CHAPTER XXIX.
“MY OWN HONOR MADE ME KEEP THE AWFUL SECRET.”
“Lena Lavarre!” cried Violet, with a start and shudder, and the woman shrank away still farther.
“You have heard my name—my story! You shrink from me!” she cried, humbly.
“No, no, my poor girl, I pity you!” cried Violet, and held out her hand.
Lena Lavarre took it in both her own and kissed it gratefully; then continued:
“You know that I eloped with Harold Castello and was deceived by a mock marriage in Chicago and then deserted. You know that my father pursued the villain and was murdered by him. You witnessed the deed, lady, for I heard you declare as much to Harold Castello. You taunted him with the ruin of an innocent girl and the murder of her father.”
“It is true. I was a witness to that old man’s death at Harold Castello’s hands,” shuddered Violet, turning deadly pale, and almost swooning again at the recollection.
“Oh, lady, why did you not denounce the murderer, for your evidence would have convicted him? Why did you let the case baffle all Chicago and remain a mystery to this day, when you should have brought that fiend to justice?” almost wept Lena Lavarre.
Violet flushed crimson, then grew deadly pale again.
“I did wrong in keeping silence, Miss Lavarre, but I will tell you how it was. My own safety, my own honor, made me keep the awful secret.”
“Your honor, lady?”
“Yes; but you must not believe evil of me,” answered Violet, crimsoning painfully again. She added: “I happened to be in Harold Castello’s company by an accident that I will fully explain at another time. But my situation was a terribly compromising one, and when I became unwittingly a witness of the murder, Harold Castello threatened to blacken my name irretrievably if I dared to betray him. I was young and innocent, and terribly afraid of the world’s verdict, so I kept his secret, and let that old man’s blood cry out in vain against his destroyer for the sake of my own good name.”
“But you are sorry you did not risk it all, lady, now that you see what a terrible fate it brought on you. And it is not yet too late. I will help you to escape, and you shall denounce him to the law for the black-hearted murderer that he is!”
A terrible groan was Violet’s only reply, and Lena continued, eagerly:
“Oh, lady, you will not surely refuse my prayer, for I have sworn to bring home justice to my father’s slayer! And you are the only one who can help me! Oh, when I heard you taunting him to-night my soul rejoiced, for I knew that now I was near to my revenge—that Heaven itself had sent you to my aid.”
“Oh, this is dreadful, dreadful!” sobbed Violet. “Hush, Miss Lavarre; let me explain.”
“Oh, for sweet pity’s sake do not refuse me!” wept Lena Lavarre, wildly.
“But, my poor, unhappy girl, you do not understand my position. He has married me, that fiend, to keep me silent, because no wife can testify against her husband. Do you not know that this is the law?” explained Violet, her heart racked with pity for the wronged girl, and stung with remorse for the silence she had kept too long, and which now could never be broken.
The rage and despair of poor Lena Lavarre were beyond description.
She paced up and down the beautiful apartment, raving in excitement and breathing maledictions on her destroyer and the murderer of her father. Her beautiful brown eyes, once so soft and tender with the light of love, now glared wildly, almost insanely, and she seemed to forget Violet entirely until she crept timidly to her side, and whispered:
“Is it not time for us to go if we hope to escape our enemy?”
“Yes, oh, yes—I was forgetting everything in my passion! Come, lady,” cried Lena, catching the girl’s hand and drawing her softly forward to the hall, “you must go as noiselessly as a cat,” she continued, as they stole along the corridors and down the stairs to a little side entrance.
“I have found a key to this door,” whispered Lena. “The master did not trust me very much, although I expatiated loudly on my fidelity. But, all the same, he locked us all into the house before he left. But I had this key ready before he arrived with his bride to-night, for I meant you to escape. I did not trust his story of a crazy wife who would swear that she had been carried off against her will. Step softly, dear, lest Monsieur Cook catch our footsteps as he dozes in the kitchen. There!” and with a sigh of relief, she pushed the fugitive bride out before her into the moonlighted garden.
She drew Violet quickly along in the shade of some dense shrubberies.
“Do you see that high stone wall? We shall have to scale it, because that cunning fox has locked the gate and carried off the key. Do you dare it?”
“I should dare it if almost certain death awaited me on the other side, so that I escaped my enemy!” Violet whispered, dauntlessly.
“Bravo! Come, then, for it may not be so dangerous in the ascent. I know there is an old step-ladder close by. Now, then, we go up easily enough, and drop down on the other side. There is the risk in the descent. Let us pray Heaven to save us.”
“Amen!” murmured Violet, as she poised her lithe form on the wall for the spring.
“Let me go first. Perhaps I can catch you,” cried Lena Lavarre; but both of them landed almost simultaneously on the yielding grass of the field at the back of the wall.