It was true, as the old miser had told Meg Dineheart, Nita had been saved from death by the skilful efforts of a London physician, and in the stupid, weakened state induced by the drug she had taken, and the measures used to counteract its effects, she was like wax in Mrs. Courtney's hands, so that she was brought home with scarcely a protest.
In fact, she was so ill that during the whole voyage to New York she scarcely remembered the old miser's existence, and the dreadful fact that the year of her marriage-contract was drawing to its close.
When she was taken to Gray Gables some glimmerings of memory returned to her, but she did not remember that it was the fatal tenth of June.
It was May when she made the frantic effort to end her life. Since then, in the pangs of keen physical distress, time had slipped by unheeded.
It was touching to see the joy of good Mrs. Hill at the return of her beloved young mistress. She wept with joy, and hugged Nita close to her motherly bosom, kissing the top of the drooping little head, with its crown of dark, wavy tresses, threaded with gold.
She did not say one word to her of the story she had read in the New York paper, but when she looked into the pale and lovely face she knew that the shadow ofsome pathetic sorrow had fallen darkly on the young girl's heart.
Nita lay wearily on a sofa until it was time to dress for dinner. Then Mrs. Hill came up to help her, for her English maid had not accompanied her home.
"It does not matter what I wear," she said listlessly.
"But Mrs. Courtney expects company this evening, I think," said Mrs. Hill.
"It does not matter," the girl again replied wearily, her eyes full of tears.
But Mrs. Hill had excellent taste, and she laid out a dainty white gown for her young lady.
"I may be old-fashioned in my notions, but to my mind a young girl always looks best in white, and to you, Miss Nita, it's wonderfully becoming," she said, as she shook out the soft, shining robe of feather-light Lansdowne, with its profuse, airy trimmings of white, embroidered chiffon. "This is pretty enough for a bride," she said admiringly. "Won't you wear your moonstone jewelry with it, Miss Nita? It will suit you so well, and I will bring you some pale-pink roses and white jasmine flowers for your corsage. The garden is beautiful now, since the gardener had it in charge. You know last year when we first came it was all of a tangle."
So she rambled on, and listless Nita let her have her way, and barely looked in her mirror when the good woman said enthusiastically:
"Now you are finished, dearie. Look in the glass what a beauty you are!"
She was a beauty. The soft, shining robe draped herform exquisitely, and the filmy chiffon rufflings made a soft mist about her lovely half-bare neck and arms that were clasped with moonstones, set in frosted silver, looking soft and fairylike as linked moonbeams.
On her breast heaved a cluster of starry-white jasmine flowers mixed with pale-pink, half-opened rose-buds, making a delicate contrast of color with the whiteness of her costume.
Beautiful, yes—but with a tragedy of sorrow in the midnight eyes and on the pathetic curves of the exquisitely chiseled lips. She smiled faintly, and murmured some words of thanks, then went down-stairs.
The drawing-room, wearing a holiday air, with profuse decorations of flowers, was deserted as yet. Azalea and her mother were still dressing. With a sigh of relief Nita turned her footsteps to the garden, that, under the care of a gardener had been rescued from the tangle of last year, and made into a fairyland of beauty and fragrance.
Nita walked slowly along the graveled paths, now in the full beams of the rising moon, now in the long dark shadows of the tall fir-trees.
She paused to rest by the fountain where last year she had come with her lover's letter in her bosom, and her wild heart thrilling with pain and rapture. A sob swelled her throat as she lifted her sad gaze to the star-gemmed sky, and murmured:
"Dorian, my love, Dorian, it breaks my heart to know that you are lost to me forever!"
"Your Dorian is here, darling Nita," answered a voice by her side, and his arm drew her fondly to his breast.
A low, shuddering cry, and Nita struggled out of those fond, clasping arms, and faced her lover with startled eyes.
"Dorian," she breathed, in mingled joy and pain—"Dorian, oh, why are you here?"
"I followed you, my sweet. Ah, Nita, I know the story of your mad attempt to end your life. Love, love, why did you do it?"
"Fate was against us, Dorian, and I could not live without you, I begged you to die with me, but you were cruel. Life was more to you than love. That is a man's way. But, being only a weak woman, I chose death—only they were so hard they would not let me die."
Her voice sank into his heart.
"Oh, my poor, little love. I did not believe your wild words. How could I think you would try to end so sweet a life?" he cried, but Nita did not reply; she only gazed at him with the fixity of despair.
"Nita, I distrusted you that night. I spoke cruelly to you. Will you forgive me my harshness, my dear wife?"
"Oh, not that word—not that!" and Nita shrank and shivered, drawing back as he approached her. "Oh, Dorian, do not think of me, nor speak to me as your wife ever again," she continued wildly. "Remember that grim old man—remember Miser Farnham, Dorian. Have I not told you I never can be your wife while helives! Oh, why does Heaven permit such wretches to walk the earth, a barrier to the happiness of true lovers?" and she wrung her hands despairingly.
"Do not give up like this to your sorrow, my darling," he said soothingly, "for I believe that the mysterious barrier to our happiness will soon be removed. I do not like to fight with shadows, Nita, so after my interview with you in London, I came to New York to see your guardian, and ask him frankly what was the secret of his objection to your marriage."
"You asked him—that?" Nita faltered in an indescribable tone.
"Yes, dearest, for it seemed best to know his reasons and combat them in a practical fashion."
"But he did not tell you—he dare not yet!" she muttered, rather to herself than him.
"He did not tell me then, but he made an appointment to meet me here to-night, the tenth of June—when he said I should hear the secret, Nita, from your own lips."
He never forgot the awful look on Nita's lovely face. It was convulsed with agony and deadly fear.
"To-night," she muttered hoarsely—"to-night, the tenth of June—oh, how could I forget that day—of all days in the world? And he—is coming here to-night?" The voice did not sound like her own.
"Yes, Nita; and bade me meet him here with my friend, Van Hise, who went with me to see him. Mrs. Courtney told me you were in the garden, so I left my friend with her and came to seek you here. Farnhamwill be here presently, and soon the worst will be over. Courage, sweetheart; you are my wife, after all, and he cannot really keep us apart!"
But it seemed as if she had forgotten him. Her form trembled like a reed in the wind, her eyes were fixed upon the ground, she muttered hoarsely:
"It is diabolical! That old fiend has planned his triumph with cold-blooded malice! How he will exult in my shame and despair! I cannot bear it—no, no, no!" And with the spring of a startled fawn, Nita flew past her lover, a vanishing white shape, toward the garden-gate.
Dorian stood like one stunned a moment, then followed in swift pursuit. But he was suddenly arrested by an outstretched arm.
"Where are you flying to, Dorian?" demanded Captain Van Hise, who had just come out to look for his friend.
"Do not detain me, Van Hise. I am following Nita, who has just fled from me in some strange alarm. She went out at the garden-gate. Come! let us pursue her, for I fear her terrors will lead her into something dreadful," faltered Dorian, dragging his friend with him in pursuit of the flying girl.
But the slight delay had given her the advantage of them. She flew like the wind along the sands, flying from the degradation that she could not face, flying to seek refuge in the deep, dark sea from her wretched life and its crowding ills.
They could never have overtaken her, she had gainedtoo much the start of them, and terror lent wings to her feet, but—suddenly she stumbled and fell prostrate over an inert body lying directly in her path.
In her frenzied flight she had not perceived it, but now—now, as she struggled to rise again, a startled cry shrilled over her lips.
She comprehended the ghastly truth—here, almost at the gates of Gray Gables, murder had been done! Recoiling with a strangled cry, she looked down at the body at her feet—the ugly, twisted body, the hideous face, the evil eyes set in a ghastly stare of death. On the instant she recognized him—Miser Farnham!
He was dead—murdered almost at the gates of Gray Gables, while on his way to claim his bride, to score his horrid triumph and break two loving hearts. It was a dastardly deed, and fate or retribution had met him on his way.
But who had done that awful deed? Some enemy, of course—perhaps the wicked old fortune-teller. But, though she trembled and shuddered, it came to her with a thrill of joy that now she was free—now Dorian need never know the secret of which she was so bitterly ashamed—that she had been for one cruel year a wife in name to the wicked miser.
She would fly back to the house—she would steal up to her own room and remove the white dress with its blood-stains where she had slipped and fallen on the body. No one should know that she had found the murdered man there.
With a stifled moan she turned to retrace her steps,and—ran almost into the arms of the two men coming in pursuit. In the near distance they had seen her kneeling there, they came up just as she turned to fly.
"Who is this? What is this?" cried the soldier, bending down over the body at his feet.
Nita answered with a hysterical sob:
"Look, I found him lying here when I was flying to cast myself in the sea. It is—it is—my guardian—and some one has—murdered—him!" with the last words she shuddered violently, and fell unconscious at Dorian's feet.
He lifted her up in his arms, and his hands were wet with the blood-spatters on her white gown—the bridelike robe that looked so stainless when she stood there by the fountain a few minutes ago.
"I will carry her up to the house, Van Hise, and you had better remain here by the body until I send some one back to help remove it," he said, in a shaken voice, turning away.
At that moment there appeared on the scene the hobbling form of Meg, the fortune-teller. After a few moments of unconsciousness she had come to herself in the lonely cabin, and curiosity had induced her to follow the old miser up to Gray Gables.
She stopped short with a shrill cry, and, stooping down, examined the dead, drawing back with a shudder as her hand became wet with blood.
"Ugh! it is the old miser—and murdered! Who has done this?" she croaked dismally.
Van Hise explained to her that he did not know anythingabout it, that Miss Farnham found the body there but a moment ago.
"And it is not more than half an hour since he left my cabin alive and well, going up to Gray Gables to keep an important appointment with Nita," croaked the old woman. She looked after the retreating form of Dorian, and sneered:
"Perhaps she grew impatient and came out to meet the old man, did she not?"
"She came out alone, certainly, but for what purpose I cannot tell," answered the puzzled soldier, who had never seen old Meg before, and he added:
"I know nothing about the matter except that she was very unhappy and excited, and my friend and I followed her as fast as we could, fearing she might commit some desperate deed."
"Some desperate deed, ha, ha! yes, and so she did!" shrieked the old crone, in horrid glee. "She met the old man she feared and hated, and she murdered him—murdered him so that he should not betray her secret!"
"Woman, woman! how dare you utter such a fiendish lie!" exclaimed the soldier angrily.
He sprang forward as though to strike her down, but she eluded him, and drew a glittering knife to defend herself.
"Lay but a finger on old Meg, and you will be stretched out there by the miser's side," she menaced, and again laughing a horrible laugh, she continued:
"She murdered him, I say it again, and before twenty-four hours go over her head she shall lie in prisonfor her crime! Ah! she thinks her secret safe now, but barely an hour ago he told me she had been his wife in secret for a year, and that he was going there to claim her to-night!"
Stiff and stark in his last long sleep, Miser Farnham lay in his coffin awaiting burial—this was the end of his plotting and planning—his scheming and sinning.
The inquest was over, and Meg Dineheart, as chief witness, had hounded the hapless girl she hated to a terrible fate. Circumstantial evidence had pointed so strongly to Nita as the slayer of the miser, that she had been consigned to prison to await trial for murder.
There were few who could believe in the young girl's innocence, for the evidence against her was so overwhelmingly strong, and the motive for the murder so plain. And there were not lacking witnesses to prove that the girl had been desperate with despair and misery.
The Courtneys were the first to turn against her, and as witnesses they did their worst. They could tell the story from the beginning of Nita's falling in love with another man, and her fear and hatred of the miser; they could tell of the elopement, of the return, and of Nita's desperate despair and frantic grief when she learned that the miser had survived the dreadful railway accident. They could dwell with telling effect on her wickedness in encouraging Dorian's love when she was another man's wife, they could dilate on the attempted suicide in London.
All their stifled hatred of the girl who had benefited them could be aired now, and without one word of pity for her sorrows, they became old Meg's able allies in hounding her to her doom.
Even Dorian and Captain Van Hise had been compelled to give damning evidence against Nita. They had found her kneeling and then trying to escape from the murdered man's side, her dress and her hands all wet with the blood.
And there was no one else near, no one until old Meg had appeared. All the evidence given at the inquest had pointed straight to Nita's guilt, and there seemed but one extenuating circumstance—it seemed as if she must have suffered for months from emotional insanity.
In a moment of madness, enraged by the knowledge that her husband had contrived a cunning plot to expose her secret and humiliate her in the eyes of the man she madly loved, she had met the old man coming to Gray Gables, and in her blind rage sprang at him and murdered him.
The weapon had not been found, but it was decided to have been a very keen-bladed knife, and there were two wounds in the region of the heart that must either one have proved instantly fatal.
Doubtless she had thrown the knife away, although careful search had failed to find it. But that was not strange. The encroaching tide, of course, had carried it out to sea.
Only three friends rallied round her, only three hearts believed in her innocence—they were Dorian, Van Hise,and kindly Mrs. Hill. It was this only that saved her from utter heart-break.
With Dorian to believe in her still, Dorian to love her and champion her cause, there was still a little gleam of light in the awful darkness of her fate.
And Dorian, when he engaged the best lawyer in New York to defend her, had told him that he was willing to sacrifice his fortune and his life in her defense.
"Oh, sir, I am not guilty—I am not guilty!" she cried piteously, lifting her great, appealing eyes to the face of the great lawyer, as he entered her gloomy prison-cell.
"I shall prove your innocence—be sure of that," he answered kindly, and then he bade her speak to him without reserve, confiding all her story to his sympathy, that he might best judge how to defend her cause.
And Nita opened all her sad young heart freely and without reserve. From early childhood, as far back as she could remember, her home had been with old Meg, at her rude cabin by the seashore, an unwilling, ill-treated drudge, beaten and cuffed at every small rebellion of her proud spirit.
At length she grew to girlhood, and then Jack Dineheart, old Meg's son, began to persecute her with offers of marriage. She hated Jack, and at fifteen years old ran away to New York to escape his persecutions.
Providence watched over the friendless girl, and she soon found friends, poor, but kind, who took her into their shabby home, and helped her to find work.
For three years she struggled on bravely, first as a nurse-girl, then in a store, as a cash-girl. Then the goodold man who, with his kind wife, had befriended her, fell sick and died. His wife, old and feeble, soon followed him to the grave.
Nita left the store to attend these sick friends, and the usual lot of the poor in a great, struggling city, fell to her share. Every penny gone, the few sticks of furniture taken for rent, she was turned into the streets, starving and friendless. She could find no work; she was too proud to beg, so she resolved to end her sorrows in the river.
"I lingered in Central Park watching the gay throngs so rich and happy, while I was starving and miserable. I had resolved not to die until sunset," she told the lawyer. "I clung to life, but I was afraid of a night in the streets of the great city, and I was too timid and ashamed to ask strangers for assistance. Then I met the old miser just as I had murmured a desperate prayer for gold. He offered to marry me, and at first I refused. But he finally told me that if I would consent he would give me a chest of gold, and draw up a marriage-contract giving me perfect liberty for one year. I consented; but, oh, sir, I was deceiving him—I never meant to live with him. I only caught at the chance of a little longer life, and luxury that I craved, but had never known."
The lawyer listened to her in the deepest pity, drawing her out with skilful questions. He thought he had never heard anything more pathetic than the story of her love for Dorian, told so frankly and sadly as though he had been her father.
"And have you no relatives, my child?" he asked, and she told him that old Meg had once said that she was cast up by the sea from a wreck, and had afterward claimed to be her grandmother.
"But I do not believe her. My heart shrinks in loathing from that wicked woman. I believe that she and Mr. Farnham knew all my past story, and all about my relatives," added Nita passionately.
"I think you are right, and I shall leave no stone unturned to ferret out the truth and punish the real murderer," said the lawyer; and when he took his leave he left a little ray of hope shining like a star in the heart of the beautiful prisoner in her lonely cell.
The sensation was three days old before it came to Donald Kayne's knowledge. He had been out on one of his favorite yachting expeditions. Wild, restless, moody, he loved the sea, with its fierce unrest. It seemed like his own nature, restless and stormy.
He came back to New York, and, taking up a newspaper at his club, was attracted by some sensational headlines at the top of a column, and proceeded to read the whole story with breathless interest.
It came upon him like a terrible shock. Within the hour he was on his way to Pirate Beach. When he came in sight of Gray Gables, he beheld a funeral cortège moving away from its doors. Miser Farnham was being borne to the graveyard to his eternal rest, followed by old Meg Dineheart as chief mourner.
By the side of the old woman rode her son, the burly sailor who had come into port a few hours previous, and professed to be quite shocked at the news of the murder.
To several persons he professed profound regret, saying that the miser had been a lifelong friend of his mother, and had often befriended himself, having made him a present of his little fishing-bark.
Donald Kayne watched the funeral procession winding its solemn way along the sands, then rode on to Gray Gables to see the Courtneys.
They met him with effusion. They had much to tell him of that shocking girl, Nita; how badly she had treated her old husband, and how she had deceived poor Dorian Mountcastle. And they did not fail to tell him of Azalea's engagement to the titled Englishman, who was soon to follow her to the United States.
Donald Kayne listened eagerly to everything. At the end of it all he offered Azalea his polite congratulations, and asked if Dorian had turned against Nita, or if he believed in her still. When they told him that Dorian believed in her still, and had employed a lawyer to defend her at the trial, his face changed, and he said warmly:
"Dorian was always noble."
Then they tried to draw him out, to find out what he thought of the case, but he would not say one word either way. He was entirely non-committal. They were piqued, remembering his old enmity against Nita, and his threats of revenge. Surely he ought to rejoice now at the proud girl's fall.
"Where is Dorian now?" he asked, and they told him that Dorian and Captain Van Hise had taken quarters near the jail where Nita was confined, that they might visit her every day. They had tried to get her out on bail, but had been refused.
"You have been to see her?" he asked, knowing well what the answer would be.
"My dear Mr. Kayne, a murderess!" and Mrs. Courtney lifted her aristocratic hands in dismay.
"That remains to be proven, you know!" he said quietly, and arose to take leave.
They pressed him to remain, but he told them he wanted to see old Meg again. He might return in the evening. He went slowly through the grounds, haunted by the memory of the apparition he had seen on his last visit to Gray Gables. Was it real, or a phantasm of a tortured fancy? He could not decide.
"Oh, Pepita, Pepita! only to unravel the mystery of your fate, and the mystery of your flight, what would I not give?" he groaned.
He loitered on the lonely shore. The surf rolled up to his feet with a hollow murmur, and receded. Far off, the tapering white sails of an outwardbound ship glimmered on the horizon like a fading hope, and was lost to sight.
He was well armed this time, and carried a goodly store of gold, believing that both were necessary to the success of his mission to old Meg. Suddenly, the sunset light faded out, and the sky grew dark with storm-clouds, while a fast-rising gale began to toss the waves into hurrying foam.
"Ah! a little bit of a storm. I must hasten my steps," he thought, and walked on briskly, but it grew dark ere he reached the cabin, and the sound of voices from the open doorway arrested his steps.
"She is talking to some one. I will wait," he decided, drawing back, and then he heard:
"If we play our cards well, Jack, she will certainly be hanged, and we can manage to claim all the money."
"But what about the other claimant, mom?—the woman you told me of that came here almost fifteen years ago in search of the little Nita, that you hid until she was gone? What if she turns up and unearths the whole plot? She would get all, for old Farnham said she was Juan de Castro's own sister."
"She will never turn up, Jack, for she followed the miser up to Gray Gables, and I believe he murdered her, for she has never been seen since, and there was a man here not many months ago who offered me untold gold if I would tell him aught of the missing woman."
At those portentous words from the old fortune-teller to her son, Donald Kayne reeled backward with a smothered cry of agony.
For almost fifteen years a little spark of hope had glowed faintly in his heart. Surely, surely, he would some day find the woman once so madly loved and so strangely lost out of his life!
Alas! old Meg's revelation to her son had trampled out the last spark of hope. No need of his gold to buy her secret now. It was his for nothing.
So Pepita had come to Pirate Beach in search of a child—of Nita? What was the child to her that she had risked so much and suffered death for its sake? In learning so much of the missing woman, Donald Kayne had stumbled upon another mystery. Old Meg had spoken of a plot. Who were the actors concerned in it?
She had spoken of a treasure, too, that she and her son might claim if Nita were hanged. What was it? Where was it? And who was Nita? No one could believethat she was anything to the old wretch who had accused her to the authorities of the miser's murder.
His thoughts flew to the hapless girl at whose feet he had prayed in vain for the secret of the serpent-ring. His mind grew clearer now, and seemed to pierce the mystery.
The miser had murdered Pepita—so Meg believed. Then he had given Nita the serpent-ring, and no doubt bound her by a promise not to betray the giver.
And Pepita! What had been her fate? Where was she now? Were her unburied bones whitening in some unknown vault at Gray Gables? It came to him suddenly that it must be so, for that night when she had appeared to him she had vanished into air against the basement wall.
"She is there, and I will pull down every stone in that old house but what I will find my darling," he groaned, and as these thoughts flashed through his mind he heard Jack Dineheart continuing:
"A man offered you money for the secret, you say? I hope you were not such a fool as to betray it."
"Not I—I was too sharp for that," grinned Meg, and then Donald Kayne knew that but for the information he had gathered by accident, he would never have been able to learn the secret of Pepita's fate.
He silently thanked Heaven that had sent him there so opportunely to hear the conversation that was not intended for his ears. He lingered, hoping to hear more, but the lowering storm-clouds suddenly poured out a torrentof rain, and Jack, muttering a curse on the elements, arose and shut the cabin door.
Donald Kayne, drenched to the skin, staggered away from the place, buffeted by the mad elements, but almost unconscious of it all in the excitement of his mind.
He was thinking profoundly of all that he had heard, and muttered fiercely again:
"I will tear down every stone at Gray Gables but what I will find my darling, and give her poor bones decent burial, so that at last she may rest in peace in her lonely grave."
Heedless of the warring elements, and with his heart on fire with pain, he trudged on toward his hotel, not caring to claim the hospitality of Gray Gables in his present drenched condition.
The secret he had just heard had given a new, remorseful impetus to his thoughts. They were painfully divided between Pepita dead and Nita living. What connection was there between the two women, and what wrong had Nita suffered at the hands of the old miser and Meg? Therein lay a mystery he longed to fathom.
A great revulsion had come over him. He had persecuted Nita and avowed himself her enemy. He realized now that he had wronged an innocent, helpless girl by his cruelty and hasty judgment.
How nobly she had behaved toward him. To no one had she confided the story of her imprisonment at Fortune's Bay; no one dreamed but that it was Jack Dineheart who had saved her life and brought her home. Byher silence when revenge was in her power she had nobly punished her foe.
"May Heaven help me to atone and win her pardon," he prayed.
And at the earliest hour permissible on the morrow he went to the prison.
To the last hour of his life he never forgot the thrill of pain at his heart when he first beheld Nita sitting in that dejected attitude with her dark head bowed so wearily, and her small hands folded in her lap. The serpent-ring still gleamed on her wasted finger; but it woke no anger in him now, only intense emotion.
She rose mechanically at his entrance, but no smile lit up the sadness of her great dark eyes. She knew him only as her foe; she believed that he had come to exult over her misery.
But just as he had knelt to her a year ago Donald Kayne knelt now, and bending his proud head, kissed the hem of her gray gown.
"Nita—Miss Farnham—I crave your pardon for the past," he murmured humbly.
She was so taken by surprise she could only stare at him with parted lips, from which there came no speech, and he continued:
"I deserve no pity from you, I know, but my heart is torn with remorse for my fault, and the desire of my life is to prove my repentance for my sin. I hope, too, that I may be able to serve you in your undeserved trouble. Will you—can you pardon the past, and be my friend?"
The heavy eyes grew brighter, and she held out her little hand.
"I forgive you, and I am glad to be friends with you," she answered nobly, and it seemed to him she was more angel than woman. He sat down beside her then, and, after thanking her, with moist eyes, for her goodness, made her his confidant in the affair of last night, ending frankly:
"I came here to ask you if you will permit me to explore Gray Gables, in the hope of finding out what I have sought to know so long. I tell you frankly I have sworn to pull down every stone in that old house, but that I will find Pepita. But I am very rich, Nita, and if I tear it down I will rebuild it again."
She gazed at him with eager, sympathetic eyes, and answered:
"What you have told me, sir, makes me believe that I have been the victim of a foul wrong at the hands of old Meg and Farnham, and since he is dead now there can no longer exist any reason for the silence I swore to keep over his secret. I will confide to you the story of the serpent-ring."
And then and there she told him of the day when she had lost her way in the dark old corridors and blundered upon the miser's secret—the gold-vault and the skeleton-woman.
She never forgot his smothered groan of despair when the awful story had been rehearsed. It haunted her long after he had gone, and her heart was so full of pain that in sympathy for him she almost forgot her own sorrows.
At length Dorian came to make the brief daily visit permitted by the authorities, and then she told him of her visitor, and his overtures of friendship.
Dorian frowned darkly at first when she spoke of his old friend and later foe, but Nita said in that sweet, irresistible voice of hers:
"Dorian, I forgave him, and so must you, dear."
"It is impossible——" he began, but one look from the tender eyes stopped his speech.
"It is not impossible, Dorian. Why, you forgave me for deceiving you so dreadfully, and so you can forgive him, too. Only think what he suffered, and how frantic he must have been over my seeming obstinacy. But now he repents everything, and I know from what he said that he is going to help find the real murderer if he can. And, dear, he used to love you and you loved him. Ah, Dorian, won't you make up your quarrel with him, and be at peace? If you love me, do not refuse me."
She coaxed until he promised to seek Donald Kayne and resume the old friendship; then she gave him her whole confidence, and he knew at last how the men on Kayne's yacht had saved her life the night she and Lizette had been washed overboard by the stormy billows. He was most indignant when he learned that she had been imprisoned at Fortune's Bay, but again her soft entreaties stemmed the current of his wrath.
"He was mad with grief and pain, do not forget that, Dorian, nor his repentance now," she murmured, with sweet forgiveness.
"But poor Lizette, did you ask him what had been her fate?" asked Dorian anxiously.
"Yes, he told me that Lizette jumped out of the window and sprained her ankle so badly that the doctor said she would not walk for months, so he was compelled to leave her at the Rhodus house. They promised to take the best of care of her, and he gave her money to pay them and to come back to Pirate Beach when she was able to travel. That is the last he has heard of her, but he will write and make inquiries. Oh, Dorian, I miss my good Lizette very much. She loved me dearly, and she would be such a comfort to me now, for since my trouble I do not seem to have but one woman friend, good Mrs. Hill, the housekeeper at Gray Gables."
"And she is a noble old soul, and her friendship is worth having," said Dorian. "But, darling, you will have two more kind friends soon, to stand by you in your trouble. You know I have no near female relatives, but Van Hise has a mother and sister, two of the noblest women in New York, who believe in you so thoroughly, and have such sympathy for you, that they have written him they are coming down here to-day to remain until after your trial, and help you to bear your trouble. Shall you like that, my darling?"
The tears were in her eyes as she listened to him. Shehad felt so lonely, so deserted, as if the whole world were against her; and the desertion of the Courtneys, their rancor and malice, had cut deeply to her heart.
She had been so good to them; she had loaded them with gifts and favors, and though she knew they did not love her, she had not believed them capable of such heartlessness as they had displayed in persecuting her, and yet staying on so coolly at Gray Gables without the shadow of a right.
Dorian and his soldier friend were most indignant. Van Hise told Nita frankly that as the widow of Charles Farnham, Gray Gables was her own property, and she ought to turn the Courtneys out. But Nita was too noble for paltry revenges. Somewhere in the blood of this girl, whose ancestry was yet unknown, ran a strain of blue blood.
"No, let them stay," she said. "If I could stoop to revenge myself for their treachery I should be as low and base as they are. Besides, I do not forget that the dear Lord is watching over me. I leave all in His hands."
And Captain Van Hise could say no more, but he thought admiringly:
"Jupiter, what a queen she is, and how proud Dorian must be of this grand creature!"
But the tears of joy came into her eyes when Dorian told her of the true woman friends who were on their way to her side.
"Now I love them already!" she cried fervently, and when they came she leaned her weary head on themotherly breast of the elder woman and sobbed like a weary child.
"I have never known a mother's love," she said, and Mrs. Van Hise answered tenderly:
"You shall never miss it again, dear."
"And I will be your sister," added Lena Van Hise, with sympathetic tears in her eyes.
She was a beautiful, slender, sixteen-year-old girl, and Nita, who was not yet nineteen, felt her whole heart attracted to her. In that dark and gloomy prison-cell there began that day a friendship that would last to the end of both their lives.
It was one of the proudest and happiest moments of Donald Kayne's life when Dorian sought him out and proffered anew the firm friendship that had been broken off by their quarrel and the duel. Tears stood in the eyes of both as they clasped hands, and Donald Kayne said huskily:
"I do not deserve this noble forgiveness from you and Nita, but I will do my best to deserve it."
"I am sure you will," was Dorian's hearty reply, for he knew his old friend's sterling worth.
Nita had given the unhappy man such minute directions as to finding the narrow stairway and closed door leading to the gold vault at Gray Gables that he did not think it would be necessary to pull down the old mansion, as he had vowed to do. He confided freely in Dorian and asked him to accompany him on the quest, saying frankly:
"With the gold that Nita saw in the chest I have nothingto do. Doubtless it is the treasure referred to in old Meg's confidences to her son, and of course it belongs to Nita. We must keep the secret of it most carefully until such time as she is ready to take possession of it. But in the woman whose dead body rests unburied in the vault I have a painful interest, the secret of which I will later confide to you. But until her poor bones are laid in the grave and her restless spirit is appeased, I can know no rest or peace."
"Her spirit!" whispered Dorian Mountcastle, in awe.
"Yes, she walks, for I have seen her in the grounds at Gray Gables, and she vanished into air against the basement wall. Poor Pepita, she was trying to lead me to her hiding-place then," groaned Donald Kayne.
"How strange it seems that our chief purpose now is to find and punish the murderer of Farnham, although there is no doubt but that the old villain met a well-deserved fate."
"I believe the guilty party is the wicked old fortune-teller," said Donald Kayne, and Dorian and Captain Van Hise, who were present, agreed with him.
"But we can find neither evidence of her crime nor any motive for it. She has proved, indeed, that she was his lifelong friend," added Dorian dejectedly, for the utter failure to find the least clue to the murderer of Miser Farnham depressed him very much.
He knew how terribly dark was the circumstantial evidence against Nita, and his soul rebelled against the only verdict by which it seemed possible she could escape conviction—emotional insanity.
"I will not believe that even in a moment of insanity, driven mad by her troubles, she could have committed such a terrible deed!" he cried over and over, but yet all the evidence pointed to Nita's guilt, and all the detectives he had set to work could not find a clue to the murderer, nor a single scrap of evidence on which to hang a warrant for charging old Meg with slaying her friend the miser.
Meantime the days flew by, and in less than a week the trial was to come off. There were strong, brave hearts working loyally in Nita's cause, and yet they quailed with fear.
The three friends decided to go that day to Gray Gables to search for the vault, but they determined to take no one into their confidence. It would not be safe to let the hiding-place of the miser's gold be known. As they walked toward Gray Gables they met Mrs. Courtney and her daughter promenading on the sands. Both were elaborately attired, and looked self-satisfied and happy.
Azalea met them with joyous smiles, and detained them several moments in friendly conversation, but when they had passed on the dimpling smiles faded from her face, and she said angrily:
"I hate them all for taking that girl's part and believing in her after all the evidence that proved her guilt."
The three friends proceeded to Gray Gables, and it was a perfectly easy task to induce Mrs. Hill to let them go into the room which Dorian had occupied during his illness there.
They locked the door, lighted a lamp, and proceeded to explore the corridors according to Nita's careful directions. Soon success crowned their efforts. The little narrow stairway was easily found, but the door at the foot resisted their efforts at first, but at last the bolts and bars yielded, and it burst asunder.
She was there waiting for them—poor Pepita, in the ghastly grimness of death! Dorian and Van Hise reverently drew aside the coarse gray blanket that covered the skeleton in the chair, and when Donald Kayne saw what remained of the beautiful woman once so madly loved, he fell in a swoon upon the floor.
It was some time before he was restored. Then he was like one dazed. He knelt by the chair with his head on the table, and sobs shook his strong frame.
Ranged around the walls were a dozen strong cedar chests heaped to the lids with Spanish gold coin. Upon a steel plate on the end of each chest was engraved the name: "Juan de Castro."
Nita had told them of the attempt that old Meg had once made upon her life, and the name by which she had called her then: "Juanita de Castro."
They looked significantly into each other's face.
"Her father's name and her father's gold," uttered Captain Van Hise, and choked back a sob at thought of the girl who, having been cheated out of her heritage of wealth and love, had been driven to despair by lack of bread.
"Some dark and hideous mystery lies back of all this," he said to Dorian.
And the young man answered sternly:
"And the key to it all lies, perhaps, in the hands of Meg Dineheart, the fortune-teller. Let us search carefully and perhaps we may find papers to throw some light on the mystery. If not, the strong hand of the law must be raised to force Meg to a full confession of the sin that deprived Nita of her heritage."
They searched carefully, but not a scrap of writing rewarded their efforts. After an hour they decided to leave the place for the time, taking with them the bones of the murdered woman. A roll of white silk that Donald Kayne had brought was wrapped about the skeleton, and he bore it in his arms to Dorian's room, where it was decided they should leave it until night, when it might be carried away unseen.
Then Dorian turned the key in the lock as they went out and dropped it in his pocket. He knew that Mrs. Hill would not object to his keeping it till night.
"Let us go at once to old Meg and force her into betraying the secret of Nita's parentage, and the whole conspiracy by which she has been so terribly wronged," suggested Captain Van Hise.
Dorian and his friend agreed, and they set off at a brisk pace for old Meg's cabin, determined to unearth the mystery if possible. But they were entirely ignorant of the fact that, while they were exploring the gold-vault at Gray Gables, the Courtneys had returned to the house, and that Azalea by accident had witnessed their departure.
Burning with curiosity, she flew to her mother with the story.
"There is something mysterious on foot surely," she said vindictively, and added, "I mean to get into that room and find out what Dorian Mountcastle has locked up there. I should like to get hold of some disgraceful secret of his and expose it to the world."
"Fie! fie! Azalea! that would not be ladylike!" answered her mother.
"I don't care, so that I get revenge on Dorian for the way he has treated me!" cried the jealous girl, eager to punish the lover who had found her out and scorned her.
"You had better let well enough alone," cried the more prudent mother, who was beginning to feel uneasy over their abandonment of Nita. She knew well that she deserved to be turned summarily out of Gray Gables, and feared to precipitate the blow by any interference in Dorian Mountcastle's affairs.
"I don't care what you say, or whether you help me or not, I'm going into that room and find out Dorian Mountcastle's secret!" she burst out excitedly.
"Very well, Azalea, but take my advice and send that meddlesome old housekeeper away on some errand first, for I know she hates you, and would be delighted to have something to tell Dorian about you," Mrs. Courtney answered coldly.
It did not take Azalea long to despatch Mrs. Hill, and then, armed with a bunch of keys, she proceeded on her errand. The door soon yielded, and with a little chuckle of triumph she glided in and closed the door, but withoutlocking it, for she knew well that her mother was hovering near, consumed with secret curiosity.
Azalea wandered from object to object, but her eager eyes encountered nothing strange until by accident her glance roved over the bed. Then she saw the outlines of a long slender object beneath the coverlet.
"Pshaw! I won't be a coward!" she muttered, and thrust out a shaking white hand and turned down the covers.
Something lay there swathed round and round and round in folds of soft, thick white silk.
And catching hold of an end of silk, began to unwind it with rapid hands.
Another moment, and a startled shriek rent the air. Mrs. Courtney, tiptoeing outside, opened the door and darted in, horrified at her daughter's shrill scream of terror.
Upon the bed she beheld the ghastly skeleton.
All unconscious that Azalea had penetrated their secret, the three men pursued their way to the fortune-teller's cabin. But they were doomed to disappointment. The place was deserted, the doors locked, the small windows securely boarded over.
Evidently Meg had gone away, and, judging from the preparation made, intended to be absent some time. And yet that could not be, for Nita's trial would come off in a week, and she was one of the witnesses for the prosecution. Chagrined and baffled, they sat down on the low bench before the cabin, wondering what they should do next.
It was a dull and gloomy day, the sea was rough, and the tide rolled in to the shore with a hollow, reverberating moan. They watched it with sad eyes and heavy hearts, each busy with his own thoughts. Suddenly Donald Kayne spoke:
"My friends, I am minded to tell you my story."
They looked into his face. It was pale and wan with a great despair, and his voice faltered as he continued:
"You and I, Dorian, have been friends for ten years, ever since you were a boy of sixteen, in fact. You, too, Van Hise, have known me for years; but it was before I met either of you that I lost my darling wife!"
"Your wife!" cried Dorian.
"Yes, Pepita was my wife," said Kayne, "my wife dead to me now for almost fifteen years, yet with the mystery of her fate unsolved till yesterday. Is it not a wonder I have escaped madness?"
They could not reply save by mute looks of sympathy. Their feelings overpowered them.
"I will tell you how I first met her," he continued dreamily, with his sad eyes fixed on the sea. "It was on Broadway. I saw a beautiful, young, dark-eyed girl crossing the street in such a careless, preoccupied fashion that she only escaped death from the hoofs of an advancing team by the celerity with which I sprang forward and dragged her out of the way. As it was, she had been thrown down and trampled on, and as I laid her down on the pavement I at first believed her dead. She was dressed in costly garments, made in a quaint, foreign fashion that, with her dark eyes and hair and olive skin, proclaimed her Spanish. A crowd gathered around, but no one could tell who she was, so, as she remained unconscious, a physician was called, and she was removed to the hospital.
"The hoofs of the horses had severely injured the poor girl, and she remained at the hospital several weeks. I saw her daily, for it is needless to tell you that the first moment I saw her I lost my heart. I won Pepita's friendship, and she told me she was a Spanish girl, an orphan, who had come to America from old Madrid to seek an only brother in New York, only to find him dead. Of this brother she told me a romantic story. On attaining his majority, some years before, her brother hadcome to America, and had met in New York a beautiful, poor girl, whom he made his bride. On taking her home to Spain his proud parents had refused to receive their son's choice, and in anger he returned to America, never to see them again.
"In a few years misfortune overtook them. They became poor and miserable, and longed for the son they had cast off in their pride. They died, and their only remaining child, beautiful Pepita, crossed the seas to find her brother. On the day that I saved her life she had just learned that her brother and his wife were both dead. Despair made her reckless. Alone and friendless in a strange land, with but a few dollars in her purse, she wandered along, wondering if she could ever return to her native land.
"The tears blinded her as she crossed the street, and she did not notice that she was under the horses' heads until they trampled her beneath their feet. You guess the end, my friends. I married the lovely Spanish stranger, although my friends blamed me, and for a year we were blissfully happy. We traveled several months, and it was in Paris I had the serpent ring made especially for her and the design destroyed. She had a great fondness for unique trifles, and I always gratified her fancy to the utmost in everything. We returned to this country, and over our home Pepita reigned a lovely queen, seeming not to have a wish ungratified. Our happiness seemed as pure and perfect as mortals could enjoy.
"Suddenly as a thunder-bolt falling from a clear sky my happiness came to an end. My wife left home oneday in my absence and never returned. Oh, God! how did I ever live through it? The shame, the horror, the agony! For the world sneered and said I had married unwisely, and that my darling had fled from me with some favored lover. I could not believe it, although her maid told me she had received a letter that had agitated her very much, and that she had gone away directly afterward, saying that she intended to spend the day with a friend. I had gone to Boston at the time, and when I returned two days later I found that she had not returned, and that the city was ringing with the news of her flight. I employed detectives. I almost wrecked my health in the vain search for her, for I would not believe there was anything guilty in her flight. No—no, I was too sure of her love and truth for that. But, alas! the days and weeks and months lengthened into weary years, and there came no news of the lost one, nor even the faintest clue until that night you remember, Dorian, when I first saw Pepita's ring on Nita's hand, and almost went mad over her refusal to tell me how she came by it."
"I can no longer wonder at your passionate vehemence!" answered Dorian gently.
"Yes, think of what I suffered from her refusal. I knew not if Pepita were dead or alive—until this spring, when, lingering one twilight hour in the grounds at Gray Gables, my lost wife appeared to me in spirit-form and led me to the basement wall, where she disappeared. Ah, then I knew at last that my darling was dead, and I know now that she was seeking to lead me to her hiding-place in the miser's gold-vault."
The listeners were silent. Could it be true, or was it but a vision of superstitious fancy? Donald Kayne would always believe that he had seen a spirit from another world.
When they all grew calmer, they agreed that he had been right in believing his wife was faithful. It must have been a decoy letter that had called her away, perhaps some promised news of her brother or his child, although Pepita had never spoken of any child.
"She fell into a trap set for unwary feet, and was murdered, although for what cause we may perhaps never know unless we can wring the secret from old Meg," said Donald Kayne.
The rest of the day was spent in making very quiet and private arrangements for removing all that remained of Donald Kayne's young bride from Gray Gables and conveying it to New York, where the unhappy man wished to have the interment in his family vault.
"And after I have solved the mystery of my darling's death the world that wronged her so cruelly by its base suspicions shall know the truth," he said bitterly.
They made arrangements with Mrs. Hill to come back at midnight, having taken her into their confidence regarding the finding of the skeleton. She was full of interest and sympathy, and they found her waiting in the dark to admit them into the house.
"Every soul is asleep but me," she whispered, and they went noiselessly to the room where they had left the shrouded skeleton on the bed, Mrs. Hill waiting at the front door for them.
They closed the door, struck a light, and turned to the bed.
The white coverlet was drawn up as they had left it, and the slight outline of something was visible beneath.
Donald threw down the cover and lifted the bundle of white silk in his arms. He laid it down again, turned back a fold of silk and looked within.
A cry of horror came from his lips. Some one had taken away the skeleton and left the bed-bolster in its place.
Dorian brought Mrs. Hill to the room, and they talked in whispers of the strange loss. The housekeeper soon jumped at a conclusion.
"I believe the Courtneys have done this," she said. "They came in to-day while you were shut in here, and maybe they saw you go out and suspected something. I will tell you why I think so. Azalea came to me soon after, as sweet as sugar, and got me to go to the druggist's, a mile away, on a silly little errand for some cosmetic she wanted. I expect she wanted to get me out of the way so she could ransack the room in my absence. It is nobody but she that has taken it away and hid it for spite, I'm sure of that! Don't make any outcry for a few days, please, gentlemen, and don't let her know you suspect her, and I'll watch the little cat and find out where she has hidden it away."
It seemed best to follow her advice, and they went away together, heavy-hearted enough, for fate seemed to baffle them at every turn. But they hoped much from Mrs. Hill, for they did not believe that Azalea could havetaken the skeleton away from the house, and it seemed as if she must surely be detected in her wickedness by the espionage of the clever housekeeper.
Tears fell from Nita's eyes the next day when Dorian told her all that had happened, and added:
"All the evidence points to the fact that poor Pepita was your own aunt, and must have met her death seeking for you."
"Surely, surely Miss Courtney could not be so vile as to secrete those poor remains," she cried indignantly.
Dorian gave one of those cynical laughs of old, and answered:
"Azalea Courtney is vile enough for anything. She has no more heart or soul than a stone, and her only god is herself. She would like to have the whole world fall down and worship her, and no words can describe the virulence of her hate toward any one who discovers her true character and despises her as she deserves."
"And she is one of the witnesses against me. She will try to hound me to my doom!" cried Nita.
"Yes, she will certainly do all she can against you," admitted Dorian. "But you need not fear her malice, my darling. She cannot harm you, for Heaven itself is watching to defend you!" and he smiled at her cheerfully, for he had the greatest faith that a fitting retribution for all her wickedness would yet come to Azalea.
Meanwhile the jealous beauty was already suffering the punishment for her curiosity, for her nerves had been so shocked by the finding of the skeleton that fit had succeeded fit, and for several days she was quiteill from the effects of her scare, and talked wildly in her dreams of the terrible thing, fancying herself a bride, in white-silk robes, about to be wedded to a skeleton, and often screaming out wildly in her sleep.
But Mrs. Courtney kept the secret of Azalea's illness carefully to herself, and gave out to the servants that her daughter was suffering from a persistent headache. Only Mrs. Hill suspected what was the matter, and laughed in her sleeve at thought of the fright Azalea had received.
"It was good for her, the sly cat, and I wish it had turned every hair of her head white when she found it!" she said to herself, chuckling with delight over Azalea's discomfiture.
But outwardly good Mrs. Hill was very solicitous over the young lady's welfare, and quite won over Mrs. Courtney by her kind inquiries. In truth, that lady was glad of the courteous manner of the housekeeper, for there had always been furtive enmity between them, and the interloper feared lest it might now come to open warfare. She knew that she had now no shadow of right at Gray Gables, and that after the antagonism she had displayed toward Nita, she should in common decency have taken her departure from the place.
But since her poverty had fallen on her she had developed what Mrs. Hill slangily called "a very hard cheek," and she was determined to stand her ground until she was ordered to leave. Knowing how noble and high-minded Nita was, she had no fears of being thus dispossessed, and stayed coolly on, looking every day forthe advent of Sir George Merlin, who had promised to soon follow his betrothed across the water.
Mrs. Courtney had contrived to make the baronet believe her a rich woman, and she had no mind to let him find out the imposition until he had married Azalea. But, in the meantime, the question of Azalea's trousseau became an all-absorbing thought. Where could they get the wherewithal to purchase it?
They had jewels, but they did not want to sacrifice them, and they could not expect anything more from Nita. She was becoming very despondent over it when her daughter's discovery of the hidden skeleton put a clever idea into her head. She hid it away carefully, believing that a handsome ransom would be offered for its recovery.
Several days passed, but, to her chagrin, no notice seemed to be taken of the disappearance of the skeleton, so she decided to write a blackmailing letter to the parties concerned in secreting it, threatening them with arrest by the authorities unless they paid a large sum for its return. The epistle was signed by a fictitious masculine name, and arrangements were made for the payment of the money in a way by which the receivers need not be detected. Unless the sum demanded was forthcoming in a week the authorities would be informed, or the skeleton would be destroyed.
Dorian Mountcastle was the party to whom this precious epistle was sent, and he decided not to inform Donald Kayne of its receipt until after he had held an interview with Mrs. Hill.
"Make no reply to it," advised Mrs. Hill. "I am almost certain that Mrs. Courtney has got it concealed, and as soon as her daughter gets well enough for them to go out riding together I will make a careful search for it. She will not destroy it, for she hopes to get money for it; neither will she inform the authorities, for that would defeat her hopes of gain. Only keep silent, and trust all to me, and, I will promise, you shall have it back safe. But don't tell Mr. Kayne about the blackmailing letter, for it would excite him so much that he would probably gratify Mrs. Courtney by giving her the thousands she is after."
Dorian thanked her gratefully for her faithful interest, and promised not to let Kayne hear anything of the blackmailing project, for he was anxious to defeat the Courtneys if he could.