"'There never was a love like mine,For since my darling went awayThere has not been a night or day,Through winter's snow or summer's shine,But he is with meConstantly!'"
"'There never was a love like mine,For since my darling went awayThere has not been a night or day,Through winter's snow or summer's shine,But he is with meConstantly!'"
The pathetic words sank deep into the tortured heart of the man, listening out in the dusk and dew, with themurmur of the sea in his ears and the heavy perfume of flowers all around. He pressed his heavy brow against the back of his seat, murmuring over the words:
"'There never was a love like mine!'"
"'There never was a love like mine!'"
Azalea stopped singing, but played on in dreamy mood a low, sad nocturne.
Suddenly, through the stillness of the garden, a faint sound reached his ear—a sound like a human sigh, then:
"Donald!"
With a start and a cry he lifted his head.
"Donald," was breathed tremulously upon the air again.
But there was no one near. Thrilling with awe, he glared into the darkness. The night was dark, and there in the shade of the tall firs and shrubberies, the shadows were dense. He could barely distinguish the outlines of his own hand. And yet as he gazed the voice called him again, softly, tenderly, beseechingly:
"Donald!"
"Who is there? Who calls?" he asked eagerly, and no voice replied, but out of the darkness there began to form before him at a little distance a faint, silvery something like a cloud taking shape and form. It grew more and more dense until it assumed the form of a woman—a mist-woman, shadowy, faint, yet luminous with a soft, unearthly glow, and beautiful as an angel with spiritual face, and slender, beckoning hands.
A strange spell came over the gazer, a spell of tenderawe and ineffable peace. He spoke, and his voice was low and soft, like a sigh of love:
"Pepita."
For a moment the silvery mist wavered there in its wondrous beauty before him; then, all at once, it began to move backward from him with a floating movement of ineffable grace, the dark, solemn eyes still fixed on his, while the beckoning hand and etherial voice both breathed:
"Come!"
Donald Kayne arose like one in a dream, and followed the floating mist on and on through winding paths overgrown here and there with grass and weeds, toward the house, blundering on in a dazed way like a drunken man, tearing his hands upon thorny, outstretched branches of roses, shaking down splatters of dew that wet his face and hair.
The radiant shape was leading him on and on toward the house, and the nearer they came the more faint and indistinct it grew.
At last—when close to the old gray stone wall, and when his outstretched hands almost touched it—the phantom shape moved straight against the wall and melted into thin air like a bubble.
Donald Kayne, with a cry of agony, clutched at the fading form, and fell forward heavily against the wall, striking his temple with resounding force. The blow stunned him and flung him backward, half-unconscious upon the grass. He did not know that he lay there for an hour ere he struggled back to thought and memory.
He struggled up to his feet and gazed at the blank wall, so chill and dark, where the spirit-form had disappeared.
"I have seen a ghost," he shuddered. "It was Pepita in all her beauty. Yet I saw through and beyond her the trees and flowers. She is dead, my Pepita, I know it at last!"
The sun was sinking out of sight, and the curlew's call came shrilly across the waves when Jack Dineheart's fishing-boat anchored in the bay, and a little cockle-shell of a row-boat brought him across to his mother's cabin.
She was watching for him eagerly and with amazed eyes, for when the sailor left the little boat he carried in his arms the form of a woman lying inert like one dead against his shoulder, while her face and head were shrouded in a large plaid shawl.
"Hush! not a word," he breathed hoarsely to his mother, with a warning nod toward the sailor who had rowed the boat across, and he strode to the cabin with his silent burden. When he laid the quiet figure down upon a lounge and withdrew the shawl from the face, Meg recoiled with a cry of wonder and alarm.
It was Nita—Nita, whom every one believed dead. She looked like a dead woman now. Her face and lips were white, and the long, black fringe of the thick, curly lashes lay heavily against her cheeks.
"Don't look so frightened. She is not dead," said Jack Dineheart roughly. "I drugged her to bring her here without an outcry—that is all. She'll come to presently, all right."
"But, Jack, where did you find her? I thought she was dead."
"Old woman, I can't stay to answer questions now. I've got to go back to my ship and steer her into harbor. I'll come back as soon as I can. And, in the meantime, don't you let her get away."
"I'll keep her all right," Meg replied, with one of her hideous grins, and then he went away, returning later to find her waiting for him on the steps outside.
"She has come to, and is almost crazy to get away, so I locked her in and came out here to wait for you," she said. He sat down close to her, and confided his story to her ears, ending with:
"I brought her over to my boat and told them all she was my crazy sister. Bill Skipper and his wife had seen her here four years ago, and so there was no one to contradict my story, and old Mother Skipper took care of her all the way, for she was sick and nearly died on the voyage."
"And what do you expect to do with her now?" grimly inquired old Meg.
A string of oaths broke from his lips, in the midst of which she distinguished an avowed determination to force Nita to become his wife.
"But you said she was married to that young swell."
"He's dead by now!" was the vicious reply. "And, whether he's dead or not, she shall marry me."
It was so dark Meg could not see his face, but she knew he was terribly in earnest. She sat silently musing several moments until he exclaimed irritably:
"Why don't you say something? You used to be as much up for the plan as I was."
"Things are different now, Jack," she answered in a troubled tone, and when he questioned her she told him the story of the night when the old miser had brought Nita to Gray Gables as his ward.
"Now, Jack, you know you can defy anybody in the world except old Miser Farnham, and you daren't do that. He claims her now, and all you can do is to let her go back up yonder to Gray Gables and queen it over us again," she ended bitterly.
She was frightened at the terrible explosion of wrath that followed her words. The man raved and stormed, and she, although a fury to every one else, cowered in silence under his wrath. She knew that in spite of himself he must yield to the mysterious power the old miser held over them both. From the cot where he lay half-dead in Bellevue, he seemed to reach out a hand in grim menacing that cowed burly Jack Dineheart into instant, though grumbling, obedience.
"If I had known this I would have drowned Nita in the sea before I would have brought her back here," he growled.
But when Meg proposed to take the girl immediately back to Gray Gables, he did not interpose the least objection. The woman unlocked the cabin-door and entered, finding Nita sobbing hysterically upon the old ragged lounge.
"Dry up that sniveling, girl, and come along with me up to Gray Gables!" she cried roughly.
Nita sprang up in trembling hope.
"Do you mean it, Meg? Oh, will you indeed be so kind?" she faltered.
"Yes, I mean it, and I hope you won't forget Jack and me for our goodness. We are poor as dirt, you know, and it's worth a pretty penny to rescue you from prison and bring you safe back to Pirate Beach," grunted the hag, making the most she could out of her son's enforced relinquishment of his prize.
"Oh, I will reward you richly! You and Jack shall have handfuls of gold to-morrow," promised the grateful girl, and, leaning on Meg's arm, for she was very weak, Nita left the cabin, and proceeded slowly toward Gray Gables.
She saw no more of her rough suitor, for, furious with disappointment, he had taken himself out of the way.
Nita's heart beat high with hope as she neared her home. Meg had not thought of telling her that Miser Farnham was yet alive, and the girl could think of nothing except how soon she would be reunited to her young husband.
More than six weeks had elapsed since Nita and Lizette had left Gray Gables for the yachting excursion with Dorian Mountcastle that had resulted so disastrously. Yet, how familiar everything looked as the girl went with weak, faltering footsteps up the broad steps into the lighted hall.
The broad front doors were wide open, and also the parlor door. From it came the sound of gay voices and merry laughter. Meg Dineheart, with a love of sensation, dragged Nita to this door.
The Courtneys had several city guests lingering still, and Donald Kayne had joined them but a short while before. He sat near the window, with a dull, dazed look on his face, speaking but little, and listening with an effort to the careless words of the guests.
Upon this scene broke the bent figure of the old fortune-teller, with Nita by her side.
Mrs. Courtney was entertaining a guest in her most stately manner, but the words she was uttering died unspoken on her lips, and she sprang up with a strangled cry of alarmed surprise:
"Nita Farnham!"
"Nita Farnham!" echoed Azalea, in appalled tones, as though she had seen a ghost.
Ere Nita could speak old Meg's thin, rasping voice broke upon the hubbub of surprise, exclaiming:
"Yes, it's Nita Farnham, ma'am, sure enough. She wasn't drowned at sea, in spite of the storm. My son saved her life, and brought her back to Pirate Beach to-night. I hope you're glad to see her back," and she pushed Nita into a chair near the door and retreated, leaving her charge alone among them.
The eyes of the guests were upon the Courtneys, and no matter how they felt, it was incumbent on them to welcome Nita in a cordial manner. Nita got two cold little pecks on the cheek from mother and daughter, and some little murmurs of affection that she took at their true valuation.
Introductions followed, but Nita was weary, and rosefrom her seat, saying faintly that she would go to her room.
Some one came forward and offered his arm, and she shrank and trembled when she perceived that it was Donald Kayne. He bent and whispered, inaudibly, to the others:
"Say nothing yet, I beseech you. I was mad to do what I did, but God only knows the suffering that drove me to desperation."
In spite of herself Nita's heart was touched with pity. He had treated her infamously, yet somehow she could not hate him. Her tender heart always ached over the secret she could not betray to him, and her dreams were often haunted by the name "Pepita," that he had uttered in such a tragic tone.
She raised her dark, reproachful eyes to his face, and whispered sadly:
"You need not fear me."
But she was trembling so that she could not touch his offered arm, and she looked appealingly at Mrs. Courtney.
"I would like for Mrs. Hill to attend me to my room," she said gently.
"My dear girl, the housekeeper has an evening out, but I will attend you myself," was the affectionate reply, and Mrs. Courtney, coming forward, led Nita up-stairs and unlocked the door of her room.
"Mrs. Hill found it necessary to lock your room," shesaid. "That old woman you came with to-night has been prowling about here trying to steal something."
She pushed open the windows and let in the cool air. Then she lighted a lamp, adding carelessly:
"Everything is just as you left it, my dear. Although we believed you dead, it seemed best to trouble nothing until after your guardian's recovery."
Nita had sunk down wearily upon a lounge, her dark head falling among the satin pillows, but at those words she rose up with a startled cry:
"My—my—guardian!"
Mrs. Courtney, settling herself cozily into an easy chair, replied blandly:
"Oh, I forgot you went away with Dorian that day, and did not hear about Miser Farnham's terrible accident."
"But, yes, I did, Mrs. Courtney, oh, yes. They told me on the yacht that night. Captain Van Hise told me—that my guardian had been killed on the elevated railroad," Nita cried eagerly, breathlessly.
"He was mistaken," Mrs. Courtney answered placidly. "He was severely wounded, and it was believed that he would certainly die, but he is still alive at Bellevue Hospital, and although nothing but a wreck still, the doctors and nurses say that he will be sure to recover."
She never forgot the white horror of the girl's face, nor the anguish of despair in her eyes.
"Alive?" cried Nita wildly, "alive? Why, how can that be? I am married to Dorian, you know!"
"Yes; and it was a very reprehensible affair, I think,"Mrs. Courtney answered stiffly. "An elopement always carries with it the odor of disgrace."
But Nita was deaf to her words of blame. With a stifled moan of the bitterest despair, she fell back unconscious.
"What a nuisance!" muttered Mrs. Courtney, but she bathed Nita's face until she came to herself with a long, low sigh of deepest pain.
"I have been dreaming—oh, such a dreadful dream!" she shuddered.
"No, it was not a dream, Nita. I was telling you your guardian was alive, and you fainted—from excess of joy, I suppose," added the lady maliciously.
Nita sat up and pressed her small hand wearily to her brow. Despair made her brave.
"No, Mrs. Courtney, it was excess of sorrow," she answered frankly.
"Oh, you cruel, wicked girl!"
"Do you think so?" asked Nita, with calmness. "No matter, I was glad when I heard that he was dead. I hated him—oh, I cannot tell you how I feared and hated him."
"But why?" curiously.
"Can you ask?" cried Nita despairingly. "Who could love that grim, horrible old man? And I told you once—you remember that night—that he would never, never let me marry Dorian!"
"Yet you married him, all the same, so what does his life matter? He cannot undo the elopement!" returnedMrs. Courtney, wondering at the girl's strange words and manner.
"But I believed that he was dead. Oh, Mrs. Courtney, listen patiently, please. I did not know that my impatient lover had made any plans to elope with me when I went on the yacht for a moonlight trip. Then came the duel, you know, and Dorian was so badly wounded. He sent his friend to ask me to marry him, but at first I refused, for I knew my guardian would never consent, and I did not dare disobey him! Oh, you cannot guess how I fear that horrible old man! Then Captain Van Hise told me he was dead, and I consented to marry Dorian. We were married, and only a few minutes afterward I was swept into the sea by the great wave rolling over the ship. Oh, God! why was I saved from death to meet this awful fate?—to be parted forever from my own love, when happiness seemed so near?"
"But your guardian cannot punish you for marrying your lover—these fears are quite groundless, Nita," Mrs. Courtney said, coldly, but decidedly.
"Oh, madam, I am the most friendless and unhappy girl in the whole world!" she cried passionately. "I have no kindred hearts to pity me, no one to care for me! You have never liked me, I know, but I plead with you to have pity on me, and try to be my friend. Oh, I will be so grateful for a little kindness and pity in this dark hour!"
An earthquake could hardly have shocked Mrs. Courtney more than this humble plea from Nita, who had alwaysresented her dislike and given her scorn for scorn. She put out her slender, aristocratic hand and clasped Nita's gently, drawing her to a seat by her side.
"My dear girl, of course I am your friend, and will do anything in the world for you," she exclaimed. "But let me tell you that you are very nervous and fanciful to-night. How can you call yourself friendless and alone when you have a rich and noble husband like Dorian Mountcastle? I assure you that a loving husband is always a woman's best friend. Then, too, you have a doting guardian."
The girl rose from her seat and stood before the woman, pale as a ghost.
"Mrs. Courtney, do not call them my friends, those two men," she said, almost sternly. "From to-night and henceforth forever, they are my bitterest foes."
Surprise held the listener dumb, and Nita continued:
"Never again while the world stands will I consent ever to look upon the face of Charles Farnham or Dorian Mountcastle."
"The girl is mad, mad as a March hare. Her adventures have turned her brain," murmured Mrs. Courtney amazedly.
"No, madam, I am not mad, I am perfectly sane, and I wish to make you an offer. Will you and Azalea go abroad with me, and travel wherever you wish for a year? I am rich. I will pay every expense if you will chaperon me on this trip. I will be perfectly frank with you. I want to avoid the two men of whom we have been speaking. I am afraid of them both. I have wronged themboth, yet I am innocent of blame. Yet I fear the miser's hate and Dorian's love in equal measure. Oh, madam, be kind to me. Grant my prayer, and I will be forever grateful! And the time will come, I swear it to you, when you will say to yourself and to the world: 'I am glad I was kind to poor Nita, and had no hand in her tragic fate.' What say you, madam? Shall we start to-morrow on our travels?"
Nita need not have felt any doubt over the answer. It was the strangest turn of Fortune's wheel that Mrs. Courtney had ever known—the strangest, and the most welcome.
She felt that behind it lay some strange dark mystery, a baffling mystery that it should be her task to ferret out if it lay in mortal power, but in the meantime she accepted Nita's offer with pretended reluctance, putting it solely as a favor to the young girl. Then, after recommending her to retire as early as possible, she returned to her guests with a heart full of secret exultation.
Nita locked her door and fell down on her couch in a fit of hysterical sobbing. Mrs. Courtney's revelation had shown her all the horror of her position. Wife to two living men, she loathed the one who had the legal right to claim her.
And Nita knew, and the knowledge added poignancy to her pain, that it was her own fault. Why had she betrothed herself to Dorian when she was not free, cheating herself with a little semblance of happiness, and so led him on to the elopement that must now wreck his life?
She believed that Miser Farnham's wrath would be murderous when he recovered and learned what she had done. And Dorian, how he would hate her for her sin!
She would rather die than meet Dorian again—he whom she had so terribly deceived. If he cursed her for her folly she could not bear it; she must die at his feet of her bitter shame—and if he forgave her madness and loved her still, what then? Still she was not free! And how could she own the truth to him? She could never do that. She would sooner fly to the other end of the world.
She leaned from the window, and gazed upon the great ocean and the starlit sky.
"Oh, how beautiful the world is, and why should there be so much unhappiness in it?" she cried.
Nita's musings were interrupted by the sudden entrance of Mrs. Hill, the housekeeper, who was wild with joy over the news of Nita's return.
"Mrs. Courtney has told me how you were saved by a sailor, and brought back," she cried gladly, and added in a more subdued key: "But poor Lizette, that dear, good girl, what a pity she was not saved, too."
Nita was about to exclaim that Lizette was alive, but she suddenly remembered Donald Kayne's entreaty for her silence, and made no reply. In spite of his cruelty, she pitied the man.
Jack Dineheart had told her that the maid, on finding herself entrapped and deserted, had jumped from the window and broken her neck, but she tried not to believe the horrible story.
All that Donald Kayne had told in New York about Dorian Mountcastle was true. When concealment was no longer possible his friends had been obliged to break to him, as gently as might be, the news of Nita's death, and that it was her wraith, and not a living girl, that had appeared to him on board the yacht that fateful night. The despair of the bereaved young husband was awful in its intensity. His reason tottered, and it was found necessary to place him in strict confinement, and guard him closely for several days until his violent mood subsided into moody melancholy.
Captain Van Hise was tender and devoted as a woman to his stricken friend, and when Dorian, after weeks of despair, became a pale, quiet shadow of his former self, he persuaded him to go abroad with him.
They went, but Dorian dwelt ceaselessly on the memory of that strange night when Nita had come to him and laid her head on his breast and her arms about his neck—aye, and kissed him, too, with ardent lips that seemed to burn with the breath of life. He prayed Heaven to grant him that sweet vision of his lost love again.
Van Hise was in despair.
"He will go crazy in earnest if he keeps on this way," he said to himself, despondently.
It was nearing spring then, and they were in Paris. But Dorian was familiar with Paris. Perhaps he had exhausted its delights long ago. He wearied of its splendors.
"I am tired. Let us go somewhere else," he said impatiently.
"But, my dear fellow, we have been everywhere."
"No, we have not. I know some men who are going on a journey into the interior of Norway. I have accepted for us both their invitation to join the party," said reckless Dorian.
"It will be quite out of the world," groaned the soldier, but he yielded.
It was strange that Dorian and Nita should both be abroad so many months without meeting each other, or even being aware of each other's movements.
And yet it was a fact that Captain Van Hise and Dorian had never even heard that Nita was alive, and Nita knew nothing of Dorian since the fateful night when Jack Dineheart had torn her from his arms and carried her back to Pirate Beach.
Since she had gone abroad with the Courtneys, life had been one feverish whirl of gayety, change, and sight-seeing. Nita, with her heart upon the rack, and a smile upon her lips, had borne her part bravely in all, lavishing gold like water in the pursuit of forgetfulness. The Courtneys, nothing loath, accepted her munificence, and made the most of it, although wondering at her reckless extravagance. They did not know how often she said to herself:
"The chest of gold is melting like snow in the sun, but why should I care? There remain to me but a few more months of life and liberty, then—darkness, nothingness, and death. Let me make the most of it!"
Mrs. Courtney had been in London in her days of prosperity, and had acquaintances among the nobility. In the spring, when the London season set in, she introduced her ward into the most fashionable set. And the fashionable world raved over the charms ofla belle Americaine.
She had lovers by the score. Hearts and titles were laid at her feet, but all soon echoed what Mrs. Courtney had frankly told them of Nita:
"She has no heart."
Nita only smiled when they accused her of her fault.
"It is quite true," she said. "I have no heart to give any one. Why do you not fall in love with pretty, golden-haired Azalea?"
One man, piqued at her indifference, tried to take her advice. He transferred his attention to the affable blonde.
He was Sir George Merlin, a wealthy baronet, middle-aged, but very goodlooking. He was vain and conceited, and Nita's rejection hurt his pride as well as his love. He proposed to Azalea through pure pique.
The blonde accepted gladly, and Mrs. Courtney was transported with joy. The only drawback to her bliss was that the baronet did not seem in any hurry to name the wedding-day. But the engagement was formally announced, and his sister gave a ball in honor of the fair Azalea.
Nita's thoughts often wandered to Dorian. Where was he? What was he doing? Did he know that she was alive, or did he mourn her dead? Somehow, atfirst she had looked for him, dreaded his appearance with mingled pain and pleasure. As the months went past she gave up the thought of his coming. She began to fancy that he must be dead.
Sometimes it all seemed to her like a feverish dream, those strange past days of love and pain; yet all the time she was drawing nearer and nearer to the fatal end of the year, to the moment when her hated master would claim her as his bride.
It was May now, and the world was all in bloom. Charles Farnham would be coming to claim his bride.
On the very day of Lady Landon's ball for Azalea, Mrs. Courtney received a letter commanding her to return at once to New York with her charge. Mrs. Courtney went at once to Nita in her room.
"Nita, I must break through your rule, never to mention your guardian's name to you. I have a letter from him."
Nita turned a pale face of fear and despair.
"A—letter!" she faltered; "so, then—he—he—is coming for—me?"
The white terror of her face was enough to move a heart of stone. Mrs. Courtney smiled reassuringly.
"Do not look so frightened, Nita, there is no need, for he writes very kindly of you, and makes no mention of your marriage. Perhaps he means to forgive you and Dorian," she said, feeling magnanimous toward the girl now that Azalea's market was made.
Nita only sunk helplessly into a chair, her face white,her eyes wild. It seemed as if she could not reply. Mrs. Courtney, with her eyes on the letter, continued:
"Mr. Farnham is quite well again, and wants me to hasten home with you. He says that he has bought and furnished a Fifth Avenue palace for you, with carriages and horses of the finest, and is most anxious to see you queening it in New York society. Indeed, Nita, after the training I have given you, it will be easy for you to do so"—complacently. "Really, my dear, the old man seems very proud and fond of you, and I never heard of a more generous guardian. You are a very fortunate girl, and I am sure you have only to ask him, and he will pardon you and Dorian."
"Ah! you do not know, you do not dream," moaned the girl, hiding her face in her hands.
Must she go? must she obey the old miser's command?
"This letter has been following us about for some time, and I must reply to it to-morrow," continued the lady. "What shall I say to him, Nita? That we will cross next week?"
"I will not go!" cried Nita, with a frantic gesture.
"But, really, Nita, I think we must go. I cannot understand this strange fear of your guardian. A young girl like you must obey either her guardian or her husband. You repudiate the claim of Dorian Mountcastle, and so you remain subject to the orders of Mr. Farnham."
"Let us speak no more of it now. I will decide to-morrow," Nita answered.
Mrs. Courtney knew that it was almost time to dress for the ball, so she retired, determined in her own mind that she would take Nita speedily back to New York and Fifth Avenue.
"Our leaving now will force Sir George to ask Azalea to name the wedding-day," she thought sagely. "And Nita is so generous I think she will readily purchase the trousseau. The marriage can take place from the miser's place, and Sir George need never know how very poor we are."
"A gentleman to see Miss Farnham."
Nita was in her ball-dress. There were pearls and diamonds at her throat, and in the wavy masses of her hair.
"Who?" she asked carelessly.
"He did not send his card; he said to tell you a friend. He is waiting in the private parlor."
Nita thought carelessly that it was one of her many lovers come to lay heart and hand and fortune at her feet, and get the same answer she had given others:
"I have no love to give."
She had a tender heart, but it vexed her when men wooed her.
"I am no coquette. I do not encourage them. Why will they not leave me alone?" she thought impatiently.
And it was on her lips to decline to see the caller. The next moment she reflected that if she declined to-night he would come again to-morrow. The unpleasant moment was only deferred.
"I will go, I will have it over!" she exclaimed, and took up her bouquet.
"I will pretend that I am in a great hurry to start to the ball," she thought.
As she entered the parlor a man stood at an open window,breathing in the sweetness of the fair spring night. As Nita softly closed the door he came forward into the light, and stood revealed, tall, fair, handsome—Dorian Mountcastle!
A thrilling heart-cry escaped from Nita's lips:
"Dorian!"
"Nita, my love, my bride!" cried the young man, and caught her in his arms, straining her fondly to his throbbing heart.
She did not resist him. How could she forego the ecstasy of that embrace, the warm, intoxicating sweetness of that kiss? For one moment she forgot the gulf between them. Her arms crept up about his neck and held him close and tenderly—her lips clung to his. Eden came back for a few moments to earth again. He pressed the beautiful form closely to his breast.
Ah, the gladness, the madness, after believing her dead and lost to him forever on earth, to find her once again, so beautiful, so tender, and so loving, alive in his arms. He drew her at last to a seat, and whispered lovingly:
"Speak to me, my darling. Let me be sure this is no dream!"
"No dream," she murmured happily, then asked, with a smile. "How came you to find me, Dorian?"
"My love, my bride, how beautiful you are," he murmured, "and to think that I believed you dead, drowned in the cruel sea!"
She gave a convulsive start, she drew back a little from him, the joy went out of her face. But there wasa mist of actual tears—tears of joy—in Dorian's eyes, and he did not note the curious change on her face.
"Ah, Nita, how I have suffered!" he cried. "When they told me you were dead, and that it was your wraith I saw on the yacht that night at Fortune's Bay, I went mad with grief. They have told me that I tried to kill myself, that I raved like a madman. But I remembered nothing for weary days until the reawakening to memory of my loss. Ah, love, pardon me these wild words, but it seemed to me that without you I was in hell—in torment without hope of release! Then Van Hise brought me abroad, but, oh, the long, long months of dark despair that followed—I will not dwell on them, my darling, now that I have found you again. And is it not strange I was so long finding out the truth? You must have written me, of course, love. Is it not strange your letters did not reach me? And all the while, my precious one, you must have been wearying for me as I for you, is it not so, sweetheart?
"In Norway one night some fellows with us were speaking of beautiful women they had met, and your name was mentioned, my darling—your old name, Nita Farnham. I was struck speechless with emotion, but Van Hise, my true friend, came to the rescue. He asked questions, he learned where you were—you and the Courtneys. The news seemed too good to be true, but Van Hise and I left the party and traveled night and day to reach London, and find out if it were really my bride given back to me from the dead. Thank God, thank God, it is true, we are reunited never to part again!"
But, to his amazement, she drew back from his proffered kiss, she recoiled a little from him, whispering in a frightened voice:
"Do not make too sure of that, Dorian!"
Mountcastle threw back his handsome head with a happy laugh.
"No coquetry, my darling, it is quite too late for that," he replied gaily. "You are all my own, you know, and now that I have found you I shall never leave you again."
His arm tightened about her waist, his eyes beamed adoring love into hers, but she trembled and gasped in deadly fear as he held her close. She loved him madly, adoringly, but her soul was as pure as a white rose-leaf, and she knew that to remain with Dorian would be deadly sin.
Oh, why had he found her here? why had they met again, only to part in despair? Better if he had gone on believing her dead, as she would, alas! be soon. No thought came to her that it might be best to confess all to Dorian, and ask him to help her out of her terrible strait. She did not know that anything but death could absolve her from her wifely vows to her husband. She understood his malignant nature well enough to know that he would pursue her to the ends of the earth if she tried to escape him. And in her stainless purity she would sooner have died than seek refuge from him in Dorian's arms.
"Oh, Dorian, Dorian, it breaks my heart to tell you," she sobbed; "but—but our marriage was all a mistake, I—I can never be your wife."
"Are you going mad, my darling? You are my wife already, you know," he replied wonderingly.
"No, Dorian, no; it was all a mistake, I tell you. I told you always that I could never marry you while my guardian lived. Captain Van Hise told me that night that he was dead, and so I consented to be married. But there was a mistake. Mr. Farnham was not dead. He lives—he claims me—so I cannot be yours."
Dorian Mountcastle laughed at her childish fears.
"His death or his life makes no difference now," he replied soothingly. "You belong to me alone, and no power on earth can take you from me. Perhaps he has some hold on your fortune. Is that what you mean? Let him have every penny, Nita. I have enough."
"Dorian, words are useless. I never can be yours. We must part."
He looked at her in amazement. He grew impatient at what he considered a silly whim.
"I do not understand all these silly fancies, Nita," he burst out angrily. "Perhaps you have ceased to love me, perhaps you have repented our marriage—is it so?"
"Yes, I repent it," she replied despairingly.
A flood of jealous rage poured like molten lava through his veins.
"You have met some one you love better?" he cried, in a voice so strange from excess of keen emotion that it did not sound like his own.
"No; ah, no, my love, my Dorian," she moaned, and suddenly flung herself at his feet. "Oh, I love you. Ilove you. I love you," she cried passionately, as she knelt there with upraised eyes.
Startled by her emotion, he stooped to raise her, but she resisted the effort.
"No; let me kneel here humbly at your feet and thank you for your love while I implore your pardon for my weakness," she sobbed. "Oh, Dorian, there can never be any happiness for us, dearest, while Charles Farnham lives. If he were dead—if he were only dead—we might be happy. I wish that he had died that night when he was hurt. Oh, Dorian, he holds a power over me that you do not dream of. We must part, my own dear love, we must go our ways in life alone unless——"
She paused a moment, and searched his face with eager eyes.
"Ah, Dorian, do you love me very, very much?" she sighed.
"Better than the whole world, better than my own soul!" he answered fervently.
And a low sigh of gladness heaved her breast.
"A terrible temptation has come to me, Dorian. We love each other so well that life apart would be worse than death. And yet—yet—we must part. Oh, Dorian, let us foil our malignant fate. Let us die together."
Surely she must be going mad to talk in this strange fashion when there was nothing that could come between their wedded hearts, nothing that could keep them apart. He spoke to her soothingly, tenderly, but she only became more wildly agitated.
"Do you think that I talk strangely?" she cried. "Oh,Dorian, I have heard and read of lovers who died in each other's arms rather than live apart. Let us follow their example. A drop of poison—poison that will kill easily, you know—and, locked in each other's arms, we may drift together—always together, darling—into heaven or hell, or whatever home God gives to reckless, broken-hearted lovers. What say you, Dorian? Shall it be so?"
And she gazed wildly into his horrified face.
Dorian gazed in mingled grief and horror at the beautiful girl. Surely she must be mad, he thought. Then his heart sank. Had her love turned from him in their long months of separation?
Dorian had a passionately jealous nature, and the fear of Nita's fickleness once admitted to his mind, caught fire and burned like a devouring flame. The girl's eager, beseeching eyes beheld all at once a strange change pass over his fair, handsome face, and, rising, he pushed her from him, crying out angrily:
"I understand you, Nita. In the months of our separation you have wearied of me. Do not deny it, for I will not listen to your protestations. A moment ago I thought you must be mad, now I perceive that there is method in your madness. You chafe at the tie that binds us together. You would fain be free, so you pretend this baseless fear of your guardian. Fickle heart, you have wrecked my life! I adored you, but you found my love only a weariness. Well, take your freedom! I go, never to molest you again."
The white, crouching figure lifted a pallid, woful face, and moaned:
"Oh, Dorian, will you leave me? Must I die alone?"
"Die!" the husband sneered angrily. "No, you will live to make some other fool happy a while, as you did me, then throw him over in this heartless fashion!"
All Dorian's old cynical distrust of woman's love was returning, supplemented by jealous agony too deep for words. It seemed to him that Nita was simply playing a part, pretending this unreasoning dread of her guardian's anger.
"Dorian, my love, forgive my weakness!" pleaded Nita wildly; but his eyes flashed back only a limitless wrath and scorn.
"Forgive you! no—not while life lasts! But—farewell forever!"
Then the door opened and closed—Dorian was gone in anger, and Nita was alone with her despair, her heart breaking with its heavy burden.
Slowly and wearily she dragged herself back to her room. She was glad the maid was not there to see her pale, changed face and crumpled ball-gown. She closed the door, and mechanically removed the bitter traces of tears from her face and rearranged her dress.
"For I must not stay away from the ball. That shallow Azalea would think I envied her triumph," she thought in bitter pride, and as one goes to the stake she accompanied the Courtneys to Lady Landon's ball, never telling them that Dorian had sought her out, and thatshe had sent him away from her, reckless and broken-hearted.
But when Dorian read of it all in the next day's papers that praised the beauty of Miss Farnham, the lovely American, and told how the Earl of Winthrop had paid her such devoted attention, he smiled in bitter mockery.
"It is just as I thought—there is a title in the case, and she means to repudiate me. American girls all run wild over coronets nowadays," he said bitterly, to Captain Van Hise, to whom he had confided the story of Nita's strange behavior.
Van Hise was frankly puzzled. He had believed in beautiful Nita, and he would not give up his faith yet. He remembered the night of the marriage, how she had refused her consent until he had told her that the old miser was dead.
"There is something very strange here. I honestly believe in her professed dread of her guardian," he said thoughtfully. "And as for the title, Dorian, you know how we were told of her coldness and indifference to all her suitors. No, she cares for no one but you, but she will let her guardian's influence wreck both your lives unless you take the matter frankly in hand. What say you? Shall we go home to New York, and have it out with the old miser? Beard the lion in his den, and find out the worst of his power. You consent? Good. We will sail this week."
Lady Landon's ball had indeed been a great success, and the Courtneys were highly elated over the admiration excited by Azalea's delicate blond beauty. Her futuresister-in-law had been quite cordial, too, but in her secret heart she would have preferred the magnificent Nita with her calm manner and queenly beauty. She hinted as much to her brother, but he told her bitterly that Miss Farnham aspired to higher rank than a mere baronet, and the attentions of Lord Winthrop certainly lent color to the assertion.
The Courtneys were eager to return to the United States, whither they expected Sir George Merlin to follow them. They wanted to astonish their old set in New York with Azalea's grand match. Then, too, Mrs. Courtney did not desire to offend the old man who had ordered her with no uncertain sound to bring Nita home.
But her charge had set her face like a flint against returning. Rebellious and desperate thoughts were working in the young girl's mind. Why should she return to America? That was the question that tortured her night and day. She had resolved to die rather than live with her husband, and in a few more weeks the end of the year would come. A dreadful existence stretched before her—the price she must pay for this year of luxury—this year that might have been almost happy but for the madness of love that had come so suddenly and so irresistibly into her life.
"Oh, Dorian, Dorian, I loved you but to lose you—yet I cannot live without you—so I will end my life and its sorrows," she sobbed in the sleepless silence of the night. In her short, eventful life she had had few chances to make real friends, and she had no kins-people except old Meg Dineheart, who had declared herselfon that first night at Pirate Beach to be her grandmother. For this reason Nita had protected her from arrest for her crimes, but she shuddered and grew heart-sick at the thought of sustaining any relationship to the wicked old hag, and often longed for a mother's love.
"I am alone in the world, with no right to love and happiness like other girls, and surely God will forgive me for ending my wretched life," she sobbed, and began to plan the way in which to end "life's fitful fever."
Mrs. Courtney thought it a strange whim when, instead of attending the opera one evening, Nita went to church. She knew afterward the meaning of the fancy she had combated all in vain. Nita went to church to pray and ask God's pardon for the wicked deed she was about to commit.
She smiled in mournful mockery when her worldly-minded chaperon tried to argue her out of going.
"Dear Mrs. Courtney, I can take my maid; I need not deprive you of the pleasure," she said sadly. "But as for me, I do not care for music to-night. I would rather hear some godly words and prayers."
"It is time enough for piety when you are old and gray," the woman said cynically, and Nita gave her a strange, sad glance.
"What if I do not live to grow old—if I die in my early youth?" she queried.
Mrs. Courtney shrugged her shoulders without replying; but after Nita had gone out, she said significantly to Azalea.
"I think she is suffering from a temporary aberrationof the mind. You have noticed how quiet, almost morose, she has been lately. I shall take her home to her guardian without delay. There must be something wrong with her mind, the way she has carried on since she married Dorian."
But Nita had her way and went to church, and if ever a tortured soul, about to launch itself into eternity, prayed earnestly for the pity and pardon of Heaven, she did that night.
And the next morning Mrs. Courtney had a shock that she never forgot till her dying day. Nita's maid came rushing into her room with a pallid face and staring eyes.
"Oh, madam, I've found Miss Farnham dead in her bed with a bottle of poison by her side!" she almost shrieked.
In a shabby third-story room of a cheap apartment-house in New York, old Miser Farnham was sitting alone. The hideous old man was, if possible, even more forbidding than on that day in Central Park when the unhappy Nita had shuddered at the first sight of him, then yielded to his temptations, and became his reluctant bride.
The leering hideousness of his face a year ago was increased now by several livid scars received in the railway accident that had almost cost him his life, and his stooping frame was lean and gaunt, his shabby clothing hanging loosely on him.
Thin, grizzled locks straggled over his brow under the worn old hat that he wore habitually in-doors and out, and his keen, gray eyes gleamed with a diabolical light of triumph as they scanned the pages of a letter received several days previous from Mrs. Courtney.
"So she is coming home, my lovely bride," he chuckled to himself. "Coming home, and it lacks barely two weeks to the day when I shall claim her for my own. I wonder if she has come to her senses yet, and if she has concluded that life as an old man's darling with unlimited cash is better than the deep, dark river."
"More beautiful than ever, with a score of titled lovers," he read from Mrs. Courtney's sycophantic letter."Ha, ha! to think of carrying her off from them all. To think of marrying Juan de Castro's daughter. It is a wonder he does not rise from the grave! Ugh! what if he should"—and he shrank and cowered in sudden fear, whining out—"I do not believe in ghosts."
The miser had one weakness. He believed in the supernatural, and feared it. Many a night he cowered beneath the counterpane, with his hand before his eyes, afraid to look out into the dark lest he encounter some menacing ghost from a wicked past.
The old man had reached the acme of his plans and hopes and ambitions. His marriage to Nita had secured things that else were doubtful. Let her but come now willingly or unwillingly to his arms, and the triumph of his life would be achieved.
He chuckled in fiendish glee, remembering these things, and thinking of the life he would lead with Nita, for he determined that then he would throw off his miserly habits and live in splendor.
What though all New York had sneered at Farnham, the miser, it would open its doors to the millionaire with the beautiful bride for whom titled lovers had sighed in vain, and with whom one of the richest men in New York had eloped in his yacht, creating the greatest sensation of the hour.
Yes, society would rave over her wealth and her beauty; and, by and by—if she used him well—perhaps it might be discovered that the unknown waif had descended from rich and high-born parents. Yes, thiswas just possible, if Nita should be kind to him. If she were not, if she were not—and he ground his teeth—woe to the heiress, her fate be on her own head.
Just then there came a swift and loud rat-tat upon his door. Visitors to Miser Farnham were things unknown. He started up, trembling. Again there sounded a loud, impatient knock. He advanced with faltering steps and threw open the door.
Before him stood two men. He had seen them both before, and as they stepped over the threshold of the room he confronted them with a snarl of hate.
"I know you both, Captain Van Hise and Mr. Mountcastle. What is your business with me?" he queried curtly.
Van Hise laughed sarcastically at this cool reception.
"Mr. Farnham, you certainly come to the point at once," he exclaimed airily, "so we will not delay what we came for. You know this gentleman, of course, as the husband of your lovely ward, Miss Farnham?"
He nodded at Dorian, and the old miser scowled.
"I have heard of the gentleman," he said angrily.
"Very well. Mr. Farnham, we have come here to ask if you have any objection to him as your ward's husband."
Dorian, with his hat in his hand, stepped in front of the old man, and gazed earnestly into his face.
What a contrast they presented, these two, Dorian in his fair beauty, and the grotesquely ugly, snarling old miser.
Van Hise's courteous question shook the old man with jealous rage, and he asked sullenly:
"What can my objections matter since he is already her husband? If the bond is a legal one, I have no power to break it."
Then Dorian spoke.
"We know that," he said in a troubled voice, yet with a frank, manly, half-appealing air. "Yet, strange to say, sir, my bride stands in such mysterious fear of your displeasure that she refuses to live with me—throws me off as if I had no claim on her loyalty."
"You have seen Nita? When?" queried Farnham, with a grin.
"In London, barely a week ago—our first interview since our marriage-night—and I sailed the next day to see you."
"To see me! Why? If she repudiates the marriage, what can I do?" insolently.
"You can remove the mysterious barrier you have placed between my darling's heart and mine. She loves me, but she fears you with a strange, unreasoning terror. She has told me that only for the report of your death she would not have married me at all. My God, sir! what is the secret of your malign power over the hapless girl?" demanded the unhappy young husband stormily.
Farnham glared back at him with a savage fury, as though he would be glad to rend him limb from limb. He put his clenched hands behind him, as though to restrain the wild beast in him.
"So you acknowledge my power over your bride? You would like to know the secret of it?" he hissed in a voice of exultant malice.
"Yes," groaned Dorian in a hollow voice.
And for a few moments there was silence. The miser took a few slow, meditative turns up and down the room. Suddenly, he turned back to Dorian, and said:
"You wish to know the secret of my power over Nita? Very well. I cannot gratify you to-night, but I will appoint a day not far distant for the important disclosure."
"But, my dear sir, my friend is positively ill with suspense, and the sooner you gratify his desire the sooner can the barrier to his happiness be removed," interposed Captain Van Hise suavely.
Farnham turned on him with a grim smile.
"You think the barrier can be removed, eh? We shall see," he said, laughing sardonically; then added: "Gladly would I gratify Mr. Mountcastle's wish to-night. In fact, I should be delighted to do so, but I am not at liberty to reveal the secret. I am bound by a solemn contract not to speak of it for one year. That year, gentlemen, expires on the tenth day of June—barely a week hence."
"We must wait, then," Dorian said, with a suppressed sigh, turning to go.
"One moment!" exclaimed the miser, lifting a detaining hand as he continued:
"When you came in I was reading a letter from Mrs. Courtney, in which she writes me that she will bring Nitahome at once—in fact, will meet me at Pirate Beach the tenth of June, for the transaction of some very important business between my ward and myself. Gentlemen, I invite you also to meet me on the evening of the tenth of June, at my seaside home, Gray Gables, at Pirate Beach. You shall hear then, from Nita's own lips, the story of the barrier between your hearts, and then you can judge better if it be removable. Will you come?"
"We will come," they both answered in a breath, and bowed themselves out, full of wonder and consternation, for the old miser's manner had impressed them both with grim forebodings.
The tide was coming in with its low, murmurous monotone, washing the silvery sands at Pirate Beach, and the moon was rising full-orbed and majestic, lighting the twilight scene into weird beauty.
It was the tenth of June, the fatal anniversary of Nita's marriage to the old miser—the anniversary of her meeting with Dorian, the one love of her life.
Up at Gray Gables lights flashed from all the windows, and rumor said that the travelers had come home. Far up the beach old Meg Dineheart was pacing back and forth, watching for her son's bark, that had been absent several months.
"Will Jack ever come home again, I wonder? It seems a year since he went," she muttered, with a touch of forlornness, for the one affection of her lonely life was big, burly Jack, her handsome, wicked son. Shehad been expecting him now for several days, and was growing uneasy and impatient at his strange delay. Suddenly, a rude hand gripped her shoulder, and whirled her around face to face with Farnham.
"Good evening, old lady! 'Pon my soul, you look quite romantic star-gazing here alone," he exclaimed gibingly.
"So you're back, you devil!" she hissed. "What fiend's errand are you on now, I wonder?"
"To ask you to congratulate me on my success in achieving the great ambition of my life, Meg."
"I don't know what you mean, Farnham."
"No, but I am here to tell you that the propitious fates have brought to me an hour of glorious triumph, and rewarded all my schemings with success. Come inside the house, and let me tell you the sequel of the story you heard one year ago to-night."
She turned toward the cabin, the old miser following closely, and neither noticed that Jack Dineheart's trim fishing-boat had come into sight, and was riding into anchor close to shore. When the door had closed upon the wicked pair of plotters, the sailor rowed over to land in a tiny little boat, and sprang lightly up the beach toward his mother's cabin.
"Poor old soul, I wonder if she's yet alive," he pondered.
And, stepping lightly to the smoke-grimed old window of the cabin, he peered through with bated breath for a sight of old Meg. He recoiled with a stifled cry just asNita had done a year ago that night, for the self-same sight met his startled eyes.
Old Meg and Miser Farnham were seated by a table in earnest conversation.
"Humph! hatching some new mischief, I suppose," muttered Jack, bending his ear to a convenient knot-hole in order to catch their words.
The sea boomed on the shore, the moonlight silvered the waves, the wind sighed eerily round the old cabin, and the words that Jack Dineheart heard that hour paved the way for a fateful tragedy.
"You say that Nita has come home to Gray Gables, yet how can that be?" cried Meg. "It was only yesterday that I was up there, and Mrs. Hill, the old housekeeper, was wringing her hands and crying because she had seen in a New York paper several days old that Nita had killed herself in a London hotel by taking poison."
"It was true—and false," answered Farnham angrily. "I had a letter from Mrs. Courtney telling me all about it. She drank laudanum, and it threw her into a deep sleep. At first they thought she was dead, but a physician succeeded in rousing and restoring her to life, although she has been in a strange, dazed state ever since, and it is thought that she may never recover from the effects of the drug she used. But Mrs. Courtney telegraphed me this morning that they had arrived in New York from Europe, and would proceed immediately to Gray Gables."
Old Meg listened with keen interest to every word, then exclaimed:
"If Nita had committed suicide in the old, wretched days when she was my hard-worked slave I should not have wondered at it, but it puzzles me that she should attempt it now when she is rich and happy as old Farnham's ward."
With a gulp of rage he answered:
"I will tell you why she wished to die. She was married to a man she hated so much that she would die rather than live with him."
"Hated that handsome swell that she eloped with? I don't believe it. The girl loved the very ground he walked on!" cried Meg.
"Yes, she loved Dorian Mountcastle, but he was not her husband," answered the old man. "Listen, Meg, to one of the strangest stories you ever heard."
And, slowly, and with infinite gusto, as though he enjoyed the telling, he related to her the story of that day in Central Park when he had wooed and won beautiful Nita for his reluctant bride. She listened like one turned to stone; not a syllable escaped her, and he ended with ghoulish glee.
"As her husband all of Juan de Castro's wealth is legally mine. I can take open possession of it now, and if questions should be asked I can point to my bride, his daughter, as the lawful heiress."
She started from her trance of silence muttering hoarsely:
"You—you promised to marry me when you took possession of the spoil."
"Be patient, Meg. She will not live long, you ought to know that well. You have known some people who hated me, and then died mysteriously, did they not? Well, this girl, this dark-eyed beauty, she loathes me, and some day—not far distant, perhaps—I shall take deadly revenge for her scorn. But, first, to force her to my arms, to humble her haughty spirit, and break her proud heart. Then your turn will come, Meg. Be patient and wait."
"You are deceiving me, Farnham. You love the daughter as you loved the mother. You will never kill Juanita de Castro when she looks at you with her mother's eyes. You will grovel at her feet for a word of kindness, and Jack and I—Jack, your son, for whose sake I crave the treasure—we will be thrust aside, forgotten! No, no, you traitor, we will not," she rose up and shook her clawlike hands in his face, "no, we will not be trodden upon! We will have revenge, Jack and I will betray you."
He grasped and shook her violently till the breath was almost out of her body, then flung her roughly back into her seat.
"You cat who did my bidding—you and your villainous son—how dare you threaten me? One word from me and you both would swing from a scaffold!" he hissed furiously. "Hold your cursed tongue, or beware of my vengeance!" and with an oath he left the house and took his way toward Gray Gables.
Meg crouched like one dazed in a chair where her assailant had flung her, but Jack Dineheart did not go in to see if she were dead or alive. He followed the miser almost to the gate of Gray Gables with a stealthy, sullen stride, then, suddenly, flung himself on him with resistless fury, and bore him down to the ground.
"Oh, you wretch, you devil, to have marriedher, the girl you promised in her bonny childhood should be mine, my wife! Oh, you fiend, to take her from me! But I will save poor Nita and avenge myself. Here at the gates of fancied bliss, you die."
A keen blade flashed in the air, then sunk in the man's breast.