The Bride of the Tomb, and Queenie's Terrible Secret

"Have done with your foolishness, old man," said Haidee, with an uneasy consciousness of the costly golden brooch and bracelet, lying perdu in her pocket that minute.

"Will you turn your pocket inside out then, and let me see if it is empty?" asked her husband threateningly.

"No, I won't," was the sullen response.

Inflamed with rage and cupidity the old man advanced fiercely upon her, intending to carry out his threat.

But the virago was ready for him. As he was about to pinion her arms down to prevent her resistance, she suddenly thrust her hands into his hair, and clutched its bushy red masses tightly in her long and claw-like fingers.

This done, with a quick and dexterous movement she flourished her arms and brought her husband down groveling on his knees before her.

"So you will pick my pocket, will you, you old villain!" she cried triumphantly.

But she cried victory a moment too soon. As she spoke the words old Peter made a furious lunge forward with his immense head and succeeded in throwing her backward upon the floor, where she lay kicking furiously and waving her hands, in which were tangled great bunches of fiery hair.

The old man immediately followed up his signal success by planting his knees on her chest, and rifling her pocket of its costly contents, while the vanquished wife sent forth wailing cries of rage and grief at the spoliation of her property.

"Oh! yes," cried the old man, holding aloft these spoils of war with one hand, while he vigorously pummelled his wife with the other. "Oh! yes, you have already stripped the woman of her money, and have now commenced on her jewels! Where have you hidden the pile of money? Tell me this minute, before I kill you!"

Receiving no answer but a loud curse he began to rain blows thick and fast on the head and shoulders of his powerless victim, and there is no telling how this conjugal war might have ended had not a loud and continued knocking on the door startled the furious belligerents.

"Get up," shrieked the vanquished, rejoicing at this diversion in her favor. "Get up and open the door! Someone has been knocking these ten minutes past."

Old Peter obeyed this mandate reluctantly, shambling off and carefully pocketing the jewels as he went, while Haidee rose and straightened her disordered dress, and picked up her cap, which had been torn off in the furious melee.

"Now, then," said Doctor Pratt, entering, attended by Harold Colville, "what is the matter here? I never heard such a furious racket in my life! Have you two been fighting?"

"Only having a friendly knock-about by way of exercise, sir," answered old Peter, with a hideous grin at his conquered opponent, who had received a black eye and a swollen face for her portion of the friendly contest, while he himself had not escaped scatheless, as he bore several bloody scratches on his face, and sundry bites on his large red hands that testified to the efficacy of her teeth and finger nails.

"What was the cause of your quarrel?" inquired Mr. Colville, curiously.

"It was of no moment," answered Haidee, with a warning glance at her old man; but Peter's fighting blood was up and he did not heed her caution. He proceeded to explain by way of revenge on his angry spouse.

"It was all along of a fine lady, doctor, that Haidee is holding a secret against, and getting lots of money from on account of it, which she refuses to share, either the money or the secret, with her poor old husband."

"Who is the lady, and what secret have you got against her?" inquired Doctor Pratt, looking sternly at her.

"It is no concern of yours, doctor," was the sullen reply.

"Her name was Mrs. Vance," said Peter, taking a malicious joy in circumventing old Haidee.

"Good Heavens," said Doctor Pratt, remembering how incautiously he had talked to Colville about the widow in Haidee's presence. "Why, you she-devil, is it possible you have been trading upon the suspicions you heard me breathe about the woman?"

The old witch would not answer, but Peter, taking on himself the role of spokesman, replied for her:

"I can't tell you where she got suspicions or her information, sir, but she has certainly made a good bit by her knowledge, for she has gathered in all the lady's money, and now begins to strip her of her jewels. Fine ladies don't part with things like these until all their money has gone the same gait," said he, holding up the brooch and the jeweled serpent whose emerald eyes glared like living ones.

"It's a lie—I've only had money of her once," said old Haidee fiercely. "She is a poor woman, and has nothing to pay with."

"How did you gain your information, Peter, if, as you say, your wife would not share her secret with you?" inquired Doctor Pratt, trembling with rage against Haidee.

"The lady followed her home to-day to make arrangements for coming here the next time to pay another installment of hush-money. Haidee had been going there on some pretext of peddling lace, I think, but the lady was afraid to have her come to her house again, and promised to meet her here."

"My God!" said the physician, growing white with fear and rage. "Mrs. Vance here—in this house only to-day. Haidee, you shall repent this!"

"I have not betrayed any of your secrets, doctor—I was only making a little money for myself, and no harm done," said the old witch, beginning to grow apologetic.

"No matter, you must never go there again, nor suffer her to come here. If you do I swear I will murder you! Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir," was the sulky answer.

"And you promise to do as I bid you?"

"I promise."

"Very well, then. See that you keep your word. And you, Peter, let me know if she dares to disobey my injunction. And let the matter rest also yourself. If either of you approach Mrs. Vance again, I swear you shall pay a heavy penalty for your temerity!"

"Your prisoner, Haidee—is she safe?" inquired Harold Colville, growing impatient of the delay.

"She is, sir," was the answer.

"The key then—we wish to visit her," said Colville; whereupon he and Doctor Pratt both arose and made their way to Lily's room.

CHAPTER XIX

Lily Lawrence sat alone in the same room in which she had first been incarcerated when in her cataleptic state she had been brought to this house of captivity. Peter Leveret had made the window secure again, and she had been removed here the day after her recapture in her father's hall by Colville.

Consequently she had had no means of ascertaining whether or not the miserable wife of Colville still survived.

She thought it more than likely that the poor creature was dead and beyond all suffering which the vindictive spirit of old Haidee might still inflict upon her while a spark of life remained in her body.

A profound sympathy and regret for poor Fanny's wretched fate, mixed up with Lily's deep solicitude for herself, added to the melancholy air which began to overshadow her like a cloud.

It is a month since we have seen her and she has changed greatly since that time.

Her jailers have strictly carried out Colville's injunction to allow her nothing but bread and water, and the result is plainly seen in an added frailty of face and form.

As she sits in the old arm-chair with her small head thrown wearily back, she looks almost too transparently pale and pure for an inhabitant of earth.

The blue veins show plainly as they wander beneath the white skin, the blue eyes look larger and darker by contrast with the purple shadows beneath them, the once rounded cheeks are thin and hollow.

Even the lips, once so rosy and smiling with their arch dimpled corners, have taken on an expression of pain and endurance pitiful to see in one so young and fair.

The small white hands, growing thin and weak, are listlessly folded across her lap, while she looks wearily at the smouldering ashes of a fire that had been kindled on the hearth that morning, for the September mornings are chilly and the girl's enfeebled frame feels cold keenly.

Thus the two confederates found her when, after a premonitory rap, they unlocked the door and entered. She looked up and her white face blanched still whiter at their presence, but beyond that she took no notice save in a fixed and slightly scornful curl of the lip.

"I trust that I find you well, Miss Lawrence," said her suitor, with an air of devotion.

"Is it possible I should feel well after subsisting for a month on bread and water?" asked the girl, in a languid voice of unutterable contempt.

"Lily, forgive me, but you force me to adopt these stringent measures. It is my love that drives me thus to extremes in hope of forcing your consent at last. Oh! why will you not relent and make yourself comfortable, and me the happiest of men?" cried Colville, imploringly, as he tried to take her hand in his own. But she drew it away with a gesture of contempt and repugnance to his touch and he desisted. Dr. Pratt withdrew to the window and appeared to ignore the conversation.

"Lily," continued Colville, seeing that she made no motion of replying, "you have now had a month for contemplation and sober reflection. Surely you have profited by the thoughts that must have assailed you in that time. Do you now consent to become my wife?"

"Mr. Colville, I have not changed my mind at all," replied Lily, coldly and firmly.

"But come, now, my dear girl," urged Colville, who had been persuaded by Dr. Pratt to try a little kind persuasion instead of such violent threatenings; "come, now, my dear girl, why should you persist in your first ill-considered rejection of my suit? Look at the matter calmly and dispassionately, and weigh all the advantages in my favor. I am not a bad-looking man, nor an old man. I have a splendid income and I love you to distraction. I would spend all my life in making you happy. This is your one chance of happiness. On the other hand there is nothing but captivity and starvation. Were it not better to become my wife?"

"No!" answered Lily, firmly.

"You are very candid, at least, if not very flattering," said Colville, bitterly.

Lily regarded him sadly and calmly. She could pity him when he showed some sign of feeling. She only hated and feared him when he descended to abuse and threatening.

"Mr. Colville," said she, in her soft, flute-like voice, "I am very sorry for you if you love me as you say you do. I pity you from my heart, but if I yielded to your wish and became your wife I could bring you no happiness. I do not love you, and I should hate you then for the means you used to win me. Oh! believe me, your persistence is unwise and foolish. Let me go away from here, I beg you, to my home and my friends. I will not betray your complicity in my abduction. I will suffer you and your friend there to invent whatever plausible tale you please, and I will try to palm it off on my friends for the truth. See, I bear you no malice for the cruelty and injustice I have suffered at your hands. I am willing to forgive you everything if you will but restore my freedom!"

"You waste your breath in such appeals, Lily—I will never let you go!" said Colville, inflexibly.

"Oh! I beseech you do not kill me with such refusals," cried Lily, wildly. She slipped from her chair and knelt before him, clasping her fragile white hands in an agony of appeal, and lifting her wan, white face imploringly. "See, I kneel to you. My spirit is broken, my pride is humbled in the dust; I am starving, dying here. I beg you for the poor boon of my liberty and life!"

He stood still with folded arms regarding her as she knelt, while a cold and cruel smile curled the corners of his thin lips. Her pitiful appeal made no impression on him; he was not moved by the sight of her fragile face and hands, wasted into pallor and wanness through his cruelty. His answer fell on her quivering nerves as cruelly as the lash cuts into human flesh.

"Kneel, if it relieves your feelings, but do not suppose that your humility can weaken my resolution, which is as fixed as adamant. And hear me now, proud girl, and remember that I mean what I say. I shall yet give you time to change your mind. I am merciful to you because I love you. But if time does not weaken your perversity, so surely as I live I will make you repent your obstinacy. The time will come when you will kneel to me more prayerfully than you now do, and implore me to marry you and save your honor!"

"Never!" she cried, springing to her feet and waving her white hands aloft like some beautiful, inspired prophetess. "Never! Before that day comes I will die by my own hand! And, Harold Colville, while you exult in your wickedness, remember that there is a God above who punishes the guilty for their evil deeds. Nemesis shall yet overtake you—it is written!"

"Come, come, Miss Lawrence, you overrate your strength by this senseless ranting," said Doctor Pratt, coming forward and reseating her with gentle force. "Remember, you are very weak. You have never fully recovered from the effects of your wound and your subsequent fast during the cataleptic state that succeeded it. Illness and deprivation have sapped your strength and dimmed your beauty until there will soon be nothing left of the fairness that now holds Mr. Colville's heart. Believe me, your wisest course is to yield now, marry Mr. Colville, and set about the restoration of your health by travel, recreation and generous living. A few more months of this reckless obstinacy will break down your constitution irrevocably."

"I thank you for that assurance," she answered, exultingly. "Perhaps death will come to me of his own accord, and save me from the sin of taking my own life and sending my soul, trembling and uncalled, before its dread Creator!"

"You do not mean what you say, Miss Lawrence. You are too young and lovely to welcome death. Life holds many attractions for you even as the wife of the despised Mr. Colville."

"I do not think so," she answered, briefly.

"Well, well, your mind will change perhaps; and in that laudable desire we will take leave of you for awhile," said the doctor, turning off with a sardonic bow.

"And do me the favor of never returning," said Lily, angrily. "You can never change my decision, and if I am doomed to wear out the remnant of my days here, let me at least be spared the sight of your hated faces again!"

"You ask too much," said Colville, airily. "Captives are not permitted to make their own conditions, or select their visitors. Adieu, obdurate fair one."

His gaze lingered on her a moment, noting her beauty and grace which still shone pre-eminent, though her beautiful coloring was all faded and gone, and she looked like a picture looked at by moonlight alone with all the bright tints of daylight invisible. Loving her for her beauty, and hating her for her scorn, he went away, but carried the picture in his heart, at once a joy and a torment, for his conscience could not but reproach him for the change that was so sadly visible in her fragile, drooping form.

Lily remained sitting motionless in her chair, lost in painful revery, until twilight filled the room with shadows. The room grew chilly, and she shivered now and then in her thin dress, but she never stirred until old Haidee entered with a light and supper, the latter consisting of a scanty portion of dry bread and a pitcher of water. Lily cast a glance of loathing upon the food and turned away. Her weak appetite could not relish the dry bread, and it often was taken away untasted.

"Haidee, I wish you would light a fire," said she, shivering in the chilly atmosphere. "The night is cool, and I am very thinly clad."

"There will be no fire to-night," said Haidee, curtly. "If you are cold go to bed and cover up under the bed-clothes."

"At least bring me a shawl to wrap about my shoulders," pleaded the girl.

"Not a rag," retorted the old woman, whose sharp temper was even more acid than usual to-night on account of her rencontre that evening.

"Does Mr. Colville wish me to suffer from cold as well as hunger?" inquired Lily, bitterly.

"I wish it whether he does or not!" answered Haidee, viciously.

"What noise was that I heard this evening?" inquired Lily, looking curiously at the old woman. "I was very much frightened by a succession of screams and oaths as if people were fighting—ah, and now that I look at you, Haidee, I see that there is something the matter with your face."

"Old Peter whipped me, if you must know the truth," snapped the witch.

"Whipped you!" said Lily, with an incredulous look; "oh, no, he would not whip his wife, would he?"

"Yes, he would, and did," retorted Haidee, with a grim sort of smile, as if she took a certain sort of pride in Peter's ferocity. "Oh, we think nothing of a rough-and-tumble fight now and then. Sometimes I get the better of him, sometimes he overpowers me, but it's often an even thing. Old Peter is a ferocious one, I can tell you. If you had knocked him down as you did me the time you escaped, he would have killed you when they brought you back."

Lily shuddered at this intimation of Peter's cruelty.

"Haidee, I did not mean to hurt you that day," said she, earnestly. "I would not hurt the meanest thing that lives if I could help it. I only pushed you to throw you off your balance, so that I might get away."

"You had better eat your supper," said Haidee, not caring to recall that day, for she still harbored a furious resentment against the girl on the score of it, and often felt tempted to wreak revenge upon her. "You had better eat your supper, for old Peter will be angry with you if you keep him waiting outside the door so long."

"Take the bread away. I cannot eat any to-night," answered Lily, with a hopeless sigh.

CHAPTER XX

The autumn sunlight fell goldenly on the handsome face and form of Lancelot Darling as he stood on the broad marble steps of the grand hotel where he boarded, his glance roving carelessly up and down the crowded street.

Our hero was that rara avis whose species is almost extinct at the present day—a young man of wealth and fashion, yet totally unspoiled by the flattery and adulation of the world.

Carefully raised by judicious parents, whom he had unhappily lost by death in the dawn of manhood, he had been shielded from many temptations that would have assailed one less carefully guarded than this only and beloved child of fond and doting parental care.

Enjoying the possession of an almost princely fortune, which precluded the need of work, one would have thought him liable to be whirled into the maelstrom of vice and dissipation, and engulfed in its fatal whirlpool forever.

But such was not the case. He was only twenty-three when he met and loved the beautiful Lily Lawrence, and her love had been to him a talisman and safeguard against evil.

Even now, amid the total wreck of all his hopes, and the despair that filled his own being, he was no less the pure-hearted man and perfect gentleman than when the happiness of Lily's love had crowned his life with bliss.

As he stood there on the marble steps he did not note the many admiring glances that fell on him from passers-by—the appreciative looks of women whose gaze lingered on the tall, elegant figure and handsome face, nor the approving nod of men who, while they made no endeavor to reach his lofty standard, could yet admire him as a gentleman "sans peur et sans reproche."

While he stood thus abstracted a boy approached, and placing in his hand a delicate envelope, scented with heliotrope, turned away.

Lancelot turned the envelope in his hand for a moment in some surprise, for the writing was unfamiliar. In a moment he tore it open, however, and read these few lines on the perfumed sheet:

"My Dear Friend:—I enclose a list of some new songs which I wish to try. Will you do me the favor to select them for me, and bring them up this afternoon?

"Yours faithfully,"Ethel Vance."

This was a bold move on the part of the fascinating widow. She knew perfectly well that she could have sent the boy to a music store and secured the songs at less trouble than by entrusting the commission to Lancelot Darling.

The young man was aware of the fact also; but in the integrity of his own heart he suspected no art in her, and made an excuse for her in his mind.

"How tender-hearted she is," he thought. "She knows how wretched and forlorn I am, and charitably devises schemes for drawing me away from my gloomy retrospections, and cheering me with her gentle society."

Thus thinking Lancelot turned away and proceeded to execute the widow's commission. And punctually he appeared at Mr. Lawrence's drawing-room that afternoon.

The artful woman was alone, and rose to greet him with a beaming smile of welcome.

She had laid aside her usual dress of half mourning, and appeared in a becoming costume of costly black velvet and cream-colored brocade, profusely trimmed with rich lace. Diamonds twinkled in her ears and on her breast, and a bunch of vivid scarlet roses was fastened in the jetty braids of her beautiful hair.

"It is so kind of you to come," she said, pressing his hand in her soft, pink palm as he bowed before her. "Ada has gone riding with her father, and I am very lonely."

"It is not much kindness on my part," said he, bluntly: "for I am aware that I am not very cheerful company for anyone these days. I only came because you asked me."

"And not at all that you wished to see me," said she, with a very becoming pout of her rich, red lip.

"Oh, pardon my rudeness," said Lance, contritely. "You know I did not mean that. Of course I like to see you. You are very kind to me always. I meant that I would not presume to inflict my sad countenance and heavy heart upon you unless you insisted I should do so."

"You are very sad, certainly," answered she, with a pensive air. "Indeed, I sometimes wonder, Lance, that the natural light-heartedness of youth does not begin to assert itself within you. It is almost five months since your bereavement, and we do not grieve forever for the dead."

"Do we not?" he asked, with a heavy sigh. "Ah, Mrs. Vance, my grief does not lessen with time. My love was deeper than a common love, and my regret will be eternal!"

"That is all romantic nonsense," she answered, impatiently. "It is not the nature of any human creature to cherish the memory of one dead forever. 'Men's hearts crave tangible, close tenderness; love's presence warm and near.' You will be happy again, Lance, and you will love again."

"You judge me wrongly, Mrs. Vance, and under-rate the constancy of a heart like mine. You used a quotation just now, Permit me to reply with another one."

In a voice like saddest music he repeated those exquisite lines from Leigh Hunt:

"The world buds every year,But the heart, just once, and whenThe blossom falls off sere,No new blossom comes again.Ah! the rose goes with the windBut the thorns remain behind!"

"Your poetry reminds me of the new songs," said she, dropping the argument. "It was very kind of you to bring them. Will you come to the piano and turn the leaves while I try them?"

"Certainly," he answered, rising and attending her.

It was the hardest thing she could have asked of him, but Lance was very unselfish. He put down the throb of pain that rose at the remembrance of the new songs he and Lily had been wont to practice at the same piano, and turned the leaves with a steady hand while her fingers flew over the keys. But one thing she had asked more than once. It was that he should sing with her. This he always quietly declined to do.

"That is rude of you," she would say, in a voice of chagrin. "Your tenor is so perfectly splendid, why should you refuse?"

"I shall never sing again," he would answer, quietly but firmly, and no persuasion on her part could induce him to change his mind.

It was agony for him to stand there and turn the leaves, looking down upon that dark head instead of the golden one he had been wont to gaze upon so fondly. When the face was lifted with a smile to his, and instead of Lily's soft, blue eyes he met the gaze of the black ones, his heart thrilled with pain. Perhaps she guessed it, but she kept him there all the same, thinking that time would blunt the keenness of his remembrance and teach him to adore the brunette as fondly as he had loved the blonde.

She played at him, she sung at him, lifting her passionate glance to his whenever some appropriate sentiment in the song seemed to warrant such expressiveness. Lance never dreamed of the reason for her pantomime. He had seen the same thing practiced by ladies in society. He deemed it a harmless kind of flirting, but never thought of responding to it.