"I told you that this daughter would succeed to all my wealth, if she lived, when time was no more with me; that no being on earth could ever change my views in this regard--ay, in fulfilling my duty.
"I asked you to marry me, knowing fully my intention in this matter, stating at the time that I would give you in cash an ample sum of money, which, if used frugally and judiciously, should last you the remainder of your natural life, providing you outlived me.
"You accepted me under those conditions; you married me, and I, as agreed, gave to you in a lump sum the money stipulated.
"It is needless to recall to you the fact that our wedded life has been a failure. You have made my life miserable--ay, and that of my sweet, motherless, tender little Faynie, until, in sheer desperation, she has fled from her home on the night I write this, and my grief is more poignant than I can well endure.
"You must feign neither surprise nor indignation when it is learned that my will gives all my fortune to Faynie, save the amount set aside for you.
"HORACE FAIRFAX."
"Well! By all that"s wonderful, if this isn"t a pretty how-do-you-do.
Mrs. Fairfax and her girl are penniless, and I came so near marrying Claire. I have found this thing out quite in the nick of time. The girl is clever enough, but it takes money, and plenty of it, to make me put my head into the yoke of matrimony.
"I must find this will he speaks of. It will be here unless the woman has been shrewd enough to destroy it, and women never are clever enough to burn their telltale bridges which lie behind them, and that"s how they get found out--at last.
"I see through the whole thing now. Mrs. Fairfax trumped up a will in favor of herself, a brilliant scheme. I admire her grit immensely. Ah, yes, here is the real will, in the same handwriting as the letter. Yes, it gives all to his daughter Faynie. And here is the spurious one, a good imitation, I admit, still an expert could easily detect the handwriting of Mrs. Fairfax from beginning to end--signature and all.
"I think I will take charge of this one giving all the Fairfax wealth to Faynie."
But he did not succeed in transferring it to his pocket, for like a flash it was s.n.a.t.c.hed from his hand.
With a horrible oath, Kendale wheeled about.
One glance, and his eyes fairly bulged from their sockets, his face grew ashen white, his teeth chattered, and the blood in his veins seemed suddenly to turn to ice.
"Great Heaven! It is a ghost!" he yelled at the top of his voice; "the ghost of Faynie!"
CHAPTER x.x.x.
AT THE LAST.
The sound of that hoa.r.s.e, piercing, awful cry echoed and re-echoed to every portion of the house, and in less time than it takes to relate it, the servants in a body, headed by Mrs. Fairfax and Claire, were rushing toward the library, from whence the sound proceeded.
One glance as they reached the open doorways, and a cry of consternation broke from Mrs. Fairfax"s lips, which was faintly echoed by her daughter Claire.
The servants were too astounded at the sight that met their gaze to believe the evidence of their own eyes.
Mrs. Fairfax was the first to recover herself.
"What is the meaning of this!" she exclaimed, striding forward and facing Faynie and the horror-stricken man who stood facing her, his teeth chattering, as he muttered:
"It is her ghost!--her ghost!"
"Faynie Fairfax, why do I find you here, in the library, in the dead of the night, in the company of the man who is to wed my daughter Claire, and who parted from her scarcely two hours since, supposedly to leave the house? Why are you two here together! Explain this most extraordinary and most atrocious scene at once. I command you!" she cried, her voice rising to a shrill scream in her rising anger.
Faynie turned a face toward her white as a marble statue, but no word broke from her lips.
The presence of the others seemed to bring Kendale back to his senses.
"It means," spoke Faynie, after a full moment"s pause, "that the hour has come in which I must confess to all gathered here the pitiful story I have to tell, and which will explain what has long been an unsolved mystery to you--where, how and with whom I spent the time from the hour in which I left this roof until I returned to it.
"You say that this is the man who is your daughter"s lover, Mrs.
Fairfax--the man who is soon to marry Claire.
"I declare that this marriage can never be, because this man has a living wife," she cried, in a high, clear voice.
"It is false!" shrieked Kendale. "The girl I married in the old church is dead--dead, I tell you. I--I saw her buried with my own eyes!"
"She is not dead, for I am that unfortunate girl," answered Faynie, in a voice that trembled with agonized emotion.
"Listen all, while I tell my story," she sobbed. "Surely the saddest, most pitiful story a young girl ever had to tell."
Then, in a panting voice, she told her horrified listeners all, from the beginning to the very end, omitting not the slightest detail, dwelling with a pathos that brought tears to every eye, of how she had loved him up to the very hour he had come for her to elope with him; her horror and fear of him growing more intense because of the marriage he forced her into, with the concealed revolver pressed so close to her heart she dared not disobey his slightest command.
And how the conviction grew upon her that he was marrying her for wealth only, and the inspiration that came to her to test his so-called love by telling him that she had been disinherited, though she was confident that her father had made his will in her favor, leaving her his entire fortune.
Dwelling with piteous sobs on how he had then and there struck her down to death, as he supposed, and that he had made all haste to make away with her; and that she would at that moment have been lying in an unmarked grave, under the snowdrifts, if Heaven had not most miraculously interfered and saved her.
Faynie ended her thrilling recital by adding that she had not known, until that hour, that this man was Claire"s lover, because they had refrained from mentioning the name of the man in her presence. How she had come to the library in search of a book and had encountered him stealing through the halls, a veritable thief in the dead of the night, bent upon securing a sum of money which he had learned in some way was in the safe, and that he now had it in his pocket, and that she had prevented him from securing her father"s will by s.n.a.t.c.hing it from his grasp.
Mrs. Fairfax had fallen back, trembling like an aspen leaf. She recognized her husband"s will in Faynie"s hands, and that, although the girl did not say so before the servants, she knew her treachery.
"Come, Claire, my child," she said, turning to her daughter, "this is no place for you."
But Claire did not stir; she stood quite still, looking from the one to the other, as though she could not fully comprehend all that she saw and heard.
By this time Kendale had recovered from his shock, and as he listened to Faynie"s recital, realized that she was not indeed a ghost, but the heiress of the Fairfax millions, and his own wife at that. And when he found his voice he cried out:
"The girl tells the truth! She is mine, and as her husband I am lord and master of this house, and of her."
As he uttered the words he strode toward Faynie with a diabolical chuckle, and seized her slender wrists in his grasp.
"Unhand me!" shrieked Faynie, struggling frantically in his grasp, almost fainting with terror.
"No one dares interfere between man and wife," replied Kendale, mockingly.
He did not see three dark forms spring over the threshold, thrusting the servants hastily aside.
But in less time than it takes to tell it, a strong arm thrust him aside, and a tall form sprang between him and Faynie, while a voice that struck terror to his very soul cried out:
"You have come to the end of your rope, Clinton Kendale. You have lost the game, while it was almost in your grasp!"
"Great Heaven, is it you, Lester Armstrong!" cried the guilty villain, fairly quivering with terror. "Oh, Lester, have pity--have mercy--I--"