The unbidden guest
Date: 2025-05-23T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Dime novels; American fiction; Romance fiction

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Title: The unbidden guest
or, Between two passions

Author: Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

Release date: May 23, 2025 [eBook #76151]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Street & Smith, 1901

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76151

Credits: Demian Katz and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Images courtesy of the Digital Library@Villanova University.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNBIDDEN GUEST ***

The Unbidden Guest

OR,

BETWEEN TWO PASSIONS

BY

Mrs. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER

AUTHOR OF

“What Was She to Him?” “The Man She Hated,” “All for Love,” “The Fatal Kiss,” “Pretty Madcap Lucy,” “Let Us Kiss and Part,” and numerous other books published in the New Eagle Series.

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

Copyright 1900 and 1901
By Norman L. Munro

The Unbidden Guest

THE UNBIDDEN GUEST.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. THE GIPSY’S CURSE.
CHAPTER II. I LOVED YOU BEST OF ALL.
CHAPTER III. LELIA’S INGRATITUDE.
CHAPTER IV. JEALOUSY AS CRUEL AS THE GRAVE.
CHAPTER V. POOR, UNLOVED GIPSY, THE WAIF.
CHAPTER VI. IN DEADLY PERIL.
CHAPTER VII. A WORTHY RESOLVE.
CHAPTER VIII. A QUARTER OF TWELVE.
CHAPTER IX. SHE STARED DEATH IN THE FACE.
CHAPTER X. AN ANGEL UNAWARES.
CHAPTER XI. THE UNBIDDEN GUEST.
CHAPTER XII. “HERE IS YOUR RING.”
CHAPTER XIII. A RASH PROMISE.
CHAPTER XIV. A CRY IN THE NIGHT.
CHAPTER XV. A STRUGGLE FOR A RING.
CHAPTER XVI. A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY.
CHAPTER XVII. A LETTER FROM LAURIE.
CHAPTER XVIII. OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE.
CHAPTER XIX. HE COULD NEVER FORGET HER NOW.
CHAPTER XX. NEVER MORE HER LOVER.
CHAPTER XXI. IF IT COSTS MY HEART’S BLOOD.
CHAPTER XXII. HOUNDED TO HIS FATE.
CHAPTER XXIII. TWO RINGS.
CHAPTER XXIV. HAUNTED.
CHAPTER XXV. THE MASK OF A GUILTY SOUL.
CHAPTER XXVI. THE PALL OF DEATH.
CHAPTER XXVII. A FORGOTTEN BRIDE.
CHAPTER XXVIII. A GIPSY PROPHECY.
CHAPTER XXIX. THE HEIRESS.
CHAPTER XXX. STARTLING NEWS.
CHAPTER XXXI. THE DEAD ALIVE.
CHAPTER XXXII. GIPSY’S PARENTAGE.
CHAPTER XXXIII. YOU HAVE TRIUMPHED.
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE VENGEANCE OF HEAVEN.
CHAPTER XXXV. AS IN A DREAM.
CHAPTER XXXVI. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.
CHAPTER XXXVII. SHE BETRAYED HERSELF.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. WAS IT A VICTORY?
CHAPTER XXXIX. ONLY A DREAM!
CHAPTER XL. THE PROOFS OF HER GUILT.
CHAPTER XLI. IN EXILE.
CHAPTER XLII. WITH THE FLIGHT OF TIME.
CHAPTER XLIII. THE AMERICAN BEAUTY.
CHAPTER XLIV. THE NIGHTINGALE’S STORY.

CHAPTER I.

THE GIPSY’S CURSE.

“Heigh-ho! I wish I were a boy, then I would run away from The Crags and see the beautiful world that lies hidden beyond these tall mountains!”

It was the voice of a pretty young girl, poised on tiptoe on the very verge of a lofty cliff, gazing down eagerly at the scene far below, the silvery Greenbrier River, the gleaming line of serpentine railway, and the winding road that curved around the jagged cliffs up to the heights where stood The Crags, a picturesque old stone mansion.

Here several generations of the aristocratic Willoughbys had lived and died, and the present owner and incumbent was Miss Cyrilla Willoughby, a spinster of sixty years, with literary tastes, who spent her time preparing for publication the memoirs of her distinguished race.

And the girl?

Oh, a mere nobody! A sort of protégée of Miss Willoughby.

It was quite seventeen years ago that the lady’s cousin, a stern, domineering soldier, had stalked into her library one day, saying abruptly:

“Cyrilla, there are some impudent, thieving gipsies camped in your south meadow, and I have taken the liberty of driving them off. I gave orders for them to be gone bag and baggage before dark.”

“But was that necessary, Eustis? They have camped on my lands several times before, and never did any harm that I know of, and they amused the young people of the neighborhood telling their fortunes,” remonstrated the spinster mildly.

“They know no more of the future than you or I, Cyrilla!” he returned sharply, without taking the trouble to tell her that the enraged gipsy queen had told his fortune gratis in a string of maledictions, prophesying unnumbered evils on his luckless head.

He had cursed her in return for an impudent jade, and strode from the camp with a brow as black as night, shuddering, in spite of himself at her invocations of the Evil One’s power, though he was not superstitious enough to place any confidence in the efficacy of her prayers.

Be that as it may, the Fates were weaving a grim web about Colonel Ritchie’s future, and before midnight he was summoned to his city home by a telegram announcing the death of a near and dear relative.

Though he had only arrived that day with his wife and little daughter, Lelia, for a month’s visit at The Crags, they left by the first train for their city home, and he never returned, for his death occurred two years later in the Indian Territory, while gallantly leading a charge against a hostile tribe. Thus he never knew that the banished gipsies had forgotten or deserted a lovely, dark-eyed babe in their flight. It was found in the woods next morning by the servants of Miss Willoughby, and carried to The Crags.

And for beauty and brightness, every one vowed that the half-naked little waif had never had an equal. Just a few months old, it smiled into their faces, cooing and gurgling so engagingly that it won every heart by its infantile pleading of its own cause.

“It must be sent to the poorhouse!” announced Miss Willoughby unconcernedly. What was a pretty gipsy brat to her, a Willoughby!

But Jane Dobbs, the new housekeeper, clasped it to her heart, begging to keep it for her own.

“It’s just the age of the one I lost, and it’ll be sech a comfort to me, please ’m!” she sobbed humbly.

“Keep it, then, so that it does not interfere with your work, or bother me,” returned the spinster carelessly, and thus the little gipsy came to belong to The Crags.

Gipsy—that was what they always called her, every one at The Crags, and it was no matter that Jane Dobbs bestowed on her protégée a string of high-sounding names, they were all ignored, and she soon came to know and answer to the first one.

For her surname little Lelia Ritchie, when she visited The Crags soon after the colonel’s death, became responsible.

“Go away, you little dark gipsy! Laurie and I don’t want to play with you!” she cried, driving her away with a sharp little slap that sent Gipsy, sobbing, to hide her tingling cheek in the housekeeper’s skirts.

The servants adopted the epithet, turning it into Gipsy Darke, and thus it remained ever after.

Lelia was five years old then, and the despised waif just about three. Laurie was eight, the only and motherless child of Miss Willoughby’s eldest brother, the general. He was a handsome, brown-eyed boy, the constant playmate of the radiant, blond Lelia, for their homes were under one roof, Mrs. Ritchie having gone to live with her widowed brother, when the colonel met his death on the field of battle.

Miss Willoughby’s haughty little niece and nephew never deigned to make a playmate of the pretty little waif whose dark eyes, full of wistful love and longing, followed them about their childish sports. If she came too near them Lelia always drove her angrily away, exclaiming spitefully:

“Papa always hated Indians and gipsies, and so do I. You need not offer us your ugly toys and wild flowers. We don’t want them, and we hate you!”

Laurie Willoughby never disputed Lelia’s authority, never took Gipsy’s part, but neither did he join in his cousin’s active hostility. He was a quiet, undemonstrative boy, and he knew that if he went contrary to Lelia’s will she would slap his face as readily as she did the little waif’s, with her big, wistful, dark eyes, like a frightened fawn’s under her cloud of silky, black ringlets.

He was a little gentleman, he knew it was not manly to fight with girls, least of all his vixenish cousin, whom he had been told by his aunt was going to be his little wife when they got old enough to marry.

It was a pet project of the family to unite the pair’s fortunes indeed, so they did all in their power to foster their childish love.

So all three were grown up now. Laurie, Lelia, and Gipsy, and as the latter stood on the verge of the cliff in the golden glow of the June morning, gazing far down the dizzy height at the express-train flashing along over the steel rails, and heard the shrill whistle announcing its arrival at the station, she knew that Miss Willoughby’s expected visitors, the devoted cousins, had arrived, and would soon be at The Crags.

Nothing else had been talked of for weeks but this visit, the first in five long years, for Laurie and Lelia had both been abroad several years finishing their educations—he at a German university, she at a Parisian boarding-school.

How fine and grand they would be, and what great doings would go on at The Crags, quite upsetting Miss Willoughby’s literary labors; for a large house-party had been invited to meet the cousins, and by to-morrow all would be arrived, and the staid old mansion turned topsyturvy with fun and frolic, and dancing and coquetry.

The girl on the cliff, young, beautiful, spirited, tender, yet feeling herself outside all this glow of happiness and excitement, “a mere looker-on in Venice,” as it were, stood there alone in the beautiful June morning, with her heart in her great dark eyes, “half-sunshine and half-shade,” watching the dusty, winding road to see the carriage coming up the hill with the happy lovers smiling into each other’s eyes.

Without a pang of envy or resentment she watched and waited as for beautiful beings from another world—that world she longed to behold, to which she said she would run away if she were only a boy.

And truth to tell, Gipsy actually did look boyish in her bloomer suit of dark-blue cloth, with tan-colored leggings on her shapely nether limbs, and her little blue cap set rakishly one side on the cloud of flying black ringlets that framed an enchantingly lovely face, arch and spirited and winning, with rose-red pouting lips and dimpled cheeks.

A dangerous rival to the blond Lelia, if only she had not been poor and despised.

CHAPTER II.

I LOVED YOU BEST OF ALL.

“Oh, they are coming! I see the victoria climbing the hill!” cried Gipsy, eagerly craning her slender neck forward, her large, dark eyes sparkling with excitement, and her canine companion, a big, handsome St. Bernard, uttered a sharp yelp of joy in sympathy.

It was true. The fine, new vehicle, bought by Miss Willoughby expressly to add to the pleasure of her honored guests, was climbing the hill, drawn by two handsome, well-matched bay horses, their silver mounted harness glittering in the golden sunshine.

Laurie Willoughby, handsome and debonair, held the reins, and his beautiful sweetheart, the blond Lelia, sat beside him, frowning in real discontent as she exclaimed impatiently:

“To think of having to waste a whole summer month at the lonesome old Crags, when we might be at Newport or the Pier! I declare I never would have sacrificed myself so if it had not been for Aunt Cy’s money! But mama is always preaching at me that I must honey the old maid up, or she might not leave me her fortune.”

“Has Aunt Cy promised to make you her heiress?” inquired her lover carelessly.

“No, but mama says if I cut my cards straight, she will be sure to leave it to me, or both of us, Laurie, for, of course, you are as near of kin to her as I am.”

“But if she does not choose to leave us a penny, Lelia, we need not worry, we will have enough of our own, anyway,” Laurie answered placidly.

But Lelia frowned at his indifference, crying out impetuously:

“Oh, no—no, Laurie, one can never have enough money! Papa always said so—he was fond of saying that money is power, and both my parents always set their hearts on having me inherit Aunt Cy’s great fortune, that is as much, you know, as yours and mine put together, Laurie.”

His large, clear, brown eyes turned on her in keen rebuke.

“Oh, Lelia, I hate to have you appear so mercenary!” he sighed, in a reproachful tone.

“Laurie, you shall not scold me for nothing!” she retorted petulantly, rolling her great blue eyes at him in displeasure.

He did not notice her defiant words, save by a slight tightening of his lips as he turned his attention to the horses, and she pouted her rose-bud lips, and continued reproachfully:

“Now, you are angry with me, and trying to spoil all the pleasure of my trip by unjust fault-finding. But if I were as mercenary as you say I am, there are other men richer than you, that I refused before you asked me—just because I loved you best!”

At this artful plea Laurie looked down into his sweetheart’s face, and saw the great, blue-bell eyes moist with threatening tears.

He slipped one arm about her waist, and coaxed her into good humor with a lover’s kiss.

“Now smile again, my darling, for we will soon be at The Crags, and dear old Aunt Cy must not think we have been quarreling again, as when we were spoiled children. Look up and you will see the towers of the old mansion as we turn the bend in the road. And see, there’s some one on the verge of the highest cliff watching as if for the first glimpse of us. Aunt Cy has sent a boy, no doubt, to announce our arrival, so that she may have the whole household lined up on the front steps as usual, to do us honor,” he ended laughingly.

“I don’t think it’s a boy, Laurie dear, it looks more like a girl in short skirts. Get out the field-glasses, and let us look and test.”

Reining the bays in, he gave her the glasses out of the case, and presently she said:

“I told you so, it’s a girl. An odd sort of girl in a bloomer suit, with long hair flying under her cap, a summer tourist, I suppose.”

Laurie took his turn with the glasses, and answered:

“You are right, Lelia, it is a girl, and a deuced pretty one, too, I fancy! Beautiful pose that, but dangerous. Might topple over into space any moment. Say, Lelia, I fancy we know her, too. It looks like Gipsy Darke.”

“That girl! I thought you had forgotten her very existence, Laurie.”

“I don’t see how I could forget her so easily, after seeing her so often at The Crags—from youth to age, one might say. Besides, somehow I couldn’t get her out of my mind, because I’ve an uneasy conscience over the dusky little midget!” he confessed.

“I don’t understand,” the blue-eyed beauty returned, with lowering displeasure.

“Don’t you, dearest? Oh, well, you know we treated the poor little thing worse than the dirt under our feet, Lelia, that’s the truth!” he said, adding: “Do you remember how the poor girlie followed us all about wanting to play with us, and we drove her away with angry words and even blows?” generously taking half the blame to himself, though Lelia had done it all.

“She deserved all she got! We could not be expected to associate with a gipsy brat!” the beauty cried hotly.

“Oh, of course not, only after all, it couldn’t have hurt us, and might have saved the poor midget some heartaches. She was desperately in love with us both, don’t you know—it must have been for our good looks, not our amiability! I think that a kind word or smile from us would have made her perfectly happy. I am haunted especially by one incident: The midget approached us with her chubby little fists extended full of wild flowers and sweet grass. Her lovely big black eyes swam in tenderness, and seemed to plead mutely for friendship, her rosy mouth smiled sweetly, she was really a very fascinating baby girl in her white gown and cloud of dark curls, and I was feeling softened beyond description, and must inevitably have responded amiably to her advances, but, alas! something direful happened! Do you remember it, Lelia?”

The beauty, flushing with resentful anger, exclaimed:

“Your memory is good, and so is mine, although I never dreamed you had such a vital interest in Gipsy Darke, or I am sure I should have slapped her face harder than I did when I knocked the flowers out of her hands!”

“You pulled her hair, too,” Laurie said quietly.

“Yes, I pulled her hair, and I would do it again if she tried to come between our hearts as she did then—the little vixen!” she cried passionately, bitterly angered at his frank pity for Gipsy, the waif.

He was half-tempted to remind her that it was she, not Gipsy, who had played the rôle of vixen in their past encounters, but he hated to see her lovely face distorted by malice, so he forbore, and taking the reins again, drove on silently out of sight of the slender figure on the cliff, outlined so clearly in the golden light—the girl watching for the coming of her fate, though she did not know it.

Laurie Willoughby had spoken out too impulsively the secret thoughts that had lain dormant in his mind for years; but it was a pity that he had even betrayed them to the jealous-minded and selfish young beauty by his side. For now she would be on the alert for causes to persecute the hapless waif, whom she hated with added intensity now that Laurie had confessed to a pity and admiration for her helpless childhood.

A portentous frown swept over her brow, and as though nature sympathized with the girl’s somber mood, a sudden cloud passed over the sun, and from the darkened heavens leaped a bolt of fierce blue lightning, followed by a crash of thunder long, loud, reverberating, that seemed to shake the solid earth and rive the rocks apart. Then several boulders rattled down the cliff and fell into the road before the horses’ feet, while one, rebounding from the top of the victoria, struck Lelia’s snowy temple, eliciting a shriek of terror from her blanched lips.

It was one of those sudden storms that break unexpectedly on sultry days over West Virginia, and the thunder’s roll was followed by a swift downpour of rain, mixed with large hailstones, quickly cooling the overheated atmosphere.

The young, mettlesome bays, frenzied by the suddenness and fury of the whole incident, and stung by some small flying boulders, immediately precipitated a dangerous situation.

Snorting with fear and rage, they reared upward, pawing the air with their forefeet, and straining on their bits with a force that nearly dragged the reins from Laurie’s grasp.

He stood up in the swaying vehicle, holding on with might and main, though with a heart as heavy as lead, for he realized that at any moment the maddened animals might shy to the left, and plunge over the precipitous side that sloped down to certain death in the river far below.

But for muscles like steel, developed by years of athletic exercise, he never could have sustained his grip on the lines against the frantic force of the plunging, rearing bays; but with tremendous pluck, he clung and shouted until he brought them down to their feet again, but only to break and run with terrific speed over the up-hill ground, goaded by the shrill screams of Lelia, and the pelting, pouring storm of rain and hail.

What a change from barely ten minutes ago, from a summer scene overarched by blue and sunny skies, to the mountain tempest, the air dark with clouds and rain, the eyes dazzled by the zigzag streaks of lightning, the ears stunned by the crash of thunder and the hoarse snorting of the maddened bays, dashing forward to impending destruction.

For the mountain road, a mere wagon way around the cliffs, offered no escape. On one side it rose like a sheer wall for hundreds of feet, on the other it descended steeply to the bed of the river. A slight swerving from their headlong course in the middle of the road, and death was sure and speedy; but with terrific strength he was holding them straight now.

If only he could hold out to the end!

Then Lelia, driven mad with fear and pain, sprang up and clung to his arm, senselessly adding her weight to the strain upon him.

“Sit down!” he thundered angrily, in his alarm and anxiety; but in that moment she dropped across his breast, a dead weight—swooning, and the bays tore the reins from his grasp with hoarse whinnies of exultation, and again reared upward, this time so near the verge that the vehicle must surely topple over backward.

In that terrible moment, as he was closing his eyes to meet instant destruction, a sweet, high-pitched voice rang out through the wind and rain:

“Whoa, Saint and Satan, whoa!”

CHAPTER III.

LELIA’S INGRATITUDE.

Laurie had closed his eyes in despair to meet inevitable death, but at that sound they flashed quickly open again, and he saw something he could never forget to his dying day.

Was it a dream, or was that a girl’s slight figure that sprang upward at the horses’ heads, clutching their bits with small, fragile hands, while her clear voice rang out again in stern command:

“Whoa, Saint and Satan, whoa!”

It was not her strength, it was her voice that instantly quelled their fury of fear and rage.

What was the power of those small, weak hands to the force of steel that dwelt in those magnificent blooded animals?

But like frightened children Saint and Satan yielded obedience alike to a familiar voice, and came down upon their haunches, as if yielding to her gentle touch in humble, slavish submission.

In their instant obedience the girl’s clasp was loosened, and she fell heavily to the wet ground, but she was up again in a moment, patting their necks, wet with rain and foam, and murmuring encouragingly:

“Poor boys, were you so frightened? But now that Gipsy is with you, I know you will be good. She will not let anything hurt you, you nervous Satan, and you silly Saint, following your brother’s lead into foolish adventures!”

All the while she soothed and calmed them, Laurie Willoughby, with the unconscious Lelia across his breast, stared like one in a dream.

He realized that he and Lelia were saved from a terrible death and restored to the beautiful, bright world they loved so well; but there was something so strange about it all that he could not move or speak from sheer agitation and bewilderment.

For the girl who had stopped the plunging horses in their frenzied career, as they were about to topple over the steep declivity into the river, was Gipsy Darke.

Gipsy Darke, whom not fifteen minutes ago he had seen up yonder on the beetling cliff two hundred feet above them, silhouetted against the golden sunlight that had changed so suddenly into gloom and tempest. How did she come here so quickly? How was it possible for her to descend in that space of time to their relief? There was something uncanny in her swift appearance on the scene of their peril. Had a miracle been wrought in their favor?

While he stared at her in seemingly stupid wonder, the girl standing at the horses’ heads in the drenching rain looked back at him, saying calmly:

“They are all right now, Mr. Willoughby, and you can drive straight on; but if you feel nervous lest they bolt again, you can go very slowly, and I will walk along in front to give them confidence. You see, they know me.”

“I know you, too, Miss Darke, and may Heaven punish me if I ever forget you! Lelia and I are indebted to you for our very lives!” Laurie answered huskily, recovering himself.

A smile like sunlight curved the girl’s red lips, and she answered earnestly:

“I am glad that I have been of service to you both. I have often wondered why I was ever born into a world that seemed to have no place for me, but now that I have been enabled to do such an act of real service to my kind, I will not question Heaven’s will again.”

“You are a noble girl!” he cried impulsively, and at thought of the past a lump of shame seemed to rise in his throat.

“Oh, I have not done so much, after all,” she answered lightly. “You see, Saint and Satan are twin brothers, and were raised at The Crags, so I have been sort of ‘hail fellow well met’ with them all my life. They would always obey my voice, just as you saw them just now.”

“It was wonderful the way they yielded to you!” he exclaimed admiringly. “But for that obedience we must have lost our lives. But how did you get so quickly to our relief? I saw you on the cliff just before the storm broke with such sudden violence. I cannot conceive how you came so quickly to our assistance. Did you fly through the air? I am grateful enough to credit you with angelic wings!”

A slightly roguish smile dawned on the red lips, extending to the long-lashed, Oriental, dark eyes.

“No, I didn’t fly quite, though I found a speedy means of reaching you just in the nick of time!” she answered lightly, adding: “But I’ll explain all that another time. Just now I am very anxious about Miss Ritchie. How cold and white she lies in your arms. And there is blood on her brow and on her golden hair. May I wipe it away?” and leaning inside the carriage, she pressed a damp, snowy handkerchief against the crimson stains.

But at her touch Lelia stirred in Laurie’s clasp, and her blue eyes opened dreamily.

When she saw the lovely, compassionate face so close to her own, instant recognition shone in her glance, and she cried out, just as of old:

“Get away, you black gipsy. I hate you!”

Laurie saw the hot blood mantle the girl’s cheek as she recoiled from the insult, and he trembled with quick shame at Lelia’s discourtesy as he said, gently:

“I must beg your pardon for Miss Ritchie’s rudeness. When she learns that you saved both our lives by leaping at the horses’ heads and stopping them, she will feel as grateful to you as I do.”

Lelia, straightening up to a sitting posture, snapped scornfully:

“I would rather have been killed than to owe my life to a wretched waif like Gipsy Darke!”

“Lelia!” he expostulated in shame and entreaty.

“Drive on, Mr. Willoughby, if you please, and as the worst of the storm seems almost over, I do not believe there will be any more danger, so I will return by the short cut I took to come,” interposed Gipsy, suddenly turning aside and disappearing as if she had entered a fissure in the cliff.

Laurie stared in wonder, exclaiming:

“Why, she has vanished as strangely as she appeared when she came to our relief! Has the earth opened and swallowed the poor girl up, I wonder? It is very strange.”

“Do drive on, Laurie, and don’t sit there staring at the rocks and trees as if you had gone daft! It’s easy enough to hide under some of those great boulders, if she chooses, and for my part, I wish she would fall into a deep cave, and never get out again!” exclaimed Lelia, in a violent rage.

“Oh, my dear, how can you be so cruel and ungrateful? Did I not tell you that by her superb bravery she has just saved both our lives?”

She answered with bitter ingratitude.

“That is no reason I should be falling in love with her, as you are doing, Laurie Willoughby! I can pay my debt of gratitude more acceptably, no doubt, with some of my cast-off clothes and old hats.”

CHAPTER IV.

JEALOUSY AS CRUEL AS THE GRAVE.

Miss Willoughby did not have the household waiting on the steps to welcome her visitors, for they arrived in a downpour of sleet and rain, and had to be escorted indoors under the shelter of two umbrellas.

The rain had blown into the open sides of the carriage and drenched them both, but it had not cooled the heat of the blue-eyed beauty’s temper, and, though she forced a few chilly smiles for her Aunt Cyrilla, she made up for it by violence to the luckless servants who waited on her, bringing a pretty wrapper of the old lady’s to replace her wet garments until the wagon with her trunks arrived from the station.

She lay down then on her white couch to rest, but presently her aunt came in, all anxiety, to ask about the wound to her temple, of which she had just heard from Laurie.

“Oh, no, I don’t need any court-plaster. It is nothing, a mere scratch. Please don’t fuss over it!” she said petulantly.

“Poor dear, you are nervous—and no wonder! Laurie has just been telling me all about your thrilling experience. I am very sorry it happened. Satan has always been skittish, but he never behaved so badly before. As for Saint, he is very gentle, and never gives any trouble, except when he follows his brother’s bad example. I shudder when I think what a narrow escape you and Laurie had from death! How fortunate that Gipsy came to the rescue just in the nick of time.”

“I suppose Laurie has been making her out quite a heroine to you!” sneered Lelia spitefully, as she shook out the damp lengths of her golden tresses over the back of her chair.

“You don’t like poor Gipsy any better than you did in your juvenile days, I see.”

“Why should I? She was an interloper, and had no more business at The Crags than a stray dog. I can’t understand why you have let her stay here all this while, Aunt Cyrilla!”

She was startled and angered, when the old lady replied placidly:

“Really, I don’t see how I could ever get along without Gipsy now!”

“You don’t mean that you have taken her for your maid?”

“Oh, no, not that! I still have Lucinda, the mulatto; though, like her mistress, she is getting old and feeble. But since my faithful companion and secretary, Mrs. Bond, died six months ago, Gipsy has just slipped into her place, and fulfils her duties remarkably well.”

Lelia’s heart gave a strangling throb of jealous anger, and she said bitterly:

“You don’t mean that you stooped to educate the gipsy brat—made a lady of such scum!”

Miss Willoughby, without in the least comprehending the depth of her niece’s rage, returned somewhat huffily:

“I think nature made a lady of her in the beginning, Lelia, for Gipsy has never been any trouble to any one, and has gained friends where least expected.”

“Laurie for one!” cried Lelia furiously.

“Oh, my dear, you talk like you were jealous! Can’t you trust Laurie, who has been devoted to you all your life?”

“I am not jealous, Aunt Cy, I despise the gipsy, that is all, and I am astonished that you should have wasted your money giving her an education.”

Her cheeks flamed scarlet, her blue eyes blazed, she looked like an incarnate fury; but she was holding herself in as well as she could, in her rage and amazement at all she was hearing.

Miss Willoughby said firmly, as though defending herself:

“I don’t think money was ever wasted in educating any one, Lelia, but I am sorry I cannot take the credit of ever spending anything to improve poor Gipsy’s mind. In fact, I never noticed her, and she just ran wild about the place until her foster mother, Jane Dobbs, got married, and her husband refused to adopt the waif. So, in her extremity, Heaven raised her up another good friend.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes, this time it was my secretary, Mrs. Bond. Ever since she came to me, two years before, she had admired the child, and pitied her. So she said to Jane: ‘I’ll care for Gipsy, if Miss Willoughby will permit me. I’ve no one to spend my money on, and I’ll pay her board at The Crags, and teach her something, so that by and by she can go out into the world and earn her own living.’”

“I should think she might do that by telling fortunes and stealing!” cried Lelia sharply.

“How severe you are, Lelia—just like your father!” commented her aunt, continuing:

“But as I was saying about Mrs. Bond’s kind offer, I told her that Gipsy was welcome to her board, and that little room next to hers, and that she might do whatever else she pleased for her, it would be no concern of mine. I didn’t know till long afterward that they had a night-school up in her room for years, and that Gipsy got thoroughly grounded in all that she needed, and can even play the piano and sing like a bird, besides running the typewriter as well as Mrs. Bond herself. So when the poor woman, who had been in a decline for years, was dying of consumption, and I was saying how hard it would be for me now to get used to a new secretary, she begged me to try Gipsy, saying she had been training her a long time to fill her place acceptably, and was sure she could do it.”

“So you actually employed her, aunt?”

“Yes, and she has given me perfect satisfaction,” the old lady answered quickly, to Lelia’s infinite chagrin.

She said bitterly:

“This is a great surprise to me, and I may add, a great disappointment. I did not bring a maid with me, for mama remembered that girl, and she said you would no doubt let her wait upon me while I am here.”

Miss Willoughby did not hesitate to answer bluntly:

“Oh, dear, no, the plan would not be feasible at all. These gipsies, you know, have free, proud blood, that would never brook a condition of servitude. Besides, I am always needing Gipsy myself. She has become, as it were, eyes and hands to my old age, and no one else could fill her place.”

Every word she was uttering filled Lelia’s mind with dread and chagrin.

This was what her mother had often predicted—that the cranky old maid might become fond of Gipsy, might even adopt her and make her an heiress. She ought to be got rid of somehow before such a fatal thing happened, complained Mrs. Ritchie.

Lelia said to herself in dismay:

“It has almost happened. The artful piece has already wormed herself into Aunt Cy’s heart, and the rest is apt to follow. We have let this thing run on too long without taking active steps to get her away from The Crags. There is a new danger for me, too. Laurie is deeply interested in her, more than he realizes in his foolish gratitude. For she really didn’t run any risk stopping those horses. She said they would obey her least word. Oh, what shall I do to rid myself of this interloper, who has crossed my path in so fatal a fashion?”

Controlling her passionate anger with a strong effort of will, she exclaimed bitterly:

“Grant me at least one favor, dear Aunt Cyrilla. Do not thrust this girl upon us, expecting us to treat her as an equal, or show her any kindness.”

Miss Willoughby was plainly nettled at her niece’s lofty tone, and she said with asperity:

“I should indeed be stupid to think it of you, Lelia, knowing all your pride, and how cruelly you treated the poor little tot in her childhood; besides acting ungratefully toward her now, after she has saved your life!”

“Oh, Aunt Cy, this from you, when I have not visited you before for five years! Oh, I am sorry I came! I will go back to mama to-morrow!” sobbed Lelia, in commingled rage and grief.

“You will do nothing of the kind, my dear child. You are silly and overwrought, and nursing a foolish jealousy of Gipsy Darke to-day, but by to-morrow you will feel better, and own yourself ashamed of this childish outbreak of spleen. I am not going to thrust poor Gipsy upon either you or Laurie, and you will scarcely know she is at The Crags, for she has her work to do, and at other times is mostly out in the open air.”

“Gipsylike!” sneered Lelia.

“Yes, if you wish to call it that,” Miss Willoughby returned dryly, adding, with patient kindness:

“I hope you will get over this little spell soon, Lelia, and enjoy your visit to The Crags; for, together with our nearest neighbors, I have planned many pleasant things for you and Laurie. We will have a house-party of ten, including yourselves, and no pains will be spared to contribute to your daily pleasure and entertainment.”

CHAPTER V.

POOR, UNLOVED GIPSY, THE WAIF.

The storm raged on with fitful violence till late afternoon, and in the excitement of the day none of the household took note of the fact that Gipsy did not return.

Lelia’s trunks had duly arrived, and arraying herself in beautiful garments, she had descended to the parlor to cheer her betrothed, who was looking rather disconsolate in the strange solitude of the country house, which afforded time to dwell at length on the happenings of the morning.

His beautiful sweetheart’s ungovernable temper had always been a source of pain to his nobler nature.

He had loved Lelia faithfully all his life, chiefly because he had been anxiously tutored to it, and again because she was very beautiful in a radiant blond style, and could be very fascinating when she chose.

But he was not blind to her faults of heart and mind.

He knew she was violent-tempered, jealous, selfish, and domineering, but he had kept on, trusting to the influence of his own nobler nature to counteract the deformities of her mind, making every possible excuse for a spoiled girl, who had been given her own way in everything, and flattered in society until her vanity and selfishness had distorted her whole nature.

But the exhibition of this morning had appalled him, with its possibilities of disaster to his future. He asked himself in alarm what sort of a wife was this fair vixen going to make for a man who loved peace and tranquillity.

A heavy sigh breathed over his lips just as Lelia entered, a vision of delight in her stylish gown of blue organdie and white lace, with fluttering ribbons, her golden hair fluffed up like an aureole to frame her pearl-fair face.

“Oh, Laurie, how glum you look, my dear! Getting a foretaste already of the horrors of The Crags!” she cried gaily, pausing at his side with her white, ringed hand on his shoulder.

“I own I was lonely till you came,” he confessed, slipping his arm about her waist, with secret relief at the brightness of her face, believing her anger had blown over like the storm.

“You were sitting here pulling me to pieces in your mind, groaning over my naughtiness. Don’t deny it, your eyes betray your guilt!” she added banteringly.

“I cannot help but deplore your high temper, Lelia,” he answered gravely.

An expression of repentance saddened her red lips instantly, and she murmured sweetly:

“Oh, Laurie darling, you cannot deplore it more than I do. But surely you can overlook this morning. Remember what a fright I had, and that I was nervous and overwrought. Now I feel like myself again, and I wish to beg your pardon for my hasty words.”

His answer was like gall and wormwood to her heart:

“I do not mind so much for myself, Lelia, as for that poor girl who saved our lives, and whom you insulted by cruel, ungrateful words. If you wish to please me very much you will say to her all that you have just said to me.”

She recoiled in angry amazement:

“You would have me—me, Lelia Ritchie, your promised wife—humble myself to apologize to a gipsy foundling, no better than a servant, for a hasty word! Laurie, you must be losing your mind.”

“I certainly shall unless you bridle your undisciplined temper, Lelia!” he returned, in impatient wrath, taking his arm quickly from her waist, and springing to his feet in deep disgust.

The sudden entrance of Miss Willoughby created a diversion to a scene that threatened to become highly sensational.

Laurie dropped into a seat and made talk by inquiring into the progress of the “Willoughby Memoirs,” and the old lady thus launched into her favorite theme, talked on for an hour, affording Lelia ample opportunity to recover her equanimity by joining in with apparent smiling interest.

At a momentary lull in the conversation, she said carelessly:

“Tell me all about the house-party that will come to-morrow.”

“There are just eight—Captain Thurston and his wife, she will assist me in chaperone duty, you know. Then there are Irene Mays, Bessie Hall, Zaidee Preston, Geoffrey Graves, Warren Beihl, and Roy Van Vleck. You know some of them, I believe?”

“I have met them all at different times, and all are pleasant people. I am sure we shall have a charming time,” Lelia replied, with pretended pleasure.

“And, by the way, that reminds me I must write a letter this afternoon,” cried the old lady, rising quickly, then exclaiming: “Oh, dear, I cannot do it till Gipsy comes home. Really, I think it is time she was here. Of course, she had to go under shelter till the storm was over, but the sun has been shining two hours now. It is very strange she remains away so long.”

“Let me write your letter, aunt,” exclaimed Laurie eagerly.

“No, I will wait for Gipsy,” she replied.

But she would have a wearier waiting than she knew.

For the summer twilight fell, and the stars came out, but Gipsy did not return.

By this time the mistress of The Crags began to grow uneasy.

“Such a thing has never happened before. Gipsy has never stayed out after dark,” she said, and questioned Laurie closely as to her strange disappearance.

“She darted suddenly behind some rocks, and I drove on, thinking she had sought a shelter from the storm,” he said, adding with some embarrassment:

“My first impulse was to ask her to get into the carriage and drive with Lelia, and let me walk, but I knew Lelia would raise an objection.”

The young lady would have spoken for herself here, had she been present, but she was in the distant music-room, playing snatches of dreamy waltz music.

Miss Willoughby exclaimed:

“I shall send two of the men servants to look for her. She may have fallen down and crippled herself. There’s no telling what has happened. Do you think you can tell the men where you saw her last, Laurie?”

“I will go and show them,” he replied.

“But Lelia would be displeased,” she said hesitatingly.

“In a case like this I must risk her displeasure,” he replied sternly.

“I believe you are right. Lelia is inclined to be unreasonable, anyway,” said the old lady, adding: “Perhaps it may not be necessary to tell her about it. I can just say you went out for a walk. If you are ready we will start the men at once to get a light trap ready in which to bring her home; for I have a presentiment that something has happened to Gipsy.”

Without further delay the little searching-party set forth on their errand, quite unknown to Lelia, who was still at the piano, wondering why Laurie remained outside so long with his cigar.

She sang softly a little song of love and pain, fancying it would call him quickly back to her side; but he was already out of hearing, driving down the mountain road with a strangely heavy heart, wondering what had become of the hapless missing girl.

As for poor Gipsy, she was wondering on her side what had become of everybody else in the world, that no one came to seek for her in her forlorn strait.

Turning away from him in grief and bitterness at Lelia’s cruel words, she had not hinted that she was hurt, Satan having struck her knee accidentally with his forefoot when she sprang at his bit to drag him down.

She had let them drive on, believing she could follow by a short cut, but she knew she could not walk ten steps farther, so keen was the agony of the bruised limb, even while she had smiled up bravely into Laurie’s face.

Turning quickly aside, she had darted into a cleft in the rocky wall known only to herself, where she could shelter herself from the storm, and watch for the wagon with the trunks, so as to ride home.

But the storm raged a while so fiercely that the wagon remained at the station, and by and by Gipsy’s limb began to swell, growing more and more painful, so that at last, with a little gasp of agony, she fainted dead away.

She must have lain unconscious a long time, for it was late afternoon when she awoke to remembrance again, and the storm had cleared away as if by magic.

The pain in her limb was intense when she tried to stand on it, or even to crawl, so she fell back against the cold stone wall, and strained her eyes for some passer-by.

In vain, for it was a lonely road, and no one happened by after the wagon had passed during her fainting spell.

The sun set red in the west, the gray gloaming hid the sky, the tuwhit of the owl and the plaintive call of the whippoorwill came from the dark woods, mingling with the ripple of the river, and Gipsy, always more or less alone, felt like one in a world of shadows condemned to everlasting solitude.

She wondered if any one at The Crags missed her, and watched for her coming, but she decided it could not be, because they would be too engrossed in their grand visitors to remember poor Gipsy, the waif. No one loved her now, since Jane was gone West with her husband, and Mrs. Bond dead and lying at rest in a corner of the family burying-ground of the Willoughbys, whose white tomb-stone she could see glimmering from her windows every night.

CHAPTER VI.

IN DEADLY PERIL.

The moon rose over the tops of the wooded hills, and shed its silvery light upon the weird, lonely scene until the white fog from the river obscured everything with a sheet of spectral white.

To Gipsy, cold, wet, and suffering, the minutes dragged like hours, until her brave heart began to fail, and she alternately wept and prayed like a lost child in her despair.

“Oh, God, must I die here alone, without a friend to pity or to save?”

Almost as if in answer to her prayer, she caught the sudden sound of footsteps and laughter in the road, approaching opposite her hiding-place.

Her heart leaped wildly with the hope of rescue, then sank heavily again with a new fear.

Her first thought was of the men servants from The Crags, but these were strange voices, mixed with coarse, ribald laughter, that made the chilled blood run colder still in her young veins.

She remembered suddenly that she was only a helpless young girl, and to judge from their ruffianly voices and oaths, it might be better to die here alone in her misery than to fall into their hands.

“Oh, Heaven guide me, show me whether it is better to remain here and die, or to cry out to these strangers for help and succor in my distress?” she prayed dumbly.

The men were cursing the fog that kept them from seeing the road, and stopping almost in front of her, they lighted a small bull’s-eye lantern that threw a fitful gleam on their burly forms, clad in rough clothing that suggested tramps to Gipsy’s alarmed mind.

She almost cried out in fear the next moment, when she saw that their faces were hidden by stubbly beards and black crape masks.

She put her hand over her lips, to repress their startled cry, and held her breath lest they should hear it, they were so horribly near.

“I am going to rest before I go another step,” cried one of the worthies, throwing himself down so close to the fissure in the rock that Gipsy trembled with fear, while he added:

“Say, Larkin, are you sure that the girl brought all her jewels with her in her trunk? Because I don’t want to run the risk of the prison-pen without getting swag enough to pay me.”

“Her maid—my sweetheart, you know—swore to me that she had all her jewels—diamonds, rubies, and pearls, worth ten thousand dollars—in a case in that little leather trunk. Her mother didn’t want her to bring them along, but Miss Ritchie vowed she would, and that settled it. She is a termagant, Hattie says, and wouldn’t bring her because she was determined to make a servant of a gipsy girl at The Crags, to humiliate the girl. If she would have brought Hattie, she would have managed to leave open a door and make all plain sailing for us. But she’s been there before, and has given me the lay of the land. They keep but two men servants, who sleep in a small annex to the main building. No one will be in our way but young Willoughby, and us two can easily settle his hash, and the girl’s, too, if she resists—d’ye see?”

“Yaas, I see, and, if you’re rested enough, we’ll move on, Jack, for I’m anxious to git done the job by midnight, and git away before day. Maybe, too, if we git time enough to look about the dining-room, we can swag some of the silver plate. Come, git a move on ye, and say, if we could git a chance at the gipsy girl, maybe she’d be willin’ to open a door for us, eh? We might play the long-lost brother racket——”

They trudged on heavily out of sight, and the girl, who had listened like one paralyzed with horror, gasped like one dying, as she comprehended the terrible truth.

The ruffians were burglars from the city, in collusion with Lelia’s maid to rob her mistress of her valuable jewels, and even to take her life if she offered resistance.

And Laurie Willoughby was to be murdered, too—handsome, brown-eyed Laurie, who had spoken to her so kindly and gently a few hours ago. These ruffianly hands would throttle him, perhaps, or plunge a dagger into his heart!

Oh, Heaven, how terrible it all was! Could she only get there to warn them, she would be willing to crawl all the way, even if she died the next moment.

She would make the attempt, anyway, and, getting down on her hands and knees, Gipsy dragged herself through the spectral mist to the road, and began her brave effort to reach The Crags.

But every movement added fresh agony and brought moans of pain from her pale lips.

She would have given anything to have known even the hour of the night. It seemed to her that the midnight hour must be already past.

Yet it could not be, for the men who had gone ahead just now—the horrible masked burglars—had said they intended to finish their job by midnight.

In almost intolerable pain, she crept over the ground, her poor little hands torn and bleeding with stones and brier scratches.

Surely the beautiful stars never looked on a sadder, more pitiable sight.

“We must be near the scene of her disappearance now. Flash your lantern around, Crawford, and let me see the sides of the cliff,” said Laurie, adding regretfully: “It is very unfortunate, this heavy fog! One cannot see one’s hand before one’s face.” Then to the driver: “What ails the horses? Why are you stopping short?”

“They are frightened, sir; they will not budge a peg. There must be something in the road.”

“Get down with your lantern and see,” exclaimed Laurie.

The negro man obeyed, and the next moment he cried out in a sort of horror mixed with pity:

“Gord A’mighty, no wonder dem hosses wouldn’t budge! An’ a massy, too, dey didn’t, Mars’ Laurie!”

“What is it?” queried the young man.

“Fore de Lud, ’tis pore li’l’ Gipsy Darke, a-layin’ ’cross de road, daid as a doar-nail!” came the distressed reply.

Like a flash, the young man shot out of the light Jersey wagon into the road.

He knelt down, and saw by the lantern’s light in the spectral fog a silent figure lying on its side in the road, the white, deathlike face, with closed eyes upturned to his in pallid beauty—the girl he was seeking—Gipsy Darke!

CHAPTER VII.

A WORTHY RESOLVE.

Miss Willoughby so dreaded an outbreak from Lelia that she did not seek her when she was singing so sweetly in the music-room.

She sat down in the corridor outside, where she could listen as well as her anxious mind would allow to the pleasant sounds.

The young girl sang on and on sweetly, but Laurie did not return to the musical calling of her tender voice.

Her heart all the while was swelling with impatient anger, and with a last crashing, discordant chord, she rose from the piano to seek him.

Then Miss Willoughby met her half-way.

“Oh, my dear, please do not leave the piano yet! I’ve been sitting here in the hall, enjoying your sweet songs so much!” she exclaimed eagerly. “Oh, it’s not eleven o’clock yet, my dear, and Laurie will be here presently. Do sing one more song, Lelia. I should like to hear ‘The Heart Bowed Down!”

“It’s too doleful. Where is Laurie?”

“He—he has gone on a little errand for me, Lelia, and he will be back soon.”

“But where did he go—and why? Has anything happened, Aunt Cy? You look frightened and pale, and your voice trembles. This is very strange!”

The old lady realized that the truth must out, for Lelia would not be denied further.

She quavered tremulously:

“I—I am afraid something has happened to Gipsy! She has never returned since morning.”

The blue eyes flashed proudly.

“That is nothing to me, aunt; I asked about Laurie.”

“I was going on to explain, my dear girl, but you interrupted me. I sent out the two men servants to search for the missing girl, and Laurie—by my wish—accompanied them, to point out the place where she disappeared.”

“Well?”

The word leaped from Lelia’s red lips with the intensity of a curse, and the lightning of her large blue eyes presaged a storm about to break.

She muttered low and furiously:

“Laurie had no right to go after the girl without my consent! He knows how I hate her and wish her dead!”

“Oh, Lelia! Lelia!”

Unheeding the old lady’s shocked remonstrance, she raged on:

“The artful hussy stayed away just to have him go to find her; I see clearly through her little game to win him from me! Oh, I saw her bold eyes fastened on his face with adoration this morning. She wishes to win a grand, rich husband, to steal my Laurie from me! Oh, I will pay him back for daring to go after her without telling me! I will break with him forever! I will give him back his ring!”

Miss Willoughby cried out reproachfully:

“Oh, Lelia, you would not be so heartless! How can you stoop to such insane jealousy of poor Gipsy, who is too far beneath Laurie’s social sphere ever to dream of him as a possible husband? Oh, come, my dear niece; this is quite unworthy of you, and unjust to Laurie and Gipsy. You are still unnerved by your fright of the morning, or you would never fancy such nonsense!”

Lelia’s only answer was an angry sob, and she fled precipitately through the hall up to her own room, rushing in and bolting the door against any intrusion from the frustrated old lady, who gazed after her in amazement, muttering:

“Oh, dear, what a cyclone! What a tempest in a teapot! And over such a trifle! Whatever possesses my beautiful niece to get jealous of poor Gipsy? Why, if this goes on long, I shall be as mad as a March hare! I have it! I’ll send Gipsy off somewhere, to stay till my nephew and niece are gone. It’s the only way to keep peace in the family.”

And having planned this easy solution of her difficulty, she threw open the window and gazed out with anxious eyes into the night, watching for the coming of the absentees.

She had never realized until this hour of deep anxiety that the young girl had made herself a warm place in her heart.

That her services were necessary to her comfort she frankly admitted, but that her presence was essential to her happiness she had never felt till now, when her prolonged absence and Lelia’s unjust jealousy had stirred her heart to a subtle warmth and pain.

The tear of pity trickled down her cheek as she leaned from the window, with her mind full of heavy thoughts, and she murmured:

“What is to become of the poor child when I am gone? She has just been handed on from one kind heart to another all her life, and there are none to whom she can turn by right. I realize now that I have acted selfishly, carelessly, toward Gipsy all her young life. She owes to other poorer people all the care and education she has had. I must show more interest in her hereafter, and leave her a legacy in my will in recognition of her faithful service since Mrs. Bond died.”

In such thoughts she whiled away the half-hour that intervened before the return of Laurie and the men bringing with them unconscious Gipsy Darke.

CHAPTER VIII.

A QUARTER OF TWELVE.

Laurie had held her head in his arm all the way home, and now he took her up like a child, and carried her into the house.

Miss Willoughby met him at the door.

“Oh, what is it?” she whispered fearfully.

“Something dreadful has happened to the poor girl. We found her lying in the road, like one dead, and she has never revived, though her heart beats faintly. I sent Crawford on foot for the nearest physician, and brought her home. Lead the way to her room, please, aunt, so that I may lay her down.”

In his arms, with her head against his breast, Laurie bore her to the tiny, white-hung room, spotlessly neat, but, oh, so bare and common-looking in contrast with the other beautiful chambers of the house that it struck on him painfully, somehow, with a sense of incongruity to her loveliness.

“She is housed no better than my aunt’s servants, poor girl!” he thought pityingly, as he laid her down on the hard bed, and drew back, making room for his aunt.

He was astonished to see her bend and kiss the cold white face—the first kiss she had ever given to the lovely waif.

“You may go now, Laurie, and send my maid up here to help me. She will know how to help better than you,” she said, with embarrassment, fearing the angry Lelia might rush into the room at any moment.

With a last pitying glance at the hapless girl, Laurie went out, and soon had Lucinda hurrying to the rescue.

Then thinking of Lelia for the first time in an hour, he asked for her, and was told she had retired some time ago to her own apartment.

He was sorry for it, thinking he would like for his jealous sweetheart to see the poor waif now, believing the sight might awaken pity in the hardest heart.

Meanwhile, Lucinda, quickly undressing Gipsy, had discovered with dismay the injury to her limb.

“Look at that, mistis, all bruised an’ swelled up! You may ’pend ’pon hit, dat Satan kicked her on hit when she jumped at his haid an’ pulled him down from r’arin’ an’ kickin’, de vilyun! I gwine bafe it wid warm water an’ arnica ’twell de doctor come,” exclaimed the black woman kindly, and though her touch was soft as velvet, it caused Gipsy such intolerable pain that she revived and opened wide her great dark, melancholy eyes on their faces.

“Oh, my dear, my dear!” cried Miss Willoughby, sobbing with relief.

“My mistus was ’feared you done gone daid, honey,” explained the maid.

“Oh, how thankful I am to be here in my own little bed, though I cannot dream how I got here,” murmured Gipsy uncertainly. Then a look of comprehension dawned in her wide-open dark eyes, and she almost shrieked:

“What is the hour? For God’s sake, tell me the hour quickly!”

“It’s almost midnight, my dear girl. It struck the quarter to twelve several minutes ago,” replied Miss Willoughby.

“Oh, Heaven, almost midnight! Has anything happened? Where is Miss Ritchie?”

“Asleep in her bed, my dear.”

Gipsy half-raised herself in bed, and pointed wildly to the door, exclaiming:

“Go wake her instantly! Call Mr. Willoughby and the men servants. Oh, tell them to guard Miss Ritchie in her room! While unseen on the lonely road, I overheard two ruffians plotting to steal her diamonds and murder her if she resisted!”

They stared at her in incredulous amazement.

Surely she was out of her senses, poor girl, raving in delirium from her pain.

“Water! Water!” she gasped, and when she had moistened her poor, feverish lips she began again:

“You do not believe me; you think I am raving, but it is not so! Oh, Miss Willoughby, please believe me! I overheard burglars plotting to rob you of your silver, and your niece of her jewels. They had followed her from town because Hattie, Miss Lelia’s maid, had told them she had brought ten thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds here. They said they would have them if they had to kill her and Miss Willoughby, too.”

Her earnest voice, her appealing eyes, carried conviction to Miss Willoughby’s heart. She gasped out faintly:

“Lucinda, go ask Mr. Laurie to step here quickly.”

Lucinda bolted out, and the old lady drew the white covers over the girl, leaving only her pallid, suffering face exposed when Laurie entered.

To him she repeated, between moans of pain, the story of the plot she had overheard.

“They said they would have the job done by midnight, and it is almost that now,” she sobbed. “Oh, what if they have already forced an entrance to her room! Oh, go—go; waste not a moment, for her life may be hanging in the balance while you delay!”

It needed nothing more to make him rush with a groan from the room.

At the same moment he heard the voice of the doctor that Crawford had brought coming up the stairs, and called to him in a frenzied voice:

“Come, doctor, and you, Crawford, with me to Miss Ritchie’s room. There may be something serious happening there! Heavens! I heard her shriek!”

CHAPTER IX.

SHE STARED DEATH IN THE FACE.

The sound of a muffled shriek had, indeed, come faintly to Laurie’s ears from the direction of Lelia’s room, chilling the blood in his veins with fear and horror.

He ran frantically toward her door, followed fast by the portly doctor and the sinewy Crawford, who had the strength of a prize-fighter in his black fists.

Again a muffled shriek, then silence, as they tried to turn the handle of the unyielding door.

“We must burst it in!” breathed Laurie tensely, with the cold dew of excitement beading his high white brow.

All together, they hurled their strong bodies forward with determined will.

The lock could not stand their furious onslaught.

It yielded, the screws parted, the door crashed inward with such suddenness that all three tumbled in a heap upon the floor, gasping as if the breath had been knocked out of them.

But like a flash they sprang up again, and not a minute too soon.

For the sight that met their eyes was maddening to their manly hearts.

The masked burglars had succeeded but too easily in their designs.

Lelia’s maid having furnished them a clever description of the house, they found it, as she had told them, very carelessly guarded indeed, and had effected an easy entrance through an unbolted window.

The inmates of The Crags had always dwelt in careless security, having never been harassed by burglars.

The Willoughbys, when not entertaining guests, always kept their silver plate at the bank in the nearest town, and their money the same. Miss Willoughby always felt that these facts were too generally known for her to entertain fears of robbery.

She might have rested still in security, but that Lelia’s handsome diamonds had been coveted for some time by a band of thieves in the city of Charleston, where she lived.

Finding them too closely guarded there, they had followed, by her maid’s advice, into the country.

And the fates had smiled on them in the time chosen for the burglary.

The men were all gone to seek for the missing girl, and while Lelia sang in the music-room, and her aunt listened in the hall, the two men below, in the dining-room, were loading up a coarse sack with as much gold and silver plate as they thought they could conveniently get away with in safety.

This job completed, they dropped the sack out of the window, down into some thick shrubberies, to be recovered after they had possessed themselves of the case of jewels. They chuckled over the ease of their undertaking, and wasted some moments that were more precious to them than they knew in taking a cold lunch in the pantry.

Their impromptu feast over, they cautiously ascended the stairs, the echo of their footfalls drowned by the soft, rich carpets, as well as by the sound of Lelia’s singing.

“This is a regular cinch, Jack,” cried Larkin, as they penetrated the unlocked door of the guest-chamber, where obsequious servants had already lighted the lamps for Miss Ritchie’s retiring.

“What mystifies me is what has become o’ all the menfolk that belong here. Don’t seem to be no one in the house but them two wemmen. I swan, I believe that them men we passed in the light wagon, ’way down the road, must have come from here, don’t you think so?” whispered Jack, as they cautiously explored the adjoining dressing-room, where the maid had said the trunks would be stored.

Larkin agreed with him, and declared that they were in great luck, and must hurry up and get the jewels before Miss Ritchie came up to retire.

They proceeded to pick locks and go through the trunks, seeking the coveted case of jewels.

And in their careless sense of security, emboldened by their success in the dining-room, they forgot to lock the door of the outside apartment while they labored with a will overturning trunks of dainty clothing, until the floor was a litter of silk and lace and lingerie.

The very last trunk was reached before the treasure was found.

“Now let us be gone!” one muttered jubilantly; but, alas! at that very moment a disconcerting interruption occurred.

Lelia, in a fury at her lover and her aunt, bounced angrily into her room, banging and locking the door against all intruders.

Dismayed and angered by the intrusion, the burglars, with stifled oaths, hid themselves behind a tall wardrobe, swearing to each other in muffled oaths that they would like to wring her pretty neck.

“Two minutes more and we should have been safely outside! Hang the luck! We shall have to stay mewed up here in this hole till she gets to bed and to sleep, so’s we can steal out!”

“And if she comes in here we shall not dare breathe, for she would be sure to hear us, curse the luck!”

They resigned themselves to waiting, believing that, as the hour was late, she could not possibly remain up but a few minutes. Her pretty eyes would soon be closed in sleep.

But this was where they reckoned without their host.

Instead of retiring, Lelia raged up and down her room like the cyclone to which Miss Cyrilla had likened her, raving against her lover and Gipsy, and calling down all sorts of evil on the latter’s head.

“She’s a she-devil! Listen, how she hates everybody! Will she never have done raging? It’s half an hour now the vixen has been tearing up and down, and she ain’t tired out yet! If she keeps it up till daylight, where are we, I want to know? I propose that we rush in suddint on her, and wring her neck before she can holler; what say?” whispered Jack.

“Done!” And grasping the precious case, they bolted through the open door into the room.

Lelia, in her angry walk, had just turned, and she faced them with awful horror in her dilated blue eyes.

She saw the jewel-case in one man’s arms, she saw the brutal menace in their faces—stared death, as it were, in the face, all in one horrible moment.

A wild and piercing shriek rose to her blanched lips, but it was stifled in its birth by rough and brutal hands about the throat.

Again a stifled groan, but it was strangled half-born in her throat by that vicious clutch, and only the faintest echo reached Laurie’s ears.

But that was enough, coupled with Gipsy’s warnings.

Then opportunely the doctor and Crawford appeared on the scene, and responded to the call for assistance.

The door was crashed in, and they entered on the scene where the helpless Lelia was struggling in the grasp of the ruffian bent on murder.

Startled, surprised, taken at a disadvantage by superior numbers, the pair of villains made a bold fight for liberty, but the contest was short, and ended in their utter discomfiture. In ten minutes Laurie and Crawford were each sitting down on their man, while the doctor hustled around for ropes to tie them.

CHAPTER X.

AN ANGEL UNAWARES.

The good Doctor White had his hands full of patients after the mêlée.

There was Lelia, in hysterics, with a bruised throat that would necessitate the wearing of a lace muffler for a week.

She had to be placed in another room and soothed to rest, for her own apartment was temporarily converted into a prison for the enraged burglars, who were bound securely on the floor, while Crawford grimly guarded them with a murderous-looking revolver.

The other man servant had been sent into town for the legal authorities to come and take them away.

Laurie had a flesh-wound in his arm from a knife-thrust, but after the doctor had dressed and bandaged it he declared cheerfully that it would be almost well to-morrow.

The worst case he had was Gipsy, and he looked grave over the bruised and swollen limb that Lucinda bared for his inspection.

“You had a lucky escape from a fractured limb; it came very near it,” he said bluntly, adding: “You will not be out of bed for a week.”

But Gipsy scarcely thought of herself. She was so thankful to know that the burglars had been caught before they did any harm.

She was feeling rested and refreshed, Lucinda having given her some light food and wine, and could tell her story in broken sentences, answering their kindly questions.

“Satan kicked me with his front hoof when I sprang at his head and jerked him down, but it was surely an accident. I do not believe he would hurt me if he knew it,” she said.

“He ought to be shot,” grumbled the doctor.

“Oh, no, not for worlds!” exclaimed Gipsy tenderly.

Here Miss Willoughby, with the proverbial curiosity of the spinster tribe, cried eagerly:

“But tell us now, my dear, how you ever managed to get to Laurie’s aid as soon as you did? He declared that there must have been witchcraft about it. Just a few minutes before you were standing on top of the precipitous cliff, far above, but right in the nick of time, just as if you had flown down on wings, there you were at the horses’ heads, and saved them from toppling over into the river.”

“It was a terrible moment!” exclaimed Gipsy. Then, with a faint smile on her pain-drawn lips, she added:

“I might make quite a secret of my feat, and mystify you all, but I don’t care to be branded as a witch, as well as a gipsy, so I will confess. Have none of you ever heard of the Hole in the Rock, as people call it?”

“Oh, yes, certainly,” exclaimed Miss Willoughby; but the doctor owned to ignorance, so she explained:

“From the top of the cliff, a mile from here, there is a deep split in the rock from top to bottom, coming out into the road. The solid rock seems to have been rent by some volcanic shock ages ago, and formed a rough, circuitous passage, like a winding, irregular stairway, difficult of descent, but affording a quick route to the road below.”

“Quite remarkable,” exclaimed the doctor, adding:

“So you took that route, Miss Darke, to the assistance of your friends?”

“Oh, yes, sir, for the moment I saw the horses bolt at the crash of thunder I knew they were in peril of their lives. Satan would never cease running till forcibly stopped, but I knew that at the first word from me he would get over his frenzy of fear. You see, sir, I had frolicked with Saint and Satan when they were colts, and they had quite an affection for me. So being quite near the hole in the rock, and familiar with the passage which made my descent easier, I hurried down it as fast as I could go, getting to the end of it just in time, and so close that it was no wonder it seemed as if I had dropped down from the skies.”

“It was a brave deed, and saved two lives!” exclaimed Doctor White admiringly, adding:

“Indeed, they owe you a double debt, for you saved them again to-night, besides preventing the robbery of the diamonds and plate. You have reason to be very proud of what you have done.”

The great somber dark eyes gleamed with pleasure. Gipsy murmured:

“I am happy to have been of service to Miss Willoughby’s relations. It helps me to pay my debt of gratitude for the kindness that has given me a home and shelter all my life.”

Miss Willoughby flushed red, and answered quickly:

“My dear, I have neglected my duty to you all along, but I did not fully realize until to-night that I was entertaining an angel unawares.”

So few were the kind words of praise that had ever fallen to the waif’s lot that she burst into tears at this tribute to her worth.

“I fear we are exciting our little patient too much. I will give her a powder, to ease her for to-night, and to-morrow, by your leave, I will send a trained nurse to pull her through all right,” said the doctor.

“Pray do so, doctor; the best one you can find. Meanwhile, Lucinda shall watch by her to-night,” said Miss Willoughby, as he went out, remaining to share Laurie’s vigil until the officers arrived, near daylight, to convey their prisoners to jail.

The next day dawned clear and bright and lovely, and Laurie and Lelia were not much worse off for their mishaps of yesterday.

Quite different with Gipsy, whom Lucinda reported as feverish and delirious.

Miss Willoughby wondered if she ought to postpone the house-party on this account, but Lelia demurred so quickly that she decided to let everything go on as planned.

Lelia never referred to her threat of breaking her engagement last night. She was enthusiastic over Laurie, declaring he had saved her life, never giving Gipsy any credit, and apparently not realizing that through the despised girl both her life and her valuable diamonds had been saved.

When Laurie reminded her reproachfully of this fact, she answered carelessly:

“It was very fortunate that she overheard the wretches, was it not? I will give her a present. Do you think she would like a new dress, or money to spend?”

“I think she would prefer a few words from your lips in acknowledgment of your gratitude. Aunt Cyrilla tells me that she earns a monthly salary by acting as her private secretary,” he answered rather curtly.

Lelia laughed heartlessly.

“I could never bring myself to stoop to the lower classes to thank them for services. Aunt Cy has fed and clothed that gipsy foundling all her life, and she has done no more for us than we had a right to expect. Of course, I shall give the girl a piece of jewelry, and I think that will pay our debt.”

Her betrothed husband said not a word; his thoughts were unutterable.

He felt the warm young life bounding through his veins, and knew he owed it all to the girl lying up-stairs in delirious pain, the cost she was paying for her bravery.

He looked at Lelia, so beautiful, so proud, and so arrogant, and knew that she was spared to him only through the sacrificing spirit of the girl she had openly scorned—and he marveled.

Never before had he felt so disgusted, but, reading his vexation in his face, she flew to him with fond reproaches, and he was beguiled again into the fondness that her beauty claimed as its just due.

The guests all arrived that afternoon, and the social whirl at The Crags became as gay as though a beautiful, brave young girl were not lying on her bed delirious with fever, watched closely by a trained nurse, with the doctor coming every day and shaking his gray head as he felt her pulse and listened to her senseless ravings.

“Worse than I looked for—much worse. But I’ll try to pull her through,” he said to the mistress of The Crags, who, between her social duties and her anxiety over Gipsy, was nearly frantic.

And one sleepless night she came to a startling resolution.

“If God spares me this beautiful, brave girl, I will adopt her as my beloved daughter and heiress!”

CHAPTER XI.

THE UNBIDDEN GUEST.

“Laws, honey, look out o’ the winder! The folkses is all a-goin’ picknicking. ’Tis a pretty sight!”

So exclaimed Mrs. Goodwill, Gipsy’s nurse, to her patient, who was sitting up for the first time in ten days, propped round with pillows in an easy chair.

Very dearly had she paid in acute suffering for the saving of Laurie’s and Lelia’s lives, and a pallid shadow of her former lovely self she looked—poor Gipsy!—as she turned her large, wistful dark eyes toward the sight indicated.

The guests were all going out for a day’s pleasure, and, as the nurse said, the sight was a pretty one.

At the head rode the betrothed lovers, Laurie mounted on Satan, and Lelia on Saint. Two more couples were on horseback, two more in buggies, including the chaperon, Mrs. Thurston, with her husband, the captain.

Miss Willoughby had remained at home, glad, like most people of her quiet character, of a day’s rest from social duties.

Gipsy looked at the party with keen admiration. All the girls were pretty, all the men were handsome, but her dark eyes lingered longest on Laurie Willoughby, following him until they were out of sight down the winding road.

“How princely!” she thought, with the secret romance of a girl’s heart.

She thought Lelia Ritchie the most fortunate of mortals to have handsome Laurie for her lover.

From her childhood he had been almost unconsciously to herself the ideal hero of all her dreams.

“All the hues of old romances

By his actual self grew dim.”

As Laurie had said lightly to Lelia, the waif had been in love with them both all her life. The glamour of beauty and fortune and romantic love had invested them in Gipsy’s eyes with a golden haze. It was Lelia’s own fault that the shining veil was rent, and that Gipsy learned to secretly dread and despise her, while her worship of Laurie grew with her growth and strengthened with every sight of him in his young, debonair beauty. His voice sounded like music in her ears, his smile made her heart thrill with subtle happiness.

She thought that Lelia was the most fortunate and happy girl in the world, to be the chosen of his heart, to have the high privilege of being always near him, and gazing at will on his faultless face, with its thoughtful, dark-brown eyes and grave, tender lips.

She did not realize that she was beginning to have him always in her thoughts, to brood over the tones of his voice, the glances of his eyes, to thrill with a subtle, dangerous tenderness at sound of his name.

Yet she had not much to dwell upon, poor Gipsy, for Miss Willoughby, dreading Lelia’s jealousy, had not even permitted her nephew any manifestation of his gratitude for Gipsy’s nobility.

When he had consulted her as to what visible form this gratitude might be permitted to take, she had bluntly replied:

“You cannot afford to make any sign of your gratitude, Laurie, for Lelia, in her blind jealousy, would persist in misconstruing even a kind word. Leave all to me. I will reward Gipsy.”

“Must I seem ungrateful?” he remonstrated.

“Better so,” she replied. So between his aunt’s prudence and his betrothed’s jealousy he had to keep silence.

But somehow Gipsy knew from what had already passed all the gratitude in his heart. She had always felt subtly that it was Lelia who prevented him from having a frank friendship for her, and she bowed in silent regret to the inevitable. He was Lelia’s, to do with as she willed, and the imperious young beauty never allowed him to wander from his allegiance.

Already there were rumors among the servants that Miss Ritchie held a tight rein over her lover, and privately berated him for any suspected flirtations with the other fair ones who composed the party.

Zaidee Preston was the most demure little flirt in existence, every one conceded that, and although not dazzlingly beautiful, like Lelia, she had a charm of her own petite plumpness, curly brown hair, and sweet blue eyes that won her many admirers. Full of mischief and harmless coquetry, she soon divined Lelia’s weakness, and played upon it just for amusement, arousing the proud beauty’s secret bitter resentment.

Little Zaidee frankly preferred Roy Van Vleck to any of the other young men, but she managed to inveigle Laurie into some very nice chats, and got him for her cavalier on more than one occasion.

“You will never get invited to The Crags again,” the other girls said to her warningly; but she laughed roguishly, replying:

“I suspected that, and so I am making the most of my chance now. I am only just worrying her for fun, to teach her a lesson. Who wants her stupid Laurie, with his big, grave eyes and quiet ways, as if, after all, he wasn’t quite happy, even if he has won such a dashing beauty? I like that jolly Roy Van Vleck a hundred times better!”

Even as Gipsy’s yearning eyes followed the party, the kind nurse remarked:

“Lucinda says that Miss Ritchie is as jealous as a Turk over her handsome lover, and won’t hardly let him speak to another girl. She jest hates that little Zaidee because she tries to flirt with him.”

“You see, Miss Ritchie loves him very much. They have belonged to each other all their lives, and it would break her heart to lose him,” Gipsy answered gently, with a dull pain at her heart she could not understand. She did not realize that she was putting herself in Lelia’s place, and reading her heart by the light of her own.

She shut her heavy eyes and leaned her head back on the pillow wearily, heavily, as in a half-dream, Mrs. Goodwill wandering on loquaciously:

“I hate these jealous natures myself; a body might jest as well marry a firebrand. My sister-in-law, Della, was a jealous woman, though John never give her no cause at all; he dreaded her temper so that he daren’t even look at a woman, even if she was as old as the hills. But she killed him at last—yes, shot him for a foolish fancy that hadn’t no foundation. They sent her off to the loonytic ’sylum—said she was crazy, but she warn’t no more crazy nor I was, and she ought to been hung, the she-devil! If I was Mr. Willoughby, I’d look twice before I would marry a jealous woman, if she was pretty as a pink and rich as the queen of Sheba. As I said jest now, as well marry a firebrand and done with it! I can’t never get over losing my poor brother so dreadful. But, laws! how my long tongue do rattle on, and you with your eyes shet, trying to sleep. But raise up now, here comes Lucinda with a nice bowl of chicking broth!”

CHAPTER XII.

“HERE IS YOUR RING.”

Pretty little Zaidee would never have carried her coquetry so far if she had dreamed what would come of it that day.

It did not seem such a dreadful thing, either, to any one but Lelia, for the young girl to declare she was just dying for a ride on Saint, and wished Mr. Willoughby would come with her on Satan.

Laurie assented with pleasure. It never occurred to his mind that Lelia could find fault over such a trifle.

So he cheerfully helped Zaidee up to a seat on Saint’s back, and, vaulting lightly into his own saddle, away they went for a delightful canter over the mountain road.

When they returned they found Lelia gone.

Mrs. Thurston said she had been taken suddenly ill, and had asked Warren Beihl to drive her in the buggy back to The Crags.

Laurie, as in duty bound, made his excuses to the gay company, and galloped away with a grave face, following his betrothed home.

Significant smiles and shruggings of shoulders greeted his departure, and Bessie Hall, the vivacious brunette beauty, remarked:

“A nice row you have raised, Zaidee, by going off with Miss Ritchie’s lover! Her brow was as black as a thunder-cloud, and I think she could willingly murder you!”

“Oh, dear, I never meant any harm. Did she care, really?” cried the petite coquette.

“She was furious—she could not hide it, and kept glowering at the road you went, watching for your return. Every one could see that she was trying to keep down an attack of hysteria, and at last she could stand it no longer, so she got Warren Beihl to take her home, and, oh, won’t Laurie Willoughby catch it as soon as he gets there, poor fellow!”

“I am very sorry, but she ought not to be so jealous—if I were engaged to him, and he went for a ride with another girl, I shouldn’t consider it a hanging matter!” laughed merry little Zaidee.

“Oh, she will just pout a while, then they will kiss and make up,” said Geoffrey Graves.

“How do you know?” asked Irene Mays.

“Oh, I’ve been there myself,” he replied slangily, turning the laugh on himself, and then they proceeded to enjoy themselves. Warren Beihl returning presently with a message from Lelia to that effect.

“Did she find it necessary to call in the doctor?” they asked, with gentle sarcasm.

“Oh, no; not while I was there. She dismissed me as soon as we reached The Crags, telling me she would go and lie down till she felt better. As I met her recreant knight hurrying to her side, I presume her convalescence will not be long delayed,” he returned laughingly.

They all persisted in treating it as a little joke, and in bantering Zaidee on the lovers’ quarrel she had brought about; but while they amused themselves in the grove, Laurie Willoughby was going through a very unpleasant scene at The Crags.

When he had sent up to Lelia’s room, to ask after her health, she had hurried down to him in a towering rage.

Bitterly, hysterically she upbraided her lover for his imagined falsity, charging him with having transferred his love to a designing little coquette.

His short ride with little Zaidee was magnified into a heinous offense against Lelia’s rights.

“After escorting me there, you deserted me for that hateful little minx!”

“I was not absent as long as an hour, Lelia, and as the young lady asked for my escort, I could not refuse without discourtesy to our guest. I am sure the little girl is very sweet and innocent, and never dreamed she was doing anything offensive to you,” he answered gently.

“Oh, yes; ‘sweet and innocent,’ of course! Why don’t you add beautiful, also? I have seen all along she was winning your heart from me.”

With a sarcastic smile, the tortured lover retorted:

“You must credit me with a very elastic heart, indeed! Scarcely two weeks ago you were vowing I was in love with Gipsy Darke.”

“As, indeed, you were, until Zaidee Preston came and rivaled her in your fickle heart. And last night you stood by Irene Mays half an hour while she was at the piano.”

“Only turning her music, Lelia.”

“That will do for an excuse, of course, but I saw how she maneuvered to keep you there—and afterward you read poetry by the hour to Bessie Hall! Oh, I can never comprehend, never, why Aunt Cyrilla invited that trio of wretched flirts to The Crags, unless it was to torment me to death!” with an angry sob.

“She invited them because she thought these gay young girls would make your visit pleasant, dearest. She thought you had outgrown childish things, and put away jealousy and spite with them,” he answered, with latent sternness.

Lelia sprang up, towering over him in his seat like a beautiful Fury, her cheeks flushed, her blue eyes blazing with resentment.

“Jealousy and spite!—This to me!—To Lelia Ritchie! How dare you, sir? Now, indeed, I realize you never loved me!” she hissed, in wrath and scorn.

“I half-believe you are right, Lelia!” he answered, with sudden furious passion, goaded beyond endurance by her injustice.

“So you own the truth at last! But I knew it, I knew it before! Your heart is too fickle to keep faith with any one!” she raved.

“Have I not loved you always, Lelia?” he asked reproachfully.

“No, you owned it yourself just now that you had never loved me.”

“I spoke in anger, dear. You pushed me too hard, and I could not bear your injustice. Will you not believe that my heart is always true to you, and let us put an end to these unpleasant scenes forever?” he asked, with repressed feelings.

“I see your drift. You are weary of me, you long for freedom. Very well, here is your ring! Good-by!” sobbed Lelia tragically.

The large diamond lay sparkling in his hand like a big tear. He sighed from the bottom of his heart as he said:

“This is the third time you have broken our engagement, Lelia, and then called me back again. Let me save you a night of grief and repentance by putting it back on your finger now. Broken engagements are said to be very unlucky.”

“No, I have broken with you forever now. I do not love you any longer. You have tortured me with your cruel flirtations until you have driven me nearly mad,” she replied, with a tragic air.

“You really mean what you say, Lelia? All is ended between us forever?”

She saw with pleasure how pale and wretched he looked, the poor victim of her caprice whom she was torturing as usual, to whistle him back when she had punished him enough.

“Yes, I mean every word,” she said, with freezing hauteur. “You have killed the love I once had for you, and my heart has turned to another.” With this cruel thrust, she bowed to Laurie, and haughtily retired.

CHAPTER XIII.

A RASH PROMISE.

Laurie started, like one stunned, after the retreating Juno-like form of his cousin, then recovering himself with a bitter, sarcastic laugh, thrust the ring back into his vest pocket.

“I must not lose it. She will be wanting it back to-morrow,” he muttered.

For twice before to-day Lelia had broken their betrothal, then repented in haste and called him back again.

But this time she had been more cruel than ever before—she had uttered words that pierced his heart.

“I love another!”

He wondered if it were true, or only said to wound his pride.

He knew he would not have to look far for a rival; he had guessed at the secret admiration of the gay, handsome Warren Beihl for his betrothed. He had even seen that Lelia rather encouraged his advances.

In flirting, she always allowed herself more latitude than she did Laurie, like Flora McFlimsey:

“For this is a sort of engagement, you see,

That is binding on you, but not binding on me!”

Yes, if her boast that she loved another was true, it could be no one else but Warren Beihl.

Well, he was a good match, well-born, well-bred, wealthy, even for Lelia. If she chose to throw over her cousin for this new lover, let her have her way. He would make no protest, though it broke his heart.

But he resolved that he would not remain at The Crags and give her the triumph of flaunting her happiness in his face. He would go away, and at once, from the scene of his broken betrothal.

He went up to his room, flung his things together into his trunk, helter-skelter, then rushed down for the farewell to his aunt.

She was nowhere to be found, and passing Mrs. Goodwill in the hall, she told him Miss Willoughby was in Gipsy’s room.

“She is setting up to-day, and so Miss Willoughby is keeping her company,” she said.

“I will go up there,” he said, rushing up the steps two at a time, with an odd sort of elation that he was doing something Lelia would not approve; but that, fortunately, she was not for the moment his commander-in-chief.

After all, the taste of liberty is sweet now and then to the harried slave.

The door and window of the simple little room stood open for air, and the mantel and table held vases of roses and lilies, diffusing their delicate perfume. Gipsy, in the easy chair, in a loose white wrapper, looked a very interesting invalid, indeed, as she listened smilingly to Miss Willoughby.

At his step on the threshold, both started in amazement, and in a fleeting moment Gipsy was transformed from a lily to a rose, so deep the blush that colored her exquisite face.

“Do not say I am intruding—I will not be turned out until I say good-by,” he said bruskly, taking a chair in front of them with easy grace, and continuing:

“Miss Darke, I am glad to see you up again. I hope my aunt has conveyed to you some of the expressions of gratitude I entrusted to her charge.”

“Oh, yes, yes, Mr. Willoughby—and I am happy to have been of service to you—and Miss Ritchie,” faltered the blushing girl, her radiant glance taking in every detail of his manly beauty with secret, tremulous delight.

“But, Laurie,” interpolated his aunt tremulously, “why have you come from the picnic so soon? Where is Lelia?”

“Lelia was not feeling very well, Aunt Cyrilla, so—we—came home and left the others to finish out the day. The—the—fact is, I am called away unexpectedly for a time. I have packed my things, told Crawford to get the trap ready to take me to the train, and have just a short time in which to make my adieux. Lelia will tell you why I had to go.”

Under his affectation of carelessness, he was pale to the lips, his eyes burned with a somber fire, and his white hands were cold as ice. While he talked he kept looking at Gipsy in the easy chair among the pillows, her lovely face framed by loose, curling tresses, ebony-black and soft as silk.

He had never dared gaze at her so long before, and as he looked he seemed to see her again as in the past—the pathetic little midget with big, appealing dark eyes full of love and longing that met no return.

His heart swelled as many times before with subtle pity akin to tenderness.

Lucinda appeared at the door, beckoning her mistress outside, and the next moment they two were alone.

Laurie Willoughby went over to Gipsy, and, stooping suddenly, took her trembling little hand in his, saying, as he pressed it:

“Believe me, I am very, very grateful. Always look on me as your true friend, Gipsy, and if I can ever serve you, command me. For the present, I am going far away, and this is our good-by, so please accept as a souvenir of regard this ring, and wear it always for my sake.”

Was he mad? Had trouble turned his brain? He was slipping on her finger the splendid engagement-ring Lelia had just returned to him, the ring he was almost certain she would want back to-morrow.

But with that subtle gleam in his eyes, he pressed the small, tremulous white hand, adding:

“I have put the ring on your hand with a wish, Gipsy. You know the old fashion, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, sir—it must never be removed till the wish is told, or the charm will be broken,” she faltered, trembling like a leaf in the agitation of his presence and at the pressure of his hand.

“That is right. I have made a wish for you, and I will tell it you, Gipsy, when we meet again. That may be sooner or later, but, in the meantime, do not remove the ring, lest the charm be broken.”

“I will not,” she murmured, pledging herself blindly to a rash promise.

Laurie Willoughby smiled kindly on her, and pressed the hand with the ring very closely in his own.

“God bless you and keep you, little girl—good-by!” and with his going all the sunshine seemed to fade from the room, and her eyes grew dim with tears.

“He is going away. Oh, how I—how every one will miss him! How sweet it was to give me this pretty ring. It is like the one Miss Ritchie wears, and quite too fine for me, I am afraid. But I shall wear it because he said I must. Oh, I wonder what it was he wished for me! Something beautiful, I hope, and I shall be impatient till he comes again and tells me the wish,” and hearing Laurie and his aunt going down the stairs together, she raised her fragile hand to her face, and kissed the sparkling diamond with eager lips.

Her eyes glowed like stars, her cheeks burned; she had never felt so strangely, deliriously happy her whole life long, poor, loving, innocent Gipsy!

CHAPTER XIV.

A CRY IN THE NIGHT.

Quite unconscious of the episode of the ring, and deeply grieved at Laurie’s abrupt departure, his aunt accompanied him down to the door, with many injunctions to return as soon as possible.

“But Lelia—she has not bidden you good-by yet, Laurie.”

“Oh, yes, we have had our parting. She is probably grieving in her room now. You must comfort her when I am gone,” he replied, with a bitter laugh, kissing her good-by, and running down the steps to the trap that stood waiting.

Something in his bitter tone struck coldly on her heart, and she thought, in dismay:

“Oh, dear, perhaps they have quarreled over something or other. No, I will not try to comfort her, that would be beyond my power. But, oh, dear, what a cat-and-dog life they are going to lead together, these two, always quarreling and making up again.”

Lelia, sulking in her room and planning vindictively how she would make Laurie jealous this evening flirting with Warren Beihl, dreamed not of the flight of her victim till she appeared, radiantly beautiful, in the parlor just before tea, where all the guests were assembled.

“We are all here except Mr. Willoughby—where is he?” inquired the vivacious Mrs. Thurston.

“Laurie?” said the hostess. “Why, didn’t Lelia tell you he has suddenly been called away to town? He went by the afternoon train, hours ago.”

Involuntarily, they all looked at Lelia, who was so startled out of her composure that a cry of dismay burst from her lips.

She became death-white, too, and leaned back heavily in her chair for support.

Every one saw that she had received a shock by the pallor of her face and the uncontrollable cry that had leaped to her lips.

Bessie Hall exclaimed rashly:

“Didn’t you know he was gone, Lelia?”

With an effort, the pale girl forced herself to speak, but her voice sounded strained and unnatural:

“Of course, I knew it, and I may as well tell you all the truth. Laurie and I have quarreled, and I have broken our engagement.”

She tossed her queenly golden head in seeming indifference, but it deceived no one. They all saw that she was cut to the heart by his departure. She had not expected anything like this. She had intended to hold him off at arm’s length a while, and punish him till he was thoroughly miserable, then take him back again.

She was frightened and dismayed by the unexpected move he had made in the game of hearts they were playing.

But she would not let any one see her dismay. She smiled around on them gaily, and, after their first start of surprise, they all smiled, too, and began to predict that there would soon be a reconciliation.

“I am not so sure of that. He will be coming back, I know, soon, but I am not certain that I will ever wear his ring again,” the beauty said haughtily, and somehow her careless glance encountered Warren Beihl’s, and she bridled at the tenderness of his glance.

Here was another heart at her feet, ready to amuse her until Laurie returned to his allegiance. She would make the most of it.

But how lonely her finger felt without the big, flashing diamond that she had given him back. She missed it as she missed him, with an angry ache at the bottom of her heart.

Somehow, she got through the evening, but it seemed so dull and blank she was thankful that every one seemed tired from the day’s outing, and retired early to rest. She was eager to escape to her own room, to let loose the pent-up rage and resentment at Laurie’s flight that seethed in her breast.

It was the worst of ill-luck that she encountered Mrs. Goodwill going along the corridor.

“Ah, nurse,” she said carelessly, “how is your patient getting on? Almost well, I suppose?”

Mrs. Goodwill stopped short, to feast her eager eyes on Lelia’s beauty and rich attire.

“Oh, yes, thank you, Miss Ritchie, she has been able to sit up in her easy chair and see company, and I never saw such rapid improvement in anybody as in her to-day. Her eyes are that bright and her cheeks that red she looks almost well again.”

“Company!” sneered Lelia. “Who would be visiting that girl, pray?”

“Only the family, of course, miss,” the nurse returned humbly. “Miss Willoughby sat with her a good part of the day—and Mr. Willoughby came in for a while this afternoon, to bid his aunt and her good-by.”

She was startled at the lightning that flashed into Lelia’s eyes.

“Ah, indeed?” she cried, in a hoarse, rasping tone, adding sharply: “So the visits made your patient well, and you are going to spend the night in your own room?”

“Yes, ma’am; she said she did not need me, she would rather be alone,” said Mrs. Goodwill, dropping a curtsy and passing on, but afterward Lelia’s question recurred with haunting persistency to her mind.

She saw her turn back and enter her aunt’s room, as if for a chat—a bedtime habit she had. It was perhaps an hour later that the sleepers at The Crags were all startled from rest by two loud, ringing shrieks from the direction of Gipsy Darke’s room.

CHAPTER XV.

A STRUGGLE FOR A RING.

Miss Willoughby had a very bad quarter of an hour with her wilful niece that evening.

For she had not been in the room five minutes before she abruptly brought the conversation around to her new grievance.

“What was Laurie doing in Gipsy’s room before he went away?”

“Oh, my dear, he just came up there searching for me, to say good-by.”

“He might have sent a servant to call you.”

“He did not seem to have time to stand on ceremony,” the old lady answered somewhat tartly.

“Was he talking to you, or Gipsy?” continued Lelia curiously.

“To us both, I believe. In fact, almost as soon as he came in a servant called me out on some domestic matter, and presently Laurie came hurrying after me, and we went down together to the trap that was waiting to take him to the station.”

“Ah, so he was left alone with that artful girl!” snapped Lelia, with flashing eyes.

“Only for a moment, my dear, and you can see for yourself that it was really unavoidable,” soothed her aunt, but adding, with latent irony:

“But what does it matter, anyway? You say you have broken with him, so he is surely free to speak to another girl if he chooses.”

“You always take his part against me, Aunt Cyrilla, and excuse him for all the flagrant flirtations that drive me mad!” cried out her niece reproachfully.

“Nonsense, Lelia. Laurie never flirted in his life. Your jealousy is entirely unfounded.”

“How can you say so? You should have seen him only to-day!” and the angry girl poured out her grievances in eloquent words, with adroit touches of high coloring that made Laurie’s sins look very black indeed.

But Miss Willoughby made due allowance for her tendency to exaggerate her injuries, and calmly replied:

“After a night’s reflection, my dear, Laurie’s faults will not seem so black as you paint them now, and you will be repenting your anger and be wanting him back.”

“I—I—I—want him back now!” sobbed the beauty, humbling herself in her despair to acknowledge the truth. “Oh, I did not dream he would go away in such haste! He never acted like that when we quarreled before! Where has he gone, aunt? Did he tell you?” anxiously.

Miss Willoughby could only tell her that Laurie had said he was called home by a telegram, and she advised Lelia to write to him and crave his pardon for her unkindness.

But the girl turned on her fiercely, resentfully, in her towering pride.

“I will never humble myself to call him back! He will stay forever if he waits for that!” and she darted from the room in a violent passion.

And a yearning to vent her ill-humor on one who dared not strike back carried her straight to Gipsy’s presence.

It was past eleven o’clock, but, without the courtesy of knocking, she coolly turned the handle of the door and entered, a tall, white figure in a loose dressing-gown, with a shimmer of golden hair about her shoulders.

There was a light in the room, for Gipsy had not retired.

She was resting in her easy chair by the window, her slight figure and beautiful face bathed in the flood of summer moonlight.

Though it was late, she could not sleep, her excited thoughts were following handsome, debonair Laurie Willoughby.

More than once she had raised her hand and kissed the shining ring on her finger for the giver’s sake.

And faithful memory recalled over and over every glance of his eyes, every tone of his voice, every word he had spoken, every separate charm that made him one of the most captivating of men.

Unconsciously to herself, she was passionately in love with Laurie, though it would have frightened her if she had realized the meaning of her sweet, tumultuous thoughts.

On these sweet emotions, and the calm solitude of the hour, broke Lelia Ritchie, like an evil spirit—specterlike in her loose white robe and waving hair.

Gipsy started in sudden fear and dread, with a low cry of wonder.

“Who is that? What do you want?”

“Don’t you know me, Gipsy—Miss Ritchie?” exclaimed the intruder superciliously, as she drew forward a chair, seating herself in front of the girl.

“Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Ritchie. I almost took you for a ghost at first,” laughed Gipsy, recovering herself quickly, though she wondered secretly at the visit.

Lelia answered carelessly:

“I’ve been waiting for you to get well, so as to come in and thank you for saving Laurie’s and my life that day. You acted very bravely, and we are anxious to pay our debt of gratitude by a suitable gift. Tell me frankly what you wish for most.”

If Gipsy could have spoken out the impulse of her heart, she might have answered:

“I covet nothing you have, proud beauty, except your noble lover, Laurie Willoughby.”

But such a choice was not for Gipsy, the waif, and she sat there, pale and mute, while Lelia continued airily:

“Now, what shall the present be? A silk gown, a piece of jewelry, or a sum of money? You can take your choice.”

The pale girl in the chair answered earnestly:

“Oh, Miss Ritchie, I desire no gift from you. The approval of my own conscience is sufficient reward.”

It seemed to Lelia that the girl was really trying to put herself on a level with her superiors by her answer, and she cried out waspishly:

“I cannot let it go that way, Gipsy Darke! I insist on making you a present!”

Poor, innocent Gipsy, she dreamed not what disaster she was calling down upon her head when she gently replied:

“Please do not insist on it, Miss Ritchie, because the gift Mr. Willoughby brought me to-day was more than enough from you both, and, of course, he intended it that way.”

Lelia’s heart leaped in alarm, then sank heavily, while her face whitened to the hue of marble, as she demanded hoarsely:

“Laurie brought you a gift to-day! What was it, pray?”

“Did he not tell you?” exclaimed Gipsy, in surprise. “Oh, it is such a pretty ring! But I prize his kind words even more. He said it was in token of undying gratitude, and he placed it on my finger himself, with some kind wish that he is to tell me when we meet again.”

In her enthusiasm she had forgotten the tales she had heard of Lelia’s jealousy of her betrothed.

She did not dream that the proud beauty and heiress could stoop to envy a poor young girl.

She was soon to realize all the horrors of the real truth.

Lifting her eyes, she saw Lelia glaring at her with eyes like points of blue steel, as she muttered, in hoarse, strained accents:

“Let me see the ring.”

And Gipsy held out her dainty little hand, where Lelia’s ring was shining like a drop of globed dew.

One glance, and the haughty beauty knew the fatal truth.

She could never get Laurie back.

To punish her for her pride and anger, he had given her betrothal-ring to another, and left her forever.

It was the bitterest moment of her whole life, this terrible defeat.

Her whole being flamed with such despairing anger that it was a wonder she did not fall dead instantly of excitement. She could scarcely mutter the fierce words that leaped to her lips:

“It is my ring, Gipsy Darke! Give it to me!”

“Oh, Miss Ritchie!” cried Gipsy, in consternation, then for a moment their eyes met, while dead silence reigned.

Gipsy shuddered at the implacable hate of her enemy’s gaze.

Lelia made a fierce effort to hold herself in check, but her voice had the hiss of a serpent as she muttered:

“You did not know it was my engagement-ring Laurie gave you?”

“Oh, no, no, surely not! Why should he give it to me? This is some horrible jest!”

Lelia laughed hysterically.

“Yes, a jest on Laurie’s part. We—we had a little tiff to-day, and, in a moment of anger, I gave him back his ring. I have done so before, but he always made me take it back. A lover’s quarrel, that is nothing, you know—just the renewal of love, the poets say. It was a sorry jest to give you the ring, for he will take it away to-morrow, to give it back to me.”

“But he is gone,” faltered the startled girl.

“He will soon return. He cannot stay away long from me, we love each other too well. Oh, Gipsy Darke, you cannot understand the madness it stirs in me to see my ring on your hand. Give it back to me, I command you!”

She held out an imperious hand, but Gipsy recoiled, faltering:

“Oh, I cannot grant your wish. He made me promise not to remove the ring till he came back—that it would break the charm of the wish. Oh, forgive me, but I must wear it till he comes.”

Lelia sprang from her chair and stood threateningly over the girl.

“How dare you refuse my wish, you wretched, low-born foundling!”

Stung to rebellion by her scorn, Gipsy put her little hand behind her, answering proudly:

“The ring is mine, not yours, for by your own confession you gave it back to Mr. Willoughby. Since he deemed me worthy to wear it, and commanded me not to remove it, the ring shall never leave my hand, save at his desire!”

“You defy me?”

“If you call that defiance!” and the dark eyes flashed with pride and spirit.

She was determined to hold out bravely against the injustice of Lelia’s demand, but she was not prepared for the lengths to which her jealous rival would go.

With a cry like an enraged tigress, Lelia flung herself on the other, to possess herself of the ring by force.

Gipsy, weakened by her two weeks’ illness, was no match for her furious antagonist.

But with courage born of desperation, she tried to defend her rights.

There in the glow of the moonlight that streamed into the open window, the beautiful rivals struggled madly for possession of the diamond that meant so much to both; and the angels above must have looked on in wonder and pity at the strange scene.

With throbbing hearts, with low cries of anger, each strained every nerve for mastery, the one to retain the ring, the other to possess it. Excitement gave to both a fictitious strength, but Gipsy had been at a disadvantage from the first, and as Lelia’s rage grew to murderous fury, her hatred could brook no further resistance.

Infuriated by Gipsy’s defiance, impatient of delay, she flung one hand out blindly toward a little table near-by, and grasped the first thing she touched—a heavy cut-glass paper-weight.

Already she had her knees pressed into Gipsy’s chest, stifling her breath, and one hand wound in the tresses of her dark hair. A minute more and she would achieve a bloodless victory.

But her anger could not wait. A blind, jealous wrath drove her on to a terrible deed.

Once, twice she lifted a murderous hand and struck Gipsy on her head with the improvised weapon.

Then it was that two loud shrieks rang out fearfully upon the midnight air, and roused every sleeper in the house.

Blank silence then, while Gipsy fell like a log from her chair, blood spurting from her head over Lelia’s gown.

“I have killed her, I must fly!” muttered Lelia, wildly wrenching the ring in savage haste from the limp, unresisting hand and rushing to the door.

CHAPTER XVI.

A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY.

Every sleeper at The Crags—roused by those two loud and piercing shrieks of commingled horror, pain, and fear—sat up in their beds, or sprang wildly out upon the floor, with cold chills of dread creeping down their spines, and the dew of terror beading their brows.

One, braver than the rest, ran to his door, tearing it open, listening for a repetition of the awful sounds.

All waited with bated breath, throbbing hearts, and strained hearing, but afterward there was stillness deep as the grave; for there at The Crags it was always very still by night, with no sounds to break the silence but the rustle of the wind in the trees outside, or the plaintive call of the whippoorwill on the wooded heights answering the tuwhit of the lonesome owl.

As the minutes passed, they wondered if they could have imagined those awful sounds, if they had been but nightmare dreams evoked by a late supper and bad digestion.

The unbroken silence convinced them of the latter theory, and they crept shivering and relieved back to their couches.

And the summer night, so fraught with horror, waned to its close, and the birds awoke in the golden dawn, chirruping their matin songs, but one who was wont to rejoice in this sweet serenade opened not her window to listen now, and all was very still in Gipsy’s room until Mrs. Goodwill tiptoed softly in to see how her convalescent patient fared after her first night alone.

And again the guests at The Crags, sleeping late after their disturbance of the night before, were startled from their dreams by ear-splitting shrieks that did not stop at two, but continued on and on, and echoed wildly through the hall as Mrs. Goodwill flew from Gipsy’s room to Miss Cyrilla’s door.

Every one started broad awake then, and, panic-stricken, huddled on their clothes, swarming out into the hall.

Mrs. Goodwill, holding Miss Cyrilla’s arm, was urging her toward an open door far down the corridor, and all comprehended that something awful must have happened.

They followed like sheep, and directly the simple, white-hung little room was full of curious people.

All knew it was the apartment of the girl who had been sick ever since they came.

Comprehending that she was the subject of tragic interest, they gazed eagerly about.

But Gipsy was not there.

On the mantel a night-lamp burned low, with an odor of oil and charred wick, on the table some roses gathered yesterday were fading in a vase, the white bed was smooth and undisturbed. All this they took in at a glance.

“Look—look at the chair, the floor, the curtains!” wailed the nurse, in a tragic voice.

A second glance, and all recoiled with mingled cries.

“Those horrible stains, are they blood?”

“What has happened to Gipsy Darke?”

Well might they ask!

For the white curtains, flapping in the breeze at the open window, bore splashes of dark crimson, as though bloody hands had grasped them.

On the window-sill were the same dull-red stains, and again upon the floor, and on the white-draped easy chair that was overturned as though in a desperate struggle for life and death.

Oh, it was horrible, horrible! Splashes of crimson everywhere.

And one of the young men, stumbling over some object on the floor, saw, as he recovered himself, the heavy glass paper-weight stained with blood.

“Look—look!” he shuddered, pointing to it. “Gipsy Darke has been murdered, and there is the weapon!”

It was Warren Beihl who spoke. He glanced up, and met the bewildered gaze of Lelia Ritchie just entering the room.

She was draped in a loose blue morning robe; her golden hair was in graceful disarray about her shoulders, her lovely face was pale and startled.

She cried in wonder, with a shaking voice:

“What is the matter? What were those cries that frightened me from sleep? What are you all doing here?”

A nervous young girl clutched her arm and pointed to the blood-stained curtains.

“Look at the blood! Something awful has happened! They are saying that Gipsy Darke is murdered!” she sobbed hysterically.

Lelia uttered a dramatic shriek of protest.

“No, no, it cannot be true! Where is the girl?”

“Nowhere!” answered some one else, and then Lelia saw her aunt fainting in Mrs. Goodwill’s arms.

“Take her out of this dreadful room. It is too much for her nerves,” she exclaimed, and she followed the old lady from the room; but every one else remained, as if fascinated by the dreadful sight; and presently the men made a startling discovery.

The murdered girl must surely have been hurled out of the window.

In no other way could they account for her absence save by the blood-stains on the curtains and the window-sill. Looking over, they could see the dark-crimson stains outside, and the grass was crushed below, as if by a heavy body—the grass and the sweet white roses whose fragrance Gipsy had loved to inhale each morning.

The men became eagerly excited. They sent for blood-hounds to follow the trail of the murderer and the missing body of the poor murdered girl.

Full of horror and pity and grief, they could talk of nothing else, they could scarcely swallow a mouthful of the late breakfast when they met together around the bounteous table, when they had severally finished their hasty toilets.

Miss Willoughby did not appear. The doctor was with her, and she was passing from one long swoon to another. The shock had almost bereft her of life.

Lelia, very pale and nervous, did the honors in her aunt’s place, and took part in the excited conversation, shaking her head as one and another theory was propounded, and saying at last:

“You all seem very stupid to me, not to guess at the most plausible reason for the murder. That is, if a murder has been committed, of which we cannot be sure, as no body has been found.”

They all clamored for her reasons, and she said instantly:

“You all seem to have forgotten that the burglars who tried to murder me and steal my diamonds escaped from prison last week. Of course, you may suppose they were very angry with Gipsy Darke for betraying them and frustrating their bold plan of robbery. What more plausible or natural than that they should take such a revenge for her interference? It rushed over me the moment I saw what had happened.”

“Why, of course. How stupid we have all been!” chorused the party, and from that moment no one doubted but that the dastardly burglars had murdered Gipsy and hidden her beautiful dead body somewhere, perhaps cast it into the murmuring Greenbrier River, winding along below the cliffs where The Crags perched high against the clear blue sky.

They waited eagerly for the arrival of the blood-hounds to track the wretches; but they were bitterly disappointed when a telegram arrived saying that some heartless fiend had poisoned both the dogs.

CHAPTER XVII.

A LETTER FROM LAURIE.

After such a gruesome tragedy, and with the mistress of The Crags lying critically ill, the house-party broke up by unanimous consent.

The gloom of death brooded over The Crags, the same as if a corpse lay under the roof, and all felt it the proper thing to depart.

Lelia did not try to detain them. She agreed with them that it was, indeed, a house of mourning now, and might better be left to time and solitude.

By night all were gone, and Lelia and Mrs. Goodwill kept vigil by the sick-bed of Miss Cyrilla.

She had already telegraphed her mother and the general, Laurie’s father, that her aunt lay at the point of death.

She knew that this message would bring them both at once.

She hoped, too, that it would lure Laurie back.

When he came she would lose no time in making up with him, and keeping the peace hereafter, for Lelia had learned her lesson at bitter cost, and she meant to profit by it.

She made up her mind that, after their reconciliation, there should be a hasty marriage, forging his fetters too tightly for him to slip them again.

In her breast throbbed ever one passionate yearning:

“If he will only return—if he will only return!”

The dreary night waned, and brought another golden summer day. She had received no reply to her telegram to her relatives, but she believed that the noon train would bring them from Charleston.

She knew her mercenary mother would spare no pains to ingratiate herself with Miss Cyrilla, hoping to secure her fortune for her daughter.

When Crawford returned with the morning’s mail, she pounced eagerly upon it, carrying it hastily to her own room to read.

She had a faint hope that Laurie might have repented and written to her to take him back.

Oh, how gladly she would assent, how joyously greet him on his return.

Nothing should ever come between them again. She would conquer all that self-will and jealousy that had wrought such evil and branded her heart with remorse forever.

Eagerly she ran over the letters, looking for the familiar handwriting.

Yes, there it was, Laurie’s own bold hand! But, alas! It was addressed to Miss Cyrilla Willoughby.

He had written to his aunt, not to Lelia.

“She is too ill to read it. And I—I cannot wait! I must know what he says. It is all in the family, anyhow!” she muttered, and recklessly tore open the letter, devouring its contents with burning eyes.

As she read her face grew pallid to grayness, her eyes dull, her lips drawn with pain; she shuddered like one in an ague chill, moaning:

“Who would have dreamed of this? Surely he was in terrible haste to be on with the new love!”

She dropped the letter from her shaking hand to the floor, and spurned it with her dainty foot as if it had been a serpent. Surely its contents had not been pleasant.

Her eyes fell on the other letter, and she started violently. It was in the same familiar writing, and this time addressed to Miss Gipsy Darke.

“My God! Can I bear any more?” groaned Lelia, madly tearing it open.

The enclosure contained no letter, just a short poem.

“TO G.

“By those dark eyes, where light is ever playing,

Where Love in depth of shadow holds his throne;

And by those lips, which give whate’er thou’rt saying—

Or grave or gay, a music of its own—

A music far beyond all minstrel’s playing.

I love but thee—I love but thee!

“By that fair brow, where Innocence reposes,

As pure as moonlight sleeping upon snow;

And by that cheek, whose fleeting blush discloses

A hue too bright to bless this world below,
And only fit to dwell on Eden’s roses,
I love but thee—I love but thee!

“Laurie.”

A sound like a serpent’s hiss came from the writhing lips of Lelia:

“It is well that she is dead already, or the crime would lie before me yet! I can never repent it now—never; though my triumph doom my soul to Hades!”

A rap on her door made her start guiltily to her feet, snatching up the letters and hiding them away.

Then she turned the door-knob with a shaking hand.

It was only a servant with a telegram from General Willoughby. He would arrive with Mrs. Ritchie on the noon train.

Not a word of Laurie.

So he would not come.

She gave curt directions for a carriage to be sent for her mother and the general.

Then she shut herself in again with her bitter thoughts, her jealous despair.

The most terrible thing in the world had happened.

She had lost Laurie’s love!

And now, when it was forever too late, she realized it was all her own fault.

How kind and patient and tender he had always been!

As for her, she had been proud and jealous and domineering, always ruling her noble lover with an iron rod.

She had made a mistake, but she would turn over a new leaf if she ever got him back.

Oh, why had he not come? Surely he did not know yet about the tragedy at The Crags, about the disappearance of Gipsy Darke.

If he had known that he would surely have hastened back to seek a clue to Gipsy’s murderer.

Lelia shuddered with fear, then laughed hysterically:

“I am not afraid, for nothing can happen to me! I have put them all on the wrong scent, and they will always believe the diamond-robbers did it for revenge. But Laurie will come back when he reads all about it in the papers, and then I will get him back, I swear it! Mama will know how to help me, she is so clever!”

The general and Mrs. Ritchie arrived promptly, and they were shocked to learn of the horrible tragedy.

“Poor little Gipsy Darke, she had turned out to be a noble girl! Only think, she saved yours and Laurie’s life, as well as your diamonds! I quite intended to do something for her as soon as she got well. The general and I had been discussing what sort of form our gratitude should take,” remarked Mrs. Ritchie.

“Oh, mama, she could scarcely have appreciated your gratitude. She was only a poor gipsy girl, you know, with no refinement of feeling. As for saving us, she didn’t run much risk, you know. Satan knew her well, and always obeyed her from fear of the lash. But, of course, it’s shocking she came to an end through those horrible burglars. It grieves me very much! But the most I can think of now is my own trouble with Laurie,” she tearfully added. “Oh, mama, did he tell you that we had broken our engagement?”

CHAPTER XVIII.

OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE.

“What dreadful news are you telling me, my dear Lelia?” Mrs. Ritchie cried, in consternation.

Lelia repeated dejectedly:

“Laurie and I have broken our engagement for the third time, mama.”

“Good heavens! my dear, this will never do at all, for our own fortune is dwindling away so fast it is imperative you should marry a rich man—and that soon! You must whistle Laurie back as soon as possible!” cried the lady anxiously.

“That is what I mean to do, mama, if I can! But what if he will not make up again?” sobbed Lelia, breaking down under her secret knowledge of things that she dare not confess to her mother or any other living soul—the gift of the betrothal-ring to Gipsy, her encounter with the girl, the intercepted letters that carried the conviction to her heart that Laurie loved her no more—these gruesome secrets must remain forever locked in Lelia’s guilty breast—not even to the mother that bore her could she betray her terrible crime.

Even that mother, weak and mercenary, but perhaps not actually wicked, might have turned from her in loathing, had she known to what terrible lengths her beautiful daughter had carried her insane jealousy.

Not knowing all these terrible facts, Mrs. Ritchie was disposed to take a hopeful view of the case.

“Of course, he will make it up with you, my dear, but you will have to make the first advances, this time, for you have treated him very badly by your own confession,” she said.

“Oh, mama, you must help me; tell me what to do!” implored Lelia, her blue eyes full of burning tears.

“I must think it over. I cannot advise you now. I must see your aunt first, for I am very anxious over her, you know,” returned Mrs. Ritchie, who was rather uneasy in her mind over the broken engagement.

She recalled to mind the fact that on the occasion of former ruptures Laurie had always confessed to her and besought her intercession with Lelia.

But this time he had acted very differently on coming home.

He had seemed quite as bright and happy as usual, with not a care on his mind.

To her questions about Lelia he had said she was well and happy, and given plausible reasons for his sudden return, saying he had some investments to look after in Charleston.

If he was grieved over the break with his betrothed, he certainly showed no signs of it.

And when Lelia’s telegram summoned them all to The Crags, he appeared gently incredulous over his aunt’s illness.

“She was in her usual good health when I left. Perhaps Lelia, in her fright, has exaggerated her illness,” he said, and declined to accompany them without further news.

“If Aunt Cyrilla is indeed as ill as you fear, you may telegraph me at once and I will come. Otherwise I do not care to go back, very soon, to The Crags,” he said pointedly.

All of which showed Mrs. Ritchie, plainly now, that Laurie did not care very much about being reconciled to his jealous sweetheart. The worm had turned at last.

On the whole, she was rather glad to find Miss Cyrilla still so critically ill that it seemed quite the proper thing to summon Laurie, at once, by telegram.

“I wonder if she has made her will?” she said to Lelia, who professed entire ignorance of the subject.

“Then come with me to see her and make yourself as sweet as possible; then if she should happen to leave you all her money, it would not make so much difference whether Laurie forgives you or not,” said the mercenary mother, who placed wealth far above love in the scale of worldly advantages.

It needed not her telegram to hurry Laurie, for all the morning papers contained notices of the mysterious tragedy at The Crags, and his heart sank, like lead, in his bosom, as he realized that the beautiful girl who, for twenty-four hours, had filled all his thoughts was probably no more.

He realized the cause of his aunt’s sickness now, and regretted he had not accompanied his father and Lelia’s mother to The Crags.

He would go at once; he took the first train for The Crags, determined to ferret out the mystery of Gipsy’s fate and, if possible, avenge her tragic death.

Oh, it was cruel; it was monstrous, that her sweet young life should have come to so premature an end.

How differently he had planned it out; how firmly he had resolved to elevate poor Gipsy Darke to the level on which he himself stood, to make her his bride, his wife.

For love had suddenly been born, full grown, in Laurie Willoughby’s breast, an emotion so subtly sweet and overpowering that he questioned if he ever had been really in love with his cousin, Lelia.

From boyhood he had been secretly interested in the girl, and the events following on his late visit to The Crags had intensified the feeling. Love grew from pity and admiration, blended; and when Lelia threw him over and he was free, the scales fell from his eyes, and he saw in the beautiful face and noble character of the poor young girl the realization of his dreams of happiness. In the impetuous moment when he placed the ring on her trembling hand he wished that she might some day become his wife.

He knew quite well that he would have to encounter the bitter opposition of his family, that their pride would stand aghast at a union between a Willoughby and the gipsy foundling. No matter, he would wed to please himself, and if his proud father chose to disinherit him, he would still be rich, having a snug fortune inherited from his dead mother.

With such hopes and plans he had gone away, and on reaching home he had been tempted to write to Miss Willoughby and confide in her, begging for her friendship for Gipsy and himself; telling her all the truth of the rupture between himself and Lelia, his change of heart toward Gipsy and desire to make her his wife. Very eloquently he pleaded that she would put aside pride and help him to his happiness.

“I realize, fully, what a blow it will be to the family, the breaking off with Lelia, but with her imperious, jealous nature, she could never have made me happy. I question now, in the light of my feelings for Gipsy Darke, whether I ever really loved Lelia save with a complacent, cousinly love,” he wrote frankly—and a little further on: “My cousin cannot charge that I have behaved badly to her, because she has made me the victim of her caprices a long time, and no one can blame me that my patience is exhausted. When she gave me back my ring, she told me she loved another, so she ought to rejoice that I can say the same.

“If you are vexed with me, dear aunt, I am grieved; because, next to my father and my dark-eyed young love, you are the dearest one on earth to me. I know you have loved me fondly, too, because you have twice given me to understand that you meant to divide your fortune between Lelia and myself. Perhaps you will not wish to do so now, but if you will only be kind to my sweet young love, I am willing for you to make Lelia your sole heiress. We shall not need riches to ensure our happiness.”

With a throbbing heart he posted this letter, little dreaming that it was destined to fall into Lelia’s hands, and of the fury it would rouse in her jealous breast.

He was astonished at the headlong force of this sweet new passion. His heart and his mind were full of the lovely dark-eyed girl, with her cloud of curling, dark hair, her rare red lips, her sweet, tremulous smile, her small, dimpled, white hands that looked so weak, yet were so strong to do and dare in heroic fashion. He longed every moment to see her again, to clasp her to his heart, to declare his love, to woo her for his bride.

Yet he restrained his ardor, telling himself he would wait till Lelia’s visit was over before he returned to The Crags to woo Gipsy Darke. Better be fairly off with the old love before he sought the new.

On all these springing hopes and dreams came the announcement of the tragic disappearance of Gipsy Darke, falling on his heart with crushing force, shrouding it in the dark pall of despair.

CHAPTER XIX.

HE COULD NEVER FORGET HER NOW.

Laurie would never forget his return to The Crags that starless, moonless, sultry summer night, with the gloom of death seeming to brood darkly over the whole world.

Crawford, who met him at the station with a carriage, assured him that Miss Willoughby was critically ill.

She was lying in a stupor, recognizing no one.

Doctor White frankly owned that he feared brain fever.

Laurie talked to the mulatto the whole way to The Crags, trying to get at every particular of the tragedy.

The crime had, no doubt, been committed for revenge by the diamond-burglars who had escaped from the prison at Lewisburg, where they were awaiting trial, Crawford said, and the idea was so plausible that it took hold on Laurie’s mind, too. He accepted it as conclusive.

In a burst of despair he vowed he would spend every dollar of his fortune to bring the dastardly criminals to justice.

“Has nothing been done yet? No detective employed, no reward offered?” he asked the man sternly.

Crawford replied, readily, that he knew of no steps being taken yet. Miss Willoughby was naturally the one to take the lead in such efforts, but in her illness nothing could be done.

“I will see to it to-morrow. This terrible crime shall not go unpunished,” vowed Laurie.

The next moment the dull light of the carriage-lamps flickered on the wide gates of The Crags, and Crawford reined up the horses.

“Whoa, Saint! Whoa, Satan! Whoa!” he cried. At the words a pang like death tore through Laurie’s heart.

How they brought back that terrible moment so fraught with danger, when the maddened horses, rearing upright, toppled on the brink of the deadly precipice, to hurl himself and Lelia to instant destruction, when a girl’s sweet voice ringing on the air, and her small, white hand grappling at their bits, had arrested the impending tragedy and saved two lives.

Laurie would never forget those terrible moments, to his whole life’s end; nor the girl who had paid so costly a price for her bravery.

She was dead, sweet Gipsy, and she would never know how he loved and adored her, how he would mourn for her to the last moment of his life. Nothing was left but to avenge her death, and he swore to himself that he would never relax his efforts till he brought home the crime to the guilty party.

Slowly and with a sinking heart he went up the graveled walk to the broad, Colonial porch, and then the odor of a cigar was wafted through the sultry night air, and a stately, white-haired man rose out of the shadows to greet him.

It was his father, old General Willoughby.

“I waited up for you,” he said.

“Aunt Cyrilla?”

“Is still lying in the same comatose condition, resulting from shock. She must have been very fond of her protégée.”

“I am sure that she was,” Laurie answered earnestly, and almost added: “She was not the only one who loved that noble girl;” but he checked himself in time. What was the use of proclaiming his feelings now? He would get no sympathy from this stern, proud old man, who was already leading the way to his aunt’s room.

“See if you can rouse her from her stupor, Laurie,” he said anxiously, as they stepped lightly over the threshold where the sick woman lay upon her bed, under a light counterpane, her limbs extended stiffly beneath it like one already dead.

Laurie shuddered as he made his way to the bed, seeing, vaguely, the forms of several watchers in the room.

He took one cold, limp hand from the bed and pressed it warmly in his own, calling tenderly to the invalid lying with closed eyes:

“Don’t you know me, dear Aunt Cy? Won’t you speak to Laurie?”

There was no reply, no movement of the still and pallid face, not the flutter of an eyelid to show that she heard or understood, and her breathing was so faint it scarcely stirred the white linen over her breast. All the tender love he bore her surged into his breast, and forced a groan from his lips.

He had scarcely heeded a white figure in a chair, close by, but as he groaned, it started suddenly forward; it threw two warm white arms about him, it drooped a beautiful golden head against his breast, sobbing:

“Oh, Laurie, darling, it is heartrending, is it not? Will she never speak to us again, our dear aunt, who loved us so dearly? But I can do as she bade me, that last night, in her last words to me: ‘Lelia, write to Laurie to-morrow, tell him you were in the wrong, and that he must forgive you!’”

CHAPTER XX.

NEVER MORE HER LOVER.

It was dramatic, touching, this seemingly impetuous, unstudied outburst from a sore heart, in this moment of sorrow and distress. It conveyed sympathy, repentance, and love all in a breath, and for a moment it swayed Laurie to pity and tenderness.

She was his cousin, after all, and both were sharing a common sorrow; they must needs sympathize with each other.

He did not repulse her, he simply stood passive with his arms swinging loosely at his side, while Lelia enclosed him in her embrace, with her fair head nestled close to his chin; but he was conscious that not a pulse throbbed faster at her nearness and her tender words.

And, looking over the top of her head at her mother, he said rebukingly:

“You should not have let Lelia watch all night by a sick-bed. It is bad for her nerves.”

“That is just like you, Laurie, always thinking of Lelia before every one else,” smiled Mrs. Ritchie. “Indeed, there was no actual need for the dear girl to stay up, but she insisted on it.”

“How could I sleep, and dear Aunt Cy so ill? Besides, I was waiting up for you, Laurie, to get your forgiveness as she wished me,” sobbed Lelia, with dramatic fervor.

“Very well, then, my cousin, I forgive you. Sit down and calm yourself,” Laurie answered gently, with a movement to escape from her clinging arms, having all a man’s horror of a scene.

But they only tightened in their clasp, and Lelia turned her tempting lips upward, inviting the pressure of his while she murmured rapturously:

“You forgive my childish folly, so bitterly repented, and love me again, dear Laurie, thank Heaven.”

But no kiss sealed his forgiveness on the full, red lips; Laurie only frowned and averted his face, answering coldly:

“I forgive you, Lelia, freely, for your dismissal did not hurt me so much as you feared, or hoped, perhaps, in your anger. But as for loving you again, do not ask it; that is forever impossible!”

And he pushed her gently, but resolutely from him into the nearest chair, with a glance of but thinly veiled scorn.

But Lelia could be a very clever actress when she wished, combining genuine feeling with dramatic art.

She sprang from the chair in which he had placed her and faced him in blended grief and anger.

“Oh, cruel, cruel! You repulse me, Laurie, when I humble myself to sue to you for pity and pardon!” she passionately cried. “Oh, this is unkind and unmanly! Can you turn your back coldly on a repentant, humbled heart? Is all your pretended love dead so soon?”

“Compose yourself, Lelia, this is not a time for the reproaches you are uttering. There are listeners,” the young man reminded her, with a warning glance about the room.

She crested her golden head defiantly:

“It does not matter. There are only mama, uncle, and the nurse, and all three are in sympathy with us, and anxious to see us make up our quarrel. Oh, Laurie, I never expected to stoop from my stubborn pride to sue for a reconciliation, though my heart is breaking within me! But don’t you understand why I must stoop to it here by the dying bed of the dear one who commanded it and wished it; and who, perhaps, might rest easier if you would only love me again?”

She paused and gazed at him with imploring eyes.

But he did not move or speak; he only gazed back in cold displeasure at her persistency.

Mrs. Ritchie cried out, reproachfully:

“Oh, Laurie, you have loved her all her life! For the love of Heaven do not turn against my unhappy child now!”

General Willoughby added, persuasively:

“I am astonished to learn that there has been a lovers’ quarrel between you two, and I hope you will become reconciled at once. Laurie, Lelia has humbled herself sufficiently, and your stubbornness is disgraceful in a man. Come, come, give over pride, and take her to your heart again!”

“Never! Never!” came sternly through the young man’s set teeth.

“Never!” shrieked Lelia.

“Never!” echoed her mother wildly.

“Never!” repeated the old general incredulously.

And the young man thus harassed, turned at bay, squared his broad shoulders defiantly, and threw back his proud, handsome head, answering sternly:

“It is useless to appeal to me; useless to reproach me. I will never marry my cousin, Lelia! She has broken our troth herself and told me she loved another. Whether true or false does not matter to me, for my heart has turned from her forever. I forgive her as she asked me. I will remain her friend and cousin still, but never more her lover!” and to end the painful scene he stalked resolutely from the room.

CHAPTER XXI.

IF IT COSTS MY HEART’S BLOOD.

He heard her passionate, protesting cry, but he did not turn back for it, only stalked on the faster to his own room to spend a sleepless night, tormented by despair at Gipsy’s loss, disgusted and angered at Lelia’s acting.

“Faugh, what an actress!” he muttered impatiently. “But she cannot impose on me! Her mother has tutored her to this, fearful that in losing me she has sacrificed half of Aunt Cyrilla’s money. She is welcome to it all; I would not accept it on any terms if I had to take my ill-tempered cousin with it! How she will hate me now for refusing the olive branch! But I do not care for either her love or hate; I am no longer her meek, cringing slave; I glory in my freedom!”

He fondly believed that this ended the episode with his spoiled cousin. He did not know her very well yet, despite their long acquaintance.

Lelia determined to win by strategy what she could not compass by her charms.

Humbled by his open scorn, furious over her failure to subdue his heart as of old with a glance or word, she retired to her chamber to sulk alone and to brood over plans for his subjugation.

And, meanwhile, the mistress of The Crags lay still as death upon her bed, deserted by all but the trained nurse, Mrs. Goodwill. The other two had only remained for its effect upon Laurie. On his retirement, they had also gone to their rooms to muse, angrily, over their defeat.

Laurie, wakeful and restless, took a lamp at last and went to explore Gipsy’s room, with a strange, yearning thrill as if it might bring him nearer to the loved and lost.

The door yielded to his touch, and with a throbbing heart, he entered and stood alone in that chamber of horrors.

In the illness of the mistress, and with the superstitions of servants, the room had been left untouched, unentered, since the first day of the discovery of Gipsy’s tragic disappearance.

Laurie set the lamp upon the table, turned the flame up high, and stood surveying the scene of his parting with Gipsy Darke, barely three days ago.

The window was still wide open, the bloody curtains, of which Crawford had told him, flapped limply back and forth in the damp night air, the overturned chair with the bloody white draperies lay upon the floor, the heavy paper-weight, the instrument of destruction, was on the window-sill, the dead roses in the vase emitted a sickly, decaying odor. All was dismal and desolate where, such a little while ago, a beautiful, gracious presence had lent its nameless charm to the simple little room.

He stood and stared about the lonely space, with horror in his eyes and despair in his heart, groaning:

“Oh, Gipsy, my darling, my darling, would I had been by your side to defend you from the assassin’s deadly blow, or to receive it in my own person!”

He looked about him for some little souvenir to keep, in memory of his dear, dead love, but everything was stainlessly neat and prim, with no trifles lying about, for Mrs. Goodwill had kept it so as best suited to a sick-room. There was, indeed, a little case of books on which her dark eyes must have lingered often, but the key was locked and taken away.

Something small and sparkling on the floor near the chair drew his attention. He picked it up.

It was the larger side of a gold link cuff-button, set with a small diamond. It had broken loose from its shank, half of which dangled from it, caught in a wisp of dark hair.

“It was hers, poor girl. It was broken off in the struggle for her life!” he groaned, and, kissing the tangle of dark, silken hair, he hid the precious souvenir against his heart.

Then he knelt down by the flapping curtains, pressed his lips on the dark blood-stains, lifted his pale, convulsed face to the silent heavens, and murmured, passionately:

“Gipsy, my darling, my lost love, whom I hoped to call my wife, lean down from heaven, love, and hear me! I swear, love, that I will bring home your murder to the vile criminal who struck you down in your youthful bloom, and bereaved me of hope and happiness. I will bring him to justice if it costs every dollar of my fortune and every drop of my heart’s blood, so help me Heaven!”

Rising, then, he passed silently from the room, back to his own, and flung himself down in a chair by the open window to resolve that ere to-morrow’s sun set he would put in motion the forces that would track the murderer to his lair.

The night waned and grew old. Weariness crept upon him like an armed man; he slept.

Dawn broke in glimmering streaks, a chorus of song-birds announced the new day. With their music blent the sound of loud, excited rapping on the door.

Sunk in weary slumber, he heeded nothing; lying back in his chair with shut eyes and pallid face, his curling locks damp with the night dews.

The door opened violently; Mrs. Ritchie rushed in and shook him with fierce hands.

“Wake up, wake up, Laurie Willoughby!” she cried, between anger and entreaty—then, as he opened his dark, dazed eyes, “How can you slumber here and let my poor Lelia die?”

He only stared at her stupidly, but half-awake.

She shook him again wildly, impatiently:

“Will you never wake up? Will you sleep on here and let my poor child die?”

He struggled to his feet, pushing her off, coldly.

“Why are you so rude? What is the matter?”

“Listen, Laurie, you must come with me to Lelia! She has taken poison to kill herself!” sobbing wildly, and wringing her hands.

He was on the alert in a minute.

“Have you called a doctor to the foolish girl?”

“Yes, yes—he is here! But he cannot do any good. Lelia refuses to take an antidote!”

“But why?”

“Don’t you understand, you foolish boy? She has poisoned herself for love of you, Laurie! She will not live without your love!” she screamed.

“She did not prize it when she had it!” he bitterly retorted.

“But that is all altered now. She knows its worth too late!”

She flung herself wildly on her knees:

“Oh, Laurie, has your heart turned to stone? Pity a mother’s despair and save my child! On but one condition will Lelia take the antidote—from your hand, and on the renewal of your promise of marriage. She swears it! And she is suffering all the agonies of the deadly poison. Come, come, if you are not a fiend at heart; save my darling’s life.”

CHAPTER XXII.

HOUNDED TO HIS FATE.

The words rang out in bitter reproach and pleading:

“Save my darling’s life!”

Half-dazed by the suddenness of it all, Laurie gazed at his relative in consternation, and, seizing his hand, she dragged him passively in her wake, a silent victim, from the room.

As she went she was weeping wildly, and adjuring him:

“Only promise her what she asks, Laurie, even if you break the vow afterward! I know you are the soul of honor, but I will forgive you a little deceit if you will but humor her now, and induce her to take the antidote that is to save her life!”

She was clever and cunning, this woman; she had never known Laurie, or any other Willoughby, to break a promise once given. They clung close to the motto: “Noblesse oblige.”

She knew if she could entrap him into another promise of marriage, he would not break it any more than the stars would fall from the blue heavens.

And there was really no honorable retreat for him now.

He could not let Lelia die for want of his love. Every one would brand him as a monster if he refused to save her life.

Like one in a nightmare dream he followed her to Lelia’s room, and there in the cold, gray light of dawn, attended by the physician and a maid servant, Lelia lay gasping with pain on her white couch, just as she had been attired last evening. Evidently she had not been in bed all night.

Doctor White, with a glass of medicine in his hand, was arguing, entreating, ably seconded by the maid, but all to no avail.

The beautiful patient pushed them angrily away, moaning through her clenched teeth:

“Let me die in peace! It is all I crave!”

“Lelia, Lelia, my love, I beseech you take the antidote before it is too late! See, I have brought Laurie!” cried her mother eagerly.

A delicate convulsion shook the girl’s body from head to foot, her pale face writhed with pain, her delicate blue eyes stared blankly into space.

Mrs. Ritchie and the maid both screamed aloud in fear, and the physician muttered an unintelligible word of keen anxiety.

“She is dying, my child is dying, and you have killed her, cruel heart!” cried the agonized mother, turning on Laurie in fierce reproach that shook his nerves, strained already to the highest tension.

“What can I do?” he muttered hoarsely, all his outraged manhood shrinking from the sacrifice she demanded, even while Lelia’s pitiful plight excited his pity and sympathy.

“Do! Do!” cried the frenzied mother wildly. “Give her the antidote before it is too late! Hasten, hasten, she is fast going from us to death!”

It certainly looked like it the way Lelia was convulsed with spasm after spasm of keen agony, forcing groans of pain from her pallid lips till it looked as if each succeeding moment must be her last.

The old doctor silently held out the glass to Laurie with two significant words:

“Have mercy!”

“Have mercy!” sobbed the anguished mother.

“Have mercy!” echoed the maid imploringly.

And a sterner voice from the open door chimed in:

“Great Heaven, can my son hesitate over his plain honor and duty in such a terrible hour?”

They were all hounding him to his fate, even his venerable, revered father, and there was no appeal save to Heaven, that seemed to look on in relentless silence.

With a feeling like a criminal receiving sentence of death, he grasped blindly for the glass, and Doctor White put it carefully in his hand.

“Lose not a moment!” he earnestly adjured.

“Lelia,” he uttered, in a hoarse, strangled voice, with his hand on her arm.

She quivered with pain, and her big, blue eyes flared wide open on his face. They were filled with a terrible despair.

“Drink,” he said, placing the glass to her lips, but she clenched her teeth, moaning through them:

“I wish to die!”

“No, no, you must drink and live—live for me!” he added in a strange, far-off voice, unlike his own, like one accepting his death warrant. And, indeed, he felt he would as willingly die as put on Lelia’s fetters of love again.

Her clenched teeth parted, her eyes gleamed with joy, she cried like one coming back from the dead:

“Laurie, do you mean it? Do you love me again? Will you renew your promise? Shall I wear your ring again?”

“Yes, yes,” he muttered desperately, thinking in agony of the little hand now cold in death that wore his ring.

It was useless to tell Lelia anything about that. He could buy her another one just as costly, that would be enough.

She smiled faintly, joyfully, and eagerly swallowed the antidote he held to her lips with a shaking hand.

CHAPTER XXIII.

TWO RINGS.

Love and hope had such patent power for good that Lelia had an almost miraculously swift recovery from the effects of the drug she claimed to have taken in her despair at Laurie’s obstinacy.

In her joy at his restoration to her sovereignty, and her anxiety to keep a tight rein upon him hereafter, she exerted all her will-power to restrain her imperious nature and fairly astonished the young man with her sweetness and humility.

Within a few hours she was seated by his side on the long, Colonial porch, exquisitely dressed, and sparkling with animation, trying to dazzle him with her rare blond beauty, and provoke him to some manifestation of reviving tenderness.

But Laurie remained gravely and courteously cold, with a constrained air that was secretly maddening to her love and pride alike.

“Oh, Laurie, my darling, how strange you seem—how cold, how altered. Will you never smile on me again?” she sighed gently.

“It is scarcely a time for smiles, Lelia, with dear Aunt Cyrilla lying in her room at the point of death,” he gravely replied.

“Oh, forgive me, Laurie, I deserve your rebuke! But, indeed, I am not forgetting our dear old aunt. Yet—yet my whole being is jubilant with the joy of winning you once more, dear Laurie! Oh, you cannot guess all I suffered after you left me, the despair, the remorse, the yearning to have you back again. I could have groveled at your feet praying your pardon for my jealous madness! And then, when you returned and repulsed me in bitter pride and anger, it broke my heart. I could not live without you, I determined to end my life. You would have been sorry for your cruelty when you looked on my poor, dead face, would you not, darling? But mama, uneasy over me, came to my room and found out in time what I had done in my desperation. She raised the alarm and brought the doctor. But I would not take his antidotes. I had quite determined on death. I declared to her frankly I would not live except as your dear wife. She went to you, and in your goodness of heart you came and saved me to life and love and happiness again. Oh, Laurie, I will never be jealous and naughty again as long as I live. I will be so grateful and so good you will love me again better than ever before!”

Soft, white hands clinging to his, golden locks pressed against his shoulder, upturned blue eyes full of adoration, rose-red lips inviting caresses, how could any man’s heart withstand such charms?

Yet every word fell on his heart coldly as drops of winter rain, and he felt a mad impatience to thrust away the soft hands and the golden head and to avert his face from the fair one upturned in such tender pleading. He asked himself impatiently how he had ever fancied himself in love with his beautiful, artful cousin.

Suddenly she held up her white hand before his face.

“Do you miss anything?” with tender archness.

“No, I do not,” carelessly.

“Oh, Laurie, my ring! I have missed it so much! Please let me have it back again.”

He was so agitated himself he did not notice how her voice trembled and her eyes drooped as she spoke; he was seeing again a blushing, mignonne face, with dark-fringed lashes sweeping to a crimson cheek, as he slipped Lelia’s diamond on a dear little, tremulous hand. My God, was he never to hold that little hand again, never to gaze on that exquisite face until he met her in the Great Beyond among the radiant angels?

“My ring, please, Laurie dear,” Lelia murmured again, and, rousing himself, he muttered:

“The ring? I—oh, yes, Lelia, you shall have another as soon as I go to town; but—but I have lost that one.”

He was startled when she faltered, tenderly:

“You must buy two rings this time, please, dear Laurie—another diamond as big as the one you lost, and—and a plain gold one—my wedding-ring.”

“A wedding-ring!” he started, and recoiled like one stung.

“Yes, Laurie dear, for I have one dear wish that I am ashamed almost to breathe aloud. I want to be your wife, Laurie, very soon; for, oh, I have been so frightened when I had so nearly lost you that I cannot ever be quite happy again until you are mine tight and fast, bound by the wedding-ring! Oh, Laurie, will you humor my fancy, because I love you so? Will you ride into Lewisburg to-morrow for the rings, and the license, and the minister; and let us be quietly married to-morrow evening in the parlor, with no guests but just our family?” pleaded Lelia, winding her white arms about his neck and pressing her warm, red lips to his own.

If it had been a blow instead of a caress Laurie could not have recoiled more sharply, or answered more bitterly:

“You shall have your own way, Lelia.”

CHAPTER XXIV.

HAUNTED.

Lelia was ready to weep with chagrin and mortification at Laurie’s cold reception of her tender advances.

He did not go into raptures as a lover ought to do when his darling sets the wedding-day; he did not offer her the slightest caress, he only said in that cold, bitter voice of weary resignation:

“You shall have your own way, Lelia.”

Furious with chagrin and wounded pride, she would have liked to rate him soundly for his reluctance and indifference.

But she did not dare.

The beautiful shrew had found out that she could not indulge her violent temper with impunity.

Her meek slave had rebelled, the trampled worm had turned and stung her foot. She had learned discretion at most bitter cost.

But she had gained a victory, anyhow, and with that she must be content.

She gave over talking, and sat silently by the side of her dejected betrothed, wondering uneasily if he would always be like this, if she could never win him to love again, and at last he looked up at her with absent eyes, saying abruptly:

“I will not wait till to-morrow, Lelia. I will go to Lewisburg to-day and attend to that business, and return to-morrow afternoon.”

“As you will,” she replied radiantly, believing that after all he was coming round, and showing an eagerness to make the wedding arrangements.

In fact, he cared nothing about it. He was thinking of the vow he had made last night—the vow of vengeance he had called Gipsy’s spirit to look down from heaven and witness.

His marriage to Lelia would not make him relax one jot or tittle of vigilance in keeping his solemn vow.

He was going to Lewisburg to get the advice of the best lawyer there on the case, and to have him employ a professional detective to ferret out the mystery.

It seemed to him that they had only to trace the diamond-robbers to bring home punishment to the murderers. Lelia’s plausible theory had taken hold on every one, even Laurie.

He lost no time in starting, though when Lelia confided the truth to her mother and the general, both were surprised, and slightly demurred at the hasty wedding.

“But Laurie wishes it very much, and so do I,” was her excuse, and she easily brought them around to approval of her plans. Both were heartily tired, in fact, of the caprices of the proud young pair, and eager to see them settle down to wedded happiness.

The general only ventured to hint that if Cyrilla got well she would be disappointed at having missed the wedding.

“Oh, no, she will be heartily glad that it is over. I know it from all that she has said to me,” protested Lelia.

So they said no more, and the wedding preparations went on, such as they were, for there would be no show, no gaiety, just a simple ceremony; then the bride and groom would remain to help nurse the invalid.

“Just to snare the bird so that he cannot escape me again!” Lelia confided to her mother, who applauded her daughter’s cunning.

Laurie returned from town quite late the next afternoon; but he brought the license, the minister, and the rings, as Lelia wished, and her heart beat high with triumphant joy. The victory had cost her dear, but she was all the more exultant.

Laurie hurried to his aunt’s room, but she still lay silent and pale as a death-mask on her bed, without recognizing any one, faithfully tended by Mrs. Goodwill, who never ceased lamenting the haste with which she had blurted out the awful tragedy to the hapless lady.

“You see, I never knew as she were so greatly attached to poor Gipsy Darke,” she said humbly. “Not but that the girl didn’t deserve to be loved. She was sweet and pretty, as if she had been born in a palace instead of a gipsy tent. And, oh, sir, it makes me glad to tell you her last hours on earth were made happy by your kindness!” she said to Laurie, as he stood alone by Miss Cyrilla’s bed, adding:

“She was that proud of the pretty ring you gave her, sir, that she jist sat and smiled to herself all the time as if she had come into a fortune.”

Laurie listened as attentively as if it had been the greatest lady in the land speaking to him, and he was more moved than she could see.

“Tell me,” he said gently, when she paused in her voluble speech, “did any one but you know of my giving the ring to Miss Darke?”

“No, sir, not a soul but me,” she answered readily, adding: “You see, no one else was in her room after you went but me. As for me, I never can forgive myself for listening to her when she told me not to sleep in her room that night, she felt quite well and preferred to be alone. I humored her, and now it almost breaks my heart to think of her fate, poor, innocent lamb!” and she sobbed in genuine distress.

But dashing away her tears the next minute, she sighed:

“A sick-nurse has no time for tears! Here I was almost forgetting it was time to pour that beef-juice between Miss Willoughby’s lips, though I never expect her to open her poor eyes again in this sinful world!”

Laurie started and glanced at his watch.

It lacked less than an hour to the wedding, and he had to have a bath and dress. With a sigh he hurried away, and the quaint old nurse, who considered the proud Lelia the incarnation of spite and jealousy, shook her head in frank disapproval, muttering:

“To be married in an hour to the spitfire. Lord, how I do pity him! He’s rich and he’s grand, but I wouldn’t be in his shoes for a fortune! And as for her taking that poison—bah! I’ll never believe she tasted a drop of it! It was just a pretense to scare him into taking her back, that’s what it was, and now she’s going to put him in matrimonial chains to keep him straight. I see right through the artful minx!”

In the long drawing-room some potted plants and white flowers had been arranged to give it a gala air, and the windows stood wide open, admitting the evening breeze. Outside long, blossoming tendrils of white clematis swayed in the wind and diffused fragrance on the warm air.

One by one the witnesses to the wedding dropped into the room, the servants huddling near the door; the doctor, who was gently complacent over the match, and serious over the unchanged condition of the patient; the nurse, who was allowed to forsake her charge a few minutes; the old general, who hovered near the door waiting to give away the bride, and at the last moment Laurie, in the conventional black dress-suit and white tie, and paler even than the usual scared bridegroom, a far-off look in his eyes, his lips set in tense, rigid lines that hinted despair.

At the door appeared Lelia in bridal white, following her mother; and, taking her hand, the gallant old gentleman led her before the minister, where Laurie waited in dumb despair for her coming, feeling bitterly that he had been tricked and deceived into this sacrifice. Grave doubts were constantly assailing him as to whether his artful cousin had ever touched a drop of the poison.

But bound in honor to the sacrifice, he stood there to utter the solemn vows binding him irrevocably to her he no longer even respected. Oh, the pity of it, the sin of it!

The ceremony proceeded, every word falling like a hailstone on Laurie’s heart, while Lelia’s leaped in passionate joy. Her responses were clear and joyous, Laurie’s husky and low, scarcely intelligible.

The ring was on her hand, placed there by fingers marble cold, and the minister solemnly pronounced them man and wife.

She turned eagerly to receive congratulations, and her glance fell on the farthest window, where a white hand from the outside held back the lace curtain, while a wild, white face peered into the room.

Lelia stood as if turned to stone a moment, then a thrilling cry burst from her convulsed lips:

“I am haunted!” she shrieked, pointing wildly at the window.

Every eye followed the pointing finger, every one saw the spectral face glaring in at the scene—the lovely face of Gipsy Darke, framed in dark tresses of curling hair, white as a ghost’s face ever must be. So it glimmered for a moment, then faded like a dream.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE MASK OF A GUILTY SOUL.

If the aroused sleepers on the night of the tragedy at The Crags had but followed up the alarm, instead of ascribing the shrieks to nightmare dreams, the young girl might have been succored at once, and the current of this story turned into less tragic channels.

For Lelia’s frenzied blows on the poor girl’s head had not killed her, as she believed, only stunned her into insensibility.

But quite sure of her death, and fearful of discovery, the criminal fled in terror from the dreadful scene, and locked herself fast in her own room to remove the stains of her terrible deed.

Tearing off her blood-stained garments, she rolled them into a tight bundle, concealing them temporarily till she could find an opportunity to consign them to the flames.

Her hair, her hands, her face were all spotted with crimson streaks, and she shuddered like one in an ague chill as she washed the stains away.

Her task accomplished, she threw on a wrapper and lay shudderingly down to rest on a couch, thinking with alarm of the morrow, when the bloody corpse of her victim should be discovered on the floor of the little room.

What a sensation there would be! How would she be able to act her part of surprise and innocence? How could she bear to look upon the dumb, accusing face of that poor dead girl?

“If I could only hide the body there would not be half so much sensation, and we should avoid the horrors of a funeral!” flashed over her excited mind.

She sat racking her brains for some means of getting the corpse out of the room.

All at once it came to her clearly.

Out among the shrubberies, not so far from the house, was an old, unused well that had been boarded over for years. The water was strongly impregnated with sulfur and iron, and very unpleasant to the taste, so it had been abandoned for good, because there was a cool spring of the same mineral waters on the place.

“If I could tumble Gipsy out of her window, and drag her to the old well and throw her in, no one would ever know what became of her body, it could not even be proved that a murder had been committed,” she thought, screwing up her courage to the dreadful task.

Fortune had favored her already in permitting her to escape from the scene of her crime undetected, and now she must trust to her luck to aid her in accomplishing the rest of her work in secrecy.

The moon was going down, she had that much in her favor if she chanced to meet any one in the grounds, but she did not fail to mask her face in a dark veil, after putting on a black rainy-day skirt and clumsy cape that made a good disguise.

Then gliding like an evil spirit through the dark corridors of the silent house, she gained Gipsy’s room again, carrying with her a stout linen sheet to serve the purpose of a rope in dragging the body to the well.

Silent and bleeding lay the unconscious form of Gipsy, and, locking the door against any possible intrusion, Lelia knelt down and shudderingly knotted the sheet rope-fashion about the girl’s slim waist. She was taller and larger than Gipsy, and it was easy then to get her body to the window and push it rudely over the sill to the ground two stories below. It fell with a dull thud upon some flower-beds beneath, and there was nothing more but to finish her work.

Trembling, panting, half-crazed with fear of detection, Lelia hurried down-stairs, out into the odorous darkness of the summer night.

Looking furtively about, she detected nothing living but herself, not even the dogs that usually guarded the grounds, for they were taking a midnight excursion to some neighboring farm.

Thanking fortune for her good luck, she seized the corners of the sheet, and with courage born of desperation, rapidly dragged her burden to the dark shrubberies that hid the disused well.

Arrived there, a new difficulty confronted her. The well was boarded over.

Could she succeed in removing the cover?

In the darkness, beside the silent victim of her hate, Lelia knelt down and felt of the boards, moldy with age, and damp with night dew. She tried to wrench one loose.

Joy—joy! It yielded; the rotten boards crumbled in her grasp.

Beating them down with bare, desperate hands, they fell into the well, and she heard their low echo coming back as they splashed into the water that would soon be Gipsy’s dreary grave.

One moment and all would be over and her terrible secret hidden from the sight of men down under the cold, black water.

She was panting with fear and horror combined, the cold sweat of exhaustion ran down her face in streams, she was so oppressed with the weight of her sin and her danger that she felt like dying of the mere horror of the moment.

There was blood upon her fair, white hands, blood on her guilty soul. She had taken life, and the horror of it would be upon her forever. She could never be happy again.

This guilty secret on her soul would darken the fair face of day to her forever, would haunt her feverish slumbers, would stalk by her side throughout the world henceforth. Yet she would have to wear always a careless smile, the mask of a guilty soul.

Why was she shuddering, lingering; why did she hold back from the completion of her nefarious work? Was she stricken with remorse, did she wish she could restore life to that senseless lump of clay that she had always hated with cruel hate? Oh, no, she would not do it if she could! The deed was done, and, though nature stood aghast at this outrage of conscience, she would not bring back her helpless rival to blush at Laurie’s smiles and words, and wear his ring again.

With a low laugh of scorn at her momentary flinching, and a new accession of hate for her victim, Lelia stood up and caught the ends of the sheet again, dragging the body to the verge of the well.

Then she gave it a vicious push with her foot.

It toppled on the verge, it went over in the darkness!

With the splash of the water ringing loud in her ears, Lelia fled to the house.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE PALL OF DEATH.

“Seeing is believing,” pertinently runs the old saw.

Although Lelia was not inclined to be superstitious, she could not doubt the evidence of her own senses.

When she saw the face of the dead, wild, dark, beautiful, staring in at her through the window, all her exultation fled; her heart leaped into her throat, her face went ashen white, her limbs trembled under her own weight, and that startled shriek rang from her lips:

“I am haunted!”

She believed that the unburied dead in the old well had returned to mock her in her bridal hour and cast the shadow of undying remorse over her new-found happiness.

With the cry that rang from her tortured lips, she sank heavily in a swoon to the floor, but no arm was outstretched to arrest her fall, for every eye had turned to gaze at the window.

All saw, all recognized, the wild, white face framed in a cloud of dark, curling hair, all stared in a trance of horror till it disappeared, seemingly fading into thin air, “luminous, gemlike, ghostlike, fading without a sound.”

Cries of wonder and horror commingled echoed through the room, and as the face disappeared, several darted to the door.

One of these was Laurie Willoughby.

Unheeding his swooning bride, remembering nothing but a wild hope that Gipsy Darke had returned from the dead, he rushed through the hall and out into the moonlit summer night, running hither and thither like a madman, beating about the dark shrubberies in a vain hope of finding the lost girl.

But not a shade of success rewarded his frenzied efforts.

The earth might have opened and swallowed Gipsy Darke for any sign he found of her presence.

In vain he called her name aloud in frenzied accents of love and longing, vainly he lifted his eager face to the moonlit sky as if adjuring Heaven for a solution of the mystery—there came no reply to his prayers save the plaintive murmur of the wind in the pines and the echo of his own agonized voice borne back to him on the breeze of night.

He was irresistibly forced to the conclusion that he had looked with his mortal eyes on the beautiful shade of the hapless girl he had loved too late.

Dejected and sorrowful he returned to the house, whither the other men who had come out to join in his search had long preceded him, hopeless of success.

Lelia, very ill and frightened, had been removed to her own room as soon as she was restored to consciousness. She was calling for her husband with every breath, begging that he be brought to her side.

When he came she wound her arms around his neck and hid her face on his breast, sobbing in hysterical reproach:

“Oh, why did you leave me?”

It rushed over him that he had indeed acted rudely, rushing off from his swooning bride in such mad haste.

He did not return her caresses, but he smoothed the golden hair gently back from her brow, replying soothingly:

“You must forgive me, Lelia, I was so startled seeing that face at the window I forgot everything else but the hope that poor Gipsy Darke was yet alive, and just in hiding from us. I flew to capture her if I could.”

“But you were disappointed?” she murmured, trying to keep the note of malicious joy out of her voice.

“Yes. I could find no trace of that poor girl! She must, indeed, be dead! It was her restless shade gazing in upon us,” Laurie Willoughby answered, in a tone of profound grief and despondency that made her secretly furious.

She could not help saying, spitefully:

“I don’t see why she should choose to make herself an unbidden guest at our wedding! I hated her living, and I do not crave her company now that she is dead!”

“Lelia!” her mother cried, in warning expostulation, while Laurie started back so suddenly as to release himself from her clinging arms.

“You have forgotten that we should speak no ill of the dead, Lelia,” he said sternly.

“I do not care! I will not play the hypocrite!” she was beginning angrily, when a hasty rap at the door gave them all a violent start.

Laurie flew to open it, thankful for an interruption to his bride’s hysterics.

It was Miss Willoughby’s faithful maid, tearful and nervous.

“Oh, do come quick as you can to my mistress. She has taken a sudden turn for the worse, and Mrs. Goodwill says she is almost gone!” she sobbed.

“Laurie, do not leave me! Mama, you may go, but I cannot bear to see Aunt Cyrilla die!” cried Lelia, burying her face in the pillow; but Laurie, without reply, darted from the room to that of the invalid, whither Mrs. Ritchie followed, presently, dragging her sullen, reluctant daughter by the hand.

They saw Laurie kneeling by the bed, wiping away the death dew from the blue, pinched face, and gazing in tender sorrow on the beloved relative sinking away so fast into the eternal silence of death—a few faint gasps and all was over, and again the pall of woe hung darkly over The Crags.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A FORGOTTEN BRIDE.

She was dead, the gentle mistress of The Crags, without ever recovering consciousness, without a parting word or look for the relatives who watched around her bed—she had always had a weak heart, said the doctor, and a shock of grief had broken it.

It was a most inauspicious happening for a bridal night; the whole household felt it so.

Every one sympathized with the bridegroom, but Lelia got scant sympathy.

They all whispered among themselves that the wedding had been urged on with most indecent haste when the mistress of The Crags lay so critically ill, and they laid it all at Lelia’s door, not scrupling to hint that the pretended suicide had been merely a means to an end.

But that end had been most cleverly accomplished, and whether she or her husband inherited The Crags she would still be mistress, substituting an iron sway for the gentle rule of Miss Willoughby.

The prospect was not very alluring to the indulged servants, and they all hinted at leaving in a body as soon as the funeral was over.

For there must be a funeral now—Lelia could not prevent it as she had done the other. She did not wish it, indeed, for as soon as her mother led her back to her room she began to plan, eagerly, for a mourning suit—that must be ordered for the occasion.

“Though I shall only wear black to the funeral; of course, as a bride, I cannot be expected to go into regular mourning,” she said complacently.

Mrs. Ritchie looked doubtful, saying:

“Aren’t you afraid that people will talk?”

“Let them! What do I care? Laurie and the fortune are both mine now. I can be independent of any one’s opinion,” was the careless reply, and presently she added:

“I think I shall let The Crags to a good tenant. I could never bear the lonesome old place!”

“But Laurie is fond of it, my dear. He will very likely prefer to spend a short time here each year for the shooting and fishing,” remonstrated her mother.

“Laurie will have to consider my wishes,” snapped Lelia.

“But he has lately developed a will of his own!”

“I shall know how to break it!” cried Lelia exultantly, remembering how she had compassed the marriage.

Not a tear, not a word of regret, from either, for the dear old lady lying dead in yonder room, shocked into death by Lelia’s sin.

All they thought of was the property that Lelia expected to inherit and enjoy.

All her life she had been tutored by her artful mother to scheme for and expect it, and now she felt it in her grasp at last; she could but rejoice in secret that the end had come.

How different from her young husband, whose mind was torn with grief over the loss of the dear one he had loved all his life.

As he stood and gazed on the dear, dead face and recalled all her love and kindness from his boyhood until now, a mighty grief shook his broad shoulders with convulsive sobs, and he was not ashamed of the tears that rolled down his cheeks and fell on her cold brow.

No thought came to him of the rich estate she had left behind, and that he would profit by her death. His breast heaved with genuine grief, and he felt with bitter pain that this death, too, lay at the door of the unknown assassin who had done Gipsy Darke to death.

When he went at length from the chamber of death it was to consult with his father over the arrangements for the funeral, and as a result he galloped away within the hour to Lewisburg, to personally superintend everything. In his grief and excitement he forgot Lelia’s existence, and left her to pass her first night of wedded life alone, a forgotten bride.

When she learned of this desertion, she went into hysterics and had to be soothed with an anodyne, her mother spending the night by her bedside.

It was a vigil never to be forgotten by Mrs. Ritchie, and she emerged from it with wan cheeks and hollow eyes, and profound thankfulness at Laurie’s absence.

For Lelia’s sleep had been restless in spite of the anodyne; her dreams had been horror-haunted, she had babbled of things so strange and fearful that the woman’s blood had run icy cold through her chilled veins.

She had even looked anxiously into the mirror, at day-dawn, to see if any gray threads had come into her fair hair, and sighed with relief that none were visible.

“How glad I shall be to get away! I cannot help but sympathize with Lelia in her distaste for The Crags. It is unendurably lonely. I shall go away the day after the funeral, as soon as the will is read. I suppose the old lady has certainly left me a legacy,” ran her thoughts, as she sought her own room to rest.

As for Lelia, all unconscious of the revelations of her nervous slumber, she arose, rested and refreshed, but so sullen over Laurie’s desertion that she remained in her own room making a great parade of grief, so as to deny herself to the neighbors who came from miles around to express their sincere sympathy.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A GIPSY PROPHECY.

The handsome young bridegroom who had forgotten his exacting bride under the stress of his great sorrow rode on rapidly toward Lewisburg, some seven or eight miles away.

Sad and heavy thoughts bore him company, for he seemed dazed with the shock of all that had befallen him in the past week.

Gipsy’s murder, his forced marriage, his aunt’s death—all following so rapidly upon each other—were enough to unbalance the strongest brain.

The impulse of flight came over him, as it comes to so many in dark hours—the longing to seek in distant lands, among strangers, surcease from sorrow.

Alas, he might not flee from his pain. He was bound by Lelia’s fetters; she would not let her wretched captive go free.

The worst of it, too, was that he felt sure that he had been gulled into the marriage by a cunning scheme. She had only pretended to take the poison, but her clever acting had deceived every one, even the physician, and all had combined to force him into his hated bonds.

As he rode along the lonely mountain road between the overarching trees, there arose in his mind a hatred toward Lelia and a reluctance ever to live beneath the same roof with one so unworthy.

“Daily, hourly, at her side—how can I bear it?” he groaned, and just then Satan shied so violently as to almost throw him to the ground.

Recovering his seat with an alert spring, he reined in the horse, sharply, and looked about him for the cause of the disturbance.

It was the slender, white figure of a girl that must have crossed the road in front of them, for with a bound it disappeared in a dark strip of wood and Satan snorted with relief and regained his equanimity.

“Ah, a ghost, old boy!” exclaimed Laurie, patting his neck and cantering along with a throbbing heart; for the flying figure, clad in ghostly white, with streaming dark hair, had such a familiar air that he was instantly reminded of Gipsy Darke.

Like Lelia he could have cried out:

“I am haunted!”

But for the sad errand on which he was bound he would have dismounted and followed the fugitive into the wood in the half-hope of finding that it was Gipsy.

But such a course seemed the height of folly, and with a sigh from the bottom of his heart, he rode on, turned a curve in the road, and suddenly found himself in a gipsy camp.

The gipsies had camped on Miss Willoughby’s land again this summer for the first time since Lelia’s father had driven them away with merciless hate, and been cursed for his brutality by the gipsy queen.

They had been here several weeks now by Miss Willoughby’s gracious permission, and were busily plying their lazy occupations of horse-trading and fortune-telling.

On either side of the meadow road their white tents gleamed in the moonlight and their horses frolicked in the pasture lot near the huge wagons that trundled their women folk and children from place to place.

Some of these swarthy, picturesque people were gathered around a camp-fire at the side of the road, amusing themselves with games of cards and telling stories.

Satan discovered new cause for alarm in the gipsy camp, and balked, refusing to budge any farther.

Persistent urging, and even the spur, failed to overcome his stubbornness.

Suddenly a woman started up from the group about the fire, saying, in her musical, Romany voice:

“He’s just a little bit frightened at us folks, sir. Allow me to lead him safely past.”

And to Laurie’s surprise the stubborn Satan yielded kindly to her firm hand and coaxing voice, and ambled quietly along until he had his back to the disturbing scene.

“You can go on safely now, sir,” she said, pausing, with the gleam of the moonlight and firelight both reflected on her strong, dark face, middle-aged and still handsome, with a stately air that made him suspect she was the gipsy queen.

“I thank you,” he said courteously, placing a generous gift of silver pieces in her hand.

“Oh, sir, you are very kind! Let me tell your fortune in return!” cried the woman, seizing his hand despite his protest and peering with fixed eyes into the palm.

“A fair fate to you, sir,” she muttered. “You will be married twice, but your first and second choice will differ from each other like daylight and darkness; both beautiful, both loving, but between them they will bring a tragedy into your life. Deep sorrow lies before you, but the clouds will pass. Remember Magdala’s words, sir, for they are true as truth. Good-night, and a successful journey to you, kind sir,” curtsying as she moved away.

Laurie rode on, musing:

“She evidently knows who I am and has made a wild guess at the rest. But in one thing she is right. Two women as different as daylight and darkness have brought a tragedy into my life. Will the clouds indeed pass as Magdala predicted?”

He reached Lewisburg without further adventure, but it was long past midnight, and seeking the hotel, he retired to rest till morning.

And in the painful absorption of his thoughts he could not sleep at all, but tossed restlessly till time to arise.

It took him till mid-day to transact the sad business that had brought him there, making the arrangements for Miss Willoughby’s funeral the next day, and in the afternoon he rode back to The Crags, reaching there in the golden glow of the summer sunset.

Dreary and sad looked the old house with its closed windows and streamers of black at the door. Twice within a week had death borne away an inmate, and a gloomy shadow hung over everything.

Lelia had been watching for him through the shutters, and she came out to meet him with a forced smile to hide her bitter resentment.

“Come into my room and talk to me a while, I am so lonely,” she pleaded, when she had received the cold kiss for which she held up her lips.

“Indeed, Lelia, you must excuse me, I have to go to my father and tell him my plans for the funeral to-morrow, and then I must lock myself into my room for an undisturbed sleep. I am simply fagged out,” he replied, turning coldly away.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE HEIRESS.

Miss Willoughby’s funeral was over.

The kindly, gentle old lady had been laid to rest among her kindred in the family graveyard, close to The Crags.

All the best people in the county had attended the obsequies and loving hands had strewn the mound with fragrant flowers.

Among the chief mourners Lelia had appeared draped in costly black, leaning on her husband’s arm, the heavy veil drawn decorously over her face that drooped against Laurie’s shoulder in seeming sorrow.

But it was only seeming, for her heart beat high with pride and joy in her fortuitous circumstances.

Laurie and Miss Willoughby’s fortune were both within her grasp, she thought exultantly.

This afternoon the lawyer was coming to read the will and she had no misgivings over the contents.

There would be a few legacies, of course.

General Willoughby and her mother were sure to be remembered handsomely, and the old lady, in her justice and honesty, would certainly reward those of her servants who had deserved her kindness and been faithful in their service.

She might even leave a small fund for the maintenance of her pet cats—she had been so tender-hearted.

But the bulk of her fortune, probably half a million, would go to her and Laurie.

With such brilliant prospects, how could any one expect her to really grieve over the death of an old lady whom she scarcely saw more than a month out of a year, and who had been frank enough to point out to the spoiled beauty her glaring faults of heart and mind and adjure her to correct them; a keen resentment over this fact, and her exultation over inheriting the fortune, made Lelia’s pangs of grief so light they were easily consoled.

So she felt quite an air of proprietorship as she re-entered The Crags, returning from the funeral.

True, Laurie had preserved toward her a maddening coldness of demeanor and a studied avoidance of her society, but she trusted to time and her woman’s wiles to overcome this passing cloud. He had loved her once, he should love her again.

After all, since that confidential talk with her mother this morning, Lelia felt it was better that Laurie had held so coldly aloof.

Mrs. Ritchie had watched over Lelia’s slumbers again, and gone through the same startling experience of the previous night.

Her maternal heart quaked with terror; she fought her doubts and fears with passion.

But on Lelia’s angry complaints of her husband’s coldness she had reluctantly disclosed a portion of the truth.

“Your nerves are all distraught by the tragic death of Gipsy Darke, and in your sleep you accuse yourself in disjointed ravings of her murder.”

“No, no!” cried Lelia, horror-stricken.

“It is too true, my dear, horrible as it seems, and innocent as I know you to be—but Laurie Willoughby must never hear these strange ravings of your disordered mind. Let him keep aloof until your nerves become quiet and you cease to talk in your sleep. Tonight I shall pretend illness and ask you to watch by me. You understand?”

“Oh, yes, yes, mama, I will do what you say. Of course, I am very nervous and have terrible dreams,” acquiesced Lelia in a terrible fright at her mother’s revelations.

No, no; Laurie must not hear those self-accusing dreams for the world. She would be guided by her mother’s advice until her nerves grew strong again, and then Laurie should take her on a bridal-tour and she would win back his heart.

She was thoroughly frightened, indeed, and gave over her reproaches of Laurie, deeming it best, as her mother said, to let him hold aloof a while.

That afternoon the lawyer, who had come over from Lewisburg to the funeral and remained to read the will, requested the family’s presence in the library while he went over the important document.

The near kin of the family were all present, the general, his son, Mrs. Ritchie and her daughter.

Lawyer Gilmer cleared his throat and remarked:

“I suppose Miss Willoughby never confided to any of you that she had made a new will within the past month?”

Ejaculations of surprise came from every one.

“It is a fact,” he said, continuing:

“Within a few days after the assembling of the house-party that was so disastrously broken up by the disappearance of Miss Darke, Miss Willoughby sent for me and had me make a new will quite different in its provisions from the old one.”

No one knew whether to be startled or not, but the old gentleman muttered:

“This is very strange.”

Mrs. Ritchie added anxiously:

“I hope she has not left her money to found a hospital or anything like that?”

“Nothing of the kind, madam,” returned the lawyer courteously, while Lelia snapped impatiently:

“If she had we could have broken the will, of course—she was old and very likely of infirm mind.”

The lawyer answered calmly:

“Doctor White, who witnessed the will, knows that her mind was strong and vigorous up to the time of the seizure that cost her her life.”

“Go on, let us hear the new will!” cried Lelia, almost ready to snatch it from him in her eagerness.

And, breaking the seal of the document, the lawyer obeyed.

As Lelia had guessed, the kindly old lady had left liberal legacies to all her old servants who were worthy, and to all who should be in her employ at the time of her death.

Several poor cousins in a distant city were remembered with bequests of a thousand dollars each, whereat Lelia frowned as at something unexpected and undesirable.

Miss Willoughby remembered her lawyer and her minister generously, and did not forget her physician, either; so that Lelia thought spitefully:

“He will certainly come to the cats next!”

But the next was her brother, General Willoughby, to whom, in token of her sisterly love, she left thirty thousand dollars.

Lelia thought:

“A big slice out of my share, but I will get it all in the end!”

To the widow of her deceased cousin, Colonel Ritchie, she gave the sum of twenty thousand dollars.

This was liberal, and caused no protest in Lelia’s mind. She was glad for dear mama to get it.

Then she straightened herself with an eager air, for she and Laurie were certain to come next.

The lawyer read on, monotonously:

“I appoint my beloved nephew, Laurie Willoughby, my administrator, and devise to him a legacy of seventy-five thousand dollars.”

Lelia’s blue eyes flashed with rapacious joy as she murmured to herself:

“Only seventy-five thousand to Laurie! Then I shall be the heiress, after all! There must be a half-million left after all these legacies! I am almost sorry now I married Laurie. I might have gotten a title with so much money!”

And she crested her golden head as proudly as if it already wore a coronet, while Lawyer Gilmer read on:

“To my cousin, Lelia Ritchie, the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars!”

“Ah-h!”

Lelia gasped faintly like one dying, and listened with a sinking heart for the bequest to found a hospital or an asylum, while the monotonous voice continued:

“By reason of the love I bear her, for the dutiful, daughterly conduct to me, her sweet womanliness, her bravery by which she saved the lives of two of my dearest relatives, and by reason of my sympathy in her lonely state, I hereby bequeath my remaining estate, consisting of The Crags, with a hundred acres surrounding, together with money in bank, coal-mines and various stocks and bonds, to the person dearest to me in the world—my protégée, Gipsy Darke!”

CHAPTER XXX.

STARTLING NEWS.

In her dying hour Lelia could never be more ghastly than when that startling name fell from the lawyer’s lips:

“Gipsy Darke!”

Her face became ashen white, a dull film glazed over the brightness of her large, blue eyes, her head sank back against her chair, her heart throbbed with a fierce resentment and sense of loss that nearly split it in twain.

But in the general consternation her angry agitation passed almost unnoticed.

The general was sputtering with surprise and indignation, Mrs. Ritchie burst into hysterical sobs and cries, Lelia moaned dismally, and Laurie alone remained silent, quite as surprised as any, but not so angry.

A bombshell from an enemy’s camp, exploding in their midst, could not have created a greater sensation.

Gipsy Darke, the nameless gipsy waif, the despised dependent, neglected and scorned, handed on from one compassionate hand to another till she became Miss Willoughby’s protégée, had cunningly worked her way to the old woman’s heart, supplanting her relatives and legal heirs—she the heiress? Oh, it was impossible! The thought was hideous, odious!

Yet Lawyer Gilmer had read it thus in the will, and he sat silent now with a very non-committal air, probably enjoying their discomfiture.

Mrs. Ritchie was the first to find her voice. She almost shrieked:

“I always said so—you know I did, general! I said, over and over, that Gipsy Darke, in our absence from The Crags, would worm herself into that silly old maid’s soft heart! I said often that the gipsy brat ought to be sent away in time, but no one heeded me except Lelia, and we two could do nothing alone! Now the hateful schemer has robbed us all of our due, and——”

“Speak no ill of the dead!” interrupted Laurie sternly.

She glared at him mutinously, but the lawyer here interposed, saying:

“I can assure you that the heiress of Miss Willoughby’s money had no idea of her good fortune, for it was a secret from all but myself and Doctor White, who witnessed the will.”

“But how did my sister arrive at so strange a conclusion—to disinherit her own kith and kin in favor of her protégée?” inquired the general testily.

“Just as the will has already narrated; because she admired the young lady’s true womanliness of character, loved her for her dutifulness, and was grateful because she had saved the lives of two of her dearest relatives,” returned the lawyer, adding:

“Miss Willoughby first declared her intention of adopting Miss Darke at once and presenting her to the world as her heiress, but I persuaded her not to spring the sensation then, but to be content with naming her in her will. She took my advice, but decided that in the future she would give the young girl an easier and happier position in the household, more like a daughter or younger sister’s place. As we have seen, death stepped in and frustrated her kindly plans.”

The lawyer rather enjoyed the sensation he was creating. He did not admire the proud Lelia who, he saw, had counted on being the heiress.

But as if a sudden rift had appeared in the cloud, Mrs. Ritchie cried out gladly:

“But Miss Darke being dead, the will is null and void, and the money reverts to Miss Willoughby’s lawful heirs.”

“I beg your pardon, there is no proof of Miss Darke’s death. She may be alive somewhere, and the news of her inheritance may result in her reappearance,” suavely returned the lawyer.

Oh, how Lelia repented then that to save the sensation and gloom of a funeral, she had cast poor Gipsy’s body into the old well. Now she realized her terrible mistake.

She would have given much to be able to cry out to him that Gipsy Darke was certainly dead; she had looked on her cold, dead face; she could tell him where to find the poor girl’s body. If she might but tell him these things and settle his doubts at once, the relatives could have no difficulty in claiming the whole estate.

But even while these thoughts crossed her mind, Laurie began to speak for the first time.

“Even in the event of Miss Darke’s death she may have relatives to claim her property, so that we really cannot consider ourselves as having any claim at all,” he said.

Lelia and Mrs. Ritchie tried to freeze him out with cold looks of warning, but he was not conscious of their angry regards; he was looking straight at the lawyer, who replied:

“You are quite correct, Mr. Willoughby.”

The general cut in testily:

“As I look at it, the girl could not have any relatives or she would not have been deserted so heartlessly. Probably her parents were dead, and, the gipsies not wishing to support the child, left it to perish. If any of them dare to appear as claimants I shall certainly brand them as impostors!”

“Quite right!” applauded Mrs. Ritchie, while her daughter beamed approval.

Only Laurie remained gravely silent, commending in his heart his aunt’s choice of an heiress and wishing that beautiful, true-hearted, brave Gipsy Darke might have lived to enjoy her good fortune.

He did not feel the least worried or grieved over his failure to inherit the bulk of the property; he had a feeling as if he were stunned by the hurrying events of the past month, and there was also a distinct sense of triumph at Lelia’s defeat.

He had always felt a sense of disgust at her rapacity, at her planning and scheming from babyhood for the money. He was glad that she had lost it and that Gipsy Darke had been chosen as the heiress. It seemed like poetic justice.

He became suddenly aware that the lawyer was speaking again:

“I would advise you,” he said, “to offer a small reward for news of Gipsy Darke, living or dead.”

“I have already employed a detective to search for the young girl,” returned Laurie, heedless of the angry flash of Lelia’s eyes.

“It can do no harm to offer a reward also, so as to get at the root of the mystery as soon as possible. Let it be known among the servants of The Crags that you will pay for the news you want, and they will be roused into the greatest activity at once. The newspapers can also be used as a medium to elicit the truth.”

“I will give it my immediate attention,” answered Laurie quickly; and then the painful scene ended by the separation of the party—Lelia going with her mother to her own room, where they roundly denounced the dead woman for her treachery, and Lelia, tearing off her weeds of mourning, trampled them angrily under foot.

She appeared that evening in a rose-pink gown with diamonds blazing in her hair and on her breast—the diamonds Gipsy had saved to her at such bitter cost—and at Laurie’s glance of cold surprise, she exclaimed excusingly:

“A bride must not go into mourning, you know, dear Laurie. It would seem ill-omened.”

She wondered why he started slightly and grew so pale at her words.

The truth was that every now and then Laurie, in his perturbation of mind, would forget Lelia’s claim on his name and love, and regard her as his cousin only until one of her pointed reminders would recall him to the hateful truth.

He would pale with regret and writhe in disgust every time he remembered that she had a wife’s claim upon him now that nothing could induce her to forego.

For even though she had lost the fortune, she had captured Laurie, whom she loved with jealous passion, and whose coldness, so unlike his former tenderness, nearly drove her mad with jealous anger.

She had this triumph at least, and she was not going to let him forget it.

Several days passed away, but she could see no sign of returning love in her indifferent husband. He remained coldly aloof, avoiding her strictly by night and day, seemingly absorbed in business cares.

Still, there came no tidings of Gipsy, until at length he received a note written in a cramped handwriting on coarse paper without a signature:

“You will find the body of Gipsy Darke in the old mineral well on the grounds among the thickest shrubberies.”

Laurie Willoughby was like a man stunned by a heavy blow as he read, and staggered to a chair.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE DEAD ALIVE.

He sat there, helplessly, for some time like one dazed, so terrible was the shock of knowing that Gipsy was really dead.

Up to this time he had secretly cherished a faint hope that the dark clouds of mystery might clear away and show that she was yet alive.

Although his love for her was all in vain, and she could never belong to him now since Lelia had bound him with hated fetters, he could not bear to think of her as dead, all her wondrous beauty faded, her voice of music stilled, her presence vanished from the earth forever.

His father came into the library and found him there in the armchair with the paper clenched in his hand.

“What is the matter? Are you ill?” he asked, in surprise.

“I have just had a great shock! Read this note that came with my mail this morning.”

The general was so shocked that he also sat down, trembling.

“Can it be true? Her body in the old well, poor girl? Perhaps it is only a hoax, Laurie.”

“There is no signature, you see. Some heartless wretch may be amusing himself at our expense!” the young man cried, with a gleam of hope.

His father arose, saying:

“It will be easy enough to verify, anyhow. Shall I send the men servants to search the well, Laurie?”

“Yes, I will be very grateful. I own I am too much unnerved to attend to it myself,” and he bowed his handsome head upon the desk, a prey to the most harrowing anxiety.

With senses strained to their utmost tension, eagerly alert to every sound, his heart aching with the cruelest pain he had ever known, he drooped there in the chair, hearing dully from without the sounds of steps and voices as the men hastened to their gruesome task.

There were steps and voices in the room at last, and his father was saying:

“The mystery deepens. The body was not there.”

“Thank God!” uttered Laurie fervently.

Another voice echoed wildly:

“Not there!”

It was Lelia who had entered just in time for the general’s words.

She had a pale, scared look as she repeated:

“Not there!”

“It is very, very strange,” said the general, and he added:

“The well was not deep, and the men had little trouble getting to the bottom. They found nothing there but the rotten boards that had fallen in from the top of the well.”

“How very, very strange!” echoed Lelia, in a hollow voice.

She sank into a chair, her face white and wild, her form trembling. What had become of Gipsy Darke’s body? Who had dragged it up out of the old well? Where was it now?

The general continued:

“Yet it is possible there was an effort to throw some one into the well. The grass and earth were broken and trampled roundabout, and there were dark stains upon the leaves, rust-colored like dried blood, as if some sort of a struggle had taken place there. There were some fragments, too, of a white gown fluttering from an old, rusty hook on one side of the well.”

“Let me see them?” Laurie asked, and the general placed them in his hand.

Some jagged strips of white, dotted muslin, that was all; but there was despair in Laurie Willoughby’s voice as he cried:

“I saw Gipsy Darke the afternoon before she was murdered, and she wore a white gown of this exact pattern!”

“Then it was not a hoax. Her body must have been thrown into the well, as your anonymous correspondent asserts, but who removed it?” Colonel Ritchie exclaimed, in wonder.

Who, indeed?

Lelia asked herself that question in dismay, frightened at the hovering clouds of mystery that hung over the tragedy.

No one had noticed a dark, picturesque face peering in through the open door while they talked. No one saw the gipsy queen enter the room, and all started when a deep, musical voice exclaimed:

“I come to claim the reward, kind gentlemen. I bring news of Gipsy Darke!”

Lelia screamed in affright:

“Go away, you horrible old hag!”

“Hush, my dear!” said the general, rebukingly; and the woman continued:

“The reward is mine! I can lead you to Gipsy Darke, who is safe at the gipsy camp!”

Lelia clung entreatingly to Laurie’s arm, crying:

“Do not listen to this miserable impostor, dear Laurie. She is only telling you falsehoods to extort money from you! Gipsy Darke is certainly dead, there can be no doubt of it!”

“How do you happen to know so much about it, my pretty lady?” sneered the gipsy, fixing her bold, black eyes suspiciously on the beauty’s pale, writhing face.

“Do not dare to address me, insolent intruder! Go!” and Lelia pointed, angrily, at the door.

“Then the pretty lady wants no news of poor Gipsy Darke? That is very strange. Perhaps it is true, as the servants at The Crags are telling, that she is jealous of the poor girl who inherited the Willoughby money and who is now a great heiress!” muttered the woman, in scathing rebuke of Lelia’s rudeness, so that the general scowled at her darkly.

“Peace, woman; do not presume to talk back to Mrs. Willoughby!” he said sternly.

Then he looked at Lelia, adding, with equal decision:

“Please restrain yourself or leave the room until we hear this woman’s story.”

“I will not go!” Lelia muttered rebelliously.

“Then, be silent!” he said, and turned to the woman.

“We offered the reward in good faith, and if you have earned it you shall have it!” he said. “But first you must produce the body of Gipsy Darke either dead or alive, and it must be properly identified.”

“You will find no difficulty in doing so,” the woman answered confidently. “She is at the camp, where she has been ever since she was dragged out of the old well, half-drowned, but alive, and brought to me by my son!”

CHAPTER XXXII.

GIPSY’S PARENTAGE.

A stifled moan escaped Lelia’s ashen lips and she hid her face against Laurie’s arm, her form trembling with dismay, feeling as if her sin had indeed found her out.

It was the most terrible moment of Lelia’s life, crouching there beside her cold, unloving husband, expecting the suspended sword to fall at any moment on her head.

Of course, the gipsy woman knew who had tried to kill Gipsy, and put her in the old well. She would blurt it out presently after torturing her victim a while, like a cruel cat playing with a mouse.

Lelia intended to deny it all, of course, but she knew that would not help her at all. Gipsy could fasten the crime upon her if she chose.

And who could guess but that she would choose?

This was her hour of vengeance on Lelia, who had wronged and flaunted her all her life. She would be more of an angel than Lelia believed her if she held back her hand from her revenge.

She waited, agonizingly, for the woman to accuse her of her sin, and as she clung to Laurie she felt his strong frame shaken, too, with deep emotion.

He was trembling with pure joy that sweet Gipsy Darke was really alive.

His whole heart thrilled with subtle rapture.

At the same time his repugnance to Lelia’s presence was so extreme that he would have pushed her from him if he had dared, crying out that he hated her because she had won him by a fake pretense when she knew that his heart was no longer her own.

He endured her touch, her nearness, with passive disgust, fixing eager eyes on the woman, to whom the general was saying:

“Why have you not brought this information to The Crags before?”

“I kept silent, hoping that a reward might be offered. When I heard to-day that my hopes were realized I came at once.”

“Um-hum! Now tell us how your son came to find Gipsy Darke in the well,” continued the old general.

“He was passing through these grounds about midnight, making a short cut to the camp, when he heard a low moaning from some thick shrubberies. He investigated the matter and found that the body of a young girl tied around the middle with a thick sheet, was suspended in the well from an iron hook that had caught the clothing, leaving the lower part of the body in the water up to the shoulders. He discovered that the girl had been struck on the head with some blunt instrument. The chill of the water had probably revived her from seeming death. My son extricated her from her perilous position and brought her to me. What was our horror to recognize in her the young protégée of Miss Willoughby, the infant we left in the wood seventeen years ago when driven away by the cruel Colonel Ritchie.”

“He is dead!” said the general, with a glance at Lelia’s bowed head.

“I am well aware of that, sir. He was not likely to live long after the curse I put upon him for his brutal treatment,” the gipsy woman answered candidly.

Lelia would have liked to spring at her like a fury, but she did not dare; she began to fear the woman she had just now defied.

So she maintained a trembling silence while General Willoughby said indignantly:

“Tut, tut, your curses had nothing to do with it! The colonel fell in battle as soldiers expect to fall, defending their country. But as for you, what excuse can you offer for deserting that helpless infant when you left?”

“She was left there in the hope that she would be taken to The Crags and raised by Miss Willoughby. A gipsy watched it unseen until the expected happened, then we all went away satisfied.”

“Did the child belong to you?”

“No—nor to none of us!”

“How came you by it?”

“In this way: The girl’s grandmother, a regular beauty in her girlhood, eloped with a rich swell down South, and her tribe ostracized her forever. But he married her and made her very happy in the ten years she lived with him. She left at her death one beautiful daughter. The rich swell married again, and his second wife and her children despised the girl with gipsy blood in her veins. They turned the father’s heart against her so that she turned to her first lover, a poor clerk, for sympathy. She married him, secretly, and the enraged father disinherited her and drove her forth. There followed some months of wedded life, then she sought us out, saying she had returned to her mother’s tribe to die. With a beautiful infant on her breast she sank into death, and the child was left in our reluctant care. It had blood in its veins that could never run contentedly in a gipsy camp, so we buried the poor young mother and deserted the child for its own good.”

CHAPTER XXXIII.

YOU HAVE TRIUMPHED.

Laurie and his father were both listening with eager interest to the story of Gipsy’s parentage, and now the general asked:

“But the girl’s father—what was his name?”

“It was James Whitney, and her mother’s name was Rosalind. She called her child for herself.”

“So, then, Gipsy Darke is hereafter Rosalind Whitney? Now, then, her grandfather’s name?” exclaimed the old general curiously.

“It was Jasper Carrington, of Fair Lawns, Florida.”

“Jasper Carrington, of Florida! Why, we were at school together as boys! A grand young man was Jasper. But he is dead now. I remember his sensational first marriage with the beautiful gipsy girl. It created a sensation and was in all the papers. I met him once with his wife. They seemed ideally happy. But his second wife brought him into bankruptcy and misfortune. Their children died. Fair Lawns, their lovely home, was burned to the ground and Jasper himself died of burns received in saving his wife’s life. She wasn’t worth it, for she married again six months after his death,” said the general reminiscently.

Whereupon Mrs. Ritchie, who had listened a long time without speaking, inquired:

“What became of Gipsy Darke’s father?”

“I beg your pardon, her name is Miss Whitney,” observed the general.

“Well, then, Miss Whitney?” crossly.

Magdala, the Gipsy, at whom she looked, replied:

“The man went to the dogs. Dissipated and reckless, he was killed in a duel over an actress. People who wrong any one of gipsy blood mostly die violent deaths.”

“Oh, nonsense—a percentage of people always die of accidents, and then the gipsies claim the credit!” cried the old general testily; adding: “I am very glad to know all about the parentage of my sister’s heiress, and now I think it is about time for some one to go to the gipsy camp and identify the girl.”

“Let me go!” cried Lelia eagerly.

“Certainly not!” her husband answered, with latent sternness. “My father and I will attend to the matter. Stay, Magdala, the distance is short to the camp, we will walk over with you.”

Lelia flew out of the room, apparently in the sulks.

But she was mounted on her bicycle and flying over the road to the camp before the other three had got down to the gate.

She had conceived the idea of appealing to Gipsy’s mercy. It was her only chance.

The young girl, lying on a light cot within the gipsy queen’s tent, started up in dire alarm as her arch enemy flashed before her sight.

“Miss Ritchie!” she cried, flinging out an arm as if to defend herself.

“Mrs. Willoughby, if you please,” returned the other, adding proudly: “Laurie and I are married now, you know.”

“Yes, yes. I was looking in the window and saw the ceremony. I forgot it for the moment!” Gipsy returned wearily, shrinkingly, wondering if her enemy had come to finish her terrible work of that night.

“Do not look so frightened, Gipsy Darke, I am not going to hurt you. I am glad to see you alive and well!” cried the arch hypocrite eagerly, and she continued in a low voice:

“Oh, indeed, I did not mean to hurt you much when I struck you that night! I was just trying to frighten you into giving up my ring! It made me bitter and jealous to see you wearing it so proudly, don’t you understand?”

“Oh, yes, yes, I understand!” faltered the girl, who knew in secret all the pains of hopeless love.

Suddenly Lelia threw herself dramatically on her knees by the couch.

“See, I kneel to you!” she cried appealingly. “Do you know why? It is to beg you to keep my secret, Gipsy Darke, the secret of the stolen ring and the cruel blow! Oh, I do not deserve your kindness, I have been hard and cruel to you in the past; but I repent it all now, I will be your truest friend in future if you will keep my miserable secret! They have told you, have they not, that you are the heiress of the Willoughby money? You have triumphed over me in everything, and I have nothing left to me but Laurie’s love! Oh, do not rob me of that, Gipsy, do not break his heart as well as my own by betraying my terrible secret! Oh, answer quickly and give me your promise of silence now, or it will be too late, for Laurie and his father are coming in a moment to identify you! Oh, remember I am his wife and he loves me madly! Do not turn his heart against me now!”

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE VENGEANCE OF HEAVEN.

If any one had told Lelia a month ago that to-day she would be kneeling to the girl she then despised, imploring her pity and her mercy, she would have been too angry for words, she would simply have laughed it to scorn.

Yet she was here on her knees, with clasped hands and burning tears, imploring Rosalind Whitney, the beautiful heiress, to keep her terrible secret so that she might hold her husband’s love.

No one but Lelia could have had the effrontery to expect or hope for pardon from one so deeply wronged.

From her early childhood until now she had wronged and persecuted the lonely waif until her hatred grew to murderous intensity.

Now the tables were turned upon the heartless Lelia.

Gipsy Darke, the waif, had passed into history. In her place behold Rosalind Whitney, heiress, with the balance of power in her hands.

Yet there was neither pride nor happiness on the pale, lovely face with its dark, brilliant eyes, that rested so searchingly on the suppliant’s face.

“Speak, I pray you, Gipsy, for my happiness is in your hands. Mine and Laurie’s, too, for it would break his heart to know the lengths to which jealous anger drove me that fatal night. See, see, they come!” and drawing aside the curtain before the door, she showed her General Willoughby and his son advancing with the gipsy.

But a moment remained in which to grant the grace that Lelia craved.

The dark and the blue eyes looked fixedly into each other, and Lelia entreated:

“You have taken the fortune, robbed me of all but Laurie’s love! Leave me that, I implore you!”

“Are you so sure of his love?” demanded the heiress hoarsely.

“As sure as I am of my own existence!”

Lelia felt, somehow, that everything depended on this answer, so she did not hesitate at the falsehood.

She waited with wild impatience for the answer, as a criminal condemned to die waits for a pardon or even a reprieve.

The footsteps were almost at the door. She longed to catch hold of the girl and shake the answer from her mute lips.

Another moment and it would be too late!

But the pale lips moved slowly, uttering words so low that Lelia had to bend her ear to catch them:

“I will keep your hideous secret for his sake, because he loves you!”

With a cry of joy Lelia sprang to her feet just as Magdala’s hand thrust aside the curtain, ushering her two companions into the tent.

Oh, how glad she was that she had told Gipsy that falsehood. It was all that had saved the girl from betraying her guilty secret.

She saw now, too, that Gipsy loved Laurie also—loved him so dearly that to save his heart the cruel pang of knowing his beloved unworthy she had consented to keep inviolate one of the most hideous secrets in the world.

Like the consummate actress she was, Lelia threw back her head and laughed as they entered the tent.

“You see I am here before you!” she cried gaily. “I was determined to be the first to congratulate our dear girl on her transformation from Gipsy, the waif, to Miss Whitney, the heiress. So I jumped on my wheel and arrived here before you.”

Gipsy, as we cannot help calling her still, sat up on her couch, straightening her white gown about her, and blushing and paling by turns at their entrance.

General Willoughby took her hand, and said kindly:

“Magdala has told us all about you, and I find that I knew your grandfather intimately. We were at college together. I wish I had known who you were sooner. It would have made quite a difference in your life, I assure you. But all’s well that ends well. I have to congratulate you on being my sister’s heiress.”

“I thank you, sir, for your kind words, and I am grateful to the dead for her generosity; but I would rather have her back again in life than to possess a million!” the girl murmured, with irrepressible tears.

“Bosh! All put on for effect!” Lelia thought impatiently, then started with jealous anger, seeing her husband approach and take Gipsy’s hand.

He said tremulously:

“I agree with you that there are losses all the wealth of the world could not pay for, Miss Whitney. Your loss was one of them, my dear aunt’s another. Your supposed death broke her heart, and left a heavy shadow upon mine. I congratulate myself as well as you on your restoration to life.”

“I thank you,” she faltered, her eyes drooping before the ardent glow of his, while Lelia thought bitterly:

“Humph, very strong words indeed for a married man, I think! But I shall teach him better soon! I will have no flirting with any one, and with her least of all, for she loves the ground he walks on already. If he held out his little finger she would very likely consent to elope with him, leaving me here, a deserted bride! Look at the old general, too, playing the agreeable to the heiress. What a difference money makes, to be sure.”

General Willoughby, indeed, had approached Rosalind again, saying:

“If you are well enough to be taken in a carriage to The Crags, we will send for one at once to convey you to your home, where we are at present your guests.”

“Do not speak so! It is more yours than mine, and I hope you will be pleased to remain there a long time!” she answered graciously, through her embarrassment.

Magdala approached, saying bluntly:

“So all of you agree in identifying Gipsy Darke?”

“Most certainly!” cried the general.

“Yes, yes!” answered Laurie.

Lelia would have demurred, but she knew it would be no use, so she added graciously:

“I am entirely convinced.”

Thereupon Magdala claimed and received the generous reward Laurie had offered.

She was profuse in her thanks, and started with surprise when he said in an undertone:

“Send your son to me privately this evening. He shall not go unrewarded for his opportune service in taking Miss Whitney out of the well.”

Magdala threw him a strange glance that made him think of the fortune she had told him that moonlight night on the way to Lewisburg.

“You will be married twice,” she had said, “and your first and second choice will differ from each other as daylight and darkness. These two women will bring a tragedy into your life, but the clouds will roll by, and you will be happy at last.”

Happiness seemed very far away now, married to one woman and in love with another one, and his heart sank like a stone in his breast as he thought that the only way for him was to get away as soon as he could from both.

He was recalled to the present by hearing Miss Whitney assent to the proposition to go back in a carriage to The Crags with the party.

Magdala sent a messenger for the carriage, and then the general, who had all the eager, impatient curiosity of old age, exclaimed:

“If you are not too tired, my dear Miss Whitney, we will be glad to hear the story of that night when you were attacked by some fiend in your room, and apparently killed. It will help us, perhaps, to apprehend the wretch!”

She grew deadly pale at the memory of that awful night.

“I—I cannot speak of it! Oh, no, do not ask me!” falteringly.

“But surely you wish the wretch punished?”

“I—I will leave it to the vengeance of Heaven!” sighed Gipsy, and Lelia shuddered with dread. Would Heaven be less merciful than this girl she hated? Would it, indeed, punish her sin?

No matter how much they wondered at her silence, and urged her to speak, the beautiful young heiress refused to tell the story of that awful night. She said simply that she had been robbed of the beautiful ring Mr. Willoughby gave her, but she would leave the vengeance to Heaven.

CHAPTER XXXV.

AS IN A DREAM.

Lelia had never thought much about heaven and eternal justice in her gay, proud, selfish life.

But Gipsy’s words startled her not a little, and made her wonder and think.

She believed, and for the first time, that her secret was not confined to herself and the girl she had wronged.

God and the angels knew all about it, she thought.

And the recording angel had written her terrible sin down against her name in his big book.

It gave Lelia a queer feeling to think that in the day of judgment every one would hear her secret sin read out to the whole world that was so ignorant of it now.

She wished that the heiress had not consigned her to the vengeance of Heaven. It made her nervous, it frightened her not a little.

And she said to her mother when they were alone that night:

“Mama, do you know much about religion?”

“I belong to the church, but somehow I don’t attend much,” Mrs. Ritchie said carelessly.

“But you believe in it all, don’t you, mama dear?”

“Why, of course, my dear daughter! To hear you talk one would think I had raised you like a heathen!”

“Well, you haven’t taken me to church often, and you have never instructed me on religion, so I have to figure out things for myself.”

“You haven’t been going to a revival lately, have you, my dear? Or are you thinking that now you are married it would be good form to join the church and identify yourself with some charities?”

“Neither, mama. I was thinking of the doctrine of punishment for sins. I want to know whether you believe one is punished here on earth for sins committed in the flesh, or is judgment reserved for the hereafter?”

“Oh, the hereafter, of course, Lelia. We must come to the judgment first before we receive punishment for our sins,” glibly replied the lady, giving her guilty daughter more comfort than she knew.

Lelia sighed with relief, thinking:

“Oh, well, if I am not to be punished until after death, it does not greatly matter! I am young, and that is a long way off, and I can repent and get forgiveness before I die.”

Her volatile nature had forgotten already the solemn words to which she had listened at Miss Willoughby’s funeral.

She tried to put it all lightly from her, but it was too fresh in her mind to get rid of yet. By day she might turn to other things, but by night, in restless, horror-haunted dreams, Lelia reviewed her sins.

Much as it chafed her pride and her passion, Lelia could not but find relief in the studied coldness of Laurie, who cared not to consummate the marriage that had been forced on him by deceitful arts. He let Lelia severely alone, and treated her with an indifference that would have been maddening in any other circumstances.

But Mrs. Ritchie, who managed to be by her daughter every night, still said, warningly:

“Hold your husband aloof until you get your shattered nerves under control, and cease to talk in your sleep.”

If Mrs. Ritchie suspected anything wrong, she never hinted it to the daughter she adored.

But she had some anxious hours that left lines of care around her lips and eyes, while after Lelia’s strange questions that day she said to herself:

“What is in the poor girl’s mind? Remorse for a sin committed, or the fear of being found out?”

They had brought the heiress home, and after a week were still her guests, for Laurie and the lawyer were busy going over legal matters and settling up the estate.

The old general, who had conceived a very great admiration for his sister’s protégée, gallantly saw her installed in all her rights, and occupying the best suite of rooms in the house.

The servants at The Crags had openly rejoiced on finding that Gipsy was their mistress’ heiress, and they all remained awaiting her pleasure, and eager to continue their service.

Gipsy could not enjoy her new position yet. She had not recovered from the strain of the frightful experience she had undergone. She was pale and nervous, and two deep gashes on her head, which the gipsies had sewn up and skillfully doctored, made at times a dizzy throbbing in her brain, so that Mrs. Goodwill remained always near her, declaring she would never desert her post again until her young lady was safe and well.

It was like a dream to the young girl to be the mistress of The Crags, honored and respected by all, even Lelia treating her like an equal; but she was always grieving for Miss Willoughby, and yearning to have her back again.

“She was the only living soul who loved me! Oh, how lonely life is when unloved and uncared for by any one!” she sighed to her lonely pillow.

She did not dream that Laurie Willoughby loved her with a hopeless passion; she thought he was only kind, like the rest, because he owed her some gratitude, and pitied her forlornness. As for the others, she felt that they were courteous because she was the heiress, that was all. Lelia and her mother had hated her always, and she felt they were not altered now.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.

The day came when Rosalind Whitney realized that she must come to the parting of the ways.

Laurie Willoughby, the husband of another, grew every day more fatally dear to her heart.

She could not blot from her mind the memory of the hour when he had placed on her finger the beautiful ring that had so nearly cost her her life.

If she had not known that Laurie could never love any one but Lelia all his life, she would have believed that his looks and words and touch meant the sweet, new dawn of love.

What brief, happy moments she had spent under the spell of the ring before Lelia’s murderous onslaught had laid her low!

And when she recovered in the gipsies’ tent from her long unconsciousness, a sudden hope was born in her mind.

As remembrance slowly came back she recalled with joy that Lelia had told her that her engagement was broken.

“What if—what if? Oh, that warm, close pressure of his hand, that glance of penetrating sweetness, those murmured tones, the gift of the ring—might they not mean more than Lelia guessed, the rebound of a heart?”

That night when Laurie was married and Miss Willoughby died, she had stolen from the gipsy tent and dragged herself painfully up to The Crags, with a fell purpose in her mind.

She would denounce Lelia for her crime, she would turn her lover’s heart away, she would win him for herself, her life would be hereafter a dream of love and happiness.

But we have seen that as she gazed with eager eyes into the window, she became a witness of the wedding, and realized that the man she loved was lost to her forever.

With a moan of despair she sank back from their startled sight, and managed to hide until the hue and cry was over.

Then she hastened back to the gipsies, half-determined to cast her lot with them forever.

Again on her way she encountered Laurie Willoughby, and shrank from his sight, wondering why he was going away from his bride in the first hours of their happiness.

She knew not that death had cast its shadow over their bridal, or that the dear old lady she loved so well was no more.

Oh, the wretched night hours, how slowly they crept, filled with jealous, maddening pain. He whom she loved and had dreamed of winning was plighted to another!

And when morning dawned another thorn was pressed into her heart.

She heard the gipsies telling that Miss Willoughby was dead, and that the grand estate would pass to one they hated for her father’s sake—Lelia, the beautiful, blue-eyed bride.

“We had as well get ready to move on, she will give us orders as soon as the will is read,” they said bitterly.

But the gipsy queen shook the gray head that had been black as the raven’s wing in Colonel Ritchie’s time.

“I am not going to move on!” she averred stoutly, and added:

“Magdala’s curse did not allow Colonel Ritchie’s daughter to inherit The Crags. Woe be unto her for her father’s sin!”

And she turned aside with a mocking laugh of sure triumph, for Magdala’s husband had lain ill of a fever when they were driven from the land, and by reason of the removal he had died.

Magdala could neither forget nor forgive. She rejoiced when she heard that the harsh soldier had fallen at the hands of hostile Indians, and she bided her time for the hour of Lelia’s calamity.

When she heard who had been named as the heiress, she laughed in incredulous joy.

“The curse worked, it worked—only in one instance did it fail! And time may remedy that!”

No one knew what she meant, but the truth was that Magdala had been bitterly chagrined over Laurie’s marriage to Lelia.

The infant had been left in the woods to further Magdala’s scheme of revenge.

She knew from the gossip of the servants at The Crags that the family had planned a match between Laurie and Lelia, expecting them to be endowed with the Willoughby fortune.

In a spirit of bitter spite, to punish Colonel Ritchie’s brutality, she had left the infant Rosalind, hoping that Miss Willoughby might adopt it and give it her fortune. If it grew up as beautiful and charming as the mother and grandmother, she did not doubt but that it would supplant Lelia in Laurie’s heart.

Magdala thought that the curse had worked out almost all she had wished; she did not realize that Lelia’s inherited ill temper had wrought out all her personal ill.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

SHE BETRAYED HERSELF.

Rosalind knew, for Mrs. Goodwill gossiped to her about it, of the strange alienation of Laurie and his bride.

A more ignoble nature might have triumphed in their pain, but to Rosalind it only brought more grief.

Her unselfish love for Laurie demanded his happiness, rather than her own.

And cruel and unworthy as she knew Lelia to be, she wished Laurie never to find it out, never to realize that he was held in bitter bondage to one he could not help but scorn.

The loquacious nurse had many theories to advance as the cause of the alienation. Her favorite reason was that both were equally disappointed in losing the bulk of their relative’s fortune.

Rosalind thought Laurie had too noble a nature for such petty spite.

But she held her peace, and kept revolving in her mind plans for getting away from him whose presence brought such subtle pain and pleasure blended that she could scarcely bear it.

She did not guess that through all his busy consultations with the lawyer Laurie had the same train of thought running through his mind.

He must get away from association with Rosalind, or he could never turn his thoughts from her back to the wife to whom he owed his fealty.

The day came when, as her guardian and administrator of his aunt’s estate, he had to ask her where she wished to live out her life, what plans she had made for present and future.

Rosalind had planned it all out by then, and she answered simply:

“I have been talking to Doctor White about my lingering nervousness and debility, and he agrees with me that I ought to take Mrs. Goodwill and go to some quiet spot by the seashore to rest and recuperate. After that I should like to travel with an elderly companion, and see the world.”

“It shall be as you wish,” he replied, with a sigh of relief, and so ably did he second her efforts to get away that within two days she was en route with the nurse for the sea, the others remaining behind to close up the house and make the proper arrangements till her return.

A weight of care seemed to fall from Lelia’s shoulders with the going of her rival.

Her distrust of Rosalind, her restless fears of betrayal, in spite of the girl’s promise of silence, gave place to a sense of peace and security.

Now that Rosalind, with her brilliant, dark eyes and pathetic red mouth was gone, she could surely win Laurie back.

That night and the next she slept calmly, dreamlessly, with no self-betrayal in word or gesture of her terrible secret.

Mrs. Ritchie was frankly delighted. She assured her daughter she was cured.

“It was that girl’s presence that kept you nervous and fanciful, and no wonder, having defrauded you of your inheritance!” she said. “But now she is gone, and you do not talk in your sleep any more, lose no time in making up with Laurie.”

That was easier said than done. He seemed oblivious to all her exquisite costumes and tender blandishments. Lelia pouted that he was always poring over horrid papers with that lawyer.

Something must be done, and Mrs. Ritchie and Lelia cunningly planned it out.

Late that evening as he bent over some papers in the library, his mother-in-law came softly in.

“Please pardon me for disturbing you,” she said gravely. “I have not told you that Lelia has been ill and nervous every night since your aunt died, and I am quite worn out with watching by her side. I say nothing of your duty, but surely it should be your pleasure to relieve me to-night. Will you come?”

“The maids——” he began, but she cut him short.

“Are all out attending a country ball. You cannot delegate your duty to them! Laurie, this is monstrous! Did you marry my poor daughter just to break her heart? Your scorn is killing her by inches. Come,” and he obeyed the imperious beckoning of her hand.

Lelia had already retired. She lay, a vision of pearl-fair beauty, among the lace-trimmed pillows.

“Oh, Laurie, you have come! I am so glad, for now poor mama can have a night’s rest! I am so ill, so nervous. Will you sit by me and hold my hand till I fall asleep? I am so tired.”

She did not mean to fall asleep at all, artful Lelia! She was only waiting for the sense of her exquisite beauty to thrill him into love again.

But her mother had given her a drop too much of the nervine, and with her hand in his as he sat stiffly by the couch, she sank into a light slumber.

Laurie looked down at the beautiful sleeper, wondering at his own coldness. How transcendently fair she was, why could he not learn to love her again? He must, because now she was his wife, he owed her all his fealty.

Her lips moved with a murmured sentence. He bent his head eagerly to listen.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

WAS IT A VICTORY?

“The battle is won. There will be no more trouble between Laurie and his bride now. How beautiful she looked lying there with her golden hair loose upon the pillow, her white neck and arms gleaming through the lace of her snowy robe! No man in his senses could resist such charms!” Mrs. Ritchie thought complacently, as she retired to her own apartment with the triumphant pride of a general who has scored a great victory.

She sat down by the open window, musing over the events of the past two weeks.

She had had a lasting disappointment in Lelia’s failure to inherit Miss Willoughby’s money.

In the privacy of their own apartments she and Lelia showered the old woman’s memory with maledictions, and entirely forgot to be grateful for the liberal legacies they had received.

They congratulated themselves on the master-stroke by which they had inveigled Laurie into marriage, for otherwise they would have lost him as well as the money.

As he was wealthy through a fortune inherited from his mother and would also come in for his father’s wealth, he was a prize greatly to be desired by a girl whose own fortune was very much less than outsiders supposed.

Besides, Lelia loved him with the passion of her life.

She declared passionately to her mother that nothing would console her for the loss of the money but to regain Laurie’s love, lost by her jealousy and ill temper.

As she sat by the window gazing out into the summer night, and slowly pulling the pins from her fair hair, she congratulated herself that all would be plain sailing now.

“They will be like two turtle doves directly, and I hope they will go off very soon on a long bridal-tour, and give me a rest, for really I am a little unnerved by all that has happened. And then those frightful nights with Lelia before that girl went away were very trying. I am glad she does not dream those frightful things any more!” and she stood up and shook back her loosened hair, yawning with weariness.

How quiet and still was everything after the late excitement and trouble! The Crags began to take on its calm, reposeful aspect again.

“I shall sleep well to-night,” she murmured, drawing down her curtain.

Then she started and turned her head toward the door.

Was that a low, deprecating rap?

Yes, it came again, a little louder, distinctly impatient.

With a quickened heart-throb she threw the door open.

There was Laurie, very pale and startled-looking outside.

“Will you come to Lelia? She is acting very strangely,” he said, in a tense voice.

Her heart sank, but she determined to brave it out. Forcing a calm demeanor, she said:

“You know I told you that she has been ill and nervous ever since the trouble happened about that girl; she has had bad dreams about the attempted murder, fancying the most absurd things! But for several nights she has been improving, and really I am too tired to go to her to-night. I am sure that you can soothe her without my assistance. Wake her and tell her she has been having bad dreams, and she will be herself again directly.”

“You refuse to come?” sternly.

“I beg your pardon, but I am too weary. I was just about retiring. Do leave me to rest, that’s a dear boy!” coaxingly.

“Very well, have your way,” and he turned on his heel.

She shut the door softly, with a frightened face.

“What could I do if I went? She is having that horrible dream again, and I thought she was cured! It is only a dream; Laurie must get used to it, the sooner the better, and my presence can do no earthly good. Why did she fall asleep so soon? She could barely have spoken a word to him. I must have given her too much of the anodyne.”

She sank back into her chair irresolute, feeling that fate had played her a dastardly trick, and wondering what would be the outcome of it all.

General Willoughby, on the other side of the hall, hearing the voices in dispute, came out in his dressing-gown just as Mrs. Ritchie closed her door.

“Is anything wrong?” he whispered, and his son returned:

“I am troubled over Lelia. She seems to be ill and wandering in her mind; but her mother refuses to come to my assistance. What shall I do?”

“Let me see her. Perhaps I can be of some help. She may have a fever. As a child she talked in her sleep when not well.”

“Come, then,” Laurie answered gratefully, and led the way to his bride’s room, adding: “I hope she has quieted down by now, for it is simply frightful!”

CHAPTER XXXIX.

ONLY A DREAM!

Lelia was sitting up in her bed, a beautiful vision of frenzy, her golden hair like a veil about her, her large blue eyes glaring into space, her white arms, exquisite as sculptured marble, outstretched aimlessly, while she muttered in a dreary monologue:

“How my arms ache! She was very heavy! I do not see how my arms held out to drag her so far from the window to throw her in the old well!”

The old general shuddered and muttered:

“What a strange fancy! She is dwelling on the terrible tragedy of Rosalind’s attempted murder! She is ill, and it has taken hold on her mind. Shake her, Laurie, and bring her to her senses.”

“I did before I went to her mother, but it only makes her worse. She seems in some strange trance, from which she cannot be roused.”

“I will try,” said the old man, and he shook her gently, crying:

“Wake up, Lelia, wake up! You are having nightmare dreams!”

She struggled in his grasp; she repulsed him, furiously, muttering:

“Let me alone, Gipsy Darke! You shall not drag me down to your watery grave! What a splash there was when I pushed her over the brink! I hope the sound did not come to any one’s ears. I am afraid to go back to the house alone. What if I met some one? But my disguise is perfect. I am afraid there is blood on my hands. It ran from her in streams!”

She held up her beautiful white hands in horror before her staring eyes.

“They are quite red—quite red! I must wash off the stain before Laurie comes back!”

“This is terrible! She must be aroused from her dreadful dream, poor child! Lelia! Lelia!”

“Do not touch her, you only make her rave more wildly and loudly!” Laurie told him, but the alarmed old man would not desist.

He leaned over and stroked her hair, her face, her hands. He called her tender names of endearment.

She clutched him viciously, hissing:

“Give me the ring! It is mine, I tell you! How dared Laurie give you my engagement-ring? I will have it, or I will murder you!”

Her white hands clutched the old man’s hair; she dragged it out by handfuls.

She reached out, as for a weapon, and kept striking his head in a hideous pantomime, terribly revolting.

Laurie interposed to release his father, and the old man, somewhat worsted in the struggle, was glad enough to leave the frenzied somnambulist alone.

“This is awful. She is like a maniac, poor creature. It must be an attack of brain-fever. You should call the doctor at once,” he sputtered weakly.

“No, no!” cried an expostulating voice.

It was Mrs. Ritchie, who had been listening outside the door. Hearing the general’s voice, she came in, pale and alarmed, to Lelia, who had sunk down speechless among the pillows.

“It was only a dream, my dear general. She has been like this night after night since the tragedy, but in the day she is quite herself, and wonders with me over her strange hallucination. It is simply a case of overwrought nerves, brought on by her keen sympathies and the horrors we have undergone. I think Laurie ought to take her away to-morrow for rest and change of scene,” the mother said anxiously.

“She should spend a few weeks first in a sanatorium,” the old soldier returned bluntly, chafing under the loss of the handful of gray locks clutched in Lelia’s writhing white fingers. He should be almost bald on top now, and his vanity had always been hurt at the very idea.

“I object to the sanatorium most decidedly,” cried the other. “See, she is all right again! The spell is over. It was the worst she has had, but she will be quiet now.”

She moved toward the door, as a gentle hint to the general that both should retire, but suddenly she paused.

Lelia was sitting up in bed again, staring wildly as before, muttering disjointed words.

“If he had given me back the ring—my beautiful ring—I would not have struck her so hard with that thing I snatched off the table! Stubborn? Yes, she defied me! Me, Lelia Ritchie! That low-born Gipsy! I did not mean to kill her, but I struck too hard in my hate! How tightly the ring fitted her finger! I had hard work to wrench it off! But I have it back, my precious ring! Only I shall never dare to wear it, for Laurie must never know! It is all black with her blood, too; it will never shine again!”

It was in vain that the horrified mother tried to seal the betraying lips with a frantic hand. Lelia only thrust her aside roughly, and babbled on:

“My beautiful white gown, it is all ruined, too, with the blood-stains! That one with the beautiful duchess lace, you know, mama. I hid it away; I hated to burn it. Some day I will lock the door, and try to wash it white again! But how about my soul? Will that ever be white again?”

She laughed mirthlessly, and they shuddered, all three of them, it had such a terrible sound.

“Lelia, Lelia, be silent!” commanded her mother, but the frenzied voice raved on:

“She will never get the letter Laurie wrote to tell her that he loved her, and would return some day to claim her for his bride! Ha, ha! I have that letter, both the letters, all hidden away from sight. It might be better to burn them to-night, before Laurie comes and finds them in the closet!”

To their amazement, she slipped from the bed, pushing angrily aside the maternal hand that tried to restrain her movements.

With outstretched hands and wide, unseeing eyes, she moved unerringly to the wardrobe.

“There is nothing there—she is only dreaming!” the mother sobbed, giving way to wild alarm.

No one answered. All were watching Lelia with bated breath.

Opening the wardrobe, she drew from some compartment a tightly rolled up bundle, and began to tear it apart; but Mrs. Ritchie caught it wildly from her hands.

CHAPTER XL.

THE PROOFS OF HER GUILT.

“I beg pardon,” cried Laurie Willoughby, striding forward. With a resolute grasp, he tore the package from the woman’s hands, though she shrieked viciously:

“Restore it to me, I command you!”

Like a tigress, she flung herself upon him, struggling for possession of the package, dreading to see it opened, eager to carry it away.

But a terrible suspicion was forming in his mind.

Firmly, without hurting her, he held her aloof, thrusting the bundle to his father, saying hoarsely:

“Open it—let us know the worst!”

General Willoughby, dazed and fearful, obeyed.

While Lelia groped in the air aimlessly for what she had lost, and Laurie held her mother’s hands in a grasp like steel, General Willoughby shook out the folds of a white robe all stained and spotted with blood, two letters, and a ring.

“My God, the proofs of her guilt!” the wretched husband cried, in a voice of anguish.

He released Mrs. Ritchie’s hands, and she sank to the ground like a stone, crouching there in abject misery.

It was one of the most terrible moments in their three lives—that moment in which they looked in horror on the proofs of Lelia’s crime.

Her self-accusations they had looked on leniently, believing them nightmare dreams, as her mother said, the product of an overwrought mind and alert sympathies.

While they had listened in pain and alarm, no suspicion had crossed their minds that she was guilty—she, the beautiful, gently nurtured girl, their pet and pride all her life.

They had shut their eyes to her hideous deformities of temper, her pride and self-will, her scorn of Gipsy Darke, and her low estate.

Her mother, indeed, had fostered every evil trait, never dreaming to what a terrible strait uncontrolled passion would yet bring her idolized daughter.

They had listened in horror and grief to her ravings; they had feared she was going mad, but in neither mind dawned any suspicion of her blood guiltiness.

It was left to the moment when she dragged the bundle from its hiding-place for an awful thought to be born in Laurie Willoughby’s mind.

That thought made him take the bundle from the frantic mother, firmly resolved to know its fatal contents.

When the dainty white gown, all crumpled and blood-stained, was unrolled before his eyes, and the ring and letters fell at his feet, a strong shudder, as of one dying, shook his whole stalwart frame.

“The proofs of her guilt!” he cried, in an awful voice.

For a conviction of the truth came home to him. He had not a single doubt but that everything had happened as Lelia had told it in her strange, somnambulistic state.

She had murdered Gipsy, as she believed, and latent remorse had wrought upon her nerves, goading her into unconscious self-betrayal.

With blended pity and horror, he looked upon the beautiful, wild-eyed creature, groping in the air for what she had lost, muttering that Laurie must never find it—no, no, no, or he would be so angry he would never love her again.

With a shudder he released Mrs. Ritchie, who sank heavily into a chair, her whole frame shaking with tearless sobs of terrible despair.

He picked up the beautiful ring that was all crusted and dark with blood, as Lelia had said. Oh, what a terrible price had poor Gipsy paid for her few hours of happiness in its possession!

“These two letters,” he said, “I wrote to my aunt and to Gipsy Darke, and Lelia must have intercepted them. They were written on a private matter, that can interest no one now.”

He placed them in his breast-pocket, and drew out a shining gold button.

“I searched poor Gipsy’s room for a clue to her murderer, and I found this button on the floor in a wisp of dark hair,” he said. Then touching the sleeves of the white gown, “I see one button missing here, and this is the mate to it. Every link in the evidence is made clear now. We cannot doubt Lelia’s self-confessed sin.”

“Oh, my God, Laurie, what are you going to do to my poor child? She did not mean to do it—it was all an accident; you heard her say so! And, after all, that wretched girl is alive and well, and has triumphed over us in every way!” sobbed the wretched mother.

He looked at her a moment without speaking, his mind busy with the problem she had presented.

In great emergencies the mind moves very rapidly. His course was quickly decided.

“I think my father’s idea of sending Lelia to a hospital for nerve treatment an excellent one,” he said. “If she objects, she must be made to understand that it is the most prudent course. As for her guilty secret, since Miss Whitney chooses to keep it, let us three be as generous. For the rest, I leave The Crags to-morrow, and America soon afterward, for an indefinite sojourn abroad. I shall appoint my father in my place as Miss Whitney’s guardian.”

“And Lelia?” the mother cried eagerly. “Will you not in time forgive her, and take her home to your heart?”

“Never!”

“That is cruel, Laurie.”

“No, it is only just. She will never be wife of mine, save in name only.”

Lelia had sunk down upon the floor, with her arms clasped around her knees. A dull calm had succeeded her wild ravings.

“She will come to herself soon—she grows calmer. Indeed, this is the worst spell she ever had. I did not dream of those telltale proofs, or I would have destroyed them,” the poor mother cried, defiantly adding: “You may leave me alone with her now, to tell her when she is rational the cruel truth that will break her heart and drive her mad in reality.”

Laurie and his father bowed silently and withdrew, leaving her alone with Lelia amid the desolate ruins of their towering hopes and dreams.

It seemed as if The Crags was never to have done with sensations.

The next day it was whispered about that the young bride, Mrs. Willoughby, had suffered a nervous collapse from the troubles at The Crags, and was to be placed at once in a Northern sanatorium for treatment.

She remained closely in her room all the next day, attended only by her mother. What went on behind that closed door none knew but Mrs. Ritchie, but by the dawn of the morrow the gray hairs she was dreading shone silvery white in her fair hair. Lelia had not taken her defeat very well.

And the bridegroom was gone without any farewells to his unloved bride.

CHAPTER XLI.

IN EXILE.

Such a beautiful young girl as Rosalind Whitney could not escape notice and attention at the seaside resort where she was staying with her kind nurse, Mrs. Goodwill.

Though she was quiet and reserved, the people soon ferreted out her romantic history, for it had gotten into all the newspapers.

Every one knew directly that the young heiress had been lifted suddenly from poverty and obscurity to wealth and position. They declared that she must have deserved it, she was so lovely and so gracious, without any of the insufferable airs of the upstart.

In the black gowns that she chose to wear for her benefactress, and with that shade of pathos on her exquisite face, she was very charming, and she soon had friends and admirers by the dozens; but she did not encourage any.

Her life at The Crags had made her shy and timid; she did not feel as if she had any real friends among all those who sought her now.

She liked best to make friends with the beautiful, restless sea, to sit on the sands and listen to its mystical roar, to sport among the rolling billows, or sail over its bosom, drinking in deep drafts of exhilarating air that brightened her sorrowful eyes and planted fresh roses on her pale cheeks.

It was so new and strange and delightful to the mountain-bred girl that it drew her thoughts away from the past to present scenes and joys. She tried to put Laurie and Lelia out of her mind, not to envy the happiness that must be theirs when they had become friendly again.

“And, oh, dear Heaven, make her repent her sins; make her a better woman, so that she shall be worthy the noble husband she has won,” prayed Rosalind every night before she laid her dark head down upon its pillow to rest.

Her life was very lonely, poor Rosalind; it had always been so empty of love that her one little glimpse of it in Laurie Willoughby’s eyes had seemed like paradise.

Oh, those brief, bright hours of hope and joy while she had worn his beautiful ring! How they returned to her over and over, with their zest and sweetness! How she wondered even now what wonderful good fortune he had wished for her when he placed it on her hand!

Even now that he was married to Lelia, she would have liked to know, but she was too timid to ask him. She would never, never know, unless of his own free will he volunteered the information.

Very likely he had forgotten all about it by now. Lelia, with her love and her beauty, would make him forget everything in the world.

Ah, well, perhaps she, too, might forget after a while, she told herself, trying to still that dull, aching pain in her heart.

Perhaps by and by some other young man almost as noble and handsome as Laurie Willoughby—not quite, that could not possibly be—might come into her life and teach her a new lesson of love, filling her starved heart with the fulness of content and happiness.

Meanwhile, she would make the best of the new opportunities Miss Willoughby had generously thrown into her life. She would read and study, she would try to make some true friends for herself, she would travel and see the beautiful world over, which she had always yearned. She did not see that she need to be entirely unhappy, even though the one man she would have chosen for her lover was lost to her forever.

Yet day by day she would trace his name beside her own on the wet sands with the tip of her parasol, and sigh as she murmured:

“Laurie and Rosalind! How well they look together!”

Then the white surf rolling in would blot the names away, and she would sigh to herself:

“If only that dear name could be blotted out as easily from my heart!”

She had been at the seashore a week, but she had never heard a word from The Crags. She had written back a little note to the general, who had really seemed the kindest of all, telling him of her safe arrival, but he had taken no notice, it seemed.

“Why should they care for me? Is it not more natural they should hate one who came between them and the fortune they expected? Oh, if I could have guessed what was in that dear old lady’s mind, I should have begged her not to disappoint them, but to give me just a little legacy of a few thousands to remember her by, my dear benefactress!” she thought over and over.

And then one morning, down upon the beach, just as she had absently traced those two names again upon the glittering sands, there suddenly loomed up before her the tall, thin, stately form of the general.

His keen eyes caught the names before the coming wave swept over them.

He pretended not to notice, but he said to himself:

“Aha! so that is how the land lies?”

He could not help thinking what a match this would have been for Laurie, after all, if only they had not forced him into that ill-fated marriage with his cousin.

She turned to him, blushing like a rose, and as he clasped her hand with fervor, her heart warmed with the thought that here, at least, was one friend, for his manner was kindness itself.

He sat down beside her on a low camp-chair, and talked to her kindly and gently, breaking the news to her gradually, as seemed best.

He had got her letter, but had been too much perturbed to answer it, for they had been having more trouble at The Crags.

Poor Lelia had quite broken down under their trials, and was ill of nervous prostration—so ill that her mother had taken her, several days ago, to a sanatorium in Philadelphia, and would remain with her until she recovered.

Her eyes looked a mute question that he answered by saying:

“Laurie has decided to go abroad—in fact, has already gone, and his stay will be of indefinite duration. I have just come from seeing him off in New York, and he has appointed me your guardian in his place. The truth is, his marriage was a sad mistake, and he will never live with Lelia; he has found out things that make it impossible for him to love or respect her again. But his family pride will not permit him to betray her faults and seek release, so his life is wrecked forever, and he has gone into a bitter, voluntary exile!”

CHAPTER XLII.

WITH THE FLIGHT OF TIME.

When Lelia recovered from her strange, somnambulistic trance, and learned from her mother all that had happened in that fateful night, she was like a mad thing for a while.

The most terrible denunciations of her husband leaped from her beautiful lips.

She called down bitter curses on his head, she railed at fate for its terrible irony, at Heaven for its swift justice, and she swore that, in return for her wrongs, she would yet have the life of Rosalind Whitney.

“She was born to be my evil genius!” she passionately cried. “Is it any wonder I hated her from the first moment that I looked on her dark face? It was a true instinct that warned me from the first to crush her as one treads on the poisonous vipers coiling in one’s path!”

The mother, who had grown gray in a night with sorrow, who had looked life in the face through its many phases in dark vigils of gloom, who had begun to comprehend dimly her own grave errors and mistakes, burst into stormy tears.

“They have broken your heart, too!” cried Lelia bitterly. “They have sowed lines in your face and white threads in your hair! Oh, I will pay them out for that, too; I will bide my time to repay.”

“Hush, Lelia, darling; you are all wrong,” sobbed the mother entreatingly, and she added brokenly:

“We have reaped what we sowed in our blindness, in our malice, and our envy. We hated, and our hate lured evil in our lives. I have been to blame for all. I taught you the law of hate, instead of love.”

“Then I should curse you, too!” was the answer, hissed through writhing lips, and Lelia flung herself sullenly, face downward, on her bed, refusing to speak or look up for hours, the prey of dumb fury and despair beyond expression.

No one ever had a harder task to bring a reckless mind to reason than the erring mother, who had fostered in her child all the faults that laid her young life in ruins.

The girl could think only of her fancied wrongs, her yearned-for revenge; she raved wildly in her impotent despair.

Mrs. Ritchie tried to whisper hope and resignation.

“Obedience to your husband’s wishes will bring forgiveness in time,” she said. “He will return, he must return, and the memory of your past errors will fade, while his old love revives in its entirety.”

“But to go and shut myself up in prison, mama, in a horrible sanatorium for sick people, it nearly kills me to think of it!” cried the girl. “I am not ill, I am not mad, I only talk in my sleep, and now that you all know about it, the terrible strain will be off my mind—the dreadful fear of being betrayed—so that I may be able to sleep calmly once more! Oh, I will never consent to go into seclusion this way. It is just like being put in prison for what I did to my hated rival—like being punished for my sin!”

“It is the only way in which to account for your separation from Laurie. Do you want to go out into society, and face the accusation that your husband deserted you on your wedding-day? It would cover you with shame that you never could live down,” cried Mrs. Ritchie, appealing to her pride.

Lelia’s towering pride rose in arms.

“You are right. I must go to stop the tongue of slander,” she agreed, bitterly vowing to herself that she would bide her time for revenge on all who had brought about her cruel humiliation.

“I shall go with you, my dear; I shall share your punishment; I will help you to bear it, and, if you improve very fast, we can soon leave and go into the world again; perhaps follow Laurie across the sea.”

“But that girl, mama! She must never cross my path again. I could not bear it!” furiously.

“Not now, perhaps, Lelia, but by and by you must school yourself to it. General Willoughby is her guardian now, and you can scarcely prevent a future meeting,” anxiously.

The upshot of it all was that Lelia went with her mother the next day to the sanatorium for nerve treatment.

And for a week or two she certainly needed the treatment she received there.

She was unstrung by her misfortune; her mind was a nightmare of revengeful, rebellious thoughts.

As she grew better she began to look about among her fellow patients for diversion.

And no one in the world, no one who had known her even the most intimately, could have predicted what was coming to Lelia there in what she petulantly called her prison.

She became deeply interested in a sick playwright, a handsome young fellow, who had broken down in the midst of what he called the cleverest production he had ever attempted—a play that was sure to make his fortune.

Ill and nervous, broken down with overwork, forbidden to touch a pen, he yet chafed unceasingly over his plight.

In the beautiful Lelia, whom he regarded with passionate admiration, he found an ardent sympathizer.

“Only think, there are but five scenes wanting to complete the drama! And I cannot go on. When I try to think there is such a strange buzzing in my head. They say I have wheels in it, don’t you know,” laughingly, “so I cannot get on. I grow nervous and weary and despondent, and the doctor scolds me for trying to do anything! Yet I am ruined if I break my contract to have it ready for staging the first of October.”

Lelia knit her fair brows and exclaimed thoughtfully;

“Oh, perhaps I can help you. I have seen so many plays, I have read so many novels, and I have so many plots in my head. Tell me all about your play.”

She seemed so beautiful, so clever, and there was about her, somehow, such a latent fire and passion that he thought she might possibly suggest an idea that was lacking.

So, with a trembling hope, he let her read the manuscript.

Lelia became enthusiastic. There was a fortune in that drama, she declared.

“Oh, let me finish it! I can do it! I feel it stirring in me!” she cried, with breathless enthusiasm.

Richard Hale was only too willing to have her try, and with the stirrings of some new force within her, Lelia shut herself into her room and worked with ardor on the conclusion of the drama.

In a week it was finished. Flushed and panting from her labor, she placed it in his hands, that trembled with eagerness as he received it.

He had scarcely dared hope that the embryo authoress had succeeded, yet she had imbued his mind with some of her fiery enthusiasm.

“I shall succeed, I vow it!” she declared over and over, stirred with a new sense of power, blent with fierce ambition.

When he read what she had written he fairly shouted with joy.

She had caught his idea, carried out his conception brilliantly, developing an undreamed-of literary force and talent.

He did not know how to thank her enough. The tears overflowed in his eyes as he clasped her beautiful hands, crying out that he would be grateful to her his life long; he would owe her a debt that he could never repay. She had helped him to make his fortune, for he knew his play would have a grand success.

Proud, selfish, cruel Lelia, who had never done a kind act in her life before, had an entirely new sensation—the joy of doing good.

There was something else, too. She who had pursued nothing else but pleasure all her life had a new aim.

Proud of her newly acquired talent, as a miser of his hidden treasure, she vowed she would become an author herself, and win fame and fortune by her versatile pen.

She set to work at once, and in her enthusiastic absorption her past became almost like a dream to her mind.

The nightmare dreams of her terrible sin came no more. Her days were filled with work, her nights calm and restful. Her soul was on fire with feverish ambition to win fame and fortune.

She did not care to leave the sanatorium now; she could work better there.

When Richard Hale’s play was received by the public that winter with enthusiasm, she felt herself sure of success.

The winter slipped away in enthusiastic work. In May the new play was finished.

Richard Hale, still an invalid, was proud to place it in his manager’s hands, proud when it was accepted.

There was sadness, but no envy, in his face when he congratulated Lelia.

“You will take my place,” he said. “I shall never write again. The doctor has told me so. He sends me abroad to end my days in the golden sunshine of the Riviera. Thanks to you, I have an income from my play that insures me luxury the rest of my days. Ah! were you but free, dearest Lelia, I would ask you to go with me, to make glad these fleeting days of my life!”

“But I am bound!” she answered gravely, with a bitter heart-pang, for in all the months no word had come from the husband she loved still with ardent passion.

In desperation, she wrote to him. She claimed his forgiveness, his love.

She told him of her play, she asked him to be proud of her now, she begged him to return.

A reply came promptly to her mother, returning her letter.

Laurie begged Mrs. Ritchie to forbid her daughter writing him ever again. His love could never be resurrected from the gulf where it lay buried. Silence was all he claimed from her who had made such cruel shipwreck of his life.

Her pride was outraged, she sank deep in the valley of humiliation again.

“I will punish him! I will get a divorce!” she cried hotly to her mother.

“Then he will marry Rosalind Whitney, and you will go mad with jealousy.”

“Rosalind is to marry young Lord Warrington, with whose mother she is spending the season in London. I have seen it announced in all the papers. Her head is quite turned by the admiration she has received over there, and she will never stoop to Laurie now.”

“They will be sure to marry if he ever gets free of you,” her mother insisted.

It was just then that the manager came to see her about advertising her sensational play. He must have her portrait for the newspapers and a spicy biographical sketch of the subject.

“You may write it yourself, if you choose, and color it as highly as you wish. Your beauty will almost carry the day, but if you can work in some sensation, all the better.” He paused, and added, with transient embarrassment: “The world has some tales of a runaway husband. Would you like to work that sensation for all it is worth?”

“I have just decided to divorce my husband,” Lelia replied coolly.

“Excellent! The success of your play is assured. Your beauty and the romance of your life will interest the public immediately, and curiosity will do the rest. ‘Magdala’ will draw full houses,” cried the manager, little dreaming that the beautiful author had dipped her pen in her own heart’s blood to write the play.

For it was not wholly a work of imagination; rather a combination of fact and fancy, and “Magdala, the gipsy queen,” played a prominent part in it.

It brought great success to the author, but the old general, her close relative, was horrified when he saw her portrait in the papers, and learned that the courts had granted her a divorce from his son.

“What a horrible disgrace to the proud name of Willoughby! Really, I can never countenance Lelia again!” he cried angrily.

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE AMERICAN BEAUTY.

When Laurie read his father’s letter in Paris the blood forsook his cheek for a moment, and his heart throbbed with hot anger.

“She has dragged my proud name through the mire of a divorce-court and the columns of yellow journals to advertise her clap-trap play! It is like her—vain, selfish, sensational to the core!” he thought, with irritation.

But the next moment his blood leaped through his veins wildly, with a thrilling thought.

“I am free!”

Of her own will, Lelia had unlocked the fetters in which she had bound him, and they fell, clanking, to his feet.

Free! Free!

Was it possible he would be able to redeem his life from its gloom and shadows? Could he win the heart he prized, the beautiful girl of whom he had scarcely dared think while he was bound in Lelia’s cruel chains?

He knew she was in London, the guest of one of his father’s near cousins, Lady Warrington, who had presented her at court this season.

He knew how much she had been admired, how many suitors she had had, how the admiring Londoners called her “the American beauty.”

All this he had gleaned from the newspapers, that hinted also at an engagement with young Lord Warrington.

It might be true, and, if so, it would be a splendid match. Warrington was worthy a princess for his true manliness. Rosalind was a match for a prince.

Rosalind, how dearly he loved that name since she had borne it. It made him think of flowers and sunshine, of singing birds and rippling streams, of everything sweet and fair.

His heart throbbed fast with a memory of her dainty loveliness, her dark eyes, her red lips, like twin ripe cherries; her cloud of dark fragrant hair. It was all engraven on his heart, though he had not seen her for more than a year.

She had been traveling in the Old World, too, ever since last fall, but he had never been near to her, never given her greeting. Lelia’s husband knew that it was better so.

“World wide apart, although so near,

He breathed her charmed atmosphere.”

With a thrill of delirious joy he thought of seeing her again—aye, even though she belonged to Warrington—of seeing her even once again.

He would go to London to-morrow, he would not put it off a day longer, and he would find out if there was any hope for him, or if Warrington had won.

It was a restless night he spent, and a restless journey he made. That evening saw him entering his cousin’s grand house, The Larches.

It was young Warrington himself that came to greet him with profuse welcomes.

“I knew you were over here somewhere, and wondered why you didn’t drop in,” he said. Then, with some embarrassment: “We read in the papers to-day about the—ah, your wife, you know. Is it true?”

“The divorce? Oh, yes; father wrote me to-day it was granted. It helped advertise her, you know. I suppose next thing she will be on the stage impersonating her own heroines. She always had dramatic ability.”

“Yes, and wonderful beauty. Really, I cannot understand——” He threw a puzzled glance on Willoughby, who replied with perfect composure:

“Oh, the separation? Well, it was nothing serious, just incompatibility, you know. We could never get on together.”

“I hope it does not hurt.”

“Oh, no, it rather comes as a relief. As a man, I was too courteous to seek relief, but I am grateful, all the same. I can even forgive her for making me a catspaw to get advertising for her play. Now, Warrington, I’ve read things in the papers, too, about you and—and Miss Whitney. Are they true? May I congratulate you?”

“Well—er—no, cousin, not at all. She gave me the marble heart—pardon my slanginess—so long ago that I am almost well of it now.”

“Then the wound did not go very deep!”

“I did not permit it to do so. I hardly hoped at first, Rosalind is so cold to men generally, so it did not come as much of a surprise to me when she said, ‘No, thank you.’ So now we are just the best of friends. You cannot believe half the society gossip you read in the fashion columns.”

“And is there no other man?” eagerly.

“None in England. Can’t say about the other side. There’s a puzzling depth in her eyes sometimes—suggests that poem, you’ve heard it somewhere, no doubt. Let’s see—it runs this way:

“Sister, since I met thee last
O’er that brow a change has passed;
In the softness of thine eyes
Deep and still a shadow lies.
Through thy soul a storm has moved—
Gentle sister, thou hast loved!”

How closely Warrington had noted her! Was it true? Did the shadow of a secret love dwell in those dark, soft, brilliant eyes? A jealous pang tore through his heart.

The swish of a silken robe, and Lady Warrington entered, with Rosalind.

The girl was dressed in thin, soft white fabric over glittering white satin, pearls clasping her neck and binding her raven hair, white carnations on her breast diffusing their subtle fragrance.

Laurie had never seen her in evening dress before; he had never remembered her as quite so enchanting. Time had touched her as with a fairy wand, adding new charms.

He was afraid afterward that he had seemed rather stupid and tongue-tied to his cousin, Lady Warrington. He was silent, dizzy, with a great rapture.

He held the girl’s hands and gazed in her face with eager brown eyes, that asked if she were glad, and her kindling blush answered without words.

From thence forward he was in Elysium until Lady Warrington brought him back to earth, saying they should have to tear themselves away for the Duchess of Delamayne’s ball; but as any friend of hers would be welcome, she would take him along.

No, he would rather not intrude. He would come again to-morrow.

“Do come with us now!” breathed a soft, tremulous voice, and then wild horses could not have dragged him away.

He went.

He danced with her every chance he got, he watched her social triumphs, he saw that she was the queen rose of that fair garden of beautiful, high-bred women; then his thoughts strayed to the old West Virginia home perched on the shelving cliffs, and the young life that had budded there in simple graciousness and beauty—and it seemed to him he had loved her from the very first, only Lelia had resolutely thrust herself between.

He watched with secret envy every man who approached her, but for no one did her blushes burn so brightly as for him. He asked himself could he, indeed, be so blessed? Did she care?

He was with them every day for a week before he found what he craved—the chance to speak to her alone.

Lady Warrington, yawning over a society novel, fell asleep in the drawing-room. Her son was at his club. Laurie whispered softly:

“Come out into the moonlight and see the great white moonflowers unfolding in the dew, and holding their broad, perfumed saucers to the night.”

Rosalind went out to the arbor, a moonflower herself in her white gown and dainty loveliness. She sat down by his side on the rustic bench, and they both were trembling with emotion.

“I have wanted to speak to you alone very much, Rosalind,” he began, adding: “You know that I am free, that the wife who was never aught but wife in name has severed my bonds and set me free?”

She bowed her head, and he continued:

“You have wondered at that strange alienation. I will tell you how it came about. From the very first day she was nervous and hysterical, her dreams were wild. She fancied herself your murderer, and rehearsed the gruesome details in her sleep.”

She shuddered away from him, her face as white as the moonflowers unfolding to the dew overhead; a low moan escaped her lips.

“Do not be frightened, Rosalind. I am not going to ask you to betray confidence; I only wish you to know that in her sleep she found your ring!”

“My ring!” her sweet voice trembled with joy and pride. She looked up at him with shy expectancy, wondering, hoping.

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE NIGHTINGALE’S STORY.

Laurie held up the beautiful diamond in the moonlight, and she half-shuddered, remembering the doom it had brought on her that summer night nearly two years ago now.

“You will not wish to wear it again; it frightens you,” he said questioningly.

She faltered:

“Might she not be angry?”

“Nonsense! She does not care any more now!” reassuringly.

Which showed how little he understood a woman’s heart.

Far away in America, at that very moment, Lelia was saying to her mother:

“I wish now I had thrown the diamond in the well! It maddens me to think of another girl wearing it.”

“Forget it all,” Mrs. Ritchie answered tenderly.

So when Laurie reassured her, Rosalind held out her white hand for the ring.

He kissed the little hand with eager lips, then slipped the ring back again.

“For ever and aye,” he said solemnly, and for a moment both were very still, listening to a nightingale that came to sing to the moonflowers in the dew.

The dark, soft eyes looked up at him shyly, and he murmured:

“What is it, dear?”

“The wish?”

“Oh, yes, I remember. But, Rosalind, perhaps it will frighten you to hear it spoken aloud—the wish I had in my heart that evening.”

“It will not frighten me, and I am so curious. You cannot guess how I have wondered over it and wept, fearing I should never know.”

“Ah, little Mother Eve, you will be angry.”

“No, no!”

“Then hear me, sweet! I had the same wish then that I have now. I had in my mind the same story that nightingale is warbling to the flowers; the old, old story of love. I wished that some day you would be my wife.”

Her face drooped to her breast with a little sob of exquisite joy, and he slipped his arm about the yielding form.

“Rosalind, my darling, it seems to me now that I have always loved you—yes, from the very beginning, only Lelia held us jealously apart. When I put the ring on your hand I meant to come back and marry you soon. I wrote you of my love when I was gone, but Lelia intercepted the letter. I found it with the ring; I will show it to you some day. But now—now all the pain and parting are over. Will you be my wife? Shall I have my wish?”

The nightingale sang so loud he drowned her answer, but the moon and the stars and the bird and the flowers saw the upturned face and the lover’s kiss that brought down heaven to earth.

Lady Warrington said she was not the least surprised when they told her all about it. She had read it in their faces.

Lord Warrington said he would try not envy his cousin’s luck. He had always guessed there was a man somewhere in the case, but he had never suspected Willoughby.

One thing my lady said she was determined on—the wedding should be from her own house, and as grand as if Rosalind had been her own daughter.

But the happy pair demurred. They preferred a quiet wedding.

Laurie begged for an early day. He was homesick for America. They would go home for a bridal-tour.

Then began endless shopping and fitting, and all the pleasures and trials of trousseau getting, but in two months all was ready, and the pretty wedding came off at The Larches.

“If I had dreamed he would marry her, I would never have released him; I would have stood between them forever!” Lelia said bitterly, when she learned of the wedding and the homecoming.

“I told you so,” returned Mrs. Ritchie uneasily.

“But I did not believe you. I am always too head-strong, and bring my troubles on myself,” Lelia said repentantly.

“Forget it all,” advised her mother.

“Forget!”

As if it were possible to a heart like Lelia’s, so passionate, so proud, so jealous.

With all her faults and all her sins, she possessed the one virtue of constancy.

She would never love any one but Laurie, whom she had lost through her terrible sin.

But she no longer raved of revenge; she had learned at bitter cost that vengeance belongs to Heaven.

She had no longer any faith in her mother’s religious notions; she had told her she would not be punished for her sins until after death, but she had lied. She had found her hell on earth.

She went on the stage, as Laurie had predicted, to impersonate her own heroines; she wrote with a pen dipped into her burning heart, so that the scenes glowed with feeling and the world bowed down in praise of her beauty and her genius. They said it was well she had divorced her husband. She was too gifted for a commonplace marriage.

But when Lelia paused in her meteorlike career to think of Laurie and Rosalind at The Crags, with bonny children laughing around their knees, all that the world had given her in lavish measure tasted like dead-sea fruit on her lips.

THE END.

No. 1031 of the New Eagle Series, entitled “The Man and His Millions,” by Ida Reade Allen, tells of the happiness and the disappointment caused by an immense fortune, and will keep the reader’s interest alive throughout.

Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.

Table of contents has been added and placed into the public domain by the transcriber.

This novel was previously serialized under the title, Gipsy, the Waif; or, The Girl He Married.

The edition used as the basis for this electronic text (Street & Smith’s New Eagle Series, no. 1030) contained sixteen pages of advertisements for Street & Smith publications in the back. Because the source copy was incomplete and damaged, only the text of the novel is reproduced here.

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Table of Contents

- The Unbidden Guest

- THE UNBIDDEN GUEST.

- CONTENTS

- CHAPTER I.

- CHAPTER II.

- CHAPTER III.

- CHAPTER IV.

- CHAPTER V.

- CHAPTER VI.

- CHAPTER VII.

- CHAPTER VIII.

- CHAPTER IX.

- CHAPTER X.

- CHAPTER XI.

- CHAPTER XII.

- CHAPTER XIII.

- CHAPTER XIV.

- CHAPTER XV.

- CHAPTER XVI.

- CHAPTER XVII.

- CHAPTER XVIII.

- CHAPTER XIX.

- CHAPTER XX.

- CHAPTER XXI.

- CHAPTER XXII.

- CHAPTER XXIII.

- CHAPTER XXIV.

- CHAPTER XXV.

- CHAPTER XXVI.

- CHAPTER XXVII.

- CHAPTER XXVIII.

- CHAPTER XXIX.

- CHAPTER XXX.

- CHAPTER XXXI.

- CHAPTER XXXII.

- CHAPTER XXXIII.

- CHAPTER XXXIV.

- CHAPTER XXXV.

- CHAPTER XXXVI.

- CHAPTER XXXVII.

- CHAPTER XXXVIII.

- CHAPTER XXXIX.

- CHAPTER XL.

- CHAPTER XLI.

- CHAPTER XLII.

- CHAPTER XLIII.

- CHAPTER XLIV.

- Transcriber’s Notes

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE