CHAPTER XLIX.
THE CHILD OF AN ESCAPED CONVICT.
In all her life Iris had never experienced such a feeling of horror as that which filled her heart on finding that she had been trapped to the house on Lexington Avenue by the man whom we know as Charley Broughton.
“Let me go away. What wrong have I ever done you that you should terrify me thus? What can you want of me?” she faltered, staggering like one under the influence of liquor, as she attempted to walk to the door.
But for all answer Broughton forced her back into the chair from which she had arisen, laughing sardonically at her childish betrayal of terror.
“My pretty one! I tell you I mean you no harm; why do you fear me so; do you know me?”
Iris shuddered, and covered her eyes with her hands to shut out the sight of his face.
“Do you know me, little Iris?” he repeated, fearing that she had not heard his question, and laying a particular stress on the name Iris.
“I will tell you all I know of you,” cried the girl at last, with a suddenness that startled Broughton more than he would have cared to confess. “One day, some three years ago, my mother, who is an invalid confined to her own chamber, sent me to her writing desk in search of some prescription—or the receipt of a remedy that would ease her pain. In my haste I overturned the desk, and shattered it, as the wood was old and dried. While I was gathering up the contents, which had been scattered upon the floor, I found among them a small gold locket which I had never seen my mother wear. It was set with pearls, and I admired it greatly. I remember that my mother cried out in alarm when she saw the locket in my hands, but I had already opened it, and saw within it the picture of a man’s face—your face. I questioned my mother concerning the original, and for the first time in my life saw her violently agitated. She told me then that the man whose face I gazed upon in a species of fascination was my enemy—my enemy and hers, and if ever I met him in life to beware of him, for he would leave no means untried to work my ruin. That time has come, and your conduct toward me proves that my mother’s fears were not without foundation. I am in your power, a weak and unprotected girl, while you are strong and powerful and pitiless; but although I was terrified at first by the means which you employed to lure me into your power, I am not afraid of you now, for I remember that there is a God who knoweth even the fall of the sparrow, and that the same God watches over me in this—my hour of peril.”
Iris had arisen from her chair while speaking, and stood before Charles Broughton in an attitude of defiance, her small hands folded on her breast, her pretty, bright-tressed head thrown back, and her eyes uplifted in childish faith and confidence to the God who seems so dear to such as her.
For one brief moment, Charles Broughton, sin-hardened, worldly, and unprincipled though he was, turned his eyes away from the sight of that pure, uplifted face, ashamed of his own vileness; but, alas! he did not listen long to the promptings of his better nature. The one aim and object of his life was to be revenged on one who had bitterly wronged him, and through this innocent child before him he saw the means of striking the first blow for the accomplishment of this revenge.
“You shall know the reason I have for being an enemy to the woman you call mother,” he said. “You shall know why Evelyn Hilton speaks of me as her enemy and yours. Twenty years ago I was not the man you see before you to-day. I was young and hopeful and tender-hearted.
“It is true I had been led into bad company, and had allowed myself to be drawn into temptation; but when I met the girl whom it was my fate to love, I swore to overcome all this temptation and to live a life I need not be ashamed to ask her to share.
“She was a poor girl, and married me; not because she loved me, but for the reason that my father was a wealthy man, and she hoped to live a luxurious life as the wife of his only son and heir.
“In this she was disappointed, for in the very hour in which he learned that I had made Evelyn Hardress my wife, he disinherited me, and, dying two months later, left all his wealth to the endowment of a charitable institution, cutting me off with the mocking bequest of one dollar.
“Had I been alone the sufferer, I would not have felt this injustice so bitterly; but my young wife was passionately fond of the luxuries wealth alone could buy, and as I still loved her passionately, it almost killed me to be obliged to deny her anything for which she craved.
“At last I was obliged to tell her the truth; and from that hour my nature changed, until from the weak, extravagant, but foolishly fond boy of twenty years ago, you see me the bitter, vengeful man of to-day.
“You shrink from me still, and your heart clings to the woman who gave you birth; but you can never know what agony I endured for that woman’s sake.
“A distant relative of my father offered me at this time a position as cashier in his bank, and my acceptance of this offer sealed my doom. My wife was dearer to me than any consideration of honor, and when she threw herself weeping on my breast, lamenting that she could not attend a party to which she had been invited because of her inability to dress as richly as she had been used to do, I committed my first crime. I appropriated one thousand dollars of the money intrusted to my care, and gave it to her for her personal adornment. I saw her decked in the robes purchased at the sacrifice of my honor. I knew that I had become a thief for her sake, and yet I gloried in her peerless beauty, and never loved her as passionately as on that night when I heard her spoken of as the most beautiful woman in all that crowded assemblage.
“It was not love I felt for her, but a blind infatuation that led me on to repeat my first crime time and again, until from very terror of detection I determined to quit the country. Evelyn encouraged me in this determination, until, just one day previous to that on which I was to have taken my departure for Europe, where I hoped to earn the wherewithal to repay the large sums I had purloined, I was arrested on the charge of forgery, a check having been presented at the bank bearing the signature of one of our wealthiest depositors, but written in a hand that was instantly recognized as my own.
“I could almost have sworn it myself to be my own handwriting, so perfect and faultless was the imitation; but after the first shock of this awful accusation was over I recognized it as the work of my wife, who had often boasted of her talent in copying the handwriting of any person whose penmanship she had ever studied.
“I made no charge against her at the time; indeed, I think the shock of the discovery deprived me for a time of my reason, and I remember nothing definitely until I recovered to find myself in a prison cell, branded as a felon, and doomed to years of confinement.
“When at last, after five years’ imprisonment, the full realization of my position was brought home to me, I swore a bitter and terrible oath of vengeance on the woman who had dragged me down to the lowest depths of degradation, on her and her offspring forever.
“I was allowed a limited communication with friends in the outside world, who had known and respected me in the days of my prosperity, and from them I learned that Evelyn, who had succeeded in obtaining a divorce from me, had married a retired merchant named Oscar Hilton, and was living the luxurious life of which she had been always so fond.
“From these friends, also, I learned that she had given birth, some two months previous to her marriage with Hilton, to a female child, to whom, after her usual romantic notions, she had given the name of Cleopatra’s handmaiden, Iris.
“I believed at the time, as I believe now, that you, Iris, are my child as surely as you are Evelyn Hilton’s, and I claim an equal right to your obedience.
“I have no love for you, I must tell you frankly; you are too much like the woman who has cursed my life, and made me the reckless wretch I am to-day. You are beautiful as a siren, with the fatal beauty that lured me to destruction, and I have resolved that you shall never betray a good man’s trust as your mother betrayed mine.
“You are my child, Iris Trisilian, and you shall stay with me and do my bidding; nay, it is useless for you to glance so significantly toward the door—as well might a bird hope to escape the toils of a charmer, as you expect to leave my care.”
The man who had called himself Charles Broughton took forcible possession of the girl’s hands now, and attempted to seat her in the chair near which she stood; but at this moment the sound of low knocking on the door interrupted him.
Something in the expression of her face half frightened Charles Broughton, and grasping her arm almost rudely, he whispered:
“Do not contradict anything I say, no matter how far I may depart from the truth. Do not dare to carry out the defiance your looks express, if you would not have me brand you as the daughter of a felon—and not only the child of a forger, but of an escaped convict. Say one word to betray me, and the proud aristocrat who has declared his love for you—the haughty Chester St. John, who is so proud of his spotless reputation and ancient lineage—shall know you as the offspring of Carleton Tresilian. Ah, I think that was some one knocking on the door—come in!” And Charles Broughton threw himself negligently into a chair at some distance from Iris, who was sitting now with her head thrown back among the cushions of an easy-chair, her hands locked tightly together in her lap, and those terrible words to which she had listened a moment before repeating themselves over and over again in her tortured brain—“the child of an escaped convict.”