The Unseen Bridegroom; Or, Wedded For a Week

HUGH INGELOW KEEPS HIS PROMISE.

Mrs. Susan Sharpe was up with the lark, or, rather, with the sea-gulls whirling and shrieking out on the tossing waters. The early morning sun streamed in the little chamber; the wind wailed plaintively still, and the dull tramp, tramp of the multitudinous waves kept up their ceaseless refrain.

All was yet still in the lone farmhouse—no living thing was stirring, not even the rats, that had held high carnival all night. Down in the back yard and front garden, Tiger and Nero prowled about their beat, surlily growling at the tossing trees, and were monarchs of all they surveyed.

Mrs. Sharpe was not an imaginative person, luckily. She got up and made her toilet, and splashed herself briskly in a basin of cold water. The effect of these ablutions was singular—they effected a total cure of her inflamed eyelids.

More singular still, a wig of red hair stood on the dressing-table, and Mrs. Sharpe's cranium was adorned with a respectable growth of dark, glossy, brown hair.

"If they only saw me now," said Mrs. Sharpe to herself, with a chuckle, "I rather think they'd open their old eyes!"

She went to work artistically—reddened her eyelids over again, carefully adjusted her wig, set her cap on it, fixed her spectacles on her nose, and surveyed herself complacently in the cracked chimney-glass.

"You'll do," said Mrs. Sharpe, nodding familiarly to her image: "You're as ugly as if somebody had bespoke you. I only wonder how that little unfortunate can take to such a looking object—and she does take to me, poor dear! And now I'll write to him. He's sure to be along in the course of the morning."

Taking from her capacious pocket a blank-book and a lead-pencil, Mrs. Susan Sharpe sat down and wrote.

And this is what Mrs. Sharpe wrote:

"She's here, and safe and well, and don't know me no more than the dead. But I can't get her out. Two old women and one old man are on the watch all day long. I daren't sneeze but they know it. And before they go off the watch there's two big, savage dogs goes on, and prowl about all night. I don't know what to do; tell me. She's awful down-hearted, and cries and goes on. I heard your whistle last night. Her room is next to mine—the windows to the left. If you walk on the beach she'll see you; she sits at the window all day. Doctor O. is going to Cuba in a week, and going to take her with him; so you had better be quick."

Mrs. Sharpe read her own composition over two or three times, with a satisfied look.

"I think that will do," she murmured. "Trust him to find a way out of a fix, and we're in a fix now, if there ever was one. Drat the dogs! If it wasn't for them I could get on myself."

Mrs. Sharpe was not a rapid scribe. It had taken her a considerable while to write this, and the household was astir. She folded it up in the smallest possible dimensions, and wedged it into her thimble.

"A brass thimble makes a good, strong envelope," said the nurse, with a grim smile. "And now to begin my day's work."

She quitted her own apartment and went into that of her charge. Mollie was still asleep—sleeping like a babe, with lips apart, and cheeks softly flushed, and loose, golden hair falling in burnished masses over the pillow. Involuntarily Mrs. Sharpe paused.

"She looks like a picture," she thought. "No wonder he's crazy in love."

The sound of the opening door awoke the light sleeper. She rose up on her elbow and stared around. The nurse advanced with a propitiatory smile.

"Good-morning, miss," she said, cheerfully. "I hope you had a nice sleep."

"Oh, is it you?" said Mollie. "I was dreaming I was back home with guardy, and Sir Roger, and poor Hugh, and here I am still. Oh!" in a voice of bitter anguish, "why did you awake me?"

"My poor dear," said the nurse, touched, "I didn't know, you know, or I wouldn't. There! don't think about it now, but get up, like a good girl, and wash and dress yourself, and have your breakfast comfortable. Things won't be always like this, you know."

Mollie looked wistfully at her, but Mrs. Sharpe wasn't going to commit herself, with no certainty but that listening ears were at the door.

She assisted the poor prisoner with her toilet, combed out and curled the beautiful, abundant hair, and made her as pretty as a picture.

"She's lost her rosy cheeks, and is failed away to nothing," mused the nurse. "Only for that, she'd be the loveliest thing the sun shines on."

"And now you're fixed, my pretty dear," said Mrs. Sharpe, "I'll go down and get your breakfast. Nobody ever feels right in the morning on an empty stomach."

Down in the kitchen, Mrs. Sharpe found things in a lively state of preparation—coffee boiling, steak broiling, toast making, and muffins baking. Old Sally, in a state threatening spontaneous combustion, bent over the fire, and Mrs. Oleander, in her rocking-chair, superintended.

"Are you only getting up now?" asked the doctor's mother, suspiciously.

"Been up these two hours, ma'am," responded Mrs. Sharpe. "I tidied up myself and my room, and then tidied up Miss Dane and her'n. I came down to fetch up her breakfast."

"It's all ready," said Sally. "Fetch along your tray."

So Susan Sharpe fetched along her tray, and received a bountiful supply of coffee and toast, and steak and muffins.

"There's nothing like plenty of good victuals for curing the vapors," observed Sally, sagely. "You make the young woman eat this, Mrs. Sharpe, and she'll feel better, you'll see."

Mrs. Sharpe smiled, as she bore off her burden, at the idea Sally must have of one little girl's appetite.

She found Mollie sitting at the window gazing at the sea, sparkling as if sown with stars, in the morning sunshine.

"Is it not beautiful?" she said, turning to the nurse. "Oh, if I were only free once more—free to have a plunge in that snow-white surf—free to have a breezy run along that delightful beach this magnificent morning?"

Mrs. Sharpe set down her tray, looked cautiously around her, lowered her voice, fixed her green-spectacled eyes meaningly on Mollie's face, and uttered these remarkable words:

"Wait! You may be free before long!"

"What do you mean?" cried Mollie, starting violently.

"Hush! 'Sh! 'sh!" laying her hand over the girl's mouth. "Not a word. Walls have ears, in prisons. Take your breakfast, miss," raising her voice. "It will do you no good, acting ugly and not eating."

For the stairs had creaked under a cautious, ascending footstep, and Mrs. Sharpe had heard that creak.

So, too, had Mollie this time; and she turned her shining eyes in eloquent silence to Mrs. Sharpe, and Mrs. Sharpe had nodded, and smiled, and grimaced toward the door in a way that spoke volumes.

"I'm going down to get my breakfast, now," she said, authoritatively. "Let me see what you'll have done by the time I get back."

The stairs were creaking again. Mrs. Sharpe did not hurry too much, and Mrs. Oleander, all panting, was back in her rocker when she re-entered the kitchen, trying very hard to look as though she had never left it.

"And how's your patient to-day, Mrs. Sharpe?" she asked, as soon as she could properly get her wind.

"Much the same," said Mrs. Sharpe, with brevity; "wants to starve herself to death, crying in spells, and making a time. Let me help you."

This to Sally, who was scrambling to get half a dozen things at once on the table. Mrs. Sharpe came to the rescue with a practiced hand, and upon the entrance of old Peter, who had been out chaining up the dogs, the quartet immediately sat down to breakfast.

After breakfast, the new nurse again made herself generally useful in the kitchen, helped Sally, who was inclined to give out at the knees, to "red up," washed dishes and swept the floor with a brisk celerity worthy of all praise.

And then, it being wash-day, she whipped up her sleeves, displaying two lusty, round arms, and fell to with a will among the soiled linens and steaming soap-suds.

"I may as well do something," she said, brusquely, in answer to Mrs. Oleander's very faint objections; "there's nothing to do upstairs, and she doesn't want me. She only calls me names."

So Mrs. Susan Sharpe rubbed, and wrung, and soaped, and pounded, and boiled, and blued for three mortal hours, and then there was a huge basket of clothes all ready to go on the line.

"Now, ma'am," said this priceless treasure, "if you'll just show me the clothes-line, I'll hang these here out."

Mrs. Oleander pointed to two long ropes strung at the lower end of the back yard, and Susan Sharpe, hoisting the basket, set off at once to hang them to dry.

The two old women watched her from the window with admiring eyes.

"She's a noble worker!" at last said old Sally. "She 'minds me of the time when I was a young girl myself. Dearie me! It went to my heart to see her rubbing them sheets and things as if they were nothing."

"And I think she's to be trusted, too," said Mrs. Oleander. "She talks as sharp to that girl as you or I, Sally. I shouldn't mind if we had her here for good."

Meantime, the object of all this commendation had marched across the yard, and proceeded scientifically to hang the garments on the line. But all the while the keen eyes inside the green spectacles went roving about, and alighted presently on something that rewarded her for her hard day's work.

It was a man emerging from the pine woods, and crossing the waste strip of marshland that extended to the farm.

A high board fence separated the back yard from this waste land, and but few ever came that way.

The man wore the dress and had the pack of a peddler, and a quantity of tow hair escaped from under a broad-brimmed hat. The brown face was half hidden in an enormous growth of light whiskers.

"Can it be?" thought Susan, with a throbbing heart. "I darsn't speak, for them two old witches are watching from the window."

Here the peddler espied her, and trolled out, in a rich, manly voice:

"My father he has locked the door,
My mother keeps the key:
But neither bolts nor bars shall part
My own true love and me."

"It is him!" gasped Mrs. Susan Sharpe. "Oh, good gracious!"

"Good-day to you, my strapping, lass. How do you find yourself this blessed morning?"

Susan Sharpe knew there were listening ears and looking eyes in the kitchen, and for their benefit she retorted:

"It's no business of yours how I am! Be off with you! We don't allow no vagrants here!"

"But I ain't a vagrant, my duck o' diamonds. I'm a respectable Yankee peddler, trying to turn an honest penny by selling knickknacks to the fair sect. Do let me in, there's a pretty dear! You hain't no idee of the lovely things I've got in my pack—all dirt cheap, too!"

"I don't want nothing," said Mrs. Susan Sharpe.

"But your ma does, my love, or your elder sister, which I see 'em at the winder this minute. Now do go, there's a lamb, and ask your ma if I mayn't come in."

Mrs. Sharpe dropped her basket in a pet and stalked back to the house.

"It's a peddler-man," she said, crossly, "a-wanting to come in. I told him he couldn't, and it's of no use; and the best thing you can do is to set the dogs on him."

"No, no!" cried Mrs. Oleander, shrilly. "Let him come in. I like peddlers. Go with her, Sally, and tell the man to come round to the garden gate."

"I'll tell him," said Susan Sharpe, stalking out again. "Let Sally go and open the gate."

She marched across the yard and addressed the "perambulating merchant."

"You're to go round to the front gate. This way. I've a note for you in my thimble. I'll drop the thimble in your box."

The first half of Mrs. Sharpe's speech was given for the benefit of Mrs. Oleander's greedy ears—the latter half, hurriedly and in a low voice, for his own.

The sagacious peddler nodded, struck up a second stave of his ditty, and trudged round to the front gate.

Mrs. Sharpe finished hanging out the clothes before she re-entered the kitchen. When she did, there sat the peddler displaying his wares, and expatiating volubly on their transcendent merits. And there stood Sally and Mrs. Oleander, devouring the contents of the box with greedy eyes.

It is not in the heart of women—country women, particularly—to resist the fascinations of the peddler's pack.

Mrs. Oleander and her old servant were rather of the strong-minded order; but their eyes glistened avariciously, for all that, at the display of combs, and brushes, and handkerchiefs, and ribbons, and gaudy prints, and stockings, and cotton cloth, and all the innumerables that peddlers do delight in.

"This red-and-black silk handkerchief, ma'am," the peddler was crying, holding up a gay square of silk tartan, "is one fifty, and dirt cheap at that. Seein' it's you, ma'am, however, I'll take a dollar for it. Wuth two—it is, by ginger! Sold three dozens on 'em down the village, and got two dollars apiece for 'em, every one."

"I'll take it at a dollar," said Mrs. Oleander. "Sally, that piece of brown merino would just suit you."

"Makes up lovely, ma'am," said the peddler, turning to Sally; "only four dollars for the hull piece. Jest feel of it—soft as a baby's skin. Halloo! miss, what can I do for you?"

This last to Susan Sharpe, who had set down her basket, and was looking on.

"Nothing," replied Susan, with asperity.

"Oh, now, don't you say that!" exclaimed this persuasive man; "you do want suthin'—lots o' things—I kin see it in them air sparklin' eyes o' your'n. What makes you wear green glasses. See here, I've blue, and white, and fancy colors, with silver straddles for the nose. Do look at 'em—there's a love!"

Mrs. Oleander laughed, and Mrs. Sharpe so far unbent her austerity as to kneel down and begin rummaging the miscellaneous articles.

The peddler's quick eye never left her hands; and when he heard the tiny click of something falling, an intelligent flash shot from him to the obnoxious green glasses.

"I want a thimble," said Mrs. Sharpe, with phlegm. "I've lost mine. How much do you ask for these here, mister?"

"Three cents apiece."

Susan paid down the three cents, pocketed the brass thimble, and slowly rose.

"No more to sell to-day," said the peddler, bundling up with celerity. "So you won't take the brown, ma'am? Sorry we can't make a trade; but I'll run up again to-morrow with a new lot, and I've no doubt we can strike a bargain. Good-morning, ladies."

With which Mr. Peddler shouldered his pack and trudged away, singing. Old Peter let him out, and locked the gate after, and watched him out of sight. The peddler ceased his song the moment he was out of hearing, struck into the woods the instant he was out of sight, and flinging his pack on the grass, tore it open.

He had not long to search—Mrs. Sharpe's tarnished old thimble was conspicuous enough among his glistening new ones. He fished it up, poked out the crumpled bit of paper, and slowly read it through. When read, he tore it into fifty morsels, and scattered them in a white shower all about. Then, with knitted brows and compressed lips, he sat and thought and thought for a full hour.

Meanwhile, matters went on smoothly behind him. Mrs. Sharpe, having finished the washing, and quite won the hearts of the two old women by her workmanlike manner, prepared her patient's dinner, and brought it up.

On this occasion Mrs. Oleander undertook to accompany her. They found that refractory patient at her usual post—the window—gazing with dreamy, empty eyes over the ceaseless sea.

Susan Sharpe was strictly on her guard; her austere face never unbent, and Mollie took her cue once more.

"Here's your dinner miss," she said, briefly; "is there anything I can do for you?"

"Nothing," replied Mollie, sullenly. "Only leave me alone. I never want to see either of your ugly old faces."

She turned her back upon them as she spoke, and never turned round until they had quitted the room.

"She's a little imp, if there ever was a little imp yet," said Mrs. Oleander, spitefully. "Does she always treat you like that?"

"Worse, mostly," said the imperturbable Susan; "but, la! I don't mind; I'm used to 'em."

"Do you think she'll ever get better?"

"I think it's very likely, ma'am," responded Mrs. Sharpe. "Your cross ones are always the likeliest. But, of course, I can't say."

All that long afternoon Mollie was left quite alone. Mrs. Sharpe never came near her. This indifference on the part of the nurse quite disarmed Mrs. Oleander's suspicions. If she had any wish to carry favor with her son's patient, or help her to escape, surely she would not sit there in the kitchen, hemming her new silk handkerchief, all the while. That was what Susan did, however, and the weary, weary hours of the warm, sunny day wore blankly on the poor, lone Mollie.

The horrible stillness of the place seemed driving her mad. The endless monotony of the waves rolling up on the beach was growing unendurable. The wild waste of sparkling-waters, ending in the low horizon line, wearied her eyes like the sands of the desert.

"I shall lose all the little reason I ever had if I am kept in this howling desolation much longer," she said, pressing her hands to her throbbing temples. "Oh! to shut out this mocking sunshine—to lose sight of this dreary waste, where no living thing comes! Oh, to get away from that horrible sea! If I could only die and end it all! But I live on, and live on where others would be happier and find death."

She sighed wearily, and looked across at the radiant western sky, gorgeous with the coming sunset.

"What did that woman mean? Did she mean anything? Yes, I am sure she did, and she has come here to help me to escape. Oh, Heaven have pity, and grant me freedom once more!"

She clasped her hands and sat there like one out of herself, while the moments wore on. Purple and gold made the western sky luminous with glory, and when the gorgeous flames were at their brightest, and the sea turning to a lake of blood-red fire, a little white boat, with a blue pennant flying, shot out of the red light and drifted close to the shore.

Mollie fixed her eyes on this tiny skiff—why, she could not have told. Boats passed and repassed often enough, but seldom so close to the shore. The beauty of the little bark attracted her, nestling as it did like a white dove on the water, and that fairy azure banner flying.

A solitary figure sat in the boat, his face turned her way; but the distance was too great for her to distinguish that face. A word in white letters she could see on the blue flag; but again the distance was too great for her to distinguish. She sat and watched and watched, until the opening of the door startled her. She turned round and saw Susan Sharpe—this time alone.

"Look there!" said Mollie, obeying a sudden impulse; "did you ever see anything so pretty?"

The nurse looked—bent her brows and looked again. Her face flushed—she caught her breath.

"Who is the man?" she asked, hurriedly, lowly.

"I don't know," in the same breathless way. "He is watching here—but the distance is so great. Oh, nurse—"

She did not finish the sentence, but with hands clasped and lips parted, stood looking imploringly in the woman's face.

"Wait a minute," said Mrs. Susan Sharpe; "there is no one on the watch this time, thank the Lord! Mrs. Oleander's down with the toothache."

She left the room—was absent in her own two or three minutes—then returned with a pocket telescope in her hand.

"Try this," she said, quietly; "it's small, but it's powerful."

She put it in the girl's hand. Mollie turned eagerly to the window—the boat and the man were near enough now. The word on the blue flag was Hope; the face of the man was still toward her, true as the needle to the north star. With the first look she recognized it. A low cry of amaze, and she dropped the glass, and stood all trembling with the sudden joyful shock.

For it was the face she had sighed for, day-time and night time—it was the man she loved. It was Hugh Ingelow.

MRS. SHARPE DOES HER DUTY.

"You know that man, miss?" Mrs. Sharpe said, ineffably calm, stooping to pick up the glass.

Mollie turned to her with eyes wild and wide.

"I know him—yes. And you—Oh, for pity's sake, say you know him, too!"

"How on earth can I say so until I've seen him?" said Mrs. Sharpe, poising her glass and clapping her eye to it, one hand over the other, after the fashion of the sex.

She took a long look.

"Well?" Mollie panted.

Mrs. Susan Sharpe turned to her with a singular smile—a smile that made luminous the sallow face and glorified the green spectacles.

Just then the stairs creaked under a cautious, ascending tread.

"It's Sally," said Mrs. Sharpe, not moving a muscle. "Eat your supper, and keep your eyes off the window if she comes in. Keep up heart, and think of the word on the blue banner—hope."

She turned away and abruptly opened the door as she spoke. There stood old Sally, with the eyes of a watching cat.

"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed the ancient handmaiden of Mrs. Oleander, very much discomposed by this abrupt proceeding. "How you do startle a body with your quick ways! Is Mrs. Oleander in here?"

"No," said Susan. "How could Mrs. Oleander be here when I left her, five minutes ago, half crazy with toothache?"

"Well, she left the kitchen after you, and came up, and I thought she might have dropped in to see the young woman," fibbed Sally. "How is she?"

"Suppose you drop in and see for yourself," responded the nurse, provoked into being pert to her elders. "Miss Dane, here's a visitor for you."

Mollie turned round from the table, where she sat taking her evening meal.

"I don't want you or your visitors, Mrs. Sharpe, if that be your name," said the irascible patient. "You're all a set of old tabby cats together, and if you don't clear out, I'll fling something at your head!"

She bounced from her chair as she spoke and brandished the tea-pot.

With a howl of dismay, old Sally turned tail and fled incontinently. Just waiting to exchange one approving glance with her patient, the nurse thought it prudent to follow her example.

This little incident had one salutary effect. It frightened Sally out of her feeble old wits, confirming, as it did, Dr. Guy's fable of the periodical fits of madness to which the young lady was prone. She related to her mistress, in shrill falsetto, what had occurred.

"And if ever I go near the crazy little hussy again, as long as she's under this roof," concluded Sally, wildly, "I'm a Dutchman!"

"Weren't you frightened?" Mrs. Oleander asked, turning to the nurse.

"Oh, not much!" said the serene Susan. "I'm used to it, you know. I could have dodged if she had heaved the tea-pot. She takes them tantrums once or twice a day."

Mollie spent the evening alone, of course, but in despair no longer. Hope had planted her shining foot on the threshold of her heart, and for the time she could forget she was the most miserable wife of Dr. Oleander, in the face of freedom. And Hugh Ingelow was near, and she loved Hugh. Oh, if she had never refused him—bravest, noblest heart that ever beat! the most generous gentleman the Creator ever made!

Alone Mollie sat—alone, but lonely no longer; for yonder, drifting lazily into the setting tide, the sunset glowing above and around it, floated the snow-white skift. In the amber mist fluttered the banner of blue—the banner of hope—and there, lounging easily, with his face turned to her, was the man she loved, handsome Hugh! her beloved—her darling!

"And, oh! that I were by his side," Mollie exclaimed, in her rhapsody, "never, never to leave it again."

Solitude and imprisonment had done this willful child some good, you see. They had taught her to think—to know herself. She never could be the same crude, madcap Mollie again.

The last, low, yellow gleam died out of the sunset—slowly crept up the twilight, palely, gemmed with stars. A round, red moon showed its crimson disk above the silvery horizon line, whitening as it arose, until it trailed a flood of crystal radiance over the purple bosom of the sleeping sea. And still Mollie sat there, watching the shining stars creep out, and still the fairy bark floated lazily with the drifting current. She could have sat there and watched him forever—her noble, gallant Hugh! But by and by, as the night wind grew chill, the little white boat, glided away and disappeared.

The entrance of Mrs. Sharpe, with her night-lamp, aroused Mollie from her trance. She turned eagerly round to greet her. Next to Hugh Ingelow, her hope now was in this mysterious woman.

Mrs. Sharpe closed the door carefully after her, set the lamp on the table, dropped the curtain, and then turned her face to Mollie. One look at that face told Mollie something had occurred.

"What is it?" she asked in a breathless whisper.

And Susan Sharpe, bending down, whispered hurriedly:

"Doctor Oleander is here."

Mollie barely repressed a cry. Susan Sharpe caught her, in alarm, by the shoulder.

"Hush! Are you crazy? Not a word. Yes, he's down-stairs—came half an hour ago. Don't look so frightened—he won't trouble you this time."

"This time," repeated Mollie, noticing the emphasis. "What do you mean?"

"That he was only run down to see how we get along, and to tell us to be all ready for an early start. We are going to Cuba."

"We?"

"Yes," with a grim smile and nod, "we. You, and me, and Doctor Oleander."

"Oh, nurse—"

"Hush! Hear me out—I can stay but a minute. He is going to take you to Cuba. His affairs are nearly arranged. He means to start on Friday night—this is Tuesday. A schooner will be in waiting at the wharf, in the village yonder. I am to go with you as attendant. He is very much pleased with me, and I have consented."

Mrs. Sharpe laughed softly.

"But, nurse—"

"Yes, yes; be still. We won't go—be sure of that. He wanted to come up to see you, but I told him he had better not, if he wanted to have you quiet when the time came. So he goes off again to-night without troubling you."

Mollie clasped her hands in thankfulness.

"How can I thank you? How good you are!"

"Thank me by going straight to bed and sleeping like a top. Let the thought that it is likely to be your last night under this accursed roof be your lullaby. And now I must go."

Mollie held up her rosy lips—tempting and sweet—and the woman stooped and kissed her.

"You are my best friend," Mollie said, simply. "God bless you!"

The woman smiled.

"Nay, the kiss and the blessing, if meant for your best friend, should have been kept for Hugh Ingelow. I but obey his orders."

Mollie turned radiantly red. Mrs. Susan Sharpe, with a significant smile at her own keenness, immediately quitted the room.

Dr. Oleander did not disturb Mollie. He departed half an hour after Mrs. Sharpe quitted her for the night. The account his mother and Sally gave of the nurse made him disposed to trust her.

"I will take her with me," he thought, "since she is so trustworthy. It would be too horribly dreary for Mollie without one companion of her own sex."

So he offered liberal terms, and Mrs. Sharpe closed with his offer readily enough.

"I'd as lief go to Cuba as not," she said, in her sedate way. "One place is the same as another to me. But it's very soon to be ready."

"Never mind," replied the doctor. "We'll find dry-goods stores in Havana, I dare say, and, meantime, I'll provide some ready-made things from New York."

Dr. Oleander departed very well satisfied. He would have liked very much to see Mollie, but his approach always threw her into such a fury, and he wanted her kept as quiet as possible until the hour of departure.

"I'll have to resort to the vulgar alternative of chloroform, I dare say," he thought. "She'll make a fight for it at the last. I can quiet her, however."

And so Dr. Oleander went back to New York without one suspicion that his new nurse was playing him false.

Within an hour after breakfast, the peddler presented himself next morning. Again Mrs. Oleander and Sally were vividly interested, and again each purchased something. Again Mrs. Sharpe said she wanted nothing, and again she knelt down to examine the contents of the pack. The peddler pressed his goods, Mrs. Sharpe obdurately declined. He persisted, Mrs. Sharpe grew angry.

"Take these here gloves, then, for massy sake!" cried the peddler in desperation, "ef yer won't take nothin' else. They're the richest of silk gloves, and, bein' it's you, only fifty cents. Just you feel 'em."

He looked Mrs. Sharpe full in the face. She took the gloves—a slip of paper was to be felt inside—a moment's demur, then she purchased and put them in her pocket.

The peddler departed; Mrs. Sharpe went upstairs, and drew forth the slip of paper. There were but three lines:

"Meet me this afternoon at two. I will be waiting in the woods near the shore, where you saw my boat yesterday. I know he was with you last night."

Mrs. Sharpe read this, destroyed it, and sat ruminating.

"What if they won't let me go? But no, they wouldn't dare keep me a prisoner, and if it came to fisticuffs," smiling to herself, "I could beat the three of them—poor old bodies! I'll go by strategy, if possible—by main force, if necessary. But I'll go."

Five minutes longer the nurse sat thinking. Then she arose, walked down-stairs, and complained drearily of a shocking bad headache.

Mrs. Oleander recommended a woman's cure—a cup of strong tea and going to bed. But Susan Sharpe shook her head.

"Tea never does me no good, and going to bed only makes me worse. I suppose it's staying in-doors so much. I ain't used to it. I always take a walk every afternoon. I'll wait and see if it gets better. If it don't, I'll go and take a little walk along the shore. A mouthful of fresh air will do me good."

Mrs. Sharpe waited accordingly, but the headache did not get better. On the contrary, it grew so much worse that when the one-o'clock dinner was ready, she was unable to eat a mouthful. She lay with her head on the table in a sort of stupor.

"I think you had better take a walk," said Mrs. Oleander, who was not an ill-natured old woman on the whole. "I don't want you to be laid up on our hands."

Mrs. Sharpe glanced at the clock; it wanted a quarter of two. She rose at once.

"I think I must, or I'll be fit for nothing for a week. I'll go and put on my things."

In five minutes, Susan Sharpe walked out of the garden gate and down to the shore. Old Peter closed the gate, watched her out of sight, and went back to the house, unsuspectingly.

Mrs. Sharpe sauntered slowly over the sandy beach to the strip of dark woods, skirted them, to avoid being seen from the windows of the house, and called:

"Mr. Ingelow."

"Here," answered a voice, and the peddler emerged from the trees and stood beside her. "You're a treasure, Mrs. Susan Sharpe," said the peddler—"worth your weight in crown diamonds. How is she?"

"As well as can be expected. A good deal the better for seeing you from her window last evening."

"I saw you both watching. She knows I have come to rescue her?"

"Of course. She is a woman."

"Does she recognize you?"

"No," with a laugh. "She called me her best friend last night. If she only knew!"

"She would still call you her best friend, perhaps. Your 'make-up' is a good one, Sarah, since she has failed to recognize you. What brought the doctor?"

Susan Sharpe briefly told him.

Mr. Ingelow whistled expressively.

"So soon? But I have thought so. He is not the man to wait. Well, we must be ahead of him, Sarah."

Sarah nodded.

"Yes—how?"

"I have it all arranged. Miss Dane must escape to-night. Look at this."

He pointed to a basket at his feet.

Mrs. Sharpe lifted the cover, and saw two lumps of raw beef.

"Well?" she asked, wonderingly.

"'A sop for Cerberus,'" laughed Hugh Ingelow; "a supper for the dogs. They'll never want another after."

"What do you mean?"

"The meat is poisoned; there is strychnine enough in these two pieces to kill a dozen dogs. I mean to throw that to them this evening."

"But how?"

"Over the wall, of course. What's their names? They'll come when I call them."

"Tiger and Nero."

"So be it. Tiger and Nero will devour the beef and ask no questions. An hour after they'll be as dead as two door-nails."

"Poor fellows! But it can't be helped, I suppose?"

"I suppose not. Save your sympathy, Sarah. You must do for the three old folks."

"Poison them, too?" asked Sarah, grimly.

"Not quite. Just put them to sleep."

"Indeed! How?"

Mr. Ingelow produced a little white paper from his vest pocket.

"You see this powder?" holding it up. "Drop it into the tea-pot this evening, and don't drink any of the tea."

The woman shrunk a little.

"I'm almost afraid, Mr. Ingelow. I don't like drugging. They're old and feeble; I daren't do it."

"You must do it," Hugh Ingelow said, sternly. "I tell you there is no danger. Do you take me for a murderer?"

"No; but there might be a mistake."

"There is none. The powder is an opiate; it will harm no one. They will go to sleep a little earlier, and sleep a little longer and a little sounder than usual—that is all."

Mrs. Sharpe took the paper, but with evident reluctance.

"I tell you it is all right," reiterated Hugh Ingelow; "no one is to be murdered but the dogs. Doctor Oleander will have no scruple about drugging Miss Dane on Friday night, you will see. The choice lies between her and them. Are you going to fail me at the last, Sarah?" sternly.

"No," said the woman. She dropped the little package in her pocket, and looked him firmly in the face. "I'll do it, Mr. Ingelow. And then?"

"And then the dogs will be dead, and the people asleep, before ten o'clock. At ten I'll be at the gate; a vehicle will be waiting down below in the clump of cedars. You will open the house door and the garden gate, and let me in. Before another day we'll be in the city."

"So be it. And now," said Mrs. Sharpe, drawing her shawl around her, "I must go. I came to walk off a bad headache; I find it is gone, so I had better return."

"Good-bye, and God speed you!" said Hugh Ingelow.

Mrs. Sharpe walked back to the house. Old Peter admitted her, and all three were solicitous about her headache.

"Much better," Mrs. Sharpe said, quietly. "I knew that walk would cure it."

All the rest of the afternoon she helped old Sally to manufacture pies. Tea-time came, and, ever willing, she volunteered to make the tea.

"Do so," said old Sally. "I can't abear to take my hands out o' dough when they're into it."

The tea was made, the supper-table set, and then Mrs. Sharpe begged permission to make herself a cup of coffee.

"I find it better for my head than tea. It will cure me quite, I know."

Mrs. Oleander assented, and the coffee was made. The quartet sat down to supper, and Susan Sharpe felt an inward quaking as she watched them drink the tea. Mrs. Oleander complained that it was weak; Sally said it must have boiled, it had such a nasty taste; but they drank it for all that.

Supper over, Mrs. Sharpe brought up her patient's. But she carried her coffee, and left the doctored tea behind.

"We are to escape to-night," she said to Mollie. "Be ready. We will start at ten. Don't ask me to explain now. I feel nervous and am going down."

Before an hour had elapsed the drug began its work. Mrs. Oleander nodded over her knitting; Sally was drowsy over her dishes; Peter yawned audibly before the fire.

"I don't know what makes me so sleepy this evening," Mrs. Oleander said, gaping. "The weak tea, I suppose. Peter, close up early to-night; I think I'll go to bed."

"I'll let the dogs loose now," said Peter. "I'm blamed sleepy myself."

The old man departed. Very soon the hoarse barking of the dogs was heard as they scampered out of their kennel. Peter returned to find the two old women nodding in company.

"You had better go to bed," suggested Mrs. Sharpe. "I'm going myself. Good-night."

She quitted the kitchen. Mrs. Oleander, scarcely able to keep her eyes open, rose up also.

"I will go. I never felt so sleepy in my life. Good-night; Sally."

"Good-night," said Sally, drowsily. "I'll go after you."

Before the kitchen clock struck nine, sleep had sealed the eyelids of Mrs. Oleander and her servants more tightly than they were ever sealed before. And out in the yard, stiff and stark, lay Nero and Tiger. They had eaten the poisoned beef, and, like faithful sentinels, were dead at their posts.

A MOONLIGHT FLITTING.

The big Dutch clock on the kitchen mantel struck nine. The silence of the grave reigned within the house. With the first clear chime Mrs. Susan Sharpe rose from the bed on which she had thrown herself, dressed and prepared for action.

She drew the curtain and looked out. The night was celestial. A brilliant, full moon flooded the dark earth and purple sea with silvery radiance; the sky was cloudless—blue as Mollie Dane's eyes, the stars beyond number, big and bright.

A faint sea-breeze just stirred the swaying trees; the surf broke in a dull, monotonous wash on the shining strand; even the dreary Long Island farmhouse and its desolate surroundings were transfigured and glorified by the radiant moonlight.

Mrs. Susan Sharpe was an inestimable woman in her way, but neither a poet nor an artist. She gave a complacent glance at earth, and sky, and water, thankful that the benign influences, in the way of weather, were at work to aid them.

"It's a very nice night," murmured Mrs. Susan Sharpe. "Couldn't be better if they tried ever so much. It would have been dreadful awkward if it rained. How still the house is—like a tomb! Dear me, I hope there was no harm done by that drug! I must go and get ready at once."

But just at that moment she heard a sharp, shrill, prolonged whistle. She paused. An instant more and a man vaulted lightly over the high board fence.

"Lor'!" said Mrs. Sharpe, "if it isn't him already! I hope the dogs are done for."

It seemed as if they were, for, as she looked and listened, in considerable trepidation, the man approached the house in swift, swinging strides. Of course, it was the peddler. Mrs. Sharpe threw up her window and projected her head.

"Mr. Ingelow!"

"Halloo!"

The man halted and looked up.

"Where are the dogs?"

"In the dogish elysium, I hope. Dead and done for, Sarah. Come down, like a good girl, and let me in."

"I'm not sure that they're fast asleep."

"Oh, they are," said Hugh Ingelow, confidently, "if you administered the drug and they drank the tea."

"I did," said Mrs. Sharpe, "and they drank the tea and went to bed awful sleepy. If you think it's safe, I'll go down."

"All right. Come along."

Mrs. Sharpe lowered the sash and hurried down stairs. Bolts clattered, the lock creaked, but the sleepers in the house made no sign. A second or two and the nocturnal marauders were together in the hall.

"I told you it was safe," said Mr. Ingelow. "You are a woman in a thousand, Sarah, to manage so cleverly! Now, then, for Miss Dane! Upstairs, is it? Do you go in first, Sarah; but don't tell her I'm coming. I want the pleasure of surprising her myself."

Sarah smiled, and unlocked Mollie's door. The girl was sitting with an anxious, listening, expectant face. She rose up and turned around at the opening of the door.

"Is it you, nurse? Oh, I have been so uneasy! What noise was—"

She never finished the sentence—it died out in an inarticulate cry of joy. For Hugh Ingelow, his disguise torn off, stood in the door-way, smiling and serene as the god of safety himself.

Mollie Dane was a creature of impulse—she never stopped to think. One faint; suppressed cry, one bound forward, and she was in the young man's arms.

"Hugh! Hugh! Hugh!" she cried, hysterically, clinging to him, "save me! save me!"

It was the first time she had ever called him other than Mr. Ingelow. The young man's arms closed around her as if they never would open again.

"My darling, I have come to save you!"

It had all passed in five seconds, but that short interval was long enough for Mollie's womanly instincts to take the alarm. She disengaged herself, reddening violently. What would he think of her? and Mrs. Sharpe there, too!

"They have driven me nearly out of my senses!" she said, with a sort of choking sob. "I don't know what I am doing half the time, and I was so glad to see a friend's familiar face, Mr. Ingelow."

The blue eyes—the eyes of a very child—lifted themselves wistfully, deprecatingly, shining in tears. Hugh Ingelow was touched to the core of his heart.

"I know it, my poor little girl! It is enough to drive any one out of his senses. But let us see if we can't outwit the crafty Oleander. Put your bonnet on and come."

Mollie paused suddenly, and looked first at him, then at Mrs. Susan Sharpe, then back again.

"Well, Miss Dane," said Mr. Ingelow, "you're not afraid to come with me?"

"Afraid?" the blue eyes turned upon him with an eloquent glance. "Oh, no! But she—Mrs. Sharpe—"

"Is coming, too, of course, to play propriety," laughed Hugh. "Mrs. Sharpe," turning to that demure lady, "put on your fixings and let us fly!"

Mrs. Sharpe nodded, and turned to go into her own room.

"There's Miss Dane's things," she said, pointing to the pegs on which they hung. "I'll be back in two minutes."

Mr. Ingelow took them down, and tenderly wrapped the long mantle about the slender, girlish figure.

"Are you sure you will be warm enough, Mollie?—I beg your pardon—Miss Dane."

"Ah, call me Mollie!" the eloquent glance once more. "How good you are to me, Mr. Ingelow!"

Hugh Ingelow winced as if she had stabbed him.

"I'm a wretch—a brute—a heartless monster! That's what I am, Mollie, and you'll think so, too, some day—that's the worst of it. Don't wear that puzzled, frightened face, my darling! Heaven knows I would die for you!"

She took his hand and kissed it. Before either had time to speak, of course Mrs. Sharpe must happen in and spoil all.

But Hugh Ingelow, strange to say, looked rather relieved. His face had flushed hotly under that innocent kiss, and then grown deathly pale. He was very white when Mrs. Sharpe came in, and Mrs. Sharpe's sharp eyes saw it. The green glasses were gone.

"You look fit to die," observed Mrs. Susan Sharpe, eying him. "What's the matter?"

Mollie looked at him, then turned away. Had she been forward? Was he mortified?

She colored painfully, then slowly petrified to marble. But the young artist only laughed.

"Pining for you, Mrs. Sharpe. I only exist in the light of your eyes. By the way, where's the green spectacles?"

"In my pocket. Come!"

Mollie had knotted her bonnet strings with nervous, trembling fingers. She was thrilling through with mortification. She had been bold, and she had disgusted his fastidious taste, and she had not meant it. She was so grateful, and she loved him so dearly, but she never would offend in that way again.

Mr. Ingelow offered her his arm, but she drew back.

"I will follow you," she said, in a low voice, shrinking painfully into herself.

He said no more, but led the way. Mrs. Sharpe went after, Miss Dane last. No sound broke the stillness of the house. They might have been in their beds for all the noise they made.

"I hope it's all right," Mrs. Sharpe said, with a very uneasy face; "but I feel scared."

"You needn't, then," answered Mr. Ingelow; "they're safe enough. They'll be all alive in two or three hours from now, and will never know what ailed them. Save your sympathy, Susan, for time of need."

They went down-stairs, out-of-doors, into the cool, bright moonlight. Mollie Dane drew a long, long breath of unspeakable thankfulness as she breathed the fresh, free air once more.

"Thank Heaven," she thought, "and—Hugh Ingelow!"

They reached the garden gate; it stood wide; they passed out, and the artist closed it securely after him.

"'Safe bind, safe find!' Now, Miss Dane, take my arm, and let us see you step out. I have a trap waiting down the road. Neat thing this in the way of moonlight, isn't it?"

Mollie essayed to laugh. He had not waited for her to decline his proffered arm this time—he had taken her hand and drawn it securely through.

"How does freedom feel, Mollie, after a week or two of close imprisonment?"

"Very delightful. You must suffer the imprisonment first, Mr. Ingelow, before you can realize it."

"I would prefer trying to realize it without. Ah, my worthy Doctor Oleander, I think I have outwitted you nicely!"

"I have been so bewildered, and so flurried, and so stunned from the first," said Mollie, "that I can not properly comprehend anything, but I should like to hear how you have brought all this about."

"Why," said Mr. Ingelow, "Mrs. Sharpe told me."

"Yes; but you sent Mrs. Sharpe here in the first place; she told me that. How did you know I was here?"

"Ah! thereby hangs a tale—too long to tell at this sharp pace. Wait until to-morrow, Miss Mollie. There's our vehicle yonder. I might tell you by the way, but the road is long, and the night is chill, and I am to be charioteer. I couldn't do proper justice to the subject, you perceive; and besides, I want you to cuddle up and go to sleep. Here we are. Pile in, Mrs. Sharpe; the back seat, if you please. Miss Dane and I will sit in front and shield you from the inclemency of the weather."

"Much obliged to you, sir," Mrs. Sharpe said, dryly, obeying orders, nevertheless.

"I'll sit back with Mrs. Sharpe," said Mollie, sensitively shrinking.

"You'll do nothing of the sort!" retorted Mr. Ingelow, authoritatively. "You'll do precisely as I tell you! You and Mrs. Sharpe are both in my power, and if you don't keep uncommonly civil and docile, I'll run off with the pair of you and start a seraglio! There, ma'am, you're comfortable, I hope? Now, the sooner you go to sleep the better."

He helped Mrs. Sharpe into the back seat of the two-seated buggy, wrapped her up, and then assisted Mollie up in front.

"A splendid night for our business," he said, getting in beside her and gathering up the reins. "Now then, off we go, over 'brake, bush and scaur,' and good-bye to Doctor Oleander and the trip to Cuba!"

Obedience was not very hard in this instance. Miss Dane snugged up nice and close to Mr. Ingelow, and felt very comfortable indeed. As for him, there was a glow of happiness about his heart like the halo round a full moon. They would have been satisfied, just then, to sit side by side and drive along in a glory of moonshine forever and ever.

"Where are we going?" Mollie asked once.

"To the city—to New York."

"Oh! I know. But where?"

"Wherever you please, Miss Mollie. That will be Mr. Walraven's, I presume?"

"But—"

Mollie hesitated.

"What?" he said, in surprise. "Don't you want to go home?"

"Very much, Mr. Ingelow. It isn't that."

"Well, what is it, then?"

"Mr. Ingelow, you'll think me very silly, I dare say; but I don't want to go up there in a matter-of-fact sort of way at day-break to-morrow morning, in this double buggy, with you and Mrs. Sharpe. I should like—how shall I say it?—a little coup de théâtre!"

"Oh! I understand," Mr. Ingelow laughed. "It is quite natural. I should like it myself. And, by Jove! I've got a capital idea."

Mollie looked up brightly.

"Oleander has given out that he is going to Cuba—he makes no secret of one half the story, you see—and Mr. Walraven gives a farewell dinner in honor of the mournful occasion, on Thursday—to-morrow evening. The party is select—very—on your account, you know—only Sir Roger Trajenna, Walraven's lawyer, Sardonyx, and myself. Now, when we're all assembled, discussing your absence, as I'll take care we shall be, and Oleander is telling lies by the yard, do you appear like a thunder-clap and transfix him. Guilt will be confounded, innocence triumphantly vindicated, the virtuous made happy, and the curtain will go down amid tremendous applause. Eh, how do you like the style of that?"

Mollie laughed gleefully. Half-tamed thing that she was, a few moments of breezy freedom, by the side of the man she loved, made her all her old, happy, mischief-loving self again. In the first bright sparkle and intoxication, she could quite forget that awful fact that she was Dr. Oleander's wedded wife.

"Splendid! Oh! what fun it will be to see him! And such glorious revenge, too!"

"Seriously, Mollie," said Mr. Ingelow, "he deserves to be punished for his unmanly trick."

"And he shall be!" Mollie cried, her eyes sparkling. "He shall be, if all the world knows the story! What care I? I will have my revenge on the man I hate—on the man who has wronged me beyond reparation. And then I can go away where no one will know me, and make my own way through the world, as I did before I ever came to New York."

Hugh Ingelow looked at her. Her eyes were alight, her cheeks flushed, her whole face eager, angry, and aglow.

"Wronged you beyond reparation!" he slowly repeated. "Mollie, what do you mean?"

"I mean," Mollie passionately cried, "that I am his wife. And I will never forgive him for making me that—never, never, if it were my dying day!"

"His wife!"

The young man looked at her thunder-struck.

"Oh! you don't know. You hadn't heard, of course. It wasn't this time. I would have murdered him and myself this time before he would ever lay a finger on me. It was before. You remember that other time I was carried off?"

"Oh!"

It was all Mr. Ingelow said; but, singular to relate, he looked unutterably relieved.

"He married me then—forced me to marry him—and I—Oh, miserable girl that I am! why did I not die a thousand deaths sooner than consent? But I was mad, and it's too late now. Mr. Rashleigh married us. You recollect that story he told at Mrs. Grand's dinner-party? Well, I was the masked heroine of that adventure; but I never, never, never thought Guy Oleander was the hero. I'd have died, even then, sooner than become his wife. I hoped it was—I thought it was—"

She paused abruptly.

"Who?" pointedly asked Hugh Ingelow.

Mollie stole a side-long glance from under her sweeping lashes at the handsome face.

"Some one who loved me as well, and whom I—well, didn't exactly hate; and I do hate Doctor Oleander!"

"Which is extremely natural; at the same time wicked, I suppose. Now, Mollie, don't try to keep awake and talk, because the journey is long and dreary. Follow Mrs. Sharpe's example and go to sleep."

He wrapped her up closer; and Mollie, with a delicious sense of safety, and comfort, and sleepiness, cuddled close in her wraps and felt luxuriously happy.

She had slept very little of late. Tears had been her nightly portion, instead of slumber. Now she was happy and at rest; and the very rush of the swift wind, as they bowled along, made her drowsy. She leaned her head against his arm and fell fast asleep.