"Cruel!"
"So base, then!"
"Base! I bought you with money; sold myself for love--both were cheated!"
He pa.s.sed out of the room, smiling upon her as he went. She was a sharp-willed woman, crafty and prompt. The danger was imminent, but she had the intellect to meet it. Quick as lightning her plan was matured.
She followed him out, and touching one of the officers on the arm, whispered:
"A hundred dollars in gold if you get that man clear of the house in ten minutes."
"Can"t be done, marm. Mr. Rice has gone for more help. No moving a peg till he comes back."
"But you can lock him up; put a guard over him; do something to save us from this disgrace! If one hundred is not enough you shall have five!"
"But where shall we put him--every room in the house seems turned into a garden?"
"In the south wing, along that hall, you will find a room. It has but one door. Iron shutters are concealed under the ornamental work. Secure them, and it is impossible for him to escape. Hark! that is a carriage!
A thousand dollars if you get him off before it reaches the entrance!"
She was pale as death, and her whispers sounded like the hiss of a reptile.
The two men consulted together a moment, and directly one of them touched Thrasher on the arm.
"Come, go with us into another room."
"What room?"
"That in the south wing, with iron shutters and only one door. It will do."
"No," he said, doggedly; "my house isn"t a prison. You have a warrant, execute it. I will pa.s.s those people as they come in."
The men began to expostulate. Ellen Mason trembled with terror, for the carriage was already setting down its burden at her door.
One of the men came to her for counsel.
"Shall we take him away by force, marm?"
"Yes, if it must be--quick."
To her surprise, Thrasher came forward. The expression of his face had changed--there was a gleam of malicious triumph in it.
"Madame," he said, "I consent to remain your guest a little longer."
Then, turning to the men, he said: "How many hours shall I be detained in this room with one door and iron shutters?"
"All night," replied the man.
"All night?" There was something more than a question in his voice.
"Yes, yes; we shan"t run the risk of taking you out in a crowd--depend on it. Too smart a chap for any risks of that sort."
"No chance of getting off before morning?" he questioned again, very earnestly.
"Not the ghost of one--even if Rice himself comes back. We have all the responsibility."
"Well, I am ready. Farewell, madame."
Ellen Mason followed him, with affrighted looks. Her guests were coming up the entrance hall in groups. Thrasher stood immovable, smiling maliciously upon her. This exasperated the two officers, and they seized him each by an arm. He shook them off at once, and moved close to the lady.
"Ellen Mason, if I leave you one more night of triumph, it is because the blow that I strike shall be for life, not for an hour."
She drew back, and stood, with a forced smile in her eyes, looking toward the advancing guests. He, too, smiled, and walked on, bowing low as he pa.s.sed the groups of revellers that now half filled the entrance hall. The two officers rushed eagerly after him, and seized him by the arms in the midst of his guests. Again he shook them off, and, turning toward the south wing, disappeared.
With a wild glitter in her eyes, the mistress of the mansion watched him till he was lost in the incoming crowd. Then drawing a heavy breath, she turned to receive the brilliant throng that surged into her rooms.
CHAPTER LXVII.
TOGETHER, YET SEPARATED.
Directly, that magnificent suite of rooms was full. The house had given up its gay company group by group, when the vast apartments overflowed, and the illuminated grounds grew brilliant as fairy land. It was remarked that Mrs. Nelson had never received with such queenly grace before. That superb toilet surpa.s.sed her usual sumptuousness; the glow of her jewels scarcely matched the wild light that came and went in her eyes. Her spirits were unusually brilliant throughout the whole entertainment; the scarlet of excitement burned on her cheeks; she seemed lifted out of herself by the success of this unique fete.
This was the general opinion of her guests. They could account for the brilliant beauty of her presence in no other way.
How could strangers guess at the quivering fear that trembled at her heart when any unusual noise arose in the crowd which surrounded her with flattery and soft adulation? How was it possible for them to know that the brilliant beauty of her face was lighted by the fever of anxiety so terrible that her heart quailed under it.
A few of the guests remarked upon the absence of Mr. Nelson. At first she evaded these inquiries, but, as the evening drew near its close, she whispered to one of her most intimate friends a secret that soon spread through the vast crowd:
Mr. Nelson was insane. The men that had been remarked with him in the hall were his keepers. The malady had been growing upon him for months, and could be kept secret no longer. She had done her best to conceal it, but of late his eccentricities had become so uncontrollable that a private asylum had been decided on. This it was which had made her so restless and excited all the evening. People thought it high spirits, but alas! how little the world knows of human suffering.
It had been against her will that the party had gone on. Indeed, her husband"s malady had never become really violent until after the invitations were given out, but he was quite unfit to appear. It was a great affliction, but Mrs. Nelson was afraid of her life, and had with painful reluctance compelled herself to consign her dear husband entirely into medical hands. Early in the morning he would leave home.
These were the remarks which floated from lip to lip when the guests broke into groups after supper, and the dear friends who had met the lady of the mansion with congratulations, left with compa.s.sionate words of consolation, which she received with gentle grace, more attractive than her previous high spirits had been.
Ellen Mason was a magnificent actress--few women on the stage ever went through a difficult _role_ so triumphantly. But when her guests were all gone, the facts of her position came upon her mind with bitter force.
She looked around on the luxurious ruin of the supper table, the withered garlands, the groups of gla.s.ses stained with amber, or ruddy wine, the broken pyramids, and silver baskets, heaped with dying flowers and rejected fruit, with a feeling of absolute disgust. The glittering confusion made her faint. She longed to rush by the servants, who were closing the house, and seek the open air, late as it was. This impulse seized upon her with such force that she gathered up the scarf of Brussels point, which had fallen like frost-work over her dress, and vailing her head with it, stepped through an open window into the grounds.
The moon was down, but hundreds of colored lamps still burned in the trees, looking only the more brilliant from the deep shadows that lay in the leaves. The cool night air chilled the fever in her veins and gave her more vivid power of reflection. There is no time when the emptiness of fashionable life strikes the mind so forcibly as that which follows a successful entertainment. The ruins of a feast are always oppressive.
The hollowness of her whole life struck Ellen Mason full upon the heart.
What was she after all but a gross impostor forced to work out the problem of her own falsehood without help? She began to realize the insufficiency of all that had been gained to her life. She thought of the honest love that had made her humble home in the pine wood so pleasant. In that home how often had she thought of scenes like the one before her, and longed to act a part in them. But these had been only dreams. They had never deepened to ambitious hopes till Thrasher came with his brilliant temptations and won her from that honest roof. What a worthless life hers had proved since then! would it always be so? had she tied herself forever and ever to all this emptiness? Would she indeed be permitted to revel still among these golden husks? That man had threatened her with his speech and more fiercely still with his eyes. Oh, how she dreaded him.
Lost in these thoughts she sat down on a garden chair, and clasping both hands in her lap, began to cry. This was an unusual weakness. She had wept when the news of her husband"s death came, but seldom since then.
Vanity thrives best in the sunshine, tears are unnecessary to its growth. And now Ellen Mason"s life was all vanity.
But Ellen wept now. The excitement of the evening had left her in a state of utter exhaustion. She gathered the lace scarf over her eyes, and it fell away damp, like a cobweb heavy with dew.