He"s so very, very, very handsome, you see, Miriam; and I adore beauty."
"Very well. Find out if it"s he--and find out at once."
"More easily said than done, isn"t it?"
"Not at all. You don"t suppose he has left the city?"
"No. He told me that he would not leave--that he would remain and watch me, unseen and unknown."
"Then, if you advertise--if you address him through the medium of the daily papers--he will see and answer your advertis.e.m.e.nt."
"Very probably. But he isn"t going to tell me who he is. If he had any intention of doing so, he would have done it last week."
Miriam shook her head.
"I"m not so sure about that. You never asked him to reveal himself. You gave him no reason to suppose you would do otherwise than scorn and flout him, let him be who he might. It is different now. If it is Hugh Ingelow, you will forgive him all?"
"Miriam, see here: why are you so anxious I should forgive this man?"
"Because I want to see you some respectable man"s wife; because I want to see you safely settled in life, and no longer left to your own caprices, or those of Carl Walraven. If you love this Hugh Ingelow, and marry him, you may probably become a rational being and a sensible matron yet."
Mollie made a wry face.
"The last thing I ever want to be. And I don"t believe half a dozen husbands would ever transform me into a "sensible matron." But go on, all the same. I"m open to suggestion. What do you want me to do?"
"Address this man. Ask him to appoint a meeting. Meet him. Tell him what you have told me, and make him reveal himself. He will be sure to do it, if he thinks there are grounds for hope."
"And if it turns out to be Sardonyx or Oleander--and I have a presentiment that it"s the latter--what then?"
""Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." I don"t believe it is either. From what you tell me of them, I am sure neither would behave so honorably at the last--keeping his promise and fetching you home."
"There is something in that," said Mollie, thoughtfully. "Unless, indeed, they grew tired of me, or were afraid to imprison me longer. And my masked husband talked, at the parting, as neither of these reptiles could talk. It may be some one of whom I have never thought--who knows?
I"ve had such a quant.i.ty of lovers that I couldn"t possibly keep the run of them. However, as I"m dying to meet him again, whoever he is, I"ll take your advice and address him."
Miriam rose.
"That is well. And now I must be going. It is past three, and New York streets will presently be astir. I have a long way to go, and no wish to be seen."
"Miriam, stop. Can"t I do anything to a.s.sist you? You are half starved, I know: and so miserably clad. Do--do let me aid you?"
"Never!" the woman cried, "while you are beneath this roof. If ever you settle down in a house of your own, and your husband permits you to aid so disreputable a being as I am, I may listen to you. All you have now belongs to Carl Walraven; and to offer me a farthing of Carl Walraven"s money is to offer me the deadliest of insults."
"How you hate him! how he must have wronged you!" Again that burning blaze leaped into the woman"s haggard eyes.
"Ay, girl! hate and wrong are words too poor and weak to express it. But I bide my time--and it will surely come--when I will have my revenge."
She opened the door and pa.s.sed out swiftly. The listener at the key-hole barely escaped behind the cabinet--no more.
Mollie, in her rosy silken robes, like a little G.o.ddess Aurora, followed her out, down the stairs, and opened for her the house door.
The first little pink clouds of the coming morn were blushing in the east, and the rag-women, with their bags and hooks, were already astir.
"When shall I see you again?" Mollie said.
Miriam turned and looked at her, half wonderingly.
"Do you really wish to see me again, Mollie--such a wretched-looking being as I am?"
"Are you not my aunt?" Mollie cried, pa.s.sionately. "How do I know there is another being on this earth in whose veins flow the same blood as mine? And you--you love me, I think."
"Heaven knows I do, Mollie Dane!"
"Then why wrong me by such a question? Come again, and again; and come soon. I will be on the watch for you. And now, farewell!"
She held out her little white hand. A moment, and they had parted.
The young girl went slowly back to her room to disrobe and lie down, and the haggard woman flitted rapidly from street to street, on her way to the dreary lodgings she called home.
Two days after, running her eyes greedily over the morning paper, Miriam read, heading the list of "Personals:"
"BLACK MASK.--I wish to see you soon, and alone. There is no deception meant. Appoint time and place, and I will meet you. WHITE MASK."
"So," said the woman to herself, "she has kept her word. Brave little Mollie! Oh! that it may be the man she loves! I should be almost happy, I think, to see her happy--Mary"s child!"
Miriam waited impatiently for the response. In two days it came:
"WHITE MASK.--To-morrow, Friday night, ten o"clock. Corner Fourteenth Street and Broadway. BLACK MASK."
"I, too, will be there," said Miriam. "It can do no harm; it may, possibly, do some good."
CHAPTER XIII.
MRS. CARL WALRAVEN"S LITTLE GAME.
Mysterious Miriam, in her dismal garret lodging, was not the only person who read, and intelligently comprehended, these two very singular advertis.e.m.e.nts.
Of all the hundreds who may have perused and wondered over them, probably there were but four who understood in the least what was meant--the two most interested, and Miriam and Mrs. Walraven.
Stay! There was the Reverend Raymond Rashleigh, who might have seen his way through, had he chanced to read the "Personal" column of the paper.
On the Thursday morning that this last advertis.e.m.e.nt appeared, Mrs. Carl Walraven sat alone in the pretty boudoir sacred to her privacy. It was her choice to breakfast alone sometimes, _en dishabille_. It had been her choice on this particular day.
At her elbow stood the tiny round table, with its exquisite appointments of gla.s.s, and porcelain, and silver; its chocolate, its toast, its eggs, its little broiled bird.
Mrs. Walraven was of the luxurious sort, as your full-blown, high-blooded Cleopatras are likely to be, and did ample justice to the exquisite _cuisine_ of the Walraven mansion.