Dainty's Cruel Rivals; Or, The Fatal Birthday

"Yes?" Love said, inquiringly, and his pale lips curled with a sneer whose subtle meaning she could not understand; but taking it for encouragement, she blurted out, boldly:

"The preacher is here, the people are here, and the wedding-breakfast waits. You can vanquish fate if you will. Though Dainty is gone, I have two other nieces."

Again that cold, scornful smile as she added, desperately:

"I see that Dainty advises you here to marry either Olive or Ela. Well, you can have either one for the asking."

His pale, writhing lips unclosed to ask, curtly:

"Are you speaking with their permission?"

"Yes," she replied, eagerly and hopefully, feeling sure that he must capitulate now and yield to her wishes. It was better to marry the wrong girl than lose such a princely fortune. It was impossible that he should hesitate over such a question.

She waited, almost confident of his answer, only wondering which he would choose—Olive, who was her secret preference, or the equally pretty Ela.

But he was slow in making his choice. Suddenly sitting upright, he gazed curiously at her excited face several minutes without replying, until the silence grew irksome, and she cried, with veiled impatience:

"I do not wish to hurry you, Love, but you must see for yourself how important it is that you should make a speedy decision. The bishop and the guests are waiting for the wedding, and unless it comes off soon the breakfast will be spoiled."

Slowly Love got upon his feet, and steadying his trembling frame by a hand on the back of a chair, startled her with the mocking words:

"You have plotted cleverly, madame, but you have lost the game. Neither Olive nor Ela will ever be bride of mine!"

Her eyes flashed in her pale face, and she said, insolently:

"Very well, then; I am the mistress of Ellsworth, and you a pauper!"

"Not so fast; you have not heard all," he answered coolly. "I understand the little game you have been playing, madame, you and your two clever nieces. You have plotted to frighten Dainty to death, but foiled in that, you kidnaped her at the eleventh hour, hoping to frighten me into marrying one of your nieces by the threat of disinheritance; but your malicious scheme has failed. There exists an insuperable objection to my marriage with Olive or Ela."

"Insuperable?" she muttered, incredulously.

"Yes; I am a married man already."

A bolt of lightning would not have startled her as much as those calmly spoken words.

It was her turn now to stare speechlessly, while Love continued, earnestly:

"You are detected in your hellish plotting, madame. The proof of it is in that letter there. A base forgery, since Dainty Chase could not possibly have written it—Dainty Ellsworth, I should say rather, for she has been my wife two weeks."

"Your wife?" she faltered, wildly.

"Yes; there was a secret marriage two weeks ago, designed to prevent just what has happened now—some treachery on the part of the three women who hated Dainty and were trying to work her ill. Yes, I understand your game; as I said just now, Dainty was kidnaped, and you know where she is, but your malice can not undo the fact that she is my wife, and my inheritance safe. I go now to break the truth to the wedding guests, and their indignation will compel you to restore me my bride!"

He rushed from the room, heedless of her shrieks for him to stay, and sought the thronged parlor, where the disappointed guests waited for an explanation.

Within the door he paused, raised his hand, and began:

"My dear friends, I—"

The sentence stopped abruptly, for through the window near by hurtled a bullet, sent by a madman's brutal hand. It crashed through his head, and he fell senseless and bleeding to the floor.

CHAPTER XX.

THE END OF THE DAY

Ah, how terrible a finale to a birthday wedding that had dawned so fairly and been anticipated with such happiness.

The bride mysteriously vanished, the bridegroom weltering in his blood! Both the victims of wrong and crime heinous enough to make the very angels turn away from watching such a wicked world.

Yet the sun shone on as brightly, the flowers bloomed as fairly, the birds sang as sweetly as if two beautiful young lives had not been blasted in their happiest hour.

Instantly there was the greatest confusion in the long parlors where the merry guests who had come to witness a bridal now beheld the handsome bridegroom murdered before their startled eyes.

A few moments before they had been excitedly watching for quite a different denouement.

Whispers of what had happened—of Dainty Chase's note and her cruel flight—had been circulated among the guests with startling rapidity, and Mrs. Ellsworth had been heard to exclaim that they should not be disappointed of a wedding, after all; she had two more nieces, and Lovelace was not the man she took him for if he could not persuade one or the other to step into the awkward breach and save him from the consequences of Dainty's treachery.

Then she hurried away, to further her scheme with the deserted bridegroom, and the guests waited most impatiently, gossiping among themselves over the strange turn affairs had taken, wondering how Dainty could turn her back on such a bridegroom and such a future, wondering still more if Mrs. Ellsworth would indeed induce her step-son to take Olive or Ela in place of the false bride, and on which his choice would chance to fall.

Preferences were quite evenly divided between the two girls, both of whom tried to look cool and unembarrassed, though their hearts beat furiously with anticipation, and Olive, at least, since her heart was enlisted in the contest, felt a burning thrill of jealousy of her cousin Ela, saying to herself:

"If he should choose her, I know I could not help but envy and hate her, for her heart is not interested like mine in this affair. I believe that she still loves Vernon Ashley, and but for his poverty would rather have him for her husband than any other man. Oh, I pray that his choice may fall on me! I know Aunt Judith secretly wishes it, because I resemble her more than any of her other relatives, and naturally she would prefer for me to succeed her at Ellsworth."

Suddenly she beheld a face that made her start and draw in her breath with a sort of strangled gasp.

Her eyes had strayed to Ela, who stood near the door, then wandered aimlessly to the nearest window—aimlessly, then with a flash of terrified recognition.

Between the rich lace curtains there peered the dark face of Ela's jilted lover, Vernon Ashley, and in the glittering eyes, fixed immovably on Ela, shone a baleful, boding light enough to frighten a stranger, and much more so Olive, who knew of the cruel wrongs that had goaded him to jealous frenzy.

It was simply blood-curdling, the demoniac look on Ashley's face; and Olive watched him with a creeping sort of terror; for Ela had confided to her that it was he who had fired at Lovelace Ellsworth the night of the festival, and uttered dark threats of vengeance that now recurred to her mind and filled her with alarm.

"He is bent on mischief. His eyes glare like a madman's or a drunkard's, I am not certain which; but either way they bode evil. I must warn Ela of her peril," she thought, nervously taking a step forward, but pausing instantly in consternation; for at that moment Lovelace Ellsworth rushed into the room, his handsome face pale as death, his dark, curly hair pushed back in disorder from his high, white brow, his eyes flashing with a strange fire, his ashen lips curled back from his white teeth with a mocking smile.

Consciously or unconsciously, he made his way straight to where Ela Craye was standing, pausing just at her side, and the act sealed his doom.

The man at the window had heard of the wedding that was to take place, and he had returned to Ellsworth, hoping to persuade Ela to take him back into her favor, now that all hope of a rich match was over.

But in the days while writhing in the throes of rejected love, the man had cast to the winds all honor and manliness, and drowned memory and sorrow in the flowing bowl.

A piteous wreck of his former handsome self, he now peered through the window, hoping to attract Ela's attention; but, unfortunately, no premonition of the truth caused her to turn her limpid gray eyes toward the dissipated lover now half crazed with thoughts of either love or vengeance.

And while he watched and waited, he heard the talk of Dainty's flight and Mrs. Ellsworth's promise—they should not be disappointed in the wedding—Ellsworth would persuade one of her other nieces to marry him.

His brow grew dark, his heart beat heavily, his breath came thick and fast with fear. In his passion for Ela he felt sure that Lovelace could choose no one but her, his heart's fickle queen.

"It shall never be!" the maddened lover groaned to himself in jealous fury, for he had said to himself, day after day, that ere Ela should become the bride of another, he would stretch her dead at his feet, and give her sweet white beauty to the worms and the grave rather than to the arms of a rival.

The man was temporarily insane. Love and despair and reckless indulgence in the bottle had made him so. He was as dangerous at this moment as a wild beast from the jungle.

Lovelace Ellsworth rushed into the room, and, without seeing Ela Craye at all, paused directly at the young girl's side, and began to speak.

To the jealous hearts of Olive and Vernon Ashley, the act had but one interpretation.

His choice had fallen on Ela, and he was about to announce it publicly to his friends.

A pang of the bitterest pain and jealousy tore like a red-hot needle through the heart of Olive, and involuntarily, she looked again at the window for the lowering face of Ela's rejected lover, wondering how he would bear the strain of the moment.

The sight of his face made her shudder with alarm, for it had grown dark and demoniac in its fury; and while she gazed, she saw his hand lifted, and the shining point of a pistol directed full at the head of Lovelace Ellsworth.

Simultaneously with the first words of Lovelace, a loud, warning shriek burst from Olive's lips; but both were silenced together by the loud report of the pistol whose contents had entered the victim's head.

With a moan of pain, Ellsworth sank to the floor, and a scene of instant confusion ensued, some rushing to the young man's aid, others pursuing the murderer; for Olive was not the only one who had witnessed the fatal shot.

Several persons had observed the dark face of the stranger peering in at the window, and two persons besides Olive had seen him fire the fatal shot. He was instantly pursued and overtaken, and from his furious ravings he was at first supposed to be an escaped lunatic.

But a guest from the station quickly recognized him as Vernon Ashley, a young man who had visited in the neighborhood some weeks before, and had caused some sensation by declaring he was engaged to Miss Craye, and betraying a furious jealousy of Lovelace Ellsworth.

Ashley was taken away to prison, despite his entreaties to see Miss Craye, who had gone into hysterics, it was said, on hearing who it was that had shot Ellsworth.

When she learned that Ashley was begging to see her, she refused his request with a shudder of fear, and he sent back an angry message:

"Tell her I have carried out my threat!"

They bore him away to prison, shuddering at his insane rejoicings that he had killed his rival, and the house of joy and feasting was turned into one of gloom and sorrow.

But Lovelace Ellsworth was not dead yet, though the end was expected at any moment.

Indeed, it was a wonder that he had not died instantly, declared all three doctors who examined him. The bullet had crashed through the side of his head near the top, and was certainly imbedded in his brain, for all endeavors to locate it failed of success, and they decided not to worry the poor fellow with these useless attempts, but to let him pass away in peace.

Love lay with closed eyes in a comatose condition, breathing heavily, his pulse sinking fast, and it was believed that each moment must be his last.

But as the minutes ebbed and the frail breath of life still fluttered feebly in his frame, they became mystified by his tenacity of life, and decided to risk removing him to his bed, which was accordingly done without any appreciable harm to his condition.

Meanwhile, the house was full of hysterical women sobbing in earnest fright and demanding as much attention as the victim himself, not the least of whom was Mrs. Ellsworth.

She had followed Lovelace to the parlors after his startling communication to her in wild excitement, and had swooned on beholding his fall, recovering from one long spell only to go into another, and actual fears for her life began to be entertained.

It was touching, said all, to see how devoted she had been to her step-son, seeing that the events of to-day would make her the mistress of his splendid fortune.

CHAPTER XXI.

WOULD HEAVEN TURN AWAY FROM HER WILD APPEAL?

"Oh, Thou to whom my thoughts are known,Calm, oh, calm these trembling fears;Oh, turn away the world's cold frown,And dry these falling tears!Oh, leave me not alone in grief—Send this anguished heart relief!Oh, make my life Thy future care!Sweet Spirit, hear my prayer—Ah, hear my prayer!"

Beneath the ruined wing of Castle Ellsworth were mysterious underground passages and chambers, and in one of these grewsome places Dainty Chase was held a prisoner, while over her head, in the golden light of the summer day, the stirring events of the interrupted wedding were in progress.

While wrapped in the unconsciousness of a drugged sleep the night previous, the hapless girl had been borne away from her mother's side in the arms of the person who had so successfully enacted the part of the monk's ghost, and placed on a couch, where she slept on heavily till the day was far advanced toward its meridian.

She woke at last in semi-darkness, lighted only by the dim rays of a sputtering kerosene lamp, whose vile odor made the close air almost insufferable.

"Mamma!" she murmured, stretching out her arms for the beloved one who had slumbered by her side all night.

But her yearning arms touched empty air, and she found herself resting on a hard and narrow mattress, while her eyes, growing accustomed to the feeble light, showed her the bare stone wall of a narrow chamber like a dungeon, whose only ventilation came from narrow slits in the heavy oaken door.

Half-dazed, the girl lay and gazed about her unfamiliar surroundings until, suddenly overpowered with terror, she shrieked aloud, and springing up, dashed herself against the hard, unyielding door in the wild desire of escape.

In vain! The pressure of her light form did not even shake the heavy, cell-like door that was securely locked on the outside.

She could only sink back upon the narrow cot, while a terrified realization of the truth forced itself on her bewildered senses.

She was a prisoner in some unknown dungeon, locked away from her beloved forever.

The spite and malice of her enemies had triumphed at last. They had parted her from Love before the dawn of her wedding-day. The second attempt to kidnap her must have succeeded well, for she could remember nothing of how she had been brought here.

"Ah! I comprehend all now!" she cried, despairingly. "That pitcher of ice-water last night had somehow a bitter taste. We were drugged—mamma and I—and I was stolen away in the hope of preventing my marriage to Love, so that one of my rivals might be forced on him in my stead, lest he lose his inheritance!"

Then, in spite of her misery, a sweet, mocking laugh dimpled the girl's lips, as she added, gratefully:

"Oh, what a clever thought it was of Love's, that secret marriage! I feared I did wrong letting him persuade me into it; but I see now his presentiments of evil had good ground, and he did wisely in making me his wife two weeks ago."

She clasped her dimpled hands together in a sort of ecstacy, as she continued:

"And oh! how happy he has made me, my darling young husband! How full of bliss our secret honeymoon! Oh, I can never forget while life lasts the sweetness of our wedded love! But how chagrined Aunt Judith and my cruel cousins will be when Love tells them the startling truth. I can guess how they will try to deceive him. They will say to him: 'Dainty has eloped with Vernon Ashley. He was her lover all the while, though she made you think he was Ela's. Now that she has deceived you, it is imperative for you to marry some one else immediately, lest by the terms of your father's will you lose your grand inheritance!'"

The blue eyes beamed, and the rosy mouth dimpled proudly as Dainty's thoughts ran on happily.

"They will be fit to die of rage when they hear my darling laugh them to scorn, and say: 'All your wicked plots to part me from my love are in vain! I knew you were scheming to do this all along, so I forestalled you by making her my wife in secret two weeks ago, and the denouement of to-day shows me how wisely I acted. Now you must restore my love to me, or I will denounce you to the world for your treachery!'"

This was how Dainty pictured it to herself, and in her excitement it seemed to her that Love would be coming directly to release her from her confinement, because they could have no interest in keeping them apart any longer, knowing that they were married now, and that there was no chance for Olive and Ela to get him away from his wedded wife.

Oh, how impatient she grew, waiting and hoping for him to come! But long hours of silence and solitude dragged by, till her brave heart began to fail, and she sobbed, piteously:

"Perhaps they are unrelenting in their hate, and will not tell him where to find me. They may leave me here to starve and die!"

Already she felt faint from lack of food, and her heart sank hopelessly from its new dread. She fell on her knees, and prayed to Heaven to have pity on her sorrow, and send her speedy rescue.

It was indeed a sight to move the pity of Heaven; the innocent, white-gowned girl kneeling on the cold stone floor of the damp cell, with her bare feet and naked arms and shoulders, her appealing blue eyes raised upward, the golden hair streaming like a shining veil about her slender form, her sweet lips moving in prayer to God. Would He indeed hear that prayer unmoved, or would He send her relief?

The slow hours dragged away without interruption, and she saw with terror that her miserable light began to flicker with exhaustion. Soon the desolation of darkness would be added to loneliness and hunger.

CHAPTER XXII.

UNMASKED

Dainty fell back, sobbing, on her hard couch, her frame shaking as with an ague chill.

The horror of her position was enough to drive her mad.

It seemed to her that she was entombed alive, and left to her fate—left to die of darkness, terror, grief, and starvation, the wretched victim of a most cruel persecution; she who had so much to live for; youth, health, beauty, and a loving young husband!

Her faltering voice rang out in a despairing prayer:

"Oh, God, have mercy on me, and on my poor unhappy husband and mother, whose hearts I know are aching with grief over my mysterious absence! Oh, send some pitying angel to guide them to my dreary prison!"

As if in answer to the wild aspiration, a key suddenly clicked in the lock outside, and she sprang upright on the cot with a strangling gasp of fear and hope commingled.

Slowly the heavy oaken door swung outward wide enough to admit a tall, dark-gowned figure, then shut inward again, locking Dainty in with the feared and abhorred ghost of the old monk.

In the dim, flickering light of the cell, the horrible figure towered above the girl, who crouched low in breathless fear at the dreaded apparition, speech frozen on her lips, her heart sinking till the blood seemed freezing in her veins, not observing in her alarm that the ghost had a rather prosaic air by reason of carrying a large basket on one arm.

Suddenly the ghastly creature spoke: the first time it had ever opened its lips in all its visitations to Dainty.

"You don't seem glad to see me," it observed, in hoarse, mocking accents that somehow had a familiar ring in her ears.

There flashed over her mind some words that Lovelace Ellsworth had said to her lately:

"I am convinced that the pretended monk is a creature of flesh and blood, and if you could only summon courage to tear away its mask when it calls on you again, you would most likely find beneath it the coarse Sheila Kelly, or very probably one of your malicious cousins. Try it next time, and you will see that I am right, darling."

At sound of that gibing voice, with its oddly familiar ring, a desperate courage came to poor Dainty, and suddenly springing erect on her bed, she made a fierce onslaught on her foe, tearing away in one frantic clutch the ghastly mask, skull-cap, wig, and all, and leaving exposed the astonished features of the coarse Irish woman, Sheila Kelly.

The woman uttered a fierce imprecation in her surprise, recoiling a step, then laughing coarsely:

"What a little wild-cat, to be sure! But why didn't you do it long ago?"

"I never thought of it being you, Sheila Kelly! How could I, when I've seen you lying asleep in my room and the old monk standing by my bed?" faltered Dainty in surprise and bewilderment.

"Och, thin it was Miss Peyton playing the part. Shure, she's as tall as mesilf, and I don't mind satisfyin' yer cur'osity now, seein' as yer'll never git out o' this alive to blow on us!" returned the woman, with cool effrontery.

"What do you mean, Sheila?" cried the young girl in alarm.

"Shure, I mane what I say! Ye're a pris'ner fer life, Miss Dainty Chase, sintenced by yer aunt and cousins to solitary confinement on bread and water till you die—and the sooner you do that last the better they will be pleased!" returned the coarse woman letting down her basket and taking out a glass tumbler, two large bottles of water, some loaves of stale bread, and some of Dainty's clothes, saying, facetiously: "Here's yer duds and yer grub—enough o' both ter last yer a week—and at the end of a week I'll call again with more provisions, miss—and likewise, if you get tired of living in such luxury, here's a bottle of laudanum to pass yer into purgatory," coolly putting it on the only chair the room contained, while Dainty's blue eyes dilated in horror at her fiendish brutality.

"Sheila, Sheila, surely this is some cruel jest! You can not mean to leave me here alone as you say! Oh, what harm have I ever done to you that you treat me so cruelly?" she cried in anguish.

"As for the harrum, none; but I always hated ye from the first time I looked on yer bonny face. As for the raison, 'tis soon towld. I fell in love with the young masther soon's ever he kem home from Yurrup, and I did me best ter make up ter him; but he would none of me. And I seen straight away his heart was wid you, and I hated yer ever since, and forby yer two cousins and t' ould Leddy Ellsworth turned against yer for the same raison, because yer won the masther's heart. So whin they offered ter make me fortune for scaring yer ter death, I was ready and glad ter take the job ter pay off me own score agin ye! So there now, ye see it's small good luck yer pritty face got ye!" concluded the cruel Irish woman, exultantly.

Poor Dainty, gazing into that hard face, felt the utter uselessness of all appeals for mercy. The woman had the heart of a fiend, and was openly glad of her victim's misery.

She determined to appeal to her cupidity, and ventured, timidly:

"If you will only give me my liberty, Sheila, I give you my word of honor Mr. Ellsworth will make you rich."

"Rich, is it? and him a-dying!" grunted Sheila Kelly, indifferently.

"Dying! Oh, what mean you, Sheila? Speak! What has happened to my darling?" shrieked poor Dainty, in wild alarm.

Sheila Kelly shrugged her shoulders, and proceeded to fill the dying lamp with fresh oil from a tin can she had brought in her capacious basket. Then sitting down on the foot of the narrow cot, she began and recounted the events of the morning to her anxious listener, ending with:

"Shure, the mane, murtherin' Ashley is safe in jail, t' ould Leddy Ellsworth, going from one fainting fit ter another, and Masther Lovelace a-laying with ter bullet in his head, niver spakin' a worrud since he was shot, niver opening his eyes, jist a-dying by inches, sez all the docthers."