"MOLLIE DANE,--Come to me at once, if you want to find out who you are, who your parents were, what Carl Walraven is to you. This is your wedding-night; but come. I am very ill--dying; I may not see morning.
If you delay, it will be too late. The bearer is my friend; she will conduct you to me. Tell no one. Carl Walraven will prevent you, if he can. I say to you, come--come--come.
"MIRIAM."
If there was one thing on earth that flighty Mollie was really in earnest about, it was in knowing her own history. Her marriage sunk into insignificance in comparison.
She dispatched Lucy at once for the bearer of the note, sent her friends to the right-about, and closeted herself with the young woman--a pale young woman, with dark eyes and an intelligent face.
"Who are you?" abruptly demanded the bride, looking curiously at her.
"Sarah Grant," answered the young woman--"a shopgirl."
"Who sent you with this note?"
"A woman who lodges in the same house--a tall, gaunt, half-crazed looking creature. She is dangerously ill."
The girl answered straightforwardly, gazing round her the while in open-eyed admiration.
"Do you know her name?"
"We call her old Miriam; she refuses to tell her name. I have done little things for her since she has been ill, and she begged me so hard to fetch you this letter that I could not refuse."
"Do you know its contents?"
"Only that you are expected to return with me. She told me that she had something to say to you that you would give half your life to hear."
"Is the house far from this?"
"Yes, miss, a long way; but I came in a carriage. It is waiting round the corner. Miriam told me to hurry; that it was a matter of life or death, and she gave me money to pay for the hack. It was absolutely necessary you should know, she said, before you married any one."
Mollie mused a moment. She never thought of doubting all this. Of course, Miriam knew all about her, and of course it was likely she would wish to tell her on her death-bed.
"I will go," she said, suddenly. "Wait one instant."
She summoned the servant, gave her the message that had caused such consternation, locked the door, and threw over her glittering bridal robes a long water-proof cloak that covered her from head to foot.
Drawing the hood over her head, she stood ready.
"Now," said Miss Dane, rapidly, "we will not go out by the front door, because I don"t want any one to know I have quitted the house. Come this way."
She opened one of the long windows and stepped out on the piazza. Sarah followed.
Some distance on there was a flight of stairs leading to a paved back-yard. They descended the stairs, walked down the yard, pa.s.sed through a little gate, and stood in the street, under the bright night sky.
"Now, Miss Grant," said Mollie, "where is your carriage?"
"At the corner of the avenue, miss. This way."
Two minutes brought them to the corner. There stood the hack.
Sarah made a motion for Miss Dane to precede her. Mollie stepped in; the girl followed, closing the door securely after her, and the hack started at a furious pace.
"How dark it is!" exclaimed Mollie, impatiently. "You should make your driver light up, Miss Grant."
"There is sufficient light for our work," a voice answered.
Mollie recoiled with a slight shriek, for it was not the voice of Sarah Grant.
A dark figure started out of the corner on the moment, her hands were grasped, and a handkerchief swiftly and surely bound round her mouth. It was no longer in her power to raise an alarm.
"Now bind her eyes, Sarah," said the voice. "I"ll secure her hands.
My pretty bird, it"s of no use struggling. You"re safely and surely snared."
Her eyes were bandaged, her hands bound, and Mollie sat utterly helpless and bewildered--a prisoner.
She could neither see, nor move, nor speak. The hack was rattling at a fearful pace over the stony streets. Its noise would have drowned her cries had it been in her power to utter any.
"Now, my dear Miss Dane," said that unknown voice, very close to her ear, and all at once, in French, "I"ll answer all the questions I know you are dying to ask at this moment, and answer them truthfully. I speak in French, that the good Sarah beside us may not comprehend. You understand the language, I know."
He knew her, then! And yet she utterly failed to recognize that voice.
"In the first place, what does all this mean? Why this deception--this abduction? Who am I? Where are you being taken? When are you to be restored to your friends? This is what you would ask, is it not? Very well; now to answer you. What does this mean? Why, it means that you have made an enemy, by your atrocious flirting, of one whom you cruelly and shamefully jilted, who has vowed vengeance, and who knows how to keep that vow. Why this deception--this abduction? Well, without deception it was impossible to get you away, and we know just enough about you to serve our purpose. Miriam never sent that note; but Miriam exists. Who am I? Why, I am that enemy--if one can be your enemy who loves you to madness--a man you cruelly taught to love you, and then scornfully refused. Where are you being taken? To a safe place, my charming Mollie--safe as "that deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat"
which you have read of. When are you to be restored to your friends?
When you have been my wife one week--not an instant sooner."
Mollie, bound and blindfolded, made one frantic gesture. The man by her side understood.
"That means you won"t," he said, coolly. "Ah, my fairy Mollie, imprisonment is a hard thing to bear! I love you very dearly, I admire your high spirit intensely; but even eaglets have had their wings clipped before now. You treated me mercilessly--I am going to be merciless in my turn. You don"t care for this old man I have saved you from marrying. I am young and good-looking--I blush as I say it--a far more suitable husband for you than he. You are trying to recognize my voice and place me, I know. Leave off trying, my dearest; you never will. I am perfectly disguised--voice, face, figure. When we part you will be no wiser than you are now."
He ceased speaking. The carriage rattled on and on through the shining, starlit night for endless hours, it seemed to Mollie.
Oh, where were they going, and what was to become of her? Was it a frightful reality, or only a dream? Was she really the same girl who this night was to have been the bride of a baronet? Was this the nineteenth century and New York City, or a chapter out of some old Venetian romance?
The carriage stopped at last; she heard the door open, she felt herself lifted out; there was a rush of cold air for an instant, then they entered a house; a door closed behind them, and she was being borne upstairs and into a room.
"Now that we have arrived, Miss Mollie," said that strange voice, "we will unbind you, and you really must overlook the hard necessity which compelled so strong a course toward a lady. I give you fair warning that it will be of no use straining your lungs screaming; for if you shrieked for a month, no one would hear you through these padded walls. Now, then!"
He took the gag from her mouth, and Mollie caught her breath with a gasp. He untied the bandage round her eyes, and for a second or two she was dazzled by the sudden blaze of light. The instant she could see, she turned full upon her abductor.
Alas and alas! he wore a black mask, a flowing wig, a beard, and a long cloak reaching to the floor.
He was a tall man--that was the only thing Mollie could make out of the disguise.
"Miss Dane does not spare me; but it is all in vain. She may gaze until her lovely eyes drop from their sockets, and she will not recognize me.
And now I will leave you. I will intrude upon you as little as is absolutely possible. If you need anything, ring the bell. Good-night, my beautiful Mollie, and happy dreams."
He bowed politely and moved toward the door. Mollie made a step toward him, with upraised arm:
"Stay!"