CHAPTER XXX.
HIS UNCLE’S BRIDE.
The shock of finding Queenie Trevalyn the bride of his aged uncle can better be imagined than described. Raymond Challoner was fairly dumfounded at it. He could almost have believed his eyes were playing him some amazing trick in tracing such a resemblance, until he heard her speak.
There was no mistaking that smooth, perfect, melodious voice that every one who heard it at Newport had likened unto the chiming of silver bells, it was so deliciously sweet.
But just now there was a harsh, jarring strain in it that revealed all too plainly the nature of her thoughts and hopes.
Glancing up at that moment she caught the eye of the young man who stood on the doctor’s left, with his coat collar turned up and his hat pulled so low down over his face that his eyes only were visible.
She started confusedly. Where had she seen just such a pair of eyes as were those regarding her so fixedly? Where?
The doctor’s voice recalled her to the fact that the old man who called her wife, the old man whom she had wedded for his fortune, was lying before her mortally hurt, and she must pretend great sorrow and anxiety concerning him, though she felt it not. At the first glance at the white old face lying against the pillow, her heart gave one wild leap.
What if his injuries were fatal—and he should die? Then, ah, then she would be free to recall John Dinsmore, the man she had found out to her bitter cost that she really loved—and marry him.
No wonder she started guiltily at the bare notion that the stranger with the piercing eyes was reading her very heart thoughts. She made an effort to answer the doctor’s remark with seeming agitation, caused by grief.
Pressing her dainty point-lace handkerchief to her eyes she murmured behind its folds: “If his recovery depends on his being carefully nursed, you may be sure that we will have him up and about as quickly as it can be accomplished.”
“I am sure of it, madam,” replied the doctor, with a low bow. “I shall send a trained nurse to you immediately,” he went on briskly, “and in the meantime, I would ask that you administer the powders which I shall leave you, every fifteen minutes. Failure to do this would be fatal.”
“I will attend to it myself, until the nurse you speak of arrives,” she murmured.
Promising to return in the course of an hour or two at the very latest, the doctor took his leave.
Glancing furtively about, Queenie did not see the stranger who had stood beside the doctor, and she concluded that he must have been an assistant, and that he left with the doctor. Still, the lurid gaze of those eyes haunted her—she could not tell why.
“Ah! I have it!” she cried fiercely, at length, after she had dismissed the servants, telling them that she would watch beside her husband’s couch, and that she would call upon them when she needed them. “Yes; I know now where I have seen just such eyes. They looked out at me from the face of false, fickle Raymond Challoner, that never-to-be-forgotten day at Newport, when he stood before me and told me that our betrothal which had lasted just one day, would have to be broken if I had been so unfortunate as to lose the vast fortune which I was credited with having.
“It was in that bitter hour that I learned the worth of a true love, such as John Dinsmore’s, which I had flung away for the idle fancy of such a creature as Raymond Challoner.
“Raymond Challoner, you who ruined my life, where are you now, I wonder? If we ever meet again, just as surely as I live, I will take a horrible vengeance upon you.
“I have wealth now,” she went on, wearily, “and will be one of the wealthiest women in the great metropolis. But, ah, what is it worth to the love of one true heart that I could love in return?”
And the beautiful woman sank back in the cushions of the velvet chair, and something very like a tear glistened in the proud, dark eyes.
Then she suddenly pressed her hand to her heart, muttering:
“There may be happiness in store for me yet, but it will be after he dies and leaves me freedom and his wealth,” and she gazed intently at the white face which seemed to grow whiter still under the softened rays of the gas jets with their opaline shades.
The little French clock on the mantel struck the hour.
Queenie started to her feet.
“It is time for the first dose of powders which the doctor left,” she muttered, reaching her jeweled hand toward the table for them.
Then suddenly her hand dropped to her side and she glanced furtively about the luxurious room.
“If I did not follow the doctor’s instructions in regard to giving him the powder, who is to know?” she whispered under her breath.
For an instant she stood motionless, with the contents of the little white paper containing the life-giving powder clutched tightly in her hand.
The little clock on the mantel ticked on and on. One, two, three, four, five minutes passed, and she stood thus like a statue carved in marble. Another five minutes, and with a shudder she hastily crossed the room and emptied the contents of the little white paper into the depths of the silver cuspidor.
“Among the cigar ashes contained in this, it will never be traced,” she whispered, fearfully.
She was not an adept in crime. This was her first offense against the laws of God and man. It was little wonder that she trembled so violently as she crept up to the couch and watched breathlessly the effect of the emission of the powder.
“In an hour from now, when the doctor returns, his patient will be beyond all mortal aid,” she muttered, hoarsely.
Twice the sufferer stirred on his pillow and moaned faintly as he murmured piteously:
“Oh, for youth, and health, and strength, that you might love me, my beauteous young bride. They say that December should not wed with May—that it is against nature’s laws—but I have tried to convince myself that the rule did not always hold good; that my case was an exception; that Queenie loved me for my old and battered self, not for my gold.”
The bride who stands beside the couch recoils from him with a gesture of loathing.
Love that pitiable wreck of manhood, who is seventy if he is a day. How dare he expect it? What madness to imagine it.
“Kiss me, Queenie,” he moaned. “Lay your soft cheek against mine, that the swift current of youth’s warm blood may chase the death dew that is gathering on my brow. For your sake I will overcome the deadly faintness that is stealing over me. I will live—live—live!”
“To make my days one ceaseless round of annoyance—ay, torture,” muttered the girl, bending over him, noting that though he is fighting the fiercest battle man ever fought to overcome the grim destroyer, death, which is hovering over him, his convulsive throes grow weaker and weaker, and his face takes slowly on that yellowish hue that there is no mistaking.
The second quarter of an hour has been gathered into the past, and the contents of the second paper have been consigned to the silver cuspidor, the third quarter is well-nigh spent, but the beautiful woman who watches seems to pay no heed to time.
One convulsive gasp, another, and the man whom she calls husband falls back motionless on his pillow.
“He is dead!” she whispers, half aloud.
“Yes, he is dead,” answers a deep voice close by her elbow, “and you, my dear madam, are his—— Well, the word I would use is an ugly one, and I will substitute in its place—you are responsible for it.”
“It is false!” Queenie tries to gasp as she reels backward in horror, too awful for words, and glares with dilated eyes at the intruder who has suddenly loomed up before her. But the words die away in her throat in a spasmodic, deathlike gurgle.
Before her she sees standing the man with the bright, piercing eyes, whom she had believed to be the doctor’s assistant, and whom she fancied had left the house with him.
His coat collar was still turned up, and his hat pulled down over his face, revealing only those black, malicious eyes.
“You have not been alone, as you fancied yourself to be, madam,” he went on, in that voice which seemed strangely familiar to her. “I remained behind, to see that you carried out the doctor’s instructions, upon which the life of the man now lying dead before you hung. I seated myself in that armchair in the bay window, which the lace draperies conceal, but from my position I could see all that took place. In fact, being scarcely ten feet from you, I could not help overhearing every word that fell from your lips.”
“No, no, no!” shrieked Queenie, falling on her knees at his feet.
“Hush!” he commanded, quickly, placing his hand over her mouth, “don’t you know that you will arouse every servant in the house, and that they will be flocking to the scene? I have much to say to you ere the alarm that your husband is dead is given out. There, don’t be alarmed; I want to be your friend if you will allow me to be so. It is not my intention, at least not my present intention, to betray your crime to the world. You did a very rash thing, to be sure, but, then, I intend to be your friend for the reason that it is for my interest to be so.”
“Who are you?” gasped Queenie, leaning heavily back against the casement. “I seem to know you—and yet I do not. My God!” she exclaimed in the same breath, “am I mad or dreaming, or do my eyes deceive me? You are Raymond Challoner!”