Her heart would fill with yearning tenderness almost unbearable when she looked back at the early days of that brief, sweet courtship.
How strong, n.o.ble, true and brave he had seemed--how kind of heart!
She had seen him pick up a little birdling that had fallen from its nest, lying with a bruised wing in the dust of the roadside, and restore it to the mother bird to be nursed back to health and life, and go out of his way to rescue a b.u.t.terfly that had fallen in the millpond.
It seemed like the distorted imagination of some diseased brain to bring herself to the realization that this same gentle hand that had rescued the robin and the b.u.t.terfly had struck her down to death--that the kind, earnest voice that had been wont to whisper nothing but words of devotion and eternal love should fling out the vilest and bitterest of oaths at her, because she was not the heiress he had taken her to be.
And without one tear, one bitter regret, he had consigned her to that lonely grave and gone back to the life which he had declared he could never live without her.
Where was he now? she wondered vaguely; then she laughed a low, bitter laugh, sadder than any tears.
He had missed the fortune he had hoped for and was back again in the office of Marsh & Co.
Then the thought came to her again with crushing, alarming force--would he not (believing her dead and himself free to woo and wed again) seek out some other heiress, since that was his design? Many young girls came to the a.s.sistant cashier"s window just as she had done; he would select the richest and marry her.
The very thought seemed to stab her to the heart with a keen, subtle pain which she could neither understand nor clearly define, even to herself.
"Heaven pity her in the hour when she finds that she has been deceived--that he married her for gold, not love," she sobbed, covering her face with her little trembling hands.
She prayed to Heaven silently that Claire"s lover, whoever he might be, was marrying her for love, and for love alone.
So restless was she that, despite the quieting draught which the housekeeper had induced her to swallow, she could not sleep.
But one thing remained for her to do, and that was to get up and dress and go down to her father"s library and read herself into forgetfulness until day dawned.
Faynie acted upon the impulse, noting as she stepped from her room into the corridor that the clock on her mantel chimed the hour of two.
She had proceeded scarcely half a dozen steps ere she became aware that she was not alone in the corridor.
She stopped short.
The time was when Faynie would have shrieked aloud or swooned from terror; but she had gone through so many thrilling scenes during the last few weeks of her eventful young life that fear within her breast had quite died out.
Was it only her wild, fanciful imagination, or did she hear the sound of low breathing? Faynie stood quite still, leaning behind a marble Flora, and listened.
Yes, the sound was audible enough now. There was somebody in the corridor creeping toward the spot where she stood, with swift but noiseless feet.
Nearer, nearer the footsteps crept, the soft, low-bated breathing sounding closer with every step.
With a presence of mind which few young girls possessed, Faynie suddenly stepped forward and turned on the gas jet from an electric b.u.t.ton, full head.
The sight which met her gaze fairly rooted her to the spot.
For one brief instant of time it seemed to Faynie as though her breath was leaving her body.
She stood paralyzed, unable to stir hand or foot, if her very life had depended upon it.
Outside the wind blew dismally; the shutters creaked to and fro on their hinges; the leafless branches of the trees tapped their ghostly fingers against the panes.
Faynie tried to speak--to cry out--but her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth, powerless. Her hands fell to her side a dead weight, her eyes fairly bulging from their sockets.
It almost seemed to the girl that she was pa.s.sing through the awful transition of death.
The blood in her veins was turning to ice, and the heart in her bosom to marble.
In an upper room, afar off, she heard one of the servants coughing protractedly in her sleep.
Oh, G.o.d! if she could but burst the icy bonds that bound her hand and foot and cry out--bring the household about her. Her lips opened, but no sound came from them.
The very breath in her body seemed dying out with each faint gasp that broke over the white, mute lips.
Outside the night winds grew wilder and fiercer. A gust of hail battered against the window panes and rattled down the wide-throated chimneys.
Then suddenly; all was still again!
Oh, pitiful heavens! how hard Faynie tried to break the awful bonds that held her there, still, silent, motionless, unable to move or utter any sound, staring in horror words cannot picture at the sight that met her strained gaze.
It had only been an instant of time since the bright blaze of the gas had illuminated the darkened corridor, yet it seemed to Faynie, standing there, white and cold as an image carved in marble, that long years had pa.s.sed.
CHAPTER XXV.
"I INTEND TO WATCH YOU DIE, INCH BY INCH, DAY BY DAY!"
Before going on further with the thrilling event which we narrated in our last chapter it will be necessary to devote a few explanatory lines to the still more thrilling scene which led up to it, returning to the real Lester Armstrong, whom we left in the isolated cabin in the custody of Halloran.
Lester"s intense anxiety when Kendale forcibly took the keys from him and disappeared can better be imagined than described.
In vain he pleaded with Halloran to release him, offering every kind of inducement, but the man was inexorable.
Your Cousin Kendale will pay me twice as much for detaining you here,"
he answered with a boisterous laugh, adding:
"Besides, I have a grudge against you of many years" standing, Lester Armstrong, which this affair is wiping out pretty effectively."
"I was not aware that I had ever seen you before," replied Lester.
"Permit me to refresh your memory," exclaimed the other grimly. "When you were a boy of about fourteen years you attended the public school on Ca.n.a.l Street."
"Yes," said Lester, still mystified.
"At that time," went on Halloran, "the school was unusually crowded, owing to the enforcement of the law that the children of the neighborhood must attend school, thus bringing in all the urchins of the poor thereabouts; you surely remember that?"
"It seems to me I have a faint recollection of some such circ.u.mstance,"
replied Lester, eying the man who stood over him, his dark, scowling face growing more foreboding with each word he uttered.