, vainly essaying to speak.
"My dream, my dream!" he cried, in a voice of agony, as she sank with a long, quivering sigh into the arm-chair close to the bed.
Putting out his hand he touched hers. It was icy cold, and he saw on it a ring that he had not noticed before, a serpent, with eyes and scales of quivering greenish fire. It was so lifelike in its malignant semblance that he shuddered through all his frame.
At his gentle touch, Nita started, and lifted her dazed dark eyes to his face. Their expression was piteous, and so was her voice, as she murmured incoherently:
"I—I—went out at the wrong door—and—was lost—oh, I was so frightened!"
Her eyes closed, her head drooped heavily. Drawing her hastily toward him, her pale face sank upon the roses by his pillow. She was unconscious.
It was a mean advantage to take of the helpless girl, but Dorian could not resist the temptation. The dark curls on her white brow mingled with his own fairer ones, and the lovely lips were close.
He turned his face slightly, and his eager mouth brushed hers.
The pressure of his lips recalled her ebbing senses. She stirred slightly, opened her eyes in a dreamy fashion, realized everything, and started back from him in sweet and strange dismay.
"Nita, Nita, I love you!" Dorian murmured, as she looked at him with bewildered eyes, but ere she could reply the door opened, and Mrs. Hill, her faithful nurse, entered the room. The girl sprang up and clasped her around the neck, sobbing hysterically.
"Do not look at me so angrily, Mrs. Hill, indeed I have done nothing. Miss Farnham went out at that door yonder, got lost in the winding corridors, and found her way back here almost frightened out of her senses," explained Dorian.
"Oh, take me to my room," pleaded the girl, drawing the kindly housekeeper toward the door without a backward glance at her lover.
Nita was walking alone in the grounds at twilight. The purple shades of the gloaming were shot through by the opaline light of a new moon swinging like a silver sickle in a rosy-lilac sky, and a wind from the sea—cool, salty, and delicious—stirred the flowers, shaking out fragrance upon the languid, love-breathing air of June.
The beautiful white-robed girl, as she walked up and down the flowery paths, cast now and then glances of yearning tenderness toward one window of the house, through whose lace-curtains gleamed a dim, soft light. She knew that Dorian Mountcastle was waiting there, heart-sick and restless, and pining for her presence.
A little while ago Lizette had brought her a note that set all her pulses beating with blended rapture and despair:
"My Dear Miss Farnham: How can you be so cruel to a sick and lonely man? It is a week since I have seen you. Mrs. Hill keeps making excuses that you are not well, but how can I believe it when I have seen you from my window every day walking, riding, and even boating, rowing yourself with the most consummate grace and skill? Azalea also tells me you are very well. She is devoted to me, the dear girl, but it is you I want."Do you know that I am so much better the doctor let me sit up several hours to-day, and that I shall soon be well enough to go away? I am glad, for I have alreadytrespassed too long on your hospitality, and, of course, you will wish me gone, else you would let me see you when I am so miserable over your displeasure. How cruelly you punish me for that sweet stolen kiss, whose memory thrills my every hour with silent rapture. Ah, Nita, I love you madly! Will you accept the life you saved so bravely that night and make me happy?"You remember that sweet old song 'Juanita'? It keeps singing itself over and over in my thronging thoughts:"'Nita, Juanita, let me linger by thy side;Nita, Juanita, be my own fair bride!'"Ah, Nita, did not our souls rush together at our first meeting? I remember with intoxicating rapture how we looked into each other's eyes—looked and loved. Oh, my dearest, do not be cold to me. You are no heartless coquette, I know. Forego all further punishment. Come to me, dear, and set my heart at rest.Dorian."
"My Dear Miss Farnham: How can you be so cruel to a sick and lonely man? It is a week since I have seen you. Mrs. Hill keeps making excuses that you are not well, but how can I believe it when I have seen you from my window every day walking, riding, and even boating, rowing yourself with the most consummate grace and skill? Azalea also tells me you are very well. She is devoted to me, the dear girl, but it is you I want.
"Do you know that I am so much better the doctor let me sit up several hours to-day, and that I shall soon be well enough to go away? I am glad, for I have alreadytrespassed too long on your hospitality, and, of course, you will wish me gone, else you would let me see you when I am so miserable over your displeasure. How cruelly you punish me for that sweet stolen kiss, whose memory thrills my every hour with silent rapture. Ah, Nita, I love you madly! Will you accept the life you saved so bravely that night and make me happy?
"You remember that sweet old song 'Juanita'? It keeps singing itself over and over in my thronging thoughts:
"'Nita, Juanita, let me linger by thy side;Nita, Juanita, be my own fair bride!'
"'Nita, Juanita, let me linger by thy side;Nita, Juanita, be my own fair bride!'
"Ah, Nita, did not our souls rush together at our first meeting? I remember with intoxicating rapture how we looked into each other's eyes—looked and loved. Oh, my dearest, do not be cold to me. You are no heartless coquette, I know. Forego all further punishment. Come to me, dear, and set my heart at rest.
Dorian."
The letter was in Nita's bosom. The sweetness and the thorn were in her heart. She wrung her slender hands together, as if in pain, then they fell apart, and a stifled cry came from her lips.
The keen little tongue of the emerald serpent had pierced her rosy palm and the blood started. But the wound in the young girl's heart was deeper far.
Everything around Nita—the moon, the flowers, the sea, breathed of love. What wonder that the same pulse throbbed at her heart! She leaned on the railing of a little fountain throwing diamond sprays into the air, and murmured plaintively:
"If this had come to me only two weeks ago it wouldhave opened the gates of heaven to me. To love—to be loved—that is the best of life. But I have lived to be almost eighteen, and never had this crowning joy—never until now, when it comes, alas, too late. Ah, would it be so very wrong to love him just a little while? I have just one year of life, for I have sworn to die ere the moment comes of giving myself to Miser Farnham's arms. One year—only year in this beautiful world! Oh, it is cruel, cruel! And life has been so hard to me; who could blame me for taking this joy that fate holds out to me, this draft of love whose dregs will be so bitter?"
Hungry for love and happiness, the girl was faltering with a terrible temptation. For a week she had held it at bay. To-night Love stood sentinel at the door of her heart and proclaimed himself her master.
That night in the old garden when she had believed Dorian Mountcastle dead, she had uttered prophetic words:
"If you had lived, you would have lured my heart from me."
Only time could prove whether it was for better or worse that he had lived, and that they had looked and loved.
"I must go to him!" she cried suddenly, sweeping all irresolution aside.
She gathered a lily from the marble basin of the fountain, fastened it in the bosom of her white gown, and turned toward the house. Coming into the graveled walk at the foot of the steps, Nita almost ran into thearms of a tall, middle-aged man, who lifted his hat with easy grace, exclaiming:
"Beg pardon, Miss—Miss——"
"Farnham," the young girl said quietly, and stood waiting.
He bowed deeply, and resumed in his easy courteous manner:
"My name is Donald Kayne, Miss Farnham, and I am in search of a missing friend of mine, Dorian Mountcastle. I set him ashore on this beach about two weeks ago, and on returning only yesterday from our little yachting excursion, I heard that he had not returned to New York, nor even been heard of there. I became uneasy and came down to-day to hunt him up, although now"—with an admiring glance—"his exile is no longer a mystery to me. I learned at the hotel of my friend's accident, and that he was your guest. I hastened without ceremony to call on him."
"You are most welcome," she answered, in a low, musical voice.
"Thank you; and is he better?"
"He will soon be well," she murmured—"you will come to him at once, sir. He will be glad indeed to see his friend."
He followed her up the stately granite steps into a broad marble-paved hall. Then Nita led him to Dorian Mountcastle.
The invalid was resting in an easy chair, and Mrs. Courtney and her daughter were with him in spite of theonly half-suppressed yawns with which he slyly evidenced a decided preference for solitude.
He was waiting for Nita's answer to his letter. Would she come, his proud, dark-eyed darling, would she forgive his audacity and grant his prayer? And, meanwhile, Mrs. Courtney and Azalea were engaged in holding her up to his scorn.
"The most singular young girl I ever met. She makes the duties of a chaperon merely a sinecure," sneered Mrs. Courtney, and Azalea chimed in with pretended sweet excuses:
"But, then, mama, dear, you must remember that the poor girl does not really seem to have any knowledge of the usages of the best society. I fancy her wealth must have come to her quite suddenly. She cannot play the piano, Dorian, nor sing a note. She knows no language but English, she is brusk, and——" But the sentence uttered in a clear, high-pitched voice, was never ended.
The door that already stood slightly ajar, to admit the evening air, was pushed open by a graceful hand, and Nita stood on the threshold with the stranger. She had heard, for, looking straight at her dismayed rival, she said archly:
"You are quite right, Miss Courtney, I was brought up in poverty until a few weeks ago, when I came into my—inheritance."
Cool, fair, queenly, she bowed to Dorian, and said simply:
"Your friend, Mr. Kayne."
"Donald Kayne!" cried Dorian joyfully.
A confusion ensued in which Nita's daring speech was happily passed over. The Courtneys were well acquainted with the newcomer. In their palmy days they had been in his "set," and, although surprised to see them here, he greeted them with the easy cordiality of a man of the world.
A lively conversation ensued from which Nita seemed for a short while necessarily left out. She withdrew to the only vacant seat, regretting that she could not conveniently move the heavy arm-chair away from the strong glare of light.
She leaned back, with languid grace, her eyes downcast, a hovering smile on her scarlet lips, her exquisite arm escaping from the lace of the loose sleeve, resting on the arm of the dark velvet chair, the taper, extending fingers quivering with a slight nervous motion that made the serpent-ring glitter so weirdly one would scarcely have been more startled to hear a sibilant hiss escape from the open jaws.
Nita was unconscious that the stranger's eyes dwelt admiringly upon her queenly beauty as she sat in the velvet arm-chair. She kept her lids lowered persistently, not daring to meet Dorian's ardent gaze.
But, suddenly, she became aware that Mr. Kayne had left his seat and was bending over her chair. His breath swept her cheek as he exclaimed eagerly:
"A very unique ring, Miss Farnham. Will you permit me to examine it closer?"
He took the white hand in his own and lifted it nearerto the light. His fingers felt as cold as the skeleton ones, from which she had drawn the uncanny ring in the miser's gold-vault, and they were trembling strangely. Every one was watching him curiously, the pale, repressed excitement of his countenance was so fascinating.
"Good heavens! it is the ring! Miss Farnham, how came you by it?" he cried out in such a startled, eager voice that she quivered with deadly fear, recalling in dismay the old miser's malicious words:
"People will recognize the ring—they will ask you questions that you will not dare to answer."
"The ring—I—oh—you must have made a mistake," she faltered, almost imploringly.
"Impossible! I know the jewel perfectly. I will prove it to you. Inside the serpent-ring there is carved a name—'Pepita'—is it not true? You know it. Come, Miss Farnham, you have solved the mystery of that woman's fate, or you would not wear her ring. The truth, the truth, for God's sake!"