There were hundreds of promenaders, and no one noticed them particularly.
On and on they walked, Lamont whispering soft, sweet nothings into her foolish ears, until they had left most of the throng far behind them.
"Hack, sir!--hack to ride up and down the beach!" exclaimed a man, stopping a pair of mettlesome horses almost directly in front of them.
Victor Lamont appeared to hesitate an instant; but in that instant he and the driver had exchanged meaning glances.
"Shall we not ride up and down, instead of walking?" suggested Lamont, eagerly. "I--I have something to tell you, and I may never have such an opportunity again. We can ride down as far as the light-house on the point, and back. Do not refuse me so slight a favor, I beg of you."
If she had stopped to consider, even for one instant, she would have declined the invitation; but, almost before she had decided whether she should say yes or no, Victor Lamont had lifted her in his strong arms, placed her in the cab, and sprung in after her.
Pretty, jolly Sally Gardiner looked a trifle embarra.s.sed.
"Oh, how imprudent, Mr. Lamont!" she cried, clinging to his arm, as the full consciousness of the situation seemed to occur to her. "We had better get out, and walk back to the Ocean House."
But it was too late for objections. The driver had already whipped up his horses, and instead of creeping wearily along, after the fashion of tired hack horses, they flew down the beach like the wind.
"Oh, Mrs. Gardiner--Sally!" cried Victor Lamont, in a voice apparently husky with emotion, "the memory of this ride will be with me while life lasts!"
Victor Lamont"s voice died away in a hoa.r.s.e whisper; the hand which caught and held her own closed tighter over it, and the hoa.r.s.e murmur of the sea seemed further and further away.
Sally Gardiner seemed only conscious of one thing--that Victor Lamont loved her.
CHAPTER x.x.xVII.
For a moment the words falling so pa.s.sionately from the lips of the handsome man sitting beside her, the spell of the moonlight, and the murmur of the waves, seemed to lock her senses in a delicious dream. But the dream lasted only a moment. In the next, she had recovered herself.
"Oh, Mr. Lamont, we must--we must get right out and walk back to the hotel! What if any one should see us riding together? Jay would be sure to hear of it, and there would be trouble in store for both of us."
"It is all in a life-time," he murmured. "Can you not be happy here with me----"
But she broke away from his detaining hand in alarm. She had been guilty of an imprudent flirtation; but she had meant nothing more. She had drifted into this delusive friendship and companionship without so much as bothering her pretty golden head about how it would end. Now she was just beginning to see how foolish she had been--when this handsome stranger could be nothing to her--nothing.
"We must not ride any further," she declared. "Give orders for the coach to stop right here, Mr. Lamont."
"It is too late, dear lady," he gasped. "The horses are running away!
For G.o.d"s sake, don"t attempt to scream or to jump, or you will be killed!"
With a wild sob of terror, Sally flung herself down on her knees, and the lips that had never yet said, "G.o.d be praised," cried "G.o.d be merciful!"
"Don"t make such a confounded noise!" exclaimed Lamont, attempting to lift her again to the seat beside him. "We won"t get hurt if you only keep quiet. The driver is doing his best to get control of the horses.
They can"t keep up this mad pace much longer, and will be obliged to stop from sheer exhaustion."
After what appeared to be an age to the terrified young woman crouching there in such utter fright, the vehicle stopped short with a sharp thud and a lurch forward that would have thrown Sally upon her face, had not her companion reached forward and caught her.
"Well, driver," called out Lamont, as he thrust open the door and looked out, "here"s a pretty go, isn"t it? Turn right around, and go back as quickly as your horses can take us!"
"I am awfully sorry to say that I won"t be able to obey your order, sir," replied the man on the box, with a slight cough. "We"ve had an accident. The horses are dead lame, and we"ve had a serious break-down, and that, too, when we are over thirty miles from Newport. Confound the luck!"
Sally had been listening to this conversation, and as the driver"s words fell on her ears, she was filled with consternation and alarm. Her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth, and her eyes nearly jumped from their sockets.
Miles away from the Ocean House, and she in those white kid slippers!
How in the name of Heaven was she to get back? Jay Gardiner would return on the midnight train, and when he found she was not there, he would inst.i.tute a search for her, and some one of the scouting party would find her in that broken-down coach by the road-side, with Victor Lamont as her companion.
She dared not think what would happen then. Perhaps there would be a duel; perhaps, in his anger, Jay Gardiner might turn his weapon upon herself. And she sobbed out in still wilder affright as she pictured the scene in her mind.
"There is but one thing to be done. You will have to ride one of your horses back to Newport, and bring out a team to fetch us back," declared Victor Lamont, with well-simulated impatience and anger.
"That I could do, sir," replied the man, "and you and the lady could make yourselves as comfortable as possible in the coach."
"Bring back some vehicle to get us into Newport before midnight, and I"ll give you the price of your horse," cried Victor Lamont in an apparently eager voice.
"All right, sir," replied the driver. "I"ll do my best."
And in a trice he was off, as Sally supposed, on his mission. She had listened, with chattering teeth, to all that had been said.
"Oh, goodness gracious! Mr. Lamont," she asked, "why are you peering out of the coach window? Do you see--or hear--anybody?"
He did not attempt to take her hand or talk sentimental nonsense to her now. That was not part of the business he had before him.
"Do not be unnecessarily frightened," he murmured; "but I fancied--mind, I only say fancied--that I heard cautious footsteps creeping over the fallen leaves. Perhaps it was a rabbit, you know--a stray dog, or mischievous squirrel."
Sally was clutching at his arm in wild affright.
"I--I heard the same noise, too!" she cried, with bated breath, "and, oh! Mr. Lamont, it _did_ sound like a footstep creeping cautiously toward us! I was just about to speak to you of it."
Five, ten minutes pa.s.sed in utter silence. Victor Lamont made no effort to talk to her. This was one of the times when talking sentiment would not have been diplomatic.
"Oh, Mr. Lamont!" cried Sally, clinging to him in the greatest terror, "I am sure we both could not have been mistaken. There _is_ some one skulking about under the shadow of those trees--one--two--three--persons; I see them distinctly."
"You are right," he whispered, catching her trembling, death-cold hands in his, and adding, with a groan of despair: "Heaven help us! what can we do? Without a weapon of any kind, I am no match for a trio of desperadoes!"
Young Mrs. Gardiner was too terrified to reply. She could not have uttered a word if her life had depended upon it.
At that instant the vehicle was surrounded by three masked figures. The light from a bull"s-eye lantern was flashed in Sally"s face as the door was thrown violently back, and a harsh voice cried out, as a rough hand grasped her:
"Just hand over those jewels, lady, and be nimble, too, or we"ll tear "em off you! Egg, you relieve the gent of his money and valuables."
"Help! help! help!" cried Sally, struggling frantically; but the man who had hold of her arm only laughed, declaring she had a good pair of lungs.
Victor Lamont made a pretense of making a valiant struggle to come to her rescue. But what could he do, with two revolvers held close to his head, but stand and deliver.
Then the magnificent Gardiner diamonds, with their slender golden fastenings, were torn from her, and were soon pocketed by the desperado, who had turned a revolver upon her.