Kathleen had promised to write to Samuel Hall and let him know when she arrived safely in Boston, and the next morning, although she felt really weak and ill, she kept her promise.
She wrote a kind and grateful letter to the noble clerk, again thanking him for his goodness to her, and telling him of her terrible disappointment on reaching home.
"I can not understand it all, I am so dazed with my trouble," she wrote. "But papa is dead—lost at sea—and the strangest thing I ever heard of, he made a will just before he sailed for America, and disinherited me—his only child. Think of the strangeness—the cruelty of it. But he is dead; I must not harbor unkind thoughts of him. I am sure some malignant influence was brought to bear. But I am homeless, penniless, but for this friend, Mrs. Stone, with whom I am staying. I can not now repay you the sum of money you so nobly advanced me to return home on, but I shall never forget it, and the time may come when I shall be able to restore it fourfold. Till then God bless you is the prayer of your friend till death.
"Kathleen Carew."
Sammy Hall was all excitement over the letter, and at the first opportunity confided the news to his sympathetic girl friends.
Of course they talked it over at that quietest hour in the day when the throng of shoppers are out at lunch or gone home to dinner.
Tessie Mays, who had the news direct from Sammy, retailed it all to the eager listeners; and no one noticed a handsome, showily dressed young woman who had entered the store and come up to Tessie's counter—Fedora, who, having given the wrong address the other day, had now returned to complain that she had never received her package of gold passementerie.
Just as she was approaching the counter she heard the name of Kathleen Carew called, and drawing back with a great start, pretended to be examining some gorgeous brocade silk that was displayed on the end of the counter. The pretty, animated young girls did not observe her, and went on talking.
Fedora did not lose a word.
Pretty soon she became aware that her prey had escaped her through the efforts of Sammy Hall, and that she was now safe in Boston with a friend, although her father was dead and had disinherited her, and her step-mother had denied her identity.
"It is just like a novel, isn't it?" commented one of the young girls. "I would give anything I own for one good look at the beautiful Miss Kathleen Carew, with the bronze-gold hair and proud dark eyes that Sammy raves over."
"Tessie Mays, I'd think you would be jealous!" exclaimed another girl, with a meaning laugh.
Tessie tossed her dark curly head carelessly.
"Why, Sammy Hall is not my beau! I think it was you, Dolly Wade, that he took to church Sunday night—wasn't it?"
It was Dolly's turn to blush and bridle. She laughed.
"Oh, pshaw! Mr. Hall's only a friend of mine, and I don't think he wants to marry you, anyhow! He is cut out for an old bachelor if ever a man was!"
"Have you ever seen that woman again, Tessie?" asked another girl, turning the conversation.
"What woman?"
"Why, the one that Sammy recognized and is going to arrest, if she ever comes in here again, for kidnapping Miss Carew."
"Why, no; and it's strange, too, for she made a mistake, gave me the address of a vacant house, and her gold passementerie came back here. I was certain she would be back here, fussing about it; and I tell Sammy it's lucky she made the mistake, so she will have to come back here. He has the warrant for her arrest, and she'll never get out of Haines & Co.'s without a policeman's escort!"
"Won't she?" muttered Fedora, with a low, gurgling laugh of sarcastic amusement. She tripped away in a hurry, in spite of her pretended mirth, and did not breathe freely until she was out of the store and in the cab that was waiting for her near the sidewalk.
"Whew! what a narrow escape!" she muttered. "So I have been watched and almost trapped while I believed myself triumphant!"
An ugly look crossed the pretty blonde face, and she continued, angrily:
"I wonder who Sammy Hall can be that those girls talked about so familiarly? He must be the man that helped me put the girl in the carriage, and that I met afterward in the street, and snubbed so coolly. He has taken revenge on me by ferreting out the place where I left Kathleen Carew, and rescuing her from her fate. Heigho! I think I had better leave for New York right away. Philadelphia will be too hot a place to hold me for a while. If I had the money I would go to Boston and look up my runaway bird, and Ivan at the same time. He promised to send me three hundred dollars this week. He had better do it, for I've got a hold on him, now, thanks to that girl's disclosure, that he can't shake off."
"MY DARLING GIRL, I'M AS FOND OF YOU AS EVER!"
"You must cheer up, dear Kathleen, and feel yourself quite at home with me," Mrs. Stone said, affectionately, to her sorrowful young guest.
Kathleen looked at her wistfully with her sad, dark eyes.
"But I have no claim on your kindness, dear lady," she sighed.
"Why, aren't you my cousin Teddy's friend? and isn't he one of the best boys in the world? and didn't I promise his dead mother that I would always be kind to the boy she was leaving so lonely in the wide world? for his father had died years before. Yes, indeed, you have a claim on me, not alone because Teddy loves you so passionately, but for your own dear sake—because your trouble and your helplessness make it my duty to love and care for you," exclaimed the kind lady, feelingly.
"You are so good and kind! May Heaven reward you!" sobbed the unhappy girl.
She leaned her beautiful curly head on Mrs. Stone's shoulder and wept bitter, burning tears from the depths of her overcharged heart.
Poor Kathleen! She was surely the most unhappy girl in the world.
So young, so lovely, and so loving, yet pursued by a cruel, unrelenting fate, that had wrested from her little hands all that she held dearest in life!
Her young heart was torn with agony for the death of her beloved father, and the thought of Ralph Chainey's sin added poignancy to her grief.
In the long, dark watches of the sleepless nights, poor, unhappy Kathleen lay wakeful and wretched on her pillow, thinking wildly of her lost love—the man who had seemed like a demi-god in her eyes, so handsome, and so gifted, and so noble, but who had been deceiving her all along—who had a wife while he was pretending he meant to marry her.
And—but when it came to this thought Kathleen's hysterical sobs almost choked her, and she said to herself that she would not permit herself to believe it—the thought that it was Ralph Chainey who had robbed her that night, and given her jewels to that woman, was unendurable. That way lay madness.
But it was no wonder that each morning, when the kind eyes of her hostess scanned her face so anxiously, she found it paler and paler, while the dark eyes were somber and heavy from the tears that always lay so near them, and the sweet, red lips had always a tremulous curve, as if from repressed sobs.
Mrs. Stone's kind heart ached for the unhappy young creature who only wept at all her attempts at comfort.
She said to herself that she did not believe there was much chance for Teddy Darrell, after all. The girl did not show the least interest when she spoke of her cousin.
Her whole heart seemed to be absorbed in grief for her father's death, and in wonder over the fact that he had been mysteriously angry with her, and given her share of his wealth to her step-sister.
"Papa always loved me, and I never did anything to vex him, so why did he hate me? Why did he leave his poor Kathleen alone and penniless in the cold world?" she would sob, piteously.
Mrs. Stone had no answer ready for that oft-repeated inquiry. It was a mystery to her, too, why Vincent Carew had done such a cruel and wicked thing. She did not know that Mrs. Carew had brought about the whole thing by her malicious cablegram. If she had only waited until that strange telegram from Ralph Chainey had been explained, how different Kathleen's fate would have been!
Ill and penniless, the dead millionaire's beautiful young daughter was as poor and wretched as any beggar in the streets, only for this kind friend.
"Cheer up, my dear, cheer up!" she urged, kindly; but Kathleen could not even bring a smile to her poor, stiff lips. Teddy Darrell came every day to inquire after her, and he was shocked at the change in beautiful Kathleen.
"She looks awfully ill—almost as if she were going to die," he confided to his cousin after a week, in a troubled tone.
"She is ill; I'm sure of it; for she eats no more than a little bird, and she gets weaker every day. I think I had better have the doctor up, don't you?" she answered, anxiously.
"Yes; I'll send him when I go out," Teddy replied; and then he went back to the young girl, who was lying back in an easy-chair, trying to interest herself in a little book of poems he had brought her with some flowers.
"Do you find anything pretty in it?" he asked, tenderly.
"I—I don't know. I'm afraid I've not tried," she answered, penitently, ashamed that she could not seem happier to these kind friends who were so good.
He took the book from her hands and began to read aloud some pretty bits here and there, in a musical and well-modulated voice.
"Listen to this. I am sure you will agree with me that it is pretty," he said, and read, softly:
Kathleen's face was bent on her hand. Teddy heard a smothered sob, but he did not know with what terrible directness the words had gone to her heart. He believed that she was heart-whole and fancy-free.
"It is too sad for you, is it not?" he exclaimed. "I will read you something brighter:
Kathleen actually gave a soft little laugh, for Teddy had read the lines with such gusto that he plainly betrayed how much the sentiment was to his mind.
He started, flushed, then said, with his unvarying good nature:
"Ah, how cruel! But never mind, so that I've made you feel brighter. Have I, Kathleen?"
"You are too good to me," the girl answered, gratefully, moved by his kindness.
"Too good! Ah, not one-half as good as I would like to be, if only you would let me," cried the young man, ardently. "Ah, Kathleen," he continued, impulsively, "do you remember how I used to love you—how I begged you to be my wife? My darling girl, I'm as fond of you as ever. Won't you try to love me? I would be the proudest boy in Christendom if you would marry me!"
"Don't talk to me of love—please don't!" cried Kathleen, keeping her ardent lover at bay with two entreating white hands.
"Well, I won't—at least not to-day; and I beg your pardon, dear, if I've intruded on your grief with my selfish love. But I thought—thought it might please you to know that there was one who loved you even better since your reverse of fortune than before," Teddy explained, humbly.
"You are too good to me," she repeated as before, incoherently, touched by his devotion, and contrasting it in her mind with the treachery of that other one so dearly loved, so deeply false.
"Then may I hope, Kathleen?"
"Oh, no, no, no! I shall never love nor marry any one!" she answered, vehemently; but Teddy Darrell did not in the least believe her. He thought that all young girls were sure to love some day, and almost certain to marry. He determined to keep on hoping and trying to win this peerless beauty.
Kathleen guessed what his thoughts were, and it made her very uneasy.
"If I remain here with his cousin he will expect me to marry him," she thought. "I can not do it, for I do not love him. I must go away again;" and that very day she wrote to her mother's relatives in Richmond—the ones to whom she was going when overtaken by such an awful fate at Lincoln Station.
Kathleen was so weak that it tired her now even to write a letter, and the pen dragged wearily before she finished the recital of her sorrows, and pleaded with these unknown kin to let her come to them just for a little while—until she was strong enough to go out into the wide, cruel world and earn her own living with those weak, white hands.
KATHLEEN'S WEARY WAITING.
Teddy Darrell sent up a doctor to see Kathleen, and he was startled when he found that the young girl was suffering from arsenical poisoning.
"It is quite well that you sent for me, because if this had gone any further, she might have died. But I will go at once to work to remove the effects of the poison from her system," Doctor Spicer said, gravely.
Mrs. Stone was shocked, but she readily comprehended that the woman Fedora had placed the deadly drug in Kathleen's food, intending to compass her death by slow degrees. What mystified her was the woman's motive.
Kathleen, while confiding the rest of her harrowing story to these kind friends, Teddy Darrell and his cousin, had withheld the story of Ralph Chainey's connection with her trouble. She could not bring herself to mention his name. Something in her heart pleaded mutely for the culprit. What if the woman had lied to her? What if she had been lured from Ralph by a cunning ruse? Her brain reeled sometimes with this suspicion, and she felt that she should go mad with the miserable uncertainty of it all. Where was Ralph? Oh, if she could only see him—find out the real truth!
So she did not tell her friends anything about Ralph, and Mrs. Stone had no clew to the mystery of this attempt on her life.
"She does not dream of it, and perhaps it will be as well not to tell her, she has already suffered so much through her unknown foes," thought the kind lady.
Several weeks passed, and Kathleen began to grow stronger and better under the physician's treatment, but in all this time no reply to her letter to her Southern relatives had been received. Neither had the fact of Kathleen's return to Boston ever transpired among her former friends in the city.
Mrs. Carew was the only one who knew that Kathleen really lived, and it was to her interest to keep it a secret.
Teddy Darrell remained silent on the subject, because the natural selfishness of a lover made him wish to keep away all other lovers until he had had his own chance
"To win or lose it all."
Mrs. Stone's quiet and retired life helped to keep Kathleen's presence in her house unknown. She was a rising authoress, devoted to her children and her pen. She had first commenced to write after her husband's death as a solace to her loneliness and grief. Success had made literature her life work, and she devoted herself to it, going but little into society and receiving few friends.
Kathleen began to look better, but she chafed bitterly in secret over the strange silence of her relatives.
Why would they not write her a few lines, even if they did not want her with them? Did they care nothing, then, for the unhappy child of their poor dead Zaidee? She had written to them so frankly, so appealingly, tried to open her whole heart to them, but there came no response.
And dearly as she loved her good friend, Mrs. Stone, Kathleen chafed at her enforced dependence on her kindness. She saw so plainly through her little matchmaking scheme, and she was so touched by Teddy's devotion, silent and unobtrusive since that day when he had spoken out so impulsively, but still patent to all observers.
She was so lonely, so friendless; and she knew it was nobler in him to cling to her now when she was no longer a belle and heiress, but only a waif tossed back almost from the grave into a world that denied and disowned her. Teddy never seemed to remember that. He was as courteous and deferential as he had ever been to Miss Carew, the courted heiress. Every day he brought her gifts of books and flowers; often he came with a carriage to take her and Mrs. Stone to ride. He did not speak to Kathleen of his love again, but his great black eyes looked unutterable things, and she knew that, despite his usual variableness, he was true, at least, to this love.
Yes, Teddy's heart was touched for once, and he loved bonny Kathleen even more warmly than in the former time when:
Teddy could not realize but that Kathleen would return his love some time. He knew he was "a catch," in worldly parlance, and he knew that he was good to look upon. Why, then, should not beautiful Kathleen learn to love him? Other girls had found it easy to do so—girls for whom he had not cared an iota, only to amuse himself.
This was different. Teddy—flirting Teddy—had found heaven at last in a girl's eyes!—deep, dark eyes like shady pools in their thick fringes. Her glance thrilled him; the touch of her soft, cool little hand burned like fire. He could think of nothing but his love for her, and his desire to marry her and lift her again to her old proud position.
"Once my wife, she should queen it over that fat Alpine Belmont, who got all her money," he said to his cousin. "She should have one of the finest houses in Boston, horses and carriages, jewels and fine dresses, and I would worship the very ground she trod on!"
"WE HAVE MET—WE HAVE LOVED—WE HAVE PARTED!"
Kathleen gave up all hope of ever hearing from her Southern relatives.
"They do not care for me, and I must not expect anything of them," she sighed, and the thought came to her that now she had been at Mrs. Stone's six weeks, and grown well and strong again, she must seek a situation as a teacher and support herself.
"I suppose I could teach little children, and I must try to find some place. It is unfair to my kind friend for me to remain here longer," she sighed, and stole softly down to the library for a morning paper to consult the advertisements.
As the girl glided softly across the floor a low murmur of voices reached her through the falling curtains from the adjoining parlor.
The girl gave a violent start, and sunk tremblingly into the nearest chair.
She was pale as death, and her heart beat violently against her side.
What was it? What had startled the young girl so much?
The sound of a voice had pierced her heart like a sword-thrust.
It was Ralph Chainey's voice, so deep, so sweet, so mellow, that, once heard, it could never be forgotten, especially by one who loved him so despairingly as did our poor Kathleen.
He was speaking to Mrs. Stone, and for one wild moment Kathleen believed that he had traced her here, that he had come to inquire for her. Surely then he could not be guilty, or conscience would have kept him away.
She strained her ears to catch every tone of that deep, sweet voice, and then she heard him speaking to Mrs. Stone of her literary work. He had been so struck with the force of one of her books that he wanted her to dramatize it for him, or write him a new play.
All unaware of Kathleen's nearness to him, the young actor had come here to this house, seemingly led by the subtle hand of Fate.
Kathleen glided to the falling curtains, and, drawing one ever so lightly apart, gazed with eager, yearning eyes into the room.
Her hungry eyes feasted on the sight of her false lover as he sat in full view, opposite Mrs. Stone, in a large velvet arm-chair.
Never, it seemed to bonny Kathleen, had she seen him look so grandly handsome, not even in his spirited impersonation of Prince Karl, in which he had so thrilled her girlish heart.
But Ralph Chainey was pale, and in his splendid, thoughtful brown eyes lay the haunting shadow of a cruel pain. He was tortured by his failure to find lost Kathleen.
But the conventional smile that played over his handsome face as he talked to the gifted woman before him deceived Kathleen. It seemed to her that he was well and happy, that he had forgotten that she ever lived—the girl he had pretended to love so dearly.
"I have the plot of a new story upstairs in my study, and I believe it is just the thing you want, Mr. Chainey," said Mrs. Stone, vivaciously. She rose, and added: "I will go and get it, but if I am some little time away, please go into the library, and amuse yourself with a book. I must confess that I am very careless, and often misplace my manuscripts."
Mrs. Stone vanished through the door, and Ralph Chainey, who was so unhappy that he dreaded nothing so much as his own sad thoughts, immediately turned toward the library.
Kathleen gave a gasp of surprise and terror, and turned to fly.
She was too late. Even as her hand fell from the curtain Ralph Chainey swept it aside and entered. The strangely parted lovers were face to face.
For a moment the young man was only conscious that Mrs. Stone's library was occupied by a beautiful young girl.
But the moan that burst uncontrollably from Kathleen's white lips made him glance more closely at the young girl's face, and then he saw that it was his missing love.
A cry of joyful astonishment broke from him, and he sprung forward, crying, eagerly:
"Kathleen, my darling!"
His arms closed about her; he pressed her closely to his throbbing breast.
Kathleen's eyes closed, and her golden head sunk heavily on her lover's breast.
She had almost fainted with the shock of seeing him so suddenly, combined with the exquisite rapture and pain of his fond embrace.
But even while he showered kisses on her fair face and closed eyes, memory and reason began to assert themselves. She struggled faintly in his clasp, and he perceived that she was trying to free herself.
Instantly he opened his arms and allowed her to go free, for Ralph Chainey was one of the proudest of men, and would not force his caresses on any one.
But he said eagerly, although with a slight tone of reproach in his voice:
"Kathleen, my dearest, how came you here, and why was it that I found you gone that night when I returned to the station?"
The color flushed hotly into her pale face, but she stood apart, looking at him with burning eyes, and not uttering one word.
"Kathleen, why do you look at me so strangely?" exclaimed her lover, in reproachful wonder. "Has your heart changed toward me? Did you repent your promise to marry me that night, and run away, or did your enemies find you, as you feared they would? Tell me the truth, my darling."
But still she did not speak. In truth, she could not. There was a hysteric constriction in her throat that held it tight as with iron bands. She gazed with unwilling fascination into the large, pleading, brown eyes of her lover, her young heart throbbing wildly in her breast.
"Kathleen, what have I done that you will not even speak to me?" he asked, piteously, and all her heart thrilled at the words; her will was hardly strong enough to restrain her from springing into his arms. His glance, deep, reproachful, loving, and magnetic, all in one, held her like a charm:
A long, long, troubled sigh breathed over the girl's sweet lips, and with a great effort of her will she drooped her eyelids so that they could not encounter his gaze.
"For I dare not, or—I should risk everything for his dear love," she thought, wildly.
She mystified him so by her strange behavior that he forgot his pride, and again advanced toward her side.
"Kathleen, my love, my darling, speak to me, if only one word!" he cried, yearningly, passionately.
And finding her voice at last, she faltered to him, in a despairing tone:
"Did you ever—ever—know—a woman named—Fedora?"
"My God!" cried Ralph Chainey.
He flung up one hand to his brow and reeled backward from her side like one wounded to the death.
"So it is true?" Kathleen cried, in a hollow voice full of bitter anguish.
Ralph Chainey looked at her with sad eyes from which all the brightness had strangely faded.
"Who has told you?" he asked, in a dull voice.
"She told me herself," Kathleen answered, and shot him an indignant glance, pride coming to her rescue. There could no longer be any doubt of his guilt. His looks confessed it.
But he faltered in a dazed voice:
"That is impossible! She is dead!"
"You can not deceive me like that, Ralph Chainey!" cried Kathleen, in tempestuous anger. Her eyes flashed lightning on her recreant lover, and she continued, bitterly: "Your wife came to me that night in the station and told me all. She—she took me away."
"What was she like?" demanded the young man, hoarsely. He seemed dazed by sudden misery.
"She was a beautiful blonde with a haughty manner," answered Kathleen; and he groaned as if there could be no longer any hope.
"I have been duped, deceived! I believed that Fedora was dead long ago," he said, angrily. Then his voice grew softer. "Kathleen, will you let me explain it all?" he pleaded, humbly.
But in the heart of the beautiful, passionate young girl there had suddenly leaped into life the devouring flame of jealousy—jealousy and hate for the woman who had thrust her rival into the pit of a black despair. And he had deceived her. It seemed to her she must go mad with her wrongs. In this moment she hated her lover.
She turned on him with a tigerish glare in her splendid eyes.
"I will hear nothing!" she said, bitterly. "You will never have the chance to deceive me again!" and she rushed angrily from the room.
RALPH CHAINEY'S ANGER.
Kathleen gained her own room, locked the door, and fell prostrate on the floor in a passion of blinding grief and jealous anger. Tears came to her relief, and rained down her cheeks in a tempest of emotion.
"Will he go away, or will he remain, tell Mrs. Stone my whole story, and beg her to plead his cause with me?" she asked herself, and hoped unconsciously that he would.
She did not know the young man's sturdy pride. He had waited for Mrs. Stone, transacted his business with her, and gone away without a word.
"She did not love me, or she would have let me explain it all, as I wished. She did not care to have the barrier between us swept away. So be it. Let her go. She is not worthy such love as I gave her," he thought, with scorn of the heart that could trample on such devotion:
His brow clouded with a heavy frown as he thought of the woman who had turned the heart of his fair young love so cruelly against him.
"Does she really live? Have I been duped by a cunning lie—a trick to extort the price of a costly funeral? I almost believe it. Let me find out if it is true, and bitter shall be that fiend's punishment," he mused with almost savage intensity.
He had reached Boston only that morning, and he had promised Alpine Belmont, who had written to him almost every day since he left, that he would call upon her very soon. Wondering if she knew of Kathleen's presence in the city, he bent his steps toward Commonwealth Avenue.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Stone, full of elation at the compliments paid her by the gifted actor, and eager to share her pleasure with Kathleen, went upstairs and tapped softly on the door.
Kathleen opened it, and her friend started with surprise at seeing her face flushed and her eyes swollen with weeping.
"Do not mind me; it—it—is nothing," was all she would say in reply to Mrs. Stone's sympathetic inquiries; and at last the authoress plunged into her own affairs, telling Kathleen all about Ralph Chainey's visit, and his wish that she should write a play for him.
"He has taken away the plot of my new novel to read, and he will return in a few days to tell me how he likes it. If I succeed in pleasing him, I shall be famous!" she exclaimed.
"I hope that you will succeed," Kathleen said, earnestly.
"Have you ever seen Ralph Chainey act, my dear, and did you like him?"
"I have seen him, and I think he is a grand actor," the girl replied, quietly.
"How would you like to go and see him to-night? He plays 'A Parisian Romance.' I am sure he will be splendid in that, as he is in everything. We will take Teddy with us. What do you say, my dear?"
Kathleen hesitated, her heart throbbing wildly with the blended love and hate she now felt for the handsome lover who had so wickedly deceived and betrayed her girlish trust.
Then a sudden temptation came to her to stab his heart as cruelly as he had done hers. Why not go with Teddy, who loved her so dearly, and pretend to return his devotion?
"I should be delighted to go!" she said, unfalteringly to Mrs. Stone.
ALPINE SOWS THE SEED OF JEALOUSY.
"You startle me! Kathleen really alive? Kathleen here, in the same city with us?" exclaimed Alpine Belmont, in genuine surprise.
Ralph Chainey had been telling her all about his visit to Mrs. Stone and his unexpected rencontre with his lost love.
"Some one has been slandering me to her, and she hates me now. She refused to have anything more to do with me," he ended, with a long sigh.
The beauty's lashes fell to hide her blue eyes' exultant gleam.
"Oh, how cruel of Kathleen!" she exclaimed. She sighed, and added, in a low, tender voice: "How could any one be cruel to you?"
He hardly noticed the purport of her speech, he was so absorbed in thought.
"You will go to her, Miss Belmont? You will bring her home?" he pleaded.
"But perhaps she will not come with me. Is it not a little strange that she did not come here at first, Mr. Chainey?"
"Yes, it is strange. There is something very mysterious about this affair. But go to her, Miss Belmont, and no doubt she will give you her confidence. Be her friend, if she needs one," pleaded the lover, forgetting his wrath against Kathleen in anxiety over her welfare.
"I will go to-morrow," promised Alpine, soothingly.
"And you will bring her home with you?"
"If she will come," answered Alpine. Then she gave a violent start, exclaiming: "Oh, I've just remembered something!"
"Well?" asked the young man, eagerly.
"Mrs. Stone is own cousin to Teddy Darrell, and he was Kathleen's lover last winter. Can there be any connection between her being there with Mrs. Stone—whom I'm certain she used not to know—and Teddy Darrell?"
The shaft went home. She saw him pale and tremble with jealous dread.
"I know Teddy Darrell," he said, trying to speak carelessly. "Did—did she ever care for him?"
"Yes, I believe so. There was a flirtation anyway, and we thought once it would be a match; but suddenly it all came to nothing. I don't know who was to blame, but I'm afraid it was Teddy. He's known to be fickle-minded and a wretched flirt."
How sweetly and artlessly she spoke; but every word was a sword-thrust in the hearer's heart. Wan and haggard with misery, he rose and began to pace the floor restlessly.
Alpine watched him under her down-drooped lashes, her breast heaving with its love and pain. Yet she knew that she was no more to him than a hundred other girls whose names he barely knew, save and except that she was Kathleen's step-sister. She "was not the rose, but she had lived near it."
It was cruelly hard, when she loved him so dearly. The temptation seized her to fall at his feet, to cry out to him that she could not live without him, that she was going mad for his dear love.
She recoiled with horror from the thought. No, no; he would despise her. Let her show him tenderness and sympathy, but not love. By and by he might turn to her when he became convinced that Kathleen was lost to him forever.
"And she is, she shall be!" vowed the girl; and after watching Ralph in silence for some moments, while he strode up and down, seemingly oblivious of her presence, she moved to his side, and slipping her hand timidly within his arm, murmured, softly:
"Do not worry over it, please, dear friend. Even if Kathleen is lost to you, there are hundreds of other girls as well worth the winning."
He did not answer; he was dumb with despair; but he suffered Alpine to cling to his arm and walk up and down by his side, murmuring low words of sympathy all the while.
"I shall scold Kathleen for her cruelty to you; you did not deserve it, for you were true to her," she said, and sighed. "Ah, how sad it is for one's love to prove false—false and fickle!"
He turned on her almost fiercely.
"You believe that she loves this Darrell?" he exclaimed.
"I believe she does," answered Alpine, with pretended reluctance, exulting in the pain she saw on his face.
It gave her a savage joy to wound him in his love for Kathleen. She longed to make him hate the hapless girl as bitterly as she herself hated her.
"I must go," he said, abruptly; then as she clung to his hand: "Do not forget your promise to go to her to-morrow. And—you will send me a note? I play here all this week."
"Yes, you shall hear from me. I shall see you again, too, for I'm coming every night to see you act," she answered, sweetly.
"Thank you," he replied, dropped her hand, and went away, never remembering how lovingly the blue eyes had looked into his, nor how tenderly she had spoken. It was Kathleen of whom he was thinking—his sweet, estranged love.
ALPINE'S FALSEHOOD.
When the curtain rose that night on Ralph Chainey in the beautiful play, "A Parisian Romance," there were seated in opposite boxes the beautiful rivals for the handsome actor's love—Alpine Belmont in one box with her haughty mother, and in the other Kathleen Carew, chaperoned by Mrs. Stone and with Teddy Darrell hanging adoringly over her chair.
Kathleen was all in white—a simple form of mourning—and white flowers, set off by their own green leaves, were her only adorning.
And Teddy Darrell? Well, the young swell "was gotten up regardless," as one of his friends remarked—"a golden youth" like himself. His evening dress was faultless, and his button-hole bouquet matched Kathleen's white flowers. His diamonds were magnificent, and his whole air was so hopeful and exuberant that when Ralph Chainey from the stage first caught sight of him his heart sunk with despair. He felt that "flirting Teddy" was a rival to be dreaded.
"Why need she have come to torture me with the sight of all I have lost?" he thought, despairingly; but he went on splendidly with his part in the play. A stubborn pride came to his aid. She should not see how he was suffering, this lovely, scornful girl leaning back in her chair to look up into the handsome face so close to her own as attentive Teddy wielded the white ostrich feather fan. She scarcely seemed to see what went on upon the stage; she did not look across into the box where her step-mother and Alpine were staring in angry surprise. She looked only at Teddy Darrell; she smiled only at him. It was such a pronounced flirtation that the crowded house observed it and smiled indulgently at the handsome pair, declaring that it would certainly be a match.
Whispers, too, were circulating among the people who had known Kathleen Carew in her life-time. Who was this girl with the face and smile of the dead heiress?—that luring face so subtly beautiful that no one had dreamed the world could hold a copy.
Curiosity moved a gentleman, when the curtain fell, to go and ask Mrs. Carew about it.
"I am as much amazed as you are," she replied.
"Then you can not tell me who she is," he said, regretfully.
"She is masquerading under the name of my dead step-daughter, and pretends to be resurrected from a trance, or something like that. We first heard about it yesterday," was Mrs. Carew's curt reply.
"Then you have not seen her until to-night?"
"No," nervously.
"Shall you acknowledge her, Mrs. Carew?"
"No. She is an impostor, and we will have nothing to do with the minx."
"Speak for yourself, mamma," said Alpine, pertly. "I'm not sure she's an impostor, for it is Kathleen's face and her very gestures. I am going over to Mrs. Stone's box and find out the truth for myself, if Mr. Layne will take me."
She rose, drawing the blue wrap about her white shoulders. Mrs. Carew stared aghast.
"You will not, you must not!" she exclaimed, angrily.
Alpine bent down and whispered rapidly in her ear:
"What does it matter? I have her money safe; she could not get it if she lived a thousand years, and I have my own plans. You must not interfere with them."
When Alpine took that tone, her mother knew that protest was useless.
"Do as you please," she muttered, angrily, and tossed her head as Alpine went out leaning on Mr. Layne's arm.
"What is the girl up to, I wonder?" she mused, uneasily. "She always had a sneaking fondness for Kathleen, and would be just silly enough to bring her home to live with us. She shall not do it, no matter what the world says. I always hated the girl for the look she has of her dead mother."
Mrs. Carew was jealous of the very memory of poor Zaidee, and could not bear the sight of her beautiful daughter. She writhed with anger when she saw Alpine embrace Kathleen.
"Kathleen, is it really you? Oh, you darling, let me kiss you!" she cried, effusively, and put her arms impulsively about the young girl.
Kathleen recoiled from her at first. She thought that Alpine knew all about her mother's cruelty; but as Alpine held her in that warm embrace, she exclaimed:
"Kathleen, why did you not come home to us?"
Kathleen released herself from Alpine, answering, bitterly:
"I came, but your mother denied me, and put me out into the street, unconscious, to perish in the snow."
"Impossible!" cried Alpine. But there came to her all in a rush the memory of that night when her mother had told her that a woman had come to see Ivan, and she had driven her away.
"She deceived me; it was Kathleen," she thought, and exclaimed, eagerly:
"My dearest girl, she did not tell me anything about it, but of course she believed you were an impostor. You believe me? you will let me be your friend, Kathleen?" anxiously.
"Come and see me at Mrs. Stone's to-morrow, Alpine," her step-sister answered; and then turned to the gentleman.
"How do you do, Mr. Layne? Will you, too, take me for an impostor?" she inquired, holding out her little hand to him.
"No, indeed, Miss Carew, for I am sure there can not be a copy of your beautiful face in all the world," he replied, gallantly. Being an elderly widower, he felt privileged to pay broad compliments.
Kathleen blushed and smiled, and the curtain rising at that moment showed Ralph Chainey that Alpine had seized the first opportunity to go and see Kathleen.
He was intensely pleased with Alpine's loyalty.
"She is a better girl than I used to think," he decided, and made up his mind to go to her box the first opportunity to thank her for her goodness.
He did not dream that Alpine was whispering at that moment little poisoned arrows into Kathleen's ear about himself, nor of the cruel pain that tore Kathleen's heart as she heard of her lover's liking for Alpine.
"When he came yesterday, he told me of your being at Mrs. Stone's. What a shock it was to know you were really living! But I must go back to mamma now, and to-morrow I'll come and see you, and hear all about your little romance," tearing herself away.
Just as she expected, Ralph hurried to her box as soon as the curtain fell.
"What did she say?" he whispered, eagerly; and Kathleen, who was watching them, felt her heart thrill with renewed bitterness as she saw the curly brown head bent low over Alpine's straw-gold one.
"He is doing it to pique me," she thought; but she could not turn her burning dark eyes away from the sight.
Alpine looked up smilingly into the pale, anxious face.
"She told me to come to-morrow and see her and hear her story; there was not time to-night," she replied.
He was disappointed; she read it in his speaking countenance, and added:
"She gave me one bit of news, but I am not sure that I ought to tell you."
"Please do so," he urged.
"It will pain you, I fear," sighed Alpine.
"I am strong enough to bear anything except—suspense," setting his teeth firmly.
Mrs. Carew was looking at them curiously:
"Mamma, will you please excuse us for whispering? I have something to tell Mr. Chainey—a secret."
"You are excusable," the lady replied, sourly, turning away her head.
Alpine whispered to Ralph:
"Kathleen is engaged to be married to Teddy Darrell, and is the happiest girl I ever saw!"
He was silent a moment, then murmured, bitterly:
"She has no heart! How could she turn so quickly from one love to another?"
"She is fickle as the wind," Alpine answered, with a contemptuous shrug.
A CRUEL STAB.