Kathleen's Diamonds; or, She Loved a Handsome Actor

"I could have been a better woman if he had been kind to me—if he would but have promised to try to love me!" she muttered, angrily. "But how fast he hurried away, as if he despised me. How I wish I could hate him in return—hate him as I hate his dark-eyed love! It is for her he scorns me. Oh, God! for vengeance on them both!"

CHAPTER XLVII.

A TERRIBLE CRIME

"Deep and dark the flowing river,Close to the feet like a serpent glides;Many a secret lost foreverThe deep and beautiful water hides!"

Our Kathleen did not share the wakefulness of her relative.

On the contrary, a strange drowsiness stole over her as soon as she entered the shabby little bedroom to which Mrs. Franklyn conducted her with such alacrity.

"Get a good rest, that's a dear! and in the morning you shall see them all," she said, wheedlingly; and giving Kathleen a cold little kiss on the cheek, she retreated, leaving her guest alone.

Kathleen flung off her clothes, shivering in the fireless room, slipped into her gown, and crept between the sheets, murmuring over her prayers in the bed because it was too cold outside. Then, with the tears still wet on her lashes, she fell into a heavy slumber.

Presently the door opened again noiselessly, and the old woman's head was thrust inside the room. She gave a low grunt of satisfaction as she heard the deep breathing of Kathleen, and closed the door.

Silence again in the old house; but if any one had been listening they would have heard outside, in the chilly night, the stamp of the horses that had brought the uncle and niece to this place. The cab was waiting yet. Why, and for whom?

The night was intensely dark, it was freezing cold, and the driver did not have to wait long.

The door opened softly in a little while, and a man and a woman stole out bearing between them a figure wrapped up in a long cloak. They pushed their dead or living burden, whichever it was, into the cab, entered themselves, and were driven a long distance, until the low murmur of a river rushing between its banks was distinctly heard. At a quiet, unfrequented spot they came to a stop; the two people got out again, and carried their burden to the river-bank; then there was a thud, a splash, and then they turned away, their arms empty of the load they had brought. In the silence and darkness of the wintry night a terrible crime had been committed.

Alas! poor Kathleen, poor orphan-girl, the sport of a most malignant fate! Heaven help thee now, drifting upon the dark, mysterious waves of the gloomy river, beneath the pall of the ink-black heavens, unlighted by either moon or star!

Meanwhile, the old man, locked into his room like a rat in a trap, was bending all his feeble efforts toward releasing himself.

He feared to make an outcry, for he comprehended instinctively that treachery lurked in the air of the old house, with its forbidding mistress—treachery and danger to himself and helpless Kathleen.

He sunk back helplessly upon the bed, at first shaken and unnerved by his terrible suspicions. Sweeping his hand across his brow, he muttered:

"My door was locked on the outside by design to bar me out from my child—my bonny Kathleen. What have they done to her? or what are they going to do?"

He crept cautiously to the window and pushed up the sash. Horrors! it was barred across with iron as closely as a prison; and again he fell to raving of treachery and danger.

"That woman was not Mrs. Franklyn. I did not believe at first that it could be poor Zaidee's mother. She could not have changed so much in seventeen years, I knew; yet I could not speak out then, lest I betray myself. I thought I would wait for the developments of to-morrow. Alas! it was a fatal resolve. We were decoyed here by the trick of some deadly enemy, and every moment that I remain locked up here Kathleen is in the most deadly peril. God in Heaven help me to escape, that I may succor my poor child!"

Desperate with fears for Kathleen, he threw himself against the door and shook it with all his might. The sounds rang through the house, but no one came to release him. He shrieked aloud, but no voice replied to his frantic calls.

In his misery an awful suspicion had come to him.

He remembered Kathleen's threat to Ivan Belmont, that she would send him to prison unless she received the value of her stolen diamonds.

What if that villain had laid a deadly trap to decoy Kathleen to this place and murder her to save himself the payment of that pitiful sum! This affair looked like it. Perhaps she was already murdered—his beautiful Kathleen, that he loved so dearly, and whom he had brought here in his mistaken eagerness to get her away from Boston.

Searching frantically about, he perceived with joy an old rusty poker beneath the iron fender of the fire-place. He seized it, and with the strength of a madman wrenched the lock from the door. It flew open. He was free.

Then ensued the most piteous search the world ever knew—the old man's frantic search for missing Kathleen.

It was all in vain. The old house was empty, the girl was gone, the old woman was gone, and the night-wind, as it sighed around the gables of the lonely old house, did not whisper to him of the awful secret the river hid.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

"KATHLEEN HAS MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARED."

'Tis strange to think if we could fling asideThe mask and mantle that love wears from pride,How much would be we now so little guess,Deep in each heart's undreamed, unsought recess.L. E. L.

Ralph Chainey waited in cruel suspense for an answer to the appealing letter he had sent to Kathleen.

But long days passed and no letter came from his heart's love. Then he saw the announcement in a morning paper that she had gone away with her uncle to visit her Southern relatives.

"Cruel girl! she has gone without a word or sign. She hates me indeed, and will never forgive my boyhood's folly," he groaned, despairingly.

The first shock of pain and disappointment was so great that he could scarcely bear it. He thought vaguely of suicide, wondered which would be the easier way out of life—the dagger, the bullet, poison, or the river. Shakespeare's words came to him:

"Oh, that the Everlasting had not fixedHis canon 'gainst self-slaughter! Oh, God! Oh, God!How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitableSeem to me all the uses of this world."

He got up suddenly and shook himself with fierce self-scorn.

"God forgive me for these wild thoughts!" he cried. "No, I can not be such a coward! He is a coward who takes his own life because he can not bear its ills. I must remember that I have a dear little mother to live for, even though the hope of love and happiness be gone forever."

But life was cruel. He longed to get away somewhere—far away from the place where everything breathed of her, his cruel, beautiful love, and he decided that as soon as he secured his divorce he would go abroad and seek forgetfulness in constant travel.

Meanwhile, a sorrowful little note came to him from Alpine, praying him to forget her folly, or at least to keep it secret.

"I should die of shame if I believed any one knew but you," she wrote. "But you are so good and great, you can forgive me. Perhaps things like that have happened to you before. I should not wonder. Then do not exclude me from your friendship, I pray you. Forget that one mad moment, and think kindly of me as you did before.

"Your true friend,"Alpine."

With the letter was a little perfumed sheet on which were written some sweet, sad verses that touched his heart:

"THE FAREWELL"Ah, yes! I can bid you farewell and forever,No more will I think thy affection to claim,And hope for thy heart's love again will I never,Since now I have found that it lives but in name."That dream of my life I too fondly have cherished,Till now I have bitterly wept o'er my woe;And hope from my bosom has withered and perishedWhen made the cold blight of desertion to know."My way is all dark as it spreads out before me,And gloomy and sad I must wander alone;Fain wishing for some fatal blast to sweep o'er meTo still my heart's beating and silence its moan."But far as I wander the wide world will dream notThe wounds in my heart that I strive to conceal;And those who best know me and love me will dream notThe deep crushing sorrow alone that I feel."I can not forget thee; where'er I shall wanderThy image as bright shall abide with me yet;And though I may roam like the far-speeding condor,And though thou hast bid me, I can not forget."Go thou and be happy; my last, fondest blessingShall be upon him that I once loved so well;And though my heart break at the thought so distressing,Oh go and be happy! I bid thee farewell."

Ralph read the verses penned in Alpine's hand with deep emotion, but it was not of her, it was of another he thought. The sweet, sorrowful strain seemed to express his feelings toward his lost Kathleen.

"Lost to me forever!" he sighed, bitterly. "Teddy Darrell, the boyish flirt, who roves from one beauty to another, like a butterfly from flower to flower, will win and wear the peerless rose, beautiful Kathleen. He is not worthy of her, for he has frittered his heart away in a score of passions, while mine has aye been true to her since first we met."

He could not help hating the fortunate Teddy because he had won Kathleen; and Teddy, who was a versatile youth, envied him, in his turn, his genius and his fame, and was fired with the desire of becoming a great actor. He was always dabbling at some new fad; but Mrs. Stone, who understood him thoroughly, declared that Teddy would never accomplish anything great unless he should lose his fortune and have to work for his living.

It was lonesome for Teddy the first few days after Kathleen went away, and he was fain to console himself with some of his old sweethearts. While pursuing this diversion with the usual alacrity of a young man whose sweetheart is away, he met a new girl who proved "quite a bonanza," as he confided to Mrs. Stone.

"Saw her at Maude Sylvester's. By the way, Maude's novel, 'A Blinding Passion,' is having quite a success, don't you know? Well, as I was saying, this girl, Mittie Poindexter, is a real daisy, and suits me down to the ground—talks about going on the stage."

"Kathleen would be jealous if she could hear how you run on!" his cousin exclaimed, warningly.

"Not a bit!" he replied, his frank brow clouding with vexation. "To tell you the truth, Carrie, I don't believe she loves me in the least; it's only gratitude that made her promise to be mine. Only think, now, Carrie: she has been gone three days, and not one line to me, although I've written her two letters a day. Why, don't you know, that week I went to New York I began a letter to her as soon as the train started, and, by Jove! I mailed it at the first station. I'm ashamed to think of all the spoony letters I wrote that girl in one week, and—only one little note in return for all!"

Mrs. Stone could not help laughing at his half-injured air.

"Well, never mind. You have a special talent for letter-writing, you know, and Kathleen detests writing; she told me so. That accounts for her failure to write oftener," she began, soothingly; but just then the door-bell rang a resounding peal, and she started up in dismay.

"What a deafening ring! Maybe that's the postman now. No, it is too early for him. What is it, Mary? Oh, a telegram! Open it, please, Teddy. Those things always startle us women folks so."

His handsome face paled to an ashen hue, and his lips trembled as he read.

It was a telegram from Richmond, and contained these startling words:

"Ask Mr. Darrell to join me here at once, if possible. Kathleen has mysteriously disappeared under circumstances that hint of foul play.

"Benjamin Carew."

"Kathleen gone! Oh, Heaven! my little darling!" groaned the young man, forgetting all about his new fancy in real grief and dismay.

Mrs. Stone burst into tears, and for a few minutes one could not comfort the other.

But women are more quick-witted than men, and Mrs. Stone, who knew nothing about Ivan Belmont and the diamonds, quickly leaped to a conclusion.

"Those asylum people—the fools!—have captured her again, and carried her off to their old prison!" she exclaimed, brightening and wiping away her tears. "Cheer up, Teddy. No harm can happen your little sweetheart, except another detention at the lunatic asylum, and you and her uncle can soon have her out when you find out exactly where the place is situated."

Her idea was so plausible that Teddy brightened up under its influence and prepared to take leave.

"I must go on the first train," he said, as he kissed his cousin good-bye after the affectionate way he affected with all his female relatives who had the slightest claim to good looks.

The news spread rapidly, and Helen Fox, arriving the next day from Europe, was shocked at the calamity that had overtaken her friend. The news that Kathleen lived had thrilled her with joy, and hastened her return from abroad.

That was not all the news that shocked her, for she soon became acquainted with Ralph Chainey's pathetic story.

Helen was a frank, far-seeing girl, but she could not understand the strange turn matters had taken during her absence. The next day after her return she told her brother George to bring Ralph Chainey home to luncheon.

"I have been dying to see you ever since I got back," she said to him, frankly, her blue eyes beaming with the kindness of her heart. "Now tell me everything!"

Luncheon was over, and they were alone in the cozy library together. Helen looked sympathetically at the unhappy young man, remembering how, such a little time ago, she had plotted in her loving fashion to bring about a match between him and her bonny Kathleen. He comprehended her sympathy, and opened his full heart to her with all its pain and anguish.

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE FRANKLYNS AT LAST!

I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curledAbove the green elms that a cottage was nearAnd I said, "If there's peace to be found in the world,A heart that was humble might hope for it here."Thomas Moore.

River Cottage was one of the prettiest spots on the banks of the James, and so far away from any other habitation that it was lonely to the last degree; yet embowered in trees and vines and flowers, and lulled by the murmuring voice of the majestic river, its inhabitants were so happy and content that they did not pine for the world that at a little distance surged busily around them. The family consisted of but two—Mrs. Franklyn, a lovely old woman somewhat past fifty, and her grandson, a youth of twenty-three years. Here at River Cottage they lived quietly together on a modest competency, the woman with her sad face and dreamy eyes absorbed altogether in dreams of her past and in tender care for Chester, the blue-eyed boy under whose crown of yellow curls throbbed the restless brain of a genius that was beginning to express itself in dainty bits of verse—the first callow flights of ambition.

The boy was restless. Genius was beginning to burn. Sometimes he walked the floor for hours while the midnight oil burned on his study table. At times he loved to walk on the banks of the river, setting his beautiful thoughts to the music of its melodious rhythm. On that dark, cold night Chester had wandered from the cottage porch down to the river's edge, and so he caught with startled ears the sound of that sullen splash into the waves—caught the sound, and scarce a minute later saw, with keen eyes strained into the gloom, a body floating in the river past the cottage.

"A suicide!" he muttered, in a voice of horror.

The next minute he threw off his coat and shoes and plunged into the stream.

It was a brave deed, and sometimes in the anguished months that came afterward Chester wondered if he would have risked so much could he but have known all that was to follow on this night—the full draught of life's chalice filled to the brim with love and pain that he was to quaff. But no presentiment of the future came to him now as he struggled in the almost freezing waves until he caught and held the form drifting rapidly from him, and by almost superhuman efforts drew it with him to the shore.

Mrs. Franklyn always dwelt with loving pride on that night when the cottage door was pushed open and her brave boy staggered in with his unconscious burden, both of them dripping water upon her pretty ingrain carpet, and Chester faltered weakly:

"I—I have saved—some one—from the river!" Then he fell upon the floor, too exhausted to utter another word.

Mrs. Franklyn did not look at the stranger at first. She hastened to revive Chester by pouring some wine between his pale lips and chattering teeth. As soon as he could he sat up, saying, anxiously:

"There, grandma! I'm all right. See about the woman, please."

And then they found that the woman he had rescued was a young girl—the most beautiful golden-haired young creature they had ever beheld. When they had used some little effort at restoring her to consciousness, she opened on their faces a pair of large, dark, wondering eyes, at whose gaze Chester Franklyn's romantic heart leaped up in a sort of ecstasy. He stooped down, almost unconsciously, and pressed his lips to her icy little hand, carried out of himself by some strange, delicious emotion he could not resist.

Tears started to Mrs. Franklyn's eyes as she busied herself about the patient, who did not answer one word when she spoke to her, but lay watching her face with dazed, uncomprehending eyes. The good lady sent Chester up to his room to put on dry garments, and brought some of her own for the strange young girl thrown upon her care.

She supposed that this was an attempted suicide, and wondered what terrible sorrow had driven this beautiful young girl to self-destruction.

She ventured to ask the patient the question, but Kathleen seemed dazed as yet, and did not comprehend anything very clearly. She answered to every question that was asked her a feeble: "I don't know."

"I must wait until she gets better," was her thought; and she put Kathleen to bed, carefully spreading out her long gold curls over the pillow to dry. Soon the girl fell asleep, and then Mrs. Franklyn turned down the lamp and slipped away to ask Chester all about it.

He could tell her nothing but that he had heard the dull thud of her body striking the water, and that he jumped into the river to save her. He believed it was a suicide, as he had heard no sound or cry.

"Some poor girl, perhaps, who can not make an honest living and has sought death in her despair," he said, and the gentle lady agreed with him.

"We will keep her here until she gets well and strong, and then we will see how we can help her out of her trouble," she added, kindly.

"Yes, we will take care of her," cried Chester Franklyn, eagerly. "It may be she has some deadly enemies from whom she sought to escape in that terrible fashion. We will say nothing of her being here until she herself tells us what to do."

When the morrow dawned Kathleen was ill with a low fever, and so it chanced that while her friends were frantic with anxiety over her fate, Kathleen lay passive in the river cottage, carefully watched by Mrs. Franklyn, who wondered much over her mysterious guest.

"So young and beautiful; and she can not be a poor girl, for her clothing is of the finest quality," Mrs. Franklyn said to her grandson. "Perhaps there are people who are anxious over her fate. Do you think we ought to let it be known through the papers?" she added.

"No, not yet. Let us wait till she gets well and tells us what to do," he replied.

Chester Franklyn had fallen in love at first sight with the beautiful creature whose life he had saved. He was afraid that some one would take her away from him if he let her presence be known.

"Let me have my chance first," he said to himself, with all the selfish ardor of a young lover.

It seemed strange that Kathleen lay passive so long after the fever left her, without seeming to take any interest in anything. They asked her her name; they asked her where her home was, and how she came to be in the river. To everything she answered dreamily:

"I do not know."

They did not know that before Kathleen had been thrown into the river she had swallowed with her food a potent drug intended to produce death. It was entirely owing to the small quantity of food she had taken that she survived at all, but the strange drug had partially paralyzed her faculties. Memory was dormant, or returned in such faint gleams that it threw no light on her present state.

She knew that two beautiful, kindly faces—a woman's old but strangely lovely, and a young man's with deep blue eyes and curls of gold—bent daily over her pillow. She watched them eagerly, she smiled at them faintly and sweetly, but so numb were her reasoning faculties that she did not wonder at their presence there. She was utterly quiescent.

Mrs. Franklyn became alarmed, fearing the girl was an idiot, but Chester was indignant at the very idea.

"She has had some shock; that is it," he said. "Be patient, grandma. She will come to herself."

It was strange how his heart went out to the girl, who lay so silently on the pillow all day, looking up at him with dark, inscrutable eyes, like an infant's in their wondering expression.

In a week she seemed stronger. She could sit up in an easy-chair. She even talked a little, but it was just about things that she saw in the room—books, pictures, flowers. She would say, softly:

"How sweet! How pretty!"

At last she was strong enough to walk about the room.

"Grandma, I think she would like it better in the parlor," said Chester, one day. He took her hand and led her into a pretty, cozy apartment.

CHAPTER L.

"SHE WAS MY MOTHER."

"Sweet face, sweet eyes, and gleamingSun-gifted, mingling hair;Lips like two rosebuds dreamingIn June's fruit-scented air."

Kathleen sat down in front of a bright coal fire, and leaned her curly head back against the easy-chair. In doing so, her upraised eyes encountered over the mantel the picture of a young girl done in water colors. It was a life-size head and bust, and represented a beautiful young creature with rosy cheeks, pouting lips, dark-blue eyes, and curly golden hair. The expression of the face was piquant and spirited, and greatly resembled Kathleen's own.

Kathleen gazed with startled eyes at this beautiful picture, and gasped, faintly:

"Who is it?"

She was alone with Chester, and as he looked up she saw a shadow of pain cloud his dark-blue eyes.

Drawing his chair close to hers, he half-whispered:

"She was my cousin. She has been dead many years."

"Her name?" exclaimed Kathleen, excitedly, and he lifted a warning hand.

"Not so loud. Grandma might hear," he said; then, answering the puzzled look in her eyes, he added, softly:

"It was grandma's youngest child—her only daughter, and she met such a tragic fate that it nearly broke her mother's heart. Even now she can not bear to talk of her. We never speak her name, because it makes our hearts ache."

"It was Zaidee—Zaidee Franklyn," murmured the girl.

"How did you know?" in astonishment.

"No matter. Tell me all about her," answered Kathleen, whose memory had returned to her as by a flash of lightning at sight of that lovely face.

"There is little to tell," he replied. "My poor cousin's story is short and tragic, like her life. My grandmother had but two children, a son and a daughter. The son, my father, died years ago, but Zaidee, his petted young sister, died years before—died, alas! by her own hand."

She shivered like one in a chill, and he said:

"Was it not horrible? She was so young, so lovely, and she had everything, it seemed, to make her happy. But this is her story: When she was barely sixteen, a rich man from Boston married her and took her away from her simple home to his grand, rich one. She loved her handsome husband very dearly, and seemed to be wildly happy. Her people did not hear from her often, but she sent this picture and many gifts to her mother. In a year she had a little daughter, but she did not invite grandma to go and see the child. Vincent Carew was rich and great, and very proud, so the Franklyns believed that he was trying to break his young wife off entirely from her past. The Franklyns were proud, too, in their way. They resented it; and so the communication between the two families almost ceased, until, suddenly, like a clap of thunder, came the news that the young wife had committed suicide!"