The man she hated

Neither Fair nor her mother had heard any footstep at the door, and the loud, sudden rap startled them so that Mrs. Fielding fell back on her pillow with a cry of alarm, and Fair dropped the little brown hat she was about to place on her curly head, and started violently as she called out:

“Who is there?”

No answer came, but a hand grasped the handle of the door and shook it rudely. It was locked, however, and Fair made no motion to open it, but called out as before:

“Who is there? Is it Sadie Allen?”

A loud, angry voice answered sharply:

“It is I—your husband! Open the door, and let me in.”

“I will not!” the girl answered defiantly, although her slight frame trembled, and she instinctively glanced at the bed.

To her horror and distress, she heard her mother gasp despairingly:

“Oh, I remember all! Fair is married to that wretch! There is nothing but misery and despair in store for my darling,” and, with the last words, she fell back and lay still and white, as she had done the night before.

“Come, none of your airs, madam! I am your master, and I command that you open the door at once!” sounded the angry, threatening voice outside, ending with a bitter oath.

Springing to the door, the hunted, desperate girl answered hoarsely:

“Oh, go away, I beg of you! My mother is ill, and she will die of excitement unless you cease your persecutions.”

George Lorraine began to coax and wheedle, but she interrupted him in impatient wrath:

“You are wasting your breath. I hate you, and will never recognize any tie you may claim to exist between us. The door is locked, and I will never admit you, so go away and leave me to care for my poor, sick mother.”

She heard an oath, coupled with a threat to break the door down, but she paid no heed. She had darted to her mother’s side, and was anxiously bending over the silent form.

“Mother!” she shrieked aloud, in fear and terror, for the aspect of her mother filled her with wild foreboding.

Mrs. Fielding’s eyes were wide open, and her lower jaw had fallen, while her face and hands already had a cold, clammy feeling that forced the truth on the almost distracted daughter. The poor, feeble heart had given way under the shock of fear and grief, and she was dead.

While Fair was making this awful discovery, George Lorraine, who had fortified himself for this occasion by a copious libation of whisky, was trying what brute strength could do toward forcing an entrance to the presence of his obdurate bride.

With a few vigorous kicks, he forced the lock of the frail door, and precipitated himself into the room, boldly followed by several of the inmates of the house, who had been attracted by the uproar he made.

And what a sight met their curious eyes!

The dead woman lay extended on the bed, and at their entrance poor Fair lifted a wild, white, agonized face from her mother’s breast, and, seeing George Lorraine’s flushed, triumphant face, she advanced toward him, screaming wildly:

“Arrest him! Arrest that fiend, for he has killed my mother!”

There was a wild hubbub of cries in the room, and George Lorraine saw lying on the pillow, in all the awful majesty of death, the face that only yesterday had smiled upon him with a mother’s pride. The change was so swift and sudden that his limbs shook beneath him, and a cold sweat started out upon his forehead. Like one dazed, he heard Fair going on wildly:

“He came to the door and ordered me to open it, and I begged him to go away, because mamma was sick with her heart, and I feared the excitement would kill her. But he only cursed me, and when I ran to look at her she was dead.”

George Lorraine, recovering somewhat from the first shock of his surprise, answered sullenly:

“Why didn’t you open the door, then, without making such a fuss? You are my wife, and I had a right to come in,” and, turning to the gaping group in the room, he added: “We were married last night, and she ran away from me because she found out I wasn’t as rich as she expected, and I came this morning to take her home with me—and, by Heaven, I will, for I mean to tame the little shrew.”

It had suddenly occurred to him that it was a good thing for him that Mrs. Fielding was dead. It would be easier to cope with her daughter.

But the bereaved daughter was glaring at him with the rage of a tigress bereaved of her young, and still crying madly:

“Won’t some one bring a policeman and take him to prison? He has killed my mother.”

A big, stout Irishwoman, who was looking in at the door called out lustily:

“Arrah, my poor lamb, that will I bring a policeman this minute if sumbuddy will howld the spalpeen till I gits back,” and she stumped out into the hall on her coarse brogans, while George Lorraine, with his senses half stupefied by drink, gave way to a maudlin terror, and, dashing by the astonished group, made good his escape.

A motherly old woman led the half-crazed orphan from the scene, and soothed her tenderly, while others cared for the mortal remains of the dead woman.

Some one had brought in a passing physician, and he had told them that Mrs. Fielding had died of heart failure.

Fair’s first request, as soon as she could think coherently, was for her dearest friend, Sadie Allen, to be sent for. She came at once, full of surprise and grief, and Fair threw herself into those sympathizing arms with an outburst of passionate grief.

“Oh, Sadie, I am too poor even to bury her!” she sobbed. “We spent the last penny buying those wretched clothes. Do you think that we could sell them? Yes, and the furniture, too? I had rather sleep upon the bare boards than that my mother should be buried in Potter’s field.”

“She shall not be buried there, Fair. Leave everything to me,” answered her friend consolingly; and she kept her word, although to accomplish it Fair’s wedding dress and hat, and also the furniture, had to be sold.

“But she will not need the furniture, for she can come and room with me, and as for clothes, I would have tried to save them if she had prized them; but she said she would always hate the sight of that hat and dress,” Sadie said to the girls at the factory, among whom she took up a small collection to defray the expenses of the funeral.

The girls contributed willingly, for Fair was a favorite with the majority of them, and had no enemies except those who envied her for her lovely face. Even Belva Platt, rather abashed by the tragedy that had followed on the heels of her wicked plot, offered Sadie a dollar; but the gift was indignantly refused, and Sadie remarked bitterly:

“You helped to dig her grave, Miss Platt, so we will excuse you from any further contribution.”

“Don’t be a fool, Sadie Allen!” was the sharp and rude retort, and the embroiderer tossed her head and returned to her work, although a slight chill ran over her, for she knew that Sadie’s words were true. In a metaphorical way, she had, indeed, helped to dig a grave for the poor woman, who might have lived many years but for last night’s work.

Belva had not counted on such an end as this when she had planned her clever revenge on Fair Fielding. She had expected that Fair would live with the husband who had deceived her, and that her mother’s pride and ambition would be brought low. Also that Waverley Osborne would be cured of his passion for Fair and return to her side. But, though her plot had worked well, the ending did not please her.

Mrs. Fielding’s pride had been brought low, it was true—low as the grave. But Fair had refused to live with her ignoble husband, and Waverley Osborne, far from returning to his old allegiance, had tacitly espoused Fair’s side, for, having heard from the sewing girls of her shameful plot, he had passed Belva that morning without speaking, and his contempt had rankled bitterly in her heart all day.