Kathleen's Diamonds; or, She Loved a Handsome Actor

"Yes," the girl thought, sadly, bitterly, "the root of that love went so deep in my heart that I can never pluck it out unless my life goes with it! Oh, God! that I could forget—that I could give all my heart to the one who holds the promise of my hand! Oh, Teddy, Teddy! you deserve more of me than this! You are so good, so noble, you believe in me so fully, little dreaming that the heart which should be yours is given to another!"

She looked at Helen with a smile so faint that it was sadder than tears. She could not speak, and Helen put her arm tenderly about the drooping little figure, so pathetic in its unspoken despair, understanding without one word all the sorrow in Kathleen's heart.

And even then the newsboys running through the streets were shouting wildly:

"Extra copies of The Globe—all about the murder of the handsome actor, Ralph Chainey, by his jealous wife!"

Their startled ears caught the sound—the name. Starting apart, the two beautiful young girls gazed with blanched faces into each other's eyes.

The words were repeated clearly just beneath the window—blasting words, that coldly drove the shuddering blood back from Kathleen's lips to her heart. With a moan, she slipped down to the floor, winding her arms about Helen's knees, leaning her head against her while she wailed:

"Dead! Murdered! Oh, my love, Ralph!"

Then consciousness fled, she slipped inertly to the floor, and Helen, with a pallid face and trembling limbs, ran out to purchase a copy of The Globe.

Ere Kathleen had recovered from her swoon, Helen had hastily run over the startling news—the attempted murder of Ralph Chainey by Fedora, the woman whom he was suing in the courts for divorce.

"But for the opportune entrance of his brother, Mr. Earl Chainey," ran the paragraph, "the fiend would have succeeded in her fell design. The deadly blade was descending a second time to sheath itself in the victim's breast, when she was caught and violently hurled aside by Earl Chainey. She proved to be Fedora, the wife whom he was suing for divorce. She now lies in a prison cell, awaiting her punishment, which will probably be a capital one, as Ralph Chainey has never regained consciousness, owing to the loss of blood, and his death is momentarily expected."

It was to bear this terrible shock to her heart that Kathleen recovered consciousness. Was it not a wonder she did not go mad with the horror of it all?

Parting from her only yesterday in despair and anger—lying dead, perhaps, this moment—dying at least, and dying before he had forgiven her for her coldness and hardness. Oh, God, the pity of it all!

Weeping, she lay upon Helen's breast. Pride all gone, she laid her heart bare to her sympathetic friend.

"Oh, Helen, it will kill me unless I go to him—unless he speaks my forgiveness before he dies!"

"You shall go my darling," was the answer; and in less than an hour the carriage was at the door. The two girls stepped into it, and they were rapidly driven to Mrs. Chainey's suburban home.

All the way Kathleen lay upon her friend's breast, weeping, always weeping. In all her long after-life she could never forget that long hour of misery and suspense, in which she could not tell whether she should find him dead or alive. Would he pronounce her forgiveness, or would his lips be stiff in death, and the memory of his anger remain forever a thorn in her heart?

How the cold March rain swirled through the leafless shrubbery about the great stone house, with its closed doors and windows, suggesting so vividly the presence of death. Thank God! there was one thing lacking—the funereal crape upon the door. At the worst, he was still alive.

"Alive, alive! oh, thank God!" murmured Kathleen through her raining tears.

Helen tenderly supported her as they left the carriage. Soon they were within the house; Kathleen was waiting with a wildly beating heart for some one to come to them.

But when Ralph's mother came to them, Kathleen was beyond speech. It was Helen who had to prefer the request that they should see Ralph—"Friends, old and dear friends," she said, in excuse.

The gentle, gray-haired lady looked in wonder at the beautiful, weeping girl, the fairest she had ever beheld. Her heart went out to her at those tears.

"They are for my boy," she thought, tenderly.

But she hesitated, for the doctors had forbidden any one to enter the room.

"He knows no one. He has spoken but twice, and then just to utter a name," she said, looking doubtfully at the two fair supplicants.

"A name?" whispered Kathleen, eagerly.

"Yes; it is that of a young girl whom I fancy he loves. If it were only her now," she said, musingly.

"The name?" questioned Helen Fox, with eager impatience.

"Kathleen!" replied Mrs. Chainey.

Oh, what a cry came from Kathleen's lips!

"Oh, my love, my love, you have not forgotten me! I am Kathleen! Oh, madame, let me go to him!"

"Come!" was the thrilling answer, and as she led the girl away, Kathleen's heart throbbed wildly with the thought that she should hear his lips pronounce her forgiveness.

"And he shall not die! My love shall call him back from the grave!" she sobbed.

CHAPTER LXI.

SHE LOVED MUCH.

She was kneeling by his couch—she was gazing through her blinding tears upon that pallid, emotionless face, as still now as though it already bore the stamp of death; her hand touched his, but it did not respond to her passionate pressure, and when she called his name, there was no answer—not even a quiver of the dark, curling lashes lying so heavily against the marble-white cheek.

Mrs. Chainey and the two physicians looked on in the tenderest compassion. The story of the young girl's love was written on her anguished face, and they knew, alas! that Ralph Chainey lay close to the borders of spirit-land. The dark eyes would never open on that most beautiful face bending over him, the pale lips would never unclose to speak her name.

Breathlessly she called upon his name, beseeching him to look at her, to speak to her; but the spell that wrapped him was too deep. Those strong men listening to her wept in sympathy. They had no hope. It had been so difficult to stanch the flow of blood from the terrible wound so close to his heart, that he was sinking from inanition—he could not survive the weakness.

Suddenly the girl turned and looked at them. They were whispering together. She caught some disjointed words:

"It has been tried with success. You remember cases of?—but he is so far gone, I doubt—transfusion of blood—do you think?"

It startled them, the way the weeping girl sprung to her feet. New life seemed to come to her. She threw off the long fur cloak from her slender form, pushed back the sleeve from the most beautiful white arm they had ever beheld, and cried, beseechingly:

"You can save him! Oh, take my blood—my very life, so that you restore him!"

They were shocked at first, but she would not listen. She implored them to yield to her wish.

"I am so strong, I have such splendid health, it will not hurt me—I can bear it!" she cried, pleadingly, and they were full of admiration for her courage and bravery.

Her lovely face shone with its lofty purpose.

"Impossible!" they answered; but they gazed with admiring eyes at the beautiful girl whose fresh young loveliness indeed hinted at glowing health and strength; but it seemed hopeless, such an experiment. He was so far gone. Any minute might launch his life's bark out upon death's unknown sea.

She could not bear it, this obstinate refusal. Oh, to save him, to save him she would lay down her life!

A desperate thought came to her. Her dark eyes fastened on a rich blue vein in the rosy white arm she had bared to their view. A furtive movement and she had slipped from the burnished mass of her golden tresses a toy dagger with a jewel-studded hilt. Maddened with misery, she thrust the keen point against the blue vein, and the scarlet tide of her life-blood spurted out in a tiny vivid jet. Oh, horror!

They sprung toward her, one bound a handkerchief over the wound, but—her bravery had thrilled their hearts. They could not hesitate longer. It was a forlorn hope, but yes, they would try the experiment!

CHAPTER LXII.

"GOD BLESS BRAVE, BONNY KATHLEEN CAREW!"

Doctor Beard was an enthusiast in his art, and his fine eyes shone with eager interest as he realized the delicate and dangerous operation that lay before him and his colleague, Doctor Miller. Both were comparatively young, but they had attained eminence already, and if any physician in Boston was capable of conducting this experiment, it was one or both of these two.

They gazed anxiously into each other's eyes as they made their hasty preparations. Would it fail, or would it succeed? Death was so near—so perilously near! Would the rushing tide of life ever flow through those numb veins again? Yes, if there were any efficacy in love and prayer; for the stricken mother knelt, weeping and praying, by her boy's side, and down-stairs, in the darkened parlor, Helen Fox, waiting in keen suspense, lifted her heart in earnest petitions that God would spare the young life trembling in the balance. Within the great house all was trembling anxiety and suspense, while outside the wild March wind shook the dead branches of the trees and drove the gusty rain against the windows with a mournful patter, as though kindly Nature wept for the bright young life going out into darkness.

When years had fled and gray hairs began to creep into their bonny brown curls, Doctor Beard and Doctor Miller still loved to tell the story of that day, and how it ended—of the patient who lay so close, so awfully close to the portals of death that it did not seem possible for human art to save him, and of the beautiful, brave young girl who had prayed them on her knees to take the blood from her round, white arm and infuse it into the patient's, giving him new life; how they had hesitated to wound that tender, exquisite flesh, and how she had taken the initiative, thrusting a jeweled pin from her hair into the blue vein.

"I tell you it was grand!" cried Doctor Beard, with enthusiasm. "I could hesitate no longer. I was longing to make the experiment from the first moment the thought entered my head. So we asked the consent of Miss Fox, the young girl's dearest friend, who had brought her there. She was willing, and we tried it. Tried it, and—with the grandest success."

"It was magical the way that the girl's fresh young blood put new life into him," agreed Doctor Miller. "Why, I give you my word, I had no faith in the operation. The fellow looked like a dead man. I could have sworn he would never revive again, yet—it was magical, as I said just now—when we had carefully bound up their arms, that brave, beautiful girl leaned over him, looked into his face, and cried in accents of piercing anguish:

"'Oh, Ralph, my darling, come back to Kathleen! You must not die!'"

"And you may believe me or not," said Doctor Beard, taking the thread of the story again, "but the dead man opened his eyes and met her look. The color began to come back to his ashen face. He smiled faintly, whispered her name, 'Kathleen,' turned on his side, and slept calmly as a weary child."

"That was the proudest moment of my life!" cried Doctor Miller. "God bless brave, bonny Kathleen Carew!"

CHAPTER LXIII.

WITHIN PRISON BARS.

"A week, and yet he has never been near me! Not a word, not a sign! What does he mean? Why has he left me to my cruel fate?"

The beautiful prisoner raged up and down the narrow limits of her prison cell like a caged lioness, so desperate was her mood, so fierce her unrest.

"Such cruel and heartless neglect from him who incited me to that dark deed is unbearable! He does not yet know Fedora if he believes she will tamely bear it!" And she clinched her white hands ominously, her eyes glittering with anger, as she thought of the man for whom she had risked so much, yet who seemed to have left her to her fate without an effort to save her.

"Where is he? What has become of him? Will he leave me to die like a rat in a hole? And I thought he loved me—fool that I was! Did I not already know men too well to trust him? Oh, fool that I was! And yet, dare he desert me, the partner in his terrible secret? Perhaps the coward has fled, fearing that I may betray him!"

So she raved on, every moment increasing her impotent fury.

"No answer to my letters, no notice taken of my passionate appeals! Why, he might have effected my escape ere this if he had tried, and I must escape! It is true I can not be hung, since that foolish girl saved Ralph's life when he was on the brink of death; but if I am sentenced I shall be sent to prison for long, long years! I can not bear the thought! Oh, God, I'm stifling—dying!" She threw herself on her hard couch, sobbing in hysterical abandon.

A grating sound at the door; the key turned in the lock; the portal opened, closed again. Inside stood a beautiful young girl gazing with sad, accusing eyes at the wretched, sobbing woman.

Fedora looked up with a cry of wonder mingled with rage:

"Kathleen Carew!"

"Yes, Kathleen!" answered the other. She advanced, and they gazed in momentary silence into each other's eyes—the girl Ralph Chainey loved, and the woman that was his wife.

"Why are you here?" muttered Fedora, hoarsely, as she started to her feet.

"For justice," answered Kathleen, sternly.

"Justice?"

"Yes, justice to the man you tried to murder—the man I saved from death!"

"Saved, yes—curse you forever for that deed!" snarled the prisoner, viciously.

Kathleen recoiled a little at her terrible aspect, and said, in wonder:

"Why did you do it? Why did you want him dead?"

"I hated him! I hate you!"

"I know, but you would soon have been free of him by the law. Why did you want to kill him? It was horrible. Life is so sweet when one is young; and Ralph is young—only twenty-five," said the young girl, almost piteously.

"Why do you come here to probe into my secrets?" Fedora cried, fiercely. "Listen, then: I wanted him dead before he secured the divorce, so that I might inherit his wealth. I, his loving widow! Ha! ha! Was it not a clever scheme?" She laughed wildly; and, coming closer to Kathleen, glared threateningly into her eyes as she hissed: "You foiled me—you—curse you, I repeat! Let me but escape, and I will murder you!"

A weaker heart than Kathleen's might have quailed before such threats; but she stood there trembling but courageous, an earnest purpose in her splendid eyes.

"These are idle words, and I did not come here to bandy words with you. I came to make a solemn appeal to you," she said meekly, almost beseechingly.

"Appeal to me?" asked the prisoner, with a scornful laugh; and then she waited out of curiosity for the other's answer.

"Do you remember that night in Philadelphia?" Kathleen asked.

"Yes, I remember."

"You were wearing my diamonds—the ones that were stolen from me that night when I was left for dead on the ground at Lincoln Station. You told me—told me," her voice faltering, "that Ralph Chainey gave you the jewels. Oh, God! I think if I had quite believed that horrible story, I should have died! But there was always the merciful doubt—the hope that it might not be true—that saved me from madness!"

She paused, but the prisoner did not speak—only smiled derisively.

"So I have come to you for the truth," went on the girl. "Oh, for God's sake, speak and tell me you lied! It was not Ralph; it could not be. Perhaps you are shielding the guilty man behind his identity. Are you? Tell me the truth! I will not ask you to betray the criminal. I do not wish to punish him. Only tell me it was not Ralph!" and she waited in wild suspense for the answer.

Fedora's evilly handsome face had on it a smile of triumph. She was gloating over the young girl's misery.

"So you love my husband?" she exclaimed, tauntingly, and the deep color rose up over Kathleen's face at the cruel sneer. She trembled with emotion, although she tried to appear indifferent as she answered:

"I did not come here to discuss that with you, madame."

Fedora was regarding her with a fixed gaze. A cunning thought had entered her mind.

"How much is my secret worth to you?" she asked.

"All the wealth in the world, if I had it, but I am penniless. I can not buy your secret," Kathleen answered, sadly.

Fedora came nearer and whispered in her ear:

"If I tell you the truth, will you help me to escape?"

"I could not do it if I wished to do so ever so much. It would take money, and I have already told you I have none."

The voice was cold and dull. Kathleen began to realize how hopeless was her mission. The cruel, calculating woman before her had no pity for her misery.

But Fedora was scheming in her mind how to turn her secret to account. She hated Kathleen too bitterly to show her any kindness; but if she could pay for the secret she wanted so badly, why, let her have it.

She looked at Kathleen with a cunning expression.

"There is one condition on which I will tell you what you want to know."

"I have already told you that I have no money."

"I do not mean money. Listen, Miss Carew: You know Ivan Belmont?"

"Yes," with a contemptuous gesture.

"He is a friend of mine; and if he knew about my trouble he would try to help me, I think. Do you know where he is? Can you send word to him?"

"I do not know anything about his whereabouts."

"You must find out. You must tell him that I, Fedora, have sent you to him. Tell him I command him to come to me here. Return to me with a letter from Ivan Belmont, and you shall hear the truth about the diamonds. I swear it!"

They gazed at each other—Fedora flushed and eager, Kathleen excited, sorely tempted.

"What say you? Is my price too great?" demanded the prisoner.

"No," Kathleen replied. Turning to go, she said:

"I will surely find Ivan Belmont, and bring the letter."

The door closed. The prisoner was again alone within the grated cell.

The hours dragged on and brought the gloomy night. With it there hovered over the great city the black and vulture wings of a terrible storm. It hissed, it roared, it swept with devastating, cyclonic force through that area where the prison was situated. Trees, roofs, houses even, yielded to its terrific fury, and flew like feathers before its angry breath. The poor prisoners, cowering in superstitious terror before the awful voices of the warring elements, prayed to God for mercy; but the answer seemed far, far away, for suddenly there came a terrible, deafening roar; the earth seemed to rock like a cradle, and the great stone tower of the prison fell with a sound as though heaven and hell had clashed, while lurid flames shot up from the awful ruin into the midnight air. Sentence of death had already been pronounced on many who were awaiting trial, and many a soul went up in that holocaust of smoke and flame and tempest to render an account of the deeds done in the flesh. Some few survived, some few escaped. Where was Fedora?

CHAPTER LXIV.

"YOUR FATHER IS GEORGE HARRISON, THE CONVICT!"

"Another letter! Gad, they come thick and fast! Ta, ta, Fedora! sorry I haven't time to read it; but a fellow must look out for his own neck, and mine has felt deuced uncomfortable ever since I found out that that devil Jack Wren is on my trail. How did he strike it, I wonder; for I thought we had covered up our tracks very cleverly. But the fellow's a sleuth-hound, they tell me, and I've got to escape him. Poor Fedora! it's a pity to leave you to your fate, but the sooner I pack up and be afloat on the briny, the better for my neck," muttered Ivan Belmont, airily, as he moved about his shabby apartment, in a very unsavory quarter of Boston, gathering together his belongings, that were scattered about on chairs and tables.

The letter from Fedora that he had found on coming in he tossed unread into the fire, and as he ransacked the bureau drawers he hummed, carelessly:

It was long past midnight. The tempest had spent its force, and only a fitful, soughing wind and gusty dashes of icy rain remained as souvenirs of its terrific fury. Its worst force had not reached this neighborhood, and Ivan little dreamed that the prison doors had been hurled asunder by the blind force of nature, and that his partner in wickedness had been released and was hastening to their rendezvous in eager joy.

Recklessly he flung on the floor her dainty garments and pretty trinkets, seeking the diamonds he had given her in the days when he loved her first—love that had long ago tired, and had now grown heedless, indifferent.

"But what the devil did she do with them? I'm positive she left them here. Can they have been stolen? They are worth a pretty penny to me now—they would help me to get away from this place that is getting too hot to hold me."

"Help you to get away, you coward! Who helped me, I wonder? The devil, I suppose. They say he takes care of his own!" said a mocking voice behind him. He turned with a start. There stood Fedora!

Fedora or her ghost? The voice was there, the glittering, steel-blue eyes; but where was all the prettiness, where the burnished golden locks, the silk attire? This woman was drenched with rain, clothed in rags, and the disheveled tresses that straggled over her brow and shoulders had turned dead white, and their silver gleam was in awful contrast with the drops of blood that trickled down her ashen face.

He stared like one turned to stone. He doubted the evidence of his own eyes. That voice, those eyes—but could it be Fedora?

"Yes, it is I," she said, answering that mute, wondering look. "I am here, escaped from the wreck of my prison to find you—you dastardly thief—trying to steal my jewels, your own gift to me! You shall suffer for this night's work! Villain! you tempted me to aid you in your crimes, then left me to suffer the penalty alone. But I will betray you, and you shall know how it feels to be shut within prison walls, deserted by the one who swore fealty forever in happier days!"

He had been so disgusted, so enraged, that he was about to retort in angry, sneering words that would drive her forever from him; but at her threatening words his defiant mood changed to one of cringing, abject fear. Though inwardly shrinking from her altered looks in keen disgust, he dared not show his feelings. He must temporize; he must turn her from her savage purpose.

He approached her; he held out his hand.

"Ta, ta, Dolly; we are not going to part in this fashion, are we? Surely you did not mind if I sold the diamonds to get you out of prison. It was a big bribe, I know; but the guard would not listen to a penny less. To-morrow you should have been free; but how lucky that you escaped, and we have the jewels still!" He slipped his arm around her, and—in spite of her anger, in spite of her suspicions of his falsity—the woman's head dropped against his breast.

She loved him with all the heart she had, this petted darling of the foot-lights; she who had trifled with the hearts of nobler men had found in this weak nature her ideal, and he led her on to lower and lower depths until she was wrecked on the shoals of sin.

Nestling in the arms that were so reluctant to hold her, Fedora told the man how she had escaped from her prison in the company of an aged prisoner—a convict under a life-sentence for murder.

"You have often told me that your father was dead, Ivan," she said. "Did you believe it, or was it a falsehood?"

"I—I—believed it," he replied, weakly.

"No, you did not," she replied, triumphantly. "Ah, my lord, how proud you have been of your connection with the Carews! Yet your father is an escaped convict under sentence for life! Have you forgotten his name? Let me refresh your memory. George Harrison—alias Dutch Fred. Ah, you start—you remember! Yes, he told me his whole history, and I gave him the address of your mother—once his wife. He will go to her, he said, and demand half her fortune!"

Ivan Belmont was silent a moment from chagrin. Then he rose superior to the situation.

"Ha! ha! how the mater will rave!" he laughed. "I wish papa success in plucking the madame. The devil knows what a time I had coaxing and wheedling pennies out of her pocket."

The vision rising in his mind of this proud mother and sister's consternation roused his risibilities, and he laughed loud and long. They had discarded him—flung him off like a dog. What a glorious retribution!

But they turned presently from even this savory morsel to their own affairs. Both were in peril, and it would not do to remain in reach of the law. Yet Ivan was by no means ready to give up his cherished plans. They sat far into the wintry dawn, exchanging confidences and plotting new schemes, to be unraveled on Fate's dark loom.

CHAPTER LXV.

A STARTLING DÉNOUEMENT.

"Jones says there is a horrible old man down-stairs, mamma, asking for you, and will not go away until he sees you," Alpine Belmont said, entering her mother's boudoir one rainy evening just a few days after the cyclone.

"I will not see him. I have just refused to see that old impostor—my husband's brother, indeed!" contemptuously—"and I will not be annoyed again. Tell Jones to send the old beggar away."

Alpine was pale. Her eyes had a troubled look.

"He says that he is not a beggar, mamma—that he has claims on you. I am afraid you had better see him. He is making such a noise at the door, and Jones says he is somewhat intoxicated."

"Tell Jones to pitch him into the street."

"He tried to, but the old man was more than a match for him. Do come, mamma; it's so disgraceful, the sensation he is creating. People are gathering around the house. Let us have him in and try to pacify him."

Her arguments conquered, and Mrs. Carew sent down word to admit the old man to a small room where the servants were accustomed to come to her for orders.

Alpine's trepidation had somewhat unnerved her mother, and as she swept into the little room her air was a trifle less haughty, and her proud eyes gazed anxiously about for the cause of this commotion.

There he lay, sprawled upon a luxurious sofa—an old, blear-eyed man in ragged garments, but with a very close-shaven head, and the stubble of several days' growth upon his chin. His keen, close-set eyes devoured with a hungry gaze the handsome face before him.

A cry of surprise and terror burst from her blanching lips:

"George!—George Harrison!—you!"

"Yes, George Harrison—your husband!" answered the intruder, and a hoarse cry of despair broke upon the air from the lips of Alpine, who had glided in unheeded by both.

She stood behind her mother, gazing with affrighted eyes at the man's coarse, leering face.

Mrs. Carew recoiled—she threw out her white hands, all glittering with costly rings, as though to shut out some terrible sight.

The man laughed at her terror and, gliding forward, seized and held her hands.

"Are you glad to see me, my wife? Come, give me a kiss for the old times' sake, my beauty!"

She struggled with him, loathing the offered caresses, and Alpine sprung to her mother's assistance, beating him back with dainty jeweled hands.

He turned then and saw her for the first time. His narrow eyes dilated with surprise.

"Why, you pretty wild-cat, you must be my daughter Alpine! How do you do, my dear? Give your papa a kiss, dear!"

"You are not—not——" she choked over the word, and he answered, with sudden gravity:

"I am your father, George Harrison, my little girl, and I went to prison for life for killing a man who was once my dearest friend. Why? Well, your mother might tell you if she would. I will spare her for your sake. You seem to love her." He seemed to have grown suddenly sober after the first sight of his daughter's face. "Well, she has prospered, has she not? She is rich and grand, while I have lain in prison all these years, but a few miles from her, my heart burning with hate for her, and aching with love for my boy and girl, Ivan and Alpine, while she taught them to forget that they ever had a father other than Vincent Carew, the proud millionaire. Alpine, speak to me for once; call me father!"

A spasm of pain contracted the worn features he raised longingly to her face. Love shone in his eyes, poor convict that he was, and although he had come to curse the mother and extort money from her, the memory of it fled from him now as he gazed imploringly on Alpine's lovely, soulless face. With outstretched hands he besought her kindness.

Surely the fiends in hell could have had no more hateful look than the girl turned upon the suppliant as he bowed the knee before her so entreatingly. Angrily she struck at the outstretched, toil-worn hands, exclaiming:

"You have no claim on me. I hate you—hate you!"

Could a strong man's heart break for so common a thing as a child's hardness and ingratitude? It would seem so, for the escaped felon turned aside with such a look on his face as it might have worn had a dagger pierced his heart. It seemed as if he meant to go. He staggered toward the door, tripped, and fell prostrate. His face quivered with one or two spasms, then he lay still and dead, his white face upturned to their startled gaze.

"Dead!" muttered Mrs. Carew, staring down in mingled terror and relief.

"Dead!" echoed Alpine, in a sort of awe.

And for a few minutes there was a terrible silence.

Then Alpine crept to her mother's side.

"Mamma, was it true?"

"Yes, it was true. There, you have my awful secret. Bury it deep in your heart, Alpine, for no one must ever know. Now we must call the servants to put the body out. We can not have anything so vulgar as a dead tramp lying in the house!"

She moved toward the door, but her steps were arrested by a stern voice:

"Stay!"

She turned with a start and shudder.

A man had emerged from behind the curtain. At first sight it seemed to be Uncle Ben Carew, the old man so cordially despised.

But with a rapid hand he flung off wig, whiskers, and spectacles, standing revealed in majestic beauty—Vincent Carew!

"My God!" she cried, and flew to embrace him.

He repulsed her with scorn and loathing.

"How dare you, you Jezebel?" he cried. "Down on your knees to that dead man there, you and your cowardly daughter, and pray his forgiveness for the sin that wrecked his life! Vile creature that you are, you would throw him into the street like a dog! No; let him lie there to be buried at my expense. I heard all that was said. I know all your guilty secrets!"

"Oh, Vincent, forgive me, forgive me! My temptation was so great!" she cried, frantically; but he spurned her outstretched hands.

"Can one forgive a fiend?" he said, sternly. "I tell you I know all—the plot that broke my Zaidee's heart, and drove her to madness and death—perhaps you murdered her—who knows?"

"No, no—I swear I did not! I am innocent of that charge. She was so young, so jealous, it was easy to drive her mad. But, Vincent, it was for love of you! Can you not forgive so great a love?"

If scorn could have blasted her, his look would have struck her dead at his feet.

"Forgiveness is not possible," he answered, bleakly, and silenced her with a gesture of his hand. "Listen," he said, looking her in the face: "I was not lost at sea when my ship burned. I was cast away on a desert island, where I remained until a few months ago. When I returned I took a fancy to masquerade to see how matters were going. There is no Uncle Ben. I never had a brother, but the disguise has served its purpose. I know you now—you and your scheming daughter. Now listen to your fate. No, do not speak. Hear me out. I will keep the secret of your disgrace; and—you were to have sailed to-morrow—you two—for Europe. Your trunks are packed—your passage taken. You will go, just the same, but you will never return. You have no claim on me. You belong to that dead man there. Go now to your rooms. I wish never to look on your faces again, but the curse of a broken-hearted man will follow you to your grave!"

CHAPTER LXVI.

"I WILL GO TO THE OLD HAUNTED MILL," SAID KATHLEEN, BRAVELY.

Kathleen Carew sat in the library of Helen Fox's home, with her cheek bowed in the hollow of her delicate hand, and a very sad expression in her downcast eyes. She was thinking of the tragedy of two weeks ago, by which the prison walls had been rent asunder, sending so many wicked souls to their account with God.

"And in that awful wreck Fedora perished—poor guilty soul!—and with her died the secret I would have risked so much to know. Now I shall never know it; but Ralph, dear Ralph, I must trust you blindly. I must not let this dark cloud of suspicion drift between us. But, oh, Heaven! that it might have been lifted!" she half sobbed, in her self-absorption.

In those two weeks many things had transpired of interest to Kathleen. The Carews had gone abroad, and, although Kathleen knew it not, they had faded forever out of the life that they had done so much to wreck and ruin. Uncle Ben, as he still called himself, had not yet disclosed his identity to his daughter, but kept up his incognito for reasons best known to himself. The grand Carew mansion remained closed and silent, and people said that Mrs. Carew and Miss Belmont intended to be absent for years.

Ralph Chainey, under the magical influence of renewed hope, was fast recovering his health again. Kathleen and Helen had been to see him several times, and, although no tender words had been uttered between them, Ralph no longer feared and dreaded handsome Teddy. He fancied that all would come right between him and his darling.

But Kathleen was very sad at heart. She had the greatest esteem and regard for her betrothed, and shrunk from telling him the unflattering truth that her heart belonged to another man.

"He has been so good and kind to me, how can I grieve him so?" she thought.

The ring of the door-bell startled her from her sad thoughts.

Several letters were handed in. On one she recognized the writing of her cousin Chester. She broke the seal with eager impatience, and as she read on smiles began to dimple her scarlet lips.

Helen, who was reading her own letters, was startled at a gay exclamation from her friend.

"Oh, Helen! good news! Chester and Daisy are—engaged!"

"But I thought it was you he loved, my dear."

"Oh, a mere fancy! It is that dear, darling Daisy Lynn he loves. And she—there's a little note from her, too—she has forgotten or outlived that old love—gives her whole tender heart to Chester. Listen, Helen, how he writes me—apologetically, you know, fearing I may think him fickle."

She read aloud, with a mischievous smile playing round her lips:

Helen smiled in sympathy.

"Poor boy! I'm glad he's to be made happy," she said. Then she nervously fingered a letter she held.

"Mine is from Loyal," she said, bashfully.

"From Loyal? Oh, Helen, is he ever coming back to America? You cruel girl! why did you send him away?"

"I did not know my own mind," the beautiful young girl answered, in a low voice, and then she added, softly: "You remember those sweet lines of Jean Ingelow?