Pretty Madcap Dorothy: or, How She Won a Lover

Yes, Dorothy's sight had been restored to her as miraculously as it had been taken from her.

But even in the midst of her great joy the dregs of woe still lingered as memory brought back to her the terrible ordeal through which she had passed.

With bated breath she turned and crept swiftly back to the house and up to the long windows that opened out on the porch, sobbing bitterly to herself that she would see at last if her lover was true or false to her.

Chapter XX

With her heart throbbing with the most intense excitement, Dorothy pushed aside the great clusters of crimson creepers and thick green leaves, pressed her white face close against the window-pane, and gazed in upon the gorgeous scene.

For an instant the great blaze of light dazzled her weak eyes, and everything seemed to swim before her.

But gradually, little by little, she began to distinguish objects, and at last her eyes fell upon the face of Harry Kendal.

With a great cry, the girl clutched her hands tightly over her heart. She never thought that she would look upon his face again in this world.

It was his face – the face of her hero, her king, before which all else paled as the moonbeams pale before the glaring light of the rising sun. Then suddenly she saw the face beside him into which he was gazing, and it was then that the heart in her bosom almost turned to stone.

Never in all her life had she beheld such a vision of loveliness, and she knew in an instant that the proud beauty must be Iris Vincent.

Slowly Dorothy crept around to the other side of the porch, up to the window, that she might have a better view of them, and perhaps she could hear what they were saying.

But as she reached it, to her great disappointment she saw them link arms and stroll out of the ball-room toward the conservatory, and thither she bent her steps, intent upon reaching it before they did.

She had barely screened herself behind a tall jardinière of roses and flowering plants, ere, laughing and chattering, the two entered the floral bower.

"The ball is a grand success, Iris," he was saying, gayly; "they all seem to be enjoying themselves immensely. How is it with you?"

"It is a night that will stand out forever in my life," she responded, glancing up at him with those dangerously dark eyes, and a smile on her red lips.

The girl who watched them breathlessly from behind the roses clutched her hands over her heart.

The sight maddened her. They were so near each other, their heads bent so close; and while she gazed, suddenly Kendal bent still closer and kissed the girl's lips.

Dorothy tried to cry aloud, to spring out and confront them. Her brain reeled; the blood, chill as ice, stood still in her veins, and without a cry, or even a moan she sank down unconscious in her hiding-place.

"What is that sound?" cried Iris, with a start.

"Only some of the clumsy servants in the corridor without," replied Kendal. "But, Iris, are you trying to avoid me? I have brought you here to tell you something, and you must listen. The time has come when we must fully understand each other. You know quite as well as I that the life we are leading, Iris, can not go on like this forever. From the first moment we met the attraction I felt toward you changed the whole current of my life."

Iris hid her face in the bouquet of white hyacinths which she carried.

"It is too late to talk of that now," she murmured. "Your heart went out to another before – before I met you."

"There is such a thing as affections waning when one discovers that one's heart is not truly mated, Iris," he cried.

She did not answer; and thus emboldened by her silence, he went on, huskily:

"Let me give you the whole history of my meeting with Dorothy Glenn, from first to last, and you will understand the situation better. You can realize, Iris, that an acquaintance which commences through a flirtation, as it were, can never end in true love. Such an acquaintance is not a lasting one. Come and sit down on this rustic seat, Iris, and listen; and as we sit here in the dim, mellow light, you shall judge me, and your decision shall seal my fate."

At the self-same moment in which Harry Kendal was beginning his narrative, there was quite a commotion at the outer gate which guarded the main entrance of Gray Gables.

One of the servants, lounging lazily at his post of duty, was suddenly startled out of the doze into which he had fallen by the shadow of a woman flitting hurriedly past him.

"Hold on, there! Hold on, I say! Who are you, and what do you want?"

A figure clad in a long dark cloak, hooded and veiled, stopped short with a little exclamation, which he could not quite catch.

"Hold on, there! Where are you going?" he repeated, springing to her side. "There is something going on here to-night. You can't enter these grounds until I know who you are and what your business is."

"This is Gray Gables, is it not?" exclaimed a tremulous voice from behind the veil.

"I should have supposed you would have found that out before you entered the grounds," declared the man, suspiciously.

She saw her mistake, and started.

"I only wanted to make sure that I was right," she said, apologetically. "I – I have business with the housekeeper; I want to see her."

Before she could utter another word he whistled sharply. His call brought a small lad to his side.

"Tell Mrs. Kemp there's a young woman here who would like to see her. What name, please?" he asked, abruptly, turning to the veiled figure.

"I – I am afraid she wouldn't know; but you might, mention the name – Miss Mead" – this rather stutteringly.

Very soon the answer came back that the housekeeper did not know Miss Mead, and hadn't time to see strangers.

"But I must see her!" implored the excited voice from behind the thick veil. "Do let me go to the house to her. I will detain her but a moment, I assure you. She would be so sorry if she missed seeing me."

With no suspicion of the terrible catastrophe that was to follow on the heels of it, the man without further ado allowed her to pass.

The stranger sped quickly up the graveled walk, and, as Dorothy had done but a short time before, drew cautiously up to the brilliantly lighted window, threw back her veil, and peered breathlessly in upon the gorgeous scene.

As the light fell athwart her, you and I, dear reader, can easily recognize the marble-white face of – Nadine Holt.

"So!" she muttered, between her clinched teeth, "I have tracked my false, perfidious lover to his home at last. When Harry Kendal lighted the fire of love in my heart, he little knew that the blaze would in time consume himself. I am not one to be made love to and cast off at will, as he shall soon see.

"From the hour that he eloped with Dorothy Glenn, on that memorable Labor Day, life lost all its charms for me, and I vowed to Heaven that I would find them, and deal out vengeance to them. They crushed my heart, and now I shall crush theirs. Ah, how I watched for him in the crowded streets, the ferries, and on the elevated roads!

"I believed sooner or later that I should find him, and I was right. Only a week ago I met him face to face, but he did not know me because of the thick veil I wore. I might have raised my veil and he would never have recognized in the pinched and haggard features the countenance of Nadine Holt, whose beauty he was wont to praise so lavishly. Ah, the traitor!

"He turned into a florist's shop, and he never dreamed who the woman was who entered the place and stood silently beside him while he gave the order for the great decorations for the grand ball which was to take place at his home in Gray Gables, in Yonkers, a fortnight from that date.

"When he quitted the shop I flew out after him; but all in an instant he disappeared from my sight as though the ground had suddenly opened and swallowed him. But I laughed aloud. What cared I then. I knew just where to find him. The place was written indelibly on my brain in letters of fire – Gray Gables, Yonkers!

"Only Heaven knows how I have worked to get a day off and to earn extra money to make this little trip! And now I am here to face him. Is he married to Dorothy Glenn, I wonder? It would take only that knowledge to make a fiend incarnate of me!"

At that moment one of the servants passing along the porch stopped short at sight of the young woman in black, with the death-white face and flashing black eyes, peering into the ball-room from the long porch window.

"They are having a great time in there," he said, jerking his head with a nod in the direction of the ball-room.

"Yes!" returned Nadine Holt, sharply.

Then it occurred to her that she could find out something about the lover who had deserted her. And there was another thing which puzzled her greatly. The name which he had given the florist was not the one by which she had known him – she would find out all by this man. Now he was calling himself Mr. Harry Kendal – that was the name he had given the florist.

"In whose honor is the ball given, my good fellow?" she asked, with an assumption of carelessness.

For a moment he looked stupidly at her.

"I mean, who is giving the ball?" she added.

"Oh, it's Mr. Kendal, ma'am – leastwise, he and Miss Dorothy are giving it together."

She started as though a serpent had stung her, then stood perfectly still and looked at the man with gleaming eyes.

"Miss Dorothy – who?" she asked, knowing full well what his answer must be.

"Miss Dorothy Glenn, ma'am," he replied. "But she won't be 'miss' very long, for she is soon to marry Mr. Kendal."

"Soon to marry him!" she repeated, vaguely, saying in the next breath, "then they are not already married," muttering the words more to herself than to the man. "Where does this girl, Dorothy live?" she asked, suddenly.

"That I couldn't say, ma'am," he replied. "I only came to Gray Gables to-day, to work. I know only the little that I have heard the servants say while at their work this afternoon. They say Miss Dorothy is very beautiful."

Chapter XXI

The white face into which the man gazed grew whiter still, the eyes dilated, and her heart twinged with a pang of jealousy more bitter than death to endure.

People always made that remark when speaking of Dorothy. It was that fatal gift which had won her lover from her, Nadine said to herself, and which had wrecked her life.

Oh! if she could but destroy that pink-and-white beauty!

The thought was born in Nadine Holt's breast all in an instant, and seemed to fire her whole being.

She knew her lover's passionate adoration of a beautiful face, and then and there the thought came to her: How long would he love Dorothy Glenn if that pretty pink-and-white face were seamed and scarred?

She laughed – a low, strange, eerie laugh that quite startled the man as he walked away.

Left to herself, Nadine Holt deliberately opened the hall door and stole into the house. She had but one purpose in view, and that was to confront her lover and Dorothy before all the invited guests.

There was nothing about the dark figure to attract especial attention, and she glided through the corridor unnoticed.

Was it the hand of fate most terrible that guided her toward the conservatory? The dark figure glided like a shadow toward the open door, and then paused abruptly, for the low sound of voices fell upon her ear, and one of them she recognized as that of her perfidious lover.

Through the softened pearly gloom she saw him sitting on the rustic bench close – very close – to the slender, girlish figure in fleecy white, and the sight made the blood in her veins turn to molten fire.

Like an evil spirit she crept toward them. She would – she must– know what he was saying to his companion in that leafy bower.

She said to herself, of course it was Dorothy, and that they had stolen away from the lights and the music for a few tender words with each other, after the fashion of love-sick lovers.

It had not been so very long ago since he had been talking with her in just that lover-like way, only their courtship had taken place in the public parks, sitting on the benches, or walking lovingly arm in arm along the crowded thoroughfares; and he had brought Dorothy to his own grand home – Dorothy, her hated rival! – to enjoy this paradise of a place, and to make love to her in this Eden bower of roses and scented, murmuring, tinkling fountains.

"Dorothy!" he murmured in his rich, low, musical voice. How plainly she heard the name! The rest of the sentence she could not catch, though she crept nearer and nearer, and strained every nerve to listen. "I love you as I have never loved anything in this life before," she heard him say, "and my future without you would be unendurable. I can not endure it – I will not!"

The poor wretch who listened grew mad as she heard the tender words whispered into the ears of another by her false lover.

She crouched still lower, and her hand, as she threw it out wildly, came in contact with something hard and cold. It was a long, thin, sharp-bladed knife which the gardener had been using only that day to trim the bushes, and which, in his hurry, he had carelessly forgotten. She realized instantly what it was, and, with the thought, a diabolical idea crept into her brain.

"Why should Dorothy Glenn live to enjoy the smiles of the man whose love she has robbed me of," she muttered below her breath, "while my heart hungers and my soul quivers in endless torture for the affection that is denied me? I can endure it no longer!"

The mad desire to spoil the fair beauty of her rival overpowered her until the thought possessed her and rendered her almost a fiend incarnate.

Grasping the long, sharp-bladed knife tightly, Nadine Holt raised her right arm slowly, cautiously. Not so much as a leaf rustled to warn the two sitting on the rustic bench of the terrible danger that hung over them.

Harry Kendal's low, musical voice sank to a lower cadence. He drew the slender figure of the girl nearer and that action was fatal.

There was a quick, whizzing sound, followed by an awful cry of terror from Iris, and Kendal's hand, resting lightly about her waist, was deluged in blood.

"Murder! murder! Oh, heavens!" shrieked Iris, and she fell at his feet in a swoon.

In the commotion Nadine Holt turned like a pantheress and made her escape from the conservatory and from the house.

"Murder! murder!" Those terrible cries that rent the air were the first sounds that Dorothy heard as her benumbed brain gained consciousness. And as she staggered, benumbed and dazed, to her feet she almost fell over a slimy knife lying there, and at that instant a strong hand flung back the rose-vines and Harry Kendal, white and quivering with wrath, confronted her.

"Dorothy Glenn!" he cried, in a horrible voice fairly reverberating with intense emotion, "You! Oh, you cruel, wicked girl! You – you fiend! to do what you have done!" and reaching out his hand he flung her backward from him as though she were a scorpion whose very touch was contamination. "Fly up to your own room," he cried, hoarsely, "and do not leave it for a moment until I come to you there! Have nothing to say; refuse to speak to any one!" and catching her fiercely by the shoulder, he fairly dragged her through the conservatory toward the rear door, which communicated with a back stairway that led up to her room.

Faint and dazed, Dorothy had not offered the least resistance to this cruel treatment. Her brain seemed stupefied by the whirling, confusing events taking place so rapidly around her. She only realized two things: that she had betrayed her presence in the conservatory when she fell to the floor upon hearing her lover speak words of affection to her rival, and that Harry was bitterly angry with her for being there. She did not remember that she had lost consciousness. It seemed to her that as her senses were about leaving her strange cries recalled them.

It occurred to her that in his excitement and anger her lover had not noticed that she had regained her sight.

Wearily Dorothy ascended the steep, narrow stairway and entered her own room. A soft, low, dim light flooded the apartment, upon which she had not gazed for many and many a long day.

Katy was not there, and she flung herself into the nearest arm-chair, sobbing wretchedly, although on that night she had cause to cry out to Heaven and rejoice for God's mercy to her for so unexpectedly restoring her sight. But, ah, me! how strange it is that all the blessings Heaven can shower upon us seem as dross when the one love we crave proves fickle.

Dorothy did not have the heart to cry out joyfully and thankfully. Her head drooped on her breast with a low, quivering sigh, and her hands fell in her lap.

Suddenly something around the bottom of her dress caught her eye, and she started to her feet with a low cry.

"It is blood!" she cried out in an awful voice.

No sooner had the door closed behind Dorothy ere Kendal flew back to Iris' side.

No one had heard the terrible cries. He thanked Heaven for that. The music had drowned them.

He had quite believed that Iris was dying. A hasty examination showed him that it was only a slight wound on the shoulder, from which blood was flowing profusely.

"Thank God it is no worse!" he cried, breathing freely.

He quickly set about restoring Iris, and in a moment she opened her eyes.

"Murder! murder!" she would have cried again, but he put his hand instantly over her red lips.

"Hush! hush! in Heaven's name!" he cried. "You will alarm the whole household. You are not seriously hurt!"

"Some one was trying to murder me!" shrieked Iris, hysterically.

"No, no!" he returned, quickly. "Listen, Iris, for Heaven's sake! One of the panes of glass of the conservatory directly overhead was broken, and – and a little part of it fell in, grazing your shoulder. It is a deep and painful scratch, I can well understand; but it is only a scratch, I can assure you."

"Oh, it has ruined my dress!" cried the girl, in anger and dismay, never thinking for an instant of doubting the truth of his assertion. "I can not appear in the ball-room again. No one must know that we were here together," she went on, hastily – "not one human soul! You must give out that I – I became suddenly indisposed and went to my own room."

"Yes, I think your suggestions are best," he agreed.

The guests received this explanation of the sudden absence of the beauty of the ball with regret, and more than one whisper went the rounds of the room how this seemed to disturb handsome Harry Kendal, for his face was very pale, and he seemed so nervous.

At the earliest opportunity Harry Kendal slipped away from the merry throng and up to Dorothy's apartment, hastily knocking at the door.

She opened it herself.

"Step out into the corridor," he said, sternly; "I want to speak to you."

And trembling with apprehension caused by his stern manner, Dorothy obeyed.

She could see, even in the dim light, that his face was white as death.

"I have come to have an understanding with you, Dorothy Glenn!" he cried hoarsely. "Your dastardly action of to-night has forever placed a barrier between you and me! I am here to say this to you: here and now I sever our betrothal! The same roof shall no longer shelter us both! Either you leave this house to-night, or I'll go!"

Chapter XXII

It was the most pitiful scene that pen could describe. The beautiful young girl, in her dress of fleecy white, with the faded purple blossoms on her breast entwined among the meshes of her disheveled golden hair, crouching back among the green leaves, and the white-faced, handsome, angry man clutching her white arm, crying out hoarsely that never again should they both breathe the same air beneath that roof – that she must leave Gray Gables within the hour, or he would.

"I did not know that I had done so terribly wrong," moaned the girl, shrinking back from those angry, fiery eyes that glowered down so fiercely into her own.

A laugh that was more horrible than the wildest imprecation could have been broke from his lips.

"You seem to have a remarkably mixed idea of right and wrong," he retorted, sternly, relaxing his hold and standing before her with rigid, folded arms, his anger growing more intense with each passing instant as he looked down into the girl's agonized face.

Had she done so very, very wrong in remaining in the conservatory, and in listening to her betrothed make love to her rival? she wondered vaguely.

Surely, she should have been the one to have cried out in bitter anger, not he.

"Let me tell you how it all came about," she gasped, faintly.

"I – I was in the ball-room with Katy, when it grew so warm that I sent for an ice. She did not return as soon as I had expected her, and – and I groped my way out into the garden to await her there. But as I stepped from the porch a wonderful thing happened, Harry. I – I missed my footing and fell headlong down the steps to the graveled walk below, and the shock restored my sight. Oh! look at me, Harry!" she exclaimed, with quivering intensity, holding out her white arms toward him. "I can see now. I can see your idolized face, oh, my beloved! I – I came here to tell you this – to tell you the wonderful tidings! I intended to send to the ball-room for you, but before I could put my intention into execution I – I heard steps approaching, and drew back among the screening leaves till they should pass. You came in with Iris Vincent, and I heard what you said, and my brain whirled – I grew dazed. You – you know the rest!"

He was not overwhelmed by the great tidings that she had regained her sight, as she had expected he would be. Instead, he retorted brusquely:

"It was a pity that your sight returned to you to enable you to do so dastardly a deed; and I am beginning to have my doubts whether or not you have not been duping us all along, and, under that guise, spying upon us – which seems to be your forte. This revelation makes me angrier than ever," he went on, "for it leaves you with no possible hope of pardon for your atrocious conduct, which merits the whole world's scorn and contempt!"

"I see it all!" cried Dorothy, springing to her feet and facing him. "You have prearranged this quarrel with me to break our betrothal, that you might wed your new love – Iris Vincent. But, just for pure spite, I will not release you – never! I will tell the whole world of your duplicity. An engagement is a solemn thing. It takes two to enter into it and two to break it."

The scorn on his handsome face deepened.

"I do not very well see how you can marry a man when he makes up his mind not to have you," he declared. "That is a difficult feat, and I shall have to see it done before I can be convinced that it can be accomplished," he replied, icily, adding: "There are many women in this world who would stand back and watch such a proceeding with the wildest anxiety, I imagine;" this sneeringly.

"You shall never marry Iris Vincent!" Dorothy panted. "I – I would prevent it at any cost. Once before you forsook me when I needed you most; you left me to die when I fell from the steamer down into the dark water, when we were returning from Staten Island, that never-to-be-forgotten night; so why should I be surprised at your willingness to desert me now?"

He turned on his heel.

"It is now two o'clock in the morning," he said. "My duty requires me to go down to the ball-room and bid the guests adieu as they take their departure, and when that is over I shall leave this house until this difficulty has been settled. The reading of Doctor Bryan's will is to take place at noon. I shall be present then, and after that – well – well, we shall see what will take place."

With these words Kendal quitted the room, and left Dorothy standing there with the tears falling like rain down her cheeks – surely the most piteous object in the whole wide world.

When Kendal found himself alone his intense anger against Dorothy began to cool a little.

"It is true she attempted to do a horrible deed," he muttered; "but I must not forget that love for me prompted her to it, and show her some mercy."

After all the guests had taken their departure, and the house had settled down into the darkness and quiet of the waning night, Kendal paced his room in a greatly perturbed state of mind, thinking the matter over.