"Poor Daisy Lynn! how could she love Ivan Belmont like that?" exclaimed Kathleen, in disgust, forgetting that he was a rather handsome man, and that tastes differ. A longing to see what Daisy Lynn looked like came over her, and she searched the room in vain for her picture.
Then she went down and asked Miss Watts if she might see her niece's photograph.
The old blind lady looked up with gentle displeasure.
"Daisy, child, have you no memory of the past?" she exclaimed. "You know very well that in all your life I have never allowed you to have your picture taken!"
"But why not?" asked Kathleen, in wonder.
"Because it is a sin," replied the old lady, who was rigidly religious. "Have you forgotten," she continued, "the second commandment that you used to read every Lord's day at Sabbath-school?" and she repeated, solemnly:
"'Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth; thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them.'"
Kathleen stared in amazement at this liberal interpretation of the Scriptures, and retired regretting that she could not have the sad pleasure of gazing on the features of the unfortunate girl in whose fate her own was so strangely bound up.
"Poor, poor Daisy Lynn! I wonder what became of her when she escaped her keeper and wandered abroad that cold, dark night?" she mused; and she thought that the girl must be dead and at rest from her sorrows.
A long week of waiting elapsed, but no answer came to Kathleen's letters.
Kathleen grew desperate with suspense and trouble. She could no longer while away the dreary winter days by reading poor Daisy Lynn's novels, or playing sad melodies on her pretty little piano. She began to pace up and down the little room for long hours, revolving plans for escape from Miss Watts.
The three servants whom the old lady employed guarded the young girl, by the order of their mistress, as jealously as if she had been a convict in a penitentiary. All the doors were locked and guarded by burglar chains. She had appealed to their mercy in vain; and she was empty-handed and had nothing with which to bribe them. They had been told she was melancholy mad, and saw no reason to doubt the story. Her sad, white face, her beautiful dark eyes, in which the tears so often gathered, and her mournful little songs, all lent color to the charge.
Desperate emergencies require desperate remedies. Kathleen decided, in spite of Mrs. Hoover's warnings, to run away.
She had no money; but that did not deter her from her purpose. She would beg in the street for money to go to Boston before she would remain here any longer, she told herself, with a burst of tears.
Her old fear of her step-mother had died out in the conviction that her father had, of course, returned home ere now, and that, under his protection, no harm could befall his beloved child.
From the curtained alcove where Daisy Lynn's soft, white sheets and blankets and counterpanes were stored on shelves, Kathleen brought the sheets and tore them into strips, working on them every night until she had succeeded in making a strong plaited rope with which to let herself down from the window.
"Heaven help me—dear Heaven help me!" she prayed all the while; and one dark night toward midnight she fastened the rope to the shutter hinge and let herself safely down to the street.
Stunned by the velocity of her descent, and with bleeding hands rasped by the rough rope, Kathleen fell upon the ground and lay there pantingly a few moments.
"Free at last, thank Heaven—free!" she murmured, gladly, and wrapping her long circular cloak around her, and drawing the warm hood close about her beautiful face, she ran breathlessly along, flashed around a corner, and had left her prison behind her, fleeing, as she hoped, to home and happiness.
It was growing late, and in the quiet city of Philadelphia there were few pedestrians abroad, and those mostly men. In any other city of that size Kathleen, with her beautiful face, would have been insulted over and over, but the Quaker City of Brotherly Love had in it a smaller ruffianly element than the others. When she stopped and appealed to those she met she invariably received a coin instead of a leer; but they were so small—so small, and, oh, it would take so much money to get to Boston!
She had stopped a policeman on his beat and asked him timidly how much money it would take to get to Boston.
"Oh, as much as twenty dollars, I guess!" he replied; and at his curious stare she thanked him and ran away, pausing under a street lamp to count her money.
"Only two dollars and twenty cents! I shall never, never get enough!" she sighed, and then she gave a shriek. A thief had snatched the money from her little white hand and run down a side street.
Kathleen started to run after him, but there was no policeman in sight, and the thief had quite disappeared. She ran till her limbs trembled with weariness, and suddenly emerged into Walnut Street. People were coming out of the Walnut Street Theater, and crowding the pavement. She saw a handsome man handing a fair young girl to her carriage, and the sight awoke memories of the past when she, Kathleen Carew, heiress then to a million, now a beggar in the streets, had been handed to her carriage by Ralph Chainey, the handsome young actor, who had whispered in her ear:
"I hope we shall meet again."
A dry sob rose in her throat, but she choked it back, and advancing till she was in the midst of the throng, paused suddenly, and began to sing in a low but thrilling voice that favorite old song, "Home, Sweet Home," at the same time holding out her tiny white hand for largess.
It was a desperate deed, but poor Kathleen was a desperate girl, and knew little more of the evil of the world than a little baby. She was so eager to get money to go home, and she thought that out of this great crowd there might be many who would pay her for singing the simple little song that everybody loved so well—"Home, Sweet Home—The Song That Reached My Heart."
"WILL YOU BE MY OWN SWEET WIFE, KATHLEEN?"
Kathleen had a sweet and bird-like voice, that had held crowded drawing-rooms entranced in the happier days that now seemed so far away.
As that exquisite voice—timid at first, and faltering, but gradually gaining strength and volume—rose upon the night air the young girl was at once surrounded by a wondering and admiring throng.
Her desperate courage began to give way as she saw herself hemmed in by the crowd, and the impulse seized her to fly; but she beat it bravely back, for already silver coins began to rain into the small, white, outstretched hand that seemed so ridiculously dainty and aristocratic for a street beggar.
"Jove! what a regular beauty!" one man whispered to another, as he gazed eagerly into the sweet, flower-like face.
She heard him, and her voice shook with indignation, but she kept on, holding fast meanwhile to her earnings, determined that no bold thief should capture them this time.
Suddenly she became aware that the crowd's attention was being diverted from her, and resolved to escape at this auspicious moment.
The fact was that the popular actor, Ralph Chainey, who had just carried staid Philadelphia by storm in his popular impersonation of Prince Karl, was just leaving the theater for his hotel, and almost every one turned away from the beautiful singer for a glimpse of the tall, dark, handsome young fellow, with his swinging stride, as he came among them.
He, on his part, had been standing back a little, arrested, like the others, by that sweet, sad, thrilling song. As it neared the end, he pressed forward to make a generous contribution to pay for his share in the rare entertainment.
The crowd fell back and made way for him, and Kathleen, dreaming not of the nearness of the lover who haunted all her thoughts, started to fly.
Ralph Chainey had not yet seen her face, but he hurried in pursuit of the slight cloaked figure, generously anxious that she should not lose the money he was going to bestow on her for the song.
The crowd began to disperse, and Kathleen, unconscious of pursuit, ran half a square, then slackened her pace. So it was that Ralph Chainey caught up with her, and laid a strong, detaining hand upon her arm.
With a low moan of terror Kathleen raised her beautiful, frightened dark eyes to the face of her assailant.
For a moment they gazed, spell-bound, into each other's eyes.
To both it seemed like the shock of a life-time—that sudden rencontre; and to the man it was more startling then to the girl, for he had long sorrowed over the fate of Kathleen Carew, believing her dead.
Yet here stood this slight girl whose voice had so thrilled him a few minutes ago gazing at him with Kathleen Carew's eyes, looking out of Kathleen Carew's face.
Was she ghost or human?
Was she a phantom of his brain, this slight, pale girl?
He had thought of her so often, he had mourned her so passionately, that perhaps his brain was distraught—perhaps the vision was the figment of a mind diseased.
But suddenly the moan died away on the sweet, red lips; the hunted look faded from the somber dark eyes and was succeeded by a look of joy as she faltered:
"Ralph Chainey!"
His hand had slipped from her arm in the first shock of recognition. Now he hastily put it back and pressed it to see if it was real flesh and blood or only a phantom woman. He muttered, hoarsely:
"Kathleen Carew, are you ghost or human?"
Kathleen's dark-eyes laughed radiantly into his.
"I am human, Mr. Chainey, as I think you ought to realize from the way you're pinching my arm," she returned, with pretty archness.
All in a moment she had changed from a sad, persecuted young girl, begging her way in the dark street, to a very queen of love and happiness.
Looking into his luminous brown eyes, all her sorrow seemed to flee away, and the sunlit sky of love seemed glowing over her head, instead of dark, wintery skies.
Her archness, her smiles, and the warm, human touch of her wrist, recalled him from his ghostly fears, and he said, faintly, but eagerly:
"I can hardly believe my senses, Kathleen. You—alive—after all these months, when I sorrowed for you dead! Where have you been?"
Her face paled, and she looked apprehensively over her shoulder.
"I—I—can not tell you here!" she faltered. "I might be missed and followed. If—if—you would only take me to the depot, and send me home to Boston to papa, I will be so grateful. I—I—think I have enough money to pay my way."
Ralph Chainey signaled a passing cab, and lifted the young girl gently into it.
"Drive slowly about the streets for an hour until further orders," he said to the driver, as he sprung in and took his seat by Kathleen. "Oh, what happiness this is to find you alive, Kathleen!" he exclaimed, searching for her little hand, and holding it warmly clasped in his.
She nestled slightly toward him, and he thrilled with happiness at the confiding motion.
"You will send me home to papa?" she repeated, sweetly.
Then he said:
"It will be several hours before the next train for Boston leaves, Kathleen, so you can tell me all about yourself while we ride about and beguile the time of waiting. Or, would you prefer to go to a hotel and rest, and have some refreshments?"
"I am not hungry nor tired, and prefer to ride about with you this way," answered the girl, with naïve simplicity; and he drew a sigh of relief.
He was young, but more worldly wise than Kathleen. He preferred not to take her to a hotel until she had some claim on him, to silence carping tongues. But first he must know the secret of her mysterious whereabouts ever since the night when he had kissed and wept over her beautiful dead face, and gone away on a mission that brooked no delay.
But for a few minutes he was silent from sheer happiness. Alive, his beautiful Kathleen, whom he had adored in secret, but never told of his love! What happiness, when he and happiness had so long been strangers!
Her tremulous voice broke the silence:
"Do you understand it all—that I was in a trance that night when you bade me farewell and went away?"
"My God! a trance? Yes, you did look natural. Mrs. Churchman remarked upon it before she left me alone with you."
"I heard what she said," Kathleen answered, shuddering, and Ralph Chainey put his arm about her and drew her closer, murmuring:
"Did you hear what I said, too, my bonnie Kathleen?"
"Yes," she answered, trembling in a sort of ecstasy and feeling warm blushes redden her cheeks as she whispered:
"You kissed me—you wept over me—you—said—said—that you loved me!"
"And you, sweet Kathleen? Were you vexed at me for my presumption?" questioned the young man, drawing her closer with a fond but reverent arm.
"No; oh, no!" faltered the girl, shyly, yet blissfully.
"And you will let me tell you the same thing over, darling Kathleen, that I worship you, and you will promise me, dear, to be my own sweet wife? Yes, is it not, my own one? There, do not draw away from me in fear. One kiss, my own love, my beautiful treasure, given back to me from the grave itself!"
Then one kiss became a dozen. He pressed her close to his heart, and she rested there with a blissful sigh, happy in this haven of rest.
Presently:
"Now, darling, you may tell me all your story; then I have a startling proposition to make to you," he said.
From what she had said to him about taking her home to her father, he perceived that she was entirely ignorant of all that had transpired since her supposed death.
She was mercifully ignorant of her father's loss at sea, and the will made in London just before he sailed, disinheriting his only daughter, and giving her portion of his wealth to Alpine Belmont.
Poor little Kathleen, who believed that she had still a loving father and was the heiress to all his wealth, was in reality orphaned and penniless—a beggar in reality.
But Ralph Chainey, in the greatness of his noble heart, decided to spare her the pain of knowing all this yet, and he could see but one way out of the difficulty—one very agreeable to himself, and not unkind to the lovely waif so strangely thrown on his protecting care.
He knew well that the selfish Belmonts would refuse to care for the homeless girl, would deny her identity, refuse to admit her claims on them. He determined to propose an immediate marriage to Kathleen, by which her future could be made secure.
KATHLEEN'S DISAPPEARANCE.
Kathleen told her lover, between sobs and tears, while she rested close in the shelter of his loving arms, all her sad story.
Ralph Chainey listened with bated breath, his eyes dim with moisture, to the story of Kathleen's persecutions.
"What stupid people they must have been at the asylum not to listen to your strange story! I will have them indicted for unlawfully detaining you!" he exclaimed indignantly.
"Never mind that, as they can never find me again," she replied, happily.
"They could not take you if they did," he answered; and then he unfolded to her, gently and tenderly, his wish to make her his wife at once, and asked her if she would consent. "It is the most proper thing for us to marry at once," he said. "Unfortunately, we can not be married in Philadelphia without a license, which, as it is near midnight now, I could not procure until to-morrow. But we can take a train within the hour for Washington, and be married, without the necessity of a license, by the first minister we can wake up there. Do you think you can agree to this, darling?"
She hesitated; she said, anxiously:
"Had we not better go straight to Boston and ask papa's leave? Perhaps he would not like it if we were married without his consent."
Why did he not tell her the truth—that there was no use in going to Boston; that her father was dead and she had no home there; that her step-mother and her selfish daughter had inherited the Carew millions?
He could not bear to inflict this shock upon her so soon. She had suffered so much already, poor little darling! that he would save her this added blow for a little while. He could fancy how hard she would take it, to come back to the world, fatherless, penniless, homeless. Let him make her his wife first, and she would have love, wealth, and position almost equal to what she had lost. Then he would have the right to comfort her with his devotion.
So he began to urge his suit with all a lover's devotion, picturing to her the possibility of her father's refusal.
"You are so young, dear Kathleen, he might want us to wait years and years, and there are so many things that might come between our love," he urged, anxiously.
She shuddered and thought of Alpine Belmont's cruelty. The remembrance decided her; she consented to his wish.
They were driven to the station to take the train for Washington.
"In about three hours we shall be there, and then you shall soon be my little wife," he whispered, joyfully.
They learned that the train was more than an hour late. They went into the reception-room to wait.
Then it suddenly occurred to him that the members of his company at the hotel would be so alarmed at his non-appearance that night that they would think he had been foully dealt with, and raise a great hue and cry.
He hastened to explain these facts to his lovely, girlish fiancée.
"Do you think you would mind staying alone here, long enough for me to go and excuse myself to them?" he inquired, tenderly.
Her throat ached with the impulse to sob out to him that she was frightened—that she did not wish for him to leave her there alone.
But she was ashamed of her weakness; she would not confess it to her bright, handsome lover.
In a low, tremulous voice, and with a sad little smile on her quivering red lips, she bade him go.
"It is only for a little while, my own little love!" he whispered; but her heart sunk heavily with fear and dread. He found her a secluded seat in a dim corner. "You can sit here quietly and unobserved until I return," he said, and stole a parting kiss from the sweet red lips that smiled at him with such pathetic love.
Then he was gone, and she no longer tried to check her bursting sobs. Leaning far back in the corner, her little cobwebby handkerchief was soon drenched with her raining tears.
She told herself that he would soon return and laugh at her for being such a great baby, but she could not help it. A terrible presentiment of coming evil weighed down her spirits.
Ralph Chainey entered a cab and was driven rapidly to his hotel. He explained that business of great importance called him in haste to Washington, but that he would return the next day in time for the evening performance, "Beau Brummel."
Then he drove as fast as possible back to the depot, where his little darling, as he called her in his fond thoughts, was impatiently awaiting his return.
"My little darling, so soon to be my adored wife," he murmured, as he hurried eagerly into the waiting-room, where the second great shock of his life awaited him.
Kathleen Carew was gone!
He stared with dazed eyes at the empty seat where he had left his beautiful young sweetheart less than an hour ago.
She was gone!
Then commenced a frantic search that lasted so long that by and by the train that was to have taken the pair to Washington thundered into the station and away again, while he still pursued his unavailing quest.
"RALPH CHAINEY IS A MARRIED MAN!"
When Ralph Chainey had led Kathleen into the waiting-room of the depot he had been so absorbed in her that he failed to notice any one around him.
So he did not observe a pretty and showily-dressed blonde beauty who was walking restlessly up and down the room, evidently bent on attracting attention to herself and her dress by these maneuvers.
When Ralph entered with Kathleen, the young woman gave him a curious glance that speedily changed to one of dismay.
Then she shrunk back hurriedly into the shadow and watched the pair with bright, steel-blue eyes that glittered with the light of hate.
"A love affair," she muttered, angrily, and noted keenly every movement of the two. She saw how they looked at each other with the light of love in their beautiful eyes. She stole nearer and overheard their words; she saw their kiss, their tender parting.
Her white hands clinched themselves tightly, her face paled beneath its rouge, and she muttered indistinctly to herself—muttered words of hate and menace.
When Ralph Chainey had left Kathleen alone the stranger boldly approached the weeping girl.
Standing before Kathleen, she touched her on the shoulder, and when Kathleen shrunk back and lifted her white face in piteous fear and entreaty, the stranger almost started at its wonderful beauty.
"Ralph Chainey is deceiving you," was the startling sentence that fell on Kathleen's ear.
"Oh!" the girl exclaimed in bewilderment; but the blonde beauty went on:
"He has promised to marry you, but he does not mean it, you poor, pretty child. It is only a plot to betray you."
"You speak falsely," Kathleen managed to stammer in a choking voice, her dark eyes flashing indignantly.
"You do not want to believe it, I know, but I can prove to you that I speak the truth. Ralph Chainey is a married man. I am his wife!"
Kathleen grew as pale as she had been in her coffin that terrible night; her dark eyes stared as if fascinated into the pretty painted face of the woman. She could not speak; her head seemed to be going round and round; her poor heart throbbed as if it would break.
"Perhaps you have heard that actors are wicked people," continued the pretty stranger. "It is true of the whole class, and most especially of this Ralph Chainey. He is always seeking for a new love, and leaving some other woman to break her heart for love of him. Although I am his wife, he tired of me months ago, and left me to starve or die of a broken heart, he cared not which, so that he was well rid of me. My kind parents took me home, and since then I have watched his career in amazement and despair. Many and many a fair and innocent young girl I have saved from his clutches."
"Oh, Heaven! must I believe this?" came in a low, sobbing under-tone from Kathleen's pale lips.
"You are the youngest and fairest of them all and it would break my heart to see you fall into Ralph Chainey's power," continued the blonde, anxiously. "Be warned in time, my poor girl. Fly from this spot and go home to your friends."
"I have no friends in this city, and my home is in far-off Boston," sobbed Kathleen, clasping her little hands in despair.
"Then come home with me, and stay all night, and you can go on to Boston to-morrow morning early," was the quick reply.
She waited for an answer, but none came. Kathleen's head had drooped on her breast. A fatal unconsciousness had stolen over her, and the hour of her enemy's triumph was at hand.
The blonde beauty laughed low and maliciously, as she realized how deeply her words had struck their poisoned arrows into the young girl's heart.
Coolly signaling a stranger who had hurriedly entered the almost deserted waiting-room, she said:
"My friend has fainted from grief at receiving a telegram containing news of the death of her lover. Will you assist me to carry her out to my carriage before she revives? I know she will go into hysterics as soon as she recovers, and that would be so embarrassing in this public place."
The gentleman, a slight-built, genial-faced man of about thirty years, courteously acceded to her request, and gazed with deep compassion at the beautiful face of the unconscious girl he was carrying in his arms.
"What a lovely creature! and so young—scarcely more than a child; yet she had a lover, and he is dead," he thought, pityingly, as he placed her in the carriage.
"I thank you for your kindness," said the blonde beauty, with a dazzling smile. The carriage door closed upon her after she had said "Home" to the driver, and then Samuel Hall, the kind-hearted, smiling-faced young man, stood under the gas-light, gazing after them with dazed blue eyes.
"Quite an adventure, Sammy, was it not, eh?" he muttered, talking naïvely to himself. Perhaps his arms thrilled yet with the pressure of the beautiful form that had lain heavily in them a minute ago. His mild blue eyes looked soft and dreamy.
"How lovely she was!" he mused. "So lovely and so sorrow-stricken! The other one was handsome, too, in her way, but not like the younger. Grand, rich people, I suppose," he ended with a sigh; for, having once known "better days," our friend "Sammy" did not very much enjoy his position as a hard-working clerk in one of Philadelphia's immense dry-goods emporiums.
He went home to his lonely room in a great, rambling boarding-house, and though he was not usually impressionable, his mind kept running on his little adventure. He said to himself that it was because he was so sorry for the beautiful young girl who had fainted when she received the telegram that her lover was dead.
"I wonder what their names were?" he mused, curiously. "The blonde I did not quite like. There was something theatrical and made-up about her. She did not in the least resemble the fainting one, so they could not be sisters."
Still musing on his little adventure, he retired. Sleep came to him, made restless by uncanny dreams.
It seemed to the young man that he was standing on the verge of a precipice, looking down into a dark gulf where a turbulent river rushed along in foam and fury. Struggling in the gloomy waves was the young girl he had carried fainting to her carriage, and her white face was upturned to him; her great, piteous dark eyes were fixed on his with unutterable reproach. Tossing her white arms up toward him, she cried, bitterly:
"You helped that wicked woman to destroy me!"
Then she sunk beneath the waves, and they closed forever over her white face and shining hair.
Sammy Hall awoke in anguish, his forehead beaded with perspiration.
"Oh, what a strange, weird dream! How vivid it is still in my mind! What does it mean? Is it a warning? That can not be, however, for I was doing her a kindness, not an injury, and my heart ached with sympathy for her sorrow."
He could think of nothing else next day, and at noon, when a heavy storm came up and kept customers from crowding into Haines & Co.'s great store, he told the bright, pretty young salesladies about it, dream and all.
They listened to him with the liveliest interest; their eyes grew dim with pity for the beautiful young girl whose heart had broken for the death of her lover.
"But it was so strange for her to reproach me in that dream!" he said, in a troubled voice—"so strange! Because, you see, I was only kind to her, and did nothing wrong."
"Mr. Hall, I have a theory to explain your dream," cried Tessie Mays, a romantic young girl; and every one turned to her with interest as she went on: "The blonde was a bad, wicked creature who frightened that pretty, innocent young thing into a faint, and then carried her off to some wretched fate—'the spider and the fly,' you know."
"It is very likely, indeed!" chorused all those romantic young girls, and Sammy Hall's heart sunk like a stone in his breast.
He brooded over that night's adventure, and in his sleep that strange dream kept recurring. He feared that Tessie Mays was right. The blonde woman was a wicked creature who had made him a tool to help her in her nefarious plans.
Two days later, as he was going along Ninth Street to dinner, he came suddenly face to face with the blonde, made up carefully and gaudily attired. He stopped in front of her and stammered:
"Oh! ah! miss—madame—excuse me; but how is that unhappy young girl?"
"Why, you must be crazy! I don't know you. I don't know what you mean. Get out of my way!"
She pushed him roughly aside, and had disappeared before he recovered from his surprise.
KATHLEEN MAKES A STARTLING DISCOVERY.
When Kathleen Carew recovered consciousness she found herself on a bed in a shabby garret bed-room, with the eyes of the blonde beauty looking into hers.
"So you are come to at last? I began to think you were dead, child. Here! smell this, and you'll soon be better," she exclaimed, vivaciously, as she held a bottle of camphor under Kathleen's nose.
Kathleen pushed it away like a petulant child.
"What am I doing here?" she sobbed, in a frightened voice.
"This is my home, you know. I offered to bring you here to save you from Ralph Chainey, that wicked actor. Oh, my! what a scene there was after you fainted. He came back, and I can tell you, he was frightened at finding me there. I told him he must go away, that I had told you all, and you hated him. He tried to brazen it all out at first, but presently he was humble enough, and I made him carry you out and put you in my carriage. Then he went away, vowing he would get you into his power some day."
Kathleen shuddered from head to foot, and cried, appealingly:
"Oh, madame, is he really your husband? For the sake of Heaven, do not tell me an untruth, for it is more bitter than death to lose faith in one's lover!"
"Alas! if it is so hard to lose faith in a lover, how much worse to be deceived by a husband?" cried the blonde, pathetically.
She dashed her white hand across her dry eyes, and Kathleen caught the glitter of a diamond ring flashing like a little sun. In her small, pink ears there were magnificent diamonds, too, and Kathleen began to watch them with fascinated eyes.
"What a beautiful diamond ring! Won't you let me try it on, please?" she asked, humbly.
The blonde, flattered by the admiration for her ring, slipped it off with some difficulty, and allowed Kathleen to take it in her fingers.
She held it up and gazed inside the gold circle, reading aloud:
"'Kathleen Carew!'"
"Why, I never knew before that a name was cut——" began the woman, then bit her lip and checked herself, abruptly.
"Where did you get this ring?" asked Kathleen, excitedly.
"My husband gave it to me."
"And your beautiful ear-rings?"
"They, too, were gifts from my husband."
"From Ralph Chainey?"
"Of course. Didn't I tell you he was my husband? Do you want to see my marriage certificate?" holding out her finger for the ring.
"Presently," said Kathleen, sitting erect, with a strange fire in her eyes. "Is this," she continued, in a strange voice, "your name inside the ring?"
"Of course," airily answered the blonde.
Kathleen's slumbrous eyes began to glow with an angry light, and she exclaimed, passionately:
"It is false! It is my own name, and the ring is mine! The ear-rings also are mine! My father gave them to me!"
"You must be crazy, girl!" exclaimed the blonde, in honest surprise. She snatched the ring and slipped it back on her finger.
"I tell you I am in earnest," stormed Kathleen, roused to a sudden fury by the thought of her wrongs. "I tell you I am Kathleen Carew, and those jewels were stolen from me by a man who choked me and left me for dead on the ground, while he tore those gems from my bleeding hands and ears. And you say it was your husband——" she stopped, shuddering violently. Was she criminating Ralph Chainey?
WAS RALPH CHAINEY A VILLAIN?
Kathleen, pale, shuddering, startled, gazed in horror at the face of the bold, handsome creature who declared to her that these gems for which she had been almost murdered were given to her by Ralph Chainey.
Was it true that the woman was Ralph's wife, and that he had given her the jewels?
If so, what an awful vista of suspicion and crime opened back of these two facts!
Could it be that Ralph Chainey was the fiend who had robbed and murdered her that night, and then by his clever acting thrown off suspicion from himself?
The terrible suspicion made her tremble like a leaf in the wind; and meantime the woman, whom we will call Fedora, was gazing at her with suspicious eyes.
"I don't know what to make of you, girl," she said, impatiently. "Come, now; I want to hear your story from beginning to end."
Kathleen did as she was asked. She related the whole story of her life, from the first meeting with Ralph Chainey until now.
Fedora listened with eager attention.
She was especially interested in Mrs. Belmont and her son Ivan.
"And she wanted you to marry him?" she said.
"Yes; but I will never do it. I hate him, and so does papa. He is a spendthrift, and dissolute," said Kathleen, quoting words that her father had used of his step-son.
Fedora frowned and said, hastily:
"But he is very handsome, isn't he?"
"I believe some people think so, but I don't. I guess Daisy Lynn thought so, or she would not have gone mad for love of him;" and the whole story of Daisy Lynn came out.
It proved very interesting indeed to the blonde, who asked many questions, and seemed disappointed that Kathleen could not answer them all.
When she had elicited all that Kathleen could tell, she returned to the subject of Ralph Chainey.
"I knew he was false to me, but I did not believe he was wicked enough to do murder," she said.
Kathleen shuddered as with a mortal chill, and said faintly:
"There must be some mistake."
The blonde gazed in silence for several minutes at the lovely face of the hapless young girl, then asked, abruptly:
"What shall you do about it?"
"Nothing," Kathleen answered, sorrowfully; and she thought to herself that she would give the world to blot out of her life all memory of the man she had loved so dearly and so well; yet she knew that his memory would haunt her all her life long, and that her heart would break because he had proved unworthy.
She looked pleadingly at the woman before her, and exclaimed:
"Will you please take me home to my father?"
"To-morrow," answered Fedora, soothingly. She rose as she spoke. "Lie down and sleep; it is late," she added. "To-morrow I will go home with you and restore you to your friends."
She went out, carefully locking the door behind her.
Alone in her own room, she looked at the beautiful jewels that had cost Kathleen so dear, and muttered:
"He did it for me—to get these for me. How he loves me! But this girl! her life is a menace to his liberty. If I let her go home and tell what she knows, suspicion will fall upon him. Why did he bungle so, if he must do that ghastly job?" Then she laughed. "Oh, I have paid you out, Ralph Chainey!"
RESCUED.